12 Stocking Stuffers

by Beverly Barton

  “Nope. I drink it black.”

  “You didn’t used to.”

  She frowned.

  “Two sugars and a good long stream of half-and-half. But only if no real cream was at hand. I remember.”

  She studied him for a long moment, her green eyes wide and searching. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

  “I remember everything, Dori.” He shrugged and sipped his coffee.

  It seemed to take her a moment to stop staring at him and find something to say again. He took that as a positive sign and told himself that was because he was a pathetic sap.

  “What are you doing here, Jason?”

  “It’s an official visit. You didn’t think I was here to ask you out again, did you?”

  She shrugged. “It crossed my mind.”

  “I’m not into masochism, Dori. You made it clear the first time that you didn’t have any interest in starting anything up with me.”

  “With anyone,” she corrected.

  “Right. Because you would only be here long enough to decide which big-city offer to accept, and then you’d be out of here so fast we’d see nothing but a copper-red streak.”

  “Is that what I said?” She averted her eyes and drank her coffee instead of looking at him. He’d hit a nerve, he thought.

  “That’s what you said. ’Course, that was damn close to a year ago.”

  She sighed. “I get where you’re going with this. I’m still here, right? So did you come to rub it in? Gloat a little that the snotty city snob got knocked down a peg?”

  He swore softly, and that drew her eyes back to his again. He said, “Hey, it’s me. Jason. Do you remember anything at all about me?”

  She frowned for a moment, then nodded twice. “You’re right. You’d never gloat over my failed life. You’re not that kind. Never were.”

  “Well, thank goodness you remember at least that much. I’ll tell you, Dori, city living made you cynical. Gave you a hard edge you didn’t used to have.”

  “That’s probably true.”

  He hadn’t come here to insult her, but he thought he just had. “I was only asking about your still being here because it makes me wonder if maybe your plans have changed.” He hoped to God she would say they had, but the misery in her eyes told him different even before she did.

  Dori lowered her head. “My plans haven’t changed. But what I plan to do and what I can do are turning out to be further apart than I imagined.”

  He held her gaze for a long moment. “So you still plan to take some big-time job and hightail it back to the city at the first opportunity?”

  “I sent out a dozen more résumés last week.”

  He sighed. “Are you sure you don’t belong out here, Dori? Hell, nobody tells those Champ stories the way you do.”

  She tilted her head to one side, averted her eyes. “You said you were here on official business?”

  Jason sighed. If she was determined to freeze him out, there wasn’t much he could do about it. “Yeah. Wanted to ask if you could help me out on a case.”

  She looked up at him fast. “Jesus, how do you know about that? No one out here knows about that!”

  He was taken by surprise. “About what?”

  “Look, Jason, I don’t do that kind of work anymore, okay?”

  He had no idea what she was talking about, but suddenly he wanted to. So he narrowed his eyes and watched her as carefully as he would watch an ex-con in town for the weekend, and he took a shot in the dark. “Why not? You did it in New York, didn’t you?”

  She lowered her head. “It’s different in New York,” she said. “A psychic or even a Witch helping the police find a missing person is so common there it doesn’t even make the news every time anymore. Out here it would be the biggest headline to hit town in a decade.”

  He blinked three times. A Witch. She did say Witch, didn’t she?

  “You, uh, helped the police find some missing people.”

  “Helped. Past tense. Like I said, I don’t do it anymore.”

  “And you used…uh…Witchcraft to do it?”

  She shrugged. “I used whatever I could. The cards, the runes. My instincts.”

  “You’re…psychic?”

  “Everyone’s psychic.” She sipped her coffee. “Some people learn how to hone it, how to use it. I’m one of them.”

  “So you were successful?”

  She nodded, but she was looking at him oddly now. “You didn’t know any of this, did you?”

  “I didn’t have a clue. So you went off to the big city and came back a Witch, huh?”

  She closed her eyes, irritated it seemed. “If you weren’t aware of my history, then why were you asking for my help with a case?”

  “I just need an extra pair of eyes. Some kids have been borrowing boats and taking them out on the lake to party. It’s not safe—especially this time of year. I was hoping you’d keep a lookout and give me a call if you see anything suspicious.”

  She closed her eyes. “Oh.”

  “So tell me more about this…Witch thing.”

  She drew a deep breath, then shook her head. “No.”

  “No? Come on, Dori, you can’t just leave me hanging like that.”

  “Yes, I can. It’s not something I want to become public knowledge. Not out here—people wouldn’t understand.”

  “What, you think I’m completely ignorant? I know what Wicca is. That is what we’re talking about here, right?”

  She nodded slowly.

  “And as for not letting it get around, you know me better than that, don’t you?”

  “Do I?”

  “You did once. You knew me well enough to make love to me, Dori. Or did you forget that, too?”

  “Jason…”

  “Knew me well enough to let me believe we had something special, then left me in the dust, wondering what truck had just run me down.”

  She lowered her eyes.

  “You trusted me then, didn’t you, Dori?”

  “People change.”

  “You sure as hell proved that.” He sighed. “But I’m the same guy I was back then. A little older. A little wiser, maybe. But you can still trust me.”

  She sighed. “I haven’t changed as much as you think I have,” she said softly. “I couldn’t be who I was. Not here. Not in this town.”

  “It wasn’t the town holding you back, Dori. That was all you.”

  She sighed. “Maybe. Maybe I was just afraid.”

  “Maybe you still are.”

  She was quiet a moment, seeming to think things over. “I was thinking about reserving a table at the Holiday Craft Fair. Doing tarot readings for people.”

  He lifted his brows. “Yeah?”

  “I wasn’t sure what the reaction would be, though.”

  He shrugged. “As a rule, the word psychic doesn’t stir up the same feelings as the word Witch.”

  “I could really use the extra money.”

  “So do it. Give folks a little credit, Dori. Just ’cause this isn’t a major metropolitan city doesn’t mean we’re all ignorant here. This is Vermont, for goodness’ sake. Most open-minded state in the union.”

  She lifted her head. He saw a light in her eyes for the first time. Maybe she was a little excited about the idea of cracking the door of that broom closet where she’d been hiding, letting a bit of light shine in. He hoped so.

  “Meanwhile, keep an eye out for those kids. Okay? They haven’t done any harm so far, but that lake is no place for a bunch of rowdy teenagers.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  He finished his coffee, got up from the table. “It was good talking to you again,” he said. “It’s been way too long.”

  “We’ve talked. At the diner.”

  He set his cup in the sink and went to the door, stomped into his boots. “I barely get a word in at the diner. They keep you too busy. Or maybe it’s that you’ve been actively avoiding me.”

  She brought his coat from the back of hi
s chair and handed it to him. “I guess I’ve been feeling guilty. About the way we left things.”

  “The way you left things,” he corrected. “The way you left, period.”

  She pursed her lips, lowered her head. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Jason. It’s long overdue, but—”

  “But you’re not sorry you left?”

  “I had to leave. For me.”

  He nodded, looking a little sad. “I hope you found whatever it was you needed. I hope it was worth what you gave up to get it. ’Night, Dori.”

  Chapter Two

  Jason didn’t ask her out again, even though she’d been convinced it had been on his mind when he’d first come over. He would probably never ask her out again, now that he knew the truth about her. He just gave her the wisdom of his sound advice and left her with an unanswerable question niggling and gnawing at her brain.

  Had she found whatever it was she had needed in New York? And had it been worth what she had given up?

  She hadn’t thought she’d given up anything, beyond a summer fling with a great guy and a part-time job with her beloved uncle. But now she wondered. Could it have been more? What was Jason thinking about their relationship back then? That it could be something…more? How could she weigh what she had given up when he’d never told her what that might be?

  She knew what she had found in leaving. She’d found the freedom to practice her religion. A handful of other women to practice it with. A succession of willing teachers, each a master of some occult discipline; the cards, the runes, healing, meditation. She’d studied and learned and taught. Become a master in her own right. A leader of the community. A true High Priestess of the Craft.

  And while she was at it, she’d worked her way up through the ranks at Mason-Walcott Publishing. First as an editorial assistant, then an associate editor, full editor, senior editor and, finally, as editorial executive director, with a clear path ahead to publisher. She’d been out and open about who she was at work, at home. Everywhere she went. She’d become the most in-your-face Wiccan she knew, with a Spiral Goddess on her desk and a huge pentacle hanging from a chain around her neck—to match the smaller ones on her ears, to match the middle-sized ones on her fingers.

  Until Beckenridge bought the company. Beckenridge—publisher of inspirational novels and Christian self-help books and right-wing political commentaries. They didn’t need an openly Pagan left-wing liberal giving them editorial input. Even she couldn’t argue with that. It would make as much sense as hiring a vegetarian to edit books about butchering cattle and packaging the meat. It was ludicrous. She understood the new owner’s decision, in hindsight.

  What she didn’t understand was why it had to happen. It was as if the Goddess were playing some great cosmic joke on her. And now all that she’d learned and done and become seemed to mean nothing at all.

  Nothing. She was back where she’d begun.

  Sighing, she turned from the window, headed back into the living room and flipped on the television.

  “And the stars are going to be beautiful tonight!”

  Dori stopped in her tracks, the remote in her hand, as she stared at the TV screen. The weather girl kept on talking, pointing to a map, discussing warmer-than-average temperatures that might be good right now, though they could be ushering in some serious weather later on. But those first words….

  She flashed back to the old woman who’d passed the parking lot when Dori had been leaving the diner tonight. She’d said the same exact words.

  Drawing a breath, heaving a sigh, Dori glanced up at the Star Goddess hanging on the wall. Then she went to the window and looked outside.

  The stars were appearing in the sky already. How long had it been since she’d spent any time outdoors, in nature, or with her own spirituality? How long?

  She’d given up. Why bother? It hadn’t done her a bit of good. She’d lost everything. Every penny. She’d had to let the apartment go, liquidate her investments at a crushing loss just to pay her bills. She’d lost her job. No one else would hire her for reasons that defied explanation. And within a few weeks it had become clear the beautiful British Witch, Sara, was after her position in the Pagan community. Before long she’d taken it, and all those women Dori had guided and trained and mentored turned to the newcomer, instead. And Dori refused to believe any of that had been due to her own withdrawal from them. She had lost everything.

  And here she was, in the middle of nowhere with nothing and no one.

  Maybe it was time—

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the telephone ringing. She was still musing as she answered it.

  “Ms. Doreen Stewart?”

  “Yes?”

  “Jen Stevenson, Turner Books. This is a courtesy call to let you know that the position you applied for last week has been filled. Your résumé looked very good, but in the end…”

  The woman droned on, her message the same one Dori had already heard from ten other companies this week. They hadn’t all given her the courtesy of a phone call. She’d been the one to make the call a few times. Others had sent letters. But the dozen résumés she’d just bragged to Jason about having submitted last week had generated eleven rejections. And she had no reason to believe the next would be any different.

  She’d been a high-powered executive with a six-figure income, had had wealthy lovers if and when she wanted them, a Mercedes and a bright future.

  Now she slept alone, waited tables and depended on tips from strangers in order to survive.

  She had been a revered holy woman within her spiritual community. Now she didn’t even wear her pentacle in public.

  “What did I do to deserve this?” she asked the Star Goddess. And then she felt her heart darken. Why was she talking to a hunk of plaster and paint, anyway? What was the point? It wasn’t real.

  Nothing was real.

  She yanked the plaque off the wall, carried it into the kitchen and dropped it into the garbage can. “I’m done with you. Do you hear? I’m finished. I’m not your priestess anymore.”

  THE WOMAN AT THE DESK leaned over Dori’s application form, her eyes zipping along the lines from behind black horn-rims that looked great on her. Dark hair, short and fluffy. Black eyeliner and violet eyes. Pretty woman.

  There were other desks in the little room at the town hall. Christmas songs jingled merrily from a radio on one of them, and white holiday lights, twined with silver garland, dipped and draped from the windows.

  The woman looked up, smiling. “You’re Gerald’s niece, aren’t you? The one who used to come out summers and help him run the Champ tours?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Well, that makes more sense, then.” She slid the application back across the table. “This isn’t gonna do, hon.”

  “I’m sorry?” Dori wasn’t sure she’d heard the woman correctly.

  “Well, see this is a holiday craft fair. The tables we rent are for folks who want to sell arts and crafts. You know, quilts and afghans, homemade candles and centerpieces, floral arrangements, jewelry.”

  “I know what crafts are.” Dori pushed her application back across the desk. “Reading tarot cards is a craft.”

  “That’s all well and good, but it’s not what this craft fair is about, Ms. Stewart. This isn’t some New Age freak show.”

  “Well, then we’re in luck, because I’m not some New Age freak. And there is nothing in the list of rules and conditions you have posted that precludes me telling fortunes at my table, so long as I pay the fee and am a resident of the town. I’m paying the fee and I’m a resident of the town. So you can’t deny me a table.”

  The woman picked up the application form this time and handed it to Dori. “This is not in keeping with the holiday spirit on which our event is based.”

  “Seeing the future on the night of the Solstice is one of the oldest holiday traditions around.”

  “According to whom?”

  “Dickens, for one.”

  “Dickens who?”

/>   “Charles Dickens, you illiterate twit.”

  “I…I…” The woman rose from her chair, her face reddening.

  “It might interest you to know the police chief thought it was a great idea that I buy a table at this stupid little show.” Yeah, the police chief she’d been thinking about all night. Having him in her kitchen had been like throwing a switch—powering up feelings she’d buried long ago. She’d dreamed about him!

  Clearing her throat, she continued with her rant. “But if you insist on discrimination, I’ll be happy to organize the noisiest, most un-Christmas-spirited protest march outside this event that you could ever hope to see!”

  They stood facing each other over the desk. The entire room went silent as everyone stopped to stare.

  Then a heavyset man came trundling over to the two of them, his cheeks as red as Saint Nick’s. “Now, now, ladies, what seems to be the problem here?”

  “This woman refuses to process my application for a table at the Holiday Craft Fair,” Dori accused.

  The man’s eyebrows shot up and he turned to the woman. “Mrs. Redmond, is this true?”

  “She wants to set up a Gypsy fortune-telling booth, Thomas.”

  “A tarot-reading booth,” Dori corrected.

  “It’s ungodly. Un-Christian. We can’t have it.”

  “Oh, now, Mrs. Redmond, it’s not up to us to decide what’s godly or ungodly. This isn’t a church-sponsored event. It’s for the whole town.”

  “But…but—”

  “Now, Miss uh…oh, say, you’re Gerald Stewart’s niece, back from New York City, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I’m Doreen.”

  “Ah. Well, that explains a lot.” He reached to take the application from the black-haired demoness with one hand and patted Dori’s shoulder with the other. “I’m Thomas Kemp, town supervisor. Now I want you to rest assured that I’m going to handle your application personally, Ms. Stewart.”

  “Th-thank you.”

  “Did you leave your check?”

  “She wouldn’t take it.” Dori pulled the folded check from her pocket. Seventy-five hard-earned dollars. But she would make several times that much if her table was busy.

  “I’ll call as soon as everything has been processed, Ms. Stewart,” Thomas Kemp, town supervisor, said, taking the check from her hand. “Don’t you worry about a thing. You have a nice day now.”