Page 28 of Practically Magic

“Okay, don’t be mad—”

“Harriet Hadley, what did you do?”

“I just wanted to protect you,” she says, her voice small, and my larger-than-life sister seems to shrink before my eyes. “You kept picking these . . . losers. Guys who didn’t love you, could never love you. And every Halloween I was picking up the pieces of your broken heart. So I cast a spell.”

“What did you do,” I repeat, my voice low and deadly.

“A spell. To keep you safe. So that until you meet the right one, your heart will be protected.” Harry swallows thickly. “You can’t have a boyfriend, Kat. My spell makes sure of that. Until you meet your soulmate.”

“You cast a spell to drive boys away from me?” I screech.

“Not away!” Harry says. “They just . . . won’t notice you. It’ll keep you safe. I was trying to protect you. I’m your older sister.”

All my awful Halloweens flash in my mind’s eye. All the times I got my heart broken, when my crush ignored me or chose someone else or disappeared without a trace.

“You’re not,” I whisper.

“Not what?” Harry asks, her eyes going wide.

“My older sister. Because I don’t have a sister.”

“I was trying to help you! You have no idea what I sacrificed—”

“What you sacrificed?” I screech. “You’re no one to me, Harry.”

“Fine!” she yells, and before I realize it, we’re both reaching for the crystals around our necks. The last thing to keep us bonded. “I guess I don’t have a sister anymore either!”

Harry and I have always said the same thing at the same time, moved as one, with me just a second behind her. I was always her shadow. But this time, I’m first to rip the crystal from my throat. She mirrors me, and we both throw them down to the flagstones.

They shatter, crystal fracturing into dust. A sudden wind whips through the kitchen, whisking the fragments away.

The air crackles with energy. And that’s when I hear an earsplitting sound and look up. A crack snakes across the ceiling above us. It moves fast, plaster falling; Harry and I jump out of the way as the fissure spreads, cutting through a kitchen wall and reaching the floor. I can feel the ground rumbling beneath my feet. The glasses in the cabinet clatter and ring out. Phoebe rushes through the room and stands in front of me now, howling. She never does that.

The whole house is shaking now, and I wonder if we’re having an earthquake. But neither Harry nor I move, glaring at each other. Our chests rise and fall, but Harry is the first to crack.

“Look what you did!” she yells. “Mom and Dad are going to kill you!”

“What I did? What you did!” I argue. How am I going to explain this? Sure, my magic has accidentally destroyed some things lately. But the entire house?

Phoebe streaks across the kitchen floor and tries to wedge herself underneath one of the kitchen island stools as the house continues to shake. But at the moment, neither Harry nor I care about the damage. We just glare at each other, then turn in opposite directions to leave the kitchen, each slamming a door behind us.

10

Mystic Hollow Community Page

New post from Mayor Croft: Mayoral mansion open house Wednesday from 5–7 p.m. to discuss how each of us can do our part to make the town come alive for tourists. I’d like all our fair citizens in attendance. Let’s show New England that Mystic Hollow is the destination for Halloween!

You can’t have a boyfriend, Kat. I cast a spell.

It’s all her fault. Everything.

Harry and I retreat to our rooms across the hall from one another upstairs and both have the same plan: We video chat with Mom and Dad at the airport, where they are waiting for their flight to Florida. Mom picks up my call while Dad clearly picks up Harry’s because I can hear both conversations.

“For the last time, I did not tell Harry you needed help with Samhain,” Mom says, rubbing her temples. I think our fight is giving her a magic migraine. “But isn’t it nice your sister came home to help anyway?”

“I don’t need her,” I say at the same time Harry says, “I’m not helping her,” from her own room across the hall from mine.

“Girls, I hate seeing you two like this,” Dad says, and normally it would pull at my heartstrings, but I know what Harry did. Not that I can tell either of my parents. They’ll rush home because it means that “Peter” isn’t real.