Magic in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Christmas River Cozy Book 7) (3 page)

And while the pain from those troubles had lessened somewhat with the passing years, his love for Halloween hadn’t. If anything, he’d become more obsessed with the holiday.

The dogs stopped walking for a moment, intrigued by a Styrofoam grave with the inscription
Here Lies Lester Moore, No Less, No More
. We paused, letting them have their fun.

“How much do you think these folks spend around here on all these decorations?” Daniel asked, digging his hands into the pockets of his buffalo plaid coat.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably several hundred at least, if I were to guess. Why?”

Daniel shrugged.

“I’m thinking about investing in some serious Halloween décor is all,” he said. “Just wondering what it might cost to compete with the houses around here.”

He looked over at me, raising his eyebrows. He spoke like he was just making idle chit-chat, but we’d been together long enough for me to figure out what he was really doing.

It was his way of running the idea past me to see how I felt about it.

Money wasn’t growing from trees lately. And while business at the pie shop had been booming, costs for its much-needed renovations and for the upcoming expansion plans had been hefty. Alex Rosell, an investor who had approached me in August, was helping with a large chunk of it, but I was still fronting a good portion.

Being Sheriff, Daniel, of course, was doing well in terms of income. But we’d both decided to save money to pay off some credit card debt we’d acquired when times had been tighter, and Halloween decorations didn’t exactly fall into that category.

Many women might have been put out by the notion of their husbands spending several hundred on decorations that only came out once a year.

But I guess when it came to celebrating holidays, I was a sucker myself for spending big.

“I think that’s a grand idea,” I said.

Daniel raised his eyebrows again.

“Really?” he said, surprise in his voice.

I looked over and smiled as Huckleberry and Chadwick started walking again.

“Really,” I said. “I mean, I think it’s a matter of principle for the Sheriff of Pohly County to have the best Halloween decorations in town, don’t you?”

He grinned.

“I’d never thought of it that way before, Cin.”

“And while we don’t live on Santa’s Nightmare Lane, I’m pretty sure we can still compete with these houses here, don’t you think?” I added.

“I can’t guarantee anything,” he said, his grin growing brighter. “But I will say I’ll do my best.”

“That’s always been more than good enough for me.”

He placed an arm around my shoulder and kissed the top of my head.

“How’d I ever get so lucky to catch you?” he said.

“It’s a question for the ages,” I teased.

Normally, he would have made me pay for that little comment: either by running his fingers across the ticklish spot on my abdomen, or by feigning a crazy look in his eye and chasing me. But his attention was already on the next spooky house by then, ogling the over-the-top decorations the way Huckleberry might ogle a slice of warm Marionberry pie.

I smiled and shook my head to myself once again.

Even after being together for this long, Daniel Brightman never failed to amuse me.

Chapter 6

I knew we had gone too far when Huckleberry let out a soft whimper.

But, as if lost in some sort of hypnotized dream, I found that all I could do was stand there, staring up at the decrepit house like it was a five car pile-up I had just narrowly missed being part of.

The house, which was close to a century old, looked every bit its age. The paint, which had once been white, had been faded by the sun and was peeling more than a tourist in Hawaii who left his sunscreen on the plane. The porch was rickety and unstable-looking. The lawn was deader than dead: nobody could remember a time when it had been alive. The old-fashioned awnings were falling apart, with large cracks where the years of snow and rainwater had worked at. The decorative copper five-point star, which had hung outside the house’s second story for decades, was old and rusted, and though I couldn’t see it in the dark, I knew it had turned a shade of light green from years of being left out in the sun. There were so many pine needles and aspen leaves resting atop the ancient rooftop, the debris was an entire roof unto itself.

Even in my thirties, it was hard to look at the house and not feel like running down the street, as far away as possible. The structure had a way of making you feel like a child when you stood in its ominous presence.

Not to mention the singular fact that everybody in Christmas River, from ages one to 99, knew about the house.

That a witch lived in it.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I almost jumped out of my skin.

“That house doesn’t get any less sad, does it?”  

I rubbed my arms. Though I was wearing a thick down coat that was cozy in temperatures much colder than the ones tonight, I still felt a chill pass through me as I gazed at the house.

“Funny, I never thought of it as sad,” I whispered. “I always just thought of it as… well… creepy as hell.”

The decaying home that stood at the far end of Santa’s Nightmare Lane was the only one in the entire neighborhood that did not put up Halloween decorations. But it didn’t need any – it was by far the spookiest house in the whole of Christmas River. And it had been for as long as I could remember.

Part of that obviously had to do with the neglected state of the structure itself. The other part had to do with Hattie Blaylock, the former piano teacher – now elderly recluse, who inhabited it.

“You know, I saw her today,” I whispered, feeling another chill pass through me at the memory from earlier that day.

In all the hubbub of Warren’s wedding, I had forgotten the old woman standing on the sidewalk, glaring at me.

“Who?” Daniel asked.

I bit my lower lip.

“
The Witch
,” I said in a voice so low, it was hardly audible.

“Wait, what?” he said, turning toward me. “You’re saying you saw old Hattie today… and that she was outside?”

I nodded and bit my lip.

“Not just anywhere, either,” I rasped. “She was outside the pie shop. She was… she was looking in. At
me
.”

Daniel rubbed the stubble on his chin. A confounded look came across his face as he gazed up at the old house.

As if on cue, Chadwick let out a short yip that sounded like a coyote howl. I felt another round of goosebumps break out.

“But how did you know it was her? Nobody’s probably gotten a good look at old Hattie in a decade.”

“I don’t know how,” I said, rubbing my arms again. “I just knew it was her.”

Whether or not Hattie Blaylock was actually a witch was a matter of some debate in Christmas River – at least among the adults. No one in the small town could claim to have seen her cast a spell, mix a potion, or give anybody the evil eye. What the townsfolks did know for sure, however, was that Hattie Blaylock did not attend any church in the area. She was hardly ever seen in fact. She lived alone in the old house. People said she had once been married, but that her husband left her shortly after they were wed. Children in the area, at least when I was growing up, had said that he hadn’t really left her at all: that she’d actually turned him into a white cat, renamed him Mr. Adams, and forced him to become her familiar. Other kids said that old Hattie got sick of her husband, and murdered him one night. She hid the crime by chopping up his body and putting it in several pot pies, which she had served at the town’s annual Millworkers Christmas Ball, back when the town had an operating mill.

The tales, of course, were just that: tales. Legends that school children told and retold and changed depending on the times. An old woman who lived alone and kept to herself was the kind of thing that always drew speculation and rumors, no matter what century it was. And once I’d grown up, I hardly gave any merit to the things kids said about old Hattie Blaylock.

But seeing the old woman out on the street, staring at me this morning… well, it had a way of bringing back all those old feelings and fears.  

“You know it’s all just talk, don’t you, Cin? You know that she’s just a sad woman living alone and not really a witch.”

I swallowed hard and realized that a small puddle of sweat had pooled above my upper lip, despite the chilly air.

I had the uneasy sensation that we’d been standing there too long, looking at the house.

That someone might have taken notice.

“I know,” I said, wiping away the sweat with a quick motion. “Just… it’s just those things you hear about when you’re a kid have a way of staying with you.”

Daniel squeezed my shoulder and pulled me closer.

“C’mon,” he said. “There’s no reason for us to be here.”

We turned our backs on the old house, and started walking again, back down to where the homes were bright with lights and decorations.

Compared to Hattie Blaylock’s old house, the rest of the homes on Santa’s Nightmare Lane were just child’s play.

“I’m sure Hattie was just looking in your storefront window earlier because your pies are just so damn tempting,” Daniel said as we got farther away.

“You think?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Hell, if I hadn’t been out of my home in a decade, your pie shop would be the first place I’d go to, too.”

I smiled slightly, but it faded faster than a flame in a downpour.

Because there was one other thing that kids said about old Hattie Blaylock.

That if you did indeed have the bad fortune of seeing her, then
you
would be the next to die.

Daniel stopped in his tracks and reached for my hand, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.

“Cin, it’s just kids’ stuff,” he repeated. “Kids always make things up like that. It comes with living in a small town. Don’t give it a second thought, all right?”

He brushed his free hand against my cheek.

I looked up into his eyes. They caught the electric glow of the moon, and they sparkled with warmth and love.

“You’re right,” I said, letting out a breath.

We started walking again, leaving behind Santa’s Nightmare Lane.

“C’mon,” he said. “Enough Halloween for the night. Let’s get you home and into a bubble bath.”

I smiled.

The phrase “bubble bath” had to be one of the sweetest in the English language.

Chapter 7

“So then she puts a hand on my arm and says ‘Oh, Kara, doll, it’s just because you don’t know him well enough. John’s never cared for mustard. That’s the kind of thing that you get to know about your husband after being together a long time.’”

She paced thunderously up and down the pie shop kitchen, her blond hair bouncing hard with each step. The pumpkin caramel latte in her hand was coming dangerously close to slopping over the sides of the paper cup.

“I came so close to blowing my top, Cin. You wouldn’t believe it. Do you know how much mustard that man goes through every month? You’d think ketchup and every other condiment, for that matter, didn’t exist. So you know what I did? I took a picture of the inside of our fridge, of all those half-empty mustard bottles, and I texted it to her saying ‘I guess I just don’t know my husband well enough.’”

I looked up from the bowl of creamy pumpkin pie filling I was whisking.

“Oh, Kara. You
didn’t
,” I said.

She nodded her head – her face holding absolutely no trace of regret.

After what appeared to be a truce of sorts during the pregnancy and subsequent birth of Laila, the interfamily feuding between Kara and her mother-in-law, Edna Billings, had resumed to full strength. The bickering had started out small: little battles about nursery wall colors and baby books that were seemingly typical of the in-law relationship. But lately, the arguments had expanded to include proper mothering techniques, wife etiquette, and just about everything in between.

And being Kara’s best friend, I had the “luck” of hearing about every tiff down to the tee.

“She can’t go pushing me around,” Kara continued. “And the sooner she knows that, the better it’ll be for all involved.”

Laila, now almost nine months and who was growing by leaps and bounds every day, let out a cry from her high chair at the kitchen island.

I could understand the feeling.

But, I reminded myself, listening to every detail of Kara’s spats with her mother-in-law was just the price I paid for having a best friend – and such a good one at that. Kara had always been there for me, and that seemed more than worth the occasional – or frequent – rehashing of family feuds.

And besides, I wasn’t exactly listening to Kara as closely as a good friend should have been. My mind had been on something else all morning – something I hadn’t quite been able to shake.

“I know you don’t know what I’m talking about, Cin,” Kara said, picking up Laila, who was already giggling after her little fit. “It’s not like you have a mother-in-law to deal with.”

Kara peered at me, as if she had been reading my less-than-enthusiastic thoughts.

But she was only half right about that: because while Daniel’s mother had taken off when he was just a kid, there were ten years of my life before marrying Daniel where I’d had to deal with my first husband’s mother. And while that hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park – she often got after me about wanting to see some grandchildren running around – I fared much better than Kara was faring now.

My best friend stopped pacing, suddenly seeming to remember that little fact about me being married before.

“Oh,” she said. “Sorry. I forgot about Evan.”

“It’s all right,” I said, lining up the gingersnap pie crusts in a row. “Sometimes I forget too.”

I smiled.

Evan, and all of the problems and the pain he’d caused me, felt like another lifetime these days.

And I liked it that way.

“But am I wrong, Cin? Do you think I’m being an unreasonable daughter-in-law to not want to be criticized left and right by that woman?”