Page 92 of Ghost Walk
Good news: The cannonball struck Eugenia-the-Troll right on her broadside.
Better news: It sent the lunatic rolling down the hill like a big, green log.
Best News: The cannon firing didn’t send the whole armory sky high.
“It worked!” Grace smiled widely. “I take back everything I said about you being a lackluster pirate. That was kind of awesome.”
“Kindofawesome? I just shot a troll with a cannon, lass. I’mamazinglyawesome.” The force of the blast had bent the hinges of the door and Jamie used his shoulder to force it open. “Now that she’s wounded, we might actually have a chance of surviving this damnable night. …Unless the town tries to execute us again.”
“I don’t think anyone’s going to be in the mood to lynch us.” Grace followed him into the gathering darkness. “Especially not you. We can definitively prove that you’re not the killer, now. No matter what happens next, we’ve cleared your name, once and for all.”
“Thrilling.” Jamie didn’t sound thrilled. He sounded like he was ready to instigate some mob justice of his own. “Stay behind me, understand?”
The cannonball hadn’t penetrated Eugenia’s magically-reinforced, troll-y skin, but it did seem to knock some of the enchantment out of her. However Troll Powder worked, it didn’t seem to last long. Especially not in the face of massive projectiles. The spell was already dissipating as they made their way down the hill. The green color was fading from Eugenia’s flesh, the normal-sized features returning to her face.
“Witch!” Clara Vance bellowed again, pointing a finger at her. “You’vebeen the one plaguing our town, Eugenia Wentworth!You’rethe witch!”
Clara and a few of the braver (possibly stupider) townsfolk hadn’t fled at the first sign of a monster attack. Instead, they’d grabbed up shovels, sticks, and anything else they could find in an effort to defend Harrisonburg.
Eugenia staggered to her feet. The black dress was in tatters around her shrunken body, but she’d somehow managed to hang onto the knife. Springing forward, she seized hold of Clara, dragging her around to use her as a human shield.
Clara let out a wail of panic. “Help!Help!”
“I’m not the witch!” Eugenia shrieked, all her crazy-fied attention on Jamie. “It’sher!” She jerked her still-transforming chin at Grace. “She cast a spell on me! She’s behindallof this. Don’t you see? She is just another whore trying to get between us. Just like Lucinda and Anabel and Clara…”
“Me?” Clara scoffed, not knowing when to shut up. “As if I’d ever allow a pirate to court me.”
“Clara, zip it before you get yourself dead.” Grace warned. “And Jamie, don’t get too close to the armed maniac.”
He shot her a quick look. “She tried to kill you, Grace. She’s not going to just walk away from this.”
“She won’t. There are plenty of people around who see who she really is. She’ll go to jail and we’ll go to Jamaica and everything will be fine.”
Eugenia clearly wasn’t ready to give herself up, though. “You and I are supposed to be together, Jamie. That’s why Ihadto do this. Our connection is too deep to deny! I know you feel that, too!”
“All I feel for you is fucking disgust.” He stalked towards her, patriot blue eyes burning with fury. “You just tried to murder my fiancée!”
“She turned me into a troll!” Eugenia shouted, moving backwards and dragging Clara with her. “You all saw it! I’msureyou’re under some kind of a spell. That’s why you don’t feel our love.”
“I donea feel any love for you, becauseI donea love you. I loveGrace.”
Eugenia gave a sob that was part heartbreak and part rage at his refusal to drop to one knee and propose. “She’s turned you against me!”
“You did that yourself! Starting with the night you slaughtered poor Lucinda for no goddamn reason, at all!”
“That was probably her doing, too.” Eugenia tried, gesturing to Grace again, desperate to win Jamie to her side. “I never would have killed Lucinda if that witch hadn’tmademe do it! It was probably another spell.”
“It was you being an evil, heartless lunatic.” Jamie retorted. “How could you do that to your own sister?”
“Eugenia killed Lucinda?” Clara squeaked. The blade at her neck still wasn’t doing much to curb her hall-monitor tendencies. “Wait until I tell my father! You can forget about teaching Sunday school next week, I can promise you that, Eugenia Wentworth!”
“Clara,shut up!” Grace repeated forcefully.
“I knew you’d take Lucinda’s side!” Eugenia gave up all pretense of being even kinda sane and screeched at Jamie soloudly that spittle flew from her mouth. “She let you bed her, and had a pretty face, and that’s all that men need to fancy a girl! No one even looks at me, unless Imakethem!” She kept moving backwards. “But noweveryoneis looking at me. Now everyone knows who I am. NowI’mthe Wentworth sister that this whole blasted town will remember. Now I’m the one…”
Her words ended abruptly as the heel of her practical shoe came down on a weird metal framework laid out on the ground. It took Grace a moment to realize it was the launching pad for the fireworks. The rockets poking out of it were cruder than their modern counterparts and way, way bigger than the kind sold at roadside tents during the summertime.
And the long fuse on them was already lit.
