Jingle all the Slay: Marshmallow Hollow Mysteries Book 1 Read online

  Jingle all the Slay

  Marshmallow Hollow Mysteries Book 1

  Dakota Cassidy

  Copyright

  Jingle all the Slay

  Published 2020 by Dakota Cassidy

  Copyright © 2020, Dakota Cassidy

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Dakota Cassidy.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, locales, or events is wholly coincidental. The names, characters, dialogue, and events in this book are from the author’s imagination and should not to be construed as real.

  Manufactured in the USA.

  Acknowledgements

  Cover artist: Katie Wood

  Editor: Kelli Collins

  Author’s Note

  Welcome to Marshmallow Hollow Mysteries! Set in the wintery seaside (and totally fictional) town of Marshmallow Hollow, Maine, where it’s all Christmas all the time and murder is hung by the chimney with care! I’m so excited to introduce you to Halliday Valentine (Hal for short), Atticus Finch, her crusty hummingbird familiar, her small gang of crime solvers, and the quirky folks from her beloved hometown.

  Please note, this series is a bit of a spinoff from my Witchless in Seattle series in that Hal and part of the gang were introduced in book 10 of the series, titled Witch It Real Good. But there’s no need to read the Witchless series if you haven’t.

  That said, there will be some underlying mysteries that will linger from book to book, but I promise to wrap up the central mystery with a big fat bow by each book’s end! Also note, I’m taking artistic license with places and names of things in the beautiful state of Maine—thus, any and all mistakes are mine.

  Also, huge thanks are due to my BFF Renee George (she writes cozies, too—check them out!) for always brainstorming with me and letting me talk out a plot, and to my amazing Facebook fans who are always around to give me opinions on titles and character names.

  To my incredible cover artist Katie Wood, who came up with the amazing concept and created the gorgeous Marshmallow Hollow covers.

  Christmas is my absolute favorite time of the year. I love everything about it from the decorations, the music, the gathering of friends and family and most of all the hope the season brings.

  I hope you all love Hal, her friends, and her tiny little Christmas town as much as I do!

  Anyway, welcome—I hope you all love Hal and friends as much as I do!

  Dakota XXOO

  Chapter 1

  “The little lights are not twinkling.” Art, as played by E.G. Marshall

  Christmas Vacation, 1989

  “Phiiiillll! Spit Atticus out this second or you’re in for a serious catnip dry spell!”

  The muffled, angry cries of my small but opinionated familiar, Atticus Finch—currently trapped inside my beloved Phil’s mouth—had me on the floor, wrestling the latter as though he were a saber-toothed tiger instead of an eight-pound mongrel of a savage attack cat.

  I squatted in front of him in the middle of the pool of twinkling white lights I’d been draping across the fireplace mantel and began to pry Phil’s mouth open with my fingers.

  His one snaggle tooth scraped my skin, making me hiss, “Ow! Motherf—”

  “Halliday Valentine, do not, or I shall use the antibacterial soap this time, and I’ve heard that bloody well stings!” Atticus cautioned in his deep voice, muffled (probably) by Phil’s tonsils.

  Even from the interior of my cat’s mouth, he was always there, ready to remind me he’d wash my mouth out with soap. Empty threats, mind you. Atti is the disciplinarian he thinks I never had, but he’s really an old softie.

  “Argh, Atticus! Do you wanna live or do you want me to refrain from using foul language?” I gasped as Phil clamped his jaw even tighter and lifted his chin in defiance.

  Digging my heels into the floor, I bracketed Phil’s back end with the side of my foot to get some leverage so he couldn’t get away and attempted to pull his mouth open again.

  He loved a good game of cat and mouse—or, in this case, cat and arrogant, very British, decidedly uptight hummingbird.

  Finally, I managed to wedge a finger between his teeth and was just able to see enough of Atticus’s long beak to start threatening.

  “Spit him out now, Phil! How many times have I told you, you can’t eat the familiar!”

  As though he truly understood me—and don’t for one second think I don’t believe Phil understands everything I say—he opened his mouth with a lazy yawn as though he was doing so not because I asked, but because he’d grown bored with the game.

  Atticus shot out of Phil’s mouth like a cannonball, rising in the air to just near my head, where his tiny hummingbird wings furiously flapped in all their glorious red and green colors.

  “You rapscallion!” he spat in his uncharacteristically deep voice, a ripple of feathers sounding in my ears as he shuddered. “Honestly, Halliday, must we keep him? He’s nothing but a ruthless, untrainable, monster!”

  Chuckling, I held out my finger so Atticus had a place to land and catch his breath. “I think after almost a year, we’re past the point of deciding whether we’ll keep him, don’t you, Atti? He’s sort of family now, and we what with family?” I asked, pausing before providing the answer. “We never give up on them, or in this case, as you so helpfully suggested, take them to a rest area off the turnpike and dump them so they can be someone else’s problem. That’s what.”

  “I refute that statement. I most assuredly did not say dump. I said gently boot from the car. And it was merely a suggestion because he’s insufferable, Halliday. A mangy, thankless shedder of hair, and I will not tolerate being jammed inside his rank, tuna-riddled maw whenever the mood strikes!”

  Phil, aka hummingbird assassin, is my ungrateful rescue. A scraggly orange and white shorthair with ears the size of satellite dishes and a narrow face.

  I’m sure if he could talk, he’d tell you I should have left him out in the bitter cold Maine night to starve and die rather than give him a home where he’s on the receiving end of plenty of food, vet visits, and all the love any one feline could ever dream of.

  In fact, if Phil could talk, he’d likely tell you he’d simply been resting when I happened upon him in a four-foot-high snowbank, near frozen to death. He’d also tell you he needs nothing and no one unless the mood strikes him, and it doesn’t strike often—believe me.

  And if you need proof he needs no one? He didn’t slink off as I shook my finger at him and threatened to sell him on eBay, the way I always do when he takes the opportunity to attempt to swallow Atti whole.

  Instead, he looked offended, but not at all ruffled as he lay sprawled in the middle of the pool of lights, his glassy green eyes narrowed, his bushy tail swishing wide circles of irritation.

  I set Atti on my shoulder and looked down at him with disapproval before rising and scooping up Phil to give him a big, wet smooch—his favorite (not).

  Hugging him tight (more of his favorite), I whispered in his twitchy ear, “Phil, you know better. You absolutely cannot eat Atti. We’re a family. Families don’t dine on other family members, comprende mi amore?”

  Phil allowed me to kiss him one last time while he hung limp and probably disgusted in my arms before he began to squirm, which in cat-speak meant, “Get off me, you stupid, useless human.”

  As he sashayed away to wreak more havoc elsewhere in the house, leaving a tr
ail of orange and white fluff in his wake, I went back to my decorating.

  Holding out my palm for Atticus, I waited until he hopped into it before I asked, “Are you okay, my friend?”

  If he had a nose he could wrinkle in disgruntled distaste, I’m sure he would. Instead, he lifted his slender beak, his tiny black eyes glaring at me.

  “If smelling of canned salmon and spit is okay, then yes, I’m brilliant,” he groused, his bass voice filled with his signature brand of testiness.

  I dropped a kiss on his head and stroked his tiny back, smoothing his ruffled feathers. “I’m sorry, but he’s like a cute, fluffy ninja sometimes. I’m no match for his stealthy goodness. I sure can’t keep up with him. Now, did he eat your Santa hat again? Am I going to have to clean up pieces of red-and-white-furred vomit for days?”

  “I don’t know why you insist I wear that thing, Halliday. It looks ridiculous on me. You deserve to clean up vomit for that alone,” he scoffed, lifting off my hand to grab one end of the lights scattered on the floor with his beak.

  I chuckled at him and adjusted my own Santa hat before grabbing the other end of the light string and following him to our enormous fireplace mantel.

  “We wear them because it’s fun and festive and puts us in the mood to Christmas up the joint.”

  He flitted to the mantel and draped the string of lights across the grainy wood. “One would think you’d have enough of Christmas simply running Just Claus—and there’s a light out on this strand.”

  Atti’s referring to my family’s factory, where we make every kind of Christmas decoration you can imagine and then some. It was my grandparents’ factory, passed down to my mother, Keeva, and when my mother died unexpectedly, handed down to me.

  After living in New York for several years, I moved back home upon the news of my mother’s death, to handle her affairs—which also happened to ironically coincide with the day I caught my fiancé cheating on me red-handed.

  Man, had that been a butt-ugly awakening. I went looking for tea and sympathy from him, while he’d been looking to dive deep into…

  Well, you get the picture.

  Anyhow, my ex, Hugo, doing me dirty was just the excuse I needed to stay here in Marshmallow Hollow where I was born and raised.

  With little family left to speak of who shared my DNA, other than the biological father and half-sister I only recently found out I have, I needed the comfort of the people who loved me and treated me as if I were their own to help me heal. That included Atticus; my best friend, police officer Stiles Fitzsimmons, who’s like my brother; and Uncle Darling, a retired drag queen and my mother’s best friend.

  And in true small-town Marshmallow Hollow fashion, they’d enveloped me in their special brand of love and warmth, lots and lots of hot cocoa, and lobster mac and cheese.

  When I was a teen growing up, I felt stifled in Marshmallow Hollow. Being a witch in a place where there were no other witches but my mother and my grandmother had made me feel like an outsider sometimes—even as hard as they’d tried to encourage me to find the joys in an all-mortal community.

  They’d also thwarted the use of my magic at almost every turn to protect me, and I rebelled in ways I’m not terribly proud of, now that I’m almost thirty-five.

  But they’d loved Marshmallow Hollow fiercely, and as an adult, I finally understood why…because I’d fallen in love with it, too.

  Coming home again was the best thing I could have ever done in the way of self-care, and I didn’t regret it for a single second.

  “Halliday? Why the sudden infusion of Christmas?”

  Atti brought my attention back to the evergreen swags we’d bought fresh from Gail Singer’s Christmas tree stand, and I shrugged.

  “Just call me a convert. You know how much Nana Karen loved Christmas. So did Mom. It makes me feel closer to them when I do the things they did. I know I wasn’t always a fan of all Christmas, all the time, or the fact that I can’t openly witch here, but things change when…”

  “When?” Atti prompted.

  I gulped back the threat of tears. “When you lose the people you love. The least I can do is honor them, now that they’re gone, and they always decorated the house from stem to stern once the factory closed for the holidays. It’s a ritual set in stone.”

  It probably sounds crazy to anyone who owns a business, but tradition here in Marshmallow Hollow has always been to close Just Claus right after Thanksgiving and for the entire month of December, so the employees at the factory have maximum time to enjoy the holiday festivities with their loved ones—with full pay, of course.

  And my grandparents didn’t give a toot what it cost them. Family was family, and Christmas and Hanukah and any other tradition celebrated at this time of year were sacred moments to them.

  I suppose we could rake in some even bigger profits if we stayed open in December, with last-minute orders and such, but my grandparents—especially Nana Karen—had always said no amount of money can make up for lost time with your children.

  Nana said the holidays were for baking sugar cookies, making popcorn balls, decorating trees, ice skating, and watching Christmas movies together by a roaring fireplace. They weren’t meant to be spent stressed out over work matters.

  And she was right.

  My grandparents had begun the tradition over fifty years ago when they’d bought the factory, and it remains today, and will continue to remain as long as I’m in charge.

  But it also leaves me with a lot of time on my hands at the beginning of another brutal Maine winter.

  Atticus hopped over the greenery and sat on my arm, his eyes searching mine. “Your mother, universe rest her whimsical soul, would be so very proud of you, Halliday Valentine. You’ve done a cracking job of taking over the factory for someone who, up until only a few years ago, despised Christmas. In fact, Just Claus had one of its best years yet, if what I overheard from our Rupert is true. That can only be attributed to your keen eye for what’s trending in the current marketplace, my darling Poppet.”

  That was true. Rupert Cammish, a spry, wiry fellow with iron-gray hair and twinkling gray-blue eyes to match, is my right-hand man at the factory. He’d recently said this was our best year by far.

  He’s been with Just Claus for over thirty-six of the fifty years it’s been in business, and he’s been a treasure in guiding me through the ins and outs of running the factory.

  It’s fair to say he’s more of a grandfather figure, now that my grandparents are gone—well, they’re mostly gone (long story, I’ll explain another time)…

  I winked at him with a sheepish grin, surprised by his praise. “Are you complimenting me, Atticus? Next time warn a witch. I mean, there’s only so much sweet-talking I can take from you before I need somewhere to sit down and gather my wits.”

  Atticus scoffed. “One doles out praise where ’tis deserved, Halliday. You’ve come a long way since moving back and breaking things off with that pox upon humanity. Now stop fishing for compliments and let’s do what we set out to do before I was so rudely gobbled up by that living, breathing case of halitosis.”

  He was right. It was the day after Thanksgiving, and we had some decorating to do if I hoped to cover all twenty-five hundred square feet in Christmas.

  I gave him my best impish grin and held up my fingers, wiggling them at him. “Well, we wouldn’t have to do much manual anything if you’d just let me snap my fingers…”

  Atticus scoffed his distaste. “Over my cold corpse, young lady. Your powers aren’t meant to take away the gratification one finds hanging garland and positioning myriad snowmen, which can only be garnered by doing the task yourself. And lest ye forget, your magic can sometimes go awry. Thus, there will be no magical decorating, and I won’t be talked into helping you, Halliday. We do it the old-fashioned way, as we’ve always done.”

  That was always Atticus’s final answer. Live in the human world, play by human rules, because my magic is sometimes unharnessed and I freeze when
the going gets tough.

  “Remember the time you turned the kitchen table into a Cadillac because you were arguing with your mother and your anger overrode your spell. You let your emotions rule your magic, Poppet. Blah, blah, blah.”

  It’s been the bane of my existence for as long as I can remember—parsing my feelings from my spells.

  Atticus had every right to criticize my magic. He’s one of a handful of familiars from my particular coven who possess magic of his own—or at least enough of it to make a difference—and his magic is focused and pure. Not all familiars are so lucky.

  For instance, my sister Stevie’s (the sister I only met for the first time last year) familiar has use of very little magic. Covens are a tricky thing with plenty of moving parts, and they’re all as different as snowflakes.

  “Hmmm, yes, sensei, my magic is trippy, but I can do simple spells. So why is it you can make dinner or clean the house using your magic, but I can’t decorate by using my magic? How’s that even fair?”

  “How do you propose I hold a vacuum, Halliday? With my wee wings? I, unlike you, don’t have hands. Someone must clean up after you and that malignant ball of fur with filthy paws. And if I don’t roast your chicken, you’ll waste away to nothing but skin and bones, left to dine on your laurels.”

  Grinning, I laughed at his dramatic description. “Hot dang, you really love stomping all over a good time, don’t you? It’s a gift so often overlooked by the masses.” Turning my attention back to the fireplace, I brushed my hands together. “Right then. Back to that manual labor you so love to preach.”

  “I do it for your own good, Halliday. If you’re practiced at doing tasks without magic, you won’t reveal yourself to mortals. Do remember the Cadillac.”

  See? I told you. In Atti’s mind, the Caddy was a significant marker for everything I’ve ever gotten wrong with my magic. And in truth, it is an example of what could go wrong—in a really big way. I couldn’t have a big shiny car appear out of nowhere. To him, doing things manually was my wax-on, wax-off, if you will—my training to keep my magic hidden.