“Time for a cleansing ceremony,” Preston sighed.
“It’s Yuletide Eve!” Mori laughed.
“Exactly. You need to ground yourself and let go of the b-u-l-l-s-h-i-t that’s no longer serving you. I’ll start the fire.”
“Uh…. Are we going to burn down Mori?” I arched a brow.
“No, we’re going to make a fire and write down everything that has been holding us down and everything that we don’t want to carry with us anymore and ---”
“And it’s all going to fit into the fire?” I blinked at him. “I mean Sharon isn’t even here and…”
Mori laughed first, realizing that I was making a bad joke. Preston laughed too but pinched my leg playfully as he stole a kiss.
“I’ll start the fire at the fire pit. You get to writing, Sigmore,” Preston said, using the full length of his twin’s name. “You…” he looked at me. “Feed the baby.”
“Bay,” Baby Andy said between us. “Bay!”
“Yes, you’re our baby,” Preston said and leaned over to kiss his little forehead while tickling his belly. “Also, if it’s not too much trouble— Ouch! Don’t pinch my butt!”
Baby Andy and Mori broke out into laughter.
“It’s never too much trouble,” I reminded him. “You’re never too much trouble.”
“One day I’m going to ask for someone’s heart or head or something and you’re going to regret saying that,” Preston said, sitting up.
“Will that be on a silver or gold platter?” I asked him.
“Just feed the baby and get him dressed without putting him on a platter, please,” he laughed. “Also, no snow ice cream for breakfast for him. Just because it has raspberries in it doesn’t mean it’s healthy.”
“Rapbey! Brrr! Rapbey!” Baby Andy said as I scooped him.
“I mean it, Wess! No ice cream for breakfast!” Preston called after us as I carried him toward the kitchen.
“Just one bite of ice cream and then we have to eat eggs,” I whispered. “One little bite don’t tell on me, okay?”
“OOO-key!” he said.
An hour later, we were all outside at the firepit. I had considered bringing marshmallows but wasn’t sure if the smoke from the burning lists would only mean we were eating our problems back if we roasted marshmallows over the banishing fire. Baby Andy sat in his little furry bear cub form on the ground between my legs and Preston’s. He stared into the fire as if watching a show or movie.
The twins scribbled away under the bright, early morning sunlight. I had written a few things on my list, but they were all names that I wondered if I should put into a frozen creek rather than a fire. Unless Sharon Claudis was going to burst into flameswhen I tossed in her name, it didn’t seem very practical to put her into the fire. I was tempted to peek at the others’ lists but minded my manners as I tapped my pen against the notebook. Outside of threats to the family and Mori’s depression, nothing really bothered me. Perhaps I hadn’t lived away from the mountain long enough to have too many problems.
When we had all finished writing, Preston made a show of collecting the papers and standing on the other side of the firepit before he spoke.
“Today, on the last day before winter sinks its literal teeth into the wheel of the year, we gather here as a family, to banish the things that have plagued us for too long. We are releasing the energies that bind these to us and sending them away on the smoke of this fire. We’re letting go and moving forward. As the leaves of the trees have died, so shall the worries and nuisance written on these sheets. We thank the trees that were felled to make the paper and the hands and minds that made the pens and notebooks and everything else that went into it. We remember how we built this firepit with our sire and our brother Colton and know that their energy is here too helping to burn away these issues and help us carry on to a merrier Yuletide.”
One by one my mate dropped the papers into the fire, and they burnt to ash almost instantly. The fire was hungry because the cold breeze licked it back. It gobbled up the trees turned paper until they were nothing but ash. We sat and watched the fire burn for a long time. The old bear from next door walked over through the connected backyards, trekking through the snow, and dropped in his own list. He winked at us before disappearing back into his own space.
“I’m ready for breakfast,” Preston said.
Little did he know but breakfast was ready for him too. I’d sent a text to Barry to tell him we had run into some magical cleansing to be done, and I was sure the twins would be starving by the time it was all wrapped up. So, we walked back into an empty kitchen, but a table filled with dishes of biscuits and gravy, bacon and sausage, fried potatoes, eggs, and more. Preston shot me a knowing look but sat down to dig in anyway. Sometimes you had to ask for help. Besides, it was Yuletide Eve, and it was supposed to be magical.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Preston
Nightshade Bear Territory
After the banishing and cleansing ritual, I felt lighter. Mori looked as if he did too. I hoped that he would stop beating himself up. Tricking fate was damn-near impossible and anyone who said otherwise was a liar. Sometimes I wondered if fate was all set up by ourselves when it came to true-mates and if by trying to outsmart fate Mori and Dern were really trying to outsmart Mori and his true-mate but who they were over in the Other World when they had access to way more information that we had while living and breathing on Earthside. That made it all make sense to me. You can’t outsmart yourself.
