As if he weren’t also guilty of not speaking up.
“Because,” Cassidy said, “you and Onny and True are just… so cool and different.”
Ash shook his head. “Believe me, we’re different, but definitelynotcool.”
Cassidy shrugged. “Maybe it was the ‘Founders’ Fable’ that brought us together, and it wouldn’t have happened before tonight anyway.”
Or maybe it was that Ash had finally been bold enough not only to wish, but also to act.
Speaking of which…
“Hey,” he said. “I know you didn’t want to go with me to the midnight gala, but would you consider changing your mind?”
“I might’ve lied then,” she said, “because you threw my crane away.”
“I swear I’m going into Skeleton Shack right now and digging that crane out of the puddle.”
Cassidy squeezed his hand. “That’ll give me time to change out of my pj’s then.”
Ash grinned. “So that’s a yes?”
“That’s a yes.”
She pulled him down and kissed him, taking her time, as if she weren’t afraid anymore that it was all a dream that would evaporate. Ash wrapped her in his cloak and held her closer.
If he could paint this moment, he thought Klimt would approve.
Perhaps therewassomething to the love potion. Or perhaps there wasn’t.
But magic had worked its way into Halloween regardless… and it wasn’t even midnight yet.
KISS TILL MIDNIGHT
Why couldn’t boys come with car parts instead of hearts? At the first sign of trouble, True could easily consult themanual, change out the spark plug, and be on her way, every problem solved.
Human emotions, on the other hand, were completely unpredictable, liable to reduce you to a soggy pile of tears at a moment’s notice. Case in point: True had had preciselyone(1) serious boyfriend, and the detonation of that relationship had turned her heart into a nuclear wasteland. If you asked True Tandon, love was a giant scam.
Wait, no. She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Bradley Morris anymore. She’d promised Ash and Onny.
Taking a determined breath, True turned her attention to the transmission under the hood of her three-thousand-year-old Ford Focus. The Focus—or Miss Hocus-Pocus, as she’d lovingly nicknamed her, since she did, after all, cart around The Coven—was always breaking down. But Miss Hocus-Pocus had been close to free, which was what mattered. Her parents couldn’t afford to buy her a car, but even if theyhadbeen able to, True would’ve wanted to buy it herself. She didn’t like handouts.
She yanked on a bolt with too much force, crying out as her forearm jerked backward and hit the raised metal hood. “Ow!” True looked at her grease-coated arm, which would definitely besporting a bruise by later that night. “I thought we were friends, Hocus.” Sighing, she tossed her wrench on the concrete floor of the cool garage—which it met with a ringing, unhappy clang—and checked her phone.
It was well after 10P.M. Time to get herself to Onny’s “epic” Halloween party; any later and she might as well not go at all. True knew her lack of focus had everything to do with the party, in spite of her friends’ optimistic rendering of the situation. Onny, being… well, Onny, had pontificated about how the quadricentennial only came once every four hundred years, and that it had special, magical properties that would help people—even people like True!—find their one true (pun intended) love.
True, in turn, had tried to explain the concept of time to her somewhat eccentric best friend. Four hundred years happened every four hundred years, thanks to Earth’s orbit around the sun and a smart dude named Hipparchus, who proposed the twenty-four-hour day as we know it. It had nothing at all to do with magic or love or dead magical people in love.
Instead of being convinced by this infinitely rational argument, Onny brewed a supposedly magical love potion that she wanted True to drink at the party. Ha. That was never going to happen, not even if Onny and Ash knocked her out and tried to pour the thing down her throat. She’d make sure to swallow her tongue as she lost consciousness.
But the love potion and the party weren’t the reason for True’s unhappy mood. True lived in a town that was built onthe specter of magic, and she accepted the midnight gala every year as a… unique part of living in a place like Moon Ridge. She even kinda liked how excited almost everyone—even (especially?) fully grown adults—got this time of year. The “Founders’ Fable” may not be her thing, but Moon Ridge was her home, and she was weirdly fond of all its eccentricities and superstitions. Now that she thought about it, Moon Ridge was like that odd great-aunt at Christmas who drank too much and left her wig on the stove, almost setting your house on fire, but who also gave the best, most lavish presents.
This year, though… This year was different. This year, Bradley would be at the midnight gala as herex-boyfriend.She could barely stand seeing him in the halls at school. How would she endure his heartbreakingly handsome face at the biggest social event of the year?
Two weeks ago, Onny had pulled True aside and asked if she wanted Bradley’s family disinvited, but that had seemed too cruel a solution (though Onny had, of course, offered it only with fierce loyalty). The entire town would be there. True didn’t want Bradley left out just because she couldn’t handle her own broken heart. No, she’d just have to deal with it somehow. Show her face at the party, paste on a smile that looked somewhat convincing so she didn’t ruin anyone’s fun, and leave as soon as the clock struck midnight.
Right on cue, her cell beeped. She had a hard time getting to it with grease-stained hands, but after a few seconds of cartoon-level grappling, she opened up her text messages.
Onny:TRUEEEE this is the voice of your destiny summoning yOuUuUuUu! Come hither!!! Also I need you on the dance floor so plz don’t bail on me / ily / bye!
