Critter Calamity: A Wisteria Witches Mysteries Christmas Short Story (Book 12.5) by Angela Pepper

Author:Angela Pepper [Pepper, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

December 24

One Day to Christmas

I woke up with a fluffy white cat on my chest. Boa. Our resident princess. She stared me in the eyes and gently pressed one paw on my lips. Before I could say anything, she spoke.

“Ham?”

I pushed her paw away from my mouth. “Good morning to you, Boa. Did you sleep well?”

“Ham.”

“It doesn’t sound like you’ve been working on your vocabulary at all. Still just the one word, huh?”

“Ham.”

“Shall we get up and start the day? How about some scrambled eggs and... hmmm... something that goes well with eggs. Any suggestions? I have pesto, so I could make green eggs and...?”

I waited, eyebrows raised in anticipation.

Boa opened her pink mouth and said, “Meow.”

“Great talking with you.” I squeezed out from under her and started getting ready for the day.

The cat swished around my feet, threatening to trip me, so I levitated her two inches off the ground for safekeeping.

Boa looked down in confusion as she moved all four legs in a swimming pattern, trying in vain to touch the floor. Although the cat had gained the ability to speak by eating a clockwork messenger bird back in October, she had not received any boost to her brainpower. She was still just a cat, with cat comprehension. She could see ghosts, but everyone knows most cats can do that.

I let my closet select my outfit for the day—a spectacularly ugly Christmas sweater with jingling bells—and got ready.

I got a head start on the stairs, my ugly sweater bells jingling all the way, before releasing the cat from her floating hold. She still beat me to the kitchen.

Inside the kitchen, which was still dark as the sun hadn’t risen yet, I found our resident ghost. Mrs. Pinkman was puttering around by the sink, lost in her own world.

“Good morning, Mrs. P,” I said. “It’s Christmas day tomorrow. This year has flown by.”

She gave me a polite smile and used a ghostly cloth to polish silverware that wasn’t really there.

“It’s our first one since Zoey and I moved here.” I made myself a coffee and promptly yawned into it. “Remember how we used to have those Christmas morning parties in the lobby?” Mrs. Pinkman had been our neighbor before Zoey and I moved to Wisteria. The elderly woman had died recently, and had found her way across the country to us, where she seemed to be sticking around as a companion for her beloved budgie, Marzipants.

She nodded and smiled.

Ghosts didn’t speak, and they were too confused to be helpful most of the time, but Mrs. Pinkman was more grounded in our reality than most. I’d grown to enjoy chatting with her over coffee in the winter mornings. She would disappear with the sunrise most days, so this was the extent of our relationship. Unlike most of the ghosts I’d dealt with, she’d died naturally, so she wasn’t a case I needed to solve.

“Of course it was never a planned party,” I said, because it was true. We’d all arrive in the lobby one by one under the auspices of checking for any last minute deliveries.

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