Chapter 9 #2
When breakfast was over, she and Malcolm drove into town, stopping in front of the town hall.
On the street, dozens of shops were setting out festival decorations.
Pumpkins, hay bales, skeletons, flying bats and other decorations added to the holiday flare of Main Street.
The trees that were planted in the beds running next to the sidewalk were all brilliant shades of gold, red and yellow.
The leaves never fell until mid-November. It was everything Calli loved.
For Calli, Halloween wasn’t about magic or dressing up for the night.
It was about being close to those she loved, close to the souls that had passed through the veil of the living and the dead.
The nights grew longer, and the darkness held more domain over the day.
It was like heading into the woods at twilight on a moonless night, and the spirits of the ones she’d lost shone bright enough to show her the way home.
At the height of summer, she could not see or feel the pearlescent glimmer of those spirits.
It was only in the darkest nights of the autumn and winter.
It was a melancholy feeling, but she wouldn’t have given it up for anything.
Halloween also reminded her of how her grandmother always built a bonfire at the edge of the woods behind the house, one that many years ago would have used old bones to burn dark spirits away.
Malcolm stepped close to her, watching her gaze at the town.
“You really love this time of year, don’t you?”
She nodded and smiled, but her expression was tinged with sorrow.
“When you’ve lost as much as I have, you don’t feel that loss as sharply this time of year, because the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest. I feel closer to my family because of that.
I can’t see or talk to them, but it’s just a feeling that they’re somehow here… I can feel them.”
“I’ve never thought about it like that. I stopped celebrating Halloween when my magic abandoned me. But now…? I feel like I need to reconnect with that part of myself again.”
Hope blossomed in her chest at the thought that Malcolm could find his way back to his magic by spending time in Moonstone with her.
He turned his gaze to the town hall and was quiet for a long moment before he spoke. “So our answers are in there?”
“They should be. Even though my grandmother didn’t like prophecies she would have reported a prophecy if she’d seen it.”
Malcolm had Hades wait for them over at Mystic Mornings café. The giant schnauzer had gently scooped up Persephone by her scruff and carried her away to the coffee shop.
Calli led him to the old Tudor-style structure that was their town hall. It looked more like a home one might find in England than on the East Coast of America.
Inside, there was an information desk for tourists to retrieve pamphlets on the town’s various festivals since they celebrated more than just Halloween. The information rack had been bewitched to hide the pamphlets designed for supernatural creatures that visited.
Calli watched Malcolm pick up one information booklet and open it.
“Swamp Monster Manual: A Guide to Moonstone for those Yearning to Reconnect with their Boggish Origins. You have swamp monsters here?”
“A few. They live on the other side of the woods down by the lagoon. Grandma forbid me from swimming there after I turned eighteen because they tend to get a bit too excited when they see girls in bikinis.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope,” Calli chuckled. “They really are nice, though. It’s like how female werewolves go into heat, male swamp monsters tend to do something similar.”
Just then, an elderly man appeared at the top of the stairs behind the information desk. “Calli Wynter! To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Calli grinned. “Mayor Thornfield.” He must have come from his office upstairs.
He was a non-magical human, but like all the non-magics who lived in Moonstone Falls, he loved and accepted his magical residents and fought to protect all of its inhabitants.
He, like the other non-magics that lived here, fell exempt under the protective wards and could come and go from the town as they pleased and never forgot that it existed.
The mayor hugged Calli before turning curious eyes on Malcolm.
“You must be Malcolm Wellesley. I’m Richard Thornfield.” He held out a hand. “I heard you saved Jack Hollow’s son.”
“It’s nice to meet you, sir.” Malcolm took the mayor’s hand and shook it.
Richard chuckled. “News travels fast, or rather, Ms. Sinclair’s owl does. Most of the town has heard of you thanks to her familiar. A handsome warlock visiting our little town definitely stirs up some gossip especially when he saves a child’s life.”
“I’m just a half-warlock,” Malcolm said, his face a little red.
“Does that matter?” the mayor asked Calli with genuine curiosity.
“It doesn’t,” Calli said with an encouraging smile at Malcolm. “Magic is magic.” While some in the magical community did think that marrying humans weakened the bloodlines, she didn’t believe it, and she didn’t want Malcolm or anyone else believing it, either.
“So what brings you to our hallowed gem of a town?” the mayor asked.
“It wasn’t exactly planned,” Malcolm said, “but I’m taking the opportunity to have a vacation.”
“Well good! Now, what can I help you two with? Is this about the festival? I heard something happened to your pumpkins.”
“There was a… slight problem,” said Calli, “But I’m hoping to have things worked out in time. Might even have a surprise for everyone this year!”
“Wonderful!”
“But right now, we need access to the prophecy room.” The request to view the prophecies would be better coming from her than a stranger.
It wasn’t like they were guarding vast secrets, but too many people viewing prophecies could result in dangerous situations.
Some people could misinterpret them, or people could use them to con or hurt someone else.
Normally only someone who was involved in a prophecy had the right to see it.
“Really? You want to access the prophecy room?” The mayor’s eyes widened. “I haven’t had any requests in a while. May I ask what it’s for?”
“Well, my grandmother’s portrait mentioned one last night involving me, and I need to see exactly how it was written.”
The mayor’s face turned serious. “Very well. Tell Finnigan you have my permission.”
“Thank you.” Calli tugged Malcolm toward a blank wall at the back of the lobby entry. When they were a foot away, the wall suddenly materialized into a heavy oak door with a brass handle.
“Who’s Finnigan?”
“He’s partially a who and partially a what,” Calli replied as she turned the brass handle and the heavy old door creaked open revealing a dark cavern just beyond.
“A what?” Malcolm replied, his brow furrowed.
“Finnigan is a yeti.”
* * *
“A yeti?” Malcolm choked on the word as he followed Calli into a cave-like passageway. “You mean like an abominable snowman?”
“Please never call a yeti that. It’s very rude.”
“Oh… sorry.” She wanted to laugh at how worried he looked right now.
“You’ve never met a yeti before?”
“No. When I was younger, my father used to meet with the London Blood Society, who usually sends vampire delegates to visit Boston. The Salem Witches’ Council would host a party for the English vampires to meet the American Blood Syndicate.
And I met werewolves a few times during college, they sometimes snuck into frat parties.
I dated a siren when I was a teen. We went to Maine for a summer.
” His gaze turned dreamy. “She could kiss… almost as good as you do.” He winked at her.
“But other creatures? Not so much. After I lost my connection to my magic, I just stopped seeing that part of the world as much.”
Calli was tempted to ask more about the siren he had kissed, but decided that little interrogation could come later.
“Yetis are very sweet, but incredibly shy. They can turn into a fully human form when they want to, but prefer to be in their natural form most of the time. Finnigan guards our collection of prophecies. The room has many wards protecting it, but it still requires a guard.”
Malcolm shivered and noticed the walls around there were covered in frost. “Man, it’s cold in here.”
“We trap the prophecy memories in ice.”
“Okay… I think I’m starting to see where the yeti fits in.”
Calli nodded. “He’s in the best position to guard the prophecies in person because he’s more comfortable in a cold environment.”
“In Salem we trap them in crystal balls,” he added. “Why don’t you use those?”
“Our seer Zelda Murphy says ice is the purest form of containment for prophecies.”
“Ice? Interesting.” Malcolm studied the cave and shivered as the walls around them generated with a new layer of frost. Light glimmered ahead, indicating they were getting close to the prophecies.
They rounded a bend, and the cave opened up before them. Massive crystals jutted up from the ground and hung from the ceiling. The light seemed to come from these crystals, as if they harnessed the moonlight and stored it here.
A glass chandelier hovered above them in the center of the cavern ceiling.
Bookshelves had been carved into the ice that made up the cavern walls.
The shelves held dozens and dozens of large heavy tomes making it look like a library built into the ice.
An ornate birch wood desk sat against one wall and a yeti—an honest to God yeti—sat behind it, reading a book as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
The creature was heavily built with muscle and covered with silvery soft fur that shimmered in the crystal light.
Two short, white, curved horns jutted out just above his forehead.
But his face was clear of fur and a light shade, with a face that looked like a cross between human and simian.
His ears were slightly pointed, and two fangs jutted out from his lower jaw.