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James’s Note: Willow trees seem to have been running amuck since medieval times. We see it in everything from Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter. Some one should probably look into that. Here, we see the Witcher Man pulling a very large, very dangerous rabbit out of his hat. It just might not be enough.

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The earth beneath our feet began to shake with terrible force. I noticed Israel had leapt backward and looked like he was trying diligently to phase through the stone of the far garden wall with little success. I took a few steps backward myself as the great tree writhed, it’s roots ripping free of the soil and showering it into the sky. 

It slammed it’s long branches to the ground all around, missing me by inches. It reared up on its root system, rising like an angry sylvan god. I have to admit, even I was impressed. This wasn’t the kind of thing you saw every day. This was the Willow Man. I plunged my hands into the soil beneath me and reached out to the willow man’s mind only to find myself in a hell of a fight. 

The willow lashed back at my mind, it’s wrath like a tsunami of fire. It was old and powerful, and it knew that I had been keeping it here, delaying it’s bloody retribution. If I had tried to meet it’s mind head on, I would have been crushed beneath the weight of its centuries. Instead, I mentally pivoted, and in a display of psychic aikido, I thrust it’s wrath at the vampires outside the garden.

The creaking of trunk and branches sounded like a protracted roar as the willow man crashed through the stone wall effortlessly, demolishing a twelve foot span. It was more than willing to vent its ire on them instead of me. Nature born entities like it have a natural antipathy to the undead.

The willow charged Into the woods, moving like a tentacular horror. I could tell by the vampiric screams when it made contact with the enemy. 

Israel cautiously returned to my side. “Of course you have a goddamn Cthulhu tree. Why am I not surprised? Do you think it can take them?”

“I hope so,” I replied, “but I’m not betting on it. Come on.”

We fell back deeper in the garden. We stopped at a cul-de-sac in the path that was surrounded by lovely flowers. Ironically enough, there was absolutely nothing dangerous about these flowers. They were colorful and had a lovely smell. In the center of the cul-de-sac, were what looked like several large beehives. They looked like the common boxes you often see bees in, which is a modified langstroth hive if you’re counting. The most noticeable difference was that they were twice as large as the boxes you usually see, and made of solid steel.

Outside the garden we could hear all hell breaking loose. Gunshots and explosions ripped through the night punctuated by earth shaking thuds as the Willow Man struck with its massive tentacle branches. It sounded like the tree was giving the vampires what for, but I still had a bad feeling. I shouldered my shotgun and loaded it with a magazine of my own special anti-vampire load. The shells contained a mix of buckshot and flechettes, all inscribed with curses against the undead. I also dug a mason jar out of my messenger bag. Israel stood close to me, holding his knife in a reverse grip. I undid the lid to the jar, and unceremoniously dumped it over his head. He looked at me with an expression that was just done. 

“Really, Daniel? Fucking really?”

I emptied the rest of the concoction into my hands and smeared it all over myself as well. “Trust me on this. In a few minutes you might be really glad you’re covered in slightly smelly goo.” 

That wasn’t even fair. The goo mostly smelled floral, even if it did have a slight, hard to pin down musky element.

Suddenly, through the roiling smoke of the battle, we saw the rubble that had once been my beautiful wall explode towards us as something broke through at incredible speed. Before us stood Anna. Her sensible pant suit was torn and charred. Thorns and branches protruded from her skin like a macabre mockery of a hedgehog. Outside I could still hear the Willow Man slaughtering her people. She must have slipped by him.

She did not look happy to see me. “I hope what you were paid was worth it. Prepare to die, Witcher Man.”

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Sharon’s note: Final Part. I love clever solutions, where knowing the rules better than the enemy does saves the hero. I saw it first in fairy tales, and I fell in love. I try to use it as a device whenever possible. It’s one of those things that will always make me happy, and we need all the happiness we can get. Remember to do something that makes you happy. It’s too easy to let all the negativity swallow you. Warning: Author think’s she’s being clever.

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 This was so bad. My voice shook as I asked, “And what if I did?”

“If you did, I would feel compelled to take you away with me. Making a new gate from this side will take a considerable expenditure of energy. I want repayment for my effort.” He took another step forward. I tried to match it, but my shoulder hit the wall. 

I couldn’t dodge his question forever, that would be rude, and rudeness was punishable. If I said yes, he’d steal me away to Fairie, and a human abducted had no rights . . . wait. Loopholes. The fae were all about loopholes.

The only I had on me of any value was my phone. It was a new model that I’d paid far too much for, and I ran my life from that little machine. I plucked it from my pocket and held it out to the fae. He raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“Conell, I ask for hospitality and offer you this gift. It is an object very dear to me, and I hope it brings you great joy.” The entire time I was speaking I was chanting in my head, please work, please work.

“You’re asking me to take you?” He scoffed. I had to go so carefully here. Wording was important.

“I offer you a gift as I ask to be received as a guest in your house.” The look of utter shock on the fae’s face was as gratifying as it was unnerving. For the first time he looked at me with real consideration.

“You’re clever, aren’t you?”

I shrugged. “I’d like to think so.”

“The woman who lived here before was clever. Did you know her?”

I raised my chin proudly. “She was my grandmother.”

He snorted, and it was such an undignified sound that it was almost startling.

 “Well that figures. The clever ones are always more trouble than they are worth. I reject your gift and will not take you with me, even if you did destroy my gate. Meddlesome witch of a woman.” He sighed. “You aren’t going to be living here too, are you?”

I thought of Nana, who had spent all her life tending her garden. She grew lavender and daisies, because they were wonderful for protection. She’d stood sentinel, telling the stories and knocking down fairie gates. If I didn’t do it, who would?

For the first time since the fae arrived, I smiled. “Yes. Yes I am.”

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James’s Note: I love folklore about trees, especially the stuff surrounding willow trees. We have more oaks than willows were I live, but when you look at one of those old trees with its heavy, sprawling branches, it’s easy to see how people pictured them as monsters. I first read the Willow Rhyme in Neil Gaimen’s American Gods and I knew I had to do my own take on it. Well, this is what I dreamed up.

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One of Anna’s Elder vampires, the one wearing a tasteful working man’s suit, was wielding a katana. Trees had been falling before him like he was some kind of industrial shredder. He was currently held up as he fought a stand of bamboo. Bamboo is a surprisingly tenacious plant and it was growing into great loops and whorls to try to ensnare him. He was in trouble because, even backed by awesome vampiric strength, the blade was having a hell of a time cutting through the bamboo. 

The problem was, my forest was losing. 

They were using explosives to help clear a path, and then there was the entirely different problem of Anna. She was like an elegant Russian bulldozer. One of the honey locusts seized her, digging huge thorns through her flesh. She tackled it like a linebacker, uprooting the whole thing, and chucking it over her shoulder. Some of the thorns were ripped out of her flesh, showering the area with her blood. Some of them remained embedded, sticking out of her like a twisted voodoo doll. 

The forest wasn’t going to be able to hold them much longer. They were almost to the garden.

I was faced with a difficult situation. I was going to have to use the garden to fight. It was the only way we were getting out of this alive. The difficulty lay in choosing what from the garden was dangerous enough to kill a master vampire, but safe enough to not kill myself or Israel or the entire world for that matter. 

Want to talk about a line as fine as frog’s hair.

For starters, I took a left turn down a side path which led to a beautiful garden pond. It seemed far deeper and darker than a pond that size had any right to be. By its side stood a truly enormous willow tree. Israel and I could not have joined hands around it. I’m not sure why we would have wanted to, except maybe to dance and sing Kumbaya, but you get the point. 

Its huge sweeping branches hung down like the tentacles of a giant squid. Its roots were huge and gnarled and stuck up from the ground in hoops and lumps. Beneath its canopy, was an oppressive shadow. It had an aura of brooding menace.

Israel watched as I approached the iron posts that ringed it. A red string connected each one to the next. I placed my hands on the string, and prepared to break the spell I had cast when I first brought this willow tree here.

Trees are funny things. Just like humans have werewolves and vampires and such, trees have their own special monsters. 

If you cut down an oak grove three times, letting it grow back from the roots, you create a place of immense power. The Oakmen, short wooden creatures with heads that look like mushroom caps, will inhabit it. They have a fearsome hatred for men and their iron axes. The entire grove will be anathema to all the children of men, but the Oakmen will fiercely guard all the beasts of the forest.

If a grove that contains 13 elm trees becomes sick, all the elms will start to die. The first will die of the sickness, then the others will die of grief for it. If a single elm survives, it will grieve for the rest of its long life. It will stand in the middle of a glade and create a place of indescribable sorrow. All those who sit beneath its branches will feel the weight of its grief. 

Some people kill themselves, while others will sit and weep until either someone comes to rescue them or they starve to death.

Willows are different. All willows hate men, just a little. Even normal willows are half a step from getting up. Some of them are special, though. Some are like the one I had in my garden.

I snapped the red string in half as I chanted,

“Elm, he do grieve,

and Oak, he do hate,

but Willow goes walking

if you travel late.”

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Sharon’s note: You’ll notice a lot of repetitive themes is my work. One of them is the fae (or fay, or fey, whichever spelling you like). You’ll see them a lot because I think they’re cool. I’ve seen people say that fae are out as far as modern/urban fantasy are concerned. They have been done a lot. So has everything else. Everything is already on the table, all you can do it add something to it. But isn’t worth showing up in the first place.

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Nana had crappy taste in beer. I was still enjoying it, but not for the taste. Nostalgia made every more palatable. Wrinkling my nose, I took one last swig from the can and leaned down to blow out the candle. 

There was someone standing at the treeline. The chair clattered to the ground as I shot to my feet. It wasn’t just a humanoid figure, it was a man who almost seemed to glow in the night.

The Shining Ones. The name crept unbidden from my memory. According to my grandmother, they were part of the Beautiful Host that would come to the mortal world. In that moment I had to admit that I’d never stopped believing in the frightening creatures Nana had told me about. The first thing I’d put in my new apartment was an iron horse shoe, end up like a U so the luck wouldn’t run out.

“My, my. What is your name, lovely girl?” The fae spoke, and Nana was almost right. She had said their voices were like beautiful music chased by evil bells. He had a beautiful voice, but there was a sound a little like feedback from a microphone and a nagging suspicion that I wasn’t actually hearing what I thought I was. This was some kind of illusion. 

“Are you going to give me your name in return?” My heart was pounding so hard I could feel the blood rushing in my ears. Faerie 101 was that you never gave the fae your real name. 

He smirked. Or, I thought he did. There was an almost itchy sensation behind my eyes as part of my brain screamed at me that this wasn’t what I was really seeing, either. Why, oh why had I stopped carrying that iron nail in my pocket?

“Just for tonight, you can call me Conall.” He executed a little half bow, all the while keeping eye contact.

“Alright, then. Just for tonight you can call me . . . Beth.” Beth was not my name. It was the first name I came up, some random one I’d heard at Nana’s funeral. It wasn’t a lie, since I wasn’t trying to tell him it was my name, and it was very important not to lie to a fae.

He tilted his head to indicate the carnage of mushrooms, now all withered and dead. “Was it you who destroyed the faerie ring?”

I swallowed hard. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because, that was my gateway back home, and if I am going to have to expend the energy to make another, I would very much like to know who destroyed it.”

Shit shit shit shit. He sounded angry. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought he did. Half-panicking, I scraped the barrel of my memories for a good answer. When all else fails, stick to facts.

“By human law, this is my land. If I did destroy them, it was my right.”

“So you did do it.” Conall took a step towards me, I took one back.

“I didn’t say that,” I said so fast I almost stumbled over the words.

“So, I ask one more time,” he said as the pleasant mask began to slip and I saw something terrifying lurk underneath. “Did you destroy my gate?”

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Sharon’s Notes: This story is born of the idea of very interesting conversation I had with my husband. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what it was. It’s fairly disappointing because I’m sure it would have been awesome to share. Warning: If you you have a good idea, write it down.

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I had no idea what I was going to do with Nana’s house. It was a lovely property on the edge of a national forest. The house was a little small, under a thousand square feet, but it sat on five acres of land. Nana had spent all her life turning her property into one big garden, planting it with lavender and daisies, and other wonderful things. 

It was a beautiful place that I had a lot of good memories of. It was also over a three hour drive from my house and job. I had a hard decision coming up. Standing in the back yard that I’d spent almost every summer of my childhood playing in was making it even harder. There was even a mushroom circle in the middle of the yard. 

Whenever it rained, rings of mushrooms would spring up by morning. Nana would send me to kick them over so the fairies couldn’t escape. Tears welled in the corner of my eyes. Nana had a lot of stories about fairies. She said they were passed down from her grandmother’s mother. 

A lot of summer nights she and I would sit out on the porch. Nana liked to have a cold beer and she would make me a glass of chocolate milk. I walked over to the little glass and metal table that stood a little lopsided, and sure enough, the little clay pot in the center had a half burned citronella candle. Leaning over to take a deep breath of it’s familiar scent, memories flooded over me. It felt like I was choking on them. 

Nana, sitting with me on the porch, telling me about the rules of hospitality. Eagerly watching as she pulled fresh loaf out of the oven as she made me recite the importance of salt and iron and bread. Sneaking out late at night to watch the fireflies, and watching them carefully to see if I could tell which ones were fae. 

I cried and laughed outright then. These days I tried to make it to her place at least one weekend a month. Last month had been a real mile mark. At twenty seven years old, she had finally decided I was grown up enough to have a beer with her. Dear God, I missed her so much. 

But should I stay here or go? It would physically hurt to have a stranger living in Nana’s house, but it wasn’t really Nana’s house anymore, was it? My grandmother was gone. But I loved the house . . . I didn’t have to decide right away. I had taken two weeks off so I could give myself plenty of time. 

During the last week, I had cried a lot. Nana had always told me that tears were fine, but after each time you cried you had to find something to be happy about. With a deep breath I stood up straight and squared my shoulders. I smirked as I tore off across the yard and punted the largest mushroom. It exploded in a shower of spongy white and brown chucks. I held up my arms and roared like Godzilla as I stomped the next one flat. 

In a few short minutes I had laid waste to every mushroom in the yard. The carnage of fungus was a truly glorious thing to behold. Their destruction was wonderfully cathartic. Chuckling to myself I wandered inside to have a cup of tea. I was more of a coffee girl, but Nana didn’t drink “bitter bean water”. At Nana’s house, you drank tea, unless it was night time out on the porch. Tonight, I would sit outside, light the citronella candle to keep away the mosquitoes, and drink the last beer in Nana’s fridge.

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James’s Note: Welcome to the Deadly Garden. The things in this garden were so much fun to create. We also get to see the forest go to war. After one of my beta readers got to this scene, he spent the next day telling me how I needed a whole story about Daniel adding new things to his Deadly Garden. I took that as very high praise.

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Israel reached into his coat and drew out a long hunting knife that would have made Jim Bowie proud. “If your plan involves some heroic last stand Spartan shit, I am so leaving your ass behind and taking my chances with your stupid death forest.” 

I slung my shotgun over my shoulder, and turned to open the gate in the stone wall at our backs. “Nope, my plan is infinitely stupider than that. It also stands a slightly better chance of working. Follow me. Don’t touch anything, don’t look at anything, and if anything calls out to you, ignore it.”

“Well that just sounds fucking lovely”, said Israel in mock cheerfulness as he followed me into my deadly garden.

When we had walked into my forest, the temperature had dropped as the shade covered us. It felt almost like being inside a living thing. Walking into this garden was different. Everything seemed unnaturally still. Even though the garden was large, the walls felt close and oppressive. The shade laid over everything like a heavy blanket. Some of this feeling was due to the menacing aura given off by some of the things contained within. Some of it was the spells and wards I had laid on this place in an attempt to keep everything calmed.

All of the vegetation was kept well back from the path we were on. I saw Israel glance around, even though I told him not to. I wasn’t too worried. We weren’t near anything that could kill him at a glance.

The deadly Garden was beautiful. To one side of the path grew several beds of flowers. Their colors were truly kaleidoscopic. The flowers rotated slightly, their colors changing as the sun glinted off of them. They weren’t particularly dangerous themselves, but if the hips from the buds were crushed and made into a tea, they created the most powerful mind control potion in existence.

Vining flowers that looked like honeysuckle grew over a gazebo. Beneath it’s arch, an enchanted harp played. The music was sweet, but haunting. If not for its lullaby keeping them sedated, they would lash out at everything that went nearby, draining any living thing of blood in seconds.

From outside, we could hear gunshots. There was screaming followed by a boom and whoosh that I recognized as high explosives.

“Well, fuck me. It looks like they made it into the forest. They’re going to be here a lot sooner than I expected.”

I quickly dug my hands through the garden soil, briefly taking a peek through the eyes my trees didn’t have. My forest had turned into a war zone.

Locust trees were driving 10 inch thorns straight through the ballistic armor the humans wore. One of the lesser vampires was crucified to a wild plum tree by some spirited blackberry brambles as the meanest black locust tree I ever planted drove a branch through the vampire’s heart. Most of the humans were dead by now. Only a handful of them had even made it through the hedge. 

I noticed a couple of the vampires were having trouble with the kudzu. It seized them by their necks and drug them down into its mass on the forest floor. One of them screamed as it started to grow down his throat. 

The other one was being slowly ripped apart.

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Sharon’s note: I’ve observed this many times over the years. There’s a bad situation, so they’ll sit there and scream about it and make things hard for others. They don’t accomplish anything, or even make themselves feel better. Not really. In a bad situation, you do the best you can, and don’t damn someone for doing the best they can. We’re all trying to get by. How about really looking at people and what they’re trying to accomplish, rather than just judging them without seeing? Warning: Author going off on a more general tangent because the world around her seems to be going crazy. Please, remember that you are looking at people, not just a institution or an ideal.

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“How can staring death in the face be both terrifying and boring at the same time?” The absolute misery in Brian’s voice made me sympathetic, but also made me want to laugh a little, because I’d been there.

“Life is funny that way. I once spent eight hours stuck in this little-bitty church, waiting for the sun to rise, while vampires prowled outside. There were twelve of them, trying to taunt me into coming out. I was scared shitless, but you can only maintain that level of anxiety for so long. Either you break or you kind of . . . I don’t know. Normalize? Anyway, by the time the dawn got there, I was tucked up in a corner, more embarrassed than afraid because I had to pee twice while I was holed up in there, and the church was only one room, and there was no way to completely hide from all the windows. Have you ever tried to pee while someone is making a running commentary?”

“I can’t say I have. So, um, what happened when the sun rose?” A half chuckle broke through Brian’s exhaustion. 

“They had to retreat. They didn’t really have a choice. They called in some humans to take care of me, but by the time they got there my team had found me and . . . well, things got a little messy. After we took care of the humans, we went after the vampires in their day time resting place. I have to admit there was a little bit of prejudice involved in dispatching them. Especially that one asshole who took pictures.”

“Understandable, I guess. You do a lot of that in your job? Killing?”

I sighed. “Sure. Go right in for the tough questions.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. . .”

“Don’t worry about it.” I was more than happy to talk about the more questionable aspects of hunting if it kept him from freaking out. Really, for his first introduction to the supernatural, he was doing quite well. “For the most part, anything we kill on the job is nonsentient. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case though. We don’t go after anyone who isn’t killing people, and we do try to capture if at all possible but sometimes that isn’t an option.”

“What about the werewolf? When you guys get here, are you going to kill him?” His voice sounded small and unsure. “Is he a normal guy when the moon isn’t full?”

My shoulders drooped. “Most likely.”

“What? That he’s a normal guy, or that you’re going to kill him?”

And more with the tough questions. Usually someone had to actually sign up to be a Hunter before they asked questions like these. “Both. I’d rather we were able to just let him run out the night and pick him up in the morning. We could get him into a program so that his condition would be a minimum disruption to his life.”

“But you’re going to kill him.” Was that judgement I heard?

“Would you rather I let him kill you?” I could hear my tone turn icy.

“No, I just  . . . isn’t there another way?” He stammered. “Tranquilizer darts? Magic or something?”

I took a deep breath. “You have no idea how much I wish there was. We’ve tried everything we can think of to put a lunatic werewolf down without killing it. Unless it’s a big enough dose to kill them, sedatives won’t drop a werewolf. There are magics that can contain them, but they take a while to set up. Werewolfism is a curse. It was meant to be impossible to deal with. It’s one of the hardest pills of our world to swallow. Sometimes, there are no good answers. Sometimes, there’s just the ones that give us the least nightmares.”

Hard Hunting
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James’s Note: In this episode, we get to see the vampires start tackling the Witcher Man’s defenses. I mean we get a vampire hit squad versus a magic killer hedge. What more do you want from life? And yes, the hedge is partially based on my own property. And yes, the orange trees are almost as fierce in real life.

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I leaned against the wall to catch my breath. Israel, who had no such problem, eyed the plaque suspiciously. “So what the hell is in there?”

“I call it my Deadly Garden. All the things that are too dangerous to have loose in the world, I keep in there.”

“Considering your risk tolerance, I’m betting that has to be some really bad shit. We’re not going in there, are we?” Israel sounded only slightly concerned.

“I hope not. Give me a second.”

I sat down on the bare earth next to the path, and dug my fingers into the soil. After a moment’s meditation, I was able to join my mind with the interconnected web of ecosystems and spirits that was my property. I opened my eyes, and looked out through my hedge.

The two vans had convened just outside my driveway. I experienced an involuntary shiver when I saw Anna climb out. The length of my hedge shivered sympathetically. There were a half dozen humans in tactical gear rocking the ever-stylish german-made MP7. Another half-dozen were wearing what looked like tactical gear that had been designed by a collaboration of Versace and a fetish gear manufacturer. Those would be the vampires, probably the hundred year olds. 

Standing next to Anna were a man and a woman dressed in practical but ridiculously expensive casual outfits. I knew that there were no other vampires as old as Anna in the city, but I had a bad feeling that these two had at least a couple of centuries under their belt. I watched a couple of the humans approach the gate to unlock it and promptly get thrown back a good ten yards. The basic warding around my place prevented those with ill intentions from crossing the property line. It was more than enough to deal with people like them. 

There was a brief powwow followed by Anna strolling nonchalantly towards my gate. As she crossed the property line you could see the force buffett her like a strong wind. She extended one hand, and forced her way through. I felt the magical bands strain, and then snap. She lunged forward as the ward gave way, seized the wrought iron gate, and ripped it off its hinges with one hand. 

Have I mentioned I hate vampires?

I didn’t even have to urge my hedge to react. The two mature orange trees that anchored the Hedge on either side of the gate posts swung thorne covered branches to bar the way. The bramble roses lashed out their vines, knotting together and forming a living net.

Two of the humans stepped forward with machetes, obviously intending to hack down the offending vegetation. This was a mistake. The roses grabbed their ankles, fish hook thorns sinking into their flesh and they were dragged deep into the hedge. The orange trees began to pummel the intruders with branches that were halfway between a whip and a cudgel. The huge thorns on them were sinking deep into the men’s flesh and the screaming was truly horrific. 

The vampires were joining the fray as I dug my hands out of the soil and let my consciousness leave the hedge. Israel was staring at me quizzically. “Do I even want to know what you’re doing?” he asked.

“Just checking  up on our friend’s  progress, and it’s not good. Anna’s with them and that means our level of fucked-attude just skyrocketed. I can’t say for sure how long it’ll take, but they will break through the hedge. It’ll take a while after that for them to get through the forest to where we are, but I don’t have anything out there that can stop a methuselah. So, I have a plan, but it’s not a good one.”

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James’s Note: I’ve been in love with the idea of food forests from the time I learned about them. The idea of engineering every level of a forest to serve a single purpose just strikes me as badass. In this section, we get to see the Witcher Man take that idea to another level. We also get a glimpse of what his forest is meant to protect.

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I leapt from the car and paused only long enough to grab my messenger bag and shotgun. A variety of shells were in the magazines clipped to its sling. Israel was right on my heels as we tore into the forest. 

“So what keeps them from just following after us and ripping our heads off?” Israel asked, politely curious. He didn’t even have the decency to pant like us normal air breathers do when we have to run for our lives.

“Well,” I said, panting raggedly like a decent human being, “there’s a few things. First they’ve got to deal with the general warding. Unfortunately, on a property this large, the warding I can use isn’t that strong. Once one of the elder vampires pushes their way through, they’re going to be able to make way for everybody else. Then they have to deal with the hedge.”

“I saw that on our way in. It smelled amazing, but if they brought some hedge clippers, we might be in trouble.”

I smirked as best I could while breathing heavily and tearing through a darkened forest. “It’s not just a regular hedge, as I’m sure you guessed. It’s made of wild sour orange trees, all grown and spliced together to make an angry, spiky fence. All the spaces are interplanted with bramble rose. I awakened their spirits, and let me tell you they were not particularly happy about that. Of course, they’re not particularly happy about anything. What those vampires are going to hit is a living wall that hates them very much.”

As we made our way through the woods, you could smell the mingled scent of basil and strawberry as we unfortunately had to trample some of the undergrowth. When we broke into a different section, you could practically feel the change in atmosphere. These trees felt distinctly less friendly.

“Stay on the path here. The thorns on those trees aren’t just for show,” I called to Israel not bothering to look back over my shoulder.

This section of the forest was different. My food forest was special because every layer of the forest, every kind of plant that inhabits it, is designed to be food or medicine. Arctic kiwi and grape vines climbed the trees, strawberries and herbs covered the ground, and all the trees bear fruits or nuts. The entire food forest shares a single purpose.

This ring of forest, hidden in the center of the food forest, was the same in that it all shared one purpose. The difference was, its purpose was battle. My favorite of the trees were the black and honey locusts. They grow thorns on their thorns. The vines were all poisonous, or had gripping, hook like thorns. Kudzu covered portions of the ground, which is possibly the most hateful plant I’ve ever encountered. This was my war forest. Its job was to protect what lay at its heart. The forest didn’t give us any trouble as we tore down the path. The vampires wouldn’t be so lucky.

Israel and I quickly came to a clearing. The forest opened into a glade, and before us stood a great stone wall. It stood a good fifteen feet tall, made of rough unmortared stone. It had taken me a ridiculously long time to convince the earth to collect those stones from underneath it and help me form them into a wall. 

The gate we came to was made of thick oak planks, bound with iron. The gate bore a brass plaque with the inscription, “Only Death Awaits Inside”

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Sharon’s note: This entry is a little long but . . . meh. I flatter myself that this is cute and fun and worth reading. Warning: Kids accepting what should be weird, because they are more reasonable than adults in some things.

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The boy started and fell off the bed with a thud. “What did you scream for?”

“Because there’s a naked boy on my bed!” I picked up a pair of shorts off the floor and threw them at him.

He caught them neatly and frowned at them. “What are these for?”

“For you to wear, stupid. Put them on,” I ordered. 

“Why? I hate clothes. Besides, if your dad comes in here because you screamed I’ll just have to change back.”

“Change back to what?” I grabbed the brass triceratops off my dresser and held it up threateningly. 

His lips pulled back, bearing his teeth. “Back to the way I was, stupid. You know, a cougar?”

The hand with the triceratops lowered to my side. “Panther?”

“Yeah.” He stuck out his tongue at me and I responded in kind. “You know I’m from the Woods. I’m special.”

I took a moment to study him. The eyes were the right color and he did have a bunch of scars across his tummy. It checked out. “If Daddy isn’t here by now then he didn’t hear me. Put the shorts on.”

He rolled his eyes. “Why?”

“Because you’re not supposed to be naked.”

“You’re naked in here all the time.” 

My breath hitched and my fists clenched. I kicked at his leg and he jumped back onto the bed. “You watched me change clothes and stuff!”

“Hey!” His shoulders hunched like an angry cat. “It wasn’t like I was watching watching.”

“You could have said something.” I crossed my arms and glared.

“No I couldn’t.”  He sat down hard on the bed, crossed his arms and looked away. “I was too hurt to change forms. I only figured out I could do it again a few days ago.”

He sounded sad so I sat down on the bed next to him. “What happened anyway?”

“My brother,” He mumbled, turning the shorts over in his hands. They were bright pink. Maybe that was why he didn’t want to wear them.

“Your brother did that to you? We have to tell your parents!”

He threw the shorts at the floor. “My parents are dead! My brother killed them.”

I threw my arms around him and he leaned away for a second before burying his head in a shoulder and started to sob. While he cried, I sang him the lullaby Mommy sang to me whenever I was sick. When he finally stopped crying, he pulled away and snuffled. 

“You sing like really badly.” He gave me a weak smirk.

“Butthead.” I poked him hard in the side, and he jumped further up the bed with a laugh. The only reason I wasn’t more mad was that his cheeks were still wet. “You know, if we tell Daddy he can buy you some shorts that aren’t pink.”

“I’m not allowed to show anyone but you.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Says who?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It was just the rules I was always told. I can only show myself to humans that are special.”

“Daddy’s special. He saved your life.” I put my hands on my hips.

“He’s not special. He only did it because you told him too.” He poked me in the leg with his foot. “You saved my life and we’re best friends forever. That makes you special.”

I jabbed my foot back at him and we kicked at each other until we started to laugh. “God, put the shorts you’re like, I don’t know, flopping.”

“You’re not supposed to look.” Panther sighed heavily then got the short off the floor to put them on.

“I can’t help seeing it when I’m looking right at you, jerk.” I snickered, tossing the pillow at him. It was fun watching him catch it. He was really fast. It was my turn to smirk. “Is that how you have to get all your friends? By nearly dying on their doormat?”

“It’s not like I wanted to be your friend.” He glared down at the shorts in disgust. “You saved my life so I owed you a boon. After you saved my life you said you wanted to be friends forever. I figure that’s fair payment.”

I tilted my head to look at the ceiling while I thought that over. “Yeah, that sounds fair.”

There was a brisk knock on the door that made both of us jump. “Hurry up in there, young lady! Just because you’re dragging your feet doesn’t mean you can get out helping, it just means it’ll be that much longer until we can have pizza.”

“Okay, Daddy. I’ll be right out,” I yelled with my hands cupped on either side of my mouth.

We waited until we heard Daddy stomp away, then started giggling.

“I need to get dressed. Turn around.” I looked in the closet and found my grubby jeans. Panther flung himself face down on the bed and pulled the pillow over his head. I changed as quickly as I could. 

“Hey, when your dad get’s the pizza, see if you can get me a slice.” Panther’s words were nearly lost in the pillow. 

“Well, I suppose I could accidentally drop a piece on the floor so you can grab it, but Daddy says pizza isn’t good for cats.”

He peaked out from under the pillow. “I’m not really a cat.”

“Don’t look,” I hissed, and he buried his head again. “Since you’re not actually a cat, I guess it’s okay. Do you want pepperoni or sausage?”

“Extra pepperoni.” 

“Fine. You can look now.” He peaked out again, and when I didn’t yell at him he hopped to his feet. 

“Are we going outside now?” He grinned and wiggled his shoulders. “Awesome. I want to chase frogs.”

“Just don’t put them in my bed again.”

Panther collapsed and I started to run forward to catch him but he turned into a cougar again and started fighting his way out of the shorts. I laughed, and he turned his nose away from me while he trotted out my room as I opened the door.

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