Charlaine Harris: Wolfsbane and Mistletoe

It was pretty easy to pretend both those things. Several times. Over hours.

When I woke up Christmas morning, I was as relaxed as a girl can be. It took me a while to figure out that Preston was gone; and while I felt a pang, I also felt just a bit of relief. I didn’t know the guy, after all, and even after we’d been up close and personal, I had to wonder how a day alone with him would have gone. He’d left me a note in the kitchen.

“Sookie, you’re incredible. You saved my life and gave me the best Christmas Eve I’ve ever had. I don’t want to get you in any more trouble. I’ll never forget how great you were in every way.” He’d signed it.

I felt let down, but oddly enough I also felt happy. It was Christmas Day. I went in and plugged in the lights on the tree, and sat on the old couch with my grandmother’s afghan wrapped around me, which still smelled faintly of my visitor. I had a big mug of coffee and some homemade banana nut bread to have for breakfast. I had presents to unwrap. And about noon, the phone began to ring. Sam called, and Amelia; and even Jason called just to say “Merry Christmas, Sis.” He hung up before I could charge him with loaning my land out to two packs of Weres. Considering the satisfying outcome, I decided to forgive and forget—at least that one transgression. I put my turkey breast in the oven, and fixed a sweet potato casserole, and opened a can of cranberry sauce, and made some cornbread dressing and some broccoli and cheese.

About thirty minutes before the somewhat simplified feast was ready, the doorbell rang. I was wearing a new pale blue pants and top outfit in velour, a gift from Amelia. I was feeling self-sufficient as hell.

I was astonished how happy I was to see my great-grandfather at the door. His name’s Niall Brigant, and he’s a fairy prince. Okay, long story, but that’s what he is. I’d only met him a few weeks before, and I couldn’t say we really knew each other well, but he was family. He’s about six feet tall, he almost always wears a black suit with a white shirt and a black tie, and he has pale golden hair as fine as cornsilk; it’s longer than my hair, and it seems to float around his head if there’s the slightest breeze.

Oh, yeah, my great-grandfather is over a thousand years old. Or thereabouts. I guess it’s hard to keep track after all those years.

Niall smiled at me. All the tiny wrinkles that fissured his fine skin moved when he smiled, and somehow that just added to his charm. He had a load of wrapped boxes, to add to my general level of amazement.

“Please come in, Great-grandfather,” I said. “I’m so happy to see you! Can you have Christmas dinner with me?”

“Yes,” he said. “That’s why I’ve come. Though,” he added, “I was not invited.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling ridiculously ill-mannered. “I just never thought you’d be interested in coming. I mean, after all, you’re not . . .” I hesitated, not wanting to be tacky.

“Not Christian,” he said gently. “No, dear one, but you love Christmas, and I thought I would share it with you.”

“Yay,” I said.

I’d actually wrapped a present for him, intending to give it to him when I next encountered him (for seeing Niall was not a regular event), so I was able to bask in complete happiness. He gave me an opal necklace, I gave him some new ties (that black one had to go) and a Shreveport Mudbugs pennant (local color).

When the food was ready, we ate dinner, and he thought it was all very good.

It was a great Christmas.

The creature Sookie Stackhouse knew as Preston was standing in the woods. He could see Sookie and her great-grandfather moving around in the living room.

“She really is lovely, and sweet as nectar,” he said to his companion, the hulking Were who’d searched Sookie’s house. “I only had to use a touch of magic to get the attraction started.”

“How’d Niall get you to do it?” asked the Were. He really was a werewolf, unlike Preston, who was a fairy with a gift for transforming himself.

“Oh, he helped me out of a jam once,” Preston said. “Let’s just say it involved an elf and a warlock, and leave it at that. Niall said he wanted to make this human’s Christmas very happy, that she had no family and was deserving.” He watched rather wistfully as Sookie’s figure crossed the window. “Niall set up the whole story tailored to her needs. She’s not speaking to her brother, so he was the one who ‘loaned out’ her woods. She loves to help people, so I was ‘hurt’; she loves to protect people, so I was ‘hunted.’ She hadn’t had sex in a long time, so I seduced her.” Preston sighed. “I’d love to do it all over again. It was wonderful, if you like humans. But Niall said no further contact, and his word is law.”

“Why do you think he did all this for her?”

“I’ve no idea. How’d he rope you and Curt into this?”

“Oh, we work for one of his businesses as a courier. He knew we do a little community theater, that kind of thing.” The Were looked unconvincingly modest. “So I got the part of Big Threatening Brute, and Curt was Other Brute.”

“And a good job you did,” Preston the fairy said bracingly. “Well, back to my own neck of the woods. See you later, Ralph.”

“’Bye now,” Ralph said, and Preston popped out of sight.

“How the hell do they do that?” Ralph said, and stomped off through the woods to his waiting motorcycle and his buddy Curt. He had a pocketful of cash and a story he was charged to keep secret.

Inside the old house, Niall Brigant, fairy prince and loving great-grandfather, pricked his ears at the faint sound of Preston’s and Ralph’s departures. He knew it was audible to only his ears. He smiled down at his great-granddaughter. He didn’t understand Christmas, but he understood that it was a time humans received and gave gifts, and drew together as families. As he looked at Sookie’s happy face, he knew he had given her a unique yuletide memory.

“Merry Christmas, Sookie,” he said, and kissed her on the cheek.

Like Meg Langslow, the ornamental blacksmith heroine of her humorous mystery series from St. Martin’s Press, Donna Andrews was born and raised in Yorktown, Virginia. These days she spends almost as much time in cyberspace as Turing Hopper, the Artificial Intelligence Personality who appears in her technocozy series from Berkley Prime Crime.

Although Andrews has loved fantasy and science fiction since childhood, during her years at the University of Virginia she grew fond of reading mysteries—particularly when she should have been studying for exams. After graduation, she moved to the Washington, D.C., area and joined the communications staff of a large financial organization, where for two decades she honed her writing skills on nonfiction and developed a profound understanding of the criminal mind through her observation of interdepartmental politics.

Among her less savory hobbies is toxic horticulture, or gardening with poisonous plants. Last year’s crop of wolfsbane was particularly fine.

“Why on earth would you want to be a werewolf?” I asked.

“Why not?” Tom said. “I mean, don’t you think it would be cool?”

“Cool?” I repeated. I tried to keep my tone neutral, but brothers and sisters learn to read each other.

“Okay, maybe you wouldn’t, but I’d love it,” he said, through another mouthful of spaghetti. “Imagine being able to turn into a wolf, and run free through the forest. Having a sense of smell a thousand times keener than we do. Night vision. Wolves are cool.”

He was waving his beer in his enthusiasm, and spilling rather a lot of it.