Chapter 11
Maybe those toy skulls actually killed us and now we’re in hell, Vivi thought as she sat in her favorite chair in the storage room, the golden velvet wingback that she’d spent so much time in, there was probably an impression of her butt in the cushion.
It seemed like a good explanation for why she was stuck in this night that wouldn’t end. First the caves with Rhys, then that nightmare here at the store and now, despite being nearly thirty years old, she had to explain to Aunt Elaine that she’d broken one of the most sacred rules of witchcraft because a guy hurt her feelings.
And that guy was currently here.
“It was an accident,” she said again for what felt like the twentieth time this evening. “We were just . . . being silly.”
“There is no being silly with magic,” Aunt Elaine said, as stern as Vivi had ever heard her. She was standing in front of one of the wardrobes, her arms folded over her chest, her hair pulled back from her face. Several earrings sparkled in her left ear, a long strand of silver dangling from the right, and she looked every inch the powerful witch she actually was. “As I told both of you, constantly,” Elaine went on before walking over to the wardrobe and pulling out a T-shirt.
“What does this say?” she asked, shaking it, and Vivi saw Gwyn roll her eyes from her own spot, sitting crossed-legged on one of the trunks.
“Mom,” Gwyn started, and Elaine raised a hand. “Oh, you will not be ‘Mom-ing’ me, young lady.”
Rhys, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet since they’d all retired back here, walked up to Elaine and took the T-shirt from her.
“‘Never mix witchcraft with vodka,’” he read, then nodded. “Solid advice, that.”
“Okay, no,” Gwyn said, standing up from the trunk. Her mascara was smudged and there was a run in her tights, but other than that, she didn’t seem that much worse for wear, given what had happened tonight. “You don’t get a say in any of this. This is all your fault.”
“Because I did the curse?” Rhys asked, raising one eyebrow as he tossed the shirt back to Elaine. “Is that why it’s my fault?”
Hands on her hips, Gwyn faced off with Rhys. “Because it’s your fault we had to curse you in the first place. If you hadn’t shattered Vivi’s heart—”
“I didn’t shatter anything,” Rhys scoffed, and Vivi’s heart sped up as she watched him pause, thinking it over.
Then he looked at her with those blue eyes and asked, “Vivienne . . . did I shatter your heart?”
Now not just the night that would never end, but possibly one of the worst nights of her life.
“You didn’t,” she said, desperate to save some kind of face here.
And maybe she could have had Gwyn not existed.
Gaping at Vivi, Gwyn said, “Um, he very much did. Remember all the crying? The bath? You kept conjuring up the smell of his cologne, for fuck’s sake.”
Vivi’s face flamed red and she sunk farther into her chair. “I did not do that,” she muttered even as Rhys stared at her in obvious shock.
“You called me a ‘fuckerneck,’ which is not even a word,” he reminded her. “You threw my own pants at me. You weren’t brokenhearted, you were angry.”
“Right, because no woman has ever been both those things at the same time,” Gwyn said, and Vivi finally stood, scrubbing her hands over her face.
“Would everyone stop acting like I was this tragic, lovelorn victim? I was a drunk teenager goofing around with my equally drunk cousin. This was not that big of a deal.” She paused, then rolled her eyes. “Okay, so this part of it has turned out to be a big deal, but I mean the actual cursing bit. That was not meant to be a big deal, and you’re all being ridiculous about it.”
She pointed at Rhys. “Do you really want to tell me you didn’t do something overly dramatic and stupid as a teenager?”
“‘Overly dramatic and stupid’ describes my entire teenage career, so no.”
“Gwyn?” she asked, turning to face her cousin.
Screwing up her face, Gwyn said, “Girl, you lived with me when I was a teenager. You know.”
Nodding, Vivi faced Aunt Elaine, who continued to frown at her for a beat only to finally throw up her hands and say, “I know you’re just going to mention the whole thing with Led Zeppelin, so let’s just skip it and admit we’ve all done stupid things in our pasts, and leave Vivi alone about her motivation.”
“Thank you,” Vivi said. “Now that we all agree that the why does not matter, the issue is the what. Namely, what this curse might mean for Graves Glen.”
Sighing, Elaine reached up and tugged at her earring. “I assume the curse spread to the ley lines,” she said, “and given that the ley lines fuel all the magic in town, that magic is now . . . corrupted.”
Hence evil plastic skulls, and while Vivi prided herself on being optimistic, she wasn’t naive enough to think that was going to be the limit of this disaster. Who knew what other things the cursed ley lines might unleash?
“I need to talk to my father,” Rhys said as he leaned against the wardrobe, tossing one of the skulls that had survived Elaine’s spell back and forth in his hands. Every time its teeth clacked together, Vivi felt her skin crawl. Too bad they’d never be able to sell those things again because they really had been popular. But revisiting a nightmare was not worth the occasional extra five bucks, in Vivi’s opinion.
“Do you want me to get the mirror?” she asked Rhys, and he raised his head, startled.
“I said I need to talk to him, not that I’m actually going to do it.” Rhys shuddered. “This night has been horrible enough already.”
“Simon will need to be told,” Aunt Elaine said on a sigh, sinking into the chair Vivi had just vacated. “And I don’t look forward to his reaction.”
“What can he do?” Gwyn asked. “I mean, other than be a dick about it.”
Pushing off the wardrobe, Rhys gave a humorless laugh. “Ah, the times I’ve asked myself, ‘What can my father do about something other than be a dick,’ only to find out he can do plenty.”
Vivi had already been worried—battling a bunch of toys come to life had that effect on a girl—but now she felt her heart plunge somewhere south of her knees.
Rhys’s father.
“Is your dad going to come here,” she asked Rhys, “and, like, smite us?”
The corner of Rhys’s mouth lifted just the littlest bit. “Honestly, with most people, I’d make fun of the word ‘smite’ here, but in my father’s case . . .”
The smile faded, and Vivi’s hopes went with it. She thought of the tarot card Gwyn had drawn, Aunt Elaine’s cabin as The Tower, cracked in two and sliding off the side of the mountain.
What if that had been some kind of prophecy?
“You’re turning green,” Gwyn said, crossing the room to stand in front of Vivi.
“We’re gonna fix this,” she said, laying her hands on Vivi’s shoulders and giving a shake. “We’re badass witches, remember?”
“You’re a badass witch,” Vivi reminded her. “Aunt Elaine is a badass witch. I’m a history teacher.”
“You can be both.” Gwyn’s hands tightened. “And this isn’t your fault. It was my idea to curse him, remember?”
“But it was my magic that did it,” Vivi replied, remembering that candle flame, how the words coming out of her mouth had felt different. Heavier. Charged, somehow.
The one truly powerful spell she’d ever managed, and it was going to wreck everything for her.
Classic.
“If I, as the cursed party, might interject here,” Rhys said, shoving his hands in his pockets, “isn’t it possible we might all be overreacting a little? Yes, tonight was shit, no getting around that. Yes, we’re all a bit freaked out and understandably so, but so far, these little buggers”—he nodded at the skull he’d tossed to the chair—“are the only thing we’ve dealt with.”
“That and my simple ‘hey, close the drapes’ spell ending in fire,” Vivi reminded him, and he shrugged.
“You said yourself, your magic has always been a bit . . . what was the word? Wonky?”
“Well, mine is very much unwonky,” Aunt Elaine said, hands on her hips. “And that spell I used to clear the store was far more powerful than I intended.”
Rhys nodded. “All valid points. But maybe not enough evidence to say things have gone completely tits up yet, begging your pardon, Ms. Jones.”
“I have tits, so I think I can handle hearing the word spoken, Mr. Penhallow,” Aunt Elaine said with a dismissive wave before sighing and steepling her fingers against her mouth.
Never a good sign. The last time Vivi had seen that gesture from Aunt Elaine had been the time Gwyn had briefly gotten engaged to the guy who read fortunes at the Ren Faire and called himself “Lord Falcon” despite his driver’s license saying “Tim Davis.”
But now Aunt Elaine only took another deep breath and said, “I think you may be right. Maybe this isn’t as bad as it seems.”
“It seems pretty bad, Mom,” Gwyn said, frowning. “Speaking as someone nearly eaten by plastic.”
“No, Rhys has a point,” Vivi said, surprising herself. And Rhys, too, if his raised eyebrows were anything to go by.
“We don’t know how bad this is, or if it was just some weird little spike. And whatever it is, we’re not going to fix it tonight.”
The more she talked, the better she felt. Of course, what they needed was a plan.
Vivi was really good at plans.
“Look, we’ll all go home, get some sleep, and in the morning, we’ll see what things look like. Rhys, you’ll talk to your father.”
He scowled, but didn’t disagree, so Vivi went on, pointing at Elaine, “And you’ll see what you can find about removing curses, and you”—she turned to Gwyn—“will . . . just keep running the store and assuring people that tonight’s little show was all part of the Founder’s Day fun.”
“I like how my job is the only one with any real threat of danger,” Gwyn said, but off Vivi’s look, she lifted her hands in defeat. “Okay, okay, Operation Soothe the Muggles, I’m on it.”
“Good,” Vivi said. “So that’s it. We have a plan. A . . . kind of half-ass one, but a plan nonetheless.”
“Quarter-ass, if you ask me,” Rhys muttered but then nodded at her. “But certainly better than nothing.”
Glancing around him, he sighed. “And at least I’ll get to reacquaint myself with Graves Glen after all this time.”
When Vivi only stared at him, he added, “I mean . . . it’s not as if I can go home until all this is over.”
He was right. She knew that. Of course getting this sorted out meant that Rhys would stay here.
In her town.
Working with her.
He smiled at her then, winking, and despite all of it, the curse, the embarrassment, the freaking tiny plastic skulls of death, Vivi’s heart did a neat little flip in her chest.
Yep, definitely in hell.