Oliver sidles up next to me, strolling along with my leisurely pace and glancing back over his shoulder at the angry event coordinator we’re leaving behind. “She really likes that clipboard, doesn’t she?”
“Stacy’s a wedding planner. A stick up the butt and a penchant for timetables come with the job title. But she’s also been the volunteer coordinator for all the town festivals since forever. She’s a big part of what makes it all flow so well despite the ever-rotating sponsors and hosts each year.”
“Wedding planner, huh? For a woman in the business of happily ever afters, I get the impression that being associated with the person screwing up her timetables is a dangerous game.”
“Cause one of these events to start twenty minutes late, and you’ll have the most organized murder in history. Complete with an Excel spreadsheet of where she hid the body parts and links to the Google Maps pin drops.”
Oliver’s lips screw to the side in thought. “She seems more like a Waze woman to me.”
I press a hand to my mouth to cover my snort, because I imagine he’s right. Lucy has thrown out a few colorful, similarassumptions, but none quite as kind. Like guesses as to the exact type of wood the stick up her butt is made out of and precisely how it got there.
Oliver and I stroll deeper into the woods, a parade of people following behind us at a distance. The glow from the walkway lights is enough for us to stick to the path, but it’s the collective luminescence of the lanterns that illuminates the night and gives the forest a mystical warmth.
Through the trees, I catch a glimpse of the first actor.
Lila, dressed in long layered skirts, puffy sleeves, and a corset accentuating her ample curves, leads a bright white mare around a distant clearing. They’re far enough away that I can’t quite make out the hidden lights among the foliage, but they make the mare and the horn fastened to its forehead glitter like walking starlight. Lila doesn’t acknowledge our presence, but I know she’s keeping an eye on us all.
The actors tonight have a very simple job: pretend this enchanting setup is their natural everyday life and don’t let any of the tourists or children get lost wandering through a dark wood.
Watching her through the trees, I’m transported back to my childhood. When the forest felt so alive with magical creatures, I convinced myself that the only reason my parents wouldn’t let me roam the woods at night, no matter how much I begged, was because they didn’t want me to get kidnapped by a faerie. Oh, who was I kidding? The faeries wouldn’t have needed to kidnap me. They could have simply offered me a sneak peek into their homes, and I would have gone happily, leaving Ashwood Haven behind without a second thought.
Of course, as I got older, I learned that the forest wasn’tactuallyenchanted. At least . . . not in the way I had dreamed. All the fae, witches, and unicorns were just neighbors in costume.Still, the whole thing brings my imagination alive and makes me want to go frolicking through the trees.
I study Oliver as we walk, the flicker of lantern light dancing in his eyes and shadowing the hard line of his jaw. Part of me wishes I could trade places with him and experience this whole festival for the first time with fresh eyes. Of course, it wouldn’t be the same as seeing it as a kid again, but still, it must be beautiful.
Oliver is the one to break the comfortable silence between us, continuing to match my intentionally slow pace. “Back there, when Stacy was on the brink of a meltdown, she said your grandmother hosted the festival before, but I thought only store owners hosted?”
A small group of teenagers with interlocked arms passes us, giggling and gossiping to themselves.
“Usually, it’s the store owner, but it doesn’t have to be. In this case, it was, though. Grandma ran Moonlit Pages before I did. It’s been passed down through generations in my family. I am simply the latest Moonlit Pages owner.”
“How long has your family lived here?”
I shrug. The historical tomes Lucy should be scouring through as we speak hold a record of every generation of my family as far back as we have documentation. Still, I’d never felt the need to commit the information to memory. “I don’t know. A stupidly long time, if I’m being honest. We were probably here during the founding of Ashwood Haven, if not before.”
The area drew my family because of the magic infused in the earth. It’s an innate sense that every witch possesses, like always knowing which way is north; they would have found their way to this exact spot, town or not.
“Wow,” Oliver breathes in amazement. “I can’t imagine having such a rich piece of family history like that.”
“You mentioned your father inherited the bakery from his father, so in a way, you kind of do,” I prod gently, trying not to open wounds he so clearly hasn’t worked through.
The corner of his mouth curls with thought, some of those storm clouds returning like shadows in the light of the lanterns. “Kind of, yeah—but that’s where it stops. My family has been baking for generations. My Papa wasn’t the first, but we don’t even have a family business quite like your bookstore. Papa started over when he was my age, moved to a new town, and opened his own bakery away from his family home.”
Something about that strikes me as odd. Family tradition seems as important to his family as it is to mine, and I have a hard time believing that his grandfather up and started a new bakery for no good reason.
“So . . . you’re following in your grandfather’s footsteps then. Starting your own bakery instead of inheriting one.”
“Yeah, though I’m sure he had a better reason than I do for not taking over his father’s business.”
“You don’t know for sure?”
He shakes his head, locks of golden-brown hair falling into his eyes. “No one does.”
“So why Ashwood Haven? Of all the places in the world to start over, why here?”
His lips press into a thin line, brows furrowing as if he hadn’t really thought about it before. “It just felt right. After Dad died and I learned I didn’t get the business in the will, I felt like I needed to start over and put down roots somewhere new. It was a gut instinct that had me searching for options in this area. It turns out that Miss Laura listed the bakery the day before. I didn’t really think through everything. I just knew I needed to get it no matter what.”
I watch him closely as we walk, studying every twitch of his jaw and shift of his eyes. I had been quick to dismissthe possibility that Oliver could wield magic, but the way he describes being drawn to Ashwood Haven sounds like a witch finding their way home. As if the thing that brought him here truly is the magic that fizzles like static in my lungs every time he comes near.
