The Full Moon's Slumber: Cinnamon Mercy Claus, #2

By Snow Eden

Book #2 of the Cinnamon Mercy Claus Series

 

Cinnamon Mercy Claus has been a witch for two years.

At least that's how long it's been since her grandmother let her in on their little secret. She's in the process of picking up her life and starting over, searching for something that means more to her than her mundane existence. Then a fairy drips down out of her bathroom faucet and tells her the moon's gone all wonky and it's up to Cinnamon to figure things out.

Since there's nothing like a threat to the earth's very existence to kick your new life into high gear, Cinnamon heads out across the country—with a talking dog and a woman who absolutely terrifies her—to figure out a mystery she doesn't have a clue about.

 

The Full Moon's Slumber is full of paranormal mysteries and witchy mayhem. It's a clean read with no profanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Azure Willow Press
• Release date: Jun 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386377757

Book preview

The Full Moon’s Slumber

Book #2 of the Cinnamon Mercy Claus Series

CINNAMON MERCY CLAUS has been a witch for two years.

At least that’s how long it’s been since her grandmother let her in on their little secret. She’s in the process of picking up her life and starting over, searching for something that means more to her than her mundane existence. Then a fairy drips down out of her bathroom faucet and tells her the moon’s gone all wonky and it’s up to Cinnamon to figure things out.

Since there’s nothing like a threat to the earth’s very existence to kick your new life into high gear, Cinnamon heads out across the country—with a talking dog and a woman who absolutely terrifies her—to figure out a mystery she doesn’t have a clue about.

The Full Moon’s Slumber is full of paranormal mysteries and witchy mayhem. It’s a clean read with no profanity.

Chapter One

I, CINNAMON MERCY CLAUS, have been a witch for two years. Well, I suppose I always had been a witch, but nobody bothered to tell me until recently. And then my crazy grandmother blurted it out. You’re a witch. Just like that.

A lot had happened recently. Besides discovering I was a witch, that is. I also found out that my grandfather is Santa Claus. The Santa Claus.

And my grandmother is the witch that keeps everything running. I saved Christmas that year. There were a few hitches, but in the end, things went as smoothly as one could expect when their grandmother — a really powerful witch — tried to ruin things. My grandmother has since resumed her duties at the North Pole and now, well, I was left out in the cold.

They’d tried to convince me to stay, but it just didn’t seem right. For all the generations of women in my family, it had always been one way; we’d marry a man who took over the duties of Santa, and we ran the show. I wasn’t ready to get married or run Christmas. I wasn’t getting tied down. I refused.

Sure, Danny was nice. He did help me save Christmas, but he had a daughter to focus on and a business to run. I pictured my life differently. It had just, well, never once gone the way I’d planned it.

You can’t go back to ‘normal’ once you discover you’re a witch. You also can’t go back to a normal life when you know there really is a Santa Claus, and elves, and flying reindeer.

At first, I tried to ignore it all. It was one thing to cast a spell in the abandoned warehouse of Santa’s workshop, but a whole other thing to go off on my own and pretend I had a clue what to do.

After returning to my home in California, I went back to work, but I felt dull, numb. I needed to break free, so I packed up my house to move. I wanted to get away from the dead-end job and the dead-end life. I also wanted to get away from my parents who still pressured me to join their business.

Now, I loved my parents, and yes, I realized I needed to be a better daughter, but getting out of a life I didn’t want to live just to end up in another one I wasn’t happy with didn’t seem like the best idea. And if I was going to start over, I wanted to completely start over. It would be too tempting to beg for my old job back if I stayed in the same town, in the same house. Destiny would repeat my miserable life over and over again.

The saddest part of all of this was that I packed up my entire house in a weekend. I had no pictures on the walls, no family heirlooms, no guest bathroom with fancy towels or those little seashell soaps. It was only Monday night, and I already had my house all boxed up and had the movers scheduled for first thing Tuesday morning.

The night was quiet. Really quiet. I tried to avoid thinking, but it got the best of me as my time in this house drew to a close. I rummaged through yet another box piled on the kitchen floor before finally coming upon the bottle of celebratory wine wrapped in my kitchen towel. I ran my fingers over the embroidered owl, admiring the detail. I didn’t know why I’d wrapped it away, unseen.

I slowly peeled back the edged of the towel, revealing the bottle beneath.

Shame on you, I whispered to myself. I fought with the sealed top, angry at myself for never deeming my life’s accomplishments worthy of a celebratory drink. My fingernail finally wiggled its way under the metal seal. I pulled the seal free, its sharp edge poking into my finger. I continued wrestling with the bottle, determined to get inside. I fumbled with the corkscrew, pulling with all my might to release the liquid inside. The cork finally let free with a loud pop. The wine sloshed over the side of the bottle, splashing onto my counter. I looked down curiously at it as beautiful crimson droplets spread throughout the liquid.

The blood slid off the cut in my finger; the wound pulled open from exertion.

Drop. Drop. Drop. Slow, steady.

I froze fast to the scene, not in fear or pain, but in the satisfaction of watching little pieces of me fall away. It seemed fitting to the occasion.

The wine bottle shook in my other hand, reminding me I still held fast to its neck. I tipped the bottle up to my waiting lips. The fat and cumbersome bottle slid against my hand as I tried to hold it tight. My blood-slick hand scrambled for the bottle, but it slid free from my grasp in an explosive exit. It skipped across the tile floor like a pebble on the smooth surface of a lake. With each jump, I cringed, waiting for the inevitable smash. But the bottle made its way across the tile and onto the carpet of the living room, spinning around and around as if locked in a perpetual game of spin the bottle. When it finally came to rest, its mouth pointed at me. I snorted at the irony, the sound echoing hollowly through my nearly empty living room.  

I moved around the counter and stopped dead in my tracks. The bottle had caught the blood from my finger. A bright smear of red ran across the length of my carpet—the carpet I had steamed that day.

The carpet awaiting new homeowners.

Chapter Two

IT PROBABLY WASN’T the best idea to down the rest of the un-spilled wine, but that’s what I did. I figured if I was revolting against my old life, I’d revolt to the fullest. Unfortunately, my stomach did the same. I’d lain there all night, curled up on the carpet, staring at the cruel stain which forced my connection to this house.

Come morning, I stumbled up from the floor, scrubbing the carpet marks from my face. I made it to the bathroom just in time to vomit the empty contents of my stomach into the sink. My lip curled in disgust as the beige liquid clung to the white bowl. I turned the water on full blast and sat down on the toilet, contemplating my next move for the day.

As my toes became wet, my mind turned from the concerns of the day to confusion over why water ran over the edge of my sink, across my bathroom floor, and out the door. And I supposed running wasn’t exactly an accurate description. The water appeared to crawl across the floor as if a singular entity.

Leaning over, I peered into the sink. Butt in the air, skirt above her head, a fairy squeezed herself from the drain. A little piece of me thought I should have screamed, or perhaps been more irked than fascinated, and maybe I wouldn’t have stared as much if she didn’t have on gold-sequined panties.

After smoothing down her wet hair, she caught my eye. She wrinkled her nose, her entire face scrunched up with the effort. Then she gave me a quick wink before jumping feet first back into the drain and disappearing.

I leaped to my feet. I trailed the water out of the bathroom door. I carefully stepped around the water trail, with the unnerving thought that it moved more like a living being than a stream of water. I caught up to the front of it as it crept out into the hall and entered the kitchen. There, it took a ninety-degree turn to the right and headed straight for the trail of blood on the carpet. It hovered there, the end of the water trail catching up to the beginning, now forming a large, gelatinous blob. The water turned off in the bathroom, but I paid it no mind. The water before me now resembled a giant, translucent slug. It pulsed in waves of shimmering blue and green.

I watched in awe as the blood on the carpet diluted and spread beneath the water slug. The blood washed out into almost an invisible sheen before it took on a new shape. A couple of small dots, then a flashing straight line appeared. But then the shape dissolved, forming yet another pattern. Circles and dots and lines of varying degrees continued to pulsate and change as if an old antennae TV desperately tried to tune to the correct station.

My hair lifted away from my face, swirling around my head like an electric tornado. Pops of electricity continued to ignite off the water creature’s back. I kneeled before the creature, now oblivious to the jumps of electricity surging through my