Page 44 of Big Witch Energy

“We feel little to no effect, Miss,” Plover called from the house, sounding very confused.

“What do we do with it?” Caroline asked.

“Shove all the leftover dryer socks into it?” Alice suggested. When the others gave her a confused look, she huffed, “I’m allowed a little bit of whimsy, every once in a while.”

“How do we close it?” Caroline asked.

“Well, the opposite of a summoning,” Riley said, making the same ritual gesture backward, drawing away from herself. They followed her motions and the grapefruit reduced to an orange and then to nothing. The lock cooled and returned to a normal color. They followed Nora’s instructions for properly closing a circle and cleaned up the salt.

“Maybe this is what happens when you try to use the locks on unhaunted objects? Or objects that have little ghostly dish spots on them?” Caroline suggested as they collapsed onto the gazebo benches with a bottle of wine.

Caroline sighed. “Well, the purple-dress lady didn’t show up, and I’m a little relieved. I’m not sure what I would have done with the painting if she was attached to it. Burning it seems appropriate but mean. But I wonder if the portal would have been stronger if we had used a real attachment object?”

“It’s something I’m not too eager to test at the moment, but it sounds like a valid theory,” Riley said. She was nestled into Edison’s side, looking very tired. “And I wonder why the Wellings dragged my family into this whole mess, the construction of the house, any of it…”

“Money,” Caroline said. “Money makes the world go round, and there doesn’t seem to be a spell to create it. Alchemy seems to be a bust. Plus—if a haunted object makes the locks work harder—your family had the trove of haunted antiques they needed to power whatever they’re planning to do with the locks.”

“Maybe the whole thing was a setup,” Riley said. “It seems like an awfully big coincidence that the Wellings just happened to be heading to this tiny island at the same time. The Dentons had to have a reputation in the ghost community, right? People knew they had cash. Maybe the Wellings targeted them.”

“Also a valid theory, but not particularly helpful to have hindsight. A more pertinent question: What do you think this new development means about the ghost locks?” Alice asked. “What were they meant for?”

“Besides ghostly world domination?” Riley considered. “Thinning the veil between the two worlds. Making death itself not work anymore so we’re all just stuck wandering the planet with no reprieve in sight?”

“Well, that’s bleak,” Caroline snorted as a light clicked on upstairs at Gray Fern Cottage. “Oh, um, something else I forgot to mention… Mina can see ghosts. And given that I feel the same sort of electric buzz around her that I felt around you two, I think maybe she could have magic, too. Maybe Josh; I’m not sure. Mostly, he seems to hear things.”

“Oh, sure, that makes sense,” Riley said, nodding absently. Suddenly, she sat up. “Wait, what?”

Chapter 9

Ben

After an early evening dinner, Ben left Mina and Josh at home to indulge in a bit of solitude as he walked out the door of Gray Fern Cottage. Yes, he’d done it at the suggestion of his daughter, but he was pretending that it was his idea. Because she was usually right about this sort of thing in a way that was preternaturally annoying.

Still, it was so pleasant out here at night, so quiet. No patients. No ringing phone. No anthill-style foot traffic. No teenagers—as much as he loved them to the very marrow of their bones—who argued viciously over snack foods. He could think, string a few thoughts together, even.

He pointed his feet toward the Wiltons’ corner of the island. Caroline was supposed to be home—but given the upheaval at the Rose and her family’s tendency to find work for her—who knew? He wanted a moment with her, just one moment uninterrupted by teenagers or rude customers or magic.

Magic.

Caroline was a witch. Magic was real. Ghosts were real. And in a weird way, it gave him more hope for the world. Because there was more out there for them than just hard, cold science. At the same time, there were much scarier things in the world than what even his careful series of parental lectures could prepare his kids for—scarier than Ben could even imagine. It was a double-edged nightmare.

He could hardly wrap his head around it. And because he rarely got to see Caroline alone—thanks to her schedule, his schedule, the kids’ needs—he couldn’t talk to her about it. He didn’t want his kids to know just yet, if Caroline chose to share with them. He got the impression that her family didn’t know, which seemed smart on her part.

He’d resented her for so long, blamed her for limiting herself, for being afraid to leave the island because there were a few unfortunate accidents in her family. And the whole time, she’d been under a very real threat. Every memory, every argument they’d had back then, every moment she’d seemed cold on his visits home, took on a different tone. She wasn’t afraid, she was a hostage. And yeah, his feelings were still real, but if he’d only known…

Well, he wasn’t sure it would have changed his response to finding his former flame being dropped into a wheelbarrow outside Shaddow House with her injured ankle propped up on some improvised pool-noodle contraption.

“I just want to say, for the record, that this is humiliating,” Caroline was saying as they loaded her into a wheelbarrow.

“But we padded it,” Edison replied.

“I knew I shouldn’t have told you about Ben’s threat,” Caroline groused. “Somebody’s gonna see me wheeled through town like a sack of potatoes.”

Alice stuffed another pillow behind Caroline’s back. “If we thought we could do this on one of Mitt’s pedal cabs, we would.”

“Plus, we would have to explain why we were going out there,” Riley told her. “And that would be confusing for more people.”

“Um, what are you doing?” Ben asked.

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