“So what do you suggest?” Jordan asked, and before that night two weeks ago, Alex might have expected to hear a little aggressiveness in his voice. Jordan was protective of them, of his coven—he had been since college. “I mean, from a leadership standpoint you’re right, but you’re not a witch. We’re hardly witches. Everything I’ve read tells me it takes some serious knowledge and ability and studying to deal with something this big. I….” He searched the faces around the table, weary as Alex had never seen him. “I’m at a loss,” he admitted, his voice breaking. “I miss our friends. I miss our lives. I feel like I led you all into this apocalypse, and I don’t know how to make it better.”
“Well, two things,” Simon told him, his voice gentle. “The first is—and you know this—”
“Magic,” Jordan said, interrupting him.
They all looked at him quizzically.
“Magic,” he repeated, meeting everybody’s eyes. “Bartholomew said ‘Lachlan,’ Kate and Josh said ‘baby,’ Alex said—” He looked at Alex for permission.
“Passion,” Alex said, feeling his face flame, even though they all knew by now. “Which, Simon pointed out, really meant falling in love, because I apparently can’t do one without the other.”
“Aw,” said, well, pretty much everybody.
“That’s adorably sweet,” Kate finished and then glanced back at Jordan. “But you said ‘magic.’ That was your word.”
Jordan nodded. “I don’t even know what all I wanted with it. That I wanted to know more? Yes. That I wanted a relationship with magic? Yeah. Everybody does. But I guess….” He bit his lip, looking vulnerable in a way Jordan Bryne had never looked vulnerable to any of them. “I guess I just… I wanted the world to be magic again. We all had such hope in college, you know? And suddenly we were all exhausted and complacent and working so hard. I wanted us to have hope again. I wanted us to feel wonder.”
Alex stared at him, his heart aching. “But Jordan, I did. I mean, I can’t vouch for everyone else, but… but I felt wonder. Every time we cast a spell, even for something stupid, I thought, ‘My friends and I have the coolest hobby,’ and I was in such awe.”
“But he’s right too,” Bartholomew argued. “I thought I’d never have courage, or love. We were losing hope. And I was so depressed about being stuck in IT forever, but now I have hope for that too.”
“We might have split up over the fuckin’ wedding,” Josh said passionately. “Because it just seemed to be controlling so much of our lives, and that’s not what we wanted to be about.”
“We wanted the marriage,” Kate clarified. “If the magic hadn’t pulled the word ‘baby’ out of us, we might not have been able to see what the wedding was heading us toward.”
“So it was a good wish,” Simon told him. “A very good wish, for yourself and your friends. And I can tell you’re trying to set it right. But maybe—maybe—the next spell you cast shouldn’t be a shot in the dark to fix things.”
“What should it be?” Jordan asked, his eyes glossy. “I’ll take any suggestions.”
“You should all ask for help,” Simon told them, half laughing. “Oh my God, you’re all so in over your heads. There’s got to be somebody out there who can give you some suggestions. Glinda came to me to ask for help, and this is the best idea I’ve got.”
“I’ve got one too,” Kate said, standing up. “Jordan, come here, baby. You look like a guy who needs a hug.”
Jordan nodded weakly, and in a moment everybody at the table except Simon was standing in a big huddle, Jordan in the middle, their arms around one another as they clung. Alex looked sideways and saw Simon watching them all with a wistful smile on his face and reached out to grab his hand, snagging him and pulling him into their midst, all seven of them offering animal comfort and kindness to their friend.
EVENTUALLY they had to break up the hug and go out to the sunset ceremony, but as they stood, hands held, Jordan raised his face to the sunset and closed his eyes.
“May the magic protect us,” he said, with the air of a man relieving himself of a burden. “So may it be.”
“So may it be,” they all intoned when he was done, and Alex felt a lifting in his heart then, a brightening. The setting of the sun seemed to pull the miasma that hung over the cul-de-sac from their hearts like a veil, and he took a full breath, something he’d only been able to do in Simon’s arms since the first spell had gone so terribly wrong.
They stayed, faces turned toward the light, eyes closed, hands clasped, until true nightfall, and when they returned to Alex and Bartholomew’s house, the squirrels had all fallen asleep in little piles over the lawns, and the snakes were completely gone from the trees. The starlings were swarming over the empty field across from the cul-de-sac, a perfectly normal behavior that they hadn’t practiced in weeks. The turkeys were asleep on the corner across from the witch’s cottage, and two of the three guardian cats left were also sleeping.
There was no sudden cure, and lights still flickered on and off at Dante and Cully’s house, but Alex felt a renewed sense of purpose—and of hope.
As they gathered in the kitchen again, Bartholomew produced a bread pudding he’d made the night before, Kate and Josh pulled out a bottle of amaretto, and the ice cream completed what was probably the richest, yummiest dessert in the history of everything. They sat at the magic table, quiet and replete, for a long time when they were finished.
And then Alex remembered the other thing they hadn’t talked about.
“Jackson,” he said into the silence.
“Nice place to live,” Lachlan said, smiling. “Ask Simon.”
Simon nodded, as though that was the thing they had to worry about, and Alex shook his head.
“Simon is pretty,” he said, trying not to smile, just stupid in love, “but that’s not the point.”
“Wait!” Simon said excitedly. “I know this one. I know what the point is!”
The table broke into tired laughter.
“Share with the class?” Jordan prompted, some of that swagger, that “oomph” that made him Jordan settling back on his shoulders.
“Lachlan’s property is adjacent to Simon’s, right? Ten acres of it?”
“Yeah,” Lachlan said, looking surprised to be mentioned.
“Well, Simon has eighty-nine acres. And the two of you are on two hills—two of five hills overlooking a clearing, a sort of valley in the center of….” He trailed off on purpose, wondering if anyone else would get it.
Jordan, of course, was the one who did. “A five-pointed star,” he said in wonder.
“And Simon was going to make plans for a Halloween bonfire,” Alex finished smugly.
“A Samhain bonfire in the middle of a five-pointed star,” Bartholomew breathed.
“We have five witches right here!” Lachlan said, voice excited.
“Six,” Barty breathed, shoulder-bumping Lachlan. Lachlan grinned and kissed him, and Bartholomew smiled quietly and they let the rest of the conversation rage.