Chapter 7 Earl Thirteen

The story of Williams Hardware began some three hundred years ago and fifteen hundred miles away, with the pirate known as the Great Sea Wolf, Earl of Anglia, the Terror of Tortuga. Captured by the British Navy around 1700, the Great Sea Wolf managed a spectacular escape from his own execution, diving off the dock before he could be hanged. He was spared a briny demise due to the lucky arrival of a whaling ship, which was seeking out fresh hunting opportunities around Costa Rica. Alas, the ex-pirate's whaling career was cut short due to an unspecified role in a mutiny. He found himself a hunted man yet again. But the Great Sea Wolf got lucky a second time outside a tavern in New Bedford, where he met a witch, one Miss Sarah Williams of Oak Haven. Sarah Williams promptly tamed and then married the scurvy dog, bringing him home to begin their happily ever after in her hometown.

But, as the story goes, keeping an ex-pirate occupied proved a trickier job than Sarah had anticipated. That's when she realized that the witches of Oak Haven were sorely in need of a centralized place to store their magical supplies. Meanwhile, the husbands of Oak Haven were in need of projects to keep them busy around the house. And so it was that the Great Sea Wolf, Earl of Anglia, Terror of Tortuga, was transformed yet again—this time into Earl Williams, shopkeeper. Ever since, Williams Hardware had served the needs of DIY-ers, tradesmen, and the local witch community.

In the three hundred years that followed, the Williams family produced a long line of sons, all of them named Earl. To a man, the Earls were stalwart, honest . . . and mischievous, because pirate ways die hard. They also share the trait of exceptional longevity, due to marrying good-hearted witches who'd been disinclined to let them go. Currently there were five surviving Earls in Oak Haven. Earl Nine (age one hundred and twenty-one), Ten (age ninety-seven), and Eleven (age seventy-nine) spent their days in rocking chairs on the front porch of their family hardware store. Their primary occupations were coffee consumption, whittling, and arguing over the weather forecast—but they did manage a healthy sideline in the provision of unsolicited advice to passersby. Twelve, meanwhile, was a sprightly fifty-six and wouldn't be caught dead rocking the days away with those relics . . . not yet, anyway.

Then there was Thirteen. Earl Thirteen had proved himself to be the most rebellious Earl since the original. Years ago, the young scalawag caused an epic scandal in town when he rejected his birth name and insisted on choosing his own.

And the name he chose was Nate.

"What can we do?" Nine had said with a sigh. "Thirteen wants to be his own man. Truth be told, I understand where he's coming from. Me, I wish I'd been named Herman."

"Oh, Dad, you do not," scoffed Ten. "What nonsense."

Nate may have rejected his birth name, but he carried on the tradition of managing the family hardware store. And thanks to him, Williams Hardware remained an essential locale, both for all the witches who needed supplies and for all the Oak Haven husbands who simply needed an excuse to get out of the house.

A joyful shout emitted from the rocking chairs when Scarlett approached.

"Look who it is, Granddad!" said Eleven happily.

Nine pulled on his glasses to peer at the grown-up woman in front of him. "That's not our Scarlett, is it?"

"It can't be," said Ten slyly. "She was a tiny thing just yesterday."

Scarlett smiled. "It's me!"

The Earls hugged her and kissed her on the cheek and quizzed her on life outside Oak Haven, with many hints—both subtle and not-so—that it was well past time for her to return home and stay put. For a moment, Scarlett began to wonder if the Earls would ever let her leave . . . but their coffee cups soon emptied, and suddenly Nine declared, "Honey, go ask Nate for a refill, would you? Save me the trip."

"Of course, sir," she said. "I wouldn't want someone as frail as you exerting yourself."

"You watch yourself, miss," he said with a grin.

"I'm just teasing. You don't look a day over one hundred and five and you know it."

"Exactly why I always say every man should marry a witch."

***

The interior of Williams Hardware was a maze of shelves and cubbies, all packed with every gadget and gizmo that Oak Haven's DIY'ers might desire. A paint mixer and a key copier sat behind the counter, next to a sign featuring a magic wand in a red circle with a slash, and the words "NO SPELLS." Another sign with an arrow declared that lumber and gardening supplies were available out back. But what Scarlett didn't see, as she scanned the shelves, were the magical items required by her mother.

Oh no, she thought. Has Williams gone normie too?

"Hey there," said a voice behind her.

It was Nate. He'd cleaned up beautifully since she saw him last, and he wore a burgundy flannel shirt that complemented his dark brown eyes just perfectly and somehow made Scarlett want to throw up or cry or both.

"Can I help you with something?"

"Um." It took Scarlett a moment to remember what she was doing in Williams Hardware in the first place. "Oh! The Earls want more coffee."

"Aw, for crying out loud . . ." Nate sighed. "I keep telling them: ‘Guys! This is not a diner. When I open a diner, you'll be the first to know.'"

"Also . . ." Scarlett gestured vaguely with her mother's shopping list. "Mama sent me for a few things. But, um, I don't see—"

"I moved all the magic supplies to the back room."

"Really? You treat magic like the adult section of a video store?"

"Had I ever been in a video store, I might get that reference. Basically I didn't want to risk selling some kind of powerful potion to a tourist. Easier to just keep it all out of their eyeline."

"Do tourists ever ask you about that NO SPELLS sign?"

He shrugged. "I tell them it refers to fainting spells."

"Really," Scarlett said with a laugh. "Do they buy that?"

"Do you think I care? Listen, I'm going to go refill the Earls." He moved toward the counter, where an archaic coffee maker sat beside the key-copying machine. "You can head on back; grab whatever you need."

Behind a door marked PRIVATE sat the second mission of Williams Hardware, beyond keeping husbands occupied: magical supplies. Scarlett grabbed one of the shopping baskets by the door and set about satisfying her mother's demands.

She began with the bulk herbs, which were collected in large barrels in the center of the room. The array of herbs lent the back room an indescribably funky smell that Scarlett couldn't decide if she loved or hated. Checking her mother's list, she helped herself to some dried sage, rosemary, and mugwort, plus rowan tree berries and dragon thorns, and something called iron thistle, which Scarlett had never even heard of but there it was, glinting away in its own barrel beside more typical thistles of the marsh and field.

Next Scarlett selected a number of rune candles, a satchel of obsidian dust, and a small box of shattered mirrors. Then she moved on to the shelves packed with little glass bottles: bottles of wishes, bottles of distilled emotion, even bottles of quietude, each gathered from a uniquely silent place.

As she shopped, Scarlett couldn't help remembering what Luna had said last night—about Nate, and how this was their time. On the one hand, it was an absurd idea. If anything was ever going to happen between them, it would've happened back when they were teenagers. She'd spent a decade building her life on the West Coast. It was too late for any nonsense here in Oak Haven. And not for nothing, but if their interaction yesterday was any indicator, they weren't capable of being in the same room without picking at each other.

On the other hand, he did look ridiculously good in burgundy . . .

The door opened and Nate poked his head in. "Need help finding anything?"

"Oh!" she said, startled. Nate had become a professional startler, so it seemed. "Umm . . ." She scanned her list to make sure she didn't miss anything. "I think I'm doing all right, actually."

"Do you need anything for plant magic?" Nate asked. "What do you ladies call it, horti-something?"

"Hortikinesis."

"Right. The last time magic went off, it was a problem with the oak trees, wasn't it?"

"It was, but . . ." Scarlett shrugged. "Nothing hortikinetical on my list. I'll tell you what, though: I sure hope it's not the trees this time. Fixing the trees was . . ." She sighed. "Fixing the trees broke everything else."

"Yeah, about that . . ." Nate said slowly. "I feel like I owe you an apology."

"You do?"

"Yesterday, you know . . . I hadn't seen you in ten years and practically the first thing out of my mouth was a dig about your dad, and making fun of San Francisco . . . It just . . . I don't know, I've been thinking about it, and it doesn't sit right with me, that I said that stuff."

Nate's apology sent a warmth spreading though Scarlett's chest. No fair, she thought, you can't do a whole Tom-Hardy-as-lumberjack look and then be a sweetheart too. "Aw, it's . . . it's okay. I mean . . . you're right, I have stayed away too long. And as for Dad, it's fine to mention him. After all, he died ten years ago."

"Yet you still blame yourself. Which is crazy, by the way."

"You know, there's nothing a gal loves more than being apologized to and immediately told she's crazy. Most guys do it in the other order, but . . ."

Nate flushed. "Oh man, I can't get this right at all, can I?"

"I'm sorry," she said, smiling. "I'm just teasing. And since we're apologizing . . . I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable about joining us last night."

"Oh, no big deal."

"It was antisocial of me . . . I blame jet lag."

"Sure. San Francisco is a long trip."

"Yeah . . ." Scarlett looked into Nate's dark eyes, and they tricked her into saying something true. "It's a trip I was hoping you'd make. When I first got there? I'd be in a restaurant or something, and I'd suddenly think, oh, Nate would like this. But . . . I never heard from you."

"Well…" Nate hesitated. "I did think about it, I swear. But you've got to remember how risky it would be for me to leave Oak Haven. As a non-witch, I mean. I could end up with a pretty nasty case of amnesia."

"Yeah, yeah. The Forgetting Spell, I get it. Way, way too risky." She forced a laugh, hoping to play the moment off as a joke. "Funny though, how you used to talk about leaving all the time. World's largest ball of twine, right? Then we grew up and, come to find out . . . you're an Oak Haven lifer."

"Well . . ." He shrugged. "You always claimed that you were a lifer, and then you upped and left in the middle of the night."

"And then I sold my hair to buy you a watch chain, while you sold your watch to buy me a hair clip . . ."

"Yeah, pretty much." Nate gazed at her with a happy-sad sort of expression. "That sounds about right."

They stood together, close enough to touch, in a room full of magic. But ten long, silent years crowded in the room with them, and neither had the slightest clue what to say or do about any of it.

"Of course," Nate said finally, "if I had left, who would manage the care and feeding of the Earls? Who'd keep them in coffee and whittling supplies, if not me?"

" Of course ," Scarlett repeated. "You're right—I had not considered the Earls."

"There you go."

"Won't someone please think of the Earls?"

When Nate grinned at her, Scarlett grinned back, and she suddenly realized that there were no bad feelings here, just complicated ones, and she didn't want the moment to ever end.

But then they heard the ringing of the cruel little bell on the front door.

"You have a customer," she said regretfully.

"Never stops," he replied.

"I guess I better go. Mama's waiting on all this gear. Do I pay you, or—"

"Nah, your mom's got a tab. So, uh. I'll see you. Around. I guess."

"I'll see you."

She moved to leave but Nate's voice stopped her. "Scar . . . You don't have to punish yourself, you know."

Scarlett turned back. "Punish myself, how?"

"San Francisco. Your whole Exile on Lombard Street thing. Living like some muggle instead of a witch? I mean, I get it, you felt responsible for your dad . . ."

"San Francisco's not a punishment."

"Working in some office? Sure sounds like self-inflicted punishment to me."

"It's great, I love my life there."

"Really?"

"My job is very—" Scarlett stopped herself. She could lie to her sisters, to her mother, she could even to herself, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to lie to him. "It's . . . occasionally . . . interesting . . . And occasionally . . . not so much. But all jobs involve a certain amount of drudgery, don't they?"

"I'm just saying, I've seen the so-called real world outside Oak Haven, and I know it's no picnic."

"Sure, but living in Oak Haven isn't always such a— Hang on one second. What do you mean, you've seen the so-called real world?"

Nate blanched. He looked away, seemingly at a loss to respond. "Uh. No, I just—"

"I'm sorry, are you saying you have left Oak Haven?" The warm and fuzzy feeling in Scarlett's chest turned cold and sharp. For years she'd been telling herself that Nate never visited her in San Francisco because the Forgetting Spell prevented him from leaving home. But apparently that wasn't the case? "So . . . you're saying you did take the risk."

"Well . . ."

"Just not for me."

"Scar, I—"

"Where'd you go, Nate? What were the fantastic sights you left Oak Haven to see? Grand Canyon? Disney World, maybe? Or did you get all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge and then not call?"

"It wasn't remotely like that," Nate protested. "You're overreacting."

"Am I? Because what I'm hearing is that you could have left Oak Haven. You just wouldn't leave to visit me."

"No, that's not fair."

"Whatever, Nate. I have to go." She could feel tears pricking her eyes and there was no chance she'd let him see. "This room stinks to high heaven by the way—the least you could do is buy a fan." She left him standing there without looking back.

Nate sighed. "Ah shit."