The mood falls, all our former excitement drained away by the handwritten letters on a yellowing page.
“We appreciate you trying, honey,” Joyce says, patting my arm before she turns to leave.
But then I realize…this isn’t done.
“Wait.”
The other witches stop and turn back, curious. I run my palm over the line of books in freezer bags. “The problem isn’t that some families have lost their magic. It’s that they’ve lost their spells. And because of that, everyone has been too distrustful and scared to talk to each other. No one has been willing to share. Between my family’s grimoires, Farrah’s grimoire, and the McGowans’ grimoires, if we can all just trust each other, the families whose spells were taken should be able to start new grimoires. Right?” No one speaks, so the words keep tumbling out of me. “I mean, I know it’ll never be the same as it was before. That some things will be lost forever. But I’m happy to share whatever is useful from what’s here.”
They’re being so quiet that it’s freaking me out, but then Hunter’s arms wrap around me and lift me off the ground in a twirling hug.
“Really?” Joyce is saying, shell-shocked. “Really, that’s all it takes? After all this time?”
“If somebody had just asked for help, I would’ve helped.” Farrah shakes her head, her bleached curls bouncing. “I didn’t even know why everybody hated Maggie all of a sudden.”
“Did you know?” Shelby asks Tina as Hunter sets me back down. My legs are weak for more than one reason.
“No, but I bet my mama did. She and Maggie were thick as thieves. I was taught to keep the family spells secret, like everybody else, but I remember feeling slighted, that we weren’t invited to the farm that day.” She looks at me with a shy smile.“And I missed Miranda something fierce, too. But after she left, things changed.”
“Well, let’s change ’em again,” I say. “Wait! I’ve got something upstairs.”
I run up to the apartment and dig through the books I’ve put on Maggie’s old bookshelves until I find two nice journals.
Yes, I have several unused journals.
I know, I know. I can’t help it. They’re just so pretty.
I bring them back downstairs with a couple of pens and put them on the counter. “Hunter, Joyce, y’all can go through these grimoires and write down any spells you like. Or maybe you want to go upstairs and sit at the kitchen table? Or come back at a more convenient time? I just want you to know that you’re welcome. The Kirkwoods owe y’all, and I want to make it up to you.”
Joyce holds the blank journal against her chest like a little girl. “I—I don’t know what to say.”
“I thinkthank youwill do,” Hunter tells her, pulling me in with one arm.
Farrah puts her hands on her hips. “Just let me run home and get my family’s books. We can have a little party. A real one, not like Maggie’s.”
“I’ll run home and get mine, too,” Shelby says. When Tina clears her throat, Shelby adds, “And I’ll stop by the bakery.”
Half an hour later, I’ve got a kitchen full of witches swapping stories and spells as they drink my sweet tea and eat monster cookies. Doris happily bobs her head from her cage.
“Oh, what a beautiful mornin’!” she sings.
And it is.
39.
The next fewweeks are kind of a blur. Hunter continues construction on the bookstore unencumbered by a cantankerous poltergeist. I flit about the space, painting the office and placing orders and accepting packages and unpacking boxes. Hunter watches nervously as I do the anti-dust spell I’ve already copied into my own grimoire, but it’s successful, and we both sneeze a lot less. I order a sign, and Lindy brings me sketches for Maggie and Diana’s memorial mural. Every day, it seems, a new family of witches shows up at the front door clutching empty journals and politely asking if it’s true that I’m willing to share my family’syou-know-what.I go through gallons of sweet tea keeping them hydrated while they sit at my kitchen table and copy down spells that the Kirkwood witches have handed down for generations. When they’re done, they hug me and pat my shoulders and thank me, and it feels like I’ve suddenly got all those cousins and aunts and uncles I always wanted, a growing family of people who see me for who I am and accept me into their community.
They share their thanks in quiet ways—a basket oflate-summer zucchini on the shop’s doorstep, a well-memorized spell to keep bugs away, a permanent ten percent discount at Edie’s store, where I will eventually have to buy soaps and candles of my own. At Craft Night, Edie teaches me how to make little animals out of clay. My first one is a lumpy squirrel holding an acorn, and I couldn’t be more proud.
I do a better job of keeping my sisters informed of my progress, although Cait is annoyed that I just slapped her logo onto business cards and didn’t let her do a full design with color coordination and rounded corners. Jemma begs to see how the store is coming along, but I tell her she has to wait until the grand opening, just like everyone else. I order cute vintage-looking Halloween decorations and place an order with Shelby’s bakery for the ribbon cutting. A reporter from the local paper stops by to do a story on the store, and I tell them we’ll be having a book-character costume contest on opening day.
All along, I keep expecting to hear Maggie’s voice in my head, but the Maggie I briefly knew is gone. In her place, Doris reclaims her role as my sidekick. She doesn’t have Maggie’s knowledge, as she has only ever lived with Hilda, Horace—briefly, unhappily, and bloodily—and me, but she loves watching movies and begs me to put on show tunes so she can dance around the apartment. And she retains her cloaca control, which is nice for my cleaning efforts, as is Maggie’s ongoing anti-dust spell, which makes the bird dander much more manageable.
The storage room gets a good cleaning out, and I can feel a difference in the vibe, now that Abraham is just a normal ghost instead of a poltergeist. Farrah was right—Arcadia Falls is chock-full of ghosts. I see them occasionally, strolling along a balcony or staring down from a second story window. The dog at the inn even greets me sometimes, although I have to hide it from Nickand Nathan, who will never know all of the magic that swirls around them in our picturesque mountain town. They tell people the inn is haunted as a folksy gimmick, but it’s probably better they don’t know about the blood-soaked soldier in the Camellia Room who’s always looking for his lost leg.
As the trees change color and the air turns bright and crisp, I really do feel like I’m living in a book as I stroll along the quaint downtown sidewalk after a bowl of butternut squash soup at Lindy’s, my heart full and my boots crunching on leaves, to see Hunter’s latest work. He finished the shelves quickly but still had light fixtures to hang, floors to refinish, a bathroom to sharpen up, and a shelving system to create in the storage room.
Then one day when I open the front door, I’m greeted by yet more boxes of freshly delivered books—and Hunter holding a bottle of champagne.
