Page 93 of Impractical Magic
“Which portal?”
“Broom closet, second floor.”
“Aha, that’ll be Toad Suck, Arkansas.” Scarlett vividly remembered every portal that she and Nate had worked on. Even thinking of him made her chest tighten with emotion, but she pushed it down. “All right, I’ll go find her.”
She headed up to the broom closet and stepped through the portal. Scarlett found herself transported to a wooden treehouse. Crooked beams supported a spacious room, with window-shaped openings overlooking the dappled Arkansas woods. Sunlight poured through the leaves, painting the gnarled floorboards with golden splotches. Scarlett’s footsteps crunched on fallen leaves that had blown through the windows.
She descended the ladder and found her sister beneath the sprawling butternut tree. Luna sat cross-legged on a woven rug in vibrant colors. Around her in a wide circle sat a menagerie of surprisingly obedient animals: bright-eyed squirrels, grumpy-looking toads, a green iguana covered in spikes, and a variety of birds. Some looked very much at home in Arkansas—the crow, the sparrow, the chicken—while others—the macaw, the bird of paradise, the quetzal—just looked confused. But regardless, every creature gazed at Luna with a reverence Scarlett found unsettling.
“Luna?” she said hesitantly. “I brought flies?” She held up the metallic cage.
Luna rose, smiling. “Perfect, I’ve been waiting for this. Let’s see if we get any takers.”
Scarlett joined her on the blanket, watching in fascination as Luna offered a dragonfly to each animal in turn. The frogs sniffed disdainfully and turned away; the birds pecked warily, then backed off, and the iguana lifted its head briefly before returning to its nap. Hope dwindled with each refusal.
“Umm . . . let’s see . . . looks like you haven’t done an owl?” Scarlett suggested.
“Ah, great idea!” Luna resumed her conjuring position, sitting cross-legged on the blanket, eyes closed, hands extended, and palms turned up. In a moment, the air in front of her shivered and changed shape as if Luna was channel-surfing reality itself. The shimmering slowly but surely resolved into the form of a white-faced barn owl.
The owl immediately hopped over to the cage. It studied the dragonflies from one angle, then climbed on top of the cage to examine them from another. Suddenly, the barn owl shot straight up into the air, wings flapping furiously. It flew back down, hovered in front of Luna, and shrieked furiously right in her face. And then it flew off, soaring into the woods.
“He’s not that into you, I guess,” Scarlett mumbled.
“I don’t get it.” Luna sighed, running a hand through her wild hair. “Maybe we need a more exotic predator. I don’t know . . . do pangolins eat flies?” She flopped on her back, staring up at the tree canopy overhead. “It’s the uncertainty that’s killing me. At least when the trees were poisoned, we knew exactly what to do about it.”
“The good ole days . . .” Scarlett said softly. “I wonder whatever happened to old Handsome Bill . . .”
Luna sat up, surprised. “What do you care?”
“I suppose I don’t. But he is Violet’s dad, after all. You saw how much pain she’s in over his absence. And, I mean . . . he’s an Oak Haven-er.” She paused, considering. “Oak Haven-ite? Haven-ian? Whatever. He’s one of us.”
Luna shook her head firmly. “I’m sorry, but he stopped being one of us when he attacked the grove.”
“Obviously, that was a bad choice . . .”
“Bad choice?! Scarlett, that was a lot more than a bad choice. Actions have consequences, and some actions can’t be forgiven.”
Scarlett’s heart sank. For just a moment there, she’d wondered if she might confess to Luna that it was her mistake that killed Papa. If Luna knew what had really happened that night when Papa died . . . Could Scarlett be forgiven? But clearly the answer was no. She swallowed hard and changed the subject.
“Maybe we should try spiders next? They eat flies, right?”
Luna made a face. “You know how Mama feels about spiders. If I cover the grove in black widows, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
They brainstormed a few more bird ideas—a red-tailed hawk, a meadowlark, an eastern wood peewee—and Luna easily created them all. But none would have anything to do with the magic-tainted dragonflies. At one point, Luna even conjured up a black bear cub, which promptly tried to use the cage as a soccer ball. Adorable but unhelpful. The sisters slumped in defeat.
“Hey,” Scarlett said suddenly. “Did you try a starling? Starlings are major bug-eaters, aren’t they?”
Luna looked aghast. “No way, no no no. Starlings are an invasive species. We only have them in the U.S. because a bunch of dum-dums decided to import every bird mentioned in every play by William Shakespeare. They released about a hundred starlings in Central Park, and boom, before you know it, there were millions of them. They take food from other birds, and they evict other birds from their nests . . . just terrible things.”
“Dunno, maybe they’re just clever survivors,” Scarlett said with a shrug. “Maybe that’s exactly what we need.”
“Clever? I was in South Moravia one time, and I saw a flock of starlings destroy an entire vineyard overnight. Overnight, Scar. No, I don’t want to replace one invader with another. Plus, they look weird. What are you, starling—are you black, are you brown, are you purple, green . . . what’s even going on?”
Scarlett laughed. “But they’re super smart, right? They’re the ones who fly in those groupings—what are they called, murmurs or something?”
“Murmurations,” Luna corrected. “Giant twisting clouds of starlings. Very creepy.”
“Dunno, it seems like telepathy to me. Which is . . . kinda like magic? So who knows, maybe they won’t be so offended by eating magic dragonflies. C’mon, Lulu, do a starling.”
