Page 87 of Enchanted to Meet You

Derrick looked physically pained as a dashing dark-haired man leaped from a table near the front of the stage and then sprang up the three or four steps to join Rosalie behind the podium. For someone who’d founded the World Council of Witches in the 1980s, Old Bart didn’t look all that old. In fact, in his red smoking jacket and black cravat, he looked a little bit like—

“Thank you,” he said in a deep, cultured voice as he held up his hands to still the smattering of applause for his presence. How had I not known that Bartholomew Brewster—at least judging by his accent—was British? “Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure, honestly, to be here. I don’t know where this country would be without little towns like West Harbor—they really are the backbone of this great nation.”

This earned even more applause than Rosalie’s mention of the Tricentennial. Derrick, however, wasn’t clapping. Neither was I.

“If we were being accurate, West Harbor would be celebrating its quadricentennial rather than its tricentennial because it wasnearlyfour hundredyears ago that Europeans established a settlement in this area—”

Esther, looking disgusted, folded her arms across her chest and muttered, “More like spread smallpox and waged war against the Native communities actually living here at the time.”

Amen to that.

“But of course West Harbor itself wasn’t founded until the seventeen hundreds, when it incorporated separately from the towns and settlements around it. And look how it’s grown since! I’m honored to be invited to share in your well-deserved festivities. And what makes my being here tonight so much sweeter is that I get to share this great privilege with none other than... my brother.”

Professor Brewster raised a hand to shade his eyes from the bright stage lights as he peered out into the dining room. “Derrick, will you come up here so I can introduce you?”

Jessica

Write the name of thine enemy on paper. Hide the paper in the icehouse. Thine enemy’s power against thee will be frozen.

Goody Fletcher,Book of Useful Household Tips

At first I didn’t understand what was happening. Why was Bartholomew Brewster, the self-proclaimed Grand Sorcerer of the World Council of Witches, calling Derrick Winters his brother?

This was surely some kind of joke. Derrick couldn’t possibly be related to the man who’d founded the most despicably elitist organization in all of witchkind.

Then again, Derrickdidhave the symbol for that organization tattooed on his arm. And he did hand out amulets belonging to that organization pretty freely.

And he’d told me that he had a lot of half-siblings.

He wasn’t denying that Bartholomew was one of them, either.

True, he wasn’t leaping onto the stage to join him. Instead, he was glaring daggers at Rosalie. In fact, if I were Rosalie, and Derrick was glaring at me like that, I’d have run far, far away.

But instead Rosalie was standing behind Bart, grinning like the proverbial cat who’d swallowed the canary.

It’s possible she couldn’t see Derrick, or his glaring silver eyes, since the lights on the stage were so bright, and we were sitting at the back of the room. Far enough away that when Esther whispered, sounding confused, “Derrick? Does he mean you?” probably not that many people heard her.

But Derrick did.

“Yes,” he said, shortly. And then instead of offering any sort of explanation, he simply said, “Excuse me.”

Then he reached into his pocket for his phone, got up, and left the room.

Everyonedefinitelysaw that. Including Bartholomew Brewster.

“Ah,” the professor said, with a flippant smile and shrug. “My brother seems otherwise engaged at the moment. Well, we can choose our friends, but not our family, as the saying goes.”

This earned him a gentle and understanding chuckle from the crowd. Oh, ha ha. Yes, families are such a pain.

“Shall we carry on?” the professor asked, and pulled a stack of note cards from the breast pocket of his smoking jacket. “What can I tell you about the girls you’re about to meet that you don’t already know yourself?”

Esther touched my hand. When I looked at her, I could see that her dark eyes, behind the lenses of her glasses, were wide and troubled.

“Aren’t you going to go after him?” she whispered.

I nodded. Of course she was right. I should go after Derrick. That’s what a good girlfriend would do.

Except that I wasn’t really Derrick’s girlfriend. Our relationship was only temporary, while we worked together to try to save my town, after which he’d be moving on, and I’d be . . .well, no longer the Chosen One. I was only Derrick’s fake girlfriend.