I gasped as Verity fell out of his grip onto the ground. Cheswick dropped to his knees beside her, his face blank, unbelieving. Peter stood over us all, a look of triumph on his face. “Now, come to me, Katy,” he crooned, so seductively that it sounded like music. “My love.”
I stood up, knowing that nothing in my life would ever be worth anything again. “Stake,” I rasped.
It came straight away, pointed and ready, fitting neatly into my hand.
“Come on,” Becca said, urging me away. “We can run. We can…”
Peter’s eyes were fixed on mine, mocking. “You wouldn’t,” he said. “You love me.”
“Yes, I do.” I closed my eyes. “I love you, Peter.” With that, I drove the stake into his heart.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When I opened my eyes, he was gone, turned into dust. My friends stood by, silent and stunned, forming a circle around Verity’s body.
Then Becca arrived, her eyes heavy-lidded, her shoulders slumped.
“How’s your mom?” Amanda asked quietly.
She shrugged. “Her body’s dead,” she said flatly. “I don’t know where my mother went.”
Chrissie walked over to me. I think she was going to pat my shoulder or hold my hand. I stepped away from her. I didn’t want anyone touching me. Not ever again. “Pick up Verity,” I said. “She’s got family in town.”
Arnold and Bryce made a hammock of their arms and draped Verity across it. She looked so small there, as thin and insubstantial as a fairy. Why had she taken on a vampire? In the thumping dullness of my memory, I could see her running up to Peter, her little cross in her hand, as if that could possibly be enough to keep him from tearing out her throat.Maybe she’d wanted to make up for not fighting to save her father back at Hattie’s. So she’d saved me instead, and been torn to pieces in the process.
Verity, Mr. Lloyd, Aunt Agnes, Hattie, Peter…the list went on and on.
Cheswick stayed on the ground crying, his clothes covered in mud. “Get up,” I said, prodding him with my toe. He only sobbed harder. “I said get up!” I shouted.
At that, he leaped up and stuck his face right in front of mine. “You just don’t care about anything, do you!” he screamed. “Your boyfriend killed Verity—”
I slapped him, hard. “And I killed him.” The others had all stopped and were watching us. “And you’re right, I don’t care,” I said bitterly. “I don’t give a damn about anything anymore.”
In Cheswick’s eyes was all the misery of the ages. He backed away from me. I thought he was going to turn and run, but instead, he covered his face with his hands and screamed, screamed like a banshee, like a crazy man. And I understood. I think we all did. He was screaming for all the horror we’d faced, the obscenities we’d seen, the love we’d lost. None of us would ever be the same again. Whatever future lay ahead, it couldn’t make up for this night. Ever.
The clock tower struck again. Bong. Bong. Bong…Time. It made fools of us all. Bong. Bong…
All of a sudden Cheswick’s face went blank, as if every thought that had ever been in his head had flown out of it. He began spinning, his arms out at his sides like a kid playing airplane.
“Dude,” Bryce said, but Cheswick just kept spinning, his nearly white hair whipping around his face, until he was moving so fast that it was hard to watch him.
Becca and I looked at one another, her expression one of concerned astonishment. What the hell was going on? I knew that was what she was thinking, because I was thinking the same thing.
Bryce and Arnold set down Verity’s body. Bryce was walking toward Cheswick, who was still whirling around like some Sufi dervish, when the ground beneath us began to shake.
Bryce fell. “Earthquake,” Chrissie whispered. Bong, bong, bong. The clock tower kept chiming, six, seven, eight, nine o’clock.
But it was still dark outside.
Bong. Bong. Bong.
Hang on, Becca said with her mind, and we all gravitated together around Cheswick as the air around us started to swirl around with him. Someone took my hand; I took someone else’s. And then it was as if we were all in the middle of a tornado, being blown around so fast we could hardly breathe, and Verity was with us, and Hattie, too, and Aunt Agnes and Verity’s father and Lolille laughing like crazy and saying Let’s have some fun! And Mrs. Fowler calling Yoo hoo as she walked through the woods in her Queen Elizabeth costume…bongbongbongbongbongbong…Fifteen, twenty five…bongbongbong.
And Peter. Peter was with us, too. Bong. Bong. BONGBONGBONG!
I don’t know what happened next. I think I fainted.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I came to, dirty and thirsty. The others were all on the ground around me. Becca sat up with a moan. “The light’s different,” she said.
“There is no light,” Bryce said, propping himself up on one elbow.
“Yes, there is. More than there was.”
“Sheesh.” He looked at his watch.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Verity sat up. Chrissie screamed. “What’s the matter?” Verity asked, looking at each of us in turn.
Cheswick threw up.
“Oh my God,” Amanda squeaked.
“What?” Verity sounded hysterical. She touched her face. “Is something wrong with me? Why are you all looking at me like that?”
Cheswick scrambled to his feet. “Verity?” he asked softly. “Verity, is it really you?”
“What do you mean, is it me,” she said, annoyed. “What’s with you?”
Cheswick looked incredulously at me, at Bryce, at Becca. “It’s a miracle.” He grabbed hold of Verity and pulled her to her feet, squeezing her like a rag doll.
“Eww,” she said, turning away from him. “You smell like puke. And this is inappropriate.”
“What’s the last thing you remember, Verity?” Becca asked.
“Um…” She frowned, trying to recall. “Coming here, I guess.”
“Guys,” Bryce said.
We all ignored him. “And Peter,” Verity said. “Yes, I remember Peter. Something was—” She looked up.
“Hello, Verity.”
Peter’s voice was like a punch in my stomach. No, I thought. Oh, God, don’t make me kill him again.
“It’s six o’clock,” Bryce said pointedly. “Six o’clock yesterday.”
“What?” Becca craned her neck to look at Bryce’s watch. “What are you talking about?”
“My watch has a date. See? It says October 31.”
She grabbed his wrist. “That’s what it says, but…”
I turned toward Peter. “What do you remember?” My voice was a croak.
He swallowed. “The water,” he said. “Ondines. And then this guy…this British guy and you…”
Feeling as if I were about to fly into a thousand pieces, I put my arms around Peter. He was warm. I held him, held him like the precious, precious gift he was.
“I don’t get it,” Cheswick said. “At six o’clock, we were all still back at the campsite. Peter wasn’t with any ondines, or whatever,” he said. “And Verity…”
“Verity was alive,” I explained. “She remembers everything that happened up to the point where Peter…until she stopped living. And Peter, too. He was on this beach, with me and the vampire. Don’t you see? We all remember what happened, so far as our brains were working. You can’t remember things that occur after you’re dead.”
“But the time…If it’s six o’clock…”
“I get it,” Bryce said. “We still remember everything we lived through. It’s just that what we remember hasn’t happened yet.”
“Huh?” Cheswick scratched his head. “We remember…the future?”
“Right.”
“But how’d that happen?”
“Geez, how dense can you be?” Chrissie said. She poked Cheswick in the chest with her forefinger. “Don’t you get it yet? You turned back time, Ches!”
“I what?” Cheswick looked as if he were going to laugh.
&
nbsp; “That’s got to be it,” Chrissie said. “That little dance you were doing…That was some kind of funky magic.”
“You turned back time?” Verity stammered. “Th-then my dad…”
“Hattie?” Bryce asked.
“Aunt Agnes?”
“They’re all still alive,” Arnold said.
“Because of Cheswick,” Verity said, her eyes shining with pride as she squeezed his hand. “That’s the rarest gift I’ve ever heard of!”
Cheswick’s stunned expression expanded into a shaky grin. “Hey. Yeah, I guess it is.” He punched Chrissie’s arm. She drew her fist back, prepared to retaliate.
“Sorry,” Cheswick said, flinching. “I was just…you know.”
“You were cool,” Verity said.
Becca’s brows knit together. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far. He’s still Cheswick.”
I wanted to hold Peter and never let him go, but he pulled gently away from me. “You know what this is, don’t you?”
Everyone stared at him, waiting for the answer.
“It’s a do-over,” he said softly. “We get to live this night again.”
“Oh, God, no,” Becca moaned.
“The right way,” Peter added.
“How’s that?”
“We go back to the campsite, and take it from there.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The fire was burning, just as it had been twelve hours ago.
“What now?” Cheswick asked, rubbing his hands together. His success with magic had given him a new confidence.
“Give me the whiskey,” Peter said.
Cheswick searched in his backpack. “Hey, it’s still here!” he exclaimed.
“That’s right,” Peter said patiently. “Everything’s the same as it was. Now give the bottle to me.”
Cheswick reluctantly handed it over. Peter threw it into the woods.
“Yoo hoo!” someone called as Mrs. Fowler approached us through the woods.
“Mom,” Becca whispered. When her mother appeared, once again dressed as Queen Elizabeth, Becca ran to her and threw her arms around her.
“Really, Rebecca,” Mrs. Fowler said, disentangling herself. “You’ll ruin my costume.” Her face hardened. “What are you trying to hide?”
She wasn’t ever going to be easy to deal with, but at least she was alive. “We’ve changed our minds about camping,” Becca said. “We’d rather be back at Hattie’s.”
“Oh?” her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why the sudden change of heart? What have you people been up to?”
“We just realized that we’re part of this community,” Bryce said.
Mrs. Fowler’s face went blank with surprise. “Well,” she said at last. “I’m glad you finally understand. Our families are not like cowen. We must maintain our pure lines—”
“And I missed you,” Becca said, and I knew she meant it.
“You did?” She seemed to have been taken aback. “I mean, of course you did. I’m your mother. You need my guidance.”
Becca sneaked a look at me, a look that said, I know what a pill she is. But she’s my mom. And a smile that said she didn’t mind too much.
“Well, then, follow me!” Mrs. Fowler turned around to lead us out of the woods to Hattie’s. They both giggled as the group picked up their bedrolls and disappeared into the distance.
“I’ll just—uh—stay and put out the fire,” I said, rolling my eyes. No one else had given a second thought to the open flame. But I guessed I couldn’t blame them for wanting to get out of there, not after all they’d been through.
Peter laughed. “Only you can prevent forest fires,” he intoned like Smokey the Bear.
“Looks that way,” I said.
From his backpack he took a folding shovel—Peter thinks of things like that, although I wished he’d thought of it as a weapon before he got killed—and began smothering the fire. “I’ll handle this,” he said. “Go check out the tree.”
I knew which tree he meant. “It’s here,” I said softly. The elixir that that had turned Mrs. Fowler into Lolille was nestled into the tree’s hollow trunk, glowing in its beautiful bottle, waiting. Beside it was a tempting chocolate cake.
I picked up the bottle and, with a swing worthy of Major League Baseball, smashed it into the tree.
I watched as the cake dissolved into a puddle of worms and toadstools, and the fumes from the elixir condensed into blue-green tendrils. Some of those tendrils snaked, fast as lightning, down the path where Becca and the others were walking with Mrs. Fowler. The rest wound around the tree like smoke that was moving to sinuous, silent music. When the fumes reached the top of the tree, they coalesced into an iridescent cloud in the darkening sky.
I heard a laugh that sounded familiar.
“Lolille?” I called.
“Think you beat me? Hah! You ain’t done nothin’, hear?”
“Maybe not. But you’ve done plenty. And I won’t forget.”
“We’ll see about that,” she said. Just then, the little blue-green cloud emitted a wisp of smoke that shot toward me and touched my face. And Peter’s. We both coughed as the vapor enveloped us.
Now, what’s my name again? It was a disembodied voice that seemed to come from all around me.
I looked over at Peter. “Did you say something?”
“Huh? No.”
I coughed again. “What’s that blue smoke? Did you throw something weird onto the fire?”
“The fire’s fine. Just do your job, okay?”
“Don’t worry about my job,” I said, desperately trying to remember what my job was. There were a lot of worms wiggling around near my feet. Was I supposed to do something about them?
“Peter?”
“Yeah?”
“What happened after you threw Cheswick’s bottle of hooch into the woods?”
“You mean just now?”
My forehead furrowed. “Didn’t that happen before?”
“What?”
“I don’t know, it just seemed like…” I shrugged.
“Déjà vu,” Peter said, folding up his shovel. “Happens all the time.”
“Er, okay,” I said. “I guess so.”
Up in the trees, the beautiful blue cloud shimmered. I heard—or thought I heard—something whisper “Goodbye, Katy,” in my ear. “For now.”
“Did you say something?” I asked.
“Again, no,” Peter said. “Let’s go. I think you need some food.”
I nodded uncertainly.
As Peter and I headed for Hattie’s, a stiff wind came up. I looked back at the clearing. The shimmering cloud was dispersing, blown away into nothing.
I shivered. “Cold?” Peter asked, putting his arm around me.
“No, I’m fine,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”
For now, I thought, but that was just me being paranoid. This was going to be the best Halloween ever.
THE END
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Excerpt:
Ping. Agnes was back. And Hattie Scott was with her.
“Hattie!” I said, wanting to kneel at her feet and kiss her hand.
“Hmmph,” Hattie grumbled. “Guess your fancy school didn’t teach you everything.”
“Agnes brought you?” I turned to Agnes. “I didn’t know you could—”
“Less talk,” Hattie said. A small smile crept across her face. “More…MAGIC!”
With that, seventeen potatoes sailed across the room. I could feel the breeze as they passed.
I gasped. “Magic?” I whispered.
“Why are you so surprised?” Hattie asked crankily.
“It’s just that…You never use magic at the restaurant.”
“Of course I do. How do you think everybody gets what they need in Hattie’s Kitchen? I just don’t usually waste magic on thin
gs like chopping.” Her eyes slid toward Aunt Agnes, who was still hacking onions at an elephantine pace. “But I can see that desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“You’re right,” I said, closing my eyes in gratitude.
“Move out of the way,” Hattie commanded as all the knives on the magnetic rack snicked free and fell upon the potatoes in mid-air, raining a pile of perfect dice into three huge skillets, which appeared out of nowhere.
“Now, where are those onions?” The onions flew off Aunt Agnes’ cutting board.
“Excuse me,” Agnes said with her hands on her hips. “I was cutting those.”
Hattie narrowed her eyes at the uneven onion slices floating before her eyes. “Pitiful,” she said. With a jerk of her chin, the knives cut the onions into thin even slivers.
“Arrange the salads,” she commanded as twenty turbot fillets wrapped themselves in parchment. With a laugh that made me feel good all over, I sent a knife flying toward the beets, carving them into rosettes nestled atop a bed of paper-thin pear slices dotted with dollops of blue-veined cheese shaped like tiny bees.
“Not bad,” Hattie said as she batted a dozen airborne eggs into a bowl. I tossed over the flour and other dry ingredients while Hattie sent a big metal whisk into the mix. Then we both flicked five fingers at the dough, and an army of two-inch balls rolled through the air onto some baking sheets.
“I still need to trim the—”
Ping.
“Asparagus,” I finished.
“Who’s that?” Hattie demanded.
It was Fabienne.
“Where’d you go?” I shrieked.
“I…I don’t know. The last thing I remember is my mother complaining…Oh, mon Dieu.” She took in the sight of all the vegetables flying around us.
“I’ll explain later, Fabby,” I said.
“Get the potatoes and onions into the oven,” Hattie commanded.
Tossing the asparagus into the air, where a peeler spinning like a dervish trimmed off all the tough ends, I ran to the stove. Fabienne’s problems would have to be sorted out later.
“Come here, dear,” Aunt Agnes said, putting her arm around Fabby.