Free October Girls: Crystal & Bone by L C Glazebrook Page B

the driver’s window descended. Pettigrew’s strong chin thrust out.
    He’s not up there in looks but if you ever needed to hammer a tent peg, his chin would come in mighty handy. Plus he’s tall.
    “Hey, Miss Aldridge, you need a hand?”
    “I got two already, but if you got a chain, I’d sure be obliged.”
    “Happy Hooker Towing Service & Auto Service at your service.”
    As he backed up and lowered the winch cable, she said, “Crystal talked like ya’ll weren’t going out tonight.”
    “Yeah, but her voice sounded kind of funny. I decided to drive by and check on her.”
    “She don’t take kindly to that.”
    “It ain’t that I don’t trust her.”
    You got a good heart, son, but your head is packed full of axle grease.
You’ll learn soon enough that “trust” and “woman” seldom go together.
    Pettigrew tugged the Chevelle out of the ditch, then they both stood looking down the row of mobiles homes to the Aldridge residence. The oversize sardine can looked a little frayed and dented, and the light leaking from between its curtains didn’t radiate a sense of security and comfort. Minerva sometimes wished she’d used her powers to pile up a fat bank account, but the Rule of Three worked against greed. The harder you wished, the faster the money went.
    Or, as Roy Reed used to say, “Want in one hand and poop in the other and see which hand fills up the fastest.”
    “What do I owe you?” Minerva said.
    “Shucks, Miss Aldridge, we’re practically family. But a root beer would sure be nice about now.”
    Minerva knew he was angling for an invitation, and his fondness for root beer had made it easy to dose him with her most powerful love potion. But she wasn’t sure what she would find when she entered the trailer.
    For all she knew, The Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, or at least the Lennon and Harrison portion of it, would be smoking marijuana through a tuba. Or Julius Caesar and John Belushi would be throwing a toga party. Or Vincent van Gogh would show up looking for his ear.
    “It’s a school night,” she said.
    “It’s Friday, and her GED class is on Wednesday.”
    “She was feeling poorly and said she was turning in early.” Minerva coughed, hacked up a dry clod of mucus, and spat as if the Aldridge home were a quarantine zone.
    “I was kissing her just this morning, so I probably got it anyway,” he said.
    Minerva had not yet perfected the love spell. The trick was to get him head over heels without him jamming his tongue against her tonsils. She didn’t want to think about the other things they might be jamming.
    Crystal would eventually be called upon to manufacture a female descendant, but there was no big rush. Plus it would be that much harder for Minerva to tutor her daughter in the arcane arts if Pettigrew lived under the same roof.
    Plus, Crystal might actually fall in love for real. Talk about your complications.
    “Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll go in and see if the coast is clear, then signal you.”
    Pettigrew nodded as she pulled away in the Chevelle. She parked beside the porch and goosed the accelerator, hoping the noise would alert Crystal and give her time to stop any funny business.
    Pettigrew parked at the foot of the trailer, engine idling, awaiting her signal. She entered to grunts and sloppy, sloshing sounds, and braced for the sight of Crystal making out on the couch with that Dempsey fellow. Instead, she got a good-news/bad-news deal.
    Bad: A strange man in your trailer.
    Good: He’s fully dressed.
    Bad again: He’s attached to a Lurken.
    An oily tentacle protruded from beneath the couch and was wrapped around the young man, towing him toward the dusty darkness. The man, dressed in black leather boots, tight blue jeans, and white T-shirt, had a frantic grip on the oven-door handle. He was pleading for help, apparently not used to creatures from beyond. Crystal stood on the couch, whapping at the tentacle with a broom. Wet farting noises