Frankie B: Faerie Lights: Marina Witches Mysteries, #4

By Andie Low

A flying pig, the potential for troll attack, and a vampire with anger issues. What's not to love about spending time with family over the holidays?

 

The Winter Solstice is fast approaching, and Frankie Bonny is desperate to spend it with family. Unfortunately, she's light on relatives, knowing of only three, and two of them are jerks. When her friend Magda Zilonka invites her to spend the holidays with her own family, Frankie leaps at the chance.

 

So what if Magda comes from a long line of vampires, Frankie's sure she can defend herself if push comes to, ah, bite? Only after accepting does she discover that Zane, her merman boyfriend, can't attend thanks to an ongoing feud between the Nautilus and Zilonka Clans.

 

Unless he's in disguise. And it had better be a good one, because discovery would be fatal. Add to this a stolen relic, newly discovered powers and a drop-dead gorgeous vampire, and for Frankie, this will be a Winter Solstice to remember. Or forget.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Squabbling Sparrows Press
• Release date: Apr 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215779217

Book preview

1

Frankie looks around her cabin on the Pearl , the schooner she calls home. Part of her still can’t believe she wrested it away from Captain Russell Garnet, the ghost haunting the Marina Coven. Not that getting rid of him was a walk in the marina, with her enchanted amulet the thing that kept her from dying. Well, that and good old-fashioned dumb luck.

After shaking her head to clear it of thoughts of the odious ghost and his uglier parrot, Frankie’s once again in the present. The one thing she doesn’t love today is her cabin, with it being about as festive as a supermarket that’s in-between holiday promotions. A short window of opportunity to be sure, but she’s managed it.

The lack of decorations is down to her late mom refusing to celebrate the Winter Solstice. Without anything to go on, Frankie hasn’t got a clue what’s involved. No inherited decorations, no inherited rituals. Nada. Add to this November disappearing due to a visit to a parallel universe and she hasn’t had nearly enough time to get ready.

Frankie’s trawling through Wikipedia intent on finding something she can work with, when Colin Bonny knocks and strolls into her cabin. He’s the latest relative she’s found, and the pick of the bunch to date. Moreover he’s her dad, not that you’d know it to look at him. Like her he’s tall, athletic and has fiery red hair, but his youthful looks often have him being mistaken for her brother. He’s also the reason Frankie’s agonizing over making this the best solstice, ever.

Unlike her mom, her dad’s all for marking the solstice rather than letting it slide by unnoticed. He’s never said as much, but there’s no missing his whole face lighting up whenever anyone mentions the holiday, no matter how briefly.

His disappointment on scanning her cabin is enough to have Frankie feeling even guiltier about her lack of progress. After what her dad’s been through in the preceding twenty years, she needs to go all out for him.

It’s the least she can do when it was him being stuck in the parallel universe responsible for nixing November that allowed her to lead a normal life. Well, as normal as is possible for a witch who’s been jinxed for most of her life. And a jinx that left her practically powerless at that.

Thank goodness she’d stumbled onto her own Mr Miyagi who’d taught her Jeet Kune Do the martial art developed by Bruce Lee. While her magic powers were known to let her down, her fighting skills never did. As a kid, it was these that were often all that was between her and a beating. More than once they’d protected her from the scum in the low-end neighborhood that was all her mom could afford.

Frankie shakes her head to clear it of these less than pleasant memories. Unfortunately it’s finding the present isn't too hot either. Her dad, obviously finding the lack of cheer in her cabin not to his liking, has wandered off again.

He does that a lot these days, going from cabin to cabin as if searching for something. Too often she’ll find him standing in the middle of an empty cabin, his expression pensive and his eyes glittering with unshed tears. While Frankie’s had longer to come to terms with the death of her mom, seeing her dad choked up soon has her the same way.

What the pair of them need is a diversion of epic proportions. Here’s hoping her new powers will allow her to decorate her cabin to within an inch of its life. She wants to make that solstice induced smile of her dad’s a permanent feature.

She knows she can’t aim too high, starting from scratch as she is. Perhaps something small, just to get things moving? Frankie scrolls down the screen on her phone until she finds something that will be perfect. A yule log. This should be easy enough. She just needs to include a fireplace in which the log can burn without taking out the Pearl in an inferno in the process.

A rough-and-ready Pinterest search and Frankie is faced with a myriad of images to choose from. After finding one particularly impressive specimen, she concentrates all her powers on manifesting something similar.

Home to the hearth

and heart of the home.

Bring me a yule log

and fire of my own.

Mark the Solstice

with wood and with bark

feeding the flame

to rid winter’s dark.

A flourish with her hand and Frankie completes the spell.

Dex, her Jack Russell familiar, who’s been lying on the end of her bed, is soon on his feet. He jumps onto the end of the huge log causing the plush reindeer antlers jammed on his head to bounce merrily. That his jaunty headwear smacks more of Santa than the solstice shows how desperate Frankie is.

Wow! I take it you didn’t mean to do this?

Rather than speaking out loud, Dex has communicated with her telepathically. This is the remnant of a spell put on him by her late mom in hopes of stopping his incessant barking. Now all Frankie has to deal with is his incessant chatter. It used to be that everyone magical could hear Dex, these days it’s just her. It’s his tendency to tell anyone he meets everything he knows that has stopped her reinstating the spell. At least this way she can have some secrets.

Frankie looks at her familiar as he sniffs the log, and even though she doubts he’s expecting a reply, she gives him one anyway. Well, duh? The small metal fireplace that barely holds one end of the merrily burning log simply isn’t up to the task. For him to think she’s done this on purpose is nonsense.

So focused is Frankie on the potential fire hazard, she isn’t aware her dad has rejoined them until he speaks. If it’s okay with you? He waves his hand at the overly large log and ridiculously small fireplace and reverses their sizes.

It’s hearing tinny barking that alerts Frankie to Dex having been shrunk along with the yule log. Any chance you can sort out Dex?

"Sorry, Pumpkin."

Frankie’s unable to stop the cringe at his use of this pet name. It was okay when she was a kid, not so much these days. There’s also the fact her hair is no longer orange and there’s a lot less of it. His using the name has her right back at school being teased mercilessly about what her mom called her ‘crowning glory’. What had been meant as a term of endearment had been an unending taunt from the other kids. Halloween had been the worst.

Another wave of his hand and her dad has the dog back to his usual size.

Dex’s body is consumed with a tsunami of shudders that wrack him from head to tail. That was awful. Never do that again. Like ever. Rather than stay sitting on the log and risk getting caught up in another spell gone wrong, Dex jumps back onto Frankie’s bed.

Sorry, Dex. Colin strokes the small dog’s wiry coat and tugs on his ears, affectionately. I’m still a little shaky with these new powers of mine.

Perhaps it’s all the years of practice he had before he was imprisoned? Either way, her dad has a better handle on his newly acquired powers than Frankie does on her own. Even so she finds it a teeny bit annoying. Whenever she tries a casual wave of her hand to reinforce a spell, it goes wrong. Nothing devastating so far, but give it time.

Zane, her merman boyfriend, has already hinted — make that nagged — that she needs to put