Twenty hours of deep sleep has put the power back in our batteries, but we’re sort of running on autopilot, which means we end up at Mugshot anyway. Caramel macchiatos in hand, we head for the scorched Ghost Office. The events of the last few days have left us with lots to think about, and the drive is unusually quiet. The weatherman’s voice drifts from the radio, filling in what would otherwise be a complete silence.

We can expect to see cooling temperatures over the next few days, along with scattered showers, but the worst of the storm will not hit the Ketterbridge area. Regardless, if you’re going out, be sure to bring an umbrella. Later in the week, we can expect…

Aiden switches off the radio and drums his thumbs on the steering wheel, squinting out at the road. It’s a dazzlingly bright and sunny afternoon. He’s a faster driver than I am, and we’re on a schedule today - I can’t miss another shift at the flower shop with no explanation.

The watch is in my hands. We decided that it could be stolen out of our pockets or bags, but probably not directly out of our fingers.

“William wasn’t a wealthy man.” I open the lid and look in at the watch face. “Was he?”

“No.” Aiden guides the car onto the road along the river. “If he was, I doubt he’d risk his life working on the beat crew.”

“Then why did he have a gold watch with his name engraved on it? Look at the craftsmanship. The little sun and moon, they’re hand-painted, and-”

“I can’t look right now, dude, I’m driving.”

“Oops.” I pull my hand back from Aiden’s face. “Sorry, I'm just - I’m excited. Aren’t you?”

He chews his lip.

“I think I’m more worried than I am excited. If I’m being totally honest.”

“Worried, why? Aside from literally everything that’s happened in the last day or so, that is.”

“Look, it’s a huge help when you hold some of the energy for me. But the last time we used my magic that way, we were dealing in enormous things. Like, rooting through an entire river. This watch is a tiny thing. I’m not sure how so much energy will influence an item that small.”

“We have to try sooner or later,” I tell him. “And unless you think the watch has a secret note inside with instructions on how to summon a ghost, the fact is, we just have to fly blind.” I pause as Aiden turns the car into the driveway. “What’s the plan? Are you just going to try and focus energy into it, and hope that it calls him?”

“That’s basically the idea. I don’t really expect to get it right on the first time, but maybe I’ll be able to sense what needs to be adjusted. I don’t know much about making ghosts corporeal, how it works or what we need. Like I told you, my mom left behind almost no information or magical tools when she left.” Aiden puts the car in park, then sits silently for a moment. His expression has closed off, which means he’s debating over whether or not to share more. I know to wait patiently during these moments. “Aunt Sarah and I each got a handful of items and barely any guidance.”

He doesn’t continue, but maybe he’ll answer if I ask him a question about it. I test my ground cautiously, afraid to scare him off.

“Ms. Callahan… Can she do magic? Can she hear, like you?”

Aiden shakes his head, staring straight through the windshield.

“No. Otherwise she would be able to help us with what we’re doing. Anything she knows about it, she knows from watching my mom, and my mom hated people looking at her while she did magic. I was surprised she even left anything for Aunt Sarah, when she took off. They never got along.”

“Why not?” I ask, probably pressing my luck now.

“I think…” Aiden’s fingers tighten around the wheel. “I think they were both jealous of each other. It was all very ironic. My mom got everything that my aunt wanted. Magic, a family, a kid. But my mom - she didn’t want any of that stuff.” He lets out a short, mirthless laugh. “She was jealous of my aunt for not having those things. And Aunt Sarah, she couldn’t make magic, or have children, and she was jealous that my mom could have those things, when she didn’t even want them.”

“How do you know all this?” I ask, my heart twisting. Aiden shrugs.

“Aunt Sarah had to explain a lot of things,” he says, plucking his coffee from the cupholder. “After my mom couldn’t anymore.”

He gets out of the car and closes the door after himself. I scramble to follow, my sweating macchiato cup nearly slipping out of my hand. The Ghost Office is a dark smudge against the shimmering summer greenery. The fire feels like a strangely long time ago, though it absolutely was not. I grimace, thinking of the text message I hid from Aiden while he was busy paying for our coffees.

Dad 🌟 3:45 PM Um??? Something you want to tell me, kiddo? I just ran into Cassandra at the store. You remember Cassandra, my friend from the fire department??? She remembers you. From the day before yesterday, apparently.

Dad 🌟 3:45 PM Call me please

I haven’t responded quite yet. I know that Cassandra must have told him I’m alright, otherwise there would be frantic phone calls and a lot more texts. But seeing the Ghost Office in person, guilt rises up in me. I type out a quick message: Aiden and I are both ok, explanation later I promise, and hit send.

We move around to the front and roll up the door. The smell of burnt wood drifts out, but the perk of having two windows shattered is good airflow. The scent is not unmanageable. Aiden steps inside, and we take a look around.

The coffee table we’d been using was obliterated by the explosion, so that’s gone. Thankfully Aiden had his back to the wall with the workbenches when we ran our last experiment in here, so it’s the unpopulated wall that took the brunt of the fire. Black char climbs up from the bottom and mars the wood there, reaching its powdery fingers all the way to the ceiling.

But the building is still standing. The other walls are okay. The photo of William, the print of his incident report and the letter, even the mold of my hand we accidentally created are all fine. I hadn’t lied to Roger: Aiden and I really did try to put this out before the fire department even arrived. Well. Aiden tried, magic seeping out of one hand, the other holding me back so that I wouldn’t get in his way with my fumbling attempts to reach the fire extinguisher.

“It looks less terrible than I thought,” I tell him. His eyes are glued to the damaged wall. “Although Roger did say we’d have to check for structural damage. Who do we even call for something like that?”

“We’re good on that.”

“What? How do you know?”

“Because if the ceiling was about to fall down and injure one of us, I would hear it first.”

Ah, right. And he doesn’t mean he’d hear an ominous creak. How long before Gabby crashed her car into the river had he heard it coming? He had time to come get me, time for us to drive, run through the woods, and still get to the riverbank before she even hit the water. I guess he’s right: if the Ghost Office were about to come crashing down on our heads, he would know.

“Alright.” I walk over to the place where the coffee table once stood. There’s no evidence that it was ever there at all, not even powder or burn marks. It’s simply gone. I remember the force of that explosion, the power of Aiden’s full magic, unfettered by anything to contain it. Let’s hope that the watch will be able to withstand the force. I’ll be helping this time, so maybe things will go better. “Should we give it a try?”

I drop to a crouch and place the watch on the floor where the coffee table met its end. Aiden comes to stand near me: I see his scuffed sneakers from the corner of my eye.

“I don’t think the Ghost Office can withstand another fire,” he says. “If we’re going to try this, I suggest we do it outside.”

“Fair enough.”

We set it on an old, mossed-over tree stump and step back. I can tell that Aiden is nervous about trying to constrict his energy to such a small target - smaller than even the reading glasses. His foot is tapping quietly against the slippery ground.

“What if I fuck this up?” he murmurs.

“Then we’ll figure something else out.” I extend my hand, and Aiden curls his around it. I feel the connection leaping at our fingertips, sparkling and ready.

“Okay.” Aiden lets out a deep breath. “Okay, okay okay.”

It starts to flood into me, climbing up my arm and shoulder, bleeding down into my chest. Aiden is trying to hold himself back and go slower this time, I can tell. Now that he’s opened the connection, I can hear his anxious heartbeat in my own ears, his nerves trilling in my own veins. The pulse and flow of his magic gathers around us like a stormcloud, electric, readying to strike. 

I become aware of the watch itself, a circle of very old energy. Aiden’s power floods through my body, making my eyelashes flutter, goosebumps rippling down my back. He lets more and more into me, and I fall back into the sensation, vibrant and warm and stealing my breath right out of my lungs. I try to make room for it all, as much as I can possibly carry. Aiden must be able to tell that I’m at my limit, because I sense a turn in the energy, feel it starting to direct towards our target.

I can tell, all at once, that this is going to be too much, that the watch can’t withstand it. Aiden realizes at the same time. I feel him try to get a grasp on the energy, reel it back in and direct it anywhere else before it can-

I feel, rather than hear the explosion. Heat rushes at my face, carrying a fine powder that coats my nose and cheeks and eyelids. The sound follows after. Not a deafening boom, like when the Ghost Office started on fire. This one is quiet, almost musical.

The sound of something golden tearing itself apart.

~~~~

“Are you okay?” Kent waves a hand in front of my face. “Jamie?”

“What?” I rouse myself from my stupor. “Sorry, what?”

“You’re about to use a watering can on a desert cactus.” Kent gently pulls it out of my fingers and sets it down on the counter. “What’s with you? You’ve been a zombie your entire shift.”

“I just had - a weird afternoon.”

“You seem upset. Like, really upset.”

I sigh and press my face into my hands, let my elbows sink onto the countertop.

“You ever feel like you’re fucking everything up, Kent? Like all you can do is make mistakes?”

“Well.” Kent pulls his glasses from his nose and starts cleaning them on his shirt. “I’m freshly divorced, and Ellen’s teacher just called to say that she hasn't done any of her summer reading list check-ins so far. The little sneak didn’t even tell me she was supposed to be doing those. And Duolingo is sending me increasingly aggressive reminders every time I miss a practice session.” He puts his glasses back on. “Not to mention that my employees are clearly distracted. I caught Destinee performing a poem to the Boston Ferns we have in the back, and you - I don’t even know what’s going on with you, man.”

“Destinee is getting ready, her competition is coming up,” I mumble, because I don’t have a single good answer for any of the other issues Kent listed.

The bell above the door jingles, and I snap the rest of the way out of my daze. Aiden steps inside, holding a little white box.

“Oh, thank god.” Kent beckons for him. “Come help me, Aiden. You always cheer Jamie up.”

Aiden glances at me, and I see the quick flash of guilt in his eyes.

“I’ll do my best,” he says, shutting the door after himself.

“At the very least make sure he closes up correctly and locks the store behind himself?” Kent reaches for his keys and phone. “I’ve got a nine-year-old who needs to read Little House on the Prairie by like, yesterday, and she’s not going to do it without some persuasion.” He looks at us hopefully as Aiden comes to join me at the counter. “Don’t suppose anyone has any ideas?”

“Bribery?” I suggest.

“Begging?” Aiden offers.

“Alright, I’m out of here. Aiden, you’ll let me know if I’m cooking for three tonight?” He glances at me. “Or four?”

“You got it. Thanks, Kent.”

Kent slips out into the darkness, and Aiden sets the box on the countertop.

“What’s this?” I give it a poke with my finger.

“For you.” He nudges it towards me. I flip open the lid and let out a startled laugh. It’s a cupcake, with a little frowny face drawn in frosting.

“What the hell?” I ask, tilting the box to show him. He shrugs, a little sheepish.

“Turns out the bakery didn’t have one that said I’m sorry that we exploded a priceless artifact that we desperately needed and spent a lot of effort trying to get.”

“Oh, god." I groan and shove the box away, then immediately reconsider and grab it back. “We are the worst.”

Aiden watches as I take a bite that basically consists of half of the entire cupcake.

“We should have practiced first,” he sighs. “Tried with smaller things.”

“Should have, could have, would have,” I answer, around a mouthful of frosting. “Too late for that.”

There wasn’t even a large enough piece of the watch for us to gather up. It was all powder, just like the glasses and the coffee table before it.

“What do we even do, now?” I lift the other half of the cupcake to my mouth, but Aiden snags it and steals a bite. I snatch the remainder from his fingers and hold it out of his reach. “Hey! This is my sadness cupcake.”

“I don’t know what to do now,” Aiden says, sucking frosting off of his fingers. “I guess we should try to get the glasses working, see if we can find the cemetery. Maybe we can use the grave to channel William, or…” He fades off. We both know it sounds hopeless. “I don’t fucking know. I just wish we could go back and tell ourselves not to try to use the watch yet.”

I freeze, the cupcake half-lifted to my mouth.

“Go back and tell ourselves,” I repeat.

“Obviously it’s too late for that, but you know what I mean.” Aiden pauses. “Jamie? What’s the matter with you?”

“Oh, my god. Oh my god.” I straighten up and press my fingers to my lips. “Aiden. Oh my god.”

“Are you-?”

“The watch, we-” I stop, trying to get a hold of myself. “Okay. You said that I can’t time travel. But could you time travel us both? Like, is that something within the bounds of magic?”

“I mean…” Aiden’s brow furrows. “I know that my mom tried to do it once, but she couldn’t make it work. She had this little tool, I remember. Could be one of the things she left my aunt. It had these notches…” He stops, looks at me. “Where are you going with this?”

“You don’t know?”

He stares at me for a good long moment, then takes a step back from the counter.

“You must be joking.”

“Think about it,” I breathe. “We stole the watch from ourselves!”