Page 18 of Best Hex Ever
“I’ve been told that Eric’s best man was meant to be coming, but then he texted Eric saying he’s still running errands for his parents so he might not make it.” Rosemary sipped her mulled wine, her eyes rolling back in pleasure.
“Who runs errands at ninep.m. on a Thursday?” Dina said.
“Indeed,” Immy replied, sidling up to them. She was wearing one of her signature classic horror shirts, this one depicting the hand-swallowing chest cavity scene fromThe Thingin pretty graphic detail.
For a brief stint during the wedding-planning stage, Immy had been convinced she wanted a horror-movie-themed wedding. Thankfully, Eric had called in a favor from Dina and Rosemary, and they had talked her out of it. Now, Immy and Eric were getting married at Honeywell House the day after Halloween, with a dense forest as a backdrop. It was brilliantly spooky, and Dina couldn’t wait.
“You have your maid-of-honor dress, right? It arrived in the post?”
“Yep, and it’s been rehemmed. How are your parents holdingup?” Mr. and Mrs. Partridge were notorious traditionalists and were having a hard time stomaching the idea of their daughter having a humanist wedding, sans church.
“You mean after all the threats that I’ll go to hell and that my marriage won’t be blessed by God? Oh, they’re just dandy.” Immy grimaced.
“Well, just say the word, I’ve got a subduing spell I can use on them for the ceremony. They’ll be calm and happy, but most importantly, lacking in opinions.”
“Wait, is that a real thing?” Rosemary asked. She almost looked like she wanted to pull out a pen and take notes.
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t use it lightly.”
“How come?” Rosemary said.
“If I make the spell too potent, they’ll just fall asleep for days.”
“I’ll let you know. Hopefully we won’t need it,” Immy said.
They made their way over to the group by the fire, the heat turning Dina’s cheeks a pleasant pink. Eric bear-hugged Dina, grinning ear to ear.
“You’re like a lumberjack with that beard,” Dina remarked, nodding toward Eric’s reddish-haired chin.
“Not my fault. You’ve got to tell Immy to get her lumberjack fantasies under control.” He laughed heartily. Dina smiled, so glad that her best friend had found someone like Eric.
Seeing them together, and the way that Eric looked at Immy when she was breaking down the plot of a new horror idea she had, was enough to make a skeptic believe in true love.
Nevertheless, when Eric and Immy had first become serious, Dina had made it clear that Eric would pay if he ever hurt her friend. Thankfully, it didn’t look like it was going to come to that.
The hours passed quickly, spent chatting with her friends anddrinking more mulled wine, the edges of the pub beginning to blur merrily.
Every once in a while the pub door would swing open, a flutter of crisp air sweeping leaves onto the cobbled flagstones, and Eric would look up, fully expecting to see his mysterious best man. But whoever he was, he never turnedup.
—
Time flew by in the way that it always did when Dina, Rosemary, and Immy were together, so when she looked down at her phone she was shocked to find it was already close to midnight.
“I’d better go. My mum said she wanted to practice a new henna spell on me,” Dina whispered to Immy and Rosemary.
“What kind of spell?”
“Luscious hair and clear skin, I believe.”
“Ooh, I’ll take some of that!” Immy exclaimed as she hugged Dina goodbye. “See you tomorrow! Tell your mum she can’t lie in!” Dina’s mum practically had three daughters—Rosemary and Immy had spent so many nights staying at the family’s house when they’d all been studying.
Dina waved goodbye to the rest of the group, fist-bumped Eric, and stumbled out of the pub.
Okay, so she was a little drunker than she thought. Turned out two glasses of mulled wine and a white wine spritzer when you didn’t drink all that often could make it quite difficult to walk in a straight line.
Dina decided to take a different route on her walk home, mostly because she wanted to go past a house that always had the most fantastic Halloween decorations.
Each year it surpassed itself. This time round, Dina spotted the green halo of light in the sky from two streets over. When she finally made it outside the house she had to stop and marvel,leaning against an icy street lamp. It was so quiet here; she was so used to the background hum of London that she only noticed it when it was absent.
