Wait. WHAT? Salem? Wait, wait, hold on. I walked over a few feet to read the other sign that had an arrow pointing down the road to where I’d find the House of Seven Gables. My breath caught in my throat. This was Salem, Massachusetts. I’d read that book by Nathanial Hawthorne. I’d been begging my aunt and uncle to take a trip here since I was a kid and saw Hocus Pocus for the first time. Hindsight answered the question of why they never did, with my magic being repressed and Salem being such a magical town. Wait. Was my magic repressed as a part of being reincarnated? I need to ask Everest now that I know the truth. He knew me for three hundred years. He definitely knows more about my magic than I do at this point.

I needed to ask Everest a lot of questions, the most pressing being why he sent me to Salem. But my phone was inside my magic bag, which had been transformed into a gold chain that was wrapped around my waist, beneath my dress. I’d have to flash everyone on this corner in order to get to it. I narrowed my eyes on the buildings in search of somewhere I could go when I realized that hotels had lobby bathrooms. With indoor plumbing. I can wash my hands. Cold water. I was running through the parking lot in the blink of an eye. The front lobby was super adorable with a fireplace and two blue couches. I made a mental note to remember this place if I ever came back. There was no one at the check-in desk, but the sign on the wall was gracious enough to point me toward a restroom.

After I’d used the toilet and given myself quite a pirate bath in the sink with cold water, I reached under my dress to the gold chain and transformed it back into the magic bag Tegan had given me. With that in hand, I walked back out to the lobby and sat down on the blue couch to rest my feet and just enjoy the cool air. My skin was clammy and sticky because the temperature outside was probably well over fifty degrees warmer than Avolire. I reached into my bag for my iPhone, relieved and shocked to find it still had battery left, but when I tried to make a call, it failed. Up at the top it read ‘SOS’ instead of showing me service bars. I attempted to send text messages, yet those failed too. My social media apps wouldn’t even load. Dammit. I’d have to use the hotel phone to call for help. Unfortunately, the only phone numbers I knew by heart were my aunt and uncle’s and Mei-Ling’s. The front desk was still empty, so I ran around and picked up the phone, dialing my bestie’s number.