They decorated the gym, until they'd run out of both decorations and wall space. Eva, tapping her chin, stepped back to admire their work. It was underwhelming, a hodgepodge of Halloween décor thrown up in an illogical manner.
Cora was uncertain a silhouette of a witch stirring a one-legged cauldron would stay put with the way it sagged from its dreadful tape job, but she had already upset Eva once today, so she kept her lips zipped tight.
Eva squinted, canting her head to one side. "It isn't so bad. We could have used the ladder." The janitor hadn't shown up with it. "What do you think?" She turned, her glasses sliding down her pert nose, which she pushed up with one finger. "I'd give it at least a five on the George scale."
The silence lolled, while Cora searched for the right words that wouldn't hurt her feelings. She would have given their decorating a one on the Emerson scale.
"I think it looks great." It was her second lie of the day and could earn her a pat on the back from Willow.
Eva furrowed her brow. "Let's get out of here then. My parents will kill me if I miss curfew."
They grabbed the empty bags and the tape on their way out. "Oh, drat, my pumpkin." Cora had forgotten she hadn't found a spot for it. She was about to go back but thought twice. "I'm sure it'll be all right." In truth, she doubted it would last a day, but it wasn't like she hadn't stolen it.
Eva hurried ahead. "Wait for me at the front. I left my stuff in Ms. Brindle's class."
Cora waited for her at the front door, picking at a loose string on the sleeve of her coat. When several minutes had passed, she peeked down the hall. No Eva in sight. Where could she be? Her cell phone buzzed. Thinking it might've been Eva, Cora fetched it from her coat pocket, but it was only an Email announcing the latest sales at Brimwell Plaza.
She tucked her phone away as Eva appeared, powerwalking down the lobby. "Sorry about that," she said. "I ran into the janitor. Can you believe he forgot about us?"
Cora wasn't surprised. "In this school, yeah I totally can."
"So, Crumbs and Crumble?" Eva buttoned her coat to her neck.
Cora nodded. "You know it. Crumbs and Crumble."
Although it was a little after five PM, the sun had already gone down for the day. Cora pulled up the collar of her coat against the evening breeze. A dog jumped and barked at them from behind its gate. An impatient driver slammed down on their horn.
People went back and forth across Wicks Road, a central road, those early coming home from work and those out for an evening stroll, arm in arm with lovers and friends or being half-dragged by furry companions. The familiar sounds of Thorne Point met them as they walked down 5th street which ran across Wicks, as Cora had earlier, past the house where there was one missing pumpkin.
She made sure to dip her chin in case someone had in fact seen her. The last thing she needed was for Eva to witness her interrogation by the owners of the stolen pumpkin. She could imagine how it would go. The owner would hurry down the steps in her robe brandishing a cell phone. She'd demand the pumpkin back, the pumpkin she and her children spent an hour carving, threaten her husband was on the police force and maybe even say, 'You've done it now, missy."
It would be both comical and embarrassing.
On the other hand, her sister Willow would love it if she came home with news about how she almost got into a fistfight. She wasn't much for fighting; neither were the rest of her family. Though their motto was, "The Emersons do not cower." Their second motto was, "The Emersons keep out of sight as much as possible."
Imagine if the world knew there were sorcerers. They'd be a scandal, animals in a cage, freak shows. She shuddered at the thought.
"Home sweet home." Eva pushed open the door to Crumbs and Crumble Café, the bell ringing overhead.
The strong aroma of coffee filled Cora's nose. The world's most blissful creation, as Grandma Agatha would say. There was the patter of fingers on keyboards, patrons slurping up their hot, frothy beverages, the machines behind the counter stirring up even more frothy beverages, and a classic Halloween song on the speakers.
Be still my heart.
The ambience thrilled her.
It was home sweet home. Her one true love, but there were no tables left. They'd have to make their orders to go, not that Cora minded much as long as she got her drinkâa special order of cinnamon hot chocolate.
The cloth ghosts and spider web decorations looked as good inside as they had outside. Cora and Eva waited in line behind a person who played his music so loud he had to remove his headphones to hear the barista. He ordered his coffee with extra cream.
As he left, coffee cup in hand and one headphone dangling down his front, Eva said, "He was kind of cute."
"Hmm?" Cora hadn't noticed. She'd been too busy biting her nails. I wonder how wicked I have to be. Maybe a bunch of smaller wickeder acts would do. I doubt it. Granny said I had to ruin someone's life.
When it was their turn, they both ordered cinnamon hot chocolate. The woman who took their orders had given them an extra sharp grin, her fangs piercing her bottom lip. "Thank you for patronizing Crumbs and Crumble. Have a spook-tastic day," she'd said, her eyes flashing red so quickly it would've required a trained eye to spot it.
The country of Elorie, tucked in the North Pacific Ocean, had been a refuge for magical beings for years. Centuries ago, those fleeing other nations for want of magic found safety in its solitude from a world on the hunt for evildoers.
As the story went, passed between magical beings, Elorie's president might not have been entirely human. It was easy for humans to brush aside such ideas, as they had over the years, so comfortable in their willingness to disbelieve.
Those who were like Cora were allowed to live in peace.
She and Eva took their first sips of their hot chocolates before they left Crumbs and Crumble. It burned Cora's tongue and warmed her from head to toe. Eva took her phone out of her pocket. "Shoot, it's getting late. I have to go. See you tomorrow?"
"Like I have a choice." Cora rolled her eyes.
"Hey, don't forget the essay for English." Eva waved from across the street.
She held up her hand to say she'd heard. It was like Eva to remind her to do her homework. It was like her to forget to do her homework. "Why bother?" Willow would say, even though she was an honor roll student, to their mother's delight.
She often spoke of school with much contempt.
Of course, it was all a front. Willow, like her, liked the praise she got for doing well. They did have the same father, who Stella said had the biggest heart, and he'd passed this gene along to his daughters. Willow denied this through and through, but Cora whose wickedness was tenderfoot wished her father had been the opposite. She wished he'd been as wicked as her great-great-great-grandfather was said to be.
Her great-great-great-grandfather Vladimir was once an apprentice to the Count himself.
How could she be wicked when she had such a soft heart? It wasn't fair. When she was eight, her mother told her that her wickedness would come in any day, but now at seventeen she didn't have any more time to waste.
If she lost her powers, she would dishonor the Emerson bloodline. Her family would be disgraced, a joke among their kind. They would be ostracized, and she wouldn't even be able to blame her father for it, whoever he was. He'd left when she was five. She had vague memories of him, memories she'd pushed to the farthest recesses of her mind.
She downed the last of her hot chocolate and tossed the empty cup into a trash bin. Her bus was on its way. She fished in her pocket for her bus pass, but knowing it would be a ten-minute ride home, and at home she would be asked what wickedness she'd gotten up to today, she decided to walk instead. It would give her more time to think.
I need a plan.
You didn't jump right into a wicked deed. You needed an organized method. It was a lot like starting a blog, which she knew a lot about. Her blog, Simply Cora, had over two thousand readers. It was proof to her all great deeds, even the wicked ones, took time. After all this time, she still had nothing to show for it, except a stolen pumpkin.
She started across the street, thinking up a list of all the wicked things she could do, besides turn them into a mouse. She could make their pants fall down in public or make their voice higher pitched until they couldn't be heard at all. She could even make them go bald if she concentrated hard enough.
The tune of the latest pop song belted out from inside her coat pocket. She could already guess who it was, her mother who would want to know how long she would be. She shoved her hand into her pocket for it and out it fell through the hole she'd meant to stitch up, along with her buss pass and school ID. "For the love ofâ"
The sound of a car horn and someone yelling, "Hey, get out of the street," startled her.
A few feet away was the boy from the café, the one Eva said was cute. The SUV speeding towards him was not about to slow down, but the boy who had his head bowed, bobbing it to his music, didn't notice as he crossed.
What an idiot.
A hit-and-run would be more than wicked, plain evil, and though her family had gone centuries ruining lives, she doubted any of them had ever run anyone over. It went against the Emerson rule to keep out of sight.
Before she could second-guess herself, she shoved her things into her pocket and jogged up to him, yanking him back by the coat sleeve, as the car whizzed by, so hard she stumbled on her feet and fell, landing on her left arm.
For the love of crows.
The fall had knocked the breath out of her. As true Thorne Pointers would, the people at the stoplight shot her curious glances, perhaps wondering why she was lying in a gutter, except for the boy whose life she'd saved.
He pulled the headphones from his ears. "Are you all right?" He knelt by her side; his brow knit with sincere concern.
She nodded, though her arm throbbed. She was not all right. He held out his hand for hers. "Let me help you up." He grinned. Eva had been right. He had a lovely grin, a slight gap between his front teeth but it suited him.
Cora held out her good hand. She'd never broken a bone before, but her left arm hurt too much. When their hands touched, the unmistakable tingle she'd waited for all year went all the way to the tips of her toes, the tickle of spiders tumbling down her spine. Her eyes widened.
"You'll know it when it happens," her great-grandmother had said. "When it does happen, be sure to not let them go. It's your destiny calling to you, my darling. You must be willing to accept it. It doesn't happen often."
Cora's head spun, as if she'd been spinning in circles or like she'd spent too long in a car. "He... he's the one." She held his hand tight, as if afraid he'd get away. Or, at least, he was one of them. Granny had said there might be others too.
He frowned at her. "What?"
A toe-curling pain zipped from her shoulder to her fingertips, but she'd found him, the one whose life she was meant to torment, the person she'd been waiting for all year. Her prey. Her gull. Her pathetic, naïve, unassuming person.
It was him. In flesh and bone, and he smelled good too, crisp and neat, like freshly laundered sheets. She hadn't considered what this person would look like, but he had more freckles on his light, brown skin than she'd have pictured he would.
She blinked at him, grinning despite herself. Then, she tipped her head back and said a silent thank you, which she hadn't found herself doing much of this year. For once, tonight over dinner, Willow wouldn't be the one with wicked news to share.
"I meant thank you." Cora bit her lip.
He still wore a confused expression. He shook his head. "Is your arm okay?"
They were still holding hands. She pulled hers away and winced because her other arm hurt like heck. "I don't know. I don't think so." She tried to move it and winced again. "It might be broken." On the inside, she was full of glee.
Something wicked was afoot and it was most certainly her.