With renewed vigor, I dug my heels into the dirt of the barn floor and somehow managed to get leverage. Wrapping my hands around Roger’s head, his face—so like Win’s—ablaze with hatred for me, I latched onto his dark hair and I gave it the hardest yank I could manage.
He reacted by howling, loosening his grip enough that I was able to bring my knees up and buck him partially off me. I twisted my body and rolled to the side, but Roger, I’ll be the first to admit, is pretty darn strong for a guy his age. He grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me back toward him, scraping my chin to high heaven.
Naturally, he did it a half second before I got my hands on the gun that was right at my fingertips.
“Kick, my malutka! Twist and kick. Make it hard for him to hold you. Be like slippery eel! Be the eel!”
Be the eel was the last thing I heard before Roger used my legs as leverage and launched himself over my body and got his hands on the gun.
Panic rose up, lodging in my stomach as I saw him aim at Win’s head—and in those brief seconds, tired, cold, dizzy from our fight, I didn’t know what to do.
I only knew, there was no way in all of tarnation I was going to lose this man again.
Nope. Not today, Satan.
Everything Win and Arkady had taught me went by the wayside and I acted on instinct alone. Without thought, I somehow managed to stumble to my knees, cupping my hands together, making a fist, and dropping them like a hammer on Roger’s back, using all one hundred and fifty-two pounds of me to smash against him.
And then I screamed, my throat hoarse and raw with pins and needles, “Win! Get out of the way!” a second before the gun went off, and I heard someone cry out in pain.
Chapter 18
“Wiiin!” I roared as the bullet hit someone, but I couldn’t see who had taken the hit.
However, Roger was gasping for breath from the blow I’d landed to his kidney, giving me enough time to climb over top of him and wrench the gun from his fingers, but it flew sideways toward Karen’s stall.
And that was when I saw Miranda and Win, like poetry in motion, two silhouettes in the Christmas light, moving with the grace of cats as they battled one another.
Honest to Pete, it looked just like it did in a movie. Each blow landed was almost like a choreographed ballet move.
“Zero!” Arkady called. “Use pitchfork to your left—end her now!”
But Roger was back on the hunt in seconds, righting himself and making a break for the stall where the shiny gun caught the light from outside.
“Malutka! Get there before him!” Arkady warned, his tone urgent.
But I would never make it—and in that moment, that moment when I thought there’d be no winning this battle, that even with a poor a shot, he’d never miss me at this range, the craziest, most wonderful thing happened.
“Touch that and I’ll chew your hand right off your arm!” a gravelly voice said.
Roger jumped back as though he’d been burned, falling into me and almost knocking me over. He pressed his hands to his chest and stuttered, “Wha…?”
“You heard me, you spawn of Beelzebub! Is it too much to ask for a little peace while an old lady takes a nap?”
My eyes flew open as Roger fell to the ground, holding his chest before he passed out cold.
I gasped for breath, my chest burning, my lungs on fire, but I grabbed the edge of the stall and managed to stutter, “Karen?” in squeaky awe.
The reindeer talked. Holy baloney. The reindeer talked.
“That’s right, young lady. That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.” Then she reared her head at me and chuckled, her velvety-soft antlers catching the lights from the window. “Now get that shiny gun before he wakes up, and let me sleep in peace!”
I scrambled to grab the gun, but I didn’t have time to address Karen before Arkady was urgently bellowing, “Zero! Look out for the knife!”
Whipping around, I saw Miranda make a run for Win, her eyes on fire, the shoulder of her jacket covered in blood, and in her hand, a shiny knife.
And that’s when I knew I had to act. I had no experience at all with a gun. It’s the one thing Win and Arkady have never taught me, but I pointed it at the open air behind Miranda’s back and fired off a shot, shaking like a leaf as I did.
“Stop, Miranda, or I’ll shoot!!”
As she looked toward me in surprise when the bullet whizzed past her, she tripped over the pitchfork that had been in the corner and was now strewn across the barn floor. She fell, twisting her ankle so hard, I heard the fragile bones crack.
She screamed out in pain, crashing to the ground, but I have to give it to her. She rolled with it like the pro she was. And when she righted herself and managed to get to her knees, I was there with the gun pointed in her face.
She heaved breaths, her chest rising and falling with harsh beats, the look of rage in her eyes palpable.
“Don’t move, darling,” I mimicked her, still sucking air into my lungs in heaving gulps.
“Stephania,” Win said, coming up behind me and placing his hands on my shoulders. “Give me the gun, Dove. I’ll handle this now.”
But I wasn’t done just yet. I wanted Miranda to know what a horrid human being she was. I wanted her to suffer for all the time Win had suffered.
So while I handed over the gun, I shrugged him off and pointed a finger at Miranda, leaning down so we were eye to eye.
“I hope you spend the rest of your days in…in…polyester, you heartless monster—you insidious, soulless demon! I hope every day is hell for you from now until the day you take your last breath!”
Miranda’s eyes narrowed at me, green and filled with hatred. Blood dripped from her lip, her hair was tangled and full of pieces of hay, and her creamy throat had streaks of red slashed across it, but she looked me right in the eye and sneered, “You insipid fool. I’ll find you someday, Stephania Louise Cartwright. I’ll find you and I’ll kill you!”
So listen, I know this was petty. I know she was sort of at a disadvantage, bleeding and on her knees at gunpoint, but oh! She made me so stupid mad! All the anger, all the jealousy, all the rage, all the pain this woman had stirred in me these past years made me react.
I wound up, bringing my arm back like a sling shot, and clocked her right in her jaw, knocking her to the ground, where she actually bounced before crumbling on the barn floor.
“You just try it!” I screamed down at her.
“Stevie?” I heard the rustle of feet, felt someone’s hand on my arm, and then Hal was there, her eyes filled with worry. “What in all of Marshmallow Hollow is going on?” She reached up and touched the side of my nose, which I’m pretty sure was a hundred different shades of purple, grazing it with her fingers. “Oh, my goodness, are you all right?”
I stood up straight and took a deep breath, blowing it out as the cold began to settle deeper into my bones. “I’m fine now. Really. And I’m sorry about the barn. I think we’ve made a mess.”
She took a step back and gave me a long hard look. “Is this…Miranda?”
I grinned at her, pushing my hair from my battered face, which was pretty sore. “Yep. That’s her.” Then I hitched my thumb over my shoulder. “And that’s Roger.”
“Did you do this to her? To him?” she asked with an amused smile.
“She most certainly did,” Win said on a chuckle, hardly a scratch on him. “Now come, ladies. We must figure out where to go from here. How shall we dispose of them to their rightful jail cells?”
Hal’s blue eyes twinkled. “I have an idea.” She held up her hand and snapped her fingers, producing a roll of duct tape. “But before I put my plan in action, do you have anything you’d like to say to Miranda, Win?”
He looked directly at Miranda for a long, intense moment, his eyes like chips of ice, while hers were watery and red and still filled with disbelief then shook his head.
“Not a bloody thing, Hal. Not a bloody thing.”
She nodded her head curtly in M
iranda’s direction. “Then why don’t you two let me take care of this, and you guys go and clean up and put some antibiotic cream on Stevie’s chin. We’ll meet back in the kitchen for some hot cocoa and you can tell me all about it.”
I squeezed her arm in gratitude. “You’re on. Oh, but before you go…the reindeer…the reindeer talks? She saved my life, Hal.”
Hal giggled her tinkling chuckle. “Did she then? Well, about that. She’s my Nana Karen. I’ve been meaning to bring you out here to meet her, but it’s been a little hectic with all these attempts on Win’s life.”
“Reincarnation?” I murmured.
Hal’s head bounced as she tightened her scarf around her neck before pulling a strip of duct tape off the roll. “It’s a long story, but yeah. Only my Nana Karen. I told you I had a little experience with it.”
I blew out a breath, my chin aching and scratched up, my chest on fire. “Well, I owe Nana Karen big.”
“Why don’t you tell her that?” she suggested softly before, in a haze of colorful dust, Hal, Miranda, and Roger disappeared.
Win tucked the gun into his sock, and then he put his arms around me. “You, my dove, are a mighty warrior. You took Roger out like a pro.”
I leaned back against his arms, my body one big ache. “You saw that? How could you see that when you were busy fighting off Miranda?”
“A good spy has eyes in the back of his head, Stephania. Have I taught you nothing?”
I took Win by the hand and wandered over to Nana Karen’s stall where she stood, her head hanging over the rails. I bracketed her face and kissed her nose, rubbing my cheek against her soft muzzle.
“I don’t know how, I didn’t even know reincarnation was truly possible until Win, and now you, but I sure am glad you were here tonight. Thank you, Nana Karen. You saved my life.”
Win ran a hand over her back and smiled warmly. “Indeed, Nana Karen. Consider me beholden to you for life.”
She chuckled, her deep brown eyes twinkling. “You two go get warm now before I steal this handsome man right out from under your pert nose. And thank you, Stevie. Hal’s told me all about you. I’m durn glad she has you in her life.”
I smiled at her and pressed another kiss to her nose. “Me, too,” I whispered with tears in my grainy eyes.
Win let out a sigh. “This has been a night of revelations, and I don’t know about you, but I might need something stronger than cocoa. I’m sure we have much to discuss. I think it should be done over some good whiskey.” He held out his arm to me. “Shall we go do that, Dove?”
I nodded and smiled at him. “Definitely.”
But Win stopped short. “Stephania, wait,” he ordered softly as we approached the doors.
I looked up at him, his jaw bruised, a cut by his eye, but by and large, not nearly as beaten up as me. “What’s wrong?”
He looked around, cocking his ear in the way he did whenever a ghost was communicating to him. “Do you see anyone, Dove?”
Immediately, my eyes began to scan the interior of the barn, and then I let out a small gasp. “By the hay bales, Win—”
“You’re my mother?” Win asked, awe and wonder in his husky voice as he clung to my hand.
The ghost nodded, her long chestnut-colored hair floating around her shoulders, but I would have known that anyway. She was exactly as Hal described her—beautiful, poised, elegant, and shrouded by a soft glow of light.
When Win spoke, his voice was raw and deep. “She says she was the ghost who appeared to us at the carnival, and she was there the night I died…”
His mother. Of course.
Oh, my goodness…it all made sense now. When she’d shown up at our house the night Win was killed, she had already passed. She must have come to try to find a way to break through the veil and warn him about Roger.
I couldn’t hear her, but I felt her determination. I felt her love for him.
“I-I…” Win stuttered, something Crispin Alistair Winterbottom never did. “I don’t know what to say…”
Win’s mother smiled, and it was beautiful, warm, piercing my heart until I felt her in my very soul.
“Why?” he asked, his voice filled with emotion. “Why did you give us away?”
I watched her mouth move, I watched tears fill her stunning blue eyes, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. I only knew it was impassioned, and said with love. So much love it filled the barn, warmed my icy limbs, made my heart tighten and contract.
Win nodded then, clearing his throat. “I do understand. Please don’t think I could ever hate you. That will never be the case.” He looked down at me, his eyes soft as he explained. “She said she was afraid of Roger—afraid he’d raise us to be like him. She said she knew he was evil. When she found out she was pregnant, they’d already broken up, so he never knew. She ran as far away from him as possible, and when she gave birth, she knew she had to put us up for adoption to keep him from getting to us. His family was rich and powerful, and it was the only way to keep him from using his money to take us from her.”
“Oh, Win,” I whispered, gripping his arm, but then Anwen was talking again, and I was mesmerized by her—by this moment.
Anwen smiled as she began to shimmer, bathed in a golden light, and tears streamed down her face.
Win’s grip tightened on my hand as tears fell down my face, too. “She says she tried to find me when I died. She searched every plane, but she couldn’t find me. So she stayed where she was for as long as she could, watching over Balthazar, watching him behave like my father… She blames herself for where he ended up—in the foster care system.”
I gulped, knowing how hard it must have been to have to watch Balthazar falter time and again and not be able to do anything to save him, and it broke my heart.
Win held up a hand and shook his head. “How could you have known what Balthazar was capable of? No. No. It isn’t your fault. You did all you could. Please don’t take responsibility for his bad deeds. Please focus on what you did right. I had loving mother who gave me everything I could ever want. I promise you. My childhood was secure and joyful.”
I tried to swallow, but I couldn’t get around the lump in my throat, and as Anwen continued to speak, I knew what was about to happen. I knew she had to leave because she’d finally made contact with her son. She’d finally found peace.
His voice grew quite husky with emotion when he said, “No! There was nothing you could do. You couldn’t have prevented what happened that night. But it’s over now, and I’m happy. It was all worth it to find the life I’ve found with Stevie in Ebenezer Falls.”
I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes briefly to prevent more tears from falling.
And then Anwen looked at me and smiled through watery tears, speaking while Win translated. “She says she’s happy I found you, Dove. She said you’re brave and strong, beautiful and smart, and she couldn’t have picked a better match for me if she’d done so herself.”
I fought a sob, swiping my thumbs under my eyes. “Wish her safe passage for me, will you? Wish her the blessings of the universe, now and always.”
Then Win took a step forward as Anwen’s form began to fade. “I wish we had more time, too. But know this, please. I’m forever grateful for this moment. Forever grateful for your sacrifice,” he whispered.
Anwen lifted a hand…and suddenly I was warm all over, my heart beat with elation, and my soul virtually throbbed in my chest the way it used to when Win was on Plane Limbo and he wrapped his arms around me.
“Do you feel that, Win?” I asked in hushed reverence, gripping his hand tighter and bringing it to my cheek.
“I do, Dove,” he said, his voice gravelly and bursting with emotion.
“That’s your mother hugging you, the same way you used to hug me.”
Win smiled, a smile very similar to his mother’s, and as she lifted her hand and waved one last time before she disappeared entirely, my Spy Guy whispered, “Until we meet again.”
And the
n she was gone, but her warmth, her love for Win and even Balthazar, would linger with me always.
We stood there for a little while in the cold barn, reveling in the magnitude of what had just occurred, basking in the bliss of a love so pure.
When Win finally spoke, he said softly, “I shall forever be in awe.”
I rubbed his arm, the cold in my fingers returning. “Me too.”
And then he looked at me, his eyes somber. “It’s time for me to go home, Dove. It’s time for me to make this right so that I might live the life I was so lucky to have been given.”
I smiled at him, my eyes tearing back up. “I think it’s also time to catch some rugby on that ninety-inch TV.”
He chuckled warmly and dropped a kiss on my nose. “That, too, I suppose.”
“Are you sure you’re ready? Because if you thought you opened a Pandora’s box tonight, wait until you see what happens when we tell everyone your origin story.”
“As long as you’re with me, I’m ready for anything.”
Butterflies flapped their gossamer wings in my belly the way they always did when Win said something so sweet. “Then let’s do this.”
As we headed out of the barn and into the cold night toward Hal’s, Win nudged me. “Have I told you I’m quite impressed with your undercut these days, Stephania? That was quite a punch to Miranda’s chops.”
I giggled, my cheeks going hot. “She deserved it, too. Who the heck does she think she is, threatening to kill me?”
“The nerve of some spies, eh? But you bloody well showed her,” Win said on a laugh.
“Indeed, I did, and I’d do it again.”
“Ah, Stephania, where would I be without you?”
“Still trying to pawn our house off on some poor, unsuspecting fool.”
And then we both laughed as we stepped into the warmth of Hal’s.
Hand in hand.
Come what may.
Epilogue
Witch it Real Good Page 18
