Page 2 of Wishing for a Werewolf
A tiny black and white blur barrels out of the underbrush to dash past me. She gives a high bleat of happiness that I’ve decided to play and spins on a dime to race back into the trees. Her little cries sound just like she’s saying, “Me! Me! Me!” and I can totally believe it. Animals tend to be pure ego, but the mini-goat takes it to whole new levels.
A soft huff of a laugh escapes me as I take off after her. For all her mischief, the little rotten does everything with such pure joy it’s hard to stay mad.
But she’s really done it this time, going farther than ever. We cut through a grove of oaks and near the property line.
“Babybelle!”
Her only response is to slow enough to let me catch the impudent flick of her tail, its white fur raised like a little flag above her mostly black back. But this white flag is the opposite of a sign of surrender. After a mischievous glimpse over her shoulder to make sure I’m following, themini-goat takes off again, skipping through a patch of ferns, the reddened fronds waving in her wake.
She keeps heading north, crossing onto neighboring land. No one’s lived at the old Clemmons place for a couple of years, not since Jeb passed at the ripe old age of eighty-nine.
At least there’s no one Babybelle can bother there.
I break into a small clearing to find the mini-goat bouncing in a beam of sunlight, her splotches of white fur gleaming against the black. She gambols over to me with a hopping little run, headbutts my leg, then spins to take off again.
I race after her, heading east toward town. God, what if I don’t catch her in time?
Then I huff a laugh. As if anyone would care about a mini-goat running down Main Street! Compared to all the pixies and gnomes and walking tulips that now fill Ferndale Falls, a goat would be nothing. In the past few months, my little town’s gone from sleepy to bursting with magic and fae. Downtown has been transformed, full of bustling shops and cute cafés with seriously yummy food.
And even yummier fae walking around like three seasons’ worth ofLove Islandcontestants got dropped on our small town. We’ve got winged shadow daddies with tattoos, hulking orcs running The Thirsty Tusk, and sexy shifters silently stalking the streets.
Okay, so the werepanther, Shadow, isn’t necessarily the quiet type, but Rune… I snort. The werewolf hasn’t said two words to me. It’s not fair. A guy shouldn’t look that good if he’s not willing to at least flirt a little! And staring at me all the time with those gorgeous golden eyestotallydoesn’t count.
Hands lifted to shield my face, I push between a couple of pines, their long needles tickling over my forearms and filling the air with their crisp scent.
Babybelle leads me into a stand of oak, maple, and poplar trees, their leaves blazing red, gold, and orange. The trunks thin ahead, forming a small glen, and she gallops straight for the old well at the center. The circular stone base stands a few feet high, topped with a peaked wooden roof to keep off leaves. No one ever uses it for water anymore—the hook to lower a bucket hangs empty—but that doesn’t mean it isn’t deep.
And I don’t trust her. The little furball of mischief is a total trouble magnet.
“Babybelle, no!”
Instead of obeying, she bounces right up to the well. Then my insides turn to ice as she leaps. Oh, god, this is it. She’s going to fall in!
Her little hooves clatter against the rock, finding purchase. Babybelle stands triumphantly on the lip of the well, looks straight at me, and gives a happy bleat that I could swear sounds like she says, “See!”
Jolting forward, I scoop her up, cradling her to my chest, which billows in and out like an accordion wheezing notes to an offbeat tune. I stand, sucking in big gulps of air now that the run is over, pressing my cheek to the top of her soft little head. “No more intense cardio for you, Autumn,” I mutter to myself. “It makes you hear things.”
As soon as I catch my breath, I turntoward home.
Babybelle becomes a whirling dervish in my arms, every muscle in her tiny body straining, her little legs kicking. “No!” Her cries sound human. “No, no, no!”
My hand tightens on her tummy, but it’s no good.
The mini-goat twists out of my grip. As soon as her little hooves hit the ground, she races around to the other side of the well and headbutts the wooden sign propped against it, her forehead bouncing off the words “The Wishing Well.”
“I haven’t thought about the Wishing Well since high school.” During eleventh grade, it was a rite of passage to come out here late at night and make wishes. Not that anything ever came of it. I crouch to wipe away the leaves built up at the bottom of the sign.
The Wishing Well
Will grant three wishes:
One for joy today
One for future happiness
One for the heart everlasting
Babybelle lowers her head and bounds toward my thigh, punctuating the hit with a “You.”
