“You’re coming, right?” Tig, my neighbor’s seven-year-old son, asked as he pushed his vampire teeth further into his mouth with his twisted thumb.

“I’m not allowed.” I sighed and knelt to adjust the bow that held his cape tied securely around his equally twisted neck. I’d babysat Tig from the day he’d escaped his dead mother’s womb and had slipped—all too perfect, in my opinion—into my world.

He and I were waiting beneath the Japanese Cherry Tree Tig’s Aunt Petra had planted in honor of her late sister mere days after she’d passed away. One of the few species of cherry to bloom in the fall, this one never failed to treat us to a dazzling display of pink blossoms every October. This year had been no exception. A carpet of pink flowers lay in the grass at our feet, with a few of the more stubborn blooms clinging tenaciously to the upper boughs.

Tig elbowed the black cotton sheet—the aforementioned cape—wrapped around his hunched back, trying to push it over his wheelchair with an arm half the size of its mate. With a distracted grunt, he mumbled, “You gotta come.”

I reached over his shoulder and pulled the cape free, then settled it between the two handles jutting from the back of the chair. “You know I can’t. We already talked about this.”

He stopped fidgeting, stared into my eyes, and then pulled out the plastic teeth so he could speak without drooling onto his bowtie. Why he thought vampires wore bow ties, I’ll never understand, but in his mind, any self-respecting neck biter had to have one. “I don’t care what they say, and you shouldn’t either. I mean,” he gave a much too mature wave of his “normal” arm, “look at me. You think they don’t say mean things about me behind my back?” Tig was seven going on forty. I think nature had compensated him for his bent body with a brain the size of Manhattan.

“It’s not just the mean things, Tig, and you know it.” My cell phone vibrated, and I pulled it out of my pocket to see who was calling at seven-thirty on a Thursday night. The smiling face of Petra, Tig’s aunt, who’d adopted him after his father had taken one look at his son’s twisted body and skipped town, lit up my screen. I showed it to Tig, who held out his hand.

He hit send while I held the phone steady and then took it and held it to his ear. He wasted no time getting to what had been worrying him all afternoon. “Hi, Aunt P. You have your vampire teeth, right? I’m ready. Cass and me are waiting under Mom’s tree for you to pick us up.”

I growled quietly, “Tig. I can’t come.” I held my breath, hoping nothing had come up to keep Petra from taking Tig to the Halloween party at his school—his Christian school that had banned me from their property when they’d discovered my Wiccan beliefs.

As a patrol sergeant with the Connerville Police Department, there’d been too many times other people’s dysfunctional families had kept Petra away from special occasions with her adopted son. Normally, I could step in to help out, but not tonight. Tonight was Samhain, my special night to celebrate with my coven.

I watched Tig’s face shift from excited anticipation to disbelief, then finally to that of a seven-year-old fighting to hold back tears. He held out the phone, and then angrily jerked on the string holding his cape in place.

I took my cell back and stepped to the far side of the tree, keeping my back to Tig so that he couldn’t hear what I had to say. “Don’t you dare.”

“I’m sorry, Cass. One of my officers shot someone, and it’s a real mess down here. Look, I know it’s—”

“No. First of all, you know that damn school makes me wait across the street every time it’s my turn to pick him up. Second, there’s no way in hell they’ll let me into the party, and third, my skin would crawl if I had to be around those self-righteous hypocrites for any amount of time, let alone for an entire party. You get your ass back here and take your son to that idiotic excuse for an All-Hallows-Eve party.”

“I can’t. He can miss one party, for God’s sake. It’s not like it’s the end of the world.”

“And you can let some other sergeant handle your officer’s shooting.” I sounded like her wife instead of her neighbor.

“No, I can’t. Look, I know you go out to Brendywine Woods with your friends on Halloween. Can’t you take him with you? I’ll meet you there and take him off your hands as soon as I can, okay? I gotta run; the captain just arrived. Thanks, Cass.”

“No!” She disconnected before I could let loose with every curse word I’d ever learned. I punched redial and listened as the phone rang twice, then went to voicemail. I left a message that would embarrass even the most hardened sailor, then punched her number again to start over when I remembered Tig on the other side of the tree.

I glanced around the purplish trunk in time to see the back of his electric wheelchair sailing down the sidewalk five houses away. “Hey!” I snatched up the black sheet he’d thrown on the ground and ran after him. Unfortunately, that damn chair had an overdrive that kicked his speed up just enough to keep me from catching him before he disappeared around the corner at the end of the block.

At twenty-seven, I hadn’t completely let my five-foot-two-inch body go to wrack and ruin, but running wasn’t something I’d ever been good at, even in my teens. The long line of golden-leafed hickory trees stretching the length of the sidewalk kept away even the small amount of light from the darkening sky, and I tripped over every raised piece of cement and fallen stick in my path. When I rounded the corner, he’d already punched the pedestrian button at the traffic light a block away.

Luckily for me, the light stayed red long enough for me to catch him before he crossed. Wheelchair or not, I didn’t think a seven-year-old kid should cross a poorly lit intersection all by himself. I was huffing when I finally stopped next to his chair. I braced my hands on my knees and wheezed, “What do you think you’re doing?”

I heard the whir of his chair as he scooted down the ramp and onto the street in front of a brown UPS van stopped at the light. From experience, I knew I couldn’t stop the chair just by grabbing the handles, so I hurried around in front and planted my hands on the chair’s padded arms. I braced my legs out behind me, and the little shit had the gall to push me several feet across the crosswalk.

The light turned green, and a guy in a brown Honda Civic honked for us to get out of his way. If my hands had been free, I’d have given him the one-finger wave, but as it was, Tig took his hand off his controller and did it for me.

I stood up and held my arms out to my side. “Tig! What the heck?”

He shrugged. “I knew you wanted to, so I did it for you.”

The guy in the Civic stuck his head out the window. “Hey lady, get the kid out of the road, would ya? I gotta be somewhere.”

I gave him a full-fingered wave because I really couldn’t blame him, and when the light turned red again, I made Tig turn around and roll back up onto the sidewalk. My phone rang as I stepped onto the curb, and when I saw it was Petra, I stuck it back into my pocket.

“Was that Aunt P?”

“Yup.”

“What if she changed her mind?”

The wishful thinking plastered across his face made me take out the phone and punch the green button. When she answered, I said, “This had better be good.” I wanted to add “Asshole,” but with Tig listening to every word, I toned it down.

Petra chuckled. “I heard that.”

“What?”

“What you didn’t say.”

I grinned, only a little, and shrugged. “Tig’s here.”

“I figured. I guess he wasn’t there when you left your last voicemail?”

“You guessed right.” Petra and I had known each other for a long time. Eight years, to be exact, ever since I’d moved in next door. She was the only one to welcome me into the neighborhood once it got around that I practiced Wiccan magic and called on my Goddess instead of their God. I pictured her green eyes laughing and grinned again.

Tig leaned forward, anxious to know whether his aunt would be able to take him to the party. “What’s she saying? Why are you smiling? Is she coming?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know yet. I’m smiling because she knows me as well as you do, and that’s saying something.” I put the phone back to my ear. “Well?”

“I’m just checking to make sure everything’s all right. Where was Tig when you left your colorful message?”

“Driving down the sidewalk and out onto 4^th Avenue by himself.”

“What?”

“He’s pissed. He was heading to school on his own since his loser vampire aunt wouldn’t take him.”

“It’s not that I won’t. I can’t. Where is he now?”

I handed the phone to Tig, who took it with his good hand and held it to his ear. “Aunt P? Are you coming to get me?” He listened for a second and then ended the call by throwing the phone into the street. “I hate her. She never takes me anywhere. Her work’s always more important than me.”

I ran out and retrieved the phone, which had somehow disconnected on its own as it bounced across the pitted pavement. I nodded as I walked back. “You know, I could have sworn that was her in that giant bunny costume at your school’s Easter party.”

He glowered at me.

“And wasn’t she the one who talked to Santa and arranged to have him land in the police helicopter in the middle of your school’s soccer field? And—”

He waved his crooked half-arm at me. “Okay, okay. I get it. But I really wanted to show everybody my vampire costume. Now, what am I gonna do? She won’t take me, and neither will you.” He grabbed the sheet out of his lap—I’d dropped it there when I’d grabbed the arms of his chair—and pulled it over his head. He almost made it before I saw the tears escaping.

A gust of crisp autumn air blew the end of the sheet sideways, and when he whirled his chair around and started back toward our street, he looked like a spectral box rolling down the sidewalk.

I hurried after him, and when I caught up, I had to walk/run to keep pace. “Look, it’s—”

The phone rang again, and I almost tossed it into the street myself. I slowed to answer it, and he sped off toward home. “What?”

“Please, Cass. Will you take him with you tonight?”

“Right. You send your son to a Christian school and then ask me to take him to a Wiccan event out in the middle of the forest. Does that make some kind of weird sense to you, somehow?”

“It’s…a well-rounded religious education? I mean, it’s not like you run around and dance naked by the fire. It’s just one of your high holy days, right?”

This was why we’d never quite connected on a personal level. I mean, I like the lady—a lot. I love the way her eyes shine whenever she listens to Tig telling her about his day. And the way she fills out a uniform defies description. But to Petra, my beliefs were nothing more than the equivalent of some Christian who goes to church on Christmas and Easter. The rest of the time, I’m just her nutty neighbor who helps out with her son.

“Look, Cass. I’ll find you guys and pick him up as soon as I can, okay?”

“You’ll find us? How, exactly, will you find us? Our meetings are secret, and no one except the other members of my coven knows where we go.”

“Turn left at Crowder’s farm, go two miles, and turn onto the dirt road that leads to the abandoned Richey Pond. Follow the path down the hill to the creek, and you’ll be in the clearing to the left of the bend around the big oak.”

“How…?”

“Cop.”

“Right.” I walked a few paces forward and saw Tig waiting on the cement pad in front of their garage. He’d taken off the sheet and was sitting slumped over in abject misery. “Okay. I’ll take him, but if anyone jumps over the fire without any clothes on, it’s on you.”

I could hear the relief in her voice when she said, “Thanks, Cass. I owe you.”

“Again.”

“Again.”

We disconnected, and I trudged back to where Tig waited, desolation etched into every inch of his crooked little body. “Okay, here’s the deal. You know I go to my own…um…religious function every Samhain, right?” At his blank look, I said, “All Hallows Eve.” When he cocked his head and scrunched up his brows, I silently asked the Goddess’ forgiveness and said, “Halloween.”

His brows shot up, and he said, “Oh yeah. That’s why you never come to our Halloween parties.”

“Well, that and the fact that you guys get it all wrong. Anyway, how about instead of going to your school’s party—” I held up my hand as his brows once more descended in misery, “how about you come with me to mine?”

He may have issues with certain appendages, but his eyebrows were in perfect working order. They shot straight up, and he immediately grabbed the ties on the end of his sheet and began fastening it around his neck. “Yes!” He jammed his vampire teeth into his mouth and raced his wheelchair over to my truck.

After I buckled him into the special seat his aunt’s insurance had provided for my truck, parked the wheelchair on the tailgate lift, and secured it with straps in the bed, I ran into the house, grabbed my Wiccan go-bag, ran back, and jumped into the driver’s seat.

We headed east toward Crowder’s farm, and along the way, I filled him in on what to expect when we arrived. “You might see some scary things at the meeting, but I guarantee no one will hurt you.”

“Well, duh. It’s Halloween. There’s always scary things.”

“Right, well, it’s actually Samhain, and we believe—”

“You mean you and the other witches, right?”

“Um…well, not exactly witches like you think of them. We believe that on Samhain, the barriers between the physical world and the spiritual world break down, and we leave offerings in the forest for the fairies and other magical creatures who might cross into our realm.”

“Cool!”

I smiled and then continued, “There are a couple of um…monsters that we believe also come out during Samhain. You might see a Pukah, or a shapeshifter, who we give offerings of our harvest to, and—”

“You don’t have a harvest. Everything in your garden’s dead.”

“Yeah, well, I went to the farmer’s market and bought some stuff from people with greener thumbs than me. Anyway, there’s also the Lady Gwyn, a headless woman who chases people who wander in the forest, and she has a black pet pig.”

“No way!”

This was going better than I expected. “Way. I just want you to know that if you see a woman without a head, it’s really a friend of mine wearing a really great costume, okay?”

“Does she have a pig?”

“Well, kind of.”

“How do you kind of have a pig?”

“She dresses up her dog to look like a pig.”

“Oh.”

“And you can’t tell anyone, not any of your friends or teachers at school, that you came with me.” I thought that part might be a problem, but as I said, seven going on forty.

“Because you’re a sinful pagan, and you could get in even more trouble with the Christians if they knew you were taking me with you.”

I raised my eyebrows and blinked stupidly at him.

“That’s what Ms. Bancroft, my religious studies teacher, calls you whenever she sees you parked across the street. She always kisses her cross necklace whenever you pick me up.”

Great. “Okay. This is where we park. The path was recently mowed, so you shouldn’t have a lot of problems getting around.” I retrieved his chair, pulled my go-bag from the back seat, and carried it to where Tig was waiting, not so patiently, in his seat.

I pulled out my robe, put it on, and then opened his door.

“Cool!”

“Thanks.” I flipped my hood up so my head was covered and my face was entirely in shadow.

“Can you fix mine like that?”

“Of course.” I lowered him onto his chair, then adjusted his sheet so that it covered his head. I took an old shoelace I found lying on the floorboards and fastened it around his throat so the sheet actually looked like a monk’s robe and cowl. “You look awesome!”

He gave me his best vampire smile, and we made our way down to the creek. There weren’t any trees along the first part of the path, but as we rounded a corner and began our descent, tall oaks and pine trees closed in around us. Their canopy completely obscured the stars, and the branches cast eerie shadows in the moonlight.

“One more thing. If you recognize anybody’s voice, you’re not supposed to say their name, okay?”

“Okay.”

As we rolled into the grassy clearing, twenty or so people robed exactly like Tig and I turned our way. One of them broke away from the group and came hurrying over. “What is the meaning of this?” She ducked her head as she tried to see beneath my hood to identify who’d broken the rules and brought an outsider.

“His aunt had to work late.”

“Cassidy? Is that you?” The woman, Ruth Gorman, the local librarian, stepped close enough for me to see the foggy breath rising from her mouth as she spoke.

“Yup.”

“You can’t have him here. You know the rules.”

“Yeah, well, tell him that. He couldn’t go to his Halloween party at school, and I couldn’t leave him home alone, and besides, look at it as him getting a well-rounded religious education.”

Several of the other robed figures had gathered around, and a headless woman strode out of the trees with her black pig/dog close on her heels. “Hi, Cass. Hi, Tig.”

Tig sat up straight, well, as straight as he could with his hunched back. “Hi! I thought we weren’t supposed to say names.”

The headless woman put her hands on her hips. “Oh, sorry. You’re right.”

“Besides, you’re a monster, and you and your pig need to go out in the forest and do monster stuff.”

Gathering up the pig/dog’s leash, she turned to go. “Right again. See ya.”

We weren’t a coven that would ever get featured in Wiccan Digest because we didn’t exactly follow all the strict rules of the other covens. We tried our best, though, and as the moon rose higher above the trees, we all gathered around the fire that, at the moment, was sputtering in the fire pit. It had rained earlier in the day, and I guess no one had thought to bring dry wood.

Our historian told the story of the Second Battle of Mag Tuired, which describes the final battle between the Celtic pantheon known as the Tuatha de Danann and their evil enemies, the Fomor.

When she finished the tale, I heard “Cool” come from beneath Tig’s sheet. After that, people began bringing their offerings, most of which came in the form of casseroles and salads. We usually ate most of the offerings before leaving the leftovers to appease the fairies and monsters.

I handed a plate to Tig, who looked at it dubiously. “Where’s the candy?”

“What candy?”

“The Halloween candy.”

“Uh…that comes later.”

A robed figure strode over to us and said, “This kid isn’t welcome here.”

I recognized Ham Winford, a self-proclaimed druid, and said, “He has as much right to be here as you.”

The cowl turned toward Tig, and Ham growled, “They used to put babies like you in sacks and drown them in the rivers.”

Tig’s cowl pointed up at him as he said, “And they used to burn people like you at the stake.”

Ouch. I guess they taught more history at that school than I realized. A disturbance at the edge of the clearing caught my attention, and I looked over to see three robed figures escorting Petra into the clearing.

“We caught this one bumbling through the woods trying to find us.”

Petra pulled her arm away from the person’s grasp. “I wasn’t bumbling through the woods. I knew exactly where you’d be.”

Ham stepped forward and opened his arms wide. “We have an intruder amongst us.”

Petra rolled her eyes, and I covered my mouth to hide my giggle.

“Aunt P! I didn’t know you were coming! Where’s your robe? You gotta wear a robe here. Did you bring your vampire teeth?”

Petra pulled out her set of plastic teeth and stuffed them into her mouth.

I turned to Ruth and asked, “Do we have any extra robes in the costume box?”

Ruth nodded, “I’ll get one.”

Ham growled, “It’s not a costume box. It’s a sacred vestment vessel.”

Ruth snorted, “Right, let me go to the SVV and get her a sacred vestment.”

After Petra had donned her robe, she, Tig, and I walked to the edge of the creek. I picked up a rock, handed it to Tig, who loved throwing them into the water, and then turned to Petra. “I thought you couldn’t leave your officer.”

“I waited until his family got there. He was pretty shaken up. He had to shoot a man who came at him with a machete. Once his family showed up, and I had all the paperwork done, I came right over.” She stepped close enough that our shoulders touched. “Thanks again, for, you know….”

Truth be told, every time she gets close enough for me to smell her bergamot-scented perfume, a warm feeling comes over me.

“Hey, Aunt P, did you run into the headless woman and her pig?”

“I didn’t see the woman, but I think her pig barked at me.”

“Cool!”

And then Petra did something she’d never done before. She slipped her arm around my shoulders and pulled me close.

I pushed her away. “Petra, we can’t—”

She held a finger to my lips and then pulled out her vampire teeth. “Shhh. It’s Samhain, where the barriers between two worlds disappear.”

As her lips covered mine, I heard Tig’s quiet “Cool” and smiled into the kiss I knew would change our lives forever.