Spriggans? Basically think the Ents in Lord of the Rings, only a lot smaller and meaner. They look like a bunch of tree branches slapped together. Oh yeah, they have teeth, too. And they bite. They’re nasty little buggers. Before moving to Hawthorne Hollow, I’d never encountered one. Now I was trashing them twice a week. This particular nest was ugly.
“Oh my—!” The screech from my left had me diminishing the fire I was throwing and turning to scope out whatever new catastrophe was threatening to take us down. There, Marissa Martin, my fellow Spells Angels co-worker, stood. She was completely drenched from the water the fleeing Spriggans had churned up and her shirt, which was white when we landed, was stained a putrid brown color.
“What happened to you?” I asked, genuinely curious. I wasn’t Marissa’s biggest fan, but I couldn’t understand how she’d ended up in this sorry state.
“You happened to me,” she fired back, fury on full display. She was in her early forties but carved off a good ten years when introducing herself to anyone. Honestly, she looked good for her age, but she was a royal pain in the behind.
“I didn’t do that.” I stopped throwing fire and gave her a weary look. “I know you hate me and everything, but you can’t blame this on me.”
“Oh, but I can.” Marissa’s expression was pinched and tight, beyond furious. “When you tried to burn them, they ran to shore and trampled me in the process. Look at me! This was a new shirt and you’ve ruined it.”
I pursed my lips, unsure what to say. In truth, I didn’t give one fig about Marissa’s shirt. She was a shrill woman, though. If she didn’t take it down a notch we were likely to attract looky-loos, and not of the paranormal variety. That was the last thing we needed. If random humans saw what we were doing they would likely gossip in town, and then we would find ourselves in whole mess of trouble, not of the fun variety.
“You should probably speak now,” another voice spoke. This one belonged to Bonnie Jenkins, another co-worker, who had just stumbled out from between two trees to join us. She was also filthy.
“Um ... did you get trampled by the Spriggans, too?” I asked.
She arched an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
Unlike Marissa, I genuinely liked Bonnie, and I wasn’t keen on arguing with her. I also wasn’t keen on spending the entire day in the woods fighting mutant twigs. “Apparently I didn’t think it through,” I offered, sheepish. “This time I’ll put even more muscle behind it.” I moved to raise my hands but Bonnie’s dark glare as she stalked in my direction had me pulling up short. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”
“No, but not because I think you’re great and awesome. I’m not killing you because I’m pretty sure you’re stronger than me.”
“I’m not sure of that,” Marissa groused. “I think together we could take her.”
“Yet I’m still not willing to try.” Bonnie smoothed the front of her simple T-shirt, which was damp and gross. “We need to come up with a plan that doesn’t involve ... whatever it is you just did.” She used her best “I’m being reasonable so you must as well” voice. “There has to be another way to deal with this.”
Honestly, if there was, I couldn’t think of it. “They’re trees,” I argued. “That means they’re frightened of fire.”
“Yes, but you aimed the fire at the creek. Water doesn’t catch fire.”
“No,” I agreed, hoping I sounded patient rather than exasperated. “I figured pushing the fire on top of the water would still burn the Spriggans, but make it so the fire didn’t spread.”
“I ... huh.” Bonnie’s brow furrowed. “I hadn’t really considered that, but it makes sense.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Marissa hissed, her eyes glittery slits of hate. “She’s just saying that to cover for herself. She didn’t need to do this.” She gestured toward her shirt. “This was completely uncalled for.”
“To be fair, I didn’t realize that was going to happen,” I said. “I mean, they’re basically sentient twigs. Sure, they bite and make disgusting little noises, but they’re still just twigs. I didn’t think they would trample you when getting out of the water.”
“So you thought they would just sit there and burn to death with smiles on their faces, did you?” Marissa drawled.
I scratched an invisible itch on the side of my nose, debating. “What answer do you want to hear?”
Marissa made as if she was going to throw herself at me and start kicking and scratching, but Bonnie smoothly slipped between us. Mud clung to her hair on one side — something I hadn’t noticed — and she was feigning patience, although it looked to be a great struggle. “Turning on one another isn’t going to fix this situation.”
“Nothing is going to fix this situation,” Marissa shot back. “Look at me! She’s completely ruined my shirt and we have to report back to The Rusty Cauldron when we’re done here. Rooster is expecting us.”
Rooster Tremaine was technically our boss. Thankfully, he wasn’t the sort of boss who barked orders and expected us to live in fear. He was reasonable and I knew how he would react if we were late for the meeting. “He’ll understand.”
“Well, I won’t!” Marissa’s eyes filled with the same fire I’d been expending from my fingertips only minutes before. “He says it’s an important meeting. He doesn’t throw around that word willy-nilly. That means we have to be on time.”
“You’re not going to think the meeting is important,” I insisted, not realizing until it was too late that I should’ve probably kept my mouth shut. That was my greatest weakness. I was the sort of person who
