by Tegan Maher
“Your mom made some of those decorations. They’re old and precious,” she said.
Liam looked nonplussed by that argument. “Exactly. They’re old. They’re outdone and outdated. They aren’t going to win me any competitions,” he said.
“Sometimes competitions aren’t everything that matters,” I said. “Speaking of which, I was actually hoping to get your advice.”
Liam perked up so much at the word “advice” that I thought maybe it would distract him from his perceived predicament, though I wasn’t about to old my breath.
“Sorry. I know I’ve been rambling, and at the holidays everyone has a lot going on. What advice would you like?” he asked. He took another sip of coffee, then held up his hand as if he’d thought of something else significant. “Let it be known that I don’t consider myself an expert on most topics,” he offered.
Charlie grinned. “I’m certain you’re an expert on this,” she said.
“Clearly it isn’t Christmas decorations. What can I help you with?” he asked.
“Here’s the thing. I have this friend. He’s a special friend,” I said.
Liam raised his eyebrows. He picked up a cookie and brushed off a bit of the sugar topping. To be fair, there was a lot of sugar. Then he listened with rapt attention.
“My special friend isn’t happy. Satisfied, I mean,” I told him.
Liam’s eyebrows rose even further.
“Anyway, I’m trying to figure out what would make him happy. I figure that of all the times of the year, the holidays are the most important time for him to be happy,” I informed him.
Liam took another bite of his cookie and glanced at Charlie. “Really, you let her talk like this in public?” he asked.
“What on earth are you talking about?” I demanded.
Liam snickered. “You. Your special friend. Are we talking about Jasper?” he demanded.
I made a noise that I was sure was a squawking sound. Liam continued to smirk at me.
“No. That’s not what I’m talking about at all,” I said, feeling my face turn bright red. Not only that, but Charlie was doing her absolute best not to laugh, and she was downright failing. I glared at both my friends. “Maybe we should start again,” I said.
“It kind of sounds like you should start with the first time,” said Liam with a grin and a wink. Then he was quiet for a moment, until he appeared to calm down a little. “Okay, Okay,” he said at last. “Go ahead, try again.”
Charlie gave one sharp nod, and for a moment I saw a flash of the investigative reporter. Usually I saw that side of her when we were on an important case, and that made me realize that this was an important case. The Mystery of the Unhappy Ghost Cat was possibly, in fact, our most important case yet. I was even more sure of it when I saw Charlie take out her trusty investigative notebook.
“Here’s what I think,” she said, giving Liam a stern look, all business now. “We have this friend, an important friend that isn’t Jasper and has nothing to do with anything inappropriate.”
Privately, I thought that if Paws ever came to know what Charlie had said, he might take offense that she was calling him not inappropriate. I thought he sometimes tried to be edgy on purpose, just for fun, but he wasn’t here to hear her say it, so hopefully he’d never know.
“He’s unhappy,” she went on. “He’s always a bit of a grump, but it’s been worse recently. It seems to be linked to the holidays.”
“Is he having relationship problems? The holidays are notoriously difficult. If you’re single, if you’re bad at gift buying, all sorts of reasons. Infomercial break, if you’re bad at gift buying, I’ll help you at the Twinkle,” said Liam, amusement finally sneaking into his tone of voice.
Charlie jotted down some notes, examined them carefully, and finally looked up at Liam again. “We did think of that. This particular friend does have a girlfriend. We talked to her, which was necessary, but still probably an invasion of his privacy. Anyway, she has also noticed that he hasn’t been his normal self, but she didn’t think he was mad at her. She wasn’t mad at him. They weren’t fighting or anything like that,” she explained.
Liam lifted his hand to his chin and sank lower in his chair. He was now deep in thought.
Miss Violetta left with a wave, and Mrs. Barnett disappeared into the back room. We all still had coffee in our mugs, and Mrs. Barnett knew that none of us would get refills given the time of day.
“So if it isn’t girl problems, what do you think it could be?” I asked Liam after a long silence.
He held up a hand to signal that he wasn’t finished pondering the problem. I’d give him his silence, but I didn’t want to sit there bored, so naturally I picked up my third cookie. One more for the road should probably do it, but Charlie wasn’t far behind me in the cookie-eating department. We might end up having a couple of leftovers to take home with us, but not more than that. Lucky thing Greer had been hard at work making the most delicious Christmas cookies in Mintwood.
Eventually Liam spoke. “I still firmly believe it’s all about a woman. Does he have a mother or a sister?”
“No,” I said. “Not that I’m aware of.”
It was highly unlikely that Paws’s angst had anything directly to do with family members, for several obvious reasons that Liam was unaware of and could not be told about. Then again, just because family wasn’t there didn’t mean they didn’t elicit strong emotions. In fact, in the case of my grandmother, just the opposite.
“Then it’s still the girlfriend,” said Liam, sounding decisive.
“But we just told you she said they were fine,” I said.
“What does he say?”
“He seems happy with her as far as I can tell,” I said, still feeling mystified.
“You can be happy with someone and still be stressed about them, especially around the holidays. Trust me on that,” he said.
I took another big bite of cookie.
We might have had a breakthrough at last.
Liam had to return to work, and so did Charlie. There was a last-minute crisis at the Mintwood Gazette that she felt she had to be the one to deal with.
Before she left she had one more thing to say, but she waited until Liam was gone and no one else was within earshot. “Can you invade a ghost’s privacy? They are see-through, after all” she said with a shrug.
“Quotes by Charlie,” I murmured with a laugh.
After Charlie left me outside the café, I wandered around Main Street for a few minutes. We had given the leftover cookies to Liam, who said he’d need them to fuel his decoration ambitions. It was just as well for me to have the temptation removed from my reach.
As I walked, I pondered. In the end I concluded that Liam had to be right. The Mystery of the Grumpy Ghost Cat was nearing a solution, on the grounds that it had to have something to with his good relationship with Honolulu.
But what in particular? Was it worth talking to a couple more ghosts? Okay, I decided, maybe one or two more, just to see what I could find out. But I was fast running out of time, so I had to do it right away.
Serendipitously, as soon as I had come to this conclusion I saw Deacon walking toward me along Main Street. I waved, and he smiled back. He was wearing just a hoodie, no coat, which, considering how cold it was outside, I considered to be a mark of bravery. Then again, a lot of people around Mintwood went without proper coats in the winter. Either they were trying to prove how tough they were, or they were so used to the cold they didn’t notice. Or both.
Deacon had a wide grin on his face when he caught up to me. “Hey. Jasper tells me you need a ride to your place?”
Underneath the helpfulness, I knew he was eager to see his girlfriend.
“If you don't mind,” I said.
He smiled. “Not at all.”
Once we were in Deacon’s truck I yawned, pulling the cold air into my mouth and letting it sink into my lungs. My whole body was suffused with the tingling cold that only this season provided.
As Deacon drove us home, I watched out the window for all the houses that had been decorated for the season. A neighborly warmth was everywhere at this time of year, making me feel as though I was sitting next to a warm fire even if the actual temperature was bitterly cold.
Back home, I sat down by the fire and realized I was bone tired.
Coming up the porch steps to the house, I had noticed a trail of very light paw prints leading to the shed. It could have been a real cat that had left those prints, but I was sure I’d have heard about it from one of the ghosts if that were the case, and I hadn’t. That could only mean that the prints were those of a ghost.
A ghost that had something important to hide.
6
I woke up the next morning blessed with a newfound clarity. Of course Liam was right. Honolulu had given us the clue we needed. One more review of Charlie’s notes, hopefully over warmed buttered scones with hot maple cider, would solve the case.
As to whether a crime had been committed, I couldn’t be certain. Paws might have committed a crime against the season of warm tidings, but the mystery we’d solved was of a more personal nature.
Paws was sitting on his crate when I went out. The landscape was still snow-covered and the sun was shining, turning the whole vista around the farmhouse a light gold.
Slippers still covered my feet, and I had wrapped a robe around my flannel PJs. Mittens and a hat completed the look.
“You look warm,” said Paws, glancing over at me. He was calmer than I’d seen him in days, maybe because he knew there wasn’t much more time before the holidays were over and he could put whatever was bothering him behind him.
“Thanks. I am,” I said. I sat down in the rocking chair, which Jasper had cleared of snow the day before, and cradled my mug, and we kept each other company for a while.
“How was your day yesterday?” Paws asked.
“Good. Got a lot done, but I still need to wrap some presents,” I said. “How was yours?”
He looked out at the landscape. The other ghosts were huddled together a little distance from the house, talking quietly. Several Christmas trees dotted the nearby forest, and the ghosts had been discussing how to decorate them. Their plan was to do it today.
“Want to tell me what’s going on? I know it has something to do with Honolulu. You might as well just tell me either way,” I murmured.
Paws sighed. “I had hoped never to become one of your mysteries. I figured you’d just chalk up my behavior to my usual antics.”
This ghost cat was a member of my family. He’d been there for my grandmother, and he’d been here for me. I couldn’t rightly imagine my life without him, especially not at this time of year. To see him suffer made my heart hurt. I was glad that what was going on was finally coming out in the open.
“I can tell you, but not yet. It isn’t right to tell you first,” he said.
“Tell me what you can. We want you to be happy. Whatever that involves. I hope you know that, right?” The farmhouse could never be the same without him; I couldn’t stand to think something might be going on that would lead to his leaving us.
“Sure. I’ve just never cared,” he said, giving me a cattish grin as I rolled my eyes.
Then he shifted and glanced around one more time. “Let me tell you a story. It’s about my mother’s first owner. He was a treasure hunter, and one year he came home with a literal treasure chest of jewels. His whole family was ecstatic. They couldn’t believe his good fortune. All except for one. His uncle didn’t want him to give away any of the treasure, as he planned to do. My mother’s first owner wanted to help people, and he knew he didn’t need all that treasure for himself.
“His uncle murdered him in front of my mother. Years later, after she died and became a ghost, she solved the case and never told anyone but me. That treasure has never been found, but my mother knew where it was, because she had followed the uncle when he hid it.
“Outwardly he’d pretended to be sad about the demise of his nephew. On the inside he was rotten, definitely never touched by the spirit of this season. My mother made sure he never enjoyed that treasure. She managed to haunt him, which is actually difficult for a ghost. The uncle refused to tell where the treasure was, and my mother kept the secret.
“But she told me. I was just a kitten at the time, unbearably adorable, and she only made mention of it once. But I never forgot about it.
“So anyway, I know where there’s some very special jewelry. And at this time of year, I might be able to even pick it up. I’m not certain if that would be stealing. I figure it technically is, but I don’t need to give it away permanently. I just need it for a bit. That should be enough to show . . . everything. Then you can miraculously find it and make his descendants and family very happy.”
In conclusion, Paws calmed down with the telling of his tale. He had considered stealing a ring for himself—and offering it to Honolulu as a token of his affection—but even he knew it would be wrong. He had no real plans to leave Mintwood forever and ever, as he’d threatened. He also, to my shock, felt bad for ruining my holiday.
I assured him he’d done no such thing.
“When you say ‘a token of my affection,’ do you mean proposing?” I had asked. The wind blustered on the cold porch, but I didn’t feel cold. Important conversations with the most important beings in my life were, well, more important than weather.
“Proposing what?” Paws demanded.
I rolled my eyes. Let him play dumb.
We decided that the best way to go with revealing the existence of the treasure would be to inform Detective Cutter that an anonymous source had come to Charlie with information about the lost jewels. The Mintwood Gazette was only doing its duty by informing him, while also running the story. Then the descendants could get their family treasure and Charlie could get her newspaper an exclusive and generally annoy Hansen Gregory in the process, which was always a plus for her.
“I can’t believe you threatened to leave over this,” I said. “That’s the most serious threat a ghost can make.”
“It’s been weighing on me for a long time,” Paws admitted. “This Christmas everything came to a head. I’m just lucky I have family to look out for me.”
“And we’re lucky to have you,” I said, “but for a while there I thought Christmas was ruined.”
“There’s still time,” he offered, brightening slightly. “And of course you’re lucky to have me . . . that goes without saying.”
“Don’t you dare ruin Christmas now,” I scolded him.
He gave me a mischievous smile, much more like his normal self.
“I’m the Ghost cat of Mintwood and I’ll do whatever I dare! Merry Christmas.”
7
I sat in the breakfast nook the next morning watching the snow drift gently down, my eyelids heavy after how late I’d stayed up chatting with Paws. There wasn’t enough new snow to stick, but there was at least enough to form a pretty picture. The dark green trees were covered with gentle dustings of white, and the sky was the lightest shade of gray.
I was so pleased that morning. My hands were cradling a warm mug of tea, and the Christmas Mystery was solved. Paws would stay at the farmhouse, as he always should have, and at least be his usual grumpy self. That was really all we could ask for at this point.
I had honestly thought he might leave, and that would have devastated our little family. Instead he’d landed on another way to express his love for Honolulu.
I just hoped she’d say yes when he finally did propose.
Absorbed in those pleasant thoughts, I was surprised to hear the telephone ring. It was as if the ringing was off in the distance and had nothing to do with me.
Nevertheless, I scooted out of my chair and answered it.
“Lemmi?” On the other end of the line was Liam, sounding upset. And tired.
He had said he planned to stay up all night fixing his decorations, but of course that would be crazy. It was wintertime, and his deco
rations were beautiful enough already.
“You didn’t, did you?” I asked.
“Of course I did! Stay up? Yes!” He was so tired he didn’t even know what he was agreeing to at first. I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see it.
Charlie came in just then, yawning all the way. She finally had a day off, although she’d be using a lot of it to write the story of the missing treasures.
I nodded to her and went back to Liam, who was frantic because he’d heard that news of the winner was to be spread around town at nine in the morning. He had done all the work of redecorating his storefront, but the townsfolk had already made their decision.
“Of course I’m not supposed to hear who the winner is, but you’ll tell me, won’t you?”
Devastated, he wanted us to come right away. Even though he didn’t know who the winner was, he was absolutely sure that the decorations he’d put up were better than theirs.
Charlie, Greer, and I piled into the car and headed downtown, where we found Main Street buzzing. Everyone was out shopping, and the day had turned sunny and bright.
We had no idea who had won the competition, but we knew that all we had to do was go into the Daily Brew and Mrs. Barnett would show us a notecard with the winner’s name on it. We had all voted for Liam’s place, of course, and we knew very well that his late changes would end up meaning nothing.
As soon as we drove up we could see that everyone on Main Street was looking at the Twinkle Costume Shop and pointing. Some people were even covering their faces with their hands and laughing.
As Charlie parked her Volvo, all three of us stared out the car windows.
“What did he do?” Charlie demanded.
Before, Liam’s shop had been tasteful and sparkling. There had been green, red, white, and blue decorations, most of which sparkled and many of which had been made by hand, at home, over many years. His mother had once made him a real, life-sized Christmas tree out of scraps of wood and old pine needles. He had replicated it for this year, and it had stood proudly as the centerpiece of his display.