At the end of the staircase, Onny heard the slap of her mother’s chinelas. Uh-oh. That meant she was heading up the stairs. Onny and her dad squeezed against the wall.
“I thought today was supposed to be magical or something,” whimpered Antonio. “Everyone is so happy about this four-hundred-year town’s founding anniversary, and what about me? How come ‘ghost girl’ hasn’t spared me?”
“You mean the Lady of Moon Ridge?” asked Onny, raising an eyebrow.
“I can hear you, Antonio,” said her mother, taking another step up the staircase. “You can come down now, and I will pretend you always intended to help me, or else.”
“I’m going to have a word with this Lady of Moon Ridge,” grumbled Antonio. “It’s supernatural discrimination.”
“Usa,duwa…”counted Corazon slowly.
When she got to three, they were done for.
“Save yourself!” said Antonio, standing upright. Onny could hear him darting down the stairs. “I’m here, my love!”
“Nice try,” said Corazon, but she didn’t take another step.
Onny held herself very still and very out of sight.
“I know you’re there, Onny,” said Corazon darkly. “Do your homework, get ready, and be downstairs by six. Everyone is coming early for the buffet dinner to be served on the lawn.”
Everyone,thought Onny with a stray flutter in her chest.
Everyone including Alexander the Great-Looking.
At 7P.M., Onny inspected herself in the giant vintage mirror propped up against her wall. She’d salvaged it from an antique store in the neighboring town of Twilight Grove years ago, instantly obsessed with the curlicues of bronze, the almost sinister faces of goblins and sprites peeking out beneath the metal foliage. It seemed like the kind of thing a glamorous witch would keep in her house, and right now, Onny felt the part.
She twirled a little in her gown, a red-and-black-silk confection with red beads at the sweetheart neckline. Ash’s masquerade maskand a pair of blood-spattered elbow-high white gloves flopped off the edge of her bed, waiting for her to complete the ensemble.
On the makeup vanity beside her mirror sat a single vial of herlola’s love potion, expertly poured into a little perfume flask the size of her pinky finger. True had taken the other two vials with her last night, one for her and the other to deliver to Ash.There was also a little incantation written on a piece of handmade paper. True had inspected the square of parchment paper with an eviscerating eye. It always delighted Onny that while True’s personality would loom giantlike above a crowd, the person to whom it belonged was surprisingly itty-bitty. True stood at just five feet tall. She had silky, ink-black hair that was always escaping out of braids and ponytails, rich mahogany skin, and large, dark eyes that seemed to stare out and catch every single detail from a face that was otherwise perfectly doll-like.
“Apollonia Diamante… did you torch the ends of this paper?” asked True.
“Yup.”
“Why?”
“For theaesthetics,obviously,” said Onny.
“And what do we do with this potion anyway? Dump it in someone’s drink and hand it to them?”
“No!” said Onny, appalled. “No tricking!”
True raised an eyebrow. “So we say, ‘Hi, handsome stranger… wanna love potion? It’s not FDA approved. Cheers.’”
“I mean… I imagine you’d do it with more tact.”
“Have we met?”
Onny laughed. Honestly, she hadn’t given much thought tohow she’d physicallygivethe love potion to Alexander. Dressed up in all her Halloween garb, Onny turned to her mirror to practice.
“Beautiful Alexander… how would you like to be eternally bound to my soul?” Onny said to her reflection.
Dang.
Even her reflection seemed to cringe.
“Stop judging me,” she grumbled, before straightening her shoulders and trying again. “What about… ‘So remember that one time where we both agreed that we were cosmically perfect together? This is more like cosmic insurance to add to that. Drink?’”
