Chapter 32 . . . Stays in Oak Haven
Nestled in an overstuffed velvet booth with two beautiful women he understood to be his superiors, Max was happy to be forthcoming about his adventures. Or what he could piece together anyway. Quentin sat on the table, chewing away on his fourth carrot of the evening.
“Clearly, you ladies already know all about my assignment, so I can skip that—”
“Well . . . of course we do know it all,” Delilah offered. “But you should begin at the beginning anyway.”
Scarlett nodded, and with her eyes, she tried to tell her sister that yes, that’s the idea . “Part of our report will include an assessment of your ability to understand the broader context. So. Have at it.”
“Yes, Max. Contextualize it for us.”
Max glanced from one woman to the other, his expression baffled but game. “Uh, sure. Whatever you say. So, the broader context is, of course, the situation in Jacksonville. The city is completely denuded of magic—dried up completely. The local magicians are all desperate to relocate. But it’s tough because so many magical sites have already been claimed. However, there is this little New England oasis called Oak Haven, which sits on a veritable oil well of pure magical power that nobody is using. And—”
“Well,” Scarlett interrupted, “not nobody , right?”
“Sure, but not anybody who’s a somebody, if you catch my drift. The town’s run by this posse of postmenopausal witches. ”
Both Scarlett and Delilah couldn’t help noticing that when Max said witches , he seemed to intend a different word entirely. They very much did not care for it.
“This place could be an absolute gold mine,” he continued. “Have you seen what’s been done with Salem, Massachusetts? Witch museums, witch walking tours, witch-themed restaurants and hotels, witch-themed T-shirt shops . . . If exploited correctly, Oak Haven could be all that and more. Someone stands to make a fortune—why not us? But there’s one problem, which is this vexing amnesia-like spell protecting Oak Haven. Makes for a terrible marketing campaign: Come Visit Oak Haven—Make No Memories Whatsoever !”
“And yet you seem to remember it.” Delilah was sounding more confident by the moment. “How is that possible?”
“Well, everything I’ve told you so far—all that context , as you put it—I already knew before I left. Alas, I recall very little of what happened once I arrived. But! We were working on this problem, you see. Because it turns out—and this really is clever, I do give those old witches credit—the amnesia is caused by these constant psychic blasts of meaningless information. The enchantment prevents memories from forming. But we have found a weakness: you can steel yourself against the onslaught by training your brain to file away these factoids before they can harm you. It takes a great deal of practice—it’s not easy, don’t misunderstand! But if you study hard, it can be done.”
Scarlett’s own memory suddenly flashed to Hexpresso Yourself—that conjuration of magicians inside, and the jaunty chalkboard sign outside—QUIZ NIGHT, it had said, SHOW OFF YOUR MAD TRIVIA SKILLZ. She remembered all those reference books they’d found in Max’s room, and the time she’d found him studying World War II facts in the dining room.
“Trivia nights,” she said suddenly. “You trained your minds to fight the spell by means of regular trivia nights.”
“Exactly!” Max said enthusiastically. “We, um . . . Well. Actually, I’m a bit fuzzy on how we went about it. But I do recall finding myself in some sort of public venue . . . a bar, perhaps? Maybe? Or . . . was it a Starbucks?”
“Don’t even joke !” Scarlett exclaimed. “Oak Haven does not have and will never have a fucking Starbucks.”
“It’ll have three by the time we’re done with it!” Max swiveled his head from Scarlett to Delilah and back, seeking affirmation. But their unsmiling faces gave him pause. “Erm . . . are you sure you’re my handlers?”
Delilah knitted her fingers together, making a little church with her hands. “Let me make sure I understand. You discovered that the more skilled a brain becomes at filing away irrelevant tidbits, the less power the spell has over that person.”
“Exactly! So . . . I think . . . what I did . . . I’m not sure about this part. But I think I used to sit for hours, training myself. Just learning facts. You know, like, the Beatles’ first gig was at the Marquee Club in 1961.”
“So much for your training.” Scarlett frowned. “The Beatles’ first gig was at the Cavern Club. You’re thinking of the Stones.”
“Oh. Ah. Amnesia spell strikes again, I suppose.” Max blushed uncomfortably. “Still, you’re all ready for a visit, sounds like! Say, shall we order another round of drinks?”
“I don’t think so, Maxie Boy,” Delilah said, suddenly dropping into Bad Cop mode. “I have more questions. Tell us about the dragonflies.”
“Well, it, uh . . . sounds like you already know about the dragonflies.”
“Yeah,” she replied, her anger rising. “ But what do you know, pal?! ”
Scarlett subtly lifted her hand, as if to say, Okay , Del, cool it.
“Well, the plan going in—and, remember, I cannot testify to what actually occurred once I got there—but the plan was to infect their oak grove with these ancient magical flies that render their magic source unstable. That would cause chaos in the town, set witches against one another, presumably? While the women were distracted, we could focus on our trivia training and destroy the amnesia spell.”
“But this doesn’t make sense,” Scarlett mused. “The infestation makes the magic unusable. If you spoil the magic source, then what’s the point?”
“Exactly!” Delilah pounded the table repeatedly. “What do you gain, Max? What do you gain? ”
Jesus, Scarlett thought, I’ve created an improv monster . . .
Max stared at the women, mystified. “We have a plan to fix it, obviously . From the beginning, the plan was that we’d be the heroes who came up with the cure. Those old biddies would be so happy to have their magic working, they probably wouldn’t even fight us on the Starbucks thing. We magicians could just take over. And then . . . wait . . . hang on! I just realized something . . . I’m sitting here. I left Oak Haven. So . . . maybe it’s done? Maybe it worked! Did it work?”
“It absolutely did not work,” Delilah said darkly.
“Yeah . . . yeah, I’m afraid you failed big time, buddy.” Scarlett gave her sister a subtle nod. Best to let Max assume the big plan had gone wrong. “The witches figured out the cure on their own.”
“Ohhh calamity,” Max said sadly. “Yes, that was always the potential weak point in our plan. That they’d suss it out before we were ready. Ah, well. So tell me, what did the cure turn out to be? The bosses wouldn’t say—I suppose they were afraid I would drop hints unintentionally. By any chance, was it blackbirds? Please tell me it was blackbirds.”
“Blackbirds?” Scarlett asked. “I don’t understand.”
“The oak grove is an ecosystem, no? Which means it’s all a big food web. Why do flies exist, really, except to become dinner for something bigger? We had a betting pool in the office, actually—we all wagered on which animal would be used to clear out the flies. I put all my money on blackbirds. A friend of mine bet on chuckwallas, which are some sort of desert lizard? I said to him, ‘Brian! Oak Haven is in New England. Why would it be desert lizards?’ But I don’t know . . . Brian just likes chuckwallas, I suppose. Now, Cindy the intern, she bet on bats—I thought that was clever. Witches, bats . . . would make sense . . .”
As Maximillian babbled on about his precious wager, Scarlett touched her sister’s hand. “We should get home right away, start conjuring predators,” she said quietly.
Delilah nodded. “Sounds like a good Luna job to me. Let’s get back.” She slid out of her side of the booth.
“Wait, where are you going?” asked Max.
“We’re busy.” Delilah shrugged. “And you bungled it. You failed. And those bosses you mentioned? Do they strike you as forgiving types? I suspect not so much.”
“Leave the bill,” Scarlett told her sister. “Take the rabbit.”
Delilah picked up Quentin’s cage and tucked it under her arm.
“Not Quentin, no,” begged Max. “Please . . . please don’t take my Quentin.”
“You keep him locked in a tiny cage all day. And then you took him to a bar . In Vegas, of all places. I think Quentin deserves better care than that, wouldn’t you agree? There’s more to a bunny’s life than being shoved into hats and pulled out of them again.”
“But I don’t understand . . .” Maximillian the Magnificent gazed around, suddenly as denuded of magic as a Jacksonville oak tree. “I mean . . . if the plan failed . . . and you’re leaving . . . what do I do now?”
Scarlett left the booth to stand beside her sister. “You fought witches, and the witches won. And in a situation like that, there’s really only one thing you can do.” She leaned over the table, and she stared into Max’s soul with witchy eyes full of fire. “ Hide .”