by Tegan Maher
Chapter Four
With some relief, I slipped upstairs and knocked on the door to Nina’s flat. She answered wearing a dressing gown, her hair in curlers. Inside, Sky lay curled on top of a large pile of werewolf fur and tinsel.
“Hey,” I said. “Has Sky left the flat since you took him in?”
“Not that I know of,” she said. “Why?”
“The frozen turkey one of the guests brought is missing,” I explained. “And I know he was mad at us having visitors, so I wondered if he’d sneaked out to commit robbery.”
Nina blinked. “Well, I haven’t seen him leave.”
“Have you been looking directly at him the entire time?” Sky, being more than a regular witch familiar, could enter and leave rooms without anyone seeing if he wanted to.
“No, but why would he sneak downstairs just to steal a turkey?”
“I wouldn’t blame him if he wanted to teach certain people downstairs a lesson.” I walked up to Sky, who stretched and yawned. “You didn’t steal the turkey, did you?”
“Miaow,” he grumbled.
Was that a yes or no? My lie-sensing power only worked on people I could understand, and my cat was enigmatic at the best of times, but I assumed his indignant tone meant no. He looked comfortable enough lying there that I doubted he’d left the peace and quiet to sneak into the noisy environment downstairs.
Nina stood behind me. “He hasn’t been in the bedroom, but I’ll look. Also, I didn’t hear anyone on the stairs.”
“Thanks anyway.” I left her flat, checking the door to the room opposite was locked as it usually was. Not a likely hiding place. That left the other flat downstairs, and surely Alissa would have seen if anyone had sneaked out of the flat. Not that it was easy to keep track of all her relatives. Unless Sky had been extra stealthy when he’d slipped downstairs, but he’d seemed irritated at being disturbed. I doubted he’d been the culprit. But if nobody in the house had stolen the turkey, who might be to blame?
The sound of Jeanie yelling drifted upstairs. I wouldn’t be able to get away with letting the issue slide, not as long as she was around. Gritting my teeth, I went back downstairs and into the madhouse.
Inside the flat, Jeanie had Aunt Cerys and her husband cornered, her hellhound growling at their feet.
“Hey, there.” I stepped in. “Aunt Cerys, have you seen the turkey?”
“No, I haven’t,” she said, and her husband repeated the answer.
“True,” I said to Jeanie. “They’re not lying.”
“So you really can tell whether people are lying,” said Aunt Cerys. “Are you a detective, dear?”
“No, I work for a magical recruitment firm.” I stepped behind another couple before I could hear what a disappointment that was. Most of Alissa’s relatives seemed indifferent at best to the turkey’s disappearance, but they weren’t the ones whose flat might potentially be torn to pieces by a hellhound if its owner didn’t get her way.
“What’re you looking for, dear?” asked an older woman, who was something like Alissa’s great-great-aunt three times removed.
“Did anyone else come here? Into the flat, I mean?” I asked.
“Yes, this lot,” said the older woman. “They’re a riot, aren’t they?”
That was one way of putting it. “I really need to find this missing turkey. Are you sure you haven’t seen it?”
There came a knocking on the window. Had Alissa got herself locked outside? Peering through the glass, I nearly jumped out of my skin. A snowman leered through the window, his pebble-eyes positively sinister in the darkness outside. I caught my balance on the window frame, my heart thundering.
“Who is it?” asked the older woman.
“That’s one of Veronica’s snowmen,” I said. “My boss custom-ordered some seven-foot-tall snowmen for the office party and they’re under some kind of sentience spell.”
“What did she do that for?” asked Aunt Cerys.
“Well, there’s no snow, and she wanted snowmen,” I said. “Veronica gets these wild impulses, and it’s the holidays, so anything goes. I don’t know what it’s doing here at our flat, though.”
Voices came from behind me as the others cottoned on to the new arrival. While Aunt Cerys and the older witch started arguing about the magical logistics of bringing a snowman to life, I went outside to check on our newest unexpected guest.
Nobody else was in the garden. The snowman had wandered over here on its own, it seemed, but that didn’t mean Veronica wouldn’t be far behind. For all I knew, she was on her way to fetch it, ridiculous cracker costume and all. If that was the first impression Alissa’s relatives got of my boss, I’d never hear the end of it.
I peered into the snowman’s beady stone-eyes for any signs of life or intelligence but saw none. Suppressing a shiver, I told myself that the snowman was just a spell construct, nothing more, and had probably wandered here by accident. Then I flicked my wand and levitated it off the ground. “Sorry, I’m just giving you a lift back to the office.”
The snowman, thankfully, didn’t start talking back.
Chapter Five
Levitating the snowman through the gate to the main road was harder than it looked. First, the snowman’s misshapen body got stuck in the gate. Then his hat fell off. When I ran to retrieve it, my levitating spell cut out, and the snowman went crashing back to earth. Very luckily, he didn’t collapse into a melted mess like he would have if he’d been made of real snow.
As I tried to wrestle the snowman out of the gate and onto the road, Alissa ran up to me, breathless.
“Where have you been?” I asked. “Looking for the turkey?”
She stared at the snowman. “What’s he doing here?”
“Wandering off,” I said. “Can you help me take him back to Veronica?”
“Yes, of course.” She looked quite relieved to have an excuse to stay away from her squabbling relatives. “Back to the office, right?”
The snowman had other ideas. With a decisive stride, he moved past us and began to meander uphill.
“Where is he going?” said Alissa.
“How would I know?” I flicked my wand and accidentally cast a repelling spell instead. The snowman shot halfway across the road and crashed into the fence.
Alissa winced. “Tell you what, I’ll cast the levitating spell. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Sure.” I headed down the high street, hurrying in the direction of the office.
It wasn’t long before I spotted a figure coming out of a side road. Sure enough, Veronica was still wearing her cracker costume, which looked a little worse for wear after her misadventure with the automatic doors.
“My snowmen are missing!” Veronica said.
“I know,” I said. “We were just chasing one of them. Alissa’s behind me, helping me bring him back to the office.”
“I knew you’d be on the case, Blair,” she said. “Excellent.”
“Yes.” I didn’t move, reluctant to give her a opportunity to get close enough to my flat to invite Alissa’s relatives to the party. “Um, you can go back to the office now. If it starts raining, you don’t want to be standing outside in that outfit, right?”
“No, you’re right, Blair.” She tottered away, back towards the office. Bethan met us coming the other way, looking even less steady than her mother.
“Found your turkey?” she asked.
“Nope, and now we’ve lost the snowmen,” I said. “Alissa’s behind me with one of them, but apparently they just stood up and walked off of their own accord. Both of them. I don’t know where the second one is.”
“They’re under a sentience spell,” said Bethan. “Frankly, I’m surprised they stayed put for this long.”
“No kidding. Alissa’s going to be here in a minute.” The other walkabout snowmen might be anywhere, but I wouldn’t mention that until the boss was as far from Alissa’s relatives as it was possible to be.
Thankfully, Bethan took her mother’s arm and help
ed her down the road back to the office. I followed slowly behind, waiting for Alissa to catch up. What have I got myself into? I can’t catch the runaway turkey and the snowmen at the same time. You’d think the turkey would have been more likely to go wandering off than the snowmen, given that it at least had once been alive, but that would imply anyone here had their head screwed on the right way. Including the snowmen.
As I reached the office, I waited until the runaway snowman floated into view, courtesy of Alissa’s levitation spell. She dumped the snowman in front of the door, releasing a quiet groan. “Right. Let’s find the other one.”
“Thought we were looking for the turkey.” I strode to her side. “Since when did you care about Veronica’s snowmen?”
Alissa grimaced. “Um, I actually conjured the turkey over here by accident.”
I blinked, disarmed. “You did?”
“I didn’t want to mention it in front of the others,” she admitted. “When all the guests showed up, I was driving myself crazy trying to arrange their luggage in the flat opposite ours. Anyway, I was thinking about how much easier it would be if they left some of their luggage behind, and… uh. I accidentally banished the turkey instead of putting it away. When I realised what I’d done, I panicked.”
“But… where is it now?” I asked.
She sighed. “Well. I ran after it, and found it floating outside your office, so I put it in the nearest cold place when Jeanie showed up.”
“Meaning…?”
“One of the snowmen.”
The same snowmen who’d wandered off. Oh, no.
Chapter Six
“I put it under the snowman’s hat,” Alissa added. “Not this one, I checked. I wanted to sneak it back into the flat while everyone was distracted. You won’t tell anyone, will you?”
“Of course I won’t,” I said.
Given her relatives’ behaviour this evening, no wonder she hadn’t wanted to admit to it. But where had the other snowman disappeared to, and why?
“I was hoping to get it home right away,” she added. “But Jeanie followed me here, so I had to keep her from finding out what I’d done. Next thing I knew, the snowmen had gone, along with the turkey.”
“I think we can blame that one on Veronica,” I said. “I don’t know who she got to put that sentience spell on those snowmen, but I thought it was a real person when that one knocked on our window.”
“Did she do it herself?” asked Alissa.
“No, I think she hired someone,” I replied. “That’s what I gathered, anyway. But it’s a strong spell. Even our coffee machine and printer usually don’t go walking around by themselves.”
Might Lizzie know? I didn’t know if anyone had told her the situation, but I’d trust her not to tell tales on Alissa or me.
“I should hope not,” said Alissa. “It’d be easier if we knew who cast it, though.”
“I’ll ask my co-workers. Maybe Lizzie knows.” I headed back inside the reception area. Veronica was dancing with one of the shifters, not paying any attention, so I slipped through the gap where the door to our office used to be and found Lizzie fiddling with the coffee machine.
“Lizzie,” I said. “Do you know who conjured up those snowmen for Veronica? Because they just came to life and walked off. It wasn’t one of your sentience spells?”
She shook her head. “Nope. I wouldn’t use a spell like that on something that can walk around… for those exact reasons.”
I gave an eye-roll. “Well, whoever did it, the snowmen have gone wandering off. Any idea who she hired?”
“Bethan will know.”
I flagged down the boss’s daughter on her way to refill her punch glass. “Who’d your mother hire to bring those snowmen to life?”
“She didn’t,” said Bethan. “Hire anyone, I mean. She bought them at the market and went around asking if anyone knew how to use a sentience spell. I can’t remember who offered to do it. Lily someone.”
Lily? I walked back to join Alissa. “Lizzie said Veronica asked someone called Lily to do the sentience spell. She doesn’t mean your Aunt Lily, does she?”
Horror crossed her expression. “Please tell me she didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?” I said. “Wait, how can she make snowmen come to life if all she can do is necromancy?”
“She must have cast a sentience spell,” said Alissa. “Except if a necromancer uses a sentience spell, it can go… a little lopsided.”
“What do you mean by lopsided?” Necromancy was death magic. Raising the dead. Not bringing an inanimate object to life, but bringing a dead person back to life. Major difference there.
“Necromancer magic can latch onto nearby spirits,” said Alissa. “If she tried a sentience spell, it’s possible that… well, a few lost spirits were brought back from the dead and attached to the snowmen.”
My mouth fell open. Zombie snowmen? Seriously? “How do we stop them?”
“Ghosts are easy enough to banish,” she said. “They’re probably trying to go home right now, poor things.”
“Home meaning where?” Then I got it. “The cemetery.”
Looked like we’d need to pay the vampires a visit after all.
Chapter Seven
The two of us hurried uphill through the middle of town. In the background, the distant sound of carols singing drifted on the breeze. No screaming, which meant the other snowman had mercifully avoided walking into any living people.
Then again, perhaps walking zombie snowmen weren’t the weirdest thing anyone from Fairy Falls had seen on Christmas Eve. The snowman from the office had resumed its uphill climb, and this time, we let it. Sure enough, it followed our path uphill towards the town’s cemetery, which was surrounded by high fences so that if the dead woke up, they wouldn’t be able to run around terrorising everyone. Usual stuff, for a magical town.
Not usual? Zombie snowmen. Honestly, Veronica.
“I called my Aunt Lily,” said Alissa. “Now, all we can do is wait.”
“And ask the vampires’ permission to go into their cemetery,” I added.
I walked up to the house next door to the cemetery and knocked on the door. A moment later, Vincent answered, wearing his usual smart attire with a party hat perched on top of his jet-black hair. He gave me a fanged smile. “Blair, how wonderful to see you.”
Okay… “I like the hat.”
“What is it?” he asked. “Someone’s mind you want me to read? A relative you want me to get rid of?”
I wish. “Have you seen a pair of snowmen?”
“I assume you mean the alarmingly tall and pale people who just walked into the graveyard,” he said.
Thought so. “Yeah, they’re not alive. They just look that way. We’re going to deal with them now, so if you hear any weird noises, we’re not digging up graves or anything.”
“Really?” he said. “If you change your mind, you know where I am.”
“Yes, really,” I said firmly.
He closed the door, humming under his breath. Honestly. Maybe for Vincent, digging up a grave was a great way to celebrate the holidays.
We made our way through the gates and into to the cemetery, where the snowmen stood huddled together in front of a row of tombstones. Even though their faces were unreadable, an aura of sadness hung around them.
“Sorry,” I said to the snowmen. “I’ll lay you to rest, soon, if I can. I just need to get something from you. Which of you has the frozen turkey?”
The snowmen didn’t move.
“Wonderful work, isn’t it?” said Lily’s voice from behind me. She strode up to the snowmen, looking more animated than I’d ever seen her.
“Aunt Lily, I doubt Veronica wanted you to conjure up ghosts to pilot her snowmen,” said Alissa.
“Definitely not,” I said. “Why’d you offer to do it in the first place?”
“She hired me to make them as realistic as possible.” She bounded up to the snowmen. “What better way than to give a couple of lonely spi
rits a second chance at life?”
“I wouldn’t call wandering around possessing a heap of fake snow a second chance at anything,” said Alissa. “Except frostbite.”
“And hellhound bites.” I added.
“Now I remember why I turned down your invitation last Christmas,” said Lily, with a sniff. “Spoilsport. All right, I’ll let the spirits go back to rest.”
“Good.” I wrapped my arms around myself as a chill travelled through the air.
Lily drew her wand and gave it a firm flick. At once, two ghostly figures rose from inside the snowmen, hovering in mid-air. “You can leave now.”
The two spirits disappeared into nothingness. The snowmen remained behind, but now, they looked less unnervingly life-like and more like inanimate objects.
Alissa strode up to one of them fished the turkey out of its hat. “That’s Aunt Jeanie’s turkey taken care of.”
“Did you want me to use my magic on that?” Lily enquired. “I can, you know. I reckon it’ll make her have second thoughts about volunteering to buy the turkey next year… not to mention bringing that hellhound of hers.”
“Don’t you even think about it,” said Alissa.
I stifled a laugh. A ghost possessing a Christmas turkey was possibly more horrifying than the snowmen and the hellhound put together. But Lily was on her best behaviour as we ferried the snowmen back to Veronica’s office, leaving them outside the automatic doors. They were already starting to melt, but the guests had begun to disperse as midnight neared, and it was time we went home to recharge before the festivities began anew tomorrow.
When we got back to the house—and safely returned the turkey to the freezer—I was all too ready to sleep until next Christmas. But first, we had to deal with Jeanie and her hellhound.
“So Lily was responsible for the spell.” Jeanie glared at the necromancer, who’d returned to her usual corner to resume shredding a piece of tinsel without a care in the world.
“No,” I said. “I mean, she brought the snowmen to life, but they weren’t supposed to wander off with the turkey. It was an accident.”