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“What does rain have to do with harps?” asks Paxton.
“I’ll explain later. Not harp the instrument, HAARP the government project. Some people out there think the government can manipulate the weather.”
“Oh. That’s dumb.” Paxton shakes her head.
I chuckle and ask Allie if she’s ever seen a shadow goblin before, describing it to her as best as I can. She says no and asks for me to show her. I tell her to have at it, and her WTF expression as she swims through my memories from the museum yesterday does not fill me with confidence. “Weird.”
“That’s it?” I blink. “Weird?”
She nods. “They are weird.”
“You don’t know what they are though, beyond being weird?” I sigh.
“Evil,” whispers Paxton.
The unicorn seems to nod in response to her. And yes, it appears the creature and Paxton have bonded enough to create such a mind link. Go figure.
“Well, I kinda remember reading something similar to those things a long time ago.” Allison scrunches her nose up in thought. “Not much documented about them, though.”
“Probably because if anyone tried to document them, they’d be called nuts.” I fold my arms.
Allison chuckles. “Yeah. It’s incredibly annoying that magic isn’t mainstream anymore.”
“Well, we could change that.” I wag my eyebrows.
“Oh, sure.” Allison waves a hand around randomly. “Let’s totally upend the fabric of reality, destroy multiple civilizations and throw humanity into another dark age of fighting for our very survival against magical fiends and worse.”
“Sounds reasonable,” I deadpan.
Allison sighs at me just like Mary Lou used to sigh at me whenever I wanted cookies before dinnertime… then we both laugh.
“You’ve got no idea how dangerous they are?” I ask. “They didn’t appear to be hostile, only watching.”
Paxton leans against the unicorn. She’s quiet for a long, awkward moment before whispering, “She says they were trying to find her.”
Chapter Eight
Evil
There’s a saying out there that no good deed goes unpunished.
It’s anyone’s guess as to whether or not summoning a unicorn qualifies as a good deed; however, I suspect we’re about to be punished for it. Ever since Allison left—I invited her to stay for dinner—my mind has been racing back and forth over this new problem.
I hate feeling clueless. You’d think after everything that’s happened in my life, I’d be used to cluelessness. ‘Winging it’ has become my normal. There is no credible source from which I can research information about supernatural calamities. Every damn time I get caught up in a situation like this, I’m essentially making everything up as I go along.
Shadow goblins. Great. What the hell are they and what do they want—other than the unicorn?
They probably have a name… maybe. Someone, somewhen, has most likely dealt with them before and called them something. Maybe they called them shadow goblins, too? Or whatever would mean that in some other language.
And I’m going off on a tangent. Guess that means I’m more worried than I admit to myself.
It’s almost nine… wait, no. Closer to ten at night. The four of us—and by that I mean my kids and me—are in the living room together watching a movie. It’s still close enough to Paxton’s birthday that we let her pick the film. Take a wild guess what she wanted to watch… again.
Yep. The Barbie movie.
I shouldn’t complain too much. After all, when I was newly married, I really did hope to have a real girly girl. Now that it’s happened, even if she isn’t my biological kid, it would be hypocritical of me to be annoyed. All kids want to watch their favorite movies over and over and over. Granted, she is a little old for that phase. Usually, it’s like five- to eight-year-olds who put The Little Mermaid on every waking moment of the day.
Holy cow, am I glad that Tammy never got into Barney or Teletubbies or My Little Pony.
