Better Haunts and Garden Gnomes_A Cozy Paranormal Mystery

by Michelle M. Pillow

  Almost everyone in the place jumped in their seats.

  Lily lifted up in her seat to see Sal standing behind the counter, covered in the vanilla shake. The blender looked as if the top had exploded off of it, sending ice cream and milk flying. Liquid dripped down the walls and off the metal counter. The blender made a horrible grinding noise as if stuck.

  Rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr…

  It was the only sound in the silent diner.

  “Oh, come on,” Lily grumbled under her breath. “I didn’t do that.”

  Had she?

  As if on cue, Sal and the patrons turned to look accusingly in her direction.

  Sal flicked her hands, picked up the chocolate milk shake, and walked toward Lily and Nolan. She placed the chocolate in front of Nolan, saying, “I’m sorry. The milk shake blender stopped working. I’m not able to get you your vanilla shake.”

  Sal dripped vanilla on the table. The waitress walked away, leaving everyone to stare at Lily as if she’d singlehandedly destroyed all ice cream production in the state.

  Nolan unwrapped his silverware from the napkin and cleaned the droplets. “Just smile and keep talking to me.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. Your back is turned to everyone and they’re not staring at you.” Lily kept her eyes on the table.

  “Easy to fix.” Nolan slid out of the booth, only to join her on her side. He pulled his milkshake in front of them and then rested his arm behind her. He leaned his face close to her ear. It was an intimate gesture and not missed by the others in the diner. So only she could hear, he said against her cheek, “We’ll give them something else to gossip about.”

  “They’ll probably think I put a spell on you and hate me more.” She touched the thick stem of the milkshake glass and adjusted it needlessly on the table before resting her hand on her lap.

  “Well, I am a catch,” Nolan teased. She punched his thigh under the table. “You want some of my shake? I’ll share.”

  “Edna’s special pick for me will probably be a poison pellet sandwich.” Lily liked his nearness and drew comfort from it.

  “Try not to think of it as against you. Remember that to them, you’re an outsider coming into a town full of secrets. This town is distrustful of others by nature. They have to be. They need time to see you’re not going to hurt them, or expose them, or curse them. They need to give you a chance.” He slipped his hand over hers and let it rest on her leg. “And you need to give them a chance. The way you think they’re looking at you, you’re looking at them just as suspiciously.”

  Lily took a deep breath and nodded. “You’re right. This is not a normal situation. I’m a witch and they’re all… What are they, exactly?”

  “There is an unspoken rule that we don’t expose each other’s secrets.” Nolan traced her fingers. “I will tell you there is a fairy, a bennu, a minotaur descendent, a werewolf, and an Erinyes.”

  “Fairy is the redhead who keeps trying to pretend she’s not looking at us. She seems delicate and flighty. The minotaur is the young man she’s with. He has a bullish personality. And he’s going on my potential-suspects-for-vandalizing-the-house list. He’s got that angry look in his eyes.” She reached over and tapped his thigh. “Werewolf.” Then withdrew her hand. “I have no clue what a bennu or an Erinyes are.”

  “Flighty and bullish? You don’t think your presumptions are a little bit stereotypical?”

  “Am I wrong?” she met his gaze and was captured by it. He was close, and even if she didn’t consciously let herself think of it, her lips remembered the feel of his.

  “No. You’re not wrong.” His didn’t look away, and she felt him leaning closer.

  “Well, looks like there’s more than construction going on at the old Goode Estate,” Edna interrupted. Lily hadn’t even heard the woman approach. She slid a plate in front of Nolan, “One Big Eddie, and one grilled cheese.”

  “Oh, thanks.” Lily looked at the plain sandwich. It wasn’t exactly what she would have ordered.

  “I’ll be back with the rest.” Edna left.

  “The rest?” Lily asked Nolan.

  “Wait for it.” He turned his plate to reangle his food and grabbed his sandwich.

  Edna came back with a burger, chili-and-cheese nachos, a bowl of chili, broccoli-and-cheese soup, chicken sandwich, and three kinds of pie. “There you are. Enjoy!”

  “Uh…” Lily looked to Nolan for help. “Why does everyone keep trying to feed me? First Polly and now Edna. Do I look like I’m starving?”

  “Edna always tries to overfeed everyone. If you let her pick, you’re going to get a lot of options.” He gestured at the chili. “You going to eat that?”

  Lily chuckled and slid the bowl toward him. “Take it. Please help.”

  She picked up a triangle of grilled cheese and dipped it in the broccoli soup. As she leaned over to take a bite, her phone rang. Chewing, she dropped the food, wiped her hands on a napkin and pulled the cheap phone out of her pocket to answer. She smiled at Nolan and made a show of flipping it open to answer the call. It really was the least expensive phone she could find. It made calls, it received calls, and texting by numerical keypad took hours. “Hey, Dante, what’s up?”

  “Are you safe?” Her brother’s panic was palpable. “Where are you?”

  “Uh, why? I’m at the diner downtown. What’s happening?”

  “What is it?” Nolan asked. She held up her hand to silence him so she could hear her brother.

  “There’s been another attack on the…” The sound of sirens drowned out Dante’s voice. She plugged her opposite ear and leaned closer to the window in an effort to hear him better. “I—”

  A thud sounded, and then there were only sirens.

  Her eyes widened and she tried to stand, but Nolan was blocking her way out of the booth. She tapped his arm frantically. “We have to go. Something’s wrong.”

  He instantly stood, reached for his wallet, and threw cash on the table. “Let’s go.”

  “Dante? I can’t hear you?” Lily followed Nolan as she tried to hear her brother. She didn’t care what the patrons thought of her hasty departure. “Dante? Dante!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The orange glow on the horizon that emanated from the spot where the Victorian should be caused Nolan to press down on the gas pedal of Lily’s car as he sped toward it. Black smoke slithered into the sky, signaling the danger ahead. Lily pressed her hand into the dashboard, bracing herself as they took a corner too fast and the tires slid on the dirt road.

  “Please, please, please,” she pleaded under her breath.

  There was nothing he could say to comfort her.

  “Fire.” Lily gripped his arm as a firetruck came into view. Orange flames consumed the back of the house. “Oh, no, Dante, please don’t be in there. Please, please, please…”

  Nolan felt her fear rippling over him. He hit the brakes, slowing so he could turn up the drive. Deputy Herczeg’s truck blocked the way, and he skidded to avoid hitting it. Lily jumped out before they had come to a complete stop.

  Nolan raced after her as she made her way across the front lawn. She leapt over a random garden gnome sitting cross-legged in the yard, and then the firehose coming from the pumper truck. When he caught up to her, she was nearing the fire.

  He grabbed her arm, jerking her back. “Lily, watch out.”

  A hard stream of water shot out from behind the house. She would have run right into it.

  A fireman stepped into view. Nolan knew the entire crew. They were good people, and all had supernatural gifts related to the water. Captain Santos manned the hose at the nozzle. He had the strength of three men and didn’t need help directing the stream. There was a running joke in town about his bushy mustache being a thing of great beauty. Only a few men could pull off such a specimen, but as an ipupiara, he seemed to have a face made for it.

  Three others—Kelly, Walsh, and Murphy—were finfolk. They could transform into three forms—fish, human, or a hy
brid of the two. The last firefighter, Agnes, was a naiad, a rare kind of water spirit. She couldn’t be away from fresh water for longer than a few hours, so riding around on a pumper truck was a perfect job for her.

  The pile of barn wood blazed, feeding a giant bonfire that did not look close to being under control. Scorched siding dripped with water on the back of the house. There was damage, but the structure was intact.

  “Lily, look, the house is fine. I’m sure Dante and Polly are—”

  “Polly!” Her cry cut him off. She tugged on his arm as if to command him to follow. Because of the firefighters blocking the way through the backyard, they had to run the long way around the house to reach Polly. “What happened? Where’s Dante?”

  “I don’t know what happened, sugar bee,” Polly said, watching the flames. “This shouldn’t have occurred. Everything is topsy-turvy. There’s a force I can’t predict. We had no warning it was coming.”

  “Polly, please.” Lily grabbed her aunt’s arms and made her look at her. “Where’s my brother?”

  “Here. I’m here.” Dante came from beside the house. She hadn’t seen him on her way around and guessed his stupid ass must have been inside.

  Lily threw her arms around his neck. “Where were you? Why the hell did you hang up on me? I was terrified. What happened? What if…?” She motioned to the flames. “I thought you were…”

  “Get back,” Lieutenant Kelly ordered. He waved them away from the fire.

  “The chick fireman bumped me, and my phone went flying.” Dante pointed to the barn. “I couldn’t get to it. I’m pretty sure it’s ruined. It was good while it lasted. I guess I just have to share your phone now.”

  “Don’t say chick fireman.” Lily hit her brother’s arm. “They’re firefighters.”

  “I said get back,” Kelly commanded.

  Nolan lifted his arm to urge them away from the flames. He scanned the ground, seeing clear evidence of a burn pattern leading from the barn and the back of the house. This fire wasn’t an accident. His eyes shifted, and he focused past the blaze. He detected movement in the trees, but it was too far to make out who or what watched them. The roar of fire and water created a white noise that made it hard to hear past. Firefighters called commands to each other.

  “Good, you’re all accounted for.” Deputy Herczeg held a small notepad as she stopped next to them. “You’ll have to wait until they clear the house before you can go inside.” She pulled a pen out of her front breast pocket. “Any idea who would want to burn down your house?”

  “Maybe the same person who burnt our lawn, or spray-painted the siding, or knocked down the barn,” Lily said. “Maybe if you had taken our report seriously the first time instead of dismissing it, we wouldn’t be here.”

  Herczeg slapped her pen down on the pad without writing anything down.

  “We don’t know,” Dante amended for his sister. “It could have been the ghosts that showed up on the lawn, or—”

  “Dante.” Lily tried to shush her brother.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Dante dismissed his sister. “It’s Lucky Valley. Like ghosts are a big secret. You’re dating a werewolf.”

  Nolan looked at Lily to see her reaction. Her eyes met his, but she didn’t protest the comment.

  “That fireman—sorry, firefighter—has scales,” Dante continued. “We’re witches. Polly tried to set me up on a date with a troll.”

  “She’s a lovely girl,” Polly interrupted.

  “What’s wrong with trolls?” Herczeg asked. She put her pen back in her pocket.

  Dante had the good sense, for once, not to open his smart-alecky mouth.

  “So I was right. This is a Goode problem, not a police problem,” Herczeg concluded. “I have no jurisdiction over ghosts. Only those supernaturals who have permanent corporeal form.”

  “It might not be ghosts. It could be…” Lily hesitated and looked around. Seeing a gnome, she pointed at the pointy-hatted suspect. “It could be gnomes.”

  “What?” Polly gasped. “The gnomes are our friends. They protect.”

  “They appear all over the house like creepy little voyeurs,” Dante said.

  “Quiet, Florus,” Polly scolded, “or no cupcakes for you.”

  “And plastic pink flamingos helped by spray painting your house?” Herczeg arched a brow. “You do know they’re lawn ornaments, right?”

  “It’s not the gnomes,” Polly insisted. “And flamingos can’t spray. They don’t have hands.”

  “I’ll talk to the sheriff about checking the surrounding woods,” the deputy said. “Until we hire more help, there are only two of us. We’ll do the best we can.”

  “Ask some of the shifters,” Nolan suggested. “We can run the entire area in a few hours.”

  Herczeg checked her watch and then shook her head. “No. We’re not going to do that.”

  “Why not?” Lily asked. “Do you think it’s too dangerous? Nolan, I don’t want you putting yourself in danger. Maybe you should let the police handle it.”

  The deputy gave Nolan a meaningful look and glanced up at the sky. How could he have forgotten what tonight was?

  “She’s right. We can’t do it now. We’ll do it tomorrow.” Nolan turned to watch the flames. He’d known the wolf inside him for so long, that he’d not even thought about the tingling in his limbs, the warning that always came before the full moon.

  He took Lily’s hand and pulled her away from the others. The orange firelight danced on her features. He wanted to protect her, more than anything. This threat wasn’t a prank, couldn’t be shrugged off or explained away. It wasn’t ghosts, or gnomes. It was serious. And he couldn’t stay to protect her.

  “What is it?” Lily reached to touch his arm.

  “I have to leave.” He looked at the fire, the muddy ground, anywhere but at her face.

  “What? Now? With this?” She stepped between him and the fire, forcing him to look at her. “Nolan, you can’t go. I…” Her voice dropped. “I need you.”

  “You need me?” The words gave him great pleasure.

  “I need your help.” Her eyes begged him. “Please stay.”

  “Get your brother and Polly and go book a room in town for the night.” Nolan turned as he heard a shout. A beam collapsed into the pile. Flames arced. “Make sure you lock your doors.”

  “I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me again.” Her words were drowned out by several shouts and the rush of water from the hose as Santos stepped closer to them.

  “It’s a full moon,” he tried to explain.

  “Go, go, go,” Santos shouted.

  “What?” she yelled over the noise.

  “Left,” Kelly ordered.

  “No, right,” Walsh countered.

  “I can’t come because it’s a full moon,” he said louder.

  She plugged her ear facing the fire and yelled louder. “What?”

  “It’s jumping to the house,” Santos said. “Get in front of it.”

  “Nolan, now!” the deputy ordered.

  “What?” she repeated before lifting her hands in irritation. She gestured at the fire, crying, “Just put the damn fire out already!”

  A loud whoosh of air rose around the barn. People stumbled for footing. Their hair blew toward the flames. The fire turned almost instantly into a mushroom cloud of dark smoke. The water stream continued to fly from the hose onto the smoking boards for a few more seconds before Santos closed the nozzle.

  Silence was punctured by dripping water. Movement seemed to happen in slow motion as the firefighters stopped working. Lily’s hands shook as they remained lifted toward the barn. Her stunned expression remained frozen.

  “Lily.” Nolan took her hands in his.

  “My sugar bee is a fully baked little cookie,” Polly exclaimed.

  “Did I…?” Lily looked at him helplessly.

  Her hands seemed to buzz with energy in his.

  “That was awesome, Lily,” Dante said. “S
o much cooler than levitating a chair.”

  “Let’s pack it up,” Santos ordered, his voice not as gruff as before.

  “Nolan, let’s move,” Herczeg said.

  Nolan looked up at the sky. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

  She gripped him tighter.

  “Nolan, do you have a trap here?” the deputy asked.

  “No.” He shook his head.

  “I’ll give you a ride to your house. Let’s go.” Herczeg didn’t wait for him to agree.

  Nolan wished he could explain more about the Dawson curse, but was only able to say, “full moon,” before running after the deputy. It may already be too late, but at least the deputy would know how to stop him if he turned before making it to his chains.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lily watched everyone moving around her as if in slow motion. Nothing inside her made sense. She was hot and cold, shaky and steady, fatigued and energized.

  As the power had exploded out of her body, the world around her became clear. Firefighters hauled their equipment, motioning at each other. Dante watched the action, his hands on his hips. Nolan disappeared around the side of the house. Polly did a bizarre jig as she danced in a circle, her elbows flapping up like an excited chicken. The woman was always doing strange things, but she wasn’t doing them alone. The transparent image of another woman danced with her.

  Other ghosts milled about the yard, like a layer of the past overlaid onto the present, with only Polly interacting between the two. Two men in cowboy hats walked out of what used to be the barn. A woman hung laundry on an invisible clothesline that disappeared the second she let go of it. Another woman worked her arms up and down as if drawing water from an invisible well. A child ran from the house as she chased a boy. A man watched them from the kitchen window, smiling.

  They were the moments from life that probably meant very little at the time, an ordinary day, an ordinary task, a locked instant.

  Lily wanted to speak, but she couldn’t find words. A chill crept up the back of her neck. It beckoned her to look, but she didn’t want to see. Someone stood close to her back.