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    Esme Novella Trilogy (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas)
    Esme Novella Trilogy (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas)
    Esme Novella Trilogy (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas)
    Ebook379 pages12 hours

    Esme Novella Trilogy (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas)

    By Lizzy Ford

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    About this ebook

    Half angel. Half demon. 100% teenager.

    On Halloween, Esme's life changed.

    On Thanksgiving, she counted her blessings - and her curses.

    This Christmas, she confronts her greatest fears – and discovers her true gift.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLizzy Ford
    Release dateSep 2, 2018
    ISBN9781623783716
    Esme Novella Trilogy (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas)
    Author

    Lizzy Ford

    I breathe stories. I dream them. If it were possible, I'd eat them, too. (I'm pretty sure they'd taste like cotton candy.) I can't escape them - they're everywhere! Which is why I write! I was born to bring the crazy worlds and people in my mind to life, and I love sharing them with as many people as I can.I'm also the bestselling, award winning, internationally acclaimed author of over sixty ... eighty ... ninety titles and counting. I write speculative fiction in multiple subgenres of romance and fantasy, contemporary fiction, books for both teens and adults, and just about anything else I feel like writing. If I can imagine it, I can write it!I live in the desert of southern Arizona with two dogs and two cats!My books can be found in every major ereader library, to include: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Sony and Smashwords.

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      Book preview

      Esme Novella Trilogy (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas) - Lizzy Ford

      Esme Novella Trilogy

      Esme Novella Trilogy

      Omnibus

      Lizzy Ford

      Captured Press

      Esme copyright ©2017 by Lizzy Ford

      Cover design copyright © 2017 by Lizzy Ford

      Cover model: Esme Letitia Phillips, https://www.facebook.com/misstyneandwear/

      Cover photography © 2016 Lee Bowman

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

      Any references to historical events; to real people, living or dead; or to real locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

      Contents

      Halloween

      Thanksgiving

      Christmas

      Also by Lizzy Ford

      About the Author

      Halloween

      Angels aren’t as aloof and detached from our world as you’d think they’d be. Take my mom, for example. When she cries, it storms. When she’s happy, woodland creatures clean our house. When she’s angry, things explode.

      Those are exaggerations, but the point is that angels are more connected to their surroundings than a human – or in my case half-human – is. They love animals more than anything. Know a cat lady? She’s probably an angel. Owner of an animal sanctuary? Definitely an angel.

      We live in a looming, purple Victorian mansion perched on a hill overlooking the idyllic valley in which the tiny town of Cherryville lies. It’s the kind of house that appears in horror movies: mysterious and dark with its own creepy weather system. Kids dare one another to trick-or-treat at our house every Halloween. It doesn’t help that a bullfrog the size of an ottoman sits on the front porch.

      It’s Friday, and I’m desperate to leave another terrible school week behind. I push open the wrought iron gate surrounding the house and walk up the sloping stone path to the front door. The sun is bright and the sky clear everywhere except for above my house.

      It’s foggy. Gray fog. That means mom is sad.

      Hi, Toadles, I say and pat our watch frog on the head.

      I unlock the front door and enter. We have more animals than I can count. A herd of hungry cats, whose tails are raised like the little sharks they are, wait for me, along with four dogs.

      Go to the porch! I order all of them.

      They make a mad dash for the back porch, a screened in area where the small animals eat.

      Mama, I’m home! I shout and dump my backpack on the floor by the door.

      I wait, listening not for my mom but for the sound of my companion. Demons have familiars; angels have companions. My companion’s name is Taco, after my favorite food when I was five, which was when he magically appeared on our porch one day.

      The click of nails on the wooden floors comes from down the hall. I watch the animal no bigger than a basketball. He happily runs down the hall and jumps towards me. I hurry forward to catch him before he hits the floor.

      You’re a bear today, I murmur and hug him. My companion is a pygmy … thing. He’s not a real animal. He takes the form of whatever animal he wants to.

      He’s an adorable, toy-sized grizzly bear.

      Did you watch the nature channel today? I murmur.

      I release him, and he runs towards the back porch, misjudges the distance between him and a table, and smashes into the wall.

      I have theories about why Taco can’t communicate with mom or me like the other animals can. Most of those theories revolve around the idea he suffered some kind of brain damage before we met. He needs a lot of help navigating life in general.

      He shakes off the collision with the wall and looks at me, his bear tongue hanging out the side of his mouth.

      I pick him up and walk down the hallway to the back porch.

      Outside the screened porch, rolling grasslands stretch for several hundred acres. We have a dozen barns housing equipment and various farm and other small-to-medium animals, a special habitat for predators, and a fenced area for the endangered animals. A small army of workers and several vets maintain the zoo. Some workers are normal humans while others are angels.

      The cats are complaining. I feed them quickly, along with the dogs that wandered in from the kennel area, and step out into the backyard to survey the animal sanctuary we call a zoo. Peacocks and other birds waddle by, tapping at grain on the ground. Predators and endangered species have to stay in their designated areas, but livestock and other small animals are allowed to wander around the property. Cows, horses, moose, a reindeer, llamas, an ostrich, and a few varieties of deer have formed their own herd and have made it as far as the forest on the far side of our property.

      Esme, we had a problem with a delivery of hay, says one of the supervisors. He approaches with a clipboard. The driver brought half of what he was supposed to.

      I hold out my hand for the order and inventory forms. I’ll call them right away, I say. I fold the forms and put them in my pocket.

      It starts raining over the house and onto us.

      Text me if there’s anything else, I say and return to the interior of the house to find my mom.

      Taco follows, runs into the doorframe, and waits for me to save him.

      Mom is on the second floor, the family floor, whereas animals and staff have access to the first floor. She’s in our family room, seated on the couch with a box of Kleenexes.

      What’s wrong, Mama? I ask and sit down next to her.

      Even when she’s crying, my mom is gorgeous – blond hair, blue eyes, golden skin with a sunny personality to match. My mom is an angel and looks just like one.

      My classmates nicknamed me Wednesday Addams when I was in the fourth grade, which is all I need to say about how different my mom and I are from one another.

      Taco climbs from my lap into hers and bites into the tissues, because he thinks most things are food. I pry his mouth open, pull out the soggy tissues, and tug him back onto my lap.

      Tigger died, my mom says, sniffing. The other cats are so sad.

      Oh, no. Poor Tigger. I rest my head on her shoulder. Tigger was forty years old, which is unheard of for a tiger. He was the leader of the big cats, and I’ve known him my whole life.

      He wanted me to thank you for all the treats you brought him.

      Did you tell him we both love him? I ask.

      Many times. He said he knew and thanked us both.

      Animals listen to me, and I can understand their body language, but when it comes to actual discussions, I can’t converse with them the same way a full angel does.

      Tigger was one of my first friends. All of my friends live in my backyard. Unlike people, animals don’t care whether or not you live in a scary mansion on top of an ancient Native American burial mound.

      How was school? my mom asks. She hugs me.

      Great, I reply sarcastically.

      Did you tell those kids it wasn’t nice of them to break your iPad?

      Yeah.

      Good. I’m sure they’ll think twice before doing it again.

      My mom doesn’t understand how different humans are from angels. It’s not something I can explain to her any more than she can explain where she came from. Humans are irrational and beyond reason for the most part. She’s the kind of person who trusts everyone, which explains how I was conceived. She believed some man who told her he loved her, a day after meeting her.

      I’m her guard frog. I protect her from humans when I can, which includes not telling her this is the fourth time the kids at school have broken my iPad the past year.

      Are you dressing up for the Halloween party? she asks.

      I haven’t decided. Are you going as an angel again this year?

      Of course!

      I roll my eyes.

      You better decide fast, she advises. It’s tomorrow night. There might not be any costumes left.

      I’ll probably go as me again this year.

      That’s the perfect costume for my angel!

      I don’t want to go, but I know she likes this kind of stuff. We are usually too busy around the zoo to have time for a life outside our property. The town hosts parties at the community center for every major holiday. I keep hoping the community center falls into the deepest sinkhole in existence before the next dreaded holiday gathering.

      We cuddle on the couch. Taco wriggles his way under one of my arms and I hold him. My mom is a calm person, cheerful and gentle. Being around her is soothing. It’s nice to pretend the real world doesn’t exist when we’re together.

      I stay with her for another few minutes, content, before pulling away from her hug. I want to stay, but I have chores.

      Winston was asking for you, she says.

      I’ll go see him now, I reply.

      With Taco under one arm, I leave the house and wade through the cats, birds and other small animals towards the retirement barn where the senior animals live. It’s staffed by a full-time vet and three vet technicians who care for the animals around the clock. I call the hay supplier along the way and arrange for the missing half of the weekly hay supply to be delivered Monday.

      Entering the retirement home for animals, I wave at one of the technicians as I pass a few horses, half a dozen dogs, a cow, sheep, and a few other animals until I reach the largest stall at the rear of the barn. I grab a brush with stiff bristles and enter the stall.

      Winston Churchill the Third is an endangered rhino whose horn was taken off by poachers when he was younger. He weighs more than a small car. He’s kneeling when I enter, resting on the ground.

      Hi, Winston, I whisper and sink onto the ground beside him.

      He lifts his massive head at my voice and shifts so he can see me better. He’s the oldest rhino still living and a survivor of a circus. I start rubbing him down with the brush. He can’t feel much of anything, unless the pressure is hard enough to penetrate his thick, leathery, gray hide.

      I scrub his chin and the underside of his jaw, which are the most sensitive parts of him. His eyes close. He’s in heaven.

      His stall leads to a private run half an acre in size. His breakfast, two bales of hay, is piled in the run, a short distance from a mud hole. He hasn’t eaten or rolled in the mud. Normally, those are his two favorite activities.

      You have to eat, I scold him. You won’t outlive those elephants if you don’t.

      For some reason, Winston hates elephants. My mom says he doesn’t want to tell her about that part of his past.

      One eye opens.

      You heard me, I say. Dropping the brush, I stand and walk out to grab a handful of his food. Elephants.

      Taco darts past me and disappears into the pile of hay. Chances are, he won’t be able to find his way out, but he’ll whine if he gets scared.

      I hold the hay in front of Winston’s lips. Elephants, Winston.

      His lips tug the food into his mouth. I sit back, satisfied.

      He lurches forward, and I move a safe distance away. Rhinos are not graceful by any means. He’ll crush me if he loses his balance or missteps while shifting his weight around. He won’t purposely hurt me, but he’s old and sometimes misjudges distances. When he’s standing, he swings his head around and lumbers out of his stall, into the run.

      I trail and circle him. Digging through his hay, I push food towards Winston and search for Taco simultaneously.

      My companion has curled up at the bottom of the pile. I pluck him up and leave Winston to eat.

      Let me know if he doesn’t want to eat again, I call to the nearest vet tech, who waves in response.

      One of the elephants Winston can’t stand lets out an ear-splitting cry, which causes a bunch of other animals to start talking as well. The zoo comes alive with animal sounds.

      Exiting the barn, I pause to look up at the Victorian monstrosity where I live. My life is full of animals. I have a mother and companion who love me more than anything. We’re financially comfortable, and absolutely nothing is lacking on the surface, when I exclude stupid classmates and terrible teachers.

      All in all, my life is perfect.

      Or should be.

      I feel like something’s missing, and I don’t know what. The sense has gotten stronger the past year, since I turned seventeen. I’ll be eighteen in January and will graduate high school in May. I’m not one of those teens who wants to leave the house as soon as she graduates. I don’t want to be anywhere else, and I have no intention of leaving.

      But something is definitely missing.

      Troubled, I make my way through the animals to the house and go inside, trailed by a few ducks and dogs. I help with the paperwork and bills after school most days. It takes me a couple of hours, then homework, dinner, and bed.

      Tomorrow is Saturday, so I sleep in and Mama makes breakfast. Then we have inventories, inspections, chores around the house, chores around the zoo …

      The chores never really stop. Maybe what I need is a vacation.

      The next evening, after chores, my mom and I walk from the house into town and reach the Halloween party at the Cherryville community center just as the sun sets. My mom wears an all-white dress and a fuzzy halo. I’m all in black, as usual. It’s a cool October evening, and the community center is packed. Our town is small enough for everyone to know one another or know someone else who does.

      Eerie Halloween music is playing. Decorations are pinned to walls, hang from the ceiling, and clutter the surfaces of the desks and other furniture that have been pushed to the edges of the conference room to make way for the party. Snacks line the tables along one wall and huge punch bowls with plastic spiders trapped in ice sit on either end. Stations for the children – candy apple making, bobbing for apples, jack-o-lantern carving, and so on – are on the other side of the community center.

      I notice the looks we draw the moment we enter the community center. My mother, however, has laser-like focus for one thing only.

      I have to beat the kids to the caramel apples, she says and leaves my side, making a beeline for the candy apple station. She moves with ethereal grace, even when she’s in a hurry to deprive a group of five year olds of food. She draws the attentions of every man she passes, and they watch her with the expressions of lost puppies who have finally found their owners.

      The women in town are all jealous, including the teachers and mothers of the kids who always torment me in school. The girls I go to school with, who are insecure idiots, are also jealous.

      I’m happy my mom pisses everyone off. Whenever my female teachers get mad at me for something, I sweetly offer to bring my mother in for a chat with them.

      Not one of them has ever taken me up on it.

      Before I reach the snack tables, my mom has a candy apple in each hand and is chewing happily, unconcerned with the caramel dripping down her chin and smeared across the white cloth of her dress. A few men talk to her. She chews and responds simultaneously. Completely enamored with her, none of them say anything about being sprayed with apples and caramel.

      She really is the best.

      I see you came as yourself, snickers one of my horrible classmates.

      I ignore her and grab a paper plate to load up with Halloween cookies.

      I thought you’d take Halloween off, since you dress up the rest of the year, another says.

      I’m guessing you came as a whore, I retort and twist to see the girl speaking. Yep. No surprise there.

      Kids my age are stupid. I’m used to the ridicule, the comparisons with my mother, broken iPads, and the resentment and narrow minds. There’s only one thing that bothers me.

      Is your mom retarded or something?

      I lower my cookies and turn around.

      Today’s taunters are sickeningly perfectly matched couples: cute, brunette Leah and her basketball star boyfriend, Daniel; red-headed Barbie doll Addison and her boyfriend Will with the perfect teeth and hair. I call the clique they belong to the pretty people.

      They’re grinning.

      You’ve got food in your teeth, I tell Addison. Oh no, wait. That’s stupidity. Guess you’re not getting that out with floss.

      If you’re so smart, why won’t any boy in school come near you? Addison retorts.

      It’s because I am so smart, no boy will. They tend to prefer pretty and vacuous.

      And you’re creepy, she replies.

      My guess is that she doesn’t know what vacuous means.

      My dad says your mom is mentally ill, Leah tells me.

      Doesn’t your dad look at women’s vaginas for a living? I return.

      She flushes.

      Look at her, Will says, eyes on my mother. She’s slobbering all over the mayor!

      The girls laugh. Daniel looks but he can’t laugh. He’s star struck the way every man is.

      My mom is the best person in the world. She’s sweet, caring, generous and too good for anyone on this planet, especially empty-headed morons like my classmates.

      Will isn’t affected by seeing my mom at all. It can only mean one thing.

      I lean closer to Addison. You know Will’s gay, right? I whisper. I grab my cookies and leave them.

      They aren’t the first or only students who point and laugh, either at my mom or me. I’m used to it, but I don’t want anyone to hurt my mom’s feelings.

      This is why I hate these things in the first place.

      I settle into a corner to skulk and nibble on my cookies. My mom makes the rounds, dazzling every man she meets and pissing off every woman, except for the mayor’s mother, a woman in her eighties who is as dazzled by Mom as every man. I can always spot the homosexuals in the crowd when my mom’s around. Gay men ignore her. Lesbian women adore her.

      My attention drifts between my mother and my food, and I suppress the urge to run home and hang out with Taco and the animals. My mom is generally tolerated, possibly because our sanctuary brings in tourist money, employs quite a few of the locals, and recently, has attracted a couple large commercial developers. Our sleepy town is one of those places described not by name but by its relative location to somewhere else, because there’s nothing remotely interesting here.

      I watch my mom dazzle Daniel’s divorced father with too much satisfaction. Across the room, Daniel’s mother is glaring at her ex, even though she showed up with the guy who runs the bike store.

      Not long after we arrive, a stranger enters. He’s dressed in black and wearing a masquerade mask. He moves similar to the big cats in the predator habitat with restrained power and confidence, as if he could snap at any moment and take out half the town. It’s very different than the way normal people move.

      He’s not from around here. No one around in Cherryville wears anything half that nice unless there’s a wedding or funeral.

      He’s handsome, too. Curious, I’m not the only person who can’t take my eyes off him.

      His path is too deliberate for it to be an accident he’s headed towards my mom. The stranger draws long looks from everyone he passes, another indication he’s not from around here. He smiles when he notices someone watching him, but his destination doesn’t waver.

      When he reaches my mother, she smiles and faces him.

      All men are dazzled by her – but this one not as much as others. After a pause, in which he’s probably thinking he’s never seen anyone as beautiful as my mom, he touches her arm, and she laughs at something he’s said. His hand goes to the small of her back, and he guides her away from the lovesick idiots she’s talking to.

      I move away from the wall, not liking what I’m seeing. My mom is too oblivious to understand human nature the way I do.

      People suck, and that’s the end of it.

      He’s guiding her towards the door.

      I alter my course to intercept them and plant myself in front of the two.

      This is my angel, Esme, my mom tells the stranger proudly.

      What the hell do you want with my mother? I demand of the handsome stranger.

      We’re just talking, my mom replies.

      I fold my arms across my chest. He’s standing way too close to you, Mama, and he’s an out of towner. He’s probably a serial killer.

      The stranger steps away from my mom. His eyes are a pretty shade of caramel, like his skin, and his smile is friendly.

      I move between them, glaring up at him. You can go now, Dahmer, I snap.

      Esme, angel, we’re having a conversation, my mom objects.

      I’m sure Charles Manson has somewhere else to be. My mom isn’t going to be the next victim.

      My apologies, the stranger says. He offers another quick smile. It was nice to meet you Gloria and Esme. He moves away from us.

      Something isn’t right about that man, I tell my mom quietly. I’m not even sure why I feel that way. I don’t feel this strongly about my classmates, and I despise them more than anyone else in the world.

      The stranger just feels … wrong.

      My sweet little guard frog, my mom says and drapes her arms around me. I love you, angel. She kisses my temple and then floats away to mesmerize more husbands and anger more wives.

      Some days, I’m not sure how my mom has made it this far without someone conning her out of all her money. I’ve been her guard frog at these events and among humans in general since I was six.

      My eyes stay on the stranger as he navigates the people filling the community center. He stops to talk to a few, but it’s clear by their curiosity that no one else in town knows him, either. He draws his fair share of women, though he’s not as magnetic towards the opposite sex as my mom is.

      Satisfied he’s not trying to lure my mom away, I turn away to grab more cookies, only to find Addison standing behind me.

      Coldness hits my chest and drips down my abdomen. I glance down. She’s dumped two cups of punch on my clothing.

      Oops, she says innocently. And Will is definitely not gay. We have sex all the time.

      I doubt he can get it up if you don’t suck his dick first.

      The spark of anger in her eyes is enough to tell me I’m right. Even if he is gay, which he’s not, I’d rather have a gay boyfriend than not be able to find any boy willing to date me!

      Brilliant comeback, princess, I snap sarcastically. I hope you’re better at sucking dicks.

      Addison whirls and then moves away to her friends, who are laughing.

      As much as I hate to admit it, she’s right. No guy will sit by me in class let alone ask me out. I’m excluded from yet another rite of passage every other teenager goes through. It’s not that I haven’t met any boys at school that I like. I had a crush on Daniel when I was in middle school, and I’ve often fantasized about going to prom with a tenor in the school choir.

      It’ll never happen.

      The punch doesn’t show on my black clothing, but it’s wet and makes my shirt and pants stick to my skin. Irritated, I leave the common area for the restrooms.

      Stupid, perfect Addison, I mutter as I squeeze the punch out of my shirt between handfuls of paper towels.

      I sigh and look in the mirror. I don’t want to care that I don’t fit in.

      But … I do. I want to have friends with two legs. I want to have someone with whom I can drive to the nearest Target forty minutes away or grab fried chicken on Friday nights or even just hang out at the zoo and talk.

      I want a boyfriend. A smart one who is nothing like my classmates.

      There are forty-five kids in my high school, and sixteen of us are seniors. My choices of friends and potential boyfriends are limited. I’ve always been different, and the other kids picked up on it when I started school at the age of five. Nothing has changed since then. It doesn’t help that the other kids’ mothers are jealous of my mom’s effects on their husbands, or that my house on a hill looks haunted, if not diabolical sometimes, especially when the full moon rises behind it or mom is upset.

      Fed up with the party, I toss the paper towels and exit the bathroom to find my mom. I can’t leave her here, or she’ll clothesline a first grader for a candy apple or wind up being punched by a jealous wife.

      I look around, expecting to spot her easily. All I have to do is find the circle of men huddled around her.

      On my tiptoes, I survey the crowd slowly and then frown.

      My mom isn’t here. I double check the food stations and walk back to the bathroom, in case I somehow missed her.

      She’s gone.

      Observing the crowd again, I notice something else.

      The mysterious stranger is gone, too.

      Concerned, I leave the community center and step outside. The air is chilly, the night dark, and the sky cloudy everywhere, except directly above our house. The fog from yesterday has lifted, and moonbeams make our house seem to glow.

      No one is outside the community center, not even in the designated smoking area.

      I check inside one more time then walk all the way around the outside of the community center. Whipping out my cell, I text my mom.

      Where are you?

      She replies quickly. Go on home, angel! I’ll see you in the morning!

      Is my mom … is she out with a stranger … like, doing things?

      Omigod. The image in my mind is horrifying. I mean, I know she’s an adult, and she should be watching over me instead of me watching over her, but how weird is it that our roles are reversed? That she tells me to walk home alone in the dark, and I want to tell her not to forget condoms, so she doesn’t end up with another accidental daughter?

      I’m hurt she just left and almost envious. I can’t get any boy at school to look at me, and here Mom is, potentially having a one-night stand with a handsome stranger she just met.

      You’re not doing something you’ll regret, are you? I text.

      No, baby. This is business. It’s really important. She responds.

      Business? Mom usually doesn’t conduct business without me or at night or with strangers far away from the zoo.

      It’s then I start to realize what’s missing.

      I want to be carefree and happy, too, like my mom, and like all the kids at school who haven’t been helping run an animal sanctuary or protecting their mothers from the world since they were six. I want to be as normal of a teen as I can be, given I’m only half human. I want someone else to do chores and solve problems while I figure out who I am or go on dates or wind up crying on a curb and going for milkshakes when I get dumped or whatever it is my classmates do when they’re not at school.

      I want to laugh and smile without people judging me and without my stupid classmates making fun of me.

      I think. What the hell do I know? I’m just a stupid kid.

      I trudge through the town that belongs on a postcard, up the hill and past the wrought-iron fence. The moonlight starts there, at the fence, and lights

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