Christiana nodded.

I turned to Christy. “See, this is why I don’t like getting involved with any of this. Magics and fairy and everything weird. It makes life way too complicated. It was so much easier to just not believe in any of it.”

“Kind of late for that,” he said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“And you kept bumping into it anyway.”

I couldn’t argue with that either.

“C’mon,” Christiana said. “Magic’s not so bad.”

“Easy for you to say. You reap the benefits, living in the otherworld and all. And you don’t have some death threat hanging over your head.”

“I didn’t say it was a death threat.”

I nodded. “I know you didn’t. But it has to be something pretty serious if Mother Crone felt she needed to put a spell on me to keep me close to her court.”

“I suppose . . .”

“And how am I supposed to figure out what it is?”

“Is there anybody new in your life?” Christy asked.

I shook my head. “But why does it have to come from someone new?”

“It doesn’t,” he said. “But it’s as good a place as any to start. Unless . . .” He looked to Christiana. “Is it a natural disaster?”

“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I know less than Mother Crone does, and she doesn’t seem to know much of anything except that it’s there and it won’t happen if you stick close to her court.”

Right. Like I wanted to spend the rest of my life hanging around Woodforest Plaza Mall, knowing what I did now.

“This sucks,” I said and nobody disagreed.

Lizzie

The Custom House was hopping on Saturday night. Lizzie and Siobhan’s twin fiddles, backed by the lilting punch of Con’s guitar and Andy’s button accordion, filled the bar with one driving set of tunes after the other, much to the patrons’ obvious delight. They stomped their feet and otherwise kept time by clapping or banging on the tables. Directly in front of the stage, the dance floor was a thick press of valiant attempts at step dancing, with more flailing of arms and head bobbing than was usually called for.

The energy from the audience translated to the band’s upping the drive of each subsequent tune set. Siobhan, so unassuming off stage, was showing off by step dancing as she fiddled and at one point, Lizzie was sure that Con was going to jump onto the nearest table and do his impression of a rock guitar hero, but it turned out he was only teasing the group sitting at that table.