Page 35

I’d read about Frankenpunch before coming here. It was impossible to research Screaming Woods without encountering the story: Dr. Emmett Karloff, the Halloween festival, felix semper accidentally replaced with immanis semper, and a celebratory punch that permanently transformed everyone who drank it at midnight.

I’d even downloaded several of Karloff’s papers documenting the transformations: who had changed, what they’d become, and the physical and behavioral differences he’d observed afterward. Since arriving, I’d seen plenty of his case studies walking around town—gargoyles, orcs, and creatures I couldn’t begin to classify. Gregor was an ogre. Gordy, a Gorgon. Barrett being a seven-foot bear was almost ordinary by Screaming Woods standards.

But Barrett wasn’t a paper.

This had happened to him.

My voice softened. “You don’t have to tell me.”

His gaze remained on the table for another moment before he looked at me. “No. It’s okay.”

I waited. Barrett had spent the last three days giving me things without being asked. Food. Space. Shelves. His bed. The quiet parts of his life.

I could give him time.

He turned the strip of sandpaper over in his fingers before setting it carefully beside the cedar. “I worked in forestry even then. Mostly trail maintenance and storm clearance.”

“What were you like before?”

He gave me a sheepish look. “Shorter.”

I laughed. “Helpful.”

Barrett leaned back against the table, his arms folding loosely across his chest rather than defensively. “Six-three. Maybe six-four. Less fur.”

“So practically tiny.”

“That’s what I keep telling people.”

The joke softened something between us.

“And then Karloff made the Frankenpunch.”

“Was supposed to be punch with a little magical kick. Happiness, good luck, whatever people wanted to call it. Everyone drank it because Karloff was always making something.” Barrett scratched absently at the fur along his jaw. “Nobody thought much of it until midnight.”

“What happened?”

His eyes moved toward the window, but I didn’t think he was seeing the garden outside anymore. “Pain first. Bones changing. Hands. Jaw. Everything got too hot, then too loud. I could hear people screaming from halfway across the square while I was trying not to do the same thing.”

My stomach tightened.

He glanced at me. “Wasn’t pretty.”

The way he said it made my chest ache. “Were you afraid?”

“Terrified.”

The admission came without drama, which somehow made it more powerful.

Barrett rubbed one thumb against his palm. “I woke up the next morning in Karloff’s lab. Broke two beds before they found one that held me. Couldn’t judge where my hands ended because the claws kept catching things. Could smell everything and everyone in the room. Fear. Sweat. Blood.” His mouth tightened. “My own included.”

I reached across the table and covered his hand.

He looked down at our fingers but didn’t pull away. “Karloff kept apologizing until people started threatening to throw things at him if he said sorry again.” The faintest smile touched Barrett’s mouth. “He was worse than us in some ways. At least we only had our own bodies to figure out. He knew every one of them was his fault.”

“The guide I read said he still studies the transformations, and he thinks they revealed something rather than created it.”

Barrett nodded. “That’s the theory.”