Enter Three Witches (23 page)

“Give it to me and stop your nonsense,” Rose snapped. “Miranda and Bob are patching it up, worse luck, and we’re all back where we started from. Don’t worry about that other one. We still have a clump of that fake red hair, if I’m not mistaken, enough to keep her sick for a month of Sundays if Miranda will just attend to business and stop mooning around.”

“But mooning around is all I want to do right now,” Miranda said, looking wistfully at Bob, who put his arm around her. “I want to go out on a date with my husband and then go home.”

“And that’s what you’re going to do,” he said, leading her off toward the exit sign.

Bren looked around at the rest of the party, most of whom had abandoned the strange scene at the front of the stage and were again gathered around the punch bowl as if it had become their only refuge in a night of baffling puzzles. Erika slipped up to his side and laid her head against his shoulder. “And what about us?” she asked. “I wouldn’t mind going off into the sunset myself at this point and maybe not seeing the inside of a theater for a year or two.”

“Unfortunately, we have to see it again tomorrow night,” Bren said.

“Don’t be so practical. I know we do, but maybe after that, we can think of something else.”

“I’m thinking now,” Bren said. “I’m thinking about winter and hoping it will snow, and we can build an igloo in the park, and then it will be spring, and maybe we can rent a boat.”

“I’ll ask my father to buy us one,” said Erika.