Chapter#01

In all the time Mike had been alive, he never had much use for home repair. Any issues inside of the house were fixable with a quick call to the landlord, and the worst he had ever dealt with was a dishwasher that had backed up onto his kitchen floor.

However, there was no landlord to call, no problem that could be fixed with the push of a button. It was his house, his problem, and right now, the front of his home was a wreck. The planking had been torn up from the wraparound porch and the railing destroyed when a psychotic witch had hurled Abella across the yard and into the decking. The roof above it had begun to sag, though it was quickly shored up by spare wood that Tink had found. Luckily Abella was crazy strong, and Mike had mostly supervised the reinstallation of the support beams, watching the gargoyle lift the roof up high enough while Tink replaced the old support beams, standing on a ladder while Mike handed her tools.

The little goblin was the picture of home improvement efficiency. By the time he had returned from the greenhouse last week, she had already ordered almost everything they needed to fix the front of his damaged home. Each day brought with it a new shipment of supplies to fix the broken porch, and Tink made the time to show Mike how to help her fix the house.

The bushes had been pulled - the trellis beneath had been removed; the delicate wood shattered by Abella's impact. Tink had found a new trellis online, declaring the Magic Screen the best invention known to man. The shipment was supposed to come in next week, with instructions to leave it at the bottom of the driveway. Mike was no longer taking any chances with deliveries, especially not after Sarah the witch had ended up nearly killing him with such a simple disguise.

Tink was busy taking measurements, making several notes in a small journal Mike had bought for her. She wore a pair of overalls and a white tank top, both purchased in the little miss section of a store for tweens in the mail. The goblin was a whiz on the sewing machine — she had taken in the sides and adjusted the legs so that the clothes were a perfect fit. Her hair had been pulled back into a bright red ponytail, a pencil tucked behind each ear with a third in her mouth. Making another note to herself, she set her pencil down, measured another gap, and then pulled the pencil from between her lips to write down her findings. She wore an ankle brace now, her foot still well enough to be walked on. It had been a struggle to make the little goblin take it easy around the house for a couple of days, but Mike had told her it was Human Law that a wife needed to let her husband care for her.

"Excuse me?" Mike heard a voice and turned around to see a young man holding a box on the front walk. "Mr. Radley?"

"That's me." Mike signed for the package. The delivery driver waited patiently, taking no notice of the little green woman fixing the porch. Mike even looked back to make sure she was there, marveling at how the magical Gaes protected his home. Unless invited inside, nobody would be able to see the magical creatures that lived within.

"Your house is so cool," the driver remarked, taking the paperwork back. "When I was a kid, my friends and I used to dare each other to ring the bell. We all thought it was haunted, but none of us ever got the guts to actually make it to the door."

"Oh yeah? Why's that?"

"I dunno, weird stuff always seemed to happen around here. I know this will sound stupid, you know, kids and all, but one time my friend Billy actually made it to the door. He was going to hit the bell when we heard this woman scream bloody murder at him, so we bolted. I think it was a rabbit under the porch or something, I hear they can scream like people."

"No, it's a ghost. She's a screamer. Does that shit all the time."

The delivery driver's eyes widened, the blood draining from his face. Mike waited several breaths and then winked at him.

"Oh, shit, you had me, you actually had me. Felt like I was ten all over again. Have a good day, man!" He waved, jogging back to his car and driving away. Mike looked at the porch swing, Cecilia rocking gently back and forth with a smirk on her face. The banshee was sort of like a ghost, but she was definitely a screamer.

Mike brought the box inside, carefully unpacking its contents. Satisfied that everything was there, he quickly organized them on the kitchen table. Scooping up the first bundle, he walked out the back door of the house into the garden.

The garden area was built like a courtyard with the wall of the garage to the left. That transformed into the stone wall that surrounded the property, save for the wrought iron gate that gave access to the forest behind the house. In the middle of the yard was a large fountain, and standing in it was the nymph Naia. She had summoned tiny spheres of water that bounced across the surface of the fountain, currently being chased by a pair of determined squirrels. Tossing her greenish-blue hair over one shoulder, Naia winked at him.

"Hello, lover," she said, the skirt of her white gown floating on the water's surface.

"Naia." He had discovered the nymph his first night in the house, a sexual encounter in his bathtub that had swapped a small piece of their souls, binding him to the house as its Caretaker.

"What's that?" She asked, pointing at the small bundle he was holding.

"A couple of things." He handed the nymph a catalog. "First, here's some flowers I thought we could plant by the fountain, along with some pots for them to go in. I brought you the catalogue so that we could pick them out together."