“I’m going to slap her,” Scarlett told Lex. “Please stop me.”
“What…what…what happened?” Katie’s mom asked. Tears were rolling down her face as she stared at the remains of her home.
Scarlett winced in sympathy and let Lex answer. She heard him quietly explain and heard the muffled exclamations of Katie’s mom.
“Are you all right?” Gram asked. “You stupid girl. Why’d you go in there?”
“Maeve,” Scarlett said simply.
Gram’s sour gaze narrowed on Scarlett and then Gram cleared her throat and glanced away.
“I’m sorry…” Maeve said. Her gaze was focused on Scarlett, and her spine was straight as she swallowed visibly.
“You really thought it wouldn’t work?”
Maeve nodded once.
“It was still stupid,” Scarlett said.
Maeve nodded, her lip trembled, but she pressed her lips together to hide that weakness. Phoebe stepped up behind Maeve and took her hand. “We both thought it wouldn’t work.”
“You kids are both stronger and dumber than you think,” Gram said. Maeve’s eyes brightened with a sheen.
“It’s not like you haven’t pulled this crap,” Scarlett said. “Remember when Gram was dating that traveling salesman and she realized he had a girl in every town?”
The question was directed at Maye, but it was meant for Maeve. Maye nodded and then snorted.
“Pretty sure you got a group of friends together and did some shady magic then,” Scarlett said simply. “We can’t all be as morally superior as me.”
Gram’s outraged snort made Scarlett break into giggles. Or maybe that was the relief that they’d survived.
“We’re all stupid sometimes,” Scarlett told Maeve, wrapping her arm around both Maeve and Phoebe. “But you are forbidden from hanging out with Katie ever again. She is both chronically stupid and evil.”
“Oh we’re done,” Phoebe said and Maeve nodded several times in agreement. “We were done before we even got to the spell. She’s just mean. To everyone.”
“Harpy,” Maeve said under her breath.
“Also,” Maeve said to Phoebe. “You need to get your dreamscape under control.”
The girl paled just a bit and then she nodded.
“Don’t make me talk to your mom.”
She nodded again. She might have tried to say something but what had happened had finally registered with Katie’s mom, and the woman was yelling at her daughter so loud that Luna and Ella covered their ears. Scarlett turned to watch the show, enjoying every movement, but then she said to Gram with magic to get the sound of her voice through the cacophony.
“They were haunting Jenny Higgins. Someone needs to make sure she’s ok.”
Gram’s gaze narrowed on Katie and her mother, and then she, Henna, and their two boyfriends headed towards the ancient Buick to check on the other kid.
Katie was yelling back at her mom and then she crossed her arms over her chest. As she did a lock of hair landed on her forearm. She looked down, frowned and then reached up and slowly ran her fingers through her hair.
Which is when she started wailing as great clumps of her hair came out with each pass of her fingers. She couldn’t be calmed until her dad finally reached out and slapped her out of her hysteria.
“You hit me,” she said to her dad in a cold whisper.
“You were hysterical,” he said calmly.
“I’m reporting you to Child Protective Services,” she snarled.
His head cocked and then he said, “Right now? They can have you. Barbara, we’ll need to call my mother and stay with her.”
“Sheriff,” Katie said, eyes narrowed on her dad, “My dad hit me.”
“Yes, I saw,” Lex said. “Child abuse is specific. He didn’t leave a mark. Also, you should probably be more concerned about how you criminally used magic and are under arrest.”
“Are you arresting, Maeve?” Scarlett asked Lex.
“Right now, the criminal evidence leads up to the three at the head of the circle. The rest were…fodder for the spell. So, no.”
Scarlett nodded and then looked at her girls. “Ready to go home?”
They shook their heads and Luna piped up to say, “Nana said we can come spend the night.”
Ella added, “Harper said to tell you she has a Halloween recovery box for you on the counter.”
Scarlett's brows rose and then she decided to take the offering. She dropped a kiss on each girl’s head, told them she’d be over in the morning for a Day of the Dead breakfast picnic in the grove and started to walk home.
Before she’d reached the end of the drive, Maeve ran after, grabbed Scarlett from behind and clutched her tightly.
“Thank you,” Maeve told Scarlett’s spine, Scarlett slowly turned to face Maeve.
Scarlett cupped Maeve’s cheeks and said, “We might be new sisters, but I love you.”
“I love you too,” Maeve said for the first time ever.
“Well then,” Scarlett dropped another kiss on Maeve’s forehead and said, “I am going to drink some wine, watch some Netflix, and order a pizza.”
“You should do that with Lex,” Maeve said, looking back. “I like him.”
Scarlett didn’t even hesitate when she answered, “I do too. But I think his hands are full for tonight.”
Maeve considered and then whispered, “What happened to Katie’s hair?”
“I think it was karma,” Scarlet admitted, “And her belief. I could only get her out of the spell by telling her that her hair was falling out. She did the rest.”
Maeve choked on a laugh and Scarlett said, “My bed is calling me.”
Maeve stepped back and Scarlett started back to her apartment again. Before she’d gone more than a few steps, Maeve called again, “Thank you, Scarlett.”
Scarlett raised her hand and looked up. Once she did, she realized the stars from her dreamscape were the stars over Mystic Cove. Was that because they meant so much to Lex? And…if so…what did that mean?
She pondered as she walked with the east wind swirling around her body and soothing her tired feet. Scarlett would have pulled magic into her body to heal her feet, but she was too burned out from breaking those girls out of the spell to even say hello to the plants she passed.
She took a shortcut down her best friend Gus’s street even though she’d been avoiding it since he’d left Mystic Cove and what she saw stopped her in her tracks.
There were lights on inside his house once again.
She pulled her phone out, considered calling him, and then put the phone back in her pocket. How many messages had she left him? And he’d yet to even tell her he was back? And when did he get back? Maybe they weren’t the friends they had been. Maybe she’d been hoping the friendship of their childhood would outlast the challenges they’d been facing, but she wasn’t sure it would.
She knew one thing. She needed to think before she talked to him again. And right now was not the right time.
There was a note on her door when she got back that said Harper had just taken their dog, Max out. So, Scarlett went inside, dropped her tired body into her bathtub with the bath bomb Harper had left. The bathtub was ringed with calming candles. There was warmish pizza in the oven, chocolates in the care package, and her favorite wine already breathing on the countertop.
She lit the candles, set her phone to her favorite non-child music playlist, and settled into the almost too hot water. It was near perfection and all the questions she had about Gus and Lex and all the worries she had over her girls and all the stress about Maeve and her friends were all problems for another day.
THE END
Thanks so much for reading my Halloween short story! I had so much fun writing it. I admit to looking forward to taking my own kids trick or treating—they’ve already decided to be a pack of Power Rangers, and I think it might be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. If you enjoyed this story, I would be so grateful for a review. Reviews mean a
lot to writers like me as well as to readers.
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Coming in October: Hobgoblins and Homework. Another Mystic Cove novel where Scarlett finds out what Lex has been hiding and just where Gus has been.
Coming in November: Spells and Jinglebells. Just like with Witch or Treat, Spells and Jinglebells will include hundreds of pages of short stories from great paranormal authors. This book is coming in November, will be $0.99 and include another short story from Harper’s life.
The Mystic Cove Mommy Mysteries
Bedtimes & Broomsticks
Runes & Roller Skates
Costumes and Cauldrons (found in the anthology Witch or Treat)
Banshees and Babysitters
Spellbooks and Sleepovers: A Mystic Cove Short Story
Hobgoblins and Homework (Coming in October 2017)
The Zinnia West 1950s Mysteries (co-written with Christina Hill)
Zinnia West & The Corpse Served Cold
Zinnia West & The Corpse Burnt Crisp
The Rue Hallow Mysteries
Hallow Graves
Hungry Graves
Lonely Graves
Sisters and Graves
Yule Graves
Fated Graves
Ruby Graves
The Inept Witches Mysteries (co-written with Auburn Seal)
Inconvenient Murder
Moonlight Murder
Bewitched Murder
Presidium Vignettes (with Rue Hallow)
Prague Murder
Paris Murder
Murder By Degrees
Curses of the Witch Queen
Fairy Tales Re-Imagined
Song of Sorrow: A Prelude to Rapunzel
Snow White
Kendawyn Paranormal Regency Romances
Compelled by Love
Bewildered by Love
Persuaded to Love
Other Novels
These Lying Eyes
Copyright © 2017 by Amanda A. Allen
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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