Crystal Web

As she headed for the front door, Killian picked up the platter of meat. The rest of us gathered up the rest of the food and party supplies and followed him onto my back porch. It was big enough to hold everybody from the Crystal Cauldron coven along with a number of our other friends. Two grills were set up on the lawn, one of them already covered with ribs. Killian carried the platter of meat down to the table beside the grills. Andrew, my aunt Teran’s beau, took over cooking the hamburgers and hot dogs while Killian went back to minding the ribs.

The rest of us arranged the food and supplies on the folding tables that we had set up on the enclosed porch. My aunt took the package of cookies from me and then shooed me away.

“Go rest, January. You’ve already done enough. Let us take care of this.” She leaned in to kiss my forehead.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes, I’m sure. Go stroll around the yard or talk to Ari. You both complain about never getting enough time to hang out anymore.” Teran turned back to the table and motioned for Ari to join me.

As Ari and I descended the steps to the backyard, I inhaled a deep breath of warm air. We were having our annual May heat wave that usually lasted about a week. Then it was back to rain and cool weather until summer truly hit. The real heat came in late July and August. Western Washington had its own brand of weather, and for the most part, we were a lovely, temperate spot among the encroaching climate change that was working its way through the world. Oh, we were being hit too, but not nearly as bad as some areas.

“I’m glad to see the sun for a change,” Ari said. She’d been my best friend since childhood. We grew up together. Then, when I got married, we almost lost touch thanks to my asshole ex, but now I was divorced, back in Moonshadow Bay, and we were best buds again. “It feels like it’s been a long, harsh winter.”

“That’s because it has,” I said. “I’m so tired of dealing with ghosts. At least I have Bigfoot to look forward to.”

Tad Gelphart, the twenty-something owner of Conjure Ink, the paranormal investigations organization and website that I worked for, had approved our plans to go camping on the slopes of Mount Baker in July. We were on a mission to find Bigfoot. I was looking forward to it, in a perverse sort of way. Even sasquatch would be a welcome relief from the hauntings that I had dealt with over the past few months. Angry ghosts could be such a bitch.

Ari and I wandered over to the edge of the Mystic Wood. A magical forest that surrounded most of Moonshadow Bay, which was ten miles south of Bellingham, WA, the woodland was filled with various denizens who were far from human. The forest was a glittering and deadly copse, and few people entered it willingly. But Ari and I had played in it since childhood, and the Mystic Wood was rooted as deep in my heart as much as every other part of Moonshadow Bay. This town was part of my blood. Literally, since my great-grandmother and great-grandfather had founded it in 1905.

We sat on the bench I’d placed at the border of the forest. From here, we could see the activity on the porch, but we were far enough away to speak privately.

I closed my eyes, feeling the sun beat down on me. After a moment, I shook my head and looked up into the sky, shading my eyes with my hand. “I think the ritual went well.”

The Crystal Cauldron coven, run by my grandmother—Rowan Firesong—had celebrated Beltane a day late. Yesterday, the first of May, rain had pelted the ground so hard that it stung when it hit flesh. Nobody wanted to hold a ritual in the mud. Instead, we’d decided to gather today. The coven held its private celebration and ritual, then we invited our loved ones and friends to the cookout.

“How does Meagan like her new job?” I asked.

Ari’s wife had taken a new job as the dean of women’s sports at Bellingham Technical Community College. She had grown tired of dealing with high school students, so now she was in a whole new level of hell as far as I was concerned.

“She likes it,” Ari said, hesitating.

“Except…?” I knew that pause—something was going on.

Ari sighed. “The job’s fine, actually. We’ve just…been bickering lately. We’re trying to make a decision and we haven’t managed to come to a mutual conclusion.”

I knew how much the two loved each other, but they were definitely cut from two different molds. Ari was impetuous and wanted to dive into things. Meagan was more cautious, and she thought things out—sometimes overly much.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

Ari let out a sigh. “Meagan wants to have a baby. As in…soon. I’m not ready.”

I blinked. I would have thought the situation would have been the other way around, but apparently not. “Have you discussed who would carry the baby? Who’s going to be the sperm donor? Can you even afford to have one now?”

“All good questions and no clear answer. Meagan’s biological clock is running wild. We both have time, given I’m Witchblood and she’s a shifter, but I guess turning forty-three freaked her out.”

Meagan had been in our class at school, though she’d been a year older than most of us. She’d also been one of the mean girls—the stereotypical cheerleader, in love with Jim Franks, the football captain. They married, but it didn’t work out. A few years ago, Meagan announced she was gay, ended the marriage, and had been unceremoniously ousted from her pack.

Bear shifters tended to be on the conservative side of things, and her mother couldn’t accept that she’d left a wealthy husband for a not-so-wealthy woman. I had my suspicions it was the social decline that bothered Mrs. Lopez more than the gay aspect. Either way, Meagan’s mother had tried to ruin Ari’s business, but hadn’t succeeded.

“Why? I mean, shifters are fertile well into their early hundreds. Witchblood are also fertile for a long time. Look at how old Rowan was when she had my father. She was seventy-one! You two have plenty of time.” I didn’t understand the desire to have children, but I encouraged it when my friends went baby-crazy, because supporting friends was what you did.

“I know,” Ari said. “Usually, I’m the one who leaps before I look, but this time it’s Meagan. She keeps insisting that we’re capable of taking on a baby now, with everything else. But we just got married. My business is booming. I don’t have time to watch a child. And she just started the new job. Good gods, January, there’s no way we could handle a kid.”

“Well, at least you won’t get pregnant accidentally, given…” I stopped, wondering if I had taken the conversation a step too far, but Ari snorted.

“Thank heavens for small favors.” She let out a long sigh. “I have to shake her out of this baby-mania phase. I do want children, but not right now, and not while we’re in the middle of so many changes.” She glanced back at Killian and Andrew. “They seem to be having fun. Your aunt’s kept this one around for a while.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding.

Aunt Teran was a serial dater. She never let relationships get too settled. She dated widely—men of any age over forty was fair game if he met her standards. She was sixty-eight. Teran never allowed herself to grow too fond of any guy in particular. But Andrew had been around longer than usual and I wondered if there was something about the geeky professor that had allowed himself to worm his way into her heart. But before I could say anything, the men yelled for us to come eat, so we gathered up our things and headed for the porch.

I paused, sensing someone watching me. Turning, I caught sight of Rebecca, the imp who lived in the Mystic Wood behind my house. Imps were minor demons, and when I was a child, Rebecca had almost killed me. Now, she couldn’t do much to me and we had become unintended allies. She had the appearance of a golden-haired five-year-old girl, but there was a lot of power lurking behind those twinkling eyes.

I walked over toward her. She had come out close to the lawn, and she looked like she was waiting for me. “Hey Rebecca, what’s up? I gather you smelled the ribs? I think we have extra if you want some.”

Rebecca loved Killian’s barbecued ribs, and I kept thinking if we fed her now and then, it would keep her from looking for other victims.

“I like ribs,” she said, which was her way of asking for some. She glanced over at the party and for a moment, I thought I detected a wistful look in her eyes, but that passed as she turned back to me. “Be careful, January. Something’s in town and it’s dangerous.”

“Like the archer we had to deal with?” I asked. My grandmother Rowan had taken care of the last nasty visitor we’d had.

“Worse. Much worse,” Rebecca said, shaking her curls. “Nobody knows what it is—though some of the Woodlings whisper that they’ve seen it before in years gone by. I feel it in my bones—this is an ancient and deadly entity, and it brings with it ill tidings.”

Her words shot a chill through my bones. Rebecca wasn’t given to hyperbole, and she wouldn’t be out to frighten me for no reason.

“I don’t suppose the Woodlings would talk to me about it?”

I had met them before, but they were a capricious group. Woodland spirits, their bodies were shaped like trees. They lived both in the Mystic Wood, yet also in another dimension. There were portals they had erected through the forest, but they were ever changing and difficult to find.

“I can ask, but I don’t know that I’ll get an answer.” Rebecca paused, then said, “The Mystic Wood doesn’t want this creature here. I can feel the resistance. Whatever it is, it doesn’t belong here, like you and I belong to the forest.”

That was the first time Rebecca had included me in belonging to the Mystic Wood. I felt oddly honored, as though she had finally accepted my presence.

I gave her a soft nod. “I’ll keep my eyes open and tell my team about it. We’ll be on the lookout.” Pausing, I waited a beat and then asked, “Is it dangerous?”

“It’s more deadly than most of the ghosties that you hunt,” Rebecca said. She leaned forward. “Don’t go out alone in the dark, January. It feeds in the dark, and it mesmerizes. I can feel the pull from miles away. It ripples through the wind.”

I had to force myself to breathe. The air around me suddenly felt claustrophobic and I shuddered, biting my lip as I tried to return my focus to the present. A moment later and the wave had passed by, but somehow, I felt seen—exposed.

“I’ll bring you some ribs,” I said. It was my way of thanking her.

“A dogger too?” Rebecca never said “hotdogs” or “wieners.” Instead, she called them “doggers.”

“Several, if you like.”

“And a piece of your soft bread?”

“Several pieces.” I turned back toward my house.

The bright sun of the day seemed incongruent with my mood and I couldn’t help but think about what she had told me. Something was out there waiting, but I could feel it now, hiding and lurking until it was ready to…to…

Losing my train of thought, I returned to the grill to fix her a plate. As I carried it back to the edge of the forest, I could feel the storm riding in from a hundred miles away. And whatever was leading it into Moonshadow Bay was armed and ready for battle.