Michele Hauf - The Witch And The Werewolf

“Wait.” Mireio set down her lemonade and sat up straight. “You have an outhouse? Like...no indoor bathroom?”

He laughed, and the sound of it felt like rough water rushing over river stones to Mireio. And for a water witch that was a very sexy sound. “It’s how the place was when I moved in,” he said. “But thanks to my remodeling it’s all modern and has running water with good quality plumbing in the outhouse. Not a hole in a board.”

“Whew! For a second there you had me worried. I’ll have you know the bathroom is the most important room in my house. There are not too many nights I miss my bath.”

“You were taking a bath the night I saw you standing outside the door. Uh, sorry.” He rubbed a palm over his face and swiped across his beard nervously. “I have to stop bringing that up. It’s rude of me.”

“Not rude, just...” Mireio sighed. “So you’ve seen me naked. Just gives you something to desire, doesn’t it?” And she sat back, satisfied that she’d stepped beyond the weirdness of the event and made it something she could control. If not a little weirder. Ha! Go, Mireio! “Anyway, my bathtub is huge. It’s because I’m a mermaid.”

Lars’s jaw dropped open. “You are? So you’re like a mermaid witch?”

“I mean, figuratively I’m a mermaid. I love water. I work water magic. I think I was probably a real mermaid in a past life. You know?”

“I can imagine you swishing around in the sea. But would your hair have been green?”

“Maybe.” She twirled the ends of her hair around a fingertip and fluttered her lashes at him.

And Lars fell into that puppy-dog, lovestruck expression again. Oh, dear, but he had it bad for her. And she wasn’t beyond encouraging him, because now that she was getting to know him, she really liked the strong silent alpha.

Had she intentions to avoid a relationship? Silly witch.

“Mireio!”

At the shrieking female yell, Lars sat up abruptly, kicking the table and upsetting the plates. Mireio made a grab to keep them from falling onto the stone patio. “It’s just Mrs. Henderson,” she said quickly, as if to calm a spooked dog.

The old woman popped around the back corner of the house with a notebook in hand. She wore an olive green pencil skirt that Mireio imagined she’d probably worn in her heyday back in, well...whenever the skirt had been in style. Her black-and-gray hair was piled into a messy bundle atop her narrow skull and on her feet were the ever-present and quite beaten pink bunny slippers.

“Oh.” Mrs. Henderson eyed up Lars. “I didn’t realize you had a guest, Mireio.”

“Mrs. Henderson, this is Lars Gunderson. Lars, Mrs. Henderson, my next-door neighbor. We were just finishing lunch. And I have a loaf of oatmeal rye for you that I’ll bring over once it’s cooled, Mrs. Henderson.”

“Oh, that’s lovely. You’re always so generous with the baked goods. And quite a talent too.” She still couldn’t drag her assessing gaze from Lars as she held out the notebook before her. “I don’t mean to interrupt but I wanted to show you the sketch I made of the—” she dropped her voice to a whisper “—you-know-what we saw the other night.”

Mireio glanced to Lars, who, no doubt, had figured what the woman was talking about, but he didn’t show that he had.

“Lars, was it?” Mrs. Henderson asked him. She tilted her head, taking him in with a discerning gaze. “Have we met before? You seem very familiar.”

“Never,” Mireio blurt out. “I mean, we’ve only just met, so of course you’ve never seen him here or in my yard before. Let me see what you’ve drawn, Mrs. Henderson. It’s okay. I mentioned the, uh, incident to Lars. So he’s in on it.”

“Oh?” The woman’s eyes brightened, pleased to have another conspirator present. “She told you about the Sasquatch?”

“That she did.” He leaned his elbows onto his knees, giving her his full attention. “You must have been frightened something fierce.”

“Who me? Oh, gosh, no. I may have been initially surprised to see such a big, ugly, hulking beast tromping through my prized tulips, but that didn’t stop me from getting a very good look at the monster.”

Lars’s jaw tensed. It was a good thing he wasn’t holding the glass of lemonade because Mireio guessed his clenched fingers might have sent shards flying.

Mrs. Henderson laid the notebook down on the table and Mireio turned it so both she and Lars could look at the—quite talented—sketch of what looked similar to an ape-like man with long hairy fingers and a hunched back and shoulders. The head was all wrong, not matching the werewolf’s actual wolf head and long toothy maw, but instead more resembling a man with large ears and a flat monkeylike snout.

“Remarkable,” Mireio said with a secret glance and smile to Lars.

“Is it how you remembered the beast too?” Mrs. Henderson asked eagerly. “I intend to bring this sketch in to the police, but I’m still not so sure I got the nose right.”

“Oh. Well...” Mireio shrugged. “I didn’t get a very good look at it. I had initially thought it was a moose...but I’m sure what you’ve drawn here is very close.”

“But you said it stopped and stared at you for a moment. Surely you must have seen details? Did you look into its big glowing yellow eyes?”

Mireio met Lars’s lift of his brows. He was smirking now, thank the goddess. He obviously understood there was no fear of him being found out with such a drastically wrong drawing, no matter who the woman showed it to.

“Maybe a little longer,” she said, tapping the nose. “And did you get the tail?”

“The tail?” Mrs. Henderson picked up the sketch and studied it. “I’m not sure I remember...oh. Sure. A tail. Of course, Sasquatches have tails.”

“Do they?” Lars asked.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Henderson replied with knowing authority. “I’ll have to add that. Thank you, Mireio. Oh.” She placed a hand on Lars’s shoulder. “Will you be around more often? To, you know, keep an eye on our sweet Mireio?”

“Uh...”

“I think I hear the oven timer for the last loaf of bread,” Mireio interrupted. “We’ll talk later, Mrs. Henderson. Lars, would you help me bring in the dishes?”

“It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Henderson,” he offered as he dutifully and quickly followed Mireio’s escape route into the kitchen.

The two of them watched out the window until Mrs. Henderson had turned the corner at the back of the house, then they both started laughing.

“That was the most awful rendition of—” she made air quotes “—‘the monster,’ I’ve seen. You don’t look anything like that.”

“Yes, I’m relieved. Must be interesting having that woman living next door, eh?”

“Never a dull moment.” She opened the oven door, which emitted a whoosh of delicious bread scent.

“Mmm, now that scent will lead me back to your door over and over.”

“Good,” she said decisively. “Because I like you, Lars. I’m glad you had the courage to approach me last night. Maybe we can do this again tomorrow night? More like an official date? Because right now I have to go change and head in to work.”

“I’d like that. Ah, but tomorrow night won’t work. I won’t be able to find a...” He winced, pausing to think his words through. “I have a previous engagement. It’s not with another woman. Just something I can’t get out of. How about this Saturday?”

Two days away. “Saturday works for me. But you’ll have to pick me up at the brewery because I have the early shift.”

“It’s a date.”

“Great! Let me wrap up a loaf of bread for you to take along.” She pulled out some brown paper she kept for wrapping baked goods, and with a few folds and tucks fitted it perfectly about a warm loaf and handed it to him.