21. Baby It’s Old Outside #2
“He was. Absolutely the best. When he died, all the color drained out of everything. Especially at Christmas. That was his favorite time of year.” She hadn’t meant to go there, to that raw place that still ached after all these years.
But something about the golden light, the wine, the strange intimacy of being lost in time together made the words flow more easily.
“I’m really sorry you went through that,” Jasper said, and there was something in his voice that made Delilah look at him in a different way.
“You’ve lost someone too,” she realized.
He nodded. “My grandmother. I was sixteen. She practically raised me because my parents were workaholic lunatics. In fact, she’s the one who got me interested in history. She took me to every museum, historic home, and archaeological site within a hundred-mile radius.”
“What happened to her?”
“Stroke. It was quick, at least.” He took a long sip of wine. “At first I did the same thing you’re doing: recoiled from everything that reminded me of her. I couldn’t look at a museum brochure for two years.”
“And yet you became a historian anyway.”
“Eventually, I realized that avoiding things that reminded me of her meant that I was avoiding the things she loved most. All the things she’d given me. It was like losing her twice.”
Delilah let that settle over her. How many Christmases had she ruined for herself? How many times had she refused to participate, saying it hurt too much, only to end up hurting anyway?
“When does it get easier?” Though she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“It doesn’t, unfortunately. I mean, not exactly.
It just... changes. The grief is still there, but it stops being the only thing you think about.
The bad memories don’t go away, so much as the good ones start to come back.
” He reached over and touched Delilah’s hand.
“For what it’s worth, I think your father would be proud of you. Time-displaced glamping and all.”
The comment surprised a genuine laugh out of her. “Oh, he would have thought this campsite was the coolest thing ever. Mama would be here complaining I was wasting my powers on nonsense and meanwhile he’d be roasting marshmallows for everyone.”
They fell into silence, watching as the last rays of sun dipped below the horizon.
Delilah found herself studying Jasper’s profile in the firelight.
It was uncanny how familiar he seemed. How necessary.
This despite the fact that there was an obvious limit on how long he’d be around.
He had a “hard out,” as they say on television. And that would be that.
“Can I ask you something, Jasper?”
“Anything.”
“Doesn’t it bother you? Knowing that when this is all over, you’ll forget all of this? Forget... um, forget me?”
He turned to face her fully. “It bothers me enormously.”
“Then why stay? Why not just leave now and save yourself the trouble?”
“Because some things are worth experiencing even if they won’t last,” he said simply. “Heck, maybe because they won’t last.”
The answer caught her off guard with its sincerity. Delilah felt something shift inside her, as though a piece of herself that had been held rigid for a very long time had finally been allowed to relax.
“Hey,” Jasper said suddenly, “let me ask you something: why don’t the witches make exceptions to the forgetting spell? For romantic partners, I mean. You’re all so powerful. Surely you could modify the spell to let certain trusted people keep their memories?”
“Ah, well. And thereby hangs a tale , as the Bard says. It used to be exactly as you suggest. For centuries, there was this special ritual they’d do for outsiders. A witch could vouch for her partner and bring them fully into the community, including gaining immunity from the forgetting spell.”
“What changed?”
“Well, my friend, the year was 1908...” She jokingly slipped into a storyteller voice that Papa always used when recounting Oak Haven history.
“A witch named Eleanor Whitman fell desperately in love with a charismatic magician named... oh, nuts, I always forget him. Alexander... Grey! Yeah, that’s it.
Alexander Grey. He swept Eleanor off her feet, apparently, and he offered to give up his entire life, just to be with the woman he loved.
And remember, witches and magicians already didn’t get along, even back then.
So it was no simple thing. But Eleanor vouched for him, and eventually Alexander managed to win over the whole town.
So the elders performed the exemption ritual.
For a year or so, everything seemed perfect.
Until...” Delilah leaned forward, the better to share this most scandalous tale.
“’Twas a hot midsummer when Alexander revealed his true, dastardly intentions.
He’d only used Eleanor to learn about Oak Haven’s magical defenses.
He and a group of fellow magicians launched an attack that nearly destroyed the town. ”
“What happened?”
“There was a magical battle so intense that it burned down half the forest surrounding the town. In the end, Alexander and his cohorts were defeated, but Eleanor...” Delilah trailed off.
“She couldn’t bear the betrayal. She walked into the oak grove on a snowy December night and never came out again. ”
“God, that’s terrible,” Jasper said quietly.
“After that, the rule became absolute: no exceptions to the forgetting spell. Ever. Not Nate, even. Nate was born in Oak Haven, but he isn’t a witch, so he’s in the same bind.”
“You’d think being the thirteenth Earl would get him a little leeway.”
“Nope.” Delilah tried to sound matter-of-fact. “Which is why he and his friends have been doing their trivia training for over a year now.”
“Trivia training?”
“Yeah, there’s this theory that if they strengthen their memories, they might be able to resist the spell?
But Scarlett told me they’ve had no luck so far.
Nate can recite the batting averages of every Red Sox player since 1912, but it doesn’t get him around the forgetting spell. Nobody gets around it.”
The implication lingered in the air, a tacit acknowledgment of the one obstacle they’d never overcome.
“Well.” Jasper set down his glass with deliberate care. “I suppose we should make the most of the time we have.”
He reached out to her, his fingers gently tilting her chin up until their eyes met.
“What do you mean?” she asked, though she knew perfectly well.
“I mean that I’m here now. And so are you.”
“That’s an eminently practical approach to the issue, Mr. Hopkins.”
His eyes twinkled. “You’ll find me to be an eminently practical man, Ms. Melrose. And whatever happens next... whether we get around the spell or not... as of right now? I’m all in.”
She leaned forward and kissed him. Not the frantic, adrenaline-fueled kiss they’d shared earlier, but something deeper, more deliberate.
A kiss that acknowledged the precariousness of their situation while defying it all the same.
His arms wrapped around her, pulling her closer until she was out of her chair and in his lap.
She could feel the steady beat of his heart against her chest, the warmth of his hands on her back.
When they broke apart, breathless, the night had overtaken their encampment. The fairy lights in the trees had brightened in response, casting a silvery glow all around.
“I’ve wanted to do that properly since I saw you in that Saturnalia dress,” Jasper confessed.
“What stopped you?”
“Oh, you know, evil magicians, time witches... all the usual rom-com obstacles.”
Delilah laughed. “So predictable.” She kissed him again, trying to pour everything she couldn’t say into that moment. Then she climbed off his lap and tugged him toward the tent, with its soft blankets and pillows.
Inside, the cushions had transformed into a proper bed, covered in soft blankets that seemed to shimmer in the dim light. Jasper looked around, impressed.
“Your magic is very . . . accommodating.”
“You have no idea.” She pulled him down beside her on the bed and Jasper responded eagerly, his kisses growing more urgent, more intense.
His hands were everywhere, roaming up her thighs and over her hips, as if he couldn’t get enough of her either.
Everywhere he touched, she lit up like a bonfire.
She leaned into the sensation, refusing to think past this moment, past tonight.
If this was all they’d have, they’d make sure it was enough to fill a lifetime.
The wind picked up outside, making the tent billow and flap ferociously.
Ignoring the racket, Jasper bent his head and began a languorous journey down her neck, planting tender kisses as he went.
He lingered at the base of her throat, and the sensation made Delilah catch her breath.
He moved lower, kissing the length of her collarbone, delicate and careful, savoring every moment.
Delilah moaned softly, and his lips trailed lower still, leaving a line of delicious heat in their wake.
“Jasper,” she gasped, not sure if she was protesting or pleading for more.
The wind howled louder, more insistent now, sending disoriented fairies swirling around the tent.
Then the ground began to shake. At first, it was just a slight tremor, easily ignored in the heat of the moment.
But it quickly intensified, the earth beneath them rolling like a ship on stormy seas.
A deep rumble, similar to thunder but from below rather than above, filled the air.
Outside, trees were snapping and crashing down.
Birds shrieked overhead, fleeing in panicked flocks.
It felt as though something massive was approaching—something with the power to reshape the very landscape.
Jasper pulled away, bewildered. “What the hell is?—”
Delilah was already on her feet, and she pulled him up with her.
“Something’s coming.” With a swift gesture, she dissolved their glamping setup, the tent and fire and fairy lights vanishing as though they’d never been.
They ran in the opposite direction of the falling trees, dodging branches and leaping over exposed roots.
The ground beneath Delilah’s feet continued to heave and roll, making each step treacherous.
Her mind raced through magical possibilities; was this Louise coming to retrieve them, or some unforeseen consequence of time displacement? Or something else entirely?
Finally, they reached a massive oak tree. Delilah pulled Jasper behind it, both of them peering back at the clearing they’d just abandoned.
The air itself had begun to vibrate. Colors shifted and blurred at the edges, and a high-pitched screeching noise cut through the rumbling. It sounded like a hundred sets of bad car brakes being applied at once.
Delilah clapped her hands over her ears, but she couldn’t block out the sound.
She could feel the magic in the air. But not the familiar, controlled power of Oak Haven witchcraft, but something wilder, more primal.
This was old magic, the kind that moved mountains and parted oceans.
Then came a sonic boom—a wall of sound and pressure so powerful it knocked them both to the ground.
Delilah felt the air being forced from her lungs, her vision going momentarily dark at the edges.
When she could breathe again, she pushed herself up on shaking elbows. The rumbling had stopped. The screeching was gone. An unnatural quiet had fallen over the forest.
She reached out for him. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, and they scrambled to their feet. Together, they peered around the trunk of the oak.
Where dozens of tall trees had stood just moments ago, now stood a barn.
A massive, sturdily built structure with distinctive curved braces reinforcing its corners. The roof was peaked steeply to shed snow, and a small cupola sat at its apex, topped with a weathervane in the shape of a crescent moon.
Delilah’s breath caught in her throat. She knew this barn. Every witch in Oak Haven knew this barn, or rather, what it had become. “That’s the original structure of the Stargazer Inn library,” she whispered, awe overtaking her fear.
“I recognize those curved braces,” nodded Jasper. “They’re still visible in the library.”
As they watched from behind the trees, the wide double doors of the barn swung open.
Out stumbled a group of people dressed in somber Puritan clothing: men in dark coats and wide-brimmed hats, women in long dresses with white caps and aprons, children clinging to their parents’ hands.
They looked dazed, peering around at the forest and up at the night sky as if unsure where they were.
“One of my ancestors must be over there... Virigina Melrose. She was one of the founders. I wonder which one she is?”
An uncommonly tall woman emerged from the barn, her bearing regal despite her simple costume.
In her hands, she clutched what appeared to be a large leather-bound book.
For a moment, Delilah wondered if perhaps that was Virginia, but then the woman turned in a slow circle, surveying the area with a critical eye.
When Delilah got a clear view of the woman’s face, she gasped.
The portrait from the inn’s library had come to life before her eyes.
Same stern features, same penetrating gaze. Agnes Bartlett.
Agnes held up one hand, and the murmuring crowd fell silent. “It is done.” Her voice carried clearly through the night air. “We have escaped the trials of Salem. Here shall we build our haven, protected by oak and stone and magic unending.”
The refugees gathered closer, their faces reflecting a mixture of fear and hope.
“The portal is closed,” Agnes continued, “and with it, our connection to that place of death. But we are not without resources.” She gestured to the barn behind her. “We have brought what we need to begin anew. Tomorrow, we build. Tonight, we give thanks.”
As if on cue, the clouds above parted, revealing a sky blazing with more stars than Delilah had ever seen, untainted by centuries of light pollution.
She felt Jasper’s hand find hers in the darkness, their fingers intertwining.
Her heart pounded with the realization of what they were witnessing.
It was the moment that had set her family’s destiny in motion.
They had just seen the birth of Oak Haven.