Unholy Nights: A Twisted Christmas Anthology (35 page)

“That’s beautiful, Sandy.”

Suddenly Sandy’s features darken, becoming savage. “Gabe’s a knight in shining armor and fuck anyone who scoffs about him or us.”

I press back into my chair. Her laugh is a bark. She grabs my plastic wrapped hands. “Not you!” She pats the top of my wrap, which makes a crinkly noise. “You are one of us. We love you already.”

Thank goodness. I’d hate to see the fierce face she saved for those she disliked. My hands feel deliciously moist when Sandy rolls back the wax. She checks them and rubs between my fingers. “Silky,” she breathes. “I’m going to do mine!”

Jumping up from her chair she fixes me a quirky grin. “Perks of being a beautician!” She rolls up her sleeves and wipes her hands on her jeans. “I unplugged it but it should be hot enough.” She plunges her hand into the wax, and giggles. Then screams. She pulls back and grabs her red skin. Shock freezes her features into an alabaster statue.

I leap from my chair and go to her. “Sandy, are you okay?” Stupid question. Of course she isn’t okay.

“Owww.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” I tell her softly. “Come here. Into the kitchen. Careful.”

I maneuver her as quickly as I dare. We run her hand under cold water. I get ice from the fridge. The wax comes off easily now but what is under it makes me panic. Welts are already rising on her hand.

I tell her I’ll be right back and I run for my phone. Just as swiftly, panic stops me midway to dialing. What am I doing? I press the phone to my heart. Take a deep breath. I dial Gabe’s number. Molly answers.

“Molly you have to come quick. Sandy’s burned her hand.”

“Bring her over. I’ll get the first aid kit down.”

“I...” I squeeze my eyes shut. My heart sinks. “I can’t.”

“Okay, I’m heading over.”

Just twenty paces. Thirty at the most. What the hell is wrong with me? I curl my hands into fists and pound the sides of my forehead as I run back to the kitchen. Just as I reach Sandy and rub her shoulder, I hear Molly swing open the door.

“In here,” I call to her.

“Let me see,” she says through a sigh.

Sandy is hunched over the sink and doesn’t want to leave the water. “It hurts when the air hits it.” She sniffs.

Molly checks the skin. “Not third degree but mostly second.” She kisses the top of Sandy’s bent head. “No scarring. Come on, we best get you to my room.”

The coven’s eastern witch looks at me. “What happened?”

“The paraffin bath burned her,” I explain.

“It was boiling hot,” Sandy whispers, pain emphasizing her words. “But I unplugged way before I used it. The cord didn’t even reach the table.”

Molly’s lips thinned. She cast me a somber look mixed with irritation. “Please look into it, will you?” she asks me.

“Of course,” I answer, my voice toneless to my ears.

I watch Molly minister to Sandy, gliding her out the door and down the stairs and beyond their front door. I watch from my window, my eyes eventually staring blankly out at nothing.

CHAPTER FOUR

I hear no word from Sandy or Gabe the next day, and none the next. It’s Christmas Eve and it looks like I will spend it alone. I wrap my last present to my new neighbors, fastening the clear tape to the red and white striped paper and wonder if they will ever see the scarves I made. At least before, I always had Mercy for the holidays.

I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.

When the phone lights up with a message, I dash to it like a starving orphan in need of bread. That’s not too far off. Now I am just a well-fed orphan in need of friends.

It’s a message from Gabe—we have to talk. My heart leaps to my throat and I swallow hard. I text him back, then hide the presents in the bottom drawer of the armoire.

When Gabe enters my house, his expression is stern. I try to gauge his mood—if he’s scowling because of me, but then he must be, because he needs to talk with me, he said. I brace myself for his rejection.

“Why didn’t you come see how Sandy was?”

Guilt instantly smothers me. “You know I couldn’t,” I croak out, my throat tight.

“Not even call or text me to find out?”

“I—” I take a deep, deep breath. “I was afraid.”

“Yeah,” Gabe stuffs his hands into his leather jacket. “Always afraid. Sandy’s beside herself thinking she’s freaked you out. And actually, she has because here you are. Afraid.”

“I can’t help what I am.”

“Because you are unwilling, Kathryn. Unwilling to reach out to anyone. I know what I’m talking about. You didn’t even call or text Sandy to see how she was. That was a choice.”

Why is he attacking me? I shrink where I stand, my stomach cramping. My vision blurs.

“No, Kathryn.” Gabe shakes his head. “No tears. Don’t choose to be the victim.

But I can’t help it; the tears spring forth.

Gabe comes to me, I think to comfort me, but instead he takes my shoulders and looks right into my eyes. I feel the amber warmth of him like torches of judgment, ready to set my stake on fire.

“When you choose to be a victim, you will attract victimizers.” He lets go of me and washes his face with his hand, then lifts it palm up. “Like your friend Mercy.”

“Mercy?” His judgment shocks me. “How can you say that? She’s the best friend anyone could hope for!”

“A friend who just dropped everything, suddenly,” he counters. “Even you. Sold her house ‘as is.’ Wanted nothing from her past. Sounds like a person on the run from something.”

“You don’t know her.”

“She was a messed up woman,” he counters. “I can tell by the things she left behind. Book marks and dog ears on dark spells. A rare collection of books bound in human skin.”

I gasp. “No. I don’t believe it.” Gabe’s talking about a woman I’ve known for years. I’ve only known him for a few weeks. “I wouldn’t have survived without her!”

“You call this surviving?” He makes for the door. I think he is about to storm off. He swings the door open but turns around. “Okay then. Go outside.”

I shudder. “Don’t be cruel.”

He stares at me. The wind beyond the door howls. “Cruel is using a Fastening Spell on someone who trusts you.”

Frowning, I cross my arms over my chest. “What does that mean?”

“Ask Mercy,” he says, leaving by the front door, as if to emphasize how impossible such a simple task is for me.

I feel like crying, but my tears have dried up. He was right; I had to stop thinking of myself as a victim. Everything he said was right, except for where Mercy was concerned. He didn’t know her. If anyone had cursed me it wasn’t Mercy. More likely, my father.

I hear a glass ping come from the living room. I look to the fireplace. A Christmas ornament has fallen to the floor. As I approach to pick it up, the ornaments fall off the bonsai’s skinny branches, one by one. The final green bulb rolls up to my feet. I reach down to pick it up. It shatters before I touch it.

Pain shoots through my fingertips. I straighten and hold my hand protectively to my breast. Anger mixes with my pain and fear. With a cry, I seek my father’s urn, snatching it off the mantel and raising it above my head, ready to smash it on the wood floor.

“Damn you!” I scream, knowing he haunts me, curses me, taunts me.

Adrenalin rushes through my veins. Mercy was right. I had every right to get rid of his ashes. Get rid of the bitter memory of him.

From the next room, table legs grate loudly against the floor, the screeching sound piercingly sharp. A threat from my father? A punishment for my evil thoughts? I hear the armoire glass crack in the dining room.

“Enough!”

Energy surges through me. I feel it in every streaming vein, every stretching muscle. I lift on my tiptoes just to give the crash more destructive force. I just want it to be over.

Suddenly I feel weak. Anger is not the way. “No,” I lower the urn. “No. I couldn’t be the perfect daughter. No one could. Your rules were terrible,” I say to my father’s ghost. “Yet you punish me. More in death than in life! But you cannot rule me now.”

I set the urn back on the mantle. A whisper comes to me.

...I’m sorry...Katie...

The whisper lowers into a moan of despair.

“I forgive you,” I say, my voice breaking. “I forgive you.”

I sense a hand pressing the small of my back. I feel the spirit leave my house.

*

L
ater, I brush the broken bulb under the carpet, too relieved and tired to care about a perfectly clean living room. I build up enough nerve to text Gabe. I tell him I have presents, if he wants to pick them up.

I don’t get a response back. Determined not to let the holiday blues turn into depression, I change the TV channel to a Christmas Special and sit back, enjoying the new quiet of my house.

About an hour later, Gabe shows up at my doorstep. I hand him the presents.

He looks at them and shakes them near his ear. “Gee, I wonder what these are.”

I’m still cross with him and I just shrug.

He offers me a lopsided grin, showing off one of his adorable dimples. I give up on being angry. “Well, Merry Christmas,” I wish.

He tilts his head. “Get ready.”

“Huh?” I’m in my favorite ripped jeans and a sweatshirt, my typical ensemble.

“Something festive.”

“Oh. Gotcha.” I turn and look busy grabbing something from my duffle bag so he doesn’t see the happy grin on my face.

When I get back he gives his nod of approval, then sweeps me off my feet, literally into his arms. I squeak in surprise, which makes him laugh. “We’ll find a way to make this work,” he tells me, and carries me all the way to his front doorstep.

Molly, Sandy, and Raven are happy to see me. When I ask Sandy how she is, she gives me a grizzly bear hug and shows off her wrapped hand like a war wound. Right away I feel a wholesome, happy kind of warmth returning to my heart.

Molly gives me eggnog with brandy. We sit down before the Christmas tree and exchange gifts. By the time we are down to the very last gift, Gabe and all the girls are wearing striped scarves around their necks and I have a dream catcher from Raven, a Celtic pin from Molly, and a set of nail polish from Sandy.

“It will help you stop biting your fingernails,” she explains. I grin back at her.

“Gabe, give Katie her present,” Molly says.

“The suspense is killing us,” Raven adds flatly. They all giggle.

Gabe looks at me almost sheepishly before he hands over a long rectangular box. I dart a look at him and the others before I rip away the pretty snowflake paper and peel away the side tape. Balancing the box on my lap, I shake its cover until it slides up.

I lift it in front of my face, blocking my view of my present but I hear Sandy’s squeal, meaning it must be something very good. I toss the cover and look down.

Molly claps her hands happily. “Oh, Gabe. The rose!”

Beneath the most perfect rose, a gown of white waits for my fingers to luxuriate over its silk and lace. “It’s so beautiful!”

Gabe leans over and kisses my lips. Then he lifts away from me. “I leave her in your caring hands,” he tells his coven.

Sandy latches on to one of my elbows; Raven grabs the other. They lead me upstairs. I’ve never been on Mercy’s second floor. It is like a palace. Ornate baseboards and glimmering curtains. It looks like a Roman spa. I have no idea whether this is Sandy’s doing or it has always been so.

To recreate the atmosphere of a spa, the women lead me into a bedroom of the palest lavender. Molly leaves. Sandy and Raven take my shoes off. They won’t let me help with anything. In little time I am disrobed. They wrap me in a snuggly lavender robe. Sandy brushes my hair until it shines, then she fastens it on top of my head.

By the time we are done and Sandy leads me to the next room with a Victorian bath, Molly has filled the tub and is casting rose petals over the rippling water. Sandy takes away my robe and Molly helps me into the tub.

“Just relax,” Molly tells me. “Raven will be in shortly to answer any questions.”

I sit back and close my eyes. Butterflies flutter in my stomach. I think I can guess what is going on but I am not certain. The white gown Gabe gave me looks very similar to the ones I saw the women wearing in my fantasy. A thrill rushes through me, down my spine and to my sex. The idea of being a part of Gabe’s world and the sexuality that world promises excites me.

No sooner do I think this than Raven enters the low-lit bathroom. At the crook of her arm hangs a basket with oils and earthen sponges. On her face is the sweetest smile I’ve ever seen from her. She kneels down beside the tub and dips one of the thick sponges into the water. “It’s not hot enough,” she decides and turns on the faucet.

“Thanks.” I smile shyly back at her and remember what Sandy had said about her and Molly.

Raven tests the water until she is satisfied then turns off the faucet. Slowly she wrings out the sponge, then rubs her neck with it. I watch intently as she closes her eyes, her expression almost blissful as she moves her head from left to right and sweeps the sponge over her entire neck and upper chest. She rinses it in the tub, then sweeps it over my leg. Despite the hot water I get goose pimples from the tickling sensation. She wipes it over my leg again, this time reaching up to my inner thigh before retreating back to my ankle.

“You’re holding your breath,” she says softly, her voice low.

She’s right. I inhale as deeply as I can but my chest is tight.

“This bath prepares you for your future. It washes away the dirt and dust of the past. Do you understand?”

I nod. Her hand moves the sponge over my stomach. The soft friction awakens my core.

“You live from this day forward. The past no longer matters. You are washed clean.”

The sponge wisps over my breasts, and my nipples harden. I wrestle down my embarrassment, but blush hotly.

Raven looks to my face and nods as if making a decision from my reaction. She sets down the sponge and reaches for her oils. Inwardly I sigh in relief as I watch her rub the oil between her hands to evenly distribute it.

Then she cups each of my breasts with an oiled hand.

Like a thousand judges instantly reside in my brain, I hear warnings of rejection and outright scorn. I swallow hard, try not to react, but she strokes my soft flesh her fingers. She traces around my nipples and squeezes their peaks. I gasp, the sensation overwhelming. I cannot hold back my arousal.