Witching in a Winter Wonkyland: A Wonky Inn Christmas Cozy Mystery

by Jeannie Wycherley

  The reindeer regarded me with a bemused expression as I stood and gawped at it. He had glossy black eyes and the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen. And he was huge. I’d never realised how tall reindeer could grow. Including his antlers, he was easily as tall as me, possibly a little more.

  His fur was kind of fleecy, a bit like a donkey I suppose. But it was his nose that stood out like a Belisha beacon, had Belisha beacons been habitually red and not yellow that is.

  We stood and regarded each other in mutual curiosity. He made no attempt to walk off in spite of the fact that I’d forgotten to grab his harness.

  “Do you think you could move your big backside out of the way, by any chance?” Finbarr’s disembodied voice drifted out of the narrow entrance. “Because I’m not getting out of here with you standing there, that’s for sure.”

  “You’d better be referring to the reindeer and not to me,” I growled, and tentatively reached out for the leather reins around the creature’s neck. He didn’t seem to mind though, and once I’d pulled him gently away from the cave, he seemed happy to walk alongside me.

  Finbarr followed the reindeer out, scuffing his shoulder as he came. “Begorrah, it’s tight in there even for me. How this big fella has been managing to go in and out I’ve no idea.”

  “He’s tame,” I said in wonder, stroking its forehead. “Did you see his nose, Finbarr?”

  Finbarr moved alongside me. “Yes. It’s red. How is it red?” He shone the torch full at the reindeer which backed away in alarm and nearly pulled me over in the process.

  “Whoa!” I said, both to Finbarr and the horned creature at the end of my arm.

  “Is it an injury, or does he have a red nose?” Finbarr lifted the torch once more, and annoyed I grabbed it from him.

  “You’re going to blind him if you keep shining that thing in his eyes.”

  “Maybe it is an injury,” Finbarr repeated. “I’ve had ponies that have scuffed their noses in the past. It will just need cleaning up.”

  “How long has he been living inside that cave I wonder?”

  “Long enough, I think. Someone made a bed in there for him. It’s all trampled down.”

  I patted the creature’s flanks. “So he belongs to someone then?”

  “I think the harness might be a giveaway,” Finbarr agreed.

  “And to be fair, reindeers are hardly native to Whittle woods, are they?” I flicked up the edges of the leather straps attached to the harness. “But see here? He’s pulled free. These are ripped, not cut. If he was living here with his owner wouldn’t they have replaced all this?”

  Finbarr examined the leather straps more carefully. “You’re right. So maybe someone has been looking after it recently, but they’re not necessarily the owner.”

  From above us came Mr Hoo’s warning. “Hoo. Hoo. Hoo.”

  My stomach tipped over. “Someone is coming.”

  “Do we think this is the Beast of Whittle Woods?” Finbarr whispered.

  “Maybe.” I stroked the reindeer’s nose and it made a peculiar coughing sound. “If it is, we can’t let them find it.” I started to think, rapidly trying out different scenarios. Send it back into the cave? Set it free? No to both of those. “We’re going to have to take it back to the inn.”

  “We don’t have a stable—”

  “We’ll think of something. Come on.” Once more I tugged on the reindeer’s harness and he obliged me by following without fuss. We walked together, not particularly quickly. Given how narrow the pathway through the trees was here, I found myself thwacked in the face repeatedly by bushes and branches as I tried to navigate a way through without the reindeer either treading on my toe or getting his antlers stuck in low level branches.

  Above us Mr Hoo took off and circled above us. From some distance behind I could hear the search party thrashing their way through the forest.

  “Keep going,” I said, speeding up and taking risks where we hadn’t before; neglecting to look where I could place my feet, trusting to providence that all would be okay, until finally I could see the ribbon of energy that marked the boundary of the inn. Finbarr came up to flank the reindeer’s left-hand side and between us, each keeping a tight hold of the harness, we pushed through the perimeter, through the familiar resistance, and then popped out on the other side.

  Now we were finally on home territory I wasn’t too concerned about Talbot-Lloyd and his combative team of hunters. They wouldn’t dare follow me on to my land. Nonetheless, I still walked as quickly as I could, as speedily as the terrain would allow, eager to put as much distance between them and us.

  We skirted the marsh and walked on to the clearing in the centre of Speckled Wood. From there the paths were well trodden, wide and clear and I could breathe a little easier. We slowed down a little, and then, at last, I could make out the lights of the inn ahead of us. As we walked out onto the lawns, I released the tension in my shoulders.

  “Let’s take him to the large storage shed out the back,” I suggested. “The one where we keep the big ride-on lawnmower. There’s plenty of space in there.”

  “Right you are. That’s a good idea. We could do with some straw though.”

  “We’ll have to get some in the morning.” I wondered where I could get some locally without arousing suspicion. Or would it matter? Rhona in Whittle Stores would know. “We’ll make sure he’s fed and watered tonight. That’s the best we can do.”

  “I’ll see to that. I’m good with horses.”

  “He’s a reindeer,” I reminded him.

  “Well there is that. I’m good with them too.”

  I shot a look at Finbarr across the reindeer’s back. I could just about make out his face. “You have experience of reindeer?”

  “Loads.” I pursed my lips, not believing him. “All of twenty-five minutes’ worth,” he admitted.

  The reindeer emitted an odd breathy snickering sound.

  “At least he thinks you’re funny,” I said with a smile.

  “It’s nice to be appreciated.” Finbarr patted the reindeer’s flank and it turned its head to look at him.

  “It either likes you or it’s going to kill you,” I said. “Either way, that works for me. I’m sure Zephaniah would enjoy looking after him actually. He often talks about the horses they had here at the inn before The Great War.”

  “Well that would be right. The problem is, Zephaniah was taken sick this morning.”

  “Oh no! Was he?” I hadn’t heard that.

  “Aye. Your great-grandmother has whisked him away to the attic with all her other unfortunate victims.”

  I hid a smirk. “I’m sure she’s doing her best.”

  “Ah, I know,” Finbarr cooed, contrite. “To be sure she is.”

  “But alright, if Zephaniah isn’t available, I guess you get to look after the reindeer after all.”

  “Will we start looking for his owner in the morning, are you thinking?”

  “Yes. In fact, I may just have a quick Google tonight. Someone may have misplaced one locally. I’ll also get Ned to bring you out some food for it. What do reindeer eat, do you reckon?”

  “Carrots?” Finbarr guessed.

  “I’ll Google that too, just to be safe,” I decided.

  Mr Hoo swooped around, then flew down and landed on the reindeer’s back.

  “I think he wants a lift,” said Finbarr.

  “Hooo. Hooooo.”

  “Lazy little tyke,” I said, and the reindeer snickered again.

  “Herbs, ferns, mosses, grasses, shoots, fungi and leaves.” I stared at my computer screen. I’d brought my laptop down to the cosy kitchen so that I could supervise some refreshments for myself as well as the reindeer. Charity had the kettle on and the biscuit tin open, and I was beginning to feel the blood return to my nether regions once more.

  “I’m not sure the kitchen runs to that kind of thing,” Charity laughed, joining me to read over my shoulder.

  “We have mushrooms though, don’t we?” I ran
my finger over the word fungi. “Would that do?”

  “Do you think he’d like them sautéed in garlic?”

  I cringed. “Imagine garlicy reindeer breath. No. Not a good idea.”

  “I tell you what.” Charity adopted a more serious tone. “Why don’t we give him a bucket full of vegetable peelings, left over from this evening, and see how he does with that?”

  Finbarr appeared at the back door, rubbing his hands together as he stepped into the warm. “That’s a good idea.”

  “How is he?” I asked.

  “Settling in nicely. He’s a very even-tempered chap. He’s had a little water.”

  “Better make it a big bucket of peelings,” Charity said, reading over my shoulder. “It says here ‘on average, an adult reindeer eats around nine to eighteen pounds or four to eight kilograms of vegetation a day’. That’s a lot, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose if you were daft enough to only eat vegetables and no cake, you’d need rather a lot of them to keep your energy up,” I joked.

  “Y’know, speaking of cake, Alf, I found some bits and bobs in the cave that I thought you might want to take a closer look at.” Finbarr opened his coat and caught a number of items as they freed themselves, laying them out on the kitchen table. There were a couple of empty biscuit wrappers, and a few containers that had evidently once contained cake of some sort, along with an empty wrapper for a 500-gram bag of demerara sugar.

  “It’s rubbish,” said Charity. “Well done on cleaning up the forest, Finbarr, but why would Alf care about the trash that someone has dumped in the forest. They need to learn to take it home themselves—”

  I held my hand up to stop Charity in mid flow. “No. He’s right. This is curious.”

  All that sweet stuff. It reminded me of Grizzle upstairs. “Or maybe not that curious.”

  “That’s not all.” Finbarr lifted up his jumper and retrieved a dark brown bag.

  I took it off him. A woman’s small leather backpack. One of the straps had been chewed.

  “You found this in the cave?” I asked.

  Finbarr nodded. “There were some odds and ends scattered around that had spilled out. I stuffed them back in the bag.”

  I carefully opened the bag and peered inside, then drew the contents out. Mostly pieces of paper, envelopes. Sifting through them I realised they were letters addressed to Linda Cleary. “This must be the dead woman’s missing bag. There was no purse?”

  “This was all I found.”

  I held the bag in my hand. It still had a little weight to it. I took another look inside and located a small pocket. Slipping my fingers in, I made contact with something small and cold. I drew it out. A silver front door key on a bright red key fob bearing the legend, ‘Keep Calm Linda’.

  “Front door key maybe?” Charity said.

  Finbarr nodded. “I reckon. If you like I could have a better look around the cave tomorrow, Alf. Maybe take a better torch or lamp with me.”

  “The police will want to see this,” I said. “I’d better phone George again.”

  “You do that,” said Charity. “I’ll sort out supper for old Rudie Rudolph out there.”

  “Rudie? Is that what we’re calling him?” I asked.

  “It’s very fitting,” Finbarr smiled.

  “He has a shiny nose?” Charity asked.

  “A red one,” I confirmed and pointed at my computer screen where the information from reindeer was displayed. “Apparently a red nose is not an unusual occurrence in reindeer.”

  “Wait till you see it,” Finbarr nodded at Charity. “It glows. Honest.”

  I put the phone down after speaking to George. He’d sounded tired. Unfortunately for him, the festive season was a busy time. When you forced families together in close confinement, and added alcohol to the mix, the results could be explosive. He’d had another serious case of GBH to add to his growing list of cases to investigate.

  I had a feeling that Linda Creary was no longer his top priority, although he wouldn’t articulate why over the phone. He’d also said he would send someone out to the inn to collect the bag and its contents and to scour the cave, but not until the morning.

  I’d done all I could for now.

  Still in the kitchen, I’d moved on from tea and biscuits to a glass of cherry brandy on ice. I twirled the glass in my hand, enjoying the tinkle of the ice cubes and the colour of the liquid. My thoughts skipped from George to Silvan and back again, really making no sense. I wished Silvan could be here, sprawled on the bench opposite me, teasing me about my cold hands or tangled hair.

  But he wasn’t.

  Instead the letters lay next to me, most of them waterlogged and stained. I picked through them. The ink had smeared and smudged and to my eye were illegible; written with an ink pen, in an old-fashioned cursive with a slight slant to the right. I wondered who had been writing these letters to Linda. At a point in history when everyone seemed to communicate by email or text, writing letters seemed like a strangely antiquated thing to do.

  Unless you were a vampire, but I didn’t think that could be the situation here.

  And why did Linda have the letters in her bag? She had otherwise been carrying very little. The only other contents of the bag were a packet of tissues, a ballpoint pen and some sugar-free boiled sweets. No purse or wallet, no credit card holder.

  “I suppose it’s not necessary to take your money when you go for a walk in the woods,” I said out loud. “But then I’d expect to have found it upstairs in her bedroom.”

  Odd.

  I retrieved one of the envelopes from the bottom of the pile and examined it. I could make out most of the address. London.

  George had told me several of his colleagues had been to her place of residence and not found anything of any use, but now I found myself copying down the address myself. I’d known little about Linda, but if I could find out anything that helped to solve her mysterious death or could bring closure to her relatives, it would be worth a try.

  Besides, I needed to go to London anyway. I’d find a way to fit in a little visit to Linda’s address, somehow.

  Silvan had always said I was nosy. Well he wasn’t wrong.

  “What do you mean you’re going to London?” Gwyn asked me when I nipped up to the attic to tell her the news.

  I stared around, appalled by the sight of so many sick ghosts. There were a dozen mattresses laid out on the floor up here, with one of my ghosts lying above each one. Luppitt and the other Devonshire Fellows (the brothers Wait sharing a bed) as well as Zephaniah and Florence and a few others, were all lying in bed, eyes closed, oddly quiet. The lamps were glowing in the eaves, and my great-grandmother had been pacing up and down taking temperatures and monitoring pulses, and probably, let’s face it, not a lot else. Nothing that did any good, anyway.

  “You’re needed here,” she added, her voice a little shrill. The ghost nearest us, an eighteenth-century fop by the name of Albert stirred and looked our way.

  “Mother?” he asked.

  “Mother?” I whispered to Gwyn. “Boy, I’m betting she’s been dead a very long time.”

  “He’s running a fever of at least 102,” Gwyn said. “He’s completely out of touch with reality.” She looked a little worried. “I’m not sure I can help them.”

  “Well that’s why I’m going to London,” I reminded her.

  “Mother?” Albert asked again.

  “I wonder if I look like his mother,” I mused.

  “You don’t look like anyone’s mother, Alfhild,” Gwyn responded sharply. “Tell me again what you hope to achieve by heading up to London.”

  “Perdita Pugh gave me the name of a doctor who might be able to help us. I’ve tried to find a way to communicate with him—Mr Hoo, carrier pigeon, letter—but apparently he only does it in person.”

  “You’re required here,” Gwyn said again, as though I needed reminding. We were now just a few days away from Yule and with Florence and Zephaniah out of action, that put more p
ressure on Charity, myself and Ned. I really needed to find some new members of staff.

  “Mother?” called Albert.

  I stepped forwards and leaned over him.

  “Hey, Albert.” I smiled down at him. “How are you feeling.”

  “Pale,” came the response.

  “You do look a little pale,” I said, deliberately omitting to mention that as a ghost he always did. “You have the flu, but don’t worry, we’re going to make you well. You just need to lie there and rest. Can you do that for me?”

  Albert nodded and closed his eyes once more.

  Gwyn gave me a rather cryptic look. “Are you pretending to be that man’s mother? He’s older than you.”

  “As you said, he’s well out of it. He won’t remember.”

  “This is exactly why you should remain here. Besides your own duties you could be helping me out.”

  “I know,” I replied, pulling a face. “I do fully appreciate that. But I have to go. These ghosts—our dear friends—will not get better unless I can find someone to help you.” When Gwyn didn’t reply I turned for the door. “Look. I’ll leave on the early train, and I’ll be back tomorrow evening. It’s just one day. I promise.”

  “I think it’s very irresponsible of you, Alfhild,” Gwynn called after me.

  Suddenly exhausted, my limbs heavy and my head aching, it was all I could do not to slam the door behind me. Instead, I tutted loudly and clumped down the wooden stairs.

  I found Grizzle waiting for me on the landing. He cocked his head when I spotted him. He’d obviously been eavesdropping.

  “Families, eh?” he said.

  “I want a word with you.” I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “Oh that would be right.” He folded his arms and knitted his eyebrows together. “Just have a go at the house guest because you’re in a bad mood.”

  “I’m not in a bad—”

  He pointed at the ceiling. “Having a little disagreement with your grandmother?” he asked. “I heard you. In fact, the whole inn heard you.”

  “She’s my great-grandmother actually. Deceased. And you,” I raised my voice, “and anyone else who happens to be listening in, should mind their own business.” There were skittering sounds in the walls and I raised my eyebrows.