by Lily Webb
“Yes. After the brownie saw my true form, she tried to flee back into the closet she’d come from, but I followed her and didn’t stop until I reached the locked, hidden door to room 666, where she was cornered. Doors are no match for a metamorph, so I touched it, learned the shape of its key, and became it.”
Which must’ve been the key shape they’d turned into when I found Lox and Keez toying with it on the first floor. Still, something didn’t add up, so I turned to Aron. “But how did you, the dwarf who built the inn, not know about that entrance to the attic?” I asked.
Aron shrugged. “You never mentioned an attic; you said you were looking for a room. And how should I know? Once I built it, this inn took on a life and mind of its own. It could’ve added that door itself.”
“See? I told you, Selena,” Kiki said with a wry smile.
“Rooms here have always moved around on their own accord, so maybe 666 did too. I suppose we’ll never know,” Blair said, then hopped off the table to walk to its head and face us all. “Well, now that we know what’s happened, more or less, we have a choice to make. In their situation, I don’t think any of us could blame Rune for doing what they did.”
I watched the table as everyone else either nodded, shrugged, or both.
“So, keeping that in mind, I think we should offer Rune a place here to stay. Permanently,” Blair said to whispers around the table, though the suggestion didn’t surprise me in the slightest. “We don’t call this inn Kindred Spirits for nothing!” Blair shouted over the scattered conversation. “Many of us here have no one and nothing to go home to. We’ve banded together to support one another, and I think we should extend that same kindness to Rune, who truly has nothing left.”
“You’ve got my vote,” I said, and the table fell silent as everyone turned to lock their eyes on me. “It’s the right thing to do. We can help keep Rune safe.” Rune stared expressionlessly at me and tilted their head slightly to the left, as if trying to make sense of me and my support. “If you can welcome complete outsiders like Jadis and me to Kindred Spirits, do the same for Rune. They need us.”
“Let’s put it to a vote,” Blair said. “Those of you in favor of allowing Rune to stay, raise your hands.”
It took a few moments, but after I raised my hand, one by one, everyone else followed — even Feal, despite Rune having kidnapped her. But how could she vote no after the inn and its staff had extended her the same hospitality?
“Excellent, then it’s settled,” Blair said, beaming. “Well, assuming you’d like to stay, Rune?” she asked as she rested her hands on the metamorph’s shoulders.
Rune sat silently for a moment until finally they nodded. “While I do not deserve your kindness, it is no less appreciated.”
“You’re welcome to stay for as long as you’d like, though we expect you to earn your keep,” Blair said.
Rune twisted around to look up at her. “How might I do that?”
“You can start by helping us sort out which rooms all those keys in the basement belong to,” Blair answered with a sideways look at Lox and Keez, and the room filled with the sound of our laughter.
Chapter Sixteen
The fragrant smell of pumpkin pie, roasted apples, and cinnamon filled the entirety of Kindred Spirits, pulling me from my room by my nose. Since Jadis and I hadn’t yet celebrated our arrival at the inn in proper fashion, and because it was too cold to do anything outside, Blair and Kiki wanted to throw an all-out Halloween bash here at the inn, just for friends and family.
“That smells heavenly,” Jadis moaned as we left our room together in full costume. In a prank, she and I had dressed up like Lox and Keez, complete with fake, hand-sewn wings, knotted rubber tails, and plastic, pointed teeth.
“So delicious you apparently couldn’t keep your wig on straight,” I laughed and stopped to help her fix it. The flaming red hair looked so out of place against her pale skin, despite the dark makeup we’d applied to her face to help it match.
“What can I say? I’m so excited to trick and treat! Trick and treat! Trick and treat!” Jadis howled, hopping from one foot to the other in an almost-perfect impersonation of Lox, and I burst out laughing. “Wait until everyone sees us. They’re going to lose it.”
“I know. I wonder what everyone else is dressing up as? Or, you know, turning themselves into,” I said, thinking of Rune, who’d already slotted right into our oddball, eccentric little “family.” They turned out to be Aron’s right-hand helper, able to morph into any and every tool under the moon that Aron might ever need, so Aron had joked about retiring and letting Rune take over maintenance for him.
“Who knows? But I’m dying to find out what Rune’s got planned. What do you choose when you could be a copy of pretty much anyone or anything?”
“They’re too smart to go for something obvious, so I bet whatever it is, it’ll be genius. Anyway, come on, I can’t hold out on this food much longer.”
“Same! Should we take the elevator, so we don’t ruin the surprise of our outfits?” Jadis asked.
“Good idea,” I said and hurried to the lift to call for it with Jadis stumbling along beside me, nearly tripping over our tied tails. I hoped no one would see us while we waited for the elevator to climb up to us. Thankfully, though, outside of Aron, no one else had a room on the sixth floor, so we weren’t likely to get caught there.
The elevator dinged its arrival faster than I thought it would, so I slid the grate open and we waddled inside. I smashed the button for the first floor, closed the grate, and stood staring at Jadis. She stared back, and we couldn’t help laughing again. While the real Lox and Keez looked downright terrifying at times, our impersonations of them were silly at best. But wasn’t that the point?
“I don’t think I’ll ever give you enough credit for this costume idea,” I told Jadis.
“Oh, please, I couldn’t have pulled it off without your help making these outfits,” she said and pulled at the black one-piece bodysuit stretched over her entirety, which might not have looked exactly like the leathery, rough skin of the imps, but it was close enough. Jadis let it go, and it snapped against her leg. “And these wings?” she asked, shaking her shoulders to make them move. “I’d swear you were a seamstress in another life or something.”
I shrugged. “Before she decided she didn’t love me anymore, my mom taught me a few useful things.”
Jadis sighed, shook her head, and pulled me in to her for a hug. “Aw, don’t talk like that. I’m sure she still loves you. Kids disappoint their parents; it’s what they’re supposed to do.”
“Good point. I bet your parents weren’t happy to learn about you screaming at the top of your lungs about the patriarchy in a string of failed punk bands,” I said, and Jadis tossed her head back to bark her laughter like a wolf howling at the moon.
“No, definitely not, but I think my religious parents were more disappointed with my interest in the occult than anything else. Well, joke’s on them, because look at me now: I’m living in a haunted castle with witches, vampires, and shapeshifters. I should send them a postcard sometime; I’m sure they’d appreciate that,” she said, and it was my turn to double over laughing. “My Goddess, can you believe just a couple weeks ago we were stuck in Denver making lattes for snooty rich people?”
I shook my head. “Even after all this chaos with Rune, living here still feels like a dream. I keep expecting to wake up one morning back in my bed in the apartment with Morgan snoring like a chainsaw in the next room.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Living in Denver? No way.”
“I didn’t think so, but I had to ask.”
I looked her in the eye. “So, does that mean you’re staying here with me?”
“Are you kidding? You couldn’t drag me away from here. I love it!”
“Good, because in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re stuck together for life now,” I said, pointing down at our intertwined tails.
“Hail the tail! Hail the tail!
Hail the tail!” Jadis shouted as the elevator came to a stop on the first floor, and we spilled out of the door, still in each other’s arms, laughing like schoolgirls.
Kiki and Blair had gone all out with the Halloween decorations in the foyer, including magical, flying bats that swooped from the darkness overhead and jack-o’-lanterns carved with a mixture of sinister and silly faces parked over the candles in the chandeliers. Spiderwebs dangled from every visible corner of the room, sparkling ominously in the candlelight, and I couldn’t tell if they were real or fake.
“This is amazing,” I breathed as I stopped and spun slowly around to take it all in. Not even the best haunted houses I’d been to as a teenager came close to the spooky atmosphere that Blair and Kiki had conjured up for the foyer, so I couldn’t wait to see what they’d done with the rest of the inn.
“I think everyone’s already in the kitchen,” Jadis said, pointing toward light spilling from the kitchen door accompanied by music and laughter. “Let’s go,” she said, and snatched my hand to drag me out of my awed paralysis — not that she could’ve gotten far without me anyway, thanks to our tails.
We hobbled to the kitchen and stopped at the door to peek around it. Inside, someone had cleared away the massive dining table and chairs, and everyone but us had already gathered, milling around chatting and nursing apple cider from paper cups.
Emile zipped out of the prep room while we spied with a tray of hors d’oeuvres — shortbread cookies shaped like bloody fingers with almonds for fingernails — held high over his head, and when he stopped moving long enough for me to make out his costume, I couldn’t help laughing. A high-collared red and black cape wrapped around his neck and draped along the floor behind him, and he’d gelled his dark hair away from his head, giving him an intimidating widow’s peak.
“Really, Emile? Dracula? How original,” I said as I stepped into the room.
Emile sped across the dining room to us. He smirked and winked at me, revealing the tip of one of his fangs. “Well, the party was on such short notice. It was all I could think of! But I have to say, I think you two win the costume contest.”
Despite all the noise in the room, when Emile complimented our outfits, everyone’s heads seemed to turn at once — and after a semi-awkward moment of silence, the dining room roared with collective laughter.
“I think we knocked it out of the park!” Jadis shouted into my ear over the noise. Squealing as they soared over the heads of the crowd, Lox and Keez themselves tore toward us and, when they got a better look at our impersonations of them, nearly fell out of the air laughing.
“Human girls hysterical!” Keez screeched, clutching her tiny stomach as she struggled to breathe through her squeaking laughter.
I turned back to Emile. “Thanks, but I’m not sure we can claim we’ve won the contest until we see what Rune’s wearing. Where are they, anyway?” I asked, scanning the room for the metamorph — not that I would’ve recognized them in disguise, anyway.
“I haven’t seen Rune around either, but I’m sure they must be here somewhere. Anyway, would you like a cookie?” Emile asked and lowered the tray for Jadis and I to take one. As I reached for the bloodiest of them, a bright light emanated from it, and I jumped back, scared. A moment later, Rune stood in front of us, their head cocked to one side. Their reflective skin bounced my own startled look back at me.
“Trick or treat?” Rune asked, and I burst out laughing.
“Emile! How could you set me up like this?”
“This deception was my creation,” Rune said.
“I take it this means the two of you have reconciled since your tussle in the kitchen?”
Emile and Rune glanced at each other, and Rune shrugged. “The vampire comprehends that my behavior was self-defense.”
“The vampire also comprehends that he needs to work on his sparring skills,” Emile said with a smile, his eyes twinkling.
“Selena! Jadis!” Blair called, appearing from nowhere with Kiki beside her, though I almost didn’t recognize her thanks to the blue-haired wig of curls she wore. She and Kiki had dressed as each other, and they’d done an outstanding job of it. “Rune really got you, didn’t they?”
“They did! But look at you,” I laughed as I took in the oh-so-Blair set of galaxy-star robes that Kiki wore. She’d even gone to the trouble of bunching her hair under a wig to pull off the buzz cut look Blair loved.
Kiki waved her hand through the air nonchalantly, a perfect imitation of Blair’s mannerisms. “We were wondering what was taking you so long to join us, but now I see,” she said. “Anyway, you’re just in time!”
Jadis and I exchanged confused looks. “Just in time for what?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer.
“Bobbing for apples, of course!” Blair shouted and pulled out her wand to wave it at the space behind her. Two huge wooden basins appeared next to each other, each filled to the brim with water. Beautifully ripened apples in shades of red and gold peeked from over the lip of each.
Though it wasn’t what I would’ve expected for a paranormal holiday celebration — having a seance seemed more apt — somehow, it still fit perfectly.
“And guess what? Since you’re late to the party, you two are up first!” Kiki shouted, and she and Blair ushered us through the dining room to the two basins. We passed someone in a wild, gray-haired wig and white lab coat; their nametag read “E = mc2” and when I realized it was Delia dressed as Einstein, I couldn’t help jabbing Jadis in the ribs with my elbow to point it out.
“Oh, my Goddess, she would wear an Einstein costume,” Jadis laughed as she kneeled down in front of her designated basin. Thanks to the lack of slack between our knotted tails, I had to follow her down.
Aron, dressed like a garden gnome with a silly, pointed hat and wooden shoes, clopped toward the buckets, his hammer still trailing behind him. “All right, lassies. Since I’m on your level, I’ll be the referee for the competition. I assume you’re all familiar with the rules?”
“Catch an apple with nothing but your teeth. Simple,” I answered.
“You betcha. You’ll go for a minute, and whichever of you has the most apples pulled at the end is the winner. Oh, and you might find a surprise or two waiting for you in the water, too,” Aron said with a devious smirk on his face that not even his fluffy, trailing beard could hide. “You ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” I said.
“Same here,” Jadis agreed and wrapped her arms behind her back to clutch either of her wrists. I followed her lead and tried not to laugh at my ridiculous reflection in the water.
“Okay, then. Ready, set, go!” Aron shouted, and as the room cheered for us, I plopped my face into the water, mouth open, to snag an apple. It’d been years since I’d bobbed for apples — so long I couldn’t even remember the last time — so I’d forgotten how difficult it could be.
After trying a few times and managing not to get anything other than water up my nose, I sat up sputtering, my sinuses tingling as I laughed, but the sound got drowned out by the roar of celebration from the crowd. I stole a glance over my shoulder and saw that Jadis had already plucked not one but two apples.
“Come on, Selena! You’re losing horribly!” Blair shouted from somewhere behind me, so I sucked down a deep breath, locked my gaze on a juicy-looking apple, and dunked my head back into the water, my eyes squeezed shut. When I clamped my jaw down, I bit into something hard, much harder than I’d ever known any apple to be, but I yanked it out of the water, anyway.
Though I could barely see through my wet, stringy hair dangling in my face, I dropped the object to the side of the basin and, using my shoulder, pushed my hair out of my face. When I finished blinking away the water from my eyes, I couldn’t believe what they revealed: I’d bobbed a key out of the water!
“What is that?” I asked no one in particular, and Aron shouted to announce we’d run out of time. I looked over at Jadis again and found that she’d also pulled out a ma
tching steel key.
Blair and Kiki stepped around us and kneeled down to get on our eye level, both wearing radiant though mischievous expressions. “Those, my loves, are keys to Kindred Spirits. Kiki and I would like to offer you both a permanent position here, if you’re interested,” Blair said.
“Yes!” Jadis and I shouted together without even needing to consult each other. I couldn’t imagine having to go back to Denver, and now I never would. Whatever did or didn’t happen between my parents and I, it didn’t matter because now I had a home, a real one, surrounded by a chosen family who loved me for me — unconditionally.
Blair extended a hand for each of us to take, and with ours in hers, she pulled us up and raised our arms high over our heads. “Then I’d like to welcome our two newest staff members. Please, everyone, a round of applause!”
While the room erupted in cheers, whistles, and the sound of magic spells popping overhead, Blair and Kiki wrapped their arms around us, squeezing us tight. “I know I’ve already said it, but welcome to our supernatural sisterhood,” Blair said into both our ears, giving me goosebumps. “Who knows? If you cast your spells correctly, someday this could all be yours.”
I twisted around to face Blair. “What? Really?”
“Why not?! You’re part of our family now, both of you, so why shouldn’t you inherit the family business?”
I threw my arms around her and buried my face in the small of her neck. “Thank you! I never want to leave.”
Blair stroked my back, and though it was hard to tell over all the noise, I could’ve sworn I heard her crying. “You don’t have to. Not now, not ever. You’ll always have a home here, Selena. Both of you. Forever.”
I stepped back to look her in the eyes again, which I couldn’t help noticing were watering and puffy, then reached for Jadis’ hand to squeeze it. She beamed at me, her own eyes sparkling with moisture. “I’m so glad I took Jadis’ advice and called you, Aunt Blair.”
