"Who's that?" one of the Kaitlyns asked.
"I don't like her," Hannah said. "She yelled at Mrs. Wrath."
Betty shrieked, "Let's get her!"
I grabbed the child's collar and held her back as she waved her arms furiously.
This whole scene seemed to surprise Medea, and she took two steps backward.
Maybe I should've unleashed Betty.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, my voice jumpy because of the struggling little girl I was holding. "This is private property, and you're trespassing." I meant for it to come out more menacing than it did. Instead, it sounded like I was emotional.
"Stop!" I hissed at the little girl, and magically, she stopped. I handed her over to Hilly, who took up where I'd left off, but Betty made no further move to attack the young reporter.
"Medea?" I asked again, taking two steps forward. "You aren't welcome here."
"What are you hiding?" she snapped. "I'll get to the truth!"
"What truth?" I asked. "You don't have a story. I'm nobody. And I don't know why that woman was found here."
"I'm a journalist!" Medea said, eyes blazing. "I'll find out the real story."
This chick was a broken record. For a journalist, she sure didn't have a large vocabulary.
Betty cracked her knuckles, and that's when I noticed the Kaitlyns quietly making a noose as Inez and Ava grabbed two large sticks from the yard and twirled them menacingly.
"Ladies!" I turned to the girls. "Stop arming yourselves. This is nothing."
"Maybe you can take her out?" Betty looked hopefully at Hilly.
"Nah," Hilly replied. "I'd need a work order for that. And I'm on vacation."
Medea stared at the tall athletic woman.
I had to get her out of here before the girl repeated what she'd heard about the assassin minutes earlier.
"That's an odd thing to say," the reporter said.
"Because she's an ass—" Betty started, but I clamped a hand over her mouth before she could finish.
"An ass–what?" Medea asked interestedly.
"Asshat," Hilly interjected. "I'm an asshat." She lifted her arms into the air and began dancing. "Finally! Out of the closet! Feels good!"
I was about to ask her how anyone could be a closeted asshat when I heard some strange mumbling on the other side of the hedges near where Medea came through. It kind of sounded like chanting.
Stewie and his teenage druid wannabees stepped through, dressed in black, their faces falling as they saw that I was standing. I really needed to plant some thorny vine or poison ivy in that hedge.
"Oh. You're awake," he whimpered.
"It didn't work!" the girl who'd called him Stewbutt said. "You said the spell would work!"
All four groups stared at each other: the druids in their black robes that in the daylight appeared to be bathrobes and one faded magician's cape, pink-haired Medea representing the Who's There Tribune, Hilly from the CIA, and my Girl Scout troop.
"You were going to kidnap me again?" I asked.
"Well…" Stewie looked to his friends for help, but they weren't interested in backing him up. "Yes? I guess so?"
"Who are you?" Medea turned her fury on this new group.
"We are Dread Incarnate!" Stewie shouted enthusiastically, wiggling his jazz hands at us.
The last thing I needed was for Medea to pick on these kids. Even I wasn't that cruel, even if they had planned to kidnap me again.
"They're with me," I said. "I'm a member of some weird adolescent cult that worships at night in the woods. You got me. There's your story."
Medea looked at the teens, who were now staring at me openmouthed.
"I'm magical," I pressed. "I can talk to birds and stuff. You should be afraid."
Hilly and the girls nodded, as if they'd known this all along. I wasn't sure if I should be grateful that they backed me up or worried that they believed I really was in a cult.
"Are we gonna be in the paper?" Stewie's eyes glowed with hope. "I am Odious the Demigod!" He turned to the kids next to him. "That's Heather; she's a demon. And that's Mike; he's a dark fairy."
"Dark wizard!" Mike corrected. "Why do you always think I'm a fairy?"
Stewie ignored him. "And that's Kayla; she's a witch. Next to her is Bryce. He's not sure what he is yet. He just moved here."
Stewie went for it, arms over his head. "And we are the Cult of NicoDerm!"
Medea's right eyebrow went up as she turned to me. "And what are you supposed to be?"
"I'm…" I really hoped I didn't have to be anything, and I couldn't remember what I'd told Rex when I got home the other night. "I'm complicated."
Stewie waddled over to the reporter. "Anyway, we meet in the woods north of town on Tuesday nights for our rituals. Everyone is welcome, as long as they wear costumes," he said, pointing at his bathrobe, which barely seemed to qualify.
"But," Heather the demon interjected, "we don't need any wannabees. Make sure you put that in your article."
The others nodded in approval.
My troop was strangely silent. This was too entertaining to ignore.
"And we demand a blood sacrifice," Mike added.
"But we don't actually kill anyone," Kayla corrected. "We want to make that clear. My mother would ground me if we did that."
Oh, well, at least there was some restraint.
Medea was silently processing this information. She seemed confused. Good.
"Let's show her!" Stewie shrieked.
The cult tried to circle all of us, but since there weren't that many of them, they decided to circle me instead. I let them because I wanted to get it over with, and hopefully Medea would follow them away.
"We are the Cult of NicoDerm," the group chanted as they walked around me. "Welcome our sacrifice so that we may fly!"
Stewie began to flap his arms, and the others followed, except for Kayla, who stopped.
"I thought we'd agreed to ask for time travel." She pouted.
"Not now!" Stewie hissed. To me he asked, "Is she taking pictures?"
I shook my head. "No, but she looks like she might be getting into it."
Medea grabbed her camera from her messenger bag but hesitated. Maybe reason was winning and she realized she was being punked.
The little girls got into a circle around the teens and started moving in the other direction, flapping their arms like Stewie as the druids started chanting, "Blood, blood, blood!"
Awww, that was nice. They wanted to help. Hilly's arms were in the air as if she was conducting us.
"What are you doing?" Kelly's voice boomed from the doorway.
The druids ignored her and kept chanting, the girls ignored her and kept circling, and Medea was still holding her camera.
"Oh, nothing…" I called out. "These guys are just going to sacrifice me for this reporter here."
Totally normal and not at all weird.
"Hey," Rex said as he stepped from behind Kelly. "I was just going to clear out that crime scene stuff…" His voice faded as he saw what was going on. "Okay. I'll just come back later."
The Kaitlyns began shouting, "Blood!" over and over. Betty pulled her Girl Scout pocketknife out of her shorts and threatened to kill the first person who came at me (I'd need to talk to her because this was violating the Scout safety procedures). And Hilly pulled up a lawn chair to watch. Hey! Where'd she get that popcorn?
Medea looked like she wanted to say something but turned and disappeared through the bushes.
All in all, a pretty average Girl Scout meeting.
* * *
About twenty minutes later we were back in the house, while Rex stayed outside and gave the druids a stern talking-to about why you shouldn't chloroform people and steal their dining room chairs. I watched from the kitchen as they slumped, nodding as they looked at his feet.
Kelly broke one of our leader rules and announced a second snack time, this one featuring a tub of Neapolitan ice cream she'd liberated from my freezer. She didn't even mind when Hilly told them how to use a spoon to maim an attacker. I had to admit, spoons make excellent weapons. Especially if you use both ends.
"I think I might have been hallucinating," Kelly said as Finn sat on the breakfast bar attempting to eat ice cream with her hands. "But it looked like you were participating in a coven of witches."
I nodded. "Druid cult. I'm kind of an honorary bird goddess."
She said nothing as she walked over to the girls and Hilly. "Okay, guys, we aren't going to mention the whole cult thingy, or killing people with spoons, or strangling things with nooses to your parents, right?"
"Pinky swear!" several girls shouted in unison.
"That seals it." I rubbed my hands together when Kelly returned.
You'd never be able to breach a little girl's pinky swear. It was ironclad. In fact, it was kind of sad that as you grew up, your promises became more flexible. If only the whole world utilized the pinky swear.
"You didn't tell them not to mention the second snack," I added. We had parents who would think buzzing the girls up on sugar twice in one meeting was a capital crime.
"It's too farfetched. Who'd believe them?" Kelly said as she took my bowl from me and finished it off.