Page 42 of Enchanted Village

“Who is that?” a witch walking by trilled.

The voice caught Silas’s attention, and he turned around, eyes dancing along the small crowd until they fastened on Margaret. Even several feet away and separated by the height of her pub, Margaret felt warmth bubble up in her chest when his blue eyes landed on hers, and she grinned.

“Oh my god,” Liza said. “Mags, look.”

Margaret blinked. She was still processing the fact that Silas was on her roof. It took Liza shaking her shoulder and pointing for her to shift her gaze to the front of the pub.

And once she did, she gasped.

The shingles were no longer charred or worn. The sign was perfectly polished, and its missing letters had been restored. The windowpane was no longer boarded. It had been repaired and replaced. Everything seemed to sparkle. It was the way it had looked when Margaret was a girl and there were three women to care for the pub rather than just one.

“Wow,” Liza said next to her. “What a great friend. If only all friends came with biceps like that—”

Margaret elbowed her friend in the ribs before she could finish the sentence.

Chapter Twenty

He had fixed the roof. He had fixed the sign. Fixed it in a way where he matched the letters perfectly. The windowpane shimmered with rainbow light the way the old one had.

Margaret couldn’t believe it. It was more than what he’d done inside the pub. This was . . . this was beyond what she could’ve hoped. She thought, maybe, if she was lucky, he would’ve been able to get the windowpane up. Maybe he would’ve known how to rehang the charred sign. But never did she think he would’ve done all of this.

Margaret was still processing when a new voice interrupted her thoughts.

“What a stunning sign.”

Margaret turned and found a stranger, a man with light-brown, short-cropped hair and moss green eyes. He was tall, but not quite as tall as Silas. Margaret wondered if the tourists were already starting to arrive in Hex Hollow, but regardless, she put on her brightest smile.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Do you own the place?” the man asked, inclining his head at the pub. He kept his left hand holding on to the suspenders he wore over his plain shirt, his overcoat thrown over his shoulder with the other hand.

“She does, indeed,” Liza answered for her. “This is Margaret. I’m Liza. I own the village bookshop.”

“Oh, wonderful,” the man said. “I’m always in the market for a good book.”

He couldn’t have picked a better sentence to answer with. Liza beamed. Margaret looked back up at Silas, but he had disappeared to the other side of the roof. She itched to thank him, but Liza was speaking again to the man.

“Are you here for holiday shopping?” Liza asked.

The man flicked his eyes back up to the sign and down again. “You could say that.”

“Oh, mysterious,” Liza said, giggling.

“I’ve heard a lot about this village,” the man continued. “A lot about the history, especially this pub. I wanted to see for myself.”

“My grandmother owned it,” Margaret said. “And then my mom, and now—”

“—you,” he finished. “That’s incredible.”

Margaret blushed a bit. The man wasn’t her type, but there was no denying he was handsome. Liza was looking at him like she could’ve spread him on a cracker.

“And you’re the only pub in town?” the man continued.

“Well,” Liza said with a huff. “For now. There’s some awful place opening across the street, but it’s clearly a cash grab. Margaret here is the only one with a watering hole worth visiting.”

The man raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

“Absolutely,” Liza continued. “They don’t even have any furniture yet, but they’re going on about having a ‘wait list’ of people who want to go to their opening.”