Kelly worked diligently through the morning. She worked so well and got so much cleaned that Tinker sent her on a break.

All she had to do was get him lunch, she could get her own lunch too and then go visit Sammy while he was on his lunch break. It wasn't on her schedule so she was very grateful that Tinker would offer this up to her. Kelly rushed all the way over to Veera's Cafe, she had never been so excited to have a work break in her life.

She thought that, since it was lunch, the place would be busy but there wasn't a line that Kelly could see, but there was one customer. The Candy witch, talking to someone who was busy with an oven. So Kelly went to look into the display case to pick out something delicious to eat. She had worked up an appetite after all. Her happily distracted smile didn't last though, once she saw what was inside.

There were cupcakes with eyeball toppings, pudding with wriggling worms, cookies with flies glued on them, sandwiches made of meats that looked unidentifiable and like it might still be breathing. Kelly shot up suddenly worried if there were anything edible for humans here and when she looked up, she saw a woman smiling happily at her.

This was obviously the chef, the one who had been busy with the oven. Except she looked like a pig. Not in the overweight sense, even though she was, but in the fact that she had a pink sort of complexion, a pig like nose and a pair of floppy pig ears. Kelly couldn't help it, she yelped. The woman looked so hurt for a moment that Kelly felt bad.

"I'm so sorry!" Kelly cried. "I'm still getting used to everything...."

"Oh don't you worry about it, I know that I'm not a peach to look at," the woman said.

"No! It's not that. You just startled me and I wasn't expecting... and... at least I didn't try to kick you or run away screaming," Kelly muttered and it got the woman to laugh.

"Aw hon, don't worry about it. I'm Veera, I own this café. And let me tell you I do have things that even you would like to eat. I figure you're here for Tinker right?" she asked. Kelly nodded and Veera went about making up a box for him. "Don't worry, I know what he wants. And I'm guessing you're a chicken parm sandwich with a few cookies on the side for you and your youngin' kind a girl."

Kelly smiled at her. "Yeah, yes, that sounds wonderful. Uhm... but I..."

"Yes we all know. Work for trade, this one's on Franklin though," she told her.

Kelly's face fell. "Oh is it?" she snarled. "Let me guess, last night?"

Veera seems surprised by her sudden attitude change. "No, he came by this morning," Veera told her. When Kelly scoffed at her she began to frown. "Dear me, you two really have gotten off on the wrong foot. Usually that handsome face of his works all the charms on the new girls but word on the street is that you see right through that mask of his, it's why I didn't put mine one for yah. No wonder you have him all flustered."

"I don't have him flustered! He's a maniac! He nearly killed me."

"Oh, come now. Yes, he has some temper issues but I doubt he seriously hurt you. And if he did, I bet you he feels mighty bad about it. Boy has a heart of gold underneath all that dead skin," Veera said. She then turned and went about packing up lunch.

Kelly scowled as Veera went about her work. She didn't want to distract her but she wanted to argue. Why did everyone want to push the whole "Franklin is wonderful" ideal on her? She got it. He was nice, he paid for a lot of things, but Kelly knew first hand that there wasn't enough money in the world to fix certain things, to make her forget what had happened. Her step-mother had tried that and it hadn't worked for her and it wasn't going to work for Franklin. Kelly could not be bought.

Veera handed Kelly the package. "I packed an extra two cookies, on me, for the little tyke, you be sure to bring him in here next chance you get so we can get our meeting out of the way, you hear?" she said and Kelly found that Veera's infectious smile had her smiling again. "And in all seriousness, I really do hope you give Franklin a second chance. He's just a mite bit nervous and that's probably why he's acting so squirrely around you."

Kelly thanked her regardless of the fact that she didn't like the advice. She didn't like that it implied that Franklin only acted this strange around her. She carefully carried Tinker's meal back to his shop and set it out for him while he was whittling out a new pair of shoes. It was a warmed roast beef sandwich, with fries on the side and a carton of milk. He thanked her for her kindness, for getting the meal ready for him and even opening up the carton of milk for him and then sent her on her way.

Kelly practically sprinted to the daycare. She sat herself down at the picnic table on the other side of the small fenced off playground and waved Sammy over who came rushing away from the other kids. There were two girls, one looking to be covered and feathers, the other had cat ears and a tail. And then there were two other boys, one which seemed to be a mummy as he was wrapped up in bandages, the other, while his hair was a bit shaggy, looking quite normal.

"Whatcha doing here?" he asked her.

Kelly took out her own lunch, which was exactly what Veera said it would be, a chicken parmesan sandwich, she also got fries and a carton of milk. She took out the cookies for Sammy and held them out. "I got a break from work and they said I could come and eat with you. Is that okay?"

Kelly knew that Sammy was getting to that age when having the doting big sister or mother figure around was embarrassing. She had been lucky with the runaway situation as it meant he couldn't be that embarrassed by her because she was the only familiar face around. She waited to hear what he'd say to this proposition and was rewarded with a smile from him as he sat down beside her.

"That's great!" he cried before turning his head and waving his friends over. "Come and meet my sister!"

And then suddenly Kelly was surrounded by little kids all clamouring to talk to her. She ended up having to split the cookies between them all, good thing that she wasn't that hungry. They let Kelly eat as they shared her cookies and her fries and as soon as it looked like Kelly wasn't chewing again she'd get a question.

"Is it true that you can see Magic?"

"Did you really stab Mayor Franklin in the back?"

"Do you have a curse?"

"How did you piss off the grumpy witch?"

They were all very good questions ones, she wasn't certain how to answer. She thought very carefully before saying: "Yes, no it was his chest, no and I don't know..."

She was met with a chorus of surprised cries of excitement that was followed by another round of questions all fired at her way too fast in an overlap of cheery, many voices all talking at once. Kelly smiled at all of the happy faces so overwhelmed by the noise to notice that someone else was approaching them. That was until all the happy chatter stopped and the children suddenly screamed and scampered away, including Sammy.

Kelly watched them all run back to their play toys, each hiding under various park equipment, such as slides and monkey bars and then a great shadow descended upon her. She turned and found Franklin towering above her, glaring down at her, his massive bulk blocking the sun in the sky.

"What are you doing here?" he snapped.

Kelly calmly closed the carton of her take-away meal and said stiffly: "Tinker gave me a break so I came to eat my lunch with Sammy."

Perfectly logical enough, Kelly thought, but by the twisting of Franklin's face into a mask of pure rage she realized that he did not think so. "That wasn't on the itinerary. You should have stayed with Tinker."

Kelly stood abruptly put her hands on her hips as she glared up at him. "Well... than you should have specified!" she shouted.

"I am specifying now!" Franklin shouted. "Go back to Tinker's until you have to go to Madame Silk's and if you wander off again, I'll lock you in my personal chambers!"

"Ugh! Fine!" she cried. Kelly whirled around and grabbed her discarded meal, she blew a kiss at Sammy, who popped up from behind the bush he was hiding behind and waved, before turning and storming away.

She heard Franklin following her and she whirled around again. "You don't need to shadow me! I was going to go back anyway once I was done eating!"

"I'm only doing this for your own good. We've got some dangerous animals in the area!" Franklin argued.

Kelly snapped at this point. "The only thing that's dangerous in this area is you!"

Franklin took a step back, he regarded her as if she had just slapped him. He looked so hurt, so insulted that Kelly actually felt bad. Maybe she had gone a little too far with that one jab, maybe he really did think he was looking out for her best interests. Before she could even consider throwing out a lame apology Franklin pushed past her and stormed back towards his abode/place of work and left her in the dust.

Kelly felt awful against her better judgement. Everyone else in this town had been really nice to her and maybe Franklin was trying to be nice too but just didn't know how. Maybe he was one of those people who had a real hard time socializing, couldn't be easy making friends as a zombie if everyone assumed he would be eating them at one point.

Kelly shook her head. No, she shouldn't feel bad, this wasn't her fault. She wasn't about to be pulled into some Stockholm Syndrome situation with her captor, no matter how nice he and the rest of this town were being.

Kelly forced herself to turn around and walk away before she acted on the unnatural desire to run after Franklin and apologize. As she walked she stewed. How dare he demand that she not go on the simplest of breaks? She hadn't been trying to run, obviously, she was sitting on a picnic bench just eating lunch and talking to kids? What had been so bad about that? And dangerous animals her foot. If there were such dangerous animals around why were the kids outside unattended? In fact why were they unattended at all? Shouldn't there have been a lunch guard or something? Wasn't that a standard thing at schools? She would definitely have to inquire about that.

She found herself walking slowly back to Tinker's. Not because the work was hard, but because technically her break wasn't over and she wanted to enjoy the crisp fall atmosphere. Soon she'd need to get Sammy a winter coat, and probably something for herself too, unless she got out of this area and into Texas like panned where the winter was warm and she wouldn't have to worry about anything but rednecks.

There was a sudden tolling of a bell. Kelly found herself frozen in the street, the deserted street. She figured there wasn't much foot traffic in this town so it couldn't be because of the traffic. She looked around, all the shop doors were closed, and for some reason all the blinds were drawn down the windows. She hadn't noticed a church like building when she first entered the town and now Kelly was very curious about where that church could be now and why its bells were ringing. It seemed odd to her that a bunch of people cursed by an evil witch would want to go into a church.

It wasn't until the shadow descended on her that Kelly realized that she was in danger. She looked up and saw a giant bird descending, probably the size of a bear. The bottom half was bird, the top half was a human female, except from the shoulder down where she had long wings. She had the same dark hawk like colors that she had seen on the girl in the day care and she wore no shirt to cover her bare chest.

Yes, Kelly was terrified and that was probably contributing to the frozenness of her state but she was also suddenly blinded by the ring of pink sparkles circling the creature's neck.

Kelly couldn't move.

She could only watch as that thing descended down on her realizing that she was probably going to die before she could get her and Sammy out of this deluded town.

Kelly squeezed her eyes shut waiting for the claws to dig into her skin but all that came was a sudden heavy body colliding into her, throwing her down into the dirt. Followed quickly by a grunt of what must have been pain and in-human screech.

Kelly waited in the dirt underneath the chest of this heavy thing, listening to a heart pound faintly behind her head until she realized that was the heavy beat of wings fading into the distance. Whatever was on top of her had no heartbeat.

It got off of her and when Kelly turned around a breathless looking Franklin was on his knees in front of her, staring off at the Harpy's disappearing figure in the sky. It took Kelly a while but it finally dawned on her that Franklin had saved her from whatever that creature thing had been. She still wasn't sure if it was really a Harpy but it wouldn't surprise her now.

When Franklin turned back to look at her he was angry again, "What is the matter with you?" he thundered. "Didn't you hear the warning bell?"

Kelly felt a sudden dam inside her break. All the fear, all the rage and anxiety had burst inside her and she found herself very embarrassingly blinking back tears. "Well I didn't know it was a warning bell now did I?" she snapped to him and to her utter humiliation one tear slid down her face.

Franklin who had gotten to his feet stared at her with what seemed to be complete shock on his face. He offered her a hand to help her up but Kelly slapped it away from her. She wiped that damning tear from her face and then got herself up. She dusted herself off painstakingly slowly to mask the fact that her legs were still shaking and she could topple over at any moment and then forced herself to glare at him even though tears were brimming in her eyes.

"I don't need your help!" she snarled being sure to put as much malice behind that your as she could muster before turning her back on him and walking as straight as she could with wobbly legs back into Tinkers.

She shut the door behind her, she noticed that Tinker and the woman from across the street—Madame Silk with the spider legs—were standing together by his desk and staring at her. Kelly shot a glance over her shoulder to check that she was out of Franklin's sight before collapsing to the dusty floor and breaking into the sobs she had been holding back since last night.

She cried into her hands letting the weakness she had been trying to hide overcome her as the two people watching came over to pat her back and whisper kind and soothing words to her. She let them, too exhausted to fight it anymore.