How Heathcliff Stole Christmas: Luxe paperback

Ah, Christmas. The most wonderful time of the year. The village streets dusted with freshly fallen snow, the delicious scent of gingerbread and fruit mince pies wafting on the breeze, everyone coming together to rejoice and be kind to their fellow humans—

“… I’m going to rip your arms off and shove them so far up your arse you’ll be able to tickle your own tonsils from the inside.”

Well, almost everyone.

“You’d better get in there.” Quoth rushed into the Children’s room, where I was lining the edges of the shelves with strings of tinsel and sparkly baubles, courtesy of my mother’s latest pyramid scheme – designer decorations that cost about as much as a small car. “He’s about to go full nuclear at Morrie.”

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to guess who Quoth meant by ‘he.’ As well as being the world’s most swoon-worthy literary anti-hero and a useful member of our amateur murder mystery-solving quartet, Heathcliff Earnshaw owned Nevermore Bookshop. He could also be a world-class grump. I recently learned his grouch-o-meter dialed up to eleven the minute the calendar flipped over to December 1st. What I hadn’t yet discovered was why. Heathcliff was a soft, cuddly kitten once I’d peeled back all the layers of wanker, but lately, he’d been snapping at me and shooting down all my ideas. It was as if he were putting up all the walls we’d worked so hard to tear down.

I was determined that Heathcliff’s temper would be my next mystery to solve. Hopefully, I’d uncover the secret before he took his mounting rage out on an innocent customer.

Not that Morrie was innocent in any way. Nevertheless, I dropped my roll of tinsel and ran into the main room. I paused at the doorway, allowing light from the numerous lamps to reveal the scene.

Heathcliff stood over his desk, his hands balled into fists and his dark skin reddening with rage.

Morrie – short for James Moriarty, the infamous nemesis of Sherlock Holmes – lounged in the velvet armchair in front of the poetry shelves, unconcerned with the rising volcano of Mt. Earnshaw. Beside Morrie sat an old-fashioned boombox pumping out a tinny Christmas carol at top volume.

“No Christmas music in this shop!” Heathcliff boomed. “This is a Christmas-free zone.”

“For a Christmas-free zone, things are looking pretty jolly in here. You let Mina put up decorations all over the place,” Morrie pointed out without looking up from his book. He didn’t have to – strings of tinsel and miniature books sparkled along the edge of Heathcliff’s desk, and the oak table sagged under the weight of a large nativity scene with a stable made from books. Morrie and I had been sneakily adding figurines to the display when Heathcliff’s back was turned, and it now included a robot Jesus and a wise man carrying a sign that read, JAMES MORIARTY FOR PRIME MINISTER. “And you agreed Quoth could erect the Christmas monolith.”

To emphasize his point, Morrie reached up and tugged one of the looming branches of Quoth’s Christmas tree. Big mistake. Spruce needles rained down on his head, and a twinkling glass bauble beaned him in the forehead.

Every year, the village of Argleton ran a charity tree for the local animal shelter. A different shop hosted the tree each holiday season, decorating it how they wished and erecting it prominently on their premises. Villagers would drop off donations of cat and dog food, guinea pig cages, toys, pet beds, envelopes of money, and other supplies. They could also leave their names on a list if they were interested in adopting a shelter animal. It was an amazing community project and really helped the animal shelter get through the busy holiday months.

When he wasn't preening, hiding in the attic, or defecating on customers who quoted his titular poem, Quoth volunteered at the animal shelter. Touched by the plight of sick and unwanted animals at Christmas, Quoth offered Nevermore Bookshop to host the charity tree. After much bitching, Heathcliff agreed, provided the tree was ‘minuscule and not a bloody nuisance.’ Our instructions in hand, Quoth and I went to the King’s Copse Wood Christmas Tree lot to pick out our tree, and he fell absolutely in love with a twelve-foot spruce of needly magnificence. What could I say? Clearly not ‘no,’ since that same tree now dominated the main room of the shop. We’d had to move the Science Fiction bookcase and our leather sofa just to make room in the bay window, and even then branches touched all four walls of the room, obscuring much of the shelving and dropping a needly canopy over Heathcliff’s desk. Since the ceiling was only ten feet high, the top branches scraped across the plaster like jolly Lovecraftian tentacles devouring everything in their path.

Heathcliff went postal when he saw it… perhaps with good reason. But he’d promised Quoth and me, so he’d endured the tree’s presence in festering silence. The tree wasn’t the only thing getting the silent treatment from Heathcliff – he’d barely spoken a word to me in two days, and it was kind of breaking my heart. Now I faced him across the room as he fought to control the urge to clobber Morrie, and I’d never felt more distant from him.

Why is he so upset over a Christmas song? I wish he’d talk to me instead of lashing out. Morrie can handle him, but Quoth…

“My tree is for charity.” Quoth stiffened, a note of vexation creeping into his voice. Quoth rarely got angry, preferring to direct his feelings inward. Heathcliff and Morrie walked a dangerous line by picking on Quoth’s big, beautiful heart.

“Exactly. Quoth’s tree is for the animals. And Mina gets her bloody tinsel and her poxy nativity because she’s annoyingly persistent,” Heathcliff shot back at Morrie. “And she has lovely breasts. You do not have lovely breasts.”

“But I can be very annoying.” Morrie reached over and turned up the volume knob.

Heathcliff’s face glowed even redder. “Get rid of that boombox or it’s joining the rest of your limbs up your anus—”

“No can do.” Morrie shook needles out of his book and turned the page. “It’s my Christmas present for Mina. I got it at the village Christmas market with a whole trunk of old punk cassettes. She’s going to love it. I’m just testing it to make sure it works. You wouldn’t want me to give Mina a useless gift, would you?”

My heart fluttered at Morrie’s words. A vintage boombox and old punk cassettes? That was an awesome present.

Which was a big problem. Morrie found me the perfect present. I knew Quoth was making me something, because there was a square of canvas in his room with a sheet over it, and he refused to let me peek underneath. Since he was an amazing artist, I knew whatever he’d created would be beautiful. Heathcliff adamantly claimed he didn’t believe in Christmas gifts, but he was acting so strange that I didn’t know if he was fibbing. If he was, that meant that all three of my boyfriends put a ton of thought into my Christmas presents.

And I had no idea what to do for them. They were so different that three of the same generic gift wouldn’t cut it. Whenever I thought of something that would work for one of them, I struggled with an equivalent idea for the other two. I didn’t want one to feel as though he was less favored than the others. This was turning out to be the most stressful Christmas gift-buying experience since I was seven, when my mother joined a cult and declared everything we owned now had to be made of hemp.

Who knew having three boyfriends at Christmastime was so bloody complicated? I can’t just…

Oh, no. I tuned back into the scene in front of me. I’d let my thoughts distract me, and now—

Heathcliff had that look in his eyes.

The stabby look.

Nevermore Bookshop Mysteries
Book 1 - A Dead and Stormy Night
Book 2 - Of Mice and Murder
Book 3 - Pride and Premeditation
Book 4 - Memoirs of a Garroter
Book 5 - Prose and Cons
Book 6 - A Novel Way to Die
Book 7 - Much Ado About Murder
Book 8 - Crime and Publishing
Book 9 - Plot and Bothered
Novella - How Heathcliff Stole Christmas