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

  “No I did not. How would a faery my size fell a human of that size?” He pointed at me. “Take you! You’d crush me half to death if you sat on me.”

  I frowned. “I’d crush you all the way to death, mate. There’s no need to be rude.”

  “Whatever,” he waved my emotions away as an inconsequence. “I didn’t kill her. She was dead when I came upon her.”

  “And when was that?” I asked, suddenly remembering the eyes I’d seen in the foliage.

  Grizzle ducked his head and busied himself with the crumbs on the plate.

  “You were there when I found her, weren’t you?” I couldn’t help the note of triumph in my voice. “You ran away. Why did you bother coming back to the scene? You could have just stayed away; the police would have been none the wiser.”

  He shrugged, still not meeting my eyes. “I didn’t know where I was. I must have walked in a circle.”

  “Mmm.” I wasn’t buying it, but I didn’t want to probe too deeply now that we’d finally started talking. “You could have just gone back to the fortress. You can’t have been that lost.”

  “I didn’t want to go back.” Now Grizzle did meet my eyes. He lifted his chin in defiance. “I left the fortress for good reasons.”

  “Oh?” My curiosity was now well and truly piqued. “Why?”

  Grizzle licked his finger and stuck in into the centre of the granules in the sugar bowl.

  “Because I’m sick to the back teeth of hearing about Christmas. It’s all Christmas this and Christmas that and I hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it!”

  I recoiled from his vitriol. “How can you possibly hate Christmas? Nobody hates Christmas.”

  “Well I do!”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Are you? Are you really? I doubt that you genuinely are if the truth be known.” He braced himself to begin a rant. “There’s plenty of evidence downstairs that you’re celebrating this infernal time of year too. Just like everybody else.”

  “Well I have a duty to my guests,” I tried to explain. “Some of us celebrate Yule and some celebrate Christmas. It’s all the same to me. Lots of food and drink; fires and candles. I like to keep everything cosy—”

  “Cosy schmosy. It’s a veneer of gentility and compassion. Total nonsense.”

  “But everyone is so lovely to each other and it makes you feel good—” I tried to explain.

  “It’s ridiculous,” Grizzle exploded. “Everyone pretends to like everyone else for five minutes and then by the end of December they all end up as grumpy as they were before. The arguments start. People are rude to each other. The world becomes a negative and hate filled place once more. Come January all the goodwill is forgotten.”

  “I think that’s a little harsh.”

  “And all that tat. Decorations. Baubles. Present wrapping. I hate it!”

  “You’ve said.” I shifted backwards out of the way of his ire. “I love it.”

  “And why red and green?” He ignored me. “Why is everything red and green?”

  “Well I suppose those are the colours we most associate with December. Pine trees and red berries?”

  “Total rot. Most of the trees in Whittle Forest are devoid of leaves and the berries have all been and gone. The natural world isn’t red and green at this time of year. It’s brown and muddy and grey and white.”

  He kind of had a point, although I didn’t consider ‘muddy’ a colour by itself.

  “And besides those are elf colours. I hate elves. I hate red and green. Yuck!”

  “Fair enough.” I held my hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry I asked.”

  “But not sorry enough to take down your decorations, I’ll warrant.”

  I pursed my lips. “No. You’re right, I’m not sorry enough to do that. I have other guests to consider after all.” I couldn’t resist adding, “Paying ones.”

  Grizzle made a snorting noise. “I can be out of your way in no time at all, oh-witchy-one. I’ll just resume my hunt for somewhere to stay in the forest.” He leered at me, a crafty look crossing his features. “Perhaps Mara would consider taking me in.”

  “No, no.” I replied quickly. “Don’t you go upsetting her.” The last thing I needed was another winter storm to ruin my festivities like last year. “You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you need. And you don’t have to spend any time downstairs if you don’t want to. We can have meals brought up here to you.”

  “Cake.”

  “Pardon?”

  Grizzle smiled. “Not meals. I don’t need those. Just cake.”

  “That’s hardly a balanced diet,” I retorted, although I did of course have some sympathy with his dietary requirements.

  Grizzle capitulated. “And pastries. Maybe the odd savoury pie.”

  I nodded. “Florence makes a mean pie.”

  “And I’m free to come and go as I please?” Grizzle checked.

  “Of course,” I said in surprise. “You’re not my prisoner.”

  Grizzle jumped up and then with some difficulty pulled himself onto the bed and lay back against the pillows. He looked tiny against them.

  “Good.”

  I stood to take my leave. As I placed my fingers on the door handle, somebody walked along the corridor outside.

  “Whachee! Whachee! Whachee!”

  “Is there nothing you can do about all that noise?” Grizzle looked irritated.

  I sighed. “I told you. We’re working on it.”

  “Jolly good.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Because once you’ve sorted that minor issue out, I’m certain Whittle Inn will be the perfect abode for me.” He grinned at me. “Why, I may never leave!”

  “What’s up, boss?”

  We’d finished the breakfast service and I’d retired to the kitchen for a strong coffee and a bacon butty. Florence was working like a trojan, making final preparations for her cake display, while several of my other ghosts attended to loading the dishwasher and cleaning up after Monsieur Emietter’s egg-frying, poaching and scrambling bonanza. Charity plonked herself down beside me on the bench. I’d evidently been staring into space for a few minutes because my tea was cool and the fat starting to congeal on my bacon. I looked sideways at her. She was twirling a lock of hair around her finger. I finally realised she’d changed her hair colour. It was now Grinch green.

  “I thought you were dying your hair yellow?”

  “Oh I thought you hadn’t noticed.” Charity winked at me. “I suggested yellow to my hairdresser, but she gave me a flat out ‘no’. She said it would make me look washed out at this time of year. Apparently after a few weeks, lemon yellow can have a tendency to look like you’ve tried to dye it blonde on the cheap because the roots start to show again. So I opted for this perennial Christmas favourite instead.” She fluffed up the spikes on the top of her head. “What do you think?”

  I didn’t hesitate. “I love it. I agree with your hairdresser that yellow wouldn’t have looked right, especially this close to Christmas.”

  “Great minds then.” Charity nodded in satisfaction. “I think it’s nice to make an effort in honour of the festivities, don’t you?”

  I regarded her with uncertainty for a moment. Was she suggesting that I hadn’t made an effort and probably wouldn’t? Or was she simply generalising? I decided on the latter, grunting my assent, and changed the subject quickly. “Do you like Christmas, Charity?”

  “I do. It’s fun. Even when you’re working. Which we will be of course.” She threw me a little side-eye. “Everyone wants to have a good time, so it’s not like real work.”

  I nodded and fiddled with my bacon until she elbowed me. “Why? Don’t you like it?”

  “Yes. I love Yule and I love Christmas. The same as you. I love the warmth and good feeling. I enjoy the gathering together of friends and family.” My thoughts turned to Grizzle. How could he not feel the same way? I felt a little sad for him.

  I mentioned him to Charity. “The faery that Georg
e brought here yesterday? He doesn’t like Christmas?”

  “Gandalf? Perhaps it’s an occupational hazard for faeries,” Charity smirked. “Maybe they don’t appreciate the idea of being stuck on the top of a Christmas tree with a branch inserted where the sun doesn’t shine.”

  My mouth dropped open and I stared at her in shock. She wiggled her eyebrows, Groucho Marx style, and then we both fell about laughing.

  “Please don’t say that in front of him,” I said when I could manage to control myself.

  “Well what’s his problem? What’s not to like? Presents, food, drink, Christmas songs, rubbish TV, games, good company?”

  “The shine in people’s eyes,” I added.

  “Yes!” Charity ejaculated. “Shining eyes and hearts full of love. Peace on earth and goodwill to all men, women, witches, faeries and others.” She shook her head in amazement. “How can a faery not see the magic of the festive season?”

  Charity had hit the nail on the head. Perhaps Grizzle didn’t recognise the magick inherent in the season?

  I would have to make it my mission to show him differently.

  “Whoop! Mind how you go, Miss Alf.”

  I stepped backwards, only narrowly missing colliding with a three-tiered cake currently flying through the air and heading along the corridor towards the bar.

  “Sorry Florence,” I apologised. “I should have been watching where I was going. What time are the photographers here?”

  “I’m expecting them at midday or thereabouts. They’re coming down from London.” Florence took control of the cake, and successfully navigated the final door. I followed her through and watched as she parked it—expertly—on one of the smaller round tables. This cake, a proper fruited Christmas cake had to be the central attraction. The icing was as smooth as a baby’s bottom, as white as snow and perfect in every way. Florence had created a Father Christmas on a sleigh full to the brim of presents to decorate the top tier. On the bottom two tiers, a series of wrapped presents had been scattered seemingly at random, and there were little tiny hoof prints in the snow.

  “Oh it’s gorgeous.” I leaned over it to take a better look at the intricate piping, but Florence wafted me away.

  “You just step away from that cake, Miss Alf. No offence but this one took me weeks. I won’t be able to do it again.”

  “Are you suggesting I’m clumsy?” I asked as I reversed away, backing into one of the other tables and making the crockery jiggle.

  Florence levelled me with a serious gaze. “Certainly not, Miss Alf. I don’t know why you’d say that.”

  She flitted over to where I had now parked myself—out of harm’s way—and began to straighten up the table. Another white cake, but I recognised this one as her fabulous carrot and raisin cake with cream cheese frosting. She’d surrounded it with a circle of tiny plates, each of which had a carrot neatly piped on to it, now waiting to receive a slice of Florence’s fabulous and fruity deliciousness.

  “Sorry,” I said, when she had everything rearranged to her satisfaction.

  She wiggled her fingers at me. “Don’t worry, miss. I’m feeling a little spaced out myself today. It must be all the excitement. I’ve been quite the butterfingers. I made some little choux pastry Brussel sprouts decorated in green, but I dropped them all over the floor.”

  “Choux pastry sprouts? They sound… interesting.”

  “Oh I have it on good authority from Frau Krauss that they’re wunderbar.” She smiled. “Although to be fair she prefers my kirsch chocolate bombs the most.”

  “Why have I not tried those?” I demanded.

  Florence gestured at a different table. “After all the photographs have been taken today, you may have what you like, Miss Alf, but you need to remember to leave some for our guests too.”

  “I will.” I pouted. “I don’t know why I have this reputation as a glutton—”

  Florence held her hand up suddenly, a look of alarm crossing her pretty young face.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  She shook her head and wrinkled her nose, waving me away.

  “Florence?” I asked in alarm.

  She seemed to struggle for breath. Her mouth opened in a grimace and then—

  “Yachee.” A timorously quiet sneeze.

  “Bless you,” I said.

  “Yachee.”

  “Bless you again.”

  “Yachee.”

  Oh no. Not today of all days.

  “Yachee. Yachee. Yachee.”

  “Florence. I think you may have caught—”

  “No!” Florence’s roar reminded me of the demon’s voice in The Exorcist; a film I’d watched as a young teenager and never again since. “I can’t afford to be ill.”

  “Perhaps—” I tried to think of something practical and soothing to say, but Florence had started making that juddering chest movement again. She swallowed and stopped. Then tipped her head back and flung it forwards.

  “Yacheeeeeeeeeeeooowa!”

  Quite simply, it was a tremendous sneeze. A sneeze—one would have hoped—that would end all sneezes. It probably registered on the Richter scale, and I was sure, without doubt, that the walls of the inn shook.

  The drawback was that somehow—inexplicably—as Florence had sneezed, she had shaken soot all over the carrot cake and the plates on the table in front of us.

  Her scream when she noticed what she’d done caused consternation throughout the inn. A few ghosts apparated into the bar to find out what had happened, and I heard the doors of several guest rooms open on the floor directly above us. “What?” she shrieked. “Who has done this to me? Who has made me ill?”

  “Calm down, Florence.” I tried to placate her. “We’ll get this cleaned up. It will all be fine.”

  “Whachee!”

  “Bless you—”

  “I’ll kill them! I’ll bury a machete in their head. A cake knife in their chest. A… a… meat cleaver through their testicles. It was Luppitt, wasn’t it? I’ll kill him. I will!”

  “Florence!” Alarmed, I waved my hands at her, trying to distract her from the cake. I could just imagine the trauma if she attacked poor Luppitt given his long history of repeated deaths.

  “Yachee!” She shook with emotion. “Why today? The photographers are coming! I need to be well! Yachee!”

  I couldn’t handle this situation on my own. Charity had now poked her head around the door but having ascertained the problem she seemed loath to wade in and help me. “Grandmama?” I called.

  “Yachee. It’s the end of my career, Miss Alf! After all my work.”

  “I think you’re being a little melodramatic, Florence,” I soothed. “Grandmama?”

  “And what about all the preparations for Yule? It’s just a few days away. Yachee!”

  “Stop worrying. We’ll sort it.” Where was Gwyn? “Grandmama?”

  Then she was there. “Florence? My dear girl. You’re as white as a sheet.” She took the housekeeper by the arm and slowly pulled her away. “Have you been taken ill as well? Stop making such a fuss. You’ll be right as rain in a few days.”

  “You don’t understand,” Florence wailed as the pair apparated away. I caught the words, ‘photographers’ and ‘Yule’ and ‘Christmas’ and then peace was restored to the bar.

  I gazed down at the ruined carrot cake. Could I somehow rectify it?

  I went to pick the plate up, intending to carry it through to the kitchen and try and ask Monsieur Emietter’s opinion on salvaging the cake, when out of nowhere came a tiny hand. It reached out and ripped off a huge chunk from the side.

  Grizzle.

  He stuffed the cake in his mouth and reached for more.

  “Hey!” I scolded him.

  “Nice,” he managed to say, his mouth full and his eyes shining with merriment. “Very tasty.”

  “Now is really not the best time,” I grumbled, as I joined George outside the small café in Whittlecombe. I huddled inside my long coat. There was a nasty nip
in the air and my cheeks were numb with cold. The inside of the café glowed with warmth; the windows steamed up. I could just about make out human shapes inside. “Can we go in?” I slapped my hands together to warm them up. I’d unintentionally left my mittens at home, along with my wand and my purse.

  “I had to come out here to interview someone about a suspicious sighting in the forest. I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone,” George said.

  “Well pity us poor birds,” I replied, and without further ado marched inside the café. The little bell above the door tinkled as we entered, and Gloria, who had been a waitress here for several decades waved us an acknowledgement.

  “Take a seat, DS Gilchrist. I’ll be right with you.” Gloria bustled about with teacups and saucers at the serving counter near the kitchen. I chose a table and plonked myself down. The café was beautifully warm, and I could feel myself defrosting, but I still wasn’t keen to take my coat off just yet.

  George took the seat opposite me and pulled out his notebook and pen.

  “Are you interviewing me again?” I asked.

  “Potentially.”

  “Do I need a lawyer?” I asked, sounding as cranky as I felt.

  George looked amused. “What’s got your knickers in a twist?”

  “Oh. You know. This and that.” I exhaled for a long while and rolled my shoulders back. “I’m having one of those weeks. The inn is at capacity, half of my ghosts have the flu, and I’m babysitting a faery for you. Not to mention—” I waved my finger at him, “—the murder of one of my guests.”

  “I—”

  “And!” I hadn’t finished. “I have some photographers on their way from London to take photos of all of Florence’s cakes for inclusion in her baking book, but this morning Florence was taken unexpectedly ill herself, and she sneezed soot all over one of the cakes. Then she had a meltdown. Meanwhile, my great-grandmother is pretending to be Florence Nightingale in the attic.” I nodded at Gloria who had just arrived at our table. “Other than that, I’m fine and dandy. Feed me a hot scone, George and I might just forgive you for dragging me out in sub-zero temperatures.”

  “Don’t exaggerate,” George responded. “It’s not that cold.”