Box of Puppets: Foxy Witch, #1

Witch. Kitsune. Crazy cat lady

Hey there! My name is Mei. Normally, I’m a ‘roll with the punches’ kind of girl, but I fear I’m going insane. I say things I do not think and do things I cannot control. My reality has become a nightmare. I feel like a puppet dangling from frayed strings.

Three vampire hunters alter my course when they stumble into me one night. Plagued by the same instability, they work their way into my life and my head. Together, we must try to find a way out of our madness. Hopefully.

Sounds like I have a plan, right? Wrong. You see, I have a couple of other problems that are pretty pressing as well. I’m almost sure that my boyfriend, Finn, is going to ask me to marry him. And, well, I can’t stand him. Oh, and there are a few other things, but I can’t tell you about them just yet. That would spoil the surprise.

Throughout it all, my search for the truth never falters. Insanity is the easier answer, but no one ever said life is easy.

Box of Puppets is the beginning of a slow burn, reverse harem series. This means that she will not choose between men in the end. It does have cursing and some violence. It may not be suitable for all readers.

1

Ovaries be damned

T hat man is going to give me babies. Lots of babies. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m already pregnant just from looking at him. I fan myself as I lean into Jenée.

Wait, what? I didn’t even like Finn. Why was I saying that? Sure, he’s hot and all, but also a bit of a prick. You see, Finn is an alpha dragon shifter, which means he’s overbearing, hordes shiny shit, and breathes fire. So, he is literally hot. That fire keeps dragons and other fire-based creatures running a higher body temperature all the time.

He’s also handsome in the looks department. His muscles are big but not gross. And he has black hair that curls where it stops at his collar. Oh, and stubble that reminds you of what he would look like if he were kept too busy to shave, if you catch my drift. Better still, his eyes are the coolest part of him. They resemble flames flickering in the night. No, I don’t mean that as a simile, either. They actually have red-orange-looking flames that look like a bonfire.

So, yeah, he’s sexy but not my type. So, why was I practically swooning in the streets proclaiming pregnancy by osmosis? Well, those weren’t my words. I mean, I spoke them, but they didn’t originate from my brain. I know. Confusing, right? Imagine how I feel trying to puzzle it all out. Maybe I’m going crazy.

Come on, Mei, Jenée squeals, let’s catch up with them! I see Charlie over there!

She tugs on my hand like a kid the first time they go to a toy store. She has a crush on poor Charlie who becomes insanely shy around women. I’m pretty confident he likes her, too, but he can’t figure out how to act on it.

I’m coming! There’s no need to tear my arm off.

A laugh floats out of my mouth, but inside, between you and me, I want to slap the shit out of Jenée right now. She’s really yanking on me. It’ll be sore tomorrow.

We saunter, yes saunter, across the street and arrive on the other side safely. Hey, you never know around here. I once watched a man who had just been in the grocery store get run over. No, I don’t mean he left, walked into the road, and became roadkill. The poor guy still had a gallon of milk in his hands. All because something plopped him down in the middle of the street out of nowhere. Probably just wanted cereal for breakfast.

Jenée draws my attention back from my wandering thoughts with a whispered, I wonder what’s going on.

My eyes dart from her to where Finn was just at, hoping that today is my lucky day, and he had become fertilizer. But it looks like Lady Luck is still pissed at me. How was I to realize she wanted the last raspberry-filled donut? C’mon, I wasn’t a mind reader.

Anyway, instead of only Charlie and Finn standing there looking goofy, there is a whole pack of them. Some guy on a box is bitching about a dude in a castle.

Glancing at Jenée, I see a blank look flit across her face, and she shakes her head, blinking rapidly. Oh, hey, Mei! How are you? I think I’ll go to bed. We must’ve drunk too much. Don’t remember coming to town, she rambles, her eyes darting back and forth as she tries to figure out where we are. This kind of weird shit has been happening a lot lately.

Forcing out a little laugh, I say, Girl, you’ve got to lay off the sauce. See? I told you that vodka and you just don’t mix. Here. Let me call a taxi to come pick you up.

Getting her settled into a small chair outside of a pub, I pull out my phone. In no time, a yellow cab driven by my favorite resident alien comes careening around the corner.

There’s Tony. C’mon. Up we go. Drink some water and get in bed, okay? I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.

Tony’s green hand waves out of the window as he drives away, and I turn back to the now fevered mob. Shy, quiet Charlie is practically foaming at the mouth, while Finn is yelling ‘yeah’ and punching an arm in the air after every question the box guy asks. Great, looks like they’ve been roped into being townspeople again. I hate it when that happens. It seems to be a weekly occurrence around here.

Before I can do anything about saving their asses from the so-called monster thing in the castle, the scenery changes, and I’m no longer standing on the sidewalk.

2

This again?

Have you ever experienced déjà vu? You know, that moment where you just know you've already done this before. Well, I’m having one of those right now. I have mixed this potion, in this room, in these clothes before. My cat had jumped onto the table and knocked over the eye of newt exactly like she just did. Why is it important, you ask?

You see, for quite a while now, I've been noticing these little things that don't quite add up. I lose parts of my day. My clothing changes. I'll be in my living room, and then suddenly, I'm at the pub flirting with Finn, who I can't stand. And the damn déjà vu keeps happening.

That's not to mention the people in town. One minute, Rachel and Joey are making out on a street corner like their lives depended on climbing as far inside each other as they can, the next, they just walk away and go home like they didn't just dry hump each other in front of Amanda, the pearl-clutching, church lady.

Just yesterday, I saw Susan pick up a jug of orange juice, and before she made it to the checkout, it changed into a bottle of wine. Now, unless Susan is going around making a bunch of fish out of a couple of loaves of bread, something fishy is going on.

I've tried asking everyone about it. Nobody else seems to know what I'm talking about. And sometimes, when I attempt to speak with them, they act like I don't exist.

For example, just last week, Cindy lost a shoe after she ran down the street from Harm, the wolf shifter heir, so I tried to return it. Just being a friendly neighbor, I picked up the heel and ran after her, screaming her name the whole way. Did she stop or even slow down? Nope. When she looked my way before getting into the cab, it was like she didn't see me.

Trust me, I was hard to miss, too. I was waving my arms around like a lunatic and wearing the neon-pink and orange jacket I loved. Still, no dice.

Then, old Harm came sniffing up the road, circling around the area where I found the stupid thing. I tried to hand it to him, but did he say thanks or even take it? Nope. I had to throw it back down onto the road. Then he got all high and mighty as he held up the shoe like he actually did something. Crazy, right?

Well, you get the idea, I think. I'm pretty sure I'm completely insane and should be committed. Or perhaps I've been cursed. Something is going on, and I'd rather not be nuts.

I told you when we started that it sounded crazy. But, all I can do is tell you my story and let you decide for yourself. This is probably a good place to tell you who I am. My name is Mei, and I'm a witch. I'm pretty average-looking, I suppose, with black hair and a wish for a bigger ass. Maybe a step stool, too, since I'm pretty short.

Crazy-me is weird. She likes flower-print everything, collecting cutesy quotes, and veggie smoothies. She doesn't even hide the spinach under the taste of blueberries or something!

Me-me is pretty cool, if I do say so myself, and I like comfy clothes, cats, and candy. I hate when stores bring out Christmas decorations in July, tofu, and high heels.

OK. Enough about me and crazy-me. You'll see soon enough, anyway. The world I live in is just about as strange as I am. You see, new people and weird creatures and everything in between pop up here. I'll start my story with what happened just last night.

3

A vamp, a dustpan, and a douche walk into a bar

Puppet-me had just started the torture that I called ‘a date with Finn,’ while mentally cursing and thinking of all the things I would rather have been doing. Finn was a douche, and I couldn’t fathom who would enjoy his attitude, but there I sat smiling and giggling like a moron in a ridiculous flower-print dress. Not a cute one either, but one that screamed ‘I stole my grandmother’s ugly-ass curtains and sewed it into the most unflattering dress possible because I really don’t want to get laid tonight.’ Yeah. It really was that bad. Smearing myself with troll shit would have been a better option.

Anyway, so there we were, me being forced to eat the nasty, bitterweed salad Finn ordered for me, when all of a sudden a vampire and this willowy blonde woman with huge boobs falling out of her dress appeared at the table next to us. Now, I don’t mean they sashayed in, or that I hadn’t paid attention when they sat down. No, one second the table was empty, and the next boom, there sat the vamp and his date along with a candlelight dinner for one.

See? That just wasn’t right. Cue cheesy lines, tons of giggles, and watching for what he planned on eating. Spoiler alert: her.

The best part of the night? The never-ending tension of whether her boobs would stay in her dress or burst forth like a woman who was told there would be free diamonds for the first customer. Another spoiler: they stayed in, unfortunately. That would have perked my night up at least.

Everything was boring as hell, as usual, and Finn droned on about himself. My mind centered on the fork, wondering if it would reach my brain if I jabbed it in my eye really hard.

Well, suddenly this group of guys burst in through the front door and did all this stunt-worthy jumping on tables while wearing these long, fancy-ass leather coats. They could have simply walked through the aisle, but they chose to smash people’s food and knock stuff over instead. One table even caught on fire from the candle!

Here’s the biggest oddity of everything so far; nobody moved. I would have been cursing and yelling about the chocolate cake that ended up stuck to guy number two’s boot, but everyone kept eating like nothing happened. Then, like magic, the tables just fixed themselves. Even the fire went out, and as I watched the candle upright itself, this strange emotion cut through the fake feelings of happiness and mushiness swimming inside. It’s like I knew the next few moments would be important.

The men came barreling towards Mr. Vamp beside us. The blonde’s face transformed from drugged-up euphoria to an ‘O-M-G, I look like Rudolph the night before school pictures’ look. I guess he saw the chick’s face because Mr. Vamp kind of floated up, turning as he did so, and hovered there waiting on them. With his back to me, I didn’t see his reaction, and I couldn’t get up to get a better view, either. Yes, I am nosy. I prefer to call it curious.

Anyway, even though I couldn’t see him, I could still hear him, and he sounded pretty pissed if the growls were any indication. Meanwhile, I’m dying to hop up, but my mouth is going on and on about some stupid fair that’s supposed to come to town.

When the men got within feet of him, they started separating from each other. It was like watching a wolf pack hunt. Two of them rushed him while the third stopped and aimed this rickety old crossbow at the vamp. He was trying to get a shot, but the other two had already started fighting the vamp, trying to get him where they could stake him with some cool-looking silver stakes.

Those looked much nicer than that ugly-ass bow. They should stick with the silver. Better branding.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the rest because Finn’s face blocked my view as we both leaned up to give each other a smooch. I was just grateful my hair didn’t catch fire on the stupid candle, but Finn wasn’t so lucky.

An arrow hit him in the back, but he kept talking about moving in together, not even caring that he became a shish kabob! And no, I didn’t want to move in with him. I didn’t even like him! I can’t tell you the relief I felt when my mouth said that I couldn’t right now. It was quickly doused with horror as I said I wanted to be married first. Gah.

Anyway, at that point, I could watch the show again. Or rather the now dead-dead, pile-of-ashes vamp at least. The blonde guy was trying to calm the hysterical boob lady. The big guy was digging into his pack, looking for something. I was hoping for a little vacuum because that would’ve been funny. But it was just a tiny broom and dustpan.

It was the brunette bow guy that was most interesting, though. He walked towards them, but when we locked eyes, he paused for barely a second. Just a little hitch in his step, but it was enough. I was stunned inside, even as I kept talking about my neighbor’s devil cat. His eyes were gorgeous, what I thought of when storm clouds were mentioned. Conflicting emotions seemed to swirl inside of him, peeking through the curtains, fighting each other.

When he started walking again, he veered a bit to the left. Each step he took appeared plodding, almost as if he was straining against a heavy wind. I was exhausted just watching him. His face showed the strain. The skin around his eyes was taut, his mouth was practically a slash across his face, and his jaw clenched so tight I worried he would break it.

He got about three steps away and threw himself at me, knocking me over, chair and all. Right there, on my back with my legs sticking up in the air, I knew everything would change. I couldn’t move, but I could feel the tingling sensation that my body was about to become my own again. With some effort, I turned my head and saw him staring back at me.

Before I could say anything, his mouth moved and this deep, rumbling voice said, Help us. Fuck if I don’t get turned on from voices, especially the deep ones or if they have accents. Even when they were pleading for help, apparently.

The next thing I knew, I was still on my back with my lady parts vibrating from that voice, but no hot guy lay across me. I scrambled up, leaving the chair on the ground and spotted the three vamp hunters walking out with the blonde guy carrying the girl. I ran to catch up, knocking into tables and a waitress along the way. I ended up with food on me, but behind me everything carried on as usual.

4

The disappearing lady

When I got