Page 11 of The Folklore of Forever (Moonville #2)

Eleven

Hang a broom above your headboard, and fly in dreams.

Spells, Charms, and Rituals, Tempest Family Grimoire

Two days later, I contrive to catch Aisling in a lie. She isn’t as experienced with deceit as her mother and aunt, so I figure she’s the weaker target.

“I read an article about an old ghost man who haunts the train station,” I tell her over breakfast, courtesy of Luna. My older sister likes to baby me now that we’re living together again, cooking my favorite meals. She’s been puttering around since the crack of dawn, the smell of animal-shaped waffles rousing me out of bed. My poor night-owl body is unaccustomed to this treatment, my eyesight so bleary that I can hardly see my own plate.

Aisling pauses with a bite of waffle halfway to her mouth. She’s wearing one of Luna’s old faded tank tops, blue with embroidered daisies, her unbrushed brown hair in a ponytail. Whereas Luna’s nose is long and narrow, Aisling’s is a short button. She’s got hazel eyes, unlike our blue, and her mouth is wider. I try to recall what her father looks like, but it’s been so long since he last came sniffing around that he’s a blur to me. “The train station?” she repeats.

“Yeah.” I sip my orange juice, playing it casual. “They say he has a striped tie. Carries a briefcase and black hat. Sits on the bench all day, waiting for his train.”

“Never met him.”

I stretch my arms. “Really? Lots of people have seen him.” Nobody has seen him. He is my invention.

“I’ve been to the train station before.” She squints, thinking. “There were a couple of kids building pebble forts for their toy soldiers. They were flashbacks stuck in a loop, though, and didn’t know I was there.” She shakes her head. “Nope. No ghost man that I know of. Somebody’s probably lying for attention.”

She is oblivious to my flat, penetrating stare.

From the stovetop, Luna appraises me over her shoulder. I think she knows what I’m up to, but she doesn’t say anything when I saunter to the sink.

“What are you making now?” I examine her pot, which contains a simmering globby substance that smells like orange and chamomile.

“Worry-Away Jam, which we can eat with the scones I’ve got baking right now. I’ve noticed you seem troubled lately. I don’t know why ”—her head bobs on the word as she stirs her concoction with a wooden spoon—“and I don’t think you’ll tell me, so this is how I can be helpful.”

Her knowing that I’ve been troubled lately makes me even more cross. “I’m not eating one of your potions. They aren’t FDA-approved.”

“It’s an old family recipe. I’ve had it loads of times myself, and I haven’t died yet.”

Despite my resistance, she somehow convinces me to take a scone up to the attic to work. Faced with my intimidatingly blank Word document, I decide to nip back down for another scone, with extra jam (it tastes interesting more than delicious, but I keep craving more), and then I decide it’s far too early to be working and I should grab a book, don a rain slicker, and sneak outside instead.

Maybe the author phase of my life is over.

Would that be so terrible? True, it’s always been my dream to be an author, but it’s safe to say I’ve accomplished that now, and…maybe it’s time to move on. Not just from Villamoon, but from the proverbial pen. My love for writing is somewhere out at sea right now, in sunglasses and a scarf, waving goodbye.

My fingers curl around the hood of my rain slicker, lowering it. Warm drops fall, atmosphere tingling with hot tar, candied popcorn from a cart on the corner. The sky is low, pushing between treetops, pressing so close that its gray tendrils meet the rain that ricochets off the brick road.

Thunder rumbles in far-off hills, and my chest loosens, breathing easier. I’ve always loved storms. I met one of my exes when we were both caught in the downpour after leaving a museum. He’d covered me with his umbrella. Where are you headed? I’ll walk you .

And he did. Five blocks out of his way, just so I wouldn’t get wet. He was so kind, so thoughtful, and yet I slept through his Death of a Salesman stage performance because I stayed up all night writing. That was, at least, a somewhat more palatable excuse than the one I gave to a different boyfriend, who couldn’t believe I was nearly an hour late showing up to dinner with his parents because I was reading The Insects: An Outline of Entomology by P. J. Gullan and P. S. Cranston and “didn’t want to stop on an odd-numbered page, but the even-numbered pages never finished with complete sentences, which meant I had to keep reading.”

I have torpedoed a lot of relationships by muttering, “Just one more page.” By prioritizing whatever interests me most in the moment.

Forcibly setting this genre of thought aside, I open a hardback copy of Phantom Architecture . I adore the way protective Mylar covers on library books crinkle to the touch, and the buttery, battered pages that have been explored by so many other hands, loved by so many other minds. I don’t even have to be reading a book for it to provide comfort. Merely holding one soothes me. But I’m eager to lose myself now, as it will be nice to think about words that aren’t my own.

For background noise, I inwardly riffle through a collection of music, dusting off the tried-and-true opening theme of Masterpiece Theatre , and slide it onto the mental record player. Set the needle.

Right as the song begins to play, my gaze snags on a clump of trees beyond the red bridge: it’s darker and thicker in Falling Rock Forest than anywhere else around here. I imagine that I can almost feel the forest breathing, watching. Zelda, Zelda , it says. What have you forgotten?

I draw a sharp intake of breath.

“Zelda.”

I jump. It takes a tick to process the visually loud distortion of neon clothing, dark brown eyes, hair hanging in them, so close that raindrops falling off the ends land on my shoes.

“Guess what. I have something to show you,” Morgan says, and this is followed by a strange happening.

The string lights hanging high over the road between Wafting Crescent and The Magick Happens brighten, the individual glows coalescing into a single blinding burst, blinking as the light teleports from one bulb to the next. It reminds me of those expensive Christmas light shows wealthier suburban neighborhoods put up, syncing the lights to music. An animal darts along the wire, toward us, so close that when I tip my head all the way back as it races past, I can see that its belly has fur as rumpled as an Airedale terrier’s.

My view is abruptly blocked by a sheet of paper thrust into my face. “Look,” he demands.

“No,” I say, the word automatic. But of course, I look. “What is this?”

“The animal you saw in the road. Did I get it right?”

He’s made a police sketch of The Thing That Was Not a Coyote, a Deer, or a Dog. I’ve put it out of my mind, but Morgan’s obviously been dwelling—even though he didn’t see it himself—and has stacked potential names beside the drawing. Long-Tailed Vinton Varmint. The Zaleski Deer Dog. Coralote.

The sketch isn’t that bad, actually. Rudimentary, but accurate.

“The antlers are off. Different kind of coral.”

He pulls up pictures on his phone, showing me various corals. “Which kind?”

“Morgan, I think you’re taking this too seriously. There is no such thing as a long-necked coyote with coral antlers. You…you understand that, don’t you?”

He continues to swipe. “Which kind?”

I shake my head, pointing. “That one, I guess. But the tips had fur coming out.” His eyes brighten. “But not really ,” I cut in swiftly. “Because it wasn’t real.”

Morgan flattens the paper against my shoulder so that he can dash notes across it in pen. I stiffen, face warming. He is not touching me, his pen is touching me. Through layers of clothing.

But it doesn’t feel like that. With the press of his pen and his nearness, tall body covering mine from behind like the large wings of a divine being, I envision Morgan holding a tattoo pen, sinking his handwriting into my bare skin. “Resembles finger coral,” he mumbles to himself. “With fur on the tips.”

“It wasn’t real, though.” I’ve repeated this so many times, the words have lost meaning. I smooth my hands down my arms to shake off goose bumps.

“ Or , you found a paranimal.”

In Black Bear Witch lore, paranimals are woodland creatures that the witch has enchanted for unknown reasons (the leading theory is that she likes to infuse the flavors of magic into animals before consuming them)—like turning a fox into a fox-bird hybrid with tree bark on its forelegs. Allegedly, only a rare few can see the enchanted form of a paranimal; to anybody else, they look like the normal creatures they were before the Black Bear Witch got a hold of them.

I give the sky an anguished look. “This town. You’ve all poisoned yourselves with so many legends that you can’t tell what’s fiction anymore.”

Morgan opens his mouth to speak, but I jerk back as a small animal zips between us, right over Morgan’s shoes, scrabbling up the stone wall encasing Romina’s garden. It turns its head, staring at me with big orange eyes. Each one contains three black rings.

“Katrina,” I whisper.

Even as I say it, I know it isn’t her—the fur is more tan than gray, and it’s not as sleek and compact as she was.

“Who?” Morgan looks around.

“That’s my—that’s a huggle.” I can’t believe I’ve said the word huggle out loud, as a grown-up.

“What are you talking about?” He follows my line of sight. “The squirrel? Did you call it a huggle ?”

I glance at his face, taking in his confusion, and then look back at the…

Squirrel.

It flicks its bushy tail at us, then sprints across the garden wall toward Romina’s rooftop and disappears in a warren of pumpkin vines.

“Never mind.” I am never eating Luna’s sketchy jam again.

I pull away from Morgan, trying to cross the street. He yanks me back, the unexpected touch jolting through me like lightning; right as a shout leaps up my throat, a car honks and dirty water sprays up from a tire, splattering all across my legs.

“Rats.” I moan. “This is what I get for going outside.”

Morgan hesitates. “Zelda, do you think it’s possible that you saw a paranimal?”

I scowl at him. “No.”

“Because if you did,” he marches on, “then maybe one of them could lead me to the Black Bear Witch.”

“So that she can crack your head open like a nut?”

“So that she can give me some of her magic. Besides, she only cracks your head open like a nut if you’re driving forwards on Wiley Palmer Road.” He shrugs, like, I don’t make these rules .

The Black Bear Witch’s origins are unclear, and her traits vary from story to story, but it is agreed upon that she is centuries old. She hides somewhere within the town, and if you find her lair, she has to give you some of her magic before taking away your memory of ever finding it. The size of this gifted magic is quibbled over; some believe you’d come out of the situation with a small power or an enchanted object. Others believe you would become a god. There’s even a rhyme about it:

Open wide the witch’s door

and burn with magic evermore.

But to gain, you must surrender

remembrance of the witch forever.

Most of us associate this folklore with zozzled teenagers throwing parties in the woods. That’s where all the “Nah, man, I saw her for real!” stories stem from: people blabbering about bears they saw walking around on two legs, acting suspicious, while under the influence of King Cobra (the partiers were under the influence, not the bear. Or possibly the bear joined in, I don’t know).

I stare at him. He stares back, not an ounce of shame to be found on his features.

“You sure moved from plan A to plan B fast.”

He fidgets. “ You were plan B, actually. Plan A was a spell that didn’t work. So technically, going the Black Bear Witch route is plan C, but I would be more than amenable to changing that if you would like to go out with me again—”

I’m already sailing past him. “Get lost.”

I grumble my way into The Magick Happens, up to my attic, and fall into a chair at my writing desk. My mind is a whirlwind of sailor-worthy curses.

On the opposite side of the road, colors smeared by rain and shadow, Morgan’s lounging in his own desk chair like an indolent prince: back slouched, knees apart. Eyebrows ever so slightly knit. His hands are laced together, resting on his stomach. My chest rises and falls with shallow, indignant breaths. My body clenches. What is he thinking, staring at me like that?

Probably, he is scheming more skullduggery. Congratulating himself for incapacitating my ability to think. Thinking is my favorite thing to do. How extremely dare he.

He is doing this on purpose. It pleases him to see me affected, so unable to escape the heavy, pressing weight of his gaze that has me feeling all tangled up and contradictory, with my muscles rigid and my bones loose.

He taps a long finger against his chin, watching. A ghost of a smirk hovers at his lips, and I hate him. Oh, I hate him.

Thump, thump, thump, thump goes my wild little heart.

I am furious with myself for not hating him. For wishing he were genuinely interested in me, when wishing is pointless.

But it’s those eyes. It’s that mouth.

It’s a combustion reaction. He’s a flash of white heat in the pulse beating at my throat, the tips of my breasts, between my legs, smoking out to my fingertips. I raise them in the shadows to inspect, thinking their color must have changed, so much do they feel like glowing coals.

As if he can sense the direction of my thoughts, the heat of my body, his jaw has slackened, lips parted. His cheeks are flagged with red. I have never seen that expression on him before, and it seals my airways.

He leans forward, just an inch. Eyes on me. Daring me to do something.

But what, exactly?

He wants a push to his pull. He wants retaliation and the unexpected. This man should learn now that he will not get anything he wants from me.

I close my curtains.