Wolf Town

by Bridget Essex

  Ellie had about ten offspring in various sizes of hugeness cavorting around her. I blinked, watched them swim around their mother. Some of them were almost as big as she was.

  “So, so, so sorry about that,” said Henry, deflating as Sasha slithered into the lake.

  “This can't keep happening,” said Burt, shaking his head. “I'm sorry, Henry, but this just can't keep happening.”

  “I can't think of a solution,” he said, spreading his hands. “I wish I could. I'm doing everything I can. I built the fence. I stopped up the drains… They keep finding fun and exciting ways to escape.” He sighed, rubbed at his eyes; he looked exhausted. “You just don't know what it's like. They're trying to kill me with worry! What I don't understand,” he said, after a long moment, “is how they're even able to get out. The town is supposed to help prevent that. There are safeguards everywhere, but their stopping up the drains should trigger the safeguard from Wolf Town itself. They shouldn’t be able to get out if the safeguard is still in place. It is in place, right, Morgan?” He exchanged a glance with Morgan. She shrugged uncomfortably.

  “I’m sure it is, Henry,” she said. I stared at her in surprise.

  I knew, in that moment, that she was lying. She wasn’t sure it was. She wasn’t sure at all.

  I watched Sasha slip into the water, watched her big momma bite her neck, shake her a little like a mother dog might scold a very naughty puppy. It was kind of sweet, if you took the tentacles and gigantic teeth out of the picture.

  “So, our work here is done!” I said, valiantly and with slight exhaustion. An incredibly busy morning and afternoon at the café, and then playing dog catcher for a monster: I'd had a big day.

  Burt sighed. “We have to come up with a solution for this,” he said in frustration, with a shake of his head.

  “I can make some tea?” offered Henry. “We can sip it on the back porch, watch the kids like hawks and make sure they don’t get out while we discuss ideas.”

  “Sounds great,” I muttered, climbing the steps to his veranda and sprawling on the cushioned rocker. It swung back and forth. I buried my hands deep into my hoodie’s pockets, doing my absolute best to bite down the edges of crankiness that were beginning to sneak into my voice. I just wanted a warm bath and a warm bed—and a warm Morgan in said bed.

  I was not looking forward to the dishes in the morning.

  Morgan sat down beside me on the swing, and I pillowed my head on her shoulder. She wrapped an arm tightly around my shoulders and sighed as she rested her chin on the top of my head. Burt came up and sat on one of the chairs, and eventually Henry came out of the house, the door shutting behind him as he balanced a steaming tea pot and a few mugs overturned on a tray.

  In the darkness, I heard vast amounts of splashing, occasional hisses and teeth chomping from down at the pond.

  “Ah, my night's symphony,” said Henry, giving me a small wink. He seemed to be in a much better mood than the first time I’d met him, despite having his pet’s kids escape. I smiled in spite of myself.

  “They can't keep messing up the entire water system of Wolf Town, Henry,” said Burt clearly, slapping his knees as if he'd prepared a speech. He sat on the edge of his seat and had his hands in front of him, using them for large, sweeping gestures. “It's just not right. It's costing thousands in repairs, and—”

  Henry sighed, held his empty mug with two hands. “I think that, first thing tomorrow, I’m going to go have a talk with Mr. MacRue, see if there’s something we can do about the safeguards growing weaker,” he said quietly. He lifted his head, caught Morgan’s eyes. “You do agree that they’re weakening, don’t you?”

  She held that gaze for a long moment, then glanced away. “I’m not certain,” she said quietly. “But you’re right, Henry. We need to talk to my father. This is all getting out of hand, and if the safeguards are not weakening, then maybe we can discuss with him about what to do with Ellie’s kids. But after the Halloween festivities, all right?” she asked, leaning forward a little. “My father has been, well, stressed out because of all of the planning for the carnival and everything,” she said, working her jaw. “Does that sound all right with you?”

  Henry and Burt exchanged a glance but nodded.

  I squeezed Morgan’s hand, and she squeezed it back, but she was distracted as she took a long drink of her tea, gazing out to the dark pond.

  Overhead, one star shone in the darkness, the first of the night. But I was too tired to even think of making a wish.

  Chapter 14: The Dance

  My mother was going to arrive tomorrow night—Thursday night—and the Hallow's Eve fair opened Friday night. I sighed and stared at my calendar, poking it.

  Morgan and Victor were going to that vampire dance this evening. Morgan had told me she couldn't get out of it, and, anyway, if she didn’t go, Victor would have to go all alone, and that would “wound his dignity and ego.” I had reminded her that I was completely fine with it, and that she should go and have fun with her friends. I had eleventy billion things to do, anyway, in preparation for my mother's arrival. And the coven's arrival. And Samhain…

  And then she'd asked me if I was a little overwhelmed with everything, and I'd asked her what she could possibly mean by that, and she told me I'd scrubbed that same clean table five times in the past five minutes.

  So I'd admitted a night off might be nice, too. I could spend the entire time in the tub reading if I wanted to—which was mostly my plan.

  There was a marked chill in the air tonight, and I could see my breath beneath the streetlights as I ducked my head out of the café and looked down the sidewalk. I shut and locked the door and turned the “open” sign to “closed.” Outside the front door window, the moon was slowly waning and dipped low in the sky, dragging us ever onward through the wheel of the year, toward Samhain.

  Samhain. I ran my fingers through my hair, sighed and leaned against the doorjamb. It was almost Samhain. Halloween.

  Had I only been in Wolf Town a few short weeks? Sometimes, it seemed like I'd always been here, and, indeed, maybe part of my heart had always been tied to this place. I knew it was no coincidence that I was here, knew that there had been a reason for my vision, knew the town had summoned me here on purpose, for a purpose.

  Part of me believed, wholeheartedly, that the reason I’d been drawn here was for Morgan. Morgan and I were meant to be together, I knew, but, strangely, when I thought about Wolf Town bringing me here, that single explanation didn’t feel quite right.

  There was another reason I was in Wolf Town.

  But whatever the reason was, I felt secure in the knowledge that I was in the right place; it was the right time, almost Samhain, and magic was alive in the world.

  I made my weary way up the steps into my aunt’s apartment. A postcard from her had arrived in the mail today, and it was sitting on the kitchen table. She expected to be home in early November, and then we’d discuss what had been happening in the café, and she said she’d pay me handsomely for my time here—which felt wrong, since I’d offered to help her. I guess most people can’t just pick up their lives and help their aunt out for a month, but I was “lucky” enough to be able to do that. Lucky in the fact, of course, that there had been nothing tying me to my old way of life.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about my aunt returning. Would I stay in Wolf Town? What kind of job could I get here?

  And if I couldn’t stay in Wolf Town—well, my heart hurt imagining the idea of a long-distance relationship with the woman who occupied my heart. It would be too painful. But what if we had to live and love like that, miles and miles apart?

  All of those questions loomed on the horizon, but they were not present in the quiet apartment now, in the quiet bathroom, and I didn’t have to think about them. All I had to do was relax.

  I drew a bath, and I poured in a liberal amount of bubble-making mixture. The bubbles mounded up like some sort of bubble-monster in a horror movie, but I threw off my clothes and
stepped into the water.

  And I lay there, and I thought of absolutely nothing. Sometimes, thoughts came to me like clouds scuttling across a mostly blue sky, but—for the most part—my mind was as blank as a plowed-under field, likes the ones lining the forest around Wolf Town.

  I thought about absolutely nothing, that is, until Allen MacRue, for whatever reason, appeared in my head. I thought about how strange he’d always behaved toward me...

  I thought about the fairies and their demand that I take that letter to him.

  I wondered what the letter contained.

  Yes, it seemed like it’d been forever since I arrived in Wolf Town, but in some ways, it seemed like I’d gotten here yesterday, because there was so much that I still didn't know about the town itself, and so much about the place that still surprised me every single day. I would probably learn all of Wolf Town’s quirks in time, but if there was something nefarious going on, I needed to know about it now. Especially with Samhain so close. Samhain, when the veil between worlds became thin...

  Samhain in Wolf Town, I imagined, would likely be the strangest Samhain I’d ever experienced.

  I closed my eyes, sighed, covered my face with my hands.

  Had I been working too hard? Had this all of this happened too quickly? Had I been drinking too many caffeinated beverages?

  My mind looped in tired, dull circles, and, despite my best intentions, I fell asleep in the bubble-full bathtub.

  I woke up when I heard keys at the apartment door, heard Morgan enter the apartment and deposit her bag on the couch. The little cat clock I kept in the bathroom showed two o’clock. I could only assume it was morning and not afternoon, and that I hadn't fallen asleep for days like Rip Van Winkle.

  “Hi!” I called, hearing how croaky my voice was. I cleared it, tried again: “I'm in the bath! I'll be out in a minute!”

  I was so cold I was shaking; the water had become cool, but, surprisingly, most of the bubbles had remained in the tub—which was crazy, really. I rose out of the bath, grabbed the hanging towel, tried to rub the bubbles off of me.

  Winnie and I had a set rule about the bathroom, but Morgan and I had never really talked about such things. She knocked at the door.

  “Come in?” I said quietly.

  She opened the door.

  I let out a huff of breath; suddenly every inch of my skin was vibrating with a shiver, but it wasn’t from the cold water anymore. I stared at the jaw-droppingly beautiful woman standing in front of me.

  “Um—is that what you wore to the vampire party?” I ventured, after a long moment, feeling suddenly shy.

  Morgan wore tight black leather pants and a white ruffled shirt that looked like something someone would have worn at a Shakespeare performance. In her very curly hair, on top of her head, was a mask the color of blood. She’d drawn her hair back into a loose ponytail, and it flowed over her shoulder like fire.

  She was breathing a little indelicately and was staring at parts of me I'd covered with a towel, her eyes darkening as her chest rose and fell; fire began to run through me.

  I let the towel drop.

  When she came forward, when she pressed me back against the cold tiles on the wall in the bath, I could only think two things, really: that she tasted of red wine, and that this was, perhaps, the hottest and most radically unexpected moment of my life. But then that thought kind of got wiped out, along with everything else in the world, when Morgan picked me up with strong arms, still pressing me against the cold tiles of the wall, and I wrapped my legs around her hips.

  “Oh, my gods,” I hissed, as she pressed her hips hard against mine, grinding herself against my center so hard and with such intensity as she growled against my neck, her teeth and tongue finding my skin there, that all that I was felt that heat surge through me. I wrapped my fingers in her fire-red hair, groaning against her as one arm wrapped around my naked waist and the other gripped my right hip, digging her fingernails into my skin as she pressed me down harder against her hips and right thigh.

  I arched against her, moving with her in a rhythm that was, at once, wild and savage and glorious. It felt too good; my legs grew too weak, and they dropped from around her waist. That’s when her hand lost its grip on my hip, and her fingertips traced a curve over my skin and down to my center.

  “Morgan, Morgan,” I panted against her, gripping her shoulders like I’d never let go. “The bedroom,” I growled, arching again beneath her as her teeth nipped the lobe of my ear.

  “Done,” she growled back, and then she half-carried me to the bedroom.

  I shut the door in a slam behind me, and then I was pressing Morgan against it, tossing the mask off her head to the floor and unbuttoning the buttons on her shirt in something akin to a single tug.

  She was against the door, and I was against her, and my heart pounded, echoing around us so loudly that when she bent to trace her tongue on my neck, I thought I heard her heart keeping time with my pulse, thrumming around us, a staccato rhythm she mirrored as she scooped her hands around the small of my back, pressing me to her with such strength that it was like we were one being, the length of our bodies merging.

  I tore at the offending shirt that refused to slide down her shoulders as she bit my neck, kissed my collarbone, devoured my right breast and then traced a line with her tongue to the left. I fumbled at the buttons of her leather pants as she spread her legs, drawing my hips to hers as if we were two puzzle pieces that somehow suddenly fit. I gasped as she pushed herself against me, muscles working beneath my hands as I dug my fingernails into her shoulder blades, moaning, totally and completely intoxicated by the want and need she showed me, filled with wanting and needing myself.

  I tasted her skin, the soft, hot length of her neck, the curve of her shoulder, and the perfect plane and curve of her chest leading to her breasts. I cupped her breasts and bit them, twisting the nipples in my mouth with my tongue and teeth, feeling her arch against me, hearing her hiss in pleasure, feeling her hands grip my pelvis like my body was a lifeline in a raging storm that mounted all around us.

  I pushed her down onto the bed as she growled. I straddled her hips, pressed myself down against her, arching my back and my face up to the ceiling as I ground down against her, as we moved together. She drew me down, and we kissed, the taste of salt on my tongue from her body.

  Morgan turned me over, flipping me expertly, as if I were a doll, as her wolfish strength took over.

  We moved together into the night, giving and receiving, tasting and devouring, the red of her hair cascading over my face as she crouched over me, as she pressed her lips to mine, our hearts meeting and touching and entwining together.

  The moon sunk below the horizon outside, a slim smile fading from the sky.

  Chapter 15: The Three Words

  I triple-brewed my morning’s black tea, choked it down despite the bitterness. I didn't even put any sugar in it.

  “You need to stop having such loud, unfettered, glorious sex at odd hours,” said Winnie, rolling her eyes at me. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

  “Winnie, you and I both know that ghosts don't sleep,” I muttered with a small smile, massaging my temples.

  “Says the ghost expert!” she snorted, crossing her arms. “How do you know I don't sleep?”

  I peered at her with one eye closed and a half-yawn. “You read your ghost books all night,” I told her, then yawned again, this time longer and wider. “Oh, my goodness, I need to put the coffee on,” I muttered, plugging in the coffeemaker.

  It was just one of those mornings. One of those I-was-almost-too-sore-to-stand, I-couldn't-erase-this-ridiculous-grin-from-my-face kinds of mornings. As I turned on the coffeemaker, watching the water seep into the pot over my emergency stash of coffee, I breathed out, stared at my hands on the counter, remembered where they'd been last night. Oh, the places they’d gone, the curves they’d followed. I hugged myself tightly and rubbed at my shoulders with a smile, feeling the blush redden my f
ace.

  It was absolutely official: I wasn't falling in love with her anymore.

  I'd fallen. Completely and utterly.

  That was an odd realization, as the coffee poured into the pot, but most of the world’s great epiphanies have happened over coffee. I stared at the dark liquid, immediately thinking of the Ninth Order, where Morgan was greeting customers and making drinks and laughing at a joke Victor had probably made. I felt her laughter, saw her smile when I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms about my core. I felt her, like a hand on my heart, and she was as much a part of me now as the blood that ran through my veins, as the bone that had mended where I'd broken it when I was small.

  She was in my heart, and we were part of one another, in some gloriously perfect way that I still couldn't understand.

  That's what love was…wasn't it? How could something so beautiful be understandable? It was warm and sure, like knowledge or tides. I pressed my hands to the counter, feeling the solidity of the formica beneath my fingertips.

  I loved her.

  And I needed to tell her that I loved her.

  I turned off the coffeemaker. I put on a sweater. I trotted past Winnie, who’d raised her eyebrow at me but said nothing as a slow smile spread across her face. I raced out of the apartment, down the steps, and paused at the front door to the Witch Way Café as I stepped into my flats. And then I went out into the chill of an October morning, days before Halloween, bundling my hands into my sweater pockets as I felt warmth course through me.

  It may have been cold outside, but my heart was as warm as an unstoppable summer.

  They were setting up for the Hallow's Eve fair in the woods behind the main street of Wolf Town and its row of shops. I could hear machinery, workwomen and workmen shouting things to each other over the hubbub of metal on wood. I walked through the cacophony like it was music and approached the Ninth Order breathless as my fingers touched the handle of the door; I swung it open.