“All right,” I tell her. “You’re right. We could have done more research.” I don’t say out loud that I’m not sure when I would’ve squeezed in research between running a full-time business and taking care of this old house.
She’s not wrong. I know next to nothing about how witchcraft actually works. Posey, Rose, and I have essentially skated by on natural ability and a few charms our grandmother taught us.
“All right,” Posey says briskly. “This is good to know. I might be able to get some extra work done if I sync up my spell work with the phases of the moon or whatever. Fascinating.”
“I have to say,” Hazel drawls, “you’re the one I’m most surprised about. You’d think you would’ve done everything youcould to learn this already, Posey. Don’t worry, I’ve got it.” Hazel pulls out her phone and opens an app I’ve never seen before.
“Well,” she says after a moment, “we’re about five days away from the peak of the waxing moon before it turns into a full moon. And based on the number of ingredients we need to gather, it’s going to take us at least that long to get ready. If we miss it, we have to wait a whole month.”
“OK,” Rose interrupts, “but how did we get all these ingredients when we were kids?”
“Do you not remember how much stuff Grandma had lying around in this house before she left?” They all stare at me.
“What?” Posey asks.
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Grandma had stacks and stacks of ingredients when we were little. She kept them out of reach so we wouldn’t mess with them. Stashed all over the house. It was chaos. When she left, she took most of it. We never needed things like that. Our magic just… leaks out of us.”
Hazel makes an annoyed sound.
“Why don’t you keep reading?” I tell her. “You’re the one solving the problem right now. You’re the key to this solution. Be mad if you want, but you should also be proud of yourself.”
Rose grins.“Yeah. We’ll get your magic back so you can leak it out everywhere and see how annoying it is.”
Posey tries to hide a smile.
Hazel glares at Rose.
“Fine. Give me something to write with.” She makes a grabby motion with her hand.
We all stare at her.
“My ankle hurts, remember?” she says.
Posey rolls her eyes and stands up, Oatmeal clinging to the strap of her denim overalls.
She walks to the little desk in the corner and grabs a pad of paper and a pen.
“OK,” Hazel says, immediately starting to write. “I’m going to break the ingredients into four groups. We can each be responsible for collecting some of them. Does that sound good?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. Soon she’s tearing off pieces of paper and handing them to each of us.
“We have five days,” she says. “We need to gather as much of this as possible.”
“Where do we find this stuff?” Posey asks, flicking the list. “What the hell is moon water?”
Hazel groans. “I don’t know how any of you have gotten anything done ever. Are you able to get to my van? I have a few jars of moon water from the last full moon.”
We all stare at her.
“Wow.” Rose sounds impressed. “You just casually have moon water in your van.”
“Listen,” Hazel says defensively, “just because I’m not a witch like the three of you doesn’t mean I wasn’t trying things.”
“I’m not going to find jars of pee in there too, am I?” Rose asks.
“You are such a jerk,” Hazel tells her.
I bite my lip as a snorting laugh escapes me. Just like that, the tension drains away. This? This is normal.
