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After Wanda’s blood magic had gone haywire and accidentally un-ghosted Darla, she’d grabbed hold of her new life with glee. From what she’d told me, she was doing really well down at Spook Society where she worked as a medium, and she and Henner seemed to be finding their way together. I was happy for them.
Seeing so many happy couples made me think of the special man in my own life and glancing around, I noticed there was still no sign of Andre’s dark hair or charming accent.
I did catch sight of Marty, which made my heart give a little bruised twinge. He’d volunteered to run one of the games, and Roy mentioned he’d had to move Marty to the fishing game—one where everyone who played won a prize. It seemed that Marty was sneaking prizes to everyone who played at the previous booth he’d been stationed at.
Roy had been annoyed, but I’d had to laugh. It was just so Marty. He loved kids, and he was kind of a big kid himself. It didn’t shock me at all that he’d been handing out little toys and candies to everyone. Part of me wanted to go over and check in on how he was doing. But the other part of me thought it maybe wasn’t the best idea. He’d asked for space, after all. And he hadn’t reached out to me, yet. The idea that maybe he never would hurt in ways I couldn’t find the words to express, but I wanted to respect his request. I just hoped we’d find a way back to each other, someday—something I was fairly sure would be further threatened if Andre and I started dating.
You can’t worry about Marty any more,I firmly told myself.It’s been eight months and now you need to focus on your own happiness.
I hurried away before he saw me, so I didn’t make things awkward.
I’d put off examining the bonfire until last, and even just approaching the pile of carefully arranged wood had my palms sweating. The dreams were getting worse and more vivid, but I didn’t know why. I’d never been afraid of fire before, and I worked with candles and open flames all the time while making potions. I’d never even been badly burned.
The back of my neck crawled as I thought about lighting the bonfire, my stomach souring. Even the delicious smell of burgers and fries suddenly had me feeling almost seasick. It didn’t make any sense. Everything was going well. Everyone was in the right places, things were running smoothly, and guests seemed to be having a blast from what I could see. There were plenty of laughing, smiling faces going around.
So, I didn’t understand why it felt like everything was going to go horribly wrong and yet, I did. Ever since I’d woken up, I’d felt that nagging worry. And it had followed me around for the entire day—just this kind of persistent sense of dread hanging over me. And it just kept getting worse. I couldn’t make myself stop thinking about all the ways everything could go wrong, becauseeverythinghad been going wrong for weeks. And I still didn’t know why.
Wanda had just called it bad luck. And, of course, I’d experienced bad luck before, but it had never lasted this long, nor had so many things gone wrong. Yet, I wasn’t cursed. I was pretty darn sure of that after Wanda had tested me twice. So what was the deal? Maybe there was no deal and it was exactly as Wanda had said—bad luck and nothing more.
Yet, why didn’t it feel like that was the answer?
Finn was mad at me. Things were up in the air with Andre still. Marty was avoiding me. My shop was just barely limping along, and it was only due to Wanda coming to my rescue that it was limping at all. Without her, it would have been dead in the water.
I really wished I’d gotten a chance to talk to Finn. I kept an eye out for his familiar head of blond hair, but I hadn’t managed to catch sight of him. After the other night, we needed to talk. Things would be calmer, and maybe we could go for breakfast like we used to. There was a spot in town, Sunny’s, where they had amazing pancakes. It felt a bit better, to have a plan in place. It helped me stomp down on my nerves about something going wrong at the festival. Everything was fine. All the planning and hard work was paying off.
If I kept telling myself as much, maybe I’d even be able to believe it.
I must not have been very good at the self talk stuff, because when I made it back to my little booth, Imani took one look at my face and her smile slipped away.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, everything’s going great,” I said quickly, embarrassed that I was as easy to read as a book. Wanda had always said as much, but I’d never believed her. “Thank you so much for keeping an eye on things. And selling a lot of it, wow.”
There was less than half the stock from when I’d stepped away. All the candles and a huge amount of the bottles were gone. I was completely out of zest potions, and Dreamtime Oil.
Imani grinned and buffed her nails against her shirt. “I’ve always been fairly good at sales. Mama always called it a gift.”
“Well, thank you again.” I handed over the coffee and funnel cake I’d swung by the food truck to bring back to her.
It seemed the least I could do, but I’d forgone getting my own. By the time I’d gotten to the window to give Fifi my order, I was afraid that anything I put in my stomach was going to make an immediate reappearance, owing to the troubled state of my nerves.
“I’m happy to help, but I do take bribes.” Imani grinned as she pinched off a bit of funnel cake and popped it into her mouth. “But seriously, Poppy. Are you okay? You look three shades paler than white paint.”
I tried for a smile, but stress twisted it more into a grimace. “I’m okay, I’m just feeling… off.”
“Off? Like how?”
“Like something is going to go wrong.”
Imani watched me for a second, chewing thoughtfully. Then she set her bounty down on the table and dusted her hands off against her skirt. “Can I have a strand of your hair?”
I looked at her, taken aback. “Sure. Why?”
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Imani, but when a witch starts asking for hair or blood or anything like that, it’s not normally for fun reasons. And before Wanda, I had a kind of instinctive fear of witches, since they tended to be both territorial and vindictive and they didn’t usually like non-witch magic users in their territory. And they really didn’t like gypsies. But that was a long time ago and it was before Scapegrace had ever been a thought. Now things were very different and that was a good thing.
“Nothing bad,” Imani promised. “I just have something that might help you, but it needs to be primed to the person.”
I figured, why not? Imani was probably the nicest witch I’d ever met. I mean, Wanda was my best friend, but ‘nice’ probably wasn’t the first word that came to mind if someone asked me to describe her. Meanwhile, even Maverick seemed to enjoy Imani’s company, even if it was against his own will. And frankly, if Imani had something in mind that would help me, I was all for it.
