12 Stocking Stuffers

by Beverly Barton

  Dori took only a moment to send the demon spawn a smug look of triumph before heading out the door. She felt good when she hit the streets. She hadn’t had a spirited battle like that since trying to get a parade permit for Pagan Pride Day in Manhattan the first year they’d held it. Damn, she missed being in the thick of things.

  She reminded herself that that part of her life was over. She wasn’t backtracking; she wasn’t “priestessing.” She was just going to tell fortunes to make a few extra bucks.

  She sucked in the crisp, fresh air as she strolled along the sidewalks. It was snowy in Crescent Cove. Snowy enough to make it as beautiful as a Currier and Ives Christmas card. It wasn’t too cold, either. Cool enough so her breath made little steam puffs, but not quite enough to numb her fingers or burn her nose. She actually enjoyed her walk down the block and across the street to the diner to begin her day’s work.

  When Jason came in around noon, wearing his black leather cop jacket, he sat at the counter, not at his usual table. She tried not to assume it was because he wanted to be closer to her, that maybe he’d changed his mind and was finally going to ask her out again.

  She was still attracted to him. She’d been nursing a bad crush ever since turning him down the first time he’d asked, and she was beginning to detect those old feelings stirring to life deep down. He’d always been so good-looking, so attentive, and goodness knows, she hadn’t found a better lover since. Even though it had been his first time, too.

  It had been in the summer, in a secluded cove near the shore, the moon riding high. He’d brought a blanket, a bottle of wine and a condom. Everything needed for teenage romance. And it had been incredible.

  She smiled at him for a change, unable to banish the memory from her mind, and brought him a cup of freshly brewed coffee. “On your lunch break?” she asked.

  “You guessed it.” He moved his gaze over her face in a way that made it clear he liked what he saw. He’d always been able to flatter without a word. But he hadn’t looked at her like that in a long time. Why now? she wondered. Or was it all in her mind? Her inner thoughts manifesting in an overactive imagination?

  “What’ll you have?”

  “Ham and cheese on potato bread. Side of fries.” His voice stroked her nerve endings. She’d been better off when he’d basically ignored her existence.

  “Mayo on the sandwich?”

  “Let’s go with the honey mustard today. And no cheese.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re dieting.”

  “Real men don’t diet. This is strictly preventative.”

  She smiled and turned to shout the order through the window into the kitchen.

  When she turned back, he said, “You sure seem cheerful today, Dori.”

  “Do I? Well, I suppose I have you to thank for that.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  She smiled and thought about last night’s extremely pleasant dream. But she wasn’t going to confess that. “I took your advice. Applied for a table at the craft fair.”

  He didn’t smile back. He frowned, instead. “When did you do that?”

  “This morning. Oh, it wasn’t at all pleasant at first. Some little twit of a female—a Mrs. Redmond—tried to say I couldn’t have a table, but then this Thomas something or other—”

  “Kemp?”

  “Yeah. He stepped in and said he’d handle it personally.”

  “I…see.”

  “What?” The bell rang behind her and she moved to pick up his sandwich, then brought it back to him.

  “Uh, I’m going to move to a booth. Do you have a break coming up?”

  “No.”

  “You do now. Join me.”

  “But—”

  “Mort, cover the front,” he called. “I need your waitress for five minutes. It’s official.”

  Mort emerged from the kitchen, grouchy as always. She was old, tough and mean, dressed in a purple warm-up suit, with her silver hair in a long braid down her back.

  “Five minutes,” she snapped. “And it’s coming out of your lunch hour, Dori.”

  Dori sent Jason a scowl that faltered as soon as he clutched her hand in his and drew her around the counter. He hadn’t touched her in ten years, and the impact of it now was damn near stunning. That warm hand, so strong, closed around hers, holding it…she remembered it cupping her cheek, cradling her head while his mouth made love to hers.

  What was wrong with her?

  She was lonely, she realized. She’d been painfully lonely since coming back here—no, no, that wasn’t quite right. She’d been lonely in New York, too.

  She let him lead her across the diner, then slid into a booth across from him. He released her hand and she managed not to weep for the loss. “What?” she asked.

  “Kemp. I had a visit from him this morning, and I was afraid it had something to do with you. Now I’m convinced of it.”

  She lifted her brows. “Go on.”

  “I know I told you we’re not all ignorant in this town—and that’s still true. We’re not all ignorant. But that doesn’t mean we’re all enlightened, either. There are still a few narrow-minded idiots around, and I’m afraid Kemp is one of them.”

  “Jason, what on earth are you talking about?”

  He sighed. “Kemp was poring over town statutes this morning. Old ones. Turns out there’s still a law on the books making ‘fortune telling’ illegal.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  He pursed his lips, shook his head slowly. “Nope, it’s there. He showed it to me, asked me if it was enforceable.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “Is it?”

  “It’s easily worked around, Dori. You’re going to have to post a disclaimer in plain view on your table, stating that the readings are for entertainment only. A game, not a real prediction. You do that and his hands are tied.”

  She blinked twice. “So I’m supposed to put up a sign saying I’m a fraud.”

  He shrugged. “Only if you’re charging for the readings. You could do them free….”

  “That would defeat the whole purpose. I need to pad my income a little.” She pursed her lips and sighed. “So I put up a sign that says I’m a fake. Well, what the hell, at this point I’m not sure it would be all that inaccurate, anyway.” She pressed her palms to the table and stood up.

  Jason stopped her, covering her hands with his. They were firm and strong and they sent all those old feelings spiraling up her arms and into the center of her chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

  She looked down at his hands on hers. He didn’t move them. Experimentally, she turned hers over, palms up against his palms now. His eyes shot to hers, but he didn’t take his hands away. The intimacy of his palms on hers almost brought tears to her eyes. “I don’t know anymore,” she told him.

  “Sit back down, Dori,” he said. His voice was rough, as if he needed to clear his throat.

  “I have to work—”

  “Not for another two minutes. Sit.” He closed his hands on hers, squeezed.

  Sighing, she sat down, because when he squeezed her hands her knees went weak.

  Still holding her hands, he said, “After we talked last night, I did a little…snooping.”

  She lifted her head and her eyes as one. “Into what?”

  “Into you. Into what you’ve been up to these past ten years in the big city.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she tugged her hands from his, feeling as stunned as if he’d slapped her. “You investigated my past? Jason, why would you do something like that?”

  Chapter Three

  “Oh, come on, Dori, I was curious. You spring this Witch thing on me, tell me you’ve helped the police find missing people—I’ve never believed in any of that stuff. I had to know more.”

  “Why? It’s not your business.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe I want to make it my business.”

  “You can’t—”

  “I contacted a friend of mine. He did some checking, f
axed me some information. Turns out you’ve located seven missing people. Seven.”

  She shrugged. “So what?”

  “I read the files. Figured it could be explained away. Coincidence. Lucky guesses. Inside info. But none of it fit. Then I spoke to Detective Hennessy.”

  Dori blinked at the familiar name. She’d worked with Mike Hennessy on every one of those cases. He’d never ridiculed her, had always taken her seriously.

  “He convinced me—this thing you have, it’s for real.”

  She moistened her lips, lifted her eyes to his. “Again I ask, so what?”

  “So I’d like to know why you’re suddenly questioning it. You just said labeling yourself a fraud wouldn’t be inaccurate. So what happened?”

  “What happened?” She lifted her hands, palms up. “Look around, Jason. Look at my life. I’ve lost everything.” She lowered her head, shaking it slowly, feeling bereft, empty. “I don’t know how many times I’ve thrown the cards, asking why this happened, what’s the purpose. But I get nothing. No answers. I didn’t see any of this coming, and I can’t see when it’s going to end. Or if it’s going to end. I don’t know what I did to deserve this, much less what I’m supposed to be doing about it.”

  “Maybe you’re supposed to be doing…this.”

  “What? Waiting tables? Taking people on Champ tours?”

  “Why not?”

  She sighed. “You just don’t understand.”

  “Sure I do, Dori. I think you’re the one who’s confused here. It’s all about the journey, isn’t it?”

  She blinked and lifted her head.

  “That’s what you said in that letter you left me. ‘It’s all about the journey, and my journey is leading me somewhere else.’”

  “I did not say anything like that,” she told him. Not because it was true—she didn’t remember what she’d written in that letter to Jason. But because it sounded far too wise for the girl she’d been when she’d set out to seek her fortune.

  “You said something exactly like that.” Jason yanked something from his pocket as he spoke. And then Dori felt the breath leave her lungs in a rush, because he was unfolding the old piece of pink paper, smoothing it flat on the table, pointing at the lines she had written. “It’s right here.”

  She didn’t say anything, and after a heartbeat of silence, he looked up at her slowly. She was staring at the letter, her eyes filling. “You kept it,” she whispered.

  He shrugged and lowered his head, quickly refolding the letter and tucking it back into his jacket pocket.

  “All this time, you…you’ve been carrying that letter around with you like some kind of…”

  “Memory,” he said softly. “It’s just a memory. That’s all.”

  She met his eyes, not sure what to say.

  “Maybe that part of your journey is done, Dori. You lived in a big city, you experienced big money, big success, learned whatever it was you were supposed to learn from all that. Maybe this is a new phase for you. A new journey. Maybe you’re not supposed to know why just yet. Maybe there isn’t any why. Maybe it just is because it is. And maybe if you stop fighting it so hard, you could enjoy it a little.”

  She sat there staring at him. He might claim he hadn’t changed, but he clearly had. “What have you been doing the past ten years, Jason, studying with a Tibetan monk?”

  He shrugged. “You didn’t lose as much as you think you did,” he said. “You still have a home. You still have a car. You still have a job. Change your perception a little. I know you Wiccans are all into being in control of your own lives, but fate isn’t gonna be cheated out of playing a role. Can’t you take a page from another book? Let go and let Goddess or something?”

  “Five minutes are up,” Mort called. “C’mon, Dori, we have customers.”

  Dori got to her feet, though she felt her head spinning. Five minutes with a small-town cop, and suddenly she was questioning everything.

  Everything.

  “Here’s a tip for you, Dori,” he said. “At the craft fair, bring something to sell. Mark it up the same amount you usually charge for a reading, and give a free reading away with every purchase.”

  She frowned at him. “So I wouldn’t be charging for the readings.”

  “And you wouldn’t have to use the disclaimer.” He gave her a wink, picked up his sandwich and dug in.

  Tilting her head, she studied him. She had never seen this side of him before. Open-minded, accepting, even…spiritual, though she doubted he would call it that. “Thank you, Jason.”

  “My pleasure. Now, go. Mort’s glaring at you.”

  She glanced at her employer, sighed and got back to work.

  Jason finished his sandwich and left, but his words stayed with her all day. She had been fighting this; he was right about that. But since when did a small-town cop spout wisdom like a spiritual guru? It was as if he’d looked right inside her soul and diagnosed the problem. Was it possible she’d missed something so simple?

  And God, he had kept her letter. She must have meant so much more to him than she had ever realized. And she’d walked away, left him with barely an explanation. He should hate her for that. But he didn’t.

  When her shift ended, she stepped out of the diner and into the cold air. Christmas carols wafted from every store and business she passed. Sister Krissie’s Bar and Grill, the best restaurant in town, was filling up with hungry customers, and every time the door opened, strains from Manhein Steamroller wafted out into the streets. As she passed BK’s Grocery, a stream of bundled children came out with foil-wrapped chocolate Santas in their mittened hands, as their harried mom tried to herd them toward the car while juggling grocery bags.

  Dori hurried across the street and down the block to where she’d left her car. She swept off the snow, started up the engine, and sat behind the wheel rubbing her hands while it warmed up.

  “A car is a car,” she said softly, trying hard to see things from a new perspective, as Jason had suggested. And this wasn’t a bad one. Only two years old, with a good heater and working AC, a radio and a CD player. It wasn’t rusty and it ran well. It even had studded snow tires and front-wheel drive.

  She didn’t want just a car, though. She wanted her Mercedes.

  She sighed, pulled into the road and began the drive back to her cabin, only to find that the road out of town was blocked by road crews hoisting holiday lights. Damn. A small Detour sign pointed left onto Evergreen. Dori turned, and realized she’d rarely been on this side street. It meandered among small homes and a handful of shops.

  Then out of the blue, her car—which she was working very hard on believing was as good as a Mercedes—spit and sputtered and quit.

  “No.” She turned the wheel, coasting to a spot near the curb, then put it in Park and tried twisting the key. Nothing. Dead. And no onboard assistance button to push for help. No cell phone. She’d let it go, to eliminate the extra bill.

  “Damn.” Her mood—which had been improving—took a nosedive. She wrenched open the door, got out and looked around.

  The building in front of her, nestled on the corner of Evergreen and Hope streets, looked for all the world, to be a haven. White lights in the windows surrounded the words Burning Bright. The window display had candles of every imaginable shape and color. And the sign on the door read Open.

  Well, she was going to have to use a phone somewhere. Call a garage. A tow truck. Something.

  She opened the door, and a bell jingled as she walked inside.

  And then she just paused and breathed. The place smelled of sandalwood incense, and dragon’s blood oil, and the hot melted-wax smell that always transported her. It smelled like a sacred circle. It smelled like her religion and her craft. It smelled like magic, and the scents hit her hard, like a fist to the gut. Tears burned in her eyes and she wasn’t sure why.

  “Well, hello, dear.”

  Dori looked up, startled because she had thought the place empty. But it wasn’t empty at all. A woman s
tood there, an old women with a face that was craggy and lined yet somehow beautiful. Her eyes were huge and ebony, and her jet-black hair was streaked with vivid white and hanging loose, halfway down her back. She wore a black caftan, printed with rich gold swirls, that reached to the floor, long dangling earrings that were silver spirals, and a strand of huge beads around her neck, amber and jet.

  Amber and jet!

  In her hand, she held a broomstick.

  Dori stared, stunned to her bones. The image of the Dark Goddess, the Crone, stood before her, so vivid and so real that she bowed her head and very nearly fell to her knees. Those black eyes sparkled, and the Crone said, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Chapter Four

  “My goodness, child, don’t look so frightened.”

  The Crone set her broomstick aside and brushed her hands against each other. “I’m Helen. This is my candle shop. Every candle, handmade.”

  “He-Helen?” Not Hecate or Holda or—but she’d said she was waiting for her.

  “I saw you sitting in the car out front,” the old woman said as if reading her thoughts. “I was wondering when you’d get around to coming inside to get warm.” She smiled and offered her hand.

  Dori took it, surprised that it was warm and entirely human. “I’m Dori,” she said.

  “Good to meet you, dear. My but you still seem rather distraught. Is anything wrong?”

  Everything was wrong. Including the fact that she thought she’d just had a visit from the Dark Goddess Herself. “I…my car broke down. Do you have a telephone I could use?”

  “Of course.” She reached for the broom again, bent to the dustpan Dori hadn’t seen before and swept up a nearly invisible pile of dirt. “I’ll be right back with the phone. Feel free to browse around. You never know, you might find just what you need—even if you didn’t know you needed it!”

  With another smile, she carried her dustpan away through the shelves and shelves of candles. She jingled when she walked, and Dori glimpsed bracelets adorning her wrists and her ankles. Dori blinked and tried to give herself a mental shake. But it didn’t work. She felt the way she did when she was in an altered state: very relaxed and open, her heart and pulse thudding slowly, her body heavy, her vision slightly out of focus. Part of it was this place; she knew that. The smells, the candle glow—these were triggers that told her body it was time for spiritual practice, for ritual, for magic. But there was something more about this place that was working on her.