“You know that’s not true!” Sonja called as she shuffled away in her narrow sequined mermaid skirt. “Why would you lie to these nice people?”
“The entrances are a little dramatic around here,” Zed conceded. “And if you’re tired, you’ll probably want to get settled into your bunks before dark. That’s when the kids go home for the night and the adult celebrations start up.”
Cordelia grimaced. “Not like in that Simpsons Grown-Up Halloween episode, right?”
Brendan’s still heart went pitter-pat for just a moment. She knew her Simpsons. Saints help him, she knew the good episodes of the Simpsons. If he was a wee bit infatuated before, he was practically a lost cause now.
Dani snorted. “I would say no, but I wasn’t here last year.”
“Y’all missed the Harvest Festival; that’s when things get real rowdy,” Zed said. “On Halloween, we try to keep to as many of the traditions as we can, to keep the balance and honor the old ways. We float lanterns on the bayou. We have big bonfires and leave out the most recent fruits from the harvest as thanks. We exchange soul cakes and say prayers for our dead. And then we stay up all night getting the graveyard ready for the various versions of Día de los Muertos—putting bread and pine boughs and flowers on the headstones, that sort of thing.”
Brendan nodded in approval. “Well, as culturally edifying as all that sounds, I do think I’ll turn in. It’s a very different hour back home.”
Brendan didn’t mention what really worried him. No matter the time zone, it was All Hallow’s Eve, the night when the veil between the human world and the spirit world was its thinnest. The chances of him receiving a death song were incredibly high. The chance of him being visited by the random phantom of some backwoods local was higher. It was rare, but it happened. He just didn’t think he had it in him to deal with messages from the other side. He needed to be indoors and preferably unconscious before midnight struck.
“I’ll show them their trailers,” Jillian said. “You keep an eye on things.”
“So far, so good,” Zed told her, as if he was trying to assure her.
Her expression was serious. “Yell for me if that changes.”
Brendan’s brows rose. This was an oddly serious exchange between two people who seemed otherwise composed of fluff. Were they worried about poison in the sweets or something? He’d heard of that sort of thing being an urban legend that terrified American parents, but surely no one would be bold enough to tamper with children’s treats at a League function in front of dozens of witnesses.
He slung his own bag over his shoulder and took Cordelia’s suitcases in hand.
“You don’t have to do that,” Cordelia said.
“You’re about ready to drop off your feet,” Brendan told her. “And it sounds like we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
She looked like she might protest again, but she gave him a quiet “thank you” and slid her gloves into place as they walked across the square. While almost everyone in the crowd greeted Jillian with a cheery wave or a hug, the locals barely acknowledged him or Cordelia. Brendan wondered if they were simply too distracted by the festivities, or if strangers from the League were so commonplace now that the locals barely noticed them anymore. Either way, he was grateful. He didn’t think he had too many more introductions in him for the day.
Jillian led them to a tidy grouping of mobile trailers meant to look like little seaside cottages, deep blue with white trim. While half of them looked very business-like and official, the rest were smaller residential units arranged in neat rows. Some had little personal touches on the porches—name plaques and wind chimes and such. Picnic tables and barbecues had been placed in the middle of the rows, he supposed to encourage casual socializing between League employees—who, in his experience, were largely unsocialized creatures.
“This is the League’s research village,” Jillian explained. “We’ve got working buildings and the admin buildings over there. You can find me or Sonja in the central office over there. If you need anything important, go to Sonja. Important things are her department. Oh, and we don’t keep things very formal around here, so feel free to call me ‘Jillian.’”
Jillian plucked a key from a pocket hidden in her costume’s skirts and unlocked the door of the unit farthest away from the street. “Cordelia, this is yours. Normally, we would put one of you up at the maison de fous. It seems to be the first place high-profile League employees go when they move to Mystic Bayou, but Sonja and Will just signed a long-term lease with the town. Will didn’t like the idea of sharing his family’s ancestral home with Sonja, no matter how well Sonja and his brother, Jon, got along. I’m afraid the best we can do is the newest trailer in the complex. But you’ll each have a unit all to yourself, which is more than I can say for some of our employees, who have to double up. I figured that with your abilities, living with a roommate would be uncomfortable.”
Brendan hefted Cordelia’s suitcase onto the porch, but stayed on the ground. His mam had raised him better than to walk into a lady’s house uninvited. She gave him a strange, reserved smile, not quite a show of teeth as much as a shy upward quirk of her mouth. She followed Jillian inside, and he turned his back on the quiet conversation inside. As lovely as Jillian’s intentionally soothing tones were, he didn’t want to eavesdrop. Brendan tuned in to the muted cheer floating through the warm, fragrant air. The research village and most of the town proper was positively surrounded by trees. This was a far cry from the rolling grassy hills and cliffs of County Clare, but he liked it. He could take or leave the heat—it wasn’t as if he was going to sweat through it—but the green was comforting.
Jillian bid Cordelia a quiet goodnight and closed the trailer door behind her. “Sorry, you’re just across the way there.”
“That’s all right. Ladies first.” He offered his clothed elbow to her as she trod down the porch steps.
Jillian smiled warmly at him. “Bael is going to like you.”
“Would that be the dragon fellow that was curled around the gazebo?” he asked as she unlocked his door.
“It would,” Jillian replied.
“In all my years, I’ve never met a dragon,” he said as she ushered him into the trailer. Like Cordelia’s, it was clean and nondescript; one of those modern open plan designs with cheap gray carpet, white walls, and beige furniture. It was like a large impersonal hotel room, other than the lovingly framed photos of local sights on the walls, and he was fine with that. This wasn’t home to him and wouldn’t ever be. He was here to do a job, earn his coin, and get that coin back to his sister. Besides, he’d slept in rougher places—mostly while drunk, but still, rougher places.
“Well, there are not many dragons in Ireland,” said Jillian. “But we have some extended family settled here. I’ve got a couple of books on the subject, if you’re interested.”
Brendan chuckled. “I’ll bet you have books on just about everything.”
“I do, and I’ve written a couple, too,” Jillian said. “Which is a none-too-subtle segue into asking, ‘Did you read my book?’ Not to feed my ego, but because it will make the transition into living here, not to mention your job, much easier.”