Wolf Town

by Bridget Essex

  He didn’t even listen. He’d seen the envelope in my hands, and upon sighting it, he’d paled further. Now he reached out and snatched the envelope from my grasp.

  I stood, speechless, as he began to close the door. “It was lovely seeing you again, Amy...” he mumbled insincerely, as the door nearly slammed in my face.

  But then:

  “Amy, is that you?” came a laughing voice, and the door was wrenched open, and Morgan stood there, her fantastic mane of hair floating around her face like flames. Her eyes, too, seemed to burn as she took me in.

  Allen’s expression darkened with displeasure, but he forced a smile as Morgan stepped forward and drew me toward her in a tight embrace. “I wasn’t expecting you!” She smiled, and then hugged me tighter still. She smelled like woodsmoke and leaves, and though my night had been very strange (and things had just gotten a hell of a lot stranger), I held onto her, wrapping my arms around her back. “It’s so good to see you...” she growled into my ear, and I shivered at the sound of her voice, at the heat of her breath against my skin.

  “Amy’s here?!” came a high-pitched squeal, and then a kid ran around the corner and right into Morgan, who stepped out of hugging me, caught the girl and tickled her stomach without skipping a beat. The girl had the same long red hair and bright green eyes as Morgan, and when she looked up at me, I could see the same mischievous tilt in her nose.

  “Amy, this is my niece, Moira,” said Morgan, poking the girl in the stomach again. “Moira, say hello to Amy, you little beastie.”

  “Hello, Amy!” she told me obediently before she literally bounced out of Morgan’s grasp and tore off back down the hallway, running right past her grandfather. “Grandpa, Grandpa, Grandpa, they're heeeere!”

  Allen sighed and smiled.

  A grinning man poked his head out of the same room Moira had come from. “Is this Amy?” He, too, had that shock of red hair that Morgan and Moira sported, but his was close-cropped. He came forward, smiling widely—baring his collection of pointy teeth—and extended a hand. “I'm Maddox,” he told me, with a toss of his head, green eyes flashing. “It's lovely to meet you. We've heard so much about you!”

  “Maddox is my cousin. We, uh…have a big family,” explained Morgan, running a long-fingered hand through her hair, sending the red locks out in all directions.

  Behind her, Allen MacRue was turning quietly away, tucking the letter into his pants pocket, but Morgan glanced over her shoulder, spotted him trying to leave and practically pounced on him, hooking an arm through his.

  “Dad, this is Amy,” she told him, as he was turned toward me, and I stood there, uncertain. I mean, I’d met him before. I’d just delivered him a letter that he hadn’t seemed too happy about receiving. This was more awkwardness than I was prepared to deal with after my harrowing run-in with a fairy queen.

  But Allen breezed past all that, hiding his annoyance behind an impressively convincing smile. “Welcome to our home, Amy,” he said, practically purring as he inclined his head toward me. “And welcome to Wolf Town. I'm Allen MacRue!” he said, with the sort of flourish that a bad (or an ironic) actor makes, and then he took a step forward and hugged me—which startled me so much that I stiffened against him.

  It was a quick embrace, and when it was over, he held me out at arm's length, hands on my shoulders, scrutinizing my face as if he’d never seen me before, or as if he was memorizing my features. I lifted a brow.

  “It's good to have you here,” he said; then, with a slow nod of his head and wide eyes, he cleared his throat. “We were just going to order pizza.”

  Morgan ushered us into a side room that looked and felt exactly like a Victorian parlor. There were loveseats that should have been in a museum (and never, ever sat on), floral wallpaper, ornate mahogany china cabinets and tall, round tables with sculpted legs. I glanced around, a little awed as I tried to take everything in, but then Moira dashed into the room and literally ran into me, a small foot kicking out against my shin as she tried to make herself stop.

  “Amy, Amy, Amy!” she said, bouncing up and down. “Do you want to see what I can do?”

  “Sure!” I said, just as Morgan said, “Don't!” And then Moira was doing a handstand and walking on her hands beside me. Except she was only able to take one step before she toppled over and fell into one of the loveseats, sprawling against the carved leg with an audible thunk that would probably have made any normal kid black out. But not Moira. She bounced back up and started to throw herself forward again onto her hands—but Morgan caught her, shaking her head with a stern look.

  “Not in the house, sweetie,” she sighed, and Moira shrugged, running back out of the room on some urgent mission.

  “We raise them like wolves around here,” said Maddox apologetically, even as he grinned at his cousin. Morgan groaned and rolled her gorgeous green eyes.

  “Yeah, well,” she said, mouth twitching with a smile. “Even wolves can learn manners.”

  A few more people began to drift into the room. Most were redheads, though there were a few brunettes in the mix. They were all about a head or so taller than me; some were young, but most of them were probably between their thirties to fifties, lovely men and women, handsome and beautiful in turns. They looked positively otherworldly.

  “This is most of the MacRue clan,” said Allen, waving his hand.

  Several of the clan murmured greetings to me, but it was a little unnerving, having so many people stare—judging me, I knew. They were wondering if I was good enough for their Morgan.

  “Family reunion?” I murmured to Morgan, who glanced at me with a shrug as she folded her arms in front of her.

  “They’re here for Halloween. It’s a…big deal in Wolf Town,” she said in a low, growling voice, even as she smiled at me—instantly turning my knees to jelly. For that smile, I’d put up with a million people judging me. A billion…

  “So, you're a witch?” Maddox asked then, once more people had rambled in and settled onto the aforementioned loveseats. With all of the people gathered together in the room, you could certainly tell that they were related. And Morgan had a very large family.

  I took a deep breath. Morgan had probably told them I was a witch. It still unnerved me a little that they knew this about me, before they’d ever met me.

  “Yes,” I told them with a small smile. I straightened my back, standing a little taller. “I come from a long line of witches—the Linden witches.”

  “I've heard of your mother,” said Allen then, pouring himself a glass of brandy from an ornate sidetable. He turned to me with an unreadable, shrewd gaze as he sniffed his glass and said mildly, “She's supposed to be quite good.”

  “Thank you,” I managed. How did this man know of my mother? Had they crossed paths when Mom lived in Wolf Town?

  “So, Amethyst is watching the café for Bette while she enjoys a vacation,” Morgan announced to her gathered relatives.

  “Really?” asked Allen sharply.

  My hackles were rising, and I opened my mouth to respond when the doorbell rang. It sounded like cathedral chimes, echoing through the halls.

  “Pizza!” Moira screamed, and she lunged herself off of the loveseat to tear around the corner.

  Allen brushed past me on his way out to the hallway.

  There was something about that man that I didn’t like. He gave me such a foreboding feeling. How could he possibly be related to Morgan, whose presence made me feel so excited and light?

  “Pizza, pizza, pizza!” Moira chanted from the other room. Then she came flying back into the parlor with a huge slice in her hands.

  So, one of the strangest things you can ever see, I firmly believe, is a werewolf clan tearing into ten boxes of pizza. “Did you get the anchovy one?” “Share with your brother!” “I hate onions!” (I thought onions were poisonous to dogs, but I supposed werewolves must be different.) “There's not enough cheese on this!” There was an initial scrabble in the long dining hall, and then Morgan and
I helped ourselves to the remaining pieces.

  “What kind of magic can you do?” asked a lanky young man, his red hair bunched back into a ponytail. “I'm Brandon, by the way,” he said, grinning over his pizza sandwich. “Morgan's nephew.”

  I waved my slice of pizza in the air; I sat perched on the edge of one of the antique loveseats. “Just…glamours and spells and run-of-the-mill, New Agey stuff…” I trailed off. “You know, the usual witchcrafts.”

  “Can you do weather magic? The last witch in Wolf Town could, like, make it rain and stuff,” said Moira, bouncing up and down on the loveseat next to me, almost causing the extremely expensive china plate on my lap to fall to the floor. I steadied it, smiling at her.

  “I don't think I've ever made it rain, but, to be fair, I've never tried.”

  “What about broomstick riding?” asked Maddox.

  This was starting to feel like an interrogation. “Um...” I looked around at the assembled werewolves. “I’m a witch,” I said carefully.

  “We know. I’m asking if you can ride a broomstick,” said Maddox. “The last witch who lived here could.”

  “What? I’m not that kind of witch...” I told them, perplexed. Honestly, I’d had to deal with this question before—many, many times before, actually. People think they’re funny with the broomstick bit, think it’s original, not knowing that every witch has probably been asked that particular question ten million times. But I’d never been asked it with any sort of seriousness before. And Maddox was being utterly serious. I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry,” I told him, shaking my head, “but when I say witch, I mean I’m a Pagan, a Goddess-worshipping ritualist with a tendancy toward composting and tarot cards.” I tried a smile. “What do you guys mean when you say witch?”

  They all exchanged a meaningful glance. I tried—and somewhat failed—to keep smiling.

  “Well,” said Maddox slowly, “I suppose like the last one. She rode a broomstick and wore a black hat quite a bit. She liked to conjure imps.”

  I put my face in my hands as I took a deep breath.

  “Great. So, like a typical Halloween cartoon witch. A storybook witch,” I muttered. Then I looked up. “That’s…actually a real thing?”

  “Is being a Pagan, Goddess-worshipping whatever a real thing?” asked Moira. The child wasn’t being snide; she was perfectly sincere.

  “Yes,” I told her, without question.

  “Tabitha admitted that she gravitated towards the cliché side of witchcraft,” said Maddox smoothly. “You just gravitate towards the, well, more mundane side. Correct?”

  I absolutely, positively, could not tell if he meant that as a compliment, an insult, neither, or both.

  I mean, it was now an established fact that there were werewolves and fairies and vampires in Wolf Town. It shouldn’t have been so surprising to me that there were (supposedly) people who could ride brooms and conjure imps out of thin air. I think a lot of witches wish we could do such things…but it had always seemed, well, make-believe.

  Not…real.

  With my head reeling, I dropped the remainder of my pizza slice back onto my plate.

  Morgan leaned closer to me then. She was sitting on the other side of me, her thigh brushing up against mine. She was keeping me grounded. The spicy scent of her brought me back to reality, and when she gently bumped her shoulder against me, I turned to her with a soft smile.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” she asked quietly, her low voice a delicious growl that made me shiver a little, even as I took a deep breath and tried to steady myself.

  Even though I currently found myself in a very unexpected circumstance (a werewolf pizza party is pretty unexpected, if you ask me), there was a connection between us, a gravity connecting us.

  I turned to her like a plant turns toward the sun.

  “Has anyone told you about the Hallow's Eve Fair?” said Morgan gently.

  I shook my head, and, in front of her entire family, she put her arm firmly about my shoulder, drawing me closer and caving my body against her own. The protective arm and her bodily stance communicated, “Stop poking her with questions.”

  “So, Dad puts on a carnival in town every year,” said Morgan quietly, searching my eyes with her own bright green ones. “It’s called the Hallow's Eve Fair. It's…wonderful. Magical,” said Morgan, her head tilted to the side as she smiled and held my gaze. “I think you’ll love it, Amy.”

  “There's a gigantic Ferris wheel! And it's orange like a pumpkin,” said Moira, jabbing my arm from the side. “And there are games! And a dance! It's a masquerade ball!” She ran off toward the dining room.

  “Moira's had a lot of sugar today,” said Morgan thoughtfully. “Perhaps too much.”

  “Halloween is our favorite time here in Wolf Town. We are always ourselves, but—on Halloween—well…it's a celebration of our differences,” said Allen then, sitting back in his chair comfortably, holding my gaze. “We pride ourselves on celebrating differences in Wolf Town…”

  Moira darted back into the parlor and dashed around the loveseat. She placed a pumpkin-shaped cookie into my lap before tearing back toward the dining room again, like a sugar-coated pixie hell bent on pizza consumption.

  As Morgan traced a finger over my shoulder, and as I raised the cookie to my mouth, the lull and murmur of the wolves around us calmed me. Even as Allen continued to watch me with a small frown.

  The cookie tasted like autumn.

  ---

  “Forgive my family,” said Morgan on the porch, after the awesome-but-still-exceedingly-awkward dinner came to an end. “They can be a little…wolfish sometimes,” she said, with a small chuckle and a sideways smile.

  We were out standing on the gravel drive in front of the brightly lit mansion. I could head faint voices and laughter emanating from within, but out here, it was pretty quiet. And a little cold. Overhead, there were a million stars, and beneath them all, there was Morgan and me.

  She stood there, rocking back on her heels, her hands stuck deep into her jeans pockets as her body curved toward me.

  I took a deep breath. I had to know the truth.

  “Are there really fairy tale witches in existence, Morgan?” I asked her, searching her face. In truth, the very idea of it was half-exciting. But it was also half-really weird to think that all of the stereotypes and cliches I’d fought against my whole life could possibly be true. The idea of werewolves and vampires and pond monsters existing was awesome. But the existence of a cackling, bubbling cauldron-stirring witch was going to affect me personally.

  I waited, holding my breath. And when Morgan nodded, I sighed.

  “But there aren’t any more witches in Wolf Town these days,” she said hastily. “Tabitha was one of the last ones—”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. The witch’s name had been Tabitha. Of course. Oh, God, the cliché of it all.

  “Do you want me to walk you home?” she asked then. I glanced up at her, gazing into her bright, flickering eyes, but then I took a deep breath, remembering, and jerked my thumb toward my car.

  “I drove here,” I said, rubbing my shoulders in the chill autumn wind.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, her voice a low, comforting growl. “You seem a little frazzled.”

  “Yeah,” I lied, rubbing my arms in the chill dark. “I’m okay.”

  I didn’t know how to tell her that her father gave me bad vibes. I didn’t know how to bring up the fact that fairies had found me in the woods, had given a mysterious letter to me to be delivered to her dad.

  I was in over my head in Wolf Town. Already. And I knew it.

  Morgan brought me back to reality, helped me get out of my head. She leaned forward, touched my upper arm with warm fingers, wrapping her arm around my shoulders and drawing me close. She smelled so good, so cinnamon-y and warm and inviting as she pulled me toward her and held me tightly for a long moment, her chin propped on top of my head.

  I was almost relaxed against her until she
said, “My dad…” She rumbled the words against me with a sigh. “He's sort of the patriarch of the town. It was really important to me that you met him, Amy. I’m glad you did.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure I exactly agreed that my meeting him was necessary, but I nodded, anyway. And then, because I’d been wondering, I asked quietly, “And your mom?”

  Morgan shook her head, stepped back from me, though she still held me around the shoulders with both arms as she searched my gaze. “My mother died when I was a kid,” she said quietly. “I never knew her.”

  I swallowed and bit my lip. I couldn't imagine that. True, I had grown up without a dad. Mom and my father hadn't stayed together, had, in fact, split up when I was too little to remember what having two parents had been like. He didn't want much to do with me. I had been raised by a mother's influence alone, and I couldn't envision what it might have been like to have no mother at all. A great lump of homesickness flooded me for a moment, even as Morgan’s arms tightened around me, and I felt the warmth of her, right there, solid and real.

  Despite everything that had happened this evening, I took a deep breath. “I'm glad I came tonight,” I said, which was the truth. I was glad that I’d seen her, glad that I was right here, right now. I took her hand, threaded her fingers through mine.

  It was a bright night, and the gravel driveway shone with the light from the porch of the mansion, a golden glow that seemed to fill the chill air with honeyed warmth. When I turned toward Morgan, her red hair, fanning over her shoulders in crimson waves, seemed to glow in that golden light, flickering like fire.

  I knew, more than anything, at that moment that I had to kiss her.

  I was a little tentative when I moved forward, when I wrapped an uncertain arm around her waist, another around her shoulders. I stood up on tiptoe and bent my head back, and as she leaned toward me, as she sighed out and gripped my hips with sure hands, I kissed her gently on the mouth, opening my lips to hers, surprised and delighted by how absolutely soft they were, how they tasted like pomegranates (her favorite, often-applied lip balm), and how she was so warm, she made me melt against her.