Party Planning

"She's not interested"

Haley's greeting to the two young men who had approached them amused her Aunt, and it wasn't inaccurate. However, the funny thing was these were exactly the kind of guys - cocky, athletic, conventionally good looking and probably very shallow - that she had gone for when she was younger, before fate had intervened and her now husband had won her over. She couldn't really understand what she had ever seen in these types now though.

"Can your friend not speak for herself, Hales?" the first of the two, a blonde haired lad asked.

"I'm actually her cousin. My name is Emily and I'm just here for a semester, so I'm not really looking for romance with anyone"

"Woah, the hotness is strong in this family" the second dudebro, who had darker hair and was dressed quite smartly, quipped "I'm Brock"

"And I'm Blake" his friend added "You have a nice accent Emily. Australian, right?"

"Like I said, she really isn't interested" Haley laughed.

"It's okay we won't keep you ladies for long, just stopping by to say we'll hopefully see you both at the party on Saturday" Blake responded, his confidence clearly not dented.

"You two heard about that?" Haley asked with surprise.

"Kelly told us" Brock revealed "She's inviting pretty much everyone"

"Evidently" Haley sighed.

As Brock and Blake left, Haley turned to Emily and gave her a concerned look.

"This party is in danger of getting out of control already"

"Yeah, about that..." Emily began tentatively "Can we go somewhere I can talk to you alone for ten minutes. It's kind of important"

--

"Shit, so how do we get Jess out of the firing line. Send her to stay with your family in England for a while?"

Maisie was relieved that Haley had believed her without having been able to give the usual hair colour change demonstration as proof. She was also touched that her nieces first concern had been for Jessie and not herself. But realistically, she and the other cousins were in the most immediate danger.

"I don't think we need to do anything that drastic. Craig isn't a monster and Jess and I are trying to figure out how to handle him between us. But the bigger worry is your curse getting triggered. or Tammy or Kelly's"

"We really need to let Kelly know soon" Haley realised "She's planning to tell someone about her curse at the party"

"Really, who?" Emily asked in shock.

"I don't know, whatever guy she decides she would like to fuck that evening" Haley shrugged.

"And what would possess her to do that?"

"Because she thinks there's a ninety nine per cent chance it's fake. And she's a thrill seeker, so the one per cent chance it's real is exciting for her. Kind of like those Halloween games where you stand in front of a mirror, say the name of a spirit and hope it doesn't show up behind you. Also, she thinks it would be hot to role play having her master commanding her to do sexy stuff. She wanted me to tell someone about my curse as well, but I wasn't going to. Not because I thought it was real, because I thought it was stupid"

"So how do we tell her" Emily wondered "I don't find Kelly as easy to read or talk to as you"

"I'll do it" Haley offered "I'm the closest one to Kel. Jess is a little tighter with Tammy. Their mothers are sisters, just like mine and Kel's are, so it's not about any kind of preference, just who spent the most time together as kids. But it would be cool if you and Jess were there to back me up"

"Of course" Emily nodded "Maybe you, she and Tammy could come back to Jess's place after school"

"Not Tammy" Haley shook her head "Not yet. We'll have to handle that conversation more delicately when it comes. But trust me, she won't be talking to anyone about it"

"Thanks Haley, for being so cool about this and for trusting me"

"It's okay. We'd better get to class now though. We can worry about all of this later"

--

"This is such obvious bullshit" Kelly decided almost instantly with a derisive laugh "How stupid do you all think I am?"

"It's not bullshit Kelly, and why is it so important for you to go shooting your mouth off about the curse at the party anyway?" Jessie argued back in frustration.

"The real question is why are you all so scared of a pretend curse that you would make up such a half assed story to try and stop me having a bit of harmless fun? Let me get this straight. Yesterday I told Hales I planned to have a bit of a laugh and tell someone about the family curse on Saturday. Literally the next day it turns out Emily, Jess and Aunt Maisie have all been claimed, but none of them ever mentioned it before, and none of them can prove it because Aunt Maisie isn't here, Emily's master isn't here and we aren't allowed to talk about it to Craig for some fucking reason"

"He thinks it's only me who's been cursed" Jess tried explaining "If he knows it's all of us that is incredibly dangerous information for him to have. And he's not proving to be quite as trustworthy as I'd hoped"

"I don't believe any of you for a second. Unless you can prove otherwise to me, then I'm going to tell any guy at the party who will listen that we're all cursed. That will finally prove it to be the obvious hoax it has always been and everyone in this family can stop being so fucking weird about it! Now, if you don't have any more fairy stories to try and scare me with, I have more important things to do"

"Okay, that went well" Haley deadpanned as Kelly stormed out of the room.

"Is there any way of talking her out of this without showing her proof?" Emily asked.

"No chance" Haley sighed.

"I'm going to have to ask Craig to do the hair colour thing with me in front of her and hope for the best" Jessie puffed out her cheeks in exasperation "I don't like it, but we're running out of time and options here"

There was one more way, Maisie figured. Emily could be briefly sent away somewhere while she made a short visit home as herself, then they could switch back once more. It was far from ideal, and would start to make her cover look incredibly suspicious. But it might still be preferable to trusting a guy who had already proved himself to be untrustworthy with something this important.