A Very Merry Witchmas

by Ani Gonzalez

  "Fireproof fabric?" Kat asked. "How did Caine get his hands on fireproof prom dresses?"

  "He got them from a theatrical troupe that's coming to town soon to put on a play," Gavin explained. "They agreed to lend their wardrobe, for a fee, of course."

  "A play?" Kat asked. "We don't have any plays coming to town, just..." Her eyes widened in horror. Prom dresses, taffeta, fireproof...

  "Yep, you guessed it," Gavin confirmed. "Carrie, The Musical."

  "Are you kidding me?" Fiona asked, aghast. "I thought this was going to be a holiday special. How did it turn into haunted-slasher-movie prom?"

  "That's Christmas haunted-slasher-movie prom, Fi," Luanne said. "We're all wearing little sprigs of mistletoe." She clapped happily. "It's going to be so cool."

  "Please stop," Kat pleaded. "You can't be serious. We're going to wear prom dresses from a horror movie musical?

  "Flameproof prom dresses," Gavin clarified.

  "I don't even want to know," Kat said.

  "No," Sean laughed. "You really don't."

  The guys returned to loading the marzipan boxes in the truck.

  Kat turned to Luanne. "How did this happen? How did we go from cute little winter wonderland with cartoon ghosts to horror movie slasher prom?"

  Fiona drew herself up. "Carrie is not a slasher film. It's a dramatic depiction of what it's like to be a child with parapsychic powers in a hostile environment and a touching treatment of deep trauma and emotional upheaval."

  Her statement was greeted with stunned silence, as Luanne and Kat stared at her in shock.

  "Are you trying to tell us something, Fiona?" Kat asked gently.

  The candle maker tilted up her chin. "No, just a comment."

  "The bucket crashes down," Luanne said in a dreamy voice.

  "What?" Fiona asked.

  "In the movie," Luanne replied, in the same sing-song voice. "The bucket falls from the ceiling, splashing blood everywhere—"

  "I've seen the movie, Luanne," Fiona interrupted testily. "Forty-three times."

  Kat arched a brow. "Isn't that a little excessive?"

  "Sissy Spacek is brilliant," Fiona hissed. "She deserved an Oscar for that portrayal."

  "Then the bodies fall down," Luanne continued. "Like the Tower. Falling, falling, falling—"

  Sean walked up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay, hon?"

  Luanne jerked, as if waking up. "Sure."

  Sean's eyes narrowed. "Why don't you go wait in my cruiser? We're almost done here."

  "Okay," Luanne said. "I want to do another reading anyway."

  She walked off, muttering to herself. "Fire and blood, fire and blood."

  "Is she feeling okay?" Kat asked.

  "Just the usual," Sean said. "Something about a reading she did with a Tower card and people falling and stuff. She keeps asking me about the Jonas case and seems to think that the fact that he fell is somehow important."

  "Like maybe someone pushed him?" Kat asked suspiciously.

  Sure, Liam said the death was an accident, but Kat wasn't so sure. Claire Delacourt seemed to be involved in a lot of "accidents."

  Sean laughed. "No, like maybe Lorena killed him and it means that all the magic in Banshee Creek is going haywire and the end of the world is near."

  "Oh," Kat said.

  That was not what she'd expected.

  She opened her mouth to ask Sean what he meant by "end of the world," but closed it when she caught sight of Fiona's face.

  The candle maker looked like she'd just seen a ghost.

  "This is all my fault," Fiona said, wringing her hands.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  "CUTTING IT a bit close, aren't we?" Liam asked.

  "Not my choice," Kat answered, grimacing as the makeup artist applied more sparkly purple powder on her eyelids. "We had a little breakdown on the way."

  She was sitting in a director's chair, eyes closed, drumming her fingers nervously, while Geneva, the PRoVE makeup artist, did her eyes. Geneva sported a rainbow mohawk and multicolored mascara, so Kat's nervousness was no surprise.

  Kat had already expressed her dismay at the frothy purple confection she was supposed to wear. An extreme makeup job would just increase her stress.

  "Did something happen to my truck?" Liam couldn't disguise his alarm.

  He'd been having second thoughts about lending the truck to Kat all morning. She was a good driver, but the truck...his baby...no.

  Kat rolled her eyes, or tried to.

  "Don't do that," Geneva cried out. "You'll ruin your liner."

  "Sorry, Gee," Kat sighed as the makeup artist did her repairs tsk-tsking all the while. "No, not your precious, Liam. The one breaking down is Fiona."

  "What's wrong with her?" he asked, wondering if he should say something about the glittery stars Geneva was placing on his wife's face. They looked kind of cute, though.

  "Oh, something about her powers always going haywire and causing destruction and chaos. She's freaking out because of one of Luanne's readings."

  Liam glanced at the candlemaker's cooking station. Fiona did look nervous as she organized her ingredients and utensils. The long yellow tube dress she was wearing seemed to be restricting her movements, which did not help. Geneva's partner, Viola, had given Fi a towering beehive hairdo with feathers perched on top. She looked like a jittery golden cockatoo.

  "Doesn't she know better than to pay attention to Luanne?" He scanned the room. "By the way, where is our little psychic troublemaker?"

  "Isn't she with Amy?" Kat asked, straightening as Geneva fluffed a big powder puff all over her face.

  Kat now looked like...well, he didn't know what exactly. He wasn't used to seeing Kat in so much makeup. The purple eyeshadow made her brown eyes glow and the dark liner made them look bigger. Still beautiful, but it was now a wild, intimidating beauty.

  "No," Kat said, answering her own question. "She's not there."

  Liam glanced at Amy Chan's station, which held bags of paper shreds and boxes of chocolate. The restaurateur was wearing a bright red cheongsam with golden dragon embroidery. What could Amy possibly be making that involved so much paper?

  Next to Amy, Sara Parker, the pizzeria manager, was putting together pastry bags. The Brit was wearing a Union Jack t-shirt over her blue tulle gown with a studded leather belt and Doc Martens boots, giving her the look of a punk rock prom princess.

  At the next station, Gus was nattily attired in a tuxedo with a black cummerbund decorated with unicorns. Liam didn't know what the PRoVE cameraman was making, but it seemed to involve a lot of sprinkles.

  "But the judges are here," Liam replied, spying Claire's silver hair.

  "Are you kidding?" Kat exclaimed, jumping out the chair.

  "If you ruin your hair," Geneva warned. "Vi will strangle you with the curling iron's electric cord. She put her soul into that 'do."

  Kat patted her pinned-up curls nervously. "I'll take care of it, don't worry. I don't want to be frizzy on camera." She frowned as she examined her baking station. "I guess it's time to get ready."

  "I'll leave you to it," Liam said, kissing her on the forehead. "Don't worry. You'll be great."

  "From your mouth," Kat said, looking pale. "To the goddess' ear."

  He left her to it and began his last minute inspection stroll, walking around the gym, examining the tables and the outlets.

  And the judges.

  Elizabeth Hunt was there, looking glamorous in a white meringue of a dress with a cream mohair cardigan, pearls, and sparkly cat-eye glasses. Their local movie-star-turned-real-estate-agent looked like a pinup prom chaperone.

  Claire Delacourt was in silver, her long gray hair adorned with sparkly lavender strands. The ensemble gleamed, but her eyes did not. They were cold and flat as they surveyed the room.

  Jeff Santos, on the other hand, could barely contain his excitement. He was rocking back and forth, the motion making his fedora hat teeter precariously on his head. Like Elizabeth
and Claire, he was ready for the prom in a black tux with a cummerbund decorated with tiny skulls.

  "The contestants will have four hours to cook," Elizabeth explained. "And the cameras will be rolling all the while."

  "Four?" Claire asked testily. "That's a long time."

  "We want to give everyone a chance," Elizabeth explained calmly.

  "Do we have to stay here all that time?" Jeff asked.

  "No," Elizabeth replied. "We'll go around twice to ask questions of the contestants, but otherwise you're free to do whatever you want."

  Jeff nodded. "The rest of the school is open, right?"

  Elizabeth looked puzzled. "Some of the rooms are locked, but most of the building is open. Just don't disturb the classroom equipment."

  "Excellent," Jeff said. "I'll go get my sensors."

  Sensors? Why did Jeff need sensors? Was he going to investigate the baking? The Banshee Creek ghosts sometimes did strange things, but as far as Liam knew, none of them had ever cooked anything.

  Jeff walked off humming happily. There was something familiar about the tune, but Liam couldn't quite put his finger on it.

  "Blast from the past." Claire said. "Am I right, Hagen?"

  "I guess," Liam said. "But our prom was less nineteen fifties chic, and more nineteen eighties tacky."

  "Neon-colored dresses and mile-high bangs," Claire recalled.

  "And cheesy songs," Liam responded. "'Don't Stop Believing.'"

  Claire arched a brow. "'The Last Dance.' Remember that one?"

  Liam stilled. How did Claire know about that? That had been a secret, just between the boys in his class, who, one by one, sneaked out of the gym onto the hallway and turned on a boom box so it would play Donna Summer's 'Last Dance.'

  Daring Lorena Wills to come out and manifest herself.

  Claire's lip curved into a humorless smile. Her eyes were cold, hard steel. "Oh, you remember. Of course you do."

  "It was a joke," Liam stammered. "Just a silly—"

  Claire's eyes flashed. "No, it wasn't."

  Her voice cut like a knife. Liam stood still, trying to figure out what had made Claire so angry. Sure, the competition would last longer than she'd expected, but that didn't justify this kind of reaction.

  "Oh, for mercy's sake, Claire," he said. "It was harmless. Lorena didn't even show up."

  Claire's smile turned into a smirk.

  "Are you sure about that?"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  "MARZIPAN CAN be overly sweet," Claire Delacourt noted.

  "Yes," Fiona replied with a bright smile. "That's why I dipped them in bittersweet chocolate, to cut down on the sweetness."

  Kat frowned as she pulled her cookies out of the oven. This was the second time Claire had voiced skepticism about Fiona's marzipan. She'd also complained about the paper fortunes Luanne had written for Amy's fortune cookies, saying that a piece of paper wasn't really baking and, thus, couldn't be part of the judging. Claire had even tried to criticize Holly's book-shaped shortbread cookies, but the town's assistant librarian had shut that down quick.

  One thing was clear, Claire Delacourt was in a foul mood.

  Kat braced herself for criticism when the judges approached her table. She wouldn't be able to conceal the fact that—

  "Coconut?" Claire asked with undisguised displeasure. "I thought you were making snowball cookies with powdered sugar."

  Elizabeth winced. "I'm sure the coconut will be lovely. Kat is very creative."

  For a moment, Kat wished that she'd stuck with the powdered sugar, but she gave herself a quick mental pep talk and soldiered on.

  Claire wrinkled her nose. "I hate coconut." She glared at the glass bowl filled with the offensive white flakes. "And it's not very Christmasy."

  Jeff Santos glanced down at the ball-shaped cookies. "They'll look like snowballs, won't they? That's appropriate to the season."

  "Actually," Kat said "They're a winter solstice offering."

  Claire raised a brow, Jeff nodded thoughtfully, and Elizabeth almost sighed in relief.

  "To Yemanya," Kat continued. "Orisha mother goddess. Her feast is this month."

  "And people make wishes," Claire said grudgingly. "Wishes for the coming year."

  "Yes," Kat pointed to the bowls in front of her. "Coconut for prosperity, sugar for joy and happiness, and white chocolate, well, just because."

  "Interesting idea," Claire conceded. "Yemanya is the goddess of protection, isn't she?" Claire's sharp eyes bored into Kat. "What makes you think that we need her help?"

  "Er," Kat stammered. "Nothing, just..."

  Her voice trailed off. Just a feeling, she wanted to say. Just a feeling that something was going to happen, something bad, and that they needed all the help they could get.

  That's why the other recipes hadn't worked. That's why she'd always returned to this one. It wasn't just a cookie recipe, it was a spell, a plea for protection.

  But protection from what?

  Claire's lips curved into a half-smile. "Yes, that is the question, isn't it?"

  Then the Delacourt witch left in a flurry of silver taffeta. Elizabeth gave Kat an apologetic smile.

  "Just finish the cookies and leave them on the station," Elizabeth said. "We'll gather a judging panel when everyone is done."

  That's when Kat noticed that she was the first contestant to have finished baking. Everyone else was still mixing, except Fiona. She was putting her log-shaped creations in the oven.

  Finishing first wasn't good, was it? She was getting flashbacks to high school, where finishing the test before everyone else usually meant that you'd gotten something terribly, horribly wrong.

  She picked up a cookie and bit into it. She tasted butter, sugar, cinnamon and spices with a hint of rum. All were flavors that were supposed to be there. The cookie was simple, but delicious.

  It would have to do.

  She melted the white chocolate and mixed it with a pinch of cinnamon and a teaspoon of rum extract. The smell was intoxicating and she hummed happily as she dipped each cookie in the chocolate mixture, and then rolled it through the coconut flakes.

  A few minutes later, she had a tray full of fluffy cookies. She took out four blue and white plates—blue was Yemanya's sacred color—and spooned out a bit of chocolate on each. Next she carefully placed three cookies on each plate. The plates looked a bit plain, so she added some round candies in blue and silver to give them some color. The candies were meant to represent the beaded collars worn by Yemanya's disciples. Surely Claire would get the reference. The orishas weren't as obscure as the Mapuche.

  There, she had the requisite four plates. She looked around and saw that everyone was still working.

  Luanne was folding fortunes, Holly was frosting her cookies, and Fiona was kneeling in front of her oven, a concerned look on her face.

  Kat scanned the room, trying to figure out what she was supposed to do next. Then she spied Jeff Santos walking around with his supernatural sensor, waving the wand around wildly.

  She waved at him. "Jeff, I'm done. What do I do now?"

  He shrugged. "We won't be judging until at least an hour, then we film the finale. I'm going off to investigate."

  "Investigate what?" Kat asked.

  "The school, of course," Jeff snorted. "They never let teams in here. Why do you think I signed up for this gig?"

  "But there's nothing here, except—"

  "Lorena Wills," Jeff replied firmly.

  "But Lorena isn't a real—" Kat didn't finish the sentence.

  It just sounded too weird to say that Lorena wasn't a real ghost. But she wasn't.

  Was she?

  "If she isn't real," Santos said with a smirk, "then why did Claire just sneak off to do one of her spirit communication spells?"

  "She did?" Kat scanned the room. Sure enough, Claire was nowhere to be seen. "But that doesn't mean—"

  "Lorena is real," Jeff stated. "And I'm going to prove it."

  He stalked off, swinging
the glowing sensor around. Kat looked back at Holly's station, where the assistant librarian was leaning over her cookies, holding a large bag of frosting in her hands. Like the other female contestants, she was dressed in a fluffy prom dress adorned with a corsage. Holly had chosen an empire-waist dress in a light shade of blue because it reminded her of her favorite book character, Peter Pan's Wendy Darling.

  Holly had been adamant that Lorena Wills was only an urban legend, not a ghost at all.

  Had she been wrong?

  And, if Holly had been mistaken, what did that have to do with the creepy prom theme that had attached itself to the competition?

  And what did Claire have to do with it all?

  Kat took off her competition apron, smoothed her taffeta skirt and left her table. Something strange was going on.

  It was time to find out what.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  "LET'S FILM the music first," Caine shouted from the front of the stage. "Then we'll move to the judging. We're running out of light here."

  Liam nodded at the light technician. Abby smiled and motioned to her band members, who took their positions and started tuning up.

  Like everyone else in the gym, the band was attired in tacky promwear. Abby wore a lime-green frothy concoction with yellow sequins and the players wore tuxes with green cummerbunds. They could pass for a leprechaun cover band.

  "We'll do the songs in order," Caine continued. "Opening song first, then closing."

  The lights turned on, flooding the stage in green and yellow, and quickly fell into the familiar test pattern. Liam sighed in relief.

  Electricity was always tricky in Banshee Creek, but the lights seemed to be working correctly. Maybe their luck would hold and this wouldn't turn out like the Rosemoor contest last year. If not, he'd have to call Pete's electrician friend.

  Or, if things got really bad, call Fire and Rescue.

  "Liam," Elizabeth called as she approached him. "Have you seen Kat?"

  "No." He glanced around the gym, but Kat was nowhere to be found. "Isn't she still cooking?"

  "She finished early." Elizabeth tapped her chin impatiently. "We're still waiting for Sarah's Christmas cannoli to cool, but we will be ready to judge soon. Unfortunately, I'm missing not only Kat, but also Claire and Jeff. I can't judge without judges."