Copyright © 2025 K. A. Excell

All rights reserved.

Happy Halloween

SOULSTONE SANCTUARY

WRAITHS ALWAYS COME for the sugar cookies. That’s what people don’t realize—those delectable morsels decorated in bright green and orange are like cream to a cat.

Which is why the sweet smell of cookies wafts through my kitchen and why I am behind my stand mixer, whipping cream cheese frosting into fluffy perfection while the sun starts to set through the trees. Weak light filters in through the glass kitchen windows, crawls over the glossy tile flooring, and climbs up to the counter, where three food dye colors stand sentinel. I keep a sharp eye out for any little fingers that might plunge their fingers into the creamy white stuff and get hurt. After all, visitors don’t always announce themselves in my house. Especially not today.

The timer dings and I click my tongue as I try to peer through the glass in the front of the oven. But it’s impossible to get a clear view and I resort to cracking the door open just a bit.

Perfectly shaped pumpkins and bats sit sedately on the silver tray, their surfaces only the slightest bit bubbled and just beginning to turn from cream to tan. Down the oven door goes and I stick oven-mitted hands into the furnace to pull them out. Beautiful.

The shadows around my kitchen grow hard, like the boundary between dark and light has solidified into a singular line. One corner—the one between the old white fridge and the back door—darkens enough to make me look up. Two smoky eyes look at me from within the shadows.

I smile at that corner. “If you want to snitch one while it’s warm, go ahead. But I can’t ice them until they’re cool or the icing will melt.”

A cold wind prickles my skin as the shadows scamper between me and the tray of warm sugar cookies. The world goes black. Primal fear spikes my gut for one eternal moment, and then the kitchen calms. No deep shadows, no wraith in the corner, and one of the bat-shaped cookies is gone. Well, almost gone. A triangle of wing still clings stubbornly to the tray and crumbs from where the bottom of the cookie gave way show where the cookie used to be.

I smile toward where the wraith had stood between the back door and the fridge. That crumbly nature is the problem with sugar cookies, yes. But I used to snitch the warm ones from Mother’s oven during my childhood in the southeastern fens, so I’m certainly not going to deny that pleasure to the wraiths on the hardest night of their year.

***

A knock on the door interrupts just as I add the last drop of yellow food coloring to the batch of orange icing. It’s a soft, rat-tat-tat sound that sends me scurrying through the house to the front entrance. My trusty broom leans against the wall within arms reach, but I doubt I’ll need to use it. All Hallow’s Eve gets a bad reputation for ghouls and goblins, but no one who actually knows said ghouls and goblins would still think that was a bad thing.

Sure enough, a knee high little man with balding hair and big, pupil-less eyes looks up at me when I open the door. He looks back over his shoulder, to the two rather realistic-looking people stuck in glowing orange resin and draped with orange LEDs. They each have a pumpkin-shaped candy basket in one hand, like run-of-the-mill trick-or-treaters, and fancy wire fairy wings protruding from their backs. In front of them is a sign that says, remember your manners, and have a happy Halloween.

Goblins like him don’t usually like humans (mostly because humans tend to shoot things they don’t understand, rather than asking questions like reasonable people), but seeing two of them so-obviously petrified there and being used as lawn ornaments might have given him the wrong impression about me. I muster my most gentle voice. “Don’t mind them. They’re just a reminder of what happens when someone goes through the trouble of driving all the way out here to try and kidnap my guests. Like the sign says, mind your manners.”

Then he licks his lips nervously and glances past me, down the hallway. “Ah, Sanctuary witch. Right. But if those are sugar cookies I smell, then… Well… Are you baking sugar cookies?”

The goblin is dressed for All Hallow’s Eve the way most people dress for it these days—in a black vampire cape and fake plastic fangs. The cape’s collar is stiff and goes up past his wart-dotted cheek to the middle of his pointed ears.

I step back from the door, inviting him in. But the goblin just wrings his hands. “It’s just that the spirits gave my little sister, Alhatrazik, some troubles last year, you see. I don’t want to intrude, you’re probably busy with people seeking sanctuary, but Alhatrazik doesn’t want to go trick-or-treating and I figured that any place baking sugar cookies…”

All Hallow’s Eve is the day all barriers dissolve. That includes the barriers between our world and all the other realms. While most creatures treat it like Free Bus Day and do the traveling they can’t otherwise afford, ghosts treat it as jailbreak day.

Let’s get one thing straight. Ghosts are absolutely the spirits of the dead, but they’re not the spirits of our dead. The afterworld for our realm is so far away that a ghost could set out to cross the realms the moment the last big of sunlight fades on All Hallow’s Eve and only end up halfway to our realm by the time the sun comes back up and she’s sucked back into her own afterlife world. It’s a disappointing truth for those who want to chat with loved ones, but there’s nothing I can do about that.

In fact, there’s not much I can do about anything related to ghosts (other than bake sugar cookies). Witches are responsible for taking care of and taking care of the physical beasties, depending on whether they’ve got a teaspoon of manners or a cup of murderous appetite. Ghosts aren’t our problem. Mostly. That’s what the wraiths are for; Hence, the sugar cookies.

Extra wraith protection always helps on All Hallow’s Eve.

I smile and nod and look past him to a little goblin-shaped shadow half hidden behind one of the two wooden columns that hold up the covering over my front porch. “Alhatrazik is welcome to join my small All Hallow’s Eve party. She won’t have any problems with the spirits in here—my word as a sanctuary witch.” I grab my broom and lean it toward me until the handle is plainly visible. “We’re a safe space for everyone, no matter their identity.”

The goblin seems to relax a bit, and he turns back toward his sister. “I’ll see you when I’m done trick-or-treating, then. And I’ll make sure to bring you back some candy corn!”

Alhatrazik creeps forward, her forest green eyes still cloudy with concern. She’s smaller than her brother, with a thinness to her bones that means she hasn’t finished her last goblin growth spurt—so, probably fourteen or fifteen. The age where goblins should be gallivanting around on the one night of the year where they don’t have to hide, pretending to be human children and raking in the candy. But here she is, shoulders hunched and eyes focused on the floor. I can’t help but wonder why the spirits gave her so much trouble last year.

But then, my job is to keep my guests safe and comfortable, not to ask questions. Alhatrazik is going to have a fun, happy All Hallow’s Eve, and that’s all that matters.

Her brother gives her one last wave as the girl comes inside and I close the door softly behind her.

***

Goblins aren’t hard to make comfortable. A black cauldron of warm milk with red food coloring in it to make blood punch, an overstuffed chair near the crackling fire (green, of course, to celebrate the season), a Vampireaculous novel off the book shelf, and my timid new guest seems content. She’s a quiet goblin child—a bit withdrawn. But that might just as easily be due to the ghosts.

I go back to the kitchen to finish up the icing and put in the next batch of sugar cookies (witches, this time—the popular modern interpretation complete with long, crooked noses and pointy hats, not the kind I am) in the oven. And then the first batch is cooled enough to decorate.

“Alhatrazik,” I call—softly, so not to startle her. But she doesn’t answer. I grab a dish towel to clean the fine crust of icing off my pointer finger[1] and wander out into the living room.

The goblin girl is hunched over in the chair, an orange stone clutched between clawed fingers. Her eyes, once as dark green as the deep forest, reflect an orange hue that reminds me of campfire flames. A low hum covers the living room like a scratchy wool blanket—warm and thick and vaguely uncomfortable, with long thick fibers that insistently claw at your skin. Every hair on my body stands on end and I thrust out one hand, because whatever that stone is, it’s bad news.

My broom flies from its spot near the front door and slaps my palm with a soft thunk. “Alhatrazik!”

The goblin’s eyes snap up, away from the glowing stone clutched between her claws. She shoves the stone into a pocket, banishing the glow. “Miss Witch?” Her forest green eyes are cloudy again, and scared, but her voice doesn’t shake. She has that gravely voice most goblins share, decorated with a bit of air at the end of her words like she’s run out of breath.

“What is that.” It’s a demand, not a question. The broom is warm in my hand. I stride toward where she’s huddled in the chair.

Alhatrazik looks toward the fire, avoiding my gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Now, I am a sanctuary witch. I’ve seen a lot of things in my long life, and some of them have been scary enough to give me nightmares. I’ve seen magic jewels, dragon eggs, even petrified hearts, but none of those rocks have ever given me the heebie jeebies like that orange stone. The aura coming off it made my skin crawl, and I can still feel its influence even with it out of sight in the folds of the goblin girl’s tunic. Sanctuary witches aren’t supposed to invade their guests privacy, but I don’t even hesitate as I lean over the goblin girl and reach for the pocket the stone disappeared into.

She bites me. Grabs my hand in hers, lifts it to her mouth, and chomps down. It takes maybe half a second. Pain radiates up my arm and I jerk back. Blood pools where she bit me. Goblin teeth are sharp. “Hey!”

The broom in my hand has started glowing blue, reacting to the threat.

Alhatrazik jumps up from her chair and dashes toward the front door—which doesn’t open. This is my sanctuary, and I decide who comes and goes. But either she doesn’t know that or she isn’t thinking clearly enough to care, because she hauls on the intricately carved wooden handle again and again, as if pulling often and hard enough will overcome the fact that the door is magically sealed.

“I won’t keep you here if you really want to go,” I say—trying my hardest to rein in my temper, “but that stone is trouble and you are my guest. Your trouble is my business. So we’ll have a sit-down conversation, and then I’ll unlock the door. Understood?”

She turns around and plasters her back to the door. Sweat drips down her temple, sticking straggles of coarse, flaxen goblin hair to her wide, wrinkled forehead. “Stay back, spirit. Stay back!”

Obviously, she didn’t hear what I said. I try again. “Your brother is going to come back here looking for you. What will I tell him if you aren’t here when he’s done trick-or-treating?”

An orange glow begins to emanate from her pocket, making the deep red-brown of the wooden panels that line the entryway seem sallow and cheap. The hairs on the back of my arms prick up again, and I hold my broom in front of me like a shield. “Alhatrazik!”

And then the oven dings. It’s not a loud sound, but it pierces through the buzz and makes Alhatrazik flinch.

The orange glow vanishes as if it never was, and Alhatrazik’s eyes roll back in her head.

I step forward, arms reaching as her knees collapse. She slumps to the ground before I can catch her and the orange stone rolls out of her pocket. It skitters along the wooden floor, spinning with no regard for physics, and then comes to rest where the floor curves slightly to meet the wall. I eye the stone suspiciously. It has stopped glowing and looks for all the world like a cheap bit of colored resin like the ones rock shops sell to children.

I don’t pick it up.

Whatever that is and whatever it’s done to Alhatrazik, I don’t want to get sideways of it. Even if it looks like a mass-produced toy, now, it’s powerful. I am not letting it touch my skin.

The smell of sugar cookies has intensified, and the timer dings again. I crane my head back toward the kitchen, as though I can see through the walls and the oven to the cookies. I need to deal with this magic rock, but sugar cookies are delicate and I have to get them out of the oven before they burn. Another look at the rock—sedate, still, silent—makes up my mind. I’ll leave it there for the few moments it takes to deal with the chiming oven. Guests, of course, come before cookies. Even wraith-attracting cookies.

I spin a thread of blue glow away from my broom handle and wave it toward the unconscious heap of girl slumped against the front door. It spreads across her skin and flares bright. She vanishes from the doorway and reappears in the overstuffed chair back in the living room.

I glare at the orange stone, but it still looks inert and sugar cookies burn easily, so I hurry to the kitchen and pull the witch cookies out of the oven to cool. It takes me maybe forty seconds to shove my hands in oven mitts, pull the tray out, slide it onto the stovetop, ditch the mitts, and return to the entryway where I left the stone.

Forty seconds was too long.

In hindsight, I really should have spun a net of power over the thing rather than just leaving it on the floor. Whatever it is, it’s powerful enough to make Alhatrazik act—well, act however she was acting. Scared. Panicked. Unreasonable. But I didn’t, and the stone is gone. Vanished. Flown the coop. Poofed.

I stare at the fine-grained wood where it used to be and curse myself for a fool.

And then, of course, someone knocks on the door.

“Just one moment,” I call, and spin around, scanning the wood grain under my feet for that stone. Maybe it’s just moved a bit. Maybe it’s rolled itself across the floor. Stranger things happen daily in my house, and it’s All Hallow’s Eve—the day all barriers dissolve.

The knock comes again as I frantically search the floor and try not to think of what something like that can do to unsuspecting beings. “Coming!”

The stone is gone. Unequivocally gone. I close my eyes, suck in a huge lungful of air, and blow it out again. Later. It’s a problem for later. I will deal with the stone later. Before the knock can come again, I open the door and lean on my broom handle, trying to look casual. Like I haven’t lost whatever that stone is and don’t have an unconscious goblin in my armchair.

A pair of glittery winged pixies hover at eye level on the other side of the door. They’re each only as tall as my hand, with gossamer wings that drift lazily in the autumn evening breeze like the fins of an angelfish. But their eyes are piercing and they dart past me, into the house, as soon as the door is open. “You’re going to need more cookies, sugar,” one says.

I start to close the door, only to stop as a curtain of translucent orange flashes in the last rays of sunlight. It curves up, toward the house like an enormous dome.

A terrible buzzing begins, low like a growl. The sound shakes my bones, and it sounds exactly like the hum I heard when Alhatrazik was staring at the stone, earlier. The vibration gets louder and deeper until it resonates in my chest cavity, and in front of me, the orange light climbs and curves.

And then it stops. The orange light clicks into place, forming a complete dome over my snug, remote cottage. The basal hum stops at the at exact same moment. We down in the sudden silence. And then light gathers from the orange, resinous shield, coalesces, oozes out of the dome until it buds off and floats at the very edge, separate and autonomous from whatever has just quarantined my home. The center of that orange glob begins to glow solid, hellfire green. And I know what that orb is.

A spirit.

Most spirits aren’t a big problem. They aren’t powerful enough to put up a fight against the wraiths. But those blobs of light coalescing at the edge of the orange barrier are too bright, too here, too powerful. And some witchy instinct tells me that when they finish manifesting, they’re going to be the tangible, gonna-snatch-all-the-souls, gonna-tangle-with-wraiths-and-possibly-win kinds of ghosts. Which means we’re in trouble.

I stand in my doorway, staring at the green-cored blobs of light, every hair on my body standing straight on end, and all I can think is, I didn’t make enough cookie dough.

Luckily, the three pixies have more sense than I do, because one of them—the one all done up in shades of blue and bronze—pinches my cheek between her two tiny hands. I wake up from my panic enough to close the door and turn to look at my new guests.

Most pixies are happy-go-lucky mischievous flirts. These and not that kind. These three are wearing little outfits of tooled leather and have swirling metal arm bands that cover their forearms from wrist to elbow. The pixie version of a weapon, designed to make spellcasting instantaneous.[2] And the black paint on their faces tells me they’re realmic guardians—the fairy version of witches. And instead of guarding a know-nothing human population against magic they wouldn’t recognize if it slapped them in the face, these three are used to protecting fairies from realmic visitors who would harm them and vice versa. Now, I’ve never been a big-league witch. I run a tiny sanctuary, but mostly I bake and eat and tend my garden and bring the world’s best cornbread to distant neighborhood potlucks. I’m a pitstop for magical creatures who need a few hours of peace and quiet. I feed the wraiths on All Hallow’s Eve, leave snacks out for the tooth fairy on particularly busy weekends, and call in the big guns (aka, warrior witches) if the neighborhood magical creatures decide to start hunting humanity. I don’t deal with spirits, and unlike my mother, I have never actually met any realmic guardians from other realms. Until now.

What, exactly, did Alhatrazik bring into my house?

I scramble to cover my surprise and instead smile at the three fiercely dressed pixies. “Welcome to my Sanctuary. How can I help you?”

The fairy in blue and bronze rolls her eyes. “You can bring us to the soulstone bearer, and then you can go bake more cookies. We’ll take care of the rest.”

On the one hand, there are murderous ghosts coalescing outside of my house. On the other hand, this is my house. And Alhatrazik is my guest. And I am her Sanctuary Witch. So as much as I wish the pixies could just wave their hands and make the orange soulstone thing poof into a bad memory, I am not going to just go bake more cookies.

“Perhaps you can tell me what a soulstone is and why you are looking for its bearer?”

The lead pixie gives an exasperated sigh. “A soulstone is a one-way portal between an afterlife prison and whatever realm it gets released in. And we’re looking for its bearer, because whoever stole it from us has broken fairy law, and you’re going to go bake cookies because the more wraiths we have in the area, the fewer of your precious humans are going to get soul-snatched tonight. So will you just do as you’re told already?”

The acid in her voice is enough to liquefy a small mammal, and she has just threatened my guest. Who is a goblin child. And nobody is going to be punishing a child on my watch.

The broom is already in my hand, and it starts glowing electric blue. “Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear. This is a Sanctuary, which means the tea and cookies are free, the chairs are comfortable, and there’s always a nice, relaxing fire. It means that everyone is safe here, regardless of who they are or what they’ve done in the past. And while the soulstone is certainly a threat and must be deal with, this is a place of courtesy, compassion, and connection. Whether you like that or not. Here, I own the air you breathe, which means that you mind your manners.” The blue flashes, blindingly bright, and the pixies backwing away from me as they throw their hands up to ward off the flash. I grab my temper with both hands and wrangle it into a more helpful shape. The blue glow coming off my broom vanishes and I smile at the pixies. “So let’s start again. My name is Annette. Can I have the pleasure of knowing what you are called?”

The lead pixie doesn’t seem particularly happy. “Thornberry. These are Thistlestick and Bladegrass.” Thistlestick has a mane of purple hair the same color as her namesake and Bladegrass is clothed in green. I fix the names in my memory as best I can.

“It’s lovely to meet you,” I say as I peel off a thread of blue magic and send it questing toward the kitchen for a tea tray of All Hallow’s Eve themed treats and three pixie-sized mugs of warm apple cider. “This way.”

I lead them into the living room, where Alhatrazik is still passed out in the armchair. I throw a quick glamor over her so the fairies can’t see her (fairy justice can be swift and unmerciful) and point at the tray of sweet things and accompanying drinks already on the coffee table.

Now, usually, I prefer to do things the old-fashioned, physical way. It’s much less tiring, and enjoyable, besides. The ritual of preparing snacks for a guest always brings me an element of calm. But there’s an orange dome-shield-thing outside my door, a now-invisible goblin girl passed out in my armchair, and a trio of murderous guardian pixies in my living room. A little bit of magic is called for.

When everyone is seated and has tasted their snacks—some peeled “eyeball” grapes and shortbread skeleton bones—I ask my first question. “How long before the ghosts coalescing outside become an actual problem? And how many ghosts are in the prison this stone links to?”

“A few hours before there are enough ghosts to get past the wraiths that have already been attracted by your baking, and we don’t know. It’s not actually one of our prisons. The stone was gifted to fairykind to solidify a ceasefire with one of the smaller demon realms. A goodwill token. But last year, it went missing. We’ve been tracking it, but it hasn’t been active. It requires demonic realmic energy to become active, and because it hasn’t been in the demonic realm it came from…”

I nod and pick up my own cauldron full of apple cider. There are a lot of magical devices that can only function in the realm where they were created. And if the demons wanted to make sure this stone was never activated, then it makes sense to hand it over to someone in another realm, where someone would have to somehow capture the realmic energy and deliberately hook it up to the soulstone in order to activate the thing. Which is complicated, energetically messy, not something to try unless you have a huge budget, and probably going to pull down all sorts of magical fairy police on your head.

Or they could wait until All Hallow’s Eve, when the barriers that contain realmic energy all dissolve and let things leak willy-nilly all over the place.

“Well, it’s active now. How do we deactivate it?”

“We eat cookies!” Bladegrass says, and levitates a skeleton bone as long as she is to her mouth. “And then we break the psychic connection between the stone and the bearer.”

Thornberry propels a sharp elbow into her colleague’s side. “We—by which I mean you—bake cookies to attract wraiths who can deal with the ghosts. Breaking the psychic link will also break any control the bearer has over their ghost army, and the spirits won’t have anything restraining them at that point. It’ll get messy.”

I had been following pretty well until she said ghost army, but that made me start choking on my apple cider. When I can finally breathe again, I say, “It’s not a ghost army, and the stone isn’t being controlled by some evil mastermind.”

“Oh, really?” Thornberry levels her glare at me. “Soulstones are created for one purpose and one purpose only. To let demonic overlords have instant access to a prison full of bloodthirsty ghost troops—which is why giving us the soulstone was one of the terms of the ceasefire. We can’t use the stone because we’ve got the wrong realmic energy, and they don’t have the stone so they can’t use it either. Its continued presence in our vault is the continued promise of peace. Except now, it’s in the human realm during All Hallow’s Eve and you’re telling me that’s all by accident?”

A howl of angry wind vibrates through the windows that flank the fireplace, and I look outside, past my lovely lawn ornaments, to the orange dome and the increasing numbers of glowing orbs. Some of them have elongated into translucent humanoid creatures with bat wings and curling horns and snouts and claws. We’re running out of time.

“I don’t know about accidents, but I can’t imagine it was on purpose,” I snap back. “The bearer is a kid. She’s maybe fourteen, and she’s a goblin. You know how goblins scavenge things—she probably found it at a yard sale.”

“Probably isn’t getting us anywhere. Produce this goblin child, and we will judge for ourselves.”

I grit my teeth. I really don’t want to expose the still unconscious kid to these three, but the fact that she’s still passed out is worrying and the pixies have expertise I don’t have. And we’re in my sanctuary. Even warrior pixies would be hard pressed to hurt someone I’ve brought under my protection. So, I drop the glamor.

Thornberry and her two colleagues stare at the goblin child curled up in the arm chair where my magic had deposited her. She looks sort of peaceful there, like a cat[3] in the middle of a nap.

“This is the demonic overlord we came to collect?” Bladegrass asks. Her mouth is full of shortbread cookie crumbs.

Thornberry just makes a disgusted sound and flits over to Alhatrazik. The intricate bronze lace that sheathes her forearms releases a deep sapphire glow. “Definitely psychically entangled. And in trouble. She’s not a native magic user—which means she’s not overflowing with psychic energy. The stone was designed for a demonic overlord. If she stays connected, it will kill her.”

Which is exactly what I’ve started worrying about. She shouldn’t have passed out, and she definitely should have woken up by now. Magic doesn’t have many rules that stay constant between realms, but a pretty consistent one is that using magic requires some form of magic. And if the type it wants isn’t available, it will steal whatever form of magic is available. Outside of shamans, who are becoming increasingly rare, goblins don’t have much magic. What they do have is a tiny amount of psychic energy they can use to produce fear like a skunk produces spray, the energy they use to maintain consciousness, and life energy. And none of those are things she should be spending to power a magic spell—especially one that doesn’t seem to have an off switch.

“How do we disconnect her?”

Thornberry looks back at me. “If we disconnect her, all the ghosts out there are going to attack. Are you prepared to handle that many demonic ghosts?”

My pride wants to say yes. But practicality says no. I can restrain and expel physical visitors, but ghosts aren’t tangible. That’s why everyone has to rely on wraiths in the first place. Witches can’t fight ghosts. “She’s my guest. I told her brother I would protect her.” And if this spell continues, it could damage her.

“Then we’ll do what we can to reduce the psychic burden on her while you get baking.” Thornberry motions to her two companions, and both drift over to Alhatrazik. All three bracelets are glowing now, and the sharp taste of rosemary fills the room. It’s joined by something sweet—raspberries. Fairy magic. A bitter undertone settles on my tongue and tries to crawl down my throat. Demon magic. They’re splitting the psychic burden—dividing the spell amongst the four of them, and a trace of demon magic is leaking out.

Alhatrazik is glowing the same blue color as the pixies. Her eyes seem to twitch, but she doesn’t wake up. And she probably won’t until the connection is broken. Until then, more and more ghosts are coalescing outside my house, and we don’t have enough wraiths to combat them.

So I go back to the kitchen.

The shadows inside are stiff, which is how I know I’m not alone. I turn toward the old refrigerator where the earlier wraith manifested, and sure enough, a pair of smoky eyes are staring at me. “You’ve noticed our little difficulty, haven’t you.”

The eyes blink once, deliberately.

Well, that’s a relief. “If you’ve got any friends looking for a post-battle cookie coma, send them our direction, would you? Hells, I’ll feed you all for a year, if that’s what it takes.”

A single finger of shadow reaches out toward me—no, toward my shadow. And then another set of smoking eyes looks at me from my own shadow.

The world loses color, turns into shades of gray, and then a rasping voice echoes in my head. ::Ghost cookies.::

I blink at those eyes. “You want…ghost cookies?::

::Yes.:: I get the sense of them. Palm-sized, with white icing and beady black eyes. The kind kids dress up as by putting a white sheet over their head and cutting out holes so they can see.

And then the world regains its normal color.

I look down at the wraith inhabiting my shadow. “Well, ghost cookies it is.”

I almost expect it to actually respond, but it only blinks once more and extends a shadowy finger back toward the deep shadows near the old refrigerator and the other wraith waiting there.

Orders received, I turn to the new, doublewide, stainless steel refrigerator situated against the opposite wall to grab the rest of the dough.

***

“Annette.”

I look up from my baking to see Bladegrass hovering in the doorway. Her bracelet is still glowing, which I take to mean that she’s still involved in the spell linking her to Alhatrazik. The smell of sugar cookies is strong, and I’ve got a giant batch of white icing waiting in my largest glass mixing bowl and my new batch of dough is almost ready. Ordinarily, the next step would be to stick it in the refrigerator while I ice the first batch, but there isn’t enough time.

“Thornberry said you’d want to know: Alhatrazik is waking up.”

My heart leaps. A quick gesture starts the chilling spell, and then I wipe flour-caked hands on my apron. I hurry after the pixie.

In the living room, Alhatrazik is sitting up. Her eyes are unfocused, vacant, and the color of a flickering camp fire blazing against a forest backdrop. She’s shivering, so I pick up the fuzzy blanket she threw off earlier and drape it over her, then snap my finger with a spark of blue to summon a half-full cauldron of warm blood punch. It appears in my hand, and I place it between her shaking hands. She wraps her fingers around the cauldron as if its warmth is a lifeline, and her trembling eases somewhat.

After a few minutes, her eyes begin to focus and she lifts the drink to her lips. A sip seems to restore her, and she looks up at me, eyes brimming with tears. “What is happening? Why is it so cold?”

Those words tear at my heart. The spell is still draining her of energy. “Do you remember that orange stone you were holding?”

She nods. “My lucky charm. He said it would keep the ghosts away.”

That catches Thornberry’s attention. “He, who?”

“The being with wings.”

The pixies exchange glances, and I think I know why. The ghosts outside are all winged demons, which means they all had wings in their firstlife.

I can see a sharp question forming on Thornberry’s tiny tongue, but I get there first. “Alhatrazik, can you tell us where you met this being? And when? What did he say?”

Alhatrazik shivers, so I pull the blanket tighter around her shoulders. She takes another drink. I reach a mental finger back to the rest of the blood punch sitting on the kitchen counter and refill her cauldron nearly to the brim now that she’s not shaking quite as badly.

“It was a week or so after last year’s All Hallow’s Eve. I almost got soul-snatched, but then the shadows grew around me like a big black blanket, and when they retreated the ghosts were gone. But it was scary. I lost all my candy when I started running, and then the human kids were laughing, and—oh…” She closes her eyes and a tear runs down each marbled cheek. “And I didn’t want to leave the house after that, but then my brother dragged me to this little folk conference and there was this tall being with big wings and beautiful ebony horns and he looked at me like he knew. Like he could see deep into my soul and see my fear and he knew the same fear. And he didn’t even have to say much. He just held out his hand and there was that stone in the middle of his palm. It was pretty, you know? And he said, keep this with you next year, and you will never need to fear ghosts again. So I took it. And it made me feel better.”

“Well,” Thornberry says dryly. “I suppose being at the head of a demonic ghost army is one way to cure the fear of ghosts.”

Which is also what I was thinking, but I hadn’t wanted to say it aloud.

“But why?” Bladegrass asks. “It’s not like giving the stone to a goblin girl is going to help the demons. And if he is some sort of demonic rebel, then he’d want to be the one in control of the ghost legions. What good is a goblin girl to him?”

"Well, giving it to her did mean that you three weren’t able to locate it for a whole year. If that was his goal—to keep it out of fairy hands until he could claim it—then he’s done a pretty good job.”

A knock on the door overruns whatever Thornberry is going to say.

I suppress a sigh. Who would be knocking on my door with a giant dome over the house and ghosts materializing outside? Human kids who don’t know better? But no. Humans never come all the way out here.[4] I live in the middle of nowhere for a reason.

A particularly unsettled feeling curls in my stomach and I summon my broom as I make my way to the entrance.

A demon stands on my doorstep, a head taller than me even before adding the horns. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a problem. Like I told Alhatrazik’s brother, my sanctuary is open to all. I don’t judge. But given the demonic ghost army arrayed behind him, the black leathery wings folded behind his broad shoulders, and the glistening ebony horns spiraling up from his forehead, I know exactly who this is.

The demon who gave Alhatrazik the stone has come to retrieve his army.

I don’t waste time, and I don’t get out of the doorway. Instead, I pull my broom close and draw myself up to look bigger. “You handed a ghost army to a goblin kid, knowing the psychic strain would kill her.” I don’t judge people based on identity or history, but child killing? Yeah, nobody gets a pass for that. Not to mention that if she hadn’t been in a sanctuary, it’s possible Thornberry and her two cronies would have hit first and asked questions never, only to realize that the soulstone bearer wasn’t exactly a demon after the kid was already cursed or dead. So yeah. This demon doesn’t get to come in.

He has the good grace to at least look surprised at my greeting. “Ah, a sanctuary witch. I had heard that this realm has quaint traditions. It may help to know that I am only attempting to rectify a great injustice done to my people. You see, the fairies are destroying my—”

I raise a hand, and although he keeps talking, no sound emerges from his mouth.

I’m a sanctuary witch. I own everything inside my sanctuary, including the air. And he can talk as much as he wants, but I’ve air-gapped his mouth, so he’s going to find it difficult to breathe in just a moment and no sound is actually traveling past his lips.

“Let me make one thing clear. I do not care about your realm. I do not care about the fairy realm. I do not care about your war, your ceasefire, or the history of wrong between you. I am a sanctuary witch, and that means that anyone who comes to me for help is safe. And you have made a child under my care unsafe.” I point toward the lawn that’s strewn with Halloween decorations (I don’t usually put up modern decorations… It’s sort-of tacky. But I couldn’t miss the opportunity to play dress-up with the lawn ornaments I acquired last year, so I overindulged.). Behind the styrofoam[5] grave markers and skeletons are three men who look to be frozen in orange resin that glows from the inside, illuminating the horror on each expression. They’ve each got necklaces of orange Halloween lights around their necks and a pumpkin pail full of candy in one hand. And they each have a very pretty set of fairy wings protruding from their backs. In front of them is a sign that says remember your manners, and have a happy Halloween.

I hope the demon can read, because that’s the only warning he’s getting.

“The last time someone made a guest of mine feel unsafe, I got quite upset.”

The demon’s face takes on an ashen pallor. “Ah, I see. But my people. They’ve been oppressed! And I’m not a bad guy, you see. But some sacrifices have to be made, you know. And… Ah, I saw this speech going a lot better in my head.” He still hasn’t looked away from my lovely lawn ornaments.

Now that he’s been standing there a while, I can see past the broad shoulders and powerful wings. His face has a roundness that hints at youth, and his horns have a hint of purple at the base.

Different demonic races have different ways of aging, but something tells me this demon is from one of the races that change colors as they get older. His face will thin out and get longer, the horns will get taller, and the purple at the base will swirl up to the tips and out, along his wings until his whole being is infused with that color. To have fully grown wings and horns but not have started gaining any color, this demon can’t be older than the human equivalent of seventeen.

Which means he’s another kid.

Another freaking kid.

And a revolutionary, to top it all off.

I let my face soften just a bit. “Kid, your people have had a ceasefire in place for, what—ten years? Twenty?”

“Thirteen.”

My lucky number. Hooray.

“And you’ve gotten the idea in your head that there’s glory in striking a blow to the other side. And you think that telling me about all the awful things they’ve done will make me agree that it’s worth sacrificing a kid to bring about another war that will end better, this time. Is that it? There are probably lots of grand speeches at home talking about how fairies are responsible for this thing and that thing and all you have to do in order to live the charmed life is get rid of all the fairies, right?”

That’s usually how these things go. And nine times out of ten, it’s the side that points fingers that’s actually keeping people from all the things they say their population deserves. And even if it’s not, even if the fairies really are oppressing these people (and I really doubt that), nothing is worth causing this much death and destruction.

“It’s not that simple,” the demon kid says. His wings flex behind him with irritation. Which is how I know I’m pretty much on the money.

I let out a huge sigh. Witches have been the target of exactly this sort of thing since humanity crawled out of the caves. “I’ll offer you a deal.” That’s a magic word—literally—with demons and fairies. “You help the wraiths contain all these ghosts in their prison again, and you can come in to help frost sugar cookies. You apologize to the fairies for stealing the stone and apologize to Alhatrazik for involving her in this so-called heroic scheme. You give the stone back to the fairies. In return, you get to eat some of the sugar cookies you help frost and the fairies won’t take their vengeance out on you.”

His wings flex restlessly. He seems to regain some of his determination. “The fairies couldn’t find me with a tracing spell and a crystal ball. The soulstone is untraceable as long as it’s not in my home realm. Maybe I’ll just come in, get the stone, and then leave. The goblin kid will be fine once I’m gone.”

The broom in my hand starts to glow. I pull the magic into myself, let it crawl through my veins and shine through my eyes. The shadows crystallize and a dozen smoking pairs of eyes watch us from the periphery. And then the three pixies arrive behind me. Their bracelets glow brighter.

I look over my shoulder at them. “If he doesn’t accept my deal, he isn’t my guest. Do whatever you want with hi—”

“Wait!” There’s smoke curling from his nostrils—almost certainly a fear response. Demons don’t sweat, they smoke. “How are the pixies here? They’re not supposed to be here.”

I shrug. How isn’t my problem. I’m a neutral party. My only obligation is to my guests. Frankly, he’s lucky I haven’t already turned him into a lawn ornament and handed him over to the fairies.

“What deal?” Thornberry asks. “If that’s the thief, then he belongs to us. There will be no deals.”

I arch my eyebrow at her. “You’re in my sanctuary, which means you follow my rules. If I want to offer a deal, that’s my perogative.”

“He stole from us, tried to reignite a war, tried to kill that goblin child, and you’re offering him a deal? He deserved execution. Justice!”

The demon kid looks from my face—glowing with magic—to the pixies behind me. I don’t envy this kid in the least, but he’s the one who decided to steal from fairies, and I’ve given him a way out. If he doesn’t take it, that’s on him.

The shadows grow closer, and I realize that the wraiths have a stake in this, too. This is the hardest night of their year, and he has made it a whole lot harder. Not to mention the fact that he punched a hole through several realms with that soulstone.

I arch an eyebrow at the demon kid, whose ears have started smoking, too. “Did I mention that I’ve been feeding wraiths during All Hallow’s Eve for years? In that time, I’ve gotten a pretty good idea of their emotional state. This,” I motion to the darkness around us dotted with eyes, “is angry wraith bodylanguage. They’re not patient on the best of days, and their fuse is shorter tonight.”

The demon kid gulps. He meets my eyes. “Fine. It’s a deal.”

Magic clicks in my bones, sealing the bargain.

The fairies skim over my shoulder and then wheel on me, so they’re only a few inches from my face. “No! We have a prior claim.”

I look Thornberry straight in the eyes. “He’s going to give you the stone and help the wraiths dismantle this mess. You’ll have averted a war, and the kid will have learned a lesson. Justice.”

“But—”

I point at the lawn ornaments. It would be harder to go tie-to-toe with the fairies, but I’m still a Sanctuary Witch, and my power is proportional to the harm someone tries to bring to my guests. If they try to kidnap or kill him, I can stop them. But I’d rather avoid the fight. “Here’s your choice. You can frost cookies until the kid is done fixing the tear the soulstone made and then take the stone back, or you can leave now and leave the soulstone with me, or you can stay here forever. Your choice.”

I’ve seen Mother offer this type of choice to guests in the past. It’s not a threat, it’s a promise. And if the fairies attack, I really will turn them into…well, probably tree ornaments rather than lawn ornaments. But Thornberry and her two colleagues are smarter than that. Hopefully.

They exchange glances with each other, then turn around to glare at the demon kid—who isn’t looking too steady, himself. Then they turn back to me. Thornberry—as per usual—acts as spokesfairy. “Bargains are old, powerful magic. We cannot undo it, and we will not violate the magic of sanctuary, either. But if this demon sets foot or wing in our realm ever again, we will carry out justice.”

I step out of the doorway and let the glow of magic fade from my face. “Good choice. Now, the latest batch of cookies is about to go into the oven, and you all have work to do. Cookies and blood punch are ready just as soon as the work’s done. Let me know when you’re done wrangling ghosts, and I’ll bring out the treats. Then we can get the real party started.”

***

It’s past four in the morning by the time I set the stereo to blaring Spooky Scary Skeletons and hand each of my five guests their individual icing bags. But the dome outside my house has disintegrated, the soul stone has been teleported back to the vault it was taken from, and the wraiths have made six hundred palm-sized ghost cookies vanish.

I slump into my arm chair and watch the pixies work with their tiny icing bags to ice cookies as tall as they are. They’ve each chosen to do a pumpkin—apparently they don’t have jack-o-lanterns in their realm. Alhatrazik has three cookies on her plate with green icing piled high and the remains of two more spread over her face as she sits in a pile of blankets near the fire and finishes her vimpiraculous novel. And the demon kid (His name is Buster, but for obvious reasons he prefers to go by B) is putting the final artistic touches on bat cookies that look like they’re getting ready to fly right off the plate.

I dip my own witch cookie in the black cauldron of blood punch, then lift it to my mouth and savor the first bite.

Notes

1. How do you know if the icing is ready if you don’t taste it?

2. When I was young, I asked Mother why they didn’t use little swords or spears… You can probably already imagine her glare. A pixie spear would basically be a toothpick. But mess with pixie magic, and you’ll wish you’d never been born.

3. For those of you wondering where my cat has gone, about two weeks ago, she let me know that there’s something she had to go do. I hope she’ll be back soon, but she’s a cat. She can take care of herself. And when she gets back, I’m sure we’ll have the round tale. For now, I’m holding down the fort by myself.

4. With the regrettable exception of a particularly tenacious group of brownie hunters, now living out their lives as lawn ornaments tastefully decorated in orange halloween lights and dressed in fairy costumes complete with wire wings. Don’t believe me? Take a look out the front windows…

5. Again, this isn’t typical… And before you curse me for my unsustainable practices, I actually have some realmic visitors who eat styrofoam. So I did think about how I’m going to dispose of them in an eco-friendly way.

Table of Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Soulstone Sanctuary

Notes