Halloween

By Lizzy Ford

Half angel. Half demon. 100% teenager.

Bullied, different and lonely, Esme has no idea how much her life will change on Halloween, when two mysterious strangers come to town.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lizzy Ford
• Release date: Oct 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781623783471

Lizzy Ford

I breathe stories. I dream them. If it were possible, I'd eat them, too. (I'm pretty sure they'd taste like cotton candy.) I can't escape them - they're everywhere! Which is why I write! I was born to bring the crazy worlds and people in my mind to life, and I love sharing them with as many people as I can.I'm also the bestselling, award winning, internationally acclaimed author of over sixty ... eighty ... ninety titles and counting. I write speculative fiction in multiple subgenres of romance and fantasy, contemporary fiction, books for both teens and adults, and just about anything else I feel like writing. If I can imagine it, I can write it!I live in the desert of southern Arizona with two dogs and two cats!My books can be found in every major ereader library, to include: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Sony and Smashwords.

Book preview

Halloween

Halloween

Esme Novella Trilogy

Lizzy Ford

Captured Press

Esme copyright © 2017 by Lizzy Ford

Cover model: Esme Phillips

Cover photography © 2016 Lee Bowman

Stock photos © giorgiape, Sergey Nivens via Fotolia

Cover design copyright © 2017 by Lizzy Ford

Published by Captured Press

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Any references to historical events; to real people, living or dead; or to real locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

Contents

Halloween

Also By Lizzy Ford

About the Author

Halloween

Angels aren’t as aloof and detached from our world as you’d think they’d be. Take my mom, for example. When she cries, it storms. When she’s happy, woodland creatures clean our house. When she’s angry, things explode .

Those are exaggerations, but the point is that angels are more connected to their surroundings than a human – or in my case half-human – is. They love animals more than anything. Know a cat lady? She’s probably an angel. Owner of an animal sanctuary? Definitely an angel.

We live in a looming, purple Victorian mansion perched on a hill overlooking the idyllic valley in which the tiny town of Cherryville lies. It’s the kind of house that appears in horror movies: mysterious and dark with its own creepy weather system. Kids dare one another to trick-or-treat at our house every Halloween. It doesn’t help that a bullfrog the size of an ottoman sits on the front porch.

It’s Friday, and I’m desperate to leave another terrible school week behind. I push open the wrought iron gate surrounding the house and walk up the sloping stone path to the front door. The sun is bright and the sky clear everywhere except for above my house.

It’s foggy. Gray fog. That means mom is sad.

Hi, Toadles, I say and pat our watch frog on the head.

I unlock the front door and enter. We have more animals than I can count. A herd of hungry cats, whose tails are raised like the little sharks they are, wait for me, along with four dogs.

Go to the porch! I order all of them.

They make a mad dash for the back porch, a screened in area where the small animals eat.

Mama, I’m home! I shout and dump my backpack on the floor by the door.

I wait, listening not for my mom but for the sound of my companion. Demons have familiars; angels have companions. My companion’s name is Taco, after my favorite food when I was five, which was when he magically appeared on our porch one day.

The click of nails on the wooden floors comes from down the hall. I watch the animal no bigger than a basketball. He happily runs down the hall and jumps towards me. I hurry forward to catch him before he hits the floor.

You’re a bear today, I murmur and hug him. My companion is a pygmy … thing. He’s not a real animal. He takes the form of whatever animal he wants to.

He’s an adorable, toy-sized grizzly bear.

Did you watch the nature channel today? I murmur.

I release him, and he runs towards the back porch, misjudges the distance between him and a table, and smashes into the wall.

I have theories about why Taco can’t communicate with mom or me like the other animals can. Most of those theories revolve around the idea he suffered some kind of brain damage before we met. He needs a lot of help navigating life in general.

He shakes off the collision with the wall and looks at me, his bear tongue hanging out the side of his mouth.

I pick him up and walk down the hallway to the back porch.

Outside the screened porch, rolling grasslands stretch for several hundred acres. We have a dozen barns housing equipment and various farm and other small-to-medium animals, a special habitat for predators, and a fenced area for the endangered animals. A small army of workers and several vets maintain the zoo. Some workers are normal humans while others are angels.

The cats are complaining. I feed them quickly, along with the dogs that wandered in from the kennel area, and step out into the backyard to survey the animal sanctuary we call a zoo. Peacocks and other birds waddle by, tapping at grain on the ground. Predators and endangered species have to stay in their designated areas, but livestock and other small animals are allowed to wander around the property. Cows, horses, moose, a reindeer, llamas, an ostrich, and a few varieties of deer have formed their own herd and have made it as far as the forest on the far side of our property.

Esme, we had a problem with a delivery of hay, says one of the supervisors. He approaches with a clipboard. The driver brought half of what he was supposed to.

I hold out my hand for the order and inventory forms. I’ll call them right away, I say. I fold the forms and put them in my pocket.

It starts raining over the house and onto us.

Text me if there’s anything else, I say and return to the interior of the house to find my mom.

Taco follows, runs into the doorframe, and waits for me to save him.

Mom is on the second floor, the family floor, whereas animals and staff have access to the first floor. She’s in our family room, seated on the couch with a box of Kleenexes.

What’s wrong, Mama? I ask and sit down next to her.

Even when she’s crying, my mom is gorgeous – blond hair, blue eyes, golden skin with a sunny personality to match. My mom is an angel and looks just like one.

My classmates nicknamed me Wednesday Addams when I was in the fourth grade, which is all I need to say about how different my mom and I are from one another.

Taco climbs from my lap into hers and bites into the tissues, because he thinks most things are food. I pry his mouth open, pull out the soggy tissues, and tug him back onto my lap.

Tigger died, my mom says, sniffing. The other cats are so sad.

Oh, no. Poor Tigger. I rest my head on her shoulder. Tigger was forty years old, which is unheard of for a tiger. He was the leader of the big cats, and I’ve known him my whole life.

He wanted me to thank you for all the treats you brought him.

Did you tell him we both love him? I ask.

Many times. He said he knew and thanked us both.

Animals listen to me, and I can understand their body language, but when it comes to actual discussions, I can’t converse with them the same way a full angel does.

Tigger was one of my first friends. All of my friends live in my backyard. Unlike people, animals don’t care whether or not you live in a scary mansion on top of an ancient Native American burial mound.

How was school? my mom asks. She hugs me.

Great, I reply sarcastically.

Did you tell those kids it wasn’t nice of them to break your iPad?

Yeah.

Good. I’m sure they’ll think twice before doing it again.

My mom doesn’t understand how different humans are from angels. It’s not something I can explain to her any more than she can explain where she came from. Humans are irrational and beyond reason for the most part. She’s the kind of person who trusts everyone, which explains how I was conceived. She believed some man who told her he loved her, a day after meeting her.

I’m her guard frog. I protect her from humans when I can, which includes not telling her this is the fourth time the kids at school have broken my iPad the past year.

Are you dressing up for the Halloween party? she asks.

I haven’t decided. Are you going as an angel again this year?

Of course!

I roll my eyes.

You better decide fast, she advises. It’s tomorrow night. There might not be any costumes left.

I’ll probably go as me again this year.

That’s the perfect costume for my angel!

I don’t want to go, but I know she likes this kind of stuff. We are usually too busy around the zoo to have time for a life outside our property. The town hosts parties at the community center for every major holiday. I keep hoping the community center falls into the deepest sinkhole in existence before the next dreaded holiday gathering.

We cuddle on the couch. Taco wriggles his way under one of my arms and I hold him. My mom is a calm person, cheerful and gentle. Being around her