“Indeed,” Bulan pitches in.
Because they’re callously colluding against me, I change the topic. “Fine, then. How do you explain that strange whining during the ceremony? The napkins getting an origami treatment? The food on the buffet tables jostled everywhere, like someone had tried to make scrambled eggs?”
“I thought it was romantic,” says Mandy.
“No!” I interrupt, swerving the van unintentionally. “It wasn’t romantic, and it wasn’t just this wedding. We are the victims of sabotage.Sabotage, I say!”
Unconvinced, Mandy stuffs the remainder of the cake in her mouth.
“You really think so?” asks Bulan.
“I do,” I say. “And I think it’s… ghosts. The saboteurs are ghosts.”
I think on this. Presumably Mandy does too, as she attempts to chew her massive helping of cake. Bulan just laughs at me, because he’s a jerky, pompous know-it-all.
“Now, Sabby. That can’t be it!” Bulan says with a knowing, puntable air. “Certainly, ghosts affected your last wedding. But they would’ve shown themselves, had they been present this morning. Ghosts are uncannily vain.”
Ignoring him, I ask the back of the cabin, “What if it was Grandma Rose? What if it was her unascended spirit?”
Mandy hasn’t successfully swallowed her cake, so she chews furiously instead of answering.
“Rosie?” I hear the frown in Bulan’s voice. “I very much doubt that. She would never sabotage you.”
“But she was weird. And unpredictable,” I say.And hurtful, I nearly add but don’t.
“She loved you,” says Bulan.
I grimace. Yes, I know she did. And I should’ve loved her better, and I couldn’t.
Maybe that’s what this is all about—is this Grandma’s revenge forme ignoring her for years? It’s hard to imagine. Like Bulan said, she wasn’t the vengeful type. She did want me to stay in Salem, though, enough to keep me here with her magical will. Besides, who else would be so invested in my success or failure?
Because I’m not. Not invested in these weddings in the least.
My only goal is to get back to my New York life: my bland and gray-walled apartment with its perfectly acceptable bedsheets and my reasonably enviable but not-interesting-to-talk-about-in-conversation job. When I’m not so busy, I’ll do a better job of remembering that.
I stare grimly out at the road.
“Don’t overthink this, Sabby. Sometimes things go wrong without a reason,” Bulan says to console me. “In spite of it, time marches forward. Always! So we might as well make the best of it.”
I switch off the radio, pivoting to my K-pop playlist. Sure, it’s easy to believe whatever you want when all you have is a head. But I don’t say that aloud, because Bulan acting pouty is no fun on a car trip.
15WEREWOLVES AND GRANNIES AND GNOMES! OH, MY.
SO YOU THINK YOUR GRANDMOTHERis haunting you,” Hanry surmises. “Wow.”
He’s come to visit me at the shop on Monday, and he’s brought work with him in the form of a half-carved wooden pumpkin. It’s a cute thing to do. Adorable. As was the way he draped his shacket on my shoulders when I shivered in the cool draft from the front door.
And none of it matters. I’m too deep in self-pity. And mild annoyance at the fact that Bulan’s more interested in life-altering romantic pursuits than my personal danger, based on how he’s avidly watching the 1995 BBC production ofPride and Prejudicefrom his high chair, rather than joining our conversation.
“Not anymore. I did wonder briefly if it might be Grandma,” I say to Hanry, my lone supporter in this world. “But I was sleep-deprived and running on fumes at the time.”
“And now what do you think?”
“I’m still convinced she’s laughing at me. But maybe not haunting me directly. She’s more subtle than that. And while she may have had questionable food hygiene, she would never, ever, mess with someone else’s food. Food was sacred to her. It’s why she refused to wash anything before cooking. She wanted it pure, with all bacteria intact.”
Hanry nods as he shaves a slender piece off his pumpkin. “From what you’ve said, your grandma doesn’t seem like the subtle type.”
“Nope. If anything, she was lazy. Grandma never liked doing things herself. I mean, without my assistance, she can’t even—you know what? Never mind.”
