Page 9 of Full Moon Frenzy

Adriana swayed, the smell of grilled onions and popcorn tickling at her nose. She felt a whine within her, cortisol rising, her animal skittishness on high alert. It had been years since she had seen a place that was so alive outside the ED, but there was no one in distress, and the only pressing decision she needed to make was what to eat.

See? Unplug. Slow down.

It was with that spirit that she located the grilled sausages, moaning a little at the first bite. Nostalgia washed over her again as she moved through the maze of tents, the smell of fried dough competing with the tang of vinegar from a food cart selling some pickled gnomish dish, served in foil. It was familiar in a way that nearly folded her in half, but entirely different from her own experience.

The games, at least, were similar to the ones she remembered from her own childhood midway — a ring toss, milk jugs, throwing darts at a wall of balloons.

“Do you know if they have the goldfish game?” she asked, smiling in a way she hoped seemed friendly at the green-skinned dryad who stood before the milk jugs, a basket of tennis balls before her. The handsome, dark-haired man who stood beside the dryad raised his brows, eyes widening, his smile never faltering, but tightening in a way that resembled a grimace for a brief instant that Adriana might have overlooked as a figment of her suspicious imagination, if the dryad hadn’t wrinkled her nose, eyes moving up and down Adriana swiftly.

“Uh, no. That’s like, super barbaric.”

The dark-haired man laughed lightly, shooting his companion a swift look.

“Barbaric is a bit strong. I don’t think they do that one anymore,” he directed at Adriana, with another warm smile. His tone was tactful, with a kindness she most often heard employed in pediatrics. His smile seemed friendly enough, though she could smell the wolf on him, her lungs squeezing around the nervous whine within her. Something about him tickled at the back of her memory, something she couldn’t quite place.

“You know . . . it’s uh, not great for the fish. I remember playing that one when I was young. My brothers and I would bring home half a dozen baggies . . . Poor things never lasted more than a day or two once you got them home.”

“I guess I didn’t think of that,” she murmured, cheeks heating. She felt oddly culpable. The fish toss had been her favorite game to work, and she had always gone out of her way to have conversations with each little bowl, giving the fish a pep talk, hoping they were enthusiastic about going on to their new homes. How many fish deaths were you complicit in, topping the bowls off with discount spring water? Of course it was bad for them! See? This is why you work in emergency and not in diagnostics. “Poor fish.”

“We have the same game, actually, but it's bowls of rubber ducks, if you’ve got a little one who wants to play. Probably four or five booths down from here, on the left.”

The werewolf was younger than her by at least five years or more, and there was no reason for him to seem familiar to her eyes, but the tickle persisted. There was something about him . . . and then he shifted, moving the plush dinosaur he’d been waving at passing kids, giving her a good look at the name tag he wore for the first time. Owen Hemming ~ Commissioner.

Hemming.

Adriana stiffened, cold moving up her neck like a ghost from her past had just licked up her spine, understanding why he looked so familiar. It wasn’t possible. She refused to even consider that she’d taken a job in the same city where he worked at the hospital. No, no, no!

“Are you related to anyone at Healers? The hospital?” she demanded, uncaring if her tone was suddenly crazed. What if he was here? What if he was a doctor in the practice?! She forced herself to exhale. He wasn’t. She’d met them all and already knew he wasn’t. But he might be at the hospital next door.

“No. I think that’s the one place we’re not,” he laughed. “Bit of a touchy subject, probably.” The younger man’s eyebrows had shot up again, his smile almost amused, eyes narrowing just a beat later as if he’d considered that she was asking to go to the hospital. “Is everything . . . do you need medical attention? Are you okay? I can call someone if you—”

“No, no,” Adriana blurted, taking a step back, cheeks burning in mortification. He’s going to call an ambulance if you don’t get it together. First you want a bag of mistreated fish and now you’re giving him the second degree about the hospital for no reason. Of course he thinks you need inpatient. Closer to that grippy sock holiday than you think. “I-I’m good. Thank you for the info.”

She whirled, breathing out at last once she’d moved on from the bemused-looking werewolf, allowing the crowd to swallow her up, hiding her completely. See? You’re being silly. She started her new job in just a few days, and there was no one at the hospital named Hemming. Of course there isn’t. There’s nothing from your past here. Nothing from the emergency department here. Nothing from your life at all. This is a brand new place and you can be someone brand new in it.

Adriana pushed on, treating herself to a funnel cake from the stand beside the lemonade, deciding that the people watching was more interesting than anything the makeshift fair had to offer. She’d thought she’d understood the concept of multispecies. The city she’d lived in for years was technically multispecies. Every single shift, she would treat at least a handful of goblins and trolls, occasionally even a minotaur or an orc, although they were farther and fewer between.

This, though . . . she had never seen anything like this.

Mothfolk laughed with satyrs, a centaur stood in line to buy raffle tickets behind a snake person. Children of every species ran pell-mell across the lawn, trailing balloons and bubble wands, clutching small toys they’d won at the various games. There were amphibians, minotaurs, ogres . . . and they all live here! Together! In this nice place!

The thought followed her as she joined the line for lemonade, eavesdropping as the sylvan woman in front of her greeted the teenager working the stand by name and asked after his grandmother’s knee surgery, then again when a different teenage volunteer, ostensibly the one taking payment, waved away her attempt to hand over exact change because “Jack paid for the rest of the line.”

The interaction lasted less than thirty seconds yet somehow left her feeling as though she’d accidentally crashed a private neighborhood barbecue where everyone knew everyone else and was too polite to point out that she didn’t belong. Who the fuck is Jack?!

“Well, now, here she is! Our new doctor! Welcome to town!”

Adriana started at the sudden voice at her elbow, sloshing the full cup of lemonade over her knuckles. Surely this was a bit. It was as if her inner thoughts were being broadcast over the microphone in the gazebo, advertising that she was crashing a private event. She was going to find a video of herself later that same night, making the rounds on social media, “whole town adopts clueless stranger.”

Either that, or she was about to be sacrificed in their profane ritual.

The speaker was a woman with a long, sheep-like face, her tightly coiled puff of hair secured with a bright pink band, a complete stranger to her eyes.

“I . . . what? I mean, I think you have the wrong—”

“You’re the new doctor, right? Oh my stars, you are, right? Can you imagine if I’m just randomly accosting perfect strangers for no good reason?!”

Adriana wanted to point out that was exactly what the woman was doing . . . but neither was her assumption incorrect. “I-I am? I mean, yes, I am. But how did you know?”