Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“Oh screw her,” he growled at me. “You scream one time because you thought something moved and you’re labeled for life as a scaredy-cat.”
No one in their right mind could accuse Sam Kage of being scared of anything. “It’s all right. I’d rather have you watching out for me than anyone else.”
“Thank you.”
“Jen said you carried the clown doll all the way to the trash.”
“Yeah. But my grandmother saw it and retrieved the creepy little fucker and scared the shit outta me because I thought it came back inside on its own.”
I smiled at him.
“My father took it to Goodwill for me, making it okay for my grandmother that he wasn’t throwing it in the trash, and letting me sleep because it was gone.”
“I love that your father got rid of it for you.”
“Not just for me. He didn’t like it either. He always wanted my grandmother to purge so much of her crap, but she lived through the depression where she lost everything. She wasn’t about to ever be parted from her things a second time.”
“That makes sense, but going back to the original issue, the fact is, you do not like clowns.”
“No, I do not,” he agreed.
“And moreover, we do not have a scary attic.”
“No. You can see it all from the light you turn on from down here, as it should be,” he made known, “and it’s packed to the gills with plastic tubs. Nothing scary will fit up there.”
“This is true.”
We all heard Hannah squeal in happiness then.
“Why is she excited?” I asked my son, who stacked two big, but flat, bins in my arms. It was important I always be able to see my feet when descending stairs.
“She found kugels,” he told me. “Though why finding possibly year-old food in the attic would be good, I have no idea.”
“Not kugels the food,” I told him. “Kugel ornaments.”
“They named food and stuff you hang on the tree the same thing?”
“I don’t make the rules,” I told him.
“Pa,” Hannah called me.
Moving to the foot of the attic ladder, I could see her holding a purple bin I hadn’t seen last year. I didn’t even know they made purple.
“These are all the kugels we found in Nana’s sister’s house after she passed away last year. Do you remember?”
I turned to look at my husband. “Now that was a scary attic.”
“My grandmother’s was way scarier,” he argued. “But some of the same stuff was up there, so I’ll allow that.”
“It wasn’t spooky at all,” Hannah told me, passing Jake the bin that he gave to Kola, which I then got.
Putting it on the ground, I opened it and saw the glass ornaments inside, all lovingly packed. “These are beautiful,” I told my daughter.
“They’re probably cursed,” Sam passed judgment. “My aunt Theresa was not a nice woman.” When I gasped, Sam looked at me. “What? My mother wasn’t crazy about her either, and they were sisters.”
“That’s okay,” Hannah assured him, and we both looked back up at her. “I saged every one of those before I brought them into the house and welcomed them to our family. They’re very happy to be here, believe me.”
I never doubted my witchy child.
“What about the bins by the wall?” Harper asked Hannah.
“That’s the spring stuff. The fall stuff Pa and I took down last week is on the left.”
“All the rest of this is Christmas?” He sounded panicky.
“Of course.”
We heard Harper moving above us, and then suddenly his head poked out of the opening. “You said there were only twenty-five boxes that needed to come down.”
“Maybe there’s thirty-five,” Kola grumbled. “I’ll get you that new gaming mouse you want if you stop whining.”
“I wasn’t whining, I was just clarifying, and your father already said he was going for pie, so I was good.”
“What?”
Harper pointed at everyone, including us. “But you all heard him.”
“We did,” Jake agreed. “The mouse is yours, sir.”
Funny to hear Harper cackle as he leaned back up.
The following night, Saturday, I was unpacking ornaments, Jake was giving the gigantic tree water, again, as it drank a lot, and Harper and Kola were putting up the lighted garland around the arches in the living room. Hannah was moving things downstairs to the basement to make room in the bookshelves for what she referred to as her Tiffany windows. She made each one a different theme, and they were like pockets of light and whimsy in the middle of the bookcases. I loved them, she loved them, and everyone else thought they were pretty.
Sam was not much for decorating, other than putting up the lights outside and on the tree, and since we were nowhere near the tree part, he was excused until much later in the evening. I was surprised when he arrived back, thirty minutes later, with his friends. Pat Cantwell and Chaz Diaz, his oldest and dearest, Duncan, newer but loved just as well, and three others I didn’t know. They all came into the living room.