Jules Arrives

Mist still clung to the trees like a warning. The holler was quiet—too quiet, Pa thought. The kind of quiet that usually meant the universe was holding its breath before doing something stupid.

He stood on the porch in his boots and flannel, mug in hand, eyelids still heavy from sleep, face set in that don’t start with me yet expression Ma knew well.

Then he heard it.

Clank. Drag. Rattle. Snort.
Something unnatural was making its way up the trail.

He squinted through the fog.

And there it was.

A rickety, overloaded wooden cart creaked its way forward, pulled, of course, by a reanimated skeleton hog, bones glowing faint blue and leaving sooty hoofprints in its wake.

Perched right in the middle of it like some feral parade queen sat Jules, hair wild, cloak fluttering, jars and bundles spilling out around her. Her little clay goblin rode beside her like it had claimed shotgun rights. She lifted one lazy hand in greeting like she did this every Tuesday.

“Mornin’!” she called. “Guess who’s movin’ in!”

Pa blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Slow. Weary. Defeated.

He didn’t say a damn thing for a full five seconds. Just stared like maybe, if he held still long enough, she’d roll right past him and into someone else’s problem.

Then he took a long, slow sip of his coffee and sighed like a man who’d already seen the end of this particular story and knew he wasn’t gonna like it.

“Oh Lord,” he muttered, loweing his cup. “What fresh hell is this?”

From the side path near the war barn, Goodfella stepped into view, scroll tucked under one arm. He slowed, staring at the sight moving crookedly down the path towards them.

“Who’s this?” he asked evenly.

Pa didn’t take his eyes off the spectacle. “Chaos,” he said flatly. “Pure, unadulterated chaos.”

“We expanding the roster?”

“Apparently so,” Pa sighed.

Goodfella watched the skeleton hog drag the cart another few feet. “She armed?”

Pa”s mug briefly hovered near his mouth before he lowered it without drinking. “Always.”

Behind them, Ma appeared at the doorway, bright as spring. “She’s early,” she said cheerfully. “I told you the moon was lookin’ funny last night.”

Pa kept his eyes on the scene unfolding at the edge of the woods like it was a natural disaster in slow motion.

“She’s got that damn goblin in the cart,” he mumbled.

Goodfella looked confused. “Goblin?”

Ma patted Pa’s arm. “Means she packed light.”

He turned his head slightly, eyes deadpan. “She brought a bone hog, Witchy.”

Ma smiled sweetly. “Better than a boyfriend.”

That earned her a look.

“Gotta admit,” Goodfella said, scratching his chin. “The bone hog is interesting. Wonder if it can be useful during battle?”

Pa shook his head and drained the last of his coffee. He had a feeling he would need every last drop of caffeine it offered.

From the trail, Jules cupped a hand around her mouth. “Did I hear the words ‘fresh hell’? ‘Cause if so, I brought three jars of it, and a scroll!”

Pa muttered something under his breath and rubbed a hand over his face. “Of course she’s got fresh hell bottled up and ready to unleash. One witch is enough to handle.”

Ma grinned, smug and unbothered. “Now you got two.  Ain’t you lucky.”

Pa exhaled heavily and said, “Guess she needs her own cabin. We’ve got an old, empty one just down yonder.” He pointed and everyone started walking.

Shackwarming

The shack had been there for years, tucked near the tree line, half-swallowed by honeysuckle and witch grass. Some said it used to belong to a healer. Others said it built itself.

Now, it belonged to Jules.

The cousins had gathered like a swarm of well meaning pests, armed with hammers, bundles of thatch, and enough gossip to power a week of porch sitting. The shack itself stood crooked but proud, pressed against the tree line like it was half hiding from the holler and half sizing it up.

Ma arrived first, guiding the chaos gently like she always did, holding a list that no one but her actually looked at.

Ellie Mae was dragging a rolled-up rug across the porch. “I swear it moved when I wasn’t lookin’.”

“That’s a ward trigger,” Jules said absently from inside. “Just step over it. Left foot first.”

Nickie leaned in the doorframe, squinting inside. “This place has vibes.”

“Good ones?” Ma asked.

Nickie shrugged. “Not… evil. Just like it remembers things.”

“That’s the idea,” Jules called from inside. “Place has been empty too long. It’s awake now.”

Looty cracked open a window and stuck his head inside. “There’s somethin’ bubbling in here, and I didn’t see a stove.”

Jules appeared in the doorway with a smirk. “Might be my sleep blend. Or it’s the grief jar reacting to sunlight again.”

Looty took a full step back. “The what what?”

“Sleep blend,” Ma said quickly, shooting Jules a look.

“Grief jar,” Jules confirmed cheerfully. “Old grief, not fresh. I keep it sealed.”

RG was trying to repair a slanted porch step and muttering curses under his breath. “This thing’s held together with moon spit and hope.”

“That’s also in one of my jars,” Jules added.

Alexis wandered up the path with a bundle of dried herbs in one hand and a rusted weather vane in the other. “Where you want this witch stick?”

“That goes on the roof,” Jules said.

Nickie blinked. “That rusty thing?”

“It’s charged with storm energy. It’ll keep the shack from drawing lightning.”

Krypto stepped up onto the porch, scanning the inside like a general on recon. “You got room for your work? I see books, jars, skulls, a….wait. Is that a goat foot?”

“Don’t touch that,” Jules said. “It’s sentimental.”

He pointed toward a tangle of braided herbs and bones strung over the doorway. “This one of yours too?”

“That’s my intention trap,” she said brightly. “Catches bad vibes before they enter.”

Krypto raised an eyebrow. “And it works?”

“I said what I said.”

Looty piped up from behind a broom. “Why you think Pa ain’t entered?”

The whole porch cracked up.

Inside, Jules stepped over her clay goblin perched by the hearth and started arranging her books. “He’s prob’ly down there right now tryin’ to hex proof his coffee.”

Ma knelt near the doorway, brushing out a corner. “We’re all just glad you’re here, Jules.”

Jules slowed her work for a second. “Yeah… me too.”

Then, as if on cue, the skeleton hog that had pulled her cart up the trail let out a loud, echoing snort from beneath the shack.

Ellie jumped. “Why is it still alive?!”

Jules shrugged. “It’s helpful. And loyal.”

Nickie whispered, “If that thing starts walkin’ around at night I’m moving into the war barn.”

RG finally hammered the step into place, stood up, and wiped his hands. “Well. It ain’t pretty, and it probably violates half the natural laws of the holler, but I think it’s done.”

Ma clapped her hands together gently. “It’s perfect. It’s hers.”

Jules stepped onto the porch, eyes surveying her crooked little kingdom, then tossed an arm around Ma’s shoulders. “Home sweet hex.”

War Barn

The war barn always buzzed louder when tension was thick and strategy got spicy. This time, with Jules in the mix, it felt like the air itself was crackling. Charcoal maps were spread across the big table, marked up with arrows, runes, and a few mysterious red stains that no one wanted to ask about.

Nickie stood at the far end, flipping through base scrolls. RG had taken over marker duty, organizing Ma’s callouts, while Looty and Krypto hung nearby sorting spell jars and runes.

Jules sat with one boot on the table, her braid trailing over her shoulder, studying a TH17 base layout with all the focus of a surgeon, or a vulture.

“Right here,” she said, tapping a weak spot near the scattershot. “That’s where you bleed ‘em. Crack that open and the rest’ll fall like spoiled fruit.”

Lantern light flickered across the runes and grease-stained parchment.Goodfella stood opposite Jules, steady and composed. “Walk it again,” he said.

“They zap quake here,” Jules traced. “Expect clean timing on the scatter. I thin the air at the drop point. Spell lands half a breath late.”

Pa leaned on the opposite side of the table, arms folded, skeptical but listening. “You speaking from experience, or just conjuring metaphors again?”

Jules looked up, slow smile forming. “Both.”

RG whistled low. “I don’t know what’s scarier, her accuracy or how cheerful she is about it.”

“Thank you, Red,” Jules said sweetly.

“Don’t thank me,” he replied. “I’m scared of you too.”

Pa sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Alright, Shadow Sister. You said last time you could ‘mess with their timing.’ What’s that mean, exactly?”

“Little trick I picked up from the west ridge witches,” she said, pulling a pouch from her satchel. “Charm the call scrolls. Make them hesitate just long enough to blow their opening.”

Pa eyed the pouch like it might bite. “That sounds like a curse.”

“It’s an advantage.” Jules corrected.

Ma didn’t look up from her scrolls. “It’s both.”

Pa huffed. “Of course it is.”

Nickie grinned. “Pa just don’t like spells he can’t see coming.”

Krypto added, “Or ones that whisper in Latin.”

“Latin’s just dramatic hillfolk,” Jules explained with a wave of her hand. “It’s all just intention dressed up.”

“And our timing?” Pa asked.

“It won’t bend ours.”

“It better not.”

“It bends timing, not allegiance,” Jules clarified.

Goodfella nodded, already accepting. “Watch the infernos. Left side’s double stacked.”

“With supercharged X-Bows on either side,” Nickie pointed out, looking concerned.

Jules opened the pouch, and shook it lightly onto the map. It made a faint chime sound.

The drop hit the rune. It hissed, the enemy spell hesitated and the scatter misfired. Then, the glow flared outward. The left inferno pulsed early, and the x-bows started to fire rapidly.

“That’s not right,” Goodfella said, keeping his voice even but he looked worried.

Pa’s expression didn’t change, but his grip on the table edge tightened.

On the map, Ellie’s marker shifted off funnel slightly.

Ma stiffened. “That’s Ellie out there.”

Pa’s jaw tightened. “I knew it.”

“It hit resistance,” Jules muttered. “Ground ward dampened and redirected.”

“Can you steady it?” Goodfella asked, eyes scanning the map.

“Yes.”

“Do it, then.”

Pa stepped closer. “NOW.” He ordered. “Don’t overcorrect.”

She pressed her palm flat to the rune, whispering low and controlled.

The glow wavered.

From outside, faint but real, the sound of the actual battle rolled like distant thunder.

“Watch the inferno,” RG said sharply. “It’s locking early. And Ellie is close by. If she don’t get out of range in time, it’s gonna burn her up.”

“Shift second wave,” Goodfella ordered calmly. “Freeze the left inferno. Now.”

Ma relayed through the call scroll.

The rune dimmed and the ripple redirected forward.

The inferno fired too early, and missed its prime lock. Ellie’s marker surged through. The Back end defense cracked exactly where Jules predicted.

Silence.

Then the barn doors burst open.

Ellie stumbled in, hair singed at the ends, sleeve torn, soot streaking her cheek.

“What in the holler did y’all drop?!” she demanded, coughing and sputtering. “Air went thick, inferno twitched sideways, then everything snapped back. I didn’t know if it was us or them!”

Pa was already halfway toward her. “Are you burned?”

“I’m fine,” she snapped, brushing ash off her shoulder. “But maybe next time give a body a heads up before you rearrange physics!”

Jules winced. “It rebounded off the ward. I corrected.”

“Yeah,” Ellie replied dryly. “Felt that.”

Goodfella studied the map. “Well,” he said, leaning back slightly, “looks like the holler just acquired a new weapons system.”

Pa folded his arms.

“Yeah. A wildly unpredictable one.”

Ellie shot him a look. “That’s one word for it.” She looked around. “Could use some water here.”  She said to no one in particular.

Jules shrugged. “The best kinds of weapons are the unpredictable ones.”

Goodfella tapped the charcoal where the ripple bounced. “Anything that powerful’s gonna meet resistance. Just gotta learn it.” He glanced at Pa. “Can we use her in the next Territory Wars?”

Pa closed his eyes briefly. “Lord help us.”

Ma smirked.

But he didn’t say no.

Dowski leaned over to Alexis and whispered, “Bet that porch of hers gives out in the next storm.”

“Yeah,” Alexis whispered back. “Someone should tell Pa he’s the one who oughta go fix it.”

Nickie heard them and perked up. “Ohhh yeah, it’s gotta be Pa. Old fashioned justice. He’s the only one with the tools and the spine.”

Ellie smirked. “You mean the man who won’t step over her intention trap without praying first?”

Pa gave them all a look. “I’m not afraid.”

Jules didn’t miss a beat. “It’s alright, Pa. I’ve got a chair waiting for you on that porch. Rocker’s even got your name carved in it.”

“I didn’t carve it,” he muttered.

She winked. “Didn’t say you did.”

Ma finally chimed in. “You are the only one she hasn’t hexed.”

“Yet,” Jules added helpfully, grinning widely.

Pa looked between them, then down at the cursed map, then back to Jules. “Chaos.”

Jules leaned across the table, unbothered. “Powerful.”

The barn went quiet a beat longer than usual. Then Ma tapped her quill against the scroll and said, “So… who’s hitting base six?”

Porch Fixin’

The holler had just started to quiet down after the flurry of activity around Jules’ shack. Most of the cousins had scattered, Nickie and Ellie hollering something about bacon sandwiches, Slaughter insisting he’d be back with his carving knife to etch runes into the rafters, and Jaybbles and RG dragging Krypto off before he got roped into another “favor” for the new resident witch. That left Pa, standing alone at the edge of Jules’ clearing, arms crossed, brow low, and eyes fixed on the uneven slant of the newly built porch.

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t dangerous, exactly, but it sure as hell wasn’t right. The wood creaked like it had secrets, and the nails looked like they’d given up halfway in. Pa didn’t like half measures, and that porch was already on his nerves.

He stepped onto the bottom stair, testing its strength, then shifted his weight forward. The board groaned like an old man, and Pa muttered something that sounded like a prayer and a threat rolled into one.

From inside the doorway, Jules sat perched on a rickety stool, legs crossed under a shawl with moons and thorns woven through it. She was lazily stirring something in a clay bowl that smelled suspiciously like vinegar and something burnt. Her little clay goblin, gifted to her years ago and kept like a talisman, sat beside her in the doorway, looking smug.

“I see you hoverin’ like a buzzard,” she said brightly, without even looking up. “What’s the verdict, Judge Pa?”

Pa kept his eyes on the crooked line of the porch boards. He knelt down and poked at a loose board with the toe of his boot. It shifted.  “This porch ain’t gonna last through the next rain.”

Jules raised a brow. “It’s holdin’ now, ain’t it?”

“Barely.”

“Well then,” she said, voice sugar-sweet and half a dare, “I suppose I better call upon my mighty powers to enchant it stronger. Or…” She gave him a sidelong look, one that always held a bit of mischief behind it. “You could just fix it, big man.”

He set down his worn leather tool roll and crouched, jaw tightening as the sigh escaped him. It wasn’t the fixing that bothered him, it was the new kind of chaos that seemed to have moved into the holler along with Jules. He could barely keep up with one witch. Now there were two.

“You hex me while I work,” he told her, “I ain’t comin’ back.”

Jules grinned like a cat with feathers in its teeth. “Pa, if I ever hexed you, you’d know. This is just a pickled beet spell. For arthritis. You want some?”

He looked over at the steaming bowl with suspicion. “No.”

She chuckled and leaned against the doorframe, watching as he began prying up the weakest planks. “I do appreciate it,” she said after a moment, her tone softening like it did sometimes when she let the armor slip. “You doin’ this. Ma told me you show care with your hands, not your words. Guess I’m seein’ that firsthand.”

“If I don’t fix, you’ll never be able to come down off this porch.” He wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve then added, “Though I suppose that might be beneficial in some ways.”

She leaned back, grin spreading. “Bold of you to assume I require stairs. I’ve got a broom.”

He didn’t look up. “If I see your silhouette on the moon flying over my holler,” he said squarely, “I’m sendin’ the Battle Blimp after you.”

She gasped theatrically. “Oh? Loaded with what?”

He drove the nail in with one clean strike. “You’ll find out. Test me.”

“You couldn’t hit a moving witch. Too much wind resistance in that flannel.”

He grunted as a response.

She smiled at that, not all sass, there was some gratitude there, too. Then, true to form, she ruined the softness with a smirk. “Well, while you’re down there…” she began. “mind adding a little extension to the right side? Thinkin’ about buildin’ a hex garden.”

He looked at her like she’d grown horns. “You build any kind of summoning circle out here and I’m pourin’ concrete.”

“Oh come on, what if it’s just for ambiance?”

“No.”

Jules laughed, head thrown back, and the sound echoed out into the trees like mischief come home. Then she sat and watched him work in silence.

Pa was nearly done with the left side of the porch, replacing the warped boards and muttering curses under his breath about whatever knot brained cousin had nailed them in sideways to begin with. Sweat had started to bead along his brow despite the chill in the air.

Jules hadn’t moved. She was still perched on that stool, stirring something questionable and humming a tune that didn’t sound entirely of this world. The little clay goblin sat at her feet, its squat body leaned back against the doorframe like it had been there forever. Beady eyes. Crooked smile. Looked like trouble carved into red clay.

Pa had done his best to ignore it.

Until now.

He set his hammer down slowly and stood up, wiping his hands on his pants. Then he tipped his chin toward the thing. “That the same one?”

Jules didn’t look up. “Hmm?”

“That little clay goblin. The one you made last time you came around. That… thing that suspiciously got your exact spellmark etched on its spine.”

She smirked without missing a stir. “Might be.”

Pa crossed his arms. “What’s it for?”

“Decoration.”

“Bullshit.”

Jules snorted. “Well, technically it is decorative. But also protective.”

“Of what?” he asked flatly.

“Me.”

He raised a brow. “You made a protective charm… that looks like me?”

She finally met his eyes, grinning like the devil just handed her a match. “Oh, I didn’t say it looks like you. You said that.”

He stared at her. She stared right back.

“What are you plannin’ to do with it?” he asked again, slower this time, like he was preparing for some godawful answer.

Jules tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Well… mostly I just sit him at the doorway so no foolishness crosses my threshold. He’s been mighty effective too.”

Pa narrowed his eyes. “I been havin’ joint pain since you made that thing.”

“That’s your age, not my magic.” She held out the jar. “Beet juice?”

Pa waved it away. “He’s always watching. Don’t think I don’t notice.”

“Well, he don’t blink, if that’s what you’re askin’.”

“That don’t make it better.”

Jules chuckled and picked the clay goblin up gently, turning him in her hands like a prized possession.

“He don’t mean you no harm, Pa. He’s a ward. Just shaped in a way I find… familiar. Comforting.”

“Disturbing,” Pa corrected.

“You say disturbing, I say charming.”

He shook his head and turned back to his work, but not before giving the clay goblin one more cautious glance. “You enchant that thing to whisper in the night and we’re gonna have problems.”

“I’d never,” she said sweetly, placing the goblin right back by the door. “He only whispers to me.”

“Exactly my concern.”

Evening in the Cabin

Later that evening, after the sun had dipped behind the ridge and the cousins had scattered off to their chores or bunks, Pa wandered back into the main cabin. He didn’t stomp, didn’t huff, but Ma could tell from the way he set his cup down that something was chewing on him.

“She still got that little clay goblin sittin’ on her porch rail,” he said flatly. “Sittin’ there like it’s watchin’ every move I make.”

Ma stirred the pot on the stove, not looking at him yet. “Mmhm.”

“She made it to look like me. You know that, right?”

“She did,” Ma replied calmly.

He folded his arms, half-expecting some agreement, maybe even a suggestion they tell Jules to knock it off. Instead, Ma turned and gave him that measured look of hers, the kind that meant she was about to say something true, and he better hush long enough to hear it.

“She made it to protect her cabin,” Ma said gently. “You ever think maybe she sees you as the protector?”

Pa blinked.

“That little thing’s her ward, Pa. That’s what she thinks keeps danger from crossin’ her threshold. She shaped it to look like you. ’Cause even with all her wild ways and sharp words, she knows you’d never let anything hurt her, or me, or this holler.”

He stared into the fire, lips pressed thin like he was weighing something heavier than he meant to admit. Ma walked over and touched his arm.

“Could’ve made it look like a bear,” she added softly. “Or a banshee. Or a damn hex toad. But she didn’t. She made you. That ain’t mockery, Pa.”

He gave a low grunt, neither confirming nor denying his feelings, then took a slow sip of his drink. “Still creepy-lookin’,” he muttered.

Ma smiled, then turned back to her potions on the stove.

Outside, beneath a crooked porch and a sky not yet tested again, the holler settled into its new shape.

Stronger.

Louder.

A little more dangerous.