Curses and Candy Canes: A Paranormal Mystery Christmas Anthology

by Tegan Maher

  I dragged myself up off the floor just in time to see Evian produce a fountain of water that arced skyward to cushion the projectile before whatever it was slammed to the ground.

  The whistling sound grew loud enough to set my teeth on edge.

  Were going to be on the news, I thought. Those stupid faeries have knocked a satellite out of orbit. Or worse, a jet.

  When Evian’s fountain prove to be too little too late, Terra played conductor with the earth and raised a bed of soft, thick grass to help cushion the blow, but even that wasn’t enough. Maybe if the mudball hadn’t taken out one of the runners and most of the front, Santa’s sleigh wouldn’t have flown into a hundred pieces when it hit the ground.

  Growing up in a house where I called the tooth faerie by her given name because she stopped in for regular visits, I thought I had a pretty good handle on the difference between myth and reality. I know that doesn’t sound normal, but then again, I’m a witch who lives with my three faerie godmothers, so normal is a subjective term in my world. I stopped believing in Santa long before my classmates reached the conclusion he was more myth than matter. Yet there was definitive proof lying on my sofa. Santa did exist.

  “Is he dead?” Shiny black boots stuck out of an unmoving bundle of red fleece, and I feared the worst. In the order of possible tragedies, I’d rate killing Santa below knocking a plane out of the sky and above taking down a satellite.

  “Not unless we knocked the beard off of him,” came Soleil’s cryptic reply.

  Terra, the faerie with most active healing powers in the family, moved to the prone figure to run gentle hands over his limbs, checking for broken bones.

  “This wouldn’t have happened,” she said over one shoulder, “if you hadn't stuck your nose in the middle of our business.”

  “Don't blame this on me,” I said. “It was your magical ball of crazy that took him down.”

  I looked around for the bag of toys before I realized what day it was.

  “It’s only the twenty-third, he’s a day early. Shouldn’t he be back the North Pole getting ready?”

  Evian spared me a look. “I don’t know. Maybe he was doing a test run. Doesn’t matter now.”

  “I hope the reindeer are okay.” In contrast with Soleil’s fiery temper was a deep love for all animals. She scanned the sky anxiously for signs of flying bodies.

  “He’s alive.” Satisfied there were no broken bones, Terra beckoned. “Help me get him inside.”

  Santa’s belly might resemble a bowl full of jelly, but the man's butt felt more like a bag of cement. Several, actually.

  “You know who would come in handy right about now,” Soleil muttered, but her sisters shushed her before she said the name.

  “Come on,” Evian’s breath shortened as she yanked on one leg. “Put your back into it.”

  When it became obvious that the four of us could not carry Santa into the house, the faeries got creative.

  Shooting more vines from her fingertips, Terra fashioned them into a hammock with netted loops at each corner. Palms up, Soleil sent four balls of flame aloft, which Evian surrounded with filmy bubbles that fit perfectly in the corners of the hammock. The heated air in the bubbles created a hot air balloon effect that gently lifted Santa off the ground. With each of us guiding one side, we got him inside and settled onto the sofa.

  “Get me a bottle of the green potion from the cabinet under the sink,” Terra ordered me to fetch her basic cure-all. I wasn’t sure what went into the stuff, but it tasted horrible.

  Without mercy, she dumped a generous dose down Santa’s gullet.

  He coughed, then sputtered and opened eyes that did not twinkle merrily.

  “Where am ?” He tried to sit up, but Terra laid a hand on his chest to hold him down. “What happened?”

  “You had a bit of an accident,” Evian replied helpfully.

  “I'm not sure accident is the right term,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Well, it wasn’t intentional,” Soleil replied hotly. Being the faerie of fire, hot was her default.

  Tossing us her best quelling glance, Terra asked, “What do you remember?”

  Beginning to sweat—I assumed from the effects of the green potion—Santa pulled off a glove, noticed it was pocked with singe marks, and put a hand to his head. He blinked a couple of times.

  “I was flying over Cleveland, headed northeast. Test driving the sleigh after some minor repairs, don’t you know.” He cleared his throat. “Could I trouble you for a drink of cold water?”

  “Of course,” Evian held her hand out flat, blew across her palm to form a tumbler made of ice that promptly filled itself with clean, clear water.

  “Nice bit of magic, that.” Santa admired, drank deeply, then went back to his story.

  “The next thing I knew, there was a meteor or something coming in fast from the right. I don’t think I even had a chance to yank on the reins before it hit. Then I woke up here. The reindeer, have you seen my boys?” Still pale and wobbly, Santa tried to rise from the sofa. “I have to find them. They’ve never been out in the world alone.”

  Terra rested a hand on his wrist, then caught my eye and shook her head just the tiniest bit. I took the hint.

  “Stay down. Let Terra take care of you. We’ll,” I gave Soleil and Evian a look that said they’d better not argue, “find the reindeer for you.”

  Somewhere in the back of my head, five-year-old Lexi was babbling something about sitting on Santa’s lap, but I shushed her and pretended seeing figures of myth was an everyday occurrence. Which was sort of true, but not in this case. Besides, I didn’t think even Santa could grant my dearest wish. As far as I knew, he held no sway over whether or not a witch could gain her magic.

  Chapter Three

  Reindeer, according to Santa, are complex creatures with a great capacity for feeling joy. Feeling joy is what makes them fly. I know, I know, it sounds like a Christmas cliché, but doesn’t every good cliché have some basis in fact?

  “Being knocked out of the sky probably sucked the joy right out of them.” Leave it to Evian to point out the obvious. “So, they could be anywhere from here to Cleveland?”

  Santa nodded.

  Great.

  On the plus side, he gave me his reindeer whistle.

  “What’s the range on this thing” I held up the…you guessed it…red and white striped whistle and gave it an experimental toot.

  It made a sound somewhere between a teakettle and screech owl. Not at all pleasant to the humans in the room.

  “Mile or two,” he allowed, “The sound carries farther than you’d think.”

  “And this is the only one you have?” That would limit our ability to split up and cover more ground.

  Santa’s rosy cheeks were whiter than the fur trimming his hat. “It is. Here,” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a candy cane. “Take this, you’ll need it.”

  I tried to hand it back. “Thanks, but I’m not really a fan of peppermint candy. You keep it.”

  Santa shook his head and pushed my hand away.

  “That’s enough, now.” Touching Santa's brow, Terra sent him into a deep, healing sleep, and once his breathing had quieted joined the rest of us in the kitchen to discuss strategy.

  Discussing strategy was an optimistic term for it, though, as the conversation threatened to turn into a round of pass the buck between Evian and Soleil.

  In the end, I had to stomp my foot to get their attention. "This was all your fault, and now it's time to clean up your mess."

  I geared up to give them a lecture, but before I could settle into it thoroughly, movement in the backyard pulled my attention.

  I have seen a lot of things in my backyard, things that no rational person would believe existed. I have ridden a unicorn up the slope of a rainbow, I have seen the faeries conjure everything from talking rocks to rabbits the size of elephants. But in my wildest dreams, I never expected to see Dasher, Prancer, Vixen, or whichever reindeer it
was stumbling through knee-deep snow with the faerie equivalent of a lampshade on its head.

  I blinked, and blinked again, and then turned to look at the godmothers. Two smirks and a frown marred their faces.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I asked.

  "If you think that reindeer is wearing one of my Dragolian lantern plants, then yes, it's exactly what you think it is."

  He must have heard the whistle.

  When it's just us at home by ourselves or when we’re around other mystical, mythical beings, the godmothers don't bother to put on their human faces, and today was no exception. Sans glamour, a faerie’s face is so beautiful it can make a grown man cry, but a ticked off faerie’s face can make a grown man run.

  Who was I kidding? A ticked off faerie could send a demon racing back to hell for cover.

  Winter’s icy wind had nothing on Terra’s cold fury. On her way out, she slammed the patio doors hard enough to shake the house, and I heard Evian giggle.

  “I wonder if Santa can fly his sleight with seven reindeer instead of eight,” she said.

  If Terra had looked back, she’d have seen the three of our faces pressed against the glass, but she didn't.

  Dragolian lantern plants only grow on the south side of a particular mountain in the western forest. In order to transplant one in our backyard, Terra had had to enlist the help of a water nymph, three greater elves, and the witch who lived on an island in the center of the Caspian Sea.

  While she refused to confirm my theory, I thought the seeds produced by the lantern plant were one of the ingredients Terra used in the recipe for her famous twinkleberry wine.

  The reindeer staggered right, stopped, shook his head hard enough to almost knock himself over. He wavered in place for a moment, then fixed his eyes on the house, carefully aimed his body in that direction, and took three wobbling steps sideways. When he saw Terra coming, he didn't have the sense or the ability to run, and instead, sidled up to her and gave her a mile-wide reindeer smile. I can't even describe what that looked like, but it didn't soften Terra’s mood in any way.

  We were too far away to hear what she said to him, but it didn’t take an expert in body language to read the stiffness of her spine or the anger in her gestures. Comet—we would learn later—took one look at Terra’s face, hobbled closer, and swiped his tongue up her cheek in the reindeer version of a big fat smooch.

  Evian giggled again, Soleil snorted, and when Terra looked back at us, we all tried to keep from smiling, which was difficult to do when Comet followed up the kiss by leaning over and rubbing his head on her arm.

  In the process, his feet left the ground, and his antlers got tangled in her hair. To save herself from his amorous attentions, Terra completed a complicated series of gestures to clear the snow around her feet. From the brown earth she conjured a patch of grass with sawtooth-shaped blades.

  It took a little convincing to get the Comet to eat the grass, but as he did he visibly sobered.

  Gesturing wildly, Terra administered a blistering lecture, but Comet wasn't listening. Head swinging from side to side and fully sober, he appeared to be looking for Santa. When Terra finally ran down, he followed her back to the house and used his antlers to block the slider when she would have closed it in his face.

  “Let him in,” Soleil ordered. “He needs to see his master, and then I'm sure he’ll help us find the rest of the team.”

  Soleil was, of course, correct in her assumption, which didn’t go over well with Evian. Fire and water, a volatile combination at best.

  Once Comet had seen for himself that Santa merely slept, he turned back to us, tilted his head, and widened his eyes. It wasn’t much of a stretch to guess what he wanted. We had less than twenty-four hours to get Santa on his feet and ready for the main event.

  “He’s healing nicely and will be fine when he wakes up. I take it you’re not Vixen?” Terra surreptitiously looked for a collar or tag with the reindeer’s name. Comet gave her a dirty look and shook his head.

  “Dasher? Dancer? Prancer?” I ran through, and when I hit Comet, he nodded. “Pleased to meet you, and really sorry about the accident. If you could help us,” I gestured to Soleil and Evian, “find the rest of your team, we’ll see about getting the sleigh repaired.”

  Comet considered briefly, nodded his willingness to help, and then a game of reindeer charades began. He tossed his head, rolled his eyes, and hopped—with little delicacy, I might add—into the air.

  “You’re leaving hoofmarks in my floor,” Terra’s annoyed faerie face was back. Comet dropped his head.

  “Don’t get all fired up again. We don’t have time for another round of tantrums.” She’d probably magic my bed to automatically produce crumbs in the sheets for that one. To Comet, I said, “You understand everything we say, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Yes or no questions it is, then. Can you fly?”

  The euphoria he’d earlier felt for Terra seemed to have passed, and with no joy to provide the lift, Comet’s feet remained firmly planted on the floor. Slowly, he shook his head.

  “Does Santa wear boxers or briefs? Red? No? Green? Candy cane print?”

  I glared at Soleil, Comet narrowed his eyes, and Evian shot an elbow into her side. “Excuse me,” she folded her arms across her chest. “I was curious.”

  “Ignore her.” Terra’s fingers twitched. “Can you communicate with the other reindeer from here?” No.

  “Can you help us find them?” Yes.

  Within a few minutes, we’d asked enough questions to come up with a working plan.

  With Terra’s command of plants and Soleil’s ability to fuse metal, they were the logical choices to stay behind and magically repair the sleigh, leaving Evian to go with me on the reindeer hunt. I would ride Comet while Evian took her winged form and flew along beside.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” I wasn’t.

  Soleil only grinned when she called a tendril of magic flame between her palms and applied it to my coat for warmth. Terra handed me a hat and matching gloves also spelled for heat. At least I wouldn’t freeze to death in the air, but none of that solved the main problem.

  How was I supposed to bring a reindeer enough joy to make him fly?

  Get your mind out of the gutter, I'm not that kind of girl.

  And Comet was not that kind of reindeer.

  Chapter Four

  Comet paced and pawed at the kitchen tile while I got ready.

  “Keep it up, and I’ll turn you into a worm,” Terra warned. She went back outside and came back with a sack of Dragolian lantern seeds. Enough to get all the reindeer back here, I hoped. “These ought to work as long as you don’t give him too many at once.”

  Because flying around on a drunk reindeer and tooting a magic whistle is my idea of a night out on the town.

  Still, I climbed up on Comet’s back and would have got myself knocked brainless on the way out the door if Terra hadn’t yelled at me to duck. Not the most auspicious start to the reindeer caper.

  “Okay,” I said as I pulled out a walnut-sized seed and fed it to my ride. “I hope this works.”

  A foot tall, wings of glittering blue to match hair the color of the Caribbean sea where it meets white sands, Evian flitted around my head while Comet spit out the crunchy coating.

  When he hit the soft seed underneath, I felt a quiver go through his body.

  “I think it’s working.” The words no sooner left my mouth than he launched skyward, and I slammed my face against the back of his neck. Thinking a saddle would have been nice, I held on and watched the ground fall away beneath us. Port Harbor looked pretty from this height. Or it did until I realized I don’t like heights. So much for getting my powers and speeding off on my broomstick.

  Comet bobbled once, and my guts turned to water. “Here, have another seed.” I didn’t know if he had emergency landing procedures in place, and I didn’t want to find out. Evian would save me if anything happened, but still.<
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  We made it to the scene of the accident, the place where Comet lost contact with his sleigh-mates. He hovered in place for a few moments to get his bearings, then turned southeast. It took him two more seeds before the lights of Boston came into view, and he began to descend.

  “Better start blowing that whistle.” Evian’s tiny voice squeaked.

  “We’ll be lucky if someone doesn’t try to shoot us down, you know.” I had to give my fingers a stern talking-to before they’d unwind from the harness long enough to fish the whistle out of my pocket. Clenching the stem between my teeth, I blew three short blasts, then paused so Comet could listen. He shook his head. We repeated the sequence several times before his head came up, and he banked hard to the left.

  I gave him a swat on the shoulder. “Don’t you dare drop me.”

  Leaning forward, he put on some speed and angled toward a tallish building with several evergreen trees growing in containers on the roof. With the trees lit up for Christmas, the rooftop garden area looked quite festive. As we flew closer, I noticed hoofprints in the snow around the trees and a set of antlers poking out from behind the largest.

  One down, six to go.

  “Watch out for the—” Too late, I warned Comet he was too close to the lip of the parapet, and his hind hooves nicked the leading edge just enough to make him stumble. I still say he’d had one too many seeds, but none of that matters now, because he managed to stop himself just before slamming into the far end of the terrace and tossing me over the side.

  “There goes any attempt at stealth.” I didn’t even try to tone down my cranky voice.

  “Who’s out there? What’s going on?” Amid the clatter of hooves on the one section of cement that had been cleared, I missed the sound of the sliding door. No good explanation came to mind while I dismounted and turned to face the pert blond standing in the doorway with a baseball bat, so I went with the truth.