I was a witch, and I would shamelessly admit that I used a little magick when baking. As a hearth witch, my magick worked strongest when dealing with hearth and home, and cooking was certainly part of that.
Lost in the motions, I forgot all about the time until I heard a meow and looked down to spot Lapis staring at me mournfully with her big, beautiful blue eyes.
“Oh, the food. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Dusting off my hands, I walked over to the pantry and grabbed two jars of fermented shrimp that Meri—my good friend and an undine—had helped harvest only just last week.
“Here you go, my babies,” I crooned as I spooned the contents of the jars into their respective bowls. Malachite said nothing, not that I’d expected his thanks. But Lapis purred her gratitude before delicately eating from her bowl.
I walked over to the sink and grimaced at the twinge that ran like hot lava up the back of my thigh. I wasn’t sure when I’d hurt myself, but I’d done something to my backside. It felt very sore. I wiggled my bum to work out the kinks before finally washing my hands.
I couldn’t help but wonder how the call had gone this time and who’d been chosen. Surely, the magick had chosen by now. I’d seen my aunties cast their spell earlier. The golden light still pierced the sky like a lighthouse’s glow. Soon our town would be overrun by tourists oohing and aahing over the eccentric little place full of ghouls and things that went bump in the night, believing it all to just be a bit of fun to tell their friends about in their twilight years.
Walking toward the frosted windows, I stared up at the enormous, rare blue moon that’d parted the veil between our world and the human’s, and pursed my lips. For me, I didn’t care, but I really hoped Eerie would finally get her wish.
Eerie Thistlebottom was my closest friend in Blue Moon, once a human, now... very much not. I’d grown fond of my young friend, who’d stumbled into town the last time the veil had parted. She’d been a ragamuffin thing with barely a woman’s curves, all spindly arms and legs. With dirt caked beneath her nails and staining her cheeks, I’d taken pity on the youth. Once I’d learned she had no parents or kin to call her own, I’d made her an offer. Eerie had chosen to stay with me in Blue Moon, and through the years, I’d begun to view her not just as a friend, but more like a sister. She’d helped tremendously with the diner and kept me company on the long winter nights.
I’d nearly forgotten Eerie was human at all, until one day, her terrible fragileness caught up to us. She grew terribly, terribly sick with the scarlet fever. I tried all I could to fix her, but the human sickness finally claimed her late one blustery winter’s night. Staring down at the blond-haired beauty, I felt a yawning emptiness inside of me, a terrible pain I knew would haunt me all the days of my life.
Eerie knew all about our little town and the monsters that lived and worked in it. That was part of its charm for her. But she never wanted to become like us. She’d asked me to let her go when the time came, and I’d promised her that I would. But she was supposed to live longer than the twenty-three years she’d been given.
That night, a terrible madness was born in my blood, and I forgot my promise to her. My aunts begged me to respect Eerie’s wishes, but I could not stand idly by and let my sister be dead, not when I could do something about it. So I tethered her soul to my own—so long as I lived, so would she. I wish I could say I only created a spectral like our resident ghost, Annabelle Lee.
But I hadn’t. I’d gone one step further. I’d created a zombie.
No, she was not a mindless corpse, dripping blood and groaning for brains day and night. My spell had been very specific. She was an independent, thinking woman and, in fact, rather pretty, if I must say so myself.
I’d placed a charm on her that helped keep her body mostly intact. She was meticulous about cleanliness and usually smelled of the rose garden she’d planted in her backyard. She had a green thumb and would have made a fine witch indeed had fate dealt her a different hand.
She was lovely and convivial and still my truest friend. But I’d broken her trust, and for a while there, Eerie had hated me quite forcefully for it. Time was a great healer, and though our relationship would never again be what it was, at least we talked. Eerie no longer worked as my waitress at the diner. Instead, she opted to work as a carney on the pier. A fine gig for her, truly. But some days, I missed her desperately.
I sighed and clenched my fist. Using that kind of magick hadn’t come cheaply. There was always a cost when pulling from the darkness. Bringing back the dead was dark magick, even if the intent had been pure. Turning my hand over, I stared at the mark that’d appeared on the inside of my wrist after waking her—a broken infinity symbol. I hadn’t walked away from that night unscathed, either. I now bore my own curse, one that none but Eerie knew about. There was nothing that could be done about it, though. I’d tried every way I could think of to break the curse.
If I were braver, I would ask my aunts for help, but they’d never understood why I’d done such a thing to Eerie, and it was a bone of contention between us. My aunts knew I bore a curse because of it. They simply didn’t know what the curse did. Likely, the three of them could have worked out a cure for my condition, but I would never allow Eerie to be undone. And that was exactly what would happen if I was cured.
No. The best way to deal with my breach of magick was just to pretend it’d never happened at all. It was better to take my lumps, and move on.
A twinkling miasma of reds and pinks furled through the dark sky, pulling me from my contemplations. Cocking my head, I squinted at the lights, wondering what in blue blazes it could possibly be. My eyes widened the second it dawned on me what the lights meant. Heart racing and mouth going dry, I shuffled backward, causing the pain in my bum to flare to life.
I grimaced and clutched my stiffening backside, muscles locking from my initial jerk of surprise. I trembled as I tried in vain to get my legs to move faster than the granny shuffle I was currently managing.
“No.” I shook my head, watching as that glowing curl of fog gathered speed, whistling through the air like a thrown spear as it headed unswervingly in my direction. “No. No. No. No!” I cried.
Twisting on my heel, I gritted my teeth as the fire of the injury ripped through me again, causing me to stumble. But at least I was able to turn and move at a trot. I tried to get away. I really did try to evade what came at me with great velocity. I should never have left the safety of the kitchen.
What had I been thinking?
Just as I was about to reach for the door that would keep all unwanted spells away from me, I felt a great and mighty shove at my back. That glowing thread of red speared right through my middle and violently tossed me to a sprawl on the ground.
My head cracked against the checkered linoleum. Like I’d drank one too many forget-me elixirs, my head was foggy, and there was a loud, obnoxious ringing in my ears. World whirling around me as I groggily worked up to my knees and then to my feet, I cried out and clutched tightly onto the first thing that could help me keep my balance. Thankfully, it was the countertop. Dropping unceremoniously onto an upholstered red stool, I closed my eyes and grimaced.
Uncertain and worried meows called back at me. I thought I even heard Malachite’s taciturn chirp, but I couldn’t be certain.
I huffed, relaxing as the intense dizziness of just moments ago began to slide away. “I’m fine. Just fine.”
I could taste Aunty Prim’s particular brand of magick on the back of my tongue. They’d been telling me for years they wanted a house overflowing with bairns. I’d laughed off their words because they knew how I felt.
I did not want or need a man. Not right now. I had my work, and I was content. There were others in this town far more desperate than I was. In fact, I wasn’t sure I ever wanted a man. Not with my condition. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone else.
Huffing a loose curl out of my eye, I grumped softly to myself. Just because they’d cast the spell for me in particular did not mean
I would wind up with a mate. At the end of the day, we all had free will.
“Aunty Prim,” I groused. When the sparkling tinkle of her laughter fluttered around my head like a hundred tiny butterfly wings, I knew the old bat had heard me over the many miles separating us. The spell she’d placed on me had packed a wallop, and I moaned. I was likely to feel this one for days.
Not even a second later, the bell above the diner door rang. I glanced over my shoulder to see that it was Eerie and not my aunt as I thought it might be.
Dressed in her carney attire of a puffy, silky black-and-red skirt, button-up white vest, glossy bow tie, black suspenders, fishnet stockings held up with garters—which served a dual purpose as it also helped hold her legs together—black pumps, and hair pulled back into pigtails, she was beaming, her smile so large it stretched from ear to ear.
I knew immediately, without even needing to ask, what’d happened to her—the same thing that’d just happened to me.
I pursed my lips.
“It happened!” she cried, clapping her hands and bouncing up and down. “It’s finally happened.”
Eerie was wearing stage makeup. Her almost clear blue eyes were hypnotic thanks to the massive quantities of smoky-black eye shadow and fake lashes. Her glittering ruby-red lips twinkled as she spoke.
“You said it would, and it did,” she said, voice growing higher and higher in pitch with each word spoken.
I grimaced, feeling as though I had needles stabbing through my brain. I’d maybe lit a couple of candles for Eerie, said a spell or two. But magick wasn’t always foolproof, and there’d been no guarantee it would work.
She stopped smiling, eyeing me hard, and for a second, I worried that she’d mistaken my grimace for unhappiness. But then she gasped and pointed, no doubt spotting the hue of glowing red hovering around my head like a shimmering halo of doom.
“Oh, Zinnia. You too. We’re in this together!”
Blowing out a raspberry, I wrinkled my nose. “I wish I could feel a tenth of the excitement you do.”
Leaning against the wall, she crossed her arms, no longer quite as animated. “You’re going to be happy, you know. I promise you. Whoever your mate ends up being, he won’t care about—”
“Eerie.” I wrinkled my brow and held up a hand, stalling her. “Let’s not, okay? I’m not looking for love. I don’t want love. I don’t need it. And as far as that goes, it’s hardly even a—”
“It matters. We both know how much it matters to you, okay? So just stop. I know you, Zinnia Rose Thorne. While you might never own it, I think we both know why you’re nervous. But you shouldn’t be. You really, really shouldn’t be.”
Swallowing hard, I told myself it didn’t matter. That it’d stopped mattering years ago. That I didn’t want a man in my life because I simply didn’t want one. Not because of this secret that felt like a millstone tied to my neck, a burden I could never unwish no matter how much I might want to.
My heart thundered.
Was Eerie right? Was my hesitance for a love match and my refusal to take part in these silly festivities really about my curse? I bit my lip in thought as my sister walked up to me, laid a gentle hand on my shoulder, and squeezed.
“And if it does matter to him, then he isn’t really your soul mate at all.”
“Soul mates aren’t real, Eerie. You know that.”
She wrinkled her button nose. “Agree to disagree. All I have is the hope that there is a man somewhere in this world who can love me for the monster I am.”
Her words were said softly and without reproach, but they burned through me all the same.
“I’m so sorry, Eers.”
She shrugged. “I’m over it. Long over it. But I’ll fight you to the bitter end about this one. Soul mates do exist, and ours are coming soon. I also heard”—she leaned in and stage-whispered—“that our resident ghost was struck by Cupid’s arrow.”
“No.” My eyes widened, and then I chuckled, low at first, but soon Eerie joined in, and our laughter grew louder and louder, causing Gwendolyn to honk huffily at us.
“A zombie, a witch, and a ghost... I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere. Your aunts have their work cut out for them this time,” she said.
I snickered. “Indeed they do. But I’ve still got work to do. The diner opens in an hour.”
She bit her bottom lip with a starry-eyed grin. “Mmhhm. Humans in our town again. I can’t wait!”
Giving me a tight squeeze and a single wave, she turned and fled. The ringing of the bell echoed through the vast quiet of the space, and I broke out in a cold sweat.
What if he did care?
Turning my hand over, I stared at the mark on my wrist, the thing that made me different, even in a town full of monsters.
“Work, Zinnia. That’s what you need to focus on. Not this. Definitely not this.”
Chapter 2
Zane Huntington III
THE PHONE I WAS USING to navigate our drive from Tennessee to our seaside rental in Oregon was acting crazy again.
Now, I knew electronics weren’t actually sentient, but I was beginning to wonder if this phone had it out for me. From the moment we’d crossed the border of Nevada into California late last evening, the screen had started winking in and out, forcing Edward and me to find a hotel room for the night.
What we’d found had been a cheap little roadside shack called The Palm Springs, with an outdoor pool emptied of water save for a thin layer of really gnarly brown stuff, and a questionable sort of people moving in and out of rooms every hour on the hour. The best part was that our room came with roaches as big as my palm, marching up and down the walls like chitinous little soldiers all night long.
Five-year-old boys being what they were, Edward thought the whole thing exciting and hilarious, while I, on the other hand, maybe managed thirty minutes of shut-eye. I’d been out like a light and might have actually slept through the night if there hadn’t been a heart-stopping boom from a car backfiring in the parking lot—or at least, I hoped that was what it had been.
All hope of sleeping peacefully after that had been quashed. I’d lain in bed another hour, tossing and turning, thinking it had been a very, very bad idea to stay. After another ten minutes of self-flagellation, I realized I was simply putting off the inevitable. Call it the stubborn Huntington pride.
Waving the proverbial white flag of defeat, I grumped and muttered under my breath about ungodly noises and devil bugs before getting up and waking a very grouchy Edward. I promised he’d be able to sleep in the car without disturbance if we left immediately.
He agreed on the grounds that I bribed him with a Hostess cake first. I had no problem shaking on that deal. Going to the snack food machine just outside our door, I bought him two packs of Ho Hos. I had already packed the trunk, so I buckled him in and tore out of the gravel lot like a professional NASCAR racer.
Adrenaline kept me wired for hours, and Edward hugged his Ho Hos to his chest with a death grip even in his sleep.
My phone, which had been acting stupid the day before, had suddenly decided to play nice again, and all had been going well for the past six hours.
But the lack of sleep, coupled with a phone on the fritz again, was starting to slow us up. It was booting on and off at random. In the past half hour, I’d been forced to pull over not once but twice at road stops just to power up the darn thing. I could kick myself for deciding to leave the map at home, but who in the twenty-first century traveled with a hard copy map anymore? I mean, c’mon. Not my fault I expected technology to actually do what it was designed to do. On top of that, I’d just bought the silly thing last week. I hadn’t anticipated there being any problems with it already.
Elle must have been laughing at me for the spectacular bungle I’d gotten us in. She’d always called me adorably clueless. I sighed, gripping the wheel tighter as I thought about my wife.
Alive. Carefree. Vivacious. And so much damn fun. My heart squeezed thinking about my Ell
e. We’d met in college. It’d been fireworks and passion almost instantly.
At least for me.
I had been born a Huntington, with all the class, refinement, and snobbery that name entailed. My family tree could trace its roots all the way back to the Mayflower. I had been a silver-spoon-fed, trust-fund baby, and I’d known it too.
With looks like a Hollywood star, the brains of a scientist, and the deep pockets of old money, I’d learned early on in life that nothing was beyond my reach. Nothing.
Until Ellen Croft had sauntered into my Econ class wearing Daisy Dukes, pigtails, and a fire-engine red smile. Cupid’s arrow had struck me true that day, and I’d chased her with the single-minded determination of a drowning man. No one had ever told me no before. Until her. Elle had made me work for everything. In a lot of ways, she’d been the reason I grew up.
The day she finally relented and let me take her out on a date was also the day I knew that woman was gonna be mine forever, come hell or high water. And it had come, like we’d both known it would.
But I couldn’t hope for even one second to marry “trailer trash”—as Daddy had been fond of calling her—and gain my family’s blessing. Hailing from the south as we both did, getting Daddy’s blessing was just about sacrosanct. There wasn’t much in this life that mattered more to a good ol’ country boy like me.
I sighed, tired, melancholy, and weary of the thoughts that had refused to quiet down since the moment Edward and I had sold the last of our belongings and fully committed to our new life together.
A hunter-green roadside sign with the words Blue Moon Gas ’n Dash caught my eye. That would be as good a place as any to take a short stop, stretch our legs, and ask directions.
I glanced down at Edward’s curls, so much like his mama’s, and grimaced. He was looking out at the scenery whizzing by with a morose, tight little frown on his face. I really, really hoped this was the start of better things for Edward and me. I needed it to be. I was at my wits end and beginning to feel like it might never get better again.