The Mothman's Halloween Bond

1. Cursed

CHAPTER ONE

Cursed

Most people think plants don’t have emotions. Most people are wrong. They definitely do, and my belladonna was definitely sulking—again.

I knelt in front of its bed in the back corner of the greenhouse, where the glass met the old stone floor, and gave it the look I reserved for dramatic plants and door-to-door salesmen.

“You have the richest soil in the county,” I told it. “Temperature-controlled greenhouse, harvested rainwater, the works. What more do you want from me?”

The belladonna did not answer—because it was a plant—which was precisely why I liked it. Plants didn’t hear the curse. The belladonna heard exactly what I said and not whatever my words would have curdled into by the time they reached a human ear.

I fed it a scoop of bone meal, despite its attitude. It perked up, satisfied.

Outside the vaulted greenhouse windows, Pumpkin Hollow was in its full mid-October splendor. From my greenhouse on the small hill behind my old Victorian house, I could see the whole town spread out below.

Autumn certainly had it in its clutches.

All the trees were painted in hues of ochre, gold, and crimson.

Townsfolk were already stringing lights and paper lanterns between the buildings on Main Street, and pumpkins sat on nearly every available flat surface.

We weren’t called Pumpkin Hollow for nothing, after all.

Most hadn’t been carved yet, with All Hallows’ Eve still too far out.

But soon many of our namesake pumpkins would bear the glowing faces of jack-o’-lanterns to keep the nastier spirits enjoying their night of revelry away.

It was beautiful—from a distance. But I knew that world wasn’t meant for me.

Not anymore.

There was a flutter of wings. I looked up to see Mugen, my black cat-bat hybrid, land on a scarab beetle as it tried to scurry under a terracotta pot, its iridescent shell glittering beneath his paw.

“Hey, let that go. It’s a pollinator.”

Mugen shot me an annoyed stare. He didn’t break eye contact as he slowly lifted his paw off the beetle, letting it scurry away to safety. He flapped his leathery wings at me indignantly, as if to say, That was my snack.

I rolled my eyes but reached into my pocket and tossed him a piece of jerky. He let out a pleased chirp.

“See, it can pay to listen.”

He ignored me, tearing into the meat. Not even my familiar listened to me. No one listened to me.

The bell I’d hung over the greenhouse door rang, causing Mugen to leap and scurry behind the rack of datura growing along the east wall.

Neither of us was used to visitors. I wiped my hands on my apron and stood to find Doris Merryweather hovering inside the doorway, clutching her oversized handbag like a shield.

I braced myself. It was habit now. Here we go.

Doris was relatively new to town, married to the werewolf who ran the general store.

She was still adjusting to the supernatural life, and that meant she hadn’t learned all of Pumpkin Hollow’s rules yet—the most important being why no one talked to the strange witch with the country’s most extensive collection of poisonous plants.

She’d been in twice before. Both times had gone fine because I’d kept it to nods and written totals on my notepad.

Numbers, at least, the curse didn’t affect.

People liked me well enough when I was quiet.

“Evening,” Doris said with a nervous smile. “I—sorry, I know it’s late. It’s my mother. The cough’s back, and Dr. Bones is out until Thursday, and I thought I might be able to get more of that tea…?”

That’s what she had come for last time. A tea of thyme, elecampane, and licorice root, mixed with marshmallow root and ginger in proprietary ratios.

Ratios my family would sue me into my very fertile dirt over if they could prove I was using the recipe, because Atropa Pharmaceuticals sold a refined version of it in an orange bottle—and I left mine on porches for free.

I smiled and nodded and turned to the drying racks, and it would have been fine—it would have all been fine—if she had just taken it and left.

“How much do I owe you?”

I held up my hand and shook my head. A very clear nothing.

“No, please, I insist. You’ve already—” She finally released her purse, but the huge thing swung back, almost knocking into the death camas, whose pollen caused severe rashes on a good day and respiratory failure on a bad one. And all days were bad days in this house.

“Watch out,” I warned.

Two words. They left my mouth true. I heard them just as I intended. That was the worst part, the cruelest little flourish of the curse. I got to hear myself say the right thing, every time, in the heartbeat before Doris heard something else.

Doris’ face changed. The small smile she’d conjured up for me flickered out like a pinched candle, and wariness replaced it. She took one small step back toward the door.

“There is no need to yell.”

There was, actually. If she had hit the camas, it would have been disastrous—for her and my pollinators—but I’d had to keep it near the front door for the optimal conditions before tonight’s ritual. I hadn’t expected visitors. And I hadn’t yelled.

“I’m sorry. Here, just take the tea.” I didn’t know why I even bothered anymore.

Some small part of me probably still had hope that maybe this time it would be different.

Maybe someone would be able to hear what I really meant.

But as the look on her face changed, a little bit more of that spark of hope died.

“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t realize there’d be…conditions. Goldie at the café always said nice things about you.”

“There are no conditions.” Stop talking, Lucia. Stop. Talking.

She went pale. Whatever she’d heard that time was worse. The curse punished persistence. Doris fumbled behind her for the door handle, and her handbag knocked a pot of feverfew off the shelf. She didn’t even stop to apologize for it.

“I’ll wait for Dr. Bones, thank you. Sorry to bother you.”

She fled into the pale evening light, her footsteps quick on the gravel until darkness swallowed them.

I stood there, surrounded by my flowers and vines, and listened to the silence come back. It was always so fucking quiet.

Then I got my broom.

As a witch, I had my rituals, and this was the one I practiced the most—sweep the soil, save the feverfew, and do not, under any circumstances, replay the conversation.

Do not imagine what she heard. Do not picture her tomorrow at the bakery, telling Goldie in a hushed voice that Lucia Atropa had made demands in exchange for medicine, and Goldie wincing and not defending me because Goldie had been on the other end of my curse once or twice herself.

The whole town knew I was more toxic than my garden.

She always said nice things about you.

There was that hope, trying to flicker back to life. But every time, it just ended up burning me.

That was the curse’s real teeth—the hope that it let fester in my heart.

Even after five years, when someone walked through my door, some idiot ember in my chest lit up and whispered maybe this one, and every time, the result was the same.

The line between hope and insanity was apparently razor-thin.

I swept, the broom’s stiff silver birch bristles rapping against the stone floor. I replayed the conversation four times. The plants around me reached out, growing new tendrils or leaves. Was it empathy, or did they just want the magic in my tears? It was hard to tell.

Crying again, sister? So emotional. You’ll never play with the big boys if you can’t control yourself.

I stamped that voice down, shoving into the pit of my stomach right along with my thoughts of Doris and Goldie.

Mugen wove between my ankles, meowing softly.

“I’m okay,” I murmured, reaching down to stroke his back between the wings. “I’m okay, because tonight—tonight, I’m going to fix this.”