“Well, we were—uh—kissing, you know—”
“So it wasn’t just an obligatory peck on the cheek,” Fiona said, still grinning.
“Um.No.Definitely not just a peck on the cheek.” Callie figured her face was so hot it would light up the entire city if she were outside at night right now. Geez. How mortifying. She was a grown woman, many years and several relationships past that night…why did she still react so strongly to the memory?
“So, anyway, you and Ben were mauling each other—what do they say in England? Oh, yes,snoggingunder the mistletoe, and some asshole guy has to tempt fate by saying, ‘See, there’s no ghosts here,’ or whatever…”
Callie nodded, laughing. “Yeah. That was about it. The next thing I knew, the entire room was…well, it was like we were in a tornado or a crazy windstorm or something. Everything just sort of erupted.” She shivered, and felt a little sick to her stomach as she remembered the way they stumbled and fought to try and find their way out of the room. “We couldn’t see where we were going; it was kind of dark and we only had two small flashlights—and they went out right away.
“Everyone was totally freaked out and we were shouting and bumping into each other, and then one of us—I think it was Lauren, or maybe it was the guy whose name I can’t remember—oh, Darren, that’s it—opened the door and we started to run out but it was the wrong door and suddenly we were out on the balcony where all those people had died on New Year’s Eve—”
She shook her head, remembering the wild terror that coursed through her.People had died there!
“The clock was chiming midnight and the ball was going to light up on the twelfth stroke, and the next thing I knew Ben was grabbing me and dragging me and Lauren back inside, saying, ‘Get off there! Get back inside!’ and finally all of us were back in the room, which was still crazy wild…and then it felt like it was raininginside—there was all this wet stuff flinging around. We somehow got out the right door and ran down the stairs and…” She spread her hands. Her heart was pounding hard, as if she were living the horror all over again. “When we got downstairs and outside and got a look at each other…we were all covered in specks and droplets of—of blood. I mean, it looked like blood. Like it had been splattered all over us.”
She shivered, feeling the same ugly nausea she’d experienced that night when she looked at her friends and their terrified, blood-splattered faces.
“That really freaked us out, and we just—ran away. Went home. It took me a long time to wash whatever that was off my face. I don’t know if it was blood, but whatever it was…” She shuddered. “I don’t think any of us wanted to talk about what happened or to admit it…and we didn’t really hang out together much after that. For the same reason. It was…crazy.”
“And so after living through all of that, you decided it was a good idea to have a wedding there on New Year’s Eve?” Fiona asked.
Callie sighed and bit her lip. “It was so long ago, and I never heard of anyone else having any sort of experience there. I think over the years I sort of talked myself into believing that one of the guys had set it up to freak us all out—and that we were so drunk and stoned that we exaggerated all of it. You know?” She picked up one of the miniature gingerbread houses—the size of a large muffin—its features painstakingly piped with frosting. She bit off the chimney with a sharp snap. “But after being there yesterday…” She shivered. “Maybe I was wrong.”
“Can I just point out that this is, after all, Wicks Hollow,” said Fiona mildly. “And that kind of stuff isrealhere.”
“Well, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you about it. Because…didn’tyouhave a ghost problem or something? In your shop?”
“I certainly did. And, fortunately, it’s been resolved.” Fiona poured a new cup of tea for each of them. “The ghost—whose name was Gretchen, by the way, has been happily put to rest.”
Callie inhaled the delicious scent of a vanilla spice oolong that was Orbra’s signature blend for her Holiday Teas. Mmmm. Delicious. “Well, that’s the thing—maybe if we can resolve—I mean, ifIcan resolve whatever is going on with that place before New Year’s Eve, then it’ll be safe for Iva and Hollis to get married there.”
“What?” Fiona’s cup clattered onto its saucer, sloshing tea all over the table. “Who?”
“Oh, it’s this darling older couple who are just gaga over each other. The groom is an old friend of Mom’s second husband, and—”
“Are you talking about Iva Bergstrom and Hollis Nath?” Fiona’s eyes were bugging out.
“Yes! Do you know them? Oh, that’s right—I think they did mention Iva has a house here. Aren’t they the cutest—”
“Callie, you can’t do that! You can’t—wait, wait,wait…how on earth did you get Iva to agree tothat? She’s gotseriousrespect for ghosts and the supernatural…I can’t see her ever agreeing to—I don’t know—disrupting a curse of whatever by doing something that’s like—like poking a bear!”
Callie was a little taken aback by Fiona’s ferocity. She wasn’t offended, she was just surprised. But maybe someone who’d dealt with her own ghostly situation wasn’t about to play fast and loose with another one.
And maybe Fiona was correct about that…
“Right. Well, actually, I don’t think Mr. Nath has told Iva about the actual venue yet. I think it was going to be a surprise…?” The expression on Fiona’s face had Callie grimacing in defeat. “Not good?”
Fiona was shaking her head. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Poor Hollis. He’s going to get himself in a crap-ton of trouble once Iva finds out he volunteered them for this crazy publicity stunt—that’s what it is, right? And how did that end up happening anyway?”
Callie was feeling utterly miserable by this point. “Well, I was trying to find a way to bolster my off-season wedding planning services, and so I decided it would be fun to offer free wedding planning and vendor services to whatever couple was willing to tie the knot on the Tremaine Tower balcony on New Year’s Eve. Kind of like a curse-debunking contest sort of thing.
“Mr. Nath heard about it through my mom, and he jumped on the chance—I think because he’s ready to tie the knot and it sounds like Iva’s been in not so much of a rush. Not because he can’t afford it, of course, but because I guess once Iva said she thought it would be the most romantic thing in the world to get married in the snow, outside on New Year’s Eve.
“So Mr. Nath thought he’d kill two birds with one stone—do a favor for the daughter of a friend, me, and present his bride with her dream wedding.”
Fiona was shaking her head. “Oh boy. It’ll be a miracle if theyeverget married once Iva finds out about this. Have you ever met a woman whodidn’twant to be in charge of planning her own wedding?”
“Oh, that’s not a problem—the reason Mr. Nath wanted to do it is because I was already meeting with them to discuss doing their wedding anyway. That’s how I know how ridiculously adorable the two of them are. I got enough information from Iva to know what she likes and what she’d want—and apparently, she agreed that Mr. Nath could pick the venue as long as it’s on New Year’s Eve. So he’s making it a sort of surprise.”
