The Forgettable Miss French (Shadowvale Book 3)

by Kristen Painter

  “True,” Easy said. “But if we all have both Ginny’s curse and mine, that’s a heavy burden to bear.”

  “Heavy is relative.” Lucas chomped down on a fry. “There are four of us. All of us strong people. We can handle whatever it is that we’ve been dealt. I’d venture a guess to say all of us have already been through worse.”

  Aunt Gwen nodded. “You’re right, Lucas. I survived my stroke. I can survive this. Ginny’s been dealing with this for ten years on her own. Lucas, you were a police officer for thirty-five years. Easy, you must have been through something harder than this?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I was an Army Ranger. Did a tour in Afghanistan.” Something he shouldn’t have needed anyone to remind him of. But the weight of spreading his curse to others…that was a heavy thing.

  “See there? You survived that.” She lifted her chin with triumphant pride. “We need to pick our heads up and figure this out, not allow it to get the best of us.”

  Ginny picked up her sandwich. “You’re right, Aunt Gwen. Thank you.”

  Gwen smiled at her niece. “You’re welcome. And you’re not alone anymore, sweetheart.”

  Ginny smiled. “No, I’m not.” She turned to Easy. “None of us are. We’re all in this together. Now let’s eat and get back to Easy’s to see just how deep this curse business has gotten.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  They gathered in Easy’s living room. The shopping bag from the bakery sat on his kitchen counter, but the sweets might as well have not existed.

  All anyone could think about was what their next shift would bring. Ginny could see it on her aunt’s face and Lucas’s too.

  She felt for them. Getting hit with two curses in one day was a lot to deal with. She and Easy had had time to get used to each of theirs, as much as anyone could get used to such curses, but the older pair seemed to be keeping it together pretty well.

  Lucas and Gwen sat next to each other on the couch, Easy in his recliner, and Ginny sat cross-legged on the floor near him.

  “What kind of uncontrolled shift are we talking about here?” Lucas asked. “What exactly does your curse do?”

  Easy’s chest rose and fell with his breathing as he seemed to be picking his words. “I haven’t seen my true wolf form in months.”

  Lucas frowned. “Then what do you shift into?”

  Easy sighed and glanced at Ginny. “Whatever else is in my bloodline.”

  “Meaning?” Gwen asked.

  “Other kinds of wolves. Foxes.” He paused. “Domestic dogs.”

  Lucas and Gwen looked at each other.

  Easy nodded. “Yeah, it’s pretty much what you’re thinking.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Most recently, I turned into a Yorkie in the bathroom at Five Bells.”

  Lucas grimaced and swore softly.

  Gwen laughed, but cut herself off almost immediately. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, no,” Easy said. “I know it’s funny.”

  Lucas hmphed. “Not when it’s happening to you, I suppose. How did you get out of that?”

  “With Ginny’s help,” Easy said.

  Lucas leaned back and stuck his thumbs in his pockets. “So that’s what we’re up against. An uncertain shift. The possibility of becoming a poodle.”

  Easy’s nod was slow and steady. “Basically.”

  Gwen shrugged. “I think our bloodlines are pretty pure.”

  “I thought the same thing,” Easy said. “But you have no idea until this thing kicks in what kind of mating went on in your family.”

  Lucas’s lip curled. “Great. I’ve heard some rumors about my great-great-grandfather. I guess I’m going to find out if those rumors are true.”

  A new and very interesting thought rolled into Ginny’s head with the kind of insistence that wouldn’t allow it to be ignored. She got up, shuffled her feet across the area rug, then reached her index finger toward the nearest light switch.

  “What are you doing?” Easy asked.

  “I want to see if we picked up the electrical part of your curse.” She touched the light switch. Nothing. “I’m guessing not. But just to be sure…” She did it one more time. Still nothing. “Interesting.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.” She took a closer look at him. “After the lightning bug attack—”

  “You were attacked by lightning bugs?” Lucas sat up. “You never said anything about that.”

  Easy nodded. “We went out to the enchanted forest looking—”

  “Around,” Ginny interrupted. She made a quick face at Easy, but how was he to know she’d promised her aunt she’d stop looking for the mysterious book? “You know, showing Easy all the sights in Shadowvale.”

  Aunt Gwen’s gaze narrowed. “Were you looking for that book?”

  “No!” Ginny laughed like that was the craziest thing ever. “That’s just a fable.”

  Easy gave them both strange looks, but went on explaining. “Well, while we were out there, I got swarmed. Apparently, whatever electrical thing I have going on attracted them. They attacked me, zapped me pretty good, and when I woke up, I’d forgotten Ginny.”

  Aunt Gwen nodded with understanding. “You’d remembered her before that without any problem. Ginny told me about that.”

  “Right,” Easy said. “Which is why when I got zapped changing the light bulb today and could remember her again, it was really big news.”

  Another thought popped into Ginny’s head. She came over to stand by the recliner. “Did you shift after the lightning bug attack?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Did you shift after the jolt from changing the bulb?”

  “No. Seriously, what are you getting at?”

  “Just that you have no idea if you’re still cursed. Any one of those jolts, even the one you got from Seymour today, could have set things right for you.”

  He thought about that. “I suppose that’s true. But any one of those jolts could have reset it, too.”

  She tapped her fingers against her thigh. “But if each of those moments reversed your curse, then in theory, you should currently not be cursed. Right? You started out cursed, then the lightning bugs could have uncursed you, then the light bulb could have recursed you, then Seymour would have uncursed you again.”

  Lucas slapped his hand to his forehead and looked at Gwen. “Are you following this?”

  “Sort of,” she said.

  Easy made a face. “I get what you’re saying, but if that’s how getting zapped affected me, Seymour should have knocked out my ability to remember you.”

  “True. Except you’re now as forgettable as I am. So maybe sharing that curse makes you immune to it. Seems to be true with my aunt and Lucas.”

  Easy scratched his head. “This is complicated.”

  “You’re telling me,” Lucas said. He stood up. “I say let’s shift and see what happens. If, uh, I can, that is.”

  “I can help with that.” Ginny pulled her phone out of her purse on the counter and searched for a video. When she found the one she wanted, she turned up the brightness on her phone, then faced the group and showed them the screen. “Does this help?”

  At the sight of the shining full moon, three pairs of eyes took on the glow that preceded a shift.

  “That’ll do it,” Lucas mumbled.

  She nodded. “I thought so.” Then she hesitated. “Easy, Lucas, what are your regular wolf forms? Aunt Gwen and I are gray wolves who are actually gray.”

  Easy answered first. “I’m also a gray wolf, but I’m more brown than gray.”

  “Alaskan timber wolf,” Lucas said. “Mostly white.”

  “Okay, then. We know what everyone should look like. Let’s see what we actually turn into.” She propped the phone against the bakery bag on the counter so they could all see it, then joined them. Her body welcomed the change. She dropped to all fours and let it consume her.

  In a matter of minutes, their human forms were gone.

&n
bsp; But the forms that had taken their places weren’t all wolves.

  Aunt Gwen was a blue-eyed husky, Lucas was still a wolf, but he was more gray wolf than Alaskan timber. And Easy…Easy was like no wolf Ginny had ever seen, but she knew her canine history.

  He’d gone prehistoric. Easy was a dire wolf, an extinct breed considered the grandparents of all wolfkind. So much so that they were commonly called first kin.

  They were a breed that, these days, most people thought was born out of the imagination of a popular fantasy writer. But werewolves knew better. Most learned about dire wolves at the feet of their parents. She’d learned about them from Aunt Gwen. Of course, Ginny had never seen one in person. Being extinct as a breed didn’t mean there weren’t some shifters who still took on the form—Ginny had just never met any.

  As a shift went, it was pretty impressive.

  Made up for the Yorkie, if he was keeping score. Not that he could see himself.

  She couldn’t help but wonder what she’d turned into. She let out a woof, but it came out more of a bark. A solid dog sound. She wandered over to the sliders that led to the back patio and had a look at her reflection.

  What stared back at her was full-on mutt. A domestic dog with no real discernable breed. A little terrier, maybe? Hard to say. She was all sandy-brown shag and wagging tail. She barked at herself. Regardless, she was forty pounds of cute. There were worse things.

  Easy, Lucas, and Aunt Gwen all joined her to have a look at themselves.

  Easy snarled at his reflection, but the sound had no bite. He was just testing out this new and fascinating form, that was plain.

  They all turned, wagged their tails, barked, and generally put their canine forms through a few paces.

  Except for Easy, they’d never been anything but wolves, so seeing themselves as something different was pretty interesting.

  Ginny wished she could take a picture of them all, but not having opposable thumbs made that tricky.

  A few more minutes passed, then Easy shifted back to his human form. Ginny did the same with Lucas and Aunt Gwen following right after.

  He sighed. “I guess that question’s been answered. You all have my curse, too.”

  Ginny tried to offer some comforting words. “But a dire wolf? That was cool. I’ve never seen one in person.”

  “Me either, until now.” He smiled without much humor behind it. “Sometimes I win the curse lottery, apparently.”

  Lucas stood near Gwen, the two of them looking very much like a team. “Easy, have you talked to the pack alpha about this?”

  “No,” Easy responded. “And I don’t think it’s a good idea. Especially now that he won’t be able to remember me, but what does it matter? No alpha is going to want such a cursed shifter in his ranks.”

  Lucas frowned. “I’m a member of the pack, and I know the man. You’re selling Rico short. This is Shadowvale, remember? He knows that. And allowances can be made.”

  Aunt Gwen shook her head. “But not now, not when Rico won’t remember Easy. Or any of us.”

  The words filled Ginny with such guilt that she wrapped her arms around herself in a lousy attempt to self-soothe. “This is my fault.”

  Easy turned to look at her. “What? How?”

  “Because I made you go look for that stupid book with me.”

  Aunt Gwen gasped.

  “Yes,” Ginny said. “That’s why we went to the enchanted forest. To find the book to remove our curses. And if we hadn’t done that—”

  “I told you that book was trouble.” Gwen sighed. “Virginia French, you promised me you wouldn’t.”

  Ginny exhaled with all the exasperation inside her. “I know. And I did. And you were right. Nothing but trouble.”

  Aunt Gwen’s frown had yet to disappear. “That book isn’t real. I know you want to think it is, you want to have that hope, but it’s a cruel trick. If there was anything that ought to be forgotten, it’s that book.”

  “But, Gwen,” Lucas said, “it’s not a trick. It’s real.”

  The three of them stared at him, but Easy was the first to speak. “How do you know it’s real?”

  “Because,” Lucas said, “I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  For a moment, no one said a word. Then Easy made a decision. “We’re going back out there. Lucas, you’re going to take us.”

  “No.” Gwen managed to pack the single-word command with the same fear, anger, and disappointment that filled her stern gaze. “Ginny, you promised me. And, Lucas, you promised, too.”

  Lucas gave her a pleading look. “Gwen, this isn’t some lark. These kids need this. We need it.”

  Gwen put her hand to her throat. “The woods are dangerous. Look at what already happened to Ezekiel when he and Ginny went out there.”

  Ginny put her hand on her aunt’s arm. “We’ll shift as soon as we get to the woods. That’s what I did when Easy was attacked, and the lightning bugs couldn’t zap through my fur enough to do any damage.”

  Gwen wasn’t convinced. “You’re assuming we’ll shift into something with thick enough fur for that to work.”

  Easy sighed. “That’s true. But getting our names in that book is the only hope any of us have for a normal existence now. Living under a single curse is bad enough, but two?”

  Gwen took a step toward him, pulling away from Ginny. “And what happens when something else goes wrong out there? Don’t you see that Ginny and I come from a cursed family? Her parents died in a freak accident, I had a stroke that left me with memory problems, she touched a mirror that made her forgettable… Why would you want to tempt fate?”

  She turned to look at Lucas. “Ginny and I could be putting our lives in danger. And your lives, too, because you’d be with us. If you want to go, you’re going without us.”

  “No, Aunt Gwen.” Ginny stepped up beside her. “I’m going. I don’t want to live my life like this anymore. I know there’s always the possibility that something else could happen, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take. Please come with us. We’re not a cursed family. We’ve just had some really awful experiences. But finding that book could change some of those experiences. And our future.”

  Gwen wasn’t persuaded. “Ginny, please don’t.”

  Ginny took her aunt’s hand. “Do you think I’d ever ask you to do something that I truly believed was dangerous? Do you think Lucas would? Do you think Easy would want me to put myself in that kind of position? He’s willing to go back, and he’s already run into trouble in the forest once. This is too good an opportunity to pass up.”

  Gwen looked at all of them, the fear in her eyes clear. “I understand all that, but it doesn’t make me any less scared.” Her inhale shuddered with trepidation. “I cannot lose you, Ginny. It would destroy me.”

  “You’re not going to lose me. If this goes well, you’re going to gain a new me. A niece that people remember. A niece that doesn’t have to explain herself to the reception desk every time she comes to see you. Remember what that was like? Back before I touched that stupid mirror?”

  Gwen swallowed. “I do.” She cupped Ginny’s cheek. “I know your life is hard.” A long moment passed, then she nodded. “For you…I’ll do this. But at the first sign of trouble, we leave.”

  Ginny’s smile was thin. “I don’t think I can promise that, Aunt Gwen. The enchanted forest is full of trouble. Just because something scares us, we can’t run.” Her smile took on new strength. “The Frenches are made of stronger stuff than that.”

  Gwen nodded weakly.

  “Come on,” Ginny said. “This is our chance to prove we’re not cursed. This one thing will erase all that. I mean, it’s not going to bring Mom and Dad back, but nothing’s going to do that. We can’t let fear rule us.”

  Gwen lifted her chin. “You’re right. I’ve done that for too long. I can’t say I’m not going to be afraid, but I’m willing to go.”

  Easy smiled. “You’re not going alone. We’re all
in this together.”

  “That’s right,” Lucas said. “Together.”

  “Lucas?” Easy faced the man who held the key to his salvation. “How did you come to see the book?”

  A sly look overtook him. “It was right after I moved here. I wasn’t cursed, I just wanted to retire to a place where I could be myself. I used to run solo through the enchanted forest all the time. Loved the place. It was sort of the culmination of Shadowvale to me. All that wild and crazy stuff. And I was too young back then to ever think any of it might cause me harm.”

  He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I was out running one day and fell asleep during a rest. A voice woke me. A woman. She was talking to someone who wasn’t answering back. I didn’t recognize who it was at first, but when I got a look, I knew instantly. Amelia Marchand and her tiger, Thoreau.”

  “Whoa, hold up.” Easy stared at Lucas. “She’s the witch that started this town, right? She has a pet tiger?”

  “That’s right,” Ginny said. “Amelia created this town. Her magic built it and, along with the meridian lines that run through this ground, helps to keep the town hidden. And Thoreau isn’t so much her pet as her companion. Some would probably call him her familiar, but I don’t know if she really considers him that.”

  Easy rubbed the back of his neck. “This town is crazy.”

  “It is,” Gwen agreed.

  “Go on, Lucas.” Easy nodded at him. “What happened then?”

  “Well,” Lucas said with a shrug, “maybe it was the cop in me, but I was curious. So I followed them.”

  They were all silent and still, waiting on his next words.

  “They went deeper into the forest than I’d ever been. Into the fairy realm. And that’s when I saw it. A grove. With trees that soared overhead and bent together to form a chapel of sorts.” Lucas gestured with his hands, making a dome shape.

  “And in the center of that grove was a carved pedestal, on top of which sat the book.”

  Ginny sucked in a breath, her mouth open slightly in rapt attention. “Did they go into the grove? Did they touch the book?”