And, to her mild surprise, Ethan did. He walked across the room – somewhat stiffly, but still, he was doing it – and sat down at a booth by the window that looked out over the street, with a good view of the fall foliage on the nearby mountains.
Great! Now, what to order?
Chloe knew she shouldn’t go overboard – shewashungry, but she shouldn’t let her empty stomach run away with her.
As she was trying to decide between the fried chicken sandwich and the hot dog with everything, a woman emerged from the kitchen – an older woman, with brassy, dyed-blonde hair in an elaborate updo the likes of which Chloe didn’t think she’d seen outside of ’50s sitcoms, and a wide smile on her face.
“Thought I heard voices out here,” she said. “You’re a little early for dinner, but everything’s ready to go. What can I get for you?”
“Well… thatisthe question,” Chloe said thoughtfully as she stared up at the menu. But she couldn’t eatallof it, no matterwhat kinds of delicious scents were wafting in from the kitchen the woman had just left.
After another moment or two of staring, however, she made up her mind and passed on her order – taking extra special care, of course, with what she ordered for Ethan.
“Coming right up,” the woman laughed. “Hope you’re hungry!”
“Oh, believe me – I am,” Chloe assured her, before she turned to join Ethan where he was still sitting moodily by the window.
“There,” she said, as she slid into the seat opposite him. “All done.”
“I don’t know what to think of that,” Ethan said bluntly. “Did you at least order me a potato salad, so I can havesomevegetable content?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Chloe shot back. “It’s a surprise.”
“I’ve never been overly fond of surprises,” Ethan muttered, turning to look out of the window again, as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders – but then, Chloe remembered with a jolt, hewasapparently being haunted, so maybe he did.
“You don’t say,” she said. “But we have a minute to wait for the food.” She leaned across the table, pressing her palms flat on its surface. Suddenly, she couldn’t wait even another moment longer for an explanation for the sudden turn ofabsolute weirdnessher day had taken.
Honestly, if I hadn’t seen Curtis with my own eyes, I’d think somehow I was being pranked,she thought.
She glanced over her shoulder, checking for hidden camera crews.
Really, this being a kind of elaborate prank did seem, somehow, a way more likely explanation than ghosts and magic and witches really being actually real… but somehow, Chloeknew in her heart of hearts that what she’d seen wasn’t fake. Ethan and the strange woman at the bookshop – Margot – weren’t trying to trick her or make her look stupid.
She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she simply felt it on an instinctive level.
Somehow.
And besides which, if someone wanted to persuade me to believe a bunch of supernatural hooey, they would have chosen a more charming deceiver than Ethan,she thought as Ethan finally turned to face her, a somewhat mulish expression on his face.
He looked like he was preparing to go into a particularly annoying battle. Well, Chloe was in the mood to butt heads.
“You seemed pretty unsurprised by that whole ‘Margot being a witch’ thing,” she said, making sure to keep her voice low. “Was that something you already knew about? The existence of witches, I mean. Or did you learn about them while you were trying to find out about ghosts?”
She found that she was holding her breath in anticipation of his response, her fingers pressing into the table.
Ethan’s face twitched a little as he appeared to think over his response. Chloe could almostseehim thinking up responses and then discarding them.
Then he released an almost imperceptible breath, appearing to come to a decision. “I did know that witches existed before Curtis… made my acquaintance, yes.”
Chloe leaned in closer, a thrill of excitement coursing through her. It was hard to believe that she was both having this conversation and taking it seriously, but apparently that was just what today was going to be like.
Her voice dropped to a bare whisper, her face mere inches from his. The crystal blue of his eyes was almost irresistible.
“And how did you know this?” she asked. “Are you a witch? Or a wizard, I guess.”
Ethan blinked for a moment. “No! Of course not. I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I suppose.” He looked like he was having some sort of internal argument, but Curtis wasn’t here with them, so Chloe didn’t know who he could be arguing with.
She was a little disappointed with his answer, but she guessed it wasn’t really a surprise. After all, if he was a wizard, surely he would’ve used his own magic rather than having to find a witch to do it for him.
