Love Spells and Other Disasters

by Angie Barrett

  “Your mom and I have known each other for years.” She startles me with her proximity. How she moves so silently I will never understand. She takes the book from my hand and puts it back on the shelf. “My name is Lillian by the way.”

  I nod.

  “There’s only one way to break the love spells you cast.”

  She hands me a book. It’s leather, old, and smells a little funky. Her finger holds a page about halfway through. I open it and see a similar scrawled writing to the type that the true love spell was written in. Reversal of Incantation.

  She taps the page I’m looking at. “This will unravel a spell as powerful as the one you cast.”

  A rush of relief spreads through me, followed by hope. “It will?”

  “Yes, with this reversal, if done correctly, it will unravel all of the spells you cast. It’s a potent one.” She lays her hand on the page. “But I think you can handle it.”

  “Why…” I look up at her. “Why am I able to do this in the first place? Magic isn’t real, right?”

  “You still say that magic isn’t real when you’ve seen it firsthand?” She shakes her head. Then she turns and starts to collect a candle from this shelf and a candle from that. “Magic is real, my dear. It’s all around us all the time just waiting for the right conduit to come and wield it.” She turns to me and puts five candles on top of the open book.

  “How is that possible, though? How am I a conduit?”

  She moves swiftly down another aisle and I’ve lost sight of her. I’m afraid to move, though, because the candles are rolling over the page and I don’t want to drop them.

  “That’s likely a more appropriate question to ask your mom.” She’s behind me now and I jump.

  She laughs, drops a small baggie marked “sage” on the pile, and then moves in front of me. “But some of us are able to cast with varying degrees of success.”

  “You said you know my mom. She’s obviously come in here before.”

  Lillian smiles. “She has.”

  “And you know about Dad.”

  “I do.” She turns and heads toward the cash register with a wave that I think means I’m supposed to follow her. “Your dad and I were friends a long time ago.”

  “You were?” I lift the book, candles, and sage up so I can place them on the counter.

  “I was.” She starts to organize it into separate piles. “He was handsome and sweet, also very intelligent and kind. I had the biggest crush on him.” She smiles wistfully.

  “But you never cast a spell so he would like you back?”

  Her smile fades. “That’s not the way to build a relationship. It’s not true love to force something that was never meant to be. Love that is forced becomes warped and wrong. That’s why your friends and your mom are having such trouble now. You tried to make something happen that was never meant to be. You took away their freedom to choose. When you have the gift of spell casting, you never use it to meddle in other people’s lives. And certainly not without consent.” She starts to wrap the candles in tissue paper. “I think you understand that now.”

  “I never meant to hurt anyone.”

  “No.” She looks up from her wrapping. “I don’t think you did.”

  “What do I do now?”

  She starts to put everything in a thick cloth bag. “Well, you’ll have to wait until the waning moon. One day after the full moon is best.” She points to the calendar that’s pinned behind the cash register. “That’s tomorrow night.”

  “Okay.”

  “Follow the spell exactly as it’s written. The candles and sage are vital.” She hands me the bag. “Also, you have to focus on the intention behind the spell. You really have to want it to happen. Think about it happening. Envision it. It can’t just be words. You understand?”

  I nod. “I need to pay you.” And I hope to hell I can afford it.

  She waves that idea away. “No, you don’t. Consider this a favor to your father. You need to set things right, Rowan. For your mother’s sake, for your father’s sake, and for anyone else you meddled with.”

  “And this will undo them all?”

  “Absolutely. There’s no halfway when it comes to reversals. Any and all spells you created, this one will undo them.”

  “That’s what needs to happen.”

  “I agree.”

  “And I won’t ever mess around with magic like this again.”

  Lillian smiles, it comes across as a little patronizing. “Oh sweetheart, I’d never say never where magic is concerned.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Twenty-four hours. That’s a long time to wait when you know that people you care about are getting hurt.

  Classes, assignments, all those things still happen around me, but I’m a little lost in my head. Feeling guilty. Feeling responsibility. And feeling lonely, too.

  I’ve been carrying the book around with me. Looking through it to see what other spells are there. Not that I’m planning on doing anything more to meddle with people’s lives. Lillian’s message hit me hard last night and I understand now that I can’t fool around with something I don’t understand, something I don’t believe—or rather, don’t want to believe in the first place. It’s not like Mom never warned me not to fool around with magic. I just didn’t believe it was an actual thing to take seriously.

  I feel like all my life I’ve been battling against the idea of the unknown. My mother’s fascination with ghosts and her obsession with finding a way to reconnect with Dad always seemed sad and pathetic to me but I think I was just always looking at it with a narrow mind. There’s clearly more to the world than what I know. There are things going on that are out of my control as well…and some that are definitely in my control. Like, apparently, love spells and magic.

  Obviously it isn’t my writing that’s the catalyst. My attempt at poetry is laughable. All I was doing was copying other people’s words, and yet they had impact. Somehow, someway, I became capable of wielding magic. Was I born like that? Did I inherit it somehow? I have so many questions but, of course, no one to really ask.

  I just want things to go back to the way they were. I want to confide in my mom and be able to talk to Ethan again. I want him and Amanda and Mel to be safe. I want to undo all the damage I’ve done, even the stuff I don’t know about yet.

  I run my fingers along the spine of the book before opening it again. It seems to be made up of only counter spells. How to undo things. It makes me wonder a lot about how many spells actually are cast in the world and how many go wonky for people. It’s not old, even though it’s been made to look like it is. The pages are crisp and white. The writing inside of it was done by hand. Cursive and flowy, like Lillian. I think this is her book. I feel like she gave me a part of herself somehow because when I touch the pages a sense of calm washes over me, just like when I’m standing with her.

  “What’s that?” Abby slides in next to me and I’m cursing myself for sitting out in the open. I could have chosen any number of hidden alcoves in the library but no, I had to sit at the biggest table in the middle of the room. To say I’m distracted today is an understatement.

  “Nothing.” I try to close the book but it’s too late.

  Abby grabs one side and pulls it toward her. She’s surprisingly strong for her size. “Does that say reversal?” She runs her finger over the words, reading quickly. “What the actual hell, Rowan?” When she looks up at me, I see that she’s already figured out what is up. Her face is pink, her eyes full of fury.

  “People are getting hurt.” I pull the book toward me and flip it closed before she can think too hard on it. Then I slide it into my bag and out of sight.

  “Mel has a few bruises, so what?”

  “It’s not just a few bruises,” I snap. “And it’s not just her. Ethan has a black eye.”

  “Love hurts,” Abby say
s with a shrug.

  “Amanda and Will—”

  “Yeah, you mentioned that already, remember?” She crosses her arms, relaxes her face, the tiniest curl to her lips gives the impression that she’s not that put out, or that angry. The glint is still in her eyes though and that’s downright unsettling. “You went back to the spell shop?”

  I nod. “Lillian—”

  “She told you her name?” Abby’s smile widens. “Figures you two would bond. Total freak shows.”

  “Abby, you’ve made a lot of money for Mr. Tremmel’s charity. We got our A on the project. I’m sure he’s going to recommend you for the internship and give you a great reference letter. Enough is enough.”

  “Rowan!” She leans forward. “It isn’t about an A or the money.” She shakes her head and rolls her eyes like I’m oblivious to reality. “It’s about you owing me!”

  I gulp. “I owe you? For what?” But I’m pretty sure I already know.

  “Oh, please. I know you were responsible for what happened to my science project. Why do you think I’ve been so mad at you all these years? Do you have any idea what that cost me?”

  She looks so incensed that all I can do is shake my head.

  “It wasn’t just the total obliteration of my project, or the humiliation of seeing my hard work in pieces all over the judges. It wasn’t even that you got away with it.”

  I open my mouth to argue that I didn’t get away with it. I’d agonized over what I’d done for weeks. Ethan and I both had so many sleepless nights trying to work up the courage to confess. I apologized in every way I knew how to without directly apologizing to Abby’s face. Which I definitely should have.

  Abby glares at me until I close my mouth again. “The judges were there for the Presidential Award for outstanding STEM innovation. I was this close to winning it.” She holds her fingers millimeters apart. “The Presidential Award, Rowan, and you know who got it?”

  I gulp. Yeah, I know.

  “Colin Buckley for his double circuits whatever contraption. Not life changing. Not lifesaving. Not even worth talking about.” She closes her eyes briefly. “I worked for so long on my lungs. I gave up family shopping trips and sports that I loved. I devoted myself to that project and you—you—destroyed it with one careless action.”

  She clears her throat. “My parents had their last fight because of what happened, did you know that?” She waves her hand. “They were always bickering about something or other but that night when my Dad drove me home and we told my mom what happen, they fought like I’ve never seen them fight before. Dad blamed Mom and Mom blamed Dad. We sacrificed so much to build those lungs and to have been so close to winning—” She closes her eyes briefly and takes in a deep breath. When she opens her eyes again she’s glaring at me. “My dad left that night. He left, Rowan. Forever.”

  My brain stutter-steps over what she’s saying. Wait. She blames me for her parents’ divorce?

  “I’m not letting you screw this up for me again.”

  She’s not thinking rationally. “This can’t be about an internship, Abby.” My voice sounds whiny but I can’t help it. I’ll get down on my knees and beg if I have to. “You can’t play with people’s lives just to get a referral from a teacher. It’s not going to fix what happened between your parents, either. People are getting hurt.”

  Abby gets quiet for a minute. She closes her eyes, takes in a deep breath, then lets it out and looks at me. “Do you remember the spell I asked you to write?”

  I frown, taken off guard by the question. “Which one? I wrote a thousand of them.”

  “No.” Abby leans forward. “The one I asked you to write, for Doug and Marion.”

  I think back to that day when Abby brought me a coffee and told me to write one more spell for her. “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Doug and Marion are my parents.” She lets that hang.

  “You asked me to write a true love spell.” And the pieces click together. “You thought it would bring them back together.”

  “And it’s working, Rowan. It’s working!” Her eyes sparkle a little, like she’s going to cry. “They started talking to one another. Mom stopped spending all of our money so recklessly. Dad offered to pay off some of her debt. He told me yesterday that he’s so sorry for not seeing how bad things had gotten for us. They’re going out for dinner. He’s even spent the night.” She dabs at her eyes. “The spell you wrote them is working and I can’t let you end it. I need my life back. The life you stole when you ruined my project.”

  A boulder of guilt settles on my shoulders. Her words hit like a hammer. Now I understand everything. “But the spells are malfunctioning.”

  Abby waves her hand again like she’s dismissing me. “Not all of them. In fact, from what I gather, only a small percentage of the hookups aren’t working out. There’s always going to be a few unsatisfied customers. The stats are in our favor.”

  “This isn’t an equation, Abby.” I kept my voice low because I didn’t want to draw attention but I see a crowd forming anyway, all girls, all probably thinking we’re going to be selling spells after school. “We meddled where we shouldn’t have. Lillian said that there are consequences for these kinds of spells. When you force a relationship that’s not meant to be, people get hurt. And they are, Ethan and Mel don’t deserve the bruises they have. Amanda doesn’t deserve to be treated like property. I know I owe you for messing up your project but I didn’t destroy your parents’ marriage. If you let this continue, the spell will go wonky eventually and your parents will split up. You’ll have to go through that heartbreak all over again and so will they. I’m not going to keep doing this to people. It’s not right.”

  “So there’s no talking you out of this, huh?” Abby leans back again, looking casual, even giving a one-second finger to the girls who are gathering just off to the side, letting them think that we’ll honestly be doing business today.

  I shake my head, hoping that maybe, just maybe I’ll get away with this with little trouble.

  “Have you asked them what they want? All the people whose lives you’ve impacted? Did you bother to ask them?”

  I blink. Shake my head. I don’t need to ask. I know that they don’t want the love spell to end. That they’re addicted to what they’re feeling, even if it hurts as much as it feels good.

  “And if you go ahead with ending the spells, against our customers’ will and wishes, it’ll just be the couples who you’ve decided aren’t working out based on apparent injuries, bruises, and black eyes?”

  I gulp. Shake my head again. “No, it’ll be all of them.” It’s out of my mouth before I can stop it and I wish I could suck it back in. I should have lied to her.

  “All of them?” she growls as she reaches for me. “Are you out of your mind?”

  I pull back, nearly topple my chair in the process and grab my bag. “No, I’m not. For this spell to work I have to reverse all of them. And I’m going to. I’m sorry about your parents, Abby, I truly am, but what is happening between them isn’t real. They aren’t in love with each other all over again. They’re only going to get hurt in the end.”

  Her burst of anger subsides instantly as I say that. She folds her arms and gives me a look. “Oh really?” She taps her manicured nails on her arm. “You really believe that? So you’re just going to end all of the spells at once?”

  I nod. “It’s the only way. It’s the right thing to do, Abby. We shouldn’t have been meddling with people’s lives. We definitely shouldn’t have been arranging relationships without consent. So yeah, all of them need to end.”

  “And you’re prepared for the fallout from that?”

  “What fallout? I mean, sure, people might be upset but their relationships should never have happened to begin with. People will come to their senses when they realize their relationships were based on lies, including your parents.”

&n
bsp; “Including yours and Luca’s?”

  I lose my breath in a whoosh. Her grin is like a sucker punch chaser, but somehow I stay on my feet even though my stomach pitches and my head swims. “I didn’t do a spell for Luca.”

  “You didn’t?” Her smile widens. “You sure about that?”

  My mind scrolls back, way back, to the first time, that one I wrote…dread swells like a wave and the blood drains from my face. “That wasn’t an actual spell. It wasn’t real. It was just a joke. I wrote it just to shut you up. It was terrible, remember?”

  “Oh really?” She unfolds her arms and stands up. “Seems to me that it’s not about the words you use in an actual spell, it’s about what you want. You said you’d want a guy who was totally in love with you.” She counts off on her fingers. “Down to Earth. Realistic about the world. Love at first sight…we’ll know it’s just right …sound familiar, Rowan? Is this ringing a bell here for you?” She stares at me. “That all sounds a lot like things with Luca, doesn’t it?”

  My stomach twists. “No.” I choke on the word. “It’s too vague. And I didn’t do anything with it. I didn’t burn the paper. I didn’t cast it!”

  She snorts. “Haven’t you wondered, even for a second, why someone like Luca would go for someone like you?”

  “No.” Yes! A thousand times yes! I’ve wondered that. I’ve worried. I’ve questioned why he’s interested in me. I thought it was just insecurity working its nasty tricks but could I have known in the back of my head that Luca is just too good, too perfect.

  I don’t trust my legs to keep me up right now. I sit down and feel the weight of Abby’s words sink in.

  “I mean really, Rowan, the timing alone should have tipped you off. Seems to me that you should maybe give this reversal spell of yours a little bit more thought.” She starts to walk away, then pauses and turns back. “Unless, of course, you’re willing to give up your boyfriend. And he really is one of the best.” She taps her finger thoughtfully against her lips. “I might just take him for myself.”