The Widow Witch, her curse, Lazlo’s illness. How we have mere weeks until the solstice. All of it. The Warlock doesn’t interrupt, even to fill in any gaps, and instead just scrunches his face as if he’s getting a cavity filled.
When I finish, my friends’ mouths are open.
The Warlock levels a stare at me. “So this dinner wasn’t for idle chitchat, then?”
Mid–slice of cornbread, I point the butter knife at him, golden glob of fat dangling on the end. “Hey, I told you we were getting help. And the Holler runs on chitchat. If you don’t appreciate that, then that’s how you end up thinking isolation is safer than friends.”
His voice is sharper than my knife. “Is that why you hide your mother’s illness?”
Silence. The wine on my tongue turns to pond water. Even Arna Jean doesn’t have a sarcastic remark.
Then, Rett, quietly: “Mayor Frost is sick?”
My cheeks warm and I force-swallow my cornbread. “If the town knew I couldn’t cure my mom, how long would they trust their Farewitch? Folks are already in a tizzy because I’m helping a Warlock. And now, if Webb found out, he’d just use that to prove that Witches and their magic don’t do the Holler a bit of good.”
“How would Webb find out, though?” Arna Jean asks. “Carolina, Silas—we haven’t said a word. I’ve never held a secret this long.”
“He might’ve seen me leaving the hospital,” I admit, an encounter I was trying to forget.
The Warlock goes eerily still, which is impressive, since he’s usually part statue anyway. “This man was watching you? In what way?”
“Like he knew I wasn’t just there bringing cookies for the nurses? I don’t know, it’s a small town, people accidentally follow each other all the time—”
“This man wasfollowingyou?” The Warlock looks ready to float a wine bottle right into someone’s skull.
Thankfully, Silas jumps in. “One thing at a time. If Webb knew the truth about Honey’s mom, why would he be spreading his latest rumors about her?”
Right. I’ve been getting updates from the Kentucky fried coven group chat all week. “Oh, you mean the fun ones about how Warlock Knight is now hunting Farewitches?”
The Warlock chokes. “What.”
Silas cringes. “At the last town council meeting, Webb suggested the mayor’s lack of public appearances is because you’re blackmailing Honey into helping you in exchange for her mom’s life.”
“Christ,” he groans.
Arna Jean chortles into her wine. “I know, ridiculous. Marigold Frost doesn’t have the patience to be kidnapped. Especially by a Warlock.”
Silas steeples his hands, elbows on the table. “So the Widow Witch renovates your foyer—very MoMA, I don’t hate it—but still hasn’t come after anyone in town.Why?Why is Webb taking action the one spring the Witch isn’t causing trouble? If he and Fudge are all in for a war against magic, the Witch’s behavior would be their greatest ammunition.”
“Maybe it’s not about the Witch,” Rett says. “What if he was planning all this before she changed her behavior, and instead was just trying to take advantage of the mayor being gone?” He turns to me. “Your mom only stepped back from the public eye within the last year, right?”
“Yeah. Her health wasn’t bad enough to move her into the hospital until last August.”
“Soafterthe Widow Witch came last spring. Maybe this year, Webb was still counting on the Witch to make her usual appearance, but when she didn’t show up—”
“He had to fill the role withsomethingto make magic look bad,” Arna Jean says, drumming the table as we all follow her conclusion.“If magic looks out of control, then someone will need to step in to control it.”
The Warlock confirms what we’re all thinking. “Webb needs a villain more than peace.”
“I bet the church ladies are all in cahoots with Webb on this, too,” Rett says.
Silas eyes him. “Iscahootsa paying tenant in your vocabulary?”
The postman fidgets in his chair; his leg won’t stop bouncing under the table. “I listen to historical murder mysteries on audiobook while I drive. The accents keep me awake.”
“That is… delightfully unsurprising,” Silas says. “And Beulah Buchanan might know for sure. She tells me something juicy about the other church ladies whenever I stop by for one of her Strong Island iced teas.”
Reaching over, he moves Rett’s cupped hand from the goblet of his glass to the stem.
