“Yeah, that’s because you guys are natural witches and you do all this stuff all the time without having to think about it,” Hazel says. “So you’re considering some of the highest-levelmagic that I can find in this damn book that we somehow managed to work when we were little. And now we have to expect it to work again. Okay, so just, like, excuse me if I can’t get this to work because I somehow disassociated so hard when I was, like, four years old from my magic?—”
“Stop,” I tell Hazel. “It’s going to work. You’re freaking out. Enough.”
Authority rings in my voice for the first time all day. I’m certain I can feel the magic as it strengthens.
“She’s right. You feel it.” The raccoon that waddled out behind Hazel chitters at all this angrily. “Of course it’s gonna work,” it says, rubbing his hands together like a cartoon villain. “Don’t worry. She’ll have magic when she needs it. This is the place.”
“Oh, so you do talk,” I tell it, delighted.
“Yeah, I talk,” the raccoon says. “A lot better than you idiots.”
Gunner shoots it a dirty look where he sits at my side. “Rude.”
Posey’s ferret gives me a long, knowing look. “This is actually polite for him.”
“Sounds terrible,” I say.
“All right,” Caleb announces, bringing the basket we put all of our collected assigned ingredients into. “How do we do this?”
“You don’t do anything,” Posey tells him.
“Oh. Okay, fine. I will do anything for love, but I can’t do that” he sings.
I snort.
He backs off with a laugh, and Posey rolls her eyes at him.
“We need to put all the ingredients in a certain order,” Hazel says, all business. The fat raccoon next to her plops down, nods, and rubs its jiggly stomach. I try not to stare at it. “This is where we want to stand, right around it. I vote we set up just like the picture.”
“All right,” I agree.
“Let’s do this.” Rose puts her hand up for a high five, and Posey fist bumps her palm. “You couldn’t even high five me this once?”
Posey shrugs. “Don’t wanna jinx it.”
Hazel lists out the order of ingredients, and we do as she says, taking our time, getting them a little to the left, a little to the right, closer to the other one.
“How do you know where to put it all?” Posey asks her, squinting. “You’re being so bossy.”
“What do you mean, how do I know?” Hazel frowns. “You mean you don’t know the order?”
“Told you she’d find her magic,” the raccoon says.
“If her magic is like being a bossy middle manager—” Posey scoffs.
“That is possibly the rudest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Hazel tells her. “Now move your stone closer to the sea glass.”
Posey gives Hazel a dirty look but does as she asks, moving the lump of crystal slightly closer to the green sea glass we found yesterday.
The brass bell goes next to the red twine, something we picked up at a craft store, and the eucalyptus is lodged between some other wildflowers it looks like my sisters collected earlier this week, from the way they’re slightly browned and wilted.
“There,” Hazel finally says.
Her eyes are glowing slightly red, and I try not to stare at her, but between her and the raccoon jiggling it’s stomach, I don’t know where to look. Rose nudges me with her elbow, and it’s clear that Hazel does have the magic that she’s always wanted, just locked up deep within her.
And it’s clear that raccoon has not be underfed.
“Better late than never,” Posey mutters to me.
