Chapter Fifteen #2
‘At least I have a mother.’ Luke put his hand over hers and squeezed.
‘I thought about you a lot after I went away to school. I wanted to call you so many times to see how you and your sisters were doing. I was so worried about you. And sad. I always loved your mom, she used to make the best tea and I loved those Indian cookies she always had in the house. Remember when we used to watch old Bollywood movies together and she’d translate? ’
Blair didn’t say anything, looking at the dense forest outside the window.
She had been worried about telling her mother when she and Luke started dating, figuring Mom wouldn’t approve because Blair needed to focus on her schooling and not on boys.
Blair’s mother may have been a witch, but she was an Indian mother first. But Mom didn’t disapprove of Blair dating Luke.
She was always kind and welcoming to him.
It killed Blair to push Luke away after her mother died.
She knew Luke cared, not just for Blair, but for the whole family, and she knew he could have supported them when they needed it, but Blair had no choice.
Those hard first couple of years after Mom died may have been easier with support and concern from someone as kind as Luke.
But she couldn’t have had that, because she couldn’t let him know what she and her sisters were.
‘We did fine,’ Blair finally said. ‘It wasn’t always easy.
Bianca was a handful for a while. She was so angry .
. . but she was so young, it made sense.
Then she was travelling for so long, refusing to come home.
At least she’s back now. And Belinda had a rough go, too.
Her sleep was completely messed up for years, and she had basically a two-year migraine after Mom passed.
She’s a lot better now, most of the time.
’ Blair sighed, remembering Belinda sleepwalking almost nightly after Mom died, most of the time delivering completely inconsequential prophecies.
Belinda ended up missing a whole year of school because of migraines, and she still hadn’t fully recovered, mentally or physically, from those years.
Blair understood why Luke was willing to do so much to keep his mother’s stress levels low, because Blair was always trying to do the same for her sisters.
‘And what about you, Blair?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ve told me how your sisters have been in the last twelve years, but what about you? Have you been fine?’
Blair didn’t know what to say to that. She was healthy – she always had been.
She had her café, which she loved, and she adored Moonbeam Hollow, but was she fine?
Was she okay? Yes. Mostly. She was tired, but she ran her own business, so that made sense.
She wasn’t lonely – she had her sisters, and she knew pretty much everyone in town. She was fine. Fine enough, anyway.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve been fine. What about you?’
He nodded, not looking at Blair at all. ‘Yeah, I’ve been fine.’
Blair was glad for that. But she also knew that there was a world of difference between fine and happy. And it was interesting that neither of them had asked if the other had been happy in the last twelve years.
* * *
The Moonbeam Hollow Fall Harvest Festival grounds were on a four-acre field right next to the Dewy Bramble farm.
The festival grounds were owned by the town, although they were only used for a few weeks a year.
Agatha met Blair and Luke in the gravel parking lot at the entrance.
She was wearing a long floral jacket over wide green pants and a white button-up, her bright purple rhinestone cat-eye glasses glimmering in the sun.
‘Blair! And . . .’ Agatha frowned. ‘You brought Luke!’ Agatha gave Blair a sideways look, clearly questioning why Blair would be with her professional rival.
Or her ex-boyfriend. Maybe this was a mistake.
Blair had no doubt the entire town would know about Blair’s road trip with Luke by tomorrow morning.
‘Luke was kind enough to drive me here,’ Blair said.
‘Hmmm . . .’ Agatha side-eyed Luke, and Blair couldn’t help but smile. Agatha hadn’t been kidding when she said the Stitch Witches would be on her side in a bakery versus café battle.
‘We both want to find out what’s going on so it won’t affect our businesses,’ Blair said. ‘So can you show us the storage shed?’
‘Yes, of course.’
They followed Agatha to a large barn-shaped shed at one end of the parking lot.
Using a key, Agatha opened a padlock and then slid the barn door hanging on rails open to let them in.
Inside the shed were metal shelves, big plastic bins and stacks and stacks of signs, chairs, tables and other fixtures.
Blair had no idea how anyone kept track of anything with so much stuff in here.
‘Here, these are the tablecloths that were ruined.’ Agatha showed Blair and Luke a stack of thick plastic red gingham tablecloths in a neatly folded stack on a shelf. She took the top tablecloth and unfolded it, revealing a slash going almost from corner to corner. ‘They’re all like this.’
Luke stepped closer, running his hand along the cut in the plastic. ‘Clean cut. Were they all folded up like this?’
Agatha shook her head. ‘No, they were in a pile on the floor. Three vendor tents had the same damage. It will all need to be replaced – the festival has a standard to uphold.’
‘What about the signs?’ Blair asked. Agatha showed them where the signage for the festival attractions were stored.
She flipped through the first three: a sign for the carnival games, the hay maze and the pumpkin-carving corner.
Except instead, the signs read Car ival Ga es, Ha M ze and Pu pki Carvi g Cor er.
‘Is there any pattern to the missing letters?’ Luke asked.
Agatha shook her head. ‘Not that we can see.’
Blair nodded. ‘My sign said Harvest Moo Café after it was tampered with.’
‘How on earth can anyone erase a letter on a hand-painted sign?’ Luke asked, running his hand over a space where a letter should be.
None of this made sense. Whoever or whatever had done this was clearly trying to send a message, but what was that message?
‘Did anyone other than Earl develop a rash?’ Blair asked. ‘And what’s Earl’s normal role in the festival?’
Agatha waved her hand. ‘A little of this, a little of that, like the rest of us on the committee. Earl’s also always been in charge of the opening ceremony. I’m going to have to learn how to perform his part this year. And no one else has any skin irritation.’
‘The festival has an opening ceremony?’ Blair asked. In all the years she’d been attending the festival or working at it, she didn’t remember an opening ceremony.
Agatha nodded. ‘The same ceremony has been done every day the festival is open before the vendors and the public arrive since the very first Moonbeam Hollow Fall Harvest Festival. Apparently, they used to do it in front of an audience, but now it’s usually just town council members and the festival organizing committee. ’
‘What happens in the ceremony?’ Luke asked.
Agatha smiled large. ‘Oh, it’s so . . . powerful.
I get chills every year. A bowl is carved out of a pumpkin and filled with rainwater.
Earl holds it on the stage. And the Moonbeam Hollow mayor says the town motto: “Where Nature is Our strength.” Then she takes the pumpkin and pours the water onto the ground, saying: “Shadows banish, the night is bright, this place is safe, both day and night.” It’s to represent the coming winter, and how Moonbeam Hollow is still a safe, bright place even in the dark nights. ’
A shiver went down Blair’s spine. That little chant sounded suspiciously like a spell.
Or rather, the English translation of a spell.
But the mayor wasn’t a witch, so saying the words shouldn’t do anything, should it?
Was it possible that the mayor’s memories about the festival and town were wiped so she wouldn’t be able to carry out this opening ceremony?
‘If the mayor isn’t recovered,’ Blair asked slowly, ‘who will say this in her place? Another council member?’
Agatha shook her head. ‘It must be the mayor, and it must happen each day the festival is open. It’s written in the town charter. But if she’s not recovered, someone else will have to do it. It won’t be the same. The mayor of Moonbeam Hollow has opened the festival since the town was incorporated!’
Blair bit her lip. She didn’t know what that phrase meant, but she knew one thing – that was a spell.
She’d been confident that the issues in the festival were somehow caused by magic, but now she realized that the festival, and maybe even Moonbeam Hollow itself, had always had some sort of magic in it.
This ritual, one that went all the way back to the town’s incorporation, was proof of that.
‘Agatha, this is my opinion, but I think it’s important that the opening ceremony happens exactly as it always has.’ Blair let out a nervous laugh. ‘I mean, it might be bad luck if it doesn’t.’
Agatha nodded. ‘I agree, completely. We must not forget our traditions, especially now.’
Blair had no idea what the ritual meant, but this could be bigger than she thought. She was in way over her head.