Blood of the Maple

hold on to him through the night. Goddess above, she wished Glinda were here to explain this to her, because no one else she knew could. She’d developed a few more friendships since college, but none of the local dryads would speak to her, and the rest of the townsfolk avoided her.

Of the few friends she did have, none of them understood what it meant to be a dryad.

She stared up at the stars, and the first tear of the night slipped down her cheek.

“Glinda, I need you.”

But neither the stars nor her friend answered. So Amara did the only thing she could to ease her confusion. She slipped inside her tree and allowed it to comfort her.

Chapter Two

“I don’t know what you’re going on about. It’s only been two weeks. What’s two weeks to someone like you? Hell, we’ve barely finished stocking the fridge.”

“Shut the hell up, Greg.” Parker placed the book back on the shelf and prayed no one heard him arguing with a ghost.

The townspeople were friendly on the whole, but they couldn’t know the new man in their midst wasn’t crazy, just haunted. “She hasn’t been in her house, and from what I’ve heard around town, she hasn’t been to work. Wherever that is.” One thing was for sure, it wasn’t the local library. He sighed and moved to a new set of shelves, hoping to find the book he’d come in for. So far he’d had no luck. He picked up one that was similar, hoping it would do.

“Not that one.” He put the book back on the shelf and moved on. “You also heard that’s normal for her, so why are you so worried?”

“I don’t know. Something doesn’t add up.” He leaned against the bookcase and took a surreptitious sniff, making sure no one lingered nearby. “Why does she smell so damn good, where did she go and why am I the only one curious about it?”

Then again, he supposed he could chalk it up to yet more of the strangeness of Maggie’s Grove, like a library that was open twenty-four hours a day and streets with names like Howling Street and Fang’s Crossing.

“I’d be more concerned about what we’re going to do when Terri shows up. We need to be prepared if we’re going to take her out once and for all.”

Parker picked up a book and waved it in Greg’s general direction.

“That one could work.”

He tucked it under his arm. “Chock-full of magical goodness, is it?”

“Very funny. Check it out, asshole.”

He flipped through the pages, startled to see the information he’d been looking for. “Huh. How does Amara look to you, by the way?” Greg said Parker looked the same as he always had except for a faint green glow, probably a result of the curse. He was curious to find out how Amara appeared to the ghost.

“Man, you are obsessed.” Greg got quiet. “Strange. She looks like you. But not. Maybe that’s why she seemed so familiar.”

“Cursed, you mean?” That might explain a few things, like why she had disappeared and no one seemed to think twice about it.

“No. There’s nothing unnatural about her. If anything, she’s very natural. Almost too natural.”

“How can you be too natural?” Trying his best to look harmless, Parker smiled at the young woman who walked past him. He tapped the book and shrugged. She smiled back shyly and scuttled away. “They grow them sweet in this town, my friend.”

“Not all of them.”

Parker opened his mouth to reply, when a strident voice broke the silence of the library. “There you are.”

He winced. Goddess, what was it about him and crazy women? He turned to face his new boss and all- around pain in the ass, Mollie Ferguson. As usual, she was wound so tight he was surprised her eyelids didn’t squeak when she blinked. “Yup. Here I am.”

She glared at him, tapping her sensible shoe on the linoleum floor, her navy blue suit rumpled beyond redemption. Her blond hair was pulled back in a tight bun, not a hair out of place. Her makeup showed off blue eyes that would have been stunning if they weren’t constantly filled with annoyance. “You’re due back at work in ten minutes.”

What was her issue? “And I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

She huffed out a breath. “I needed that display done before you left.”

She was kidding, right? He was supernatural, not super-powered. “Kal-El would have had trouble getting it done on time.” She was talking about a major flower display for a show in two days’ time, and she hadn’t told him about it until he’d arrived at work earlier. Now she was panicking and he was considering early retirement.

“You don’t understand how important this is, Mr. Hollis.”

Apparently not. “I’ll do as much as I can when I get back.” It sucked having trouble moving around during the day, since it limited his job choices. But never before had the midnight shift at Taco Bell sounded like the better choice.

The job at The Greenhouse had seemed like such a wonderful opportunity when he’d first heard of it. A greenhouse designed to present endangered plant species as works of art, the place was part museum, part preserve, and the funds The Greenhouse brought in were used to help reintroduce endangered plant life back into the wild. During the day, The Greenhouse offered refreshments to visitors, taught classes on gardening and educated the local schoolchildren. Best of all it was in the town he’d just bought a house in. Parker had thought he’d love it.

Then he’d met his boss.

“You do that.” She hesitated, and he saw the hesitation in her eyes. It reminded him how young she was. Mollie Ferguson had to be in her early to mid-twenties, far too inexperienced for the responsibility of managing such a demanding place. “This means a great deal to us, Mr. Hollis. A great deal.”

“I’ll do my best.” And thanks to her, he’d have to check his books out and leave without finding the book he’d been looking for. His lunch break was over, damn it, and the research they’d planned on doing into hexes would have to wait another night. He’d have to hit the library again tomorrow night, see how extensive their witchcraft section was.

“Thank you.” She turned on her heel and marched away, every line of her body rigid. But at the end of the row she paused. “Thank you,” she repeated. This time it sounded genuine and so achingly uncertain that he wanted to help her despite her status as a certified pain in the ass.

Parker sighed. He was surrounded by crazy, and that crazy now included him. “You’re welcome.”

She regained her composure and took off, her heels clattering down the wooden stairs toward the front of the library.

“Is it my cologne? Is that what attracts them?”

“Hmm? Oh, you mean the crazy? I thought it was your sparkling wit.”

“Never mind. Let’s get out of here.” Parker went to the front desk to check out his book, thoughts of strange neighbors and witchy enemies subsumed by his boss’s panic.

“Hi, Parker.”

“Hey, Steve.” Parker grinned at the cheerful young man behind the counter, determined to get his books and get the hell back to work before Mollie Ferguson made his life hell.

Amara stepped out into the night air and stretched, more at peace than she had been in a long time. Her commune with her tree had gone a long way toward easing her concerns.

Now she needed to find out how things had gone in her absence. It had been roughly two weeks since she’d entered her tree, but it was hard to pin down an exact time. Time moved differently for the forest than for humans. It was slower, measured in seasons rather than hours, and it was easy to lose track of the days. If her tree hadn’t given her a gentle reminder she was needed in the human world, she would have happily stayed there till the first