Page 8 of The Folklore of Forever (Moonville #2)

Eight

Henriette’s eyes snap wide, trying to listen over the violence of her own heartbeat, and a new wind comes howling, shadows rising from the ground into an animal that stands on its hind legs, eyes like dust clouds. The terrible creature lets out a shrill scream of warning.

Legend of the Black Bear Witch , Zelda Tempest

“You better get outta here,” Joan advises.

Morgan and I bolt. Just before he reaches for the door handle of his car, he grinds to a halt. “Wait a minute. Did you see the curio cabinet? I think it disappeared again.”

“Does it matter right now?”

He nods once. “Right. I’ll check another time.”

We pile in.

I turn off his camera and stow it back in his bag. “Do you know any other roads out of here?”

“This is the only one that connects to Piedmont.” And then, to my horror, he steers the vehicle around and begins driving in reverse.

“Not again!” I scrabble for purchase in the car as branches of three-hundred-year-old trees scrape at our windows, sucking us into a black, clawing tunnel. “This is not how I want to die! There’s supposed to be”—we rocket over a pothole, and I clutch my door handle with a scream—“two wineglasses, one body. Missing jewels. A luxuriously decorated sitting room with a half-burned envelope in the fireplace.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve done this a thousand times.” But even as he says it, one of the tires slips off the edge of the road, dragging us toward a steep slope, and he corrects so forcibly that I’m swung forward, seat belt strangling me.

“The backwards-on-Wiley-Palmer thing is an urban legend,” I manage to rasp. “Nobody actually does it.”

“I do. If the witch sees us, she might magic up a bunch of different dead-end roads and we’ll end up lost.”

I tilt my head back, pulse racing. We’re barreling in reverse through a forest, after sundown, on a narrow road that curves like a sidewinder. “Let me out.”

“Zelda. I promise, you will live long enough to be murdered for your jewels someday. I’ve got this.”

“You’re going to get arrested or worse. You cannot DRIVE BACKWARDS!”

“I don’t have a choice! You should know better than anyone that if you drive forwards down Wiley Palmer, the Black Bear Witch will climb into your head and crack it open like a nut.”

“Please turn around.” My eyes squeeze shut.

“Zelda, listen. I respect you and I hear what you’re saying and all, but I am not about to be cursed by a five-hundred-year-old shape-shifting witch. There are scarier things in this world than Ross Baumgartner, who is barely even a cop. All he does is lurk in Moonshine’s parking lot, hoping to catch people carrying open containers of alcohol. Wait till we make it to Piedmont, and then I’ll drive the regular way and you can stop digging your nails into my arm.”

“There’s no such thing as curses,” I seethe, digging my nails in harder. “Pull over pull over pull over.”

“But the Black Bear Witch—”

“The Black Bear Witch isn’t real,” I snap.

He accidentally presses the gas, sending us careening for a terrifying moment. When I wake up tomorrow, all of my beautiful red hair will have turned gray overnight. “What do you mean? You wrote about it.”

“In a book!” I cry. “A fictional book. None of it’s real. How can you think it’s real? There is no witch. There are no ghosts. There is. No. Magic. ”

I think I would almost find the dumbfounded look on his face funny, were it not for the fact that he keeps looking at me instead of the road, risking untethering my fragile little life from this mortal plane.

“But you’re a witch.”

“Witches aren’t real.”

“You cannot possibly mean that—”

“I do,” I cut in vehemently. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Morgan, but that is the truth. Anyone who claims otherwise is either duped or lying, and I am neither of those.”

Morgan is speechless for maybe the first time in his life.

“Now will you please—” I begin to say calmly, right as a dog darts into the road. I scream at the top of my lungs: “Stop!”

Morgan slams on the brake, tires squealing. “What? What is it?” My heart pumps furiously, so dizzy with adrenaline that the back seat of his car wavers in my view. He stares anxiously around, unclipping his seat belt. Just behind us, sitting utterly still in the ruby glow of brake lights, is…not a dog, I don’t think. It might be a coyote, with something jammed over its head.

“What is it?” Morgan looks at me.

“I don’t know.”

“But you told me to stop. Why’d you tell me to stop?” He runs his hands over his face, distressed. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“I didn’t want you to hit it.”

“Hit what ?”

“That!” I point.

He throws up his arms. “I don’t see anything.”

I fling open my car door.

“What’re you doing? It’s dark. We’re in the woods. Don’t—”

“The poor animal has a piece of fence stuck to its head, I think. It isn’t leaving for a reason; it needs our help.” I close the door, cutting him off.

There are no streetlights out here, surroundings as black as the depths of Jacob’s Well. In the shoulder, long grasses whisper against my legs as I steady myself. There’s a deep ditch to my left, no guardrail to keep me from toppling over.

“It’s all right,” I croon, creeping as slow as I can manage, offering my palms. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Morgan rolls his window down. “Please tell me it isn’t a skunk. I am not letting you back into this car if you get sprayed. You didn’t mean what you said about not being a witch, right?”

“I’m not a friggin’ witch,” I hiss. “And does this look like a skunk to you?”

“I don’t see anything.” He tries to open his door, but it clunks into a tree. “There isn’t enough room for me to get out.”

“Stay where you are. I don’t want to scare it away.”

The animal’s ears twitch in different directions, toward me and then Morgan, then back to me. Its eyes are set closer together than a coyote’s, more oblong, but its snout definitely resembles a coyote. “It’s all right,” I whisper. “I only want to help you.”

I reach out, slowly, slowly, trying to get a grip of the thing on its head, but frown. The thing has a velvety texture, and I can’t find a way to pry it loose because it’s become…fused…to its skull.

I draw back, staring.

This coyote has antlers .

The animal stares at me, and I stop breathing as I lower to my knees, taking in the weird shape of it all. Short fur, a longer neck, like a greyhound. Definitely paws, not hooves—and then, of course, the impossible antlers. They’re short, bunchy ones, shaped like two small pieces of coral. Has somebody glued them to him? I’m reminded of P. T. Barnum’s “Fiji mermaid,” which was just a fish and monkey skeleton sewn together, and my heart breaks for this poor baby.

The animal turns in a circle. With its head bent close to the taillight, I can make out exactly where the growths protrude from its scalp, the fur surrounding it a gradient of copper to gray to black. The fur on its long, bony tail is as short as the fur on its snout, skin molded so tightly to its vertebrae that it looks vacuum-sealed.

“Did you pull the fence off it yet?” Morgan asks.

“I…” My voice cracks.

Morgan tries to climb across the seats to get out through my door, elbow bumping the loud horn on his steering wheel. Beeeep! Before I can react, the coyote-with-antlers shoots off, switchgrass rustling, and is swallowed by the woods.

I move forward. And from somewhere in the trees floats a soft female voice: “The clock of…”

I freeze. “Hello?”

“What?” Morgan calls back. I ignore him, straining to listen.

“Old and new,” the voice goes on, light as a flower. I step just a foot backward, and the voice fades away. Maybe I heard somebody’s radio.

“Where did it go?” Morgan asks, joining me at my side. “What was it?”

I stare into the darkness.

“Zelda.” He waves a large hand in front of my face. “Hey. You here? You can tell me the truth, you know. A lot of witches keep it secret, they don’t go around advertising like your sisters do—”

“I already told you the truth.” My patience is running thin. “Anybody who says magic is real is trying to sell you something.”

He seizes a fistful of his hair. “Two hundred and fifty dollars! In this economy!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I spent two hundred and fifty dollars for this date, when I am, frankly, pretty broke, and you’re not even a witch.”

I don’t know if I have ever been this confused. I need a gallon of chamomile tea and a five-hundred-page book to stabilize. “Why does that matter?”

“How else am I supposed to get powers?” He begins to pace. “I wasn’t born with them. If I’m gonna acquire magic, the easiest way to get it is the same way Alex did—by getting a witch to fall in love with me. One day he was a regular, boring guy, and the next he was a boring guy with a supernatural gift for finding lost objects.”

My mouth drops open. “Are you serious?”

He smears the heel of his hand over one eye. “Never mind. Sorry, I didn’t mean—” He stares at me, pleading. “Are you sure you aren’t a witch?”

I start walking. Grab my purse out of his car, then take off down the road on foot.

“Hey! Where are you going?” he shouts.

“I’m not getting back into that car with you. Please give me a fifteen-minute head start so that I don’t get run over.”

“Oh c’mon, it’s too dangerous to walk. Guess what? Ninety-nine percent of run-over-by-a-car incidents happen between ten and ten thirty p.m.”

“I’ll take my chances.” And he made that up.

“I’ll drive front-facing. Please get in the car, Zelda.”

I do not get into the car. He does, following behind me at a cautious distance, headlights revealing my way forward.

I am barely cognizant of my journey to Piedmont Road, the downhill trek carrying me faster than my feet want to step, my breaths loud and even, eyes focused straight ahead. I replay that haunting image of the thing that wasn’t a deer, wasn’t a dog, wasn’t a coyote. The strange voice in the forest. And, most of all: How else am I supposed to get powers?

So that’s why.

The late-night phone call. The flirtation. The switch from sort-of-friendly to invading my personal space, calling me gorgeous. Morgan’s only been pretending to like me because he thinks I’m a witch, and he thinks he can get powers if I fall in love with him.

I am such an idiot. Not as much of an idiot as he is, apparently, but still. I am too old to have been tricked like this.

When I finally reach the turnoff, back in civilization where there are sidewalks and streetlights, the backs of my knees are slippery with sweat. “At least let me drop you off at home,” Morgan barks out his window.

“No.”

“You saw something weird back there, didn’t you? Was it a ghost?”

“Might’ve been a fairy.”

“Really?” He perks up. “What’d it look like?”

“She was a few inches tall. Blond hair, green dress. Told me she was on her way back to Neverland.”

He rolls his window up, curses muffled.

The hum of his Buick follows me all the way to Vallis Boulevard. He swings a jerky turn down the alley beside Wafting Crescent, parks, and jumps out. Morgan doesn’t say a word as he watches me unlock The Magick Happens and head inside, hands trembling, unintentionally slamming the door so hard that the bell above it falls down with a crash.

Up in the apartment, Luna and Aisling are at the kitchen table painting each other’s nails.

Luna pitches a fit at the state of me. “Why are you so sweaty?”

“Because it’s hotter than dragon’s breath outside, and I just walked three quarters of a mile.”

“Are you all right?” Her chair squeaks against the floor as she hip-checks it out of the way. “How’s Morgan?”

“Alive, somehow.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means he’s lucky.” I yank off my shoes. “I’m gonna go shower.”

“Wait! Not yet. Tell us about your date first. Did you hike out to the Davilla house? Is that why you look like you’re dying?”

“How’d you know he was taking me to the Davilla house?”

“He told us,” Ash chimes. “Why didn’t you bring me along? I’m the only one in this family who can see ghosts.”

I turn so that she doesn’t see me roll my eyes.

“Although.” She rummages in a cabinet for a teacup. “I heard you two made contact with the dead.”

“Heard from who?”

“Samuel.”

Ahh. Her imaginary friend, Samuel Pinney. It’s been a while since she’s told us what he’s up to. Luna fixes a hot toddy when the weather’s cold and leaves it by the fireside armchair downstairs, as it’s allegedly Samuel’s favorite drink. Ghosts can’t physically consume food or drinks, according to Aisling, but by moving through them, they can taste their flavors faintly. This is also why a dish of chocolate-covered cherries perpetually sits on the counter: Luna freshens them up once a week for Grandma to enjoy. “Nope. Just heard noises, but nothing that can’t be explained.”

“Samuel—”

“Ash,” I cut in impatiently. “You’re telling stories again.”

“Hey, now.” Luna sends me a warning look.

“But he says you made contact with two poltergeists!” Aisling insists. “Strong entities capable of affecting your perceptions of reality.”

I feel myself shut down as she talks.

“It’s true. When a witch dies, their magic is separated from them, and it transforms into a different kind of energy. Other witches die, this energy accumulates, until eventually, it’s strong and solid enough to manifest into a poltergeist. It takes at least three dead witches to make a poltergeist, Samuel says.”

I pour myself a glass of water. “I truly do not know where you get this stuff.”

“I told you, from Samuel.”

“Sure, sure,” I mutter, thumping upstairs to grab clean clothes. I love Ash to the ends of the earth and can appreciate a vivid imagination, of course. But I resent being shut out of this rich world they all share, even Morgan. The only way in is if I pretend to believe as they pretend to believe. I can’t do it. I am firmly in the real world, and not even a beautiful man—not even the most beautiful man—is going to lure me down that path.