Chapter Four

  As we waited in line, I told Maverick about the school’s ridiculous Halloween play.

  Every student was forced to take part in the play, which was a retelling of the founding of Haven Hollow and its spooky reputation in the intervening years.

  According to the official mundane story, an eccentric ex-prospector living in the California desert, named Jeremy Genton Haven, had gone completely nuts and left his wife and family to travel north. As he traveled into the Oregon territory, he detailed his journey, not only into the land, but also into the occult.

  In reality, Jeremy Genton Haven had been a gargoyle and upon arriving in Haven Hollow, he entered into an open relationship with a half-breed witch named Hazel. Hazel, with the help of local faeries, hags, and other mystical types, had created a sort of grid over the town. The grid confused the few mundane settlers who lived within the borders of Haven Hollow and offered shelter to any monster who settled there.

  Following Jeremy and Hazel’s example, three more Hollows were later established in the north, south, and east United States.

  “And what part do you play in this fascinating Halloween play?” Maverick asked.

  “Oh, I play two parts,” I answered. “In the first act, I play a tree in Haven Park and then in act three, I play a tombstone in Hollow Cemetery.”

  “Fascinating,” Maverick answered on a yawn as I faux elbowed him in the arm. “And what have you decided to present Wanda with this year for Samhain?” he continued.

  I breathed in deeply and then exhaled just as deeply. “I, uh, I don’t know.”

  He looked at me, and his eyes widened. “You don’t know? You have scarce two days left!”

  “I’m aware,” I answered and then shook my head. “But I have no idea where to even start. At first I thought I could knit her something.”

  It was his turn to shake his head. “No, not for Samhain.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.” I cocked my head to the side and then shook it. “I was thinking something with a potion and a spell, but nothing comes to mind.”

  He nodded. “It would need to be something… big.”

  “Right,” I answered as I kicked an apple that had freed itself from the basket. I watched as the mottled red and green fruit rolled round and round before slamming into Scraggly Scarecrow’s pole and splitting.

  Maverick looked at me, and when he smiled, the expression reminded me of the Cheshire Cat. “I have just put the final touches on a difficult potion, myself.”

  “What potion?”

  His smile grew until he resembled an entertained crocodile. “Have you ever heard of Past Lives Oil?”

  I frowned as I tried to place the name of the oil. It reminded me of one of those words like ‘perfunctory’ where you think you know what the word means, but when asked to define it, you can’t. “Sort of. I’ve seen it on Poppy’s shelves before, but I’ve never brewed it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Okay.”

  “How is Past Lives Oil going to help me? I thought it just allowed you to see your past lives, if you’ve ever even had any? I don’t see how that’s Samhain worthy.”

  “Perhaps if you’d let me finish, twerp,” he said, mussing my hair. I stuck my tongue out at him and he laughed. “I’ll teach you how to splice Past Lives Oil with Double XX potion to create a new potion I call Regression Oil. It’s sort of... a live show, if you will.”

  “A live show?”

  He nodded. “Regression Oil allows the person who drinks it to see a phantom version of the past—as if they were witnessing a movie—of their own lives.”

  Hmm, I didn’t imagine Wanda had ever before witnessed her own past lives and if she had, I couldn’t imagine it had been to this degree. Yet, there was one part of this whole thing that wasn’t sitting well with me. “Isn’t Double XX potion… meant to confuse your enemies or turn a situation to your favor?”

  “Well, yes, but that’s only if the Double XX is unblended. When combined with Past Lives Oil to become Regression Oil, it does exactly what I just told you it would.”

  I looked up at him. “And you brewed this potion yourself so you know it works?”

  “I did, and it does work.”

  “So, who were you in a past life?”

  He cocked one brow and smiled. “I have enjoyed numerous past lives.”

  “Tell me about one.”

  “Very well, I shall tell you about my most recent past life. I was an Irish woman and an immigrant to the United States in the late eighteen hundreds. I was employed as a cook to a prominent and wealthy New York banker in Long Island. During my summer with the Warren family, I managed to contaminate six of the eleven persons in the house with typhoid fever.”

  “Wait a second,” I nearly interrupted him as he smiled down at me in a knowing sort of way and I looked back up at him, shocked. “Are you trying to tell me you were… Typhoid Mary?”

  “Very good—it appears your history lessons at the hands of the mundanes are proving fruitful, after all.”

  “Wow,” I answered, mind still blown. I wondered if maybe Mary had somehow rubbed off on Maverick, because their personalities seemed… similar. “Then Typhoid Mary died in… 1938?”

  “Yes, the same year I was born,” he answered.

  “So, going back to this Regression Oil, do you think you could… teach me how to brew it?”

  His Cheshire Cat smile was back in full effect. “Why, of course, sister mine.”

  “We’ll have to hurry since Samhain is in two days,” I started, worrying my lower lip.

  Maverick waved me away with an unconcerned hand. “We can hunt down the ingredients and brew the potion today.”

  “And what about the spell that goes along with the potion?”

  “Simple. We anoint a glass and a knob candle, repeat the incantation, and the bespelled potion shall be complete. Easy as pie!”

  “I don’t know…” I pursed my lips. It didn’t sound easy and there was the whole subject of whether or not I could or should trust my brother. He wasn’t exactly known for being above-the-board. Not to mention this potion was meant for Wanda and she and Maverick had definitely had a fairly enormous falling out. But, then there was that whole part of our conversation where Maverick had revealed his repentance. He really had seemed… sad and ashamed of the whole situation.

  “Don’t you trust me?” he asked, and even gave me a faux pout as we walked up to the counter and unloaded the basket of apples as the cashier rung us up.

  I laughed. “Trust and Maverick don’t exactly belong in the same sentence,” I started, as he frowned down at me. The cashier put our apples in a brown paper bag and we were on our way. “Do I need to remind you about all the pranks you’ve pulled on me?” I continued once we were out of earshot of any mundanes. “How about that toad spell that went wrong? I couldn’t get rid of those boils for a week.”

  Maverick chuckled. “Now that was funny.”

  “Maybe to you!”

  He grinned. “What if… what if I took the potion myself to prove to you it wasn’t poisonous or boil-inducing and that it was perfectly safe? Then we could witness another of my past lives together?”

  He just… he seemed so excited about this new potion he’d created and it wasn’t like I had anything else in mind for Wanda’s Samhain gift. Maybe this was just the thing? And if Maverick was willing to test it out on himself first, then what was the harm in it? “Fine. But you’re buying the ingredients because I just spent all the money I had. And I want to first make our offering to the Autumn Fae.”

  “Of course,” he answered, grin widening. “Costumes and arson ahoy.”

  “No arson!”

  “Killjoy.”

  “Psycho.”

  But I couldn’t help a laugh when he stole an apple, tossed it into the air, and made it disappear in front of a group of flabbergasted children who were making their way into Scraggly Scarecrow’s orchard.

  “Neat trick,” the father said. “How’d you do that?”

  Maverick gave him a sly smile. “A magician never reveals his secrets.”

  ***

  It’s amazing what mundanes are willing to overlook regarding common courtesy around Halloween.

  I’d already witnessed a group of preteens on their bikes wearing slasher movie masks and yelling obscenities as two elderly women nearby just laughed. A few sets of college-aged women, dressed in their skimpy best, walked by and Maverick about gave himself whiplash in his hurry to watch them go. Not to mention, the numerous Halloween house displays that could have been considered in bad taste—one in particular boasted plastic bloody body parts strewn across the lawn. A stray dog jogged up to the house, captured a femur and trotted away, looking very happy with his treasure.

  Some of the houses had transformed their front lawns into graveyards, and I spied more than one autumn faerie picking candy corns off the ground with no fear of being caught.

  A man dressed like Beetlejuice and his sister dressed like Lydia, both brewing a potion in a public park, would probably be the least suspect thing going on today. And, good thing too, because the last thing we needed were suspicious mundanes.

  “Do I have to wear this awful wig?” Maverick griped as he reached up and scratched his head. “It itches terribly.”

  “Yes, you do—otherwise, how are you supposed to look like Beetlejuice? Besides, you said you’d be a good sport about this.”

  We’d already completed our Samhain tradition of offering the apples to the Autumn Fae, so now it was time to work on the Regression Oil.

  “No arson, no theft, and now a dime-store wig. You’re cruel, sister mine.”

  “You’ll survive,” I answered with a wry smile. “Now what do I add next?”

  I’d already added a third of a cup of Sweet Almond Oil as the carrier base of the potion. To that, I’d added three drops of clove oil, three drops of sandalwood oil, and three drops of orange oil. We’d bought the outrageously overpriced ingredients ($30 a pop) at a homeopathic shop nearby. The markup was insane for the lackluster ingredients, and if the potion went wrong, it was more likely due to the shoddy materials than anything else. Maybe I’d just gotten used to the quality and prices at Poppy’s Potions because this just seemed like highway robbery.

  We’d set up Maverick’s camp stove near the tree line, far away from the frolicking kiddies on the plastic playsets. Occasionally a mom or dad gave our impromptu cauldron the side-eye, but no one said anything. A few of them gathered around to watch us until Maverick gave them a flick of his wrist and, with a quick chant beneath his breath, sent them on their merry way. At least no one thought we were cooking meth.

  A pair of pixies walked by, happily trading apples, and not bothering to hide their flapping wings. And I was fairly sure the pair of goblins I’d spotted earlier weren’t wearing masks. Ah, blessed Hallow’s Eve, when no one batted an eyelash at the supernatural.

  “Next we add the ingredients for the Double XX potion,” Maverick responded. “Lemon Oil, and the remainders from all the other potions I’ve created this year.” He handed me a cardboard box full of odds and ends from spent bottles of blended formulas. “We bring that to a boil for thirty seconds.”

  “And then?”

  “Then we allow the ingredients to simmer for a few more minutes, and after, we’ll extinguish the flame. The potion should take thirty minutes to cool and then we can bottle it.”

  “And you’re sure this is… safe to drink?”

  Maverick gave me a hard look. “Who’s the master potion brewer?”

  “Poppy,” I answered with a smile, dodging the swipe he took at me with a giggle.

  “Who’s the qualified warlock here?” he tried again.

  “Fine. You are. But that’s only because you’re the only warlock in one hundred miles of here, so it’s not really a fair question.”

  Maverick’s teeth ground together audibly. “You’re quite the lippy witch, aren’t you? It must be that hair of yours.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I grumbled, pushing the red locks back into my Lydia wig.

  “Someone ought to hex you and put you in your place!”

  I smiled over at him. “If only there was another qualified warlock here to put me in my place.”

  This time his swipe landed on my arm, and I yelped. Stupid brother with his stupidly huge hands.

  “But, seriously, how do I know all these ingredients are safe to drink?” I insisted. “Usually you anoint yourself with potions—you don’t drink them.”

  “That is the gypsy way of creating potions,” Maverick answered as he frowned down at me. “When we repeat the spell, it ensures all the ingredients are safe to swallow.”

  “Well, you’re still going to test it out first so, for your sake, I hope that’s true.”

  I added the lemon oil and watched the potion take on the color of mercury as I waved a hand over it and together, Maverick and I repeated the spell, “Through the planes we sail, allow our words to part the veil. A new perspective shall we see, such is what we desire, so mote it be.”

  The tip of my nose tingled, and I had the almost irresistible urge to sneeze. Every witch had a sort of tic when casting. Wanda crooked her fingers. Maverick’s fingers almost appeared to be performing on an invisible piano. Tabitha had the most violent casting pose I’d ever seen—she almost appeared to be wrestling an invisible familiar. My method was the most unobtrusive—much like Samantha Stephens from Bewitched, I had a cute little nose wiggle.

  The sun was setting when the moment of truth finally came—the Regression Oil was finished and now we were ready to ladle it into a vial. But, first, Maverick still had to perform the taste test. As such, I spooned a huge serving into a glass and then handed it to him.

  “Down the hatch!” I said with a big smile.

  In response, he snatched the glass from my hand and the thick liquid within, which was now a light lavender color, slopped from side to side like an upset ocean.

  I kept a close eye on the glass as the liquid within began to steam. Maverick responded by lifting it to his lips, and then he threw it all back in one go, grimacing at the taste.

  I waited with bated breath and... nothing happened. Maverick immediately grabbed a bottle of Arrowhead water he’d brought with us and swigged it, only to spit the mouthful out, in order to get the taste out of his mouth.

  “Why isn’t anything happening?” I asked.

  “Give it a moment.”

  As soon as the words were free from his lips, something definitely happened.

  A swirl of mist started circling Maverick’s body, building in intensity as it swallowed him whole. Soon the mist began to turn into a heavy fog, before expanding out and encompassing Maverick in the center of its opaque white walls. Then images began to appear against the white backdrop of the fog, looking like a projected movie.

  Inside the images I could make out a cobbled street, and on that street was a carriage pulled by a horse—I could hear the sounds of the horse’s hooves clomping against the stone below as if the horse were trotting along, right next to me.

  Soon the image of the cobbled street lifted, giving way to a row of houses that stood together, looking like jagged teeth. The houses were in the English Tudor style with steeply pitched gable roofs, elaborate masonry chimneys, embellished doorways, groupings of windows, and decorative exposed wood framework.

  The carriage stalled in front of one of the houses and the driver quickly jumped down from his perch, alighting around the contraption to open the door for the riders. As soon as he did so, a man stepped out. I could only make out his broad-shouldered silhouette, which also revealed he was short and stout.

  He stepped down to the ground, and his characteristics were suddenly clearer and easier to delineate. He wore a white silk shirt, frilled at the neck and wrists. Over that, he wore what looked like a tight-fitted jacket, and close-fitting striped… ‘tights’ was the best way I could think to describe them. He reminded me of paintings of Henry VIII, both in stature and in clothing. He wasn’t attractive at all and I guessed him to be in his early forties.

  The man held out his hand to his companion, a woman. She stepped out of the carriage, wearing a low-waisted red velvet gown with a square neckline and ermine-lined long and tight sleeves. Bands of gold velvet trimmed her neck. On top of her head, she wore a strange, pointed headdress. It was made of black velvet and wired to form a peak over her forehead with long velvet lappets at either side that draped in thick folds over her shoulders.

  “What year is it?” I asked, transfixed by the sight before me.

  “1532,” Maverick answered. As I looked at him, I noticed his eyes were shut tight, but beneath the lids, his eyeballs were moving around as if he were caught in the throes of REM sleep.

  “Which one are you? The man or the woman?”

  “The man.”

  “Who are you?” I continued.

  “My name is Matthew Stewart,” he answered in an English accent. “And I’m the Earl of Lennox and a member of the House of Tudor. My wife is Margaret Douglas.”

  “Wow,” I managed.

  It was another few minutes before Maverick snapped out of it and the ghostly fog began to dissipate, leaving nothing but the trees and grass of Haven Park in its wake. I was still completely shocked by everything I’d just witnessed and how… real it all looked.

  Maverick, finally returned to himself, quirked a brow at me. “Satisfied?”

  “Um, yes?” I was not only satisfied, I was thoroughly amazed and impressed.

  “And you doubted me,” he chuckled.

  In response, I threw my arms around him—I just… I was just happy to be spending this time with him—moments that meant so much to me. He grudgingly hugged me back, muttering to himself about the indignity of it all.

  “Thank you, Maverick.” I really couldn’t thank him enough—this… this was beyond impressive for Wanda’s Samhain gift. In fact, I wasn’t sure how I was ever supposed to top it. But, that was a problem for another day.