Frankie B: Faerie Lights + Mistletoe: Marina Witches Mysteries, #4

1

Frankie looked around her cabin on the Pearl, the schooner she called home. Part of her still couldn’t believe she had wrested it away from Captain Russell Garnet, the ghost haunting the Marina Coven.

Not that getting rid of him had been easy, with her enchanted amulet being the only thing that kept her from dying. Well, that and good old-fashioned luck.

After shaking her head to clear it of thoughts of the odious ghost and his uglier parrot, Frankie was once again in the present. The one thing she didn’t love about her cabin was it being about as festive as a supermarket that was in-between holiday promotions. A brief window of opportunity to be sure, but she had managed it.

The lack of decorations was down to her late mom, refusing to celebrate the Winter Solstice. With nothing to go on, Frankie didn’t have a clue what was involved. No inherited decorations, no inherited rituals. Nothing. Add in that she’d missed half of October and the month of November thanks to visiting a parallel universe, and she didn’t have nearly enough time to get ready.

Frankie was trawling through Wikipedia, intent on finding something she could work with, when Colin Bonny, her dad, knocked on the open door of her cabin, and strolled in. He was the latest relative she’d found, and the pick of the bunch to date. And although he was her dad, you’d never know it to look at him.

While he was tall, athletic and had fiery red hair, his youthful looks had him being mistaken for her brother. And yet, if you looked closely, there was no missing the faint worry lines that crisscrossed his forehead.

It hadn’t mattered that he’d been held in a state of suspended animation at All Hallows Keep, the supernatural prison. He’d been aware of the passing of time and spent years fretting about what was happening to Frankie and her mom. Hanging around worrying if they were safe. If they were happy.

Nothing could have prepared Colin Bonny for the truth, which may have been a blessing when Frankie thought about it. Certainly, she couldn’t imagine anything worse than being stuck like a fly in amber while knowing your spouse was being murdered.

It was no wonder her dad appeared so lost these days, grieving the death of his wife and trying to come to terms with his new normal. With Frankie still dealing with her own grief over the loss of her mom, it left her feeling powerless to help. At least from a counseling point of view.

The one thing she could do was try to make this the best Winter Solstice ever, and a challenge for someone who’d never celebrated the holiday. If nothing else, it would work as a distraction for both father and daughter.

Unfortunately, Frankie’s main distraction right then was how stressed she was about her lack of preparation. She didn’t have a clue about how to celebrate the Winter Solstice.

She’d even given thought to letting it slide by unnoticed, as had been the case when her mom was alive. But there was no missing her dad’s entire face lighting up whenever anyone mentioned the holiday, no matter how briefly.

His disappointment now as he looked around her cabin was enough to have Frankie feeling even guiltier about her lack of progress. After what her dad had been through in the preceding twenty years, she needed to go all out for him.

It was the least she could do, with his being stuck in the parallel universe being what allowed her to lead a normal life. Well, as normal as was possible for a jinxed witch. And a jinx that had left her practically powerless at that.

Thank goodness she’d stumbled onto her own Mr. Miyagi of Karate Kid fame when she was just a kid. It was he who’d taught her Jeet Kune Do, the martial art developed by Bruce Lee. While her magic powers often let her down, her fighting skills never did.

Growing up, it was these that were often all that was between her and a beating from the neighborhood bullies. More than once, her fighting skills protected her from the scum in the low-end neighborhood that was all her mom could afford.

Frankie shook her head to clear it of these less than pleasant memories. Unfortunately, it came with the realization that the present wasn’t too hot either. Only reinforcing this was that her dad, having found the lack of cheer in her cabin not to his liking, had wandered off again.

He did that a lot these days, going from cabin to cabin as if searching for something. Too often she’d find him standing in the middle of an empty cabin, his expression pensive and his eyes glittering with unshed tears. While Frankie had had more time to come to terms with the death of her mom, seeing her dad choked up with grief brought all the feelings back.

What the pair of them needed was a diversion of epic proportions. It was something that had her hoping her new powers would allow her to decorate her cabin to within an inch of its life. She wanted to make the solstice-induced smile of her dad’s a permanent feature.

She knew she couldn’t aim too high, starting from scratch as she was. Perhaps something small, just to get things moving? Frankie scrolled down the screen on her phone until she found something that would be perfect. A yule log. This should be easy enough. She just needed to include a fireplace in which the log could burn without taking out the Pearl in an inferno.

A rough-and-ready Pinterest search and Frankie was soon faced with a myriad of images to choose from. After finding one particularly impressive specimen, she gave thought to looking for an appropriate charm in her late mom’s Big Book of Spells.

She soon discounted this, not wanting to waste time dragging the monster book out from under her bed. She wanted her dad smiling today, and not a week from today.

It was time to see if the powers she’d recently come into could be used in the way she saw Zane using his own. Naturally, and without reference to the written word. With that, she allowed her powers to take hold, to reveal the words required to manifest something similar to the image on her phone.

After shutting her eyes and centering her thoughts, it was as if she was channeling someone else. There was a familiarity there, too, with her wondering if maybe it was her late mom. Whoever it was, Frankie spoke aloud, the words coming freely and without pause.

Home to the hearth

and heart of the home.

Bring me a yule log

and fire of my own.

Mark the Solstice

with wood and with bark,

feeding the flame

to rid winter’s dark.

A flamboyant wave of her hand and Frankie sealed the spell, confident she’d been triumphant. It was only on opening her eyes she was sure the spell had been effective. Perhaps too effective?

Dex, her Jack Russell familiar, who’d been lying on the end of her bed, was soon on his feet. Not content to stay there, he jumped onto the end of the huge log, causing the plush reindeer antlers jammed on his head to bounce merrily. That his jaunty headwear smacked more of Santa than the solstice showed how desperate Frankie was.

Wow! Did you mean to do this?

Rather than speaking out loud, Dex had communicated with her telepathically, the remnant of a spell put on him by her late mom. The hope had been to stop his incessant barking. Now all Frankie had to deal with was his incessant chatter.

It used to be that everyone who was magical could hear Dex, while these days, she’s alone on this front. It had been his tendency to tell anyone he met everything he knew that stopped her from reinstating the spell. At least this way she could have some secrets.

Frankie looked at her familiar as he sniffed the log, and even though she doubted he was expecting a reply, she gave him one anyway. Well, duh? The small metal fireplace that barely held one end of the merrily burning log simply wasn’t up to the task. For him, to think she’d done this on purpose was nonsense.

So focused was Frankie on the potential fire hazard, she wasn’t aware her dad had rejoined them until he spoke. If it’s okay with you? Then, without waiting for her approval, he waved his hand at the overly large log and ridiculously small fireplace and reversed their sizes.

It was hearing a tinny barking that alerted Frankie to Dex, having been shrunk along with the yule log. Any chance you can sort out Dex?

Sorry, Pumpkin. My magic hasn’t been the same since All Hallows Keep.

There was nothing Frankie could do to stop the cringe at his use of that stupid pet name. It was okay when he called her that when she was a kid, not so much these days. There was also the fact her hair was no longer orange and there was a lot less of it.

His using the name had her right back at school, being teased mercilessly about what her mom called her crowning glory. What had been meant as a term of endearment had been an unending taunt from the other kids. Halloween had been the worst.

Another wave of his hand and her dad had the dog back to his usual size.

Dex’s body was consumed with a tsunami of shudders that wracked him