Chapter 15 Werewolves and Grannies and Gnomes! Oh, My.
SO YOU THINK YOUR GRANDMOTHER is haunting you,” Hanry surmises. “Wow.”
He’s come to visit me at the shop on Monday, and he’s brought work with him in the form of a half-carved wooden pumpkin. It’s a cute thing to do. Adorable. As was the way he draped his shacket on my shoulders when I shivered in the cool draft from the front door.
“Not anymore. I did wonder briefly if it might be Grandma,” I say to Hanry, my lone supporter in this world. “But I was sleep-deprived and running on fumes at the time.”
“And now what do you think?”
“I’m still convinced she’s laughing at me.
But maybe not haunting me directly. She’s more subtle than that.
And while she may have had questionable food hygiene, she would never, ever, mess with someone else’s food.
Food was sacred to her. It’s why she refused to wash anything before cooking.
She wanted it pure, with all bacteria intact. ”
Hanry nods as he shaves a slender piece off his pumpkin. “From what you’ve said, your grandma doesn’t seem like the subtle type.”
“Nope. If anything, she was lazy. Grandma never liked doing things herself. I mean, without my assistance, she can’t even—you know what? Never mind.”
“Sabby,” says Hanry.
It’s so kind, it takes almost everything I have not to bury my face in my hands. Hanry squeezes my hand with his warm, strong, and distracting fingers.
“Whatever or whoever’s causing all these problems, Sabby, I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“It sounds rough. Though I have to admit, my parents would’ve probably found it funny.”
Ugh, men. Always turning it back to themselves.
“But what do you think?” I ask. “Do you think I can rule out Grandma Rose’s ghost?”
Hanry releases my hand—just as I’m starting to really enjoy the touch—and picks up his steaming mug of nettle tea. After a sip, he says, “Yeah. For one, ghost hauntings are uncommon. Ghosts are self-absorbed. Focused on their own unfinished business.”
“I told you!” crows Bulan from across the room.
“Go back to your Regency trash,” I instruct him, which he does.
“You get poltergeists more often than ghosts,” says Hanry.
From his offhanded tone, he doesn’t seem to realize he’s pointing me to a paranormal danger I hadn’t realized existed.
“I doubt your grandma became one of those. Poltergeists have a hollowed-out sense of self, and they’d be happy to burn the world down if they could.
Your grandmother doesn’t seem like she had enough resentment for that. I’m assuming she put those up?”
His gaze indicates the spider stuffies dangling over the front door.
“What, you don’t think I did that? Do I not seem like the plush, cuddly type?”
Hanry laughs. I mean, he’s right, but still. I could have a whole ten-by-ten storage container filled with Beanie Babies and Labubus that I like to jump into and swim around in. How would he know?
“Remind me how you know all this ghoulish stuff,” I feel led to say. “You do swear you’re human, don’t you?”
Grinning behind his mug, Hanry says, “Swear it.”
I unsubtly check in with Bulan. Unfortunately, he’s slurping Cheerios from his plastic tray, reverted to Roomba mode again.
All right, I get the message. It’s time to set this aside and return to wedding work.
It’s the only thing I can do to earn money right now, and for some reason that doesn’t make me feel sad or remind me of all the dreams I’m missing out on.
When I pull out my laptop, Hanry begins to stack his sandpaper sheets and return his tiny chiseling knives into his leather-bound carrying case.
“No, don’t leave. You won’t distract me. I’m not studying.” At his curious expression, I explain, “I’m about to send a survey to my clients about their close relationships.”
“You have more weddings lined up?”
“In two weeks’ time,” I reply. Hanry seems pleased. He smiles into his light beard in that shy, secretive way I’m starting to like too much. “I haven’t heard anything from work, but as long as I’m here, I might as well make cash. It’s the financially responsible thing to do.”
“And what are the surveys for?”
“To help me be as prepared as possible. I don’t want to be caught wrong-footed by family drama again. Or surprise Momzillas.”
Or saboteurs—though I’m less certain about how to plan for those.
“I would happily wear a mech suit to fight Momzillas,” Bulan calls out. His voice and beard are equally thick with Cheerios.
I cast him a grin. “I’ll see what I can arrange.”
I don’t really mean that, same as I don’t really mean to be a wedding planner, wedding florist, or wedding anything. But as I expand my in-process spreadsheet, I can’t help feeling like I’m faking it too well.
Over the course of the week, I continue to be foiled at the train platform by Grandma’s nefarious will, and communication from New York remains eerily silent.
This might be the first time in my life that not being sought out has stressed me out.
Silence is supposed to be a sign that everything’s okay, that the world is calm and good.
But I’m unconvinced a metaphorical piano isn’t about to fall on top of me somehow.
That this is the downbeat before a laugh track sets off.
I’ve been in Salem almost a month, and I can’t help getting concerned about my team’s progress on the MicroOrange account, how hard it’ll be to catch up.
It’s been ages since I’ve talked, much less texted with Jane, and my CPA exam is looming and dooming on me from a mere two months away.
I should be forcing much, much more of my attention toward all of that.
Instead of on Hanry. Or my sham business.
But work beckons. I bang out two new wedding concept boards and email them to more potential clients who might give me deposits before the end of the month.
I set Mandy on a search for a pigeon to communicate with a pair of elves who don’t use email and possibly live in a tree.
For the hell of it, I schedule an appointment to meet with the baker who made Fi’s cake, in case they’d be willing to work with me in the future.
I leave texts and voicemails for catering and décor specialists so I can source more than just linens, chairs, and tables for the discerning paranormal bride.
Courtesy of Joe the scuba instructor, I schedule a meeting with two Finnish mermaids preparing for an American-themed elopement.
I’m thinking they’ll need tiki torches, tipis, a bushel of pampas grass, and at least three inflatable flotillas.
The biggest thing is my newest clients, Sidney and Brett.
Sidney Barroway is only a few years older than me.
She’s the great-granddaughter of an industrialist, possibly a Boston Brahmin, all up in her yacht club, yadda yadda.
At least she was, until her interest in BDSM led to her getting bit by the wrong hairy person.
Why she felt I needed this information is as mysterious as her reasoning, mid-consultation, for pulling her feet from her Jimmy Choo mules and filing down her toenails with a sheet of sandpaper.
When Sidney was turned into a lycanthrope, I think she changed in more ways than a full moon can account for. Which, I suspect, is why she kept losing wedding planners. The one who dropped out last week literally paid Sidney money to get out of doing their job.
Anyway, Sidney’s wedding to Brett will take place—as I said to Hanry—two weekends from now in downtown Boston.
Since it’ll be a Catholic mass in a historic cathedral, per family tradition, the priests are restricting her input, so she’s only requesting my help with the reception.
That’ll be held at a luxury hotel where I’ll pick up the wedding planner’s reins to coordinate seventeen vendors.
In addition to creating the group text to rule all group texts, I’ll perform a few physical jobs too, like delivering her catering and ensuring the safe arrival of her custom wedding cake, which is almost more expensive than a full year of NYU tuition.
The scale and costs of this wedding didn’t boggle my eyes in the slightest. Nope. Watered them, maybe. But Sidney seems—in spite of the trust fund and unfortunately doggish characteristics—like she could be a friend. If I didn’t know better.
Now and again, I find myself thinking about Fi, arriving wet onshore before the crack of dawn. I don’t know what might’ve happened if I hadn’t been there. It wouldn’t have been good.
She would’ve felt alone. Lost. Desperate. And I know that feeling. I felt it when Mom didn’t come home, and that first bill arrived, and I realized she’d never come back to pay it. When Grandma Rose’s friends laughed at me, snaggle-toothed, while I held my vomit-covered apple.
Point is, I need to know all I can about Sidney and Brett and their families. To ensure their big special day doesn’t become their worst. So I clack away at my keyboard, Hanry sips tea, and Bulan occasionally bursts out with accusatory language toward Elizabeth Bennet.
Generally, the great vibe continues until one morning, Hanry enters the shop with such an air of significance, he basically swarms half the room.
“I know what to do,” he says.
“With what?” I ask. “Your pumpkin art?”
“My mech suit?” asks Bulan hopefully.
“You’re still on that?” I ask Bulan.
“Better,” says Hanry. He accosts me with a dashing smile. “I’m going to help you with your saboteurs.”
To my disappointment, Hanry’s solution isn’t violence.
“You need something more hands-off,” says Hanry as we dodge the ruffians of Salem. “Besides, you don’t know who your target is. It’s dangerous—and rude—to presume.”
“True,” I allow begrudgingly.