A Witch's Halloween Read online

  “Got it.” Liam looked around. “Why don’t you stand back? Just in case.”

  Since I didn’t feel like wrestling a werewolf, I happily crossed the street. Being a smart witch, I kept my wand out and ready. As Liam had said, just in case.

  I wasn’t a wolf, so I couldn’t tell what Liam did, but the wolves walked over and crowded around him. A few hung back. Liam tilted his head back and howled a lonely note. It said, Come to me. You won’t be alone.

  The werewolves hanging back slowly moved closer. One trotted out of the bed-and-breakfast. Another loped over from the street where everyone had been partying. The two wolves in the shield bubbles moved as close to him as they could. One wolf, a big dark gray with a stripe down his nose, snarled and growled but still came over.

  Liam walked to the bus. The werewolves followed him. As soon as the last wolf was up the steps, Liam poked his head out. “Bring the last two over.”

  With a quick spell, I levitated the two werewolves onto the bus. Once Liam gave the all-clear, I set them down and removed the spells. The door shut. They were his problem now.

  It took another twenty minutes for someone of sufficient rank to show up so Rodriguez could leave. He removed the shields from the crime scene, and it was back to the office for us.

  By morning, I’d gotten a decent amount of sleep, finished the reports, and spent fifteen minutes on the phone talking to a vet about the tarantula. With the worst of the full moon past, I headed home for a quiet breakfast with Elron.

  I got home, parked, and quietly prayed that Elron’s parents were still asleep.

  The lodge’s door opened without a squeak.

  Two steps later, someone knocked into me, sending me stumbling into the wall.

  “It’s mine! You can’t take it!”

  “Eve, hand over the phone!” Enor yelled.

  I pushed away from the wall, which was no easy feat with Tricks plastered to my side. “What is going on?”

  Tricks darted behind me.

  Enor folded her arms across her chest and glared at me. “Did you give her the phone?”

  I should’ve stayed at work.

  Chapter Eight

  “Not exactly.” What I would give to have breakfast and a bucket of tea before this discussion. “I said she could use the phone to play games if you agreed. Tricks said you did.”

  Enor huffed. “Why do you insist on calling her Tricks? Her name is Eve.”

  And we were back to this fight. Again. “There’s no harm in calling her Tricks, and she likes it. In two years, she can change it if she wants, why not let her try it out? You never know, she could go back to Eve.”

  “I will not!” Tricks nudged me in the ribs. “Traitor.”

  “You’re making it hard to be on your side,” I muttered.

  Enor glared at both of us. “And the technology?”

  That was my bad. I’d asked Tricks if she had permission. She’d clearly skirted the truth, but I wasn’t going to out her lie. “For that, I am sorry. I thought it would do her good to be acquainted with the modern world, as she may need to interact with it from time to time.”

  “You should have asked for our permission.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “Eve,” Enor said. “Return the device.”

  She lifted her chin. “My name is Tricks.”

  “This is your fault.” Enor pointed a finger at me. “She never behaved like this before she met you.”

  “She behaved because you lived days from other people and she had no other options.” Elron gently turned his mother away from us. “I agreed to give Tricks the phone.”

  Technically true, but like me, Elron had been under the impression Tricks had gotten permission. I couldn’t blame her for being fascinated by things she’d never been able to experience, but we were going to have a chat about her deception.

  “You—you did?” Enor sputtered.

  “I did,” Elron said calmly. “When I transitioned to a modern lifestyle, it took time for me to grow accustomed to this world. I hope to spare Tricks a similar shock in the future.”

  “Mother, I love you and father, but I don’t want to spend my entire life in the wilds.” Eve pushed the phone into my hand. “If you won’t let me use the phone, I understand, but I don’t agree.”

  Enor studied her daughter. “Erwin won’t approve.”

  “He’s fond of the speed of cars,” Elron said. “He will come around.”

  “Doubt it,” Tricks muttered.

  Elron grinned. “I have a plan.”

  “You do?” The three of us ladies echoed each other.

  “I do, and I’ll be happy to explain if you will excuse Michelle. She was at work all night, and I’ve set out breakfast in her apartment.”

  Enor flushed. “I did not know.”

  “Sorry.” Tricks gave me a quick hug. “Extra sorry.”

  “I’ll feel better with food and a short nap.” I wrapped an arm around Tricks’s shoulders and squeezed. “Enor, please forgive me. In the future, I will check with you rather than relying on Tricks.”

  “Thank you. All is forgiven.” She gave me a slight smile. “Children can be a challenge.”

  Before Tricks could protest, Elron cut in. “Would you like to know the plan?” He ushered them into the parlor.

  I took my escape and was properly grateful.

  Two hours later, I took Elron’s hand and gazed across his summer’s work. I’d been here before, months ago when the plants first sprouted, when it looked like little more than a large field with widely spaced crops.

  Kennesaw University had asked for an all-natural setting suitable for a Halloween celebration, and Elron had delivered. He had transformed the sparse field into a corn maze of epic proportions. The maze alone covered seven acres. Paths twisted through a field of sixty-foot-tall corn stalks loaded down with corncobs that last measured over two feet in length. To make up for the lack of density, he’d added beans and squash. They filled in the lower portions, giving it an almost jungle feel. He’d even added a watchtower in the middle of the maze so students could get a bird's-eye view of the maze.

  Even having seen it a few times over the summer, the sheer scale always faded between visits. After this corn maze, none of the others would measure up.

  Elron had managed another miracle, too. His parents had agreed to let Tricks use the phone today. The deal was she had to document the plants and show how easy it was with modern technology. He’d sworn that would sway his dad.

  “Shall we go down?” He motioned to the path marked by waist high leafy greens.

  Tricks darted ahead, phone out and taking picture after picture. “Ooh, turnips. They’re huge!”

  “Large plants are not as impressive as well-grown and properly tended plants,” Erwin said. “Any elf can force a plant to grow beyond its usual proportions.”

  Elron’s shoulders tightened. “If you look with more than your eyes, you will discover these plants are both well-tended and happy to be their current size.”

  “You must admit, going for size is… very human.” Enor wrinkled her nose.

  Of all the elves in the world, I had to get these two stodgy relics as in-laws. I knew plenty of elves who danced, sang, and weren’t afraid of progress. Somehow, of all the elves in the world, I’d fallen in love with the one whose parents refused to believe the world had changed in the last two thousand years.

  “I designed it for young adults having a good time. Everyone enjoys a larger-than-life event, and this was the easiest way to give them that experience on the university’s budget.” Elron motioned for the two of them to go down the path.

  “A few months ago, this was an unused field. He completely transformed it,” I said. With my luck, even this wouldn’t help them understand.

  The path, which had been nothing more than a narrow dirt track, was now wide enough for six abreast. Mulch covered the path and padded the gaps between the plants. On each side, turnip tops peeked out of the ground, none of them smaller than sixteen inches across. Elron had managed near-perfect uniformity. Even the greens consistently rose to waist height.

  At the bottom of the hill, the path turned and ran alongside the cornfield. On the corn side, large pumpkins replaced turnips as path markers. Tricks had already abandoned the turnips to photograph the pumpkins. They were worth a few pictures. Each one was two-and-a-half feet tall and perfect. Not a one of them had a flat spot, blemish, or weather damage. That last part was less a feature of elven abilities and more a result of the shelter numerous small tents provided for each pumpkin.

  “The uniformity is impressive, and the condition of the plants is better than I initially thought,” Erwin said.

  Elron bowed his head. “Thank you.”

  Enor and Erwin stopped walking, and Elron tugged me to a halt.

  Tricks was far enough ahead we could have a reasonably private conversation, which filled me with dread.

  “Have you given thought to where you will construct the wedding dress?” Enor asked. “We tried to discuss the matter with Dorthea, but she kept saying the dress was under construction. Did you make the fabric properly?”

  I stared at her blankly.

  Elron blinked slowly. “I do not follow.”

  Enor jerked her head back. “You did, of course, have silver spiders weave the fabric on the spring equinox.”

  It was all I could do to keep from gagging. Spiderwebs. Sticky and impossible to fully remove, but all over my body. “No.”

  Three pairs of eyes focused on me. Narzel. I’d said that out loud. “I’m afraid my dress must be that of my tradition.”

  “In color and construction, I do understand, but the fabric?” Enor looked to Elron. “That should be elven.”

  “Mother.” His voice cut through the air. “No one does that. No one does any of these rituals. Did you even do them?”

  “Elron, you will not speak to your mother that way,” Erwin said. “These are the traditions of our people.”

  As much as I wanted to help our cause, they barely tolerated me. And really, I couldn’t be the one to point out that most of the supposed traditions hadn’t been current for over 7,000 years. They still thought of witches as one of the dumb, short-lived races. The short-lived part was true, though not a great way to judge people.

  “Perhaps in great-grandmother’s day, though she is gone, and so is the strict adherence to these antiquated ideas. Last night, it was jewelry crafted by an elven smith on the longest day and longest night of the year. Even for me, that is tedious, and I’ve already lived over a thousand years,” Elron snapped.

  “Don’t forget about the ‘hand-crafted wine of winter’s apple, aged twenty years in an apple wood barrel.’” I grinned fiercely. “Now, I don’t know what that is, but it sounds like something we could buy rather than making it ourselves.”

  I was a bad woman, but it was worth it.

  Weeks of this nonsense were enough. Two days ago, I’d walked into a conversation about the food. Apparently, only fruits and seeds of willing trees were acceptable. Dorthea, rightfully so, wouldn’t agree. Elron and I weren’t going to every tree that had produced something and asking if it had been willing. Most of those farms were run by elves, fey, dryads, and some passionate members of other species. If the tree had a problem, they would deal with it.

  “This arch is so cool! How’d you manage it?” Tricks shouted.

  “I will be there in a moment.” Elron stared down his parents. “If you do not approve of my wife and my choices, you can leave. Tricks will always be welcome, and in two years when she is free to do as she wishes, a room will be waiting if she wishes to experience modern life. I will not force her to live in the past as you have chosen to do.”

  He turned both of us away, his hand gripping mine too tightly as we walked past the pumpkins.

  Part of me felt like I should apologize. I hadn’t made the situation better. Then again, the only thing that would make the two of them happy was if I turned into a very traditional elf.

  “I am sorry,” Elron said. His grip on my hand loosened enough to be comfortable. “I never thought… My parents had been gone so long, even by my standards.”

  “We’ll figure it out.” I slipped an arm around his waist and squeezed. “And if they want to be part of our lives, they’ll figure it out too.”

  “I would not hold my breath.”

  Giggling, I looked up at him.

  Elron raised a brow.

  I laughed harder.

  Tricks bounced over, phone in hand. “What are you giggling about?”

  “It would suffer in the retelling,” Elron said. “Do you like the flora?”

  Her face lit up. “It’s incredible! I was talking to the corn. Did you really get it that tall in just five months? For the size, that’s incredible. Did you power it up or use common farming methods?” She sucked in a breath.

  “Both. It is a strain that grows tall. With some encouragement, it was more than happy to push new heights. The soil has been fertilized several times, both before planting and after to support such growth.” Elron guided her over to the gate.

  It wasn’t a gate in the traditional sense. Elron had shaped two rows of ten super-sized corn plants into an arch, with the tops of the plants touching. He had wanted to make it even more amazing, so I’d worked out a charm for Halloween. The corncobs would glow yellow, lighting up this part of the grounds. We were confident the students wouldn’t have seen anything like it.

  Tricks spun in a circle, looking up at the curved stalks. “How’d you stabilize the arch? It looks like they’re leaning into each other now, but they couldn’t have done that while growing.”

  “We built a support structure, and I worked with them to create this shape and strengthen their root systems.” Elron patted one of the plants. “We only removed the support last week.”

  “Cool.” Tricks looked for another moment before running through the tunnel. “What’s this big space for?”

  “That’s where they’ll set up the festival,” I said.

  Tricks looks one way and then the other before darting out of sight.

  “I was going to show her the lights, but maybe it’ll be better as a surprise.” It would’ve been fun to show her the glowing corn, but since I was on call, it wasn’t the smartest use of magic.

  Elron shrugged. “She will enjoy it when she sees it.”

  “If she’s still here and allowed.”

  Not that I was helping that cause. I needed to control myself. Enor and Erwin could be as irritating as they wished; that didn’t mean Tricks should suffer because we couldn’t get along.

  I rarely had this much trouble controlling the sharp side of my temper, but it was hard to bend when nothing about this wedding felt like mine. I’d never dreamed of a traditional witch wedding. I’d dreamed of dresses and flowers, but they hadn’t been attached to witch traditions.

  For most of my life, I’d been clanless, outside of the witch social structure. I hadn’t dared to dream of being accepted by a clan, never mind one day being the premier.

  Since I’d joined my parents’ clans, dreaming of weddings hadn’t been high on the list. Call me practical, but two demons, one evil grandmother, and a clan of other problems were enough to derail the most die hard romantic. And I’d never been accused of being overly romantic.

  “Elron,” Erwin said. “I would speak with you.”

  “Are you coming?” Tricks yelled from the festival grounds.

  Elron nudged me down the path. “I will catch up with the two of you.”

  “You’re sure?” The words took on a weight I hadn’t intended. He’d drawn a line with his parents, one that would hurt him more than me if it shattered their relationship.

  His blue eyes were hard. “Yes.”

  I nodded and jogged into the festival grounds.

  There was a large space with short cropped grass before the entrance of the maze. A sign hung from two cornstalks. Jagged letters read: ENTER IF YOU DARE. As far as I knew, there weren’t any plans for the maze to be haunted, but college kids would love it if it was.

  My phone rang. I slowed to a walk as I answered. “Oaks Consulting, Michelle speaking.”

  “It’s Jerry. Do you have a minute?”

  “That’s about all I have. Until this is a drop-everything emergency, I’m with family.” I said it because it was true, not because I wanted to spend more time with Enor and Erwin.

  I paused at the end of the corn corridor leading into the field. From between two corn stalks, neither Tricks nor Elron and his parents could see me.

  “No, nothing like that.” He sighed. “Last night, Marietta Nature Museum had the skull stolen off their unicorn skeleton. I checked, and a spell binding the bones together was fractured with a nullifying powder, but there’s no evidence of active magic in the theft.”

  “So what do you want from me?”

  “Let me know if you hear about a unicorn skull. It was in perfect condition, fully intact horn and all. He wanted his body donated to science when he died.” Jerry sighed. “I don’t want to tell his family we can’t find his skull.”

  “If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.” A person could get into a lot of trouble with a unicorn skull. In the past, desperate people trying to power spells they had no business doing had hunted unicorns for their body parts.

  “Thanks. I’ll notify you if we recover it.” He hung up.

  I tucked my phone back in my pocket. Most museums these days had cameras and all sorts of dwarf-enhanced tech to protect the collections. A few even had dragons who considered the collection their hoard. Either Marietta Nature Museum didn’t have very good security, or someone had fooled it. Luckily, that wasn’t my problem.

  Stepping out from between the cornstalks, I scanned the area. Tricks was on the far side of the open space, taking pictures of three truly monstrous pumpkins protected from the elements by tents. I couldn’t call the tents little. They were the common pop-up tent for outdoor events, more than tall enough for Tricks or I to walk under without ducking.