It was a little mischievous to tease, but I was curious to test their sense of humor.
Maggie looked worried. Dolan scowled.
“No,” she said. “Other way ‘round.”
When I laughed, her face cleared quickly. “Oh! You were havin’ me on. Good one, Rita. You got me for sure.”
I smiled, secretly delighted that she turned out to be a good sport. Just in case I decided to stay and would be working with her. Glancing at Dolan, I could see that he may not have gotten the joke.
“I was kidding, Dolan,” I said.
He blinked three times, then said, “Oh. It was a joke.”
Maggie winked at me. “Takes all kinds to make the Maypole work.”
While I was intrigued by that, I decided it was a question for another tea time.
“Okay. See you later.”
The later morning weather was perfect for the shawl still wrapped around my upper body. Cloudy. Cool. Looked like a possibility of rain. Of course, it looked like possible rain most of the time in England. That was okay with me. I like it green.
I found myself smiling as I walked along, shawl clutched in both hands, realizing that I’d never felt so glamorous. I couldn’t help wondering if the shawl was bespelled to make the wearer feel euphoric. And pretty.
The law office door was right next to the bank and was nothing more than an entrance to a flight of stairs that led to the upper story. I climbed to the landing above and knocked on the wood door. The hand lettering read Lochlan Jois, Solicitor.
After knocking a second and third time, I concluded he wasn’t in. I had no trouble remembering the way to his house. A person didn’t need Romeo to get around in Hallow Hill. It was tiny.
I wasn’t greeted by dogs when I reached the gate. They might have been inside, but my intuition told me that was unlikely. I had no idea why I would have supposed that. I wasn’t the sort of person who relied on such ambiguities as ‘inner voices’.
Before I turned away, I took notice of the grounds. The gardens were spectacular. Shiny green leaves. Blooming flowers. Aromatic trailing vines. And I remembered something, perhaps from childhood, about pixies being good with plants.
On impulse, I turned left and began to climb the worn path that led up the hill. I was still wearing the red shoes. They looked truly awful with my blue-green shawl, but impossible as everything else in Hallow Hill, they were as comfortable as running shoes.
The breeze that blew around me smelled as sweet as air must have before combustion engines. And I breathed deep in appreciation.
Just before I reached the top of the hill, I turned and looked down on the village below. It was every bit as picturesque from that vantage point as I would’ve imagined, and the beauty of it tugged at my heart a little. I heard a voice in my head say, ‘Rita. You landed on your feet.’
When I gained the high-point vista, I was struck by the beauty. The green horizon and view to the bluest of lakes below made me wonder if the shoes came with a filter that made colors richer. It seemed to me the sky had never been quite so blue. The grass was impossibly green. The diffused light on the lake created sparkles that were hypnotic. And I remembered thinking how spectacular were the flowering plants in Lochlan’s garden.
I might’ve enjoyed feeling like queen of the world if not for the abject terror that struck my nervous system and caused my heart to race so that I felt it throbbing in my neck.
Lochlan was nearby, perhaps returning from the lake below.
“Hello!” he shouted with a cheer that sounded like he was genuinely glad as he raised a hand in greeting.
Since I was wearing the shoes, I saw his true elven visage. That, of course, wasn’t the part that had me thinking I’d breathed my last. The two canines with him were not the friendly Border Collies I’d fallen in love with. They were gray wolves, easily half again as big as any wolves I’d ever seen.
They came running toward me like two streaks. That instigated a fight or flight fear which, in turn, released an unpleasant rush of adrenaline. While I was trying to remember whether standing still or curling into a ball is the better defense, the wolves had overtaken me and were behaving exactly as they had in Bordie Collie form; turning in circles and whining, verbally