“Really, Ambrose?” Aunt Zelda asked. “A mortal? A mortal who brings the mail?”
Ambrose shrugged and snagged the cereal box from my hand. “It’s not like anyone’s actually getting attached. I don’t meet that many people. What am I meant to do, hit on mourners attending funerals? That would be shocking and inappropriate.”
“It would be a shocking and inappropriate thing that you’ve done many times,” Aunt Zelda observed.
Ambrose pointed a spoon at her, grinning. “Yes I have. And I’ll be doing it again, Auntie Z.” He shrugged and started eating his cereal. “I’m just looking for a connection.”
“To what, the criminal underworld?” Aunt Zelda raised her eyebrows. “Why do you need to find connections? Stay calm and worship Satan in an orderly fashion. That’s all I ask of any of you. And sit like a gentleman, for the Dark Lord’s sake, Ambrose.”
She waved her cigarette, held in its gleaming old-fashioned cigarette holder that resembled a tiny pitchfork, in a commanding fashion. Ambrose kept grinning and kept one leg hooked on the back of another chair.
Aunt Zelda consumed the cigarette in a few sharp, short breaths.
“It seems as if you’ve been wearing pajamas for seventy-five years. Can’t you dress properly?”
“Why?” said Ambrose. “It’s not as if I’ll be leaving the house. Robes and pajama pants are standard hermit attire, and I’m committed to my hermit aesthetic.”
I flipped the ends of the little velvet scarf he was wearing around his neck, when he wasn’t even wearing a shirt. “So why jazz up the dressing gown with this?”
Ambrose’s smile gleamed around his spoon. “Obviously I want to be a fancy hermit, Sabrina.”
Aunt Zelda snorted. She herself was sitting ramrod straight, wearing a pinstripe blouse with a dramatically high collar and a double-breasted suit jacket. Ambrose commented once, out of Aunt Zelda’s hearing, that Aunt Zelda dressed like an evil secretary pinup. He said he meant that in a good way.
There was a rap on the door knocker, and I smiled. Since the mail had already come, there was only one person it could be.
Aunt Zelda made a small scoffing noise, put her cigarette holder down on the table with a click, and rose.
“I simply cannot deal with mortals before noon.”
“Maybe Auntie Hilda will open the door,” Ambrose said, his voice deliberately needling. “Or wait, where is Auntie Hilda?”
“She made a smart remark too early in the morning, so I killed her,” Aunt Zelda flung over her shoulder as she departed upstairs.
Ambrose leaned back in his chair. “She’s in a lovely mood, I must say. How are you doing, cousin? Aren’t you excited to see what our spell wrought?”
I kept my eyes fixed on the window, and the fresh grave. Aunt Zelda kills Aunt Hilda every now and then. It’s not like it sounds. It’s not so bad. She buries Aunt Hilda, and then Aunt Hilda comes back good as new. It’s no big deal. Magic can fix anything.
Still …
“I hate it when she does that,” I whispered.
Ambrose flicked a hand over my hair. All his gestures are like that, fleeting and casual, his fingers roving like a butterfly, landing lightly and then moving on.
“I know, cousin,” he murmured.
He doesn’t like it either, but he jabs Aunt Zelda about it and then lets it go, as if it doesn’t matter much.
Witches and their cold, fickle hearts.
It doesn’t matter, I told myself, and straightened my own sweater. I’d come home and see Aunt Hilda at the stove, just as always. And right now, I’d see what magic could do for me.
I hopped up. “I should go see Harvey.”
“And I’ll be entertaining some charming corpses downstairs,” Ambrose declared. “By the Dark Lord’s drawers, I’m lonely!”
People at school say it must be weird, living with a mortuary downstairs. They have no idea that it’s the least weird thing about our family.
I opened the door and saw Harvey standing on my porch. His eyes weren’t wandering today. He gazed at me with rapt attention, as if everything from the buttons on my sweater to the buckles of my shoes was fascinating.
“Sabrina. You are golden and lovely as the morning!”
“Um, thank you,” I said, and Harvey beamed as if even the sound of my voice was thrilling.
His greeting had been slightly unusual, but I basked in the warmth of his smile and relaxed. Harvey sometimes seemed wistful, or distant, but this morning he was lit up with delight pure and bright as sunshine. It suited him. This was what magic should do: smooth out all the tiny imperfections of the world, and make it right.
“Nice to see you cheerful,” I added. “I’ve been a little worried that something was wrong.”
I gave him a kiss and felt him sigh into my mouth.
Harvey said: “Everything’s perfect.”
Harvey walked me to every class that day and carried my books to and from my locker. I tried to get a history textbook away from him at one point, and it turned into a bit of a wrestling match. He gazed down at me adoringly. I grabbed on to the book and yanked.
“Harvey,” I said under my breath.
He smiled at me brightly. “Sabrina.”
“Let go.”
“Let me do this for you,” he told me, his wide, sweet eyes wider and sweeter than usual. “I want to do everything for you.”
“I appreciate that,” I panted. “But … let … go!”
He did let go eventually, though then I sailed halfway across the passageway clutching the textbook. Only a bit of sneaky magic saved me from crashing into the lockers lining the walls.
At lunchtime, Roz, Susie, Harvey, and I sat down at our usual table, and Harvey bestowed his new shining-sun smile on the whole group. The others seemed startled, but pleased.
“Having a better day today, Harv?” Susie asked.
“It’s a beautiful, miraculous day,” Harvey said earnestly. “Sabrina’s in it, isn’t she?”
Susie’s eyebrows took off as if launched by rockets. “I guess she is!”
We turned the conversation to subjects other than my glorious presence. Harvey was still smiling very brightly, but that was nice. I relaxed enough so that when he went to put his tray away, I said without thinking:
“Hey, could you grab me another cranberry juice on your way?”
Harvey turned to me with a look of horror. I glanced around wildly for the threat.
“You’ve been sitting here thirsty all this time! You should have said something sooner. I can’t bear to think of you suffering.”
“I was fine,” I said into the silence.
“You are so good,” said Harvey. “You sit like Patience on a monument, smiling at Grief.”
“Oh my God?” Roz muttered down into her mac and cheese. It seemed less a prayer and more as if she was asking God if he was getting a load of this.
I turned to Harvey and took his hands in mine. Harvey stared down at our linked fingers with soft wonder.
“Seriously, I only got thirsty this minute. It is not a big deal.”
He nodded, and lifted one of my hands to his face and pressed his forehead against it, eyes closed as if he was a knight pledging a solemn vow to a queen.