Casually Cursed (2 page)

“She did.”

“And she wasn’t shy? Or afraid she’d get in trouble? At my school, if you don’t wear clothes, they send you home and you don’t get cookies.”

“Tallulah got plenty of cookies.”

“And nobody yelled at her or covered her up?”

“No, it was a different time.”

“But I thought you said there was snow and ice by your house. If she was naked except for necklaces and shoes, wasn’t she real cold? You said you wore fur coats over your dresses because of all that cold stuff. How could anybody go naked?”

“I imagine the gin warmed her up.”

“The gin?” Tammy Jo echoed, chewing on her lip, which tasted funny on account of the bright red lipstick she’d applied. Tammy dipped a finger into Rabbit’s glass. It was plenty cold. She gave Edie a skeptical look that made Edie laugh.

“It only works if you drink it,” Aunt Edie said. “That’s part of the magic.”

Tammy Jo grabbed the glass and gulped it down and decided Aunt Edie was right about that warming-up effect, because it burned her throat. She exhaled, surprised that no flames came out.

Edie laughed, but shook her head. “You shouldn’t have done that. You’ll get us both in trouble.”

“I don’t care,” Tammy Jo announced. “I’m Talulli Bankle. Let’s do that dance again.” Tammy Jo jumped up and started the old record player. The record was scratchy, but she liked the songs on it anyway.

She shimmied and knocked her knees together so the dress’s beads and fringe danced, too.

Then the door opened, and Momma and Aunt Mel peered in.

“What are you listening to?” Aunt Melanie asked.

“What are you wearing?” Momma asked.

“What are you doing?” Momma and Aunt Mel asked at the same time.

Tammy Jo giggled uproariously. She laughed so hard she spun sideways and tripped over the bottom of the dress and fell onto a pile of pillows and stuffed toys.

“Tamara Josephine! Are those bottles from the liquor cabinet?” Momma asked.

Tammy Jo laughed harder, but then Aunt Melanie turned off the record player and Tammy Jo remembered that she was supposed to be the hostess.

She bolted up and returned to her position at the head of the table. “Welcome to my cocktail party, Momma, Aunt Melanie. Won’t you sit down?”

They stared at her. The beaded headband sank forward, half covering her eyes like a blindfold. Tammy Jo shoved the headband up with determined fingers.

“A cocktail party? Edie, a cocktail party?” Momma demanded.

“That’s right,” Tammy Jo said, motioning to the bottles and empty juice boxes. “I’m a singular sensation, Momma. Nobody in town throws a decent cocktail party. This is the best one of the year. Aunt Mel, would you like a sidecar?”

“Oh, my God. A drunk flapper at five? That’s the best alternative to gardening you could come up with?” Momma asked Aunt Edie.

Edie flashed a smile and sipped from her martini glass. “I have to go now, precious,” Edie said, blowing Tammy Jo a kiss. “You were marvelous. Don’t believe anything different.”

Tammy Jo waved. “If you see Tabulli, tell her I said hi. And if she’s naked and cold, loan her a coat!”

Edie disappeared, and Tammy smiled up at her momma and aunt Melanie. They were so pretty with their swirly magic and bouncy hair.

“If you don’t like sidecars, Momma, I can make you a martini.”

IF I INVITED
a Hatfield to dinner, I wouldn’t invite a McCoy. It’s not something that most books on entertaining really talk much about, but it’s common sense. Besides the basic gunfire and bloodshed that can result from having sworn enemies over to the house at the same time, there is also the problem that they’ll be distracted by the company and won’t be able to really appreciate what’s being served. And if there is one thing that I care about, it’s that people take the time to enjoy food prepared in my kitchen.

In small towns, there are always feuds. Sometimes long-standing and bitter ones. I try not to take sides, and I definitely try not to get in the middle of them by inviting the warring people to my house on the same night. But my current houseguests weren’t neighbors or friends. They were a fae knight and a half-fae, half-witch girl. The Halfling girl was just like me . . . because she was the long-lost twin sister I hadn’t even known I had!

Getting a twin for a Christmas present should’ve been cause for celebration, but there was a catch to my sister Kismet’s arrival: She was being hunted. And if we didn’t agree to go home to the Never, the knight who’d been hunting her said that our momma would be killed. I’d never been on an overseas vacation. I’d have been excited to go if there hadn’t been the risk of imprisonment and death. To think, I’d once thought expensive plane tickets were the biggest obstacle to my traveling the world!

I glanced at the oven timer. Only three minutes before the biscuits would be ready. Kismet had asked if I knew how to make biscuits from scratch, which tickled me. My specialty is pastries, but I can cook pretty much anything. I’d been making biscuits since I was about seven years old. At twenty-three, I could make them without measuring the ingredients. I just shook and poured the items into a bowl and could tell by the color and texture as I stirred when the batter was right.

“I’ll have another blended,” Crux the Seelie knight said, his breath against the back of my neck.

I jumped, gooseflesh rising. I pointed a butter knife in his direction. “Don’t sneak up on me.”

He smirked. “It’s impossible not to. You are completely unaware of your surroundings.”

“I’m making strawberry compote and whipped cream for my sister’s biscuits.”

“That sounds good. I’ll have biscuits, too.”

“You had cake, pie, and an entire blender full of brandy Alexander ice-cream drinks. Now you want biscuits?” I asked skeptically.

“Don’t forget the chocolate. I had six of those,” he said.

Right, he’d eaten an entire tin of liquor-infused dark-chocolate truffles of the bourbon, coconut rum, and Frangelico varieties. I looked him over. He was tall, lean, and golden hued. There was no excess fat, only taut muscle and high cheekbones. He could have been a model in a fashion magazine. But I knew better than to let his nice looks distract me. He could be cunning and violent. He and I had had a couple of fights already, but since he wasn’t holding that against me I was trying not to hold it against him either.

Kismet’s reaction to Crux made me extra leery of him, though. She eyed him like he was a raptor who might move in a blur of speed at any moment to attack us. It had me on edge. But so far I couldn’t think of a way to get rid of him. Also, if I did go to the land of the faeries I would need every ally I could get. So I hoped to win him over, which is why I said, “But if you’re still hungry, you can have biscuits, too.”

“And another blended?”

I had to smile at his calling the drinks “blendeds” instead of by their name, which I’d told him several times.

“Yes, sure,” I said, dragging the blender to me.

He smiled. “Offer to bake for her first thing. She’ll be intrigued, and when she tastes your sweets, you’ll have value.”

I peered closely at his face, which glowed more than usual. From the alcohol? I wondered. Were the fae susceptible to drunkenness? That would be useful to know.

“You mean the queen? I should offer to make pastries and candy for the Seelie queen?”

“Yes. The more value you bring underhill, the less likely she’ll be to punish you if you make a mistake while there.”

He talked like it was a sure thing that I’d be going to meet his queen, even though I’d told him that, being American, I don’t recognize the authority of kings and queens, especially ones who aren’t even part of my normal world.

I chewed the corner of my mouth. The trouble was that the queen had special leverage. Unfortunately, when Crux had announced that the fae monarch would execute momma if we didn’t go underhill, my new sister had shrugged it off. She had escaped the Never and didn’t intend to go back. That was one of the reasons I wasn’t trying to kick Crux out of my house. I might need him to lead me into the Never. Of course if given a choice, I would much rather have had my sister’s help.

I went out to the backyard. The bespelled bluebells that sounded an alarm when the fae were nearby rang, but not loudly. I looked around, then up. The light through the kitchen windows shone on the branches of the ash tree. My sister reclined on a tree limb with her back against the trunk.

“Hello. Are the biscuits ready then?” she asked in her lilting Irish accent.

“Just about,” I said.

“You’re an apple darling for making them,” she said with a musical little laugh, and then rolled off the branch, flipping in the air to land on her feet in a crouch . . . like an acrobat. Or an ocelot. My feline companion and friend Mercutio made those kinds of moves.

I had a flash of memory . . . me as a little girl flipping from the tree in exactly the same way. Aunt Mel’s surprised face.
Kissit
, I’d said.
Kismet
, I’d meant. I shivered.

“What’s surprised you?” Kismet asked, rising from the crouch in a fluid movement, as if her spine were made of rubber and silk. Crux had that same grace.

“It’s the way you have for getting down from a tree. People can’t really do that . . . most can’t. I think when I was little I could. I think . . . I felt you. Like we shared a connection back then where I could see through your eyes and learned things from you when you did them. The way I’ve been able to see and feel you lately.”

When she passed by me, her pinkie caught mine and curled around it. My own pinkie curled too without my even thinking about it. Clasping her finger was like shaking hands or hugging: When the other person does it, you just automatically do it back.

For a couple months I’d had the feeling something was missing—until Kismet arrived. When her pinkie linked mine now, I felt like a missing piece of my soul returned to me. Joy rippled through my whole body, making me want to laugh and dance. Since I didn’t want to startle Kismet, I just grinned at her.

She returned my smile and winked. “I’ll teach you for real,” she said. “To climb trees and to flip out of ’em and how to get them to lower a branch to swing you up. In return, you teach me to make biscuits and cakes.”

“Deal!”

I didn’t hear Crux approach, but I knew he was behind me by the change in her expression. The sunshine of her smile disappeared. Her head didn’t turn. Only her eyes moved, and they were a cool, deadly green. She might look like me, but in the moments when she faced Crux, she reminded me of Mercutio, a natural-born hunter who would fight whatever needed fighting, no matter how big or how deadly. My sister was not intimidated by the famous Seelie knight, but she was wary of him. She moved between us, shielding me from him.

“You’d best go,” she said to him in a low voice. “I won’t be taken back alive. And you know that to kill me is no easy thing.”

“Of course I do.” He smiled at her over the top of his glass.

“I don’t think she’s kidding about being ready to have an all-out fight. My cat gets that exact same look, and when it comes to fighting, Merc doesn’t play,” I said, letting go of Kismet’s pinkie so I could turn to face Crux.

“I remember,” Crux said before he chugged the last of his shake.

“That’s right. Mercutio took a bite out of your neck that one time.”

“It’s a wonder he didn’t retch his stomach out at the taste,” Kismet said with a little smirk.

Crux’s smile never faltered. “I don’t know why you say it’s a wonder. You’ve tasted my blood. It didn’t make you sick.”

Her smile faded till it was gone. “I may yet, you know.” She paused. “Kill you.”

He shrugged. To me, he said, “If she planned to kill me, she’d have done it.”

“I can change my mind. Free will,” she said.

His smile finally disappeared. “You’d have to answer for it. You’re Seelie fae. Inside the Never and out of it.”

Kismet replied, “I don’t bow to the queen’s will anymore. And never shall again.”

He sighed. “You’re born of the blood. She’ll always be your queen.”

The oven timer rang. “Come on,” I said. “Don’t argue.”

“My sister’s a peacekeeper. She cares for people. Be glad her goodwill leaks all over me when I’m around her, or I might have challenged you to a death match.”

She’d said it so casually, it was kind of unreal. I blinked, then swallowed.

“Um, well, death matches are illegal in the state of Texas, which is where we’re standing. In fact, fighting to the death is illegal all over the United States. Canada, too, and probably Mexico. In the Old West, there were gunfights in the streets to settle disagreements and all, but that hasn’t been allowed for a long time. At least a hundred years.”

Crux cocked a brow. “A hundred years is a long time?”

“Yep. In human years that’s a real long time. So c’mon. The biscuits are done. And everything will seem better with a belly full of biscuits.”

Most times an announcement like that would be met with skeptical chuckles from people, but these two just turned and went inside, like they understood the truth about the fortifying power of biscuits. I frowned. There were moments when I felt my own Seelie roots.

I’d been raised by witches and hadn’t known I was half fae until a couple months earlier. Momma, Aunt Mel, and my double-great-aunt Edie had all kept my magical mixed race a total secret, even from me, because the World Association of Magic was against the fae in every way.

It was possible that the Association would lock me up or kill me if they found out I’d used fae magic on occasion. It wouldn’t even matter to them that I hadn’t meant to or tried to. In some ways, that would make it worse. I had powers that I couldn’t control and that they wouldn’t be able to control either. They wouldn’t like that. And when they didn’t like something . . . well, they weren’t nice about how they dealt with problems, or witches who caused them.

Inside, the house smelled like melted chocolate and spiced vanilla with just a faint note of pine needles from the tree. After putting the biscuits and fixings on the table, I raised the volume on the country Christmas music, hoping to put everyone in a festive and friendly mood. Kismet’s shoulders bobbed in time to the beat as she broke her biscuit in half down the middle and dipped the right half in a circle of berry compote and then in a dollop of whipped cream. A jolt of recognition ran through me, leaving me tingling and smiling. I’d eaten biscuits that way a thousand times. When I’d been little, Momma and Aunt Mel told me over and over, “Use a knife and cut them in half the other way. Spread whatever you want on the bottom half and put the top back on, like a sandwich. When you dip, you make such a mess, and half the time the biscuit crumbles and you get your fingers sticky by going after the lost pieces. Little ladies have better table manners.”

Little faeries apparently didn’t. Neither did big ones.

A small chunk of biscuit fell onto the dish. Kismet retrieved it and dipped it and the tips of her fingers into the crushed berries. She dropped the morsel in her mouth and licked the sweetened fruit from her fingertips.

“That’s delicious, delectable, and divine,” she said.

I chuckled. “We’re sisters, all right.”

She grinned.

I ate a biscuit, dipping it into butter, then the fruit compote, and licking my fingertips in the bargain. Then a key in the door’s lock announced that Aunt Mel had arrived. My shoulders stiffened and my smile dropped. I loved her dearly and couldn’t wait to see her, but there was so much I had to tell her. And none of it would make her happy.