Cutie groomed himself neatly on the side table while Teagan tucked into a hearty breakfast. She’d slid two eggs from the serving tray onto her plate, as well as a couple of slices of vegan bacon, and an English muffin slathered in butter. She diligently stirred her favorite brown sugar oat milk creamer into her coffee, and she refused to look up at the place setting next to her.
“Could you pass the butter?” her mother asked, reaching absently across the table. The tips of her manicured nails almost grazed the back of the toad seated in the middle of the black swirl-dot patterned ceramic flat plate to her left.
Teagan’s stomach turned. She couldn’t think about his skin, not if she wanted to eat. She certainly couldn’t think about what that skin felt like against her touch. She pressed her napkin to her lips while she breathed through the nausea just thinking of it caused.
“No problem,” her father answered as if nothing was even in the slightest amiss. He passed his wife the butter before taking another bite of his own eggs.
“You’re not going to say a thing about the fact that there’s an actual toad on our table while we’re having breakfast, Dad?” Teagan asked finally, when she realized neither of her parents intended to comment on the way she’d entered the room and sat a toad down on their table. She stabbed the yolk of one egg, letting the golden liquid inside dribble out while she waited for her father to answer.
“What would you like me to say exactly, Teagan?” her father asked, setting his own napkin aside in annoyance. “You’re the reason there’s a toad here, after all. Perhaps you’d like to enlighten me as to how I should feel about the entire situation.”
“Now, Greg,” her mother said, tapping her father’s hand gently. “Remember your blood pressure.”
“Not now, Hermie.”
“I wasn’t going to let him in the house,” Teagan pointed out before dipping her muffin in the egg.
“You were going to go back on your word,” her father agreed.
“So, he says the terms of our agreement mean he gets to stay here until he gets his spell lifted,” Teagan added. “You still think that’s fair trade for getting a ball from a well?”
Her father’s lips curved downward. “You could help him get it broken.”
“I could,” she agreed, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms. “But there’s a price.”
“You’re not making deals with your father over breakfast,” Hermione said. “It will give you both indigestion.”
“I’m not negotiating with you about the terms of your deal with him. Haven’t you made enough arrangements to learn yet that making deals isn’t the best way to get things done?” Her father set his napkin back in his lap then reached for his coffee. “Besides, how hard can it be to break a simple spell like a toad spell?”
“He has to kiss a princess.”
Her father spit out the coffee, which went directly in her mother’s face. Her mother blinked in shock before he grabbed a napkin and began mopping her up apologetically. Teagan snickered.
“Teagan, we’re in West Virginia.”
“I’m aware, Dad, that’s why I asked if you were still okay with the terms of my arrangement,” Teagan said sweetly. She sipped her own coffee, enjoying her father’s flustered appearance. Nothing usually shook her father—Greg Taradiddle lived with two witches and ran one of the top construction companies in the country. He was used to chaos and liked to joke he thrived in situations that made most men go crying home for their mothers.
The same Greg Taradiddle apologized to his wife one last time as she left to change her shirt, which was dotted with his morning cup of joe. He darted an annoyed glance at his daughter before saying, “I’m not happy with any of this arrangement, but you’re an adult. If you commit to something—”
“What was that?” Teagan asked, holding her hand up to her ear like a megaphone. “Did you just say I am an adult, and as such my adult decisions should be respected?”
He scowled at her, and she scowled back.
“It isn’t like we ask much of you, Teagan,” her father began.
“You want me to stay here,” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed.
“Where it’s safe?” she added.
“Exactly,” he enthused, throwing his hands up in frustration.
“And where I have no life, no friends, no anything to make my days worthwhile?”
“Teagan—”
“Dad—”
When they both began at the same time, they both halted speaking as well. Silence filled the dining room. Jon cleared his throat.
Twice.
Finally, he said, “Not that this tension thick enough to cut with a knife isn’t great and all, but Teagan and I were discussing a possible alternative to the princess plan last night.”
Both Teagan and her father swiveled to stare at him, the toad sitting in the middle of the breakfast plate.
“We could try to find the witch,” he added, wilting a bit under their stares. “Like you said, it would get the spell broken.”
“Do that,” her father said, standing and throwing down his napkin on the table again. “Let me know what you find out. Help him find the witch.”
“I said I wanted to negotiate the price for me helping him,” Teagan pointed out.
“And I said there’s no negotiating. You’re either going to keep your promise to him or you’re the kind of witch who goes back on their word. You pick, because I’m not discussing it further.”
“Dad,” Teagan began, but the words got caught in her throat and her father left anyway.
“So, I’m picking up on some tension between you and the parental units?” Jon asked.
Teagan blinked back her frustrated tears, then looked down at him and sighed. “My parents are great.”
“I was a huge fan of the way dad spit coffee at mom,” the toad agreed.
“Ugh,” she said, standing in frustration. “You don’t get it. They really are great. And you don’t care. You’re a toad.”
The toad shifted from foot to foot before looking back up at her. “We’ve spent just about every moment since we met talking about me. I’d like to get to know you better. What I’m picking up on is your parents are a bit overprotective.”
“I’m in my thirties,” Teagan said.
Jon waited.
“I’m still living at home. I’m always at home, in fact. They hired the best tutors and teachers to come from all over to here in the middle of nowhere West Virginia to teach me. They’ve imported musical instruments, art supplies, whatever I could think of to ask them for, they got me,” she continued.
The toad nodded. “Sounds epic.”
“So long as I stay here,” she added.
“Not a bad deal,” he said gazing around the room. “You guys have a beautiful piece of property. Nice views off the side of the mountain, gorgeous stream…”
“I have to stay here,” she continued, stalking closer to the table to peer into his small, slitted eyes. “In this house, on this property, where I’m safe.”
“A lot of people would be very jealous,” Jon said, beginning to shrink under her scrutiny.
“I’m always safe, Jon. I never meet anyone new; I never go anywhere risky, I never do anything that might be considered even the least little bit interesting,” she concluded.
“Define interesting?” he asked.
Teagan blew out a breath and sagged into a chair. She dejectedly began to pick at her breakfast again, but she didn’t really have much of an appetite. “I don’t know—dangerous? I want to go places that make my heart race, feel the wind in my hair, the sun on my skin.”
“You can’t do that here?” he asked.
“What was your life like before?” she asked, tilting her head. “Before you became a frog, I mean.”
The toad gave her question long consideration before answering, “I got up in the morning and went to work. On weekends, I’d try to spend some time with my friends or family…normal? My life was normal, I guess.”
“Oh,” Teagan answered, considering his idea of normal. To her, it sounded kind of great.
“I mean, isn’t that what everyone’s life is?” he asked, seeming confused by her expression.
Teagan didn’t know what her face might be giving away, but she felt kind of empty and hopeless. Her life wasn’t that—she only ever saw her parents, really, and the cat familiar. Her father went to work, her mother had her art, but Teagan…
Teagan still couldn’t figure out where she fit.
“Did you ever feel like you couldn’t figure out where you fit in the world?” she asked, helpless to find better words to explain her situation.
“I think everyone has felt that way at some time or another,” Jon answered. For a second, Teagan imagined him as a guy—would he be attractive? Old? Young? From the way he answered her, she assumed he had to be about her age, but who knew how long he’d been a frog?
“Yeah, well, that’s how I feel most of the time,” Teagan explained. “I feel like the square peg trying to jam into the round hole, and I’ve never been able to fit.”
“Maybe,” Jon suggested, hopping a bit closer to her. “Maybe it is a case of you’re trying the wrong holes.”
She snorted, standing. A cloth grocery bag hung over a knob on the back of the kitchen door, so she grabbed it and held it open toward Jon. “Want a lift?” she offered.
“Thanks,” he said, jumping into the bag. “But did you ever consider that? Maybe it isn’t a case of you don’t fit but it is a case of you haven’t found your place in the world yet?”
Slinging the bag over her shoulder, she grabbed her phone and wand and headed toward her mother’s workspace. “If they won’t let me go out into the world to make some mistakes, I won’t ever find that place, will I?”
She could hear the wistfulness in her own tone, and she hoped he wouldn’t notice. All Jon said was, “Well, it sounded like they’re letting you get out to help me break my curse.”
Laughing, Teagan slipped into her mother’s rooms before putting Jon down on the large workbench. “I guess it means you’re getting me something I want in return for the help after all, toad. I want out and you’re getting me out, even if only for a little while.”
“I’m glad you stopped by my office, dear,” her mother said as she entered. “Your father left this for you.” Hermione passed Teagan a large, leatherbound book. It looked old, but when she flipped it open to scan the pages, the print looked modern and new.
“What is it?” Teagan asked.
“He said it would be useful on your quest. I’ll be worried until you come home, if I’m being honest, but he says you’ll be fine to help your toad friend, and that it’s your responsibility besides…” Hermione drifted off, her gaze becoming lost. “How is some mistake he made your responsibility?”
Hermione pointed at the bag where Jon peered at her, and Jon ducked back out of sight. “It isn’t my responsibility,” Teagan replied, a small sliver of guilt pinging her as she saw her mother’s face light up with hope. “But I did promise to help him, so I’d like to do what dad said and honor my word.”
“You only want to honor it because it is getting you out of the house,” Jon muttered from inside the bag, but he said it quietly enough that Teagan figured her mother likely didn’t overhear him.
“I suppose that’s the honorable thing to do, but you don’t realize how dangerous the world can be, dear. We worry—”
“Constantly,” Teagan finished, dropping a kiss onto her mother’s forehead. “I’ll be fine. Chances are good he just pissed off one of the neighbors, and I’ll be back this afternoon.”
“If you insist,” Hermione said, passing her daughter another small container. “I packed you a lunch, in case you’re out past lunchtime.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Teagan replied. As she headed for the front door—an entrance and exit she’d used since she was a small child—her heartbeat kicked up. What made this time leaving any different from all the other times she’d walked out the front door?
She decided it had to be the fact that she was, for all intents and purposes, off on a quest of sorts.
Maybe her life would finally begin.
* * *
The book her father gave her claimed to be a registry of all of the witches living in the Assjacket area, so Teagan decided to began knocking at doors. When she explained her plan to Jon, he didn’t seem as impressed as she expected.
“What are you going to even ask them?” Jon demanded as she meandered up the first stone paved walkway toward a witch’s front door. “Hey, did you turn this guy into a toad, and would you consider reversing that spell?”
Teagan shrugged, jostling Jon where he rested in the bag. “It doesn’t have to be much more complicated than that. Either they know you and will recognize the spell or they won’t know anything, and we’ll go to the next house. How complicated can it be?”
The first door they knocked on was the home of Juliana Piepowder and her husband Cavalier. According to her father’s book, they spent a lot of time at the card shop in town gaming with locals. After three knocks, a man answered the door. “Hello?”
“Hi,” Teagan began, then realized she had no idea what to say. Maybe the toad had a point when he suggested I figure out my words before knocking, she thought in irritation. “Do you know this frog?”
She held the grocery bag open in front of him, showing him Jon.
“That’s a toad, lady,” he pointed out, his expression dubious.
“Who knew we had so many amphibian experts in the area?” Teagan replied sarcastically with an overly bright smile.
He shook his head. “No, I don’t know your toad. Babe!” he called over his shoulder. “Do you know any toads?”
“I know a Todd,” his wife replied from a distance. “Is that the same thing?”
“Sorry to bother you,” Teagan said before turning and darting down their sidewalk again. The door closed behind her, but she couldn’t bring herself to even glance back because she was so embarrassed. Once she walked far enough away from their house to be out of earshot, she admitted to Jon, “I guess maybe I do need more of a plan.”
“Ya think?” he asked sarcastically. “You didn’t even ask me what the witch looked like.”
“Well, I didn’t think of that,” Teagan replied, scowling. “This is kind of outside my range of experience.”
It wasn’t like she usually had adventures of any kind, not to mention quests. Because that was what it began to feel like to Teagan—like one of the adventures the heroines in her novels experienced. Only this time, she was the star of the adventure, and she wasn’t sure what to do or how to behave. It seemed unfair that she finally got to have an adventure and she didn’t even know how to adventure properly.
The second house wasn’t the right one either, but Teagan met a pair of twins who apparently lived in the area. They invited her over for a movie night, but she told them she’d have to pass—her parents worried if she wasn’t home. They looked at her curiously, but they repeated the invitation was an open one.
“There’s just not a whole lot of people in the area our age,” Sadie explained, tucking her long red hair behind an ear. “I remember growing up here and just being miserable with only my sister to hang out with.”
“You loved it,” her sister disagreed, shifting the sweet round-faced baby on her hip. “Admit it. The times when it was just the two of us and no other kids were the very best.”
Sadie shrugged and waved again to Teagan. “It was great meeting you!”
Teagan thought about their invitation—she could imagine it, too. Hanging out with them, watching a movie. Maybe they could pop some popcorn. They’d laugh, and talk about fashion and men and do all of the girly things they did in the teenaged girl books she’d read when she was younger.
Or so the movies suggested, though Teagan hadn’t ever had a close personal female friend to experience any of it to be sure.
As they walked down the sidewalk and toward the next set of houses, Jon asked, “So why did you say no? Are you not into fantasy movies starring hot elves and tall wizards?”
Teagan snorted. The movie night sounded fun, and she didn’t want to lie to him, so she admitted, “It’s not that,” Teagan explained. “My parents worry…”
“Everyone’s parents worry,” Jon said. “That’s human nature. Life isn’t about whether or not you’re worried, whether or not things are hard, or whether or not you’re scared to do things. Everything is scary, hard, worrisome or otherwise awful. That’s life. We are just here trying to find the sweet, wonderful moments in between all the shitty stuff, or so I was led to believe.”
“Poetic, I’ll give you that. But other than using a lot of words, that’s an awful way to look at things,” Teagan pointed out. “It leaves very little room for important stuff like hope, dreams, happiness…”
“Those things are rare, though, right? Maybe they’re meant to be, is all I’m saying,” he insisted. “So that we appreciate them more.”
“I’d appreciate it if you sounded at least a little more optimistic,” she replied.
“Is your way of looking at life more optimistic?” he asked. “Is it hopeful for you to say everything is scary, so we just won’t bother with any of it?”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” Teagan began.
“I’m pretty sure talking to yourself is a bad thing,” a voice said from nearby, startling Teagan so much that she dropped the bag she used to carry Jon.
“Who said that?!” Teagan demanded, holding her wand threateningly as she searched for the stranger. Her parents always reminded her the world was a dangerous place full of people who would mean harm—and just look what happened to Jon. Teagan felt suddenly awfully inexperienced, alone, and scared.
“I did,” a little girl said, stepping out of the woods. Teagan tried to calm her scared breaths and reassess the situation. She couldn’t be scared of a little kid, could she? After she spoke, the child popped her thumb back in her mouth to suck it as she considered Teagan carefully. “Because you were talking to yourself.”
Teagan considered the child for a few seconds longer—short, about eight or nine, if she had to guess, and for sure not scary. The little girl’s long hair was done in two bouncy ponytails high above her ears, and her curls fell in chestnut ringlets around her small shoulders. Her eyes were huge, almost more like a cartoon character than a real girl, and she used her finger to rub her nose while she diligently continued sucking her thumb.
“Hi,” Tegan began, her eyes automatically scanning for parents for the small thing. “Um, are you all alone out here?”
“You’re in my backyard,” the little girl pointed out before jamming the thumb back into her mouth.
“We are?” Teagan asked, glancing around. She hadn’t been paying attention so much to which direction she headed, simply following the map in the book her father gave her.
Again, the thumb came out only long enough for words. “Yep, the sidewalk ended over there,” the little girl pointed.
“Sorry!” Teagan said, sprinting that direction. The woods around West Virginia were full of old growth, and sometimes it was hard to tell where town ended and someone’s property began. In this case, the sidewalk ended and the pathway continued, making Teagan assume it was still the same path.
“That’s her!” Jon shrieked from inside the bag, right as Teagan came to a halt on the sidewalk. “That’s the witch.”
Teagan glanced down at him in the bag, absolutely disbelieving. “A little girl?”
“She may look little,” Jon said, shuddering with amphibian horror, “But she packs a punch.”
“What the hell did you do to a little kid to make her turn you into a frog?” Teagan whispered into the bag, before turning back to where the little girl had been. Her heart raced. If he’d done something to a little kid…maybe he deserved to be a frog, or worse?
She’d followed them, so she was right behind Teagan when she turned. “Oh, hi,” Teagan squeaked, startled.
“Hi,” said the little girl, blinking up at her with large eyes.
“I’m Teagan,” she said to the kid. Briefly, she wondered if the kid would turn her into a frog, too. Although she longed for adventures, she had to admit that the idea of experiencing them in the body of an amphibian didn’t sound great.
“I’m Bonnie,” said the kid. “Why are you talking to your groceries?”
The kid must be really curious about the groceries because she plucked at the bag, trying to sneak a peek inside. Teagan hefted it higher onto her shoulder, not sure if revealing the toad would be a good idea or not.
“I’m not,” Teagan replied. “I’ve actually been looking for you.”
The kid backed up a couple of steps, thumb going back into her mouth as her eyes went wide.
“Okay, that came out wrong,” Teagan said, but the kid vanished into the trees.
“You literally found her and then you lost her,” Jon said despondently from inside the bag. “We were so close.”
“What did you do to that little girl to make her turn you into a toad?” she replied, focusing on the important bit. She jumped into helping him with both feet, but maybe she’d been asking the wrong questions. If he was the bad guy in the situation, no way would she help him one more bit.
Jon sighed, but when Teagan put down the grocery bag and began to walk away from him, he hopped out and said, “Wait! Don’t go, I’ll explain.”
Teagan crossed her arms and tapped a singular mule impatiently, waiting for his story. They stood there for long seconds, the old growth Appalachian forest chirping and alive around them as Teagan refused to budge until he started explaining. She deserved to at least know what was going on, and if he’d done something to a little kid, she might just stomp him.
“I’ll tell you the whole story, from beginning to end this time. So, I got off work like any other Tuesday… Fucking Tuesdays.” The toad shifted, seeming agitated. “Anyway, I got off work and decided to treat myself—since I just got paid—to dinner at the Bed and Breakfast here in Assjacket.”
“Okay,” Teagan answered, heading that general direction. They weren’t far from the Bed and Breakfast, and it made sense—the kid said it was her backyard, after all, and the property for their land did cross over into this stand of trees until the creek, if Teagan could remember correctly. “So you’re off work, headed into the bed and breakfast—then what?”
“I ordered the calamari to start—”
“I don’t care what you ordered,” Teagan replied, still not sure if he was a bad guy or not.
“Good point,” said Jon. “Sorry, I’m nervous.”
Teagan knelt in front of him. She sighed. Something about him still didn’t strike her as irredeemable, but then again, he was a toad, and it wasn’t like she could read the facial expressions of amphibians. “Nervous because you did something that deserved you getting turned into a bug catcher?”
“No,” he sputtered. The mottled tone of his skin seemed to darken, as if he might change colors like a chameleon. It took long seconds for her to wonder if he was actually blushing. “I’m nervous because I like you.”
Teagan laughed, the sound startled from her throat before she really decided she found his words amusing. When he didn’t laugh with her, she worked to quell her humor. “Sorry, but I was trying to decide what exactly you found likeable so far—was it the way I tried to trick you into getting my ball without proper payment for services rendered? Or was it the way I sling you around in a grocery bag?”
“Shut up. Anyway, after dinner, I went on a walk because it was just a gorgeous night.”
Teagan nodded. “Not weird.” He caught a bug with his tongue, then swallowed it, and Teagan turned away. “Ew, did you have to do that now?”
“Sorry, it was right there.” He swallowed aggressively before beginning to speak again. “While I was walking that night, I found this pretty fountain.”
“The one behind the bed and breakfast?” Teagan asked.
“Yeah, that one,” Jon agreed. “I sat down next to it with the intention of just scrolling through my phone for a while until I got sleepy.”
“Still following,” she replied. “That didn’t work out as planned?”
“No, that part went great,” he replied smiling in reminiscence, and she gritted her teeth in frustration. She did ask him for the whole story, she reminded herself, but her impatience kind of hoped he’d skip to the parts that were germane to their situation. “So, I finally go back to the bed and breakfast, and it’s, like, nearly eleven at night,” he continued. “Way too late for a kid to be awake.”
Teagan tilted her head. Depended on the kid, but she said nothing.
He continued, a small smile still creasing his froggy face. “I usually don’t eat so well, nor have such a remarkably lovely evening, so I walked back inside the house whistling.”
Teagan clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “That’s bad luck.”
“The kid said as much,” Jon replied.
“It invites death inside. You don’t mess with Appalachian superstitions.” Teagan spit on the ground out of habit, something her grandmother said you should always do when talking about superstitions.
“Did you just spit?” Jon asked, sounding horrified.
“So, the kid told you not to whistle in the house?” Teagan prompted. “C’mon, let’s get moving.”
The toad sighed gustily before climbing back into his grocery bag. “Yeah, she did, but like I said, it was late.”
“Eleven is hardly late,” she disagreed. “Are you an old dude, or something? For some reason, I assumed you had to be close to my age.”
“I’m thirty-six!” he yelped. “That’s not old.”
“You’re the one who said eleven was late, my dude,” she pointed out.
“Whatever, I went upstairs to bed and forgot about the entire interaction,” he finished grumpily. “The next morning, I woke up in great spirits having slept well on one of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever experienced. I got my shower, shaved, then headed downstairs…”
“Were you whistling again?” Teagan asked, her brow arched. At least that part made sense to her.
“I hardly see why that matters,” he replied.
“And she turned you into a frog?” she asked, not surprised.
“Yes,” he said, sounding annoyed. “She said the terms and conditions of my spell—”
“You keep mentioning terms and conditions,” she pointed out.
“Yes, because that’s how she worded it,” he agreed. “She said the terms and conditions meant that I would stay a frog until a princess kissed me.”
“Hmm,” Teagan said, picking up the bag and heading to the bed and breakfast. “We might be able to solve your problems way faster than I thought.”
Once they arrived, it wasn’t hard to learn that Bonnie was the daughter of the witch who owned the bed and breakfast. Once Teagan explained the situation to the young witch’s parents, she found herself shown to a sitting room to wait for tea service. Only about a minute passed before the door flung open.
A kid stumbled into the room, but it wasn’t the little witch who’d changed Jon into a toad. This child’s hair was very blond, and she wept that she’d lost her Whiskers.
“I ca-ca-can’t find h-h-him anywhereeee,” the child wailed.
“Do you have parents?” Teagan asked the kid, rather panicked. She wasn’t used to children, and she certainly didn’t know how to deal with one crying so aggressively.
“My cat!” the kid shrieked. “I can’t find my cat, not my parents!”
Teagan pinched her lips together and shot a glance at Jon, who crawled back into his bag, clearly unable to resist the plaintive plea in the child’s eyes. With a determined sense of purpose, Teagan decided to set out to find the missing feline.
“How far can it be?” she said to Jon, who hung off her shoulder in his grocery bag. “She’s a really little kid, so the cat is probably really nearby.”
They followed the child into the dense forest right behind the bed and breakfast. The shadows deepened around them, seeming to whisper the secrets they’d kept for centuries. “Just find the cat,” Teagan repeated to Jon. “How hard can it be?”
The trees seemed to close around them, capturing them in a cave of living things that grew from the earth. Grapevines hung heavy from trees, and blackberries slowed their forward progress, but the trees hung over them whispering, the wind making the leaves rustle continuously.
After pushing past a particularly aggressive blackberry bush, Teagan came to a clearing bathed in dappled sunlight. It appeared to be another old playground of sorts, but this one had long since been abandoned. The swing no longer had a seat, for instance, and the jungle gym had rusted nearly out of existence entirely, only strange skeletal arms remaining. In the center, however, there stood a brightly painted teeter-totter, but not one like any Teagan had ever seen before. This one seemed crooked, impossibly balanced, and it glowed.
It struck her as bizarre, strangely alive, and somehow horrible all at once.
Teagan approached the bizarre contraption, her brow furrowed in fascination. “How frickin weird is this?” Her fingertips traced along the uneven surface of the wood, since she wasn’t even sure it would be real to the touch. “It seems enchanted somehow, yet somehow, it has lost its balance?” She pushed down on the side stuck in the air and it didn’t move.
“Yeah, it’s like the enchantment meant to keep it balanced has become unstable,” Jon agreed. “Why did someone enchant a teeter-totter?”
“Who cares,” Teagan finally said. “It isn’t helping us find Whiskers, and where did the little kid go, anyway?”
As if summoned by some magical signal—or as if she overheard them—the child tumbled into the clearing. “Whiskers?” she said, blinking her large eyes owlishly.
A cat stumbled out of the weeds behind Teagan as if it had only just heard the child. With a loud meow, the cat sped over to the kid, who picked it up with one arm and vanished. “Well, that was somehow wildly anticlimactic,” Teagan complained.
“And we still haven’t found the witch,” Jon pointed out.
Teagan shrugged, not really wanting to spend more time in the eerie playground. “Let’s go back to the bed and breakfast. See if it’s time for tea, I guess.”
Once they were shown inside again by a very confused parent, they waited in the room patiently.
“Tea service?” she whispered to Jon. “That sounds awfully fancy.”
“I told you, it’s a really nice place. You turn me human again, I’ll get us a night here and show you just how fancy.”
She imagined it—staying with him in a hotel for a whole night. Eating in a fancy restaurant and then crawling into bed next to a man… Teagan glanced at her hands, folded in her lap. She would love to stay in a bed and breakfast for a night, but her parents would likely worry if she did. They preferred her to be home every night, after all, and why would she get a room in her hometown? If she was going to stay in a bed and breakfast, it should be someplace exotic and faraway.
She said none of that, though, instead situating a pillow for Jon to crawl out of the bag and sit upon. “Will that work?” she asked him.
Before he could answer, the door to the room opened and Bonnie led her parents into the room. Her father carried a large silver tea service, including fancy cakes and sandwiches, while her mother carried in the kettle. “Thanks so much for waiting,” Bonnie’s mother, Elsabeth said. “I took a moment to fill in my husband while we got the food, and then we asked Bonnie to come down with us. Bonnie, would you say hello to our guests?”
“You!” Bonnie said, pointing one chubby finger at the toad. “I told you not to come back around here again.”
“You turned me into a toad,” Jon replied, speaking over the child.
“Could everyone just be seated?” Bonnie’s father suggested, looking tired.
Bonnie obeyed with a scowl, and Jon shifted agitatedly upon his pillow. Teagan tried to watch all of them, curious about how they’d interact.
After teacups were passed around, and everyone helped themselves to small sandwiches and cakes—except Jon, of course—Bonnie’s mother began again. “So, you said your name is Teagan Taradiddle? I have a few friends in the Taradiddle family, but we’ve never met. Do you know any of the Blatherskites?”
“I keep to myself,” Teagan admitted. “Safer that way. Yes, I’m Teagan and this is Jon. He was a guest of yours sometime in the past, and apparently your daughter turned him into a toad.”
“He deserved it,” the child explained to Teagan before popping her thumb back in her mouth.
“I don’t disagree,” Teagan said to her, passing a particularly yummy looking cake the child’s way. “But your terms are a bit hard for him to meet, don’t you think?”
The child’s smile grew, popping adorable dimples into her cheeks. “He just has to get a kiss from a princess.”
“In West Virginia?” Teagan asked, raising a brow.
Bonnie giggled.
“It sounds to me like you could either reverse it or give him more acceptable conditions, ones he could actually fulfil,” her father suggested.
The child harrumphed out a breath of air before standing and walking over to the toad. “What if he doesn’t have to kiss the princess, he can just meet her?” Bonnie suggested.
“Probably the princess part is the worst bit,” her mother said.
“But in fairy tales,” Bonnie began, but her mother held up a hand as if she’d heard that argument before. “You never want me to cast spells like in fairy tales.”
“I’m really sorry,” Jon said, interrupting the parental debate. “For the record. I honestly didn’t remember you telling me not to whistle in the house, and I was just really relaxed and happy.”
The child stuck her bottom lip out for a few seconds before waving her wand. “I guess you learned your lesson. It only took you a month.”
“I’ve been a toad for a whole month!” Jon began, but upon shooting a glance at the child, he immediately closed his mouth again. “But it was only a month and I’m sure I learned a valuable lesson. Even if I probably lost my job, my house…”
“Frogs can’t whistle,” Bonnie explained to Teagan as if she was sharing valuable knowledge she’d worked hard to obtain. “It was the perfect spell.”
“I’m a toad,” Jon pointed out.
“You finally come to terms with it right as you’re about to change back,” Teagan said.
In a few seconds, the child transformed Jon back into a person, clothing and all. Purple smoke billowed around him, and it smelled oddly of cotton candy. As the smoke cleared, Teagan got her first look at Jon as a person instead of as a mottled bodied amphibian with warts and lumps.
He didn’t lie about his age, as he looked to be in his thirties. He dressed nicely, but not too nicely—he didn’t give the impression of being obsessed with clothing, either. Speaking of which, his clothing looked a bit rumpled, as did Jon, but other than the fact he swayed on his feet as if he wasn’t sure how to stand, he didn’t seem to have otherwise been damaged by his time as a toad.
She considered the rest of his features, as he readjusted to his body again. Thick, dark hair fell in rumpled curls across a tanned, strong brow. Dark eyes twinkled at her, and did they—?
Yes, she spotted just the hint of a crinkle at the corners of his eyes, which she guessed would deepen into charismatic creases with age. His lips were lush, full lips made for kissing, and his shoulders seemed broader than most men’s. Teagan stared at him, mouth agape.
He was hot.
I slept with him, she thought. Even if he didn’t look like himself, we shared a bed.
The thought of sharing a bed with the man standing in front of her caused a hot flush of need to spark in her belly. She looked away, then stole another glance at him.
It was easy, back when he was a toad, to not take Jon very seriously.
The man, as he ran a hand through his thick hair, seemed somehow a lot more daunting than the toad. “Hi,” she said, wiggling the tips of her fingers his way. Her heart thumped and sweat slicked her palms. He was the kind of hot that made her almost too nervous to speak.
“Whoa, you look so short now,” Jon replied.
She could almost hear the pop and whoosh of air coming out of whatever ego she might have built up over the past thirty odd years. Teagan decided not to be offended at his comment since she probably did look considerably different from the new angle.
“Before you came in,” Teagan said, trying to resist staring at Jon, “There was a little girl who came in here. Is it another one of your daughters or a guest?”
“Oh, you probably met the ghost!” Bonnie said quickly. “She likes to play in the playground in the back yard.”
Teagan gazed from the child to her parents, who covered their faces with a hand. “It’s not a ghost,” the father began, but he spoke as the mother was saying, “She’s a harmless ghost!”
“Let me explain,” said Bonnie’s mother. “The little girl is apparently my grandmother. She was a young witch who lived in Assjacket a very long time ago, but she fell into a frozen pond and died with her familiar.”
“There’s no ghost,” the father repeated. “That’s all fantasy stories.”
“Your daughter turned one of your guests into a toad for a month,” Teagan pointed out. “Fantasy and reality get kind of slippery sometimes.”
“True,” he admitted with a sigh. “But I’ve never seen any evidence of this child ghost.”
“We did,” Jon said. “She wanted us to help her find her cat.”
“Weird,” said the father.
It didn’t take long for them to say their thank you and goodbyes to the owners of the bed and breakfast and Bonnie, nor did it take long for Jon to book a room for the night at the bed and breakfast for himself. “It will feel so good to stretch out again,” he said with a blissful smile.
Teagan tried to ignore the way that smile hit her in the gut like a punch of lust. She also tried not to imagine his long limbs stretched out luxuriously in a bed.
As he was paying, he turned to Teagan. “The least I can do is buy you dinner. Would you join me for dinner, Teagan?”
She told herself it didn’t count as being asked on a date before she said aloud, “Sure.”
Once he’d paid, he turned back to Teagan. “It’s early yet—would you be interested in joining me for a walk before we eat? I can show you that fountain.”
She didn’t point out that she’d seen the fountain—and just about everything else from one side of Assjacket to the other. Instead, she simply nodded and followed him outside. It isn’t a date, she reminded herself again, but for some reason, it felt like one?
Then again, she didn’t know what a date was supposed to feel like, did she?
“You’re being awfully quiet,” he said at last. “And it isn’t helping me ignore the flies.”
“Flies?” she asked, bumping her shoulder against his companionably.
“Yeah, I can still hear them and the temptation to eat one is strong. Gross, but still a strong compulsion,” he admitted, licking his lips.
“Gross,” Teagan replied, bumping his shoulder again.
He caught her hand that time, twining their fingers together. “Easier to walk together like this,” he explained.
It’s not a date, she reminded herself again. His hand felt warm in hers, and little sparks of sensation danced up her arm from where he touched her. “I guess,” she agreed, hoping her voice didn’t sound breathless.
“Thank you,” he began. “Thanks for helping me, for putting up with me—all of it. I’m pretty sure I don’t have a job anymore, but it would’ve been worse without you, so huge thanks.”
“No problem,” Teagan said, flushing. She hadn’t even wanted to help him; she wanted to have her own adventures. It seemed kind of insincere to accept his thanks for something she had to be forced to do.
“No, really, it meant the world to me,” he said, stopping. He used the hand he held to tug Teagan closer, until he held the fingertips of both her hands in his own warm hands. “So thank you.”
And then he kissed her.
It should’ve been simple, despite it being her first real kiss. Lips brushing lips, after all, is the simplest and most pure form of magic a couple can share. But in this case, the kiss grew to something more between one breath and the next. What began as a tenuous offer of thanks blossomed into a sweet glide of mouth against mouth that curled her toes in her shoes.
He backed away, looking down at her carefully. “I told you I liked you,” he admitted.
“You were a toad at the time,” she pointed out.
“Which is why the princess wouldn’t kiss me,” he agreed, dipping down to take her lips again for a breath stealing fast kiss. “She’ll kiss me now that I have arms to hold her with, though.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Teagan replied, but she caught the back of his neck, greedy for more. More sensations shivering down her spine to pool in her belly, more excited surprise that he would want to kiss her, all of it. Just more.
“I’ll be whatever you want, if you keep kissing me like that,” he said easily, before taking her mouth again. His tongue teased the crease of her lips before she offered him entry and their mouths grew hungry and a bit desperate.
For long moments, Teagan drowned in sensations, reveling in each new experience as it cascaded through her body. She felt starved for touch, for passion, for him.
She came to her senses again with her leg wrapped around his waist and his fist bunched in her shirt. He held her against him, his breathing heavy in her ear as they tried to calm the storm between them. “I want you,” he said.
“Me too,” she replied, dotting kisses along his chin. “Or whatever.”
“We should go back to the bed and breakfast,” he said, dropping another kiss on her mouth as if he couldn’t resist the temptation. “I promised you dinner.”
“I should probably head home,” Teagan said, reality teasing the edges of her consciousness again and reminding her of her responsibilities. “You don’t have to get me dinner.”
“I would like you to eat dinner with me, Teagan Taradiddle,” Jon said earnestly, holding her hand before dropping a kiss to the back of her knuckles. “Would you let me flirt with you a bit over a meal?”
“I—” Teagan swallowed hard. She knew the rules—if she stayed home, she stayed safe—but she didn’t want to play it safe. She wanted to eat dinner with the handsome man in front of her. She wanted to try her hand at flirtation, to steal more of his drugging kisses.
Actually, if she was being honest, she’d enjoyed talking to him as well, so even that would make dinner well worth the time spent in town. “Sure,” she said finally.
“You won’t regret it, sweetheart,” he promised, kissing her once more before holding her hand as they made their way back to the bed and breakfast.
Teagan went from drowning in a horny haze to very conscious of reality and the night around her. She lived over thirty years, and no one ever kissed her before, especially like that. She never went anywhere, never lived, nor had any adventures.
Just because she’d broken his spell, it didn’t mean her parents would assume the problem would’ve been so easy to solve. They likely wouldn’t expect her home for quite some time, meaning dinner with him was more than harmless.
She doubted his promise that she wouldn’t regret it, though, because part of her already did regret it. How could she go back to her lonely life of no goals, no friends, no life after spending time with Jon?
“That’s a tomorrow problem,” she muttered under her breath as he led her to the dining room of the bed and breakfast.