“Hide what sort of thing?”
“You know”—she wiggles her fingers my way—“that whole beguiler thing.”
I suck in a never-ending breath.
“Beguiler!” I suddenly remember with crystal clarity why that word felt so familiar. “Oh my word, Greer, you don’t think these are real beguilers, do you?” Back in October, my grandma Nell came back to tell me about the creepy Hearst curse and why the woman who set the curse on that family gave it to them. It turns out, she was also transmundane and her powers fell under the category of a beguiler, a person who has the ability to charm—as in the ability to charm a whirlwind to come forth, objects to move at will, people to bend to your will, earthquakes, fires, and I’m sure an entire slew of things I’m not that familiar with.
“Lottie, I thought you knew?” Greer begins to float over to the refreshment table and Kringle leaps from her shoulder to mine. “Sit back and enjoy the show,” she says. “They always put on a good one.”
Wait a minute...
“Oh, Kringle.” I bring my fingers to my lips. “I think Noah’s mother might really be a nefarious being.”
The lights flicker on and off as the women all gather around the table. I don’t miss a beat as I head that way and Serena Digby’s eyes widen as she looks at me with a twinge of malice.
“Well, well, ladies”—Serena nods my way—“it looks as if we have a guest in our midst. Lottie Lemon, will you be joining us this afternoon?”
Suze ticks her head toward the door while giving me the stink eye.
“Yes,” I say in defiance to her rudeness. “I think I will be joining you.”
Kringle whips my shoulder with his tail. “Why do I get the feeling some of these women don’t really care for you?”
I give a quick nod, letting him know he’s not wrong.
Suze sighs my way. “Carlotta here is with child. She won’t stay long. I’m sure she needs a nap or a cookie.”
Suze knows I hate it when people call me by my formal moniker. Just as much as I know that she hates it when people call her by hers.
“I sure am with child, Suzanna.” I take a moment to soak in the abject horror on her face. Her name is no big deal. It’s cute. I have no idea why she would have a hang-up about that. Mine is sort of cute, too, but Carlotta herself is my hang-up about my formal name. Besides, Lottie suits me better. “In fact, this just might be your own grandchild,” I say, patting my belly.
The group of women oohs and ahhs, but mostly they gasp at the salacious detail I just let slip.
Serena wastes no time in scoffing. “You mean, you don’t know who the father is?”
“Well”—I shrink back a bit—“not necessarily.”
Kringle chortles as he skips across to my other shoulder. “This is getting fun.”
Elodie, the tall woman with the dark bangs fringing her eyes, leans in. “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“I don’t know that either. In fact—”
“Lie down on the table,” she instructs before I can finish, and then an entire group of women is helping me lie down over the bistro tables they’ve strung together and I’m looking up at the glass ceiling covered in snow, wondering what in the heck I’ve just gotten myself and my poor unborn child into.
Elodie swoops over toward my belly. “Oh, we’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this.” She plucks her necklace off, and soon the triangular pendant is rocking back and forth over my belly. “We can predict what you’re about to have right here. Wouldn’t it be nice to know whether you’re having a boy or a girl?”
“What a Christmas treat, Suze!” someone shouts.
“This is going to be tasty,” another points out.
Kringle runs down the length of my body. “I think they’re going to eat both you and the baby, Lottie! I’m pretty sure that will ruin Christmas for the both of you.”
Why doesn’t it surprise me that Suze is a part of some baby-eating cult? Makes perfect sense, in fact.
Elodie offers a tight smile my way, and I can’t help but note she has an exotic look to her, smooth skin, thin yet dark stained lips, and there’s something about her moon-shaped eyes that demands you look into them.
“If the pendent drifts north to south, it’s a boy,” she tells me. “If it’s east to west, it’s a girl.”
“No, no.” Serena takes off her own necklace in a huff and holds it over my belly. It’s a silver necklace as well, but the pendant looks to be a silver snowflake. It’s probably something far more nefarious, but my innocent mind refuses to acknowledge it. “It’s east to west for a boy, Elodie. How many times do we have to go over this?” She sniffs as she looks to the other women. “Suze, please light the sage and circle the room.”
Suze whips out a small fistful of smoking weeds, and then she’s stalking around the crowd gathered around me in a counterclockwise direction.
Serena clucks her tongue. “Come on, ladies. You all know the chant. Beguilers beguile!”
Soon, the room booms with the words beguilers beguile over and over again until I’m terrified of both the sound of these women’s voices and the morbidly serious look on their faces as well. I’m suddenly missing the shoestring budget gals and those friendly cheapskate smiles they gave so freely.
Little Lea floats above me. “Shall I slaughter them all, Lottie?”
I’m just about to give her the murderous thumbs-up when Elodie’s pendant begins to swing violently from side to side.
“It’s a boy!” she shouts, and the room breaks out into a congratulatory cheer.
A rush of adrenaline fills me as I get up on my elbows and look down at my tiny blooming bulge.
“A boy?” I can’t help but laugh with delight.
“Oh, Lottie!” Mom pokes her head between two of the women’s shoulders. “This is wonderful! I’ve already got two granddaughters, and now I have a grandson to go along with them. Thank you.” She blows me a kiss, and I bite down a smile as tears come to my eyes.
Serena shakes her head. “I wouldn’t go painting the nursery blue just yet.” She swats Elodie’s silver triangle out of the way and holds her own pendant over my belly, and sure enough, it’s moving in the opposite direction. “North to south. It’s a girl.” She holds up her necklace and the room goes wild as if she just won a showdown at high noon. “Congratulations, Suze. You’re going to have a granddaughter.”
“She won’t be my granddaughter.” Suze is quick to renounce the baby in my belly, and I’m not all that surprised.
Kringle runs back my way. “She’s a real witch, isn’t she?”
I give a quick nod to the astute little spook.
Serena’s lips knot up to the side. “A paternity debate.” She taps the tip of her nose with her finger. “Ah! We’ll do a noose goose to settle the matter.”
“Oh no.” I shake my head frenetically. “I don’t think there’s any reason to get a noose involved.” But before I can protest any further, Serena has produced a full-blown rope twisted in the nefarious position and has it dangling over my belly like an oxygen-depriving threat.