“I think she is.” Malcolm closed the record book in front of him, sending a cloud of dust up into the air, making all three of them cough. The particles danced in the beam of light that poured over the table.
“It’s like I’ve been asleep my entire life, but the second I met Calli, I woke up. Everything is more intense. Even colors seem brighter.”
“That sounds like falling in love in general,” said Jasper. “How do you know it’s different?”
Malcolm chuckled. “It’s not just about how intense it feels when I’m with her. I love her confidence, how she trusts herself. Not just with her magic, but with her own life. She hasn’t backed down from our situation or the wards failing or from me, knowing how much of a mess my magic is. But she has made me better, stronger. I want to be the same for her.”
It was true. While he’d never been a selfish person, he realized that this was the first relationship he’d been in where his focus had been on what he could do for someone else. He wanted to be everything she needed. He would do whatever it took to make her smile and fill her life with joy. She’d given his love of magic back to him, and showed him what he was capable of. With her gentle teasing and coaching, she’d shoved open that door that he’d all but closed years ago. It was no wonder Hades was pining for her and Persephone right now.
“Sounds an awful lot like falling in love to me,” Jasper said with a smile.
“It’s funny… I always thought falling in love would be a freefall, but it’s not.” Malcolm said. “It feels more like flying.”
“Does that mean you’ll stay here? In Moonstone?” Finnigan asked. The yeti had been listening in, but Malcolm didn’t mind. “Because Calli needs to be close to the woods.”
Moonstone Falls was the opposite of the life he’d had in New York. But he knew what he wanted. For Calli to be happy, for her magic needed to flourish and that meant only one answer.
“Yes. I’d stay… assuming the Salem Witch Council wouldn’t force me to move to Boston. The old me would’ve hated a town like this, but the new me likes it,” he admitted.
Jasper chuckled. “You won’t mind if I stuck around too, would you?”
Malcolm shot his friend a smirk. “Because you like the town, or the cute coffee shop witch?”
Jasper shrugged. “The town, of course.”
“You’re full of shit.”
Before Jasper could retaliate, several tourists walked past them in the library, whispering excitedly.
Malcolm glanced at the yeti, still in his human form. Even to Malcolm’s magical eyes, he saw only the faintest glimmer of a spell. He didn’t seem worried about the visitors, but watched them nonetheless.
“Hey, Finnigan, how does this all work? When the wards are not broken, I mean?” Jasper asked. “I’m fascinated by all of this.”
The yeti kept an eye on the tourists until they wandered away from the stacks nearest them before replying. “The festival is on October 31, but the wards start to weaken around the start of the month. An unexpected guest or two might find their way into town early on, but it’s usually not until a week or so before Halloween that we see most of the non-magical people arrive for the end of the month festival.”
Malcolm leaned in. “How exactly do you hide your magic? I mean the whole town? Calli never explained that to me.”
“Once the tourists start arriving, we warn those with magic to use it judiciously. We sometimes use magic in ways that people can convince themselves it’s just an illusion. People believe that easily enough, so they don’t question it. It’s all part of the charm of Moonstone Falls.”
Jasper spoke up. “Sage spent all morning redoing the spells in the café and hiring a few high school kids to help out with orders. It keeps the tourists from getting too suspicious.”
“Exactly,” Finnigan replied. “Everyone who lives here has their own festival protocol. We just had to initiate it sooner than usual.”
The mention of protocols got Malcolm thinking. The witches in the town had a set strengthening ritual that they performed each year. While he knew that a strengthening spell wouldn’t work now that the wards were gone, the diary mentioned that it had been done every year right from the beginning. It might hold clues about how the original spell was made.
“What do the witches usually do to strengthen the wards?” Malcolm asked.
“Those with enough power would gather in Whimsy Woods, light a bonfire and perform the strengthening spell together.” Finnigan closed the book in front of him as he considered the matter. “How exactly they do that I’m not sure. My specialty is prophecies, not spells.”
Malcolm frowned. “Have you ever heard of prophecies that seem to contradict each other?”
Finnigan stroked his jaw. “Of course. Given their sometimes ambiguous nature, this is not unheard of. But you see, two prophecies at odds are not truly at odds. They only appear to be so. Sometimes this comes down to language, while in other cases one must look at the sequence of events as they unfold, and how they can be viewed differently, yet still correctly. It is why I warn those who insist on viewing prophecies that they are not always what they seem. Those who spend their lives trying to avoid a fate they fear will end up wasting what time they have on this world, only to find it was unavoidable all along, or not at all what they thought it was. It is better to live your life and see what happens.
Malcolm agreed with that. He wanted to live his life, not dance like a puppet on strings. Calli had already lost her parents to prophecy. She deserved to live the rest of her life without them weighing her down.
With a heavy sigh, he drew another dusty tome from the pile and opened the pages.
Calli, Sage, and Mayor Thornfield took in the conference room full of witches and warlocks. The meeting was being held on the second floor of town hall, to avoid anyone visiting from out of town. The room was full of various animal familiars, including little Persephone, who sat on the floor beside Calli’s feet and seemed to be the focus of attention for the older familiars nearby.
