Page 86 of Big Witch Energy

Caroline felt a light tap on her butt, courtesy of her mom’s left foot. She snickered.

Her father wasn’t going to just magically “get over” Chris’s death—if there was such a thing as getting over a death—but there was a better chance for him to heal, now that he was out in the world. Her family didn’t know about the mess with the ghosts or their selfish ancestor or the number of times Caroline had almost died in the past year. And they didn’t need to know, because they were safe now…as safe as one could be in today’s world.

Nope, no gloomy thoughts now. Today was a day for new beginnings and hope and all that shit.

Wally huffed and puffed across the room, slinging a cleaning rag over his shoulder. He did not take the case out of Caroline’s hands, but she didn’t expect him to, really.

“Oh, Caroline, thank God you’re back,” he said as Will approached from behind. “I think I’m done for the day. I’ve been at this for, oh, three-four hours?”

“Yeah, I’ve got to get back home,” Will said, stacking a couple of glasses on top of Caroline’s case. “Tabby needs me to empty the dishwasher.”

“No.”

Will blinked at her. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

Caroline rolled her eyes and handed her burden to Will, glasses and all. “I mean, no, I’m not here to work. I came by to officially give you this.”

She took a carefully folded piece of paper out of her back pocket and smacked it, open, against Wally’s chest. He frowned at it while he read it. “What’s this?”

“It’s my official notification of vacation days I plan on taking over the next month. There will be fourteen of them, starting with today.”

“What?” Will scoffed. “What do you mean?”

“Vacation days, which I’m allowed as part of my employment at the Rose,” Caroline said. “It’s less than a tenth of what I’m owed, in terms of back-vacation days. Back-cation? I’m not sure what you’d call it, but Mom and Dad wrote the policy so they’d accumulate year to year, so if you don’t like it—or the fact that I’m going to be taking quite a few of them over the next year or two—go talk to them.”

“Well, I’m just gonna take my vacation days, then,” Wally said. “I don’t want to be here while you’re off. That’s not fair.”

“You don’t have any accrued vacation days, Wally. Every time you called in ‘I don’t feel like it,’ that was a vacation day,” Caroline said.

“You don’t know that,” Wally told her.

“Who do you think handled the office and all the employment paperwork?” Caroline asked, shaking her head.

Will laughed, but Caroline asked, “What the hell are you laughing at? You’re in the hole two vacation days.”

“That’s not what a vacation day is!” Will cried.

“You took the paycheck, didn’t you?” Caroline sighed. “Boys, for a long time, you’ve let Mom and I carry the weight of the bar. It’s not fair, and it’s not OK, and I’m not doing it anymore.”

“But it’s just easier to let you handle all this stuff,” Wally said, tossing her vacation paper aside.

“For you, yes, I’m sure it is easier. But I am planning to have a life in the near future. So I need you two to get your shit together and put in an effort here. I’m not even talking about an extraordinary effort, just the bare-minimum effort, like showing up for shifts that you’re scheduled for…when you’re scheduled for them. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Ben and I need to pack up the kids. We’re taking them to Ann Arbor for the weekend. Mina’s thinking about U of M,” Caroline said.

“Wait, what?” Gert dropped what she was doing and turned to Caroline. “What do you mean ‘for the weekend?’ You can’t do that.”

Caroline opened her mouth to explain, but Gert interrupted her. “Not because we need you at work, but it’s not safe, Caroline, you know why. You can’t leave the island for more than a day. None of you can. You know that.”

Will and Wally looked uncomfortable, and for once, Caroline felt sorry for them. They didn’t talk about the curse, out in the open. It was like they thought speaking about it would make it real. They couldn’t pretend it away if they talked about it.

She closed her eyes. “Look, I can’t explain why I know, but the problem that has, let’s say, haunted our family for generations? It’s not going to be a problem anymore.”

“What problem?” Will asked, glancing at his parents.

“Does this have anything to do with all that time you’ve been spending at Shaddow House?” Gert asked.

“Yes, I can’t explain what that is, but we’ve been working on resolving that problem for our family. And I have every reason to believe that we don’t have to worry from now on. We can leave the island, come and go freely.”

“Oh, Caroline, you haven’t done anything…silly, have you?” Denny asked.

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