Practically Magic

1

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“Everyone grab a partner,” Mr. Ruth says. “Remember, whoever comes up with the best Halloween display will have it featured in the town green! And yes, you’ll get five extra points added to your lowest test score.”

My best friend, Laney, steps up next to me, like she always does, but I subtly shake my head. Laney and I could totally crush this competition, and while I’m never one to say no to extra credit, right now there’s something more important than that.

But that something is currently talking to Zara Patel. I’ll have to move quickly if I want to be lab partners with him.

I’ve been waiting all month to find a time to ask Colton Croft to come to my Halloween party.

The note that I passed him in history had a perfect message that was equal parts flirty and confident, but when Mrs. Hullman slammed the door, it went flying directly into the trash.

When I tried waving him down in gym class, a tenth grader mistook my gesturing as an invitation to chuck the basketball at my head.

Even once I was on the floor, Colton Croft didn’t even look at me.

But this time, it’s going to work. I’m going to get Colton Croft to notice me.

We’re going to crush this experiment, have it enshrined on the town green, and he’s going to come to my Halloween party, where he’ll realize that I’m the girl he’s been looking for, and we’ll get married and finally unite the two oldest families in Mystic Hollow.

I just need to get to the lab bench before Zara sits down next to him.

Colton is so cute, you’d think someone designed him on Canva.

He’s got expressive blue eyes, a strong jawline, and killer blond hair that I can picture running my fingers through.

Plus, Colton is funny, charming, town royalty (his dad is mayor), and our star quarterback.

Is it at all a surprise I’d been in love with him forever? Or, you know, technically a year?

“Don’t tell me you’re going for dry ice,” a voice mutters behind me.

“Get out of my way, Powell,” I bite back. The last thing I need is Zach Powell blocking me here as well. He’s been a tenth of a GPA point ahead of me all year, thanks to taking a second language as a senior—of course he’s going to score straight A’s at freshman-level French.

But the extra time spent swerving around Zach—who happens to be infuriatingly tall—is all it takes. Zara slips onto the stool beside Colton.

“Katherine,” Mr. Ruth says. “Who’s your partner?”

“I—” I gesture toward Colton, who is helping Zara put on her goggles. She giggles. I grit my teeth.

“I’ll work with Kat,” Zach offers.

“I’ll work alone,” I say at the same time.

Mr. Ruth frowns. “You need a lab partner. Two heads are better than one. We haven’t had a student win on their own since . . . well, your sister.”

Now I’m definitely not working with Zach.

“In fact,” Mr. Ruth continues, raising his voice, “don’t bother trying anything with dry ice. Harriet Hadley’s exemplary display of sublimation two years ago—”

I snatch up the dry ice. Zach raises a brow at me. “Sure that’s a good idea, Hadley?”

“Yes,” I say shortly, stepping up to the only empty lab bench.

Unfortunately, that means Zach has to follow me.

He helps himself to a pair of goggles, tangling them in his curls as he tries to get them over his normal glasses.

When he holds out a pair to me, they knock into my nose—I was staring at Colton again.

They seem to be making some sort of bright green slime. Zombie brains? Colton is laughing, flicking it toward Zara, who shrieks and tries to shield her curtain of long, dark hair.

“Mr. Ruth already said your sister did it best—”

I might growl at Zach. That might be the noise coming out of my mouth. While Laney would hold up her hands in defeat, Zach only glares right back at me.

“Need I remind you,” I continue, digging in the drawer for a beaker. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the dry ice that will be better than what my perfect sister did—considering Mr. Ruth is still extolling her Halloween display—but I need to do something better. “I won the science fair last year.”

Zach folds his arms over his chest, blocking out the “FurReal” logo on his tee.

It’s the name of the animal rescue “initiative” he started at Mystic Hollow High this year.

Not a club. An initiative. Apparently, it looks better on college applications.

At least that’s what I overheard him bragging to someone.

I’m in five clubs—my sister was only in four—but I’ve never created one.

I’m not sure that group silent reading sessions or candle making would look quite as impressive on my résumé, so what’s the point?

“You won on a technicality,” Zach goes on. “My tornadic activity experiment came in second by less than a tenth of a point.” I snort. “Seriously, Hadley, we should do our own thing.”

If he wants to go to battle, my armor is ready. “We are not doing anything. Mr. Ruth just said we can enter on our own. My sister did it.”

“You aren’t Harry Hadley,” Zach points out, and I rip the next drawer open so sharply that the beakers nearly break, hot anger scorching down my neck.

Laney shoots me a concerned look from where she’s paired up with Zach’s old lab partner.

I shake my head subtly, and she points over at Colton, who is “helping” Zara stir their slime from behind, his arms around her like a bear hug.

I could choke on my jealousy.

But then I notice where Laney is pointing. On the counter sits an orange envelope. Even from here, I can see Zara’s flowing script: Colton Croft <3.

Laney mouths at me, “Invite?”

My stomach swoops. What if Zara Patel is having a Halloween party too? And if she invites Colton? And he says yes to her—and not to me?

It’ll all be for nothing. My month of handcrafting decorations.

All the times I’ve tried to convince my mom that I can safely host a party at our house.

I even already sent all the invitations, personalized to every kid in my grade.

This is the one year when I’m not in Harry’s shadow, when my parents are going to be out of town.

I have to get Colton to my Halloween party.

I need to make sure Colton doesn’t get that invitation.

Across the room, Laney is mouthing something I can’t quite pick up on. Her lab partner gives her a strange look as she starts gesturing over her head, forming a tall triangle from her temples up, hands meeting two feet above her crown. As if she’s wearing a giant pointy hat.

Right.

I may not be Harry Hadley, but I am a Hadley. And every Hadley girl is a witch. I can spell my way out of this. I gather my long red hair and use the hair tie on my wrist to pull it into a messy bun so I can focus. Of course I didn’t get Harry’s sleek blond locks.

Spell casting requires two things: intention and sacrifice.

Spells work best if you sacrifice something that represents the target—in this case, it’s easy, since the target is just a note.

I rip a piece of paper from Zach’s binder—he squawks at me, but I ignore him—and scribble my intention. Destroy Zara’s note.

“We should work as a team,” Zach is saying, cranking up his Bunsen burner. When he turns to double-check his chemicals—boric acid and alcohol, so he’s going for a green flame, which is annoyingly clever—I lunge forward for the fire.

Sacrifice. If I burn this paper imbued with my meaning, the spell should work.

Emphasis on should. Because even though I’m a teenage witch from twenty generations of the most powerful witches, my spells rarely work as intended. To put it mildly.

Laney gives me a thumbs-up as I jerk my note toward the fire.

“Kat! Watch out!” Zach cuts in, trying to yank my hand away from the Bunsen burner.

His obnoxiously large hand clamps over mine, hot and rough, but I shove my way forward.

Rage burns through me at the way he manhandles me, but I try to focus on my intention.

Destroy, I think, pushing the note into the flames.

The fire catches, and the little scrap of lined paper blackens, curls, and smokes.

Zach swears under his breath, knocking the ashes onto the black tabletop.

I ignore him and hold my breath, glancing over at Zara.

As Colton ducks down to dig through his bag, Zara perches on the lab stool, whisks her hair down her back, and opens her lab notebook with a flourish.

As the marbled black-and-white cover falls open, the pages glow, and my hands suddenly go numb and tingly.

A split second and my stomach sinks with a realization.

Zach lurches forward, tackling Zara to the floor, as the paper explodes in flames that shoot up five feet, a column of fire to the ceiling.

I yelp and reach for the fire extinguisher, coating the entire bench—and Zara and Zach—in foam. As my hands shake, my brain catches up.

Destroy Zara’s note.

I wasn’t clear enough. Apparently, I was enthusiastic about the destroy part, but maybe I hadn’t thought clearly about which note—or notebook. My heart leaps into my throat. Does that mean the spell worked?

Then we hear a ghostly moan.

I scan the table and floor. Because as the smoke billows, I can’t see Colton.

A figure staggers through the haze, hands out, and I follow the broad shoulders, hoping to see Colton’s golden hair, his bright smile, his blue eyes.

Instead, I see nothing. Because this figure doesn’t have a head.

“Oh my god! It’s the Headless Horseman!” someone shouts. Lab stools clatter to the linoleum as people scatter. Tom Callabra, the biggest football player on the team, yelps and tries to use Laney as a human shield.

“Hey, man!” she complains, knocking him aside, but he’s already sprinting toward the door, as Mr. Ruth tries to urge students to evacuate in a calm and orderly process.

Still, the figure lurches forward. Toward me.

It’s a familiar shape that I’ve seen at our football games and emblazoned on Colton’s jersey. But just because our mascot is the Headless Horseman doesn’t mean I was prepared to see the actual Headless Horseman during third-period chemistry.

“Kat!” Laney says. “Do something!”

He’s wearing all black with a long jacket and tails, and riding boots.

The real clue we’re in trouble is the fact the figure has no head.

Just a collar with a severed neck peeking out of his shirt.

Slowly the Horseman walks through the crowd that parts for him like the sea.

Mr. Ruth steps forward, leveling his jaw.

“That is enough,” he says. “Halloween costumes are only allowed on Halloween. And even then, only when you pay the five-dollar donation to the Horseman Scholarship Fund for seniors. Unmask yourself!”

A low moan issues from the headless figure, and he steps forward, hands shaking as they near Mr. Ruth’s forehead, knocking glasses from his nose.

“I mean it!” I hear Mr. Ruth try once more, but his voice cracks as the Horseman lets out another ghostly moan.

“This is a job for Kat Hadley,” Laney whispers. “Do something!”

I don’t hesitate. I have to try. I look around wildly for an object I can imbue with my intention then destroy. What represents the Headless Horseman? A . . . head? Something with a face?

There’s another scream. The Horseman has his arms around Zara. She swings her arms wildly to get away.

“Help me!” Zara cries. “Someone help me!”

“Do something!” Laney hisses again. “Before he drags all our spirits down to the underworld!”

Zara used to call me “Carrot Top” in elementary school, but I still don’t want to see her join Hades before her time.

But then it all clicks. Something orange that has a face.

Or at least, can have a face—if you carve it.

“Trying! I need a pumpkin.” I lunge toward the front table, where Mr. Ruth laid out all the supplies for our Halloween displays.

My hands are tingling again, like I’ve hit both funny bones at the same time.

My aunts are always telling me that I have the magic inside me—that I’m a Hadley, that it doesn’t matter if Harry cast her first spell at three to call the biggest snowstorm Connecticut’s ever seen and I still can’t even conjure a single raindrop on purpose.

But whenever I try to cast a spell, all I feel is panic. Empty, helpless panic.

Because I’m not Harry Hadley, and I’m not even sure if I deserve to be a Hadley.

“Pumpkin!” Laney says, chucking one at me.

I fumble for the gourd. I don’t have time to write anything, so I’ll have to just think extra hard.

It’s risky—Harry still writes most of her spells—but if I can pull this off, I’ll be a hero.

Destroy the Horseman, I tell it. And then I put it back down on the linoleum and attempt to smash the small pumpkin with my foot.

Instead, my ankle rolls, the pumpkin shooting out as if I’ve booted it for a corner kick.

“Uh-oh,” Laney and I whisper as the pumpkin slams directly into Zach’s foam-covered shin.

“Oww!” he cries.

That’s when I hear someone laughing.

“Everyone chill!” Colton’s voice comes from inside the Horseman, and I watch as he unzips the collar and reveals his own head. “It’s just me.” He shrugs out of his costume and shows off his sweaty self. The boy even looks good glistening. “Scared you good, didn’t I?” he asks.

And then he turns directly at me and winks.

At me.

Slowly, the classroom quiets. Zach looks like he lost a fight with a giant toothpaste tube.

The lab has fared far worse; I’ve seen less disastrous photos from the aftermath of earthquakes.

Stools are scattered. Someone shattered an Erlenmeyer flask in their haste to escape. And everything is coated in foam.

Mr. Ruth is glaring from the charred remains of Zara’s notebook to the lone Bunsen burner in the entire room that’s lit. That’s when the sprinklers kick in overhead, the fire alarm blaring.

Oh boy.

“What just happened?” Mr. Ruth demands, his face is beet red, glasses still askew. No one is pointing fingers at the mayor’s son.

“Kat and Zach lit a piece of paper on fire,” I hear someone say.

And before Zach or I can even begin to protest, Mr. Ruth turns to me and Zach and angrily says words I never thought I’d hear in my high school career: “Detention! For both of you!”