Naughty or Nice

by Barbra Annino

  I ran across the street. “Are you okay?” I asked breathlessly.

  Deanna looked dazed as she ran her hand through her hair. “Yeah, I’m fine.” She looked at Nick. “Thanks to Santa.”

  When I glanced over, Trixie was standing next to me with a wide smile. She winked.

  “Did you do that?” I whispered.

  She shook her head.” Of course not.”

  I wasn’t sure if I believed her. Nick helped Deanna to her car.

  “What was that all about?” Callahan asked when he approached.

  “Santa just saved Scrooge,” I said.

  That evening Trixie was nowhere in sight, and luckily I didn’t see the evil black shadow lurking around either. I figured Trixie would pop up soon enough though. Just because Nick had saved Deanna from danger didn’t mean that she had changed her mind about Christmas. It would take a lot more than a Santa superhero to accomplish that mission.

  Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the shop the next morning and noticed Deanna and Nick in her store window adding Christmas decorations. They were laughing and smiling as they hung ornaments on the big white tree.

  “You did a good job,” Trixie said from beside me.

  I jumped and clutched my chest. I never got used to the ghosts popping up like that. “I thought maybe you were already gone for good.”

  She motioned with a tilt of her head. “I’m just on my way out. Thank you again for helping save her.”

  I shrugged and watched Deanna and Nick add tinsel to the tree. “I think all the thanks goes to Santa.”

  “It was your idea though.” She wiggled her index finger in my direction.

  “Do you know how this happened?” I motioned toward Deanna and Nick.

  “They had dinner last night. Apparently the evening was magical for them. I left before I found out if they had hot monkey sex on the balcony though.”

  I stuck my fingers in my ears. “Too much information, Trixie.” After a couple seconds, I asked, “How did one date change her mind?”

  “Nick had been jilted too. I guess that softened Deanna’s heart. They do have a lot in common.” Trixie’s eyes sparkled when she smiled. “Look at them. Aren’t they sweet?”

  “They do make a cute couple,” I said.

  When I glanced over, Trixie had disappeared. I looked back at the window. Deanna looked at me and waved. She gestured toward Nick and winked. As strange as it was, it looked as if Deanna had gotten her spirit back after all.

  The End

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Rose Pressey is an Amazon and Barnes and Noble Top 100 bestselling author. She enjoys writing quirky and fun novels with a paranormal twist. The paranormal has always captured her interest. The thought of finding answers to the unexplained fascinates her. When she’s not writing about werewolves, vampires, and every other supernatural creature, she loves eating cupcakes with sprinkles, reading, spending time with family, and listening to oldies from the fifties. Rose suffers from Psoriatic Arthritis and has knee replacements. She might just set the world record for joint replacements. She’s soon having her hips replaced, elbows, and at least one shoulder. Rose lives in the beautiful commonwealth of Kentucky with her husband, son, and two sassy Chihuahuas.

  Visit her online at:

  http://www.rosepressey.com

  http://www.facebook.com/rosepressey

  http://www.twitter.com/rosepressey

  The Perfect Gift

  THE PERFECT GIFT

  A Creepy Christmas Tale

  by

  Barbra Annino

  Dedication

  For anyone who has ever had a holiday from Hell.

  Chapter 1

  He found it in a little shop fifty miles south of Bell Harbor over the summer. The perfect gift. He had been away from his wife for two weeks and was on his way home when he decided to stop into the grand old Victorian turned antique shop. He was looking for a typewriter, an Oliver to be specific, to add to Julia’s collection. She loved old typewriters, the clunkier the better. Even the ones missing their keys had “charm” according to her. The Oliver Company manufactured their brand in Chicago from the late 1800s through the mid twentieth century and he had yet to find one on the East Coast where they lived. He could have purchased one online, certainly, but that would lessen the value in Julia’s eyes. The story about how the gift was discovered was almost as valuable as the treasure itself.

  Personally, he didn’t understand the appeal of old gadgets. Technology had provided much better tools to put words to paper these days. Julia herself worked on a laptop that weighed less than three pounds and her fingers flew across the keyboard whenever she was writing. He liked the sound that drifted from her office when she worked. The clickety clack of his wife’s pale, thin fingers beating away on the keyboard was somehow comforting. Maybe it was because he knew if she was working, she was happy, and happiness was often elusive for Julia.

  Laptop aside, his wife loved nostalgia. She loved all things traditional, old, and historic, no matter how broken down or dusty. He supposed a part of that stemmed from the fact that she had so little history of her own. While he could trace his lineage all the way back to the original settlers of the colonies, Julia had never known her father and her mother, God rest her soul, rarely spoke of the past, let alone their family tree. So, branch by branch, Julia had built her own history through the forgotten heirlooms of complete strangers.

  A bell chimed when he opened the door to the shop and a gust of cold air greeted him from a window unit air conditioner. There was a fat cat curled up on an oval hooked rug in the center of the shop. The cat yawned, stretched, and trotted over to him, excitedly inspecting him as if he were delivering a crate of tuna. The white feline was persistent enough that he bent down to give it a scratch behind the ears. He didn’t care for cats much, although he would never admit that in public. Too many voters were cat lovers.

  A solid oak door opened from the back of the shop and a plump woman with thick glasses emerged, whipping up dust that circled the room like a swarm of gnats. “Hello. I see you’ve met snowball.” The woman’s teeth clacked as she spoke and it briefly reminded him of Julia banging out her latest assignment. She smiled at him and a wheeze escaped her throat.

  He smiled back. “Friendly little guy.”

  The woman pushed her glasses up her nose and said, “He’s a she.” She smiled again as if to let him know there was no offense taken.

  “My apologies.”

  The woman cocked her head and crinkled her brow. She was wearing a floating dress covered in a loud paisley print that may have looked better in a window. “You look familiar.”

  The campaign for the region had just ended, but these things were never really over. He extended his hand. “Dane Caulfield. I’m running for state treasurer.”

  The woman shook Dane’s hand. “No. That’s not it.” She frowned and so did Dane.

  “You look like that guy from TV. The one on the commercials.”

  Dane smiled. “That’s my brother, Nathan.”

  The woman grinned. “Well you’re the spitting image of him. I just love what he’s doing up there in the city.”

  Nathan was Dane’s twin brother. He operated an inner city restaurant that employed former gang-bangers and ex-cons. All anyone had to do was trade in a gun and Nathan would give him a job. Of course, that meant he was sometimes robbed blind, could barely scrape a payroll together, let alone a profit, and had lost more than one employee to violence. The place counted on public donations and government grants to keep it going. Handouts, essentially. The restaurant was called Second Helpings. The press had dubbed Nathan everything but the Second Coming. It wasn’t that Dane wasn’t proud of his twin. It was just that he believed Nathan could have done a lot more good doing something else with his life. Anything else.

  “We’re all very proud of him,” Dane said.

  The shopkeeper picked up the cat who meowed loudly and placed her on a nearby blue armchair. She grun
ted at the effort and Dane wondered how a woman of her age and size had the energy to run such a grueling business.

  She turned to him and said, “How can I help you, Mr. Caulfield?”

  “I’m looking for something for my wife.”

  She said, “Well isn’t that nice. I have some lovely Art Deco pieces in a display case over here.” She stepped to the left, around an old Singer sewing table and motioned toward a revolving glass case that likely once held fruit pies, sweet breads, and carrot cake, but was now filled with rings, earrings, and necklaces worn by flappers.

  “She’s not much for jewelry, thank you. She collects typewriters. I was wondering if you might have an old Oliver? Preferably a turn-of-the-century edition.”

  The woman tapped her lip with a crooked finger, mentally taking inventory. “Hmm. I believe I have a 1930s Royal and a ’20s Remington.”

  Dane couldn’t hide his disappointment. “I’m afraid she has those corners of her collection covered.”

  He looked around the cluttered shop. The walls were covered in gilded framed artwork, vintage service station signs, and Coca-Cola memorabilia. A pair of claw-footed dressers sat near the right side of the room topped with lace doilies and milk glass lamps. Towards the door from where the owner had emerged, a green and cream enamel stove was covered in piles of Griswold cast iron skillets. Next to that, a stack of vinyl records were arranged in a spiraling tower taller than Dane. There was a set of stairs anchoring the far wall with a sign that read: “More Upstairs,” a phantom finger pointing the way. He noticed another door that led to a smaller, even more crowded room near where the dressers were stored. He poked his head through the opening and saw a few racks of clothes hosting evening wear and vintage coats.

  Dane sighed. He could have sifted through the menagerie of junk, but it was getting late, he was tired, and all he wanted to do was get home to his pregnant wife.

  “Thank you for your time,” Dane said. He was about to turn to walk out of the shop when the woman caught his arm.

  “You say your wife collects typewriters?” Her words tumbled out in a wave and her proximity allowed Dane a whiff of her perfume. Orange and cloves.

  Dane looked at the old woman, noting that she was stronger than his initial assessment.

  “Yes. She’s a writer.”

  The woman’s eyes gleamed as if she had learned a secret. “I may have just the thing.”

  Chapter 2

  That was four months ago. Dane had forgotten all about the gift he had purchased in the antique shop that day until Julia reached behind the fresh pine tree on Christmas Eve and liberated it from the pile of presents. The only reason he even recognized it now was because the shopkeeper had wrapped it for him and the gold and white paper was distinctive from the Santa Clauses, snowy landscapes, and happy elves scattered across the rest of the red velvet tree skirt.

  How had it even gotten there? Had he put it there? Had Julia? They each had their little hiding places in the house, but when it came time to decorate, Julia usually asked Dane if all the gifts were wrapped so that she could place them beneath the tree. As a freelance medical writer, she worked from home while Dane clocked in long hours at the office, so things like decorating and dinner parties usually fell to his wife, although Julia never complained. She enjoyed making their house a home. She enjoyed creating memories.

  But Dane could have sworn he had left this particular gift back at the office. He had stopped there first, before heading home that day. That’s where he had heard the news. Not from his wife’s lips, but from his brother’s in a message left on his voice mail.

  So he was certain he wouldn’t have brought it home. Not that day.

  Unless ... had he brought it home later, when the dust had settled?

  “Sweetheart, not that one. Why don’t we save that one.” Dane heard the crack in his voice and he cleared his throat.

  “It’s pretty big ... and heavy.” Julia looked at her husband, a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. She was thirty-one, but she had the soft glow, taught skin, and contagious zeal of someone much younger. “Rules are rules,” she said playfully. “And the rule is, I get to choose any gift I like to open on Christmas Eve.” She tossed her brunette locks over her shoulders and dragged the present out into the center of the room.

  Dane’s mother was sipping a martini in the corner in an overstuffed chair, her lithe legs crossed at the ankles. “Let the girl open whichever gift she chooses, Dane. It’s Christmas.” She was wearing a matching red skirt and jacket and an ivory blouse. Her hair was perfectly combed around her angular features and her makeup was flawless and minimal. Even on the most relaxed of holidays, Dane thought, my mother insists on dressing like Jackie Kennedy.

  “Besides,” Dane’s mother said, “I’m sure our Julia didn’t have many lavish holidays growing up. Why shouldn’t she indulge herself now that she’s married to the mayor?” She beamed at Julia and said, “You go on, dear.”

  Dane shot his mother a look as she plucked the olive from her glass. She met his gaze with an innocent, wide-eyed stare. “What?” She shrugged.

  Nathan, always the blunt one, said, “How do you manage to drink with your foot in your mouth, Mother?”

  Julia said, “It’s all right, Nathan.” She looked at her mother-in-law and said, “Besides, Cynthia’s right. You don’t get a shiny new car in the driveway with a big red bow around it for Christmas when you’re the daughter of a waitress.”

  Cynthia gave a patronizing smile.

  “But you do get a lot of love,” Julia said.

  Cynthia’s face fell.

  Nathan stifled a smile and turned away from his mother. “I guess I’m up.”

  The tradition of choosing a gift to open on Christmas Eve was one that had been in the Caulfield family as long as Dane could remember. The order went from youngest to oldest and thirty-four year old Nathan was seven minutes younger than Dane.

  Nathan chose a gift wrapped in red foil with a silver ribbon and Dane choose a square shaped box with contents that rattled. Cynthia pointed to a small package with red and silver paper and Dane handed it to his mother.

  Dane wondered if he should make a second attempt to thwart his wife from opening his antique shop find. He could tell that from the size, shape, and weight of the present, and the look Julia passed him, that she thought it was her much desired Oliver in the box.

  She looked thrilled as she tore into the gift, glancing at Dane every so often.

  Maybe he was overreacting. She might just love it. He had certainly fallen in love with it. It was so unique. Like nothing he had ever seen. So intricate and complicated and well put together. Like Julia. And really, months had passed. Don’t they say that time heals all wounds? She seemed fine these days. She had a healthy client flow with new projects pouring in all the time. Maybe she would enjoy the gift. Maybe his fears were all in his own head.

  Dane fingered the package that was a gift from his brother, his eyes glued to his wife. Her long hair fell past her breasts as she sat on the floor examining the box. She peeled away the paper in layers, carefully discarding the scraps behind her. When all the paper had been stripped, she turned the box toward her, frowning at the thick clear tape that ran the length and width of the plain cardboard.

  Nathan offered Julia a pocketknife and Dane watched his wife smile up at his brother, an unexpected twinge of jealousy piercing his gut. He often wondered what would have happened had Julia not left college to care for her ill mother. Would she have gone on a third date with Nathan? Would she have ended up married to him rather than Dane?

  But that was a long time ago. Years before Dane had ever laid eyes on Julia. When they met at the restaurant where she worked—a blind date set up by his old roommate seven years ago—he had no idea she had gone out with Nathan. He remembered how Julia kept looking at him through dinner, until she finally asked him if he had a brother. They laughed about the coincidence and that was what sealed it for Dane. Julia had a laugh that reminded hi
m of summer vacations, carnival rides, and driving around in a convertible. It was loud and carefree and uninhibited. He hadn’t heard it nearly enough over the years. He wished he could bottle it and play it for her when the darkness came.

  The box was open now and Julia leaned in to take a peek at her present. She gasped, then shot Dane a look he couldn’t decipher.

  Was that an expression of excitement?

  Dane put his gift down and walked over to his wife.

  “Well don’t just stand there. Help me wiggle it out of the box,” she said, beaming.

  Relief filled Dane from head to toe. “Jingle Bell Rock” was playing on the radio as he picked up the box and tilted it toward Julia. She reached in and pulled the gift from within as Dane tugged on the box.

  Julia placed her present on the coffee table and examined it.

  Dane said, “It’s called an automaton. Apparently several of these types of machines were made by a Swiss watchmaker in the 1770s. In a way, they were the first programmable computers.”

  Julia’s eyes widened. “That long ago? Wow. It’s beautiful.” She gingerly reached to touch the desk the little boy doll sat in front of in his bare feet.

  “This one is titled ‘The Writer,’ but he made other models,” Dane said.

  Nathan walked over to the automaton. “So what does it do?” He bent over, a glass of wine in his hand, and inspected the quill, paper, and ink blotter that sat on the desk in front of the doll.

  Dane said, “He writes on that piece of paper there.” He rushed to add, “But it’s broken. I’ll get it repaired for you after the holidays if you really like it, Julia.”

  “Are you kidding? I love it!” She jumped up and threw her arms around Dane. Then she kissed him like she hadn’t kissed him in months and whispered, “You’ll be getting a special gift tonight.” She looked at him and said, “Thank you.”