Maisie grew up not being able to celebrate Halloween with her siblings and mother. However, her grandmother, Aggie, is always ready and willing to celebrate with them. So, one day, Maisie's twin sister, Marnie, and their younger brother, Dylan, deci...
While Sophie was happy to see Gwen, Maisie can feel that Gwen was furious and a bit worried. It made her take a step back.
"Oh, I'm sorry if we worried you, dear," Aggie told her. Dylan went over to Gwen. "I was gonna get them back just as soon as I possibly felt that I could..."
"Mother," Gwen interrupted. "I cannot believe that you brought them here in the first place!"
"She didn't know that we followed her," Maisie defended Aggie.
"Yeah, they came to see me," Aggie agreed. She put one around Maisie and one arm around Marnie.
"I wanted to help Grandma fight the bad thing," Sophie chimed in.
"And Mai and I came to get our training," Marnie added.
Although, to be fair, there hasn't been any training so far...
Gwen asked, "Training?"
"And I tried to stop them, Mom, they hypnotized me," Dylan said.
"And here, I was thinking that you were becoming brave," Maisie said.
"Hey, this is Mom," Dylan told her.
"Stop it," Gwen said. "I don't want to hear any more excuses. I want you all to get back on that bus, because we are going home."
"I'm not going because Grandma needs help," Maisie said.
"And since you won't help her, she needs the only other Cromwell witches there are," Marnie said, motioning between her and Maisie, "Us."
"You two are not witches," Gwen told them.
"Oh, yes, we are, no thanks to you," Marnie snapped.
"You were hoping that our powers went away forever and were proud about it too," Maisie added.
"You two, there is so much more involved in this than you understand," Gwen started.
Maisie snapped, "How would we know if you never talked about magic?"
"And we understand that we are here, and we've got brooms and we're gonna learn everything that Grandma can teach us," Marnie said, putting her arm around her grandma's shoulders.
"You. Will. Not," Gwen snapped at them.
Aggie stepped forward, "It's their birthright."
"They were born in the human world and human are what they'll be," Gwen told Aggie.
"I will not become a human," Maisie said.
"Neither will I," Marnie said, stepping forward.
"You two put those brooms down. You are both grounded," Gwen snapped.
Maisie felt close to tears, from humilation and frustration.
Gwen continued, "Say goodbye to Grandma, everybody. It's time to go back home."
"Bye, Grandma," Sophie said sadly.
"Bye," Dylan said, even though it had been obvious that he had a good time, even though he refused to to show it, thinking he was dreaming.
Gwen, Dylan, and Sophie started to move, but Maisie and Marnie stayed put.
Gwen said, "Marnie? Maisie?"
Marnie and Maisie handed the brooms to Aggie.
"Thanks, Grandma," Marnie said.
"Yeah, thanks for everything," Maisie said, kissing her grandmother on the cheek.
Marnie practically stomped forward. Gwen reached for Marnie, but she dodged it with Maisie following her lead.
Maisie risked a look back. It looked like Aggie was going to cry.
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They sat on a bench, waiting for the bus.
"There's nothing with my ties!" yelled one head of a conjoined man.
"Look at it," one head replied.
"I can't look at it without taking my head off," the other one replied.
"I'm never talking to you again, you know," Marnie told Gwen as the woman went to the desk.
"Excuse me," Gwen started.
"I'm so sick of you drinking all this caffeine," one head said to the head drinking from a cup, ignoring Gwen saying 'excuse me'. "You're giving me a headache. It's upsetting my stomach. I'm tired of this."
The two heads bickered and then Gwen said, "Excuse me."
"What?" yelled the two heads in unison.
"Excuse me," Gwen repeated. "Will you please tell me what time the next bus leaves to the Mortal World?"
"The bus?"
"Which bus?"
"Mortal World?"
"Isn't that the Number 6?"
"That's the only one we got."
"Hey, hey, that's my epresso."
"No, no, hey!"
"And I'm never going to school again!" Marnie declared. "And I'm gonna move some place really far away and join a motorcycle gang!"
"And get a lot of tattoos!" Maisie added. "And facial piercings! And dye my hair orange!"
Gwen turned to them, "You two, this is not our world! Now drop it!"
"No, don't dye your hair orange," Dylan said. "You'll look like a traffic cone."
"Well, it used to be your world," Marnie replied. "Are you gonna get tired of us too?" She took on a tone to mock Gwen's voice, "'Oh, sorry, those aren't my kids. They used to be my kids, but I moved on.'"
Gwen said, "Marnie, not now!"
"You're doing a terrible job of not speaking to her," Maisie told Marnie.
"It'll be several hours," the conjoined men said.
Maisie felt excited, because that means that they can hang around Halloweentown. She can feel the excitement rise from Marnie.
Marnie stood up, "Well, what do you know? The bus isn't running! I guess we can't leave after all."
Sophie jumped up, "Yay!"
"There must be some way," Gwen muttered.
"Hey, the mayor seems like a nice guy," Dylan said.
"You said 'seems,'" Maisie muttered. She still didn't trust Calabar. He was hiding something and seemed deceitful.
"Maybe he would know," Dylan spoke over Maisie.
Marnie smacked Dylan's arm, "Dylan."
"Ow!" replied Dylan.
"Wimp," Maisie said, because it couldn't have hurt that much.
"That's a very good idea," Gwen said. "Let's go." She took off for city hall.
Marnie took Sophie's hand and went after Gwen and Dylan.
