12 Days of Christmas: A Christmas Collection

by Laura Greenwood

  Six Geese A-Laying: A Murder Most Fowl

  “Good morning, Lieutenant.”

  Glace flapped at the desk sergeant but didn’t look up from his notepad. The details were there, black and white as his feathers, but none of it made sense. He’d been up all night wracking his brain for a solution but he was no closer to catching the killer than yesterday.

  And now there was a sixth victim.

  “Hey, Phil. Who’s the latest?” Glace asked.

  The coroner hooked the white sheet in his beak and pulled it back.

  “Herbert Tenne,” he said. “Fifteen years old. Has a mate and two kids. No criminal record. Worked at the Seed Emporium.”

  “Another one with no connection at all. Was he killed the same way?”

  Phil flipped a switch and a metal contraption lifted the body off the table. The long black neck dangled at an impossible angle.

  “Broken neck, just like the others,” Phil said.

  Glace waddled to the back, where the other five victims were laid out and tagged.

  “Six geese, all Canadian, all with broken necks. Four male, two female. No two with the same profession. Two criminals, three upstanding citizens, one unemployed. The only connection is their species. No footprints or beakmarks at the scenes, nothing dropped, nothing to go on. I picked the wrong week to give up krill.”

  Phil cooed sympathetically.

  “Wish I could help, Lieutenant, but I’m just as baffled. I’ve seen my share of violent death but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “This killer is cold, Phil. Stone cold. Colder than Mom and Dad’s place back at the South Pole,” Glace said.

  “It’s getting to you,” Phil said.

  “I’m a professional. I can handle this.”

  “I’ve seen lieutenants come and go through this place, and I recognize the signs. You’re cracking up, Glace. You need a vacation, or at least a solid night’s sleep.”

  “Keep your beak out of my business,” Glace said. The last thing he needed was advice from a coroner who thought he was a psychiatrist. Phil was an asset, but he could be a real feather-brain.

  “At least take some time off for Christmas. I know your family’s out of town, but there are plenty of community events. You should take a gander.”

  Glace slapped his wing against the table. “I’ve got a gander right here, and three more over there. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

  Phil shook his head. “You’re a good man, and you’re a good lieutenant, but you’re terrible at taking care of yourself.”

  “Bah. Go stuff a pillow,” Glace said. He snatched the coroner’s report from the desk and waddled out. No one had any right to tell him how to do his job. He had a killer to catch.

  A band of swans trumpeted Christmas carols in the street near his home. Glace wasn’t festive at the best of times (after all, he’d come from the exact opposite end of the world as Santa Grouse) but today it was infuriating. They looked up when he passed but they didn’t stop. He whirled back to face them, badge in wing.

  “Beat it, or I’ll arrest you for disturbing the peace,” he said.

  The music ceased. The biggest swan stood and looked Glace up and down.

  “You Lieutenant Glace?” she asked.

  “Who wants to know?” Glace asked.

  “A stranger left a message for you. He told me to look for the grumpy penguin and I assume that’s you.”

  “Who was he?”

  “I told you, he was a stranger. Beak, feathers, whatever,” the swan said. Glace wasn’t surprised; swans usually assumed they were more important than everyone else and they couldn’t tell other birds apart.

  “What did he want?” Glace asked.

  “He said ‘tell Lieutenant Glace I’m the one he’s looking for and he’s never going to find me,” the swan said.

  The murderer had been in Glace’s street and Glace was still no closer to finding him. Glace barely kept his cool.

  “Anything else?” he asked, through a strained beak.

  “He also said that you’re ‘barking up the wrong tree.’”

  “That’s a dog expression,” Glace said.

  The swan shrugged. “That’s what he said. I’m just the messenger. He didn’t even pay me well.”

  “You charged him?”

  “Of course,” the swan said. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m taking the band somewhere we can be appreciated.”

  None of the other swans could give a decent description, so Glace let them go. He wanted to throw the lot of them in jail, but “not paying attention” wasn’t a crime.

  Instead of going home, Glace headed for the bar. If anyone asked, he would say it was because it wasn’t safe to go home, not now that the killer knew where he roosted. In truth, he needed a giant drink.

  “Who did it, Glace? Who? Who?! WHOOOOOO?”

  “I don’t know, Chief! Stop calling! I’m off duty!” Glace tossed his cell phone across the room where it smashed to pieces against the wall. He realized that he was more drunk than he’d intended to be; the drinks here weren’t just giant, they were mega-giant.

  “I’ve got my boss hooting on the phone every hour asking who did it? Who did it? I don’t know who did it. If I did, would I be sitting in this cage?”

  The bartender chirped.

  “Yeah, yeah. No offense intended,” Glace said. “Give me another round. I’m probably fired anyway.”

  “You drink anymore, your wife is going to lay fermented eggs,” the bartender said.

  “I don’t have a wife. She took off months ago,” Glace said. “Thanks for bringing that up. Really makes me feel good about myself. Laying eggs, hah! I never wanted to be a father. You go lay some eggs. Why…”

  Suddenly, he understood.

  Laying eggs. Six geese a-laying in the morgue. Christmas carols. “Barking up the wrong tree.” A partridge in a pear tree. “Somewhere we can be appreciated.”

  “It’s a swan song,” Glace said.

  “What?” said the bartender.

  “Never mind. Put all this on my tab. I’ve got a killer to catch!”

  “I knew I’d find you here,” said the Lieutenant.

  The band of swans were crowded around the six dead geese. Their instruments barely fit in the already-crowded morgue. Glace raised his pistol, but someone knocked it from his grasp. He was seized from behind.

  The swans’ leader leader, who had pretended to be a mere messenger, clapped her wings.

  “Very good, detective. I hoped you’d understand my hint. This will be more fun with a live audience.”

  “If you wanted a live audience, why did you kill them?” Glace asked.

  “These unfortunate victims were never our end game, Lieutenant,” said the swan. “They were bait. This final performance is just for you.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Now that we have you in our grasp, you’ll never be able to stop us from murdering every last cop in town.”

  “I knew it!” Glace said. “On the way here, I realized that I knew you. You’re Zed Marble’s kid!”

  “I am indeed,” said the swan.

  Glace had put away Zed Marble on a murder charge ten years prior. He’d been sentenced to life and Glace had made sure he’d never see the light of day again.

  “Zed Marble was a monster. He deserved what he got,” Glace said.

  “Sound the trumpets!” the swan said, and the music swelled.

  The morgue, which should have been abandoned, suddenly came to life. Police swarmed in, down the stairs, and grabbed the now-panicking swans. As soon as Glace was loose, he took care of the leader himself.

  “I brought backup,” Glace said. “I told them to come in when they heard the music. Your swan song’s done, Marble Junior. Time to face the music. Take them away.”

  “I’ll get you!” Marble Junior wailed (but unfortunately for her, she never did).

  “Maybe I will take that vacation,” Glace said.

  “Who is going home? Who? Wh
o?! WHO?”

  “Hi, Chief,” Glace said. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  The chief rotated his head to turn large eyes on Glace. “WHO wants to take a holiday?”

  “I do. I think I’ve earned it,” Glace said.

  “Really? And WHO was it that hung up on their boss tonight?”

  “Come on, Chief. It’s Christmas,” Glace said. He’d started to entertain ideas about going home for the season. His mother would burst her beak with happiness.

  “Merry Christmas, Lieutenant. You can have a holiday when you pay off the cell phone you destroyed,” said the chief.

  “Right. I’ll call Ma and tell her I’ll be home next Christmas,” Glace said, and he waddled off to start his paperwork.

  The End

  Author’s Note

  Holly Geely lives in Canada but does not personally know any geese. She likes puzzles and crochet and her pets. She began writing in the third grade and never stopped even though her friend was mad at being described as “short.” Truth is important. Holly never lies.

  AUTHOR LINKS: http://hollygeely.com

  Clipped

  Laura Greenwood

  Day Seven

  On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me…

  Clipped

  Laura Greenwood

  Fantasy Fairy Tale

  A Children of the Cursed Story

  For years, Swan Princess Odette has been trapped by her husband, forced to stay by her missing cloak of feathers. But when a handsome man, with some surprising powers, arrives at the palace, she finds it swiftly returned to her. If only she didn’t have to fly home, and away from the first person who wants to know the real her.

  A retelling of the Swan Maiden.

  Prologue

  4 years ago…

  Odette emerged from the tranquil waters behind her seven older sisters, shedding her soft white feathers and stretching out her arms, ridding them of the cramp of flight. It was the first time Odette had joined them this side of the river, but as her eighteenth birthday had just passed, it was one of her rites of passage as one of the seven Swan Princesses of Riversen.

  Her eldest sister handed her a robe made of a material almost as soft as her feathers were. Which was good. She’d been worrying about how it would feel to be wearing something that wasn’t her cloak. Even in her human form at the palace, it was all she wore. The feathers felt like home.

  Wrapping herself up, she stepped away from the river, and followed her sisters to where they would dance for an evening, worshipping the Swan Goddess who was the only one able to watch their dance. They did the same thing on the same night, every single year. It was the only time anyone got to leave Riversen. Such was their curse.

  Or the Swan Goddess was the only one who should have been watching. Without the sisters’ knowledge, a King watched as they danced, enraptured by their beauty and grace. Before they finished, the King snuck away to the river, where he took one of the feather cloaks that the Princesses had left there.

  When the sisters returned to the river, Odette watched as her sisters took turns donning their feathers, but when it came to her turn, and she went to pick up her cloak, all she came up with was air. Panicking, she looked around, hoping to spot the tell-tale specks of white that would reveal her cloak to her, but found nothing.

  A hand clamped around her wrist and pulled her back towards a hard chest. She began to struggle, but before she really could, something heavy hit the back of her head. Darkness engulfed her, leaving her at the mercy of whoever was behind her.

  1

  She’d lived the life of a Queen for four years. Yet each day, she woke up feeling more and more trapped. All she longed for was a chance to fly free, but with her feathered cloak gone, her wings were clipped and she was trapped in the life forced upon her.

  Which was all just a fancy way of saying she was a slave. One with a gilded cage, and jewels attached to her collar, but a slave nonetheless. Sometimes, she’d swear she could see pity in some of her attendants’ eyes. Mostly the ones that had seen the marks the King had left the first few weeks after their marriage. The weeks where she’d still held the determination to fight back. That’d fled first.

  Thankfully, the King had left her alone since the birth of their twins, three years ago, preferring the company of his mistresses. Maybe most wives would’ve been bothered by their husband straying as much as Ennardo did, but not Odette. If he was paying attention to them, then he wasn’t paying attention to her. And, while she wasn’t doing anything wrong, she just didn’t want him remembering about her. She already took great care to wear the dowdiest gowns she could get away with, ones that hid the figure she’d quickly regained after giving birth, as well as in cultivating a stern persona that no one wanted to question.

  The only people she showed her true self to her was her twins, the beautiful babies who’d been born out of such pain. She couldn’t love them more if she’d tried. They were something truly hers, but mostly because her husband couldn’t be bothered with them at all. Which was ridiculous in her mind. Their little boy was his heir after all, and at the very least, his daughter was a pawn in the marriage game. Well, not to Odette, but to Ennardo she was sure that’s all Lena was. She would do just about anything to protect her daughter from that fate. No woman deserved to be sold to the highest bidder, her daughter least of all.

  “Your majesty?” a male voice asked tentatively, and she turned gracefully, her skirts swishing against the floor. She studied the man who stood in front of her, not recognising him from about the palace.

  “Can I help you?” she asked softly, something about the man making her forget she was supposed to stay aloof and not lose her unapproachable front, but there was something about him that put her completely at ease. He was tall, but then, so was she, with strawberry blond hair and the toned physique and bronzed skin that showed he was someone familiar with working outside. And yet he had none of the roughness she’d expect from someone who did. His clothing was immaculate, and more than that, was Court appropriate, fitting his body like a glove. Luckily for Odette, he was in much better shape than a lot of the Lords about, for which she was grateful. It may be ungracious to even think it, but some of them really shouldn’t be wearing such tight fabrics.

  “Yes, I’m visiting on behalf of my Mother. She wanted me to give you this,” he said, handing her a thick parchment envelope. Their hands touched as she took it from him, and her heart skipped a beat. This close, the woodsy scent of him surrounded her, and reminded her of home, and of safety. Two things she’d been sorely missing.

  “Do I know her?” Odette asked, still speaking softly and surprising herself. The man chuckled, but it seemed like it was more to himself than to her.

  “I doubt it, Mother doesn’t always need to know someone to send them a note.”

  “Oh,” she said, turning the envelope in her hand, and being surprised to discover her name written on the front in a particularly elegant script. Slowly, and conscious of the man’s eyes watching her. Maybe he was going to report back to whoever his Mother was.

  She withdrew the letter and unfolded it, finding the same graceful script covering the page:

  Your majesty, Odette,

  What you’ve lost, may now be found. Trust in my son, he’ll find you what you desire.

  Gretel

  Royal Adviser and Seer to their Majesties Queen Keira and King Philip of Demetra and Aleventia

  Odette read the letter, then again, not quite knowing what to make of what she was seeing.

  “She’s generally reliable,” the man said, breaking through her haze.

  “Do you know what’s in here?” she demanded, waving the letter to the side slightly as she did.

  “No. I don’t need to know where Mother is concerned. When she says to do something, you generally do it. It’s a lesson me and my sister learned when we were very small.” He smiled, his dark green eyes zoning out slightly as he recalled his childhood. She imagined
that’s what she looked like when she recalled her own, though she tried not to. It was too painful to think of it. Without reducing her to a blubbering mess anyway, which wasn’t exactly an accepted reaction for a Queen to have.

  “Do you have a name?” she asked instead of the questions about his childhood that she longed to.

  “I’m Stefan. What may I call you, your majesty?” He gave her a teasing smile that suggested he was used to being around royalty, and well aware that they actually didn’t want to be treated any differently from anyone else. Then again, if his Mother was who she claimed she was, then he probably grew up around the Princess.

  “Odette,” she replied without thinking about it too hard. Really, she shouldn’t be allowing him to use her given name, but something about him, made using it seem right.

  “Nice to meet you, Odette.” He said her name slowly, as if trying it out, and she had to admit that she loved the way it sounded when it came in his low tones. “May I see?” he asked, pointing towards the letter. Maybe she shouldn’t have given it to him, but as with her name, it felt right, so she handed the parchment over, and watched his face as he read. A small smile spread across his face.

  “What is it?” She moved over so that she could read the letter again over his shoulder, almost expecting there to be something different written on it. There wasn’t, and she was more than a little disappointed. Without realising she was doing it, she placed a hand on his arm, moving closer to him rather than further away. His scent really was soothing, and it almost reminded her of home.

  “My Mother. Short and to the point, while being as vague as possible.” His smile revealed that his words were affectionate rather than anything else, and it warmed Odette’s heart to see such a pure love. Clearly she wasn’t the only woman in existence who loved her children so much it hurt. Or was loved in return.