Page 24 of Love Spells: And Other Non-Refundable Magic

The words Moonlight Stroll are printed across the top of both pieces of paper in delicate gold lettering beneath an illustration of a full moon reflected over water. Even from the other side of the room, I can make out the date and time.

My mother looks down at the tickets, and something in the way she does it answers my question before she says anything.

I let the bracelet fall carefully onto the velvet mat.

“What happened to the history teacher?”

She immediately busies herself tucking the tickets inside the black envelope they came from. “Nothing happened.”

“Mamá.”

“What?”

She sighs, the sound carrying all the way across the little space between the kitchen and dining room, then walks over and places the tickets beside my beads.

“He doesn’t want to see me anymore.”

My stomach tightens, even though this should not surprise me.

The only thing I know about this man is that he teaches history at a high school in the next town over, and that he makes his own bread, which my mother mentioned one time while I was scarfing down a piece of burnt toast right before I left for work.

“How many times did you even go out?”

My mother narrows her eyes. “That sounds judgmental already.”

“I’m asking.”

“Three.”

“Three dates.”

“Yes, Flora. I can count.”

“Mom.”

She leans one hip against the table and folds her arms. “I wasn’t putting him on the mortgage.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“But it’s exactly what your face said, hija.”

I look down at the bracelet again, even though there’s nothing wrong with it. A mix of citrine, green aventurine, pyrite, and clear quartz for abundance. I have made enough of these in the last few days that the sequence is lodged somewhere in my muscle memory and I can usually string them without thinking.

“What did he say?”

“He said he enjoyed spending time with me, but he didn’t think there was enough of a connection to keep seeing each other.”

I wait.

“That’s it.”

“At least he had the decency to tell you.”

My mother’s mouth quirks slightly. “The bar is on the ground, Flora.”

She reaches across the table and takes one of the loose pieces of quartz between two fingers, turning it toward the light from the window.

Outside, the entire neighborhood is glowing in a way that feels like summer. Yesterday’s strange heat hasn’t entirely broken, and even though it’s cooler today, sunlight still fills the house with enough warmth that I left the back door cracked open earlier.