Chapter 9 Abracadabra

On their way home, Scarlett and Delilah found Luna on the Oak Haven green. A group had gathered to watch a performance of Maximillian the Magnificent.

The town gazebo was festooned with balloons, streamers, and large handmade signs saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY NIGEL. Maximillian had turned the gazebo into a little stage, with a red velvet curtain and various magician props scattered around. Young children squirmed in the front of the crowd while their parents and more casual onlookers milled around at the back.

Scarlett and Delilah approached their sister, who had gotten herself a great view of the gazebo. "What's going on here?"

Luna grabbed Scarlett's arm without taking her eyes off Maximillian. "He's a wizard, I think!"

Delilah rolled her eyes and shook her head and sighed, all at once—the universal Big Sister expression for I'm too old for this shit. "Luna has been out in the wild too long—she's forgotten what magic tricks are."

"That's not a trick. Look !"

Maximillian reached out with an (apparently) empty hand to pluck a coin from (apparently) thin air and drop it in a bucket. He repeated this several times before changing things up, pulling a coin from a little girl's hair, another from a little boy's shoe, and then he coughed out a third.

"It's called the Miser's Dream," Luna said approvingly.

"Yeah, I know," Scarlett said. "Anybody can learn that trick, Luna—literally anybody. The Miser's Dream is older than Earl Nine."

Delilah nodded. "And just as corny."

"Hush, both of you, you're embarrassing me."

Finding Luna at an event like this was to be expected—she'd always been intrigued by magic in any form, even "stage magic." But Luna was very much alone in her curiosity about magic. It was an article of faith among witches that stage magicians were charlatans. Witchcraft was innate—it could never be taught, only inherited. Stage magic, on the other hand, could be purchased at a joke shop or copied off YouTube videos. Witchcraft was real, went the general opinion, while stage magic was bullshit.

For that very reason, Scarlett was quite surprised to see young Violet among the audience in the park. If anyone was keen to cry "bullshit," it surely would be Polly's pissed-off kid. And yet there she was—perched on a bench, distractedly shoveling lo mein into her mouth. She didn't take her eyes off Maximillian.

Scarlett nudged Delilah. "Check out Angsty Teen over there."

"Wow," Delilah said. "I didn't know Violet was that interested in anything that couldn't fit inside her phone."

A pair of average grey squirrels went skittering past Violet's bench, chasing each other up the trunk of a nearby maple tree. She leaned over to whisper in Delilah's ear. "Squirrels."

Delilah understood. "They're horrible, aren't they?"

"Chilling. Do you think it's the trees?"

"That's the thing—"

Luna wheeled around. "Do you two mind?!"

Delilah rolled her eyes and guided Scarlett a few steps away. Meanwhile, Luna took a few steps in the opposite direction, hoping to make it clear she wasn't one with those grizzled cynics.

" Anyway ," Del continued. "While you were sleeping, Luna and I visited the grove. Remember ten years ago, how sickly the trees looked?"

"Sure," Scarlett said. "They'd been poisoned."

"Right, well. Look at this." From her bag, Delilah removed a handful of oak tree leaves. They were firm, with a bright green color—darker on the top, lighter on the underside—with just a hint of autumn yellow tickling the edges. No discoloration or markings or bug bites. They were perfect.

Scarlett stared at the leaves for a moment. "The trees aren't sick."

"They don't appear to be."

"Then how do we explain the squirrels, Delilah? Or the potholes, or the failing spells. If we're not dealing with sick oak trees, then . . . what is it?"

"I don't know. But my first thought is: maybe something is indeed wrong with the trees, just not visibly. We're going back to the grove tonight. Luna's going to have a chat with them and see what they say."

"Excuse me," Scarlett said. "I'm sorry, what? Quick clarification. By them , you mean, Luna's going to chat with . . ."

"The oaks."

"The oaks. Right. My baby sister talks to trees. That's a completely ordinary thing for you to say."

"Apparently she studied with a coven in . . . oh nuts, where was it?" Delilah took a step toward her baby sister. "Luna," she said in a stage whisper, "where did you learn the tree-talking thing?"

"Bo-Kaap, in Cape Town," she said, never turning her eyes away from the stage. "They have baobab trees that are thousands of years old, and there's a spell where you can communicate with them. Now, will you shut up? Maximillian is about to do something interesting."

Scarlett nudged Delilah. "So she just talks to trees now."

"She's been busy. Traveling all over, learning all sorts of arcane magic."

"Oh my God . . ." Scarlett considered this. "Is Luna the most powerful of us now?"

"It's worse than that," Delilah said. "Mama says that Luna is the most powerful of anyone ."

Luna turned to her sisters, her face flushed with joy. "He made a rabbit appear in his hat ," she exclaimed. "A rabbit, Scarlett!"

"In his hat, Luna. I saw. Well done, Maximillian: you've mastered a feat achieved by any eighth-grade nerd with a top hat."

Delilah snickered. "Yeah, and she's supposedly the most powerful witch in the family—how about that."

Luna's eyes flashed. She stalked over to her sisters and said, "Now you listen to me. I have been all over the world, and I've seen all types of magic. Stage magicians are not entirely fake. When I was in Japan, I saw this young man do a trick with a plastic alligator and a cell phone, and I still have no idea how he did it without using genuine powers. Magicians are our cousins, and they deserve our respect." Luna turned her back and returned her full attention to the show.

Delilah rolled her eyes. "Well, she sure told us, huh." She impatiently checked her watch. "Is this thing done yet? We need to get home. Psst, hey, Luna. How much longer?"

Luna waved them off without turning around. "Go without me."

With a shrug, Delilah turned to Scarlett. "Let's go. There's something I want to show you."

***

"Look at it," Delilah said, disgusted. "Can you believe that?!"

They were standing at the corner of Main and West streets, and Delilah was pointing to the crosswalk ahead of them.

Unlike the parallel stripes seen in cities everywhere, Oak Haven crosswalks featured elaborate patterns of repeating circles, and within each circle was a complex maze.

At first glance, one might assume the intricate design was just one of those small-town quirks—like the "Garden of One Thousand Buddhas" in Arlee, Montana, or how Collinsville, Illinois, is home to the world's largest ketchup bottle. But Oak Haven's crosswalks are one piece of a massive, town-wide mosaic of enchanted sigils, elaborate carvings that generate a protective quilt of forgetfulness, keeping Oak Haven safe from the scrutiny of the outside world.

But this crosswalk had gouges all over it, like someone went at the designs with a sledgehammer.

"What the hell . . ." marveled Scarlett. "What happened to the sigils?"

"Excellent question. We're seeing this all over town."

Scarlett had heard about a lot of concerning developments in town since she'd arrived—the road work . . . the lack of gourds . . . the Spam incident. But they were small-bore, things that make you go, huh , types of changes. Even the squirrels, while certainly chilling, didn't feel existential. This was the first change that genuinely troubled her to her core. "Is this harming the Forgetting Spell?"

"Depends what you mean. This particular broken sigil, this specific one? No. The spell is cumulative. It's not just one sigil, it's thousands of separately carved— Now, hold on, wait one minute." Delilah abruptly turned an accusatory glare on her sister; Scarlett was alarmed to realize that Del had developed an expression nearly as intimidating as their mother's. The Melrose Scowl, they called it in town. Delilah had it mastered.

"What?! What's with the look? Don't give me that look."

Delilah continued giving the look. "You don't know how the Forgetting Spell works, do you? You have no idea."

"Of course I do. Don't be ridiculous. There are enchanted symbols all over Oak Haven—in sidewalks, over doorways, on moldings, in kitchen and bathroom tiles—and they cause outsiders and non-witches to forget about us."

"Yes, but how ? How does it work, exactly? Prove to me you know how it works."

"Umm," Scarlett said. "It, uh, you know . . . works by . . . uh, making people . . . forget. Stuff."

" Making people forget stuff ." Delilah folded her arms across her chest, every bit the Teacher Who Isn't Angry Just Disappointed. "That's your final answer?"

"Well, what then? Jeez, I left town when I was eighteen! Maybe I didn't learn every damn thing about this goofy place, okay? Stop being so smug and just tell me."

"The so-called Forgetting Spell doesn't make people forget , precisely. Instead, it interferes with the brain's ability to create new memories in the first place. All these sigils—all of these carvings all over town—are enchanted to subliminally broadcast tiny bits of useless trivia, over and over. One or two sigils would have no particular impact. But at scale? People whose brains aren't accustomed to the broadcast—meaning, anyone without magic who doesn't live here full-time—will find all their short-term memories replaced by nonsense. Maybe they suddenly know the lyrics to ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' but can't recall what they had for dinner. They'll remember that Chester Arthur was America's twenty-first president, or they'll suddenly know which film director has won the most Oscars, but somehow they can't quite remember that adorable little town with all the gourds."

"That's diabolical." Scarlett gazed down at the maze of circles beneath her feet. "Poorly named, though. The Forgetting Spell. Should be, like, the Hippocampus-Scrambling Trivia-Blast."

"I know," Delilah agreed. "For years I tried to get people to call it the Unremembering Spell, but that never took."

"Wait, though, I have a question: were the sigils trivia-based back in the eighteenth century, when they were first installed? Had trivia even been invented in the eighteenth century?"

"Have a listen. If you focus, you can hear the broadcasts yourself."

Scarlett knelt down in the crosswalk, laid her palm against one of the sigils, and closed her eyes. In a moment, she popped back up again, delighted. "Did you know: when Napoleon Bonaparte was in his mid-twenties, he wrote a romance novel?"

"Sure, Clisson et Eugénie ," Delilah said, smiling. "There you go, question answered."

"Should we fix this one?" Scarlett moved to study the smashed-up part of the design.

"I've tried—there's another damaged sigil on the far side of the park. Instead of making it better, I made the damned thing disappear completely."

"Oof, because magic is acting crazy."

"Exactly," Delilah said sadly. "So I think we should leave it be. I just wanted you to see what we're up against."

Scarlett nodded grimly. She did see, and it was frightening. Oak Haven without the Forgetting Spell. Oak Haven abruptly famous. Oak Haven on TikTok.

She shuddered. "Let's go home."