That made sense. When people expected ghoulies and ghosties and makeup and costumes, they didn’t tend to look too closely or think that some of those special effects might actually be real. Take the Haven Hollow Haunted House attraction run by Wanda’s two vampire brothers, William and Amos. They’d hired all sorts of supernatural creatures and left them there—right out in the open, and the mundanes never suspected a thing. And I had to admit getting to see some of the supernatural folks that looked more monster and less human mixing it up with the mundanes and the rest of us was heartening. Plus, the haunted house attraction was just a fun time. Finn and I loved it when we’d gone with Marty.

  Bea tapped one dainty finger against her bottom lip. “If I had to guess—I’d say this is just a situation of leftover tricks.”

  “Leftover tricks?”

  She shrugged. “Halloween was just last month. Maybe the Autumn Fae just didn’t get their fill? That could be what’s going on with the dancing curse—maybe the Autumn faeries didn’t party themselves out in October, so this is leftover antics.” She shrugged again. “If you’re worried, you should probably try to call Fox and see if he knows anything about it.”

  Fox being ‘Fox Aspen’, or as he was known to his fellow fae, ‘Prince Reynard of the Autumn Court’. He worked with the Hunter’s Guild of America from time to time, dealing with monsters that preyed on humans. Bea was right. If Autumn fairies were up to something, you’d better believe their prince would know about it. Or, at least, I hoped he would.

  “I will call, if it keeps happening.”

  I trusted Fox. Liked him, even. But asking for his help meant making some sort of a deal with him for something in return and making deals with fairies was never something to take lightly. And that went double when dealing with their royals. I was quiet for a second, thinking. “What kind of faerie would normally play a dancing plague prank?”

  Bea blew out a sigh, ruffling some of her curls with the strength of it. “Traditionally, dancing pranks are a Spring Court thing and oftentimes they’re used to herald the coming of Spring—as sort of a naughty little gesture.” She shrugged again, and I heard the little hum of her hidden wings moving. “It’s pretty normal to want to drag humans into a ring to dance for a few hours.”

  “And how do the humans feel about it?”

  “Usually, they aren’t too aware of what’s going on—just that they’re having fun. Think of being drunk and dancing. In general, it’s a ton of fun to ride the magic of the circle. There’s no harm done, and everyone has a blast. At least, usually. But… this feels different.”

  “It feels malicious.”

  She nodded. “It does feel malicious.” She rubbed her arms, as if suddenly cold. “Not to mention, I’m the only Spring fae in town at the moment, and I’m certainly not behind it, so I’m not sure who could be.”

  Bea was right. These ‘tricks’ as she’d called them didn’t feel like a leftover Halloween prank, or something silly. They felt intentional, mean. Like the dancing plague was meant to humiliate the person doing it, or even hurt them. And I knew Bea wouldn’t do anything like that, but if it wasn’t her behind the dancing plague, then that left the question… who was?

  Chapter Four

  The ride to school the next morning was tense and uncomfortably silent.

  Finn sat in the passenger seat, but he was slumped down and his face was turned away so I could tell he was staring out the window at the landscape passing by. He didn’t seem inclined to talk.

  Yes, as a teenager, he was prone to be sulky. I knew these years came with a required level of angst as young people got themselves sorted out and became adults. But Finn usually talked to me about whatever was on his mind, and this new silence was out of character and hard to take.

  He’d talk to me when he was ready, I told myself. I shouldn’t push him.

  But easier thought than done.

  I tried to just leave the situation be, but I broke by the time we turned onto the street that took us to Haven Hollow Middle School.

  “What’s wrong, Finn?”

  For a long second, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. That he’d just remain staring out the window until we pulled up to the curb. But finally, he turned his head to face forward, glaring through the windshield.

  “You lied to me yesterday.”

  “I didn’t want you to heal that woman, Finn,” I answered honestly. “Because we don’t yet know if your magic is taking a toll on you.”

  “You shouldn’t have lied.”

  I nodded. “That’s fair. You’re right—I shouldn’t have lied.”

  He shook his head, like he wasn’t done with the conversation. “And then you paid Astrid to basically babysit me for the rest of the day, which was really embarrassing. I’m almost fourteen years old, Mom. I’m not a baby anymore and I don’t need Astrid taking care of me.”

  My hands tightened on the steering wheel, my knuckles blanching white. “I know you aren’t a baby.”

  “You don’t act like it,” he snapped back. “You’re always hovering over me like I’m a baby taking my first steps.” I could see tears burning in his eyes. Angry tears. “I’m a teenager, Mom. I might not have as much experience with magic as you, or Wanda, or even Astrid does, but I know how to handle a twisted ankle.”

  “Finn,” I started, but he interrupted with a pointed glare.

  “If you can’t trust me to fix a little thing like a twisted ankle, how are you ever going to trust me to help someone with a serious problem?”

  I had to swallow back the lump in my throat before I could get any words out. I hated the idea of Finn dealing with a serious injury because of what it could mean for him. Ice formed in the pit of my stomach as I thought about it and worry plagued me anew. “Hopefully you won’t ever be in a position to need to deal with anything serious.”

  Finn crossed his arms against his narrow chest, his expression too serious for his thirteen years. “You can’t know that.”

  The steering wheel creaked under my grip, and I had to ease off before my hands cramped up. “I–”

  “No, Mom.” He flicked out his index finger. “Within a month of living here, you got chased down by a Wendigo.” Finger two. “Then you almost got hit by a permafrost hex when you were saving me from the Winter Faeries, and that would have turned you into a statue.” Third finger. “We had to run away from the whole town when people got all love crazy over Fifi.” Fourth finger. “Then you almost died facing down that vampire, Roscoe.” Fifth finger. “And then you got hurt again at Wanda’s witch assembly thing.” He took a breath. “So, the chances of me having to face down a bad injury are actually pretty high.”

  I didn’t know what to say. The lump in my throat was so big, I could barely breathe around it. The problem was that Finn was right. Those were all the situations I’d wanted to protect him from or myself, and I’d failed. Why? Because even though I was a gypsy, I was still just a human and a human going up against the more magically gifted? Yeah, it wasn’t a fair fight. But that didn’t mean I wanted Finn involved in any of this—if anything, it made me want to keep him safe all the more.

  “I just,” I started, shaking my head as I forced the tears back. When he’d labeled everything as he just had, somehow it made it all so much more real and I realized the insane amount of danger I’d placed us both in ever since we’d moved here. Even though I loved Haven Hollow, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d made a huge mistake in moving here. “You healing people makes me nervous because I can see it takes a toll on you, Finn.”

  “I might feel a little tired afterwards, but it’s not a big deal.”

  I shook my head. “Since helping that woman yesterday, the bags under your eyes haven’t gone away and you’re paler than usual. You can’t tell me that’s no big deal.”

  His voice was quieter but no less adamant when he said, “And yet that woman was able to walk out of your store and she was just fine. There’s always a trade-off.”

  “But my son’s health isn’t a trade-off I’m willing to accept.”

  He breathed out his frustration. “Mom, the point of this whole talk is that bad things happen here, and I want to be ready to do what I can to stop them.”

  “It isn’t your responsibility to save the people of Haven Hollow, Finn.”

  “I was thinking more about you, Mom.”

  I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “You’ve come really close to dying too many times. And one of these days, what if you aren’t so lucky?”

  “I can take care of myself,” I answered stubbornly, even though I couldn’t deny (at least to myself) that he had a point—I had gotten very close to death too many times for my own comfort. “And, I… well, I have Marty.”

  Finn’s frown was pronounced. “Marty can’t protect you, Mom, but I can. I will.”

  I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his job to look after me. I was the mom. His safety was my job. He was my little boy—and he should have been worrying about meeting his friends for ice cream, studying, and girls. Except… he wasn’t a little boy. Not any longer. He was a young man now and every day he was getting older and his abilities were growing. The lump in my throat had swollen again, and if I opened my mouth, I knew I’d just start crying. The tears were already burning at the corners of my eyes, the feeling hot and heavy.

  I pulled up to the curb in front of Finn’s school, navigating the line of cars dropping off their own passengers. That took all of my concentration for a few seconds, because some people had interesting concepts of what parking spots were. The second the Jeep came to a stop, Finn flung the door open and jumped out, without waiting for a reply or even looking back to give me a wave like he normally did. Instead, he stalked off, joining the crowd of kids who were filing into the school, and vanished through the doors.

  I pulled out of the line and the over into the faculty parking lot, where I sat for a long time, until all the kids were inside, and the other cars in the drop off line were long gone. And then I leaned my head forward against the steering wheel, and I let the tears come.

  It all felt so wrong, the whole argument we’d just had. Everything was changing, and I didn’t mean just Finn becoming a young man. Letting him grow up was different than letting him throw himself head first into danger like some kind of teen superhero, but I didn’t know what I could do to stop it. I wasn’t even sure I could stop it if I tried, and certainly not without making my son hate me for it.

  And then being reminded of Marty and the fact that he couldn’t protect me… Finn was right. In fact, having Marty around was actually more of a liability because as a human with zero abilities, Finn and I would have to protect him rather than the other way around. But thinking thoughts like that just made me feel worse.

  I loved Marty, I did, but I was quickly being forced to realize that I wasn’t in love with him. He was my best friend, and one of my favorite people in the world, and I loved being around him and, equally important, Finn loved him too.

  But there were almost zero romantic feelings there, and that fact was more and more apparent when I found my thoughts drifting towards Andre. The fact that Andre wasn’t even here, and yet I got more butterflies thinking about him than I did kissing Marty just made things so much more obvious.

  But that doesn’t mean Andre is the guy for you, I reminded myself. Passion fades and that giddy feeling you get when you first fall for someone doesn’t last. Think about all the men you’ve picked—not one of them can hold a candle to Marty.

  And that was the truth. Marty outshone each and every one of them in each and every department imaginable.

  And yet… yet, I missed the feeling of butterflies, of nervousness, of anticipation of seeing someone. I missed the passion I felt whenever I even thought of Andre—I missed the way my heart sped up and the way my blood seemed to energize every inch of my skin.

  But did that make what I felt for Andre right? Did it make it real?

  I was fairly sure the answer was ‘no’, because I didn’t even know Andre. I didn’t know much about him at all, really and that meant these feelings I had for him were just made up—I was just projecting an image onto him of what I wanted him to be and, truly, there was no way he could live up to my hopes and dreams. No man could. And that wasn’t fair.

  It wasn’t fair to Andre, to myself and it wasn’t fair to Marty.

  The guilt curdled in my stomach, adding a bitter note to the tears rolling down my cheeks. Crying usually made me feel better, at least a little. I didn’t indulge often, but sometimes you just needed a release valve to vent before you ended up doing or saying the wrong thing. But this crying jag wasn’t making me feel any better at all. I felt just as terrible, and now I had a headache and sore eyes.

  ***

  An embarrassing, gross, ugly sobbing amount of time later, I mopped up my face with the aid of the rear-view mirror, trying to hide the evidence of my breakdown. An emotional outburst like this called for some emotional support chocolate, so once I had myself as together as I was going to get, I pulled away from the curb and headed for Sweeter Haunts.

  Sweeter Haunts was Haven Hollow’s Halloween themed candy store, where it was trick or treat year-round. The best part was, since it was November, the Halloween candy was marked way down, so I managed to get a sugar haul for almost nothing. Candy corn and little marshmallow witches might be available year-round in Haven Hollow, but they tasted even better when they were on sale.

  ***

  Once safely ensconced behind the counter at Poppy’s Potions, I tucked into my candy and got to work.

  About twenty minutes later, I was nibbling on some candy corn and watching as my ‘Sweet Dreams’ potion turned an unpleasant, murky gray color. That was a bad sign and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was also an example of the fact that my magic had seemed to take a darker turn lately—well, ever since I’d joined Scapegrace Coven.

  I took a deep breath and disposed of the mess. I didn’t know what the end result of the potion would be, but I didn’t want to give someone who was looking for peaceful sleep a vial of liquid nightmares. That would be very bad for business.

  I started pulling things together for a new potion. One that was supposed to grant a little clarity—to help someone cut through the noise and get right to the heart of what was troubling them. It was something I could probably have used, myself.

  Mixing bright citrus, some rosemary, and a few drops of pine essence, the sharp smells tingled inside my nose, like a breath of crisp air that could clean the cobwebs from my skull. I added in a little bit of almond oil to mellow things out.

  A hint of sweetness never hurt, I thought as I stuck a cherry candy shaped like a skull under my tongue.

  My hands were steady as I worked, measuring carefully as the potion took on its pale sunshine hue. But my mind kept drifting back to my argument with Finn, if it was even an argument. It was more that he’d lambasted me and then left me to myself to think about everything he’d said. And the problem with the whole darn conversation was that Finn was right—I was just acting the part of an overprotective mother.

  But was it so wrong to want to protect your child? From caring about his welfare more than someone else’s? Maybe it was? Regardless, there was no way I could ever change that about myself—I would always protect Finn first and foremost. But that was just how mothers were.

  I just hated the disappointment I’d seen in his face, like I’d let him down. I knew how badly he wanted to be a Magician, to help people, to be able to do something when things went wrong instead of standing on the sidelines, just watching. I understood that. I did, because I felt the same way. I didn’t have super strength like Lorcan or Roy. I didn’t have insane magic like Wanda or Taliyah.

  I just had my potions.

  Which I was repeatedly screwing up lately.

  I’d taken my attention off the clarity potion for too long, and it had shifted to a strange dull orange color, like rotted pumpkins. Instead of a nice clear liquid, it was a confused, muddled mess.

  I dropped my head onto the counter and groaned in frustration. My magic churned unhappily in my gut, reacting to my emotional state. It felt a bit like heartburn, actually. The burn of this strange new magic I’d seemed to inherit pressed against my throat like I could exhale embers. It was the same feeling I’d gotten when I’d hexed that PTA mom, and I wasn’t eager for a repeat, so I did some breathing exercises until the feeling settled again, and I glared at my worse-than-useless latest potion.

  Well, maybe someone would need a potion that would baffle them. That sounded like it might come in handy like… never.

  Great, Poppy, just great.

  I jammed a stopper into the potion and started clearing away my supplies before I really screwed something up.

  I was too unfocused, and if I kept trying to push through while I was distracted like this, either the potions would fizzle into uselessness or they’d explode, and erupting potions was kind of Wanda’s deal. I’d hate to step on her toes like that.

  I sat back with a sigh, and shoved a ghost-shaped marshmallow into my mouth, letting it dissolve on my tongue. All my thoughts were tangled up in my head, a great big Gordian knot of stress and worry. I needed someone to talk to, just to try to get a handle on my own feelings, to understand what the right answer was. But who could I ask? That was the problem.

  If I went to Wanda and the other coven members, they wouldn’t get it. No matter how much I loved her, Wanda wasn’t a mother so there was no way she would understand what I was going through, how I was feeling. Heck, Wanda would probably encourage Finn and teach him a bunch of things he had no business knowing. Wanda was my best friend, and a good person, mostly, but she was also ambitious and ruthless and considered anything that could be an advantage to be a good thing, no matter how morally ambiguous it might be. She’d also been raised by other witches, and knew the dangers that magic could lead to, but witches seemed to look at those dangers more like challenges to be conquered, not warning signs. Plus, Wanda didn’t like it when I ‘got all needy emotional’.