Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lily couldn’t shake the feeling that Chrysanthemum telling her that she wasn’t pursuing Luke was somehow significant.
She just didn’t understand why, beyond the obvious.
If Chrysanthemum was no longer standing in her way, then her biggest non-curse problem was solved.
She’d conquered her five of Wands.
Next stop: romantic happiness and a perfect senior year.
And yet, Lily didn’t feel happy.
All through the drive into town, she considered bringing up the subject—her brain demanded clarification—but it wasn’t like Chrysanthemum could explain Lily’s hang-ups to her.
For that matter, Lily wasn’t sure why she’d asked if Chrysanthemum wanted to go shopping and get coffee, either.
Yes, they had to get supplies, but Lily had already volunteered to do that.
She supposed she could chalk it up to celebrating another small victory, but she’d already used that excuse yesterday.
And, if she was being honest, an excuse was all it was—today and yesterday.
It had to be the novelty, then.
She’d known everyone else in Thornhaven practically her whole life.
There were few nooks and crannies of their personalities left to discover, whereas everything about Chrysanthemum was different and exciting—her opinions, her sense of humor, all the stories she had to tell.
Even being teased gave Lily a rush.
Not only was Chrysanthemum more interesting than her other friends, she made Lily feel more interesting, too.
Lily had texted her parents that she was going to the library to work on her research paper.
Although she was grounded, the library was on he.
“approved places”
list, and she doubted they’d call up the branch for proof.
Downtown was bustling, which was no surprise considering it was an unseasonably warm day. Lily was forced to park a block away from the main thoroughfare, and a thought occurred to her as she shut off the engine.
“Do you want to hit the Cauldron Supply first since we can’t take drinks into the shop?”
If that happened to mean she and Chrysanthemum would hang out longer, because they wouldn’t feel rushed to finish, that was just practical. Lily didn’t want to be rushed.
“Sure. If you’re really not sick of spending so much time with me.”
Chrysanthemum sounded dubious.
“I wouldn’t have suggested it if I was.”
Despite everything she’d been ruminating on during the drive, it still surprised Lily to hear the words leaving her mouth.
“Or wait—are you trying to politely say that you’re sick of me?”
Chrysanthemum’s ears reddened, much like they had earlier when they’d been talking about Luke. It was kind of cute. Lily liked this softer Chrysanthemum, one who didn’t always seem disdainful and cold. The sight made Lily smile in spite of the wave of anxiety her half-joking question had caused.
“I told you—you’re not so bad,”
Chrysanthemum said, and Lily’s insides released their tension.
Yesterday, they’d made a note of everything they needed for banishing the curse.
Luckily, between the two of them, they had many items covered already.
For the rest, Lily had a list, and she and Chrysanthemum split it up as they wandered the cramped magic shop.
The Cauldron Supply had something for everyone, whether they were witches in need of real magical supplies or normies who didn’t know better, in search of a witchy aesthetic.
There were candles and beautiful candleholders; glass bottles filled with essential oils; dozens of jars packed with dried herbs; censers for stick or loose incense; books and jewelry; and so much more.
Lily loved it in here, and if she hadn’t been on a mission, she’d have taken the time to smell the various new incense blends, sort through the baskets of polished crystals and semiprecious stones, and covet the artwork in a lovely tarot deck that she didn’t need.
The Cauldron Supply’s shelves stretched almost to the shop’s open-beam ceiling, dark weathered wood that looked as old as the town itself.
Dusty floorboards creaked beneath her feet as she strolled, and smokeless candles that had been bespelled to perpetually burn provided a cozy glow.
The whole place had a timeless vibe to it—one that stretched from the seventeenth century into the modern age, depending on where you glanced.
As with the other witch-owned businesses and buildings in the area, faintly glowing wards surrounded the doorways and windows.
And—like they all did of late—the wards gave off a recognizable tinge, suggesting they were being strengthened.
The Historical Society had sent out an alert to all its members suggesting they remain vigilant.
After deciding the Peace & Purification incense blend would work for the banishing spell, Lily picked up one of the shop’s empty paper bags labeled ONE OUNCE and placed it on one side of the old-fashioned balance scale.
On the other side, she placed the jar of incense.
Magic did the rest.
As Lily watched, one ounce’s worth of the incense disappeared from the jar and reappeared inside the bag.
“Thank you,”
Lily whispered, although she knew there was no point. It just felt impolite not to.
She stuck the jar back on the shelf with dozens of similar ones and taped the bag shut. Under better circumstances, she’d have created her own mix with the right herbs, but this didn’t seem like the time to experiment.
Lily added the incense to her shopping basket and checked her list. Almost done. Chrysanthemum was supposed to be getting fresh frankincense oil, so Lily headed toward the front of the store, where the last supplies she needed were. There was a large selection of candles in all sizes and colors, and Lily began counting out the correct number of small white pillars for the banishing spell.
“Lily!”
Hearing someone greet her by name, she glanced up as Bethany Lord wandered down her aisle. Bethany was a junior, but Lily knew her. Thanks to the Historical Society, they had spent plenty of time together since they were toddlers. Lily considered Bethany to be better than averagely talented, but she had a mean streak that had gotten her in trouble on more than one occasion. She had even used magic to play cruel little pranks on normies. Lily kept as much distance as politeness would allow.
Bethany lowered her voice.
“Watch out. There’s some witch trash up front.”
“What?”
“Chrys Quinn,”
Bethany said, as though Lily should have known.
“Resident antisocial freak?”
Irritation flooded Lily’s veins. She should have done more to stand up to Bethany all these years.
“Chrysanthemum has more power in her pinkie finger than most witches have in their entire bodies,”
Lily snapped.
“I’d watch your mouth if I were you.”
The shock on Bethany’s face passed rapidly into disgust.
“What the hell? I thought you hated her!”
The words I don’t hate her formed on Lily’s tongue, but she swallowed them down. It was time for something stronger.
“We’re friends.”
As soon as she said it, her heart sped up with worry over what Chrysanthemum might think about that. But Lily meant it. Or at least, she wanted it to be true.
Bethany stared at her for a moment, caught off guard.
“Okay. Fine. Very cool.”
Then she shrugged and sauntered off.
Lily stuck the last candle in her basket, walked around the row, and stopped dead in her tracks when she discovered Chrysanthemum had been on the other side of the shelf the entire time. She seemed to be debating between two jars of oil, holding each dark blue bottle up in turn toward the shop’s low light. It was impossible that she hadn’t overheard Lily’s conversation with Bethany, but she was acting so engrossed by the jars that Lily could almost believe it and hope.
The studious expression on her face made Lily swallow. Serious, concentrating Chrysanthemum was fascinating to watch.
Chrysanthemum finally set one of the jars back on the shelf.
“I wasn’t sure which one would be better for the ritual.”
“How did you decide?”
Chrysanthemum shrugged.
“Gut feeling?”
They were partners, but that didn’t mean Lily didn’t have issues with the way Chrysanthemum approached magic.
“I’m not sure that’s—”
She didn’t get any further, because a scream pierced the soothing music playing over the shop’s speakers.
A second later, Bethany dashed past them. As she did, the store’s dozens of candles extinguished, plunging the shop into a thick, hazy dimness as the charmed wicks began pouring out years of magically suppressed smoke.
Lily gasped, but before she or anyone else could ask the obvious question—What is going on?—the wards around the shop’s windows and doors burst in a serious of pops, like a half dozen corks flying out of champagne bottles. The colorful glowing sigils fizzled into nothingness.
Bethany let out an anguished whine and threw open the door.
“What is going on in this town?”
She disappeared down the street at a run.
Chrysanthemum darted over to the door and held it open, coughing as she waved away some of the smoke. “Look!”
She was pointing at the flags that decorated the lampposts. One by one, coming from the direction of the Historical Society, they were being torn down, as though an invisible hand were ripping them away. Lily grabbed the door handle from Chrysanthemum and yanked it shut right before the closest flag went flying.
But whatever the curse was doing, it didn’t pause at the shop. With her face pressed against the door’s window, Lily watched the flags down the rest of the street being flung into the air.
“Prop that door open again, honey,”
Annabeth said from behind Lily.
“Or we’re all going to asphyxiate in here.”
Chrysanthemum did as asked, and Lily turned while the shop lit up with muted electrical light.
Annabeth put her hands on her hips and coughed.
“I just replaced those wards two days ago, and all these candles … The smoke in here!”
She waved a hand in front of her wrinkled brown face.
“Something foul is afoot in Thornhaven.”
“Yeah.”
Lily glanced down at her basket of supplies and hoped it wasn’t too obvious that she and Chrysanthemum might be responsible for it.
“I don’t suppose I can check out?”
“Still got electricity, so I don’t see why not. Come on over so I can get to airing this place out.”
Chrysanthemum was propping open the door with a large cast-iron cauldron filled with besoms for sale, so Lily grabbed the jar of oil from her and set it down with the basket on the counter.
“You want to go grab a table at Black Cat while I check out?”
Chrysanthemum looked uncertain for a second, eyeing the street, but the moment of magical upset seemed to have passed. She nodded.
The smoke was already dissipating, and Lily glanced down at the display of random items for sale by the counter while Annabeth maintained a nonstop commentary about the magical weirdness infecting Thornhaven, interspersed with more coughing. Lily didn’t want to be rude, but she didn’t want to react, either, afraid Annabeth might see something reminiscent of guilt on her face if she did.
The store’s display of enamel pins provided an easy excuse. As her backpack would attest, Lily loved a pretty enamel pin, and there was no shortage of designs to choose from. Pentacles and triple moons, trees and ravens, and there—a perfect yellow sunflower.
Chrysanthemum had told her how much she’d loved the field of sunflowers her grandparents used to have, one of many tidbits that left Lily desperate to know what other secrets Chrysanthemum was hiding.
Lily hesitated, then pointed to the pin.
“Can I get that, too?”
By the time she set the bag with her purchases down at the table Chrysanthemum had snagged, the coffee shop was packed with people discussing the afternoon’s strong wind.
Lily couldn’t imagine the kind of magic that worked on people’s minds to make them believe a gust of wind could have blown away all the flags but left the baskets filled with flowers and the plethora of Halloween decorations unscathed. No doubt it was a good thing, though. This way, only 10 percent of the town might be on the verge of panic instead of all of it.
Not that Lily was panicking, oh no. She and Chrysanthemum could totally handle a curse capable of blowing the wards at the Historical Society and at the Cauldron Supply. No big deal.
To hold on to their table, they took turns getting coffee, and it wasn’t until they were both settled with the supply bag by their feet that either of them finally addressed what had happened in the shop.
“Has the curse struck anywhere else around town?”
Chrysanthemum asked.
“The school, the store, the Society …”
Lily pulled out her notebook.
“I heard my dad say something about an incident at the Bramble Lane B&B the other day, but I don’t know if he was referring to the curse. If not … then it’s only happening in places where we are.”
Chrysanthemum nodded.
“That means most of the island is safe.”
“Yes. I don’t want people to get hurt. But …”
Lily tapped her pencil on the page.
“It’s basically proof that we’re involved, if anyone’s paying attention.”
Chrysanthemum’s eyes maintained their hold over her, emanating power.
“I don’t want anyone to suffer, either.”
“You know,”
Lily said.
“I would never have thought, before, that you cared what happened to Thornhaven.”
Chrysanthemum set her mug down sharply, the ceramic thudding against the wooden table. A torrent of emotions swept over her face, too quickly for Lily to decipher them all, but she understood immediately that she’d said something wrong.
Remembering the pin she’d bought, Lily reached into the bag and grabbed it like a lifeline.
“Forget I said that. Here. I bought this for you.”
Annabeth had wrapped the pin, and Chrysanthemum’s wounded expression turned to confusion and then to shock as she peeled back the black-and-silver tissue paper.
“I thought it would cheer you up,”
Lily explained.
Chrysanthemum held up the pin with wide eyes.
“Oh, that’s … that’s …”
She turned the pin around a few more times in lieu of words.
“Weird?”
It suddenly dawned on Lily that randomly buying Chrysanthemum a gift was very likely weird.
“You dress in black and scowl, but you like sunflowers, and that’s also weird, so you don’t get to judge. I don’t mean weird in a bad way. It’s weird, like it’s interesting.”
She was babbling. This was ridiculous. She didn’t know what was wrong with her, but Chrysanthemum was turning the pin over in her fingers, and they were delicate fingers that ended in chipped black nail polish that Lily wanted to wipe off and repaint for her. And what the hell—that was a weird thought, too.
“Thank you,”
Chrysanthemum said quietly. Her cheeks had turned pink, and she was really pretty when they did that.
“I was going to say, that was very nice.”
Then, more loudly, she added.
“I can’t believe I told you about the sunflowers.”
Lily was relieved to hear that Chrysanthemum also had difficulty controlling her mouth sometimes.
Chrysanthemum didn’t immediately attach the pin to her backpack, but she curled her fingers around it like it was a precious gem.
“You weren’t wrong earlier. I tried not to care about anyone here. I wanted not to care, because it’s easier if you can turn that part of yourself off. If you don’t care about anything, nothing can hurt you.”
“That seems kind of depressing and lonely,”
Lily said softly.
Chrysanthemum rolled her eyes, but her smirk wasn’t cruel.
“Well, yeah.”
She reached for her coffee.
“When my power started emerging, back in New York, I made the mistake of showing my best friend what I could do. We used to tell each other all our secrets. I thought she’d love it, but she freaked out. She stopped talking to me, told the rest of our friends that I was dangerous, turned them against me. It was awful, and I was so glad when we moved.”
And when Chrysanthemum had arrived here, Lily had snubbed her, and as a result, all the other witches their age had, too.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t nicer to you.”
Chrysanthemum’s cheeks flushed again, or maybe they’d never unflushed. Lily wished they would. It was … distracting.
“I actually wasn’t trying to make you feel bad,”
Chrysanthemum said.
“Especially since I heard what you said to Bethany. I, um, really appreciated that.”
Lily had a sudden urge to wrap her arms around Chrysanthemum, and squeeze her, and maybe bury her nose in Chrysanthemum’s hair … stroke her cheek … promise her that she wouldn’t let her down again …
Lily drew a deep breath, belatedly remembering her own coffee, and took a large sip.
“I should feel bad, though. And so should your ex-friend.”
Chrysanthemum smiled.
“In hindsight, showing her I could light a candle with my brain and thinking she’d be impressed was na?ve. I blame TV for convincing me that people would find powers cool and not terrifying.”
“They are cool,”
Lily said forcefully.
“You are way cooler than she could ever hope to be.”
Chrysanthemum looked very much like she was trying not to seem pleased by that—and Lily, in turn, couldn’t help but feel pleased herself.
“Anyway,”
Lily continued, her voice becoming more serious.
“I think we have everything we need now to undo this mess. Let’s go over the list again …”