Spells & Stitches

by Barbara Bretton

  She scared me more than any army of Fae warriors ever had.

  If I knocked Fran down, then scrambled over the worktable, I stood a fifty-fifty chance of making it out the door before she zeroed in on me. But I was eight and a half months pregnant and barely mobile, so I did the next best thing.

  I set her yarn on fire.

  2

  I didn’t mean to do it, but I guess the shock of seeing Bunny MacKenzie in Sticks & Strings blew away the last shred of control over my magick and set the whole thing in motion.

  Flames shot from my fingertips like Fourth of July fireworks gone wild and headed straight toward Luke’s mother. I shrieked. Janice knocked the yarn out of her arms and began jumping up and down on the smoldering skeins. Bless sheep and the wool they provide. Wool doesn’t burn, it only smolders, but the sight of smoke ignited hysteria just the same. Fran yanked a half-empty bottle of water from her bag, uncapped it, and flung the contents at her friend.

  All in all, not the way you want to meet his mother.

  The good news was that the humans among us had no idea I was the resident firebug because Aerynn’s protective charm had done its job and cloaked the source.

  The bad news? The baby secret wasn’t a secret anymore.

  The fire, the unexpected shower, everything fell away the moment Bunny MacKenzie’s dark green eyes settled on my big round belly. I watched in a weird combination of terror and fascination as her expression slid from shock to joy to I’m going to kill him!

  I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. A weird, prickly feeling exploded beneath my skin, like burning needles trying to work their way out. My lungs felt tight and I struggled to pull in a deep breath. My heart started pounding triple time, my vision tunneled down, and the next thing I knew Bunny MacKenzie was helping me over to one of the overstuffed sofas near the fireplace.

  “We need more water,” Bunny barked as she settled me into the cushions. “Now!”

  Janice dashed off toward the kitchen while poor Fran stared at me, eyes wide.

  “Should I call 911?” she asked, rummaging through her purse again as Luke’s mother took my pulse.

  Bunny met my eyes. “Anything hurt?”

  I shook my head.

  “Any contractions?”

  I shook my head again.

  “That’s what we want to hear.” She checked my pulse with sure fingers. “So far, so good.”

  I found my voice. “Are you a nurse?”

  “Thirty-five years. Cardiac intensive care. I retired in May.” Her tone was matter-of-fact but the look in her eyes was anything but. “When are you due?”

  “January first.”

  A wry smile tilted the ends of her mouth. “And when did he plan on telling us?”

  I managed what I hoped was a wry smile of my own. “January second.”

  She spun out a few choice phrases that made me laugh in spite of myself, the gist of it being that Luke was a stubborn know-it-all idiot who had no business locking out his family at a time like this.

  I couldn’t disagree. Happily I was saved from saying anything to that effect when Janice swooped in with two more bottles of water, a banana, and a towel for a very soggy Bunny.

  Some people break out in a sweat when they get nervous. These days I break out in magick. The mini firestorm was only the beginning. My entire body shook with the effort to keep more spells from exploding all over my yarn shop like the contents of a crazed piñata.

  Bunny apparently noticed the tremors rocketing through me. (I had the feeling not much escaped the woman.)

  “Holy Mary,” she murmured as she lifted my right wrist and took my pulse again. “Honey, your pulse is way too fast for me.”

  “I’m fine,” I managed as my words swirled around her head in white-hot neon. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “This has happened before?”

  I waved my hand in what I hoped was a casually dismissive gesture and a flotilla of traveling pixies with attitude appeared on Bunny’s right shoulder. Ever get a mosquito bite in the dead of winter and wonder how in the world that happened? You have a pixie infestation. They have sharp little teeth and a wicked sense of humor that usually involves drawing blood. They also smell like a bad tomato when they’re drunk, but you didn’t hear that from me.

  “Ouch!” Bunny glanced at her shoulder, then over at Fran. “I hope we didn’t pick up bedbugs at that miserable diner this morning. I told you I saw something crawling on the back of your seat.”

  A column of dancing sprites was spiraling down from the ceiling, bouncing off her head, tugging on her ears, waltzing across the bridge of her nose. A second column spiraled down and wreathed Fran’s forehead.

  Fran started scratching her temples. “I wish you hadn’t said that.”

  The two women started swatting the air and scratching their heads in an attempt to dislodge the unwelcome visitors, who were now eyeballing each other as they assumed battle positions.

  A turf war over Bunny MacKenzie? I don’t think so. But my magick was running amok and I was afraid I might sneeze a call to battle. I flashed Janice a help me look and curled my hands under my butt, praying I didn’t singe anything vital.

  I’d heard the stories about the great pixie wars of the last century. First the pixies, then the sprites, and if you didn’t broker a peace between them quickly the trolls would step in and try to take over. If that happened, we’d all be in big trouble because nobody can tell trolls anything. Trust me. Not even trolls want to live with another troll. We’d been living with Elspeth for eight months now and had the battle scars to prove it.

  Janice made a show of rubbing my hands. “You’re freezing!” she said, flashing me a covert wink. She whisked a huge big-needle afghan from the back of one of the hearthside sofas and draped it across my shoulders. Bless friends with wicked good powers. She had infused the afghan with spell-retardant properties that instantly cooled my fingertips and sent my magick into a low-energy rest period.

  Janice then turned her attention to the pixie-sprite battle brewing on Bunny MacKenzie’s left shoulder.

  “I can’t believe this!” Bunny was saying as she knocked a pixie into a pile of Malabrigo. “I don’t know why they call them bedbugs when they’re everywhere.”

  Poor Fran was practically dancing a jig as sprites tumbled to the ground at her feet.

  “Let me take a look,” Janice said. “I have five kids. I’ve pretty much seen everything.”

  “Janice is an herbalist,” I offered. “She knows all sorts of natural remedies for things like this.”

  Bunny wasn’t impressed, but Fran looked like she would try just about anything at this point.

  Me? I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience as I watched my closest friend paw through Bunny’s hair like a chimpanzee grooming her mate.

  “Nothing there,” Janice said in a casual tone of voice. She checked Fran out next. “You’re fine, too.”

  “Nothing?” Bunny shot her a look. “I felt like I had an entire community running around on me. There had to be something.”

  “There was, but not the way you think,” Janice said, gesturing toward a towering pile of roving in a basket next to Fran. “Cochineal dye. Sixty-three percent of fair-skinned females have a negative response the first time they’re exposed to it.” She sounded so convincing I almost believed her. “Fortunately it’s a one-time reaction and it won’t happen again.”

  I’m not sure if Bunny actually believed the explanation or had other things on her mind, but either way I decided it was time to make an exit. I slid the afghan from my shoulders and stood up. “I need to—”

  “Sit down,” she ordered. “We’re not finished here.”

  Another woman might have balked at her I’m the boss motherly command, but to me it felt like a hug. My parents died when I was very little and sometimes I think I’ve spent my entire life looking to replace what I lost.

  I sat back down on the sofa and motioned for Bunny to
sit next to me. Janice, being Janice, instantly saw what was happening and whisked Fran off in search of coffee and doughnuts so we could talk.

  “Sorry we can’t use my office, but I need to keep my eye on things out here.” I gestured toward the thick crowd of customers shopping, laughing, and comparing pattern ideas.

  She leaned over and took my left hand in hers. “Let’s see how you’re doing.”

  “I’m fine,” I protested, “really, I—”

  She raised a brow and I fell into silence as she checked my pulse against her watch. “Much better, but still a little fast.” She patted my hand then released it. “Let’s phone your doctor just to be on the safe side.”

  How many roadblocks could a fifteen-minute relationship encounter anyway? I didn’t have a doctor. At least, not the kind of doctor recognized by the AMA. I posed special problems that a nonmagick doctor would be helpless to handle. (I tried not to think about the special human problems a magick practitioner might find beyond her powers.)

  In this Twitter/Facebook/YouTube world you couldn’t be too careful. I’ve had more than my share of nightmares about what could happen if Sugar Maple’s story ever spilled out into the world of humans. Although I was half human, I had opted to follow the same basic path that my mother and all the other Hobbs women had followed. A Quebec healer/ midwife named Brianne was working in tandem with Lilith to see me safely through my pregnancy and delivery.

  And how could I forget Elspeth? I still wasn’t sure what her role was in the journey, but there was no denying the fact that she was definitely on board for the duration.

  “I appreciate your concern, Mrs. MacKenzie, but—”

  “Bunny.”

  “Bunny,” I repeated, “but I’m fine. I’ll tell the doctor about it next week at my regular appointment.” It was a lie but a necessary one.

  She whipped out her phone. “Give me his number,” she ordered. “I’ll call and fill him in.”

  “No, really. I swear to you everything is totally fine.”

  “Are you on any medications?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “And you’re taking prenatal vitamins.”

  “I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do, Bunny.” I sounded defensive and I guess I was. The things I was doing hadn’t been covered in her nurse training.

  “I’m sure you are, honey. I always push too hard.” She smiled and my remaining defenses began to crumble. “My kids say I’m a pain in the ass.”

  “I’d say you’re concerned.”

  “A concerned pain in the ass.” She placed a hand on my bump. I’m not usually big on strangers feeling up my occupied uterus, but to the baby, she was family. “A girl?”

  And here I was supposed to be the one with powers. “How did you know?”

  “I was hoping.” A shadow crossed her face and I knew she was thinking about the daughter Luke and his ex-wife had lost a few years ago. “Do you have the sonogram handy? I’d love to see her.”

  We don’t do sonograms in Sugar Maple, but I couldn’t tell Bunny that. Instead I babbled on about spilling a cup of coffee on my copy and needing to ask my doctor for a new one.

  Bunny nodded, but I wouldn’t blame her if she thought I was a flaming nutcase. I definitely sounded like one.

  Bunny, however, still had more questions.

  “You’re wearing a wedding band,” she said, gesturing toward the circle of Welsh gold I wore on my middle finger. “Are you and my son married?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s a family ring.”

  “So why aren’t you and my son married?”

  Luke had asked me to marry him so many times that I had lost count before the end of my first trimester, but I said nothing to Bunny. It seemed the safest option.

  And, to be honest, she scared me!

  Bunny, however, was undeterred. “I raised my son to take responsibility for his actions.”

  “And he has,” I shot back. So much for the safest option. “He’s every bit as excited about the baby as I am.” In some ways, maybe even more excited since he knew how precious a child’s life was. “I definitely think you should talk to him about this.”

  “You bet I will,” Bunny said, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear what you have to say. After all, you’re the one carrying my granddaughter.”

  The baby answered with a powerful kick. I reached for Bunny’s hand and placed it back against the spot. “I think she wants to offer an opinion,” I said as another kick made us both laugh out loud. Strange how natural it felt to share this moment with her.

  “A true MacKenzie woman,” Bunny said, her eyes tearing up again. “Opinionated and strong.”

  “Same thing can be said of a Hobbs woman.”

  “I have no doubt.” She patted my belly then leaned back against the sofa cushions. “So do you love my son?”

  She said it the same way a knitter would say, “Do you love cashmere?” Clearly there was only one right answer.

  “I love him very much.”

  “Does he love you?”

  “Yes.” I doubted many things about humans and their world but Luke’s love wasn’t one of them.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “There is no problem. Right now we’re concentrating on the baby.”

  “A baby who deserves two parents.”

  “She has two parents.”

  “I mean a real family.”

  “We are a real family.”

  “Not in the eyes of God or Vermont.”

  She didn’t add “or the MacKenzies,” but I heard the words loud and clear.

  “I disagree, Bunny.”

  She gave me a long, measuring look that had me praying the protective charm around Sugar Maple could keep me safe from wannabe mothers-in-law. “In our family we marry first and have children second.”

  “We didn’t plan it this way, Bunny. The pregnancy was a happy surprise for both of us.”

  “So you do plan to marry later on.”

  “I didn’t say that.” In fact, I wished I hadn’t said anything at all. “You really should talk to Luke about this.”

  “You’re right,” she said with a nod of her carefully coiffed head. “I need to talk to Luke.”

  She whipped out her iPhone and pressed the Prodigal Son speed-dial button while I prayed for an attack of Braxton-Hicks contractions.

  Poor Luke. He wouldn’t know what hit him.

  3

  LUKE—SHADOW BEACH, SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE

  The next time a six-foot, six-inch, two-hundred-twenty-pound selkie asked me to drive him to the ocean so he could start his winter retreat I’d say no.

  Chloe tried to tell me I might be in over my pay grade, but I liked Lorcan Meany, and after all that his wife Janice had done for us in Salem, I figured I owed them one. So when the guy asked me for a lift I figured how tough could it be.

  Like a lot of things in life, it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

  I’d stand there on the shore and watch as Lorcan walked into the waves then disappeared beneath the swells. Then I’d gather up his clothes, his wallet, his iPod, and his battered copy of On the Road and be home with Chloe in time for Thanksgiving leftovers.

  The first clue that I was in for a wild ride came when I swung by the Meany house to pick him up. He was waiting in the driveway with a body bag and three giant coolers at his feet.

  “Should I be worried?” I asked. “I’m your friend but don’t forget I’m also the chief of police.”

  I’d worked homicide in Boston before moving up to Sugar Maple. Body bags and coolers weren’t usually a good sign.

  He shot me the kind of look I usually got when I told a New Yorker I was a Pats fan. “It’s my pelt.”

  “Your pelt?” I sounded like English was my third language.

  “Sealskin,” he said. “What did you think, I grew a new one every year?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said. “That actually is what I thought.”

&nb
sp; “Without the pelt, I couldn’t go back to the sea.”

  “And that’s a big deal?”

  “If I didn’t go back, I’d be dead by Christmas.” Normally he took his annual retreat at Snow Lake, submerging himself beneath the ice for two long, safe winter months. But every five years he needed to return to the ocean or face extinction.

  I stared at him. “You’re shitting me.”

  “Chloe didn’t fill you in?”

  “She tried, but I told her I had a handle on it.”

  I was wrong. So the body bag held a dark, gleaming sealskin that he would wear into the sea. My imagination conjured up some kind of zip-up-the-front coat that he could slip on and off at will, but I wasn’t even close to reality.

  And that was just the beginning.

  “Holy crap,” I said when he flipped open the cooler a half hour later. “Smells like dead fish.”

  Some people bring Cheez Doodles and doughnuts to snack on. Lorcan Meany brought trout. I knew the guy liked fish—nobody grilled fresh trout the way Lorcan did—but there wasn’t a grill in sight. The guy was downing the frozen trout ice chunks and all, tearing the heads off then swallowing the damn things tail end first.

  “Fish-loading,” he said between mouthfuls. “Sometimes I go a week before finding food when I first go back. Gotta be prepared.”

  By the time he started on the third cooler he was making weird snuffling noises and snorting fish bones onto the dashboard.

  “C’mon, man!” I protested as fish guts flew past my nose. “Gimme a break.” I’d spent quality time with corpses that smelled better. I buzzed down the window and stuck my head out in an attempt to keep from puking up my breakfast.

  The closer we got to the ocean, the weirder it got inside the Jeep. Lorcan polished off the last of the trout, then seemed to drop into something close to a food coma. The capacity for human speech seemed to have been supplanted with random squeaks and periodic gasps for air.