Page 63 of Wishing for a Werewolf

“You know, if you looked like human kids, you could go in and pick what you wanted from the display case,” I say, shooting Rune a wink to let him know I’m in on Operation Shift.

He gives me a little nod of thanks.

“And if you weren’t in your wolf form, you could eat chocolate.” I reach into one of the bags right when yells come from the other end of the green.

“Oh, my god! What are those?” a woman shrieks, her trembling finger pointing at something I can’t see from this angle.

“Keep the pups here,” Rune says to Riselda as he leaps to his feet.

I jump up and immediately burst out laughing.

Babybelle bounces beside me, too short to see. “What is it? What is it?”

A collection of tiny pumpkins rolls across the grassy area, chased by the walking tulips. Each of the gourds is about six inches in diameter, and they’ve tipped onto their sides to make rolling easy. They come to a halt in front of us, plonking down onto their bases so their stems now point to the sky. Each pumpkin squirms around until the side pointing toward us shows a little painted face. Each one is different, one smiles, one frowns, one looks shocked, another confused, and the last one looks sleepy.

Several Witch Bitches hurry over from the pumpkin stand.

“What happened?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Kayla says.

“We were looking at the pumpkins and talking about how cute these painted ones were, and they kind of…” Violetta flaps a hand toward the pumpkins, her tone uncertain. “Came to life?”

Skye says, “It’s like the tulips all over again.”

“It must be one of you who did it. Animating things must be your magic,” I say. “Any idea who?”

The other three women share questioning looks before shrugging and shaking their heads.

Babybelle leaps down and runs over to nibble on the leaf of one of the tulips, which starts to bat at her with its other leaf, its flower head shaking this way and that.

“No, Babybelle!” I scoop my familiar up into my arms. “We don’t eat the walking flowers!”

“How about them?” She points a hoof at the pumpkins.

“Or the walking pumpkins!”

“Since they don’t walk, that means Icaneat them.”

“Okay, we don’t eat therollingpumpkins.” I roll my eyes. “Sheesh, who made you the word police?”

The werepuppies come racing over, yipping and straining at the ends of the leashes Riselda holds. “What are these?” Astrid asks. “Are they fae?”

“They don’t smell like fae,” Agnar says, taking a big sniff.

“Guys, we’ve talked about this.” I throw up my hands. “You’re not supposed to talk in front of strangers.”

Their little ears and tails droop.

“But it’s okay to talk in front of these three women because they’re witches.” I turn to my friends. “This is Rune’s sister, niece, and nephew.”

Everyone says hi.

The puppies sniff at the flowers again. “But what are they?”

“They were created with human magic, witch magic,” I say. “Or at least we think so.”

“Can they play?” Astrid asks.