Calli pulled back to look at her friend. Sage also knew about loss. She was the child of two non-magical people who couldn’t accept their magical child. They had feared what she could do so they’d treated her so badly. She had emancipated herself at the age of fifteen and moved out. Coming to Moonstone Falls where she could be accepted and safe had healed many of Sage’s wounds.
“I hope so,” Calli confessed. “I can’t live like this.” Without Malcolm there, the house felt emptier than ever before. How could he have burrowed so deep into her life, into her heart, in just a week?
Meeting Malcolm had filled the ache left by her parents’ and grandmother’s deaths. But finding out what he had done had broken the last bit of her spirit.
“Why don’t you help me with the festival preparations?” asked Sage. “Tonight is the first day the trick-or-treaters will be out and about, so we need to get the pumpkins set up, plus the usual spells up to perk everything up for the next few days.”
The town hosted a trick-or-treat event every night for seven nights leading up to Halloween. It gave kids a chance to enjoy the experience of being out in their costumes and experience the magic of the city.
Calli raised her hand, pointing a finger at the Venus fly trap nearest her. Rather than grow an inch as she’d intended it, it attacked her, snapping with multiple toothy heads. She barely got her hand out of the way in time.
“Oh dear…” Sage murmured. “Maybe you should just supervise instead?”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Otherwise I might accidentally hex the jack-o-lanterns so they hop around everywhere eating children.”
“Don’t be such a Negative Nelly. It’ll pass, you’ll see. Come on, let’s go.” Sage tugged her out from behind the counter to get her moving. “By the way, where’s Persephone?”
Calli turned the Open sign over to Closed. “I don’t know. She’s been mad at me since Malcolm and Hades left and everything went to hell. She’s taken to hiding most of the day. I only see her for a few hours, usually at night or early in the morning.”
Sage’s brows rose. “That’s not good. Kittens can take care of themselves. But how your familiar relates to you says more about you than you realize. Persephone’s not hiding, Calli. You are hiding from yourself.”
Her friend wasn’t wrong. But that didn’t stop her from worrying about her kitten.
They crossed the street toward the town square’s statue of a witch flying over the moon. Wendell, one of the non-magics who lived on the edge of town, was arranging pumpkins and hay bales around the base of the statue.
“Hi Wendell!” Sage called out, broadly waving her arm.
The older farmer smiled as he straightened and smoothed his hands down his denim work-shirt. “Afternoon ladies.” He turned to Calli. “I heard you don’t have any pumpkins this year?”
“Sorry about that.” Calli’s shoulders slumped. “My crop had an unfortunate accident.”
“That’s too bad. Your pumpkins were always the highlight of the festival.”
Calli tried to ignore the pang of disappointment she felt. This was the first year in nearly a decade her pumpkins wouldn’t fill the square. She would miss seeing kids carve on them or just paint them. Wendell seemed to be making due, but he wouldn’t have nearly enough for the number of people they’d been expecting. It wouldn’t feel the same. This had been her annual contribution, the part of the festival she’d always taken pride in. Now she felt like just another tourist. No, an outsider.
Sage smiled at Calli. “Hey… cheer up. It’s still going to be great!”
But right now, Calli felt like she’d never smile again.
The universe had sent her the one soul who was her other half, but what a cruel trick of fate that he was the one responsible for taking away her family. Lady Batsford was right. That wasn’t something she could ever forget. Every time she looked at him, she would see her parents’ lifeless bodies in the dark of the wrecked car. She didn’t care that a prophecy predicted this would happen. Her father had trusted whatever fate would bring. But she agreed with her mother. There had to be another way. This didn’t have to be the only way… She wasn’t going to let prophecy wreck her life.
Sage wove her arm through Calli’s. “Come on. Let’s go check on the coffee shop. I left Jasper in charge, and I don’t want him getting overwhelmed. Those machines know me and my magic, but they might not trust a non-magical human.”
“You trusted Jasper with a magical coffee shop?” asked Calli.
Sage shrugged. “Since we’re on tourist protocol now, the only magic going on is lowkey, and out of sight, like the bean pots auto-refilling. With all the school kids helping out, someone needs to keep an eye on them… and the pastries.”
“Jasper spends a lot of time at Mystic Mornings,” Calli mused, watching for her friend’s reaction from the corner of her eye.
Sage’s face flushed as she glanced away. “He has a caffeine addiction when he writes, and he likes the ambiance. The man downs enough coffee for an army, but he says it helps him focus on his writing.”
“So… has he asked you out?” Calli couldn’t help but address the elephant in the room.
“Yeah,” Sage said, slowly drawing on the word. “But, come on. Dating a non-magic? Sure, he says he loves magic, and acts all accepting, but…” her voice trailed off.
After what her parents had put her through, Sage would never trust herself to be loved by or love someone who could hurt her the way her own parents had.
After spending a few hours helping Jasper fill coffee orders at Mystic Mornings, then setting up festival decorations, Calli finally returned to her bookstore with Sage and flipped the Open sign back around.
