by Nova Nelson
“I don’t have bad judgment!” Bruce protested.
Ruby nodded at him. “See? He doesn’t even know. I can’t tell you how many times people are killed by those they trusted. They don’t see who killed them because the murderer couldn’t stand to see the look of betrayal on the victim’s face. Then they show up here rather than crossing over. ”
She opened a small round box which contrasted the rectangular and hexagonal shapes of the others, and pulled out three berries. “Night veils. You need to crush these with the sage, mint, and rosemary, but not with your fingers. The juice is hard to wash off, and a drop of it can be fatal.” She opened the last box, a long rectangular one, and inside was a copper pestle. She pulled it out, careful not to touch the end, which was stained a midnight blue, presumably from the night veil berries.
As she crushed the contents of the copper bowl into a paste, she instructed me to look around the room, to soak in as much detail as possible, then close my eyes and construct the space in my imagination. As I did so, she grabbed my hand, holding it over the bowl.
A sudden blast of cold traveled up my fingertips, enveloping my entire hand to the wrist. Then, just as quickly, it passed.
“You can open your eyes,” she said.
She set the bowl in the center of the table, knocked the excess off the pestle, and then placed it gently in the box. “There. Now he’s anchored. Thank you for your compliance, Bruce. I know my home isn’t the most fascinating of places to spend your time hovering between planes, but obviously, if you want Nora’s help, you have to play by the rules.” She gathered the boxes, replacing them on the kitchen shelf. “Leave the bowl there, dear,” she said to me. “And he’ll be here until you return. I’ll show you how to release the anchor later, if you need.” She clapped her hands quickly. “Oh, and before I forget.” She reached into a pocket of her baggy layers of clothing and pulled out a small, bulging leather pouch, offering it me. “You’ll need a little bit of money to navigate around town.” The purse clanked as she passed it off. The heavy weight of it surprised me, and I wondered how much this could actually buy me around Eastwind.
“Now, I better feed Clifford before he comes out here and eats you.”
I stuffed the coins into the pocket of my overcoat. “Clifford eats people?”
She shrugged. “Not regularly, but yes, it has happened. I can’t say I blame him. If you’d encountered that pugnacious gnome, you might have found a way to eat him, too. Filthy mouth on that one.”
“And this dog sleeps in your room with you?”
“Of course. Oh, but you don’t know … Familiars cannot harm the witch they serve. And if you want that mangy familiar of yours to sleep indoors, all you need to do is bathe him. Then he’s welcome inside. I’m sure Clifford would appreciate the company. Up until last night, he was the only non-cat familiar in Eastwind.”
“I’ll let the dog know.” With one last look at Bruce then the copper bowl anchoring him to Ruby True’s house, I turned and headed out, wondering how long it would take to find Franco’s Pizza.
Chapter Six
“You again,” said the black dog as soon as I shut the front door of Ruby’s house behind me.
“Yep. Me again. And I have a name. It’s Nora.”
The dog lumbered to his feet slowly before stretching. “Brag about it, why don’t you?”
“You really don’t have a name?”
“No. Why would I? I’m a dog. You’re the only non-dog I’ve ever spoken to.”
I descended the steps off the porch and the dog followed. “Dogs don’t give each other names?” I asked.
“Nope. We don’t need them. We pretty much just say, ‘hey you!’ whenever we need someone. It gets the job done. But I don’t talk to them anymore. Or I guess I should say they don’t talk to me anymore. Not since I died.”
I stopped in my tracks and stared down at him. “You’re a ghost dog?”
If you’ve never seen a dog roll his eyes, it’s quite something. “No. I’m not a ghost dog. I’m a grim hound.”
“I’ll say. I’ve never met a grimmer hound.”
“No, not—well, okay, maybe I’m a little grim. But I’m also a grim.”
“Meaning?” I knew I should get going to the pizzeria, but this had my full attention. And it wasn’t like Bruce was getting any deader.
“Meaning I was just a regular hellhound, living life to the fullest out in the Deadwoods, and then I died—long story—but it turned out I was a grim without knowing it, so I didn’t die. I was buried underground and then I rose again.”
“Like Jesus?”
He shook his shaggy head. “Depends. Is he a grim?”
“No, I’m fairly sure not.”
“The point is, all hounds can sense ghosts, but only grims can see them. So once I came back and let the others know I could now see ghosts running around, they wanted nothing to do with me. Which is just fine by me. They were stupid idiots anyway.”
That explained the attitude. “So, should I give you a name?”
“As long as it’s not a stupid one like—“
“Grim,” I said.
“I was literally about to say Grim.”
“I like that one. It fits you.”
He growled. “It’s a tad on-the-snout.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said. And yes, I was getting satisfaction out of his annoyance. Sue me. “Okay, Grim. Do you know where Franco’s Pizza is?”
He growled again.
“What? You don’t know?”
“You’re not calling me Grim.”
“Oh, I am,” I said. “Just watch.”
A young girl trotted by, and I hollered, “Morning!” Once I had her attention, I added, “I’m Nora, and this is my dog, Grim.”
She waved. “Hi, Nora! Hi, Grim! I’m Felicia!” Then she continued on her way, clip-clopping down the cobblestone street.
Oh right, I should mention that she was only a girl from the waist up. The bottom half? All goat. A faun seemed normal after the last twenty-four hours, though.
“See?” I said. “Unless you can tell them otherwise, your name is Grim.”
Grim growled low and deep. “Well played. And for the record, if you continue carrying on a conversation with me aloud, people will think you’ve lost your mind.”
“Is this your sneaky way of getting me to stop talking to you?”
“No, but that’s smart. I just mean I can hear your thoughts.”
Oh no, I thought. Did he overhear it when I was thinking about how hot Tanner is?
“I didn’t before. But I did just now.”
“What?”
“From what I can tell, you have to direct the thoughts at me, or focus on me when you think them.”
“Noted. I apologize in advance if you overhear something personal by accident.”
“More personal than you having the hots for Tanner?”
“Oh yes, Grim. It gets quite dark inside this head of mine.”
He wagged his tail. “Now there’s something I can relate to.”
Just as I’d expected, Eastwind in the daytime was magical. As we walked down a narrow side street sloping sharply up toward Fulcrum Park, buildings on either side of us bustled with activity, each one a different bright color from its neighbors.
Even as I followed Grim through the crowd of creatures that, had you told me they existed two days before, would have caused me to gently suggest to your loved ones that you be committed somewhere with white, padded walls, I couldn’t help but feel … dare I say it?
Happy.
I felt happy. Almost euphoric. There was an energy in this town that I’d never experienced. Everyone, everything was so full of life. Bursting with it. Had other towns felt this way before and I’d just missed it?
I wasn’t sure how big Eastwind was, but only a dozen or so townsfolk stopped in their tracks to stare at me as I passed. Everyone else must have been too engrossed in their own morning errands to worry about some strange wo
man and her dingy black dog cutting down the center of the road, passing by this butcher shop and that salon. It was all too much to take in. There were so many new things—sights, sounds, smells.
As the sun began to warm the February air, I unbuttoned my overcoat and felt the fresh air swirl around me. From what I’d seen, Eastwind didn’t have any cars. Did it have factories? Oil refineries? My mind traveled to the magical shower, and I suspected that if Eastwind had ever gone down the path of air pollution, it’d long since replaced those things with earth-friendly magical solutions. And it showed. I’d never smelled air so crisp and clean.
After what I judged to be about twenty minutes of walking, every second of which I enjoyed, the street opened to the wide circle of the Eastwind Emporium with the clock tower at the center. The rest of the space was, as Tanner said it would be, packed with one cart after another offering fruits or vegetables or herbs or nuts. It was a farmer’s market like I’d never seen before. Again, the colors were breathtaking. The tomatoes were ruby red, the spinach emerald green.
Following Grim, I passed a cart with more types of berries than I knew existed. Some I recognized—blueberries, raspberries, mulberries—but mostly I was dumbfounded. One woven basket spilled over with plump gold berries. Not yellow or orange. Gold. Like, shiny gold that glittered in the sunlight. The merchant was small and hovered a few feet off the ground, sparkling wings moving rapidly behind her like a hummingbird’s. I hated to stereotype, but I’d have put money on her being a fairy.
“Don’t be shy,” she said congenially. “Sample away!”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. The chef in me was in heaven. Every new berry represented an array of brand-new dishes. How long had it been since I’d sampled a new flavor of anything? My palate had grown complacent over time, having spent years sampling every new taste I could get my hands on, from nuts grown only in Southeast Asian jungles to bark nestled in the foothills of the Andes.
I tried one of everything from the cart, even the things I could name. The raspberries were sweeter than any I’d tasted and reminded me of a crisp spring I used to swim in just outside of Austin. And the cherries. Oh, god help me! The cherries burst with more flavor than I knew cherries could! Not to take away from Tanner’s baking abilities, but it seemed almost impossible to mess up cherry pie if you started with berries like these.
I’d just gotten to the gold berries, which tasted … well, I don’t have vocabulary for them, but the closest thing I can think of is “sunbeams,” when someone tugged on the back of my overcoat. I turned to find the black fabric tucked between Grim’s slobbery lips.
“Let’s get going, or you’ll spend all day there,” he said telepathically. It was convenient that he didn’t actually have to move his mouth to communicate since it was full of my clothes.
I shoved him off of me and followed. “I wouldn’t have spent all day there,” I said. “I have self-control. I’m an adult.”
“So say you. Except look at the clock.”
“Huh?” I looked up at the clock in the center of the market. Wait. But how?
It’d been nearly forty-five minute since I’d last checked it, though it’d felt more like three.
“Typical sales tactic,” Grim explained. “That fairy sprinkles a little bit of her special dust on the produce, you lose time, and her cart looks extra busy, which attracts more paying customers who think it must be good.”
“That doesn’t seem ethical.”
“It’s not. Did you expect marketing to be ethical? Surely that can’t be the case, not even in your old boring home world.”
Franco’s Pizza was right off the farmer’s market, a few dozen yards down a side street. A red-and-white striped awning hung over the dark green front door. I could smell the tomato sauce as soon as we entered the alley and wondered how many other things from my world had made it into Eastwind with people like me who’d entered.
But then I had a strange thought.
What if the stuff I know to be Italian food was actually started in Eastwind and then passed along to the world I knew? Could that mean people were able to travel back and forth, contrary to what Ruby said?
“You going in, or you just going to sit out here all day like a prowler?” Grim said.
I glared down at him. “Oh, by the way, Ruby said you’re welcome to come into her house and meet her familiar, Clifford, if you let me bathe you.”
“I don’t need you to bathe me,” he said gruffly. “I’m not your pet. And I’ve managed it myself my whole life.”
I leaned forward, reaching out and plucking a few coarse hairs from just behind Grim’s ears. “Licking your balls doesn’t count,” I said, and I dropped the hairs into my coat pocket and strolled into the restaurant, leaving Grim outside to wait for me like a good boy.
The hours on a sign by the door indicated that the restaurant had only just opened, but I could’ve guessed that without the posting. I knew this ambiance all too well—the empty dining room, the unlit candles on each table, the vacant host stand. They clearly didn’t expect anyone to come in for another hour or so, and why would they? I suspected that even in Eastwind, people weren’t looking for greasy pizza and pasta before they’d even had their second cup of coffee. I’d only ever done that while I was in culinary school, and even then, it was cold pizza, and that’s a different food entirely, far as I’m concerned.
I peeked into the dining area. A gorgeous man stood behind the bar at the far wall, cleaning wine glasses. Except, he didn’t use his hands for it.
He had an entire assembly line going in midair, wiping each glass clean of any smudges with a rag before it levitated to its proper place on a shelf or hung upside down by its foot in the wooden racks above the bar. All the bartender did was wave a thick wooden wand around, and the rest went off without a hitch.
Was I that kind of witch? Man, I sure hoped so. Housework was my least favorite activity in the world. If I could do it all with a simple flick of the wrist, I was all-in on the witch thing.
“Excuse me,” I said, slightly worried that if I interrupted him all the fragile stemware would go crashing to the tiled floor. But that didn’t happen. It froze in midair as he glanced over at me. Holy smokes, was he good looking! Where Tanner was gorgeous, this man was stunning. Like, steal-the-air-from-your-lungs hot. There was something alarming about him, like he was able to size me up in a single glance. It felt like he was undressing me with his eyes.
And I was very okay with that.
“Sit anywhere you like,” he said, brushing me off, “and a server will be right with you.”
Okay, so he wasn’t undressing me with his eyes. That was just how he looked at everyone.
I found a seat in the corner and had only just settled when a tiny girl fluttered up to me—actually fluttered. Like the merchant at the berry cart, this girl was a fairy. I thought about what Grim said regarding fairies tampering with food, and I wasn’t sure I wanted her as my server. But I decided to move forward with my plan.
“Hi there,” she said brightly. “I’m Trinity, and I’ll be your server today.” As she continued the introduction, I smiled along, letting her finish her rehearsed greeting. Then I ordered the lasagna, because who doesn’t love lasagna, and sat back, expecting it to be a while before the food arrived. They probably hadn’t unpacked all the necessary ingredients yet, and the stove was probably still heating—
Oh right. Magic.
Two minutes later, Trinity fluttered out again with a steaming plate of lasagna. I thanked her and looked down regrettably at the food, knowing what I was about to do. Somewhere, people were starving, and here I was about to waste an entire entree.
Or wait, were there starving people in Eastwind? It was a small enough town that certainly no one was left on the fringes, right?
Sure. I’d take that.
Grim might be hungry, but I could deal with that later.
Once Trinity was out of sight, I slipped Grim’s loose hairs from my pocket, the ones
I’d pulled off him just a few minutes before, and, when I was sure hot bartender wasn’t looking, slipped them in between the layers of the lasagna.
By the time I was able to flag down Trinity again, I’d managed most of my guilt about what I’d done and was able to fake an apologetic but displeased grimace. “Sorry, there’s, um, hair in my food,” I said.
What I’d expected was the reaction I’d given patrons over my many years in the service industry when they complained about their meal: a sympathetic frown, eyebrows pinched together, a little gasp at the outrage of it all, and then an empty apology and an offer to “see what I could do.”
But what I received from Trinity was far worse.
“Oh my stars!” she said, cupping her hands over her mouth in horror and shaking her head slowly. Had I misspoken? Had I accidentally said, “Your grandmother has been mauled to death by a werewolf” instead of mentioning a few hairs in my lasagna? Judging by her reaction, it seemed likely.
Her wings stopped their rapid beating and she dropped out of the air, landing on her feet. I had to lean forward to see her over the tabletop.
“I have no idea how that happened!” she exclaimed. “The food is magically prepared especially to avoid contamination!”
Oops. Was hair in the food not a common thing here? I’d made an assumption, and now that I thought about it, if I had magic available to me, making sure no hair ever got in food would be toward the top of my list of things to use said magic to accomplish. Well done, Eastwind.