Spells and Jinglebells

by ReGina Welling

  “I love your mom,” Bridget said. She stepped closer, rubbing her hand over Maeve’s forehead. Their sister seemed to almost sense it. To lean into that ghostly pressure as though their souls were wise enough to sense each other even though Maeve’s gaze never turned to where her dead sister stood.

  Mom was brushing Maeve’s hair. The girl’s backpack was on the bed next to them. She was ready to go. Of course she was, but Mom didn’t care. She combed back that hair and hummed under her breath. Maeve rarely let her go-bag out of her sight. Of course, if Harper had as much cash in her bag as Maeve was carrying around, Harper would have kept a close eye on it as well.

  “Do you think when I grow up Harper and Scarlett will…”

  “Yes,” Mom said without hearing the rest of the question, “They’ll love you as much as they love each other. But you’ll be a friend instead of a little sister. They already love you the same.”

  “But they’re so close.”

  “You will be too. You just need time. They need you to be old enough they don’t feel responsible for you. Right now, they adore you. But like mama bears. Before long you’ll just be another of the grizzly gals.”

  Harper spun and found herself in Quinton’s room. Books were stacked everywhere. She shook her head, she didn’t want to know what was happening with him, how she’d hurt or infuriated him. She didn’t want to see him loving her or hating her. She couldn’t take any of it.

  “Remove me from this place,” Harper said to Bridget. “Now.”

  Chapter Four

  Harper spun and found herself in her bed. She closed her eyes and covered her head with her arms. By the stars, she felt like a wrung out washrag that wasn’t worth throwing in the washing machine. Just throw her away and get a new one.

  “Come on, now,” Bridget said and her voice was far eerier than before. She sounded rather like she was calling from a long distance and she was very, very tired.

  Harper opened her eyes, lifted her arm, and saw that Bridget slowly, gravely, silently approached. She seemed darker somehow. Maybe she was tired? Perhaps she’d expended rather a lot of energy tormenting Harper? For Bridget seemed almost shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed her head, her face, her form, and left nothing of her visible save one hand.

  “No,” Harper said. “I’m done. I hurt. I’m done. I’m done. I’m done. Go away.”

  The hand pointed.

  “No,” Harper almost shouted.

  The hand pointed, and there was something so forceful in it that Harper flinched.

  “Please,” Harper said and then flinched again at the pleading in her voice.

  The hand pointed, more forceful still, and Harper decided to get it over with. She rose and her legs trembled beneath her. She could hardly stand when she prepared to follow this new, darker version of Bridget.

  “Where are we going now?” Harper asked, not sure if she could face more emotions that night. More painful revelations. She preferred to try to keep herself in some sort of tenuous balance. This whirlwind of feelings might just take her down forever.

  Bridget gave her no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them, and Harper took a deep breath and stepped forward. The side of the bed faded into a long dark road, and she walked ahead of Bridget for quite some time. Harper walked barefoot and felt the crunch of snow beneath her feet but not the chill of it. She could hear the wind howling, but it never touched her skin. She could feel the presence of trees and wolves, perhaps, but could not connect with a single creature.

  She was truly a ghost in this world that Bridget was dragging Harper through. When they reached the end of the road, she found a much older Quinton sitting behind a desk.

  “Do you have children, Mr. Foxe?” A young girl asked. She wasn’t so young, really. Perhaps early adulthood, but she seemed like a baby compared to Quinton as he was then.

  “I’m afraid it’s just me,” he said. His voice sounded tired as though he were grieving. His face was creased with lines, but the laugh lines she’d enjoyed caressing had faded into frown lines. There was a furrow between his brows. There were a few age spots on his forehead. His books were too-neatly put away as though he didn’t sink into them like he was wont to do.

  “Really? You never fell in love?” The girl was wearing a leather skirt, a t-shirt, and had awesome black hair. She should go away. Harper heard the tinge of a crush even though decades separated the girl’s age and Quinton’s.

  “Oh, I loved,” the older Quinton said, “I just wasn’t loved in return.”

  “I can’t imagine that,” the girl gushed, tucking her hair behind her ear.

  Neither could Harper. She loved Quinton so much it hurt.

  “Well,” he said, smiling his polite business smile that never reached his eyes. “I can imagine it rather perfectly. I’d have thought she was my perfect half, but she didn’t feel the same. Now about your paper.”

  He leaned forward business like and Harper turned to shake her head at Bridget. She didn’t want him to end up like this. She wanted him to be happy. He’d be happier without her and her madness. He’d be better off. Wouldn’t he?

  Of course, he would be.

  “No,” Bridget said. “The other half of your red thread isn’t something you can leave and leave happy. Not ever. You must break the chains that bind you.”

  “But,” Harper started. Life with her was not happiness. Not for anyone. It didn’t matter what dream-Mr. Jueavas said, she did not shine. She was nothing.

  “No,” Bridget said flatly. Her voice echoed and it turned into a howl. A shrieking howl that dropped Harper to her knees and as she fell, she found time slowed from seconds to millennia and in those passing ages, she saw a thousand images.

  Quinton standing next to the sea alone. He was broken inside, Harper didn’t need to know what had happened to see he had been crushed. Something terrible had happened, and he was all alone.

  Another flash and then another, and then Harper saw her sister, Scarlett, crying, bent over her knees, shaking with the force of those tears. She was crying so hard her whole body shook.

  Another flash. Harper's head spun. And she saw Maeve running, looking behind her, face terrified.

  “No!" Harper found the breath to shout, but she could do nothing and then there was another flash, another, another, another. She held her head as if she could somehow stop the barrage of visions.

  But she couldn't. Another. Stars, make it stop! Make it stop. The baby Mom was carrying, alone in a cradle where no one was rocking her. She needed help and no one was there. Tears were rolling down her face, her skin was flushed in the fury of it, and the voice of that child was something Harper had never heard and yet instantly recognized it as if she'd always known it.

  She whimpered with the next flash, trying to just squeeze her eyes tight and not see. But no. A flash. Another image. Another moment. Another horror. Ella and Luna holding hands and looking at something Harper couldn’t see. Their eyes were wide, a tear was rolling down Ella’s face while Luna was shouting. Harper needed to be there. To help them. To…anything.

  She didn’t just see the images though she felt the feelings. And the feelings, all at once. Too much. Harper was already on her knees, but she ended up face on the ground, in the snow that wasn’t cold, hearing the howl of both the wind she couldn’t feel, and the emotions that weren’t hers.

  “They need you,” Bridget said, somehow her howling ghost voice sliding between the sounds of Harper’s screams and the emotions ricocheting through her body. “They need you in these moments. They need you to break the chains that bind you.”

  Harper clawed herself back to her knees, pounded by feelings she couldn’t identify as hers or theirs. They needed her. They need her to help them. She pushed herself up to shaking feet. And as she did, she stepped forward and found herself facing her bedroom window. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but as she looked outside she found fresh snow on the streets. There had been so many faces that had needed her, but ther
e was one she needed the most.

  She put on her jacket and her running shoes, realizing she was still wearing her running pants from the night before. She was grateful for small blessings because she was not waiting to change. She darted through the streets, where people were starting to move. She bypassed faces she knew, faces that nodded and called hello.

  Harper avoided Mrs. Lovejoy who called after. As if she would stop for that old biddy. Harper bypassed Henna who Harper loved, but it didn't matter. Another needed her. Or maybe she needed another. Either way. She ran past the old-fashioned milkman who still delivered dairy products to half the town. She ran until she reached the bed and breakfast, and then she made her way through the back door, up the steps, and to his door.

  Normally she had to gear up her courage to knock but not this time. She knocked and a mere moment later, Quinton opened the door.

  “Hello,” he said. His gaze was clouded. Or perhaps that was hers. She couldn’t be sure.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He opened his arms to her and she threw herself into them.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered into his neck, wrapping herself around his body and hoping that he’d somehow burn away the chill that the ghost had left.

  “Ok, he replied. “It’s ok. I got you. Don’t you know? I love you.”

  It hurt to say it for so many, many reasons. Because her fears weren’t gone. Because she’d never said it to anyone who wasn’t Scarlett or their mother. Because life had taught Harper that to love was to hurt, but she said it, “I love you.”

  She pulled back to see his face, to make sure he heard her, to try to see if he forgave her. She saw that he had but before she could say anything else, he was kissing her.

  The End

  Want to read more? This story is set in the world of the Mystic Cove Mysteries. You can read more of Harper and her family by checking out Bedtimes and Broomsticks.

  About the Author

  Amanda A. Allen writes paranormal cozy mysteries including the Rue Hallow Mysteries, the Inept Witches Mysteries, and the Mystic Cove Mysteries. She also writes historical mysteries set in the 1950s with the Zinnia West Mysteries. She also has a new series coming out under the pen name, Beth Byers.

  Amanda can be found in the Pacific Northwest with her four children, her sweet, tortured dog, and mounds of novels.

  Follow Amanda Allen online:

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  Brewing Cheer

  Sara Bourgeois

  Summary

  Brewing Cheer is story five in the Tree’s Hollow Witches Series. Come along as Lenny and Jezebel find out what happened to their missing ghost roommate, Abby, and save Christmas for children all over the world.

  Chapter One

  The basement at Aunt Kara’s bed-and-breakfast looked like something ripped from the pages of a horror movie, but I’d been assured that I would find everything I needed to decorate for the holiday down there. She said I could have anything I wanted for free, on the condition that I hauled her Christmas tree and the decorations for the inn upstairs before I left.

  After an hour of searching, I found the holiday boxes. Fifteen minutes after that, I had ten boxes of Christmas decorations opened so I could root around in them.

  “Which boxes can you take, and which ones do you have to haul upstairs for Kara?” Jezebel asked as she swished her tail back and forth impatiently. “I’m bored. Are we almost done here?”

  “You know, you didn’t have to come along,” I said and pulled an eight-foot strand of gold garland from one of the boxes. “The ones over there are the ones she wants,” I said and pointed toward a stack of boxes separate from the ones I was going through.

  “Are you seriously going to take all of these home?” Jez asked.

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m going through them. If you’re so bored, why don’t you teleport home?”

  “Nathan is trying to make a traditional Yule log cake because he lost some sort of bet at work, and the whole house smells like burnt flour,” she said.

  “Oh jeez. It’s too bad we still haven’t seen Abby. I’m sure she’d be willing to help,” I said and looked through a stack of wall hangings. They looked like something that Aunt Kara used to hang on the walls when I was little. They probably were the exact same decorations.

  “I know,” Jezebel replied. “But what are you supposed to do when you have a missing ghost? It’s not like we can file a missing person’s report with Sheriff Stick-up-his-Butt Brad.”

  “We probably could, and don’t be so hard on Brad. Esme told him again that she was a witch, and he seems to be taking it well this time around. But a fat lot of good it will do because he can’t exactly use law enforcement techniques to find a missing ghost.”

  “There has to be something we can do,” Jezebel said and jumped into a box that was only half full. I gave her the side eye. “What, lady? I’m a cat. We like boxes.”

  “Maybe if we just let Nate keep making horrible baked goods, it will draw her back from wherever she’s gone off to,” I said.

  “Oh no. I can’t deal with the house smelling of burnt food.”

  “You could go stay with Esme and the goat,” I teased.

  “Lady, you’re pushing it.”

  “What about Calinda? I’m sure she’d let you hang out for a few days,” I offered.

  “She snores.”

  “I think I am going to take all of these. Whatever I don’t use at home, I can take to work.”

  “I’m not helping you carry them to the car,” Jezebel said, without leaving the box she was curled up in.

  “I was hoping you’d teleport them,” I said. “I can push them all together so they’re touching and then you could zap them back to the house without even having to get out of that one.”

  “Fine,” Jezebel said with a huff. “Just be careful. I’m comfortable in here. Don’t jostle me.”

  I pushed the boxes together while Jez thoroughly cleaned her ears and whiskers. When I was done, she said, “Bon voyage, bit—” But she was gone before the rest came out.

  There were five boxes I needed to carry up to the utility room for Aunt Kara. I hoped that she didn’t need me to stick around and help put them up, but there was a new maintenance man hanging about. I assumed it would be his job.

  “Where’s my aunt?” I asked Lacey at the front desk.

  “She had to go into town to get something from the hardware store.”

  “Okay, well, I’m going to take off then. The boxes she wanted are in the utility room.”

  “What about the ones you’re taking?” Lacey asked.

  I hadn’t thought about the fact that someone might ask about the boxes when I’d had Jezebel poof them out for me. “I took them out through the cellar door. They’re already loaded up in my Jeep,” I said with a smile and then left before she could inquire further.

  Back at home, Nathan was still in the kitchen, working on his seventh attempt at a Yule log cake. At least the house smelled slightly less like burnt food. Perhaps the sixth attempt had gone a little better.

  “You should really just let me fix this one,” I said. “A little magic never hurt anyone.”

  “Nope. Not going to do that. I can do this, Lenny. I’m not going to let a cake beat me.”

  “You mean the way Norma beat you at that bet?” I teased.

  “Hush you,” he said with a broad smile.

  “You know, I’m still unclear as to what that bet was all about.”

  “It had something to do with old sofa cushions, plastic cups, and a semi-raging stream. That’s all you need to know,” he said. “But this cake is my way of redeeming my honor.”

  “Would you let Abby help you if she were here?” I asked.

  “Hey, babe, I’m sorry she’s gone AWOL on you. I know you guys miss her, and I wish we knew what happened, too,” he said and turned to kiss my nose as I stood next to him at the cou
nter.

  “Well, if I can’t help you bake, I’m at least going to start cleaning some of this up,” I said and looked around at the disaster that was our kitchen.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Nathan said. “It’s my mess.”

  “Yeah, but my cleaning methods will be far less painful than you having to police this calamity by hand.”

  “Okay, Lenny. Thank you,” he said and went back to his mixing bowl.

  A few waves of my hands and the dishes were spotless. Once I’d floated them back into the cabinets, I danced around in circles while humming a toon, and the broom and mop waltzed with me.

  “You are the cheesiest witch who ever lived,” Jezebel said as she sashayed into the kitchen. “Seriously, how do you tolerate yourself?”

  Instead of answering her, I swooped down and picked her up into my arms.

  “Hey, lady, put me down,” she groused as I held her against my chest, but I could feel her begin to purr.

  I closed my eyes and snuggled her fur. When I opened them, we weren’t in the house anymore.

  “Hey, lady, what gives?” Jezebel asked, but she’d stopped trying to escape me.

  “I don’t know. Where are we?” I asked and hugged her tighter.

  “We’re not in Tree’s Hollow anymore, Dorothy. That’s for sure.”

  I looked around and had to blink when soft snowflakes hit my nose and eyelashes.

  Chapter Two

  “What do we do?” Jezebel asked.

  “I have no idea. I was hoping you had some idea,” I said.

  We were standing in the dark, but I could see lights from what looked like a village up ahead.

  “Use magic. Cast a spell or something. That’s what you do, right?” Jez said.

  So I tried a transport spell. All it did is make it snow harder.