“Girlfriend?” Amon asks, sounding bewildered.
“Yeah, that girl you followed to the academy.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“She didn’t like you?” Castalia asks.
“Apparently not.” Amon doesn’t sound particularly upset about it. That surprises me. He had been crushing hard on Valentina Johnson the last time we spoke. I can’t say I’m disappointed. I’m pretty sure she was a bad influence on him.
That thought is almost laughable. No one can influence Amon. That boy is pure evil all on his own. Evil with just an inclining of the angelic. I’ve called him devil spawn often enough to know that no matter his parentage, that boy is no angel.
“I thought you liked her…”
Amon doesn’t reply, and I can easily imagine him shrugging off the comment. “So, what about this spell? Do you think it’s going to work?”
“Dunno,” she answers, “but I shouldn’t leave him like this. Right?”
“I’m not sure. I kinda like having a pet pig. Plus, he pisses Piney off.”
“NOT MRS MACKNEY’S RUG!” Castalia barks out an impersonation of me before they both break out laughing.
I’m pretty sure their voices are coming from the shed. I approach it quickly, prepared to tell them both off when I see a flash of bright pink light coming from the shed window. What the hell have they done now?
I prepare to rush in there, but stop abruptly when I notice the color of my hand on the door handle. Bright fucking pink! Why the hell is my hand pink?
My fingers immediately go to my face, as I panic that my hand might not be the only thing that has been turned the hideous color.
“Talia, what have you done?” Amon’s words come out in a whisper, but there’s a lilt of teasing to his tone. “You’re pink!”
“Me? You need to look at yourself in the mirror, Amon.”
“What? Why?”
“Your face…” Castalia is giggling with excitement, completely unconcerned that she’s turned them both pink.
Barging into the shed, I struggle to hold back a growl. “What the hell, Castalia?”
“Piney!” She squeals before hiding behind Amon. He’s not much help though as he’s too distracted pulling out his phone to snap a photo of himself so he can see the damage.
“What spell did you just cast?” I demand.
“It was supposed to make him human again,” she says, pointing at the pig who is still the same as always. A pig wearing what looks like a pink pair of hot pants. That is not something I ever needed to see. That man will most likely be scarred when we finally work out how to transform him back.
“You turned us all pink,” I gesture between the three of us.
“I can fix this,” she says with a gulp.
“You better,” I growl. “I HATE pink.”
There’s a loud sound coming from the orphanage and I hear someone calling my name, “LUPINE!”
ARGH! What now? I don’t have time to prepare for Halloween. I need to get my face fixed first. There’s no way I’m spending the whole day with pink skin. Worse still, what if Castalia can’t fix this spell, just like her last one on the pig?
I’m not staying pink forever!
“LUPINE!” Jacqueline is screaming my name and I hear footsteps thundering towards me.
“You two get this fixed NOW!” I say as calmly as I possibly can, reining in my anger as best I can.
Jacqueline enters the shed and I glance her way only to shy back from the state of her. It looks like we’re not the only ones, Castalia’s spell turned pink.
“I think someone’s cast a spell,” she says seriously. “We’re all pink.”
“All?”
“Everyone.”
My phone buzzes repeatedly as several texts come in, one after the other. Glancing at the screen, I’m horrified to learn that this calamitous spell is not only affecting the inhabitants of the orphanage but the whole of Silver Springs.
Juniper… Amber… Stefano… Lily… Jasmine… Iris… Archer…
You name it. Every friend I have in this town is messaging me, wondering why their skin is pink. Screech, the supernatural social media app the town supes use, is blowing up as the town’s residents demand to know who is responsible.
It’s so embarrassing. I’m not about to take the blame for this.
“CASTALIA! FIX IT RIGHT NOW!” I shriek in that really undignified way that would no doubt disappoint Mrs Mackney.
“I don’t know how,” she admits, saying the words I feared most.
“What about Cleanly Den?” Jacqueline suggests. “Surely they can fix this?”
I want to agree. There’s not much those guys can’t do, but Castalia’s spells have a habit of being tricky to put right. My eyes linger on the pig. Evidence of that fact.
Yellow Spots
W e’re all standing in the kitchen, completely bewildered.
My phone is still pinging away like crazy, but I don’t want to think about that right now. I’d much rather just get this whole thing fixed. I knew something like this would happen. Halloween is always like this. What should be a pretty standard holiday—a load of screaming children, me frequently pretending to be scared, and a candy induced sleepless night—is never that simple here at the Silver Springs Orphanage.
There’s no such thing as standard or ordinary when these children are involved.
My gaze lingers on Wren and Enzo. Neither one of them looks particularly impressed, but I think they look brilliant. I don’t know how they do it, but they make pink look good. I’m not the only one who thinks so either. Luna is giggling away as Kalen plays peekaboo with her. She’s always so happy, but she seems extra delighted as she stares up at his pink face.
“What are we going to do?” I ask.
A part of me is hoping that someone else in the town will manage to fix it without anyone even working out that the spell originated here. Except, I know full well that it won’t be that easy. Castalia’s spells are never that easily fixed, and I don’t have that sort of good luck.
We haven’t even gone trick or treating yet. How could this possibly have happened?
“What about a potion?” Castalia suggests.
I nearly tell her that I think she’s caused enough damage for one day, but I bite the inside of my cheek instead. This isn’t really her fault. Sort of. It was an accident, right? She was trying to fix her last spell. Her intentions were good even if the results were less than stellar.
“Maybe we should call the mayor,” Jacqueline says quietly.
“Why?” Castalia and I ask in unison.
“Well, surely we should tell him we know why everyone is…”
“No. There’s absolutely no need to bother him.” The last thing I want is the whole town knowing that we’re responsible. I could handle my friends knowing, but some of the parents at the high school like Philomena Knox—the mother of the last person Castalia turned into a pig—are not exactly on friendly terms with me. I really don’t want to give her another reason to bad mouth Castalia. Or me, for that matter.
“The humans are sure to notice something.”