Page 23 of Impractical Magic

Until everything went to shit.

Until Handsome Bill turned cold for reasons no one could understand. Until Polly tearfully demanded a divorce. Until Handsome Bill poisoned the trees above Oak Haven and fled, never to return.

Ten years on, Scarlett was shocked to find Polly, the girl she’d envied more than any other, looking utterly discombobulated. Her face was pinched with worry, and gray hairs sprouted among the chestnut brown ringlets tumbling down her face.

“Hey, Polly . . .” Scarlett narrowly avoided colliding with a brawny gent carrying a pile of lumber. “What’s going on here?”

Polly turned and gasped at the sight of the Melrose sisters. “Scarlett! Delilah! Oh, how good to see you. Is Luna here, too?”

“Not with us, but yes, she’s in town.”

“What a relief. We’re in a state here as you can see. I hope you Melroses are ready to save us.”

Scarlett and Delilah exchanged glances. “Uh, well we’ll do our best.”

“Have you got some coffee for Scarlett?” Del asked. “She’s in a state, too.”

Polly brought Scarlett and Delilah to her little back office; it was barely enough space for a desk and a couple of chairs, but at least it was quiet. Relatively quiet, anyway—the pounding of hammers and whining of drills reduced to a dull background noise.

Sitting there with her Doc Marten boots on the desk was Polly’s fourteen-year-old daughter Violet. She wore oversized headphones, and her hoodie was pulled over her head as she gazed intently at her phone.

This time it was Scarlett’s turn to gasp. “Is that . . .” She turned to Polly. “That can’t be your little baby girl.”

“That’s what happens when you stay away for ten years, Scarlett. They grow.”

“I see she has a phone?”

“And why not? The teens in town all have them.” Polly sounded more than a little defensive. “I know it’s addictive but with everything she’s gone through with her dad, you could hardly expect me to say no.”

“No, Polly,” Scarlett said appeasingly. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant: oh hey, we’re doing cell phones in Oak Haven? Seems like the opposite of what the town is about, that’s all. I mean, do you remember the arguments about allowing cable TV? My God, the way the elder witches flipped out? You’d have thought they were going to put a McDonald’s in the middle of the green.”

“Ughhh, Scarlett . . .” Delilah groaned. “You should have been here for the town meeting where we debated cell phones. The moment I saw a tower going up outside town, I wrote up a proposal that we create a spell to block the signal. But that would have involved the elders understanding what cell phones were in the first place.”

“Oh no, I can just imagine.” Scarlett chuckled. “I bet you made this whole pitch and they didn’t know what the hell you were talking about.”

“You heard Mama last night. Witches don’t internet. That generation doesn’t get it.”

From what Scarlett recalled of last night’s conversation, Delilah wasn’t exactly Steve Jobs, either. “Right,” she said. “They, the old folks, do not get it. Unlike you, who thinks 5G is short for five grimoires.”

“Well,” Delilah huffed, “what does it mean, then?!”

To head off an argument, Polly offered, “How about I get you that coffee, Scar. Oh, Violet!” She banged on the desk to get her daughter’s attention. “We have visitors. You know Delilah of course. This is her sister Scarlett. You’ve not seen her in a very long time.”

Violet barely glanced up. “Hey.”

“Hiiiiii,” Scarlett said, too enthusiastically. “You were about yea high the last time we met—maybe five? Isn’t that just—”

“Mom,” the teen interrupted. “I ordered lo mein. I’m gonna wait for the delivery outside.” Violet put her headphones back on and stalked out of the room.

Polly sighed. “That’s my little charmer.”

***

Huddled in the back office over coffee, Polly regaled Scarlett and Delilah with stories of her difficult past few months. The overnight translation of all the books into Mandarin was just the beginning of the trouble. No sooner had Polly gotten that sorted out than she discovered every single book had had its last chapter transposed with its first.

“Imagine opening up Murder on the Orient Express and the first words you see involve Poirot propounding his solutions! Or starting the Da Vinci Code by reading the epilogue. It was a catastrophe, an absolute catastrophe.”

“Agreed,” Scarlett said. “If you’ve started selling Dan Brown, things are way worse than I’d imagined.”