by Deanna Chase
“That’s so freaking awesome,” Gus laughed. “Can you imagine? If we redecorate, she can help us move furniture from her high chair.”
“Now who’s being ridiculous?” Paul put his coat on. “This isn’t over yet, Mara. But maybe you’ll be ready to talk after you get to experience her new powers for a week. By the way, I think your toad’s dead. I haven’t seen him move all day. And I’m keeping the dog until you sort this crap out. I don’t want him to get caught in the cross-fire. Come on, Apollo.”
Apollo, my red Dobie, stretched and trotted over to Paul, while Aramis, my black-and-tan Dobie, stayed glued to my side. After our first adventure together, Paul had been suffering from what I started calling PPSD (Post-Possession Stress Disorder). At first, I had to push him to borrow Apollo and use him as a therapy dog, but now they were pretty bonded.
At the door, Paul turned to me. “I want you to stay away from that J.J. kid. He’s one doobie short of an orange jumpsuit.” And with that, he left.
The spirit of Grundleshanks croaked and floated back into the toad body in the tank. The toad body perked up and looked around for a cricket. Yup. Good old Zombieshanks was back.
“He’s not wrong.” Aunt Tillie chimed in. “About any of it.”
“Don’t start with me, Aunt Tillie,” I said, pointing at the skull we kept on the mantle. “Don’t you have a skull to get back to?”
She harrumphed.
“Go on. Ingressium,” I said, using Gus’s invocation. “Get your spectral butt in there for the night.”
The skull’s eyes twinkled for a moment and then flickered out.
2
Shockingly, the baby slept through the night and well into morning.
“The use of magic must have exhausted her reserves,” I told Gus at breakfast.
“Maybe we’re on to something,” Gus said. “We should put up a picture of Paul and have her throw stuffed animals at it every night before bed.”
“Would you stop? He’s not a bad guy. He’s just misguided, sometimes.”
The phone rang and Gus answered. “Witch Central. Talk to me,” he said, as he walked out of the room with the portable.
I rolled my eyes, put the plates in the dishwasher, fed Aramis and had just started nursing the baby when he walked back in, with a strained look on his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“My sister’s coming to visit for Yule,” he said.
“Lorelei? All the way out here?”
“She’s flying into Milwaukee, taking a propeller plane to Trinity Harbor, then Roy’s flying her to Oldfield. I’m not sure if it’s in one of his Cessna’s or in the chopper.”
“Wow. She must be desperate to go through all of that in the middle of winter.”
Gus snorted. “She broke up with her boyfriend and she needs a new start. She’s detoxing,” he said, using air quotes. “So when she gets here, she’ll be cleansed and ready to invite love into her life.” He rolled his eyes.
It was my turn to snort. “Here? Really? Talk about searching for a unicorn.”
“Hey, now, Miss Thing. Don’t steal my schtick. I’m the one who’s cynical and superficial. You’re the one who’s all about true love.”
“And you’ve seen how well that’s gone for me. I’m beginning to think true love is a myth. You’re better off finding a friend with benefits. Someone you can talk to, who can make you laugh and give you a little nookie on the side.”
“Well, we have two out of three, so that ain’t bad,” Gus said, giving me a wink. “Okay, to be fair — and I’m telling you this as someone who doesn’t even like Paul all that much — he’s been through a lot with you. And he’s not witchborn, like us. Which means he’s still dealing with the fallout. Mundane men can get stuck in the mud and need to wallow a bit before they’re ready to climb out. So don’t count him out yet.”
I shook my head. “I wish. You haven’t seen the way he looks at me.”
Gus gave me a knowing look. “Oh, yes I have. Anyway… my mom suggested we have a big Yule dinner and invite everyone we know for Lorelei to meet.”
I looked at him blankly. “Most of who we know out here are Paul, J.J., his cousin and his pothead brigade. And Daniel, but he’s over a hundred years old.”
“If we’re inviting the herbalistas, I’ll have to cook,” Gus said. “When those boys get the munchies, they’ll eat anything that stands still long enough. They’re bottomless stomachs.”
The baby seemed to laugh and milk spilled out of her mouth. I repositioned her on my shoulder, where a burp cloth was already in place, and patted her back. “I can order take-out, as long as you’re paying for it.”
“Maybe we’ll luck out and find something else for Lorelei to do. There’s got to be something else going on during Yule. That’ll be your job. Think of something.”
“Hey, she’s your sister,” I protested.
“So? She’s your gender. I don’t think she wants me to take her to a Christmas drag queen show.”
“She might. That sounds like fun. How long is she staying?” I asked.
“The entire freaking holiday season,” he grimaced. “Merry Christmas and Ho-ho-ho.”
* * *
The rest of the month passed quickly. I decorated the cottage for Yule and we wound up surprising each other with dueling trees. We each decorated our own and it turned out that we were very different. Gus was all about style and I was all about cozy. His tree was strikingly beautiful with a blue and silver theme and mine was an eclectic, less-than-perfect mess with multi-colored lights and old-fashioned ornaments, but it gave me the warm fuzzies whenever I looked at it.
Paul and I tried our best to be cordial. He asked to have supervised visits with the baby — to be clear, it was Paul who was demanding the visits be supervised, not anything I was trying to set in motion. He just felt safer with me there. Although the baby didn’t levitate anything else. Even Paul’s clumsy attempts to continue implementing his half-assed book research wasn’t upsetting her enough to get her to throw around her stuffed animals again.
The baby had been so well-behaved, I was starting to wonder if the entire incident hadn’t been Aunt Tillie pranking us, and getting one of her spirit buddies to help set the whole thing up. Especially since Gus kept putting toys out of the baby’s reach to see if he could get her to move anything. But she just sat there, happily waiting until I retrieved whatever she wanted. When Gus started lobbing stuffed animals at her, trying to annoy her into another display of spontaneous levitation, I finally took her toys away from him.
“You need to stop that,” Gus said as we drove to Oldfield to pick up Lorelei. “You’re messing with my experiment.”
“She’s a baby, not a test tube.” I said. “You’re not going to throw things at the baby.”
“They were soft things. I wasn’t hurting her. But that’s not what I’m talking about. You keep walking in and giving her what she wants, before she even asks for it. How am I supposed to get her to levitate anything when she’s getting instant mom gratification?”
“I can’t help it. She pushes images into my head. I can’t just ignore them.”
“Very interesting,” Gus said, looking over at me. “Maybe I should start lobbing toys at you.”
I glanced over my shoulder to the baby, strapped into her car seat. She was looking out the window. “Gus! I think she’s actually seeing what’s outside the window. Do you see that? Her eyes are developing!”
“I kind of figured they would.” Gus said. “Do you want me to turn around and look at her or do you want me to drive?”
“What kind of witch are you, if you can’t see out of the back of your head?” I asked, pretending to be annoyed, but I was smiling. Gus was always using that “What kind of witch are you” line on me, so I was happy to have a chance to fire it back at him.
“Hey, see that envelope next to your seat? Open it. It’s for you.”
Before we drove to the airfield, we had stopped at the post off
ice. Lorelei had mailed her enormous, rolling suitcase to us because it was too big and unwieldy for the small, four-seat Cessna she’d be flying in on. And Gus had gone on an online shopping spree, so he was anxious to get his stuff. Most of which was crammed in the trunk with Lorelei’s suitcase.
I looked down, saw a manilla envelope and picked it up. It contained a packet full of multi-color circular pieces of plastic with small plastic tabs. “What the heck?”
“Isn’t it great? I’m telling you, with this gift, I’ve just become your favorite person. Wait until you use it.”
“For what?” I asked.
“You’re always leaving open cans in the fridge or in the car or on the table. This gizmo seals the can shut so your drink doesn’t go flat or pick up the flavors of other stuff in the fridge or have bugs fly in it.”
“You get excited about the weirdest things. I don’t leave this many open cans around.”
“I got a few extras, so you can keep some in the car, at the cottage, in a suitcase for when we travel, in your purse. You’re not going to want to be without one.”
“If I stick one under your nose, will it seal your mouth?”
“Very funny. You’d be lost without me and you know it.”
I sighed. “Got that right.”
Gus had been my best friend — and sometimes my only friend — ever since I moved to Los Angeles. Until I inherited my semi-sentient, aggressively pro-active cottage from my Aunt Tillie, and I made the move to Devil’s Point, Wisconsin without him. I was only here for a couple of weeks though before I unwittingly unleashed the wrath of two Otherworldly entities. Gus came charging to the rescue and just kind of… stayed. We’re better together than we are apart. If he was straight, my life would be perfect.
* * *
We pulled up to the airfield’s parking lot. It had expanded from when I first moved here, but that wasn’t saying a lot. It consisted of a handful of hangers housing small propellor-planes, a runway with a windsock and a helipad. The main office was an oversized trailer up on bricks.
Gus parked and I unstrapped the baby from her car seat. It was colder and windier out here. I made sure the baby was bundled up before we slogged our way through the dirty snow and gravel to the office trailer.
“Knock, knock,” Gus said, climbing up the steps and opening the door. “Hey, Mimi,” he said, reading her name plate. “Is the head honcho here?”
The girl looked up from her computer screen. She was young, just out of community college. Her diploma was framed on the wall behind her desk. “Doug’s taking care of business. He’ll be out in a minute.”
“Great. Thanks.” Gus turned to me. “So, did you make any plans? What fun thing are we doing while Lorelei’s here?”
“Having a Yule party?”
“Are you kidding me? That’s it? You’ve had all month to think of a plan and you’re sticking with what my mom suggested? Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re missing some brain cells.”
“It’s called mommy brain. You’re lucky I still remember who you are.”
Doug came out of the small bathroom, still wiping his hands. He was wearing a brown flight suit specked with oil stains. He balled up the paper towel and threw it in the wastebasket. “He shoots, he scores. Two points for the win.”
“Doug, these two are looking for you,” Mimi cracked her gum.
“What can I do you for?” Doug shook Gus’s hand.
I was holding the baby, a diaper bag and my purse, so I just nodded at him.
“Roy’s picking up my sister at Oldfield. They’re supposed to be landing here at two. Do you know if they’re on time?”
“Lorelei Andrakis, right?” Doug walked over to his desk and checked a chart. “They’re fighting a headwind, so they’re running a little off schedule. They should be landing in about twenty minutes.”
The baby started fidgeting and woke up with a little cry. I would have to change her and give her a bottle or we’d be in for an auditory Armageddon.
“Why don’t you pop a squat for a bit?” Doug nodded at some lounge chairs and a sofa arranged around a coffee table. Against one wall there were two vending machines, one with snacks, the other one with water and soda.
Gus shot me an excited look and dug a dollar out of his money clip. Good thing I had put one of those soda toppers in my purse. I could tell he was itching to try it out.
I handed it to him, then got the portable baby changing mat out of the diaper bag and laid it on the couch.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, the baby was fed, burped, clean and watching everything avidly while Gus was crowing in triumph over the soda topper.
There was the crackle of a radio from Doug’s office and a male voice came on the line with landing coordinates.
Doug pressed a button: “Ten-four. Roy, you’re cleared for landing.”
Gus and I went outside with the baby and watched the small Cessna as it glided into a textbook landing. The minute it stopped, Roy, a heavy-set bear of a man, got out, then ran around to the other side to help Lorelei out. Although Lorelei was Gus’s sister, she didn’t look like him. She was small-boned and light, with gold-blonde wavy hair, pale skin and huge blue eyes. To me, she looked like she was mostly fairy with just enough human DNA to keep her grounded in the same reality with us. But all she needed was a working pair of wings and we’d never see her again.
“Gus! Mara!” she came running over to us, arms open, purse bumping against her hip. “Oh, thank the Goddess. I never thought I’d see land again!”
“Really?” I asked, surprised as I hugged her. “Everyone says Roy’s a great pilot.”
“Oh, he is,” gushed Lorelei. “But he’s flying a toy plane. I thought the wind was going to spin us off into Oz, like Dorothy.”
Roy brought over a small carry-on duffel bag and handed it to Gus. “She’s a firecracker,” he said, gesturing to Lorelei. “You got your hands full with that one.”
Lorelei blushed and giggled as Roy winked at her.
* * *
On the ride home, Lorelei sat in back with the baby. I could practically feel her bouncing in her seat.
“What a cute baby! Who’s a cute baby? You are!”
I looked over. The baby seemed to be entranced with Lorelei, looking as if she expected her to do something unusually amusing at any moment.
Lorelei caught my glance. “This place sounds so cool! There’s so much to do!”
Gus and I looked at each other, confused.
I looked back at Lorelei. “Devil’s Point? Are you sure? I mean, if you said Trinity Harbor, or even Oldfield, but Devil’s Point?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve been researching it online,” Lorelei nodded and pulled a folded newspaper out of her purse. “And I got a subscription to the local paper. They’re having this big speed-dating event next week. In costume. It’s called Dating the Beast and it’s going to be followed by a Midwinter Ball. The ad says Bring a little Beast into your Christmas this season.”
“And it’s here?” I repeated.
She nodded. “Dating the Beast is at the new Mexican restaurant that opened on the corner of Main and River Street. They have a ballroom on the second floor. They’re offering free blue agave margaritas and appetizers. The ad says each table will have a sprig of mistletoe in case you need an excuse to try a more intimate type of appetizer. This is going to be so much fun!”
“And it’s in Devil’s Point?” Gus asked.
“Don’t you two ever look at the town calendar online? Or read the paper?”
“I didn’t even know Devil’s Point had a website,” I said.
Lorelei nodded, happily. “I think they’re trying to rebrand this place. Capitalize on the name and all that. At least, that’s what Mayor Corday said on her YouTube speech. I can’t wait to see what they do for New Year’s. Or for Valentine’s Day.”
“We need to get out more,” Gus said to me.
“Tell me about it,” I muttered. “I didn’t even know we
had a female mayor.”
Lorelei was practically humming with excitement. “All the food and drinks are free. And tickets are only fifty dollars for Dating the Beast and a hundred dollars for the Belle and Beast Midwinter Ball.”
“That’s not free,” I said. “I can’t afford that.”
“I’ll pay for it,” Lorelei offered. “I sold the ring that the jerk-who-shall-not-be-named gave me, so I’m loaded. Besides, half the proceeds go into a town fund for emergencies.”
“If he got you that big of a rock, why is he a jerk?” asked Gus.
“Because it was an ‘assuage-my-guilt-and-maybe-you’ll-forgive-me’ gift, after he screwed the pet-sitter — and her best friend — on our bed.” Lorelei sniffed. “It’s supposed to make me feel better. And guess what? Selling all of his guilt gifts and doing something fun with the money is totally making me feel a lot better.”
“I’ll watch the baby,” Gus told me. “Go have some fun.”
I smiled, but I could feel my stomach sink. Last year, I would have been all over an event like that. So, why did it feel like we were heading to the gallows?
3
I tried to get out of it by saying I didn’t have anything to wear that I could still fit into and that the baby hadn’t spit up on, but when we got home and Lorelei unpacked her massive suitcase, she had clearly brought enough costume pieces, make-up and props to create her own vaudeville show.
“I’m so excited!” Lorelei trilled, clapping her hands. “The men will all come as their favorite beasts or movie monsters, dressed in tuxes, and the women will be in princess costumes for the speed date. Then, the men will unmask and they’ll match us up with our perfect beast for the Ball, or if there’s a lot of close-but-not-perfect matches, they’ll fill out a dance card for us with the most suitable beasts, so the princesses sample a cadre of beastie-men on the dance floor.”
“And what if you don’t get any match at all?” I asked.