Page 13 of Practically Magic

“Oh, Kat!” Half of Aunt Viv appears. Her blond hair is cut into a short, stylish bob, and I can see one long, dangling gold earring. Aunt Diane—with her shoulder-length sandy-brown hair, deep-set brown eyes, and youthful face—crams in next to her so that we can see half of her face too. “There you all are!”

“I’ve been trying to reach you all day,” my mom says with a sigh. The youngest of three charmed ones, my mom was born years after Viv and Diane, but sometimes it feels as if my mom is their parent. “Why aren’t you answering your phones?”

“Phones?” Aunt Diane says. She turns to Aunt Viv. “Do we have those?”

My mom massages the bridge of her nose. This is definitely a non-magical headache. “I wanted to ask if your husbands are in town. We might need them for Samhain.”

“Husbands?” Aunt Diane asks.

Aunt Viv snorts. “We definitely don’t have those.”

“Except—” Aunt Diane interrupts.

“Oh, right. We may have left them in Triora—”

“Glastonbury—”

“I distinctly recall seeing at least one of them in Hólmavík—”

Both aunts nod. “We can acquire husbands before Samhain, dear,” Aunt Viv says. “If ours are still . . . um . . .”

“Lost,” Aunt Diane corrects.

“Missing,” Aunt Viv agrees. “Is that all? We’d like to get back to the party, and while we always love a little tête-à-tête, we’re still planning to return, oh . . . tomorrow evening?”

“Not tomorrow,” Aunt Diane whispers. “Sutton Foster mentioned brunch.”

“Oh yes! That’s right,” Aunt Viv said. “Can’t we discuss all this in two days’ time?”

My mom kneads her scalp. “Halloween is this Saturday! With Mommy being unable to travel this year, I want to make sure our Samhain plan is set in stone.”

Every year, Hadleys around the world cast protection spells in their neighborhoods, since we’ve all settled places where magic is strongest. Mystic Hollow has always been supercharged, so Mom and Dad take it as a priority, but this year, Grampa had hip replacement surgery and he’s still not up and running, and it was agreed Mom and Dad would go there, so Grampa and Grams’s community wouldn’t be in danger. I volunteered to stay here to perform the rituals with . . . Peter. And my mom agreed, only because she is demanding my aunts come into town with their husbands as a backup. Or at least, that was my mom’s plan. I just have . . . another plan.

“I still feel uncomfortable leaving town on the most important day of the year,” Mom is saying to the group. “I haven’t missed a Samhain in Mystic Hollow in over thirty years.”

“Oh, Nic, relax!” Aunt Diane says tartly. “Mystic Hollow has survived for hundreds of years. It’s not about to fall now because another Hadley has to perform the spells. We’re blood.”

“Should you be talking about this at a party?” Mom asks my aunt.

“Oh please,” says Aunt Diane, waving her hand and showing off a diamond tennis bracelet. “No one can hear us. Hugh’s penthouse is packed with people and—oh look!—there’s Jenna Bush Hager. I love her. Hi, Jenna!” she shouts at the top of her lungs. “Viv! We have to go say hi—”

“Diane!” Mom pinches the bridge of her nose. “Focus. Me first. Then Jenna.”

“Fine,” Diane says like a child, and I can’t help myself. I glance over at Harry on the screen to see if she’s smiling like I am. Whenever the aunts were being, well, the aunts, we’d always make eye contact and fight the giggles.

I’m not sure if I imagine it, but I feel like Harry’s eyes flicker across her screen like she’s looking at me too.

But Harry looks down at her perfect manicure so fast, and it feels a bit like the sun disappearing behind the clouds again. What did I do wrong?

“I love you all, but I have some studying to do,” Harry says briskly. “I’m gonna go, okay?”

Dad puts his arm around my mom. “It’s all right, my love. All will be well.” He looks at me. “Kat and Peter will take care of everything, and your sisters are here if she needs help.”

“Peter? Who is Peter?” Harry asks, and my stomach drops.

“My boyfriend,” I say, keeping my tone light. I grab an apple from the fruit bowl in front of me and squeeze it like a stress ball.

“You have a boyfriend? Since when?” Harry demands. She’s squinching her nose up and down like a bunny rabbit.