The Accidental Troll Read online

  The Accidental Troll

  Dakota Cassidy

  Dakota Cassidy

  Copyright

  The Accidental Troll

  Published 2020 by Dakota Cassidy

  ASIN: B088FGB9M6

  Copyright © 2020, Dakota Cassidy

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Book Boutiques.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, locales, or events is wholly coincidental. The names, characters, dialogue, and events in this book are from the author’s imagination and should not to be construed as real.

  Manufactured in the USA.

  Acknowledgements

  Cover Art: Katie Woods

  * * *

  Editor Kelli Collins

  Author’s Note

  The Accidental Troll

  * * *

  Darling readers,

  * * *

  If you’re still with me, I don’t even know how to express my gratitude that we’ve made it to book nineteen and you continue to come back for more. There’s no word I can craft, no sentence I can create to properly thank you all.

  I don’t know what’s left to turn into at this point, but I somehow keep managing to find something. So as long as you guys keep coming back, and I can keep accidentally turning someone’s life upside down, I’m all in.

  On that note, a huge thanks to two of the many fine people who drop by my Facebook page on the daily, Jen Gray and Shelly Rosenbaum. They both threw the name Murphy into the hat for my heroine—and Murphy it shall be! And to my BFF, Renee George, who lets me talk my plot problems out when I’m stuck.

  Also, do note, all locations and names of towns, mythology and legends are mostly fictional because as always, I’ve taken artistic license to a new and as-yet-undiscovered height.

  A huge thank you to Bethney Anthis for an idea so genius, I should have let her write this book!

  And lastly, I hope this book finds you and your families safe and well during this unprecedented time in our world. I hope the Accidental girls and their tribe bring you just a little bit of relief from the exhaustion and helplessness we’re all feeling during such dire circumstances.

  Much love and good health to all!

  * * *

  Dakota XXOO

  Chapter 1

  “Nova! Stop dillydallying, would you? That aggressive, dare I say snarly woman, Nina Blackman, said if we wanted her help, we had to get over here pronto and follow her strict instructions to the letter. Do you want to miss our chance to get you some help? Because we need help. We need so much help, and the woman on the phone didn’t sound like the kind of person who suffers fools.”

  Boy, if that wasn’t ever the truth. When Murphy had called the toll-free number, a number she’d found on an absolute desperate whim of a Google search for unlikely paranormal occurrences, she’d been as shocked as anyone that a place like OOPS existed.

  Out in the Open Paranormal Support. That’s what it stood for. Or oops, I think I’ve had a supernatural accident, rolled into a cute little acronym. Whoever had thought up that little gem won life, as far as she was concerned.

  The question was, were these people who ran this operation OOPS a bunch of kooks, or were these people who ran this operation a bunch of kooks?

  That very important question aside, the woman who’d answered the phone had sounded anything but the kind of helpful the website advertised. In fact, she’d sounded ragey and irritated Murphy had the nerve to call at all—even though the website said they were available 24/7 for all your paranormal mishaps.

  But someone had to appease the beast that was her sister, the great Nova LaRue. Whose name, by the way, wasn’t really Nova LaRue at all, but plain old Dina Umanski from a dinky town in rural Vermont, who’d changed her name, her lifestyle, her lips, and her boobs when she’d become an Instagram star.

  Frowning, Murphy—who was still a plain old Umanski—tried to remember all of the instructions the woman had rattled off before she’d hung up the phone as though she wanted all of the outer regions of Siberia to hear her do it.

  “Okay. I think I remember. First, that lady Nina said we have to knock three times on the door.”

  Nova rasped an angry sigh, the cold night air puffing out from between her lips in a cloud. “She also said to mimic the call of a whippoorwill, Murphy, and—”

  “And do the Wobble. I know, I know.” Murphy ran a hand through her hair and scratched her head. “But what other choices do we have, Dina? Where else can we turn?”

  Her sister grabbed her arm and pinched it, making her wince. Despite her new diminutive size, her sister could still pack a wallop of a pinch.

  “Stop calling me Dina out loud, for shit’s sake, Murphy! I’ve only officially been Nova for three years now. Yet you insist on using my former frumpy-dumpy name. It’s Nova, and that’s what it’s going to be forever and ever. Got it? Dina Umanski from stupid Greenhill, Vermont, is dead!”

  Only her sister would care more about the use of her old name from her former life than the precarious predicament they were in—and this was nothing if not a predicament.

  In fact, it was bigger than a predicament. She just couldn’t find the right word for what had occurred in the last four or five hours since Nova had been quietly tucked away in her office—maybe the word for what happened hadn’t even been crafted yet. But it would be something along the lines of holyshitandatsunamithisisreallyfuckedup.

  Eyeing her sister, which wasn’t an easy task to do without busting a gut in laughter, Murphy rasped her own sigh. “Fine, Nova. Whatever. Either way, do you want to pass up the chance that this woman Nina is going to turn us away because we didn’t do what she asked us to do? Because I’m running out of options here.”

  Murphy eyed the front door of the mansion her GPS had directed them to—or maybe this could be better defined as a castle. In the middle of Long Island, no less, with its turrets, fancy bush sculptures, ominous front door and, if she was seeing correctly, a hedge maze in the backyard.

  A hedge maze.

  It looked like it had been sprung directly from a Castlevania video.

  The enormous house, in the middle of a very suburban neighborhood in Long Island, looked ridiculously out of place compared to its counterparts dotting the subdivision on two- and three-acre lots.

  There were lots of farmhouse-style structures with wide porches, a couple of mid-century moderns, and even a stately colonial. But nothing stood up to this ominous stone structure under the purple-black sky of almost midnight.

  This OOPS had to be some kind of joke, but it was a joke Murphy was hesitantly willing to investigate because there was no one else to ask for help. How could she call 9-1-1 and say, “Help! My sister, a onetime reed-thin, trendsetting, to-die-for Instagram model has turned into…”

  Murphy cringed at the visual of what her sister had turned into. She couldn’t even say the word out loud—mostly because she didn’t know what the word for what Nova had turned into was.

  But pish-posh. The point remained, she couldn’t call 9-1-1. They’d haul her sister off to some science lab at Nassau or Area 51 or wherever all good science experiments went when they were discovered by the government so fast, it’d break all land speed records.

  And that was the final answer. No 9-1-1. Also, the last thing they needed was for one of Nova’s thirty million fans to get wind of this on the Gram. She needed some kind of anonymity to protect her, and if big ambulances and police cars showed up with lots of flashing lights and ruckus, and first responders
happened to see Murphy, and were familiar with the fact that she was Nova’s sister/assistant, and they took a picture and posted it?

  They were sunk.

  And sure, not everyone knew who Nova LaRue was—despite the fact she was featured on the news and splashed across the Internet on the reg— or the fact that Nova herself thought she was a household name. But if there was just one nosy sixteen-year-old girl lurking about this neighborhood, they were doomed.

  Which brought Murphy back to her previous thought. Anonymity. She couldn’t help but think deeper about whom she’d chosen to contact to help them.

  What if this OOPS was akin to TMZ, or the Daily Mail, and this was all some hokey front to draw in fools dumb enough to fall for something as crazy as a group called Out in the Open Paranormal Support? This would undoubtedly beat any story they could concoct about Kim Kardashian and her ass implants.

  Nova tugged on her arm with a violent shiver. “Okay, fine. I’ll do whatever we have to in order to make this better. So are we going to do the Wobble or what? Let’s get on with this, Murphy. It’s stupid cold out and I hate the island. Haaate. The only island I want to be on is either tropical or called Manhattan.”

  That had always been the goal. Since Nova was ten years old. Live in a high-rise in Manhattan, drink champagne every day, be rich. She’d gotten her wish. In spades. Sometimes at the expense of those who loved her. But that was another story entirely.

  “Murphy!” her sister hissed with lispy impatience. “I said I’d do it. So, can we please do this?”

  Now that Nova was onboard, Murphy wasn’t sure if the Wobble was such a good idea after all. Not only did it sound like a ridiculous requirement for aid in their plight, it would look ridiculous if the neighbors saw them dancing around wiggling their asses in this person’s driveway.

  And who said this was really that Nina woman’s driveway, anyway? It didn’t show up as hers on Google. It showed up as some Greg guy’s house. These people could be having a good laugh at their expense.

  But really, Murph, what choice do you have?

  She puffed up her cheeks and blew out a breath. “Can you even do the Wobble, Nova? I mean…like that? I don’t want to point out the obvious, but look at your…” Murphy bit her tongue.

  No. She couldn’t say it. She wouldn’t say it. It was too unreal, too unspeakable to say out loud.

  Nova waved a hand at Murphy’s phone in a gesture that said get on with it. “Just play it on your phone, would you? It’s not like we have a lot of choices here, Murphy. I mean, look at me!” she sobbed and grated a sigh.

  Who could help but look?

  That Nova was willing to degrade herself by doing the Wobble in this condition should say it all, but if anyone saw…

  “Murphy!” she cried again, stomping her square little foot against the brick driveway.

  “Well, wait a second, would you? Do you remember if she said there was an order to how we should do it? Because if this is some sort of password, like when you’re trying to get to a certain point in a video game, then we have to do it in the right order.” Frowning, Murphy shook her head.

  The one time when she wasn’t frantically taking notes or talking into her phone to keep track of all the things Nova needed keeping track of in her crazy life, would be the one time Murphy really screwed up something and there’d be no turning back.

  Not that she hadn’t screwed things up before—but if she screwed this up, it could be detrimental to helping her sister.

  Nova grabbed at her phone, yanked it from her hand and began to scroll the screen. “Who cares? Let’s just get it the hell over with!”

  Murphy swiped it back from her, holding it to her chest. “I care, Nova! And it’ll be my head on a platter if this goes ass end up. I’m the one who pays. Or are you forgetting the weeks’ worth of hell you gave me the last time I made a mistake and forgot to invite Taylor Swift to your birthday party?”

  Nova let her now oddly oversized head fall back on her shoulders. “That wasn’t just a mistake, Murph. That was all-out war as far as the tabs were concerned.”

  Murphy jabbed her freezing index finger in the air. “Exactly my point, and you didn’t let the tabs forget it was me who forgot—which turned into a whole narrative, memes included, for an entire week about how jealous I am and how I tried to sabotage your party because you’re prettier and thinner than me.”

  “Forget the tabs, Murphy!” Nova screeched into the chilly night, her mouth opening wide (so wide it was freakish). “Turn the damn music on!”

  “All right, but remember whose idea this was, because after some careful consideration of the fallout we’ll experience if this gets out, I’ve decided it isn’t mine. I think we should strategize more before we make a move.”

  Nova threw her stubby arms and fingers toward the sky. “Stop obsessing, would you? Jesus. Look, I don’t remember if there was an exact order. That lady barked so much stuff at us, I lost track. Just turn on the song and let’s do it. I’ll do the dance and you do the bird call.”

  “But what if we have to do both at the same time?”

  Damn. She should have asked more questions. She always asked questions. It was what she did. She was the details of this outfit. Details were her specialty.

  “Murphyyy!” Nova yelled and stomped her foot again. “Just do the bird call, for Christ’s sake!”

  With resignation, Murphy held up the phone and pressed play on “Wobble.” As the music started, Nova began to dance.

  Oh, oh, oh, oh! All the shawtys in the club (let me see you just). Back it up, drop it down (let me see you just). Get low and scrub the ground (let me see you just). Push it up, push it up (let me see you just).

  Wobble baby, wobble baby, wobble baby, wobble!

  “Get in there! Yeah! Yeah!” Nova yelled in her tinny voice.

  As her sister did the familiar dance, Murphy had to look away or she was going to collapse to the ground from hysterical laughter. Watching her sister bouncing around, her transformed body gyrating, it was all she could do not to screech like a hyena or curl up in a corner with a bottle of wine and some Xanax.

  “Murphy! Knock on the door then do the call of the whippoorwill!” Nova ordered, panting as she rolled her nonexistent hips.

  A whippoorwill. What the hell did a whippoorwill even sound like?

  Yet, clearly Nova wasn’t concerned about whether they were doing this right, so Murphy decided to do the best imitation of a bird she knew how to do as she knocked three times on the solid wood door.

  When she looked to Nova, who was Wobbling to save her soul, her sister hissed, “Do it!”

  Well, okay.

  “Ca-caw! Ca-caw!” she squawked, moving in a circle, her legs stiff from the cold. “Ca-caw!”

  And as the Wobble played and Murphy screeched like a bird, flapping her arms with wide motions, the door to Castlevania opened and probably the most beautiful woman Murphy had ever seen—easily a hundred times more beautiful than Nova—poked her head out.

  Her hair, dark and shiny, cascaded in soft layers around her face to fall well past her breasts. Her almond-shaped eyes, black as coal, glittered. Her lean body and long limbs, covered in a hoodie and jeans, took a step outside the door and onto the porch.

  She was followed by a gorgeous blonde with soft features, sapphire-blue eyes and shiny bangle bracelets on her wrist, and another elegant woman with chestnut-brown hair in a wispy bun on the back of her head, who smoothed a hand over her slim pencil skirt and adjusted her mosaic-print scarf.

  Both she and Nova had stopped all movement, , their mouths open, puffy clouds of condensation forming as they panted for breath and “Wobble” continued to play, echoing in the dark night.

  And that was when the surreally beautiful brunette began to laugh. Literally, she bent at the waist and snorted.

  Well, actually, it wasn’t really a laugh.

  The better description for it was probably cackling.

  Yes. She was definitely cackling.<
br />
  Which meant they’d probably been had, and this mess would be splashed all over E! by tomorrow morning.

  Fuck-fuck-fuckity-fuck.

  Chapter 2

  The gorgeous blonde planted her hands on her hips and glared at the incredible-looking brunette. “Nina! You did this, didn’t you? Jesus and a fruitcake. Shame! Shame on you, Mistress of the Dark!”

  Murphy didn’t register much of what the blonde said, but “Mistress of the Dark” did stick.

  What an odd nickname.

  The other elegant woman looked at the blonde, her brow furrowed. “What are you talking about, Marty?”

  Marty’s eyes narrowed in the direction of the brunette named Nina and then she pinched her arm, making her snarl. “She knows exactly what I mean, don’t you, Nina? For pity’s sake, Wanda, don’t you remember the last time someone called the OOPS line and we were here instead of the office? We were having girls’ night, just like tonight. The one where Nina complained the whole time because we wanted to binge Love is Blind on Netflix, and she threw a fit and called us ‘shallow fucking voyeurs.’”

  Wanda squeezed her temples and squinted. “She calls us so many names, it all rather blurs after a while, doesn’t it?”

  Marty barked a laugh. “Not a lie, but how could you forget what she made those people who just wanted help with their poor wendigo do, Wanda?”

  Wanda gasped as she looked at Murphy and Nova and snapped her fingers. “The Macarena…” she mumbled, placing a delicately boned hand over her mouth. “I forgot about that! The last time someone called, Nina made them do the Macarena and make zebra noises in order to gain entry, like this is some kind of club with a secret handshake.”

  Marty nodded, her glistening blonde hair falling around her face in soft waves. “Uh-huh. That poor guy was out here, frantically scouring the Internet to find out what kind of noise a zebra makes.”