“More like the clown car.”
“You ready for some serious magic?” Hazel calls out. If she’s nervous as I am, she’s not showing it.
“You didn’t tell me that you got a familiar.” I’d guessed, but seeing the hugely overweight raccoon is still strange.
Hazel gives me a long look. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay,” I say.
“That’s fine. We have other things to take care of,” Posey says. She puts a hand over her mouth and whispers loudly to me, “Hazel’s familiar is an absolute menace.”
Rose nods in agreement as Hazel staunchly ignores them both. The raccoon in question scratches it’s butt.
I clear my throat. “Your ankle is feeling better?” I ask her. I haven’t made time to see them since the first day we helped clean up the flood.
“Much,” she says. “Just a nasty sprain. Still bruised, but it’s fine.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” I tell her.
“I have lasagna in the oven,” Caleb says his arm slung around my shoulder, “I picked it up from Nonna’s, along with a bunch of garlic bread and some cannoli, and—” he pauses for dramatic effect. “Chocolate chip cheesecake.”
“Yes,” Rose tells him. “No matter how Ivy ends up dumping you, I want you to know that you’re still welcome to feed the rest of us.”
“Geez,” I say. “Out of pocket.”
Caleb just laughs hysterically, a little too loudly if you ask me. I glare at him.
“Well when I’m your brother-in-law I’ll make sure you don’t go hungry,” he says.
“He is — no — we’re not getting married yet—” I stammer. Fuckme.
“What?” Posey screams. “You’re doingwhat?”
“He’s just joking,” I tell them.
“He’s so not joking,” Hazel says, looking between Caleb and me. “I just don’t think you’ve figured that out yet.”
“Whatever,” I say to them.
“Yeah, you better listen to her,” Caleb says seriously. “She gets pretty angry if she hasn’t eaten.”
“I ate lunch,” I tell them.
“No, you didn’t,” Caleb says.
“She probably had some crackers in between cooking and closing,” he says.
“That is exactly what she did,” Gunner says.
“I told you, I know you pretty well.” He boops me on the nose.
I throw my hands up. “Let’s get this started, okay? Let’s just get it over with.”
I stomp out past the lighthouse to Mist Point, the stretch of grassy cliff that overlooks the jetty and the gray-green water of the coast. It’s a little choppier than it was before, which makes sense with whatever storm is brewing on the horizon, and I think to myself we need to get this finished before that storm breaks on shore.
“Right, let’s do it,” Hazel says. Her eyes are bright with excitement, and the wind whips up around her. “We’re going to call the corners first. I wrote out everybody’s parts. Follow the script. We’ll put everything we collected inside our circle of protection, and then we’ll finish the ward.”
“Seems easy enough,” Rose says hesitantly.
