Page 30 of Impractical Magic

From the dining room, the witches could hear the front door to the inn swing open. “Hello? Anybody home?” The male voice in the lobby could only belong to one person: Nate.

Luna grinned wickedly. “Oh, Scarlett? It’s for you.”

Chapter 11: A Surprisingly Bangable ­Handyman

“I’m not going out there.” Scarlett stepped back from the gift table, her mind racing. “Is something on fire in the kitchen? I think I smell something burning. . .”

Too late. Nate was standing by the threshold between the lobby and dining room. “Hey all,” he said. “Where’s this new piano I’m supposed to move?”

“Oh dear, I’m sorry,” Mama sighed. “I should have let you know. I’m afraid we’re still working on conjuring one.”

“Sorry to hear,” Nate said. “Chalk it up to those misbehaving oak trees, I guess.”

“Afraid so.” Mama turned to Scarlett. “Darling middle child, as Nathan has taken the time to stop by and see us, I suggest you go do what you know you need to do.”

“Mama . . .”

“Go on. And don’t dawdle—we have much to accomplish before you girls investigate the grove tonight. Go apologize for whatever it is you said.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Here came that Melrose Glare again. “It’s all over your face, Scarlett.”

“Nuh-uh!”

She turned to Luna for support, but Luna just shrugged. “Kinda is, Scar.”

Scarlett folded her arms across her chest and gazed up at the ceiling for a moment. This one’s gonna sting. “Hey, Nate, since you’re here . . . Can I talk to you for a second?”

***

The back of the dining room looked out over a large stone patio. Beyond the patio sat about an acre of gardens, ringed with tall trees. In the center sat a large granite fountain, which, in better days, would send water jets arcing high into the air. The garden had once been a masterpiece of landscaping, with immaculate gravel paths winding through beds of fragrant roses and lavender shrubs. As a little girl, Scarlett used to chase the butterflies and hummingbirds that flitted from blossom to blossom. Today, the fountain was full of dry leaves, the blossoms just a memory.

Strolling around the yard, Scarlett was disturbed by the preponderance of unpulled weeds, untended shrubs, and unraked leaves. The once-immaculate garden, a source of Melrose pride and joy, was a specter of its past self. “She hasn’t really kept it up, has she?”

“Well . . . your mother has a lot going on, especially since magic started glitching. And, uh . . .”

“And,” Scarlett said, finishing what Nate didn’t want to say, “tending the garden was always Papa’s thing.”

The back corner of the lot was the site of Papa’s greatest love—his vegetable patch, where he’d spend uncountable hours from the first thaw to the first frost. Unlike her sisters, who never took to gardening, Scarlett had loved helping her father dig in the dirt. She’d enjoyed the affectionate labor involved in gardening, even without the use of magic. Although, from time to time, a little magic never hurt.

“I did my first spells out here.” Scarlett led Nate to a cast-iron bench under a weeping willow tree. “Papa needed more earthworms for the garden, and I got to conjure them. Very basic spell, but I was only about five. The very idea of creating life like that was quite thrilling. A couple of years later, we had a bit of an aphid problem, so I was allowed to make ladybugs.” She laughed at the memory. “I got completely obsessed with perfecting the number of black spots on their backs . . . Eventually, Papa explained that mommy and daddy ladybugs are perfectly capable of making their own baby ladybugs, and I’d best not go overboard.”

“Quite an education to be had out here.” Nate settled on one side of the bench. “You’ve got the birds, the bees, the bugs, the whole deal.”

“Indeed, you can learn a lot in a garden . . .” Scarlett sat on the other end of the bench and stared straight ahead, not wanting to look at him for this next bit of conversation. “So listen . . . I’m a jerk.”

Nate chuckled. “I mean . . . not most of the time?”

“No, yeah, I am . . . Mama told me about your father . . . and your secret uncle? Apparently?”

“Ohhh, I see. That’s what this is about. Yeah, at the store this morning . . . you wouldn’t give me a chance to explain.”

“I kinda freaked out,” Scarlett admitted.

“That’s for sure.”

“I was out of line. I don’t know, it’s like . . . I spent ten years becoming an adult, and then I get back here for five minutes, and I’m—”