Page 112 of Jingle Spells

“That’s what I said. Gross.” But a moment later, Scarlett’s glowing smile betrayed her words. She waved crazily across the room to Nate, who was helping some of the smaller children adjust their costumes. He caught her eye and pulled a face that made her laugh out loud.

“You okay, Del?” Luna asked, materializing on her other side. “Your aura just went all muddy.”

“I’m fine,” Delilah lied. “Just . . . you know . . . holiday feelings.”

Luna’s expression was sympathetic but mercifully free of pity. “Want me to turn you into a lamp for a while? Very peaceful. Zero emotional processing required.”

Despite herself, Delilah smiled. “Rain check on that.”

A small commotion from the side of the makeshift stage caught her attention. A little girl in an oversized deer mask was sobbing uncontrollably, her tiny shoulders heaving beneath the weight of stage fright.

“I got this one,” Delilah said, and swiftly made her way through the crowd.

The child, Delilah realized as she got closer, was Ava Chatterjee, one of Belinda and Sam’s precious grandchildren. She’d backed herself into a corner, her deer mask askew. Tears poured down her face as she tried to remove the cumbersome headpiece.

“Hey there,” Delilah said, crouching down to eye level, and helped the little girl free herself from the deer head. “What’s going on, buddy?”

“I c-c-can’t,” Ava hiccupped. “It’s too scary.”

“The mask?” Delilah gently daubed away her tears. “Or the audience?”

“All of it! Everyone’s gonna look at me!”

“Well, yeah. That’s kind of the point of a performance. People look at you while you do cool stuff, and they all secretly wish they could do it too.”

“But what if I mess up?”

Delilah considered this. “You know what my father used to tell me, when I was scared of messing up? He said that everyone’s so busy worrying about their own mistakes, they hardly ever notice anyone else’s.”

“Really?”

“Really. And besides—” Delilah lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper “—with this big ole mask on your head, nobody will know which deer you are. If you mess up? Just blame your younger sister. It’s always worked for me.”

Ava gave this idea the kind of profoundly serious consideration that only an eight-year-old can. “Daisy is sort of a klutz . . .”

“There you go! Perfect fall guy. So what do you say?” She held out the mask.

With a deep breath, the little girl accepted the deer head back from Delilah. “Okay. I can do it.”

“That’s the spirit.” Delilah gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Go get ’em, Bambi.”

As Ava trotted off to join the other children, Delilah felt a lightness in her chest. It wasn’t happiness, exactly—the Jasper-shaped hole was still there—but it was at least happiness adjacent. A sense of purpose, maybe. She made her way back to where her sisters had saved her a seat, squeezed between them like the filling in a witch sandwich.

“Crisis averted?” Luna asked.

“Indeed. The show will go on.”

The lights dimmed and a hush fell over the audience. From somewhere behind the curtain, music began to play, a haunting melody that spoke of primeval forests and deeper magics than even witches typically wielded.

The curtains parted to reveal a winter woodland scene, complete with enchanted paper snowflakes that actually fell and paper trees that swayed in a nonexistent breeze. At the center of the stage stood two enormous puppets, each at least eight feet tall: the Holly King and the Oak King.

The Holly King was a magnificent creature, draped in red robes with a wild crown of holly berries and dark green leaves sprouting from his head. His beard was white as the snow outside, and his eyes—enchanted to blink and move—glowed with an eerie blue light. Beside him, the Oak King wore robes of green and gold, his massive head crowned with oak leaves and acorns. His face was youthful and vibrant, a stark contrast to the weary wisdom etched into the Holly King’s features.

“They get better every year,” Scarlett whispered, clearly impressed.

Delilah nodded. “That pageant committee fights like cats and dogs but they always pull it together in the end.”

The music swelled, and from the sides of the stage, the children emerged, half in the green and gold of the Oak King’s followers, the rest in the red and white of the Holly King’s. They wore oversized masks of woodland creatures, sprites, and forest spirits. Ava pranced out with surprising grace, her deer mask now adorned with actual twinkling lights for antlers.