Curse Me Under the Mistletoe

by Kennedy Layne

  “Is that what you’re going to tell Knox?” Piper asked, her expressive blue eyes meeting mine over the fire. Determination and grit pretty much summed up the description of her tilted chin. “I’m believe I can answer for the both of us. We aren’t going anywhere until Ammeline’s cane is destroyed, the supernatural realm is safe, and the curses placed on you and Knox are lifted. See? Simple. Now, those chestnuts smell wonderful! You know, I’ve listened to that particular song so many times over the years, but I never imagined actually roasting chestnuts over an open fire. This is fun!”

  By this time, Orwin had peeled off the shells from the first batch and was already in the process of allowing the nuts to swim in the simmering homemade coating he’d conjured up. It wouldn’t be much longer before he served up the first batch of the delectable treat, piping hot from the pan.

  My sweet Piper is getting very good at changing the subject, isn’t she?

  “Hush now,” Piper scolded Pearl playfully. She adjusted Pearl on her lap as she settled more comfortably in the chair. “You know that I love the holidays. And there’s no changing subjects when there’s nothing left to talk about in regard to splitting up the group.”

  I’d already sensed a presence in the woods, so I wasn’t startled when Knox materialized from the shadows. His short-cropped black hair was covered with a dark grey hat, and he was wearing a light winter jacket despite the near-freezing temperature, sans gloves. Steam seemed to rise off his person, though. Being a werewolf kept his body heat at a higher level than ours, as well as gave a shimmering appearance to those golden-brown eyes of his. He’d taken the time to dress after his shift from wolf, always mindful of Pearl’s sense of etiquette, though I do believe he’d been raised to have a decent sense of modesty to begin with.

  As it should be for every child who is raised to such standards as society dictates, Miss Lilura.

  “What’s this nonsense talk of splitting up?” Knox asked without missing a step. His accusing gaze landed on me directly, knowing full well that I was the source of such a discussion. The thing of it was, he didn’t have the family baggage that Orwin and I had in our lives. Knox’s parents were human, fully believing their son needed some time to himself after multiple deployments in various warzones overseas. It wasn’t fair that he was lying to them, and I bet going home for the holidays would mean the world to them. “It better be in regard to splitting up the rations of those chestnuts. I could smell them miles away on my run.”

  I daresay that the rich scent of those chestnuts covered up the wet dog odor quite nicely.

  Knox had no idea that Pearl spoke disparagingly of his scent, because only witches, warlocks, and druids could hear the thoughts of familiars. Piper hid her smile behind one of her plum colored mittens.

  “Almost done,” Orwin said, giving the second set of chestnuts a bit more time to soak up the scrumptious flavor of the coating. “Hopefully, these are as good as you remember from your childhood, Lou. I had to look up the preparation process on the web.”

  I believe I’d like to try one with a spot of warm cream, Mr. Cornelia.

  “I’ll get you some,” Piper offered, motioning for Orwin to stay by the fire so that the chestnuts could simmer in the rich sauce. “Be right back.”

  Thank you, dear. Oh, this will be such a treat indeed!

  Orwin’s nose was a bit red, but for once it wasn’t due to his allergic reaction to cats. That’s right. He was allergic to Pearl, but the protection spell he’d warded himself with against any future run-ins with Ammeline was rather complicated to lower in order for Piper to heal him of such incidental reactions to common allergies.

  It is one pesky complex spell, is it not?

  “Knox, I’m just saying that your parents are worried about you, especially during this time of year,” I said, attempting to ease into this conversation without Piper or Knox refuting my advice to spend time with their family. “And not just them, but also your extended family and friends. You’re important to them, and vice versa. You are in complete control of your curse, and no one is going to be the wiser that you’re actually anything other than what you appear to be.”

  Knox leaned back in his chair after he’d taken a bottle of water out of his cup holder. Changing always seemed to make him thirsty. I don’t believe I’d ever seen him drink anything other than water or coffee. He tilted the bottle, though he didn’t remove his focus from me. It was as if he was attempting to figure out why I was so determined to get him to visit home for the holidays.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that I had family issues of my own, and I didn’t want to see him go down the same road. I honestly didn’t regret leaving my coven at the age of seventeen. Believe it or not, a lot of witches and wizards chose to try and live a normal life outside of witchcraft’s traditional tightknit community and cloistered way of life. Unfortunately, my parents had been the head of the council of the infamous Salem coven. They believed my choice to be an insult to their leadership. Needless to say, our parting wasn’t the sappy stuff from the movies, but rather akin to a shunning.

  Have you considered that maybe it’s time to let bygones be bygones? You won’t know if they feel the same unless we pay them a visit, dear hexed one.

  I wasn’t even remotely considering that option at the moment, especially because I’d have to confess that I’d been hexed by the notorious Ammeline Letty Romilda for all my efforts. If I thought they’d been disappointed by my decision to leave the coven, I could only imagine how disgraced they would feel to find out they actually had a daughter hexed by the Lich Queen.

  Maybe that was why it was so much easier to focus on Knox and Piper’s families than my own. Piper’s family was proud of her decision, whereas Knox had just chosen to leave his family and friends behind, worried about his wellbeing and his whereabouts.

  “I’ll return home when our curses are lifted and Ammeline is in the afterlife where she belongs,” Knox reiterated for what had to be the hundredth time. If anyone could hear us, they’d probably believe we were horrible people bent on revenge. The truth of the matter was that Ammeline had died hundreds of years ago, and the only thing left was her essence that she’d magically confined into a phylactery through the use of a series of arcane black necromancy and transmutation spells. “So, have we learned anything more on the Booneville case?”

  I guess that answers your question, dear hexed one. Oh, look! My sweet Piper has returned with my spot of warm cream. It’s all about the simple pleasures in life, really. You should shorten your expectations once in a while.

  “Only that Norma Booneville inherited five hundred thousand dollars when good ol’ Edgar kicked the bucket,” Orwin shared, finally deciding that the chestnuts were finished and ready to be enjoyed. He began dishing them out in plastic bowls. “Once we go back inside the RV, I’ll spend the rest of the evening putting together a dossier on the Boonevilles’ finances. We’ll be set to drive into Covered Bridge, North Dakota tomorrow morning.”

  Piper had brought out a small stool that Pearl could sit on while she drank her spot of warm cream and enjoyed her first taste of roasted chestnuts. The small pedestal kept her up out of the snow, while maintaining a close distance to the warmth of the fire.

  Piper began talking about the UFO sighting in 1975, which started a long-winded explanation from Orwin about what actually occurred during that incident. We might tease him about his obsession with conspiracy theories that ranged from UFOs to JFK, but he was a wealth of knowledge about these subjects, which made for interesting conversations around the campfire.

  Our days were usually so busy with hunting Ammeline, preventing murders, or solving murder mysteries that we rarely got time to enjoy times like these as a group. Orwin spent a lot of time on the computer using his technological abilities to aid our investigations. Knox didn’t ride along with us, but instead followed behind in his Land Rover, occasionally crashing on the couch in the RV. Quite often he even detoured on side missions in our search fo
r Ammeline, looking for anyone or anything that could help in the hunt. After all, he was a hunter by nature.

  That left Piper and I, who were usually so tired that one of us went to bed early, leaving one of us or the other to hang with Pearl in the evening. It was rare that we were all around the campfire like this evening, enjoying each other’s company.

  Knox’s rich laughter filled the air when Piper relayed a quip from Pearl regarding little green men. Orwin accepted the jesting good-naturedly, having sat back in his chair to enjoy his creation. I savored everyone’s enjoyment in this moment while relishing the delicious chestnut treats that I hadn’t enjoyed since being a teenager back home.

  It’s nice to see you appreciating life’s little moments, dear hexed one. One never knows what tomorrow may bring. Well, we technically do know what is on our agenda—a murder mystery that begins with a kiss under the mistletoe!

  Chapter Two

  “This is exactly why you shouldn’t kiss someone underneath the mistletoe,” I muttered from the driver’s seat of my red Jeep Wrangler. She was my 4x4 baby, and I’d had her since my seventeenth birthday. I didn’t even look at the mileage anymore, because it didn’t matter for anything other than oil changes. She’d stay with me until her engine fell out of the bottom. I just had to make sure I never shared a kiss underneath a sprig of mistletoe. “How is this even possible?”

  I can see that this is your way of talking yourself out of an intimate moment with our resident wolfman, but I’m pretty sure that my pristine white fur still has few singes on it from those searing looks that passed between the two of you last night.

  “Have you and Piper been streaming the Hallmark Channel again on her laptop?” I wasn’t going to waste the day talking about some imaginary chemistry that Pearl believed existed between me and Knox. We had one vile Lich and two curses that connected us, from which a friendship had developed. Nothing more, nothing less. “And I take back my inquiry of how good ol’ Edgar could keel over from ingesting too much Christmas spirit. It wasn’t the kiss. Someone clearly poisoned him, and now it’s been determined to be an official homicide case.”

  Piper and I were going over every lead detailed in the police report on the pending case that Orwin had hacked into for us before leaving the campsite this morning. We’d gotten up early and driven the rest of the mileage to another full-service campsite right outside of a small town called Covered Bridge. Campsites this far north were fewer and farther between now that their summer tourist season was over; however, those that were near large ski resorts with a multitude of snowmobile trails were still open for campers. Many of them even had heated shower facilities for the RV crowd and limited two hundred and twenty volt drops for the luxury models.

  “Speaking of Hallmark movies, this town could literally be the set for one,” Piper exclaimed in disbelief, leaning forward to get a better look at the twenty-six foot Christmas tree that was smack-dab in the middle of the town square and decorated to the hilt. The residents were already milling about with their steaming cups of hot coffee, all bundled up to keep Jack Frost at bay. Most of the townsfolk smiled and waved at one another, with a few of them even stopping to chat about what was sure to be today’s gossip—that one of their very own had been murdered. “Look at the awnings of those shops. And the lampposts are straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. I thought my hometown was charming, but we have nothing on this place. Have you ever seen anything so quaint outside of a scene on a Christmas card?”

  “If you spy a coffee shop, I’ll call anything you want quaint.” I flipped the page while scanning Norma Booneville’s information. “Who would have thought that knitting was so lucrative? I mean, the Boonevilles have an entire shop devoted to the hobby.”

  History books claim that the origins for knitting came from the Middle East. Little do they know that it actually originated from the Egyptian Empire. Who knew that my beloved Cleopatra had been a trendsetter? She was always a bit of a free spirit.

  “I’ve been wanting to get back into knitting,” Piper shared, peering past me to see what shops were lined up on the left side of the street. She was wearing her plum winter jacket again, with the knitted mittens, scarf, and hat that had the small hole in the top for her ponytail. She patted said hat and adjusted her hair. “Just think, I could make us one in every color. Hey, there’s the café. Should we grab you a coffee and me a tea before heading over to the knitting shop? It’s doubtful that Mrs. Booneville will be there, but we’ll probably get to talk with one of her employees. Maybe we can listen in on the local gossip devotees who happen to be hanging out hoping for some juicy tidbits. Then we really should seek out any members of Mr. and Mrs. Booneville’s bridge club.”

  I’d stopped listening to our extensive to-do list after Piper had mentioned coffee. It was my version of sanity in a cup. If there was any more talk of knitting hats in every color of the rainbow, I was definitely going to need more than what I’d drank on the short drive here from the campsite.

  I wasn’t the kind of woman who wore knitted hats and gloves, but not for the reasons you might think. I’m pretty sure it was due to the fact that I’d been cursed by the Lich Queen during broad daylight in public. Hats and mittens caused me to feel confined, though I did manage to wear insulated leather gloves when the weather became too cold. By too cold, I mean below freezing temperatures.

  A quick glance in the rearview mirror reflected my porcelain skin and high cheekbones. I didn’t have curls the way Piper did, so I doubt my long black hair would have looked the same in that plum hat of hers.

  My sweet Piper once tried to knit me a sweater, bless her heart.

  Pearl might be a wealth of old English sayings, but she did try to insert one or two American maxims in the mix when it was appropriate. She also had quite the taste for the occasional connotation, because I could just imagine her appalled expression upon seeing a cat sweater knitted in a deep purple hue. I didn’t bother to hide my smile, which was what Pearl always seemed to be vying for these days.

  I thought you might find the image of me in a plum knit sweater humorous, dear hexed one.

  “How long did it take for you to unravel the sweater?” I inquired, knowing full well Piper was listening in on our conversation. She’d rolled her blue eyes twice at Pearl’s commentary. “Oh, I so would have paid to see that.”

  “You two have your fun. Just know that you two will be matching come Christmas morning,” Piper warned, reaching for the handle on her door. “Let’s grab our tea and coffee ration. We’ll take them with us over to the knitting store.”

  “I blame you for this,” I muttered, shutting off the engine after Piper had closed her door. “We’ll all be walking around looking like knitted little gnomes in neon pink.”

  I slid the stack of papers I still held in my hand in between my seat and the middle console. It wouldn’t do to have someone walking past the Jeep and spying the initial medical findings for Edgar Booneville’s autopsy laying out in plain sight. Too many questions weren’t a good thing when we were trying to fly under the radar.

  My sweet Piper has a mind of her own, Miss Lilura. Knitting is a healthy outlet…as long as I’m not the recipient of said gift.

  “In case you missed it, your sweet Piper included you in that matching hat threat of hers.” I palmed my keys before opening my door. “You should have taught her to do crossword puzzles.”

  “At least we don’t stand out like they do,” Piper whispered after I’d joined her to walk across the street. I made sure to press the key fob so that my baby was locked up tight. “Oh, look. There’s Orwin.”

  The town of Covered Bridge, North Dakota didn’t have a police force. Therefore, the murder of Edgar Booneville had fallen to the state police. The detectives were easily distinguishable due to their suits and close-cropped military style haircuts. We’d come to find in previous investigations that the police didn’t include everything in their reports. Orwin had quickly ascertained which detectives had been assign
ed to the murder case, and he would get within range of the duo to see what was being left out of the report that may help us figure out who poisoned good ol’ Edgar.

  Being in a large group attracted too much attention, anyway. With Orwin blending in with the residents, the detectives shouldn’t become too suspicious at seeing him around town. Knox, on the other hand, had gone straight for the Booneville residence. He’d wanted to see who was coming and going, as well as to see if Mrs. Booneville drove anywhere suspicious. His ability to track any subject was unparalleled. Of course, that was a symptom of his curse—tracking prey was basically imprinted on his primary senses now. In werewolf form, any human adversary would be at a distinct disadvantage…even an armed one.

  It appears we have all the angles covered, dear hexed one.

  “With any luck, we’ll figure out this murder mystery in the next day or two.” I didn’t miss Piper’s quick glance as we finally stepped onto the curb right in front of the coffee shop. It wasn’t the heat of her stare that had me shaking my head, but instead the weight of Pearl’s brooding gaze. She’d made sure she was invisible, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t sense when she was judging me. “What? It’s Christmastime. I can be a little optimistic, can’t I? Maybe we can rent one of the cottages over at the campground and enjoy Christmas morning in front of a roaring fireplace with a real Christmas tree.”

  I do believe the thought of you being overly optimistic would actually occur when Hades froze over, but by all means…continue to astound us, dear hexed one.