Chapter Thirty-Eight
Lily squeezed Chrysanthemum’s hand as they exited the function room. Kissing Chrysanthemum had given her a second wind, a rush of energy and power as thrilling and fortifying as the elation of their success. But that feeling was fading, along with the tingle of Chrysanthemum’s mouth, although Lily could still sense a whisper of it—a ghostly sensation—if she chased the memory.
Thoughts of ghosts forced her into the present. Had they faded, too?
As the sounds of the ball grew louder, her heart raced with the oddest mix of trepidation over what they might find, triumph over the curse, and elation that Chrysanthemum had forgiven her. Forty-five minutes remained until midnight. They still had time to experience the Halloween ball the way she’d meant to—dancing with Chrysanthemum.
Assuming there was still a ball in progress.
Everything sounded promising, though, and it looked even more so. They both kept alert for any black lines, but they didn’t find anything amiss until they reached the ballroom lobby. Then it wasn’t the lines that were alarming but the number of witches talking in hushed voices, confusion and worry written over their faces.
“Chrys!”
Chrysanthemum’s mother appeared through the crowd and pulled her daughter into a hug.
“Where were you? Things got”—she lowered her voice and glanced around—“strange.”
Chrys shot Lily an oh shit kind of look.
“We saw weird things,”
Lily said, settling on a version of the truth that she hoped wouldn’t be incriminating.
“Lines in the hotel. We followed them, and our phones lost signal.”
Chrysanthemum’s mother contemplated this, but whether she bought it or not in the face of how disheveled Lily and her daughter appeared, she didn’t say.
“Lily, your parents have been searching all over for you.”
It shouldn’t make her happy that her parents were worried, but a small thrill shot down Lily’s spine. It wasn’t nearly as strong as the other emotions coursing through her, but she couldn’t shake it, either. They’d noticed her enough to realize she was missing when things went wild. That was, honestly, more than she’d expected, although that might be a touch unfair of her. They’d been trying lately.
“I should go find them,”
Lily said. The words were no sooner out of her mouth than Sara was plowing through the chaos, dragging their mother behind her and yelling.
“I see her!”
Lily found herself squished into a hug in a way she hadn’t been squished in a long time. Peering behind her mom, she caught Chrysanthemum grinning at her. Lily grinned back.
“I was so worried when I couldn’t find you, and you weren’t answering your phone,”
her mom said. She released Lily and began fussing with her hair.
“Are you hurt? Where were you? You’re a mess.”
“That’s what happens when you’re magically attacked.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
In a heartbeat, her parents and Chrysanthemum’s mom were demanding to know what had happened, and she and Chrysanthemum had to cobble together a story that didn’t implicate them in any nefarious magic while under pressure.
They succeeded, mostly, but sometime during Lily’s second recounting of events, Chrysanthemum was dragged away by her mom to get magically checked out by one of the Society elders.
Not long after that, Lily’s father returned to an emergency meeting of the Society board that was happening by the registration desk.
Lily wanted to go as well, to find Chrysanthemum and be done with her mother’s fussing, and she was aware of how ironic that was.
For once, she had her mom’s full attention, and she had other priorities.
Instead, over the next twenty minutes, Lily pieced together what had happened after she and Chrysanthemum had left the ball.
In a word, chaos.
The same smoke that she and Chrysanthemum had experienced had filled the ballroom.
The food had rotted at the serving stations.
Decorations had come to life, much like they once had at the school.
People had panicked in the darkness as they were chased by bats that weren’t supposed to be real and pirate ghosts that definitely were real.
They were swatted by broomsticks that shooed the humans around the room like they were tidying up the dirty floor.
A lucky few had escaped, but for everyone else, the ballroom had become an endless darkened tomb, filled with cell service but no doors by which to leave.
And then, everything had returned to normal, as though none of it had ever happened.
The normies’ terrified memories were fading, if they weren’t already gone, by the time Lily and Chrysanthemum were finally free to reenter the ballroom together.
The band was playing again.
The bar was reopened.
More food had been brought out.
Only the witches remained shaken, and they were trying to hide it.
No doubt, the Historical Society would investigate and eventually conclude that the mysterious magic was linked to whatever had been going on at the high school and around town.
What would become of her and Chrysanthemum, and their role in causing and stopping it—of that, Lily was unsure.
For the rest of the night, she didn’t want to think about it.
“We deserve to win the magic fair this year for everything we did,”
Chrysanthemum said for what was probably the hundredth time.
They’d made a restroom stop to fix their hair and clothes, and Chrysanthemum had reapplied a deep ruby lipstick, so dark that it was almost black. It was totally Chrysanthemum, and at one point, Lily would have rolled her eyes. Now she wanted to see how much would stick to her if they kissed.
“I had that same thought,”
Lily said, snagging them both a glass of the ball’s nonalcoholic punch, which was being served from a giant cauldron. She couldn’t figure out what was in it, but it had to be spiked with magic. Drinking it made her less tired and eased the aches in her feet.
“We’d get in so much trouble, though.”
“I’m sure there are ways around it. We could say we researched it on our own, after the fact.”
Chrysanthemum nudged her, and Lily turned to catch Ms. LaPlant smiling in their direction. Like most of the witches, Ms. LaPlant appeared frazzled, but she also seemed delighted to catch the two of them together.
Lily waved, cringing as she did so.
“You’re right. We have to do something. I can’t stand the elders thinking their plan to make us get along worked when it really backfired so spectacularly that we almost took out the whole island.”
She didn’t know they could have taken out the whole island, but it sounded better than the whole hotel, and who was to say the curse wouldn’t have kept spreading? Legends had to start somewhere, and Lily was already envisioning how hers might go.
“I like it when you get all rebellious,”
Chrysanthemum said.
“The princess isn’t so perfect after all.”
Lily choked on her punch.
“I think it’s clear I’m far from perfect.”
“Not totally far.”
Chrysanthemum’s cheeks turned nearly the shade of her lips.
“Did you just compliment me?”
Lily clutched her chest.
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late. A compliment from you is …”
Lily tried to think of something not totally cheesy and failed.
“It means a lot.”
Chrysanthemum nudged her again, but she looked as pleased as Lily felt.
“Do you—”
Lily started to ask if Chrysanthemum wanted to dance, but the music faded, and a hush swept through the ballroom. Whether by magic or simply some sense of what was to come, Lily quieted with everyone else.
A moment later, she gasped as the cascading purple and gold lights shot upward. They dispersed across the room, chasing away the decorative smoke and setting the ballroom ceiling ablaze.
The fake bats and ghosts, and all the other decorations, vanished, swallowed in this new display of magic. Above, the lights swirled like the cosmos, a thousand glittering stars and meteors in a thousand different colors. Then, one by one, the stars fell gently from the ceiling, and a single light landed on the palm of everyone present, twinkling like a jewel. Witches and normies alike clapped and shrieked with delight.
Lily tucked hers into her barrette. The lights would glow for hours after the ball ended, a piece of magic the normies could take with them that would be gone by sunrise.
“Midnight,”
Chrysanthemum confirmed with a glance at her phone. She stuck her light atop the amethyst on her ring.
“Not a bad showstopper spell, considering people must be exhausted from everything that happened, but I liked last year’s pumpkin tree better.”
Lily had enjoyed that one, too. That spell had created a giant gnarled tree that rose from the ballroom floor. Instead of leaves, the limbs had been covered in tiny glowing jack-o’-lanterns, and the tree had presented each guest with one of them. The jack-o’-lanterns had turned out to be delicious cupcakes.
“Can’t eat lights,”
Lily agreed, realizing how hungry she’d gotten.
As she glanced around the much more brightly lit ballroom for food, she spotted Sonia and Evan dancing, as were Anushka and Isaiah. Next to them, Luke was dancing with a group of friends.
“You never actually liked him,”
Lily said, partly to herself. She still couldn’t believe she’d gotten so much wrong, but the whipped cream on her pumpkin éclair helped console her.
“Did you?”
Lily shook her head.
“I thought I should. It was confusing—the whole misreading-my-cards thing. But I also thought you were a walking hex, out to torment me. So I’ve made some mistakes.”
Chrysanthemum licked apple tart off her fingers.
“I can still torment you. Don’t worry. We never had that horror-movie fest you promised me.”
Lily whined.
“Can I take that back?”
“No.”
“I’ll just bury my head in your shoulder the whole time.”
Chrysanthemum smirked.
“You’re giving me more reasons to look forward to it.”
“Well, in that case, we should go practice that move.”
Lily wiped her hands.
“Let’s dance, and I’ll rest my head on you.”
The look of terror Chrysanthemum shot her made Lily grin, and she ignored Chrysanthemum’s protests o.
“I don’t dance!”
and pulled her onto the floor.
“It’s way too late for that,”
Lily said.
Chrysanthemum didn’t dance, and Lily didn’t do horror movies, but they’d taken down a curse. Midnight had come and gone. It was officially Samhain, and that meant it was time to celebrate a new year and everything it brought.
Starting now, they could, and would, do anything and everything together.