“But wasn’t that the stuff you donated? And did you feel whatever happened with the magic?”
I nod, opening my mouth to answer, but she’s already off on another ramble of questions.
“And what was up with that Oliver guy? What was he doing?”
I grab Lucy by the shoulders, stopping her in her tracks. “I don’t know! I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what he was doing. I have no idea what’s going on. The books earlier and now this?”
“Well, you better figure it out pretty damn quick,” Lucy whisper-yells back, her voice rising to a pitch that is so unlike her it sends a thread of panic through my heart.
“Amelia!” Stacy shouts behind me.
My spine goes ramrod straight, and I exchange an alarmed look with Lucy before smoothing my face into a pleasant expression and turning on my heel.
“Amelia, there you are.” The coordinator breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of me before ushering me back toward the town square and away from Lucy. “Your little side quest threw everything off. I need to get you back to the stage so you can be ready when the parade ends. Oh, and we’re going to have to discuss that stunt you pulled. I appreciate a good prank as much as the next person, but we’re aiming for organized fun here. I need you to check in with me first before you do anything else like that, so I can ensure it fits into the schedule.”
I absently nod to her rambling, only half listening since I definitely don’t have any other surprises up my sleeve.
Stacy leads me to the back side of the stage. Like a babysitter wrangling a toddler, she gives me a place to stand and tells me not to leave my little box. The panicked coordinator takes off, triple- and quadruple-checking her clipboard as she chatters into her radio.
I shift on my feet, my mind reeling, when I catch sight of a large figure leaning against a tree at the far end of the square.Oliver gives me a small wave, and even from this distance, I spot a twinkle in his steely eyes and a mischievous curve to his lips.
I watch him for a moment, considering marching right over and demanding he explain himself and the role he played in what just happened, but I realize that doing so would invite questions for which I also have no answers.
So, instead, I give him an appreciative nod back and mouth the words, “Thank you.”
Whether he played a part in this or not, he did help get it all under control, and for that, I’m grateful.
“Okay, Amelia, you’re up. Let’s go!” Stacy shouts at me from the stairs.
I hurry toward her, throwing one last glance over my shoulder, but Oliver has vanished.
The space beneath the looming oak tree is conspicuously empty, leaving nothing but the swaying branches and the autumn leaves dancing beneath the glow of the street lights.
Chapter Four
“Flying ballerinas!” Lucy shrieks, throwing her hands up in disbelief from where she sits on the edge of a display table, one leg tucked up beneath her. “I just can’t believe it.”
I sigh, grabbing a stack of thrillers and fitting them into their slots on the shelf one at a time. “I know. Want to know how? Because you keep repeating it.”
“I keep repeating it because it’s so unbelievable. I get the skeletons; Grandma loved her pranks. I can just picture her giggling as she set that charm, poised to go wrong the moment the decorations left the store grounds. Butflying ballerinas?” Lucy grabs one of the little skeletons sitting on the table and flies it through the air as if to make her point.
“I don’t know what happened!” I wave one of the paperbacks at her, the pages flapping and flopping. “I charmed those brooms myself. The same charm we use every. Single. Year. That never should have happened.”
Lucy chews on the inside of her cheek, studying me with black-lined green eyes while toying with the skeleton figurine’s flexible joints. “Are you sick?”
I pause, tipping my head at her. “No.”
“Maybe you said it wrong,” she offers, pointing at me with one of the toy’s hands.
“I didn’t say it wrong, Lucy! I read it from the freaking book.” I throw out a hand, gesturing toward the coffee bar. From here, I can just make out the corner of the spell book passed through generations of my family, so old it would be nothing but dust if it weren’t for the incantation keeping it together.Thebook that holds every spell, charm, incantation, and hex my family has ever used, developed, or (admittedly) stolen with every new generation of witches.
Lucy worries at her lip, contemplating every possible option as I shelve another stack of books. “Has anything changed? Was anything different at the parade?”
Pressing my lips together, I stare at the colorful spines, studying the rainbow of colors and font styles. Blues, greens, and blacks are all lined up nicely on the shelf in neat rows, decorated with jagged titles meant to instill fear and intrigue. Mentally, I run through all the events from the night before, both planned and unplanned.
“I mean . . .” My shoulders sag. “I was pretty worked up about the speeches.” I scowl at the books, the admittance burning my tongue.
Lucy shrugs, barely acknowledging my show of weakness as she continues to make her skeleton dance on her thigh in an imitation of the ones last night. “Perfectly understandable. Everyone hates public speaking.”
