“What did he do?”
“Acted like a tool.”
“That sounds about right.” Thistle shot Landon a challenging look when he opened his mouth to protest. “Bay is telling the story. When it’s your turn, I’ll point at you.”
“This family makes me tired,” Landon complained, rolling his eyes.
“Then we spent some time in the present with Uncle Calvin as our guide,” I said. “It was cool to hang out with him, but his stay was kind of boring. He basically made us watch Chief Terry and our mothers prepare for some charity dinner they have planned for this afternoon. Did you know they were doing that, by the way?”
“What charity dinner?”
I filled her in on everything I knew, and when I was finished she was as dumbfounded as me. “Why wouldn’t they tell us about that?”
“I have no idea.”
“They can’t blame us for not knowing.”
“I knew,” Marcus offered, drawing three sets of eyes in his direction. “What? Everyone in town has been buzzing about it. We’re busing people here from shelters in a number of towns so we can throw a huge party. They’re attending the Christmas festival and everything.”
How did I not know about that? My guilt doubled. “Well … we’ll have to make sure we donate time and whatever else they need.”
“Yeah,” Thistle agreed.
“We will, Bay,” Landon said, pinning his eyes to mine. “We didn’t know. We can still fix it. Don’t freak out or anything.”
“I’m not going to freak out.” I wasn’t. I might pout a bit, but I wasn’t going to freak out.
“You’re leaving out the best part of the story,” Landon prodded. “Tell Thistle about what happened when we went to the future.”
“Oh, right.”
Thistle grinned, happy to have something to think about other than the fact that we were so self-absorbed we didn’t realize we missed out on a big Hemlock Cove charity event. “I’m dying to hear what you saw in the future. How did I hold up?”
That was an interesting question. “Well … you go back to a muted brown hair color at some point.”
“That doesn’t sound cool.”
“You also have five children.”
“Five?” Thistle’s mouth dropped open. “There’s no way I managed to keep my hips from spreading after giving birth to five children. That is outrageous.”
“All boys.”
“Boys?” Thistle looked horrified, but Marcus’ face expressed interest.
“We had five boys? That sounds kind of fun. That’s a basketball team.”
“That does not sound fun,” Thistle muttered.
“You didn’t have five boys together,” I added. “You had one boy together: Mace.”
“Mace? Like Windu?” Thistle was on the verge of losing it. “Wait … what do you mean we didn’t have all of them together?”
“It’s important you realize that Aunt Tillie was being vengeful,” I cautioned. “Nothing we saw is going to really happen. The more I tell you, the more you’ll come to realize that.”
“Fine.” Thistle heaved out a long-suffering sigh. “Lay it on me.”
“Well, you had five boys with five different fathers.”
“I’ll kill that old witch!”
I ignored Thistle’s outburst. “Let’s see, you had Mace – the boy you shared with Marcus – and Fennel, oh, and Red Pepper Flake.”
“Now you’re just making stuff up!”
“That’s what I said when I first heard the names,” I admitted. “Your boys had the worst names by far. Landon and I were the parents of three teenagers – all girls – and apparently we named them Sage, Saffron and Sumac.”
Thistle laughed so hard I thought she’d knock herself over. “Sumac?”
“Yeah. That’s when I knew we were going to be fine looking around the future because it was so ridiculous. That was before we found out that the Earth now has two suns because the previous one exploded and two benevolent alien races tugged new suns into orbit for us.”
“So you went to a future that Aunt Tillie dreamed up after watching a Star Trek marathon, huh?”
Now that she was hearing the details, Thistle wasn’t as bothered. “Pretty much. You’ll also be interested to know that Hemlock Cove had its own pope and king … .”
“You were the king,” Landon informed Marcus. “No joke. Apparently you took over when Aunt Tillie stepped down after she figured she’d ruled long enough.”
“Well, that’s kind of fun.” Marcus smiled. “I was probably lonely without my Thistle, but being king is cool.”
“You weren’t lonely,” I countered. “You had a second wife named Storm. She was suffering from PTSD and made porn films to get through it.”
“I’m totally going to rip that old lady’s head off,” Thistle screeched. She was clearly back to being miffed.
“Who are we talking about?” Clove asked, appearing at the end of the driveway with Sam and two shovels in tow.
“Aunt Tillie,” Thistle replied. “I’m going to kill her when I see her. Just prepare yourselves.”
“Why?”
I gave Clove a brief rundown of my night, catching her up to where we were in the conversation. When I was done, she was bent over at the waist she laughed so hard.
“Fennel,” she giggled, after the laugh storm subsided.
“I wouldn’t talk,” I said, hoping to take the edge off Thistle’s anger. “You had a daughter named Cinnamon and spent all of your time in the corner staring at yourself in a mirror. I barely talked to you. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that Aunt Tillie kept telling people I was one of the Upper Peninsula Winchesters.”
Thistle and Clove shuddered in unison.
“I need to meet these other Winchesters,” Landon said. “They sound fascinating.”
“Then we’re clearly telling the story wrong,” Thistle fired back. “What do you think that was about? Clove sitting in the corner, I mean. It’s obvious why she did what she did to me.”
“Including making me king,” Marcus added. “I’m obviously her favorite.”
“No one likes a show-off,” Landon muttered.
I ignored him. “Yeah. I have an idea about that, but we’ll talk on the way to the inn. I think I’ve come up with something to fix Aunt Tillie’s abandonment problem and punish her in the process.”
“Oh, I’m already game for that,” Thistle enthused, causing me to smile.
“Speaking of nights, what happened to you, Clove? I knew what Thistle was going through, but I had no idea what hoops Aunt Tillie asked you to jump through.”
“Let’s just say that doing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer – completely with Claymation – is no longer on my bucket list,” Clove sneered. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get clay out of certain cracks?”
And just like that, we had the Christmas spirit – and the driveway was clear to boot.
Christmas isn’t always about getting things. It’s about giving things, too. That’s the most important thing to remember. You need to give what you can and be gracious about what’s given to you. Then, when you’re done with that, you can smite your enemies with a clear conscience. Everyone clear? Okay, fasten your combat helmets and get ready. We’re not done tonight until Margaret Little is in tears. Only then can we have our cookies.
– Aunt Tillie while on babysitting duty on Christmas Eve
Twenty
“Merry Christmas!”
Thistle bellowed the words as we stomped in through the front door of The Overlook. The snow wiped out the pathway between the guesthouse and inn, so we had no choice but to drive and park in the front lot.
Mom was behind the counter when we entered. Her eyes widened when she saw all six of us. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s Christmas,” I replied. “Where else would we be on Christmas?”
“Nowhere else,” Landon answered for me, sliding behind the counter to give Mom a kiss on
the cheek. “We all decided this was the place to be for Christmas.”
Mom didn’t bother to hide her awe. “But … how? You were all so sure last night.”
“Yes, and then we spent some hard hours searching our souls,” Thistle replied, her eyes dark when she moved them to the open doorway between the lobby and the kitchen. “Merry Christmas, Aunt Tillie.”
“Merry Christmas, mouth.” Aunt Tillie was one big smile when she stepped into the room. She looked a little too pleased with herself. “Merry Christmas to all of you.”
Mom, as if sensing the chill in the room, shifted from one foot to the other. “Is something going on?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Is something going on, Aunt Tillie?”
“It’s Christmas and we had a blizzard last night,” Aunt Tillie replied, her face reflecting innocence. “What else could possibly be going on?”
Mom wasn’t convinced, but she didn’t press the issue. “Well, the good news is that you’re here just in time to see Annie open her gifts. I heard Belinda upstairs trying to corral her a few minutes ago. She’s very excited to see if Santa brought her anything.”
“We dropped off our gifts yesterday, so she should have quite the haul,” Thistle noted. “I’m glad we didn’t miss it.”
“I am, too.” Mom patted Landon’s hand. “Although, we kind of have plans for this afternoon.”
“We know,” I said smoothly. “We’re going to the town party, too.”
“You are?”
“You didn’t think you could get away with throwing a party without us, did you?” Clove asked, shrugging out of her coat. “We’re looking forward to a party.”
“Definitely,” Landon agreed. “I love the shindigs Hemlock Cove throws. Will there be a kissing booth?” He’d been obsessed with the idea of the reoccurring kissing booth since the first time he saw it not long after we began dating.
“I already told you, it’s called the mistletoe booth around Christmas,” I supplied. “It’s the same theme, except they hang mistletoe inside and you’re allowed to drink hot chocolate while kissing.”
“Sold.” Landon grinned as he moved closer to me. “I think I’ve found my afternoon activity.”
“And here I thought it would be making bacon angels or something,” Mom teased, her eyes lighting with mischief.
“Yeah, well, I’m thinking about going on a diet.” Landon patted his flat stomach.
I shot him a hard look. “Not on Christmas you’re not.”
“Right after the holidays then.”
“Or maybe we’ll start working out more,” I suggested.
“Don’t be a dirty pervert,” Aunt Tillie chided, causing me to scold her with a look. “It’s Christmas. You can’t be a dirty pervert on Christmas.”
“That shows what you know,” Landon fired back. “I can be a dirty pervert any day of the year.” He linked his fingers with mine and turned his eyes to the stairs when the sound of feet pounding from the third floor to the first caught his attention. “It sounds like someone is ready to see what Santa brought her.”
I smiled when Annie appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Her hair was tousled from sleep, although it looked as if Belinda at least tried to run a brush through it. And she still wore her bright red pajamas. She pulled up short when she saw us, her eyes filling with wonder.
“Why are you here?”
“We’re your Christmas presents,” Marcus answered, smiling. “Merry Christmas, little one.”
Annie, who adored Marcus under most circumstances, made an exaggerated face. “I already have you guys. Where are my real gifts?”
Thistle chuckled and pointed toward the dining room. “I think you should probably head in that direction.”
Annie needed no further prodding, racing away from us and toward the room where her Christmas gifts awaited.
“I’m sorry about that,” Belinda offered lamely. “She’s just so … excited.”
“There’s no reason to apologize,” Landon said. “We’re all excited, too.”
“And she might not realize it yet, but these six are part of her Christmas gift,” Aunt Tillie added. The look on her face promised a full day of superiority. That was going to be hard to deal with. “They’re certainly part of my Christmas gift, too.”
Oh, well. Even Aunt Tillie could be sweet when she wanted to be.
Annie let loose with what strangely sounded like a war cry in the next room and we picked up our pace to join her. The mountain of gifts under the tree was staggering.
“Are all these for Annie?” I didn’t begrudge the child her gifts – she’d had a rough few years, after all – but the stack was almost dumbfounding.
“They’re for everyone,” Aunt Tillie replied. “Some of them are for Annie. I think, if you look carefully, some of them are for you.”
All the resentment I’d been holding up to use against Aunt Tillie faded. “I’ll bet there’s something under there for you, too, right?”
“There’s a lot of somethings under there for me,” Aunt Tillie replied. “I also bought myself a new snowmobile. It’s got tons of action under the hood and runs whisper silent so I’ll be able to stalk Margaret Little good and proper.”
“At least you have your priorities straight.” I accepted the mug of hot chocolate Twila handed me as she entered the room and then settled in a chair next to Landon to watch Annie tear through her gifts. There would be plenty of time for the adults to open gifts when she was done. “Maybe, if you’re really good, we’ll go with you to mess with Mrs. Little before the town party.”
I didn’t know I was going to make the offer until it was already out of my mouth. Once I said the words, though, I felt better.
“We should definitely do that,” Thistle enthused, perking up. “I think I can even remember how to make yellow snow.”
“What’s yellow snow?” Annie asked, grinning as she unwrapped a new doll. “Thank you, Marcus!”
Marcus beamed back at her. “You’re welcome. That’s the one you wanted, right?”
“Yes. I love her.”
Landon lightly rubbed my back as he smiled indulgently at the girl. “Yellow snow is something that you never want to eat, Annie.”
“Because it’s old?”
“Because it’s been peed on,” Aunt Tillie answered, earning a hiss from Mom. “What? Why are you pointing at Belinda? I’m sure Belinda knows where yellow snow comes from. As for you all joining, I’m not sure you’re worthy. I’ll have to give it some thought.”
“Something tells me we’ll make the cut,” Landon said, rubbing his cheek against mine as he rested his chin on my shoulder. “When are you going to spring your surprise on her?” He kept his voice low so Aunt Tillie couldn’t hear over Annie’s enthusiastic paper shredding.
“Soon. Not until Annie is done opening her gifts.”
“Make sure I’m around when you tell her.”
“You know I will.”
We lapsed into amiable silence, comfortably sipping our hot chocolate while Annie let loose with a series of delighted shrieks and giggles. She was even excited by the new clothes Santa brought her – something that would’ve dragged down my spirits when I was her age. Clothes are simply unacceptable as a gift when you’re younger than twelve. What? I didn’t make it up. Aunt Tillie did, and it’s one of the few things I agree with her on.
“Ho, ho, ho!”
I heard Chief Terry’s booming voice in the other room and turned my head in that direction. I heard him banging his boots on the front rug and I excused myself to greet him. As if sensing I needed some alone time with him, Landon remained where he was.
“I’ll keep your seat warm.”
“I won’t be gone long.”
I found Chief Terry sitting on the front bench as he struggled to wrestle his boots off. He arched an eyebrow when he saw me approaching. “I thought you were spending the day alone with Landon.”
“I had a change of heart.”
“Really? W
hy?”
“Because Christmas should be spent with family,” I replied. “Landon is a part of my family, but he’s not the whole of it.” I sat down next to Chief Terry. “You’re part of my family, too.”
Chief Terry isn’t good at hiding his emotions. If he played poker he’d be much poorer because he’s incapable of bluffing. “You’re part of my family, too, sweetheart.”
I leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek. That was only part of what I wanted to tell him. “So, last night Aunt Tillie punished us by putting us in her versions of Christmas stories. Thistle got Black X-Mas. Clove got Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer – and I guess it was even more terrifying than Black X-Mas because of all the Claymation. And I got A Witchmas Carol.”
“What’s A Witchmas Carol?”
“A Christmas Carol for witches.”
“I should’ve seen that coming. Continue.”
“Most of what happened isn’t important,” I explained. “Basically Aunt Tillie wanted us to admit she was right and we were wrong and then promise to never spend another Christmas away from the family. We decided that early, but she punished us all the same.”
“That sounds just like her.”
“Landon and I went to the past and to the present, and then we landed in the future. We saw you setting up for the big party. I’m kind of angry that you didn’t mention that to me, but we’ll get to it later.”
Chief Terry was obviously confused. “Was I in the future?”
“You were.”
“What was I doing?”
“Eating.”
“Okay … well … .”
“There was a message there about you, and I think Aunt Tillie just added it in with the other stuff because she wanted me to come to a realization,” I explained. “Everything that happened in the future was a mess. It was her mess. She made Marcus a king and gave Hemlock Cove a pope.”
“That sounds really odd.”
“You have no idea,” I said. “She also gave us all kids with terrible names, like Sumac, Cinnamon and Fennel.”
Chief Terry chuckled, his broad shoulders shaking. “That sounds … horrible.”
A Witchmas Carol Page 19