She sat up then, leaned closer to me as she gathered my hands, interlacing her long fingers with my own. She cleared her throat a little as she held my gaze. “What does it take to make a group? Like—one, plus at least one more?”
I nodded.
“So.” She said in a low growl, “What if I joined you for your ritual? I mean, if you’d have me, of course.”
“What?” I blinked. “You'd want to do a ritual with me?”
“I'm fascinated by all of this,” she whispered, leaning closer as her eyes sparked. “It seems like a beautiful religion,” she murmured sincerely. “And, I mean, I'm all about universal energies, but I've never really had anything spiritual in my life. I admire how it's such a part of your life,” she said, smiling softly. “But I don't want to intrude, or be…you know…that girlfriend…”
Girlfriend? A thrill ran through me.
I squeezed her hand, our fingers spread and interlaced so efforlessly. “Thank you…” I said quietly, holding her gaze. She cocked her head, and I swallowed, continued, “Thank you for being so openminded about all of this, for being so interested. It means a lot to me.”
“Yes, well,” she whispered, voice husky, “the pleasure is all mine.”
We leaned towards each other, our mouths close, and we were about to kiss when Morgan glanced up and down the continuing trail, lifting her head, sniffing the air. She stood abruptly then, nose pointing up to the heavens as she inhaled deeply.
I stood with her, brushing off the bottom of my skirt and watching her, perplexed, until she took my hand again, tugged at me, grinning toothily. “This is awesome,” she said, pulling me behind her as she set off down the path. “You’re going to love this!”
I chuckled at how delighted she was as she coaxed me along, first walking quite quickly, then trotting, then running. When we stopped, it was so suddenly that I skidded into her with an oof.
“Sorry,” she whispered, placing her arm around me tightly and pressing her finger against my lips in the universal shh sign. Then, holding my gaze with raised brows, she pointed slowly ahead of us.
In front of us spread a natural clearing in the woods. A few trees had fallen, offering an opening to the sky among the rest of the forest, already radiant with the setting sun. Virulent crimson and passionate indigo mixed together with rays of sweet orange. It was one of the most intoxicating sunsets I'd ever seen, but that's not what Morgan was pointing toward.
There, in the forest clearing, was light. White light, silvered light, that pooled across the ground as if by magic. In the center, across the soft buffalo grasses, drifted human shapes that didn't seem to touch the ground. They were ephemeral, amorphous, and I might have thought they were ghosts if not for the impressive furl of colors that grew from their shoulders.
Wings.
They were fairies.
I gave a sharp intake of breath when I realized what they were, but almost at the same moment, a calming sensation swept through me. These were not the tall, imposing fairies who had ordered me to deliver a piece of mail. These fairies were, in fact, so far removed from that dark fairy court, they seemed like different beings entirely. They drifted across the grass, amorphous and brightly colored, as light and airy as gauze. I felt at ease, soothed, as if I had nothing to worry about.
They drifted together in a wide, irregular circle, almost touching one another with the tips of their wings. They turned, and they moved, spiraling, twirling…dancing, I realized. Morgan and I watched as, together, they clasped hands, and, while the last sliver of sun sank below the edge of the world, the fairies began to dance together in a circle, whirling together, one moment slow and stately, the next wild and frenzied with joy.
They spun, and as we watched, I began to hear it—faint at first, but gradually filling the clearing with harmony. This music was actually similar to the mermaid's song, but lighter and clearer sounding, women’s voices raised in a soft, airy song that conveyed none of the undercurrent of menace in the mermaid’s melody.
So the fairies danced and sang together, spinning in an ever-widening circle, quicker and quicker until they moved too fast for me to make out individual wings. And as the first star peeked out between folds of velvet blue overhead, the fairies—all of them—disappeared in a flashing wink. Gone.
I breathed out, realizing I'd been holding my breath for the past minute. I panted, hand over my heart, as I closed my eyes and still saw the fairy circle there, still spinning, wings bright and arched and beautiful beyond my most fanciful imaginings.
“Oh, my goddess…” I whispered then, opening my eyes and looking to Morgan. I was crying, but I didn't even care, wiping away my tears silently as, holding hands tightly, we both moved into the clearing, gliding as slowly as if we were walking into a dream.
There, on the ground, where the fairies had danced, was a perfect round ring of mushrooms. I crouched down, brushed my fingertips across the blades of grass ringing one small mushroom reverently. I glanced back up at Morgan, who was smiling gently down at me. “How…how did you know they were here?” I breathed. “That's…that's…” Nothing I could say would convey what I was feeling, so I fell silent, hand pressed to the ground.
“I smelled something lovely,” she said, crouching down beside me. “I've seen them before. I know what they smell like. Like perfect wildflowers, out of season.” She held my gaze. “I had to share that with you,” she said, voice low.
“Thank you,” I whispered, and she leaned forward and kissed me.
When Morgan kissed me, it sent a tingle through me, from the very tips of my purple-painted toenails right up to the very top of my head. A rush moved through me, and I felt her warmth, felt her heat come from the deepest parts of her to eat me up—much like a wolf, I supposed. She placed her hands at the curve of my waist, around my shoulders, and she drew me to her closer, tighter, fiercer, and I put my own arms about her neck and drew her to me, my heart burning bright and devouring her as much as she devoured me.
When she kissed me in that moment, I knew that I wanted her, wanted her because I'd just seen something so beautiful that I could not explain it, something so beautiful that I already saw reflected in her when she smiled at me or told a ridiculously corny joke or came to my rescue to save me from a not-so-little mermaid. I wanted her, she wanted me, and that want was perfect.
But I wanted our first time to be perfect, too.
Okay, so I guess I am a little old-fashioned in that respect. I’m not the kind of woman who has to wait months and months before having sex with her girlfriend. But the first time does have to be pretty darn near perfect. As I kissed her deeply in the autumn twilight, right next to the circle where fairies had just danced…I realized that I knew the perfect moment.
The Esbat was tomorrow. If Morgan was really going to come and do the ritual with me… I would make a perfect dinner. I would light the perfect candles.
And, together, we would make the perfect night.
Excitement and heat raced through me as I broke the kiss, as I backed away a little and held Morgan’s gaze, her gaze filled with the same want and need that was roaring through me.
But I had a strange feeling, too. There was a pricking along the back of my neck, and I straightened, turning my head.
“What’s the matter?” asked Morgan, instantly on alert, frowning as she stared past me, at the darkening woods.
I frowned a little, too, as I straightened, as I reached up and absentmindedly rubbed the back of my neck. “Nothing,” I told her with a small shrug. “Hey,” I ventured, trying to keep my voice steady. “Do you smell anything else with your, um, great wolfy powers?” I tried to tease her, but my voice was too high. She was staring at me with narrowed eyes. “Is there anyone else around?” I said, to clarify.
She turned to look past me again, raising her nose a little into the chill wind that had begun to blow.
“I just smell wolves,” she said gently, placing her arm around my waist and drawing me close. “It’s the s
mell of Wolf Town. There’s no one else there.”
I tried to think about tomorrow night as we walked, arm in arm, back toward the Witch Way Café. I tried to think about what I would cook, how I would set up the ritual space…
But all the way home, the hair on the back of my neck remained raised.
Still…it was probably nothing.
Chapter 10: The Ritual
Saturday morning dawned, brilliant and perfect. I opened my bedroom window and sat on a cushion on the floor for several long moments, head pillowed on my arms on the sill as I watched the sun come up over the edge of the world, golden beyond belief.
I felt golden, too, as I got dressed, layering my favorite swishy black skirt with a thin purple sweater. Black and purple—it’s a thing. My favorite silver pentacle clasped around my neck on a thin silver chain, a splash of pumpkin-scented perfume on my wrists, and I dashed out into the living room, putting my shoes on over purple- and black-striped socks.
“Where are you headed to?” asked Winnie, peeking up and over the edge of her see-through book from where she floated, about a foot above the comfy, plush chair in the corner.
“It's Farmer's Market day!” I told her with a wide smile as I bounced around on one foot, toeing my other foot into my favorite black flats. “I am about to pay a ridiculous amount of money for bars of soap that have interesting names and that smell out of this world. I’m also going to clean the stalls out of reasonably priced vegetables,” I grinned at her, gathering my cloth bags into one larger cloth bag and slinging the strap over my shoulder.
“I’d like to point out that you have a very impressive soap collection already,” said Winnie, with one brow raised. “I mean, I’ve never seen that much soap in one place before. At least forty bars. Not that I ever spent five minutes of my afterlife counting them—”
“I have a handmade soap addiction,” I nodded seriously. I told her goodbye and trotted down the steps through the Witch Way Café, and out into Wolf Town itself.
Outside, as early as it was, the townsfolk of Wolf Town were flooding the streets in anticipation of the Farmer's Market. Morgan had told me about it excitedly, how usually the Wolf Town Farmer’s Market was only a summer thing, with one exception: the weekend before the weekend before the Halloween Carnival, making it—essentially—the beginning of the Halloween festivities here in Wolf Town. That this year’s autumnal Farmer’s Market fell on a full moon was just too perfect, and it tickled me pink.
Speaking of colors, the woman who’d just walked past me down the sidewalk was wearing a multicolored plaid mini-skirt. It was retro and fabulous, but my brow furrowed as I stood there for a long moment. That skirt reminded me of something…
Wait. Plaid… Morgan’s plaid blanket. I paused at the edge of the Witch Way Cafe and peered around the building's wall, looking past it and into the brightening forest. We'd left our things in the woods before we dashed off to see fairies dancing… We’d forgotten to go back for them.
Had that even happened? Had any of it happened? The fairies, Morgan… It seemed like a perfect dream.
I sighed, stowed my cloth bags in the Witch Way Cafe's mailbox. I couldn't just leave the blanket, the Tupperware, and Morgan’s knapsack there. I had completely forgotten about it until now, and I can only assume Morgan did, too…
“Good morning, Amy!” called Victor from his morning walk, making the rounds of the town. It was more of a casual stroll than exercise, and he was reading the morning paper on his phone while doing it, surprisingly—and gracefully—not running into things. But he was a vampire, and I supposed vampires, out of all creatures, were pretty darn graceful.
“Good morning!” I called to him, turning to go down the small alley and into the forest.
“Where are you headed?” he asked, pausing in front of the café and peering at me curiously.
“I’m going out to the woods—” I gestured.
“Not to the Ninth Order?” His brows rose. “I happen to know that your lady love will be crushed that you said good morning to the trees before her,” he said, winking. I blushed a little. Then he cleared his throat. “You know,” he murmured, leaning down, lowering his voice to a conspirator's whisper, “she really fancies you.”
“Well…I fancy her,” I told him with a small smile. What was he getting at? The tone of his voice hadn’t been spectacularly warm.
“I mean…she's had her heart broken before.” When he looked at me, it was with a raised eyebrow.
“Victor, if you're giving me the 'don't break her heart' speech,” I told him with a chuckle and a raised eyebrow of my own, “I promise you, I have absolutely no intention of doing that.” I was relieved that this was all he was implying. Of course I had no intention of breaking Morgan’s heart.
But he wasn’t done yet. He cleared his throat again, glanced past my shoulder out toward the forest.
“There has been an ill wind blowing from the woods and around Wolf Town lately,” he said, inclining his head in the direction I'd planned to take. “I'm…worried.” His eyes gazed into my own, unwavering. “Amy, I know that you’re a witch, and that you must be a strong witch if you’re of the Linden line. Hell, even vampires have heard of the Lindens.” He grimaced, turned, looked at the sun as it began to scale the sky.
I waited patiently, my heart flip-flopping in my chest, beginning to beat quicker. For whatever reason, I remembered the bad feeling that I’d had in the forest last night. But nothing had happened then. I had nothing to worry about, right? It was just a silly, baseless feeling...
“Wolf Town brings the people to it that it needs,” he said then, pressing his lips together into a small frown. “It brought you. I know you're needed. If…anything happens…” He trailed off, waved his hands helplessly. “Morgan… Well. Just look after her, okay? She’s a really good person.”
Was he asking me to protect her? Her? The werewolf? I was just a human woman. I mean, look at my recent run-in with the mermaid. It hadn’t been me that the creature had backed away from.
And what in the world would a werewolf need protecting from?
I stared at Victor, mystified, but nodded. “I'll help her in whatever way I can. Should anything happen,” I whispered, feeling my skin prick again, like it had last night. I shivered. “Victor...” I began, wondering what the hell this could be about, but he shook his head, cast his eyes to the woods, and, very carefully and slowly, brought a single finger up to his lips.
Victor’s mouth formed a downward curving line, and he seemed to want to say something more, but he straightened, nodded. “Have fun in the woods, Amy,” he said then, with false brightness. “Consider stopping by the Ninth Order after your work.” And he continued down the street sedately, as only a vampire can walk, glancing down at his phone again as if nothing odd had transpired between us.
I stood in front of the café, the hairs on the back of my neck standing at attention as I tried to make sense of what he'd just said. But that’s the thing: it didn’t make sense. With a frown, I tucked that very weird conversation into my heart to mull over later and ventured into the alley beside the Witch Way Café, and then out back and into the woods, lost in my thoughts.
The space beneath the trees felt light and airy today, the shadows of the previous night dispelled with the mist. A flock of crows danced on their wings above the branches, and it was easy enough to find Morgan's blanket and knapsack and Tupperware of uneaten crackers, left untouched by the forest animals probably because it smelled like a wolf. I lifted and shook off the blanket into the morning air.
What had Victor been talking about? The uneasiness circled my chest, even as I tried to push it away.
I paused, folding the blanket over my arm, knapsack in hand. He'd said an ill wind had been blowing in from the woods. I glanced around me, but of course I saw nothing unusual—just a gorgeous New England forest in full autumn mode. Still, though, I shivered as I turned to go.
As I walked the forest path, back out into the meadow and to
ward the Witch Way Café, I happened to glance down at my feet. There, spreading out and away from me, was a patch of clover. It was nothing spectacular—clover grew everywhere—but as I knelt down, feeling the familiar tingle of good energies fill me, pushing away my bad feeling, I plucked one of the plants and held it up to the light.
A patch of four-leaf clover, right along the edge of town. The good magic was still here, still strong in Wolf Town. It filled me with comfort. No matter what was going on with that fairy court, no matter what bad feelings I had…there was still a patch of four-leaf clovers right here.
That had to be a good sign.
I grabbed the cloth bags back out of the mailbox, and—carrying the blanket, knapsack and bags—made my way down the sunlit sidewalk in Wolf Town, toward the coffee shop.
“Hello, beautiful,” said Morgan, when I entered the Ninth Order. She’d been wiping off one of the tables closest to the door, but she dropped her rag on the tabletop, turned, and with strong arms, swept me up and twirled me like I weighed five pounds. She held me tightly to her as she kissed me fiercely.
She'd called me beautiful. My toes curled in pleasure.
“You'll have to forgive me if I roll my eyes,” called Victor from behind the counter. “I’ll do my best to keep it to a minimum of five eyerolls per minute, but you guys are just too much,” he chuckled. He seemed totally back to normal now and way less ominous than earlier, like our conversation really had never happened.
Wolf Town Page 10