Page 7 of Fixing the Grumpy Pumpkin King
He didn’t want to think about it.
People continued to stare as he passed. Their expressions ranged from confused to amused to concerned, but no one stopped him.
“Oh god, Mrs. Patterson is watching.” The warlock called out, craning his neck. “Hi, Mrs. Patterson!”
Lord Mabon turned down a side street. The song crescendo pulled him forward. Close now.
“Wait. Are you… are you one of our old friends?” Locke’s voice changed, became more thoughtful. He was trying to see Lord Mabon’s face, twisting awkwardly over his shoulder. “Are you Lamont? You got really tall if that’s you. Or Tommy? Daquarius?”
Ah. So the warlock thought this was a prank. Thought Lord Mabon was someone he knew.
That explained the relative calm despite being carried through town over a stranger’s shoulder.
The innocence of it was delightful.
He stopped in front of a shop.
Moonlit Mysteries.
The sign declared it in swirling purple letters that seemed to glow in the dying light. The windows displayed candles, crystals, bundles of dried herbs. And the magic, the older, stronger magic that had been singing to him had poured from this place.
The song was loudest here. Clearest. A melody so perfectly tuned to the old ways that for a moment, Lord Mabon forgot to breathe.
Someone here KNEW. Really knew.
Locke went quiet for a moment, then: “Okay jokes over thanks for getting me home… although me and Rowan was supposed to get some coffee after rehearsal.”
Relief in his voice now. He thought the bit was ending.
Lord Mabon pushed open the door.
Chapter Three
Lockehadmostlyconvincedhimself this was an elaborate prank by the time they reached his grandma’s shop Moonlit Mysteries.
It had to be. Small town, someone who knew where he lived, Rowan’s weird sense of humor, it all added up. Sure, the guy was taking it really far with the silence and the pumpkin mask and the whole carrying-him-through-town thing, but theater people were committed to their bits.
Tommy had once stayed in character as a tree for six hours during a experimental production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. This was just... method acting. Extreme method acting.
Besides, Locke knew these streets. Had walked them his whole childhood before his parents dragged him to Portland. Mrs. Patterson waving from her porch. The Collins’s dog barking from behind their fence. The smell of someone’s backyard firepit mixing with fallen leaves.
Home. This was home, even if it felt smaller than he remembered.
And now they were at Grandma’s shop, and any second Rowan would jump out laughing and the pumpkin guy would take off his mask and it would be someone Locke vaguely remembered from middle school and they’d all go get coffee and laugh about it.
Any second now.
Then the guy pushed open the door to the shop and stepped inside like he owned the place.
Locke’s relief evaporated.
The shop was dark. Closed. Grandma was on a cruise and Locke had closed early for rehearsal.
And there was no Rowan popping out to laugh at him.
The pumpkin-headed man just kept walking. Through the shop, past the counter where Grandma kept her vintage register and her hand-written price tags, heading for the stairs that led up to the upstairs apartment.
Locke’s heart started pounding properly now, not the nervous flutter from before but actual fear. This was a stranger. In his house. And Locke had just let himself be carried here because he’d assumed it was all a freaking joke.
