Page 112 of The Blue Moon Café & 24-Hour Occult Emporium

(Simon, watching from his sunbeam on the rug, gave an affectionate sort of hrmph.)

Meanwhile, Dahlia cracked open her laptop. “To be honest, I never stopped prepping for the town hall. I have a slideshow deck. And data. And profit records from the town’s archives.”

Talula’s jaw dropped. “When did you have time to do this?”

Dahlia shrugged. “The Magic Box stuff only took a day. I had extra time to help out here, too, just in case.”

“You’ve done so much, too much.” Talula caught herself as Dahlia seemed to wilt. She rushed to clarify. “You’re not too much! You’re perfect in every conceivable way. You’ve just gone above and beyond. I don’t know how to thank you for giving up all of your time for my Samhain crusade. Plus, there’s the…” Talula pinked. “Plus the…”

“The horny sapphic elephant in the room?” Dahlia laughed.

Talula shook her head with a smile. “Exactly.”

“Well, the latter is my pleasure, as you know.” Dahlia reached up to adjust her ponytail, elongating her torso (Talula forcibly kept her eyes glued on Dahlia’s face). “And I haven’t spent all of my time on Samhain. I was going to tell you this later, but I’ve been working on a new book idea.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s about what you said during your apology brunch. It’s something that’s real to me.”

“A superhero story about a woman saving a beloved pagan holiday?” Talula bumped her knee against Dahlia’s. Because she could, she let it lie there, and that was almost as hot as their make-out session. Well, not really, but for where they stood right now, thigh-to-thigh contact was still making Talula’s breath come a little faster.

“Actually, I don’t want to tell you what it’s about. Yet.” Dahlia looked down at her bright blue jogging shoes. “I’ve thrown a lot of ideas at you, but this one feels different. I want to get more of it on the page before you read it.”

“What, you want to impress me?” Talula teased.

“Let’s just say your opinion matters. A lot.” Dahlia smiled sheepishly before turning back to her laptop. “But right now, let’s kick some town hall ass.”

The more Dahlia showed Talula, the more impressed she was—with Dahlia and Samhain.

“Samhain is the highest-yielding source of tourism profits?” Talula stared at Dahlia’s colorful graph.

“I know, right? Nearly every business in town benefits from Samhain. Even library donations go up.”

“The library always does a scary story hour at the festival. The librarians really get into it.” Talula pulled out her phone to show Dahlia pictures of all the librarians dressed as different literary witches. “Muriel does a great cackle. It gave me nightmares as a kid.”

“So cute! We should add that picture to this slide. It’ll look good when you get to the local nonprofit support section.”

Talula swiveled to face Dahlia, confused. “When I get to the local nonprofit support section?”

“What?” Dahlia’s brows puckered. “Do you think we should do the nonprofit section before the small business benefits section? Because, respectfully, we should talk about personal gain before the nonprofit stuff. People are greedy monsters, and capitalism rules our lives.”

Talula ran a hand through her hair. “I thought you were going to do the presentation.”

“Me?” Dahlia blinked, completely taken aback. “This is your town! The people don’t know me. They know you.”

“That’s the problem,” Talula insisted. “I’m Satan’s daughter to them.”

“Not to everyone,” Dahlia reminded her. “You have more friends than you think.”

“I got spat on two days ago.” Talula rubbed her cheek, as if ghost saliva still lingered. “I don’t do so well with confrontation.”

Talula told Dahlia about her shouting match with Mrs. Bochart at the market (the one that didn’t involve stolen butter).

Dahlia closed her laptop. “Why do you think you got so mad?”

Talula flopped on the sofa. “Because it sucks that they’ve decided to put this festival in the same category as serial killers and people who text in movie theaters.”

“Why does that suck?” Dahlia asked.