11. In the Bleak Town Meeting #2
“You have intelligence, you say?” If dubiousness were an Olympic sport, Polly would’ve been covered in medals.
“And where exactly did you get this intelligence, Scarlett? The same place you got the brilliant idea to handle the last crisis? How did that work out for you? Refresh my memory—how many months did you spend as a bird?”
Delilah felt something hot and fierce surge in her chest. How dare they?
How dare they throw that in her sister’s face?
Yes, Scarlett had made mistakes. But she’d been trying to protect Oak Haven, and her plan had worked, by the way.
Which was more than could be said for people who just wanted to stick their heads in the red-and-green sand and pretend everything was fine.
Before she knew what she was doing, Delilah was on her feet. “You know what? My sister’s right.”
Dozens of pairs of witchy eyebrows shot upward. Delilah never made a scene at town meetings. That had always been Scarlett’s thing, jumping up to share opinions nobody asked for. Delilah was the sensible one. The reliable one. The one who— oh gods, am I really doing this?
Apparently, she was.
“Yes, mistakes were made in the past.” The words felt strange in her mouth, like she was tasting them for the first time.
“But at least Scarlett was trying to protect Oak Haven. Which is more than I can say for people who just want to focus on their precious pageant while our entire town is being turned into some kind of... I dunno, magical Disneyworld!”
A tourist raised his hand. “Is this part of the show?”
“Oh shut up.” Delilah turned her fiery gaze on the audience.
“We’re not your dinner theater, we’re not your living history museum, and we’re definitely not going to sit here planning party games while our enemies try to destroy us.
Now, ladies, I’ve made a discovery about their plan that I really think you all ought to hear about. If you could just?—”
Jerusha rose, her face flushed. “Now see here, young lady. Some of us understand the value of tradition. Of doing things the proper way, in the proper order. Our rituals have protected Oak Haven for centuries!”
“Protected us,” Delilah continued, “or just made us comfortable? Maybe that’s our whole problem. We’re so caught up in our traditions that we can’t see when they’re being used against us.”
“Ooh, this is so good!” the fanny-pack woman was stage-whispering excitedly. “If only Claudia Winkleman were here to host this episode!”
Delilah tried to ignore her, but her forbidden wand lay heavily in her coat. I could shut that woman up for good with one stroke. But her better angels prevailed, and she pressed on with her argument. “Please, all of you. Give me a moment to explain my theory about the forgetting spell.”
“ Silence, child! Remember you are in company!” Jerusha waved her arms. “We don’t air our laundry in public.”
“I apologize, Jerusha, you’re right.” Her mind raced, trying to sort out how to explain how the magicians wanted to destroy the forgetting spell without using the words magicians , forgetting , or spell .
“It has become very clear to me today that our... neighbors... intend to use our greatest strength against us. I’m sure you’ve noticed the.
.. inaccuracies... being repeated by our visitors.
I believe this is no accident. We need to understand the impact of?—”
“Enough!” Up on the platform, Mama abruptly stood and silenced her daughter with one sharp clap of her hands.
“Delilah, I agree that we have good reason to be concerned with regard to our neighbors. However, you are overlooking something important. We will be without certain abilities for the next few days. And given that, we are not currently in a strong position to pick a fight. Not with our neighbors or anyone.”
The older witches all hmm’d and aha’d. But mixed in with the vague sounds of agreement, Scarlett let out a little gasp. “Oh, of course! Why didn’t I think of it before?”
Delilah shot a confused glance at her sister but carried on with the debate. “Mama, I don’t think we can afford to put this off. If you’d just hear me out, please ! I have good reason to believe that the longer we wait, the worse things will get.”
“ Not now, Delilah. The situation with our neighbors will still be there once the festival is over.”
“Yeah,” Delilah replied, “and maybe that’s exactly what they’re counting on. That we’re so worried about maintaining our perfect little snow globe, we won’t notice it’s being shaken apart!”
“Young lady!” Conrad interrupted. “Perhaps we could discuss this in a more... appropriate way? For our guests?”
Right. The tourists. Who were eating this up like it was the spiciest production of The Crucible since Winona Ryder made eyes at Daniel Day-Lewis.
Delilah closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she fixed Mrs. Chatterjee with her best impression of Mama’s we-will-discuss-this-later stare.
“What I mean is... our neighbors have plans. And I’m trying to tell you, those plans involve destroying the single most important thing that has protected Oak Haven since its very founding.
You know the thing I mean—I don’t need to say it here.
But if we just ignore what’s clearly happening because we’re too busy hanging holly and organizing pageants.
..” She took a deep breath. “Well. Then maybe we deserve what happens next.”
She sat down hard, her heart pounding. Scarlett’s hand found hers and squeezed it.
“That was incredible,” her sister whispered.
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Delilah whispered back. “Is this what it feels like to be you? Just talking shit, without thinking about it first?”
“Pretty much. Fun, no?”
“ No .” But she was smiling, just a little.
“Well, you did great, sis. You made a scene, which is normally my department, but more importantly, you figured out the answer to our problem.”
Delilah turned to her sister, utterly baffled. “I what? No. No, I definitely didn’t.”
“Sure. You and Mama, and that little verbal tennis match just now? You found the answer.”
“Scarlett, what are you talking about?”
“And, since you figured it out, that’s tantamount to agreeing to help me.”
“Is not.”
“Is too.”
Delilah sighed. “This is going to end badly, isn’t it?”
“I mean . . . probably?”
“But we’re doing it anyway?”
Scarlett grinned. “Definitely.”
The meeting broke up in classic Oak Haven style, which is to say, with nothing resolved beyond everyone’s commitment to being annoyed. The tourists drifted out in happy clusters, chattering about the “totally authentic colonial drama.”
“Do you think they noticed that none of their photos came out?” Delilah muttered to her sister as they lingered in the back of the hall.
“They’ll blame it on the lighting.” Scarlett was staring off into space with an oddly focused expression. An expression that Delilah recognized from childhood, one that never led to anything good.
“Oh no.” Delilah groaned. “I know that face. That’s your ‘I have a terrible idea’ face.”
“How dare you. It’s my ‘I have a brilliant idea that may blow up in my face’ face.
” Scarlett glanced around to make sure nobody was in earshot.
“Look, what if we’re thinking about this all wrong?
Everyone’s so worried about the magicians catching us at our weakest during Saturnalia.
But what if that’s actually our advantage? ”
“How exactly is being powerless an advantage?”
“That’s what I realized when you and Mama were arguing,” her sister said cheerfully. “Starting at midnight tonight, we won’t have any powers.”
“So?”
“If we don’t have any powers, we technically aren’t witches. And if we aren’t witches...”
Delilah’s stomach did that familiar drop it always did right before one of her sister’s plans went spectacularly wrong. “If we aren’t witches, then the wards can’t keep us out of the casino.”
Her sister’s eyebrows did a little dance. “What do you say to a little double date? Me and Nate, you and your historian. Let’s go see what the magicians are hiding in that nasty old skyscraper of theirs.”
“Hey, you two...” Nate came over, his expression suggesting he’d also recognized Scarlett’s plotting face. “Are you scheming? Should I be worried?”
“Absolutely,” they replied in unison.