Chapter 1 Look Homeward, Witch

As her Uber wheezed its way over the hill, Scarlett sat in the back, nervously sipping a coffee she should never have bought at all. She had a knot in her stomach, and the venti cappuccino with double espresso only tied it tighter.

Scarlett peered suspiciously out the window. Down in the valley, Oak Haven hid coyly behind a veil of autumn leaves, which made a patchwork quilt of crimson, amber, and evergreen. But she could still make out the roofs of familiar buildings—the curlicue of smoke from the tea shop chimney, the steeple of the local church. The distant town looked cozy and familiar, but there was a certain tremor in the air—something pricked at the edges of Scarlett's vision. Has something changed down there? she wondered. Is something wrong? Or does it just seem different because I am?

Scarlett hadn't intended to return to Oak Haven until she was carried there in a pine box. But her sister Delilah's voicemail carried her trademark Don't Question Me tone, all urgency and veiled accusation. Was there a fire at the family inn? Was there a corpse? Several? Delilah didn't say.

The thought of returning home filled Scarlett with a nausea-inducing blend of gleeful anticipation and overwhelming dread. There was so much wonderful waiting for her down in that valley, and so much awful.

And then there was Nate, who was both.

"Excuse me, miss?" Marty the Uber driver tapped his phone. "My GPS seems to be on the fritz. The address you gave me isn't registering."

"Yeah," Scarlett said resignedly. "That'll happen. Don't worry. I know where I'm going, unfortunately."

"Sorry, what was that last part?"

"Nothing, Marty." The closer Scarlett got to home, the tighter that knot in her stomach became. This is a mistake, she thought. No matter what Delilah said. I shouldn't have come back. I don't have the right. Not after what I did.

But . . . Too late now . "Take the next left."

As the car approached the town center, Scarlett saw something shocking. Something appalling. Something she'd never seen in Oak Haven and never thought she'd see if she lived a thousand years.

A bright orange sign shaped like a diamond: ROAD WORK AHEAD.

"Road work?!"

"You're in New England," mansplained Marty. "There's always road work due to the harsh weather. It's just a part of living here."

"Yeah, I grew up here, I'm familiar with the weather. But road work doesn't exist in Oak Haven. We fix our roads with magic."

He laughed. "That sure would be nice, wouldn't it? Just get Glinda out here to snap her fingers?"

"I'm not joking. I'm a witch, my sisters are witches. All the women in Oak Haven are witches."

"Uh-huh, sure. Of course you are! I guess even the Yellow Brick Road gets the occasional pothole, huh?"

Whatever , Scarlett thought. It didn't matter if he believed her—he'd forget the entire conversation in about fifteen minutes. "Just take a right up here."

In a region known for its crisp autumn air and cozy clapboard houses and pumpkin-spice everything, Oak Haven was by far the crispest, the coziest, the spiciest. The trees didn't limit themselves to the basic orange, red, and yellow. No. In Oak Haven, trees turned sparkling apricot and twinkling sangria and shimmering bronze. And it wasn't just about the foliage. The fall days were the perfect mix of warm sun and cool breeze, the evenings just chilly enough to demand a favorite sweater. The storefronts were adorned with wreaths of dried leaves and corn husks, while scarecrows stood vigil at every corner. Scarlett's hometown boasted more cider-donut vendors per capita than anywhere in the United States. The air smelled vaguely of cloves all the time.

Oak Haven should have topped every leaf peeper's bucket list. There should've been photo spreads in glossy travel magazines and fawning television segments from Oprah Winfrey.

Instead, few tourists made their way to Oak Haven. And those who managed to stumble into it? They experienced a fit of geographical amnesia as soon as they left. Google's many attempts to map the area invariably failed. Local weather forecasters gave up talking about the village because they could never find it on their maps.

This collective forgetting was no accident. It was a spell. It was the same sort of spell that made the trees so spectacular and the weather so perfect. It was a spell deliberately cast and immaculately maintained by the village's Elder Council of Witches. A council that Scarlett's family had led for centuries.

"Wow," Marty enthused. "This is gorgeous. Look at these cool old houses. Man, how is it I've never been here before?"

"You have," Scarlett said. "You just don't remember."

"No way! I'd definitely remember all this."

"Whatever you say." There was no arguing with the forgetting.

"So, if you don't mind my asking . . . how do you know about this place?"

"I grew up here."

"Really?! And you left? Why would anybody leave a paradise like this?"

"Well, that's a pretty personal question there, Marty." The truth burbled up inside Scarlett like heartburn. You see, Marty, she thought, sometimes in life, a person makes a mistake so big—does a thing so unforgivable—that she can't go home again, ever, no matter how much she may want to. So, she moves to San Francisco and pretends everything is okay. But Scarlett knew that was a little more honesty than Marty was prepared to handle. So instead, she went with her old standby—the answer she gave everyone who inquired why she hadn't been home in a decade. "My family is nuts." It wasn't true, but it usually shut people up.

Not Marty. "Aww, c'mon, that's no reason. Everyone's family is nuts in some way or another."

"Oh, sure. That's Tolstoy right? All families are nuts in their own way?" Again, this was a joke Scarlett kept in the chamber, ready to be fired whenever someone got a little too nosy. "But you see, my family isn't, like, low-salt peanuts nuts. My family is full-on, deluxe-roasted macadamias with wasabi peas nuts." As always, this line left Scarlett with a sour feeling in her gut. They weren't so bad, her family. She actually liked them rather a lot. But that wasn't information she cared to share with Uber drivers.

"Sure, you say they're crazy, but in the end, family is family, and families should be together. Don't you think?"

"Together?" She laughed bitterly. "Trust me, bad things happen when we're together, Marty. Very bad things."

"Aw, I don't believe that. You know what they say: ‘In times of test, family is best.'"

Good grief , she thought. Of all the Ubers in all the world, I had to get into Dr. Phil's.

The car steadily rumbled along the winding road, passing by quaint homes with white picket fences and vibrant gardens.

Finally, they reached Galloping Hill Road, which led directly to the quintet of cobblestone streets that passed for Oak Haven's "downtown." But first, the car had to traverse Bonfire Creek, its banks lined with goldenrod and asters. The creek made a mirror, doubling the images of autumn trees along its bank. The gentle waters flowed beneath a charming, if dubious-looking covered bridge with barn-red sides and a mansard roof.

With a certain trepidation, Marty allowed his car to slowly cross the bridge. The aged wooden planks of the bridge groaned and creaked under the weight of the vehicle, and the scent of damp wood permeated the air. Marty released a little "hmmph . . ." sound, clearly questioning the decision to trust the fate of his precious Kia Sorento with the cranky old bridge.

"We kids used to jump off this bridge all the time," Scarlett offered by way of distraction.

"Oh really . . .?" He was staring out his window as the car rolled slowly forward, as if he could keep the bridge aloft by concentration alone.

"No, not really," she admitted. "Bonfire Creek is pretty shallow, and the adults always warned us that we'd bust our heads open if we tried it. I did manage it once though."

"Ah, good for you," said Marty, who could not possibly care less about anything that did not involve the safety of his Kia.

"Of course, my parents completely flipped and grounded me for about three months, but . . . I say, worth it. I'm the only one who ever dove off that roof."

But with a pang, Scarlett realized she hadn't been home in a decade. Maybe all the kids did it now. Maybe it was no big deal.

At last, the car was over the bridge and Marty could relax—sort of. He was probably already worrying about having to use the bridge again to get home.

As the Uber continued through the center of Oak Haven, Scarlett looked out the window and frowned. Something wasn't right, and it wasn't just the road work. All her favorite shops were still around: Spellbound Books; Henrietta's music store; the All Who Wander travel agency. The lampposts were adorned with fresh garlands of vibrant leaves, overflowing flower boxes boasted clusters of cheerful chrysanthemums, and street parking remained free as ever. Everything seemed fine, but . . . something was off. No children in the town square, jumping in piles of raked leaves. No jack-o'-lanterns grinning from the windows. And . . .

Oh! She realized with a start. Where are the gourds?!

In Oak Haven, autumn had always meant gourds. Gourds in every shop window, gourds piled in the town square, gourds everywhere you looked. There were gourds shaped like swans and UFOs. There were gourds with warts and gourds with wings, bicolored, tricolored, and multicolored, too. Gourds by the hundreds, by the thousands—a parliament of gourds, a berserk of gourds, a madness. A level of gourd-intensity that could only be achieved via multiple spells maintained by a coven of gourd-obsessed witches.

But as the Uber made its way down Main, Scarlett saw no berserk of gourds. In fact, she saw none whatsoever.

Then she noticed the weather. It was just . . . okay. Not perfect, a little cloudy. Just . . . fine. That's when she realized the gourds were just a symptom. The illness was normalcy.

Oak Haven looked like any other lovely, tastefully decorated New England village. It used to be an enchanted place. Now it was just a place.

Several days earlier, her sister Delilah had left an urgent voicemail, summoning Scarlett home immediately. At the time, Scarlett had just rolled her eyes, unable to imagine what her sister was all worked up about. But now, gazing out the window at her unrecognizably normal town, Delilah's cryptic message became alarmingly clear: there was a problem with magic in Oak Haven.

The voicemail had said, "Scarlett, come home. It's happening again." And then, almost as an afterthought, "Oh and Nate's been asking about you." Click.

***

Dropping Nate's name had been a cheap shot on Delilah's part.

The will-they-or-won't-they drama of teenage Scarlett and Nate had been closely followed by everyone in Oak Haven. After all, the two were children of the town's most prominent families, the Melroses and the Williams. For that reason alone, many said that their union was fated from the start. And when witches tell you something is fate? They aren't kidding. To the elders of Oak Haven, the tale of Scarlett and Nate wasn't so much will-they-or-won't-they but when-will-they-dammit.

Alas, the witches misunderstood something fundamental about teenagers: if you want them to do something, the worst thing you can do is tell them they should. The more Scarlett and Nate were told they were meant to be, the more they clung to the "friend zone." The two were inseparable, yes, but platonically so—stubbornly, platonically so. They ignored the whispers, giggles, and side-eyes from all the opinionated observers in town, remaining steadfast in their commitment to chart their own, just-friends course.

And by the time Scarlett and Nate realized that the witches were probably right all along? It was far too late.

***

The Uber pulled up in front of a massive country inn with mansard roofs and wraparound porches and an unlikely number of turrets. There were elaborate gables and a giant bay window with images of the Salem witch trials in stained glass.

Marty just stared, his mouth half open. "What is this place?"

"My family business," Scarlett said, letting herself out of the car. "Aka the wholesale mixed-nut factory."

Marty got out to fetch Scarlett's luggage. No sooner had he popped open the trunk than there was a great crash from the hotel's highest turret. The crash was followed by a girlish shriek and the smashing of windows as a great plume of pumpkin-colored smoke shot out of the turret, circled the hotel, and lifted up into the sky. Day abruptly turned to night; there were lightning strikes and a clap of thunder, and a thousand gourds rained down. They tumbled onto the lawn and smashed across the sidewalk.

Then, the sun returned as quickly as it had gone. The birds went back to chirping, and Marty's Kia was covered in gourd guts.

Up in the turret, a young woman with an unruly cloud of white-blonde hair leaned out the smashed window. "Is everybody okay down—OH MY GOD," she squealed. "It's Scarlett! Scarlett's home! Scarlett! You're home!"

"That I am." The sight of her sister's goofy grin pushed all of Scarlett's dread to the side for a moment. She couldn't help but smile, too. She shouted up at the turret, "How's it going?"

"Terrible! There are no gourds in this dumb town."

"I noticed! You're working on a solution, I see."

"Yeah, well." Luna had a musical laugh. "Didn't go as planned. Don't move. I'll be right down. Don't you move!"

Marty gaped at Scarlett, then at his gourd-covered car, then at Scarlett again. "Family of mixed nuts, huh?"

"My baby sister Luna is the wasabi pea in that particular analogy."

"Was that . . . uh . . . I mean, is she . . ."

"Was that magic? Is she a witch?" Scarlett allowed herself to enjoy Marty's befuddlement. "Told you so."

"And . . . are you?"

"A retired witch," she admitted. "But now that I'm here, it's strangely tempting to dive right back in. Hey, maybe I could de-gourd your car for you?"

"You know," he said, slowly backing away, "I think I'm good. I'm overdue to visit the car wash."

"Suit yourself, Marty."

As the Uber hurried away, Scarlett gazed at her luggage, sitting in a puddle of exploded gourds. She glanced up at the porch, trying to force herself to approach.

Am I sure I want to do this?

Nope.

Is it too late to flee?

Luna's cheerful face appeared at the hotel's front door.

Yep.