Witch Oracle in Westerham—Paranormal Investigation Bureau Book 8

Christmas is in the air… but so is murder.

Lily knows all about having birthdays from hell, but now it’s her best friend Olivia’s turn. Her mother organises a get together, but things definitely don’t go as planned, leaving Olivia upset and not sure she wants to celebrate. There is one bright light at Olivia’s birthday—her favourite fortune teller, Owen the Oracle. Unfortunately, he doesn’t predict the disasters that follow the party.

When one of Olivia’s old enemies dies and she’s charged with murder, her health takes a terrifying turn, but is it the stress or something more… magical? And who’s to blame?

With time rapidly running out, can Lily and the PIB figure out what’s going on, or will Olivia end up jailed for years to come, or worse, dead?

Oh. My. God. I stood and stared, mouth agape. Excitement made me squee a little. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.” I squeed again. Amongst the twinkling lights, tinsel, and trees adorned with all manner of bright baubles stood the Christmas tree of my dreams. The tree I never knew I needed. There was only one thing that could elicit such a loss of blabber control towards a Christmas tree, and that was… squirrels!

Peering from the green branches were squirrels of every description: furry brown ones with a dusting of snow on their noses, golden ones, ones with red and white scarves and Santa hats, squirrels holding tiny presents in their little paws, a squirrel holding teeny pine cones, and my favourite, one with adorable, minuscule red deer antlers on its head. 

My grin hurt my cheeks. Will shook his head. “You’re a nutter. No wonder you feel such an affinity towards tree rats.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Insult my spirit animal again, and there’ll be no Christmas present for you in two weeks.”

He smiled, flashing his dimples, and pulled me to him. “That’s okay. I already got what I wanted.” Gah, how could I argue with that? Beren and Liv exchanged an “oh, how sweet” look. I sighed, defeated. I was torn between being disappointed I wasn’t going to win and delighted he loved me. Who was I kidding? Will loved me. It didn’t get any better than that.

“I wonder if Angelica would let me make a squirrel tree for the lounge room?”

Liv tilted her head, eyeballing the tree. “Hmm, maybe not. I’m sure she’d be okay with a couple of squirrels, though.” Liv turned to a golden-coloured tree with golden baubles and gold-coloured tinsel. “I love this one. So pretty.”

“It’s rather… gold.” They’d gone overboard with their theme, but in this display, anything went. We were in St Mary’s Church Westerham for their annual Christmas Tree Festival. Anyone could display their tree, and tonight, there were over one hundred, according to one enthusiastic woman we’d overheard earlier. They twinkled and sparkled in the muted light, surrounded by stained-glass windows darkened by night. Loud murmuring rose over a background of Christmas carols piped in through speakers.

“Mine’s better!”

“No, mine is, you mouldy crumpet-eating goat’s teat.” Wow, that was imaginative.

We all turned towards the commotion. Two men faced off in front of two trees, trees that looked fairly similar. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I shivered. It was almost the feeling of magic but was extremely subtle. It was probably just a gust of cold air—old churches were draughty, especially in winter.

“Who you calling a goat’s teat?” The taller man shoved the shorter man, sending him flying into one of the trees—I had no idea whose tree was whose. He crashed into it, sending red and blue glass baubles smashing to the stone church floor. So much for the Christmas spirit. Despite the tree’s sturdy base, it toppled backwards. 

“Watch out!” a lady yelled.

Someone else screamed.

The tree fell with a whoosh, thud, and tinkle—a combination of sounds I never thought I’d hear. The man who’d pushed the other stood glaring at his adversary who was disentangling himself from the mess and trying to stand.

A woman called out, “There’s an old lady trapped under the tree!”

Will and Beren raced over, pushing past the crowd that was uselessly standing there staring, unsure what to do. Beren helped the man get up, then helped Will lift the tree off the woman and to the side. The frame supporting it had broken—that tree wasn’t going back up. The shorter man ran at the taller one and shoulder-charged him, knocking him to the ground. Liv and I looked at each other, eyes wide.

“Are you going to do anything?” she asked.

“Nope. That tall guy’s a pig. He ruined the other man’s tree. Did you see the look on the shorter guy’s face? I think he deserves some kind of revenge.”

She nodded, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Makes sense.”

The priest and another woman in a red outfit who had a name tag on, so probably worked at the church in some capacity, hurried past to help Will and Beren. Oh. I frowned. Will breathed into the woman’s mouth while Beren performed chest compressions. The warmth of magic flowed from him. Was he healing her or just trying to see what was wrong? 

The woman in the red outfit pulled a phone out of her bag and called an ambulance. Someone started sobbing loud enough that it echoed in the now-silent church. Even the two idiots who’d been fighting over their Christmas trees had stopped pummelling each other, probably realising what had happened.