Page 4 of Goblin Candy

“These look excellent!” She squints. “Is that a bit of blood dripping from the fangs?”

I grin as I follow after her to the tables set up in the children’s reading area. “Of course! They’re little vampire bats, a whole box of Dracula Juniors. And they are Candy taste-tested and approved.” I give my slightly plush belly a rub for emphasis and privately wish that I had set aside a couple more.

She laughs again as she sets the box down among the rapidly growing collection. “Just how many did you eat?”

“Just two,” I reply, licking my lips as I glance down at the box. I wonder if it’s against the rules to buy my own offering. They were tasty. My best friend accurately interprets my look and waves a finger in front of my face.

“Don’t even think about it. If people bought their own baked goods, we wouldn’t have anything at all to offer to the people coming here for the fun.”

I sigh, but she’s not wrong. Maybe I will luck out and no one will buy them. Then my purchase will be seen as a mercy rather than just gluttony. Oh, I like that idea! I lean forward, preparing to slip the cupcakes behind several larger boxes of baked goods, when Lottie grabs my arm and pulls me away, foiling my efforts.

“Come on. People will be here any minute, and you don’t want to ruin it by being late to your own show after you spent all that time setting up.”

I perk up at the mention of my haunted corner of the library and allow myself to be herded into the elevator since there are volunteers transforming the stairs into a spooky corridor. A grin lights my face when we arrive on the third floor. While I’ve been gone, several strategically set red lights were placed throughout the twisting path made from the aisles and erected canvas “walls,” and it sets the perfect mood with the overhead lights off. To my delight, someone was even kind enough to cut down several branches and turned one aisle into a gloomy swamp like I wanted. I’d simply run out of time to do it myself.

Dragging Lottie with me, I walk the “path,” giving everything one last inspection as we make our way through. There are long, narrow tables set up with all the familiar haunted house props as we go from the mad scientist’s lab to the ghostly corridor with pictures that come to life, a mausoleum full of skeletons, and then the swamp that takes us to the final station. That’s where I will be. I have an “altar” painted with occult symbols and a giant plastic cauldron full of candy as a reward for the brave souls who make their way through.

“Our volunteer actors from the university have already arrived and are getting their costumes on,” Lottie informs me as I take a seat on the edge of my altar. “Tim is dressed as a ghoul and ready to take his place in the corner leading out from your mausoleum. Then we have Mary as your ghost, Jason is the mad scientist, and Brant wanted to be the swamp creature.”

I bend over and pluck a chocolate from the cauldron and glance up as I unwrap it and pop it into my mouth. “Did he find something good for that?”

She smirks. “I think so.” She turns toward the exit that leads back out to the rest of the third floor and shouts, “Hey, Brant, can you come over here?”

“Sure!”

The six-foot-three drama major steps in, and I blink up at the deep green face paint, my eyes following a path all the way up to the horns glued to his forehead. Although it is not quite a match for the male who’s been invading my thoughts, it’s close enough that I literally inhale the bit of chocolate and choke when it attempts to go down the wrong way. He steps forward with a look of concern as I cough, but I wave him off and give him a watery-eyed smile.

“That’s very good,” I say weakly as an explanation, and he breaks into a fangy smile.

“Right? I thought swamp demon would be a great addition since I didn’t see anything else that didn’t look lame. I figured that a demon and a witch would be a perfect duo. I didn’t mean to scare you, though. This won’t be too scary for the Haunted Library, will it?” He looks genuinely concerned, so I quickly shake my head.

“Not at all,” I assure him. “In fact, I think it’s going to be a huge hit.”

His smile returns. “Okay. I’ve got a couple of other things to do but then I’ll be right up to take my position before we get started.” He gives a flirtatious smile to Lottie before heading off, and I wiggle my eyebrows at her.

“Have an admirer, do you?”

She snorts and shakes her head. “He’s a student.”

“He’s a senior in college, not jailbait,” I tease. She gives me a hard look, and I raise my hands in mock surrender. “All right, no students. Is there anyone you’ve been interested in?”

Lottie hesitates, and then I’m leaning forward, my eyes widening with my eagerness. “Is there?”

She shrugs. “I’ve been corresponding with someone who messaged me via mirror to request a few books to be loaned to another realm. I mentioned that our library is registered to participate, right?”

I recall her saying something of the sort. My eyebrows fly up at the realization of what she’s getting at. “You have a thing for a fae guy?”

“Shh,” she hisses.

“Don’t hush me. Who around here is going to care if you decide you want to have a romance with someone from the fae realm?” I demand. “They’ve been trickling into our community for years now.”

“Yeah, and people haven’t exactly been rolling out the welcome wagon,” she snorts. “Don’t pretend that those who live here aren’t given the side-eye. Even worse if it’s an interspecies relationship. Besides, it’s not like that. He’s just very nice and an interesting conversationalist.”

“Very nice qualities,” I agree. “Okay, now spill. What’s his species?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “He’s never mentioned it, and it seems like a pretty impolite thing to just ask.”

I groan and drop back onto the altar, lying flat across it. “One of us finally has something worth reporting in the romance department and there are no juicy details.”

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