The Ex Hex

Rhys receives a text from Vivi, asking him to meet her at midnight at a specified address. Rhys is cheekily proud of himself for having only “80 percent” filthy thoughts about her. When Rhys arrives at the address, he sees Vivi waiting for him outside a gate, dressed head-to-toe in black. Instead of using a spell to make light, Vivi hands him a flashlight. She tells him they are here for a “quest.” After they jump the fence, Vivi points to a cabin up the hill. It is a small place that witches attending Penhaven occasionally rented—including Piper McBride, the library ghost. Rhys is astonished when Vivi pulls from her bag the candle Amanda gave her. It is a Eurydice Candle. When they light it on Piper’s old alter, it will trap her spirit so that it can be released elsewhere when relit. Rhys worries the candle will be affected by the town’s curse, but Vivi says the cabin is just outside town limits and therefore outside the curse’s reach. Rhys notes the haunted house’s stereotypical appearance as Vivi successfully creates a magic light for herself.

Inside the house, Rhys and Vivi take in the sight of molding wallpaper and broken furniture. They walk through the ground floor, trying to find Piper’s old bedroom. Neither Vivi nor Rhys feels any traces of lingering magic, but suddenly they hear footsteps. They extinguish their light sources and wait. Vivi realizes the footsteps are outside the cabin, and she can hear more than one person whispering outside. She looks out the window and sees her student Hainsley, whose last paper had evidence of cheating Vivi detected with magic. Hainsley is with a girl; Rhys realizes the cabin’s floor is so clean because this is now a local hookup spot. Rhys and Vivi decide to hide in a closet. They overhear Hainsley trying to convince a girl, Sara, to have sex with him in the cabin. Rhys and Vivi become increasingly aware of how close they are in the cramped closet, and Vivi touches Rhys’s hips; they kiss. Hainsley suggests to Sara that they at least explore the creepy house. Vivi casts a spell that causes a framed photograph to fall off the living room wall and break on the floor. Hainsley and Sara scream and run out of the house. Vivi and Rhys celebrate her successful magic, and as he leans in to kiss her, Vivi steadies herself against the wall with one hand. She yelps suddenly, realizing she has touched a series of runes painted on the wall. They have found Piper’s altar.

Rhys looks over the runes, some old and faded, but others looking like dark, fresh slashes. Vivi lights the Eurydice Candle; the temperature drops, and a mist seeps in under the closet door. In the living room, Piper’s ghost appears. She looks faded, more translucent than she was earlier in the library. Piper’s ghost looks around, confused, as her form becomes mistier and is sucked into the candle. She says Rhys’s last name, Penhallow, and just before she is pulled completely into the candle, she says, “What was wrong must be righted, what was taken must be relinquished” (202). The candle extinguishes, leaving Vivi and Rhys alone in the darkness.