Jingle all the Slay

by Dakota Cassidy

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

  Written by Randy Brooks, 1979

  “A murder?” I barely squeaked out the word. “Here, in Marshmallow Hollow?”

  Could that be why I’d seen blood in the snow in my vision? And if it wasn’t my grandmother’s—and thank the supreme ruler it wasn’t—whose was it?

  Ansel nodded his shortly cropped dark head, his face as grim as grim got. “Yep, and we have had a few, Hal. You were gone a long time in New York and our tourism has really picked up. We’re not the murder capital of the Americas, but we’ve had ’em.”

  “Are you sure it was murder?”

  “As sure as I’m wearin’ my underwear.”

  “Where?” was all I could manage as Stiles tightened his grip on my hand.

  Ansel rasped a sigh. “Unfortunately, out in front of the ice festival. You know where they have the Santa in his sleigh with the reindeer, displayed by the elf hut? That’s where she was, pokin’ around, like Karen’s been known to do.”

  I’d bet all my gorgeous Scalamandré Italian silk velvet throw pillows she’d been out there hooking herself for candy canes from the local kids attending the ice festival—the annual shindig everyone in Marshmallow Hollow lived for.

  All the children in town know Karen. Of course, they don’t know she can talk or that she’s my nana. Though I worry—because Nana is Nana—that someday she’ll take it upon herself to teach some ill-behaved child a lesson and give them one of her infamous lectures. Oh, the years of therapy that would require.

  Still, all the children in Marshmallow Hollow love her, and especially at this time of year. They naturally want to pet her, mistaking her for one of Santa’s beloved reindeer, and my nana plays that like a Stradivarius.

  They also know she loves candy canes—which are as bad for her as anyone who, though her spirit is housed in the body of a reindeer, is still the human age of almost eighty-two, with high cholesterol and even higher blood sugar levels to match—so sayeth her vet, Dr. Francine.

  And now, because she couldn’t behave as though she’s eighty-two, but instead more like she’s twenty-two, she’s at animal control because she was found at the scene of a murder.

  A murder…

  Holy insert-very-bad-word-Atticus-wouldn’t-like-at-all. This wasn’t a good look.

  “So why didn’t you just bring her back here?” I asked. It wasn’t as though Karen was violent. Ansel knew Karen, and she knew him.

  He hitched a thick thumb over his shoulder at the door. “I would have, but I have the cruiser, Hal. She’s not gonna fit in that. Animal control’s right across the street. It was easy enough to drop her there, where she’s safe, while the place is crawling with forensics and the like.”

  Ansel was right. “Thanks for looking out for her.” Patting his arm with a trembling hand, I asked, “So who was murdered? What happened?”

  His face became an instant mask of all police business. “I can’t comment much. You know, the rules and such, but I can tell you that guy who was trying to buy up all the stores in Marshmallow? Forget his name now—”

  “Lance Hilroy? The real estate baron guy?” I asked. You bet your Rooty Tooty Fresh ’N Fruity I knew who he was.

  He’d harassed me about selling the factory for months before I’d finally put a hex on his phone, making it impossible for him to call me, Atticus’s constant warnings about using my magic be hanged. In his case, I don’t feel sorry about using my magic at all.

  Baba Yaga, our supreme witch ruler, could stuff it up her wrinkly old caboose if she didn’t like me using my magic for ill-gotten gain. That man was aggressive and insistent and, above all, a died-in-the-wool misogynist. As ill-gotten as it gets, if you ask me. He deserved to have his phone go kerflooey courtesy of a Halliday Valentine special.

  But now he was dead. Another icy chill settled at the back of my neck.

  Ansel immediately went into cop mode, his expression hard and focused. “Yeah, that’s him. You know him?”

  My eyes narrowed as Stephen King settled by the fireplace. “Know him? In what way? If you mean the way where he calls me and insults me by asking if he can speak to the ‘man in charge’ of Just Claus, and when he finds out that I’m the man he wants to speak with, he’s condescending and rude? Then yes, I know him. But why was he still here in Marshmallow Hollow? I thought he’d left weeks ago?”

  “I don’t know all the details, Hal, and even if I did, I couldn’t tell ya much anyway. Protocol,” Ansel said, reminding me of my plain old citizen status. “All’s I know is, he’s dead. Lark Kniffen found him in the sleigh when he and the wife were getting ready to pose for a selfie. Thank whoever’s in charge upstairs they didn’t have little Mo with them.”

  “Oh, no! Poor Lark.” I exclaimed. “Is he okay? Is Tina okay?”

  Lark managed our Christmas ornament department at the factory, and was a stellar employee.

  “They’re fine. Just a bit shook up is all. It’s to be expected,” Ansel assured me.

  I blew out a breath and nodded. “Well, I’ll make sure to drop by and check on them the minute I can. I’ll make them a lasagna as soon as we collect Karen.”

  Ansel looked at his watch. “We’d better do that soon, Hal. You know how Bitty gets when she hasn’t had her supper by seven sharp.”

  Bitty is Bettina Helmsworth, animal lover, proud Marshmallow Hollow resident, has two cats and a dog and lives on Fir Tree Lane in a small cottage. And she runs animal control with compassion and love.

  She’s also a little kooky and an eclectic dresser at the best of times. Some of her outfits were fit for an episode of What Not to Wear, but I sure loved her and her compassion for a helpless animal.

  But Ansel had a point, she can get pretty grumpy if her meals are late. I learned that the hard way when I was behind her at the Meat Hut and she had to wait for her burger and fries. I’m not sure Harris Hoffmeier will ever be the same after she let him have it.

  “I love Bitty,” Hobbs, who’d been very quiet until now, said with a fond smile, his face lighting up. “She helped me find Stephen King.”

  Stephen King had been part of a pretty horrendous hoarding situation, rescued by one of Bitty’s animal rights friends from a rescue organization out of Bangor. When Hobbs had gone to look into adopting, Bitty connected him with her friend, Hobbs and Stephen King had fallen in love at first sight, and the rest was a match made in Heaven.

  Stiles elbowed Hobbs in the ribs. “You won’t like her if her blood sugar gets low. Meaner than a rattlesnake.”

  Hobbs laughed, his handsome smile broad. “Then we’d better get moving, y’all. I don’t want to get on Bitty’s bad side.”

  I shooed them all away. “You guys go ahead. I’ve got this. Or if you don’t mind waiting, you can stay here with Atticus and Phil until I get back, and we’ll make the cookies then. They’re around here somewhere.”

  “Still can’t believe you have a hummingbird for a pet,” Hobbs said for like the umpteenth time.

  “Another example of a rattlesnake,” Stiles joked, and they both cackled.

  FYI, Stiles knows I’m a witch. He’s known since the seventh grade when he caught me red-handed in the act of sending Keaton Smalls’s backpack to its watery demise on a trip to the beach to go crabbing with our class.

  I think I mentioned I was a bit rebellious, and Keaton really was a pretty big jerk. He’d been making fun of my name for months until one day I snapped, and when he wasn’t looking, I plunked his ugly Power Rangers backpack into the Atlantic with a flick of my fingers.

  Stiles caught me, and of course we were kids at the time, so rather than fear me, he thought it was really cool. Children are far more apt to warm to the idea of magic than adults. Adults—or those like Hessy, anyway—grow fearful and leery. Ugly labels are thrown around, and the idea of burning at the stake is bandied about.

  No one had taught me what could happen to me—to us—if anyone found out better than Nana Karen and my mother. They’d kept the fear of discove
ry ripe and alive for me to this day with their horror stories.

  The world had come a long way in some instances, but not long enough to know there are many of us, and we walk among humans in total peace and, above all, anonymity.

  Anyway, Stiles and I forged a pact that day. He’d never tell anyone I came from a family of witches, and I’d never tell anyone after he confessed he had a huge crush on Greg Louganis and was going to marry him someday, and we’ve been best friends ever since.

  Frowning at Stiles, I tugged on the end of his navy-blue scarf. “You leave my hummingbird alone. He loves you. He just has a funny way of showing it when he’s dive-bombing your head at twenty miles an hour. Now, let me get my things and I’ll go get my pesky reindeer.”

  Running to the kitchen—the kitchen I loved, which still remained only half decorated—I grabbed my purse, my jacket from the hook in our mudroom, and pressed the button to open the garage doors.

  I blew a kiss to Atticus, who sat on the windowsill overlooking the backyard and the ocean just beyond the arbor covered in lights, and whispered, “Stay away from Phil. I’ll be back soon.”

  “Fear not, Poppet. I shall keep the home fires burning. Off with you. I’ll conjure up that lasagna for Lark and his wife, and I’ll make sure your dinner’s kept warm.”

  “Yes, please, on the lasagna, no need on dinner. I’ll grab a sandwich in town. Thanks, Atti.” I wound my scarf around my neck, pulled on my favorite red knit cap with the white pom-pom on top, and headed back toward the foyer.

  Popping open the door, I asked, “Okay, guys. You wanna wait or reschedule our cookie date for tomorrow night? I don’t think it’ll take me long to get her, but you never know with Karen.”

  Then Hobbs stepped up and made an offer I couldn’t resist, due to the fact that my nana was likely going to give me grief, and Hobbs and all his Southern charm would soften the blow.

  “I’ll come and help, if you don’t mind me leaving Stephen King here. I like Karen, too.”

  And I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, Karen liked Hobbs. She really liked Hobbs. Maybe she liked Hobbs a little too much for my comfort.

  My nana, in life and apparently as a reincarnated reindeer, is a saucy Miss Thang. She’d taught me to own my femininity while still being an active feminist. She was also a naughty-naughty flirt, and she shamelessly lets Hobbs know, in every way possible, even being in the body of a reindeer, that she thinks he’s a fine-lookin’ Joe.

  I shot Hobbs a facetious grin. “And Karen likes you. I think we’ve established that after all the carrots you’ve fed her—and she doesn’t particularly like carrots.”

  Hobbs cocked his dark head and ran a hand over his beard as if he were having an aha moment. “I didn’t know that. She takes them just fine from me.”

  That’s because Nana Karen is a dirty bird where Hobbs is concerned. Sorry, it’s only the truth.

  Stiles snickered as he motioned for me to go ahead of him out the door. He doesn’t only know about Atticus, he knows about my nana, too.

  “I’ll bet she does,” Stiles said with a kooky grin, slapping Hobbs on the back as we all stepped outside. “You want me to come with, too, Hal? I’m happy to help, if you think you’re gonna need it.”

  I shook my head. “Nah. I’m golden.”

  Stiles tightened his scarf around his neck. “While you grab Karen, I’ll grab us some sandwiches at Sid’s Subs. You want the usual?”

  I nodded. “Extra mayo, if you please.”

  “Hobbs?” Stiles asked as we walked along the lighted path around the house.

  “Whatever you’re having is plenty fine, Stiles. I’m not picky.”

  I took a slow breath of the bitterly cold air as we neared the garage—a heated garage that I’ll defend the cost of heating until my death. It’s cold as a witch’s you-know-what in Maine, and as much as I love the snow, I don’t love a freezing-cold car that’s been sitting for hours.

  When we stepped inside the garage, Hobbs followed as I beeped my truck. We ended up stumbling into one another for a brief moment before the automatic lights came on, leaving us wedged together between the recycling cans and my truck, catching me off guard for a second.

  The scent of his fresh, spicy cologne floated to my nose, and when he put his hand at my waist to steady me, I didn’t hate it. In fact, I think I swallowed hard enough for all of Marshmallow Hollow to hear.

  Have I mentioned Hobbs is a very attractive single man with a sin-on-a-stick Southern accent and a well-kept beard?

  Well, he is.

  And that’s all I have to say about that.

  Chapter 4

  “Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh!”

  Jingle Bells

  Written by James Pierpont, 1857

  When we pulled up in front of animal control, the Marshmallow Hollow Police and a forensics team were everywhere, dressed warmly in down jackets, their breath making puffy clouds as they redirected traffic and guarded the crime scene tape to keep the crowd attending the ice festival at a distance.

  I managed to weasel my way into a parking space Ansel directed me toward. Unfortunately, it was directly in front of the melee where a crowd of Marshmallow Hollow residents were doing their best to poke their noses where they didn’t belong.

  They mean no harm. They’ll be the first to gather round and offer condolences, support, advice, whatever you need in a time of crisis, but they’re going to get a good look at it so they can talk about it at the next game of cribbage or over some hot coffee and pie at the local diner. We’re a tightknit community, but we’re a gossipy lot, too.

  That seems the way of most small towns, and as I’ve come to find recently, I’d far prefer the occasional harmless gossip than cold city living, where people will step over you rather than offer help.

  I gripped the steering wheel as I looked past the red wooden sleigh, glowing with lights wrapped around the sleigh bells and the bobbing mechanical heads of Santa’s reindeer, and sighed with regret. That such a mean man had made such an ugly exit—and that it happened in a place that brings so much joy to everyone at this time of year—sort of stunk.

  Maybe that sounds callous, but Lance Hilroy wasn’t a good guy. Not if you looked up all the horrible real estate deals he’d made over the last decade on Google—which I did the moment he’d demanded to speak to whomever was in charge at the factory. He didn’t deserve to die for it, but he also didn’t make himself easy to miss, being such a creeper.

  As I looked at the beautiful lights blazing from the festival under the crescent moon, the elf huts and Christmas trees, the life-size Santa and Mrs. Claus, all carved out of ice, the beautiful snow glistening in the moonlight, I smiled. There’d been plenty of happy memories here for me when I was a kid.

  I wish now I’d better appreciated them, especially when my mother and grandmother were here to enjoy it all with me.

  The ice festival was a Marshmallow Hollow tradition that ran from the day after Thanksgiving until December twenty-third. As were the food stands with warm chestnuts and popcorn balls, among many things, the most popular item being our specialty—hot cocoa with homemade marshmallows.

  I looked over at Hobbs, who’d sat very patiently waiting to see what came next, his handsome profile illuminated by the glow of Christmas lights

  “Hey, Hobbs. Have you had our famous hot cocoa?”

  He gave me a strange look, his beard rustling against his jacket when he turned to look at me in the darkened car. “I’ve had hot cocoa. But your hot cocoa? Is that y’alls code for something else?”

  I laughed. “No. It’s a legitimate question. We’re not called Marshmallow Hollow for nothing. We’re famous for making our own homemade marshmallows. I can’t believe you haven’t tried some…or at the very least, one of the single ladies in town hasn’t talked you into joining them for a mug.”

  He lifted a dark eyebrow, a glint in his eyes. “Is that why you haven’t asked me over for some hot cocoa?”

/>   “Whaddya mean?”

  “Have you been avoidin’ asking me over for some of this special hot cocoa because you’re not single?”

  I flapped a hand at him and a very unladylike snort flew from my lips. “I’m so single, I might officially have to change my middle name. Just call me Halliday Single Valentine.”

  Ugh. Had I just said that? Sometimes my mouth precedes my brain. Now it sounded as if I was flirting with him, and I don’t want him to think that.

  Or do I? It’s been well over a year since I’d broken up with Hugo, but there’s been so much going on in my life lately. Finding out who my biological father is, meeting the sister I didn’t know I had, running the factory.

  I’m not sure if I have enough focus to flirt.

  Hobbs grinned, two deep grooves appearing on either side of his mouth, making his deep green eyes crinkle upward. “I’ve been meaning to ask, is your name really Halliday?”

  I clucked my tongue and nodded with a fond smile. “Yep. My mother was that person. The kind who dared to be different and buck the system. She couldn’t just spell it the way it’s rightfully spelled, she had to put her own twist on it because she was a free spirit, and she wanted everyone to know it. Which is how I became just Hal, because as a kid, I despised Halliday.”

  I loved my mother, but sometimes that whimsical spirit Atticus spoke of was a detriment to me and fodder for the entire cheerleading team in high school.

  “You’re telling that to someone who’s first name is Digby?”

  “Point received and acknowledged. So, where does Hobbs come from?”

  “It’s my mama’s maiden name. Accordin’ to my dad, she only agreed to Digby because it was his father’s name, and he gave in and let her stick Hobbs in there to keep her happy, and I’m as grateful as a dry Texas lawn when it rains that he did.”

  “Right. You’re from Texas. Was it Katy, as I recall?”

  He tipped an imaginary hat with a wink. “Yes, ma’am. Born and raised.”

  “So after leaving your job in Boston, why would you come to Maine to live, where it’s as cold as the Arctic Circle? Why wouldn’t you go home? Isn’t Texas hot with only two seasons?”