Chapter 4 Royale with Cheese

Scarlett paused at the threshold between lobby and dining room, realizing too late that she was about to go from dealing with Nate to dealing with her mother. Very much a "frying pan to fire" sort of situation.

Oh well, she thought. I'm in it now . . .

It was dinner time, and the Stargazer Inn should've been bustling with activity. After all, the inn wasn't just the best place in Oak Haven to stay, it was also the best place to dine. But instead, tonight an eerie silence hung in the air.

The fire in the massive stone fireplace crackled and spat, but there was no one for it to warm. The cheerful buttercup yellow of the wainscoting and countryside wallpaper felt cruelly out of place. Crisp white linens, vintage china, and gleaming cutlery sat untouched, patiently awaiting guests who never arrived.

"Zahir," Scarlett whispered to the chef. "Where is everybody?"

"I don't want to talk about it. Everyone, sit! Allow me to present the food."

The women sat down, instinctively arranging themselves in the same spots they'd occupied at every meal since the girls were out of high chairs: Mama at the far end, Delilah to her right, and Scarlett and Luna side by side on her left. The seat at the head of the table remained empty—that was Papa's chair and it would never be filled again. Scarlett angled her body toward her sister, away from Papa's chair; she knew wouldn't be able to swallow a single bite if she could see it.

"Tonight," Zahir announced, "I have prepared an autumnal feast for you all. Here we have pan-seared lobster medallions with a lemon-herb sauce, pumpkin gnocchi in sage brown butter, maple-glazed butternut squash, and a roasted vegetable medley with brussels sprouts, carrots, and parsnips. And for the prodigals, two special dishes to celebrate their return. For Luna, to honor her world travels, I offer Miso Lamb Empanadas with Harissa Yogurt and Tamarind Sauce—combining flavors from her recent addresses in Turkey, Japan, and Chile."

"Oh, Zahir!" She seemed touched and even a little misty. "Thank you."

"Welcome home. And for that one—" he pointed at Scarlett "—I have created what I call the Scarlett Special: a school of pan-seared sardines on a bed of couscous."

"Sounds great but, um." Scarlett frowned at her old friend. "Why is that a Scarlett Special, exactly?"

"Obviously, it is a reference to your most famous childhood exploit. You, diving off the covered bridge? Turning yourself into a school of fish on the way down?"

"That's so funny," she said, smiling. "I was just remembering that on the drive over here."

"Well, your notoriety has not diminished all these years later," Zahir replied. "Oh, by the way, the couscous represents the rocky bed of the river where you nearly cracked open your tiny fishy heads. Ladies, enjoy. Bon appétit!" He pushed the cart back through the dining room and into the kitchen.

"Well, Luna," Scarlett said amiably, "I guess I'll have to ask you to pass the sardines. I'm not really a fan, but if this dish is named after me, I can't refuse."

Luna put a single sardine on her plate—mostly out of solidarity—and passed it along. "I remember when you did that spell! We were all daring each other to jump off the bridge, but it was forbidden because the water was so shallow? Of course we all talked endlessly about doing it anyhow. The boys would brag that they'd be the first ones to jump. But inevitably we'd get up to the bridge and realize that it did look pretty shallow and the rocks did look pretty sharp . . . and we'd all chicken out. And then you suddenly said, ‘Hang on! It's not too shallow if you're fish.' And over you went."

"Oh, that scared me." Delilah shuddered. "I thought you'd said, if you're a fish, not fish as a collective. I was picturing you turning yourself into a whale and beaching yourself on the riverbed."

"No, no, no," Scarlett said with a laugh. "Just teeny fishies!"

Mama put down her fork. "It's not funny."

"Mama, it was, what, about a dozen years ago? Seems like it all worked out."

"Worked out," Mama repeated archly. "Better to say you got away with it. If even one of those teeny fishies had swum away, rather than returning to join the others? If just one went off on its own? You would have been unable to reassemble yourself. You'd have been trapped in that state forever. You took a terrible risk that day, Scarlett. And why? To impress your friends? It was reckless and very selfish, if you ask me."

Scarlett glanced at her sisters, both of whom had eyebrows raised as if to say, now you've done it . She turned sheepishly to her mother. "I take it that's a no from you on the sardines then?"

Suddenly the lights flickered, and the room was transformed into Jack Rabbit Slim's from Pulp Fiction —a 1950s-style Hollywood diner in which the waitstaff dressed as dead celebrities. A waiter costumed as Buddy Holly stood at their table, impatiently demanding, "Who ordered the five-dollar shake?"

The lights flickered again and everything returned to normal—the quiet dining room restored to its usual self.

"Oh yeah, so . . ." Delilah said blandly. " That's happening."

At first glance the Stargazer dining room was a typical New England space in every way. But thanks to witchcraft, the room could be easily transformed into any type of venue a situation might require. Delilah told Scarlett that recently the dining room had served as a medieval jousting tournament for Mel Barnes's retirement party, a private Taylor Swift concert for the Friedman bat mitzvah, a red-and-gold festooned dining hall for the Chatterjee wedding, and the set of Pulp Fiction for the fortieth birthday of a visiting film buff. Anything was possible for the dining room—except, it seemed, remaining stable for a dependable length of time.

Delilah explained, "It keeps glitching. Any element of any venue we've created in the past has started showing up at random."

"Sounds . . . kind of exciting?" Scarlett suggested.

"Definitely not," her sister said grimly. "So there's that. Plus as you noticed there's no gourds downtown. The annual Gourd Materialization Festival was an utter catastrophe—everything they conjured immediately exploded. Gourd guts everywhere. And as you've probably noticed the lobby doesn't smell right—instead of our Cozy New England Inn scent, sometimes we get a whiff reminiscent of Office Supply Store, or Times Square After New Years, or Gerontology Wing of Local Hospital—that one's super charming."

"Sounds like, as the kids say, our shit is fucked. "

" Language , Scarlett," Mama said. She served some of the lobster medallions to herself and Luna. "We're having the occasional challenge with magic, is all."

" Occasional challenge doesn't begin to cover it," scoffed Delilah. "Scarlett, you saw the road work just outside of town. These massive potholes appeared, right? No big deal—the witches on the Road Spellwork Committee headed out to do the repairs. But the next morning, the holes were back. So they went out again, did the spell again, but the holes returned, even bigger. Next day, same thing. They finally had to call the county and ask for help. Not in hundreds of years has Oak Haven asked for help from the county . They didn't even remember we were here!"

"You are overdramatizing," Mama protested.

"Any suspects?" asked Luna. "What does the council say?"

"Everyone's confused. And panic is setting in. Magic has been bumpy for a few weeks now. Some ladies aren't even doing spells anymore. Did you notice the absence of magic downtown, Scarlett? How it's all sort of average-looking now? That's because some witches are afraid to cast anything." Delilah helped herself to some of Luna's honorary lamb dish. "Poor Polly—you remember her, right? She took over Spellbound Books when her mom retired. She's had terrible problems. She arrived one morning to find every book in the shop had been rewritten in Mandarin. And I haven't even told you the worst thing that's happened. Last month, Zahir prepared one of his famous brunches—crepes, shakshuka, bagels with smoked salmon and caviar, honey cakes, and so on. Half of Oak Haven was here, lined up out the door, all of them drooling. But everything came out of the kitchen tasting exactly like Spam. Every single dish, from the cappuccinos to the coffee cake. Everything —no matter what Zahir did—everything tasted of Spam."

"Spam, spam, spam, spam . . ." Scarlett sang. "Spam spaaaaam spam . . ."

"It's not a joke!" Delilah exclaimed. "Zahir doesn't have powers—he did all that work by hand. And everything was ruined! That's why nobody comes to the restaurant anymore. He puts his whole soul into his food. Failing like that in front of the whole town? It broke him. He's a broken man. He hardly cooks these days—he only did this tonight because he was so happy to have the two of you back. These days it's Happy Panda takeout around here."

"Dear Lord, would you stop exaggerating, Delilah." Mama leaned forward in her seat. "Listen to me. You three are direct descendants of the founding mother of Oak Haven. Ever since, the Melroses have been one of the leading families of this town. Over and over again, Oak Haven has looked to us in times of trouble. It is essential that we all keep a brave face. If the three of you start running around with your hair on fire, you'll cause a panic."

Scarlett put down her fork. "I hate to even ask this, but . . . is it the trees again?"

"Of course it's the damn trees," Delilah said, while Mama said: "We don't know anything yet," at the same time.

On a small hill overlooking the town of Oak Haven sat a grove of ancient oak trees. Goodwife Virginia Melrose and the other town founders had chosen the site for their new settlement, specifically because of the enormous power of the oaks, which were easily a hundred years old even then. Over the centuries, that power had only grown along with the trees themselves—their thick, gnarled branches reaching upward and outward and even down, growing deep into the earth and then swooping back up toward the sun.

Ten years earlier, the trees had been poisoned, setting off a chain of catastrophes that ended with the death of Edward Melrose, the girls' father.

"This is exactly how everything started last time," Delilah said. "Remember? It was a few off-kilter spells at first, nothing serious—nothing to worry about, everyone said. But then more spells went wrong, then more, and then . . . Well, you all know what happened after that."

"You really think we should try to fix it?" Scarlett asked skeptically. "Last time we got involved—" She stopped herself before finishing the sentence. But all the women's eyes instinctively flicked toward the empty chair at their table.

"That was an accident," Mama said firmly. "It was not your fault, and you shouldn't blame yourselves."

"How can we not?" exclaimed Scarlett. "We were right there when—"

"Uh, sorry to interrupt." Nate leaned in the dining room entryway. "Lobby is all cleaned up. I'm gonna head home." He had removed his flannel and stood there in just his T-shirt. Scarlett thought she was being subtle in the way she snuck a glance at his exposed, muscle-bound arms . . . but then Luna reached over to push her chin upward to close her hanging jaw.

Mama turned to him and said, "Nate, won't you join us? Look at all this food—we'll never make a dent. We need your help."

Nate glanced at Scarlett and their eyes locked. But if Nate was looking for some kind of response, he wouldn't be getting one. Scarlett couldn't even breathe, much less speak.

The silence, although brief, was excruciatingly loud.

"Actually . . ." Nate broke eye contact, gazing down at his work boots instead. "I'm gonna let you folks catch up, have a little family time. I'll stop by tomorrow, Mrs. Melrose."

"As I keep saying," Mama called after him, "it's Kelly, Nate. You can call me Kelly!"

"I definitely can't, Mrs. Melrose," he hollered back.

After the front door closed behind him, Luna elbowed her sister in the ribs. "Scar! Why didn't you make him stay?! He clearly wanted your approval."

"I . . . uh." Scarlett shook her head like a puppy just out of the bath. "I don't know, I mean . . . He was rude to me earlier."

"Oh don't be childish," said Mama. "I'm sure that's not true."

"It is true! And, also, it's weird to see him again. My brain froze, I guess."

Delilah made a loud retching sound. "Somebody pass the wine."

Mama chuckled. "I confess, I'm relieved it's just us for tonight. Nate's right—we should get to know each other again." She reached for another serving of tagine. "So, Scarlett, tell us about your glamorous life in San Francisco. What have you been up to?"

"Yeah." Delilah drained the wine bottle into her glass. "What has kept you so busy that you haven't been home in ten years?"

"Now, Delilah . . ." Mama said warningly.

"Okay . . ." Scarlett began, "I work in brand management. My title is senior SEO analyst."

" Senior !" Luna exclaimed. "That sounds impressive. What does a senior SEO analyst do exactly?"

"It's a bit tricky to explain . . . Let's say, just as an example, that you wanted to advertise the inn online."

Delilah gasped. "We would never!"

"Of course not. It's just an—"

"Witches don't internet."

"I know that. I'm trying to—"

"The internet is full of so-called wiccans ," Delilah muttered. "Sharing so-called spells on so-called FaceSpace."

"It's not called FaceSpace, and—"

"Amateurs who can't tell a pentagram from a pentacle."

Scarlett went to take a restorative sip of wine, only to see her wineglass glitch into a chalice of mead. "You know what," she sighed. "Never mind. I work in an office, Mama, doing office-y things." The glitch happened again and Scarlett's wine returned.

" Delilah ." Mama frowned. "Let your sister finish. Go ahead, Scarlett. Let's say we wanted to internet the inn."

"Um . . ." Scarlett started to correct her but let it go. "Sure. My point is, if you had a website, it would be my job as SEO analyst to—"

"Senior analyst," corrected Luna proudly.

" Senior . Thanks, Luna. It would be my job to ensure that our inn would be the most visible one in the search results."

"Like a notoriety spell?" asked Luna. "To increase fame?"

"No," said Scarlett, her patience waning. "Bits of computer code called spiders catalog all the sites on the internet, and it's my job to maximize the site's appeal to the spiders."

Luna clapped excitedly. "Oooh, insectomancy! I studied with a coven in Penguin who did amazing spellwork with weaver ants."

"Nope, that's not at all what—"

"I have a cape they made me, actually. An army of tiny seamstresses."

"There's no spellwork!" exclaimed Scarlett. "It's just good-old-fashioned, non-magical work work."

"Oh, my dear Luna," snarked Delilah, "you must realize that our sister doesn't think witches do actual work. Only non-magical work qualifies as work."

"Nooo," Scarlett groaned, "that's not what I meant."

Buddy Holly appeared at the table out of nowhere, demanding, "Do you want the goddamn five-dollar shake or not?!"

Scarlett put her head in her hands. "Oh my God, what a madhouse."

Mama sighed. "Let's have some more wine."