Page 11 of Impractical Magic

Suddenly the lights flickered, and the room was transformed into Jack Rabbit Slim’s from Pulp Fiction—a 1950s-style Hollywood diner in which the waitstaff dressed as dead celebrities. A waiter costumed as Buddy Holly stood at their table, impatiently demanding, “Who ordered the five-dollar shake?”

The lights flickered again and everything returned to normal—the quiet dining room restored to its usual self.

“Oh yeah, so . . .” Delilah said blandly. “That’s happening.”

At first glance the Stargazer dining room was a typical New England space in every way. But thanks to witchcraft, the room could be easily transformed into any type of venue a situation might require. Delilah told Scarlett that recently the dining room had served as a medieval jousting tournament for Mel Barnes’s retirement party, a private Taylor Swift concert for the Friedman bat mitzvah, a red-and-gold festooned dining hall for the Chatterjee wedding, and the set of Pulp Fiction for the fortieth birthday of a visiting film buff. Anything was possible for the dining room—except, it seemed, remaining stable for a dependable length of time.

Delilah explained, “It keeps glitching. Any element of any venue we’ve created in the past has started showing up at random.”

“Sounds . . . kind of exciting?” Scarlett suggested.

“Definitely not,” her sister said grimly. “So there’s that. Plus as you noticed there’s no gourds downtown. The annual Gourd Materialization Festival was an utter catastrophe—everything they conjured immediately exploded. Gourd guts everywhere. And as you’ve probably noticed the lobby doesn’t smell right—instead of our Cozy New England Inn scent, sometimes we get a whiff reminiscent of Office Supply Store, or Times Square After New Years, or Gerontology Wing of Local Hospital—that one’s super charming.”

“Sounds like, as the kids say, our shit is fucked.”

“Language, Scarlett,” Mama said. She served some of the lobster medallions to herself and Luna. “We’re having the occasional challenge with magic, is all.”

“Occasional challenge doesn’t begin to cover it,” scoffed Delilah. “Scarlett, you saw the road work just outside of town. These massive potholes appeared, right? No big deal—the witches on the Road Spellwork Committee headed out to do the repairs. But the next morning, the holes were back. So they went out again, did the spell again, but the holes returned, even bigger. Next day, same thing. They finally had to call the county and ask for help. Not in hundreds of years has Oak Haven asked for help from the county. They didn’t even remember we were here!”

“You are overdramatizing,” Mama protested.

“Any suspects?” asked Luna. “What does the council say?”

“Everyone’s confused. And panic is setting in. Magic has been bumpy for a few weeks now. Some ladies aren’t even doing spells anymore. Did you notice the absence of magic downtown, Scarlett? How it’s all sort of average-looking now? That’s because some witches are afraid to cast anything.” Delilah helped herself to some of Luna’s honorary lamb dish. “Poor Polly—you remember her, right? She took over Spellbound Books when her mom retired. She’s had terrible problems. She arrived one morning to find every book in the shop had been rewritten in Mandarin. And I haven’t even told you the worst thing that’s happened. Last month, Zahir prepared one of his famous brunches—crepes, shakshuka, bagels with smoked salmon and caviar, honey cakes, and so on. Half of Oak Haven was here, lined up out the door, all of them drooling. But everything came out of the kitchen tasting exactly like Spam. Every single dish, from the cappuccinos to the coffee cake. Everything—no matter what Zahir did—everything tasted of Spam.”

“Spam, spam, spam, spam . . .” Scarlett sang. “Spam spaaaaam spam . . .”

“It’s not a joke!” Delilah exclaimed. “Zahir doesn’t have powers—he did all that work by hand. And everything was ruined! That’s why nobody comes to the restaurant anymore. He puts his whole soul into his food. Failing like that in front of the whole town? It broke him. He’s a broken man. He hardly cooks these days—he only did this tonight because he was so happy to have the two of you back. These days it’s Happy Panda takeout around here.”

“Dear Lord, would you stop exaggerating, Delilah.” Mama leaned forward in her seat. “Listen to me. You three are direct descendants of the founding mother of Oak Haven. Ever since, the Melroses have been one of the leading families of this town. Over and over again, Oak Haven has looked to us in times of trouble. It is essential that we all keep a brave face. If the three of you start running around with your hair on fire, you’ll cause a panic.”

Scarlett put down her fork. “I hate to even ask this, but . . . is it the trees again?”

“Of course it’s the damn trees,” Delilah said, while Mama said: “We don’t know anything yet,” at the same time.

On a small hill overlooking the town of Oak Haven sat a grove of ancient oak trees. Goodwife Virginia Melrose and the other town founders had chosen the site for their new settlement, specifically because of the enormous power of the oaks, which were easily a hundred years old even then. Over the centuries, that power had only grown along with the trees themselves—their thick, gnarled branches reaching upward and outward and even down, growing deep into the earth and then swooping back up toward the sun.

Ten years earlier, the trees had been poisoned, setting off a chain of catastrophes that ended with the death of Edward Melrose, the girls’ father.

“This is exactly how everything started last time,” Delilah said. “Remember? It was a few off-kilter spells at first, nothing serious—nothing to worry about, everyone said. But then more spells went wrong, then more, and then . . . Well, you all know what happened after that.”

“You really think we should try to fix it?” Scarlett asked skeptically. “Last time we got involved—” She stopped herself before finishing the sentence. But all the women’s eyes instinctively flicked toward the empty chair at their table.

“That was an accident,” Mama said firmly. “It was not your fault, and you shouldn’t blame yourselves.”

“How can we not?” exclaimed Scarlett. “We were right there when—”

“Uh, sorry to interrupt.” Nate leaned in the dining room entryway. “Lobby is all cleaned up. I’m gonna head home.” He had removed his flannel and stood there in just his T-shirt. Scarlett thought she was being subtle in the way she snuck a glance at his exposed, muscle-bound arms . . . but then Luna reached over to push her chin upward to close her hanging jaw.

Mama turned to him and said, “Nate, won’t you join us? Look at all this food—we’ll never make a dent. We need your help.”

Nate glanced at Scarlett and their eyes locked. But if Nate was looking for some kind of response, he wouldn’t be getting one. Scarlett couldn’t even breathe, much less speak.

The silence, although brief, was excruciatingly loud.

“Actually . . .” Nate broke eye contact, gazing down at his work boots instead. “I’m gonna let you folks catch up, have a little family time. I’ll stop by tomorrow, Mrs. Melrose.”

“As I keep saying,” Mama called after him, “it’s Kelly, Nate. You can call me Kelly!”