12. Home Is Where the Tingle Is
Home Is Where the Tingle Is
It took a moment for Luna’s eyes to accept the shift from Louise’s shadowy nightmare shop to the warm light of the Stargazer Inn. She breathed deeply, taking in the comforting scent of polish on dark wood.
Home. The word settled in her chest with a warmth she hadn’t anticipated.
Recently, all she’d been able to think about was escape.
Constantly dreaming of all the places she’d been and all the others she wanted to see.
Somehow in all that longing, she’d forgotten the delight of a place that knew her completely.
Scarlett was at the reservation desk, looking like she’d aged five years in the time Luna had been gone. She had one arm extended, her expression set in fierce concentration. A stack of towels hovered several inches above the counter, trembling like nervous birds.
“Come on,” she muttered. “Fold. Just fold.”
The towels twitched.
Then, with a soft but unmistakably smug ping, glowing letters appeared in the air above them:
SPELL UNAVAILABLE—TRY AGAIN LATER
The towels flopped lifelessly to the counter.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
Scarlett looked up to find Luna and Elias standing in the middle of the lobby, watching her with concern.
“Luna!” She launched herself at her sister, wrapping her in a fierce hug.
“Oh thank God, you’re back. Not that I was worried or anything.
I knew you could handle yourself, obviously.
Didn’t even cross my mind to be concerned, not one time. But also, I am so glad to see you!”
Luna hugged her back. “I missed you too, Scar.” Her words were sincere, and yet she had the oddest sense that something was missing. Something shared was gone—like an in-joke or the lyrics to a favorite song—that Luna suddenly couldn’t recall.
When they pulled apart, Scarlett glanced over at Luna’s companion. “So,” she stretched her hand out to Shaw, “I take it you’re the rescue cat.”
He took her hand. “At your service.”
Something about his smooth confidence made Luna want to shake him and kiss him simultaneously.
Scarlett waggled her eyebrows at her sister. “Ohhhkay, sure. You kids have impeccable timing. Five minutes ago I tried to clean the lobby. Ten minutes before that, the coffee warmer. Both times, same message: try again later.”
“I’ve seen it, too.” Luna said, nodding. “Louise was right—it’s starting.”
“What is?”
“Where are Mama and Del? We all need to talk.”
“Del’s off somewhere with Jasper, but Mama’s in the garden with her book club. Give her a minute to wrap up and then—”
“Mrs. Melrose?” Elias’s face lit up at the mention of their mother. “She’s here? Hold the line—am I in Oak Haven right now? Is the great Kelly Melrose in situ?”
“Obviously,” Luna replied. “This is the Stargazer, where—” But Shaw was already heading toward the French doors that led to the garden.
She had to conclude her sentence to the empty space where her companion had been: “—where I was born and grew up and which is a site of great importance to me . . . Not that you care. Clearly.”
“Ooh,” her sister snarked. “Beaten out by Mama, of all people.”
“He just— He can’t just— This is my house!” Even as she said it, Luna recognized how petulant she sounded. Get over yourself. You saved him. That was the job, full stop. You didn’t save him so he’d be grateful to you specifically. But that didn’t make it sting any less.
Scarlett grinned, visibly enjoying Luna’s flustered state. “I know, right? Some people have no manners. Come on, let’s not miss this little reunion.”
“He’s not even listening to me about Louise,” Luna muttered as they followed him. “We have a crisis to deal with, and he’s acting like he’s at a tea party.”
“Mm-hmm,” Scarlett said knowingly. “That’s why you’re all atwitter right now. Nothing to do with how good he looks in that suit.”
“I— That’s not— Shut up, Scarlett.” Which was unfair, because Scarlett wasn’t wrong. Luna could be irritated with Elias and remain uncomfortably aware of the way he moved through a room or, yes, how well that suit suited him.
The Stargazer garden was a carefully cultivated space, both elegant and welcoming.
Curved pathways wound between flower beds bursting with early summer blooms, and a small fountain provided a peaceful soundtrack of running water.
Oak trees provided shade for the seating areas, where wrought-iron furniture was adorned with overstuffed pillows, inviting guests to linger.
In the center of the garden, five women sat in a loose circle, mint juleps sweating in the afternoon heat and a plate of sugar cookies reduced to crumbs between them.
Luna recognized them all: her mother Kelly, of course, along with Belinda Chatterjee, Jerusha, Candace, and Polly.
They appeared to be in the middle of a heated literary debate.
“—simply refuse to read any more books about magic.” Belinda waved her mint julep for emphasis. “Chuck Tingle’s portrayal of wizardry was completely unrealistic.”
“It’s fiction, Bel.” Polly laughed. “It doesn’t have to be realistic.”
“Exactly,” Jerusha said. “I say we continue with volume two of the Trans Wizard Harriet Porber series. I want to know what happens in her relationship with Snabe.”
“Or we could finally tackle Proust,” Polly said wistfully.
“I am 124 years old,” Jerusha replied. “I will not waste whatever moments I have left on à la recherche du temps perdu.”
“Ladies,” offered Belinda, “I wonder if we might we consider Bombproof Your Horse? It has excellent reviews—”
“Belinda,” Kelly interrupted. “You don’t have a horse. Much less a bombproof one.”
“You don’t know my life!”
The bickering intensified, so Elias cleared his throat. “Ladies, forgive the interruption. Your intellectual curiosity is truly refreshing. In my day, most ladies’ clubs limited themselves to gossip about the neighbors. Though I suspect you have far more interesting neighbors than most.”
Five heads turned toward him, and Luna watched in fascination and growing annoyance as five faces transformed into expressions of delight.
“Elias!” Kelly leaped up to embrace him. “My stars, look at you! How do you feel? Are you all right? When Luna said she was going to fetch you from that dreadful place . . .”
“Mrs. Melrose,” he said warmly. “Radiant as ever. The fresh air of the real world agrees with you.”
Belinda was on her feet now too, beaming at their visitor. “And how’s our bridge champion? Have you been practicing that defensive play I taught you?”
“Every day, Mrs. Chatterjee, if only in my mind.”
The women clustered around him like a long-lost relative at a family reunion. Luna found herself forgotten at the edge of the garden, watching as Elias regaled them with stories about the Void. He somehow made a century of imprisonment sound like an amusing adventure rather than a nightmare.
Good for him, I guess, she thought. She should be happy that he was fitting in so well. But watching him effortlessly charm the room while she stood invisible on the sidelines made her jaw clench. So much for Luna the heroic rescuer.
“And naturally,” Kelly was saying to the group, “he escaped that terrible place, as I was certain he would.”
“He what?!” Luna didn’t hide her outrage. “Mama, he didn’t escape. I rescued him. He’d been there a hundred years and he’d be there a hundred more if not for me.”
“Your daughter has a point.” Elias shrugged.
“Oh, I’m sure she helped,” Kelly said dismissively. “Now, Elias, you simply must let me show you around Oak Haven.”
“Hang on now,” Luna interrupted. “We need to talk. All of us. There’s a crisis coming, something serious .
. .” But even as she spoke, she could see she’d already lost them.
The book club members were beginning to gather their things, clearly planning to follow Kelly and Elias rather than listen to whatever boring “crisis” Luna wanted to discuss.
She turned to her sister for backup. “Scar, you take me seriously at least. Something’s happening with magic—something bad.”
Scarlett nodded, pulling her sister slightly aside. “Yeah, I noticed. This morning I tried to clean the bathroom in the honeymoon suite . . . just a simple spell, right? Instead I got an error message. Like, literally floating text that said ‘try again later.’”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes. Have you ever scrubbed a toilet by hand? I have never been so disgusted in my life.” Her indignation was mostly in jest, but underneath it, Luna could see real worry. “It’s been getting worse while you were gone.”
She filled Scarlett in: Ashton Vex, the magical app, the Silicon Valley takeover of their entire way of life. “CastR is interfering with natural magic. And it’s our fault he even had the idea in the first place.”
With each detail, Scarlett’s expression grew more alarmed. “Let me get this straight: Some tech bro in California has figured out how to sell magic through an app, and this is somehow making real magic stop working?”
“Louise says we need to stop him before he completely takes over.”
“Sign me up. When do we start?”
They stood in tense whisper-conversation while, just a few feet away, Kelly linked her arm through Elias’s. “Come!” Her voice carried the excitement of a hostess with a prize guest. “Let me show you around our humble village.”
“It would be my absolute pleasure, Mrs. Melrose,” Elias replied, his attention focused on her as if she were the most fascinating, and perhaps only, person in the world.
The other book club members fell into step behind them, chattering excitedly about showing off the town to their distinguished visitor. Luna watched as her mother swept out of the garden with the man she’d risked everything to save, leading him away like a trophy.
“Well,” Scarlett said quietly, watching the group disappear down the garden path, their laughter growing distant. “I guess we better figure out how to make the impossible happen. I get enough error messages from the Wi-Fi router, I’m certainly not accepting them from my spells.”
Luna nodded as she tried to push Elias from her mind. After all, she’d succeeded, hadn’t she? She’d gotten him out of the Void, which was all she’d set out to do. But if she was honest, there was also a kind of longing, an inexplicable pull towards him that left her feeling exposed.
She wouldn’t expect a magician—even a charming one—to be particularly useful in saving the world.
Let him go perambulate around the square with Mama, if that’s what he wanted.
She didn’t need him anyway. Luna was perfectly confident that she and her sisters could save the world on their own . . . even if she couldn’t remember why.
So why did she feel a twinge watching him leave?