“Hey, sexy witch!” My friend’s high-pitched voice makes me jump a little.
Her natural curls bounce and glint copper underneath the fairy lights strung up around the chained street sign for Second Kelc’h. She’s wearing a shrunken version of my pointy hat, askew. It’s fastened to a clip and has a little veil with a rhinestone spider. Her dress is also a shrunken version of mine, hitting mid-thigh and mid-boob. And just as I predicted, her knee-high boots have platform heels that almost make her reach my five-nine stature. I’m very obviously not the sexy witch in Brume tonight.
I stick my hands back into my pockets. “How are you not freezing?”
“I have tights.”
“Fishnets don’t qualify as tights.”
As she walks toward me, her legs glimmer.
“Are there sparkles on them?” My words form a milky cloud.
“Yuh-huh. Hot-glued them myself.” She spins, and her dress flounces, flashing me—and a small group of college guys sucking on cigarettes in front of the tavern—the color of her underwear: hot pink. The girl has no shame. She hooks her arm through mine. “Thanks for coming to get me. You’re the bestest, Cadence.”
“You sounded a little tipsy.” She smells a lot tipsy, though, like she’s wearing equal parts Cabotine and Dom Pérignon.
She giggles. “It’s New Year’s Eve! Of course I’m tipsy. The question is, why aren’t you?”
“Because we’re going to a party at my house, and Papa would ground me until my fortieth birthday if I was drunk.”
“There’s a big difference between tipsy and drunk. Besides, you need to live a little. You know, I thought maybe you’d actually started partying because I felt the ground shake earlier. But then I checked for flying pigs. And zilch . . .”
I knock my shoulder into hers. “Haha.” I felt the ground shake earlier, too. The orchestra Papa hired for the party had been testing out the sound equipment, so I chalked it up to that.
Alma continues, “That should be your New Year’s resolution: to finally let loose and act seventeen instead of seventy!”
“I don’t act seventy.”
She makes a noise in the back of her throat.
“You know what? I feel this is the year you’re going to get together with that groomstick of yours.” She cinches her fingers around my puffer jacket sleeve, her heels clacking against the cobbles.
“Groomstick?”
Her eyes glitter as though she hot-glued some sparkles on her irises, too. “Broom-groom? You don’t like my witchy humor?”
I crack a smile. “How much champagne did you ingest?”
She just grins and then gossips about her housemates while we make our way through the twisty, glittery street, down the stairs, and toward the open gates of my house.
The old stones of the path leading to my front door vibrate with new-age classical music. Every year, we throw Brume’s New Year’s Eve party. It’s been a tradition for generations. The town visitors dress up like witches and wizards to celebrate Brume’s history, and we do the same. Only indoors with hors d’oeuvres and central heating.
A man stationed by the entrance pulls the heavy lacquered wooden door open, and we step into the foyer. Alma lets out a low whistle of appreciation. Papa hired a team of professionals from Paris to decorate this year. The house is festooned with garlands of lights hidden in silver tulle, and fancy clockfaces hang like snowflakes from the white-painted timbered ceilings. Tall arrangements of pine needles, white lilies, and red roses adorn every surface of the massive foyer and the rooms spilling beyond.
As Alma hands her short faux-fur jacket to the coat attendant, she grimaces and gestures with her chin to the reception room. “Don’t look now, but Charlotte’s dangling off your groomstick.”
I peer into the crowded room, my gaze zeroing in on Adrien’s dark-blond, gelled-up hair. He’s chatting with the Chair of the Science department and his husband, and sure enough, black-haired, green-eyed Charlotte is hooked to Adrien’s arm like a Christmas ornament.
I press my lips tight and heap my puffer jacket over Alma’s before she winds her arm back through mine and tugs me through the throng of twittering witches and warlocks nibbling canapés.
“What does he see in her? Besides every strain of venereal disease in Brume?” Her voice carries over the din of harp, violin, and piano, and raises the bushy eyebrows of a silver-haired warlock. It takes me a few seconds to realize the warlock is none other than Adrien’s father.
He looks me up and down in a way that makes me clutch the scratchy woolen barrier of my dress. “You’re wearing Amandine’s dress.” The fact that he knows this adds to his general creepiness. “Your resemblance to her tonight is simply astounding.”
I don’t think he’d ever try anything, but his fascination with Maman, and now with me, makes every warning bell in my head clang when we’re in the same space.
In spite of the fog of alcohol, Alma must sense my discomfort, because she steps in front of me. “And your resemblance to an old necromancer is simply mind-blowing. Where did you get that black velvet vest, Monsieur Keene?”
The corners of his eyes crinkle with a smirk. “Always so delightful, little Alma.”
She shoots him a smile that’s more teeth than lip before hauling me away. “Dinner with him last week was painful enough. Why must he be everywhere?”
“Maybe because he’s the mayor?”
She scrunches up her nose, making the small bump at the top stick out. “I know Adrien isn’t like him, but imagine if you two end up married, and Geoffrey becomes your father-in-law.”
“Married? I just want to kiss the guy, not marry him.”
Alma lets go of me to seize two glasses of champagne from a passing tray. She pushes one into my hands, then clinks hers to mine so hard I worry for the etched crystal. “To this year being the year you crawl out of your little shell.”
I take a small sip, the bubbles bursting deliciously against my lips. “I like my little shell.”
“I know. God, I know.” She hiccups-snorts. And then she just hiccups. “You like it way too much.” She downs the rest of her glass. “Ah, the man of the hour!”
My father wheels himself to us. “Bonsoir, Alma chérie.”
While she plops a big kiss on his forehead, he eyes my glass.
“It’s my first drink, Papa.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“What smells so divine? Oh. Ooh. Mini quiches.” Alma all but tackles the waiter passing around leek and egg tartlets.
Papa readjusts his simple black wizard robe until it lays flat on his lap. “I suppose it’s not Alma’s first.”
I smile down at him; he smiles back. I may have only one parent, but what a parent he is.
“Make sure she sleeps over. I don’t want her traipsing around campus inebriated.”
I realize Papa’s staring at my dress, and his blue eyes, a few shades darker than my own, slicken, resembling the lake on a frosty morning. “Is that—Is that Amandine’s?”
Biting my lip, I palm the black wool. Maybe I shouldn’t have worn Maman’s dress. It’s obviously paining him. “Oui. Pardon.”