“Home again, home again.” Nessa bent to look out the windshield. “Hello, Ivy House.”
“I hope it doesn’t hold a grudge,” Sebastian murmured. “I have a lot of work to do. I don’t need it killing me the second I get into the crystal room.”
“Something you should note,” Sue said to John, “the house is sentient. Once you step on its grounds, it knows where you are, it hears you, and it has numerous ways to kill you. Also, the people connected with the house—most of Jessie’s crew—also know where you are. The gnomes are dangerous, though we’re still not sure if they’re deadly. They will, however, hack off something. The dolls will only kill you if you wrong Jessie or Ivy House in some way. Those aren’t the only horrors of that house. Mind yourself.”
John felt his jaw go slack. “What?”
Jessie
John looked shellshocked,standing stock-still as everyone bustled around him, exiting vans and grabbing luggage and calling for rides to come get them. After months of being away, everyone was happy to be home. Except for John, who didn’t have one.
“You okay?” I asked him.
“I gave him a quick rundown about the house,” Sue said with a little grimace. “I should’ve probably broken it to him gently.”
Ah.
“It’s fine.” Nessa patted John’s arm. It was sweet how welcoming everyone had been, trying to help him find a place to settle. His camp in the woods had been more than a little dismal. “You’ll get used to it. It’s not as weird as it sounds. Really.”
Sebastian gave her a funny look.
“What?” she asked him. “You’re the one looking forward to working in the crystal room again.”
“That doesn’t mean the house isn’t as weird as it sounds. It isexactlyas weird as it sounds, and ten times more dangerous.”
I put my hand on John’s arm to bring his focus back to me. “Would you like something to eat or some coffee? Mr. Tom is headed in now to figure something out, though I’m sure he’ll have to go to the store. You’re welcome to come in and relax. We have a lot of quiet sitting rooms. You’re also welcome to take a room here until you find a place to settle, if you’d like.”
“Take the room,” Ulric said, and Jasper threw John a thumbs-up as he moved toward the house. “Mr. Tom is always making food and doing laundry and cleaning and all the things you won’t want to do yourself. It’s great.”
“Here. I’ll show you around.” I tugged John’s arm to get him moving as Austin got on the phone to check in with the shifters in town. We had a lot to catch up on.
The grass was still vibrantly green, though wild and in desperate need of mowing.
“We can’t hire normal gardeners,” I told John. “Ivy House doesn’t like strangers. She runs them off.”
“I’ll get to it post-waste,” Edgar told me as he hurried by. “Don’t you worry, Jessie. I’ll have this handled in no time.”
The tall grasses rose along the path leading to the front door. I squeezed John’s arm.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, clueing in to my nervousness immediately.
“Nothing. If you see garden shears poke out of the grass, though, run.”
As I said it, the grass up the way wiggled in an unnatural way.
“That better be a flower,” I mumbled, urging John on. “It’s fine. We’ll make it.”
A gnome’s head popped out with a wide smile and little white teeth. A gardening trowel pushed through the grass, aimed in our direction in a threatening manner.
I stopped in my tracks.
“I got it!” Cyra knocked me into John as she ran by. “I got you, you little devil!” She blasted fire at it.
It issued a high-pitched scream and ducked back into the grass. Fire blazed a path after it.
“You better run!” Cyra sprinted into the grass after it, spreading fire as she went.
“What in the?—“
