Winnie rolled her eyes and tapped the table. “You know damn well who ‘we all’ means, but if you want a list, I can oblige. First, me, every employee at Miss Marjorie’s, including Miss Marjorie, me, BIC aka Greta, me, all of the seniors here at the center, me, Daphne and her husband Fate, not to mention every employee who’s ever worked at the hardware store since 1952, me, the Paris High School marching band, and pretty much anyone else with a pulse—and again, me. We all want to know if tonight’s the big night when you two seal the wookie-wook deal.”
Calla swallowed hard, shaking off the bad she’d left behind in Boston and replacing it with the good she’d found here in Paris—in a town full of witches and warlocks where she was only one of four or five werewolves, including her grandfather.
She was a nervous wreck about tonight. The walking, talking embodiment of neurosis—because, in fact, tonight was the night.
Winnie’s little girl Lola came up behind Calla and asked, in all her six-year-old innocence, “What’s wookie-wook?”
Lola was one of Calla’s favorite visitors to Hallow Moon ever. Before her uncle Ben had married Winnie, Calla had heard she was quite a handful of toddler witch, out of control, but you’d mostly never know it these days.
She pulled Lola to her lap and tweaked her pert nose with a grin. “It might be a new name for one of my super-duper cupcakes, Lola-Falola. Will you be my taste-tester if I make a batch of wookie-wooks?”
The pink in her cheeks heightened, and her sweet smile went wide. “Uh-huh. But I think we better find a new name for ’em. Wookie-wook is stupid.”
“Out of the mouths of one of the most powerful up-and-coming witches in the universe,” Winnie muttered under her breath with a shake of her head.
Lola, a witch in training, was a tiny powerhouse of magic and a direct descendant of the great Baba Yaga, who just happened to be Winnie’s aunt by marriage.
Calla smoothed one of Lola’s long braids and chuckled. “It kinda is a stupid name. I’ll let you think up a new one. How’s that?”
Winnie handed Lola a napkin and pointed to her mouth, indicating she should wipe the crumbs from the corner. “Why don’t you go finish that picture you were drawing with Miss Gertie so Miss Calla has something nice to hang on her kids wall, nugget? And when I’m done we’ll go get Uncle Ben.”
Winnie’s husband Ben was technically Lola’s uncle, left to him to raise after her mother and father were killed in an accident. But you’d never know it by the way the family had blended so beautifully or by the way Winnie and Lola felt about each other.
Winnie was Lola’s mother in every sense of the word, aside from biology.
Lola grinned and hopped off her lap to head back toward the area she’d designated especially for the children in town when they came to visit their relatives. Calla loved nothing more than to see the pictures they colored for the wall or the dinosaurs they built with Legos when she entered the center each morning.
Winnie leaned closer, her raven eyebrow raised. “Now, about that wookie-wook…”
“What’s so special about tonight that would lead you to believe anything is happening between me and Nash other than the usual dates we’ve been going on regularly?”
Winnie giggled, settling little Ben against her shoulder and patting his back. “The Harvest Dance, of course. Duh.”
Calla barked a laugh. This town and their celebrations and their gossip were all part of the reason she’d grown to love Paris so much. “Does the Harvest Dance have some special magic that inspires sealing the wookie-wook deal?”
“It did for Beulah-Mae and Ed Kowalski. They did it right on a bale of hay on the side of the gazebo just outside the VFW hall in the square during the fall festival of 2013, and had their triplets nine months later. Three little witches in training. Two girls and a boy. Just ask Miss Marjorie. She almost saw it. Also, there’s Nester and Rhonda Goodwin. Their seal-the-deal story is still bandied about in hushed whispers to this day, mostly because I’ve heard rumor it was a pretty raucous event, and that happened way back in ’82. Thus, I conclude, the Harvest Dance really is magical. So you tell me?”
Calla laughed again, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Okay, so just between you and me and the Paris High School marching band, BIC, and anyone else who’s interested,” she paused for dramatic effect and drew in a breath, “it’s no one’s business but mine and Nash’s.”
Winnie made a pouty face, her pink-glossed lower lip thrusting forward. “Boo-hiss. How about if I pinky swear not to tell a soul?”
“Oh, for sure if you pinky swear, I’d give up intel that sensitive. Pinky swears are sacred and bound by horrific punishments if broken. Or not.”
Gus Mortimer shambled up to them, stopping to lean down near Winnie, a conspiratorial gleam in his eye, his grin wicked. “You want me to whip up one of them tell-all spells? We’ll have her singin’ like a canary in no time.”
Calla pointed to the air-hockey table. “You, go get your air hockey on with Miss Maisey and mind your P’s and Q’s or you only get one vegetable with dinner tonight, pal, and absolutely no fruit cup,” she teased.