Sure enough, a wave of women descended on the conference room about three hours later. My desk was now in Angie’s office, so I went in there to do my work as they put the wedding venue together. Through the gaps in the privacy curtains we’d put up, I could see that Cherise was helping with as much apparent enthusiasm as the others. She smiled with an older woman who had to be her mother and laughed with the sisters who looked exactly like her. But at one point, she turned, and I saw the exhausted, defeated look on her face again.

After a couple hours of going over the calendar for the next few months and all the problems already occurring within it, I got up and went to see if they needed anything. By this point, the room had been transformed even further. A flowered archway stood where we normally had boring speakers updating us on our sales numbers for the quarter. The tables were topped with elegant centerpieces, and the vases were ready for the flowers that would arrive the next morning. Cherise’s mother, a stout woman with short, gray hair, was instructing two younger women on how to hang the wall decorations.

“It looks great,” I said, admiring the results so far.

Cherise’s mother smiled at me. “We do what we can with what we’ve got, isn’t that right?”

I nodded, gazing at all the work that had gone in. Then I realized Cherise wasn’t there. “Where’s Cherise?” I asked.

“Needed a break,” her mother said, shaking her head as one of the girls lowered a wall decoration by about a foot. “You know how it is the night before your wedding.”

I nodded, though I didn’t have the first clue. Cherise’s mother turned back to barking orders at the girls, and I walked out of the conference room and into the hallway toward the restrooms.

When I walked into the women’s bathroom, the first thing I saw was Cherise, standing in the corner tucked away from the entrance. Her eyes were rimmed red and her mascara was smudged. She jumped as I walked in.

“Cherise,” I said gently, letting the door swing shut behind me. “Are you alright?”

She nodded rapidly, and I braced myself for whatever magical nightmare was about to destroy this bathroom. “I’m fine,” she said, voice watery.

God, it was so obvious she didn’t want to get married to this guy. All I had to do was look at her to know that.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” I asked.

Cherise shook her head. “No,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’m fine. Just wedding jitters, right?”

She smiled painfully, and I realized I had no idea what to say next. I didn’t want to push, but there was no way this woman was fine. But before I could make any decisions that might threaten the structural integrity of this building, Cherise wiped her eyes and hurried out of the bathroom.

I stayed where I was for a second, my own relationship problems bubbling to the surface despite my best efforts. Gretel hadn’t texted me at all today. Neither had Joel, not that I wanted him to. I knew on some level that this was Gretel giving me the space I said I needed. She didn’t want to crowd me. And while I appreciated that, it also hurt to see my phone empty of notifications every thirty seconds when I checked it.

I could text her, I knew that. But it was better to work this out in person. No matter what the outcome was.

***

Cherise’s bridal party left for the rehearsal dinner about half an hour after I ran into her in the bathroom. After that, I had one more excruciating hour to wait at my desk. There was hardly anything left to do today, so I did my best to stretch out the little work that remained. My phone stayed silent beside me and I nearly gave in to temptation at least three times, picking it up and opening my text thread with Gretel before restraining myself. In person, I reminded myself. We’d talk it over with a nice dinner and hot cups of tea.

“Hey, Dar, are you coming to practice tonight?”

I jumped and looked up to see Lucy, one of the full-time desk clerks, poking her head into Angie’s office. I didn’t know Lucy well, but apparently she had no qualms about approaching people, even when they were in private offices. “What practice?” I asked.

“A few of us are meeting over at the common,” Lucy continued. “Nothing official, just getting some practice in before we beat the pants off the team from Sailors’ Inn next month.”

I had to laugh at that. Sailors’ Inn was a small inn on the other side of Salem that overlooked the ocean and was run by an ancient couple. But somehow, they had the best softball team in our entire quasi-official local softball league. I knew in my heart they weren’t using magic to cheat, these women were just naturally good. But it didn’t make the constant defeat at their hands any less painful.

“Thanks,” I said. “But I need to get home tonight. Next time, though.”

Lucy winked at me. “I look forward to it.”

She ducked out as Angie was walking back in from a meeting. Angie looked curiously at Lucy, then at me. “Softball,” I explained.

Angie shuddered and didn’t say a word as she sat down behind her own desk.

***

As soon as the clock struck five, I was out the door with a hurried farewell to Angie, who was still shutting down her computer. My car was parked over in the garage, so I hurried over with my validated parking pass and left as quickly as I could. I had no idea if Gretel would be home, but if she wasn’t, I wanted to be there when she got back. Most importantly, I wanted to show her I was here to stay. If she would have me. And if we could work out where we stood with each other.

Fuck, was Joel still there? My heart sank a little as I pulled out of the parking lot and onto a busy main road. Him I was just mad at. Worried because he’d pulled a heroic, brainless move? Yes. But also mad at him for using magic to control my movement and keeping me from making my own decisions. Maybe that had been inevitable and the breakup of the relationship was what prevented him from pulling something like this before now. Either way, I could only hope he was out of my house when I got there.

The love I had with Gretel was worth fighting for. But I genuinely didn’t know what I would do if I saw Joel again.

Luck was apparently on my side. While I didn’t see Gretel’s car when I parked, I also didn’t see any sign of Joel as I unlocked the front door and went inside. The house was spotless, and I remembered Gretel’s habit of stress-cleaning. Even the trash bags were gone, though there was no sign of them in front of the house and trash collection wasn’t for a few days. Maybe her night had been just as hard as mine.

There was a note sitting on the kitchen table, the corner of it pinned down by a clean coffee mug. I walked over and looked at it.

Dar –

I hope you’re home to read this. I’ll be home a little late tonight. Can we talk?

I love you.

-Gretel

My eyes burned as I read the note over again, then again. I wanted this to work so badly. It had to work. But God, what if I’d ruined it by lashing out last night?

The house was empty and the entire thing was clean, meaning there was little inside to distract me. Gretel wouldn’t be home from work for at least an hour, but probably even longer if she was actually going to be running late. So instead of collapsing onto the sofa and dwelling on everything for as long as necessary, I tried to look for something else to do.

Dinner. I could make us a nice dinner. At least something simple wouldn’t be too difficult to make nice. I knew Gretel didn’t really like my cooking. And, to be fair, I wasn’t that great at it. But I had some meatballs in the freezer and I was at least capable of heating a jar of the good pasta sauce and boiling some pasta. Maybe I’d throw together some garlic bread too. It’d be fine. Dinner would be fine, then so would everything else.

I was about to put the water on to boil when I realized it was going to be ready far too early if I started now. Last time I’d tried to do this, I’d ended up with a cold, sticky mess by the time Gretel had gotten home. She’d been sweet about it of course, but even she hadn’t been able to eat more than a couple of bites before giving up and gently inquiring if maybe I’d like to go to dinner at a restaurant instead.

So, with everything laid out and ready to go except the meatballs, I decided to take some time in the garden. It was still bright enough to get some work done and there were plenty of things I could distract myself with out there. I set my phone down on the counter, then pulled back my long hair before heading toward the back door.

As soon as I was in my garden, I felt some of the tension finally leaving my body. Everything was alright in the house, but between the extreme cleanliness and the way I couldn’t help putting the images from last night over the scene, my shoulders were so tight. It was impossible not to think about last night when I was in there. There was where Joel had been about to die. There was where Gretel had healed me. When I tried to leave, there was where Joel had sent me upstairs against my will.

My stomach twisted, but I tried to ignore it, heading straight over to the workbench where my dirty gloves were waiting for me. I slid them on, then made my way over to the seedlings I’d been neglecting over the past few days.

Pot, plant, soil. Pot, plant, soil. After a few minutes, I relaxed into the rhythm of the work. I’d get these ones into the five-gallon pots, then move on to the ones that were going in the old wooden flower beds that lined the high walls of the garden. The air was cooling off, almost cold at points. And before I realized it, the sun was going down.

After a little while, I heard footsteps in the house and braced myself for the discussion we were about to have. Gretel was home, and it was time to finally talk. Even if we both wanted this to survive, it was going to be ugly, wasn’t it?

“I’m out here, Gretel!” I called in.

The footsteps headed toward the door and I froze, realizing a little too late what my subconscious had already been screaming at me. Those weren’t Gretel’s footsteps. They weren’t Joel’s either. Even years later, I could remember what his footsteps sounded like and that wasn’t them.

Heart pounding, I considered my options. The fence was high, but I could probably scale it. The landlord kept a lock on the narrow gate to the side of the house, but could I break it, right? It was old and rusty and my shovel was leaning against the wall next to it. As the footsteps got closer, I darted for the wall. I jumped onto one of the flower beds and reached up for a handhold as I scrambled for any kind of purchase.

Then the footsteps were in the yard. And before I could react, a sizzling pain tore through the small of my back. My hands clenched on the wall, but didn’t have enough of a grip to keep me there. Then something hit me in the back of the head with a force that made me dizzy. My hands slipped off the wall, and I was unconscious before I hit the ground.

---

Continue to Chapter 14