Yuletide (Matilda Kavanagh Novels Book 3)

by Shauna Granger

  “You know what, you foul, bog-smelling—”

  My curse was cut off by the chime of an incoming call. I set my cup on my trunk and dug out my phone. Ronnie’s bright face grinned at me from the screen, and I swiped a finger across it to answer. The woman in the car honked again. I stuck my tongue out at her and made a rude gesture with my free hand before turning my back.

  “Heya, Ronnie.” I reached into my bag for my scarf as the cold night air crept up my back.

  “Girl, get your witchy butt home!”

  “I told you I was on my way.” My voice was a little muffled as I struggled with the phone and scarf.

  “Forty minutes ago!”

  “I know!” I cradled the phone between face and shoulder as I climbed into the car with keys and coffee in my hands.

  “People keep coming into my shop wanting to know where you are.”

  “What? Like you’re my keeper?”

  “No, Frankie keeps threatening to bite them if they linger in the lobby too long.”

  “So tell them to go upstairs!”

  “There’s some kid in your hallway with a pox or a puss jinx, I don’t know, but apparently he’s gross and smelly. No one wants to wait up there with him besides his parents.”

  “Awesome.”

  “Yeah, so hurry up.”

  “I’m in the car.” I jammed my key into the ignition just as the woman honked again. I really, really wanted to stomp on the gas and back right into her. But I didn’t.

  “Hurry.”

  With that Ronnie ended the call, and I dropped my phone back into my bag. I wasn’t looking forward to finding out what had happened to that boy, but at least the promise of customers made spending so much money easier to bear. I glanced into the rearview mirror to see the woman waving at me again, mouthing obscenities. Oh, how I wanted to sit right there until I’d drunk my entire cup of coffee.

  “Time to make the donuts,” I said, putting the car into reverse.

  I’m not ashamed to admit that I took my time pulling out of that parking space, hardly even touching the accelerator. I could practically feel the heat of the woman’s anger before she gunned it into the space. The muffled thump of her car hitting the cement bumper was so satisfying that I laughed for a good mile.

  Chapter 2

  Getting to the elevator in my apartment building wasn’t so easy. My waiting customers packed the lobby while a fuming Frankie stood behind the reception desk. Her spiky hair was platinum shot through with pink. Her arms were crossed under her ample chest, and her eyes were flickering yellow, she was so angry.

  “Heya, Frankie,” I said as I shifted my bags on the way by.

  She didn’t say anything, not one jab or insult, which was scarier, really. I dodged through people and hit the call button with my elbow.

  “Uh, Mattie, do you know how long it’ll be?”

  I turned to see Marek with his mother, an aged elf with arthritis in her gnarled fingers. “You guys are all welcome to come upstairs and wait,” I said, lifting my voice to be heard by everyone.

  The crowd shifted uncomfortably, eyes dropping, hands fidgeting.

  “You’ve got a creepy little boy upstairs freaking everyone out,” Frankie barked, making me jump.

  “What?”

  “Didn’t Ronnie tell you? I told her to tell you.”

  “Oh, right,” I said, my mind catching up with me. “Guys, it can’t be that bad.”

  “Just go,” Frankie groaned. “Get the whelp taken care of so these ‘fraidy cats will get the hell out of my lobby.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, stepping backward into the elevator. “I don’t know how long it’ll be, Marek, but I’ll try to hurry.”

  That didn’t seem to make anyone happy, so when the doors slid closed between me and the lobby, I was more than a little grateful. The rickety ride wasn’t long enough for me to steel my nerves for what was waiting for me. What could have happened to the kid to freak out a bunch of supernaturals? I shuddered to think. When the doors slid open, a powerful stench struck me in the back of the mouth, making me gag. I stumbled back, nearly dropping my purchases to cover my mouth and nose, but I managed to get my balance and step out.

  A trio of people was waiting in front of my door: two grown men and the infamous boy I’d been warned about. As I got closer, the pustules on the boy’s face came into stark relief against his pale skin. They were orange and green and swollen, some threatening to burst open. Others already had and were oozing puss—that was the cause of the stench. The two men were both holding handkerchiefs to their faces, their eyes wide with relief when they saw me.

  “Ms. Kavanagh?” one said behind his kerchief.

  “That’s me.” I shifted my bags to try to get my front door key in my hand. My aura brushed theirs, and I found all of them purely human.

  “Please, let us help.” Both men stepped forward, offering one hand each to take part of my load but keeping their noses covered.

  “Thanks,” I said with a sigh of relief.

  “My name is David,” the first said as he took a bag. “This is my husband, Cameron, and our son, Andrew.”

  “Well met, well met,” I said as I got my key into the knob, feeling the zap of my freezing spell breaking under my touch. I eyed the boy. “So I take it you pissed off a pixie or two?”

  He wouldn’t make eye contact with me.

  “Oh my God,” Cameron said, “you know what’s wrong with him?”

  Nudging the door open with my hip, I stepped inside in time to see my smush-faced cat, Artemis, dashing out of the living room to hide in my bedroom. I couldn’t really blame him.

  “Yeah,” I said, leading them to my little dinette table. I set my bag on a chair, took off my scarf and jacket, and draped them over the back of the chair.

  David and Cameron set my things on the table and stood awkwardly around their son.

  “Something like this happened to someone I knew in school years ago. Please”—I ran my hands through my hair and twisted my back to crack it—“have a seat. Anyone want any tea?”

  “No, thank you,” David said. “I know you have a lot of people waiting.”

  “So what do you mean he pissed off a pixie?” Cameron asked.

  I moved into the kitchen and pulled down ingredients to brew the anti-jinx potion, hurrying a little when I thought about Frankie’s reddening face downstairs. I was kind of glad they’d turned down the tea.

  “When I was in school, there was this girl who kept picking on this one half-pixie girl. Her genetic combo wasn’t the best. Her skin was this light green, so lots of kids picked on her, you know? Anyway”—I pulled my wand from its resting place on the window sill and jabbed at the burner under my spell pot, igniting the flames—“one day she’d had enough, just kinda snapped, and she pixed the other girl.”

  I measured the ingredients, adding them one by one into the pot. The silence from the table was palpable. I glanced over and saw both dads glaring at their son, who still wasn’t making eye contact with anyone.

  “Anyway, that’s what a pix looks like.” I pointed at Andrew with my ceramic spoon.

  “So you got into a fight with a pixie at school?” David asked, but Andrew wasn’t interested in talking.

  “What if we don’t let Ms. Kavanagh give you the antidote if you don’t tell us what happened?” Cameron said, finally drawing Andrew’s eyes up. “Do you want Santa knowing you were bad, especially this close to Christmas? You won’t get any toys.”

  I couldn’t help the snicker that burst from me. All three humans looked at me, and I covered the noise with a fake cough. Was that all human kids had to worry about? No presents? Dude, they had it easy.

  “She started it,” Andrew mumbled.

  “Mmhmm,” David said as he crossed his arms.

  I busied myself with counting the number of stirs I gave the potion, watching the flowers and herbs swirling in the vortex. After twenty-three turns, I pulled out my spoon, set a china teacup on the counter, an
d ladled out a serving, careful to only get the liquid.

  “Deaeco elvo pruoluo,” I whispered over the teacup and watched the murky brown liquid clarify so I could see the bottom of the cup.

  Andrew didn’t hesitate in taking the cup from me. He plugged his nose with one hand and used the other to tip the cup to his lips, downing the whole thing in one go.

  “Nice,” I said with a nod.

  His fathers watched his face intently, even letting their kerchiefs fall as their jaws went slack. In minutes, the pustules stopped oozing and started to shrink.

  I nodded and turned back to bottle up the rest of the potion, whispering the incantation with each ladleful. After stoppering the bottle, I handed it to Cameron. “So it’ll be one hundred for the potion. Just be sure to give him four ounces every four hours until the bottle is empty. Shouldn’t be any scarring, and they should all be gone by the time he finishes the bottle. And the smell should go away after a bath. Get the puss off his skin.”

  “We were afraid to get them wet,” Cameron said with a grimace.

  “No worries, you can bathe him now.” I took the money David offered me.

  “Thank you,” Cameron said.

  They both shook my hand before ushering their son through the door. I went around opening the windows, letting in fresh night air to air out the place before the rest of my customers came up. I rushed to move the bags of presents off the table, stacking them with the boxes of decorations I hadn’t had a chance to unpack yet. I planned to invite everyone over for a small party and get them to help me. Then all I’d have to do was get a tree.

  The air in the apartment wasn’t totally clear when I heard the elevator chime, so I lit Christmas candles, hoping the manufactured smells of baking cookies and cinnamon and sugar would cover the rest of the stench. When Marek and his mother came through the door, their cringing faces told me I hadn’t been very successful.

  “By the trees, girl,” Bernadette swore as she lifted her two gnarled hands. A cool wind coursed through the apartment, pulling at the tips of my hair and making the candle flames bend and flicker as it raced for the window over my kitchen sink, taking the lingering stench with it.

  “Ugh, thanks Bernie.” I pulled out a chair at the table for her.

  Bernie leaned on Marek’s arm as she walked, her back curving forward, making her cotton candy hair hang forward around her face. I could never guess just how old Bernadette was, but if she’d reached the point where she had to ask for a witch’s aid, there couldn’t be a number put to her age.

  Soon others filled in. Some were my regulars looking to refill their health potions, some new faces, but everyone seemed comfortable now that the threat of the Great Stench was gone. Cowards.

  In less than thirty minutes, I had all four burners going on my stove and had used and expired amulets laid out on my counter to be respelled and activated. Artie had come out of the bedroom to investigate and sniff the new people. When I passed out pain talismans, I found him curled up in the lap of a younger human girl, her two friends cooing at him.

  “Ham,” I said with a shake of my head.

  With the talismans passed out, that cleared out half of my regular customers, making the living room more comfortable. Making sure each person got the potion they’d come for—almost mixing up a sleeping draught and revitalization elixir—I got the other half out. My money box was pleasantly full, and the thought of the money I’d spent earlier didn’t seem so bad anymore.

  All that was left were the three human girls on my couch, still cooing over Artie, now purring at full volume. I rolled my eyes as he rolled onto his back, demanding belly scratches. The three girls looked as if they were ready for a Hello Kitty convention or a rave with their rainbows of costume jewelry, anime makeup, pigtails, and tiny backpacks. The girl holding Artie was wearing knee-high boots that looked as if three purple Muppets had to die to make them. Her rainbow-striped tights were a shock of color in my neutral living room.

  “So, girls,” I said, feeling much older than my twenty-four years as I looked at them. “What can I do for you tonight?”

  The girl on the arm of my couch pulled a lollipop out of her mouth. “We were hoping you could make us some glamours.”

  “What for?” I crossed my arms and let one brow arch as I eyed them.

  “We’re not gonna rob a bank or anything,” Lollipop said, making her two friends giggle. “We’re going to the Krampus Rumpus.” She pulled her backpack around and dug into it until she found a glossy postcard.

  I jolted at the sight of it when I took it. On one side were scrolling words with sponsors all over it in a riot of information and color, but on the other was a sight I hadn’t seen since I was kid. A demon grinned at me, his long red tongue lolled out as his horns almost disappeared at the edge of the paper. In one hand, he held a large black sack, and in the other was a scantily clad woman, her cartoon face contorted into mock surprise.

  Gruß vom Krampus was scrolled along the top. Greetings from Krampus. A shiver ran down my back. I had just thought of the Yulelord devil a few hours ago. I felt as if thinking about him had brought him into my home.

  “Are you serious?” I asked, looking from the card to the girls. The card was an all-access pass to the various events over the next couple weeks, all of them centered around Krampus, that led up to the Rumpus on Christmas Eve Eve. A popular German death metal band was promised to play at the Rumpus.

  “It’s gonna be so great. Last year was the first year so it wasn’t that big, but this year is going to be epic!” The girl holding Artie bounced in her seat, making Artie flip onto his paws and jump to the floor, affronted.

  “I, uh…” I blinked and shook my head, at a complete loss for words. The Krampus Ball was tomorrow night, according to the card, and costumes were encouraged to complement the Alpine Christmas theme.

  “So can you do glamours? We heard you’re the best.”

  “You did, did you?” I asked, pulling my eyes away from the card.

  “Well, we heard you’re the real deal, you know? You’re not a fake.”

  “Who told you this?”

  “Our friend Bu.”

  “Oh,” I said with a nod. “Shinobu? He’s good people.” I swore all three girls turned three shades of red before collapsing into giggles. “All right, all right”—I waved at them to follow me into the kitchen—“what are you looking for?”

  It took the better part of an hour and my aching back and feet from the mall were catching up to me, but eventually all three girls were giddy with excitement as their glamours settled over them. They wanted to look like half-shifted woodland nymphs, so I’d given them each twisting, graceful, glittering horns that pushed through their brightly colored hair. I’d flattened their noses and widened their eyes until they had the sweet, soft faces of does with human aspects. I finished the looks with a cast of shimmering sparkle over their fair skin.

  “Happy?” I asked as the three girls twirled around my kitchen.

  In a chorus, they said, “Oh yes!”

  “Okay.” I took the bracelets off their wrists, returning them to their usual forms. “You’ll probably get a good three days out of these. Seventy-two hours, give or take, so if you don’t wear them constantly, you could make them last for a while.”

  They squealed and danced in place. I couldn’t help but laugh as I dropped the bracelets into a different colored gossamer bag so they wouldn’t get them confused. When I turned around, they were counting out money, uncrumpling bills and laying them on the counter. They whispered to each other, but their tones had an obvious edge. I kept the three bracelets in my hand as I waited.

  Finally they lifted their eyes to look at me. Two of them were on the verge of tears.

  Lollipop said, “We’re short.”

  “By how much?” I asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice.

  “Eighty-five,” she said.

  Considering each set of bracelets was one seventy-five, that wasn’t as bad as
I expected. I stared at the gossamer bags, the charmed silver bracelets just visible through the shiny fabric, each etched with pretty, intricate designs, all warm from the freshly laid spells.

  “That’s fine,” I said, holding out the pouches.

  “Are you serious?” two of them yelled in unison.

  How much time do you have to spend with someone to say the same thing at the same time so often? “Yeah,” I said, swiping the cash off the counter. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Oh, merry Christmas.” Lollipop rushed forward to throw her arms around me and crush me against her. She even smelled like candy. “Here, you keep this.” She pressed the all-access pass into my hands.

  I chuckled and walked them to the door, waving off their incessant thanks. Back in the kitchen, intent on making myself a nice cup of hot tea, the sight of Krampus on the counter caught my eye, sending another jolt through my body.

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever understand humans, no matter how often I was around them. Though I loved Christmastime, when I was growing up, it had been kinda scary too. Humans had their Santa Claus who brought presents to all the good boys and girls, leaving nothing or a lump of coal if they were naughty. But supernaturals? People who kept to the old faiths? We had Krampus the Yulelord who actually punished naughty boys and girls. If you were lucky, he just gave you a few switches with whip-like birch branches. But if you were especially bad, Krampus would snatch you, stuff you in his bag, and take you to his lair. There, he’d torture you or roast you and eat you. Now that would keep a kid in line. I’d take a lump of coal any day.

  It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I found out I’d never really had to worry about Krampus. After the Great Revelation, supernaturals had worked very hard to assimilate into human society to make their acceptance of us easier. Part of that meant conforming our holidays to match theirs. Luckily for us, humans still held on to magical and pagan rites—they just didn’t know it. But we did change some things about our celebrations, and we left out others. Krampus was one of the things people became very quiet about. Eventually he was mostly forgotten. The occasional warning about him coming in the night wasn’t enough to keep up true belief in him.