Chapter 36 Ever After
Ever After
With the arrival of Selcouth coven into Port Sylvan, welcome guests in a way that Sage would never have dreamed possible, the fairy tale that held the town in its thrall was soon soothed back to sleep.
Under Bonnie’s skilled Earth Sorcery specialism, the thorns were stripped and coaxed back beneath the ground, returning the flower garden, the community green and the dell to their usual unruffled peace.
For a small woman, she also made exceptionally quick work of a very burly beanstalk.
The frigid, icy air was warmed back to a more lulled November drizzle—not everything could be perfect, even with magic at the helm.
Many hands made light work of the rest too.
Costumes and personalities had been among the first elements to gradually fade to reality by themselves, but with assistance, the buildings soon shed their changes too.
The rest of the town reconnected with its genuine storybook character, rather than the sinister, supernatural version that had taken hold through October.
There had been an elated reunion with Sage’s brother and sister, the latter of whom launched herself at her so gleefully at the top of the Lyceum that they narrowly missed toppling out the window.
Laurel was still yawning a lot and craving an even more obscene amount of sugar than usual.
Robin complained of aching, stiff joints every time he had to get up off the couch, but of course it was Casimir who felt the sorriest for himself.
Although he made the quickest recovery, he liked to remind Sage, with a dramatic wince and a pathetic cough, that he had battled the thorns and a dragon to win her heart.
She told him that he needn’t have bothered, because he’d managed it the day he gave his third-year seminar on The Ontology of Jinxes, which wasn’t quite the romantic start he was looking for.
The only lasting effect from the spell was Mal’s voice.
The cat had absolutely and completely refused to give up his newfound vocal cords, no matter which incantations they tried, and even the coven’s most skilled Animal Affinity expert had been left utterly puzzled by his feline stubbornness, only admitting defeat when the cat took a final, merciless swipe at him.
Sage was nothing but proud of her familiar.
She thanked the coven for their assistance and reassured them all, especially Arty, that she would be in touch soon, once she had taken some time to look after herself.
The old warlock had a surprisingly full understanding of Sage’s difficult start to magic and seemed to know a lot about the effects that dark magic could have on a witch’s mind.
She was touched that he seemed to be giving her unusual arrival much thought and admired the fair solutions that he continued to put to her—not excuses but logical explanations.
Sage had never been greeted by the coven to begin her traditional endarkenment debut, because the darkness that came so soon with the death of her parents had overcome the call of her magic.
And Lilara’s curse had blanketed everything, hidden Sage entirely from their gaze.
Arty insisted that there was much time and care for Selcouth to make up for, and Sage found she did not recoil at the prospect.
He had not even judged her when she confessed to Selcouth that she had done away with her entire collection of one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable magical artefacts that were probably vital to the coven’s history.
They were only too patient and understanding of her actions; it seemed that a few of them had made similarly stupid, rash decisions themselves in the past when it came to magic.
A fascinating, time-meandering enchantment cast by a skilled young witch homed in on only the bonfire specifically and rewound the flames to offer up each of the precious items that she had cast into the fire.
Everything was spat back out in as good a shape as it had been before and, in some cases, even better than when she had removed it from the archive.
Sage wiped away a few happy tears when she returned the final few items to their rightful places on the archive shelves.
It was a convenient discovery that Port Sylvan’s Equinox Gallery did in fact contain another, more permanent door (disguised as a broom cupboard, ironically for witches) which functioned as a direct entrance to Hecate House.
The town had long been an entry-point location for their headquarters, given its lingering magical heritage and the ley lines that crossed beneath the gallery.
Sage had promised to visit often and would be joining her new friends for Book Club next Thursday.
Halloween had been and gone, but Laurel insisted on a late celebration anyway.
It wasn’t fair that she’d slept through her favourite holiday, so naturally, under her instruction, they had spent three days on the finishing touches.
The whole town was happily on board, as everyone seemed strangely forgetful as to what they’d been doing on the thirty-first.
“Stop eating the children’s sweets—you’re asking for bad karma,” Sage barked at Laurel from behind the welcome desk as her sister returned from the kitchen, struggling to carry an enormous hollowed-out pumpkin that was overflowing with packets of trick-or-treat sweets.
“I’m not,” Laurel argued, a lollipop sticking out of the side of her mouth.
The museum was the final stop on Port Sylvan’s Hallo-walk, the costume trail for kids which made a snack stop at many spots on the map. Rather unbelievably, the whole concept had come from Sage’s imagination, and she had willingly pitched it at the last town meeting to rapturous applause.
“I still cannot believe your costume. You’re sick, do you know that?” Sage said, gathering up the last of the fake cobwebs to drape over the light fixtures.
Laurel was dressed as a zombie princess. “Too soon?” she asked with a mischievous grin, adjusting her crown. “At least I spent more than Robin did.”
“Don’t hate my thrifty dad talents,” Robin called over from the back cabinet, where he was lighting the last few black and purple pillar candles in antique stands around the place.
He was dressed as a mummy and had stolen most of the Dap’s toilet roll supply for the effort.
“And you’re sure you still want this here?
” he asked Sage sceptically. He gestured at Lilara’s book, which Sage had placed on a wooden display stand in the back corner. “Isn’t it sort of…bad vibes?”
“ ‘Bad vibes,’ Rob? Is that really all you’ve got for that ornament of evil?
Need I remind you that I fought a dragon while you were both climbing trees and taking a nap?
Ow,” Casimir said. Sage had whacked him over the head affectionately with a plastic skull.
“I’m on your side. Burn it, if you ask me. ”
“I tried.” Sage shrugged.
Obviously, the existing exhibition could not remain the tribute to Lilara Mournfell that it had been.
Casimir had been ready to scrub any mention of her name from the records and came perilously close to flushing her charm chain down the toilet.
Sage had managed to wrestle it from him by distracting him with a kiss.
He had declared the battle as entirely unfair, but she had grown rather fond of the thing.
She continued to wear it as a reminder of all they had defeated together.
“We’re academics, Casimir,” Sage reminded him, starting her checks of the newly arranged Spirits and Hauntings cabinets before they opened to the public.
“We do not and we cannot ignore the facts. This was her home, as much as any of the other wondrous women across our records. Her magic was powerful and impressive and important. You don’t have to forgive her, but I certainly won’t pretend that it never happened, and neither should you. ”
Sage knew that she was well within her rights to hate Lilara. But her bitter change and villainous decisions had come from such sadness, a desperation to bring someone onto her side, to feel less alone. It was a feeling Sage related to acutely.
Their only difference was that Sage had given true magic the time it needed to reveal itself to her.
The stuff was shy for some folks. She knew that she could easily have made very different decisions.
She had felt herself on that same precipice before and patience had never exactly been her strongest suit.
It was a miracle that she had managed to find it within herself, and maybe it was only because she had more to lose than Lilara ever did that she had managed it.
Magic had never turned its back on her, even when she rejected it so determinedly. It had just known to be patient with her. And she had never abandoned it either, not really. Her studies had probably been a subconscious choice to stay close to witchcraft all along.
Sage took one last glimpse at her reflection in the gilded mirror and righted her pointed witch’s hat to the proper, smart angle.
This one was not made of plastic, and it did not rustle in that mortifying static way against her curls.
This was her official coven uniform, tall and with a wide brim that she actually thought was quite becoming.
It made her look suitably intimidating—a look she very much enjoyed.
“I still think my hat was better,” Casimir said into her hair as he came up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. “I miss it every day. This one just isn’t cutting it,” he said, referring to the new, giant pirate hat that was part of his flamboyant Halloween costume.