Free Yuletide (Matilda Kavanagh Novels Book 3) by Shauna Granger Page A

wide, lavender eyes.
    I said, “Krampus comes around a couple of weeks before Christmas to dole out his punishments.”
    “Whoa, so he’s real? He’s really real? Like alive in the flesh? And snatching kids?” Joey was starting to glitter in her agitation.
    “Calm down,” I said, hanging the last charm. I nudged the three levels of the carousel and watched the charms glint in the lights of the shop. “No one said that. I just said that a customer thinks his nephew was taken by him.”
    “But you thought you saw Krampus the other night,” Joey said, pointing at me.
    Ronnie spun around to pin me with a stare. “What now?”
    “I didn’t.” I shook my head. “I mean, I don’t know. He was just creepy. Really authentic, that’s all.”
    “Matilda Kavanagh,” Ronnie said, fisting her hands on her hips, “spill.”
    “Frogs.” I sighed. “Thanks, Joey.”
    Joey just shrugged. I told Ronnie about the lone Krampus I saw after the ball and how realistic his costume was, that he wasn’t wearing a mask and headdress like the others. I told her about the chill that had run down my back when I looked into his eyes. I didn’t mention the laugh that had been haunting me.
    “Oh dear gods, Mattie,” Ronnie said behind her had. “You should have told me.”
    “Why? I thought it was just a really good costume or a serious glamour—I’m not the only witch who can do those, you know.”
    “But people should know.”
    “Know what?”
    “That he could be back.”
    “Maybe I was right,” Joey said. “Maybe he really is snatching those kids Whelan and Bu were talking about.”
    Ronnie and I shared a look.
    “Guys?” Joey took a few steps forward to stand between me and Ronnie, turning her head back and forth to look at us. “You both look like you just saw a ghost.”
    That made us blink at her.
    “What’s weird about seeing a ghost?” Ronnie asked, making Joey’s eyes bulge.
    “Do humans not see ghosts?” I asked, earning another bulging-eye look from the half-pixie.
    “Seriously?” she asked, making Ronnie and me laugh.
    That was enough to ease the tension, and I relaxed against the counter the old register rested on.
    “I forget you grew up in the human world,” Ronnie said, turning toward a case of crystals to polish them.
    “Don’t say it like it’s weird.” Joey crossed her thin arms. Silver glitter pooled at her feet, and I realized we were edging into pissed-off-pixie-land.
    “So,” I said a little too loudly, “should we tell someone about the missing human kids and seeing Krampus?”
    “Not if you don’t want to get collared for being insane,” Ronnie said, wiping a smoky quartz about the size of a baseball.
    Joey walked over to the counter I was leaning on and jumped up, sitting cross-legged with her pointy elbows on her knees. “They would do that?”
    “Yeah,” I said with a sigh, “they might. They’ve done worse, that’s for sure.”
    “So then you go find Krampus. Where would he be, you know, if he’s still alive?”
    “The seventh circle of Hell,” Ronnie said, as I said, “In a cage in a mountain.”
    “What?” Joey asked, shaking her head.
    “Story time,” Ronnie said, moving to the obsidian display.
    “Once upon a time, in a land right here, not so long ago,” I said, getting a punch in the shoulder from the pixie girl. “Ouch, okay, okay.” I rubbed my shoulder. Tiny knuckles could still pack a punch. “You know all about the Wave of Revelation, right?”
    “Yes,” Joey said, nodding emphatically.
    “Well, after the supernaturals revealed our true natures, we needed to assimilate into human society, show them that we’re all normal, just like them. In order to do that, we had to hide a lot of our ways. We knew that someday we might be able to reveal those things, but there was no question that some things would be too much too soon. Some of those things were our gods and demigods. Most humans, though they have many, many religions, hold with the