It was the day before the Winter Whimsy, everyone had been oddly quiet and complacent with no drama or threat to anyone's life. Lola and Melissa celebrated this by eating dinner with her parents the night before the big event.
Everyone in town was eager to see how it would all unfold and they were especially excited about the annual tree lighting ceremony.
"Can you believe what Lavina has managed to put together in the last two weeks? The thought alone makes my head spin and I know for a fact that the mayor didn't lift a finger," Mrs. Clifton said, raising a brow and looking with judgment brimming in her eyes.
"It's not that big of a deal," Melissa muttered under her breath.
"You should been a part of it, it's right up your alley with the planning and primping and bossing people around."
Melissa scowled at her mother and put a few peas in her mouth.
They ate and drank a few glasses of wine- and shared stories and memories of the year that they'd had.
There was so much that Melissa couldn't tell her parents and Lola was sitting on things she'd only ever told Melissa- and to think that the last few months of the year had passed and everything was different from the summer.
They shared a few glances, exchanging silent messages, and knew exactly what each glance meant.
Mrs. Clifton asked about Ed, hoping for good news but there were none.
He had up and disappeared without a trace.
She asked about Jax and there was as little to say there as about Ed, Jax had barely been seen the last few weeks, and neither had Ash or his father.
A lot of things had been left unsaid but Lola had a feeling that things were about to change, she just needed to survive this time, and then after the Winter Whimsy she'd have a conversation with Jax about the night they had in the guest room. Nothing had happened except for the two of them getting into bed and Jax innocently laying there until she fell asleep, cuddling her close and stroking her head.
Mrs. Clifton took out a cake from the fridge and put on a pot of tea.
She opened a drawer to take out the cake knife and squealed when she lifted a chain.
"I almost forgot, I found this the other day, it was in the car." She said and handed it to Melissa.
The girls looked at each other as she held the pendant from Elwina, the stone as protected and shiny as the first time they saw it.
"What car? Yours?" Melissa asked.
"Whose else?" Mrs. Clifton laughed. Her husband helped her with the tea and they sat for dessert.
"Be careful with it though, I think it has some sort of magnetism in it," She said warily.
"How do you mean?" Lola asked.
"When I tried to take it out it was etched to the seat, it wouldn't budge until I was back home and turned off the car."
Melissa scanned the pendant, Lola reached out her hand to grab it, forgetting the pain that would follow but Melisa pulled it away before her skin touched it.
Her parents were busy with the cake and talking about the big event so the girls ate their dessert and sneaked off into Melissa's room.
She tossed the pendant on the bed and they stood around it, trying to think of a logical answer to what seemed to be a supernatural problem.
"Let's just assume that she was a witch, right? What if this is hexed," Melissa said. As good a guess as any seeing as a painting in the Mayor's house was the only information there was on the St'Cloud name.
They had tried the library, city archives, and the mayor's private collection. They even tried the Blackwood library which housed several scripts of information dating back hundreds of years but with no luck.
They gnawed and scratched their heads trying to figure out the message of the necklace. Too many mystical things had happened around the necklace for it to not be construed as strange.
Lately, they'd had time on their hands, considering every other door was shut in their face so they decided to look into it before the Winter Whimsy.
Melissa turned on the computer and they sat down with a pen and a notebook, ready to search for at least one truth when all others were kept hidden.
They searched for all the keywords including; witch, pendant, magical stone, St'Cloud + Elwina.
Some gave results that led to further research and funnily enough, it all led back to Wild Cliff and one of its founding families.
There was a picture of the painting they had seen at the Mayor's house, the same family outside of a cot smiling under the sun.
An arrow in the corner allowed them to scroll amongst pictures, some were familiar and others they were seeing for the first time.
Melissa scrolled, one after another they sighed as no apparent useful information showed.
"Wait wait go back!" Lola leaned in and looked at one of the paintings.
"There, is that..." She grabbed the mouse and zoomed in on a woman in the back holding a torch, her eyes had been painted so lifelike and it seemed as though she was throwing a nasty glare at a couple by a rosebush.
"...is that your mom?" Lola asked and pressed her finger next to the face of the woman.
The eyes were uncanny, the way her lips were painted with a natural pout, and the features on her face.
"Shit you're right, it does look like her but it's impossible."
They zoomed in as much as the page allowed and stared like ghosts as the blood rushed from their faces.
The door to the room opened up and Mrs. Clifton's voice rang out in a cheerful glee. The girls were startled and jumped in their seats as their hearts did periodic backflips in their chests.
"Have you seen who's fronting the Winter Weekly?"
The Winter Weekly was the town's weekly newsletter sent out by email to those who subscribed. It was a detailed recap of the week's events and coming celebrations of the week thereafter, with a column lifting people who had done a good deed for their fellow neighbor or a student who'd gotten straight A's.
Starting December 1st it was called the winter weekly and they put in a hologram voice of Santa going ho-ho-ho when you opened the newsletter.
"Is it Mr Martin and his dog?" Melissa asked, thinking about the schnauzer that licked the whipped cream of Mr Martin's hot chocolate.
"No," Mrs. Clifton cooed and turned her phone over, "it's Lavina Sandon and Justin O'hare. I've been seeing them around town but I had no idea that they were serious." She smiled.
"Yeah it's weird to see them together but I've never seen Justin happier so I guess we should let em have it," Melissa snarled.
"Why wouldn't you be glad for them? Not all love is bad love," her mother pouted and stroked through her hair.
Mrs. Clifton gestured for the computer screen and smirked.
"Why are you looking at a painting of Rosalie St'Cloud?" She laughed as her arms shook from a shiver.