19. The Most Dangerous Time of the Year #2
Maximillian slumped back down, defeated. “Fine. I’ll tell you what I know. But keep in mind, I’m not very high up in the organization.”
“Shocking,” Scarlett deadpanned. “C’mon, out with it.”
“Right, well. I understand that you witches all think magicians are nothing but card tricks and rabbits from hats. And yes, there are plenty of amateurs running around calling themselves magicians who don’t know anything beyond basic sleight of hand.
But that’s just the beginning.” He lowered his voice, forcing everyone to lean in closer.
“Real magicians? Like that woman who took your mother? They’re extremely powerful.
Much more powerful than the average witch, I’ll tell you that. ”
“Shut your filthy lying mouth!” hollered Jerusha.
“Hey, crone,” Max shot back, “you want to hear this or not?”
“Enough,” Delilah said before anyone else could interject. “Trust me, we’ve seen plenty of genuine magic from your people recently. No need to convince us of that. But what’s their plan?”
Max confirmed what had already been suspected. The magicians were attempting to break the forgetting spell by introducing so much contradictory information that it would essentially blow a fuse. They wanted to turn Oak Haven into a tourist trap, just as Salem had become.
Scarlett shook her head in dissatisfaction. “None of this is new. You’ve all tried this game before.”
He poured the last of his wine into his glass. “You know what they say, if at first you don’t succeed... ”
“Why, though?” Jasper interjected. His brows were drawn together in rumination; it was an expression Delilah found distractingly attractive. “What do they gain from that?”
“For the money, honey?” Max suggested.
“No. No, that doesn’t make sense.” Jasper shook his head. “We met your bosses. They’re not hurting for money.”
Delilah felt a surge of warm appreciation for Jasper’s cool head. Regardless of the chaos, his mind was still sharp. It was strangely comforting to have him there, applying his logic to their mess.
“He’s right,” she said, turning back to Max. “Any money they need, surely they can just conjure it.”
“Not without power,” Max replied, “which they are running out of. Sources of readily accessible pure magic are few and far between these days.” He leaned forward. “The magicians want that grove of yours. And their thought is, if they destroy the town that protects it? Simplifies everything.”
“I’m calling bullshit on that, too,” Delilah said. “They have enough power to erect a fifty-story building overnight. They don’t need our little grove. Why are they so determined to turn Oak Haven into just another stop on the Haunted New England tour circuit?”
“Oh who knows,” Max said with a drunken shrug. “Maybe they just hate you people. Ever consider that? Simplest explanation is often the right one—isn’t that what they say? If Occam’s razor says fuck you , maybe it’s as simple as that.”
“Enough!” Scarlett slammed her hand on the table, making everyone jump. “ Why doesn’t matter now. The question is where . Namely, where is our mother? She’s at the casino, isn’t she? She must be.”
Max sighed. “Well, yeah.”
“I knew it!”
“But also no.”
The witches exchanged confused glances.
“You witches like portals, yes? I’m presuming that’s how you gals followed me to Vegas last year.
You open a portal to one place, step through, and you exit the portal somewhere else.
All well and good.” Max gestured vaguely in the air.
“But did you ever wonder what would happen if you stopped midway? What’s between the portals? ”
“Between?” Delilah repeated. Portals aren’t hallways; they’re doors. There’s one side and the other side, there’s no between . “That’s absurd. There’s no midway between portals... is there?” She turned to Jerusha, the eldest and arguably wisest of the group.
Jerusha frowned and shook her head as if to say, No, that’s not a thing .
“Annnnnnnd that’s why magicians are more powerful than witches,” Max replied with a smug grin. “The space between the portals is exactly where your mother is being held. It’s where the magicians hold anybody who crosses them.”
The blood drained from Delilah’s face. A space between portals? What did that even mean? How could Mama be somewhere that, by definition, didn’t exist? Even the idea made her brain hurt.
“That can’t be right,” Belinda objected from across the room, hugging her armed gnome closer.
“And yet,” Max said, “between every portal there is a space where you exist in both places and in neither. That’s the space the magicians have learned to access and exploit.”
Scarlett, never one to be deterred by mere metaphysical impossibility, straightened her shoulders. “Fine, whatever. So how do we get to them?”
“Impossible.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees as the witches all reacted to that dismissal.
“Nothing is impossible,” Jerusha declared.
“Really?” Max laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Tell me this, witches. How many portals can you make? What’s the total number?”
Delilah shrugged. “Infinite? I mean, any wall can be a portal to any wall somewhere else. So that’s like asking how many walls there are. It’s not a question with an answer...” Her voice trailed off as the implications hit her. “Oh gods.”
Jasper’s eyes widened as he followed the logic along with her. “If there are infinite portals... there are infinite spaces between.”
“Yeah, now you get it.” Max reached for his wine glass again. “You want to go on a hunt for your mother? That’s not a needle in a haystack, ladies—it’s a needle in the Milky Way.”
Delilah felt the room tilt slightly, or maybe that was just her own sense of equilibrium failing.
Jasper moved toward her, slipping his arm around her waist, the scent of him anchoring her to reality.
She leaned against him without thinking, grateful for the support, for the quiet solidity of his body.
The assembled witches, moments ago so ready for battle, now looked stricken. Even Scarlett was momentarily at a loss for words.
Max studied their expressions and, surprisingly, took pity on them.
“Okay, so that’s the bad news, I guess. But the good news is, she’s not in any physical danger.
Magicians don’t roll like that, their famous ‘saw the lady in half’ trick notwithstanding.
” He chuckled at his own joke, then sobered when no one joined in.
“She’s just being held there, in stasis.
So stop freaking out, put the knives down, just take a breath.
Because the reality is, you’ll get your mother back when the magicians decide to give her back to you, and not a minute sooner.
” He took another glug of wine and added, “Can I see my goddamn rabbit now?”
The room fell into a stunned silence, broken only by the distant sound of the magical string quartet, which had somehow reverted to playing “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” despite no one being there to hear it.
Jasper was the first to speak. “Time,” he said quietly, almost to himself.
“What?” Delilah turned to look at him, still hyper-aware of his arm around her waist, the heat of his body against hers.
“Time,” he repeated. His eyes were bright with that spark of revelation she was beginning to recognize. “We’ve been thinking about this all wrong. If she’s trapped between portals, she’s trapped between moments. It’s not a space problem. It’s a time problem.”
Max rolled his eyes. “Did you not hear what I just said? It’s impossible?—”
“Delilah,” Jasper continued, ignoring him. “Didn’t you say you had a time witch in town?”
“Louise? Ohh, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“I’m just saying, if anyone would understand the problem of existing between moments, it would be her. Seems like someone worth consulting, no?”
Zahir took a step forward. “Dude, people who ‘consult’ with Louise have been known to get their brains scrambled.”
“No no, Jasper’s right,” Scarlett said, perking up. “Louise is exactly who we need. She’s been studying the nature of time since... well, since time was invented, if you believe the hype.”
“Which we don’t,” Delilah added quickly for Jasper’s benefit. “But she does know more about temporal magic than anyone else in town.”
“Maybe she can help us understand what’s happening to your mother,” Jasper said, his eyes never leaving Delilah’s. “And if we understand it, maybe we can undo it.”
Max groaned dramatically. “Are you even listening to me? There’s no undoing anything.
Your mother is trapped in a pocket dimension between realities until they decide to release her.
” He set down his glass with exaggerated care.
“Now, can we please focus on what’s really important here? My rabbit? Quentin? Remember him?”
The witches began dispersing, their weapons lowered but their expressions still grim. Belinda carefully set her gnome down, murmuring soothing words as she tried to remember whether to disarm him with the blue wire or the red one.
“Jasper, listen.” Scarlett stepped closer to him and Delilah.
“Louise is a great idea. But Zahir isn’t wrong, either— it’s risky and she’s unpredictable.
But it’s the best idea we’ve got at the moment.
Del, you go with him. I’ll deal with Max and make sure Belinda doesn’t accidentally level the town with her gnomes.
Just don’t let Louise pitch you her timeshare scheme. It’s not a real estate opportunity.”
Jasper looked puzzled. “What is it, then?”
“She’s trying to get people to literally share time with her. She’ll take years off your life and add them to her own; it’s a whole thing.”
“Ohhhhkay. Right.” From the sound of it, Jasper was starting to regret his super-clever idea.
As Scarlett continued lecturing Jasper on the dos and don’ts of dealing with time witches, Delilah found herself scanning the room. Something felt off. The witches were disbanding, their weapons reluctantly set aside, but there was a tension in the air that hadn’t been there before.
That’s when she spotted the movement in the far corner of the banquet hall. A hip-looking young woman with pink hair—definitely not a witch, judging by her wide-eyed expression. She was edging her way toward the exit. In her hand was a phone, its screen still glowing.
Delilah felt her blood turn to ice. “Hey!” she called, already moving toward the stranger. “What are you doing?”
The young woman froze, stared at Delilah for a split second, then bolted for the door.
“You get back here!” Delilah shouted.
The tourist disappeared through the banquet hall doors, but Delilah was right behind her, heart pounding with a new kind of fear. “Stop! Stop right there!”
As she raced after the fleeing figure, one thought kept flashing through her mind: The forgetting spell was failing.
If that little influencer left Oak Haven with video? The magicians might not need to destroy Oak Haven after all. TikTok would do it for them.