Chapter Thirty-Four
School is out of the question.
I tearfully manage to convince my mom I’m too traumatised by what happened at Elliott’s prom party to leave the house this week.
I think some of her acquiescence is due to her still feeling guilty for being at Clown Guy’s house when everything went down.
Lying to her about this isn’t one of my finer moments, but I also can’t exactly tell her I need to avoid school because being in close proximity to Mount Luther’s prom queen would mean unleashing a wild hell beast on the entire student body – something that would be guaranteed, after Snapchat confirms Avery has returned to school on Tuesday.
But this then means I’m essentially trapped in my house, due to the fact that ever since I was a kid, my mom has had a rule in our house that if I’m too unwell to go to school, I’m too unwell to go outside.
I’d be more annoyed, but with the gala coming up on Saturday and Austin Taylor returning to DC, it’s kind of the perfect time to have an uninterrupted week to study his spell book.
By Wednesday, I’ve spent countless more hours poring over Hexes on Lovers Past, scouring every page of the spell book – even ones that have nothing to do with love or revenge – for some kind of answer as to how this curse could go so sideways, but there’s nothing.
This means that by Thursday, I have no choice but to finally accept what I’ve known all along: the only way to break this curse once and for all is to get back into Austin Taylor’s office, find the binding object, and destroy it.
No matter how screwed up the curse has gotten, this will solve it regardless.
In the evening, I wait until my mom has finally fallen asleep before sneaking out of our house and catching a bus to Woodley Park.
As expected, all the lights in Max’s house are off by the time I reach his street, but I wear a black hoodie to cover my face just in case he or anyone nearby has cameras that might record me snooping around.
Dense green shrubs ring Max’s house, so I’m mostly camouflaged as I tiptoe around the side and crouch down beside the row of rectangular windows leading down to Max’s basement apartment.
As I tried to map out my plan earlier today, I remembered something Max had said when I was last here.
The basement windows, like the rest of the house, are dark. With feather-light fingers, I press against the glass just enough to feel the panel give, the window sliding backwards a fraction of an inch.
A low breath whistles from my lips. It’s just like Max said – the windows aren’t locked.
The windows themselves are pretty small – each maybe a foot and a half wide and another foot tall – but I should be able to squeeze through.
From what I can recall, the drop is kind of steep, but when I come back to break in, there shouldn’t be anyone around to hear me thump ungracefully to the floor.
Because Max and his dad will be at the gala.
The official plan goes something like this:
Step one – Break into Max’s house via one of the open basement windows this Saturday, when he and his dad are at the gala – it’s the only time I know Max won’t be home and I can shake my mom, if my escape plan works.
I could obviously break in at night when Max is sleeping, but it’s too likely I’ll get caught.
Step two – Search through the witchy tchotchkes for the binding object, which should have a magical hum, or whatever.
Step three – Take said binding object and get the eff out of there, preferably undetected.
Step four – Destroy the object ASAP.
Step five – Live a happy, curse-free life and make out with whoever the hell I want.
It’s fairly straightforward, with a few potential variables.
I’m counting on the fact that there’ll only be one single object with a magical current running through it, and that that’ll be the binding object attached to me and my mom.
Austin could’ve been low key cursing people that I don’t even know about for the last seventeen years.
But if there are multiple objects in the locker that have some kind of magical undercurrent to them, I’ll revert to Plan B, which is to fill my backpack with all of them and destroy them in one massive backyard bonfire.
I might do this with all his magical crap anyway, out of caution (or spite).
Obviously, to Austin Taylor, all this will be one giant red flag pointing to my house, if and when he discovers someone’s broken into his place and only stolen the contents of his locker.
Who else would have a motive but me or my mom?
Which is why, in addition to scrutinising every inch of The Gospel of Witchcraft, I’ve also been raiding my kitchen’s spice rack and my mom’s crystal collection to make protection charms. It should stop Austin from inflicting some kind of revenge curse.
Part of me – most of me – felt like an idiot, sprinkling coffee grounds and amethyst flakes into a Ziploc baggie and hiding it in my bra, but the other part remembered that basic salad bro Austin Taylor had pulled off a whopper of a love curse using this very same spell book, which meant I could use it successfully too.
The basement window is silent as I pinch an edge of the frame and gently pull it closed again. As I do, a small rush of air slips through the gap, smelling of vanilla. Max’s smell, the one that encircled me the night of the prom party along with Max’s arms.
It’s still in my head even as I ride the bus home.
Breaking into Max’s house will mean betraying him even more than I already have.
And after everything he’s done – gotten my job back, cared for Tyler, about Tyler, the way he held me – it feels even more unthinkable, but I don’t have a choice.
Once the gala is over, Austin Taylor will be back in the US, significantly narrowing if not permanently closing my window of chance to find the binding object that’s cursing me and my mom.
And now that Avery has started turning, I have to break this stupid thing if I want to go back to school and graduate in June.
Besides, even if Austin does figure out it’s me that took his stuff, it’s not like he’ll tell Max – that would mean admitting what he did.
And if he does come clean and Max finds out what I’ve been doing – well, I’ll have to cross that bridge later.
But for now, I have to make sure this curse bullshit is over once and for all.
And on Saturday, one way or another – it will be.