by N. M. Howell
“I was seriously considering going,” he said. “But Brett called and wanted to go fishing, so I decided to go with him. The gala wasn’t until tomorrow, anyway. I couldn’t stop thinking about the damn gala, though, when we were away.”
I shrugged but said nothing. I still couldn’t believe that he was out fishing when I honestly thought he was dead. I could sense another outburst coming. I wasn’t particularly emotionally stable, apparently.
Oh, and there it came. “I thought you were dead! You weren’t answering your phone!” My breathing quickened as another bout of anxiety came on. “You went fishing, and I thought you had been kidnapped and murdered.”
Jordan placed his hands on my shoulders to calm me down. “River, it’s okay. I’m okay, everyone’s okay. You can’t let yourself get worked up about something that could have happened. If what you guys have told me is right, we have to focus our energy on the future to make sure no one else gets hurt.”
I nodded. He was right, of course. He always was.
“Yeah, I know,” I sighed. “You just have no idea what I’ve been going through the last few hours.”
“I’m sorry.” Jordan pulled back onto the street and continued to drive towards my house. Luckily Brimstone Bay was a fairly small town, and we didn’t live too far from one another.
“How did you get into my house, anyway?” Jordan laughed.
I scrunched my face, trying to come up with some better explanation that avoided the whole breaking in thing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with anything clever.
“Window,” I muttered. I looked down at my feet and realized I was still wearing my slippers. In the mad panic of leaving the house to find Jordan earlier on, I totally forgot to put on my boots.
“All the lower winders were locked,” Jordan answered. He looked amused.
I was glad at least someone was having a good time. I rolled my eyes.
“Upper window,” I muttered again.
Jordan laughed. “You mean you climbed up through the upstairs window? I would have loved to have seen that.”
“It wasn’t a particularly graceful experience,” I commented.
Jordan shook his head and laughed. “You’re probably the clumsiest person I know. I can only imagine what you would have looked like climbing up the side of my house.”
I glowered. “Whatever. Just drive.”
He reached his arm around me and squeezed my shoulder. “Relax, River. We’re all together. We’re all okay. Everything will be okay.”
I hoped he was right.
A few minutes later, Jordan pulled his car up my driveway and parked right behind Rory’s. He walked around to the passenger side and took my hand as we walked into the house together.
My mood instantly lifted when I saw the look on his face as we walked into Mrs. Brody’s apartment.
“It looks like Christmas threw up in here,” he said. His eyes were darting from the Christmas tree to the massive pile of cookies on the table, then back again to the Christmas tree and the stockings lying out in front of the fire.
His eyes lingered on the pile of Mrs. Brody’s old socks that were still out, but to his credit he didn’t even question it. He had gotten to know us all pretty well over the past few months, and he had grown to expect strange things.
“I know, it’s a bit much,” I said. “But there's a method to our madness.”
Jordan took off his snowy boots, but as I was already in my slippers, so I just dried them off on the mat and then led Jordan to the couch.
“We’re trying to jog the ghosts’ memories,” Rory said.
She came to join us and sat down cross-legged on the floor near the fire.
“Where are the ghosts now?” Jordan asked.
I glanced around the room but didn’t see any sight of them. Mrs. Brody and Mrs. Pots were busy working away in the kitchen, organizing preparations for breakfast for something, by the looks of it. Jane and Bailey were at the kitchen table, helping out by eating the cookies. Sarah and Peter, though, weren’t anywhere to be seen.
“I’m not sure. They’re not here at the moment.”
Jordan nodded and seemed to relax a bit, which made me smirk. “Uncomfortable around ghosts?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know, never been around them before.”
I thought back to the many times he’d come over to the house where Mrs. Brody’s spirit friends were hanging around as well. I kept my mouth shut, though, as I didn’t want to upset him. It must be strange knowing there's another entity in the same room as you and not being able to see or sense them.
“So, how exactly is Christmas stuff supposed to jog their memories?”
Rory began explaining our whole theory behind the tradition and memory thing as Mrs. Brody brought over a tray of eggnog and cookies. I grabbed a large mug and moaned into it as I sipped the thick, sweet rum-filled drink. Mrs. Brody knew exactly what I needed, and I sat there in silence sipping from the mug as Rory carried on with her story.
Jordan tried to politely pass on the eggnog, but Mrs. Brody insisted and placed a mug in front of him as well.
“We should all get some sleep,” I yawned. “At least a few hours before tomorrow.”
“Oh!” Bailey bounded into the living room with her arms in the air, signaling for me to wait. “Hold on, I’ve got one for you, too!” She beamed at Jordan, then ran from the room and through the door leading upstairs.
Jordan stared after her with his eyebrow raised, but Rory and I knew exactly what she was up to.
A moment later, she bounded back into the room carrying an exceptionally massive green stocking, complete with sewn on silvery garland and the name ‘Jordan’ spelled across the front in red paint.
“Here,” Bailey said. “Add it to ours in front of the fire before we all go to bed.”
A smile spread across Jordan’s face as she tossed him the stocking.
I watched as he added his enormous stocking to the collection on the floor, and couldn’t help but smile.
“Welcome to the family.”
10
Mrs. Brody allowed Jordan and I to sleep up in my room, given that there really wasn’t much room on the floor in her place. I supposed having an ex-cop as a boyfriend had its advantages.
Well, apart from the whole ex-cop missing person thing.
We were woken up not long after falling asleep, it seemed, by banging noises coming up from below the floor, and I could faintly hear Bailey’s voice coming through the floorboards shouting that breakfast was ready.
I yawned and stretched and reluctantly rolled out of bed and put a new pair of slippers on. My favorite ones I wore last night got pretty filthy wearing then out of the house like I did. Idiot.
I smiled down at Jordan who could barely open his eyes. This was the first time that he had spent the night.
Not that anything had happened, mind you. But it was nice seeing how comfortable he was staying over. It made my worrying about him wanting to break up with me and go to the gala without me seem like such a stupid thing.
“Come on,” I said as I reached for his hand. “Breakfast is ready, and we don’t want to keep the girls waiting.”
I tried to pull his arm, but he was stronger, and he managed to pull me back into bed. He kissed me and then playfully pushed me off the bed.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Can I shower first?”
I shrugged. “If you must. I’ll be downstairs. There’s a coffee with my name on it, and I don’t want to keep it waiting.”
I rummaged through my closet and found a spare towel and threw it on him as I left the room. “Don’t take too long,” I called back to him.
“I won’t,” he laughed.
I paused and turned at the door. “And don’t sneak away for any galas or anything, okay?”
He winked at me, and I grinned. “Go get your coffee. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
I left him to his privacy and went down to join the girls downstairs. Mrs. Brody was furious
ly working away in the kitchen, flipping pancakes and poking at the sausages on the stove.
I immediately walked up to the counter and poured myself a large mug of hot coffee before joining the girls at the kitchen table.
“Merry Christmas,” Rory beamed.
“Merry Christmas,” I replied.
Everyone else in the room repeated the words as well.
I glanced around. “Where’d Mrs. Pots go?”
Mrs. Brody spoke without even taking a moment's pause from her work. “She left an hour ago. Going to her sister’s for Christmas day to spend time with her nephew.”
“Mrs. Brody let her leave, given the fact that we know she’s not in any danger,” Bailey smirked.
“You, on the other hand,” Jane said, “aren’t leaving our sight.”
I sipped my coffee and smiled. “I’ve got nowhere to go just yet, so I’m all yours.”
I looked around the room and noticed even more decorations has been strung up. “When the heck did you find the time to do this?”
Bailey laughed. “There are twenty-four usable hours in every day!”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, but many of those are meant for sleeping. You do know that, right?”
“Not at Christmas,” Bailey scoffed. “Can’t be wasting any precious time!”
Bailey was positively radiant, and there wasn’t a dark circle under her eyes or anything. I had no idea how she did it, but that girl really was Wonder Woman.
I admired her work, then nearly jumped in my seat as I noticed Sarah and Peter standing around the Christmas tree.
“Oh, hello!” I called to them. “Merry Christmas.”
Sarah beamed back at me and waved. “Merry Christmas! We were just admiring your ornaments. How did you manage to make them change like this?”
I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, so I went to join them by the tree to look.
The hanging ball ornaments had photographs of us on them, and each one changed or moved as you looked at it. There was one of Mrs. Brody, back when she had pink hair, on an ornament near the bottom that waved up at me when I looked at it. I reluctantly waved back, then glanced over toward Mrs. Brody in the kitchen.
She took no notice, and I figured the ornaments must have been spelled.
Bailey joined us and had a massive grin spread across her face. “Like it?” she asked. “I came up with the idea last night.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I think you may have had too much eggnog.”
I lifted an ornament with an image of Soot on it, and the cat in the photograph was trying to paw the next ornament over. Luckily, he couldn’t reach and was restricted to the surface of the decoration he was painted on.
“Where are the cats, anyway?” I asked.
“Getting into trouble somewhere, I’d imagine,” Bailey said.
Jordan came down the stairs just then, and we all turned towards him as he stepped into the room.
“Merry Christmas,” all the girls shouted at him at once.
He laughed cheerfully and wished them all a Merry Christmas in turn.
He came to join us at the Christmas tree, and I showed him the ornaments Bailey had made. The look on his face made me laugh. He looked like a small child meeting Santa for the first time. The wonder and amazement in his eyes warmed my heart, and I couldn’t help but pull him in for a tight hug.
“This is incredible,” he said into my hair.
I squeezed him then pushed him away so I could look at him. “Oh, you haven’t seen anything, yet.”
He raised his eyebrow, but before I could warn him about what sort of Christmas craziness my housemates were capable of, Mrs. Brody called us into the kitchen for breakfast.
The cookies had mostly been put away, apart from some amazing looking chocolate balls that Rory insisted were a necessary part of Christmas breakfast. Trays of sausage, pancakes, bagels, and a whole ton of other strange things were scattered across the table. It was enough food to feed the entire neighborhood.
Just as we sat down, the cats paraded into the room. I grinned at Soot as he came and sat on the floor at my feet. He could smell the food, the little brat.
“You only love me for my food,” I said to him as I scratched his ears. He purred into my hand, and I ‘accidentally’ dropped a piece of sausage on the floor for him to eat. He chomped into it with his mouth and padded away towards the fireplace, where he settled down to eat it. That cat really seemed more like a dog, at times. No wonder I was so fond of him.
When I turned my attention back to the table after watching Soot, I nearly spat out my coffee.
Everyone else was maintaining a straight face, focusing on their breakfasts, but I couldn’t help but stare. Jordan’s hair had gone from a light sandy blond to a bright Red with streaks of green.
He raised his eyebrows at me as I gaped at him, but I pursed my lips together to refrain from laughing as Jane kicked my leg from under the table.
“What are you looking at?” Jordan asked.
I shook my head and shrugged. “Nothing, sorry. Just thought I saw a ghost.”
Jordan immediately looked behind himself to check, not that he would have been able to see a ghost anyway. I kept Sarah and Peter’s presence quiet from him, so as to not make him uneasy. But he would have to learn to get used to it, eventually.
I piled a bunch of food onto my plate and began to eat, but after taking a bite of pancake, I nearly spat that out from laughing as well.
Jordan’s eyebrows had turned green, and they sparkled as if bits of silver garland were woven into them.
“What?” Jordan insisted. “What’s wrong with you?”
I raised my coffee mug to my lips to hide the grin I couldn’t control. “Nothing, nothing,” I said.
Jordan rolled his eyes and gave me a strange look. “Maybe you should go back to sleep.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m fine. Just need more coffee.”
I sipped my coffee and noticed Mrs. Brody’s face was all scrunched up in concentration. Uh oh, that was never a good sign.
Bailey was barely holding back laughter at the other end of the table, and Rory was pretending to be extremely interested in the chocolate dessert ball on her plate, doing her best not to laugh.
I glanced back and forth between Jordan and Mrs. Brody, bracing myself for what came next.
My eyes went wide as a white cloud appeared over his head and began snowing little flakes of snow onto his head and shoulders. The snow began to pile up in his hair, but he didn’t even seem to notice.
Jordan then sprouted antlers, and I could no longer contain myself.
My coffee dribbled from my lips, and I frantically wiped it away with my sleeve as I collapsed back in my chair in a fit of giggles.
Jordan looked so confused, which made the whole thing even funnier.
Before long, everyone at the table was laughing hysterically.
“You guys are nuts,” Jordan said. “What’s going on?”
I wiped tears from my eyes and tried to collect myself enough to speak, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk. I was laughing too hard. I simply pointed at the mirror on the other side of the kitchen.
Jordan looked puzzled, but pushed his chair away from the table and cautiously approached the mirror.
His face paled as he looked at himself in the mirror. “What the… What did you guys do?” He joined in laughing with the rest of us and raised his hands to feel the small antlers protruding from his head.
He then turned back to us with a worried expression on his face. He pointed to his antlers. “These aren’t permanent, right?”
The laughter in the room increased two-fold, and I nearly fell out of my chair.
“I can’t even look at you right now,” I laughed, shaking my head back and forth in sheer disbelief. “You look like Christmas threw up all over you.”
“I think it suits me.” He turned back towards the mirror. He then shouted and jumped about a foot in the air.
His reaction made me jump, and my heart began to beat faster in my chest. “What? What happened?”
I ran over to him and looked in the mirror. His reflection had a mind of its own and was waving back at us, smiling. I sighed and relaxed. I guessed I was still on edge from the events of the night before.
That reminded me. “Did Brett ever get back to you?”
Jordan shook his head. “No, haven’t heard yet. I sent him a text and left a voice mail, so hopefully he got those.”
I jumped again as a knock came from the door. A tall, dark figure stood on the other side of the window, and I stepped back cautiously as I turned towards Mrs. Brody.
“Are you expecting anyone?” I asked.
Mrs. Brody shook her head and narrowed her eyes at the door.
Jordan held his arm out, motioning for us to stay back. “I’ve got it.”
My heart began to beat faster again as I watched Jordan approach the door. We were still technically targets, and until we figured out who was after the ex-cops and their partners, we really weren’t safe. I had let the Christmas festivities calm me a bit, but that didn’t change the fact that we were in the middle of a very serious investigation.
I held my breath as Jordan opened the door.
“Oh, hey man,” Jordan said as he stepped back from the open doorway. “Come in.”
“Uh,” Brett stared at Jordan’s hair with a confused expression on his face.
“Shit,” I heard Bailey whisper. Jordan’s appearance suddenly went back to normal at the wave of her hand.
Brett’s expression grew even more confused. “What…”
Jordan pushed the door open wider, and having noticed his appearance had changed back, he tried to act as normal as possible.
“Come in,” he repeated, pretending nothing had happened.
Brett, Jordan’s dark-haired friend, stepped inside. He looked at Jordan like he had just seen a ghost. I chuckled quietly to myself at that analogy. If only he knew.
“What’s wrong?” Jordan asked.
Brett shook his head. “Your… Nothing. Never mind.” He shook his head and turned towards the room with a smile. I snickered to myself, trying to imagine how a non-magical person would try and explain to their friend that they thought they had seen reindeer horns protruding from their head without sounding absolutely mental.