CHAPTER 1
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IN THE MIDDLE OFnowhere in western Massachusetts, on a sunny autumn day so clear and bright that the turning leaves looked like red and yellow jewels, Bex was standing in a dusty field, picking out a pumpkin.
“I think this one’s the best,” she said, pointing at a gorgeously orange gourd. “It’s got a nice shape and great color.”
“It’s too small,” insisted the human male who’d driven all the way out from Boston for this. Something Bex knew for a fact because he’d told her fifteen times. “I want arealpumpkin, not one of those little table ornaments.”
The pumpkin at Bex’s feet was twenty pounds if it weighed an ounce, but she just shrugged and walked a few rows over to the biggest pumpkin in the field: an asymmetrical monster of a squash with blotchy skin and a wonky stem that stuck out sideways.
“How about this one?”
The human screwed up his face and turned to yell at his wife, who’d been talking to the witch running the jam table for the last thirty minutes. They had a short discussion loud enough for the whole pumpkin patch to overhear, and then he nodded.
“We’ll take it. Hand it over.”
Bex dutifully leaned down to pick up the pumpkin—which was the size of a malformed beach ball. She was working on getting her arms around all its various lumps when the human suddenly squawked.
“What’s the matter with you?” he cried, rushing to Bex’s side. “You can’t be picking up a pumpkin like that with only one hand!”
“I can manage.”
The man was still trying to grab the pumpkin from her when Bex slid her one remaining hand under the enormous gourd’s flat end and hoisted it easily into the air. It was more strength than she was wise to show in public, but the risk was worth it for the dumbfounded look in the human’s scaled eyes. If she’d been her old self, that stunt would’ve gotten her kicked into Limbo for sure, but it was a lot easier to get away with stuff like this now that she had no horns and her eyes didn’t glow. A very,verysmall consolation, but Bex had learned to take her wins where she found them these days.
“Pumpkins are priced by the pound,” she informed the slack-jawed human as she carried his pumpkin toward the rack of old-fashioned metal scales at the edge of the field. “Once you get your ticket, you pay over there.”
She pointed across the dirt road at the beautifully carved wooden table shaded from the sun by a hand-quilted black-and-orange banner with words skillfully embroidered across it in looping cursive.
Blackwood Family Farms, it read,Est. 1754, Hemlock Bend, Massachusetts.
“Are you one of the Blackwoods?” the customer asked as Bex set his giant pumpkin on the cast-iron farm scale, which was big enough to fit a full-sized hog.
Bex could see why he’d think that. She hadn’t realized back when the only Blackwood she’d known was Adrian, but her paper-pale skin and long, jet-black hair fit right in with the hordes of black-dressed women working the handmade festival tables. It would’ve been simpler to just tell him yes, but Bex wasdone pretending to be someone she wasn’t, even if she didn’t have the most important parts of herself anymore.
“I’m not a member of the family,” she said as she noted the pumpkin’s prize-winning weight and wrote it down on a scrap of paper. “Just helping out for the festival. Do you want help carrying your purchase to your car?”
As always, the man said no. Theyneverwanted help after watching a five-foot-two girl carry their pumpkin one-handed, but Bex saw the moment the human changed his mind when she set the giant squash—which had weighed in at an impressive one hundred and seven pounds—in his arms.
“Are yousureyou don’t want help?”
“Maybe a little,” the man gasped, breathing through his teeth as he struggled to keep from falling over.
Bex nodded and waved at Iggs, who’d just gotten back from loading a hundred and fifty wholesale pumpkins into a Rotary Club bus for a fundraiser.
“Can you help this customer check out and get the pumpkin to his car?” she asked when the towering demon jogged over.
“Righto, boss,” Iggs said, taking the pumpkin from the struggling human before it crushed him. “Also, Lys is looking for you. They said to meet them in town when you’ve got a minute.”
“I have one right now,” Bex replied, looking over her shoulder at the other Seattle Anchor refugees on pumpkin duty: a pair of young wrath demons with the same wide, bull-like black horns as Iggs, who were blatantly showing off their strength to a gaggle of awestruck human teenagers. “When you’re done helping this guy, would you mind keeping an eye on the kids? I don’t want anyone getting kicked.”
“Will do,” Iggs promised, putting on a good show of having normal-human levels of lift capacity as he carried thegiant pumpkin toward the checkout line while the still-wheezing customer trailed behind.
When Bex was certain everything had been taken care of, she took off her green Blackwood Farmsapron, smacked the pumpkin-field dirt off her one hand using the leg of her black jeans, and set off down the road toward town.
Not that there was much town to go to. The city of Hemlock Bend, Massachusetts, consisted of eight historical wooden structures and a post office. A stop sign had been installed at the city’s one intersection a few decades ago, but otherwise it looked like it hadn’t changed since the seventeen hundreds. All the buildings still had their old colonial style with steep roofs, long eaves, a single short central door, and small windows filled with tiny panes of wobbly glass so beautifully maintained they looked like they could’ve been installed yesterday.
The town was a dozen miles off any major roads, so one stop sign was normally more than enough. Today, though, the place was packed with Fall-crazed tourists who’d driven in from all over New England for the Blackwood’s annual pumpkin festival. All the historic buildings were open and doing brisk business, selling every sort of autumnal food, drink, and decoration. On the main street outside, traffic was completely shut off by a wall of craft tents selling handmade candles, handmade cutting boards, handmade soap, handmade sweaters, handmade whatever you wanted. It was the perfect picture of a small-town American craft fair with two major exceptions. One, every tent and shop was worked by a woman wearing a black dress and a pointy witch hat, and two, there were nearly as many cats as people.
