Page 41 of Christmas Mittens Murder

Abigail shook her head. “No, dear, a hospital will only keep her alive. It’s a last resort. We need to break the curse. Now.”

A newer model Hummer pulled into the driveway. Robert pulled the car close to the door, then stepped out and opened the passenger side door for Grans. They kissed lightly, then she came toward the open front door and met the rest of the women.

“Why is she still out here? Let’s get her upstairs to the apartment now. She needs to expend as little energy as possible to keep the spell from exploding.” Grans pulled the door shut and locked it. “Ruined a perfectly promising night.”

“I’m sorry,” Mia said as they moved toward the elevator. “I didn’t warn her because I didn’t know.”

“Most of these warnings come as part of the fairy tale discussion when witch children are very little. I should have insisted that if your mother wasn’t going to take the family mantle, she turn you over to me so I could have trained you from childhood. We really must return to daily sessions to get you caught up. I may not be around for much longer.” Grans paused at the stairs. “I’ll meet you at the top. Put her in her room, and I’ll start the potion in your kitchen.”

Once they got Christina in her room, they took off the party dress and dressed her in Snoopy pj’s. Then Mia went to the kitchen. “What can I help with?”

“I’ll need to run to my house in the morning, but for right now I need you to go into the library and get the book on fairy tales. It’s red and oversized. I saw it the last time I did research in your library.” Grans looked up from the large soup pot she was using to make a potion. “I’m not sure if this first spell will work, but it will slow down the process so we can find the counter potion.”

“She’s going to be okay, right?” Christina was more of a sister to Mia than simply a friend and coworker. She would have been her sister-in-law if Mia had made the mistake of marrying her brother, Isaac. Instead, they’d become best friends and sisters of the heart. Which Mia thought was even better.

Grabbing the library key, Mia headed out of the apartment and crossed the hall to open the room that shared a wall with her apartment kitchen. The library had been there when the school was active and the books had stayed, even though the school had been shut down. The library looked like she’d stepped back in time. And it housed a few ghosts that haunted the room. Because of their presence, it wasn’t a friendly place to sit and read, not yet. But Mia had high hopes for the room if she could ever free it of the ghosts.

She turned on all the lights and moved into the library after unlocking the door. She tried to put the key into a pocket, then realized she was still in the black dress she’d borrowed from Christina earlier that night. So instead, she tucked the key into her bra.

If this library were set up like any other, the book should be in the nonfiction fable section. Or something like that. She’d had a library science class, but that had been a while ago. She moved to the left wall and started scanning the book titles to find one that was close. She could have gone to the old-fashioned card catalog and looked it up, but she wanted to spend as little time in here as possible tonight. No random conversations with the resident ghosts if she could help it.

She saw the red book before she could read the spine. She started to reach for it but held back. The book was glowing. She poked it with one finger, and when it didn’t burn or send her screaming, she gingerly picked it up. The book must have known they needed it. She hurried out of the library, closing and locking the door. When she reached the door to the apartment, she let out a long breath. The library shouldn’t freak her out that bad, but it still did.

Mia hurried into the kitchen and set the book on the table where Abigail now sat, talking to her grandmother. She hung up the key and then grabbed a beer out of the fridge. She held it out to Abigail, who shook her head, and then to Grans, who took it. Mia got herself another one. “What do we know so far?”

Grans opened the red cover and found the story she was looking for in the table of contents. “From what I can see, Christina has been affected by the mitten.” She pointed a finger at the bag with the single mitten. “So let’s hear the story first. Then we’ll know more about how we can solve this problem.”

“Should I have Levi come back with Trent so he can kiss her?” Mia asked after taking a swig of the beer.

“Are you crazy? If she’s cursed and he kisses her, he’ll fall under the curse as well.” Grans shook her head. “I blame your mother for those cute fairy tales she read to you when you were a child. I told her it would be a problem, but no, she wanted fairy princesses and handsome princes to inhabit your imagination. You would have been much more prepared with a good copy of Grimms’ Fairy Tales. At least those were honest.”

“I get it. Sleeping Beauty doesn’t exist, and Cinderella is just a girl waiting to get married.” Mia hated it when her grandmother ruined her favorite childhood stories.

“Well, not quite, but it will hold you until we start training again. Which I’ve got on January’s schedule. I know you’re busy with the job, but I’d like to see you Monday afternoons for at least four hours. That will get us started, but you also need to set up lab time to practice. So figure another two hours at a minimum to start.” Her grandmother turned a page. “No, that spell is for cursed food, specifically apples.”

Mia eyed her grandmother. “Like Snow White?”

Grans let out an exasperated sigh. “If you must trivialize our work into Saturday morning cartoons for children, yes. Like Snow White.”

Mia went and poured the beer down the drain. Then she made herself a cup of coffee. It was going to be a long night. When she got back, her grandmother read aloud the story of the Christmas Mittens.

It was terrifying.

* * *

A pungent odor pulled Mia out of a dead sleep. She looked around the living room, where she’d gone to sit down just for a minute after the last verbal sparring with her grandmother. Grans could be snippy when you interrupted a date night. Mia moved Mr. Darcy off her lap and stood and stretched. As she made her way into the kitchen, she tried to get her eyes to focus. “What’s going on?”

“I’ve found something to slow the progression. We still need to find the other mitten and back off the spell, but this should make her comfortable while we do.” Grans stepped away from the stove, where a pot bubbled. It looked like neon green goop.

“You’re going to get her to drink that?” Mia tried not to gag as she thought about taking the potion.

“One of the many reasons you need to train. Of course not, we’re going to fill her bathtub with it and submerge most of her body in the potion. Someone will need to keep an eye on her, so I’ll move in for a few days while you and Abigail find the other mitten.” Grans rolled her shoulders. “She’ll be in a type of coma, but it’s just the potion keeping her safe. No one’s expecting Christina to be anywhere for the next few days, right?”

Mia groaned. “Her mother is expecting her at a party tonight. Christina said it was a big deal and she had to promise her mom she’d be there.”

“Then you’ll need to attend in her place.” Grans yawned. “I sent Abigail out to get the rest of the ingredients to make enough potion. Since you’re awake to stir the current batch, I’m going to take a short nap until Abigail gets back. Then you can go to bed. You’re going to have to drive to Boise tonight.”

“I can’t go in place of Christina. Mother Adams hates me,” Mia called after her grandmother.

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