Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 94091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
She led tours and the children got to reach into the “bubbling cauldron” (which was actually just a big pot with some dry ice under a screen at the bottom,) and pull out some “magic candy.” People came from miles around to bring their kids and they were always enchanted with the decorations.
Lucy normally loved this time of year—as did Aunt Delilah. As a practicing Wiccan, she was at her peak at Halloween—or Samhain as Wiccans called it. But this year everything felt flat and stale and pointless. Even the chunk of dimriel which was hanging enticingly in a display over the front door of the shop couldn’t lift her mood.
She had given the rare crystal to her aunt as a souvenir. The Monstrum Mother Ship hadn’t needed it, since T’zaren had brought a much bigger piece to Commander Rarev. It cast spooky, blood-red shadows when the light hit it and looked wonderfully mysterious, but it only served to remind Lucy of her time with T’zaren and how she would probably never see the big Monstrum again.
“Come on honey—what is it? What’s wrong?” her aunt urged, breaking into her train of thought. “You know you can tell me.”
No I can’t, I really can’t, Lucy thought to herself. Since her parents had died so young and Aunt Delilah had raised her, she was more like a mom than an aunt to Lucy. And there was no way she could tell her what had happened on her mission for the Monstrum Mother Ship.
After all, what was she going to say? Sorry, Aunt Delilah—I’m just feeling down because I thought I met the perfect guy but then we went on a dangerous mission together and he let me fuck him and then he got all butt-hurt about it—no pun intended—and we haven’t talked since because he hasn’t called me.
No—there was no way she was going to say all of that—or any of it—to her aunt. So she just shook her head and sighed.
“Sorry, Aunt Delilah. I guess I’m just not feeling Halloween this year.”
“Well that’s too bad, since you’re on your own with the trick-or-treaters this year,” her aunt said briskly.
“What? But Aunt Delilah, I can’t stay tonight! I only came to help you decorate and then I have to get home,” Lucy protested.
Her aunt arched an eyebrow at her.
“And why is that? What are you rushing home to do? Grade papers? And let me guess—then you’ll order Thai food and watch The Hallmark Channel all night all by yourself. Right?”
Lucy sighed. Her aunt knew her too well.
“Actually, I was going to order Vietnamese tonight,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster.
“Thai food…Vietnamese food—it doesn’t matter. You always do the same thing when you’re in a funk,” Aunt Delilah said as she rearranged the laughing skeleton behind the door.
“I’m not in a funk,” Lucy protested. “I’m just not feeling it this year, that’s all. And anyway, where are you going to be?”
“With my coven, of course. There’s a rare triple blood moon scheduled for tonight—it’s a very powerful time for Wiccans and I need to partake in the ceremony.”
“But Aunt Delilah, I really don’t know if I can take all those little kids in costumes tonight,” Lucy protested. “It’s just going to remind me of how I don’t have any kids of my own!”
Not that she needed children to be happy and Mike, had never wanted any, so for a long time it was a moot point. But since breaking things off with her ex, Lucy had begun to think along those lines again. After all, she wasn’t exactly young anymore, so the clock was ticking. Seeing all the kids in their cute costumes was just going to remind her how abysmally single she was!
“Nonsense,” her aunt said briskly. “Seeing the happy, laughing children will bring you out of this funk you’re in. Why, you’ll feel a thousand percent better by the end of the evening!”
“A thousand percent, huh?” Lucy said skeptically. “Wow, that’s kind of a lot. How do you know that’s true?”
“Your special crystal told me.” Aunt Delilah touched the dimriel crystal lightly, sending it spinning as it threw deep red shadows over the entire shop. “Didn’t you tell me that the Monstrum Kindred call it a ‘heart-stone?’”
“Well, yes but they call it that because it’s the heart of their Mother Ship,” Lucy protested. “They don’t mean that it can predict affairs of the heart or anything like that.”
“Nevertheless, I think the heart-stone has some special uses that the Monstrum have yet to discover,” Aunt Delilah said mysteriously. “And this one is telling me that where you need to be is right here in the shop on Samhain night.”
“Right, so you can be dancing naked under the moonlight with your coven,” Lucy grumbled, but she knew when she was beaten. She was going to stay right here and guide the trick-or-treaters through their tours and watch all of them pick a piece of “magic candy” and then probably eat too much leftover candy herself and go home and go to bed with a stomachache and a sore heart. There was just no getting out of it.