Page 58 of The Blue Moon Café & 24-Hour Occult Emporium

“Did she?” Talula asked.

“He ordered double pepperoni pizza that night. So, yeah.”

“Food motivation runs in the family.”

“Obviously.”

Talula laughed but then froze as her gaze snagged on an ancient-looking leather-bound book. She’d seen it before—Dahlia had brought it into the café a few weeks ago. The label read, Backyard, Pine Hollow, what is this thing? Laura says it’s haunted. I can’t wait to unlock its secrets.

Now that she had a closer look at it, Talula studied the faded gold letters on the cover that had seemed oddly familiar when she’d first seen it. The words were written in the same language that was inscribed on Kiki’s magical lock. Finally, Talula realized why the letters seemed so familiar to her. The book was written in the language of the jinn.

Talula went very still. “You brought this to the café once.”

“Yup, for inspiration. Dad could not stop talking about this book.”

Heart pounding, Talula asked, “Why?”

“It didn’t make sense, archaeologically speaking.” Dahlia shrugged. “The placement, the signs of aging, the materials. Especially the language. Dad said the language must be in some kind of code, since it wasn’t anything he recognized. He was trying to find a linguist to partner with, but whenever he sent anyone pictures of it, they thought he was pulling a prank. He decided to just keep it around until it spoke to him.”

While it may not have spoken to Dr. Jones, the book was practically shouting at Talula. Just as she’d done with Kiki’s lock, Talula was able to roughly translate a few words from the book’s cover. It was something like Food for Magic People?

Every sorceress instinct she had screamed that this book was important. Magical Destiny–level important. Her mind racing, she could only think of one way to get ahold of this book without revealing its potential mystical importance. One that was not in the spirit of the open communication she’d promised Dahlia. But in this case, Talula knew she had to bend the truth. “I think I might be able to help.”

Dahlia looked at Talula incredulously. “What?”

Nauseated with herself, Talula wove together a few mostly truths and explained. “My, uh, my mom. She’s a kind of…amateur linguist. She knows lots of dead languages. And she taught me some. This might be an ancient Aramaic offshoot.”

Dahlia’s jaw dropped. “That’s what Dad said! Can you translate it?”

The truth this time. “Maybe. I could try to piece together a translation with my mom’s books on archaic languages.”

Without hesitation, Dahlia slid open the display case and carefully removed the book from its shelf. She offered it to Talula. “Take it. It’s fate.”

It’s a lie, an oily voice hissed in Talula’s mind.

“I’ll be careful, I promise.” The book felt cold and heavy in her hands.

“I know you will be,” Dahlia said. “Just don’t cook near it.”

It took a second for Talula’s half-hearted chuckle to join Dahlia’s laugh. She clutched the book to her chest, trying to ignore the sticky weight of guilt sinking into her gut.

When she got home, Talula gently set the book on a freshly disinfected area of the kitchen table. She stared at it, drinking in its mysterious cover. But Talula wasn’t the daughter of Sara—Usurper of the 13 Malachite Hexes, Buster of Phantomed Relics, Sniffer-Outer of Enchanted Tomfoolery—for nothing. She worked her way through Sara’s collection of curse-sensing amulets, bundles of herbs that would alight at the first whiff of malignant magic, and even a divining rod that could sense evil sentience (and, occasionally, penguins) within a ten-mile radius. As far as Talula could tell, the book was just a book. One begging for translation.

Talula’s fingers brushed over the spines of her mother’s extensive linguistics library. She plucked the handwritten Jinn dictionary from its place and got to work. She found each word in the book’s title, using a bit of spare paper to scribble out her translation. A few words weren’t in the Jinn dictionary, so she had to go make a few more trips to the bookshelf for other language and grammar books. She worked backward from cousin languages like Ancient Aramaic, Arabic, and pre-Islamic Persian to find common ground. After double-checking and cross-referencing, Talula felt confident and deeply unsettled by her new translation: Mystically and Deliciously Essential Recipes for the Young Sorceress.

It was a cookbook. An ancient and mysterious magic cookbook written in some kind of Jinn dialect buried in her crush’s backyard. Talula let the translation sit in her mind, still as an undetonated explosive.

“You’re back.”

Talula jolted. She twisted around to see Simon staring up at her from the kitchen floor. “How did it go with Dahlia?”

“Good.” Talula tried not to look too guilty as she shoved some of her notes over the book. “We had brunch.”

“Oh?” Simon asked, nose twitching. “What did you make?”

If Talula hadn’t been desperately trying to keep her cool, she would have laughed. Instead, she gave Simon a small smile. “I brought leftovers.”

“That was unnecessary.” Simon jumped up into his usual chair at the kitchen table. He stared at Talula expectantly.