“Not that I know of,” he said. “Baking, which I think is talent more than power. The ability to know what someone really is. That’s about it.”
“Have you ever tried to make a wish come true?” Myra asked.
“I’ve made a lot of wishes. Most of them haven’t come true.”
“Someone else’s wish, though?” she asked.
“Back when I was a kid, I used to wish my dad would stay away forever. For my mom. She…she didn’t handle him leaving very well.”
“Have you seen him since?” Myra asked.
“No.”
“Have you tried to make any other of your mom’s wishes come true?”
“Honestly, no. I never really thought about it. I was a pretty happy kid. We were happy.”
Delaney put her coffee cup down on the side table, then leaned back and stared at the ceiling, thinking.
“Okay,” she said. “Let me see if we’re all on the same page here. We don’t have the jinni who originally animated the gnomes, but we have his son, who is half Jinn, but hasn’t tested or tried to invoke his powers, if he has said powers.
“We also have a rise of the zombies tonight, that if not stopped will land us with a permanent zombie gnome population.
“On top of that, the penguin has been stolen, possibly by the zombie gnomes who possibly want to destroy it. We have a couple thousand people wandering the streets—most of them children small enough to be bitten by zombie gnomes. Everyone in town will be wearing disguises, costumes and masks, and Death himself is prowling through our harbor for what he says is a benevolent visit. Do I have it covered?”
“You people know how to keep it fun,” Hogan said.
Myra speared me with a sharp look. “You still aren’t willing to tell us who alerted you to the penguin being missing?”
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t playing exactly by the rules here. There wasn’t a hard-and-fast reason why I was keeping Bertie’s involvement with the penguin kidnappings on the down-low. But the truth was…she was right. That penguin had netted us a lot of good press. It drew people to the town who were generally looking for a bit of quirky, family-friendly fun.
The kidnapped penguin was good for the town. Good for Mrs. Yates, too, who loved showing off her quasi-famous yard. Good for the kids–or whoever–in town to put their own spin on decorating the little concrete statue, and set it up in funny situations that were blog-worthy once it was found.
Knowing that Bertie had stepped in like some sort of well-organized mob boss to coordinate the penguin’s liberations insured that the little statue wouldn’t be damaged.
I had a feeling anyone who wanted to steal the penguin had to run the kidnapping, photoshoot, and outcome past Bertie first. Probably had to fill out forms in triplicate.
By pushing her way into the whole penguin thing, Bertie had effectively taken one responsibility off us. We no longer had to worry about the penguin being in danger, or being handled in a way that would put others in danger.
I kind of dug the secret underground Fight Club aspect of the whole thing. Might even volunteer to be one of the people involved in the penguin snatching.
If Myra and Delaney were really worried about it, they’d push a lot harder to get a name out of me.
“Still not willing to rat the source out,” I finally answered. “But trust me, my source knows exactly what’s been going on with the penguin and by whom. My source wouldn’t panic if there wasn’t a reason for it.”
Delaney picked up her coffee cup, tipped it before realizing it was empty, then frowned at it.
“So how are we going to handle this, boss?” I asked her.
“We’re going to prioritize,” she said. When she made up her mind, there was never any hint of doubt in her. I liked that about her.
“First, we find out if Hogan has any power over the gnomes. Are you okay with that, Hogan?”
“Totally cool. What do you want me to try to do?”
And yeah, there was a flare of pride in my heart for my man. He had never talked about his father, had never tried to tap into his family heritage. But when it mattered, when a scourge of zombie gnomes could be filling our streets, the man stepped right up.
“Can you break the…wish or curse or spell on them?”
He glanced at the duct taped head sitting on the coffee table, then unwound his arm from behind me. “I’m not sure I can really see what makes them what you say they are.”
“Zombies?” Delaney asked.
“Animated. To me, right now, that just looks like a head carved out of rock.”
“Do you think you’ll see it differently once it animates?” Myra asked.
“Maybe?”
“Okay,” Delaney said. “Then we’ll wait. I’ll go make us all some more coffee.”
Timing was going to be a bit of a problem. Trick-or-treaters would be out in force before the sunset, and the Haunted Harbor would be open as soon as it got dark.
Myra stood and stretched. She checked her phone, swiped her thumb across it, and walked to my front door. “Be right back.” She stepped outside to take the call, but not before I heard her say, “How did you get my number, Bathin?”
“That demon still bothering her?” Hogan asked.
“That demon still bothers us all.” Delaney dropped back onto the couch. “Myra’s looking for ways to get my soul back.” She shrugged like it was no big deal. But I knew she didn’t like it. Didn’t like that so far, we hadn’t found a way to get rid of the guy.
Sure, Bathin was good looking, but I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. And since he weighed approximately as much as the Cascade Mountain Range, I couldn’t throw him an inch.
“I think he’s interesting,” Hogan said.
Delaney and I both gave him the same look.
“Interesting how?” I asked.
He rocked his head side-to-side. “I don’t know. Interesting.”
“What do you see when you look at him?” I suddenly wanted to know how Hogan saw the world. How he saw everyone, including the demon.
“I see Bathin. How do you see him?” he asked.
“Not helping.”
His smile spread like slow honey. The reddish-violet of the beanie he still wore set off a rosy tone in his dark skin. I liked him in a hat. Of course, I liked him in everything he wore.
Liked him even better when he wore nothing at all.
“I don’t really have a lot to compare to how I see people. To me, he’s Bathin. A demon, but…” he shrugged. “Not evil, I guess.”
“Demons are kind of the embodiment of evil.” I was baiting him. Because I knew better than to pigeonhole people, whether they were mortal, monster, or god.
“A lot of history says Jinn are evil spirits.” Hogan scratched at the stubble on the side of his jaw. “I try to keep an open mind. Let people show me who they are before I make judgments.”
“He took my sister’s soul.”
“I traded it,” Delaney said. “You know that, Jean. And if I had to do it again, I would.” At my look, she held up one hand. “Yes, I would have done some things differently, like tell you and Myra about the trade before I did it, though I don’t know how I would have. But Bathin did save Ben. That’s worth a lot to me. And he hasn’t damaged my soul. I’ll get it back.”
Here she grinned. “That demon doesn’t have a chance against us Reeds.”
I rolled my eyes, but smiled too. If anyone could figure out how to get Delaney’s soul back, it was Myra. And I knew she’d been working on that problem non-stop.
“Mmm-mmm-hmmph!”
Ah, the head was awake.
“Wow,” Hogan sat forward, his long arms propped on his knees. “Look at the little guy.”
Abner mumbled a reply. It was hard to tell through the duct tape, but he looked really excited.
“Go ahead and take the tape off,” Delaney suggested.
“You so don’t want me to do that,” I said.
“Jean.”
&
nbsp; “Fine.” I pulled off the tape and Abner smacked his mouth.
“Why do I feel so funny?” he asked. “Wait...I’m a zombie, aren’t I? Gno!”
“Denial,” I said. “First stage of zombie gnome grief.”
“Well, it could be worse. Zombies are such popular critters right now.”
“Acceptance.”
“Boy, I could use a bite to eat.”
“Hunger.”
“Like, a lot to eat. I could chew my way through a concrete truck.”
“More hunger.”
“Got anything to eat?” he asked no one in particular.
“No,” I said. “And the last stage....”
“Gnock-gnock.”
Hogan laughed.
Delaney shook her head. “I thought you made up the knock-knock part of this.”
“Nope. So what do you think?” I asked Hogan.
“He’s...hey, your name’s Abner, right?” Hogan asked.
My front door opened and Myra walked in. “Do you have candy? There are kids on the block and they’re headed this way, fast.”
“In the kitchen in the worm bowl.”
Her gaze flicked to Abner, then Delaney and Hogan, then she walked off to the kitchen.
“I am Abner Doboodoo, the head of all Ordinary gnomes.”
“Nice,” Hogan said. “I’m Hogan. I bake things. Can you remember the jinni who brought you to life?”
“There was a jinni?”
I sat forward and patted Hogan’s thigh. “Gnomes have really short memories. He won’t remember how this all happened to him.”
“Did you take the penguin?” Delaney asked.
“There was a penguin!” Abner blinked his good eye and looked completely confused. “Anyone got someone I could eat? A statue, a relief, maybe some sweet yard art? Abner sure could use some candy.”
Hogan laughed. “Dude. You are so metal.”
“Can you tell what’s making him animate?” Delaney asked.
“Can you tell what’s making him a zombie?” I asked.
Hogan tipped his head a little and scratched under his hat. “A beheading, a burial, a bite.”
I shivered. It was exactly what Death had said. “That is so cool.”
My doorbell rang with a buzz followed by a scream because it was Halloween, and I didn’t do anything by halves.
“I’ll get it,” Myra said.
“It looks, kind of...colorful?” Hogan asked, like he was talking to himself. “Yeah, colorful. Like fire and smoke. It’s kind of orangey.”
“What is?” I asked.
“The wish that was granted. It was something for a…child, I think. A gift. That’s…well, that’s not what I expected.”
I could imagine he hadn’t expected his absent father to have done anything as nice or maybe mundane, if one considered that he was a jinni, as granting a kid’s wish for a statue to come to life.
“Trick or treat!” a chorus of kid voices called out.
“Wow, you look so scary,” Myra said from the door. “Are you a vampire or a shark?”
“Both!” a little kid crowed.
Aw…I was missing out on the kid costumes. That was one of my favorite parts of Halloween.
“Abner’s old.” Hogan waved his hand. “But I think…I think he belonged to a kid once. A long, long time ago. A little girl?”
“Poppy,” Abner said with a wistful note. “Sweet, bright Poppy.”
“You remember her?” I asked.
Abner’s already clouded eyes got cloudier. “We used to play tea party. Every gnight in October. She’d open her bedroom window and bring me inside. We ate candy corn.”
“What happened to Poppy?” Delaney asked.
“It was the strangest thing,” Abner reminisced. “She kept getting bigger. Until she wasn’t little. Until she was like you. And then she drove away.”
“She didn’t take you?” Hogan asked.
“I fell out of her hands when she was packing me in the trailer. Head broke right off. She leaked water out of her face and buried my head. Left my body standing above it.”
So that’s how Abner lost his head. I couldn’t imagine how many years ago that had happened. Fifty? A hundred?
And all this time we’d been dealing with his body as the leader of the gnomes, not knowing his head was buried beneath it. I wondered if someone had decided it was time to bury the body too. Or throw it away in the land fill.
That, then—both parts of Abner being buried, and him also being beheaded—must have triggered the zombie plague.
I felt sorry for the old guy.
“Gnock-gnock.”
Scratch that. I didn’t feel sorry for him at all.
“Who’s there?” Abner answered himself.
“Oh, gods, no,” I said. “You do not get to do both parts of this joke.”
“Banana,” Abner said.
“Do not say banana who,” I ordered.
“Banana who?” Abner said. Then: “Gnock-gnock.”
I groaned. “Make him stop. Hogan, whatever you do, make him stop.”
“Who’s there?” Abner asked. “Banana!”
“I don’t think,” Hogan frowned. “There’s…I don’t see any way to stop this. Not…it’s not like the wish comes with instructions.”
“Banana who?” Abner shouted. “Gnock-gnock!”
“Do something,” I said. “Anything at this point would be good. A yip. A yop. Anything.”
Hogan puffed out a laugh. “A yop? What does that even mean?”
“It means stop laughing at your girlfriend and do some jinni stuff to fix the gnome.”
“Who’s there?” Abner stage whispered, his eyes going shiftily back and forth.
The doorbell rang. The scream screamed.
“Trick or treat!” Maybe it was my imagination, but that was a very low voice.
“And what are you supposed to be?” Myra asked in a tone that sounded like she was trying to hold back a laugh.
“You must give me the candy, or I shall trick you.”
My gaze snapped up and met Delaney’s. That was Death. A breeze much chillier than the temperature outside pushed in through the door and dropped the air in the living room by several degrees.
“He’s here to kill Abner,” Delaney said.
“Banana,” Abner whispered loudly.
I suddenly wondered why we were fighting this. Maybe letting Abner go to the great—wherever gnomes went when they were dead, revived, then dead again—was his destiny. His fate.
I could probably even ask Fate about that.
“Maybe we’re thinking about this the wrong way,” I said.
“That’s not how trick or treat works,” Myra said. “First, I get to guess your costume. Then maybe you get candy. Let’s see, are you a butterfly?”
“No.”
I couldn’t tell if he was delighted or disgusted with this game.
“Are you an angel?”
“Well, yes. Of death. But no. That is not my costume.”
“Something with wings. Let me think.” Myra was stalling. Or maybe she was just really into having Death on the doorstep begging for a three-dollar candy bar.
Like I said. I did not do Halloween by halves.
“All the gnomes have been living in Ordinary for years,” Delaney said, reminding me that we had a problem right here in the living room. “Maybe they’re only alive for one month a year, but they are citizens here. We don’t discriminate against our citizens. We protect them, uphold their rights, make sure that their needs are met, no matter if they have been here for a day, or if they’ve been mostly dead all of their weird little lives.”
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll try to keep Abner alive. So, Hogan, can you break the zombie spell?”
He shifted a bit. “I’m not sure. Hey, Abner.”
The gnome glanced at him, then away.
Hogan said, “Knock knock.”
Abner focused on Hogan like there was nothing else in the world. If he’d
had lungs, if he’d had a breath that he could wait with bated, he’d be doing that too. “Who’s there?”
“Head gnome.”
Abner’s smile got wider and wider. Frankly, it was a little creepy. But Hogan grinned right back at him. “Head gnome who?”
“Head gnome me.”
I admit it, I gasped a little. For one thing, it was a dumb joke. Like, it wasn’t even funny. But for another, everything in the room sort of shifted.
I wouldn’t say that the orangey-ness of it changed, but really? The orangey-ness of it changed.
“Oh. Seriously,” Hogan said. “Wow. So, I’m the gnew leader gnow.”
And just like that, Abner looked a lot more alive. Both his eyes were now bright and blinking, his beard a nice white triangle beneath his chin, his ears evenly curled under his bright red pointed hat.
“Our leader,” Abner said. “You are here.”
“What?” I asked.
“Hold on,” Delaney said. “Hogan, what did you just do?”
“You are abhorrent at guessing a simple disguise,” Death said from the front door. “I would have expected more from a police detective.”
Myra made a tsking sound. “Someone’s sassing their way out of the jumbo Snickers bar.”
“What did you do?” I asked Hogan. Since he wasn’t paying any attention to me, I grabbed his shoulders and shook him a little. “What did you just do?”
“It’s cool. Like. Good. Real good. I’m like, the leader of these little dudes now, and I make the rules. Hey, Abner,” he said. “You aren’t a zombie anymore.”
“I’m gnot?”
“You’re gnot.” There was that feeling again. The slight shift in a color I hadn’t even sensed in the room until it changed. “And that means gnone of the other gnomes are zombies anymore.”
“They’re gnot?”
Another slight shift.
“They are gnot. You still hungry?”
Abner frowned, his hat shifting forward as his eyebrows knit together. “Candy corn?”
“You got it.” Hogan reached over to the jar next to the love seat, shook out a handful of candy corn, then poured them next to the head.
Abner smiled and bit into a candy corn with a lot more finesse than I’d have expected out of a bodiless gnome.
My boyfriend was the head of the garden gnomes. What did that even mean?
“What does this even mean?” I asked him.