Chapter 8
It was that perfect kind of October night, with a waxing gibbous moon and a crisp chill that made you walk a little faster to keep warm, and your breath came out in puffs of steam. Fairy lights twinkled in the windows of the pub as Dina approached.
The Roebuck was one that conjured many embarrassing teenage memories for Dina, mostly because it was the only pub that had served underage kids, provided they didn’t order anything stronger than a fruit cider or mulled wine.
The inside seemed to have been designed to feel as warm and cozy as possible. Brass sconces on the walls bathed the room in a golden glow, and a fire crackled in the wide hearth. It smelled like worn leather, beer, and cedar.
It wasn’t the kind of pub that had awkward bar stools where you spent all night fidgeting to find a comfortable seating position; the Roebuck was the kind of pub that wanted you to stay a while. Each seat was an armchair, worn and homely. The owners were a married couple in their sixties—the Hollands, Dina remembered vaguely. They offered her good-natured smiles from behind the bar as she entered.
She spotted her friends on the twin sofas by the fire and made her way over. Immy was sitting on Eric’s lap and waved, but as soon as Rosemary noticed Dina she hopped out of her seat and came bounding toward her, letting out a squeal loud enough to frighten the locals at the next table.
“You better save me from them, they’re too loved up.” Rosemary grinned, tackling Dina with a wonderfully aggressive hug.
“Shocking, almost like they’re getting married in a few days.”
Rosemary looked grave. “I know, it’s sickening. Let’s get drunk. Can you believe I’ve never had mulled wine?”
Dina gasped in mock horror. “We need to remedy that immediately.”
They hovered by the bar, Rosemary giving Dina the lowdown on the rest of Eric and Immy’s friends who were by the fire. Some she’d met before, but she didn’t recognize a lot of Eric’s workmates.
“I’ve been told that Eric’s best man was meant to be coming, but then he texted Eric saying he’s still running errands for his parents so he might not make it.” Rosemary sipped her mulled wine, her eyes rolling back in pleasure.
“Who runs errands at nine p.m . on a Thursday?” Dina said.
“Indeed,” Immy replied, sidling up to them. She was wearing one of her signature classic horror shirts, this one depicting the hand-swallowing chest cavity scene from The Thing in pretty graphic detail.
For a brief stint during the wedding-planning stage, Immy had been convinced she wanted a horror-movie-themed wedding. Thankfully, Eric had called in a favor from Dina and Rosemary, and they had talked her out of it. Now, Immy and Eric were getting married at Honeywell House the day after Halloween, with a dense forest as a backdrop. It was brilliantly spooky, and Dina couldn’t wait.
“You have your maid-of-honor dress, right? It arrived in the post?”
“Yep, and it’s been rehemmed. How are your parents holding up?” Mr. and Mrs. Partridge were notorious traditionalists and were having a hard time stomaching the idea of their daughter having a humanist wedding, sans church.
“You mean after all the threats that I’ll go to hell and that my marriage won’t be blessed by God? Oh, they’re just dandy.” Immy grimaced.
“Well, just say the word, I’ve got a subduing spell I can use on them for the ceremony. They’ll be calm and happy, but most importantly, lacking in opinions.”
“Wait, is that a real thing?” Rosemary asked. She almost looked like she wanted to pull out a pen and take notes.
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t use it lightly.”
“How come?” Rosemary said.
“If I make the spell too potent, they’ll just fall asleep for days.”
“I’ll let you know. Hopefully we won’t need it,” Immy said.
They made their way over to the group by the fire, the heat turning Dina’s cheeks a pleasant pink. Eric bear-hugged Dina, grinning ear to ear.
“You’re like a lumberjack with that beard,” Dina remarked, nodding toward Eric’s reddish-haired chin.
“Not my fault. You’ve got to tell Immy to get her lumberjack fantasies under control.” He laughed heartily. Dina smiled, so glad that her best friend had found someone like Eric.
Seeing them together, and the way that Eric looked at Immy when she was breaking down the plot of a new horror idea she had, was enough to make a skeptic believe in true love.
Nevertheless, when Eric and Immy had first become serious, Dina had made it clear that Eric would pay if he ever hurt her friend. Thankfully, it didn’t look like it was going to come to that.
The hours passed quickly, spent chatting with her friends and drinking more mulled wine, the edges of the pub beginning to blur merrily.
Every once in a while the pub door would swing open, a flutter of crisp air sweeping leaves onto the cobbled flagstones, and Eric would look up, fully expecting to see his mysterious best man. But whoever he was, he never turnedup.
—
Time flew by in the way that it always did when Dina, Rosemary, and Immy were together, so when she looked down at her phone she was shocked to find it was already close to midnight.
“I’d better go. My mum said she wanted to practice a new henna spell on me,” Dina whispered to Immy and Rosemary.
“What kind of spell?”
“Luscious hair and clear skin, I believe.”
“Ooh, I’ll take some of that!” Immy exclaimed as she hugged Dina goodbye. “See you tomorrow! Tell your mum she can’t lie in!” Dina’s mum practically had three daughters—Rosemary and Immy had spent so many nights staying at the family’s house when they’d all been studying.
Dina waved goodbye to the rest of the group, fist-bumped Eric, and stumbled out of the pub.
Okay, so she was a little drunker than she thought. Turned out two glasses of mulled wine and a white wine spritzer when you didn’t drink all that often could make it quite difficult to walk in a straight line.
Dina decided to take a different route on her walk home, mostly because she wanted to go past a house that always had the most fantastic Halloween decorations.
Each year it surpassed itself. This time round, Dina spotted the green halo of light in the sky from two streets over. When she finally made it outside the house she had to stop and marvel, leaning against an icy street lamp. It was so quiet here; she was so used to the background hum of London that she only noticed it when it was absent.
This year, instead of opting for many smaller spooky decorations, they had opted for two giant ten-foot skeletons, which Dina was pretty sure you had to get shipped over from America. British people never went this hard for Halloween. Their usual limit was a couple of carved pumpkins filled with plastic candles on the doorstep.
Dina never bought sweets for trick-or-treaters herself, partly because she lived on the third story of her apartment building, and partly because she spent each Halloween dancing naked around a fire with Immy and Rosemary, a tradition they’d begun a few years ago.
The two skeletons were positioned to look as if they were gardening, one paused in the movement of pushing a large papier-maché lawnmower, the other pruning an apple tree with a pair of giant cardboard pruning shears. They were lit from below by two green tinted lights, which bathed the entire house in an eerie lime glow.
A church bell echoed in the distance, breaking Dina out of her tipsy stare. She’d probably been ogling that house long enough (she was lucky no one in the neighborhood watch had called the police), so she turned on her heel to head home.
Unfortunately, as she did so, her heel caught on an uneven bit of pavement, sending her flying. She smacked onto the ground, the air pushed from her lungs with force. She tried to move, immediately feeling a bruise blooming on her elbow and a smear of blood on her chin. It didn’t hurt yet but she expected it would soon. Where was her damn witchy intuition when she neededit?
She tried to stand, her ankle twisting uncomfortably under her, and groped dizzily for something to grab a hold of to haul herself upright.
“Here, take my hand. Are you all right?” a voice said from above her. Dina looked up, but her eyes seemed to be playing tricks on her because there seemed to be two Scott Masons standing in front of her.
“Do you have a twin?” she asked, but her voice sounded slurred.
In response, both of the Scott Masons wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her up. She was vaguely aware how nice it felt to have their arms around her, warm and solid.
“Smell like pine,” she mumbled.
“I smell like pine?” She heard him chuckle.
“Pine and soap and dog.”
“Ah well, that’ll be because of Juniper, who needed an extra late-night walk and is being a very good girl right now,” Scott said. Dina tipped her head down and woozily noticed a small round ginger and white corgi waiting patiently at her feet, tongue lolling out of its mouth.
“Hi there, Juniper,” Dina said. Then she felt Scott’s warm touch, his rough palm holding the back of her neck, tilting her face up toward his.
“Dina, look at me. Are you hurt? Your chin has a little bit of blood on it.” He seemed concerned, his brown eyes boring into hers, but she wanted to tell him she was fine, except for the swarm of butterflies in her stomach. Damn the mulled wine.
“You are a dog person!” was all she managed to say, and Scott huffed a laugh in reply.
“Yeah, I’m a dog person. Dina, listen, I think I should call an ambulance, you might be concussed.”
The idea of a concussion jerked her awake, though her limbs were still feeling a little floaty.
“I think I might be, yeah.” She groaned. “But I don’t need an ambulance. Can you just take me home? My mum can do first aid.”
Dina inhaled, smelling Scott’s warm scent, and suddenly her head was very heavy and she needed to lean it against his chest.
“You’re very warm. And big,” she slurred, vaguely aware that she was saying something she should probably be keeping to herself.
“Oh yeah?”
“I don’t normally get held by men, only women. And no one has held me in a long time.”
Scott was silent for a moment, his warm body tensing slightly.
“I didn’t realize you were—”
“I’m bi,” Dina added.
Why had she said that? He probably hadn’t even been about to ask that. It’s not like Scott needed to know who she was attracted to. So why did she want him to know?
Thoughts were swirling around her head and the bump on her chin was starting to ache. All she wanted was to rest her head against Scott’s chest and have a nap. Just a small one. She let out a long breath.
“Don’t fall asleep, Dina. Can you tell me where you live?” Scott said, his breath on her cheek and in her hair. What would happen if she leaned up and pressed a kiss to his lips?
“Stay awake, sweetheart. Tell me where to take you,” Scott said, one arm tucking under Dina’s legs and lifting her up into his arms. He cradled her like she weighed nothing. Dina just about managed to mumble her parents’ address before she slumped into unconsciousness.