Cadenbury Town Does Halloween (Cadenbury Town #7)

Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

I open my eyes and the first face I see is Adhan.

“Hey,” he says gently.

I sit up and fling myself in his arms. “Oh! Thank God,” I pull back. “Please tell me the others are alright.”

“Everyone is fine, look,” he says, pulling back.

I look around and see everyone gathered in our bedroom. I look at Nix and Temp, both of whom are alive thank goodness, mind you they’re looking a little pale.

I see Sly sat on the side of my bed.

“Thanks, Sly,” I say, sending him a small smile.

“You’re welcome. It would seem only dark magic could bring you all back.”

“All back? Wait, did we all have the same dream? Haunted house, dead bodies?” I ask.

“Yeah, we did,” Temp says, he’s stood wrapped in Ben’s arms. Mind you the others are in the arms of their lovers as well.

“Sly and Justice rescued us,” Ebby tells me.

“How did you know we needed rescuing?” I ask Sly. It’s then I notice he is holding Ebby’s hand.

“Ebby always wakes first. But this morning I did. I waited for Ebb to wake, but something felt wrong. I used my magic to look for him and found him trapped in a dream at the haunted house. I pulled him out and just as he woke up, I heard the brothers shouting for help. I figured everyone might be trapped in that house. Ebb went to help Titus and I went to help Sal. When Ebb couldn’t get to Titus he realised only dark magic could bring you all out. Justice got himself out and then helped.”

“When you all vanished from the haunted house, I figured the dark witches had done something, but still, seeing and finding dead bodies was crushing,” Justice says. “My magic went practically black and I managed to shatter my dream and wake up.”

“I was never so happy to see one of us as when Sly came running into the clothes flying room and pulled me out of there.” Temp says.

“I was in the attic. Justice got me out,” Titus said.

“I was in the dining room,” I say.

“Me too. Sly got me out,” Nix says.

“I was in the clothes room. Justice rescued me.” Sal says.

“I was in the attic,” Justice says. “I know it was only a dream, but, yeah that’s going to stay with me for a while.”

“Same,” I say, as do the others.

I can’t believe that dream traumatised us all, but it looks like it has. They all have sadness and the remnants of horror in their eyes. I’m pretty sure my eyes look the same.

Score one for the dark witches.

“Let’s go downstairs, I think we could all do with coffee,” Adhan says.

“So much coffee. I’m gonna be needing a vat of coffee,” Nix says.

“I’ll make sure you have some baby,” Cam says, leading Nix out of the room, the others following.

As soon as the last person leaves, I turn back to Adhan and lean into him, hugging him close.

His arms wrap around me. “It was just a dream sweetheart, just a bad dream.”

I nod. “I know. I didn’t at first when I watched Nix die, but when I found Temp hanging in the flying clothes room, I realised it must have been a dream,” I pull back and look at Adhan. “It felt so real.”

I don’t realise I have tears falling down my cheeks until Adhan uses his thumbs to wipe them away.

“They’re alive sweetheart and Sly and Justice pulled you all back. Let’s go and see the others and you can reassure yourself again that everyone is alive.”

I nod. “Yeah, let’s do that.” We get up and I throw some sweats and a t-shirt on, before taking Adhan’s hand and walking downstairs with him.

We’re the last ones to arrive in the kitchen. I look around and see neither the boys nor Nora are in the kitchen.

“The children are in the lounge watching films. I thought it was best to keep them occupied, they’re also watching Connie,” Emily says, obviously guessing what I was thinking.

I nod my thanks and we sit. Titus passes me the coffee pot and I pour coffee out for Adhan and myself. Food is on the table, but I can’t face eating anything and wrap my hands around my mug. Actually, now that I think about it, no one is eating.

For some reason, I feel worse now than I did when we went to the post-apocalyptic plane.

When Justice was having issues with his biologicals, they created ripples in time. We sent our magic out to have a look at a ripple, but our magic got stuck. Not wanting to leave it there, some of us blasted the ripple with magic. The blast knocked us out and we came round to a completely destroyed town. We thought we had killed practically everyone and that we’d lost our magic. I felt bad enough then, I wonder why I feel worse now.

“They actually found the perfect way to unsettle us,” Temp says softly. “Kill us one at a time.”

“I’ve never felt as helpless as I did in the haunted house. Nothing I did worked,” Nix says.

“Once I figured out what was happening, I tried blasting my way out of the dream, but nothing I did worked either until Justice showed up and pulled me out,” Titus tells us.

I look at Justice, his magic is slightly darker than normal but not much. “Your magic is almost back to your light grey.”

He nods. “It is, being with Alfred helps it lighten up quicker,” he picks Al’s hand up and kisses the back.

“Love you too, my Doc,” Al says, leaning into him.

“We need to redo the wards around town today then have the BBQ,” I remind everyone. I’m so not feeling the happy vibe I would usually have thinking about a family BBQ, but yeah, those wards need sorting.

Molly rushes into the kitchen looking worried. “What happened? All I picked up on was death and sadness. I’m relieved to see you are all alive.”

“Coffee, Molly?” Emily asks her.

She shakes her head. “No thanks lovely,” Molly replies, sitting down and looking around the table at us, concern on her face.

“We were pulled into a nightmare. We all had the same dream of some of us dying in the haunted house. Sly and Justice rescued us,” I tell her.

“I know it was just a nightmare, but at the time it was so real and so horrible,” Temp says. “Only dark magic could pull us out of the dream.” Ben puts his arm around Temp and pulls him close, Temp leaning into his side.

Molly looks at Justice and nods.

“I thought our dreams were protected,” I say looking at Molly.

“Dark magic young’un. New charms will need to be added, so this can’t happen again.”

I don’t like feeling this sad. I can’t let the dark witches mess up our mental health like this. It was just a horrible nightmare, that’s now over. I need to think of something to make everyone laugh, but what?

I ignore the talking going on around me and hit on the perfect thing. I push my magic out and suddenly there is stunned silence around the table.

“What the hell!” Kean exclaims, looking at his clothes. He’s now wearing a red wedding dress. Not just any red dress, but the Beetlejuice one he said he would get married in. Titus is dressed in a Beetlejuice costume, minus the face paint.

Everyone bursts out laughing.

“Stand up bro, so we can get the full effect,” Ben says, laughing harder.

Titus looks at me. “Really?” he says, but I see relief in his eyes before he bursts out laughing.

Yeah, we all needed this, and as we laugh the atmosphere starts to lighten.

Kean finally stands up and does a twirl, making us laugh even more. The ruffles make the dress look bigger. I even remembered the red veil.

I look around the table at my family all laughing, we’ll be fine now, well I hope so anyway.

I see Cam pull his phone out of his pocket and snap some pictures. I’m not sure Kean has noticed.

“This is a lot of dress,” Kean says laughing, using his hands to ruffle the sides of the dress up and down.

“You look so pretty, handsome,” Titus tells him.

“Not sure I really want to wear this to our wedding though.”

“Party pooper,” Temp says to him.

Tie clicks his fingers and now both he and Kean are wearing their original clothes, but it has done the trick, we’re all laughing again.

“Thanks,” Tie says to me.

I nod, but now I’m hungry. “You’re welcome. Now, let’s eat.”