I know laughing was probably really inappropriate, but I couldn’t stop myself.
Tori looked at me like I’d lost my mind for about 15 seconds, and then the corners of her mouth began to twitch.
The twitch progressed to a smile, the smile to a snicker, and then she burst out laughing, too.
“God,” she said, “what I really wanted to tell him was to shove a reindeer up his . . . ”
“Tori!”
“Yeah,” she said, “I know. The reindeer wouldn’t deserve that.”
We both wiped our eyes and caught our breath. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“No,” she said honestly, “but I’m better than I was five minutes ago. I cannot wait to get to the Valley. Are you all packed?”
“Yes,” I said, “and I wrapped the last presents this morning. Darby tells me that Glory and Rodney have plans to go skiing, by the way.”
“Oh, I know all about that,” Tori said. “Jeff was sanding Rodney’s teeny tiny little skis out back yesterday. You know your father. Those things are perfect down to the last detail. He even sent off for the right kind of wax. Your mother made Rodney a ski suit.”
Of course she did. They don’t have grandchildren. Enough said?
Before we could talk anymore, a rattling tap sounded at the front door. A small knot of regulars stood outside peering hopefully through the glass. When I flipped the sign over and turned the latch, one of the men said, “Thank heavens, Jinx. We were scared you were already closed for the holidays.”
“Not until about 3 o’clock, Walter,” I said, standing back to make room for everyone to pass. “You and Jim can get your chess game in.”
The old man winked at me. “Don’t tell him, but I’m gonna let him win just this one time. It’s his Christmas present.”
The day passed easily and pleasantly. Everyone who came in the door was in a festive and light mood. We had special, holiday-inspired pastries on the menu and about 1 o’clock I set out a bowl of lightly spiked eggnog. Not that we’d try to ply the customers with booze, but we did move a lot of candles and last-minute stocking stuffer type merchandise for the rest of the afternoon.
One tiny crisis required my attention just after lunch. A crash from my apartment sent me flying upstairs where I found all four of my cats in various stages of a catnip-induced high.
Yule was kicked back on the couch staring at his paw while Winston leaned against the wall and drooled. That left Zeke and Xavier boxing with each other, except they must have been seeing double because the blows landed in thin air.
Bending to pick up the torn nip sack, I read the card. “Merry Christmas, boys. This is the good stuff, not that cheap crap your human buys. Enjoy. — Festus.”
I might have known. Festus is Chase’s irreverent, carousing father who lives in yellow housecat form to better manage a lame hip. I had no idea how the old drug dealer got in my apartment, but I intended to find out.
After I vacuumed up the nip, I called my next door neighbor, Amity Prescott, who would be taking care of the cats for me. Although Amity is the last surviving member of the Briar Hollow coven, she’s curiously absented herself from the magical events in our lives for several weeks. She planned to join us for Christmas Dinner at Barnaby’s but was otherwise adamant about spending the rest of the holiday alone.
She grumbled something about “dissolute werecats” when I gave her the news about the nip heads, but promised to look in on them multiple times before leaving for the Valley. When I hung up, I transferred each of my snoring stoners to one of their new plush beds, tucked them in to sleep off the nip, and went back downstairs.
Mom and Dad showed up about 2:30 laden down with luggage and bags of wrapped gifts. “We should have been here an hour ago,” she declared as she bustled in the back door, “but your father had to make sure his dogs were settled okay.”
“Is Leroy keeping them again?” I asked. Leroy was Dad’s lifelong best friend and a confirmed bachelor. He lives outside Cotterville in a trailer down by the river. When he isn’t working at the Ford dealership in town, he’s fishing or restoring his most recently acquired vintage car.
“Yes,” Dad said, “but I had to have words with him. He’s got Bobber hooked on sausage sandwiches from Sonic and those things are just not good for him.”
Grinning, I said, “Not good for Leroy or not good for Bobber?”
“Either one,” Dad replied. “They’re both getting fat.”
Gemma showed up about fifteen minutes later also in excellent spirits. When she hugged Tori, I heard her say, “How did it go with your father?”
I couldn’t make out what Tori said in response, but they both laughed, which I took as a good sign.
When the last customers were safely out the door, we all trooped down to the lair where our in-house almost-ghost rushed forward to help with the baggage. Colonel Beauregard T. Longworth died in 1864 in service to the Army of Northern Virginia. Thanks to an amulet in his possession, he can once again be part of the world of the living, but he’s still dead all the same.
That day, he looked resplendent in an old-fashioned gray frock coat and bright red silk vest. You can take the man out of the 19th century, but you can’t take the 19th century out of the man. All in all, Beau assimilates well in the modern world, but when we go to Shevington, he’s free to revert to his courtly, old-timey self.
“Merry Christmas, dear friends!” he called out as we came down the stairs. “If I may be so bold, Mrs. Hamilton, you look quite splendid, as do you, Mrs. Andrews.”
I swear to you, my mother giggled. “Beau,” she said, “how many times do I have to tell you it’s okay to call me ‘Kelly?’”
Executing a sweeping bow, Beau replied gallantly, “As you wish, fair lady. Kelly it is.”
“What on earth is up with you today, Beau?” I asked, laughing. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in such a good mood.”
Grinning from ear to ear, Beau said, “I must confess, Miss Jinx, that Christmas is my favorite holiday. My wife used to say we did not have need of children as my enthusiasm for the season sufficed. I especially enjoyed decorating the tree and lighting the candles on the boughs. The sight was quite glorious.”
“You had regular candles on the tree?” Tori asked. “With flames and everything?”
“But, of course,” Beau said. “How else would one light a tree?”
“Okay,” Tori said, putting her arm around his shoulder. “We need to talk about something called a LED. Considerably farther down the fire hazard list.”
As I watched the pile of luggage and gifts get bigger and bigger, I began to worry about how we were going to transport everything. The walk to the Shevington portal takes about an hour and it was starting to look like pack mules were in order.
But, as usual, Darby came to our rescue, wheeling out the first in a series of carts that looked like they might have been lifted from the nearest Holiday Inn. I decided not to ask.
We made for a noisy, boisterous bunch as we set out through the stacks of the Fae archive that stretches in all directions under our store. Glory and her mountain of pint-sized luggage sat balanced atop one of my bags, with Rodney and Darby riding along.
After about a hundred yards, Dad, who has a beautiful baritone voice, broke into a rousing rendition of Deck the Halls, which got the rest of us started — even Duke, Beau’s spectral coonhound and constant companion who howled on-key in all the right places.
Chase and Festus, left earlier in the day to help decorate The Dirty Claw, a werecat bar in Shevington that was throwing its annual party for the regulars that evening.
Lucas and Greer MacVicar, who is his partner at the DGI (that’s Division for Grid Integrity, by the way) were on their way back to Shevington from an “errand in Uzbekistan.”
When the ten of us stepped through the portal and into the snow-covered Valley, Connor, and his boss, Ellis Groomsby were waiting — Connor at the reins of a handsome team of draft horses pulling the biggest sleigh
I’ve ever seen. Ellis drove a more utilitarian wagon also outfitted with rails.
“We thought you might like to take a sleigh ride around the valley,” Connor said, as Ailish peeked around his shoulder. “The Christmas fair doesn’t really get started until dusk, so we have plenty of time.”
Even as I assured him how wonderful that all sounded, I couldn’t keep from scanning the skies overhead. This was the first time I’d ever been to the Valley without Minreith and the dragonlet flock greeting me at the portal.
Reading my mind, Connor said, “Dragonlets scare the horses. Minreith said to tell you they’d see you tonight. Barnaby is allowing them to come to the fair.”
Relief flooded through me. I hadn’t realized how attached I’d become to the mischievous creatures. “Thank you,” I said. “It worried me when they weren’t here.”
“Most people don’t realize how much dragonlets can grow on a person,” Connor said. “They’re really sweet when you get to know them.” Then, shyly, he asked, “Do you like the sleigh?”
Clearly Connor put a lot of thought into planning our welcome. The black sleigh trimmed in red was freshly polished and gleaming in the afternoon sun. Rich, warm lap robes waited on the seats, and the horse’s collars were outfitted with bells.
Feeling bad for letting myself get distracted, I gave him a big hug. “I love it! Let’s get this show on the road!”
Everyone pitched in to transfer the luggage to the wagon, which Ellis would drop off at Barnaby’s house. Then we piled into the sleigh and accepted enchanted cups of hot chocolate from Madam Kaveh’s with tiny versions for Glory and Rodney.
“The cups are self-heating,” Connor explained, “and won’t run out for three hours no matter how much you drink. That should keep everyone good and warm.”
When I started to climb in the back, Connor patted the seat beside him and said, “Want to ride up front with me, Sis?”
He had me at “Sis.”
I took my place next to him and Connor tucked a lap robe around me.
As he did, Ailish leaned toward me and said, “Connor not make Ailish eat green broccoli yuck.”
“He didn’t?” I asked, smiling. “Why not?”
“Green broccoli yuck not go with Christmas,” the little creature said solemnly. “Sticky sweet honey go with Christmas.”
Connor leaned back and picked up the reins, “We’ll talk about broccoli after the holidays are over,” he said, with mock sternness.
Ailish turned her huge, dark eyes toward me and said hopefully, “Maybe Connor forget?”
Trying not to laugh, Connor clicked his tongue and said to the team, “Get along now.”
Both horses obediently started forward, picking up the pace with their massive, shaggy hooves to achieve a nice trot in spite of the thick snow. Ailish ducked back under Connor’s scarf so that only the tips of her ears showed.
Over my shoulder, I heard the others talking and laughing. Beau seemed especially delighted to be in a horse-drawn conveyance again and was telling the others about the deep winters of his youth on the Tennessee frontier. According to Beau’s tombstone, he died at age 45. By the standards of his day, he was fast approaching old age.
I have to admit I was shocked when I heard him tell my father, “I was born on the Tennessee frontier in 1819, the year before the election of President James Monroe of Virginia. You can imagine my excitement when, in 1828, Andrew Jackson, a hero from my own state, assumed the office.”
Mom said, “Tell us about Christmases when you were a boy, Beau.”
“The holiday traditions which you observe today are quite different from those of my time,” Beau replied. “Many people did not celebrate Christmas at all, but my father was the son of a Virginia planter. Feasting, gambling, dancing, and hunting were part of his tradition, so when I began my own family, we celebrated the season as well. Ours was the first household in the county to adopt the Germanic custom of erecting a Christmas tree . . . “
The talk over our shoulders created a little bubble of privacy for my brother and me. “It was so nice of you to think about doing all this, Connor,” I said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he answered with a smile. “I wanted to do something special for everyone, but I couldn’t decide what. Then I started staring at this snow globe I’ve had since I was a kid and got the idea for a sleigh ride.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You have a snow globe?” I asked.
“I do,” he said. “It’s a sleigh like this one . . . ”
“With a white horse and pine trees in the background,” I finished. “And when you shake it, the snow is full of shiny glitter.”
“How did you know that?” he asked, turning to look at me.
“Because I have the same snow globe,” I said. “Mom and Dad gave it to me for my first Christmas.”
Connor turned his attention back to the team, and I saw him swallow hard. “Granny told me my parents gave me mine for my first Christmas, too,” he said.
On impulse, I tucked my arm through his and moved closer on the seat. “That means,” I said, “that when we were kids, we looked at the same snow globe and dreamed the same kinds of dreams about where the horse was going.”
“There was a house on the other side of the pine trees in my dream,” Connor said softly. “Where my family lived.”
I knew Connor told us the truth when he said he’d had a happy life, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d been a little boy with no parents. Fighting back tears, I squeezed his arm. “We’re here now,” I said, “and you’re driving the sleigh that’s taking us to our grandfather’s house.”
Connor shook his head. “No,” he grinned, “we are driving the sleigh to our grandfather’s house. Come on. Put your hands over mine and let me show you how this is done.”
3
Chase took the end of the evergreen garland in his mouth, tensed the muscles in his hind legs, and sprang upward toward the lintel above the window. He landed on the thin ledge with easy, feline grace, dragging the greenery after him and securing it over a hook on each side of the frame. Below him, Merle grabbed one dangling end and Furl the other as Earl issued directions.
“Pull down more on your side, Merle,” he commanded. “A little more, a little more. Furl, dang it, give him some slack! Okay, okay, okay. STOP! Perfect. You can come down now, Chase.”
Landing with a solid thunk, Chase surveyed his handiwork. “How long do you think these guys are going to leave hanging greens in place once the nipnog starts flowing?” he asked Earl.
“Not long,” the Scottish Fold said, “but we should be able to get the group photo taken before they shred the place. Once the Tree Destruction Contest gets going, all bets are off.”
From his spot reclining on the bar, Festus bellowed, “Aloysius! Stop eating tinsel! Nobody is going to help you once it starts coming out.”
A nervous looking Cornish Rex in a red Christmas sweater looked up with a guilty expression, a single strand of tinsel hanging out of the corner of his mouth.
“You heard me,” Festus said sternly, “spit it out. Now.”
The hairless cat complied, hacking up a small wad of silver and raking it under the bar with his paw.
“Now go do something constructive,” Festus ordered. “For Bastet’s sake, you’re not some wet behind the ears kitten.”
“I thought Aloysius was on drugs for his anxiety,” Chase said in a low voice, jumping up on the bar beside his father.
Festus made a grumbling sound in his throat that turned into a hairball choke. When he got his breath back, he said, “There’s not enough nipnog in Shevington to get that cat to calm down. That’s what he gets for running around naked all the time.”
“Come on, Dad,” Chase said. “He can’t help that he’s a hairless breed.” Then, as if it suddenly occurred to him, Chase asked, “What’s his big cat form anyway?”
“Believe it or not,” Festus said, “he’s a cheetah, but trust me, you
do not want him to shift. With his OCD all he does is run around the place at 60 miles an hour straightening pictures on the walls.”
Manfred, the burly Canadian Lynx bartender, leaned over and whispered, “If Aloysius doesn’t win the Tree Destruction Contest I don’t know what we’re going to do with him. When he lost the Red Dot tournament last month, he shredded the upholstery in six booths before we got him calmed down.”
Festus held up one paw, extended his claws, and minutely examined the talons. “You are aware that I have entered the Tree Destruction Contest this year?” he asked. “And that I am a former ten-time champion known for my signature ability to fling ornaments?”
Chase and Manfred exchanged a glance. “Well, that’s just it, Festus,” Manfred said, making a show of intently polishing the bar. “Chase and I were hoping you might consider withdrawing.”
“And why,” Festus asked archly, “would I consider doing that?”
“Here we go,” Chase muttered.
“You say something, boy?” Festus said innocently.
“Dad, it’s Christmas,” Chase said. “You don’t care anything about some silly contest, but it means everything to Aloysius. Let him have it.”
Fixing his son with a steely gaze, Festus said, “And you’re assuming he’s not going to figure out that by my doing that you morons are treating him like a poor pitiful puss?”
“Does that mean you’re going to let him win?”
“That means,” Festus said, raising one hind leg and scratching his ear, “that you should tend to your own damned business and let me tend to mine.”
A ruckus at the front door interrupted their conversation as workers began carrying in six completely decorated Christmas trees on stands. “Excuse me,” Manfred said, leaping over the bar. “I have to take delivery of the trees. Help yourself to the nipnog.”
“Why only six trees?” Chase asked.
“Because the qualifying rounds were held last week,” Festus said. “Didn’t I mention it to you?”
Christmas in the Valley: A Jinx Hamilton / Shevington Novella Page 2