Page 6 of Fixing the Grumpy Pumpkin King
The chime of music.
Not literal music. Not something mortal ears could hear. But magic had always sung to him, and this was a melody he hadn’t heard in centuries. Just like this pretty boy slung over his shoulder this was old magic. Refined. Practiced. Someone who knew the ways, the real ways, weaving power into intention and letting it resonate like a bell struck perfectly.
The song pulled him forward, clear and insistent.
Lord Mabon adjusted his grip on the warlock. The weight of him, solid and present. After 259 years of touching nothing but air and his familiars, the simple act of carrying someone felt impossible. Like he’d forgotten bodies could be heavy, could be warm, could radiate life against his own body.
The warlock’s protests were background noise. What mattered was the song growing louder with each step, and the colors getting richer. This was the warlock’s power he was tracing, but not entirely. It was woven with this powerful music that belonged to an old soul.
Hollow Hill.
The sign not far from the theater had declared it cheerfully. Population 3,847, but numbers meant nothing. What mattered was the feel of it. The veil here was thin. Naturally, perpetually thin. This was a place where magic breathed close to the surface, where practitioners had gathered for generations.
Where he’d walked these streets when they were dirt paths.
Where he’d been celebrated, once.
But everything was wrong now. Plastic skeletons hung from lampposts like grotesque ornaments. Inflatable ghosts bobbed in front yards, motors whirring. Fake spiderwebs clung to porch railings. And everywhere the garish glow of electric jack-o’-lanterns and LED string lights shaped like bats, washing out the genuine magic of the sunset with their artificial shine.
A couple walking a dog stopped to stare. A woman getting into her car paused, mouth open. A teenager on a bicycle slowed, watching.
Lord Mabon ignored them all. The song was louder now, more complex. Whoever created that magic knew what they were doing. Layers upon layers of intention, woven so carefully it made his chest ache with something he refused to name.
Hope, maybe. That not everything had been forgotten.
“The pumpkin head is genuinely impressive though,” the warlock continued from over his shoulder. “Like, did you make that yourself or…?”
Lord Mabon passed the oak tree in the town square and stopped.
After all these centuries it still stood.
The tree rose massive and ancient, its branches spread wide against that impossible sunset. And for a moment, just a moment, Lord Mabon saw them. Translucent, shimmering, overlaid on the present: hundreds of ribbons fluttering in a wind that no longer blew. Red, blue, green, yellow, white. Prayers written on cloth and parchment, tied to branches with careful hands and desperate hope.
There. That branch, third from the left. A girl in a brown dress who couldn’t have been more than ten had stood on her father’s shoulders to reach it. She’d tied a red ribbon and whispered a prayer for her mother’s fever to break. Lord Mabon had heard it. Had watched her small face screwed up in concentration, lips moving in words she barely understood but believed in completely.
He’d answered that prayer. The fever had broken.
Did the mother live? He couldn’t remember. So many faces. So many prayers. All of them gone now.
The ghost-ribbons flickered and faded, leaving only bare branches.
Lord Mabon couldn’t help but think of how wrong this all was.
But the tree remembered. He could feel it, ancient and patient, its roots deep in earth that had known magic before humans learned to name it. Waiting for someone to remember how things were supposed to be.
“You know what, this HAS to be Rowan,” the warlock was saying. “He’s the only one who would think carrying someone through town over your shoulder is funny.”
Lord Mabon forced himself to look away from the tree, from the ghost-ribbons only he could see. The song pulled him forward, and he followed. Two magics now, clearly distinct. The melody was older, stronger, and refined into something beautiful. And underneath it, barely audible, something raw and untrained.
This warlock’s magic.
He hadn’t noticed it before, too focused on the song. But now, with this boy’s weight against his shoulder, with his warmth seeping through the robes, Lord Mabon realized: the colors weren’t just vivid because he was back in the mortal world.
They were vivid because of him.
This confused, rambling mortal who didn’t know what he was, was saturating everything. Making the sunset richer, the shadows deeper, the lingering daylight thick as honey. Raw magic bleeding into the world unconsciously, painting everything in shades Lord Mabon had almost forgotten existed.
How long had he been fading? How long had his world been washing out to nothing?
