Page 1 of Christmas Spirits

A three-tiered cake. Two dozen sugar cookies shaped like Santa. A gingerbread house complete with a four-piece gingerbread family. White chocolate peppermint cupcakes. And to top it all off, Grandma Abigail’s famous and addictive toffee pudding.

I checked off my mental list as I looked over the vast spread on the dessert table. The Harris family really outdid themselves for a yearly Holiday ugly sweater party, but I wasn’t complaining. This was my first step into the catering world and expanding my business, so I was happy they’d chosen me andOh! Kay’s Pastriesfor their event.

It’d taken me almost three days of prep work alone, a few weeks of organizing and filling the orders, and a sleepless night or two of frosting, baking, and decorating, but I was happy how it all came out. I was sure once the guests all finished their dinner and wandered into the kitchen for a late-night treat with their coffees and hot cocoas, they’d find the desserts tasted even better than they looked. And that was saying something.

Baking was one of the only constants in my life. Well, besides my ability to see dead people—but that talent of mine usually led to chaos. Especially lately. But baking, using the recipes my grandmother taught me, only brought on smiles and full stomachs. There was nothing dangerous about that.

“Kay.” Laurence popped his head through the back door. Bitter cold air rushed into the kitchen, cooling the oppressive humidity pressing against me. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose like he usually did when nervous, and I smiled at the reflex. “Is there anything else you need to bring in from the van?”

“I think I have everything,” I said, “but thank you.”

He glanced at the table, lips lifting in their typical goofy way. “It looks good.” He inhaled, his shoulders raising to emphasize the action. “And smells amazing.”

“Hopefully Mrs. Harris thinks so, too,” I replied.

“She will.” He looked at his phone, and his smile fell. “Oh, shoot. It’s almost ten…”

My heart skipped. Oh no. We’d told Arianna—the young witch from Divine Magic, Laurence’s magic coach, and now our babysitter—that’d we’d be home at nine-thirty at the latest. But I couldn’t leave yet, I still needed to find Mrs. Harris, make sure she was happy with my set up, and get our invoice settled. That money was going right into the down payment of a business van for transporting and deliveries. The rental we had tonight cost way too much to use permanently.

“You can go home,” I told him and wiped my powdered-sugar-covered hands on my yellow apron. “I’ll finish up here and walk back.”

The shop and my apartment weren’t too far from here. Maybe six blocks, give or take.

As expected, Laurence shook his head so adamantly I was surprised he didn’t pull a muscle. “I don’t want you walking in the cold. Or at night.”

He didn’t need to say much more than that. I understood his concern all too well. It wasn’t long ago that I’d been kidnapped by a demon and almost dragged to Hell, so his fear made sense. There were times even I had trouble sleeping—the nightmares that had followed had been horrifying—but as time went by, things became easier. It’d been months ago, after all, and I had too many things happening in my life to be stuck in that dark mindset. All good things. My shop was open again and I was expanding, and of course, there was Zach. Laurence was learning more with Arianna’s private lessons than he could have ever done studying alone. The leveling test was in a few days, and I truly believed he’d pass this time and become a level two.

When I focused on the blessings in my life, it became easier to get over all the fears and anxieties. As an extra precaution, though, I made sure to wear my grandmother’s rosary around my neck at all times. Not only to keep the grounding memory of her close, but also as a quick way to contact Elijah, Jade’s guardian angel, just in case I needed him.

Being a Medium was hard enough, but it was a crazy I’d grown up with. It had taken me a bit to figure out, but now I could handle it. That crazy became my normal. I couldn’t escape that part, but in regard to demons, Hell, and any other chaos Jade was experiencing right now, I didn’t think I could handle it. With Laurence and now my son, Zach, I wanted a sense of normalcy back in my life. Needed it. At least as normal as could get for me. My dream job, a loving guy, a family… I was on the right track now.

I wasn’t asking for too much, was I?

I didn’t think so, anyway.

“I can manage a walk home,” I said, lifting my chin and forcing confidence in my voice. “The shop’s not that far from here.”

Laurence said nothing for a moment, but worry and uncertainty hovered in his gaze. At first, I thought he might insist waiting for me, but instead of arguing, he sighed. “Alright, if you’re sure.”

I smiled. He knew I needed this. As simple as it was. “Go ahead. Go get our baby. I’m just going to get everything all squared away with Mrs. Harris, and I’ll head out. Twenty minutes at the most.”

“Okay. I’ll see you in a bit.” He stepped further into the room and pressed a kiss against my cheek before leaving again. The moment the door closed behind him, the cool air coming in from outside cut off abruptly. The heat of the room wrapped around me again, making me wish I hadn’t worn such a thick, knitted blouse tonight.

A woman strolled into the kitchen. Dressed for the party’s theme, she wore a blue sweater with an image of Jesus in a birthday hat and the words “Birthday Boy” scrolled across the neckline. Her hair was pinned and strung up with tinsel streamers.

“Mrs. Harris?” I almost hadn’t recognized her in the elaborate outfit.

She grinned and held out her arms, presenting herself. “Kay! It’s me under all this! Can you believe it?” She laughed at herself. “I really want to win the contest this year. Can you tell?”

Nodding my answer to her question, I found myself imagining the look on my grandmother’s face if she had been here to see Mrs. Harris’s festive ensemble. She would either storm out of the party or chase the woman down with her shoe in hand, threatening to beat the Holy Spirit into her.

Grandmother Abigail could be sweet as pie, but there were two things you never messed with—her recipes and her religion.

I clutched the cross at the end of the rosary around my neck, wishing that maybe this would be the time she would appeare to me. Most of the time, I had to beg spirits to leave me alone. Jade had been my haunt-wrangler and helped me out that way, but for some reason, my own grandmother had never come to me. And she was the one I wanted to talk to the most.

Maybe I should have asked Jade to find her for me on the other side. Have Jade ask her to cross over and visit, if that was even possible. But something told me that if I couldn’t see her, there was a reason for it. That didn’t mean I liked it, though.

“Ooh!” Mrs. Harris spotted the vast assortment of goodies I’d laid out on the table, and rubbed her hands together. “Everything looks delightful. I’m gaining twenty pounds just looking at it all. Good thing I’m wearing my stretchy pants!”

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