Witching Time (The Wild Hunt #14) - Yasmine Galenorn Page 0,24
darting through the beam of my flashlight. I jumped back. Whatever it was had crossed the beam of light at my eye level, which meant it had to be flying or hovering in mid-air because the ravine dipped directly at the edge of the trees. Whatever it was had been large enough to make me think it might be a person.
I flashed my light back and forth, trying to pick up on it again, but I still couldn’t see anything. Frustrated and spooked, I backed away, not turning my back on the trees. I was too close and I didn’t want anything jumping out to grab me.
A sudden thought that it might be Pandora freaked me out then, and I stumbled away, shoving my phone in my pocket as I turned to run back toward the entrance. Evie waved me through, her eyes narrowing when I didn’t slow down. I made it back inside the perimeters of the fair and slowed down then, glancing behind me. People were paying their entrance fees, but none of them looked like Pandora or her dragon-thugs, and so I caught my breath as I headed back to our booth.
Llew gave me a strange look as I came up. Marigold was nowhere to be seen.
“Marigold said to meet her in the tent over there,” he said, pointing across the fairway, “in about fifteen minutes to judge the flower contest. What’s wrong? You look spooked.”
I swung around behind the booth and sat down next to him. He was setting up the fliers and brochures, though we wouldn’t actually set out his wares until the next day.
“Dude, there’s something going on out here.” I told him about what had happened in the pumpkin patch and then out near my car. “I don’t know what the hell it is, but Dray tried to tell his mother about a few things he’s seen and she bit his head off for it. I’m thinking Marigold isn’t going to want to hear that something’s creeping around her land.” I paused, then added, “For a moment, I was terrified it might be Pandora. I guess I still have a few things to work on with Sejun.”
My Elven therapist had done wonders in helping me. The Elves had a type of therapy where they could remove the trigger emotions behind an event, while leaving the memory. Which meant you could face what happened without falling back into the moment—my flashbacks were almost gone, I seldom had nightmares now about the incident, and the feelings of helplessness had almost been wiped away. But I still was afraid of Pandora, and frankly, I regarded that fear as healthy. She was dangerous, and I never wanted to get complacent if there was a chance she’d be around.
“Hell, I’m afraid of Pandora and I’ve never met her. She sounds like a nightmare bitch from hell.” He shook his head. “All right, tell you what. Keep what you know under wraps tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll make the rounds of the farm before opening the booth to see if there’s anything around in the daylight. If there is, we’ll tell Marigold together. I doubt if she’s going to take the same attitude she did with her son, though you never know. But if there’s something out here, she and Rain should know. They have kids, there are strangers who come onto their land to buy their wares—you can’t just close your eyes if you’re exposing other people as potential victims.”
That seemed the best idea, so I agreed. “Let’s go judge some flowers. I have no idea what to look for, so I guess that makes me unbiased. I’ll just judge on what looks the prettiest.”
Llew laughed, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “Raven, I hope you never change.”
I rested my head against his shoulder. “Llew, I doubt that I ever will.”
By the time I got home, I had managed to piss off two gardeners who took issue with me giving a higher score to a bunch of mums instead of their zinnias and dahlias, and I had bought a gallon of honey, three blueberry pies, two dozen chocolate chip cookies, a dozen croissants, and bags of tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, and celery.
Kipa met me at the door and took my bags from me. As he followed me into the dining room, I saw that the boys had been playing poker.
“Hey, Da? Can you help Kipa bring in my pumpkins and other stuff from the car?”