Chapter1
Oakley
The perky jack-o’-lantern smiled with one tooth jutting up from its carved grin, matching the giggling witchling seated next to it in his highchair. Drool spilled over Aspen’s lips, and my sister tickled his chubby cheek before scooping up more squash purée onto her spoon.
“Open wide for the ghosty,” Hazel teased, making exaggerated ghastly moans. The spoon swooped in circles and landed in his mouth.
About two-thirds dribbled down his chin, then plopped onto his bib. He continued to laugh along with her, reminding me how grateful I was to have her back. It’d been a month since she’d returned after being kidnapped by the neighborhood’s deranged hermit, Acacia Mirabel.
“Are you almost done?” she asked, nodding to the silly pumpkin seated on the counter in front of me.
“Just about.” I sprayed it with an anti-aging potion, waiting a few minutes for it to set. “There we go. Perfect.”
I stared a moment at my handiwork before picking the gourd up and carrying it outside to join its bobbing brethren. Casting the flotation spell, I watched the happy little pumpkin ascend into the bare branches of the maple tree out front. Next to it wobbled an angry cat forever posed mid-hiss, a warty crone, and a bat that was all fangs.
“Wow,” Hazel said, carting Aspen on her hip down the front stairs. His face was wiped clean and his messy bib removed, showing off his navy playsuit sprinkled with golden rib cages, pale-pink hearts in their centers. “There’s got to be at least thirty of them.”
“Thirty-one to be exact.” I puffed with pride. “One for every day of October.”
She shook her head, chuckling to Aspen like they had some inside joke between them.
“What?”
“You’re really outdoing yourself.” She pointed over to the stuffed striped stockings hanging out from the side of the house, a broom propped next to them, representing the original Wicked Witch of the West.
“Just because we don’t live in Arbor Sanctum anymore doesn’t mean I can’t decorate like Dad did for us when we were kids.”
“Yeah, I mean, if you don’t mind sticking out like a sore thumb, then go for it.”
“Oh, I am.”
Growing up so close to the mortal portion of Salem, Oregon, we’d always found Halloween funny, learning about how their kind viewed us; what they believed we looked like, what we could do, and how we talked. We’d spend hours watching movie marathons of classics depicting witches and our lives. Our parents always poked fun at what people believed to be the truth. In fact, our whole neighborhood did.
If we wanted more traditional décor, we could always go into the capital. Here in Celestial Haven, the decorations around the neighborhood fell right in the middle of those two aesthetics. Our house would definitely stand out, not that I cared.
“Just remember, those decorations need to come down by the next new moon,” Hazel said, tossing Aspen into the air. He squealed, a line of drool falling from his lips and landing on her cheek. She laughed and hugged him to her, using her sleeve to wipe up the dribble.
“Seriously?” I groaned. “We used to leave them upat leasta month after.”
For the amount of work I’d put into the display—one that would surely give the neighborhood something to talk about that didn’t involve Hazel’s disappearance, the Wellses’ arrest, or Acacia’s murder—they could make an exception. It’d been a busy few weeks of ghoulish gossip on Starry Night Lane. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the rest of Celestial Haven heard all about the scandal by now. “Look at all this beautiful handiwork. The kids on the street are going to love it.”
“You’re right about that,” she agreed, scanning over the airborne gourds in shades of fiery orange, mustard, and black. “It’s the HOA you have to worry about.”
I frowned. “Who’s on the HOA here? Because I will happily invite them over to test drive the caramel apple dipping station or the flying broomstick photo booth.”
She shrugged, booping Aspen on the nose with her own and making silly faces at him until he shrieked with glee. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” In Arbor Sanctum, they would meet quarterly and then report to the respective streets they oversaw within the community. “But you’re the exclusive realtor. I’m sure you’ve dealt with them?”
“Well, yes, I have, but I don’t evermeetwith them.”
“They don’t have regular meetings?”
“They do—” Abuzzsounded from her back pocket, and she danced back and forth while pulling her phone out, then typed a response. “But we just get emails with updates afterward.”
She’d returned to work a week ago, wanting things to get back tonormal,according to her. We’d had a few talks about what happened while she’d been held captive, but not much. She didn’t seem ready, and I wasn’t going to push her. Luckily, she’d decided on her own to start seeing a therapist. If she couldn’t talk to me yet, at least she could talk to a professional.
Though I had to admit, I hoped she would eventually confide in me.
