Page 10 of A Dead End Wedding

By the time we filled her in on the Fae and their Bargain, Susan was slumped in an ancient velvet-covered chair, her head in her hands.

“Just one week. Is that too much to ask? Just one week with no craziness?” she said, her voice muffled.

“Apparently,” Tess said a bit sharply. “And the deadline is the same day as our wedding.”

Susan raised a shocked face to us. “That sucks. That’s not fairat all.”

“The Fae never worried too much about being fair to mortals,” I said dryly. “Now, what was it you came racing in here to tell us? What dead body?”

She sighed and stood. “To be honest, I’m not even sure it’s a dead body. A coffin-shaped box showed up on the lawn outside my office.”

The sheriff’s department shared space with a tiny jail on the ground floor, and Mayor Ruby’s offices were on the second floor of the Dead End municipal building.

“Well, did you open it?”

“We couldn’t open it. That’s why I came to find you.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m not the only one in town who can get a box open, Susan, so clearly there’s more to this.”

She held out a card, and Tess took it and read it out loud.

“This container is only to be opened by one with great courage.”

“Susan. You’ve got some false modesty going on if you don’t realize you have great courage,” I said, and she flushed.

“Thanks for that. Yes, I do realize that, but turn over the card, Tess.”

Tess flipped the card over and frowned. “One with great courage who does not wear the uniform.”

“That’s pretty specific. I probably would have tried, anyway,” Eleanor said.

The sheriff shrugged. “We did, of course. No dice. So, I came to find you.”

“I wore a uniform,” I remind her.

“Not you.Tess.”

“Me?” Tess’s eyes widened. “I mean, okay. I’ve had to be pretty brave during some of our wilder adventures, but great courage?”

“You’re brave, plus you’re immune to some Fae magic, so just in case …”

“You absolutely have great courage,” I told Tess. “Let’s go. We can open Susan’s box on our way to eat lunch with a stinky swamp troll.”

“Great!” Susan started for the door. “Also, Tess, granny wants to know if you want to wear her wedding dress since, and I quote, ‘my granddaughter the sheriff won’t get married’ . . .”

“If the swamp troll has a wedding dress for me, too, I’m going to take you up on the eloping idea,” Tess said darkly, grabbing my hand.

Susan wasn’t exaggerating. The box looked exactly like a coffin, if coffins were made of rowan wood and edged in what looked like actual gold.

“It doesn’t have a latch,” I said.

Susan gave me a look. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

Tess circled the box but didn’t touch it. “How are we supposed to get into it? Did you check the bottom? Maybe it has a trapdoor or something.”

“Wait for me!” cried out a very familiar voice, and we all turned to see ninety-plus-year old Mrs. Frost toddling up the sidewalk with her walker. She was dressed for the summer heat in a pink floral dress with large white flowers that matched her snow-white hair, and she wore hot pink orthopedic shoes with little white ankle socks.

I casually strolled over to walk next to her; in case she tripped and fell. Those bones had to be pretty fragile the nearer to the century mark she got.

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