12. O Holy Night
O Holy Night
Jasper was up to his elbows in peeled mushrooms when Zahir burst through the kitchen doors. He had a wild look in his eyes. “No, no, no ! Those cuts have to be perfect ! If we leave this job for Kelly, we’ll end up with blood-splattered mushrooms and a severed finger!”
Jasper set down his knife. “Who peels mushrooms, anyway?”
“People who love perfection. And anyone in my kitchen.”
“But I thought the whole point of Saturnalia was for the witches to make this meal?”
“Oh sure, that’s the story and we stick to it.
” Zahir set about organizing containers to hold the various elements of the mise en place.
“Like I’ve already told you, we cheat. We cheat like grannies at cribbage.
There’s no other option, believe me. A few years back, Kelly tried to make an espagnole sauce and somehow created a small black hole.
And that despite having given up her powers during the Saturnalia ritual.
Like, I don’t even know how she managed that one.
But somehow I lost three whisks and a measuring cup to the Great Void. ”
“That seems unlikely.”
“And yet.” He tasted something from a nearby pot and clutched his chest like he’d been shot. “Oh sweet merciful Julia Child, no. This is off. Quick, hand me that shallot. No, the other shallot. The pretty shallot. This has to be perfect .”
Jasper couldn’t help but smile. There was something touching about the way Zahir fussed over every detail, determined to help his adoptive family maintain their dignity during their magic-free period.
“So all this prep is for them to... pretend to cook later?”
“Finally you’re catching on. What, you think I’m going to let Delilah Melrose anywhere near an actual stove? The last time she tried to make pasta without magic, she somehow managed to turn the water solid . Not frozen. Solid. Like glass. I had to chisel it out of the pot.”
“Seriously?”
“Oh ho!” Zahir went to the fridge and pulled out a container of perfectly diced mirepoix, every cube of carrot and celery precisely identical. “Suddenly we’re interested in Delilah’s culinary catastrophes, are we?”
“I just . . . it’s professional curiosity.”
“Sure, sure. Very professional. Like the way you keep staring at her like she invented sunshine? That kind of professional?”
Jasper flushed. Whoops . “Is it . . . uh . . . is it really that obvious?”
“Oh you know, only to anyone in possession of eyes. Listen, I need to say something to you...” Zahir was suddenly very still for the first time in days; something in his expression made Jasper nervous. “...and you may not like it.”
“About Delilah?”
“Sort of. Also about Moses Injabere. You met some of his family, right? They’re here for a reunion?”
“Sure, I saw a whole gaggle of Injaberes at breakfast. Which one was Moses?”
“None of them. He doesn’t visit anymore.
You see, he helped his parents move here a few years ago, and he stayed for a while, to help them settle in.
One day he came into the hotel, looking for directions to the hardware store.
One glance at those eyes and... Well, I was done for.
You know? That big romantic moment that the movies say we’re all supposed to get?
Well, I got mine.” Zahir went to the window and snipped some oregano from a potted plant.
His hands were steady but his voice had an edge.
“We were together for little while, and it was... everything. The kind of everything where you start planning a future. But Moses was a lawyer. Damn good one, too. Immigration cases, civil rights. That kind of annoying, make the world a better place type of lawyer. But Oak Haven doesn’t exactly have a thriving legal community, you know?
We don’t really do courts around here..
. I mean, unless you count Louise Demain’s occasional attempts to sue the concept of time.
” He shrugged. “Anyway, in the end, Moses left. Had to. And the minute he crossed the town line?—”
“The forgetting spell,” Jasper said quietly.
“You got it in one, Professor.” He brought the oregano over to the counter and began portioning it out, wrapping each bit in damp paper towels.
“I could have left with him. We did talk about it. Sometimes I still wonder what would have happened to me in the outside world. Hell, I watch Top Chef and know I could run circles around those nudnicks. But the Melroses are the only family I’ve got left.
And this place... it’s home. The only home I know.
Plus I’ve got the pub to look after now, and my people, too.
” His eyes met Jasper’s. “I have my people to look after.”
Oh . I see. Suddenly Jasper understood this speech wasn’t about Zahir’s past, not really.
“So the thing is, yes, relationships with outsiders do work out from time to time. Like this couple in town: Dayo and Aphra? Me and Dayo run a pub downtown—I do all the food, and Dayo does pretty much everything else. Dayo is not a witch. But Aphra is. The two of them met at Burning Man a few years back, fell in love, and Dayo gave up everything to come live here. But that’s the exception. ”
“You’re saying it does happen, though. Relationships between Oak Haven witches and outsiders do work out sometimes?”
“I mean, yeah, I guess Aphra and Dayo are evidence that it does work out. But, again, that’s the kind of crazy shit that happens at Burning Man. That’s not normal. It’s not what usually happens.”
“Well, what would you reckon...” Jasper asked hopefully. “Maybe one time out of a hundred?”
“Try one out of a million.”
“So you’re telling me there’s a chance.”
Zahir sighed. “Look, I like you, man. You’re a good guy—I can tell.
But Delilah? She’s basically my sister.” He went to the fridge to fetch another container, this one filled with perfectly julienned parsnips and turnips.
“And she’s been through enough without some county clerk striding into her life, making her care, and then just.
..” He mimicked something disappearing into thin air.
“But I’d never want to do that!”
“I know. Nobody wants to. But here’s the thing about Oak Haven: sooner or later, everybody has to choose. And I’ve watched enough people choose the outside world to know how that ends.”
Jasper thought about his carefully arranged office in the basement at the county clerk’s office.
About his perfectly organized sweaters and his calendar of dental appointments stretching years into the future.
About his parents in Hartford, his sister and her family in Providence.
.. about how his entire life was out there, waiting for him to come home.
“I wouldn’t hurt Delilah.” But it sounded lame even to his own ears.
And Zahir could certainly recognize a weak sauce when he heard it.
“You might, though. And if this goes too far? You definitely will. And then...” He sighed dramatically.
“And then Nate and I will have to bury you in the woods, which is just such a hassle, you know? The shoveling, the alibis, the argument about whether we should’ve sprung for a better-quality tarp. ..” Then he smiled, slightly scarily.
Jasper thought, oof .
“I’m totally kidding, of course. Just a joke. Anyway, enough about that! We better get back to work. If we don’t get these mushrooms taken care of, Kelly’s going to try peeling them herself, and I am not explaining another missing finger to the paramedics.”
At last, the men had completed every bit of prep Zahir could conceive of, and it was time to go.
On their way out, the newly transformed dining room stopped Jasper in his tracks.
“What the—” He gaped at the sheer impossibility before his very eyes.
“This was a completely different room when I walked in here.”
Where there had once been a typical bed-and-breakfast dining room, with heavy oak tables, colonial-style chairs, and walls adorned with New England memorabilia, there now stood a grand banquet hall that would make the Windsors blush.
The ceiling soared some thirty feet overhead, supported by marble columns wrapped in evergreen garlands and twinkling lights.
Crystal chandeliers bigger than bicycles dangled like frozen fireworks, each dripping with red and gold ornaments.
Massive tables of polished mahogany stretched the length of the hall, enough to seat hundreds, each place set with gold-trimmed china and more silverware than Jasper knew how to use.
At the far end of the hall was a small stage, dominated by an enormous glittering Christmas tree.
“But... this room is at least five times larger than the original,” Jasper said. He took a cautious step forward onto what certainly looked like genuine Italian marble flooring. “The structure of the building shouldn’t... I mean, how is this even physically possible?”
“Not a sci-fi guy, huh? Unfamiliar with rooms that are bigger on the inside?”
“Trust me, if I found myself standing in the TARDIS, I’d be just as baffled as I am right now.”
“Kelly is one of the most powerful witches in town,” Zahir said with a shrug. “Frankly the chandeliers are a little much, in my opinion, but...”
“Well...” Jasper ran his hand along one of the marble columns. “It’s one hell of a trick.”
Zahir’s eyes widened in horror. He glanced around quickly as if expecting lightning to strike.
“Don’t ever, ever call it a ‘magic trick’ in front of the witches,” he whispered urgently.
“Not if you value your current physical form. Magic tricks are what those buffoons at the casino do. You call this a spell.”
“But I thought the witches gave up their powers for Saturnalia?”
“They do, as of midnight. This—” Zahir gestured to the grandeur all around “—is Kelly’s grand finale before surrendering her magic. Speaking of which, we need to get moving if we’re going to see the ritual.”