“But,” Luna said, her voice suddenly growing hard, “you can’t just go around stealing people’s photos. And you can’t just cursepeople because they stand you up for dates – especially since in this instance, it seems like your curse misfired. Badly.”
Sally-Anne bit her lip, a blush suddenly spreading across her face. “Um. I’m. I’m really, really sorry about that,” she said, glancing at Henry. “Obviously, if I’d knownyouweren’t really that guy who stood me up, I never would have done it.”
“Well, whether it was me or not, I don’t think you should be cursing people because you’re unhappy with your love life,” Henry told her. “But how did your curse land on me, and not the person you intended?”
“Well… it’s a bit complicated,” Sally-Anne said, looking down, her expression slightly ashamed. “The way I do curses is to concentrate on a photo, or an item that belongs to the person you want to curse… and so, because for Dorian – that’s what he told me his name was – the only thing I had was the photos he’d sent me, which were actually of you, I just focused on them, and sent the curse to the man in the photo.” She peered up apologetically at him. “It really was just a little mistake.”
A bit more than a little mistake,Henry thought – though he supposed he should be thinking himself lucky that the curse had only been to make animals fall in love with him, rather than to start coughing up toads or something else equally unpleasant.
“Well, mistake or not, I’d really appreciate it if you’d remove it,” Henry said firmly. “Right now, if you wouldn’t mind. I’m getting tired of being followed around by every cute, fuzzy creature I see. And some that aren’t so cute, either.”
Sally-Anne nodded eagerly. “Of course, of course. I can do that right now. I won’t even charge for it, since –” She cut herself off quickly, probably on seeing the looks on Henry and Luna’s faces. “Um. Okay. Here I go.”
She straightened in her chair and closed her eyes, before bringing her hands together for a moment and then placing them upon the photo of Henry on her phone. After a moment,she began humming a strange, low, discordant sound. A soft, golden light began to glow underneath her palms.
It probably would have been more impressive if Sally-Anne had been doing this in a darkened room with her head draped in a shawl and a battered old photograph on the table, rather than sitting in an empty diner with a cellphone, but it was still creepy enough to raise the hairs on the back of his neck. He was aware of Luna’s leg pressing gently against his under the table, and the feeling grounded him.
A few muttered gibberish words later, and the golden light dissipated and Sally-Anne opened her eyes.
“Did it work?” Luna asked hesitantly.
Henry glanced out the window to where Caleb was still hanging out. The others had joined him, if the poorly hidden figures behind a nearby stand of bushes were any indication.
Caleb gave him a small thumbs-up – presumably the curse’s aura was now gone. Henry supposed that he wouldn’t know for sure until he went outside without Luna around to dampen the curse’s effects, but he didn’t think that Sally-Anne would do anything to sabotage him now that she understood she’d been duped.
His hellhound also seemed more relaxed than it had been in a long time.
He nodded. “Yeah, I think it worked.”
A radiant smile spread across Luna’s face. “I’m so glad, I really am.”
Sally-Anne looked pleased, and it transformed her from the glum, self-deprecating person of a few minutes ago into someone else entirely. Henry was sure that she would be able to find someone once she’d sorted out her self-confidence issues. And her tendency to curse people out of romantic disappointment.
“Does this mean though that… you only invited me here to confront me about the curse?” Sally-Anne asked after a moment. “I thought I was going to be able to get some business today – things have been a bit slow recently, and I thought I’d gotten a lucky break.”
Luna and Henry exchanged a glance.
“Well…” Luna said, a little hesitantly. “Wedidbook you. And since the festival is here anyway, you may as well set up your tent and do your thing. As long as you promise not to do anything like this again. Especially if you can’t even get your curse to go where you want it to go.”
“I promise I won’t,” Sally-Anne said quickly, making a quick cross motion over her heart. “Really. Lesson learned – no more curses.”
“And there’s one other thing we need your help with too,” Henry cut in.
Sally-Anne – or Madame Fortuna – had claimed on her website that she could lift curses, after all. So sheshouldbe able to get rid of Luna’s too, right?
“Luna is being threatened by the guy who ghosted you, whoever he actually is,” he said. Sally-Anne’s eyes widened, and Luna held out her phone so that she could see the weird all-caps text messages. “Healso put a curse onher.Probably thinking she was you, given what you’ve told us about using people’s images to curse them.”
“What?” Sally-Anne said faintly, grabbing Luna’s phone and scrolling through the messages with a look of disbelief on her face. “Wait – you’rebothcursed? By meandDorian?”
“What are the odds, right?” Luna said with a wry smile.
“Crap.” Sally-Anne at least had the decency to look shamefaced. “Look, I’m really sorry about all this. I never thought someone else would get caught up in it, let alone two someone elses.”
“Well, you can make up for it by lifting the curse on me,” Luna said. “You did just lift the curse on Henry, right?”
“I did, but…”
“But…?” Henry prompted.
