There were people milling all around. This was the third year that Marigold and Rain had held their harvest fair and by now, their regular customers had come to regard it as an annual outing. A family of wolf shifters passed me, the mother and father watching carefully over their children. Two of the kids looked in their early teens, but two others—obviously babies—were in wolf form, and the mother had them in harnesses, holding their leashes so they couldn’t get free.
I tried to suppress a grin as they passed by, but the mother caught my eye and she gave me a frazzled smile.
“I take it they’re just learning to shift?” I asked. Thanks to Kipa, I had learned that wolf shifters, when they first started to shift at around three or four years old, weren’t always able to control it. So a number of mothers would harness up the kids when they went out and about so the little ones wouldn’t have a chance of hurting themselves.
“Oh, yes. And they like being in wolf form. I swear, these are the last. Four children are enough!” But her eyes sparkled and even though she looked tired, I could tell she loved them.
The father grunted, but he reached for the leashes and took over watching the babies.
I swung off onto the lighted trail leading to the pumpkin patch. LED lampposts led the way, looking like cast iron but I could tell they weren’t. If they had been cast iron, I wouldn’t have been able to touch them without getting hurt. Iron didn’t bother the Ante-Fae as much as it did the Fae, but it still burned after a while.
The pumpkin patch was at least four lots wide and long. A scattering of families poked around, looking for the best pumpkins. A row of small handcarts allowed buyers to easily cart their pumpkins up to the register, which was near the entrance to the patch. A teen boy manned the register, and I recognized him as Dray, Marigold’s son—again, from her first marriage. I waved at him as I grabbed one of the carts and started pushing it through the rows of massive plants.
Pumpkins were everywhere—big ones, small ones, misshapen ones, a few gigantic ones. There were pie pumpkins, carving pumpkins, along with some odd turban-shaped ones. I finally found six that would make good carving pumpkins. I made my pumpkin pie using canned pumpkin, but I loved carving jack-o’-lanterns, and though I couldn’t trust him with carving tools, Raj liked to help. I had to watch him to make certain he didn’t eat the seeds, but otherwise, he loved just hanging out with me while I worked on them. I always bought an extra one, though, so he could play with it. He liked rolling them around outside.
I finally found everything I wanted and paused at the cash register, where Dray weighed them and handed me my change.
“Can I use the cart to take them to my car?” I asked.
He started to nod when there was a scream from the patch. We both whirled, only to see a little girl running toward us, sobbing. Her mother was right behind her, and I caught sight of a misty vapor that was hovering over the area where they had been.
“What the hell?” Dray said, sliding off his stool behind the counter.
“Ghost, I think.” I pushed my cart to the side and headed down the path to reenter the patch. By then, the mother had caught her daughter up and was making her way toward the booth. I paused as we crossed paths. “Excuse me, but what happened? Are you all right?”
The woman, pale as moonlight, nodded. “I think so. I’m… I don’t know. We were picking out a pumpkin and all of a sudden, there was…something…there. You can see it still.” She pointed toward the nebulous figure swathed in fog, hovering over a large pumpkin.
I thought quickly. There was no way they’d be going back in the pumpkin patch—that much was written on their faces—so I decided to help out.
“I have some pumpkins at the register. Why don’t you pick out what you like, and you can pay Dray for them. I’ll find more and he can deduct what I already paid for them from the new batch.” I didn’t want the little girl to go home disappointed.
Dray caught up to us at that moment. He glanced at me, but I gave him a quick shake of the head. “Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked.
The woman was still shaking, so I decided to save her the trouble.
“They had a bit of a scare. I’ll check it out. Meanwhile, let her pick what she wants of my pumpkins. She can buy them, and I’ll find new ones. That’s all right, isn’t it?”
Dray nodded, turning toward the woman and her daughter. “Come this way. We’ll get you situated. Thanks, Raven,” he added, glancing over his shoulder at me. “Be careful.”
“I always am,” I said, knowing that was a big lie. But I could handle ghosts, and I was pretty sure that was what they had seen. The misty figure was still there as I headed down the path toward it. It was still in the same place, hovering over the pumpkins like an isolated patch of fog. When I approached it, it began to swirl. I waited, but it made no other move toward me and I wondered if it could understand me.
“Can you hear me?” I stood, hands on hips, waiting.
The ghost shifted a little, and I reached out, trying to touch the energy with my mind. After a moment, I felt something. I felt a sadness, a sense of loss and regret, but I still couldn’t see the spirit clearly. I had a sense it was feminine, but wasn’t sure if she had heard me. She didn’t seem to be reacting to me, and she didn’t seem dangerous. I thought about trying to trap her and take her elsewhere, but then decided that, until I knew who she was, I’d better leave her alone. She hadn’t hurt the woman or her daughter, and didn’t seem to be bothering me.
Still not sure what to think, I moved a few steps closer. The filmy mist stopped swirling, instead hanging heavy.
“Hey, can you hear me?” I tried again.
This time, there was a sudden swish as the mist coiled around me and then dissipated. I looked around, turning full circle, but she was nowhere in sight. Cautiously, I closed my eyes and checked my chakras, but the ghost hadn’t corded into me. Sometimes people, spirits, and other creatures could cord into your energy and piggyback a ride. It wasn’t the same thing as possession, but neither was it a good idea to allow it to happen. That was one way that people carried things—and by things, I meant entities—home with them.
Dray was jogging down the path, looking concerned. “I sold them two of your pumpkins. What happened? What was that thing? I saw it swirling around you.”
“A spirit of some kind. I couldn’t seem to communicate with her. Have you ever noticed anything out here before? Any unusual activities or…things you saw?”
Dray’s expression shifted and I could tell he wanted to talk about something, but seemed reluctant to.
“If there was anything, you’d be wise to tell me. I can’t help if I don’t know what I’m dealing with.”
He ducked his head. “All right, I’ll tell you. But please don’t tell my mom I said anything. She got mad at me when I told her and said I was just imagining things.”
That was never a good start to a conversation. “All right, why don’t you help me find two pumpkins to replace the ones you sold, and you can tell me while we’re looking.”
He nodded. As we headed down another row of the pumpkin patch, he hesitantly began to speak. “I was out here a few months ago, making certain the sprinklers were working and pinching off some of the excess blossoms. You have to thin them for the pumpkins to grow larger.”
“Right,” I said. I hadn’t known that, but I didn’t want to segue into a conversation on gardening. “What time of day was it?”
“Early morning, before school. I work two hours a day before school and two hours after school for my mom. It’s the way I make spending money. I’m saving up for a car.” He gave me a crooked smile. “I want to buy an old car to fix up. You know, real old, like those old Pontiacs they used to have way back in the 1960s.”
I coughed. Having been born in 1900, the 1960s didn’t seem that far away to me. But then again, I wasn’t a teenager, either. Everything before 2001 was old to them. “Okay, you were out here in the early morning. Was the sun up?”
He shrugged. �
�Not quite. It was probably about five-thirty, so maybe. But it was still cool and there was still dew on the plants. Anyway, I was out here and I thought I heard…well…I thought I heard someone whispering to me. I heard my name, and then I heard, ‘Come on, let’s go.’ It scared me shitless because there wasn’t anybody else out here. Even my sister was still asleep.”
I frowned. “Did it sound male or female? The voice.”
“Like a man, actually. I remember getting really creeped out. But then I decided I was hearing things, so I ignored it. At that point, it called me again and the second time, I knew it wasn’t my imagination.” He shivered, glancing around warily. “I was right over there,” he said, pointing to another part of the patch.
“So what did you do?” I didn’t like spirits that tried to lure people off into some secluded area. It usually went hand in hand with trying to charm or possess someone.
“I ran all the way back to the house. When I told Mom, she got mad and told me I was imagining things and she didn’t want to hear that sort of bullshit again. She said that I should know better. Then she ordered me to get back to work and sent me back out to finish the job.” He sounded angry and I didn’t blame him. It sucked when nobody believed you, when you knew what you had heard or seen.
“I’m sorry that happened. Did anything else ever happen?”
He nodded. “Yeah, and boy, did I get pissed. I was out here a couple weeks later, this time making sure there weren’t any slugs eating away at the plants, and to set up netting so the deer and squirrels couldn’t get in. I was over near the hill,” he said, pointing to a slope that led up to a higher part of the farm. “I got the feeling I was being watched. I tried to tell Mom but she got mad again, so I just dealt with it on my own. I couldn’t shake the feeling and so I started coming out here armed with a pitchfork. There were a couple other times I felt like I was being watched, but until tonight, I’ve never seen anything like that mist.”
“Thanks for telling me, Dray. For what it’s worth, I believe you.” I stopped, pointing at a pumpkin that had the perfect shape for me to carve into a flying saucer. “I’ll take that one, too. Tell me, why do you think your mother doesn’t like you talking about these incidents? She’s pagan, so we know she believes in the supernatural.”
He frowned, hoisting the pumpkin into the large burlap bag he was carrying.
“I don’t know, to be honest. I think maybe she’s scared there’s something here that she won’t be able to deal with. Or maybe, something that will hurt the farm. Our mothers sank all their money into this place, and we have to make it work because there’s no place else to go. If they had to sell the farm, we’d all be out on the street. And this is their dream.” Dray shifted the bag of pumpkins to his other shoulder. He was a sturdy boy and looked like he could easily play football, but I knew he had other plans. Dray had told me over a dinner not long ago at Llew’s that he wanted to study engineering.
“Maybe you’re right. Well, I won’t tell her you said anything, all right? But if you notice anything else happening, call me. Or drop by my house.” It was the only thing I could think of to say. I wasn’t even sure whether I should approach Rain or Marigold about what I had seen, because if Marigold was so adamant about not believing anything paranormal was going on, she wasn’t likely going to want to hear about it from someone else.
We reached the booth again, and I glanced back at the pumpkin patch. There was nothing unusual about it, and as the moonlight shone from near the horizon—the orb was on her way to setting—the only sounds from the pumpkin patch were those of the breeze rustling through the leaves.
Chapter Five
Llew was waiting for me by our booth as I pushed the cart with my pumpkins toward him. He had set up the space nicely. A small table to the side would be where I’d read the cards. Marigold was talking to him, and I worried my lip, wondering whether to say anything.
“So, we’re going to add hayrides next year, I think, and some more games. Right now we have the pumpkin toss, and a pie-eating contest and a few other things—bobbing for apples, for one. We’re aiming for that old-time country fair feel.” She paused as I joined them. “Hey, Raven. Think you have enough pumpkins?”
I shrugged, smiling. “Yeah, I think so.” I eyed Llew, wanting to talk to him about the mist, but I decided not to do so in front of Marigold. “I’m going to go put these in my car. What’s happening tonight?”
“Oh, we have a fall flower contest going on. In fact, I still haven’t decided on the judges, so Raven, would you be one? Rain and I don’t want to act as judges in any of the contests unless it’s something with an obvious winner, like the pie-eating contest. We don’t want to make any of our customers think we’re giving them preferential treatment or snubbing them.”
I frowned. “I don’t know much about flowers except what I think is pretty. How many judges do you have?”
“Three. I’ve roped Llew into doing it, and also Panda Jane, who runs a bakery near here. She’s called that because she loves panda bears and that’s the name of her bakery—Panda Bear Bakery.”
At the word “bakery” I perked up. “Yum, was she the one I bought those maple bars from?”
“Yeah, that’s her booth,” Marigold said.
“All right, I’ll do it. But let me get these pumpkins stowed away first.” I trundled the cart down the path to the parking lot, where I unlocked my Subaru. As I hoisted the gourds into the back, the hairs on the back of my neck began to stand up. I glanced around the lot. There were people pulling in and parking, some people leaving, but I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I locked the car and turned around to look in back of me.
A patch of woods lay directly to my back, buttressing the farmhouse. I wandered over to the tree line, pulling out my phone and turning on the flashlight. As I shone it into the woods, I saw that I was facing a ravine, rather than just a flat patch of woodland. The ravine was dark, but as I closed my eyes to focus, I could hear the faint sound of running water. There was a stream at the bottom of the woodland. I thought about picking my way down there because I was certain there was something inside, watching out, but it was too dark, I wasn’t dressed for it, and I didn’t want to go alone.
Something shifted, darting through the beam of my flashlight. I jumped back. Whatever it was had crossed the beam of light at my eye level, which meant it had to be flying or hovering in mid-air because the ravine dipped directly at the edge of the trees. Whatever it was had been large enough to make me think it might be a person.
I flashed my light back and forth, trying to pick up on it again, but I still couldn’t see anything. Frustrated and spooked, I backed away, not turning my back on the trees. I was too close and I didn’t want anything jumping out to grab me.
A sudden thought that it might be Pandora freaked me out then, and I stumbled away, shoving my phone in my pocket as I turned to run back toward the entrance. Evie waved me through, her eyes narrowing when I didn’t slow down. I made it back inside the perimeters of the fair and slowed down then, glancing behind me. People were paying their entrance fees, but none of them looked like Pandora or her dragon-thugs, and so I caught my breath as I headed back to our booth.
Llew gave me a strange look as I came up. Marigold was nowhere to be seen.
“Marigold said to meet her in the tent over there,” he said, pointing across the fairway, “in about fifteen minutes to judge the flower contest. What’s wrong? You look spooked.”
I swung around behind the booth and sat down next to him. He was setting up the fliers and brochures, though we wouldn’t actually set out his wares until the next day.
“Dude, there’s something going on out here.” I told him about what had happened in the pumpkin patch and then out near my car. “I don’t know what the hell it is, but Dray tried to tell his mother about a few things he’s seen and she bit his head off for it. I’m thinking Marigold isn’t going to want to hear that something’s creeping around her land.” I paused, t
hen added, “For a moment, I was terrified it might be Pandora. I guess I still have a few things to work on with Sejun.”
My Elven therapist had done wonders in helping me. The Elves had a type of therapy where they could remove the trigger emotions behind an event, while leaving the memory. Which meant you could face what happened without falling back into the moment—my flashbacks were almost gone, I seldom had nightmares now about the incident, and the feelings of helplessness had almost been wiped away. But I still was afraid of Pandora, and frankly, I regarded that fear as healthy. She was dangerous, and I never wanted to get complacent if there was a chance she’d be around.
“Hell, I’m afraid of Pandora and I’ve never met her. She sounds like a nightmare bitch from hell.” He shook his head. “All right, tell you what. Keep what you know under wraps tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll make the rounds of the farm before opening the booth to see if there’s anything around in the daylight. If there is, we’ll tell Marigold together. I doubt if she’s going to take the same attitude she did with her son, though you never know. But if there’s something out here, she and Rain should know. They have kids, there are strangers who come onto their land to buy their wares—you can’t just close your eyes if you’re exposing other people as potential victims.”
That seemed the best idea, so I agreed. “Let’s go judge some flowers. I have no idea what to look for, so I guess that makes me unbiased. I’ll just judge on what looks the prettiest.”
Llew laughed, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “Raven, I hope you never change.”
I rested my head against his shoulder. “Llew, I doubt that I ever will.”
By the time I got home, I had managed to piss off two gardeners who took issue with me giving a higher score to a bunch of mums instead of their zinnias and dahlias, and I had bought a gallon of honey, three blueberry pies, two dozen chocolate chip cookies, a dozen croissants, and bags of tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, and celery.
Witching Time: An Ante-Fae Adventure (Wild Hunt Book 14) Page 6