Page 16 of A Dead End Wedding

“You need to get back here. We’ve got a problem.”

“What now?”

But the phone went dead.

7

Tess

Wednesday: Wedding minus 10 days

Luckily, the problem at work turned out to be only a faucet leak. After I had a laugh and a chat with Eleanor about how to word phone calls, so her boss didn’t freak out, I fixed the faucet.

Jack went through the connecting door from my shop to his office to make some calls to the vast network of people and supernaturals he knew, to see if he could learn anything helpful about Fae trials.

We weren’t very busy, so I went into the back to focus on wedding details while Eleanor held down the fort. She normally only worked part time, but she was helping me out in the pre-wedding weeks. I was thrilled she’d stayed on after she got married. My attempts at hiring more help never ended well.

Not as bad as the high school’s attempts to hire a new science teacher, but still not good.

The afternoon went by too fast for the number of details I needed to cover, but my best friend Molly called and helped talk me down off Stress Mountain.

“I’ll be there Monday! I wish it could be sooner, but I can’t get out of this contract,” she said.

Molly and her indie rock band, Scarlett’s Letters, were zooming up the charts, and more and more venues wanted them, which was amazing for her, but, I admit, a little sad for me. She and I had never spent so much time apart as in the past couple of years, and I missed her terribly. Weekly video chats were great but didn’t make up for in-person Molly time. She’d been my best friend since the first day of kindergarten and my staunchest support after my “gift” manifested, and nobody else wanted anything to do with me.

Hard to want to be close to somebody who could see how you’d die from a simple touch, I guess, but it had left me devastated, frightened, and alone, except for Uncle Mike, Aunt Ruby, and Molly. Luckily, some weird magical grandfather clause kept me from seeing the deaths of anybody I’d ever touched before the ability showed up.

When I saw Jack’s first death, it was horrible enough. If I’d ever seen Molly’s death—and being plain vanilla human, she’ll only have one—it would have destroyed me.

I filled Molly in on the town charter renewal, Mrs. Frost, and the troll, and had to listen while she laughed for a full minute. “I’m sorry, Tess. I know it’s a lot, and it’s awful. But man! Dead End never changes. The problems just get worse and worse and?—”

“Yeah, I hear you.” I had to laugh a little myself. It was that or curl up in a ball and hide beneath my desk.

“See you soon, my beautiful bestie, soon to be bride! Love you!” And Molly was gone.

Eleanor opened the door to the kitchen/office. “Hey, Tess, it’s slow. Do you want to close up now, at five, instead of waiting till six? That way, we can get some dinner before the town hall meeting?”

I groaned. “Right. The town hall meeting.”

Jack walked in behind her. “Okay, ladies. News. I learned absolutely nothing, except that once a Fae queen sets down a Bargain, there’s no way out of it, and we already knew that. Also, nobody has been able to talk Mrs. Frost out of competing.”

“But what if it’s dangerous?” Eleanor sounded appalled. We’d told her all about it, of course.

“It may be, but the Fae are usually pretty straightforward about challenges. Their severe but incomprehensible sense of honor demands it. And let’s be honest: we don’t have anybody better at archery in town.” Jack shrugged. “Susan set up the target and held tryouts all afternoon with the bows and arrows provided, and lots of people tried, but nobody came close. Actually, that’s not quite right. Little Lily McKee was pretty good.”

“She’s an archery champ at her summer camp,” I said. “Camp Whoozeewampus, or something like that.”

Jack blinked. “That’s quite a name. Anyway, she was good, but nowhere near Mrs. Frost, especially Mrs. Frost with her new eyeballs.”

Eleanor laughed. “Nothing like having a former head priest from Atlantis using his magical mojo on your cataracts.”

“She still asks me sometimes if Alaric wants to get in touch with her friend to buy pigs and start a farm.” I shook my head but had to smile.

Jack laughed at the idea of the dangerous, terrifying Alaric, the most powerful magic wielder Atlantis had ever known, raising pigs.

“Okay,” I decided, pushing all the wedding paperwork aside. “Dinner, town hall, maybe a nap? And then our midnight rendezvous with part one of our exciting week of random nonsense a Fae queen is forcing us to do.”

“Can we have pizza?” Jack was already pulling out his phone. He had Judd’s Pizza on speed dial.

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