[
    {
        "title": "(Tassamara 2.5) The Spirits of Christmas",
        "author": "Sarah Wynde",
        "genres": [
            "fantasy",
            "paranormal"
        ],
        "tags": [],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "The Spirits of Christmas",
                "text": "\"It's so bizarre,\" Akira said thoughtfully, staring up at the motionless ceiling fan.\n\n\"Is the baby moving?\" Zane asked, sliding a hand along the slight curve of her belly. He hadn't been able to feel a kick yet, but that didn't stop him from trying.\n\n\"No, not that.\" Akira tilted her head sideways, letting it come to rest against his shoulder, feeling content with her position despite her mild exasperation at her body's demands.\n\n\"Bizarre,\" Zane repeated. \"Would that be the miracle of life growing inside you?\"\n\n\"A natural process that women have been managing for thousands of years.\" Her voice was dry. Of course, it was a little strange that she knew she'd met her baby's previous incarnation\u2014she imagined that not too many women throughout history could claim the same. But no, that wasn't what she'd been thinking about.\n\n\"What then?\" Zane stroked up, long fingers reaching the underside of her breast and lightly tracing a pattern along her skin.\n\n\"How much I want red meat.\" Not just red meat. Steak. Gorgeous steak. Red in the middle, seared dark on the outside. Mmm, with salt. Luscious salt, bursting with flavor on her tongue. Or maybe a hamburger, juicy and rich, dripping with... ick. Fat and blood. That's what hamburgers dripped with. But even knowing that didn't change the way her mouth watered at the thought.\n\nZane chuckled.\n\n\"It doesn't make sense,\" Akira protested.\n\n\"Sure it does. The baby needs some protein.\"\n\n\"I ate a pound of edamame last night. A whole pound. That's about five times the amount of protein the average person needs.\"\n\nZane's hand stilled. \"I read something...\" He pulled away, Akira's head dropping to the pillow as he got out of the bed and crossed to the dresser on the other side of the room.\n\n\"Hey!\" she complained. She'd been comfortable. And his clever hands had been starting to stir up something a little more interesting than hunger for steak.\n\nHe looked back over his shoulder and grinned at her. \"Coming right back,\" he promised. He grabbed his smartphone and started tapping. \"Soy,\" he reported, \"contains phytic acid.\"\n\nAkira raised her eyebrows. \"And?\" She'd never even heard of phytic acid. Why had Zane?\n\n\"It blocks the absorption of minerals.\" He joined her on the bed again, lying down and putting a proprietary arm over her body.\n\n\"Minerals such as?\"\n\n\"Calcium, magnesium, and iron,\" he said cheerfully. \"Also zinc and mercury, if they matter.\"\n\n\"Let me see that.\" Akira held out a hand for his phone and he passed it to her, a small smile playing around his lips.\n\nShe read the information on the website he'd found, scowling. \"Damn it. All right, maybe I'm craving meat because I need iron. Fine, I'll eat broccoli.\" She couldn't suppress a shudder at the thought. Broccoli. She loved broccoli. But not for the past few months. Just the thought of it brought a nasty taste into her mouth.\n\nZane leaned down. \"Good job, Henry,\" he whispered to her abdomen. \"You and me, bud? We're gonna be friends.\"\n\nAkira groaned. What was a semi-vegetarian doing getting involved with a confirmed meat-and-potatoes man? Worse, having his baby?\n\nZane grinned. \"How about I pick up a couple filets? Fire up the grill? We can have steak and baked potatoes for dinner tonight.\"\n\n\"Steak and salad,\" she answered grumpily.\n\n\"Baked potatoes. With butter. Maybe some sour cream.\"\n\nAkira closed her eyes. Why did that sound so good? What was Henry doing to her? Having her body taken over by a sentient creature with his own tastes and desires was not what she had expected from pregnancy. Was it like this for every new mother?\n\n\"Knock, knock!\" The cheery voice from the other side of the bedroom door stopped Akira's response to Zane before she could make it. She called out, \"What is it, Rose?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry to interrupt, but...\" Rose paused and Akira's eyes narrowed. Was that nerves she heard in the ghost girl's tone? Rose wasn't the nervous type. \"I need your help.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 2",
                "text": "\"I can't believe I'm doing this.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it'll be okay. She acts real mean, but she wasn't like that when I knew her.\"\n\n\"When you knew her? When she was alive, you mean?\" Akira didn't bother to look toward the ghost seated in the passenger seat next to her. Florida drivers were insane. She needed to keep her eyes on the road.\n\n\"Uh-huh,\" Rose responded eagerly. \"She was a few years younger than me in school, so I didn't know her well, but she was nice enough.\"\n\n\"Nice enough. Huh.\" Akira thought back to the mean old woman ghost she'd met briefly on her first day in Tassamara. Meredith, her realtor, had been showing Akira houses supposedly available to rent. Akira hadn't even been willing to go into the little lakefront cottage. The angry ghost grumbling on the porch had made it clear that she wasn't welcome. \"Is that what they call damning with faint praise?\"\n\n\"No, really,\" Rose answered. \"I've visited her a few times recently. As long as you're not planning on moving into her house, she'll be perfectly friendly.\"\n\n\"That's the problem, isn't it?\" This time Akira dared a glance at her passenger. To Akira, the ghost looked almost like a typical teenage girl, with only her full skirt and blonde curls showing that she was out of her own time.\n\n\"Yes.\" A little frown between her eyes revealed Rose's worry. \"She's determined to get rid of the new tenant.\"\n\nAkira turned her gaze back to the road. Determined. She didn't like determined ghosts. She didn't like angry ghosts, either. She sighed. \"I was supposed to be writing Christmas cards and wedding invitations today.\"\n\n\"Zane said he'd take care of them,\" Rose said.\n\nAkira didn't roll her eyes, but a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, as she tried to imagine Zane's version of a formal invitation. It wouldn't be neat calligraphy, that was for sure. If she had to guess, he was picking up the phone and calling most of the people on their list. And then he'd tell her they were all set.\n\nShe dropped a hand to her belly. Rose had promised there'd be no danger from this ghost, but Akira still didn't like the thought of taking any chances with the baby. But she'd be careful. The slightest sign of dangerous energy from the old woman's ghost and she'd be back in the car and headed away, she thought, as she pulled the car over and looked at the small house.\n\nNo ghost stood on the porch, but she couldn't see any sparkling energy either.\n\nShe got out of the car and closed the door. Turning away from the house, so that no one would be able to see her lips move, she said to Rose, \"You just want me to talk to the tenant?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Rose said quickly. \"That's all. Find out if she's willing to move.\"\n\n\"What am I supposed to tell her?\"\n\n\"I don't know. But I'm worried that Hannah will start trying to drive her out. She's only held off because \u2013 well, you'll see.\"\n\nAkira nibbled on her lower lip before turning toward the house. As she walked up the short path to the front door, she tried to think of what she could say. Should she tell the truth? Or come up with a plausible lie?\n\nMaybe she could claim that something was wrong with the house. Mold, maybe. Or some undetectable poison in the air, like radon gas. Oh, or she could say that it was a former meth lab. No one would want to live in it if they thought they were being exposed to poisonous chemicals.\n\nPerfect.\n\nOf course, the owners of the house might be angry about losing their tenant to a lie. Would they sue her? Could they?\n\nShe reached the porch, still trying to decide what to say. Behind a closed screen, the front door stood wide open. A small boy crouched on the foyer floor, a wooden train in each hand, earnestly talking to himself. \"I am spendid, so I should not have to do dat job, Thomas. But James, you must take da fate to da dock. It is a Vewy Impohtant deyivey.\"\n\nAkira paused, wondering whether to interrupt him or find the doorbell.\n\nThe boy looked up at her. He had big, solemn brown eyes framed with dark lashes, short close-cropped dark hair, and cheeks so round and chubby they belonged on a chipmunk. She smiled at him. It was impossible not to.\n\nHe smiled back, exuberant joy radiating from him. \"Mama, da pwetty yady is back. And she bought a fend,\" he called out, scrambling to his feet. \"Mean yady, mean yady, ya fend is heah.\" He dashed away.\n\nAkira's brows raised in surprise. She glanced at Rose. Rose shrugged and stepped through the screen door. \"Hannah?\" she called out as she followed the boy into the house. \"I brought Akira to meet you.\"\n\nAkira tucked her hands under her arms nervously. The boy could see ghosts. Would that be a problem? Oh dear, she wished she was at home, enjoying her Saturday and planning her wedding. Or getting ready for Christmas. She and Zane had bought a tree and decorated it the previous weekend, but she wanted to bake Christmas cookies and the holiday was only a couple short weeks away.\n\n\"Toby, please stop that. How many times have I had to say it? There is no mean lady living here. It's just us, sweetheart.\" The female voice that answered him from the back of the house sounded tired, but kind. And not at all southern.\n\nAkira's unease deepened. Although some Tassamara natives had strong southern accents, plenty of people in central Florida didn't and she'd never felt like her own Californian tones stood out. But this woman clipped the 't' on 'it' and pronounced the 'r' in 'here' in a decidedly northern, maybe even British style. What could she be doing in Tassamara?\n\nShe looked for the button to ring the bell. The porch paint was fresh and glossy, but the button was old-fashioned, set deep in the door frame and lower than Akira expected it to be. She pushed it firmly, hearing a rattle and buzz echo through the house.\n\n\"Yes?\" The woman was a shadowed figure in the back of the hallway, but sounded wary, edging toward hostile.\n\nAkira forced a smile, trying to make it bright and friendly and inwardly cursing Rose. \"Hi. I'm not selling anything. Or looking for a donation.\"\n\nThe woman came no closer.\n\n\"Or, you know, trying to convert you. I'm not religious. Not that religious is bad. No offense, I hope. I actually think it's sort of nice of the Jehovah's Witnesses to care enough about other people's souls to spend their free time getting doors slammed in their faces.\" Akira paused and swallowed and took a deep breath. This was ridiculous.\n\n\"Quit dithering,\" Rose said from behind the woman. \"Good heavens, you'd think you'd never introduced yourself to a neighbor before.\"\n\nAkira tried to think if she ever had introduced herself to a neighbor. She was more the keep-to-herself type, really.\n\nThe woman took a few steps toward the door. She was wiping her hands on a dishtowel, which she slung over her shoulder with casual ease, but Akira barely noticed. The woman was tall, probably six feet or maybe even a little more, mostly thin, with long slender arms and legs, and gorgeous, with an exotic look that matched that of her son, minus the chipmunk cheeks.\n\n\"Oh,\" Akira said with relief. \"When are you due?\"\n\nThe woman put a hand on her great mound of belly. She could have swallowed a basketball. Or maybe even a beach ball. The big kind.\n\n\"In a few weeks,\" she said briefly. \"May I help you with something?\"\n\n\"I'm not due until June.\" Akira patted her own stomach. Her bump was barely noticeable, she knew. She wasn't even wearing maternity clothes yet. \"Still, if you stay in Tassamara our kids will start school together.\"\n\n\"Really?\" The woman's stiff expression melted into delight. \"How nice. Please, come in.\" She unlatched the screen door and opened it, waving Akira inside.\n\n\"Ooh, well done,\" Rose said with approval, clapping her hands together gently. \"Now just talk about babies a bit to soften her up.\"\n\n\"Hmmph.\" Akira couldn't see the mean old lady ghost, who must have been standing behind Rose, but she knew that had to be her. \"She don't need softening. She needs to get out.\"\n\n\"Now, Hannah,\" Rose started, but Akira ignored them as she followed the other woman into the living room. She glanced around curiously. She hadn't come into the house when Meredith had brought her by but it was attractive, with smoothly painted walls, polished wood floors, and modern double-pane windows. The furniture, though, looked like rejects from Goodwill, including a square-edged plaid sofa that must have been new in the 1970's, a battered coffee table, and a patched armchair. Cardboard boxes, some open, some still sealed, were stacked in the corners of the room. A small artificial Christmas tree sat on a side table, its branches heavy with ornaments that were too big for it.\n\n\"We're a little\u2026well.\" The woman waved her hand at the boxes as if to apologize for them, before saying, \"Can I get you something? Tea? Coffee?\"\n\n\"Tea would be wonderful, thank you,\" Akira answered, sinking down onto the couch. The cushions had worn away and it felt like sitting on a rock, but she smiled as the woman nodded and hurried away.\n\nThe little boy had followed them in and stood in the doorway, thumb firmly planted in his mouth, staring at Akira as if she had two heads.\n\n\"Hi,\" Akira tried, feeling shy and a little awkward. She'd never dealt with children much.\n\nWait.\n\nShe'd never dealt with children at all. She tried to remember if she'd ever even spoken to a boy his age.\n\nOh, shit.\n\nHer breathing suddenly became shallow, the gasps of an impending panic attack hovering, as she tried to recall one occasion\u2014just one, any time in her life, in her whole entire life\u2014that she had ever spoken to a child as small as the one that was staring at her.\n\nAnd she was going to be a mother? She was going to be responsible for nurturing a person that size? It was brain freeze. Like the panic felt in nightmares about final exams for classes you didn't know you were taking or walks down Main Street naked.\n\nShe knew she didn't whimper. Her throat was far too closed off for that.\n\n\"Cut it out. Akira, stop it.\" Rose's words finally penetrated Akira's fog of fear.\n\n\"I can't have a baby,\" Akira mumbled. \"I don't know anything about kids. I don't know how to be a mother. I didn't even have a mother. She died when I was tiny. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how\u2014ow.\"\n\nThe sizzle as the ghostly energy passed through her head felt like an electric shock, only cold. She put her hand up to her cheek. \"Ouch,\" she repeated.\n\n\"You needed it,\" the old woman ghost said, entirely without sympathy. \"Don't be stupid. People have children all the time. You'll be fine.\"\n\nAkira worked her jaw. Shit. That hurt. It wasn't like a physical hit\u2014she wouldn't bruise\u2014but the pain lingered.\n\n\"Da mean yady hit you,\" the little boy said.\n\n\"She sure did,\" Akira answered, rubbing her face.\n\n\"Mama can't see heah.\" The boy tilted his head to the side, as if considering whether or not to pay the asking price at an auction. Akira wondered what was on sale and whether it was her.\n\nWarily, she said, \"Most people can't. She's a ghost.\"\n\nHis eyes went wide, wider than nature had already left them. \"Like Caspah?\"\n\nThe smile tugged at her cheeks but she kept her face straight as she answered, \"Maybe more like his cousins. Or brothers. Whoever those other mean ghosts are.\" She didn't look at Hannah, but she heard her harrumph of disapproval.\n\n\"And da pwetty yady?\" he asked eagerly.\n\n\"Rose,\" she answered. She glanced over at the girl ghost, wondering why Rose hadn't introduced herself to the boy.\n\nRose shook her head. \"He can't hear us,\" she said quietly. \"Seeing us will pass, probably soon.\"\n\n\"Yike da fyower?\" he asked.\n\nAkira nodded.\n\n\"She's pwettier dan dem,\" he said. \"She should be a daisy.\"\n\nRose laughed and patted her blonde hair. \"Tell him roses smell better,\" she suggested to Akira, before blowing a kiss to the boy.\n\nAkira passed along the message as the boy's mother came back into the room, a teapot in one hand, and the handles of two mugs looped around her other index finger.\n\nHannah snorted. \"Not even a tray. And she'll chip the dishes carrying them like that.\"\n\n\"Do you take milk or lemon?\" The woman asked.\n\n\"Black is fine,\" Akira responded as the woman set the pot on the table. \"You're not from around here, are you?\"\n\n\"No.\" The woman put the mugs down with a slight clatter. \"Is it that obvious?\"\n\n\"Southerners think tea is a cold drink with lots of ice and lots of sweetener,\" Akira answered her. Drat. She'd guessed as much already, but if the woman had been a local, telling her the truth\u2014that her house was haunted by an unfriendly ghost\u2014might have worked.\n\n\"Is that what you wanted?\" About to sit down, the woman paused, looking dismayed. \"I can get some ice.\"\n\n\"No, no.\" Akira shook her head. \"I'm not from here, either. I like my tea hot.\"\n\n\"Oh, where are you from?\" Within seconds, they'd introduced themselves and were chatting, about the south, about Tassamara, about babies. The woman, Nora, was friendly but reticent. She seemed eager to talk about the town, reluctant to reveal anything about herself.\n\n\"So how did you know I was pregnant?\" Nora finally asked.\n\nAkira blinked, not sure what to say.\n\n\"Oh, she thinks you came by to meet her because you're both having babies. That would have been right nice of you,\" Rose said, nodding approval.\n\n\"Meredith mentioned it.\" Akira felt her cheeks turning pink at the lie. She leaned forward, setting her half-empty mug on the table.\n\n\"Meredith?\" Nora questioned, taking a sip of her tea, long brown fingers wrapped around her mug.\n\n\"Your realtor?\"\n\nNora shook her head.\n\n\"Did you work with someone else from her office?\" Akira's voice didn't squeak. In fact, she was pleased with herself for the calmness of her response.\n\n\"I didn't work with anyone,\" Nora said, frowning.\n\n\"How did you rent the house?\" Oh, dear. Akira felt like she was digging a hole, deeper and deeper. Lying was always such a bad idea. Avoiding tricky questions worked so much better.\n\n\"I... know the owner.\" Nora's words were careful, but Akira noticed how her fingers had tightened on the mug.\n\nAkira lifted one shoulder in a shrug. \"I guess I just assumed,\" she said quickly. \"It's such a small town. Everyone knows everything. Have you had a chance to try the bistro yet?\"\n\nNora's eyes were wary. \"No, we haven't gotten out much.\"\n\nToby had been leaning against her leg, listening to the conversation and watching Akira with a curiosity that she had been trying to ignore. Nora put a gentle hand on his head, stroking the dark fuzz as if it soothed her.\n\n\"Maggie's a wonderful cook. She makes incredible eggplant parmesan.\"\n\nNora's answering murmur was noncommittal. She lifted her mug to her lips.\n\n\"Good waffles, too,\" Akira added with a smile directed at Toby.\n\n\"She know da mean yady. And da pwetty yady. Da pwetty yady's named aftah a fwower.\" Toby suddenly volunteered.\n\nNora's mug jerked convulsively. \"Is that what you were talking about?\" she asked with pretended ease.\n\n\"Uh-huh.\" Toby looked up at his mother. \"Da mean yady hit heah and it hurt,\" he said in a whisper so loud that Akira was sure it could be heard down the street.\n\n\"Okay.\" Nora smiled down at him. But her eyes, when she raised them to Akira, shot daggers. \"Why don't you go find your trains, darling? I think Edward might have been in that last box I opened.\"\n\n\"Da one in da kitchen?\" Toby asked, sounding hopeful.\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\nWith a jubilant, \"Yay, Edward,\" he pushed himself away from her and ran off.\n\n\"How old is he?\" Akira asked, hoping she sounded polite, not panicked. \"He seems very verbal.\"\n\n\"Are you insane?\" Nora's whisper was much quieter and much, much angrier. \"Bad enough that he imagines mean people living with us, but you go and tell him that the mean people hit you? Do you want him to have nightmares?\"\n\nAkira opened her mouth. Then she closed it. Then she tried again. \"That's not what happened.\"\n\n\"Was he lying?\" Nora sounded calmer, sadder, as if a 'yes' would be nothing more than she expected.\n\nAkira paused. Hell. She hated this. She glanced at Rose, who nodded encouragingly, and with a sigh, said, \"No. Not really.\"\n\nNora set her mug down with a sharp thud. \"What is that supposed to mean?\"\n\n\"Your house is haunted.\" Akira knew as soon as she said it that it was too blunt, that Nora wouldn't react well, and she was right.\n\nNora half-laughed and then her face hardened. \"I don't know how you found us, but I'm not stupid enough to fall for this. Get out.\" She stood up.\n\nAkira didn't move. \"Hannah, the ghost who lives here, doesn't want tenants,\" she said, keeping her voice even with an effort. She hated this, hated it with a passion, and she was so going to yell at Rose when they got home. But she'd done these negotiations before. Once a ghost sucked her in to trying to help it, it was easier to just keep going.\n\n\"About time you told her so,\" Hannah snapped. Akira had successfully ignored the old woman's complaints while she'd talked to Nora, but she'd been aware of them. Hannah was determined that Nora and Toby should leave.\n\n\"Not helpful,\" Rose muttered, looking worried.\n\n\"Hannah?\" Nora looked startled and then her lips firmed and she said, enunciating every letter, \"Hannah can go to hell. And you can join her there. Get out of my house.\"\n\nAkira blew out a long breath. For a moment, she sat and thought while Nora glared at her. And then she stood. Hannah hadn't known Nora in life so no private information could convince her of the truth of Akira's words. Without that, what did Akira have? Just Toby. And using the boy to persuade his mother that ghosts were real seemed unfair.\n\n\"Where do you think you're going?\" Hannah sounded angry and Akira glanced in her direction. Edges pink, but nothing to worry about. The ghost was nowhere close to losing control.\n\n\"I don't know how to convince you,\" Akira said, turning away from Hannah and back to Nora. \"But it's a small town. If you decide you need me, ask anyone.\"\n\n\"I won't need you.\" Nora gestured toward the front door, scorn in every line of her body.\n\nAkira tried to smile. \"You never know.\"\n\nOnce on the sidewalk, she sighed.\n\n\"That didn't go well.\" Rose was right behind her.\n\n\"The making friends part started off okay.\" Akira kicked at a crack in the pavement, feeling gloomy. She'd never found it easy to make friends, but her ten minutes of casual conversation with Nora had been nice. The other woman had shown a natural warmth and wry humor that Akira enjoyed.\n\n\"You need to tell her to get out,\" Hannah hissed. She'd followed them out, too, and was standing next to Akira's car. \"I don't want them here.\"\n\nAkira's eyes narrowed. She looked at the distance between the car and the porch, trying to measure how far apart they were. She'd assumed that Hannah was tied to her house in the way that ghosts who died untimely deaths tended to be. Was she wrong?\n\n\"Why not?\" she asked. \"They seem as if they'd be good company. The boy can even see you.\"\n\n\"This house belongs to my son,\" Hannah snapped. \"No one else.\" She crossed her arms over her chest, half hostile, half defensive at revealing so much.\n\nAkira refrained from rolling her eyes. \"Your son has been trying to rent it out for at least a year,\" she said, mustering all the patience she could manage. \"Why can't you be happy for him that he's finally found someone to pay a few bills?\"\n\nHannah glared. \"He hasn't visited once. Not once. And I need...\" She looked away, but Akira had already caught sight of the tears in her eyes.\n\n\"Oh, hell.\" Akira stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jeans and hunched her shoulders. \"You could leave any time, couldn't you?\"\n\n\"I'm not going until I've said good-bye.\" Hannah grated out the words through clenched teeth. \"And\u2026\" She swallowed and said in a much smaller voice, \"\u2026and apologized.\"\n\nOut of the corner of her eye, Akira saw a flicker of movement at the window. She looked back at the house. Nora was watching them. Well, or her, anyway. Great. Not that their chance of real friendship had ever been high, but being seen talking to herself on the sidewalk couldn't help.\n\nStill, it gave her an idea. \"Okay, but you don't need Nora and Toby gone. What you want is for your son to come home, right?\"\n\nHannah nodded stiffly.\n\n\"Zane can find anybody,\" Akira said with confidence. \"You leave Nora and Toby alone and he'll find your son. We'll make him visit you.\"\n\n\"How will you get him here?\" Hannah asked, her suspicion clear.\n\n\"Leave that to us,\" Akira said. \"Do we have a deal?\"\n\nHannah pursed her lips. \"Two weeks,\" she said finally. \"I'll give you two weeks.\" She pointed back at the house melodramatically. \"After that, I will do my best to make her existence hell on earth.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 3",
                "text": "Akira stared at where the ceiling fan should be. She couldn't see it in the darkness but she knew it was there.\n\nIt's a natural process, she told herself. Women have been managing for thousands of years. She'd said that to Zane so blithely just a few days ago. But that had been about her body making the baby. Sure, it was a miracle, but it was an ineluctable miracle\u2014her body would take care of the details without her.\n\nRaising a child, on the other hand, was a process consisting of innumerable daily decision points. Decision points that she had no idea how to make.\n\nIt was stupid to be scared. There was no point. Like it or not\u2014and she did like it, very much, or at least she had just a few short days ago\u2014the baby was on his way.\n\nThe thought was terrifying.\n\n\"Rose, Rose.\" Akira lifted her head. Had she heard someone calling Rose's name? The sound was like a whispered hiss, at the very edge of her hearing. She listened, but it didn't happen again. She rolled over, burying her face in her pillow.\n\nShe shouldn't be lying awake worrying about her not-so-theoretical future child; she should be worrying about Toby and Nora. Finding Hannah's son hadn't proven as easy as Akira had expected. Zane's gift worked best when he could touch an object that was connected to the person or thing that he was trying to find. Akira suspected it was some form of quantum entanglement. Unfortunately, he couldn't touch a ghost.\n\nAnd Akira was very afraid that she'd screwed up. Maybe big time. Asking Meredith about the owner of the house had seemed like a logical next step. The realtor had to know how to get in touch with him, right? But Meredith had been surprised to hear that anyone was living there.\n\nThe owner had had the house remodeled, planning to live in it himself. Apparently, he'd then changed his mind and posted it for rent over a year ago. Meredith had never managed to find a tenant.\n\n\"Ever since the real estate crash, Florida's got more houses than people. Even in Tassamara, some are always empty,\" she'd told Akira. \"And there's something about that one. People just don't like it. It's a sweet little house, great light, top-of-the-line appliances. Seriously, I'd love to have that double oven in my kitchen. But I've shown it a dozen times and\u2026\" Her voice trailed off and her eyes narrowed. \"You wouldn't even go inside.\"\n\nAkira'd shrugged, feeling awkward. News traveled and most people in Tassamara knew she saw ghosts. Still, she didn't like to talk about them. The absolute last thing she wanted was for her life to turn into an on-going episode of some ghost-hunting reality television show.\n\n\"Huh,\" Meredith said thoughtfully. She tapped a pencil on her desk. \"But I haven't heard anything from the owner about taking it off the market. Let me get in touch with him and get back to you.\"\n\n\"Can't you just give me his contact info?\" Akira asked.\n\nMeredith's answer came after a long pause. \"You're about to marry the source of 70% of my business,\" she said. \"I will if you insist. But I'd rather not. Respecting people's privacy\u2014everyone's privacy\u2014is important to me.\" She waited.\n\nAkira had gotten the message. It wasn't a threat, not really. But keeping secrets was a two way street.\n\n\"I'll ask him to contact you as soon as he can,\" Meredith added, more gently.\n\nAkira had had to accept that. But what if the owner hadn't given permission for Nora to be there? Akira rolled over, snuggling closer to Zane.\n\nHe was asleep, damn him.\n\nNo, not damn him. She loved him. She did. She adored so much about him, including his calm certainty that everything would work out fine. She just wished some of that calm would rub off on it. She draped her arm over his chest and pulled herself closer.\n\n\"Mmm?\" he murmured a question.\n\n\"Love you,\" she whispered, feeling the undercurrent of desperate nerves in her own voice. What kind of mom would she be? She felt tears prickling the back of her eyes and furiously blinked them back. This was crazy. She was crazy.\n\n\"Hey.\" He shifted under her arm, turning to face her. The room was dark, but he reached a hand up, tracing it along her arm and shoulder until he reached her face. \"Are you freaking out again?\"\n\n\"Kind of,\" she admitted in a tiny voice.\n\n\"Do you want the science lecture?\"\n\n\"Uh-huh.\" She sniffled.\n\n\"Pregnancy causes hormone production to increase,\" Zane dutifully started. \"Estrogen, progesterone, and human chorionic\u2026\"\n\n\"Gonadotropin,\" she prompted.\n\n\"Right, that one,\" he agreed, sliding his hand from her face down and around to her back so that his arm was around her. \"All of them affect emotion. They're making a nice, safe, nurturing place for Henry to grow, but the side effects are rough on you. It's just chemistry, babe.\"\n\nAkira's eyes still prickled but her lips curled up nonetheless. All her life, science had been a refuge to her. People make no sense? That's okay, because science does. Having Zane help her retreat into scientific analysis when she felt bad was\u2026 the tears spilled over.\n\n\"Hey,\" he protested, pulling her closer so that she was pressed against him. \"That's not how it's supposed to go.\"\n\n\"No, I'm happy,\" she said through her tears. \"That was\u2014you are\u2014I don't know how I got so lucky. I\u2014\" She took a few deep shaky breaths, trying to hold back the full-fledged bawl that was impending.\n\n\"Akira.\" Rose's voice came from right behind Akira's shoulder. \"I need you.\"\n\nAkira rolled away from Zane, startled. \"Rose!\" she protested. \"Our bedroom is supposed to be private, remember? We talked about this.\"\n\nIn the darkness, Rose stood above her, glowing. Not pink or red or the colors of upset ghost that Akira had seen before, but a steady gold light, shining like a halo outlining the teenage girl's image.\n\nAkira quit complaining. \"Wow.\"\n\n\"I need you,\" Rose said again.\n\n\"Tell me.\"\n\n\"Hannah's here. She says something is wrong with Nora.\"\n\nAkira was out of bed almost before Rose finished her sentence. \"Come on,\" she told Zane. \"We have to go.\"\n\n\"Do I get to find out where?\" he asked, voice dry, but he was already sitting up, reaching for the lamp on the bedside table.\n\nAs he flipped the switch, light chasing away the shadows, Akira smiled at him. In a mood swing that was already starting to feel almost normal, she felt completely, serenely, intensely happy. Worrying about something she could immediately do something about was much better than worrying about a future that she couldn't control. And as long as Zane was with her, everything would be fine."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 4",
                "text": "\"Should we ring the doorbell?\" she asked tentatively. Hannah and Rose had disappeared into the house, but she and Zane weren't ghosts and couldn't walk through walls.\n\n\"As opposed to what exactly? It's 2AM.\"\n\n\"Good point.\" The porch was dark, but Akira felt around where she remembered the doorbell to be. She found it and pushed hard, then waited, tapping one foot anxiously. \"If she doesn't answer the door, what do we do? Call for help? Break a window? Keep ringing and hope someone wakes up?\" she asked, throwing out possibilities as fast as she could think of them.\n\nZane reached around her and put his hand on the door, then mumbled something grumpy under his breath, opened the screen door, and tried again. \"Oh, clever,\" he said with approval, holding the screen door open with his shoulder. \"She must be tall.\"\n\n\"Um, yeah.\" Akira watched, bemused, as Zane reached up to the porch light, high on the wall. He unscrewed the top, a bronzed steel square that sat firmly on glass walls, as if he were going to change the unlit bulb inside, and lifted it off carefully. A key was taped to the interior.\n\n\"How did you\u2026\" Akira started in wonder, before shaking her head and falling silent.\n\n\"Locks and keys, they're connected.\" Zane started to pick at the tape before pausing, cocking his head to one side. \"Sounds as if we don't need it.\"\n\nThe light came on first. Akira forced a smile at the tiny circle in the door as Zane returned the top of the light to its base, leaving the key in place. She hoped Nora wouldn't walk away in disgust.\n\nRose popped out through the wall. Akira blinked hard, two, three times. Rose's glow was even more intense than it had been. She was lighting up the darkness like a solar flare.\n\n\"She's sick,\" Rose said hurriedly. \"I don't understand what's wrong, but she's pulling energy out of me like a vampire. She needs a doctor. Or a hospital. Or something.\"\n\n\"She's pulling what?\" Akira asked. She took a nervous step away from Rose. Spirit energy, even unusually pretty spirit energy, made her uneasy.\n\nThe door flew open. \"What are you doing here?\" Nora glared.\n\nZane's hand dropped onto Akira's shoulder, a comforting weight, as she stared at Nora. \"You got fat.\"\n\nNora closed her eyes. \"It's the middle of the night. Why are you at my door?\"\n\n\"Hannah said\u2014\" Akira started, before stopping. \"No, you're fat.\"\n\n\"I'm pregnant. Pregnant women gain weight,\" Nora snapped. But Akira ignored her. Nora had been rotund with pregnancy before, but more like a balloon halfway up a stick than a comfortably maternal cushion. Now, though, even her face was puffy and swollen.\n\n\"She's sick,\" Rose whispered into Akira's ear. \"Really sick.\"\n\nAkira nudged Zane with her elbow. \"Call an ambulance.\"\n\nNora stared at her. \"Are you insane? Are you\u2014oh, that's a stupid question. You think you see ghosts. You are crazy. You need help. Go away.\"\n\nShe started to slam the door, but Akira stuck her hand out and caught it, pushing against the wood and stepping forward and into the house. \"What happened before?\"\n\nNora pulled herself up, but the hand draped across her mound of belly was more revealing. The brown fingers looked like fat sausages. \"I don't know what you're talking about.\"\n\n\"She passed out,\" Hannah reported, hovering behind Nora. Akira glanced at her. The old woman had never looked anything but hostile, but her scowl now held concern, not just annoyance. \"It looked like some kind of a fit. She twitched and shook.\"\n\n\"Hannah says you fainted,\" Akira reported. \"And maybe had a seizure?\"\n\nBehind her, she could hear Zane on the phone, giving the address of the house.\n\n\"What the\u2014\" For a moment, Nora looked almost afraid. Then she lifted her chin high and said poisonously, \"I have no idea what's wrong with you. But I am not some gullible idiot. I don't know why you want to scare me away, but if you've got cameras on this house, you might as well stop recording. You're not going to see anything interesting.\"\n\n\"Mm-hmm.\" Akira ignored her. She was trying desperately to remember what it meant that Nora was so much fatter than she had been. She'd been reading books about pregnancy. She knew she'd seen something about rapid weight gain.\n\n\"Ooh,\" Rose squeaked. \"That's so weird.\" Akira glanced at her. Rose had her arm outstretched toward Nora's belly and warm yellow light was flowing from her open hand toward the woman's midsection.\n\n\"I don't remember.\" Akira bit her lip, chewing on it uncertainly. She ought to know this. But she was almost more worried about what was happening with Rose. Should she be dragging the ghostly teenager away from Nora somehow? Or yelling at Nora to get away? Ghostly energy could be dangerous.\n\nBut the glow didn't look threatening. And this was Rose. She tried to remember what Dillon had told her about his other dimensional experience. Rose had managed to withstand the energy storm so maybe her energy was somehow different, either on another frequency or composed of different particles?\n\n\"Preeclampsia,\" Zane said from behind her. \"High blood pressure.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Akira's hands met, in a triumphant clap, before she clasped her fingers together nervously, as if in prayer. \"You need to go to a hospital, right away,\" she told Nora.\n\nShe was no longer worried about Rose's energy. The ghost girl had brought Akira back from the dead and had helped Dillon when he was lost in another dimension. Akira refused to believe that anything Rose would do could harm Nora and her baby. And although she didn't know what was happening with Rose's spirit energy, in the physical world she knew that Nora needed help.\n\nFor the first time, Nora looked more vulnerable than angry. \"I don't know what you're talking about.\"\n\n\"Yeah, you do,\" Akira answered her. \"You're not stupid. You know something's wrong. If Hannah can tell that you're in trouble, you must know you are, too.\"\n\nNora paused. One hand rose to pull her light cotton robe closed at the throat. \"I can't leave Toby.\"\n\nAkira froze. Oh, dear. Oh\u2026dear. \"His father?\" she asked tentatively. Nora had said nothing about a partner or husband when they first met, but she'd assumed there must be a man somewhere.\n\n\"Not available.\" Nora pursed her mouth. \"The baby's not due until January. I'll call my doctor in the morning.\"\n\nAkira glanced at Zane, uncertain.\n\n\"Nope.\" Calmly, as if he barged his way into strangers' houses every day, he urged Akira forward a few more steps and stepped into the house behind her. \"Zane Latimer.\" He introduced himself to Nora easily, holding out a hand for her to shake. \"Do you have a bag packed for the hospital?\"\n\n\"I\u2014\" Nora fell back a few steps automatically and then drew herself up. She was just an inch or so shorter than Zane, Akira noted, impressed. It must be nice to go through life able to reach the top shelf. \"If you don't leave, I'm calling the police.\"\n\n\"You do that,\" he said agreeably. \"I'm not sure who's on night duty this week. Maybe Tim? But I'm sure he'd love to hear from you. Job gets boring, after all. You want my phone?\" He pulled his phone back out of his pocket and held it up as if he'd pass it to her if she nodded.\n\n\"You people are insane.\" Nora spat the words out, face flushed.\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" Rose murmured. \"I think maybe it's a bad idea to make her mad.\"\n\nShe passed through Akira to step closer to Nora. Akira shivered convulsively as Rose's energy sparkled inside her, but as Rose moved away, she stared after her, startled. Ghost energy felt like ice usually, a chill so cold it was painful. Rose felt more like a shot of whiskey, burning its way through her veins but leaving a soothing buzz in its wake. Whatever it was, it was unlike any spirit energy that Akira had ever felt before.\n\n\"What are you doing, Rose?\" Akira asked as the ghost first touched Nora's expanded midriff, then wrapped an arm around Nora's shoulders as if half-hugging her.\n\n\"I'm not sure.\" Rose sounded dreamy. She started humming under her breath. \"Calming, I think.\"\n\n\"Good,\" Hannah said unexpectedly. \"If the girl's blood pressure is too high, getting excited can't be good for her.\"\n\nNora did look calmer or possibly dizzy. Her eyes were almost unfocused, as if she were listening to Rose and no longer entirely present.\n\nZane slipped his phone back into his pocket and shot a questioning look at Akira. In the distance, Akira could hear a siren. \"What's going on?\" he asked quietly.\n\n\"Rose. Some kind of ghostly energy. I think she's trying to lower Nora's blood pressure.\" Akira breathed her response, voice barely above a whisper, not wanting to break into Nora's reverie.\n\nZane's eyebrows arched in surprise. \"Did you know she could do that?\"\n\nAkira shook her head. This was all new to her. Maybe spirit energy worked on a spectrum, like electromagnetic radiation? Rose's new ghostly energy might be a different frequency than the energy that Akira had experienced before. Like infrared versus ultraviolet. If only she'd found a way to measure spirit energy.\n\nBut she pushed thoughts of the science away. At the moment, their first priority was to get medical attention for Nora, and to decide what to do about the small boy presumably still sound asleep somewhere in the house. And maybe later Rose would let Akira run some tests."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 5",
                "text": "Where the hell was Rose when she was needed? Akira thought irately. She wanted that magic calming potion back. Like, desperately, like, right now. She wasn't sure who she wanted it for, though, whether it was for Toby or herself.\n\nToby paused.\n\nAkira held her breath.\n\n\"I\u2014I\u2014I\u2014\" he gasped. \"I want my mama!\" And then the wails started again.\n\n\"Spank him,\" snapped Hannah. \"Shock him out of it.\"\n\n\"I'm not going to hit him because he's scared,\" Akira hissed at the ghost. \"Why would that make him feel better?\"\n\nHe was like a siren, like a wind-up toy that went on and on and then trickled down, and then started up again. Akira found herself wondering why his throat didn't hurt. If she cried like that, it would be painful. Shouldn't the pain make him stop?\n\nShe pressed her back against the wall, appreciating the solid feel of it behind her. This had to be a nightmare. It had seemed so logical when Rose accompanied Nora in the ambulance and Zane followed them both to the hospital.\n\nHe'd never met Toby; Nora, who seemed completely dazed by then, would be happier about leaving Toby with a strange woman than a strange man; and he could handle Nora's paperwork with a wave of his GD administrative wand and/or the platinum credit card in his wallet.\n\nAkira had agreed. But she'd been hoping, despite all logical evidence to the contrary, that Nora would be home before Toby woke up. A quick check at the ER, some pills to lower her blood-pressure, and why not?\n\nNo such luck, though.\n\n\"Fine, if you won't, I will.\" Hannah strode across the room to where Toby was sitting up in his twin bed, sobbing. \"Quit crying or I'll give you something to cry about,\" she growled.\n\nHe looked at her for a silent second as he gulped in a breath and then the heartbroken sobbing started again.\n\nShe raised her arm, lifting it high. \"I mean it,\" she threatened.\n\n\"Don't you dare!\" Akira raced across the room, interposing herself between Toby and Hannah and glaring. \"If you even try, I will... I will... I will exorcise you!\"\n\n\"Ha,\" the old woman snorted. \"As if.\"\n\nAkira's glare didn't change.\n\nA smug smile crept across Hannah's lips. \"Worked, didn't it?\"\n\nAkira blinked as she realized that behind her, Toby had fallen silent. Tentatively, she turned. Toby was watching, eyes big, thumb locked between his lips. \"I won't let her hurt you.\"\n\nHe pulled his thumb out of his mouth. \"She not dere.\" He leaned forward and waved his hand through Hannah, then promptly tucked his thumb back into his mouth and sat back.\n\n\"Oh.\" Akira felt stupid. She should have realized. If the ghosts weren't quite real to Toby, a hit of their energy wouldn't sizzle him like it did her.\n\n\"Offer him food,\" Hannah said. \"Quick, before he remembers he's sad.\"\n\nAkira opened her mouth to object\u2014if the boy was scared about losing his mother, food wasn't going to solve his problem\u2014but then she paused. Food often did make people feel better. \"Are you hungry?\"\n\nHe nodded, still wary.\n\nTen minutes later, in the kitchen, Akira pinched the bridge of her nose. Those were real tears dripping down Toby's face, real snot coming out of his nose, but it wasn't as if she could un-put the spoon in the yogurt. She'd had no idea that breaking the smooth surface meant that the food would become inedible.\n\n\"I should have warned you,\" Hannah said. \"He's one of that kind. My boy was like that, too. Every little thing needed to be just right.\"\n\n\"Toby, sweetie, it's the same,\" Akira tried desperately. She took a bite of the yogurt. \"See? Yum.\"\n\n\"No, no, no,\" Hannah groaned as Toby sobbed harder. \"That won't do it. Offer him ice cream.\"\n\n\"What?\" Akira said, sticking the spoon back in the yogurt. \"He can't have ice cream for breakfast.\"\n\n\"Oh, please,\" Hannah snapped. \"There's no difference between ice cream and that crap.\"\n\n\"Ice cream has more fat, more sugar, less calcium.\" Akira waved the spoon, then took another bite of the yogurt. Toby might not want it, but she and Henry needed food, too, and it tasted delicious to her.\n\n\"So what? Some days you need ice cream.\" Hannah nodded toward Toby. He'd stopped crying for the moment and was again watching them with big brown eyes.\n\nAkira sighed and took another bite of yogurt. \"Ice cream?\" she offered.\n\nA cautious smile lit up Toby's face. He nodded.\n\n\"I can't believe you fed your kid ice cream for breakfast,\" Akira muttered to Hannah as she watched Toby happily spooning up the last melted drips of vanilla.\n\nHannah scowled. \"I didn't.\"\n\n\"You didn't? But\u2014\" Akira nodded toward Toby in protest. She'd listened to Hannah, thinking the older woman knew what she was talking about. She felt deceived.\n\n\"After Nick was grown and gone, I took in fosters,\" Hannah said. She fell silent for a moment, looking lost in memory, then shook her head and went on brusquely. \"Ice cream for breakfast once in a while doesn't hurt them. Kids don't figure getting it once means they'll get it all the time and showing you're willing to do whatever you can to make a bad day better means a lot. I wish I'd learned sooner how much little treats matter.\"\n\nAkira looked at the old woman. In repose, the harsh lines woven by time creased her cheeks and pulled her face down, but her eyes weren't as mean as Akira had thought they were.\n\n\"We haven't found Nick yet,\" Akira said cautiously. \"But Meredith left him a message asking him to call me.\"\n\nHannah shook her head, her eyes on Toby. \"He's never coming home. He hated it here. Always dreaming. Always working on how to get away.\" The muscles in her face worked for a moment and then she sniffed hard and brushed a hand across her nose. \"But don't think I'll let them stay here,\" she said firmly. \"I don't want company.\"\n\nWhile she was wondering what she could say to reconcile Hannah to Nora and Toby's presence, Akira's phone buzzed. She pulled it out automatically and her lips curled up as she read Zane's text. Baby girl. Five pounds, eight ounces. Doing fine. Home soon.\n\n\"We're going to find him,\" she told Hannah. \"I don't know how, but we will.\" They had to. Nora needed a safe place to live. And even if Hannah couldn't hit Toby, living with an angry ghost wouldn't be good for either him or his brand-new baby sister."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 6",
                "text": "\"So James is really splendid,\" Zane said, a red train in one hand, a blue train in the other. \"But Edward is the oldest train?\"\n\n\"James dinks he is spyendid,\" Toby told him patiently. \"But he has to pull de cars, too.\"\n\n\"Okay.\" Zane nodded, adding, as he put the red train down on the track. \"Good work ethic there.\"\n\nFrom her prone position on the hard sofa, hands cradling her cheek, Akira smiled sleepily. Zane, her sweetheart, her love, her future husband, was encouraging a work ethic? That was unexpected. Not that Zane was opposed to work; he just thought it sensible to minimize it when possible.\n\nShe let her eyes drift closed. It had been a late night, or rather a very, very early morning, and if it weren't for the two ghosts arguing behind her, she could easily fall asleep to the soothing sounds of Zane and Toby earnestly discussing the rules of train-dom, of which there were many. But Rose and Hannah's debate had too strong a hold on her.\n\n\"You'll like it,\" Rose claimed. \"It's not like you think it is, but it's nice.\"\n\n\"You didn't like it. You ain't there.\"\n\nWhen Hannah got mad, her southern accent got a lot stronger, Akira noted, eyes still resolutely closed.\n\n\"That has nothing to do with it.\"\n\n\"Course it does!\"\n\n\"I died when I was seventeen. I never left my house after that. I never grew up. You got married, you had a kid, you did stuff. You should be ready to spread your wings and learn how to fly now.\"\n\n\"That's just stupid,\" Hannah scoffed. \"You expect me to believe everyone who dies gets wings, like some kinda angel?\"\n\nRose stamped her foot. \"That's a\u2026a whatdyacallit, a synonym. A comparison. You don't need wings over there.\"\n\nA metaphor, Akira thought, but she didn't say the words out loud.\n\nHannah sniffed. \"I'm not going and you can't make me.\"\n\n\"I don't want to make you. But you can't make people's lives miserable over here.\"\n\n\"All they have to do is get out of my house,\" Hannah snapped. She stomped across the room and stood between Zane and Toby.\n\nAkira squeezed her eyes shut. Hannah was so stubborn. Her moment of softness over breakfast had disappeared after Akira had mentioned Nick. If anything, the news of Nora's baby girl had made her more determined than ever. She wasn't losing control. Her energy wasn't spiking the way that of some ghosts did. But she was pulling in power from the atmosphere, making it colder around her, and then using that energy for petty acts of malice.\n\n\"That's so weird,\" Zane muttered. Akira opened her eyes and looked across the room to where Zane and Toby sat on the floor next to a complicated layout of wooden train tracks, Hannah still standing between them.\n\n\"Stop dat.\" Toby ordered.\n\n\"Stop what?\" Zane asked, sounding perplexed. He picked up a brown freight car and turned it over, examining its fastener. \"It looks as if the magnet reversed polarity temporarily. But I don't know how that's possible.\"\n\n\"Not you,\" Toby told him. \"It's da mean yady. She is baking da train.\"\n\n\"Baking? The mean lady?\" Zane asked.\n\n\"Hannah,\" Akira said, sitting up and swinging her feet around to the floor. She glared at the old woman who glared back at her.\n\n\"Ah.\" Zane set the train back down on the track carefully. He looked at Toby and then at Akira. \"Is that why it's so cold?\"\n\nShe nodded briefly.\n\n\"She does dat,\" Toby reported matter-of-factly. He picked up one of the cars, a green passenger car, and tried to link it to the freight car before shaking his head.\n\n\"Seriously, Hannah?\" Rose said, crossing her arms over her chest. \"You're going to pick on a little boy?\"\n\n\"I want him out! I want all of you out!\" Hannah said. \"This is my home and I don't want people here.\"\n\n\"You okay, little man?\" Zane asked, putting his hand on Toby's arm. \"You look cold. You need a sweater?\"\n\n\"You gave us two weeks to find Nick, Hannah, and our time is not up yet,\" Akira said firmly. \"You leave Toby alone.\"\n\nTwo weeks. She should have bargained for more time. Two weeks would be the day after Christmas. Maybe Nora would be willing to move out if she now believed that the house was haunted? But finding a new place to live and packing for a move over Christmas while taking care of a newborn baby and a toddler on her own would be miserable, even if she let Akira and Zane help. No, Akira couldn't count on that.\n\nShe wasn't even sure she wanted to. Rose was right. Hannah should move on. This wasn't life. Unlike Rose, who thoroughly enjoyed her existence and was endlessly fascinated by the world around her, Hannah seemed trapped, tied here by regrets and sorrow.\n\n\"What's she saying?\" Zane asked, sounding distracted. Akira glanced at him. He had a strange expression on his face, as if he was listening to far-off music, his head tilted to one side, his eyes puzzled.\n\n\"Can you hear her?\" Akira asked, startled. That would be different.\n\n\"No, no.\" He shook his head, attention back in the room, and grinned at her, but the expression didn't entirely make it to his still narrowed eyes.\n\n\"She wants us to go.\"\n\nZane stood in one smooth, fluid movement. \"Let's go, then.\"\n\n\"What?\" Akira protested. \"We can't take Toby away.\"\n\n\"Sure we can,\" Zane said easily. Whatever had been bothering him seemed to be gone as if it never was. \"Nora and the baby will be in the hospital overnight. Toby can stay with us, and Hannah can have the house to herself.\"\n\nStay with us? Akira wanted to protest. Their house wasn't childproof. They had no toys. Where would he sleep? What would he eat? How would they take care of him? But her brows drew down and she stayed silent as she glanced at Hannah.\n\nShe tried not to let ghosts bully her, but it might not be a bad idea to let the old woman feel an empty house again. Maybe the silence would remind her that company wasn't so bad. And Akira wanted a chance to talk to Rose in private, away from the older woman, about that golden energy and what it might mean.\n\n\"Go and good riddance.\" Hannah grumped, stomping away from Toby and Zane toward the kitchen.\n\n\"Come on, bud. Let's go get your stuff together.\" Zane held his hand out to Toby and the little boy stood and slid his own into it obligingly.\n\n\"Can we bring da trains?\" Toby asked.\n\n\"Sure. We'll pack up some of the track, too, and maybe even that little barrel house so we can load 'em up.\"\n\n\"Dat is de barra' yoader,\" Toby corrected him.\n\nZane blinked. \"Barrel loader. Got it. Not a house.\" He grinned at the little boy.\n\nToby had taken to Zane like peanut butter to jelly, Akira thought. All right, she could do this. They could do this. As long as Zane was around, they'd be fine.\n\nAn hour later, she was not so sanguine. \"What do you mean you need to run an errand and it might take a while?\"\n\nZane ran his hand though his hair, looking guilty. \"Ah, well...\"\n\n\"You can't leave me alone with him,\" she hissed, glancing over her shoulder at Toby pushing his train along their coffee table. \"I don't know anything about taking care of a child. I fed him ice cream for breakfast!\"\n\nZane looked startled for a second before laughing. He slid his hand around her waist to the small of her back. \"Did you have some, too?\"\n\n\"Of course not.\" She put her arms up and around his neck and leaned into him, letting herself relax against his warmth, tucking her cheek into his shoulder. \"Who eats ice cream for breakfast?\"\n\nHe chuckled and she felt his breath stirring her ear as he whispered, \"There's a box of chocolates under the Christmas tree for Grace. You can feed him those for lunch if you like.\"\n\nShe snorted in protest, not lifting her head. Not likely.\n\n\"Seriously, though, I have to go,\" he continued.\n\nAt that she did pull her head away, looking up into his eyes. \"Where? And why?\" She wanted to clutch his arms and refuse to let him leave, but she didn't.\n\nHe hemmed and hawed and finally said, \"It's almost Christmas.\"\n\n\"I know that.\"\n\n\"I need to go get something. A present.\"\n\n\"No, you don't.\" She shook her head fervently. \"No. There is no present more important than being here right now.\"\n\n\"It'll be a good present,\" Zane tried.\n\n\"No,\" she repeated. \"No. No. No.\"\n\nAs the door closed behind him, she resisted the urge to kick it. What was she supposed to do now?\n\nShe covered her face with her hands trying to hide from the reality that she was alone with a very, very small person, then dropped them and straightened her back. She was being idiotic. How hard could it be after all? She could do this.\n\nShe'd start by feeding Toby some lunch. Maybe not the healthiest lunch\u2014she wouldn't try for a tofu stir-fry or anything too ambitious\u2014but she had peanut butter and jelly and bread. Every toddler liked PBJ, right? It was like a universal law.\n\nToby didn't.\n\nOr at least he didn't like her PBJ. Her peanut butter had lumps in it. Crunchy bits. All of Akira's persuasive abilities couldn't convince Toby that peanut butter was meant to have peanuts in it. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, because her jam was the wrong color. It was too red. A bad red. And the bread\u2026Toby poked at it disconsolately.\n\n\"You could take a bite and see,\" she suggested. \"Maybe it tastes better than it looks.\"\n\n\"I did.\" He pointed to the edge where the tiniest nibble of crumb might be gone. \"It didn't.\"\n\nThe ringing doorbell was a welcome interruption from the big brown eyes staring forlornly at her from across the table.\n\nMeredith thrust the take-out container in her direction in a rush of words, \"I was at Maggie's when Zane swung by and I needed to talk to you anyway, so I said I'd drop this off. But I can't stay\u2014I've got a million things to do. I left a message with Nick Bendow but I haven't heard back from him yet. His manager, though, said that he's on an international tour and has been gone for months.\"\n\n\"A what?\"\n\n\"Yeah, fun, isn't it? He's a musician. Anyway, the manager didn't know anything about Nick letting someone use the house. He's going to check, but I think your tenant is probably a squatter. Thank you so much for letting me know. It could have turned into a huge problem, but I'll call the sheriff and get it taken care of.\"\n\n\"Wait, wait.\" Akira put a hand up in protest. \"What does that mean, get it taken care of?\"\n\n\"Well, get her out of there.\" Meredith raised her eyebrows. \"If she broke the locks to get in, it's a crime. And the sooner I get her out the better. Squatting is a serious problem in Florida; I don't want to wind up spending months in court fighting her.\"\n\nAkira took a deep breath. This was the solution she needed, wasn't it? If the sheriff evicted Nora, Hannah would be happy and no one would be in any danger from her. Toby might not be able to feel Hannah now, but Akira didn't know what would happen to him if Hannah lost control. But still, what would Nora and her kids do if they lost their home? And at Christmas? And it would be terrible if Nora got arrested. But Akira's pause to think took too long.\n\n\"Gotta run,\" Meredith said, glancing at her watch. \"Later. And Merry Christmas!\" With that, she was gone, heels clicking as she hurried down the path, red hair glinting in the sun.\n\nAkira walked back to the kitchen carrying the container and biting her lower lip so hard it hurt. She knew the Latimers would help Nora if she asked them to. She probably didn't even have to ask. For all she knew, Zane had already texted Grace and a moving van was at the house, packing up Nora's possessions to move her someplace safer. But Nora didn't seem like someone who would easily accept help like that. In fact, Nora didn't like someone who would easily accept any help.\n\nMaybe Rose could hypnotize her again?\n\n\"Rose.\" Akira called to the ghost girl as she reached the kitchen. \"I need to talk to you.\" Rose had accompanied Nora to the hospital in the ambulance, returning with Zane in the morning, and the two of them hadn't had a chance to talk about last night's events.\n\n\"It was amazing. Amazing.\" Rose twirled around in the middle of the kitchen floor, her skirt flaring up, her hair spinning with her.\n\n\"What was?\" Akira crossed to the counter.\n\n\"I saw a baby get born. A baby. She was so tiny. She was so... it was so... it was so gross. Really, just ew. The whole thing. Ick. Disgusting. I can't believe you have to do that. But then after, there was a baby. And she blinked. Her eyelashes were the littlest, teeniest-tiniest eyelashes you ever saw, just little dark specks on her eyes. They were so adorable.\"\n\nAkira smiled as she lifted the lid off the container. And then she frowned, distracted from Rose's enthusiasm by the food in front of her. What was this? Everything Maggie made was good so she was sure it would be tasty, but she'd never seen it before. It was sort of like her favorite vegetable biryani, only\u2026not. Those were chunks of chicken, she thought, poking at it with a sense of rising indignation. What had Maggie made?\n\n\"What dat?\" asked Toby, sliding off his chair and joining her. He stood on tiptoes as Akira lifted the container down to show him.\n\nBefore she could tell him that it was biryani and he wouldn't like it, he heaved a huge sigh of relief. \"Subiyan. Yes, peas. Dank you.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"For me?\" he asked, looking up at her, face plaintive. \"I yike.\"\n\n\"Um, sure,\" Akira said. This looked an awful lot like some kind of stir-fried rice to her. \"How do you feel about tofu?\"\n\n\"Tofu pasghetti or tofu smoovie? Or de cheese square tofu or da tofu on sayad? I no yike on sayad.\"\n\nAkira translated all of that without much difficulty as she reached for a bowl, and it renewed her resolve. Another semi-vegetarian had moved to Tassamara. That made the town's count two. Three if they included Toby. Somehow she had to figure out how to keep them here."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 7",
                "text": "Ba-de-ba-ba.\n\nAkira opened sleepy eyes.\n\nBa-de-ba-ba.\n\nShe picked up her phone and glared at the screen, licking dry lips and yawning. \"Yes?\"\n\n\"Good morning, love.\"\n\n\"Jerk,\" she mumbled at him. \"What time is it?\"\n\n\"Oh, insanely early.\" Zane sounded much too cheerful for a man who hadn't come home all night. \"You ready to wake up?\"\n\n\"No.\" She clicked the off button and set the phone back down, then rolled over and stared at her sleeping companion. Toby was adorable asleep, the chipmunk cheeks eminently kissable, the short dark curls a scruff that she longed to pet.\n\nBa-de-ba-ba.\n\nHer phone rang again. She closed her eyes. She could ignore it. She would ignore it. But he'd keep calling. She could turn the ringer off. But eventually she'd have to deal with him.\n\n\"Where the hell are you?\" she hissed into the phone.\n\n\"I know. I'm sorry.\" He sounded contrite but also amused. Or was that pleased with himself? Her eyes narrowed and she shifted to try to get a look at the clock. It was after seven, but not much after.\n\n\"Your errand took you twenty hours,\" she snapped, doing the math with ease.\n\n\"Yeah, I didn't expect that,\" he said. \"Also, though, I haven't slept in, um, thirty, maybe?\"\n\nAkira blinked. She'd napped at Nora's house after Zane and Nora and Rose went off to the hospital. It hadn't been good sleep, but it had been some. And she'd dozed a little during the day. And at seven-thirty the previous evening, when Toby started yawning, she'd put them both to bed with relief. She might not be ready to wake up but that was because she hated waking up, not because she needed sleep.\n\nShe rolled over and stared up at the ceiling, phone to her ear. \"Are you tired, sweetie?\" she asked with mock sympathy. \"I'm in bed. Our bed. It's nice and warm, cozy and soft.\" She let her voice drop to a croon. \"I'm wearing that silk tank top you like, the black one that's too short, with that weird v-neck and those tiny straps.\"\n\n\"Are you really?\" The groan behind the words was fully satisfying.\n\n\"No, of course not,\" she said, returning to her normal voice. \"I've got company. I'm wearing a t-shirt.\"\n\nHe laughed. \"I hope he doesn't wet the bed.\"\n\n\"Ugh. But no, I don't think so.\" She looked at Toby again. The conversation hadn't disturbed him. His sleep was deep and his breathing even. \"Where are you?\"\n\n\"Nora's getting released from the hospital at 8,\" he said, ignoring her question. \"I've arranged for a ride home for her and the baby. Can you be at the house by 9 to meet her?\"\n\n\"What about the sheriff?\" Akira asked with a yawn. Zane had refused to tell her where he was or what he was doing but they'd texted back and forth the previous day about her worries.\n\n\"He's holding off. He told Meredith that he'd check as soon as he could but that they were real busy with Christmas week, vacations, and that drug mess that just went down. It'll be okay, though.\"\n\n\"Mmm.\" Akira closed her eyes.\n\n\"Don't go back to sleep,\" Zane ordered. \"Akira? Come on, babe, 9 o'clock at Nora's house.\"\n\n\"Hannah's house,\" Akira corrected him. That was the problem, she thought sleepily. Whose house was it, really? Did it belong to the living or to the dead?\n\n\"Nick's house,\" he corrected her. Ah, of course. But the mysterious Nick was absent.\n\nAbruptly, Akira sat up. \"Did you find Nick?\"\n\n\"Hmm.\" Zane's answer was a satisfied hum, wordless but still revealing.\n\n\"Is it okay with him that Nora is there?\" Akira demanded. \"Is he coming home? Will he tell Hannah to move on?\"\n\n\"I'll see you at the house, babe. As close to 9 as I can manage.\" Click.\n\nAkira glared at the phone. Then she smiled and shoved the covers away. Almost two hours was plenty of time to find out what Toby thought about tofu scrambled eggs."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 8",
                "text": "Nora looked both exhausted and radiant, Akira thought, as the woman stepped out of the front seat of a black Mercedes sedan that had pulled up in front of the house. Dave, a familiar face to Akira, stepped out of the driver's side and tapped his forehead at her in a friendly, casual salute. She smiled at him as Toby raced down the path to his mother, who crouched down to meet his hug.\n\nToby was talking and Nora was listening intently as Dave walked around the car and opened the back door, reaching inside and unbuckling a car seat. He pulled it out and motioned toward the house. \"I'll bring her in for you, shall I?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" she protested, reaching for the handle of the car seat, before grimacing and touching her abdomen briefly. \"You've done too much. I can get it.\"\n\n\"Paycheck, remember?\" he said cheerfully. \"I do what the boss says and it pays my mortgage. Doesn't matter to me whether it's flying through a tornado or carrying a mite like this. You gotta figure you might be saving my life, though, by keeping me away from those tornadoes.\" He grinned at her and she smiled back. Toby slipped his hand into hers and together they followed Dave up the path.\n\n\"Howdy, Akira.\" Dave nodded to her as Akira stood from her seat on the porch steps, greeting him and hurrying to pull open the screened door. He carried the baby inside and set her down on the floor by the couch, before looking down at her and giving a shake of his head. \"You ever seen anything as tiny as that?\" he asked Akira in a hushed voice as she joined him.\n\nShe looked down at the baby. What had Zane said, five pounds something? Nora's daughter had to be smaller than that. She was minute. Infinitely small. The tiniest thing Akira had ever seen. And yet somehow she sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Akira dropped to her knees next to the car seat and looked at the baby's fingers. That had to be wrong. There was no way it was possible for human fingers to be so, so, so incredibly tiny. And yet they were.\n\nDave and Nora were talking by the door, Nora thanking Dave and Dave brushing her off.\n\n\"Is dat my baby sistah?\" Toby asked Akira.\n\nShe looked at the little boy standing next to her, soberly looking down at the newborn.\n\n\"Uh-huh,\" she said, wondering how Toby felt about the whole thing.\n\nHe crouched next to the car seat and took a long look. Then, carefully, gently, he placed a red wooden train next to the sleeping baby's leg. \"You can pay wit James,\" he told her in a loud whisper. \"When you yake up.\" With that he stood and wandered away, apparently done with the whole thing, and ready to get back to train-ville.\n\nAkira smiled after him as Nora came into the room and dropped down onto the hard couch.\n\n\"She's beautiful,\" Akira told the other woman.\n\n\"Hmph,\" Hannah snorted from behind her. \"She looks like a little old man.\"\n\nNora smiled, eyes tired. \"Thank you for everything. Taking care of Toby and\u2014\" She gestured as if trying to find words to encompass what she meant, before adding, \"\u2014the other night.\"\n\n\"It was my pleasure,\" Akira answered with genuine truth. Once over the scary hurdles of his morning dismay and his highly specific preferences in food, she and Toby had had fun together. They'd set up his train tracks and played with the trains, walked down to the little park in town and admired the ducks, eaten dinner at the bistro, even visited Mrs. Swanson and had their auras read. (Toby's was a lovely shade of green, which meant, according to the old woman, \"Don't bother to argue with him, dear, he's very strong-willed.\" Mrs. Swanson still hadn't decided what Akira's deep, almost iridescent blue aura signified.)\n\n\"It was a mistake to come here.\" Nora rubbed a hand over her face. \"I thought I had more time.\"\n\n\"Why did you?\" Akira asked.\n\nNora shook her head as if she wasn't sure of the answer to the question, before giving a soft chuckle. \"Have you read the pregnancy books yet?\"\n\n\"Some of them.\"\n\n\"When they talk about the nesting instinct, they're not kidding. We were in the city, Toby and me, and everything was so busy and crowded and chaotic. And cold. It started to snow and Toby had the sniffles and I was miserable. On Thanksgiving weekend, I just couldn't take it anymore. I felt like I had to get to a place that was peaceful, safer. Not to mention warm and sunny. So I packed up Toby and some stuff and headed here.\"\n\n\"The city?\" Akira asked, wondering. None of that sounded as if Nora was homeless and desperate. Maybe getting evicted wouldn't be a problem.\n\n\"New York,\" Nora replied, as if there was only one city.\n\nAkira blinked. Nora and Toby had come here from New York? But... \"Your furniture?\" she asked with a look around the room at the beat-up furniture.\n\n\"Oh, that was all in storage down here,\" Nora said, as the baby opened her eyes and started to fuss. \"Can you pass her to me?\"\n\nAkira, still kneeling next to the baby, looked down at the little girl's face. The sweet sleeping peaceful look was gone, replaced by an uncertain scowl. While she watched, the baby opened and closed her tiny mouth like a goldfish gasping for air. \"You want me to pick her up?\"\n\n\"I'm a little stiff,\" Nora said, sounding apologetic. Akira's doubt must have been obvious, because Nora added, \"She doesn't bite. And you won't drop her. You are going to have one of your own pretty soon, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Akira licked her lips and reached for the straps that kept the baby secure. As she fumbled with the buckle, footsteps sounded on the porch and a male voice called out Nora's name.\n\nWhere should she put her hands? Akira wondered. Under the arms? Or sideways under the legs? Weren't you supposed to hold babies' heads up? Something about their necks being wobbly? Oh, dear. She really wasn't sure she was ready for this. But as she lifted the baby out of the car seat, one hand scooping low, the other pressing against the baby's back and cupping the soft little head, a breathless smile spread across Akira's face. The baby was so light, so little, so warm and alive. Feeling her breathe and her tiny wiggle of protest at the movement was both amazing and terrifying.\n\nCarefully, still kneeling, she turned to hand the baby to Nora and paused. She'd been so engrossed in the baby, so focused on what she was doing that she'd been completely oblivious to what was going on behind her. Automatically, she pulled the baby closer, cradling her as she took in the sight of Nora locked in the embrace of a tall stranger, Toby hanging on his leg like a happy monkey, Hannah standing frozen next to the table that held the tiny Christmas tree, and Zane, a cheerful grin curving his lips, in the doorway.\n\nShe'd been right.\n\nZane had found Nick.\n\nAnd Nick and Nora weren't strangers.\n\n\"Why didn't you tell me?\" Nick pulled his mouth away from Nora's long enough to ask, but didn't give her a chance to answer, kissing her again with renewed intensity.\n\n\"Dada, Dada,\" Toby chanted. \"Dada, we moved. To Fyorida.\"\n\nNora was half-crying, half-laughing as Nick finally let her go and pulled her down onto the couch. She cradled his face in her hands, staring into his eyes and stroking his cheeks as if she couldn't believe she was touching him. \"I knew you'd come home if I told you and it was your big chance. I didn't want to screw it up. But what are you doing here? How did you get here? What about the tour?\"\n\n\"I didn't want to miss Christmas with the two of you,\" he said. He didn't look away from Nora but his arm opened to welcome Toby as the boy clambered into his lap. \"I was on my way to New York.\"\n\n\"But what about the New Year's shows? You only had another two weeks to go.\"\n\nHe laughed. \"Yeah, I have to go back for those.\"\n\n\"Nick! Are you insane?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he told her, before kissing her again. \"Although not as insane as you. When were you going to tell me about the baby?\"\n\nNora's eyes were bright but her expression contrite. \"Her due date was right after you got home and Toby was so late\u2014I figured you'd have a couple weeks to get used to the idea. I didn't think I'd be having her without you.\"\n\n\"Mama had a baby in her tummy,\" Toby offered.\n\nNick rubbed the top of Toby's head, leaving his other hand on the back of Nora's neck as he rested his forehead against hers. \"I was hoping to convince you to come back with me for the last few shows.\"\n\n\"To Australia?\" Nora's jaw dropped and her eyes widened. \"Okay, now I know you've lost your mind.\"\n\n\"Nope,\" he said, \"Just filled our bank account. We sold out all our shows in Sydney. Tom's talking money with record labels, serious money. Dropping a few thou on a spectacular New Year's Eve would have been cool. Guess maybe not this year, though, huh?\"\n\nNora's smile was radiant. \"Not this year,\" she agreed, looking toward Akira and the baby. Akira smiled back at her and stepped forward, handing over the baby with only a little regret at losing the moment.\n\nZane came to stand next to her, wrapping his arm around her and dropping his chin onto the top of her head.\n\nAkira leaned back against him. \"Why didn't you tell me?\" she whispered.\n\n\"Nora didn't mention him,\" Zane answered her quietly. \"When I realized that he was Toby's father, I didn't know if she was hiding or running away from him. I made Lucas come with me to check him out. If he was any threat to Nora... well, Hannah would have been out of luck.\"\n\n\"You could have told me what you were doing,\" she complained half-heartedly. It was hard to be angry as she looked at the little family on the couch, all doting on the baby.\n\n\"I didn't want to take the chance on upsetting Hannah until we knew for sure.\"\n\nAkira's lips quirked up. She might not like angry ghosts, but after their experience this summer when a desperate ghost had caused Akira's heart to stop beating, Zane was even warier than she was.\n\n\"And I didn't realize it would take so long,\" he added.\n\n\"Why did it?\"\n\nShe felt more than heard him yawn above her. \"Moving target. When I first touched Toby, Nick was somewhere around Atlanta. By the time I headed out, he was north of Charlotte. I realized that he was on a plane pretty quickly, but I didn't think we'd have to go all the way to New York to find him.\"\n\nNew York. Akira shook her head. Only Zane would think it made sense to hop on a plane and fly hundreds of miles away to check on whether a total stranger was a safe person for another stranger to see. \"I've never been to New York.\"\n\n\"Really?\" He sounded surprised. \"Hmm, maybe we should have our own spectacular New Year's.\"\n\nAkira started to turn into him, lifting her face to be kissed. She didn't know whether she wanted to go to New York for New Year's but she loved that he wanted to give it to her. Before she could finish turning, though, a long drawn-out gasp from across the room had her spinning back out. The sound was filled with a pain so deep that it hurt Akira just to hear it. Still standing by the tree, Hannah had her fist clenched against her mouth, tears in her eyes.\n\nWhat had happened?\n\n\"Dat is heah name?\" Toby was asking, putting a gentle finger on his sister's cheek.\n\n\"It was my mother's name,\" Nick told him. \"Your grandma. You never got to meet her, but you would have liked her. And she would have loved you.\" His tone held a hint of humor, but also a thickening of grief.\n\n\"Dat is da mean yady's name, too.\"\n\n\"My mom wasn't mean,\" Nick said, frowning. \"She was tough. Strict and\u2014well, she could be fierce. You followed her rules or else. Like some other people I know,\" he added with an exchange of glances and a smile at Nora.\n\nHa, Akira thought. She bet Nick had tried to feed Toby more than once.\n\n\"But she was absolutely fair. And she loved me. A lot. She did her best for me and she\u2026\" Nick stopped speaking and Akira could see that he was choking up. He swallowed, blinking hard a few times, before continuing. \"I wanted to make her proud, but I never got the chance.\"\n\nAkira pressed her lips together. She didn't think of her own mother often. She'd only rarely wondered what that absent stranger might have been like. But for perhaps the first time, she wondered now what her mother thought of her and whether she would have been proud.\n\n\"Stop talking, Dada,\" Toby ordered. \"You are making da mean yady sad. She is cwying now.\"\n\n\"Tell him I was always proud of him. Always,\" Hannah ordered Akira, her tears rolling freely down her face. \"Please.\"\n\nRelatives. Akira hated these conversations, but what could she do? With Zane a comforting presence against her back, she quietly relayed Hannah's message.\n\n\"Ha.\" Nick's smile was wry. \"That's a nice thought, but she hated my music. Oh, she supported it\u2014she paid for lessons, came to my school concerts, was right there for me. But she\u2014\" He put his hand up and rubbed his chin, hiding the telltale quiver of his lips.\n\nAkira frowned, confused, before she realized that Nick thought she was offering soothing platitudes, not telling him exactly what his mother was telling her.\n\n\"The mean yady,\" she said dryly, then corrected her own pronunciation, with a hasty, \"lady, is your mom and she's been waiting for you to come home so she could apologize.\"\n\nShe waited. Would he be an arguer? Would he want proof? Would he order her out of the house like Nora had? Would he tell her she was crazy and needed help?\n\nNick looked her straight in the eyes, his brown eyes steady on her own, and then his glance flickered up to Zane's face. He looked down at Toby. \"Where's Grandma, Toby?\"\n\nToby pointed at the side of the Christmas tree as Akira's eyebrows shot straight up. How unexpected. The corner of her mouth twisted in amused realization as Zane whispered in her ear, \"He did grow up here, remember. Live in Tassamara long enough and you do develop an open mind.\"\n\nLater, although not much later, she walked out of the house, hand-in-hand with Zane, feeling a quiet contentment.\n\n\"So is Hannah going to move on?\" Zane asked.\n\nAkira shrugged. \"Pretty soon, probably. But I think she'll stick around to see a little more of her grandchildren first.\"\n\n\"Living in a haunted house isn't so bad,\" Zane said tolerantly, before adding with a grin, \"Having a ghost around sure added to the excitement this week.\"\n\nAkira paused, one hand on the door of her car. \"I'm not so sure Rose is a ghost anymore,\" she said slowly. She'd tried to talk to the ghost girl yesterday, but Rose had been entirely unhelpful about the energy. All she'd wanted to talk about was seeing the baby be born. About mid-afternoon, she'd wandered off, the way she often did, Akira thought possibly to visit Nora in the hospital again.\n\n\"What does that mean?\" Zane asked, frowning.\n\n\"I wish you could have seen her,\" Akira said. \"This golden light poured out of her like she was some kind of intra-dimensional energy conduit.\"\n\n\"Intra-what?\"\n\n\"I've never seen anything like it. I've definitely never seen a ghost do anything like that before. It was amazing. I'm thinking that ghost energy, or maybe it should be called spirit energy, is on a spectrum, like electromagnetic radiation. Ghost energy, the kind that I feel, could just be a band of the spectrum, a short part of it. Like ultraviolet on the electromagnetic spectrum. And the rest of the spectrum could contain\u2014I don't even know. Other forms of energy. Other frequencies.\" Akira's words were starting to spill over one another in her enthusiasm.\n\n\"Whoa, whoa.\" Zane put a hand up in laughing protest. \"I haven't slept in two days, love. You're making me dizzy. What do you think Rose is, if she's not a ghost?\"\n\n\"I think\u2026\" Akira paused, before saying, somewhat primly, \"I think the technical term might be angel.\"\n\nZane opened his mouth. Then he closed it. Then Zane put his hands on either side of Akira's face, cupping her cheeks, and bent his head to hers, taking her lips in a strong, searching kiss. \"That felt real,\" he said when he finally lifted his head.\n\nShe laughed up at him, unlocking her hands from behind his neck. \"Oh, I'm real.\"\n\n\"And you just said that you think Rose is an angel?\"\n\nShe nodded, a little uncertainly, searching his expression for any sign of doubt or disbelief or a dawning awareness that she was insane. But none of those were there.\n\nHe nodded. And then with a raised eyebrow, said, \"You know, it's been a long couple of days. You think Henry would be up for red meat for dinner tonight?\"\n\nAkira put a hand across her belly. \"I think he might like that.\"\n\n\"How about we go home, spend the day in bed, and finish it off with steak on the grill?\"\n\nAkira put a hand on his shirt front, one finger playing with a button. \"Did you ever finish the wedding invitations?\"\n\nA pained looked crossed his face. \"Ah\u2026about that\u2026\"\n\n\"I've had plenty of sleep,\" she interrupted him. \"So how about we go home, you sleep, I address invitations, and then when you've had enough sleep, we barbecue. And then we spend the rest of the weekend in bed?\"\n\nZane grinned at her. \"Woman after my own heart,\" he whispered as he bent his head to kiss her.\n\nMan who holds mine, she thought, as she kissed him back."
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "title": "Lily Bard 3",
        "author": "Charlaine Harris",
        "genres": [],
        "tags": [],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "Chapter 1",
                "text": "My situation was as surreal as one of those slo-mo nightmares Hollywood uses to pad B movies.\n\nI was sitting in the bed of a moving Dodge Ram pickup. I was enthroned on a wobbly plastic lawn chair, thinly disguised by a red plush couch throw edged with fringe. A crowd lined both sides of the street, waving and yelling. From time to time, I dipped my hand into the white plastic bucket settled on my lap, coming up with a fistful of candy to pitch to the spectators.\n\nThough I was clothed, which I understand is not the case in many dreams, my clothes were hardly typical. I was wearing a red Santa hat with a big white ball on the end, bright new green sweats, and I had a disgusting artificial holly corsage pinned to my chest. I was trying to smile.\n\nSpotting a familiar face in the crowd, a face pasted with an unconcealed smirk, I pitched the next peppermint with deliberate accuracy. It smacked my neighbor, Carlton Cockroft, right in the middle of the chest, wiping off that smirk for at least a second.\n\nThe pickup paused, continuing a familiar and irritating pattern that had begun minutes after the parade had started lurching down Main Street. One of the bands ahead of us had stopped to blare out a Christmas song, and I had to smile and wave at the same damn people over and over until the song was finished.\n\nMy face hurt.\n\nAt least in the green sweats, with a layer of thermal underwear underneath, I was fairly warm, which was more than I could say for the girls who had enthusiastically agreed to ride on the Body Time float directly ahead. They also were wearing Santa hats, but below the hats they wore only scanty exercise outfits, since at their age making an impact was more important than staying comfortable and healthy.\n\n\"How you doing back there?\" Raphael Roundtree called, leaning out of the pickup window to give me an inquiring glance.\n\nI glared back at him. Raphael was wearing a coat, scarf, and gloves, and the heat in the cab of the truck was turned on full blast. His round brown face looked plain old smug.\n\n\"Just fine,\" I said ferociously.\n\n\"Lily, Lily, Lily,\" he said, shaking his head. \"Slap that smile back on, girl. You're gonna scare customers away, rather than pick some up.\"\n\nI cast my gaze to heaven to indicate I was asking for patience. But instead of a clear gray sky, I found myself staring at tacky fake greenery strung across the street. Everywhere I looked, the trappings of the season had taken over. Shakespeare doesn't have a lot of money for Christmas decorations, so I'd seen the same ones every holiday in the four-plus years I'd spent in this little Arkansas town. Every alternate streetlight had a big candle suspended on a curved \"candleholder.\" The other streetlights sported bells.\n\nThe town's seasonal centerpiece (since the manger scene had to be removed) was a huge Christmas tree on the courthouse lawn; the churches sponsored a big public party to decorate it. In consequence, it looked very homey rather than elegant\u2014typical of Shakespeare, come to think of it. Once we passed the courthouse, the parade would be nearly over.\n\nThere was a little tree in the pickup bed with me, but it was artificial. I'd decorated it with gold stiffened ribbon, gold ornaments, and gold and white artificial flowers. A discreet sign attached to it read, tree decorating done by appointment. Businesses and homes. This new service I was providing was definitely designed for people who'd opted for elegance.\n\nThe banners on the sides of the pickup read, Shakespeare's cleaning and errands, followed by my phone number. Since Carlton, my accountant, had advised it so strongly, I had finally made myself a business. Carlton further advised me to begin to establish a public presence, very much against my own inclinations.\n\nSo here I was in the damn Christmas parade.\n\n\"Smile!\" called Janet Shook, who was marching in place right behind the pickup. She made a face at me, then turned to the forty or so kids following her and said, \"Okay, kids! Let's Shakespearecise!\" The children, amazingly, did not throw up, maybe because none of them was over ten. They all attended the town-sponsored \"Safe After School\" program that employed Janet, and they seemed happy to obey her. They all began to do jumping jacks.\n\nI envied them. Despite my insulation, sitting still was taking its toll. Though Shakespeare has very mild winters as a rule, today was the coldest temperature for Christmas parade day in seven years, the local radio station had informed us.\n\nJanet's kids looked red-cheeked and sparkly eyed, and so did Janet. The jumping jacks had turned into a kind of dance. At least, I guessed it was. I am not exactly tuned in to popular culture.\n\nI was still stretching my lips up to smile at the surrounding faces, but it was a real strain. Relief overwhelmed me as the truck began moving again. I started tossing candy and waving.\n\nThis was hell. But unlike hell, it was finite. Eventually, the candy bucket was empty and the parade had reached its endpoint, the parking lot of Superette Grocery. Raphael and his oldest son helped me take the tree back to the travel agent's office for whom I'd decorated it, and they carted the plastic chair back to their own backyard. I'd thanked Raphael and paid him for his gas and time, though he'd protested.\n\n\"It was worth it just to see you smile that long. Your face is gonna be sore tomorrow,\" Raphael said gleefully.\n\nWhat became of the red plush throw I don't know and don't want to know.\n\nJack was not exactly sympathetic when he called me from Little Rock that night. In fact, he laughed.\n\n\"Did anyone film this parade?\" he asked, gasping with the end convulsions of his mirth.\n\n\"I hope not.\"\n\n\"Come on, Lily, loosen up,\" he said. I could still hear the humor in his voice. \"What are you doing this holiday?\"\n\nThis seemed like a touchy question to me. Jack Leeds and I had been seeing each other for about seven weeks. We were too new to take it for granted that we'd be spending Christmas together, and too unsure to have had any frank discussion about making arrangements.\n\n\"I have to go home,\" I said flatly. \"To Bartley.\"\n\nA long silence.\n\n\"How do you feel about that?\" Jack asked cautiously.\n\nI steeled myself to be honest. Frank. Open. \"I have to go to my sister Varena's wedding. I'm a bridesmaid.\"\n\nNow he didn't laugh.\n\n\"How long has it been since you saw your folks?\" he asked.\n\nIt was strange that I didn't know the answer. \"I guess maybe... six months? Eight? I met them in Little Rock one day... around Easter. It's years since I've seen Varena.\"\n\n\"And you don't want to go now?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, relieved to be able to speak the truth. When I'd been arranging my week off work, after my employers got over the shock of my asking, they'd been almost universally delighted to hear that I was going to my sister's wedding. They couldn't tell me fast enough that it was fine for me to miss a week. They'd asked about my sister's age (twenty-eight, younger than me by three years), her fianc\u00e9 (a pharmacist, widowed, with a little daughter), and what I was going to wear in the wedding. (I didn't know. I'd sent Varena some money and my size when she said she'd settled on bridesmaids' dresses, but I hadn't seen her selection.)\n\n\"So when can I see you?\" Jack asked.\n\nI felt a warm trickle of relief. I was never sure what was going to happen next with us. It seemed possible to me that someday Jack wouldn't call at all.\n\n\"I'll be in Bartley all the week before Christmas,\" I said. \"I was planning on getting back to my house by Christmas Day.\"\n\n\"Miss having Christmas at home?\" I could feel Jack's surprise echoing over the telephone line.\n\n\"I will be home\u2014here\u2014for Christmas,\" I said sharply. \"What about you?\"\n\n\"I don't have any plans. My brother and his wife asked me, but they didn't sound real sincere, if you know what I mean.\" Jack's parents had both died within the past four years.\n\n\"You want to come here?\" My face tensed with anxiety as I waited to hear his answer.\n\n\"Sure,\" he said, and his voice was so gentle I knew he could tell how much it had cost me to ask. \"Will you put up mistletoe? Everywhere?\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" I said, trying not to sound as relieved as I was, or as happy as I felt. I bit my lip, suppressing a lot of things. \"Do you want have a real Christmas dinner?\"\n\n\"Turkey?\" he said hopefully. \"Cornbread dressing?\"\n\n\"I can do that.\"\n\n\"Cranberry sauce?\"\n\n\"I can do that.\"\n\n\"English peas?\"\n\n\"Spinach Madeleine,\" I countered.\n\n\"Sounds good. What can I bring?\"\n\n\"Wine.\" I seldom drank alcohol, but I thought with Jack around a drink or two might be all right.\n\n\"OK. If you think of anything else, give me a call. I've got some work to finish up here within the next week, then I have a meeting about a job I might take on. So I may not get down there until Christmas.\"\n\n\"Actually, I have a lot to do right now, too. Everyone's trying to get extra cleaning done, giving Christmas parties, putting up trees in their offices.\"\n\nIt was just over three weeks until Christmas. That was a long time to spend without seeing Jack. Even though I knew I was going to be working hard the entire period, since I counted going home to the wedding as a sort of subcategory of work, I felt a sharp pang at the thought of three weeks' separation.\n\n\"That seems like a long time,\" he said suddenly.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHaving admitted that, both of us backed hastily away.\n\n\"Well, I'll be calling you,\" Jack said briskly.\n\nHe'd be sprawled on the couch in his apartment in Little Rock as he talked on the phone. His thick dark hair would be pulled back in a ponytail. The cold weather would have made the scar on his face stand out, thin and white, a little puckered where it began at the hairline close to his right eye. If Jack had met with a client today, he'd be wearing nice slacks and a sports coat, wing tips, a dress shirt, and a tie. If he'd been working surveillance, or doing the computer work that increasingly formed the bulk of a private detective's routine, he'd be in jeans and a sweater.\n\n\"What are you wearing?\" I asked suddenly.\n\n\"I thought I was supposed to ask you that.\" He sounded amused, again.\n\nI kept a stubborn silence.\n\n\"Oh, OK. I'm wearing\u2014you want me to start with the bottom or the top?\u2014Reeboks, white athletic socks, navy blue sweatpants, Jockeys, and a Marvel Gym T-shirt. I just got home from working out.\"\n\n\"Dress up at Christmas.\"\n\n\"A suit?\"\n\n\"Oh, maybe you don't have to go that far. But nice.\"\n\n\"OK,\" he said cautiously.\n\nChristmas this year was on a Friday. I had only two Saturday clients at the moment, and neither of them would be open the day after Christmas. Maybe I could get them done on Christmas morning, before Jack got here.\n\n\"Bring clothes for two days,\" I said. \"We can have Friday afternoon and Saturday and Sunday.\" I suddenly realized I'd assumed, and I took a sharp breath. \"That is, if you can stay that long. If you want to.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" he said. His voice sounded rougher, darker. \"Yes, I want to.\"\n\n\"Are you smiling?\"\n\n\"You could say so,\" he affirmed. \"All over.\"\n\nI smiled a little myself. \"OK, see you then.\"\n\n\"Where'd you say your family was? Bartley, right? I was talking to a friend of mine about that a couple of nights ago.\"\n\nIt felt strange to know he had talked about me. \"Yes, Bartley. It's in the Delta, a little north and a lot east of Little Rock.\"\n\n\"Hmmm. It'll be OK, seeing your family. You can tell me all about it.\"\n\n\"OK.\" That did sound good, realizing I could talk about it afterward, that I wouldn't come home to silence and emptiness, drag through days and days rehashing the tensions in my family.\n\nInstead of saying this to Jack, I said, \"Good-bye.\"\n\nI heard him respond as I laid the receiver down. We always had a hard time ending conversations.\n\nThere are two towns in Arkansas named Montrose. The next day, I drove to the one that had shopping.\n\nSince I no longer worked for the Winthrops, I had more free time on my hands than I could afford: That was the only reason I'd listened when Carlton had proposed the Christmas parade appearance. Until more people opted for my services, I had just about two free mornings a week. This free morning, I'd gone to Body Time for my workout (it was triceps day), come home to shower and dress, and stopped by the office of the little Shakespeare paper to place an ad in the classifieds (\"Give your wife her secret Christmas wish\u2014a maid\").\n\nAnd now here I was, involuntarily listening\u2014once again\u2014to taped Christmas carols, surrounded by people who were shopping with some air of excitement and anticipation. I was about to do what I like least to do: spend money when I had little coming in, and spend that money on clothing.\n\nIn what I thought of as my previous life, the life I'd led in Memphis as scheduler for a large cleaning service, I'd been quite a dresser. In that life, I'd had long brown hair, and lifting two twenty-pound dumbbells had made my arms tremble. I'd also been naive beyond belief. I had believed that all women were sisters under the skin, and that underneath all the crap, men were basically decent and honest.\n\nI made an involuntary sound of disgust at the memory, and the white-haired lady sitting on the bench a yard away said, \"Yes, it is a little overwhelming after a month and more, isn't it?\"\n\nI turned to look at her. Short and stout, she had chosen to wear a Christmas sweatshirt with reindeer on it and green slacks. Her shoes could have been advertised as \"comfort-plus walkers.\" She smiled at me. She was alone like I was, and she had more to say.\n\n\"They start the selling season so early, and the stores put up the decorations almost before they clear the Halloween stuff away! Takes you right out of the mood, doesn't it!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I agreed. I swung back to glance in the window, seeing my reflection... checking. Yes, I was Lily, the newer version, short blond hair, muscles like hard elastic bands, wary and alert. Strangers generally tended to address their remarks to someone else.\n\n\"It's a shame about Christmas,\" I told the old woman and walked away.\n\nI pulled the list out of my purse. It would never be shorter unless I could mark something off by making a purchase. My mother had very carefully written down all the social events included in my sister's prewedding buildup and starred all the ones I was absolutely required to attend. She had included notes on what I should wear, in case I'd forgotten what was appropriate for Bartley society.\n\nUnspoken in the letter, though I could read the words in invisible ink, was the plea that I honor my sister by wearing suitable clothes and making an effort to be \"social.\"\n\nI was a grown woman, thirty-one. I was not childish enough, or crazy enough, to cause Varena and my parents distress by inappropriate clothing and behavior.\n\nBut as I went into the best department store in the mall, as I stared over the racks and racks of clothing, I found myself completely at a loss. There were too many choices for a woman who'd simplified her life down to the bone. A saleswoman asked if she could help me, and I shook my head.\n\nThis paralysis was humiliating. I prodded my brain. I could do this. I should get...\n\n\"Lily,\" said a warm, deep voice.\n\nI followed it up, and up, to the face of my friend Bobo Winthrop. Bobo's face had lost the element of boy that had made it sweet. He was a nineteen-year-old man.\n\nWithout a thought, I put my arms around him. The last time I'd seen Bobo, he'd been involved in a family tragedy that had torn the Winthrop clan in two. He'd transferred to a college out of state, somewhere in Florida. He looked as if he'd made the most of it. He was tan, had apparently lost a little weight.\n\nHe hugged me back even more eagerly. Then as I leaned back to look at him again, he kissed me, but he was wise enough to break it off before it became an issue.\n\n\"Are you out of school for the holidays?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yes, and after that I'll start back here at U of A.\" The University of Arkansas had a large campus at Montrose, though some of the Shakespeare kids preferred the biggest establishment in Fayetteville, or the Little Rock branch.\n\nWe looked at each other, in silent agreement not to discuss the reasons Bobo had left the state for a while.\n\n\"What are you doing today, Lily? Not at work?\"\n\n\"No,\" I answered shortly, hoping he wouldn't ask me to spell out the fact that his mother no longer employed me, and as a result, I'd lost a couple of other clients.\n\nHe gave me a look that I could only characterize as assessing. \"And you're here shopping?\"\n\n\"My sister's getting married. I have to go home for the wedding and the prewedding parties.\"\n\n\"So, you're here to get something to wear.\" Bobo eyed me a minute more. \"And you don't like to shop.\"\n\n\"Right,\" I said disconsolately.\n\n\"Got to go to a shower?\"\n\n\"I have a list,\" I told him, aware of how bleak my voice sounded.\n\n\"Let's see.\"\n\nI handed him the sheet of stationery.\n\n\"A shower... two showers. A dinner. Then the rehearsal dinner. The wedding. You'll be a bridesmaid?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"So she's got your dress for that?\"\n\nI nodded again.\n\n\"So, what do you need?\"\n\n\"I have a nice black suit,\" I said.\n\nBobo looked expectantly at me.\n\n\"That's it.\"\n\n\"Oh, wow, Lily,\" he said, suddenly sounding his age. \"Do you ever have shopping to do.\"\n\nThat evening I spread out my purchases on the bed. I'd had to use my charge card, but everything I'd gotten I could use for a long time.\n\nA pair of well-cut black slacks. For one shower, I'd wear them with a gold satin vest and an off-white silk blouse. For the second, I'd wear them with an electric blue silk shell and a black jacket. I could wear the shoes that went with the black suit, or a pair of blue leather pumps that had been on sale. I could wear my good black suit to the rehearsal dinner. For the dinner party I had a white dress, sleeveless, that I could wear in the winter with the black jacket, in the summer by itself. I had the correct underpinnings for each outfit, and I had bought a pair of gold hoop earrings and a big gold free-form pin. I already had diamond earrings and a diamond bar pin my grandmother had left me.\n\nThis was all thanks to Bobo's advice.\n\n\"You must have read some of Amber Jean's girls' magazines,\" I had accused him. Bobo had a younger sister.\n\n\"Nah. That's the only shopping wisdom I have to offer. 'Everything has to match or coordinate.' I guess I learned it from my mom. She has whole sections of clothes that can be mixed and matched.\"\n\nI should have remembered that. I used to clean out Beanie Winthrop's closet twice a year.\n\n\"Are you living at home?\" I had asked when he'd turned to go. I was a little hesitant about asking Bobo any questions that might pertain to his family, so strained was the Winthrop situation.\n\n\"No. I have an apartment here. On Chert Avenue. I just moved in, to be ready for the spring semester.\" Bobo had flushed, for the first time looking awkward. \"I'm trying to spend some time at home, so my folks don't feel too... ditched.\" He'd run his fingers through his floppy blond hair. \"How've you been doing? You still seeing that private detective?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Still working out?\" he'd added hastily, getting off dangerous ground.\n\nI'd nodded.\n\nHe'd hugged me again and gone about whatever his errand was, leaving me to a saleswoman named Marianna. She'd homed in on us when Bobo had joined me, and now that he had left, she was stuck with me.\n\nAfter I'd gotten over the sticker shock, it felt almost good to have new clothes. I cut off the tags and hung all the new things in the closet in the guest bedroom, spacing the hangers so the clothes wouldn't wrinkle. Days afterward, I found myself looking at them from time to time, opening the door suspiciously as if my new garments might have gone back to the store.\n\nI'd always been very careful with makeup, with my hair; I keep my legs shaved as smooth as a baby's bottom. I like to know what I look like; I like to control it. But I don't want people to turn to look at me, I don't want people to notice me. The jeans and sweats I wore to clean houses, to bathe dogs, to fill some shut-in's grocery list, acted as camouflage. Practical, cheap, camouflage.\n\nPeople would look at me when I wore my new clothes.\n\nMade uneasy by all these changes, by the prospect of going back to Bartley, I plunged myself into what work I had. I still cleaned Carrie Thrush's office every Saturday, and Carrie had mentioned she wanted me to come more often, but I had to be sure it wasn't because she thought I was hurting financially. Pity shouldn't have any part in a business arrangement, or a friendship.\n\nI had the Drinkwaters' house, and the travel agent's office, and Dr. Sizemore's office. I still cleaned Deedra Dean's apartment, and I was working more hours for Mrs. Rossiter, who had broken her arm while she was walking Durwood, her old cocker spaniel. But it wasn't enough.\n\nI did get the job of decorating two more office Christmas trees, and I did a good job on one and an outstanding job on the other, which was a very visible advertisement since it stood in the Chamber of Commerce office. I used birds and fruit for that one, and the warm, hushed colors and carefully concealed lights made the tree a little more peaceful than some of the others I saw around town.\n\nI'd quit taking the Little Rock newspaper to cut back on expenses until my client list built up. So I was in Dr. Sizemore's office, on a Tuesday afternoon, when I saw the creased section from one of the Sunday editions. I scooped it up to dump into the recycle bin, and my gaze happened to land on the headline \"Unsolved Crimes Mean No Happy Holiday.\" The paper was dated two days after Thanksgiving, which told me that one of the office staff had stuffed it somewhere and then unearthed it in her pre-Christmas cleaning.\n\nI sank down onto the edge of one of the waiting room chairs to read the first three paragraphs.\n\nIn the yearly effort to pack as many holiday-related stories as possible into the paper, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette had interviewed the families of people who had been murdered (if the murder was unsolved) or abducted (if the abductee hadn't been found).\n\nI wouldn't have continued to read the article, since it's just the kind of thing that brings back too many bad memories, if it hadn't been for the picture of the baby.\n\nThe cutline under the picture read, \"Summer Dawn Macklesby at the time of her disappearance. Summer has been missing for almost eight years.\"\n\nShe was a tiny infant in the picture, perhaps a week old. She had a little lace bow attached somehow to a scanty strand of hair.\n\nThough I knew it would make me miserable, I found myself searching for the child's name again, in the column of text. It jumped out at me about halfway through the story, past the mother of three who'd been gunned down at an automated teller on Christmas Eve and the engaged convenience store clerk raped and knifed to death on her Thanksgiving birthday.\n\n\"Eight years ago this week, Summer Dawn Macklesby was snatched from her infant seat on her parents' enclosed front porch in suburban Conway,\" the sentence began. \"Teresa Macklesby, preparing for a shopping expedition, left her infant daughter on the porch while she stepped back into the house to retrieve a package she intended to mail before Christmas. While she was in the house, the telephone rang, and though Macklesby is sure she was absent from the porch no longer than five minutes, by the time she returned Summer Dawn had vanished.\"\n\nI closed my eyes. I folded the paper so I couldn't read the rest of the story and carried it to the recycle bin and dumped it in as if it were contaminated with the grief and agony implied in that one partial story.\n\nThat night I had to walk.\n\nSome nights sleep played a cheap trick on me and hid. Those nights, no matter how tired I was, no matter what energy I needed for the day to come, I had to walk. Though these episodes were less frequent than even a year ago, they still occurred perhaps once every two weeks.\n\nSometimes I made sure nobody saw me. Sometimes I strode down the middle of the street. My thoughts were seldom pleasant on walking nights, and yet my mind could not be at peace any more than my body.\n\nI haven't ever understood it.\n\nAfter all, as I often tell myself, the Bad Thing has already happened. I do not need to fear anymore.\n\nDoesn't everyone wait for the Bad Thing? Every woman I've ever known does. Maybe men have a Bad Thing, too, and they don't admit it. A woman's Bad Thing, of course, is being abducted, raped, and knifed; left bleeding, an object of revulsion and pity to those who find her, be she dead or alive.\n\nWell, that had happened to me.\n\nSince I had never been a mother, I had never had to imagine any other disasters. But tonight I thought maybe there was a Worse Thing. The Worse Thing would be having your child taken. The Worse Thing would be years of imagining that child's bones lying in the mud in some ditch, or your child alive and being molested methodically by some monster.\n\nNot knowing.\n\nThanks to that glimpse of newspaper, I was imagining that now.\n\nI hoped Summer Dawn Macklesby was dead. I hoped she had died within an hour of her abduction. I hoped for that hour she had been unconscious. As I walked and walked in the cold night, that seemed to me to be the best-case scenario.\n\nOf course, it was possible that some loving couple who desperately wanted a little girl had just picked up Summer Dawn and had bought her everything her heart desired and enrolled her in an excellent school and were doing a great job of raising her.\n\nBut I didn't believe that stories like Summer Dawn Macklesby's could have a happy ending, just like I didn't believe that all people are basically good. I didn't believe that God gave you compensation for your griefs. I didn't believe that when one door closes, another opens.\n\nI believed that was crap."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 2",
                "text": "I was going to miss some karate classes while I was in Bartley. And the gym would be closed for Christmas Eve, Christmas, and the day after. Maybe I could do calisthenics in my room to compensate? And my sore shoulder could use a rest. So as I packed my bag to leave, I tried not to grumble any more than I already had. I had to make this visit, had to do it with grace.\n\nAs I drove to Bartley, which was about a three-hour journey east and a little north from Shakespeare, I tried to drum up some sort of pleasurable anticipation about the coming visit.\n\nIt would have been more straightforward if I hated my parents. I loved them.\n\nIt was in no way their fault that my abduction, rape, and mutilation had made such a media roar that my life, and theirs, had changed even more than was inevitable.\n\nAnd it was in no way their fault that no one I'd grown up with seemed to be able to treat me as a normal person, after that second, public, rape in the spotlight of the press and the TV cameras.\n\nNor was it my parents' fault that my boyfriend of two years had quit seeing me after the press turned their attention away from him.\n\nNone of it was their fault\u2014or mine\u2014but it had permanently altered the relationships between us. My mother and father couldn't look at me without thinking of what had happened to me. They couldn't talk to me without it coloring the most commonplace conversation. My only sibling, Varena, who had always been more relaxed and elastic than I had, had never been able to understand why I didn't recover more swiftly and get on with my life as it had been before; and my parents didn't know how to get in contact with the woman I'd become.\n\nWeary of scrambling through this emotional equivalent of a hamster exercise wheel, I was nearly glad to see the outskirts of Bartley\u2014the poor rickety homes and marginal businesses that blotch the approach to most small towns.\n\nThen I was rolling past the filling station where my parents gassed their cars; past the dry cleaner where Mother took their coats; past the Presbyterian church they'd attended all their lives, where they'd been baptized, married, christened their daughters, from which they would be buried.\n\nI turned down the familiar street. On the next block, the house I grew up in was wearing its winter coat. The rosebushes had been trimmed back. The smooth grass of the big yard was pale after the frost. The house sat in the middle of the large lot, surrounded by my father's rose beds. A huge Christmas wreath made from twined grapevines and little gold toy trumpets hung on the front door, and the decorated tree was visible in the big picture window in the living room. Mom and Dad had repainted the house when Varena and Dill got engaged, so it was gleaming white for the wedding festivities.\n\nI parked to the side of the driveway on a concrete apron my parents had poured when Varena and I began driving. We'd had friends over all the time, and my folks got tired of their own vehicles getting blocked in.\n\nI eased out of my car and looked at the house for a long moment, stretching my legs after the drive. It had seemed so big when I'd lived in it. I had always felt so lucky to grow up in this house.\n\nNow I saw a fairly typical built-in-the-fifties house, with a double garage, a living room, a den, a big kitchen, a dining room, and three bedrooms, two baths.\n\nThere was a workroom at the back of the garage for my father\u2014not that he ever did anything in it, but men needed a workroom. Just like there was a sewing machine in the corner of my parents' bedroom, because a woman ought to have a sewing machine\u2014not that my mother ever sewed more than a ripped seam. And we Bards had a full complement of family silver\u2014not that we ever ate with it. Someday, in the course of time, Varena and I would divide that silver between us, and the care of it would be on our shoulders; that heavy, ornate silver that was too fine and too much trouble to use.\n\nI got my suitcase and my hanging bag out of the backseat and went up to the front door. My feet felt heavier with every step.\n\nI was home.\n\nVarena answered the door, and we gave each other a quick look of assessment and a tentative hug.\n\nVarena was looking good.\n\nI had been the prettier when we were girls. My eyes are bluer, my nose is straighter, my lips are fuller. But that doesn't have much meaning for me anymore. I think it still matters very much to Varena. Her hair is long and naturally a redder brown than mine had been. She wears blue contacts, which intensify her eye color to an almost bizarre extent. Her nose turns up a little, and she is about two inches shorter, with bigger breasts and a bigger bottom.\n\n\"How is the wedding process?\" I asked.\n\nShe widened her eyes and made her hands tremble. On edge.\n\nBeyond her, I could see the tables that had been set up to accommodate the presents.\n\n\"Wow,\" I said, shaking my head in acknowledgment of the sight. There were three long tables (I was sure my folks had borrowed them from the church) draped in gleaming white tablecloths, and every inch was covered with consumer goods. Wineglasses, cloth napkins and tablecloths, china, silver\u2014more silver\u2014vases, letter openers, picture albums, knives and cutting boards, toasters, blankets...\n\n\"People are being so sweet,\" Varena said, and I could tell that was her stock response; not that she didn't mean it, but I was sure she'd said that over and over and over to visitors.\n\n\"Well, no one's ever had to spend anything on us, have they?\" I observed, raising my eyebrows. Neither Varena or I had ever been married, unlike some in our high school circles who'd been divorced twice by now.\n\nMy mother came into the living room from the den. She was pale, but then she always is, like me. Varena likes to tan, and my father does inevitably; he'd rather be out working in the yard than almost anything.\n\n\"Oh, sugar!\" my mother said and folded me to her. My mother is shorter than me, bone-thin, and her hair is such a faded blond it's almost white. Her eyes are blue like every member of our family's, but their color seems to have faded in the past five or six years. She's never had to wear glasses, her hearing is excellent, and she beat breast cancer ten years ago. She doesn't wear clothes that are at all trendy or fashionable, but she never looks frumpy, either.\n\nThe months, the years, seemed to dissolve. It felt like I'd seen them yesterday.\n\n\"Where's Dad?\" I asked.\n\n\"He's gone down to the church to get another table,\" Varena explained, trying not to smile too broadly. My mother suppressed the curve of her own lips.\n\n\"Is he rolling in this wedding stuff?\"\n\n\"You know it,\" Varena said. \"He just loves it. He's been waiting for this for years.\"\n\n\"This'll be the wedding of the decade in Bartley,\" I said.\n\n\"Well,\" Varena began, as we all started down the hall to my old room, \"if Mrs. Kingery can get here, it may be.\" Her voice sounded a little whiny, a bit flat, as though this worry or complaint were so long-standing she'd worn out the emotion behind it.\n\n\"Dill's mother may not come?\" I asked, incredulous. \"So, she's really old and sick... or what?\"\n\nMy mother sighed. \"We can't quite decide what the problem is,\" she explained. She stared off into the distance for a moment, as if the clue to Varena's future mother-in-law's behavior was written on the lawn outside the window.\n\nVarena had taken my hanging bag and opened the closet to hook the hangers over the rod. I put my suitcase on the triple dresser that had been my pride and joy at age sixteen. Varena looked back at me over her shoulder.\n\n\"I think,\" she said, \"that maybe Mrs. Kingery was just so crazy about Dill's first wife that she hates to see her replaced. You know, with Anna being their child, and all.\"\n\n\"Seems to me like she'd be glad that Anna's going to have such a good stepmother,\" I said, though in truth, I'd never thought what kind of stepmother Varena would make.\n\n\"That would be the sensible attitude.\" My mother sighed. \"I just don't know, and you can't ask point-blank.\"\n\nI could. But I knew they wouldn't want me to.\n\n\"She'll have to come to the rehearsal, right?\"\n\nMy mother and my sister looked anxiously at each other.\n\n\"We think she will,\" Varena said. \"But Dill can't seem to tell me what that woman will do.\"\n\nDill (Dillard) Kingery's mother was still in Dill's hometown, which I thought was Pine Bluff.\n\n\"How long have you been dating Dill?\" I asked.\n\n\"Seven years,\" Varena said, smiling brightly. This, too, was obviously a question that had been asked many times since Varena and Dill had announced their engagement.\n\n\"Dill is older than you?\"\n\n\"Yeah, he's even older than you,\" my sister said.\n\nSome things never change.\n\nWe heard my father's yell from the front door. \"One a you come help me with this damn thing?\" he bellowed.\n\nI got there first.\n\nMy father, who is stocky and short and bald as an eight ball, had hauled the long table out of the bed of his pickup to the front door and definitely needed help getting it up the steps.\n\n\"Hey, pigeon,\" he said, his smile radiant.\n\nI figured that would fade soon enough, so I hugged him while I could. Then I lifted the front of the table, which he'd propped against the iron railing that bordered the steps up to the front door.\n\n\"You sure that's not too heavy for you?\" Dad fussed. He had always had the delusion that the attack I'd endured somehow had made me weak internally, that I was now frail in some invisible manner. The fact that I could bench-press 120 pounds, sometimes more, had no influence on this delusion.\n\n\"I'm fine,\" I said.\n\nHe picked up the rear of the table, which was the kind with metal legs that fold underneath for easy carrying. With a little maneuvering, we got it up the steps and into the living room. While I held the table on its side, he pulled out the metal legs and locked them into place. We swung the table upright. The whole time he worried out loud about me doing too much, straining myself.\n\nI began to get that tight, hot feeling behind my eyes.\n\nMy mother appeared in the nick of time with yet another spotless white tablecloth. Without speaking she shook it out. I took the loose end, and together we spread it evenly over the table. My father talked the whole time, about the number of wedding presents Varena and Dill had gotten, about the number of wedding invitations they'd sent, about the acceptances they'd received, about the reception...\n\nI eyed him covertly while we transferred some of the crowded presents to the new table. Dad didn't look good. His face seemed redder than it should have been, his legs seemed to be giving him pain, and his hands shook a little. I knew he'd been diagnosed with high blood pressure and arthritis.\n\nThere was an awkward pause, once we'd gotten our little task accomplished.\n\n\"Ride over to my apartment with me and see the dress,\" Varena offered.\n\n\"OK.\"\n\nWe got in Varena's car for the short drive over to her apartment, which was a small yellow cottage to the side of a big old yellow house where Emory and Meredith Osborn lived with their little girl and a new baby, Varena explained.\n\n\"When the Osborns bought this house from old Mrs. Smitherton\u2014she had to go into Dogwood Manor, did I tell you?\u2014I was worried they'd raise the rent, but they didn't. I like them both, not that I see them that much. The little girl is cute, always got a bow in her hair. She plays with Anna sometimes. Meredith keeps Anna and the O'Sheas' little girl after school, now and then.\"\n\nI thought I remembered that the O'Sheas were the Presbyterian minister and his wife. They'd come after I'd begun living in Shakespeare.\n\nVarena was chattering away, as if she could hardly wait to fill me in on all the details of her life. Or as if she were uncomfortable with me.\n\nWe pulled into the driveway and passed the larger house to park in front of Varena's place. It was a copy of the house in miniature, done in pale yellow siding with dark green shutters and white trim.\n\nA little girl was playing the yard, a thin child with long brown hair. Sure enough, a perky red-and-green bow was clipped right above her bangs. On this cold day, she was wearing a sweatsuit topped by a coat and earmuffs, but still she looked chilly. She waved as Varena got out of her car.\n\n\"Hey, Miss Varena,\" she called politely. She held a ball in her hands. When I got out of the passenger's door, she stared at me with curiosity.\n\n\"Eve, this is my sister, Lily.\" Varena turned to me. \"Eve has a sister, too, a new one.\"\n\n\"What's her name?\" I asked, since that seemed indicated. I am very uneasy around children.\n\n\"Jane Lilith,\" Eve mumbled.\n\n\"That's pretty,\" I said, because I couldn't think of anything else to say.\n\n\"Is your sister taking a nap right now?\" Varena asked.\n\n\"Yeah, and my mom too,\" the girl said forlornly.\n\n\"Come in and see my dress,\" Varena invited.\n\nEve really brightened up. Varena seemed to have a way with children. We trailed into the little front room of the house and followed Varena back to her bedroom. The closet door was open, and the wedding dress, swathed in plastic, was hanging on a special hanger that fitted over the top of the door.\n\nWell, it was white and it was a wedding dress.\n\n\"It's beautiful,\" I said instantly. I am not stupid.\n\nEve was awestruck. \"Oooo,\" she said breathlessly.\n\nVarena laughed, and as I looked at my sister, I saw how warm and responsive her face was, how good-natured she looked. \"I'm glad you like it,\" she said and went on talking to the child in an easy way that was totally beyond me.\n\n\"Can you pick me up so I can see the scarf?\" Eve asked Varena.\n\nI looked where the child was pointing. The veil, yards and yards of it, attached to an elaborate sort of tiara, was in a separate bag attached to the one holding the dress.\n\n\"Oh, honey, you're too big for me to pick up,\" Varena said, shaking her head. I could feel my eyebrows crawl up. Was it possible Varena couldn't lift this girl? I assessed the child. Seventy-five pounds, tops. I squatted, wrapped my arms around her hips, and lifted.\n\nEve squealed with surprise and delight. She turned to look down at me.\n\n\"Can you see?\" I asked.\n\nEve examined the veil, admired the glittering sequined tiara, and went all dreamy-eyed for a minute or two.\n\n\"You can put me down now,\" she said eventually, and I gently lowered her to the floor. The girl turned to give me a long stare of evaluation.\n\n\"You're really strong,\" she said admiringly. \"I bet nobody messes with you.\"\n\nI could practically taste Varena's sudden silence.\n\n\"No,\" I told the little girl. \"Nobody messes with me now.\"\n\nEve's narrow face turned thoughtful. She thanked Varena for showing her the dress and veil in a perfectly polite way, but she seemed almost abstracted as she said she'd better be getting home.\n\nVarena saw Eve out. \"Oh, Dill's here!\" she exclaimed in a happy voice. I stared at the frothy white construction of a dress for a moment more before I followed Varena to the living room.\n\nI'd known Dill Kingery since he moved to Bartley. He'd just begun dating Varena when the whole eruption in my life had occurred. He'd been a great solace to my sister during that time, when the whole family had needed all the help we could get.\n\nThey'd continued dating ever since. It had been a long engagement, long enough for Varena to bear a good amount of teasing from her coworkers at the tiny Bartley hospital.\n\nLooking at Dill now, I wondered why he'd dragged his feet. I didn't think he'd been beating other women off with a stick. Dill was perfectly nice and perfectly pleasant, but you wouldn't turn to look at him twice on the street. My sister's fianc\u00e9 had thinning sandy hair, attractive brown eyes, wire-rimmed glasses, and a happy smile. His daughter, Anna, was another skinny little eight-year-old, with thick, shoulder-length brown hair that was lighter than her father's. Anna had her dad's eyes and smile. Anna's mother had died when Anna was about eighteen months old, Dill had told us, in a car accident.\n\nI watched while Anna hugged Varena. She was about to run to play with Eve when Dill stopped her. \"Say hi to your aunt Lily,\" he said firmly.\n\n\"Hey, Aunt Lily,\" Anna said and gave me a casual wave of the hand, which I returned. \"Can I play with Eve now, Daddy?\"\n\n\"OK, sweetie,\" Dill said, and the two girls clattered outside while Dill turned to me to give me a hug. I had to endure it, so I did, but I'm not a casual toucher. And I hadn't quite adjusted to being \"Aunt Lily.\"\n\nDill asked me the usual questions you ask of someone you haven't seen in while, and I managed to answer civilly. I was tensing up already, and nothing had happened to make me so. What was wrong with me? I stared out the front window while Dill and my sister talked over the plans for the evening. Tonight, I gathered, Dill was attending his bachelor dinner, while Varena and I and Mother were going to a wedding shower.\n\nAs I watched the two little girls playing on the front lawn, heaving the beach ball back and forth between them and running a lot, I tried to recall playing with Varena like that. Surely we had? But I couldn't dredge up a single recollection.\n\nWithout asking me, Dill told Varena he'd run me home so she could start getting ready. I looked at my watch. If Varena needed three hours to get ready for a party, she needed help, in my opinion. But Varena seemed pleased with Dill's offer, so I went outside to stand by Dill's Bronco. A tiny, thin woman had come outside of the bigger house to call to Eve.\n\n\"Hey,\" she said when she noticed me.\n\n\"Hello,\" I said.\n\nEve came running up, Anna in tow.\n\n\"This is Varena's sister, Mama,\" she said. \"She came for the wedding. Miss Varena showed me her dress, and Miss Lily picked me up so I could see the veil. You wouldn't believe how strong Miss Lily is! I bet she can lift a horse!\"\n\n\"Oh, my goodness,\" said Eve's mama, her thin face transformed by a sweet smile. \"I better say hello, then. I'm Eve's mother, as I'm sure you figured. Meredith Osborn.\"\n\n\"Hello again,\" I said. \"Lily Bard.\" This woman had just had a baby, according to Varena, but she looked no larger than a child herself. Losing \"baby weight\" was not going to be a problem for Meredith Osborn. I didn't think Meredith Osborn was over thirty-one, my age, and she might be even younger.\n\n\"Can you pick us both up, Miss Lily?\" Eve asked, and my niece-to-be suddenly looked much more interested in me.\n\n\"I think so,\" I said and bent my knees. \"One on either side, now!\"\n\nThe girls each picked a side, and I hooked my arms around them and stood, making sure I was steady. The girls were squealing with excitement. \"Hold still,\" I reminded them, and they stopped the thrashing that I had worried would topple us all over onto the driveway.\n\n\"We're queens of the world,\" Anna shouted extravagantly, sweeping her arm to indicate her turf. \"Look at how high up we are!\"\n\nDill had been talking to Varena in the doorway, but now he glanced over to find out what Anna was doing. His face looked almost comical with surprise when he saw the girls.\n\nWith the anxious smile of someone who is trying not to panic, he strode over. \"Better get down, sweetie! You're a big load for Miss Lily.\"\n\n\"They're both small,\" I said mildly and surrendered Anna to her dad. I swung Eve in front of me and set her down gently. She grinned up at me. Her mother was looking at her with that smile of love women get when they look at their kids. A little mewling sound came from the house. \"I hear your sister crying,\" Meredith Osborn said wearily. \"We better go in and see. Good-bye, Miss Bard, nice to meet you.\"\n\nI nodded at Meredith and gave Eve a little smile. Her brown eyes, peering up at me, looked enormous. She grinned at me, a smile stretching from one ear to another, and dashed in after her mother.\n\nAnna and her father were already in the Bronco, so I climbed in, too. Dill chatted all the way back to my parents' home, but I half tuned him out. I had already talked to more people today than I normally spoke to in three or four days in Shakespeare. I was out of the habit of chitchat.\n\nI got out at my folks' with a nod to Dill and Anna and strode into the house. My mother was fluttering around the kitchen, trying to get something ready for us to eat before we went to the shower. My dad was in the bathroom getting ready for the bachelor dinner.\n\nMy mother was worried that some of Dill's friends might get carried away and have a stripper perform at the party. I shrugged. My father wouldn't be mortally offended.\n\n\"It's your dad's blood pressure I'm really worried about,\" Mom said with a half smile. \"If a naked woman popped out of a cake, no telling what might happen!\"\n\nI poured iced tea and set the glasses on the table. \"It doesn't seem too likely that anyone will do that,\" I said, because she was looking for reassurance. \"Dill's not a kid, and it's not his first marriage. I don't think any of his local friends are likely to get that carried away.\" I sat down at my place.\n\n\"You're right,\" Mom said with some relief. \"You always have such good sense, Lily.\"\n\nNot always.\n\n\"Are you... seeing anyone... now, honey?\" Mom asked gently.\n\nI stared up at her as she hovered over the table, plates in her hands. I almost said no automatically.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThe fleeting look of sheer relief and pleasure that flashed across my mother's pale, narrow face was so intense I felt like taking back my yes. I was feeling my way with Jack every hour we were together, and to have our relationship classified as a standard dating situation made me horribly anxious.\n\n\"Can you tell me a little about him?\" Mom's voice was calm, her hands steady as she set the plates down at our places. She sat down across from me and began to stir sugar into her tea.\n\nI had no idea what to say.\n\n\"Oh, that's all right, I don't want to intrude on your privacy,\" she said after a moment, flustered.\n\n\"No,\" I said just as quickly. It seemed awful to me that we were so leery of each other's every word and silence. \"No, that's... no, it's OK. He...\" I pictured Jack, and a tide of longing swept over me, so intense and painful that it took my breath away. After it ebbed, I said, \"He's a private detective. He lives in Little Rock. He's thirty-five.\"\n\nMy mother put her sandwich down on her plate and began smiling. \"That's wonderful, honey. What's his name? Has he been married before?\"\n\n\"Yes. His name is Jack Leeds.\"\n\n\"Any kids?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"That's easier.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Though I know little Anna so well now, at first when Dill and Varena began dating... Anna was so little, not even toilet trained, and Dill's mother didn't seem to want to come to take care of Anna, though she was a cute little toddler...\"\n\n\"That worried you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she admitted, nodding her faded blond head. \"Yes, it did. I didn't know if Varena could handle it. She never enjoyed baby-sitting very much, and she never talked about having babies, like most girls do. But she and Anna seemed to take to each other just fine. Sometimes she gets fed up with Anna's little tricks, and sometimes Anna reminds Varena that she isn't her real mother, but for the most part they get along great.\"\n\n\"Dill wasn't in the car wreck that killed his wife?\"\n\n\"No, it was a one-car accident. Evidently, Judy, his wife, had just dropped off Anna at a sitter's.\"\n\n\"That was before Dill moved here?\"\n\n\"Yes, just a few months before. He'd been living up northwest of Little Rock. He says he felt he just couldn't bear to raise Anna there, every day having to pass the spot where his wife died.\"\n\n\"So he moves to a town where he doesn't know a soul, where he doesn't have any family to help him raise Anna.\" I spoke before I thought.\n\nMy mother gave me a sharp look. \"And we're mighty glad he did,\" she said firmly. \"The pharmacy here was up for sale, and it's been wonderful to have it open, so we have a choice.\" There was a chain pharmacy in Bartley, too.\n\n\"Of course,\" I said, to keep the peace.\n\nWe finished our meal in silence. My father stomped through on his way out the kitchen door to his car, grousing the whole time about not fitting in at a bachelor dinner. We could tell he was really gleeful about being invited. He had a wrapped present tucked under his arm, and when I asked what it was, his face turned even redder. He pulled on his topcoat and slammed the back door behind him without answering.\n\n\"I suspect he bought one of those nasty gag gifts,\" Mom said with a little smile as she listened to Father back out of the driveway.\n\nI loved getting surprised by my mother. \"I'll do the dishes while you get ready,\" I said.\n\n\"You need to try on your bridesmaid dress!\" she said abruptly as she was rising to leave the kitchen.\n\n\"Right now?\"\n\n\"What if we need to take it up?\"\n\n\"Oh... all right.\" This was not a moment I'd anticipated with any pleasure. Bridesmaids' dresses are notorious for being unusable, and I'd paid for this one as a good bridesmaid should. But I hadn't seen it yet. I had a horrible, wincing moment of picturing the dress as red velvet with fake fur trim to suit the Christmas motif.\n\nI should have had more trust in Varena. The dress, which was hanging in my bedroom closet swathed in plastic like Varena's own dress, was deep burgundy velvet, with a band of matching satin ribbon sewed under the breasts. In back, where the edges of the ribbon came together, there was a matching bow\u2014but it was detachable. The dress had a high neckline but was cut low in the back. My sister didn't want her bridesmaids demure, that was for sure.\n\n\"Try it on,\" Mother urged. I could tell she wouldn't be happy until I did. With my back to her, I pulled off my shirt and wriggled out of my shoes and jeans. But I had to turn to face her to get the dress, which she'd been divesting of its plastic bag.\n\nEvery time, the impact of my scars hit her in the heart. She took a deep, ragged breath and handed me the dress, and I got it over my head as quickly as possible. I turned so she could zip me, and together we looked at it in the mirror. Both our pairs of eyes went immediately to the neckline. Perfect. Nothing showed. Thank you, Varena.\n\n\"It looks beautiful,\" Mother said stoutly. \"Stand up straight, now.\" (As if I slouched.) The dress did fit well, and who doesn't love the feel of velvet?\n\n\"What kind of flowers are we carrying?\"\n\n\"The bridesmaids' bouquets are going to be long sprays of glads and some other stuff,\" Mother said, who strictly left the gardening to my father. \"You're the maid of honor, you know.\"\n\nVarena hadn't seen me in three years.\n\nThis wasn't just a wedding, then. This was a full-scale family reconciliation.\n\nI was willing, but I didn't know if I was able. Plus, I hadn't been to a wedding in a long time.\n\n\"Do I have to do anything special?\"\n\n\"You have to carry the ring Varena's giving Dill. You have to take her bouquet while she's saying her vows.\" Mom smiled at me, and her washed-blue eyes crinkled around the corners of her eyelids. When my mother smiled, her whole face smiled with her. \"You're lucky she didn't pick a dress with a ten-foot train, because you'd have to turn it around for her before she leaves the church.\"\n\nI thought I could remember the ring and the bouquet.\n\n\"I'll have to thank her for the honor,\" I said, and Mom's face sagged for just a minute. She thought I was being sarcastic.\n\n\"I mean it,\" I told her, and I could almost feel her relax.\n\nHad I been so frightening, so unpredictable, so rude?\n\nWhen I'd worked my way carefully out of the dress, and pulled my T-shirt back on, I patted my mother gently on the shoulder as she made sure the dress was absolutely even on its padded hanger.\n\nShe smiled fleetingly at me, and then we went back to the kitchen to clean up."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 3",
                "text": "I wore the off-white blouse, gold vest, and black pants to the shower. I buttoned the blouse all the way up to the neck. My makeup was light and perfect, and my hair fluffed out in the right way. I looked fine, I decided, appropriate. I worked on relaxing, buckled into the backseat of my mother's car.\n\nWe picked up Varena on the way. This was at least her second shower, but she was as excited and pleased as though celebrating her forthcoming marriage was an original idea.\n\nWe drove across town to the home of the shower hostess, Margie Lipscom. Margie was another nurse at the little Bartley hospital, which was always threatened with closing or being closed. Margie was married to one of the more prominent lawyers in Bartley, which was actually not saying much. Bartley is a Delta town, and in this phase of its existence, that means poor.\n\nIt meant that at least seventy percent of the town's population was on welfare.\n\nWhen I'd been growing up, it had just meant that Bartley was flat. You don't know what flat is until you've lived in the Delta.\n\nI missed the low, rolling hills around Shakespeare. I missed the ratty Christmas decorations. I missed my house. I missed my gym.\n\nI would have given anything to be selfish enough to jump in my car and drive home.\n\nI took slow, deep breaths, like I did before I attempted to lift a weight that was a real challenge. Like I did before we sparred in karate class.\n\nMom drove past Bartley's dilapidated motel, and I glanced into its U of rooms. There was a car parked there\u2014 that, in itself, was nearly amazing\u2014and it looked like... my heart began to stutter in an uncomfortable way.\n\nI shook my head. Couldn't be.\n\nWe parked on the street in front of the white-painted brick house all lit up like a birthday cake. There was a white-and-silver paper wedding bell fixed to the front door. A stout redhead stood just within the foyer... Margie Lipscom. I'd known her as a plump brunette.\n\nMy mother got patted, my sister got hugged, and I was greeted with a shriek.\n\n\"Oh, Lily! Girl, you look beautiful!\" Margie exclaimed. She grabbed me and embraced me. I endured it. Margie was my age, had never been a particular friend of mine; she had grown closer to my sister when they began working together. Margie had always been a hooter and a hugger. She was going to fuss extra over me now, because she felt sorry for me.\n\n\"Isn't she even prettier, Frieda?\" Margie said to my mother. Overcompensating for her discomfort.\n\n\"Lily has always been lovely,\" my mother said calmly.\n\n\"Well, let's go see everyone!\" Margie grabbed my hand and led me into the living room. I was biting the inside of my mouth. I was having a little flutter of panic and anger, the sort of nervous spasm I hadn't had in a long time. A long, long time.\n\nI found a smile and fixed it on my face.\n\nAfter I'd nodded to everyone and said, \"Tell you later,\" in answer to almost every query, I was able to sit in a straight chair that had been crammed into a corner of the crowded living room. After that, all I had to do was aim a pleasant look in the direction of the loudest speaker, and I was fine.\n\nThis was a lingerie shower, and I'd gotten Varena a present when I'd shopped for myself in Montrose. She hadn't expected a gift from me, hadn't noticed me bring it into the house. She looked up at me in surprise when she read the card on the front. I may have imagined it, but she looked a little apprehensive.\n\nMy gift was a nightgown, full-length, with spaghetti straps and lace panels\u2014sheer lace panels\u2014over the breasts. It was black. It was beautiful. It was really, really sexy. As Varena was ripping off the paper, I was suddenly convinced I'd made a terrible mistake. The most daring garment Varena had received so far was a tiger-print teddy, and there had been some red faces over that.\n\nWhen Varena shook out the gown and held it up, there was a moment of silence, during which I decided I might as well sneak out the back way. Then Varena said, \"Wow. This is for the wedding night.\" And there was a chorus of \"Oooo\" and \"Oh, boy!\"\n\n\"Lily, this is beautiful,\" Varena said directly. \"And I bet Dill's gonna thank you, too!\"\n\nThere was a chorus of laughter, and then the next gift was passed to my sister to open.\n\nI relaxed and coasted on autopilot for the rest of the evening.\n\nDuring the punch and cakes, the talk turned to Bartley's purse snatcher. This seemed an urban sort of crime for Bartley, so I paid attention. Margie was saying, \"And he stole Diane's purse right off her arm and ran off with it!\"\n\n\"Did she get a good look at him?\" the minister's wife asked. Lou O'Shea was a buxom brunette with a ski-jump nose and intelligent eyes. I'd never met her before. I hadn't been to church, in Bartley or anywhere else, in years.\n\n\"Just a black guy, medium height,\" Margie said. \"Could be a hundred people.\"\n\n\"She's all right?\" my mother asked.\n\n\"Well, he knocked her down to the sidewalk, so she had some scrapes and bruises. It could've been a lot worse.\"\n\nAfter a second's thoughtful pause, a few eyes slid in my direction. I was the worse it could have been.\n\nBut I was used to that. I kept my face blank, and the little moment passed. A purse snatching did not seem as remarkable as it would have a few years ago. Now, with gang presence and drugs in every tiny town up and down the interstate and all in between, what happened to Diane Dykeman, a sales clerk at one of the local clothing stores, didn't seem so bad. She seemed lucky to be unhurt, rather than unfortunate to have her purse snatched at all.\n\nAfter a tedious two and a half hours we drove home, taking a different route this time since we were giving a lift to Lou O'Shea, whose husband had dropped her off on his way to a meeting. The Presbyterian manse was a large redbrick home that matched the adjacent church. I half listened to the backseat conversation between Varena and Lou, enough to gather that Lou, like Meredith Osborn, had an eight-year-old girl and another, younger child. When we pulled into the driveway, Lou seemed reluctant to get out.\n\n\"I'm afraid it doesn't make Krista any fonder of Luke, him crying so much,\" Lou told us with a heavy sigh. \"She's not too enthusiastic about her little brother right now.\"\n\n\"Krista is Anna's age, they play together a lot,\" Varena reminded me.\n\n\"It'll all straighten out,\" my mother said in her soothing way. \"Sooner or later you'll find out why Luke cries all night, and he'll stop. And then Krista will forget all about it. She's a smart little girl, Lou.\"\n\n\"You're right,\" Lou said instantly, back on her mettle as a minister's wife. \"Thanks for the lift. I'll see you-all tomorrow afternoon!\"\n\nWhen we were driving away, Varena said, \"Lou'll be coming to the rehearsal dinner tomorrow night.\"\n\n\"Isn't it traditional to have the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding?\" I didn't want to sound critical, but I was faintly curious.\n\n\"Yes. Dill had originally scheduled it for that night,\" Mother said. I was being subtly reminded that the groom's family had the responsibility for the rehearsal dinner. \"But Sarah May's was already booked for the two evenings before the wedding! So we just moved it to three nights, and the couple giving the supper for Dill and Varena rescheduled it to the night before the wedding, bless them.\"\n\nI nodded, hardly paying attention. I was absolutely confident I would be told what to do, when. I found myself wanting to be alone so badly I could taste it. When we got to Varena's, I unloaded the shower presents with great dispatch, and at my folks' house, I said a brief good-night to Mom before heading for my room.\n\nMy father hadn't yet gotten home from the bachelor party. I hoped he wasn't drinking and smoking cigars. His blood pressure would soar.\n\nI sat in the little chair in my room and read for a long time, a biography I'd brought with me. Then I hooked my feet under the bed and did sit-ups, I dropped and did pushups, and I did eighty leg lifts. After that, it was time for a relaxing shower. I noticed that my father had come in at some point and turned out the remaining lights.\n\nBut even after the hot shower, I felt itchy. I couldn't walk in Bartley. People would talk about my family. The police weren't used to me. They might stop me\u2014if I saw any. The Bartley police force was not large.\n\nI pushed the temptation away and forced myself to climb in the bed. I worked three crossword puzzles in a book I found in the bedside table drawer. Somehow, trying to think of a five-letter word meaning an earth-covered Indian dwelling did the trick. Finally, I was able to draw a curtain on a very long day.\n\nUnfortunately, the next was more of the same.\n\nBefore noon, I decided that everyone in my family should have had to go to work until an hour before the wedding.\n\nMy father had taken two weeks' vacation from the electric company. Since my mother was a housewife, she was always at work\u2014but still in the house, constantly thinking of things that just had to be done. Varena had just taken three weeks' leave from her job at the hospital, and even Dill was often leaving the drugstore to his normally part-time assistant, a young mother who was also a pharmacist.\n\nMore presents arrived, to be unwrapped and admired and entered on the list. More thank-you notes had to be written. The two other bridesmaids had to stop by and admire and check on last-minute plans. The minister, Jess O'Shea, came in for a minute to verify a couple of things. He had smooth dark blond hair and was quietly good-looking in a blocky, square-jawed way: I hoped he was as good as he was handsome, because I'd always imagined that ministers were prime targets for neurotic\u2014or just hopeful\u2014members of their congregation.\n\nHis little girl was in tow. Chunky Krista, whose hair was the same dark brown as her mother's but not as perfectly smooth, was sleepy-eyed and cross with her baby brother's nocturnal activity, just as Lou had predicted. Krista was in a whiny mood.\n\n\"Luke cried all night,\" she said sullenly when someone asked her for the third time where her brother was.\n\n\"Oh, Krista!\" one of the other bridesmaids said disapprovingly. Varena's lifelong best friend, Tootsie Monahan, was blond and round-faced and low on brain cells. \"How can you say that about a little kid like Luke? Toddlers are so cute.\"\n\nI saw Krista's face flush. Tootsie was pushing the old guilt button hard. I'd been leaning against the wall in the living room. I shoved off and maneuvered myself closer to the little girl.\n\n\"Varena cried all night when she was baby,\" I told Krista very quietly.\n\nKrista looked up at me unbelievingly. Her round hazel eyes, definitely her best feature, fastened on me with every appearance of skepticism. \"Did not,\" she said tentatively.\n\n\"Did too.\" I nodded firmly and drifted into the kitchen, where I managed to sneak Krista some sort of carbonated drink that she really enjoyed. She probably wasn't supposed to have it. Then I wandered around the house, from time to time retreating to my room and shutting the door for ten minutes. (That was the length of time, I'd found from trial and error, before someone missed me and came to see how I was, what I was doing.)\n\nVarena popped her head in my door about 12:45 to ask me if I'd go with her to the doctor's. \"I need to go in to pick up my birth-control pill prescription, but I want Dr. LeMay to check my ears. The right one is feeling a little achy, and I'm scared it'll be a full-blown infection by the wedding day. Binnie said come on in, he'd see me before the afternoon patients stacked up.\"\n\nOne of the perks of being a nurse was the quick in-and-out you got at the local doctors' offices, Varena had told me years ago. As long as I could remember, Varena had suffered from allergies, which frequently caused ear infections. She had always developed them at the most inconvenient times. Like four days before her wedding.\n\nI followed her out to her car with a sense of release. \"I know you need to get out of the house,\" Varena said, giving me a little sideways glance. We pulled out of the driveway and began the short hop to Dr. LeMay's office.\n\n\"Is it that obvious?\"\n\n\"Only to someone who knows you,\" Varena said ruefully. \"Yes, Lily, it's like seeing a tiger in a cage at the zoo. Back and forth, back and forth, giving all the people who walk by that ferocious stare.\"\n\n\"Surely not that bad,\" I said anxiously. \"I don't want to upset them.\"\n\n\"I know you don't. And I'm glad to see you caring.\"\n\n\"I never stopped.\"\n\n\"You could have fooled me.\"\n\n\"I just didn't have the extra...\" Staying sane had taken all the energy I had. Trying to reassure other people had been simply impossible.\n\n\"I think I understand, finally,\" Varena said. \"I'm sorry I brought it up. Mom and Dad know, better than me, that you care about them.\"\n\nI was being forgiven for something I hadn't done, or at least had done only in Varena's opinion. But she was making an effort. I would make an effort, too.\n\nDr. LeMay was still based in the same little building in which he'd practiced medicine his entire career, all forty years of it. He must be nearing retirement age, his nurse Binnie Armstrong, too. They'd been a team for twenty-five years, I figured.\n\nVarena pulled into one of the angled parking spots, and we went down the narrow sidewalk to the front door. A matching door, the one that had been labeled \"Blacks Only\" at the beginning of Dr. LeMay's practice, had been replaced by a picture window. In the past five years, a set of bars had been installed across the vulnerable glass. Kind of wrapped up Bartley's history in a nutshell, I decided.\n\nThe door had been painted blue to match the eaves, but the paint had already chipped to show a long-familiar shade of green underneath. I twisted the knob and pushed, stepping in ahead of Varena.\n\nThe little building was oddly silent. No phones ringing, no copier running, no radio playing, no piped-in music.\n\nI turned to look at my sister. Something was wrong. But Varena's gaze slid away from mine. She wasn't going to admit it, yet.\n\n\"Binnie!\" she called too cheerfully. \"Lily and I are here! Come see her.\" She stared at the closed door on the other side of the waiting room, the door leading back to the examining rooms and offices. The glass that enclosed the receptionist's cubicle remained empty.\n\nWe heard a faint, terrible sound. It was the sound of someone dying. I had heard it before.\n\nI took six steps across the waiting room and opened the second door. The familiar hall, with three rooms to the right and three rooms to the left, was now floored with imitation wood-pattern linoleum instead of the speckled beige pattern I remembered, I thought incongruously.\n\nThen I noticed the advancing rivulet of blood, the only movement in the hall. I traced it, not really wanting to find the source, but in that small space it was all too obvious. A woman in a once-white uniform lay in the doorway of the middle room on the right.\n\n\"Binnie,\" screamed Varena, her hands flying up to her face. But then my sister remembered that she was a nurse, and she was instantly on her knees by the bloody woman. It was hard to discern the contours of Binnie Armstrong's face and head, she was so bludgeoned. It was from her throat the noise had come.\n\nWhile Varena knelt by her, trying to take her pulse, Binnie Armstrong died. I watched her whole body relax in final abandonment.\n\nI glanced in the door to the right, the one to the receptionist's little office. Clean and empty. I looked in the room to the left, an examining room. Clean and empty. I moved carefully down the hall, while my sister did CPR on the dead nurse, and I cautiously craned around the door of the next room on the left, another examining room. Empty. The doorway Binnie lay in led to the tiny lab and storage room. I stepped carefully past my sister and found Dr. LeMay in the last room to the right, his office.\n\n\"Varena,\" I said sharply.\n\nVarena looked up, dabbled with blood from the corpse.\n\n\"Binnie's dead, Varena.\" I nodded in the direction of the office. \"Come check Dr. LeMay.\"\n\nVarena leaped to her feet and took a couple of steps to stare in the door. Then she was moving to the other side of the desk to take his pulse but shaking her head as she went.\n\n\"He was killed at his desk,\" she said, as though that made it worse.\n\nDr. LeMay's white hair was clotted with blood. It was pooled on the desk where his head lay. His glasses were askew, ugly black-framed trifocals, and I wanted so badly to set them square on his face\u2014as if, when I did, he would see again. I had known Dr. LeMay my whole life. He had delivered me.\n\nVarena touched his hand, which was resting on the desk. I noticed in a stunned, slow way that it was absolutely clean. He had not had a chance to fight back. The first blow had been a devastating one. The room was full of paper, files and claim forms and team physicals... most of it now spotted with blood.\n\n\"He's gone,\" Varena whispered, not that there had been any doubt.\n\n\"We need to get out of here,\" I said, my voice loud and sharp in the little room with its awful sights and smells.\n\nAnd we stared at each other, our eyes widening with a sudden shared terror.\n\nI jerked my head toward the front door, and Varena scooted past me. She ran out while I waited to see if anything moved.\n\nI was the only live person in the office.\n\nI followed Varena out.\n\nShe was already across the street at the State Farm Insurance office, pulling open the glass door and lifting the receiver off the phone on the receptionist's desk. That stout and permed lady, wearing a bright red blouse and a Christmas corsage, was looking up at Varena as if she were speaking Navaho into the telephone. Within two minutes a police car pulled up in front of Dr. LeMay's office, and a tall, thin black man got out.\n\n\"You the one called in?\" he asked.\n\n\"My sister, in the office over there.\" I nodded toward the plate-glass window, through which Varena could be seen sitting in the client's chair, sobbing. The woman with the corsage was bending over her, offering Varena some tissues.\n\n\"I'm Detective Brainerd,\" the man said reassuringly, as though I'd indicated I'd thought he might be an imposter. \"Did you go in the building here?\" Yes.\n\n\"Did you see Dr. LeMay and his nurse?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And they're dead.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Is there anyone else in the building?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"So, is there a gas leak, or was there a fire smoldering, maybe smoke inhalation...?\"\n\n\"They were both beaten.\" My gaze skimmed the top of the old, old gum trees lining the street. \"To death.\"\n\n\"Okay, now. I'll tell you what we're going to do here.\"\n\nHe was extremely nervous, and I didn't blame him one bit.\n\n\"You're gonna stay right here, ma'am, while I go in there and take a look. Don't go anywhere, now.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nI waited by the police car, the cold gray day pinching my face and hands.\n\nThis is a world of carnage and cruelty: I had momentarily put that aside in the false security of my hometown, in the optimistic atmosphere of my sister's marriage.\n\nI began to detach from the scene, to float away, escaping this town, this building, these dead. It had been a long time since I'd retreated like this, gone to the remote place where I was not responsible for feeling.\n\nA young woman was standing in front of me in a paramedic's uniform.\n\n\"Ma'am? Ma'am? Are you all right?\" Her dark, anxious face peered into mine, her black hair stiff, smooth, and shoulder length under a cap with a caduceus patch on it.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Officer Brainerd said you had seen the bodies.\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"Are you... maybe you better come sit down over here, ma'am.\"\n\nMy eyes followed her pointing finger to the rear of the ambulance.\n\n\"No, thanks,\" I said politely. \"My sister is over there in the State Farm office, though. She might need help.\"\n\n\"I think you may need a little help yourself, ma'am,\" the woman said earnestly, loudly, as though I was retarded, as though I couldn't tell the difference between clinical shock and just being numb.\n\n\"No.\" I said it as finally and definitely as I knew how. I waited. I heard her muttering to someone else, but she did leave me alone after that. Varena came to stand beside me. Her eyes were red, and her makeup was streaked.\n\n\"Let's go home,\" she said.\n\n\"The policeman told me to wait.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\nJust then the same policeman, Brainerd, came striding out of the doctor's office. He'd gotten over his fit of nerves, and he'd seen the worst. He was focused, ready to go to work. He asked us a lot of questions, keeping us out in the cold for half an hour when we'd told him the sum of our knowledge in one minute.\n\nFinally, we buckled up in Varena's car. As she started back to our parents' house, I switched Varena's heater to full blast. I glanced over at my sister. Her face was blanched by the cold, her eyes red from crying with her contacts in. She'd pulled her hair back this morning in a ponytail, with a bright red scarf tied over the elastic band. The scarf still looked crisp and cheerful, though Varena had wilted. Varena's eyes met mine while we were waiting our turn at a four-way stop. She said, \"The drug cabinet was closed and full.\"\n\n\"I saw.\" Dr. LeMay had always kept the samples, and his supplies, in the same cabinet in the lab, a glass-front old-fashioned one. Since I'd been his patient as a child, that cabinet had stood in the same place with the same sort of contents. It would have surprised me profoundly if Dr. LeMay had ever kept anything very street-desirable... he'd have antibiotics, antihistamines, skin ointments, that kind of thing, I thought vaguely. Maybe painkillers.\n\nLike Varena, I'd seen past Binnie's body that the cabinet door was shut and everything in the room was orderly. It didn't seem likely that the same person who would commit such messy murders would leave the drug cabinet so neat if he'd searched it.\n\n\"I don't know what to make of that,\" I told Varena. She shook her head. She didn't, either. I stared out of the window at the familiar passing scenery, wishing I was anywhere but in Bartley.\n\n\"Lily, are you all right?\" Varena asked, her voice curiously hesitant.\n\n\"Sure, are you?\" I sounded more abrupt than I'd intended.\n\n\"I have to be, don't I? The wedding rehearsal is tonight, and I don't see how we can call it off. Plus, I've seen worse, frankly. It's just it being Dr. LeMay and Binnie that gave me such a wallop.\"\n\nMy sister sounded simply matter-of-fact. It hit me forcefully that Varena, as a nurse, had seen more blood and pain and awfulness than I would see in a lifetime. She was practical. After overcoming the initial shock, she was tough. She pulled into our parents' driveway and switched off the ignition.\n\n\"You're right. You can't call it off. People die all the time, Varena, and you can't derail your wedding because of it.\"\n\nWe were just the Practical Sisters.\n\n\"Right,\" she said, looking at me oddly. \"We have to go in and tell Mom and Dad.\"\n\nI stared at the house in front of us as if I had never seen it.\n\n\"Yes. Let's go.\"\n\nBut it was Varena who got out of the car first. And it was Varena who told my parents the bad news, in a grave, firm voice that somehow implied that any emotional display would be in bad taste."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 4",
                "text": "The rehearsal was scheduled for six o'clock, and we arrived at the Presbyterian church on the dot. Tootsie Monahan was already there, her hair in long curly strands like a show poodle's, talking and laughing with Dill and his best man. It was apparent that no one was going to talk about the death of the doctor and his nurse, unless they went into a corner and whispered. Everyone was struggling to keep this a joyous occasion, or at the very least to hold the emotional level above grim.\n\nI was introduced to Berry Duff, Dill's former college roommate and present best man, with some significance. After all, we were both single and in the same age group. The barely unspoken hope was that something might happen.\n\nBerry Duff was very tall, with thinning dark hair, wide dark eyes, and an enviable olive complexion. He was a farmer in Mississippi, had been divorced for about three years, and, I was given to understand, the embodiment of all things desirable: well-to-do, solid, religious, divorced without child custody. Dill managed to cram a surprising amount of that information into his introduction, and after a few minutes' conversation with Berry, I learned the rest.\n\nBerry seemed like a nice guy, and it was pleasant to stand with him while we waited for the players to assemble. I was not much of a person for small talk, and Berry didn't seem to mind, which was refreshing. He took his time poking around conversationally for some common ground, found it in dislike of movie theaters and love of weight lifting, which he'd enjoyed in college.\n\nI was wearing the white dress with the black jacket. At the last minute my mother had insisted I needed some color besides my lipstick, a point I was willing to concede. She'd put a filmy scarf in autumn reds and golds around my neck and anchored it with the gold pin I'd brought.\n\n\"You look very nice,\" Dill said, on one of his pass-bys. He and Varena seemed to be awfully nervous and were inventing errands to send them pacing around the small church. We were all hovering near the front, since the back was in darkness beyond the last pew. The door close to the pulpit, opening into a hall leading past the minister's study, gave a pneumatic hiss as people came and went. The heavier door beyond the big open area at the back of the church thudded from time to time as the members of the wedding party assembled.\n\nFinally, everyone was there. Varena; Tootsie; me; the other bridesmaid, Janna Russell; my mother and father; Jess and Lou O'Shea, the one in his capacity as minister and the other in her capacity as church organist; Dill; Berry Duff; Dill's unmarried younger brother Jay; a cousin of Dill's, Matthew Kingery; the florist who'd been hired to supply the wedding flowers, who would double as wedding director; and miracle of miracles, Dill's mother, Lula. Watching the relief spread over Varena's face as the old woman stomped in on Jay's arm made me want to take Lula Kingery aside and have a few sharp words with her.\n\nI watched the woman closely while the florist was giving the assembled group some directions. It didn't take long to conclude that Dill's mother was a few bricks short of a load. She was inappropriately dressed (a short-sleeved floral housedress with a hole in it, high heels with rhinestone buckles), which was in itself no clear signal of mental derangement, but when you added the ensemble to her out-of-the-ballpark questions (\"Do I have to walk down the aisle too?\") and her constant hand and eye movement, the sum total was significant.\n\nWell. So Dill's family had a skeleton, too.\n\nNotch one up for my family. At least I could pretty much be relied on to do the right thing, if I actually made an appearance. Dill's mom was definitely a loose cannon.\n\nVarena was handling Mrs. Kingery with amazing tact and kindness. So were my parents. I felt a proprietary swell of pride at my folks' goodness and had to resume my conversation with Berry Duff to cover the rush of emotion.\n\nAfter even more last-minute toing and froing, the rehearsal began. Patsy Green, the florist, gathered us together and gave us our marching orders. We took our positions to walk through the ceremonial paces.\n\nGetting the cues straight from Lou O'Shea on the organ, an usher escorted Mrs. Kingery to her place at the front of the church. Then my mother was guided to her front pew on the other side.\n\nWhile I clustered with the other bridesmaids at the back of the church, Jess O'Shea came in from the hall that ran in front of his office to the church sanctuary. He went to the top of the steps in front of the altar and stood there smiling. Dill entered the sanctuary from the same door, accompanied by Berry, who grinned at me. Then I walked down the aisle, listening with one ear to the florist's adjuration to walk slowly and smoothly.\n\nI always walk smoothly.\n\nShe reminded me to smile.\n\nJay Kingery came in from the hall, and Janna started down the aisle. Then the groomsman, cousin Matthew, took his place, and Tootsie did her long walk. I set off on cue, with Patsy Green hissing \"Smile!\" at my back.\n\nThen the piece de resistance. Varena came down the aisle on my father's arm, and she looked flushed and happy. So did Dad. Dill was beaming like a fool at his bride. Berry raised an eyebrow at me, and I felt my mouth twitch in response.\n\n\"That went well!\" Patsy Green called from the back of the church. She began walking toward us, and we all turned to listen to her comments. I wasn't at all surprised it had fallen into place, since almost everyone in the party was old enough to have played a role in a score of weddings and been a major participant in a daunting number.\n\nMy attention drifted, and I began looking around the church, the one I'd attended every Sunday as a child. The walls always seemed newly painted a brilliant white, and the carpet was always replaced with same deep green as the cushions on the pews. The high ceiling always made me think up\u2014space, infinity, the omnipotent unknown.\n\nI heard a little cough and brought my gaze down from the infinite to stare into the pews. Someone was in the shadows at the back of the church. My heart started pounding in an uncomfortable way. Before I had formed a thought, I began to walk down the steps and the long strip of green carpet. I didn't even feel my feet moving.\n\nHe stood up and moved to the door.\n\nAt the moment I reached him, he opened the door for me, and we stepped out into the cold night. In one move, he pulled me to him and kissed me.\n\n\"Jack,\" I said when I could breathe, \"Jack.\"\n\nMy hands went under his suit coat to touch his back through his striped shirt.\n\nHe kissed me again. His hands tightened on me, pressed me harder against his body.\n\n\"Glad to see me,\" I observed after a while. My breathing was not even.\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said hoarsely.\n\nI pulled away a little to look at him. \"You're wearing a tie.\"\n\n\"I knew you'd be dressed up. I had to look as nice as you.\"\n\n\"You a psychic detective?\"\n\n\"Just a damn good one.\"\n\n\"Umhum. What are you doing in Bartley?\"\n\n\"You don't think I'm here just to see you?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"You're almost wrong.\"\n\n\"Almost?\" I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am. Last week, I was clearing off my desk so I could come down here to lend you some moral support\u2014or maybe morale support\u2014when I got a call from an old friend of mine.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"Can I tell you later? Say, at my motel room?\"\n\n\"That was your car I saw! How long have you been here?\" For a moment I wondered if Jack had revealed his presence just because he'd figured I'd identify his car sooner or later, in a town the size of Bartley.\n\n\"Since yesterday. Later? God, you look good,\" he said, and his mouth traveled down my neck. His fingers pulled the scarf away from my neck. Despite the cold, I began to have that warmth that meant I was just as glad to see him, especially after the horrors of the day.\n\n\"OK, I'll come by to hear your story, but it'll have to be after the rehearsal dinner,\" I said firmly. I gasped a second later. \"No, Jack. This is my sister's wedding. This is a have-to.\"\n\n\"I admire a woman who sticks to her principles.\" His voice was low and rough.\n\n\"Will you come in and meet my family?\"\n\n\"That's why I'm wearing the suit.\"\n\nI looked up at him with some suspicion. Jack is a little older than I am and four inches taller. In the security lights of the church parking lot, I could see that he had his black hair brushed back into a neat ponytail, as usual. He has a beautiful thin, prominent nose, and his lips are thin and sculpted. Jack used to be a Memphis policeman, until he left the force after his involvement in an unsavory and bloody scandal.\n\nHe's got lips, he knows how to use 'em, I thought, almost intoxicated by his presence. Only Jack could get me in the mood to paraphrase an old ZZ Top song.\n\n\"Let's go do the right thing, before I try something here in the parking lot,\" he suggested.\n\nI stared at him and turned to walk back in the church. Somehow, I expected him to vanish between the door and the altar, but he followed me in and down the aisle, flanking me when we reached the clustered wedding party. Naturally enough, they were all staring our way. I could feel my face harden. I hate explaining myself.\n\nAnd Jack stepped up beside me, put his arm around me, and said, \"You must be Lily's mother! I'm Jack Leeds, Lily's...\"\n\nI waited with some interest while Jack, normally a smooth talker, floundered at the end of the sentence.\n\n\"Boyfriend,\" he finished, with a certain inaccuracy.\n\n\"Frieda Bard,\" my mother said, looking a little stunned. \"This is my husband, Gerald.\"\n\n\"Mr. Bard,\" Jack said respectfully, \"glad to meet you.\"\n\nMy father pumped Jack's hand, beaming like someone who's just found Ed McMahon and a camera crew on his doorstep. Even the ponytail and the scar on Jack's right cheek didn't diminish my father's smile. Jack's suit was expensive, a very muted brown plaid that brought out the color of his hazel eyes. His shoes were polished. He looked prosperous, healthy, clean shaven, and I looked happy. That was enough for my dad, at least for the moment.\n\n\"And you must be Varena.\" Jack turned to my sister.\n\nWhen would everyone stop looking like deer caught in headlights? You'd think I was a damn leper, they were so amazed I had a man. Jack actually kissed Varena, a quick light one on the forehead. \"Kiss the bride for luck,\" he said, with that sudden, brilliant smile that was so winning.\n\nDill recovered quickest.\n\n\"I'm about to join the family,\" he told Jack. \"I'm Dill Kingery.\"\n\n\"Pleased to meet you.\" The shake again.\n\nAnd it went on from there, with me not saying a word. Jack glad-handed the men and gave the women a flash of clean, earnest sexuality. Even off-kilter Mrs. Kingery beamed at him in a dazed way. \"You're trouble on the hoof, and I know it,\" she said firmly.\n\nEveryone froze in horror, but Jack laughed with genuine amusement. The moment passed, and I saw Dill close his eyes in relief.\n\n\"I'll take off, since you're in the middle of your special occasion,\" Jack told the group generally, with no hint of a hint in his voice. \"I just wanted to meet Lily's folks.\"\n\n\"Please,\" Dill said instantly, \"we'd really enjoy your joining us for the rehearsal dinner.\"\n\nJack did the polite thing and declined, mentioning the important family occasion and the fact that he had arrived unannounced.\n\nDill repeated his invitation. Social Ping-Pong.\n\nWhen Varena joined in, Jack allowed himself to be persuaded.\n\nHe retired to sit at the back of the church. My eyes followed him every inch of the way.\n\nWe walked through the ceremony again. I went through my paces on autopilot. Patsy Green reminded me again to smile. This time she sounded a little sharper.\n\nI was thinking hard during the rest of the rehearsal, but I couldn't come to any conclusion. Could it possibly be true that Jack was here for me? He had admitted he had another reason, but he'd said he was coming here anyway. If that was true...\n\nBut it was too painful to believe.\n\nJack had already been here when Dr. LeMay and Binnie Armstrong were done to death. So his arrival couldn't be connected with the double murder.\n\n\"Looks like I'm too late on the scene,\" Berry said to me in a pleasant way after Patsy Green and the O'Sheas agreed we had the procedure down pat. We were just outside the church doors.\n\n\"That's so flattering of you,\" I said with a genuine smile. For once, I had said the right thing. He smiled back at me.\n\n\"Lily!\" Jack called. He was holding open the passenger door of his car. I couldn't imagine why.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" I told Berry and strolled over. \"Since when,\" I muttered, conscious of my voice carrying in the cold clear air, \"have you found it necessary to hold doors for me?\"\n\nJack looked wounded. \"Darlin', I'm your slave.\" He seemed to be imitating Berry's Delta accent.\n\n\"Don't be an ass,\" I whispered. \"Seeing you is so good. Don't ruin it.\"\n\nHe stared down at me as I swung my legs into his car. The taut muscles around his mouth relaxed. \"All right,\" he said and shut the door.\n\nWe backed up to follow the other cars out of the parking lot.\n\n\"You found the doctor today,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes. How did you know?\"\n\n\"I brought my police scanner. Are you OK?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"How much do you know about Dill Kingery?\" he asked.\n\nI felt as though he'd punched me in the stomach. I had to sit silent to gather breath, my panic was so complete and sudden. \"Is something wrong with him?\" I asked finally, my voice coming out not so much angry as scared. Varena's face smiling up at Dill came into my mind, the long engagement, the relationship Varena had worked so hard to build up with Dill's daughter, Varena's cheerful acceptance of crazy Mrs. Kingery...\n\n\"Probably nothing. Just tell me.\"\n\n\"He's a pharmacist. He's a widower. He's a father. He pays his bills on time. His mother is crazy.\"\n\n\"That's the old biddy who said I was trouble?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" She was right.\n\n\"The first wife's been dead how long?\"\n\n\"Six or seven years. Anna doesn't remember her.\"\n\n\"And Jess O'Shea? The preacher?\"\n\nI looked over at Jack as we passed a streetlight. His expression was tense, almost angry. That made two of us. \"I don't know anything about him. I've met his wife and little girl. They have a boy, too.\"\n\n\"He coming to the rehearsal dinner?\"\n\n\"The minister usually does. Yes, I heard them say they'd gotten a sitter.\"\n\nI wanted to hit Jack, a not uncommon situation.\n\nWe pulled into Sarah May's Restaurant parking lot. Jack parked a little away from the other cars.\n\n\"I can't believe you've upset me this much in five minutes,\" I said, hearing my own voice coming out distant and cold. And shaking.\n\nHe stared through the windshield at the restaurant windows. They were edged with flickering Christmas lights. The glow flashed across his face. Damn blinking lights. After what felt like a very long time, Jack turned to me. He took my left hand with his right.\n\n\"Lily, when I explain what I'm working on, you'll forgive me,\" he said, with a kind of painful sincerity I was forced to respect. He sat holding my hand, making no move to open his door, waiting for me to extend him... trust? Advance absolution? I felt as if he'd opened a cavity in my chest and turned a spotlight on it.\n\nI nodded sharply, opened my door, and got out. We met in front of the car. He took my hand again, and we went into Sarah May's.\n\nSarah Cawthorne, half of the Sarah May of the name, showed us to the private room that Dill had reserved for the party. Of course, all of us but Jack and Mrs. Kingery had been in it many times, since it was one of two places in Bartley you could dine out privately. I saw that it had been recently carpeted and wallpapered in the apparently perpetually popular hunter green and burgundy, and the artificial Christmas tree in the corner had been decorated with burgundy and off-white lace and matching ribbons. This tree was lit, too, of course, draped with the small clear lights, and thank God they didn't blink.\n\nThe tables had Christmas centerpieces in the same colors, and the place mats were cloth and so were the napkins. (This was very swank for Bartley.) The U-shaped banquet arrangement hadn't changed, though, and as we all drifted to our seats I realized that Jack was maneuvering us toward the O'Sheas. He was steering me unobtrusively with his hand on my back, and I was reminded of a puppet sitting on a ventriloquist's knee, the controlling hand hidden in a hole in the puppet's back. Jack caught my look, and his hand dropped away.\n\nDill was already standing behind a chair with my sister on one side and his mother on the other, so only Jess O'Shea was available as a target.\n\nJack managed to slot us between the O'Sheas. I was between the two men, and to Jack's right was Lou. Across the table from us was Patsy Green, squired by one of the ushers, a banker who played golf with Dill, I remembered.\n\nThe salads were served almost immediately, and Dill properly asked Jess to say grace. Of course, Jess obliged. Next to me, Jack bowed his head and shut his eyes, but his hand found mine and his fingers wrapped tightly around mine. He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed it\u2014I could feel his warm lips, the hint of teeth\u2014then deposited the hand back in my lap and relaxed his grip. When Jess said, \"Amen,\" Jack let go and spread his napkin on his lap as though the little moment had been a dream.\n\nI glanced up and down the table to see if anyone had noticed, and the only eyes that met mine were my mother's. She looked as though she were half embarrassed by the sexuality of the gesture... but pleased by the emotional wallop of it.\n\nI had no idea what my own face looked like. A salad was placed in front of me, and I stared down blindly at it. When the waitress asked me what dressing I wanted, I answered her at random, and she dolloped my lettuce and tomato with a bright orange substance.\n\nJack began gently questioning Lou about her life. He was so good at it that few civilians would have suspected he had a hidden agenda. I tried not to speculate on the nature of that agenda.\n\nI turned to Jess, who was having a little trouble with a jar of bacon bits. After the nicely decorated room, plunking the jar of bits down on the table reminded me firmly we were in Bartley. I held out my hand with a give-me curve of the fingers.\n\nSomewhat surprised, Jess handed me the jar. I gripped it firmly, inhaled. I twisted as I exhaled. The lid came off. I handed the jar to him.\n\nWhen I looked up in his face, there was a kind of dubious amusement on it.\n\nDubious was OK. Amusement wasn't.\n\n\"You're very strong,\" he observed.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said. I took a bite of salad, then remembered that Jack needed to know more about this man.\n\n\"Did you grow up in a town bigger than Bartley?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh, not bigger at all,\" he said genially. \"Ocolona, Mississippi. My folks still live there.\"\n\n\"And your wife, is she from Mississippi also?\"\n\nI hated this.\n\n\"Yes, but from Pass Christian. We met in college at Ole Miss.\"\n\n\"And then you went to seminary?\"\n\n\"Yes, four years at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Lou and I just had to put our trust in the Lord. It was a long separation. In fact, after the first two years, I missed being away from her so much, we got married. She held any job she could get in the area while I worked to graduate. She played the organ at churches, she played the piano for parties. She even worked at a fast-food place, God bless her.\" Jess's square, handsome face relaxed and warmed as he talked about his wife. I felt acutely uncomfortable.\n\nThe salad dressing was thick as sour cream, and sweet. I shoved the most heavily laden lettuce to one side and tried to eat the rest. I couldn't just sit there and question him.\n\n\"And you,\" he began the conversational return, \"what's your occupation?\"\n\nSomeone who didn't know my life history?\n\n\"I'm a house cleaner, and I run errands for people. I decorate Christmas trees for businesses. I take old ladies grocery shopping.\"\n\n\"A girl Friday, though I guess 'girl' is politically incorrect now.\" He gave the strained smile of a conservative paying lip service to liberality.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said.\n\n\"And you live in Arkansas?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" I prodded myself mentally. \"Shakespeare.\"\n\n\"Any bigger than Bartley?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHe eyed me with a determined smile. \"And have you lived there long?\"\n\n\"Over four years now. I bought a house.\" There, that was contributing to the conversation. What did Jack want to know about this man?\n\n\"What do you do in your spare time?\"\n\n\"I work out. Lifting weights. And I take karate.\" And now I see Jack. The thought sent a warm rush through my pelvis. I remembered his lips against my hand.\n\n\"And your friend Mr. Leeds? Does he live in Shakespeare?\"\n\n\"No, Jack lives in Little Rock.\"\n\n\"He works there, too?\"\n\nDid Jack want it known what he did?\n\n\"His job takes him different places,\" I said neutrally. \"Did Lou have Luke\u2014isn't that your little boy's name?\u2014 here in the Shakespeare hospital?\" People really like to talk about their childbirth experiences.\n\n\"Yes, right here at the hospital. We were a little worried... there are some emergencies this hospital can't handle. But Lou is healthy, and indications were that the baby was healthy, so we decided it would be better to show our faith in the local people. And it was just a great experience.\"\n\nLucky for you and Luke and Lou, I thought. \"And Krista?\" I asked, thinking this meal would never end. We hadn't even gotten our entrees. \"Did you have her here? No, she's at least eight, and you've been here only three years, I believe?\"\n\n\"Right. No, we moved here from Philadelphia with Krista.\" But something about the way he said it was odd.\n\n\"She was born at one of the big hospitals there? That must have been a very different experience from having your little boy here.\"\n\nHe said, \"Are you older than Varena?\"\n\nWhoa. Change of subject. And a clumsy one. Anyone could tell I was older than Varena.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You must have traveled around some in your life, too,\" the minister observed. The strip lights above the table winked off his blond hair, about ten shades darker than mine and certainly more natural. \"You've been in Shakespeare for about four years... did you ever live here, in Bartley, after you got out of college?\"\n\n\"I lived in Memphis after I graduated from college,\" I said, knowing that would probably cue his memory. Someone had to have told him the story, since he'd been living here more than three years. My history was part of town folklore, just like Mrs. Fontenot shooting her equally married lover on the courthouse lawn in 1931.\n\n\"Memphis,\" he repeated, suddenly looking a little uneasy.\n\n\"Yes, I worked for a big housecleaning service there as a scheduler and supervisor,\" I said deliberately.\n\nThat flipped his memory switch. I saw his pleasant, bland face grow rigid, trying to restrain his dismay at his faux pas.\n\n\"Of course, that was years ago, now,\" I said, easing him off the horns of the dilemma.\n\n\"Yes, a long time,\" he said. He looked sorry for me for a minute, then said tactfully, \"I haven't had a chance to ask Dill where he and Varena plan to go on their honeymoon.\"\n\nI nodded dismissively and turned to Jack just at the instant he turned to me. Our eyes met, and he smiled that smile that altered his whole face, deep arcs appearing from his nose to his lips. Instead of the tough reserve of his defense-against-the-world face, he looked infectiously happy.\n\nI leaned over so my lips almost touched his ear. \"I have an early Christmas present for you,\" I said very softly.\n\nHis eyes flared wide in surmise.\n\n\"You'll like it very much,\" I promised, breathing the words.\n\nDuring the rest of the meal, whenever Jack wasn't engaged in talking to Lou O'Shea or charming my mother, he was giving me little glances full of speculation.\n\nWe left soon after the dessert plates were cleared away. Jack seemed torn between talking to Dill and Varena and rushing me back to his hotel. I made it as difficult for him as I possibly could. As we stood making conversation with Dill, I held his hand and made circles on his palm with my thumb, very gently, very lightly.\n\nAfter a few seconds, he dropped my hand to grip my arm almost painfully.\n\n\"Good-bye, Frieda, Gerald,\" he said to my parents, after he'd thanked Dill for inviting him. My mother and father beamed happily at him. \"I'll be bringing Lily home later. We have some catching up to do.\"\n\nI could see my father's mouth open to ask where this \"catching up\" would take place, and I saw my mother's elbow connect with his ribs, a gentle reminder to my father that I was nearly thirty-two. So Dad kept his smile in place, but it was weaker.\n\nWaving at everyone, smiling hard, we got out the door and hurried through the freezing air to scramble into Jack's car. We had scarcely shut the doors when Jack put his fingers under my chin and turned my face to his. His mouth covered mine in a long, breathless kiss. His hands began reacquainting themselves with my topography.\n\n\"The others'll be coming out in a minute,\" I reminded him.\n\nJack said something really vile and turned on his engine. We drove to the motel in silence, Jack keeping both hands on the wheel and his eyes straight ahead.\n\n\"This place is horrible,\" he warned me, unlocking the door and pushing it open. He reached in past me to switch on a light.\n\nI pulled the drapes shut all the way and turned to him, sliding out of my black jacket as I turned. He was wrapped around me before I had my arm out of the second sleeve. We undressed in stages, interrupted by the long making out that Jack loved. He was fumbling in his suitcase with one hand for those little square foil packages, when I said, \"Christmas present.\"\n\nHe raised his eyebrows.\n\n\"I got an implant. You don't have to use anything.\"\n\n\"Oh, Lily,\" he breathed, closing his eyes to savor the moment. He looked like a Boy Scout who'd just been given the ingredients for S'mores. I wondered when he would work out the other implications of my gift. Then Jack slid on top of me, and I quit caring.\n\nWe were wrapped in the bed together an hour later, having finally pulled down the spread and the blanket and the sheets. The sheets, at least, looked clean. One of Jack's legs was thrown across mine, securing me.\n\n\"Why are you here?\" I asked. This was when Jack liked to talk.\n\n\"Lily,\" he said slowly, taking pleasure in saying it. \"I was going to come to see you here. I did think you might need me, or at least that seeing me might help.\" One long finger traced my spine as I lay facing him, my face tucked in the hollow of his neck. To my horror, I could feel my nose clog up and my eyes fill. I kept my face turned down. A tear trickled down my cheek, and since I was on my side it ran into the curve of one nostril and then underneath. So elegant.\n\n\"And then Roy called me. You remember Roy?\"\n\nI nodded, so he could feel my head move.\n\nI recalled Roy Costimiglia as a short, stout man with thinning gray hair, probably in his late fifties. You could pass him six times on the street and never remember you'd seen him before. Roy was the detective with whom Jack had served his two-year apprenticeship.\n\n\"Roy and I had talked over supper one night when Roy's wife was out of town, so he knew I was seeing a woman who had originally come from Bartley. He called because he'd been given one more lead to run down in a case he's had for four years.\"\n\nI surreptitiously wiped my face with a bit of sheet.\n\n\"What case is that?\" My voice did not sound too wobbly.\n\n\"Summer Dawn Macklesby.\" Jack's voice was as bleak and grim as I'd ever heard it. \"You remember the baby girl who was kidnapped?\"\n\nAnd I felt cold all over again.\n\n\"I read just a little of the update story in the paper.\"\n\n\"So did a lot of people, and one of them reacted pretty strangely. The last paragraph of the article mentioned that Roy has been working for the Macklesby family for the past few years. Through Roy, the Macklesbys have run down every lead, checked every piece of information, every rumor, that's come to them for the past four and a half years... ever since they felt the police had more or less given up on the case. The Macklesbys hoped there would be some response to the story, and that's why they consented to do it. They're really nice people. I've met them. Of course, they've kind of disintegrated since she's been gone... the baby.\"\n\nJack kissed my cheek, and his arms tightened around me. He knew I had been crying. He was not going to talk about it.\n\n\"What response was there to the story? A phone call?\"\n\n\"This.\" Jack sat up on the side of the bed. He unlocked his briefcase and pulled out two pieces of paper. The first was a copy of the same article I'd seen in the newspaper, with the sad picture of the Macklesbys now and the old picture of the baby in her infant seat. The Macklesbys looked as though something had chewed them up and spit them out: Teresa Macklesby, especially, was haggard with eyes that had seen hell. Her husband, Simon's, face was almost taut with restraint, and the hand that rested on his knee was clenched in a fist.\n\nThe second piece of paper was a picture from the local elementary school memory book, last year's edition; \"The Hartley Banner\" was printed, with the date, across the top of the page, page 23. The picture at the top of the page, below the heading, was an enlarged black-and-white snapshot of three little girls playing on a slide. The one flying down, her long hair trailing behind her, was Eve Osborn. The girl waiting her turn at the top of the slide was Krista O'Shea, looking much happier than I'd seen her. The child climbing the ladder had turned to smile at the camera, and my breath caught in my throat.\n\nThe caption read, \"These second graders enjoy the new playground equipment donated in March by Bartley Tractor and Tire Company and Choctaw County Welding.\"\n\n\"This was paper-clipped to the article from the paper,\" Jack said. \"It was in a mailing envelope postmarked Bartley. Someone here in town thinks one of these little girls is Summer Dawn Macklesby.\"\n\n\"Oh, no.\"\n\nHis finger brushed the third child's face. \"Dill's girl? Anna Kingery?\"\n\nI nodded, covered my own face with my hands.\n\n\"Sweetheart, I have to do this.\"\n\n\"Why did you come instead of Roy?\"\n\n\"Because Roy had a heart attack two days ago. He called me from his hospital bed.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 5",
                "text": "\"Is he going to be OK?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Jack said. He was sad, and angry, too, though I wasn't sure where the anger came in. Maybe his own helplessness. \"All those years of eating wrong and not exercising... but the main thing is, he just has a bad heart.\"\n\nI sat up, too, and put my arms around Jack. For a moment he accepted the comfort. He rested his head on my shoulder, his arms encircling me. I'd taken the band off his ponytail, and his long black hair fell soft against my skin. But then he raised his head and looked at me, our faces inches apart.\n\n\"I have to do this, Lily. For Roy. He took me in and trained me. If it was anyone but him, any case but one involving a child, I'd turn it down since it concerns someone close to you... but this I have to do.\" Even if Anna Kingery turned out to be Summer Dawn Macklesby, even if Varena's life was ruined. I looked back at him, the pain in my heart so complicated I could not think how to express it.\n\n\"If he did that,\" Jack said, so intent on me he had read my silent thoughts, \"you couldn't let her marry him anyway.\"\n\nI nodded, still trying to accommodate this sharp pang. For all the years we'd spent apart, for all our estrangement, Varena was my sister, and we were the only people in the world who shared, who would remember, our common family life.\n\n\"This has to be resolved before the wedding,\" I said.\n\n\"Two days? Three?\"\n\nI actually had to think. \"Three.\"\n\n\"Shit,\" Jack said.\n\n\"What do you have?\" I pulled away from him, and his head began to lower to my breasts, as if drawn by a magnet. I grabbed his ears. \"Jack, we have to finish talking.\"\n\n\"Then you'll have to cover up.\" He got his bathrobe out of the tiny closet and tossed it to me. It was the one he carried when he traveled, a thin, red, silky one, and I belted it around me.\n\n\"That's not much better,\" he said after a thorough look. \"But it'll have to do.\" He pulled on a T-shirt and some Jockeys. He set his briefcase on the bed, and because it was cold in that bleak motel room, we both crawled back under the covers, sitting with our backs propped against the wall.\n\nJack put on his reading glasses, little half-lens ones that made him even sexier. I didn't know how long he'd used them, but he'd only recently begun wearing them in front of me. This was the first time I hadn't appreciated the effect.\n\n\"First, to find out who the little girls were, Roy hired Aunt Betty.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"You haven't met Aunt Betty yet. She's another PI, lives in Little Rock. She's amazing. In her fifties, hair dyed a medium brown, looks respectable to the core. She looks like everybody's Aunt Betty. Her real name is Elizabeth Fry. People tell her the most amazing things, because she looks like... well, their aunt! And damn, that woman can listen!\"\n\n\"Why'd Roy send her instead of you?\"\n\n\"Well, surprise, but in some situations I don't blend in like Aunt Betty does. I was good for the Shakespeare job since I look just like someone who'd work in a sporting goods store, but I don't look like I could go around a small town asking for the names of little girls and get away with it. Right?\"\n\nI tried not to laugh. That was certainly true.\n\n\"So that's the kind of job Aunt Betty's perfect for. She found out who prints the most school memory books in the state, went to them, told them she was from a private school and she was looking for a printer. The guy gave her all kinds of samples to show her parents committee.\"\n\nJack seemed to want me to acknowledge Aunt Betty's cleverness, so I nodded.\n\n\"Then,\" he continued, \"Betty comes down to Bartley, goes in to see the elementary school principal, shows her all the samples of memory books she has, and tells the principal she works for a printing company that can give them a competitive bid on the next memory book.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"Then she asks to see this year's Bartley memory book, notices the slide picture, asks the principal who the photographer was, maybe her company might be able to use him for extra work. Betty figured the shot was good enough to justify the lie.\"\n\nI shook my head. Betty must be persuasive and totally respectable and nonthreatening. I'd known the elementary school principal, Beryl Trotter, for fifteen years, and she was not a fool.\n\n\"How does it help, having the whole book?\" I asked.\n\n\"If worst had come to worst, we would have looked at all the faces in the class section until we had them matched, so we could get their names. Or Betty would have called on the man who took the picture and coasted the conversation along until he told her who the girls were. But, as it happened, Mrs. Trotter asked Betty to have a cup of coffee, and Betty found out everything from Mrs. Trotter.\"\n\n\"The names of the girls? Their parents? Everything?\"\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\nThis was a little frightening.\n\n\"So, once we had the names of the parents, we were able to do some background on the O'Sheas, since he's a minister and they have several professional directories that give little biographies. Dill, too, because the pharmacists have a state association. Chock full of information. The Osborns were harder. Aunt Betty had to go to Makepeace Furniture, pretend she'd just moved in and was shopping for a new table. It was risky. But she managed to talk to Emory, find out a few things about him, and get out without having to give a local address or mention any local relatives whom he could check up on.\"\n\n\"So then you knew the names of the girls and their parents, and some facts about their parents.\"\n\n\"Yep. Then we got busy on the computers, and then I started traveling.\"\n\nI felt overwhelmed. I'd never talked to Jack in any depth about what he did. I'd never fully realized that one of the qualifications for a successful private detective is the ability to lie convincingly and at the drop of a hat. I pulled away from Jack a little. He took some papers from his briefcase.\n\n\"This is a computer-enhanced drawing of Summer Dawn as she may look now,\" he said, apparently not conscious of my unhappiness. \"Of course, we have photographs of her only as an infant. Who knows how accurate this is?\"\n\nI looked at the picture. It looked like someone, all right, but it could have been any of the girls. I decided that the drawing looked most like Krista O'Shea, because it depicted Summer Dawn still plump-cheeked, like the baby snapshot the newspaper had printed.\n\n\"I thought these were supposed to be really accurate,\" I said. \"Does it look so anonymous because she was a baby when she vanished?\"\n\n\"Partly. And as it happens, none of the pictures of Summer Dawn was really good to use for this. The Macklesbys took fewer pictures of her than of their other two children because Summer Dawn was the third child, and the third child just doesn't get photographed as much as number one and number two. The picture that appeared in the newspaper was really the best one the parents had. They had an appointment to get Summer's picture made the week she disappeared.\"\n\nI didn't want to think about that. I shuffled the top drawing, looked at the other three. The second was of the same face but framed by long, straight hair. In the third, a somewhat thinner-cheeked version of Summer Dawn was topped with short, wavy hair. There was a fourth, with medium-length hair and glasses.\n\n\"One of her sisters is nearsighted,\" Jack explained.\n\nEight years.\n\n\"She has sisters?\" I kept my voice level. At least I tried.\n\n\"Yeah. Two. They're fourteen and sixteen, now. Teenagers, with posters on their walls of musicians I've never listened to. Closets full of clothes. Boyfriends. And a little sister they don't remember at all.\"\n\n\"The Macklesbys must have money.\" Hiring a private detective for all those years would be expensive, and paying for the extra services of Aunt Betty and Jack.\n\n\"They're well-off. Simon Macklesby reacted to the kidnapping by throwing himself into his work. He's a partner in an office supplies business that's taken off since offices became computerized. No matter how much money they've got, the Macklesbys were lucky they went to Roy instead of to someone who would really soak them. There were months when he didn't have anything to show them, no work to do. Some guys... and some women... would've made things up to pad the file.\"\n\nIt was a relief to find that Roy was as honest as I'd always thought him, after Jack's obvious admiration at Aunt Betty's creative lying. There was a separation, thank God, between lying on the job and relating to people in real life.\n\n\"What do you know?\" I asked him, my fear finally showing in my voice.\n\n\"I know that the O'Shea girl is adopted, at least that's what the O'Sheas' neighbors in Philadelphia recall.\"\n\nI remembered the slight change in Jess O'Shea's face when I'd asked him how the big-city hospital had been different from the tiny one in Bartley.\n\n\"You've been to Pennsylvania?\"\n\n\"Their Philadelphia neighbors were seminary students like Jess, so naturally they've scattered. I've used other PIs in Florida, Kentucky, and Indiana. According to the people who'd talk to us, the O'Sheas arranged to adopt the baby girl of the sister of another seminary student. The O'Sheas had gotten a pretty discouraging work-up from a fertility specialist in Philadelphia. The sister had to give the baby up because she was in late-stage AIDS. Her family wouldn't take the baby because they believed the baby might be carrying the disease. It didn't matter that the baby had tested negative. In fact, the couple in Tennessee, the one I interviewed myself, are still convinced the little girl might have been 'carrying' AIDS, despite the testing the doctors did.\"\n\nI shook my head. \"How do you get people to tell you this?\"\n\n\"I'm persuasive, in case you hadn't noticed.\" Jack ran his hand down my leg and leered at me. Then he sobered.\n\n\"So why are the O'Sheas still on your list?\"\n\n\"One, Krista O'Shea is in the picture that Roy got. Two, what if this isn't the same girl they adopted?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"What if the tests were wrong? What if that child was born with AIDS, or died from some other cause? What if Lou O'Shea abducted Summer Dawn to take her place? What if the O'Sheas bought her?\"\n\n\"That seems so far-fetched. They were up in Philadelphia for at least a few months after they adopted Krista. Summer Dawn was abducted in Conway, right?\"\n\n\"Yes. But the O'Sheas have cousins living in the Conway area, cousins they visited when Jess finished the seminary. The dates coincide. So I can't rule them out. It's circumstantially possible. If they bought Summer Dawn from someone who abducted her, they would know that was illegal. They maybe pretended the baby was the one they'd adopted.\"\n\n\"What about Anna?\" I asked sharply.\n\n\"Judy Kingery, Dill's first wife, was mentally ill.\"\n\nI'd resumed studying the pictures. I turned to stare at Jack.\n\n\"Her auto accident was almost certainly suicide.\" His clear hazel eyes peered at me over his reading glasses.\n\n\"Oh, poor Dill.\" No wonder he'd taken his time dating Varena. He would be extra cautious after a hellish marriage like that, yoked to a woman with so many problems after his upbringing by a woman who was not exactly compos mentis.\n\n\"We can't be sure the wife didn't do something crazy. Maybe she killed their own baby and stole Summer Dawn as compensation. The Kingerys were living in Conway at the time the baby was taken. Maybe Judy Kingery snatched Summer Dawn and gave Dill some incredibly persuasive story.\"\n\n\"You're saying... it might be possible that Dill didn't know?\"\n\nJack shrugged. \"It's possible,\" he said but not with any great conviction.\n\nI blew out a deep breath of tension. \"OK, Eve Osborn.\"\n\n\"The Osborns moved here from a little town on the interstate about ten miles from Conway. He's worked at furniture stores since he got out of junior college. Meredith Osborn didn't make it through a whole year of college before she married him. Emory Ted Osborn...\" Jack was peering through his glasses at a page of notes. \"Emory sells furniture and appliances at Makepeace Furniture Center. Oh, I told you that when I told you Betty went to meet him there.\"\n\nMakepeace Furniture Center was Bartley's best. It sold only upscale furniture and appliances, and it was located on the town square, having gradually crept through two or three buildings on one side.\n\n\"Emory have any criminal record?\"\n\nJack shook his head. \"None of these people do.\"\n\n\"Surely there's something that excludes Eve Osborn?\"\n\n\"You know her?\"\n\n\"Yes, I do. The Osborns own the little place my sister lives in. It's right in back of their house.\"\n\n\"I've driven by. I didn't realize your sister rented the cottage.\"\n\n\"Did you know that Meredith Osborn baby-sits both Anna and Krista from time to time? I met the mother and the little girl, Eve, when I was at Varena's a couple of days ago.\"\n\n\"What did you think?\"\n\n\"There's a new baby, a girl. Mrs. Osborn is about as big as some twelve-year-olds, and she seems nice enough. Eve is a... well, a little girl, maybe a little shy. Real thin, like her mother. I haven't met Emory.\"\n\n\"He's small, too, thin and blond. He's got that really fair coloring, light blue eyes, invisible eyelashes. Looks like he still doesn't have to shave. Very reserved. Smiles a lot.\"\n\n\"So, where was Eve born?\"\n\n\"That's why she can't be eliminated. Eve was a home birth,\" Jack said, both eyebrows raised as far as they could go. \"Emory delivered her. He'd had some paramedic training. The baby evidently came too fast for them to get to the hospital.\"\n\n\"Meredith had the baby at her house?\" Though I knew historically that women had been having their babies at home far longer than they'd had them in hospitals, the idea jarred me.\n\n\"Yep.\" Jack's face expressed such distaste that I found myself hoping Jack was never trapped in a stalled elevator with a pregnant woman.\n\nWe stayed snuggled in the bed and each other's warmth a while more, talking ourselves in circles. I could not make this go away, and I could not stop Jack from investigating, even if I thought that right... which I didn't. I had tremendous pity for the anguished parents who had been wanting their child for so many years, and I had pity for my sister, whose life might be ruined in the three days before her wedding. There didn't seem to be anything I could do to affect the outcome of Jack's investigation.\n\nIt had been a long day.\n\nI thought of the scene in the doctor's office, the devastation that had visited the two aging workhorses in their old office.\n\nWrapping my arms around my knees, I told Jack about Dr. LeMay and Mrs. Armstrong. He listened with close attention and asked me a lot more questions than I could answer.\n\n\"Do you think this could be connected with what you're investigating?\" I asked.\n\n\"I don't see how.\" He took off his glasses, put them on the night table. \"But it does seem like quite a coincidence that they're killed this week, just when I come on the scene, just when there's a new development in the Macklesby case. I've tried to be very discreet, but sooner or later in a town this size, everyone's gonna know why I'm here. You're providing me with cover right now, but it won't last if I ask the wrong questions.\"\n\nI looked at Jack's watch then and slid out the bed. The room felt even colder after I'd been warmed by Jack. I wanted more than anything to lie beside him tonight, but I couldn't.\n\n\"I have to get back,\" I said, pulling on my clothes and trying to make them look as neat and straight as they had been earlier.\n\nJack got out of bed, too, but not as rapidly.\n\n\"I guess you have to,\" he said with an attempt at wistfulness.\n\n\"You know I have to go to their house tonight,\" I said, but not harshly. He'd pulled his slacks on by then. I was putting on my jacket when he began kissing me again. I tried to push him away when he made his first pass, but at his second, I put my arms around him.\n\n\"I know that you having gotten the implant, me not using a condom anymore, means you know I'm sleeping only with you,\" he told me.\n\nIt meant something else, too. \"Ah... it means I'm not sleeping with anyone else, either,\" I reminded him.\n\nAfter a moment of pregnant silence, he squeezed me so tightly I could not breathe, and he made an inarticulate noise. Suddenly I knew we were feeling exactly the same thing\u2014just for a second, a flash, but it was a flash so bright it blinded me.\n\nThen we had to bounce away from each other, frightened by the intimacy. Jack swung away to put on his shirt; I sat down to slide my feet into my shoes. I ran my fingers through my hair, took care of a button I'd skipped.\n\nWe were silent on the ride to my house, the bitter cold biting into our bones. When we pulled into the driveway I saw one light burning on the dimmest setting, in the living room. Jack leaned over to give me a quick kiss, and I was out of the car in a wink, running across the frosty lawn to the front door.\n\nI locked the door behind me and went to the picture window. Looking out the small triangle unobscured by the Christmas tree, I saw Jack's car back out and start back to the motel. The sheets of his bed would smell like me.\n\nOnce in my room, where my mother had left a lamp on, I slowly undressed. It was too late to shower; it might wake my parents, if they weren't in their room lying awake to make sure I was home safe, like they'd done when I was a teenager. There was no counting the sleepless nights I'd given them.\n\nFleetingly, I thought about Teresa and Simon Macklesby. How many good nights' rest had they managed in the eight years since their daughter had vanished?\n\nThe murders of the doctor and his nurse, the strain of the wedding rehearsal, and the shock of all Jack had told me should have kept me awake. But being with Jack had drained the tension from me. Even if we hadn't had sex, I thought with some surprise, I would have felt better. I crawled in my bed, turned on my side, slid my hand under the pillow, and was immediately asleep.\n\nThe next day I had showered and dressed before I came out to have some coffee and breakfast. I'd done some sit-ups and leg lifts in my room so I wouldn't feel like a slug the rest of the day. My parents were both at the table, sections of newspaper propped up, when I got a mug from the cabinet.\n\n\"Good morning,\" my mother said with a smile.\n\nMy father grunted and nodded.\n\n\"How was your date last night?\" Mother ventured when I was sitting with them.\n\n\"Fine,\" I said. My toast popped up, and I put it on a plate.\n\nDad peered over his glasses at me. \"Got home late,\" he observed.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"How long you been dating this man? Your mother says you told her he was a private detective? Isn't that kind of dangerous?\"\n\nI answered the safest question. \"I've been dating him for a few weeks.\"\n\n\"You think he might be serious?\"\n\n\"Sometimes.\"\n\nMy father regarded me with some exasperation. \"Now, what does that mean?\"\n\n\"I think it means she doesn't want to answer any more questions, Gerald,\" Mother said. She rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, hiding a little smile.\n\n\"A father needs to know about men who are seeing his girl,\" my father said.\n\n\"This girl is almost thirty-two,\" I reminded him, trying to keep my voice gentle.\n\nHe shook his head. \"I don't believe it. Why, that would make me old, gosh dog it!\"\n\nWe all laughed as the little touchy moment passed.\n\nDad got up to shave, following his nearly invariable morning routine. He stuck his head back in the door just as I bit into my toast. \"Can you make any kind of living as a detective?\" he asked, then hurried away before I could either laugh or throw my toast at him.\n\n\"The paper says,\" my mother began when I'd finished my coffee, \"that Dave LeMay and Binnie Armstrong were killed right before you and Varena found them.\"\n\n\"I thought so,\" I said after a pause.\n\n\"You touched them?\"\n\n\"Varena did. She's the nurse,\" I said, reminding my mother that I was not the only one present when awful things happened.\n\n\"That's true,\" my mother said slowly, as one who has received a revelation of which she's half proud, half dismayed. \"She has to deal with things like that all the time.\"\n\n\"That bad or worse.\" Once upon a time, Varena had given me a graphic description of a motorcycle rider who'd stretched out his arm at the wrong moment and come into the hospital without it. A passerby had had the presence of mind to wrap it in the blanket his dog sat on when it rode in the car and bring it into the hospital. I had seen bad things... maybe just as bad... but I didn't think I could have dealt calmly with that. Varena had been excited\u2014not by the crisis but by her team's effective response.\n\nEvidently she didn't talk about some aspects of being a nurse, at least to our mother.\n\n\"I never quite pictured her job that way.\" Mother looked thoughtful, as if she were seeing her younger daughter in a different light.\n\nI read the comics for a minute or two, Ann Landers, the horoscopes, the scrambled words, the \"find the errors\" drawing. I never had time to do this at home. Thank God.\n\n\"What's on the agenda today?\" I asked, without feeling one bit excited. The pleasure of Jack's presence in town had faded, to be replaced by the gnawing anxiety of his suspicions.\n\n\"Oh, there's the shower at Grace's in the afternoon, but this morning we have to go to Corbett's to pick up a few things they called us about.\"\n\nCorbett's was the town's premier gift shop. Every bride with any claim to class went to Corbett's to register her china and silver patterns, and also to indicate a range of acceptable colors that would look good in the bride's future kitchen and bath. Corbett's also carried small appliances, pricey kitchenware, and sheets and table linens. Many brides left an all-encompassing list at Corbett's. Varena and I had always called it the \"I want it\" list.\n\nTwo hours later\u2014two dragging, boring hours later\u2014we were in Varena's car, parallel parking on Bartley's town square. The old post office crumbled on one side, while the courthouse, in the center on a manicured lawn, was festooned with Christmas decorations. Unlike Shakespeare, Bartley was holding on to its manger scene, though I had never found plastic figures in a wooden shed exactly spiritual. Carols blared endlessly from the speakers located around the square, and all the merchants had lined their store windows with twinkling colored lights and artificial snow.\n\nIf there was a true religious emotion to be felt about Christmas, I had been too numbed by all this claptrap to feel it for the past three years.\n\nI was glad to see Varena click the \"lock\" button on her key-ring control, and the car gave its little honk! to show it had received her command. Naturally we all looked at the car as it made the sound, a senseless but natural reaction, and I almost didn't see the running man until too late.\n\nHe was coming for us out of nowhere, his hand already outstretched to grab my mother's purse, which she was clutching loosely under her right arm.\n\nWith a positive rush of pleasure, I planted my left foot, came up with my right knee, and flicked my foot out to catch him in the jaw. In real life (as opposed to movies) high kicks are risky and energy draining: The knee and the groin are much more reliable targets. But this was my chance to land a high kick, and I took it. Thanks to hours and hours of practice, my instep smacked his jaw correctly, and he staggered. I got him again on the way down, though it was not as effective an impact. It hastened his fall rather than damaging him further.\n\nHe managed to land on his knees, and I seized his right arm and twisted it sharply behind him. He screamed and hit the pavement, and I kept his arm behind and up at an angle I knew to be extremely painful. I was on his right, out of reach of his left hand if he could manage to lever himself up to grab for my ankle.\n\n\"I'll break your arm if you move,\" I told him sincerely.\n\nHe believed me. He lay on the sidewalk, panting for breath\u2014sobbing for breath, really.\n\nI glanced up to see my mother and sister staring not at their assailant but at me, with stunned amazement making their faces foolish.\n\n\"Call the police,\" I prompted them.\n\nVarena kind of jumped and ran into Corbett's. She was doing a lot of police calling these days. The Bard sisters were on a roll.\n\nThe man I'd downed was short, stocky, black. He had on a ragged coat, and he smelled. I figured this was probably the same man who'd taken Diane Dykeman's purse a couple of days ago.\n\n\"Let me up, bitch,\" he said now, having gathered enough breath to speak.\n\n\"Be polite,\" I said, my voice harsh. I gave his arm a yank upward, and he screamed.\n\n\"Oh, Lily,\" my mother gasped. \"Oh, honey. Do you have to...?\" Her voice trailed off as I looked up to meet her eyes.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said. \"I have to.\"\n\nA siren went off right behind me. The patrol officer must have been two blocks away when he got the call from the dispatcher, so he put on his siren. It nearly made me lose my grip. The car had \"Bartley Police Department\" printed in an arc over the Bartley town symbol, some complicated mishmash involving cotton and tractors. Under the symbol, the word \"Chief\" was centered in large letters.\n\n\"What we got here?\" called the man in the uniform as he bounded up on the sidewalk. He had brown hair and a neat mustache. He was lean except for a curious potbelly, like a five-month pregnancy. He looked at the man on the sidewalk, at my grip on his arm.\n\n\"Hey, Lily,\" he said, after assessing all this. \"What you got here?\"\n\n\"Chandler?\" I said, peering up at his face. \"Chandler McAdoo?\"\n\n\"In the flesh,\" he drawled. \"You caught you a purse snatcher?\"\n\n\"So it seems.\"\n\n\"Hi, Miz Bard,\" Chandler said, nodding at my mother, who nodded back automatically. I looked up at her shocked face, thinking as I did so that nothing could make her feel better for a little bit. Being the victim of a random crime was a shocking experience.\n\nChandler McAdoo had been my lab partner in high school, one memorable semester. We had done the frog thing together. I had been holding the knife\u2014or the scalpel? I couldn't remember\u2014and I had been on the verge of going silly-girl squeamish, when Chandler had looked me straight in the eye and told me I was a weak and useless critter if I couldn't cut one little hole in a dead frog.\n\nHe was right, I had figured, and I had cut.\n\nThat wasn't the only thing Chandler McAdoo had dared me to do, but it was the only dare I'd taken.\n\nChandler bent over now with his handcuffs, and with a practiced move, he had my prisoner cuffed before the man knew what was happening. I rose, with a courteous assist from Chief Chandler, and while I was telling him what had happened, he hauled the cuffed man to his feet and propelled the prisoner toward the squad car.\n\nHe listened, made a call on his radio.\n\nI stared at every move he made, unable to square this man, this police chief with his severe haircut and cool eyes, with the boy who'd gotten drunk with me on Rebel Yell.\n\n\"Where you think he came from?\" Chandler asked, as if it weren't too important. My mother had been coaxed inside the store by Varena and the sales clerks.\n\n\"Must have been there,\" I decided, pointing at the alley running between Corbett's and the furniture store. \"That's the only place he could've been hiding unseen.\" It was a narrow alley, and if he'd been just a few feet inside it, he would have been invisible. \"Where was Diane Dykeman when her purse was snatched?\"\n\nChandler cocked an eye at me. \"She was over by Dill's pharmacy, two blocks away,\" he said. \"The snatcher dodged back in the alley, and we couldn't track him. I don't see how we could have missed this guy, but I guess he could have hidden until we'd checked the alley behind the store. There are more little niches and hidey-holes in this downtown area than you can shake a stick at.\"\n\nI nodded. Since the downtown area of Bartley was more than a hundred and fifty years old, during which time the Square businesses had flourished and gone broke in cycles, I could well believe it.\n\n\"You stay put,\" Chandler said and strode down the alley. I sighed and stayed put. I glanced at my watch once or twice. He was gone for seven minutes.\n\n\"I think he's been sleeping back there,\" Chandler said when he reemerged onto the sidewalk. Suddenly my high school buddy was galvanized, and there wasn't any languid small-town-cop air about him anymore. \"I didn't find Diane's purse, but there're some refrigerator cartons and a nest of rags.\"\n\nChandler had that saving-the-punchline air. He bent into his car and used the radio again.\n\n\"I just called Brainerd, who answered the call on the murder cases,\" he told me after he straightened. \"Come look.\"\n\nI followed Chandler down the alley. We arrived at the T junction, where this little alley joined the larger one running behind the buildings on the west of the square. There was a refrigerator carton tucked into a niche behind some bushes that had made their precarious lives in the cracks in the rough pavement. Chandler pointed, and I followed his finger to see a length of rusty pipe close to but not visible from the carton, as I figured it. The pipe had been placed on a broken drain that had formerly run from the top of the flat-roofed furniture store to the gutter, and the placement rendered it all but invisible if it had not been stained at one end. The pipe, more than two feet long and about two inches in diameter, was darker at one end than the other.\n\n\"Bloodstains?\" Chandler said. \"Dave LeMay, I'm thinking.\"\n\nI stared at the pipe again and understood.\n\nThe same man who might have beaten to death the doctor and his nurse had come that close to my mother. For a savage second, I wished I had kicked him harder and longer. I could have broken his arm, or his skull so easily while I had him down on the sidewalk. I stared out of the alley. I could just glimpse the man's profile as he sat in Chandler's car. That face was vacant. Nobody home.\n\n\"You go on in the store, Lily,\" Chandler said, maybe reading my face too easily. \"Your mama might need you right now, Varena too. We'll talk later.\"\n\nI spun on my heel and strode down the alley to the street, to enter the glass-paned front door of Corbett's. A bell attached to the door tinkled, and the little crowd around my mother shifted to absorb me.\n\nThere was a couch positioned opposite the Bride's Area, where all the local brides' and grooms' selections of china and silverware were displayed. Mother was sitting on that sofa, Varena beside her explaining what had happened.\n\nAnother police car pulled to the curb outside, spurring more activity. Amid all the bustle, the telephoning, and the concern on the faces of the women around her, my mother gradually recovered her color and composure. When she knew Mom was okay, Varena took me aside and gripped my arm.\n\n\"Way to go, Sis,\" she said.\n\nI shrugged.\n\n\"You did good.\"\n\nI almost shrugged again and looked away. But instead I ventured a smile.\n\nAnd Varena smiled back.\n\n\"Hey, I hate to interrupt this sister-sister talk,\" Chandler said, sticking his head in the shop door, \"but I gotta take statements from you three.\"\n\nSo we all went down to the little Bartley police station, one block away, to make our statements. What had happened had been so quick and simple, really just a matter of a few seconds, that it didn't take long. As we left, Chandler reminded us to stop by the station the next day to sign our statements.\n\nChandler motioned me to remain. I obediently lagged behind. I looked curiously at him. He didn't, wouldn't, meet my eyes.\n\n\"They ever catch 'em, Lily?\"\n\nThe back of my neck prickled and tightened. \"No,\" I said.\n\n\"Damn.\" And back into his tiny office he strode, all the equipment he wore on his belt making every step a statement of certainty. I took a deep breath and hurried to catch up with Mom and Varena.\n\nWe still had to go back to Corbett's Gift Shop. The women in my family weren't going to let a little thing like an attempted theft deter them from their appointed rounds. So we slid back into our little wedding groove. Varena got the basket full of presents she'd come to pick up, Mother accepted compliments on Varena's impending marriage, I was patted on the back (though somewhat gingerly) for stopping the purse snatcher, and when my adrenaline jolt finally expired... I was back to being bored.\n\nWe drove home to open and record the presents. While Mother and Varena told Daddy about our unexpectedly exciting shopping expedition, I wandered into the living room and stared out the front window. I switched on the Christmas tree lights, found that they blinked, shut them off.\n\nI wondered what Jack was doing.\n\nI found myself thinking about the homeless man I'd kicked. I thought of the redness of his eyes, the stubble on his face, his dishevelment, his smell. Would Dr. LeMay have remained seated behind his desk if such a man had come into his office? I didn't think so.\n\nAnd Dr. LeMay must have died first. If he'd heard Binnie Armstrong speaking to an unknown man, Binnie being attacked, he would never have been caught sitting. He would have been up and around the desk, struggling, despite his age. He had been a proud man, a man's man.\n\nIf that sad specimen had made his way into the doctor's office when it was officially closed, Dr. LeMay would have shown him the door, or told him to make an appointment, or called the police, or referred him to the emergency room doctor who drove out from Pine Bluff every day. Dave LeMay would have dealt with the homeless man any number of ways.\n\nBut he wouldn't have stayed behind his desk.\n\nThe intruder would have had the pipe in his hands. He hadn't come upon a rusty pipe in the doctor's office. And if the intruder had entered with the pipe, he had intended to kill Dr. LeMay and Mrs. Armstrong.\n\nI shook my head as I stared out the living room window. I was not a law enforcement officer or any kind of detective, but several things about the homeless-man-as-murderer scenario just didn't make sense. And the more I thought about it, the fishier it seemed: If the homeless man had killed Dr. LeMay and Mrs. Armstrong, why hadn't he robbed the place? Could the horror of what he'd done have driven him out before he accomplished his purpose?\n\nIf he was innocent, how had the murder weapon\u2014what Chandler McAdoo seemed to think was the murder weapon\u2014come to be in the alley? If this man was clever enough to hide Diane Dykeman's purse, which he almost certainly had stolen, why hadn't he been clever enough to get rid of the evidence of a much more serious crime?\n\nI'll tell you what I'd do, I thought. If I wanted to commit a murder and pin it on a throwaway person, I'd put the murder weapon right by a homeless man, moreover a black homeless man... someone with no local ties, no likely alibi, and already reported to be a purse snatcher.\n\nThat's what I'd do.\n\nThe back door to the doctor's office had been locked, I recalled. So the murderer had come in the front, as Varena and I had. He had walked past the doorway of the room in which Mrs. Armstrong was working, and she had not been alarmed. Binnie Armstrong had been lying in the doorway, so she had calmly continued whatever she had been doing in the little lab.\n\nSo. The murderer\u2014carrying the pipe\u2014walks into the office, which is officially closed. The murderer passes Binnie Armstrong, who stays right where she is. Then the murderer had gone into Dr. LeMay's office, looked at the old man on the other side of the piled desk, spoken to him. Though the killer had had a length of pipe in one hand, still the doctor hadn't been alarmed.\n\nI felt goosebumps shiver down my arms.\n\nWithout warning\u2014since Dr. LeMay was still in his chair, which was still pushed right up to the desk\u2014the murderer had lifted the pipe and hit Dr. LeMay over the head, kept hitting him, until he was just tissue. Then the killer had stepped out into the hall, and while Binnie was hurrying from the lab to investigate the awful sounds she'd heard, he hit her, too... until she was on the verge of death.\n\nThen he'd stepped out the front door and gotten into his vehicle... but surely he must have been covered in blood?\n\nI frowned. Here was a snag. Even the most angelic of white men could not step out in front of the doctor's office in the daytime with blood-soaked clothing, carrying a bloody pipe.\n\n\"Lily?\" My mother's voice. \"Lily?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"I thought we'd have an early lunch, since the shower is this afternoon.\"\n\n\"OK.\" I tried to control the lurch of my stomach at the thought of food.\n\n\"It's on the table. I've called you twice.\"\n\n\"Oh. Sorry.\" As I reluctantly dipped my spoon into my mother's homemade beef soup, I tried to get back on my train of thought, but it had rolled out of the station.\n\nHere we all were, sitting around the kitchen table, just as we had for so many years.\n\nSuddenly, this scene seemed overwhelmingly bleak. Here we still were, the four of us.\n\n\"Excuse me, I have to walk,\" I said, pushing away from the table. The three of them looked up at me, a familiar dismay dragging at their mouths. But the compulsion had gotten so strong that I could no longer play my part.\n\nI threw on my coat, pulled on gloves as I left the house.\n\nThe first block was bliss. Even in the freezing cold, even in the face of the sharp wind, I was by myself. At least the sun was shining in its watery winter way, and the clear colors of the pines and holly bushes against the pale blue sky made my eyes blink with pleasure. The branches of the hardwood trees looked like a bleak version of lace. Our neighbor's big brown dog barked and trailed my progress for the length of his yard, but he stopped at that and gave me no more trouble. I remembered I had to nod when cars went past, but in Bartley that was not so frequent, even at lunchtime.\n\nI turned a corner to put the wind behind me, and in time I passed the Presbyterian church and the manse, where the O'Sheas lived. I wondered if the toddler, Luke, was letting Lou sleep. But I couldn't think about the O'Sheas without thinking of the picture that Roy Costimiglia had received in the mail.\n\nWhoever sent that picture obviously knew which girl was the abducted Summer Dawn Macklesby. That particular picture, attached to that particular article, sent to the Macklesbys' PI, was intended to lead Roy Costimiglia to one conclusion. Why hadn't the anonymous sender gone one step farther and circled the child's face? Why the ambiguity?\n\nThat was a real puzzle.\n\nOf course... if you could figure out who'd sent it... you could find out why. Maybe.\n\nGreat piece of detection, Lily, I told myself scornfully, and walked even faster. A brown mailing envelope that could be bought at any Wal-Mart, a picture from a yearbook that hundreds of students had purchased... well, one copy would be missing that page now. Page 23, I remembered, from looking so hard at the one in Jack's briefcase.\n\nOf course, the whole thing was really Jack's problem. Furthermore, it was a problem Jack was being paid to solve.\n\nBut I needed to know the answer before Varena married Dill Kingery. And the fact was evident that, though Jack was a trained and dogged detective, I was the one on the inside track, here in Bartley.\n\nSo I tried to imagine some way I could help Jack, some information I could discover for him.\n\nI couldn't think of a damn thing I could do.\n\nBut maybe something would come to me.\n\nThe harder and longer I walked, the better I felt. I was breathing easier: The claustrophobia induced by family closeness was loosening its knot.\n\nI glanced at my watch and stopped dead in my tracks.\n\nIt was time for Varena's shower.\n\nLuckily, I had been meandering around in my parents' neighborhood, so I was only four blocks away from their house. I set out quickly, arriving at the front door within minutes. They'd left it unlocked, which was a relief. I dashed to my bedroom, skinned out of my jeans and sweater, and pulled on my black pants-blue blouse-black jacket combination. I checked the shower location and dashed out the door.\n\nI was only ten minutes late.\n\nThis was a kitchen shower at the home of Mother's best friend, Grace Parks. Grace lived on a street of large homes, and hers was one of the largest. She had daily help, I remembered, and I cast a professional eye over the house as I entered.\n\nYou wouldn't catch Grace looking relieved to see me, but the lines bracketing her generous mouth did relax when I came in. She gave me a ritual hug and a pat on the shoulder that was just a little too forceful, as she told me my mother and sister were in the living room waiting for me. I'd always liked Grace, who would be blond until the day she died. Grace seemed indestructible. Her brown eyes were always made up, her curvy figure had never sagged (at least on the surface), and she wore magnificent jewelry quite routinely.\n\nShe slid me into a chair she'd saved right by my mother and answered a question from one of the assembled guests even as she was putting the pencil and notepad in my hands. I stared at it blankly for a moment until I realized I'd been assigned the task of recording the gifts and givers.\n\nI gave Mom a cautious smile, and she cautiously smiled back. Varena gave me a compound look, irritation and relief mixed in equal parts. \"Sorry,\" I said quietly.\n\n\"You made it,\" my mother said, her voice calm and matter-of-fact.\n\nI nodded at the circle of women in Grace's huge living room, recognizing most of them from the shower two days ago. These people would be just as relieved as Varena to have the wedding over with. More people seemed to have been invited to this shower; maybe since Grace had such a large home, she'd told Varena to expand the basic guest list.\n\nBecause I'd been thinking of their daughters, I particularly noticed Meredith Osborn and Lou O'Shea. Mrs. Kingery was sitting on the other side of Varena, which was a relief. It seemed unfair to me that Dill should have such a nerve-wracking mother after his wife had been unstable enough to kill herself. I could see why he'd be attracted to Varena, who had always seemed to be one of the most stable and balanced people I'd ever known.\n\nIt was the first time I'd realized that. It's strange how you can know someone all your life and still not spell out her strong and weak points to yourself.\n\nThis shower had a kitchen theme. All the guests had been asked to include their favorite recipe with their gift. As we began the grand opening, I got busy. My handwriting is not elegant, but it is clear, and I tried to do a thorough job. Some boxes were stuffed with little things rather than a single gift, like a set of dish towels. Diane Dykeman (she of the snatched purse) had given Varena a set of measuring spoons and measuring cups, a little scale, and a chart of weight equivalencies, and I had to use my most microscopic writing to enter everything.\n\nThis was really an excellent job to have, I decided, because I didn't have to talk to anyone. The story about me kicking the purse snatcher wasn't town currency yet, and Mother and Varena were avoiding the subject. But I was pretty sure it would begin to make the rounds when time came for refreshments.\n\nWhen that moment arrived\u2014when all the gifts had been opened and Grace Parks had vanished for a significant time\u2014she reappeared at my elbow and asked me to pour the punch.\n\nIt occurred to me that Grace understood me pretty well. I gave her an assessing look as I took my place at one end of her massive oval dining table, polished to a gleaming shine, bisected by a Christmas runner and covered with the usual shower food: nuts, cake, finger sandwiches, mints, snack mix.\n\n\"You're like me,\" Grace said. She gave me a direct look. \"You like to be busy more than you like to sit and listen.\"\n\nIt had never crossed my mind that I was in any way like the elegant Grace Parks. I nodded and began to fill my ladle for the first one around the table\u2014Varena, of course, the honoree.\n\nI had to do no more than say \"Punch?\" after that and smile and nod.\n\nAfter a long time, it was over, and once again we loaded gifts into the car, thanked Grace profusely, and drove home to unload.\n\nAfter I'd changed back to jeans and the sweater, Varena asked me if I'd go to her cottage with her to help pack. She'd been moving her things slowly into Dill's house over the past month, beginning with the things she needed least.\n\nOf course I agreed, relieved both at the prospect of being busy and of being helpful. We had a quick sandwich and went over to the cottage, with a few stops along the way. Dill, Varena told me, was spending some quality time with Anna, who'd been showing signs of being overwhelmed by all the wedding excitement.\n\n\"I've reached the point where all I can do here at my place is sleep,\" she told me, after she'd put her sweats on. \"But I kept the lease up until the end of December, because I really didn't want to move back in with the folks.\" I nodded. I could see that once she did that, she and Dill would have lost whatever privacy they had. Or did Varena just want to ensure she had a break from our parents?\n\n\"What do you have left to pack?\"\n\nVarena began to open closets, showing me what she hadn't managed to empty out before now.\n\nWe'd stopped behind some stores to collect boxes. Downtown had been empty, now that most of the businesses were closed. It was fully dark at six o'clock this time of year, and the night was very cold. The cottage seemed warm and homey in contrast to the blackness outside.\n\nI was assigned to pack the tiny closet by the front door, which contained things like extra lightbulbs, extension cords, batteries, and the vacuum cleaner. As I began to pack them in a sturdy box, Varena started wrapping some pots and pans with newspaper. We worked in comfortable silence for a little while.\n\nVarena had just asked me if I wanted some instant hot chocolate when we heard the sound of someone walking outside the cottage.\n\nThe scare we'd had that morning must have made us jumpy. Both of us raised our heads like deer hearing the sound of the hunter's boots. Peripherally, I saw Varena turn to me, but I shook my head slightly to make her keep silent.\n\nThen someone kicked the front door.\n\nVarena shrieked.\n\n\"Who is it?\" I called, standing to one side of the door.\n\n\"Jack,\" he yelled. \"Let me in!\"\n\nI caught my breath in a rattling gasp, frightened and furious at being so. I yanked the door open, ready to let him know how much I appreciated being jolted like that. The words died in my throat when I opened the door. Jack was carrying Meredith Osborn. She was covered in blood.\n\nBehind me I heard Varena pick up the phone, punch in 911. She spoke tersely to whoever answered.\n\nJack was haggard with shock. Some of Meredith Osborn's blood was smeared on him. He was breathing raggedly. Though she was a small woman, he'd been carrying her as a dead weight.\n\nVarena picked up a sheet she'd just folded and flung it over the couch in one movement, and Jack gladly laid the little woman down. When he'd deposited his burden he stood for a moment with his arms still curved. Then with a groan he straightened them, his shoulders moving unconsciously in an effort to relax strained muscles.\n\nVarena was already on her knees beside the couch, her hands on her landlady's wrist. She was shaking her head.\n\n\"She's got a pulse, but it's...\" Varena shook her head again. \"She's been lying outside.\" The dying woman's face was ice-white, and the cold was rolling off the tiny body, eddying through the warm room.\n\nWe heard the sound of the ambulance in the distance.\n\nMeredith Osborn opened her eyes. They fixed on mine.\n\nSomeone had struck her across her face, and her lips were cracked, had bled. Underneath the blood, they were blue, to match the tinge of her fingernails.\n\nHer mouth opened. \"The children,\" she whispered.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" Varena said instantly. \"They're fine.\"\n\nMeredith Osborn turned her gaze from my face to Varena's. Her mouth moved again. She tried as hard as she could to tell Varena something.\n\nInstead, she died."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 6",
                "text": "I held on to Jack. He held on to me. We'd seen people die\u2014 bad people, violent people, people who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This young woman, newly a mother, beaten and left in the freezing air, was something else again.\n\nIt was Varena who ran over to the Osborn house to see if the children were there, Varena who discovered that the house was empty and silent. And, twenty minutes later, it was Varena who saw the car with Emory Osborn, Eve, and the baby Jane pull into the driveway, to be met with the news that would change their lives forever.\n\nLanky Detective Brainerd was on duty again, or still on duty, and he eyed me dubiously, even after we explained what had happened.\n\n\"What were you doing here?\" he asked Jack directly. \"I don't believe you're from here, sir.\"\n\n\"No, sir, I'm not. I'm here to visit Lily, and I'm staying at the Delta Motel.\" Jack let go of me and stepped closer to Brainerd.\n\nI kept my gaze on the floor. I didn't know if Jack was making a mistake or not, keeping his business in Bartley a secret.\n\n\"How'd you know Miss Bard was here?\"\n\n\"Her car is here,\" Jack said.\n\nIt was true, we'd come in my car. Mother had taken Varena to the wedding shower, so I'd given her a ride from their place over to the cottage.\n\nAfter her burst of energy, Varena was slumped in an armchair, staring into space.\n\n\"So you stopped here to see Miss Bard...?\"\n\n\"And when I got out of the car, I thought I heard a noise from behind the big house,\" Jack said calmly. \"So I thought I'd check it out before I alarmed Lily and Varena.\"\n\n\"You found Mrs. Osborn.\"\n\n\"Yes. She was lying between the back of the house and their garage.\"\n\n\"Did she speak to you?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"She said nothing?\"\n\n\"No. She didn't seem to know I'd picked her up.\"\n\n\"But she spoke when she was lying on the couch?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said.\n\nJack and Detective Brainerd turned simultaneously.\n\n\"And what did she say?\" the policeman asked.\n\n\"She said, 'The children.'\"\n\n\"And that's all?\"\n\n\"That's all.\"\n\nBrainerd looked thoughtful, as well he might.\n\nWhat had Meredith Osborn meant? Had the last thoughts of the dying woman simply been dwelling on the children she was leaving behind? Or did those words mean more? Were her two children in danger? Or was she thinking of the three girls in the picture?\n\nWhoever had sent the picture to Jack's friend Roy had started a deadly train of events.\n\nAfter the ambulance removed Meredith's body, I stared out the side window of Varena's cottage, watching the police search the backyard where she had lain bleeding and freezing.\n\nI was full of anger.\n\nThe death of Meredith Osborn had not even had the mercy of being fast. Dave LeMay and Binnie Armstrong had had only moments to fear death\u2014and those were dreadful moments, I fully appreciated that, believe me. But lying in your own backyard, unable to summon help, feeling your own end creeping through you... I closed my eyes, felt myself shudder. I knew something about hours of fear, about being certain your death was imminent and unavoidable. I had been spared, finally. Meredith Osborn had not.\n\nJack put an arm around my shoulder.\n\n\"I want to go away,\" I whispered.\n\nI couldn't, and we both knew it.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" I said at a more conversational volume, hearing my voice's coldness. \"I'm being silly.\"\n\nJack sighed. \"I wish I could go away, too.\"\n\n\"What killed her?\"\n\n\"Not a gun. Knife wounds, I think.\"\n\nI shivered. I hated knives.\n\n\"Did we bring this here with us, Jack?\" I whispered.\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"This was here before we came. But it won't be here when I leave.\" When Jack got his teeth into something, he didn't let go, even when he was biting the wrong part.\n\n\"Tomorrow,\" I told him, quietly. \"Tomorrow we'll talk.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nI was taking Varena home to spend the night. She couldn't sleep in this cottage. She was ready, standing staring out the side window at the lit backyard, the figures moving around it. So I tried to walk out the door. But after I'd stepped away from Jack I reached back to grip his wrist. I couldn't seem to let go. I looked down at my feet, struggling with myself.\n\n\"Lily?\" Under the questioning tone, his voice was hoarse.\n\nI bit my lip, hard.\n\n\"I'm gone,\" I said, letting go of him. \"I'll see you in the morning, at eight. At the motel.\" I glanced at his face.\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"Lock her cottage when the police let you go, OK?\"\n\nVarena didn't seem to hear us. She stood like a statue at that window, her overnight bag on the floor beside her.\n\n\"Sure,\" he said, still looking intently at me.\n\n\"Then I'll see you tomorrow,\" I said and turned my back on him and walked out, beckoning to my sister to follow.\n\nI have done so many hard things, but that was one of the hardest.\n\nIt was only nine by the time we got to my parents' house, but it felt like midnight. I didn't want to see anyone or talk to anyone, and yet somehow my parents had to be told, had to be talked to. Luckily for me, Varena had regained her balance by the time she saw my mother, and though she cried a little, she managed to relate the horrible death of Meredith Osborn.\n\n\"Should I just cancel the wedding?\" she asked tearfully.\n\nI knew my mother would talk her out of it. I really couldn't bear to be with people right now. I went to my room and shut the door firmly. My father came to stand outside in the hall; I knew his footsteps.\n\n\"Are you okay, pumpkin?\" he called.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Do you want to be alone?\"\n\nI clenched my fists until even my short fingernails bit into my palms. \"Yes, please.\"\n\n\"OK.\" Off he went, God bless him.\n\nI lay on the hard bed, hands clasped across my stomach, and thought.\n\nI could not imagine how I could find out any more information about the three girls who might be Summer Dawn. But I was convinced that Meredith Osborn's death had come about because she knew which girl was not who she seemed to be. I tried to picture Lou O'Shea or the Reverend O'Shea attacking Meredith in the freezing cold of her backyard, but I just could not. Still less could I imagine mild Dill Kingery stabbing Meredith into silence. Dill's mother was certainly off-base, but I'd never seen any tendency to violence. Mrs. Kingery just seemed daffy.\n\nI thought of Meredith Osborn taking care of Krista O'Shea and Anna Kingery. What could she have seen\u2014or heard\u2014that would lead her to think she knew that one of the girls had been born with a different identity?\n\nI'd never had a baby, so I didn't know what happened bureaucratically when you gave birth. Some hospitals, I knew, took little footprints\u2014I'd seen them framed on the walls of the Althaus family when I cleaned for them. And of course there was the birth certificate. And pictures. A lot of hospitals took pictures, for the parents. To me, all babies pretty much looked the same, red and scrunch-faced, or brown and scrunch-faced. That some had hair and some didn't was the only obvious distinction I could see.\n\nI had learned, also from the much-birthed Carol Althaus, that the fingerprints police or volunteers sometimes took at mall booths were not helpful because often they were of poor quality. I didn't know if that was true, but it sounded reasonable. I was willing to bet the same reasons would render any existing baby footprints of Summer Dawn unusable.\n\nSo fingerprints and footprints were a no go. DNA testing could prove Summer Dawn's identity, I was sure, but of course you had to know whom to test. I couldn't see Jack demanding that the three girls undergo DNA testing. Well, I could see him demanding it, but I could also see all three sets of parents turning him down cold.\n\nI stared at the ceiling until I realized my mind was going through the same cycle of thought, over and over, and it was no more productive than it had been the first time I'd gone through it.\n\nI remembered, as I was undressing and pulling on a nightgown, that when Jack had first come to my bed, the next morning I'd made myself a promise: never to ask Jack for anything.\n\nI was having a hard time keeping that promise.\n\nAs I lay once again on the bed I'd slept in as a virgin, I had to remind myself over and over that there was a corollary to that promise: not to offer what was not asked for.\n\nI heard my sister next door in her old room, going through the same motions I'd gone through. I was sure she was hurting, sure she was suffering doubly since this blood and gore was happening at the time that was supposed to be the happiest in her life.\n\nI felt helpless.\n\nIt was the most galling feeling in the world.\n\nI was up and out of the house the next morning before my parents were stirring. I couldn't wait for eight o'clock. I rose, took a hasty shower, and yanked on ordinary clothes, not much caring what they were as long as they were warm.\n\nI started my car with a little difficulty and drove through the frosty streets. There were a few more cars at the motel, so my knock at Jack's door was quiet.\n\nHe opened it after just a second, and I stepped inside. Jack closed the door quickly behind me, shirtless and shivering in the gust of cold air that entered with me.\n\nWhat I had been going to do, planning to do, was sit in one of the two uncomfortable vinyl-covered chairs while Jack sat in the other and discuss his plans and how I could help.\n\nWhat happened was, the minute the door was closed we were on each other like hungry wolves. When I touched him, my hands were pleased with everything they encountered. When I kissed him, I wanted him instantly. I was shaking so hard with wanting him that I couldn't get my clothes off, and he pulled my sweatshirt over my head and yanked down my jeans and underwear, helping me step out of them, pulling me to the bed into his nest of residual warmth.\n\nAfterward, we lay with our arms around each other. I didn't care that my left arm was going to sleep, he didn't seem to mind that there wasn't an altogether comfortable place for his right leg.\n\nHe whispered my name in my ear. I smoothed his hair, tangled and loose, back from his face. I ran my fingers over the stubble on his chin. There were words in my mouth that I would not say. I clamped my teeth over them and continued to touch him. That stupid, fragile, ludicrous swelling in my chest had to remain contained.\n\nHis hands were occupied, too, and after a few minutes we made love again, not as frantically. There was nothing I wanted so much as to stay in that sorry motel bed, as long as Jack was in it.\n\nI was dressing (again) after another quick shower. \"What are you going to do next?\" I asked, hearing the reluctance in my voice.\n\n\"Find out which of the little girls had seen Dr. LeMay recently.\"\n\n\"I figured that had something to do with it. After all, the homeless man was in jail when Meredith Osborn was killed.\"\n\n\"She wasn't beaten like the doctor and his nurse.\" Jack had been brushing his hair back into its ponytail. Now he gave me a curious look. He was wearing a long-sleeved polo shirt striped rust and brown, and the scar that ran down his cheek to his jaw seemed whiter in contrast. He ran a belt through the loops on his khakis. \"Might have been a different killer.\"\n\n\"Umhum,\" I said skeptically. \"All of a sudden, Bartley is full of brutal murders. And you're trying to find a missing child. This is just coincidence.\"\n\nHe gave me the look that I'd learned meant he was up to something: It was a sideways look, a quick flash of the eyes, to gauge my mood.\n\n\"The homeless man's name is Christopher Darby Sims.\"\n\n\"OK, I'll bite. How'd you know that?\"\n\n\"I have a connection here at the police department.\"\n\nI wondered uneasily if this was one of those good ole boy things, or if Jack meant he'd bribed a cop. Or perhaps both.\n\n\"So, can this connection look through the doctor's records?\"\n\n\"I can't ask that much. I'm feeling my way. Are you still squeamish about frogs?\" Jack asked, a little smile turning up the corners of his mouth.\n\n\"Chandler McAdoo.\"\n\nJack lifted a corner of the curtain, peered out at the bleak day and the depressing motel court. \"I stopped by the police station yesterday. Once I mentioned your name and hinted pretty strongly that we were tight, Chandler began to talk to me. He's given me some fascinating stories about your teen years.\" He tried not to grin too broadly.\n\nAs long as Chandler hadn't told him about the later years. \"I can't even remember what I was like then,\" I said. And I was speaking the literal truth. \"I can remember some of the things we got up to,\" I said, smiling a little, tentatively. \"But I can't for the life of me recall what I felt. Too much water under the bridge, I guess.\" It was like I could see a silent movie of my life without hearing sound or feeling emotion. I shrugged. What was gone, was gone.\n\n\"I'm memorizing some stories,\" Jack warned me. \"And when you least expect it...\"\n\nI tightened my shoelaces, still smiling, and kissed Jack good-bye. \"Call me when you know something or want me to do something,\" I told him. I felt the smile slide right off my mouth. \"I want this over.\"\n\nJack nodded. \"I do, too,\" he said, his voice even. \"And then I never want to see Teresa and Simon Macklesby again.\"\n\nI looked up at him, reading his face. I touched his cheek with my fingers. \"You can do this,\" I said.\n\n\"Yeah, I should be able to,\" he told me, his voice bleak and empty.\n\n\"What's your program for the morning?\" I asked.\n\n\"I'm helping Dill put a floor in his attic.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I just happened to be in the pharmacy yesterday afternoon and we were talking, and he told me that was what he was going to be doing this morning, no matter how cold it was. He wanted to get the job finished before the wedding. So I said I didn't have anything to do since you were wrapped up in wedding plans, and I'd be glad to lend him a hand.\"\n\n\"And ask him a few questions while you're at it?\"\n\n\"Possibly.\" Jack smiled at me, that charming smile that coaxed so much information out of citizens.\n\nI drove home, trying to think my way through a maze.\n\nMy family was up, Varena shaky but much better. They'd had a conference while I was gone and made up their minds to go through with the wedding no matter what. I was glad I'd missed that one, glad the decision had been made without me. If Varena had postponed her wedding, it would have made the time frame easier, but I had a concern I hadn't shared with Jack.\n\nI was afraid\u2014if the murderer of Dr. LeMay, Mrs. Armstrong, and Meredith Osborn was the same person\u2014that this criminal was getting frantic. And a person frantically trying to conceal a crime was likely to kill the strongest link between him and the crime.\n\nIn this case, that would be Summer Dawn Macklesby.\n\nOn one level, it didn't seem likely that whoever'd gone to such extreme lengths to conceal the original crime\u2014the abduction\u2014would even consider killing the girl. But on another level, it seemed obvious, even likely.\n\nI knew nothing that could help solve this crime. What did I know how to do? I knew how to clean and how to fight.\n\nI also knew where people were most likely to hide things. Cleaning had certainly taught me that. Objects could be mislaid anywhere (though I had a mental list of places I checked first, when employers asked me to keep my eyes open for some missing item) but hidden... that was a different matter.\n\nSo? I asked myself sarcastically. How was that going to help?\n\n\"Could you, sweetheart?\" my mother was saying.\n\n\"What?\" I asked, my voice sharp and quick. She'd startled me.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" my mother said, her voice making it clear I should be saying that to her. \"I asked if you would mind going over to Varena's place and finishing her packing?\"\n\nI wasn't sure why I was being asked to do this. Was Varena too scared to be there by herself? And it wasn't supposed to bother me? But maybe I'd been woolgathering while they'd spelled it out.\n\nVarena certainly looked as if she needed sleep and a holiday. And this, right before the happiest time of her life.\n\n\"Of course,\" I said. \"What about the wedding dress?\"\n\n\"Oh, my heavens!\" Mother exclaimed. \"We've got to get that out right away!\" Mother's pale face flushed. Somehow, the wedding dress was at risk in that apartment. Galvanized by this sudden urgency, Mother shooed me into my car and bundled herself up in record time.\n\nShe followed me over to Varena's and took the dress home personally, carrying it from the cottage to the car as though it were the crown and scepter of royalty.\n\nI was left alone in Varena's place, an oddly unsettling feeling. It was like surreptitiously going through her drawers. I shrugged. I was here to do a job. That thought was very normal, very steadying, after all we'd seen lately.\n\nI counted boxes, moved the ones already full out to my car trunk after labeling them with Varena's black marker. \"Martha Stewart, that's me,\" I muttered and folded out the flaps on another box, placing it by the nearest closet. This was a little double closet with sliding doors in Varena's tiny hall. It held only a few linens and towels. I guessed Varena had already moved the others.\n\nJust as I'd picked up the first handful, trying to restrain myself from shaking the sheets out and refolding them, there was a knock on the door. I looked through Varena's peephole. The knocker was a blond man, small, fair, with red-rimmed blue eyes. He looked mild and sad. I was sure I knew who it was.\n\n\"Emory Osborn,\" he said, when I opened the door. I shook his hand. His was that soft boneless handshake some men give a woman, as though they're scared if they squeeze with all their masculine power they'll break her delicate fingers. It felt like shaking hands with the Pillsbury Dough Boy. This was something Jess O'Shea and Emory Osborn had in common.\n\n\"Come in,\" I said. After all, he owned the cottage.\n\nEmory Osborn stepped over the threshold. The widower was maybe 5' 7\", not much taller than I. He was very fair and blue-eyed, handsome on a small scale, and he had the most flawless skin I'd ever seen on a man. Right at the moment, it was pink from the cold.\n\n\"I'm sorry for your loss,\" I told him.\n\nHe looked directly at me then. \"You were here in the cottage last night?\"\n\n\"Yes, I was.\"\n\n\"You saw her?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"She was alive.\"\n\nI shifted uneasily. \"Yes,\" I told him reluctantly.\n\n\"Did she speak?\"\n\n\"She asked after the children.\"\n\n\"The children?\"\n\n\"That's all.\"\n\nHis eyes closed, and for one awful moment I thought he was going to cry.\n\n\"Have a seat,\" I said abruptly. I startled him into sitting down in the nearest chair, an armchair that must be Varena's favorite from the way she'd positioned it.\n\n\"Let me get you some hot chocolate.\" I went into the kitchen without waiting for an answer. I knew there would be some since Varena'd offered it to me the night before. There it was, on the counter where she'd set it, along with two mugs. Luckily, the microwave was built-in, so I was able to heat the water in it. I stirred in the powder. It wasn't very good, but it was hot and sweet, and he looked in need of both sugar and warmth.\n\n\"Where are the children?\" I asked as I put his mug on the small oak table by the chair.\n\n\"They're with church members,\" he said. His voice was rich but not big.\n\n\"So, what can I do for you?\" It didn't seem that he would say anything else unless I prompted him.\n\n\"I wanted to see where she died.\"\n\nThis was very nearly intolerable. \"There, on the couch,\" I said brusquely.\n\nHe stared. \"There aren't any stains,\" he told me.\n\n\"Varena slung a sheet over it.\" This was beyond strange. The back of my neck began to prickle. I wasn't going to sit knee to knee with him\u2014I'd been perched on the ottoman that matched the chair\u2014and point out where Meredith's head had been, what spot her feet had touched.\n\n\"Before your friend put Meredith down?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" I jumped up to pull a fitted sheet from the closet. Giving way to an almost irresistible compulsion, I refolded it, and knew I'd straighten all the rest, too. The hell with Varena's finer feelings.\n\n\"And he is\u2014?\"\n\n\"My friend.\" I could hear my voice get flatter and harder.\n\n\"You're angry with me, I'm afraid,\" he said wearily. And sure enough, he was weeping, tears were running down his cheeks. He blotted them automatically with a well-used handkerchief.\n\n\"You shouldn't put yourself through this.\" My tone was still not the one a nice woman would use to a widower. I meant he shouldn't put me through it.\n\n\"I feel like God's abandoned me and the kids. I'm heartbroken,\" and I reflected I'd never actually heard anyone use that word out loud, \"and my faith has left me,\" he finished, without taking a breath. He put his face in his hands.\n\nOh, man. I didn't want to hear this. I didn't want to be here.\n\nThrough the uncurtained window, I saw a car pull in behind mine in the cottage's narrow driveway. Jess O'Shea got out and began his way to the door, his head bowed. A minister\u2014just the person to deal with a lapse of faith and recent bereavement. I opened the door before he had a chance to knock.\n\n\"Jess,\" I said. Even I could hear the naked relief in my voice. \"Emory Osborn is here, and he is really, really...\" I stood there, nodding significantly, unable to pin down exactly what Emory Osborn was.\n\nJess O'Shea seemed to be taking in my drift. He stepped around me and over to the smaller man, claiming my former seat on the ottoman. He took Emory's hands in his.\n\nI tried to block out the two men's voices as I continued the job of packing, despite the feeling I should leave while Emory talked with his minister. But Emory had the option of going to his own house if he wanted complete privacy. If I looked at it practically, he'd known I was here and come in the cottage anyway...\n\nJess and Emory were praying together now, the fervent expression on Emory's face the only one I could see. Jess's back was bent and his hands clasped in front of his face. The two fair heads were close together.\n\nThen Dill stepped in, looking at the two men praying, at me folding, trying to keep my eyes to myself. He looked startled and not too happy at this tableau.\n\nAll three dads in the same room. Except that one of them was probably not really a father at all but a thief who had stolen his fatherhood.\n\nDill turned to me, his whole face a question. I shrugged.\n\n\"Where's Varena?\" he whispered.\n\n\"At our folks',\" I whispered. \"You go over there. You two need to talk about what's going to happen. And aren't you supposed to be meeting Jack at your place?\" I gave him a little push with my hand, and he took a step back before he recovered his footing. Possibly I'd pushed a little harder than I'd planned.\n\nAfter Dill obediently got in his car and left, I finished refolding and found I had packed all the remaining items in the linen closet. I checked the bathroom cabinet. It held only a few things, which I also boxed.\n\nWhen I turned around, Jess O'Shea was right behind me. My arms tensed immediately and my hands fisted.\n\n\"Sorry, did I surprise you?\" he asked, with apparent innocence. Yes.\n\n\"I think Emory is feeling a little better. We're going over to his house. Thanks for comforting him.\"\n\nI couldn't recall any comforting I'd done; it must have been in the eye of the comfortee. I made a noncommittal sound.\n\n\"I'm so glad you've returned to reconcile with your family,\" Jess said, all in a rush. \"I know this has meant so much to them.\"\n\nThis was his business? I raised my eyebrows.\n\nHe reddened when I didn't speak. \"I guess it's a professional hazard, giving out emotional pats on the back,\" he said finally. \"I apologize.\"\n\nI nodded. \"How is Krista?\" I asked.\n\n\"She's fine,\" he said, surprised. \"It's a little hard to get her to understand that her friend's mother is gone, she seems not to see it as a reality yet. That can be a blessing, you know. I think we'll be keeping Eve for a while until Emory can cope a little better. Maybe the baby, too, if Lou thinks she can handle it.\"\n\n\"Didn't Lou tell me she'd taken Krista to the doctor last week?\" I asked.\n\nIf Jess noticed the contrast between my lack of response to his observations about my family and my willingness to chatter about his child, he didn't comment on it. Parents almost always seem willing to believe other people are as fascinated with their children as they are.\n\n\"No,\" he said, obviously searching his memory. \"Krista hasn't even had a cold since we started her on her allergy shots last summer.\" His face lightened. \"Before that, we were in to Dr. LeMay's every week, it seemed like! My goodness, this is so much better. Lou gives Krista the shots herself.\"\n\nI nodded and began opening cabinets in the kitchen. Jess took the hint and left, pulling on his heavy coat as he walked across the yard. Evidently he wasn't going to stay at Emory's long.\n\nAfter he left I wrote a note on a pad I found under Varena's phone. I hopped in my car and drove to the motel. As I'd expected, Jack's car wasn't there. I pulled up in front of his room. I squatted and slid the note under his door.\n\nIt said, \"Krista O'Shea didn't go to the doctor recently.\" I didn't sign it. Who else would be leaving Jack a note?\n\nOn my way back to Varena's, I scavenged alleys for more boxes. I was particularly interested in the alley behind the gift store and furniture store.\n\nIt was clean, for an alley, and I even scored a couple of very decent boxes before I began my search. There was a Dumpster back there; I was sure the police had been through it, since it was suspiciously empty. The appliance carton Christopher Sims had been using for shelter was gone, too, maybe appropriated by the police.\n\nI looked down the alley in both directions. Main Street was on one end, and anyone driving east would be able to glance down the alley and catch a glimpse of whoever was in it, unless that person was in the niche where Sims's box had been located.\n\nTo the south end of the alley was a quiet street with small businesses in older houses and a few remaining homes still occupied by one family apiece. That street, Macon, saw quite a lot of foot traffic; the square's parking space was severely limited, so downtown shoppers were always looking for a spot within walking distance.\n\nIt sure would be easy to catch a glimpse of Christopher Darby Sims while he squatted in this alley. It sure would be tempting to capitalize on the presence of a homeless black in Bartley. It would be no trouble at all to slip through the alley with, say, a length of bloody pipe. Deposit it behind a handy box.\n\nThe back door of the furniture store opened. A woman about my age came out, looking cautiously at me.\n\n\"Hi,\" she called. She was clearly waiting for me to account for my presence.\n\n\"I'm collecting boxes for my sister's move,\" I told her, gesturing toward my car with its open trunk.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said, relief written on her face in big bold letters. \"I hate to seem suspicious, but we had a... Lily?\"\n\n\"Maude? Mary Maude?\" I was looking at her just as incredulously.\n\nShe came down the back steps of the building in a rush and threw her arms around me. I staggered back under her weight. Mary Maude was still pretty and always would be, but she was considerably rounder than she had been in high school. I made myself hug her back. \"Mary Maude Plummer,\" I said tentatively, patting her plump shoulder very gently.\n\n\"Well, it was Mary Maude Baumgartner for about five years, and now it's back to Plummer,\" she told me, sniffing a little. Mary Maude had always been emotional. I had a clenched feeling around my heart. I had a lot of memories of this woman.\n\n\"You never called me,\" she said now, looking up at me. She meant, after the rape. I could never get away from it here.\n\n\"I never called anyone,\" I said. I had to tell Mary Maude the truth. \"I couldn't face doing it. I had too hard a time.\"\n\nHer eyes filled with tears. \"But I've always loved you.\"\n\nAlways right to the emotional truth, no matter how uncomfortable. Could this be why I'd never called Mary Maude after my Bad Time? We'd let go of each other, taken a step back.\n\nI remembered another important truth. \"I love you too,\" I said. \"But I couldn't stand to be around people who were always thinking about what had happened to me. I couldn't do it.\"\n\nShe nodded. Her red hair, almost to her shoulders, turned under in a neat curve all the way around, and she had heavy gold earrings in her pierced ears. \"I think I can understand that. I've been all these years forgiving you for refusing my comfort.\"\n\n\"Are we all right?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" she said, smiling up at me. \"We're all right, now.\"\n\nWe both gave a little laugh, half happy, half embarrassed.\n\n\"So, you're getting boxes for Varena?\"\n\n\"Yeah. She's getting her stuff out of the cottage. The wedding's day after tomorrow. And after the murder last night...\"\n\n\"Oh, right, that's the place Varena rented! You know, the husband, Emory, works right here, with me.\" And Mary Maude pointed at the door from which she'd issued. \"He's the sweetest guy.\"\n\nHe would certainly have been aware of Christopher Sims's presence in the alley in back of the store.\n\n\"So, I guess you knew this guy was living back here, the purse snatcher?\"\n\n\"Well, we'd caught glimpses. Just in the two days before the police got him. Wait... my God, Lily, was that you who kicked him?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"Wow, girl, what have you done with yourself?\" She eyed me up and down.\n\n\"Taken karate for a few years, worked out some.\"\n\n\"I can tell! You were so brave, too!\"\n\n\"So you knew Sims was back here?\"\n\n\"Huh? Oh, yeah. But we weren't sure what to do about it. We've never had any problem like that, and we were trying to decide what the safe thing to do was, and what the Christian thing to do was. It's tough when that might not be the same thing! We got Jess O'Shea down here to talk to the man, try to see where he wanted a bus ticket to, you know? Or if he was sick. Or hungry.\"\n\nSo Jess had actually met the man.\n\n\"What did Jess say?\"\n\n\"He said this Sims guy told him he was just fine right where he was, he had been getting handouts from some people in the, you know, black community, and he was just going to stay in the alley until God guided him somewhere else.\"\n\n\"Somewhere where they had more purses?\"\n\n\"Could be.\" Mary Maude laughed. \"I hear Diane positively identified him. He told Diane at the police station that he was an angel and was trying to point out to Diane the hazards of possessing too many worldly goods.\"\n\n\"That's original.\"\n\n\"Yeah, give him points for a talent for fiction, anyway.\"\n\n\"He say anything about the murders?\" Since Mary Maude apparently had such access to the local gossip pipeline, I thought I might as well tap in.\n\n\"No. Isn't that a little strange? You'd think on one hand he'd be too deranged to understand that the murders are so much more serious, and yet he's saying that he never saw the pipe until the police found it stuffed behind his box, you know, the one where he was sleeping.\"\n\nI noticed that Mary Maude had come to check me out without a coat on, and she was shivering in her expensive white blouse and sweater-vest embroidered in holly and Christmas ornaments. Our reunion had its own background sound track, as the loudspeakers positioned around the square continued to blare out Christmas music.\n\n\"How do you stand it?\" I asked, nodding my head toward the noise in the square.\n\n\"The carols? Oh, after a while you just tune them out,\" she said wearily. \"They just leach the spirit out of me.\"\n\n\"Maybe that's what made the purse snatcher deranged,\"\n\nI offered, and she burst into laughter. Mary Maude had always laughed easily, charmingly, making it impossible not at least to smile along with her.\n\nShe hugged me again, made me promise to call her when I came back to town after the wedding, and scampered back into the store, her body shaking with the cold. I stood looking after her for a minute. Then I threw a couple more boxes into the car and drove carefully out of the alley.\n\nWithin a block of turning out onto the side street, Macon, I passed Dill's pharmacy.\n\nI had a lot to think about.\n\nI would have given almost anything to have had my punching bag.\n\nI returned to Varena's place and packed everything I could find. Every half hour or so, I straightened up and looked out the window. There were lots of visitors at the Osborn house: women dropping off food, mostly. Emory appeared in the yard from time to time, walking restlessly, and a couple of times he was crying. Once he drove off in his car, returning in less than an hour. But he didn't knock on the cottage door again, to my great relief.\n\nI had carefully folded Varena's remaining clothes and placed them in suitcases, since I didn't know what she'd planned on taking on the honeymoon. Most of her clothes were already at Dill's.\n\nFinally, by three o'clock, all Varena's belongings were packed. I moved all the boxes into my car, except for a short stack by the front door that just couldn't fit. And of course, there was the remaining furniture, but that wasn't my problem.\n\nI began cleaning the apartment.\n\nIt felt surprisingly good to have something to clean. Varena, while not a slob, was no compulsive housekeeper, and there was plenty to do. I was also actively enjoying the break from my family and the alone time.\n\nAs I was running the vacuum, I heard a heavy knock on the door. I jumped. I hadn't heard a car pull up, but then I wouldn't have over the drone of the machine.\n\nI opened the door. Jack was there, and he was angry.\n\n\"What?\" I asked.\n\nHe pushed past me. \"My room at the motel got broken into.\" He was furious. \"Someone came in through the bathroom window. It looks out on a field. No one saw.\"\n\n\"Anything taken?\"\n\n\"No. Whoever it was rummaged through everything, broke the lock on my briefcase.\"\n\nI had an ominous sinking somewhere in the region of my stomach. \"Did you find my note?\"\n\n\"What?\" He stared at me, anger giving way to something else.\n\n\"I left you a note.\" I sat down abruptly on the ottoman. \"I left you a note,\" I repeated stupidly. \"About Krista O'Shea.\"\n\n\"You signed it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"What did it say?\"\n\n\"That she hadn't been to the doctor in weeks.\"\n\nJack's eyes flickered from item to item in the clean room, as he thought about what I'd told him.\n\n\"Did you call the police?\" I asked.\n\n\"They were there when I pulled in. Mr. Patel, the manager, had called. He had seen the window was broken when he went to put the garbage out behind the building.\"\n\n\"What did you tell them?\"\n\n\"The truth. That my things had been gone through but nothing had been stolen. I hadn't left any money in my room. I never do. And I don't carry valuable things with me.\"\n\nJack felt angry and sick because his space, however temporary, had been invaded, and his things had been riffled. I understand that feeling all too well. But Jack would never talk about it in those terms, because he was a man.\n\n\"So now someone knows exactly why I'm here in Bartley.\" He'd cover that violated feeling with practical considerations.\n\n\"That person also knows I have an accomplice,\" he continued.\n\nThat was one way to put it.\n\nSuddenly I stood, walked over to the window. I was crackling with restless energy. Trouble was coming, and every nerve in my body was warning me to get in my car and go home to Shakespeare.\n\nBut I couldn't go. My family kept me here.\n\nNo, that wasn't completely true. I could have brought myself to leave my family if I felt threatened enough. Jack kept me here.\n\nWithout a thought in my head, I made a fist and would have driven it into the window if Jack hadn't caught my arm.\n\nI rounded on him, crazy with jolts of feeling that I wouldn't identify. Instead of striking him, I ran my arm around his neck and drew him ferociously to me. The stresses and strains on me were almost intolerable.\n\nJack, understandably surprised-, made a questioning noise but then shut up. He let go of the arm he was gripping and tentatively put his own arms around me. We stood silently for what seemed like a long time.\n\n\"So,\" he said, \"you want to talk about whatever this is that's got you so upset? Have you run out of tolerance for being in your parents' house? Has your sister made you mad? Or... have you found out something else about her fianc\u00e9?\"\n\nI pushed away from him and began to pace the room.\n\n\"I have some ideas,\" I said.\n\nHis dark brows flew up. I should've kept my mouth shut. I didn't want to have the whole conversation: I'd tell him I would get in the houses, he'd tell me it was his job, blah blah blah. Why not skip the whole thing?\n\n\"Lily, I'm going to get mad at you,\" Jack said with a sort of fatalistic certainty.\n\n\"You can't do the things I can do. What's your next step now?\" I challenged him. \"Is there one more thing you can find out here?\"\n\nSure enough, he was looking angry already. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket and glanced around for something handy to kick. Finding nothing, he too began pacing. We shifted around the room as if we were sword fighters waiting for our opponent to give us an opening.\n\n\"Ask the chief if I can go in and look at those files at Dr. LeMay's,\" he suggested defiantly.\n\n\"It'll never happen.\" I knew Chandler: He would go only so far.\n\n\"Find whatever the murderer was wearing when he killed the doctor and the nurse and Meredith Osborn.\"\n\nSo Jack had decided, as I had, that the killer had worn some covering garment over his clothes.\n\n\"It's not gonna be in the house,\" I told him.\n\n\"You think not?\"\n\n\"I know not. When people hide something like that, they want it to be close but not as personally close as their own house.\"\n\n\"You're thinking carport, garage?\"\n\nI nodded. \"Or car. But you know as well as I do that'll put you in a terrible position legally. Before you do that, isn't there anything else you can try?\"\n\n\"I'd hoped to get something from Dill. He's a nice guy, but he just won't talk about his first marriage. At least his attic has a good floored section now.\" Jack gave a short laugh. \"I thought about going back to reinterview the couple that lived next door to Meredith and Emory when they had their first child,\" Jack said reluctantly. \"I've been reviewing what they said, and I think I see a hole in their account.\"\n\n\"Where do they live?\"\n\n\"The podunk town north of Little Rock where the Osborns lived before they came here. You know... the one not far from Conway.\"\n\n\"What was the hole?\"\n\n\"Not so much a hole, as... something the woman said just didn't make sense. She said that Meredith told her the baby coming was the saddest day of her life. And Meredith told her that the home birth had been terrible.\"\n\nThat could be significant or just plain nothing more than what it was, the outpourings of a woman who'd just experienced childbirth for the first time.\n\n\"She had the second baby in the hospital,\" I observed. \"At least, I assume so; I think someone would have mentioned it before now if she'd had Jane J Lilith at home.\" But I made a mental note to check.\n\n\"Why would Meredith have to die?\" Jack said. \"Why Meredith?\" He wasn't talking to me, not really. He was staring out the front window, his hands still in his pockets. Seen in profile, he looked stern and frightening. If I mentally lopped off his ponytail, I could see how he'd looked as a cop. I would not have been afraid of being beaten if I'd been arrested by him, I thought, but I would have known I'd be a fool to try to escape.\n\n\"She baby-sat the other two girls,\" I offered.\n\nJack nodded. \"So she knew them all physically. She'd have an opportunity, sooner or later, to see each girl naked. But the Macklesby baby didn't have any distinguishing physical marks.\"\n\n\"So who do you think sent you the picture?\"\n\n\"I think it was Meredith Osborn.\" He turned from the window to look at me directly. \"I think she sent it because she wanted to right some great wrong. And I think that's why she was killed.\"\n\n\"What were you really doing the night she died?\"\n\n\"I was on my way to ask her some questions,\" he said. \"I'd driven past the Bartley Grill, and I saw her husband and the kids inside. The baby was on the table in one of those carriers, and he and Eve were chattering away. So I knew Meredith was home by herself, and I thought she might know more about the picture.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Roy had brushed the picture and the envelope for fingerprints. There weren't any on the picture\u2014it had been wiped\u2014but there was one on the envelope, on the tape used to seal the flap. It was a clear print, very small. You'd told me how little Meredith was. Did you ever notice how tiny her hands were?\"\n\nI never had.\n\n\"I'd hoped to get some fingerprints of hers to compare. I planned on ringing the doorbell, telling her that I was a detective in town on a job as well as being your boyfriend. I was going to hand her a photo, ask her to identify it. When she said she didn't know the subject, I would put the photo in a bag and later test it for fingerprints.\"\n\nIf I were in the Osborn house I could find something I could almost bet would have her fingerprints on it. I could also check to see if Eve's memory book was missing a page.\n\n\"But I don't want you getting into this. You saw how she died,\" Jack said brutally. I looked up sharply. He was standing right in front of me.\n\n\"I can tell when you're going to do something; you get this stubborn clench to your jaw,\" he continued. \"What's in your head, Lily?\"\n\n\"Cleaning,\" I said.\n\n\"Cleaning what?\"\n\n\"Cleaning the Osborn house, and the Kingery house.\"\n\nHe thought that over. \"This isn't your case,\" he said.\n\n\"I want us out of here by Christmas.\"\n\n\"Me too,\" he said fervently.\n\n\"Well, then,\" I said, concluding our discussion.\n\n\"Did I just say something I didn't know I said?\"\n\n\"We agree on getting this done by Christmas.\"\n\nJack gave me a dark look. \"So, I'm driving out of here,\" he said abruptly. \"I'll call you. Don't do anything that could put you in danger.\"\n\n\"Drive careful,\" I told him. He gave me an unloving peck on the cheek, another suspicious look, and, without further ado, he left. I watched through the uncurtained window as Jack fastened his seat belt and backed out of. the driveway.\n\nThen I went over to the widower and offered to clean his house."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 7",
                "text": "Since Emory was so fine-boned and fair, the swollen red eyes made him look rabbity. Those eyes hardly seemed to register my identity. He was completely preoccupied, eaten up from the inside out.\n\n\"Ah, yes? What can I do for you?\" he asked me, his voice coming from a great interior distance.\n\n\"I've come to clean your house.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"That's what I do for a living, clean. This is what I can offer you in your time of trouble.\"\n\nHe was still bewildered. I was unhappy with myself, so it was more difficult to keep my impatience under wraps.\n\n\"My sister...\" he faltered. \"She'll be coming tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Then you need the house clean for her arrival.\"\n\nHe stared some more. I stared right back. Behind him, down a dark hall, I saw Eve creep out of an open doorway. She looked like a little ghost of herself.\n\n\"Miss Lily,\" she said. \"Thanks for coming.\"\n\nIt was what she'd heard her father say to callers all day, and her attempt to be adult gave my heart a little pang. I also wondered what Eve was doing at home, when I'd thought she was with the O'Sheas.\n\nEmory finally stood aside so I could enter, but he still seemed uncertain. I glanced at my watch, letting him know how valuable I thought my time was, and that shook him from his lethargy.\n\n\"This is so kind of you, Miss... Bard,\" he said. \"Is there anything we need to...?\"\n\n\"I expect Eve can show me where things are.\" I am no grief counselor. I don't know squat about children. But it's always better to be busy.\n\n\"That would be good,\" Emory said vaguely. \"So I'll...\" and he just wandered off. \"Oh, Eve,\" he said over his shoulder, \"remember your company manners. Stay with Miss Bard.\"\n\nEve looked a little resentful, but she replied, \"Yes, Daddy.\"\n\nThe girl and I looked at each other carefully. \"Where's the baby?\" I asked.\n\n\"She's at the O'Sheas' house. I was there for a while, too, but Daddy said I needed to come home.\"\n\n\"All right, then. Where is the kitchen?\"\n\nHer lips curved in an incredulous smile. Surely everyone knew where the kitchen was! But Eve was polite, and she guided me to the back of the house and to the right.\n\n\"Where's all the cleaning stuff?\" I asked. I set my purse down on the kitchen counter, shrugged off my coat, and hung it on one of the kitchen chairs.\n\nEve opened a cupboard in the adjacent washroom. I could see that the laundry basket was full of clothes.\n\n\"Maybe you better show me the house before I start.\"\n\nSo the little girl showed me her home. It was a large older house, with high ceilings and dark hardwood paneling and floors that needed work. I noticed the register of a floor furnace. I hadn't seen one of those in years. A Christmas tree decorated with religious symbols stood in the living room, the family's only communal room. The sofa, coffee table, and chair combo was maple with upholstery of a muted brown plaid. Clean but hideous.\n\nEmory was slumped in the chair, his hand wrapped around a cold mug that had held coffee. I knew it was cold because I could see the ring around the middle. He'd had a drink after it had been sitting a spell. He didn't acknowledge our passage through the room. I wondered if I'd have to dust him like a piece of furniture.\n\nThe master bedroom was tidy, but the furniture needed polishing. Eve's room... well, her bed had been made haphazardly, but the floor was littered with Barbies and coloring books. The baby's room was neatest, since the baby couldn't walk yet. The diaper pail needed emptying. The bathroom needed a complete scrubbing. The kitchen was not too bad.\n\n\"Where are the sheets?\" I asked.\n\nEve said, \"Mama's are in there.\" She pointed to the double closet in the master bedroom.\n\nI stripped down the double bed, carried the dirty sheets to the washroom, started a load of wash. Back in the bedroom, I opened the closet door.\n\n\"There's Mama's stool,\" Eve said helpfully. \"She always needs it to get things down from the closet shelf.\"\n\nI was at least six inches taller than Meredith Osborn had been, and I could easily reach the shelf. But if I wanted to look at what was behind the sheets, the stool would be handy.\n\nI stepped up, lifted the set of sheets, and scanned the contents of the closet shelf. Another blanket for the bed, a box marked \"Shoe Polish,\" a cheap metal box for files and important papers. Then, under a pile of purses, I spotted a box marked \"Eve.\" After I'd snapped the clean sheets on the bed, I sent Eve out of the room to fetch a dustcloth and the furniture polish.\n\nI lifted down the box and opened it. I had to clench my teeth to make myself examine its contents. My sense of invasion was overwhelming.\n\nIn the box were faded \"Welcome, Baby\" cards, the kind family and friends send a couple when they have a child. I quickly riffled through them. They were only what they seemed. Also in the box was a little rattle and a baby outfit. It was soft knit, yellow, with little green giraffes scattered over it, the usual snap crotch and long sleeves. It had been folded carefully. Eve's coming home from the hospital outfit, maybe. But Eve had been born at home, I remembered. Well, then, Meredith's favorite of all Eve's baby clothes. My mother had some of mine and Varena's still packed away in our attic.\n\nI closed the box and popped it back into position. By the time Eve returned, I had the flowered bedspread smoothed flat and taut across the bed and the blanket folded at the foot.\n\nTogether, we polished and dusted. Eve naturally didn't do things the most efficient way, since she was a grieving eight-year-old child. I am rigid about the way I like housework done and not used to working with anyone, but I managed it.\n\nI'd had a pang of worry about Eve handling her mother's belongings, but Eve seemed to do that so matter-of-factly that I wondered if she didn't yet comprehend that her mother would not be returning.\n\nIn the course of cleaning that room I made sure I examined every nook and cranny. Short of going through the chest of drawers and the drawers in the night tables, I saw what there was to see in that bedroom: under the bed, the corners of the closet, the backs and bottoms of almost every single piece of furniture. Later, when I began to put the laundry away, I even caught glimpses of what was in the drawers. Just the usual stuff, as far as I could tell.\n\nOne drawer of the little desk in the corner was stacked with medical bills related to Meredith's pregnancy. At a glance, it had been a difficult one. I hoped the furniture store had a group policy.\n\n\"Shake the can, Eve,\" I reminded her, and she shook the yellow aerosol can of furniture polish. \"Now, spray.\"\n\nShe carefully sent a stream of polish onto the bare top of the desk. I swabbed with a cloth, over and over, then put the letter rack, mug full of pens and pencils, and box containing stamps and return address labels back in their former positions. When Eve excused herself to use the bathroom, I gritted my teeth and did something that disgusted me: I picked up Meredith Osborn's hairbrush, which could reasonably be assumed to have her fingerprints on it, wrapped it in a discarded plastic cleaner's bag, and stepped through to the kitchen and shoved it in my purse.\n\nI was back in the Osborns' bedroom, tamping the stack of papers so the edges were square and neat, when Eve came back.\n\n\"Those are Mama's bills,\" she said importantly. \"We always pay our bills.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" I gathered the cleaning things and handed some of them to Eve. \"We've finished here.\"\n\nAs we began to work on Eve's room, I could tell that the little girl was getting bored, after the novelty of helping me work wore thin.\n\n\"Where'd you eat last night?\" I asked casually.\n\n\"We went to the restaurant,\" she said. \"I got a milkshake. Jane slept the whole time. It was great.\"\n\n\"Your dad was with you,\" I observed.\n\n\"Yeah, he wanted to give Mama a night off,\" Eve said approvingly. Then the ending of that night off hit her in the face, and I saw her pleasure in the little memory of the milkshake crumple. I could not ask her any more questions about last night.\n\n\"Why don't you find your last school memory book and show me who your friends are?\" I suggested, as I got her clean sheets out of her little closet and began to remake her single bed.\n\n\"Oh, sure!\" Eve said enthusiastically. She began to rummage through the low bookcase that was filled with children's books and knickknacks. Nothing in the bookcase seemed to be in any particular order, and I wasn't too surprised when Eve told me she couldn't come up with her most recent memory book. She fetched one from two years ago instead and had an excellent time telling me the name of every child in every picture. I was required only to smile and nod, and every now and then I said, \"Really?\" As casually as I could manage it, I went through the books in the bookcase myself. The past year's memory book wasn't there.\n\nEve relaxed perceptibly as she looked at the pictures of her friends and acquaintances.\n\n\"Did you go to the doctor last week, Eve?\" I asked casually.\n\n\"Why do you want to know that?\" she asked.\n\nI was floored. It hadn't occurred to me that a child would ask me why I wanted to know.\n\n\"I just wondered what doctor you went to.\"\n\n\"Doctor LeMay.\" Her brown eyes looked huge as she thought about her answer. \"He's dead, too,\" she said wearily, as if the whole world was dying around her. To Eve, it must have felt so.\n\nI could not think of a natural, painless way to ask again, and I just couldn't put the girl through any more grief. To my surprise, Eve volunteered, \"Mama went with me.\"\n\n\"She did?\" I tried to keep my voice as noncommittal as possible.\n\n\"Yep. She liked Dr. LeMay, Miss Binnie, too.\"\n\nI nodded, lifting a stack of coloring books and shaking them into an orderly rectangle.\n\n\"It hurt, but it was over before too long,\" Eve said, obviously quoting someone.\n\n\"What was over?\" I asked.\n\n\"They took my blood,\" Eve said importantly.\n\n\"Yuck.\"\n\n\"Yeah, it hurt,\" said the girl, shaking her head just like a middle-aged woman, philosophically. \"But some things hurt, and you just gotta handle it.\"\n\nI nodded. This was a lot of stoical philosophy from a third grader.\n\n\"I was losing weight, and my mama thought something might be wrong,\" Eve explained.\n\n\"So, what was wrong?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\" Eve looked down at her feet. \"She never said.\"\n\nI nodded as if that were quite usual. But what Eve had told me worried me, worried me badly. What if something really was wrong physically with the child? Surely her father knew about it, about the visit and the blood test? What if Eve were anemic or had some worse disease?\n\nShe looked healthy enough to me, but I was certainly willing to concede that I was hardly a competent judge. Eve was thin and pale, yes, but not abnormally so. Her hair shone and her teeth looked sound and clean, she smelled good and she stood like she was comfortable, and she was able to meet my eyes: The absence of any of these conditions is reason to worry, their presence reassuring. So why wasn't I relaxing?\n\nWe moved on to the baby's room, Eve shadowing my every step. From time to time the doorbell rang, and I would hear Emory drift through the house to answer it, but the callers never stayed long. Faced with Emory's naked grief, it would be hard to stand and chat.\n\nAfter I'd finished the baby's room and the bathroom, I entered the kitchen to find that food was accumulating faster than Emory could store it. He was standing there with a plastic bowl in his hands, a bowl wrapped in the rose-colored plastic wrap that was so popular locally. I opened the refrigerator and evaluated the situation.\n\n\"Hmmm,\" I said. I began removing everything. Emory put the bowl down and helped. All the little odds and ends of leftovers went into the garbage, the dishes they'd been in went in the sink, and I wiped down the bottom shelf where there'd been a little spillage.\n\n\"Do you have a list?\" I asked Emory.\n\nHe seemed to come out of his trance. \"A list?\" he asked, as if he'd never heard the word.\n\n\"You need to keep a list of who brings what food in what dish. Do you have a piece of paper handy?\" That sister of Emory's needed to get here fast.\n\n\"Daddy, I've got notebook paper in my room!\" Eve said and ran off to fetch it.\n\n\"I guess I knew that, but I forgot,\" Emory said. He blinked his red eyes, seemed to wake up a little. When Eve dashed into the kitchen with several sheets of paper, he hugged her. She wriggled in his grasp.\n\n\"We have to start the list, Daddy!\" She looked up at him sternly.\n\nI thought that Eve had probably been hugged and patted enough for two lifetimes in the day just past.\n\nShe began the list herself, in shaky and idiosyncratic writing. I told her how to do it, and she perched on a stool at the counter, laboriously entering the food gifts on one side, the bringer on the other, and a star when there was a dish that had to be returned.\n\nGalvanized by our activity, Emory began making calls from the telephone on the kitchen counter. I gathered from the snatches of conversation I overheard that he was calling the police department to find out when they thought Meredith's body could come back from its autopsy in Little Rock, making arrangements for the music at the funeral service, checking in at work, trying to start his life back into motion. He began writing his own list, in tiny, illegible writing. It was a list of things to do before the funeral, he told me in his quiet voice. I was glad to see him shake off his torpor.\n\nIt was getting late so I accelerated my work rate, sweeping and mopping and wiping down the kitchen counters with dispatch. I selected a few dishes for Emory and Eve's supper, leaving them on the counter with heating instructions. Emory was still talking on the phone, so I just drifted out of the room with Eve behind me. I pulled on my coat, pulled up the strap of the purse.\n\n\"Can you come back, Lily?\" Eve asked. \"You know how to do everything.\"\n\nI looked down at her. I was betraying this child and her father, abusing their trust. Eve's admiration for me was painful.\n\n\"I can't come back tomorrow, no,\" I said as gently as I was capable of. \"Varena's getting married the day after, and I still have a lot to do for that. But I'll try to see you again.\"\n\n\"OK.\" She took that in a soldierlike way, which I was beginning to understand was typical of Eve Osborn. \"And thank you for helping today,\" Eve said, after a couple of gulps. Very much woman of the house.\n\n\"I figured cleaning would be more use than more food.\"\n\n\"You were right,\" she said soberly. \"The house looks so much nicer.\"\n\n\"See ya,\" I said. I bent to give her a little hug. I felt awkward. \"Take care of yourself.\" What a stupid thing to tell a child, I castigated myself, but I had no idea what else to say.\n\nEmory was standing by the front door. I felt like snarling. I had almost made it out without talking to him. \"I can't thank you enough for this,\" he said, his sincerity painful and unwelcome.\n\n\"It was nothing.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" he insisted. \"It meant so much to us.\" He was going to cry again.\n\nOh, hell. \"Good-bye,\" I told him firmly and was out the door.\n\nGlancing down at my watch again as I walked out to my car, I realized there was no way to get out of explaining to my folks where I'd been and what I'd been doing.\n\nTo compound my guilt, my parents thought I'd done a wonderful Christian thing, helping out Emory Osborn in his hour of travail. I had to let them think the best of me when I least deserved it.\n\nI tried hard to pack my guilt into a smaller space in my heart. Reduced to the most basic terms, the Osborns now had a clean house in which to receive visitors. And I had a negative report for Jack. I hadn't discovered anything of note, except for Eve's trip to the doctor. Though I had stolen the brush.\n\nWhen Varena emerged from her room, looking almost as weepy as Emory, I put the second part of my plan into effect.\n\n\"I'm in the cleaning mood,\" I told her. \"How about me cleaning Dill's house, so it'll be nice for your first Christmas together?\" Varena and Dill weren't leaving for their honeymoon until after Christmas, so they'd be together at home with Anna.\n\nSomehow, since my mission was to save Varena grief, I didn't feel quite as guilty as I had when I'd told Emory I was going to clean his house. But I had a sour taste in my mouth, and I figured it was self-disgust.\n\n\"Thanks,\" Varena said, surprise evident in her voice. \"That would really be a load off my mind. You're sure?\"\n\n\"You know I need something to do,\" I told her truthfully.\n\n\"Bless your heart,\" Varena said with compassion, giving me a hug. Somehow, my sister's unwanted sympathy stiffened my resolve.\n\nThen the doorbell rang, and it was some friends of my parents', just back from a trip to see the Christmas decorations at Pigeon Forge. They were full of their trip and had brought a present for Dill and Varena. It was easy for me to slip off to my room after a proper greeting. I took a hot, hot shower and waited for Jack to call me.\n\nHe didn't. The phone rang off the wall that evening, the callers ranging from friends wanting to check on wedding plans, Dill asking for Varena, credit card companies wanting to extend new cards to my parents, and church members trying to arrange a meal for the Osborn family after the relatives had arrived for Meredith's funeral.\n\nBut no Jack.\n\nSomething was niggling at me, and I wanted to look at the pictures of Summer Dawn at eight. I wanted to ask Jack some questions. I wanted to look at his briefcase. That was the closest I could get to figuring out what was bothering me.\n\nAbout eight-thirty, I called Chandler McAdoo. \"Let's go riding,\" I said.\n\nChandler pulled into my parents' drive in his own vehicle, a Jeep. He was wearing a heavy red-and-white-plaid flannel shirt, a camo jacket, jeans, and Nikes.\n\nMy mother answered the door before I could get there.\n\n\"Chandler,\" she said, sounding a little at sea. \"Did you need to ask us something about the other day?\"\n\n\"No, ma'am. I'm here to pick up Lily.\" He was wearing an Arkansas Travellers gimme cap, and the bill of it tilted as he nodded at me. I was pulling on my coat.\n\n\"This brings back old times,\" my mother said with a smile.\n\n\"See you in a while, Mom,\" I said, zipping up my old red Squall jacket.\n\n\"Okay, sweetie. You two have a good time.\"\n\nI liked the Jeep. Chandler kept it spick-and-span, and I approved. Jack tended to distribute paperwork all over his car.\n\n\"So, where we going?\" Chandler asked.\n\n\"It's too cold and we're too old for Frankel's Pond,\" I said. \"What about the Heart of the Delta?\"\n\n\"The Heart it is,\" he said.\n\nBy the time we scooted into a booth at the home-owned diner we'd patronized all through high school, I was in the midst of being updated about Chandler's two stabs at marriage, the little boy he was so proud of (by Cindy, wife number two), and the current woman in his life\u2014Tootsie Monahan, my least favorite of Varena's bridesmaids.\n\nWhen we had glanced at the menu\u2014which seemed almost eerily the same as it had been when I was sixteen, except for the prices\u2014and had given the waitress our order (a hamburger with everything and fries for Chandler, a butterscotch milkshake for me), Chandler gave me a sharp, let's-get-down-to-it look.\n\n\"So what's the deal with this guy you've hooked up with?\"\n\n\"Jack.\"\n\n\"I know his damn name. What's his business here?\"\n\nChandler and I stared at each other for a moment. I took a deep breath.\n\n\"He's tracing an...\" I stopped dead. How could I do this? Where did my loyalty lie?\n\nChandler made a rotary movement with his hand, wanting me to spill it out.\n\nChandler had already told Jack several things, operating on his affection for me. But the actual physical effort of opening my mouth, telling him Jack's business, was almost impossible. I closed my eyes for a second, took a deep breath. \"A missing person,\" I said.\n\nHe absorbed that.\n\n\"Okay, tell me.\"\n\nI hesitated. \"It's not my call.\"\n\n\"What do you want from me, Lily?\"\n\nChandler's face was infinitely older.\n\nOh, Jesus, I hated this.\n\n\"Tell me what people were doing when Meredith Osborn was killed. I don't know if that has anything to do with Jack's job, Chandler, and that's the truth. I was in that house, just a few feet away from her, and if there's anything I know it's how to fight.\" I hadn't known how that bothered me until I said it. \"I didn't have a chance to lift a finger to help her. Just tell me about that evening.\"\n\nHe could do that without violating any laws, I figured.\n\n\"What people were doing. What happened to Meredith.\" Chandler appeared to be thinking, his eyes focused on the saltshaker with its grains of rice showing yellower than the stark white of the salt.\n\nI didn't know I'd been holding my breath until Chandler began talking. He folded his small hands in front of him, and his face took on a faintly stern, stiff set that I realized must be his professional demeanor.\n\n\"Mrs. Osborn died, as far as I could tell by a visual exam, from multiple stab wounds to the chest,\" he began. \"She'd been hit in the face, maybe to knock her on the ground so the stabbing would be easier. The attack took place in the backyard. It would have required only a minute or two. She wasn't able to move more than a yard after she was stabbed. Her wounds were very severe. Plus, the temperature was below freezing, and she didn't have a coat on.\"\n\n\"But she did move that one yard.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Toward Varena's little house.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nI could feel my mouth compress in a hard line and my eyes narrow, in what my friend Marshall had once called my \"fist face.\"\n\n\"What kind of knife?\"\n\n\"Some kind of single-blade kitchen knife, looked like, but we have to wait on the autopsy to be sure. We haven't found any kind of knife.\"\n\n\"Did you go in the Osborns' house?\"\n\n\"Sure. We had to see if the killer was in there, and the back door was unlocked.\"\n\n\"So someone had made a noise, or called Meredith out of the house...?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"Something like that, we figure. She wasn't scared. She would have stayed in the house and locked the back door if she'd been scared. She could have called us. The phone was working, I checked. Instead, she went outside.\"\n\nUnspoken between us lay the inescapable conclusion that Meredith had seen someone she knew and trusted in the yard.\n\n\"When does Emory say he left the house?\"\n\n\"About seven. He had the two little girls. He wanted to give his wife some time to herself, he said. She'd had a hard time with the baby's birth, wasn't getting her strength back, and so on.\"\n\nI raised my brows.\n\n\"Yes, the waitress confirms that Emory got to the restaurant about five after. It took about forty-five minutes for Emory and Eve to eat, and then the baby woke up and Emory gave her a bottle, burped her, the whole nine yards. So they left the restaurant maybe fifteen minutes after eight. Emory had some things to pick up at the Kmart, so he took the girls with him in there, and they got some vitamins and other junk... that brings us up to around eight-fifty, nine o'clock, somewhere in there.\"\n\n\"Then he comes home.\"\n\n\"Then he comes home,\" Chandler agreed. \"He was mighty tore up. Turned white as a sheet.\"\n\n\"You had already searched the house?\"\n\n\"Yes, had to. Didn't find any evidence anyone but the family had been in it. Nothing suspicious in any way. No forced entry, no threatening messages in the answering machine, no sign of a struggle... a big zero.\"\n\n\"Chandler...\" I hesitated. But I could think of no other way to find out. \"Did you search his car?\"\n\nChandler shifted in his seat. \"No. Do you think we should have?\"\n\n\"Did you ask Eve if her dad had stopped back by the house for anything?\"\n\n\"I did my best to ask her that. I had to be real careful how I put it, didn't want the girl to think we figured her dad had done it. She's just eight!\" Chandler looked at me angrily, as if that were my doing.\n\n\"What did she say?\" I asked, keeping my voice very quiet and level.\n\n\"She said they went to the restaurant. Period. Then to Kmart. Period.\"\n\nI nodded, looked away. \"Where was Jess O'Shea?\" I asked.\n\nI could feel the heat of Chandler's glare even though I was looking over at the chipped Formica counter.\n\n\"Dave asked Emory what church he went to, and when he said Presbyterian, we called Jess,\" Chandler said slowly. \"Lou said he was over in his office counseling a member of the congregation.\"\n\n\"Did you call over there?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Get an answer?\"\n\n\"Yes. But he said he couldn't come right that second.\"\n\nI wondered if Jess had actually come over to the Osborns' house that night. I couldn't remember if the scene between him and Emory the next day had given me a sense of an original encounter or a continuation of a dialogue begun the night before. I had been so embarrassed that I had tried to block out their conversation.\n\n\"Did he give a reason?\"\n\n\"I just assumed he had to finish talking to whoever was there.\"\n\nThe upshot was, Jess had been away from home and the police had not asked him to account for his time. There was no reason why they should, from their point of view.\n\nVarena had told me Dill was going to spend the evening at home with Anna. I didn't think Dill was the kind of father who'd leave Anna in the house by herself, but he could have worked it out somehow, I guessed. I wondered if I could think of a way to ask questions that wouldn't make red flags go up in Varena's mind.\n\n\"Lily, if someone's safety is at stake, or if you have any idea at all who killed that poor woman, you are legally obliged to tell me. Morally, too.\"\n\nI looked into Chandler's round brown eyes. I'd known this man my whole life, been friends with him, off and on, that long. When I'd come home to Bartley after my spectacular victimization and subsequent media bath, Chandler had been a constant visitor. He'd been between marriages, and we had gone out to eat together, ridden around together, spent time together so I could get away from my family and their love that was just choking me.\n\nDuring that time, seven years ago, we had also shared a horribly embarrassing evening in the big pickup Chandler had been driving then. But I was sure we both did our best not to remember that.\n\n\"I don't know the identity of anyone who is in danger,\" I said carefully. \"I don't know who killed Meredith.\" That was absolutely true.\n\n\"You should tell me everything you know,\" Chandler said, his voice so low and intent it was as scary as a snake's rattle.\n\nMy hands, resting on the worn gray and pink Formica of the table's surface, clenched into hard fists. My heels dug into the wooden base of the booth, giving me launching power. A startled look crossed Chandler's face, and he leaned away from me.\n\n\"What's in your mind?\" he asked sharply, and he brushed his empty plate to one side without taking his eyes off me, clearing his own deck for action.\n\nFor once, I was anxious to explain myself. But I couldn't. I took a couple of deep breaths, made myself relax.\n\n\"You love this man,\" he said.\n\nI started to shake my head side to side: no. But I said, \"Yes.\"\n\n\"This is the one.\"\n\nI nodded, a jerky little up-and-down movement.\n\n\"And he doesn't... he can handle... what happened to you?\"\n\n\"He doesn't mind the scars,\" I said, my voice as light and smooth as the changing scenery of a dream.\n\nChandler turned red. His eyes left mine, focused on the pattern of the Formica.\n\n\"It's OK,\" I told him, just above a whisper.\n\n\"Does he... does he know how lucky he is?\" Chandler asked, not able to think of any other way of asking me if Jack loved me back.\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Lily, if you want me to have a serious talk with this joker, just say the word.\" And he really meant it. I looked at Chandler with new eyes. This man would put himself through a humiliating conversation and not think twice about it.\n\n\"Will you make him go down on one knee and swear to forsake all others?\" I was smiling a little, I couldn't help it.\n\n\"Damn straight.\"\n\nThis, too, he meant.\n\n\"What a great guy you are,\" I said. All the aggression leaked out of me, as if I was a balloon with a pinhole. \"You've been talking with Jack, haven't you?\"\n\n\"He's an ex-cop, and no matter how his career ended,\" and Chandler flushed uncomfortably since Jack had not exactly left the Memphis police force under creditable circumstances, \"Jack Leeds was a good detective and made some good arrests. I called the Memphis cops, talked to a friend of mine there, as soon as I realized who he was.\"\n\nThat was interesting. Chandler had known Jack was in town probably before I did\u2014and had checked up on him.\n\n\"Fact is, the only thing this guy knew against Jack was that he'd hooked up with a shady cleaning lady,\" Chandler said with a grin.\n\nI grinned back. All the tension was gone, and we were old friends together. Without asking, Chandler paid for my milkshake and his meal, and I slid out of the booth and into my coat.\n\nWhen he dropped me off at home, Chandler gave me a kiss on the cheek. We hadn't said another word about Meredith Osborn, or Dr. LeMay, or Jack. I knew Chandler had backed off only because he owed me, on some level: The last time we'd been together had been a terrible evening for both of us. Whatever the reason, I was grateful. But I knew that if Chandler thought I was concealing something that would contribute to solving the murders that had taken place in the town he was sworn to protect, he would come down on me like a ton of bricks.\n\nWe might be old friends, but we were both weighted down with adult burdens.\n\nJack didn't call.\n\nThat night I lay sleepless, my arms rigidly at my sides, watching the bars of moonlight striping the ceiling of my old room. It was the distillation of the all the bad nights I'd had in the past seven years; except in my parents' house, I could not resort to my usual methods of escape and relief. Finally I got up, sat in the little slipper chair in the corner of the room, and turned on the lamp.\n\nI'd finished my biography. Luckily I'd brought some paperbacks with me from Varena's, anticipating just such a night... not that I would have picked these books if I'd had much choice. The first was a book of advice on dealing with your stepchildren, and the second was a historical romance. Its cover featured a guy with an amazing physique. I stared at his bare, hairless chest with its immense pectorals, wondering if even my sensei's musculature would match this man's. I found it very unlikely that a sensible fighting man would wear his shirt halfway off his shoulders in that inconvenient and impractical way, and I thought it even sillier that his lady friend would choose to try to embrace him when he was leaning down from a horse. I calculated his weight, the angle of his upper body, and the pull she was exerting. I factored in the high wind blowing her hair out in a fan, and decided Lord Robert Dumaury was going to end up on the ground at Phillipetta Dunmore's feet within seconds, probably dislocating his shoulder in the process... and that's if he was lucky. I shook my head.\n\nSo I plowed through the advice, learning more about being a new mother to a growing not-your-own child than I ever wanted to know. This paperback showed serious signs of being read and reread. I hoped it would be of more use to Varena than Ms. Dunmore's adventures with Pectoral Man.\n\nI would have given anything for a good thick biography.\n\nI got halfway through the book before sleep overcame me. I was still in the chair, the lamp still on, when I woke at seven to the sounds of my family stirring.\n\nI felt exhausted, almost too tired to move.\n\nI did some push-ups, tried some leg lifts. But my muscles felt slack and weak, as if I were recovering from major surgery. Slowly, I pulled on my sweats. I'd committed my morning to cleaning Dill's house. But instead of rising and getting into the bathroom, I sat back in the chair with my face covered by my hands.\n\nBeing involved in this child abduction felt so wrong, so bad, but for my family's sake I couldn't imagine what else I could do. With a sigh of sheer weariness, I hauled myself to my feet and opened the bedroom door to reenter my family's life.\n\nIt was like dipping your toes into a quiet pond, only to have a whirlpool suck you under.\n\nSince this was the day before the wedding, Mother and Varena had every hour mapped out. Mother had to go to the local seamstress's house to pick up the dress she planned to wear tomorrow: It had required hemming. She had to drop in on the caterer to go over final arrangements for the reception. She and Varena had to take Anna to a friend's birthday party, and then to pick up Anna's flower girl dress, which was being shipped to the local Penney's catalog store after some delay. (Due to a last-minute growth spurt, Anna's fancy dress, bought months before, was now too tight in the shoulders, so Varena had had to scour catalogs for a quickly purchasable substitute.) Both Varena and my mother were determined that Anna should try the dress on instantly.\n\nThe list of errands grew longer and longer. I found myself tuning out after the first few items. Dill dropped Anna off to run errands with Varena and Mom, and Anna and I sat together at the kitchen table in the strange peace that lies at the eye of the storm.\n\n\"Is getting married always like this, Aunt Lily?\" Anna asked wearily.\n\n\"No. You can just elope.\"\n\n\"Elope? Like the animal?\"\n\n\"It's like an antelope only in that you run fast. When you elope, the man and woman who are getting married get in the car and drive somewhere and get married where nobody knows them. Then they come home and tell their families.\"\n\n\"I think that's what I'm gonna do,\" Anna told me.\n\n\"No. Have a big wedding. Pay them back for all this,\" I advised.\n\nAnna grinned. \"I'll invite everyone in the whole town,\" she said. \"And Little Rock, too!\"\n\n\"That'll do it.\" I nodded approvingly.\n\n\"Maybe in the whole world.\"\n\n\"Even better.\"\n\n\"Do you have a boyfriend, Aunt Lily?\" Yes.\n\n\"Does he write you notes?\" Anna made a squeezed face, like she felt she was asking a stupid question, but she wanted to know the answer anyway.\n\n\"He calls me on the phone,\" I said. \"Sometimes.\"\n\n\"Does he...\" Anna was rummaging in her brain for other things grown-up boyfriends might do. \"Does he send you flowers and candy?\"\n\n\"He hasn't yet.\"\n\n\"What does he do to show you he likes you?\"\n\nCouldn't share that with an eight-year-old. \"He hugs me,\" I told her.\n\n\"Ewwww. Does he kiss you?\"\n\n\"Yeah, sometimes.\"\n\n\"Bobby Mitzer kissed me,\" Anna said in a whisper.\n\n\"No kidding? Did you like it?\"\n\n\"Ewwww.\"\n\n\"Maybe he's just not the right guy,\" I said, and we smiled at each other.\n\nThen Mom and Verena told Anna they had been ready to go for minutes and inquired why she was still sitting at the table as if we had all day.\n\n\"You can manage at Dill's by yourself, can't you?\" Varena asked anxiously. She'd returned from dropping Anna off at the party, complete with present. \"You sure don't have to do it if you don't want to.\"\n\n\"I'll be fine,\" I said, hearing my voice come out flat and cold. I'd enjoyed talking to Anna, but now I felt exhausted again.\n\nMother eyed me sharply. \"You didn't sleep well,\" she said. \"Bad dreams again?\" And she and Varena and my father stared at me with matching expressions of concern.\n\n\"I'm absolutely all right,\" I said, trying to be civil, hating them thinking about the ordeal again. Was I being disgustingly self-pitying? It was just being home.\n\nFor the first time it occurred to me that if I'd been able to stay longer after the attack, if I'd toughed it out, they might have become used to me again, and they would have seen my life as a continuation, not a broken line. But I'd felt compelled to leave, and their clearest, most recent memory of me was of a woman in horrible pain of both kinds, plagued by nightmares waking and sleeping.\n\n\"I'll go clean now.\" I pulled on my coat.\n\n\"Dill's at work checking his inventory,\" Varena said. \"I don't know how long he'll be. We'll be picking Anna up and taking her straight to Penney's from the party. Then we'll come back here.\" I nodded and went to get my purse.\n\nMother and Varena were still fine-tuning their agenda when I walked out the door. My father was working a crossword puzzle, a half smile on his face as he caught snatches of their discussion. He didn't loathe this wedding frenzy, as most men did or pretended to. He loved it. He was having a great time fussing about the cost of the reception, whether he needed to go to the church to borrow yet another table for the still-incoming gifts, whether Varena had written every single thank-you note promptly.\n\nI touched Father's shoulder as I went by, and he reached up and captured my hand. After a second, he patted it gently and let me go.\n\nDill owned an undistinguished three-bedroom, three bath ranch-style in the newest section of Bartley. Varena had given me a key. It still felt strange to find a locked door in my little hometown. When I'd been growing up, no one had ever locked anything.\n\nOn the way to Dill's, I'd seen another homeless person, this one a white woman. She was gray-haired but sturdy looking, pedaling an ancient bicycle laden down with an assortment of strange items bound together with nylon rope.\n\nThe night before, my parents' friends had been talking about gang activity at the Bartley High School. Gangs! In the Arkansas Delta! In flat, remote, tiny, impoverished Bartley.\n\nI guess in some corner of my mind, I'd expected Bartley would remain untouched by the currents of the world, would retain its small-town safety and assurance. Home had changed. I could go there again, but its character was permanently altered.\n\nAbruptly, I was sick of myself and my problems. It was high time I got back to work.\n\nI started, as I like to do, with a survey of the job to be done. Dill's house, which looked freshly painted and carpeted, was fairly straight and fairly clean\u2014but, like the Osborns', it was showing signs of a few days of neglect. Varena wasn't the only one feeling the effects of prolonged wedding fever.\n\nI had no guide here to show me where everything was. I wondered if Anna would have been as interesting a helper as Eve had been the day before.\n\nThat recalled me to the purpose of my cleaning offer. Before anything or anyone could interrupt me, I searched Anna's room for her memory book. As I searched, naturally I picked up her room, which was a real mess. I slung soiled clothes into the hamper, stacked school papers, tossed dolls into a clear Rubbermaid tub firmly labeled \"Dolls and doll clothes.\"\n\nI found the memory book under her bed. Page 23 was missing.\n\nI rocked back on my haunches, feeling as though an adversary had socked me in the stomach.\n\n\"No,\" I said out loud, hearing the misery in my own voice.\n\nAfter a few minutes trying to think, I stuck the book in the rack on Anna's little desk and kept on cleaning. There was nothing else for me to do.\n\nI had to face the fact that the page that had been sent to Roy Costimiglia and passed to Jack had almost certainly come from Anna's book. But, I told myself, that didn't have to mean Anna was Summer Dawn Macklesby.\n\nThe book being in Dill's house perhaps raised the odds that someone besides Meredith Osborn might have mailed the page to Roy Costimiglia. At least, that was what I thought. But I wished I'd found the book anywhere but here.\n\nIf Anna was the abducted child, Dill could be suffering from the terrible dichotomy of wanting to square things with Summer's family and wanting to keep his beloved daughter. What if his unstable wife had been the one to kidnap the Macklesby baby, and Dill had just now become aware of it? He'd raised Anna as his own for eight years.\n\nAnd if Dill's first wife had abducted Summer Dawn, what had happened to their biological baby?\n\nAs I paired Anna's shoes and placed them on a rack in the closet, I saw a familiar blue cover peeking from behind a pair of rain boots. I frowned and squatted, reaching back in the closet and finally managing to slide a finger between the book and wall. I fished out the book and flipped it over to read the cover.\n\nIt was another copy of the memory book.\n\nI opened it, hoping fervently that Anna had written her name in it. No name.\n\n\"Shit,\" I said out loud. When I'd been young, and we'd gotten our yearbooks, or memory books, or whatever you wanted to call them, the first thing we'd done was write our names inside.\n\nOne of these books had to be Anna's. If Jack's basic assumption was correct, if the person who'd sent the memory book page to Roy Costimiglia wasn't a complete lunatic, then the other book belonged to either Eve or Krista, and it was someone very close to one of them who had sent the picture. Like someone in their house. A parent.\n\nDill was using the third bedroom as a study. There was a framed picture of Dill holding a baby I presumed was Anna. The snapshot had obviously been taken in a hospital room, and Anna looked like a newborn. But to me all babies looked more or less the same, and the infant Dill was gazing at so lovingly could have been Anna, or it could have been another child. The baby was swaddled in a receiving blanket.\n\nI cleaned, scrubbed, and worried at the problem. I straightened and dusted and vacuumed and polished and mopped, and the activity did me good. But I didn't solve anything.\n\nWhen I went in Anna's room yet again to return a Barbie I'd found in the kitchen, I looked more closely at Anna's collection of framed snapshots. One was of a woman I was sure must be Dill's first wife, Anna's mother. She was buxom, like Varena; and like Varena her hair was brown, her eyes blue. Aside from those superficial similarities, she didn't look at all like my sister, really. I stared at the picture, trying to read the woman's character in this likeness. Was there something tense, something a little desperate, in the way she was clutching the little dog on her lap? Was her smile strained, insincere?\n\nI shook my head. I would never have given the picture two thoughts if I hadn't known that the woman had eventually killed herself. So much despair, so well hidden. Dill had an unstable mother, had married an unstable wife. I was frightened that he could see something deep in Varena that we didn't suspect, some inner weakness, that attracted him or made him feel comfortable with her. But Varena seemed sane and sturdy to me, and I have a built-in Geiger counter for the ripples of instability in others.\n\nIt felt odd to see Varena's clothes hanging in half of Dill's closet, her china in his cabinets. She had really and truly moved into Dill's house. That intimacy bore in on me how much Varena would lose if Anna was someone else's daughter, for surely there would be the scandal to end all scandals... media coverage, intense and drenching. I shivered. I knew how that could affect your life.\n\nThe wedding was so close. One more day.\n\nVery reluctantly, I reentered Dill's office and opened the filing cabinet. I had put on a pair of fresh rubber gloves, and I kept them on. That shows you how guilty I was feeling.\n\nBut this had to be done.\n\nDill was an orderly man, and I quickly found the file labeled simply \"Anna\u2014Year One.\" There was a separate file for each year of her life, containing drawings, pictures, and a page of cute things she'd said or done. The school-age files were crammed with report cards and test scores.\n\nAs far as I was concerned, Anna's first year was the most important. The file contained Anna's birth certificate, a record of her immunizations, her baby book, and some negatives in a white envelope marked \"Baby Is Born.\" The handwriting wasn't Dill's. There was not a thing there that would prove Anna's identity one way or another. No blood type, no record of any distinguishing characteristic. A certificate from the hospital had Anna's baby footprints in black ink. I would ask Jack if the Macklesbys had similar prints of Summer Dawn's. If the contour of the foot was completely different from Anna's, surely that would mean something?\n\nBlind alley. Dead end.\n\nSuddenly I remember the negatives marked \"Birth Pictures.\" Where were the family photo albums?\n\nI found them in a cabinet in the living room and blessed Dill for being orderly. They were labeled by year.\n\nI yanked out the one marked with Anna's birth year. There were the pictures: a red infant in a doctor's arms, streaked with blood and other fluids, mouth open in a yell; the baby, now held by a masked and gowned Dill, the baby's round little bottom toward the camera\u2014presumably this one had been taken by a nurse. In the corner of the picture, her face just visible, was the woman in the picture in Anna's room. Her mother, Judy.\n\nAnd on the baby's bottom, a big brown birthmark.\n\nThis was proof, wasn't it? This was indisputably a delivery room picture, this was indisputably the baby born to Dill and his wife, Judy. And this baby, shown in a third picture cradled in the arms of the woman in the picture in Anna's room, was absolutely positively the original Anna Kingery.\n\nThe elation at finding something certain helped me through the pang of guilt I suffered as I extracted the key picture from the album. It, too, went in my purse, after I'd returned the photo album to its former position.\n\nI finished my cleaning, surveyed the house, found it good. I put the garbage in the wheeled cans, swept the front and back steps. I was done. I went back in to put the broom away.\n\nDill was standing in the kitchen.\n\nHe had a pile of mail in his hands, was shuffling through it. When the broom hit the floor, Dill looked up sharply.\n\n\"Hi, Lily, this was mighty fine of you,\" he said. He smiled at me, his bland and forgettable face beaming nothing but goodwill. \"Hey, did I scare you? I thought you heard me pull into the garage.\"\n\nHe must have come in the back door while I was sweeping at the front.\n\nStill tense all over, I bent to retrieve the broom, glad my face was hidden for a moment while I recovered.\n\n\"I saw Varena downtown,\" he said, as I straightened and moved to the broom closet. \"I can't believe after all this waiting, it's finally going to be our wedding day tomorrow.\"\n\nI wrung out a dishrag I'd forgotten and draped it neatly over the sink divider.\n\n\"Lily, won't you turn to look at me?\"\n\nI turned to meet his eyes.\n\n\"Lily, I know you and I have never gotten close. But I don't have a sister, and I hope you'll be one to me.\"\n\nI was repelled. Emotional appeals were not the way to make a relationship happen.\n\n\"You don't know how hard it's always been for Varena.\"\n\nI raised my eyebrows. \"Excuse me?\"\n\n\"Being your sister.\"\n\nI took a deep breath. I held my hand palm up. Explain?\n\n\"She would kill me if she knew I was saying this.\" He shook his head at his own daring. \"She never felt as pretty as you, as smart as you.\"\n\nThat didn't matter now. It hadn't mattered for more than a decade.\n\n\"Varena,\" I began, and my voice sounded rusty, \"is a grown woman. We haven't been teenagers for years.\"\n\n\"When you're a younger sister, apparently you have baggage you carry with you always. Varena thinks so, anyway. She always felt like an also-ran. With your parents. With your teachers. With your boyfriends.\"\n\nWhat crap was this? I gave Dill a cold stare.\n\n\"And when you got raped...\"\n\nI'll give him that, he went right on and said the word.\n\n\"...and all the focus was on you, and all you wanted was to get rid of it, I think in some way it gave Varena some... satisfaction.\"\n\nWhich would have made her feel guilty.\n\n\"And of course, she began to feel guilty about that, about even feeling a particle of righteousness about your getting hurt.\"\n\n\"Your point being?\"\n\n\"You don't seem happy to be here. At the wedding. In the town. You don't seem happy for your sister.\"\n\nI couldn't quite see the connection between the two statements. Was I supposed to wag my tail since Varena was getting married... because she'd felt guilty when I got raped? I didn't have any active animosity toward Dill Kingery, so I tried to work through his thought.\n\nI shook my head. I wasn't making any connections. \"Since Varena wants to marry you, I'm glad she is,\" I said cautiously. I wasn't about to apologize for being who I was, what I had become.\n\nDill looked at me. He sighed. \"Well, that's as good as it's gonna get, I guess,\" he said, with a tight little smile.\n\nGuess so.\n\n\"What about you?\" I asked. \"You married one unstable wife. Your mother's not exactly predictable. I hope you see nothing like that in Varena.\"\n\nHe threw back his head and laughed.\n\n\"You take the cake, you really do, Lily,\" he said, shaking his head. He didn't seem to find that endearing. \"You don't say much, but you go for the throat when you decide to talk. I think that's what your parents have been dying to ask me for the past two years.\"\n\nI waited.\n\n\"No,\" he said, quite seriously now. \"I see nothing like that in Varena. But that's why I dated her for so long. That's why our engagement went on forever. I had to be sure. For my sake, and especially for Anna's sake. I think Varena is the sanest woman I ever met.\"\n\n\"Did your wife ever threaten to hurt Anna?\"\n\nHe turned white as a sheet. I'd never seen anyone pale so fast. \"What\u2014how\u2014\" He was spluttering.\n\n\"Before she killed herself, did she threaten to hurt Anna?\"\n\nIt was like I was a cobra and he was a mouse.\n\n\"What have you heard?\" he choked out.\n\n\"Just a guess. Did she try to hurt Anna?\"\n\n\"Please go now,\" he said finally. \"Lily, please go.\"\n\nI'd certainly handled that well. What a masterly interrogation! At least, I reflected, Dill and I had been equally unpleasant to each other, though I might have the edge since I'd talked about something new, something that wasn't common currency in Bartley\u2014at least, judging by Dill's reaction.\n\nI was willing to bet I wouldn't be invited to go on vacations with Dill and Varena.\n\nIt seemed possible that Dill's first wife had been capable\u2014 at least in Dill's estimation\u2014of harming her baby. And page 23 was missing from a memory book that was most probably Anna's.\n\nI understood what the word \"heartsick\" meant. I tried to comfort myself with the thought of Anna's birthmark. At least I'd learned one fact.\n\nAs I backed out of Dill's driveway I discovered I didn't want to go home.\n\nI began cruising aimlessly\u2014shades of being a teenager, when \"riding around\" had been a legitimate activity\u2014and didn't know where I was going until I found myself parking at the town square.\n\nI went into the furniture store, and a bell tinkled as the door swung shut. Mary Maude Plummer was typing something into a computer at a desk behind a high counter in the middle of the store. Reading glasses perched at the end of her nose, and she was wearing her business face, competent and no-nonsense.\n\n\"Can I help you?\" she asked and then looked up from the computer screen. \"Oh, Lily!\" she said happily, her face changing from the inside out.\n\n\"Come go riding,\" I suggested. \"I've got the car.\"\n\n\"Your mom let you have it?\" Mary Maude dissolved in giggles. She glanced around at the empty store. \"Maybe I can, really! Emory,\" she called. Out of the shadows at the back of the store, Emory Osborn materialized like a thin, blond ghost.\n\n\"Hello, Miss Bard,\" he said, his voice wispy.\n\n\"Emory, can you watch the store while I take my lunch hour?\" Mary Maude asked in the gentle, earnest voice you use with slow children. \"Jerry and Sam should be back in just a minute.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Emory said. He looked as if a good wind would whisk him away.\n\n\"Thanks.\" Mary Maude fished her purse from some hidden spot under the counter.\n\nWhen we were far enough away that Emory couldn't hear us, Mary Maude muttered, \"He should never have tried to come to work today. But his sister's here, and she's managing the home front, so I think he didn't have anything else to do.\"\n\nWe went out the front door like two girls skipping school. I noticed how professional and groomed Mary Maude looked in her winter white suit, a sharp, unwelcome contrast to me in my sweats.\n\n\"I've been cleaning Dill's house,\" I explained, suddenly self-conscious. I couldn't remember apologizing for my clothes, not for years.\n\n\"That's what you do for a living now?\" Mary Maude asked as she buckled up.\n\n\"Yep,\" I said flatly.\n\n\"Boy, did you ever think I'd end up selling furniture and you'd end up cleaning it?\"\n\nWe shook our heads simultaneously.\n\n\"I'll bet you're tops at what you do,\" Mary said, matter-of-factly.\n\nI was surprised and oddly touched. \"I'll bet you sell a lot of furniture,\" I offered and was even more surprised to find that I meant it.\n\n\"I do pretty well,\" she answered, her voice offhand. She looked at me, and her face crinkled in a smile. \"You know, Lily, sometimes I just can't believe we grew up!\"\n\nThat was never my problem. \"Sometimes I can't remember I was ever a teen,\" I said.\n\n\"But here we are, alive, in good health, single but not without hope, and backed by family and friends,\" Mary Maude said, almost chanting.\n\nI raised my eyebrows.\n\n\"I have to practice counting my blessings all the time,\" she explained, and I laughed. \"See, that didn't hurt,\" she said.\n\nWe ate lunch at a fast-food place decorated with tinsel and lights and artificial snow. A Santa Claus robot nodded and waved from a plastic sleigh.\n\nFor a little while we just got used to each other. We talked about people we'd known and where they were now, how many times they'd been married and to whom. Mary Maude touched on her divorce and the baby she'd lost to crib death. We didn't need to talk about my past; it was too well known. But Mary asked me some questions about Shakespeare, about my daily life, and to my pleasure it was easy to answer.\n\nShe, too, asked if I was seeing someone special.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, trying not to stare down at my hands. \"A man from Little Rock. Jack Leeds.\"\n\n\"Oh, is he the ponytail guy who showed up at the wedding rehearsal?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said, not even trying to look up this time. \"How'd you know?\" Why was I even asking, knowing the Bartley grapevine as I did?\n\n\"Lou O'Shea was in yesterday. She and Jess have a bed on layaway for Krista for Christmas.\"\n\n\"They seem like a nice couple,\" I said.\n\n\"Yeah, they are,\" Mary Maude agreed, dipping a french fry in a puddle of ketchup. She'd made a trail of paper napkins to keep her winter white in a pristine state. \"They sure are having a hard time with that Krista since they had Luke.\"\n\n\"That's what I hear. You reckon she feels unloved now that the little boy's here?\"\n\n\"I suppose, though they were real open with her about her being adopted and telling her they loved her enough to pick her out. But I guess maybe she feels like Luke is really theirs, and she isn't.\"\n\nI said I hadn't realized that the O'Sheas were so open about Krista being adopted.\n\n\"Lou more than Jess,\" Mary Maude commented. \"Lou has always been more out-front than her husband, but I guess he's had more practice at keeping secrets, him being a minister and all.\"\n\nMinisters do have to keep a lot of secrets. I hadn't thought of that before. I got up to get some more tea\u2014and another napkin for Mary Maude.\n\n\"Lou tells me the man you're seeing is quite a looker,\" Mary Maude said slyly, bringing the conversation back to the most interesting topic.\n\nIt had never occurred to me someone as conventional as Lou O'Shea would find him so. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Is he sweet to you?\" Mary Maude sounded wistful.\n\nThis was everyone's day to want to know about Jack. First Anna, now Mary Maude. Weddings must bring it out in women. \"Sweet,\" I said, trying the word on Jack to see how it fit. \"No. He's not sweet.\"\n\nSurprise hiked up Mary Maude's eyebrows. \"Not sweet! Well, then! Is he rich?\"\n\n\"No,\" I answered without hesitation.\n\n\"Then why are you seeing him?\" Suddenly her cheeks got pinker, and she looked simultaneously delighted and embarrassed. \"Is he...?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I told her, trying not to look as self-conscious as I felt.\n\n\"Oh, girl,\" said Mary Maude, shaking her head and giggling-\n\n\"Emory is single now,\" I observed, trying to steer the conversation away from me and into a channel that might lead to some knowledge.\n\nShe didn't waste time looking shocked. \"Never in a million years,\" Mary Maude told me as she consumed her last french fry.\n\n\"Why are you so sure about that?\"\n\n\"Aside from the fact that now it would mean taking on a newborn baby and an eight-year-old girl, there's the man himself. I never met anyone as hard to read as Emory. He's polite as the day is long, he never uses bad language, he's... yes, he is... sweet. Old ladies just love him. But Emory's not a simple man, and he's not my idea of red-blooded.\"\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\n\"Not that I think he's gay,\" Mary Maude protested hastily. \"It's just that, for example, we were outside the store watching the Harvest Festival parade, back in September, and all the beauty queens were coming by riding on the top of the convertibles, like we did?\"\n\nI'd completely forgotten that. Maybe that was why riding in the Shakespeare parade had plowed up my feelings so deeply?\n\n\"And Emory just wasn't interested. You know? You can tell when a man is appreciating women. And he wasn't. He enjoyed the floats and the bands. He loved the little girls, you know, Little Miss Pumpkin Patch, that kind of thing, and he told me he'd even thought of entering Eve, but his wife didn't like the idea. But those big gals in their sequin dresses and push-up bras didn't do a thing for Emory. No, I'm going to have to look farther than the furniture store to find someone to date.\"\n\nI made an indeterminate noise.\n\n\"Now, we were talking earlier about Lou and Jess O'Shea. They were watching that parade catty-corner to where I was standing, and believe me, honey! That Jess can enjoy grown-up women!\"\n\n\"But he doesn't...?\"\n\n\"Oh, Lord, no! He is devoted to Lou. But he's not blind, either.\" Mary Maude looked at her watch. \"Oh, girl! I have to get back.\"\n\nWe tossed our litter into a can and walked out still talking. Well, Mary Maude was talking, and I was listening, but I was agreeable to listening. And when I dropped her off at Makepeace Furniture, I gave her a quick hug.\n\nI couldn't think of anywhere to go but back to my parents' house.\n\nI walked right into yet another crisis. The couples dinner in honor of Varena and Dill, which had been rescheduled at least twice, was once again endangered. The high school senior who had been booked to baby-sit Krista, her little brother Luke, and Anna had caught the flu.\n\nAccording to Varena, who was sitting at the kitchen table with the tiny Bartley phone book open before her, she and Lou had called every adolescent known to baby-sit in Bartley, and all of them were either flu victims or already attending a teen Christmas party the Methodist church was giving.\n\nThis seemed to be a crisis I had no part in other than to look sympathetic. Then a solution to a couple of problems occurred to me, and I knew what I had to do.\n\nJack would owe me permanently, as far as I was concerned.\n\nI tapped Varena on the shoulder. \"I'll do it,\" I told her.\n\n\"What?\" She'd been in the middle of a semihysterical outburst to my mother.\n\n\"I'll do it,\" I repeated.\n\n\"You'll... baby-sit?\"\n\n\"That's what I said.\" I was feeling touchy at the sheer incredulity in my sister's voice.\n\n\"Have you ever kept kids before?\"\n\n\"Do you need a baby-sitter or don't you?\"\n\n\"Yes, it would be wonderful, but... are you sure you wouldn't mind? You've never been... I mean, you've always said that children weren't your... special thing.\"\n\n\"I can do it.\"\n\n\"Well! That would be\u2014just great,\" Varena said stoutly, obviously realizing she had to show no reservations, no matter what she felt.\n\nActually, I had kept the four Althaus kids one afternoon and evening when Jay Althaus had been in a car wreck and Carol had had to go to the hospital. Both sets of grandparents had been out of town. Carol had been a frantic, panicked, pathetic mother and wife by the time I answered her phone call.\n\nSo I knew how to change diapers and bathe a baby, and the oldest Althaus boy had showed me how to heat up a bottle. I might not be Mary Poppins, but all the children would be alive and fed and clean by the time the parents got home.\n\nVarena was on the phone with Lou O'Shea, giving her the good news.\n\n\"She's glad to do it,\" Varena was saying, still trying not to sound amazed. \"So Lily should be there about, what? Six? Will the kids have eaten? Oh, OK. And there'll be Anna, Krista, your little boy... oh, really? Oh, gosh. Let me ask her.\"\n\nVarena covered the receiver. She was making a big effort to look cheerful and unconcerned. \"Lily, Lou says they've agreed to keep the Osborn kids, too. At the time, they thought Shelley was coming with her boyfriend.\" Shelley was the flu-ridden teenager.\n\nI took a deep, cleansing breath, like I did in karate class before I began my kata. \"No problem,\" I said.\n\n\"You're sure?\"\n\nI confined myself to a nod.\n\n\"That's not a problem, she says,\" Varena said chirpily into the phone. \"Right, it'll only last three hours at the most, two more likely, and we'll be just a few blocks away.\"\n\nSounded like Lou was a little concerned at the prospect of my baby-sitting such a mob.\n\nThe doorbell rang, and my mother hustled into the living room to answer it. I heard her say, \"Hello, again!\" with a kind of supercharged enthusiasm that alerted me. Sure enough, she led Jack into the kitchen with a pleased, proud air, as though she'd snagged him just when he was about to get away.\n\nI found myself on my feet and going to him before I even knew I was moving. His arms slid around me and he gave me a kiss, but a kiss that said my parents were looking at him over my shoulder.\n\n\"Well, young man, it's nice to see you again. We'd begun to think we wouldn't get to lay eyes on you before you left town.\" My father was being bluff and hearty.\n\nJack was wearing a blue-and-green-plaid flannel shirt and blue jeans, and his thick hair was brushed smoothly back, gathered at the nape of his neck with an elastic band. I patted his shoulder gently and stepped away from him.\n\n\"I saw a mighty lot of presents in the living room,\" Jack said to my father. \"Looks like you-all are having a wedding.\" He smiled, and those seductive deep lines suddenly appeared in parentheses from his nose to the corners of his thin, mobile mouth.\n\nMother, Father, and Varena laughed, as charmed by his smile as I was.\n\n\"As a matter of fact,\" Jack went on, \"I hoped this would be appropriate.\"\n\n\"Why, thank you,\" Varena said, surprised and showing it, taking the shallow wrapped box Jack pulled out of one jacket pocket.\n\nWhen I turned to watch Varena opened the present, Jack's arm went around my waist and pulled me against him, my back to his chest. I could feel the corners of my mouth tug up, and I looked down at my hands, resting on the arms crossed below my breasts. I took a deep breath. I made an effort to focus on the box Varena was holding.\n\nShe lifted the lid. From the tissue, she extracted an antique silver cake server, a lovely piece with engraving. When Varena passed it around, I could see the curling script read \"V K 1889.\"\n\n\"This is just beautiful,\" Varena said, delighted and not a little stunned. \"However did you find it?\"\n\n\"Sheer luck,\" Jack said. He was pressed very firmly against my bottom. \"I just happened to be in an antiques store and it caught my eye.\"\n\nI could see the wheels turning in my mother's head. I knew she was thinking that this was a serious present. Such a gift announced that Jack planned to be seeing me for some time, since he was displaying such a great desire to please my family. My father's face lit up (way too obviously) as the same idea occurred to him.\n\nI felt I was watching a tribal ritual unfold.\n\n\"I have to put this somewhere conspicuous, so everyone'll notice it,\" Varena told Jack, plainly wanting him to realize she was very pleased indeed.\n\n\"I'm glad you like it,\" he said.\n\nAnd before you could say Jack Robinson, Jack Leeds was installed at my parents' kitchen table, a grilled cheese sandwich and bowl of soup in front of him, Varena and my mother waiting on him hand and foot.\n\nAfter he'd eaten, Mother and Varena practically threw us out of the kitchen so I wouldn't have to help with the dishes. They were flabbergasted when Jack offered to wash. They turned him down with fatuous smiles, and by the time I climbed into Jack's car I was torn between laughter and exasperation.\n\n\"I think they approve of me,\" Jack said with a straight face.\n\n\"Well, you are breathing.\"\n\nHe laughed, but he stopped abruptly and looked at me with an expression I couldn't decipher. He started the engine.\n\n\"Where are we going? I have to be at the manse at 6:00,\" I reminded him. Mother and Varena had immediately told Jack I'd volunteered to keep the kids.\n\n\"We need to talk,\" he said. We were silent on the ride to the motel, Jack grim and taciturn, I uneasily aware that I was not on the same page.\n\nAs we turned on the corner by the Presbyterian manse, I thought of Krista, Anna, and Eve.\n\nAnd, oddly, I suddenly remembered spending nights with other girls when I was really young. I remembered how I'd carry a whole suitcase full of stuff with me for an overnight visit, everything and anything I thought we might want to play with, or look at, or gossip about.\n\nIncluding a memory book."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 8",
                "text": "Jack was staying in a different room, since the motel manager was having the bathroom window fixed from the break-in in the room he'd had before.\n\nI was already on edge when we went in, and when Jack sat on one of the stuffed vinyl-covered armchairs, all my systems went on defense. I perched on the edge of the other chair and eyed him warily.\n\n\"I saw you last night,\" he said without preamble.\n\n\"Where?\"\n\nHe sighed. \"Out with your old boyfriend.\"\n\nI made my breathing slow, fighting the rage that swept through me. I gripped the armrests of the damn orange chair. \"You got back to town early, and you didn't call me. Did you come back on purpose to spy on me?\"\n\nHis back stiffened. He was doing a little chair gripping of his own. \"Of course not, Lily! I missed you, and I finished what I was doing early, and I drove all afternoon to get back here. Then I saw you in that diner with the cop.\"\n\n\"Were we kissing, Jack?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Were we holding hands, Jack?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Was I looking at him with love, Jack?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Did he look happy, Jack?\"\n\n\"No.\" Jack bowed his head, rubbed his forehead with his fingertips.\n\n\"Let me tell you what happened the last time I went on a date with Chandler McAdoo, Jack.\" I bent to his level until he had to look me in the eyes or be a coward. \"It was seven years ago, the bad time, and I had been back in Bartley for two months. Chandler and I went to the movies, and then we drove out to the lake, like we'd done when we were kids.\"\n\nJack's hazel eyes didn't flinch, and he was listening. I knew it.\n\n\"So when we were at the lake, Chandler wanted to kiss me, and I wanted to feel like a real woman again, so I let him. I even enjoyed it... a little. And then it went a little farther, and he pulled my T-shirt up. Want to know what happened then, Jack? Chandler started crying. The scars were real fresh then, red. He cried when he saw my body. And that's the last I saw of Chandler for seven years.\"\n\nA heavy silence settled in the cold motel room.\n\n\"Pardon me,\" Jack said finally. He was absolutely sincere, not mouthing a social catchall. \"Pardon me.\"\n\n\"Jack, you never believed I was sneaking behind your back.\"\n\n\"I didn't?\" He looked a little angry and a little amused.\n\n\"You gave Varena her present before you even discussed last night with me,\" I said. \"You knew all along we weren't... parting.\" I had almost used the phrase \"breaking up,\" but it seemed too childish.\n\nAbruptly, Jack's face went absolutely still, as if he'd had a revelation of some kind.\n\nHe turned his eyes to me. \"How could he cry?\" Jack asked me. \"You are so beautiful.\"\n\nI was still speechless, but for another reason. Jack had never said anything remotely like this.\n\n\"Don't pity me,\" I said softly.\n\n\"Lily, you said I never really doubted you. Now, I say, you know that pity is the last thing I feel for you.\"\n\nHe lay with his chest to my back, one arm thrown around me. He was still awake, I could tell. I had another hour and a half, by my watch.\n\nI didn't want to think about Summer Dawn. I didn't want to think about the dead people littering the path to her recovery.\n\nI wanted to touch Jack. I wanted to twine my fingers in his hair. I wanted to understand his thoughts.\n\nBut he was a man with a job to do, and he wanted more than anything in the world to take Summer Dawn back to her parents. While he kept his arm around me and from time to time dropped a kiss on my neck, his thoughts had drifted away from me, and mine had to follow.\n\nReluctantly, I began to tell him what I'd found: the two memory books, one whole and one mutilated, in Anna Kingery's room; the absence of the same book at Eve Osborn's. I told him that Eve Osborn had been to the doctor recently, that I didn't yet know about Anna. I told him about Anna's mother... the woman we were assuming was Anna's mother. And I pulled the plastic-wrapped brush and the birth photo of Anna out of my purse and placed them by Jack's briefcase.\n\nI rolled over to face him when I'd finished. I don't know what he saw in my face, but he said, \"Damn,\" under his breath, and looked away from me.\n\n\"Have you learned anything?\" I asked, to get that expression off his face.\n\n\"Like I said, my trip was pretty much of a washout,\" he told me, but not as if he was upset about it. I guess private eyes encounter a lot of dead-end streets. \"But early this morning, I wandered into the police station and took Chandler and a guy named Roger out for coffee and doughnuts. Since I used to be a cop, and they wanted to prove that small-town cops can be just as sharp as city cops, they were pretty forthcoming.\"\n\nI stroked his hair away from his face and nodded to show him I was listening. I didn't want to tell him they'd have told him nothing if Chandler hadn't checked up on him and talked to me about him.\n\n\"They told me the pipe recovered in the alley was definitely the one used to kill the doctor and his nurse,\" Jack said. \"And Christopher Sims's fingerprints were nowhere on it. The pipe has a rusty surface, and some cloth had been run over it. Whoever tried to clean it didn't do a good job. He left one partial. It doesn't match Sims's. He's still in custody for the purse snatching, but I don't think he'll be charged with the murder any time soon.\"\n\n\"Is he making sense?\"\n\n\"Not a lot. He told the police he'd had a lot of visitors in his new home, which I gather means the alley behind the stores. That location in the alley is close to every father in this case. Jess O'Shea came to visit Sims as a minister, Emory works in Makepeace Furniture, which backs onto that alley, and Kingery's pharmacy is a block away.\"\n\n\"I noticed that.\"\n\n\"Of course you did,\" he said and bent to kiss me. My arms went around his neck, and the kiss lasted longer than he thought it was going to. \"I want you again,\" he told me, his voice low and rough.\n\n\"I noticed that, too.\" I pressed against him gently. \"But the wedding is tomorrow. Let me tell you about tonight. Since I'm going to baby-sit all the children\u2014Eve, the baby, Krista, Luke, and Anna\u2014at the O'Sheas' house, maybe I can learn something from the children, or from being in that house.\"\n\n\"Where are all the parents going?\"\n\n\"To a dinner. It's a couples thing, so I was glad to get out of it.\"\n\n\"Who would they have paired you with?\" Jack asked.\n\nI realized for the first time that I was causing a hostess some seating problems. \"I don't know,\" I admitted. \"I guess that friend of Dill's, Berry Duff.\"\n\n\"Has he been by your folks' much?\"\n\n\"No, I think he went right home after the rehearsal dinner. He'll come back into town today, if I remember right, and spend the night somewhere here in town. I guess here at the motel.\"\n\n\"He admired you.\"\n\n\"Sure, I'm everyone's dream girl,\" I said, hearing the sharp edge in my voice, unable to stop it.\n\n\"Did you like him?\"\n\nWhat the hell was this? \"He's nice enough,\" I said.\n\n\"You could be with him,\" he said. His light hazel eyes fixed on mine. He didn't blink. \"He wouldn't drag you into things like this.\"\n\n\"Hmmm,\" I said thoughtfully, \"Berry is awful cute... and he has his own farm. Varena was telling me how beautiful his house is. It's part of the spring garden tour.\"\n\nFor a second Jack's face was a real picture. Then he pounced on me. He pinned me by the shoulders and scooted his body sideways until it lay over mine.\n\n\"Are you teasing me, house cleaner?\"\n\n\"What do you think, detective?\"\n\n\"I think I've got you where I want you,\" he said, and his mouth descended.\n\n\"Jack,\" I said after a moment, \"I need to tell you something.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Don't ever hold me down.\"\n\nJack rolled off instantly, his hands up in a surrender position.\n\n\"It's just that you feel so good,\" he said. \"And... sometimes I think if I don't weigh you down you'll just drift away.\" He looked off to the side, then back at me. \"What the hell did that mean?\" he asked, shaking his head at his own fancy.\n\nI knew exactly what he meant.\n\n\"I have to go back to the house,\" I said. \"I'll be at the O'Sheas' from about five-thirty on.\" I swung myself up and sat with my back to him, since I had to begin getting my clothes out of the heap by the bed.\n\nI felt his hand on my back, stroking. I shivered.\n\n\"What are you going to do?\" I said over my shoulder, as I bent to retrieve my bra.\n\n\"Oh, I have an idea or two,\" he said casually. He hooked the bra for me.\n\nJack was going to do something illegal.\n\n\"Like what?\" I pulled my shirt over my head.\n\n\"Oh... I might get into the doctor's office tonight.\"\n\n\"Who would let you in? You can't possibly be thinking of breaking in?\"\n\n\"I think it won't be a problem,\" he assured me.\n\n\"You know anything you learn that way isn't real evidence,\" I said incredulously. \"I've watched enough TV to know that.\"\n\n\"Can you think of another way for me to find out their blood types?\"\n\n\"Blood types? I thought you said Summer Dawn hadn't had her blood typed? And are you sure the blood types would be in a file at Dr. LeMay's office?\"\n\n\"All three families went to him.\"\n\n\"But how many kids need to have their blood taken?\"\n\n\"You said Eve had. If I can eliminate at least one of them, that'll be good,\" he argued. \"I realized that there were only a couple of blood types she could be. In fact, it was Chandler's discussion of your high school biology class that reminded me.\"\n\n\"What blood type would Summer Dawn be?\"\n\n\"Her mother's A and her father's O. So Summer has to be A or O.\" Jack had been consulting a page from a sheaf of Xeroxed material.\n\n\"So if Anna and Eve are type B or AB, they can't be Summer Dawn. It would have to be Krista.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\n\"I hope it isn't Anna,\" I said, sorry immediately I'd said it out loud, and with that edge of desperation in my voice.\n\n\"I hope not, too, for your sister's sake,\" Jack said briskly, and I was even sorrier I'd said anything. I could feel him shoving off my fear, reminding me he had a job to do that he was compelled to finish. I hated the necessity for the reminder. \"Here, here's your sock.\"\n\n\"Jack, what if they're all A or O?\" I took the sock from him and pulled it on. I had my shoe tied before he answered.\n\n\"I don't know. I'll think of something,\" he said, but not with any hope in his voice. \"Maybe that's not the way to go. I'll call Aunt Betty and see if she's got any ideas. I'll be in and out, so try here if you need me. Something's gotta break tonight.\"\n\nBefore I left my folks' house for the O'Sheas', I dialed a Shakespeare number to talk to my friend Carrie Thrush. As I'd hoped, she was still at her office, having seen her last patient just minutes before.\n\n\"How are you?\"\n\n\"Fine,\" she said, surprise in her voice. \"I'll be glad when flu season is over.\"\n\n\"The house is okay?\" Carrie had agreed to stop by once or twice, check to make sure the mail carrier had obeyed my \"stop mail\" card. I hadn't thought it was much of an imposition, since she was dating Claude Friedrich, who lived in the apartment next door. In fact, I would have asked Claude himself to do it if he hadn't been still limping from a leg injury.\n\n\"Lily, your house is fine,\" Carrie said, good-humored toleration in her low voice. \"How are you doing?\"\n\n\"OK,\" I said grudgingly.\n\n\"Well, we'll be glad to see you come home. Oh, you'll want to know this! Old Mr. Winthrop died yesterday, out at his place. He had a massive heart attack at the supper table. Arnita said he just slumped over in the sweet potatoes. She called nine-one-one, but it was too late.\"\n\nI figured the whole Winthrop family had to be relieved that the old tyrant was dead, but it wouldn't be decent to admit it.\n\n\"That family has been through everything this year,\" Carrie commented, not at all put off by my lack of response.\n\n\"I saw Bobo before I left,\" I told her.\n\n\"His Jeep went by your house twice yesterday evening.\"\n\n\"Hmmm.\"\n\n\"He's carrying a big torch.\"\n\nI cleared my throat. \"Well, he'll meet a gal his own age who doesn't kowtow to him because he's a Winthrop. He's just nineteen.\"\n\n\"Right.\" Carrie sounded amused. \"Besides, you have your own private dick.\" This was Carrie's little term for Jack. She thought it was really funny. She was definitely smiling on the other end of the line. \"How is your family?\" she asked.\n\n\"This wedding has got everyone crazy.\"\n\n\"And speaking of Jack, have you heard from him?\"\n\n\"He\u2014ahhh\u2014he's here.\"\n\n\"There? In Bartley?\" Carry was startled and impressed.\n\n\"It's work,\" I said hastily. \"He's got a job here.\"\n\n\"Right. How coincidental!\"\n\n\"True,\" I told her warningly. \"He's working.\"\n\n\"So you haven't seen him at all, I'm sure.\"\n\n\"Oh, well... a couple of times.\"\n\n\"He come by the house?\"\n\n\"Yes. He did.\"\n\n\"Met your parents,\" she prompted.\n\n\"Well, OK, he did.\"\n\n\"O\u2014kay.\" She drew out the word as if she'd proved a point. \"He coming back to Shakespeare with you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"For Christmas?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Way to go, Lily!\"\n\n\"We'll see,\" I said skeptically. \"And you? You'll be there?\"\n\n\"Yes, I'm cooking and Claude is coming to my house. I was going to go to my folks', even though it's such a long drive, but when I found out Claude was going to be on his own, I told them I'd have to see them in the spring.\"\n\n\"Moving fast, there.\"\n\n\"Nothing to stop us, is there? He's in his forties and I'm in my midthirties.\"\n\nI said, \"No point taking it slow.\"\n\n\"Damn straight!\" Carrie's voice grew muffled as she told her nurse to call someone and give him his test results. Then her voice grew clearer. \"So you're coming home when?\"\n\n\"The day after the wedding,\" I said firmly. \"I can't stand it another minute.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"See you then, Lily.\"\n\n\"OK. Thanks for checking the house.\"\n\n\"No problem.\"\n\nWe said good-bye and hung up, both with a few things to think about.\n\nI could tell that Carrie's relationship with Chief of Police Claude Friedrich was flourishing. I hoped it would last. I'd liked both of them for months before they'd ever looked at each other.\n\nI found myself wondering how Bobo was feeling about the death of his grandfather. I was sure he felt some grief, but it must be at least a little mixed with relief. Now Bobo and his parents would have some peace, some time to recoup. It was almost possible they would rehire me.\n\nI dragged myself back to the here and now. It was nearly time for me to go to my baby-sitting stint. I would be in the O'Sheas' house; I could search it as I had the Kingery house and the Osborn house. I was staring at myself in the mirror in the bathroom, refluffing my hair and powdering my face, when I finally registered how miserable I looked.\n\nCouldn't be helped.\n\nIn my room, I pulled on my Christmas sweatsuit, the one I'd worn in the parade. I guess I thought the bright color might make me seem more kid-friendly. I ate a bowl of leftover fruit salad, all that I could find in the refrigerator since everyone else in the house was going to the supper.\n\nDill's friend Berry Duff rang the doorbell while I was washing up, and I let him in. He smiled down at me.\n\n\"You look cheerful,\" he remarked.\n\n\"I'm going to baby-sit.\"\n\nHis face fell. \"Oh, I was looking forward to talking to you at the dinner.\"\n\n\"Last-minute emergency. The baby-sitter came down with the flu and they couldn't find another one.\"\n\n\"I hope it goes smoothly,\" Berry said, rather doubtfully, I thought. \"I have kids of my own, and a handful at a time is kind of a rough evening.\"\n\n\"How old are yours?\" I asked politely.\n\n\"I got one who's nine, one who's in the tenth grade... let's see... Daniel's fifteen now. They're both good kids. I don't get to see them often enough.\"\n\nI remembered that his wife had custody of the children. \"Do they live close enough for you to see them regularly?\" I asked.\n\n\"Every other weekend,\" he answered. He looked sad and angry. \"That's just not as good, nowhere near as good, as watching them grow up every day.\" He folded himself into one of the kitchen chairs, and I returned to the sink to finish drying the dishes.\n\n\"But you know where they are,\" I said, surprising even myself. \"You know that they're safe. You can pick up the phone and call them.\"\n\nBerry stared at me in understandable surprise. \"That's true,\" he said slowly, feeling his way. \"I'm sure the situation could be worse. You're saying, if my wife ran off with them, went underground, like some spouses do to keep the other parent away from the kids? That would be horrible. I guess I'd just go crazy.\" Berry mulled it over for a minute. \"I'd do anything to get them back, if that happened,\" he concluded. He looked up at me. \"My God, girl, how did we get on this depressing topic? This is supposed to be a happy household! Wedding tomorrow!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said. \"Wedding tomorrow.\" I had to be resolute. This was not a problem I could solve by hitting or kicking. I puzzled Berry further by patting his shoulder, before I pulled on my coat and called good-bye to my parents.\n\nI thought there was something I'd forgotten to tell Jack today, something small but important. But I couldn't make it float to the surface of my mind.\n\nThe O'Sheas had plenty of room in the Presbyterian manse, since the preacher for whom the home had been built had been the father of five. Of course, that had been in 1938. Now the manse was an underinsulated money pit in need of complete rewiring, Lou told me within the first five minutes after my arrival. I could see that she had some legitimate gripes, because the long, narrow shape of the living area made it hard to group furniture, just for starters. And though there was a fireplace, and it was decorated for the season, the chimney needed so much repair that it wasn't functional.\n\nThe preacher's wife was encased in a sage green suit and black suede pumps. Her dark hair was carefully turned under all the way around in a smooth pageboy, and her ski-jump nose had been minimized by some subtle makeup. Lou was clearly looking forward to getting out of her house without the kids in tow, but just as clearly she was little anxious about my keeping them. She was doing her best not to show her worry, but the third time she pointed out the list of emergency phone numbers right by the telephone, I had a very sharp answer practically tottering on the edge of my tongue.\n\nInstead, of course, I took a cleansing breath and nodded. But there may have been something grim in the set of my mouth, because Lou did a double take and apologized profusely for being overprotective. To cut short her apologies, she bent to plug in the Christmas tree, which almost filled a quarter of the room.\n\nThe lights began to blink.\n\nI clenched my teeth to keep from saying something Lou was sure to find unacceptable.\n\nThe manse seemed as commercial as any other house tricked out for the season, with long plastic candy canes propped on either side of the nonfunctional hearth, where fireplace tools would ordinarily stand. A silver garland was draped between the corners of the mantelpiece, and Lou had hung long plastic icicles from the garland.\n\nOpposite the hearth was a central window before which the tree was positioned. However, under the tree, instead of presents there stood a nativity scene, with a wooden stable and a full complement of shepherds, Joseph and Mary, camels and cows, and the baby Jesus in a manger.\n\nHandsome Jess strode into the room, wearing a dark suit enlivened by a fancy Christmas vest. He was carrying Meredith Osborn's baby, Jane, and Jane was not happy.\n\nIt was time for me to prove my worth. I steeled myself to hold out my arms, and he placed the shrieking Jane in them.\n\n\"Is she due for a bottle?\" I yelled.\n\n\"No,\" bellowed Jess, \"I just fed her.\"\n\nThen she needed burping. After eating came burping, then excreting, then sleeping. This was what I had learned about babies. I turned Jane so she was upright and pointed over my shoulder and began patting her gently with my right hand. Little red-faced thing... she was so tiny. Jane had wisps of curling blond hair here and there on her smooth head. Her eyes were squeezed shut with rage, but as soon as I turned her upright she seemed to be crying with less volume. Her little eyes opened and looked hazily at me.\n\n\"Hi,\" I said, feeling I should talk to her.\n\nThe other children came piling into the room. Krista's little brother Luke was a cement block of a toddler, so square and heavy that he stomped rather than walked. He was dark-haired like Lou, but he would have the heavy-jawed good looks of his father.\n\nThe most amazing belch erupted from the baby. Her body relaxed against my shoulder, which suddenly felt wet.\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" Lou said. \"Oh, Lily...\"\n\n\"Should have slung a diaper over your shoulder.\" Jess's advice was just a little too late.\n\nI looked directly into the baby's eyes, and she made one of those little baby noises. Her tiny hands flailed the air.\n\n\"I'll hold her while you clean up,\" Eve volunteered, while Krista said, \"Ewww! Look at the white stuff on Miss Lily's shoulder!\"\n\n\"Sit in the chair,\" I told Eve.\n\nEve settled herself in the nearest armchair, her legs crossed on the seat. I settled Eve's sister into her lap and checked to make sure that Eve was holding the baby correctly. She was.\n\nFollowed by the herd of kids, I went to the bathroom, got a washcloth out of the linen closet, and dampened it to rub the worst of the belched liquid off my shoulder. I didn't want to smell it all night. Krista kept up a running commentary the whole time, Anna seemed conflicted between being sympathetic toward her future aunt and rolling in the grossness of baby throw up like Krista, and Luke just stared while holding his left ear with his left hand and gripping the hair on the top of his head with his right, a posture that made him look like he was receiving signals from another planet.\n\nI realized that Luke was probably still wearing diapers, too.\n\nThe O'Sheas called good-bye as they escaped from the houseful of children, and I tossed the washrag into the dirty clothes hamper and glanced at my watch. It was time to change Jane.\n\nI settled Luke in the far end of the living room in front of the television, watching a Christmas cartoon and communicating with Mars. He chose to sit almost inside the branches of the Christmas tree. The blinking didn't seem to bother him.\n\nThe girls all followed me to the baby's room. Eve was proprietary because the baby was her sister, Krista was hoping to see poop so she could provide running commentary on its grossness, and Anna was still waiting to see which way the wind blew.\n\nGrabbing a fresh disposable diaper, I placed the baby on the changing table and went through the laborious and complicated process of unsnapping the crotch of Jane's sleeper. Mentally reviewing how I'd changed the Althaus baby, I opened the pull tabs on the old diaper, lifted Jane by the legs, removed the soiled diaper, pulled a wipe from the box on the end of the changing table, cleaned the pertinent areas, and pushed the new diaper under Jane. I ran the front part between her tiny legs, pulled the adhesive tabs shut, and reinserted the baby into the sleeper, getting the snaps wrong only one time.\n\nThe three girls decided this was boring. I watched them troop through the door to go to Krista's room. They were so superficially similar, yet so different. All were eight years old, give or take a few months; all were within three inches of being the same height; they had brown hair and brown eyes. But Eve's hair was long and looked as if someone had taken a curling iron to it, and Eve was thin and pale. Krista, blocky and with higher color, had short, thick, darker hair and a more decisive demeanor. Her jaw jutted out like she was about to take it on the chin. Anna had shoulder-length light brown hair, a medium build, and a ready smile.\n\nOne of these three little girls was not who she thought she was. Her parents were not the people she had always identified as her parents. Her home was not really her home; she belonged elsewhere. She was not the oldest child in the family but the youngest. Everything in her life had been a lie.\n\nI wondered what Jack was doing. I hoped whatever it was, he wouldn't get caught.\n\nI carried the baby into the living room with me. Luke was still absorbed in the television, but he half turned as I entered and asked me for a snack.\n\nWith the attention to detail you have to have around kids, I put Jane in her infant seat, fastened the strap and buckle arrangement that prevented her from falling out, and fetched Luke a banana from the chaotic kitchen.\n\n\"I want chips. I don't like nanas,\" he said.\n\nI exhaled gently. \"If you eat your banana, I'll get you some chips,\" I said as diplomatically as I am able. \"After supper. I'll be putting supper on the table in just a minute.\"\n\n\"Miss Lily!\" shrieked Eve. \"Come look at us!\"\n\nIgnoring Luke's continued complaints about bananas, I strode down the hall to the room that must be Krista's, judging from all the signs on the door warning Luke never to come in.\n\nIt didn't seem possible the girls could have done so much to themselves in such a short time. Both Krista and Anna were daubed with makeup and swathed in full dress-up regalia: net skirts, feathered hats, tiny high heels. Eve, sitting on Krista's bed, was much more modestly decked out, and she wore no makeup at all.\n\nI looked at Krista's and Anna's lurid faces and had a flash of horror before I realized that if all this stuff had been in Krista's room, this must be an approved activity.\n\n\"You look... charming,\" I said, having no idea what an acceptable response would be.\n\n\"I'm the prettiest!\" Krista said insistently.\n\nIf the basis for selection was heavy makeup, Krista was right.\n\n\"Why don't you wear makeup, Miss Lily?\" Eve asked.\n\nThe three girls crowded around and analyzed my face.\n\n\"She's got mascara on,\" Anna decided.\n\n\"Red stuff? Rouge?\" Krista was peering at my cheeks.\n\n\"Eye shadow,\" Eve said triumphantly.\n\n\"More isn't always better,\" I said, to deaf ears.\n\n\"If you wore a lot of makeup, you'd be beautiful, Aunt Lily,\" Anna said surprisingly.\n\n\"Thank you, Anna. I'd better go see how the baby is.\"\n\nLuke had unsnapped the baby's sleeper and pulled it from her tiny feet. He was bending over her with a pair of tiny, sharp fingernail scissors.\n\n\"What are you doing, Luke?\" I asked when I could draw my breath.\n\n\"I'm gonna help you out,\" he said happily. \"I'm gonna cut baby Jane's toenails.\"\n\nI shuddered. \"I appreciate your wanting to help. But you have to wait for Jane's daddy to say whether or not he wants you to do that.\" That seemed pretty diplomatic to me.\n\nLuke insisted vehemently that Jane's long toenails were endangering her life and had to be trimmed now.\n\nI began to dislike this child very seriously.\n\n\"Listen to me,\" I said quietly, cutting right through all his justification.\n\nLuke shut right up. He looked plenty scared.\n\nGood.\n\n\"Don't touch the baby unless I ask you to,\" I said. I thought I was making a simple declarative sentence, but possibly Luke was good at interpreting voice tone. He dropped the scissors. I picked them up and shoved them in my sweatpants pocket where I could be certain he wouldn't reclaim them.\n\nI picked up the infant seat and took Jane into the kitchen with me to set out the children's meal. Lou had left canned funny-shaped pasta in sauce, which I wouldn't have fed to my dog, if I'd had one. I heated it, trying not to inhale. I spooned it into bowls, then cut squares of Jell-O and put them on plates, adding apple slices that Lou had already prepared. I poured milk.\n\nThe kids ran in and scooted into chairs the minute I called them, even Luke. Without prompting, they all bowed their heads and said the \"God is great\" prayer in unison. I was caught flat-footed, halfway to the refrigerator to put the milk carton away.\n\nThe next fifty minutes were... trying.\n\nI understand that close to Christmas children get excited. I realize that children in packs are more excitable than children separately. I have heard that having a sitter instead of parental supervision causes kids to push their limits, or rather, their sitter's. But I had to take several deep breaths as the kids rampaged through their supper. I perched on a stool, baby Jane in her infant seat on the kitchen counter beside me. Jane, at least, was asleep. A sleeping baby is a near-perfect thing.\n\nAs I wiped up slopped tomato sauce, put more sliced apples into Luke's bowl, stopped Krista from poking Anna with a spoon, I gradually became aware that Eve was quieter than the others. She had to make a visible effort to join in the hilarity.\n\nOf course, her mother had just died.\n\nSo I kept a wary eye on Eve.\n\nFar from planning to learn something that evening, I was beginning to hope merely to survive it. I'd thought I'd get a moment to look for family records. That was so clearly impossible, I was convinced I'd leave as ignorant as when I'd come.\n\nKrista took care of the problem for me.\n\nReaching for the crackers I'd set in the center of the table, she knocked over her milk, which cascaded off the table into Anna's lap. Anna shrieked, called Krista a butthead, and darted a terrified glance at me. This was not approved language in the Kingery household, and since I was almost her aunt, I gave Anna the obligatory stern look.\n\n\"Do you have a change of pants here?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yes ma'am,\" said a subdued Anna.\n\n\"Krista, you wipe up the milk with this towel while I take Anna to change. I'll need to put those pants right in the washer.\"\n\nI picked up the baby in her infant seat and carried her with me down the hall, trying not to jostle her from her sleep. Anna hurried ahead of me, wanting to change and get back to her friends.\n\nI could tell that Anna was not comfortable taking off her clothes with me in the room, but we'd done a little bonding that morning and she didn't want to hurt my feelings by asking me to leave. God knows I hated invading anyone's privacy, but I had to do it. After I found a safe spot on the floor for Jane, I picked up the room while Anna untied her shoes and divested herself of her socks, pants, and panties. I had my back to her, but I was facing a mirror when her panties came down, and since she had her back to me, I was able to see clearly the dark brown splotch of the birthmark on her hip.\n\nI had to lean against the wall. A wave of relief almost bowled me over. Anna having that birthmark simply had to mean that Anna was the baby in the birth picture with her mother and Dill, their original and true child, and not Summer Dawn Macklesby.\n\nI had something to be thankful for, after all.\n\nI picked up the wet clothes, and Anna, having pulled on some dry ones, dashed out of the room to finish her supper.\n\nI was about to pick up Jane when Eve came in. She stood, her arms behind her back, looking at her shoes. Something about the way she was standing put me on full alert.\n\n\"Miss Lily, you remember that day you came to our house and cleaned up?\" she asked, as though it had been weeks before.\n\nI stood stock still. I saw myself opening the box on the shelf...\n\n\"Wait,\" I told her. \"I want to talk to you. Wait just one moment.\"\n\nThe nearest telephone, and the one that was the most private, was the one in the master bedroom across the hall.\n\nI looked through the phone book, found the number of Jack's motel. Please let him be there, please let him be there...\n\nMr. Patel connected me to Jack's room. Jack answered on the second ring.\n\n\"Jack, open your briefcase,\" I said.\n\nSome assorted sounds over the other end.\n\n\"OK, it's done.\"\n\n\"The picture of the baby.\"\n\n\"Summer Dawn? The one that was in the paper?\"\n\n\"Yes, that one. What is the baby wearing?\"\n\n\"One of those one-piece things.\"\n\n\"Jack, what does it look like?\"\n\n\"Ah, long arms and legs, snaps...\"\n\n\"What is the pattern?\"\n\n\"Oh. Little animals, looks like.\"\n\nI took a deep, deep breath. \"Jack, what kind of animal?\"\n\n\"Giraffes,\" he said, after a long, analytical pause.\n\n\"Oh God,\" I said, scarcely conscious of what I was saying.\n\nEve came into the bedroom. She had picked up the baby and brought her with her. I looked at her white face, and I am sure I looked as stricken as I felt.\n\n\"Miss Lily,\" she said, and her voice was limp and a little sad. \"My dad's at the door. He came to get us.\"\n\n\"He's here,\" I said into the phone and hung up.\n\nI got on my knees in front of Eve. \"What were you going to tell me?\" I asked. \"I was wrong to go use the phone when you were waiting to talk to me. Tell me now.\"\n\nMy intensity was making her nervous, I could see, but it wasn't something I could turn off. At least she knew I was taking her seriously.\n\n\"He's here now, it's... I have to go home.\"\n\n\"No, you need to tell me.\" I said it as gently as I could, but firmly.\n\n\"You're strong,\" she said slowly. Her eyes couldn't meet mine. \"My dad said my mom was weak. But you're not.\"\n\n\"I'm strong.\" I said it flatly, with as much assurance as I could pack into a statement.\n\n\"Maybe... you could tell him me and Jane need to spend the night here, like we were supposed to? So he won't take us home?\"\n\nShe'd intended to tell me something else.\n\nI wondered how much time I had before Emory came to find out what was keeping us.\n\n\"Why don't you want to go home?\" I asked, as if we had all the time in the world.\n\n\"Maybe if he really wanted me to come, Jane could stay here with you?\" Eve asked, and suddenly tears were trembling in her eyes. \"She's so little.\"\n\n\"He won't get her.\"\n\nEve looked almost giddy with relief.\n\n\"You don't want to go,\" I said.\n\n\"Please, no,\" she whispered.\n\n\"Then he won't get you.\"\n\nTelling a father he couldn't have his kids was not going to go over well. I hoped Jack had found something, or Emory would make that one wrong move.\n\nHe'd have to. He'd have to be provoked.\n\nTime to take my gloves off.\n\n\"Stay here,\" I told Eve. \"This may get kind of awful, but I'm not letting anyone take you and Jane out of this house.\"\n\nEve suddenly looked frightened by what she had unleashed, realizing on some level that the monster was out of the closet now, and nothing would make it go back in. She had taken her life, and her sister's, in her own hands at the ripe old age of eight. I am sure she was wishing she could take back her words, her appeal.\n\n\"It's out of your hands now,\" I said. \"This is grown-up stuff.\"\n\nShe looked relieved, and then she did something that sent shivers down my back: She picked up the baby in her carrier and took her to a corner of the bedroom, pulling out the straight-backed chair that blocked it, crouching down behind it with the baby beside her.\n\n\"Throw Reverend O'Shea's bathrobe over the chair,\" the little voice suggested. \"He won't find us, maybe.\"\n\nI felt my whole body clench. I picked up the blue velour bathrobe that Jess had left lying across the foot of the bed and draped it over the chair.\n\n\"I'll be back in a minute,\" I said and went down the hall to the living room, Anna's milk-stained clothes still under my arm. I tossed them into the washroom as I passed it. I was trying to keep things as normal as I could. There were children here, in my care.\n\nEmory was standing just inside the front door. He was wearing jeans and a short jacket. He'd pulled his gloves off and stuck them in a pocket. His blond hair was brushed smooth, and he looked as if he'd just shaved. It was like... I hesitated to say this, even to myself.\n\nIt was like he was here to pick up his date.\n\nHis guileless blue eyes met mine with no hesitation. Luke, Anna, and Krista were playing a video game at the other end of the room.\n\n\"Hey, Miss Bard.\" He looked a little puzzled. \"I sent Eve back to tell you I'd decided the girls should spend the night at home, after all. I've imposed on the O'Sheas too much.\"\n\nI walked over to the television. I had to turn off the screen before the children would look at me. Krista and Luke were surprised and angry, though they were too well raised to say anything. But Anna somehow knew that something was wrong. She stared at me, her eyes as round as quarters, but she didn't ask any questions.\n\n\"You three go back and play in Krista's room,\" I said. Luke opened his mouth to protest, took a second look at me, and jumped up to run back to his sister's room. Krista gave me a mutinous glare, but when Anna, casting several backward looks, followed Luke, Krista left too.\n\nEmory had moved closer to the hall leading down to the bedrooms. He was leaning on the mantel, in fact. He'd pulled off his jacket. He was still smiling gently at the children as they passed him. I moved closer.\n\n\"The girls are going to stay here tonight,\" I said.\n\nHis smile began to twitch around the edges. \"I can take my children when I want, Miss Bard,\" he told me. \"I'd thought I needed time alone with my sister to plan the funeral service, but she had to go home to Little Rock tonight, so I want my girls to come home.\"\n\n\"The girls are going to stay here tonight.\"\n\n\"Eve!\" he bellowed suddenly. \"Come out here right now!\"\n\nI heard the children in Krista's room fall silent.\n\n\"Stay where you are!\" I called, hoping each and every one of them understood I meant it.\n\n\"How can you tell me I can't have my kids?\" Emory looked almost tearful, not angry, but there was something in the way he was standing that kept me on the edge of wary.\n\nTruth or dare. \"I can tell you that so easy, Emory,\" I said. \"I know about you.\"\n\nSomething scary flared in his expression for just a second. \"What the heck are you talking about?\" he said, permitting himself to show a reasonable anger and disgust. \"I came to get my little girls! You can't keep my little girls if I want them!\"\n\n\"Depends on what you want them for, you son of a bitch.\"\n\nIt was the bad language that cracked Emory's facade.\n\nHe came at me then. He grabbed one of the plastic icicles suspended from the garland on the O'Sheas' mantel, and if I hadn't caught his wrist, it would have been embedded in my neck. I overbalanced while I was keeping the tip away from my throat, and over we went. As Emory and I hit the floor with a thud, I could hear the children begin to wail, but it seemed far away and unimportant just now. I'd fallen sideways, and my right hand was trapped.\n\nEmory was small and looked frail, but he was stronger than I'd expected. I was gripping his forearm with my left hand, keeping the hard plastic away from my neck, knowing that if he succeeded in driving it in I would surely die. His other hand fastened around my neck, and I heard my own choking noises.\n\nI wrenched my shoulder in a desperate effort to pull my right hand out from under my body. Finally it was free, and I found my pocket. I pulled out the nail scissors and sunk them into Emory's side.\n\nHe howled and yanked sideways, and somehow I lost the scissors. But now I had two free hands. With both of them I forced his right hand back, heaved myself against him, and over we rolled with me on top but with his left hand still digging into my throat. I pushed his right arm back and down, though his braced left arm kept me too far away to force it to the ground and break it. I struggled to straddle him and finally managed it. By now I was seeing a wash of gray strewn with spots instead of living room furniture. I pushed up on my knees and then let my weight fall down on him as hard as I could. The air whooshed out of Emory's lungs then, and he was trying to gasp for oxygen, but I thought maybe I would give out first. I raised up and collapsed on him again, but like a snake he took advantage of my movement to start to roll on his side, and since I was pushing his right arm in that direction, I went, too, and now we were on the floor under the Christmas tree, the tiny colored lights blinking, blinking.\n\nI could see the lights blinking through the gray fog, and they maddened me.\n\nAbruptly, I let go of Emory's arm and snatched a loop of lights from the tree branches. I swung the loop around Emory's neck, but I wasn't able to switch hands to give myself a good cross pull. He drove the tip of the plastic icicle into my throat.\n\nThe plastic tip was duller than a knife, and I am muscular, so it still hadn't penetrated by the time the string of blinking lights around Emory's neck began to take effect.\n\nHe took his left hand from my throat to claw at the lights, his major error since I'd been right on the verge of checking out of consciousness. I was able to roll my head to the side to minimize the pressure of the icicle. I was doing much better until Emory, scrabbling around with that left hand, seized the stable of the manger scene and brought it down on my head.\n\nI was out only a minute, but in that minute the room had emptied and the house had grown silent. I rolled to my knees and pushed up on the couch. I took an experimental step. Well, I could walk. I didn't know how much more I was capable of doing, but I seized the nearest thing I could strike with, one of the long plastic candy canes that Lou had set on each side of the hearth, and I started down the hall, pressing myself against the wall. I passed the washroom on my left and a closet on my right. The next door on my left was Krista's room. The door was open.\n\nI cautiously looked around the door frame. The three children were sitting on Krista's bed, Anna and Krista with their arms around each other, Luke frantically sucking on his fingers and pulling his hair. Krista gave a little shriek when she saw me. I put my finger across my lips, and she nodded in a panicky way. But Anna's eyes were wide and staring as if she was trying to think of how to tell me something.\n\nI wondered if they would trust me, the mean stranger they didn't know, or Emory, the sweet man they'd seen around for years.\n\n\"Did he find Eve?\" I asked, in a voice just above a whisper.\n\n\"No, he didn't,\" Emory said and stepped out from behind the door. He'd gone by the kitchen; I saw by the knife in his hand.\n\nAnna screamed. I didn't blame her.\n\n\"Anna,\" said Emory. \"Sweet little girls don't make noise.\" Anna choked back another scream, scared to death he would get near her, and the resulting sound was terrifying. Emory glanced her way.\n\nI stepped all the way into the room, raised the plastic candy cane, and brought it down on Emory's arm with all the fury I had in me.\n\n\"I'm not sweet,\" I said.\n\nHe howled and dropped the knife. I put one foot on it and scooted it behind me with the toe of my shoe, just as Emory charged. The plastic candy cane must not have been very intimidating.\n\nThis time I was ready, and as he lunged toward me, I stepped to one side, stuck out one foot, and as he stumbled over it, I brought the candy cane down again on the back of his neck.\n\nIf the children hadn't been there I would have kicked him or broken one of his arms, to make sure I wouldn't have to deal with him again. But the children were there, Luke screaming and wailing with all the abandon of a two-year-old, and Anna and Krista both sobbing.\n\nWould hitting him again be any more traumatic for them? I thought not and raised my foot.\n\nBut Chandler McAdoo said, \"No.\"\n\nAll the fight went out of me in a gust. I let the red-and-white-striped plastic fall from my fingers to the carpet, told myself I should comfort the children. But I realized in a dim way that I was not at all comforting right now.\n\n\"Eve and Jane are behind the chair in the bedroom across the hall,\" I said. I sounded exhausted, even to myself.\n\n\"I know,\" Chandler said. \"Eve called nine-one-one.\"\n\n\"Miss Lily?\" called a tiny, shaky voice.\n\nI made myself plod into the master bedroom. Eve's head popped up from behind the chair. I sat on the end of the bed.\n\n\"You can bring Jane out now,\" I said. \"Thank you for calling the police. That was so smart, so brave.\" Eve pushed the chair out and picked up the infant seat, though now it was almost too heavy for her thin arms.\n\nChandler shut the door.\n\nIt promptly came open again and Jack came in.\n\nHe paused and looked me over. \"Anything broken?\" he asked.\n\n\"No.\" I shook my head and wondered for a second if I would be able to stop. It felt like pendulum set in motion. I rubbed my throat absently.\n\n\"Bruise,\" said Jack. I watched him try to decide how to approach me and Eve.\n\nWith great effort, I lifted my hand and patted Eve on the head. Then I folded her in my arms as she began to cry.\n\nI sat with Eve in my lap that night as she told the police what had been happening in the yellow house on Fulbright Street. Chandler was there, and Jack\u2014and Lou O'Shea, since Jess had passionately wanted to be there as Eve's pastor, but Eve had shown a definite preference for Lou.\n\nDaddy, it seemed, had started getting funny when it became apparent that the bills from Meredith's pregnancy and delivery were going to be substantial. He began to enjoy playing with his eight-year-old daughter.\n\n\"He always liked me to wear lipstick and makeup,\" Eve said. \"He liked me to play dress up all the time.\"\n\n\"What did your mom have to say about that, Eve?\" Chandler asked in a neutral voice.\n\n\"She thought it was funny, at first.\"\n\n\"When did things change?\"\n\n\"About Thanksgiving, I guess.\"\n\nIt was just after Thanksgiving that the article about unsolved crimes had appeared in the Little Rock paper. With the picture of the baby in the giraffe sleeper. The same baby sleeper that Meredith had kept all these years in a box on the closet shelf, as a memento of her baby's first days.\n\n\"Mama wasn't happy. She'd walk around the house and cry. She had a hard time taking care of Jane. She...\" Eve's voice dropped almost to a whisper. \"She asked me funny questions.\"\n\n\"About...?\" Chandler again.\n\n\"About did Daddy touch me funny.\"\n\n\"Oh. What did you tell her?\" Chandler sounded quiet and respectful of Eve, as if this was a very ordinary conversation. I had not known my old friend could be this way.\n\n\"No, he never touched me... there. But he liked to play Come Here Little Girl.\"\n\nMy stomach heaved.\n\nI won't go through it all, but the gist of it was that Emory liked to deck Eve in lipstick and rouge and call her over to him as if they were strangers and induce her to touch him through his pants.\n\n\"So what else happened?\" Chandler asked after a moment.\n\n\"He and Mama had a fight. Mama said they had to talk about when I was born, and Daddy said he wouldn't, and Mama said... oh, I don't remember.\"\n\nHad Meredith asked him if Eve was their baby? Had she asked him if he was molesting the child?\n\n\"Then Mama or Daddy got my memory book and took a page out of it. I didn't see them do it, but when I got home one day, the page was missing, my favorite picture of me and Anna and Krista. It had been cut out real neat, so I think Mama did it. So the next time I spent the night with Anna, I took it over there with me, so Mama couldn't cut out any more pages.\"\n\nJack and I met each other's eyes.\n\n\"Then Mama said I needed a blood test. So I went to Dr. LeMay, and he and Miss Binnie took some blood and said they were going to test it, and I had sure been a good girl, and he gave me a piece of candy.\n\n\"Mama told me not to tell anyone, but Daddy saw the needle mark when he bathed me that night! But I didn't tell, I didn't!\" Big tears rolled down Eve's cheeks.\n\n\"No one thinks you did anything wrong,\" I said.\n\nI hadn't realized how tense she was until she relaxed.\n\n\"So Daddy found out. I think he went looking and found the paper Mama got from the doctor.\"\n\nThe lab results? A receipt for whatever Meredith had paid for the blood test?\n\n\"So the next night he said Mama needed a break and he was going to take us out.\"\n\n\"And you got in the car, right?\" Chandler asked.\n\n\"Yep, me and Jane. I was buckling her car seat when Daddy said he'd left his gloves. He opened the trunk and got something out and put it on, and he went in the house. After a few minutes he came back out with something under his arm, and he put it in the trunk and we went out to eat. When we got home...\" Eve began to cry in earnest then.\n\nChandler slipped out with Emory's keys to open Emory's trunk. He came back in five minutes.\n\n\"I got some people looking and taking pictures,\" he said quietly. \"Come on, sweetie, let's put you on a bed for a little while, so you can lie still.\"\n\nLou, who had tears running down her face, held out her arms to Eve, and Eve allowed Lou to pick her up and carry her off.\n\n\"What was in the trunk?\" Jack asked.\n\n\"A clear plastic raincoat with lots of stains and a single-edge kitchen knife.\"\n\nI shuddered.\n\nJack and Chandler began to have a very important talk.\n\nChandler called over to the men searching the house on Fulbright Street. In about thirty minutes, thin Detective Brainerd brought a familiar shoe box into the bedroom at the manse.\n\nJack put on gloves, opened the box, and began to smile.\n\nDill and Varena had taken Anna home long before, and I could assume they'd made a report to my parents about where I was.\n\nJack dropped me at his motel room while he went to the jail to have a conversation with Emory Osborn.\n\nWhen he returned, I was still lying on the bed staring at the ceiling. I still had my coat on. My throat hurt.\n\nWithout speaking, Jack consulted an address book he fished out of his briefcase. Then he picked up the phone, took a deep breath, and began dialing.\n\n\"Roy? How you doing? Yeah, I know what time it is. But I thought you should be the one to call Teresa and Simon. Tell them we got the little girl... of course I wouldn't kid about something like that. No, I don't want to call them, it's your case.\" Jack held the phone away from his ear, and I could hear Roy Costimiglia shouting on the other end. When the sound had abated a little, Jack started talking, telling Roy as much as he could in a few sentences.\n\n\"No, I don't know... they better call their lawyer, have her come down before they come down. I think there's a lot of steps to go through, but Osborn actually admitted it. Yeah.\" Jack eased back on the bed until he was lying beside me, his body snug against mine. \"He delivered his own baby at home, and the baby died. I think there's something kinda hinky about that, it was a baby boy... and he definitely likes little girls. Anyway, he felt guilty and he couldn't tell his wife. He gave her a strong painkiller he'd been taking for a back injury, she conked out, he began riding around trying to think of how to tell her the baby didn't make it. He lived right close to Conway, and he found himself just cruising through Conway at random, he says. Yeah, I don't know whether to buy that, either, especially in view... wait, let me finish.\" Jack pulled off his shoes. \"He says he rode through the Macklesbys' neighborhood, recognized the house because he'd delivered a couch there about four months before. He liked Teresa, thought she was pretty. Suddenly he remembered that Teresa had been pregnant, wondered if she'd had the baby... he watched the house for a while, says he was too distraught to go home and face his wife. Suddenly, he got his chance to make everything better. He saw Teresa come out onto the porch with the baby in her carrier, stop, put her down, and go back in the house. She was such a bad mother she didn't deserve a baby, he decided, and she already had two, anyway. His wife didn't have one. He took Summer Dawn home with him.\"\n\nRoy must have been talking again. I could feel my eyes grow heavy now that Jack's warmth relaxed me. I turned on my side facing him, my eyes closing just for a minute since he had the bedside lamp on and the glare was unpleasant.\n\n\"He took Meredith to the doctor the next day, told the doctor that he'd taken the baby to a pediatrician already. He couldn't have their doctor examine the baby, because he figured that the umbilical thingy was more healed than it would be on a one-day-old baby.\"\n\nRoy talked for a minute. It was a distant buzz. I kept my eyes shut.\n\n\"Yeah, he's confessed all the way. Says it was all his wife's fault for having a baby that died and it being a boy, for interrupting his fun with the little girl he'd so thoughtfully gotten for her, for beginning to wonder where that little girl had come from when she saw the photo in the paper... evidently, Meredith took the little girl in for a blood test, found out she couldn't be her daughter. But she loved her so much, she couldn't make up her mind what to do. Emory found out about the blood test, decided Meredith was a traitor, and killed her. He broke into my hotel room, found the pages she'd mailed me... it made him feel justified.\"\n\nSome more talk.\n\nThen Jack asked, \"You gonna call them now or wait till the morning?\"\n\nSometime after that, I lost track of what Jack was saying.\n\n\"Baby?\"\n\nI blinked. \"What?\"\n\n\"Baby, it's morning.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"You got to go home and get ready for the wedding, Lily.\"\n\nMy eyes flew open. It was definitely daytime. In a panic, I glanced at the bedside clock. I exhaled a long sigh of relief when I saw it was only eight o'clock.\n\nJack was standing by the bed. He'd just gotten out of the shower.\n\nNormally in the morning I jump out of bed and get moving, but I felt so groggy. Then I remembered the night before, and I knew where I was.\n\n\"Oh, I do have to get home, I hope they're not worried,\" I said. \"I've been so good this whole visit, I've done everything right! I hate to blow it the last day.\"\n\nJack laughed. It was a good sound.\n\nI sat up. He'd taken my coat off some time during the night. I'd slept in my clothes, with no shower, and I needed to brush my teeth in the worst possible way. When Jack bent down to hug me, I backed off.\n\n\"No no no,\" I said firmly. \"Not now. I'm disgusting.\"\n\nWhen Jack saw I meant it, he perched in one of the vinyl chairs. \"Want me to go get us some coffee?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh, bless you for thinking of it, but I better get to my folks' and let them see me.\"\n\n\"Then I'll see you at the wedding.\"\n\n\"Sure.\" I reached out, stroked his arm. \"What were you doing last night?\"\n\n\"While you were confronting the real kidnapper?\" Jack looked at me darkly. \"Well, sweetheart, I was rear-ending your soon-to-be brother-in-law.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I decided the only way to look inside the car trunks\u2014 which, if you'll remember, was your suggestion\u2014was to have a little accident with the cars involved. It would be reasonable to look in the trunk after that. I figured if I hit them just right, the trunk would open anyway.\"\n\n\"Did you hit Jess?\"\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\n\"And Dill, too?\"\n\n\"I was about to. But I was thinking I'd get whiplash, so I'd decided just to out-and-out break into Emory's. Then I got your call. I got to the O'Sheas' house just as your ex-boyfriend was pulling up. He cuffed me.\"\n\n\"He what?\"\n\n\"I didn't want him going in ahead of me, so he cuffed me.\"\n\nI didn't know what to say. I was trying not to smile.\n\n\"I better go get cleaned up,\" I told him. \"You'll be there?\"\n\n\"I brought my suit,\" he reminded me.\n\nThe only day it was possible for my parents not to cast me disapproving looks was Varena's wedding day. They were not excited that Jack had dropped me off in front of the house in broad daylight, with me wearing yesterday's clothes.\n\nBut in the melee of the wedding day\u2014and the day before\u2014it could be legitimately ignored.\n\nI took a very long shower and brushed my teeth twice. To regain control of myself, I shaved my legs and armpits, plucked my eyebrows, spent ten or fifteen minutes putting on lotions and makeup.\n\nIt was only after I came into the kitchen in my bathrobe to drink some coffee that my mother spotted the bruise.\n\nShe put her own mug down with a clunk.\n\n\"Your neck, Lily.\"\n\nI looked in a little mirror in the hall outside the kitchen. My neck had a spectacular dark bruise.\n\n\"Emory,\" I explained, for the first time noticing how hoarse my voice was. I touched the dark splotch. Sore. Very sore.\n\n\"It's OK,\" I said, \"really. Just need to drink something hot.\"\n\nAnd that's all we said about the night before.\n\nIt was the best luck I ever had, that day being Varena's wedding day.\n\nAnd the next morning, Christmas Day, I drove home to Shakespeare.\n\nI thought during the drive: I thought what would become of the baby, Jane, whom Eve (I had to think of her as Eve Osborn) regarded as her sister. I wondered what would happen in the days to come, when the Macklesbys would finally get to put their arms around their daughter. I wondered when I'd have to go back to testify at Emory's trial. It gave me the cold shakes, thinking of going back to Bartley again, but I would feel more amenable when the time was closer, I hoped.\n\nI didn't have to talk to anyone or listen to anyone for four whole hours.\n\nThe tatty outskirts of Shakespeare were so welcome to my eyes that I almost cried.\n\nThe decorations, the smoke coming out of the chimneys, the empty lawns and streets: Today was Christmas.\n\nIf my friend Dr. Carrie Thrush had remembered, the turkey would be thawed and waiting to be put in the oven.\n\nAnd Jack, having detoured to Little Rock to pick up some more clothes, was on his way.\n\nThe presents I'd bought him were wrapped and in my closet. The spinach Madeleine, the sweet potato casserole, and the cranberry sauce were in the freezer.\n\nI shed the past as I pulled into my own driveway.\n\nI would have a Shakespeare Christmas."
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "title": "(Ghost Huntress 7) The Tidings",
        "author": "Marley Gibson",
        "genres": [
            "Christmas",
            "paranormal"
        ],
        "tags": [],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "Chapter 1",
                "text": "\u2002To Professor Deidre Knight, who tossed me the magical bean seed of an idea so that I could plant it, water it, and watch it grow into a gigantic paranormal beanstalk for readers to climb up this holiday season. Wow, there's a sentence that includes everything but the kitchen sink! Thank you for constantly inspiring me.\n\n\u2002\"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future! The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this.\"\n\n\u2014Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol\n\n[ STANZA 1: KAITLIN'S APPRENTICE ]\n\nI can't freakin' believe how utterly stressed out and exasperated this ridiculous joke of a Christmas season is making me. In a nod to Mr. Dickens's time-tested opus, my holiday spirit is akin to Old Jacob Marley: dead as a doornail. And poor, misunderstood Ebenezer Scrooge was definitely on to something with his 'tude and outlook\u2014even back in his day\u2014on this taxing and hectic time of year.\n\nBah! Humbug!\n\nIt'll take all my strength and intestinal fortitude just to model through these last few days of December to get to the other side of the calendar flip.\n\nNothing's going right and everyone wants a piece of me. There aren't enough hours in the day to get everyone else's \"to do\" lists accomplished. Not that I'm a selfish cow who doesn't understand the true meaning of the holiday, but after all I've been through recently, is it too much to want some quality Kendall time for just\u2026being? The frustration rolling through my veins is enough to rattle my chains. And I'm not a Dickens ghost at all \u2013 although I've encountered plenty.\n\nI'm seriously about one inch close to the point of making a grand proclamation that Christmas is canceled.\n\nA long, pent-up sigh escapes me as I try to concentrate on this tarot card reading I've got going for Suzanne Pilfer, the nice postal clerk who's been working extra hours sorting and stacking Priority Mail packages, just so she can have some time off to go up to Stone Mountain to enjoy a lovely roasted goose dinner with her daughter, Chandra Pilfer, and her eight year old grandson, Max. The cards don't have anything encouraging for me to tell to Suzanne, though. Instead, my psychic headache tap dances away at my temple as visions of Suzanne's future materialize to me. Sadly, the premonition grips at my heart like it's juicing a fresh orange. I see little Max, wigged out over his new video games Santa brought him, but it's not a lasting kid high. Because I also see that Max will inevitably be fighting spinal meningitis in the near future. Geez, what part of \"Happy Holidays\" does that fall under?\n\nSuzanne taps a red glittery nail on the table bringing me back into the present. \"So what does that card mean, Kendall?\"\n\nI wince inwardly, tamping down my desire to flip the table like a gansta' and walk out, thereby erasing the message from the cards. How do I relay the news of her grandson to this sweet lady when all she really wants to know about is her own financial security, her daughter's happiness, and if there will still be a United States space program in the future so Max can become an astronaut?\n\nLying isn't really part of the whole enlightened and awakened game when doing a reading. It doesn't lend to your integrity as a budding psychic, one who people come to for guidance and answers. However, I can't just, like, ruin this woman's Christmas or her holiday or her\u2026 everything. I swallow hard at the need to spread good tidings and great joy to Ms. Pilfer.\n\nI move my hand to indicate the Ace of Wands lying on the velvet table cloth. \"This card usually signifies a new spark of energy. A new passion.\"\n\nHer face lights up and she sits tall. \"Ooo, I like the sound of that.\"\n\nGulping down my own distress, I force away the image of Max crashing his bicycle into the side of his mother's car that seems to be replaying non-stop in the DVR of my brain. I brush aside Max's possible skull trauma that allows nasal cavity bacteria to creep in and spread the meningitis through his young body. I'm certainly no medical doctor\u2014just a teenage psychic who picks up energies and sees visions\u2014so who am I to rain on Suzanne's family parade? I blink hard to ponder on this card's meaning.\n\nKeep it positive and light.\n\n\"You might be out to discover some new concept or philosophy or a change in your career path. Or, it could mean a new man in your life.\"\n\nA smile brightens her sun-wrinkled sixty year old face. \"Well, my Walter has been gone for eight years.\"\n\nI nod. \"Pay attention to any surges in your personal energy. The Ace of Wands is telling you to pick up this opportunity and start walking.\"\n\nWalking. How ironic. Sadly, Max will have difficulty with the simplest trip across a room if the meningitis visualization is true.\n\n\"You're so good at this, Kendall,\" Ms. Pilfer tells me. \"I do so enjoy your readings.\"\n\nShe opens her black leather Betsey Johnson wallet\u2014that my intuition tells me she sniped with three minutes to go in a recent eBay auction\u2014and passes over a twenty dollar bill. Reluctantly, I take it from her and try to offer the best smile that I can.\n\n\"You have a h-h-happy holiday, Miss Suzanne.\"\n\n\"Same to you, dear.\"\n\nAs she heads out the door into the chilly December day, a clog of emotion lodges itself in my throat and I sense tears beginning to well up. Good thing it didn't happen in front of a client.\n\nMy heartbeat hammers away inside my chest and I feel the proverbial weight of the world rest on my shoulders. As much as I'm trying to work with my still-developing gift, the empathy aspect of it sometimes makes me want to crawl under the kitchen table, curl up into the fetal position, and suck my thumb.\n\nI blink away the nonsense swimming around in my own head. Overhead, the Muzak in the store pipes up with Burl Ives's \"Have a Holly Jolly Christmas,\" and I want to hurl the pack of tarot cards at the corner speaker. Anger and defeat and sheer exhaustion roil through my body and I want to scream out at someone.\n\nSchool has been a stress-bomb with a multitude of calculus exams eating at my very brain cells, coupled with miles and miles of reading and essay assignments in AP English class. Then, I've been working extended hours here at Loreen's store, Divining Women, assuaging the townsfolk of Radisson, Georgia, about their futures. Who am I to tell these people about their possible paths when my own is so bumpy and uncertain at the moment?\n\nMy besties and fellow ghost huntresses, Celia Nichols, Taylor Tillson, Becca Asiaf, and I have been overrun with paranormal investigation requests of late, as well. You'd think every freaking ghost, spook, specter, apparition, presence, wraith, phantom, demon, whatever in Radisson and surrounding counties had nothing better to do other than annoy the crap out of their host families. After all the cases we've handled since the school year started, I'm about EMF'd, EVP'd, and KII'd to death. Pun intended.\n\nOn top of everything else, Loreen and Father Mass are getting married Christmas Eve night and I'm the maid of honor. That's wicked cool and\u2014as the title says\u2014a total honor. Thing is, I've taken the task to the extreme, trying to shoulder the burden of the event's deadlines, seating charts, and floral arrangements for Loreen while she tends to all of her last minute items like the bad dress fitting in Buckhead, the caterer who refuses to take the walnuts out of the red velvet wedding cake, and the fact that her own father wants nothing to do with the ceremony. Most depressing of all, though, is that it finally hits me that Patrick's blowing off being together for Christmas so he can go diving in Belize with his dad at something called The Blue Hole. After everything we've been through, I just wanted to be with my sweetie, and spend time making out under the mistletoe and dancing in his arms at the wedding reception.\n\nAnd don't even get me started on the queen diva herself, my little sister, Kaitlin. Casa Moorehead has become The Kaitlin Show. She won the part of the major soloist/angel in the church pageant, beating out her best friend, Penny Carmichael. Kaitlin gets to stand high atop the living Christmas tree in a fancy, sparkly gown, and sing \"O, Holy Night\" during the Eucharist service. Not that I wanted the role\u2014God knows I couldn't hit the high C in that song\u2014but it's propelled our household into a frenzied high of all-Kaitlin, all-day. I feel like an unwelcomed stranger as Mom tends to my sister's costume, planning out her hair design, and calling every living soul in Radisson on her cell to brag about Kaitlin's starring part.\n\nI suppose I should be proud of my sister and all of that, but I can't bring myself to rah-rah, thereby putting a spotlight on Kaitlin and making her the center of attention, like she so desires twenty-four/seven.\n\nSchool, Patrick's vacay, the wedding, and Kaitlin's drama aside\u2026 there's the ultimate in final straw department. One of those last drops of trouble that cause the emotional liquids to spill over. The type of thing that breaks the camel's back and depresses an already tense and terse teenager: I had longed to have some holiday bonding time with my newly-discovered grandparents, Anna and John Faulkner. They're the parents of my deceased birth mother, Emily, and I only just found them last summer when I was in Italy. I wanted nothing more than to have them with me on Christmas morning as we all awakened to my mother's breakfast smorgasbord of frittata, home fries, fresh baked bread, and, yes, figgy pudding. A family tradition that dates back in the Moorehead household to before I was even born.\n\nOf course, now, that's all out the window because my grandparents got a \"good deal\" they \"couldn't pass up\" and opted to take a seniors cruise throughout the Mediterranean instead of flying from Italy to the states to be with me.\n\nSeriously\u2026 bah freakin' humbug!\n\nWhy wouldn't I want to cancel Christmas?\n\nI honestly just want to go to bed Christmas Eve and wake up the Monday after New Year's, ready for whatever academic challenges the next school semester holds for me.\n\nAnother sigh escapes from me, bouncing off the walls of Loreen's now empty shop. Other than requests for readings and the occasional candle purchases, our foot traffic has been nil this holiday shopping season. The folks of Radisson are off in Atlanta spending their hard-earned money on trinkets and presents their relatives likely won't appreciate. I know I don't care what I get for Christmas this year.\n\nSo what?\n\nWho cares?\n\nWhat's the point?\n\nI nab my bag, turn off the heat, the lights, and the annoying Muzak, and lock up the shop. Outside, a whipping chill surrounds me with tickling fingers of annoyance. Not cold enough for a good, strong, blast of snow to blanket the city, but not warm enough that I can go without tucking my North Face jacket tightly under my chin. The bright, white, decorative lights wrapped around the street lamps spring to life and fill the Square in a holiday glow. Emerald greenery with red bows and finely crafted wreaths hang from nearly every business door, the evergreen scent wafting in the air with each gust of December wind. In the center of the Square, a full nativity scene in a small, handcrafted stable is showcased with a huge orangey spotlight on the Baby Jesus. Too bad one of the wise men has fallen over with his face in the hay, totally ruining the effect.\n\nThe ginormous gifted tannenbaum from Radisson's sister city, Radisson, Saskatchewan, Canada, stands tall in front of City Hall where my dad works. Oversized silver and gold ornaments sway in the night breeze. I wish it all meant something to me. I wish it had an effect on me. I wish it mattered.\n\nDon't get me wrong. Typically, I adore everything December. I am, after all, a Capricorn myself, born on the twenty-second of the month. I'm eighteen now. An adult. Able to cast a vote in an election, go to war, and move out on my own. Not that I want to do the latter two. As I trudge along the sidewalk headed for home, I recollect days gone by. A different life I once led: I thrived in my former Chicago existence, frolicking in the thick, wet snow, shopping for hours up and down the Miracle Mile, and peering at the window displays on State Street with my nose pressed against the glass staring wide-eyed at the shiny, sparkling ornaments and festive decorations.\n\nNow look at me. I'm not the same Kendall I was then.\n\nI'm changed.\n\nSure, I'm older, but I've had a lot of shit happen. I'm the poster child for it. A new town, a new school, a psychic awakening, a near-death experience, finding out I'm adopted, boys coming in and out of my life, and now this. This squeezing, wrenching, gasping, scraping, clutching\u2014okay, I took that from Dickens\u2014at my heart, tugging me in directions I didn't know I was headed in. The harshness of my recent experiences\u2014dealing with the dead, helping them pass into the light, or facing down malevolent and belligerent spirits who mean harm to me and my friends\u2014well, it toughens up a person. It gives you a hard edge you didn't otherwise have before, a tight grip around your soul that sucks the meaning of everything out of the corners of your brain.\n\nEven though Radisson isn't freezing, I am icy cold on the inside suddenly. Resentful and offended. Disappointed and disjointed. The idea of the familial warmth of Christmas morning does nothing to thaw the ice-age thickness of bitterness within me. Neither does the glory of a worshipful church pageant or the impending wedded bliss of my good friends.\n\nFifteen minutes later, I burst through the back door of our house. My three cats, Buckley, Eleanor, and Natalie, scatter away in surprise as I barrel past their food bowls. I toss my bag and purse on the kitchen table and move to the counter to seek something warm and caffeinated.\n\n\"Kendall? Is that you?\" my mom calls out.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\" I grab a mug, fill it with water from the Brita, and slide it into the microwave to heat for two minutes.\n\n\"I'm so glad you're home,\" she says from the front stairwell.\n\nI smile at the thought of Mom missing me even though I've just been away for the last day of school and working at Loreen's store. The microwave beeps out and I add a tea bag to the water to steep\u2014something I learned to appreciate during my time in London over the summer.\n\nMom's footsteps sound out overhead and I hear her shuffle down the steps. My annoyance at the world ebbs for a mere sec as I anticipate the loving embrace she's surely going to wrap me in when she appears next to me here in the kitchen. And boy, could I ever use one of my mom's hugs.\n\nIt doesn't happen, though, as she stops in front of me with a grimace on her face. \"You've got to help me, Kendall.\"\n\nSo much for my hug. \"Umm, okay. What's wrong?\"\n\n\"Kaitlin tore the hem of her angel gown when she was trying it on earlier. I told her not to wear her soccer shoes, but she stubbornly refused. Look at this mess those cleats caused.\" Mom holds up the shimmery white and silver fabric with the hem dangling off the left side in a gnarled way. \"I've got to run out to JoAnn's for more fabric to finish the gossamer wings in time for tomorrow night's service. You simply have to stitch this up, please.\"\n\n\"Me?\" I ask incredulously. \"Why me?\"\n\nMom's face tightens. \"Please, Kendall. Don't give me any lip. This is important to your sister.\"\n\nYet no one cares about what's important to me. I hang my head in defeat.\n\nDisappointment coats me. Not only from the lack of hugging, but the somewhat Cinderella-esque feeling of only being needed to do someone else's dirty work. That's what these past few weeks have been all about, though. School first. Kaitlin's spotlight. Patrick's dive trip. My grandparents' cruise. Loreen and Mass's wedding.\n\nWhere do I fit into all of this?\n\nI snatch the garment out of Mom's hand and take the Tupperware container that has all of her sewing accoutrements. Mom slides her purse up onto her shoulder and disappears through the back door.\n\n\"Stupid Kaitlin.\" Brat extraordinaire. Not even my real sister. But Mom and Dad's real daughter. Immediately, I tamp down the heartburn of guilt over the thought. Mom and Dad have never treated me differently or shown favoritism\u2026 at least not until now. I guess the brat deservers some attention after all the stupidity I've been dealing with.\n\nI plop down in the arm chair in the corner of the kitchen and feel my bottom lip protrude into a downright pout. Even though I hear the heater kick on, nothing can warm me right now. I've moved beyond the winter chill. I've bought property in Bitterville where I'm pelted with the cold reality that this Christmas officially sucks.\n\nNo one cares about me, my wants, my needs, my desires. Not that I'm some narcissistic, needy person like Courtney Langdon at school. However, no one has stopped for one second to ask me how I am or what I'm up to. No one's really thought to focus on how stressed out I am or how I can't sleep through the night lately.\n\nJust then, Buckley chases Eleanor through the kitchen playfully and even they don't stop to pay any mind to me. \"Don't act like I'm the one who fills your magical unending Iams food dishes daily!\"\n\nThey continue along in their play. I continue to linger in my angst.\n\nThe wind rattles the kitchen window pane and I hear the pine needles scrape against the glass. I stab the thread through the eye of the needle and roll the end of the strand into a tiny knot. Kaitlin should be doing this herself. Why should I have to be responsible to help out all because I'm the oldest and happen to have taken an embroidery class three years ago?\n\nI plunge the needle into the fabric and straight into my index finger.\n\n\"Crap!\"\n\nA scarlet ooze of blood clouds out of my skin.\n\nAnd just like that, no good deed goes unpunished.\n\nSee what I mean? Bah-freaking-humbug."
            },
            {
                "title": "STANZA 2: A CHEERLEADER'S GHOST",
                "text": "I rummage through the junk drawer in the kitchen to try and find a Band-Aid from this century.\n\n\"Stupid Kaitlin,\" I mutter again, sucking the fresh blood off my finger.\n\nAs I roll the bandage around the reddened pin prick, I muse on how I ought to be happy in a million ways, like the song says. I usually adore Christmas, especially Christmas Eve. It's just that everything is so\u2026 stupid right now. Sure, we've got this massive evergreen in the living room decorated to the hilt with all of the ornaments Kaitlin and I handmade over the years\u2014from pathetic macaroni, yarn, and glue art, to more sophisticated painted clay shapes\u2014but where's the snow? Where are the mittens, scarves, and boots? There's no hill covered in ice to slide down. No frozen-over lake to skate on. Instead, Mom has a few logs burning in the fireplace to try and institute a genuine holiday experience. I shake my head at the ridiculousness of it.\n\nAs I sit back and return to stitching Kaitlin's dress, the door of the house bursts open. Buckley lets out a loud mewl and I hear the human mimicking of the kitty language.\n\n\"A merry Christmas, Kendall! God save you!\" cries out my best friend, Celia Nichols.\n\n\"It's not Christmas yet,\" I say in my best Scrooge voice.\n\nCelia twirls\u2014yes, she twirls\u2014into the kitchen so quickly at me, I barely have the chance to prepare for the over-the-shoulder hug she layers on me.\n\n\"A merry Christmas eve-eve, Kendall,\" she corrects.\n\n\"Seriously. Bah humbug.\"\n\nShe harrumphs at me. \"You took Mr. Rorek's Dickens assignment too literal, K. School's out, we've got two weeks of vacay, and life is good.\"\n\nI slice my eyes up at her and glare. \"For you, maybe.\"\n\n\"Oh, you don't mean that.\"\n\nMid-stitch, I say, \"Yeah, I do. Why are you so frickin' merry?\"\n\nCelia pushes her black hair behind her ears and smiles at me. Not just a normal run-of-the-mill-happy grin. No, it's one of those movie star, up-on-the-silver-screen type of glints that tells me she's got something to share.\n\n\"What?\"\n\nLike a giddy girl, she says, \"Jason gave me my Christmas present early.\"\n\nA weak smile crosses my face. Not because Celia's now dating my ex, Jason Tillson, but because she's so ridonkulously in love and it shows. \"That's great,\" I force out. \"What'd he get you?\"\n\nShe pushes up the sleeve of her black sweater to reveal a pretty substantial piece of arm jewelry. \"It's the Pandora World Travelers bracelet.\"\n\nI nearly gag on my intake of breath. \"Holy crap, Celia! That's like an eight hundred dollar bracelet!\"\n\nHer eyes widen and she nods. \"I know. I totally freaked when I opened the box. But Jason told me his mother got it from Delta's lost and found. She discovered it on the floor in first class after one of her flights from New York to Atlanta. She did the whole turn into the proper authorities and such and waited like three months. When no one claimed it, she got to keep it. Jason thought it would be the perfect gift for me since it's got a London bus, the Eiffel Tower, an airplane, and the Roman Colosseum\u2014all things that are memories of our European trip together.\"\n\nI finger the charms \u2013 one with a camera, a peace sign, and Big Ben \u2013 remembering our summer journey. A trip that turned Celia and Jason into a couple. The same voyage that helped me finally discover my grandparents.\n\n\"If you weren't already the richest girl in Radisson, Celia, you would be with this piece of silver,\" I say, and force a smile.\n\n\"Don't be mad,\" she says. \"It was dumb luck, honestly. I'm sure Patrick has something incredible for you.\"\n\nI wave her away with my hand and keep sewing. \"I can't think about that,\" I tell her. \"He's got other things on agenda. He left already on his trip to Belize with his dad.\" Anger and frustration bubble under my skin. \"Things have been so tight for him and his dad,\" I say. \"I can't believe they're spending so much money going on a diving trip. He should have his head examined.\"\n\nCelia's glee fades into a frown. \"He didn't give you a present before he left?\"\n\nI shake my head.\n\nShe reaches out and pats my sewing hand. \"I'm sure he'll bring you something wicked cool from Belize. It's known for its, umm, you know\u2026 Belize stuff.\"\n\nI can't help but laugh at her attempt to cheer me up.\n\n\"So, my parents are having this big blow out dinner on Boxing Day,\" Celia tells me. \"You know, instead of tossing out the leftovers and such, they're pulling out the full, traditional, English stops and opening the house up to everyone in town to come over for a big after Christmas party.\"\n\n\"That sounds like fun,\" I say, knowing I don't want any part of it. By the twenty-sixth, I'll have fulfilled my sisterly duties to Kaitlin and her starring pageantry. My daughterly obligation helping out on Christmas day, and my maid of honor role to Loreen as she stand at the altar with Father Mass will be finished, as well. I don't care about after Christmas sales, bowl games, or parades. I plan on cowering under the covers with my ereader and music, barricading the outside world away from me.\n\nCelia continues. \"Dad's also inviting the folks from the shelter to come. You know, so they have more than just a soup-kitchen type holiday.\" Her face falls. \"There are so many more homeless people in Radisson than before. I thought with the new distribution center opening soon and jobs coming available, people would be doing better. So, we're just trying to help out.\"\n\n\"That's nice of you.\" And it is. But I just can't feel charitable right now when my own heart feels hollow and abandoned. \"You have to be careful, though, about who you just let wander around your house, Cel. You guys have, like, tons of art and silverware that someone could just walk away with.\"\n\nShe giggles at me. \"It's Christmas, Kendall. My dad has more than he could ever want or need. He wants to share.\"\n\nI stab the needle in and out of the hem, nearly finished. Kaitlin better appreciate this, but she probably won't\u2026 as usual.\n\n\"Come on, Kendall, say you'll come. What else do you have to do?\" Celia asks.\n\nMy mouth falls open and I feel my eyes grow wide in shock and awe.\n\n\"God, Kendall,\" she stumbles out. \"I didn't mean that. I'm a total idiot. I meant that Patrick won't be back yet and it'll be good to have your company. Everyone's going to be there: Taylor, Becca, Shelby-Nicole, Jason\u2026 it wouldn't be the same without you.\"\n\nI smile weakly at her as I set Kaitlin's gown on the table. \"You're hopeless,\" I say.\n\nShe lifts a brow at me. \"How so?\"\n\n\"You are so in love with Jason Tillson.\"\n\nRed stains her cheeks, then she confesses, \"Totally. Just like you're in love with Patrick Lynn.\"\n\nI'll give her that one.\n\n\"Say you'll come,\" she prods.\n\n\"I'll try. Okay? We'll see if my mood has improved by then.\"\n\nShe stands and laughs at me. \"I'm sure there's a pill your mom, the nurse, can give you for your Bah Humbuggery.\"\n\n\"Whatev\u2026.\"\n\nAs Celia exits out the back, the front door of the house bursts open and a melee of feet on the hardwood floor sounds out. My ears are treated to the near-bleeding sensation of the incessant chatter and squealing of fifteen-year-old girls. They pound their way through the dining room and into the kitchen: six sweaty soccer players covered in mud and dirt, now delving through our refrigerator for water and energy drinks.\n\n\"Kaitlin!\" I shout. \"Mom's told you not to track through the house after a soccer game.\"\n\n\"But we won, Kendall! You don't understand,\" she squeals. \"Like, this was the game. Brittney scored the last goal and then I flew in front of our goal to save the game.\" Underneath the caked-on red Georgia mud on my sister's face, I can make out her triumphant grin.\n\nShe moves as if to hug me, but then pulls back.\n\n\"That's awesome,\" I say, still correcting her. \"You still don't need to be in the house like that.\"\n\nShe lowers her eyes. \"You're right. Sorry. Hey, you want to see the trophy?\"\n\nI wave off her accomplishment. \"Not right now. I'm busy fixing your dress.\"\n\nI don't need my psychic abilities to read the disappointment on her face. Is she actually reaching out to me? I'm not sure since it's been so long.\n\nWe both begin to speak. My words are heard first. \"Why don't you guys go out on the deck and I'll bring the water and stuff out.\"\n\nA weak smile crosses her face. \"Thanks, Kendall.\" She turns to herd her crew toward the screened-in porch out back.\n\nGathering an armload of bottled water and a pack of Double Stuff Oreos, I swing through the door and place the refreshments on the table for Kaitlin and her friends. I know I should be all, like, big sister proud of the little brat and her accomplishment, but it only adds to how everything is all about her these days.\n\nKaitlin.\n\nThe real Moorehead daughter.\n\nNot the adopted one.\n\nNot like anyone necessarily treats me differently. I just feel different of late.\n\n\"Oh crap! I need to get going,\" Kaitlin's friend, Brittney says with a pout on her face.\n\n\"Why?\" Kaitlin asks.\n\nBrittney tosses a long, white box that she's been holding up on the table. \"I'm supposed to go with my mom and these other ladies to put flowers on the graves at the cemetery for the Daughters of the American Revolution.\"\n\n\"You can't leave. We're celebrating!\" Kaitlin pushes the container toward me. \"Kendall can do it.\"\n\nI pop to attention. \"Excuse me?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" my sister says. \"You're all into ghosts and spirits and stuff. Why don't you go do the flowers for Brittney so she can stay here with us?\"\n\n\"Please, Kendall,\" Brittney whines, followed by a course of other pleas from the girls.\n\nSeriously? First, I'm Kaitlin's seamstress. Now I'm her florist? I stop my annoyance for a minute and think this through. I need to be the bigger person, the big sis, and help out. Kaitlin's got her posse celebrating with her, so I should give them space and get out of the house.\n\n\"Sure, I'll do it.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Kendall! You're the best,\" Kaitlin says. Then, she surprises the hell out of me by giving me a tight hug. \"Really. Thanks.\"\n\n\"Ummm\u2026 okay.\"\n\nIs my sister actually starting to grow up? Wow. As I'm about to hug her back, she pulls away and returns to her friends. I smile inwardly at the rare sisterly moment that's literally as long as a finger snap.\n\nBundling back up in my coat, I thread my hounds tooth scarf around my neck. Since the sun is setting, the chill in the air is starting to nip a little harder. Not like Chicago lake effect cold, but I'll take this.\n\nIt takes five minutes for me to walk the small Radisson back streets to the city cemetery, a place I've been to many times in my ghost hunting and in my soul searching. This time, I hope to encounter nothing more than the other ladies of the DAR.\n\nA woman with long, blond hair waves to me. \"Kendall, it's so good to see you, hon.\" It's Mayor Donn Shy. She's a frequent tarot customer. My friends and I helped clear her house of a belligerent ghost.\n\n\"Hey, there,\" I say, returning the greeting. \"I'm filling in for Brittney who's over at my house celebrating a major soccer win.\"\n\nThe mayor's mouth stretches open. \"Well, that's certainly a lot more interesting than honoring the dead.\" She laughs and I join in, for no reason.\n\n\"We've covered the back lot,\" she tells me. \"If you can take that section over there, that would be wonderful. Plenty of graves from the American Revolution all the way up to Vietnam. Just place one of the poppies on the headstone, dear.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" I say with a nod.\n\nLeaving the white box on a nearby bench, I gather the ruby-red poppies into my hand and start walking the line of graves. An Army sergeant to my left. A Navy seal to the right. An unknown Civil War solider to the left. A WWII nurse on the right. Each receives a flower of memory, and I inwardly thank each of them for their service to our country and our freedom.\n\nAs I walk amongst the burial plots, I think of all the souls and spirits I've encountered during my psychic awakening. How many I've helped crossover into the light, and others who've fought me tooth and nail. A certain melancholy covers me as I remember a simpler time when all I worried about at Christmas was if I'd fall asleep early enough so that Santa would deliver the presents on time. Or thoughts of galoshes-ing up and joining the other neighborhood kids as we built snowmen and had fights from our snow forts on each side of the street of our Chicago neighborhood.\n\nNow, I'm so wrapped up with everyone else's to-dos, that I've pretty much forgotten who I am and what I want. I place a poppy on the tombstone of a Private B. D. Alanis and wonder if his life was spent serving others constantly, or if he ever had a chance to do the things he wanted to do.\n\nOn his headstone sits a marble angel, bent on her knees and her hands folded together in prayer. Peaceful. Serene. And\u2026.\n\nAlive?\n\nI jump back\u2014you'd think I'd be used to ghosts and spirits by now\u2014as the face of the angel springs to life, her features stretching and yawning as the essence within awakens. Not just awakens, but transforms into a face. One I hadn't thought of since her funeral last year. I rub my eyes at the apparition in the marble before me. It can't be.\n\nThen again, it can. So many strange things have happened to me since moving to Radisson, Georgia.\n\nThe stone angel's face morphs into that of my dearly departed friend. A Radisson High School cheerleader who was killed in a tragic car accident.\n\nIt couldn't be, though. I helped her pass into the light. She has no business remaining here.\n\nI glance over the knoll to the left and see the freshly grown grass plot of Farah Lewis, my classmate, my friend. Then, I turn back to the grave marker where the angel's face took on Farah's features. It was her face, but not anymore.\n\nSurely I'm going nuts, beans, and crackers.\n\nI stare at the angel again, rattled to my core, fearing that I didn't do my job and Farah has been relinquished to float the earth in some sort of purgatory.\n\n\"Get over it, Kendall,\" I hear.\n\nI spin around only to find myself alone. The other ladies from the DAR are too spread out in the cemetery for me to hear or see them.\n\n\"Okay, who's here?\" I ask bravely.\n\nThe wind whistles through the bare pecan trees and carries on it the soft sound of the bells from the Methodist church ringing out \"O Come All Ye Faithful.\"\n\n\"The faithful has come,\" I say to no one. \"Show yourself or else I can't help you.\"\n\n\"Oh, but Kendall,\" the soft voice says. \"I'm here to help you.\"\n\n\"Who are you?\"\n\n\"You know who I am.\"\n\nI bite my lip to stave off my growing annoyance\u2026 and fear. \"Seriously. I don't have time for games. It's getting dark, it's cold, and I need to get home.\"\n\n\"To what? Everyone who's ignoring you?\" the voice asks.\n\nTears threaten behind my eyes at this mocking spirit, one that knows the downward spiraling direction of my life. \"You don't scare me. Just show yourself and tell me what you want.\"\n\nThere. That sounded authoritative.\n\nBefore I know it, a thin mist creeps around my ankles and feet, lowering the temperature in the cemetery to a chilling degree of frost. A swirling vector of blue and white light in front of me makes me take a few steps back. I fist my hands together at my side, as if that will do any good against a malevolent spirit.\n\nThrough the brightness, a soft, warm smile appears, surrounded by the light chocolate skin and sky blue eyes I remember so well.\n\nHands on her hip, she says to me with a smirk, \"Don't tell me you don't remember your old friend, Farah.\"\n\nThe same face. The very same.\n\nI do everything in my power not to pass the hell out."
            },
            {
                "title": "STANZA 3: A DIRECTIVE FOR THE NIGHT",
                "text": "When I find my voice, I say, \"Farah, I helped you pass you into the light. What are you doing here?\"\n\nShe's no longer wearing the cheerleader uniform she had on when she was killed in the car accident. The same outfit I saw her in until she walked into the light. The very ensemble her parents donated to the school for them to make into a memorial. In its place, Farah is wearing a flowing white gown, sleeveless, and off the shoulder with sequins on the bodice. If I didn't know that she'd passed away tragically, I'd say she was practicing for a turn down the catwalk at the next Miss Georgia USA pageant.\n\nShe points to her gown. \"It's really lovely, isn't it?\"\n\n\"You look great,\" I say. \"But\u2026.\"\n\n\"The afterlife is good for me,\" she tells me. \"They really do have choirs of angels in heaven. I had to best this one girl for lead vocals in the upcoming Christmas pageant. She can't hit a high C like I can.\"\n\nFarah was a budding opera singer before her death. No one in Radisson could hold a candle to that girl's voice. Apparently, neither can anyone in heaven.\n\nI frown at her, though, an disbelieving look no doubt crossing my face. \"So, if you're all happy and singing up in heaven, why are you here right now?\"\n\nShe spreads her hands. \"I'd think that's pretty obvious.\"\n\n\"What do you want from me?\" I ask.\n\nFarah's booming voice, louder than any freight train of Cat5 hurricane, encompasses me. \"Oh honey, you have no idea.\"\n\nI drop the remaining poppies to the ground and cover my ears from the roaring sound of her words. My knees buckle from trembling and I fall forward. The sod is moist with evening dew and I feel it soak into my jeans, yet I can't move.\n\nThis ghost of my friend, who I crossed into the light, stands before me going against everything I've learned in my experiences investigating the paranormal. She shouldn't be here. She should be at peace. I should be at peace from her.\n\nThe built-up angst and anxiety of the weeks, and the disappointment leading up to this day, climb right up on my shoulders and press down like a cheerleader attempting a stunt. I'm not strong enough to hold up, though. Tears fall from my eyes as I think of my grandparents, Patrick, Celia and Jason, Loreen and Mass, Kaitlin and my parents. Everything. All of it. Who am I? Where do I fit in? Do I even belong?\n\n\"That's why I'm here, Kendall,\" the ghost says.\n\nSniffing, I ask, \"Why? To show me that I've failed?\"\n\nFarah's right next to me. \"Failed how?\"\n\nLooking up at her, I blink hard. \"You're here. I'm not a good ghost huntress if I can't keep you where you belong.\"\n\nFarah's laugh is as melodic as her singing voice. \"You believe in so many things, Kendall. But do you believe in yourself?\"\n\nI wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, the tears turning to near ice on my skin from the cold wind whipping around. \"What's the point? I'm a throw-away kid with no real family of my own. I'm part of someone else's household. All I'm good for is talking with the dead that wander the earth, but I can't even keep them in their place if you're any indication.\"\n\n\"Now it's my turn to 'Bah! Humbug!'\" Farah says, mockingly. \"We spirits are all tasked with certain things. We get to walk around all y'all and check in on those we care about. We still get to live in heaven and do our thing, but if we don't use our knowledge to help the living, then the living might make the same mistakes we made.\"\n\nI sit up. \"You mean, even if you pass into the light, you can still, like, be around your loved ones?\" Is my birth mom still with me and I just don't know it?\n\nFarah nods. \"I watch after my mama all the time. I always will. Just like she watched after me when I was growing up.\"\n\nMy heart hurts at the thought of Farah's grieving mother. Of my own tenderness and pain over discovering Emily and then having her fade away. So much to bear in such a short time. I mean, I think I've handled it okay up to now, but there's something about this Christmas season that really does make me want to jump off a cliff. Not that anyone would even notice with the way things have been going lately. I don't need to be the center of attention; I just need to be included in the warmth and glow and not merely as someone to do all the dirty work.\n\nFarah pulls a long, chunky necklace from the inside of her dress. \"This is the chain I made while I was alive. Every link and lock in it was made by me \u2013 my thoughts, actions, deeds, free will, love, hate, everything. I wear it now and always as a reminder of the things that held me back. What about your own chain, Kendall?\"\n\nI shake my head back and forth as my body trembles in the cold. \"This isn't happening. It's not happening.\"\n\n\"Yeah. It is.\"\n\n\"I haven't done anything wrong for you to come down from heaven and haunt me, Farah.\"\n\nShe laughs again. \"Oh, KM, you're so cute. Thing is, you are one angst-ridden, full of self-pity, woe-is-me girlfriend. You need to get over yourself before you start building up your own clunky necklace that you'll have to wear around for all eternity once you get up here to heaven.\"\n\nMy eyes pop open. \"I'm not ready to die! There are still so many things I want to do. Graduate high school, go to college, have a career, get married, have babies, all of it. Come on, Farah, tell me something good. Something positive.\"\n\n\"That's not really up to me, KM. You've got to get out of this holiday funk.\"\n\nStubbornly, I square up my chin. \"It's too hard.\"\n\nFarah spreads the layers of her dress out, displacing the mist hanging around us. \"I know where you're coming from. Christmas was always a belly-buster for me. Hours and hours of rehearsals. Singing day in and day out, praying I'd have my voice for the major performance. Add on to that my grandmother who lived with us who was always needed help because of her colostomy bag. Then there was working the food pantry at the church and giving out the pies. I don't remember actually enjoying the last three or four Christmases of my life because of the busy-ness of the season. I rarely looked up into the heavens to search out the star of God's promise to us. I never really thought about how Mary and Joseph were treated like crap by everyone and forced to stay in a barn where their baby was born. I mean, you have problems? Geesh\u2026 try being pregnant with a kid no one believes was conceived by God, and homeless, and poor and hungry. We've got it made, Kendall.\"\n\nI totally get what she's saying, but what can I do about something that happened over two thousand years ago when I can't even get a grip on my own life now?\n\nFarah shakes a finger at me. \"Seriously, KM, you have to listen to me. I have to get going in a minute.\"\n\nI sort of lunge for her; my arms connecting with nothing but air as I swing around. \"You can't leave me. You have to explain everything. You have to tell me what I'm doing wrong.\"\n\nA sigh escapes from Farah. \"I'm not here to tell you the answers. I'm here to tell you that you don't have to carry all of these burdens. That your heart can be light. You don't have to miss out on the holidays like I did because of how you perceive things to be. Let me help you escape the fate that fell on me.\"\n\nShocked and out of breath, I manage to ask, \"Am I going to die young, too?\"\n\nShe shrugs. \"All I know is you've got to get your act together, Kendall. And you're going to be visited by other spirits.\"\n\nI snicker unconsciously. \"Let me guess, three, right?\"\n\nShe flattens her lips. \"It's not a joke. But yes. Three.\"\n\nMaybe she listened too hard in Mr. Rorek's class about Dickens, as well. \"And if I listen to these three visitors, everything will be okay?\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\" Farah smoothes her hand down the front of her flowing dress. \"You can avoid certain fates in life if you just stop to think things through with your heart and not your head.\"\n\n\"What does that even mean?\"\n\n\"It means your first visitor will see you after midnight tonight. Officially Christmas Eve. Then the second visitor will be right after that, and then the third will follow. Listen to them. Learn from them. You have the chance to alter your present and influence your future.\"\n\nI stand and wipe the dirt and grass off of my clothes. \"But every breath we take, every step we make\u2014and I don't mean that in a Police singing sort of way\u2014can amend the path of our lives.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" Farah says. \"And it's all up to you.\"\n\n\"Kendall, dear, are you finished over there?\" Mayor Shy shouts at me through the mist.\n\nI turn to seek her out, but see nothing. Then I spin back to where Farah was standing and she, too, is gone.\n\n\"Whattaya know about that?\"\n\n\"Kendall?\" the mayor calls again from the darkness.\n\nAny traces of the burnt orange sunset are now gone, replaced by inky blackness. My skin feels clammy and cold around me and I want to go home.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" I say back. \"I-I-I'm all finished.\"\n\nI join the rest of the ladies and hand over the remainder of the now wilted poppies. Then, without saying much more, I excuse myself and run home. I mean, literally. I run the four blocks, not stopping for any reason as if the devil himself is chasing me.\n\nOnce inside, I bypass the kitchen that is a mess thanks to Kaitlin and her friends, ignore the pizza box with a note attached to it\u2014from my mother telling me she's taking Kaitlin to practice and this is my dinner\u2026 I can read it psychically\u2014and head straight upstairs to the bathroom. There, I strip down to my birthday suit and step into the shower. I jerk on the knobs and adjust the shower head until the water is punishing me with hot streams. I let it rain over me, washing away the encounter with Farah, and scrubbing away at the elves of self-doubt that have been my constant companions of late.\n\nI try to shuck off the warning Farah gave. Not to end up like her. To take the time to appreciate life and enjoy things more. Can I? Is that possible when I have a gift like I do? When I'm visited by spirits like her? And now, I can expect three more spirits over the course of the night.\n\nWTF? Geez Louise! Who will they be? What will they expect of me? Do I need to get dressed and be ready, sitting on the edge of my bed?\n\nThis is seriously the last thing I want to deal with right now.\n\nI turn off the nozzles of the shower and reach for a towel. The Downy-soft fabric is comforting against my skin as I wipe away the water. I shake off what happened earlier. The visit from Farah was nothing but an apparition. My mind playing tricks on me. My psychic abilities poking fun at me and making me see things that weren't even there.\n\nBack in my room, I change into my flannel Sponge Bob\u2014there will be no judging\u2014pajamas and toe socks with the black cats on the bottom. I spend fifteen minutes upside down as I blow dry my hair, brushing it to smooth out the curls.\n\nFinally, I lie down on the bed and crawl under the covers. My teeth chatter slightly as I hear the familiar hiss of the heater coming to life. This is certainly no Chicago winter, but I'm still absolutely frozen to the bone. I squeeze my eyes shut, thinking the temperature drop might be due to paranormal activity. Can't they leave me alone for one night?\n\nI peel my eyelids open and fortunately there aren't any visitors in my room. All of the lights are off except for the ones that swirl around the tiny silver and pink Christmas tree I got out of the attic. The mauve hue reflecting off the tinsel warms and relaxes me as I sink deeper into my mattress.\n\nIn the darkness, the shadows of two cat tails reflect on the side wall. Before I know it, Eleanor and Natalie hop up on the bed and end up in one big furry bundle at my feet, washing each other and purring at the same time. See, even my cats are busy multi-tasking.\n\nA deep sigh escapes from me as I close my eyes. Tomorrow's a big day. Christmas Eve and all that the day implies. I have to be at the church early for the parishioner's breakfast, followed by wrapping presents for the kids at the cancer hospital in Atlanta and other duties. Then, the icing of the day: Kaitlin's big Christmas Eve performance, followed by Loreen and Mass's wedding.\n\nMy mouth yawns wide, nearly dislocating my jaw. I don't know if I've ever been this tired before. It's as though someone slipped me a Benadryl or five.\n\nFighting the exhaustion won't do me good anymore. Not when tomorrow is going to be a back breaker for me. I have to be on, on, on.\n\nGlancing at the clock on my bedside table, I see that it's a smidgen before eight-thirty. I know it's early, but I'll just meditate and unwind. My eyes flutter shut again and I start counting backwards from one hundred to help me relax.\n\n\"One hundred. Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight. Ninety-seven. Ninety\u2026\"\n\nNext thing I know, I'm out like a light."
            },
            {
                "title": "STANZA 4: THE FIRST VISITING SPIRIT",
                "text": "I wake up thirsty and needing to pee.\n\nRolling over to my right, I try to see my clock, but it's so damn dark, even the numbers aren't illuminated. In fact, my entire room is blanketed in utter blackness. Either my pink Christmas tree burned out or someone unplugged it while I was asleep. I can't make out any shapes, furniture, or windows in my room. It's as though I'm in some sort of antechamber, locked away from everyone and everything. I squint into the darkness, wishing I had the excellent night vision that my cats possess. No such luck.\n\nThen I hear the clanging of the chimes from Mom's grandfather clock. It sounds out, echoing around me almost, as I count along with the dongs. Twelve. It's midnight already? Damn, I must have been more wiped than I thought if I've slept for almost four hours already. But how can I be hearing the grandfather clock so distinctly when it sits in the front hallway downstairs?\n\nI scramble out of my bed and move to the window seat nearby. I ball my hands up and gently rub my fists into my eye sockets to jostle myself awake. I swear, as I peer out the window, there is frost and snow on the panes. It couldn't be, though. The forecast didn't call for any sort of Winter Wonderland for our holiday celebration.\n\nSomething outside doesn't appear normal, though. The moon is full and shining brightly up above, however it's not casting a shadow on my lawn. Instead, creepy, swirling tendrils of fog surround my house, slithering up the sides and beckoning to me with vaporous fingers. I wrap my arms around myself against the chill that crosses my skin. My flannel pjs aren't doing much to help keep me warm.\n\n\"Then get back under the covers, dumb ass,\" I say to myself.\n\nFollowing my own lead, I dive back under the comforter and tug it up tightly to my chin, dislodging Eleanor and Natalie who are sound asleep at the foot of my bed. They grunt little cat sounds out at me, but return to their napping.\n\nThoughts of a bathroom run or even a sip of water fade away as I try to go back to sleep. I flip onto my side and pull my knees against my chest, nestling under the blankets to try and get warm. Then, the weirdest thing happens.\n\nThe grandfather clock chimes again.\n\nBong-bong-bong-bong-bong-bong-bong-bong-bong-bong-bong-bong.\n\nTwelve? Again?\n\n\"It's already rung twelve times.\"\n\nWhat's going on? That clock is an antique, but it's never broken, or messed up the hour like this.\n\nThen, everything flashes white bright.\n\nI jerk my arm up to cover my face, bracing for whatever onslaught has hit. My entire room is bathed in a near-blinding spotlight pointed directly into my eyes. Dust particles dance in the air as the intense light beams on me. I swat around with my hands, as if that's going to do any good.\n\nIt's not.\n\n\"Give me a break!\" I shout, to who or whom, I don't know.\n\nWham! Bam!\n\nThe light disappears and I hear my bedroom door creak open.\n\nSlowly\u2026.\n\nSlowly\u2026.\n\nSlowly\u2026.\n\n\"Who's there? Mom? Dad? Kaitlin?\"\n\n\"It's none of them.\" The voice is indistinguishable as male or female to my ears.\n\nA peculiar figure enters my room. It's not a kid, but it's not an adult either. It's just this white, floaty, ethereal thing. It's as though I need a prescription for contacts or glasses; everything around me is blurred and distorted as I try to distinguish who or what this is at the foot of my bed.\n\n\"Who are you?\" I demand.\n\n\"You know me, Kendall,\" the voice says, very childlike.\n\nBefore me, the image begins to sharpen. The straggly mess of hair suddenly smooths into stylish golden curls pinned back with glittery diamond-like combs that shimmer and shine. The wrinkled and gray complexion becomes ivory and young and vibrant. Blue eyes, like freshly mined sapphires, twinkle beneath gorgeous dark eyelashes. The figure's hands traverse up its front as if taking note of the flowing white robe with gold brocade trim. Bare feet with a perfect French pedicure show from underneath the garment, toe rings sparkling on each foot. The robe is belted with ropes of what appear to be pure, spun gold from a fairy tale. A knot of white roses, blue orchids, and baby's breath are bunched in the figure's right hand. Finally, a gorgeous, glitzy crown of mountain-peaked rhinestones appears on the head of the apparition.\n\nIf I weren't so jealous of the jewels and bling this specter was cloaked in, I might be doing everything in my power to jump out the window to get away from this creature.\n\n\"Wh-wh-who are you?\"\n\nThe faceless spirit says nothing. It only laughs. Not even a laugh, but a giggle.\n\nThen it hits me. Maybe the convo in the cemetery wasn't in my mind.\n\n\"Are you the first visiting spirit Farah told me about earlier tonight?\"\n\n\"That I am,\" the voice says. She says.\n\nShe. It's a she.\n\nMy furious heartbeat begins to slow momentarily. This girl doesn't sound like she wants to hurt me or anything. Still\u2026.\n\n\"Seriously. Who and/or what are you?\" I ask in a demanding tone.\n\n\"Come on, Kendall. It's me,\" the spirit says. And just like that, the beautiful face of one of my best friends morphs onto the figure.\n\n\"Taylor? Is that you?\" I ask incredulously. \"What are you doing?\"\n\nTaylor Tillson shakes her head, causing the crown on her head to wobble a bit. She catches a glimpse of herself in my dresser mirror and poses. \"I don't have the first clue. But don't I look fabulous?\" She fingers the tiara. \"I think our society should institute a fashion law that all women must wear these regularly.\"\n\nI blink hard, trying to understand. \"Taylor, can we get past the bling for a second? What are you doing here?\"\n\nTurning away from the mirror, she sort of snaps into her role. \"Oh, right. I'm, like, the Ghost of Christmas Past.\"\n\nMy mouth hitches to the side. \"Really? That's what you're going with?\"\n\nTaylor lifts her arms, causing the robe to spread out, and then drops them back to her side. \"I'm not really in control here. I'm just supposed to show you the past.\"\n\n\"My past?\"\n\n\"Ummm, yeah.\"\n\nI rub my eyes again. \"Are you for real or is this a dream?\"\n\nTaylor shrugs and she twists again to check her headdress in the mirror. \"Why don't you conjure up a tiara for yourself, too?\"\n\nA long sigh escapes from me. \"I didn't realize I had invented all of this to begin with.\" I crawl to the end of my bed and sit, staring at her. \"Why are you here?\"\n\n\"Like I said, I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past. I'm supposed to show you how wonderful Christmas was and how much you loved it. You know, to get you out of your funk and give you an attitude adjustment. I'm here for your benefit.\" She pouts at me. \"You've totally been Miss Fickle Puss lately, Kendall. What's with the 'bah humbug?' You have so much to be thankful for, you don't even realize it.\"\n\nI frown back. \"How do you know? You've barely known me a year. You have no idea what my life was like before I moved to Radisson.\" It was normal. Boring. Staid.\n\nTaylor raises her flower-filled hand high. \"Then why don't you show me?\"\n\nMy brows crease. \"What? Like turn on my computer and bring up my Flickr account with all of my old family pictures?\"\n\nTaylor rolls her eyes. \"No. Like, get up out of bed and come with me.\"\n\nI glance down at my pajamas. \"I'm not exactly dressed for a field trip.\"\n\nShe puts her hands on her hip. \"Don't backtalk me, Kendall. Get up!\"\n\nI step onto the floor and wiggle my toes inside my socks. \"Geez, Taylor. Bitchy much?\"\n\n\"I'm not Taylor. I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past. Come on.\" She flashes a bright smile and offers me her arm.\n\n\"Are we going outside or something?\"\n\n\"We're going to fly!\"\n\nI place my hand in hers and she tugs me over to the window seat. She steps up in her bare feet and pulls me along with her. The shutters fly open and a frigid night wind captures my attention. Even though I'm only in my pjs, I'm not cold at all.\n\nI turn to Taylor. \"So, what? You can fly now?\"\n\nShe smiles out at me. \"We're about to find out.\"\n\nI resist the jerk or her hand. \"I'm not exactly thrilled about falling one story and landing in my mother's hydrangea bushes.\"\n\nTaylor says, \"I've got this covered.\"\n\nWith that, we are out the window. Walking on air\u2026 literally. And then, we are flying. Like Superman, Iron Man, Wonder Woman\u2014wait, she has an invisible plane, right?\u2014and all of those other comic book heroes. My backyard becomes but a speck below me, as does my house. We soar over Celia's mansion, above the cemetery, and up, up, and away from the twinkling red and green lights of decorated downtown Radisson.\n\nThere's no more mist and it's not as wretchedly dark. Instead, the world below is a palette of smudged colors, mixing together in a conglomerate of hues, shades, and beauty. I've been parasailing before; however, it doesn't even come close to this. I feel like an angel, as though I'm being called homeward. Before I know it, the bold and brilliant lights of the Windy City, my birth place\u2014my beautiful former residence\u2014come into view. We zoom past airplanes coming in for a landing at O'Hare. We sail over Lake Michigan. We zip down the Miracle Mile filled with shops and stores sporting their Christmas decorations and holiday cheer.\n\n\"Oh, my God, Taylor! We're in Chicago!\"\n\nI haven't been back here since the moving truck pulled away, headed for Georgia filled with all our worldly belongings. The air is tinged with the sweetness from the Brach's Candy Warehouse. A waft of grilled brats and Chicago red hots from a street vendor makes me drool unconsciously for the culinary delight. And the snow. It's so fresh, white, and thick. I long to run through Grant Park or go for a spin on the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier. I wonder if the Bears or Blackhawks or playing right now?\n\nTaylor tugs on my arm and clicks her tongue. \"We're not here for sports, Kendall.\" She adjusts our flight slightly north of the city and we touch down on the wet pavement of the sidewalk. To my left is a white sign with blue lettering. An N and M merged together. The symbol for Northwestern Memorial Hospital: the place where I was born.\n\n\"What are we doing here?\" I ask.\n\n\"You need to see your past, Kendall.\"\n\n\"I know my past, Taylor. My mother died here after she had me. Thanks for reminding me of that depressing moment. I never knew her except as an imaginary friend when I was little and a ghost when I started having psychic visions.\"\n\nTaylor grins and adjusts her shiny tiara. \"Be quiet. You have more than one mother, cherie.\"\n\nWe walk into the hospital. Into a time long past. We blend into the scenery, unseen by the residents of this time. They're concerned with their own matters. Funny, no one's sitting around with their noses buried in a Smartphone. People are actually watching TV, talking to each other, and reading. Imagine that. There was life before technology.\n\nWe slide into the emergency room where I see a conclave of doctors and nurses standing outside a curtained off area. A young nurse with neat brown hair is pleading to the doctor on call.\n\n\"She's lost so much blood. I don't think she's going to make it much longer,\" the nurse says. \"She's slipping and it seems as though she has no will to survive.\"\n\n\"And the child?\"\n\nThe nurse lowers her eyes. \"She's only four pounds and three ounces, but her vitals are good. We have her in the incubator on a ventilator. She's so\u2026 tiny, frail, and alone.\"\n\nWhen the nurse looks up this time, I recognize her eyes. Those soft hazel orbs that have watched over me since the night of my birth.\n\n\"Mom.\" I choke on my whisper.\n\n\"She's was a total babe,\" Taylor says. \"She still is, actually.\"\n\nI don't even realize that I'm crying as I follow Sarah Moorehead into the neonatal care unit. A gasp escapes me when I see her reach her hand toward a miniscule clear box filled with tubes and monitors and hoses and\u2026\n\n\"Holy crap! Is that me?\"\n\nA squirming little purple-ish human wriggles and cries inside the container. I don't hear myself, but I know that Baby Me is not happy.\n\n\"You're adorable,\" Taylor says. \"Look at the love on Miss Sarah's face. You were hers even then, Kendall.\"\n\nI wipe a wayward tear with the back of my hand and continue to observe.\n\n\"Shhh, little girl,\" my mom says to me. \"Don't you worry about anything. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. You just concentrate on getting stronger and breathing on your own. I'm not going anywhere.\"\n\nShe places her hand inside the incubator and, almost instinctively, my tiny, premature one\u2014not much bigger than any of my baby dolls'\u2014reaches out and wraps around her index finger. Mom bursts into tears and laughter all at the same time.\n\nI do the same, as does Taylor.\n\n\"You two are making me ruin my awesome Ghost of Christmas Past makeup.\" Taylor pulls me away from the scene before I'm ready to go. \"Come on. We've got a lot to cover.\"\n\n\"But wait, I want to\u2014\"\n\nZap! Bam!\n\nSuddenly, the hospital scene is gone. We're now in a small apartment\u2026 somewhere. A white bassinette sits against the wall to the left in a room painted a light yellow on the walls and midnight blue on the ceiling with white star bursts all overhead.\n\nTotal recognition dings me upside the head.\n\n\"This was my room,\" I say to Taylor. \"We lived here until I was five. I used to lie in my bed and count the stars up there.\"\n\nShe snickers. \"I guess that's why you're doing so well in our natural science classes.\"\n\n\"I always have been a sucker for astronomy.\"\n\nAs we're standing there, Mom and Dad arrive with a fidgeting bundle of baby. It's me again. Only, I'm a little bigger and breathing on my own.\n\n\"Welcome home, Kendall,\" Dad says with great pride.\n\nMom gently places me in the crib and covers me with a light-pink blanket that has lambs printed all over it. She twists the button on the mobile above the bed, and soon shapes of stars, moons, and planets are spinning around over my head. My eyes seem as though I'm watching the figurines that spin around with the tinkly music playing. Who knows, though? I certainly have no memory of this.\n\nMom hugs onto Dad and the two of them are so damn happy as they're looking at me.\n\n\"I can't believe she's really ours, David.\"\n\n\"She is, Sarah. We'll make sure she's completely taken care of and loved beyond reason.\"\n\nA tear falls from Mom's eye and I want to go to her, to both of them, and get in on the hug-fest. \"Poor little soul. I never, ever want her to know the pain and tragedy that brought her into this world. She's ours, David. No one can take her away from us.\"\n\nHe kisses her on the top of her head and holds her tight. \"I'll never let it happen. She's our Christmas miracle.\"\n\nMom laughs. \"Honey, it's March. She's been in the hospital for three months while we took care of the adoption papers. Are you having a lapse of time?\"\n\nDad withdraws from her, mirth overcoming him. \"I know, but I thought we'd celebrate anyway since Kendall didn't get to have her first Christmas. She was born three days before the twenty-fifth, so she's definitely our special holiday present.\" He steps out of the room and then returns with a one foot silver and pink Christmas tree.\n\n\"That's the tree I have up in my room,\" I exclaim. \"I had no idea.\"\n\n\"Of course, you didn't,\" my ghostly Taylor says.\n\nMom squeals. \"Oh, David! It's so girly and perfect. I love it.\"\n\nHe places the aluminum tree on the dresser next to my crib and plugs it in. The lights sparkle and twinkle; I see my baby eyes shift to see the pretty colors.\n\n\"Look,\" Mom says. \"She loves it.\"\n\n\"There's more.\" Dad reaches up underneath the base of the small tree and flips a switch. A music box plays out the tune \"There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays.\" I coo along with the sound.\n\n\"That's right, Kendall,\" Mom says. \"You're home.\"\n\n\"Home,\" I repeat in a whisper as I watch.\n\n\"You okay?\" Taylor asks.\n\nAll I can do is nod. I had no idea that my parents shared a belated Christmas with me when they brought me home. I also didn't know the tree in my room was the very one Dad bought to welcome his new baby girl.\n\n\"I wish I could hug them,\" I say. \"I love them so much.\"\n\n\"I know you do.\" Taylor pats me on the arm and tightens the belt on her robe. \"Come on, I've got another Christmas to show you.\"\n\nThe fresh tears from my eyes blur the family scene. Before I can protest leaving, I'm whisked away by my spirit guide to another time. Another memory.\n\n\"Where are we now?\" We're standing in a rather non-descript hallway.\n\nThen I hear her.\n\n\"Oh, my gosh! Kendall! Santa's been here! Hurry up!\"\n\nThe screams and shouts of a young girl greet us as we move deeper into the scene. I remember the staircase to the left with the curving bannister and the third step that's loose and creaks when you cross it. The hall opens into a living room that sports the plaid couch my dad\u2014and no one else\u2014loved so much. A huge leather lounge chair sits nearby, and there's a large fireplace with logs set up, ready to be burned. Jammed-packed stockings hang from the mantel, threatening to compromise the integrity of the bent tacks holding them up. An empty glass of milk stands next to a plate of cookie crumbs. Nice touch, Mom and Dad.\n\n\"Kendall! Hurry!\" The shouts are from my little sister, Kaitlin, and I know where I am. She bounds into the living room of our former brownstone in Lincoln Park. She slides across the hardwood floor in her socked feet. Her brown hair is a God-awful mess and her smile is missing three teeth. \"A bike!\" she yells.\n\n\"Wait for me!\" I hear from upstairs, followed by the pounding of footsteps.\n\nI land with a thud on the floor and rush over to my little sister. Well, my just-turned nine-year-old self does. Which makes Kaitlin six, going on seven. We're wearing matching Disney princess nightgowns. Mine is blue for Cinderella and Kaitlin's is green for Arielle, the little mermaid.\n\n\"Do I hear my girls?\" Mom asks from the kitchen.\n\n\"Mommy! He came! He came!\" I scream at her as she makes her way into the room, holding a steaming cup of coffee. My own smile is missing a tooth or two, as well.\n\nKaitlin rushes over and grabs my hand. We crawl around under the decorated evergreen, pulling out packages and boxes and gifts, not even stopping to see which one is for whom.\n\nKaitlin squeals. \"Look! It's a Barbie dream house.\"\n\nI kneel next to her as we tear away the wrapping paper.\n\n\"Girls! Wait for Daddy,\" Mom scolds.\n\n\"Daddy, don't make us wait!\" I yell at the ceiling.\n\nBefore we know it, Dad clomps down the stairs in his robe, his glasses askew on his face. A huge yawn lets me know now that he didn't sleep very much that night, too busy getting everything in place for his daughters. Back then, I didn't notice a thing and totally believed in the Santa legend.\n\n\"Okay, have at it,\" Mom says.\n\nKaitlin and I exchange a knowing glance and then rip into everything.\n\n\"You two are a powerful force to be reckoned with,\" Taylor notes.\n\nI grin at the memory playing out before me. \"We used to be.\"\n\nI watch as we open boxes of Barbie supplies, a couple of Bratz dolls, a Razor scooter for each of us, a bike for Kaitlin, and ice skates for me. Then we unpack sweaters, jeans, socks, stuffed animals, some collectible Beanie Babies, candy galore, Pokemon trading cards, and a few board games. My heart aches as I see how Kaitlin and I work in tandem, attacking the Christmas gifts, organizing them, and actually sharing with each other.\n\n\"I can't believe how cute she is,\" Taylor notes. \"What a huge heart she has! And boy, does she idolize her big sister.\"\n\nI wave Taylor off. \"No, she doesn't.\"\n\nThe ghost scoffs at me. \"Are you not seeing what I'm seeing?\"\n\nI turn back and observe my younger self with my sister. Every move I make, Kaitlin does the same. I pick up my Barbie; she picks up hers. I grab the Bratz doll; Kaitlin does too. She's watching me, smiling, and\u2026 glowing.\n\nMom steps into the living room with two plates of food that smells heavenly. \"I have orange-glazed cinnamon rolls and regular cinnamon rolls.\"\n\n\"Orange for me,\" I say without a doubt.\n\n\"Me, too,\" Kaitlin agrees.\n\nThe scene before me warms my heart and I feel tears might loom again. What I see is nothing short of beautiful and oh, so special. Two little girls\u2014sisters by circumstance\u2014completely into each other as they share pastries and glasses of milk while they sit nestled amongst their Christmas presents and the discarded gift wrap.\n\nMy younger self waves the Bratz doll at Kaitlin. \"I want you to name her.\"\n\nKaitlin's smile is overwhelming and her eyes are huge. \"You do? Oh, my gosh. Okay, okay\u2026 I'm going to name her\u2026 Emily.\"\n\n\"Emily? Why Emily?\" I ask.\n\n\"She's your pretend friend, right?\" Kaitlin asks. \"The one you play with all the time instead of me?\"\n\nI reach for Taylor's hand, listening to this exchange. I remember Emily, my birth mom, being with me. Only, I had no clue who she really was back then. I hadn't realized Kaitlin knew about her. I didn't know how my interaction with the ghost affected her. I watch and listen.\n\nYoung Kendall dives on Kaitlin and hugs her like crazy. \"I'm sorry Kai-Kai. I'd rather play with you. No more pretend friend. I'll tell her to go away.\"\n\n\"Really? Then we can play more?\"\n\n\"Sure thing. Let's pick another name for the doll,\" I say to my sister.\n\n\"Esmeralda,\" Kaitlin says with a toothless giggle.\n\n\"That's a silly name,\" I say. \"Just like you're silly.\" And then I dive on her again to start the Christmas tickle-fest.\n\nI sigh long and hard as I witness two sisters totally crazy about each other, best friends and playmates.\n\n\"What happened to us?\" I say the ghost, to myself, to no one.\n\n\"People change,\" Taylor says.\n\nMy heart actually hurts in my chest as I try to figure out how Kaitlin and I grew so far apart. It happened mostly when we moved to Radisson and I started having my whole psychic awakening. I reached out more to Celia, Taylor, and Becca, and focused on our ghost hunting efforts. Kaitlin wasn't even in the picture. I feel horrible over having ignored her and not including her more in my life after our big move. Leaving Chicago was difficult for all of us, yet I'd never stopped to really talk to Kaitlin about it. Maybe that's why she became so bratty\u2014she's just been acting out.\n\nI feel the spirit gazing at me, reading my thoughts.\n\n\"You can make it right with her,\" Taylor says.\n\n\"I know. I don't want to lose her. I want us to be best friends again like we used to be.\"\n\n\"Then do it.\"\n\nThe tears are warm on the brim of my eyes. \"How?\"\n\n\"You'll figure it out. You've already seen how beautiful, special, and memorable Christmas can be,\" the ghost says to me. \"You've got to recapture that essence of the season and what family means. You can't let\u2014sorry\u2014life's bullshit get in the way of what's really important.\"\n\n\"Such language,\" I say with a giggle.\n\n\"Whatever. I hope the memories of the past have shown you how important family is in our lives. Not just the family we're born into, but he family that chooses us. You were chosen, Kendall. You're special. Don't ever forget that.\"\n\nI nod, unable to speak.\n\nShe glances at a crystal wristwatch hidden under her flowing sleeve. \"Shoot! I don't have much time left,\" she says. \"Hmmm, I wonder if when you're done with me, I'll have to give back this awesome robe and Miss America crown.\"\n\nI lift a brow. \"Is that really what's important here?\"\n\nShe smirks. \"Well, it is for me.\"\n\nMy head aches from the time travel and the reminiscences of happier times. I don't know if I can mend the broken fence between my sister and me. Can we ever get back those na\u00efve days of just being little girls who played with dolls and dressed alike? \"I can't take any more of this.\"\n\n\"Oh honey, don't blame me for the things you're seeing. They're necessary,\" Taylor says.\n\n\"Quit torturing me, Taylor. I want to go back to sleep!\"\n\n\"So you're done with me?\" the ghost asks with a pout.\n\nHands on hips, I say flatly, \"Yeah. I'm all set. I've got a shitload to do tomorrow and you're keeping me awake. I appreciate the memory lane stroll, but it's not going to change my exhaustion and attitude. Can we go home?\"\n\nTaylor's bottom lip juts out. \"Fine. Be that way.\"\n\nI reach forward and snag the tiara from her head. \"You look stupid in that. You can't keep it.\"\n\nNext thing I know, I'm back in my room and the spirit of Christmas Past in the form of my friend, Taylor, is gone in a burst of white light.\n\nBut the blinding spot flashes one more time and I see a ghostly hand reach through a misted vortex to snag the tiara away from me.\n\nI bolt up out of the bed with a start, drenched in sweat.\n\nWhat just happened? Was that real? Or was it a dream?\n\nMy chest is rising and falling at a just-ran-a-marathon rate and I kick the covers away. The cats growl at me and scatter away as the blankets interrupt their fifteenth nap of the day.\n\nI run my hands through my damp hair and let out a moan. \"What a weird-ass dream. That was messed up.\" A tiara-fied, fancy-robed Taylor as the Ghost of Christmas Past. Yeah, right. I can't wait to tell her.\n\nSheer enervation covers me in an intoxicating drowsiness.\n\nI sink back into the mattress, curl up on my side, and slide into another deep sleep."
            },
            {
                "title": "STANZA 5: THE SECOND VISITING SPIRIT",
                "text": "My own snoring awakens me and I groan.\n\nThe grandfather clock sounds again.\n\nBong!\n\nOne bong. One freaking bong. Meaning it's one in the morning.\n\nDid I actually sleep for an hour or was it for a few brief moments?\n\nI swear, the universe is totally mucking with me, not letting me sleep.\n\nSomnambulism is only going to make me surlier come the morning.\n\nI let out an impatient sigh and am shocked to see my breath dancing in the air. The temperature in my room hasn't just dropped, it has plummeted. Either that, or Dad didn't pay the power bill. Then, my ghost hunting instincts kick in and everything becomes clear. The abrupt and extreme cold can only mean one thing: A spirit is manifesting.\n\n\"Okay, who's here now?\" I ask. This time, I'm not going to be surprised by who's visiting my bed chamber.\n\nNothing.\n\nWaiting.\n\nMore sighing.\n\nThe reverberation of the clock bong echoes in my brain. I tangle my fingers together under the covers, not only for warmth, but in anticipation of my second visitor of the night, as predicted by Farah.\n\nThe minutes tick away.\n\nSo much that I have no idea how long I've been lying here staring at the ceiling.\n\n\"Oh, this is ridonkulous!\" I sit up and throw the covers away, this time actually getting up to make that bathroom visit.\n\nAs I reach to grasp the door knob, I hear a rattling in the direction of my closet.\n\n\"Really?\"\n\nTurning, I step over and put my ear to the door.\n\n\"I hear you, Kendall,\" the voice says. \"Come on in.\"\n\n\"Come in the closet.\" I put my hands on my hips. \"Isn't it more customary to come out of the closet?\"\n\n\"Not in this case,\" the voice tells me.\n\nI huff my frustration and then pull the door open. The minute I step into the walk-in, it transforms right before my very eyes. Holly sprigs are everywhere and red berries hang from the leaves. Snow glistens in bunches on the tips of branches, hanging heavy with the wintry burden. The pungent aroma of mistletoe touches my nose as I move deeper into the Christmas-y scene. Lights sparkle up ahead, beckoning me with twinkling fingers. A saxophone plays a moaning version of \"Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.\" Suddenly, I smell them, too. Sweet and woodsy. Piquant and fiery. As the sassy reed instrument continues to accompany my dream, I walk through the crowded evergreens, each decorated in white ornaments, silver tinsel, and golden lights shining bright. Ahead, a banquet table is spread out with enough food to serve the entire town of Radisson. A cooked goose with crisp buttered skin, sizzling sausages, a roasted suckling pig, heaps of dressing, mashed potatoes, peas, green bean casserole\u2014my fave!\u2014as well as a spiral ham with pineapples and cherries decorating the top. There are barrels of oysters, a tray of freshly peeled Gulf shrimp, and broiled Maine lobster tails. A fountain of melted butter flows constantly in the middle of the table, surrounded by hundreds of white candles flickering amongst the decorations of pine cones, greenery, and fresh cranberries.\n\nI had no idea my closet was a veritable cornucopia of gourmet foods. My mouth drools involuntarily and I press forward to grasp one of the fine china plates at the edge of the table so I can help myself to the bounty.\n\nWhat? I'm hungry.\n\n\"I didn't say you could start eating yet,\" I hear from behind me.\n\nI jump a bit, glad that I'm not actually holding a dish because I would have totally dropped it. When I turn, I can't help but laugh like a crazy person.\n\n\"What?\" the ghost asks.\n\n\"You!\" I point at the apparition before me.\n\n\"You need to take me seriously. I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present,\" it says.\n\n\"Then you,\" I start, \"need a better outfit.\"\n\nThe spirit is literally cloaked in an old, white bed sheet with arms spread wide. Thick silver chains crisscross over its chest, clanging and banging together in a ghostly stereotype gone bad.\n\n\"Look, Kendall,\" exclaims the ghost. \"This is your dream, not mine. You're the one choosing the costumers here.\"\n\nTaken aback, I snort. \"Umm, okay. Didn't know that. I, err, give you permission to change into something more\u2026 appropriate.\n\n\"Thank heavens.\"\n\nThe chains fall to the ground and the ghost chucks off the white sheet, tossing it aside. When the spirit flips their head back, I gasp at who I see before me. Dark hair, clear eyes, and that perfect-straight smile that came from expensive dental work a few years back.\n\n\"Celia!\"\n\n\"No,\" she says. \"I'm not Celia. I am the Ghost of Christmas Present. I already told you that.\"\n\nShe's now wearing an emerald green robe trimmed in white fur around the neck, wrists, and hemline. A wreath of holly sits in her dark tresses with sparkles of icy diamond-like crystals spread about. She has a long, silver sword around her waist, as though she's a knight of old.\n\nI scrunch up my face. \"Is that real fur? You know how cruel that is?\"\n\nCelia shakes her head. \"Again\u2026 your fantasy, K. We'll call it faux and be done with it, okay?\"\n\nToo stunned at the sight before me, I nod. \"Sure.\" I clear my throat. \"So what are you here to teach me?\"\n\n\"Not sure yet, but I have this.\" From behind her, she pulls out a large golden torch, much like the one that's used in the Olympics, and it immediately ignites itself.\n\n\"You've never seen anything like this before, have you?\" she asks.\n\n\"Not in person.\"\n\nCelia smiles. \"I think it's, like, my magical Ghost of Christmas Present thing.\"\n\n\"Whatever works,\" I say with a snicker. \"Where are we off to?\"\n\n\"I thought I'd show you what's in store tomorrow at the church and all around town. There's so much more than what you see on the surface.\"\n\n\"I'm ready when you are.\" The meal beside me forgotten, I cross my arms over my chest and heave an intake of air. \"Taylor schooled me on my Christmas past a little while ago. Really got me thinking about a lot of things. I suppose you're here to do the same?\"\n\n\"And how,\" Celia says.\n\nI stand tall, prepared for the next lesson. \"Okay, tell me what to do.\"\n\nCelia walks toward me and brushes off the flowing sleeves of her velvety robe. \"Touch it.\"\n\nMy brow lifts. \"I beg your pardon?\"\n\nCelia smirks at me. \"My robe, dork. Touch my robe.\"\n\nI slide my hand up her forearm, clutching at her elbow.\n\nAnd we're off!\n\nThe banquet feast, all of the fowl, pork, veg, fruits, and decorations\u2026poof\u2026as if they were never there. The Christmas trees lift into the air and disappear, one by one, in a bubble-popping sound.\n\nWe fly high over Radisson, looking down at the city as it awakens on Christmas Eve morning. The traffic lights flash yellow in the early morning hour. The pace is slow and appreciative; no one rushing to get to work or check their e-mail. Carolers stand on the front steps of the Episcopal and Methodist churches in a bit of a merriment throw-down, trading songs of celebration. I see Kaitlin amongst those at Christ the Redeemer Holy Episcopal Church. She's in her element, singing her heart out. I do notice that the hem of her dress appears frayed. Did I not do a good sewing job? I totally suck. But Kaitlin doesn't seem to care. She's the most brilliantly happy I've ever seen her. My chest pounds with pride at her accomplishment of starring in the Christmas pageant tonight. I really shouldn't have been such a tart about supporting her and helping with her dress.\n\nCelia and I continue along, peeking in on the merchants on the Square opening for last minute shoppers. The flower shop with its yards and yards of greenery, red bows, and fully bloomed poinsettias. The coffee shop with its freshly brewed pots of caffeine to fuel the townspeople. The grocery store with its last-minute food items, baked goods, and various proteins that will soon be roasted, baked, deep-friend, and served to family and friends.\n\nThough I mostly despise the crass commercialism of the holiday season, I see a deeper need for it all of a sudden. These merchants provide a service to the families gathering together for their yearly celebration. There's nothing wrong with a sale here, a special there. It's all good.\n\nTime speeds before us as the people of Radisson move about in fast-forward motion like ants in a farm. Children saying their prayers and getting tucked in early in anticipation of Santa's arrival. Parents with glasses reading instructional manuals on how to put together those bikes, Barbie houses, and set up Xbox systems and other electronics.\n\nAcross town, though, my psychic senses pick up the cry of a family in need. One not so fortunate this holiday season.\n\nSuzanne Pilfer is sitting down at the dining room table with her daughter, Chandra, and grandson, Max, who've come to Radisson from Stone Mountain. Max\u2026 the one I had the premonition about. My bottom lip juts out, as I remember the tarot card reading. I should have told Miss Suzanne what I saw. A head's up on a possibility of what might happen.\n\n\"Let's go see her, then, shall we?\" Celia mentions.\n\nAnd like that\u2026 we're instantly in the modest home of Radisson's most dedicated postal worker, Suzanne Pilfer.\n\nI stand by and listen as Suzanne and her daughter speak softly, their heads bent together, while Max watches one of those predictable Disney Channel programs in the background.\n\n\"I can't tell him, Mother,\" Chandra says. \"It'll break his heart.\"\n\nSuzanne reaches across the table and pats her daughter's hand. \"Those bastards. Laying you off right before Christmas. They didn't even give you severance?\"\n\nChandra shakes her head. \"I was counting on that promised Christmas bonus to get Max the dirt bike he wants. I was going to go to Mega-Mart and get it off layaway where it's been since August.\" She plunges her hands into her thick hair and lets out a guttural moan. \"How did it come to this? Stephen hasn't paid child support in eight months and now this.\"\n\n\"It'll be okay, sweetie,\" Suzanne tells her. \"I don't have much, but I have some savings. I was going to use it to pay off some medical bills, but it's more important that my grandson be taken care of. I'll go down to the bank and get the cash out so we can get Max his present.\"\n\n\"I won't let you do that, Mother.\" Chandra heaves a sigh and reaches for a Kleenex. \"This is my mess. My responsibility.\"\n\n\"But I'm your mother,\" Suzanne says.\n\n\"And I'm his,\" her daughter responds.\n\nMy heart hurts watching this, remembering the tarot cards showing me that the bike and an injury from it cause Max's meningitis. I nudge Celia with my shoulder. \"He shouldn't get that bike. Is there something else we can help get them as a present?\"\n\nCelia blinks hard several times. \"I'm a ghost, Kendall. I can't do things like that right now. Besides, this might not even happen. Just listen.\"\n\n\"Ugh!\" Now I stab my hands into my hair. \"What about that torch? Is it magical or anything?\"\n\nShe screws up her mouth. \"I have no clue.\"\n\nFrustrated, I begin to pace. \"Suzanne is the nicest person and works so hard taking care of everyone in town. Can't we rally people to help them?\"\n\nCelia adjusts her hair wreath. \"I thought you didn't care about the holidays. Didn't you just want to wake up and have it be the middle of January? Now you're concerned about the plight of one Radisson family?\"\n\n\"Because they don't deserve to not have a Christmas or to lose Max!\" I find that I'm in Celia's face, so I back down. \"I'm sorry. It's just not fair.\"\n\n\"Not much in life is fair, Kendall. You of all people should know that.\"\n\nI bite my bottom lip. \"I suppose so. What can I do to help them, though?\"\n\nCelia shrugs and gnaws at a hangnail on her right hand. \"Just remember what's going on here. Remember those around you who aren't so fortunate, you know? You inherited all this money from your birth father's estate. I'm not saying you have to spend every penny, but instead of wallowing around in the self-pity of calculus, physics, and other scholarly challenges, coupled with all the attention Kaitlin is getting, along with Loreen and Mass's wedding\u2026 well, it's simple.\"\n\nCelia stops talking and stuffs her hands in the pocket of her velvet robe.\n\n\"What's simple?\" I need her to completely spell it out for me.\n\nHer eyes darken and she towers over me, with a booming voice like thunder. \"Get the hell over yourself!\"\n\nI recoil in utter dread that soon subsides to hysterical laughter.\n\n\"Don't laugh at me,\" Celia says. \"I'm supposed to scare the crap out of you.\"\n\nI shake my head. \"You do, sort of\u2026 I mean, you don't really. It's you, Cel. In a green bathrobe, you know? But I understand what you're trying to tell me.\"\n\nCelia waggles her torch at me. \"The point is, there are people here on this earth, right here in Radisson who watch everything. They see you grow, develop, and mature. They know what kind of person you're going to turn out to be when you get older. They know who hates. Who envies. Who has ill-will, and precious pride. We have to learn from them, take care of them, and let them see that mankind isn't all about greed and selfishness.\n\n\"I'm volunteering at the church to help feed people,\" I note.\n\nThe ghost acknowledges me with a head nod. \"That's a good start. You're doing it, though, out of duty. Do it because it's who you are. What you have to do.\"\n\nShe's right. I'm going to be more philanthropic here in town. Not so much tossing around my trust fund money\u2014that's mostly earmarked for my college education\u2014but I can give back more of myself. I can step up to do more at church, at school, with Loreen\u2026 everywhere.\n\n\"You need to see something else,\" Celia says. \"Grab the robe again.\"\n\nI clutch the fabric and we're off again. Swooshing through time and space as if it's nothing at all. We speed past the shoreline of Georgia, then Florida, heading farther south into the Caribbean and over the azure waters filled with tropical fish and precious coral. The ghost sets us down gently in the middle of a village hanging on the edge of the water. Sail boats, fishing vessels, and charters line the docks with offers for deep sea adventures for tourists. The sky overhead is the most brilliant blue I've seen since first gazing into the eyes of my former boyfriend\u2014now Celia's boyfriend\u2014Jason Tillson. A nearby open market bustles with Caribbean folk buying all sorts of assorted foods and supplies this sunny morning.\n\nCelia breaths in deeply, absorbing the surroundings. \"It's spectacular here.\"\n\nI close my eyes and let the warmth of the sun bathe over me. \"It really is.\" Then I add, \"Where are we exactly?\"\n\nShe turns her bold gaze on me. \"Belize.\"\n\nMy mouth flattens. \"So we're checking up on Patrick, huh? Mr. Dive Boy who wanted to be a hundred feet down in the ocean instead of spending Christmas with me. Where are we going to find him? Sitting poolside? Floating in the water? Having grilled shrimp and lobster instead of a big Christmas turkey?\"\n\nAnger seethes through me for some stupid reason. Patrick has every right to spend his holiday any way he wants to. I guess I just thought it would have been more special if we'd been together\u2014if he'd been my date to Loreen and Mass's wedding instead of diving with his dad.\n\n\"'There is nothing either good, or bad, but thinking makes it so,'\" Celia says to me.\n\nI lighten up for a sec. \"Wow, even as the Ghost of Christmas Present, you still quote Shakespeare to me. Hamlet, Act Two, Scene Two.\"\n\n\"Excellent,\" Celia says. \"But do you know what it means?\"\n\nI pause for a moment, knowing where she's heading with this lesson. \"Our mind usually takes over and decides whether something is good or bad, judging when we probably shouldn't. In reality, there is no good or bad.\"\n\nCelia waves her torch at me, the flames dancing dangerously close to my face. \"The Bard would be very proud of you, Kendall. Now, let's go\u2026 not judge.\"\n\nRapidly, we find ourselves in an expansive green field. Horses graze nearby and there are two cows checking out our every move. Up ahead, I see a house that's deep into construction. It looks as if the roof was ripped away by a storm or something. However, a crew of three guys is climbing down a ladder, sweaty from the work they've been doing to repair the damage. I squint to see who they are, but we're too far away.\n\n\"Can't you just snap us over there?\" I ask the ghost.\n\nCelia lifts her shoulders. \"The walking will do us good.\"\n\nI roll my eyes. \"Honestly.\"\n\nBy the time we get to the house, I see a plethora of building materials spread around. A sign to the right reads, \"A Project of Habitat for Humanity.\"\n\n\"How awesome,\" I say. \"These people are getting their home rebuilt. Was there a hurricane or something?\"\n\nCelia nods her head. \"A tropical storm skirted the island not too long ago. We never really heard about it on the news at home because it didn't happen to us, you know? That whole 'out of sight, out of mind' sort of thing.\"\n\nA black couple pulls up in a Toyota truck, bringing with them a box that's so heavy both of them have to carry it.\n\n\"We're here!\" they shout.\n\nI hear whoops and hollers from within. I follow along quietly\u2014not like they can hear me\u2014into the house. The windows are open, allowing the cool breeze to blow through the structure. Construction rules the inside, as well, but I notice the small kitchen is intact. On the other side of it is a door to the back porch where I see people gathered. A huge picnic table is covered with a smooth cloth and the newly arrived couple speaks furiously in Spanish as they dole out the bounty.\n\nNot quite like the banquet table in my closet, but there are fresh bananas, papayas, a bushel of steamed shrimp, several thick, freshly caught fish\u2014probably snapper or jacks\u2014and something that looks like sugar cane.\n\n\"Joseph, you be outdoin' yourself,\" an older lady sings. \"You come help us in the kitchen while Beatrice cooks them fish.\"\n\nThe grill must have already been fired up because I can smell the charring of the fresh seafood as it sizzles away.\n\n\"I hope y'all like mashed potatoes,\" I hear a familiar voice call out.\n\nI freeze for a moment, not believing my own ears.\n\nThen another voice I know says, \"My boy makes the best mashed potatoes. Lots of salt and butter is his secret.\"\n\nThe older woman cackles and smacks the white man playfully on his shoulder.\n\nIs that\u2026 Patrick's dad?\n\nThe mashed potato maker spins around, in search of said salt, and my mouth falls open.\n\n\"Patrick!\"\n\n\"He can't hear you,\" Celia scolds.\n\n\"I don't care!\" I rush forward into the festive kitchen. \"Patrick! What are you doing here? I thought you were diving?\" Yet, he's\u2026cooking? I had no idea he could cook. Or build anything, for that matter.\n\nCelia touches me delicately on the shoulder. \"Like I said, he doesn't see or hear you.\"\n\nI stretch my arms out, fingering the tool belt that hangs from his slender waist. His gray and white camouflage shorts are filthy dirty and his black T-shirt is torn in the back. Caught on a nail earlier. \"We're connected psychically. How did I not know he was doing this?\"\n\nGhostly Celia screws up her face. \"Because you were wallowing in your own self-pity to really care?\"\n\nI spin to her. \"Hey! That's not fair.\" Her eyes bore into me. \"Okay, so it's sort of fair.\"\n\nPatrick moves around this lady's kitchen, preparing the potatoes while Beatrice and Joseph cook the fish outside. Patrick's dad hauls in a large cooler full of soda, water, iced tea, and fruit punch as their hostess fusses about.\n\n\"They lost everything,\" Celia tells me. \"Their roof was ripped off, most of their personal items and memorabilia were blown away, and their son, Edgar, died.\"\n\nHand to my heart, I let my eyes flutter closed. I can see Edgar\u2014nineteen\u2014a strong guy who worked on a dive boat taking tourists out to the Blue Hole, as he tried to batten things down in the storm. The hood of his truck ripped off in the vicious, swirling winds, and knocked him in the head, killing him instantly. The father\u2014I'm picking up that his name is George\u2014was grieve-stricken and hospitalized afterwards for heart problems. The mother\u2014Joyce\u2014contacted Habitat for Humanity for help.\n\nAnd they sent Patrick and his dad.\n\n\"He's not down here just Jolly Rogering around. He's here to make a difference. He's helping people.\"\n\nCelia puts her finger to her nose and points at me. \"Give that girl a blue ribbon.\"\n\nI'm not sure if I could possibly love him more than I do right now, knowing he sacrificed his own Christmas to help others. I want to go to him, hug him, kiss him, hold his face in my hands and peer into those Hershey Eyes that I adore so much. Tell him what a bitch I've been. Let him know I'm sorry for the pity party. That I'm wicked proud of him for who he is and what he does.\n\nPatrick stops mashing the potatoes and spoons them into one of Joyce's large fiesta ware dishes. As he walks outside to set it on the table, he lets out a long sigh.\n\nBeatrice turns to him and smiles. \"Now that's the sign of a young man missin' his love.\"\n\nPatrick laughs and closes his eyes for a second, a little embarrassed. I can tell because of the pink stain on his sunburned cheeks. \"I wish Kendall could be here. She'd love this country, the people, helping out.\"\n\nI'm surprised to hear him say this, although I beam at his words.\n\n\"She be beautiful, eh?\" Joyce asks.\n\n\"The prettiest,\" Patrick says.\n\n\"You bring her down here anytime,\" George tells him. \"You've helped restore our home. It's ours to share.\"\n\nTears of joy pour down my face mixed together with ones of regret because I had no idea what Patrick was up to.\n\nIt's announced that the fish is finished cooking and so Patrick, his dad, and the two couples take their seats around the table. Drinks are distributed and plates are filled. George leads a quick blessing and then everyone dives in to the bounty.\n\nPatrick holds up his soda. \"God bless us, everyone!\"\n\n\"Amen!\" Joyce and Beatrice say at the same time.\n\nOver in the corner, I see a faint spirit of Edgar watching over them. I wave at him and he smiles back at me. He's not really in limbo like other ghosts I've encountered in and around Radisson. Instead, it just appears that he's checking in on his family. He gives me the okay sign with his fingers and I know all is well.\n\n\"Hey, I can see a ghost,\" Celia says. \"Of course, I'm technically one right now, so I guess it doesn't count.\"\n\nScowling at her, I ask, \"I thought you said this was a dream?\"\n\n\"It's whatever it needs to be to help you along the way, Kendall.\"\n\nIn the blink of an eye, we're back in Radisson in front of Loreen's shop. She's turning off the lights and locking up. I see her walk to her car and note the white linen dress bag in the back. Her wedding dress. She fingers the top of it and smiles knowingly.\n\n\"There's my bride,\" I hear behind us. I turn to see Father Massimo who is absolutely beaming with happiness. He embraces Loreen and there's a bit of older person PDA right here on the Main Street of Radisson. A little embarrassed, I look away, giving them some privacy.\n\nWhen they come up for air, Mass says, \"I can't wait until tonight.\"\n\n\"Me, neither,\" Loreen says in a breathy way. \"It seems almost unreal.\"\n\nHe touches his hand to her cheek. \"I assure you, it's all very real.\"\n\nShe drops her gaze. \"My father won't be here. He refuses.\"\n\n\"And my brother's flight from Boston is delayed. He may not make it in time. The right people will be with us, Loreen. We'll be together. That's all that matters.\"\n\nShe heaves a deep breath. \"I hope Kendall is her old self.\"\n\nI pop to attention at the mention of my name. \"Huh? What?\"\n\n\"I've been praying for her,\" Mass says. \"She's been through a lot and we put a ton of responsibilities on her with this wedding. She'll be okay. She's a tough girl.\"\n\n\"I hope so,\" Loreen says. \"I love her so much. If it weren't for her, you and I never would have found each other.\"\n\nMass's eyes sparkle\u2014yes, they sparkle\u2014at her. \"Oh, we would have found each other.\"\n\nI drop my head. \"I'm a total ass.\"\n\n\"Yeah, pretty much,\" Celia agrees.\n\nI'm about to scoff at her when I realize she's right. I'm right. Loreen's right. I have been a horrible person. Not myself. Patrick's in another country helping strangers, and I'm moaning and carping about doing things for my family, sister, and mentor.\n\n\"You can make everything right,\" the ghost tells me. \"Only you, though.\"\n\n\"I know,\" I say. \"I may be asleep, but my eyes are wide open.\"\n\nThe bell tower of City Hall chimes once more, clanging twelve times. I cock my head. \"Midnight was an hour ago.\"\n\n\"Not really,\" my guide says. \"It's time to go.\"\n\nLoreen glances my way, as if sensing that I'm there. I wave weakly and then duck my head. Celia sweeps her arms wide, holding the torch high in a blazing flame. The long sleeves of her robe extend to fluttering curtains of green felt, covering me in confusion and mist. \"Be well, Kendall.\"\n\nCelia, my Ghost of Christmas Present, disappears and leaves something dark in her wake. I try to sidestep it; however, it knows where to find me.\n\nUp from the ground arises a black mass, stretching bony fingers and pulling me under. Down, down, down.\n\nI'm totally screwed."
            },
            {
                "title": "STANZA 6: THE THIRD VISITING SPIRIT",
                "text": "\"What are you doing, Kendall?\" I hear a male voice call out to me.\n\nI open my eyes and see that I haven't actually been sucked into a vortex from hell as I first thought. Rather, I'm just in the darkened Radisson cemetery, shrouded in the hanging branches of leafless trees with a hooded figure standing over me.\n\n\"I seriously can't take much more of this,\" I tell the phantom before me. When this spirit moves, a frigid chill travels in a halo around him. He's cloaked as if a mystery, an enigma, a warning.\n\nHolding my hands in front of me, I climb back to my feet and slough off the dirt from my pajamas. \"Look, I know you're here to bitch me out about all the things I've been doing wrong. Let me assure you, I got it. I'm down with it. There are things I have to change, starting with my attitude.\n\nThe figure just stands stock-still before me. A satiny, black robe-ish garment hangs from broad shoulders. The head is covered with a hood, masking the spirit's face, eyes, and other features.\n\nA booming voice sounds forthlike the mighty wind. \"I am the Ghost of Christmas Future. Of Christmas Yet to Come.\"\n\nI literally feel my body shake from my cheeks all the way down to my toes. A pain in my chest threatens to undo me with its firm clutch of dread. I think I've handled tonight pretty well\u2026 up until this point. Now, I just want to get home, crawl back into my bed, and sleep until the dawn awakens.\n\n\"Hey, there,\" I manage to eke out. \"What's in store for me?\"\n\nThe ghost stretches out a large hand which points away from the cemetery. Well, good for that. I'm creeped out enough as it is without being in the frickin' graveyard with this spook. When he doesn't move to join me, I summon my courage and face him with my best ghost huntress attitude and spunk.\n\nI pop my hip out to the side and cross my hands in front of me. \"Let me guess. You're gonna show me all sorts of eerie and terrifying things that haven't happened to me yet. Right?\"\n\nThe hooded head bobs up and down, no feature revealed.\n\nAn unclear and ambiguous horror skitters through me as I stand before this ghost. Underneath his veil, I can sense his eyes penetrating through me, judging and waiting.\n\nPowering up my nerve, I say, \"Look, dude, I'm sort of like a professional ghost huntress. I work with spirits and ghosts all the time. Usually not as much as I have tonight, but I've been pushed, shoved, teased, tortured, tormented, frightened, spooked, threatened, and provoked by plenty of paranormal entities. You don't scare me. You're actually annoying me.\"\n\nThe ghost cocks his head, as if studying me.\n\n\"Oh, for God's sake! Talk to me, dammit!\"\n\n\"Fine!\" the spirit says and jerks the hood off of his face.\n\nI nearly choke on my laughter. \"Patrick! Are you kidding me? You're the Ghost of Christmas Future?\"\n\nHe scowls at me and pushes the hood off of his neck. \"Whatever. I was trying to get into the role and you ruined it.\"\n\nPart of me wants to run and hug him, kiss the mess out of him, but he's not really here. It's not my Patrick, rather a dream Patrick here to walk me through the final stage of whatever it is I'm experiencing.\n\nHe slices his eyes up and tries to be somber. \"This is really important, Kendall. I'm not supposed to do the talking. You're supposed to figure things out on your own.\"\n\nI gesture with my hand for him to lead the way.\n\nThe silky fabric of Patrick's robe drags the ground, making a dusty path that I follow. We weave our way through the Radisson streets with ease\u2014why couldn't we fly like the other ghosts?\u2014to Fogarty Street. We pass the drugstore, the library, and then come to stop in front of a white building I haven't visited since Farah's death.\n\n\"Why are we at Bryant-Jennings Funeral home?\"\n\nTwo women I don't recognize push past me, hurrying up the front steps. \"I can't believe he's dead. He was just a little thing,\" the woman in a black pantsuit says.\n\nHer companion sniffles. \"His mother and grandmother are devastated. You know his father hasn't been to see him in the three years since the accident?\"\n\n\"Shameful,\" the first woman says.\n\nFacing Patrick, I ask, \"Who are they talking about? Is it someone we know?\"\n\nHe points up into the funeral home, so I head on in.\n\n\"When did he pass away?\" the pantsuit woman asks in a whisper once we're inside.\n\n\"Late last night,\" another mourner says.\n\nDeeper into the room, I push past unseen faces to get to the open coffin. I'm used to seeing the dead, so why should this be any different?\n\nOh, but this one is vastly unlike any before.\n\nWhen I gaze into the cherry wood coffin, my hands lift to cover my horror at what I see. Max Pilfer, about age twelve, slumbers silently and unmoving in his satin bedding.\n\n\"No!\" I cry out.\n\nTo my right, his mother, Chandra, weeps into a knotted up wad of tissues while Miss Suzanne sits dazed and confused.\n\n\"The meningitis just destroyed him,\" Chandra says between tears and sips of air.\n\n\"No, no, no,\" I continue.\n\n\"You knew, Kendall,\" ghostly Patrick says.\n\nI spin on my heels and am in his face. \"Don't put this on me! I'm just a teenage psychic. What do I know? I'm not a doctor or a miracle worker!\"\n\n\"You saw it, though,\" he stresses. \"The cards warned you.\"\n\n\"The cards aren't always right!\" My head's going to explode. This isn't fair. This isn't how it should be.\n\nPatrick grips my shoulders and shakes me slightly. \"The fact is, Kendall, you have a gift. One you still haven't completely embraced. Some days you're good with it, others, you run from it. You can't escape who you are\u2026 what you are. You have to help people.\"\n\n\"I do,\" I say to him through my tears. \"I do the best I can. I'm just a kid.\" My head drops and my hair shields me from the reality of Max's funeral going on around me.\n\n\"That's just it, Kendall.\" Patrick lifts my chin up with his index finger and laser-beams his gaze into mine. \"You're no longer a kid. You just turned eighteen and this isn't the present. It's the future. You're an adult now. This is who you are. It's not something you can tamp down and walk away from. It's what you are.\"\n\nWith a sniff, I say, \"I should have told Suzanne. I could have warned her or given her the information as a possibility. It's all in the way I couch the premonitions, visions, and intuitions.\"\n\nPatrick smiles at me. \"Now you've got it.\"\n\n\"So, I can rectify this?\" I practically beg.\n\n\"It's just one potential future, Kendall.\"\n\nI let out a sigh of relief. It's short-lived, though. Patrick crooks his head to the door and out we go.\n\n\"There's more.\"\n\nI gulp down hard. \"I was afraid you were going to say that.\"\n\nWithout flight or fancy, we're suddenly\u2026 I don't know where. Phantom Patrick stretches out his hand and pulls me along with him. I sense eyes on me from every direction, hidden behind corners, peering from windows. A chill creeps up my back and my skin itches.\n\n\"What is this place?\" I ask.\n\n\"A bad neighborhood,\" is the ghost's response.\n\nIt's not a somewhere I've ever been to before in my life. The storefronts are run-down, with broken windows and graffiti covering the outer walls. Drunks stumble out of clubs, barely able to walk a straight line or, God forbid, try to drive. The air is wrought with the stench of rotten beer, stale cigarettes, and\u2026 eww\u2026 is that urine?\n\nI stifle a gag by putting my hand to my mouth. \"Seriously? This is my future?\"\n\n\"Not yours,\" Patrick warns. \"Someone you love, but deserted.\"\n\nWho? Who in the world\u2014that I love and care about\u2014could possibly be any bit attached to a cesspool area such as this?\n\nWe duck into an alley, stepping over bags of garbage that have been pillaged through. My stomach lurches from the sour odor of the trash and something akin to rotting rat corpses. I've been in Halloween horror houses before, yet nothing could ever prepare me for how discombobulated I am walking through this neighborhood.\n\nNails and broken glass scatter in front of us. I pick my way carefully through it knowing I'm only in socked feet. It would be my luck to come out of this dream with a shard of something in my big toe.\n\n\"You'll be fine,\" Phantom Patrick tells me. \"This way. We're almost there.\"\n\nThis is a place of ill-repute. An area where you wouldn't want to send your worst enemy. Here, secrets are spilled, reputations lost, and lives ruined. There are no good guys. No strong characters. No redeemable values. No fairy godmothers. Only criminals, miscreants, and troublemakers.\n\n\"Over there.\" Patrick points across the street to a corner building. It's made of painted cinderblock and has a flashing red neon sign overhead that reads \"Live Nudes.\"\n\nLive Nudes? Well, I certainly don't want to see dead ones. For that matter, I don't want to see nudes at all.\n\n\"You're taking me to a strip club?\" I ask, disbelieving.\n\n\"I don't have a choice,\" he tells me.\n\nMy heart pounds inside my chest, throbbing with an ache of the unknown. Apparently in this future scenario, I'm not privy to my psychic abilities that can head off the mystery of this situation.\n\nWe pass through the wall of the building and into the dingy red-lit hue of the night club's interior. Patrons spread throughout the bar, dancing and drinking and smoking. I feel the need to choke and cough although the odor really has no effect on me. In the center of the room, there's a large stage with a red curtain on the back. Three silver poles dot the left, middle, and right of the platform. A horseshoe-shaped bar juts out from the front of the area and it's filled with the impatient audience members waiting for the next performer.\n\nPatrick motions me to the front where we take two cracked red-leather bar stools that have seen better days.\n\n\"This is disgusting. Who could have ended up here?\"\n\nI think of my friend, Becca Asiaf, who as a bit of a wild child in her Goth days when I first moved to Radisson. Since joining our ghost huntress group, though, she no longer dresses all in black and is really into her music. Surely this isn't her future. Or is it?\n\n\"Is Becca the DJ here?\"\n\nPatrick shakes his head. \"Not even close.\"\n\nCelia Nichols would never darken the doors of a place like this. She's going to MIT or Stanford or Georgia Tech to become a Ph.D. in some sort of engineering or similar. It can't be Taylor Tillson, can it? Unquestionably, Taylor's had a rough time with her parents' divorce, her mother's attempted suicide, and having to live a semester in Alaska. But she's one tough cookie who has her shit together. There's no way she's going to come out from behind that red curtain.\n\nI think of some of my classmates who haven't always been that nice to me, particularly Courtney Langdon. While I get a five-second fantasy laugh that maybe she's the one working here, it's quickly squashed with the desire to help her find her way, if that's who it is. Stephanie Crawford is sort of stiff when she does her cheerleader routines, so I doubt swinging on a metal pole would be her style.\n\nThen who?\n\n\"You'll see,\" Patrick informs me.\n\nAs he speaks, the house lights dim, a spotlight shines on the middle of the stage, and the emcee's voice crackles through the PA system. \"And now, what you've been waiting for. Put your hands together for our very own Christmas treat, ready for the unwrapping.\"\n\n\"Eww\u2026 gross.\"\n\n\"Put your hands together for Mrs. Claus!\"\n\nA gnarly techno beat grinds out and the crowd of unmentionables begins to come to life, fist pumping, waving cash overhead, and drunkenly swaying in time with the music.\n\nThe red curtain parts and a young woman, probably in her mid-twenties, steps out in a red-velvet bikini with white trimmed fur. She's wearing a Santa hat, a pout, and not much else. I'm tempted to look away, but I know her. At least, that's what Phantom Patrick says. Yet, this girl looks weathered and tired, abused and used. Her body is shapely and her face is attractive underneath all of that caked-on makeup. I can't tell if the red hair is a wig or if it's dyed that color.\n\nAs she begins to do the bumps and grinds to the nasty beat, I feel as though my heart has been crushed in a fist of revulsion and disillusionment. Through the thick mascara and heavily lined lids, I see eyes that I'd know anywhere. The smile of a once-innocent girl who so looked up to me\u2026 until we grew apart.\n\n\"Kaitlin,\" I say in a choked whisper.\n\nPatrick props his elbows on the bar. \"In the flesh.\"\n\nI glare at him as hard as I've ever glared at anyone in my life. \"That was inappropriate.\"\n\n\"Perhaps, but it's the truth. Look at her up there.\"\n\nI can't. I can't sit here and watch my baby sister do a strip tease for these malefactors waving sweaty, crinkled dollar bills at her. Overturning my bar stool, I rush the stage.\n\n\"Kaitlin! Stop this! This isn't who you are!\"\n\n\"Who is she, Kendall?\" Patrick shouts.\n\nTears blind my vision as my sister continues her routine. \"Kai-Kai! Please don't! You're so much better than this. How did you end up here?\"\n\n\"Do you really want to know?\" the ghost asks of me.\n\nI growl at him. \"I can't control another person's life or their destiny. Kai-Kai\u2026 don't\u2026.\"\n\nPhantom Patrick plays with the sleeve of his long, black robe. \"No, you can't. However, you can greatly influence someone else. The rift between you and Kaitlin just grew and grew and grew until it ripped your family apart. She moved out, never went to college, never spoke to you or your parents again. Now look at her.\"\n\n\"I don't want to.\"\n\nI desperately try to throw myself before my sister, blocking her rotation on the pole in front of her. But I'm just an unseen visitor in this time, so my efforts fail.\n\n\"Oh Kaitlin\u2026 I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry.\"\n\nFalling to my knees, I break down in horrendous sobs as my little sister\u2014no longer little, but a full-grown woman\u2014degrades herself in front of these drunken animals. With each dance move, she spits in the face of everything she's been taught in life by our parents.\n\nI feel my heart breaking into the four chambers of ventricles and atriums. \"I don't want this. I don't want this at all. Please\u2026.\"\n\nI shouldn't have complained about fixing Kaitlin's dress. I should have asked to see her trophy. I should have sat out on the porch and celebrated the soccer win with her and her friends. Would that have stopped this horrible collision course my sister's on?\n\nGhostly Patrick encompasses me and lifts me off the ground. \"Okay, there, I think we've made our point.\"\n\nPoof!\n\nThe stinky bar, revolting patrons, and alternate universe Kaitlin are gone.\n\n\"I got it!\" I say to my guide. \"I've. Got. It.\"\n\nPatrick rubs my hair to sooth me. I don't know if anything will ever erase that horrid scene from my mind, even if it was only a \"possibility\" or merely a dream.\n\n\"Don't you have anything happy to show me?\" I ask as I wipe away remnants of my crying jag.\n\n\"As a matter of fact, I do.\"\n\nHe pushes up the sleeves of his Reaper-ish cloak and snaps his fingers.\n\nI'm now in a snow-filled park. Chubby white flakes sail peacefully down from the sky, landing in drifts around me. A Christmas tree off in the distance flickers in the twilight. Ice sculptures of penguins, castles, and a full Santa sleigh are spotlighted for all to see. Skaters circle around in a nearby rink, bundled up for the cold in fleece, gloves, and scarves.\n\n\"Where are we?\" I ask.\n\n\"I believe we're in Boston,\" Patrick tells me.\n\nI look all around me. \"This is the Boston Common. It's gorgeous!\" All of the surrounding trees are draped in white lights, outlining their bare branches in a wintry beauty. \"I've always wanted to come here.\"\n\n\"Now you have. This way, please. I want to show you something.\"\n\nI follow Phantom Patrick down the paved path that's been shoveled to clear the snow out of the way. The fresh dusting of icy wonder tickles my nose and eyelashes, just like in the song, \"My Favorite Things.\"\n\nBright lights flood the area before us. It's a man-made skating rink filled with tons of people taking a turn this Christmas Eve. Yes, it's Christmas Eve here in Boston. I can feel it in my bones. A nearby sign says the place is called \"Frog Pond.\" How quaint. It's what I've always pictured New England to be.\n\n\"I used to ice skate,\" I tell the ghost. \"When I lived in Chicago, my dad took Kaitlin and me to the rink every Saturday in December. I was pretty good,\" I say with a smile.\n\n\"You still are,\" Patrick says, pointing out into the middle of the rink.\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\n\"There you are.\"\n\nI crook my head to get a good look at the woman in the middle of the ice, spinning around in a graceful manner. Her hair is pulled to the side in a long braid and she's wearing a black knit hat and a Burberry scarf with matching gloves.\n\n\"That's\u2026 me?\"\n\n\"Yep. Sure is,\" Patrick affirms.\n\nI'm not exactly partial to Burberry, but we'll go with it. Wow. I turned out all right. I'm not fat or skinny; I'm just right. Normal. I'm probably about thirty-five, thirty-six years old, although I'm not positive. And I look remarkably happy.\n\n\"Mommy! Mommy! Show me how to do that!\" a little girl of about eight yells.\n\nMy heart halts and then restarts like a NASCAR engine. \"Did she call me Mommy?\"\n\n\"She sure did,\" the ghost says.\n\n\"Me too, me too!\" another girl of the very same age and size echoes.\n\nI glance back at Patrick. \"Are those my kids? I have twin girls?\"\n\nHe smiles. \"Looks like it.\"\n\nThe older me skates to a stop in front of the first girl who is toothless in front, much like my sister, Kaitlin, was that faithful Christmas morning in Lincoln Park. The other girl appears the same, only their faces are slightly different. Fraternal twins, I'd guess. Oh, my God. They are absolutely a-dor-a-ble! I watch in awe as I take each girl by their mittened hands and help them skate around with the rest of the crowd.\n\nSamantha and Claire.\n\nDon't ask me how I know their names. I just do. They're perfect little miracles of preciousness. I've never felt this overwhelming heart palpitation before like I'm experiencing now. I am in love with them. They are part of me. I'm their mom! They're so amazing. Where did they get that jet-black hair, though? And those cat-like green eyes?\n\n\"Wave at Daddy,\" Future Me tells them as we skate by where Patrick and I are standing.\n\nHe looks at me and holds his hands up. \"Don't look at me. I'm just the guide.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nHe points, again\u2014which he's been doing a lot of as my ghostly guide. His aim lands on a tall man standing in the middle of the ice with his phone video recording the twins and me. He's dressed in gray slacks and a black Navy pea coat. A scarf of red and green circles his neck.\n\n\"Look at me, Daddy,\" Claire exclaims.\n\n\"That's my girl,\" the man says to her.\n\nWho the hell is he?\n\nBefore I can verbalize the question, I watch Older Kendall and the girls skate straight toward the tall, dark, and handsome man. Not just attractive, but head turning, stunning, dazzling\u2014Holy Mother of Christmas Past, Present, and Future\u2026who is that gorgeous hunk of man?\n\n\"Oh, Rafe! Look at them, sweetie,\" I say as we come to a stop in front of him. Samantha and Claire wave at the camera and blow kisses.\n\n\"I love you, Daddy! Merry Christmas.\"\n\n\"Merry Christmas, my angels,\" this Rafe guy says back.\n\n\"What the hell kind of name is Rafe?\" I ask, trying to figure all of this out. \"It sounds like a pirate or a romance novel hero. Or someone from a soap opera.\"\n\nAnd then I watch in horror\u2014or delight\u2014as this beautiful man reaches out, cups Older Kendall's face in his hand, and pulls her\u2026 me \u2026 to him in a fiery kiss while the snow continues to float down.\n\nPatrick lets out a long, high, wolf-like whistle.\n\nI spin away and look at the ghostly guide. \"What on God's green earth is going on over there?\"\n\nHe hitches his smile to the corner. \"Looks like you hooked up with someone and had a couple of babies.\"\n\nI fling my arms about. \"I know what it looks like! Why isn't it you out there? Why aren't those your babies?\"\n\nBetrayal coats me like the falling snow as I spy myself macking on this strange man with the black hair and clear green eyes.\n\nPatrick lifts his arms in surrender. \"How the flagnon should I know, Kendall?\"\n\n\"Well, excuse me, Gallaxhar!\" Since Patrick and I've watched \"Monsters vs. Aliens\" a hundred times, I'm not surprised his ghost is fighting with the movie quotes.\n\nHe scoffs at me, though. \"First off, I'm not really your Patrick. I'm just a figment of your imagination or a dream, or whatever. Secondly, I'm just showing you one conceivable future.\"\n\nPanting, I try to slow my rapid breathing. \"Is there a third point?\"\n\nThe ghost\u2014who represents the guy I'm in love with right now\u2014smiles and points for like the fortieth time. \"Third? Sure. You look pretty damn perfectly happy.\"\n\nAll the blood rushes to my head and I feel as though I might faint. I can't, though. Instead, I take a peek at the possible future family I could be a part of. Those cherubic faces. That hot, sexy man. The perfect picture of a happy family. I'm treacherously somewhat jazzed by it. Only for a moment, though.\n\nI hug myself to the phantom before me, his satin cloak encompassing me. \"But I want to be pretty damn perfectly happy with you, Patrick.\"\n\nThe ghost's lips brush the top of my head. \"You very well may be. Only the future will tell. It's up to you, Kendall.\"\n\n\"I want to go home,\" I whine.\n\n\"In due time.\"\n\n\"In due now.\" I snuggle deeper into his arms. \"I've learned a lot of lessons tonight from you, Celia, and Taylor\u2026 or whoever you all are. Do I have the power to change anything?\"\n\nPatrick nods his head. \"We have the power to change every moment of every day.\"\n\n\"I get it. I'll do what I can. I'll be a better person. I'll take care of others. I'll protect my family. I'll love fiercely and live passionately. I'll speak my mind and be the best person I can be.\"\n\nHe sets me back and lifts my face so that our gazes sync up. \"That's all any of us can do, you know?\"\n\nI close my eyes, secure in the knowledge that every day brings new opportunity, hope, excitement, friendship, support, and most of all\u2026 love.\n\nWhen I lift my lids, Phantom Patrick and I are back in my bedroom, standing next to the pink and silver Christmas tree that lights everything in its soft glow.\n\n\"I know you're leaving soon. So, what's next?\"\n\nThe ghost smiles down at me. He clears his throat. \"'Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.'\"\n\nI snicker hard. \"Oh, dear God. You're quoting Ebenezer Scrooge to me.\"\n\n\"Why, yes, I am.\"\n\n\"Dude, I've been Scrooged enough for one night.\"\n\n\"The message is still the same, Kendall. You know what you have to do.\"\n\nI certainly do, so I quote a little Dickens myself. (Mr. Rorek would be so proud of me.) \"'I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all three shall strive within me.'\"\n\nPhantom Patrick bobs his head. \"Very impressive.\"\n\nCoyly, I twist a bit and say, \"I had to learn it for my oral exam. Got an A.\"\n\n\"Of course, you did.\" He escorts me over to the bed and turns the covers down for me. I climb underneath the blanket and smile up at him.\n\nHe blows me a kiss.\n\nI catch it, and then I fall back into a deep, deep sleep."
            },
            {
                "title": "STANZA 7: THE TIDINGS",
                "text": "The alarm on my phone sounds its electronic beeps, alerting me that it's nine a.m., so I slowly come into the land of the conscious.\n\nI swallow hard and peel my eyes open, almost afraid of what I'll see this time. Remarkably, it's nothing more than Buckley, Eleanor, and Natalie all curled together next to me with cat tongues racing in a three-kitty bath-fest. The morning sun spills through my curtains, providing a golden pathway toward the door. My little pink and silver Christmas tree still burns brightly, representing so much more to me now than just a mere seasonal decoration.\n\nMy bed. My room. My tree. My cats.\n\nIt's Christmas Eve. Radisson, Georgia. Present day. And, I'll face it with a smile, cheer, and praise.\n\nI scoop up the nearest kitty, Buckley, and kiss him on the crooked gray spot on his nose. \"What a night! What. A. Night!\"\n\nBuckley loops his tongue out to swathe my cheek. Nothing like a kitty kiss to start the day.\n\nI set him back down with his sisters and then spring out of bed. I rush over to the window to confirm that it's my house, my yard, my Radisson outside. Nothing's changed--yet, so much has.\n\nI bounce downstairs where I find Mom making her famous orange cinnamon rolls.\n\n\"Hey, it's not Christmas morning, yet,\" I say, walking into the kitchen.\n\nMom laughs. \"I was just making extras to take to the church for the pre-pageant party.\" I give the plate of sweet gooeyness a come-hither look. \"Just one, Kendall.\"\n\nI nab the closest one to me and waste no time taking a ginormous bite. \"One is never enough,\" I say with my mouth full.\n\nAs I finish chewing, I hear a shuffling behind me and turn to see Kaitlin standing there. Her hair is still wet from her recent shower and slicked straight in place. Without thought or reserve, I rush the few steps to her and hug her as tightly as I possibly can.\n\n\"Kai-Kai, I love you soooooo much!\" I say, unabashedly.\n\nI can tell she's taken aback at first, then her thin arms surround me and hug back. \"I love you, too, Kendall.\"\n\nWe stand like that for a moment as Mom does everything in her power to quell her tears.\n\n\"I think the star soloist of the church's Christmas Eve pageant deserves a breakfast treat, don't you, Mom?\"\n\nShe winks at both of us and presents two plates. \"Cinnamon or orange?\"\n\nKaitlin glances between us. \"Whatever Kendall's having.\"\n\nI drag an orange one off the plate and feed it to her. All three of us crack up laughing and it feels so\u2026 right. It doesn't matter that our blood isn't from the same place. Our love is.\n\n\"You are going to be amazing tonight,\" I tell my sister. \"I'll be on the front row cheering you on. I'm going to Tweet and Facebook about it and let everyone know that my sister is the best singer in all of Radisson!\"\n\nShe's astonished and I love the depth of the smile on her face. \"You'll do that?\"\n\n\"Oh, hell yeah!\"\n\n\"Kendall,\" Mom snaps. \"Language.\"\n\n\"Sorry,\" I say with a laugh. \"Heck yeah.\"\n\n\"Don't you have a lot to do today?\" Mom asks me.\n\n\"I certainly do. But before I head over to the church, I need to make a very important house call.\" I glance at my sis. \"Wanna ride along?\"\n\nShe ponders the invite and then stops herself. \"I want to, but I've got to get ready and help Mom get my stuff together for the pageant.\"\n\n\"No worries,\" I say. \"Another time. Anytime, in fact. I've got a car; I can drive you anywhere you need to be\u2026 school, soccer, or just to hang out. Okay?\"\n\nKaitlin launches herself in my arms again and mutters into my chest. \"Thanks for fixing my angel dress, Kendall. You're the best sister ever.\"\n\n\"So are you.\"\n\n\"I'll see you guys over at the church in a bit.\" I run upstairs to dress, quickly reversing directions with my keys fisted in my hand. I have a full tarot card reading explanation that needs to be delivered.\n\nASAP!\n\nThe door opens, and immediately rosemary and sage attack my olfactory senses.\n\n\"Kendall! What are you doing here?\" Suzanne Pilfer asks of me.\n\n\"Hey, Ms. Pilfer. May I come in a sec? I know you're cooking, but I won't keep you long.\"\n\nShe steps aside. \"Of course, dear. Come right in.\"\n\nI follow her back to the kitchen that is filled with every holiday food item possible. There's no sign of trouble or duress, so I'm assuming Chandra didn't lose her job, after all. It was only one possibility. \"Are you making herb stuffing?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Miss Suzanne says. \"It's my grandmother's recipe and Max's favorite.\"\n\nI shift from one foot to the other. \"That's why I'm here,\" I tell her. \"I have something to tell you about Max.\"\n\nHer face drops. \"Is he okay? You're not picking up some psychic vision, are you?\"\n\nI wring my hands together in front of me and muster up bravery to continue. \"No and yes. When we did your tarot card reading, I had a premonition that Max is going to fall from his Christmas bicycle and the severity of the injury is going to bring on spinal meningitis that could really mess up his life.\"\n\n\"Glorious and merciful Father!\" Suzanne says in a gasp. \"Why didn't you tell me?\"\n\n\"I'm telling you now\u2026 but only as a safeguard.\" I wet my lips and try to quaff down the lump in my throat. \"I'm just a psychic and not everything I see comes to fruition. It's a possibility, you understand. However, I had to tell you what I saw, if only to serve as prevention. Max is going to be wicked psyched about his bike\u2014sorry, didn't mean to rhyme\u2014and I just want to make sure you guys explain all the safety precautions to him.\"\n\n\"Of course we will, Kendall. Yes, of course.\" I'm warmed by Suzanne's assurance and know that I did the right thing coming here. \"Why didn't you tell me yesterday?\" she presses.\n\n\"I suppose I didn't want to ruin your holiday with a mere hunch.\"\n\nHer smile brightens. \"I'll take your hunches to the bank any day, Kendall.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Ms. Pilfer. Please give my best to Chandra and Max for me. Merry Christmas!\"\n\n\"Merry Christmas to you and your family, as well.\"\n\nI leave her house and let out the pent up anxiety caught within my lungs. Hopefully, I've altered the present and the future for Max and his family.\n\nNow, what about mine?\n\n\"Hey, baby!\" Patrick says when he answers my call.\n\n\"You know I'm psychic, right?\" I begin with a chuckle.\n\n\"As am I,\" he says.\n\n\"So, I know you didn't go to Belize to go diving.\"\n\nSilence.\n\nHush.\n\nShushies.\n\nMore silence.\n\nThen a soft chortle. \"Well, technically, I have gone diving. It's just not my main purpose down here.\"\n\n\"I know, baby. I think it's amazing what you and your dad are doing for George and Joyce, working with Habitat for Humanity.\"\n\nI can almost see Patrick tossing his head back as the laughter pours out over the phone call. \"Damn, you are good, Kendall Moorehead.\"\n\nI smile into the device. \"That's what I'm told. So, how much more work do you have to do on the house?\"\n\nHe shuffles the phone a bit. \"It was taking a little longer than expected, but then a crew from Seattle came in to join us two days ago. A guy named Randall and his two kids, Sam and Claire. Randall's an electrician, so he was able to do stuff a lot faster than Dad and I could with just George and\u2014\"\n\n\"\u2014did you say Sam and Claire?\"\n\n\"Yeah, why?\"\n\nAs in my possible future twin daughters? How could Patrick know that? Or was my dream a psychic bleed-over of my intuition of what Patrick's experiencing?\n\n\"Kendall? What's wrong?\"\n\nNo need to explain something that hasn't even happened. \"Oh, nothing. I just like those names for girls: Samantha and Claire.\"\n\n\"Well, Sam's a boy.\"\n\n\"Don't you be flirting with Claire then,\" I say with laugh.\n\nPatrick's voice softens. \"I only have eyes for you.\"\n\nI pause and let the warmth of his words cover me in comfort.\n\n\"I love you, Kendall.\"\n\n\"Love you, too. I wish you were here for the wedding tonight.\"\n\n\"I know. Send Loreen and Father Mass my best,\" he says. \"I'm where I need to be.\"\n\n\"Of course you are, baby.\"\n\nAnd it only makes me love him more.\n\nThe rest of the day is spent happily serving food to the needy of Radisson from the kitchen of the Episcopal Church. Pies, breads, casseroles, and hams are distributed with enough left over to feed the next town. I also manage to make a run to Farah's grave to leave a fully blossomed poinsettia plant. I help Father Mass and Loreen\u2014who wasn't going to be bothered with the silly superstition of not seeing her groom before the wedding\u2014put a gazillion white candles out on the altar and windows of the church for the pageant and the wedding. The platform of the living Christmas tree will easily break down after Kaitlin's solo so the wedding can take place.\n\nFather Mass's mentor, Father Andrew Calder from the School of Theology at The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, arrives as we finish up tacking the bows onto the pews. Father Calder is going to be performing the wedding and bless the couple in their union and life together.\n\n\"I'm so happy for you, Massimo,\" Father Calder tells his former student. \"I assume since you've done hundreds of weddings yourself, we don't need to have a rehearsal?\"\n\nMass laughs a bit nervously. \"We're good, Father. It's just Loreen and Kendall on the bride's side and my brother, Raffaele, may not even make it.\"\n\n\"Why's that?\" Father Calder asks.\n\n\"Snow in Boston shut down Logan Airport last night. A lot of canceled flights, but he's doing his best to get here.\"\n\n\"I'll pray that the weather cooperates,\" the priest says.\n\nLoreen grips Mass's arm and she looks up at him. \"He'll make it, hon.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you have confidence,\" my priest says.\n\n\"Do you need a best man back up?\" I ask.\n\nMass thinks for a second. \"I'd say Patrick if he were here.\"\n\n\"Someone call my name?\"\n\nI nearly faint dead away when I see my handsome boyfriend, tanned from his time in the Caribbean, saunter down the aisle of the church with nothing but me in his sights.\n\n\"What? How? Where?\"\n\nPatrick scoops me up into his arms, up off the floor, and spins me around. He puts me down and kisses me softly, but firmly. \"I caught an early flight back to surprise you. I had to be here for the wedding after all Loreen and Mass have done for us.\"\n\n\"Where were you when we talked?\"\n\n\"Leaving the airport in Atlanta. Did it sound legit?\"\n\n\"Way too legit!\"\n\nI throw my arms around Patrick's neck, wondering how he managed to fool me over the phone. I don't care, though. He's here! We can spend Christmas together. I pull his face to mine for a long, wonderful kiss.\n\n\"Hey, now,\" Father Calder interrupts. \"I'm not doing a double wedding tonight, am I?\"\n\nPatrick and I separate and I feel the blush painting my face. \"Sorry, Father.\"\n\n\"Young love,\" he says. \"It's beautiful.\"\n\nI shine a smile at Loreen and Mass. \"Yes, it is.\"\n\nStepping back, Patrick has an evil, sly grin on his face. \"Okay, wait. I have another present for you. Rather, another surprise. This one's bigger than me.\"\n\n\"I don't think that's possible,\" I say to him.\n\nLoreen joins in. \"Oh, it's pretty big, Kendall.\"\n\nShe comes up behind me and places her hands over my eyes. \"Really? You guys are nuts.\"\n\nI do my best to tune my psychic senses in to what's going on, but it's like Loreen is blocking any intuition.\n\nFootsteps fall in front of me. One set. Two sets.\n\nThen I hear the older woman giggle and I smell her Oil of Olay lotion.\n\n\"Grandma!\"\n\nI push Loreen's hands aside and run forward to meet up with my grandmother, Anna Faulkner.\n\n\"Hello, my precious.\" She takes my face in her hands, kissing me on the cheek. \"Oh, John, look at her. She's grown up since just this summer.\"\n\nMy grandpa moves in and bear hugs me. \"My Kendall! I'm so glad we changed our plans and came across the pond.\"\n\nI swear, I'm the teary-est person ever. I can't stop crying. \"What made you change your mind? I thought you had this deal on a cruise that you couldn't pass up?\"\n\nGrandma's wrinkled face grins widely at me. \"Honey, the Mediterranean will be there forever. We can't waste any more moments with you now that you're in our lives.\"\n\nMass looks down at Loreen. \"Why are you crying?\"\n\nShe shakes her head. \"Because she's happy. We've got out Kendall back, so that makes me happy. You make me happy.\"\n\nHe wraps his arms around her. \"Well, all of you women better stop with the waterworks or you'll be puffy in the wedding pictures tonight. Nobody wants that.\"\n\nI squeeze myself between my grandparents and shoot up a prayer to God, thanking him for bringing my loved ones to me. For sending those spirits, or angels, or visions\u2014whatever they were\u2014to get me back on course.\n\nSeriously, God bless us, everyone!\n\nTears fill my eyes\u2014in a prideful way this time and not to ruin my awesome Taylor-done makeup job\u2014as I watch Kaitlin on the top platform of the living Christmas tree, her hair curled and pulled back from her face and her silver dress shining in the spotlight. She sings like a true angel, and even God up in heaven must be pleased.\n\nDad hasn't stopped videoing the performance and Mom hasn't quit bawling. It's okay that they gush over Kaitlin. She's their kid, too. It doesn't have to be all about me, all of the time. We're a family. One that happened by luck, fate, and love.\n\nMy grandparents sit in the pew with us beaming up at Kaitlin as if she's theirs, as well. And she is. We're all together. A merry little Christmas after all.\n\nAs soon as the service is finished, several of the men in the choir break down the staging and quickly rearrange the altar for the wedding ceremony.\n\nI slip into the ladies' room and change into my maid of honor dress. It's a snazzy number in red satin, off one shoulder, and to the floor. My hair, adorned with baby's breath, is swept up off my neck with plenty of curling tendrils framing my face. Tonight's not about me, but I do feel extremely pretty in this amazing dress. I can't wait for Patrick to see me. I'm damn-near giddy knowing that he's here after all.\n\nLoreen steps out from behind the dressing room screen and I gasp.\n\n\"Oh, Loreen! You look phenomenal!\"\n\nShe blushes underneath her perfect makeup job. \"You think? I wasn't sure if it was me or not.\"\n\nThe white silk dress hugs her slim figure from the simple bodice to the flowing skirt that just barely touches the floor. On her arms is a tiny hint of a lace jacket that is more like long sleeves covering her skin. Around her neck, she's wearing a strand of pearls my mom loaned her that complement the teardrop earrings of pearl and rhinestones. Her hair is curled and styled in a low chignon with diamond-like clips holding a sheer veil to her head. A fairy princess on her magical day. She couldn't be more beautiful than she is at this very moment.\n\n\"It is you. It totally is.\"\n\nShe touches her head, then her ears, and finally her neck. \"Something old is me\u2014\"\n\n\"\u2014stop that!\"\n\n\"Something new is the dress. Something borrowed would be Sarah's pearls. Kendall, I don't have anything blue!\"\n\nI hold my hand up. \"Never fear. For Kendall is here.\"\n\nWe laugh together, Loreen's more nervous titters than anything.\n\nEven though her bouquet is made of red roses, Christmas greens, and a flowing white bow, I reach into my purse and pull out the blue gift and attach it to the underside of her nosegay.\n\n\"What is that?\" she asks.\n\n\"It's a flat bead bracelet made of lapis lazuli. I got it off eBay for you. The stone helps clear the mind so you can see things clearly. Use it only with love in your heart, understanding in your mind, and wisdom in your soul.\"\n\nShe rubs her fingers against the stones and then pulls me in for a hug. \"I've taught you well, my friend.\"\n\n\"Yes, you have.\" I set her away from me and admire her inner and outer beauty.\n\nRolling her eyes, she laughs in spite of herself. \"Who would have thought the town freak and outcast would be marrying the handsome, bachelor Episcopal priest?\"\n\n\"Me,\" I say with great conviction. \"There's nothing wrong with you, Loreen. You're one of the most wonderful people I've ever met. I'm so honored to stand with you and Father Mass today.\"\n\n\"I'm blessed to have you as a friend.\" She pauses for a moment. \"I only wish my own father would have been here. It is what it is, though.\"\n\n\"It's his loss, Loreen. When you get in the church, Patrick is going to be standing there to walk you down the aisle.\"\n\nShe puts her hand to her heart. \"That is so sweet of him.\"\n\n\"He wants to do it. Then, if Mass's brother doesn't make it in time, Patrick will stand with us, as well.\"\n\n\"In my mind's eye, I've seen his plane landing at Hartsfield airport. My senses tell me he won't let his brother down.\"\n\nI adjust her veil over her shoulders. \"Well, it's not about him, either. This is your day. Yours and Mass's. Everything's going to be perfect.\"\n\nI see her eyes begin to fill with tears, so I start waving my hands around at her. \"No, no, no. Taylor will freak if you ruin the magic makeup she did on your face.\"\n\nLoreen carefully dabs at her eyes with a tissue and then tosses it aside.\n\nStrains from the string quarter sound out with \"Jesus, Joy of Man's Desiring\" and I know that's our cue.\n\n\"Ready?\" I ask, taking her hand.\n\n\"Am I ever.\"\n\nWe make our way to the vestibule and I clutch my small bouquet of red roses to my hip. Patrick's waiting there for us in a black tuxedo, looking ever so handsome. I slowly step into the church and proceed down the aisle to the altar. I wink at Mom, Dad, Kai-Kai, and the grandparents. The church is aglow in the orange luminosity of the candlelight. Father Calder stands at the front dressed in a formal robe with white satin vestments. Father Mass waits for his bride, wearing a sharp Armani tux, seemingly relaxed and cool.\n\nRiiiiight. I know better.\n\nI wink at him as I take my place on the left of the altar.\n\nThe musical quarter transitions into The Bridal Chorus and the whole congregation rises. Before Loreen and Patrick can start in, there's a small ruckus in the back of the church.\n\nMass's smile vivifies and relief cascades over him. \"He made it,\" he says to Father Calder and me. \"My brother made it.\"\n\n\"That's Raffaele?\" Father Calder asks. \"The Lord is good. It's a blessing.\"\n\nI can't really see down the aisle since everyone is standing, but I make out a dark figure moving through the audience to embrace Mass in a massive hug.\n\n\"I'm sorry, bro,\" he says quietly. \"Delta got me here as fast as they could.\"\n\n\"It's okay, Rafe. You're here. That's all that matters. It's all good.\"\n\nWh-wh-what did he call him?\n\nI struggle to breathe and I feel my knees begin to buckle.\n\nIt's not all good.\n\nIt's not remotely good.\n\nIt's not even in the purlieu of the district of good.\n\nBecause, although my attention should be turned toward my wonderful friend, mentor, and bride, I can't help but stare slack-jawed at the gorgeous guy standing across from me in the best man position. A guy I've seen before, only not on this plane of existence. And not this young.\n\nI've met his future self.\n\nA future self I'm apparently intimately acquainted with.\n\nPatrick kisses Loreen on the cheek and hands her off to Father Mass before taking a seat in the congregation. As Father Calder begins the wedding ceremony, with the standard, \"Dearly Beloved,\" I do everything in my power not to hyperventilate.\n\nWe turn to face the wedding couple and Mass's brother gives me a heartbreakingly stunning smile. I feel it shoot across the altar at me and attack my entire being from coifed hair to high-heeled feet.\n\nHo. Ly. Crap!\n\nI was fully prepared to meet Father Mass's younger brother, Raffaele Castellano, a sophomore pre-med student at Harvard University.\n\nI was not prepared to meet the man from my dream of Christmas Future.\n\nThe man who apparently fathers my twin daughters, Samantha and Claire.\n\nThe man whom I might possibly marry.\n\nThe man named\u2026 Rafe.\n\nMy heartbeat quadruples and I know I'm going to need medical attention before the cutting of the cake.\n\nI have no idea what to do.\n\nExcerpt from Ghost Huntress: The Journey (Book 6)"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 8",
                "text": "I never know when my visions or trances will hit me.\n\nSometimes it's when I'm just hanging out with Celia or playing with my cats Eleanor, Buckley, and Natalie, at home. Most of the time it's when I'm in deep R.E.M.\n\nThis time, it's like everything around me freezes in a stop-motion way. If someone had just come through the room, tripped, and spilled a bag of popcorn, the kernels would be dangling in the air, frozen in time while my vision comes and goes.\n\nSlowly, I look over to my right and see my spirit guide, Anona, materialize.\n\nShe's unlike anyone I've ever seen or met in person. Of Native American decent, Anona stands before me barefoot, wearing a long, tan cloak with leather ties at the neck and waist. Her long, shiny black hair is straight and pulled to one side. Her dark brown eyes show her intense concern over what's going on here.\n\n\"Kendall, you're delving into an area you shouldn't mess with,\" she warns.\n\nI shake my head, foggy almost from the daze I'm in. \"I'm not doing it, Anona.\"\n\n\"There are dark forces at work in this universe that we don't understand.\"\n\n\"I don't know what you're talking about. Christian? Is he a dark force?\"\n\nShe shakes her head. \"That boy is a fool.\"\n\n\"I can't stop him,\" I tell her, not even feeling my lips move.\n\nAnona spreads her arms wide. \"I can't protect you against this, Kendall.\"\n\n\"What is it, though?\"\n\n\"You've gone too far from my reach,\" Anona says. \"There's nothing I can do.\"\n\nI seriously don't get what she's telling me. My spirit guides constantly speak to me in riddles and puzzles. Why can't they just say what's on their mind? \"You promised you'd take care of me.\"\n\n\"There is another,\" she says softly. \"Another who is watching over you.\"\n\nI perk up some from my stupor. \"Emily? She's back?\" I ask, almost begging. As soon as Emily, my first spirit guide, revealed herself to me as my birth mother\u2026 I lost her. She'd been with me my whole life, but as soon as I knew the truth, it allowed her to pass into the light. Great for her. Sucked for me. She'd sent Anona to be with me on the other side. But I want my mother. \"Emily? Is she here again? Is she with me? Anona! Talk to me! Tell me!\"\n\nAnona brings her head down and closes her eyes, unanswering. And then she fades away.\n\nJust like that, everything begins to move around me again, as though nothing unusual happened to me.\n\nI have no idea how long I was out, or if anyone even noticed my spell-like state.\n\nPatrick is over in the corner talking to Oliver. Taylor is setting up video cameras around the room. Maddie and Jess have their digital recorders out to try and capture electronic voice phenomena (EVP), while Celia is in full tech geek mode getting base readings of Mrs. Flanders's house with her EMF detector. Jason's tagging along with her, taking notes. At least he's doing something useful and helpful instead of glowering.\n\nChristian and Jayne set up at the nearby table, with him polishing up his Ouija board as Jayne sets out the planchette\u2014the wooden pointer used on the board.\n\nI rub my head trying to ease the throbbing of my psychic headache that always follows one of my vision trips. Or maybe it's in anticipation of what's to come this evening.\n\nThe doorbell rings.\n\nMrs. Flanders excuses herself.\n\nOliver follows her.\n\nPatrick glances over at me and smiles weakly. He knows something that I can't sense.\n\nBut I don't need to, because everything's revealed when two guys bumble into the living room with a video camera and sound equipment.\n\n\"Thanks for coming so quickly,\" Oliver says. \"We definitely want to get this on film. It'll be great for the sizzle reel we're going to pitch to the network.\"\n\nTaylor's bright smile clicks into place. \"We're going to be on television?\"\n\n\"No way,\" Jess says.\n\nOliver twists his mustache. \"Actually, I've had an idea, based on Christian's experiences here in the UK, to feature him on a new show. It's all in the development stage right now, but this is the ideal event to film and see how everything looks.\"\n\nMy spirit sinks and I feel myself slouch into the sofa. \"So, we're just props here?\"\n\nOliver places his hand on my shoulder. \"No, no, Kendall. Do what you need to do during the investigation. I just want the camera crew to focus on Christian and what he's seeing, feeling, and experiencing.\"\n\nOnce peek over at him and I know what he's feeling. He's gazing into a small mirror that Jayne's holding, checking his face and hair and dabbing a bit of pancake makeup on his cheeks.\n\n\"He's putting on makeup?\" I say incredulously.\n\nCelia plops down on the couch next to me. \"What's going on here?\"\n\n\"The Christian Campbell show, it looks like.\"\n\n\"So, Mr. Bates?\" Taylor asks. \"What are we supposed to do?\"\n\n\"Be natural, Taylor. Just do what you always do on an investigation.\"\n\nShe looks over at me and shrugs. I lift my hands in defeat. It's clear that we ghost huntresses aren't needed here.\n\n\"Where shall I be?\" Mrs. Flanders asks.\n\n\"I think it would be perfect if everyone gathers around the table,\" Christian directs. \"Mrs. Flanders to my right. Jayne to my left. And the rest of you\u2026\" He trails off and syncs his eyes with mine. A slight sneer lifts the corner of his mouth. \"Well, the rest of you can just fill in the spaces and not fanny about.\"\n\nCelia sucks in. \"Fanny about? What does that even mean?\" She glares and then lowers her voice. \"I don't think I like this jerk.\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter,\" I say.\n\nPatrick comes over and offers his hand to me. \"Might as well join the dog and pony show,\" he says with a laugh.\n\nEveryone's in place at the table, Taylor's filming for our own purposes, but Niles and Jamie, the film crew, are set up and it's literally\u2026. \"Action!\"\n\nChristian begins using the Ouija board with Mrs. Flanders and Jayne assisting in using the planchette. It begins sliding across the slick surface passing over letters and numbers, circling back, and bringing the pointer around in circles.\n\nIn the full spotlight, Christian closes his eyes and speaks out in a booming voice. \"Who is here with us tonight? Show yourself to us. Use this divination tool to come forth.\"\n\nI knee Patrick under the table and he loops his fingers through mine.\n\nThis is complete crap, I say to him.\n\nIt's all for show.\n\n\"Come forth and show yourself. Who are you? Who has been terrorizing this house, this woman, her daughter?\" Christian chants in a monotone.\n\nThe camera crew moves in to show Christian's hands on the planchette as it travels aggressively on the table.\n\nD.\n\nO.\n\nJ.\n\nO.\n\n\"Dojo,\" Christian repeats. \"So, it is you.\"\n\n\"Who is Dojo?\" Jayne asks, peeping over her glasses.\n\nChristian turns to her. \"Never address a demon by name.\"\n\nShe shakes her head, her blond ponytail swaying. \"But you just\u2014\"\n\nChristian tosses his head back. \"I am familiar with this one. He is known to me.\"\n\nOliver steps in near Christian. \"Tell us what you're experiencing, Christian.\"\n\nThe young Scot closes his eyes again and lolls his head from left to right. Then he speaks again. \"I have known you, Dojo, for years. You are the spirit that has haunted and terrorized me since I was a little boy.\"\n\nI reach out with my psychic senses to see what, if anything is present or near to us. My abilities aren't picking up a thing. I don't know if that's because there's nothing here and Christian's just a big tool bag, or if this Dojo person is focused on his demonic task.\n\nChristian's eyes fly open and he screams out. He grabs the Ouija board and lifts it over his head, shaking it fiercely. Mrs. Flanders covers her head in protection and Jayne dives under the table. I watch as Christian falls back into the chair and starts flailing about.\n\n\"You can't have me. You never have. I-I-I\u2026\" Christian slams the board to the table and then flops back into the chair, like he's passed out.\n\nI stifle the desire to laugh, as does Celia. Instead, we watch the floor show.\n\nThen Christian rises, and in a voice that's nothing like his thick Scottish brogue, he says, \"I am Dojo. You have called me and I have come.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" Mrs. Flanders says on the verge of tears. \"Are you the one who has been causing trouble here?\"\n\n\"I am,\" Christian says deeply. \"I am Dojo. You summoned me. Now, what do you want?\"\n\nOliver looks at our host. \"He's doing what we call channeling, Mrs. Flanders. He's allowed this spirit to overtake him and speak through him so we can communicate.\"\n\nShe blinks hard and looks around the table. \"Oh, well, then.\"\n\n\"I am Dojo. You have crossed me. You have empowered me. I shall never leave you. Just as I have ruled over this boy since his birth. His power comes from me. Dojo.\"\n\nNo one in the room moves. Not even the sound guy trying to stretch the boom mike in. From what I'm picking up, my friends don't know whether Christian is the real thing or if he's just crazy out of his mind.\n\nI think it may be a recipe that includes both ingredients.\n\nPurchase Ghost Huntress: The Journey."
            },
            {
                "title": "Excerpt from POSER",
                "text": "\"Chai! Come on, Squirt. We've got to get going, the car's waiting,\" Claire-Ann shouts up the stairs of our massive penthouse loft that overlooks South Beach and the Atlantic Ocean.\n\nI cringe and keep brushing the knot out of my dark brown hair. Hair that's way too long for its own good. Claire-Ann won't dare let me cut it; no way, no how.\n\n\"Why does she always call you 'Squirt?'\" my best friend, Katy Kingston, asks from my bed. She's sprawled out painting her nails with my Club Monaco Nail Lacquer Duo of Froth and Wave. I picked it up at the photo shoot yesterday afternoon for Fendi Casa Designs, a local Miami Beach furniture designer. I was lying on this sand-colored satin couch with my hand draped over my face. To hide my slightly crooked schnoz, no doubt.\n\nI reach for my bottle of Tommy Girl and spritz a stream on my neck and chest. To hell with that crap about spray, delay, and walk away crap. If I pay good money for perfume, it's going on me. It's this thing I have for smells. Or rather, my fear that I'll smell. Shower time prior to an evening out is a ritual in itself for me. Deodorant soap like Lever, Dial, or Irish Spring, followed by a luffaing with Avon Brown Sugar body scrub. Then there's the whole lather, rinse, repeat, condition with the Biolage Energizing Shampoo and Detangling Solution Conditioner I buy religiously. Once I'm out of the shower, it's time for clear gel stick deodorant, followed by a good blast of Secret spray, a generous spread of Avon's African shea butter lotion and Aveda foot relief. I also overdo it on the facial moisturization so as to not have to resort to face lifts when I'm in my late forties (like my mother.) First, a layer of Clinique's Skin Texture lotion, followed by their Moisture Surge and a good dabbling around with the Daily Eye Benefits. Am I the walking poster child for Sephora or what?\n\nBut back to Katy's question instead of cataloging the products spread out before me. \"Claire-Ann calls me 'Squirt' in reference to my conception.\"\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\n\"Frozen Pop. Sperm donor. Get it. Squirt.\"\n\n\"Ohhhh, that's right! I keep forgetting that. Shit, Chai, don't you ever wonder who the guy was?\"\n\nI shrug as I reach for my lipstick. It's always been Claire-Ann and me... no one else. \"You can't miss what you've never had, you know? I mean, I know he was a student in New York back in the late 80s and was supposedly becoming a doctor. That's all I really need to know.\"\n\nMaybe that's why I have this internal itch to go into the medical profession myself. Seems like the Frozen Pop passed on his learning genes. God knows, I certainly didn't get my academic achievement from high school drop-out, Claire-Ann.\n\nKaty blows on her wet nails and leans back on my bed. \"See, if it were me, I'd have to, like, call the Sperm Bank of New York and find out who the swimmers belonged to. What my roots and heritage are.\"\n\n\"Roots and heritage? Are you Alex Hailey? You should be in drama club instead of me,\" I say with a laugh. \"It's pretty simple. Claire-Ann had reached a point in her life where she wanted off the drugs and wanted a baby. She bought a test tube and voila, Instant Chai.\"\n\n\"You're so blas\u00e9 about it.\"\n\n\"Why shouldn't I be? It's not like I can change it.\"\n\n\"It's just so...weird, Chai.\"\n\n\"It's never been an issue, honestly.\"\n\nKaty tosses her short, bobbed blonde hair around. \"I couldn't go through life not knowing who my dad is.\"\n\nI drop the silver lipstick case onto the table. \"That's 'cause your dad is one of the richest men in Miami.\"\n\nThis time it's Katy's turn to shrug. Kathryn Irene Kingston lives the perfect life, ensconced in her Star Island mansion (next door to JaRule\u2014actually, he's just renting, but still...), her mom works for the Miami Beach Tourism Bureau and her rich father lavishes them with expensive gifts galore. Not that I want that, but her mom cooks a mean pot roast, helps Katy with her homework, and encourages her to go to college instead of pushing her toward the cutthroat world of fashion modeling.\n\n\"Chai, are you ready?\" Claire-Ann shouts again. Only this time, I hear her coming up the stairs.\n\n\"I'm almost done.\"\n\n\"Wear the Jimmy Choo gold sandals I bought you last week. They'll make your legs look a mile long. You need to be taller.\"\n\nRight, because models have to be a certain weight and height. Heaven forbid that my five-eight isn't considered Glamazon enough. I'm sure that's my father's fault.\n\nClaire-Ann enters my bedroom decked out in hip BCBG fashion (that's probably too young-looking for her, but she wears it well) and her makeup draw perfectly on her too-too tightly pulled face. Damn Dr. Sheldon for the last face lift that makes her appear slightly Asian.\n\n\"Hey, Katy. You going with us, honey?\" Claire-Ann asks.\n\n\"Not tonight. I have a date with Rick Sommers.\"\n\n\"On a Thursday night?\" I ask, like it's some big deal for anyone in our clique to go out on a school night. God knows Claire-Ann drags me out enough when I should be doing homework.\n\n\"It's a study date,\" Katy says, beaming. She's been digging Rick for a time now. Good for her making some headway with him.\n\nI sigh. Katy gets to do real high school things, like study and go on dates\u2014with one of the hottest hunks in school\u2014and go to bed at a decent hour. Me, I'm up all night, in the gym first thing in the morning, and then I hit the ground running with school, photo shoots, and just being Claire-Ann's daughter, which is a full-time job in itself. It's amazing I can keep up this pace she's got me on without major medication. Besides, the guys at school who've shown interest in me only pay attention to me because of my quasi-celebrity status. High school boys are so stupid. I can't wait to get to college.\n\n\"Rick's the guy Chai says you've got the hots for?\" Claire-Ann prods.\n\n\"Mom!\" She hates when I address her that way.\n\nShe hands me a glass of champagne. \"Well, that's what you told me. Remember to use a condom, Katy.\"\n\nKaty rolls her eyes and laughs. She thinks Claire-Ann is the coolest and that I'm totally lucky to have a mom like her. Me, I want a real mom, not a girlfriend.\n\nClaire-Ann waggles the crystal flute at me. \"Here, have some before we leave. This is a big night.\"\n\nBig indeed. It's Betty Ford Night at Priv\u00e9, a hot club attached to Opium Garden down below Fifth Street that allows eighteen plus in on week nights. I tamp down my disgust at poking fun of the long ago-former first lady's penchant for alcohol. Hell, I don't even get carded there, or anywhere for that matter. Age has never been an issue for me. I look older than my years and when I'm with Claire-Ann, no one questions.\n\nAt Priv\u00e9, you can usually spot a good portion of the Miami Dolphins' defensive core puffing away on cigars and pounding back expensive cocktails, as well as various Heat players and Marlins hitters, not to mention the hottest people in the hip-hop music scene. Miami Beach is da bomb, da place. And Priv\u00e9 is a see-and-be-seen sort of establishment. No cutoff jeans and tourist shirts there.\n\nTonight, Claire-Ann is in search of producers to pitch her new reality TV show idea, as well as a photographer who'll make me his prot\u00e9g\u00e9e. Both ideas are like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. I just want to take a long, hot bath and read the latest David Baldacci novel Katy brought me.\n\n\"I don't want champagne,\" I say, picking up the convo with my mom. Champagne again. Always champagne with Claire-Ann. The stuff gives me a headache. Unlike other people my age who would be super-psyched at being supplied booze by their parents. To me it's no big deal when it's handed to you. Where's the challenge? How is that rebelling?\n\nFor me, rebellion comes in the form of an online Common Application aimed at Columbia University's Admissions Office.\n\nBut we won't tell Claire-Ann about that just yet.\n\nIt's not that I hate my mother. I don't. At all. I love her and she's a great person. Thing is, she wants me to be her. She'd give nothing more than for me to be a top fashion model at eighteen\u2014just like she was. Of course, Claire-Ann was escaping an abusive, dysfunctional family in Ohio when she broke free and got discovered in New York in the late 70s. She had that feathered, fashionable-then hair that would've made Farrah Fawcett look like a hag. I mean, I give the modeling my all\u2014for Claire-Ann's sake\u2014and I try to succeed, but in the past year since I started this whole \"Chai needs to be a model\" thing, I seem to only get jobs that her friends hire for or ones that feature poses that hide my\u2014\n\n\"Put a little more base and powder on the top of your nose, sweetie, to de-emphasize that crook.\" Claire-Ann leans in and reaches for the large makeup brush. \"Let me.\"\n\nHastily, I shove her away and bite on my bottom lip. Yes, okay, I have a bit of a crooked nose! I know it, Katy knows it, everyone at school knows it, Claire-Ann knows it, and so do most of the photographers in the Miami area. It's not like I'm disfigured, though. Enough with the exaggeration and dramatics. God knows I've had to learn to pose properly to make sure it doesn't take over the photos.\n\nI mean, look at Owen Wilson. He's a total babe who gets plenty of movie deals and his nose looks like it survived a car wreck or a crack with a baseball bat. Why is my nose a constant topic of conversation?\n\nClaire-Ann even took me in\u2014I thought we were going in for one of her checkups\u2014to Dr. Sheldon for a consultation for rhinoplasty. I'm sorry, but this is the nose I was born with and it's not that bad! Cameron Diaz's nose is a little crooked, too, but it never kept her from getting movie roles. It's part of her charm. Just like Tyra Banks and her big-ass forehead that's made her millions. Besides, I'm certainly not spending weeks with black eyes and bandages and wicked pain just so my nose won't stand out so much. That's so not me.\n\nNevertheless, I smear the Mac foundation on my nose and blend with a sponge as I stare at myself in the mirror. Actually, I've never thought being a model was my calling in life. I don't consider myself as particularly pretty or traffic stopping, like my mother. Even after five plastic surgeries, she's still head turningly gorgeous.\n\nWhen I was little, I successfully eluded many of her attempts to enter me into beauty pageants and modeling competitions. But when I hit sixteen and my boobs fully developed and my waist started curving in just right, Claire-Ann was determined I follow in her footsteps.\n\nMy eyes shift up now and I meet her ice blue stare. Not ice blue meaning she's pissed at me. Ice blue in that her eyes are the color of the Arctic waters\u2014her true trademark and the one thing that made her stand out in the fashion crowds of the 80s. Hypnotic. Mesmerizing. Million-dollar orbs.\n\n\"That's much better,\" she says, smiling at me in the reflection. \"You sure as shit didn't get that nose from me.\"\n\nNo, I didn't. I didn't get a whole hell of a lot from Claire-Ann except my figure. My dark eyes, dark hair and yes, the nose that offends all came from the Frozen Pop. All right, the nose isn't that bad, but with Claire-Ann always pointing it out to me my whole life, I feel like it must look like Gerard Depardieu or something to her. Hmmm...maybe he was the sperm donor?\n\n\"So who are you guys hoping to meet tonight?\" Katy asks. \"Big date with Craig, Claire-Ann?\"\n\n\"No, Craig's nothing serious.\" Claire-Ann flips her dark blonde hair over her shoulder and examines her makeup in the mirror. \"But I did get wind that a couple of producers and some big name photographers will be there this evening.\"\n\nI sigh extra hard. Craig, a.k.a. Guy of the Moment. He's an investment banker in Miami who has been wooing my mother. I think she's just into him for the sex. And it's me who has to hear them when they're going at it. Ewww! The building's built to withstand hurricane-force winds, but not Claire-Ann's ecstatic shrieks.\n\n\"What kind of producers?\" Katy asks. She digs conversing with my mother. To her it's like watching The View in person.\n\n\"Well, my sources tell me there's a guy from Bravo who's scouting for his next big reality show. And since Miami Beach is such a hot locale, what better place to look than here?\"\n\n\"Why would we care about a reality TV producer?\" I ask.\n\nWith great excitement, Claire-Ann says, \"So we can get our own show! Mother and daughter in the modeling industry. If they can make stars out of a bunch of Orange County housewives and trashy people from the Jersey Shore, why not us? It'll be fabulous.\"\n\n\"Absolutely not! I'm not going to be fodder for people's entertainment pleasure. Jesus, Claire-Ann, it's bad enough you send me on these shoots and stuff without\u2014\" I stop myself before I tell her what I really feel like doing this whole modeling thing. The pained look on her face\u2014which is a miracle, considering all of the Botox\u2014says I've almost crossed the line. \"I only mean that it's, like, been done before.\"\n\nHer left brow lifts. \"Who?\"\n\n\"I don't know, but surely it's been done.\"\n\nShe waves me off. \"We'll be better than anything that's been on before.\"\n\nPoor Claire-Ann. The camera doesn't love her like it once did, but she still has feelings for it. Unrequited love.\n\nI stand and smooth out the Prada pants I borrowed from Claire-Ann. I've got them paired with a matching Prada top, square neckline with a seamed Empire waist. The creamy ivory fabric looks great on my freshly spray-tanned skin. It may be early March in South Beach, but I've had nada time to get any sun with the schedule I've been keeping. It's all I can do to keep up my grades, hoping Columbia University will deem me suitable for entrance into their freshman class in the fall.\n\nClaire-Ann strokes my long hair and smiles approvingly. \"There's my lovely girl. I'll meet you downstairs. Katy, we can drop you off on the way if you want.\"\n\n\"That's okay, Claire-Ann. I've got my car,\" Katy says. She hops off the bed and hands over the Vogue magazine that's been sitting beside her. \"Too bad you have to go to this party and can't stay home gawking at your boyfriend.\"\n\n\"My boyfriend? What the\u2014\"\n\nI look at the magazine and nearly gasp when I see the photo she's pointing out. Ooo, hadn't seen that yet. Droolingly handsome, barefoot Ty Willingham dressed in white linen Armani in a two-page spread for A|X. The guy's got piercing chocolate eyes, a stern chin with his signature cleft in it, and thick, shiny black hair. My fingers could get lost in that mop for at least a week. No one on earth should be allowed to look that fucking amazing.\n\nExcept maybe male super model extraordinaire, Ty Willingham.\n\nI can't believe this guy is my age.\n\n\"God, I wish he were my boyfriend,\" I say with a bit of a sigh. \"I wouldn't have to think twice about giving him my virginity.\"\n\nKaty lights up. \"You know, I read on the InsaneMiami blog that he and his family are moving here. His father is this power stock broker in Manhattan who had a heart attack, so the doctors told him to move to a warmer climate.\"\n\nMy heart trips over itself at the thought of running into Ty Willingham on Ocean Drive or at one of the hotel bars on Collins. Of meeting him and sharing a moment. Of falling at his feet and admitting that I have a poster of him on the inside of my closet door. So juvenile of me, but a girl can dream.\n\n\"Chai Devareaux!\" Claire-Ann calls out from the lower level. \"Get your skinny little ass down here now! Our car service is waiting!\"\n\n\"Wish me luck tonight,\" I say to Katy as I grab my Kate Spade clutch. \"Claire-Ann's convinced, as you saw, that tonight's the night I get discovered.\"\n\nKaty screws up her face. \"But is that what you want?\"\n\nI let out a long breath. \"It's what Claire-Ann wants. And as long as I'm under her roof, living off her money and all that stuff, I've got to do as she says. Besides, I'm not in drama class for nothing. I can act exactly like she wants: mature, sophisticated, fashionable, and most of all, interested.\"\n\n\"Okay, strut your stuff, g'friend. If there's one thing you did inherit from her, it's your walk. Go get 'em, babe!\"\n\nHeading down the stairs, I stand tall and confident, ready to face the long evening ahead. Underneath the foofed hair and perfect makeup is the real me. The girl who simply wants to go to college, get away from her mom, be on her own. The woman beneath the fa\u00e7ade who longs to be a doctor, help others, and make a difference.\n\nFor tonight\u2014and for the next few weeks (until I hear from Columbia) I'll suck it up and keep playing the game. I've done so well up until now.\n\nAt the base of the staircase, Claire-Ann puts her hand over her heart. \"You truly are breathtaking, sweetie.\"\n\nAnd somehow, I feel like I am.\n\nPurchase Poser."
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "title": "(Oddjobs 2.5) Last Christmas",
        "author": "Heide Goody",
        "genres": [
            "urban fantasy",
            "humor",
            "short story"
        ],
        "tags": [],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "Last Christmas",
                "text": "Luke believed in Father Christmas, so when he heard the scraping at his window on Christmas Eve he knew who was out there.\n\nIf asked who brought the presents on Christmas night, Luke knew that it was the jolly fat man with his sleigh and his reindeer. He knew that the other kids in his year 6 class, the ones with cruel, inept or stubbornly honest parents, said that there was no Santa and that it was just your parents pretending, but Luke didn't buy that explanation. Luke had seen Father Christmas on TV, had a received an e-mail from him the year before last, he'd seen the videos of children flying out to meet him in Lapland. The choice between believing in a little magic or a worldwide adult conspiracy would always tip in magic's favour. And if there were cracks in the Santa logic or grey areas in Luke's belief then he papered over those cracks and ignored those uncertainties as any religious person would.\n\nLuke believed in Father Christmas but that didn't stop him being frightened by the sound. He hunkered down on his side, bunched his quilt under his neck, screwed his eyes shut and pretended to be sleep or dead or invisible.\n\nHe sees you when you're sleeping, thought Luke. He knows when you're awake.\n\nThe scratching was followed by the softer sound of the window opening. A waft of chilly night air brushed over his exposed ear. Luke didn't move. There was a hard sound, like wooden heels stepping onto his window sill, the radiator and then much more quietly onto the carpet floor. Luke didn't move. Father Christmas \u2013 it must be Father Christmas, it must \u2013 stood in the centre of Luke's bedroom, his hard shoes brushing against the toys that littered the limited floor space. Father Christmas breathed like he had a blocked nose, a raspy, throaty sound. Breathing, surveying. Luke didn't move.\n\nAnd then Father Christmas approached and Luke's petrified mind retreated further down. He was asleep. He was dead. He was invisible.\n\nWarm breath now played over Luke's exposed ear. It crept into Luke's nostrils. The smell was dense, built up of layers of sweat and filth and old food. And for a split second, Luke considered that the figure crouched over him might not be Father Christmas after all\u2026\n\nA hand with nails \u2013 with claws \u2013 grabbed Luke's shoulder and flipped him over. He opened his mouth to shout and something hard and rectangular was slammed into his chest \u2013 a box? \u2013 and as Luke drew another breath, he was swung upside down and his face mushed against a mass of foetid fur, hide and muscle.\n\nWith two steps, the thing that had him was on the window sill again. A push and a swing and Luke was in the frozen air and being hauled upwards, up the outside of Cleveland Tower. Survival instincts over-ruled fear and Luke opened his eyes. Holloway Circus roundabout was hundreds of feet below him, the concrete pagoda at its centre a tiny spire, the hour hand in the clock of the roundabout. Orange street lights and the neon frontages of the fast food outlets across the road looked almost festive. Directly below him was the ragged hide of the monster that held him. He saw its hoofs, sure and swift, finding purchase in the section gaps of the tower block wall.\n\nA blast of wind stung Luke's and drew blurry tears.\n\nHe cried out as the thing bounded over the lip of the building and onto the roof. The creature dropped Luke. He rolled onto the roof, still instinctively clutching the box that had been thrust into his arms. He coughed and gasped and tried to blink away his tears. The cold bit into him. There was no snow in the air but it felt as if there should be.\n\nThe creature \u2013 it must have been at least eight feet tall, not including the huge curved horns \u2013 stalked across the roof. The children in the cage began to keen and sob as the thing approached. It was a tall cage but barely wide enough for the four children within. Luke saw the dirty, ancient leather straps that looped round from the top of the cage to the middle. Shoulder straps. So the beast could carry it. Carry its catch.\n\nThe creature slide a greasy bolt on the roof of the cage, opened it and turned to Luke.\n\nLuke saw its face for the first time \u2013 the snout, the eyes, the tongue.\n\nKrampus, thought Luke, too scared and addled to remember where he had even heard the name but perfectly aware of what the word meant and of what was going to happen to him now.\n\n\"Excuse me, sir. Is that your cage?\" called a voice from across the roof, which was not what Luke expected to happen next at all.\n\nA man and a woman stood by the door to the stairs. The white man was tall and broad-shouldered, like a WWE wrestler. The Asian woman was positively tiny in comparison. The man wore a suit and tie. The tiny woman wore a tiny black party dress that, in Luke's prepubescent opinion, didn't cover as much flesh as it should. Luke was shivering in his thin pyjamas. He couldn't imagine the woman was much warmer.\n\nThe Krampus wheeled towards them and with clawed arms spread wide hissed threateningly.\n\n\"Not sure if I quite got that,\" said the man, walking towards the beast. \"I asked you if this was your cage.\"\n\nThe Krampus mumbled something around his massive voice-strangling tongue that sounded like, \"Por thlagn meschth Sheol-Niggurauth. Pon thfyeh. Pon thfyeh.\"\n\nThe man gave an uncomprehending shrug and turned back to the woman, who was gripping the edge of the doorway and not going anywhere.\n\n\"Help me out, Nina. I struggle at the best of time. But with the tongue and the whole speech impediment, I haven't a clue.\"\n\n\"You need help?\" she replied and Luke realised she was very drunk. \"I was quite happy in that bar, Rod, and you made me climb five hundred flights of stairs to \u2013\"\n\n\"It wasn't five hundred flights. There's no building with five hundred \u2013\"\n\n\"- five hundred flights of stairs,\" she insisted, \"and expect me to speak Venislarn goat dialects! It's bloody freezing up here if you hadn't noticed!\"\n\n\"I think you can put your own needs aside for just one moment.\"\n\n\"But it's Christmas.\"\n\n\"A time for a charity and a spot of human kindness,\" the man, Rod, sighed and turned back to the Krampus.\n\n\"Sorry about this.\" He flashed an ID card at the monster. \"If you could try to speak in English. My colleague started the office party a little early. This. Your cage?\"\n\nThe Krampus gestured. Yes, of course it was his bloody cage.\n\n\"Right,\" said Rod. He gave Luke a small reassuring smile and made soothing gestures to the terrified kids in the cage. \"And you are collecting these for\u2026?\"\n\n\"Myem-un per Yoth-Sheol-Niggurauth. Skeidl kro \u2013\"\n\n\"English, please.\"\n\n\"Moth-er,\" it lisped horribly. \"Sheol-Niggurauth. Black Beast with Thousand Young, Suckler of Mis-er-y.\"\n\n\"Thought so,\" said Rod. He dipped into his jacket pocket for a sheet of paper and, as he did, Luke saw that the big guy had a pistol holstered under there like he was a spy or a cop or something. James Bond versus the Krampus.\n\nRod unfolded the piece of paper, checked the details on it and then held it out for the Krampus to read.\n\n\"Under the Treaty of Birmingham as instated by the court of Yo-Morgantus \u2013\"\n\n\"Yoch leis kod junq!\" spat the Krampus defiantly and grabbed his hairy crotch for emphasis.\n\n\"Do you kiss your mom with that mouth?\" retorted Nina.\n\n\"Dho set ruvae.\"\n\n\"What? Never?\" said Nina. \"Aw. I mean, I know there's a thousand of you but everyone needs some quality time with their mom.\"\n\n\"Fat hurrech bu'nin Mair-Rauth!\"\n\n\"- As instated by the court of Yo-Morgantus,\" persevered Rod, \"you have a fixed quota for the year.\"\n\n\"Zha! Is end of year,\" said the Krampus.\n\n\"Not for another\u2026\" He consulted his wristwatch. \"It's not even nine o'clock, so it's eight days until new year. Then you can start fishing again.\"\n\n\"But is nee-ded,\" said the Krampus thickly and licked his lips with that monstrous tongue. The tip of his tongue even dipped inside his crooked nostril for a moment or two and Luke, despite his fear, was impressed by that.\n\n\"Needed for what?\" said Rod.\n\n\"To give.\"\n\n\"Give what?\"\n\n\"Give heart.\" The Krampus mimed eating an apple except it wasn't apples he was collecting. Not by a long shot. \"Give heart to moth-er. Special gift.\"\n\n\"Well, we all like to give our mum a special something for Christmas.\"\n\n\"Do they know it's Christmas time at all?\" sang Nina apropos of nothing.\n\n\"But,\" said Rod, in the adult tones of one who knew they were doing all the work (Luke's mom used it all the time), \"you're going to have to throw these ones back. Rules.\"\n\n\"Shut clau!\"\n\n\"Your god's rules. If mummy Niggurauth wants to take the matter up with Lord Morgantus then that's for her to sort out. You and us, we're just the little people. So, get the kids out of the cage.\"\n\nThe Krampus turned to his haul with a growl of frustration and then turned back to Rod imploringly.\n\n\"But is naughty children.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\nThe Krampus reached through the bars of the cage and grabbed the tallest girl by the arm. She squealed and struggled.\n\n\"Is troll,\" said the Krampus. \"Puts pic-ture of school friend's vos glun'u on in-ter-net.\"\n\n\"Did she?\" said Nina, shocked.\n\n\"Snap-chat,\" said the Krampus.\n\n\"Doesn't matter,\" said Rod.\n\nThe Krampus grabbed a lad who was trying to cower at the back of the cage.\n\n\"Hit Ger-man Shepherd with stones.\"\n\n\"A dog?\" asked Rod. \"Or\u2026 or an actual shepherd?\"\n\n\"Called Wolfie.\"\n\n\"Yep. Still not narrowed it down. Mate, listen. They might be the naughtiest kids in the city but they're not yours. Let them out now.\"\n\nThe Krampus strode towards Luke. Luke shuffled a foot back, the box tumbling from his lap but he found himself trapped between the Krampus and the edge of the roof. The Krampus pointed a wickedly long nail at him.\n\n\"Bar-gain,\" it said.\n\n\"What?\" Luke whispered.\n\n\"You can't have him,\" said Rod.\n\n\"Bar-gain!\" growled the Krampus.\n\n\"Just shoot it!\" yelled Luke. \"Shoot it!\"\n\nThe Krampus cast an enraged glare at Rod.\n\n\"Byach, muda khi umlaq!\" it swore furiously.\n\n\"What did you say?\" slurred Nina as though only now becoming conscious of the situation. \"What did you call me?\"\n\n\"Muda khi umlaq, lat wei!\"\n\n\"F'ing fighting talk,\" she snarled. \"You'd better start playing ball or we're gonna take this outside.\"\n\n\"We are outside,\" pointed out Rod.\n\nNina looked around herself slowly and nodded in reluctant agreement.\n\n\"You'd better start playing ball,\" she told the Krampus, \"or we're gonna take this inside, ya hear?\"\n\nBy this time, the Krampus had rooted around under the rags and fur that covered its body and produced an old-fashioned device with chunky buttons.\n\n\"Bar-gain,\" said the Krampus and clicked the device. It hissed for a second and then Luke heard himself, heard his own voice say, \"No, I would. I'd give anything for a PS4.\"\n\nThe Krampus clicked it off. Luke stared.\n\n\"We were just talking,\" he said. \"Josh has got one. I've only got an Xbox. We were just talking.\"\n\n\"Bar-gain,\" said the Krampus and stamped its hoof.\n\nFor the first time, Luke looked properly at the box the Krampus had forced upon him. It had been bashed and battered and the Christmas wrapping paper, which look as if it had been applied by someone without eyes or hands had mostly ripped away. Beneath the paper, the logo and image on the cover were unmistakeable. It was a Playstation console.\n\n\"But\u2026\"\n\nRod was double-checking his sheet of paper.\n\n\"Well, technically,\" he said, \"items offered in trade aren't part of the quota system.\"\n\n\"But\u2026\"\n\n\"What?\" said Nina. \"Fuzz-face is allowed to take him?\"\n\nRod gave her a helpless look and blew out his cheeks.\n\n\"He is.\"\n\n\"You can't let him!\" shouted Luke.\n\nHe looked at the children in the cage. An inkling that they were saved and he was not was beginning to dawn on certain faces. Luke despised them all and would have traded them in a heartbeat. Heartbeat. His heart.\n\n\"You can't!\" he screamed but Luke could see by the adults' faces that they were going to let the beast have him. And so could the Krampus.\n\nThe shaggy goat-faced giant went to the cage, opened the door and, one-by-one, hoisted the children out and deposited them in on the exposed roof in their onesies, their dressing gowns and their slippers. Each one was a stab in Luke's heart.\n\nRod clicked his fingers and gestured for the children to come over to him. He ushered them on towards Nina and the door.\n\nLuke kicked at the badly-wrapped present he had unfairly trade his life for and then spotted something.\n\n\"Hey!\" he shouted. \"This is a Playstation 3.\"\n\n\"Pff!\" spat the Krampus and waved his complaint aside.\n\n\"It's a PS3,\" he repeated. \"I wanted a PS4.\"\n\n\"Is good present,\" said the Krampus.\n\n\"I wouldn't give you a quid for this tat.\"\n\nThe Krampus stomped over.\n\n\"Is box. Is game. Bar-gain,\" he snarled with a fearsome finality.\n\n\"It isn't the same though, is it?\" said Nina, stepping from the shelter of the doorway for the first time and making her way across the roof on unstable high heels. \"Is it, Rod?\"\n\n\"Don't ask me,\" said Rod. \"Last games machine I had was a ZX Spectrum.\"\n\n\"They couldn't be more different. The PS4 has got a completely new architecture. It's hundreds of times more powerful than the 3. And the controller is infinitely better.\"\n\n\"Is good present,\" said the Krampus but there was a confusion in his eyes.\n\n\"It's not what he wanted.\"\n\n\"Man in shop said\u2026\"\n\n\"It's not what he wanted,\" said Rod.\n\n\"The deal's off,\" said Nina.\n\nThe Krampus' monstrous mouth worked in growing bewilderment and annoyance. He looked at the children he had already given up and the boy he was now about to lose.\n\n\"No!\" he shouted. \"Bar-gain! Playsta-tion! Mine!\"\n\n\"You want to make a complaint,\" said Rod, \"you come down to the office after the bank holiday.\"\n\n\"Bank hol-i\u2026? No! Mine!\"\n\nLuke saw the big man's hand rise towards the holster in his jacket but he was too slow. The Krampus' jaw distended impossibly and it produced a discordant roar of defiance, its tongue flapping about like a flag in the wind, before the creature turned, sprinted at Luke, scooped him up and leapt from the roof.\n\nRod ran to the edge of the roof, gun drawn. The goat beast, the Krol-Rauth or Krampus, was falling away towards the Holloway roundabout. With impossible strength, it struck out with its hoofs, skidded down the concrete pagoda at the roundabout's centre and bounded across to the far pavement. Nina could see the indecision in Rod's body language.\n\n\"And the answer's no,\" she said.\n\n\"You don't know that,\" he said.\n\n\"You'd be street pizza.\"\n\n\"But maybe I could\u2026 angle myself and grab the flags outside the Radisson Hotel or\u2026\" He saw a windblown flap of paper near his feet and picked it up. \"Bugger.\" He ran for the stairs.\n\n\"You lot, downstairs,\" Nina instructed the freed children and herded them ahead of her. Partway down the stairs, they passed a woman coming slowly up the stairs.\n\n\"Do you like children?\" said Nina.\n\n\"Do I what?\"\n\n\"Good,\" said Nina. \"Here are some free children. They're yours.\"\n\n\"They're not my children.\"\n\n\"Stay with her,\" Nina told them and ran on.\n\n\"They're not mine!\" yelled the woman but Nina was gone, running as fast as she could on high heels and with a skinful of alcohol inside her. She wished she had asked Rod for a piggy back, but suspected that travel sickness would rapidly follow, and it might put a considerable dent in their working relationship if she honked down his neck.\n\nFive hundred flights of stairs later (or something that felt very much like it) she ran out onto the street. Rod was long gone. A group of youths waited for the lights to change so that they could cross Suffolk Street.\n\n\"Hey, you! Your trainers. Give them to me,\" she said to the smallest one.\n\n\"Gotta be shittin' me. Get lost,\" said the youth.\n\nNina bent over to catch her breath and considered using vomit as a tactical weapon.\n\nThe youngest's mate nudged him. \"Hundred and you might be talkin',\" he said.\n\nNina rolled her eyes. \"I am not paying a hundred pounds for second-hand toe cheese.\" She dug in her pocket. \"Fifty's all I've got, and you can have these as well.\" She slipped out of her high heels. A look passed between the small youth and his mate.\n\nMoments later, she was wearing luminous trainers and sprinting out towards New Street the still twinkling lights of the pedestrianised shopping area.\n\nLuke had seen The Snowman and, although perhaps he was beyond the age to be entranced by such whimsical and simplistic cartoons, he had always been transported by the notion of the boy and his snowman, flying through the night air to Father Christmas' North Pole home. Being hauled across the city roofs by a galloping Krampus didn't compare at all. The goat-monster bounced, leapt and tumbled its grip around Luke's middle simultaneously painfully tight and dangerously loose.\n\nLuke heard the beep of taxi horns and the roars of rooftop ducts, he caught glimpses of headlights, Christmas lights and the whole world caught in the vast mirrored frontage of New Street station and suddenly they had stopped.\n\nThe Krampus perched on a rooftop. It was a wooden, snow-covered rooftop and Father Christmas stood next to them. However, the snow was painted on and Father Christmas was a life-sized effigy in plastic or something.\n\nLuke gasped for breath and groaned at the pain in his ribs and stomach. They had come to a stop on top of one of the stalls in the German market. Luke looked up and down the hill. Yes, he recognised the place. Up the hill, under blue and white snowflake Christmas lights, the wooden huts of stollen stalls, hot dog vendors, toy-sellers and mulled wine bars, stretched up towards the Town Hall and the big carousel ride. Down the hill, pretzel-mongers, market-traders and knick-knack merchants led down to the Bullring and the bronze bull statue (which this year had been dressed up as a Christmas pudding and didn't look at all pleased about it). If Luke remembered correctly, the large hut they had come to rest on was a beer hall. Shoppers and revellers and those who could multi-task and do both still thronged the stalls. None looked up at Luke.\n\n\"Put me down, please,\" he asked the Krampus.\n\nThe Krampus shook him to silence him and scoured the local area.\n\n\"What are you looking for?\" said Luke.\n\n\"Shop,\" growled the Krampus and, rolling Luke under his arm like so much laundry, leapt again.\n\nRod was nowhere in sight but she ran anyway, phoning his number as she did.\n\n\"Campbell,\" he answered.\n\n\"Where are you?\"\n\n\"Following a hunch.\"\n\n\"Yeah? I think he's heading to the German market,\" she panted in reply.\n\n\"Why? Cos he needs a snowflake bauble or a warm pretzel?\"\n\n\"Something one of the Fish Boys told me.\"\n\nShe heard Rod snort. Intelligence tips from wannabe gangstas with gills, half-Venislarn or not, were perhaps less than golden.\n\n\"And your hunch?\" she said, prepared to be equally dismissive.\n\n\"He dropped the receipt,\" said Rod.\n\nAt the upstairs floor customer service counter of PC Electrical, the Krampus clutched Luke tightly by the hand and tried to explain himself to the sales assistant.\n\n\"Must change present,\" growled the Krampus and waved the badly clawed box in the sales assistant's face.\n\n\"Sir, I'm afraid we can't exchange goods that have been used,\" said the sales assistant.\n\n\"Not used! Is wrong present!\" howled the Krampus. He leaned over the man, his tongue dragging across the counter top, leaving a trail of slime.\n\n\"Used or damaged, sir. The packaging is not intact.\"\n\nThe Krampus reared up and started to roar. Luke tugged on the monster's hand.\n\n\"What this, er, my dad really means,\" he said, \"is he would like someone to explain the difference between the games consoles.\"\n\n\"Oh, right,\" beamed the sales assistant. \"I can do that. Tell me then, will you be wanting to access high definition video content from the device?\"\n\nThe Krampus gave a small shrug and made a vague slobbering noise.\n\n\"Pretend he knows nothing,\" said Luke. \"Take him through all the basics. Slowly. Really slowly.\"\n\nThe sales assistant looked at Luke.\n\n\"Why'd you come to the shops in your pyjamas?\"\n\n\"Seriously?\" said Luke, flicking a finger between himself and the Krampus.\n\nThe assistant shrugged.\n\n\"I understand the Krampus costume but this\u2026 Or are you meant to be a naughty child the Krampus has stolen?\"\n\n\"Not meant to be,\" said Luke.\n\nNina grabbed Rod's arm just as he was about the enter PC Electrical.\n\n\"Is he in there?\" she said.\n\n\"I'm just about to find out,\" he said. \"I was heading straight here and then I thought I saw something. Another creature. I thought it was Venislarn and then I realised it was just a horse skull on a stick, you know like a hobby horse and \u2013\" He did a double-take. \"You stopped to pick up gluhwein.\"\n\n\"My body chemistry was all out of whack,\" she said, sipping the cup of hot wine. \"I've come right down from my party mood.\"\n\n\"I hardly think that alcohol's going to help.\"\n\n\"It doesn't count as alcohol, it's a restorative. It was a Mair-Rauth.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"The thing you saw,\" said Nina. \"The Mair-Rauth or Mari Lwyd. Billy Goat Gruff mentioned it on the roof. Another of Sheol-Niggurauth's offspring. I think there's some sort of sibling rivalry going on and, if the Fish Boys are to be believed, mummy has taken up residence right here in the \u2013\"\n\nThere was a muffled crash from within the shop and an alarm began to ring.\n\nThe two consular agents ran inside, both armed, he with a Glock pistol, she with a half-cup of mulled wine. They found the Krol-Rauth, Luke still firmly in his grip, furiously ripping stock from the shelves in a fit of wild unhappiness.\n\n\"I only wanted to explain the benefits of taking out a PC Electrical extended warranty guarantee,\" whimpered the sales assistant as he sheltered behind a display stand of laser printers.\n\nRod drew a bead on the creature, right between its horns. Killing Venislarn was generally a big no-no but this guy had crossed a line and was now pissing all over it.\n\n\"Freeze!\"\n\nThe Krol-Rauth turned, impotent fury in his eyes.\n\n\"Not fair!\" it roared.\n\n\"Come on now. We all get a bit over-excited at Christmas,\" said Nina. \"Why don't we go get a drink?\"\n\n\"Un-fair exchange pol-i-cy!\"\n\n\"Been there, done that,\" Rod agreed.\n\n\"Kod junq,\" it swore miserably but they could see that the fight had gone from him.\n\nThe big guy took Luke's hand as they left the store. Luke was ten years old and any bloke who tried to hold his hand would normally be due a swift kick in the shins and a shout of \"Stranger danger!\" but Luke was tired and aching and just wanted to go home.\n\nThe Krampus followed with a box he'd snatched off the shelves.\n\nThe sales assistant ran out of the store.\n\n\"Sir, you can't just take\u2014\"\n\nThe Krampus smacked him aside viciously with the PS4.\n\n\"Gonna be bust now,\" mumbled Luke.\n\nThe woman, Nina, was speaking to the small crowd on the street drawn by the sound of the alarm.\n\n\"A bit of over-enthusiastic cosplay,\" she explained and waved Rod and the Krampus onward. \"Be about your revels, folks.\"\n\nThe Krampus froze and let out a huge low hiss. Nina followed its gaze.\n\nA bizarre figure, dressed in dirty white, tottered through the night time crowd. It was as tall as the Krampus, principally because the thing's head was being held aloft on a stick. Luke reflected that if he'd chosen to carry the skeleton of a horse's head around, he'd want it at the end of a stick, too.\n\n\"That's not real, is it?\" he asked.\n\n\"No,\" said Rod. \"Nothing says Christmas like an ugly ghost hobby horse.\"\n\nAs they watched, the horse skull head leaned in and nipped a woman's arm from behind. She whirled around and slapped her companion who looked confused and wounded as the horse went on its way, somehow managing to look as if it was laughing.\n\n\"It's the Mari Lwyd,\" said Nina. \"Mair-Rauth. And thankfully it's invisible.\"\n\n\"I can see it,\" said Luke.\n\nRod looked like he wanted to say something in response to that but held his tongue.\n\n\"Brother!\" spat the Krampus.\n\nThe horse made a rude snickering sound.\n\n\"Neh-umlaq defaid bhul-dho,\" it swore. Its voice was mellifluous and unaccented and came from some place other than that fleshless and tongueless horse mouth. For some reason, Luke found its perfectly measured human voice far scarier than the Krampus' slobbering lisp.\n\nWhatever it had said, Luke could see that it had angered the Krampus. To goad the Krampus further, the Mari Lwyd cantered briefly on the spot, a rather camp manoeuvre.\n\nNina strode up to it and slapped it on a bony shoulder.\n\n\"Listen up, horse boy. Me and my colleague, we're just observers in this touching reunion, but it's my duty to warn you, and your goaty brother that any unauthorised trouble is very much our business, so we're just going to hang around and chill while you exchange your Christmas cards. Keep it civil, yeah?\"\n\nNina and Rod stood with Luke beneath the eaves of the two-storey mulled wine stall upon which the Krampus had initially halted with Luke. Distorted Christmas music blasted out from speakers as, with an almost desperate cheer, the stall patrons drank mug after mug of Christmas spirit.\n\nNina looked up at the upper floors and sniffed. She sniffed the air and then sniffed her cup of gluhwein.\n\n\"Ah,\" she said, as though suddenly understanding and emptied the rest of her mulled wine out onto the pavement.\n\n\"What?\" said Rod.\n\n\"The Fish Boy tip was spot on.\"\n\n\"You are in a great deal of trouble,\" the Mari Lwyd said to the Krampus in its melodious tones. \"Where is your tribute?\"\n\nA troubled look passed across the Krampus's face. \"Got her fav-our-ite!\" it snarled, waving its pilfered games console towards where Luke hid behind Rod.\n\n\"One child? The heart of one child?\"\n\nThe Mari Lwyd broke into a fit of giggles. Its horsey teeth clattered together like a nightmarish xylophone. The Krampus strode forwards and pushed its face right up against its bony muzzle.\n\n\"What fun-ny?\" the Krampus bellowed. Its tongue quivered with rage and a passing man in a Santa hat gave it a playful tug which only enraged him further.\n\n\"You always were the slow one,\" said the horse-headed Mari Lwyd.\n\n\"Bar-gain!\" hissed the Krampus, lifting the battered PS4.\n\n\"He's not yours,\" said Rod.\n\n\"Mother may want him yet,\" said the Mari Lwyd.\n\n\"She's not having him,\" said Rod.\n\n\"Persiai ghorsri Yoth-Sheol-Niggurauth,\" said the Mari Lwyd sternly.\n\nLuke felt the change in the two people's \u2013 the two humans' \u2013 body language.\n\n\"But\u2026\" he said.\n\n\"I think this is going to be settled by a higher authority,\" said Nina.\n\n\"Sorry,\" said Rod.\n\n\"You lied,\" said Luke.\n\n\"Adults lie,\" said Nina.\n\nThe Mari Lwyd swept into the gluhwein stall and to the small spiral staircase behind the bar that led up to the otherwise inaccessible upper floor. The bar staff, all buxom jollity and seasonal warmth, either didn't notice or didn't need to. And, thinking that, Luke suddenly thought that those barmen and barmaids were oddly wooden and constrained in their movements, like Christmas nutcrackers, like the little carved people inside a cuckoo clock.\n\n\"I don't like this,\" he said.\n\n\"Then you're not stupid,\" said Nina, following the Mari Lwyd up the narrow stair where the loud music from the bar echoed loudly. \"This is the current residence of Sheol-Niggurauth. Black Beast with Thousand Young, Suckler of Misery.\"\n\n\"Why would a god of misery put itself in the middle of a happy, jolly Christmas market?\" said Rod.\n\n\"Clearly you've had different Christmases to me,\" said Nina. \"What's to like?\"\n\n\"Father Christmas,\" said Luke automatically.\n\n\"Free stuff, huh?\" said Nina.\n\n\"The magic of the season,\" said Rod.\n\nThe Mari Lwyd stopped at a closed door. Luke could hear the Krampus somewhere behind and below him on the stairs, bringing up the rear.\n\n\"Someone with opposable thumbs care to open this door?\" asked the Mari Lwyd.\n\nNina opened the door. The room beyond was gloomy and huge \u2013 far huger than was possible - and stunk of animal dung. The sound of a Christmas song reverberated through the floor.\n\n'What will your daddy do when he sees your mummy kissing Santa Claus? Ah-haaa.'\n\nThe filter of the wooden floor stripped the words of any life, the song of any cheer and, for the first time, Luke thought about that lyric and the bleakness it carried. This was only accentuated by the muffled sounds of the market; the stamp of feet, the grumbles of those short of time before the coming of Christmas day, the desperate buying of meaningless ornaments and treats to fill some undefined and unfillable hole.\n\nLuke's eyes slowly adjusted to the low light, and then he wasn't sure he welcomed the improvement to his vision. The creature that nearly filled the space looked like it had been composed of things left behind on a butcher's floor. There were hoofs and there were teeth and there were things that glistened wetly like uncooked liver. And there were nipples, lots of nipples. Luke wasn't sure what he felt about nipples but he wasn't happy with the idea of there being quite so many of them in such a confined space.\n\nOily liquid ran freely over Sheol-Niggurauth's body and Luke saw the creatures that swarmed over her massive form, licking at it. But the liquid pooled on the floor and poured through the gaps.\n\n\"The milk of human misery,\" said Nina. \"That's what they're serving downstairs.\"\n\n\"God milk?\" said Rod.\n\nThe sound of a thousand flies was suddenly in the air. A voice spoke out of the darkness, a voice that came from many throats \u2013 no, was made up of a multitude of sounds, none of them produced by any throat, scrapes and taps, the shifting of limbs, the buzzing of wings.\n\n\"AND WHAT ROUGH BEASTS ARE THESE, THEIR HOUR COME AT LAST?\"\n\n\"San-shu chuman'n, Yoth-Sheol-Niggurauth,\" said Nina and bowed deeply.\n\n\"San-shu chuman'n,\" echoed Rod and encouraged Luke to bow with him.\n\n\"AND WHAT HAVE MY FOOL OFFSPRING DONE TO ALERT THE ATTENTION OF THE CONSULAR MISSION?\"\n\n\"Mother, it's all Krol-Rauth's fault,\" said the Mari Lwyd. \"He never listens, you know that.\"\n\n\"SHOW ME WHAT TRIBUTE YOU HAVE BROUGHT, MY SON,\" said the Niggurauth to the Mari Lwyd.\n\n\"Oh yes, Mother,\" said the Mari Lwyd, \"I can't wait to show you what I have brought! I listened.\"\n\nWith a small, horsey ta dah the Mari Lwyd whisked aside part of its canopy and, with hands of string-tied bone, pulled out a plastic reel of what looked like ribbon, shiny and caramel brown.\n\n\"A recording of Fairytale of New York Kirsty MacColl made for a BBC friend in Cuba five days before she was killed.\"\n\n\"Very Christmassy,\" said Nina.\n\n\"Only five people have ever heard it,\" said the Mari Lywd. \"It's beautiful.\"\n\n\"YES\u2026\" said the enormous mother goddess approvingly.\n\nWith sudden violence, the Mari Lywd unspooled the tape, casting it over the wet floor and its mother's body. Creatures entwined themselves in it, ripping it apart, and when the Mari Lwyd was done it snapped the reel in half and threw it aside as the goddess's children sucked the remains of tape up like spaghetti.\n\n\"VERY GOOD,\" said Sheol-Niggurauth, rippling with pleasure. \"KROL-RAUTH, YOUR TRIBUTE.\"\n\nThe Krampus shuffled awkwardly.\n\n\"Boy!\" he said and pointed a claw at Luke. Luke clutched onto Rod's jacket for protection.\n\n\"A BOY? A HEART? ONE SOUL?\" The voiceless voice of the great Sheol-Niggurauth sighed. It was like the whole universe was disappointed. \"IS THAT ALL?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Rod suddenly, in the tone of a man who had surprised himself. \"There's more.\"\n\n\"Is there?\" said Luke.\n\n\"Is there?\" said Nina.\n\n\"Is there?\" said the Krampus.\n\n\"It's clear that Yoth-Sheol-Niggurauth is far more interested in the intangibles of human misery,\" said Rod, bringing Luke forward, mostly against his will.\n\nRod crouched down a short distance from the nearest twitching hoof and turned Luke to face him.\n\n\"Here's the thing,\" he said. \"Adults lie.\"\n\nLuke nodded.\n\n\"We lie all the time.\"\n\nLuke nodded.\n\n\"And Father Christmas is the biggest lie of all.\"\n\nLuke blinked. \"No. He's real.\"\n\n\"It's just your mum.\"\n\n\"But the US Air Force track him. There's an app.\"\n\n\"That's a lie too.\"\n\n\"The US Air Force lie?\"\n\n\"All the time. And if he's flying slow enough for the air force to track, he wouldn't have time to visit all the children of the world.\"\n\n\"Rudolph's nose allows him to fly faster than the speed of light and freeze time.\"\n\n\"Come on, mate. That doesn't even make scientific sense.\"\n\n\"But the carrot and the mince pie we leave out\u2026\"\n\n\"Your mum eats it.\"\n\n\"She doesn't like carrots.\"\n\n\"Then she bites the end off and throws it in the bin.\"\n\n\"But there's photos\u2026\"\n\n\"Men in false beards. Bad false beards.\"\n\nLuke hesitated, processing the possibilities.\n\n\"He must be real,\" he said eventually. \"If he's a lie then everyone's lying. And people only lie if there's a reason for it, if they're going to get something for it. If Father Christmas is a lie then he's getting credit for good stuff mums and dads are doing. And when children find out \u2013 if it is a lie \u2013 then they won't trust their parents to tell the truth ever again.\"\n\n\"The lie serves a very important purpose,\" said Nina, coming over.\n\n\"What?\" said Luke.\n\n\"To prepare you for the other lies.\" She crouched beside him. She seemed to have sobered up a little in all the excitement but the stink of alcohol still hung about her.\n\n\"What lies?\" said Luke.\n\n\"That adults know what they're doing,\" said Nina. \"That there's a kind and loving God who watches over us. That the monsters and demons aren't real. That everything is going to be all right in the end.\" She looked round at the vile creatures gathered about them in the vast dark. \"It's not going to be all right in the end, Luke. We're fucked.\"\n\nLuke looked from Nina to Rod. If these two were good cop and bad cop then he was the good cop but even he was saying\u2026\n\n\"OH, THIS IS DELICIOUS. A FINE TRIBUTE.\"\n\nLuke didn't understand. He turned towards the goddess, wondering what she was speaking about but he already knew. Something had changed within him. Something had been taken.\n\n\"There's no Father Christmas,\" he said emptily.\n\n\"BEAUTIFUL. YOU CHOSE VERY WELL INDEED, KROL-RAUTH. I AM PROUD,\" said the goddess.\n\nThe Krampus bowed and scraped low and eyed the Mari Lwyd triumphantly.\n\n\"YOU. HUMANS. YOU ARE NO LONGER NEEDED,\" said Sheol-Niggurauth but Luke wasn't listening any more.\n\nLuke fell asleep on Rod's shoulder somewhere on the way home. His face was smeared with dirt and maybe there were dirty tears on his cheeks. Nina couldn't tell. After discovering that she had drunk from the suppurated milk of a Venislarn goddess she decided the best thing to do was to wash it away with a half bottle of vodka. Purely a medical precaution she had told Rod.\n\nRod was not only a strong man but a master of certain skills and, after climbing what must have been at least five hundred flights of stairs, he managed to balance Luke on one shoulder while picking the lock to his flat one-handed.\n\nThe flat was quiet. Multi-coloured fairy lights around the Christmas tree were the only illumination in the living room. The remains of a mince pie and the munched end of a carrot sat on a plate next to the tree. Rod put the battered games console box with the other presents before carrying the sleeping boy through to his bedroom.\n\nWhile Rod put the boy back to bed, Nina nipped into the kitchen, swiped a Quality Street from the tub on the side and looked in the rubbish bin.\n\n\"You all right?\" said Rod.\n\n\"Shiny,\" said Nina and together they left without waking any member of the household.\n\nShe was in reflective mood as they walked down what was possibly slightly less than five hundred flights.\n\n\"A Playstation in exchange for your childhood. Not a bad trade.\"\n\n\"He'll bounce back,\" said Rod. \"Maybe. Belief's a powerful thing.\"\n\nHe waited a full two flights of stairs before he asked her, \"And what's that in your pocket?\"\n\n\"What?\" she said.\n\nRod gave her a look. \"You were rooting around in the bin.\"\n\nShe cleared her throat testily and pulled the half of carrot from her pocket.\n\n\"Removing incriminating evidence?\" said Rod.\n\n\"Fucking heart of gold, me,\" said Nina and took another swig from her bottle."
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "title": "(Wicked Witches of the Midwest 10) Merry Witchmas",
        "author": "Amanda M. Lee",
        "genres": [
            "paranormal",
            "urban fantasy",
            "cozy mystery",
            "Christmas"
        ],
        "tags": [],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "18 years ago",
                "text": "Do you hear that noise? Probably not, but let me tell you something: It's insipid. No, it's worse than that. It's infernal racket that should be outlawed. That's right. No one really cares about a holly, jolly anything. I certainly don't. And chestnuts roasting on an open fire? Yeah, that's a good revenge technique. It certainly doesn't give me warm fuzzies about the holiday season.\n\nNo, in truth, the only good thing about winters in Michigan is the snow. Ah, you might be wondering why a woman my age \u2013 I'm in my prime sixties, thank you, and I get younger every single day \u2013 would like snow. That's because I've picked up a new side business over the past few years. I plow snow. I have a big truck with a blade and everything.\n\nYes, that's right. My name is Tillie Winchester and I plow snow for a living. Okay, I'm also a witch and I make my own wine. I have a pot field on the back of the property, too, but I don't sell the product. I give it away to those in need and use a bit myself. It's medicinal. No, I swear it is. In truth, I don't make a lot of money plowing snow. I used to have paying clients, but they fired me because I had a few problems leaving mailboxes unscathed. They thought it was because I couldn't see properly. I let them believe that because they might press charges if they knew why I really run them over.\n\nThe government is out to get us, people. Mailboxes are merely a way to keep track of our locations until they can inject us with chips and watch our every move. I'm not making it up. I thought about becoming a spy before the notion of plowing great big piles of snow (and potentially burying evidence when hiding from the police) appealed to me, but the idea of helping the government is abhorrent. I would be a great spy, though. Don't kid yourself. I could definitely do it for a living. As for the mailboxes, I find most of them ugly and I'm merely trying to prevent my neighbors from enabling the government to complete its takeover. I'm doing them a service.\n\nNo, really.\n\n\"Aunt Tillie!\"\n\nMy niece Winnie is a good girl but her voice reminds me of fireworks in November. It's simply too loud and grating. It's also often unnecessary. I hear her calling me from the kitchen, but one of the good things about getting older is that you can fake hearing loss and no one will dare call you on it in case you find it insulting. I find everything insulting \u2013 and sometimes nothing insulting, depending on my mood \u2013 so my three nieces wisely refrain from pushing my buttons. They treat me like their goddess, which I heartily encourage.\n\n\"Aunt Tillie!\"\n\nI rolled my eyes as I flipped pages in the catalog. My three great-nieces, Bay, Clove and Thistle, thoughtfully left it behind \u2013 open to a page with some castle thing they desperately want to open under the tree Christmas morning \u2013 and I needed a distraction. Winnie sounded as if she wanted to give me a chore. I'm too old for chores. I can accomplish them, mind you. I'm still as fit as one of those tennis players I see whacking balls on the television \u2013 that sounds like a fun job, doesn't it? Whacking balls. I could do that professionally \u2013 but I have no interest in completing chores. I'm not lazy, I'm just smart about delegating my time. I only have so much of it left on this planet -- a good eighty years or so, I'm sure -- and I have no intention of doing what anyone else wants me to do with my time so limited.\n\n\"Aunt Tillie!\" Winnie was exasperated as she poked her blond head through the door that separates the living room and kitchen. Despite having a kid \u2013 and a husband who abandoned her \u2013 she's held up well in the looks department. I'm positive she gets that from me. \"Did you hear me calling you?\"\n\nI feigned surprise as I lifted my eyes and tilted my head to the side. \"Did you say something to me?\" Sometimes it's fun to mess with my nieces. They all handle things differently. Winnie is a planner and control freak, so the idea of me ignoring her is enough to send her over the edge.\n\n\"I've been calling your name,\" Winnie replied, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She wore a pink apron to keep her clothes clean as she toiled in the kitchen with her sisters. We all share the same roof \u2013 that's three adults, three children and me (who defies categorization) in one space, if you're keeping count \u2013 and even though the house is big, it feels small when everyone is bustling around at the same time.\n\n\"I didn't hear you, dear,\" I said, feigning confusion. \"Perhaps I've gone temporarily deaf for the day. It's probably because of that noise in the kitchen.\"\n\nWinnie narrowed her eyes. \"What noise?\"\n\n\"Something about some grandmother being run over by a reindeer,\" I replied. \"Oh, and some kid wants a hippopotamus for Christmas. Don't get that for the girls, by the way. I bet they stink.\"\n\nWinnie made a face, clearly trying to control her temper. She believes patience is a virtue, or some such crap. I can't really remember. She likes to exert quiet control whenever she can. Her efforts double around the holidays. She doesn't like big fights. I tend to thrive on them, so we're complete opposites. Sometimes I wonder if she was switched at birth with some other infant. Of course, she was born at home so that's not very likely. Still, I'm not ruling it out.\n\n\"Aunt Tillie, I would like to discuss something with you in the kitchen,\" Winnie said. \"Do you think you could come this way for a few minutes?\"\n\nOoh, I smell a trap. She's using her fake \"I love and respect you\" voice. I'm not going to fall for that. \"I'm good.\"\n\nWinnie pursed her lips and increased the intensity of her stare. \"I would really appreciate it if you would come in here and talk with me. I promise it will only take a few minutes.\"\n\nThat stare works on everyone but me. \"Um\u2026 no.\" I flipped a page in the catalog. \"Oh, hey, they have pink beepers in here. I would love a pink beeper.\"\n\n\"What do you need a beeper for?\" Winnie asked. \"Those are for drug dealers and pimps.\"\n\n\"I've been considering expanding my business base.\" That will drive her nuts.\n\n\"Aunt Tillie\u2026 .\"\n\n\"I'm not getting up,\" I said. \"I'm old and my hip hurts. You should respect your elders, for crying out loud. Don't make me put you on my list.\"\n\nI'm good with a threat, but Winnie is bad at fearing them.\n\n\"Get in this kitchen right now!\" Winnie barked. \"If you don't come in here I'm going to bring everyone out there. If you thought the Christmas music was bad, wait until we start serenading you.\"\n\nWinnie disappeared through the swinging door without a backward glance. As far as threats go, that was a fairly good one. I heaved out a sigh as I pushed myself to my feet. She isn't winning, mind you, I simply refuse to push the issue until she asks me to do something I really don't want to do. Then you'll see me win\u2026 in any manner necessary.\n\nI found Winnie behind the counter, her sisters Twila and Marnie flanking her, when I walked through the door. I didn't miss the furtive glances Marnie and Twila exchanged before I spoke.\n\nTwila is something of a free spirit who many of her cues from me. She'll make a great crazy old lady one day. She likes to do things like glue eyelashes on ceramic frogs and paint murals and canvases in the yard while naked. I encourage that. She's also something of a kvetch. She won't shut up.\n\nAs for Marnie, she has Middle Child Syndrome. She's constantly trying to live up to Winnie's expectations \u2013 and beat her whenever possible. She's a complainer, but she also has an\u2026 um\u2026 witchy streak I find more than delightful. She can make a grown woman cry in less than thirty seconds with only one insult and two glares in her arsenal. It's quite the sight.\n\n\"What do you want?\" I asked, adopting a gruff tone. \"I'm old and tired, and you're bugging me.\" What? They know they're bugging me. They're doing it on purpose. I'm hardly hurting their feelings.\n\n\"We want to talk to you about your attitude,\" Winnie replied. \"We feel you've been something of a\u2026 what's the word I'm looking for?\"\n\n\"Jerk,\" Marnie supplied, earning a dark look from me.\n\n\"I haven't been talking about you behind your back,\" Twila announced. \"I refused to do it. If you're going to punish someone, I suggest punishing them. I'm the innocent party here. They've wronged me.\"\n\nI was going to wrong her right onto my list if she didn't stop babbling. \"What's wrong with my attitude?\" I asked, ignoring Twila's jabbering. \"I think my attitude is delightful.\"\n\n\"That's part of the problem,\" Winnie said. \"You think you can do no wrong and you walk around making sure everyone else thinks that way, too. You're giving the girls the wrong impression about following rules.\"\n\n\"How so?\" I asked. \"I don't believe rules should be applied to everyone. There's an exception to every rule. That exception is usually me. What 'wrong impression' am I giving them?\"\n\nWinnie pressed her lips together as Twila shuffled from one foot to the other. Marnie simply stared me down. She's smarter than Winnie in some ways. She was waiting for Winnie to tick me off so she could swoop in with a compromise and look like the hero. I'm on to all three of these witchy wonders.\n\n\"The girls have started adopting some of your attitude,\" Twila said, licking her lips. \"I heard Thistle telling Bay and Clove that they were on her list last night.\"\n\nI snorted. That sounded just about right. \"Thistle is a mouthy pain,\" I said. \"I like her\u2026 some of the time. I don't see what the problem is. If Thistle wants to make a list, I think it's a great idea.\n\n\"It improves her writing skills\u2026 and planning skills\u2026 and organizational skills,\" I continued. \"There's really no downside to Thistle starting a list.\"\n\n\"It also improves her revenge skills, tyrant skills and unfiltered mouth skills,\" Winnie pointed out.\n\nShe said that like it was a bad thing. \"I still don't see the problem,\" I said, planting my hands on my hips.\n\nThe grim set of Winnie's jaw told me she was done playing games. \"Listen, we love you,\" she said. \"You know that. We wouldn't trade you for anything. You've got to stop being a bad role model for the girls, though.\"\n\n\"You raised us after Mom died and we will be forever grateful,\" Twila added. \"But Thistle is turning into a real handful. She sees you acting out and thinks it's okay.\"\n\nIf they thought for one second they could blame Thistle's willfulness on me, they had another thing coming. \"I'm not the one who lets her get away with murder,\" I pointed out. \"I punish her when she gets out of line. You're the ones who let her run roughshod over this household. I can't believe you think I'm the root of her issues.\"\n\n\"That's not what we said,\" Winnie clarified. \"It's just\u2026 she's getting worse every day. She says whatever comes to her mind and, well, frankly\u2026 um\u2026 she's channeling you for most of this bad behavior.\"\n\n\"She's never been a sweet girl, but she used to be controllable,\" Twila said. \"I don't know what to do with her. She bosses Clove and Bay around as if they're her slaves. It's not healthy.\"\n\n\"I think you're worrying too much,\" I said. \"Thistle only acts this way because she gets away with it. Eventually Bay and Clove are going to get fed up and give her a dose of her own medicine. That's what you want.\"\n\n\"That's the last thing we want,\" Winnie argued. \"This house isn't big enough for World War III.\"\n\n\"It won't come to that,\" I said. \"Thistle only acts up because no one pushes back when she does. If you would let Bay and Clove off their leashes, they would teach Thistle a thing or two about getting too big for her britches.\n\n\"As it stands now, Bay and Clove follow the rules and they're handicapped because Thistle doesn't follow the rules,\" I continued. \"You have to even the playing field.\"\n\n\"That sounds dangerous,\" Twila said.\n\n\"That sounds like the way of the world,\" I corrected. \"Don't worry about it, though. I'll have a talk with the girls and figure things out. If that's what you want me to do, I'm more than willing to step in and do my part to fix Thistle's attitude.\"\n\nWhat? That won't take more than two or three minutes, right? I'll just lay down the law with Thistle and then leave the room when she melts down. By the time dinner rolls around she'll be fine again.\n\n\"That's not why we called you in here,\" Winnie said. \"We don't want you to talk to the girls. Quite frankly, whenever you do that you give them harebrained ideas about controlling the world, and then I get a call from Lila Stevens' mother because they've ganged up on her and done something truly awful and are in danger of being expelled or something.\"\n\n\"Hey, Lila has it coming,\" I said. I was pretty sure that kid was Hitler in a past life or something. She's evil incarnate. \"If Lila doesn't want the girls going after her, she should leave them alone.\"\n\n\"That's hardly the point,\" Winnie said.\n\n\"And what is the point?\" I was losing track of the conversation.\n\n\"We need you to be on your best behavior for the next couple of weeks,\" Twila said. \"We're going to try to teach the girls by example instead of words. If everyone in the house gets along, then they'll get along.\"\n\n\"Have you been watching Oprah?\"\n\nWinnie made a face as her world-famous patience wore thin. \"That's our new plan and you're going to stick to it. Do you understand?\"\n\n\"Have you gotten into the eggnog early?\" I challenged. \"You can't tell me what to do. I'll act as I see fit.\"\n\nWinnie crossed her arms over her chest and scorched me with a harsh look. \"Do you understand?\"\n\nShe clearly meant business. That meant I could either fight with her or capitulate and operate behind her back. The only question was: What was I in the mood for today? Decisions, decisions. \"Fine. I'll be on my best behavior.\"\n\n\"That's great,\" Winnie said, exhaling heavily. \"We really appreciate it.\"\n\n\"Yes, I'm always happy to help,\" I said. \"So\u2026 um\u2026 is that all? Can I go back to the living room and take a nap?\"\n\n\"Actually, we were hoping you would spend some time with the girls this afternoon and put your new attitude on display,\" Marnie hedged. \"We thought it would be a good example for them to see you acting in a certain manner first.\"\n\nThat sounded absolutely terrible, and I didn't even know what they were trying to trick me into doing yet. \"I think I'm good. I can show them how to act while taking a nap, too. I'll definitely be on my best behavior then.\"\n\nWinnie wrinkled her nose. \"That's not what we have in mind.\"\n\nI could tell I was going to hate whatever plan they cooked up while I was distracted by the catalog in the other room. \"And what did you have in mind?\"\n\n\"Walkerville's tree-lighting ceremony is this afternoon,\" Twila said. \"We thought you might want to take the girls to it.\"\n\nThe only way they could have thought that was a legitimate possibility is if they started smoking crack when I wasn't looking. \"I think I'll pass.\"\n\nThis time Twila and Marnie crossed their arms over their chests and joined Winnie in a no-nonsense stance. It was supposed to be terrifying. It made me want to laugh.\n\n\"I still think I'll pass,\" I said.\n\nApparently Winnie wasn't going to give me the chance, because she opened her mouth and bellowed to the second floor by way of forcing my hand. \"Girls, your Aunt Tillie is going to take you to the tree-lighting ceremony. Get bundled up and down here in five minutes.\"\n\n\"Yay!\"\n\nI heard Clove's enthusiastic clapping through the ceiling and rolled my eyes. \"Do you think that's going to work on me?\"\n\n\"Are you really going to disappoint them?\" Winnie challenged. \"They'll cry.\"\n\nShe had a point. Still\u2026 . \"Fine,\" I said, blowing out a resigned sigh. \"I'll take them.\"\n\n\"And you'll be on your best behavior,\" Marnie added. \"You need to set an example for them.\"\n\n\"And I'll be on my best behavior,\" I conceded, striding toward the living room door before staring down all three of them. \"You're all on my list, though. Prepare yourselves for war.\"\n\nYeah, I've got your jingle bells right here, people. Christmas is coming and I'm taking charge of the entire holiday. It's going to be a bumpy sleigh ride. Strap in."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 2",
                "text": "\"Are you ready?\" I secured Clove's pink combat helmet under her chin before pointing toward my plow truck. \"Get in.\"\n\nMy nieces worked under the misguided notion that I was a menace behind the wheel. They only agreed to allow the girls into my truck if they were well protected. That meant I had to purchase helmets and knee pads for them (in case they flew into the dashboard when I rammed a snow bank). I think their mothers were overreacting. The girls had a great time when we plowed.\n\nClove sat in the spot closest to me and Thistle and Bay fought over the window seat, as they always do. Instead of listening to them work things out on their own, I made the decision for them.\n\n\"Bay gets the window seat.\"\n\nThistle, her blond hair sticking out in odd places under the helmet, made a face. \"Why does Bay get the window seat?\"\n\n\"Because I said so.\"\n\nThat was never a good enough answer for Thistle. \"Why else?\"\n\n\"Because Bay is the oldest and I don't have to worry about her opening the door when I'm plowing,\" I replied. \"I seem to remember someone opening the door two weeks ago because she wanted to see if she could hook it on to Mrs. Franz's mailbox.\"\n\n\"I did that once,\" Thistle groused, hopping into the truck. \"It didn't work. I don't see why you're complaining.\"\n\nThat kid cracks me up sometimes. I would never tell her, of course, but I love her attitude. Bay is much more serious than her younger cousin. I like her, too. She thinks things out before she does something stupid. That doesn't mean she won't do something stupid, mind you. She simply prefers thinking out all of the ramifications before embarking on mayhem. She has a pragmatic mind and a wild streak rolled together. It's an interesting combination. As for Clove, well, these days she's going through life relying on the fact that she's cute. She's smaller than both of her cousins and she's found she can manipulate people if she fakes tears. I find that trait annoying, but it's come in handy a time or two\u2026 or twelve. I'm not one to look a gift personality defect in the mouth, especially if it proves helpful.\n\n\"It's only funny to take out mailboxes when no damage can be done to my truck,\" I told Thistle as I climbed onto the driver's seat and slipped the key into the ignition. \"I don't want my truck wrecked. Your mothers will find a reason to take it away from me if that happens. Mark my words.\"\n\n\"You're an adult,\" Clove pointed out. \"They can't take something away from you if you don't let them.\"\n\n\"Don't kid yourself,\" I said. \"I may be an adult and their elder, but they're real pains in the behind when they want to be. They know how to get what they want\u2026 just like you.\"\n\n\"Do they cry, too?\" Thistle asked.\n\n\"I don't cry,\" Clove snapped, fastening the middle seat belt around both her and Thistle. \"My eyes leak. There's a difference.\"\n\nThe kid may be young, but she's a master at manipulation. \"That's a very good argument, Clove,\" I said, putting the truck in reverse. \"You keep that one handy when someone accuses you of crying to get attention. Tell them your eyes leak because your heart hurts. That will work until you're at least twelve and start puberty.\"\n\n\"That's a great idea,\" Clove said, smiling prettily.\n\nI wasn't paying attention to where I was going, so when the back of the truck rammed into a snow bank it took me by surprise. All three girls jerked forward. Thankfully the seatbelts \u2013 which I had to get installed and prove were in good working order before my nieces would let their daughters ride with me \u2013 kept them from flying into the dashboard.\n\n\"That came out of nowhere,\" I muttered.\n\n\"How is that possible?\" Thistle sputtered, rubbing her neck. \"You're the one who put the snow bank there.\"\n\n\"And it's a really good place for it,\" I shot back. \"I think it moved or something, though.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"You live in a house filled with magic, Thistle Winchester,\" I reminded her. \"How do you think it moved? I'm pretty sure your mothers did it as payback for that thing I did the other night.\"\n\n\"Are you talking about when you stole all of their fresh cookies and replaced them with store-bought ones and then told Mom that we must have a cookie gnome?\" Thistle asked.\n\n\"Cookie gnomes are real.\"\n\n\"I think they're as real as the house-trashing fairy you told us about this summer,\" Thistle said. \"You said that was real, too, but Mom says you made that up because you dirtied up the kitchen and didn't feel like doing your dishes.\"\n\n\"Your mother says a lot,\" I said. \"I had no idea she flapped her gums to that magnitude when I'm not around. What else does she say?\"\n\nThankfully Thistle had no qualms about narcing on her mother. Most kids would balk at that. Thistle was her own person, though. \"How much time do you have?\"\n\n\"It will take me twenty minutes to get to town if I do some plowing along the way,\" I said, shoving the gearshift into drive and pressing my foot to the gas pedal. \"Start talking.\"\n\n\"Well, she also says you're lying when you say you're going for a walk during the summer,\" Thistle said. \"She knows about your oregano field and thinks you put magic enchantments on it to keep her out.\"\n\nThe front of the truck caught the edge of the large snow bank at the lip of the driveway, causing the truck to fishtail and bounce against the other bank as I overcorrected.\n\n\"Did they move that, too?\" Clove asked.\n\nI shrugged. \"They must've. Keep going, Thistle. I'm dying to hear what else your mother told you when I wasn't listening.\"\n\nThistle happily recited a nonstop litany of terrible beliefs her mother held during the ride to town. I stopped to clear out Dorothy Sanderson's driveway \u2013 swearing I would make Twila pay the entire time \u2013 and then I took the snow from her driveway and planted it in the already cleared spot in front of Margaret Little's driveway across the street. The girls knew what I was doing but refrained from commenting. That was good. I trained them right \u2013 unlike their mothers.\n\nBy the time I hit town I was in an awful mood. It seems Twila, Marnie and Winnie want me to act a certain way and then tell lies behind my back when I don't do as they want. Yes, lies. There really is a house-trashing gnome. I had a feeling they were going to meet it up close and personal before Christmas if they weren't careful.\n\nWalkerville was bustling with activity as I parked. The girls scrambled out of the truck, being sure to leave their helmets behind so the other kids wouldn't make fun of them. I thought they should leave the helmets in place so they could go after their enemies hard and fast, but the girls thought differently.\n\nThey gathered on the sidewalk outside of the police station and waited for me to join them. I was about to tell them to run off and play (and not bother me for at least two hours) when their favorite police officer, Terry Davenport, walked out of the station's front door. Bay immediately ran to him and threw her arms around his neck as he bent lower so he could be on her level.\n\nA stranger passing by might assume Terry was Bay's father \u2013 perhaps even Clove and Thistle's dad as well \u2013 but he was merely a strong presence in their lives. He adored all of them, but he especially doted on Bay.\n\n\"Officer Terry,\" Bay squealed excitedly. \"I didn't know you were going to be here.\"\n\n\"Are you here to give us presents?\" Clove asked expectantly.\n\nUnlike other adults who melted when they saw Clove's big brown eyes, Terry was wise to her machinations. \"It's not Christmas, Clove,\" Terry said. \"You don't get gifts until Christmas.\"\n\nClove jutted out her lower lip. \"There's no rule that says that. That's just what everyone decided and they made it a rule. It's not a real one.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm a rule follower,\" Terry said, pointing toward the badge on his uniform jacket. \"I'm a police officer. I have to follow the rules \u2013 whether they're real or imagined.\"\n\n\"Now, wait a second,\" Thistle said, tapping her lip as her mind worked overtime. \"I'm not a big fan of agreeing with Clove, but she might be on to something. We should have, like, ten days of presents before Christmas. I think that would be best for everyone.\"\n\n\"You would,\" Terry said, ruffling her hair and causing me to snicker as he turned his attention to Bay. \"Have you been good girls this year? Will Santa leave you a lot of presents\u2026 or just one or two?\"\n\n\"I've been good,\" Clove announced. \"I'm the best-behaved one, so I'll get the most presents.\"\n\nTerry made a face. \"Oh, yeah? What makes you think that?\"\n\n\"Karma is a real thing,\" Clove supplied. \"My mom told me. That means I'm going to be rewarded.\"\n\n\"I'm not quite sure it works that way,\" Terry said dryly. \"What about you, Thistle? Have you been good?\"\n\n\"I don't believe in karma,\" Thistle replied. \"I've been bad and I'll get just as many things to open as Clove. Just watch. I'll count to be sure.\"\n\nI pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. The kid's attitude was a thing of beauty. Er, unless you were her mother, that is. I could see why Twila was worried. If Thistle puffed out her chest any further she'd fall over.\n\n\"Uh-huh.\" Terry didn't look convinced. \"I know my Bay has been good,\" he said, tickling her ribs. \"What did you ask Santa for?\"\n\n\"We want a special fairy castle,\" Bay replied. \"We want to share it, but I'm not sure Santa will bring it. It's expensive.\"\n\n\"Is that the ugly thing you marked in the catalog you left on the living room table?\" I asked, furrowing my brow. \"Why do you want that?\"\n\n\"Because it's pretty and it's for witches,\" Thistle replied.\n\n\"I thought you said it was a fairy castle?\"\n\n\"Yes, but fairies are just pretty witches,\" Clove said. \"We all talked about it and that's what we believe.\"\n\n\"So don't try changing our minds,\" Thistle added. \"If you can believe in the house-trashing fairy, we can believe that fairies and witches are the same thing.\"\n\n\"I would never try changing your minds,\" I said. \"I don't care either way. Why don't you girls leave Terry to do his job and go get some hot chocolate or something? If we're going to be stuck down here until they light up the tree, we might as well add chocolate and sugar to the mix to liven things up.\"\n\nClove and Thistle were excited by the prospect, but Bay looked torn.\n\n\"I want to stay with Officer Terry,\" Bay said. \"I can help him work.\" I love the kid, but she has a needy quality where Terry is concerned. He feeds into it.\n\n\"Officer Terry will be around,\" I prodded. \"Get some hot chocolate.\" I handed a few dollar bills to Thistle before shooing Bay with my hands. \"Go on.\"\n\n\"We need more money than this,\" Thistle said.\n\n\"That's more than enough for three hot chocolates.\"\n\n\"Yes, but you rammed us into ten snow banks on the way here,\" Thistle said. \"I counted. We want doughnuts, too. If you don't give us doughnuts, we might accidentally tattle to our mothers about the snow banks.\"\n\nI was wrong. That kid is a menace. Can you believe she's actually shaking me down for more money? \"No one is going to believe I ran into ten snow banks on the way here.\"\n\n\"Everyone who has ever seen you drive will believe it,\" Terry countered. \"Buy them the doughnuts.\"\n\n\"You're just a big softie where they're concerned,\" I grumbled, digging into my purse. I handed Thistle more money and narrowed my eyes. \"If that gets out, you're going to be at the top of my list.\"\n\nInstead of cowering, Thistle matched my stare with a menacing one of her own. \"You're not supposed to have a list,\" she shot back. \"You're supposed to be leading by example.\"\n\n\"You were listening by the heat vents again, weren't you?\"\n\n\"You said it was a classic for a reason,\" Clove said. \"Why would we stop?\"\n\nI really wish these kids would stop listening to me sometimes. \"Fine,\" I said, waving them off. \"Do what you want. I really mean that. If Lila Stevens gives you guff, do something terrible to her.\"\n\nThistle's eyes gleamed at the prospect. \"I'm on it.\"\n\nI shook my head as I watched them scamper away. When I finally shifted in Terry's direction, I found him glaring at me. \"What?\"\n\n\"You shouldn't tell them to do things like that,\" Terry admonished. \"They're good girls, but they manage to find trouble on their own. They don't need you helping them.\"\n\nHe was so earnest I could do nothing but snort. \"Don't kid yourself,\" I said. \"They may look like angels, but there's a little devil in each of them.\"\n\n\"Especially Thistle,\" Terry muttered.\n\n\"You've got that right,\" I said, moving my eyes to the town. \"When are they supposed to light the tree? I don't want to be down here all night.\"\n\n\"I'm surprised you're down here at all,\" Terry admitted. \"You generally shun town activities.\"\n\n\"Yes, well, I got tricked into being the dutiful aunt today,\" I admitted. \"Winnie, Marnie and Twila are on the warpath because they think Thistle takes her cues from me when it comes to having attitude.\"\n\n\"I can believe that.\"\n\nI ignored him. \"Personally, I think the entire thing would work itself out if they would stop making Bay and Clove follow the rules and unleash them on Thistle to exact their revenge,\" I said.\n\n\"It's probably a good thing you weren't a parent,\" Terry said, shaking his head. \"I'm going to run over to the festival area and then make a loop around town. Keep an eye on the girls, will you? It gets dark early these days.\"\n\n\"They're little girls, not sunshine,\" I said. \"They don't disappear just because the moon comes out.\"\n\n\"Ha, ha,\" Terry intoned. \"They're still children. They need to be watched.\"\n\n\"You're only saying that because you're fond of them,\" I said, falling into step next to him. \"It's a little pathetic the way you let them wrap you around their fingers.\"\n\n\"I don't care what you say,\" Terry said. \"I like spending time with them. They make me laugh.\"\n\n\"They're not bad kids,\" I grudgingly admitted. \"They'll probably even be half-decent adults.\"\n\n\"That's the nicest thing you've ever said about them,\" Terry deadpanned, making a face. \"I still don't understand why you're on babysitting duty. That would seem like the worst possible choice if you ask me.\"\n\n\"I'm an excellent babysitter,\" I countered. \"I could do it professionally if I wanted. As for the rest, I think my nieces are wrapping Christmas presents but they don't want to admit it. Getting me and the girls out of the house for a few hours frees them to wrap and hide gifts.\"\n\n\"Well, I guess that makes sense,\" Terry said. \"I\u2026 .\" He didn't get a chance to finish what he was saying because Bay, Clove and Thistle were making a ton of noise as they raced in our direction. They looked as if someone was chasing them, but the path behind their small bodies was clear. Terry's eyes filled with concern as he caught Bay before she could skid and fall on the sidewalk. \"Slow down. You're going to hurt yourselves.\"\n\n\"What's going on?\" I asked. \"Did Lila do something to you? I'll help you get her if you want. I'm bored anyway.\"\n\n\"It's not Lila,\" Bay said, struggling to catch her breath as her chest heaved. \"It's something else.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"There's a dead body over there,\" Thistle volunteered, pointing toward a clump of trees on the other side of the town square. \"Someone is dead!\"\n\n\"Are you serious?\" I asked, doubt washing over me.\n\nThistle licked her lips and nodded. \"I swear there's a dead guy over there!\"\n\nWell, merry freaking Christmas."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 3",
                "text": "\"What do you mean you found a dead body?\"\n\nI'm not calling my great-nieces liars, mind you, but they have active imaginations. Clove has been convinced that a ghost lives in their closet for the past year. For the record, that's me. Sometimes I like to move their stuff around just to mess with them. Some people might call me mean. Life is boring if you don't get your kicks somewhere.\n\n\"I mean there was a man on the ground and he wasn't moving,\" Thistle said, drawing her words out so slowly it was almost excruciating. \"It was almost as if he fell but didn't get back up. Oh, wait, it was exactly like that.\"\n\n\"Why are you talking like that?\" Terry asked.\n\n\"So the old people will understand me,\" Thistle replied. \"By 'old' I mean you and Aunt Tillie.\"\n\nTerry scowled as he rested a hand on Thistle's shoulder. \"I'm not so old that I'm stupid,\" he said. \"How can you be sure this man was dead? Maybe he just fell down.\"\n\n\"Because most people who fall down get back up,\" Thistle answered. \"Oh, they also breathe.\"\n\nTerry slid a dubious look in my direction. \"What do you think?\"\n\n\"I think they're prone to dramatic fits,\" I replied, not missing a beat. \"I have no idea where they get it from.\"\n\n\"I know exactly where they get it from,\" Terry shot back, his eyes flashing. \"Okay, girls, how about you show me where this dead body is?\"\n\n\"I don't want to go back,\" Clove said. \"I don't want to see it again.\"\n\n\"Fine. Then stay here alone.\" I put my hand to the back of Bay's neck and prodded her in the direction of the woods. Terry did the same with Thistle, and the look on Clove's face as she considered remaining behind was priceless.\n\n\"You're a mean old lady,\" Clove grumbled as she scurried to keep up with us. \"You knew I wouldn't stay back there alone, didn't you?\"\n\n\"I had a hunch,\" I replied, casting a glance at a few curious onlookers who stared at us from the festival area. I recognized one as Margaret Little. I couldn't be sure if she'd discovered that the end of her driveway was buried in a foot of hard snow yet, but I looked forward to the showdown when she did. We'd known each other since our school days, and the hate was entrenched in us early. When she lifted her eyes I saw recognition flash in the depths of her hateful orbs and I knew she was well aware what of the state her driveway was in. I couldn't stop myself from smiling and waving, launching her into a march in our direction.\n\n\"Why are you waving at her?\" Terry asked, suspicious. I forget sometimes that he has keen eyesight. It's both a blessing and a curse, depending upon what he's investigating at any given moment. \"You hate Margaret.\"\n\n\"Yeah, she's a real turd,\" I agreed, causing Thistle to snort. \"She's one of those hard ones left to bake on the sidewalk in hundred-degree weather. She stinks, too.\"\n\n\"I think she's nice,\" Clove interjected. \"She gave me a piece of candy at the summer parade this year. It was shaped like a unicorn.\"\n\n\"What did I tell you about taking candy from old crones who live in glass houses?\" I challenged.\n\nClove wrinkled her nose. \"Nothing. You told me not to throw water balloons at anyone other than dirty busybodies who had nothing better to do than spy on you when you were gardening, but you never mentioned anything about old crones and glass houses.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm mentioning it now,\" I said. \"Don't take candy from them.\"\n\n\"What's a crone?\" Thistle asked.\n\n\"Margaret Little.\"\n\n\"Don't tell them that,\" Terry snapped. \"Margaret Little is a perfectly\u2026 .\" He broke off, unsure how to proceed. I was fairly certain he was going to say \"nice\" and then realized how ludicrous the statement sounded. \"She's your elder and deserves respect,\" he said, changing course. \"Don't listen to your aunt.\"\n\n\"She's our elder, too,\" Bay pointed out. \"Shouldn't we respect her?\"\n\n\"And that's why you're my favorite today,\" I said, patting her shoulder. \"You're a good girl.\"\n\n\"She's our elder but she's batshit crazy,\" Thistle supplied. \"We don't have to respect batshit crazy. That's her rule.\"\n\n\"Don't swear, Thistle,\" Chief Terry ordered, taking her by surprise with his vehemence. \"You're a lady. You're not supposed to curse like that.\"\n\n\"That's not a curse,\" Clove argued. \"A curse is when we wake up and none of our shoes will stay tied.\"\n\n\"Or our hair won't stay braided,\" Bay added.\n\n\"Or we can't stop farting and falling down,\" Thistle said.\n\nTerry is aware of the Winchesters' witchy ways, but he goes out of his way to pretend otherwise. My nieces make a big deal of fawning over him in an attempt to get him to invite one of them on a date. I know they really like him, but they would chew him up and spit him out if he ever dated one of them. He's smarter than I often given him credit for, though, because he refuses to play that game. He does, however, enjoy the casseroles and cakes they throw at him.\n\n\"Stop talking about that stuff,\" Terry ordered. \"I'm not kidding. That's a\u2026 well\u2026 that's a home conversation. Do you understand what I'm saying?\"\n\nClove shook her head. \"No.\"\n\n\"I do,\" Thistle volunteered. \"It's like when we're not supposed to talk about our mothers being attacked by the menstruation monster when we're around strangers.\"\n\nTerry stilled as he grabbed the back of Thistle's coat and tugged her toward him. \"What did you just say?\"\n\nThistle was too oblivious to be embarrassed. \"The menstruation monster,\" she said. \"Aunt Tillie told us about it. It visits once a month at the same time for everyone. It could be worse because we could have three smaller monsters visiting at different times. Instead we get one big monster in the middle of the month.\"\n\nTerry's face was full of outrage when he focused on me. \"What is wrong with you?\"\n\n\"You'll need to be more specific,\" I replied. \"Answering that question could lead us in a hundred different directions.\"\n\n\"And none of them are good,\" Terry muttered, shaking his head. \"I just\u2026 how could you tell them that?\"\n\n\"The menstruation monster is real,\" I said. \"It lives with the house-trashing fairy and the sock-stealing gnome. No, that's a true story.\"\n\n\"You make me so very tired,\" Terry grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose. \"Girls, which way is the body?\"\n\nThistle pointed toward the woods. \"Just on the other side of those trees,\" she said. \"You can't miss it.\"\n\nSomething occurred to me. \"Why were you in the trees in the first place?\" I asked. \"You were supposed to be getting hot chocolate and doughnuts. That's why you shook me down for extra money.\"\n\n\"We were on our way there but we saw Lila was going inside so we decided to get something to give her as a Christmas gift before joining her,\" Thistle answered. \"It was only going to be a short side trip.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh.\" I wasn't sure I wanted to know where this story was going. Oh, who am I kidding? The kid's mind is a masterpiece when it comes to payback. She's a joy to watch when she gets down to business. \"What gift?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure I should answer,\" Thistle replied, darting a nervous look in Terry's direction. \"That might be a home conversation, too.\" She tapped the side of her nose to give me the secret signal I had taught them years ago. It was for when she knew she was doing something naughty and didn't want to own up to it.\n\n\"Gotcha,\" I said, grinning.\n\nTerry didn't look nearly as happy with Thistle's admission. \"Gotcha? No, that's not how we're going to play this game. What were you going to give Lila, girls?\"\n\n\"It was nothing big,\" Clove answered. \"It was just\u2026 snow. We were going to put it in a globe.\"\n\n\"Snow?\" Terry was understandably dubious. \"I don't get it.\"\n\n\"Yellow snow,\" Bay clarified. \"We weren't so much going to put it in a globe as her hair.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Terry said. Even though he was trying to be serious, the corners of his mouth tipped up. \"Did you find any?\"\n\n\"We found a body instead.\"\n\n\"Bummer.\"\n\n\"Yeah, total bummer,\" Bay said, her expression serious.\n\nI was about to tell her not to worry about a body \u2013 it was far more likely they stumbled over a bag of garbage or even a half-drunk elf who lost his way to the tree-lighting ceremony \u2013 but I didn't get the chance because that's when Margaret finally caught up to us. Drat! I was hoping she would forget and turn around.\n\n\"Tillie Winchester!\"\n\n\"She looks angry,\" Terry said, stopping on the sidewalk before following the obvious trail in the snow the girls left during their yellow snow hunt a few minutes earlier. \"What did you do to her?\"\n\n\"Why do you think I did something to her?\" I challenged. \"I'm clearly the victim here.\"\n\n\"Yes, I'm sure you are.\"\n\nI swiveled to face Margaret head-on, adopting a bored expression before she even opened her mouth. \"Hello, Margaret. It's so lovely to see you.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't even start with that,\" Margaret snapped. \"I'm not in the mood to mess around with you. I'm not playing games.\"\n\n\"That's probably good,\" Thistle said. \"You don't look as if you'd be very good at them.\"\n\nI wanted to laugh, but Terry lightly swatted the back of Thistle's head to quiet her. \"What seems to be the problem, Margaret?\"\n\n\"The problem?\" Margaret's face was so red I worried she'd pass out. \"The problem is that you plowed in the end of my driveway -- like you always do -- and I almost got stuck.\"\n\n\"That doesn't really sound like a problem to me,\" I countered. \"In fact, I think the fact that you got out of the driveway is the real problem. The people of Walkerville would be much happier if you hibernated for the winter rather than left the house. I know. I took a poll.\"\n\n\"Tillie.\" Terry's voice was low and full of warning. We were on a mission, after all.\n\n\"I was already late when I noticed the problem,\" Margaret snapped. \"I had to bring my world-famous Christmas cookies to the baking area to be judged, but they didn't make it because I tried to drive through the snow and it's too hard. The second I hit the bank they flew across the seat and ended up on the floor.\"\n\n\"That sounds as if I saved the innocent people of Walkerville from botulism,\" I said.\n\nMargaret narrowed her eyes. \"My cookies are famous.\"\n\n\"You've said that twice now and I still don't believe it,\" I said. \"How are they famous?\"\n\n\"People love them.\"\n\n\"People love street thespians, too. That hardly makes them famous.\"\n\nMargaret stomped her foot and made a shrill growling noise. She was clearly at her limit. I prefer when I push her over the limit and she explodes. I wonder what I can do to make that happen.\n\n\"I want her arrested, Terry,\" Margaret announced. \"She plowed in my driveway. That has to be a felony.\"\n\nTerry tilted his head to the side. \"I don't think so,\" he said. \"Plus, um, do you have proof it was her? Did you see her do it?\"\n\n\"Well, no,\" Margaret conceded. \"She obviously wasn't alone, though. These three\u2026 ruffians\u2026 were with her. Ask them what happened.\"\n\nTerry shifted his eyes to Thistle, Clove and Bay. He clearly didn't like Margaret calling them names. He also looked worried about what they might say. I wasn't worried in the least. I knew exactly what they would say.\n\n\"Ask them,\" I prodded. \"It's okay.\"\n\nTerry cleared his throat. \"Girls, did you see Aunt Tillie plow in Mrs. Little's driveway?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" Clove replied solemnly. She really is the best little liar in the world. \"Aunt Tillie would never do that. She has a kind heart and a giving soul. It hurts my heart and makes my eyes leak to think someone would accuse her of doing something so wrong.\"\n\nOh, that was priceless. I was going to have to get that kid a better Christmas gift.\n\n\"Thistle?\" Terry prodded.\n\n\"Aunt Tillie didn't do any plowing today,\" Thistle replied. \"I was with her the whole time.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh.\" Terry shifted his eyes to the small blonde in front of me. \"Bay?\"\n\nIf there was a weak link in this lying trio, it was Bay. It wasn't because she couldn't lie. She could tell whoppers to almost anyone. She couldn't seem to bring herself to lie to Terry for some reason, though.\n\n\"I didn't see her do anything wrong,\" Bay said. It was sort of an evasion, but it did the trick. \"Honest.\"\n\n\"Well, you heard them,\" Terry said. \"They didn't see Tillie do anything to your driveway.\"\n\nMargaret was annoyed. \"Well, obviously they're lying,\" she said. \"Girls, did you know it's a crime to lie to a police officer? Terry is going to throw you in jail for lying.\"\n\n\"Don't tell them that,\" Terry admonished. \"I'm not putting them in jail. I don't appreciate your threats.\"\n\n\"That makes two of us,\" I volunteered, smiling evilly when Terry turned his attention to the woods. \"Now, if you'll excuse me, we were on a mission when you approached.\"\n\n\"So, nothing is going to happen to her?\" Margaret pressed.\n\n\"She didn't do anything, and she has three walking alibis,\" Terry said. \"I'm not going to do anything to her. Besides that, we need to look in those trees. The girls swear they saw a dead body.\"\n\n\"A dead body?\" Margaret was taken aback. \"I\u2026 why would there be a dead body in the woods?\"\n\n\"Probably because that's where he died,\" Thistle replied.\n\n\"But\u2026 that makes no sense,\" Margaret said.\n\n\"Neither does the fact that you call your cookies 'world-famous' even though no one outside of Walkerville has ever eaten them,\" I pointed out.\n\n\"They're still delicious.\"\n\n\"I heard they taste like butt crack,\" I said, causing my three young charges to giggle as Terry rolled his eyes. \"I'm a better cook than you've ever dreamed of being. I could do it professionally.\"\n\n\"That's a laugh,\" Margaret said. \"When do you ever cook?\"\n\n\"I cook all of the time,\" I shot back. \"Girls, tell her I cook all of the time.\"\n\nThat was apparently too far to push my partners in crime.\n\n\"Mom says all you cook up is trouble,\" Thistle said.\n\n\"You and your mother are on my list,\" I snapped, extending a finger. Thistle didn't look particularly worried. \"As for the cooking, well, I guess I'll just have to show you.\"\n\n\"Oh, yeah? How are you going to do that?\" Margaret scoffed.\n\n\"I'm going to join the cookie contest,\" I replied.\n\n\"I think it's a baking contest,\" Clove supplied.\n\n\"No one asked you.\"\n\n\"Go ahead,\" Margaret said. \"I look forward to you falling on your face in public.\"\n\n\"That makes two of us,\" I fired back. Er, wait. I think that came out wrong.\n\nThankfully for me I didn't get a lot of time to dwell on it because Terry drew my attention back to him by coughing and then pointing at the woods.\n\n\"We need to see if someone is in there,\" Terry said.\n\n\"I already told you someone is in there,\" Thistle said.\n\n\"Well, I need to see for myself.\" Terry stepped off the sidewalk and marched into the trees, Thistle close to his side. I kept Bay in front of me as I followed. I wasn't surprised to find Margaret following Clove and bringing up the rear. She always was a busybody.\n\n\"Where?\" Terry asked when he got to the end of the footprints.\n\n\"He was right there,\" Thistle said, pointing to an indentation in the snow. It did sort of look as if something had been resting there, but there were no footprints leading away.\n\n\"He's not there now, though,\" Terry said. \"You don't see him, right?\"\n\n\"Duh.\" Thistle rolled her eyes. \"I'm not imagining things. I swear he was right there.\"\n\n\"He was,\" Clove said solemnly. \"We all saw him. He had pink socks and everything.\"\n\nMy forehead creased. \"Pink socks?\"\n\n\"I swear we saw them,\" Clove said.\n\n\"Well, he's obviously gone,\" Terry said, forcing a bright smile for the girls' benefit. \"I doubt he was dead. He was probably just\u2026 resting.\"\n\n\"No, he was definitely dead,\" Thistle said.\n\n\"And I'm definitely bored,\" Margaret said, turning to return to the sidewalk. \"If this is their idea of the truth, I don't know how you can believe them about Tillie and my driveway, Terry. I'm very disappointed in you.\"\n\n\"Somehow I think I'll live,\" Terry said dryly.\n\nHer tone irritated me. \"I'll see you on the baking court, Margaret.\" Baking court? Is that a thing? Oh, well. It's too late to take it back.\n\n\"I can't wait,\" Margaret said, huffing as she trudged through the snow.\n\nI waited until I was sure she was gone before turning back to the girls. \"I'm sure no one is dead. You probably made a mistake and didn't understand what you were seeing.\"\n\n\"The only thing we made a mistake on was lying about your plowing,\" Thistle grumbled.\n\n\"What did you say?\" Terry asked.\n\n\"They didn't say anything,\" I said hurriedly, motioning for them to come to me. \"Come on, girls. I'll get you some hot chocolate and doughnuts, and then we'll head back to the house. I need to ask your mothers a favor.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well we want candy now, too,\" Thistle said.\n\n\"I think hot chocolate and doughnuts is more than enough,\" Terry said.\n\nThistle ignored him and stared me down. I recognized the potential mayhem in her gaze. She would tell Terry the truth if I didn't capitulate.\n\n\"Fine,\" I gritted out. \"Candy, too.\"\n\nThistle was all smiles after that. \"I think my work here is done.\"\n\nWell, she finally found something we could both agree on."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 4",
                "text": "\"Absolutely not.\"\n\nMy nieces weren't nearly as keen to help me in my cookie endeavor as I initially envisioned. In fact, they were angry. Who saw that coming?\n\n\"Why not?\" I asked, grabbing a piece of fudge from the platter on the counter. \"I thought you liked baking.\"\n\n\"I do like baking,\" Winnie said. \"I love baking, in fact. We have a ton of baking planned for the next week.\"\n\n\"So give me some of those cookies.\"\n\n\"No way.\" Winnie shook her blond head and rested her hands on her hips as she stared me down. It was almost as if she was trying to send me a subliminal message. I wish she would just say whatever was poking at that busy brain of hers, because I'm not a mind reader.\n\n\"I don't see what the problem is,\" I said, breaking off a corner of my fudge brick and handing it to Clove. Marnie widened her eyes when she saw that. I'm not known for being much of a sharer. \"Just give me a plate of your cookies and I'll take them to the contest and pretend I made them.\n\n\"Then, when they hand out the blue ribbon, I'll do a little dance to make Margaret Little feel like an idiot, and spend the purse on some new combat boots,\" I continued. \"I've had my eye on a pair in that catalog you brought home last week. They're camouflage. I think they'll make a statement.\"\n\n\"And what statement is that?\" Marnie asked, resting her hand on Clove's shoulder. \"While we're at it, why did you give Clove a piece of your fudge?\"\n\n\"I'm a giving soul.\"\n\n\"Why really?\"\n\nI shrugged. \"I guess I wasn't thinking,\" I lied. \"What were we talking about again?\"\n\nMy nieces grew up with me, so they know when I'm skirting the truth. I hate that. For the bulk of their childhood I was the kooky aunt who made them go on cemetery outings in the middle of the night. I was adventuresome and adored. I loved that. After their mother died, I had to be the disciplinarian. That ate away at some of the love. I loathed that, but I never once regretted taking them in. I like to think they're strong and proud because of me.\n\n\"Why did Aunt Tillie give you fudge, Clove?\" Marnie asked, pointedly focusing on her daughter.\n\n\"Because I lied to Officer Terry when Mrs. Little accused her of filling in the end of her driveway with snow,\" Clove answered immediately, causing my stomach to flip. This wouldn't end well.\n\n\"Hey, I bought off you little gluttons with hot chocolate, doughnuts and candy,\" I reminded them. \"I didn't do that out of the goodness of my heart. It was a bribe. That means you need to shut your mouths.\"\n\n\"I thought that was the rule when we were in front of other people,\" Clove said, feigning innocence. \"Whoops.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well, I'm going to put that whoops up your behind if you're not careful,\" I warned.\n\n\"Oh, I feel so loved,\" Clove deadpanned, earning a stern look from her mother. \"What? I think my eyes are leaking.\"\n\n\"Knock that off,\" Marnie warned, wagging a finger in her daughter's face. \"That might work on other people, but it doesn't work on me.\"\n\n\"Nope. They're definitely leaking.\" Clove made a big show of swiping at her dry cheeks. \"I think I hurt my heart.\"\n\n\"Your butt is going to hurt if you don't zip it,\" Marnie shot back. \"Good grief.\"\n\n\"Why are you making them lie to Terry and Mrs. Little?\" Winnie asked.\n\nWas that a serious question? I can never tell. Winnie's sense of humor comes and goes like a fart in a car when the window is cracked. Sometimes you're certain it's there and other times you think it escaped out the window. That's how I felt today. \"I didn't tell them to lie.\" That's technically the truth. \"They just did it. I have no idea why.\"\n\n\"Why did you do it?\" Winnie asked Bay.\n\n\"Because Aunt Tillie says that we should always protect family over everyone else, and that Mrs. Little is a crone who lives in a glass house,\" Bay answered. \"I've seen that house, though. Only the windows are glass.\"\n\n\"That's not really helping, Bay,\" I said.\n\n\"I didn't know that's what I was supposed to be doing,\" Bay said. \"Can I go upstairs and read for an hour before dinner?\"\n\n\"Sure.\" Winnie smoothed Bay's hair before the girl hopped down from her stool.\n\nBay flashed a smile in my direction as she headed for the stairs. \"I'm sorry you're in trouble, Aunt Tillie,\" she sang out.\n\nShe didn't sound sorry.\n\n\"I'm sorry, too,\" Thistle said, touching my arm as she passed. \"The doughnuts were delicious, though.\"\n\n\"We'll talk about the doughnuts when I track down you little turncoats later,\" I said.\n\n\"I'm looking forward to it.\"\n\nOnce it was just my three nieces and me, I found something fascinating to stare at on the wall. There was nothing there, but I've found that pretending I see things helps avoid an argument if I play the game correctly.\n\n\"Stop doing that,\" Winnie said, lightly slapping my arm.\n\nApparently I was off my game today. \"I don't know what you want me to say,\" I said. \"I was actually helping clean out driveways\u2026 you remember Mrs. Franz, right?\u2026 and somehow the snow accidentally made it from the end of her driveway into Margaret's yard. It was an accident.\"\n\n\"You know we don't believe that, right?\" Marnie challenged. \"I honestly don't care about you filling in Mrs. Little's driveway. That's the least destructive thing you've done to her all year. I care about you teaching the girls to lie to Terry.\"\n\n\"Technically only Clove and Thistle lied to Terry,\" I said. What? If they're going to turn on me, I'm going to pay them back. \"Bay kind of talked around the situation. She didn't tell an outright lie.\"\n\nWinnie seemed pleased with the knowledge. \"Well, I guess that's not bad for her then.\"\n\n\"Yes, she's a regular angel,\" I deadpanned. \"Now will you give me some cookies to take to the contest?\"\n\n\"No.\" Mean Winnie was back with a vengeance. \"We're not doing that. If you want to win the baking contest \u2013 and I think it would be great for you to get involved because it might keep you out of trouble for an afternoon \u2013 you need to make your own cookies.\"\n\nThat didn't sound like any fun at all. \"Why would I bake my own cookies when there are piles of them in this house just waiting for me to pretend I baked them?\"\n\n\"Because that's cheating.\"\n\n\"Since when do I care about that?\"\n\nWinnie scorched me with a look. \"Since you're supposed to be on your best behavior and leading by example,\" she replied. \"Your actions today weren't what we had in mind.\"\n\n\"Hey, the day was going fine until they claimed they saw a dead body in the woods,\" I said. \"I maintain they derailed things. I was an innocent bystander.\"\n\n\"Yeah, that's weird, right?\" Twila said. \"Do you really think there was a body out there?\"\n\nI shrugged. \"It looked like something had been resting in the snow, but for all we know it was a bag of garbage,\" I said. \"Also, maybe someone did fall down. Maybe one of the elves got drunk. I have no idea what they really saw. It clearly wasn't a dead body, though.\"\n\n\"Well, that might be the only bit of good news we've gotten today,\" Marnie said. \"You need to be careful about what you say in front of those girls. Remember what we talked about before you left. Set a good example.\"\n\n\"Yeah. I'll never forget that conversation.\" Mostly because it was so excruciating it was seared in my mind forever, I silently added. \"Is that all?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Winnie answered. \"Dinner will be ready in an hour.\"\n\n\"Can I steal some cookies?\" Asking one more time couldn't possibly hurt.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" I huffed. \"I want you all to know you're on my list, though.\"\n\n\"We were on your list this afternoon,\" Twila pointed out.\n\n\"Yes, but this time I'm going to do something about it,\" I said, stalking toward the door. \"You're all going to pay for ruining my day. Mark my words.\"\n\nWinnie appeared completely disinterested in my threat. \"Wash your hands before you come to dinner. I can see you've been busy with the fudge, and you refuse to use a napkin unless we make you.\"\n\nI narrowed my eyes. Clearly they'd gone too long without having to pay for their transgressions. I would fix that right up.\n\nI found the girls getting dressed in their bedroom the next morning, the smell of bacon wafting through the vents and informing me that their mothers were already downstairs cooking. They seemed surprised by my appearance, mostly because I generally showed up in their room only after they vacated the premises and I wanted to mess with them.\n\n\"What do you want?\" Thistle asked, instantly suspicious. \"If you're here to pay us back for yesterday, I'm prepared to scream and call for my mother.\"\n\n\"Oh, like that really terrifies me,\" I said, rolling my eyes. \"Your mother frightens me least of the three.\"\n\n\"I'll scream for my mother, too,\" Clove warned.\n\n\"I'm still not frightened.\" I looked to Bay. Her expression was unreadable.\n\n\"I'm too tired to scream,\" Bay said. \"I didn't sleep well.\"\n\nNow that I gave her a good once over, she did appear paler than usual. I pressed my hand to her forehead as I studied the dark circles under her eyes. \"Are you sick?\"\n\n\"Eww. If you're sick, get away from me,\" Thistle said, shoving Bay's arm. \"I don't want to get sick right before Santa comes. That would be the biggest holiday bummer of them all.\"\n\n\"I'm not sick,\" Bay said, glaring at her cousin. \"I just didn't sleep well.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" I asked, pulling my hand away. \"You don't feel warm.\"\n\n\"I had nightmares,\" Bay said. \"I saw the man in the woods, and he was haunting us.\"\n\nThis was a difficult situation because Bay could actually see and talk to ghosts. It was a family gift she inherited from me. Unlike the other gifts \u2013 like the ability to curse people and make magical potions to play with your enemies \u2013 the ghost gift was difficult to bear. I was fairly certain Bay would rather surrender it than keep it. That wasn't in the cards for her, though.\n\n\"Did you actually see this man or was it a dream?\" I asked.\n\nBay realized what I was asking right away. \"It was a dream,\" she said. \"He was chasing me through the house. Instead of pink socks, though, he didn't have feet and he was bleeding from the ankles.\"\n\n\"Oh, gross,\" Clove said, wrinkling her nose. \"Thanks so much for telling me that. Now I'm going to have nightmares.\"\n\n\"I won't,\" Thistle said. \"I'm far scarier than any guy without feet.\"\n\nSadly, I figured she was probably right. \"Girls, there was no body in the woods,\" I said. I saw no point in letting them freak themselves out when there was no reason \u2013 or benefit for me \u2013 and I hoped I'd be able to calm them since I had a favor to ask. \"The time between when you found him and we made it back to that spot was less than ten minutes. Where did he go?\"\n\n\"Maybe someone killed him and dragged his body away,\" Clove suggested.\n\n\"There were no drag marks, and you need to stop watching horror movies with your cousins because they always make you see things that aren't there,\" I chided.\n\n\"Maybe he died and came back as a zombie,\" Thistle said. \"I saw that on a movie the other day. All of these people were in a farmhouse and zombies were going after them. They died first, and then got up and started walking.\"\n\n\"Zombies aren't real,\" I said. \"You need to stop watching so much television, too.\"\n\n\"I saw that movie, and I didn't understand why they didn't run,\" Bay interjected. \"The zombies were really slow. They were like Aunt Tillie on mornings before she has her coffee.\"\n\n\"Don't make me add you to my list,\" I warned, extending a finger and making her giggle. \"There was no body in the woods. I don't know what you think you saw, but it wasn't a body.\"\n\n\"It was,\" Thistle said, stubbornly crossing her arms over her chest. \"We know what we saw. You can't convince us otherwise.\"\n\n\"Fine. It was a zombie.\" I held up my hands to signify defeat. \"If we're lucky he'll head to Margaret's house and we won't have to worry about him. She's so old and gristly it will take him years to gnaw through all of her skin and bones.\"\n\n\"You're so gross,\" Clove said, making a face.\n\n\"Not that we're not glad to see you, because we are, but why are you up here?\" Bay asked. In some ways she's the smartest of the trio.\n\n\"I'm not happy to see you,\" Thistle said. \"I am curious about why you're here, though.\" In other ways she's smartest of the group.\n\n\"I'm totally happy to see you and don't care why you're here,\" Clove added. She'll never be the smartest of the group, but she has her own special blend of mayhem that's going to be intriguing to watch as she grows older.\n\n\"I have a favor to ask of you,\" I said, choosing my words carefully. \"I figure you owe me after tattling to your mothers last night.\"\n\n\"What do you want?\" Bay asked, suspicious.\n\n\"She wants us to bake her cookies,\" Thistle said. \"She couldn't con our mothers into doing it and now she has no one to ask but us.\"\n\nOkay, she has control of the collective brain today. That much is obvious. \"I'll pay you,\" I offered.\n\n\"How much?\" Clove asked.\n\n\"Five dollars.\"\n\n\"Fifty and you have a deal,\" Thistle countered.\n\n\"Fifty?\" What a bunch of money-hungry jerks. They almost make me proud. \"I'm not giving you fifty bucks for cookies. There's no way.\"\n\n\"Then we're not baking you cookies,\" Thistle said.\n\n\"Hold up,\" Bay said, putting her hand on Thistle's arm. Her blue eyes were keen when they locked with mine. \"I have a solution that helps everyone, and it doesn't involve money.\"\n\n\"I'm all ears,\" I said.\n\n\"We'll bake your cookies if you help us figure out who died in the woods,\" Bay suggested.\n\nI opened my mouth to argue about whether or not they really saw a body and then snapped it shut. I was convinced no one died in the woods. I was equally convinced it couldn't hurt to pretend to investigate a fake death with them.\n\n\"Fine,\" I said, extending my hand. \"You have a deal.\"\n\n\"We want hot chocolate while we're investigating, too,\" Thistle said, staying Bay's hand before she could seal the deal. \"We might want some doughnuts, too.\"\n\n\"Don't push your luck,\" I warned.\n\n\"Fine, hot chocolate is enough.\"\n\nI shook three small hands and exchanged multiple big smiles as visions of Margaret's face when she realized I stole the blue ribbon from her danced through my head. My reverie lasted only a few moments, though, because Bay's pragmatism dragged me back to solid ground.\n\n\"How are we going to bake without our mothers knowing?\" she asked.\n\n\"You leave your mothers to me,\" I said. \"I have everything under control.\"\n\nI was almost sure of it."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 5",
                "text": "\"What are we doing?\"\n\nThistle jerked her head away when I tried to secure the strap of the blue combat helmet under her chin. She was naturally suspicious where I was concerned. I don't blame her.\n\n\"We're going to town,\" I replied. \"You have to wear your helmet. I made a promise to your mothers.\"\n\n\"Yes, but you lie all of the time,\" Thistle pointed out. \"What makes this different?\"\n\n\"I don't lie all of the time,\" I corrected. \"I expound on certain facts that other people might not believe are facts. It's different.\"\n\nBay made a face. \"Facts are supposed to be something everyone agrees on. That's how they end up in research books.\"\n\nNow it was my turn to make a face. \"You need to stop spending so much time with your nose in books because you're going to grow up to be boring if you're not careful,\" I chided. \"Men like smart women, but they don't like boring women. Well, I guess that's not true. Some men like boring women. Those aren't the type of men you want to associate with, though. Wait\u2026 what was I saying again?\"\n\n\"You were saying that Bay is boring and I'm funny and cute,\" Thistle replied.\n\n\"That's not what I was saying,\" I said, remembering where I was in the conversation. \"As for facts being universal, that's not even remotely true. Facts are affected by individual perspective. No, I'm telling the truth. That's a real scientific fact. I'm good at science. I could be a scientist professionally.\"\n\nBay wrinkled her nose as she fastened the strap of her purple combat helmet under her chin. She never gave me issues about wearing the helmet. I think it's because she's smart enough to recognize her own mortality. She's a worrisome little thing sometimes. Kids her age shouldn't be fixated on death. Because she sees ghosts, though, I think her life is going to be filled with crud like that.\n\n\"That doesn't change the fact that you lie to other people all of the time, and I don't want to wear this helmet,\" Thistle said. \"It makes me look stupid.\"\n\n\"You do that to yourself,\" I said. \"Also, there's a difference between lying to other people and making a promise to your mothers. I swore I would keep you safe because they seem to love you. I personally don't get it. I mean\u2026 I would've left you in the woods for wolves to eat when you were little if I had my druthers, but I promised my nieces, and that means you're wearing that helmet.\"\n\n\"You don't have to wear a helmet,\" Clove pointed out. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Because her head is hard and only a rock could break it,\" Thistle answered for me. \"I heard Mom saying that to Aunt Marnie last week.\"\n\n\"Your mother's mouth is absolutely huge,\" I said. \"She's going to cry her eyes out when I bring up all of these fun tidbits she's been passing on to you girls while I've been too distracted to notice.\"\n\n\"Well, that might be fun, too,\" Thistle said as she stopped fidgeting with the helmet. She was apparently resigned to wearing it into town to start our investigation.\n\n\"Did you guys feed and water the dog?\" I asked. The mutt they coveted beyond everything slept on a blanket in front of the fire most of the time when it was cold, but they were fairly diligent about taking care of the Christmas gift I secured for them a few years ago.\n\n\"Yes, Sugar had breakfast and went outside,\" Bay answered. \"I think he's hoping Mom bakes again later today. Something always seems to fall on the kitchen floor when Sugar is around.\"\n\n\"Yes, well, your mother is a sap,\" I said, gesturing toward the truck. \"Everyone needs to get in so we can get going. I have an idea about who you might've seen in the woods.\"\n\n\"You do?\" Thistle appeared to be caught between excitement and doubt. She didn't fully trust me. She probably never would. Smart girl.\n\n\"I do,\" I confirmed. \"We just have one quick stop to make before we hit town.\"\n\n\"Are you going to plow in Mrs. Little's driveway again?\" Clove asked as she settled in the middle of the seat next to Thistle.\n\n\"That's a horrible thing to ask me,\" I said. \"Do you think I'm purposely mean to people?\"\n\nClove answered without hesitation. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, it's good that you recognize people for what they are,\" I said. \"We are stopping by Mrs. Little's on our way to town.\"\n\n\"Yay!\" Clove clapped her hands as I circled the truck and climbed into the driver's seat.\n\n\"Is everyone ready?\" I asked. Three solemn heads nodded. \"Great.\"\n\n\"Just one thing,\" Thistle said, locking gazes with me. \"Have you ever thought that the snow would be even better at the end of the driveway if it was yellow?\"\n\nI tilted my head to the side as I considered the question. \"I like the way your mind works. Yellow snow it is.\"\n\n\"Double yay!\" Clove clapped again.\n\n\"That gets annoying sometimes,\" I informed her.\n\n\"My eyes leak when you say things like that.\"\n\n\"Where are we?\"\n\nBay's expressive blue eyes were cloudy as I led the girls along the sidewalk in a quiet Walkerville neighborhood. I was still riding high from the Yellow Snow Extravaganza (all of the girls got in on the fun) in front of Margaret's house. I had no idea when she would see it. I was really looking forward to the outcome, though.\n\n\"This is Maple Street,\" I informed her, making sure Clove and Thistle were right behind us before focusing on the small ranch house, which was located in the final plot of a dead-end street in one of the most rundown neighborhoods in the area. \"I think this is where your dead guy lives.\"\n\n\"How do you know that?\" Thistle asked. \"This morning you didn't believe us that a dead body even existed.\"\n\n\"I still don't think anyone died,\" I said, opting for honesty. \"I do think maybe you saw someone passed out, though. It didn't hit me until you mentioned the pink socks. I happen to know someone who wears pink socks.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nI gestured toward the house. \"Edgar Martin.\"\n\nThe name didn't spark any sort of recognition from the girls.\n\n\"Who is that?\" Clove asked. \"Do we know him?\"\n\nThat was a good question. \"Do you remember at the summer festival when that guy got really loud and told everyone aliens abducted him and that's why he was late mowing lawns so it would be unfair to fire him?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Oh, I guess that was a little late for you guys to be out,\" I said, rubbing my chin. \"Do you remember at the lake this summer when that guy was floating on the water and they called the fire department to resuscitate him \u2013 I mean fill his lungs with oxygen as a gag \u2013 and he claimed aliens dropped him in the lake by accident?\"\n\nBay knit her eyebrows. \"I remember the fire truck but not a man.\"\n\n\"Okay.\" I tilted my head to the sky and racked my brain for something they would remember. I snapped my fingers when a good memory pushed its way to the forefront. \"Do you remember at the pet parade before Halloween this year when a guy dressed like a unicorn and pretended to walk himself and tried to win the big prize?\"\n\n\"Oh, him?\" Thistle made a disgusted face. \"Mom said he was drunker than you during a solstice celebration.\"\n\nI couldn't hide my scowl. \"Your mother and I are going to have a really long talk before this is all said and done. I had no idea she's so\u2026 chatty.\"\n\n\"Aunt Twila never shuts up,\" Clove said. \"I don't know why you think it's so weird.\"\n\n\"No one asked you,\" I shot back. \"As for Edgar, yes. He's the one who pretended to be a unicorn, because he was drunk. He was drunk in all of those stories. That's why I think there's a good possibility you found him passed out and not dead in the woods.\"\n\nBay ran her tongue over her upper lip as she considered the possibility. \"I still think he was dead,\" she said finally.\n\nThese kids are stubborn. \"Well, did you see his ghost?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Don't you think you would've if he died alone and afraid in the woods?\" I challenged.\n\n\"Not if he was drunk and passed out in the snow,\" Bay replied. \"I saw a thing on the Discovery Channel about dying in the cold. It's just like going to sleep. Ghosts hang around because they're sad about dying. Maybe he wasn't sad about dying.\"\n\nI hate it when the little imp has a point. \"Let's just knock on the door and see if Edgar is home,\" I suggested. \"That way you'll be able to see him and tell me if he's the body you saw.\"\n\n\"What if he doesn't answer?\" Clove asked.\n\n\"We'll cross that road when we come to it.\"\n\n\"Okay, but I agree with Bay,\" Clove said, falling into step with me as we traipsed toward the front door. \"I'm pretty sure he was dead.\"\n\n\"Did your eyes leak?\"\n\n\"They wanted to.\"\n\nI pursed my lips to keep from laughing and knocked on the door three times in quick succession when we reached the top of the porch. The girls watched expectantly as I leaned closer to listen for the telltale sounds of someone stirring inside. The house was still.\n\nI knocked again and got the same result. Thistle grew more smug with every unanswered knock.\n\n\"I think he's dead,\" Bay said finally, crossing her arms over her chest. \"I hate to say I told you so, but\u2026 .\"\n\n\"I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you,\" I warned, extending a finger. \"He's not dead. He's just\u2026 passed out. He's dead to the world, so to speak, but he's not really dead.\"\n\n\"You don't know that he's even inside,\" Thistle argued. \"You can tell us that until your lips fall off from lying, but we know the truth. He's not in there. He's dead.\"\n\n\"You're letting your imaginations get away from you.\"\n\n\"No, we're not,\" Clove said. \"You didn't see him in the snow. We did. We know he's dead.\"\n\n\"Oh, geez.\" I pinched the bridge of my nose to ward off an oncoming headache. \"Will you girls believe me if I take you inside and show you Edgar is passed out?\"\n\n\"How are you going to do that?\" Bay asked, suspicious.\n\nI pointed toward the large window at the front of the house. \"We can go through there.\"\n\nClove's mouth dropped open. \"That's breaking the law!\"\n\n\"You weren't so bothered by that when we put yellow snow at the end of Margaret's driveway,\" I pointed out.\n\n\"Yes, but we can't get in trouble for that because we're too young to drive,\" Thistle said. \"We can get in trouble for this. We know better than to break into someone's house.\"\n\n\"Mostly because we've gotten in trouble with the police before when you made us do it,\" Bay added.\n\n\"I didn't make you do anything,\" I countered. \"You wanted to do it. You enjoyed it, in fact. It's not my fault we got caught. That was a fluke.\"\n\n\"I don't know.\" Clove rubbed her mitten-covered hands together. \"What if we get caught?\"\n\n\"We won't get caught.\" I was fifty percent sure that was true. \"We'll go in through the window, I'll show you that Edgar is passed out inside and not dead, and then we'll go out through the front door. You can let go of this dead body crap, and we'll return home so you can bake my cookies.\"\n\n\"What if we go in there and he's not the guy we saw in the woods?\" Bay asked.\n\n\"Then we'll keep looking.\"\n\n\"I don't know.\" Bay hopped from one foot to the other as her gazed bounced between Clove and Thistle. \"What do you guys think?\"\n\n\"I don't want to break the law,\" Clove answered.\n\n\"I don't care about breaking the law,\" Thistle said. \"I just don't want to get caught.\"\n\n\"We won't get caught,\" I said. \"Trust me.\"\n\n\"You are in so much trouble!\"\n\nTerry's face was full of fury as he crossed his arms over his chest and tapped his foot on Edgar's snow-covered front porch twenty minutes later. He caught us in the act as we tried to force Clove through the open window \u2013 and convince her to open the front door once she was inside. Apparently the neighbors saw us or some such crap. That's what Terry told us when he dragged us outside anyway.\n\n\"I was doing a public service,\" I said, forcing myself to remain calm. \"The girls have been working themselves up because they're convinced they saw a dead body yesterday. I was simply trying to prove to them that they were wrong.\"\n\n\"And how did that end up with you breaking into a house?\" Terry asked.\n\n\"Well, they mentioned they saw pink socks,\" I replied. \"I saw Edgar wearing pink socks the day he dressed like a unicorn. I figured they didn't see a dead body but a dead drunk passed out in the snow. I wanted them to give up on the dead body business before it consumed them.\"\n\n\"Yes, that sounds very virtuous of you,\" Terry snapped sarcastically. \"I don't believe you for a second, though.\"\n\n\"That's because you're a very suspicious person.\"\n\n\"Did it ever cross your mind that you should just knock?\" Terry asked. \"That's what a normal person would do.\"\n\n\"We did knock,\" Thistle said. \"No one answered. That's how we knew this dude was dead.\"\n\n\"That's very callous, Thistle,\" Terry said. \"You don't know anything of the sort. I'm not convinced you saw anything in the woods yesterday.\"\n\n\"Do you think we're liars?\" Bay's lower lip jutted out. \"I'm not a liar.\"\n\n\"Oh, sweetheart, I know you're not a liar,\" Terry said, melting in the face of childhood anguish. He rested his hand on her shoulder as he knelt next to her. \"I think you saw something in the woods and thought it was one thing when it was really another.\"\n\n\"That's not what happened,\" Clove said. \"We saw a body.\"\n\n\"No, you didn't,\" Terry said.\n\n\"If we didn't see a body, where is the crazy unicorn guy?\" Thistle challenged. \"He's not in there. We looked around before you caught us.\"\n\n\"You mean you looked around before I caught you doing something illegal,\" Terry corrected.\n\n\"My eyes are leaking.\" Clove pressed her fingers over her eyelids. \"My heart hurts.\"\n\n\"Stop that right now,\" Terry ordered, wagging a finger in Clove's direction before turning his eyes to me. \"Are you happy? You're turning them into criminals.\"\n\n\"I'm unhappy about being caught,\" I answered honestly. \"The criminal stuff doesn't bother me. And, truth be told, I am slightly worried that they really did see Edgar out there. What if he's lit and took off in the woods? He could die. It's cold out, and we both know he doesn't monitor his drinking.\"\n\n\"I\u2026 .\" Terry broke off as he rubbed the back of his neck. \"I'll see if I can find out where he is to put everyone's mind at ease. That doesn't mean you guys are off the hook, though.\"\n\n\"Are you going to throw us in jail?\" Clove asked, horrified. \"I won't do well in jail. Aunt Tillie told me. I'll be the first one made to be a\u2026 what did you call it?\"\n\n\"Prison wife,\" I answered, not missing a beat.\n\nTerry scowled. \"Don't tell her things like that,\" he snapped. \"I cannot believe you brought them here. I just\u2026 what is the matter with you?\"\n\nI had two choices. I could tell him the truth and admit to bribing the girls for cookies or come up with a lie that made me look better. It wasn't a hard decision.\n\n\"Bay had nightmares last night, and she's pale,\" I said, pointing toward the blonde. She was Terry's favorite and he would fall all over himself if he thought she was legitimately upset. \"She's going to make herself sick if she keeps at it. I was trying to make things easier for her.\"\n\n\"Are you sick?\" Terry tilted Bay's chin so he could study her face. \"You do have circles under your eyes. Maybe you shouldn't be running around in the cold.\"\n\nWell, that worked like a charm.\n\n\"I'm okay,\" Bay said. \"I know he's dead, though. I can feel it.\"\n\n\"Oh, yeah?\" Terry asked, his eyes sympathetic. \"What do you feel?\"\n\n\"Cold.\"\n\n\"I think that's because you're outside,\" Terry said, scooping up Bay and glaring at me. \"Come on, girls. I'll walk you back to the truck and buckle you in. Aunt Tillie is taking you home. There will be no more breaking the law today.\"\n\n\"But\u2026 we're not done,\" Thistle complained.\n\n\"Oh, you're done,\" Terry muttered.\n\nI tapped Clove's head to get her attention as I marched behind her. \"When we get to the truck, tell him your eyes are leaking because you love him so much,\" I ordered. \"He won't be able to yell at us if you do that.\"\n\nClove's smile was serene. \"I'm on it.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 6",
                "text": "\"It's snowing.\"\n\nThe ride home was mostly quiet, all four of us lost in thought. The girls were convinced Edgar was dead in the woods somewhere, and even though I didn't want to admit it I was beginning to wonder if they were right.\n\nThey were so quiet \u2013 which worked against the norm, let me tell you \u2013 that I almost forgot they were in the truck with me.\n\nI shifted my eyes to Bay as she stared out the window. She'd always been entranced by snow. Don't get me wrong, she prefers warm weather in the summer, but she likes snow for Christmas. I kind of like it, too.\n\n\"It is,\" I agreed, smiling as the large flakes pelted down from the sky. \"It looks as if it's going to be a big snow, too.\"\n\n\"We should plow on the way home,\" Thistle said. \"That way we can check on the yellow snow.\"\n\nI really do like the way that kid's mind works. \"We can do that,\" I said. \"In fact, why don't we head that way now?\"\n\n\"I thought you wanted us to bake?\" Clove challenged. \"Wasn't that the whole point of today's trip?\"\n\n\"Clove, the whole point of today's trip was to prove to you guys that you didn't find a dead body in the woods,\" I said. \"I think I've done that.\"\n\n\"You have not,\" Thistle scoffed. \"You're only saying that to make us think something that's not true. I know the way your mind works. You can't fool us.\"\n\nI knew the way her mind worked, too, and she was right.\n\n\"She's not trying to fool us,\" Bay corrected. \"She's trying to convince herself that she's right and we're wrong. She's worried we really did see something and that Edgar Martin is dead and she doesn't want to be responsible for finding his body.\"\n\nHow in the heck did she figure that out? The older they get, the shrewder they get. It's frightening. If they all put their heads together now they come close to outsmarting me. Don't ever tell them I said that, by the way. I'll deny it to my dying day.\n\n\"I don't think he's dead,\" I said. \"I think he was passed out when you guys came across him. Then I think being in the cold woke him and he wandered off.\"\n\n\"You said there were no tracks leading away,\" Thistle pointed out.\n\nI did say that. Crud. \"Maybe he stepped in the tracks you already made,\" I suggested. Hey, that's actually a possibility. I warmed to my subject. \"Maybe he woke up and saw the tracks and followed them out and we didn't notice because we got distracted.\"\n\nThistle snorted. \"You'll say anything to make us believe you're right.\"\n\nThat was also true. I decided to change the subject before things got out of hand. \"Who wants to plow?\"\n\nClove and Bay immediately raised their hands while Thistle took a moment to think. I narrowed my eyes as I watched her. I had no idea what was going through that busy mind of hers, but whatever it was couldn't be good.\n\n\"Can we go by Lila's house and mess with her driveway?\" Thistle asked finally.\n\nNow that sounded like a plan. \"Absolutely,\" I said, taking the girls by surprise as I did an immediate U-turn. \"We'll hit her house first and then swing back around by Margaret's place before going home. Your mothers are supposed to be shopping this afternoon \u2013 don't worry, I asked to make sure \u2013 and that gives us a window to make cookies.\"\n\n\"Let's do it,\" Thistle said. \"I think we should make the snow in front of Lila's house yellow, too.\"\n\n\"No, not yellow,\" Bay said, her face lighting up. \"We should make that snow brown\u2026 like poop.\"\n\nI pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. They were young, so they couldn't think of truly evil things to do to their enemies yet, but they were getting there fast. \"I couldn't be prouder of you girls if I birthed you myself.\"\n\nThe truck jolted as I got too close to the side of the road, and I cast a surprised look in that direction. \"Huh. What was that?\"\n\n\"You took out Mr. Dorchester's mailbox,\" Thistle replied, blas\u00e9. \"It was that red one that looked like a barn.\"\n\n\"Oh, well, that was ugly anyway,\" I said. \"He must've moved it.\"\n\n\"Yeah. I'm sure he did.\"\n\n\"It says here you need one stick of butter and a half cup of salt,\" I said, resting my chin on the counter as I sat on a stool and watched Clove and Bay work behind the counter. Thistle, much like me, had no interest in baking and sipped a cup of tea as she watched her cousins work. I decided to read the ingredients to them to hurry things along because our plowing excursion took longer than I initially planned. By the end of the trip we added two other enemies to the list because we were having so much fun. The brown snow really did look like a pile of poop, by the way. It was glorious.\n\n\"There's no way it says to use half a cup of salt,\" Bay argued, her forehead creasing into a tense vee. \"That would make the cookies taste way too nasty.\"\n\nHow could she possibly know that? It's not as if she's a baker. \"It says salt,\" I shot back. \"I'm not blind. I know how to read.\"\n\nBay wasn't convinced and she snatched the cookbook from me so she could look at the recipe. \"It says we need half a cup of sugar and one tablespoon of salt,\" she corrected. \"Where are your glasses?\"\n\nWell, now she was just hitting below the belt. \"I don't need glasses,\" I argued. \"Glasses are for old people. I have perfect vision. I could be a sniper in the military if I wanted. Seriously, I could kill people for a living.\"\n\n\"I don't think anyone disagrees with that,\" Thistle said. \"You wouldn't do it with a gun, though. You would do it with your fingers and mind.\"\n\nShe had a point. \"I still think salty cookies are probably delicious,\" I said. \"Put extra salt in.\"\n\n\"Do you want to win or do you want to be right?\" Bay challenged, taking me by surprise. \"In this case you can't do both.\"\n\nAnd that right there is why I'm convinced she's the smartest in the group some days. She can read me like a children's book with only pictures. \"Who says I can't be both?\"\n\n\"Common sense and taste buds.\"\n\nI made a face. \"Fine. I want to win.\"\n\n\"You only want to win so you can torture Mrs. Little,\" Thistle said knowingly as she slurped her tea. \"Why do you hate her so much?\"\n\nThat was a story they were definitely too young to hear. It was such a bad story I didn't want to know it. Plus, in the end, I didn't come out looking like much of a role model. Don't get me wrong, I'm not keen on being a role model, but despite what everyone says, there are a few things in my past that cause me shame. My association with Margaret is one of them.\n\n\"She's a bad person,\" I answered after a beat. \"It's not just that she does bad things. She has a bad heart, too.\"\n\n\"Unlike you,\" Bay mused. \"You like to do naughty things, but Mom says you have a good heart. She says you have the best heart sometimes. She just wishes you weren't so naughty.\"\n\n\"I guess you get that from me, huh?\" I teased, my eyes flashing. \"I don't generally consider myself naughty. It's more that I'm\u2026 active\u2026 and I work faster than most people think. That makes me a genius of sorts.\"\n\nThistle giggled so hard I thought she was going to snort her tea through her nose.\n\n\"I was being truthful,\" I said.\n\n\"You're so funny,\" Thistle said. \"I want to be just like you when I grow up\u2026 only meaner.\"\n\nI shot her an appraising look. \"I think that's the nicest thing you ever said to me.\"\n\n\"Yeah? Well, don't get used to it,\" Thistle said. \"I want a mean reputation like you.\"\n\nI stilled, the admission catching me off guard. \"Do you really think I have a mean reputation?\"\n\nThistle nodded. \"People are afraid of you. I want them to be afraid of me, too.\"\n\n\"I don't think you have much to worry about there,\" I said. \"I heard the principal called your mother in at the end of the semester and told her that everyone in your class is frightened of you.\"\n\n\"They're easy, though,\" Thistle said. \"All I have to do is threaten to knock them down and make them cry to get them to do what I want. I need to start scaring adults. That's what I'm really looking forward to doing.\"\n\nFor the first time I realized exactly how much she reminded me of myself. I make jokes about it sometimes because I find it amusing, but perhaps her mother is right. I would never admit it to my nieces, but Thistle was clearly getting close to crossing a line from which she might not be able to return.\n\n\"Listen, mouth,\" I said, choosing my words carefully. \"I know you think it's all fun and games to terrorize people \u2013 and it does have its merits, I'm not going to lie \u2013 but you don't want to be so mean that you chase everyone away. It's good to have a few people in your corner no matter who you are.\"\n\nThistle didn't look convinced. \"You don't have people in your corner.\"\n\nI arched a challenging eyebrow. \"Oh, really? What about your mothers? What about the three of you? What about Officer Terry?\"\n\n\"But\u2026 you fight with all of us,\" Thistle said.\n\n\"Fighting is not the same as scaring everyone away,\" I said. \"Think about it, do you really want to go through life without the rest of us? If you continue down this path, you're going to scare everyone away. You might not care about those twerps in your school, but I'm guessing you would be pretty sad if you scared away Bay and Clove.\"\n\nThistle rubbed her cheek as she tilted her head and considered my words. \"I don't want to scare everyone away,\" she said finally. \"I also want to terrify people when I hate them and they're evil. Can I do both?\"\n\nI smiled. \"It's a balancing act,\" I said. \"Something tells me you're up to the challenge of balancing two worlds, though. Just\u2026 think about it.\"\n\n\"Okay, but I'm still going to be mean to you when I feel like it,\" Thistle hedged.\n\n\"I would expect nothing less.\"\n\n\"In the name of the Goddess\u2026 what in the hell happened here?\"\n\nI lost track of time hanging out with the girls in the kitchen and before I realized what was happening I found Winnie, Marnie and Twila staring at the trashed room with what can only be described as outright fury. They held shopping bags in their hands as they gaped at the flour-covered counters and greased cookie sheets. Bay and Clove were just as messy as the counters.\n\n\"It's not what you think,\" I said hurriedly, racking my brain for an acceptable excuse. \"We were attacked by a\u2026 flour gnome and it was so out of control I had to vanquish it. We just got through fighting it. Yeah, that's it.\"\n\nWinnie made a disgusted face as she dropped her grocery bags on the floor. \"A flour gnome? Do you really expect me to believe that?\"\n\nWas that a trick question? \"Um\u2026 you tell me.\"\n\n\"We know what you were doing,\" Marnie said, resting her bags on the dining room table as she wrinkled her nose and stared at the mess. \"You conned them into making you cookies for the contest. I just\u2026 what were you thinking?\"\n\n\"Well, I certainly didn't bribe them, if that's what you're asking,\" I said. Wait\u2026 should I have said that? Probably not. That's what happens when you add bourbon to your tea when no one is looking. This wouldn't end well.\n\n\"She bribed you?\" Winnie's eyes widened as she locked gazes with Bay. \"What did she give you?\"\n\nBay looked caught. \"Um\u2026 .\"\n\n\"She told us she would help us find the dead body if we helped her make cookies,\" Thistle replied, moving down a stool when I lashed out to slap her arm. She expected the move. \"We thought it was a fair trade.\"\n\n\"We?\" Bay challenged. \"You drank tea. You didn't help with anything.\"\n\n\"I was super\u2026 super\u2026 .\" Thistle often grappled to find the right word to express what she was feeling.\n\n\"Supervising?\" Twila suggested.\n\nThistle snapped her fingers. \"Yeah, that's it. I was supervising. Someone had to make sure Clove and Bay didn't make a mistake.\"\n\n\"I'm pretty sure that was my job,\" I said dryly.\n\n\"Says the woman who thought we should use half a cup of salt,\" Bay grumbled.\n\n\"I heard that,\" I said.\n\n\"I wasn't whispering,\" Bay shot back.\n\n\"Okay, that's enough of that,\" Winnie said, grabbing Bay's arm and tugging her away from the counter. \"You need to go upstairs and take a bath. Wash all of that flour off. Dinner will be ready in an hour, so make sure you're not late.\"\n\n\"But we're not done with the cookies,\" Bay said. She's something of a perfectionist, which I find fascinating. I never met a project I didn't want to abandon halfway through it. Bay is the complete opposite. \"We still have to put them in the oven.\"\n\n\"I'll finish the cookies,\" Winnie said, her smile stretched and tight as she glanced at me.\n\n\"You need to go upstairs, too, Clove,\" Marnie said. \"Make sure you put those dirty clothes in the hamper instead of leaving them on the floor. You might draw mice in there if you're not careful.\"\n\nThistle moved to hop off the stool and follow her cousins, but Twila stopped her before she could take more than a couple of steps. \"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"Upstairs to get cleaned up,\" Thistle replied.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" Twila said, shaking her head. \"You're not dirty. Do you know what's dirty?\"\n\n\"Aunt Tillie's mind?\"\n\nTwila pressed her lips together and shook her head.\n\n\"The kitchen is dirty,\" Marnie said. \"The kitchen is filthy, in fact. You two need to clean up the mess you made so we can cook dinner.\"\n\nI glanced over my shoulder. Who was the other half of the \"two\" she referenced? \"Which two?\"\n\n\"You and Thistle,\" Winnie replied. \"This was your idea and you sat there and watched them make a mess. You need to clean it up.\"\n\nYeah, that really sounded nothing like me. \"I'm good,\" I said blithely.\n\n\"You're not good,\" Winnie countered. \"If you don't pick up this mess, you're not getting any dinner. Do you understand?\"\n\n\"Yes, but\u2026 .\"\n\nMarnie shook her head to cut me off. \"No buts.\"\n\n\"I'm not in the mood to clean,\" Thistle said. \"I think Aunt Tillie should do it alone.\"\n\n\"We just had this discussion,\" I growled.\n\nThistle ignored me. \"I'm small and tired. I need a nap.\"\n\n\"You need to clean if you want dinner,\" Twila corrected. \"Don't you want dinner?\"\n\nThistle shrugged. \"It depends,\" she replied. \"What are we having?\"\n\n\"What does that have to do with anything?\" Winnie challenged.\n\n\"If it's something I hate I'm going to choose the nap,\" Thistle replied, not missing a beat. \"If it's something I like, I guess I'm going to clean. I won't like it, though.\"\n\nWinnie made a disgusted face. \"We're having chicken legs marinated in red wine, mashed potatoes and corn.\"\n\nThistle screwed up her face into a strange expression as she thought. \"I think I'll take a nap.\"\n\n\"We're also having red velvet cake,\" Marnie added, causing Thistle's smug smile to slip. \"I believe that's your favorite.\"\n\n\"It is my favorite,\" Thistle said. \"Crap.\"\n\n\"Yes, crap,\" I agreed, reluctantly taking the towel Winnie handed in my direction. \"I blame you for this, Thistle. You were supposed to be watching the clock.\"\n\n\"And I blame you,\" Thistle shot back. \"You were supposed to be watching us.\"\n\n\"And I blame both of you,\" Winnie said. \"I want this kitchen clean in twenty minutes. If it's not, you guys aren't going to get any cake.\"\n\nWell, that was a low blow. \"I'm not going to put up with much more of this lip,\" I warned. \"You're going to be sorry if you continue to cross me.\"\n\n\"Me, too,\" Thistle intoned.\n\nWinnie didn't look worried in the least. \"Clean!\"\n\nYeah, I've definitely been off my game when it comes to doling out punishments this week. I need to take a long look at my naughty list and start handling the biggest trouble spots. Unfortunately, I have to clean first. Blech.\n\nI cast a curious look in Thistle's direction as she packed the baking ingredients to carry to the pantry. \"I think my eyes might start leaking soon,\" I admitted.\n\n\"Join the club.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 7",
                "text": "I found the girls leaving their bedroom the next morning. They were instantly alert upon seeing me in their part of the house two days in a row. Suspicion runs deep when you have Winchester blood flowing through your veins. You're born with it. You can't hide from it.\n\n\"Are you going to punish us for yesterday?\" Clove asked, her brown eyes reflecting worry. \"If so, you should know that what happened yesterday wasn't our fault. We did what we were supposed to do.\"\n\n\"We did,\" Bay said, bobbing her head.\n\n\"I didn't, but you didn't really think I was going to do it so it doesn't matter,\" Thistle said. She was strangely blas\u00e9 for so early in the morning. Usually she's grumpy and you can't talk to her until she has some juice and food in her stomach. She gets that from me.\n\n\"No, I didn't really expect you to do anything and you definitely held up your end of the bargain,\" I said, following the girls down the hallway. \"You did help clean the kitchen, though, so I guess that should count for something.\"\n\n\"The only reason I did that was because Mom wouldn't stop staring at me,\" Thistle admitted. \"It was as if she knew I was just waiting for her to look away so I could escape. I hate that about her.\"\n\n\"Yes, that's a mom thing,\" I said. \"My mother was the same way. I always thought I could put one over on her, but she managed to catch me every time.\"\n\n\"What was your mom like?\" Bay asked. She looked legitimately curious. \"We've heard stories, but never got to meet her. We've seen photos, though. You don't look like her.\"\n\n\"No, your grandmother looked like her,\" I said, my mind briefly drifting back to my childhood. I was genuinely fond of my sister Ginger and missed her a great deal. I saw some of her mannerisms reflected back at me when I looked at her daughters \u2013 Winnie, Marnie and Twila \u2013 but they had a lot of me in them, too. I wasn't sure which traits were stronger \u2013 or better, for that matter. \"It's too bad you girls didn't get to meet your grandmother. You would've liked her.\"\n\nI was surprisingly wistful this morning. My melancholy mood wasn't lost on the youngest Winchesters.\n\n\"Do you miss her?\" Clove asked.\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"I wish I could've had a sister,\" Clove said. \"I would've been a great older sister. I would've tortured my little sister only fifty percent of the time.\"\n\nI smirked. \"You have sisters,\" I countered. \"What do you think Bay and Thistle are?\"\n\n\"Cousins.\"\n\n\"Technically I guess you're right,\" I conceded. \"You haven't been raised as cousins, though. You've been raised as sisters. It doesn't matter that you don't share the same mother and father. You share the same heart.\"\n\n\"That's kind of gross when you think about it,\" Clove said, descending the stairs. \"If we all shared the same heart then we would be stuck together and that would give me nightmares.\"\n\n\"Would it make your eyes leak?\" I teased.\n\n\"Definitely.\"\n\nI found Marnie, Twila and Winnie standing behind the counter when we reached the kitchen. The usual morning cooking activities seemed to be underway \u2013 egg carton open on the counter, bread sitting next to the toaster, a slab of bacon in Marnie's hand as she stared at the stove \u2013 but without the normal bustle that accompanied the items. I pursed my lips when I saw the blank look on Winnie's face and feigned confusion. \"What's going on?\"\n\n\"Why don't I smell breakfast?\" Thistle asked, alarmed. \"Are your hands broken?\"\n\n\"No,\" Twila answered hurriedly, reaching for the bread. \"We're getting everything ready. We're just running late today.\"\n\n\"Really late,\" I said, shuffling toward the coffee pot on the counter and pouring myself a mug of steaming caffeinated goodness as I made a big show of staring at the empty frying pans and toaster. \"Are you girls sick?\"\n\n\"Oh, I hope not,\" Clove said. \"If you all get sick, who will cook for us?\"\n\n\"Not Aunt Tillie, that's for sure,\" Thistle intoned. \"If you get sick, we're going to starve.\"\n\n\"And no one wants that,\" I said, biting the inside of my cheek as Winnie's puzzled expression turned to frustration. \"Do you think you're getting the flu?\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" Winnie said, snapping her head up and glaring at me. \"We don't get sick. We take care of ourselves.\"\n\n\"We definitely take care of ourselves,\" Marnie agreed.\n\n\"Then why isn't breakfast ready?\" I pressed, tugging a strand of Bay's hair behind her ear and smoothing it into place. The girls take care of their own morning hygiene but sometimes they gloss over their hair in the winter because they know they end up wearing hats. \"Breakfast is always ready when we come down. I mean\u2026 is something wrong?\"\n\nI knew I was in danger of overplaying my hand when Winnie narrowed her eyes and fixated on me. Her hand rested on the egg carton and I couldn't help but wonder if she planned on hurling one at me. I knew she wouldn't cook anything in the carton. I'd taken care of that. They couldn't cook today no matter how hard they tried. In fact, the harder they tried, the more likely it would become that the knowledge of how to cook \u2013 even the basics \u2013 would seep out of their brains.\n\n\"What did you do?\" Winnie hissed, the reality of the situation finally sinking in.\n\n\"What makes you think I did anything?\" I asked, pasting my best \"I'm innocent and you can't attack me without proper proof\" smile on my face.\n\n\"Because we can't seem to remember how to cook breakfast,\" Marnie answered. \"Do you see those eggs? We know they're eggs. We even know we're supposed to cook them. We can't remember how, though. It's as if we've forgotten everything we know how to do.\"\n\n\"That is terrible,\" I clucked, sliding a sly look in Thistle's direction. Her eyes were fixed on her mother's face and she seemed to be in awe. \"Did you fall and hit your head?\"\n\n\"We didn't hit anything,\" Twila shot back. \"We were absolutely fine last night. We made dinner and did the dishes. Everything was perfectly normal when we went to sleep.\"\n\n\"Then we woke up and things still seemed fine,\" Winnie said. \"That lasted until we hit the kitchen. We pulled all of the food out of the refrigerator like normal and then\u2026 well, then we got stuck.\"\n\n\"Oh, this is a total travesty,\" I said, swallowing the urge to giggle. I wouldn't truly be able to get under their skin if I didn't play it straight. \"Do you think it was something you ate?\"\n\n\"I'll bet it was the memory monster,\" Clove said. \"I think he lives in our closet.\"\n\n\"The only thing living in your closet is the mess monster,\" Marnie snapped. \"It wasn't something we ate. Aunt Tillie did this.\"\n\n\"Oh, now, that's a serious accusation,\" I said, studying my stubby fingernails. \"Do you have any proof?\"\n\n\"We know it was you,\" Winnie spat. \"We're not stupid. You gathered the girls before coming down. That means you didn't want to risk running into us without backup. Do you think I'm stupid?\"\n\n\"Now probably isn't the time to ask me that question,\" I replied. \"I mean, with you forgetting how to cook eggs and all. Perhaps you should go to a doctor.\"\n\n\"You're in big trouble!\" Winnie screeched, grabbing a spatula from the bin on the counter and brandishing it in my face. \"You cursed us, didn't you? This all comes back to us refusing to make you cookies to pass off as your own at the baking contest. Admit it.\"\n\nGladly. \"I warned you guys something bad was going to happen if you turned your back on your loving aunt,\" I said. \"Think about it. I raised you. I loved you. I took care of you. I paid for everything. What did you give me in return? Grief. That's what.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's such a crock of crap,\" Marnie said. \"We love and take care of you just as much as you love and take care of us. This is a reciprocal relationship. It's not all about you.\"\n\nYeah, sometimes I think they don't know me at all. What they do know they seem to twist to their own designs for some unknown reason. \"I think this is probably a great lesson on karma,\" I said. \"What do you think, girls?\"\n\n\"I think I'm hungry,\" Bay said, rubbing her stomach.\n\n\"I think it's funny, but I'm with Bay,\" Thistle said. \"What are we going to eat?\"\n\n\"There!\" Winnie waved the spatula in Thistle's direction. She appeared to be growing more and more deranged by the second. \"Did you hear that? What are they going to eat? You can't let them starve, and we all know you're not going to cook for them.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm definitely not going to cook for them,\" I said, hopping to my feet. \"Girls, grab your helmets. We're going into town for breakfast.\"\n\nThe girls seemed surprised but didn't give me any lip as they hurried out of the room. Winnie was incredulous as she watched them go.\n\n\"What a bunch of traitors,\" she groused.\n\n\"Yes, they kind of follow whatever direction the wind takes them, don't they?\" I flashed my most evil grin to get my nieces' attention. \"I guess I'll see you later. I hope you find something to eat.\"\n\n\"This isn't going to work,\" Winnie called out. \"I'm not going to fall for this. We're not going to let you blackmail us into doing what you want.\"\n\n\"I guess we'll see,\" I called back. \"Something tells me you're lying to everyone\u2026 including yourselves.\"\n\nI took the girls to the Gunderson Bakery for breakfast. I'd known the owner, Ginny, for years. We had something of a tumultuous past, but we weren't exactly unfriendly. She was also keyed in to all of the area gossip, so I hoped she'd be able to assuage my fears regarding Edgar.\n\n\"Well, this is a surprise,\" Ginny said, beaming at the girls as I herded them toward a table. \"I don't often see you ladies out for breakfast.\"\n\n\"Our moms forgot how to cook and we're starving,\" Clove announced. \"I think we might pass out from hunger.\"\n\n\"You poor dears!\" Ginny never had children of her own and she fell for every fake tear and imaginary injury these three could muster. It drove me crazy. \"What would you like?\"\n\n\"I want doughnuts,\" Thistle said. \"I want, like, ten of them.\"\n\n\"Ten, huh?\" Ginny smiled. \"Do you want chocolate and sprinkles on them?\"\n\nThistle nodded happily, but I held up my hand to still Ginny before she could take Bay and Clove's orders. \"Wait a second,\" I said. \"You girls have to eat a regular breakfast.\"\n\n\"Ugh! You can't bring us to a bakery and not expect us to eat doughnuts,\" Thistle complained.\n\n\"Yeah, that's mean,\" Clove said. \"It makes my eyes leak.\"\n\n\"Okay, that's funny when you do it to other people, but I find it annoying,\" I said, extending a finger in Clove's direction. \"From now on you're forbidden to do that with me. Do you understand?\"\n\n\"Now I know my eyes are leaking,\" Clove grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest.\n\n\"Your butt will be leaking if you're not careful.\"\n\n\"Gross,\" Thistle and Bay said in unison as Ginny shot me a dark look.\n\n\"What?\" I asked Ginny, frustrated. \"You try spending hours with these monsters and we'll see how you feel afterward.\"\n\n\"I would love to spend time with these little angels,\" Ginny cooed. \"Look how cute they are.\"\n\n\"Wow. You girls have her snowed,\" I said, shaking my head. \"Good job.\"\n\n\"We learned from the best,\" Bay said, grinning. \"Can I have a breakfast sandwich?\"\n\n\"That's a good idea,\" I said. \"If you all eat a breakfast sandwich and one of those hash brown things you can have a doughnut when you're done.\"\n\n\"I only want the doughnut,\" Thistle said.\n\n\"And I only want you to shut up,\" I shot back.\n\n\"Fine,\" Thistle grumbled. \"Can I have the bacon and egg bagel sandwich and a hash brown?\"\n\nGinny smirked. \"You certainly can. How about everyone else?\"\n\n\"The same for me,\" Bay said as Clove nodded. \"Can I have a tomato juice, too?\"\n\n\"Tomato juice? I don't know any little ones who like tomato juice,\" Ginny said, giggling.\n\n\"She's a weird kid, but she does love her tomato juice,\" I said. \"I'll have a sandwich, too. I'd like some coffee, though.\"\n\n\"What about you two?\" Ginny asked Clove and Thistle. \"What do you want to drink?\"\n\n\"I want coffee,\" Thistle said. \"I take it black with no sugar.\"\n\n\"They'll have orange juice,\" I corrected before slipping out of my coat and following Ginny to the counter. The grill was right there, so she could make the sandwiches and keep up on conversation at the same time. I kept one eye on the girls for a few minutes to make sure they were behaving, but when they seemed content to gossip about how funny their mothers acted this morning I left them to it and focused on Ginny. \"Have you heard any good gossip lately?\"\n\n\"You'll have to be more specific,\" Ginny said, placing the bacon on the griddle. \"I've heard a lot of gossip. For example, I heard that Judy Bristow wants to get a boob job, and I heard that you've been plowing in the end of Margaret's driveway with yellow snow.\"\n\n\"We did brown snow for a bit yesterday, too.\"\n\nGinny smirked. \"It's not as if she doesn't deserve it. Is that the kind of gossip you're talking about?\"\n\nI shook my head. \"Have you heard anything about Edgar Martin?\"\n\nGinny tilted her head to the side, confused. She seemed surprised by the question. \"I haven't heard anything about him since the unicorn incident. I heard talk people were going to try to force him into rehab, but that never came to fruition.\"\n\n\"It never does,\" I said. \"You can't force someone into rehab. They have to want to do it for themselves.\"\n\n\"Why are you asking about Edgar?\"\n\n\"Well, um\u2026 .\" I risked a glance over my shoulder, but the girls were still caught up with talking to each other rather than eavesdropping. \"The day of the tree-lighting ceremony the girls swear they found a body in the woods.\"\n\n\"What were they doing in the woods?\"\n\n\"Looking for yellow snow to put on Lila Stevens' head.\"\n\n\"Oh, I like them more and more as they get older,\" Ginny said, giggling. \"What does that have to do with Edgar, though?\"\n\n\"They say whoever it was had on pink socks.\"\n\n\"Ah, like the unicorn,\" Ginny said almost to herself. \"Did you search the woods?\"\n\n\"We did and we came up empty,\" I answered. \"He's not there, but he doesn't seem to be anywhere else either. He's not at his house. I wrote it off at first because I thought they were exaggerating. I thought Edgar must've fallen down drunk. Now I'm starting to get worried.\"\n\n\"The problem with Edgar is that he takes off whenever he feels like it and it's impossible to know where he is for long stretches,\" Ginny said. \"I'm sure he's okay.\"\n\n\"I hope he is, but I promised the girls I would help them,\" I said. \"I always keep my word.\"\n\nGinny made a face. \"Really?\"\n\n\"Well, I keep it to them,\" I clarified. \"I would really like to track down Edgar. If he's dead out there somewhere, well, let's just say it could be a rough winter for a body.\"\n\n\"That's definitely true,\" Ginny said. \"I haven't seen Edgar, but now that you've brought up his name, I have heard a bit of gossip about him. I ignored it at first because it made no sense, but\u2026 well\u2026 it might be of interest to you.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Now, it came from Viola and she's not always reliable\u2026 .\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I'm not a big fan of salacious gossip,\" Ginny added.\n\nOh, I was practically salivating now. \"What?\"\n\n\"Viola said Edgar has been seen around town three times with Margaret Little,\" Ginny offered. \"She thought they were having an affair. I, of course, thought that was ridiculous. But if you can't find him, I think you should start looking there.\"\n\nI moved my jaw as I considered the possibility. It didn't make sense and yet \u2026. Margaret was there the day the girls claimed they found the body. Perhaps she saw Edgar when he was leaving and didn't tell anyone.\n\n\"I'll bet she killed him,\" I said, my mind working overtime.\n\nGinny was amused rather than aghast. \"Why would she do that?\"\n\n\"Because she's evil.\"\n\n\"Oh, well, as long as you have completely thorough reasoning for throwing that out there, I'm totally with you,\" Ginny said, handing me a mug of coffee. \"What are you going to do?\"\n\n\"Bring her down.\"\n\n\"And people say December in Walkerville is boring,\" Ginny teased. \"Something tells me it's going to a holly jolly Christmas after all.\"\n\n\"Did you have to ruin things by reminding me of that song? It's like an earworm.\"\n\n\"I'll keep that in mind for next time,\" Ginny said dryly.\n\n\"You do that.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 8",
                "text": "\"Stop doing that.\"\n\nClove, a bag of potato chips resting on her lap as we sat in my parked truck across the street from Margaret Little's house, made a face. \"I'm not doing anything.\"\n\n\"You're rattling that bag so loudly I can't help but think that something is going to explode,\" I countered. \"It might be my temper, so I'd be very careful.\"\n\n\"I am not.\"\n\n\"You are, too.\"\n\n\"I am not.\"\n\n\"You are, too.\"\n\n\"Oh, will both of you give it a rest?\" Thistle asked, shifting in her seat. She kept her helmet on even though she complained it itched. I think she worried I would take off in a mad rush to run Margaret over if the mood struck, and she wasn't taking any chances. \"You're giving me a headache.\"\n\n\"Hey, I've had a headache since you three were born,\" I shot back. \"Do you hear me complaining?\"\n\n\"You complain all of the time,\" Thistle said. \"Mom says that's just the way you talk to other people and that we should ignore it. She says you don't mean to be a complainer, but you can't help yourself because it's just noise to you.\"\n\nI stilled. I was hearing a whole lot of Twila-isms these days. I had no idea she was that ballsy. \"Next time your mother says that, tell her the only noise in the house is that incessant droning she does when she claims she's singing,\" I said. \"How does that sound?\"\n\n\"Like you're feeling mean,\" Clove said, stretching her arms over her head as she tried to get comfortable.\n\nAfter Ginny told me about Margaret's ties to Edgar, I couldn't get the possibility of her offing him out of my head. I know it's a long shot, but I've always thought she was evil. Maybe she finally decided to embrace her inner hobgoblin and call to the evil corners of the land to do her bidding.\n\nNo, I'm not being dramatic. Hear me out.\n\nMargaret has been jealous of me ever since we were kids. At first she thought I was somehow cheating when it came to footraces and tennis matches, but then she realized I really was magical and made it her mission to be just like me. I'm not making it up. She's jealous.\n\nIf she conducted enough research, she might've gotten to the point where she found that she could call to evil forces and ask them to do her bidding. The Winchesters call to the four white light corners of magic. Evil witches call to the four dark corners. Margaret would definitely be an evil witch if she embraced the craft.\n\nShe might've thought she could take someone like Edgar \u2013 a man known to make an ass of himself and drink until he was in a stupor at least five days a week \u2013 and sacrifice him to the blood winds to give herself power.\n\nHuh? What do you think of that?\n\n\"What are you thinking?\" Bay asked, her eyes narrow slits as suspicion washed over her features. \"You went to a different place there for a second.\"\n\n\"I'm pretty sure it was an evil place,\" Thistle said. \"Did you see that smile? It made me think of that movie we were watching the other day. What was the name of it?\"\n\n\"Friday the 13th?\"\n\n\"No, not that one.\"\n\n\"A Nightmare on Elm Street?\"\n\n\"Not that one either.\"\n\n\"Good grief,\" I muttered. \"Someone really does need to monitor your viewing habits.\"\n\n\"We like horror movies,\" Bay said. \"They make us feel better about our lives.\"\n\n\"And why is that?\"\n\n\"Because no matter how bloody and terrible a slasher movie killer is, he's still nicer than you,\" Thistle said, grinning.\n\n\"Keep it up, mouth.\"\n\n\"It!\"\n\n\"It what?\"\n\n\"No, that's the name of the movie,\" Thistle said. \"It. There was a creepy clown and he had horrible fangs when he smiled. You reminded me of that clown just now. What were you thinking?\"\n\n\"I was thinking that we'll be hailed as heroes if we find Edgar alive,\" I lied. \"We might even get Margaret locked up to boot. That would be the best Christmas gift ever.\"\n\nThistle rolled her eyes. \"You're all talk,\" she said. \"You don't really want Mrs. Little to be arrested. You won't have anyone to torture if that happens. Who else are we going to drop yellow snow on?\"\n\n\"Oh, there's plenty of people in this town who have ticked me off,\" I said. \"I'm sure I can find someone.\"\n\n\"And yet it won't be as funny as messing with Mrs. Little,\" Thistle said. \"You'll be bored. I bet she's not a murderer anyway. She's probably just\u2026 kissing him.\"\n\nI arched an eyebrow. \"Kissing him?\"\n\n\"That's what old people do.\"\n\n\"They do more than that,\" I pointed out.\n\n\"Yes, but I'm only going to be ten soon so I'm not supposed to know about those things,\" Thistle said. \"My mind doesn't go past kissing.\"\n\n\"That's a good thing,\" I said.\n\n\"Mine does,\" Clove said. \"I can't wait to get a boyfriend. He's going to be handsome and smart, and he's going to give me flowers.\"\n\nI rolled my eyes so hard I was convinced I was going to fall out of the truck. \"None of those things are important,\" I said. \"Well, it's important that he's smart. You don't want to date a dumb one. As for the rest, you only need to find someone with a good heart who will love you for who you are without trying to change you.\"\n\n\"Do you think Mrs. Little is doing that for Edgar?\" Bay asked.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Then we should probably help him,\" Thistle said.\n\n\"You've got that right,\" I said, pocketing my keys. \"Come on, girls. It's time to save the day\u2026 and make Margaret Little pay.\"\n\n\"Wow. That was almost like poetry\u2026 like Dr. Seuss,\" Thistle drawled.\n\n\"You're on my list.\"\n\n\"Lift your feet.\"\n\n\"I am lifting my feet.\"\n\n\"No, you're shuffling your feet, and that doesn't work in snow,\" I argued, grabbing Clove's waist so I could lift her over a particularly large snowdrift. \"Good grief, girl. What have you been eating?\"\n\n\"The same thing as you,\" Clove shot back, scorching me with a dark look when I dropped her on the other side of the drift. Margaret's house is surrounded by two or three rows of trees. It's supposed to give the illusion of privacy, but in reality all it does is give me something to hide behind when I'm trying to spy. Trust me. I know. I've done this before.\n\n\"Well, I think you've been eating double portions or something,\" I said, wiping my brow. It's too cold to be sweating, yet I could feel it dripping down my forehead. I'm too old for this much physical exertion. I'm still in my prime, mind you, but traipsing through a foot of snow with whiny little girls is not conducive to a relaxing cardiovascular workout. \"You need to go on a diet.\"\n\n\"You can't say that to her,\" Bay said, grabbing on to a low-hanging branch and swinging herself around the base of the tree. The snow was shallower closer to the trunks and she figured out pretty quickly that it was easier to stick close to the trees than wade through the big drifts. Unfortunately Clove didn't realize that. I constantly had to fish her out of piles due to her height. \"Mom says it's never okay to make fun of people for their weight or the way they look.\"\n\n\"Well, you're mother is a mouthy cow,\" I muttered.\n\n\"I heard that.\"\n\nI sighed and brushed my hair from my face. \"Your mother is right,\" I said finally. What? I don't want to teach them bad habits. Er, well, I don't want to teach them needlessly hurtful bad habits. There are plenty of bad habits for me to imprint on their impressionable minds that don't include being downright nasty for no reason. \"It's never okay to make fun of someone's weight or looks.\"\n\n\"You called Mom a cow, though,\" Bay pointed out.\n\n\"I was talking about the fact that she won't stop mooing in my ear when I want to do something,\" I said. \"She sounds like a cow. She doesn't look like a cow.\"\n\n\"I think she looks more like a chicken,\" Clove said, purposely hopping into a big drift and giggling as she tried to wade through it. Margaret's house was set a hundred and fifty feet back from the road, yet it felt as if I'd walked ten miles with these miniature monsters. \"She puts her hands on her hips all of the time and jerks her head back and forth. Sometimes when she's yelling I think she sounds like she's clucking.\"\n\n\"That's a good one,\" Thistle said. \"I think you should tell her\u2026 and do an imitation while you're at it.\"\n\n\"Don't do that if you want to stay on the nice list for Christmas,\" I warned. \"Save that for New Year's Eve. They'll be drunk so they might forget it.\"\n\n\"Good idea.\"\n\nBay seemed lost in thought as she swung around to the next tree, her eyes trained on me.\n\n\"What?\" I asked, annoyed. She has a way of looking into your soul that's downright unnerving.\n\n\"I know it's wrong to make fun of people because of the way they look, but can I still call Lila a horse face when she's mean to me?\"\n\nThat kid is far too worried about what's right and wrong. She needs to focus on smiting her enemies without caring about what's fair on the battlefield. That will keep her young and happy for decades. \"Yes, that's totally fine.\"\n\n\"But you just said\u2026 .\"\n\n\"There are exceptions to every rule, Bay,\" I said, cutting her off. \"This is one of those exceptions. Lila looks like a horse's behind and you can tell her that because she's evil. It's the same reason I can point out that Margaret looks like the butt of a chicken. It's not nice to go off on other people, but when it's your sworn enemy, it's totally fine.\"\n\n\"I don't think that's really the rule,\" Thistle said. She'd wised up and began following Bay not long after we waded into the woods.\n\n\"It's the rule if I say it's the rule,\" I said, grabbing the back of Clove's coat even as she moved to keep walking farther into the woods. \"That's far enough, short stack. All we need to do is get a clear view into the house. The big bay window in the dining room is right there. We should be able to see most of the main floor from here.\"\n\n\"That doesn't really work from this far away,\" Bay pointed out. \"It worked during the summer because you brought us after dark and we could sneak right up under the window to take those photographs you wanted.\"\n\n\"I still don't get that,\" Thistle added. \"You say it's fine for you guys to dance naked, but when Mrs. Little does it you think it's a crime against humans. Er, a crime against humidity.\"\n\n\"A crime against humanity,\" I corrected. \"I still haven't been proven wrong on that, by the way. You need to pay more attention to your English lessons and stop worrying so much about who I'm taking photos of. You mimic what everyone says so it sounds like you have a bigger vocabulary than you really do.\"\n\n\"And you need to stuff it,\" Thistle grumbled. If she thought she said that low enough for me not to hear, she was sorely mistaken. Of course, she might've purposely said it loud enough for me to hear, in which case I was mildly proud of her.\n\n\"All that matters is that we're good here,\" I said, making sure I was mostly covered by the large pine tree at the edge of the property as I dug in my purse. \"I brought help.\"\n\n\"What kind of help?\" Clove asked curiously.\n\n\"These.\" I pulled the binoculars I lifted from Winnie's bedroom this summer out of my purse and grinned. \"Now we'll be able to see directly into her house. If Edgar is there, we'll see. If she's dismembering him in the tub to get rid of the evidence, we'll see that, too.\"\n\n\"Oh, gross,\" Bay complained, wrinkling her nose. \"You don't think she's really doing that, do you? That will give Clove nightmares.\"\n\n\"Uh-uh,\" Clove argued, shaking her head. \"I don't get nightmares like a baby. You do.\"\n\n\"Oh, really?\" Thistle was completely annoyed with the situation. She wasn't generally known for being outdoorsy. \"Do you remember when we watched Jaws and you were convinced there were sharks in the lake?\"\n\n\"That was one time,\" Clove protested.\n\n\"How about when we watched Poltergeist and you wouldn't go in the closet for a month?\" Bay challenged. \"We had to put your clothes away, and it wasn't fair because you got out of chores in the bedroom while we had to do everything.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I think you answered your own question there,\" I said. \"She wasn't afraid of the closet. She was lazy and didn't want to do chores. Keep up.\"\n\nRealization washed over Bay's face. \"Hey!\"\n\n\"It's too late now,\" I told her, lifting the binoculars so I could stare into the house. The curtains were open, but it was hard to focus the stupid things and keep track of what I was looking at. The first thing that loomed into view was a ceramic snowman that looked more freaky than Frosty. \"Ugh. I swear some people shouldn't be allowed to buy knickknacks.\"\n\n\"Says the woman who has a rooster dressed like a slutty girl in her bedroom,\" Bay deadpanned.\n\n\"He's not dressed like a slutty girl,\" I corrected. \"He's dressed like a burlesque dancer. There's a difference.\"\n\nBay didn't look convinced. \"Uh-huh.\"\n\n\"Oh, and for the record, that rooster is a priceless work of art,\" I added. \"I bought him from a flea market and added the outfit myself. I've gotten hundreds of compliments on him. People think I'm a real artist. I could do it professionally and everything.\"\n\n\"Only if the world goes blind and people with taste are killed by some alien or something,\" Thistle said, smoothly evading my hand when I reached out to cuff her. \"Now do your spying so we can get out of here. It's cold and I'm bored.\"\n\n\"If you shut your mouth and let me concentrate, that won't be a problem,\" I said, staring through the binoculars again.\n\nThe girls were quiet for exactly thirty seconds and then Bay ruined the calm. \"Did you hear that?\"\n\n\"All I hear is you three yapping,\" I snapped.\n\n\"No, listen,\" Bay ordered, pressing her finger to her lips.\n\nI did as she asked but all I could hear was the four of us breathing. \"What do you hear?\"\n\n\"It sounds like a man is yelling inside or something,\" Bay said, pressing her eyes shut. \"I\u2026 no, I definitely hear a man.\"\n\nI narrowed my eyes as I stared into the house, but I couldn't see anything. After a few moments, though, I did hear the faint sound of someone else's voice as the back door of Margaret's house opened. I grabbed the girls to hide them behind the tree, clutching them to me so they didn't make an error and wander out where someone could see them. I couldn't risk peering in that direction because whoever opened the door would see us. The voice was definitely male, though. Edgar?\n\nI waited until the door closed to speak again.\n\n\"Did anyone see who it was?\"\n\n\"You made us hide behind the tree,\" Thistle said. \"We couldn't look because you wouldn't let us.\"\n\nShe had a point. Still, I wasn't going to admit that. \"So no one saw anything?\"\n\n\"I only know it was a man,\" Bay said. \"I didn't get to see him and couldn't understand what he was saying.\"\n\nThat made two of us. \"Well, we have only one choice,\" I said, making up my mind on the spot. \"We have to get closer to the house.\"\n\nThe girls groaned in unison. They were loud enough to hide the sound of approaching footsteps until it was too late to make a run for it, because a dark figure was upon us.\n\n\"You're under arrest.\"\n\nWell, crud."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 9",
                "text": "I recognized Terry's voice before I swiveled. I wasn't particularly frightened. I knew he wouldn't throw me in jail, no matter what he said. That didn't mean I was keen to have a showdown with law enforcement on my mortal enemy's property.\n\nThat sounded melodramatic, didn't it? Oh, who cares?\n\n\"Hello, Terry,\" I said, pasting a bright smile on my face as we locked gazes. He didn't look remotely happy. \"What a beautiful day for a walk. Don't you think it's a beautiful day for a walk?\"\n\nThe set of Terry's jaw was grim. \"Really? Is that the story you're going to go with? It's twenty-eight degrees, and you've forced three children to go on a march through thick snow so you can spy on a woman who collects porcelain unicorns. Think of a better story.\"\n\nI opened my mouth to answer, but Thistle did it for me.\n\n\"We weren't spying,\" she lied. \"We were hunting for Christmas elves. Aunt Tillie thought it would be a fun way for us to spend the afternoon because we're so excited for Christmas.\"\n\nThat story would never work for an adult. Terry wasn't an idiot, so it didn't work coming from a child either.\n\n\"Don't lie, Thistle,\" Terry chided. \"I don't like that.\"\n\n\"She's not lying,\" Clove said, jutting out her lower lip. \"It's true. Aunt Tillie said if we caught a Christmas elf we would get everything we wanted for Christmas. I want world peace and hundreds of gifts to give to kids who don't have anything. It's really a good thing.\"\n\nAnd that was much more convincing, especially coming from a child with a face that belonged on an angel and who was half buried in snow.\n\nUnfortunately for us, Terry wasn't falling for that either. \"Come here.\" He wrapped his arms around Clove's waist and lifted her out of the snow. He brushed off the clinging white powder before fixing her with a serious look. \"Are you cold?\"\n\n\"Not nearly as cold as the kids who have nothing for Christmas,\" Clove replied solemnly.\n\n\"You're going to make some man very afraid in ten years,\" Terry said. \"He's going to take one look at those big eyes and fall head over heels in love. Then he's going to realize you own him and have nightmares.\"\n\n\"Will they involve clowns in closets?\" Clove asked.\n\n\"I don't know what that means.\" Terry turned his attention to Bay as she tried to hide beneath the barren branch of a maple tree. \"How about you? Are you hoping to catch a Christmas elf to provide gifts for those less fortunate, too?\"\n\nBay bit her lip and shook her head. Crap! She was going to be my undoing. I just know it.\n\n\"We honestly are on a mission of mercy,\" I said. \"The fact that we ended up here is just an odd coincidence. I had no idea we were so close to Margaret's house.\"\n\n\"Quiet,\" Terry ordered, never moving his eyes from Bay's worried face. \"What are you doing here, Bay?\" It was if he knew she couldn't lie to him. That's why he focused on her. Quite frankly, that's akin to child abuse in my book.\n\n\"We were just taking a walk,\" Bay mumbled, averting her gaze. Sheesh. I taught her to lie better than that.\n\n\"Why were you walking?\" Terry pressed.\n\n\"Because\u2026 .\" Bay darted an unreadable look in my direction. She looked as if she was being tortured.\n\n\"Oh, leave her alone,\" I said, giving in. \"Fine. You've got us. We weren't looking for a Christmas elf. Arrest us. Throw us in a cell. Make this the worst Christmas ever for three bad little girls.\"\n\nTerry scowled. \"I am convinced you're the Devil sometimes,\" he hissed, reaching for Bay to draw her out from beneath the tree. \"Don't say things like that to them. You'll frighten them and make them afraid of police officers. Is that what you want?\"\n\nI shrugged. \"We were having a great time until you showed up,\" I said. \"If they're upset, I blame you.\"\n\n\"Whatever.\" Terry smoothed Bay's hair as he tilted up her chin so they could lock gazes. \"What are you doing out here?\"\n\n\"I just told you,\" I snapped.\n\n\"No, you said you weren't looking for a Christmas elf,\" Terry countered. \"I already knew that. You didn't tell me what you were doing.\"\n\n\"We're looking for the dead body,\" Thistle said, sticking out her tongue and hopping away from me when I reached out to grab her. \"Aunt Tillie took us to breakfast at the bakery this morning, and Mrs. Gunderson told her that there's a rumor about the dead man and Mrs. Little.\"\n\n\"She thinks Mrs. Little chopped him into little bits in the house because she's a bad witch,\" Clove added. \"We're here to see if that's true.\"\n\nTerry was flabbergasted. \"Why would you possibly tell these girls that?\"\n\n\"I didn't tell them that,\" I sniffed. \"They figured it out on their own. They're quite bright.\"\n\n\"Yes, they're regular geniuses,\" Terry said. \"You know you were seen casing the house from the road, right? Mrs. Little called the station and said that she was convinced someone was going to rob her.\"\n\nI snorted. \"She knows my truck. She only wanted to get us in trouble.\"\n\n\"And that's her right,\" Terry said. \"This is her property. You have no business being on it. While we're at it, you have no business plowing in the end of her driveway either. If I ever catch you, I'm going to have to write a ticket.\"\n\n\"And you won't do well in prison either,\" Clove said, bending over to pack some snow. \"I'm not the only one.\"\n\n\"Clove, you're not going to prison,\" Terry said. \"What are you doing out here, Tillie? Do you really think that Mrs. Little killed Edgar Martin? Seriously? Do you think she chopped him up in little bits and put him in her cookies or something?\"\n\nWell, when he put it like that it sounded ridiculous. It made much more sense in my mind. There was no way I was going to admit that, though. I decided to change tactics. \"I think that Margaret was with us the day the girls said they found the body,\" I said. \"I think something was definitely in that clearing \u2013 and so do you. The girls are imaginative, but they don't make up things like finding bodies.\"\n\n\"Okay, I get that,\" Terry said, adjusting his tone. \"I think they saw something, too. I initially assumed Edgar got drunk and passed out. I figured he woke up because it was cold and wandered away before we got there.\"\n\n\"But you haven't been able to find him either,\" I said. \"You've been looking and he's not around. Admit it.\"\n\n\"I admit it,\" Terry said. \"I looked because I didn't want the girls to obsess about this. I also figured you'd feed their imagination because that's what you do when you're bored. It's too cold for them to be running around on adventures with you.\n\n\"I mean\u2026 will you look at this child?\" Terry gestured toward Clove. \"She's covered in snow and freezing. She'll get pneumonia. Do you want that?\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" I said. \"We've only been out here twenty minutes. We would already be done if you hadn't distracted us. We were just about to get closer to the house so we could see the man inside and call it a day.\"\n\n\"Get closer? You can't just peek through the windows at someone else's house,\" Terry said. \"I\u2026 wait. What man?\"\n\n\"There's a man inside,\" Bay said. \"We heard his voice. We think it might be Edgar.\"\n\nTerry didn't want to be swayed, but the idea of solving this case \u2013 although it wasn't really a case \u2013 held a lot of appeal. He clearly wanted to enjoy Christmas instead of worrying about whether or not the girls were running around the countryside and spying on neighbors with me.\n\n\"Are you sure it was a man?\" Terry asked, rubbing his chin.\n\nI nodded. \"It was definitely a man.\"\n\nTerry licked his lips as he stared at the house. \"Okay. Come on. We're ending this now.\"\n\nI knew he would see things my way. I turned to wade through the snow, but Terry stilled when the girls remained rooted to their spots.\n\n\"What's wrong?\" Terry asked.\n\n\"We're tired,\" Clove said. \"I can't walk any longer. I think I might faint.\"\n\nTerry growled as he bent over and picked up Clove with one arm. She weighed very little so it wasn't difficult for him to lift her. He slid a sidelong look in Bay's direction. \"What about you?\"\n\nBay shrugged. \"I'm tired, too.\"\n\nTerry made a disgusted sound as he scooped her up with his remaining arm. He looked resigned when he glanced at Thistle. \"Are you tired, too?\"\n\n\"You're out of arms,\" Thistle pointed out.\n\n\"I have a back.\"\n\nThistle smiled as she scurried behind Terry. I had to help her scramble up his back, but when he had all of the girls securely affixed to his frame he picked the shortest route toward Margaret's house. He walked so fast, in fact, I had to jog to keep up. I momentarily wished I had a camera because the sight of him walking with the three girls clinging to him was adorable. He was a better father to them than the ones they were born with. He just didn't realize it.\n\nTerry didn't put the girls down until we were at Margaret's front door. He was careful as he lowered each one, and then he checked them to make sure everyone was safe and settled before knocking on the door.\n\nI wasn't expecting that. I thought we would come up with a plan before we alerted Margaret to our presence. For example, I thought he could distract Margaret while I punched her in the face and ran inside to untie Edgar in the basement, where she was planning to sacrifice him to the dark gods in front of her altar. What? That could totally happen.\n\nMargaret wasn't in the mood for idle chatter when she threw open the door. \"Did you arrest her?\"\n\n\"Not yet,\" Terry replied. \"She says she was helping the girls find a Christmas elf and got turned around. I tend to believe her. It wasn't a purposeful excursion.\"\n\nThe lie slid easily off his tongue. I couldn't help but be surprised. I knew he wasn't doing it for me, though. He was doing it for the girls. He didn't want to upset them.\n\nMargaret's penciled on eyebrow (she stopped growing real ones years ago) arched as she graced Terry with a sour look. \"Really? Do you expect me to believe that? She was hunting for Christmas elves? They're not real.\"\n\n\"Yes, they are,\" Clove said solemnly. \"They live at the North Pole with the house-trashing fairy and sock-eating gnome. That's not important, though. We want to see the dead guy.\"\n\nMargaret balked at Clove's fortitude. \"Excuse me, young lady, but I don't believe anyone was speaking to you,\" she said. \"Youngsters should be taught to refrain from speaking unless spoken to. That's how I would've raised children if I'd been so blessed.\"\n\nShe was so full of crap I was afraid to touch her in case she exploded and turned the snow brown on her own. \"You didn't have kids because no one could bear to see you without your clothes on,\" I shot back. \"People are afraid your body is like Medusa's and they'll turn to stone if they see it.\"\n\n\"You take that back,\" Margaret hissed, extending a finger. \"I don't have to put up with your nonsense. You're trespassing.\"\n\n\"She's not exactly trespassing,\" Terry clarified. \"I asked them to come to the house with me so I could investigate the possible sighting of a missing person.\"\n\nMargaret narrowed her eyes to dangerous slits. She looked like a coiled snake about to strike. \"What missing person?\"\n\n\"Edgar Martin,\" Terry replied. \"We have reason to believe he may be in grave danger.\"\n\n\"Because you're going to sacrifice him to blood winds,\" I added under my breath.\n\nTerry ignored me. \"Edgar hasn't been to his home in several days, and we have multiple witnesses who say they believe he was injured and lying in the snow at some point,\" he said. He was a master at manipulating words when he wanted to force an issue. It was something to behold. \"It has come to my attention that you've been seen with Edgar several times over the past few weeks, and you have a man inside your house today.\"\n\nMargaret's mouth dropped open as incredulity washed over her pinched features. She really did look like a chicken's behind\u2026 and she was clearly about to drop an egg. It was probably rotten.\n\n\"Who told you I've been seeing Edgar?\" Margaret asked, sliding a dark look in my direction. \"Was it her?\"\n\n\"I'm not at liberty to divulge my source, ma'am,\" Terry said. \"I don't care about your personal life. I care about locating Mr. Martin and making sure he's okay. If he's here, I only want to see him and verify he doesn't need medical assistance.\"\n\n\"Do you really expect me to fall for that?\" Margaret asked.\n\n\"I don't care what you fall for,\" Terry said. \"If Edgar is here, though, I want to see him.\"\n\n\"Well, you can't enter without a search warrant, and I'm not granting you entrance to my home,\" Margaret spat. \"As for the rest\u2026 well\u2026 I'm going to sue you for slander, Tillie. I'm going to bleed you dry.\"\n\n\"Oh, knock it off, Margaret.\" I was at my limit. \"I'm tired and I want to go home. Is Edgar here or not? That's all we want to know. The girls are obsessed with making sure no one died in the woods. How can you deny them peace of mind like that?\"\n\n\"Yes, it's our Christmas wish,\" Clove intoned. \"It's all we want.\"\n\n\"Speak for yourself,\" Thistle said. \"I want that castle, too.\"\n\nBay licked her lips as she studied Margaret. She was serious as she took a step forward. \"Please?\"\n\nTerry rested his hand on her shoulder. \"Just tell them, Mrs. Little,\" he prodded. \"They're not asking for the world. They're asking for one bit of information so they can sleep at night.\"\n\n\"My heart hurts thinking about poor Mr. Martin being lost in the woods,\" Clove added, her brown eyes glassy.\n\nI had to give the kid credit, she was a master manipulator. She was going to be something special when she got older.\n\n\"Fine,\" Margaret said, blowing out a sigh. \"He's here. He's been here for the last few days. It's not what you think, though.\"\n\n\"So you're not cutting him up into little bits in your bathtub?\" Thistle asked.\n\nMargaret made a horrified face. \"Who told you that?\"\n\n\"It must've been the Christmas elf,\" I said evasively, averting my eyes.\n\n\"No, I'm not chopping him up,\" Margaret said. \"The church has decided to provide sober buddies to Edgar to get him through the holidays. I've been volunteering my time.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" Crap. That might explain why people saw her with him on multiple occasions. She wasn't dating him. She was just policing him. She was good at telling other people what to do, so this was right up her alley.\n\n\"Yes, 'oh.'\" Margaret was smug. \"The holidays are a rough time, and he had a setback the other day. I saw him in the trees when I was leaving and took him home. I didn't know it was going to be such a big deal. I thought the girls would forget about it, and Edgar was embarrassed.\"\n\n\"He should've been more embarrassed about the unicorn thing,\" Thistle said.\n\n\"I agree with that,\" I said.\n\n\"So\u2026 he's really okay?\" Bay looked hopeful.\n\n\"He's really okay,\" Margaret said, her expression softening. \"He's here today and then is heading over to Viola's house tomorrow. Are you satisfied?\"\n\nTerry glanced at me. \"Are you satisfied?\"\n\nHeck no, I wasn't satisfied. Margaret was actually doing something good for a change. The world was clearly coming to an end.\n\n\"We should probably be going,\" I said, motioning for the girls to follow me instead of answering Terry's question. \"We have cookies to bake and elves to catch.\"\n\n\"And mothers to laugh at,\" Thistle added.\n\n\"That, too,\" I said.\n\nTerry ran his tongue over his teeth as he regarded me. \"So you'll be going straight home?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. There won't be one detour. I promise.\"\n\n\"All set, girls?\"\n\nIt took me five minutes to get the girls back to the truck and another five minutes to get their helmets and seatbelts secure. By the time the truck warmed up everyone was more than ready to go.\n\n\"I'm ready,\" Bay said. \"Are you surprised Mrs. Little is being nice?\"\n\nI opted for honesty. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Do you like her better now?\" Clove asked.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Do you want to plow on the way home?\" Thistle asked, hopeful.\n\n\"Absolutely.\"\n\nI lowered the plow so it was close to the road and hit the gas pedal as I pulled away from the side of the road. I saw Terry watching us as he walked up the driveway, and his eyes widened and he waved his hands as the snow bank at the corner of the driveway grew closer. He was pretty expressive for a guy who only wanted to say goodbye.\n\nThe truck jerked as I hit something hard, small pieces of wood flying in every direction. I crashed forward but the seatbelt kept me from slamming into the steering wheel.\n\n\"What was that?\" Clove asked, turning her head.\n\n\"Mrs. Little's mailbox,\" Thistle replied. \"It went boom.\"\n\n\"That came out of nowhere,\" I muttered. This time it truly was an accident. \"She must've moved it because she knew I would hit it and she wanted something to complain about.\"\n\n\"Yeah, that must be it,\" Thistle said dryly. \"Come on. If we're lucky, we'll be able to fill Lila's driveway with yellow snow before Officer Terry catches up with us.\"\n\n\"That sounds like a plan.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 10",
                "text": "Everyone was exhausted when we got back to the house. Terry caught up with us just as we were leaving Lila's street. He gave me a dirty look, but all of the girls waved and blew kisses so he merely shook his head and let us leave without flashing his lights or tossing about empty threats.\n\nChristmas miracles take many forms, after all.\n\nI found my nieces angrily slamming things around in the kitchen. The house usually boasted a variety of scrumptious scents this time of day, but all of them were absent thanks to my curse. Hmm. I might not have thought this one out completely.\n\n\"Where have you been all day?\" Winnie asked, furious.\n\n\"I took the girls for breakfast and then on an elf hunt,\" I said, pouring myself a mug of coffee. \"We found Edgar, by the way. He's not dead. He's drying out at Margaret's house.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I know. I was disappointed, too,\" I said. \"I thought she chopped him up or something. I'm going to have to rethink all of my life decisions now that she's done a good thing and helped her fellow man.\"\n\n\"I just\u2026 .\" Winnie pressed her lips together and shook her head. \"Well, at least you didn't get arrested.\"\n\n\"Nope. Terry didn't want the girls to start crying, so he let us go.\"\n\nMarnie's mouth dropped open. \"Are you serious?\"\n\n\"He didn't want my eyes to leak,\" Clove offered, hopping up on the stool next to me and folding her hands as she surveyed the kitchen. \"We're hungry. What's for dinner?\"\n\n\"You're going to get sandwiches at this rate,\" Winnie replied. \"We still can't cook.\"\n\n\"And we have a beautiful prime rib roast for Christmas Eve dinner tomorrow,\" Twila added. \"We need to put it in early and slow roast it. Do you have any idea how expensive that hunk of meat was? That's on top of the turkey we got for Christmas Day.\"\n\nMy mouth watered at the mention of prime rib. It's one of my favorites. That didn't mean I was ready to cede my superiority over my nieces\u2026 although I was definitely wobbling. \"Do you have anything you want to say to me?\"\n\nWinnie narrowed her eyes. She's bossy so she likes being in control. She knows when she's licked, though. \"If we agree to make cookies for you, will you lift the spell?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"That easy?\" Winnie was understandably dubious. \"Don't you want to add certain conditions to the agreement?\"\n\n\"Like you always do,\" Twila muttered.\n\n\"Nope,\" I answered. \"I'm in a particularly giving mood. It is Christmas, after all.\"\n\nWinnie made a face as she exhaled heavily. \"Fine. We'll make your cookies.\"\n\nI sensed a trap. \"You'll make me really good cookies,\" I clarified. \"I don't want any crap. For instance, I don't want cookies with a half a cup of salt instead of sugar just because you're feeling vengeful. I'm not stupid.\"\n\nBay shot me an angry look but wisely kept her mouth shut.\n\n\"We'll make you good cookies,\" Winnie gritted out. \"Technically we'll be making our own cookies for Christmas, so you can have some of them. We would never make bad cookies for ourselves.\"\n\nShe had a point. \"I want chocolate and macadamia nuts.\"\n\n\"Fine.\"\n\n\"If you want to add a little magic to sway the judges, I wouldn't be opposed to that either,\" I added.\n\n\"We won't be doing that,\" Winnie said. \"It's not really winning if you have magical help.\"\n\n\"I disagree, but as long as I win, I don't care,\" I said, climbing off the stool and motioning to the girls. \"Come on, troublemakers,\" I said. \"Let's look for the Christmas elf in the living room. I think there's supposed to be a good movie on this afternoon and your mothers are clearly going to be busy baking.\"\n\n\"You are\u2026 incorrigible,\" Twila muttered.\n\n\"Yes, well, it keeps me young,\" I said, smirking. \"Oh, and by the way, we're going to have a talk about all of these pearls of wisdom you keep dropping on the girls. I'm going to wait until the day after Christmas, though. I don't want anyone mistaking me for the Grinch.\"\n\nTwila balked. \"What pearls of wisdom?\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't know,\" I replied. \"Perhaps little things like me complaining because I like to complain and it's just the way I communicate need to be discussed.\"\n\nTwila scorched Thistle with a murderous look. \"Really? I'm sure I never said anything of the sort.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't be like that,\" Thistle said, her grin impish. \"You're supposed to be setting a good example for me.\"\n\n\"Run now,\" Twila ordered, slapping her spatula against the counter. \"I can only take so much.\"\n\n\"Now you know how I feel,\" I said, pushing open the swinging door between the kitchen and living room. \"Make sure you get going on dinner soon. We've had a long day and we're starving.\"\n\n\"I'm so hungry my heart hurts,\" Clove said. \"I'll probably die from the pain.\"\n\n\"You took it a step too far, Clove,\" I said, cringing when I saw the look on Marnie's face. \"You need to learn that sometimes less is more. Trust me. That's one of the rules I live by.\"\n\n\"I'll think about it.\"\n\nChristmas morning dawned brightly and the girls woke me with excited squeals as they pounded down the stairs. I took my time getting into my robe, and by the time I hit the main floor Terry was already there with a mug of coffee in his hand and a smile on his face as he watched the girls divvy up presents.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" I asked accepting a mug of coffee from Marnie as she walked past. \"I thought you were coming for dinner.\"\n\n\"I am,\" Terry replied. \"Santa had a special gift for the girls that he couldn't fit on his sleigh, though, and I had to bring it with me.\"\n\nI pursed my lips. He was a good man. He drove me crazy and I often wanted to curse him for questioning my integrity, but he loved the girls with his whole heart and gave everything he had freely to them.\n\n\"Well, that's nice,\" I said, turning my attention to the center of the living room. The girls weren't allowed to open gifts at the same time. They had to wait their turn, which drove them crazy and made Christmas more fun for the adults, who enjoyed torturing them. What? Is that just me? Oh, well. It's still fun. \"Have you talked to Edgar?\"\n\n\"I have,\" Terry confirmed, bobbing his head. \"He's embarrassed by what happened. He says he fell off the wagon the day the girls found him. He's actually thankful they did, though, because he thinks he might've slept right through to his death if they didn't wake him.\n\n\"When they took off to get us, he managed to get to his feet,\" he continued. \"He was confused because he couldn't remember how he got there \u2013 or even where he was \u2013 and he followed the girls' footprints out of the trees.\"\n\n\"Why didn't he say something to us when he saw us coming?\"\n\n\"He said he thought that I might arrest him for public drunkenness,\" Terry explained. \"I have threatened him a time or two, so it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. I would like to think I'd be giving because of the time of year, but it's far more likely I would've hauled him in rather than let him ruin the tree-lighting ceremony.\"\n\nI wasn't sure I believed that. \"You have a wonderful Christmas spirit, Terry,\" I said. \"Don't ever doubt that. You saw what we did at Lila's house the other day and you didn't even write a ticket.\"\n\n\"I thought about it.\"\n\n\"But you didn't do it.\"\n\n\"Yes, well, I didn't want Clove's eyes to leak,\" Terry teased, poking Clove's side as she skirted around him. Sugar barked and panted as sniffed saw the mountain of gifts. He would enjoy tearing through the leftover wrapping paper.\n\n\"It's nice you're here to spend the day with us,\" I said, leaning back in my chair. \"It wouldn't feel like a family day without you.\"\n\nI could've been mistaken, but Terry's eyes appeared to mist as he nodded. \"Thank you.\" He made room on his lap when Bay \u2013 still in her nightgown and slippers \u2013 hopped on his knee. Her hair was a mess and she looked barely awake but her eyes sparkled. \"Hey, little missy. I see Santa brought you a ton of gifts. You must've been a good girl.\"\n\nBay shrugged. \"Sometimes I think I'm good. Other times I think I'm not.\"\n\n\"You're good,\" Terry said. \"You're always good.\"\n\n\"And twenty,\" Thistle said from her place on the floor. \"Ha! I told you I would get the same amount of presents. I just counted. So much for the naughty list.\"\n\nTerry pursed his lips as he shook his head. He looked annoyed. \"She, on the other hand, straddles a very fine line.\"\n\nBay giggled. \"No, she doesn't,\" she said. \"She has a big mouth but a nice heart. She's like Aunt Tillie.\"\n\n\"I heard that,\" Thistle barked. \"That's the meanest thing you've ever said to me.\"\n\nNow it was my turn to make a face. \"Not three days ago you told me you wanted to be just like me,\" I reminded her. \"Why is it okay for you to say it but not Bay?\"\n\n\"Because Bay means it in a bad way,\" Thistle answered. \"I said I wanted to be feared like you. I didn't say I wanted to be like you.\"\n\n\"That's not how I remember it.\"\n\n\"That's because you're old.\"\n\n\"Hey!\" Terry barked loud enough that Bay jolted on his lap. He tightened his arms around her in a reassuring manner as he stared down Thistle. \"You need to apologize to your great-aunt. That was uncalled for.\"\n\nThistle's face drained of color as she swallowed hard. \"I'm\u2026 sorry.\"\n\nThe apology wasn't exactly heartfelt, but the fact that she said it at all was surprising.\n\n\"You need to think about what you say before you open your mouth, Thistle,\" Terry said. \"I know you think you're funny, and I'm pretty sure that's where a lot of your attitude stems from. You see your Aunt Tillie getting away with stuff and you think it's because people find her funny.\n\n\"That's partly true,\" he continued. \"It's also true that she does good things for people. Did you know she took cookies to the children's hospital in Traverse City last week? Do you want to know how I know that? I saw her when I was there taking gifts from the department.\"\n\nThistle's mouth dropped open as her eyes widened. \"You did that?\"\n\nI shifted on my chair, uncomfortable. \"I might've stopped by.\"\n\n\"She did it because she's a good person who just happens to like making mischief,\" Terry said. \"That's what you need to realize. You can't do only the mischief half of that equation. You have to do the good part, too.\"\n\nInstead of laughing, Thistle looked intrigued. \"Why didn't you tell us?\"\n\n\"Because it was nobody's business,\" I said. \"I go every year.\"\n\n\"You lead by example,\" Bay said, rubbing her cheek as she glanced at her mother. Her expression was far too thoughtful for a happy Christmas morning.\n\n\"I do lead by example,\" I agreed, reaching inside my robe and removing the blue ribbon from the baking contest. I hadn't let it out of my sight since winning it the previous day. Margaret was stupefied\u2026 and angry\u2026 and that made me happy. That probably wasn't leading by example, but I was beyond caring. \"For example, do you know what this ribbon means?\"\n\nThistle nodded. \"It means you beat Mrs. Little and she cried,\" she said. \"We were all there. We saw it.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" I said. \"And why is that important?\"\n\n\"Because there are exceptions to every rule,\" Bay answered. \"You can't call people fat and ugly, but you can call someone a horse face and drop yellow snow in their yard if they're your mortal enemy.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" I said, beaming.\n\nWinnie scowled as she pointed toward the largest gift in the center of the room. It was the one Terry brought for them. I had a feeling I knew exactly what was under the wrapping paper. \"Girls, I think Aunt Tillie is still waking up, so you might not want to listen to her this early in the morning,\" she said. \"Instead of opening all of your individual gifts, why not open the big one Terry brought for you to share?\"\n\n\"I didn't buy that,\" Terry said. \"Santa brought it and ran out of room.\"\n\nBay shifted her eyes to him. \"You're Santa sometimes. You're Santa this time. We already know that.\"\n\nTerry opened his mouth to argue and then snapped it shut. \"Open your gift. I think you're going to like it.\"\n\nBay did as he asked, pressing a kiss to his cheek before joining her cousins. They each grabbed a side of the wrapping paper and counted to three as they ripped it off. Their eyes widened and I could hear a multitude of gasps and squeals when they unveiled the fairy castle from the catalog.\n\n\"Oh, my,\" Winnie said, her hand flying to the spot over her heart. \"But that was so expensive.\"\n\nTerry shrugged. \"Santa doesn't care about that.\"\n\n\"But\u2026 .\"\n\n\"Leave him be,\" I ordered. \"He can't argue on Santa's behalf.\"\n\nWinnie's eyes filled with tears as she nodded. \"Girls, what do you say to Terry for helping Santa?\"\n\nBay, Clove and Thistle swiveled in unison. \"Thank you for being our favorite Santa,\" they sang out in unison. \"We love you.\"\n\nTerry's cheeks colored as he shifted on the chair. \"I\u2026 you're welcome.\"\n\n\"Now he leads by example,\" Thistle said, poking my knee. \"What did you get us?\"\n\n\"I spent the week with you,\" I reminded her. \"We plowed. We spied. We made yellow and brown snow. We solved a case. We tortured Margaret. We cursed your mothers. We cooked. We watched Christmas movies. I bribed you. You blackmailed me. We ate a bunch of doughnuts, too. What more do you want?\"\n\nThistle shrugged. \"Just this.\" She took me by surprise when she gave me a hug. I didn't know what else to do, so I returned it. Thistle was all smiles as she pulled away. \"I can lead by example, too.\"\n\n\"You certainly can.\"\n\n\"Oh, now my eyes are definitely going to leak,\" Clove said.\n\nI couldn't help but smile. \"Merry Christmas, you little monsters. Open your gifts.\"\n\nIt was a merry Christmas indeed. I didn't even want to deafen myself with Q-tips when the singing started.\n\nThat's a win to me."
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "title": "(A Katy Kramer Cozy Mystery 6) The Case of the Christmas Carol",
        "author": "A. A. Albright",
        "genres": [
            "contemporary"
        ],
        "tags": [],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "Desperate Times on Desperation Row",
                "text": "It was a warm July morning as I tailed one of my best friends, a wizard-turned-dog called Hamish, through the dodgiest magical enclave in Dublin City. As he loped his way along the winding streets, he had no idea that I was just a few steps behind. Instead of my usual frizzy mess of auburn hair, my locks were dark and sleek. I was taller than usual, too, and definitely slimmer. None of this was thanks to a crash diet, high heels and a dye-job, though; my new appearance was a temporary one, courtesy of a glamour cloak.\n\nNow, I know what you're thinking: using magical cloaks to spy on friends is not a nice way to pass the morning. It's nosey, and interfering, and controlling. But I wasn't doing this because I wanted to. As a private investigator, I normally reserved my nosiness for cheating spouses, missing persons and maniacal murderers.\n\nI had tried speaking to Hamish before I turned my investigations in his direction. I'd even tried simply being patient, waiting for him to tell me what was wrong in his own time. But as it grew ever more clear that something was going on, and that he was never going to tell me about it, well\u2026 I grew desperate.\n\nAnyway, it wasn't as if he knew that I was seriously overstepping his boundaries. He had no idea that I'd been following him for days, and what he didn't know couldn't irritate him, right?\n\nWith my glamour cloak on, I looked like one of my vampire clients, Valerian, a woman Hamish had never met because he hadn't been in work very much for the past few days. Every so often I'd catch my reflection in a shop window and, as I did, I wondered: should I wear more lipstick and eyeliner on a daily basis? And why didn't I wear low-cut tops more often?\n\n'Oi, I'd let you bite me any day, gorgeous,' cried a Materialization worker from a nearby construction site.\n\n'How chivalrous,' I muttered.\n\n'Oh, look who thinks she's too good for me!' the worker shouted back. 'I only felt sorry for you because you're so ugly, but I won't make that mistake again. And if you don't want men to compliment you, then you should wear something a bit more modest, shouldn't you!'\n\nI had more important things to worry about today, but I paused just long enough to glare at him and say, 'Go on, say something else, I dare you \u2013 because I'm telling you, you wouldn't like it if I really did bite you!'\n\nHe looked away, his face flaming, and I'm sure I heard him mumble, 'What a nutter,' to his co-workers. Instead of continuing the argument, I quickened my steps as Hamish headed into Desperation Row, one of the rougher areas of the enclave. Yes, even in the roughest enclave in Ireland, there are good parts and bad parts, and Desperation Row was, well, desperate.\n\nToday, though, there was something incredibly pleasing on the street: a shop called Tinsleys' Workshop and Winter Wonderland. The workshop had always been here, making toys to sell in Tinsleys' many toy shops. But the Winter Wonderland hadn't been here last time I visited the area. The ground floor had been boarded up.\n\nMy eyes lit up as I spotted yet another holiday-themed shop, a couple of buildings along \u2013 but those peepers of mine soon dimmed again when I noticed that this shop was far dingier than the first. Its sign read: Hammers' House of Holidays, Selling Decorations and Gifts for the Special Occasions in Your Life. Inside, I could see a couple of drab sets of lights, a brown and bare Christmas tree, and some shelves filled with plastic toys.\n\nWith a shudder, I turned my attention back to Tinsleys' Workshop and Winter Wonderland, and took a look through the frosted-edged windows. There was a man in a Santa suit walking around, as well as a lot of young female workers, who looked rather a lot like elves, or at least they'd been dressed to appear that way.\n\nTheir costumes were identical \u2013 short green skirts and tight jumpers, with little hats on their heads, gloves on their hands and knee-high boots. But their faces, hair and bodies were incredibly similar, too. Every woman was a short, slim brunette in her twenties, with delicate features and big brown eyes. Whoever did the hiring for this place really had a type.\n\nI took a look at each woman through my Aurameter. 'Ah, so they're definitely not real elves, then,' I muttered to myself, noting that, despite how they were dressed, the shop's workforce was made up of three weredogs, two werewolves, two vampires and a witch. Had I been hoping that at least one of them might be an actual elf? Well, obviously. But I had it on good authority that real elves were shorter and angrier than any of these women.\n\nI could see that they had a grotto in there, where people could come and tell Santa their Christmas wishes, surrounded by fake snow, animatronic reindeer, snowmen and candy canes.\n\nThere were gorgeous handmade toys displayed throughout the space, as well as trees and decorations for sale, and Christmas tunes playing on the stereo system.\n\nI knew that the shop couldn't possibly be targeting witches, because witches celebrated Winter Solstice \u2013 a holiday that didn't include indoor trees or Santa, and one that they usually only shopped for at the very last minute. Weredogs, though \u2013 now they loved Christmas more than enough to start their shopping in July.\n\nAnd today, I might as well have been a weredog, because this shop excited me more than anything I'd seen for months. I'd been waiting for summer to get Christmassy ever since the voice in my head told me it would bring something long-awaited my way.\n\nAhem.\n\nI should probably explain what I mean by that. I don't generally have voices in my head, but ever since I discovered I was a witch hunter (the nice kind, honestly) I'd found myself in some strange and life-threatening situations. One of those situations was a train ride where I, and most of the passengers, nearly wound up sacrificed as part of an immortality spell. The belongings of an ancient and powerful woman called Foirfe were being used to carry out the spell, and it seemed that even though she was long dead, Foirfe did not like people using her stuff. She possessed me so that she could help me save the day; without her help, we wouldn't have survived.\n\nUnfortunately, in order to stop the spell, I needed to destroy something Hamish really could have used: a Pillar of Permanence. But before she vacated my brain, Foirfe told me: 'There is one pillar I know the location of. You shall find it in summertime, in the house where it's always Christmas\u2026'\n\nAs prophecies went, it was an odd one, but I'd been searching for anything that could bring me closer to Hamish's salvation ever since.\n\nOr\u2026 I had been, until the last few days, when Hamish began to behave strangely. He was disappearing for hours at a time, he was off his food, and his accent was more Scottish than ever (a definite sign that he was upset).\n\nHamish slowed his steps, so I slowed mine down too, watching as he headed in through the open door of Aim Low, a second-hand broom shop. On the signage above the door, just below the store's name, some inspiring words were spelled out: Our brooms might not be new, but they're not completely useless.\n\nI hung about outside, pretending to reapply my dark red lipstick while I kept an eye on the shop through my compact mirror.\n\nHamish was a regular at this broom shop. When he'd been a man, he'd loved flying his Whiz Bang Blast. He still went for rides, only now he sat in the sidecar while I controlled the broom. Sometimes he came here to chat to Sol, the owner, about unusual brooms or accessories, and he always had a wistful glint in his eye as he looked at the items for sale.\n\nAfter a few minutes of chatting (nothing I could hear), Hamish moved away from Sol and headed up the staircase, leaving Sol in the shop alone.\n\nSol was a lanky man with a shaven head. As usual he was chewing gum, wearing brightly-coloured trousers (pink today) and looking just about ready to scarper, but his eyes lit up as I walked in. 'Valerian! I thought you said you never wanted to see me again.'\n\nFluff! Sol knew the gorgeous Valerian? They did not seem like they'd move in the same social circles.\n\n'Look, I know that all of those brooms I sold you crashed and caused some damage,' he continued. 'But the riders were vampires and they all healed really quickly after falling from such a great height so\u2026 no harm done?'\n\nAh. He knew her in a dodgy business way. That made more sense.\n\n'Sol, I'm very annoyed with you,' I said, trying to imitate Valerian's sexy tones (I sounded more like I had a bad cold). 'I think we should go upstairs and discuss this.'\n\nHis face grew panicked, and his chewing grew more frantic. 'We can discuss things down here. You just wait here and I'll get you a cup of coffee.'\n\n'What's upstairs that you don't want me to see? More dodgy business? Look, you owe me a lot of money, Sol. I bought those brooms in good faith.' I doubted that was true. No one who did business with Sol was doing so in good faith. Occasionally he got his hands on an amazing broom that wasn't also a stolen one, but it was usually down to an accident or a fluke, rather than his business acumen.\n\n'I've just\u2026 a friend is up there. Please, Valerian, don't march up to my flat like you always do, like you own the place.'\n\nHuh. I could work with that. I marched past him, and closed the door that separated the shop from the staircase, turning the key and saying, 'I will own this place if you don't get your act together and reimburse me, Sol. And don't you dare ask me to open this door up unless it's to give me my money.'\n\nHe banged on the door but I ignored him, rushing up the stairs and stopping short as I reached a small landing. The door to Sol's flat was open, and a man was sitting at a table, handsome and still. I'd seen him before, except naked. I shuddered at the memory, because when someone is strictly a friend, it's incredibly disturbing to recall the time you accidentally saw them without any clothes on. It had been a mistake, a glimpse of Hamish's true self through my Aurameter \u2013 a glimpse I'd worked very hard not to see again.\n\nToday, thankfully, he was fully dressed \u2013 except for one thing. The bright yellow hat he'd been wearing earlier on was strewn all over the carpet, torn into hundreds of pieces, as though it had exploded. But what could have made a magical wizard's hat explode into so many pieces? Had he used up all of the hat's magic on a spell? Had he finally flaming done it, and found a way to turn himself from a dog into a man?\n\n'Hamish?' My heart began to flutter, and I rushed towards him. 'You did it, you actually did it! You turned yourself back into a man. But\u2026 how? Why didn't you say anything? Did you find another Pillar of Permanence? What happened to your hat, and\u2013?' I broke off in the middle of my many excited questions. Hamish wasn't answering me. He wasn't even looking my way.\n\nWarily, I waved a hand in front of his face. 'Hamish?'\n\nHe still didn't move, so I gently squeezed his shoulder. 'Hamish?'\n\nA second Hamish, one still in a dog's body, ran in from an adjoining room in the flat. I stared at the doggy Hamish, then at the manly Hamish, then at the doggy Hamish once more. 'What's going on?' I asked.\n\n'Who are you?' the doggy Hamish demanded to know. 'Are you a friend of Sol's?'\n\n'Crap!' I quickly unscrewed the toggle on the glamour cloak that no one but me could see. Inside it, there was a strand of Valerian's hair, enabling me to take on her appearance. I whispered:\n\n\u2003'Hide no more so all shall see\n\n\u2003My true face, the real me.'\n\nThere was a moment of extreme discomfort as my real hair and body returned, stretching out my Valerian-esque clothes beyond all decency.\n\n'Katy? What are you doing here? Why were you in disguise?' He groaned. 'You were tailing me, weren't you? Following me? Why?'\n\nI placed my hands on my hips. 'Because I'm a very caring individual who always looks out for her friends, that's why. But let's not get sidetracked here, Hamish.'\n\nHe stared at me, open-mouthed. 'Caring? Being nosey is not the same as being caring.'\n\n'Tell that to all of our satisfied clients.' I pointed at the man on the chair. 'Who is he, Hamish? Or\u2026 what is he? Why does he look exactly like you \u2013 well, like the way you looked before you were a dog \u2013 and why is he saying nothing?'\n\nHamish sighed. 'Isn't it obvious? He's a robot, Katy.'\n\n'Oh.' I tucked the glamour cloak into my bag. 'Yeah, I guess it was obvious, actually.' Or at least it should have been. Hamish worked with me as a private investigator, but he was also a professor at Wentforth's College for Wizards, specialising in computing and robotics.\n\nFor a long time he'd avoided the college, and anything that reminded him of the life he had before he'd been turned into a dog, but lately he'd been taking on small projects at Wentforth's, and he was even working on a top secret transport project for the Wayfarers. I'd been so happy for him \u2013 right up until the last few days, when his strange behaviour had begun.\n\nThis robot didn't explain everything he'd been doing while I followed him, but it explained a lot of it.\n\n'He's not really working out,' Hamish continued. 'He looks exactly like I used to, but looks are where his usefulness ends. I\u2026 I'll just come out and say it, I suppose. I created this robot in the hope that I could transfer my consciousness out of this body and into the robot's, but it's not working. I think it might be something to do with the spell that locked me in this dog's body in the first place. I mean, we knew it was strong, but it's sooooo strong. I cannae even cheat my way around it. And on this latest terrible attempt, I even destroyed my favourite ever hat.'\n\n'Oh, Hamish, I'm so sorry about your hat. I know how much you liked it. But I didn't even know you were doing this. I mean, you know we're going to find that other pillar, right? It's like Foirfe said when she entered my consciousness: \"You shall find it in summertime, in the house where it's always Christmas\u2026\"'\n\nWith a frustrated groan, he hopped up onto a chair. 'Katy, you've been sneaking all over the world with Cullen, trying to find a pillar. You wouldn't have been doing that if you really believed we're just going to stumble across it someday soon.'\n\n'No. No, I mean\u2026 yes, I've been travelling around with Cullen. But we've just been holidaying. I mean, if we happened to be in some sunny climate and hear mention of a house where it was always Christmas, then it would have been a happy coincidence.'\n\n'Oh, pull the other one, Katy. You've been working your behind off, travelling around in search of this house and pillar because you're just like me. You've been on this planet long enough to know that good things don't come to those who wait. Mostly, good things come to criminals who steal them off other people. But sometimes \u2013 just sometimes, mind you \u2013 they also come to people who work their behinds off. Although even those people don't always get the things they want. You need that elusive combination of hard work and luck, and\u2026 and I'm grateful that you're putting the hard work in, Katy, and I hope that one of us will also have the luck we need to find this house. But while you're doing your thing, I'm just\u2026 I'm covering the other bases, you know. The just in cases bases.'\n\nWell, that had been a far too frazzled speech for someone who was simply covering the bases. I thought of the last places he'd been when I'd followed him: a visit to Healer Little, an animal healer from Riddler's Cove, and a couple of meetings with Shane Moore, the Wayfarer healer (Shane spent more of his time dealing with dead bodies than live ones, so he was more of a magical medical examiner than a healer, but the magical world hadn't yet created a term for that).\n\nAs I looked at the robot, and thought of those recent trips of Hamish's, a horrible realisation occurred. 'Hamish, are you\u2026 you're not sick, are you?'\n\nHe hung his head. 'Not sick, no. Not exactly. Nothing that's happening to me is in any way unnatural. I'm just\u2026' He lifted his head and gazed at me with his big brown eyes. 'Katy, I've been feeling tired and achy lately. So I went and saw some people, and, well\u2026 it turns out that I don't just look like a dog. I'm also aging at the rate a dog would. Not a magical dog who can bind himself to a witch as a familiar and live for a hundred years if he's lucky. But\u2026 an average dog.'\n\nI rested against the doorframe, feeling a little bit dizzy. I'd known Hamish for two years now, and in those two years he'd come to mean a lot to me. The thought of anything happening to him\u2026 well, it was a thought I didn't want to think. 'How long are we talking about?'\n\nThere was a moment of silence before he replied. 'Well, Healer Little and Healer Moore have run some tests. They estimated that when Jonathan created this spell, the dog he turned me into was about fourteen or fifteen. So I'm\u2026 I'm already quite old, in doggie terms.'\n\nHe coughed a little. 'And apparently I've been abusing this body a bit, what with the wine and the fine food. They think I've got less than two years, perhaps a little bit more if I change my eating habits. They also think that, as this body ages even further, I won't be able to channel magic anymore, so\u2026 I won't be able to communicate, either. Unless, that is, you happen to be fluent in \"Woof!\" I hoped that I could get around it by sticking my consciousness into this robot, but\u2026 it's not working. Like I said \u2013 I don't think Jonathan's spell is one that'll let me cheat my way out of it.'\n\nI couldn't manage much more than a strangled-sounding, 'No,' as I knelt in front of him, throwing my arms around his furry body.\n\n'Yes. And I do hope we'll find another Pillar of Permanence this summer, in some house where it's always Christmas, but\u2026 well, firstly, when does Irish summer actually begin? And how long does it last? Not very, Katy. Not very long at all. Last year we had a gorgeous spell of weather during May and a couple of days of double digits in June, but then it rained until October.'\n\n'But it is summer. I mean, it's July, right? I know it doesn't look much like it, but \u2013 officially, anyway \u2013 this is summertime. It's\u2026 it's vaguely warm outside, and it hasn't rained for at least an hour. And\u2026 oh! Next door. Why didn't you tell me about that place? The Winter Wonderland at Tinsleys'. It's always Christmas there, right?'\n\n'Katy, I didnae see the point of telling you about it because that's a shop, not a house. When Foirfe was chattering away in your noggin, she quite specifically said \"house\".'\n\n'Well, yeah but\u2026 I'll bet there's a living area above the shop, like there is above this one. A flat could be considered a house by some people. I mean\u2026 it's a home, anyway.'\n\n'Katy, there's a workshop above that shop, not a flat. All year round, workers are busy making toys for all of the Tinsleys' toy shops. And then, come summer they open up the Christmas shop downstairs, because weredogs start buying decorations early. There's nae house there. Not even a home.'\n\n'Yes, but there could be a living space above the workshop. A little flat in the attic, maybe, and\u2013'\n\n'And remember,' he added, interrupting me as he wriggled out of my grasp, 'we have a friend in that coven. Bob, who we rode the Riddler's Express with. If another member of the Tinsley coven had a Pillar of Permanence, Bob would have told me about it.'\n\n'But\u2013'\n\n'Whisht, Katy!'\n\n'Don't you whisht me! I'm trying to be your friend, Hamish. I know you have every reason to be grumpy right now, but please don't take it out on me.'\n\nHe shook his head and ran to the window. 'I wasnae telling you to whisht because you were annoying me. Well\u2026 you were being a bit annoying, but not much more than usual. I was telling you to whisht because I thought I heard something. Like\u2026 someone crying out. Maybe I was wrong. Oh.' With two paws on the windowsill, he stared outside. 'I guess I wasn't wrong.'\n\nI followed him to the window. There, in the back yard of the building next door, a man in a Santa costume was sprawled out, his body impaled on an enormous rusty Christmas star.\n\n'You call the Wayfarers, and I'll stick on my spare hat, and then we'll get down there.' Hamish rushed to a bag, pulling out a hat I'd never seen before, one in a deep, wintery shade of red. As I reached for my phone, he gave me a warning glance. 'I can see you looking at this hat, Katy. Don't say it. Don't you dare tell me how Christmassy this hat makes me look.'\n\n'Okay. I won't say it.' I could think it, though.\n\n[ One of Those Cute Little Elves Was Bound to Lose Her Cool ]\n\nHamish and I rushed downstairs and out through a small alleyway between Sol's shop and the next, which brought us into the back yard of Tinsleys'. I quickly called the Wayfarers as we went, and because everything's easier and quicker with magic, they were there before I ended the phone call.\n\nThere was Captain Finn Plimpton, along with some of his regular team members \u2013 Wanda, Gretel, Paul and Shane.\n\nA large crowd of the shop's elf-costumed women had gathered around the edges of the yard. The space was tiny, almost completely taken up by the Christmas star and the body impaled upon it, and they were struggling to get close to him, all of them surrounding the dead Santa Claus.\n\n'Get back from the body, ladies!' commanded Finn. 'Gretel.' He nodded to his colleague. 'Can you and Paul bring everyone back inside? Gather any other staff, too, and lock this place down. No one in or out until we've questioned everyone. Me and Wanda'll be out here with Shane for a minute, then we'll come in get started.'\n\nAs Gretel and Paul ushered the nearly-identical workers inside, Wanda and Shane approached the body. 'So what do we know?' Wanda asked, most of her attention on the dead man. 'He's the owner of this place, right?'\n\nHamish nodded. 'Giles Tinsley. Well, he's a Tinsley by marriage. I'm not sure what coven he was in before, but he couldn't have picked a more suitable one to marry into. He's into toymaking, and there are Tinsley toy shops and workshops all over the country. But the stuff that Giles produced here always sold more than the stuff made in any other workshop. Plus, his Winter Wonderland is always a big hit. It did so well that they opened up similar shops in every enclave.'\n\n'I've been in quite a few of them.' Wanda was inspecting the rusty star. 'But I didn't know this was the original.'\n\nWhile she and Shane continued to examine the scene, the captain frowned at me. 'Katy, why are you dressed like that?'\n\nI pulled at my skirt. 'It was a disguise, and never you mind why. Anyway, I've had enough of men shaming me today. I can wear a short skirt if I want.'\n\n'I'm not shaming you. It's just very unlike you, that's all.'\n\n'You have the legs for it,' Sol remarked.\n\nWe all spun around to gawp at the owner of Aim Low. 'When did you get here?' I asked.\n\n'Just now. I was standing at the window of the little kitchen in the back of my shop, and I saw Santa falling backwards through the air. Well\u2026 now that I'm here I realise it was Giles Tinsley dressed as Santa, which makes a lot more sense, seeing as I don't even believe in Santa. I was making a cup of coffee for Valerian when I saw him fall, so I didn't come straight away. She really likes her coffee, and I hoped it might make her forgive me for\u2026 well, a little bit of business that went wrong, through absolutely no fault of mine. But when I went to find her she'd already gone, so I figured I'd take a stroll and see what's going on over here. You know what's funny, though.' He looked me up and down. 'You're wearing the exact same outfit she is today.'\n\n'Sol.' I patted his shoulder. 'Valerian never came to your shop. It was me, pretending to be her. Wearing a glamour.'\n\nHis face took on a look of extreme panic. 'Are you investigating me for something? Because I'm innocent. Of everything.'\n\nHamish laid a paw on Sol's shaking leg. 'She was investigating me, pal. She was being a concerned friend. She wanted to know what I was doing in your flat.'\n\n'Ah. With all the weird robot stuff.' Sol nodded. 'I told you you should tell her.'\n\n'What weird robot stuff?' asked Finn.\n\nIn unison, Hamish and Sol replied, 'None of your beeswax!'\n\n'Anyway,' I said. 'That's why I'm dressed like her.'\n\n'Oh.' Sol sighed. 'I wish you were her. I thought maybe if Valerian wanted to argue about brooms then she might want to argue about other things.'\n\n'Always good to aim high, Sol,' Wanda quipped. 'So, a man falls from the window of a toymaking workshop, dressed as Santa in July. Welcome to Desperation Row.'\n\n'No, not welcome, actually.' Sol glared at Wanda. 'You're very unwelcome, as a matter of fact. And if you think I'm going to act as a witness or anything like that, then you can get rid of that notion, because I saw nothing, and even if I did, this is Samhain Street. We don't like the law in Samhain Street.'\n\n'Yeah, we've heard,' Finn replied with a groan.\n\n'You lot should get lost and hire Katy and Hamish to work on it instead,' Sol suggested. 'You know, because people actually trust them.'\n\n'I'll think about it, Sol, I really will.' Finn gave him a tight smile. 'But you've already told us that you were standing at your window when the body fell, so you already are a witness. Plus, you've got to have CCTV at the back of your shop, right? We'll want to see that, too.'\n\n'Hah! As if I have CCTV. No one on this street does. Anyway, all I said was I saw Giles Tinsley going splat. I saw nothing more than that. Nothing and no one, and I would swear to that in a court of law. Nothing else. No one else. At all. But I mean, it was bound to happen eventually, wasn't it? One of those cute little elves was bound to lose her cool, what with how Giles was\u2013' Sol clamped a hand over his mouth.\n\n'What was that?' Finn asked.\n\n'Nothing,' Sol squeaked from behind his hand. 'I'm not telling you nothing. If you want to hear about how Giles Tinsley was having an affair with two of his elves and stringing his wife along at the same time, then you'll have to hear it from someone else. You'll\u2026 crap.' He looked imploringly at Finn. 'Just\u2026 whatever you do, just don't tell no one what I told you. I'll never sell a broom in this enclave again if people find out I ratted out the elves.'\n\nFinn patted his shoulder. 'I'll do my best, Sol. I'll do my best.'\n\nSol tottered off, mumbling, 'Bloody Wayfarers', beneath his breath.\n\nWhen Sol was gone, Shane Moore nodded to an open window on the building's second storey. 'So far, what I think was that he was pushed out of that window, hard. And obviously this star takes up most of the yard, so\u2026'\n\nNow that I was closer, I could see that the bottom part of the rusted star had been jammed between some wooden pallets. Those pallets were keeping it upright, and it was exactly below the open window. Could the star have been placed there on purpose?\n\n'The workshop is on that floor,' said Hamish, pointing a paw up to the window. 'I've been up there before, visiting Giles. He was interested in studying robotics so he could invent a new line of toys, and he wanted to meet with me to discuss it. That room with the open window is his office, and everyone in the workshop could easily see anyone leaving or entering that room \u2013 unless they used magic, of course. And let's not rule out that it could have been someone who worked for him. I mean, I have heard rumours that he's a bit of a philanderer, so what Sol said about him having affairs with two of the elves is hardly beyond the realms of possibility.'\n\n'Well, if Sol is to be believed,' Finn said, 'then maybe Giles annoyed one of those women so much that she pushed him. Hey, is it me, or do they all look really, really alike?'\n\nHamish sniggered. 'That's Giles for you. He only ever hires good-looking women. Although to be fair to him, they're also excellent toymakers and store assistants. Still\u2026 it's a little bit disturbing when you consider that they don't just look like each other. They also look like younger versions of his wife, Theresa.'\n\n'Yeah, that's more than just a little bit disturbing. It's totally messed up.' Finn took in a breath, looking at the entrance to the building. 'I don't think I can come up with an excuse that'll make it all right for you and Katy to sit in on the interviews, so we'll have to catch you up later on. We\u2013'\n\nHe broke off, as Gretel emerged from the building.\n\n'They won't talk, boss,' she informed him. 'They're refusing. Because, you know, they don't like the law here in Samhain Street. They've requested Katy and Hamish sit in on the interviews. They say they'll only feel safe with them there.'\n\n'Seriously?' Finn grinned. 'Well, that is astonishingly convenient.'\n\n[ Falling Hard ]\n\nA little while later, Shane took the body to the morgue and the rest of us headed inside. Gretel and Paul were busy examining the building \u2013 concentrating most of their efforts on Giles's office \u2013 and while they did that, Hamish and I went to the break room, where Finn and Wanda were interviewing the staff members.\n\nAfter the eighth of the clones left the room, I began to wonder why they'd wanted Hamish and me here at all, because despite stating that our presence would make them more comfortable, each attractive brunette had nothing much to tell us. They all told a similar, basic story: that they'd all been on break, both Winter Wonderland staff and workshop staff, in their separate canteens. They'd assumed Giles was taking his break alone in his office, because his door was shut. They told us that one of the workers, a Winter Wonderland elf called Lucy, had seen Giles's fall through the window when she was rinsing out her coffee cup, and that after she shouted out, the rest of them had followed her outside.\n\nWhile they sat through their interviews, I took a look at each woman through my Aurameter. I'd already established that none of them were real elves, but I was interested to see how much magic each of them had. It seemed that, while the Winter Wonderland workers were comprised of a mixture of supernaturals, the workshop staff were mostly witches and wizards.\n\nFinally, there were only two workers remaining. The first of the two was a witch who worked as a toymaker. She walked in, wringing her hands and looking nervous.\n\n'Hello.' She sat down across from Finn and Wanda, casting a brief glance at Hamish and me. 'I'm Janine,' she said. 'Senior Toymaker. I\u2026 the others have already told you about me, I presume?'\n\nNo one had said a thing about Janine, but Wanda kept her face impassive. 'It doesn't matter what they've said,' she told the worker. 'We still want to hear what you have to say for yourself.'\n\n'Well\u2026' Janine pulled at the green sleeves of her tight jumper. 'It's just that\u2026 well, I know they'll have assumed I was in the office with Giles. But I wasn't.'\n\n'Oh?' Finn raised a brow. 'So where were you then, Janine?'\n\nShe bowed her head. 'In the loo. I know no one can corroborate that, but it's true. I was going to go and talk to Giles during my tea break, so I know people will have told you about it. Everyone wanted things to work out well for me. I was just\u2026 standing in front of the mirror and psyching myself up first. So despite what the others will have told you, I wasn't in his office when he fell, and I have no idea what happened to him. All I know is that I heard Lucy screaming, and everyone running outside, and I went out along with them to see what was going on.'\n\n'Mm hm, mm hm.' Wanda made some notes. 'So what was it you were psyching yourself up for, Janine, while you were supposedly in the loo?'\n\nJanine glared at Wanda. 'Oh, don't pretend you don't know.'\n\nWanda returned her glare with a friendly smile. 'Let's act like I don't know, Janine. It'll be better for your sake if you tell us in your own words.'\n\n'I\u2026 I can see that, I suppose.' Janine bowed her head again. 'I\u2026 I was psyching myself up for my conversation with Giles. He'd been avoiding me all morning, and we were supposed to talk first thing. Because he\u2026 he was supposed to tell me what happened with his wife, when he ended things with her last night. So I went into the loo on my own to take in some deep breaths and calm myself down before I confronted him.'\n\nShe winced. 'Not that I was going to confront him, exactly. That was a poor choice of words. I just\u2026 I wanted to have a minute to myself before I went in there to discuss our future. I mean, so what if he hadn't ended it the last five times he promised he would? This time was different. I\u2026 I could see it in his eyes. It was me he loved, not Theresa. He hasn't loved her for years. He's always complaining about how she refuses to use glamour spells to keep herself looking young. And she has no interest in this place, or in any of his hobbies. I'm the one who's interested in his train set, and the songs he plays on his guitar.'\n\nShe sniffed back a tear. 'I should say played, I suppose. Because he'll n-never s-serenade me again!' She stared at Wanda. 'It was love. Me and Giles. It was. He told me he was falling hard for me. That I was the only woman he'd ever truly loved. And no matter what the others say, I believed him! I wouldn't have killed him in some jealous rage like I'll bet they were saying. Just because I ended things with my husband over him, and just because he was dragging his heels over leaving Theresa, it\u2026 it didn't mean anything. He loved me. And we were going to be together.'\n\nShe sat up, eager-looking now. 'Actually, I'll bet he did tell Theresa last night, like he said he was going to. I'll bet that's what happened. He told Theresa, and she took it badly, and then she magicked herself into his office this morning, and pushed him out the window, then clicked her fingers and scarpered, hoping to frame me in revenge. I'll bet she even left some other evidence in there so it would look like I was the killer.'\n\n'Oh?' Finn's left eyebrow lifted. 'Other evidence, you say? To frame you? Well, that's just awful. And\u2026 would you have any idea of what this other evidence might look like, Janine?'\n\nShe folded her arms. 'Of course not. How would I know? But I'm telling you, that's what must have happened. It was Theresa. It's the only explanation, because no one else would even dream of hurting Giles. Especially not me. I would never kill him. Why would I? He was the most wonderful man in the world, and we were going to be together forever.'\n\n[ Don't Derail the Gravy Train ]\n\nThere's little need for me to describe the physical appearance of the final worker to enter the break room; suffice to say she was much the same as the others. Her demeanour, though, was different. She seemed incredibly relaxed, and had somewhat of a spring to her step. My Aurameter told me she was a weredog, and that come full moon, she would take on the appearance of a cute little cairn terrier.\n\n'Lucy, isn't it?' Wanda smiled at the woman. 'You work in the Winter Wonderland. You're the one who saw Giles falling and alerted the others, is that right?'\n\nLucy took a seat and snorted. 'I'm surprised any of them told you that much.'\n\n'Really?' Finn stared at her. 'And why would that be?'\n\n'Oh, you know, because it's the way things are around here. A veil of secrecy over everything. And to think, when I first got the job here, I was over the moon.'\n\n'Everyone else seems to love working here,' Finn pointed out. 'Or, at the very least, they haven't said anything against it.'\n\nLucy snorted again. 'They don't like working here. Oh, maybe they did to begin with. Maybe, like me, they took this job because they were crazy about toys and about Christmas. But these days, all they care about is the bonuses they get for keeping their mouths shut. Although I don't know why they're still keeping quiet, to be honest. Giles can hardly pay us hush money now he's dead, can he?'\n\n'Hush money?' Wanda sat up straight. 'What was it Giles wanted you all to keep quiet about?'\n\n'Oh, you know, his general sleaziness. The fact that he was doing the dirty on his wife with as many younger women as he could.' She ran a hand through her hair. 'Look, it's not talked about. None of us say it out in the open. When I walked in on Giles and Siobhan in his office three months ago, I didn't gossip about it. To anyone. Then, come next payday, I had a \"performance bonus\" in my pay packet. And I had to help out in payroll once, so I know that everyone gets something similar from time to time. As long as we don't talk about what a slimeball he is \u2013 or should I say, was \u2013 then we get rewarded. I got an even bigger bonus when he slapped my behind one day and I didn't report it to the head of his coven. You sort of\u2026 know how things are supposed to go, without anyone actually telling you, you know?'\n\n'Good goddess.' Finn looked sick. 'There are laws against that kind of thing, Lucy. And we do take reports seriously. I'm disgusted at what you've been through. The perpetrator might be dead, but we'll still help you to access a counsellor.'\n\n'Meh.' She shrugged. 'The truth is, I thought about reporting him at the time. But when I tried to broach it with the others \u2013 in a subtle way, of course \u2013 they all clammed up. Then over the next few hours I got some comments about not rocking the boat, not derailing the gravy train, that sort of stuff. So\u2026 I kept quiet.'\n\n'You mentioned someone called Siobhan,' Finn said, still looking sick and slightly pale. 'You said you caught them together in Giles's office. Siobhan is on a day off today. No one else seems to know why. Do you?'\n\n'I don't, actually.' Lucy replied. 'But I do know that Siobhan had a lot more than just a quick fumble with Giles. It was a full-on affair. I mean, I realise that poor, deluded Janine thought she was the only one. But Giles tried it on with everyone. And it became clear the longer I worked here that he had a certain type \u2013 a type that just happens to describe every single woman he hires.' She inched forward on her chair. 'Have you ever heard that rumour about the Tinsleys? About how there's a large part of the coven descended from elves?'\n\nWe all shook our heads, and Lucy continued. 'Well, it's just a rumour. But Giles, well\u2026 he likes to call his wife his little elf. He's not a Tinsley by blood, you know. Theresa is, though. And you can kind of see it when you look at her. She's short and cute and all that. But anyway, the point is, he has a thing for that sort of woman, and that's almost all he hired these days. Only women. I think the last guy he hired was\u2026' She looked thoughtful. 'Yeah, it would have been Winston, I reckon.'\n\n'Winston?' Wanda questioned.\n\n'Winston Wolfe. He was an amazing toymaker, so he was. I mean, I thought Giles was good, but Winston was something else. But when Giles set his sights on Janine, Winston had to go.'\n\n'What did one thing have to do with the other?' questioned Finn.\n\n'Well, Winston was Janine's husband,' Lucy replied. 'Still is, officially \u2013 the divorce isn't finalised yet, although I think it's almost done. I told her she was an idiot, but for some unfathomable reason, she worshipped Giles.'\n\nLucy pulled at her short skirt. 'I kind of know the feeling. I worshipped him a bit, at first \u2013 because of what he does here. The workshop is so great, the Winter Wonderland is even better. But people can be two things, I guess. Amazing in one way, creepy as heck in another. Only Janine never seemed to see the creepy side of Giles.'\n\nWanda tapped her pen against her notepad. 'Lucy, did Janine and Siobhan know about each other?'\n\n'Well, Janine might not have known, but I'm pretty sure Siobhan was beginning to have an inkling.' She pulled at her skirt again. 'Look, I know it seems weird to you, but\u2026 Giles was good at making these idiots feel like they were the only woman in the world, and the rest of us\u2026 well, we knew better than to, like I said\u2026 derail the gravy train.'\n\nShe looked uncomfortable. 'I did try to hint at it, to both of them. Heck, I even gave strongly hinted warnings to make sure any new girls knew what he was like. But hinting was about all I ever dared to do, because I really did need this job. We all did. I have two kids, y'know. A lot of us have children. Even Janine \u2013 she has a little girl with Winston. Not that she lets him see her much anymore, but\u2026 yeah.'\n\n'What made you think Siobhan had an inkling that she wasn't the only one?' Finn asked, bringing things back on track.\n\nLucy shrugged. 'I bumped into her a couple of nights ago at the Bank. She was buying a bottle of fancy wine. She'd already had a couple of drinks, I reckon, because she was a bit tipsy. She said more to me in those few minutes than she'd said since we first met. She told me Giles was working late and she was going to surprise him. And she winked when she said it, so\u2026 y'know, make of that what you will. Anyway, yesterday morning she had a face like thunder, and she didn't speak to anyone all day. But she did shoot a couple of dirty looks at Janine when Janine wasn't looking. And Janine, bless her, she seemed completely oblivious to it all. So I think Siobhan must have heard them through the door of Giles's office the night before or something. But it's just guesswork on my part. You'd have to ask Siobhan and Janine about it to get the proper story, and I doubt they'd actually want to tell you the sordid details, so\u2026'\n\n'Right.' Finn nodded. 'You're very helpful, Lucy.'\n\nShe gave him a wry grin. 'Some might say suspiciously so, right? Look, Captain Plimpton, I know I'm going to sound like a terrible person when I tell you this, but when I saw Giles dead today, the first thing I felt was relief. I've been staying here in this weird as heck atmosphere even though I hate it, because\u2026 well, like I said, I need the job. And here's something else no one will have told you \u2013 even if you manage to leave here, Giles really doesn't ever let you go. Winston hasn't been able to get work since he was fired, even though he's incredibly talented. I think maybe Giles spread a rumour about him or something, because nothing else makes sense. And the same thing has happened to other people who walked out, or got fired. They don't get hired anywhere else. But now\u2026 now I don't have to worry about that, and I just\u2026 I feel like such a weight's been lifted. And the other women ought to feel relieved, too. I guess\u2026 it just hasn't caught up with them yet. But give them a couple of days to digest the fact that Giles is gone, and they'll soon start talking. Mark my words.'\n\nShe looked down at her skirt. 'And none of us will ever have to wear this stupid elf outfit again, which is the biggest plus of all. Oh, has anyone told you about the star? The one Giles went splat upon? Because that is a weird story.'\n\n'No,' Wanda admitted. 'We did ask why it was positioned where it was, but all we got was shrugs and \"I dunno\"s.'\n\n'Sounds about right.' Lucy smiled in a sad way. 'But I don't blame them for it \u2013 like I said, they will open up soon. It'll just take a little while. Anyway. The star. I was told that it usually had pride of place, on top of an enormous tree in the Winter Wonderland. Only it had gone rusty, you see, while it was in storage \u2013 there was a leak in the roof of the storage room, and it was sitting right under that leak for almost a year. So Giles declared it a lost cause and chucked it in a skip out back yesterday afternoon. When I saw it had been moved into the yard this morning I figured he must have changed his mind, decided to get the rust off and repaint it. But maybe not. I suppose it's vaguely possible that he was, I dunno, looking out at the star in the yard, wondering what the heck it was doing there, and then he fell. But it's not very likely, is it? He fell backwards by the looks of things, so I guess a more realistic explanation is that someone pushed him. Although I don't know who. I mean, Janine worshipped him, so she'd never hurt him, and Siobhan, as you already know, was on a day off.'\n\nShe held her hands out. 'But thankfully I'm not the one who'll have to figure it out.'\n\nFinn grunted. 'No. That's us, unfortunately. Listen, we'll let you go in a sec, Lucy, but one last question: what about Theresa Tinsley? Do you think she knew know about her husband's affairs?'\n\nLucy looked thoughtful, then said, 'Well, if she did, she certainly hid it well. It seemed to me that she had no idea about the way Giles was behind her back \u2013 he once tried to chat me up by telling me I looked after myself so much better than Theresa did, which is just so many kinds of wrong. For one thing, she looks amazing. And for another, I mean what kind of woman would be dumb enough not to know that if he's talking trash about his wife, he's not a good guy. One day, he'll be talking trash about you too, y'know? I've been cheated on. I know how it goes.'\n\nShe shook her head. 'Anyway. I'm going off on a tangent. But no. No, I really don't think she knew, because it looked to me like he was just as good at fooling his wife as he was at fooling the likes of Janine. To see Giles and Theresa together, well, you'd think they were love's young dream. Holding hands, kissing and cuddling. All that soppy stuff.'\n\n'She came here a lot, then?' asked Wanda.\n\n'Not regularly or anything. Theresa heads up all the charity work for the Tinsley coven, so she's always busy. But she comes to staff parties and stuff, and Giles has had us all over to the house for parties there, too. It baffled me, the way he could be so brazen. But I guess he knew no one was ever going to call him out on his behaviour.' Her expression darkened. 'Although\u2026 maybe somebody finally did.'\n\n[ A Meal Best Taken in Privacy ]\n\nI would have enjoyed spending some more time at Tinsleys', so that I could discover if any evidence was found in Giles's office, or in the rest of the building, but once Lucy's interview was finished, Hamish and I had to return to our own office to meet a client.\n\nI was surprised but happy that Hamish joined me, seeing as he'd been missing so much work recently. As we took seats at our desks, I pulled a few items from my bag and hummed some Christmas tunes, grinning from ear to ear. Was it wrong of me to be in a much improved mood after witnessing the death of a Santa-suited man? I wasn't happy that he was dead, obviously. But for such a Christmassy murder to occur in July, well, surely it had to mean something.\n\nFoirfe had said I'd find the pillar in summer, in a house where it was always Christmas. Hamish might be poo-pooing the idea of Tinsley's Workshop and Winter Wonderland being such a place, but\u2026 maybe he was wrong?\n\n'I know what you're thinking, Katy.' Hamish gave me a no-nonsense glare. 'And you need to stop it. We've already talked about this. It isn't what you're hoping it is, and it's nonsense to think that it might be.'\n\n'What's she thinking?' asked Cleo, our roommate Ned's familiar. Cleo was an attractive-looking cat, with lush cream fur, lovely brown colouring on her face and ears, and bright blue eyes. Right now, she had somehow opened the door between us and Ned's shop, and was sitting in the gap licking a paw. Those bright blue eyes of hers were filled with disdain (one of her more frequent expressions) as she looked upon Hamish and me.\n\n'I mean, I agree,' the cat continued in a casual manner. 'Most of what Katy thinks is nonsense. But it's always fun to find out what particular brand of nonsense she's spouting on any given day.'\n\nIgnoring the cat, Hamish focused on me. 'I want to find this pillar more than you do, and I'm telling you, it's got nothing to do with Giles Tinsley's death. I can't afford to get my hopes up about this, and you know it. What's that you're doing there, anyway?'\n\n'You'll find out soon enough,' I said airily, concentrating on the material before me, and pulling out my wand. I'd used a retrieval spell to gather up what remained of Hamish's yellow hat from Sol's flat. Most of the material was in tatters, but my Aurameter had helped me to find one decent length that still had magic. Now, with some nifty crafting spells I'd learned at my wizarding college, I was hoping to do something useful with what remained.\n\nI was making decent progress when the phone on my desk began to ring. 'Katy Kramer, PI,' I said as I answered the call, carefully laying my project aside. 'How can I help you?'\n\nThe voice on the other end was a woman's voice, and a husky one at that. 'Miss Kramer, this is Miss Cahill speaking. I'm your two-thirty appointment,' she said. 'And I'm afraid that I'm calling to cancel. Unfortunately, my schedule has suddenly changed.'\n\nShe had spoken the word 'schedule' with a soft, seductive sounding c.\n\n'Oh, well maybe we could reschedule,' I suggested. 'You said you wanted us to follow your boyfriend, isn't that right? We could get going without a face-to-face meeting, if you like. You could email us some details, like a photograph maybe, and where you think\u2013'\n\n'I'm sorry,' she interrupted. 'But I won't be needing your services, Miss Kramer.' With that, she ended the call.\n\n'Oh.' I replaced the handset and looked at Hamish. 'I guess we don't have a meeting with a new client after all. And I've just realised how hungry I am. Those interviews over at Tinsleys' took forever. Want to have a late lunch at the Bank?'\n\n'Em, no. No, I don't think so. I think I'll eat something healthier.'\n\n'They have healthy things,' I argued, focusing on my work again. I was actually making something useful here. Take that, fourth year schoolteacher who said I couldn't sew to save my life. Turned out, when I was motivated (and in possession of a sewing spell and a magical wand, cough, cough) then I could turn my hand to anything.\n\nHamish hopped down from his chair, looking irritable. 'Katy, at the moment, the healthiest thing I can eat is\u2026' He winced, then lowered his voice. '\u2026 dog food. As in the stuff that comes out of a tin. It's what Healer Little advised. If I eat that in the Bank, people will make fun of me.'\n\n'No one will make fun of you,' I assured him.\n\nCleo stopped licking her paw. 'Not if they know what's good for them, anyway. If anyone so much as sends a funny look in your direction, I'll scratch their eyes out.'\n\nHe gawped at the cat in surprise. From time to time they got along, but she normally took advantage of any opportunity to tease him. Sometimes, though, she proved that she had a heart.\n\n'Well, that's really nice of you, Cleo,' he said. 'But this is my first attempt at eating that foul stuff, and I think it's a meal best taken in privacy. You lot can go and have a late lunch together, and I'll take off on my own.'\n\nHe did one of the odd little jiggles and wiggles he needed to do in order to draw the magic from his hat, but nothing happened. 'Crap!' He groaned. 'I'd gotten so used to the extra power of my yellow hat. I could even do travelling spells with it. Not too often, but I could certainly rustle one up when I wanted to escape one of the most embarrassing moments of my life, which this definitely is.'\n\nHe sighed. 'Ah well. I guess I'll just slope off while you all pretend that you're not going to talk about my new eating habits the second I'm gone.'\n\n'Wait.' I hopped up and waved my project in the air. 'Maybe this will help.'\n\nHamish frowned. 'A ribbon? You were making me a yellow ribbon? What am I supposed to do with that? Tie it around an old oak tree?'\n\n'Nope.' I grinned, approaching him and fastening the yellow band around his red hat, finally securing it with something else I'd retrieved from Sol's flat: the buckle from the yellow hat. 'Just because the material exploded doesn't mean it's completely useless.'\n\nHe blinked. 'You\u2026 you made this from my yellow hat?'\n\n'Let's not make a big deal out of it.' I stood up and nodded down at him. 'Well? Give it a go.'\n\nHe rested his head against my leg for a moment, sighed and said, 'Thank you, Katy. Once again, I'm sorry for being such a grumpy old sod,' before trying, once more, to channel enough magic to make a quick exit.\n\nOn the third of his jiggles, the hat's buckle lit up, and he disappeared from my view while I waved him off and said, 'See? That wasn't a remotely embarrassing exit.'\n\nCleo sniggered. 'Are you kidding? He made himself look like a right eejit, insulting you when you were doing something nice for him. Frankly, I don't know why we stay friends with him.'\n\nI tilted my head to the side and smirked at her. 'And yet you are his friend, and you know it, and you would have done exactly the same for him. Let's just give him a break from now on, all right? Let him be grumpy if that's what he needs to do to get through this. We'd all be a bit moody if we were stuck in the wrong body.'\n\nShe snorted. 'Especially if that body was a dog's. Anyhoo, I'm hungry. Let's go grab my witch and get me fed, shall we?'\n\nNed poked a head around the door. 'Cleo, have you forgotten that you and I already had lunch?'\n\nThe cat gave an innocent shrug. 'Well, no one could blame me for forgetting such a small meal. Let's go to the Bank, Ned. Roast chicken is today's special.'\n\n'I know. Because we already had it. Come on, Cleo. You and me need to go and see a man about a ghost.'\n\n'A ghost?' I questioned. 'But\u2026 I thought you didn't do ghosts any more.' A while ago, she'd changed the name of her shop. Instead of Ned's Necromancy, her sign now read: Ned Marvin, Maker and Supplier of Healing Wands. Below that there were some other words, in much smaller lettering, which stated: We Also Sell Necromancy Supplies.\n\nShe'd never been an actual necromancer \u2013 from what I'd learned, the most that any of those weirdos had achieved was making a skeleton dance \u2013 but for years she sold the necessary supplies. Even though plenty of would-be dead-raisers came to her shop, Ned often found a gentle way to convince most of them that maybe all they actually wanted was a conversation with their deceased loved ones. And Ned was brilliant at facilitating those conversations, because she could literally talk to the dead. But despite her gift, I knew she much preferred spending her time creating healing wands.\n\nNed sighed. 'I'm trying my best not to do too much of the talking to the dead stuff, but it's hard to tell the ghosts to flip off when they've got unfinished business. This latest one is a very sweet woman. She just wants me to tell her husband that she left a letter for him but it fell behind a cabinet so\u2026 I can't not help her, can I? Come on, Cleo, let's get going.'\n\nAs the cat trotted back through the dividing door and into the shop with Ned, I folded my arms, thinking things over. Cullen would be too busy serving the last of this lunchtime's customers and then cleaning up after them, so he could hardly sit down and have a meal with me. But I absolutely had to talk this over with someone. Someone who would agree with me \u2013 that the dead Santa impaled upon the Christmas star was the best news we'd had in a while.\n\n'I know,' I said to the empty room. 'I'll go see Jay.'\n\n[ A Brewing Bromance ]\n\nI felt the joys of a Christmassy summer as I walked out through the Other Door at my office. I might not have liked Ned's ex-boyfriend, the P\u00faca known as Guillermo Moriarty, but the portal door he'd left here had made my life much easier. With it, I could travel from one side of the city to the other without the use of magic, or, y'know, walking for too long.\n\nI practically skipped out onto Eile Street and made my way to Bake My Cake (don't you just love it when people do the hard work for you?) bought some savoury pies for lunch, and some chocolate eclairs for dessert. I was skipping my way back up the street again, when a swirl of white began to fall upon my head.\n\nI held out my arms, grinning as the white stuff began to swirl around me. It was snow. In July. Now that was the kind of weather that could mean something. Except\u2026 why wasn't it cold and wet?\n\n'Sorry!' a voice called down from an upstairs window of Eile Street Orphanage. 'The fan in here got a little over enthusiastic and blew a whole load of packing beads out the window.'\n\n'Ah.' I looked up at the Wayfarer healer, Shane Moore. He spent as much time as he could volunteering at the orphanage. 'That makes sense. I thought it was snow for a minute.'\n\n'Nah. We've had a lot of donations, and we're unpacking the stuff now. Wouldn't it be nuts if it was snow, though? In July?'\n\n'It'd be awesome, actually. Hey, shouldn't you be elbows deep in a corpse round about now?'\n\nHe shuddered. 'You have such a lovely way of expressing yourself. That's all finished. I'm on a lunch break, so I came to spend it here. We just had some new bits and bobs delivered to this place, and I'm going to put the old stuff in the basement. I could really do with a sugar rush though, to keep me going. I might head to Bake My Cake and grab myself a chocolate \u00e9clair.'\n\n'Ah.' I gave him a guilty smile. I'd bought the last two, and it seemed like Shane deserved them more than me. I held up the bag. 'How about two, on me?'\n\nHe grinned. 'Are you serious? That'd be amazing, Katy, thank you so much.'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 2",
                "text": "When I reached Times of Yore, I laid the pies out on some plates. Jay, who told me he hadn't eaten lunch yet, looked with glee at the food. 'Bake My Cake steak and onion pies? You know me so well.'\n\n'Well, I knew you'd like the meatiest thing on the menu,' I told him, not mentioning that just a few minutes earlier there had also been another favourite food of his: \u00e9clairs. There was no need to tell him of such a devastating, guilt-induced loss. Instead, I carefully laid a blanket over the chair I was about to sit on. Jay liked to keep the items in his antique shop far too dusty for my liking, and I was not in the mood for a coughing fit.\n\n'I'm glad you came for lunch, actually,' he said. 'I thought I'd have to wait until our afternoon tea together to find out the latest on the pillar search. I take it you and Cullen got nothing from that last trip you went on?'\n\nI sighed. 'Nope. Even though we've visited dozens of so-called psychics the world over, no one seems to know a thing about a house where it's always Christmas, or about the whereabouts of another pillar. The jaunts we've been taking have made me wish that I'd known about magic all my life, though. Between Cullen's flying motorcycle and the ability to teleport ourselves to anywhere on the planet, it's really taken the irritation out of travelling. I can visit lots more places now that I don't have to worry about puking on planes. Those air stewards do not look happy when you block the toilet.'\n\n'How is it that you could get travel sick on an airplane but not a flying bike?'\n\nI held my hands out. 'Such are the mysteries of the universe. So how did you get on with your contact? You know, the one who has an in with the man in the North Pole?' I did my best to look neutral as I asked that last question.\n\nHe laughed. 'You're trying so hard to look like you're not interested in the answer, Katy. But yeah, my contact got in touch with the North Pole on my behalf. I received an incredibly polite letter in return, telling me that Santa was too busy for visitors right now. It went on to say that although they prepare for Christmas all year round, this house you were told about, where it's always Christmas, has nothing to do with the North Pole. And there's definitely no Pillar of Permanence there, as far as Santa and his elves are aware.'\n\n'Oh.' I felt myself deflate just a little. When I asked Jay to reach out to the North Pole, I'd been joking. But when he told me that he actually did have a way of getting in touch, all my childhood fantasies of meeting Santa had returned. Even if there was no pillar there, I'd hoped that we might get to pay a visit anyway. And if I did meet the man in red, I wouldn't have been too critical of the fact that he'd brought me the wrong board game when I was ten. 'Well, thanks for trying.'\n\n'I'm sorry there's not better news. But at least you've learned how pleasant international travel can be when you're getting about via magic. I sometimes wish it was like the old days, when humans weren't so freaked out by the supernatural. Back then, witches would often help humans get around. Now, they're stuck on cramped airplane seats breathing in recirculated air. And puking in airplane toilets if they get travel sick, like you. Human lives would be so much nicer if only they'd stayed friends with us.'\n\nI shook my head in amazement. 'Sometimes you say things that remind me you're over two thousand years old.'\n\n'Yeah, well, it was a slip-up even admitting that much. So let's not talk about how ancient I am. Let's talk about you instead. Besides globetrotting adventures to try and find a pillar for Hamish, how are things since you and Cullen finally admitted you were nuts about each other and became a couple?'\n\nI concentrated on eating my steak and onion pie. 'Jay, it feels weird talking about this. I mean, you and me were together for a while. Sure, you were only drawn to me because you were destined to protect the hunter and I was drawn to you because, well\u2026 you're good-looking. But still. It's almost as bad as when I remember that you once had a thing with my aunt.'\n\nI paused to take a very long shudder. 'Why did I just make myself remember that? Hey, why don't we talk about you and Ned, instead? When are the two of you going to finally lock lips?'\n\nIt was always fun to make a vampire blush. 'Okay, I see your point,' he said. 'Let's talk about anything else. You really found nothing on all of those trips you took?'\n\n'Way to make a girl feel good about her achievements. Sure, my visits to seers around the world were little more than a delightful way to waste my time, but I think I might be getting close to finding that pillar, actually. Only\u2026 it could be a lot closer to home.'\n\nWith my plate balanced on my lap, I leaned forward in my seat, and told him about my morning.\n\n'My stars, Katy!' he gasped when I'd finished. 'There has to be some sort of connection, right? I mean, I get why Hamish would be afraid to get his hopes up, but\u2026 it's too much of a coincidence to be nothing, don't you think?'\n\n'I do think.' I grinned, happy that someone was finally agreeing with me. 'Hey, is that your psychic doorbell?'\n\nI glanced at the locked door of the shop. Whenever Jay closed the shop to take a break, customers often rang his doorbell to gain entry, and, well\u2026 because he was a vampire, his doorbell was one of those psychic doorbells which his kind loved so much. When a person rang that bell, it might play their favourite song, or a song that represented their current train of thought. Sometimes when I rang it, it was scarily prescient. At other times, it simply played whatever happened to be the latest pop song I couldn't get out of my mind.\n\nRight now, it was playing I Dig the Girl by a weredog band called That Stick Is Mine!\n\n'Is that Cullen?' I asked as Jay hopped up.\n\n'I'm ready to kill some zombies if you are, Jay,' my boyfriend announced as Jay pulled open the door. 'The Bank was packed to the rafters at lunch, and I could do with de-stressing. I\u2013' He broke off as he rushed inside and saw me sitting there. 'Hey there, beautiful.' Cullen gave me a huge hug. 'I was hoping you might pop by after you were finished following Hamish, but I guess you were here instead. How come you are, though? Afternoon tea isn't for a while yet.'\n\n'Well, at least you know about my afternoon tea with Jay.' I gave him a mock-stern stare. 'I had no idea you two had playdates together. Is a bromance brewing?'\n\n'Oh, it's long brewed,' said Cullen, planting a kiss on my head. 'Actually, it hasn't really. We played together about a month ago, remember, while you and Ned were getting ready for dinner? I just popped by on the off chance today. But now that you mention it\u2026' He batted his lashes at Jay. 'What do you say? Wanna be my bestest bro?'\n\nJay sighed and clutched his chest. 'Why Cullen, I thought you'd never ask.'\n\n'Well, I've finished eating,' I told him with a wistful look at my empty plate. 'So maybe I'll leave you to it.' I gave him a quick kiss in return and stood up. 'Wouldn't want to get in the way of some good old-fashioned boy bonding, would I?'\n\n'Aw, you wouldn't be in the way,' Jay told me (he didn't sound very convincing). 'You should stay, honestly.'\n\nWhile he was talking, the shop's psychic doorbell rang once more. This time, the tune was Wolf on the Run by the Call of the Wild.\n\n'I really like that song,' Cullen mused. 'Maybe we should make whoever it is wait a bit longer.'\n\nJay chuckled and headed back to the door. 'I like the song, too, but I can see him through the glass panel, and it looks like he's got a box of antiques to sell. Plus, seeing as we can see him, it's safe to say he can see us, too. Don't worry \u2013 we'll be slaying zombies before you know it.'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Damson in Distress",
                "text": "As soon as Jay unlocked the door, the man rushed in and placed his box on the shop counter. It jangled as he set it down, and it was overflowing with candelabras, clocks, and various other expensive-looking ornaments. He was tall and thin, with stubble, and tired-looking, darting eyes. His foot tapped against the floor as he waited for Jay to reach the counter and assess the items. His twitchiness reminded me of Sol. All that was missing was the bright trousers and the gum.\n\nI didn't need to use my Aurameter to tell me he was a werewolf. By now, I knew all about the strange brand of attractiveness their kind exuded, and despite the fact that this guy seemed a little desperate, he was definitely attractive.\n\n'How much'll you give me for this lot? I need to sell quick.'\n\n'Hang on a minute now,' said Jay. 'I haven't even looked at any of it. Tell me about what you have here. And your name, too \u2013 that'd be a start.'\n\n'It's not nicked!' the man cried.\n\n'Mm hm.' Jay arched an eyebrow. 'That's not a suspicious statement at all.'\n\n'Look, look at it.' He pulled out a candle holder. 'This is worth at least ten gold rounds.' There were slots for three candles on the ornament, each one sculpted into three different women's heads. I got the impression they were intended to be different manifestations of the triple-form goddess. Witches loved ornaments like that.\n\n'See the signature on the bottom?' the man continued. 'That witch only made one of everything. You'll get a lot for it.'\n\nJay grunted noncommittally. He was looking with interest at another silver ornament. It was a spherical or maybe oval-shaped ornament on tiny, delicate legs. It was in need of a clean, and it looked as though it opened up. 'One of the legs is missing,' Jay pointed out.\n\n'Well, okay. So maybe this damson is in distress, but it's still worth a few quid, and everything else is perfect.'\n\n'Damson?' Jay frowned.\n\nThe seller shrugged. 'Doesn't it look like a damson to you?'\n\n'Nah, I reckon it's a plum,' Cullen suggested.\n\n'Is there a difference?' the seller questioned, turning back to Jay. 'Look, whatever it is, I'll give it to you for a song. Matter of fact, I'll let you have the whole lot for five gold rounds.'\n\n'You've just stated that the candle holder alone is worth much more than that. And honestly, if you'd let me take a bit longer to look at it all and give it a proper appraisal, I might agree with you.'\n\n'No! I need the money now. Four gold rounds. Final offer.'\n\nJay frowned again. 'I'll give you six if you give me all of your details. Name, address, and so on. And before you say it, that's not me accusing you of being a thief.' He lowered his voice. 'You mentioned gold rounds, even though my shop is firmly in the human world. Which means you're supernatural?'\n\nThe man blinked. 'I\u2026 yeah. Werewolf. Look, honestly, it's not stolen. I just cleared out my granny's attic.'\n\n'I only mention it because, seeing as you are supernatural, you'll know that there's a risk attached to antiques. The Wayfarers expect me to keep careful records in case I wind up with a dangerous magical object in my shop. Here.' Jay pulled a paper form and a pen from beneath the counter. 'I just need you to fill in your details for traceability, and then I can give you your money, all right?'\n\n'Okay.' The man nodded nervously. 'Whatever.'\n\n'All right, then.' Jay nodded and took a few coins from somewhere beneath the counter, before passing the form across to the man.\n\nI watched him scribble quickly, grab the money, and then rush out of the shop.\n\n'You know he's just written down fake details, right?' Cullen commented as the door slammed shut behind the seller.\n\n'I do,' Jay replied, pulling out his mobile phone. 'And I'm texting Captain Plimpton right now, because this stuff is so very obviously stolen. The money I gave him was money the Wayfarers gave me for this very purpose. Each coin contains a magical tracker.'\n\nCullen whistled. 'Impressive.'\n\nJay shrugged. 'There's more. Making him write a fake address made him think of his real address. He lives in your lovely enclave, guys. Well\u2026 lives is putting it strongly. He's been squatting in an attic somewhere on Desperation Row. And um\u2026 Katy, could you remind me again of the name of the man whose wife was having an affair with Giles Tinsley? The man who Giles fired, and who couldn't get work anywhere else?'\n\n'Em, I think Lucy said that Winston was the name of Janine's soon-to-be ex-husband,' I said. 'Winston Wolfe. Why?'\n\n'Because when I read that werewolf's mind, Winston Wolfe was his real name.'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 4",
                "text": "While we waited for Finn to show up, I looked through the things in the box. 'I think you're right, Cullen. I feel like this is more of a plum in distress than a damson,' I remarked, opening up the clasp at its centre and gasping. Inside, there was a beautiful silver ballerina, dancing to music that I knew: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, from the Nutcracker.\n\nJay rushed towards me. 'Katy, we shouldn't touch this stuff. It could be enchanted.'\n\n'Well, it's enchanting, anyway.' I grinned, stepping away from the beautiful musical plum, but still staring at it. There was a Christmas tree behind the ballerina, and it sparkled so brightly, with silver toys piled beneath. 'See? There's the nutcracker.' I pointed to one of the toys beneath the tree. 'Isn't this gorgeous? And look!' My heart began to beat faster. 'There's a snow globe in the box, too. With Santa's workshop as the scene. Those two things are incredibly Christmassy, don't you think? Guys, we have to find out where Winston got this stuff.'\n\nBeside me, Cullen gulped. 'Yeah,' he said in a strained voice. 'We really do.'\n\nI looked up at him. His eyes were oddly bright, with an expression that told me he'd just figured out something incredibly important. Without saying a word, he reached out to the Christmas tree inside the musical plum, and twisted the star atop it, turning it to the right.\n\nThe ballerina stopped dancing. She bowed her head and curtseyed low, as another tune began to play. It was a carol I recognised from my own Christmases: Silent Night. Cullen's eyes clouded over, and he dropped to the ground."
            },
            {
                "title": "A Scorned Husband and a Thief",
                "text": "Cullen looked ever so sweet when he was unconscious. But soon he was sitting up and blinking, and rubbing his scar. 'What the\u2013?'\n\n'My sentiments exactly.' Jay touched a palm to Cullen's brow. 'You seem to be in excellent health, so I have no idea why you fainted.'\n\n'It was when the new tune began to play,' I pointed out. 'When it changed from Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy to Silent Night. But\u2026 it only changed because you changed it, Cullen. You somehow knew that the star on top of the tree would do that. And you were all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed just before you turned the star, too. You looked like you were about to say \"Eureka!\" or something equally illuminating, and then you just\u2026 swayed, ever so gracefully, to the ground.' I kissed his forehead. 'Like a ballerina.'\n\n'Y'know,' he said, sitting up. 'I'd love to be able to say that you're absolutely nuts right now, but I have to agree. Not about the ballerina part, obviously. If I fainted, then I'm sure it was the most manly of faints.'\n\n'Ballerinas are incredibly strong,' I pointed out. 'So it's hardly an insult to be compared to one.'\n\n'True,' he conceded. 'Okay. I swayed to the ground like a ballerina. But the \"Eureka!\" thing that you just said. I did feel like something really big popped into my mind.' He rubbed his head. 'And you said I turned the star and the song changed, so\u2026 that's what must have popped into my mind, I guess. But how could I have known to do that? How could I have known that there even was another song for this musical plum to play? Because whatever it was that surged into my mind, it's all gone now.'\n\n'Maybe we should twist the star again, see if it jogs anything,' I suggested.\n\nFinn shook his head. 'No way. No one's touching that thing.'\n\nI jumped. 'When did you get here?' I asked.\n\n'Jay let me in while you were looking worriedly at Cullen,' Finn explained. 'And I meant what I said, Katy \u2013 no one is touching that musical plum thing. Not until we've had it thoroughly assessed. I've seen way too many dark objects lately. And a tune that makes the manliest of men faint, but no one else\u2026 sounds like it needs to be checked out to me. And also.' He nodded to the candle holder. 'I know that that's nicked. We had a call out to a house in Easterly Crescent this morning. The place had been abandoned for a while after the owner died, but the relatives had been in and out cataloguing all the expensive stuff they could. They gave us a list of stuff that's been stolen, and this is definitely on that list.' His lip curled. 'I mean, there can't be two of these monstrosities in the world, can there? As to the rest of it\u2026 most likely stolen, too.'\n\nHe glanced at Jay. 'The coins have already been dropped in through Janine's letterbox, but Winston is nowhere to be found, and Janine says she has no idea where her husband is living since she kicked him out. We'll start a search through the attics on Desperation Row.'\n\nTurning from Jay to me, he said, 'But Winston Wolfe, Katy? This could be interesting. Very interesting. A scorned husband and a thief? Doesn't sound like the most moral of men, does he?'\n\n'No,' I admitted. 'No, he doesn't.'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 6",
                "text": "As I led Cullen into the flat I shared with Ned, Hamish and Cleo, he grumbled. 'You don't have to gently take me by the arm, Katy. Shane already gave me the once-over and said there's nothing wrong with me. I'm not an invalid.'\n\n'I know. But I like looking after you. Come on. Stay here with me and I'll make you a nice cup of tea and some dinner. It's supposed to be your night off, anyway.'\n\n'Well, yeah, but\u2026'\n\n'No buts. I\u2013 Oh.' I smiled in surprise at the sight of Great-Aunt Jude, sitting on the sofa with Cleo on her lap.\n\n'Katy.' Jude smiled at me. 'I'd love to tell you I'm just popping in to say hello, but\u2026 well, maybe you'd better get Cullen settled first. Then we'll have a cup of tea and a chat.'\n\nShe stood up and moved to an armchair, leaving room for Cullen to stretch out and relax on the couch. Not that he did relax. As soon as I laid him out he sat up, folding his arms and insisting he was fine.\n\nCleo had made a small meow of complaint when Jude first moved chairs, but she was on her lap once again, purring as my great-aunt stroked her.\n\nNed arrived home just as I was laying tea and biscuits out on the table. When I'd returned with an extra cup for Ned and some milk for Cleo, Great-Aunt Jude picked up her tea, took a sip and said, 'All right, I'll just come out with it. I've been feeling funny today, Katy. Sort of\u2026 Christmassy. No one else seems to feel it, so I thought I'd better check with you in case it's a hunter thing.'\n\nI stared at her. 'Well, yes. Yes I have been feeling like it's Christmas even though it's July. But\u2026 I don't know if it's a hunter thing. I was kind of hoping it might have something to do with this Pillar of Permanence Hamish needs. Although Hamish would disagree with even that, and tell you that the only reason I'm feeling Christmassy is because my day started off with a dead man in a Santa suit.' I quickly told her everything that happened.\n\nWhen I finished the tale, Aunt Jude quietly nibbled at a biscuit for a moment, before saying, 'Now I'm sure this is a hunter thing, Katy \u2013 the way I'm feeling, I mean. Because the whole time you were talking, I had tingles everywhere.'\n\n'Huh.' Cullen gave her an uneasy nod. 'Katy gets tingles when something big is in the air. We need to find out where Winston Wolfe got that musical plum. I'm not sure how \u2013 or even if \u2013 anything that happened with Giles Tinsley's murder is connected. But the plum\u2026 that tune\u2026 maybe it could lead us to something. Finn's already traced the ugly candle holder to a house on Easterly Crescent. Maybe the plum came from there, too.'\n\n'I'm not sure about that, actually,' Ned said. 'I was with a man called Pat Barnes this afternoon, giving him a message from his dead wife's ghost. He still lives in the house they shared, near Knot Corner. He was delighted to read her letter. Oh, you should have seen how happy it made him. But\u2026 I'm getting off track. When I was about to leave, Pat told me \"I've been thinking about ghosts a lot lately, actually, ever since I met that strange, strange man running through the park the other night.\" So obviously I asked him \"What strange man?\" And he told me he hasn't been sleeping since his wife's death, so he often takes walks through the Hanging Green at night time to visit the spot where they first kissed. When he was there the night before last, a man had crashed into him, and the man was carrying a little silver plum.'\n\n'Ah.' I nodded. 'He must have met Winston on his way back from a night of thievery. So that means that the plum might have been stolen from somewhere in this enclave, maybe somewhere near the Hanging Green.'\n\n'That's what I was thinking,' Ned agreed. 'But there's more. This man seemed terrified, Pat said. He said he mumbled something about a ghost singing Silent Night.'\n\nCullen frowned. 'Are you sure he didn't say that the plum was playing the tune?'\n\n'Nope.' Ned sounded certain. 'He said it was a ghost, and he said it had creeped him out because he'd always hated that song, and then he ran off leaving Pat scratching his head in wonder, and that was the end of that.'\n\nJude frowned. 'The more I hear about this, the more my skin begins to tingle. I'd like to see this musical plum. I think we should pay the Wayfarer captain a visit.'\n\n'Good luck with that.' Cleo looked up from her milk. 'Finn is a grumpy old sod, always jacked up on coffee and ready to grumble.'\n\n'He's not that bad,' I said. 'I mean yes, he's sometimes grumpy, but being a Wayfarer would make anyone grumpy. He spends his life dealing with murders. And budgets, too. He's always complaining about those budgets. I like Finn. Well\u2026 I don't dislike him. I'll give him a call.'\n\nOn My Broom I Shall Soar\u2026\n\nFinn did grumble while we spoke on the phone, but after a few minutes he agreed to let us see the musical plum. Ned and Cleo stayed at home to wait for Hamish \u2013 he'd still not returned since he left at lunchtime, according to Ned \u2013 while Jude, Cullen and I made our way to the Wayfarer Station.\n\nWhen we entered Finn's office, he was seated behind his desk, drinking something that wasn't coffee and eating a salad.\n\nWith a miserable groan, he looked at us. 'Hey guys. Hello, Jude. I'll be finished my dinner in a minute.'\n\n'What is that?' I asked, looking into the liquid. 'That's not coffee. You always drink coffee. And you never eat salad.'\n\n'I've eaten salad before. Usually as a garnish, but I've eaten it. As for this horrific excuse for a drink\u2026' He shuddered. 'Apparently it's green tea. My girlfriend brought it in for me a few minutes ago. I am not a fan. I agreed that today is the day I finally give up coffee, but now I'm not so sure. I'll have the shakes without caffeine.'\n\n'There's caffeine in green tea,' Jude informed him.\n\n'Is there?' Finn didn't look convinced. He pushed his salad away. 'Anyway, we've had some experts look at everything in that box. The stuff's all been stolen from different places, but it has all been stolen, and traced back to owners already. Well, except the musical plum. We have no idea where that came from.'\n\n'We might be able to narrow it down, just a bit,' I said, before filling him in on what Ned had told us.\n\n'Ah. Well, it gives us somewhere else to search, I suppose. But it'd be much better if we could just find Winston and ask him. We've found his squat, as it happens, but he's not there right now. The attic where he's been staying does, however, lead through to the attic above Giles's office, so he could have gotten in and out of the murder scene that way. Jude, I think I can trust you to keep quiet about what I'm telling Katy and Cullen about this case, right?'\n\nWhile Jude nodded, Cullen shook his head. 'Cullen does not want to know about Wayfarer business,' said Cullen. He didn't usually speak about himself in the third person, but he had strong feelings about not working for Finn anymore, so I suppose I could excuse it, just this once.\n\n'Aw, come on,' Finn cajoled. 'I paid you a really big bonus for that train business.'\n\n'Yeah, after me, Katy, Hamish and plenty of others almost died. Plus, I know you. It'll only be a matter of time before you ask me to infiltrate the Warlock Society again, and being undercover there just made me feel dirty. Just leave me out of all of this, please. I'll obviously help Katy if you happen to put her in danger again on another poorly-planned operation, but that's it. Running the Bank is a full-time job.'\n\n'Well then I guess you'd better leave while I fill Katy and Jude in on exactly why we think Winston Wolfe killed Giles Tinsley. All of the gory details.'\n\nCullen coughed slightly. 'Well\u2026 I mean, I am already sitting down.'\n\n'Sure.' Finn smirked with satisfaction. 'Well, first I should tell you guys that Winston Wolfe's surname is spelled with an \"e\". Other than that, it's a pretty on the nose name, don't you think? Apparently his ancestors came over here as wolf hunters, back in the seventeenth century when Ireland was still riddled with wolves, but one of them mistook a werewolf for your standard wolf and got turned and they've been a family of wolves ever since. Funny, right?'\n\n'The murder, Finn?' Cullen pressed. 'Other than the fact that Winston is a thief whose wife left him so she could have an affair with Giles, what actual evidence do you have that he's the one behind it? I mean, it could just as easily have been any of the other million people who hated him.'\n\n'Said the man who isn't interested.' Finn treated Cullen to yet another satisfied smirk. 'Well, first of all, we checked out what Lucy told us today, and it's true. Giles fired Winston and then spread rumours about him to every employer in the enclave. It was a nasty thing to do, and when you add that to all the other ways Giles ruined Winston's life, well\u2026 you can see why he'd be angry. But there is also a lot of actual evidence, as a matter of fact. Winston's aura is all over Giles's office. And that snow globe he tried to sell to Jay in among all the other crap? Well, a photo of Giles in his office shows that very same snow globe was actually a desk ornament of Giles's. We confirmed it with a couple of the workers \u2013 it was on Giles's desk up to at least a few days ago. Suspicious, right? And if all of that isn't damning enough, well\u2026 there's also this.'\n\nHe opened his drawer and took out a small, beautifully-carved toy, depicting a half-transformed werewolf child who was riding a broom to the moon. 'It can fly and everything,' said Finn. 'It's got Winston Wolfe's mark on the bottom \u2013 a W. Wolfe signature he used on all of the toys he designed and made himself, according to his wife. She says Winston tried to give this to her for Megan, but she refused the gift, telling him that she'd take it and give it to the girl once Winston started paying maintenance.'\n\n'Ouch,' I said. 'How was he supposed to do that if Giles had badmouthed him to all and sundry?'\n\n'I'm not sure Janine knows about that,' Finn told us. 'She's still talking as if Giles was some kind of saint. And look what happens if I press this button.' He flipped over the toy and pressed a button, and a little girl's voice said: 'On my broom I shall soar to the moon. I'm a wolf, I shall roar on the moon. Ow, ow, owwwww!'\n\n'Oh my goodness, that's adorable.' Jude smiled at the toy. 'I take it the little girl Winston and Janine have together is a werewolf, then? How unusual. The witch gene normally wins out, doesn't it?'\n\n'It does, normally,' Finn agreed. 'But in this case, Megan took after her father. It really is an adorable toy, but unfortunately we found it in Giles's office, and Janine has no idea how it got there. So we now have two ways to place Winston at the murder scene. Plus, this toy seems to have been used to smack Giles on the side of the face just before he died. There's corresponding marking on Giles's face, and traces of his skin were found on the toy, which means he received quite the smack. Oh, and Winston Wolfe's prints are the only prints on the toy. His prints are on Giles's desk, too.'\n\nI looked at the toy, trying to reconcile the facts: could a man who could make something so lovely for his daughter really be a murderer? Then again, losing your wife to Giles, and then having your contact with your daughter cut off could certainly drive a person over the edge.\n\n'Wow,' I said sadly. 'That's a lot of evidence, especially when you consider he could have sneaked in and out of Giles's office via the attic. I guess\u2026 I guess he's our guy, so.'\n\n'Kind of tragic, isn't it?' Cullen remarked. 'I feel sorry for Winston in all of this, murderer or not. Cheated on, dumped, then not allowed to see his daughter unless he got some money together? Which was obviously made all the harder by Giles. I hate to victim blame, but if Giles hadn't been such a sleaze, maybe none of this would have happened.'\n\n'Seems that way,' said Finn. 'If it hadn't been Winston, maybe it wouldn't have been long before someone else tried to teach Giles a lesson. His wife, Janine, or maybe this Siobhan who he was also having an affair with. But\u2026 it seems certain it was Winston, and all we have left to do is arrest him. So I guess we should move onto talking about other things. Like the fact that we might not have one musical plum, but two. And that you, Cullen, seem to have an undeniable connection to both.'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 7",
                "text": "Shane Moore arrived in the room with a wet, battered-looking cardboard box in his hands, and laid it in front of Finn. Finn set the box aside before we could get a good look at it, removing just one item and placing it on the desk: it was a silver plum with an opening in the middle, and legs which enabled it to stand upright; it looked just like the one Winston had sold to Jay, except that none of this one's legs were broken.\n\n'Where did you get it?' I asked.\n\n'The orphanage,' said Shane. 'I told you we got some donations, Katy. It was furniture and bedding and things we really needed. When I was putting some of the older stuff into storage in the basement, I found this. I'd been talking to Finn and it sounded like it could be a match for the one Winston Wolfe brought in to Jay. We've inspected both, and there doesn't seem to be any dark magic attached to either.'\n\n'But we're wary,' Finn added. 'We've seen stuff that has no discernible magic at all, but manages to be incredibly dark nonetheless, so it'd be dumb to just throw caution to the wind, considering how Cullen reacted earlier on. As a matter of interest, Katy\u2026' Finn placed the other musical plum next to the one Shane had just brought in. 'What does your Aurameter say?'\n\nI'd already pulled out my Aurameter, and I was looking carefully at the two musical plums. 'Nothing dark,' I told him. 'Pretty golden magic. Could be witchy, could be a wizard's. But not much. Like\u2026 a very faint concentration.'\n\n'Yeah.' Finn scratched his chin. 'That's what we got, too. We're tracing the magic, but there's nothing on record. The mechanism isn't witch-or wizard-made, from what we can tell. If it weren't for the slight trace of magic, we'd assume these were human-made. Cullen, do either of these plums stoke up memories for you?'\n\nHe frowned. 'I\u2026 I don't know. I feel like I really want to open them, though. What's that you were saying about an undeniable connection?'\n\n'Well\u2026 firstly, once we cleaned them off we noticed there's writing scratched onto both, underneath, where the little thing you use to wind up the music box is. It's quite childlike, the scratched writing. It says: Property of C. Keats.'\n\n'Oh.' Cullen was blinking, his face pale. 'That's weird. I didn't own any property when I grew up at the orphanage, and I was a baby when I arrived, so I seriously doubt I was writing my name on anything back then. Plus, why would it be on both music boxes? There's more you have to tell me, right?'\n\nFinn sighed. 'Yeah, there is. But first, what about you, Jude? Your name's not written on the bottom or anything, but you've been having tingles, and you seemed fairly eager to take a look at this. Now that you've seen them, is there anything you can tell us? Maybe you saw them long ago, in your hunter days? Are they jogging any sort of memory for you?'\n\nJude frowned. 'I mean, I saw many magical objects in my hunter days, but I don't remember seeing these. But like Cullen, I feel like I really want to open them.'\n\nFinn gritted his teeth. 'Right. Well\u2026 we'll do that in a minute. But Cullen, you wanted to know if there's more. And there is. Shane managed to get in touch with your old matron, to see if she could shed any light on why you think you had no property with you when you arrived at the orphanage. She em\u2026 she insisted on coming here when she spoke to him, and she's in our canteen as we speak.'\n\n'Esme.' Cullen spoke the name beneath his breath. 'When I left that orphanage I hoped I'd never see her miserable face again.' He gave a forced smile. 'But sure. Let her in. We can catch up, talk about old times.'\n\nThere was an awkward exchange of glances between the rest of us.\n\n'Well, I'll wait outside,' said Jude.\n\nCullen shook his head. 'Nope. No you won't. You can all stay here for this. That way, I'll keep my cool.'\n\nFinn grunted. 'Well, I'll send for her in a minute. I don't mind leaving her waiting, I must admit. I didn't really take to her. Let's open up this musical plum first. We know that this second one does the same thing as the one Winston tried to sell to Jay. It plays Silent Night when you turn the star. But it has no effect on anyone else so far. Brace yourself, Cullen.\n\n'I'm braced,' Cullen said, as Finn opened the musical plum. Inside, it was different to the first. Instead of a ballerina, a nutcracker doll was standing at the Christmas tree, and he began to spin in time to the music. This plum didn't play the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Instead, the nutcracker was spinning and dancing to another piece from the Nutcracker Suite: March of the Toy Soldiers.\n\nWhile the tune played, I looked from Cullen to Jude. Both of them had similar expressions on their faces, as though something incredibly important had just occurred. Jude's hand moved, as if to turn the star atop the tree, but Finn turned it before she could.\n\nThe nutcracker stopped spinning and dancing, and bowed low, and Silent Night began to play. Immediately, Cullen swayed in his chair. Just as I reached over to stop him from falling, Aunt Jude slumped to the ground.\n\n[ Easier to Pronounce ]\n\nThey came around at the same time, sitting up and looking confused. 'That's\u2026 that's so strange,' said Jude, as Shane finished off examining her. 'I feel like I was about to have a moment of absolute clarity.'\n\n'Me too,' Cullen agreed. 'But if I remembered something important, I've forgotten it now.'\n\n'Well, you both seem fine,' Shane said. 'But for the two of you to have that same reaction to a Christmas carol\u2026 there's something very weird going on here.' He glanced at Finn. 'Will I tell Esme to go home, or\u2026?'\n\nCullen shook himself. 'Nope. No, let her in. We're doing this now. Unless\u2026 Jude, are you feeling all right?'\n\nShe gave him a small smile. 'I'm absolutely fine, my love. But I could do with a bit of a lie down.' As she stood up, and I went to stand up alongside her, she patted my shoulder. 'No, no, Katy. Stay. We'll catch up first thing in the morning, all right?'\n\nBefore I could protest, she twirled her wand and disappeared."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 8",
                "text": "Cullen had once told Finn that the 'old lady' glamour Finn sometimes used as a disguise reminded him of the matron from the orphanage where he'd grown up; now I could see why. Esme's hair was the exact same shade of grey, and the stooped manner in which she walked was almost identical to Finn's 'old lady' walk. She even rubbed her back in much the way the Wayfarer captain did.\n\nCullen gave her a look of pure hatred. In return, Esme's eyes glinted with triumph. 'You're still the same ungrateful little brat I once knew, I see,' she said as she took a seat on the captain's couch. 'I never did understand what you had against me, Cullen. I looked after you, so I did. Same as I looked after hundreds of little kiddies.'\n\nCullen's lip curled. 'Looked after isn't quite the way I would put it.'\n\nEsme sniffed. 'Well, you were a bold boy, Cullen. A very bold boy. Always crying. Always complaining you were hungry or cold.'\n\n'I was always hungry and cold!' Cullen retorted. 'I learned to do a warming spell when I was five because you never turned the bloody heating on!'\n\nShane winced. 'Yeah, see, the orphanage wasn't always as well-funded as it is today. It also wasn't as\u2026 well, let's say warm and welcoming as it is now. We have a different way of doing things these days.'\n\n'Oh yeah?' Cullen's arms were crossed, and his jaw was tight. 'Well, I'm glad for the kids who are there now, I guess, but I just wish it had come a bit sooner. Look, can we just get on with this? For starters, maybe we could ask Esme why she never gave me that musical plum.'\n\nEsme opened her mouth, but Shane was the one who answered, saying, 'Actually, it's more than just that.' He heaved the box he'd brought into the room back onto Finn's desk. There was also a small, water-damaged teddy bear and a grubby-looking baby's bib, with a sprig of holly embroidered on the fabric. Beneath the holly, it said: Cuileann.\n\n'Cuileann? That's the Irish word for holly.' Cullen frowned. 'Was I\u2026 was I wearing that when I arrived?'\n\nEsme nodded. 'You were. A little red and green romper suit, too, but that's long gone. You were clutching onto the teddy with one hand and that silver music box with the other.' She shivered. 'Silent Night was playing on it. Can't stand that song so I can't. Awful, maudlin human music. Anyway, we didn't know your name, but given what it said on your bib and the Property of C. Keats on the bottom of that stupid plum, I made up your name from that.'\n\n'Except you didn't, did you? According to my bib, my name was the proper Irish version of the word for holly. I was called Cuileann, and yet you named me Cullen. Why?'\n\nEsme shrugged. 'Easier to pronounce Cullen than Cuileann, isn't it?'\n\n'But all these years, you told me my name was just a random one given to me by you. It clearly wasn't. Cullen Keats \u2013 or Cuileann Keats \u2013 that might actually be my real name. The one my parents gave me.'\n\nShe shook her head, looking thoroughly flummoxed by his reaction. 'What's the big deal, lad? It's just a name.'\n\nWhile Cullen struggled for words, I squeezed his hand. I'd been lucky, I realised. Sure, my dad left when I was a kid, but I'd had my mother to look after me, and my uncle. I knew who I was. Where I came from. And even though Cullen didn't talk about it much, it had always been clear to me that he yearned to know more about his beginnings.\n\n'I came to see you in your office a while after I left the orphanage,' Cullen said, glaring at Esme. 'When I was eighteen, remember? The law said that once I was of age, and if my parents were either dead, unknown, or made no objection, then you were supposed to tell me any information you had about me. But you refused to tell me a thing. So why do you now, all of a sudden, have something to say?'\n\nShe stabbed a finger in Shane's direction. 'This so-called healer was accusing me of hiding your things from you! I felt I ought to come and give my side.'\n\n'And what is your side?' Finn asked. 'It seems to me that if Cullen arrived with these items, you ought to have given them to him at some stage. The bear and the musical plum could have given him some comfort. The bib would have told him his real first name.'\n\nWith a lift of her chin, Esme said, 'Well I'll tell you exactly why I didn't give them things to him. It was because he was too bold to deserve them. Bold as brass, that one. No wonder his mother dumped him on my doorstep. Sure, for all we know, she tried to do him in before she got rid of him. Could be how he got that scar, couldn't it?'\n\n'Whoa, Esme. Too dark.' I shook my head.\n\nCullen glared at the matron. 'Esme, why are you saying \"Could be how he got that scar, couldn't it\"? Because when I was a kid, you told me you knew what caused my scar. You said my scar was given to me by a witch hunter. You would never tell me anymore than that, but you swore to the goddess that it was true.'\n\nMy eyes met Cullen's, and a look of guilt washed over him. He didn't need to feel guilty. He'd never told me the story of the scar that ran from beneath his left eye and ended at his upper lip. But I'd looked at it through my Aurameter. I knew that there was hunter magic on that scar. And I'd been sure Cullen knew it, too \u2013 I'd always believed that there was some back story, something he was afraid to tell me, about another hunter. The hunter who hurt him, and left the evidence behind on his face.\n\nNow it was clear that, all of these years, he had believed it was a hunter who hurt him. But not because he had some harrowing memory of the event. He knew nothing about the origins of his scar, except what the old matron had told him.\n\nEarlier today, Jay had asked me how my relationship with Cullen was going, and I'd been reluctant to reply. The truth was that, so far, it was going so well that I couldn't quite believe it. I'd been wary of him for so long. Sure, when we met he was merely pretending to be a sexist pig so that he could infiltrate the Warlock Society on behalf of the Wayfarers. But there was a time in his life when he'd been an actual warlock, when he'd believed that men were superior, and that female witches ought to take second place in the magical world.\n\nThe idea of ever entering a relationship with him \u2013 or even admitting I had feelings for him \u2013 had been terrifying. But getting to know Cullen had taught me that even a sexist leopard can change its spots.\n\nOnce, I'd believed that people were either good or bad \u2013 and maybe some people were \u2013 but most people had their attitudes and actions shaped and steered by their childhood, and by the things that happened to them along the way. Somewhere along the course of Cullen's childhood he'd stopped hoping that his mother would someday come to claim him. Instead, he'd decided to blame her, to hate her, for abandoning him.\n\nHe'd been moulded by Esme, and by the warlocks and criminals he met along the way \u2013 people who probably had their own bitter beginnings and shattered dreams. But somehow, he'd pushed through all of that, and he'd become a man I was grateful to know.\n\nEvery day he surprised me in the loveliest ways. The Cullen I'd come to know wasn't cocky, or sexist. He was nothing like I'd feared he'd be. There were no arguments, no power struggles, just\u2026 ease. I was so glad that I'd decided to look past the fact that he was once a warlock. And I was equally glad that he'd decided to look past the fact that it could have been one of my kind who almost killed him, and possibly more.\n\nNow, maybe we would find out the truth about how he came to have that scar.\n\nEsme's chin lifted an inch higher. 'I don't know why I said it was a hunter. You were maybe a month old, or thereabouts, when you were dumped on Eile Street. I've no idea how you got that scar. It was just something I said to frighten you.'\n\nOr maybe we wouldn't find out, after all.\n\nI eyed Esme. There was something uncertain in her expression, something that told me she wasn't really sure why she told Cullen what she told him. 'Listen,' I said, 'it's all right if you don't remember everything, Esme. Just tell us what you do remember about when Cullen arrived at the orphanage.'\n\nShe huffed. 'Fine. Fine, I'll tell you. It was Winter Solstice. Well, no\u2026 it was a few days after Solstice, actually.'\n\n'Don't you have records of that?' Finn asked. 'Surely you ought to know what date a child arrived.'\n\n'If we did have any records on it, I think they were destroyed by damp.' Shane gave us a helpless shrug. 'Sorry Cullen. But all of the old files were just dumped in cardboard boxes in the basement. Some were chewed up by maybe rats or mice. Some were destroyed by water damage. It's a miracle that even this box of your things survived down there, to be honest.'\n\nEsme's mouth twisted into a vicious smile. 'What does it matter, anyway? The children who were left with us were left there for a reason. You weren't wanted then, and even if you knew who your parents were, I doubt you'd be wanted now.'\n\n'You\u2026' Cullen gazed at Esme. 'You're just as awful as I remember.'\n\nThe old matron met his eyes. 'Maybe I was awful because I knew you were awful. I could see it in you, you know. That you were bad. I wasn't surprised that first time I caught you stealing food. And an entire packet of ham and three loaves of bread at that. Greedy.'\n\n'I was trying to steal enough for everyone, because we were all hungry. Look, I can see that you haven't changed, Esme. But just\u2026 please, if there's anything else you remember about that night then\u2026 please. For once in your life just do the decent thing and tell me.'\n\nHer smirk grew. 'You never did learn that the best way to catch flies was with honey, did you? But I'll tell you, even though you hardly deserve it. Let's see now\u2026 oh, yes. There was some sort of scuffle on the street. That's why I went outside. It was freezing so it was. The middle of the night. Snow was coming down hard. I heard fighting \u2013 there was growling, and shouting, and I went outside. One woman was twirling a silver wand and disappearing, and another woman \u2013 a werewolf, I've no doubt \u2013 was limping away down the street in a coat that didn't fit. And as for you\u2026 well, there you were, a few feet away from the doorstep, with that little music box open, listening to that horrible song, calm as anything.'\n\nHer eyes glinted maliciously. 'Most orphans in that orphanage were others. Wizards, weredogs, unempowered\u2026 It was a surprise to me when you showed yourself to be a witch. Not that it made a difference, did it? All of the people who came to adopt the empowered children weren't interested in you, were they? Their eyes would just drift on past you and onto the next child, because they could see what I saw. They could see that you were bad to the bone.'\n\nFinn stood up. 'I think that's enough, Esme. Unless you have something useful to tell us, we'll have an officer see you home.'\n\nShe didn't argue as Finn led her outside, and as soon as she was gone, I noticed that Cullen's shoulders relaxed for the first time since she'd arrived.\n\nI had the feeling that Esme was happy now \u2013 happy that she'd achieved exactly what she came here for. And it had nothing to do with defending herself for withholding Cullen's belongings all these years. I suspected Esme came here for one simple reason: to revel in Cullen's misery.\n\n'I'm sorry,' said Shane. 'I honestly thought that if she was hiding the things you came in with, she might have been hiding some more useful information. But I guess not. It seems the only reason she never gave you your belongings was because she was a cruel, nasty woman. And she hasn't changed.'\n\n'That's all right, Shane,' Cullen said. 'You couldn't have known. And it wasn't a waste of time at all. We do know more than we knew before. We know there were two women on Eile Street on the night I was left at the orphanage.'\n\nHis gaze caught mine, and I knew that he was reluctant to say the rest, so I said it for him. 'And one of those women had a silver wand.'\n\nShane frowned. 'You think it was Jude?'\n\n'I don't know.' I held my hands out. 'If it was, then she doesn't remember. This mystery is not getting any less mysterious, is it? For now, I'm going to go home and get some dinner and some rest. Maybe by the morning we'll have found Winston Wolfe, and he'll be able to help us clear some stuff up.'\n\nCullen stood up, lifting up the box of his belongings to take home with him. 'Dinner and a rest sounds good. Thanks for everything, Shane.'\n\nAs we walked out of the room, Shane smiled sadly and said, 'You're welcome. Just wish it could have been more.'\n\nOut in the hallway, Finn was talking animatedly on his phone. As he ended the call, he turned to look at us. 'We've found Winston Wolfe. You need to come to Aim Low, Katy. Winston has something to tell us, and Sol is advising him to say nothing unless you and Hamish are there, too. Y'know, because they don't like the law in Samhain Street.'\n\n[ The Only Leverage I Have ]\n\nI'd been worried about how to get in touch with Hamish, but as it turned out he was already at Sol's place when the Wayfarers burst in to arrest Winston. Hamish had turned up to collect his robot at almost the same time as Winston had crept into Sol's attic. It seemed that Winston's method of entry was to climb the drainpipe, which led him into Sol's spare bedroom, and from there he used the small door in the bedroom ceiling to gain entry to the attic.\n\nWhen Finn and I arrived on Desperation Row, Hamish was on the street chatting with some of the many officers on the scene. Winston was in Sol's living room, under guard, and Sol was pacing the floor of Aim Low, arguing with any Wayfarer who was foolish enough to engage.\n\n'Like I was saying to Katy earlier, once Winston was in his little attic squat, we think he then made his way through to the attic space above Giles's office,' Finn explained as we talked with Hamish on the street. 'It's possible if you're skinny enough, which Winston definitely is. Once we identified that it was Sol's attic he was squatting in, we had officers laying low all day, waiting for him to get back there.'\n\n'But you think he's been squatting here for a while, right, Finn?' I glanced back at Hamish. 'Did you hear anything when you were at Sol's?'\n\nThe wizard-dog shook his head. 'Nothing. And I don't think Sol knew he was up there, either. We were both equally surprised when the Wayfarers burst in about ten minutes ago and arrested Winston. I only went round to Sol's to collect my robot. You wouldn't have known Winston was up in that attic at all. He's clearly very good at staying quiet.'\n\nI moved closer to Hamish, bending down to his level. 'And you're all right? It's just that you've been kind of MIA since lunchtime.'\n\nHe gave me a valiant smile. 'I'm absolutely fine, Katy. I just had a wander about the city after I ate. Went to visit Peter M\u00fcd for a natter, then went and sat in St Stephen's Green for a while and watched the ducks, and then I came here. Nothing to worry about, honestly. After what you've told me has happened with Cullen, I think he's who we need to worry about now.\n\n'He puts on a brave face of it,' Hamish went on. 'Acts like a right cocky so-and-so most of the time, but he's got to be hurting, doesn't he? We started this day with you convinced we were going to find a Pillar of Permanence, Katy. Now, it looks like we're on the trail of something altogether different. But if Cullen finds out the truth about where he came from, then that's good enough for me.'\n\n'Now who's putting on a brave face?' I stroked his head. 'It doesn't have to be one thing or the other, you know. I didn't imagine Foirfe's voice in my head. We're going to find that pillar, Hamish, and soon.'\n\nHe looked up at me. 'I hope you're right, Katy,' he said, finally letting that brave face slip. 'Because it turns out I do not like dog food. Not one little bit. Come on. Let's get in there and talk to Winston.'\n\nAs Finn, Hamish and I entered Aim Low, Sol rushed towards us. 'Before you accuse me of hiding a fugitive, Captain Plimpton, I didn't know he was in my attic.'\n\n'We're not accusing you of that,' Finn informed him. 'We're just going up to talk to him now.'\n\n'I mean, I know Winston,' Sol continued, following us up the stairs. 'We're mates. Friendly enough that I even asked him if he wanted to move into the spare room when Janine kicked him out. I wouldn't have charged him or anything. He told me he had something else sorted out, which didn't sound too believable when we all knew he hadn't been able to get a job since Giles fired him. I never in a million years thought it was my attic he was squatting in.'\n\n'I'm inclined to believe you, for once,' said Finn. 'But can you please make yourself scarce for a few minutes? Go back down and wait in the shop while we question Winston, will you?'\n\n'Why yes sir, three bags full sir,' Sol scoffed. 'Whatever you want, oh great and mighty Wayfarer.' He bowed low, then rushed back down the stairs, shouting, 'I'm going to go to the Bank, as a matter of fact, and have a drink. Call me when I can go back into my own property again, if it's not too much trouble!'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 9",
                "text": "When we entered Sol's flat, Winston was sitting on a leather couch, his face in his hands. Looking up at us, he narrowed his eyes, pointed a finger at me and said, 'You were in Times of Yore earlier on today, weren't you? You and that bloke who runs the Bank. I'd never seen you before \u2013 I've heard a lot about Katy Kramer and Hamish Rhodes, and how they can be trusted more than the Wayfarers. But now I'm not so sure. Did you rat me out, Katy Kramer?'\n\n'Well, no, I\u2026' Fluff it, anyway. 'I mean, I didn't rat you out, but\u2026' But what? He'd really put me on the spot. I'd always hated lying, but I'd made myself do it ever since moving to the enclave, and I'd become quite good at it, too. But I was tired, and hungry, and the question of Cullen's parentage and the search for the Pillar of Permanence was weighing heavy on my mind; I wasn't sure I had the energy to tell yet another lie.\n\nAt times like this I wondered how I ever managed to solve the simplest of mysteries. Sheer dumb luck? Tenacity? Right now, I felt like I was running out of both.\n\n'See?' said Winston. 'You can't even answer my question. You're a Wayfarer, aren't you? Undercover. Just pretending to be a proper Samhain Street resident. I'm right, amn't I?'\n\nHamish stood forward. 'Are ye mad? Katy? Work with the Wayfarers? She'd rather skin herself alive. She's a mate of that vampire who owns Times of Yore, it's true. But she wouldnae hand you in. One of the items turned out to have some unusual magic and the Wayfarers nabbed it. That's what led them to you. A little silver plum. Do you recall it?'\n\nWinston still appeared to be suspicious. 'You're talking about that damson with the broken leg, right? It plays music? You know, the Wayfarers who stormed up to the attic and arrested me asked me about that, too. Why is everyone so interested in that thing?'\n\nHamish was about to say something, but Winston spoke across him. 'I mean, I heard on the street today that Giles Tinsley was killed. I thought that's what you'd be questioning me about. Not some broken old music box.'\n\n'Giles's murder is our priority, yes,' said Finn. He was visibly shaking. A day filled with murder and mystery probably wasn't the best day for him to give up coffee. 'We're interested in finding out where it came from, that's all. But look, if you don't think that Katy and Hamish are trustworthy \u2013 which they are, mind you \u2013 then you can always come down to the station and I'll send them home. They're only allowed to sit in on your questioning because you requested it. Say the word, and they're gone.'\n\nHe ground his teeth for a moment. 'No. No, I\u2026 Sol says I can trust them, and I'd rather have them here than not. And I've heard enough people talk about how they solved crimes that you and the rest of the Wayfarers were too useless to figure out. I just\u2026 I'm on edge. Paranoid. Let's just get this over with, Captain Plimpton. You think I actually have something to do with Giles Tinsley's death?'\n\n'We'd certainly like you to explain some of the evidence that seems to point your way,' Finn said, before listing off the evidence he'd gathered against Winston.\n\nAs Finn spoke, Winston grew paler and paler. Finally, he hung his head. 'Well\u2026 when you put it all together like that, I suppose it does sound bad, doesn't it? I\u2026 I'm not a killer, though, I swear. I've done some desperate things recently, but I'd never do that.'\n\n'Well then maybe you could explain your side of things,' said Finn. 'For starters, why hide out in Sol's attic? Why not tell him you were up there? Why not accept his offer of a room?'\n\n'See?' He narrowed his eyes. 'Here it is. The accusations. You think I turned down Sol and hid upstairs so I could move between Sol's attic and Giles's office, don't you?'\n\n'Unless you can give me another reason why you'd rather squat in secrecy than take up a freely offered bedroom, then yeah, I'd say it looks incredibly suspicious, wouldn't you?' challenged Finn.\n\nWinston gritted his teeth for a moment, then ground out: 'I was only squatting because I'm too proud for my own good! I didn't want Sol to know how bad things were for me. I didn't want it getting back to Giles! That man had done everything he could to ruin my life \u2013 he'd badmouthed me to anyone who would've hired me. I tried to get work all over this enclave, but you know what he's been telling people? That I'm a thief, that's what!'\n\nHis cheeks blazed red, and his eyes turned yellow for a moment. 'I\u2026 I know I'm a thief now. But I wasn't until recently. I was a good worker. I just\u2026 I was desperate to see Megan. I couldn't let Giles succeed in taking her from me too. I just\u2026 I just needed enough to pay Janine some maintenance, that's all. So she'd let me see my little girl. You can even ask her. Ask Janine and she'll tell you \u2013 I stuck an envelope of gold rounds through her letterbox today, so I did. I didn't want the money for anything except Megan.'\n\nHis eyes had turned back to blue again, and his whole body sagged. 'I never thought I'd be in this position. I worked so hard for so long to develop my skills. I'm good at what I do. I\u2026 I thought I had everything. The perfect wife, a child I love so much it aches, a job making toys for the famous Tinsley coven. And then, for whatever reason, Giles decided he wanted to mess about with my wife, and that was the end of my happiness. When I\u2026 when I was up in Sol's attic, I didn't even know at first that it was connected to Tinsleys' \u2013 I didn't notice the gap until I heard them at night time, kissing and giggling together, while I was trying to get some shut-eye.'\n\n'That must have been hard,' I said, while he paused for a few moments.\n\n'That's not the worst of it.' He looked me in the eye. 'The worst of it is that Giles did all of that for nothing. If he'd loved Janine, I'd maybe have understood why he stole her from me, why he destroyed my life. But he was only using her. He already had someone else on the go. I heard him with her, so I did. Not that Janine believed me when I tried to tell her about that. But\u2026 anyway, it made me so mad. And I knew Giles was the reason I wasn't getting any work, so late one night \u2013 it was practically morning, really \u2013 I sneaked through from this attic into his, and then I jumped down and stole a snow globe from his office. It was a stupid thing to do and I know it. But I made that snow globe with my own hands and gave it to Giles as a present last Winter Solstice, idiot that I am. And I wanted it back. Once I took that, I figured that I could take more stuff, just a little bit, just enough so that I could see Megan. It\u2026 it was horrible. I hated stealing. I hated every second of it. And I was bad at it, too. Once I had the stuff, I had no idea what to do with it. I\u2026 I'm not a criminal mastermind, and I'm definitely not a murderer. I'm just an idiot who was angry and desperate.'\n\nHe combed his hands through his hair. 'Aargh! You're never going to believe me though, are you? You said that the toy I made for Megan was in his office, too, and I have no idea how that got there. I certainly didn't put it there, that much I know.'\n\n'It wasn't just that it was in his office, though,' said Finn. 'There's also the fact that the toy you made was also used to hit Giles across the face right before he died.'\n\nWinston groaned. 'Yeah, but I didn't hit him, I swear I didn't. The last time I saw that toy was a few days ago when I was trying to give it to Janine for Megan. I couldn't believe Janine wouldn't take it off me, that she wouldn't give it to her. She wanted maintenance money first. Thank the stars Siobhan took it, although how it wound up in Giles's office after that, I have no idea. It\u2026 Megan needs to be proud of being a werewolf, you know? I made that for her so she would be proud of what she is. Janine should have given it to her. She\u2026 she hates me, and none of this is my fault!'\n\n'I understand you're upset,' Hamish said softly. 'But what you say now could really help us get to the truth, Winston. You mentioned Siobhan. Are you saying that you gave the toy to her?'\n\nWinston nodded. 'I\u2026 yeah. Yeah, that's what happened. Siobhan took it and she said she'd get Janine to see sense, that she'd make sure it was passed on to Megan. I thought it was a bit weird at the time, but\u2026 I gave it to her, anyway.'\n\n'What was weird about it?' asked Finn. 'It sounds like a nice gesture to me.'\n\nWinston shrugged. 'Yeah, but Siobhan isn't normally the sort to do anything nice for anyone. She's pretty cold, actually. And considering she was also messing about with Giles, well\u2026 her \"nice gesture\" seemed kind of weird.' His eyes lit up. 'Oh! Yeah. She\u2026 she's the one I was just telling you about, so she is. The other woman I heard in Giles's office, messing about with him. Maybe\u2026 maybe she found out about Giles and Janine. Maybe she hit Giles with the toy and then chucked him out the window.'\n\n'See, laddie, there's a problem with that, though,' Hamish said softly. 'The only prints on that toy are yours.'\n\nWinston frowned. 'That's impossible. Janine kind of folded her arms when I tried to press it into her hands, so I guess it makes sense that her prints wouldn't be on it. But it should definitely have Siobhan's prints.' He scratched his head. 'Why would it only have my prints? It\u2026'\n\nHis eyes snapped up, and he stared at us. 'It's Siobhan. She's setting me up.'\n\n'And why would she do that?' asked Finn.\n\nWinston held his hands out. 'Why not? Maybe she killed Giles because she found out about him and Janine, or because he wouldn't divorce Theresa. And she set me up because\u2026 I dunno\u2026 because she thinks that I'd be the obvious suspect. Yeah, now that I think about it, the more I'm sure it's her. I told you I stole that snow globe? Well, I was only up in the attic by the skin of my nose, just pulling the door across when she marched into Giles's office. I thought she might have seen me, actually, but she never said a thing, so I assumed I got away with it. This was\u2026 oh, nearly a week ago. I don't know what she was doing in so early \u2013 maybe she was supposed to have a romantic meeting with Giles. But anyway, the night after that, I got back to the attic after being out and about, and\u2026 things just didn't look right.'\n\n'What do you mean by that?' Hamish questioned.\n\nWinston looked uncertain. 'I\u2026 I can't explain it, really. But I think someone had been at my things. Stuff just looked slightly out of place. There was a faint smell of perfume. I hoped I was just being paranoid. But what if I wasn't? What if it was Siobhan? What if she did see me that morning? Then she went up to my squat and saw how I was living, and she thought to herself: What a perfect person to set up to take the fall.'\n\nFinn's expression was incredulous. 'Wait, you're expecting me to believe that Siobhan was setting you up, based on you telling me she might have seen you hopping up into the attic above Giles's office, and that there was a faint smell of perfume in your attic the next night?'\n\nWinston groaned. 'Oh, look, I know how it sounds. But I'm telling you, I feel this in my bones. It's the only thing that makes sense. Siobhan did this. She set me up. You have to search her flat, I'm telling you. You'll find some evidence against her.'\n\nWhile Finn gave him a dubious stare, Winston got onto his knees. 'Please. I know I'm acting desperate here, and that's because I am. You have to search her flat, I beg you.'\n\n'I'm sorry,' said Finn. 'We can't go and get a search warrant based on what you just said. We're due to question her tomorrow, and we'll give your theory fair consideration, but that's all I can tell you, Winston. For now, you're going to have to come into the station with us and give us a formal statement, and\u2013'\n\nWinston shouted out, 'The damson!'\n\n'Excuse me?' Finn's brow furrowed as he glared down at Winston.\n\n'The damson! I mean\u2026 the plum. You want to know where the plum came from, right? It means something to all of you. Something big. I can sense it. And I'll tell you about it, I will. But first, you have to promise me you'll search Siobhan's flat.'\n\n'Sorry.' Finn shook his head. 'But that sounds like blackmail. You don't want to make things worse for yourself, do you Winston? The best way you can help your case right now is by being upfront with us about everything. Including where you stole that plum from.'\n\n'I want to tell you,' said Winston. 'I do. But can't you understand this from my point of view? I know I'm not a murderer, and right now the only explanation I can think of for all of this is that I'm being set up. So if I go along with you guys right now, and you leave it too long before you search Siobhan's flat, there might be nothing for you to find. My life will be over, and all because I didn't push you to do what I know in my bones that you need to do.'\n\nHe looked imploringly at Hamish and me. 'It's you two who want to know about this musical plum thing, I know it is. It means more to you than it means to the captain. I have a werewolf's nose. I can smell these things. And I will tell you. I hate doing his, I really do. But it's my only leverage. Search Siobhan Cahill's flat, and you'll find evidence against her. You will. She's dead behind the eyes, that woman.'\n\nHamish's eyes locked with mine. 'Cahill?' he said.\n\n'Cahill,' I echoed, with my whole body tingling with excitement. 'Finn, Siobhan's surname is Cahill?'\n\nFinn nodded. 'Yeah. We haven't questioned her yet, but we've arrange for her to come in tomorrow. Wait, why do you and Hamish look so excited about this?'\n\nI pulled him across the room into Sol's small kitchen, with Hamish following behind. 'Me and Hamish were supposed to have an appointment with a Miss Cahill this afternoon, except she called to cancel,' I said. 'She had wanted us to investigate a cheating boyfriend. But when she called to cancel she said she wouldn't be needing our services anymore. The cheating boyfriend was clearly Giles. And she was last seen with the toy? I think that's a pretty good reason to be suspicious, don't you?'\n\nFinn's eyes were straying covetously towards the jar of instant coffee on Sol's kitchen counter. 'Well, I dunno. Her prints weren't on the toy, were they?'\n\n'I've been thinking about that,' I said. 'She could have been wearing gloves when he handed her the toy \u2013 they wear gloves at work, don't they? The other possibility is that she wiped the toy, then placed Winston's prints back on it and\u2026 and she wore gloves when she whacked Giles in order to set Winston up.'\n\n'That all sounds incredibly elaborate,' said Finn. 'It just seems far more likely to me that it was Winston.'\n\nI wiggled my brows. 'I'm having tingles, Finn. Tingles. All down my spine. Which means that something about this Siobhan Cahill is setting my witch hunter senses alight.' I awkwardly scratched between my shoulder blades before adding, 'I believe Winston. We need to search Siobhan Cahill's flat.'\n\nFinn sighed. 'Fine. I'll see if I can talk the judge into giving us a search warrant. But first, I'm going to make myself a cup of coffee.'\n\n[ That Frizzy-Haired Fool ]\n\nHamish and I had been given a lot of leeway that day; we'd been allowed to sit in on interviews we really had no right to be at, and all because we were perceived to be more trustworthy than the Wayfarers.\n\nI was feeling guilty about that, of course. One of these days, the people of Samhain Street would trust in the Wayfarers enough for me to admit that I was one, albeit undercover. But I wasn't holding my breath. Still, I didn't think that Siobhan would be quite as keen to have my presence there while she was being searched and questioned, so I did what anyone would (well, anyone who was armed with a hunter's Toolkit): I donned my glamour cloak and disguised myself as Wanda Wayfair. Wanda was studying this evening, but Siobhan wouldn't know that.\n\nHamish had decided to head to the Bank instead, to spend some time with Cullen. As Finn and I thundered up the steps of Siobhan's building, I wished I was there with them. But Winston told us that this was the only way he'd ever tell us where he found that musical plum, and I knew he meant it.\n\n'Siobhan Cahill?' Finn asked as a young woman opened the door. She looked, unsurprisingly, just like every other woman who'd been hired by Giles.\n\n'And what if I am? Look, I have a very busy schedule this evening, so I really can't waste time on whatever nonsense this is.' Just as she'd done when she called to cancel our appointment, Siobhan pronounced the 'ch' in schedule in that same soft way.\n\nBut it wasn't just her pronunciation which sent a super-strong tingling sensation down my spine. It was her, everything about her. She was dead behind the eyes, just as Winston had said, and looking at her, I felt certain that she was a murderer. She was a bad witch, a wayward witch, a witch who made my body itch\u2026\n\n'Well, whatever you have planned is going to have to wait, Miss Cahill,' the captain informed her.\n\n'You can't just expect me to let you in, Captain Plimpton. This is my home. My sanctuary. And also, I wasn't even in work today, so unless you have a warrant, you can bugger off.'\n\n'Nice.' Finn gave her a tight smile. 'Well, we do have a warrant, as it happens. So Miss Cahill, you're just going to have to step aside.'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 10",
                "text": "Siobhan stood out in the hallway, surrounded by officers, while we searched her flat. As I pawed through her things, I kept shooting glances her way.\n\n'You're certain it's her, aren't you?' Finn murmured.\n\n'I can't explain it. She just\u2026 rubs me up the wrong way. And the fact that she wanted me and Hamish to find proof about Giles's cheating, that gives her a provable motive. I do, Finn \u2013 I feel absolutely certain that she's a killer.'\n\n'Maybe. Maybe not. But unless we find something confirming she made a call to you, then she'll be a killer who gets away with it,' he said.\n\n'What about phone records?'\n\n'Paul's already traced the calls that were made to your office to set up Siobhan's appointment. They came from a phone booth in the enclave,' he said, opening up a diary and flicking through its pages. 'Anyone could have made them. Or\u2026 maybe not.'\n\nFinn passed the diary my way. Under today's date, there was an entry:\n\nAppointment with Katy Kramer, PI, at 2. this afternoon. I'll soon know if I'm right about my boyfriend cheating.\n\nAs Finn brought the diary over to show to Siobhan, she shook her head. 'No. No, I didn't write that, I swear I didn't. It's not even my writing.'\n\nFinn pulled a sceptical face. 'It looks like the same writing you've used to mark every other appointment, Siobhan. And it mentions an appointment with Katy Kramer. I wonder, if I were to call up Miss Kramer, would she confirm that you made an appointment with her for today?'\n\n'What?' Siobhan's nose wrinkled up as she glared at Finn. 'Katy Kramer? Isn't she that frizzy-haired fool everyone seems to think is so great? Look, I don't do sneaking around and hiring detectives. It's not my style. It looks a bit like my handwriting, I suppose, but not much. I didn't make that appointment. I don't even have a boyfriend, let alone a cheating one, so why would I need a private investigator?'\n\nI shrugged. 'You don't have a boyfriend, it's true. You had a married man who you were having an affair with. Giles Tinsley.'\n\nHer face grew pale. 'I\u2026 well\u2026 but I still didn't make that appointment. I swear. I didn't.'\n\n'Really?' Finn gave her a searching look. 'So you didn't suspect that Giles was also having an affair with Janine?'\n\nShe swallowed. 'Janine? Giles was having an affair with Janine? No. He wouldn't do that. You're lying. He loved me. Only me. He s-said so. He w-wouldn't lie to me.'\n\nI narrowed my eyes. She was crying, and shivering, and looking incredibly convincing. Except for her eyes. 'You were seen giving Janine some very dirty looks at work yesterday. And the night before, you'd gone back to the office with a bottle of wine to surprise Giles, hadn't you? Maybe you caught him with Janine, and decided to take your revenge.'\n\nShe scratched her head. 'What? I didn't catch them. I didn't know about them. Look, I need to sit down, all right? Because I'm in shock right now. There's an appointment in my diary that I know I didn't write in there. There's all this stuff you're saying about Giles and Janine. I don't understand any of it.'\n\n'So why did you book a day off then?' I pressed. 'If not to have a meeting with Katy Kramer, then why?'\n\n'I keep telling you, I did not make an appointment with that frizzy-haired fool! I took a day off to teach Giles a lesson, all right? Make him\u2026 make him miss me. I'd given him an ultimatum recently. I told him that if he kept dragging his heels, if he didn't end things with Theresa, then we were over. And I wanted to make sure he had some time without me for that to sink in. I was going to stay off work for at least a week, maybe longer, if that was what it took to make him realise how much he loved me. But if I'd known he was going to be killed, that I could have seen him one last time, then believe me, I would never have taken a single second off.'\n\nFluff it, anyway. She was really very convincing. If I didn't mistrust her with every fibre of my being, then I might just believe every word she said.\n\n'And I suppose you don't know anything about how a certain toy got into Giles's office today, either?' I asked. 'A toy that Winston Wolfe handed to you, because you said you'd pass it on to Janine.'\n\nHer eyes widened. 'I\u2026 I just\u2026 I don't know, actually. You're talking about that little half transformed werewolf kid riding the broom, right? I mean, I remember Winston forcing it on me, but I never had any intention of actually giving it to Janine.' She rushed to her bag. 'As far as I know, it's still in here.'\n\nFinn snatched the bag from her and looked through it. 'No toy, Siobhan. And the funny thing is that, if you'd had it, how come it doesn't have your prints on it?'\n\nShe bit her lip. 'I\u2026 I had gloves on when Winston gave it to me.'\n\n'Gloves? In July?' Finn arched a brow. I was slightly impressed with him, considering he already knew it was a possibility.\n\n'Yes, in July,' Siobhan insisted. 'We have to wear stupid gloves at work, no matter how hot it is. Look, why are you grilling me? Winston is the one who killed Giles. I'm certain of it. Maybe he's setting me up. Did you ever think of that? Maybe he came in here and fiddled with my diary, and took the toy back while he was at it.'\n\n'Why would he do that?' Finn asked. I could hear the uncertainty in his voice. He wasn't nearly as convinced of Winston's innocence as I was.\n\nShe looked boldly at Finn. 'Because he knows I saw him. He knows I was in his filthy little attic. He knows I can give evidence against him, and he's trying to get in first.' She placed her hands on her hips and flicked her hair. 'He's living up there like a rat, did you know that? In the attic above that awful second-hand broom shop. And he's a thief. I saw him steal a snow globe from Giles's desk. He's always been a dangerous man. I warned Janine about him many, many times. I was relieved when they split up.'\n\n'Were you?' I asked. 'If that's the case, why did you take that toy off Winston and say you'd pass it on?'\n\nShe snorted. 'Well I didn't do it willingly, did I? Like I just said, he forced it upon me. I had no choice but to take it. He's a scary man.'\n\nMy dislike for her was growing stronger by the second. I had the urge to tie her with my ropes, use my binder on her, possibly even burn her at the stake. Obviously I wouldn't do the last part, but as I think I've already mentioned, she was a bad witch, a wayward witch, a witch who made my body itch\u2026\n\n'So scary that you decided to climb up into the attic and seek him out?' I asked. 'Seems to me that if you were scared, you could have reported him to the Wayfarers. Or to a private investigator like Katy Kramer if you don't like the law. Or perhaps you could have told Giles that you caught Winston stealing from his desk. But you didn't do any of that, did you? You went up there into the attic where Winston was living. Doesn't sound like the actions of a frightened woman to me.'\n\n'It wasn't like that. I didn't just go up there because I wanted to play detective. I mean, what kind of idiot would even do that? Would rush headlong into a dangerous situation? Me, I was terrified, and I did not go up there by choice. But\u2026 the night after I saw Winston stealing the snow globe, me and Giles were\u2026 you know\u2026 in his office. But then we heard the door open downstairs, and Theresa calling out. So Giles told me to hide in the attic. I was up there for a while, and I couldn't hear Winston, so I decided to investigate. You can walk through if you're thin enough. Easily. That's why I'm sure that Winston did it. You have to believe me.' She pointed to the diary. 'Get that checked by a handwriting expert. Then you'll see that I didn't write in that appointment.'\n\nWhen she spoke about the diary entry, it was the one and only time I believed a single word that came out of her mouth. But the voice on the phone had sounded exactly like hers.\n\n'Boss.' I looked up at Finn, doing my best impression of Wanda's cheeky grin. 'I think she ought to come in and make a formal statement about all of this. We can leave the team here to keep combing her flat in the meantime. What do you say?'\n\nWith a roll of his eyes, Finn said, 'Okay then, Wanda. We'll do just that.'\n\nMy Father's Child?\n\nFinn sat back in his chair, his feet up on his desk, chugging a cup of coffee.\n\n'So how did it go?' I asked, drumming my fingers against my thigh. I was no longer disguised as Wanda, and I hadn't been in the interview room when Siobhan made her formal statement, either. I'd been afraid to stay too long in my disguise, in case something went wrong and it affected the case against Siobhan. 'She cracked, didn't she? And the writing in the diary is hers, isn't it?'\n\nFinn held a finger up to indicate that he wasn't quite finished drinking. After a few more long slurps, he placed the cup down. 'No and no. Siobhan remained absolutely consistent in everything she said. And according to our expert, the writing is not hers, although it's a very good impression. Plus, there's some evidence that someone else might have been in her flat. The diary was wiped clean of prints using a cleaning potion, so was the light switch just inside the door, and the door handle. Well, the switch and the handle did have Siobhan's prints on them, but there were also traces of the same strong potion as the one used on the diary, which does suggest that someone was covering their tracks after being in her home, and then Siobhan used the handle and switch herself, afterwards, and left her own fresh prints behind.'\n\n'What? That's\u2026 that's not what I expected to hear. But\u2026 I mean, if it was Winston who broke in like she's saying, then surely he'd wear gloves, right? So why would he need to wipe anything clean? And wouldn't there be a trace of his aura at the flat? I'll bet there's not though, is there?'\n\nFinn looked into his empty cup. 'You're right that there's no trace of his aura, but that won't matter in court. Sometimes people don't leave much of a trace if they're not transforming, or somehow using their supernatural abilities. Our tech is strong, but not perfect, and I doubt it'll make a difference to the case against Winston. As for why he might have wiped the prints, well\u2026 maybe he called around to\u2026 I dunno\u2026 to ask Siobhan why she hadn't given Janine the toy yet. Winston got frustrated with Siobhan's answer, so he waited around until she went out somewhere, then broke in to steal the toy back, but he hatched his plan to kill Giles and set Siobhan up once he was there.'\n\n'That's an awful lot of conjecture, Finn,' I said.\n\nHe sighed. 'Well, maybe, but there's more. Worse than any of that. In our search of the skip behind Tinsleys', one of my team found a card belonging to Winston. An out of date membership for the Toymakers' Guild. It seems like he might have dropped it when he was pulling out that enormous Christmas star.'\n\n'Oh.' I squirmed in my seat. 'That's\u2026 that's bad, admittedly. But maybe Siobhan stole it when she was up in the attic.'\n\n'Who's the one conjecturing now? I'm open to any and all possibilities, Katy, but I just don't think your theory's going to convince a jury, do you? The way things stand, there's no way that Siobhan is ever going to be seen as a suspect. The Wyrd Court is very unlikely to prosecute someone on so little evidence. Not when there's so much more proof against Winston.'\n\nIt sure was looking that way, but I was reluctant \u2013 nay, I was refusing \u2013 to ignore my instincts. 'What about what Lucy said, though? That's an inconsistency in Siobhan's story, right? When they met in the Bank, Siobhan told Lucy she was buying wine to go and surprise Giles, and then Lucy said she had a face like thunder the next morning at work. She caught them, I know she did. Siobhan caught Giles and Janine together, and that's when she hatched a plan to murder him and pin it on Winston.'\n\n'But why?' Finn asked. 'Why would she want to pin it on Winston? That makes no sense.'\n\nI shrugged. 'I don't know. Spite. She seems really spiteful. Heck, Winston could have given her a dirty look once, or he could just be the best available scapegoat. I don't really know why. I just know she did it.'\n\n'Sure. Look, Katy, Lucy was only guessing as to why Siobhan had a face like thunder the morning after she said she was going to surprise Giles at his office. Siobhan said she did go there that night. She says Janine wasn't there. Only Giles. She says she and Giles talked about their relationship, and she pushed him to leave Theresa. So it's not an inconsistency, is it? Not when Siobhan has a perfectly rational explanation for it all.'\n\nMy hands gripped the arms of the chair. My whole body felt uncomfortable \u2013 it was a tingling, angry mess. 'She's the killer, Finn. I know it. She\u2026 she sets my hunter senses on fire, and those are never wrong.'\n\nHe gave me an uneasy frown. 'Well\u2026 your dad's certainly were on more than one occasion.'\n\n'Ouch. You're comparing me to my dad? That's not fair, Finn, and you know it. My father is a murderer, and the people he killed weren't even witches, let alone wayward ones. Every sense he ever had was all skewed up. I'm nothing like him.'\n\nHe gave me a small, apologetic smile. 'Oh crap, Katy, I know you're not. I don't know why I said that. But I'm sorry, okay? This is a bad day, and a horrible case, and I had not enough caffeine and then far too much. You've been an exemplary hunter so far, and I do trust your senses. I trusted them enough to convince a judge to let us search Siobhan's flat. I trusted them enough to let you and Hamish sit in on interviews, and to let you disguise yourself as Wanda Wayfair tonight. But Winston promised you something you really wanted, didn't he? He said he'd tell you about where he got that music box if we searched Siobhan's flat. Maybe you want to believe him because of that. Maybe you're afraid that, now Siobhan's in the clear, he won't come through with his promise.'\n\n'Nope.' I stood up, feeling like I'd had just about as much as I could take of Finn for today. 'Winston's going to be sore about this, no doubt. But he's going to come through with his promise. I'm just as sure of that as I am that Siobhan is a murderer. So can I go and see him, please?'\n\n[ Tell Her She Needs to Remember ]\n\nAs I entered the interview room, Finn's words were echoing in my mind. Was I like my dad? There was no evidence of that so far \u2013 I'd helped the Wayfarers to arrest a lot of people, and all of them were guilty. But my instant hatred for Siobhan, my certainty that she was a murderer\u2026 that was fairly new. I'd had an instinct about people before, but this time it was exceptionally strong.\n\nI'd seen her as she left the Wayfarer Station, and taken a look at her through my Aurameter. It was an interesting experience. Through my lens, I saw Siobhan standing atop a pyre, tied to a stake and screaming as her body was engulfed by the flames. The Intuition Interface was glitchy at best. Sometimes it showed me a red herring in place of the person's face, sometimes it showed me nothing at all, but it had never shown me anything like this.\n\nI pulled it out now, as I took a seat across from Winston and said, 'Do you mind if I take a look at you, Winston, before we chat?'\n\nHe shrugged. 'Go for it. But I'm not a witch, Katy. I'm a werewolf. I don't see how an Aurameter will help you.'\n\n'It's not a standard model,' I admitted, raising it to my eye and sighing. I could see his true werewolf form, but nothing more than that. No red herring image to cement my belief in his innocence.\n\n'What are you checking for, then?'\n\n'I\u2026 just\u2026 anything, really,' I told him. 'Because I'm sorry, Winston, but things aren't looking good. I\u2026 the Wayfarers searched Siobhan's flat. It's been decided that she's not a suspect.'\n\n'Oh.' He appeared to be genuinely shocked. 'I thought for sure you'd find something against her.'\n\n'Like what, Winston? What did you think we'd find? Why were you so certain it was her?' My heart was in my mouth as I questioned him. If he said anything about a diary, then that was proof of his guilt \u2013 proof that Siobhan was right, and he'd been setting her up.\n\n'I really don't know.' He held his arms out in a gesture of helplessness. 'It was\u2026 maybe it was just one last, desperate hope, I suppose. Oh, I know there are lots more people with a reason to be angry with Giles. Janine and Theresa, and probably a hundred more women he's annoyed, I'll bet. But out of everyone he's undoubtedly piddled off over the years, Siobhan's the only one I can imagine being calculated enough to kill him.'\n\nHe looked up at the ceiling. 'Although now that I've had time to think about it, there's nothing but my own mistrust of her to make me feel that way.'\n\nA tear slid down his cheek, and he shook himself and wiped it away. 'I wish I had an alibi. I wish I hadn't been sneaking around in shame for the last couple of weeks. I wish I hadn't nicked that snow globe. The whole case against me is going to hinge on the fact that I stole back something that I'd given as a gift to Giles.'\n\n'Well, I think it might hinge on more than that, actually.' I told him about his guild card being found in the skip, carefully studying his reaction as I spoke.\n\n'That\u2026 that sounds about right.' His expression was resigned. 'When I checked my stuff, I knew something was missing, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. My main concern was that my photo of my daughter was still there, and it was. It wouldn't have occurred to me that someone would take an expired guild card. The skip where it was found \u2013 that's the same big container where the Christmas star was thrown away, right? I saw Giles telling some of his little elves to chuck it in there yesterday.'\n\n'Right. And now it looks like you pulled the star out of there and placed it directly under Giles's window last night, pointiest end facing up, and dropped your card while you were at it.'\n\n'Yeah. Yeah, things are looking even worse for me than I thought. Pity no one on Desperation Row uses CCTV. If they did, I'd be able to prove it wasn't me.' He gave me an appraising stare. 'You know, you didn't have to tell me this, though. It would have been far more sensible to make sure I came through on my part of the bargain before you told me Siobhan is in the clear.'\n\n'I guess it would. I did think about playing things differently, but\u2026'\n\n'But you didn't. Because people are right about you, Katy Kramer.' He sat forward. 'You've come through for people in this enclave time and time again. There's rumours that you cleared Diane Carey's name when everyone thought she was a killer, that it's thanks to you that Denton Montrose and Darrell Plimpton are in Witchfield. There are so many rumours about you and Hamish and everything you do. But\u2026 this time, I don't think you're going to be so lucky.'\n\n'What do you mean?' I asked.\n\nAnother tear was falling, but Winston didn't bother to wipe this one away. 'Janine chose Giles over me even though I've been a good husband. And people I went to, looking for work, they believed I was a thief, all because Giles said so. So I became one. And now, because of that, there's a very strong case against me, and even though I have this feeling in my bones that Siobhan is responsible, I know that it's never going to stand up in court. I'm just\u2026 I'm not the one people choose, when they choose who to trust. Who to believe. Who to love.' He shrugged. 'I'm just not. So I really won't hold it against you, Katy. The evidence against me is strong. And that's\u2026 well, that's crap, but it is what it is. I'm too tired to beg any more, to plead my innocence. I'm just\u2026 done.'\n\nHe took in a breath. 'Now. You and I had a bargain, and I'm going to keep to it. That music box. The little silver plum that I think looks more like a damson. I stole it from a house on Hunting Hill. From the abandoned mansion south of the Lodge.'\n\nI blinked, staring at him. 'Abandoned mansion? Winston, there's no abandoned mansion on Hunting Hill, and definitely not south of the Lodge. I've been up that way before.'\n\nHe blinked back at me, looking perplexed. 'Yes there is. Look, I've had a horrible couple of weeks, capped off by the worst day in my life, and I'm tired. But I'm not delirious. There is a huge old house there. It says \"Montrose\" on a big fancy sign on one of the entrance pillars. Well\u2026 the sign was fancy, once. Before it got all mouldy and covered in dead flies and stuff.'\n\nI carried on blinking, and so did he. After a moment, I said, 'Wait, are you sure you don't mean the gatehouse at the Lodge? Denton Montrose used to live there, before he got arrested.'\n\nHe shook his head emphatically. 'Come on now, Katy. You think I'd say mansion when I mean gatehouse? There is a great big mansion there, I'm telling you. Just go and see for yourself. But until then, do you want me to tell you about the plum or not?'\n\nI stared at him. He really did seem to be telling the truth. 'Yes. Please.'\n\n'All right. So, I went in to see if there was anything worth taking. But the second I walked in, I wished I hadn't. That house, it's just so mental inside. Like\u2026 like it was abandoned in the middle of a Winter Solstice party or something. Lots of seasonal decorations, but they're all dusty.'\n\n'Seasonal?' I felt a little leap in my chest. 'Decorations? Could they be Christmas decorations, maybe, instead of Winter Solstice?'\n\nHe laughed. 'In a Montrose mansion? I don't think so, do you? Christmas is for humans and weredogs as far as rich covens like the Montroses are concerned. Nope. Definitely Solstice. And there were lots of plates and glasses laid out in this big ginormous hall with a dancefloor in the middle. There was a lot I could have nicked. But\u2026 well, I got scared away before I could grab more than that damson. I found it in the kitchen, on a little table. No sooner had I picked it up than some ghost started singing Silent Night.' He shivered. 'I hate that song so much.'\n\nI shivered, too. What was so important about Silent Night? Why would those music boxes play it, when they were clearly designed around the Nutcracker? The song didn't fit in, which made it seem all the more important. 'Why do you hate that song, Winston? I didn't think werewolves had a problem with music from the human world. And it's such a pretty carol, too.'\n\nHe tensed up. 'I suppose it is, when I think about it. It was on the radio every year when I was growing up, because we moved to the human world for a while, oh\u2026 just over a year after my big sister went missing. Mam would get weirdly upset whenever it came on the radio and switch it straight off. And I grew to hate it, too. Maybe she hated it just because it is a Christmas song and that's when my little sister went missing. On Christmas Eve. Her name\u2026 her name was Megan. I never stopped missing her, even though I was really young when she disappeared. It'll be thirty-three years this Christmas, as a matter of fact.'\n\n'So you called your little girl after your missing big sister? Oh, Winston, I'm so sorry.'\n\n'No need. It's not like it was your fault. But yeah, when the ghost turned up, I freaked out and ran off. That's probably how the leg broke off, I reckon \u2013 I was so upset that I dropped it about half a dozen times as I was running out of the house.'\n\n'And did you happen to have a conversation with an older man on the way home, by any chance?'\n\nHe laughed sheepishly. 'Yeah, I did, now that you mention it. Yet more proof that I'm hardly the most talented of thieves. Having a conversation about ghosts while you're holding a stolen object isn't exactly the wisest of ideas. But that's what ghosts'll do to you. I know witches don't mind them \u2013 they even party with them on Halloween, don't they? But all that stuff isn't for me.'\n\n'Why are you so sure, though? That it was a ghost? Could it have been a squatter who was singing?'\n\n'I really don't think so. For one thing, the house felt off from the second I went in. Like\u2026 like I was wading through mud. Once I was inside, I felt like something was trying to push me out.' He shivered. 'I also felt like\u2026 like if I could push through it, if I could stay, I'd find out something really, really important. Then when I got to the kitchen and I picked up that music box, the woman's voice seemed like it was coming closer and closer, until her voice was right up against my ear. That's when she stopped singing, and said, \"You have to take what you stole to Jude Kramer. Tell her to turn the star. Tell her she needs to remember\".'\n\n'Whoa.' Once again I was blinking, and feeling utterly shocked. 'That's what she said? She actually mentioned someone called Jude Kramer?'\n\n'Yeah, yeah I'm sure of it,' said Winston. 'You don't forget the most terrifying interaction you've ever had, do you? But I don't know anyone called Jude Kramer, so I have no idea how she expected me to do what she asked. Hey\u2026 your second name is Kramer, isn't it? How come that didn't occur to me until just now?'\n\nProbably, I thought, because the Wayfarers had put a befuddlement spell upon my surname, so that even when people heard it, they wouldn't associate me with my father, the infamous witch hunter. 'Don't know. Weird. But I know Jude, and I'll get that message to her. And Winston, I\u2026 I shouldn't say this, but\u2026 but I'll keep looking into this, all right? Into Giles's murder. If there's a way to clear your name, I'll find it.'\n\nHe gazed at me. 'Katy, there's no way to clear my name. I\u2026 I've accepted that this is just one more thing in the long line of bad luck that I've had ever since Giles took a shine to Janine. And even if there was a way, I can't pay you for your time. So please, just let it rest. I've given up on ever getting myself out of here, and you should too.'\n\n'Yeah, giving up isn't really my thing, Winston,' I told him, standing up. 'I want the right person to go down for this. And no matter how much evidence there is against you, I really don't think that's you.'\n\n[ Hammers' House of Holidays ]\n\nAll I wanted to do from the second I left the interview room was head to Hunting Hill and find that mysterious mansion. But Finn had some objections, and they were mostly based on the fact that no one except for Winston had ever seen the house.\n\nHis solution was to let Winston stew in his cell overnight, to see if he still insisted the house was real in the morning. If he did, Finn promised me he would take a full team out there, including Winston, so he could point the place out.\n\nFinn was probably right to wait, but it didn't stop me from wanting to throttle him. And when he did go out in search of the house tomorrow, he wasn't going to be the only one bringing a team.\n\nIn the meantime, I had other things to concern me, like the fact that I was absolutely hell-bent on proving Siobhan's guilt. So, after a late dinner (lemon sole, baby potatoes and asparagus, for those who'd like to know) I headed out with Cullen.\n\nWe took his flying motorcycle, partly so that I could have a bird's-eye view of the enclave, but mostly because I liked to find any excuse to go for a ride on that bike.\n\nAs we flew towards Desperation Row, Cullen said, 'I'm surprised you didn't ignore Finn and just head to the house.'\n\n'I'm surprised too,' I admitted. 'It could be two for one, as far as mystery-solving goes, couldn't it? We could find out about you and Jude and your reaction to the musical plum, we could even find a pillar for Hamish if it's the house Foirfe told me about. But Ned has her usual work to do tonight, so Hamish, Jude and Eva are going to use the time to prepare for \u2013 well, for whatever we might find tomorrow.'\n\nVery few people knew about the important role that Ned played in this enclave. It was her job to row on the canal each night, performing a ritual to keep Samhain Street safe from some ancient, evil demons. We helped her out as much as we could; we'd trained hard and devised shifts so that she could take the occasional night off. But none of us could do quite the job that she could. Tonight, Jay had gone out with her, and I'd done my best not to make suggestive comments as they left.\n\n'Plus,' I added, 'There isn't actually a house where Winston says there is, so\u2026 that kind of puts a spanner in the works. He didn't seem like he was lying. He probably just got the area wrong. I mean, he has to be the most stressed man in the enclave right now, doesn't he? Still, first thing tomorrow morning, we'll see if he's right or not.'\n\nCullen slowed the bike to a stop, leaving it hovering in the air just above Desperation Row, and twisted in his seat to face me. 'Katy, you were eating so fast that I couldn't understand a lot of what you said over dinner. So now, I'm wondering: what are you talking about? Of course Winston is right. I've seen the abandoned mansion he's talking about, and it's exactly where he says it is.'\n\n'Huh?' I tapped my knuckles lightly against my boyfriend's forehead. 'Is everything okay in that skull of yours, Cullen? There's no house there. I mean, I think I would have noticed it, seeing as we spent all that time at the Lodge with that whole Denton Montrose and Debbie McGinty thing. And why would it be abandoned, anyway? Property in that area sells so quickly at the moment \u2013 it's almost as if there are more evil villains with money to spare than ever. Even that horrible Lodge sold for a fortune recently, when the Criminal Assets Bureau auctioned it off.'\n\nThe world seemed a little unbalanced at that moment (and not just because I was on a flying bike with nothing to hold me there but magic). While I felt sure that Cullen was the one with a screw loose, he was looking at me as though I was missing an entire box of screws.\n\nAfter enduring our staring contest for a few seconds more, he shook his head and said, 'You know what? You're probably right. Maybe I'm thinking of somewhere else. For now, we ought to be focusing on this case, and the fact that you really really want Siobhan to be the killer, when all of the evidence points to Winston.'\n\n'I stand by my unsubstantiated accusations,' I said.\n\n'And I applaud your stubbornness. I also think that there are way more suspects to consider. I know that the wife apparently has an alibi for the time of the murder, but if I were Finn I'd be seriously scrutinizing that alibi. I told him as much, too. I also told him we ought to investigate Jennifer.'\n\n'Jennifer? Who the fluff is Jennifer?'\n\n'Jennifer Hammer. The owner of Hammers' House of Holidays, which just so happens to be a couple of buildings away from Giles's workshop. Oh, and she also happens to be Giles's sister. Giles grew up in the Hammer coven.'\n\nI shivered. 'Yeah, I saw that shop. It's an unfortunate name, isn't it?'\n\n'Is it? Why?'\n\n'Well, you know that there's a whole series of creepy TV programmes in the human world called Hammer House of Horror, right?'\n\n'I did not know that, and the Hammer coven would be mortified to know about it. They've been toymakers for centuries. Horror is not their thing.'\n\n'Really? The stuff in the shop looked crappy enough to feature in many a holiday nightmare. So why is Jennifer a suspect, then?'\n\n'Well, Jennifer isn't a chatty woman. She doesn't often confide in anyone \u2013 except, that is, for her friendly neighbourhood barman.' He shot me a cocky grin. 'Which is how I know that she hates her brother, and even though she never told me exactly why her products have gone downhill in recent years, she did say, after a few too many drinks, that her brother is to blame. So\u2026 I asked Finn if you and I could go check out the attic to see if there was anything else interesting up there. Like a way for Jennifer to sneak through from her shop to Giles's office, leaving nary a trace of magic behind.'\n\nHe settled the bike down into the yard behind Tinsleys', and the officer on the back door gave Cullen a smirk and said, 'Captain Plimpton said you'd be coming.'\n\nCullen responded with a grunt, and we went inside.\n\n'What was that smirk about?' I asked as we headed up the steps to the workshop.\n\n'Oh, y'know \u2013 Finn thinks I just love being a Wayfarer, that I can't keep away. No doubt he's got some bets on back at the station as to when I'll make a full return.'\n\nThe building was eerie this late at night, with all of the half-finished toys on workbenches. As we walked over a creaky floorboard, some of the snow globes on a nearby shelf began to play holiday tunes. 'Well, you can't keep away, he's not wrong about that,' I said, skedaddling past the snow globes and rushing in to Giles's office.\n\n'It's got nothing to do with being a Wayfarer, Katy.' As he caught up with me, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close. 'And it's got everything to do with spending time with you.'\n\nAfter enjoying a quick kiss (all right, I admit it, it was an incredibly long one), I pulled away and returned to business, pointing up at the attic's entrance.\n\n'It'd be pretty easy to get out of the attic, seeing as Giles has an enormous couch placed right beneath it,' I mused, as I stood on the back of Giles's couch and eased open the attic door. 'The couch would make a nice soft landing, wouldn't it? But you'd have to be agile and strong to hoist yourself back up once you'd done whatever it was you came here for.'\n\nWhile I spoke, I realised that I was neither strong nor agile. With Cullen's help, and some red-faced puffing, I managed to finally pull myself up and into the attic. I moved back while he nimbly hoisted himself up behind me.\n\n'It'd definitely be easy for a guy,' he agreed. 'Or \u2013 and you can bet that the prosecution will point this out \u2013 a werewolf who happened to be squatting in another attic joined to this one.'\n\n'Yeah.' My voice sounded ever so depressed as I took a look around. 'Well, I'll just have to do my best to find something that suggests otherwise.'\n\nThere wasn't much up here, and there were walls built between this and the attics on either side, but at each side as the attic sloped down, there were gaps, just as the Wayfarers had discovered. I wouldn't have been able to make it through myself, but Winston didn't have my chest and rear end to contend with. He could have easily shimmied through.\n\n'It's just like I thought,' said Cullen as he peered through to the gap. 'You can get into any attic on Desperation Row, as long as you're skinny enough. Which Jennifer definitely is.'\n\n'All righty then,' I said with some reluctance. 'But you know I'm just humouring you, right? It couldn't have been Giles's sister. Because it was Siobhan.'\n\nCullen chuckled. 'And as I said before, I applaud you for your stubbornness. Come on, let's make our way through.'\n\n'Yay.' My eyes lit up. 'I'll get to use my glamour cloak again.' I pulled it from my bag, wondering if I would ever get sick of the items Aunt Jude had gifted me in the Toolkit. I unscrewed the toggle, switching Wanda Wayfair's hair for Valerian's. Then, donning the cloak, I whispered:\n\n\u2003'I wish for mine own self to hide\n\n\u2003Within this cloak, the means may lie.'\n\nAfter a few uncomfortable moments, I was once again transformed into Valerian, and with her thinner body, I knew I'd be able to make it through the gap.\n\nAs I squeezed through I looked back at Cullen. 'I think you might have a bit of trouble, what with that great big manly chest of yours. I only just got through as Valerian. Do you want my cloak?'\n\n'Oh, I don't need that.' He wiggled his finger, pointed at the space that led from this attic into the next and said, 'Leathnaigh.' Instantly, the small gap expanded, and he followed me through.\n\n'Was that a widening spell?' I shook my head in disbelief. 'Why didn't you tell me you could do one of those?'\n\n'Well, you looked so adorably determined to use your glamour cloak, and I didn't want to ruin your fun. I know a lot of spells that can get me in and out of places that I ought not be. Oh, and I can also scramble my magical signature while I do it. Being a former criminal has its uses.'\n\n'I'll remember that for next time I want to break in somewhere,' I said as we made our way through the attic above Aim Low, and then squeezed through to the next attic, the one above Hammers' House of Holidays.\n\n'I hear voices,' Cullen whispered, pointing to the door in the floor. 'Women's voices.' He wiggled his finger and, in a whisper, he said:\n\n\u2003'See true and see clear\n\n\u2003This floor shall not stop us\n\n\u2003See now and see here\n\n\u2003While no one shall spot us.'\n\nThe floor below us became see-through, and we found ourselves looking into a large office. There were two women in that room, and they didn't seem to notice us.\n\nOne of them was surely Theresa Tinsley, Giles's wife. Looking at her, I could see how true it was that he'd picked women who looked just like Theresa to work with him. She was incredibly pretty, and more than a little bit elvish-looking.\n\n'Well, we did it, Jennifer,' Theresa said to the other woman. 'We got rid of him for good.'\n\nJennifer, a thin woman with long blonde hair, looked uneasily at her companion. 'Yeah. He's gone. And now I have everything I wanted. I just wish I didn't feel so guilty about the fact that Winston is taking the blame.'\n\n[ An Inventor of Lies ]\n\n'Fluff it anyway!' I glared at Cullen. 'I don't like to admit that I'm wrong and you're right but\u2026 maybe Jennifer is a suspect.'\n\n'Seems that way,' he agreed. 'Maybe Theresa is, too. But believe me, Katy \u2013 in this instance, I am not happy to be right. Let's head down there and see what they have to say for themselves. On one, two\u2026'\n\nOn the count of three, Cullen and I ripped open the door separating the attic from the office below. Pointing my wand, I cried, 'Con\u00e1il,' before I jumped down into the room. I didn't make the most graceful of landings, it must be said. But I didn't break anything, so I was going to consider it a success.\n\n'Valerian?' Jennifer frowned. My freezing spell wasn't extremely strong. They couldn't scarper, but they could talk. I wouldn't be able to hold them for long with that spell, so I reached into my bag and placed my hand on my ropes. If they made a move, I'd be ready. 'And\u2026 the guy who runs the Bank?'\n\n'Oh.' I pulled off the glamour cloak that they couldn't see, unscrewing the toggle and saying:\n\n\u2003'Hide no more so all shall see\n\n\u2003My true face, the real me.'\n\n'Katy Kramer?' Jennifer's frown increased. 'The private investigator? Why were you disguised as Valerian?'\n\n'I've been hired by Winston Wolfe to clear his name,' I informed her. It wasn't the worst untruth I'd ever told. Winston might have hired me, if he'd had the money. Anything was better than admitting I was an undercover Wayfarer. 'And after hearing this little conversation\u2026 well, you can see how it might make me suspicious, right?'\n\nHer eyes widened. 'Oh. You think\u2026 you think I killed my brother. Well, I mean, don't get me wrong, I did think about it. Many times. After all, Giles ruined my life. Me and Theresa have even had a couple of drunken conversations where we planned how we would get rid of him for good. But we never would have done anything to put those plans into motion. It was just crazy, drunken ramblings. Right, Theresa?'\n\nTheresa nodded. 'Right. Although\u2026 there are one or two things I should probably tell you.'\n\nWe stared at Giles's widow. My freezing spell had well and truly worn off, but neither she nor Jennifer had tried to leave the office. Theresa ambled towards a couch and took a seat, and Jennifer joined her.\n\n'If you were spying on us from the attic,' Theresa said, crossing her legs and looking at us, 'then I can see why you'd think we had something to do with my husband's death. Like Jennifer says, we wanted him gone, we even fantasised about it. And now, although neither of us actually killed him, well\u2026 he's definitely gone.'\n\nHer voice was beginning to crack, and Jennifer asked in a tentative voice, 'Could you give her some water, please? There's a bottle and some glasses on the sideboard.'\n\nI fetched some water for Theresa, and after taking a few sips, she began to speak again.\n\n'Jennifer and I didn't talk much over the years,' she told us. 'Giles always told me that his sister was crazy. That she'd tried to steal his inventions, and his idea for a Christmas shop. For years, I believed his version of events. But recently\u2026 recently I discovered something that changed my mind.'\n\nHer hands were shaking as she took another drink. 'There are certain toys \u2013 our bestsellers \u2013 that we don't make at the main workshop. Giles creates them at home, in his private room. Our flying trains and sleighs and reindeer\u2026 he always said he didn't trust anyone else with those designs. So he often works late at night at home, making them in secret. I\u2026 I'd been feeling as though things were different with us for a while. I wanted to spend more time with him, to make things better. I thought\u2026 I thought that if I could help him with his work, it would bring us closer again. I'm a trained toymaker, too. So one night, I brought some hot milk to his private workshop, ready to make the suggestion.'\n\nShe looked at Jennifer with what could only be described as a look of pure apology. 'That's when I found out that Jennifer wasn't crazy, like Giles had always said. That night, I discovered that everything I thought I knew was a lie. Because when I walked in, Giles dropped a notebook in fright. I went to pick it up, and he tried to snatch it back from me so forcefully that he bruised my arm.'\n\nShe sat up straight. 'Well, I definitely wasn't going to let go after that, was I? And I soon discovered why he was so keen to get it back. Because that notebook wasn't Giles's. It was Jennifer's. Her name was scrawled on the inside cover. There were little hearts and flowers with Jennifer Loves Bramley written there, too. And every single design, everything Giles said that he'd invented, all of the spells to imbue the toys with magic, the special kinds of wood necessary, clear instructions on how to put it all together. It was all there, and it was all Jennifer's. She'd even scrawled out her plans to create a new business for the Hammer Coven, called Hammers' Toys and Winter Wonderland.'\n\nJennifer took in a deep breath, and then said, 'What Theresa found was one of the many notebooks I filled up when I was just a teenager. She finally knew that I'd been telling the truth all along. Giles's inventions were really mine.'\n\n'Did you get the idea in the human world?' I asked. 'For the Winter Wonderland?'\n\nJennifer looked confused, so I said, 'Well I mean, there are lots of Christmas shops open all year round over there.'\n\n'Really?' She smiled. 'Wow, that sounds amazing. But no, the inspiration came to me because of my teenage boyfriend, Bramley. He's a weredog, and he loves Christmas. I think I might have invented everything I ever invented just to make him happy.' She fell silent, and the room seemed to fill with a strange weight.\n\n'Times have changed now,' said Theresa, taking up the story. 'But when Giles and Jennifer were teenagers, it was illegal for a weredog to date a witch. And you can't just make a rule like that without having something in place to make people follow it. Bramley and Jennifer are married now, and they're very happy together. But\u2026 back then, if their relationship had been discovered, Bramley could have been put into jail or a workhouse, depending on how lenient the judge was. Jennifer wouldn't have been punished, being a witch, but Giles knew that she would do anything to protect Bramley. He\u2026'\n\nShe stopped for a moment, gritting her teeth, her nostrils flaring with anger. 'It seems my husband knew about his little sister's relationship for a while. He'd gathered evidence. Made sure he had plenty of proof to blackmail her with. He told Jennifer that if she didn't give him the credit for all of her inventions and ideas, he'd inform the authorities about her relationship with Bramley.'\n\nJennifer brushed away a tear. 'There was nothing I could do except give it all to him. He\u2026 he was good at following instructions, my brother. He could make something if you told him how, but he didn't have ideas of his own. But now, he had my ideas, and he used them to worm his way into the Tinsley coven, and to impress Theresa. I hated him for it. I mean, I would have gone into business with him. A partnership. I offered that, but he didn't want to share. He wanted everything.'\n\nShe blew her nose before continuing. 'When the rules changed, and my relationship with Bramley was finally legal, we married, and I no longer had anything to fear. So I told people what Giles had done. I told our parents, my coven. I told Theresa. But\u2026 no one believed me. Giles had charmed them all.'\n\n'Me, especially.' Theresa grasped Jennifer's hand. 'My husband\u2026 he could make me believe that the sky was green and the grass was blue if he'd wanted to. He might not have been good at inventing toys, but he was a very talented inventor of lies. And I was so absolutely and utterly in love with him that I swallowed every lie he told. Until the night I saw Jennifer's notebook, and saw exactly how worried Giles was when I opened it up. Oh, he made excuses, and because it was Giles, his version of events was incredibly convincing. But even so, a couple of days later, I went to talk with Jennifer.'\n\n'Theresa still sort of believed Giles, I think,' said Jennifer. 'Or\u2026 she wanted to, anyway. But I made some stuff in front of her, stuff that I'd invented and Giles had taken the credit for, and when she saw how skilled I was, and I showed her some of my newer inventions, it was obvious that I'd never been the liar.'\n\nCullen poured himself some water and sat on the sideboard. 'So why don't you make your own toys now, if your inventions are so awesome? Everything you sell in your shop is\u2026 well\u2026'\n\n'Kind of crappy?' Jennifer let out a snort of laughter. 'Yeah. Yeah, it is. I opened it because I thought I had nothing to fear from Giles anymore. But\u2026 he came to see me and threatened me once again. He told me that he had everyone that mattered eating out of his hands. That he had friends in high places. That he'd sue me for ripping off what he called his designs. He actually said that last part with a straight face.'\n\nTears began to spill down her cheeks, falling into her lap. 'It sounds ridiculous. Here I am, a grown woman, with nothing to hide anymore. But Giles, he bullied me the whole time we were kids. And he always got away with it. People always believed him over me. You think you can get over being bullied like that, but I think maybe it always stays with you. Because when he threatened me again I completely caved. And I think I knew his threats weren't empty, either. Not when we were kids, and not now. I've heard so many stories about him, about how he treats people. I could totally see him going to any lengths to shut my business down. So I scaled back my plans and just sold junk. As soon as I made enough money to pay off the loans I'd taken out, I probably would have closed up shop again and run away with my tail between my legs.'\n\nTheresa shuffled close to Jennifer and squeezed her hand. 'Jennifer is right when she says that I didn't want to believe her when I first came to talk. I really didn't. But I couldn't deny that the things she said made sense of many things that hadn't made sense before. Especially when, after we had shared two bottles of red wine together, she told me about Giles's affairs. All of the things I'd been denying, ignoring\u2026 I couldn't overlook them anymore. It was obvious for so long, and now I was finally ready to admit that my husband was a dirty lying cheat. We had yet another bottle, and we started to make plans. I decided that I was going to go to the coven, and have Giles kicked out. I was going to make sure Jennifer received full credit for her inventions, and I was going to be her financial backer in her own chain of stores. We\u2026 well, we might have even talked about how we would love to shove him down a flight of stairs.'\n\nTheresa cleared her throat. 'The thing is, once you learn that the person you love has been lying to you, that your whole relationship has been a sham, the feeling is\u2026 unimaginable. I wasn't just heartbroken. I was so, so angry. But after a few nights of talking things over with Jennifer, my anger cooled, and we just\u2026 made our plans for a better life, without Giles. But a couple of nights ago, maybe\u2026 two nights before Giles was killed, I left Jennifer's place after one of those nights of planning, and I ran into yet another woman who had some truths to tell of her own. A woman called Siobhan.'\n\nShe laughed bitterly. 'I don't think Siobhan even remembers our little interaction. She was sozzled, so she was. She told me all about how my husband was having an affair with her, and that she'd believed they were going to get married. She said she'd gone to surprise him that night, but she'd found him with Janine instead. I already knew about Janine and Siobhan, thanks to Jennifer, but I let Siobhan prattle on. She told me how she now suspected that Giles had fired Winston Wolfe just to clear the way for him and Janine \u2013 Giles told me he fired Winston for thieving, but that was just another of his lies. Anyway, Siobhan was so drunk that she even let me take her home to her flat and tuck her into bed. And that's when things took a very silly turn.'\n\nTheresa squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before carrying on. 'She told me\u2026 she told me she was planning on killing Giles and setting up Winston Wolfe. She went into graphic detail about how she was going to do it all. She was so drunk that I doubt she remembers telling me. But there was something about her. A coldness in her eyes. When she told me about her plan, I thought: she means it. She really was going to kill Giles and set up poor Winston Wolfe. And in that moment, I\u2026 I decided to let her do it.'\n\nCullen frowned. 'Did I just hear you right? Siobhan told you she was going to kill Giles, and set Winston up, and instead of calling the Wayfarers, you decided to let her go ahead with it?'\n\nHer face flushed, and she gave Jennifer a sidelong glance. 'I know that when you and I made our drunken plans to shove him down a flight of stairs, that we didn't really mean it. But that night, my rage reared its ugly head once again. This woman, this Siobhan. She'd been to my house. I'd welcomed her in, like a fool. And she\u2026 she laughed at me. She got right up in my face and laughed at me, and told me that Giles thought I was getting uglier with age.'\n\n'You have to know that's not true.' Jennifer shook her head, looking flabbergasted. 'You're stunning, Theresa.'\n\n'I\u2026' Theresa swallowed. '\u2026 I didn't feel it. Not then. I stared back at this woman, and I saw how much she looked like me, but a younger version. It all began to feel so sordid. So strange. I thought I couldn't hate Giles any more. But I did. And I hated Siobhan, too. She was so nasty, so cruel. And I\u2026 well, I was pretty darn drunk myself. So I thought: why not? Why not let her do it? Giles deserves it.'\n\nI glared at her. 'But Winston doesn't.'\n\n'Well, no. He doesn't.' She met my eyes. 'That's why, in the heat of the moment, I decided to make sure that, if Siobhan did go ahead with it, she wouldn't get away with it. I did\u2026 I did some things, that night and the next day, to make sure she would get the blame.'\n\nI shook my head in amazement. 'You made those calls to my office, didn't you? You set up an appointment for Siobhan. You wrote it into her diary. To make it look like she had suspicions about Giles, and to cast suspicion on her.'\n\n'Yes, yes, I did all of that, and I cleaned up any trace of being in her flat, too, because I knew she wouldn't remember. Siobhan has an incredibly annoying way of pronouncing schedule, so it wasn't hard to pretend to be her. But then\u2026 then as time passed, I calmed down again, and I realised how silly I was being. I convinced myself that she wouldn't really murder Giles, would she? She'd been so drunk. That's all it was. Just drunken ramblings. She wouldn't go through with any of it. So then I\u2026 I called you again, to cancel the appointment that never was.'\n\nI tilted my head to the side, regarding her. 'But that makes no sense, Theresa. Because Giles was already dead by then.'\n\nShe nodded. 'I know that now, but I didn't know it then. I'd been in meetings all morning with my coven. I'd told them the truth about Giles, and we were making our plans to kick him out of the coven and go into business with Jennifer instead. I made that call as soon as the meeting ended. I did it from a payphone, but as soon as I hung up, I saw that I had dozens of missed calls on my mobile from Jennifer and from other friends, all calling to tell me what had happened to Giles. And the way he died \u2013 my stars, it was almost exactly the way Siobhan told me she'd do it. She hadn't planned on the Christmas star \u2013 she'd told me she was going to cut down some of the wood in the yard, carve it into a spike and push him out the window. But it was close enough to the plan she'd described, and I was positive that she was behind it. I suppose when they threw out the star, it seemed like a more convenient weapon.'\n\nI wiped my eyes. I was too tired for this convoluted mess. 'So, let me get things straight. A couple of nights ago, you were so convinced that Siobhan was going to murder Giles and set Winston up that you decided to plant enough evidence to make sure Siobhan would, in fact, go down for the murder. A murder which you were perfectly happy to let her carry out, because you hated Giles.'\n\n'Well, yes, but\u2026' Her voice had become incredibly quiet. 'But like I said, I was a little bit drunk. And crazy. And even when I was drunk and crazy enough to let her kill Giles, I would never have let Winston take the blame.'\n\n'Hm.' Cullen looked just as exhausted as I did. 'You've not been doing a very good job on that score though, have you? As things stand, the Wayfarers are convinced Siobhan is innocent. Winston's the one going down.'\n\n'I know.' She winced. 'That's what we were talking about, when you surprised us. We're going to go to the Wayfarers. I'm going to explain everything, and make sure Winston's name is cleared. He's suffered enough because of my husband.'\n\n'Okay.' I eyed the two women, trying to decide if their story made sense. I certainly didn't have an overwhelming desire to burn either of them at the stake, so that had to count for something. 'I'm kind of following this whole ridiculous mess. And your coven have said that you were with them at the time of Giles's murder. They didn't tell the Wayfarers what the meeting was about, mind you. But I've got to tell you, we had every intention of double-checking that alibi. And now, this looks incredibly dodgy for you both. Jennifer, what about you? What's your alibi for the time of Giles's death?'\n\nJennifer gave us a guilty glance, and she seemed to be about to say something, when Theresa cut across her. 'Jennifer was in the meeting with me and the Tinsley coven.'\n\n'No.' I shook my head. 'You said you had missed calls from Jennifer, telling you about Giles's death.'\n\nJennifer groaned, then said, 'It's all right, Theresa. I'm just going to tell them.'\n\n'No. No, you were with me,' Theresa insisted. 'Remember? You\u2026 you stepped out for some food, and you\u2026 you heard it on the news and then you\u2026'\n\n'Stop it.' Jennifer laid a hand on Theresa's arm. 'Just stop trying to cover my tracks. Unless we tell them everything, they're not going to believe a word we say.' She took in a deep, deep breath before continuing. 'When I heard the girls scream about Giles falling out the window, I was in my own shop. No one can confirm that, but I was there. But\u2026 a few minutes before that, I was in the attic directly above Giles's office. I was there to take pictures, and to plant cameras, listening devices, you name it. Theresa and I wanted to record Giles in the act with Janine and Siobhan so that he couldn't squeeze too much money out of Theresa in their divorce settlement.'\n\n'But there are no devices there,' I said. 'The Wayfarers would have found them.'\n\n'Well, I didn't plant any in the end, did I? I chickened out and panicked, because I could hear people below, so I was afraid they'd hear me and catch me.' She sat up straighter and crossed her legs. 'That's the thing, you see. It was a woman I heard, down there with Giles. And they were arguing.'\n\nTheresa shook her head. 'Don't tell them, Jennifer, please. You got it wrong. It was Siobhan you heard arguing with him.'\n\n'No. No, I didn't get it wrong. I know you're convinced that Siobhan is guilty, Theresa \u2013 and I agree, she's cold behind the eyes \u2013 but it wasn't Siobhan that Giles was arguing with. It was Janine.'\n\n[ With Stories as Strange as These ]\n\n'How's it looking?' asked Cullen, idly glancing at the screens. We were in Finn's office, and he'd turned on the feed from three different interview rooms, so we could watch as Jennifer, Theresa and Janine gave their separate statements.\n\n'How's it looking?' Finn gave us a bleary-eyed stare. 'How's it looking? More confusing than ever, that's how it's looking. You know, half an hour ago I was in a warm bed, asleep with my girlfriend. Now\u2026 now I feel like the two of you have pulled me into the most random, most annoying nightmare ever had.'\n\n'If it's any consolation,' I said, 'we find it equally annoying. But\u2026 how is it looking?'\n\nHe let out a growl-like noise, before saying, 'Well, while the two of you were off getting yourselves cups of tea, Janine admitted that she argued with Giles shortly before he died. No one saw her entering or leaving the office, but they wouldn't, would they, if they were all heading for their tea break? Oh, and she also admitted that she whacked him with the toy that Winston made. But she swears on Megan's life that she didn't shove him out the window.'\n\n'Huh?' I stared back at the captain. 'That's\u2026 I mean\u2026 how did she get the toy? Siobhan had it, then it apparently disappeared from her bag, right?' I looked at Cullen. 'Right?'\n\n'I think so,' Cullen said with a grunt. 'There are a few too many twists and turns for me to be absolutely certain, but yeah, I think so. Winston gave the toy to Siobhan, Siobhan swore that it disappeared from her bag, and that Winston must have stolen it when he broke into her flat. Only now, we know that Winston didn't break in \u2013 Theresa was the one who was in Siobhan's flat and who covered her tracks with a cleaning potion. But that doesn't explain how Janine wound up with the toy.'\n\n'Ah.' Finn folded his arms on his desk, using them as a pillow. 'I know the reason. Part of it, anyway. See, when Janine and Giles were canoodling a few nights ago, she heard a noise outside the office. She opened the door and she found the toy on the ground outside. She figured Winston must have left it there.'\n\n'I think it's much more likely that Siobhan dropped it,' I said. 'You know, when she was running off in anger, after hearing Giles and Janine.'\n\n'Well, we have no way of confirming that, do we?' Finn retorted. 'Seeing as Giles's business and all of the other businesses on Desperation Row have decided to do without CCTV.'\n\nI lifted my chin. 'No. But I'm sure. And Janine must have thought so too \u2013 because otherwise, what was she arguing with Giles about just before he died?'\n\n'Janine says they were arguing about Winston, actually,' said Finn. 'She says that once she had the toy in her hand for a day or two, she finally made herself look at how lovely it was, and she started to think a bit less selfishly about her husband. She says she finally realised that things were difficult for Winston, and she went to ask Giles if he was the one to blame \u2013 if he was keeping Winston from getting work anywhere else. But despite all of that, she still seems to believe Giles was seeing her, and only her, and she's made no indication that she thinks Siobhan could have dropped the toy that night, or been in any way involved. And for what it's worth, Jennifer has confirmed that. She says she couldn't hear it all when she was up in the attic, but she definitely heard enough to back up Janine's version of events.'\n\nI looked at the screen, and at Janine's face as she signed her statement. Bringing my Aurameter to my eye, I saw nothing to indicate her innocence. I'd seen nothing when I looked at Theresa and Jennifer, either. But I believed them, nonetheless. 'Yeah. Yeah, I believe that. I think Janine is just about deluded enough about Giles to still believe he really loved her.'\n\n'Okay, so who did it then?' asked Cullen. 'You still think it was Siobhan? Because with a bunch of stories as strange as these, I'm starting to think they were all in on it together. Maybe they created such a big mess on purpose, so that none of them could be convicted.'\n\n'Good theory, but no \u2013 Siobhan is the killer,' I insisted. 'Siobhan, and nobody else. The rest of them have been absolute idiots, but they're not killers.'\n\n'You can insist all you want, Katy, but there's still no evidence that you're right, is there?' Finn argued. 'And no, Theresa's strange story does not count as proof against Siobhan. If anything, it makes Theresa look guilty. But then she has an alibi for the time of death, so\u2026 it just confuses things even more. Hang on a minute.' Finn stopped to pick up the suddenly-ringing phone on his desk. He said a few brief words, ending with a groan of, 'No way. That shouldn't have happened, Todge,' before hanging up.\n\nHe very loudly cleared his throat and said, 'So. Winston Wolfe has just confessed to the murder.'\n\nI sat bolt upright, shaking my head. 'No. No. That can't be. Finn, that can't be. I heard you mention Todge's name. What has that jam-munching idiot done now? And why is he allowed to do anything in the first place?'\n\nI'd been relieved that, so far, Todge had absolutely nothing to do with this case. Ever since Todge had proved useless when we were almost killed on the Riddler's Express, Finn had promised me that the most idiotic Wayfarer of all would be receiving full retraining, and would be stuck on desk duty even after that.\n\n'Well\u2026 Todge is on desk duty, just like I promised you. But it's a slow night, so he's also been going to check the holding cells. And while he was checking on Winston, he might have, sort have, maybe told Winston about Janine being in for questioning. Then, as he was walking away, Winston suddenly shouted for him to come back. He told Todge he wants to make a full confession.'\n\nMy throat felt dry, and my stomach began to churn. 'But\u2026 but it won't be a real confession. You know that, don't you? Todge has run his mouth, and now Winston thinks Janine's going to go down for this. He's only confessing to keep her out of jail. He's confessing because even though she betrayed him, she's still the mother of his kid. He's confessing because he bloody well still loves her and would happily take the fall just so she doesn't! Let me talk to him, Finn. Please.'\n\nFinn banged his head against his desk, then did it again, then did it yet again, before replying. 'I hate this case. And I still don't see what any of it has to do with Cullen or with a Pillar of Permanence, so I think\u2026 I think it's probably going to get worse, isn't it?' He let out a long, mournful sigh. 'You can talk to Winston tomorrow, when we meet up on Hunting Hill. And you know what, Katy? I think you're probably right. I haven't wanted to admit it without proof, but Siobhan Cahill\u2026 she is the killer. She's dead behind the eyes. But nevertheless\u2026'\n\nI stood up, glaring at him. 'Don't say it, Finn. Do not say it. Do not say: \"Nevertheless, Winston is going to go down for this.\"'\n\nHe sighed again, and stood up. 'All right. I won't say it. Instead, I'll just say: \"Goodnight Katy, Goodnight Cullen. I'll see you both in the morning.\"'\n\n[ The Most Handsome Man I've Ever Seen ]\n\nI stayed with Cullen in his flat above the Bank that night. Before we'd gone out on the bike, he'd cleaned the teddy bear and the little bib that Shane had found in the basement of the orphanage. The bear was now sitting proudly on a chair in the corner of Cullen's bedroom, wearing the bib. It probably should have surprised me to find that Cullen had done something so sweet, but it didn't. In the months since we'd been dating, I'd discovered that he was capable of the sweetest things.\n\nFor a while I lay awake, watching him while he slept. He tossed and turned, and cried out a few times, but eventually settled down, and I fell asleep next to him, wondering what tomorrow would bring."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 11",
                "text": "I was awakened by the smell of bacon, followed by a woman's voice calling out, 'Breakfast is ready, everyone. Come and get it!'\n\n'Is that Diane?' I asked, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. Diane and her father used to work together at the Bank. Her father, Derek, had owned the bar before he was murdered. But Cullen had been running it alone for a long time, and Diane and her mother had recently sold it to him.\n\nSoon, Diane's sing-song voice was joined by more voices. Still in our pyjamas, Cullen and I stumbled down from his flat and out into the bar. Diane was bringing out plates filled with bacon sandwiches and laying them on the bar in front of Hamish, Ned, Cleo and Jay, as well as Great-Aunt Jude and her daughter, Eva Moon.\n\n'I can hear someone in my kitchen!' Cullen cried. 'Who is it?'\n\nDiane waved a hand dismissively. 'Oh, that's my boyfriend. He's a chef.'\n\nNed looked up from her sandwich. 'I thought you said you were going out with a fireman.'\n\n'No, she started going out with a PE teacher after the fireman,' Cleo reminded Ned. 'Remember? He was doing burpees in the kitchen while Diane made him a smoothie?'\n\n'Oh, yeah.' Ned returned to eating. 'I'm not really fond of burpees.'\n\n'Oh, I dumped the PE teacher ages ago.' Diane grinned and began to pour the coffee. 'He only liked health food. It got boring. Dean is much more easygoing. He makes serious comfort food. Like these bacon sandwiches.'\n\nCullen gave Diane a glare. 'None of that explains why he's in my kitchen at eight in the morning. Or why you're here acting like you still own the place. You do remember how you and your mother sold it to me for well above the going rate, right? Because I remember thinking that you were lucky to get a buyer at all.'\n\nDiane fixed him with what was probably an incredibly winning smile. For some reason, Cullen was one of the few men immune to her charms. She was a witch, but with siren and succubus genes added to the mix. She was both incredibly attractive and attracted to men. She'd undergone a lot of therapy to try and settle down, but if the latest run of boyfriends was anything to go by, it didn't seem like her therapy was working very well.\n\n'I know you own this place now, silly! I just thought I'd help out, so you could all get a nice early start at that creepy old mansion. And while you're gone, I'll run things here \u2013 that way you won't be worrying about this place, and you can concentrate on what matters. I phoned Ned last night and she told me all about it. There could be a Pillar of Permanence there, couldn't there?'\n\n'That's the hope,' said Jude, turning to me. 'Katy, you look exhausted. Are you sure you're up for this?'\n\n'Hey, if you are, so am I,' I replied, grabbing a sandwich. 'Aunt Jude\u2026' I lowered my voice. 'You know the Intuition Interface on the Aurameter? Well, when it was yours, did it ever\u2026 well\u2026 there's a woman I suspect is behind this Giles Tinsley murder, and the image I see of her through the lens is kind of disturbing.'\n\nJude let out a dry chuckle. 'You mean you saw her burning in flames, am I right?'\n\nI nodded wordlessly, my mouth too full of bread and bacon to respond.\n\n'Well, yes. It happened to me when I had that Aurameter too, but thankfully not often. It's not easy being the good kind of hunter, Katy. Our instincts can be overpowering sometimes. But unlike your father and many others, you and I know that we can't arrest someone or punish them just because we have a feeling in our gut. For me, the witches I saw in flames were usually the ones that got away. I knew they were bad, bad witches, but I couldn't prove it. It was\u2026 frustrating, to say the least.'\n\n'Hm.' Ned had poured me some tea, and I took a good long drink. 'Well, I suppose for now, we'd better just focus on the house.'\n\n'You guys got my message last night, right?' Ned asked. 'Do you think my spell will work?'\n\n'We tested it,' Jude confirmed. 'Obviously we couldn't use an actual pillar, but it seems like it should work.'\n\n'Good.' Ned smiled with relief. 'In that case, I've brought along everything we need for it.'\n\n'Brilliant. And as for what Winston Wolfe says that this ghost whispered in his ear\u2026' Jude shuddered. 'I know I need to remember something, and those little music boxes have made me all the more certain. But so far, my old memory banks just aren't telling me much. Maybe seeing this house will help. If we can see it.'\n\nWe all chatted and planned together for a while, until all of the food was finished. As I slurped the last of my tea, Cullen wrapped an arm around my waist and said, 'I'm going to go up and get dressed. We're meeting Finn on Hunting Hill in forty-five minutes.'\n\nI stood up, about to follow him, until I was distracted by Diane; she was jumping up and down behind the bar and clapping her hands. 'Yay! It's really happening. By the end of today, Hamish and I might be going on a real, actual date!'\n\nShe reached across the bar and scratched Hamish behind the ears. If his fur weren't so dark, I wondered if he might be blushing. My eyes moved to Eva, who was definitely reddening, and rushing off to the ladies' room. Getting dressed could wait a few more minutes."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 12",
                "text": "'Eva?' I eased open the door. 'Eva, are you in here?'\n\nI heard a sniffling sound, and then a flushing of the chain. She opened her cubicle door and, with red-rimmed eyes, said, 'Shouldn't you be getting dressed?'\n\n'I will, don't worry. And you can be all Professor-y and boss me around when we get to the mansion. But right now, you're my cousin. Ish. Once removed? Twice removed? Look, we're family, okay? You can tell me what's wrong.'\n\nShe washed her hands, then sat on the little sofa and sighed. 'You know, I was always fascinated when I heard the story of Professor Hamish Rhodes, the young genius wizard who then got turned into a dog by an evil witch, and who never stepped foot in the college again. Except\u2026 then he did. You started studying there, Hamish began to come back from time to time, and I got to know him. We got along so, so well, he and I. We might have taught different areas of study, but when we did work together it was\u2026 it was such a thrill, Katy. Like last night, when he was with me in Dad's workshop. Dad's made another Aurameter for Mam, you see. Oh, I know she said she was retiring, but\u2026 well, she might still enjoy dabbling from time to time, and last night we were testing it before we finally gave it to Mam. And while I was looking through it, at Hamish, I\u2026 well\u2026 I saw him.'\n\nMy mouth pulled into an awkward expression. 'Yeah, I made that mistake once myself.'\n\n'No. Not that. I mean, yes, he was naked, which was\u2026' She cleared her throat. 'But Katy, I wasn't looking at that.' She reddened and cleared her throat once more. 'It was his eyes, Katy. And his smile. And his hair. And his chin. And did I say his eyes?'\n\n'Yeah.' I moved closer to her. 'You said that part. You like him then, yeah? I kind of thought maybe you two had a vibe.'\n\n'Katy, I thought it was just a vibe. I mean, I'd seen photos of him from before, so I knew he was a good-looking man. But when I saw him last night\u2026 he was the most handsome man I've ever seen. I felt\u2026 you know, I felt something. Something I've been denying ever since I met him, because\u2026 you know\u2026 he's a dog right now. But in that moment, I knew he was a man. I couldn't deny any more how much I wished he would always be a man. Not just for his sake, but for my own selfish romantic reasons. I mean, what was I thinking? There I was, having fantasies about Hamish becoming a man again and the two of us getting together. But we could never actually be together. Even if he was interested in me, well\u2026 it's not a good idea for a Moon to fall in love, is it? I suppress my werewolf side quite easily these days, but I've seen what happens to people in my family when they fall hard.'\n\n'But\u2026 your mother and father are making it work now, aren't they?'\n\nShe sighed. 'I mean, sure. As long as Dad stays close to the soil at Moonstone Farm and Mam doesn't find herself in the kind of danger that brings out his hairy side, then\u2026 yeah. I suppose that after all of those years of thinking it could never work, they're finally in a good place. Some of the other Moons are in relationships, too but\u2026 it's far from easy for them. They have to be so, so careful not to lose it.'\n\n'So? Sometimes it's worth a bit of effort, isn't it, if you find the right person? Eva, you could find a way to keep the crazy Moon wolf suppressed and you know you could. I know we're going to find a pillar today. It probably won't be easy, but we're going to do it. We have to do it, because\u2026 well, we just do. And when we do, Hamish is going to be all man again. And the fact that you're here with your mother to help that happen, well\u2026 it seems to me that you might be able to push the wolf down, but the kind of feelings you've got for Hamish might be a little more difficult to suppress.'\n\n'Well, I think I'm going to have to.' She gathered her hair into a neat knot at the back of her head, and stuck her wand into it. 'Because even if everything were perfect, even if I actually thought that he and I might have something\u2026 well, all of those ideas went right out of my head when I saw Diane this morning. He liked her for a long time before he ever met me. And it was a two-way thing, too. This Jonathan fella who turned Hamish, he only did it because he knew Hamish was the only man Diane would ever really be interested in. It's not a passing fancy. She loves him and, no doubt, he loves her too.'\n\nShe stood up. 'Like I said, serves me right for being here for selfish reasons. Look, Hamish is a good friend, Katy, even if he'll never be more than that. So I'm going to go to that house with you this morning, and we're going to turn him into a man again. If that means that I'll have to watch him walk off into the sunset with Diane, then so be it.'\n\n[ Patience is a Virtue ]\n\nI wasn't sure what to expect when we arrived on Hunting Hill that morning, but as we approached the Lodge, Cullen pointed with triumph and said, 'See? Told you so.'\n\nI shook my head, staring in shock. There it was, south of the Lodge, just as Winston had told me: a huge (if somewhat dilapidated) house, on a parcel of land almost as large as the Lodge's. But I'd been looking in that direction, just seconds before Cullen pointed, and I'd seen nothing at all.\n\n'Well, doesn't that just take the faery cake?' I commented. 'How did I not notice that the last time we were here?'\n\n'How did any of us not?' Ned said uneasily, as we walked towards the gate. It was an elaborate metal affair which had seen better days. And, just as Winston had described, there was a large sign on one of the pillars, simply saying: Montrose.\n\nCullen glared at the sign. 'I haven't got enough words to describe how much I hate that coven. Do you think\u2026 could my mother have worked here, maybe? Oh, crap. If they did something to her, I will personally track down every single Montrose in the world, and I'll\u2026' He trailed off, glancing at me. 'Katy, are you all right? You look a bit pale.'\n\n'Fine.' My voice came out as a squeak. 'I'm totally fine.' I really wasn't. My mark had been stinging from the second Cullen pointed to the house, but now\u2026 now it felt like my hand was on fire.\n\nThe mysterious mark was an ever-present reminder of our treacherous train ride on the Riddler's Express. Foirfe might have saved the day by possessing me for a while, and promising me that we'd find another Pillar of Permanence, but she also left me with a souvenir of our time together. After I'd held the white-hot hammer with which I'd smashed the pillar, my hand was a stinging, oozing mess. But as the damage healed, a spiralling scar had been left behind, and the scarred skin had taken on an almost metallic hue. Did I say metallic? I'm being far too subtle in my description \u2013 the truth was, it looked as though I had a silver Immortal Coil embedded into my palm.\n\nIn all the time I'd had it, it had never hurt this much.\n\nHamish was the first of my friends to know about it, but I soon told Ned, Cleo, Cullen, Jay, my aunt, and my Wayfarer contacts too. Because who wants to be that girl? The one who gets a mysterious, glowing symbol on their body and doesn't tell anybody about it for no good reason?\n\nNed narrowed her eyes, looking at my palm then looking at me. 'I don't like this, Katy. I mean, I know we've had it tested and no one can find anything unusual about it, but\u2026 why is it hurting all of a sudden?'\n\n'Well, I think that it's a sign,' said Cleo. 'We should go in, right now. Even the weird mark on Katy's hand agrees with me.'\n\n'We cannae.' Hamish was peeping longingly down the driveway. 'Finn wants us to take our time with this. And after the reaction Cullen and Jude had to those musical plums, who can blame him?'\n\n'I can,' said Cleo. 'Because he's already ten minutes late.'\n\nAs the cat spoke, I felt my phone buzz. I pulled it from my bag, reading aloud the message that had just arrived from Finn:\n\nSorry for the delay, but we're going to be another half an hour at least. Her Majesty is running late.\n\n'Her Majesty?' Cleo sniggered. 'The Queen of the Si\u00f3ga is the expert he's bringing along? Well, that's going to be no fun. All faeries are irritating, but their Queen is the worst. I'll bet the reason she's running late is because she can't decide which tiara to wear.'\n\n'Well, we should wait for her anyway,' Hamish cautioned. 'She can see magic. She can break magic. Whatever we're going to be up against in that house, there's no one better than a faerie to help us.'\n\nMy phone buzzed once more, and I read out a new message from Finn:\n\nActually, we might be more like an hour behind. Go and have a coffee in the Bank and I'll see you all soon.\n\n'Coffee?' Cleo's blue eyes had turned to slits. 'I'll give him coffee!'\n\n'Not really your best insult, is it?' Ned said. 'Look, let's just do what he says. An extra hour isn't going to kill us. You know what they say. Patience is a virtue.'\n\n'Pah!' Cleo glared at her witch. 'That's something said by people who are always late, so you'll shut up and keep waiting for them! I'm going in.'\n\nBefore we could argue, Cleo had strolled through the gate, and was making her way down the drive.\n\nNed wrung out her hands, then said, 'I don't care about you guys, but I'm going in after my cat. She could get hurt. She could get stuck in that weird house. She could\u2013'\n\nHamish walked past Ned and squeezed through the gate. 'You donnae have to tell me twice.'\n\n'I'm going too,' Jude announced. 'Cleo is right. We're here, so we might as well go in and have a look, at least. Finn and his cohort can just follow us in when they get here. If he has the Queen with him, she'll be able to find the house \u2013 especially if Winston points it out to her.'\n\nCullen glanced at Jude. 'You're feeling what I'm feeling again, aren't you? You really want to go in there, just like we both really wanted to open those musical plums.'\n\n'That's exactly how I feel,' she confirmed. 'And if I know the Queen \u2013 and I do, by the way, quite well \u2013 then going in without her is exactly what she wants us to do.'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 13",
                "text": "Cleo was already at the front door when the rest of us caught up with her. It was ajar, and she snaked her way through and into the entrance hall with a cry of, 'Good goddess, this place is filthy.'\n\nHamish, Ned and I walked in next, gazing around. Cleo wasn't wrong. In the house's entrance hallway, I began to cough. The place was caked in dust and grime. Somewhere beneath it all, I could see garlands and wreaths made of holly and ivy, the leaves having browned and dropped to the floor long ago.\n\n'Winston was right. These are all typical Winter Solstice decorations,' Ned remarked. 'The wreaths, the greenery \u2013 well, the brownery now. But\u2026 I don't know. Something feels weird. The air is too\u2026 thick.'\n\n'Winston said it was like wading through mud,' I said.\n\n'Yeah.' Hamish nodded nervously. 'Yeah, it feels like that. Every step is exhausting.'\n\n'There's something else, though. You can hear it too, can't you Ned?' Cleo asked the question. 'A sort of background\u2026 harshness. Someone is trying to talk to us.'\n\n'I think you're right,' Ned told the cat. 'Someone is trying to communicate, but they're blocked somehow.' She peeped her head around the door at the others. 'What do you think? Should we stay or should we go?'\n\nJude snorted, and walked in with Eva and Jay. Cullen took in a deep breath, and crossed the threshold. And as soon as he did, the front door slammed behind him, and everything changed.\n\n[ In For a Sickle, In For a Round ]\n\nAll around us, the dust swirled away in a great big golden rush, leaving gleaming surfaces in its wake. The entire hallway was transformed. There was a fire crackling in the hearth, there were twinkling lights on the now-fresh wreaths and garlands, and there was a delicious smell in the air.\n\nBut, pretty though the house had become, I did not like being trapped. I rushed to check the door, unable to keep the panic from my voice as I announced, 'It's locked. And I'll bet every other door and window is, too.'\n\nJude nodded. 'An Insitu spell. We're stuck inside this house. I always know when there's any sort of boundary spell around me because I feel instantly claustrophobic, even if I'm in an enormous space.'\n\n'It's not just the fact we could be locked in, though,' said Ned. 'As soon as that door slammed shut, whatever ghosts were here\u2026 they scarpered. I could feel them leave.'\n\nCleo nodded in agreement with her witch. 'They're still in here though. Just\u2026 hiding.'\n\n'On the plus side,' said Hamish, 'I don't think I've ever been trapped somewhere that smells so good, have you? I'm smelling\u2026 mulled wine.' He took in a good long sniff. 'A roasted goose, roast potatoes, stuffing, carrots and parsnips cooked with black pepper and honey. Brussels sprouts, parboiled, then fried off in the pan with bacon. Red cabbage. Sage and onion stuffing with\u2026' He sniffed more deeply. 'With shredded apple and black pudding. There's a good old\u2013fashioned Christmas pudding, too, soaked in alcohol. There's fresh cream, aged wine and\u2026' He shuddered. 'There are some of those awful marrowfat peas, too. Talk about ruining a Christmas dinner.'\n\nCullen shook his head. 'But the Brussels sprouts you have no problem with?'\n\n'Not when they're cooked with bacon,' said Hamish. 'Oh, and speaking of bacon, I also smell a ham. Well, shall we try to send out a smoke signal to Finn, or shall we sally forth regardless?'\n\n'I don't think we're going to be getting in touch with anyone, actually,' said Jay, waving his phone in the air. 'It's completely dead.'\n\nWe all checked our phones, finding just the same: the screens were blank, and there was no way to turn them back on.\n\n'Well then.' Jude rubbed her palms together. 'In for a sickle, in for a round.'\n\n'Mm,' Eva said vaguely. She was standing at a table close to the front door, and she had a photograph in her hand. It was set within a beautiful silver frame. 'Maybe em\u2026 maybe you might want to take a look at this, Cullen.'\n\nWith a face filled with trepidation, Cullen took the photo from Eva. The rest of us stood nearby, taking a look. The picture was of a baby boy in his mother's arms. The woman was in a hospital bed, her expression a mixture of exhaustion and bliss. She had dark brown hair, and lovely blue eyes. There was a plate at the bottom of the frame, saying: Cuileann Montrose, Born December 1st, the Year of the Hamster, pictured in the loving arms of his mother, Caoimhe.\n\n'That's\u2026 that's the year you were born, isn't it?' Ned said in a quiet voice. 'If you\u2026 if you arrived at the orphanage at a few weeks old like Esme said, the year would be about right. And you\u2026 well, you were wearing that bib that said Cuileann when Esme found you\u2026' She sounded more uncomfortable the longer she spoke. 'Of course, that doesn't mean anything.'\n\nCullen blanched. 'It doesn't. It doesn't mean a thing. I'm a Keats, not a Montrose. It even says so on the bottom of both of those musical plums. And there's no scar on this kid.'\n\n'You weren't born with that scar though, were you?' Cleo pointed out, looking at him through disparaging blue eyes. 'You and Katy have long established that it's covered in hunter magic.'\n\n'But still.' He crossed his arms. 'I'm not a Montrose.'\n\nThe cat shrugged. 'I can see why you'd want that to be the case. That Montrose lot are the worst coven in the world. Worse than the Berrys or the Plimptons, even.'\n\nNed glared at her familiar, and Cleo gave Cullen an innocent smile. 'Ever so sorry. I didn't mean to upset you, Cullen. I'm sure you're not a Montrose. Even if the evidence is really mounting up.'\n\n'It isn't!' Cullen cried. 'I mean\u2026 it is, I know it is. But there'll be another explanation. Look, here's what I think. My mother worked here, as a servant maybe. Something terrible happened to her, and I was left on the doorstep of the orphanage with some other kid's stuff. This Cuileann Montrose or Keats or whoever he is, he's nothing to do with me. Because I'm not\u2026 I can't be a Montrose.'\n\n'Sure. Maybe,' I said. My tone was more dubious than I'd intended, as I gazed around the hallway. It had been so horrible in here \u2013 the remnants of a holiday from long, long ago. But as soon as Cullen walked in, everything was beautiful. And not only that, but the feeling we had when we first walked in \u2013 of wading through mud \u2013 that feeling was gone, now. It had disappeared as soon as Cullen crossed the threshold and the door closed behind him. His connection to this place was stronger than he was willing to admit. Once we ventured deeper into this house, we were going to discover some things, things he might not want to know. Things he\u2014\n\n'Earth to Katy!' said Hamish, tapping his nose against my leg.\n\n'Hm?'\n\n'We've asked you three times if you want to head into the next room,' Jay said with a laugh. 'You inner monologue-ing again?'\n\nI politely cleared my throat. 'I don't know what you're talking about. But Jude's right \u2013 in for a sickle, in for a round. So let's just keep going.'\n\n[ Thorn in My Side ]\n\nThere was a grand staircase in the entrance hallway, and a few rooms leading off. There was a small study, a drawing room, a sun room, a billiard room, and even a small library. All of the rooms were stunning.\n\nIf Foirfe's voice had told me: 'You shall find it in summertime, in the house where it's always Winter Solstice' then I'd be very happy right now. But there are marked differences between Christmas and Winter Solstice, and this house was definitely decorated for the latter. All of the decorations were beautiful but natural-looking, in the witches' fashion. The twinkling lights weren't electric string lights, but perfectly-formed Solas spells. There was holly and ivy and mistletoe aplenty. There were logs blazing in fireplaces. But there was no Christmas tree, no presents, and no Santa ornaments to be found.\n\nWe arrived at a set of open double doors, and looked into the largest room yet: an oval-shaped ballroom, with dining tables all laid out for dinner, and a dancefloor at the centre. The ceiling was high, with clouds and stars painted upon it. The stars sparkled, and there were more magical lights all around the room.\n\nSome of those lovely Solas spells were encircling pillars.\n\nHamish's breath shuddered as he stared at the pillars. There were ten of them, four on either side of the room and two at the far end, creating little alcoves behind them. In some of those alcoves there were beautiful couches and chairs, in others there were doorways leading into more rooms. I saw another library, larger than the one we'd seen before, and a comfortable-looking sitting room with yet another fire blazing in the hearth. Only one of the doorways, the black door between the pillars right at the other end, was closed, but it looked to me to be a swinging door \u2013 perhaps the kitchen was back there?\n\nAs for the pillars, they looked to be made of marble, stretching from floor to ceiling. The pillar on the Riddler's Express had looked nothing like these; yes, it had been spinning fast when I saw it, but I'd seen the dust beneath the train after I smashed it, and it wasn't marble, but a much plainer-looking stone.\n\n'It looks like a dinner party was interrupted by a fight or something,' Jay remarked. 'Some of the chairs are knocked back.'\n\nReluctantly, I tore my attention from the pillars. Jay was right. There were chairs knocked to the ground, as though people had quickly left their seats. There was shattered glass on some of the tables, too, and next to the chairs. People had dropped their drinks in shock, maybe? But the mess around the tables was nothing compared to the mess at the very centre of the room.\n\nIt looked as though the dancefloor had been used for fighting, not dancing. There was more smashed glass, too. Some chairs were sitting at odd angles on the floor. Had they been thrown at something? Or someone? There was a dropped platter, some knives\u2026\n\n'Yeah, it's all very strange and everything,' said Cullen. 'But for now, can we focus on what's most important? What about those pillars, guys? Are they what we're looking for?'\n\n'None of them look like a Pillar of Permanence,' Hamish said sadly, echoing my earlier thoughts. 'And look at the food on the tables. Caviar. Steak tartare. Profiteroles. Champagne, port, brandy\u2026 it's got the makings of a very fine party, but it's not the delicious Christmas dinner I could smell from the entrance hall. Although\u2026' He sniffed. 'I can still smell that food. But\u2026 maybe it's just wishful sniffing. I would love for this to be the house Foirfe told Katy about but\u2026 it's just not, is it?'\n\nHamish stood up straight and shook his furry body. 'But not to worry. We'll find that house another day. For now, we need to figure out the mystery of those musical plums, and what this house has to do with Cullen.'\n\nCullen sighed. 'What about you, Jude? You've been looking a little dazed since we walked in here. Are you remembering anything? Because I'm not \u2013 although, considering what we've found so far, I'm not sure I want to discover much more.'\n\n'Hm?' Jude snapped her attention away from the dancefloor. 'No. No, I don't remember anything. But I do have a very strong sense of D\u00e9j\u00e0 vu.'\n\n'Well then.' Hamish nodded decisively. 'Let's get to figuring out why. This might not be the house where it's always Christmas, but we've still got a mystery to solve.'\n\n'Hey.' Eva bent down to Hamish's level and looked him in the eye. 'We have a lot more rooms left to check in this great big \u2013 and clearly magical \u2013 house. I'm not giving up on finding the right pillar in one of them, so you'd better not either.'\n\nHe let out a shy-sounding laugh. 'We'll go take a look at some of the other rooms, so.'\n\nAs the others headed off, I called out, 'Hang on a second, will you? Just\u2026 just a second. Because\u2026 well\u2026 because look at this.' I held up my hand so that they could all see the mark on my palm. The curling, coil-like mark was no longer a faded-silver scar; it was a white-hot, snaking river of metal, spinning on my palm. I clasped my hand shut, wincing at how much pain that simple action had caused. 'It's spinning a lot, don't you think? Like if we look at it too long, we'll be hypnotised?'\n\nI let out an awkward-sounding laugh. 'So\u2026 anyway\u2026 you guys should go off and search the other rooms if you want, but I'm going to stay and take a closer look at the pillars in here, and see which one takes the pain from excruciating to oh my gosh I think I'm gonna die.'\n\nThey didn't leave the ballroom; instead the others followed me, wordlessly and worriedly, as I walked from pillar to pillar, finally pausing at the two columns at the end of the room. As I neared the left of those two, I felt a pure and unignorable pain.\n\n'You know what, I think this one is a bit different,' said Jay, pointing up near the top of the pillar. 'Doesn't it look like the marble is cracking up there, like it might actually be a plainer stone column underneath?'\n\n'You're right, Jay.' Ned knocked on that pillar, then on the one next to it. 'These others are solid marble, I think. This one just has a marble fa\u00e7ade.'\n\nI was about two feet from the cracked pillar now, and the pain was shooting inwards from my hand, creeping up along my arm and coursing through my entire body. I wanted to look at the magic of the pillar, so that I could be sure of what the pain was telling me: that we had finally, after all of this time, found a Pillar of Permanence; that we could at last break the spell upon Hamish. 'Jude, I'm a little bit sore right now. Could you, maybe\u2026?'\n\n'Use my new Aurameter?' said Jude as I glanced back at her. 'Already on it.' She brought the lens to her eye and said, 'Katy, when you were on that train, did the magic around the pillar look sort of like\u2026 bramble?'\n\n'No, it\u2026 well, it was spinning too fast and I was kind of trying to stop us all from dying by the time I saw it, so I'm not completely sure,' I admitted. 'But I think the hammer I used to break it became possessed by Foirfe's magic, just as I did. That magic was\u2026 white hot, like the mark on my palm.'\n\n'Your hair went multi-coloured though,' Hamish reminded me.\n\n'Well, something tells me there's every colour of the rainbow in that woman's magic, to be honest,' I said. 'And there was silver magic on the train, too, like a thread in the air from the Immortal coil.'\n\n'Well, this isn't like any of that,' said my aunt. 'This is definitely more like bramble.'\n\n'Huh.' I reached out, touching my palm against the pillar. As soon as I did, the pain disappeared, and I felt\u2026 at peace. In unity with the pillar. I felt that it was mine, and I was its, and together we could accomplish anything.\n\n'Ow!' I jumped back from the pillar, suddenly feeling pain again, but a pain much, much different to what I'd felt before. 'This pillar has just shot a bloody thorn into my side!'\n\n[ So Close and Yet So Far Away ]\n\nA torrent of thorns shot themselves from the pillar, shooting out in all directions, piercing everything in sight. We all ran back, as the thorns began to follow us.\n\nWe tried to head for the black door closest to the pillars, but the thorns came faster when we ran that way, sending us dashing and darting all over the ballroom, finally making it into the large library and shutting the door behind us. For a few seconds, the rain of thorns continued to assault the library door. As it quickly petered out I stood up, peeking through the glass panelling of the door and taking my Aurameter to my eye.\n\nThere was shining golden magic, dancing through the air all over this house, like a witch's or a wizard's, but there was something else too. This other magic was like long, invasive branches of copper-coloured bramble, with leaves and thorns included. Whatever it was, it was at its highest concentration all around the pillar, but thinner shoots were stretching outwards, and seemed to invade every part of the room \u2013 perhaps even all of the rooms beyond.\n\nWhile I studied the magic, Cullen and Ned were gently pulling the thorn from my side, and Ned was pointing one of her healing wands, quickly closing up the gash. I looked back at the thorn, sitting in Ned's palm, but it faded in front of my eyes.\n\nHamish, who had been pulling thorns from one of his legs with the use of his mouth, said, 'They've all gone. Every single thorn is gone, like they were never there.'\n\n'The thorns in the ballroom have disappeared too,' I observed. 'But I have the feeling they'll soon come out to play again if we try to approach the pillar. What we felt just now, I think it was a warning shot.'\n\n'So the magic, you think it's a protection spell?' Jay asked. 'To keep us away from the pillar?'\n\n'I'm not sure.' I flopped onto the ground, my back against the library door, resting for a moment. 'It doesn't look like any protection spell I've seen, but it's definitely acting like one. It's whatever else it might be doing that I'm worried about. Because the way this magic is threading through the air and reaching out, it reminds me of the magic on the Riddler's Express \u2013 the way the Immortal Coil reached out to all of us, but was also bound to the pillar. Except this magic looks different. Like a metallic bramble infestation, without the tasty blackberries. It doesn't seem to be trying to strangle the life out of us, though, so I guess\u2026 small mercies.'\n\n'There'll be nae mercy if we cannae get near that pillar though, will there?' Hamish hung his head.\n\nCleo rubbed herself up against him. 'So close, and yet so far away. It must be awful for you, Hamish. You know who'd be able to sort this out for us? The Queen of the Si\u00f3ga. She'd have that magic broken in a flash.'\n\nNed gave her familiar a warning glare. 'Cleo, if I were you I'd keep very, very quiet right now.'\n\nShe needn't have worried. Hamish didn't look likely to argue with Cleo at the moment. He was panting hard, his entire body jerking with every movement he made.\n\n'Here.' Cullen took a bottle of water from my bag, pouring it into an enormous (but thankfully clean) ashtray, and bringing it to Hamish. 'Have a drink, mate. You don't look good.'\n\nHamish lapped up the water, but didn't look much better for it.\n\n'Have you eaten today?' asked Jay. 'I know you didn't want to have the bacon because of\u2026 well\u2026 but did you eat something at least?'\n\nHamish was quiet for a moment, before finally revealing, 'No, no I havnae eaten properly for a while now. I couldnae stomach much of the dog food, and I suppose that our little escape attempt just now might have taken what energy I had.' He waved a paw. 'It's all right, honestly. I spoke to Healer Little, and he said that I can have some plain chicken and rice, so I'll have some of that when we get out of here. No doubt Finn and the Queen have realised we're in here and they're working to get us out.'\n\n'What?' I stared at him. 'I mean, yeah, that'd be great but\u2026 this isn't over, Hamish. As soon as the Queen gets in here and breaks whatever magic it is, we'll be reversing your spell. You can eat anything you like, then. Actually, no.' I took an energy bar from my bag, unwrapped it and passed it his way. 'You should eat now. Because we're going to win this, I know we are.'\n\nHe was still panting, but he took the bar and nibbled a little bit of it before saying, 'Sure. Of course we are.'\n\nWhile we were comforting Hamish, there'd been a whole lot of clinking and clanking from Eva and Jude, as they pawed through Eva's purse. Judging by how long it was taking them to find whatever they were looking for, I suspected that Eva's purse was bigger on the inside.\n\nFinally, Eva and Jude found what they were looking for and began to place some items on the floor: a glass tube, and a large metal pot with a clamped lid and a hole on the top.\n\n'What is that?' asked Ned.\n\n'It's for siphoning magic,' Eva explained. 'It's\u2026 it's sort of like a channelling spell, for when a channelling spell is too dangerous. Like when you have no idea what the magic will do to you, but you need to get it out of the way. It's not a permanent solution, and it won't take all of the magic. But hopefully it'll take enough, so we can get near the pillar and use it for Hamish.'\n\nShe placed one end of the tube into the hole on the lid of the large pot, and gently shook. I could see now that the tube wasn't actually made of glass \u2013 or, if it was, then it was an incredibly pliable glass with the ability to grow and twist. As the tubing lengthened and stretched out from the pot, it rushed towards the library door.\n\nCarefully, Eva opened the door just a few inches, and the tubing raced into the ballroom, heading straight for the pillar and winding itself around it. I could see tiny sucker-like holes opening on the inner part of the tubing.\n\n'Phew. It's actually starting to siphon.' Eva wiped her forehead. 'Don't you just love it when an experimental object works out on the first real-life trial?'\n\n'This is experimental?' Hamish walked all around Eva's contraption. 'I don't believe you. Something cannae work this well without being tested a thousand times.'\n\n'Well\u2026 I invented it last night,' Eva told him. 'So yes, it is experimental.'\n\nHamish stared at her. 'We didnae make this last night. We tested to see if the spell for turning me back into a man was viable, and we finished off Jude's new Aurameter.'\n\nEva met his gaze. 'I stayed up after you left. I couldn't sleep for thinking of what might go wrong. So\u2026 I made this.' She tore her eyes from his, and stood at the door beside me, watching the progress of her invention. I passed her my Aurameter so she could see what I could: the bramble-magic being sucked up, before being pulled away from the pillar and drawn into the pot.\n\nAfter a few minutes of watching, Cullen crept back into the ballroom. 'I think it's okay now,' he said, giving a thumbs-up. 'It seems to\u2013'\n\nHe stopped talking, as the pillar threw more thorns towards him. It was just a few this time, but enough to make him rush back to the safety of the library.\n\n'I'd put a protection spell around myself, but they still pierced me,' he said, shaking his head in wonder.\n\n'Well, you can see by the pot's gauge that my siphoning device seems to be working,' said Eva, scratching her head in confusion. 'And I could see it sucking up the magic when I looked through Katy's Aurameter. But\u2026 it's clearly not working quite as well as I'd hoped.'\n\nI looked through the library's glass panel again. The tubing was expanding out from where it had surrounded the pillar, and pushing its way towards the black door. 'That's because the pillar isn't the source,' I said. 'And your siphoning tube has just gone on a journey to find it. Eva, I can't believe it \u2013 it's just pushed its way through a door.'\n\nShe gave a start of surprise. 'Well, that's unexpected. I mean\u2026 I made the tubing strong, and capable of growing to quite a few thousand metres, but\u2026 that was just me, over-engineering. I didn't expect to actually need that much length. What should we do?'\n\nI bit my lip, thinking. 'Some of us should stay here to keep an eye on Eva's invention, and to keep testing the pillar to see if we can get near. Some of us should go and follow the tubes. Find the source.'\n\n'I'll go,' said Jay, easing open the library door. 'I'm not much use when it comes to wizardry.'\n\n'I'll go with you,' Ned offered. 'I can put a protection spell on us both.'\n\nI watched for a moment as they both dashed to the black door, staying as far away from the Pillar of Permanence as they could. Only a few thorns flew their way, but they managed to dodge most of them, and they quickly pushed open the black door and ran through.\n\nI kept an eye on the ballroom, watching the bramble-magic being pulled from the pillar. But it was going so, so slow; most of the magic we were siphoning seemed to be coming from the other tubes, the ones that had pushed their way through the black door.\n\n'Y'know what?' I said. 'I think I'm going to go after Ned and Jay. The source of the magic might not be too happy about what we're doing. They'll need backup.'\n\nBefore anyone could argue with me, I left the library and made a dash for the black door, managing to get pierced only twice along the way.\n\nThere was a long corridor beyond the black door, and the rooms on either side were more utilitarian than any others in the house. There were storage rooms, a little office that might have been used by the butler or the housekeeper, and finally, a large kitchen, with a glass door leading out to a walled vegetable garden.\n\n'Oh my stars,' I mumbled, taking in a lungful of delicious scents. 'This is what Hamish was smelling.'\n\nThere was a range cooker with a goose and roast vegetables in the oven. On one of the burners atop the cooker, the sprouts were in a pan, along with pieces of bacon, and in a smaller pot, marrowfat peas were simmering away. There was a covered dish next to the range, and I pulled the cover aside and saw red cabbage, cooked and ready for serving. Everything was just as Hamish's nose said it would be.\n\nThere was a small table in the kitchen, with plates, cutlery and glasses piled on top, as though ready to be taken somewhere.\n\nAs much as I wanted to explore, I was here to find Ned and Jay, and to follow the tubing. And I could see the magical flexi-glass \u2013 it had somehow managed to squeeze through the keyhole of a door next to the table.\n\nWhat, I wondered, was through that door?\n\nI was about to approach when I heard noise beyond it: something crashing to the ground, followed by a husky laugh.\n\n'I guess I got too enthusiastic,' came a voice I recognised as Jay's. There was another husky laugh, followed by\u2026 well, by the kind of silence that somehow spoke volumes.\n\nI couldn't open that door. I just couldn't. I'd been waiting for Ned and Jay to get together for a very long time. Disturbing them now could prove catastrophic.\n\n'Hey, Katy, have you found them yet?' Cullen strode into the kitchen. Before I could stop him, he pulled open the door, revealing a pantry beyond. In that pantry, there were shelves filled with tinned and packaged food, and two intertwined people, pressed up against those shelves and kissing each other madly.\n\nNed and Jay gasped and jumped away from each other. Both of them had messy hair and flushed faces.\n\n'We were just\u2026 um\u2026 we were\u2026' said Ned.\n\n'Following the tube into the kitchen,' Jay added. 'That's what we were doing. And then\u2026 and then we spotted this pantry and thought, well\u2026 that needs to be searched. And then\u2026'\n\n'And then your tongue fell into Ned's mouth?' Cullen grinned.\n\nI pointed to the siphoning tube. 'And what about that? Didn't you follow it in here?'\n\n'Oh!' Ned stared at the tube. It was right beside her, and it seemed to be piercing its way through the back wall of a shelf filled with tinned food. 'I mean\u2026 of course that's why we were in here investigating. That's what we just said.'\n\n'Mm hm.' I gave her a knowing smile. 'Sure it is.'\n\n'No, it isn't.' Ned groaned, looking mortified. 'We did come in here to explore, but the siphoning tube hadn't made it this far by then. I don't know what we were thinking, what with everything going on.'\n\n'Meh.' I shrugged. 'I can't get too mad with you guys. After all, me and Cullen had a pretty epic kiss when everyone on the Riddler's Express was on the verge of death. There's something about being in an emergency situation, isn't there? It makes you evaluate things. It makes you finally throw your tongue into the mouth of the person you've fancied for a very long time.'\n\n'Crap. I'm so sorry, Katy.' Ned squeezed my hands. 'Please don't tell Hamish that this is what I was doing while I was supposed to be following the tubing. He'll think I don't care, and I do. I just\u2026'\n\n'Hey, stop it now.' I squeezed her back for a moment before pulling away. 'I've already told you \u2013 it's completely understandable. Two people as hot as you and Jay were bound to give in eventually.'\n\nNed's face was flaming, while Jay looked happier than I'd seen him for a while. 'I'm not sure what to do now,' he said. 'I mean, how can we keep following the tube?' He pointed to the area where the tubing had pierced the back of the shelf. 'There's more than likely a solid wall behind that shelf, isn't there? Should we go outside, and see if it's travelled out into the garden? If we can go outside, I mean.'\n\n'Or,' said Cullen, his voice low and urgent, his eyes filled with that same Eureka expression they'd had in Times of Yore, 'we could go this way.'\n\nHe lifted a perfectly-normal looking tin of marrowfat peas, and with a great big creaking lurch, the entire shelf slid aside to reveal a secret room beyond.\n\n[ We Finally Found Christmas ]\n\nThe room was smaller, but lovelier, than any other in the house. A fire burned in the hearth, and a tall Christmas tree stood nearby, with a star on top and presents piled beneath. After finding most of the house decorated for Winter Solstice, we'd finally found a room that was ready for Christmas.\n\nThere was a dining table by the window, and two armchairs next to the fire, with a rug and blanket in between.\n\nOh, and did I mention the man and woman, sitting in those armchairs, dressed in their holiday finery, and looking nervously in our direction?\n\nNo? Well\u2026 that was because I was terrified. And it wasn't just that they were ghosts \u2013 because they were. My senses told me so, even though I could see them without my magic. Eva's glass tubing had stopped travelling now, and it was making a circle around the woman, siphoning whatever power she held, which meant that she must be the source of the strange magic in this house.\n\nThe thing was, once I raised my Aurameter to my eye, I could see that the magic wasn't simply surrounding her. That bramble-like magic was physically attached to her, its thorns embedded in her skin, a countless number rooted into every part of her body. And it was clear to me that she was suffering, now that the siphoning tubes were sucking her bramble-magic away. Her image was growing weak; she was flickering before my eyes. Ghost or not, she wouldn't be able to survive this much longer. I couldn't bear to look at it anymore, so I dropped the Aurameter, returning my view to normal.\n\nShe was a pretty woman, the same woman we'd seen in the photograph in the entrance hall. Her eyes were filled with excitement, hope and fear as she stared at Cullen. The man was focused on Cullen, too, gazing at him as though he were a long-awaited messiah. Or a long-lost son.\n\n'Jay,' I whispered. 'You go tell the others what we've found. I think this is where we all need to be right now. Oh, and you'd better tell Eva to stop siphoning, too.'\n\nAs Jay ran off, the woman stood up, her arms outstretched. 'It's you, Cuileann, isn't it? I knew you'd find your way back home.'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 14",
                "text": "While the woman walked towards us, Cullen recoiled.\n\nThe man squeezed the woman's hand. 'It's okay, Caoimhe. The last time he saw us he was just a few weeks old. We should explain ourselves. First of all, we're sorry. When you entered the house, and set everything in motion, we panicked. We\u2026 we'd waited for you for so long. We were about to make an appearance, but\u2026 did I already mention that we panicked? So we came here to have a drink and calm down. And then\u2026 well, those strange tubes burst in here and surrounded Caoimhe and she's been a tad\u2026 unwell, ever since.'\n\nAs he spoke, the tubes began to retract, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Eva had stopped siphoning, and the woman's form stabilised.\n\n'Son, I know this is a shock,' the man continued. 'Yes, we're ghosts, but\u2026 we are your parents. This is your mother, Caoimhe. And I'm your father, Michael Montrose. We have so much to tell you. And we have a Christmas lunch ready, too, so why don't we all take a seat at the table? Your friends are welcome to join us.'\n\nCullen shook his head, backing out of the secret room. 'No. No, I don't want to hear this. I don't want to hear any of this. You're\u2026 you just said you were ghosts? Well then, I'm glad you are. I'm glad you're dead. And I'm glad I wasn't brought up with a pair of Montroses as my parents. It might not have been all fun and games at the orphanage, but it's better than being brought up by werewolf killers!'\n\nHis father winced, and his mother shook her head, crying. 'You don't understand,' she said. 'We\u2013'\n\nWhatever she was about to say, Cullen didn't want to hear it. He stormed out through the pantry and I followed behind him, passing Jay on his return with Hamish, Cleo, Jude and Eva in tow.\n\n'Is he okay?' Hamish asked, pausing.\n\nI slowed down just long enough to respond. 'He's\u2026 he will be, I hope. Just follow Jay, and we'll catch you up in a second.'\n\nWhile Hamish walked away, I finally caught up with Cullen in the entrance hallway, trying to open the door.\n\n'Stupid door!' He pulled at the handle and kicked at the wood. 'Talk about a captive audience. Typical Montroses, that's what they are.'\n\n'Cullen.' I laid my hand on top of his, pulling him away from the door. 'I know how terrifying this is \u2013 and not just because we're all locked into some creepy Christmas house.'\n\n'You're right,' he grunted. 'The most terrifying thing is that it's my parents who are locking us in here. I can't believe I'm\u2026 I hoped\u2026 I hoped for anything but this, Katy. Anything but this.'\n\n'I know you did,' I said softly. 'I've hated every Montrose I've met so far \u2013 and with good reason. But there's more at stake here. I wish we didn't, but we\u2026 we have to go back into that room.'\n\nHe ground his teeth for a moment, staring into the ballroom, his eyes on the pillar. 'I know we do. I know it, Katy, and I'll go back there, and we'll figure out how to end this stupid spell and get that pillar for Hamish. But I just need a minute to calm down. Because all of the times I imagined what my real parents might be like, I just didn't figure they'd be like that.'\n\nI looked up at him, my heart aching for the little boy he'd once been, alone in the world, inventing reasons for why his parents had left him \u2013 good reasons, reasons they couldn't avoid, reasons that meant they'd wanted him, really wanted him, all along \u2013 and hoping that one day, those parents would return and claim him as their own.\n\nWell, here they were, and they clearly wanted to claim him. Cullen might be afraid to hear the story of why they'd abandoned him, but I had the feeling that it was a tale he really ought to let them tell.\n\n'Listen,' I said. 'My dad is one of the worst hunters ever known, my uncle is a recovering sexist, and my mother is a terrible actress and singer. It doesn't matter who brought us into the world, Cullen. It's up to us to decide who we want to be, and I think you're making a pretty good job of that.'\n\nHe rested his forehead against my shoulder, pulling me close. 'Only since I met you.'\n\n'Well, I'll take the credit if you insist. But\u2026'\n\n'But what? You have some idea whirring around in that mind of yours, don't you?'\n\n'Yeah. I think that maybe I do. Call it my hunter senses \u2013 or maybe just basic attention to detail \u2013 but I think your parents might have some surprises for you yet.'\n\n[ Pillar of the Community ]\n\n'Well,' said Cullen, the moment we walked back into the secret room. 'Tell me, then. Tell me why you're here, now, as ghosts, when all my life I've searched for you? Tell me why you've locked us in. Tell me why that stupid musical plum made me faint and why this house suddenly turned into some sort of holiday wonderland when I walked in.'\n\nHis parents looked at one another, and by some silent communication, it was decided that Michael would be the one to talk.\n\n'Well, it's\u2026' He was shaking visibly, and he took a seat in one of the armchairs. 'It's just\u2026 I don't know where to start. I suppose\u2026 I suppose I should start with the hunting party on Christmas Eve. No, the day before it, when I met up with Heber Montrose. Or\u2026 or maybe I should start a year earlier, when I met your mother\u2026' He gave a helpless shake of the head, and Jay knelt in front of him.\n\n'Michael, you need to calm down.' Jay spoke gently. 'I can read your mind, okay? I'm not trying, but\u2026 your emotions are so strong that it's all out there for any vamp to see. So I know that everything you have to say, Cullen needs to hear it. Would you like me to help you?'\n\n'I suppose a couple of glasses of brandy might do the trick,' said Michael.\n\n'Well, you can have that too, if you like.' Jay let out a chuckle. 'But what I meant is that I have a way to let the others into your memories. If you're feeling too nervous, I can help Cullen and his friends enter your mind, so that they can see the story I can see.'\n\n'You're powerful enough to do that?' Ned asked, looking slightly sick.\n\n'Don't worry.' Jay gave her a warm smile. 'I've been very respectful of your thoughts.'\n\nShe cleared her throat and looked away. 'Good. That's\u2026 good.'\n\n'So.' Jay turned back to Michael. 'How do you want to do this? I can join you to Cullen, so he can enter your memories.'\n\n'No.' Cullen stepped forward. 'Whatever he has to tell me, to show me or whatever, he can show it to everyone. If he's not all right with that, he can keep his story to himself.'\n\nI squeezed my boyfriend's hand. If I were the suspicious sort, I might be inclined to think that he was looking for any excuse not to find out the truth. But I understood why he might feel that way. This must be terrifying for him.\n\n'I'm fine with that,' Michael agreed.\n\n'Oh.' Cullen's hand wrapped a little tighter around mine. 'Good, then. Let's get this over with.' He focused on Jay. 'So what do we do?'\n\n'I need to touch a hand to Michael. Then, someone will hold my hand and we'll make a circle, all holding each other's hands \u2013 and paws. Katy, you'll need to take off your ring.'\n\n'Oh, sure.' I pulled off the ring that Jay had given me a long time ago, a ring which meant no vampire could invade my mind, and I joined the circle."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 15",
                "text": "Michael Montrose tipped a little of his whiskey in the plant pot, pretending to finish the glass just as his companion, a large, red-faced man, returned to the table. They were seated in a room I recognised only from photos: the lounge at the Warlock Society's Samhain Street branch.\n\n'Another one, Heber?' Michael held his empty glass aloft, swaying a little, hoping that the warmth spell he'd performed would give him enough of a flush to complete the illusion of drunkenness.\n\n'Why not?' Heber gave him a truly drunken smile in return. 'We'll have to keep a clear head tomorrow, won't we? At least until we've killed them all. Now, how much was our little bet again, cousin?'\n\nMichael resisted the urge to shudder. 'You bet me five gold rounds that you could kill the youngest. I don't think it's much of a bet this time though, do you? The youngest we could find is sixteen. What age was the one you killed last year again?' His heart beat just a little faster, and he prayed that his device was still recording. 'The one with the incredibly apt surname?'\n\nHeber let out a long, loud guffaw, smacking his belly in delight. 'Ah, fond memories, Michael. Fond memories. It's Megan you're thinking of. Megan Wolfe, eleven years old. But I'm not greedy. This Christmas Eve I shall happily make do with a sixteen-year-old.'\n\nMichael poured more drinks, and carried on with the horrible conversation, secretly recording more information, more admissions. Oh, he knew it wouldn't all hold up in court. It would be contested. It would all be gone over a hundred times by a hundred of his cousin's lawyers. And he, Michael, he'd be dragged across the coals, too. He could see it now. They'd employ expensive lawyers \u2013 a Rundt, or maybe an O'Toole. Lawyers who would say 'How can we trust this man's testimony, when he's testifying against his own coven \u2013 his own cousin, no less? How can we trust the word of a witch who has participated in this hunt himself?'\n\nMichael was shaking. 'Need another drink,' he said, downing his whiskey for real this time. It didn't matter what they said to him. The evidence would speak for itself. Even if they tore him to shreds in court, it didn't matter. What mattered was that his cousin, and everyone like him, would pay for what they'd done."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 16",
                "text": "Michael moved away from Jay, looking pale, and his memories no longer poured into our minds. 'Sorry I\u2026 I need a rest.'\n\n'I get it. It's draining,' said Jay, looking tired himself.\n\nFor the first time since we returned to the room, Cullen was looking, really looking, at his father. 'You were undercover. You were working to expose the werewolf hunters in your coven.'\n\nHis father smiled sadly. 'I was. I hated being a Montrose. I left the coven, in fact \u2013 moved to the human world for a time to distance myself from them. But after meeting your mother there, it became clear to me \u2013 bad things don't stop happening just because you're looking the other way. I knew I had to go back. I knew I had to stop them, and going undercover, helping the Wayfairs to expose the truth of the Montrose coven, that was the only way I could help. And I have never been prouder in my life than when I watched you take up an undercover position with the new police force. The Wayfarers are every bit as outstanding as the Wayfair coven who paved the way.'\n\n'I was so proud, too, when I heard about your job,' his mother said, tears streaming down her face. 'If\u2026 if Michael needs a little time to rest, maybe I could help to finish the story?'\n\nJay nodded, and took her hand. The rest of us joined hands again, and sat in the circle once more.\n\nWe could see through Caoimhe's memories this time. Her hand, with its little charm bracelet, reaching out to a baby who rolled on the rug. We couldn't see Caoimhe's face, but her thoughts were clear."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 17",
                "text": "She gazed down at the little boy, only a few weeks old, as he looked in wonder at his teddy bear. She had never thought about children, really. Never had the yearning for one. But when this little boy was born, it was as though somebody turned the lights on. Caoimhe's mind, her heart, her body\u2026 every part of her was filled with a new vigour, now. Her love was fierce, and so, so strong, strong enough to overcome anything. Even the pain of the magic she must subject herself to, every day for the rest of her life. This baby was her everything.\n\nWell, one of her everythings.\n\nAs the door between the pantry and the secret room opened, Caoimhe smiled up at her husband. 'You look done in,' she said. 'This one is, too, although he won't yet admit defeat.' She kissed Cullen's head. 'I thought he'd tire if I let him play with some of his Solstice presents, but no such luck.'\n\nMichael laughed, and joined them on the rug. He had seemed exhausted when he arrived home, but a new light shone in his eyes as he looked upon his wife and child.\n\n'Wait until Christmas morning when he opens up that lot.' Michael nodded to the tree. 'He really won't know what to do with himself then. I think we might have overdone things this year. I don't even know how many presents we've bought for him, but it's a lot.'\n\n'Well, it's his first Christmas. Who doesn't want to spoil their child on their first Christmas? I only wish we didn't have to keep our tree a secret, hiding it away in this little room so none of the Montrose coven can see. But\u2026 soon you won't be hiding the fact that you married a human-turned-wizard anymore.'\n\n'Very soon. Oh, and speaking of Christmas presents, I got you something. Well\u2026 I had something fixed.' He reached into his pocket and pulled out two silver ornaments.\n\n'My musical plums!' Caoimhe smiled. 'I wondered where they'd gotten to. I was going to show them to Cuileann today, but I couldn't find them. It might be just as well. They haven't sounded very good for quite a while.'\n\n'No, they haven't.' Michael agreed. 'But\u2026 I had them repaired. The sound is just as good as ever. And look\u2013' He turned one of them over. 'I even made sure she left your old writing on the bottom.'\n\nCaoimhe's face lit up. 'Oh my gosh! I'd forgotten I ever wrote something there. My little sister was always stealing my things when we were kids, so I scratched my mark on everything.' She opened up one of the little plums, and the ballerina began to move to the tune of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.\n\nThe baby looked up in delight, gurgling. But as soon as the tune stopped playing, the baby cried. Michael grabbed the musical plum. 'Here,' he said. 'This should calm him.'\n\nAs Michael reached for the star on top of the tree, Caoimhe shook her head. 'No, the little key you turn to wind it up again is on the bottom.'\n\n'Ah, yes, you haven't seen the extra surprise I had added, have you?'\n\nHe twisted the star, and Silent Night began to play. Cullen became content again, while Caoimhe looked in wonder at her husband. 'Silent Night! My favourite Christmas carol. Oh, Michael. I love it.'\n\nMichael smiled. 'It works on both music boxes. All you have to do is twist the little star on the tree. I've heard you hum it to Cuileann over the past few weeks, and it always seems to calm him. Plus, he should have music from the human world in his life. Because that's what his mother is. A human. Well\u2026 a human who just happened to turn herself into a powerful wizard in an astonishingly short amount of time, but\u2026'\n\nCaoimhe blinked back tears. 'It's beautiful, Mike. And look\u2026 he's drifting off.'\n\nCarefully, she lifted him from the rug and into a cradle. 'I'll give him a few more minutes before I move him upstairs. Make sure he's properly asleep.'\n\nThey spoke in quiet voices then, Michael pouring them both a drink while Caoimhe took a seat in an armchair by the fire, her eyes flitting every few seconds to their son.\n\n'You're worried, aren't you?'\n\nCaoimhe flinched at her husband's question. She thought she'd done such a good job of putting on a happy face, but Michael wasn't fooled. 'Fine, I'm worried,' she admitted. 'I know I'm the one who started this whole thing. Convincing you to return to this enclave, to work for the Wayfair coven. And I don't regret it, not any of it. What we're doing here is important. I just\u2026'\n\n'You didn't know that we'd have a child before it was all over and done with?'\n\nShe laughed a tear-soaked laugh. 'It was the happiest accident of my life and you know it. But I do just want it all to be over by the end of tomorrow night. Properly over and done with. And then we can go to sleep knowing that Heber and all of his pals are in Witchfield, and you and I\u2026 we get to spend our son's first Christmas morning with him.'\n\nHe sat down on the opposite armchair. 'I can't wait for that, Caoimhe. And you know what else I can't wait for? For you to separate yourself from that pillar. I can see how much of a toll this bonding spell is taking.'\n\nShe looked away from her husband's concerned eyes. 'Right now, it's giving me all of the magic I need to convince your coven that I'm a witch, not a feeble human who's learned how to channel magic. In fact\u2026' She gave him a wink. 'I'd say it's turned me into a pillar of the community, wouldn't you?'\n\nHer husband groaned. 'You know you're in love with a woman when even the most terrible jokes in the world can't put you off.'\n\n[ Party Crasher ]\n\nThe scene faded, and another of Caoimhe's memories took its place. It was the following night, Christmas Eve, and the mansion's ballroom was decorated just as we'd seen it today. Except in Caoimhe's memory, there was no evidence of whatever fight had occurred. The seats were filled with guests, while waiters moved from table to table, dishing up food and pouring drinks.\n\nThere were some people we'd met before \u2013 a much younger Denton Montrose, and Debbie and Jim McGinty, too.\n\nHeber Montrose's eyes followed one of the servers, a nervous young man whose hands shook as he poured the champagne. 'No need to worry, young man,' said Heber with an insincere smile. 'We don't bite. And we don't need to worry about you either, do we? Seeing as it's not full moon?'\n\nThe young man swallowed. 'No, sir. You don't need to worry about me.'\n\n'Good.' Heber's insincere smile grew larger. 'You know you're lucky, don't you? To get any work at all. This is one of the finest houses in the enclave \u2013 in any enclave. If you do well here tonight, I might ask you to serve at more parties. I know all of the best people in supernatural society, you know. I could get you work in many of my coven's houses. I pal about with the Godbodys, too. And the McGintys. All the best people. So you just be sure to keep my glass topped up, all right?'\n\nWhen the server mumbled some words of agreement and rushed away, Caoimhe gave Heber a stern glare. 'What was that about? I thought he was the one you made Michael and me hire so that we could\u2026 you know\u2026?'\n\n'Give him a potion that forces him to turn before we hunt him to exhaustion and eventually kill him? Well, of course. But I like to befriend them first. There's nothing more satisfying to me than the look of surprise on their faces when I fly above them on my broom, faster than they can ever run. I somehow think it makes their hides more\u2026 robust.'\n\nHer stomach churned, but she did her best to smile. Thankfully, Michael and some more people joined the conversation, and Caoimhe was able to sit back and pull herself together.\n\nShe was so involved in her own thoughts that she didn't hear it at first \u2013 whatever noise had made the other guests turn their heads towards the entrance hall. But Caoimhe soon snapped to attention, listening to the commotion as the sound of raised voices drifted through from the hallway.\n\n'You know you're at a good party when the riffraff are trying to crash,' joked one of the guests.\n\nThe house's staff were clearly trying to stop someone gaining access, but when a woman rushed into the room, her dark hair flying, it was clear that they had lost the battle.\n\nThe skin on Caoimhe's arms began to prickle as she looked at this woman, whose eyes were glowing yellow with anger. She was a werewolf, thought Caoimhe, and an angry one.\n\nThe woman screamed, 'You murderers! You killed my little girl, I know you did! Well, I'm here to stop you killing again!'\n\nAs the woman leapt at the nearest guest, Caoimhe's stomach began to flutter, her heart began to thud. She knew who the woman was. It was Muireann Wolfe. Heber and his cronies had murdered her daughter the Christmas before.\n\nA huge fight broke out almost instantly, as guests threw freezing spells, but the woman dodged them all, flying at people, growling and snarling and jumping as her body turned from woman into wolf.\n\nCaoimhe's eyes roved over her guests. Their eyes were bright with glee. Someone \u2013 Caoimhe couldn't see who, in the ruckus \u2013 had begun to throw cutlery at the woman, and soon everyone followed suit, even throwing glasses and chairs, while all the while they erected protection spells around themselves to stop Muireann from getting too close.\n\nSome of them were even laughing.\n\nJust as Heber reached to throw a knife (his second) at the woman, Caoimhe asked him, 'Did you arrange this? Why is she turned even though it's not full moon? Have you given her\u2026?'\n\nThere was a dark delight in Heber's eyes as he responded. 'Have I given her a potion to force her to turn? No, my dear, I haven't. An animal like that doesn't need the moon when they're riled enough. I am very glad she came, though. It's always nice to have some light entertainment over dinner, don't you think?'\n\nCaoimhe nodded feebly, her eyes meeting her husband's, as Heber and the others continued to assault the woman.\n\nThis wasn't part of the plan, thought Caoimhe. If they acted now, to save this woman, it would all be for nothing. But if they didn't intervene in what was becoming an increasingly brutal attack, the woman would die.\n\nCaoimhe nodded to Michael, and he to her. It was decided. They had to intervene. Her husband pointed a finger, about to try and freeze his guests, when yet another woman entered the room.\n\nEvery move the new arrival made was assured and calculated. She simply strode in and raised her hand, and the werewolf disappeared.\n\nThe memory faded away at the sound of our collective gasps. 'Aunt Jude!' I cried, at the same time as Eva cried, 'Mam! That was you!'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 18",
                "text": "Jude's expression was one of a woman who had finally put the pieces together. 'I\u2026 how have I forgotten this?' she said. 'Why do I remember it now? I remember it all.'\n\nCaoimhe gave her a small smile. 'I've been hoping it would come back to you, and now it has.'\n\nJude shivered. 'Yes, but it's not exactly a pleasant memory, I'm afraid. Still, I suppose I'd better tell you all.' She looked around at everyone as she spoke. 'It began when Muireann Wolfe came to visit me the year before. Winston's mother, though I'm sure we've all figured that out by now. She'd come to me just after her daughter went missing. She believed that there were witches here, on Hunting Hill, who had killed young Megan. Her suspects were\u2026 well, all of the members of the notorious Lodge, that horrible club who liked to get their kicks by killing werewolves, weredogs\u2026 anyone they felt was lesser. Muireann told me that her nose had smelled guilt up here, on this fancy hill full of fancy houses\u2026'\n\nShe sighed. 'It didn't take me long to learn that she was absolutely right. That kind of hunting was illegal, but\u2026 this hill was named as it was for a reason, and even though times changed, the residents of Hunting Hill were reluctant to accept that change. Some still are, as you'll all know after investigating the Lodge yourselves. But\u2026 as I began to look into what had happened to little Megan Wolfe, I soon realised that I wasn't the only one investigating the witches in this area. I'd stumbled right into the middle of a Wayfair investigation, with Cullen's parents as the undercover agents. They were so, so close to bringing the culprits to justice. And I became part of that investigation.' She smiled at Cullen's mother. 'Caoimhe and I became friends. I even visited this little room a couple of times, and met their young son.'\n\nA tear slid down my great-aunt's cheek. 'I tried to speak to Muireann. To tell her that it was all in hand. I couldn't tell her the details of what I'd learned along the way, and the plan that the Wayfairs had devised, but I begged her to believe I was on top of things. I thought I'd gotten through to her, but then on Christmas Eve, she stormed in to the party, just as the hunt was about to begin. I don't know what she thought she'd achieve. She fought well, but she was no match for a house filled with witches. I had no choice. I went in there and I teleported her out of harm's way before anyone could stop me.'\n\n'We didn't see your wand,' Eva said. 'You looked like a witch in Caoimhe's memory; it was as if you simply pointed a finger to teleport Muireann out of there.'\n\n'My wand was hidden in the arm of my coat. Not on purpose,' said Jude. 'I just had very, very big sleeves. But that's a fact that turned out to be quite useful, in the end.' She closed her eyes for a moment, lost in the memories she had only just retrieved. 'I tried to leave immediately. I thought I'd acted quickly \u2013 taken them by surprise. But I wasn't quick enough. By the time I tried to travel out of here, someone had already locked the house down.'\n\n'Heber,' said Michael, his tone grim.\n\n'Yes.' My aunt nodded. 'Heber.' She looked to Jay. 'Could you\u2026?'\n\nHe understood immediately, and quickly enabled the rest of us to see inside Jude's mind.\n\n[ Silent Night ]\n\nIt had been a foolish thing to do, and Jude knew it. But she had to intervene. She'd come in here unprepared and teleported Muireann to safety because, if she hadn't, Muireann would have been killed. But now, Jude was stuck inside the house, and she was far from ready.\n\nShe'd only turned up on instinct, and was just about to organise her weapons when Muireann made a rush for the door. Her Toolkit was still shrunken and hiding in her bag. She should have at least taken her ropes out before entering. She'd meant to \u2013 she prided herself on being prepared for anything \u2013 but Muireann had just been too quick tonight.\n\nRealistically, all Jude had to hand was her wand, and her knife \u2013 and that particular knife was only good against werewolves and vampires. She'd been in bad situations, but this time\u2026 this time she was worried for her life. The Montrose coven had a certain look upon their faces tonight, and it was a look Jude had seen too many times before: murderous. They wanted to do to Jude what she'd stopped them from doing to Muireann.\n\nAs the coven surrounded her, Jude reached for her wand, cursing herself for wearing her favourite coat tonight. It was good for keeping warm, sure, but those sleeves were so big and baggy. Her wand was up there, somewhere. If only she could\u2014\n\n'Pass me those irons,' Heber Montrose said, shoving her roughly against one of the pillars. Another witch passed him a long chain, with shackles on either end, and Heber quickly secured her.\n\nCrap. She'd been just about to retrieve her wand (well, in another second or two), but now that she was shackled in witch irons, she wouldn't be able to scratch her nose, let alone pull her wand from up her sleeve like some nifty magician's trick.\n\nJude didn't know if those irons would stop her from using magic, or if they'd fully hold her \u2013 she was a hunter, not a witch. But even if she could unlock them, she would need something to direct her hunter magic \u2013 like her wand, stuck up the sleeve of her coat, or her knife, tucked into the back of her jeans.\n\n'Good job, Jude,' she muttered to herself as Heber and the other witch moved away, back to their crowd at the centre of the ballroom floor. She really was getting too old for this. Why hadn't she listened to Felim? He'd wanted them to spend Christmas Eve in front of the fire, drinking turnip brandy. If she ever got out of here, she was going to hand her weapons over to her nephews. Well, some of her weapons. Maybe. Her nephews might be hunters, but they were also idiots.\n\nA few seconds after Heber was gone, a voice whispered in Jude's ear. It was Caoimhe. Jude tried not to meet her friend's eyes, as Caoimhe said, 'I don't have long. This is a voice-throwing spell, and it's hard to keep it up without attracting notice. Look, I don't think Heber saw your wand. He thinks you're a witch, from the Wayfair coven. So keep your wand hidden. I'm going to draw on the pillar. It's strong, Jude. So strong. At the stroke of midnight, I'll unlock your shackles and drop the lockdown spell. Heber won't know it's down. You'll be able to get out and get the Wayfairs in earlier than we planned. So watch the clock, okay?'\n\nEven with magic, Jude wasn't in any way accomplished at voice-throwing spells, so Caoimhe would have to take her slight nod as an answer. Jude watched her as she stood with the other witches. All of the serving staff had scarpered. Hopefully they'd managed to get all the way out of the house before Heber had locked it down.\n\nJude let her eyes rove the hall, finally spying a huge clock in one of the alcoves. She kept an eye on the clock \u2013 it was six minutes to midnight \u2013 and listened as closely as she could to the witches as they talked.\n\n'So what next?' Caoimhe asked the others.\n\nHeber tapped his chin. 'We kill that witch, that's what's next. I told you, it's more than likely she's a Wayfair \u2013 they're always poking their noses where they don't belong. I say we get it over with, and transport the body far away from here, and quick.'\n\nAs the crowd either agreed with Heber, or made suggestions of their own, Jude glanced at the clock again. It was five minutes to midnight, now. She could hear Caoimhe speaking more loudly, trying to guide the others into the adjoining library, hoping to have them out of the way when she helped Jude escape. But the witches were arguing, glaring at Jude \u2013 they wanted to kill her now.\n\n'Well, let's have a drink first, shall we?' Michael suggested, understanding that his wife needed a distraction. 'A bit of Dutch courage before we do this dirty deed, eh?'\n\nThe others made some noises of agreement, and the crowd moved towards the library. But just as he was about to cross the threshold, Heber stopped and said, 'Of course, we could just stay in here, and see whether you try to help this Wayfair witch escape.'\n\nCaoimhe and Michael stared at Heber. 'What are you talking about?' asked Michael.\n\n'You know exactly what I'm talking about. You're spies. This whole night was created so that the Wayfair coven could catch us in the act of hunting werewolves.' He shook his head. 'You think you actually fooled me with this charade? You vowed never to return to the Montrose coven. But then you marry a mysterious woman we've never heard of before, and suddenly you wanted back in. Did you take me for a fool, Michael? I've known what you were up to all along.'\n\n'So why did you wait all of this time?' asked Michael, his eyes dancing with nerves. Jude could see that he was still playing for time, desperate to find a way out of this mess. 'Why did you let tonight go ahead, if you knew what we were doing? Or should I say not doing? Because this is clearly all in your imagination.'\n\n'My dear cousin,' said Heber. 'I have contacts everywhere. I have power and connections you cannot even dream of. Frankly, the idea you thought you could get one over on me is laughable. Of course I had a plan for tonight. At the last minute, I was going to clutch my chest and say that some of your food hadn't agreed with me. The hunt would have been postponed. The Wayfairs would have arrived at our hunting ground, and found absolutely nothing. Oh, they may have knocked on this door afterwards, but\u2026 it would have been too late by then.'\n\n'Too late for what?' Michael asked, his throat sounding dry.\n\n'Too late for you, and Caoimhe, and your little one, of course. I meant it when I said I wanted to kill someone young tonight. But it wasn't a werewolf.' He narrowed his eyes, spittle flying and chins wobbling as he drew closer to Michael. 'No one will be able to prove a thing, afterwards. Not the Wayfairs. Not anybody. Because when I said I have connections and power, I meant it. You'll be declared missing, like so many are, and that will be the end of that. And as for myself and my true friends, we shall leave here and go on about our lives as if you never existed at all.'\n\nJude watched Caoimhe's and Michael's faces, wondering: would the plan still go ahead? They looked terrified, and Jude could understand why. Cuileann was their world. They loved that boy with every atom of their bodies.\n\n'Look, I\u2026 I don't know anything about all of this spy business,' Michael blustered. 'But if these Wayfair people do turn up, I'll turn them away. I'll lie. I'll say anything you want. I'll do anything you want.'\n\n'You know,' said Heber, 'I believe that to save your little son, you probably would. But that wouldn't do my reputation any good, would it? No, I need to set an example, Michael. Go against Heber Montrose, and you disappear. It's just the way it has to be.'\n\n'Look, you can suffer from paranoia any other day, Heber,' said Michael, still desperately bluffing and blustering. 'But not now, all right? Not on what I hoped would be a good night's hunting. We're all going to sit down, and have a drink. As soon as you calm down, you'll see how ridiculous you're being.'\n\n'No.' Heber crooked his finger, and the rest of the party surrounded Michael and Caoimhe. 'Right now we have to kill you, and your child. Then we'll deal with that witch we've got tied up. And then\u2026 well, then I'll probably have a nightcap and a good night's sleep.'\n\nIn times of terror, thought Jude, it can sometimes seem as though the world slows down. Those last few seconds before the clock struck midnight seemed to take forever, until suddenly, Caoimhe's voice whispered urgently in her ear, 'Save my son, you have to save my son!'\n\nThe clock struck, Jude's shackles fell away, and she finally managed to pull out her wand."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 19",
                "text": "The nanny was in the nursery, along with a boy of sixteen or so. He was dressed as a waiter \u2013 he must have been one of the few who hadn't managed to get away before Heber's lockdown spell.\n\nThe nanny had placed the baby in a small carrier, with his teddy in his arms, and a little silver toy. It seemed to be an oddly-shaped music box with far too many moving parts for a baby. Probably not the safest toy, Jude thought, as the nanny reached out to it, twisting the star on top of the Christmas tree; the toy began to play Silent Night.\n\nAs the music played, witches thundered up the stairs. Some of them (the more clever among them) had already used their magic to travel more quickly to the nursery. Jude grabbed the baby carrier and screamed, 'Grab on tight to me!' to the nanny and the boy. With a whirl of her wand, she took them all to Eile Street.\n\nMost of the Wayfair coven were under cloaking spells while they carried out tonight's operation, and Jude knew there was no point in trying to find them. But she also knew of another Wayfair job that night \u2013 two of their coven were in a tavern on Eile Street, spying on a wizard who they suspected was trading in dark objects.\n\nIt was snowing when Jude arrived on that street, with a nanny, a boy and a baby. The snow was heavy and cold, but it looked so pretty under the streetlamps.\n\n'What are we doing here?' asked the nanny, while the boy simply shivered.\n\n'I have things to take care of,' Jude said. 'Just run, both of you. The Wayfairs will be in touch.'\n\nInstantly, the pair fled, and Jude looked down at the baby. He must have been freezing, in only a little romper and a bib, so she laid him on the ground and pulled off her coat, about to wrap it around him, when she heard a growl.\n\nJude's stomach sank \u2013 how could she have forgotten? When she'd teleported Muireann Wolfe, this was exactly where she sent her to. Muireann had a flat above a shop, just a few doors away from here.\n\n'I thought you'd be at home, where I sent you,' Jude said as she turned to face Muireann. The werewolf was already part-transformed, and she merely growled in response.\n\n'Can you change back, Muireann, so I can talk to you properly?' Jude went on, reaching desperately into her coat for her wand, only to realise she didn't have either. Her eyes darted around. The coat was where she'd left it, on the ground beside the baby. The wand must have rolled, because it was all the way over on the other side of the street. All she had was her knife, stuck into the waistband of her jeans.\n\nShe shielded the baby carrier with her body, carefully watching Muireann all the while as she reached down for her knife. The woman was now one hundred percent wolf, her clothes stretched and torn, her limbs long and strong, her nails dangerous. 'I'm just going to get the baby settled somewhere safe, and then we can go together to the Wayfair coven. I should have told you this before, but\u2026 at the Montrose mansion tonight, it was a secret operation. Caoimhe and Michael aren't what you think they are. They're\u2013'\n\nJude didn't get the chance to tell the werewolf what Cullen's parents were, because the creature lunged, knocking Jude to the ground and swiping at the baby.\n\nJude didn't think; she simply acted, aiming her knife at the wolf and praying a silent prayer. She always prayed when she threw that knife, because if she didn't, it was a truly hit or miss affair. If Jude really really wished the best for the werewolf in question, then her knife wouldn't kill them, but would merely return them to human form.\n\nEven if Jude didn't wish the best \u2013 if she actually wanted the wolf to die \u2013 then the chances were high that the knife still wouldn't kill them. It would merely slide off and fall to the ground. Hunter weapons were finicky that way \u2013 some of them seemed to have a mind of their own, while some of them seemed to have a genuine connection to her mind, and to her intentions. And now that she was throwing this weapon at a werewolf who was trying to kill a baby, Jude was having quite a hard time wishing Muireann the best.\n\nShe didn't know she'd been holding her breath, but she finally let it out again as the werewolf whimpered, let go of the baby, and fell to the ground.\n\nAs Muireann quickly reverted to her human body, Jude kept an eye on her and rushed to grab the child and retrieve her knife.\n\n'You're all right.' Jude kissed the baby's tiny head. 'You're actually all right. Well\u2026 nothing that a little healing spell won't fix.' Her voice was shaky, because she wasn't sure if she was telling the truth. Muireann had injured his face \u2013 a great big gash that ran from his left eye to his upper lip. Was it a bite, or a claw mark? For now, it was bleeding too profusely to tell.\n\nJude retrieved her silver wand, using it to perform a spell that would clean and cauterize the wound. Healing spells were hardly her speciality. There was a danger she'd leave a mark. But she had to move quickly \u2013 a baby not yet a month old did not need a werewolf bite to add to his woes. Even outside of full moon, the venom could spread and cause complications.\n\n'Did you bite him?' Jude cried.\n\n'No!' Muireann shook her head, snatching up Jude's coat and wrapping it around herself. 'I must have just caught him with my nail. I wanted to bite him. I wanted to do much worse. And I was going to, if you hadn't stopped me. You have to understand, Jude. They killed my child, so when I smelled one of their children on the street outside my home, I\u2026 I just saw red. I\u2026 I'm sorry.'\n\nJude shook her head, resting the baby back in his carrier and twisting the little star atop the tree as she'd seen the nanny do, hoping to comfort him. It wasn't a bite. That was the main thing. Someone would clean up Jude's rush-job, no doubt, when all of this was over.\n\n'You're sorry?' Jude shouted as she stood to face Muireann. 'Well, you bloody well should be. I saved you from that lot tonight because my heart aches for you, and for what those witches took from you. I saved you because you have another child who needs you. And this little boy?' Jude glanced back at him. He was making the sweetest gurgling noises as his toy played its tune. 'Even if his parents were what you think they are, he wouldn't deserve what you tried to do tonight. But what's worse is that they're not what you think they are. They're\u2026'\n\nJude shook her head, unable to finish her sentence, as confusion washed over her. She\u2026 she'd been saying something, hadn't she? She'd been in the middle of something very important.\n\nHadn't she?\n\nNow, all that she was sure of was that she was cold. She rubbed her arms, looking around her. What was she doing on Eile Street? What was she doing out at all, without a coat, when such heavy snow was falling down?\n\nShe jerked, as tingles ran all through her body. It wasn't a cold shiver, but a very particular kind of tingle \u2013 the kind a hunter could always feel when there was magic in the air. And whatever magic was at work, it was a strong, strange magic \u2013 and it was working on her. Something was shifting inside her \u2013 some thought, some memory of that oh-so-important reason why she was standing on this street \u2013 all of it was fading away.\n\nFrightened, Jude stared around again, desperate to remember. There was a baby in a carrier, a few feet away. There was a woman, with torn clothes and a coat that looked very much like Jude's coat \u2013 her favourite coat, too \u2013 scurrying away. And somewhere close, there was the sound of such lovely, lovely music, a Christmas carol Jude knew and loved: Silent Night.\n\n[ I Wished it Could be Christmas Every Day ]\n\nI sat in the circle, watching my aunt's memories in amazement. It all made sense now. Winston's mother, his sister, Cullen's scar\u2026\n\nA hunter had scarred him, but not in order to hurt him. My aunt had been trying to save him from what she feared was a werewolf bite. The hunter magic I saw when I looked at his old injury was the remnants of the magic Aunt Jude used that night.\n\nBut in that orphanage, under Esme's care, his scar had never been cleaned up, even though it would have been a simple spell. Esme had left it there, because Esme was Esme. And then, when he was old enough to erase it himself, Cullen had left it there. Because Cullen was Cullen.\n\nSo why didn't Jude remember? Why didn't the Wayfairs remember? Heber Montrose had been arrested only a few years ago, by Wanda Wayfair. And my friends and I had helped to put Debbie McGinty and Denton Montrose behind bars a while back, but many of those party guests were still around. Older now, but definitely still around.\n\nJude snatched her hands from the circle, throwing us all out of her memories, and stared at Caoimhe. 'A woman opened a door \u2013 Esme, the orphanage matron \u2013 she opened a door, and she took Cullen inside. And I just let her. I didn't know any better than to just let her. And then I went home and my husband didn't know anything either. And\u2026 and I'm a curious person, Caoimhe. I would never let something like that just go. And yet\u2026 I did? Until just now, I had no recollection of Muireann, of that job with the Wayfairs. So what did you do to me? To Muireann? To make me forget this house, and that night. To make me forget that there was a Pillar of Permanence here. Was it a memory spell? Well, it must have been, mustn't it?'\n\nSlowly, Caoimhe nodded her head. 'Immediately after you left the room, Michael and I were murdered. But\u2026 time can pass slowly when a death spell is coming your way. And in that split second, or however long it might have been before I died, I managed to create the most important spell of my life. Because Heber meant what he said, and I knew it. He would send people to hunt Cuileann down and kill him, just to set an example. So\u2026 I drew on the power of the Pillar of Permanence, and I created a memory spell. I made sure that the second every person in that house left, they would never track down my son. They would never hurt you, Cuileann. Because they would forget that you ever existed. They would forget that everything about us ever existed, including this house.\n\n'It was far from a perfect spell, I admit. But when you know you're about to be murdered, you have to work fast.'\n\nShe shot an apologetic look in Jude's direction. 'It's obvious now, with hindsight, that in order to make the Montrose coven forget us and Cuileann, that everyone would forget us. Your memories began to leave you, I think, the moment that Heber and his friends left our house. I certainly didn't envisage your encounter with Muireann. In the end, it wasn't just Heber Montrose I had to worry about. It was a heartbroken, grieving mother, who had loved her daughter just as much as I loved my son.'\n\nCullen hadn't said anything for a long time, and he still didn't speak. He swallowed, looked at his mother, and then looked away again.\n\n'You were born at the beginning of December,' she told him, even though he wouldn't meet her eyes. 'I was in our garden, clipping some holly to add to the garland, when you came. I'd thought of naming you a hundred things, but as soon as I felt you on the way I knew what I'd call you. Cuileann, for the holly, for the red berries and green leaves in my grasp. Although Cullen suits you, you know. It's close enough. And with my surname as yours, at least\u2026 at least you've always had a connection to me.'\n\nCullen staggered to his feet, leaving the floor and heading for one of the chairs by the table. 'I\u2026' he began. 'I'm glad, to finally know all of this. But I don't think I understand everything yet. You're so solid, both of you. And everyone else might have forgotten you, but you didn't forget. Why didn't you reach out to me before now? Why are we locked in this house?'\n\nCullen's father looked him in the eye. 'I have tried to reach out to you. I visit you. I keep up with what's happening in your life. But the memory spell seems to have affected people's ability to see me or hear me. Even other ghosts can't see me, except for Caoimhe. Even you can't see me, though I've tried so hard. Still, I have been there to see some momentous moments in your life. There were times when my heart ached for you. And lately, there have been times when my heart has soared.'\n\nCullen gave his father a sheepish smile. 'Eek. I don't know whether to find that sweet or disturbing.' He let out a hoarse laugh.\n\n'Oh, don't worry,' said Michael. 'There are limits on what and where a ghost can watch. Rules about intimate moments and so on. Although\u2026 there are a lot of public displays of affection just lately, so it's really not my fault if I happen to see some of that.' He gave me a wink. 'Hello, Katy, by the way. You have made our son finally, completely happy, and for that, Caoimhe and I are more grateful to you than we can ever express. But\u2026 as to why you're trapped in here\u2026 I'll let Caoimhe try to explain.'\n\nOnce again, she gazed at her son. 'My spell had been fast and sloppy that night. As well as having many unintended consequences, it was also unbreakable. Afterwards, I tried to make some adjustments. The first of my attempts was that, when you were ready to seek out your parents, the music would lead you to this house. I used the other musical plum that I had here, in the house, to create the spell. They were a pair, so I was able to focus on it, and draw upon the pillar to create the amendment.\n\n'You were supposed to feel the urge to play Silent Night, and when you heard it, you would have an irrepressible desire to come here. You would be able to meet us, and hear the truth of why you had to grow up without us.'\n\nHer face grew flushed. 'And also\u2026 well, I also wished that, when you did walk in, it would be Christmas. It would always be Christmas, every time you walked into this house \u2013 even if you walked in a hundred thousand times. I\u2026 I have a thing for Christmas. The carols, the food. Being with family. I wanted you to have that, with us \u2013 the Christmas day that we never got to have together.'\n\nShe looked at us all. 'But it soon became obvious that my son didn't have the musical plum. Michael travelled to the orphanage, as a ghost. He found it in the basement, and we hoped that even though Esme had taken Cuileann's things when he was a baby, surely she'd give them back to him when he left there. But she never did. And Michael is only solid inside the house. He's never been able to communicate or to move anything outside of it so\u2026 I made yet another attempt to amend the spell. We knew Cuileann had visited residents on this hill, so I tried to make it so that, even without Silent Night to lead him home, he would see the house \u2013 he, and only he would see it \u2013 and he would feel the urge to come inside. But perhaps he never saw it until now because, even though he was close by, he never came.'\n\n'I did have an urge to come inside,' Cullen admitted, his voice barely audible. 'I saw this house, and it drew me. I just resisted it. I don't know why. Stubbornness? Fear? I don't know.'\n\n'Ah. That explains it, then.' His mother took a drink, and then said, 'Well, I believed that the amendment to the spell failed. I didn't even know until today that the always Christmas part had worked. I thought the only thing I got right \u2013 well, somewhat right \u2013 was the memory spell. But maybe Cuileann gets his stubborn streak from my side of the family, because I made one last-ditch attempt. It was more of a wish than a spell. I drew upon the pillar and I wished that somehow, anyhow, someone or something would lead you home. It was just that one, simple wish, but\u2026 it must have worked. Because that very day, Winston was able to see this house, and somehow I was able to communicate with him. Maybe it was his connection to all of this that enabled him to come in, maybe it was because of my wish. Either way, I wasn't going to let his arrival go to waste. But\u2026 well\u2026 I think I might have known that it was stubbornness keeping you away by then, at least somewhere deep down, because I asked him to bring the plum to Jude, so that her memory would return when she twisted the star.'\n\nShe turned to face my aunt. 'And somehow, you both listened to the music. Somehow, you were all led here. But even then, Jude, your memories didn't return. That's when I realised just how unbreakable my spell really was. Your memories didn't return until you were here, safely locked inside this house. And I can't be sure, because my original spell was such a desperate, sloppy, last-minute mess, but\u2026 I do believe that the memory spell is the reason you're all locked inside. It's trying to protect itself. And the only way it can do that is if it never lets you out.'\n\nHer face was a picture of embarrassment and concern. 'All I can say is that I am so, so sorry to you all \u2013 and to Katy, especially, because this is probably not the way you imagined meeting your future in-laws.'\n\nI found myself furiously blushing at the thought that Cullen and I might marry one day, while Caoimhe continued to talk.\n\n'But don't worry,' she said. 'I think I might know of a way.' Her eyes rested on Hamish for a moment. 'A way to give everyone what they need. But first, why don't we all sit at the table and eat? There are presents, too. They're the same ones we had for your first Christmas.'\n\nAs she spoke those last words I carefully watched her and, as I did, I thought about the magic, running between Caoimhe and the pillar. I also thought about the fact that my hand was hurting more than ever, and that when I'd sneaked a peek at it through my Aurameter, some new and unusual magic had turned up to join the party. The coil seemed to be extending in a way that only my Aurameter would let me see \u2013 the magic in my hand, creeping towards Caoimhe, like a thousand silver tendrils, each one with a white-hot flame at its tip.\n\nI was terrified to think too much about what it might mean. Because what if there was an ending to this? And what if that ending wasn't a happy one \u2013 at least not for everyone?\n\n'I don't want food,' Cullen told his mother. 'I want to figure out how to get my friends out of this mess.'\n\n'Hey.' I softly touched his arm. 'I think we're all getting hungry right now. Let's do what your mother suggested, yeah? Let's all sit down and eat and have Christmas together, and we can talk about everything else in a while.'\n\n[ We'll Always Have Halloween ]\n\nWhen I began to eat, I wasn't sure that it was actually real food because, let's face it, it was magical food created by Cullen's mother so that he could enjoy Christmas with his parents every day for the rest of his life. But somehow every morsel tasted real and delicious, and the two glasses of wine I drank made me just a little tipsy.\n\nAfter a reluctant beginning, Hamish ate even more than the rest of us. As we enjoyed our plum pudding dessert, we pulled crackers with terrible jokes and paper crowns inside. After that, we had a sing-song at the piano (any sing-song not involving my mother is a winner) and then played charades.\n\nFinally, Cullen opened the presents beneath the tree. There were tiny outfits, tiny socks and tiny shoes. There were soft toys and rattles and a little baby book with just a few photos inside, and lots of empty pages that had never been filled.\n\nWhen he reached those empty pages, his eyes grew wet, and he suddenly croaked out, 'Sorry. I'm sorry.'\n\nHis parents gazed at him in wonder. They were sitting on the rug by the tree, and they'd been looking on and smiling as he opened his gifts. 'What are you sorry for?' his father asked.\n\nCullen swallowed. 'You know what for. You've seen me over the years. You know that I was bitter and twisted for a really long time. You know I was a thief. A dealer in illegal potions. You know\u2026 you know I was a warlock. That I mixed with people just like the ones you fought so hard against.'\n\nHis mother blinked back tears, reached out, and stroked his hair. 'I know you were sad. I know you yearned for us. I know that. I know you had a good heart, always, and that you found your way in the end.'\n\nHe swallowed again, and it was so clear that he needed to have a real, proper cry. I ached to rush over there, and hug him, to hold him while he cried. But instead I stayed sitting near the piano, watching as he let his mother put her arms around him. Watching as he actually hugged her back.\n\nHe even beckoned his father closer, and hugged them both at once, a great big family embrace that lasted two or three minutes, maybe more.\n\nWiping away a tear, Cullen eventually let go of them and said, 'Thanks. Thanks for\u2026 for this. For the whole Christmas every day thing. Thanks for saving me that night. But I think\u2026 I think there are some things you haven't told me, right? Because Michael \u2013 Dad \u2013 you said that you'd watched over me.' He looked at his mother. 'But you didn't, did you? You only know what Dad told you. Why? Is it something to do with the pillar?'\n\nShe took a few seconds to reply. 'Yes. It's meant that I haven't been able to leave the house. Or to pass on to the afterlife. Your father\u2026' She glanced at Michael. 'I think he could pass over, but for some unknown reason he's decided to stay here with me.'\n\nMichael reached out and clasped her hand. 'Of course I have, you wonderful woman. I'd be miserable without you. Here we're solid. We're together. We can eat, and drink. We can have days like this. Who could want for anything more?'\n\nCullen looked in confusion at them both. 'But it's been years. Thirty and change. And you didn't have days like this, not if the spell you did is how you described. The house rotted away around you. It only looks like this because I'm here. And look, maybe you think I'm worth waiting for, the goddess knows why, but\u2026 you're still not really answering my question. Why can't you leave? Why can't you pass on, Mam? What kind of spell holds you here after you die? It's got something to do with that weird bramble-magic that Katy and Jude saw through their Aurameters. You're bound by it, aren't you? It's like a leash, holding you to the pillar. Holding you here.'\n\nHis mother's face paled, and she took in some deep breaths, before saying, 'Yes. Yes, that's what it's like. I\u2026 I was foolish. In my eagerness to be a proper Wayfair spy, to expose werewolf hunters like Heber, I hunted down the most powerful magical objects I could find. I managed to find the pillar, and something else \u2013 something that would join me to it so I could draw upon it and pretend to be a witch. Something called the Beast's Bramble. I thought I could handle it. It looked ever so innocent \u2013 just a coppery thread, I couldn't even see the thorns, or the leaves at first \u2013 but oh, how it pained to be joined in that way. During the bonding spell, it grew and grew, encircling me and the pillar, digging into my skin. Even when the spell was finished, and I couldn't see the bramble anymore, I could still feel it. I've never stopped feeling it. It is like a leash, yes. Like a painful, thorny leash. Every time I strayed too far from the pillar, it would pull me back. Every ounce of power I channelled felt like it was being shot into me with a thousand tiny thorns. And when I died\u2026 it seemed that the connection remained. And so I remained here.'\n\nMichael put an arm around her shoulder and kissed her softly. 'There's more to it than that,' he said, turning back to Cullen. 'You've seen how strong the magic is. The pillar is Caoimhe's, as long as they're joined. If you and your friends try to use its magic for yourselves, the bonding spell can, and will, attack. So you can see, can't you, that even though we want you to use it for Hamish, there are going to be one or two obstacles in the way.'\n\nCaoimhe looked paler than ever, and she got to her knees and took Cullen's hands in hers.\n\n'Every spell I do is powered by my connection to the pillar. And so, every spell I do will end, as soon as my connection is severed. The memory spell will end, the house will let you out, and Hamish can use the pillar to become a man again.' She gave him a wide, tear-sodden smile. 'It will be a happy ending for you all. But\u2026 only if Katy can help.'\n\nShe looked my way. 'I saw you looking worriedly through your Aurameter before we ate. So I know that you saw something there. A kind of magic that you didn't quite expect. And it has something to do with that strange spiral on your hand, am I right?'\n\nI met her gaze. 'How did you know?'\n\nCaoimhe shrugged. 'I know because every time you've been near me \u2013 to pass the roast potatoes, to top up my wine \u2013 my already excruciating level of pain has increased by, oh, about a hundred-fold. This horrible Beast's Bramble, I think you can take it away. I don't really understand how, or why, but you can. You can sever my connection to the pillar.'\n\nI moved my eyes to Cullen. 'I mean\u2026 maybe. But\u2026'\n\n'I know what will happen.' Caoimhe smiled valiantly. 'And I'm ready for it. Come here and hold my hand, Katy, and we'll see what magic we can work.'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 20",
                "text": "I took Caoimhe's hands in mine. I didn't know if I would need an incantation, or if we would need any other equipment. There was no rulebook for any of this. But as it turned out, we didn't need anything. The second we touched, I could feel what was happening, I could feel the heat of Foirfe's magic bursting out of me. Caoimhe made a little wincing noise, but put on another valiant smile. 'It's fine, it's fine.'\n\nI snapped my hands back. 'No, it's not. I don't want to have to be the one to do this, Caoimhe.'\n\n'It can only be you.' Caoimhe gave me a firm nod. 'And you know it, Katy. I mean, you could try torturing me with those tubes again.' She let out a wry laugh. 'But after my earlier experience of them, I don't think they can work on magic like this. Oh, they can dim it. They can cause me pain. But they can't remove the bond of the Beast's Bramble. I believe only you can, Katy. And for Hamish's sake, we need to act as soon as possible.'\n\nHamish stepped forward. 'There must be another way, though, mustn't there? Caoimhe, you and Michael could have so many days like this. I can't bear the thought that you'd be giving them up for me. There'll be another way to fix things. Hey, any minute now the Queen of the Faeries is bound to burst in and save the day.'\n\nAt that, Cleo sniggered.\n\n'The cat's right,' said Jude. 'Her Majesty isn't coming. I told you, I know her. This is something she wants us to deal with ourselves.'\n\n'A wise woman.' Michael smiled softly.\n\n'An irritating woman,' Cleo muttered.\n\n'It doesn't really matter what kind of woman she is, though, does it?' Caoimhe said. 'Because whether she comes in here or not, the result is the same. I don't think she can break this bond between the pillar and I, but even if she can, the spell still ends. I move on to the afterlife, and you get to use the pillar for Hamish. I'm not sad about any of this, and I'm not afraid. I welcome this, Katy. I've had more than enough time in this world.'\n\nShe hadn't, though. She hadn't had nearly enough time. Judging by the appearance of her ghost, Caoimhe must have been in her early twenties when she married Michael Montrose, and moved to this enclave and had Cullen. She'd died so young, and ever since then she'd done nothing but wait for this day \u2013 her Christmas with the child she'd given everything to protect.\n\nShe and Michael could have had this day with Cullen forever, over and over. And under any other circumstances, I knew Cullen would have loved to come here as many times as possible, to visit the parents he'd always wanted to know.\n\nI wished we could have everything, all of us. I wished we could get out of this house without ending the memory spell. I wished that bringing Hamish back didn't mean Cullen had to say goodbye to the parents he'd only just met. And I wished that anyone but me could be the one who had to take them away.\n\nI locked eyes with Cullen, and he gave me a big, bright smile and said, 'It's all right, Katy. It is. Remember, I'm a witch. Which means that even if me and my parents have only had one Christmas, we'll always have Halloween.'\n\nCullen's father let out a warm, happy laugh. 'And we will come to visit you every single Halloween for the rest of your life, so keep that date open forever.'\n\nCullen hugged his father and said, 'I promise.'\n\nI stepped towards Caoimhe again, and took her hands in mine. I didn't know what would happen. We were working with instinct, and nothing more. But somehow, I knew it would work.\n\nSometimes, magic is so, so cruel. Most of the time the only way to see it is through an Aurameter, or through the eyes of the fae. But this magic\u2026 this magic, all of us could see.\n\nI'd held Caoimhe's hands for only a few seconds when the flames began to creep from my palm to hers, moving in a spiralling motion, swirling and licking along her body, from thorn to invisible thorn, until every inch of the Beast's Bramble was aflame.\n\nShe didn't scream, even as those flames burned her to extinction.\n\nThe last I saw of her was her face, her lips parted in a peaceful smile.\n\nMichael simply stood there, beside his son, his eyes on his wife, until the moment she was gone. And when she was, Michael took Cullen in his arms, said, 'We loved you from the moment we made you,' and simply faded away before our eyes.\n\nThe lush green Christmas tree became a brown, rotten thing. The decorations and the presents were soon covered with dust and mould. There was no meal on the table, and no smell of food in the air. But somehow, that room still felt like Christmas.\n\n[ The Key ]\n\nIt felt more than a little odd to walk back into the ballroom. There were no thorns assaulting us. There was no Beast's Bramble in the air. There was just a wrecked room, smelling of damp and letting a breeze in through the holes in the windows.\n\nThis house had remained invisible for over thirty years, but it had managed to fall into decay just fine, regardless of whether anyone was watching or not.\n\n'Well then,' said Hamish, looking up at the pillar. 'It's quite the thing, isn't it?'\n\nHe sounded nervous, and I couldn't blame him. He'd waited years for this. We'd all been through a lot to make it happen.\n\n'We should, I don't know, just\u2026 get on with it then?' said Eva, pulling her wand from her hair.\n\n'Oh. Yeah.' Ned reached into her bag and pulled out some items. She had a photograph of Hamish, taken shortly before he became a dog, an old hairbrush, and some chalk. With the chalk, she and Eva began to draw a circle on the floor around the pillar, with some smaller circles branching out. In one they placed the picture, in another a tuft of Hamish's hair which Ned pulled from the brush. One circle, the largest, remained.\n\n'Jonathan never did divulge exactly what spell he used,' Ned told us as they worked. 'But the Wayfarers said that they found a poppet of Hamish, made with Hamish's hair and a photo attached to the poppet's face. And in one of Jonathan's many rooms, they found markings on the floor, where the pillar stood before he destroyed it, and some faded chalk circles too. We worked out the spell based on all of that, so I think it should work. No, I know it will.'\n\n'It will,' Eva affirmed. 'There are few magical objects as powerful as Foirfe's pillars. Caoimhe was able to use this one for so much, even though she was basically a beginner wizard. All we need is to be clear in our intent, and the pillar will do its thing. Hamish.' She pointed to the largest circle. 'You've got to stand in there, okay?'\n\nHis legs shook as he went and took his position. We'd decided beforehand that, as a wizard, Eva would be the best person to channel the magic from the pillar, so she stood right next to it, placed one hand on it, and with her other hand she pointed her wand at Hamish.\n\nShe opened her mouth, about to chant the spell, but instead she said, 'Huh. That's weird. I can't feel any magic.'\n\n'Really?' I frowned. 'Because my palm still hurts like heck.' I opened my hand, looking at the mark. The coil was still moving, just like before: a spiralling river of molten metal.\n\n'I don't understand.' Jude was looking at the pillar through her new Aurameter. 'The magic is gone. There's none of it left in the air.'\n\nI was about to reply to my great-aunt \u2013 probably something pointless along the lines of 'Well, this is weird.' Instead, I shut my mouth and listened to the voice in my head. It was a voice I recognised, the voice that had promised me we would find the pillar here.\n\n'A lot of people want this pillar,' Foirfe said. 'It's the only one left, which makes it the most dangerous and sought-after magical object in the world. People will fight over it, and I don't like it when people fight. The mark on your palm is a key, Katy. A key that only you can use. It unlocked the pillar from its bond to Caoimhe, and it will continue to unlock the pillar for you, and only you. You can channel it, and Eva can channel you, to complete Hamish's spell. After that, you can do anything you like with it, but\u2026 I do have a certain fondness for the Riddler's Express.'\n\n'But how can I put it in the train if only I can use it?' I asked, aware that my friends were staring in confusion.\n\n'You just have to be there to aid in the installation. And once you help to install it, it shall be tied to that task, unless you choose to move it again. But\u2026 I can see how you might have different ideas for it, considering you almost died on the train. So, I shall leave the final decision up to you.'\n\nI staggered a little as I felt her leave my mind. 'You could at least have said goodbye,' I muttered. 'I'm all right,' I added, as Cullen and the others approached me. 'It's just\u2026' I held up my hand. 'It turns out that the pillar is a one-woman magical object.'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 21",
                "text": "For our second attempt at the spell I stood closest to the pillar, with one hand on it and my other on Eva, letting her channel the magic through me. Just as when I'd touched the pillar earlier on, the pain subsided as soon as my hand made contact. And I was sure: it was mine and I was its, and together we could accomplish anything.\n\nDid I want to accomplish the task of returning the Riddler's Express to the rails? Meh, I wasn't sure about that. But I definitely wanted to make Hamish slightly less furry.\n\nEva gave me a small nod and said, 'I can feel it, it's working,' before aiming her wand at Hamish. Her incantation was a simple one:\n\n\u2003'A pillar was used to seal this man's fate\n\n\u2003Now let this other pillar undo that spell of hate\n\n\u2003Reverse the wrong that has been done\n\n\u2003Return him to his own true form.'\n\nThe spell worked so quickly that it felt almost anticlimactic. White light shot from the pillar, into me, and onwards into Eva. It raced through the circles, making first the photograph glow, next the clump of hair, and finally, Hamish was bursting with magic, his body transforming fast before our eyes, from a dog on all fours, to a man on all fours.\n\nHuman again, Hamish stood up cautiously, as if testing his legs. There was so much emotion on his face. He appeared to be feeling all the feels: a lot of relief, a smidgen of disbelief, equal amounts of happiness, awe and shock, and a second smidgen of disbelief\u2026\n\n'Oh dear.' Ned turned bright red. 'That's\u2026 that's definitely your true form, Hamish. Why didn't it occur to us to bring any of your old clothes with us?'\n\n'Somebody make it go away!' cried Cleo. 'The sight of it is hurting my beautiful eyes!'\n\nHamish's hands quickly moved to cover his unmentionables.\n\n'Don't worry, Cleo,' said Eva, reaching into that bigger-on-the-inside bag of hers. 'I've got it covered.' She threw a pile of clothes in Hamish's direction. 'They're my brother's. They should fit.'\n\nHamish gave Eva a grateful (and some might say slightly soppy and love-struck) smile, and quickly got dressed.\n\n[ When She Smiles, it's Like Sunshine ]\n\nThere was something euphoric about walking out of the house that day: me, Cullen, Ned, Jay and Cleo, Jude and Eva and, of course, Hamish. It was with great difficulty that I resisted the urge to do a little jump and thrust my fist in the air.\n\nAt first, Finn simply rushed towards us, no doubt about to scold us for the many stupid things we'd done. 'You all look all right, which is nice but\u2026 no way.' His eyes fell on Hamish. 'No way. No flipping way. You did it! You actually did it!'\n\nHamish allowed himself to be hugged by Captain Plimpton for a few seconds before pulling away and pointing at the nearby carriage. It was drawn by P\u00faca shifters in the form of horses. The carriage door was open, and a woman was waving out at us. She wore a light yellow dress, and a crown of willowherb encircled her hair.\n\nThis was the Queen of the Si\u00f3ga, one of the most powerful women in the world.\n\n'You didnae manage to break the magic, Your Majesty?' said Hamish with a wink. 'That surprises me.'\n\nFor some reason, Hamish's comment to the Queen seemed to infuriate Finn. 'She didn't even try,' the captain said, glowering at Her Majesty. 'Oh, she says she did. But most of the time she was here she just sat in the carriage drinking tea and eating sandwiches.'\n\nThe Queen beamed, a big, bright, butter-wouldn't-melt smile. 'I brought enough to share, didn't I? And now that I see that everyone is safe and well \u2013 with one of you very much improved \u2013 I suppose I can finally admit that, no, I didn't make much effort to break the magic and enter the house. It was a memory spell, from what I could tell, and rather a beautiful one, too. It would have been rude of me to break it.'\n\n'Told you so,' murmured Aunt Jude.\n\nFinn continued to glower. 'I should have asked your granddaughter to do it instead.'\n\n'Hah!' The Queen scoffed. 'If you think that, then you don't know my granddaughter very well. She would have made exactly the same call as I did. This lot were perfectly capable of resolving things in their own time.'\n\n'What about Winston?' I asked, looking around. I'd seen no sign of him while I was strutting up the driveway, but Finn had told me he'd be here. After all these years of wondering what had happened to his big sister, he would finally know the truth. It wasn't a nice truth, but it was one that he and his mother deserved to know.\n\n'He asked one of my officers to bring him back to his cell the second you got out,' Finn informed me. 'Probably because he doesn't want you to try and change his mind.'\n\n'Oh, so\u2026 there were no great revelations while we were in the house, then?' My euphoria was ebbing away. 'No last-minute confession from Siobhan? Winston is really still insisting he's the killer?'\n\n'He still is, yeah.' Finn propped himself against the carriage, arms folded. 'And I don't think Siobhan Cahill is ever going to confess, do you? But in the meantime, I'd love to know about how you got on in there.' He nodded to the house.\n\nI thought about it for a moment, but I had no idea where to begin. It had been an epic and exhausting day, and all I really wanted right now was a nice cup of tea.\n\nCullen put an arm around my waist. 'If you want to know so badly, then you can follow us back to the Bank,' he said. 'Because right now, I'm going home to make my girlfriend a cuppa.'\n\n'Aw.' I looked lovingly at him. 'You know me so well.'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 22",
                "text": "What began as a cup of tea turned into a party. We'd quickly filled Finn in, and shooed him away to follow up on what we'd learned through the memories of Jude and Cullen's parents. In this enclave, having a Wayfarer in your pub wasn't the best way to attract customers, so it wasn't until Finn was gone that the drinks began to flow.\n\nNews about Hamish had spread quickly, and residents wanted to congratulate him. Most of the Wentforth's College faculty turned up as well. But we would never be able to tell the real story of how Hamish became a man again. For one thing, Cullen didn't want to be known as a Montrose. He was perfectly happy to remain as Cullen Keats. And for another, I wanted to keep the existence of the pillar a secret. Just because I was the only one who could unlock its magic didn't mean that it was safe \u2013 or that I would be, if word got around. Criminals could be ever so determined.\n\nAnyway, I'd decided that maybe Foirfe was right. The Riddler's Express wasn't the worst train in the world. And with the advantage of a pillar powering it once again, it would always be on time. Surely the people of Ireland deserved at least one punctual train?\n\nThankfully, the enclave's residents were always happy to accept evasive answers \u2013 probably because if they started asking too many questions about you, then you might ask questions about them.\n\nIt was an amazing party, but after such a big meal at the mansion and so much excitement and emotion, I wasn't much in the mood \u2013 especially when, at about one in the morning, I saw Hamish head upstairs with Diane.\n\nEva left immediately after. She didn't even say goodbye."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 23",
                "text": "I had no appointments until the following afternoon, so I slept in until ten. I meant to sleep later than that, but I was far too irritated with Hamish. So much so that, when I went to Dolly's Caf\u00e9 before work, I didn't buy him a muffin.\n\nOh, I knew I had no right to be annoyed with him. If anything, I should be happy. He'd been crazy about Diane for a long time, and she about him. And I didn't usually like to meddle in other people's romantic lives, either (ahem).\n\nI'd just been so sure that there was something real between Hamish and Eva. But Eva, after everything she'd done to help, had gone home unhappy.\n\nI was so annoyed that I actually tackled the accounts, and I was enjoying an argument with my enchanted calculator (it wanted me to consider charging customers for the tissues they cried into after I told them their spouse was a cheat) when Hamish arrived.\n\n'Is that a muffin?' He pointed to my half-finished chocolate muffin while he adjusted his chair.\n\nI didn't look up at him. 'Mm hm.'\n\n'Hey, what time is the landlord of the Rusty Warlock coming in today? Because I have to add something to his file. His latest girlfriend isn't just cheating and stealing from the till. She's also advertising his flat as a bed and breakfast.'\n\n'Hm.'\n\n'Katy?' I could sense his confusion. 'What's going on? You havenae even looked at me.'\n\nI snapped my head up. He looked nice today. He was wearing jeans. An actual pair of jeans. And a T-shirt. An actual T-shirt. 'Nothing. Nothing's wrong.' I returned to the accounts, just in time for the calculator to say: 'You should dock his wages for being late.'\n\n'What?' Hamish left his desk and came to sit on mine. It was ever so strange to see him positioned that way. I wouldn't even have to wipe the hairs off afterwards. 'Is that what's wrong with you? I thought you said we weren't coming in until after lunch. If anything, I'm early.'\n\n'Oh, I know you are.' I allowed myself to look at him. 'I'm sorry, Hamish. I'm being a moody cow, and it's not your fault. It's just\u2026 I saw you go upstairs with Diane last night. I know it's none of my business, though, so\u2026 if you're happy, then I'll be happy for you.'\n\nHe jumped from my desk, pulling at his hair and saying, 'Oh no, oh no, oh no! Did Eva see me, Katy? Did she?'\n\n'I think she might have. She left straight after, so\u2026'\n\n'Oh no, oh no, oh no! She'll think\u2026 But I'm not\u2026 Oh, Katy, I have to put her straight. I only spent half an hour with Diane last night. You can ask Ned \u2013 I went straight up to the flat and slept in the attic room, alone.'\n\nI stared at him. 'A lot can happen in half an hour, Hamish.'\n\n'Take your mind out of the gutter, Katy! I went to tell Diane that it's not going to happen, me and her. She didn't seem too cut up about it, to be honest. She hadn't even broken up with the bacon sandwich guy yet, and she had phone calls from three other guys in the middle of our conversation.'\n\nHe let out a tired-sounding sigh. 'I lusted over her for so long. More than lusted. I was really crazy about her. And she liked me too \u2013 that's the whole reason Jonathan turned me into a bloody dog in the first place. But Katy, it's just not like it is with Eva. Diane is beautiful, and sweet. But I cannae talk about wizardry with her. Eva, though\u2026 she's smart, and she's sexy, and when she smiles\u2026 oh, Katy, when she smiles, it's like sunshine. And the longer I've known her, it's been as if\u2026 as if Diane has faded from my thoughts, little by little. And now, now I can see that Diane is pretty, but\u2026 but Eva has somehow become the most beautiful woman in the world.'\n\n'So why the fluff haven't you done anything about it, you eejit?'\n\n'Good goddess, Katy, you're mean today. I havenae done anything about it because\u2026 well\u2026 I wasnae sure it's reciprocated. Eva's known me as a dog, Katy. A great big hairy unspecified breed. What I was feeling for her was never going to be a two-way street.'\n\nI pushed the remainder of the chocolate muffin towards him. 'Well\u2026 she might not be into your furry side, but she's definitely expressed an interest in your manly side.'\n\n'Go away with that!' He picked up the muffin. 'She has? No, she hasnae. You're pulling my leg.'\n\n'I'm not.' I shook my head. 'Can't afford to, now you've only got two of them.'\n\nThrough a mouthful of chocolate, he said, 'Very funny. So you think I should go see her after we're done here?'\n\n'No. I think you should go and see her now. She'll be at Wentforth's, teaching summer classes. I'll deal with stuff here.'\n\nHe didn't need me to make that offer twice. He stood up, wiping his mouth and brushing the crumbs off his jeans. Next, he patted his head. 'Wait \u2013 where's my hat?'\n\n'You don't need it anymore.'\n\n'Aye, you're right! But\u2026 where's my wand? Aargh! It's still in storage. You know what? I'll run across the city. That'll be romantic, won't it? Maybe it'll even rain along the way. And a boombox! I need a boombox!'\n\nI gave him a few tuts of mock-annoyance. 'So, when you said you had absolutely no interest in watching chick flicks from the human world with me last Sunday afternoon, what you actually meant was that you'd already seen them all.'\n\n'Well\u2026 I may have taken a wee poke through your collection from time to time. So\u2026 do we have a boombox?'\n\n'No boombox, I'm afraid. And you won't be able to run through the rain, either, because it's sunny right now. You'll just have to head out the Other Door and walk around the corner to Eile Street.'\n\nHe rushed to the Other Door, and had just pulled it open and asked me, 'How do I look?' when there was a soft knock at the door. Not on the Other Door, though, but on the other door \u2013 it was the Scary Door upon which someone was knocking.\n\n'Huh.' As I drew open the Scary Door, looking out onto Strange Lane, there was nobody there. There was, however, the sound of running footsteps.\n\n'Look, Katy,' said Hamish. 'On the ground.'\n\nI followed his eyes, and stooped down to pick up a large cardboard box. 'There's a note attached,' I noticed, setting it down on my desk and pulling open the envelope, which was sealed with a piece of chewing gum. On a grease-stained page inside, the following words were written:\n\nWe might not like the law here in Samhain Street, but we can't let an innocent man go down.\n\nBah Humbug!\n\nWhen Hamish and I headed to the Wayfarer Station, Cullen came along with us.\n\n'But I'm going to make sure Finn knows that this is the last time I take part in anything Wayfarer related,' he insisted. 'It's only because of my family's connection to Winston that I'm interested in seeing how this ends.'\n\nWhile I smiled amiably, he continued to talk. 'I mean, I'll go on an operation with you if you think you might need me,' he said. 'Or if\u2026 say, it's date night and it's the only way we'll still get to hang out together. Or if Finn asks really, really nicely. Or if your hair looks irresistibly curly that day.'\n\nHamish turned to face him as we reached the station steps. 'What about if Finn's hair looks good that day? Would that be enough to get you back on his payroll?'\n\n'Hmm, maybe,' Cullen replied, bounding up the steps and opening the station door. 'But I'm not sure we could convince him to get a perm.'\n\nThe foyer was buzzing with activity when we entered. Janine was there with Theresa Tinsley and Jennifer Hammer, and all three were arguing with Finn.\n\n'Look, ladies, you're lucky to be let off with this, and you know it,' said Finn. 'To me, every person in this whole confusing mess seems like a suspect. It's only because of Winston's confession that the rest of you are free. And now you're trying to make me force him to talk to the lawyer you've hired? I can't do that, and you know it.'\n\n'But Winston didn't do it, Captain Plimpton.' Janine gave Finn a plaintive look. 'We all know Siobhan Cahill is responsible. Winston's only confessing because he thinks I'll be the one to take the fall.'\n\nWhile they argued back and forth, Hamish, Cullen and I approached. 'We have something you need to see,' I said, holding up the open box.\n\nFinn peered inside. 'Flash drives, holovisual recordings\u2026 what is all this?'\n\nI grinned. 'Oh, only the best Christmas present Winston Wolfe could ever receive.'\n\n'Huh?' Finn scowled. 'It's not Christmas, Miss Kramer.'\n\n'Oh, bah humbug, Captain Plimpton. Just watch them, all right?'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 24",
                "text": "Among the residents of Samhain Street, there were some wonderful contradictions to be found. There was a frightening-looking spider who baked the most amazing chocolate muffins, there were contract killers who rescued puppies and kittens, there were thieves with hearts of gold\u2026 and most importantly, there were people who said they didn't use CCTV, when actually they did.\n\nIn Finn's office, we watched the footage. From so many different angles, the evidence was clear. Siobhan had been filmed in the early hours of the morning, heaving the enormous Christmas star from the refuse skip in the alley, planting Winston's Toymakers' Guild card, and carefully placing the star directly beneath Giles's office window.\n\nShe'd been filmed sneaking into Tinsleys', without the use of magic, on the day of his murder. Dressed exactly like her co-workers, and keeping her head down, Siobhan had walked in through the back door, unnoticed. We saw her in Giles's office, just a few seconds after his fight with Janine. Siobhan strode in and, without preamble, simply pushed him out the window. His shock, coupled with her swift motion, meant that he didn't even have time to defend himself.\n\nWe saw yet more footage of Siobhan, from the front of the building, minutes after Giles's death. While the rest of the workers were rushing out into the yard, Siobhan had casually strolled out the front door with a smile on her face, and no idea that there were dozens of hidden cameras pointed her way.\n\n'It's all here.' Finn shook his head in wonder. 'I mean, some of it is from a bit of a distance \u2013 the stuff in Giles's office was filmed from a building behind. And we'll need to verify it all, of course. But\u2026 I think it's safe to say we've got her. We've actually got her.'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 25",
                "text": "A short while later, Hamish, Cullen and I watched from an observation room, while Siobhan was interviewed.\n\n'We have it all on tape, Siobhan,' Finn told her. 'And Winston Wolfe has retracted his false confession. You are going down for this. But just for my own peace of mind, can you answer a few questions? Janine found the toy outside Giles's office. The werewolf riding a broom. Did you leave it there?'\n\n'I'm not sure, to be honest. I dropped my bag when I ran off that night. My stuff spilled everywhere. I thought I picked it all up, but I was drunk and upset, so I\u2026 I suppose I could have left it behind.'\n\n'That was when you turned up to surprise Giles, except you heard him and Janine together in his office instead, right?'\n\nShe scowled. 'Yes. He was telling her he loved her, in the exact same voice he used to tell me the same thing. He was a lying cheat, and so was she.'\n\n'Okay.' Finn took a long, slow drink of what looked like another cup of green tea (how brave of him to give it another go), then grimaced at the taste before asking his next question. 'And why did you set Winston up? You planted his guild card in the skip you took the Christmas star from, didn't you? What did he ever do to you?'\n\n'It's not what he did,' she replied, a twisted smile on her face. 'It's who he loved. I knew Janine would try to go back to him once Giles was dead, and I knew Winston would take her back, like an idiot. I wanted to double her misery. I wanted to take Giles and Winston from her. So she'd have nothing, just like I did.'\n\n'But you would have taken Winston away from his child,' said Finn, his face filled with disgust. 'Even though he was innocent.'\n\n'He's not innocent. He's a thief. Anyway, who cares what happens to Winston? He's just a stinking werewolf.'\n\nFinn sighed, stood up, and left the room."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 26",
                "text": "On the steps outside the station, Winston hugged his wife and child, with tears of relief streaming down his face, while Theresa and Jennifer congratulated him.\n\nHamish, Cullen and I had a few minutes alone with Winston, just before he was released. We didn't tell him everything, of course, but we told him more than we'd told most people. He now knew what had happened to his little girl's namesake, all those years ago.\n\n'I'm so glad you're free,' said Theresa, when Winston finally broke the hug with Janine and Megan. 'No one should be murdered, not even Giles, but\u2026 I think I'm more sorry about the way he treated other people, to be honest. I can't do anything about the fact that we were all hurt by Giles, but I can make sure that some of his bad deeds are undone. Jennifer and I are going to forge ahead with our plans for a new business, giving Jennifer full credit for the toys she invented, and we'd love to hire you both.'\n\nJanine swallowed. 'But\u2026 I\u2026'\n\n'Had an affair with my husband? Yes, I know. I also know how much of a master manipulator he was. You and Winston are both extremely talented toymakers. We want you on our team.'\n\nFinn, who had walked out in the middle of it all, held up a hand. 'Whoa there, Theresa. Winston's still being charged with theft. He might be looking at time for that.'\n\nCullen shook his head and said, 'Seriously, Captain Plimpton? Give the bloke a break, will you? I mean, it's Christmas.'\n\nFinn rolled his eyes. 'It's July.'\n\n'Well, maybe,' I said. 'But I think a good word could be put in with someone or other if you wanted, couldn't it? After all, it's not going to make you look very popular when Winston's defence lawyer starts talking about the terrible start in life he had, the Montrose coven killing his sister, Giles firing him and badmouthing him for no good reason\u2026'\n\n'You know what?' Finn said with a sigh. 'You're right. I'll have a word with the higher-ups, see if we can let Winston off with a warning.'\n\n'Aw.' I grinned at Finn. 'See? You do know how to embrace the spirit of the season.'"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 27",
                "text": "It was coming up to eight that evening, and we were in the flat above Ned's shop. Cullen was cooking dinner for us all, and Aunt Jude, Peter M\u00fcd and Uncle Faster sat on the couch drinking wine, while Cleo lay curled up on Jude's lap. It was a much more sedate celebration than we'd had the night before, and I was already enjoying it more.\n\nNed rushed around, busily preparing her things for a night on the canal, with a giddy smile on her face the whole time. I already knew the reason for her smile, because I'd accidentally seen a message on her phone from Jay a short while ago:\n\n\u2002Looking forward to going out on the canal with you again tonight. I've packed a romantic picnic. Jay xxx\n\n'So\u2026 remind me again why you're still here?' I asked, passing a bowl of rice to Hamish. 'Not that it's not nice to have dinner together but\u2026 don't you have an attractive college professor to woo?'\n\nAs he brought the rice to the table, he said, 'Well\u2026 I've been thinking about it. Maybe I should give her some time. Maybe\u2026 maybe I should\u2026'\n\n'You're scared, right?' Cullen set a large dish of curry down at the centre of the table. 'Yeah, I know the feeling. But you know there's no need, right?'\n\n'There is every need.' Hamish poured himself a glass of wine. 'She was invited here tonight. She isn't here. Ergo, she's not interested. Ach, I was foolish to get so wrapped up in it earlier on. It's just as well we got that stuff dumped on our doorstep and I changed my plans. I would have only made a fool of myself.'\n\n'Yes,' said Cleo with a smirk, peeling open one eyelid. 'You would.'\n\nAunt Jude took the cat off her lap (there was a small yowl of complaint) and headed to the table. 'Eva didn't come to dinner because she's teaching an Intro to Practical Wizardry evening class as we speak,' she informed Hamish. 'She'd be very happy to have you pop by, I'm sure.'\n\n'Oh well\u2026 that's\u2026 y'know\u2026' Hamish let his voice drift away into mumbles, and took a sip of wine. 'Hey, someone's knocking again. Sounds like the Scary Door, I reckon.'\n\nAs he rushed downstairs, I followed him, unsure if he'd really heard something or if he was merely trying to escape his embarrassment. When I arrived in our office, he was standing at the open Scary Door, and Sol was stepping inside.\n\n'Hey there!' said Sol, excitedly holding up what looked like a large silver boombox. 'Someone dropped this Broom Box into my shop a while ago, to see if I could find a buyer. I thought you might be into it, Hamish, seeing as you'll be flying again.'\n\n'Broom Box?' I asked.\n\n'Oh, you know \u2013 a boombox that goes on a broom,' Sol explained. 'See?' He pointed to a couple of small hangers on the back of the unit. 'You hang it off the shaft.'\n\nHamish's face was a picture of comical shock, and he took the Broom Box from Sol. 'I couldnae love ye more than I do at this very moment, Sol. You\u2026 you're like destiny, standing on my doorstep.'\n\nSol took a seat on Hamish's chair. 'Well, I wouldn't go that far. And actually, there's an issue with this one. It's got an old tape stuck inside, and I can't get it out, so all it can do at the moment is play something called Romantic Rock Ballads on a loop. So I mean\u2026 are you really interested? I just brought it as an excuse, so you could fill me in on what happened with Winston.'\n\n'Oh, I want it,' Hamish assured him. 'I want it even more after what you just said. But Katy'll have to fill you in, all right? And I'll drop off the money for this in the morning. Because right now, I've got somewhere to be.'\n\n'Careful out there,' Sol cautioned. 'I saw hailstones first thing this morning, then there was sunshine all day after that. But I think it might rain in a few minutes, if the clouds I saw were anything to go by. It's like four seasons in one day. Well\u2026 three, but you get my meaning.'\n\n'I do.' Hamish grinned as he pulled open the Other Door, hitting the Play button and heading out into the night.\n\nI stood in the doorway, watching, as the clouds burst and the rain began to fall. Hamish glanced back at me with a wide and happy smile, then he picked up his pace, rushing headlong through the rain towards Wentforth's, and the next phase of his life.\n\n'See what I mean?' Sol sidled up beside me. 'Typical Irish summer.'\n\n'I know,' I said, my heart bursting with joy. 'Aren't our summers the best? Sometimes, they even include Christmas.'"
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "title": "10 Holiday Stories",
        "author": "Dara Girard",
        "genres": [
            "contemporary",
            "short stories"
        ],
        "tags": [],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "The Special Guest",
                "text": "\"She's daft, she is,\" Mary Marshall said as she set the dining room table for four.\n\n\"Mum, keep your voice down,\" her daughter Eva replied as she placed an elegantly designed napkin on the table.\n\n\"Why? She can't hear me, with her banging on in the kitchen like that. Acting as if she were expecting the bleeding queen,\" Mary said with a careless shrug, her words thick with a northern English accent she hadn't been able to drop after living nearly thirty years in the United States. Although, not much else about her had changed from the twenty-two year old new bride who'd settled with her husband in Hamsford, Maryland. Her figure had thickened after three children and only her hairdresser knew she was now completely grey. She dyed her shoulder-length hair a light brown to complement her soft cocoa colored skin.\n\n\"Mum, shh,\" Eva said with warning. She only called her mother 'mum' when she was annoyed with her. At twenty-five, she was slender and lovely, with skin that matched her mother's, and flashing brown eyes.\n\n\"You know we're no better egging her on this way.\"\n\n\"We're her friends.\"\n\n\"Aren't friends 'pose to tell each other the truth? We know that no good nephew of hers won't show up no matter how much she wants him to. Your father had the sense to stay away, and we're likely as daft as she is.\"\n\n\"John said he would come,\" Eva said, straightening a fork.\n\nHer mother sniffed. \"And you believe that?\"\n\nIt was more likely that Father Christmas would come to visit than John, but Eva didn't want to admit it for her friend's sake. \"It's not what we believe, it's what she does.\"\n\n\"Maybe the no good bastard might do us a favor and do the decent thing. That'd be a miracle, wouldn't it? Poor woman could use one.\"\n\nFortunately, Miranda Simmonds, the topic of their conversation, couldn't hear what the two women were saying. Her heart was too full of joy. Her dear nephew, John Washer, said he'd come and spend time with her over the holidays. He was the only family she had left who bothered to take any notice of her. Her sister had married for a fourth time, and lived in Trinidad, her nieces had little use for her, but John was different. For five years she'd cared for him, while her older sister got her life together after a cancer diagnosis and an addiction to pain pills.\n\nMiranda had provided John with a stable home that his parents hadn't been able to provide. With the help of her father, she'd helped care for John from the ages of six to eleven. She'd worked with her father at the hardware store he'd started. More often than not, she'd had to get between grandfather and grandson because they were both strong-willed men, but she hadn't minded. Family was important to her.\n\nBut after her sister improved, and John went back to live with her, they'd lost touch. He'd been a rambunctious boy, but she'd found him more inquisitive than annoying. No one had expected much from him, but he'd surprised them. He was a soldier and achieved the rank of staff sergeant. She felt that his desire to serve may have had a little to do with the years she'd raised him. She'd instilled in him the importance of a life of giving to others. She'd taken him with her to volunteer at the local homeless shelter, to deliver a turkey every Thanksgiving, or donate clothing or toys he no longer needed. She'd not wanted him to be like his parents, who'd barely looked past themselves to even recognize that they had a son, and later, two daughters.\n\nAnd now he was coming to see her after so many years. It wouldn't be another empty holiday. She'd had a series of them since her father's passing three years ago. Her sister was always too busy to schedule a time to visit, but that didn't matter now.\n\nThis year she wouldn't be a charity guest, although she knew her friends meant well. She wanted to return the favor and host a family dinner for them, and now she could. John was one of the lucky ones to come home from the war unscathed, though she didn't know how his mind might be. She wouldn't ask too many questions. She was just glad she had family to share the holiday with again.\n\nIt was kind of her neighbors to agree to come. It was a week before Christmas and she'd wanted to make it special. In several days they'd be leaving for New York to be with their family.\n\nMiranda cast an anxious glance at the clock. He'd be there any minute, she thought, as she cast a look over the food.\n\nSpices scented the bright, airy kitchen, which hosted toasted hardo bread, limeade, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, a turkey that was browning in the oven, fried plantain and an assortment of cookies and a cake. She could imagine the look of delight on John's face as he piled his plate high with food. \"Oh, pumpkin pie, my favorite. I can't believe you remembered,\" he'd say. And she'd grin and not let him know that she hadn't forgotten anything he enjoyed.\n\nHer phone alerted her to a text, waking her from her daydream. She glanced down and her heart stopped.\n\nWon't be able to make it. Sorry, Auntie.\n\nMiranda read the text four times. No\u2026five, then six times. It had to be a mistake. Or maybe a joke. As a boy, John was known for his silly jokes. He'd knock on the front door any minute and laugh. And she'd playfully hit him in the shoulder and scold him for scaring her. She waited.\n\nBut the knock at the door didn't come.\n\nWhy couldn't he make it? Why would he cancel a few minutes before he was supposed to arrive? The message had to be wrong. She texted him back.\n\nIf you're running late, I can keep the food warm.\n\nSorry, Auntie. Another time.\n\nSorry, Auntie. She could almost hear the casual, dismissive way he'd say it. He'd said it so many times before. 'Sorry Auntie, I couldn't help myself,' he'd say when she found he'd eaten a pie she'd meant for a guest, 'Sorry Auntie,' he'd say when he'd broken a new vase she'd brought, or when she'd told him not to play with his ball in the house, or when he'd leave jelly stains all over her father's woodworking magazine. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Always sorry.\n\nBut she was sorrier still. Sorry that she'd told her neighbors he was coming, even boasting to her employees at work. She usually didn't have any news. She'd devoted most of her life to her father\u2014a man who'd been her best friend\u2014and their store. That dedication hadn't bothered her until his passing, leaving an emptiness in her life. But her nephew's upcoming visit had given her something interesting to share\u2014and some attention\u2014at least for a little while.\n\nAttention usually passed her by. She knew many residents of Hamsford felt sorry for her. She was an example of what not to do with one's life. A cautionary tale for young women. \"If you don't find a man now, you'll end up a spinster like Miranda.\" \"Don't work so hard or you'll end up like Miranda.\" \"Be careful not to give so much or you'll end up an old maid like Miranda.\"\n\nShe couldn't blame them and usually didn't mind the chatter. Nobody had expected much from her, even when she was young. She'd never been a beauty\u2014more handsome than pretty, with chestnut brown skin and dark brown eyes. And now, pushing forty, she knew her options were limited, but she didn't regret her life. Except when the holidays came, shining a light on her loneliness, but not this time. This holiday was going to be different because her nephew\u2014a soldier\u2014was coming home for the holidays. And her colleagues had been pleased for her, they'd even given her a card and money to give to him. Thanking him for his service.\n\nWhat would she tell them now?\n\nMary came into the kitchen. \"It's getting late. Take off your apron and fix your hair,\" she said, glancing at the untidy bun at the top of Miranda's head.\n\n\"I forgot something,\" Miranda said, feeling the need to escape. To think. To plan. She couldn't tell them yet. She didn't want them to feel sorry for her. Not again. \"I have to go to the store and\u2014\"\n\n\"But there's no time.\"\n\nMiranda hung up her apron. \"I'll only be a minute.\"\n\n\"I'll go. Eva brought that scarf you wanted to borrow and\u2014\"\n\n\"No, no, you stay here,\" Miranda said turning away, tears building. Their kindness hurt her. They were so good to her. Couldn't John have come at least for them? He and Eva had played together when they were younger. Couldn't he have made an appearance for her? She'd even entertained a vague hope that they'd get on since they were both still single.\n\nMiranda left the kitchen and raced past Eva. She grabbed her coat. \"Won't be a minute,\" she said again before grabbing her car keys and leaving."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 2",
                "text": "She drove, not knowing where, or for how long. She didn't have much time. She couldn't leave Mary and Eva waiting forever. But how could she face them? \"I told you so,\" Mary would say. \"Didn't I say that nephew of yours was no good?\" Eva would just look at her with pity. It was all so humiliating! But she knew she had to go back; running away wouldn't solve anything. Oh Dad, I wish you could help me. I miss you so much, she thought, holding back tears. She had no other choice. She'd wrap up all the food and send Mary and Eva home. She'd lost her appetite anyway.\n\nMiranda slowed her car and stopped at the empty four-way intersection then quickly turned to head back home just as a young man in uniform stepped off the curb into the crosswalk. She braked quickly, but not soon enough. She felt the thud, saw him fall and her heart dropped.\n\nShe jumped out of the car and raced over to him, grateful not to see any blood.\n\nThe man sat up, looking dazed.\n\n\"I'm so sorry,\" she said, kneeling beside him.\n\n\"Serves me right,\" he said, standing. \"I wasn't looking where I was going.\"\n\nThat was true, but that didn't make her feel any better. She stood too, but he was nearly a foot taller than she was so she had to look up at him. He was young, though there was a cool cynicism to his features that belonged on a man much older. \"Do you need to go to a hospital?\" she asked.\n\n\"No, I'm fine really.\" He dusted off his pants, although the action did nothing to make them look less worn. \"What? You've never seen a man fall on his pride before?\"\n\nMiranda looked him over to make sure he was really okay. He had skin the color of rye bread and his face didn't appear kind. Perhaps, if he'd had more pleasant features she would have left him alone, but his biting brown eyes and sharp arrogant jaw made her think of her father when he was in one of his gruff moods or when a customer was ready to voice a complaint. She'd spent years soothing over such moments. A handsome, pleasant stranger would have made her flustered, but this irritated stranger with his sarcastic tone made her feel more relaxed.\n\n\"At least let me take you where you were going,\" she said. \"I can drop you there.\"\n\nHe looked over her head at something in the distance, making it clear he wanted to be somewhere else. \"I'm not going anywhere really.\"\n\n\"Where are you staying?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"Haven't figured that out yet either.\"\n\nMiranda folded her arms. \"You're not from around here.\"\n\nHe met her gaze and for a moment a glint of humor lit his dark gaze, shedding the anger and cynicism and the years, making him appear younger than he had looked before. \"What gave me away?\"\n\nThe uniform for one. It was ill-fitted. Most of the Hamsford men who'd chosen to fight wore their uniform with an arrogance, as if to compensate for a sense of divided loyalties. Hamsford was a community filled with immigrants, some not sure if their sacrifice meant much to their new home country. There were still those in their adopted homeland who saw them as outsiders no matter how much blood they shed on battlefields abroad.\n\nBut this young man looked dejected. Defeated. Haunted. \"Are you sure you're all right?\"\n\n\"I'm fine, really,\" he said, then his stomach grumbled.\n\nMiranda couldn't help a smile. \"You're hungry.\"\n\nHe folded his arms, his frown increasing. \"Well, I'm fine aside from that.\"\n\nShe bit her lip, looking him up and down. He was just the right age, height and look. And if she did him a favor\u2026\n\n\"I've got a hot meal waiting,\" she said, \"if you'd just do one thing for me.\"\n\n\"What?\" he asked with caution.\n\n\"Pretend to be my nephew just for one evening.\"\n\nHis hands fell to his side. \"But I'm\u2014\"\n\nShe clasped her hands together. \"Please, just for an hour maybe two. All you'd have to do is stuff your mouth with oven roasted turkey, browned to a crisp succulent sheen, but if you're vegetarian,\" she quickly added when he started to speak, \"I also have mashed potatoes with chives, a bean salad medley, fried plantain and\u2014\"\n\nHis stomach growled louder.\n\nShe grinned. \"Is that a yes?\"\n\nHe frowned. \"You're a cruel woman.\"\n\n\"No, just a desperate one. This isn't a time for pride. I owe you anyway. I nearly ran you down.\"\n\n\"No, I walked into the street without looking.\"\n\n\"Yes, exactly,\" she said snapping her fingers. She ran her hand over an invisible dent on the hood. \"See that damage? That's your fault. What are you going to do about it?\"\n\nA slight smile touched the corner of his hard mouth. \"Fine, I'll be your nephew.\"\n\nMiranda opened the passenger side door. \"Good, thank you. Your name is John.\"\n\nHe sat inside and pulled on his seatbelt with a groan. \"Please don't tell me you call me Johnny.\"\n\n\"No, but Ms. Mary sometimes calls you Jay.\"\n\nHe froze. \"How many other people will be there?\"\n\n\"Just two,\" Miranda said starting the car. She glanced at the clock. She'd met this stranger just in time.\n\nHe tapped a beat on his knee. \"I'm not much of an actor.\"\n\n\"You don't have to remember much. I'll cover for you. It was so long ago that you were here I doubt they'll expect much from you. Just keep your mouth full and nod and you should be fine. And you can talk about your time abroad if you want, but there's no pressure.\"\n\n\"And what do I call you?\"\n\n\"Just call me Auntie.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 3",
                "text": "Brett Greenwood stared at his reflection in the pristine bathroom mirror, wondering how he'd gotten into this mess.\n\nHe looked terrible. His uniform was worn and big. Why would she want to present someone like him? But he was hungry and if this was the price of a good meal, he'd do it with a smile, even though he hadn't felt like smiling for a long time. At twenty-eight, he felt decades older. Only a couple of hours ago he'd been on a bus leaving New Jersey heading south, not caring where he ended up. Twice, strangers had thanked him for his service and sacrifice. One little boy called him a hero. But he knew he wasn't.\n\nHe barely felt like a man. He didn't want to feel at all. After losing his savings in a business deal that had gone bad, he'd paid back his best friend, Leonard, who'd loaned him some money, only to discover he'd lost more than that.\n\nHe'd gone to Leonard's office to repay him and was told he was out of the office. And he'd believed the receptionist before he caught Leonard coming out of a utility closet with Sarah\u2014Brett's girlfriend\u2014both of them adjusting their attire. If it had been someone else, he would have found it funny. Sarah didn't even use the ladies' room and never took public transport, and yet this was where they'd decided to be intimate.\n\nHe just stared at them, hardly hearing their excuses as they tumbled out of their mouths like rice spilling out the bottom of a bag.\n\n\"We were going to tell you.\"\n\n\"It's not what you think.\"\n\n\"It hurt us too.\"\n\n\"Look, we didn't mean it to happen.\"\n\nHe couldn't even remember who said what; he was just afraid he was going to be sick. Since grade school, Leonard had been like a brother to him. He looked chagrined, but nothing more. Sarah had tears shining in her eyes, her dusty skin red from embarrassment, guilt or exertion. Considering what they'd been up to, he wasn't sure.\n\nWhat hurt most was that she'd made it clear he hadn't been worth waiting for. She couldn't even wait two years for him. The woman he'd planned to marry, to spend his life with, had traded him in for his best friend and his six-figure salary.\n\n\"We got involved around the time when\u2026when we feared you were dead,\" Sarah said. \"I turned to him for comfort.\"\n\n\"And after you found out I was okay?\" Brett managed to say, his tongue feeling like a lead weight in his mouth.\n\n\"It was too late,\" Leonard said.\n\n\"We couldn't tell you,\" Sarah added.\n\nHe felt like such a fool. All those online talks, texts, emails. They'd been lies. He'd stayed true, when lots of his other pals hadn't, and this had been his reward.\n\nAfter paying Leonard what he owed, Brett had two hundred dollars left and decided to catch a bus.\n\n\"Where are you heading?\" an older man with an island accent asked him in the bus depot while they both stood in line.\n\nThe man's voice was soft, like a whisper, but Brett could hear it despite the sound of a baby crying, wheels of luggage carts dragging along the ground, and discordant conversations. \"Doesn't matter, I just want to be away.\"\n\n\"Then you should go to Hamsford.\"\n\nBrett met the man's eyes, a little surprised by their intensity. He was a large, dark-skinned man with a trim white beard. \"Is that where you're going?\"\n\n\"No, but you just look like a man who needs some peace.\"\n\nHow right he was, Brett thought, but he still hesitated.\n\nThe man nudged him with his elbow. \"Go nuh. What you haffi lose?\"\n\nBrett took a deep breath, then impulsively bought a ticket. He left without any luggage or even an overcoat. He just needed to get out of the city, to get away from the memories, from his failed plans.\n\nHours later he got off in Hamsford, a place he'd only known vaguely about because of a store his father used to talk about here. Brett walked around in the cool air, listening to the different accents, many reminding him of the stranger and his own Jamaican parents who'd left him too soon. He briefly thought about his father, who was a foot shorter than him, and who'd liked to pat him on the back and affectionately say, \"How's my little boy?\" It was a silly joke that had always made him smile; his mother would just shake her head. She was as small as his father. Whenever they stood on either side of him, they looked like the perfect bookends. And before their passing, he'd wanted to scoop them up and carry them around with him. With them he'd never felt alone, he'd always felt loved. Now he had no one to keep his loneliness at bay.\n\nHe missed them. He missed them so much it ached. He felt the sting of tears. He'd hope to come home to Sarah, but now knew he'd spend the holidays alone.\n\nAlone with the bitter crumbs of dashed hopes. He walked around the streets of Hamsford as a cool evening sun painted the sky in pastel hues. He passed a food market, the scent of vegetable patties and cumin wafting towards him, reminding him that he'd left without eating anything. He shuffled by a row of small stores, children riding their bicycles, and a man chasing after a rooster that had no business being there. He made his way onto a residential street, the sights of the neatly lined homes twisting a knife into his heart. He'd hoped to have a home like this with Sarah. He decided to keep his head down and block out the sights around him. He didn't want to see the well-manicured lawns, or the holiday decorations. That's when he'd stepped into the road.\n\nAfter being struck, his first instinct was to be angry. He wanted to be mad, he wanted to get into a fight and had a man gotten out of the car, he probably would have. He'd felt like smashing his fist into someone's face. A violent, primitive rage seized him, but it quickly disappeared when he saw her.\n\nA woman who stared down at him as if she'd run over a family of ducklings. For a moment that annoyed him because she cared and he didn't want her to. He wanted her to go away and leave him alone. Instead, he found himself drawn in by her warm brown eyes. People didn't usually look at him like that. They usually saw a threat, but not her. No matter how cutting or surly he seemed, she wouldn't leave, forcing him\u2014to his annoyance\u2014to notice how pretty she was. And then she'd asked for a crazy favor and he'd said yes.\n\nWith a shake of his head, Brett wiped his dirty face and large, cold hands with the fragrant scented soap and warm water.\n\nMinutes later he sat at the head of a table, which seemed to groan under the weight of many dishes, while three women stared at the man he was supposed to be\u2014Staff Sergeant John Washer. He'd run away from one woman and ended up in the presence of three. Fate had a funny sense of humor."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 4",
                "text": "She wouldn't have recognized him, Eva thought as she stared at John. He didn't look anything like the boy she'd used to run from. And where had his vanity gone? Her mother used to call him Mr. O'Jay referring to a polished singing group the O'Jays from the past. 'Look it up,' she liked to tell him. John would never have worn a uniform that didn't fit him before. But perhaps the years overseas had changed him. That was possible. Although she doubted it. There was something she didn't trust about him.\n\n\"Remember when we used to play that video game and every time you scored you'd punch me in the arm?\" she asked him.\n\n\"What's past is past,\" Miranda said.\n\n\"I remember it clearly,\" Eva said, helping herself to another roll. \"Just wondered if he did.\"\n\n\"I guess I wasn't the nicest kid,\" he said without apology.\n\nEva frowned. Even his voice didn't seem to match what she remembered. Although she didn't know how John sounded now, she'd never imagined his dark, sarcastic edge. John was always about charm. That's why he got into trouble with little consequence. However, this large, grim man looked as if he'd spent half his life facing the corner. \"Think you're better now, soldier?\"\n\n\"I hope so.\"\n\n\"We weren't even sure you'd make an appearance,\" Mary said, giving Eva a stern look. \"So that's an improvement.\"\n\nEva stared at her mother, surprised. She usually was more suspicious of people than Eva was, but she'd smiled with pleasure when John gruffly complimented her spicy rice. However, Eva wouldn't be as easily swayed no matter how handsome he was. She sensed something off\u2014something wrong. Ms. Miranda was too dear to her for her to ignore her instincts. She hoped John wouldn't stay long. That he'd spend one night in the little guest room Ms. Miranda so lovingly put together\u2014newly painted, aired, scented with a fresh bouquet of flowers\u2014and then disappear out of her life."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 5",
                "text": "\"You're doing great,\" Miranda said when Brett offered to help her in the kitchen 'Like you used to,' she'd added so that Eva and Mary wouldn't offer. Although they all knew that John rarely helped her and only did so reluctantly.\n\n\"Eva doesn't like me,\" he said.\n\n\"No,\" Miranda agreed with a laugh. \"So you must be doing something right, she didn't get on well with John either. Unless\u2026\"\n\nBrett raised a brow at the sudden worried look on her face. \"Unless what?\"\n\n\"Unless you wanted her to like you. I'm sorry, I never saw this from your point of view. Eva is a very attractive young woman and she's single. I had thought maybe she and John, but with you here maybe\u2014\"\n\nBrett shook his head. \"Nope, I'm not interested. I'm off women for now.\"\n\n\"You're too young to be off women.\"\n\n\"I'm not interested.\" He took a bowl and placed it on a high shelf.\n\nMiranda pointed at it. \"That doesn't go there.\"\n\n\"I know. Promise you won't try to set me up with Eva.\"\n\n\"Why would I\u2014\"\n\n\"Promise.\"\n\nA sly grin touched her mouth. \"I could just get a stool.\"\n\n\"I'm warning you, Auntie.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"I know. Stop looking so fierce.\"\n\nBrett blinked surprised. Usually his tough expression put people on edge, but Miranda looked amused. He couldn't understand why he didn't frighten her, but her response helped his tension ebb. She felt comfortable with him and he was starting to feel the same with her. \"Did John ever have an uncle?\" he asked, briefly wondering why there was no sign of a man around.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" he said feeling stupid. Just because there was no man in the house, didn't mean she was single. She could be dating. He silently swore. He had no business thinking about whether she was in a relationship or not. He wasn't interested in Eva and he wasn't interest in her. \"You haven't promised me yet.\"\n\nHer eyes twinkled. \"I promise.\"\n\nHe frowned, feeling his heart pick up pace and not knowing why. \"How come I don't trust you?\"\n\nHer smile widened. \"I don't know.\"\n\nHe didn't believe her, but Miranda got him wondering about something he didn't want to. Eva was attractive, smart, and clearly cared about her friend. But she rubbed him wrong. Reminded him too much of Sarah. Plus, he didn't like how she looked at him, no\u2014studied him\u2014assessed him. He didn't want to ruin Miranda's evening and hated Eva's questions trying to trip him up. He wouldn't fail for Miranda's sake, although he wanted to give Eva a piece of his mind. He also wished he had a chance to meet the nephew who didn't deserve the aunt he had.\n\n\"What do you find so amusing?\" he asked instead.\n\n\"You're cute when you're shy.\"\n\nHe took another bowl and put it on the high shelf to annoy her, feeling his face burn. \"I'm not shy.\"\n\n\"Okay. I promise I won't say a word.\"\n\nAnd to his relief, Miranda kept her promise and let him endure Eva's biting tongue and wary glances without trying to match them up. Then the evening was over and the two women were gone, leaving him alone with Miranda in her living room with coffee and cake. They sat in front of an unlit fire, the lights from her Christmas tree and garlands lit with an assortment of colors.\n\n\"What brought you to Hamsford?\" she asked.\n\nHe didn't want to tell her about something that was still too painful to admit. \"My father liked to order stuff from a hardware store around here.\"\n\nMiranda sat up. \"Simmonds Hardware?\"\n\n\"Yes, that's it.\"\n\n\"That's my store,\" she said, tapping her chest in excitement. \"It was started by my father. He always loved fixing things. Your father was a client?\"\n\n\"For years,\" Brett said, then told her his name.\n\n\"That's wonderful! I'll have to look him up in my father's notes. Your father liked building things too?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Brett said with a groan. \"Badly.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"How is he?\"\n\nHe sighed. \"Gone.\"\n\nShe refilled his cup. \"Mine too.\" She stood. \"Wait here.\" She left the room, then came back with an oversized, green journal. \"These are my father's notes,\" she said, taking a seat beside Brett so she could show him. \"He liked to write down things about clients so that he would remember them because each one was important to him. I think I remember him mentioning your father's name.\" She flipped through the journal's yellowed pages then stopped. \"Your father was a tool addict.\"\n\nBrett couldn't help a laugh. \"Yes, anything new and he'd buy it.\"\n\n\"Good man,\" Miranda said, reading her father's notes. \"Loves his wife and son, a boy named Brett. Remember birthday.\"\n\nBrett nodded. \"Yep, it's your father's fault that I'd get a gift card every year to buy something that my father would use to make a horrible mess.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"Don't be, it made him happy and I learned early on how to make repairs. If you have anything broken,\" he tapped his chest, \"I'm your man.\"\n\n\"I'll remember that,\" Miranda said, suddenly wanting to remember everything about him. She soon became aware of how close they were, felt the heat of his leg as it touched hers. Before she hadn't noticed the size of his hands, the breadth of his shoulders, the dark brown of his eyes that reminded her of rum cake.\n\nMiranda hastily shifted her gaze and looked at the clock. \"It's late. Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?\"\n\n\"No,\" Brett said, looking at another note her father had written. \"Just drop me back at the bus depot.\"\n\nMiranda licked her lips, wishing she wasn't so aware of how his body pressed against her side as he bent to look at the journal. \"I don't think the buses are still running.\"\n\nHe shrugged, his gaze still focused on the journal. \"That's fine. I'll stay there until morning and then I'll\u2014\"\n\nShe briefly closed her eyes, gathering her courage. \"I have a room already made for John, but you can use it instead.\"\n\nBrett's head shot up. \"You don't even know me.\"\n\nMiranda tapped the journal. \"My father did. You're practically family,\" she continued when he hesitated. \"And I owe you for hitting you with my car.\" He stared at her for a long moment, until Miranda grew uncomfortable. Did he think she was crazy? Maybe she was, but for some reason she didn't want to say goodbye yet. \"What?\"\n\n\"You're too trusting.\" He held out his hand. \"Give me your cell phone.\"\n\nMiranda handed him her phone, confused. \"Why?\"\n\n\"I'm giving you my full name, phone number and address,\" he said, putting the information in her address book. \"If anything happened to you, they'd know the last person you were with.\"\n\n\"Nothing's going to happen to me,\" Miranda said, surprised by his serious tone.\n\n\"You don't know with strangers.\" He handed the cell phone back to her. \"I am trustworthy, but not everyone is, so promise me you won't make an offer like this to someone else.\"\n\nMiranda folded her arms amused. \"You're really big into promises, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Especially when they're kept.\"\n\nShe affectionately patted him on the shoulder. \"You can relax. You're the first and last strange man I've asked to stay in my guest room.\"\n\n\"Good.\"\n\n\"Does that mean you're staying?\"\n\nHe sighed. \"I shouldn't.\"\n\nMiranda grinned. \"I'll take that as a yes.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 6",
                "text": "What am I doing? Brett wondered as he paced the small guest room. Why did he keep saying yes to her? This wasn't like him. He should be waiting at the bus depot or staying in some motel somewhere, not in a cozy little room with freshly laundered sheets.\n\nHe heard a light tap on the door. \"Is everything okay?\"\n\n\"I'm fine,\" he said, glancing down at the pajamas she'd given him to wear. It was a pair of her father's that fit surprisingly well. He'd never been able to borrow anything from his father.\n\n\"Let me know if you need anything.\"\n\n\"I just need to sleep,\" he said, climbing into bed, hoping he'd be able to.\n\nHe slept better than expected and woke up the next morning so rejuvenated that he offered to chop vegetables for the omelet Miranda planned to make for breakfast. For some reason he felt a slight anticipation of something, but he didn't know what. He focused on his task, thinking of what ingredients Miranda would add, then his mind drifted to Sarah. She'd been a master in the kitchen, chopping fast and efficiently. She'd once made him a dish he couldn't pronounce. Some French dish. Or was it Spanish? She spoke both languages fluently. He'd learned Portuguese from his maternal grandfather. Sarah used to tease him about why he had such a dull English name when he had such a rich ethnic heritage. He'd never told her his mother had named him after a hero she'd read in a novel.\n\nHero. Sarah would laugh at the word. He wasn't her hero and there'd be no happily ever after ending. He'd stopped believing in those.\n\nHe was so lost in thought that when he sliced through his finger, right down to the bone, he didn't feel the pain at first. He just saw the blood and felt anger at his own stupidity. Some soldier. He couldn't even handle a damn knife in a kitchen.\n\nBrett quickly grabbed a towel to stop the bleeding. As he held the towel he saw a red stain slowly come through and spread and he thought about his friend Jin Lee and his dirty jokes and acne-scarred face. His Burmese parents wouldn't be having him over this holiday, and Brett briefly thought of the son Jin would never see. Brett quietly raged against the injustice. Jin had people who wanted him home, who cared about him. Brett had no one. He'd fooled himself into believing he had someone who cared. Someone to come home to. He'd fought to survive for nothing.\n\nHe watched a blood droplet fall and land on the cream tile floor and his mind turned to Roger Beal, who'd been found swinging in his girlfriend's basement. And for a moment he understood the quest for peace. The desire to escape oneself, one's mind. To escape the twin demons of anger and sorrow with no in between. Pain, pain, pain. Pain of loss, pain of betrayal, pain of guilt. Would the pain end? Should it?\n\n\"What did you do?\" Miranda said when she saw him.\n\n\"It's nothing.\"\n\n\"You're bleeding all over my kitchen floor and you say it's nothing? Sit down.\"\n\nHe did so, his face burning from humiliation, but he kept his head high.\n\nShe looked at the wound. \"You'll need stitches.\"\n\n\"I can handle it.\"\n\n\"What? You think you can stitch it up yourself with one hand?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" He'd stitched up lots of wounds before, and he watched her, daring her to ask him to explain, but instead she shrugged and said, \"Well, you're not going to. Come on.\"\n\nHe returned from having his hand stitched up at a nearby medical clinic, but quickly developed a fever. By the next day he was delirious. It had gotten infected and Miranda felt awful. She didn't know who she should call. If anything were to happen to him, it would be her fault, because of her silly lie. And in his delirium he spoke about his hates and fears and someone named Sarah. Was that someone to call? Unfortunately, he didn't have a cell phone on him, which she found unusual for someone so young.\n\nFortunately, by the third day, the fever broke, but he was still weak.\n\n\"How long have I been like this?\" Brett asked, his gaze drifting to the window where the moon shone bright outside.\n\n\"Two days.\"\n\nHe swore, then looked at her and apologized.\n\n\"That's okay, I'm your aunt, remember, not your mother.\"\n\nHe slowly sat up, making sure not to put any pressure on his wounded hand. \"You're not even that.\"\n\n\"I'm just glad you're better. This is payback for letting me use you.\"\n\n\"No, I really\u2014\"\n\n\"That was a joke. Let's get you something to eat.\"\n\nMoments later, Brett sat in the kitchen wearing an expensive maroon sweater Miranda had meant to give to John, feeling full after a meal she'd prepared. He looked around the kitchen at the frosted glass fronted cabinets and tea kettle in the shape of a hen. Miranda caught his look. \"That was my father's favorite. Said it reminded him of my mother.\"\n\nBrett wrapped his hand around the warm mug of spiced cider she'd prepared. \"My mother was like this drink\u2014soothing and sweet. You would have liked her.\"\n\n\"Wish I could have met her.\"\n\nHe took a sip of the cider then set it down. \"Me too.\"\n\n\"What if\u2026\" Miranda stopped and bit her lip.\n\n\"What if what?\" he urged her.\n\n\"It's a crazy idea, but just think about it. What if I were to meet them? What would breakfast have been like?\"\n\nBrett leaned back in his chair and shook his head. \"It would have been crazy. Likely with my dad making obscure references about his favorite game of cricket and my mother asking me if I've had enough to eat while piling my plate with more food.\"\n\n\"Let me have them over for breakfast.\" Miranda held up a hand before he could speak. \"I know it sounds crazy, but you pretended for me. Let me pretend for you. It's Christmas tomorrow and I'd really like to do this for you. What would you have liked to serve them?\" She pulled out her cell phone to start a list.\n\n\"Are you serious?\"\n\n\"Very. Come on. While you think of what you'd like to serve them let me go get my good dishes.\" She jumped up with the energy of a little girl getting ready to set up a tea party.\n\n\"But this is\u2014\"\n\n\"Never mind.\" She put her phone away. \"I'll decide for you.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 7",
                "text": "She'd done it again. Why couldn't he say no to her? Brett stared at the four place settings in wonder. Miranda almost made him really believe they were expecting guests. She'd given him one of her father's shirts and a pair of trousers to wear, but what amazed him more was that he was glad to have a reason to stay longer.\n\nThe cool morning rays of December splashed across the white plates and over the pan-fried jack, mackerel, scrambled eggs and papaya salad. Moments later, as she introduced herself and talked to the empty chairs in such a way that made it all seem real, he could see his parents. He could see the naughty twinkle in his father's eyes, the shy smile on his mother's face. Soon he was talking to them too and could imagine their laughter and feel their love. And for the first time in a long while, he felt at home, safe, wanted.\n\nAnd he could imagine having a home of his own and a family. He turned towards the hallway. \"Uh oh I hear the baby crying,\" he said.\n\nMiranda's eyes widened. \"Baby?\"\n\nThe look of surprise on her face made him eager to continue the pretence. \"Should I go check on her or\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" she said, quickly catching on. \"I'm sure your wife will have her quieted down soon and will join us.\"\n\nHis good humor fell. \"No, I thought\u2014\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nHe stared at her, embarrassment seizing his heart. He thought what he shouldn't have. For a moment he'd imagined that they were\u2026that she was\u2026but that was wrong. She saw him as a substitute for her nephew, nothing more. And he felt ashamed of his feelings. He had so little he had to offer her. Plus, he knew she only saw the difference in their ages.\n\nMiranda rested her hand on his arm and said, \"I've been telling your parents what a good father you are.\"\n\nHe nearly lost it then. It was as if she'd uncovered a secret desire. He'd wanted to be the man his father had been to him. But not only had she said the words that hit him at his core, she'd touched him. He hadn't been touched like this in so long, too long and it sent a course of agonizing pleasure through him.\n\nHe didn't want to pretend any more. He didn't want to pretend to be her nephew, to pretend that his parents were alive, to pretend that he had a place to come home too. He had to end this.\n\nHe pulled his arm away. \"I can't do this anymore.\"\n\nMiranda blinked with concern. \"I'm sorry I didn't mean\u2014\"\n\n\"It's all right. I'm just\u2026I should go.\"\n\n\"What's the rush? I'd like to show you the store.\"\n\n\"No.\" He gathered up a plate and went into the kitchen.\n\n\"You're angry with me,\" she said, following him.\n\nHe set the plate down on the counter. \"I'm not angry. I just\u2026it's time for me to go.\"\n\n\"On Christmas Day?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nShe rested her hands on her hips, staring at him for a long moment, then shrugged. \"Okay.\" She left the kitchen.\n\nHe paused. Somehow he'd expected her to argue, to fight him. Or maybe he just wanted her to so she'd give him a reason to stay. He went back into the dining room where he found her cleaning up the table. \"Miranda?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\nHe stood in front of her. \"I'm older than I look.\"\n\nShe grinned. \"No, you're not.\"\n\nHe sighed. She was right.\n\n\"Besides, when you're in your twenties, it doesn't matter if you're twenty-four and she's twenty-five.\"\n\n\"I'm twenty-eight.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" She winked at him. \"Then you are older than I thought. Anyway, there's no trouble if\u2014\"\n\n\"I'm not interested in Eva, I told you that before. I don't want to pretend anymore. I want to play the uncle.\"\n\nShe stared up at him, wide eyed. \"You want to play my uncle?\"\n\n\"No, that's not what I meant. I mean, I want you to play the aunt and I play the uncle.\"\n\nMiranda shook her head then gathered up more plates and headed for the kitchen. \"Perhaps we should stop playing altogether.\"\n\nHe blocked her path. \"Only if we can start being real?\"\n\n\"Real?\"\n\nHe bit his lip then took a deep breath, holding her gaze even though it scared him. \"Please tell me you feel it too.\"\n\nMiranda took a hasty step back then set the plates on the table with a clatter. \"Of course I feel it,\" she admitted, sounding breathless. \"But it's just the season and we're both sad and lonely and happen to find\u2014\"\n\n\"Love?\"\n\n\"Each other.\"\n\n\"Isn't that the same thing?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nWith his good hand, he reached out and clasped her hand in his. \"Yes, it is. We both know this feels right.\"\n\n\"Who's Sarah?\"\n\nHe stiffened. \"What?\"\n\n\"You said her name over and over again when\u2014\"\n\n\"She's my past. She's\u2026not part of my life right now. You don't have to worry about anybody else.\" Brett clasped her hand tighter, feeling her hesitation and fear. \"I know it seems fast and I know it's sudden and I don't understand it all myself. But I do know that I want you to be a part of my life and I'll do whatever it takes to make that happen. I don't mind moving here and working in your store. Just until I get settled and\u2014\"\n\nMiranda looked down at their joined hands. \"This is crazy.\"\n\n\"No crazier than hosting my dead parents for breakfast.\"\n\n\"Well, when you say it like that,\" she began to say, but he stopped her words with a kiss. And soon no words were needed. When they finally drew apart, Miranda stared up at him in wonder. Was this really happening? She searched his face, seeing that the cynicism had gone from his eyes and voice, but there was still something a little sad in his expression. Something she couldn't understand.\n\n\"What do I have to do to get you to smile?\" she asked.\n\nHe blinked, confused. \"Why do I need to smile?\"\n\n\"I don't know. So that I can know you're truly happy.\"\n\nHis brows shot up. \"I don't look happy?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"But I am,\" he said with feeling, gathering her close. \"More than I can say,\" he said then kissed her again, determined to make her believe him.\n\nThey spent Christmas Day in a hazy, all-consuming joy. They went to the movies to watch the latest action film, Brett holding Miranda's hand every time she jumped in fright, or stroking her hair when she buried her face in his chest. Later, she showed him around the town and took him to her greatest pride\u2014Simmonds Hardware. There, as she showed him around the building, where he saw a picture of her father as a young man, and they talked about the people they missed. The ones who never seemed far from their thoughts, but whose memory no longer caused them pain. That evening they shared their hopes and dreams for the future, falling asleep on the couch amidst the glow of fading firelight.\n\nMiranda woke up before Brett and snuck into the kitchen, hoping to surprise him with breakfast. She had his tray made when someone knocked on the door. She rested the tray in the foyer and answered.\n\n\"We just got back,\" Eva said. \"I wanted to see if you were okay and wanted to come over for\u2014\" She paused when her gaze fell on the tray. \"What is that?\" She didn't give Miranda a chance to respond. She pushed her way inside. \"Is he still here? And he's making you wait on him hand and foot?\"\n\n\"He's not making me do anything. We\u2014\"\n\nEva grabbed the tray. \"He's already making himself king of the castle.\" She headed to the stairs.\n\n\"He's not there, he's in the living room, but\u2014\"\n\n\"But nothing. I might as well say 'hi' to him. You look as if you haven't slept.\"\n\nFortunately, Brett was awake when Eva stormed into the room; he'd heard her voice and then her pounding footsteps. He silently swore. She certainly wasn't the first face he wanted to see in the morning. He stood up and reached out to grab the tray, hoping he could balance it with one hand.\n\nShe set the tray down. \"What did you do to your hand?\"\n\n\"The moment it becomes any of your business I'll let you know.\"\n\nHer lip became a straight line. \"Now listen here\u2014\"\n\n\"It's Boxing Day, but not the type that you think,\" Miranda said, trying for humor. \"Let's not\u2014\"\n\n\"I didn't expect you to still be here,\" Eva said, ignoring her. \"But I'm glad you are. Because you don't fool me.\"\n\nBrett sat down. \"Fine, but first let me tell you\u2014\"\n\nEva sat cross from him, leaning forward as if she were in the middle of a tough negotiation. \"I don't care what you have to say. Find someone else to live off of. Find some poor girl with a place of her own where you can move into. You may not remember, but I won't forget all the pain you've caused your aunt over the years. But if you do the right thing, I'll salute you on the way out.\"\n\n\"Eva, that's enough,\" Miranda said. \"He doesn't deserve that.\"\n\n\"You're just blind because he's family.\"\n\n\"I'm not blind. I know that John is all that you've said. Unfortunately,\" she looked at Brett and offered him a wink. \"Or perhaps fortunately, he's not him.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"He was helping me save face. His name is Brett Greenwood.\"\n\nEva's eyes widened and she leaped to her feet. \"What!\"\n\n\"We both know\u2014\"\n\n\"That this is insane?\" Eva finished, her voice near a shriek. \"Ms. Miranda, you don't know what you're doing. You asked a perfect stranger into your home just so you could fool us?\"\n\n\"He's not really a stranger. My father knew his father.\"\n\n\"So what?\" Eva folded her arms and looked at Brett. \"So what are your plans?\"\n\n\"We plan to build a future together,\" Miranda said.\n\nBut Eva kept her gaze on Brett as if Miranda hadn't spoken. \"Are you planning on moving into this lovely house and then working for her? That would be real cozy for you, wouldn't it? You wouldn't have to work hard at all.\"\n\n\"Eva, what we decide is none of your business.\"\n\nEva continued to keep her gaze on Brett. \"I know it's a new age, but shouldn't a man provide something besides a dic\u2014\"\n\n\"Eva, I won't ask you again. He's a guest in my home and that's enough.\"\n\nEva spun towards her. \"You're selling yourself short. You let John treat you like dirt and you'll let this man do it too. Aren't you tired of people feeling sorry for you?\"\n\n\"Yes, but only because people feel sorry for me for the wrong reasons. They're sorry I'm not married or don't have kids. But I loved the life I made with my father and the adventures we had together. I don't regret helping my sister and nephew when they needed me. And I don't regret letting myself fall in love, even though I don't know the future.\"\n\n\"You're always taking care of others. When are you going to find a man who will take care of you?\"\n\n\"She's met him,\" Brett said, standing and moving to Miranda's side. \"I may not have much now, but I will.\"\n\n\"'Will' is a mighty long ways off from 'now,'\" Eva said with a sneer. \"Men like you are all talk. I met you in school, I see you in clubs, I see you at work. Opportunists who find lonely women\u2014\"\n\n\"Just go,\" Miranda said, surprised by the ugliness in Eva's tone. Eyes she'd once seen as so caring now frightened her, and the pity she'd feared to see had turned to disgust. \"Before you say something that will end our friendship for good.\"\n\nEva spun around and walked away."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 8",
                "text": "\"We have to get rid of him,\" Eva said, after she'd told her mother about her conversation with Miranda. They both sat in their living room while her mother put aside the gift items they knew they'd never use.\n\n\"Why don't you leave the poor woman alone?\"\n\n\"She doesn't know what she's doing.\"\n\n\"She's older than you are and has managed her life just fine,\" Mary said.\n\n\"You're the one who thought she was daft.\"\n\n\"I did, but maybe she knows something we don't.\"\n\n\"What could that be?\"\n\n\"What love at first sight is.\"\n\nEva rolled her eyes. \"That's ridiculous. She's being na\u00efve and so are you. I know more about men my age than she does. She doesn't know what men can be like.\"\n\n\"You sound jealous.\"\n\n\"Me?\" Eva rested a hand on her chest, wounded. \"Jealous of her?\"\n\n\"No, of him. Do you feel as if he's taking your place?\"\n\n\"That's outrageous. I\u2014\"\n\nMary sent her daughter a level look. \"Then leave her alone and stop worrying about things that have nothing to do with you.\"\n\n\"I know what men like him can be like. They see a woman with a fine house and good job and lonely bed and think they can fill it.\"\n\n\"And if she wants him to, is that your business?\"\n\n\"She deserves better.\" Eva shook her head. \"I can't believe\u2014\"\n\n\"If you'd stop talking, you'd open your eyes, pet.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Can't you recognize when you're in the presence of true love?\" She smiled at her daughter's shocked expression. \"I know that sounds odd coming from me, but it's true. I knew the first moment I saw him that he wasn't John.\"\n\n\"Yes, I felt it too because he's a fraud.\"\n\n\"No, because I saw a young man falling in love when he didn't expect to. Not even Miranda noticed how his gaze followed her. I'm glad they found each other.\" She stood. \"So you leave them be,\" she said, then went upstairs.\n\nTrue love? Eva looked out the window and stared at Miranda's house across the street, her mouth a straight line. \"Sorry Mum, I can't.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 9",
                "text": "Somehow she knew he'd disappear from her life. She'd remembered their last conversation before he'd gone to take a shower.\n\n\"She's right,\" Brett said, taking a seat on the couch, staring at the breakfast that had gone cold. \"I don't have anything to offer you right now and\u2014\"\n\nMiranda sat beside him, taking his hand. \"That's okay.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"No, it's not okay. What would your father think of a man like me? Moving in, having you pay my wages. It doesn't look right. I should at least be making my own way.\"\n\n\"I need some help at the store and I could charge you room and board. How does that sound?\"\n\nHe sighed. \"Do you mind if I take a shower?\"\n\n\"No, but a bath may be better. You don't want to get your hand wet.\"\n\n\"I'll wrap it tight,\" he said, then disappeared upstairs. She didn't follow him, giving him the space he needed.\n\nShe didn't know when he left. She'd been in the kitchen and hadn't heard his footsteps or the front door open and close, but when she'd gone upstairs, she found the door to his room open and the place empty.\n\nHer heart cracked and bled. She'd lost him. A wonderful dream had ended. She knew one day he would leave, but she hadn't expected it to be without a goodbye. She blinked back tears, then quickly brushed them away when she heard the doorbell.\n\nShe opened the door and saw Eva with a plate of cookies. \"It's a peace offering.\" She cleared her throat. \"To both of you.\"\n\n\"He's gone,\" Miranda said with a sigh.\n\n\"Did he\u2026?\"\n\n\"He didn't say anything. He just left.\" She flashed a sad smile. \"And there's no reason to pretend you aren't glad.\"\n\n\"That's not true. I was just worried about you. I didn't expect, I mean\u2026I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"Don't be. I'll make some tea,\" Miranda said, heading towards the kitchen. \"I'll meet you in the sitting room.\"\n\nEva slowly walked into the sitting room, stunned. Her wish had come true. He'd shown his true colors early. She'd gotten rid of him. She'd known he was no good, and now Miranda would see it. She hoped never to be as silly and romantic as her mother when she got older. True love? What crap. She sat down then saw a note on the coffee table. She picked it up.\n\n\"Darling Miranda, goodbyes are hard for me to say. I don't want to put pressure on you. I want to give you space to think about this\u2026about us. I do love you, but if you don't feel the same, I understand. I'm taking the four o'clock bus back to New Jersey. If you love me at all, and want to be my bride, just wave to me and I'll know your answer. Brett\"\n\nHe'd left a letter. Eva jumped to her feet, thinking of Miranda's sad smile. Her friend needed to see this. To see how he felt about her. Eva took a step in the direction of the kitchen, then stopped. But what if it was just all words? How much of it was true? That grim, arrogant bastard had no right to live off of Miranda. Eva glanced at her watch. It was two o'clock. She heard Miranda's footsteps and crumpled the note in her fist before shoving it in her coat pocket. She was doing it for Miranda's own good.\n\n\"So I guess he's gone for good?\" Eva asked, knowing the answer but wanting to hear it confirmed.\n\n\"Yes. He's moving on with his life.\"\n\n\"And so can you,\" Eva said, fighting hard to stop a smile."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 10",
                "text": "Leaving had been hard, but he had no choice. Miranda was his weakness and she'd make him stay. But he had to do more. He had to make good, he had to be in a position to help provide. Eva's words sounded so much like something Sarah would say. That's why she'd chosen another man. Because he had nothing to offer. Could he blame her? He couldn't imagine facing Miranda's father or even his own with no prospects. How could he provide or protect her?\n\nBrett paced inside the bus depot. He'd pack up his life in New Jersey then find a place and work in Hamsford. Now he had a mission. A purpose. And it felt good. He had a place to come back to and he hoped a woman waiting. He'd hoped she'd have come early to see him with her answer. He'd promised not to bother her, but the tension was killing him. Maybe she didn't really feel the way he did. Maybe it had all been just a dream. A holiday dream. Maybe he couldn't extend it.\n\nHe bit his lip. He'd been wrong about Sarah. Was he wrong about Miranda too?\n\nNo, he couldn't believe that. He glanced at his watch. She'd come.\n\nJust one more hour and he'd be gone for good, Eva thought as she flipped through the mail, Brett's note still crumpled up in her jean's pocket. She'd thought of throwing it away, but she couldn't risk anyone finding it. Their shredder was broken and if her mother saw her burning something she'd get suspicious. She'd get rid of it later, when that man was completely out of town.\n\n\"Why do you keep looking at the clock?\" Mary asked, sitting down in front of Eva at the kitchen table.\n\n\"No reason\u2026it's just\u2026uh the mail carrier was late today.\"\n\nMary only nodded, sensing something was wrong, but not knowing what.\n\nMiranda sat in her living room and turned on her laptop to work on some accounts when she noticed a file was already opened.\n\nDarling Miranda\u2026\n\nBrett had written her a note? When? Her heart raced as she read it. Why hadn't he left it out for her to see? Had he changed his mind? Had he meant to delete it? Should she pretend she hadn't seen it?\n\nShe closed the laptop and stood up. No, she couldn't. She'd find out the answer from him. She glanced at the clock. It was three-forty. She had twenty minutes to get to the bus depot.\n\nShe sped to the bus depot and jumped out of her car just as the bus was pulling away. She ran and waved her arms hoping he'd notice her, although she couldn't see him. She shouted his name, hoping he could hear her over the noise of the bus engine. She was about to give up when his face appeared in the window.\n\nAt first she wasn't sure it was him. His smile was so big it transformed his face. Tears of joy touched her eyes as she soaked in the sight of his happiness. She blew him a kiss. He pretended to grab it then hold it to his heart and then he was gone, leaving her with an image she'd keep in her mind until she saw him again."
            },
            {
                "title": "Epilogue",
                "text": "[ A year later ]\n\nWith the fire crackling, they decorated their freshly picked Christmas tree, Afro-Brazilian music, the kind his father loved to listen to, playing in the background. There was still gossip in Hamsford about their small, hasty wedding and Miranda's 'young man.' \"You know what he really married her for,\" some busybodies liked to say when they spotted the pair in the marketplace. But neither cared. Brett had already proven his worth with the employees of Simmonds Hardware and had doubled the profits within months. And as they celebrated their first Christmas together as a married couple, they felt as if they'd never been strangers.\n\n\"You're lucky I found the note on my laptop,\" Miranda said, placing a star ornament on the tree.\n\nBrett adjusted a light and frowned. \"I didn't leave a note on your laptop.\"\n\n\"Yes, you did. I read it and that's how I was able to see you before you left.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"But I didn't type anything. I handwrote it and left it on the coffee table.\"\n\n\"I never saw a written note.\" She grabbed her laptop, which had been on the coffee table, and opened the file she'd never delete. \"You didn't write this?\" she asked, showing the screen.\n\n\"Those are my words, but I didn't type it.\"\n\n\"That's strange,\" Miranda said, taking a seat.\n\nHe sat beside her. \"Could you see me typing with one hand?\"\n\n\"No, but that's so odd. I\u2014.\" She stopped when the file suddenly disappeared and the image of a cocoa colored man with a white beard appeared on the screen.\n\nBrett pointed to the picture, amazed. \"That's him! That's the man who told me to come to Hamsford.\"\n\nMiranda's mouth fell open. \"What?\"\n\n\"I should thank him for changing my life. I met him at the bus depot in New Jersey last year.\"\n\n\"You couldn't have,\" Miranda said, stumbling over the words. \"Are you sure it was him?\"\n\n\"Positive. Why do you doubt me?\"\n\n\"Because that's my father.\"\n\nBrett met her eyes, remembering the man's soft voice and warm presence. And then he thought about the day when they pretended that his parents had come to visit and how real it had all felt. Because it had been. Their spirits had joined them, and he'd never truly been alone. \"He brought me to you.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Miranda said with a smile. \"I told you my father always liked fixing things.\"\n\nAnd then her husband kissed her smile away, and they were two broken hearts fully mended.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ A Cup of Cheer ]\n\n\"No, no, no! I won't do it even for you.\"\n\n\"It's the holidays, Alyson. The least we can do as neighbors is spread good cheer.\"\n\n\"So you want me to give my delicious spiced cider to Scrooge next door?\"\n\nOf course his real name isn't Scrooge. It's Gareth LeBlanc owner of the second hand bookstore (creatively called Second Hand Books). Although the way he fussed over the books you'd think they were antiques instead of smelly old paperbacks and well worn hardbacks. I've only spoken to him a few times (when I wave 'hello', he just nods) and I can honestly say that I've only heard five sentences come out of his mouth. The only thing me or anyone else knows, was posted in a small write up in the weekly Community News: He was born in Dominica, the son of an English father and Dominican mother, and has travelled extensively.\n\nWhen he first moved in, I sent him a box of cookies to welcome him to the neighborhood. I knew that he lived in the apartment above his shop, as I did, and I'd hoped to be as friendly with him as I had been with the previous residents\u2014two elderly sisters from Trinidad who said my coconut cookies were divine. He didn't say they were divine, he didn't even say they were nice. He just returned an empty tin with a sticky note that said 'Thanks'. That's it, nothing more\u2026just 'Thanks'.\n\nIt took me weeks before I could stomach the thought of stopping by his shop. I finally decided to visit in order to see the type of cookbooks he had. I have to give him credit, he had a pretty good selection. So every few weeks I'd stop by and buy a few. I was buying two when I noticed this beautifully bound book from the early twentieth century called Amelia Armand's Complete Book of Spices. It was encased in the curio behind his head. I was certain it would be expensive, but I was willing to pay the price.\n\nI am a culinary historian and when I'm not in my store selling traditional and rustic crafts and recipe books, I recreate authentic dishes for functions at the Historical Society. A book like that would have been perfect for my collection.\n\n\"How much is that book behind you?\" I asked after purchasing several items. He adjusted the rim of his baseball cap. He always wore a baseball cap (perhaps he was going bald) and a tie that never matched his shirt (and color blind?)-- orange against a tan shirt.\n\nHe didn't even turn around to see what I was referring to. \"It's not for sale,\" he said in a cutting deep voice that could cause one to have goose bumps, if one liked the resonant sound of low baritones. I haven't stepped foot in that bookstore since. I'd rather drop my money in a sewer than fatten his bank account again.\n\n\"Since you're so desperate to spread holiday cheer why don't you do it?\" I asked Cora.\n\n\"Because I didn't make the cider and it is better coming from you. You have that cheery, friendly aura about you.\"\n\n\"You mean jolly, don't you?\"\n\nShe made a face, but wisely didn't reply. I'm not fat, but I'm not slim either. Not like Cora who has a nice slender build which she further accentuated by wearing tight suede trousers, a pink cashmere blouse and black boots with heels that could cause the sidewalk to crack. But I didn't envy her, I had inherited my stout full-figure like all the women in my family and was curvy in all the right places. My mother who had been born in Venezuela, of Trinidadian parents and Barbadian grandparents had made sure, while I was growing up, that I would be proud of my figure. I preferred my loose fitting cotton tops and trousers and comfortable walking shoes. Customers said I made them feel at home and that feeling was always good for business.\n\n\"Besides, it's slick and icy outside,\" she complained. \"You wouldn't want me to trip, would you?\" She wiggled her high heeled boot.\n\n\"It would serve you right.\"\n\n\"But what would you do without me?\"\n\nI scowled. She was right; her business acumen had helped turn my small shop into an international destination. I was getting mail orders from as far away as Dubai.\n\n\"He's not married, you know.\"\n\nI rolled my eyes. \"Yes, I heard Dracula is single too.\"\n\nShe sent me a look; I ignored her. Ever since I hired her as my assistant five years ago she's been trying to match me up. It's not that I don't like men. I do. Just not modern men. You know: the modern man who won't hold the door open for you, but instead will let it slam in your face; the modern man who expects you to pay for dinner while he pays for dessert; the modern man who thinks the question \"Would you like to come inside?\" means you.\n\nI wanted something more. I wanted romance. Grand gestures like a carriage ride on a snowy day, or holding out my chair and remembering to walk on the outside of the pavement so that passing cars wouldn't splash me. Or even calling me by my name instead of 'honey' or babe' or confusing me for another woman (a long story). But I'd given up on romance years ago. Modern men didn't do grand gestures. They didn't even do small ones.\n\n\"Look, it's starting to snow,\" Cora said, glancing out the shop window. \"How can you not be friendly at a time like this when everything looks white and fresh?\" She shoved the thermos filled with hot cinnamon-nutmeg cider into my chest. \"Go on and spread some holiday cheer.\"\n\n\"He'll probably bite my head off again,\" I mumbled slipping into my coat and hat.\n\n\"He's just a man, Alyson. Not the big bad wolf.\"\n\nI made a face and wrapped a scarf around my neck.\n\nThe wind nearly knocked me back into the shop. A freezing blast stung my cheeks while a stream of cold tears fell from my eyes. He's not worth this. I turned around ready to go back in my store. Cora blocked the doorway and mouthed 'Go.' I briefly wondered how many homicides occurred during the holiday season then spun around and hurried next door.\n\nThe bell chimed above my head as I entered the shop. It was quiet with only a few customers rummaging through books on the shelves. I stomped my snow-covered boots on the rug and glanced towards the counter, which was conveniently empty. Perhaps he was out back somewhere polishing one of his beloved books. I could leave the cider on his desk with the added benefit of not having to see him. Great! I smiled in triumph, took one of his business cards and scribbled 'Happy Holidays' on the back.\n\nOnce finished I looked up and saw it: The book. I glanced side to side to make sure no one was watching then I lifted myself on the counter, leaned closer and squinted, hoping I could tell whether the book was really old or just an imitation. By looking at the paper texture and type it looked like the real thing. My mind raced with all the possible recipes hidden inside.\n\n\"It's not for sale.\"\n\nI fell back and stumbled before regaining my footing. I stared at him. Or rather at his chest, since that was the first thing I saw. Today he wore a red shirt and green tie--at least he looked festive. Although I doubt that was his intention, he didn't seem the festive sort. I finally raised my gaze to his face. As usual he wore his baseball cap low, shading his eyes. I was glad since I didn't care to read their expression. \"You know I could offer you a lot of money\u2026\"\n\n\"It's still not for sale,\" he repeated in that same deep baritone.\n\n\"Then why do you have it there?\"\n\n\"Because I like it there.\" He abruptly turned and went behind the counter. \"But you're right, I should make things clear.\" He quickly wrote a sign that said 'Display Only' then taped it up. He then turned to me. \"Better?\"\n\nI frowned, trying my best to look confused. \"Does that mean it's not for sale?\"\n\nHe blinked looking bored. \"Did you want something?\"\n\nI didn't think he would have appreciated hot spiced cider over his head so I shoved the thermos into his chest, which was surprisingly harder than I thought it would be. Weren't dusty bookworms supposed to be a little soft around the middle? \"This is for you.\"\n\nHe frowned and looked down at the thermos. \"What is it?\"\n\n\"It's poison.\"\n\nHe glanced up quickly. His surprise gave me a chance to look at his eyes, which were big, brown and oddly innocent.\n\nNo one with eyes like those could be all bad. \"I was hoping to kill you off so I could steal the book.\"\n\nThe corner of his mouth kicked up as he twisted the lid and took a sniff. \"Smells like hot cider.\"\n\n\"Spiced cinnamon-nutmeg cider if you want to be specific.\"\n\nHe poured himself a cup then took a sip, nodded as though in approval then looked at me with a playful glare that said a lot more. \"It's still not for sale.\"\n\nI shrugged, feigning defeat. \"I know.\" I took a step back, suddenly feeling both restless and giddy at the same time. I knew it was time to leave. \"Well, Happy Holidays.\" I turned and left before he could say anything more.\n\nHe returned the thermos the next day, or rather had it delivered. I had been working on our website when Cora came into the office. She held the thermos against her and said in a loud stage whisper. \"It's from him.\"\n\n\"Him who?\"\n\n\"Scrooge.\"\n\nI pretended not to care, though I felt my face grow warm. \"So? Set it in the kitchen.\"\n\nShe waved a piece of paper. \"He sent you a note.\"\n\nI took the envelope (Cora said I snatched it, but she tends to be dramatic). It was real parchment paper with my name scribbled across in his broad handwriting. For a moment I pictured him sitting at an old oak desk under a low hanging lamp, while a stripped cat sat on his shoulder, lazily waving its tail (Gareth didn't have a cat, but I liked the image). I could hear the smooth movement as his pen glided across the paper. Once he was finished, he carefully folded the note and placed it inside the envelope then slowly licked and sealed it closed. I brought the envelope to my nose. Did his scent cling to it or was it just my imagination?\n\nCora's voice cut into my daydream. \"Aren't you going to open it?\"\n\nI blinked, shocked out of my fantasy, then ripped open the letter.\n\n\u2002Dear Ms. Haywood:\n\n\u2002There are few things in life that can be described as perfect: A starry sky, a new dawn and your spiced cinnamon-nutmeg cider. May I request another? Bring it by tomorrow. I will pay accordingly.\n\n\u2002Sincerely,\n\n\u2002Gareth LeBlanc\n\n\"What does it say?\" Cora asked trying to peer over my shoulder. I handed her the note. She read it and frowned. \"Well it certainly isn't poetry. Dear Ms. Haywood? It sounds so cold and formal. So what are you going to do?\"\n\nI wasn't sure, but I planned to think of something.\n\nThe following day brought sunshine, the sound of birds chirping, the distant ring of a Salvation Army Santa, and the steady drip of snow melting on the rooftop. I took my basket and headed next door. The sign on the door said 'Closed' and I was about to ring the bell when I looked through the store's glass front door and saw Gareth wearing a faded brown corduroy jacket and baseball cap talking to a woman in a long white cashmere coat. It didn't look like a happy conversation. I started to turn when the woman raced out the door in tears. Gareth followed, but didn't call out her name or tell her to stop. He just watched her go. It was obviously a lover's quarrel and not something I wanted to be a part of. I took two quick steps back hoping I could escape before he saw me.\n\n\"I hate the holidays,\" he mumbled then turned before I was a safe distance away. He stared at me surprised. \"What do you want?\"\n\nI took another quick step back towards the freedom and safety of my store. \"Nothing. I just--\"\n\nHe held open the door. \"Come on in.\"\n\nI swallowed, wondering if I should refuse him, but decided to take the risk and go inside suddenly aware that it was the first time I'd ever been alone with him.\n\n\"I could come back another time.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Doesn't matter. I shouldn't even be here.\" He gestured to the books around him. \"All of this was my brother's idea. I was going to help him. He was the one with the pleasing personality and charm. He was going to be the one upfront dealing with the customers and I'd be in the back handling the accounting and other mundane business. He was so happy when he found this building and we signed the lease.\" Gareth angrily adjusted his cap. \"After he died I should have just let everything go, but I couldn't. I wanted to fulfill this dream for him, but I'm all wrong. I'm not good with people--I prefer eReaders and computers and computer games. But the strange thing is that business is booming but Jani wants me to leave.\"\n\n\"Jani?\"\n\n\"My ex-girlfriend, she's the one who just left. She wants me to give it up and return to my old job, but I can't.\" He stared at me and shook his head amazed. \"I don't know why I'm telling you all this.\"\n\nI smiled. \"I'm easy to talk to.\"\n\nHe didn't return my smile, but his face softened. \"You would have liked Rupert.\"\n\n\"His brother's not too bad either.\"\n\nGareth's gaze fell and I winced, knowing that's probably not something he wanted to hear. Now was not the time to flirt.\n\n\"The holidays can be hard for anyone,\" I said hoping to cover my gaffe and find a way to comfort him. \"Especially when you've lost someone you care about, but I'm sure he'd want you to be happy.\"\n\nGareth let out a tired sigh. \"He would and I'm letting him down. I mean what right do I have to be happy living his dream?\"\n\n\"People don't own dreams and from what you've told me, it was a dream you had together. I bet you his spirit is here with you cheering you on.\"\n\nGareth sent me a long look I couldn't read. I licked my lip wondering if he was going to tell me to leave or mind my own business. Instead he spun around, said \"Give me a minute\" then disappeared upstairs.\n\nI didn't move. I thought about leaving, but I was too curious to do so. I thought about his brother. I thought about how lonely it must be for Gareth to be here in this empty shop.\n\n\"Okay, come up,\" he called from above.\n\nI hesitated then walked up the stairs to the main landing then into a nice living area. The heat of a crackling fire met me first, followed by the sounds of carols drifting from the radio. A tiny Christmas tree sat on the windowsill with a crooked star on top. I straightened it, crooked things annoy me.\n\n\"I thought you hated Christmas,\" I called out to him.\n\n\"I changed my mind,\" he said from another room. \"Take a seat.\"\n\n\"No, I have something to show you first.\"\n\n\"More cider?\"\n\n\"No. I'm going to show you how to make your own.\"\n\nHe came out of the other room and stared at me surprised. I stared back equally stunned. He wasn't wearing his hat. Although everything else was the same\u2014he wore a dreadful checkered maroon tie with a striped shirt\u2014I felt as though I'd met him half dressed, exposed. I'd uncovered his secret. He wasn't going bald, he had cropped black hair, and the most expressive deep brown eyes I'd ever seen. Every emotion he felt flashed in them; I could see they were his most vulnerable feature. And something in their expression seemed to ignite something inside me. Something I'd ignored for a long time. I'd buried myself in history and the past so that I wouldn't be vulnerable in the present, but at that moment Gareth had shown me that people hadn't changed that much. Their hopes, fears and dreams remained the same.\n\nHis eyes changed from surprised to weariness. \"You're going to teach me?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHe flashed one of his odd little half smiles then disappeared into the room again, he reappeared with his baseball cap.\n\nI took it off. \"You look better without it.\"\n\nHe put it back on. \"It brings me luck.\"\n\n\"You don't need luck.\"\n\nHe grabbed my hand before I could take it off. \"How about courage then? It's a crutch, but it works for me. Superman has his cape, Wolverine has his claws and I have my cap, okay?\"\n\n\"Fine,\" I said, though I wondered how I could convince him otherwise. He really did have very nice eyes.\n\nGareth showed me the kitchen and we both went inside. Making cinnamon-nutmeg cider only takes ten minutes. Somehow I made it last an hour; neither of us noticed the time. As the cider simmered on the stove the smell of cloves, nutmeg, apples, cinnamon, and sweet brown sugar permeated the air.\n\nWhen the cider was done we sat in his alcove that looked down into the quiet bookshop and drank in peaceful silence.\n\n\"Books make sorry companions after awhile,\" he finally said.\n\nBoth pain and resignation seeped behind his simple words. \"History can lose its appeal too,\" I said.\n\nWe slipped into silence again then he abruptly stood, picked up a book from off the shelf and handed it to me.\n\nI stared at him stunned. \"Amelia Armand's Complete Book of Spices? You can't give this to me.\"\n\nHe took a sip of his cider and sent me a full grin. \"I'm not. It's still not for sale.\" He tipped his hat back a bit. \"But you can come by and use it anytime.\"\n\nI set the book down--at that moment I didn't care what was inside\u2014instead I took his cap off and placed it on my head. It was a bold move to make, but I was a modern woman and decided to take the risk.\n\nAnd he being a modern man\u2026well let's just say I didn't open Amelia Armand's Complete Book of Spices until late New Years and I didn't mind a bit.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ New Year's Surprise ]\n\nDivorce. Millions of people did it, but that didn't stop Pam Rubin from feeling alone. The man she'd thought she'd spend the rest of her life with would no longer be part of it. She knew it was the right decision. They'd been separated six months now, but they'd been emotionally apart longer than that. Living in the same house but living separate lives. She still didn't know where things had gone wrong. When had they stopped loving each other? When had simple disagreements become a war?\n\nBut she didn't want to think about that now. She had come to her sister's New Year's Eve party, instead of staying home with her dog and watching the ball drop on TV, to cast aside the loneliness that seemed to stick to her skin like masking tape. No, tonight was a promise of new things and a new future. Pam stood with a glass in her hand, a fake look of joy on her face, feeling out of step with all the happy couples that surrounded her. It was strange how, as her marriage crumbled, that's all she started to see: happy newlyweds, happy parents with their children, happy older couples celebrating decades together. She and Jerrod had only made five years and there had been no children, but not for lack of trying.\n\nPam leaned against the balcony railing. The stars shone bright above her. She preferred looking at them instead of all the ruby earrings and emerald necklaces that graced the ladies inside the house. The dazzling gold wedding bands and diamond engagement rings seemed to sparkle under the lights, catching her eye where ever she turned. She glanced down at her now bare hand, her loneliness making her feel invisible.\n\n\"There you are!\" her sister, Darlene, said coming up to her, wearing a slinky sequence dress her own wedding ring twinkling under the Japanese lanterns that decorated the balcony. She was four years older with bouncing black curls and light brown eyes. She was usually considered the prettier of the two sisters because of her vivacious personality and engaging smile that some said was as sweet as grata cake. \"I was looking all over for you! What are you doing standing out here by yourself? You're a single woman now, you should be living it up.\"\n\nPam shook her head, a strand of hair falling from her French twist. She narrowed her dark brown eyes. \"I'm not single yet.\"\n\n\"You will be. You might as well start the New Year with a new man. Out with the old and in with the new.\"\n\nPam knew her sister didn't understand how raw she still felt. She didn't want a new man when she still couldn't understand how she'd lost the old one. \"I'm not ready yet.\"\n\n\"It's been six months. Admit that it's over between you. You told me how happy you've been with him away. It may feel awkward, but it's time to get into the dating pool again.\"\n\n\"I don't know how to swim,\" Pam said in a dry attempt at humor.\n\n\"Just stay in the shallow end. Lucky for you your big sister is here to help. I have someone who is perfect for you.\"\n\nPam inwardly groaned. \"I've given up on men.\"\n\nDarlene opened her mouth then closed it then opened it again and said in a low, cautious tone. \"So you're into women now?\"\n\nPam laughed. \"I'm not into anyone now. I am just through with relationships. I'm happier by myself.\"\n\nDarlene visibly relaxed and rested a hand on her sister's shoulder, her voice eager. \"You're going to like him. He\u2014\"\n\n\"I don't care.\"\n\n\"You will care when you meet him. His parents are from Barbados and he has a doctorate in...\" She frowned. \"I forgot,\" she said with a careless wave of her hand. \"But he's smart and I know that you like that in a man.\"\n\nPam sent her sister a look. He sounded just like her soon-to-be-ex. \"I didn't come here to meet anybody.\"\n\nHer sister clasped her hands together as if ready to beg. \"If you'll just meet him, I will leave you alone. I promise. I really want you to meet him.\"\n\nPam set her wine glass down. It wasn't like her sister to be so insistent. Since she'd agreed to come to the party she might as well try to be sociable. \"Okay. Let me go freshen up.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Darlene said as Pam turned to leave. \"Don't forget to add more lipstick, take the shine off your nose and for goodness sake consider letting your hair down.\"\n\nPam stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, feeling as though she was staring at a stranger. Who was that woman with hollow eyes and pinched lips? When was the last time she'd smiled? She shouldn't have come. She didn't want to meet anyone. She wasn't ready to. She knew her sister meant well but that didn't make her feel better. She had to leave. She would grab her coat and go. Satisfied with her plan, Pam left the bathroom and headed for the room where all the coats were piled up on a bed. She was halfway down the hall ready to go upstairs when she saw her sister standing next to a man. He looked very genial and attractive, but she didn't want to meet him. She prayed her sister didn't turn and see her. She wanted to escape. Pam frantically glanced around then darted into the first door she saw: The closet. She knew it was cowardly but she didn't care.\n\nThe closet had a familiar pleasant smell of lemon and spice, relaxing her a bit. She leaned against the wall, letting out a startled screech when it moved.\n\n\"Shh, you'll give us away,\" a deep voice said.\n\n\"What are you doing in here?\" she demanded in a loud whisper.\n\n\"I wanted to be alone.\"\n\n\"Then why did you come to a party?\"\n\n\"I was invited,\" he said. \"But now I'm not sure that was a good idea.\"\n\n\"Then why don't you go home?\" Pam asked annoyed by the tremor in her voice. She was used to being calm in any situation but this man had unnerved her.\n\n\"Because I just got here.\"\n\n\"You're being ridiculous.\"\n\n\"I could say the same about you,\" he said with laughter in his voice.\n\nHe was right. His reasons for hiding were eerily similar to hers. She should follow her own advice and just leave. \"I'm sorry,\" she said then became quiet when she heard people passing by. \"You just scared the living daylights out of me. I'm hiding from my sister.\" Pam folded her arms then looked up at the figure next to her. She was unable to see his face clearly except for some light that seeped through the slits in the closet door. It highlighted a forehead, nose and mouth. She took several deep breaths and soon her heartbeat returned to normal. She should be panicked and waited for anxiety to seize her, but oddly it didn't. After the initial shock of surprise she felt strangely resigned by the situation. At least she knew where the lemon and spice scent came from. Every time he moved the scent seemed to embrace her and reminded her of happier times.\n\n\"So why are you hiding from your sister?\" he asked.\n\nPam briefly shut her eyes. She hadn't expected the question. She didn't want him to care. Wasn't sure she could trust him. But somehow the darkness was a comfort. What was it about the dark that made sharing seem safe? That made two people feel intimate? She didn't think too much about it. She was relieved to have the chance to speak to a man she'd never speak to again.\n\n\"She wants to fix me up with a man.\"\n\n\"Don't you like men?\"\n\n\"I'm not very lucky with them.\"\n\n\"I don't believe that.\"\n\nShe sniffed. He would say that and eight years ago she would have believed him. She'd met her soon-to-be-ex at a party like this. But she'd been a different woman then. A woman with a promising future and bright ideas. She'd worn a blue velvet dress and spinning gold earrings. She'd just escaped the attention of two graduate students who'd bored her with their pretentiousness when a tall man stepped into her path and said, \"A professor or a teacher?\"\n\nShe looked at him startled. \"What?\"\n\nHe held out his arms to the side. \"Do I look like a professor or a teacher?\"\n\nPam surveyed his clothes and shook her head puzzled. He didn't look like either. He looked like a corporate raider. He wore all black, which only emphasized a large intimidating build. He had a carefully trimmed goatee, his black hair shone low, skin like molasses, featherlike long lashes and piercing brown eyes. \"Does it matter?\" she asked.\n\nHe let out a sigh. \"Yes, I've got a job interview in a week and I really need to make the right impression. I've already had ten others with no results.\"\n\n\"Well, first you're too on the point?\"\n\nHe frowned. \"On the point?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said with a light laugh. \"I don't even know your name.\"\n\nHe held out his hand Jerrod Fuller.\"\n\n\"I'm Pam Rubin and I don't think you look like a teacher or professor. Anyone looking at you would see an ambitious young man who would take over their job one day.\"\n\nHe raised a dark eyebrow. \"I'm ambitious.\"\n\n\"You don't have to wear it like a banner. You can go for business casual. Also, focus on the needs of the school. How you'll be a value to them.\"\n\nJerrod nodded. \"I can do that. Are you free tomorrow?\"\n\nPam paused. \"For what?\"\n\n\"For dinner. I'd like to get more of your advice.\"\n\n\"But I don't have much to say,\" Pam stuttered feeling her face grow warm.\n\nA sly grin touched the corner of his mouth. \"I'm sure you do and I'm prepared to listen to every word.\"\n\nAnd he did. He just let her talk and his dark eyes watched her as if she were the most fascinating and beautiful woman in the world. And she in turn helped him soften his look so that he didn't appear so intimidating. Although he looked like the kind of man who'd likely have gotten into college on a sports scholarship he'd actually gotten a scholarship in science, played tennis and had a passion for abstract art. A week later he aced his interview. A week after that he was hired and a month later they were inseparable. Their first New Year's Eve together had been simple and beautiful. A quiet time at home with a bottle of champagne and a ring. He'd told her he wanted to spend every New Year with her and asked her to marry him. And she'd said yes. It had all seemed so perfect but she hadn't known that something would destroy that peace. That it had a name.\n\nFear. How come no one ever talked about how fear can enter a marriage? How it can erode trust and communication? How it can slowly eat away at what one has struggled to build? Pam still remembered her mother's sneer on the day of the rehearsal dinner. \"He's just a teacher. He's got no money. There's no need to marry the bastard.\"\n\nPam gritted her teeth. \"He's not a bastard.\"\n\n\"One day you'll think so.\"\n\n\"No, I won't. I love him.\"\n\n\"That will change.\"\n\nHad it? Had it changed? The butterflies had gone and familiarity had taken away the rush of romantic surprise and the high of falling in love. But the sun was also familiar, however she never grew tired of its dancing rays. It had been the same with Jerrod except, unlike the sun, she'd started to worry that he wouldn't always be there. And one day she'd been right. She hadn't wanted to be her mother, but she'd taken her mother's bitterness and fear into the marriage. Their six months apart had taught her a lot about herself.\n\nShe used to watch Jerrod at a party with admiration so glad that he was hers. She didn't even know when her casual glances turned to suspicion. When she'd watch him with a woman with careful surveillance as though a police officer on the trail of a suspect. She would watch how he tilted his head, his eyes, his smile. She'd watch the woman too. Notice how she touched him, if it was a hand to his shoulder or his sleeve and she'd wondered what the gesture meant. She never confronted him because she knew what he would say. Her father had said the same. She just let her suspicions grow and her fears mingled with them until there was a wall around her heart. She knew he felt it too, but they never talked about it. Soon they never talked about anything not pay cuts, tight schedules or family illnesses and after their last attempt at having a child she knew there was nothing else to keep them together.\n\nPam sighed feeling the weight of her loss. She'd loved him. She'd thought he'd loved her. Where had it gone wrong? She angrily brushed away a clothes hanger, wishing she'd brought a glass of wine in the closet with her.\n\n\"I'm sure he has no problems with the ladies,\" Pam said sourly, wanting to take the focus off of her. \"He never did.\"\n\n\"You never know.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"You're right. I don't. I stopped knowing very much about him after awhile. Somehow we just stopped talking.\"\n\n\"Did you ever try to talk?\"\n\n\"Yes, but it soon became too painful, especially when we couldn't have kids. I know how much he wants to be a father.\"\n\nShe heard him rub his hands together. \"I doubt that's the only reason he married you.\"\n\n\"Well it seemed that's where everything fell apart.\"\n\n\"I bet there were other things. I mean my wife only cared about starting a family, but for me it was too stressful.\"\n\n\"You don't want kids?\" she asked more sharply than she wanted to. \"I mean it's okay if you don't,\" she added more softly not wanting him to stop talking.\n\n\"I did--do, but at the time my father was dying and I couldn't focus on anything else.\"\n\nHis words made her heart constrict with sorrow. \"I'm sorry about your father.\"\n\nHe sighed. \"He loved my wife. I'm glad he didn't see my marriage end.\"\n\n\"Did you love your wife?\"\n\n\"Still do.\"\n\nHer voice cracked with surprise and suspicion. \"Really?\"\n\n\"Yes, everyone keeps telling me to move on and I know I should, but something is holding me back and I think that's it.\"\n\n\"Sometimes our hearts mislead us.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Not often, especially not mine.\"\n\nPam fell silent unable to believe his words. They sounded genuine, but if he really loved his wife why hadn't he fought to keep his marriage? She rubbed her forehead, wishing she could gather her warring thoughts, then let her hand fall. \"If you could do it all again, what would you do?\"\n\nHe was silent a long moment then said, \"Apologize for not admitting how unhappy I was. I would have been more honest. You?\"\n\n\"Same. I would have given him more space. I wanted him to talk to me and I think that just pushed him further away. I wanted him to turn to me. But he turned to someone else instead.\"\n\n\"Are you sure about that?\"\n\n\"Positive.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\nPam shrugged feeling the wall around her heart starting to rebuild. \"The usual,\" she said trying to sound casual although the memory of his deception pierced her. \"Secret phone calls. Cryptic notes. Strange perfume on his clothes.\" She'd been taught by her twice divorced mother that if you didn't have a man's attention someone else did. Her father hadn't been true to any of his five wives. Now that he was older he was slowing down so wife number six may be lucky. Women found Jerrod attractive and he never had trouble getting noticed. She was attractive too, but she knew that wasn't enough to keep a man. Her mother had been beautiful and kept the house running while also working and that still hadn't made her father faithful. Without kids Pam couldn't think of anything to get Jerrod to stay.\n\n\"Did you tell him?\"\n\n\"No,\" Pam said quickly. \"I didn't want to know the details. I failed him. I didn't want to know about the woman who hadn't. I'd once been the most important woman in his life and then it ended. When a man cheats it's over.\"\n\n\"So if he'd told you why he cheated you wouldn't have forgiven him?\"\n\n\"Sure I'd forgive him, but I couldn't trust him. If he's unhappy he deserves to leave. It's just a symptom. I'm sure he's happy with whoever he's with now.\"\n\n\"Trust is important.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"My wife never trusted me.\"\n\nPam paused surprised by his statement. She drummed her fingers against her thigh. \"Did you give her a reason not to?\"\n\n\"No. I could never do or say enough to make her believe in me. At first she did. She made me feel like the greatest man on the planet and then, after we married, that changed. I gave her gifts. I told her how much I loved her, but if I came home late or she saw me with a female colleague she'd assume the worse.\"\n\nPam released a tired sigh feeling suddenly worn. \"I guess that's unfair.\"\n\n\"Yes. You can't have a relationship without trust.\"\n\n\"Hmm.\"\n\n\"But I lied. I did give my wife a reason not to trust me.\"\n\n\"I knew it,\" Pam said satisfied that he was just as she'd suspected him to be: A typical male. \"What was it?\"\n\n\"I kept a secret from her.\"\n\nShe bit her lip her heart picking up pace. \"What?\"\n\n\"After my father died I started thinking about my own morality. It can hit a man hard sometimes. I went to get checked and discovered I was genetically disposed to have the same condition that killed my father. I started to do lots of tests and even started therapy to deal with my fear.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you tell m--her? Why keep that a secret?\"\n\n\"Because by that time she was so focused on having a family and not succeeding and I didn't want to feel as if I'd failed her on something else.\"\n\n\"But she would have been there for you. I know she didn't marry you just so you could be a father.\"\n\n\"It's broken up marriages before.\"\n\n\"But if you'd talked...\" Pam let her words trail off. Obviously he hadn't trusted her.\n\nHe shifted, the sleeve of his shirt brushing hers, the lemon and spice sense embracing her again. \"Too bad you never talked about it.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I guess we both failed,\" he said.\n\nPam hugged herself, feeling the wall around her heart crumbling but terrified of being vulnerable again as she let hope seep in. \"Think there's any way to fix it?\"\n\n\"Maybe by remembering the good times. Where there any?\"\n\nPam smiled. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Tell me.\"\n\n\"I used to love when he'd sing off key in the shower. He has a really good voice and knew his singing would always make me laugh and it did. He also used to have this strange way of knowing who was calling without looking at the caller ID. He'd be in the living room reading and the phone would ring and he'd say \"Pick up it's your mother\" or \"Forget it, it's my sister.\" And more often than not he was right. I used to tease him that he was psychic. We loved going to concerts. Indoor, outdoor, bands, symphonies. Anything. He could always make the outing an adventure because he knew how to move in a crowd. In the early days I loved to listen to him talk about his students and he supported me while I got my Masters. Even when I felt like giving up he always believed in me.\"\n\n\"Sounds like good times.\"\n\nPam felt her heart lift. \"They were.\" She hesitated then asked, \"How about you?\"\n\n\"My wife used to put lollipops in my briefcase with a note that said 'Have a sweet day.' She'd also coordinate the closet by color, matching shirts with ties, belts with pants, socks with shoes.\"\n\nPam groaned. \"She sounds controlling.\"\n\nHe shook his head and laughed. \"I liked it. I didn't have to think hard. If I grabbed a shirt I could see what tie could go with it. It made my morning easier and made me feel that she cared about me.\"\n\n\"She still doesn't sound like much fun.\"\n\n\"Maybe to some. I know with you having a husband who likes to go out and mingle and have different adventures you wouldn't understand how important it can be to have a place that's organized. Someone who is settled and grounded. I grew up around a lot of chaos and my wife helped me learn to live a different way. Just being with her was fun. We'd sit together and just talk or watch TV or play a video game, or tell corny jokes. I miss that. I miss her.\"\n\nPam blinked back tears. \"I miss him too, but are memories really enough? I was so afraid of losing him that I pushed him away. I don't think I can fix that.\" It was too much. The man, the memories. Suddenly instead of feeling like a confessional the closet felt like a tomb. She couldn't breathe. She grabbed the door and opened it desperate to escape.\n\nHe grabbed her arm. \"Pam wait.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"When I first heard your voice I nearly ran out.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you didn't,\" he said in a velvet whisper, tenderly turning her to face him.\n\nShe squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn't look at him. It had been so intimate in the closet and had felt safe, but now she felt exposed. She didn't want to look at him, but she knew she had to. She gathered her courage and faced him: The tall good looking man with skin like molasses and featherlike lashes who'd helped her sort through her mixed feelings. The man who had once asked her if he looked like a teacher or professor. The man who'd asked her to marry him on New Year's Eve.\n\n\"I want you back,\" Jerrod said.\n\n\"Why?\" Pam said in a broken voice.\n\n\"I'm sorry I pulled away from you and kept secrets. I know it was wrong, but I want a second chance.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I told. I love you.\"\n\n\"But I pushed you away with my suspicions and--\"\n\n\"You made a mistake and I did too. That makes us human. And one thing I've learned about being human is that we can break, but we can also heal.\" His gaze fell. \"When your sister invited me I wasn't going to come. I was angry, but somehow she convinced me.\" His gaze met and held hers. \"I'm glad I did.\"\n\n\"But you ended up in the closet.\"\n\nA sheepish grin touched his lips. \"I know. When I saw you I couldn't face you so I hid. And the next thing I knew you were in here too.\"\n\n\"Hiding from my sister.\" Pam took his large hand and cradled it in hers. \"I guess it's time we both stopped hiding.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nShe lightly brushed her thumb over the back of his hand. \"My sister thought I should start the upcoming year with a new man.\"\n\nJerrod pulled her into the circle of his arms and he looked down at her as if she were the most fascinating and beautiful woman he knew. \"I am a new man and I'm all yours, if you want me.\"\n\nPam cupped his face in her hands and kissed him. \"I love you,\" she whispered against his lips, wanting him to know that she still thought he was the greatest man in the world. She gave her heart to him with complete trust, casting all fear away.\n\nHis lips met hers with a tender silent vow and at that moment their wounds began to heal. Neither noticed when the clock struck twelve.\n\nDarlene saw them and raised a glass relieved that her plan had worked. \"Happy New Year you two. May it be filled with many more wonderful surprises.\"\n\n\u2042\n\n[ Something New ]\n\nAll Lewa Olunlade wanted for Thanksgiving was a turkey and her sister's husband. At thirty-four she dreaded going home for the traditional family gathering where people would laud her sister's excellent 'catch' and bemoan Lewa's single state. She could already imagine what \"the Aunts\" would say. Although not related by blood, Lewa called them her Aunts out of respect and cultural norm which acknowledged both their ages and that they were close family friends.\n\n\"You must stop being so picky,\" Aunty Elizabeth would say.\n\n\"I had two children by your age,\" Aunty Femi would add with a note of pride.\n\n\"The further you're past thirty, your chances of a good husband dwindle to nearly nothing.\"\n\n\"Unless you want a divorced man.\"\n\n\"And he'll probably have children.\"\n\n\"And who wants to raise someone else's children?\" Aunty Elizabeth would say with a ring of superiority and distaste, having made herself an expert on men, marriage and childrearing. Although she'd twice had her face rearranged by her husband's fists, no one ever spoke about it because at least she was married and had two wonderful children. At sixty, she'd left her husband in Nigeria, who was now using his fists to beat his mistress and his four children by her, and she was finally free to use the power of being a married woman without having to deal with all the realities.\n\nAunty Femi had three children who basically tried to ignore her existence so she spent every holiday with the Olunlade family instead. None of her children felt it necessary to include her in their holiday gatherings since she was on the southern East Coast and they had all decided to settle in the northern region. They sent her money to assuage their guilt for their shoddy treatment of her and occasionally an email or a brief phone call, but little else. Lewa could guess that her children were likely embarrassed by their mother's loud coarse ways--her English was poor and her table manners worse. However, Lewa knew Aunty Femi had a good heart and could understand her parents' affection for her. Aunty Femi's marriage had been fine, she'd been a widow for ten years, but Lewa gave up trying to decipher what 'fine' meant although she had on a number of occasions asked Aunty Femi if she'd been happy. Aunty Femi would only reply that she'd been married and leave it at that.\n\nLewa understood the underlining truth behind every word and glance of the Aunts and her mother: It was better to have a husband--no matter how wretched-- than no husband at all. It was a woman's fate. And she was arrogant and naive to expect any better.\n\n\"Caring for another man's children isn't so bad, if the woman isn't around,\" Aunty Femi would say to continue the conversation. She liked to talk and the topic of marriage and children made her feel smart.\n\n\"But then again, a woman isn't meant to be alone, so a divorced man is better than no man,\" Aunty Elizabeth would add and the Aunts would nod and continue to talk about her as if she wasn't there, because in a way she wasn't. A single woman in her family amounted to only half a woman. Not even a woman, half a person. Lewa could only hope that soon the talk would shift back to her sister, who'd been married three years but still hadn't had a child.\n\nIt had surprised everyone that by the end of the first year of marriage she hadn't introduced a new family member, preferably a boy, of course, but a girl would suit as well. After the first childless year, Lewa's sister, Arielle, had just laughed at the teasing, but Lewa could see the strain in her sister's eyes and plastered grin with each passing year.\n\nMaybe this year she'd announce the news her family expected to hear. Lewa could imagine her sister and her husband, Stillman, making good parents. Stillman hit the marriage tri-fecta--family from the upper echelon of Nigerian society, Oxford educated with another degree from Yale and a respectable career as a biomedical scientist. He was solid, respectful and smart. A son-in-law any family would be proud of with skin the color of roasted chestnuts, and a smile as bright as Broadway lights. He was very charming and, on more than one occasion, Lewa wished he was hers. As a beverage scientist, she had a career she was proud of and a number of friends, but Stillman was one of the few individuals she felt easy with. But Lewa knew that her sister's marriage was solid and kept her fantasies to herself and briefly wished she didn't have to see the happily married pair this year. Besides, she didn't want another year of jollof rice, curried trout, plantain moi moi and pepper soup. She wanted a turkey like millions of other US families--even vegetarians celebrated with tofu that at least tasted like turkey.\n\nTwo weeks before Thanksgiving, Lewa listened with awe as her friend, Valerie, a fresh faced blonde from Wisconsin, described her upcoming feast while they sat in the cafeteria of their office building.\n\n\"Mashed potatoes, turkey, and cranberry sauce.\"\n\n\"What's the cranberry sauce for?\" Lewa asked.\n\n\"It goes with the turkey.\"\n\nLewa didn't understand but nodded anyway. \"Okay go on.\"\n\n\"Just the usual,\" Valerie shrugged, not understanding her friend's interest. \"Cornbread, stuffing, ham, green beans.\"\n\nLewa sat back in her seat and sighed. \"That sounds heavenly. I wish I could just be a fly on the wall.\"\n\n\"Would you like to come over?\"\n\nShe sat up with interest. \"Really?\"\n\n\"Sure, we'll have plenty of food and I know my family won't mind.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you should ask your husband first.\"\n\nValerie laughed. \"As long as he gets food, he doesn't care who shows up. I'm hosting his parents and trust me we'll have leftover for days.\" She grinned warming to the idea. \"Yes, you should come. It will be fun.\"\n\nLewa sat back her hope slowly dwindling. \"I'll think about it.\"\n\nBut she didn't have to think about it. Lewa knew she would have to ask her mother and she already had a good idea of how she would respond.\n\n\"No.\" Mrs. Olunlade said as she checked over the shopping list for the upcoming feast. They sat in the kitchen while their housegirl, Biti, carefully cleaned the special holiday dishes. Her mother was a small woman with delicate features that belied the mind of a sharp woman who had a successful nursing career and been married thirty-six years to a man who treated her well.\n\n\"But Mom. I've been invited.\"\n\nMrs. Olunlade did not look up from her list. She scribbled a note down. \"And you can go another time. Thanksgiving is for family.\"\n\n\"But--\"\n\nShe lifted her gaze and pointed her pen at Lewa. \"And this time your grandmother will be able to join us. Would you want her to come all the way from Nigeria and not see you here?\"\n\n\"She could see me on another day.\"\n\n\"She will see you on Thanksgiving.\" Mrs. Olunlade returned to her list, making it clear the discussion was finished.\n\nLewa sighed exasperated. Her mother could be as unmovable as a stone castle. \"Then can we do something different this year?\"\n\nMrs. Olunlade looked at her daughter suspicious. \"Different?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Such as what?\"\n\nLewa took a deep breath, then said in a rush. \"Can we have a turkey?\"\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"To eat.\" Lewa tapped the table hoping to make her mother understand. \"Mom, that's what people usually eat during Thanksgiving. A big delicious turkey. You've been here long enough to know that.\"\n\n\"But we always have curried trout and I thought you liked my seasonings.\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"And Aunty Elizabeth makes jollof rice.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And Aunty Femi makes moi moi--\"\n\n\"Mom, I know.\" Lewa sat forward and clasped her hands together, trying to show a piousness she didn't feel. \"It's just that...just this once I'd like to have something different.\"\n\nMrs. Olunlade frowned. \"I don't know how to cook a turkey.\"\n\n\"We could follow a recipe,\" Lewa said with a note of hope.\n\nMrs. Olunlade set her pen down and folded her arms. \"Why are you worrying about food when you don't even have a husband to show your grandmother when she comes?\"\n\nLewa fell back like a lead balloon. \"You're changing the subject.\"\n\nMrs. Olunlade lifted her daughter's chin, her gaze softening. \"You're so pretty and bright. What am I supposed to tell her?\"\n\n\"You don't have to tell her anything.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Adeniyi has a son.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"You can't leave everything up to fate. The problem with you is that you haven't made it a priority and before you know it, it will be too late.\"\n\n\"I'm only thirty--\"\n\nMrs. Olunlade quickly covered her daughter's mouth as if she'd said something foul. \"Quiet. You don't look it and there's no reason to keep saying it. Do you think being over thirty and unmarried is a virtue?\"\n\nLewa removed her mother's hand and kissed the back of her palm. \"I'm sorry. I'll be more careful next time. Now, what about a turkey?\"\n\nMrs. Olunlade's mouth quirked up in a quick grin, sensing her daughter's strategy to appease her. \"I'll think it over. Go ask your father and see what he says.\"\n\n\"Dad, can we have a turkey for Thanksgiving this year?\" She'd found him in the family room watching a NOVA special. She sat in the chair opposite him.\n\nMr. Olunlade was a large man with a soft spoken voice and his voice was even softer now. \"What did your mother say?\" he said with a note of caution.\n\n\"She told me to ask you.\"\n\nHe nodded then said, \"How's work?\"\n\n\"It's fine, now about the turkey--\"\n\n\"Are you seeing anyone?\"\n\nLewa blinked looking bored. \"Dad.\"\n\n\"Does that mean no?\"\n\nLewa shook her head. \"No, I'm not seeing anyone, but I--\"\n\n\"Why not? Why haven't you found someone to settle down with yet? You're a pretty woman and--\" He pointed at her. \"You must be doing something to scare them off. Do you tell them how much you make?\"\n\nLewa affectionately squeeze her father's knee. \"Dad, stop changing the subject. Can we have a turkey or not?\"\n\nHe rubbed his chin, hesitant. \"What did your mother say again?\"\n\nLewa sighed, praying for patience. \"She wanted to know your opinion.\"\n\nA slow grin spread on his face. \"That's rare. That means she's not sure. I say no. Let's stick with tradition.\"\n\n\"But that's my point. Jollof rice, moi moi and curried trout isn't traditional for Thanksgiving. Other people at least have a turkey.\"\n\n\"I don't care.\" He held up his hand like a feudal king making a decree. \"It's the tradition for this house and it means a lot to our family. Do you know why we have jollof rice with curried trout?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Because trout was the first expensive meal I could afford. When I first came to this country I worked in a gas station. I hadn't met your mother yet and I stayed with Big Mummy's family. Finally I was able to get a promotion and the first thing I did was go to the local international store and purchase trout. So every Thanksgiving I buy that to remind me of how thankful I am.\"\n\n\"What did your father say?\" Mrs. Olunlade said catching Lewa trying to sneak out of the house without saying goodbye.\n\n\"He told me a story about why we have jollof rice and trout.\"\n\n\"So his answer is no turkey?\"\n\n\"Yes, he wants to keep our tradition.\"\n\nHer mother beamed. \"Good, but I've decided you're right. We should add something extra and I spoke to Femi and she's going to cook something you'll love.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Lewa said clasping her hands together.\n\n\"Yes, she'll make samosas.\"\n\nLewa's hands fell to her sides. \"But Mom that's Indian.\"\n\n\"Yes, exactly,\" her mother said pleased with her cleverness. \"Didn't the English eat with the Indians?\"\n\nLewa stood for a moment wondering if she should laugh or cry. \"Yes...no...not East Indians. They ate with American Indians. Native Americans.\"\n\nBut her mother had stopped listening. She adjusted the collar of Lewa's coat. \"She's excited because she knows it's one of your favorites. See, I do listen and can be flexible.\"\n\nLewa sighed. \"Thanks Mom.\"\n\nMrs. Olunlade called the housegirl, Biti, and handed her the list. \"I want only the best.\"\n\nShe bowed appropriately submissive. \"Yes, ma'am.\" Although only nineteen, she looked ten years older and had stooped shoulders.\n\nLewa kissed her mother on the cheek then left.\n\nOnce she and Biti were both outside, Lewa gently slapped the younger woman in the back. \"How many times do I have to tell you to stand up straight?\"\n\n\"Sorry Aunty.\" She rubbed her hands together, and wrapped her scarf tighter. \"I still have to get used to the cold.\"\n\nLewa glanced up at the red and yellow leaves clinging to the trees, feeling the crisp November air against her skin. \"You weren't cold in the house, so stop lying.\"\n\n\"Sorry Aunty.\"\n\n\"Always stand tall.\" Lewa walked to her car.\n\n\"Aunty?\"\n\nShe turned. \"Yes?\"\n\n\"Why do you want a turkey?\" Biti asked making a face. \"Isn't that just bland English food?\"\n\nLewa laughed at the girl's expression, knowing she wouldn't understand. \"Goodbye, Biti,\" she said then jumped in her car.\n\n\"Just forget about the damn turkey and eat what you're given,\" Lewa's friend Hannah Lee said as she, Lewa and Valerie changed in the gym locker after swimming. She'd known Hannah since they met at the university and could always depend on her for straight talk. \"The holidays aren't meant to be enjoyed. If you're having fun, you're not doing it right. It's about family, fights and feasting. You just grin and bear it.\"\n\n\"I don't mind spending time with my family, and I don't mind them bothering me about a husband,\" Lewa said. \"I've gotten used to it.\"\n\n\"You're braver than I am,\" Hannah said. \"If I hadn't met my boyfriend in time I would have made him up.\"\n\n\"Yes, being single on the holidays is the worse,\" Valerie said.\n\nLewa rolled her eyes. \"Thanks for your support.\"\n\n\"No, I don't mean you. I mean in general. It makes you an easy target.\"\n\n\"I can take being a target, if I could just get something different to eat. Is having a turkey so wrong?\"\n\n\"It's not what they're used to,\" Hannah said. \"We don't have mashed potatoes we have sticky rice.\"\n\nLewa rested her chin in her hand. \"At least you have a turkey.\"\n\nSo it was clear. Thanksgiving meant many different things to different people. To Hannah it was sticky rice and family fights. To Valerie, a warm family gathering and traditional American food. To her father, jollof rice and trout reminded him of all he was grateful for. Thanksgiving was a symbolic day of family and blessings. Her parents had no connection to the story of turkey and mashed potatoes, and maybe she was grasping at a story that wasn't hers either. She needed her own special dish.\n\nA week before Thanksgiving she bought a turkey.\n\n\"So what are you going to do with it?\" her younger sister Arielle asked while the two woman stared at the frozen bird on Lewa's kitchen counter. \"It's huge.\"\n\n\"I know.\" Lewa poked it. \"And I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet.\"\n\n\"Why do you want a turkey so bad anyway? You can have turkey any other day.\"\n\n\"It's not the same.\"\n\n\"And why are you making it so complicated? If you wanted turkey why not just buy a cooked one?\"\n\n\"Because I want to do it myself.\"\n\n\"You could get burned.\"\n\nLewa looked at her sister curious. \"How could I get burned?\"\n\n\"It happens every year. People get burned trying to cook their turkeys.\"\n\n\"That's only if they're deep frying them,\" Lewa said playfully hitting her. \"Stop being so negative. If you don't want to help, why did you come over?\"\n\n\"I'm curious.\"\n\nLewa lifted the turkey and put it back in the freezer. \"I'm curious about something too.\" She closed the freezer door and looked at her sister. \"Are you ever going to tell Mom and Dad about the miscarriage?\"\n\nArielle sat down at the kitchen table and tugged on one of her braids with nervous fingers. \"Why would I?\"\n\n\"Then they won't bother you about starting a family.\" Lewa sat in front of her. \"I know it must get on your nerves.\"\n\n\"I don't want them to blame me,\" she said in a choked voice.\n\n\"Why would they blame you?\" Lewa said surprised by her sister's worry. \"At least they'll know you're trying and they may be more sensitive.\"\n\n\"The Aunts won't be.\"\n\nLewa sighed recognizing the truth of her sister's words. The Aunts would be harder to convince. \"You will have your own family soon.\"\n\n\"Aunty Elizabeth will blame me for not eating the right foods, Mom will say it's because I'm too old and should have started sooner.\" Tears filled her eyes.\n\nLewa covered her sister's hand. \"But we know that none of that is true,\" she said in a soft voice. \"You haven't done anything wrong. And you and Stillman will be fine.\"\n\nArielle brushed away her tears and lowered her eyes. \"It's caused a strain between us.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Lewa said giving her sister's hand a reassuring squeeze. \"It's a stressful time for many couples.\"\n\n\"No, I mean...he's not handling it well. He's getting pressure from his family too and I'm afraid he'll start blaming me as well.\"\n\nLewa stiffened and sat back. \"He's supposed to be your support not your judge. Do you want me to talk to him?\"\n\nArielle lifted her gaze, suddenly wary. \"What would you say?\"\n\n\"Treat my little sister right or I'll punch you in the face.\"\n\nArielle smiled then laughed. \"You're so silly.\"\n\nLewa returned her smile glad she could lighten the mood. \"You're good together. You're a great couple. I don't want this to pull you apart.\"\n\n\"You can't stop it, if it does.\"\n\n\"It won't.\"\n\n\"But what if I can never carry a baby? Sheba is already on her third,\" she said referring to a cousin of theirs.\n\nLewa brushed the idea aside with a quick flick of her wrist. \"It's too soon to think like that.\"\n\nArielle shook her head. \"No, it's not. I asked him and he said that if I couldn't have a child then we wouldn't have a marriage.\"\n\n\"He didn't mean that.\"\n\n\"He did.\"\n\n\"What about adoption or surrogacy?\"\n\n\"He doesn't want to adopt and we can't afford surrogacy. Unless...\"\n\n\"Unless what?\"\n\n\"We could find someone to help us,\" she said looking at her sister with a hopeful expression.\n\nLewa shook her head, resisting the urge to jump up and run out of the room. \"No way. Don't look at me. I'm not ready for that.\"\n\n\"This may be your only chance,\" Arielle said suddenly eager. \"You're older than me and we both know your prospects are slim.\"\n\n\"Thank you Mom,\" Lewa said in a sour tone.\n\n\"I just want you to consider it. If you could do this we'd both appreciate it.\"\n\nLewa let her sister's words hang in her mind. Having a baby was something Arielle really wanted and if it could help her marriage it would be worth it, right? But then part of Lewa was angry that her sister had to find another alternative. Couldn't Stillman be more patient? Couldn't they come up with something together? Would he really leave Arielle if she couldn't bare his children? Would a child really change all that? Did he love her sister or was she just an appendage to him? A status symbol?\n\nLewa had to find out for herself so she met her brother-in-law at his office and treated him to lunch.\n\nOnce they'd placed their orders she said, \"Do you love my sister?\"\n\nStillman looked at her surprised and baffled. \"You know I do.\"\n\n\"Then why are you threatening to leave her?\"\n\nHe paused then said, \"I didn't say that.\"\n\n\"Then what did you say? I know about the problem between you two.\"\n\nHe glanced around as if afraid someone might overhear them. \"Do we have to discuss this here?\"\n\n\"No, we can go to your place and I can talk to you with Arielle there. Or I can wait until Thanksgiving and let the whole family give their opinions.\"\n\nStillman held up his hands in surrender. \"All I said was that having my own children means a lot to me.\" He let his hands fall. \"It's something I've always wanted and it's expected.\"\n\n\"Dreams can change.\"\n\n\"Not this one. Being a father to my own flesh and blood is what I want.\"\n\n\"She really wants to have children with you. But can you love her enough if she can't?\"\n\n\"We are thinking about surrogacy.\"\n\n\"Yes, she told me. And that hasn't answered my question.\"\n\n\"I don't mind doing that,\" he said expertly avoiding a question he didn't want to answer. \"If she can't do it herself.\" His gaze trailed the length of Lewa.\n\nLewa took a sip of her drink. \"Take the thought out of your mind and bury it.\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"It's been done before and it would really help us a lot.\"\n\n\"I'm older than her.\"\n\n\"But you're better built to carry children,\" he said making a curving motion with his hands.\n\nLewa held up her hand and pointed at him, unable to stop a smile. \"Watch it.\"\n\nHe grinned. \"It's a compliment. If I hadn't met your sister first, maybe--\"\n\nLewa laughed. \"I used to think that too, but now I know it wouldn't have worked.\"\n\nHe frowned. \"What do you mean?\"\n\nShe shook her head, knowing she wouldn't be able to explain it to him. She was only starting to understand it herself. \"I'll see what I can do.\"\n\n\"Arielle told me you bought a turkey for Thanksgiving.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet.\"\n\n\"You'll come up with something.\" He winked. \"You always do.\"\n\nThat evening, Lewa sat in her kitchen and pondered her conversations with Stillman and Arielle. And as she thought, she discovered a truth about herself too. That she didn't really want her sister's husband, just the status he brought her. She didn't want to get married--at least not yet. She was enjoying her life and truly never thought about being a wife and mother the way other women did. Her former desire for a husband had been a way for her to fit in. A way to stop being so different. It was the same with the turkey. She wanted their home to have the same sights and smells as other homes, but for what purpose? Was it wrong to be different?\n\nLewa loved Stillman. He was a wonderful, generous man, but she now realized he was more traditional than she'd thought--than she'd allowed herself to see. His values matched her sister's perfectly. Despite their easy conversation and ambitions, he would be a terrible match for her. She could only hope that the right man was out there. If not...her family would continue to feel sorry for her. She'd be a failure, a half person, but she didn't mind anymore because she had a private joy no one could take from her. A joy of being authentically herself. She didn't want her sister's private fears that she wasn't a complete woman if she couldn't bear children or Stillman's fears of how he'd be perceived. Even if they did have a child, Lewa knew it wouldn't be enough. They'd be expected to have at least two. To live others expectations could be exhausting and Lewa was ready to remove herself from that race.\n\nLewa called her sister. \"Try for another year. If you're still having trouble, I'll pay for a surrogate.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" Arielle said with tears in her voice.\n\n\"Just be prepared for the Aunts this year.\"\n\n\"I am. What are you going to do about the turkey? I think you should donate it.\"\n\n\"I could, but I'm not going to. We're having turkey this year one way or another. I'll see you Thursday.\" Lewa hung up then opened her freezer and stared at her frozen turkey with renewed determination. Authenticity, that would be her contribution to this year's holiday dinner.\n\nLewa went online and looked at different recipes and spent many hours looking at cooking clips. But she still didn't find anything that would suit her family. She decided to go to the store and stood in the baking section staring at the deep fryers, beakers and thermometers. She knew cooking was a science, but she felt like a novice in the lab of a genius. Even if she got the turkey right she didn't know anything about stuffing or glazing. She wanted to create something her family would eat, something familiar yet a little different. Unfortunately, she didn't know what.\n\n\"Can I help you?\" a sales associate said. He looked like a college student and had shaggy red hair he kept having to push back from his eyes.\n\n\"No, I'm just looking.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" he said then started to turn.\n\n\"Wait,\" Lewa said before he left. \"What do you do for Thanksgiving?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"Watch football and eat turkey.\"\n\n\"Right,\" Lewa said. Just like millions.\n\n\"But that's not my favorite part,\" he said with a shy grin as if hesitant to share.\n\n\"What is?\" she urged him.\n\n\"It's the leftovers. My mom always buys two huge turkeys 'cause we have a lot of guests, but we still end up with a lot of leftover turkey. The real fun is all the things she does with it.\"\n\nLewa stepped closer intrigued. \"Like what?\"\n\nHe brushed his hair back and thought for a moment. \"Turkey sandwiches, turkey pie, turkey enchiladas. You can do a lot.\"\n\nHe was right. She could do a lot. She was thinking of the turkey as something whole that couldn't be altered, but who said she had to bake it like everyone else? She could treat it like the basis of 'anything,' making her options limitless. \"Thank you,\" she said grabbing a big baking pan then pushing her cart into the main aisle. \"Have a great Thanksgiving.\"\n\n\"You too.\"\n\nBefore going home, Lewa stopped at the international market and grabbed a packet of melon seeds and chili pepper then went home and baked the turkey--following a recipe she'd found--while she chopped a bowl full of miniature tomatoes and onions. She couldn't wait to show her family her new tradition.\n\nThat Thanksgiving, Lewa boldly set her turkey dish on the table among the red jollof rice and yellow curried trout.\n\n\"What is this?\" her mother asked as Lewa took the foil off.\n\nLewa looked at her mother with love, seeing the unease in her eyes. It would be another year before her sister gave birth to a boy and three years after that before Lewa walked down the aisle to an American man her family accepted with some hesitation, but none of those things--her sister's childless state or her unmarried one--mattered to her that day. She finally knew who she was and what Thanksgiving meant to her. She was thankful for the freedom to be a her own person--to be unique and different without shame. Now she had her own special dish that would add to the season of traditions.\n\n\"It's meat pies,\" Aunty Elizabeth said recognizing a familiar staple.\n\n\"It's turkey pies,\" Lewa corrected. \"Spiced with chili peppers and I added some other ingredients.\"\n\n\"They look good,\" her father said.\n\n\"I bet they'll be delicious,\" Stillman added.\n\n\"You'll make a good wife,\" her grandmother said.\n\nBut this time Lewa didn't mind the mention of her single state. She looked at her sister and Stillman, with no envy. The man for her was out there, somewhere. And if he wasn't, she was okay with that too. She'd gotten her turkey for Thanksgiving and hopefully started a new tradition. One that suited her just fine.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ The Other Woman ]\n\nThe size 42DDD wasn't hers.\n\nAndrea Hartnett looked at the bright pink bra she'd found in her top lingerie drawer wondering if she should feel perplexed or enraged. If her husband was cheating, why would this bra end up in her drawer? Wasn't it something a wife would find underneath the bed, in the backseat of a car, or in her husband's jacket pocket?\n\nIf there was another explanation, what could it be? They'd had two kids\u2014ages five and seven\u2014within ten years of marriage and the thrill was definitely gone. Andrea glanced out the bedroom window as the descending darkness of night slowly devoured a bleak winter sun. Boredom settled on them some days more than others, but was that anyone's fault? Wasn't that normal? Robert was a good man, good husband and father.\n\nBut had he gotten tired of it all?\n\nHad he met someone at the play dates he went to with the kids?\n\nWas this his way of rebelling against his role as a househusband? The arrangement worked for them, but at times she wondered if he missed an outside work life. If he missed being an electrical engineer and the chance to discuss the newest changes in his field, instead of the latest action figure. She knew he'd finished his holiday shopping\u2014he was always orderly and regimented\u2014she hadn't even started hers.\n\nShould she confront him or be subtle? Andrea turned the object over in her hand, seeing the lacy white trim, feeling the satin finish, a flash of something crossing her thoughts\u2014a familiar sensation or memory\u2014before it was quickly gone. How could one be subtle about something like this? Did she approach him in the kitchen and calmly say, \"Darling, I found someone else's bra in my drawer? Do you know how that happened?\"\n\nDid she really want to know?\n\nDid she just want to pretend?\n\nAndrea hurriedly shoved the bra back in the drawer when she heard footsteps approaching. Moments later, Robert, came into the room carrying a laundry basket stacked with freshly washed clothes that reminded her of the scent of tulips and roses in the sunshine. He set the basket on the bed then lifted up her cream blouse and held it up with a flourish. \"Tada!\" he said with a big grin, his teeth white against his cocoa skin.\n\nShe frowned. \"What?\"\n\n\"I got the wine stain out.\"\n\nYes, she remembered being upset that she'd ruined the blouse after only one wear. She'd been at a holiday office party where her colleague, Mona Shan, had gotten tipsy and splashed Andrea's blouse. Mona had apologized profusely, but Andrea silently wondered if she was really apologizing for getting the promotion Andrea had worked two years for. But Andrea had laughed and made a joke, pretending that nothing bothered her and the tense moment was quickly forgotten.\n\nBut she hadn't forgotten it. The wine stain and Mona's sloppy apology burned in her chest like acid. That evening, Robert had found her sitting on the side of their bed in tears. She told him about the stain, not the lost promotion, not the catty remarks her boss sometimes made about her performance or even how tired she felt sometimes, and he'd squeezed her shoulder and said, \"Don't worry, I can get the stain out.\"\n\nAnd now he had and she wondered if it mattered. She stared at the clean, crisp blouse amazed that he'd managed to make it look as if it were brand new. Was size 42DDD someone who knew the best way to get stains out? Did she know the healthiest 'green' cleaning solution for countertops? Was she younger? Did she make him feel more like a man?\n\n\"Thanks,\" she said, plastering on a smile.\n\nBut the smile didn't fool him. \"What's wrong?\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"You look tired.\"\n\nI'm not tired, she wanted to say. I'm sad. Sad that we're keeping secrets. She went to the drawer to pull out the bra then stopped. She couldn't confront him now. She didn't want to be angry. She knew talks never worked when emotion came first. \"I just had a long day.\"\n\n\"Dinner's almost ready.\"\n\nThe scent of curried rice and the sweetness of mango chutney floated up the stairs. \"Smells great.\"\n\nHe winked. \"Tastes good too,\" he said then turned.\n\nAndrea watched him leave wondering if 42DDD had also tried his cooking.\n\nShe thought about leaving the bra on his pillow. Since she left for work after dropping the kids off at school it wouldn't be hard to do. But he might not see it or\u2014worse\u2014make anything of it. She thought of leaving it between the couch cushions where he watched TV, but then the kids might find it. She thought about taking a picture and sending it to his cell phone with a message: Who does this belong to?\n\nShe thought of checking his phone for private texts. She thought of calling in sick and following him around all day.\n\nBut she didn't do any of those things. Instead, she pretended like nothing had changed. On the weekend she watched him\u2014building a snowman in the front yard, hanging holiday lights along the house trim, wiping Kendall's tears when he slipped on the ice and hit his head, and vacuuming the car. He was a man in constant motion while she felt as if she were standing still. At times they passed each other like strangers.\n\nAnd she let two more days pass without mentioning the pink bra, wondering when she'd smell the whiff of someone else's perfume on his shirt (would it be spicy, musky or sweet?), see a lipstick stain on his collar (bright pink, deep red or purple?), but he'd be too smart for that. He did the laundry and knew how to take stains out. She wondered when she would catch him quickly hanging up the phone when she entered the room. When would she catch him in a lie?\n\nThey'd never lied to each before. Even when they'd first met as interns at her first job out of college, they'd been honest with each other about their ambitions and hopes for the future. She remembered when she'd gotten the dream job she'd applied for and how proud he'd been to support her and her career. All things seemed possible back then.\n\nHad she made him feel devalued? She remembered the time he'd gone on a weekend fishing trip with his brother and she realized how much she depended on him. She didn't know what to do with the kids or what to feed them. She had breakfast, lunch and dinner delivered the entire weekend. When she told him about her harrowing time, he'd just laughed and the next time he was gone for the weekend, he prepared the meals in advance and left instructions.\n\nBut had that bothered him? Did he think she was useless? Was 42DDD a domestic goddess? Did she have children? Was she married too? Divorced? She'd seen some of the other mothers and the teachers at their children's school. None looked like a 42DDD, but there were plenty who were fresh faced and pretty and young.\n\nThe questions continued to loom and grow until she couldn't ignore them anymore.\n\nShe confronted him one evening after he'd put the kids to bed and was relaxing on the couch watching a science special about galaxies. In the background, the Christmas tree glowed with colored lights, its branches heavy under the weight of ornaments both store bought and handmade. The scent of peppermint from the candy canes their kids had devoured earlier still lingered in the air.\n\n\"I found this in my drawer,\" she said, holding out the bra.\n\nHe looked at her\u2014not the bra\u2014for a long minute then said, \"I wondered when you'd say something.\"\n\n\"Who\u2026wait what?\"\n\n\"I didn't think you cared.\"\n\n\"You put this there?\"\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"Just wanted to see what you'd do.\"\n\nShe waved the bra in his face, fighting back tears of hurt and anger. \"Is this how you wanted to tell me you're having an affair?\"\n\nHis brows shot up. \"An affair?\"\n\n\"Yes, with this woman.\"\n\nHe sat up, confused. \"What woman?\"\n\nShe flung the bra at him. \"The woman who wears this!\"\n\nHe caught it and briefly hung his head, rubbing his forehead. \"There's no...\" He let his hand fall to his lap then looked up at her. \"I love the woman who owns this, but she doesn't wear it anymore.\"\n\nHe loved this other woman? What did he mean she didn't wear it anymore? Had she left him? And why had he put it in her drawer? Again a flash of something\u2014an emotion or memory she wasn't sure\u2014coursed through her thoughts before disappearing. \"I don't understand.\"\n\nHe took a deep breath. \"So you don't recognize it?\"\n\n\"Why would I recognize someone else's bra?\"\n\n\"Because it's not someone else's. It's yours. Was yours.\" He paused. \"From before.\"\n\nShe froze, a slow dawning casting aside the cobwebs of her mind and the flashing thoughts began to connect and take shape. She didn't need to ask 'Before what?' because she knew: Before she had her breast reduction surgery. Before she was left with scars that made her feel ugly. Before she realized that the surgery had relieved her back pain, but not the other pains in her life.\n\nShe felt tears build, tightening her throat, wetting her eyes, as she realized she had been the one with secrets, not him. They'd agreed to keep the bra as a reminder of all they'd come through together. To remind her of the past she'd left behind. She'd bought the bra years ago as a new bride and had never worn it\u2014or had she worn it once?\u2014before tucking it away. She'd forgotten it. The woman who'd bought it felt like a stranger to her.\n\n\"You know I love you no matter what,\" he said. \"I supported your decision.\"\n\n\"I know.\" But she'd pushed him away anyway. She'd let words of warning from others shove aside his words of comfort.\n\n\"Don't do it,\" she remembered one woman say in a support group. \"My husband left me after I did it. Men have a harder time with the change than we do.\"\n\n\"It was the best decision I made,\" another countered.\n\n\"But you're single,\" the first woman argued.\n\n\"Men started looking at me different and I'm still getting used to it,\" a third said. She'd later developed a drinking problem and was now in therapy for that.\n\nAnd the closer Andrea got to the date of her surgery, the more unsolicited comments she heard, or had they just gotten louder? She wasn't sure; she just remembered that each syllable felt like darts.\n\n\"I don't know why she'd get rid of what lots of women pay to have,\" she overheard a family friend say.\n\n\"I'm not surprised she's the one wearing the pants in that house now. She cut off her breasts and he cut off his balls,\" she'd overheard a great-aunt say at a family dinner.\n\n\"I'd never let my wife do it,\" a second cousin said.\n\nBut she went through with her decision gaining strength from her husband's support. Not knowing that his support wouldn't be enough. That a new pain would replace the old one.\n\nShe'd changed her entire wardrobe to accommodate the new woman she'd become, but inside she still felt as invisible as she once had been. In the past, she had to deal with people who didn't think women with big breasts had a brain. She'd had to endure snickers all through high school and college from both teachers and students. She'd had to tolerate guys who'd ask her out expecting only one thing and shouted angry slurs at her when they didn't get it.\n\nRobert had been different. He'd called her beautiful. He looked at her face and not just her chest. He thought she was smart. But she no longer felt beautiful and now she didn't feel smart. She wondered if he'd noticed that too? She sat down beside him no longer able to hold his gaze. \"I didn't get the promotion,\" she said in a soft voice.\n\nHe blinked. \"What?\"\n\nShe bit her lip then looked at him. \"The night I got the wine stain on my blouse, that's when I found out.\"\n\nAnger lit his brown eyes. \"But you'd worked your ass off for that new client and you've brought in millions of dollars to that company.\"\n\n\"I know,\" she said, glad he sounded as outraged as she'd felt. \"It wasn't enough.\"\n\n\"If they won't value you, then you need to start looking for another position that will.\"\n\n\"What if it pays less?\"\n\n\"And I can't stay home?\" he said, finishing her real question.\n\nShe nodded, holding her breath.\n\n\"What if it pays more?\"\n\nShe hadn't thought of that, but she held her breath because he still hadn't given her an answer.\n\nHe covered her hand with his. \"All that matters to me is your happiness and our family, you know that.\"\n\nShe'd let herself forget. She glanced at the 42DDD she'd placed beside her, remembering the woman she used to be. The woman he'd fallen in love with and who had fallen in love with him. For all her pain, that woman had laughed more and lived more.\n\nAndrea turned to her husband and hugged him, inhaling his scent. He used to smell like aftershave and leather; now he smelled like crayons and fresh coffee. She felt the strength of his embrace when his arms encircled her waist and she wondered how long it had been since she'd let him hold her this close. She closed her eyes.\n\nThere hadn't been another woman. Or rather she had to face the other woman she used to be and not fear or hate her\u2026\n\n\"Thank you,\" she said, but what she really meant was 'I love you'.\n\nFortunately, Robert knew that and said 'I love you too' without words, pressing his lips against hers, letting his body say what words couldn't.\n\nAnd the other woman faded away, in the hushed, warm silence of the evening, as they renewed their vows and discovered each other in an exciting new way. Andrea realized she still had many questions. She still had to get her holiday shopping done and they had a lot of decisions to make for the future. But one thing she did know for certain, which suddenly made everything seem bright and beautiful, was that she didn't have to fear losing him\u2026or herself\u2026again.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ The Perfect Christmas ]\n\n[ A Clifton Sister Short Story ]\n\nHe didn't like the sight of the stones. Although they looked innocent as they lay on the front doorstep, glittering under the cold rays of a winter sun, they reminded him of something, but he couldn't remember what, that left him with a feeling of dread.\n\n\"What are those?\"\n\nKenneth Preston turned to his wife, Jessie, as she came up behind him carrying two bags in each hand, her red winter hat tipped at an angle. They'd been holiday shopping for their adopted daughter, Syrah. It was to be their first Christmas together as a family and they were both eager to make it special. He didn't want anything to ruin it. Somehow he felt the stones would do that.\n\n\"Probably nothing,\" he said, bending down to remove the stones.\n\nShe grabbed his arm. \"Wait. Don't touch them.\"\n\n\"Jasmine, don't\u2014\" he said calling her by her given name. Only he was allowed to call her that.\n\nShe stepped closer, putting her two bags in one hand, and gazed down at the stones. \"Just give me a minute.\"\n\nHe didn't want to. He didn't like the look of interest in her gaze. The stones were bad news, he could feel it.\n\nKenneth put the keys in the lock and opened the front door. \"Come on, it's cold.\"\n\n\"I wonder who left them here. The arrangement is very peculiar.\" She bent closer to examine them.\n\nHis wife had a special gift and affinity with stones. He respected that, but not now. He wanted her for Syrah and himself. He didn't want to share her attention with anyone. Especially someone who'd left a strange puzzle on their doorstep. A puzzle that reminded him of something, but he didn't know what. \"Jasmine, we need to put the bags away before Ace gets home,\" he said, using Syrah's nickname.\n\nShe scooped up the stones in her gloved hand and offered him a bright smile. \"Coming, coming.\" She brushed past him into the welcoming warmth of their house, the scent of sugar and ginger greeting them. But as he closed the door behind her, he felt as if the cold chill of winter had followed them inside.\n\n\"What are you going to do with the stones?\" Kenneth asked Jessie later that evening as they prepared for bed. He didn't really want to know, but couldn't help his curiosity.\n\nShe slipped under the bed sheets and rested against the headboard. \"Nothing. I don't know who they're from or why they were left.\"\n\nHe swallowed, hoping she was telling him the truth. Was it a warning? Had the scandal about his past created still more consequences for them to face? He felt a fissure of unease, like a tiny, hair-thin crack in a piece of glass. A crack of a memory wanting to emerge from the corner of his mind where he'd safely kept his past sealed. But he fought it; he wanted to stay in the present. They'd come through so much. He didn't want anything to separate them again. \"Are you sure?\"\n\n\"Am I sure of what?\"\n\n\"That you don't know anything?\"\n\nJessie held his gaze, a quick flash of fire lighting them. \"You think I'm lying?\"\n\nKenneth lowered his gaze and swallowed. He didn't want to argue. He didn't want to upset her because he was afraid. Afraid of\u2026 He inwardly groaned. He didn't know what. But something ugly gripped him, something frightening and troubling. He didn't want anything to destroy the perfect Christmas he planned for them. Nothing could go wrong. He wouldn't let it. The memory teetering on the edge of his mind would stay there. He smiled, bent forward and kissed her. \"No, I wouldn't dare. I\u2014I just don't like the look of them.\"\n\n\"They're nothing to worry about.\"\n\nHe nodded and slipped in beside her, taking deep breaths. He had to believe her. Although he didn't like the stones, he had to trust her. He couldn't think she knew something and wasn't telling him. He couldn't think that maybe she was protecting him. He had to believe that there weren't secrets between them. That was the past. They were now joined together for life. He'd need two thousand lifetimes to show her how much he loved her. This Christmas would be the start of many\u2014nothing could go wrong. Unless\u2026\n\n\"What's the matter?\" Jessie said in sharp tone.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"You stopped breathing.\"\n\nKenneth froze. \"I did?\"\n\n\"Yes. Why? You always do that when you're upset.\"\n\nHe avoided her gaze. \"I was just thinking about something.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Nothing.\" He gripped his hand into a fist. He was already lying to her and he didn't want to, but felt that he must. Trust meant not asking questions, and he couldn't doubt her.\n\n\"I won't do anything without telling you first,\" she said as if reading his mind.\n\nHe took a deep breath. \"I know.\" He kissed her again, assuring her as much as himself. \"Promise me anyway,\" he whispered against her lips.\n\nShe smiled. \"Promise.\"\n\nHe felt some of his tension ease, then turned off the lamp light, but the darkness that settled around them seemed to find its way inside him too.\n\nAnd that darkness still followed him a week later. He didn't know why the stones bothered him or why he felt suddenly restless. He stared at his reflection in the full-length closet mirror, straightening his tie one morning as he prepared for work, almost not recognizing the man staring back at him. Only a couple of weeks earlier he'd been so happy about the upcoming holiday and now he was filled with dread.\n\nHe left the large closet and walked into the bedroom, then felt someone grab his arm and pin it behind him. \"Tell me what's bothering you,\" a female voice whispered in his ear.\n\nKenneth couldn't help a smile as his pulse quickened; he could overpower his wife in one swift move, but he'd let her believe she was in control, for now. \"Should something be bothering me?\"\n\nShe tightened her hold. \"You tell me. You haven't been yourself the last few days.\"\n\n\"Nothing's wrong.\"\n\n\"Want to arm wrestle?\"\n\nHe slipped out of her grasp, swung her over his shoulder and pinned her to the ground. He gazed down at her with a smug grin. \"Want to lose?\"\n\nHe waited to see her temper flare. Watched to see her beautiful brown gaze turn hot. She'd probably make him late for work and he'd enjoy every minute of it. But instead of her typical heated look, he saw worry tinge her eyes.\n\n\"I feel you pulling away from me,\" she said.\n\nHe didn't move, the truth of her words holding him still. She was right. He could feel it himself and didn't know why. They were now married, she was his new wife and he loved their life together and yet something gnawed at him and seemed to grow the closer Christmas came. His fears seemed foolish and there was still so much yet to know about each other, but there were still things he didn't want her to know.\n\nBecause he had no words, he kissed her, lingering over the sweet taste of her mouth, hoping it would be enough to remove the worry from her eyes. He wanted her to think about the tall pine they'd decorated that stood in their living room, the colored lights that covered the house, and the apple cider they'd had by the fire. The holidays were supposed to be happy, especially this one. He'd keep whatever darkness that hovered, within him. He drew away from her and smiled. \"How can I be pulling away, when I'm right here?\"\n\nHer gaze searched his, the worry deepened. \"Kenneth, what's wrong?\"\n\nHis pulse quickened again, this time from fear instead of desire. Why did she have to know him so well? \"I can't stop thinking about the stones,\" he said, releasing her.\n\nJessie sat up. \"I think I may know who the stones belong to. One of the clients at the store may have left them because he heard about me and\u2014\"\n\n\"I don't want you to have anything to do with him.\" He didn't mean to sound harsh, but something told him it was important that she stay away.\n\nHe waited for her to argue. Waited for her to tell him that he was her husband and not her jailor and that she'd do what she wanted to do.\n\nInstead, she nodded. \"Okay.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I said okay. If it bothers you that much, I'll leave them, but...\"\n\n\"But what?\"\n\n\"I sense that whoever left the stones seems to want protection and help. They're not dangerous and\u2014\"\n\nKenneth shook his head. \"I don't care. Stay away.\"\n\n\"Fine. I will.\" Jessie lightly touched his cheek, her fingers warm and soft against his skin. \"Is that all that's bothering you?\"\n\nGod, he hoped so. He took a deep breath and stood. \"I'd better get going.\" He lifted her to her feet, resisting the urge to hold her close in case he wouldn't let her go.\n\nThere was too much snow. It wouldn't stop. It was two days to Christmas and it seemed people would get the white Christmas they hoped for. But to Kenneth, the continuous snowfall chilled him. It didn't fall with a soft light touch, but seemed to pound the earth, suffocating everything around him in white.\n\n\"Dad, are you okay?\"\n\nThe sound of his daughter's voice caused him both pleasure and pain, reminding him of what they'd both gained and lost. But he couldn't think about his brother, Eddie, right now. Nothing else mattered except making Syrah happy and helping her forget her brutal past. He turned from the window and looked at her as she stood there, wearing an oversized sweater he'd wanted to donate but she'd decided to keep. Their dog, Dion, stood by her side. Kenneth forced a smile. \"Of course I am.\"\n\nShe bit her lip. \"I'm not.\"\n\nHe forced his smile not to waver. \"Why not?\"\n\nShe sent a nervous glance towards the window. \"They were supposed to work, but I'm not sure they will.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"Nothing.\"\n\n\"What's wrong?\"\n\nShe looked at him. \"Mom's not home yet.\"\n\nHe checked his watch. He'd assumed she was upstairs. Jessie was usually home before him. \"I'm sure she'll be here soon.\"\n\nHe couldn't let Syrah sense his unease. He knew she was looking forward to their first Christmas as a family, and was used to being disappointed. Did she have the same fear he did? That happiness may be out of reach for them? They both loved Jessie, but they also both knew that the ones they loved could hurt them the most. He knelt in front of Syrah, keeping his smile in place and his tone light as he pressed down his own concerns. \"I bet she had to finish up her holiday shopping and lost track of time.\"\n\nSyrah nodded. \"Yes, it's going to be all right, right?\"\n\nHe tweaked her chin. \"Right.\"\n\nBut an hour later, Kenneth wasn't so sure.\n\n\"I'm sure it's nothing,\" Jessie's eldest sister, Michelle, said when he called her. Her tone was practical and no-nonsense, reflecting the businesswoman she was. \"She's a walking accident. If you worry about her, you'll grow old fast\u2014trust me. Just wait for her to come home. If anything's happened, you'll know.\"\n\nWhen he called Jessie's other sister, Teresa, the advice was the same but said in a lighter more soothing way. She was a woman who believed in visions and herbs and that reflected in her words. \"Your years together have only just begun, your paths are intertwined and you're bound together unless you break them.\"\n\nHe gripped the phone. That didn't make any sense. \"Just let me know if you hear from her.\"\n\n\"I will, but you have to trust her.\"\n\n\"Of course I trust her.\"\n\n\"With everything?\"\n\nHe briefly shut his eyes. Teresa was sweet, but strange and he hadn't called for marriage advice. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Good, then she'll be fine. You both will.\"\n\nBut when another hour passed, he didn't feel fine. And his worry grew. He called her cousins and then anyone else he could think of, but no one could reach her. He had to believe that nothing was wrong. That she hadn't defied him and seen the man she'd mentioned about the stones against his wishes.\n\nHe had to believe that she was okay, even when another hour passed and he saw a story on the news about a woman's body being found near the bay.\n\n\"Poor woman,\" Freda, his housekeeper said, passing by the family room to head to the kitchen.\n\nIt couldn't be Jessie. She was just somewhere where her phone didn't work and the snow\u2026\n\nKenneth looked out the window, his hard gaze sweeping over the snow blanketing the ground and weighing the trees with its oppressive white hand. It looked harmless, but it could be so many things. Why did he hate snow so much? He felt an answer to that question as the hair-thin crack of memory tried to expand in his mind, but he violently silenced it with his will.\n\nIn two days they'd have their first Christmas as a family. A Christmas to help him forget the pain of his past. He had the right to be happy, to fight for his joy and his place in the world.\n\nAs a child, he remembered one winter clearing the driveway for Jessie's family, the Cliftons. Eddie had promised to do it\u2014and taken the advanced payment Mr. Clifton had given him\u2014but did only half the job. Kenneth had finished it up, hoping nobody would notice. He made sure there was not a flake left.\n\n\"You mustn't try so hard,\" Mr. Clifton had told him with a glint in his eye.\n\nHe didn't understand him at first and felt a little hurt and defensive. He was embarrassed that he'd gotten caught and angered by the criticism.\n\n\"You'll wear yourself out for no reason.\" He now knew what Jessie's father had meant. That he didn't have to try so hard to please, to be accepted, but it was still a lesson he was learning. He wanted this Christmas to be one of the best Jessie and Syrah had ever had.\n\nThree hours later, he paced. He couldn't report Jessie missing. Not yet. Not ever, he corrected. Because she would be home soon. She had to be.\n\nAnother hour passed. He felt himself falling apart. He grabbed his keys, determined to find her, then stopped when he heard the front door open.\n\nHe met her at the door. \"Where have you been? We've been waiting for hours. Do you know how worried Ace was?\" he said. \"I had to lie to her to get her to eat dinner then lie to her again to get her to go to sleep. Do you know how many people I called? You couldn't let anyone know where you've been, what you were up to? What happened?\"\n\nJessie blinked, then sighed with regret. \"I hardly understood a word you said. But I know you're upset and I'm sorry. Now take a deep breath and speak slowly and in English.\"\n\nIt took Kenneth a moment to realize he'd spoken in French. The language of his youth, the language of his heart. He could feel himself shaking as his anger and fear mingled within his veins. He hadn't shouted at her like that before and always tried to be careful to control his temper. He knew the danger of losing control. He took her advice and took a deep breath. As he exhaled, he felt his shield of anger slip away, as if a filter had been removed from his eyes, and he finally saw his wife clearly.\n\nHe saw the cut on her lip and the bruise on her cheek and his heart twisted. He rushed towards her, then stopped himself from touching her. \"What happened?\"\n\nJessie pressed her hands together as if in prayer. \"Don't be angry.\"\n\nKenneth folded his arms. \"I'm already angry, what did you do?\"\n\n\"This older woman was getting mugged\u2014\"\n\nHis arms fell to his sides. \"You went after a mugger?\"\n\n\"She said her life was in that purse and I couldn't just stand around and do nothing.\" Jessie held up her hand before he spoke. \"I know he could have had a knife or a gun, but he didn't. Unfortunately, he got away and she was so shaken that she asked me to go with her to the police and I did. I'm sorry, I didn't even think to call you. And then on my way home, a car swerved and hit me. Not too bad, so don't worry, and then my phone died and it was just chaos. But I left the hospital because I wanted to come home.\"\n\nHis voice cracked in surprise. \"You were at the hospital?\"\n\n\"The woman who hit me was insistent I get checked by a doctor, so I just did it to calm her. I'm so sorry I didn't get in touch with you somehow. It was just a crazy day and\u2014\"\n\nKenneth spun away and headed upstairs.\n\nJessie followed him. \"You're not going to forgive me?\"\n\nHe headed for their bedroom. \"I'm glad you're home.\"\n\n\"But you're still angry,\" she said, staying close behind.\n\nHe kept walking.\n\n\"Kenneth.\"\n\n\"Keep your voice down.\"\n\n\"Why? Syrah's probably already awake after your shouting rampage. At least she knows I'm home.\"\n\n\"It wasn't a rampage.\"\n\n\"It came close and I don't know why\u2014\"\n\n\"A woman was found dead today,\" he cut in, his voice raw with emotion, \"and I thought it was you.\"\n\n\"Why would you think that?\"\n\n\"I don't know!\" And he truly didn't. He didn't understand his lingering anger. She was safe, but his heart still hammered in his ears.\n\n\"Why are you shouting at me again?\"\n\n\"I'm not shouting.\"\n\n\"It's my fault!\" another voice said. They both turned and saw Syrah standing at the end of the hallway. Her voice broke. \"It's all my fault.\"\n\nJessie shook her head and walked towards her. \"Honey, no it's not. We're just\u2014\"\n\nShe took a step back before Jessie could reach her. \"I had Freda leave the stones on the doorstep, but they didn't work.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" Jessie asked.\n\n\"I know I don't have your gift with stones, but when Aunt Teresa told me that they were special stones that could bring good luck and protection to a house, I thought\u2026\" Her words fell away. \"I was wrong.\"\n\n\"That's why they had that feeling,\" Jessie mumbled to herself. \"I'd wondered about that.\" She knelt in front of Syrah. \"You weren't wrong. And you didn't do anything bad. But why would you think we'd need that? What are you frightened of?\"\n\nKenneth came up behind Jessie and cupped Syrah's chin before she could reply. \"You're safe now.\"\n\nJessie hugged her. \"You don't need to be afraid. We're a family now and we're happy.\" Jessie turned and looked up at Kenneth. \"Right?\"\n\nHe looked at Jessie then shifted his gaze to Syrah, a chill coursing through him. He knew what he had to say, even though he didn't mean it. \"Yes.\" He kissed her on the forehead. \"Now go back to bed or I'll take one of your presents away.\"\n\nSyrah wrapped her arms around Jessie's neck and hugged her. \"I'm so glad you're home.\"\n\nJessie hugged her back. \"Me too.\"\n\n\"Kenneth, I said I'm sorry,\" Jessie said, closing the door behind them once they were alone in their bedroom.\n\n\"I know.\" He sat on the side of the bed and faced the window. \"It's fine.\"\n\n\"It's not fine if you won't even look at me.\"\n\nHe rested his head in his hands suddenly feeling tired and not knowing why.\n\n\"I don't understand\u2026\" Her voice died away and he heard her footsteps retreat. \"Okay, I'll leave you alone. I'll sleep with Syrah tonight then and\u2014\"\n\nHe reached her before she could get to the door. He swung her into the circle of his arms and held her tenderly. \"I'm sorry,\" he whispered into her hair. \"I didn't mean to shout and I'm glad you're home safe.\"\n\n\"Your heart's pounding.\"\n\n\"Hmm.\"\n\nShe looked up at him. \"Kenneth?\"\n\nHe heard a world of questions in her voice, but he wasn't ready for them yet. He held her tighter and said in a teasing tone, \"Why won't you leave your husband and be with me? Your husband's an idiot sometimes.\"\n\nJessie tapped his chest with her forefinger. \"I won't leave my husband because I love him too much. And he needs me.\"\n\nKenneth lifted a brow in surprise. \"He needs you?\"\n\n\"Yes, so he can stop pretending.\" She drew away from him. \"What's wrong? And don't act like you don't know what I'm saying. You're free now, you don't have to pretend anymore, remember?\"\n\n\"I want Christmas to be perfect.\"\n\n\"Christmas will be wonderful, okay? What's with you and Syrah recently?\" she asked. \"You don't have to be Mr. Perfect anymore. We've got our schedule planned from Christmas to New Years' with family and friends. Even if things go wrong it won't matter because it will be one of many memories we'll get to share. I don't know why she thought we needed the protection of those stones.\"\n\nOn Christmas Eve, they sat in front of the fireplace, the tree lit and the remnants of the sugar cookies and eggnog they'd enjoyed set to the side. Jessie told him and Syrah tales of when she and her sisters would wait up for Father Christmas. She made Syrah laugh and Kenneth watched them, wondering why he still felt so tired instead of happy. It was Christmas Eve.\n\nStop pretending, Jessie had told him. You must trust her with everything, Teresa had said. And she was right. Jessie was the one person he could be real with.\n\nHe needed to be honest. He hadn't really been afraid of her ignoring him regarding the stones, or getting killed. Those fears gave him a shield against what truly scared him, that the Christmas he was hoping for would be out of reach.\n\nHe worried that he wouldn't feel as he was supposed to. He'd never found Christmas a magical season. He'd never had a chance to believe in Father Christmas. All his life, he'd smiled his way through the season to please others, but he always felt like a fraud because the presents and the lights never warmed his heart. And he knew the truth would disappoint her. But pretending had become too much of a burden.\n\nHe kissed Syrah goodnight before she went off to bed, then Kenneth sat alone with Jessie on the couch.\n\nHe realized that he hoped by making Syrah and Jessie happy, and that their joy would somehow stir something in him. That he'd feel what the season was about. He didn't want to tell her that every song left him feeling numb and he felt exhausted under the weight of a cheer he didn't feel. \"I've never liked Christmas. I always lie and say I do, but\u2026\"\n\nShe looped her fingers through his and he gained strength in her touch. \"Go on.\"\n\n\"When I first saw those stones, I didn't know why they bothered me so much, but then I remembered one Christmas when my father got drunk and smashed the ornaments on our tree. I don't know how old I was but I remember how they sparkled even as they shattered and scattered on the ground.\" He briefly shut his eyes. \"I can't feel Christmas. The importance of it\u2026. I can't\u2026I can't feel it. I know I'm supposed to be ecstatic.\"\n\n\"You don't have to be.\"\n\n\"And there's this memory that keeps trying to come back.\"\n\n\"Why won't you let it?\"\n\nHe rested his head back. \"Because I don't want to.\"\n\n\"Maybe you need to.\"\n\nHe turned to her, his eyes clinging to hers. \"Most of my memories hurt.\"\n\n\"I know.\" She patted her lap. \"And you don't have to fight them alone anymore, you have me.\"\n\nA smile softened his mouth. \"Are you inviting me to sit on your lap like a good little boy?\"\n\nShe frowned. \"No, I was offering you a place to rest your head.\" She began to stand. \"But if you're not interested\u2014\"\n\nHe pulled her down. \"You know I am,\" he said in a deep voice.\n\nKenneth took a deep breath and laid his head down, letting himself surrender to the memory that had been haunting him, trying to become fully formed in his mind. He drifted to sleep, remembering another Christmas blanketed in white.\n\nWhite was everywhere. White like snow, except he saw the white of a doctor's lab coat, the nurse's shoes, the hospital walls and floors. There were paintings of cartoon characters in the halls, but he didn't recognize most of them because he didn't get to watch TV much. He remembered a white pillow and a metal bed and the sound of holiday music floating from somewhere. And he remembered making a wish\u2026\n\nA wish he'd forgotten about.\n\nHe opened his eyes and although it was still dark, the darkness that had seized his soul was gone. He felt his numbness fade and it hurt, but he welcomed the pain because at least he could feel, and the anger and restlessness had gone. He sat up and looked around the room in renewed wonder. He saw the brilliant lights on the tree, the red flashing flames of the fire, but most of all, he saw a home. His home. The one he shared with his daughter who was safe in her room. The one he shared with his wife who'd fight his battles with him.\n\nFor the first time in years, he let himself remember the wish of a little boy, spending the holidays in the hospital after a beating, and his wish for a new family that loved him no matter what.\n\nStop pretending.\n\nHe didn't have to pretend anymore.\n\n\"Kenneth, are you okay?\" Jessie asked him.\n\nHe turned to her, the fire glow caressing her brown skin. \"Yes,\" he said, the truth of his words filling him with joy. \"Yes,\" he said again, then stood pulling her up with him. He walked to the window and looked outside at the white snow as it lay under the gaze of the moonlight. He no longer hated the sight. Instead, he saw a whole new beginning.\n\nAs they stood by the window, he told her about his memory. His voice was soft as he spoke, his arms wrapped around her waist. She didn't speak, just listened as she rested her back against his chest.\n\nWhen he was through, he took a deep breath. \"You're right,\" he said. \"It will be a wonderful Christmas.\"\n\nEvery Christmas before had been a disappointment to him, but not this one. This one would be like no other. One he'd remember for the rest of his life. Not because it was perfect, but because his long ago wish had finally come true.\n\nIf you enjoyed The Perfect Christmas don't miss Kenneth and Jessie's romance in The Sapphire Pendant.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ A Song to Remember ]\n\nBitterness didn't have a taste. It had a smell and it smelled like cigarette ashes and vintage wine. To her, bitterness wasn't roads not taken, it was too many options and not enough time. It was facing mortality with grim surrender.\n\nSharon Burnell sat alone in her dressing room, the soft patter of snow tapping against the window. The sight was a rare treat for Washington DC. It had been a rather warm December and few expected to see snow until January and certainly not in time for Christmas.\n\nShe knew she shouldn't have been there. She should be at home, resting in the quiet solitude of her apartment. But she'd returned to the theater for something\u2014a scarf or an earring, she didn't remember what. Now it didn't matter. All that mattered was the silence. A silence filled with bitterness. Only hours before she'd been bedecked in jewels and silk, but that was now gone as was the audience and the unknown faces behind the scenes. The theater lay empty and silent, except for the guards and the cleaning crew.\n\nAs she sat in her dressing room, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and sighed. The stage makeup she'd worn had been wiped clean from her face, leaving it bare. She had an ordinary face. A face that seemed, with each day, to grow more familiar to her, though she didn't know why. There was no one in her family who had a nose that was quite like hers or a mouth that was a little crooked. Her walnut skin was still smooth though she saw some sagging around the edges of a jaw that used to be more angular, a neck that had been more regal.\n\nShe was at that lonely, unremarkable age when she was too old to live and too young to die.\n\nTonight, as she'd performed, she felt like a fraud. An imposter. What once had filled her with joy, left her empty. The applause no longer fed her spirit as it once had. The accolades meant nothing. They said she was one of the greatest, but she didn't think so. Her voice wasn't what it had once been. She hadn't reached the notes with the same power and verve. When had her life become worn floorboards and petulant conductors? When had a stage ceased to delight her? Tonight, when she'd looked at the stage, instead of seeing the lush Riviera she only saw broad paint strokes that were supposed to be waves.\n\nWhere had the magic gone? The mystery and the majesty of music had escaped her, but she didn't know when or how she'd allowed it to slip from her grasp. But it had left her desolate like a lover whose heart had grown cold.\n\nShe was no longer a young darling, but far from being a legend. Again, too young for that, but too old to be one of the fresh young things now flooding stages and concert halls around the globe.\n\nOh how she wished to see the magic again. But once you know how magic is done, can you ever see it again? She closed her eyes against tears.\n\nWhen she opened them, she saw a young girl of about fourteen wearing outdated clothes from the 60s, standing on the other side of the room.\n\nA young girl who looked familiar.\n\nSharon jumped to her feet. \"What are you doing here?\" she demanded.\n\nBut the young girl didn't hear her. Instead, she walked around the room, her face filled with wonder. \"It's so beautiful. Oh, how I'd love to have my own dressing room and sing in a theater like this one day,\" she said.\n\nSharon's heart raced. Why didn't the young girl see her and why did her face and voice seem so familiar?\n\n\"Come on, you don't recognize yourself?\" an amused female voice said.\n\nSharon screamed and glanced around the room not knowing where the voice had come from. The young girl walked past Sharon, still not seeing her or hearing anything. Goose bumps scattered up and down Sharon's arms as a familiar scent lingered.\n\n\"What's going on?\" She held the side of her head. \"Am I having a stroke?\"\n\n\"You're not having a stroke, Sharon,\" the voice said. \"Must you always be so dramatic?\" She hurried over to a corner and her gaze darted around the room, searching for the source of the voice, but she didn't see anything. \"Who are you?\"\n\n\"No,\" the voice said. \"That's not the question you need answered. The real question is, Who is she?\"\n\nSharon looked again at the young girl who now sat in her chair and pretended to put on makeup. She then understood why she looked so familiar. She was looking at herself. The girl she'd been many years ago.\n\nSoon the dressing room fell away and she saw her old bedroom\u2014a stack of vinyl records she'd bought, although they didn't own a record player, a black and white photo of her friend from Liverpool; she smelled the scent of eggs and chips wafting from the kitchen. Outside, a drizzly grey rain soaked the city of Manchester, England, and the young girl stood by the window staring down at one of the records she couldn't listen to.\n\nSharon felt tears touch her eyes remembering that moment and noticing the welt on her arm where her grandfather had struck her with a switch because he thought she was trying to poison him. Her parents didn't want him to go into a nursing home, although caring for him had become more difficult. Her parents had taken her out of school so they could work and she had to look after him. Music helped her endure the confinement. At least they had a radio and at night she'd hold the dial just right so she could get to listen to her favorite station.\n\nHaving a piano helped too. Through the music she created on the black and white keys, she was transported to the hot streets of New York City and to the classical dance halls of Vienna. Music transported her grandfather too, because when she sang with him, he was like his old self. He would smile and dance and when she sang his favorite tunes it was as if years were erased from his face and his mind became clear. If only she could sing forever.\n\nThe young girl looked straight at Sharon, as if she could see her. And Sharon's heart began to race. Would she scream? Call the police? But the young girl didn't look surprised. \"I didn't think you'd come back,\" she said, setting the record down on her bed.\n\n\"You mean I've been here before?\"\n\nThe young girl frowned. \"Yea, you don't remember?\"\n\nNo, but now she started to understand why the mature face she'd seen in the mirror had felt so familiar to her. She'd seen it before as her younger self. \"Hmm.\"\n\n\"Did you really mean what you said before?\"\n\nOh no. What had she said? Sharon thought in a panic then the words came to her. If you keep the magic alive, it will never leave you, but if you forget you will wither and die. Why had she said that? But even as she asked herself the question, she knew the answer. It was a warning. She'd allowed herself to forget the magic. What music had once meant to her. Like the memories stolen from her grandfather, she'd quietly lost what had made her whole. She couldn't let herself do it again, this was her second chance. \"Yes,\" she said with a desperate fervor looking at the young face before her and seeing it wasn't the smooth skin or the lack of years that would later catapult her into her long career, it would be her passion. A passion that would send her around the world, to marvel at the five languages she'd learn to speak, gasp at the sight of tears rolling down her parents' faces when she sang in Carnegie Hall. A passion she must continue to let burn.\n\nShe hadn't tended to it. She'd taken it for granted, until slowly it had burned out.\n\n\"Sharon!\" her grandfather called and she remembered that her name was one of the few he still remembered. Her younger self went to where he sat in the living room. He didn't see the older version.\n\n\"Ask him to play something,\" Sharon told her younger self.\n\nAnd the young girl did. The older man shuffled to the piano, but once he sat down, his back straightened, his arms and fingers flexed and as he played all the years fell away. Sharon remembered the tune and sang along and her younger self joined her.\n\nAnd as the magic rained down around them, tears of shame touched her eyes. She felt ashamed by how easily she'd allowed herself to forget how fortunate she was, how far she'd come, how much she'd let herself forget, and how much she needed to remember.\n\nSoon the pair fazed away and she sat in the audience and saw herself on stage in one of her performances ten years ago and although she didn't see a legend or an ing\u00e9nue, she saw someone more radiant. She saw a woman in love. In love with the magic that surrounded her as the music soared through the room, flowing through her and touching the hearts of those around her. And behind her, she saw the waves instead of the brushstrokes; she saw the horizon and could hear the seagulls. The scenery came alive.\n\nHer breath caught when the woman performing, looked at her\u2014and she felt the connection. She could hear her urgent plea 'Never forget me'.\n\nShe understood that request. She would never forget why she sang. She sang for the girl growing up in a small flat in Manchester who dreamed of a different life. She sang for the woman who couldn't believe where her life had taken her. She sang for her grandfather who first showed her the magic, by playing the piano and teaching her show tunes. Sharon nodded, making a promise not to get caught up in the criticisms, the trinkets of fame and fortune or her own ego. She was there to serve the music.\n\nThe woman seemed to smile and finished her song to thunderous applause.\n\nSilence soon descended and Sharon found herself standing in the corner of her dressing room again, but the scent of bitterness was gone.\n\nAnd she knew she'd never smell it again. The magic had returned.\n\nNo, she realized as she gathered her things to face the snowy weather outside, a new sense of joy bubbling inside, it had never left.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ A Mother's Day Wish ]\n\n\"We don't need you. We have a lawn service to take care of things,\" Beth Armstrong said looking at the lanky fifteen year old who'd asked to mow her lawn. She was surprised he'd even offered. He was a Bailey after all and everyone knew the Baileys were a lazy bunch. The only effort his father extended was to find a woman and get his pants down or open a bottle and fill his belly with liquor. People knew better than to hire him because he'd never show up, but would always come up with an excuse as to why. Just like his father before him. Even his great-grandfather had a notorious reputation back in Trinidad. He'd been a man not to be trusted. Beth didn't expect young Cole Bailey to be much different. He was a good looking young man with dark lashes and brows, but the Bailey men always were.\n\nShe hardened her heart against the look of disappointment that dimmed Cole's light brown eyes and turned the corners of his mouth down. She couldn't bend. She wouldn't. People had been trying to help the Baileys for years and nothing ever worked. She gripped the door handle, stiffened her spine and let a slight, polite smile touch her lips. \"I'm sorry. Goodbye and good day.\"\n\n\"Good day,\" Cole said not meaning a word. He forced a smile then turned. It didn't feel like a good day but that was all he'd been forced to hear. The Armstrong house had been his last stop. Nobody would hire him. He'd offered lawn care, window washing, spider web cleaning and painting, but he always got a polite 'good day' and a door in his face. He knew the people of Hamsford didn't want a Bailey inside their homes, but he'd hoped they'd at least let him help outside with the grunt work. Wasn't he good enough for that? None of the local shop owners would give him work, his father and grandfather's reputations always proceeded him. But he wasn't his father or grandfather.\n\nUnfortunately, no one would give him the chance to prove it. And he needed a break. He needed to make money to help his family, especially his younger sisters who deserved more than what they were getting--a fridge that was usually empty and a cramped, dank apartment. His parents were already two months late on the rent. Cole knew the rent was really six months overdue, but his father had managed to bargain it down to two months since he was sleeping with the landlord's wife and she'd somehow persuaded her husband to lower what was owed. Cole didn't know how long the arrangement would last, since his father never stuck with anyone or anything long. He wanted to make sure he had enough money to take care of the family in case something went wrong, which it usually did.\n\nYes, his sisters deserved better. Just thinking of them made him smile. They were the only people in town who loved and looked up to him. They were so sweet and smart. He remembered when he'd gone to the church charity looking for clothes he'd picked up an old stain glass kit for his thirteen year old sister, Angela. She made amazing art with it, which he put up near the windows giving their gloomy place some beauty as it cast rainbows on the walls and floor. He wanted to get her some more tools and pay for a school trip to an art gallery in two months. Then there was his shy little sister, Grace, who needed braces. She was ten and her teeth were growing in crooked. Kids were already making fun of her and she had no friends.\n\nNot that his parents noticed. His mother was always in a foul mood, angry that she'd ended up marrying a 'good for nothing Bailey' and getting 'good for nothing children.' His father was hardly around but nobody missed him anyway.\n\nCole slowly walked down the path that cut through the Armstrong's manicured lawn trying to think of another way to make money when he saw an older woman coming towards him carrying heavy bags. He rushed up to her. \"Let me help you,\" he said half expecting her to refuse. People didn't let Baileys help them.\n\n\"Oh thank you,\" she said offering him a bright smile of relief. \"I bought more than I should have.\"\n\nCole stopped and stared at her for a moment in amazement. She'd smiled at him. Not a fake distant smile, but a real genuine one. He'd never had that before. He took her bags even more eager to please her just to get her to smile at him again. She had a nice round face, sparkling eyes, warm brown skin and grey hair. If he had a grandmother he'd want one to be just like her. He helped her carry her bags to the door, wishing he could help her with something else.\n\n\"Thank you young man,\" she said taking her keys out of her handbag.\n\n\"My pleasure,\" he said liking the soft island lilt of her words.\n\n\"What's your name?\"\n\nSuddenly, the door swung open, cutting off his reply. \"Mother,\" Beth said in an urgent rush. \"Are you okay?\"\n\n\"I'm perfectly fine,\" she said startled. \"This young man--\"\n\nBeth snatched the bags from Cole and anxiously peered inside. \"You'd better check to make sure everything is here. Baileys have sticky fingers.\"\n\nThe woman shot her daughter a glance of annoyance. \"Of course everything is there. I didn't raise you to be facety like this.\"\n\nBeth sent Cole a look of suspicion. \"Why are you back here? I told you we can't use you.\"\n\n\"He was helping me.\"\n\nBeth set the bags aside and pulled money from her purse. She held out a five dollar bill and waved it at him with impatience. \"Fine you can go now.\"\n\nCole took a step back, trying to take rein on his temper. He wanted to take the five dollars and ram it in her mouth. He could show her how much of a sticky fingered no good Bailey he could be. Instead he gripped his hands into fists. \"I'm gone.\"\n\n\"Wait,\" the older woman said grabbing his sleeve. \"What did you come for?\"\n\n\"To mow the lawn,\" Beth said.\n\nHer mother stared at her, raising her eyebrows. \"Is this a puppet show? I ask him a question and you answer?\"\n\n\"No, mother but--\"\n\n\"Then keep your mouth shut 'til I ask you to open it again.\" She turned her attention to Cole. \"Come inside. I want to talk to you.\" Before her daughter could protest the woman stepped past her and said, \"Put the kettle on. I'm thirsty.\" She ignored the stunned silence that followed her request and headed for the kitchen.\n\nCole hesitated then followed. He'd never been inside such a fine house before. He gaped at the rose colored wallpaper and polished wooden floors. There wasn't a cockroach in sight. When he passed the family room he quickly peeked inside and saw Mr. Armstrong standing near the fireplace and his son, Grant, reading a book. He knew Grant from school, not personally, but from a distance and by reputation. Grant always had a crowd of admirers around him since he was a track star and talented musician. Cole was too in awe to notice the frown on Grant's face when he saw him. He hurried to the kitchen then halted at the sight of how large it was. His entire apartment could fit inside it.\n\n\"Sit down,\" the woman said getting some Jamaican bun and cheese out of the refrigerator. She set them on the table.\n\nHe sat, rubbing his hands together under the table. \"Yes, Mother Armstrong.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said with a laugh. \"I'm not an Armstrong. That's my daughter's married name. Just call me Ms. Hetty.\"\n\n\"Hey Bailey,\" a voice said behind him. He turned and saw Grant standing in the doorway, a look of annoyance on his face. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\nCole opened his mouth to reply, but Hetty beat him to it. \"We're having a private conservation. You can talk to him later.\"\n\nGrant scowled then stormed away.\n\n\"So you do lawn care?\" Hetty asked.\n\n\"Yes ma'am,\" he said. He'd tried to join a landscaping crew but no one would hire him. However, he'd watched them work and picked up skills. He didn't have the equipment, but knew how they worked.\n\n\"What else can you do?\"\n\nBeth came into the kitchen and filled the kettle at the sink.\n\n\"Polish silver,\" he said.\n\nShe set the kettle on the stove and mumbled, \"And steal it too.\"\n\nCole shifted in his seat, wanting to defend himself but knowing he couldn't.\n\n\"Go on,\" Hetty urged.\n\n\"I can clean spider webs.\"\n\nBeth rested a hand on her hip. \"You think I'd allow spiders to build webs in my house? My house is spotless.\"\n\n\"I didn't mean to offend.\"\n\n\"You might as well say you'd kill mice too.\"\n\n\"I can if you need me too.\"\n\nBeth gasped. \"You cheeky little--\"\n\n\"Quiet, Beth,\" her mother interrupted.\n\nShe pointed at Cole. \"Did you just hear what he said? He sits in my home and implies that we have mice!\"\n\n\"Be quiet.\"\n\n\"But--\"\n\nHetty turned to her daughter. \"Have you forgotten that I'm still your mother? I said keep your mouth shut and I mean it. I can still box your ears and I'll make it your mouth if I have to.\" She turned back to Cole. \"Go on.\"\n\nHe cleared his throat. \"I'm good at fixing things.\"\n\n\"Anything in particular?\"\n\n\"Anything you ask me to.\"\n\nHetty nodded. \"Good I have a task for you. I have a lawn swing that needs to be fixed. Can you do that?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"How much?\" Cole gave her a price and she shook her head. \"Too high.\"\n\nCole rubbed his hands and swallowed. He didn't want to lose her business, but he also didn't want to admit that he didn't even own a hammer or screwdriver. He needed money to buy tools. \"I'll also paint the trim if you like.\"\n\n\"The price is still too high.\"\n\nHe lowered his gaze. Think Bailey. You need this job. He knew what his father would do. He'd try to sweet talk her, but he was no good at that. He liked to be honest. He sighed he hoped that wouldn't be a mistake. \"I can lower the price if you'd allow me to use your tools.\"\n\nBeth opened her mouth then quickly closed it, remembering her mother's threat.\n\n\"How much?\" Hetty asked.\n\nHe gave her another price.\n\nHetty smiled and held out her hand. \"Agreed. Come back tomorrow after ten.\"\n\nCole shook her hand, careful not to pump it too hard. He really wanted to give her a big hug. He'd made her smile and now had a job. He grinned back. \"I will. Good day,\" he said, meaning every word.\n\nAt dinner Beth bristled with outrage. \"You won't believe what Mother did today. She hired a Bailey.\"\n\nArthur Armstrong looked at his mother-in-law, who was calmly eating her dinner, then at the pinched face of his wife. His three sons waited to see how he would handle the situation. He chose to proceed with caution. \"To do what?\"\n\n\"Does it matter?\"\n\n\"I'm curious.\"\n\n\"Fix the lawn swing.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you say so, Mother? I could have gotten it fixed for you.\"\n\nHetty did not raise her gaze from the curried trout and creamy scalloped potatoes on her plate. \"On three occasions I asked but no one listened. I was tired of waiting.\"\n\n\"Mother,\" he said in a soft patronizing tone. \"You're new to this place so you don't know the people. Some of them you just can't trust.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" Beth said. \"The Bailey men are lazy, worthless men. What will people think? You don't know what you've done.\"\n\n\"I know exactly what I've done. I gave a young man a chance,\" Hetty said.\n\n\"But he's a--\"\n\n\"He's not his father. Let him prove himself.\"\n\nGrant touched her shoulder. \"I'll fix it for you, Gran.\"\n\nHetty repressed a shudder. It wasn't good to not like one's own flesh and blood but she didn't take to her grandson. She found him to be as slick as palm oil. After her husband's death she'd looked forward to moving in with her daughter's family, but the move hadn't been as peaceful as she'd hoped. Her daughter was constantly correcting her, her son-in-law ignored her and her grandchildren barely noticed her. She'd carried heavy shopping bags before without anyone caring. To everyone she was just an invisible old woman. That young Bailey boy had been the first to take any notice. To really make her feel as if she mattered, not to feel as if she were just a burden or obligation. She had plenty of money, because she and her husband had been savvy with their finances, and could go to a residential facility, but she didn't want to be around just old people. But being around the younger generations wasn't much fun either. At times she considered moving to the cottage she and her husband still owned in New York and had used as a holiday house, but it would be lonely there.\n\n\"I've already hired Cole,\" Hetty said. \"And I plan to keep my word.\"\n\n\"But--\"\n\n\"I'm a grown woman and I've made up my mind. This has nothing to do with any of you.\"\n\nThat evening Hetty took out an old photograph and sat on her bed staring at the faded image. It was a picture of her cousin Lenny, a fine looking young man who'd been shot and killed in an armed robbery bust when the police mistook him for one of the assailants. She remembered returning to Trinidad to attend his funeral. She let her finger trail over his smiling happy face. No one had given him a chance. No one had taken the time to look past his poor grades and background to see what a hardworking young man he was. She remembered how he could make you smile when you wanted to cry and how he never felt sorry for himself. Cole somehow reminded her of him. Unlike Lenny, she would make sure he was given an opportunity to prove himself. But she knew helping Cole wasn't just for him, it was for her. She glanced around her crowded bedroom filled with stuff she could afford, but didn't need. It offered her no comfort. She was restless. She had done her childrearing and had worked most of her life. She'd waited all her life for these days of leisure, but she was bored. She wanted to do something. She wanted a reason to live. Cole had not only noticed her, he'd made her feel useful. He'd made her feel viable again.\n\nCole arrived the next day at ten on the dot. Hetty sat in a lawn chair and watched him work. He was a good worker. Skinnier than he should be but strong. He told her about his sisters. They laughed together that Saturday like two kids getting to know each other and shared a lunch of spicy chicken patties and talked about their frustrations.\n\n\"No one will give me a chance,\" Cole said as they finished their meal.\n\n\"I did and I know others will too.\"\n\n\"I really want to thank you.\"\n\nHetty waved his thanks aside. \"It's not a big issue. I'm glad you could help me and respect me.\" She sighed. \"Sometimes my family treats me as if I were two years old.\"\n\n\"I wish I could take you home with me,\" Cole said. \"I'd let you do whatever you wanted.\"\n\n\"Where do you live?\"\n\nCole shook his head. \"It's not good enough for you.\" He wondered if he'd ever have a place good enough for her to visit. Baileys had never owned anything. But he pushed the thought away and finished fixing her swing. Hetty giggled with delight when it was finished and immediately tried it out. She then gave him another task and soon he was a regular at the Armstrong house. To his surprise, word quickly spread and he was able to get other small jobs around town. But no job compared to working for Ms. Hetty, Cole thought as he dug up a patch of dirt she wanted to use as a herb garden. She was one of the most wonderful women he'd ever met: Smart and pretty and sweet and he loved her.\n\nHe'd given her a card for Mother's Day wishing he could spend every Mother's Day with her and treat her and his sisters to brunch like other families did. His mother hated Mother's Day and didn't like cards. She said they were just expensive pieces of paper unless there was money inside. But not Ms. Hetty. When Cole had given her his card--he'd wanted to get her perfume or flowers but a card was all he could afford--she'd given him one of her beaming smiles and held the card close as if he'd given her a treasure. Even though her family had treated her to buffet and gifts of scarves and jewelry she made him feel that his gift was just as important. And that night he wished he could always make her smile and imagined spending every holiday with her from New Year's Day to Christmas. He wished he could rescue her somehow. He hated to know she was unhappy living with her family. He knew how she felt, but he didn't know what he could do. He was close to raising enough money for Angela's school trip and with more jobs he could raise enough for Grace, but helping Ms. Hetty would take a miracle. At least he was glad that luck was finally on his side.\n\nGrant watched Cole from his bedroom window with seething anger. Why was his grandmother paying attention to that dirty old Bailey? His friends were already ribbing him about it. Bailey was making him a laughing stock. He was the one who was supposed to shine. He was the track star and musician, but his grandmother barely took notice of him. What was so important about a stupid swing anyway? And why did she keep having to have him come back? Bailey almost acted like he belonged there, but he didn't. Hell, he could even sense his parents starting to like him and his two brothers had once asked Bailey to join them for a soccer game. He hated Cole Bailey. He should know his place.\n\nThat night Grant went into the garden and unscrewed a major hinge on the swing. He smiled as he imagined the havoc he'd just created. Now Bailey would get what he deserved.\n\nHetty loved to sit outside on late spring evenings. She was so happy that she now had a beautiful swing to sit in. Outside she felt close to Lenny and her husband and no longer thought of them with pain. Her heart had a new resident. Cole had filled her life with laughter and joy. She hoped to one day meet Cole's sisters since he talked so fondly about them. She sat on her swing and swayed back and forth then she heard a snap and the swing came crashing down. Shooting pain followed. She cried out as hot tears filled her eyes.\n\nBeth rushed to her. \"Mother!\" She turned to her husband who'd followed close behind and said, \"Call an ambulance.\"\n\nMinutes later Hetty was taken to the hospital where they discovered she'd broken her hip. Infection quickly set in and for days Hetty was gravely ill, but to the relief of her family she pulled through.\n\nCole, however, soon found his world shattered. Word quickly spread about his poor workmanship and soon he was being called a 'no good Bailey' again and what little work he'd been able to get dried up.\n\n\"So typical,\" his mother said as he cleared up the fast food dinner he'd bought with money he'd saved. She sniffed in disgust. \"You Bailey men always screw up a good thing.\"\n\n\"I know I fixed it right,\" Cole said, wishing there had been leftovers for tomorrow night's dinner. The greasy chicken meal was nothing like the baked plantain and jerk chicken Ms. Hetty had once treated him to, but it was still food.\n\nHis mother rested back in her chair, putting her feet on the table. Her boots added to the many scratches that were already there. \"Then why did it break nearly killing the old woman?\"\n\nCole swallowed feeling a little ill. \"I don't know, but I didn't make a mistake. I tested it myself and I'm heavier than Ms. Hetty. I would never do anything to hurt her.\"\n\n\"Just take responsibility,\" Angela said. \"Go to the hospital and ask for forgiveness.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I can't face her.\"\n\n\"I thought she was your friend,\" his youngest sister, Grace, said.\n\nCole blinked back tears. She was and that was why he couldn't face her. He didn't care what anyone else thought of him, but if she thought he was a 'good for nothing' Bailey he couldn't handle it.\n\n\"You have to visit her,\" Angela insisted.\n\nHe hung his head. He knew he was disappointing them. He'd disappointed everyone. \"Leave me alone.\" He turned wishing there was somewhere to hide. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to go to get away, so he went into the stairwell. He collapsed onto one of the steps, covered his face and cried. He loved Ms. Hetty and wished he was in the hospital instead of her. He wished he could take all her pain away, especially since he was the cause. He was a 'no good Bailey' who deserved to die. His mother was right. He was a screw up. He was no different than the rest of the Baileys. Cole quickly wiped his eyes, when he heard footsteps, and turned his face to the wall.\n\nAngela sat beside him and lightly rested a hand on his shoulder. \"You have to go see her.\"\n\nHe kept his face turned and shook his head.\n\n\"I want you to give her something.\"\n\nCole let his shoulders droop then slowly looked at his sister and saw that she held a small stain glass project in her hand.\n\n\"It can't be fun being stuck in a hospital, this will brighten it up for her.\"\n\nCole sighed, taking the stain glass. It was a picture of a garden. He was so close to making their lives better and he'd failed. There would be no school trip or braces, but he'd at least do this for her.\n\nThe next day, he dressed in his best suit. When his mother saw him she laughed. \"You're going to a damn hospital not a funeral.\"\n\n\"I want to look my best.\"\n\n\"If you were your father, I'd wonder if you wanted to sweet talk a nurse.\"\n\nCole arranged his tie. \"No.\"\n\n\"I'm surprised you haven't knocked up a girl yet, but you're still young so there's still time.\"\n\n\"I'm not Dad.\"\n\n\"You better not do that or you're out.\"\n\nHe nodded. He'd heard that since he was five. It wasn't that he wasn't interested in girls, but he had to take care of his family first. And now he had to help Ms. Hetty.\n\nShe helped straighten his tie. \"Not that it will matter. No matter how fine you look you'll never be one of them.\"\n\n\"I'm not trying to be.\"\n\n\"Then why are you acting as if you're meeting the damn queen or something?\"\n\nHe knew his mother wouldn't understand, but he wanted to look his best for Ms. Hetty. He wanted to let her know how sorry he was and tell her he would find a way to make things up to her. He took Angela's wrapped gift and left the apartment.\n\nGrant met him outside the door to Hetty's hospital room. His gaze swept Cole's worn suit and his mouth quirked in a sneer. \"What are you? The undertaker?\"\n\n\"I came to see Ms. Hetty.\"\n\n\"Sorry. It's family only,\" he said.\n\n\"I just have to give her something.\"\n\nGrant held out his hand. \"I'll give it to her.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nGrant lowered his voice and narrowed his eyes. \"Listen Bailey, I can make your life even more miserable than it is now so you'd better just take my advice and leave.\"\n\n\"I'm not afraid of you.\"\n\n\"That's your mistake. I can--\"\n\n\"I don't care. I want to see Ms. Hetty.\"\n\n\"Is that Cole?\" Hetty called out. \"Is that you, my dear?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" he said boldly meeting Grant's glare. \"It's me.\"\n\n\"Are you waiting for an invitation? Come on in.\"\n\nCole shoved past Grant.\n\n\"There's a hole in your suit,\" Grant said.\n\nCole ignored him and walked into the room. Hetty had her own private room. It was filled with flowers. He thought of Angela's gift and knew that it couldn't compete with the grander surrounding him. \"I'm so sorry,\" he said in a rush. \"I was sure everything was secure.\"\n\n\"What no hug?\" Hetty said lifting her arms out to him.\n\nHe gently hugged her. She smelled like lilacs and felt as warm as a summer morning.\n\n\"Be careful,\" Beth snapped, coming into the room. \"You've done enough damage. I'm surprised you can show your face.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Mrs. Armstrong. I was sure--\"\n\n\"What have you brought for me?\" Hetty said eyeing the package under his arm.\n\n\"It's from my sister Angela. She thought you might like it.\"\n\n\"Next time tell her to come.\" Hetty opened the package then gasped at the item inside. \"It's beautiful.\"\n\nBeth walked over to take a look. \"Your sister made this herself?\"\n\nCole nodded with pride. \"Yes ma'am.\"\n\n\"We have to put it up.\" Hetty pointed to the window. \"Rest it there so the sunlight can filter through.\"\n\nCole did just that and then they all stared at it.\n\n\"Hetty,\" a voice called from the doorway then an elegantly dressed woman walked into the room. \"You're always causing trouble little sister.\" The woman stopped and stared at the stain glass. \"Oh, where did you get this?\"\n\n\"It's a gift,\" Hetty said. She gestured to Cole. \"His sister makes them.\"\n\n\"How much?\" the woman asked, picking it up to take a closer look.\n\nHetty gave a reply that left Cole speechless.\n\n\"Very well. I'd like to order one. You know that Todd is looking for a student to mentor. Do you think your sister would be interested?\" she asked Cole.\n\n\"Yes ma'am.\"\n\nShe pulled out her card. \"Have her call me.\"\n\nCole stared at the card. No one had ever given him their card before. \"Yes ma'am.\"\n\nGrant stood near the door and watched the scene wanting to punch something. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. They were supposed to hate him. \"Why are you helping his sister?\" he said. \"He's the reason you're in here.\"\n\n\"And I forgive him,\" Hetty said.\n\n\"You could have died.\"\n\n\"But I didn't and I think it was meant to be.\"\n\nGrant widened his eyes incredulous. \"Meant to be?\"\n\n\"Yes, \" she said with a bright smile. \"All because of the great man above. If I hadn't broken my hip, I wouldn't be here and then Cole's sister wouldn't have given me this picture and my sister wouldn't have seen it and then consider recommending her to Todd. Yes. It's all meant to be. God at work.\"\n\n\"But it wasn't God. I was--\" Grant stopped before he implicated himself.\n\nHetty met his eyes with a keen intelligence that sent a shiver through him. \"You were what?\"\n\nGrant shook his head, as a trickle of sweat slid down his back. \"Nothing. I just think--\"\n\nHetty clapped her hands. \"I just had an idea.\" She turned to Cole. \"If my sister has anything to do with it, Angela will be accepted into Todd's program. He's my sister's ex-husband and has an art studio in New York where he mentors aspiring young artists. Angela is very talented and I know he'd enjoy working with her. She would be able to learn and grow her skills while also earning money. \" Hetty continued when she saw Cole's hesitation. \"I have a house there that I'd love to use again. My husband and I used to go there for vacations. Your sister could live there and she'll need someone to be there with her. I've always wanted to live there but not by myself. I could lookout for her. But we'd need someone to help around the house. Would you like to go too?\"\n\n\"Oh yes, but...\" His words fell away.\n\n\"But what?\"\n\n\"I have another sister.\"\n\n\"There are good schools there. She can come too.\"\n\n\"Mother,\" Beth said stunned. \"What are you saying?\"\n\n\"'I've got a lot of life left in me and I'm not ready to be put out to pasture. I'm moving.\"\n\n\"I thought you were happy with us. And we can take care of you.\"\n\n\"That's the problem. I don't need you to.\"\n\n\"But these three Bailey kids will--\"\n\n\"Be the greatest gift to me,\" she finished.\n\n\"Their parents--\"\n\nHetty brushed her concerns aside with a wave of her hand. \"I'll make it worth their while.\"\n\nAnd she did. Mrs. Bailey was relieved to see her children go so she could have another life. Mr. Bailey wasn't around to argue. Angela was accepted into Todd's exclusive mentorship program, Grace got her braces and enrolled in a private school nearby and Cole felt glad he'd managed to get the life his sisters deserved, leaving the Bailey reputation far behind.\n\nAnd as they sat in their little house one fall afternoon, Cole thought back to the night he'd imagined spending every holiday with Ms. Hetty and he grinned knowing his Mother's Day wish had come true.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ A Fortunate Mistake ]\n\nThe phone call shattered a beautiful crying fit at 3 a.m. on Christmas Eve. Marina Durosomo had gone through an entire box of tissues and blown her nose until it hurt and her red rimmed eyes were dry when the piercing of the phone invaded her quiet apartment. She wanted to ignore it, to continue to drown in her misery and the stinging critique of her now closed bakery that continued to torment her, but the insistent ringing wouldn't stop. Who could be calling her now? She didn't want to hear more bad news. She reluctantly reached for the phone, slow enough to hope that by the time she picked up, the person on the other end would hang up.\n\n\"Hello?\" she said.\n\n\"Did I wake you?\"\n\nMarina wiped her eyes, recognizing her mother's voice. She was good at asking questions that didn't need an answer. If she said 'yes', her mother would apologize but not really mean it. If she said 'no', her mother would ask what was wrong and she didn't want to tell her. \"I'm fine.\"\n\n\"You sound like you're coming down with a cold.\"\n\n\"I'm fine,\" she repeated, tossing her empty box of tissues into the recycling bin.\n\n\"You don't sound--\"\n\n\"Mom, what's wrong?\"\n\n\"I need you to pick up Aunty Helen.\"\n\n\"Aunty who?\"\n\n\"That's her English name. You won't remember her real one. Besides, you don't know her. She's the mother of a good friend of ours.\"\n\nBecause her mother had about twenty 'good friends' Marina didn't even try to make the connection. It wasn't unusual to have unexpected visitors arrive from Nigeria. They treated their family like a taxi and hotel service, but her mother and father were steeped in the tradition of hospitality and didn't want anything negative said about them back home, even though an ocean separated them. \"Okay when will she be here?\"\n\n\"She's arriving at four-thirty.\"\n\n\"This morning?\"\n\n\"Yes, why else would I be calling you now? You have an hour and a half to get ready and be over there.\"\n\nHer mother made it sound so sensible. \"Why me?\"\n\n\"She's coming in at BWI. You're closer to the airport and I have to go to work.\"\n\n\"I work too.\"\n\nHer mother's responding silence was eloquent. She used to work. She used to have a business she was proud of, but that was all over now. All because of a major recession and a business partner who'd embezzled her funds and disappeared. But no, the truth was her business hadn't failed. She had. There were other bakeries that were flourishing, but the critique had shown a light on all her fears. She just wasn't good enough. Her mother had told her the bakery was a foolish dream, that she should have tried for something more sensible. Her mother would never say 'I told you so', but she didn't have to. Now she would be chauffer to some stranger. This was her punishment. She hated the holidays. Every year they seemed to show her how far she was from the life she wanted. It highlighted another year of grasping for something out of reach.\n\n\"What's her flight number?\" Marina asked to fill the silence and resigned to her fate.\n\nHer mother told her.\n\n\"Can't Wale go?\"\n\n\"I can't reach him. Hurry, I don't want her waiting there alone. And this will be good for you.\"\n\n\"Good?\"\n\n\"Yes, to get out of your apartment.\"\n\n\"Mom, I don't need to hear this right now. I just want to sleep.\"\n\n\"You can sleep all you want after you pick her up and settle her in your place.\"\n\n\"My place?\"\n\n\"Yes, we'll come and get her in the evening.\"\n\nMarina looked around her messy apartment--the carpet needed a good vacuum, she could spell her name in the dust. After her career imploded she hadn't cared about her surroundings. She didn't want a guest, she didn't want to pretend to celebrate the holidays, she wanted to disappear, but she didn't have a choice.\n\n\"What does she look like?\" Marina asked opening her closet.\n\n\"She's tiny.\"\n\nMarina waited. When her mother didn't elaborate she rolled her eyes and sighed. \"That's all? A tiny black woman?\"\n\n\"You'll find her,\" her mother said with impatience. \"She'll be looking for you and you will find each other. You're smart.\" She hung up.\n\nMarina scowled at the phone then disconnected.\n\nAt times she hated being a diligent daughter. She wanted to say \"Let her wait.\" Why did this Aunty, what-was-her-name--Helga? Hettie?--have to wait until now to let them know she was arriving? So inconsiderate. She could have called them when she changed flights in Amsterdam. But Marina had learned to keep her thoughts to herself. She had no husband or children to hide behind and now she couldn't even say she had a business to run. She had no life, so she had to do as she was told."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 12",
                "text": "Marina stood in the baggage claim area of Baltimore Washington International feeling like a farmer trying to find a particular blade of grass in a field. Although it wasn't as crowded as a midmorning or late afternoon flight, there were still enough people to get lost in. Marina shoved her hands in her gray wool coat and rocked on her heels. She still couldn't remember the blasted woman's name--Herma? Hilda? Helen? Yes, that was it Helen! But recalling her name was just a small victory. She had no idea how she was supposed to find this woman. Aunty Helen a woman she'd never heard of who was the grandmother of some friend's mother.\n\nMarina was about to give up hope and call her mother when she saw a small woman standing near the wall with a large bag. She wore a brightly colored headwrap in a pattern she'd never seen before and a well tailored dress that matched. The woman looked composed, as if standing for a portrait--her eighty some years had been kind to her. She had a certain glow that drew Marina to her. She seemed out of place. That had to be her.\n\nMarina made her way over to the woman, confident she'd found the elusive Aunty Helen. Although she wasn't the only one in regional clothes, she was the only one not properly dressed for the cold December weather. At least others sported long coats or gloves, but she only wore her dress, as if she expected to step out into a nice ninety degree sun.\n\nMarina stopped in front of her and smiled. \"Aunty Helen?\"\n\nThe woman smiled and her face seemed to glow.\n\nMarina glanced down at her one bag surprised. She'd never picked up someone with so little luggage. \"Is that all that you have? Do you need me to help you get the rest?\"\n\nShe continued to smile.\n\nMarina inwardly groaned. \"Please tell me you speak English.\"\n\nHer smile grew wider.\n\nShe softly swore. Why hadn't her mother told her she didn't speak English? That was rare, but the woman looked past eighty so maybe she hadn't had a chance to learn. Unfortunately, her Yoruba wasn't good. She understood it better than speaking it.\n\nIn broken Yoruba she attempted to talk to her. \"I'm sorry. I'm not good at this. One?\" She held up one finger. \"Bag?\" She pointed to the bag.\n\nThe woman blinked and continued to smile.\n\nMarina glanced in the direction of the baggage area and saw that it was empty. \"I'm just going to take that as a yes.\" She turned back to the woman. Things were starting to become a little eerie. She had the bright, trusting nature of a child. \"Do you have anything warm in there?\" She pointed to the bag again.\n\nThe woman blinked, but her smile faltered.\n\nMarina pointed outside then hugged herself and shivered. \"Cold. You'll be cold. You need something warm.\" She pointed to the bag again then took the strap. \"Can I see?\"\n\nThe woman released her grip confused.\n\nMarina kneeled and opened the bag. \"Please tell me someone had the sense to pack a sweater for you.\" But she didn't see anything that would be warm enough. Unfortunately, the airport stores were closed. She took off her coat. She had a knit sweater underneath. \"You'll have to wear this,\" she said wrapping it around the woman.\n\nHer bright smile returned and she patted Marina on the cheek. Her hand was remarkably soft and gentle.\n\nThe kind gesture made Marina feel like crying all over again. At least someone felt that she was doing something right. Even if it was as simple as keeping them warm. \"You're welcome,\" she said in a brusque tone. She stood. \"Come on.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 13",
                "text": "Aunty Helen didn't say anything on the drive to Marina's apartment. She stared out at the dark, chilly morning, looking at the bright lights of the highway and the large buildings looming on both sides of the highway. Close to her apartment, Marina stopped at an all-night grocery store and bought another box of tissues and a pair of wool gloves.\n\nWhen she got back into the car, she rubbed her hands together. \"Warm enough?\"\n\nAunty Helen just blinked.\n\nMarina put the gloves in her lap. \"You'll need these.\" She put them on her. \"Better?\" she said, not expecting a reply and not getting one. Instead Aunty Helen held up her hands, flexed her fingers and smiled.\n\nAt home, Marina put Aunty Helen's bag in the hall. She wasn't tired and her guest didn't look so either. Marina mimed holding a bowl and spoon and pretended to eat. \"Hungry?\" she asked.\n\nAunty Helen blinked.\n\nShe mimed drinking. \"Or thirsty?\"\n\nThe woman blinked again.\n\nMarina sighed. \"I'll just give you something okay? And then you can rest on the couch until my mother picks you up and I don't know why I keep talking to you when you don't know what I'm saying.\"\n\nShe put on the kettle for tea then quickly put together a meal of peanut soup she'd recently gotten from her mother.\n\nThe woman delve into the meal and again patted her on the cheek, but this time Marina didn't feel like crying. She felt glad she'd been able to make the woman happy. She was clearing up her living room couch to give her a place to nap when her phone rang. She checked the number and sighed when she saw her brother, Wale's, number. \"What do you want?\"\n\n\"To warn you. Mom's upset. You're in big trouble,\" he said in Yoruba.\n\n\"I'm always in trouble,\" she said in kind.\n\nHe laughed then said in English. \"Your Yoruba still sucks.\"\n\n\"Shut up, it's not too late for me to give you a lump of coal,\" she said then hung up the phone, wondering why her brother felt like teasing her. And what could her mother be upset about now? A moment later, her phone rang again. She was about to say something rude when she recognized the number.\n\n\"Hi Mom.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you pick up Aunty Helen?\" she demanded.\n\n\"What do you mean? I did.\" She looked at the woman sitting in her kitchen. \"She's right here. You could have told me that she didn't speak English.\"\n\n\"What are you going on about? She speaks perfect English. She has a degree from Oxford.\"\n\nMarina rolled her eyes, not caring where the woman received her degree, though her mother did. She was about to ask why that mattered when her mother continued.\n\n\"She just called. Your brother had to go get her.\"\n\nMarina felt her stomach drop. \"That doesn't make any sense. I have Aunty Helen right here. She's eating in my kitchen.\"\n\n\"Oh my god. What have you done?\"\n\nMarina's heart started to race and her breathing became shallow. Had she failed again? How could that be? \"I did what you told me to. I picked up a woman matching Aunty Helen's vague description. I even asked her her name.\" Marina paused remembering the incident. She hadn't really asked her name. She'd just said \"Aunty Helen?' and the woman smiled and she assumed it was her. \"Wait a moment.\" She ran into the kitchen where the woman was cleaning up her soup with a warm slice of bread. Aunty Helen?\"\n\nThe woman looked up and smiled.\n\n\"You are Aunty Helen?\" Marina repeated to make sure.\n\nShe continued to smile.\n\nCould she have the same name as the other woman?\n\n\"Mom, she seems fine.\"\n\n\"Describe her to me.\"\n\n\"She's small and about eighty something. She didn't have the proper clothes for the weather and had only one bag.\"\n\n\"Aunty Helen isn't over sixty.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you tell me that before? You said she was the grandmother of one of your friends.\"\n\n\"Not all of my friends are my age. You know that. You should have been more careful. Why are you getting irritated with me? You're the one who picked up the wrong woman. If she were an old woman I would have said Big Mummy not Aunty. Why don't you pay attention to these things? And you should have known I wouldn't send you to pick up someone who doesn't speak English.\"\n\nMarina rubbed her forehead. Listening to her mother's criticism but only hearing 'you're a failure, you're a failure, you can't do anything right.' \"I don't believe this.\"\n\n\"Give her the phone.\"\n\nMarina held out the phone to her. \"Aunty--uh Big Mummy--my mother wants to talk.\"\n\nThe woman nodded and took the phone. She responded with quick fast replies. Her voice was soft and deep, oddly soothing, but Marina couldn't decipher the meaning. The old woman then handed the phone back.\n\n\"Why didn't you give her the phone?\" her mother demanded when Marina returned to the phone.\n\nMarina squeezed her eyes shut. \"What are you talking about? I just did.\"\n\n\"Is she deaf?\"\n\n\"No. She spoke to you. I heard her. She didn't answer much, but she did speak. I didn't understand her though. It didn't sound like Yoruba. She spoke, but I didn't understand her.\"\n\nHer mother paused. \"You see her? Is she still there?\"\n\n\"Yes. Where else would she be?\"\n\n\"Oh no,\" her mother said in a frightened tone. \"I've heard of this but...\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"My dear are you sure you're feeling okay? Have you been eating and sleeping properly?\"\n\n\"Yes, I'm not crazy.\"\n\n\"Lack of sleep can cause hallucinations.\"\n\n\"I'm not hallucinating.\"\n\n\"Or it could be something worse.\"\n\n\"Like what?\"\n\n\"You picked up a or bloody hell what's the English name for it? I'm not sure they have one exactly. Oh yes...witch.\"\n\nDon't be daft, she wanted to say, but bit her lip. Her parents believed in both traditional and native religions. \"She's not a--I just made a mistake.\"\n\n\"Maybe you should just go back to sleep. If she's still there then get rid of her as fast as you can. Take her to the police and be careful.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 14",
                "text": "Marina took her new arrival to the police station. \"I could really use your help,\" she said to the clerk at the front desk, a woman with finely shaped brows and fading lipstick. \"I have an older woman here who's lost. She doesn't seem to speak English and I don't know where to put her.\"\n\n\"Okay. Where is she?\"\n\nMarina turned and nodded at the woman, whose feet barely reached the ground. \"She's sitting right there.\"\n\nThe clerk looked in the direction Marina gestured to and frowned. \"Where?\"\n\n\"Right there,\" she pointed, not understanding the other woman's confusion since there was no one else there. \"The woman right there.\"\n\n\"What woman?\" the clerk said suddenly cautious, licking the rest of her faded lipstick from her mouth.\n\nMarina turned and saw the older woman flash a strange smile. \"You don't see her?\"\n\n\"Do you need somewhere to stay?\"\n\n\"No, I'm fine.\"\n\n\"Have you been drinking?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Taking anything?\"\n\n\"I'm perfectly lucid.\" At least I think so. Her mother's suggestion was playing with her thoughts. It couldn't be. How could she have picked up a witch? They didn't exist. Not like this. They weren't invisible. Then why couldn't anyone else see or hear her?\n\nShe turned to the woman. \"Why are you doing this to me? At least say something.\"\n\nHer smile remained.\n\n\"What have I done wrong to deserve this?\"\n\nThe clerk cleared her throat. \"Why don't you just take a seat? I'll get someone to help you.\"\n\nMarina spun around and glared at her. \"I'm not crazy.\"\n\n\"Of course you're not,\" the clerk said in an indulgent tone.\n\nMarina was about to take umbrage with her tone when a man came from around the corner. He looked as if he'd had a worse night than she'd had. He hadn't shaved in a while and his tie had the crooked look of a man who just didn't care. If Marina had been in the mood she would have noticed that he was good looking, in a rugged way, but she just didn't care. She wanted to get rid of the old woman and go back to sleep. Or wake up from this nightmare, whichever was faster.\n\n\"Idris what's the name of the local shelter?\" the clerk asked.\n\n\"It's going to be pretty full,\" he said. \"What's that other lady here for?\"\n\nThe clerk stared at him stunned.\n\nMarina jumped with joy, wanting to grab his sleeve but refraining. She wasn't imagining things. \"You see her too?\"\n\nHe sent her an odd look. \"Of course I see her. She's sitting right there. How could I miss her?\"\n\nThe clerk shook her head. \"Idris you've had a long night.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"There's no one there.\"\n\n\"Maybe you need a rest. It's two to one.\"\n\n\"There's one way to decide this.\" The clerk took out her phone and took a picture. Then she grinned with triumph. \"I'm right.\" She turned the image to them. They saw the wall and an empty chair.\n\nMarina turned to the woman then the image on the tiny screen. \"I don't believe this.\"\n\n\"There's something wrong with your camera,\" Idris said.\n\nThe clerk took the phone and tucked it away. \"It's Christmas Eve and it's a crazy night, weird things happen. I think you two should just go home.\"\n\nThe older woman leaped to her feet. \"Yes, it's time,\" she said in perfect English. Then she grabbed Marina's hand and Idris's.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Idris said.\n\n\"You speak English?\" Marina said at the same time.\n\nThey both looked at the woman then each other with a mixture of fear and awe then their world went black."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 15",
                "text": "When Idris Helmond came to, he didn't know how to feel. One moment he was thinking about closing a case on the brutal beating of a gas station attendant and finding the right gift to make his girlfriend, Deena, happy. She was pissed about something, but that wasn't new. She was always pissed about something and she wouldn't tell him why, she'd only let him know he was the cause. Then he'd seen the pretty young woman trying to find shelter for an older woman who looked strangely cunning.\n\nHe didn't know where he was or what to think. He looked around him and saw the neat road and manicured lawns of a neighborhood. The place felt familiar. He looked around and spotted a house--It was his sister's house. Beautifully decorated for the holidays. But he knew it wasn't like that now. That house was no longer hers. The scene was from three years ago. He shook his head in rising dread and took a hasty step back. \"No, no. What are we doing here?\"\n\n\"You have to be here,\" the older woman said.\n\n\"No, I don't. I know what happens. I don't need to be here. Let's go.\"\n\n\"Idris.\"\n\nHe threw up his hand, his voice in a near panic. \"I said I don't want to be here.\"\n\n\"What is this place?\" Marina asked.\n\n\"It doesn't matter, let's go.\" But the woman wouldn't release her hold and she had the strength to keep him there. \"Get us out of here whoever--or whatever you are,\" he said in his best 'or you'll regret this' tone.\n\nBut the older woman didn't release him.\n\nHe turned and saw a woman march up to the front door as if on a mission. She flipped through the many keys on her keychain before she got the right one. She placed the key in the lock then turned the handle with an angry twist. \"No. Don't go in there. Please.\" He turned to the older woman, feeling as if he could no longer breathe. \"Make her stop.\"\n\n\"I can't.\"\n\n\"Then why did you bring me here?\"\n\n\"Haven't you been playing this scene over in your mind for three years? Haven't you already remembered and replayed every detail? Isn't this the reason you won't see your nephews? Why you make excuses not to visit your parents every holiday season? You're here because this is where you're stuck. This is where you stopped your life too. Your sister got twenty-five to life, but you're living a life sentence by staying in a job you hate because it makes your parents proud. Staying in a relationship that is soulless. You chose this. When are you going to get past this moment? A moment that will never change?\"\n\n\"She shouldn't have had keys to his place. Why did it have to happen? She was my baby sister and I couldn't stop her.\"\n\n\"No. She was a woman who'd made a choice.\"\n\n\"I gave her the gun to protect herself.\"\n\n\"She used it for something else. Your sister couldn't except that her ex had remarried, that he'd created a new life for himself. Just like you, she couldn't move on. She was convicted because she hadn't snapped. She decided to pick up the kids early. She decided to catch her ex with his new love and she decided to shoot them both dead.\"\n\nThey heard a scream and then three pops.\n\n\"You couldn't have stopped it,\" the older woman said.\n\nIdris fell to his knees, losing all strength, as if he'd been shot too. The awful part was the guilt. Her husband had been his best friend. He'd felt the loss from the divorce too. His sister had been married to Nathanial for ten years and he'd been a good father to their two sons. He'd been someone Idris had admired. He'd expected Nathanial to be his best man one day. He'd seen them as the perfect couple until the cracks began to show.\n\nHe remembered his brother-in-law complaining about his sister's drinking and shopping sprees. He remembered Nathanial getting full custody of the children. Idris understood the judge's ruling, his sister had become unstable, but he still had divided loyalties, even though it was best for the boys. His parents had remained blind wanting to see their precious little girl as the victim and Nathanial as the villain. But he knew it wasn't as black and white as that. Just like his nephews, his world had been shattered that day. He'd buried someone who'd been like a brother and lost his sister too. She was still bitter, even in prison. She still blamed the system for not understanding her rage. His parents blamed him for not seeing the signs sooner. For somehow not stopping it.\n\n\"The season had nothing to do with her choice,\" the older woman said.\n\n\"Really?\" he said with a sneer. \"You know the rates of murders go up around the holidays?\"\n\n\"Was it the holidays that put the liquor down her throat or the gun in her hand?\"\n\n\"She snapped because she felt so alone,\" Idris said trying to rationalize something he knew he couldn't. \"She felt disconnected. It's a season that feeds discontentment. Domestic violence cases practically sky rocket. A time of good cheer my ass. People find even more reasons to hate each other.\"\n\n\"Remember when you and Nathanial took your nephews sledding? Remember the time when you both laughed at the instructions for putting together a racecar track? You had joy. That joy was real. It's okay to love your sister and hate what she did. Your friend wouldn't want you to throw away all the good times just for this moment. You have to get past this.\"\n\n\"I don't know how,\" he said his voice raw. He glanced at the younger woman, who stood motionless beside the other woman, wondering why he'd chosen to share this nightmare with her.\n\n\"You can do it by looking at this place one last time. And saying goodbye.\"\n\n\"My parents blame me and his parents won't talk to me.\"\n\n\"You shut Nathanial's parents out of your life as much as you have your nephews. And they miss you. Don't let the memory of their father die. You don't have to replace him. But make his life mean more than his death. Don't let your sister's bitterness rob you too.\"\n\nA purple fog quickly swept over the scene and soon they stood in front of Nathanial's grave. A light dusting of snow fell from the blanket of white clouds, but Idris didn't feel cold. He didn't feel anything. He brushed the snow from the headstone then gathered some and let it melt between his fingers. He remembered introducing Nathanial to his sister and the instant attraction between them. He remembered his sister telling him about their first date. He remembered their wedding day and visiting the hospital when Nathanial held their first son and the pride and joy on his face.\n\nTears filled and stung his eyes as he recalled the fights, the tense phone calls, the divorce proceeding and then his sister's conviction. Both he and Nathanial had been detectives, determined to help and serve others, but hadn't been able to fix their own lives. Idris tasted the tears though he didn't feel them streaming down his face. \"I'm so sorry,\" he said, then he felt the cold against his skin, the wetness on his cheeks. He felt his loss, his rage and his despair.\n\n\"He's forgiven you,\" the old woman said. \"He wants you to know that. Now you have to forgive yourself.\"\n\nIdris wiped his tears then fell to his knees feeling like a broken man. \"I can't.\"\n\n\"Because you're afraid. You're afraid that if it couldn't go right for him, it won't for you. So you won't even try. But you're wrong. You can have the life you want. You know Nathanial knew there were signs early on that the relationship wouldn't work. He told you some of them but he chose to ignore them. I'm not saying he's responsible, but there are gray areas that none of you could see. Some you didn't want to see.\"\n\nIdris nodded. \"I know.\"\n\n\"Now say the name of his favorite holiday song.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Say it, then say goodbye.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"It's stupid.\"\n\n\"Say it anyway.\"\n\nHe sighed. \"I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.\"\n\nMarina giggled then covered her mouth embarrassed, but Idris heard it anyway and couldn't help a smile. He'd forgotten she was there and he felt awkward that she'd seen him at such a fragile time. He was used to keeping his emotions bottled up, but when he looked at her, he didn't feel that she was judging him and that made his awkwardness disappear. Made him glad he wasn't alone. \"The idiot,\" he said with fondness. \"He loved that song and knew all the words. He'd hum it just to annoy me.\"\n\n\"Sounds like a fun guy.\"\n\n\"He was. He loved the holidays. Everything about it.\"\n\nMarina kneeled beside him and tentatively took his hand, half expecting him to pull away. \"I'm sorry.\"\n\nHe squeezed her hand and released a deep shuddering breathe, as if he'd been holding it a long time. \"Thanks.\"\n\n\"Do you really hate your job?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yes, every single day I feel like I'm dying.\"\n\n\"Then why don't you change it?\"\n\nHe sent her a look of surprise. \"You think it's that easy?\"\n\n\"No, but it's better than feeling like this.\"\n\n\"Tell her what you want,\" the old woman said.\n\nHe stood and dusted snow from his trousers although he didn't need to. Although the ground was powered with snow, his trousers remained dry. \"No.\"\n\n\"Are you afraid to?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Tell her later then.\" The old woman turned to Marina. \"Now it's your turn.\"\n\n\"I guess I don't have a choice,\" she said with a grimace before their world went black."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 16",
                "text": "After seeing Idris's past, Marina prepared herself for a painful holiday memory. So when she saw the sight of her old bakery kitchen she couldn't help her surprise. She stared at the sight of the woman she'd been four years ago. The kitchen was small, all her new equipment that Eli would encourage her to purchase hadn't filled the room yet. She saw herself stirring something in a bowl and humming. She then scooped the contents into a tube and decorated cookies with a flair of fun. Her efforts weren't perfect, but she didn't seem to mind. Marina gaped at her younger self with wonder. She didn't remember even being that happy.\n\n\"What are we doing here?\" Marina asked. \"I already know I'm going to fail. I already know this isn't what I'm meant to do.\"\n\nThe old woman held up one finger. \"Just wait.\"\n\nMarina folded her arms, feeling impatient. She didn't want to wait. She wanted to leave. She wanted to go back to sleep and forget this day ever happened. She was about to comment to the fact when Eli walked into the room. Eli the man she'd thought she'd loved and who she'd thought loved her and her dreams. The man who'd told her he'd support her through thick and thin. The one who'd later embezzle her funds and leave her heart broken.\n\n\"What are you doing?\"\n\n\"Working on a new icing.\"\n\nHe frowned \"You're still trying that?\"\n\n\"I want to make it work.\"\n\n\"You're wasting your time. Why don't you just focus on what will make money?\"\n\nFor the first time Marina noticed how he hadn't greeted her and how much he didn't look pleased. Why hadn't she seen that before? He was only about making money. He didn't care what she did. He didn't care about her passion. She loved baking, she'd forgotten about that. She'd let him douse her hopes and leave an empty shell.\n\nBut the younger version of herself didn't know this. She gave him a taste of the icing.\n\nHe made a face and shook his head. \"It's still not up to standard. You know you're no good at this. I told you to stick with simple things. Why won't you listen?\"\n\n\"I wanted to give customers a new experience.\"\n\n\"This isn't a culinary institute. You're not making art. Just bake cookies and cakes and you'll be in the black instead of the red. Now let's go.\"\n\nMarina saw the light in her eyes dim.\n\n\"Who is this jerk?\" Idris said.\n\n\"The man I thought I'd marry,\" Marina said.\n\n\"Oh, sorry.\"\n\n\"Me too.\"\n\nShe saw her younger self watch Eli leave the kitchen and then she took all her experiments and dumped them into the trash.\n\n\"That was the moment you let him steal your dream,\" the old woman said.\n\nMarina let her hands fall to her sides. \"My dream failed. I failed. The business flopped. Even if he hadn't taken the money he was right, I was no good.\"\n\n\"But you were getting better. You stopped trying. You listened to him when you should have ignored him. He didn't support you. He lied to you and you believed his lies. What if you'd kept experimenting and one of them worked? You started to make your business just about money and not about joy. That was when you gave up on your dream. Your dream never gave up on you.\" The old woman pointed to the trash bin. \"This is the moment you failed.\"\n\nMarina twisted her lips and shrugged. \"It's too late now.\"\n\nThe old woman took Marina's hand and patted it. \"You're too young to start speaking like an old woman. Even if you were my age it wouldn't be too late to live with joy. To try. To dream.\" The old woman looked at Idris. \"Are you ready to tell her what you've always wanted to do?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nShe sighed.\n\n\"Why won't you tell me?\" Marina asked. \"We'll never see each other again. Are you afraid because you'll fail like I did?\"\n\nHe shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away.\n\nMarina looked at the old woman. \"I don't understand any of this.\" She glanced around the kitchen that was no longer hers. A past that still caused her pain. \"Why are you showing us things we can't change?\"\n\n\"Because that's the point. You can't change the past, but the future is yours. You don't have to be stuck here. The holidays are full of presents. Not just the gifts given to each other, but the moments you inhabit every day. They matter. The choices you make matter. Make your presents matter, then the future will belong to you. You just have to believe it.\"\n\nMarina bit her lip then squinted at her. \"What are you?\"\n\n\"Does it matter?\"\n\n\"Why couldn't I understand you before?\"\n\n\"Because you weren't ready to.\"\n\n\"Why us?\"\n\nThe old woman kissed her teeth with annoyance. \"You ask such silly questions. Why not you? If I am a spirit or a ghost or your imagination does it matter? Those questions aren't important. The important question is: What will you do next?\"\n\n\"Will we remember any of this?\"\n\nShe just smiled.\n\nIdris rested his hands on his hips. \"What should we do next?\"\n\nHer smile just widened.\n\n\"I think that's all she'll tell us,\" Marina said. \"This is what she did to me when we first met.\"\n\n\"I guess it's a sign that our journey is coming to an end.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Marina glanced at his tie and had a strange urge to straighten it, but resisted. She lifted her gaze to his face. He had a nice face and she wished she could know him better. After Eli's betrayal, she hadn't wanted to know another man. \"Whatever happens, good luck to you. I hope that you'll see your nephews this year.\"\n\n\"And you should keep baking, if it makes you happy.\"\n\n\"It does.\" She tilted her head to the side. \"And what did you always want to do?\"\n\nThis time he only smiled but for the first time she saw a twinkle in his eye.\n\n\"Fine, don't tell me. Good luck with that too.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\"\n\nThe old woman took both their hands and they shared a look--this time with hope and anticipation--then the world went black."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 17",
                "text": "The phone call shattered a beautiful dream at 3a.m. on Christmas Eve. Marina groggily reached for the phone hoping that it would stop ringing by the time she picked up. It didn't.\n\n\"Hello?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry to wake you,\" her mother said. \"But I need you to pick up Uncle Sola.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Uncle Sola. He'll be arriving at BWI and--\"\n\n\"Mom I can't keep doing this.\"\n\n\"I know and I feel bad but I know you're off all week.\"\n\n\"Off?\" Was she trying to be funny? She wasn't off. She didn't have a job.\n\n\"Yes, you and the boys are going to Delaware. Just this quick favor and I won't do it again.\" She gave the flight number and description then hung up.\n\nDelaware? Boys? Her words vaguely made sense but then they didn't make sense at all. Her mind felt as though it was between a dream and a wake state.\n\n\"What was that about?\" a deep voice said beside her.\n\nMarina froze. She knew that voice, but yet she didn't know it. And what was he doing in her bed? She slowly turned to him. Idris. Not the sad, tired Idris from the police station. He looked sleepy, but happy.\n\nShe pushed her sheets away. \"I have to go pick someone up from the airport.\"\n\nHe frowned and put the sheets back. \"No, you're not.\"\n\n\"My mother.\"\n\n\"Give me the phone.\"\n\n\"But--\"\n\nHe reached across her, grabbed the phone and dialed. \"Hi Mom. Sorry she can't make it. Tell him to take a taxi and I'll pay for the tab. Yes, I know. I don't care. Then get Wale to do it. Yes. Okay, bye.\" He disconnected and handed her the phone.\n\nMarina gripped the phone in two hands. \"What did she say?\"\n\n\"Relax. You don't have to go.\"\n\nHe'd called her mother 'Mom'. Yes, because he was her husband. That felt right. Yes, they were married. Why had she ever imagined him sad? And she'd never been in a police station. Where had that thought come from? The dream state faded and everything became clear. They'd been married a year. He used to be a detective and now he was a real estate developer, raising his two nephews. She did catering: Sweet desserts. She wasn't making lots of money but she was happy and he always let her practice her experiments on him and the boys loved to be in the kitchen with her. She suddenly remembered snow ball fights and searching for a tree. But most of all she remembered meeting him one Christmas day.\n\nHe'd taken his nephews to a birthday party a friend had invited her to cater and their eyes met over a row of cupcakes and for her it felt like she'd known him from somewhere. Like they'd known each other forever. She still felt that way.\n\nMarina settled back under the warm sheets. There was a question that niggled her mind. She didn't know why, but for some reason she wanted to know the answer. She had to. \"What have you always wanted to do?\"\n\nIdris was slow to answer and at first she thought he may have fallen back asleep.\n\nHe hadn't. He felt as if someone had asked him that question before and he'd had a hard time answering. But now he wanted to. He looked around the cozy bedroom knowing his nephews were safe and asleep in their beds, the presents were under the tree ready to be opened. He could already taste the maple syrup covered waffles Marina would make for breakfast. He looked at his wife, his friend, unsure he could put into words all they'd asked for. He'd wanted to follow his heart and take care of his nephews, build a business that would support his family and find a woman he wasn't afraid to love. One he could trust. A woman who'd love him just as he was.\n\nIdris drew her close, amazed that he'd gotten all that he'd ever dreamed. \"This,\" he said then tenderly placed his lips against hers.\n\nAnd the next morning on top of the Christmas tree, Marina saw an angel that wasn't the same one she'd put there several weeks ago. It didn't have wings, instead it wore a brightly colored headwrap, matching dress and a big smile.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ The Gift Box ]\n\n\"So what do you think?\"\n\nTamara Cole stared at the box and didn't exactly know what to think of the present her husband, Ross, had given her. She'd torn through the brightly colored green and gold wrapping paper that Christmas Eve and lifted the lid, giddy with expectation. The size of the box had been too large to be jewelry, certainly too small to be a TV, but still large enough to get her imagination spinning. Even before she'd lifted the box, she'd come up with a series of guesses.\n\nThe soccer ball sized square box could have been the stack of new plush towels she'd wanted, a silk robe and pajama set she'd been eyeing, perhaps something for the baby they planned to welcome in four months. Maybe it was a set of lavender bath lotions, she really wanted to pamper herself with during the times when she felt a little dumpy. Although she was excited about becoming a mother, she was also a little nervous too. There was so much she didn't know.\n\nThis Christmas would be their last as a couple and Ross had helped her make it special. They'd gotten a tall, fresh evergreen tree, which stood boldly near the window. A lovely sight every time they arrived home. She'd bought extra garlands for the hallway, a wreath so large it covered half of the front door and a welcome mat showing a picture of a holly bush that lit up when people stepped on it.\n\nShe looked forward to the Christmas dinner tomorrow evening, when her parents, and her sister and her family, would arrive, but this Christmas Eve belonged to them. They sat together on the carpet in front of the tree, in the hushed silence of the evening, the ticking clock the only other sound in the room. It was supposed to be a night she'd remember forever, a gift that would bring tears of joy to her face.\n\nInstead...instead\u2026he'd given her this? Tamara stared inside the box speechless.\n\n\"Honey, what do you think?\" he asked again.\n\nHoney? He dared to call her that? \"I don't know what to think,\" she said, stumbling over the words, not sure if she should laugh or cry. Anger mingled with annoyance and disbelief.\n\n\"I know,\" he said with a proud grin. \"Isn't it amazing? I didn't think I'd get one. You can image how hard it was, but I was determined.\"\n\nTamara set the box on the ground, stunned her husband could mock her with such a goofy expression on his handsome brown face. Why was he smiling? \"I don't think it's funny.\"\n\nHis smile wavered. \"It wasn't meant to be funny.\"\n\n\"Then what's an empty box supposed to be?\"\n\nHis smile disappeared. \"Empty?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Yes, empty.\"\n\n\"How could it be empty?\" He reached for the box and looked inside then stared at her, his brown eyes stunned. \"It's right there. Don't you see it?\"\n\nTamara looked inside again. Was he playing some sort of cruel joke? She didn't see anything. Just the white interior of a square cube. \"No.\"\n\nHe frowned. \"Maybe we should get your eyes checked.\"\n\n\"Maybe we should get your head checked,\" she shot back. She lifted the box. \"This is completely empty,\" she said and began to turn it upside down to prove her point.\n\nHe reached out and stopped her. \"Don't do that!\" He took the box from her and gently set it down beside him. \"You'll damage it. You have to be very careful. It wasn't easy to get you know.\"\n\nShe surged to her feet. \"I'm not playing this silly game anymore.\"\n\nHe stared up at her. \"It's not a game.\"\n\nShe pointed at the box. \"There's nothing in there.\" She took a deep breath then rested her hands on her hips. \"Ross, don't do this. You know how important this evening is to me. She smoothed down her blue and silver blouse, which she'd worn especially for the evening, and rested her hands at her sides. She would be calm. \"Now where's my real present?\"\n\nRoss looked at her for a long moment, resting his arm on his extended leg. \"This gift is what I got you.\" He gestured to the box. \"It's all that I got you. I thought you'd\u2026\" He furrowed his brows. \"You really don't see it?\"\n\nShe didn't understand why he wouldn't back down, but she didn't care. \"No, and when my family doesn't see it too, you'd better make sure my real present is spectacular.\"\n\nAs she set the table for dinner the following evening, a part of Tamara regretted making the suggestion. She didn't want to expose her husband's silly prank to her family. She'd hoped that after she'd challenged him, he would have said, \"No, there's no need to do that,\" and then give her her real gift. But instead, he'd nodded grimly and said, \"Fine,\" before clearing the wrapping paper away.\n\nRoss showed everyone the box after dessert. Tamara had been left to watch a holiday cartoon with her niece and nephew, aged three and five, when Ross had taken her parents, sister Carrie and her husband into another room and showed them the gift. He'd told her that the gift wasn't appropriate for children their age. She heard their collective gasp from the other room. Her mother then spoke in a tone filled with awe, although Tamara couldn't make out the words, her father's low grumble sounded equally amazed.\n\nWhen they all returned to the family room, Ross sent her a look saying, \"See? I told you,\" before her mother told her how lucky she was. Tamara couldn't believe it. They'd all seen it? How could that be? Why was she the only one who couldn't see it? Were they all just pretending?\n\nThese questions swirled in her mind as she cleared up the kitchen. Then her sister Carrie came in and offered to help.\n\nHer older sister Carrie had done everything right. Carrie, with her six figure salary, vacation house, master's degree and svelte physique\u2014smooth mocha skin and dark twists which fell to her shoulders. Carrie, with her two great kids and husband. Carrie, who succeeded even when she wasn't trying. Tamara watched her sister enter her tiny kitchen wearing jeans and a satin red top, looking like a woman who hired someone else to handle her stress. Even with two kids and a high powered job she looked calm and confident.\n\nTamara both admired and envied her. As much as she tried to follow the same path as her sister, she always fell short. She'd married later than her sister\u2014early thirties instead of late twenties. She'd started a family later than planned\u2014three years instead of two, she hadn't graduated from university with honors. She hadn't graduated at all, dropping out in her third year. She worked as a bookkeeper for her husband's furniture restoration business. Not a glamorous role nor as lucrative as being the vice president of a bank.\n\nShe didn't have a housekeeper to keep her place spotless, her dinner parties weren't talked about months later and now\u2026now her sister (and her parents) saw a gift Ross had given her, a gift that she still couldn't see. And when she glanced down at the red blouse she'd chosen for the evening\u2014why did it have to be red?\u2014she felt as round and ridiculous as a Christmas ornament.\n\n\"What was the first thing you did when you saw it?\" Carrie asked Tamara as she helped her load dishes stained yellow and red from curried chicken and jollof rice into the dishwasher.\n\nTamara scratched the back of her ear. \"I was so\u2026happy I just hugged him.\"\n\nCarrie looked at her for a long moment then rested her hip against the counter and folded her arms. \"You don't see it, do you?\"\n\nTamara's chest tightened. She felt caught, exposed. Her throat tightened. She struggled to swallow. She couldn't let her sister know the truth. Anybody else, her parents, her friends, people in other countries, but not her. \"Yes, I do.\"\n\nCarrie sent her a look that made it clear she knew Tamara was lying, but she shrugged her shoulder before continuing loading the dishes. \"I wish my husband got me a gift like that. What do you plan to do?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\" She hesitated. \"What would you do?\"\n\nA self-satisfied smile touched Carrie's lips. \"Doesn't matter, it's not my gift.\"\n\nTamara rubbed her hands knowing that look, that smile, her innocent question had exposed the truth, but she didn't care. She'd had to take a risk. She truly wanted to know what was in the box and what her sister would do with it. But her sister wouldn't help her. She'd keep the knowledge a secret. Her sister, who always knew everything. Tamara made a face at her sister when Carrie looked down to turn on the dishwasher. Did she have to sound so smug? Couldn't she give her a hint?\n\nThe dishwasher hummed to life.\n\n\"But there is one thing you should do,\" Carrie said, looking at her.\n\n\"What?\" Tamara asked, hoping her expression did not betray her.\n\nHer gaze turned serious, her words heartfelt. \"Cherish him. A man like Ross doesn't come along every day.\"\n\nDid the gift have something to do with Ross? Was that what she was missing? Tamara sat up in bed, drumming her fingers on her rounded belly, ruminating over her sister's words instead of looking at the wood crafter's magazine on her lap. She stole a glance at Ross while he sat beside her with his eyes closed while he listened to an audiobook. She didn't know how he could do that. She'd tried it once and had fallen asleep, but it was his favorite nightly ritual.\n\nShe studied his profile and sighed. Why had her sister mentioned her husband instead of the gift? Were they one in the same? She clasped her hands together as a thought came to her. She tapped him on the shoulder.\n\nHe took off his headset and looked at her questioning.\n\n\"Okay, I get it now,\" she said. \"It's symbolic. It's a box of your love or your affection. It's something that's there but I haven't been paying attention to because I've been preparing for the baby so I haven't seen it, right? Is that what you're telling me?\"\n\nHe set his headset aside and sighed. \"It's not invisible, honey. It's not something I made up. It's real and tangible.\"\n\nHer buoyant mood faded, she'd hoped she'd solved the mystery. Instead she'd failed. She stared down at an ad in the magazine for wood polish, hating the look of disappointment in his gaze. She hated disappointing him. She didn't even know what she'd done wrong. Why couldn't she see his gift?\n\n\"Maybe you can't see it because of the baby,\" he said. \"Maybe that's interfering with it.\" He patted her hand. \"Don't worry about it and go to sleep.\" He put his headset back on.\n\nShe didn't want to admit defeat. She didn't want to admit that the problem wasn't his gift, but her. It made her question too much. Was this why her life hadn't followed the timeline she'd planned? Was this why they were still living in a little green apple colored colonial instead of the grand Georgian she'd thought she'd be living in by now? Would she be a good mother? Did he think she was a good wife. A good worker? Did he know how hard she tried to make it all work?\n\nTangible. He'd said it was real and tangible. She'd never tried to touch it before.\n\nTamara left the bedroom and returned to the gift box she'd left under the tree. The box felt so light, how could anything possibly be inside it? She lifted the lid, reached her hand inside and felt nothing.\n\nThen something, soft like a feather or the wings of a butterfly, brushed against her fingers. Or was that just a breeze? She tried again and felt it again. She yanked her hand out. There was something inside, but why couldn't she see it? What was it?\n\nShe pretended to sleep that night, but cried instead. She cried quietly so that Ross wouldn't notice. She let the tears fall and bit her lip hard so she wouldn't make a sound. It was supposed to be a happy day\u2014a happy season\u2014but her heart felt shattered.\n\n\"I didn't mean to make you cry,\" Ross said the next morning at breakfast as he set a plate of seasoned eggs, spinach and baked plantain in front of her.\n\n\"I don't know what you mean,\" Tamara said, lifting her fork.\n\n\"Don't lie to me.\"\n\nShe set her fork down ashamed. She'd tried to hide her red puffy eyes with makeup. Clearly her attempt at camouflage had failed.\n\n\"One lie is enough,\" he said before she could apologize.\n\nShe blinked shocked. \"What lie? When?\"\n\n\"When you told me you believed in them.\"\n\nTamara felt her blood grow cold as she met his steady, penetrating gaze. Suddenly she knew what she should have seen: A sula. A fairy that only appears to believers. They never show themselves to those who pretend. They reveal a person's true heart. And she'd been exposed as a fraud. She'd heard the stories about them as a child, learned that their presence had first been noticed centuries ago in a village located off the tip of West Africa. No one was quite sure which country\u2014it shifted depending on the storyteller. Most Westerners disregarded them because they were quiet, shy and didn't travel in groups as other known fairies tended to.\n\nShe opened her mouth desperately wanting to say, \"I saw it a little bit,\" but closed her mouth knowing that would be a lie. And she didn't want to lie to him again.\n\nA shot of anger coursed through her. How could this be happening? Why had he tested her? Why had he used such a big box for something so small? How could she have guessed? But just as quickly her anger disappeared, the fact that she couldn't see it wasn't his fault. He'd tried to surprise her. Just as he had when he'd proposed to her on her birthday, presenting her with a big box with a tiny engagement ring inside, tied to a red rose.\n\nHer sister was right\u2014it was an amazing gift. Sulas only appeared around the holidays to special people. But it hadn't revealed itself to her. What did this mean? How would Ross look at her now? Would he trust her again?\n\nShe hadn't exactly lied when he'd first asked her whether she believed in them. She was so in love, everything seemed rosy and possible then. She'd loved him and didn't think that it mattered. But would he trust her again after this?\n\n\"I used to believe once,\" she said, desperate to fill the silence. \"When I was a child then...I let it go.\"\n\nHis gaze fell to his plate but not fast enough to hide the glimmer of sadness hidden there. \"They only stay three days and then disappear. I had hoped you'd get a wish, but I guess...\"\n\n\"I will. I'll get a wish. Please give me a chance.\"\n\nHe reached over and patted her hand in the same reassuring way he had last night, but instead of feeling comfort, it stung. \"Never mind. I'll get you something else tomorrow.\"\n\nShe didn't want another gift. She wanted this one. This mattered more than anything he could buy at a store.\n\nLater that day, Tamara knelt in front of the box. \"Please show yourself to me, I do believe. I have to believe.\" After a moment she added, \"If not for me then for Ross. He means so much to me and it would make him so happy.\"\n\nBut no matter how much she begged nothing appeared.\n\nShe felt a light touch on her shoulder. \"Darling, come to bed, you've been here nearly all day.\"\n\nShe hadn't noticed. It didn't matter. Nothing else mattered. \"I'll be there in a minute.\"\n\n\"Tamara.\"\n\n\"If Carrie can see it, I must see it too.\"\n\n\"This is not a competition.\"\n\nYes it is, she wanted to say, but he wouldn't understand. She couldn't have her sister achieve something else she couldn't. She had to prove that she was a good wife; didn't he know how much his disappointment hurt her?\n\nShe shrugged his hand away. \"Please, just leave me alone.\" I have to do this! She only had one day left.\n\nShe felt a feather-light kiss on her forehead then heard his footsteps fade away upstairs.\n\nShe wanted to believe again. She wanted to feel the magic again and trust in it. She closed her eyes and willed her heart to see what was there, but when she opened her eyes the box was still empty.\n\nShe clasped her hands together in a plea and squeezed her eyes shut as night swallowed up day until only the glow of the tree dotted the room with tiny lights. \"I need just one look. One glance. I wish I could see you if only for a moment.\"\n\nShe heard nothing move, she felt nothing happen. She opened her eyes, her heart sinking at the sight of the still empty box.\n\n\"I'm not in there anymore you know,\" a tiny voice said.\n\nTamara glanced up and saw a tiny brown fairy sitting crossed-legged on a branch, her wings a shimmering green gold, her skin the color of chestnut, her dark hair coiled into an elaborate braid.\n\nTamara stared wide-eyed, her heart racing. \"You're real.\"\n\n\"Of course I'm real.\"\n\n\"And beautiful.\"\n\n\"Naturally, and I don't have much time either.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know. I get to make my wish,\" Tamara said with eagerness. What should she wish for first? Something for her baby or for humankind or\u2026?\n\nThe sula swung her foot. \"You already made your wish.\"\n\nTamara frowned. \"No, I didn't.\"\n\n\"You wished with all your heart that you would be able to see me.\" She opened her arms wide. \"And now you can.\"\n\n\"But\u2014\"\n\nShe wagged her finger, a little gold bracelet swaying on her arm. \"Those are the rules. I made your wish come true.\" She folded her arms and shrugged her tiny shoulders. \"It's not my fault you wasted your wish on something so simple.\"\n\nTamara waited for a feeling of anger to hit her\u2014yes she'd wasted time, so much time\u2014but instead she didn't feel anything, but relief. The sula was right, it was her fault that she'd lost the ability to see what was there. It was her fault she'd stopped believing.\n\nBut that evening, she'd been given new eyes. Eyes to see all the gifts that surrounded her in brilliant glory: Her husband. The new life that would soon join them. Her family. Instead of a house that was too small, she saw a beautiful home--with its dark shutters and snow dusted driveway--that was just right for them.\n\nSoon her gaze sharpened to extend beyond her and she now saw that'd she'd been running a race of her own making, that life wasn't a competition; that being amazed by her sister's accomplishments didn't make hers\u2014a thriving business and growing customer base\u2014any less wonderful. And beyond herself and her town she heard it speak\u2014Peace. Peace in its silence\u2014free from the sound of bomb blasts, gun shots, screams, cries, roaring tanks, police and ambulance sirens\u2014filled her being. Peace amid life's horrors restored her.\n\nHer eyes filled with tears of joy mingled with shame. She'd been blind to so many things. She'd been blind to true happiness. \"Thank you. Thank you for everything.\"\n\nThe sula smiled then stood and bowed before disappearing. Lights suddenly flooded the room.\n\nTamara looked around as if waking from a dream.\n\n\"Are you talking to yourself again?\" Ross asked behind her.\n\nShe jumped to her feet and hugged him. \"I saw her! I saw her and she's wonderful.\"\n\nHe held her close. \"Really?\"\n\n\"She had a tiny little voice, gold bracelets on both wrists, white slippered shoes and soft fairy wings.\"\n\nRoss didn't reply, but she felt the tension in him\u2014between them\u2014relax. \"I'm glad you saw her.\"\n\nShe drew back and looked at him. \"Now I see so many things.\" She cupped his face. \"I see how lucky I am to have you. To have this,\" she said motioning to the room and everything that it meant. \"And so much more. Your gift is something I will never forget.\"\n\nAnd four months later when her baby girl was born, Tamara saw a special sparkle in her daughter's brown gaze and knew she'd never be blind to life's magic again."
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "title": "(Sprite Brigade 1) Candy Canes and Buckets of Blood",
        "author": "Heide Goody",
        "genres": [
            "horror",
            "fantasy",
            "humor"
        ],
        "tags": [],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "Candy Canes & Buckets of Blood",
                "text": "When they announced the next station stop would be Great Eccles, Esther Woollby instinctively put her hands on her homemade tote bag, even though it had been sitting safely on her lap the entire journey.\n\n\"You'll like Guin,\" she said to Newton, sitting opposite her.\n\nDespite his perpetually worried expression, Esther had always thought, with his untamed black hair and proud nose, Newton would grow to be a handsome man. With a wild Byronic air about him. Right now, he just looked like a worried teenager with unruly hair and a big nose. She worried how worried he looked. She made sure she didn't look worried. It would only worry him.\n\n\"You will like her,\" she insisted.\n\n\"I'm sure I will,\" he said and caught her gaze. \"Don't worry, mum.\"\n\n\"I'm not worried,\" she said. \"I just don't want you to worry.\"\n\n\"I'm not worried.\"\n\n\"You look worried.\"\n\n\"I'm thoughtful.\"\n\n\"What are you worri\u2014 Thoughtful about?\"\n\n\"Lily,\" he said.\n\nEsther should have suspected. He was a teenager. They were obsessive creatures. \"You'll be fine without her for a day or two,\" she said.\n\n\"Of course I will,\" he said. \"But will she be fine?\"\n\n\"You gave her a Christmas present before we left?\"\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"Then she knows you care. And you'll be back before she knows you've gone.\"\n\n\"She already knows I'm gone.\"\n\n\"How do you know? Did she text you?\" She gave him her best goofy grin to reinforce the joke. Newton smiled politely, but that was all. The boy was always cracking jokes, awful jokes, but one of the unwritten rules of Newton World was mums weren't allowed to be funny.\n\n\"Listen.\" She leaned forward and put her fingerless gloved hands on his knees. \"You miss her. I get that. But, no offence, she's not like you.\"\n\n\"Not like me?\"\n\n\"Apart from the obvious.\" She bit her lip, wanting to tread carefully. \"I'm just saying that she'll be delighted to see you when you get back, but in the meantime, she'll just \u2026 cope.\"\n\n\"Cope, huh?\" said Newton. He held up his phone and showed her a picture. \"That's from her Instagram page.\"\n\n\"Lily has an Instagram page?\"\n\n\"Yolanda at the farm helps manage it.\"\n\n\"Is Yolanda the cute one into all that anime manga stuff?\"\n\n\"Mum! Look!\" He flicked to another picture. \"Yesterday.\" He flicked back. \"This morning. Yesterday. This morning. Tell me Lily doesn't look despondent in that one.\"\n\nEsther was wondering how to politely suggest that despondent was a strong word, particularly since she couldn't see any difference in the pictures. She was saved by the announcement they were arriving at Great Eccles."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 2",
                "text": "Dave Roberts kept his eyes on the road.\n\nFriday the twenty-third of December should have been one of the busiest days, but there was only moderate traffic on the hilly A roads. There'd also been a forecast of heavy snow, particularly in high places, yet although the midday sky was as cloudy and white as Christmas cake icing, there wasn't a flake of snow to be seen.\n\nStill, he kept alert. In his time he'd been called to enough traffic accidents to know what became of incautious and inattentive drivers.\n\n\"Anyway, you'll like him,\" he said.\n\n\"Who?\" asked Guin from the back seat.\n\nMaybe there were only the two of them in the car but he still made Guin sit in the back, and on a booster seat. Yes, she was eleven, but she was short for her age and the booster seat was entirely necessary. No matter what she said.\n\n\"Newton. I was just saying.\"\n\nGuin grunted.\n\nDave kept his eyes on the roads. He knew if he looked in the rear view mirror he'd see his daughter fiddling with pipe cleaners or tin foil or copper wire or something. She'd be fashioning some sort of creature or abstract shape to add to her collection. She only grunted to demonstrate she had heard but she wasn't participating in the conversation.\n\n\"You'll like him,\" Dave persevered. \"You know Esther well enough and it's time you met her son. And he meets you. We can all spend Christmas together at our place.\"\n\nThere was no response for some time. They passed a sign: half a mile to Great Eccles and the train station, another four beyond that to Alvestowe.\n\n\"He's not staying in my room,\" said Guin eventually.\n\n\"He's not,\" said Dave. \"We discussed it.\"\n\n\"I don't remember that.\"\n\n\"We did.\"\n\n\"I banged my head in year five. I still have the dent.\"\n\n\"You can't blame your poor listening skills on a minor bump.\"\n\n\"I went deaf for a whole term.\"\n\n\"You stuck Play-Doh in your ear. When you were seven. And we discussed sleeping arrangements yesterday. Newton was never going to be staying in your bedroom. He's sixteen. There's an age gap. It wouldn't be appropriate or fair for either of you.\"\n\n\"You and Esther share a room. There's an age gap.\"\n\n\"Now you're being daft,\" he said.\n\n\"I still have the dent.\"\n\nA ram on an isolated crag watched the cars go by. Dave was prepared to bet that ram didn't have to put up with the excuses of hypochondriac lambs.\n\n\"Will I be getting less Christmas presents this year?\" said Guin.\n\n\"Fewer,\" said Dave automatically.\n\n\"So I will?\" she said.\n\n\"What? No. I was just correcting your\u2014 Why would you think you'd be getting fewer?\"\n\n\"I worked it out.\"\n\n\"Worked what?\"\n\n\"You used to buy my presents and Esther would buy Newton his. But if we're all together then you wouldn't want to treat us differently. You're a senior paramedic. That's band six salary.\"\n\n\"How do you know this stuff?\"\n\n\"Internet. And the charity Esther works for doesn't pay her much. I asked her\u2014\"\n\n\"It's not okay to ask people how much they earn.\"\n\n\"\u2014So if you want to treat us the same, you'd have to spend more on him and less on me.\"\n\n\"It doesn't work like that,\" he said. \"It's not like a tax. It\u2026\" The traffic was slowing ahead. Dave began indicating for the train station. \"You don't have to be so precise about things. Just soak up the wonder of the season. I think I preferred it when you still believed in Father Christmas.\"\n\n\"I was thinking about that too,\" said Guin.\n\n\"Oh, really. Well, we're here.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 3",
                "text": "Guin Roberts looked up to see they were pulling into a train station car park. She'd been engrossed in the small scale adventures of Wiry Harrison and his quadruped friend Tin-foil Tavistock taking place on the pull-down tray in front of her. The adventures were very small scale; Tin-foil Tavistock had been explaining at length to Wiry Harrison the problems she'd been having with the other year seven girls at the quadruped school. Tavistock, who was formed from scrunched up strips of foil and couldn't decide if she was meant to be a horse or a deer or even a camel, had told Wiry Harrison how the girls at school socialised in wide circles in the school playground \u2013 physical circles, presenting their backs to the world and keeping the circle abuzz with gossip about all and any students who weren't part of it. There were several such circles in the playground but it didn't seem to matter which one Tin-foil Tavistock tried to join, she would be told she didn't belong and wasn't wanted.\n\nWiry Harrison nodded his loopy head of wire and offered what advice he could. Guin listened intently because, by sheer coincidence, she suffered with near identical problems to Tin-foil Tavistock.\n\n\"That's them,\" her dad said.\n\nHe swung the car into a parking space and, in a seamless action, put on the brake, slipped out the door and waved to people Guin had not yet seen.\n\nShe tried to return her attention to the conversations of Wiry Harrison and Tin-foil Tavistock but she was losing interest. Wiry Harrison seemed to think part of Tavistock's problem was the other girls at quadruped school were mean to her because she couldn't decide if she was meant to be a horse or a deer or even a camel, and Guin couldn't see how this applied to her own, similar problems.\n\nOutside the car, viewable only from thigh to neck through the car window, her dad was wrapping his arms around Esther. Esther tugged at his scarf, the one she had knitted him, and there was the muffled sound of some humorous remark. Esther was wearing her homemade patchwork coat and fingerless gloves. Guin knew she'd knitted those too. Esther's hands were on Guin's dad's chest, patting, stroking. She was a very tactile and touchy-feely woman. Guin approved of the knitting. She didn't approve of all the touching.\n\nGuin's dad shook the hand of the tall boy next to Esther. It was an exaggerated and blokey handshake, like they were making a business deal. Her dad opened the car door.\n\n\"\u2014climb in, dude. That's Guin in the back. Guin, say hi.\"\n\nThe boy slid into the back. He was a gawky looking teenager with wild hair that seemed to be trying to cover his face, as though it was embarrassed to be seen with him.\n\n\"Hi,\" he said, smiling. \"I'm Newton.\"\n\nGuin nodded. She knew that. He was Esther's son. And one day \u2014 a day she viewed with complete indifference \u2013 he might become her step-brother.\n\nHer dad and Esther got in.\n\n\"We'll just drive down into Alvestowe,\" said her dad, \"park up on one of the side roads and hit the market. Stollen and mulled wine for everyone.\" He chuckled to himself. \"Well, not everyone. Some of us are aren't old enough to drink.\"\n\n\"And some of us are driving home tonight,\" said Esther.\n\n\"Stollen for everyone and mulled wine for Esther,\" he corrected himself.\n\n\"Or I can drive,\" she said.\n\n\"I thought you didn't approve,\" said dad.\n\n\"Of cars clogging up the roads and the air, yes,\" said Esther. \"But this car's going to be driven tonight regardless, so it doesn't really matter who does the driving.\"\n\n\"And mulled wine for Dave!\"\n\nHe drove out of the station car park and re-joined the road to Alvestowe. Guin slid Tin-foil Tavistock and Wiry Harrison to one side of the pull-down tray and took out Tim the Robot. Tim was a square metal tube with holes all over it. Into those holes Guin had screwed and bolted an assortment of arms and devices. Timmy had a spanner arm on one side, a picture hook on the other and various glass bead eyes on his front. Tim was always on the lookout for new arms and, one day, she hoped, she might find him some legs, or possibly wheels. Tim wasn't fussy.\n\n\"You're Guin, right?\" said Newton.\n\nGuin positioned Tim's arms upwards, a sort of a God, why me? gesture.\n\n\"It's a nice name,\" said Newton. \"Is that short for Guinevere?\"\n\n\"No. Penguin,\" she said.\n\n\"Guin,\" warned her dad. \"Be nice.\"\n\nThe boy, Newton, leaned over a little to Guin. \"Hey. Why would no one bid on Donner and Blitzen on eBay?\"\n\nGuin looked at him.\n\n\"Because they were two deer,\" said Newton.\n\nGuin continued to look at him.\n\n\"Because there are two of them and they're reindeer,\" explained the boy, \"but they're also too dear, as in\u2014\"\n\n\"No, I get it,\" said Guin. \"I'm just not laughing.\"\n\n\"Right,\" said Newton."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 4",
                "text": "On the way to Alvestowe Newton tried out a few more of his better jokes on the girl, Guin, but she just wasn't biting. He wasn't put off; it was a challenge. He also wanted to show his mum he was making an effort. He wanted her to be happy and Dave seemed like an all right kind of guy, and he clearly made her happy, so, until Dave showed himself to be something other than an all right kind of guy, Newton would do what it took to keep them both happy. When other people were happy, Newton was happy.\n\nLily wasn't happy. That bothered him. He looked at her Instagram page again and flicked between the two pictures, yesterday and today. He could see it in her eyes and the set of her mouth. She wasn't happy.\n\nNewton tried to tell himself that he couldn't make everyone happy all the time. There were priorities. His mum was at the top of the list, the very top with a big gap between her and everyone else. Newton pictured himself at the bottom \u2013 well, not quite the very bottom. There were some people who had to be below him. Like Hitler. Or people like Hitler but who were actually alive. And then, in between, there was everyone else. Lily was in there and Yolanda from the farm and Dave and Guin and even Newton's dad, wherever he was and whatever he was up to these days. They were all there in the list. Newton told himself that he couldn't make everyone happy all the time. He wished he could believe it.\n\n\"What hides in the bakery at Christmas time?\" he asked Guin.\n\nShe didn't look up from the homemade toys on the tray in front of her.\n\n\"Mince spy,\" he said.\n\nGuin groaned. Newton could have punched the air. A groan was progress."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 5",
                "text": "The road into Alvestowe town turned sharply before crossing a river via a narrow bridge. Coaches had to take a swing at the corner to avoid clipping the dry stone walls along each side.\n\n\"These roads weren't made for this kind of traffic,\" said Esther.\n\n\"I don't suppose so,\" agreed Dave. \"They're kind of constricted by the geography.\"\n\nAlvestowe sat in a gorge-like cleft between rocky hillsides. The landscape in this corner of the world tended between wind-blasted moors and craggy forested valleys.\n\n\"Didn't an RAF jet crash here some years ago?\" said Esther.\n\n\"I'm sure there was a time when air force planes on 'training exercises' seemed to be crashing every other week,\" nodded Dave. \"I said to Guin, it would be a terrible thing to crash out here, be stuck out here.\"\n\nDave considered the traffic and the likelihood of finding a place to park. The narrow pavements between the grey stone houses and the road were already thronged with visitors.\n\nOne of the things Dave and Esther told themselves they had in common was a disdain for the activity of shopping. It turned out that what Esther meant was she hated chain stores and conspicuous consumption and unethical production methods. Give her a farmers market or a craft fair and she could spend hours stocking up on organic cheeses, artisanal baked goods and jars of chutney featuring vegetables which no one in their right mind would want to preserve. Dave despised shopping because he despised crowds. He wasn't agoraphobic and he didn't dislike people, but he despised feeling he was just part of the crowd. He didn't want to be reminded that he was a participant in that great big procession marching from birth to death, distracting itself from its inevitable destination with noise and pomp and spectacle. In a crowd, especially in a crowd of shoppers, Dave could see humanity trying to find meaning \u2013 trying to purchase meaning \u2013 when there was no meaning to be had.\n\nEsther put a hand on his thigh and gave him a squeeze.\n\n\"We'll park up, get some food inside you and take a view of things,\" she said.\n\nSometimes, she read him like a book. Life might be a meaningless parade but some things made it more tolerable: food, beer, Esther.\n\nDave turned off the main street as soon as possible, just to get out of the flow of traffic. Ten minutes later, after getting stuck in a cul-de-sac and receiving some seriously evil glares off another driver who had followed him into the cul-de-sac, he found a place to park: next to a stone barn on a lane down by the riverside.\n\n\"Everybody out.\"\n\nThey assembled in the lane. The air was cold but there was no wind. There was a closeness to the atmosphere, a stillness too, as though their world was encased in a glass bubble, locked away from everything else.\n\n\"Those away,\" said Dave, pointing at Guin's toys. They vanished into a deep pocket of her duffel coat.\n\n\"And that too,\" said Esther, gesturing to Newton's phone. \"He keeps checking Lily's Instagram page,\" she explained to Dave.\n\n\"Lily has Instagram?\" said Dave.\n\n\"Yolanda helps her with it apparently.\"\n\n\"Yolanda's the nice one, into that Japanese manga stuff, isn't she?\"\n\n\"It's away! It's away!\" said an exasperated Newton.\n\n\"Doesn't he like us talking about Lily?\" asked Dave. \"Or Yolanda?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Esther. \"We should conduct an experiment.\"\n\nNewton growled. \"Please, can we just\u2026\" He waved an arm viciously towards the town. \"\u2026 go and enjoy the flipping magic of the season?\"\n\n\"Let's.\"\n\nAlvestowe was a small town, more of a village with ideas above its station. Situated in an elevated valley, its dimensions were constrained by the steep geography around it. Nonetheless it contained the bare minimum requirements for an English settlement: a church, a pub and a post office. These and the few shops were all close to a wide square at the centre of the town which was currently filled with the Christmas market. The market over spilled the square and extended some distance along all the roads leading in. Wooden stalls that were part-shed, part-Alpine chalet ran back to back up the centre of the roads, blocking them off to all motor traffic.\n\nChristmas lights hung from all the stalls and in a criss-cross web across the streets from drainpipes to gutters to lampposts. They were turned on, even though it was daytime and their weak multi-coloured glow was sickly and pathetic.\n\nThere was an \"Oof!\" Dave turned to see Guin on the floor and a long-haired woman in big glasses and a Russian army surplus hat with furry earflaps standing over her.\n\n\"Sorry, I didn't see her,\" said the woman.\n\nNewton had offered Guin a hand up but she was ignoring it.\n\n\"Watch where you're going,\" Dave told Guin.\n\n\"Me?\" said Guin and pointed at the open hardback book in the woman's hands.\n\n\"No harm done,\" said Dave. The woman moved on, continuing to read as she went. \"Come on. Up you get.\"\n\n\"I could have broken bones,\" said Guin.\n\n\"You're fine.\"\n\n\"Some paramedic you are.\"\n\n\"Oh, look,\" said Esther. \"Zwetschgenm\u00e4nnle.\"\n\n\"The what-the-what now?\" said Dave. Guin was on her feet and joining Esther at the stall. Zwet-thing-thingy was apparently German for people made from dried fruit.\n\n\"They use wire for the skeleton underneath,\" said Guin knowledgeably.\n\n\"They've been made this way for over two hundred years,\" said Esther. \"It's very authentic.\"\n\nAh, authentic, thought Dave. That word was like catnip to Esther.\n\n\"Which ones do you like?\" Esther asked Guin.\n\n\"I thought we were getting food first,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Technically, these are food, dad.\"\n\n\"Okay, food without a face.\"\n\nEsther gave him a look and took her purse out of her bag. \"Newton, take some money and buy this man some\u2014\"\n\n\"Hey, I've got money,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Please don't argue,\" muttered Newton.\n\nThey weren't arguing, not even bickering, but Dave knew the lad had a low tolerance for arguments. The boy's Pavlovian response was to make everyone a cup of tea and offer them a biscuit; a sort of physical manifestation of the Keep Calm and Carry On spirit. Newton would be an absolute godsend if the Second World War came round again.\n\n\"Not arguing. Flirting,\" said Dave with a wink for Esther. He slapped a hand on Newton's shoulder. \"Come on, let's go find something that could kill a diabetic at fifty paces.\"\n\nIt wasn't difficult. Soon enough, he was munching on a giant chocolate-covered pretzel and looking at the Christmas tree dominating the centre of the market. It was wrapped in spirals of fairy lights, dotted with candy canes, sleigh bells and baubles and its base was surrounded at by silver Christmas present boxes.\n\n\"S'good,\" said Newton, waving his pretzel.\n\n\"At a fiver each, they ought to be,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Supply and demand, squire,\" said a stout man next to him who was also looking at the tree. Underneath an expensive-looking wax jacket he wore a cable-knit cardigan and a patterned cravat. Dave found himself thinking that you didn't see many men wearing cravats these days. Those who did were either middle-aged thespians or, possibly, twats.\n\n\"People demand five quid pretzels?\" said Dave.\n\n\"They're prepared to buy them,\" said the man. \"It's the golden quarter.\"\n\n\"Is it?\"\n\n\"October through to December. Key sales period for retailers. It's all ebb and flow, my good man. It's the sea I sail on.\"\n\nTwat then, thought Dave.\n\nSomething rustled in the boughs of the Christmas tree, shaking the sleigh bells. Dave wondered if there was a bird or squirrel in there. The bough weighed heavily. A fat bird or a tubby squirrel.\n\n\"It's this season that keeps the retail industry afloat,\" said cravat and wax jacket. \"Importing Black Friday from the US was the best thing to happen to this country.\"\n\n\"My mum supports Buy Nothing Day,\" said Newton, taking another big bite of pretzel.\n\n\"And what's that about?\" said the man, unimpressed.\n\nWith a mouth full of chocolatey pretzelness, Newton attempted to explain. Since everything you needed to know about Buy Nothing Day was pretty much contained in the title, Dave thought he did a brilliant job.\n\nThe cravat man looked appalled, as though Newton had just displayed the symptoms of a terrible, contagious disease. He shook himself, turned up the collar of his coat and looked up at the tree.\n\n\"You know who turned on the lights this year?\" he asked.\n\nDave shook his head. How could he?\n\n\"It's an important job,\" said cravat man. \"Very symbolic. Marks the start of the season. You need an important dignitary. A local celebrity.\" The man looked about him as though to check who was listening in. \"I would have done it if they'd asked. I can turn on lights.\"\n\nDave frowned. \"I \u2026 think we all can.\"\n\nThe man laughed. It wasn't a natural laugh. \"I mean I bring the kudos, squire. The gravitas.\"\n\nHe looked at Dave expectantly. Dave looked back. The man waited. Dave didn't know what to say.\n\n\"Duncan Catheter,\" said cravat man.\n\n\"Yes?\" said Dave.\n\n\"The king of construction. I'm a black belt in housing development. Not yet met a green belt I can't conquer. You get it, squire? I've put more roofs over people's heads than anyone this side of Skipton. And I've got graphs to prove it. I tell you\u2014\" Duncan Catheter was warming up to his theme, \"\u2014if I'd been around at that first Christmas and young Mary and Joseph had come to my door, I'd have said, 'No room at the inn? No room at the inn? Why are you bothering with inns? I can get you a small but reasonably priced starter home, two down, two up plus a box room for your boy Christ. Five percent deposit, no problem. Handy for the shops and the better kind of schools, if you know what I mean.'\" The king of construction nudged Dave in the ribs.\n\n\"Not sure that I do,\" said Dave and smiled politely.\n\n\"You can tell your friends.\" said Duncan, oblivious. \"And, if you see the organisers of this thing, point out that they've missed a trick.\"\n\n\"Oh, yeah. I will.\"\n\nThe tree rustled again. The tubby squirrel had apparently moved on.\n\nDuncan Catheter slapped his own belly contentedly. \"A bloody good Christmas tree. All the trimmings. All the goodies. Reminds us what life's all about, eh?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Dave, wondering if he meant life was like the shiny empty boxes under the tree, all surface and no content, or if he meant the tree itself, ripped out of its natural setting, dressed up in gaudy colours and presented to the world to ultimately die in a pot \u2013 a small but reasonably priced starter pot \u2013 that was too small to support it.\n\n\"Are you enjoying your pretzel?\" said Newton.\n\n\"What?\" said Dave.\n\nDuncan Catheter, the king of construction, had moved on. Dave looked down and realised the chocolate coating was melting on his fingers. Newton had scoffed his.\n\n\"I can get you something else if you prefer,\" said Newton.\n\nDave put on a smile. \"No. This \u2026 this is great. Might need something to wash it down with.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 6",
                "text": "There must have been a hundred or more stalls in the market, tightly packed to create a twisting maze of lanes across the town square. In the jostling tide of day-trippers and serious shoppers, Esther made sure she and Guin stayed close.\n\nThey were ostensibly looking for the boys, but each stall was a distraction. Esther and Guin were both creators. Esther had scored a lot of brownie points with Dave's girl when she'd given her free access to her craft boxes. Their personal crafting philosophies diverged strongly. Esther loved to make with a purpose: to follow a pattern or set of instructions, preferably an authentic one that meant she was continuing a grand, preferably ancient, tradition. She had dyed her own yarn with collected onion skins. She had subjected her loved ones to meals that followed medieval recipes. She had created vast quantities of Seminole patchwork according to traditional plans.\n\nGuin, on the other hand, was not one for following plans. For her there was no pleasure to be gained from seeing a crocheted blanket completed, no joy in knowing the yarn she was using had been dyed with onion skins. She crafted without aim, with no concept of rules. The little crocheting Guin had done had been sporadic and random pieces, malignant tumours worked in wool. She was not at all interested in studying a craft and producing something in the style of anything. Guin looked at crafts only with the intent of seeing what she could cannibalise for her own little projects.\n\nBy midday, Esther and Guin had progressed only a short way into the market and were currently standing in front of a stall selling traditional nutcrackers, nearly all stylised as soldiers. Guin picked one up and worked its mechanism, watching its little jaw move.\n\n\"They are very beautiful,\" said Esther. \"Although I'm not sure I approve of military toys.\"\n\n\"Isn't toy,\" said the stallholder, propelling himself bonelessly from his stool and coming closer. \"Nutcracker.\"\n\n\"Sorry, yes,\" said Esther. \"Military nutcracker.\"\n\n\"Just nutcracker,\" said the stall holder.\n\n\"Oh, yes, I do understand,\" said Esther. \"And I know this is an authentic design. I'm just never happy with toys \u2013 or any items \u2013 that glorify warfare. Just one of my things.\"\n\nThe stallholder frowned, uncomprehending. \"Not for warfare. Nutcracker.\" The man seemed to have a limited vocabulary. He looked tired. Esther could easily imagine that a week or however long of dealing with Christmas shoppers from morning till night would rob anyone of the power of rational speech.\n\n\"Of course,\" said Esther. \"I'm just talking about the design.\"\n\n\"Can I buy one to take apart?\" asked Guin.\n\n\"I don't think that would be appropriate,\" said Esther.\n\n\"Nutcracker,\" said the stallholder. \"Peanuts.\" He produced a knobbly peanut, popped it in a bearded nutcracker's mouth and cracked it. \"Nutcracker!\"\n\n\"Got it,\" said Esther.\n\n\"Hazelnut,\" said the stallholder. He put a hazelnut in the nutcracker's mouth.\n\n\"Here comes dad,\" said Guin.\n\n\"Oh, good,\" said Esther, edging away from the stall. \"Maybe we can move on\u2026\" But Dave and Newton were too quickly upon them.\n\nThe stallholder smashed the hazelnut. \"See. Nutcracker.\"\n\n\"We've been looking all over for you two,\" said Dave. The carrier bag at his side clinked heavily.\n\n\"Looking really hard?\" said Esther.\n\n\"Walnut,\" said the stallholder, putting in another nut.\n\n\"You definitely weren't by the mead stall,\" said Newton. \"We spent a lot of time looking there.\"\n\n\"We?\" said Esther.\n\n\"Me,\" said Dave. \"Not sure what he was saying half the time but he was very insistent and\u2014\" he took one of the bottles out to peer at the incomprehensible angular writing on the label \"\u2014I'm sure this is full of meady goodness.\"\n\n\"My dad also likes mead,\" Guin told Esther.\n\n\"I was thinking,\" said Dave, \"I could do with a new hobby.\"\n\n\"Alcoholism?\" said Newton.\n\n\"Home-brewing,\" said Dave, \"but I'm willing to branch out.\"\n\n\"Even brazil nut,\" declared the stallholder, even though no one was listening.\n\n\"Snowflake!\" said Newton abruptly and pointed at a drifting flake. \"They said it would snow today.\"\n\n\"One snowflake doesn't necessarily mean it's snowing,\" said Esther.\n\n\"How many snowflakes do there have to be?\" asked Guin.\n\n\"And if a snowflake falls and no one is there to see it, has it really fallen?\" said Dave.\n\nGuin put on a deeply thoughtful expression. \"Wow.\"\n\n\"Even almond!\" said the stallholder.\n\n\"Okay, Confucius.\" Esther herded the family away from the stall. \"Time to move on.\"\n\n\"See!\" the stallholder called after them. \"All the nuts! Nutcracker!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 7",
                "text": "They ate gingerbread men and drank hot chocolate. They wandered down every lane and cut-through of the market and discovered whole sections they had entirely missed. The rest of the world shuffled and squeezed through the alleys, while tinny music from hidden speakers competed with the grumble and natter of a thousand visitors. A few more brave flakes of snow wafted about here and there.\n\nNewton bought a blanket for Lily that his mum clearly thought was too expensive but didn't say. Guin bought herself a wooden box painted with a cheery arctic scene that she declared would be used for 'things'. When her dad asked her what things, she repeated, \"Things!\" Newton's mum found a stall selling hand-thrown earthenware pots. She eagerly questioned the stallholder about their production methods until the stallholder pretended another customer needed his attention and wandered off. She seemed not to notice. Dave bought everyone foot-long hotdogs. Newton thought the supposedly pork sausages didn't quite taste like any pork he'd eaten before but said nothing, not wanting to make a fuss. They stood and ate them between a carousel ride and a large nativity display near to the town post office.\n\nThe human figures and animals in the nativity, all only slightly smaller than actual life size, appeared to have been carved from single pieces of solid wood. It gave their faces angular, severe expressions. Newton found those expressions disconcerting.\n\n\"Now, that could be a good hobby for you,\" his mum said to Dave.\n\nDave glanced at the nativity. \"Messiah? I think it's been taken.\"\n\n\"No, my love. Wood carving. You're good with your hands.\"\n\nGuin scoffed.\n\n\"You work with your hands,\" Esther corrected herself, suddenly breathless.\n\n\"Have you seen my bed?\" said Guin. \"It slopes so much I have to hold on in the night.\"\n\n\"Exaggeration,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Beds are big things,\" said Esther. \"Tricky.\"\n\n\"It's from IKEA,\" said Guin. \"There's instructions.\"\n\n\"I like making flat-pack furniture,\" said Esther.\n\nNewton watched Guin take her little robot figurine out of her pocket. He saw several of its limbs were made from the interlocking bolt and screw components of flat-pack furniture. No wonder her bed sloped if it had all those bits missing. Guin opened the box she had just bought and laid the metal man inside it like it was his bed, or a coffin. She closed the lid firmly.\n\nNewton looked at the polar bears on Guin's new box and asked her, \"Why don't polar bears eat penguins?\"\n\n\"Depends,\" she said.\n\n\"On what?\"\n\n\"If this is an excuse to tell me a fact everyone knows or if it's a really bad joke.\"\n\nHe inhaled deeply and plucked a fresh joke from his memory. \"Okay, what did one snowman say to the other?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said.\n\n\"'Can you smell carrots?'\"\n\nShe tried not to smile. She almost succeeded. \"Are you trying to make me like you?\" she accused him.\n\n\"I'm trying to make you happy.\"\n\n\"Don't I look happy?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Don't you know what happy looks like?\"\n\n\"Sort of like this,\" he said and smiled widely.\n\n\"I think that's more mad psychopath.\"\n\n\"They're easily confused,\" he said.\n\n\"There's some lovely hand-carved cuckoo clock house things on a stall down there,\" Esther said to Dave.\n\n\"If I can't make an IKEA bed, I can't make a cuckoo clock.\"\n\nShe tutted at him. \"I'm just saying, come take a look. I like them.\"\n\nHe raised his eyebrows. \"You like them. Aren't they a bit\u2014?\"\n\n\"Teutonic,\" suggested Newton.\n\n\"Good word,\" said Dave, impressed. \"I was going to say kitsch.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Esther, \"but they're so\u2014\" She scrunched up her face and waggled her fingers closely together to somehow indicate the tiny, intricate nature of things.\n\n\"Cuckoo clocks it is then,\" said Dave.\n\n\"I wanted a go on the ride,\" said Guin, pointing at the carousel.\n\n\"You've not finished your hotdog.\"\n\nShe passed it to her dad. \"It's too big and it tastes funny.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" he said. \"Carousel, Newton?\"\n\n\"No, thank you,\" said Newton.\n\n\"It's not like riding a real horse, is it?\" said his mum, patting his arm.\n\nNewton liked real horses but he always thought there was something sinister about carousel ones, with and their fixed, sharply painted mouths, and cold eyes.\n\n\"I can watch Guin while you two go and look at cuckoo clocks,\" he said.\n\n\"Thanks, dude,\" said Dave.\n\n\"We're just down there,\" said Newton's mum.\n\nDave dug in his pocket and gave Guin some change. He remembered the hotdog he'd been given, looking briefly around for a bin, before deciding to eat it instead."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 8",
                "text": "Guin took her dad's money and ran to the carousel. The earlier crowds at the market had thinned and there was no queue. Guin found a horse with a purple saddle and the name Pokus painted in jolly script across its bridle. A man came round to collect the money. He walked with a wobbly gait, never looking in the direction he was going. Guin guessed if you spent all day working on a spinning carousel, you would end walking with a wobbly gait.\n\nShe handed over the coins and when the pipe organ struck up, held on tightly. The mechanical pipe organ had little figurines on the front, one with a conductor's baton, another with a pair of cymbals. As the carousel started to turn, she watched them and their precise little movements.\n\nMore interesting still, far more interesting than being on a jiggling wooden horse, was the mechanism above her head. Guin watched the rotating crankshafts and arms and daydreamed what she could make from components such as these.\n\nHowever, several circuits of looking up made her feel queasy and Guin had to look down, focus on the world beyond the carousel mechanism before her hotdog made a unpleasant encore. Her dad and Esther had already wandered off. There was Esther's son, Newton, standing by the nativity scene. He saw her looking and gave her a wave. Next turn round, he pulled a silly face at her. She scowled and determined not to look next time.\n\nSnow was falling steadily now and it was a blurry screen against the wooden stalls and lights of the market. Through it, Guin caught a glimpse of long hair, big glasses and a hat with furry earflaps. It was the woman who had knocked her to the ground earlier. Guin felt a surge of anger. The bump had been an accident but that didn't matter. Guin was eleven and bearing grudges took little effort at that age.\n\nThe woman was still walking round with her nose in a book! She wasn't even looking at the stalls! Guin tutted. People had no right to go wandering blindly around Christmas markets, not buying stuff and being a general hazard. The woman should buy something or go home.\n\nAngry though she was, Guin couldn't help but wonder what was so interesting about a book that could hold the woman's attention completely. Guin suddenly wanted to know. The curiosity was threatening to overcome her anger, which made her angrier still. There was nothing an angry mind hated more than having its anger reasonably eroded by a more positive emotion."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 9",
                "text": "Newton gave up trying to catch Guin's eye. She was too busy staring at something else. Whatever it was, she didn't look happy about it, but what did he know? Guin had a furiously private intensity about her. Maybe that expression was her version of sheer delight.\n\nNewton looked at the nativity figures. The scene in front of him was fairly traditional: Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus in the manger (this one so thoroughly swaddled in blankets that its ugly little face and staring eyes were barely visible), shepherds, three wise men, various donkeys and sheep and something that couldn't decide if it was meant to be a horse or a deer or even a camel. The story of Christmas was one he'd had repeated to him, performed to him, had performed in so often that he hardly ever stopped to think about its meaning.\n\nIt was mostly, he reflected, the story of a holiday slash business trip gone wrong. Joseph had to go to Bethlehem. This was complicated by his wife being pregnant with a baby that they knew wasn't his. Their accommodation plans had fallen through and they'd ended up staying somewhere appalling. The wise men had only turned up because they'd been reading cryptic messages in the stars. The shepherds didn't even have a choice; they'd been bullied into attending by an angel while they were in the middle of their night shift. Even the animals were probably wondering what these people were doing in their barn and why there was a baby in their food trough.\n\nIt was, thought Newton, a story without a single happy moment. Less a story than a collection of anecdotes which, if they happened to modern Brits, would have them phoning consumer watchdog programmes or trying to get compensation from their travel company.\n\nThe Virgin Mary certainly looked pissed off, almost cross-eyed in her fury. Or maybe she, like Guin, had an odd way of expressing happiness."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 10",
                "text": "\"Cuckoo clocks!\" said Esther, arms spread.\n\n\"So, I see,\" said Dave.\n\nThey pressed forward under the shallow eaves of the stall to be more out of the briskly falling snow. The side walls and back of the stall were crowded with intricately carved clocks \u2013 chalet house shapes, covered with carved trees and fruits and animals, pine cone weights dangling on long chains beneath. On tiny balconies and in tiny doorways, varnished figures stood, some fixed, some poised to spring out at the chiming of the hour.\n\n\"I don't like them,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Why not?\" said Esther.\n\n\"I don't know. They always look \u2026 sinister to me.\"\n\nShe looked up at him and smiled.\n\nHe kissed her on the forehead. \"I look at them and all that super detailed carving and I think 'that's what happens when you're cooped up all winter with snow piled outside your door and nowhere to go.'\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"Cabin fever as an art form.\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"I guess people did need something to keep them occupied through the winter months.\"\n\nHe looked back the way they'd come. \"They'll be all right together?\"\n\n\"Newton will keep an eye on her.\"\n\n\"I'm more concerned about him,\" said Dave. \"No, I meant long term. Them. Us. A new life.\"\n\nEsther gave him a reassuring hug. \"Taking it slow. Let's see how Christmas goes, all four of us at your place. And if that works out\u2026\"\n\n\"Oh, crap.\"\n\nShe pulled away. \"You don't want it to work out?\"\n\nDave patted his coat pockets before putting a hand in each.\n\n\"What?\" said Esther.\n\n\"Keys. Car keys.\"\n\nHe took out his wallet to check the inside pocket. He looked inside the carrier bag of mulled wine.\n\n\"When did you last have them?\" asked Esther.\n\n\"Definitely in the car.\"\n\n\"Obviously.\"\n\nHe shot her a tetchy took. \"I had them at the car. I went into that pocket to buy pretzels and mulled wine. I might have\u2026\" He mimed a hand out of pocket action and then looked round as though the keys might magically be on the ground somewhere nearby.\n\n\"Maybe fallen out near one of those stalls,\" she said. \"Let's go look.\"\n\nHe held out his hands. \"You stay here. The kids will come to you. I'll go check.\" He sighed. \"Buggeration,\" he said and hurried off."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 11",
                "text": "The carousel slowed to a stop. The automaton conductor gave a final jerk of his baton. The cymbal player froze a centimetre from one final clang. Guin slid off Pokus the horse and down the wooden steps. Newton stood staring glumly at the nativity scene.\n\nThe woman with the heavy book trudged past Newton, each oblivious of the other. The woman had something dangling from the fingertips of the hand supporting the book. It was a five-pointed star, but no Christmas decoration. Even from a distance, Guin could see it was constructed from twigs and string, neatly bound and tightly secured.\n\nThe woman stopped to check something in her book, glanced at the dangling star, then seemed to stare at the ground in search of something before slowly moving on.\n\nThat was curious. Guin decided to follow her. \"I'm here,\" she said to Newton as she passed.\n\n\"Good. Good,\" he said, still looking at the carved nativity. \"Have fun?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" she said. The book woman was moving off through the crowd. \"I'm just going to look at something for a minute.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" said Newton.\n\nIn the crowd, following the book woman was difficult. Guin was not tall and the afternoon shoppers pressed in closely, but glimpses of that flappy-eared hat drew her on. She saw the woman, cut away from the stalls and down a side route. However when Guin reached where the woman had been, she was gone. There was just a set of footprints in the settling snow.\n\nGuin hesitated because she was not an idiot.\n\nShe knew she had wandered off from Newton, but reasoned she hadn't gone far and she knew the way back. If she got into any trouble of the 'stranger danger' variety, she wasn't afraid to scream for help. She put her hand in her pocket, felt the reassuring shape of Wiry Harrison, and followed the footprints.\n\nThey led up a dark and narrow alley between two houses. Here the snow had only fallen in a narrow strip down the centre of the alleyway. Above, the sheer white sky was a thin line between rooftops.\n\nThere was thump and a muffled sound up ahead. Guin pressed on. At the top of a short flight of steps, the alley joined onto a path which ran behind the houses. On the far side was a wall and a shadowy wood. The footprints went right. Among them were smaller, wedge-shaped depressions, like animal prints, or holes melted in the snow. They followed the book woman's footprints, and so did Guin.\n\nShe wondered what the new prints were, and was so focused on them she didn't see the book and the star on the ground until she'd almost stepped on them. The book lay open on the ground, collecting snowflakes in its pages. The star made of twigs and string lay next to it, like it had been dropped.\n\nGuin turned about. The woman had gone. There were no people in sight at all. The footprints in the snow continued for a couple of steps before becoming confused and oddly spaced. Then they became a pair of gouged lines in the snow.\n\n\"That's weird,\" she said to Wiry Harrison. She picked up the book and the star."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 12",
                "text": "Newton had looked at the nativity scene far longer than its crude artistry demanded, but there was something peculiar about it that bothered him. He couldn't work out what. It wasn't the stern expressions on the people's faces. It wasn't the animal that couldn't decide if it was meant to be a horse or a deer or even a camel. When it struck him, he had quite a start.\n\nThe ugly baby Jesus's eyes were closed. They had been open. He was sure they had been open.\n\n\"Hey, Guin,\" he said, turning. \"This baby. Its eyes\u2014\"\n\nHe continued to turn, eyes scanning the thinning crowds. His brain told him to not panic even before he realised he was panicking.\n\n\"Guin!\" he called.\n\nHe dashed to the nearest stall, then the next and the next. He turned to the carousel and watched it go round half a dozen times before he could admit she wasn't on it. He saw the carousel man watching him and gave him a desperate look which he foolishly hoped would cause the man to leap into action and produce the girl like a rabbit from a hat.\n\n\"Guin!\"\n\nPeople looked at him as he called out.\n\n\"It's short for Guinevere,\" he told one, which wasn't a useful thing to say. He added, \"She's about this big. Pale looking. Bright coloured mittens,\" which was moderately better.\n\nHe pulled out his phone, the automatic response in a moment of alarm. He would call his mum. She would never forgive him but he had to call her.\n\nThe phone had no signal. They were out in the wilds, snow closing in thickly. No signal.\n\n\"Guin!\"\n\nHe ran down the nearest lane of stalls."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 13",
                "text": "Dave retraced his steps to stalls where he might have dropped his keys. They were not at the hot dog stand. The floppy-limbed woman at the pretzel stall shook her head when Dave asked if any keys had been handed in. The man at the mead stall, who had been so encouraging this morning, now seemed to struggle understanding English. Many of the day visitors had left and Dave was able to kick through the snow around the stalls with little fear of bothering others. But the snow was now falling fast and although the market stalls' overhanging roofs kept the worst of the snow away, it had been building up millimetre by millimetre for some time. He was not going to just see the car keys lying around somewhere.\n\nCursing himself, Dave continued to retrace his steps, away from the market and back down towards where they'd parked the car. It was possible he had dropped them the moment they'd parked. It was even conceivable that he'd left them in the ignition all day long.\n\nDave didn't think he was old enough to be so forgetful. He wasn't the kind to wonder where his glasses were, only to discover they were on his head \u2013 he didn't wear glasses for one thing \u2013 but finding he'd left the keys in the car would be a win at this point.\n\nThere was the hiss of brakes and he pressed himself against a wall as a coach full of departing day-trippers trundled past the narrow pavement, its headlights on full beam. It was not even four o'clock but night fell quickly in midwinter and the snow, whilst catching and reflecting the light from the lampposts and Christmas lights, obscured any dying daylight.\n\nWith night falling and the weather closing in, they'd need to be away soon."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 14",
                "text": "Holding the homemade twig and string star and the book, Guin followed the rapidly disappearing trail in the snow and wondered where the woman had gone to.\n\nIt was possible she had simply dropped her book. People dropped things all the time. Guin had once found a whole box of buttons and beads in the park near their house. She'd collected tools, old toys and odds and ends which no sensible person would deliberately leave behind.\n\nBut this was definitely just weird.\n\nShe held onto Wiry Harrison for moral support. Out of all her creations, Wiry Harrison was definitely the best for moral support. Tinfoil Tavistock was made of flimsier materials and had distracting issues of her own. Tim the Robot was made of sterner stuff but he was really only a child, very unworldly. The others, Bertie O'Cork, Scampious and Cliptoria had varying qualities but, when you needed a dose of bravery, Wiry Harrison was the one you should turn to.\n\n\"Just a little way,\" she said, under her breath, \"and then we'll go back and find Newton.\"\n\nShe walked on. The path behind the houses ran up to a drystone wall and a narrow gate leading into a churchyard. There was something on the ground by the wall: a flat shape draped over the wall. It was hard to make out in the gloom.\n\nGuin made towards it. The shape began to move, sliding slowly over the wall. Guin hurried.\n\nWhen she got close enough to see what it was, she couldn't understand what she was seeing. Dangling from the top of the low wall was what appeared to be an arm-length glove. It was a peachy pink, skin coloured. It wasn't an actual human arm: it was floppy and rubbery and quite lifeless. But if it wasn't an arm-length glove, in a perfectly realistic skin tone, what was it?\n\nThere was something else: fat and round on the ground in front of the wall. Guin recognised that.\n\nAs she hurried closer, the arm-glove slid away over the wall as though pulled from the other side. The hand bit seemed to wave goodbye before disappearing. Guin crouched by the fat round object. It was a big winter hat with furry earflaps. She picked it up. There was something red and sticky on the brim.\n\nGuin heard voices on the other side of the wall. No, not voices exactly, but high-pitched chittering chattering noises that were very much like speech. She stepped closer. Between the top of the low wall and the sweeping boughs of the trees there was only a black-green darkness.\n\n\"Hello?\" she called.\n\nThere was no reply.\n\n\"You left your hat here,\" she said to the darkness.\n\nThere was nothing for several seconds and then \"Villast, \u00fatlendingur.\"\n\nThe voices sounded close, like they were just over the wall, down by the mossy trunks of the nearest trees. Guin leaned nearer."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 15",
                "text": "Esther leaned close to the cuckoo clock stall as the snow came down in thick, tangled clumps. There was still virtually no wind but there had to be a point at which heavy snowfall automatically became a blizzard. Wherever that point was, surely they were close to it. She pulled her collar about her neck and continued to look at the range of clocks.\n\nShe wasn't sure cuckoo clocks were the way to go but she was confident Dave would enjoy a creative hobby if the right one could be found for him.\n\n\"So, are all these clocks hand-carved?\" she asked the old man behind the stall.\n\nThe old man grunted ambiguously. He was packing clocks away in wooden crates lined with straw. It was late; the fairground rides still turned and there were still people drinking and eating but this man had probably sold his last cuckoo clock of the year. And it was the last day of the Christmas market. Esther supposed the clocks that went unsold would resurface in this market or another next year.\n\n\"I just wondered,\" she said. \"They are very beautiful. Does someone carve them all?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" he said and waved to the unseen space behind the stall. \"All carved.\"\n\nHe continued to pack clocks, spooling the weight chains in his hands before laying them flat. He moved sluggishly, failing to co-ordinate left hand and right.\n\n\"You make them back here?\" said Esther. There was a narrow space between this stall and the next, little more than a crawlspace but, looking round, Esther could see a dim light and hear the sounds of industry.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" said the old man, waving. \"All carved.\"\n\n\"I mean, if you don't mind me looking\u2014\"\n\nThe old man didn't seem to care. She took a step towards the little cut-through. Newton and Guin would be coming along soon. They might miss her if she wasn't standing out front. Then again, Newton could just phone her if there was problem or they failed to spot one another.\n\n\"I'll just\u2014\" She slipped down the space. There was a surprising amount of room: the stalls weren't arranged precisely back to back. A surprisingly wide alley was laid out between them, covered over with sheltering canvas, in parts lit by an inferior sort of fairy light.\n\nThe sounds of construction came from the dim shanty town. There was almost no light here and Esther stepped carefully, waiting for her eyes to adjust. There were low tables \u2013 roughly made things \u2013 little more than split logs laid across trestles. Worn hand tools, too dark to make out clearly were strewn around.\n\nWorkers sat at the benches. She could not make them out properly, although they seemed happy enough in the near darkness. She guessed, purely from the sounds they made, there were three or four or them; no more than five. They must have been cramped: there couldn't be room for more than two people to sit comfortably in that space. Suggestions of hands moved across their materials. A chisel glinted here, a saw there.\n\n\"Hello?\" she said. \"I didn't mean to interrupt but the man said it was okay.\"\n\nThe work stopped instantly.\n\n\"If you don't mind,\" said Esther.\n\nFive pairs of eyes turned to regard her. Eyes set widely in round faces, far lower down than she expected."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 16",
                "text": "Newton checked his phone for the umpteenth time. Still no signal.\n\nUnconsciously he'd begun to make a methodical search of the market, spiralling out from the place he had last seen Guin. He'd taken to asking every passer-by he met but they were growing fewer by the minute.\n\nWhen he came by the church, something made him stop. There was a lane, a driveway of sorts, running up the hill, churchyard on one side and a thick line of fir trees on the other. He wouldn't have been able to articulate what drew him to that driveway but he felt it was somewhere Guin might have gone. There were small footprints in the snow, along the side of the driveway nearest the trees. Perhaps too small to be Guin's, but then again\u2026\n\nHe followed them, sick at the thought something terrible had happened to Guin, that he would have to face his mum and Dave and face the unbearable anguish, the guilt and the disappointment of what he had done.\n\nThe little footprints drifted nearer to the line of trees before disappearing under the low boughs.\n\n\"Guin!\"\n\nHe did a three-sixty, looking across the driveway, the churchyard and back to the town square. He called again.\n\nThere was silence. The tinny music playing over the Christmas market had ended. A grey, dead hush had fallen over the town.\n\nHe looked at the footprints. They entered the trees. For whatever reason, perhaps this was where Guin had gone.\n\nHe crouched next to the trees and tried to see what was on the other side."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 17",
                "text": "Dave hurried to the riverside and to where they'd left the car. Departing traffic was queuing on the narrow bridge out of town. Definitely time to leave.\n\nHe was almost running by the time he got to the lane where they'd parked: a kind of shuffling jog full of high-shouldered arm actions and evident urgency, which wasn't actually any faster than a brisk walk. It was a gesture of intent \u2013 \"Look, I'm in a hurry\" \u2013 rather than an attempt to go faster.\n\nThe snow had fallen heavily in the lane, banked up against the short wall by the riverside and the stone barns on the other. Dave saw the car but did not immediately recognise it. The bonnet was up, and in the blue-white gloom of dusk he saw a large, broad figure leaning over it.\n\n\"Hey!\" Dave called. \"What are you doing?\"\n\nThe figure ignored him and continued pawing at the engine.\n\n\"Hey!\"\n\nDave stopped jogging. He stepped forward in slow, careful footsteps. He didn't want to be a statistic, stabbed to death in the act of confronting a car thief. The figure held up a curve of piping, inspected it \u2013 seemed to sniff it! \u2013 and then tossed it away.\n\n\"Get away from that car!\" commanded Dave in his best manly voice (which he considered to be quite manly indeed). He waved his hands firmly in a gesture he'd seen demonstrated on a nature documentary as a way of driving away a grizzly bear. \"That's my car!\"\n\nThe figure, hunched and black, shifted as though to look at him and then went back to ripping things out of the engine.\n\nWell, that was just rude!\n\n\"Oi!\" Dave squeaked, losing much of the manliness he had mustered earlier. \"I'm going to call the police, you know!\"\n\nThe figure took note of that. It turned, coming apart as it moved, splitting and collapsing. It wasn't one large person. It was four or five much smaller people. Children? Dave held his hands up against the obscuring snow to see better.\n\nIt was children, he guessed. Children or a travelling band of circus dwarfs.\n\n\"What the hell are you playing at?\" he demanded, advancing towards them."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 18",
                "text": "The craftsmen \u2013 no, they were too small to be craftsmen \u2013 the individuals in the makeshift space behind the stalls watched Esther.\n\n\"Stinga henni me\u00f0 hn\u00edf\"\n\nThey were no bigger than children; small children at that.\n\n\"Do you work here?\" she asked in her most gentle, mumsiest voice.\n\nThey said nothing, merely looked.\n\n\"Are you \u2026 are you children?\"\n\nThere was an utterly obvious explanation. This was some sort of child labour sweatshop. Children forced to make traditional cuckoo clocks by the cruel taskmasters of a travelling market. She could see it so clearly: an itinerant community, undocumented children, always moving from place to place so that even in the enlightened West, child slaves and indentured labourers could go unnoticed.\n\n\"My name's Esther,\" she said.\n\n\"Esther,\" said one of them.\n\n\"Yes, I work with a charity that helps families and children. I can help you.\"\n\n\"Help?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said. \"If you want to come with me.\" She held out her hand. \"I'll keep you safe.\"\n\nThere was a scrape on the table top as a shining chisel was picked up. Another small figure swapped its saw for a sharp-edged carving knife. They moved towards her slowly, but even in the dark she could see it wasn't fearful caution. She sensed something more purposeful, the slowness of a crocodile drifting towards an unsuspecting wildebeest.\n\n\"Or maybe you don't need my help,\" she said faintly.\n\nThe chisel was raised up high, ready to strike down."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 19",
                "text": "A branch creaked and snapped beneath the trees. It could just have been the snow, weighing the trees down, shifting as it settled.\n\n\"Guin, are you there?\" hissed Newton.\n\nThere were rustles and definite movement.\n\nHe had a sudden mental image of an injured Guin, stuck under there somewhere. He crouched right down and pushed aside the nearest branch so he could crawl in. Something chittered in the dark; something that was not nice.\n\n\"What are you doing?\"\n\nHe whipped round. Guin stood a short distance away, down the lane. \"What the\u2014?\"\n\n\"Did you see something?\" she asked. She stood with her wooden box and a thick book clutched to her chest. Snow stuck to her fleecy collar in mounding clumps.\n\nHe stood quickly, taking two jittery steps away from the edge of the trees. \"I was looking for you,\" he said. He'd meant to sound angry and accusatory, but he was so overcome with relief it came out as a higgledy-piggledy jumble.\n\n\"I'm here,\" she said.\n\n\"I can see that.\"\n\n\"Our parents are going to be wondering where we are,\" she said, as though it was his fault.\n\n\"I was looking for you,\" he pointed out.\n\n\"Good job I found you then,\" she said. \"Come on.\"\n\nHe crunched through the snow towards her. At the bottom of the driveway, he looked back at the line of trees. Close to where he had just been, the heavy bottom boughs swayed."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 20",
                "text": "Esther ran, clutching her injured hand, squeezing against the pain. She collided clumsily with a wooden wall. On the other side, something fell and banged with a clockwork sproing and a plaintive cuckoo. She rebounded and ran on, looking for the turning, the channel that would lead out into the lanes of the market.\n\nIt had only been a few feet from where she had stood, but somehow she had missed it, and now she was running between the backs of what felt like endless stalls. She jumped over trailing electric cables, clattered past neatly stored gas heater canisters.\n\nThe child in the darkness had stabbed her! They had actually stabbed her!\n\nShe knew in her heart of hearts the poor kid was a victim of trafficking or forced labour or something, and that whatever they had done it wasn't their fault. Just a reaction to circumstance. She couldn't blame them. Although right now, with a sharp pain gripping her hand and blood seeping through her fingerless gloves, she was finding forgiveness a little difficult to come by.\n\nSomething made a noise behind her. Something was chasing her!\n\n\"Oh, God,\" she whispered. \"I didn't mean to\u2014\"\n\nShe didn't look back. She didn't want to.\n\nSeeing a gap between two stalls she thrust herself down it. It was far narrower than the one she had come through. She had to force herself sideways between two walls of slatted panels, her thick coat catching on both sides, at least two buttons snapping off. The space narrowed further. She propelled herself the last few feet by digging in her heels.\n\nSomething touched her elbow. Something grabbed for her elbow.\n\nShe couldn't look back now if she wanted to. There wasn't even room enough to turn her head. She keened with anguish and pushed on, scraping knees and pulling her shoulder, exploding out into the market.\n\n\"Oh, God! Oh, God!\" she panted.\n\n\"There you are,\" said Newton.\n\nNewton and Guin were coming towards her, along the avenue of mostly closed up stalls. The last few stallholders were drawing the shutters down on their little chalet huts.\n\nStill breathless, still bewildered, Esther looked back at the space she had squeezed through. There was nothing to be seen and little light to see by. No one had followed her. She had imagined it. Nonetheless, her coat was ripped and studded with pine splinters along the one side. Her hand\u2014 She carefully uncurled her hand, gasping at the sight.\n\n\"Mum, what have you done?\" cried Newton.\n\nThe palm of her glove was saturated with blood. She winced just looking at it. \"I went back there to have a look. I shouldn't have and I\u2014\" She hissed as the cold air brought sensation back into her hand.\n\n\"Here's dad,\" said Guin. \"Dad!\"\n\nDave jogged up the lane towards them. He had Newton's suitcase in one hand, Esther's big ancient rucksack in the other and a grave look on his face. \"You'll never guess what's happened,\" he said tersely.\n\n\"Mum's hurt herself,\" said Newton.\n\n\"What?\" Dave dropped the bags.\n\n\"It's nothing,\" Esther said automatically, immediately hated herself for saying it. Clearly it was not nothing. That was the kind of stupid thing people said, the kind of stiff upper lip nonsense that got people killed. \"I mean, I've cut my hand.\"\n\nDave had a first aid kit in his hand, magicked from nowhere. Before she'd met Dave, Esther had briefly dated a teacher. The man had carried a green biro with him at all times. He had used it to correct spelling mistakes and misplaced apostrophes on restaurant menus. Paramedic Dave and his ever-present first aid kit was the same sort thing, only much less annoying. The relationship with the teacher had ended quickly, after an argument in a pub over the correct placing of the apostrophe in shepherd's pie. One of the last things she heard him shouting at the barman before she quietly slipped out and blocked his number on her phone was, \"But how many shepherds, huh? Huh? Is that a pie for one shepherd or are several of them sharing it, eh?\"\n\nThe much more sane and lovely Dave calmly peeled off Esther's glove, inspected the narrow cut in the fleshy heel of her hand and removed the excess blood with a wipe. She sucked in at the tingle.\n\n\"What did this?\" he asked.\n\n\"A chisel, I think,\" she said.\n\nHe sprayed something onto the cut, something cold and wonderfully numbing. He produced a dressing. \"And how did that happen?\"\n\n\"I just wanted to have a look at how the clocks were made,\" she said.\n\n\"Clocks.\"\n\n\"Cuckoo clocks.\"\n\nHe gave little smirk.\n\n\"It's not funny,\" she said.\n\n\"No, it's not,\" agreed Newton.\n\nDave wrapped sticky blue gauze over the dressing. \"It's not deep, but we'll have to get it checked to make sure you haven't damaged any tendons.\" He kissed her on the cheek. \"I didn't mean to laugh, it's just been a weird\u2014\"\n\n\"Why have your brought our bags, dad?\" asked Guin.\n\nDave looked to the heavens and shook his head. The look on his face wasn't a good one.\n\n\"What?\" said Esther.\n\n\"Some b\u2014\" Dave's mouth stiffened, unable to find a 'b' word he was willing to say in front of his daughter. \"Some people have broken into our car.\"\n\nThere were universally shared groans and \"Oh no!\"s.\n\n\"Stolen anything?\" said Esther.\n\n\"Engine parts, if you'd believe it,\" said Dave. \"Caught the b\u2014\"\n\n\"Criminals,\" suggested Esther.\n\n\"Ne'er-do-wells,\" offered Newton.\n\n\"Bastards,\" said Guin with gusto.\n\n\"I caught them in the act,\" said Dave. \"I challenged them and they ran off, but that car's going nowhere.\" He sighed. \"I brought the bags because I didn't want to leave them. I was going to call the police and the RAC but\u2014\" He took out his phone. \"\u2014no signal. Any of you guys?\"\n\nNewton had his out. Esther found hers.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\n\"We should find a phone box,\" said Newton.\n\n\"Huh. When was the last time you saw one of those?\" said Dave.\n\nEsther looked round for a stallholder. They'd know where to find a phone. All along the lane, stalls were closed or in the last seconds of closing. There was still light and an open front at one at the far end.\n\n\"Let's go ask,\" she said.\n\nNewton hurried to pick up the bags before anyone else could. The pull-along suitcase dragged a deep furrow in the snow. The shutters on the final stall were drawing down as they approached.\n\n\"Wait up!\" called Dave but this only made the shutters close all the quicker. He rapped on the shutters. \"We just want to find a telephone box.\"\n\n\"Busy,\" said a rasping voice from within.\n\n\"We've broken down,\" said Dave.\n\n\"We need to call the cops,\" added Newton.\n\n\"Try pub,\" said the rasping voice.\n\nDave huffed. Esther put a comforting hand on his back and then led the way to the pub. Which also turned out to be closed.\n\n\"What kind of pub closes at tea time?\" said Dave. \"Pubs should be open all hours!\"\n\n\"Alcoholic,\" whispered Guin.\n\nDave gave his daughter a sharp, tight-lipped look.\n\nThe town was closed for the evening. Apart from the fairy lights strung between buildings and stalls, all life and activity had gone from the market. There were no traders or visitors, no open stalls, no sounds. The early winter night had come and shut everything down.\n\n\"There,\" said Newton. Hands occupied with luggage, he pointed with a nod of his head. There was an open doorway and a warm yellow light a few doors down. Esther scurried ahead.\n\nA woman stood in the doorway. She wore horn-rimmed glasses on a chain, her ash-blonde haired tied up in a bun. On her face was the kind of expression which declared she didn't approve of snow and was trying to drive it away with a good hard glare. That expression softened a mite as she saw Esther and family approaching.\n\n\"Oh, come in, come in,\" she said, waving them over.\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Esther. \"We were just wondering if you had a telephone. We\u2014\"\n\n\"Come in, come in,\" she repeated.\n\nThe porch way between the outer and inner front doors contained a huge upright hoover. As Esther squeezed past it loops of tubes and pipes fell outwards her. The woman wrestled silently with them, kicking the huge and ancient vacuum cleaner they were attached to for good measure as the family squeezed past.\n\n\"R2-D2's let himself go a bit,\" said Newton.\n\n\"Stamp the snow off your boots and then you can put them over there,\" said the woman.\n\nEsther was already in the hallway before she registered the sentence. \"No. We just wanted to use your phone, if we could.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said the woman, shutting the door on the defeated vacuum cleaner. \"Time enough. Boots there. Are there four of you?\"\n\n\"Is there a phone?\" Dave asked.\n\n\"We are fully complemented with all modern services,\" said the woman. \"Tea and coffee making facilities.\"\n\n\"Sorry?\"\n\n\"No, you're fine. You're fine. You've not booked, but I do have a family room available.\"\n\nIt was a hotel, Esther realised. A small hotel. Maybe a bed and breakfast. There was a tiny reception desk but the hall was big enough to suggest a large grand house with lots of bedrooms. The visible d\u00e9cor, dark and heavily patterned, reminded Esther of guesthouses she had stayed in when she was a child.\n\n\"Ah, no,\" said Dave. \"We don't need a room, we just want to use the phone.\"\n\n\"I did say,\" said Esther.\n\n\"And is that all your luggage?\" asked the woman. \"People carry so much of it these days.\"\n\n\"The phone,\" said Dave. \"Our car's been vandalised.\"\n\n\"Well, no one's going anywhere in this weather, are they?\" said the woman. \"Come in. Boots there. You too, little miss.\"\n\nGuin slid her shoes off.\n\n\"No, we're not staying,\" Esther tried to explain. \"We need to call the police.\"\n\n\"Nearest is over in Great Eccles. Has something happened?\"\n\n\"Our car,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Ah, so it will wait.\"\n\n\"I'd rather be the judge of that,\" he said with forced reasonableness.\n\n\"Now, dinner is in thirty minutes.\"\n\n\"No dinner,\" said Esther.\n\n\"Should I put my shoes back on?\" said Guin.\n\n\"Have you got somewhere else booked?\" asked the woman.\n\n\"It's not that\u2014\" said Dave.\n\n\"I didn't think so. This close to Christmas. But we're always open for guests. Otherwise it's just my husband and I, and King Leopold of Belgium. And the cats, of course.\"\n\n\"Cats?\" said Newton.\n\n\"The phone,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Of course,\" she said and stepped aside to reveal an old dial telephone on the reception desk, next to a hideous and misshapen statue of a horse.\n\n\"Right,\" Dave said, picking up the receiver to dial 999.\n\n\"Are we staying here?\" Newton whispered to Esther.\n\n\"I hope not,\" she whispered back.\n\n\"Did she say she lives with the king of Belgium?\" whispered Guin.\n\nEsther pulled a helpless face.\n\n\"There's no tone,\" said Dave and rattled the receiver cradle.\n\n\"Snow on the line,\" said the woman. \"Always causing problems.\"\n\n\"Isn't that trains?\" said Newton.\n\n\"It'll sort itself out soon enough. And, besides,\" the woman smiled, \"no one's going anywhere in this weather. Now, let me take your coats and hang them up to dry while you get settled.\"\n\nEsther sighed and shrugged out of her coat.\n\n\"We're staying?\" said Dave.\n\n\"Are we?\" said Newton.\n\n\"Is the car driveable?\" said Esther. \"If you can't get through to the breakdown people\u2026\"\n\n\"Can't we call a taxi?\" said Guin.\n\n\"Same phone,\" said Dave. \"How much is the room for the night?\" he asked the woman.\n\n\"We have so few guests this time of year,\" she replied. \"What seems reasonable?\"\n\nDave laughed faintly. Esther could hear a note of hysteria in it. \"Let's sort that out later,\" she said, taking off her coat.\n\nThe woman opened a large cupboard door, hanging up Esther's first coat and then the others as offered.\n\n\"As I was saying, dinner is in thirty minutes. None of you have any of those special dietary requirements.\" It was said as a statement not a question. \"My husband would normally help you with your luggage, but Mr Scruples is out at the moment. You are welcome to inspect your room, or you can relax in our guest lounge.\"\n\n\"Yes, the room,\" said Esther.\n\n\"Of course,\" said Mrs Scruples in a tone that suggested they had picked the wrong option. \"I will just go and get the key.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 21",
                "text": "\"But I don't have a bag!\" Guin pointed out as they tramped up the stairs behind Mrs Scruples. \"I'm not packed for a night away.\"\n\n\"Well, we weren't planning this,\" said her dad in a low voice. \"And, if we're lucky, we might still get away tonight. I wouldn't have exactly picked this place.\"\n\nHe looked up and around. The staircase was a broad U-shape, a spiral with only one turn and a grandfather clock placed on the large step of the turn. The high walls around were lined with tartan wallpaper and deep shelves. Mrs Scruples had said she had cats. The shelves were lined with them; gingers, tortoiseshells, fluffy white things, black cats with yellow eyes and fur like midnight. Guin counted at least twenty of them. All were dead and stuffed in straight-backed upright seated poses.\n\n\"My, that is a lot of cats,\" said Newton politely.\n\n\"Were they all yours?\" asked Esther.\n\n\"I didn't steal them,\" snapped Mrs Scruples. \"Here.\"\n\nShe rattled a key in the lock Guin followed the others into a room. It was large, larger than any room they had at home. There was a big double bed, high like it belonged in The Princess and the Pea or some other fairy tale. There was a set of bunkbeds on the near wall between the sink and a wardrobe so huge and old it probably led to Narnia. A further door led to a little bathroom. On the furthest wall, a tall Georgian window bordered by heavy curtains overlooked the town square. There were the dots of fairy lights and the swirl of heavy snow. Everything else out there was black.\n\n\"Now, I must show you how the bath and shower work,\" said Mrs Scruples. \"We have one of those American mixer taps and they can be quite confusing if\u2014\" She faltered. There was the sound of a doorbell, playing Westminster chimes. \"Another guest? We are popular tonight.\"\n\n\"Maybe it's your husband,\" suggested Dave.\n\n\"No,\" she said, soft and sombre. \"No, it won't be him. I'll leave you to settle in.\" And, with that, she was gone.\n\nGuin stood in the centre of the room. A double bed and bunkbeds. Four beds. Four of them.\n\n\"We're not staying, are we?\" said Guin.\n\nHer dad closed the door. \"It's not ideal,\" he agreed.\n\n\"We discussed this.\" Guin glared at him, jerked her head at Newton, pointed at the bunkbed and glared at her dad again. Through this silently furious pantomime, she hoped it was perfectly clear she was not okay with sharing a bedroom with the new boy.\n\n\"You promised,\" she said between gritted teeth.\n\n\"It's not ideal,\" her dad repeated which was useless and very much a dad answer.\n\n\"Top or bottom, Guin?\" said Newton, testing the mattresses.\n\nShe wanted to answer \"Neither!\" loudly and angrily, but that might mean Newton got to pick. She rapidly weighed up the pros and cons: having to climb past him while he watched if she was on top, the thought of having the big lump of a boy directly above her if she took bottom.\n\n\"I don't snore,\" said Newton, smiling.\n\n\"Top,\" she said, immediately stomping up the little ladder and throwing herself on the mattress. The springs creaked like a mechanical donkey being tortured. At least she was elevated above them all. If she tried really hard, she could pretend they didn't exist.\n\nShe laid out the few possessions she had with her. She opened her new wooden box and took out four of her creations. She placed them along the guard rail around the top of the bed \u2013 Bertie O'Cork, Scampious, Tinfoil Tavistock and Wiry Harrison. Tim the Robot stayed in the box because he was tired and in no mood to explore this stupid room in this stupid hotel.\n\nThe five pointed star fashioned from twigs and string which she'd been careful not to break she hung on the corner of the bed. She then opened the book she had found, the one which the silly woman in the big fur hat had clearly dropped.\n\nThere was no title on the cover but on the first proper page inside it said:"
            },
            {
                "title": "CHARGE OF THE SPRITE BRIGADE\u2013 THE ORIGINS OF LITTLE FOLK IN EUROPEAN FOLKLORE",
                "text": "[ DR EPIPHANY ALEXANDER ]\n\n[ SHEFFIELD ACADEMIC PRESS ]\n\nUnderneath was written in biro:\n\nProperty of Elsa Frinton, B.A. Hons!!!\n\nThe B.A Hons bit was added in a different colour pen. Clearly, this Elsa Frinton (probably the woman with the flappy hat and no sense of who was around her) was very pleased with her B.A. Hons, whatever one of them was.\n\n\"There's no wi-fi,\" said Newton from the bottom bunk.\n\n\"We can ask the hotel manager about it when we go down,\" said Esther.\n\n\"No, mum,\" he said. \"There's literally no wi-fi. No networks of any kind.\"\n\n\"Wow,\" she said, faintly sarcastic. \"It's like we've travelled back in time to the nineteen nineties.\"\n\n\"More like eighteen nineties,\" said Dave, inspecting the d\u00e9cor. \"You've picked a fine place here for us, Esther.\"\n\n\"What did you want us to do?\" she said.\n\n\"Don't argue,\" said Newton.\n\n\"We're not arguing,\" Esther and Dave said as one.\n\n\"Just don't.\"\n\n\"Look, we're not arguing. We're getting on just fine. Isn't that right, smoochy-poos?\" said Esther in a simpering lovey-dovey voice.\n\n\"It certainly is, pumpkin,\" said Guin's dad in an equally drippy tone.\n\nGuin didn't look up from her book \u2013 she didn't want to \u2013 but when they began to make overly dramatic kissing noises she made a sharp and angry sound.\n\n\"Get a room, you two!\" she said. \"Everyone. Get a room. Not this room. Another room.\"\n\n\"All right, all right,\" said her dad. \"Hey, Newton. How about we give these girls some space. Allow them to relax and freshen up before whatever delights Mrs Scruples is serving us for dinner. There might \u2013 might! \u2013 even be wi-fi downstairs.\"\n\n\"Unlikely,\" said Newton.\n\n\"Hey, it's Christmas, Newton, the time of miracles.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 23",
                "text": "When they stepped out onto the landing, Newton could hear the sound of music from downstairs. It was Christmas music, kind of like that old White Christmas song but not that one.\n\nDave heard it too and smiled. \"Can't beat a bit of Bing.\"\n\n\"You could try,\" said Newton.\n\n\"Ah, makes it feel all kind of Christmassy,\" he said, heading for the stairs. \"All of us snug inside. Snowing outside. Music. The smell of overcooked vegetables. The decorations.\"\n\n\"Twenty stuffed cats?\" said Newton.\n\n\"Sure. They're in the extended version of The Twelve Days of Christmas.\"\n\nNewton loved animals and he loved cats. He wasn't sure how he felt about them dead and stuffed and staring at him from on high.\n\n\"Look,\" said Dave, \"they've got an elf on the shelf. That's Christmassy.\"\n\nHe was right. On one of the lower shelves, tucked between a cross-eyed ginger and a fluffed up moggy was a little Christmas elf, dressed in red and green. At the end of his floppy striped legs were pointed boots with fur trimming.\n\n\"So, it is.\"\n\nIts round face was turned to look at them, its big blue eyes wide.\n\n\"Not at all creepy,\" said Dave.\n\nThey went downstairs and followed the hallway as it turned right, and along the considerable width of the building. Behind a potted plant Newton saw a dumbwaiter built into the wood-panelled wall next to the guest lounge. He'd never seen one outside a Hollywood movie. He was about to point it out to Dave when there was as prolonged crash of pots and pans from behind a door at the far end of the corridor.\n\n\"You all right in there?\" called Dave.\n\nThere was no reply.\n\nDave pushed open the door. Steam and a fug of boiled potatoes and sprouts rolled out into the hallway. Amongst multiple hobs and ovens and industrial kitchen equipment, Mrs Scruples battled against a cascade of oven trays and a wide scattering of roast potatoes.\n\n\"You all right?\" Dave repeated.\n\nMrs Scruples plucked the roasties off the tiled floor one by one, dropping them back in the pan and trying not to burn her fingers. \"Three second rule. Ow. Three second rule. Ow.\"\n\n\"Let me help,\" said Dave.\n\n\"I'm fine, I'm fine,\" insisted the hotelier.\n\n\"I can help,\" said Newton.\n\n\"Too many cooks,\" said Mrs Scruples.\n\n\"You'll burn yourself,\" said Dave. With a glance towards Newton of the 'go on, I'll deal with this' variety, he slipped into the kitchen.\n\n\"I could have helped,\" said Newton to no one. He went to explore.\n\nBack along the hall a bit was the guest lounge. It was empty, of people at least. It appeared to have been entered into a how much furniture could be crammed into one room competition. There were eight over-stuffed armchairs and two sofas. All of them covered with blankets and those doily-type headrest covers. The thick carpet was layered with three overlapping rugs. Even the television in the corner had a table cloth over the top of it. To top that, every flat surface had ornaments on it. There were five table lamps. There was a china shepherdess, a pottery shire horse \u2013 the twin of the one on the reception desk \u2013 palely-glazed willowy women and forlorn children. There were three potted plants. And amongst all of that, room had been found for a Christmas tree, sprawling over the two sofas it had been planted between.\n\nIn the eye-watering detail of the crowded room, Newton forgave himself for not spotting the parrot sooner. It sat in a bell-shaped cage hanging from a heavy metal stand in the corner. It was a massive bird, bigger than any parrot he'd seen before. If a turkey went to a fancy-dress party as a cockatoo it still wouldn't come close to the bulk of the thing.\n\nNewton knew that parrots were intelligent creatures and lived a surprisingly long time. He wasn't sure if they also grew bigger with age. This one certainly looked old. It was grey and blue and slowly regarded Newton.\n\n\"Hey, boy,\" he said in a chirpy voice to see if he'd get a response.\n\nThe parrot repositioned itself, foot to foot, on its perch.\n\n\"Who's a pretty boy then?\" Newton tried in his best parrot squawk.\n\nNothing.\n\nHe approached cautiously. The bars of the cage were widely spaced. Not wide enough for the parrot to escape through, but enough for a hungry-slash-angry bird to lunge through and attack an unwary finger or nose.\n\n\"Let me guess,\" said Newton. \"You're King Leopold of Belgium.\"\n\nIt was a rational conclusion and allowed Newton to dismiss the possibility their host, Mrs Scruples, was a raving nutter. Unless King Leopold of Belgium was one of the dead cats. That didn't seem any less mad.\n\nNewton tried a few more \"Hello\"s and \"Who's a pretty boy then?\"s, but the parrot was having none of it. It flexed its beak a little and gave him its full attention, one eye at a time, but did not indulge him in any parrot-speech.\n\n\"Well, it was nice meeting you, your majesty,\" said Newton, who felt that politeness should be extended to all living things. \"I'd best see if we're staying for dinner.\" He turned to leave.\n\n\"Stumid bmmy bfftrd,\" muttered the parrot.\n\nNewton looked back.\n\n\"Sorry?\"\n\nThe parrot looked at him dumbly.\n\n\"Right,\" said Newton and walked towards the door.\n\n\"Slly blmmy twrrt.\"\n\nNewton whirled. The parrot looked nonchalantly away. Newton squinted at it. King Leopold whistled a jaunty and innocent tune.\n\n\"It's not polite to swear at people behind their back,\" said Newton and left.\n\n\"Dffft bgger,\" muttered the parrot."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 24",
                "text": "Dave tried to assist Mrs Scruples in the kitchen but she firmly ejected him. He resisted momentarily, curious to know if she intended to serve up roast potatoes that had been thrown all over the floor.\n\n\"Bang the gong, if you must,\" she said, \"then take your seat.\"\n\n\"Gong?\" He found it back by the dining room, near the reception area. It was burnished brass, the size of a dustbin lid, and looked like an oversized pound coin.\n\n\"A gong to summon the diners,\" he murmured. \"How\u2014\" Quaint? Old-fashioned? Ridiculous? Very Fawlty Towers?\n\nHe struck it with enthusiasm, because there were limited opportunities in life for gong hitting. Newton appeared almost instantly.\n\n\"Good gong that,\" said Dave and led the way into the dining room. There was one long table, laid out with silver cutlery and white crockery and one diner already seated. He recognised the cravat and the cable-knit jumper, but couldn't quite place him. The man had called him \"squire\" several times, Dave remembered that much.\n\n\"Evening,\" said Dave.\n\nThe man's face at once became ebullient and alive. \"And good evening to you! Not mein host is it? Fellow travellers perhaps? Also lodging at Madame Scruples hostelry.\"\n\nHe stood and offered Dave a chubby hand. As he opened his mouth to introduce himself, Dave remembered his name.\n\n\"Duncan Catheter.\"\n\n\"My reputation precedes me, squire,\" said the man with a humble blush.\n\n\"We met,\" said Dave. \"Earlier.\"\n\n\"We did?\"\n\n\"We were eating pretzels,\" said Newton. \"Five pound ones.\"\n\n\"'Tis the season,\" said Duncan Catheter.\n\n\"And then I told you about my mum supporting Buy Nothing Day.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Duncan Catheter, the horror of the memory returning. \"I'd be fascinated to discuss that with her,\" he added, although Dave suspected 'fascinated' wasn't quite the right word.\n\n\"This is her,\" said Newton as his mum and Guin entered.\n\n\"Did someone actually hit the gong?\" asked Guin.\n\n\"I did,\" said Dave proudly.\n\n\"I want to hit the gong,\" she said.\n\n\"Another time. Two gongs might mean double the dinner.\"\n\n\"Did you tell the woman about my allergies?\"\n\n\"You don't have any allergies.\"\n\n\"That you know of.\"\n\nEsther nodded in greeting to Duncan Catheter.\n\n\"The Buy Nothing mother,\" said Duncan. \"Delighted to meet you, m'lady.\"\n\nEsther gave Dave a confused look as she shook his hand.\n\n\"Ah, this is Duncan Catheter,\" said Dave. \"The construction king.\"\n\n\"Guilty as charged,\" said Duncan.\n\nEsther shook his hand. \"Duncan\u2026?\"\n\n\"Catheter,\" he said.\n\n\"Catheter. As in\u2026?\"\n\nDuncan chuckled. \"Yes. Fine old Scottish surname. The catheter was invented by an ancestor of mine, a great-great uncle, and named after him.\"\n\n\"What's a catheter?\" said Guin.\n\n\"Well, it's a\u2014\" She caught herself doing hand gestures. \"It's a medical matter. Ask your dad.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" said Dave.\n\n\"The gong was rung some minutes ago,\" said Mrs Scruples sternly from the doorway. She had a tray laden with ornate glass dishes of prawn cocktail. \"If no one is seated, how am I going to serve them?\"\n\nIn the face of such chastisement, the Woollbys and the Roberts hurried to find their seats."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 25",
                "text": "Newton picked at the prawns in his dish. They were grey, tightly curled things and very chewy.\n\n\"I met King Leopold of Belgium,\" he said. \"It's a parrot. In the lounge. I think it swore at me.\"\n\n\"Esther and I saw an elf on the shelf,\" said Guin. She had the book on her lap, below the edge of the table, and didn't look up when she spoke. Apparently she wanted to compete in the unspoken competition of 'things that had been seen'.\n\n\"Yes, we saw that too,\" said Dave.\n\n\"But it's not a proper elf on the shelf,\" said Esther.\n\n\"How is it not?\" said Newton.\n\n\"I meant it's just an elf toy on a shelf. Elf on the shelf is a thing. It's a copyrighted toy and a book.\"\n\n\"Really?\" said Guin.\n\n\"I thought it was an old Christmas tradition,\" said Newton.\n\n\"Not at all,\" said Esther. \"It's only a few years old.\"\n\n\"Huh!\" said Dave, pleasantly surprised. \"I never thought about that.\"\n\n\"But you can't copyright an elf,\" said Newton.\n\n\"Canny bit of marketing there,\" said Duncan Catheter.\n\n\"But it's just two words that rhyme. Something on a something. You can't copyright that.\"\n\n\"You'd be surprised what you can copyright, squire.\"\n\n\"So, like \u2026 Troll on the Pole?\"\n\n\"If you like. Getting people to buy it. That's the trick.\"\n\n\"I don't like them,\" said Esther.\n\n\"That's okay. Trolls on poles are unlikely to catch on,\" said Dave, topping up his wine before offering the bottle first to Duncan and then Esther.\n\n\"The elf on the shelf I mean,\" said Esther. \"It's like the robins.\"\n\n\"What?\" said Dave.\n\n\"My mum used to tell me that robins were sent by Father Christmas to spy on us to see if we'd been good or bad, and if we deserved any presents. Same thing.\"\n\n\"Makes sense,\" said Duncan. \"He's making a list and checking it twice and all that.\"\n\nEsther sipped her wine. \"It's the surveillance state,\" she said.\n\nNewton recognised his mum warming to a theme. The surveillance state. Any moment now, she was going to mention that there were more security cameras per person in the UK than any other country in the world. Newton decided to stay out of it and tried to think of other mythical creatures that could rhyme with things they sat on. Minotaur on the floor?\n\n\"The elf on the shelf is a toy you're supposed to have in your house but aren't allowed to touch,\" said Esther.\n\n\"Is that right?\" said Dave.\n\n\"It's one of the rules.\"\n\n\"There's rules?\"\n\n\"Of course there's rules,\" said Guin, nose in her book.\n\n\"It sits in your house and watches you,\" said Esther, \"and every night parents move it somewhere new but, allegedly, if the child touches it then the magic is gone and the elf won't come back.\"\n\n\"It's a bit of fun, dear,\" said Duncan.\n\n\"Fun? It's conditioning us to be obedient. Did you know that there are more CCTV cameras per capita in this country than anywhere else in the world?\"\n\nBingo, thought Newton. Cyclops on the worktops?\n\n\"I thought it stood to reason that good children should be rewarded. Perhaps I'm wrong,\" said Duncan, very much in the manner of a man who knew he wasn't wrong but thought it better to indulge the little lady at the table.\n\n\"We should all be good, Mr Catheter,\" said Esther. \"But not because we hope to be rewarded. I raised Newton to be a good person but he's not good because he thinks he's going to get something for it.\"\n\nNewton smiled at his mum. No, he wasn't good because he expected something in return. He was a good person because of the crippling fear of disappointing others, his mum most of all. Of course, he didn't say this and pondered whether Griffin on your Tiffin was sufficiently good.\n\n\"What did you raise me to be, dad?\" asked Guin.\n\nDave gave it some thought. \"'Raise' is a strong word.\"\n\nDuncan swilled his wine, sniffed it, sneered but drank it anyway. \"In the old days, naughty children were given lumps of coal or sticks to be beaten with. What's that goaty creature they have in Germany who comes to steal wicked children at Christmas?\"\n\n\"Krampus,\" said Newton.\n\n\"Right,\" said Duncan, clicking his fingers. \"Put the fear of God into them. If we're rewarded, then we know we've done good. If we are punished or deprived then we know we've done wrong. That's what the good book says.\"\n\n\"That's what the rich tell the poor,\" said Esther. \"And themselves.\"\n\nDuncan pulled an expression of disgust. Dave put a hand on Esther's and Newton felt the sudden tension. Duncan had pressed Newton's mum's political buttons; they were easy buttons to press. Dave had reached out to calm Esther, which she would definitely take the wrong way. Dave was probably irritated they'd wound up staying the night in this weird bed and breakfast that Esther had seemingly picked on a whim. No one wanted to be here and it was all somebody else's fault but the little irritations would creep to the surface and Newton knew his mum was going to say something snappy and Dave would weigh in and then there'd be an argument and\u2014 \"Krampus on a hamper!\" Newton said very loudly.\n\nEveryone stared at him. Even Guin looked up from her book.\n\n\"Pardon?\" said Dave.\n\n\"Krampus on hampers,\" Newton tried again. \"Kramper-s on hamper-s. It almost works.\"\n\nDuncan pushed his prawn cocktail away and dropped his screwed up napkin on the table.\n\n\"Lovely pair of children you have, Esther,\" he said.\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Esther, polite if nothing else. \"Except Guin's not mine.\"\n\n\"I'm not,\" agreed Guin.\n\n\"Guin's mine,\" said Dave.\n\n\"And Newton's mine,\" said Esther.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Duncan. \"I just thought\u2026\"\n\n\"We're not yet,\" said Newton, doing a big circular, all-inclusive motion.\n\n\"It's complicated,\" said Esther.\n\n\"Life is, m'lady. Life is,\" grinned Duncan Catheter. \"Course, I discovered the secret to peace and simplicity years ago.\"\n\n\"Oh, really?\"\n\n\"Two simple words. Thai brides.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 26",
                "text": "The Little Folk in European Folklore book fascinated Guin. Not just the contents (which were really interesting) but the manner in which it had been written. It was, basically, a collection of different fairy stories and accounts of meetings with 'little folk' but it had been padded out and added to with difficult and flowery words to make it seem far more impenetrable than it really was. For example, on the topic of a creature called Jenny Greenteeth, the author had written:\n\nSynonymous with the duckweed and algae which perpetually covers deep, stagnant pools with their luminous green sheen, Jenny Greenteeth is a witchlike creature of faerie who preys on careless children and unwary travellers. Akin to Peg Powler and the Grindylow (she also goes by the names of Ginny Greenteeth, Jeannie Greenteeth and Fowl Jenny), Jenny Greenteeth is a river harpy, enticing children and the elderly into the depths where she drowns and devours them.\n\nHowever, unlike other enticing water sprite (c.f. neck, nacken, nix, mermaids) this siren is far from pulchritudinous. Her piscine looks, green skin and weed-like hair make her quite a ghastly prospect.\n\nIt was almost as if the author, this Dr Epiphany Alexander, was worried people wouldn't take her seriously if she just wrote a really interesting book about fairies and elves and felt the need to stick in big words willy-nilly. Pulchritudinous indeed! Nonetheless, once she'd realised the difficult language was just a trick of sorts, and that the meaning was almost perfectly clear if she simply skipped over any words that were too big for her to understand, Guin found herself reading the book at speed. And there were illustrations every few pages, of sharp-faced and sly-eyed creatures executed in scratching pencil, harsh inks and gloomy watercolours.\n\nFairies and pixies and ancient gods were all the same to Dr Alexander. It was all part of something that she more than once referred to as the 'rich tapestry of folklore'. This imagery was compounded by Dr Alexander's mention of the Norn, witch/god/fairy creatures who wove the fates of all people. And it was while reading about these that Guin had one of those minor epiphanies that children had far more than adults, in which she realised that the word 'yarn' had two meanings: that although yarn (a thread) and yarn (a story) were quite distinct concepts, in the hands of the Norn, they were one and the same.\n\nThe hotel woman, Mrs Scruples, made a disapproving noise as she came to collect Guin's starter plate. \"We never read at the table in my day,\" she said. \"Or played with our devices.\"\n\n\"I'm reading about changelings,\" said Guin. \"That's when fairies swap babies for evil fairy babies. And reading is a good thing, not like playing on your phone.\"\n\nNewton, who had been waving his phone around as though he might magically scoop up some missing data signal, blushed and put it away. \"I was just seeing if there was any update from Lily.\"\n\n\"I'm sure she'll be fine without you for the next couple of days,\" said Esther.\n\n\"Ah, young love,\" said Duncan Catheter.\n\nDave and Esther smiled at that. Newton did not.\n\n\"I'm going to try the phone again,\" said Dave, getting up. \"See when the breakdown people can come.\"\n\nEsther patted his hand as he excused himself from the table. As he left, he held the door for Mrs Scruples to come in with plates of roast turkey.\n\nDuncan refilled his glass. \"What did you do to your hand there?\" he asked Esther.\n\n\"Oh, cut it. My own fault, I guess. But Dave's patched it up for me. He's a paramedic.\"\n\n\"Fine job. Damn fine job. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise,\" said Duncan, as though there was a very real danger people might tell Esther it wasn't a damn fine job, and only people like Duncan could say otherwise. \"And what line of work are you in, m'lady?\"\n\n\"I work for a women's refuge charity,\" she said. \"I find new homes for women and their children fleeing domestic abuse.\"\n\nDuncan made thoughtful noises. \"Very noble. Very noble.\"\n\nMrs Scruples all but slammed Guin's plate down in front of her. \"Eat it while it's hot. I'm sure there's nothing so important in that book that can't wait.\"\n\nIn fact there was. Guin had found a picture of a five pointed star, fashioned from sticks and twine, like the one she had picked up earlier. It was, the description explained, an elf-cross. They were originally from Scandinavia (which Guin vaguely recognised as being somewhere near Norway and Sweden and those countries). In Scandinavia elf-crosses were called \u00c4lvkors and used to protect homes and livestock from elves. Scandinavian elves, it appeared, caused disease and bad luck and homes needed protecting. Guin traced a five pointed star on the tablecloth with her fingertip.\n\n\"Women's refuges. Busy line of work then?\" asked Duncan.\n\n\"Endless,\" said Esther. \"There's never enough accommodation for those who need it.\"\n\n\"I think it's a shame,\" said Mrs Scruples, placing a steaming bowl of vegetables in the middle of the table.\n\n\"It can seem quite bleak at times.\"\n\n\"I just think if people made more effort to keep their families together, there wouldn't be the need for these refuges and whatnot.\"\n\n\"The women we help are escaping from violent and abusive partners,\" Esther pointed out.\n\n\"Well, no one said marriage was easy,\" said Mrs Scruples. \"You have to work at it, don't you? People should learn to stick together.\"\n\nHer gaze drifted to the window. The world outside was black. Snowflakes occasionally drifted close enough to the glass to be caught in the light before falling away again, tiny ephemeral ghosts.\n\n\"Christmas is a time for families,\" she said faintly.\n\n\"Hear, hear,\" said Duncan.\n\n\"You have family?\" said Esther. Guin guessed that Esther didn't mean to sound so surprised.\n\n\"I do indeed,\" said Duncan. \"Indeed I do. Tangmo, my oriental queen and my two little princes, Gamon and Joe are waiting for me at home. I've just got to wrap things up here in the morning and then it's off homeski.\"\n\n\"Wrap things up?\"\n\nDuncan started to ladle sprouts and carrots onto his plate. \"Top level talks with the local bods about opening up some of their brownfield sites for property development. It's taken me an age to get my foot in the door, but I got a letter last week, arranging a meeting. Tomorrow morning, Christmas Eve. Unconventional but strike while the iron's hot, says I.\"\n\nGuin read on.\n\nMrs Scruples put roast potatoes on the table. As Guin looked up, her dad re-entered.\n\n\"No. Nothing but static on the line,\" he said.\n\n\"Give them time,\" said Mrs Scruples.\n\nGuin's dad spooned vegetables onto her plate for her. He made a surreptitious neck slicing motion as Esther reached for the roasties. Esther frowned.\n\n\"Oh, I forgot!\" said Mrs Scruples and dashed out.\n\n\"Don't eat the potatoes,\" whispered Dave.\n\n\"Why ever not?\" asked Duncan.\n\n\"She dropped half of them on the floor.\"\n\n\"Which ones?\"\n\n\"I didn't take photos,\" said Dave.\n\n\"This one's got a footprint in it,\" said Newton.\n\n\"I'm just asking how many,\" said Duncan.\n\n\"Does it matter?\"\n\n\"I like roast potatoes.\"\n\n\"Some. Some fell on the floor.\"\n\nDuncan grunted. \"I'll take a piece of that action,\" he said and grabbed half a dozen.\n\n\"I'll risk it,\" said Newton and reached for the bowl.\n\n\"Germs,\" said Guin.\n\n\"People are too fussed by cleanliness these days,\" said Esther.\n\n\"Everything in moderation,\" agreed Duncan.\n\n\"Crackers!\" declared Mrs Scruples, returning.\n\n\"Totally,\" said Guin before she realised the old woman was carrying a bundle of shiny red Christmas crackers.\n\n\"It's not Christmas Day yet,\" said Esther.\n\n\"It's near enough,\" said Mrs Scruples, handing them out. \"They're locally made.\"\n\n\"You like things locally made,\" said Newton and held one out to Esther to pull.\n\nEsther put one finger in her ear as she pulled. The crack of the explosive snapper was loud and there was even a whiff of smoke. Newton caught the little toy and the paper hat as they fell out. Esther picked up the dropped joke.\n\n\"What's the difference between snowmen and snowwomen? Snowballs.\"\n\n\"See?\" said Dave. \"Locally made and recycled. Come on, Guin.\" He waggled a Christmas cracker at her. \"Put the book down now.\"\n\nGuin closed the book, slowly so her dad could see it was a major inconvenience, and dutifully pulled the cracker. The toy was a little plastic jumping frog. Guin quickly spirited that away to a pocket. Her dad unrolled the joke.\n\n\"Help me! I'm being held prisoner in a Christmas cracker factory!\" he read.\n\nDuncan chuckled.\n\n\"Marginally more original,\" said Newton.\n\nDave scratched at a red, inky fingerprint in the corner of the joke. Guin poked at her turkey with a fork. It looked dry. She poured some gravy on it. The gravy was the colour and consistency of marmite. It didn't enhance the turkey much.\n\nGuin saw Duncan looking at Esther's joke lying on the table. A dark expression crossed his face. His hand went involuntarily to his chest, as though feeling for something in his breast pocket, when he caught Guin watching him.\n\n\"So, princess, what are you reading?\" he asked. Princess apparently meant Guin.\n\n\"A book about fairies,\" she said.\n\n\"Fairy in a dairy,\" said Newton.\n\n\"What?\" said Guin.\n\n\"Elf on a shelf. Fairy in a dairy,\" said Newton. \"Work in progress.\"\n\n\"Ignore him,\" said Esther. \"Bad jokes and puns are his speciality.\"\n\n\"Medusa on a juicer,\" said Newton.\n\n\"Fairy princess stories, eh?\" said Duncan.\n\n\"Not really,\" said Guin. \"It's about elves and spirits. Like, did you know, that at Christmas time, there was this thing called Yule\u2014\"\n\n\"It's an old word for Christmas,\" said her dad.\n\n\"\u2014Yule,\" said Guin, ignoring the interruption, \"when this thing called the Wild Hunt came riding through the land. Some say it was led by Odin and some say it was the elves, coming through to steal people away.\"\n\n\"What people?\" asked Esther.\n\n\"Unbaptised babies mainly,\" said Guin, doing her best to remember. \"But there was this one called, um, Dando. This man called Dando who needed a drink so much that he said he was willing to go to hell for it.\" She gave her dad a special look, just so he could understand the significance of that. \"And the Wild Hunt of elves and things, came along and took him.\"\n\n\"God bless the old yuletide traditions,\" said Duncan. He raised his glass and drained it. He looked at the near empty bottle on the table. \"Will I have to go to hell to get another drink round here, eh?\" He laughed at his own joke. \"Course, my grandpa used to say he saw piskies when he'd had a pint or two. Or three or four.\"\n\nGuin didn't know about piskies but she'd seen the illustrations in the book and the elves there didn't look much like the woodland pixies in her story books at home. Storybook elves and pixies wore flouncy see-through dresses and lived in mushroom houses, and they all had wings and looked like they were on starvation diets (probably because they couldn't achieve take-off with those little wings if they were a single gram overweight). The elves and pixies in Little Folk in Folkore were equally thin, but not because they were on a diet. Those ragged fairies looked like they had to kill and steal for every scrap of food they got and would do so willingly.\n\nGuin glanced at the corners of the room and thought about the whispering voices she'd heard under the trees earlier in the day. She wished she had the elf-cross in her hand and hadn't left it in the room upstairs."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 27",
                "text": "At some point, the distant Bing Crosby Christmas album was replaced by a distant Elvis Presley Christmas album.\n\nThe main course was dry, Dave thought. The turkey was wood dust shaped into turkey-shaped lumps. The vegetables had been so thoroughly boiled that even water hadn't survived the process. Even the gravy, through some arcane process that defied science, left a dry and dusty taste in the mouth. Dave piled cranberry sauce on his pre-Christmas Christmas dinner but that was tart and did not help. The temptation to wash it all down with copious amounts of wine was strong but, despite what his darling daughter might tell him, he was not a devotee of the gods of wine and drunkenness. If there was still a chance they could drive out of there tonight, he wanted to be sober enough to take the wheel.\n\nHe suspected it was already too late, and the snow far too thick but, as Mrs Scruples cleared away the plates in preparation for pudding, he excused himself from the table and went out into the hallway to try the telephone again.\n\nHe picked up the receiver and dialled the emergency services. Instead of the dead tone as before, there was some sound on the line. It crackled and swirled as though the snow had got inside the telephone system itself.\n\n\"Hello?\" he said.\n\n\"Khhorrrzzxx\u2026\" hissed the line. \"Hello?\"\n\n\"Hello?\"\n\n\"Hello? xeeeeek-k-k.\"\n\n\"I'd like report a crime. Someone's broken into my car.\"\n\n\"Broken\u2026 car\u2026 khhoorroo.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. \"I'm in Alvestowe. We're currently staying at \u2026 damn, I don't know its name.\"\n\n\"Eeeeeff. Damn.\"\n\n\"At this number anyway. I'm sure you'd be able to look it up. Will someone be able to come out and help us? We'll need a mechanic for the car.\"\n\n\"Mechanic\u2026 wwwweeee\u2026 car?\"\n\n\"Will someone be able to come out tonight?\"\n\n\"Zzhhhh\u2026 come out.\"\n\n\"Will it be tonight?\" He had raised his voice to be heard over the awful static.\n\n\"Tonight.\"\n\nThe line hissed and howled.\n\n\"Okay, then,\" said Dave eventually and hung up, not a hundred percent sure what he had actually achieved.\n\nThoughtful, he went back into the dining room. Mrs Scruples had brought in two desserts. An cut glass bowl filled with the red, yellow and white layers of a rich trifle, and a plate bearing a huge domed Christmas pudding with a traditional spring of holly jammed in the top.\n\n\"Any luck?\" Esther asked him as he sat.\n\n\"I think so. Hard to tell with that line.\"\n\n\"No one will be travelling in that weather,\" said Mrs Scruples.\n\n\"Is your husband not coming back soon?\" said Esther.\n\nMrs Scruples faltered. \"Oh. Oh, yes. He will. I'm sure. They said.\"\n\n\"Sorry? Who?\"\n\nDave could see Mrs Scruples' expression had driven down a dead end street and with tremendous awkwardness and restraint she was trying to back it out again.\n\n\"Christmas pudding or sherry trifle?\" she said, attempting a decent enough smile.\n\n\"Is there lots of sherry in the sherry trifle?\" asked Dave.\n\n\"Lots.\"\n\n\"Christmas pudding for me and Guin then.\" He gave his daughter a playful look. \"Don't want to turn Guin into an alcoholic too.\"\n\n\"Too?\" said Mrs Scruples.\n\n\"Ah,\" said Duncan, leaning over conspiratorially and nodding towards Esther. \"Is m'lady here fond of the sauce?\"\n\n\"No. I was joking and\u2014\"\n\n\"Cos I also wondered if the princess's real mum was a bit of a\u2014\" He gave a cuckoo whistle and swill of his glass.\n\n\"No, she wasn't.\"\n\n\"Wasn't?\"\n\nDave set his lips and lowered his voice. \"It was ovarian cancer. Guin was just a baby. Long time ago.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said Duncan as though he just been told a heart-warming tale. He looked at Esther. \"And did your\u2026? The boy's father\u2026?\"\n\n\"No, Mr Catheter,\" she said coldly. \"He didn't die of ovarian cancer. He's still alive, somewhere.\"\n\n\"My daughter thinks I'm an alcoholic because I enjoy a drink,\" Dave explained. \"That's all.\"\n\nDuncan laughed. \"How do doctors diagnose alcoholics? It's anyone who drinks more than they do. Fortunately, my doctor's an old soak. Trifle, Mrs Scruples! A big dollop. Let's see how much sherry there is.\"\n\nDesserts were doled out. Dave poured a healthy splurge of semi-solid custard onto his Christmas pudding and dug in. He coughed on the first mouthful.\n\n\"Does \u2013 kof! kof! \u2013 does this have alcohol in it?\"\n\n\"A sprinkling of brandy,\" said Mrs Scruples.\n\n\"A sprinkling?\" It tasted as if the pudding had spent the last decade at the bottom of a cask of brandy. He could get drunk just breathing in the fumes.\n\nHe poured a thick layer of custard over Guin's pudding.\n\n\"Stick to the custard,\" he told her.\n\nHe ate round the pudding, only nibbling the edges of the spirit-soaked lump of dark Christmas cheer. As he ate, he looked at the 'joke' he had pulled from his cracker. He scratched again at the red splodge that partially obliterated the words held prisoner in a Christmas cracker factory! It looked like a thumbprint. It looked like blood."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 28",
                "text": "Newton barely touched his Christmas pudding and was not encouraged when Mrs Scruples told him that there might be a shiny sixpence waiting for him at its centre. Nonetheless, he was born to please and was prepared to choke down the chemical mess when he saw that, with the exception of the loud and unashamed Duncan Catheter (who had wolfed down two and half bowls of trifle), the others had hardly eaten theirs either. He might have been born to please but he wasn't about to show everyone else up in front of Mrs Scruples.\n\n\"You're full then, I take it,\" said Mrs Scruples accusingly as she cleared away four uneaten puddings and Duncan's cleaned out bowl.\n\n\"Quite full,\" said Newton.\n\n\"Couldn't eat another bite,\" added his mum.\n\n\"Then I shall leave you to your own devices. And your devices,\" she added as Newton tried to covertly take out his phone. He felt instantly guilty.\n\nShe paused at the doorway with a stack of custardy bowls in her hands. \"The guest lounge is at your disposal but I will retire to my rooms at the back of the hotel if it's all the same to you. The door is marked private but knock if you must. But, fair warning, I do crank up the gramophone volume to mask the noises, so knock loudly.\"\n\n\"Mask what noises?\" Newton said to Guin.\n\nThe girl shrugged and went back to reading her book.\n\nDuncan stood. \"Ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et messieurs, Damen und Herren. I need to stretch my legs.\" He gave a shake of his foot, let out a fart and then departed.\n\nEsther and Dave looked at each other.\n\n\"So,\" he said.\n\n\"So,\" she said.\n\n\"I don't think we're going to see a police car or a repair truck tonight.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"So, we're staying here,\" he said. It wasn't a question as such and it wasn't really a statement. It was a hopelessly resigned comment, one that begged to be contradicted.\n\n\"Looks like it,\" she said wearily.\n\n\"Then I'm going to bed,\" said Guin.\n\n\"I might go see if the TV works,\" said Newton.\n\nIn the hallway, Newton pointed out the dumbwaiter to Guin.\n\n\"Know what that is?\" he said.\n\n\"A little old fashioned lift thing,\" she said.\n\n\"It's a dumbwaiter. And do you know what were they used for?\" he asked.\n\n\"Well, if films have taught me anything, it's to enable smart and resourceful kids to escape stupid villains.\"\n\n\"Um, yeah. Pretty much it,\" he said.\n\nGuin went upstairs. Newton went into the guest lounge.\n\nKing Leopold of Belgium eyed him beadily from his cage.\n\n\"Evening, your majesty,\" said Newton. The parrot said nothing.\n\nNewton crouched in front of the TV. It was an old television with actual buttons on the front. He turned it on and static washed across the screen. Newton could not recall ever seeing static on a television in real life. Modern screens had the decency to put up a black screen and a polite No Signal notice.\n\nHe tried all the channels. Static howled at different pitches and swirled with different rhythms. Something like a human figure appeared to stagger through the electric blizzard for a moment but then it was gone.\n\n\"Come on,\" he said. \"Show me something.\"\n\n\"Y'll nnt gtnuttin, ye dffft prkk,\" squawked King Leopold darkly."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 29",
                "text": "Guin eyed the elf on the shelf as she climbed the stairs. Its stripy legs dangled over the edge, curly-toed boots swaying ever so slightly. In the stairs' stark upward light, its face was heavily shadowed and looked down on her with what felt like stern judgement.\n\nBack in the room, alone, she thought about changing for bed. She had no change of clothes with her but there was a white robe hanging from the bathroom door. She stripped down to her underwear and put the bathrobe on. It was the only one in the room, but it was first come first served as far as she was concerned. No one had told her they'd be staying the night. No one had the intelligence to foresee it and tell her than bedclothes might be needed. As she saw it, the bathrobe was her right, given how shoddily she'd been treated. (And, yes, she knew she was being grumpy and selfish and inwardly reprimanded herself for it but kept the bathrobe anyway).\n\nShe went into the en suite bathroom. Esther had put out her toiletries bag before going down to dinner. Guin looked through it for toothpaste. She found the toothpaste and also a tub of cotton bud sticks which she put on the side of the sink.\n\nGuin cleaned her teeth with toothpaste and her finger and read the signs taped to the wall between the sink and the toilet.\n\n\u2002THE SINK IS FOR HANDS ONLY.\n\n\u2002THE WATER HERE IS NOT FOR DRINKING. NOT SANITARY.\n\n\u2002SANITARY PRODUCTS IN HERE.\n\n\u2002TO SAVE WATER, PRESS SMALL BUTTON FOR SMALL FLUSH. PRESS LARGE BUTTON FOR SOLIDS.\n\n\u2002DO NOT FLUSH SOLIDS DOWN THE TOILET. VERY HOT.\n\n\u2002THE TOILET IS FOR TOILET PAPER ONLY, NOTHING ELSE.\n\n\u2002NOW WASH YOUR HANDS.\n\nGuin re-read the signs and concluded she wasn't sure what she was meant to do if she needed the toilet. The toilet and the surrounding plumbing looked like they were a relic of Victorian times and she didn't want to break it by flushing the wrong thing. She needed the toilet but decided to hold on until later.\n\nShe took the cotton buds and Little Folk in Folkore to her top bunk.\n\nWiry Harrison, Tinfoil Tavistock and the others were where she had left them along the guard rail. She silently told them about the rubbish dinner and the family decision to stay for the night. She then showed them the elf-crosses in the book and told them they were going to make some more. Tinfoil Tavistock asked why and Guin explained it was the season for the Wild Hunt and 'little folk' \u2013 and the Krampus too! she added, remembering \u2013 to come riding through and kidnap children, and she didn't like the look of the snow and the darkness outside. What she didn't say was that if there were dangerous creatures out and about, the elf-cross had done little to protect Elsa Frinton B.A. Hons. Whatever had happened to her.\n\nWith the bendy cotton bud sticks and short lengths of cotton thread, Guin constructed several five-pointed elf-crosses. She hung them from the sash window latches, two in the bedroom, one in the bathroom. There was a loft hatch in the centre of the room, a slatted panel of painted white. If she could have hung one there she would have done but it was too far away to reach and there was nothing to hang it on. Instead, she hung one on the back of the bedroom door and, for good measure, tucked one under the double bed where her dad and Esther were going to sleep.\n\n\"There,\" she said, climbed back up onto her bunk and, with her homemade friends around her, continued reading the book."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 30",
                "text": "Through the door with Private written on it came the muffled sounds of Christmas crooning. If pressed, Esther would have said it was Michael Bubl\u00e9, but it was possible Michael Bubl\u00e9 was her default guess when presented with any kind of crooning lounge-singer. It was more likely to be Dean Martin, or Frank Sinatra, or any one of those crooners through the ages who were indistinguishable to her ears.\n\nEsther popped her head round the lounge door. Newton crouched in front of the television, redundantly flicking between stations.\n\n\"No joy?\" she said.\n\n\"It's not picking up anything.\"\n\n\"That's one of them old analogue TVs. You know, wotsit ray tubes. I think they turned the signal off for them years ago.\"\n\n\"Bggroff 'n' lvvvimalone,\" screeched the parrot in a cage in the corner.\n\n\"My, that's a big bird,\" said Esther.\n\n\"That's King Leopold,\" said Newton.\n\n\"Course it is.\"\n\nNewton sighed irritably at the television and turned it off. \"No TV. No wi-fi.\"\n\n\"Oh, it's like the dark ages round here.\" Esther smiled sympathetically. \"You'll have to engage us in conversation.\"\n\n\"While we're all tucked up in our beds. Ugh.\"\n\n\"It'll be like The Waltons,\" she said. \"'Night, John Boy. Night, gran'ma.'\"\n\n\"What's The Waltons?\" said Newton.\n\nEsther rolled her eyes. \"It's a different world these days, huh?\"\n\nA score of stuffed cats watched them as they climbed the stairs to their room.\n\n\"What did you do to you hand, mum?\" Newton asked.\n\nShe looked at it and felt the itchy tension in the injury. \"Stuck my nose in where I shouldn't have,\" she said.\n\n\"But it was your hand.\"\n\n\"Ha, ha. No, I surprised someone \u2026 something\u2026\"\n\n\"Something?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"Someone.\"\n\nNewton nodded at the elf on the shelf. \"Who treats elves when they're injured?\" he said.\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"The National Elf Service.\"\n\n\"That's a good one, son.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 31",
                "text": "Guin flicked through Little Folk in European Folklore after everyone had finally gone to bed. They had made a big show of being quiet and unobtrusive, even though it was clear Guin was still awake and very publicly ignoring them as they took turns in the bathroom to dress for bed. Her dad turned up ten minutes later, belching and wheezing and making whispered complaints to no one that he had eaten too much of that Christmas pudding and he was (to used his own vulgar phrase) \"Pissed on brandy fumes.\"\n\nHalf an hour later she was the only one awake and reading about elf-bolts by the light cast from a lamp which had been left on. The lamp featured a jaunty cartoon squirrel leaning against the centre post of the lamp stand. Guin kept reminding herself that it was a squirrel, because she'd seen it earlier in better light. Right now it looked like a malevolent, buck-toothed troll, cast in shadow. Guin was mildly unnerved by the sight, but the sighs, snores and occasional farts from the others in the room was somehow reassuring. Guin glanced up at Wiry Harrison perched on the guard rail of the bed and shared a few thoughts about the squirrel lamp with him.\n\nThe light was just about enough to read the book, but there was an occasional distracting flicker, just discernible from the corner of her eye. Guin looked up as it happened again. The wiring was probably ancient, but the tiny disturbances were accompanied by a small, stealthy sound \u2013 definitely a non-electrical sound. She put the book down and watched. A few minutes later she saw something fly from the open doorway and collide with one of the elf crosses hanging on the back of a chair. Wasn't the door closed when they all went to bed? The elf cross swung briefly on its paperclip hanger. Guin couldn't see what had hit it, but there was a scattering of tiny objects \u2013 wads of paper, fragments of wood - on the carpet to indicate the elf cross was definitely the target. She lay perfectly still and watched as another three tiny projectiles shot from the doorway. The last of them succeeded in dislodging the elf cross, and it fell to the floor.\n\nMoments later, Guin saw the door open a little further. She held her breath, wondering who was there. She watched as a head came around the door, but it was much lower down than she'd expected. It was the height of a toddler, but with an air of subtle cunning that was something else altogether. The head turned from one side of the room to the other and Guin realised it was wearing a hat with a tiny bell, the tinkling almost too faint to hear. The face had sharp features and eyes that shone in the lamplight. The rest of the figure slunk around the door. It was skinny in a very familiar way. Guin realised she had seen a picture of it in the book.\n\nIt was an elf.\n\nGuin watched the eyes swivel round to regard her bed. She tried to shrink back with the least possible movement, avoiding its attention. She began to wonder if she was dreaming \u2013 this was a familiar nightmare: the invading presence, the need to keep perfectly, perfectly still.\n\nThe elf crept into the room and Guin realised it was carrying something at its side. The lamplight gleamed off a shiny, wickedly pointed blade, as misshapen as an icicle, the grey of winter sky.\n\nGuin felt her heart banging in her chest. She wanted time to figure this out. She wanted to consider why her mind would conjure such a terrifying dream. Was this simply a result of falling asleep while reading the book of fairy folklore?\n\nThe book was in her hands. She glanced at it, fearful that even eye movement would draw the creature to her. She looked at the page, at the words.\n\nElf-bolts or elf-shot, (which modern scholars have rationalised as the cutting implements and arrowheads of early Britons) were thought to be the weapons with which elves hurt livestock.\n\nShe could read. She could read and the words stayed the same. She could never normally read in a dream. Which meant\u2014\n\n\"Oh, hell,\" she whispered.\n\nThe elf looked up at her contemptuously before moving purposefully towards Newton in the bottom bunk. Guin realised doing nothing was not an option. She reached out for the nearest thing, which turned out to be a coat hanger on the end of the guard rail, and vaulted to the floor with a loud thump.\n\nThe elf hissed and turned its knife towards her. It smelled of old things in boxes, of cinnamon and sugar. Guin thrust the coat hanger forward. It was one of those rubbishy wire ones which would bounce off if she tried to hit it over the head. She jabbed instead, which was equally useless. She dodged a knife thrust, and then she made her move. Over its head went the coat hanger and she twisted, using a corkscrew to tighten the coat hanger around its throat. It swung its knife at her but, coat hanger in hand, she kept it at more than arm's length.\n\n\"Some help here!\" she shouted.\n\nThe elf wasn't giving up. It stabbed and jabbed at her and she pulled away. It never thought to stab at the hands holding the coat hanger, going for her belly every time. The elf's face turned red as it choked, but Guin's arms were tiring. A wild swing of the blade snagged the edge of her bathrobe. It tried to haul her closer. Guin twisted, letting the robe slip from her arms.\n\nThe elf was like a wild animal, she thought. Its attention was centred on the robe it had speared, like a bull in one of those horrible bullfights taking all of its anger out on the cape, not the horrible matador. It dragged the robe closer, gathering it up, entangling itself. Guin swung the coat hanger, the elf still firmly clamped by its neck, up and over, slamming it down against the floor with all of her might. The elf made a tiny Oof! Sound, and went slack beneath the bathrobe.\n\nGuin prodded it with her foot. It didn't move.\n\nShe looked round. \"Did no one wake up?\" she demanded.\n\n\"Wah?\" said Newton, groggily.\n\nShe thumped her dad. \"How are you all still asleep?\" She turned on the main light. There were grumbles from three sleepy individuals.\n\n\"What's the time?\" said her dad, turning over.\n\n\"No idea,\" said Guin, wondering why the hideous clutter of this building included no useful features like clocks. \"That's not important.\"\n\n\"What's the time?\" mumbled Esther as though needing confirmation.\n\n\"I just killed an attacker.\"\n\nHer own words hit Guin hard. She had just taken a life. It was a murderous elf, but it was still slightly overwhelming. It was either horrific and deeply traumatic, or ever so slightly cool. She would decide later.\n\nEveryone was sitting up now, bleary and incredulous.\n\n\"What?\" asked her dad. \"Did you\u2026?\"\n\n\"Did she say killed an attacker?\" said Esther.\n\n\"Yes. With a coat hanger,\" said Guin. \"It was an elf.\"\n\n\"It was an elf and you killed it with a coat hanger,\" said her dad slowly. He scanned the floor. \"Nightmare, honey?\"\n\nGuin sighed and pointed at the bundled bathrobe.\n\n\"It's a dressing gown,\" he said.\n\n\"Inside the dressing gown.\"\n\nIt was his turn to sigh. He swung his legs out of bed, scratched himself in a way Guin wished he wouldn't in front of his daughter and began to unroll the bathrobe.\n\n\"You see,\" he said patiently, \"sometimes, particularly when we're sleeping in a strange new place, we see things and we think that they're \u2013 Oh, my God! It's a dead elf!\"\n\nNewton scrambled from his bed to look.\n\n\"What is it?\" said Esther.\n\nGuin rolled her eyes silently. How many times did she have to explain?\n\nNewton got out of bed. At least he was wearing proper pyjamas, unlike the boxers and T-shirt combo her dad was in.\n\n\"Bloody hell,\" said Newton. \"You've murdered the elf on the shelf.\"\n\n\"It's not a doll,\" she said.\n\n\"It's so small,\" he said, in the voice of someone who was thinking about picking it up and cuddling it.\n\n\"It was heading for you with a knife in its hand,\" said Guin.\n\nHer dad prodded the elf and shook his head.\n\n\"It's a tiny man,\" he said faintly, like he didn't believe it. \"You killed a tiny man in an elf suit.\"\n\n\"Otherwise known as an elf,\" said Guin.\n\n\"But there's no such things,\" said Newton.\n\nHer dad picked up the elf's knife and tested the blade with his thumb. He winced. \"Maybe \u2026 maybe it's a midget burglar who like dressing as an elf.\"\n\n\"That's totally un-PC, Dave,\" said Esther. \"You can't use the 'm' word to describe little people.\"\n\n\"It's an elf!\" said Guin.\n\n\"No such things,\" Newton repeated numbly.\n\nEsther stepped into her jeans. She knelt by the elf and touched the edge of its stripy trousers. They were probably meant to be red and white but time and dirt had turned them to mucky purple and urine yellow. \"Right,\" she said. \"This is either an elf, or it's not.\"\n\n\"What?\" said Guin's dad.\n\n\"We either re-evaluate everything we thought we knew, or we rationalise it away. But there's no denying this \u2026 individual is here.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"And so we must act accordingly.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\nShe looked up at the open door and the dark landing beyond. Guin shivered.\n\n\"I'm sure it was alone,\" said her dad.\n\n\"Are you?\" said Esther.\n\n\"The ones that killed Elsa Frinton weren't,\" said Guin.\n\n\"The what? Who?\" said Newton.\n\n\"There aren't any more of these,\" said her dad, trying to sound confident, rather than actually sounding confident. \"It's just one man.\"\n\n\"Elf,\" said Guin.\n\nHer dad went to the door but to Guin's dismay, he didn't close it. He opened it wider and looked out.\n\n\"The ones in the market weren't either,\" said Esther.\n\n\"Weren't what?\" he said. \"Wait.\" He scrunched up his eyes and along the landing. \"I think I\u2014\"\n\nThere was the sound of a pattering feet. Esther was already up, pushing the dumbstruck Dave out of the way of the door and slamming it shut.\n\n\"What is it, mum?\" said Newton, a quaver of fear in his voice.\n\nEsther turned the key in the lock and stepped back. She held up a finger for quiet. \"I saw some of these things,\" she whispered. \"In a workshop. I thought they were children.\"\n\n\"When?\" said Dave, confused.\n\n\"At the market. There were several of them. They\u2014\"\n\nThere was a thump at the door then a series of knocks. Guin wasn't the only one who noticed that the knocks were coming from near the bottom of the door.\n\n\"They want to hurt us,\" said Newton.\n\n\"No,\" said Dave.\n\n\"They hurt me,\" said Esther and held up her bandaged hand.\n\nThe door handle rattled violently.\n\n\"They chased me and stabbed me with a chisel,\" said Esther, no longer even trying to whisper. \"I think one of them had a knife as well. It might even have been the one Guin killed.\"\n\nGuin ran to her bunk and grabbed Wiry Harrison from the guard rail \u2013 not because she was scared but because he might be. She reached up and grabbed the Little Folk in European Folklore too.\n\n\"Elves are real?\" said Newton, still trying to take it in.\n\n\"Elsa Frinton thought so.\"\n\n\"Who's Elsa Frinton?\" asked Esther.\n\nGuin waved the book. \"I can't be sure, but I think she was trying to track down these things,. I think they got her first. I saw her hat and it had blood on it.\"\n\n\"All right, all right,\" said her dad. \"I think we're all getting a little bit spooked.\"\n\n\"There's a dead elf at our feet, Dave,\" said Esther. \"That came into our room with murder on its mind.\"\n\n\"Yes, now we're making small mundane encounters seem downright sinister. I'm sure these things aren't really after us. I mean we'd have noticed if there were loads of tiny\u2014\" He stopped and stared at his feet.\n\n\"You've seen them too, haven't you, dad?\" said Guin.\n\nHe shook his head. \"Earlier, when I saw someone messing with the car, it was the strange way that they looked when they ran away. I thought I saw one tall person breaking apart into\u2014\" He laughed. \"It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud.\"\n\n\"You think it was elves all standing on top of each other to look like a person?\" said Guin and placed the fallen elf cross on the door handle.\n\nThe thumping at the door subsided. From outside came a fiercely dark chittering sound, words in a language that Guin didn't recognise.\n\n\"I have no idea what to think,\" said her dad. \"This is utterly beyond me.\"\n\n\"The elf crosses seem to help,\" said Guin. \"Our room was protected until they knocked one of them down.\"\n\n\"Can we make more?\" said Newton.\n\n\"I made these out of cotton buds and string. They're five-sided stars and I copied the design out of the book.\" She held it up.\n\n\"Have you got any more cotton buds and string?\" asked Newton.\n\nGuin shook her head."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 32",
                "text": "Esther crossed to the window and pulled the curtain aside.\n\nOutside, on the narrow ledge, stood two elves, their sly faces pressed against the window, their palms flat. Snow was mounting on their shoulders and on the tops of their pointy shoes. Their faces were small and round, too small to be human faces, too sharp to be children. They looked cold and they looked hungry.\n\nThe pair of them glanced at Esther and then pointedly looked at the window catch and the elf cross hanging from it, imploring her to remove it.\n\n\"Nah,\" she said and closed the curtain. \"We're sitting ducks. We need to get out of here.\"\n\n\"They can't come in with the elf crosses there,\" said Guin.\n\n\"Do we sit here until daylight?\" asked Dave. \"Will they go when it gets light?\"\n\n\"That's vampires,\" Guin pointed out.\n\n\"They're afraid of crosses,\" said Newton.\n\n\"Elf crosses.\"\n\n\"Could we make elf crosses out of this stuff?\" asked Newton. He was pointing at the seat of a chair. \"If we unravelled it, maybe?\"\n\n\"Looks a bit stiff,\" said Guin, flicking it with her fingers.\n\n\"It's cane,\" said Esther, stabbing it with a finger. \"It will become perfectly pliable if we soak it in hot water. Run the tap, Dave.\"\n\n\"Oh, good,\" he said. \"I'm really glad in this time of crisis we're going to do some crafting.\"\n\nEsther stood on the bed and launched herself, feet-first onto the chair seat. She expected it to pop out with her weight on it, releasing the cane for them to use. What she didn't expect was for the chair to explode around it. She picked herself up off the floor and released the seat from the shattered wood. She picked at the edges to expose the strands of cane.\n\n\"I could have just used my pen knife to cut it out,\" said Dave.\n\nThere was a penetrating screeching noise from the window, and the sound of more tapping from the door.\n\n\"They're just trying to scare us,\" said Newton.\n\nEsther beamed at her son, in an effort to convey a lack of fear. Her shaking hands were fooling nobody.\n\nGuin took charge of elf crosses and supervised the construction of another five. Her practised fingers made two while everyone else struggled to make one.\n\n\"Two nuns were walking along one day,\" said Newton, his fingers fumbling. \"Dracula leapt out at them from behind a bush. One nun says to the other, 'Quick, Sister Mary! Show him your cross!' and the other nun frowns and shouts, 'Sod off, Dracula!'.\"\n\nGuin just looked at him.\n\n\"I don't get it,\" said Esther.\n\n\"Show him your cross. It's a joke. It's\u2014\" He looked down. \"I think I might have seen the elves too,\" he said. \"I definitely heard something in the trees near the church. And, at the nativity, I saw the baby Jesus in the nativity open and close its eyes.\"\n\n\"I've seen dolls that can do that,\" said Guin.\n\n\"I think they've been following us all over town.\"\n\n\"So, if elves are real, what does that mean for all the other stuff?\" asked Dave. \"The reindeer with red noses, the flying snowman and goodness only knows what else?\"\n\n\"Aren't you forgetting the man in the big red suit?\" asked Esther.\n\n\"No, I'm ignoring the man in the big red suit,\" said Dave. \"Apart from the fact that my brain's about to explode, I know very well where all of the presents in our house have come from over the years, and I've never received any threatening letters from the North Pole claiming copyright infringement or whatever.\"\n\nEsther gave a small shrug of agreement. \"No, of course not.\" She swallowed the natural follow-up, which was to say that would be ridiculous, because it was all ridiculous. Utterly and completely ludicrous.\n\n\"But,\" Guin said slowly as she finished her third elf cross in as many minutes, \"does this mean we've been bad?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Dave automatically. \"How so?\"\n\n\"You know, the naughty list and the nice list. That man at dinner was talking about the Krampus.\"\n\nEsther thought for a moment about Duncan Catheter. There were elves in the house. Had they already got him? And Mrs Scruples?\n\n\"We've not been bad,\" she said firmly. \"And no one gets to pass judgement over us except, you know, us. These little fascists got a problem with my family then they have to go through me first.\"\n\nNewton huffed. \"I think mine looks more like a really rubbish hat\" He tried his elf cross on his head.\n\n\"Nonsense,\" said Esther, \"it's a great job.\"\n\n\"So what are we going to do with them now?\" asked Dave.\n\nGuin fetched her new box and took out the little robot figure. She unclipped a safety pin from its side.\n\n\"Dad, you've got more safety pins in your first aid kit, right?\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 33",
                "text": "They quickly took the sheets off the bed and, pinning them together, turned them into a protective shield. Dave decided it looked like a cross between a bird hide and a family-sized body bag. Elf crosses were strategically placed around the outside, and each person held up a side. They had dressed, or at least thrown on trousers and shoes and such clothes as they thought necessary to do battle with Christmas elves. Dave had his smallest first aid kit stuffed in his back pocket. Guin had insisted on bringing the folklore book and pockets stuffed with her little toys. In this situation, Dave wasn't going to deny his little girl anything.\n\n\"Try to keep it level,\" instructed Guin.\n\nThey had decided there needed to be little port holes to enable each person to see out, but that the protection needed to extend to the top of Dave's head, as he was the tallest.\n\n\"How are we going to get anywhere?\" asked Esther. \"If we're all standing back to back in the middle. Only one person can walk forwards at a time. It could get very tricky. What if someone walks slower than all of the others? Who will decide where we go?\"\n\n\"Esther's in charge of steering,\" said Guin. \"Dad, you're lookout. You're tallest.\"\n\n\"And me?\" asked Newton.\n\nEsther thrust a weapon into her son's hand. It looked very much like a toilet brush.\n\n\"What's that?\" asked Dave.\n\n\"Toilet brush. With added elf cross,\" said Esther.\n\n\"If it doesn't work as a protective ward, you might be able to pass on some nasty germs,\" said Guin, disgusted.\n\nDave took a deep breath and tried to focus on their goals. \"We're going downstairs and straight outside so that we can get some help, yes?\"\n\n\"Absolutely,\" said Esther. \"It's not that far, if we concentrate and don't let them distract us.\"\n\n\"Stairs will be tricky.\"\n\n\"Which is why we need to concentrate,\" said Esther firmly.\n\nDave felt for the door handle through the sheet, peering through his porthole. \"Everyone ready?\" He unlocked the door, pulled it open and looked outside. At first glance, the landing was empty. Even so, he was pretty sure the elves were not far away.\n\nThe lights flickered. Dave prayed that whatever antique wiring illuminated this place would hold up for a few more minutes. \"All clear.\"\n\n\"To Dave, to Dave,\" said Esther.\n\n\"ONE two three four, TWO two three four,\" said Guin as they shuffled forward in time.\n\nThe group stepped out onto the landing. Dave looked all around. He saw an elf lounging against the wall, next to their door. It had a lazy, arrogant air about it. This one had a smear of white beard on its chin, unlike the other beardless elves they had seen. It looked like an evil Papa Smurf.\n\n\"ONE two three four!\" hissed the elf, in a mocking but recognisable parody of Guin's time-keeping chant.\n\nGuin faltered. Esther didn't miss a beat and picked up the tempo with a bout of, \"We shall overcome! We shall overcome! We shall overcome some da-aa-aa-ay!\"\n\nIt wasn't a song Dave normally enjoyed, but at that moment it was perfect. Esther was able to bellow it at the top of her lungs, drowning out the elf. Dave had to admit it was rousing in the way only a protest song could be.\n\nThe elf peeled itself off the wall and feinted at them, but mainly for show. It was clearly reluctant to go anywhere near the elf crosses.\n\nThey were making a lot of noise. How was it possible nobody had woken up and come to see what was the matter? He wasn't sure whether he'd caught the faint strains of a saxophone coming from somewhere. Presumably Mrs Scruples was still playing her music. He remembered she said she played her gramophone loudly to \"Mask the noises\". A chilling thought struck him.\n\n\"Evil cow,\" he whispered to himself.\n\n\"What?\" said Guin.\n\nThe Woollby-Roberts (or possibly Roberts-Woollby) steered towards the top of the stairs. Dave had the unenviable task of going down backwards, last of the group. He was grateful Esther altered her singing to indicate the change in terrain.\n\n\"We shall overcome! Step down. We shall overcome! Step down.\"\n\nDave glanced down to see where he needed to tread. He made the first step, and the second, without incident. The elf on the landing lounged against a wall, watching them with a disconcerting half smile.\n\n\"Where are the others?\" Dave asked.\n\n\"You're meant to be lookout,\" said Newton.\n\nNow the whole family were on the stairs, and nobody had tripped or knocked them down like bandage-wrapped dominoes. The appalling stuffed cats were right above them; compelling, in that car crash way bad art always was. Dave dared to hope they all might make it to the ground floor unscathed. As he twisted round to look at Esther and give her an encouraging smile he caught sight of movement above.\n\n\"Oh no\u2014!\" The rest of the sentence was lost in a screeching of gleeful hatred. The stuffed monstrosities toppled forward into the shield.\n\nDave tried to understand how a stuffed cat had come to land on the step directly behind him, then its head peeled open. Tufts of long-dead fur were cast aside. The cat's ears slid down and an elf face popped out and leered at him. Another two stuffed cats messily exploded into elves. The family's protective shield suddenly felt like a very confined space. They tried to move back from the elves, but the sheets held them in place. There was a ripping sound. Guin shrieked and stumbled backwards, falling down the stairs inside a length of bed sheet.\n\n\"Guin!\"\n\nEsther was already running downstairs after Guin.\n\nAn elf dropped onto Dave's shoulder. He ducked and yelled, trying to dislodge it.\n\n\"Elf-crusher!\" yelled Newton and swung his toilet brush.\n\nIt wasn't the invincible weapon Esther had originally planned. Perhaps, she'd pictured it working like Thor's hammer, frying elves with its super powers. Even though it clearly had the power to repel them, it didn't actually damage the elves in any significant way. To make matters worse, it was clearly a very cheap toilet brush. The end broke clean off when it clipped Dave's shoulder. Something wet sprayed Dave's face, and it wasn't elf blood.\n\n\"Come on!\" Esther shouted to Guin. There was a definite, if woozy, response from Guin further down the stairs.\n\n\"Esther!\" Dave called as he ripped the elf from his shoulder, tearing its sharp nails from the fabric of his T-shirt.\n\n\"We're fine!\" she shouted back. \"Help Newton!\"\n\nThe only advantage Dave had was elevation: he was further up the stairs. He kicked out at the elf and sent it flying \u2013 immediately horrified he'd made things worse for Guin and Esther.\n\n\"Newton! Grab my hand!\"\n\nHe pulled Newton up onto the landing, so there was less chance of him falling down the stairs. Dave knew the drill. The first thing you did in an emergency was remove whatever danger you could from yourself and the victim; and a fall from height was a classic risk. He grabbed hold of an elf clinging to Newton and pulled it off. His initial plan was to use the momentum to get in a really good swing: bash the little bastard's brains out on the wall opposite. But Dave had forgotten the beardy boss elf who'd been leaning against the wall outside the bedroom. He was reminded when a voice rasped behind him.\n\n\"ONE two three four!\"\n\nIt grabbed Dave's arm on the count of four,. Dave was like a hammer-thrower who'd been interrupted mid-spin by someone hanging a bag of groceries off his arm. He tottered about the landing, clumsily holding two elves.\n\nNewton came at them, holding up a torn section of sheeting. Dave hurled the pair of elves into the sheet.\n\n\"Tie it up!\" yelled Newton.\n\nThey tied it, corner to corner, the elves wriggling inside. Newton found another piece of sheet and they double-bagged the elves. \"It's not gonna hold, is it?\" he said.\n\nAt that moment another stuffed cat burst off the shelf. Dave watched in horror as the elf discarded its disguise mid-air, with moves resembling martial arts kicks and twists. It landed on Newton's head, digging its tiny hands into his face and bracing its legs on the back of his neck. Newton reached up. He was unable to dislodge the elf. Instead he twisted long strands of his own hair into a makeshift noose.\n\nDave wanted to help, but was all too aware the elves in the improvised sack would not improve the situation if they got free. Newton tugged tighter and tighter. The elf made choking noises and went slack, sliding down Newton's shoulders.\n\n\"Is it dead?\"\n\nDave half-nodded, half-shrugged. Paramedic training didn't cover the vital signs of mythical creatures.\n\n\"Incoming!\" called Newton, pointing at another pair of elves climbing the stairs.\n\nDave hurled the bagged elves downwards, intending to bowl over the climbing ones. One of them reached out a hand and clawed the bag open, mid-flight. The bagged elves tumbled out, righting themselves. Now there were four elves advancing up the stairs.\n\n\"Back to the bedroom!\" said Newton.\n\nDave hesitated. His daughter and his girlfriend were out of sight, downstairs somewhere. The beardy boss elf spat something in a scratchy language. Knives appeared in hands.\n\n\"Right. Back to the bedroom,\" agreed Dave."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 34",
                "text": "On the ground floor, Esther had her own problems. She had an elf by its ears and was swinging it around at arms' length.\n\n\"I've banged my head,\" muttered Guin.\n\n\"You said that already,\" said Esther. She flung the into the guest lounge and slammed the door.\n\n\"Maybe I've got amnesia,\" said Guin.\n\n\"One problem at a time. Behind you!\"\n\nAn elf was dangling from the bannister by its spindly arms and preparing to jump onto Guin.\n\nEsther wouldn't say she consciously decided to hit it with the gong. It was heavy and unwieldy and really not the ideal shape for an offensive weapon. But it was a gong.\n\nWithout a thought (because that thought would have been \"Use something else\"), Esther yanked it from its stand and slammed it against the dangling elf, pinning it to the staircase. The elf made an understandably surprised \"Urk!\" sound and its limbs went limp.\n\n\"This way,\" said Guin, pushing open the door to the kitchen.\n\nEsther dashed after her, gong still in hand, although it was really, really heavy and she might have to put it down soon.\n\nGuin closed the kitchen door and slowly dragged a steel table across to block it. The table legs screeched hideously.\n\n\"You injured?\" said Esther.\n\nGuin shrugged and worried she hadn't absorbed enough of her dad's first aid knowledge. \"I'm fine. Did I mention I bumped my head. Where's dad?\"\n\n\"They're still upstairs. I think.\" Esther breathed out heavily. \"We need to figure out how to get back to them. We all need to work together.\"\n\n\"Well, they're probably trying to get to us,\" said Guin. \"We shouldn't go back.\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"Never run back into a burning building. That's what dad says. Let the dog drown.\"\n\n\"Pardon?\"\n\n\"It's our family motto.\"\n\nEsther's arms and brain, coming off an adrenaline high, finally decided to put the gong down. As it touched the table top, something peeled off and flopped onto the surface.\n\n\"You brought the elf with you?\" said Guin.\n\n\"I didn't mean to!\"\n\n\"Quick! Put it in here.\" She pointed at the orange juicer a contraption with metal arms and paddles for juicing whole oranges. More importantly, it had a large transparent reservoir on top where the elf could be dumped and kept under observation.\n\nEsther scooped the elf up \u2013 entirely weightless \u2013 and dropped it inside. She closed the lid and locked the catch. The elf woke almost immediately.\n\nWith the elf safely under glass, the woman and girl studied it closely. It had a floppy felt hat and a green tunic in the traditional Robin Hood style, but this one didn't have striped trousers. Instead they were an earthy brown colour. Its face was bordered by two huge pointy ears. It blinked. small and beady eyes, like raisins in uncooked dough. It wore a grin that made Esther very uncomfortable. She tried not to let it show.\n\n\"It looks like Dobby the house elf's stunt double,\" she said.\n\nUnnerved, Esther put a large cast iron saucepan on top on the machine to weigh it down further. The elf angrily considered the confines of its tiny prison.\n\n\"Now what?\" said Esther.\n\nGuin drew a chair up, facing the machine. \"Now, I think we should talk.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 35",
                "text": "The bedroom door rattled and banged as it was barged and kicked from outside.\n\n\"Are they allowed to do that?\" asked Newton. \"Don't they know there's an elf cross on the other side?\"\n\nDave shrugged. Then he leaned forward and whispered to Newton. \"I have an idea.\"\n\nHe gestured up at the ceiling on the far side of the room. Newton saw there was a white loft hatch in the centre of the ceiling. Dave performed a complicated mime which Newton understood to mean they should both climb into the loft space, move to somewhere else in the house and then sneak down, avoiding the elves.\n\nNewton gave him a hearty thumbs up. He knew how important it was to keep everyone's spirits up, and he didn't want to point out how difficult and risky this was likely to be.\n\n\"So,\" said Dave loudly. \"We'll wait for a few minutes, then we'll try to battle our way out of the door. They're only small, we can crush them if we try.\"\n\nAs an accompaniment to this monologue, Dave laid out his plan in the form of large gestures. He pointed at the dressing table and indicated they would move it underneath the loft hatch. They would need to put a chair on top of it in order to climb up. Dave went on to mime they would need to be very careful. He seemed obligated to stress this point by ostentatiously mouthing most accidents that occurred in the home were due to falls.\n\nNewton didn't point out they could avoid the risk of falling altogether by not doing it, mainly because he didn't have a better plan. The two of them crept across the room to move the dressing table. It took them several minutes to clear all of the ornaments, mirrors and trinket trays off the top first.\n\n\"Can you tell what they're saying?\" asked Dave. \"Sometimes it almost seems as though they might be speaking English, but it's not quite right.\"\n\n\"I know what you mean,\" said Newton. \"Like it's Chaucer or something.\"\n\n\"Is Chaucer that YouTuber that Guin likes?\"\n\n\"Possibly,\" said Newton, unwilling to pursue the conversation.\n\nThey lifted the dressing table, and one of the legs on Dave's end toppled away. He nodded frantically that they should put the dressing table back down. They lowered it to the floor and Dave picked up the stray leg, putting it on top. They shuffled underneath the loft hatch, giving Dave a chance to re-insert the leg into its correct position. He leaned carefully on the top to test how secure it was.\n\n\"Should be all right as long as we're careful,\" he mouthed.\n\nDave fetched a chair and placed it on the top. He used the dressing table's stool as a step up. It looked as badly-made as the dressing table. Dave turned it over. The legs were screwed into the base, so he attempted to tighten them. The legs turned round and round, with no sign of tightening. Dave sighed and placed it back down, bedding it into the carpet to give it the best chance of remaining intact. Newton gave him another thumbs-up to show he was sure they could do this.\n\nThey both stood and surveyed the rickety tower for a moment. Newton pointed to himself, indicating he should go first, as he was smaller and lighter. Dave nodded, and grabbed hold of the chair to stabilise it as much as he could. Newton pictured himself climbing easily up the stack, treading lightly and precisely. What he actually found was the whole thing wobbled in a terrifying threat of imminent collapse. Once he'd shoved the loft hatch aside, he hauled himself up at lightning speed just to feel something firm beneath his feet.\n\nDave followed seconds later. It seemed to Newton that he made a lot more noise, as he heard the chair scrape loudly across the dressing table. Newton helped pull Dave into the loft, just as the whole stack collapsed with an unholy racket. He peered through the hatch: the leg had come off again, and the dressing table lay on its side, broken. He couldn't see the chair.\n\n\"Job done,\" said Dave quietly, dusting off his hands."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 36",
                "text": "Esther watched Guin scribbling in the back of the folklore book she had found. There was no doubt the girl had real patience and dedication. Esther glanced at the captive elf and felt a twinge of guilt. It looked like a malevolent little gremlin, but she knew better than to judge someone by their appearance. She knew some sort of unconscious bias was making her feel that way, so she tried to set it aside and think about what had made the elves so angry. Was it a territorial issue? If Guin succeeded in understanding them, perhaps she could make sense of this situation and end it amicably.\n\n\"Einn, tveir, \u00ferir,\" said Guin to the elf, holding up fingers to indicate one, two and three. \"Hey, Esther, I can count up to three in their language!\"\n\n\"Great job, Guin,\" said Esther. \"Can you get it to explain what they want?\"\n\n\"I'll keep going.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it's just some horrible misunderstanding\u2026\"\n\nHorrible misunderstanding. Esther found herself unhelpfully wondering what elves would want. Picturing Christmas elves, beavering away in Father Christmas's proto-capitalist workshop, was one thing. Imagining small fey creatures creeping into one's room at night was something else entirely. Nothing good ever came of fairy creatures sneaking into your home.\n\n\"Maybe it just wants to mend some shoes,\" she said.\n\n\"What?\" said Guin.\n\n\"Nothing. Carry on.\"\n\nWhile Guin expanded her elf vocabulary, Esther explored the kitchen. She wasn't doing it just to distract her from the simmering fear of what had happened to the two most important men in her life. No, sirree.\n\nThe kitchen was a single-storey extension on the original building, running its entire length. The ceiling was a large skylight with several open vents. As a consequence, it was quite a chilly place to be in the middle of the night. There was a sizeable industrial range and a pair of microwaves. Steel preparation surfaces between the sinks made Esther think about autopsies on the TV. She shuddered and gave herself a stern talking-to. If Guin could buckle down and try to solve this then so could she.\n\n\"Esther, come here.\"\n\nEsther hurried over. They both watched the captive elf as it beckoned and smiled \u2013 as far as it was able, with its face smooshed against the plastic sides.\n\n\"Vi\u00f0 numpa dre\u00fe einog sv\u00edn!\"\n\nGuin looked puzzled. \"I might have misunderstood, but I think it just said it would slay us like swine\u2014\"\n\nThe elves that dropped from the ceiling vents did so with a gleeful screeching sound. There were three of them; they moved in on Esther and Guin in a loose semi-circle. Their knives were small and sharp, but Esther reckoned their grubby fingernails and tiny teeth could be equally harmful.\n\n\"Swedish people are terrified of badgers,\" said Guin.\n\n\"What?\" said Esther, wishing she had made another elf-fighting toilet brush for herself.\n\n\"I read it in a book,\" said Guin. \"Just saying. It's a matter of perspective.\"\n\nThere was a hammering from inside the juicer, as the elf demanded to be released.\n\nGuin produced a meat tenderiser from behind her back. She swung at the nearest elf \u2013 a wallop to the cheek with the flat side of the meat hammer \u2013 and then backswung at a second \u2013spikey side to its chest. Esther felt blindly around. Her hand closed around a chopping board, not her first weapon of choice.\n\nGuin used the meat tenderiser without mercy: flat side, spikey side, flat, spikey, flat, spikey. Esther's weapon was less deadly, but she swung it, edge-first towards the nearest elf. She heard a satisfying \"Oof!\" and smacked it over the head.\n\nThe elf inside the machine danced with rage as he watched his colleagues collapse unconscious, or the least constricted parts of him jigged and twitched.\n\n\"On the griddle!\" said Esther.\n\n\"The what?\" said Guin.\n\n\"Put them on the hob thing!\" Esther picked up the weighty gong. Guin caught on.\n\nThere was a large griddle of a similar size to the gong. Guin scooped one of the elves off the floor. It groaned and she recoiled in horror, quickly dropping it onto the griddle. She swiftly laid the other ones next to it and ducked out of the way as Esther placed the gong on top to weight them down.\n\nEsther and Guin stood side by side and looked at the tiny limp boots and hats hanging out from underneath the gong. Guin voiced the thought that was in Esther's mind. \"Elves crushed by a giant chocolate coin.\"\n\n\"Christmas destroyed by rampant greed and consumerism,\" nodded Esther sagely. \"A fitting metaphor.\"\n\n\"Whatever,\" said Guin. \"I'd eat a chocolate coin that big.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 37",
                "text": "Once he'd found the pull-on light switch above the hatch, Dave saw the attic space was enormous. There were some partition walls at the sides, with a tiny crawl space which Dave felt no inclination whatsoever to explore, but the main body of the loft would have accommodated a barn dance, if it hadn't been quite so full of accumulated junk.\n\n\"Should we look for weapons?\" asked Newton.\n\n\"Fine idea,\" said Dave. He wasn't sure there would be anything useable in terms of weapons, but it was good to keep busy. They stood and surveyed the boxes, cupboards and dust covers. Where to start?\n\nNewton opened the nearest box and peered inside, Dave turned to a heavy wooden trunk with brass fittings and lifted the heavy lid. It was filled with children's toys from another era.\n\n\"How are you doing?\" he asked, as he sifted through.\n\n\"Me? Completely fine. Really. Don't worry.\"\n\nTheir gazes met for an instant. \"We have a bit of breathing space, I reckon, so we'll rest for a moment and then figure out a way to get downstairs.\"\n\nDave picked out a tin car from the trunk.\n\n\"Not much of a weapon,\" said Newton, who was holding an ancient wooden tennis racquet, clamped in a storage press.\n\nDave contemplated the tin car. \"Dangerous for a child. Sharp edges like these and they'd need a tetanus shot.\"\n\nNewton pulled the dust cover off an old-fashioned mangle. He gave the handle an experimental rotation and grunted in satisfaction when the rollers turned. \"Once we're tooled up, we need to find mum. And Guin, of course.\"\n\n\"They can look after themselves,\" said Dave. \"Your mum will get Guin out, and I'll do the same for you. Your mum knows that.\"\n\nHe moved on to another box. He pulled out an electric iron and set it aside in case he needed a blunt weapon at some point. Underneath was a selection of vinyl records.\n\n\"Carole King,\" he said, surprised. \"I used to own this album.\"\n\n\"You're not going to rescue them then?\" said Newton.\n\nDave put the record down. \"Who says they need rescuing, Newton? No good will come of running around looking for them. Get away from the danger. Never return to a burning building.\"\n\n\"The building's not burning.\"\n\n\"Okay. Never return to a building full of savages elves. We don't fix things by putting ourselves in more danger. Let the dog drown.\"\n\n\"Let the \u2026 what?\" Newton looked horrified. \"What dog?\"\n\nDave shook his head. \"Doesn't matter. It's just something Guin and I say. Family motto.\"\n\n\"About drowning dogs?\"\n\nDave paused in his search of the boxes. \"You hear certain news stories. A dog jumps in a river and the owner jumps after it. What happens? Half the time, it seems, the dog swims ashore, safe and fine, and the owner gets pulled under by a current and \u2026 yeah.\" He sniffed. \"We instinctively leap into a situation, thinking we must do something, anything. But it's rarely the right thing. Basic personal safety rule.\"\n\n\"But the dog\u2014\"\n\n\"If it lives or dies isn't going to be changed by a fully-clothed idiot jumping in after it, dude. Hence the phrase.\"\n\n\"Let the dog drown. And that's your family motto?\"\n\n\"Yup. If we had a coat of arms, that's what we'd put on it.\"\n\nNewton shook his head. \"That's cold\u2026\"\n\n\"Sorry,\" said Dave. \"I just didn't want you to worry about your mum.\"\n\n\"Well, that worked because all I can think about now is dogs drowning\u2014\" He went silent for a moment. \"Um, Dave?\"\n\n\"Yes, mate?\"\n\n\"Can you see something hanging from the rafters?\"\n\nDave looked where Newton was pointing. Something ragged and dirty hung from the apex of the roof. Folds of cobwebbed grey dangled in the shadows, as if the contents of a vacuum bag had spilled through a hole in the roof. Was it a filthy puppet, hanging up so that its strings didn't tangle? A desiccated bat?\n\nAs they both peered at the thing, an eye popped open and it grinned at them, upside down. Another eye opened and another mouth grinned.\n\n\"Elves!\"\n\nThree of the creatures dropped to the floor, tittering maniacally.\n\nDave automatically threw the iron. Two of them dodged it easily but the third, pulling cobwebs from its hat bell, looked up too late. The iron slammed into it, knocking it through the plasterboard floor. From below, something smashed. As Dave looked for another heavy item to throw, Newton began to hurl records at the creatures.\n\n\"Not the Carol King!\" Dave heard himself say.\n\nNewton skimmed records like Frisbees. The sharp edge of one caught an elf on its arm. Dave joined in; trying to save any records was ridiculous . He threw them by the handful. They weren't particularly effective weapons, and the elves dodged and wove their way closer.\n\n\"Tennis racquet!\" yelled Dave. Newton picked up the racquet and prepared to meet the elves.\n\n\"Knees bent!\" said Dave. \"Handshake grip. Eyes straight. And swing!\"\n\nNewton howled with rage and caught an elf in a powerful forehand. The elf flew back and hit the toy trunk's raised lid. The elf fell inside, stunned. The hinged lid wobbled.\n\nThe other elf came at Dave. He grabbed for the nearest item, an ugly pottery lamp with a fabric shade, and smashed it over the creature's head. He pushed the lampshade over the elf, pinning one arm to its sides. Not its knife arm unfortunately. Dave tripped over a carved hat stand as he tried to get out of knife-range. The elf advanced, abruptly stopping just short.\n\nNewton had hold of the lamp's flex and was hauling it back!\n\nFor a tiny creature, it had surprising strength. As Newton fought to reel it back, Dave had to wriggle on the floor to stop the damned thing stabbing him. The tassels on the lampshade cascaded dust as the elf struggled for purchase.\n\nNewton was hauling with both hands, his feet digging in against the floor timbers. He was thoroughly occupied and Dave knew he hadn't seen the elf in the toy trunk pull itself up. It raised its knife to attack.\n\nDave kicked the at the hat stand. By luck as much as anything, it fell onto the trunk. The lid tipped forward. The elf, halfway out, looked up, but it had no time to dodge. The brass-bound lid slammed shut and an elf head bounced onto the floor.\n\n\"He'll need a bit more than a tetanus shot for that,\" grunted Dave.\n\nThe lampshaded elf was startled enough by the sight of his decapitated companion that Newton managed to haul in a vital foot or two of lamp flex.\n\nDave grinned.\n\nThe elf saw the grin and looked round.\n\nNewton started to turn the mangle, gaining momentum. The light flex was squeezed between the rollers, shortly followed by the elf. There was the snap of bones breaking and the crackle of the heavy mangle grinding them to dust.\n\n\"I think it's dead now,\" said Dave.\n\nNewton gave the mangle crank a final heave. The elf's head popped in a shower of bloody pulp. \"Is now,\" he panted.\n\nThey turned at a noise. The iron-struck elf was hauling itself back up through the hole in the floor.\n\n\"Hit it with something! Anything!\" yelled Dave, grabbing at boxes and flinging them blindly. Newton scrabbled inside the nearest box. He pulled out an accordion. The bellows fell open with a tuneless honk. Newton grabbed the strap as the elf dived to attack. Newton squeezed the bellows. The noise that followed was horrendous as the accordion sound was joined by the elf's squealing: like a herd of cows in a car crusher. In the following silence, Dave and Newton stared at each other. The elf hung limply from the accordion's insides.\n\n\"I think what you meant to say,\" said Newton, standing, \"was he was an elf hazard.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 38",
                "text": "Guin and Esther sat on top of the gong, so any elves who tried to escape could be dealt with. They could hear a muted grumbling beneath them, but they'd stopped trying to get out. Guin had spent some time reading the book and listening to snatches of elves' conversation.\n\n\"I really don't know what they're saying,\" she said. \"But none of it sounds nice.\"\n\n\"No,\" Esther agreed.\n\n\"I think we're going to have to fight our way out of here.\"\n\nEsther nodded. She jumped down off the gong and hauled a sack of potatoes on top to keep up the weight. \"How about the bottles of spirits? We can make Molotov cocktails.\"\n\nGuin stared at her suspiciously. \"Are you an alcoholic too?\"\n\n\"No, a Molotov cocktail is a primitive bomb where you set fire to some flammable liquid in a bottle and throw it.\"\n\n\"Oh, that,\" said Guin, making out she already knew. \"Yes, definitely those. There are quite a few knives in here,\" she added, rootling through a cutlery drawer.\n\nEsther tore up a tea towel to stuff into the ends of bottles.\n\n\"We should find the heaviest thing we think we could swing in anger as well,\" called Guin, banging pots around in a cupboard. \"Try that frying pan.\" She nodded at a cast iron pan hanging from a hook over the cooker.\n\n\"I'm a bit uncomfortable with violence for its own sake,\" said Esther. \"Perhaps we could find some strong bin bags and concentrate on immobilising them?\"\n\nGuin gave her a withering look."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 39",
                "text": "Dave knelt on the attic floor, bent over as if in prayer.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" asked Newton.\n\n\"I'm seeing what we can see,\" said Dave.\n\nNewton approached the splintered laths and torn insulation around the holes they'd punched in their fight.\n\n\"If we stand on the joists then we should be safe from going through,\" said Dave. \"Watch where you put your feet.\"\n\nNewton tried to look down, but the hole offered only a ragged view of some dusty pink carpet, deep in shadows. \"I can't see. Perhaps if I get down and put my head through?\"\n\n\"I think it ought to be me,\" said Dave. \"Don't want to put you in harm's way.\"\n\nDave knelt on the joist and lowered himself carefully forward, his hand on another joist for balance. Behind them, the fatally damaged accordion gave a discordant squonk. Dave turned in alarm. Newton stepped back.\n\nA timber splintered, the plaster and lath gave way beneath them both. They fell through the ceiling, scrabbling at thin air, into the bedroom below. Dave bounced on a spongy mattress and rolled noisily onto the floor.\n\nThe plaster dust made it hard to see for some time. It made it hard to breathe as well. Dave was relieved to hear Newton coughing. At least it meant that the boy was still in the land of the living.\n\nA light came on, a bedside lamp. Through the dust he could see Newton on a double bed, covered by a pink bedspread and a cascade of plaster. Next to him was the very surprised Duncan Catheter.\n\n\"Would you care to\u2014\" Duncan broke down in a fit of coughing. He gulped at a glass of water on the nightstand to clear his throat, immediately spitting it out again, along with a lump of plaster. \"Would you care to explain what the heck is going on?\"\n\nDave nodded tersely. \"Yeah, there's a dangerous problem in this house.\"\n\n\"I can see that much.\"\n\n\"A real problem. We can explain but I need to check for immediate danger first.\"\n\nDave's training kicked in. He could assess any potential injuries just as soon as he'd made sure that the area was safe. He stood, chunks of ceiling crunching under his feet. He switched on the main light and checked under the bed. Then he checked behind all of the furniture in the room.\n\n\"Wouldn't have happened in one of my houses,\" said Duncan, inspecting the hole in the ceiling. He turned to Newton. \"Young squire. I'd appreciate it if you got off my bed.\"\n\n\"Sorry,\" Newton coughed.\n\nDave turned his attention back to the teenager. \"You hurt, dude?\"\n\nNewton shook his head.\n\n\"What about me?\" demanded Duncan. He swung out of bed and pulled on a dressing gown. Not one of the towelling bathrobes which came with the room, but a thick thing covered by a paisley pattern in red and gold. It even had gold knotted tassels on its belt. \"A man does not expect to be assaulted in his sleep by attic-creeping idiots. I have a good mind to complain to the management.\"\n\n\"Get in line, there's a queue,\" said Dave darkly. \"Are you hurt, Duncan?\"\n\n\"Apart from my pride?\"\n\nDave gave him a look.\n\n\"I am shaken,\" said Duncan. \"I don't mind telling you that.\"\n\nDave leaned against the wardrobe. \"There's something strange going on.\"\n\n\"Somewhat of an understatement, squire.\"\n\n\"Elves,\" said Newton.\n\nDuncan gave Dave a look to indicate he thought the boy was quite mad. It was understandable, given the situation and the fact that Newton's hair was still full of chunks of plaster.\n\n\"Tell me, Duncan, have you noticed anything strange at all during your time here?\" asked Dave.\n\nDuncan puffed out his cheeks. \"Stranger than this?\"\n\n\"In the town. Odd people. Peculiar behaviour. Any unsettling encounters, for example?\"\n\nDuncan considered for a moment. \"Someone mentioned something about a Buy Nothing Day. I find that more than a little worrying.\"\n\n\"The baby Jesus opened his eyes!\" said Newton.\n\n\"Oh dear me. Clearly, the boy needs help,\" said Duncan. \"I think you need to pop back off to bed now. I wish I could do the same, but I think I'd better see if I can get hold of Mrs Scruple. She'll need to find me another room.\"\n\n\"She's not going to find you another room,\" said Dave. \"There's something going on. Something weird.\"\n\n\"Elves,\" said Newton again, which really wasn't helping.\n\nDuncan shook his head but, for a moment, Dave saw his eyes linger on pieces of paper on the dust-covered bedside table. Dave took a step towards the table but Duncan was swiftly in front of him, blocking the way.\n\n\"What have you seen?\" said Dave.\n\n\"Nothing,\" insisted Duncan, too quickly. \"Nothing. Wild imaginings brought on by too much of Mrs Scruples' sherry trifle.\"\n\n\"It's not the trifle, it's elves,\" said Newton.\n\nDuncan scoffed.\n\nDave sighed, exasperated. The thick plaster dust in the air caught in his throat and made him cough. When he'd recovered, Duncan had three pieces of paper in his hand. One looked like folded architect's plans. Another was a creased letter. The third\u2014 Dave realised it was one of the Christmas cracker jokes from dinner.\n\n\"Well I'm sure it won't be long before you see what the problem is,\" said Dave, \"but right now, you need to believe in elves, because that's what we're dealing with here.\"\n\nDuncan snorted, although he never looked up from the papers.\n\n\"Listen to me,\" said Dave. \"The danger here is very real. If we split up, there's a good chance it will prove fatal. I need you to trust me for a few minutes.\"\n\n\"I'd say your track record has hardly lent itself to gaining trust, sirrah. I'm more inclined to report you to the police for endangering my health.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'd welcome police involvement right now!\" growled Dave. \"The phone lines have been down all evening. Seriously, don't you think I might\u2014?\"\n\nThere was a knock at the door.\n\n\"Well, really!\" declared Duncan, peeved. \"It's like Piccadilly Station in here! All I ask is a little peace and quiet to get some rest. I don't think any of you realise how hard I work on behalf of the local community. I refuse to continue with this absurd pantomime!\" He crossed to the door.\n\n\"Don't!\" yelled Dave, but Duncan, a man of considerable bulk and filled with the power of his own importance, pushed him aside. He opened the door.\n\nOn the landing stood a mass of elves, a dozen at least. They looked up at Duncan with hungry little smiles. Duncan made a strangled noise that was half-annoyance and half-disbelief. He looked at the letter in his hand. \"Would any of you gentlemen happen to be Mr \u2013 er \u2013 Bacraut? Bacraut, is it?\"\n\nOne of the elves shouldered its way to the front. From behind Duncan, Dave saw it was the one with the wispy white beard who had jumped him on the stairs.\n\nThe elf thumped its chest. \"Bacraut,\" it growled.\n\n\"Very good,\" said Duncan. \"I believe you and I have a meeting scheduled.\"\n\nHe waved the letter at the elves as evidence. They craned forward. The written word appeared to have a mystical hold over them. There were numerous mutters.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" Duncan beamed, warming to the sound of his own voice, \"we could have that meeting now. If you'd care to join me in my office? Um\u2026\" He gestured to the room off to the left on the landing.\n\nNewton looked at Dave. \"Are we actually going to have a meeting with murderous elves?\" he whispered.\n\nDave was lost for words but, if nothing else, Duncan had the elves' attention. They hadn't attacked yet.\n\n\"Mr Catheter believes he is,\" he whispered back. \"I think I'm inclined to let him do that on his own.\"\n\nBut as Duncan moved into the next door room, numerous pixie faces turned to look at them. Dave was suddenly aware of their sharp knives and shining eyes.\n\n\"Yes, yes, we're just coming,\" he said.\n\nThe room had once been an upstairs dining room. Perhaps it had been called the 'banqueting suite' or something equally pretentious. There was a decrepit oval dining table in the centre of, several equally decrepit chairs around it and a dumbwaiter hatch in the corner. However, the room had clearly become a storage space over the years. There were heaps of towels on a side table, a wonky hostess trolley under a pile of sheets, and a trouser press next to the door.\n\nDuncan sat himself at the head of the table, tugging at his dressing gown and stripy pyjamas as though he was wearing the finest business suit.\n\n\"We have a situation, I can see that,\" he said, nervousness barely showing through his glib businessman attitude. \"So, let's get around the table and see what needs to be done here. Never yet found a scenario that couldn't be resolved by talking it out.\"\n\nThe elves, sniggering and whispering, clustered around the table.\n\n\"Please, take a seat,\" said Duncan. \"We can discuss this like civilised human be\u2014 Like grown-ups, I'm sure.\" He gestured to the chairs. The bearded Bacraut leapt onto the end of the table and sat cross-legged.\n\nDuncan steepled his hands in front of him and smiled around at the whole room. Dave imagined he practised the gesture in front of the mirror. \"I received your letter,\" he said, placing the papers flat on the table. \"And I had no idea the civic leaders of this town were such distinguished \u2013 gentlemen \u2013 as yourselves.\"\n\nAn elf pulled the letter closer to look at the writing on it. Hand to hand it made its way round the table.\n\n\"Shall we begin by all stating what we'd like to get out of this meeting?\" asked Duncan. \"As you know, I wrote to the local business forum with suggestions for a mixed usage building project.\" He unfolded the plans he'd brought with him and laid them flat on the table. \"A project that utilises some underdeveloped brownfield sites within the town proper, extends through the churchyard and into the woodlands behind.\"\n\nBacraut and several of the other elves hissed.\n\n\"Do not worry yourselves unduly, good sirs,\" said Duncan. \"I have initiated projects like this before. I'm a dab hand with building on consecrated ground. We'll soon have those stiffs swiftly \u2013 but sensitively \u2013 relocated. We can even make a decorative feature using the headstones. And, hey\u2014!\" he spread his arms warmly \"\u2014what's better for Alvestowe, eh? A graveyard for sixty, seventy unproductive corpses, or an estate of affordable starter homes and mover-onners for two hundred locals? And with that avenue created we can spread into that under-utilised wood.\"\n\nThe elves hissed again.\n\n\"It's just trees, my friends,\" said Duncan. \"We're not talking about the Amazon rainforest here.\"\n\nAt the back of the room, near the door, Dave leaned in to whisper to Newton. \"I don't think they want him to cut down the trees, do you?\"\n\n\"Eco-terrorist elves?\" murmured Newton."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 40",
                "text": "\"I'd just like to know what they want?\" said Esther, as she stuffed a rag into the top of a bottle.\n\nThey had scoured the kitchen for flammable materials and Esther spent too long dithering which alcoholic spirits burned and which did not. She suspected some of their Molotov cocktails were more likely to make things smell like a New Year's party than set fire to them.\n\n\"I think they want to kill us,\" said Guin.\n\n\"Yes, but perhaps we've got it all wrong,\" said Esther. \"Maybe elves are an endangered species.\"\n\n\"Like orangutans?\" said Guin.\n\n\"Exactly. And this is the last little enclave of them. No wonder they're desperate, they're fighting for the survival of their entire species. Imagine if the orangutans of Borneo had the means to fight back against the humans who are taking their habitat? I bet they'd behave in just the same way.\"\n\nGuin opened her book on the counter next to them. \"No. I think they just like killing.\"\n\n\"What? That's a terrible thing to say, Guin. Sometimes we need to put ourselves in someone else's situation. If we can truly understand and empathise with them, maybe we can find a way through this. Violence can't be the only way.\"\n\nGuin flicked through the book purposefully, watched by the creature in the orange juicer. \"I think I need to show you some of the pictures in this book,\" she said, holding up Little Folk in European Folklore. \"This is what elves do to people they catch.\"\n\nEsther looked at the image. It involved a bent willow tree, lots of rope and some improbably positioned spikes. She swallowed hard and stared at the elf that was trapped in the juicer reservoir, glaring out at them.\n\n\"Point taken,\" she said."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 41",
                "text": "\"So\u2014\" said Duncan, after his initial offer had met zero response from the elves, apart from some unhappy hissing, \"\u2014perhaps you can tell me what you're after, Mr Bacraut?\"\n\nThe elf stared at him, unblinking. The light in the room was bright, but still the elf's eyes were dark and malevolent. Dave tried to look at the elf with a detached and professional eye. Did it have a similar physiology to a human? What did elves eat? How did they reproduce? How easy was it to make one bleed?\n\nDuncan's smile faltered slightly, but he pressed on. \"I feel that your outward hostility is a sign of frustration. Has it been difficult for you, negotiating with humans? I want you to know that I'm the man who can make things happen for you. Do you understand?\"\n\nThe elf inclined its head by a fraction. It was a tiny gesture, but managed to be both supercilious and dismissive at the same time.\n\n\"Oh, you don't think that's true?\" said Duncan. \"Well, why would you? I haven't proven myself to you yet. Let's try something. Is it money you want? I can get you a great deal of money if that's what you need.\"\n\nThe elf stared back, unimpressed.\n\n\"No,\" said Duncan, with a small nod of understanding. \"I can see that you're not motivated by money. Let's think harder. I gathered by the tone of the gentlemen over there that there's been some level of violence this evening?\"\n\nElf eyes flicked to Newton and Dave for an instant. The beardy Bacraut was smirking.\n\n\"Yes!\" said Duncan. \"I see I have struck a chord. Interesting. I'm working hard here, trying to put myself in your shoes. I hope you appreciate the effort I'm putting in.\"\n\n\"Psst,\" said Dave.\n\n\"What?\" said Newton, who was trying to keep one ear on the meeting, keep one eye on his own personal safety and keep his brain from squirming out of his ears in anxiety over where his mum was right now.\n\nDave nodded at the table. The letter had worked its way from the table, from one uncaring elf hand to the next. It was now just in front of them, scuffed and torn around the edge.\n\nIt was hand-written, which was a rarity these days. Only grandmas sending birthday money wrote letters anymore. Furthermore, it looked like it had been written by a grandma who'd learned to write from medieval monks. The lettering was all long and scratchy and surprisingly familiar. Yes: caught in a fold was one of the Christmas cracker jokes, written in the same hand.\n\nDuncan had seen the joke and at some point realised that it was the same writing. What had that meant to him? Did he know about the elves?\n\n\"Why did they invite him here?\" Newton whispered.\n\n\"What would you do if an aggressive property developer wants to turn part of your elfy town into a housing estate? What if he's never going to take no for an answer?\"\n\nNewton thought about it. He knew what he would do (probably a strongly worded yet polite e-mail). But elves? \"They just wanted to get him here,\" he said.\n\n\"Mmmm,\" nodded Dave. \"Up close.\"\n\n\"So,\" said Duncan to his audience, \"it's the violence that excites, is it?\"\n\nElves grinned.\n\n\"I totally understand. Rode with the Goathland hunt a couple of times myself. Fine tradition. Nothing like tearing across the countryside in pursuit of quarry, man and beast.\"\n\nBacraut jiggled up and down, whether in excitement or a mime of horse-riding, Newton couldn't tell. He suddenly thought of the stables back at the farm, of Lily and, yes, Yolanda too and realised there was a strong possibility he would never see them again.\n\nHe tapped Dave with his hand. \"We need to escape.\"\n\n\"Mmm-hmm,\" agreed Dave but seemed to have no idea how they were going to do it.\n\n\"So, a spot of hunting is the order of the day,\" said Duncan. \"You are talking to the right chap! I know all the local hunts. Do business with most of the huntmasters. Stirling fellows. Real animal lovers. I can set you up, I promise, and Duncan Catheter's word is his bond. Now, what do you fancy, eh? Fox, is it?\"\n\nBacraut shook his head slowly.\n\n\"Partridge? Grouse? A bit of old bang-bang on the Glorious Twelfth?\"\n\nBacraut raised his knife. A couple of elves giggled. Duncan was undeterred.\n\n\"I can \u2013 on the hush hush \u2013 get in touch with some fellows who do a spot of hare coursing. No, I know what you're thinking, but the hare enjoys it! Really does! No? Then badger baiting? I think I know a man in Pickering who knows a man who knows a man.\"\n\nBacraut was on his feet now, standing at the centre of the table, blade held tightly.\n\nDuncan's face twitched in a confused nervousness. \"Unless, of course,\" he said hoarsely, \"it's \u2026 people you like to hunt?\"\n\nBacraut nodded.\n\n\"Penny drops,\" muttered Dave.\n\nDuncan licked his lips. His eyes darted to and fro. Newton could almost see the cogs whirring in his brain.\n\n\"Humans. Humans,\" Duncan muttered. He cleared his throat. \"And what would you do with those humans when you have them?\"\n\nBacraut performed a rapid and very expressive mime in which he pretended to slit open his belly and poured out handful after handful of guts. This delighted his companions. More than one reached over to grab the imaginary innards and shove them into their mouths.\n\n\"My word, yes,\" said Duncan. \"And how many humans would you like?\"\n\nBacraut raised his arms up and round, a rainbow to encompass the whole world.\n\n\"All of them?\"\n\nBacraut shrugged.\n\n\"Well, it's nice to have a goal,\" said Duncan. \"Now, this is where the art of negotiation and compromise comes in. You want people. I want houses. You can't have all the people. No, I'm sorry, you can't. And, similarly, I can't build all the houses I want. It's just the way of the world. So, I say to you, yes, I can probably get a number of people for you \u2013 er, ten? \u2013 and you say, 'Thank you, Mr Catheter, that's lovely. We'll sign over our land to you now.'\"\n\n\"Ten?\" growled Bacraut.\n\n\"Yes. Er.\" Duncan struggled to focus on his own hands and held up ten fingers. \"Ten. I know where the rough sleepers can be found in Scarborough and York.\"\n\n\"Vilg\u00e9 ten-ty,\" said Bacraut and every elf at the table held up a hand with tiny wiggling fingers.\n\n\"Tenty?\" Duncan blew out hard. \"That's a tall order. Although I do know a care home or two with a few residents who are just not value for money. You okay with, um, older specimens?\"\n\nThe elves looked at him blankly.\n\n\"Very good then,\" said the businessman. \"Tenty it is. Now, I will go and make the arrangements and we'll draw up plans of which portions of Alvestowe I can\u2014\" As he stood to leave, the elves pressed in closer, weapons raised.\n\nDuncan held out his hands. \"I do need to leave. I can't just magic them here.\"\n\n\"Ten-ty,\" snarled Bacraut.\n\n\"Yes! Yes. Tenty it is, but I don't have them on me.\"\n\n\"Ten-ty!\"\n\nDuncan huffed, irritated. \"Do I have them in my pocket, eh?\"\n\nThe elves actually leaned forward to see if he did have tenty hidden people in his pocket. Dave tapped Newton and flicked his hand surreptitiously towards the door. All the elves were close to Duncan now, none looking back. Newton shuffled quietly towards the exit and Dave followed.\n\n\"I haven't got them on me,\" protested Duncan. \"You'd be fools to think I did.\"\n\nElves hissed angrily.\n\n\"If we're taking about humans I have on me then it's a different ball game, my friends. You're talking about much smaller numbers and a much higher price per unit. Now, if I were you, and the sight of human blood excited me, I think I would value the slaughter of children above adults. For example, we have fine a specimen over there.\" He pointed at Newton, who was within a foot of the door. Newton froze.\n\n\"There are two plump young individuals in this very building.\"\n\n\"What the hell\u2014?\" hissed Dave.\n\nBacraut grinned gleefully.\n\n\"I'd say I've hit upon a real point of interest there,\" said Duncan. \"Now my colleagues are likely to have some issues that we need to work through, but I think I can safely say that we can deal with those. The offer that I'm going to put on the table is that we give you the two children in return for the safe passage of the adults. How does that sound?\"\n\nThe elf continued to smile, but blew a small raspberry and then laughed.\n\n\"Not enough?\" Duncan asked. \"Well, that is easily remedied. Two children, one adult. The mother or the father. Your choice which.\"\n\nThe elf hooted with laughter, rubbing its belly with mirth.\n\n\"You rat,\" spat Dave.\n\n\"I'd go for the father trying to sneak out right now,\" said Duncan, his expression cold and desperate.\n\n\"Ten-ty,\" insisted Bacraut.\n\n\"Oh, they're just a down payment. What do you say, squire?\"\n\nBacraut advanced on Duncan, a knife in each hand and its face now a solid mask of murderous intent.\n\n\"No? Then how about two children and all of the other adults in the house? If you just let me go safely out then you take the rest. How does that sound?\"\n\nThe offer clearly didn't appeal to Bacraut. He twirled his blades, forcing Duncan back.\n\n\"Wait! Let's not be hasty, I can't help thinking that there's an aspect we haven't explored. Shall we sit back down and try to find some common ground?\" He backed against the window as the elf moved forward.\n\n\"Can't we help him?\" whispered Newton.\n\n\"You want to help him?\" Dave whispered back.\n\nDuncan grabbed a chair and whirled around, smashing it into the wide window. As soon as the glass shattered, he climbed onto the windowsill with a loud grunt of effort.\n\n\"Honestly,\" he said indignantly. \"Do you have no idea how business meetings are conducted? I'm hoping we might work a little harder at our communication skills, but I'm going to climb down the fire escape to the ground for the moment so that we can all cool off!\" He turned round. \"Oh. Is the fire escape on the other side?\"\n\nThe elf lunged at him and Duncan toppled out of the window with a prolonged scream. There was an extravagant smashing sound accompanied by more screaming. Elves poured out of the window after him."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 42",
                "text": "Guin had once broken a vase at home, and was surprised by the amount of broken glass that resulted, and how far it travelled. It seemed as though they were finding pieces for months afterwards, even though she and her father had carefully cleaned it all up. She now knew that a glass roof made a much, much bigger mess when a human body fell through. It bounced off a counter in a shower of glass and snow and sprawled onto the floor.\n\nShe recognised the odious businessman who had alternately ignored and insulted her at dinner, although he wasn't quite the same cocky, strutting businessman after he'd come through the roof.\n\n\"Is he dead?\" she said.\n\nEsther stared wordlessly, then looked up at the shattered skylights. Guin wished her dad was here, at least he would have known.\n\nThe question was answered when Duncan lurched to his feet with an incoherent grunt. His face was fifty-fifty glass and blood. He seemed to have left some of it behind in a pile of gore on the floor. She would remember that phrase for Newton. Gore on the Floor. She recognised panic bubbling up in her mind and reached for Wiry Harrison.\n\n\"Oh, no.\" Esther was looking up. In the darkness above, beyond the smashed skylight, elves were climbing rapidly down the exterior of the hotel.\n\nDuncan Catheter staggered forward. He seemed incapable of walking, or seeing where he was going as his face was a pulped mess. Guin wondered if she should help him. She hadn't read anything in Little Folk in European Folklore about elf-related injuries being catching, like zombies or vampires, but it might be wise to take care.\n\nDuncan lurched forwards, his arms banging into things, and the bloodied mess of his hands flapping uselessly. He howled with something like pain and fear and anger all jumbled up. He fell against the juicer with the elf inside and pressed what must have been his one good eye to the glass.\n\nHe whirled \u2013 blood sprayed out in an arc across the counter and Guin would have vomited if Wiry Harrison hadn't been there to comfort her.\n\n\"You!\" he bellowed, spraying spittle, blood and little fragments of things that might have been glass or teeth. He was addressing the elves who had dropped like mini-SAS soldiers onto the kitchen table. \"Another \u2013 ssfffp!\u2014\" He spat out a gobbet of loose flesh from his mouth \u2013 \"\u2014Another step and your friend is gonna be a smoothie.\"\n\nThe elves peered round to look at their trapped companion in the orange juicer. The trapped elf made worried noises and pleading eyes.\n\n\"Smoothie,\" said the lead elf, coming at Duncan.\n\nThe injured man thumped the switch on the machine.\n\nA high-pitched motor started up, stuttered, whirred again. The lights flickered in the kitchen, strobing across the room and highlighting the colour change in the transparent hopper. The contents had gone entirely red, but significant chunks of white bone hopped within the soupy mess, making the machine judder violently. Each time the motor paused, the lights flickered again.\n\n\"Don't look!\" called Esther. Guin thought it was perhaps a little late for that."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 43",
                "text": "Several elves ran to the door, ignoring Dave and Newton in their urgency to get to wherever Duncan had fallen. Suddenly the room was empty but for the two stunned humans.\n\nDave turned to Newton. \"We need to get out of here.\"\n\n\"Ya reckon?\"\n\nThe lights flickered both in the room and on the landing outside. As Newton looked up, Dave realised he had been wrong. They weren't alone in the room.\n\nThe white-bearded Bacraut leapt up from his position under the table and latched onto Newton's leg. Newton swung round, yelling, grabbed the little git and hurled the elf away.\n\nThe elf tumbled, rolled and came up facing the wrong way. Dave had a free run at the lone elf and he booted it as hard as he could. His foot connected with such a satisfyingly powerful kick that Dave thought he'd re-join his five-a-side team if he made it out of this nightmare place. The elf connected with the open door and slid bonelessly to the floor. Dave opened the trouser press, inserted the elf and stood on it so that he could clamp it shut. The elf made small grunts which diminished after a few moments into a final-sounding sigh. Dave propped it upright and wondered if the elf would be able to revive itself and escape. He picked up the plug and pushed it into a nearby socket to be sure.\n\n\"I think you made an impression on him,\" said Newton and pulled the little elf's hat down to hide its face."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 44",
                "text": "Duncan roared as the juicer gave up its fight against hard-to-blend elf bits. The motor gave a loud electric bang and died. The lights went out completely for a long moment and then came back to life, accompanied by a dangerous-sounding fizzing noise. Appliances across the kitchen sparked.\n\nDuncan whirled on the elves, near blind and deranged. \"Who's next?\" he screamed. \"I took on the Bridlington chamber of commerce and won, you little bastards. You think I'm frightened of some bloody pixies? Eh?!\"\n\nGuin knew the power of words. When girls in the playground banished her from their circles with harsh language, it hurt deep. She and Tinfoil Tavistock had had deep conversations about how she felt when the other students at quadruped school called her a \"Spaccy alpaca\". Guin reckoned the elves didn't take kindly to the use of the p word at all.\n\nAs the first one leapt at Duncan he grabbed at the lined up Molotov cocktails on the counter, swept one up and smashed it powerfully into the side of the elf's head, dashing it to the ground. Another elf, another bottle. A third. A fourth. In the strobing light of fusing electrics, they fought, man and elves, like the weirdest and most violent silent comedy ever.\n\nGuin wanted to angrily point out that she and Esther had spent ages making those cocktails.\n\n\"You're meant to light them!\" Esther shouted.\n\nDuncan grunted and fumbled with the hob. He twisted knobs to turn on the gas but couldn't see how to ignite them through his bloodied vision. He grabbed up a big bottle of clear spirits and tried to feel around in his pocket, presumably for a lighter (but who carried a lighter in their dressing gown pocket? Guin didn't know).\n\n\"Come on \u2013 pfff! \u2013 come on!\" he spat. \"Try take me down! Bridlington tried and look what happened to them!\"\n\nHe tossed the barricade against the door aside with pain-fuelled adrenalin and backed out of the swing doors. Spirit-soaked elves picked themselves up and chased after him."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 45",
                "text": "Esther stared at the mess in the kitchen. The spilt drink, the smashed glass, the trail of blood Duncan Catheter had left in his whirlwind passage through the room.\n\n\"I don't know about you,\" said Esther, picking up the two remaining alcohol bombs, \"but I am fed up of waiting around for someone to kill us. I say it's time to go on the offensive.\"\n\n\"What about understanding their point of view?\" asked Guin. \"Like the orangutans.\"\n\n\"You've tried to tell me these things are evil,\" said Esther, \"but I don't usually see the world in that way.\" She looked at the two bottles. She kept the brandy and passed the certainly non-flammable Malibu rum bottle to Guin. \"But I know I hate these bloody things.\"\n\n\"Good,\" said Guin.\n\nThere came the sounds of distant shouts and struggles. Esther picked up a disposable lighter from beside the oven. \"With me,\" she said and led the way.\n\nThey ran, crouching low. Esther wondered if they ought to be moving alternately, shouting \"Clear!\" at every doorway. There was a crashing further off.\n\n\"Heppe! Now!\" came a plaintive cry from the guest lounge.\n\nEsther gestured to the side of the door. Guin flattened herself against the wall, in the classic buddy cop pose, while Esther squared up to the doorway, Molotov cocktail at the ready, lighter ready to strike.\n\nThe room was empty. The only light came from the fairy lights on the Christmas tree wedged between two sofas. They, like every other light in the place, were flickering. Something just out of sight sparked dangerously.\n\n\"Heppe! Now!\" called the parrot from his cage.\n\n\"Damn,\" said Esther, passing her brandy bottle to Guin. She tried to unhook the cage from its stand but it was far too heavy.\n\n\"Gerramovon yum idjit!\"\n\n\"I'm trying!\" yelled Esther.\n\n\"Esther!\" warned Guin.\n\nEsther turned. Duncan Catheter came stumbling through the door, locking in a deadly embrace with two elves. The three of them were slick with blood and alcohol, struggling to get a purchase on each other.\n\nDuncan tore off one that had its teeth clamped onto his throat. It came away with more of his neck than was healthy.\n\n\"Gn-argh!\" yelled Duncan and hurled it away. The vodka-soaked elf arced into the Christmas tree; both crashed to the floor. There was the sound of dozens of popping baubles, followed by a fiery whump. Electrical fire plus accelerant plus wood. Sap filled pine needles exploded like a million tiny firecrackers.\n\nEsther raised her arm protectively against the blooming fireball.\n\n\"Sddn hlll!\" squawked King Leopold of Belgium.\n\nDuncan staggered back. The elf on his chest took the opportunity to leap higher and bury its bone handled knife up the hilt in Duncan's eye.\n\n\"Is that all you've got, Bridlington?\" Duncan mumbled and dropped, dead before he hit the ground.\n\n\"Sodding hell,\" said Esther.\n\nShe yanked open the bird cage door. The huge fat parrot barrelled out, dipped momentarily and flew straight out the door. Esther was only a second behind it. The elf swung at her as she passed but she hurdled over it and out the door, slamming it shut behind her.\n\n\"Can you smell gas?\" said Guin."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 46",
                "text": "As he and Dave ran downstairs, Newton snatched up the most solid looking elf cross from the mess of sheets and stuffed cat remnants. There were shouts and thumps from downstairs and a dull background roar that might have been the snowstorm outside. Newton suspected it wasn't.\n\nA shape flew up into their faces. Dave gave a startled yelp.\n\n\"Shttn lil bfftrds!\" squawked King Leopold, banking at the top of the stairs and turning.\n\nDave put a hand to his chest and gave the bird an evil glare.\n\n\"Did I mention it was a very rude parrot?\" said Newton.\n\n\"I can smell smoke,\" said Dave. \"We need to get out.\"\n\n\"Bout brurrytime. Pairra gommin iddits.\"\n\nAt the bottom of the stairs, Newton made immediately for the front door.\n\n\"What do you think you are doing?\" came a strident voice.\n\nMrs Scruples stood by the little reception desk. She was wearing something like a lightweight turquoise coat made of quilted polyester. A flannel nightdress peeked out at the hem.\n\n\"Mrs Scruples!\" gasped Newton. \"We've got to get out of here! You won't believe it but there's elves in the house!\"\n\nShe strode forward. \"I heard a good deal of noise for the middle of the night. Why are you up and causing so much disruption?\" She took in the mess and wreckage littering stairs and hallway. \"Breakages must be paid for.\"\n\n\"But Christmas elves!\" said Newton. \"Real ones! And\u2014\" He stopped, seeing the shotgun in the old woman's hand.\n\n\"I think Mrs Scruples knows all about Christmas elves,\" said Dave softly.\n\nShe raised the shotgun. \"Nobody is leaving unless I say so.\"\n\nShe called over her shoulder. \"Wee folks! Come here!\"\n\n\"Wee folks?\" said Newton, terrified and incredulous. \"Why are you trying to make them sound cute? They kill people. Mr Catheter. He\u2026\" He shook his head. \"But wee folks? Really? Shall we get the china cups out and make a little tea party for them?\"\n\nNewton caught Dave's gaze and the little shushing motion that he was making.\n\n\"But they're murderers,\" said Newton.\n\n\"I've seen no evidence of that,\" said Mrs Scruples. \"I see plenty of violence perpetrated by the two of you, mind. Right here under my roof and staining my carpet to boot.\"\n\n\"Where's Mr Scruples?\" asked Dave. It was an odd question and Newton couldn't quite see the relevance.\n\nMrs Scruples' head jerked. Her face twitched unhappily. \"He's still around. I've seen him in the distance a couple of times.\"\n\n\"Have you? Really?\"\n\n\"I'd know his waistcoats anywhere. He was always good with his hands, was Mr Scruples. He's valuable to them. That's why they want to keep hold of him.\"\n\n\"They?\" said Newton and then understood.\n\n\"And you?\" said Dave. \"Is your role to lure us in? Is that why you're 'valuable' to them?\"\n\nNewton wasn't sure why Dave was so keen to chat when there was some serious escaping to be done. Then he realised Dave was trying to keep Mrs Scruples talking because he'd spotted Newton's mum, dirty and bedraggled, creeping up behind the woman.\n\n\"Mum!\" It came out in a blurt of shock and delight.\n\n\"Mum?\" said Mrs Scruples.\n\nEsther grasped the massive pottery horse from the reception desk and smashed it over Mrs Scruple's head. The woman flopped lifelessly to the floor.\n\n\"Oh, poor horsey,\" said Newton.\n\nGuin ran forward to her dad. \"We put an elf in a blender!\"\n\n\"Um, trouser press,\" Dave replied.\n\nEsther planted a smooshy kiss on Newton's forehead. \"We need to get out of here.\" She pulled open the inner door, squeezed past the monstrous vacuum cleaner in the porch and battled futilely with the outer door. \"Locked!\"\n\nKeys,\" said Dave, whirling to look at Mrs Scruples.\n\n\"Uh-oh,\" said Newton quietly. A small band of elves was advancing towards them down the hallway. Each carried a weapon. One looked as though it had a carving set, a matching fork and knife with horn handles. Another had something like a small garden tool with a clawed end. Another held a hammer. They each had a face that was scrunched up with determined malice, expressions deepened by the fact they had been variously thumped, cut, burned or trampled.\n\n\"Yrrr scrrwwed!\" screeched King Leopold, flapping around the ceiling.\n\n\"I've got this,\" said Newton, grabbing the hose of the vacuum cleaner. It was already plugged in. As he brought it to bear, the wheeled body trundled behind him, like a baby Dalek. He stabbed the switch; nothing happened.\n\n\"The body needs to be shut,\" said Esther and leaned heavily on the wobbly casing. She had to sit on top to force it shut.\n\nThe vacuum cleaner's head bucked in Newton's hands. He thrust the pipe at the nearest elf. It disappeared up the fat pipe and into the body of the vacuum cleaner with a series of thumps. Newton swept it round and bagged another."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 47",
                "text": "Dave had run forward and put his fingertips to Mrs Scruples' neck. \"She's still alive,\" he said.\n\n\"Yeah?\" said Esther. \"Try focusing on the lives of the four people who aren't in league with evil elves!\"\n\nIt was perhaps a little callous but Dave took the hint. He went through the pockets of her housecoat.\n\n\"Watch out! Elf on the shelf!\" yelled Guin.\n\n\"On it,\" said Newton.\n\nAn elf dropped down with a lusty war cry. Newton sucked it up the pipe with a snarl of fury.\n\n\"Hey, suckers!\" called Newton. He hoovered up the last two elves. The last one got caught up somewhere in the hose and the motor hesitated. A lump in the hose wriggled. Esther gave it a sharp kick and it vanished with a hollow thwump!.\n\n\"Here!\" said Dave as he pulled out a key ring, triumphant.\n\nHe tossed it to Esther and then hooked a hand under Mrs Scruples' armpits and hauled her along the hallway.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" said Esther.\n\n\"I am not leaving her in a burning building.\"\n\n\"I can definitely smell gas now,\" said Guin. \"Did that man leave the hob on in the kitchen?\"\n\nNewton took the keys from Esther and hurriedly unlocked the outer front door.\n\n\"Out. Now!\" said Dave.\n\nKing Leopold was first out, flapping into the night sky with a cry of \"Bggrit! S'frrrzzing!\"\n\nNewton and Guin followed. Esther took hold of the evil old lady's legs and helped her far too public-spirited man carry her out into the snow. They laid her down in the centre of the road.\n\n\"I should go back for that shotgun,\" said Esther.\n\n\"Why?\" said Dave.\n\n\"What if there's more of them?\"\n\n\"You do know that people who carry guns are more likely to be shot than people who don't carry guns.\"\n\n\"It's true,\" said Guin.\n\n\"Behyoo,\" squawked the parrot.\n\n\"I don't think those statistics include people who've had to fight off bloody Christmas elves,\" said Esther.\n\n\"Be-HY-oo!\" said the parrot, loudly.\n\n\"What did it say?\" said Newton.\n\n\"I think it was saying, 'Behind y\u2014'\" Esther looked back. Through the open doorway she saw a knife with a horn handle sliding through the gap between the body and lid of the vacuum cleaner. It flipped the catch aside and the top burst open. Dusty elves flopped out in varying states of alertness. The elf with the horn-handled knife was first to recover: it turned towards them. His companions seemed disorientated: they reeled and fell over as they emerged from the vacuum.\n\n\"Molotov cocktails,\" said Esther. Guin reacted fastest. She passed over one of the bottles as Esther fumbled for the lighter in her pocket. She flicked it once, twice and managed to set light to the torn-up tea towel with a shaking hand.\n\n\"Burn you pixie scumbags!\" she howled and threw the bottle. It smashed into the hoover, but the spirits failed to ignite.\n\n\"Was that Malibu?\" said Dave.\n\n\"Shut up.\"\n\nThe knife-wielding elf, soaked, made a show of licking its finger in a mocking display. Esther lit the remaining bottle's cloth and lobbed it at them.\n\nIt smashed with a satisfying and very final sound against the body of the hoover, but the flame did not take hold. Except one of the elves stamped its boots, which were definitely burning. It was hardly an impressive conflagration.\n\nThe elf laughed, a high and cruel giggle.\n\n\"I should have gone back for that shotgun,\" said Esther.\n\nThe gas explosion blew the four standing humans off their feet, and the front door entirely off its hinges. Elves, caught in its path, were hurled out of the door. One flew through an upstairs window on the opposite side of the street. The vacuum cleaner tumbled into the road. It would have crushed someone if it had landed on them.\n\nEsther sat up and stretched her jaw, trying to shake off the high-pitched whine in her deafened ears. Shattered glass was everywhere. She found Newton and Guin laid out in the drifting snow, essentially unharmed but clearly shocked. As she pulled them up, Dave was beside her, helping. They scrabbled across to the far side of the road and huddled together.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" Esther asked Newton, realising she couldn't hear her voice. He couldn't either. They all sat in dumbfounded silence and watched the house burn.\n\nIt was a few moments before any of them wanted to move. Esther looked at the others. Their faces all reflected the same exhausted shock as they crouched on the pavement.\n\nDave was the first to stagger to his feet. Esther could hear some of his words, which was excellent because she wasn't ready to be deaf, although it was good to be reminded what a blessing it really was to have all of her senses.\n\n\"We need to get the neighbours out, in case it spreads!\" she was sure Dave was saying.\n\n\"Oh, God, yes!\" Esther had been looking forward to putting this very much behind her, rather than continuing the nightmare, but she couldn't be selfish. Dave was right. \"We'll do that and then get out of this place.\"\n\n\"Why didn't the neighbours hear all the screaming?\" wondered Newton, his voice clearer. \"Or notice the massive fire? Or the gas explosion that blew off the front of the house?\"\n\nHe had a point.\n\nThere was a groaning sound from nearby. Mrs Scruples was lying on the pavement, her body twisted and her clothes shredded.\n\n\"Oh goodness me. Dave, we must help her!\"\n\nDave started to run checks on Mrs Scruples' vital signs.\n\n\"There's a broken bench over there,\" said Guin, pointing at a high backed wooden seat. \"That top part would work for carrying her, like a stretcher.\"\n\nEsther dragged the broken furniture over. It must have been thrown out of the house by the gas explosion. \"It's like an old pew. Look at the carving on it, beautiful piece.\"\n\n\"Careful lifting her onto it,\" said Dave, arranging them all around Mrs Scruples. \"All together on my count. One, two, three.\"\n\nHe stamped out some scraps of smouldering curtain and used them to cover her against the falling snow and secure her onto the board. \"Right, the adults will drag her along using the top corners, as if it's a sled.\"\n\n\"But the carvings will get scratched\u2014\" said Esther before stopping herself. \"\u2014Which is fine, obviously, given the circumstances.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 48",
                "text": "Newton knocked on several nearby doors, but there was no response from any of them. An eerie stillness filled the town, compound by the still falling snow and his receding deafness. It felt like mufflers had been placed over the world, that they were now the only people in it.\n\n\"Which way should we go?\" his mum asked, picking up her corner of Mrs Scruples' stretcher.\n\nDave looked across the marketplace, towards the hill which led down to the river and where they'd left the car. \"The car is unusable.\"\n\n\"Is there another way out of town?\" Newton asked.\n\nDave shook his head. \"I don't know.\"\n\nThey walked slowly, the adults dragging the stretcher. The snow was slippery underfoot, yet somehow didn't make it any easier to drag the heavy board.\n\n\"It's really cold,\" said Guin, hugging herself.\n\n\"It's snow joke,\" said Newton, deadpan. \"This weather, I mean.\"\n\nGuin fixed Newton with a stare designed to shut him up, but he took it as encouragement. \"I think it's settling. If you catch my drift,\" he said.\n\nGuin sighed theatrically. \"It's nice you're trying to make us all laugh, Newton\u2014\" she began.\n\nShe didn't even have a chance to reach the inevitable but before he responded with \"I just want everyone to chill out.\" He grinned broadly. \"Apart from Mrs Scruples, that is. She's out cold already.\"\n\n\"Poor taste, Newton,\" said his mum.\n\n\"Let's just keep walking,\" said Dave in a determinedly upbeat voice. \"We'll get somewhere eventually, or get a phone signal at least.\"\n\nIt was hard going for the adults, even downhill. Newton wondered if they could lay Mrs Scruples flat, give her a hefty shove down the hill, and meet her at the bottom. But it was probably not a very charitable thought.\n\n\"What if there are more of them?\" said Guin. \"Elves. I mean, what if we didn't get them all?\"\n\n\"You know, this whole thing might have escalated in our minds,\" Dave said, his words coming slowly, as if he was trying to shape his thoughts as he went. \"I mean, is it possible we've just got ourselves a bit freaked out after a rough evening and not sleeping properly and everything?\"\n\n\"Dad, you were there!\"\n\n\"I know I was there.\"\n\n\"They're definitely real.\"\n\n\"Guin's right,\" said Esther carefully. \"We can't wish them away. No matter how appalling they were and how far away from our normal lives this whole thing has been. There are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.\"\n\n\"Quoting Shakespeare does not make things true,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Well, I'm just glad we've seen the last of them.\"\n\n\"There's one over there,\" said Newton.\n\nThey all looked back to where he pointed. A small figure was just visible up an alley. It looked as though it was hard at work scooping something out of an indistinct shape on the ground. Faint gloopy noises reached them as they watched.\n\nThe elf looked up. The family instinctively held still against the shadows. The elf straightened and moved towards them, its hands stained with something that made them black in the dark. Esther judged it hadn't seen them.\n\n\"Come on, go. Go!\" she said, sotto voce. They moved much more quickly. Newton didn't even glance back to see if the elf was following.\n\n\"Someone's coming,\" said Guin.\n\nNewton looked ahead. \"It's a person. An actual person.\"\n\n\"Please let it be someone with a working phone or a car,\" said Dave.\n\nIt was a man. He wobbled between the closed market stalls as though drunk.\n\nThey were in the thick of the market. At some time during the night it had lost its festive jollity and become cluttered and threatening. As if every rustic stall front concealed something dreadful. Newton saw the man wore a multi-coloured jacket and lime green trousers that put him in mind of a children's entertainer. It was unlikely he was out entertaining children at whatever time of the night it was now.\n\n\"He doesn't look right,\" said Guin.\n\n\"We shouldn't judge people,\" said Esther. \"We have no idea what personal difficulties he might have...\"\n\nThe man was close enough for them to see him clearly. Newton really didn't like the look of him. His face hung grey and slack; the face of a dead man. One who still walked \u2013 with an awkward gait.\n\n\"Hi there,\" said Dave and waved, almost dropping his corner of the stretcher in the process.\n\nThe man didn't respond.\n\nNewton saw the man's jacket ripple and bulge. \"His stomach\u2026\" Newton began to say and then a button came undone and a tiny head popped out, laughing.\n\n\"No\u2026\" Dave moaned.\n\n\"When I followed Elsa Frinton's footprints,\" said Guin, her voice low and distant, like she was recounting a dream, \"I saw something on the wall. I thought it was a pink glove, like a human hand with no bones or meat inside it.\"\n\nElves burst forth from the man's stomach, leaping down onto the ground. As they left his body it collapsed, hollow.\n\n\"Back up, back up!\" gasped Esther.\n\nThey started to drag the stretcher back the way they'd come. The elves were content to watch them with silent menace.\n\n\"And the stallholders at the market,\" said Guin. \"They all moved oddly, didn't they? Like they were too tired and floppy to move properly. I guess a human suit is hard to steer.\"\n\nThe board bumped over hidden obstacles beneath the snow. Mrs Scruples groaned loudly.\n\n\"She's not dead. That's a positive,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Why am I tied down?\" mumbled the old woman.\n\n\"There was an explosion,\" Newton told her helpfully. \"Your house is no longer safe.\"\n\nMrs Scruples feebly tugged at the bonds tying her to the makeshift stretcher. \"Kidnap!\" she exclaimed, a loud bird-like squawk.\n\n\"Nobody's kidnapping you, Mrs Scruples,\" said Newton in his gentlest 'would anyone like a cup of tea' voice. \"We're just trying to get you to safety. Just relax for now.\"\n\nMrs Scruples did not relax. \"Let me go!\" she shouted as she thrashed in place. \"You've got no right to do this.\"\n\n\"Shush, everything will be fine,\" Newton urged her.\n\n\"Help me!\"\n\n\"We are helping.\n\n\"Help me, little folk!\"\n\nThe elves by the hollowed out human suit took this as their cue and began to follow.\n\n\"They're coming for us,\" said Esther, like there was any doubt.\n\n\"Here I am,\" called Mrs Scruples. \"I told you I'd get them for you.\"\n\nIn silent agreement Dave and Esther let the stretcher drop. \"We should put some distance between ourselves and these things,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Don't call them things,\" said Esther. \"Could be considered racist.\"\n\nMrs Scruples dragged off the singed curtain remnants and staggered upright.\n\n\"You'd be better off if you stayed with us you know,\" Dave told her.\n\nThe look she shot back suggested she didn't agree.\n\nThe back of Newton's foot connected with something. It was a weight which held down a corner of tarpaulin covering one of the stalls. He picked it up, held it like a bowling ball, took aim, and lobbed it at the elves. Two of them were crushed into the deep snow as it rolled over them. The remaining elves hissed and began to run at them.\n\nThe fabric awning directly above Dave was heavily laden with snow. He punched the awning from below and sent a considerable pile of snow onto the nearest elves. They were instantly buried. \"And go!\" he yelled.\n\nThey ran.\n\n\"I'm coming, little ones!\" yelled Mrs Scruples in the night. \"You can rely on me!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 49",
                "text": "Guin thought she heard the elves laughing. They were enjoying the chase. She glanced back: a lone elf was just a few paces behind.\n\nThey passed a chestnut stall; its brazier still radiated heat. Guin kicked it over. Hot pieces of charcoal rolled down the street, throwing off sparks. The elf stumbled and skipped over them, but continued its chase.\n\n\"This way!\" Esther shouted. They twisted through the market and ducked down a side road while the elves were unsighted.\n\nMrs Scruples was still out there somewhere, calling to her 'little people'.\n\n\"Mad as a box of frogs,\" muttered Dave.\n\n\"Is that a clinical term?\" asked Esther, nudging him in the ribs.\n\nIt was easier to move now they were out of the market and its clutter, but they were also very exposed. There was movement from some of the houses overlooking the street. Without looking too closely, Guin had the strong impression that elves were more or less everywhere. The ones chasing them were just a small sample of a whole townful of elves.\n\nThey were at the edge of the town square and there wasn't much more of the town beyond it. A steep hill rose up in front of them, its side thick with trees. The drystone wall and the church stood at the end of the road, but beyond that they'd be out in open countryside.\n\nGuin didn't fancy their chances out in the woods, being pursued by a horde of murderous elves.\n\n\"Church?\" suggested Dave.\n\n\"Really?\" said Esther.\n\n\"Just as a place to lay low.\"\n\nThey moved together, up the road. Near the rear yard of a house, they skirted round a parked tractor. Guin stared at its convoluted shadows and recesses fearfully. A hundred elves could have hidden beneath it.\n\n\"Maybe there's keys in the cab,\" suggested Newton.\n\n\"Not enough room for us all,\" said Dave.\n\nGuin knew how slowly tractors went. If they were to make any kind of a getaway, there was no point in choosing something that could be overtaken by an elf who wasn't even trying.\n\nThey crept quietly into the churchyard, the tree and snow covered slopes towered over the grey building. Esther got to the church first and tried the latch. It opened. They all piled inside and shut the door firmly behind them.\n\n\"I'll see if I can lock it,\" said Dave. \"Try and find some lights.\"\n\nMoments later the interior of the church was lit up. It appeared to be free of elves. Dave found a heavy iron key and locked the door. They got their breath back, sighing heavily with relief.\n\n\"Nice church,\" said Esther. \"It's simple and functional. Nothing fancy or excessive.\"\n\n\"Suddenly an expert on churches, are we, mum?\" said Newton.\n\n\"No elves,\" she added. \"I especially like the fact there are no elves in here.\"\n\n\"Maybe the elves can't cross the threshold of a church,\" said Newton. \"We should get some holy water and some crucifixes to defend ourselves.\"\n\nGuin rolled her eyes. \"Seriously? The elf crosses are the things that work against the elves. Holy water won't be any use at all.\"\n\n\"Can't hurt to try,\" said Newton, lifting the wooden lid on the font and dipping a finger into the dark interior. As he shook the water off he turned and pointed. \"Stairs.\" A doorway led to a spiral stone staircase. \"They'll lead to the bell tower. Maybe we could go up\u2014\"\n\n\"And ring the bells and see if someone comes to help us!\" said his mum enthusiastically.\n\n\"Er, that,\" said Newton kindly. \"Or I was just going to see if I could get a better phone signal high up.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah. That too,\" agreed Esther.\n\n\"Go with him,\" Dave told Guin.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Safety in height. You know: like climbing trees to get away from bears.\"\n\n\"Bears can climb trees, dad. That's the one thing you shouldn't do when attacked by one.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" he said irritably. \"Sharks then.\"\n\nGuin could have pointed out how stupid that was too but simply went.\n\nShe ran up the stairs behind Newton. She didn't run far: physical exercise was not her friend. She was the pale and sickly looking girl in her class at school, a stereotype she was happy to live up to. After one circuit of the stairs, she resorted to walking. A dozen spirals later she reached a small square room with bell ropes hanging from holes in the ceiling. Newton flitted between the two small leaded windows, waving his phone about.\n\n\"Any luck?\" asked Guin.\n\nNewton gave her a terse, still look. \"Maybe we will have to resort to fighting them off with holy water and crosses.\" He caught her expression. \"We don't know those things aren't related to vampires or demons or something. They're ugly like demons, I mean those carvings on some of the pews downstairs even look a bit like them.\"\n\nGuin pulled out the Little Folk in European Folklore book and sat with it, cross-legged on the floor, over a heating grill that was not entirely cold. There was a quote from Dr Epiphany Alexander on the subject of carvings that Newton needed to hear. Before she could locate it there was a loud braying din. Downstairs, the organ was being played, but not by anyone with training. Chilling, discordant notes echoed around the church."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 50",
                "text": "More than anything Dave wanted to protect his loved ones. The look of alarm on Esther's face as the church organ struck up was almost more than he could bear. He'd tried to deal with the situation in the best way he knew how: keep his head and deliver solutions to problems. But this was so far away from anything he'd ever experienced he was running out of ideas. They were trapped in an unfamiliar town, surrounded by an enemy that was not only ridiculously numerous, but also completely impossible for his brain to believe in.\n\n\"This is a classic villain scare tactic,\" he said, attempting to be reassuring. \"Creepy organ music. I mean, doesn't it remind you of every horror film you ever saw?\"\n\nEsther wrinkled her nose. \"Not sure about that. They normally at least do chords, don't they? That sounds like someone running up and down the keyboard.\"\n\nDave whirled. The church was essentially one huge open room. His original idea that they could lay low and get behind some cover seemed quite ridiculous now. \"The kids!\"\n\n\"We defend the stairs,\" said Esther. \"Grab weapons.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"When they show themselves we need to be ready to take them on.\"\n\nDave stepped up to the altar and grabbed a pair of candlesticks. Their weight felt good in his hands. Esther lifted a brass heating duct grille. It looked too heavy for her to carry, but that probably meant it had excellent elf-squashing potential.\n\nDave looked all around, wondering which direction the elves' attack would come from. The tuneless organ honking continued, but there was another sound. Almost like voices singing in a choir: a choir that tuned up by scratching their fingernails down a blackboard. Discordant, wordless and completely without a tune. The closest thing Dave could bring to mind was the noise he made as a child when working hard to irritate his family. It was optimistically known as 'the bagpipes', made by holding his nose, make a droning sound and making small rapid karate chops against his throat.\n\nHe spotted them, beyond the altar. Had they been in the choir stalls all along? They began climbing up and over the wooden seats, the grotesque carvings come to life.\n\nMoments later the bells rang out. Even louder than the organ and almost as chaotic as the choir. Guin and Newton were giving it everything that they had, although they really didn't know what they were doing.\n\n\"Maybe someone will hear,\" said Esther optimistically.\n\nDave remembered bell ringers sometimes suffered serious injuries. If they forgot to let go of the rope, they could be whisked upwards at something like fifty miles an hour.\n\nElves came at them. Dave swung the candlesticks, one in each arm, and just for a moment he was Antonio Banderas wielding two pistols against Mexican drug peddlers with devastating style. There was a satisfying crunch and a lot of splatter as he made an elf sandwich with smeared elf filling.\n\n\"Consider that an exorcism,\" he said.\n\nEsther had managed to pin one elf underneath her heavy iron grill. She jumped on it to get more momentum. Dave couldn't be sure from this distance, but it looked as though she'd created elf chips.\n\n\"Guin! Newton! Take care with those bells!\" he called towards the bell tower.\n\nAbruptly, he realised the bells had stopped. And so had the choir and organ.\n\n\"Guin! Newton!\" Dave charged up the stairs. Esther close behind.\n\nThe bell-ringers' chamber was empty but for half a dozen swinging ropes.\n\n\"Guin! Newton! Where are you?\" Dave turned in a circle as if he might have overlooked two children. \"They must have just been in here.\"\n\nOne of the small leaded windows in the room was open, swinging in the wind and letting snow flutter in.\n\n\"It's not big enough,\" Esther murmured.\n\n\"If they were dragged through\u2014\" said Dave instantly wishing he hadn't.\n\nThere was scrap of fabric on the floor beneath the window, ripped from Newton's clothes.\n\nWordlessly they sprinted back downstairs, out the church's main door. There were no elves to be seen. They headed round to the outside of the bell tower and located the window. Footsteps in the snow indicated a great many elves had been here, and they had been dragging something with them. The prints headed up into the trees. It was wild and dark in there, the snow lying heavy and menacing.\n\n\"It looks steep and dangerous,\" said Dave.\n\nDave ran back into the church. Esther followed him. \"I'm thinking a rope maybe, anything that could help us out in the woods.\"\n\n\"It's a church Dave, not Go Outdoors. What are we likely to find?\"\n\nDave trotted to the base of the bell tower, looking around to see if there was any spare rope. A large box in the corner looked like a good prospect. He opened the lid and found a neatly coiled length of bell rope with a red, white and blue fluffy end.\n\n\"Good,\" he said lifting it onto his shoulder. \"Candles! They could help us start a fire in a pinch.\"\n\nEsther made a doubtful noise, but ran to the altar.\n\n\"I know it seems like overkill, but we run the risk of getting exposure out there in the open,\" Dave called.\n\n\"Yes! Yes!\" Esther shouted back, knowing he was right but impatient to get on with it.\n\n\"Grab the cloth thing while you're there as well,\" he said.\n\nEsther hesitated for a moment before she balled up the altar cloth with the candles.\n\nThey both sprinted for the door and went back round to the far side of the church.\n\n\"I'll tie the rope around both of our waists,\" said Dave. \"We'll be able to move separately, but this snow is so deep I'm worried one of us might step into a gorge or off a cliff.\"\n\nThey started to trudge up the hill. The lights of Alvestowe disappeared as the concealing tree branches blocked out streetlights and the yellow light reflecting off the snow. Dave led the way, kicking the earth to find footholds among rocks and tree roots.\n\nThe going became tougher the deeper they went. The tree boughs sagged with snow and hung low to the ground. They had a choice of either crouching low to crawl through the pitch blackness beneath the trees, or stick to the more open areas where the snow came up past their knees and made walking extremely difficult.\n\n\"What about avalanches?\" asked Esther.\n\nDave looked up at the snow. \"It's a risk, but what choice do we have? The trees will help to break up any slippages, but let's hope that nothing happens to unsettle the snow.\"\n\nHe tried to recall what he knew of avalanches. Unfortunately, his only sources of information were James Bond movies and old disaster flicks.\n\n\"If there is an avalanche there's things you should do,\" he said.\n\n\"Like pee to see which way is up?\" asked Esther.\n\n\"No, not that,\" said Dave. \"If we get caught, we should try to swim uphill, face upwards.\"\n\n\"Swim?\"\n\n\"Yeah, like our lives depended on it.\"\n\nShe held up a hand. Dave could barely see it in the darkness.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I heard elves laughing. Must mean we're on the right path.\"\n\nHe nodded, then thought she probably couldn't see him. \"Yes, you're right.\"\n\n\"Let's go.\"\n\n\"Watch your rope,\" he said. \"You're in danger of treading on the fluffy bit.\"\n\n\"Sally.\" She held up the furry striped end of the bell-rope. In the poor light, it wiggled like it had a life of its own. \"This bit is called a sally.\"\n\n\"How do you know that?\"\n\n\"I did a weekend heritage skills course,\" she said. He saw her shiver as the snow blew off the hill in savage gusts.\n\n\"I love you so much,\" he said and kissed her fiercely on the forehead.\n\n\"I know,\" she replied.\n\n\"And we'll get our kids back.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\nFrom ahead, up the slope there was a sharp, loud noise.\n\n\"What was that?\" Esther said.\n\n\"Sounded like a branch snapping.\"\n\n\"More like a Christmas cracker.\"\n\nThere followed a rapid report of dozens of bangs.\n\n\"A thousand Christmas crackers,\" added Esther.\n\nThere was another sound a more ominous one. A cracking sound which came from the earth itself. A rumble followed, felt as well as heard. It seemed to be growing louder.\n\n\"Oh no. Please, no.\" Dave turned to Esther.\n\n\"Just swim,\" said Esther. \"I got it.\"\n\nDave felt out for a tree to shelter behind but his hands could find only wispy branches and snow.\n\nEsther began to say something but her words were lost as the roar of the avalanche became the voice of an angry giant, punctuated by the crack of uprooted trees.\n\nThe ground bucked and tumbled. They were thrown off their feet. Dave could no longer see what Esther was doing. He couldn't see at all. When he should have been thinking clearly about what he needed to do to save their lives, he was consumed by two thoughts: that the furry bit of a bell-rope was called a sally, and he should have married Esther ages ago."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 51",
                "text": "Guin shifted uncomfortably inside the sack the elves had stuffed her in. She constantly bounced against the sharp backs of the elves carrying her. She coughed, breathing in gulps of the foetid, stinking air inside the sack. She didn't like to imagine what this sack had been used for \u2013 rotten animal hides? Manky bales of hay? She decided, miserably, if she wasn't released soon, she'd either choke to death with a lung full of dust and dirt or contract plague.\n\nShe was dropped, suddenly and painfully, onto a hard surface. She cried out and heard a couple of elves tittering. \"You'd better not be laughing at me!\" she said. She held Wiry Harrison tightly in her hand and he gave her the courage to speak her mind.\n\nSomething gripped her through the sack material.\n\n\"Get off!\" she shouted in alarm.\n\n\"It's me!\" hissed Newton. \"I'm in the sack next to you.\"\n\nGuin considered this. \"I repeat, 'Get off'. I did not sign up for this. Dad said\u2014\"\n\nShe was about to say he'd promised she wasn't going to share a bedroom with Newton, but thoughts of her dad cut her off. The last they'd seen of their parents was in the church, but they'd heard shouts on the hillside, and then there'd been the bangs and the rumble of an avalanche and\u2026\n\n\"It's okay,\" said Newton, seemingly reading her mind. \"I'm here.\"\n\nShe sniffed. \"Is that meant to make me feel better?\"\n\n\"I'll keep trying.\"\n\nThe floor beneath them suddenly shifted and rattled.\n\n\"Are we on a cart or something?\" said Newton, a moment before Guin was going to suggest something similar.\n\n\"I don't know. Why haven't they killed us yet?\"\n\n\"Let's be glad they haven't.\"\n\n\"But they will.\"\n\n\"But not yet,\" he said, like it mattered.\n\nThe cart \u2013 no, Guin thought it was a train: there was a click-clack noise below the creaks and rattles \u2013 carried them for several minutes. Guin occasionally felt the closeness of the forest trees or heard them scrape alongside. Then the surrounding noises changed. There was a closeness, a dull echo to things.\n\n\"I think we're inside somewhere,\" she whispered.\n\nThe train stopped abruptly and she nearly rolled on Wiry Harrison.\n\n\"We've stopped,\" said Newton unnecessarily.\n\nNothing happened for some minutes. Guin tried to find the opening in her sack but the elves had tied it tight. She'd probably have better luck trying to peel it apart at the seams.\n\nNext to her, the gangly teenage boy was clucking and making weird sing-song noises. \"That's it. That's it. That's right. I'm your friend.\"\n\n\"Are you trying to be comforting or creep me out?\" asked Guin.\n\n\"I'm not talking to you,\" he said. \"I mean, I am, but I was making noises to the\u2014 There's an animal here. I can feel its muzzle. Yes, there is. Yes, there is,\" he simpered to whatever he was talking to.\n\n\"Probably rats,\" said Guin miserably.\n\n\"It's a big animal,\" said Newton. \"I don't think it's a horse.\"\n\nGuin thought about what kind of animals elves would hang around with. \"Maybe it's a reindeer,\" she suggested, not sure if she was being sarcastic.\n\n\"Are you a reindeer?\" said Newton. \"Yes, you are! Yes, you are, you lovely girl! Come snuffle me! Yes, you do, you \u2013 ow!\"\n\n\"What?\" said Guin.\n\n\"It bit me,\" said Newton indignantly.\n\nGuin drew herself into a ball in the dark horrible confines. \"Rats,\" she muttered. \"It's rats and we're going to get the plague and die.\"\n\nNewton jabbed her, possibly with an elbow. \"You know this keeping our spirits up thing? It's a team effort, you know.\"\n\nFootsteps approached. \"\u00fe\u00e1\u00fat ogr\u00f0u far \u00ed Gerd,\" said an voice.\n\n\"What are they gibbering about?\" muttered Newton.\n\nGuin shushed him. \"I'm trying to listen.\"\n\nSeveral pairs of little hands were laid on them. Guin heard the shing of drawn blades before the sacks were slashed open with almost no regard for their contents. They were hauled out.\n\nShe coughed and sucked in fresh air \u2013 well, relatively fresh air. The air stank of damp and dirt with a pervasive underlying smell of something like petrol. They were in a cave of some sort. It was lit by row upon row of Christmas fairy lights, some old, some new, many of them broken, many of them fizzing and flickering like a fuse was about to blow. The lights were strung across ceilings, tacked to walls and wrapped round and round the dripping pipes that ran everywhere.\n\nIt took her a while to appreciate the scale of the place. Not just because of the gloom but because the size of it defied any rational expectations. The cave's sloping sides \u2013 she supposed it was big enough to be called a cavern really \u2013 rose up higher and higher until, at its conical top, there was a patch of dark grey which could possibly be the night sky of the world above. Along its sides and across its wide floor, elves in their dozens scurried and worked at distinct but disorganised work stations and storage areas.\n\nShe and Newton had been deposited alongside the train track. It was a ridiculously narrow and low train, little more than a children's theme park ride, with crude open top trucks behind a little pink locomotive that would have looked cute if it wasn't so wonky and rusted.\n\n\"Steam engines,\" said Newton. \"Environmentally very unsound. Mum would have\u2014 Oh, my God!\"\n\nIn a stall by the train line stood a reindeer \u2013 well, some sort of deer, or, some sort of hoofed \u2026 some sort of quadruped. It definitely had four legs. Of that Guin could be confident. It had probably started out as a reindeer, or reindeer-shaped but\u2026\n\nIt was a patchwork of fur and material that was not fur, wrapped around a body featuring a couple of very un-reindeery legs (one of which appeared to be elegantly carved from solid wood) and strange, very unhealthy looking lumps and bumps under the skin. Hide, cloth and patchwork flesh were held together with fine white stitching.\n\nAnd the head\u2026 The skin was almost entirely bald. One of the antlers had been fixed in place with metal brackets and screws. The eyes were grey-green and shrunken, like ancient withered grapes. Its mouth was devoid of flesh, flat teeth champed and snapped against a jawline of exposed bone.\n\n\"It's a zomdeer,\" whispered Newton. \"Frankenstein's reindeer,\" said Guin at the same time.\n\nWhatever, it was a reindeer even Father Christmas would struggle to love."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 52",
                "text": "The zomdeer or Frankenstein's reindeer or whatever it was, reared and bucked in its dirty little pen. Elves were unpacking bales, boxes and bags from the other trucks. Newton supposed they were meant to be important goods and materials for the elves but, for the most part, looked like the leanest pickings off a rubbish heap. Regardless, the elves' industry meant Newton and Guin were left standing alone for a while. Newton looked along the track they'd come down. There was a long high tunnel, but no suggestion of an exit apart from a quartet of elves standing on guard near the rear of the train, holding knives and larger billhook-type blades.\n\nHe looked down at Guin. Her pale little face looked even paler in this gloomy light. There was a concerned, distant look on her face. \"Don't worry,\" he said, dropping into his default carer mode. \"I'll look after you.\"\n\nGuin looked at him. \"What?\"\n\n\"I said I'll look after you. Don't be afraid.\"\n\n\"I'm not afraid.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said. \"I'm just saying if\u2014\"\n\n\"Yes, but I'm not,\" she said with quiet certainty. \"I was thinking, why do elves need reindeer?\"\n\nThe patchwork reindeer thing rolled its shrivelled eyes and stamped its hoofs.\n\n\"Reindeer are cute,\" said Newton.\n\n\"That one isn't.\"\n\n\"We just haven't got to know her yet.\"\n\n\"Her?\"\n\n\"Only female reindeer have antlers in winter.\"\n\n\"Those antlers are bolted on.\"\n\n\"We haven't got to know it yet,\" said Newton. Emboldened by his need to show Newton Woollby loved all animals, cute and ugly, he edged towards the reindeer. The creature blinked and angled its head as though trying to focus its clearly useless eyes on him.\n\n\"Hey, Blinky,\" he sang softly, holding out the flat of his hand to her muzzle as he slowly approached. \"I could make friends with any of the horses at the stables,\" he told Guin.\n\n\"That is not a horse,\" said Guin. \"It barely qualifies as an animal.\"\n\n\"She just needs to be shown a little love. Maybe she's feeling out of sorts. Hey, what do reindeer take when they've got a stomach ache.\"\n\n\"A joke? At this time?\"\n\n\"Elk-a-seltzer!\" Newton grinned.\n\nGuin did not crack a smile, not even a fake one.\n\n\"You like my jokes,\" Newton simpered to Blinky. \" You do, don't you? Don't you, you lovely little\u2014\"\n\nThe reindeer jerked forward and snapped at Newton's hand. He snatched it back barely in time before hard, yellow zombie teeth clacked together on the space where his fingers had just been.\n\n\"Bad reindeer!\" he gasped in alarm. \"Naughty Blinky!\"\n\n\"I was saying\u2014\" said Guin, \"\u2014why do elves need reindeer? They're not native to this country and\u2014\"\n\nWhatever Guin was about to say went unsaid as the nearest elf, having finished overseeing the unloading of the train, barked an order at them and waved his knife. \"Takka pokj\u00f3t, lj\u00f3\u00f0ur ma\u00f0!\" The elf gestured viciously at a bulging sack.\n\nNewton looked at Guin, perplexed.\n\n\"I think he wants you to carry it,\" she said.\n\n\"You understand elf now?\"\n\n\"I'm going by context.\" She pointed at the sack. \"Takka pokj\u00f3t?\"\n\nThe elf waved its knife encouragingly.\n\nNewton bent and tried lifting the sack. Whatever was in it was too heavy for him to lift. He grasped the wet corners and dragged it along, directed into the centre of the cavern by the elf.\n\nThe place definitely had the feel of a storage area. Add a forklift truck and some hard hats and it could be the distribution centre of a major company. Half-constructed (or possibly deconstructed) market stalls were leant together in one place. Piles of scrap wood \u2013 furniture and fencing \u2013 sat alongside far neater piles of freshly cut logs. A mountain of stollen, stacked like bricks, was positioned alongside a vat of sweets wrapped in colourful tissue. Shiny Christmas present boxes, red with gold ribbon, sat in a vast pile, waiting to receive their toys. A giant storage container, like a lorry container but on reinforced sledge runners, stood by the pile. On it, in wonky writing, someone had painted the words:"
            },
            {
                "title": "NORF AMERICA",
                "text": "Newton was curious, but was distracted by the strings upon strings of sausages hanging above them. \"Hot dog sausages,\" he grunted as he heaved the sack along.\n\n\"Are you actually hungry?\" said Guin.\n\n\"No, I'm\u2026 The elves run the market.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" she said. \"I don't get why. None of this makes sense.\"\n\n\"Not just me, then.\"\n\nThe elf barked at them.\n\n\"He wants you to leave it there,\" said Guin.\n\n\"Good.\" Newton let it drop and wondered when the feeling might return to his arms.\n\nElves \u2013 horrible sharp-faced elves, toddler-sized but as far from human as it was possible to be whilst still retaining all the standard features \u2013 gathered round Guin and Newton. They prodded and pushed the pair towards another tunnel leading out of the cavern.\n\n\"I think our dad and mum are alive,\" said Guin.\n\n\"That's the spirit,\" said Newton.\n\n\"No, I do. If they'd been dead, they'd have brought them here.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" he said, happy to say something that gave her hope.\n\nHer hand gripped his. \"Didn't you see?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nShe raised his hand. He looked at it. It was red with smears of blood.\n\n\"Your sack. It was that Duncan man's body.\"\n\nNewton felt sick. In a frenzy he tried to brush the blood off on his jumper. But he was also thinking that maybe she was right. Maybe their folks were alive, somewhere."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 54",
                "text": "Dave had taken his own advice and thrashed around so he was facing uphill as the avalanche hit. As snow tumbled onto him in slabs and looser chunks, he'd tried to move upwards. It was a mostly hopeless task that was made even harder by no longer knowing which way was uphill after a few moments. A tree branch crashed down next to him and he held onto it, sliding along and hoping he was going the right way. After a few seconds all was silence. He could hear the distant echo of the avalanche, but he knew he was buried in the snow.\n\n\"Don't panic. Don't panic.\"\n\nDave's paramedic training had equipped him to keep his cool in extraordinary situations \u2013 although that was usually in the face of other people's imminent deaths, not his own. He'd tried to explain to Guin how her swimming lessons were giving her a similar skill. The breathing control she needed when she swam with her face in the water came from the same place. He firmly believed mastery over some of the body's basic functions was key.\n\nCould he do it now? He made a conscious effort to slow his breathing. He knew his first instinct would be to pant wildly, but he needed to slow down his entire body to remain calm. It would also help him make the best use of his limited oxygen. He made a brief survey of his body. He didn't seem to be injured. His legs were both locked in place. His left arm was curled around his face, giving him space for the air he was so thankful for. He could flex his fingers slightly. His right arm was by his waist and a quick jiggle told him he had some movement.\n\nCautiously he moved it gently back and forth, fingers trying to pick up any useful information. He was careful not to make sudden movements, for fear of disturbing the air pocket around his face. His fingers pushed further, there was a rush of different sensations. He knew he was disoriented, but he really wanted to believe it was open air he could feel. Did he dare to push himself that way, knowing if he was wrong he might completely cut off his air supply by disturbing the snow? He had no real choice.\n\nHe pushed his arm as hard as he could, and then eased the arm protecting his face towards it. Snow fell into his face, filling his mouth. He pushed on, clinging to the belief that this was the way out.\n\nThen he was through. His arm and shoulder were free. He was able to shove the snow off his face. He sucked in long, greedy breaths and shoved snow off the rest of him, grappling for the rope so he could find Esther.\n\nShe was nearby. If he didn't have the rope to follow he would have walked straight past her: underneath a large chunk of what looked like a fir tree. She only had a light covering of snow, but she was out cold, and there was a bruise across her face where the tree had struck her.\n\n\"Esther!\" he cried, feeling for a pulse. She was alive. He scooped snow away from her and checked her breathing. She started to come round as he felt along her limbs.\n\n\"Mm, frisky,\" she said groggily.\n\n\"Bloody hell, Esther. We nearly died.\"\n\nShe sat slowly up. \"Well,\" she said, \"that might work out well for us. If the elves think they've killed us.\"\n\nThey stood and embraced, thigh deep in the snow. They were both shivering. Dave wasn't sure if it was shock, or the fact they were both wet and chilled to the bone.\n\n\"We have no idea what's happened to the kids,\" he said in a choked sob. \"They could be anywhere. They might be de\u2014\"\n\n\"Shh, we must assume they are okay,\" she said. \"And we're going to find them.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"We don't know how yet, but we will. I think we need to go back into town and start again.\"\n\nIt wasn't an appealing thought, but standing here in the snow was certain to render them both incapable of anything. They wrapped their arms around each others' shoulders and walked slowly back the way they'd come."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 55",
                "text": "Guin and Newton were herded and hurried along a narrow rock tunnel. The fairy lights along the walls were even more sparse and temperamental than the ones in the main cavern. They stumbled through patches of darkness between moments of rosy cheeriness.\n\nThe elf behind them screeched an order and they were diverted to one side and into a\u2014\n\nGuin blinked and looked about them.\n\nLong, brightly painted workbenches were arranged in rows and columns. Twee little stools stood by the benches, along with neatly laid out sets of mallets, saws, gimlets, files, shears, paintbrushes and pots. From the rustic beams above hung boughs of holly, sprigs of mistletoe and metres and metres of festive paperchains. Against the far wall were a series of cutesy windows outside which the snow gathered thickly.\n\n\"It's Santa's workshop,\" she whispered. Except, she noticed on second glance, the paintwork on the benches was peeling, half the mallets were broken, the saws were either rusted or blunt, the holly was dead and black, the paperchains appeared to be made from ancient yellow newspaper, and the windows were painted on the cave wall. Not windows at all.\n\n\"What's going on?\" said Newton.\n\nAn elf leapt onto the workbench in front of them. He \u2013 no, she \u2013 had the sharpest, pointiest features they'd yet seen on an elf. As though there had been a work related incident involving her face and a vice. A pair of half-moon spectacles balanced on the end of a long nose. A wooden ruler dangled dangerously in her hand.\n\n\"Nei tala!\" she squawked.\n\n\"Sorry,\" said Newton. \"We were just\u2014\"\n\n\"Ekkla tala, ya big lummox.\"\n\n\"Sorry. What?\"\n\nThe elf lashed out with the ruler. It cracked sharply across Newton's shoulder.\n\n\"Ow! Okay, I\u2014\"\n\nCrack!\n\n\"Oww! No, I get it. I\u2014\"\n\nCrack!\n\nNewton screwed up his face, held his yelp of pain in and nodded. Guin put a reassuring hand on his arm, and received a ruler whack to the knuckles from the elf. It was one of those terrible moments of pain that didn't initially hurt at all. Guin looked at her bloodless white hand in shock and knew \u2013 just knew \u2013 that in a five seconds it was going to hurt like hell.\n\n\u2026 three, four, five\u2026\n\nGuin gritted her teeth and shoved her throbbing hand under her arm.\n\n\"Svo, mi'ducks, ergi Gerd,\" said the elf, strolling along the workbench. \"\u00de\u00faert h\u00e9rtil a\u00f0na. Toy bygling.\" She swung round to indicate the entire workshop. \"D\u00fakir, lesnn, der Pooh ber.\"\n\nGuin nodded, pretending/hoping she understood half of that. The elf, whose name was possibly Gerd, gestured to shelves and baskets of supplies on one side of the workshop.\n\n\"Gerl sem\u00fa vilen, \u00f0ur r\u00e9tt Bobby Dazzler.\"\n\n\"Who's Bobby Dazzler?\" said Newton.\n\nCrack! Gerd's little ruler slapped across Newton's head. It was a surprise it didn't break, although Newton's mass of curly hair probably acted a bit like a protective cushion. A bit.\n\n\"\u00de\u00fa\u00e1tt sj\u00f6og fim m\u00edn\u00fatur. All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi.\" Gerd leapt away and scurried to a corner.\n\n\"What the hell\u2014?\" whispered Newton, rubbing his sore head.\n\n\"I thought it was obvious,\" said Guin.\n\nThe teenager looked at her blankly.\n\n\"She wants us to make toys. Wonderful toys. We've got sj\u00f6og fim minutes.\"\n\n\"How long's that?\"\n\n\"Something-five minutes. I'm not sure.\"\n\n\"You are kidding me.\"\n\n\"Nope,\" said Guin. She began to explore the nearest workbench. \"And I think we ought to do a good job of it too.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nGuin held her arms out. \"You see anyone else here?\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"You think we're the first children they've ever kidnapped?\"\n\n\"Um\u2026\"\n\n\"And do you think they just let the other ones go?\"\n\nNewton looked like he was thinking about it and didn't like what he was thinking. \"Maybe we ought to make ourselves useful,\" he said eventually.\n\n\"I agree,\" said Guin."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 56",
                "text": "In a stiff drawer beneath a workbench, Newton found several crumpled and ripped instruction sheets for the construction of various toys. There were pictures, wildly unhelpful arrows and exclamation marks, and the limited written instructions were written in what looked like runes straight out of The Lord of the Rings.\n\n\"It's just like IKEA instructions,\" he said to Guin, cracking a smile to try to raise the mood.\n\nThey were alone in the workshop, but they were filled with a sense of being watched. The sounds of elves working, squabbling, ordering each other about and occasionally killing each other, echoed into the cave from afar, reducing individual sounds to a distorted ghostly murmur.\n\nGuin decided it would be easiest to make cuddly toys from the large supplies of fabric in the corner of the room. Sewing was a more forgiving craft than carving or carpentry. That was when they discovered the big hoppers of material were in fact mostly full of discarded human clothing. Including children's.\n\n\"We need to show them we're useful,\" Newton repeated himself hollowly. He waved one of the printed patterns at Guin. \"You want a pattern to follow?\"\n\n\"I'm good,\" she said, rummaging through the materials she amassed. \"I don't like instructions.\"\n\nNewton nodded, picking out what looked like an easy pattern for a cloth rabbit. \"Mum loves building IKEA flat pack furniture,\" he said.\n\n\"I think that's one of the reasons why dad likes her,\" said Guin.\n\nNewton didn't particularly want to think about why Dave liked his mum. If he did it was too easy for his brain to drift into thoughts of their parents' love life. Through conversations with his mum (who had a tendency to overshare) he gathered even old people in their thirties and forties had something like a love life. He shuddered and tried to drive away the thoughts by busying himself with the rabbit pattern.\n\n\"I like the little bits you get in IKEA furniture,\" said Guin. She had cut out random shapes from a big dress with a floral pattern and was now fiddling with something else.\n\nNewton saw that she had her little wire man on the bench in front of her. He realised her little robot toy made of spare nuts and bolts was probably still in the wooden box in the burning hotel. \"What's his name?\" he asked.\n\n\"Hmmm?\" Guin saw him looking. \"That's Wiry Harrison. He's my best one. This\u2014\" She put down a shiny crumpled thing she'd just made. It had four legs and a long neck. \"This is Tinfoil Tavistock.\"\n\n\"A new Tinfoil Tavistock?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"No. It's still Tinfoil Tavistock. Just cos I had to make her again, doesn't mean it's not her.\"\n\nNewton wasn't sure that was true. You couldn't get a copy of a loved one or a best friend and it still be the same thing. He thought about Lily and knew that if she was ever replaced by a copy, if he ever got out of this place and returned to the stables, he wouldn't be able to accept a substitute. Even Yolanda\u2026 Yolanda was Yolanda and a rough approximation of her wouldn't be the same thing.\n\nNewton and Guin worked side by side, he following the pattern step by step, she attacking cloth and cotton and buttons with seemingly no plan at all.\n\n\"Why do elves make toys?\" he asked some minutes later.\n\n\"Is this the beginning of a joke?\" said Guin.\n\n\"No,\" he said, wondering if it could be. \"I mean it. Why do they make toys?\"\n\n\"You mean, cos there's no Father Christmas to deliver?\"\n\n\"Even if there was. Why would he do it? Why would they do it?\"\n\n\"Because children love presents,\" she said.\n\nNewton didn't think that was good enough. \"Children love chocolate too. Doesn't mean that once a year a magical being comes into our houses and buries us under a mound of chocolate.\"\n\n\"The Easter Bunny,\" said Guin.\n\n\"You don't believe in the Easter Bunny do you?\"\n\n\"I don't believe in Father Christmas, but we're having this conversation.\"\n\nUp until a few hours ago, Newton would have agreed with her. Given what they'd experienced in the past hours, he was prepared to put what he did and didn't believe to one side.\n\n\"Picture it,\" he said. \"There's this guy. Clearly he's fabulously wealthy because he can afford to build workshops and factories and stuff. And he decides to use that wealth to make toys and give them out to children across the world. What's his motivation?\"\n\n\"Guilt,\" said Guin without hesitation. \"Parents give their children stuff when they're feeling guilty.\"\n\n\"That's true,\" agreed Newton. He imagined the average teenager didn't get to enjoy the expensive hobby of horse-riding, and if his own father hadn't run out on them years ago, leaving his mum a sad and guilty mess, maybe he wouldn't either. It was another topic he didn't want to think on too deeply. \"So, he's making up for his bad deeds of the past, huh?\"\n\n\"Maybe he was a criminal,\" suggested Guin. \"Or a soldier. Maybe he slaughtered hundreds of people in battle. That's why his clothes are all red.\"\n\n\"Good one,\" said Newton. \"So he went from slaying people to sleighing. You know, on a sleigh with reindeer.\"\n\n\"Painful,\" said Guin.\n\n\"Needs work.\"\n\nGuin sewed material together with enviable speed. \"In fact,\" she said, \"maybe Santa is Satan.\"\n\n\"Dyslexic Satan.\"\n\n\"Exactly. And this Father Christmas malarkey is him trying to make up for all the bad in the world. All of it.\"\n\n\"Another fine theory. Of course, mum says that Christmas encourages evil and greed. So really, if Santa is Satan then this is all just a ploy to create more greed and commercialism. Mum would say he's doing a really good job of it too.\"\n\nNewton began to sew together the shapes he'd cut out. The material had caught in the shears and his rabbit toy was a bit jagged. But it still looked like a rabbit. Sort of. If given a range of animals to pick from, multiple choice style, people would identify it as a rabbit. As long as the options were sufficiently diverse. If the choices were 'rabbit', 'pointy guinea pig' and 'ill-favoured weasel' then it might be tougher.\n\n\"Do you think there is one?\" he said.\n\n\"One what?\" said Guin, who was embellishing the multiple ears (or was it arms?) on her creation with sequins.\n\n\"Father Christmas.\"\n\nShe looked about, thinking. \"We'd have seen him already if he was here.\"\n\nNewton nodded. It made sense.\n\n\"But,\" she added, \"the thing that Gerd said: 'All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi.'\"\n\n\"What about it?\"\n\n\"I think it translates as 'All hail the big beard.'\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 57",
                "text": "Esther and Dave took care to be as quiet as they could, although Esther was convinced the chattering of her teeth was so loud the elves would be sure to hear it. The streets were silent and deserted as they walked in the shadows, keeping a careful watch. They passed a cookware shop, a pharmacy and a charity shop. Esther heard noises. Dave heard them too.\n\n\"What do you think's going on?\" Esther whispered.\n\nThere was definitely fresh activity in the town centre. As they rounded a corner they could see that the marketplace had come to life once more. The jolly fairly lights and illuminations cast a warm glow over the dozens of elves congregating there.\n\n\"Look at all the stuff they're eating and drinking,\" murmured Dave. He sounded a touch envious. \"It's some sort of party.\"\n\nThere were bottles of sticky liqueurs everywhere. Most of the elves were tucking into mince pies and candy canes as they jostled merrily around a central raised area.\n\n\"It's like a theatre show wrap party,\" said Esther. \"All very self-congratulatory. And look!\" She nudged Dave, nodding over to the left. Another human shape collapsed onto the floor as the elves climbed out to join the party. Esther recognised the human shell as a the stallholder who'd been selling nutcrackers earlier. She'd thought he had learning difficulties, instead, he'd had elves inside him all along.\n\n\"The last market day of the year,\" she said. \"All the real humans are dead or have left. I bet the road into town is going to stay blocked now. Alvestowe belongs to the elves for Christmas.\"\n\n\"Do elves celebrate Christmas?\" wondered Dave.\n\n\"Or do they have other plans?\" she said darkly.\n\nEsther crept forward but Dave held her back. \"They'll see us for sure!\"\n\n\"We'll never find the kids if we can't see what they're doing.\" She looked back along the row of shops. \"The charity shop.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"We need to get some dry clothes, right?\"\n\n\"Yeah, but they're closed.\"\n\nEsther sighed patiently. \"Yes they are. I don't think that's our biggest problem right now. We need to get some dry clothes, and maybe, just maybe, we can dress ourselves in clothes that help us blend in a bit more.\"\n\n\"We're going to disguise ourselves as elves?\"\n\n\"It sounds ridiculous when you say it like that.\"\n\nDave sighed. Esther handed him a soggy bundle: the altar cloth. He unwrapped it to find a heavy candlestick.\n\n\"We only wanted the candle!\"\n\n\"It was jammed in and we were in a hurry,\" said Esther with a shrug.\n\nDave wrapped the candlestick back up in the altar cloth.\n\nEsther reflected briefly on the ungodliness of using church equipment for breaking and entering as Dave smashed in one of the panes of glass on the door. He reached through and let them into the shop.\n\n\"At least it's a bit warmer in here,\" she said, looking around. \"Right, now we need to find something we can work with. See if there's anything like make-up while I sort through the clothes.\"\n\nEsther searched through the dark shop, among dead men's suits and out of season fashion items. She found a rummage box full of hats. She pulled out some stripy bobble hats.\n\nDave came back with a box. \"This any good?\"\n\n\"Yes, that's what we need.\" She pulled out some foundation. \"Now, you know how the elves have all got really pale faces and red lips? Well that's what we need to have. Take this stuff and cover up your stubble as best you can. Then we'll put some lipstick on you.\"\n\n\"This feels so wrong,\" complained Dave as he dabbed on foundation while peering into a mirror.\n\n\"Oh, do you think we're guilty of cultural appropriation?\" Esther said. It was something she worried about a lot, as it was a trap that was so easy to fall into. \"I mean these elves are clearly authentic in a way that we could never\u2014\"\n\n\"I don't think we need to worry about that,\" said Dave. \"Seriously.\"\n\n\"Well, all right then. We do need to practise talking like them.\"\n\n\"Do we? Can't we just keep our mouths shut?\"\n\n\"No. Practise sounding a bit, er, Norwegian or something.\"\n\n\"I don't know what that sounds like. Can I do Swedish?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\n\"Hurdy gurdy gur,\" said Dave to his reflection in the mirror.\n\n\"That sounds a bit racist to me,\" said Esther with a frown. \"I'm not sure Swedish people even sound like that. Put these on.\"\n\nEsther handed him a pair of stripy leggings. They were the right colours, like a candy cane, but she wasn't sure they were big enough for him.\n\nThey stripped down their outer layers. In the relative warmth of the shop, the snow that had found its way into every crevice of their clothes and bodies was rapidly melting.\n\nDave kicked aside his trousers and hauled the leggings up to his mid-thigh. \"Not sure they're going to go any further.\"\n\n\"Give it a go,\" she said, \"Go on, pull!\"\n\nDave tugged and got them to his hips. The elastic gouged an uncompromising ring around his belly.\n\n\"Not bad,\" said Esther. \"Go and find a big jumper to cover that up. Green, red or brown, and then a leather belt to go round your waist.\"\n\n\"This is absurd,\" moaned Dave, wandering away to find a jumper.\n\nEsther had pulled on some stripy tights and a brown woollen dress herself. Now she had a slightly more tricky task to accomplish. She rummaged below the counter and found some sewing supplies. Finding a leather handbag in a fleshy pink shade and two pairs of ear warmers, she began to cut the handbag into sections,.\n\n\"Dave, would you be able to bend a wire coat hanger into a teardrop shape?\" she asked.\n\n\"Er, sure.\" He twisted a coat hanger until it weakened enough for him to break off a length. He formed the shape Esther wanted.\n\n\"Excellent. Now do another three, please.\"\n\n\"Have we got time for this?\" he said.\n\n\"We want to find our children, don't we?\"\n\n\"I bet they're not doing bloody arts and crafts.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 58",
                "text": "Guin finished her toy with time and materials to spare. She had constructed the plush toy as her whims and instincts dictated. As she sewed and stuffed and adorned, the name and character and back story of Starfish Eglantine came to life. Eglantine was a starfish out of her natural environment, trapped in a cold and hostile world, far from any friends and any help. But Eglantine was not afraid. Although her body was squishy and vulnerable, she had made her heart into a stone and refused to be frightened by the horrors around her.\n\nGuin did not think she and Eglantine could be friends. Eglantine was too tough and embittered, but there was a grudging respect between Eglantine and Guin, between Eglantine and Wiry Harrison. Tinfoil Tavistock did not like Eglantine. The quadruped of indeterminate species was unnerved by the faceless creature's steely manner. But that was understandable: Tavistock was only a child.\n\nEglantine observed with cool approval as Guin used her spare time to surreptitiously gather supplies. The flexible lengths of wicker Guin had used for supporting Eglantine's arms could also be fashioned into serviceable elf crosses. Guin made four, held together with twists of wire, and pinned them to the inside of her top. She found three small blades and was wondering how she could conceal them in a roll of cloth when, from nowhere, the elf Gerd bounded onto the nearest workbench.\n\n\"H\u00e6ltu!\" she screeched and pointed at Newton. \"T\u00edmi erk lo\u00f0, buggerlugs.\"\n\nNewton dropped the \u2026 thing he was making \u2013 a tuft of white stuffing still poking out of its rump \u2013 and stepped back from the bench.\n\nGerd strode up and down the bench, the curled toes of her tiny boots quivering with each step. She bent over Guin's creation, peered at it through her half-moon spectacles and then prodded and poked it.\n\n\"Hver it \u00fea\u00f0?\"\n\n\"It's a starfish,\" said Guin.\n\n\"Starfiskur?\"\n\n\"A starfish.\"\n\n\"Star \u2026 feeesh?\"\n\nGerd turned it over, gave it an experimental bite like she was testing gold and then tossed it back down on the bench in a manner that was not entirely dismissive. She walked over to Newton's work. Guin knew it was meant to be a bunny rabbit. She'd seen the plans.\n\n\"Hver it \u00fea\u00f0?\"\n\n\"Um, it's a rabbit,\" said Newton nervously.\n\n\"Du kani?\" Gerd picked it up, poked it and ripped off one of its eyes. \"Ger stykki rot.\" Gerd pinched and pulled and picked at the toy, all the while venting a litany of criticism which needed no translation.\n\n\"At least you can see it's a rabbit,\" Newton muttered. \"It's not like it's some weird blob thing like that,\" he said, pointing at Guin's starfish.\n\n\"It's not a competition,\" said Guin.\n\n\"It probably is,\" said Newton, instantly adding, \"But I'm glad you won. You've done really well.\"\n\nAs if to emphasise his words, Gerd picked up Guin's efforts and tucked it under her arm. Newton's work was kicked unceremoniously onto the floor. Newton automatically picked it up.\n\n\"Poor thing,\" he tutted.\n\n\"Sometimes,\" said Guin gently, \"some animals are in just too much pain to let them go on living.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I'm just saying it might be kinder to let it die,\" she said.\n\n\"\u00de\u00fa ud \u00fe\u00fa,\" snapped Gerd, gesturing for them to follow. \"Timi ger n\u00e6xta verk!\"\n\n\"Time for the next test, I think,\" Guin translated.\n\nNewton wasn't listening. \"Kinder to let it die,\" he muttered. \"Let the dog drown. All you want to do is kill things.\"\n\nOutside in the cavern, they passed by the stall in which the mad-eyed zombie reindeer stood.\n\n\"You like my rabbit, don't you, Blinky?\" Newton said, waggling his work at the undead creature. \"You do, don't you?\"\n\nBlinky lunged forward. With yellow teeth he savagely ripped the toy from Newton's hand.\n\n\"I'm going to take that as a yes,\" he said, defensively."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 59",
                "text": "Gerd the overly critical elf stopped outside a door in the tunnel. This door was thick and looked like it had been repaired a number of times. She pulled it open with some effort and led the way inside. Newton had to bend to get through.\n\nIt was another workshop area, although not as gaily painted as the toy workshop. There were no fake painted windows on the walls, only intermittent scorch marks: little starbursts of sooty residue.\n\nNewton looked at the tubs of knick-knacks and assorted junk: false teeth, car keys, teaspoons and the kinds of cheap Happy Meal toys even a charity shop would turn away. He looked at the lengths of cardboard tubing, the paper, the quills and the rolls of festive crepe paper.\n\n\"It's a Christmas cracker workshop,\" he said.\n\nGerd began to give a long speech of which Newton understood absolutely nothing, although mentions of 'j\u00f3li' and 'sprenging bume' and 'h\u00e6la fyni' sounded like they ought to mean something.\n\n\"\u00de\u00fa\u00e1tt sj\u00f6og fim m\u00edn\u00fatur,\" said Gerd.\n\n\"Something-five minutes, huh?\" said Newton.\n\n\"All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi,\" said Gerd.\n\n\"All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi,\" Guin replied and the elf left them to it.\n\n\"Why do I feel we're being auditioned for jobs we don't want?\" muttered Newton.\n\n\"Getting the job might be better than being rejected.\"\n\nNewton went over to the piles of paper by the quill and inkwell: the joke writing station.\n\n\"Maybe,\" he chuckled, \"I should write, 'Help! I'm trapped in a Christmas cracker\u2014'\" He tailed off, realising the cracker they'd opened at Mrs Scruples' dinner table, with that same lame joke, had come from this very workshop.\n\n\"She said they were locally sourced,\" said Guin, clearly thinking the same thing.\n\nNewton shook his head. \"The people of the town were in league with the elves.\"\n\n\"Or under occupation.\"\n\n\"I think we'd best get on with it,\" he said.\n\nWith little discussion, they decided upon a division of labour. Newton would do jokes. Guin would select toys to go inside the cracker and wrap them up.\n\n\"Snappers,\" said Newton.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"The bit that goes bang.\" He looked round and saw a heavy chest of blackened wood beneath the heaviest concentration of scorch marks on the wall. Newton went to have a look. He lifted the weighty lid. Inside were not just strips of cracker explosives but several jars of interesting chemicals. And, by interesting, he meant dangerous-looking.\n\nAvoiding the sticky gluey edges of the badly made cracker strips, Newton carefully lifted out a dusty jar with a faded label which was barely legible. \"Silver nitrate,\" he said.\n\nGuin had found an open book on the work surface nearby. \"Silver nitrate, when combined with nitric acid and ethanol can form crystals of silver fulminate,\" she read. \"Silver fulminate is explosive and very toxic.\"\n\nNewton looked through the chest. Sure, there were bottles of nitric acid and ethanol too.\n\nGuin continued reading. \"Only very small quantities of silver fulminate should be prepared at once or else\u2014\"\n\n\"Else what?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"The rest of the page has been burned away.\"\n\nNewton looked. The hardback book was entitled O-Level Chemistry for All Schools'. It looked very old and, indeed, a whole corner of the book was nothing but blackened char.\n\n\"Yeah, let's be careful with this stuff then,\" he said, leaving the jars well alone. \"Maybe if we need to go all A-Team later, we can use it for something.\"\n\n\"What's an A-Team?\" asked Guin.\n\nNewton wasn't sure. \"It's something my mum says when she tries to make things out of stuff not meant for that purpose. I think it's from an old film, starring that guy from Taken. You know, the guy who has a 'very particular set of skills.'\"\n\n\"Sort of like Bob the Builder,\" said Guin.\n\n\"Possibly,\" said Newton. \"But with more explosions.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 60",
                "text": "In the charity shop, Dave grabbed more coat hangers while Esther set to work with a needle and thread. She covered the teardrop shapes with the flesh-coloured leather and sewed them onto the ear warmers. She popped the finished article onto her head, covered it with a bobble hat and looked in the mirror, turning her head to view the effect.\n\n\"Elf ears. Very good!\" said Dave.\n\n\"Let's do yours now.\"\n\nThey both paraded their finished outfits up and down. Dave grinned. \"These stupid leggings are really uncomfortable, but I think we make pretty good elves, all told. Let's go and see what they're up to!\"\n\n\"There's just one small thing that we need to fix,\" said Esther.\n\nDave gave her a questioning look. She beckoned him over and plucked a pair of lightweight shoes from a rack. She used the scissors to cut away the back of the shoe and then applied it just above his knee. With the needle and thread she sewed it onto the leggings.\n\n\"In case you hadn't noticed, we're way too tall to be elves,\" she said.\n\n\"Wait \u2013 we're going to shuffle around on our knees?\" Dave asked.\n\nEsther nodded, her head bent in concentration. She fixed the other shoe and gave Dave's legs a critical stare. \"Go, on, see how it looks.\"\n\nDave got down onto his knees and moved about. He tried shuffling at first, then experimented with lifting his knees to make the walking more realistic. It looked very uncomfortable.\n\n\"I wouldn't worry too much about technique,\" said Esther tactfully. \"I'm hoping we won't come under too much scrutiny. Let me fix my own shoes and we'll be ready to go.\"\n\nA few minutes later they made their way carefully out of the shop, using their hands to brush the broken glass out of the way as they shuffled out onto the street.\n\n\"Hurdy, gurdy, gur,\" murmured Dave.\n\nEsther tutted, falling silent as they drew in closer to where all the elves seemed to be congregating. She trawled her memory for the elf language that Guin seemed to have picked up so quickly.\n\n\"Ek man, dum de dum ... sv\u00edn,\" she tried.\n\nWhat did it mean? She couldn't remember. She had to confess Dave's elf speech might be just as effective. She pulled up short. That was a really racist thing to think! Was she a racist?\n\n\"Dave, am I a racist?\" she asked quietly.\n\n\"You refuse to eat in Italian restaurants,\" he said.\n\n\"That's because it's just pasta and pizza,\" she said. \"Any idiot can cook that. I don't hate Italians.\"\n\n\"We're going out for pizza when we get out of here then,\" he said, as they approached the square.\n\nThe party was in full swing. There was scratchy music coming from somewhere, like the sound of an orchestra composed entirely of broken violins. Elves were swigging drinks from little cups and shoving cakes and sweets into their mouths.\n\n\"I feel ill just watching. Everything they're eating is at least ninety percent sugar,\" Esther said.\n\n\"Shhh.\"\n\nThey sauntered in, on their knees, trying to stick to the gloomier areas and nodding at elves who looked their way.\n\n\"Hurdy gurd,\" nodded Dave.\n\n\"Svin svin ekki mek,\" said Esther.\n\nEsther thought it would have been nice to believe their disguises were amazing. It was more likely the elves were too drunk, or that now they were off-duty, they didn't give a toss about human interlopers.\n\nDave squeezed her hand. \"Look,\" he whispered. \"The stage.\"\n\nAn elf walked to the front of the raised area and raised his hands for silence. He started to speak in the strange elvish language, and Esther listened hard, trying to discern any meaning. She almost convinced herself tiny fragments were English-like, if someone spoke English with Dave's weird hurdy gurdy accent.\n\n\"Enemy? Is he talking about an enemy?\" she whispered to Dave.\n\nDave gave her a blank look.\n\nA cheer went up from the crowd; Esther and Dave joined in. Everyone raised their snacks and drinks in an obvious toast to something. Esther didn't have a cup so raised an invisible one instead.\n\nThe elf reached into a leather bag that hung by his waist. He pulled out a big folded sheet of paper.\n\n\"I've seen those plans before,\" said Dave.\n\n\"What?\" said Esther.\n\n\"Catheter had them.\"\n\nThe elf on the stage ripped the plans in half to raucous applause. He threw them to the floor and stamped on them.\n\nDave and Esther looked at each other.\n\n\"We need them,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Right.\"\n\nThe elf on the stage hadn't finished. He fetched something else out of his bag. It looked like a wisp of sheep's wool. He cradled it reverentially in his hand before holding it up for all to see. There were oohs and aahs from the crowd. He then used something from a small jar to apply the thing to his chin. He strode from side to side of the stage, sticking out his chin so that everyone could see.\n\nFrom the crowd, some of the elves started chanting. \"All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi. All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi.\"\n\nEsther really didn't think a stick-on beard was a good look, but she reminded herself she wasn't one to body shame someone for their choice of facial hair.\n\nDave nudged her and nodded to the left of the stage. Another elf was climbing up, although it clearly wasn't easy, given the extent of his injuries. He had clearly suffered extensive burns: his clothes hung off his livid body in singed rags. What was not clear was how he'd come by the other injuries. It looked very much as if half of him had been crushed: one limp arm dragged behind, like an empty flap of skin.\n\n\"Bacraut,\" whispered Dave. \"We put him in a trouser press.\"\n\nEsther thought she saw one of the nearby elves give Dave a sharp look. She elbowed him and munched down on a candy cane, trying hard to fit in.\n\nBack on the stage, Bacraut approached the elf with the beard. There was clearly some sort of disagreement in their brief exchange, but Bacraut didn't look very threatening with his injuries. Beardie laughed at him and turned away, still proudly displaying the beard to the crowd. Bacraut growled and used his good hand to pull a huge knife from a sheath.\n\nBacraut lunged forward and stabbed Beardie repeatedly in the back. Once on the ground, Bacraut turned Beardie over by kicking his twitching body. He slashed at the exposed belly. He pulled out lengths of intestine, held them up and yelled something at the crowd that clearly conveyed the message the young pretender was no longer in a position to usurp authority.\n\n\"Trouble in elf-town,\" muttered Dave.\n\nBacraut put the knife away. He bent down to pluck the wispy beard off the face of the dead elf and stuck it onto his own face. As he did so, the injured Bacraut seemed to straighten and find new energy from this symbol of power on his face. The crowd erupted in applause, having held its collective breath while the drama played out.\n\nBacraut waved to the crowd, basking in the adoration, or fear; Esther really wasn't sure which. After a few moments, Bacraut clapped his hands and a box was brought on stage by two helper elves. It was a sturdy red cardboard box, bound in gold ribbon. The helpers placed it before Bacraut.\n\nHe spoke to the assembled crowd. Esther understood almost nothing, although his affected and exaggerated manner suggested he was acting something out. Bacraut gave a big tired stretch as he talked to the elves and rubbed his eyes as though he had just awoken. He strolled over to the box, expressed pretend surprise and pulled on the ribbon.\n\nA hush had fallen over the audience.\n\nBacraut lifted the lid away and feigned delight at whatever was supposed to be inside. He pretended to lift something out, something heavy and wriggling. He beamed at it and held it close, suddenly gasping in horror as the imaginary thing began to choke him.\n\n\"He's quite the actor,\" Esther whispered to Dave, then uttered a small \"Ow!\" as someone trod on her lower leg.\n\nShe looked back. An elf, crowding forward, had trodden on her trailing lower legs. Esther muttered a wordless \"Don't worry, no harm done.\" The elf was a millisecond away from nodding and moving on when the creature realised elves didn't have extra bits of leg trailing behind them.\n\n\"Erir du footurna?\" it said.\n\n\"Er, Dave,\" muttered Esther.\n\nDave turned, saw and, making matters much worse, leapt to his feet. The look of horror on his face an instant later, in other circumstances, would have been comical.\n\nDave tried to laugh. \"Oh, look,\" he said. \"I appear to have suddenly grown taller.\"\n\nHe grabbed Esther's hand and they ran for it. They kicked, flailed and knocked over elves as they went. Their stitched on shoes flapped at their knees as they ran. As they knocked elves into each other, fights broke out. Elfin alcohol had definitely been consumed in volumes throughout the celebration.\n\nEsther tried to snatch some of the plans off the floor. An elf, its eyes full of malicious intent, leapt at her, scrabbled, missed and then latched onto her arm with its teeth. Esther howled at the pain, shook the elf off viciously and ran to catch up with Dave.\n\n\"Tree!\" panted Dave, grabbing an armful of prickly branches on the massive Christmas tree in the centre of the square. Esther joined him, pulling with all of her might. Together they toppled it onto the elves who were chasing them, rather than fighting each other. It bought them a few precious seconds, but they were definitely not out of danger. There was a pair of elves, sprinting around the edges of the tree, who would easily catch them in no time.\n\nDave lifted a mead barrel from a stall and bowled it at the pursuing elves. It caught on the kerb and glanced slightly off-course, taking down one of them. The other elf skipped free. Dave grabbed a second barrel and raised it.\n\nEsther glanced at the elf. She wasn't sure, but it looked just like the one who had bitten her. Well, they all looked the same really\u2014\n\n\"Oh, God, I am a racist!\" she said. With an anger that was divided equally between the elves and her own preconceptions, she helped Dave slam the barrel down on the elf, crushing it so completely that when liquid seeped out, Esther didn't for a second imagine it was just mead.\n\n\"Come on!\" Dave took her hand and they ran.\n\nEsther ran on feet that felt suddenly sluggish. She registered Dave was talking to her. His words were fading in and out.\n\n\"Dave, I feel a bit funny.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nShe tried to make the words fit the light-headed detachment she was experiencing. \"Woozy, a bit dreamy.\"\n\nThe chaos in the market was fading behind them. Everything was fading.\n\nEsther stumbled. The snow was powdery soft beneath her feet. It looked surprisingly inviting. \"Maybe a nap would help.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" he said and held her upright. \"Back to the shop, it's just over there. We can hole up for a few minutes. Stay with me, Esther.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 61",
                "text": "Gerd came to inspect the crackers Newton and Guin had made. She was not alone.\n\nThe two elves with her didn't exactly look older or more senior than her \u2013 all the elves looked like underfed children, albeit ones who had undergone some ill-advised cheek-lift and eye-tightening plastic surgery from a doctor with very poor Google reviews. However, there was something in their stiff posture and pompous manner that marked them out as higher up the chain of command than Gerd. One even had a wisp of white beard on his chin.\n\nAs the elves approached, Newton stepped back respectfully, hands behind his back. Guin wondered if this was because Newton had watched a lot of bake off TV shows and knew how the contestants acted when the judges walked back in, or because his hands were covered in a sticky fluffy mass of crepe paper and glue that no amount of picking could shift.\n\nGerd and the elders regarded the five crackers critically. Guin listened attentively. She was tired and frightened (she recognised this and had confided as much in Wiry Harrison) but she was picking up snippets of the elves' language each time she heard them.\n\nThe elders prodded and closely regarded the crackers before pulling them. The first one exploded with far too big a bang, making Guin's ears ring, setting fire to the paper wrapping and knocking the spectacles off Gerd's head.\n\n\"Ut miki\u00f0!\" she yelled. \"Ut miki\u00f0, yer daft ha'peth!\"\n\nThe children cowered. Newton positioned himself protectively in front of Guin, which she found both comforting and irritating.\n\nThe other four crackers didn't crack quite so catastrophically and the three judges peered critically over the contents. In the search for knick-knacks to go inside the crackers, the barrels of odds and ends had offered Guin slim pickings. She suspected their contents came from the pockets and bags of all the humans the elves had kidnapped over the years, and the good stuff was long gone. The four toys were the knob of a car gearstick, a golf ball on which Guin had drawn a smiley face, a broken pencil, and fish cut out from an old sweet wrapper, stuffed into an envelope and optimistically labelled Fortune-telling fish.\n\nGerd took it out of its envelope and stared at it furiously.\n\n\"You put it in your hand,\" Guin explained \"How it moves tells you what your future holds.\"\n\nGerd laid it flat in the palm of her tiny hand. The fish did nothing.\n\n\"It's sleeping at the moment,\" said Guin.\n\nGerd spat in contempt. One of the elders pulled out a joke Newton had written.\n\n\"Hver did g\u00f3\u00f0 kong Wenceslas\u2026?\"\n\n\"Good King Wenceslas,\" said Newton helpfully.\n\nThe elder tried again. \"How did g\u00f3\u00f0 kong Wenceslas like his pizza?\"\n\nThe other elder shrugged. \"Eg na ekki. Hver \u00f0i g\u00f3\u00f0ur kong Wenceslas els og pizza?\"\n\nThe first peered at the answer. \"Deep pan, crisp and even.\"\n\nThe elves did not laugh. Newton gave them a deliberate and pathetically fake laugh. \"Oh, that's a good one. That one will have the family rolling on the floor.\"\n\nEmbarrassed for him, Guin felt compelled to join in. \"Oh, yeah. Really good.\"\n\nThe elder swept the crackers onto the floor dismissively.\n\n\"You should read the others,\" said Newton, his voice wobbling with nerves. \"The one about baby Jesus's weight is a killer.\"\n\nThe elves shouted and argued amongst themselves. They were talking too quick for Guin to follow, but she imagined they were arguing whether to kill the pair of them or keep them as slaves. Guin should have been terrified, maybe her overtired mind had reached peak scaredness and had no more fear to give. She found her attention drawn to the beard of the shouting elder. His chin glistened wetly: glue. The beard was stuck on, like a theatre performers. That was interesting.\n\nThe argument was coming to some sort of heated conclusion but Guin could not work out which viewpoint was winning. An elder whipped out a curvy knife and bounded over to Newton and Guin. She dropped to her knees and bowed her head.\n\n\"All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi,\" she said.\n\nShe didn't die so that was something. She reached up and pulled Newton down beside her. \"All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi,\" she repeated for him.\n\n\"Er, yes,\" Newton trembled. \"All hal\u2014\"\n\n\"\u2014G\u00f3ra skeggi.\"\n\n\"Yes. That.\"\n\nMoments passed. The ringing in Guin's ears from the first cracker explosion filled the silence. Still they did not die. There was the soft padding sound of the elders leaving the room and then Gerd shouted for them to get up and follow her.\n\nGuin and Newton were herded out, down the corridor and out to a recess in the large central cavern. With threats and the application of many granny knots, Gerd tied them with frayed rope to a thick pipe running up the wall before leaving them there. The ground was covered with hay and muck and soft rotting material.\n\n\"What was all that about?\" said Newton.\n\n\"I think we passed the audition,\" said Guin. She considered the filthy floor, and the weariness filling her body. \"I don't want to sit on this.\"\n\nNewton crouched down. \"Come sit on my knee if you like.\"\n\nGuin gave him a long look. \"Doesn't matter how you say that, it sounds creepy.\"\n\n\"I'm just trying to be a good stepbrother.\"\n\n\"You're not my stepbrother yet.\"\n\nHe took a deep breath, like he was trying to quell an unpleasant feeling. \"We will get out of here. We will find my mum and your dad. We'll run away \u2013 maybe take Blinky with us\u2014\"\n\n\"We're not taking the zombie reindeer.\"\n\n\"Zombies deserve love too.\"\n\n\"Not happening, Newton,\" she said.\n\n\"We'll all run away. Mum and dad will get married. It'll be a lovely wedding and embarrassing as hell, and then we'll all live in a big house together \u2013 with separate bedrooms at opposite ends of the house, don't worry \u2013 and we'll be able to happily ignore each other for ever after. What do you say?\"\n\nGuin waggled a finger in her ear. \"Didn't hear any of that. I think that cracker explosion has affected my hearing.\"\n\n\"It'll wear off soon.\"\n\n\"I went deaf for a whole term when I was seven,\" she said.\n\n\"Did you?\"\n\n\"Pardon?\"\n\nHe raised an eyebrow. \"Was that a joke?\"\n\n\"Pardon?\" she said and against her better judgement and mood, found herself smiling a fraction.\n\n\"Snakkur!\" said Gerd, returning with two large and dirty bowls. She presented one to Newton and the other to Guin. The two bowls were not the same. Newton's contained several steaming hotdog sausages. Guin's was filled with something dark green and damp. It looked like the seaweed starter from a Chinese restaurant soaked in a layer of misty gravy.\n\n\"What's this?\" she said. \"Hver it \u00fea\u00f0? I have allergies you know.\"\n\nGerd ignored her and walked off.\n\n\"You can have one of my sausages if you like,\" said Newton.\n\nShe shook her head. \"I didn't like the one I had in the market. It tasted funny.\"\n\nNewton munched on a sausage. \"They don't quite taste like any normal meat,\" he conceded. \"But that's hotdogs for you, right?\"\n\nGuin pinched up a fragment of the soggy green stuff and sniffed it. She couldn't smell it above the overwhelming oily petrol scent in the air. She looked at the pipe they were tied to and, cautiously, wiped at a droplet that had trickled from a leaky joint.\n\n\"Petrol,\" she said.\n\n\"Or something like it,\" said Newton. \"They're pumping a lot of it through here. Your dad would have a health and safety fit about it.\"\n\nGuin tried some of the food. It tasted a bit like cabbage, a bit like snot and a bit like leather but mostly it tasted like grass.\n\n\"Why give us different food?\" she wondered. Not knowing the answer to her own question, added, \"Did you see that the elf's beard was glued on?\"\n\n\"Glued on?\"\n\n\"Like he's pretending to be Santa. And this 'All hail the big beard' stuff. It's like\u2026\" Guin hummed. She half-remembered something she'd read in a book once about islanders in the Pacific or somewhere who had seen white people \u2013 probably Americans \u2013 come along with their planes and their equipment. And how the white people had radioed down planes and supplies of food and such from the sky. So when the white people had gone, the islanders thought if they made pretend radio sets from bamboo stalks and coconut shells, the gods would send down food from the sky because that's how the world appeared to work. She only half-remembered it, and it was probably from a book written by a white person \u2013 probably an American \u2013 so it probably wasn't true anyway, but still\u2026\n\n\"You think these elves actually have a plan?\" she said. \"Or are they just\u2014\"\n\n\"Going through the motions?\" said Newton, starting on his third sausage.\n\nGuin squatted down, rested the food bowl on her knees and pulled out the copy of Little Folk in European Folklore by Dr Alexander and turned to the last page she had been reading. She had just reached a section further detailing fairy children and changelings, and decided to read it while eating. Dr Alexander subscribed to the view that the idea of changelings \u2013 faeries put in the place of elf-stolen babies \u2013 was used in past times to explain why some children were born with disabilities, or autism. Guin wondered, not for the first time, if her dad should get her tested for autism. Her dad had already told her quite clearly he did not believe she had autism, although Gun was certain if they got her tested, and she tried really hard, she could get a diagnosis. The section on changelings was long (and included such pointlessly difficult words as 'victualise', 'cerebrate' and 'kineticism') but the food was quite unappetising, so Guin reached the end of the section just as she finished eating.\n\nAt that moment, there was a shout from outside in the cavern. It was human, and familiar sounding.\n\n\"I am coming! There is no need to hold my hand, little man. I don't know where you have been and there is far too much touching for my liking these days. We wouldn't have half the problems in the world today if people would just keep their hands to themselves.\"\n\nIt was Mrs Scruples, the hotel woman. She was walking into the cavern, surrounded by a large number of elves.\n\n\"She's still alive,\" said Newton, surprised.\n\n\"Doesn't deserve to be,\" said Guin.\n\nThe elves were shaking snow off themselves and had clearly just come in from outside. There was a wild, unhappy energy about them, like they were angry about something. There was one with a stuck-on white beard at the head of the group. His clothes were ragged and burned and smeared with blood.\n\n\"I think there's been trouble in town,\" said Guin.\n\n\"That's Baccarat or Backrub or something,\" said Newton, nodding towards the white bearded one. \"Your dad and me stuck him in a trouser press.\"\n\n\"No wonder he's angry,\" said Guin."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 62",
                "text": "Dave elbowed open the door of the charity shop, led Esther inside and sat her on the floor out of sight of anyone looking through the window.\n\n\"Tell me how you feel funny, Esther,\" he said.\n\n\"Just want to sleep,\" she murmured.\n\n\"No, Esther, you need to stay awake. It's really important.\"\n\n\"It might be where it bit me.\"\n\n\"What?\" He looked her over, saw the tear on her sleeve and pulled it up. There was a shallow cut, little more than a row of teeth marks that had barely broken the skin.\n\nDave leaned forward, sniffing. \"Fruity breath.\"\n\n\"S'my new nickname?\" she mumbled.\n\n\"It seems as though you might have excessively high blood sugar.\"\n\n\"Candy canes,\" said Esther and then giggled.\n\nDave had his first aid pack with him and he checked the contents. There was nothing for hyperglycaemia.\n\n\"I won't be a minute,\" he whispered in her ear. \"There's a pharmacy next door. I need to see if I can get in there. Jesus, Esther, please hang on in there.\"\n\nShe was barely responsive.\n\nHe went to the back door of the charity shop. There was a key inside the lock. He opened the door and eased himself partially through, taking a good look around before committing himself to going fully outside. He was in a yard, with bins, and a gate at the far end. The next door along had to belong to the pharmacy. He tried the door, naturally it was locked. A brief search of the yard revealed a half-brick being used as a gate stop. He took off his elf top, muffled the brick in it, and punched in the glass of the door.\n\nHe slipped inside the pharmacy and looked around for their refrigerator. A few minutes later he had several bottles of insulin, a blood test meter, some hypodermic needles and syringes. He slipped back through the yard and into the charity shop.\n\nHe ran a blood test on a drop of blood from her thumb, to see if his suspicions were correct. They were: her blood sugar was dangerously high. He loaded up a syringe with insulin, pulled down the waistband of her trousers a little and injected into her buttock."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 63",
                "text": "Mrs Scruples, all the while talking on such diverse subjects as how draughty the cave was, what the elves could be doing to make the place more homely, and how prudent she was to have insured her now demolished home for more than it was worth, was manhandled (or elf-handled, Newton thought) into the centre of the cavern and onto a raised area.\n\n\"Yes, yes, my wee folk,\" she said. \"This is all well and good, but where is my husband?\"\n\nThere was something entrancing about the way the elves slowly circled the raised area in unison. Newton recalled watching a David Attenborough documentary in which a pod of dolphins circled round a mass of fishes, herding them into a tighter and tighter ball in preparation for the kill. Even the soft and silky tones of Sir David couldn't disguise the menace in the dolphins' orchestrated actions. Newton saw the spoons \u2013 bent, battered, blunt and rusted spoons \u2013 the elves carried. He had initially assumed it was dinnertime for everyone in the cavern; now he was not so certain.\n\nHe chewed on the last of his hotdogs as the inevitable slowly unfolded.\n\n\"I have been a good and faithful servant,\" Mrs Scruples was telling the elves. \"I have kept your secrets and provided you with the \u2026 materials you needed for your work. And, yes, though I do say so myself, I believe I have helped you better yourselves. Although I can see more than a few of you still need to learn how to use a handkerchief and\u2014 Ah!\"\n\nThe \"Ah!\" was at the sight of a man strolling into the cavern from a tunnel entrance. He was old, red-faced, with a straggly silver comb-over and mutton chop whiskers. He wore a tweedy suit over a bright yellow waistcoat. He looked like an extra from a non-specific period drama, a mild-mannered middle class chap who ought to have a name like 'Cholmondeley-Warner' or 'Rutherkins' but was, of course, the much-mentioned and absentee Mr Scruples.\n\n\"Donald! Donald!\" called Mrs Scruples. It wasn't the heartfelt call of a wife to her one true love. It was more the sound of a mistress calling her dog to heel. \"Donald! Stand up straight and greet me!\"\n\nDonald wasn't standing up straight. He moved with a strange rolling gait, his arms flapping with a fluid motion, like he was walking in time to a mellow reggae tune only he could hear. There was also a slack look on his face.\n\n\"Is he drunk?\" whispered Newton.\n\n\"No,\" said Guin.\n\n\"He looks like he's had a stroke.\"\n\n\"No, not that either,\" she said.\n\n\"What's the matter with him?\" said Mrs Scruples. \"Donald! Wake up, man. Look at me.\"\n\nMrs Scruples' head turned towards her, and kept turning. Ninety degrees, a hundred and eighty, further\u2014\n\n\"Donald!\"\n\nThe old man's head wobbled and popped off, dropping to the floor with the lower half of an elf poking out through his neck.\n\n\"Bloody hell,\" whispered Newton.\n\nMr Scruples came apart entirely. Torso and legs parted company; buttons and zips opened and at least five elves jumped out of the artfully reconstructed Donald Scruples.\n\n\"It's a suit,\" said Newton.\n\n\"Not quite,\" said Guin.\n\n\"Where's the real Mr Scruples?\"\n\n\"You're looking at him.\"\n\nIn the central area, Mrs Scruples was doing a fine impression of Edvard Munch's Scream. \"Donald! Donald! Get up! Don't do this!\"\n\nThe elves thought it was all hilarious. They continued to circle Mrs Scruples, gradually drawing closer. Some waved their handkerchiefs at her mockingly; far more were waving their spoons.\n\n\"Are they going to eat her?\" said Newton. Even at a distance he could see the wide-eyed shock on Mrs Scruples' face. She turned and saw Newton and Guin, peering out of their alcove cell.\n\n\"Them!\" she screeched. \"Take them! They'd make far better material. Much more elastic skin. Oil of Olay can only do so much. You don't want me. You don't want me!\"\n\n\"I think I know what's going to happen,\" said Newton.\n\nGuin tutted. \"Took your time, didn't you?\"\n\n\"You shouldn't look,\" he said. But it was too late.\n\nThe beardy elf, Bacraut, leapt at the old woman, aiming at her midriff with his spoon. It wasn't a sharp spoon but an edge doesn't need to be sharp if it's directed with sufficient force. Mrs Scruples didn't manage a scream, producing a wounded, worn out sigh: the kind of noise a dying sofa would make if sofas could scream or, indeed, die.\n\nThankfully (for Newton at least), Mrs Scruples was swiftly hidden from view by the tide of elves pouring on to stick the spoon in. \"That's horrible,\" he said.\n\n[ Guin was looking at the workstations around the cavern. \"I don't think it's over yet,\" she said slowly ]\n\nElves were rushing over with big copper pots balanced on their heads. Out of the scrum of spoon-wielding elves, gobbets of red wet flesh were passed and dumped into the pots.\n\n\"Thought they tasted funny,\" said Guin.\n\n\"Hmmm?\"\n\nShe pointed. At the butchering elves. At the metal pots. At a crank-handled mincing machine in a work station. At the strings and strings of sausages hanging overhead. She looked meaningfully at Newton's empty bowl.\n\n\"Oh, God,\" he murmured and put his hand to his mouth. He didn't feel sick. He felt disgusted, but he didn't feel physically sick. He should have done, shouldn't he? But he didn't. He found himself wondering if this made him a bad person."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 64",
                "text": "Esther blinked and looked up at Dave.\n\n\"You're coming round,\" he said. He pricked her thumb.\n\n\"Ow!\"\n\n\"Just running another blood test.\" The tester beeped and Dave nodded with evident relief.\n\n\"How are you feeling?\" he asked, rubbing her hand.\n\n\"Pretty good,\" she said. \"That was \u2026 weird.\" Her fingers explored the dressing that now adorned her arm.\n\n\"It certainly was,\" said Dave. \"Candy Cane Venom.\"\n\n\"Hmmm?\"\n\n\"Those elves seem to run on pure sugar. One bite sent you into hyperglycaemic shock.\"\n\n\"Like diabetes?\"\n\n\"Right. One to be avoided, definitely. These little bastards are toxic in more ways than one.\"\n\n\"Yes\" said Esther. \"What are they doing?\"\n\nDave rolled his eyes. \"Wish I knew. I had to drag you out of sight of the window. They were marching around with flaming torches. I mean, where do they even get flaming torches from? It's gone properly medieval out there.\"\n\nEsther raised herself up cautiously. They were behind the counter of the charity shop. She risked a peek over the top. Dave was right: outside elves were everywhere.\n\nShe sat up uncomfortably, wondering what she was leaning against. It was a stack of ancient board games and jigsaws. She remembered they were in a charity shop. \"We must put something in the till as a thank you,\" she said.\n\n\"Sure, maybe.\"\n\n\"And, I got some of those papers, the ones they ripped up in the square.\"\n\nShe pulled them from a pocket. It was dark behind the counter, so she pushed them carefully along the floor until they were out of the shadow. She and Dave stayed back out of sight, trying to see what they were looking at.\n\nDave gave a grunt of recognition at the heading. \"Catheter Holdings. Duncan Catheter was doing some kind of local land deal. Brownfield site.\"\n\n\"Doesn't look very brownfield to me,\" said Esther. \"See where it is?\"\n\nDave failed to make out any hint of a location.\n\n\"It's that area at the back of the church. It's mostly steep and inaccessible, but there's part of it that looks flat. He was going to build houses there.\"\n\n\"Makes sense,\" said Dave. He could see there were numerous house-shaped boxes drawn around an access road. \"What are those circles?\"\n\nEsther shuffled forward. \"It says they're sinkholes. Sinkholes? Wow. And what's that?\"\n\nDave peered closer. \"Playground and recreation park.\"\n\n\"Built over a sinkhole? The man was a complete monster!\"\n\n\"He's dead, remember.\"\n\n\"I used the past tense.\"\n\nDave tapped the map in thought. \"So, the elves were pretty pleased this isn't going ahead now\u2014\"\n\n\"Way ahead of you,\" said Esther. \"That's got to be where their hideout is.\"\n\nDave nodded. \"Where we need to go and look for the kids.\"\n\nEsther got up from the floor, clearly as pleased as Dave to have a sense of purpose. \"Yes, but how? We can't just walk up there and hope they won't notice us. We don't stand any kind of chance in a full-on fight against hundreds of elves.\"\n\nDave started to pace the floor, but realised that would draw the attention of the elves. He squatted again. \"There was a tractor.\"\n\n\"Sorry?\"\n\n\"A tractor, on the road not far from the church.\"\n\n\"Yeah! \" grinned Esther. \"Turn it into an assault vehicle and squash and barge our way into their bloody grotto.\"\n\n\"Squashing and barging are good,\" said Dave, pleased to see life and energy come back to her. \"Assuming the tractor can climb that gradient.\"\n\n\"Assuming one of us can drive the thing.\"\n\n\"How hard can it be? It's just a big car, isn't it?\"\n\nEsther didn't look so sure. \"I spent one summer helping out on a collective farm in Cuba. I sat up in the tractor once. It didn't look like just driving a car.\"\n\n\"That's probably just Cuban tractors,\" said Dave. \"Come on, it's going to work. We're going to squash them and barge them. We're going to annihilate the buggers.\"\n\n\"Vaporise them,\" said Esther.\n\n\"Well, that would be nice.\"\n\n\"I've got an idea for the headlights.\"\n\nShe dragged some of the supplies she'd used earlier onto the floor and picked up the scissors. \"We haven't got time to do the whole A-Team thing and transform the tractor into an armoured vehicle, but if I put a mask around the headlights so they shine in the shape of an elf cross, maybe it will fry some of the little shitbags.\"\n\n\"Elf lasers! You work on that, I'm going to see if we can rig up some stabby things. I did see a broken coat rack near the bins. It would be quite dangerous if you fell on it.\"\n\n\"If it's got heavy bits with nails sticking out then it sounds brilliant,\" said Esther without looking up. \"Look in the kitchen area for knives as well.\"\n\n\"Cool.\" Dave said. \"And there's this pole thing for opening the skylight in here as well.\"\n\n\"Bring it all,\" said Esther."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 65",
                "text": "The hollowing out and sausagifying of Mrs Scruples occupied many of the elves for quite some time. They took obvious glee in the task.\n\nGuin used her own time wisely, reading from the academic book of elf stuff and discussing what she read with Wiry Harrison and Tinfoil Tavistock to make sure they understood completely. Perhaps, at some point, the book would save their lives. Newton sat close by, knees drawn up to his chin, eyes raised and muttering to himself. Guin wondered if he'd gone mad. There was a thing, years and years ago, like probably in Victorian times, when all the cows in England went mad because they'd been given bits of dead cow to eat. Maybe Newton had caught Mad People Disease. Whatever it was, it was distracting her from her reading.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" she asked.\n\n\"Counting sausages,\" he said, gazing at the ceiling of the cavern.\n\n\"Okay,\" she said. \"Why?\"\n\n\"They've made at least a hundred sausages so far.\"\n\n\"From one old lady?\"\n\n\"I know. I counted. And up there.\" He pointed at the links of stored sausages, loops upon loops of them.\n\n\"And then there's all the sausages already eaten at the market,\" Guin added helpfully. \"Those are just the leftover ones.\"\n\nGuin considered the tonnes of sausages. She had no intention of counting them, but it was clear the elves must have been processing people on an industrial scale. \"I think these elves are part of the Wild Hunt,\" she said.\n\n\"You mentioned them before, at dinner.\"\n\n\"Maybe these ones got lost, or decided to set up a base. A sort of non-moving hunt.\"\n\n\"Get the people to come to them. Draw them in with a cheesy Christmas market?\"\n\nA great shout went up from the elves in the centre of the cavern. Guin raised herself as high as possible to see what was going on. One elf was holding something white and long aloft.\n\n\"That's a leg bone,\" said Guin, in a matter-of-fact manner she wouldn't have expected of herself when seeing a leg bone of the recently deceased.\n\n\"They seem very excited about it,\" said Newton.\n\nAs one elf held it out, another placed a plastic ruler against it. Whatever the result, it was a source of much delight. The chief elf, Bacraut, snatched it up, and like a marching band majorette swung it about as he led them all out of the cavern.\n\nSoon after, the elves came for Guin and Newton again. Guin noted that Gerd was especially keen to see if Guin had finished her food. Pleased that she had, the elves untied them, using teeth to pull apart the worst granny knots, and led them away.\n\n\"More tests?\" said Newton.\n\n\"Nei tala!\" shouted Gerd. Newton wisely shut up.\n\nThey were drawn deeper into the tunnels. The darkness grew about them and they were suddenly pressed in among countless elves heading in the same direction. The air became close and foetid.\n\n\"Smells like the stables,\" whispered Newton. A moment later they passed by a side opening onto a deep, well-lit cave, lined with animal stalls.\n\n\"More reindeer?\" said Guin.\n\n\"Nei tala!\" shrieked Gerd from somewhere close.\n\nThe massed elves erupted into a hall which nearly rivalled the great storage cavern in size. It appeared the elves had put more effort into this part of their lair than any other. Guin concluded the elves had a construction philosophy which generally blended great skill with a blas\u00e9 attitude, like an order of genius artisans and craftspeople who had become extremely lazy. Their workshops, their machines, even their stitched together reindeer all had flashes of technical brilliance but were, for the most part, run down and falling apart.\n\nThis hall was quite different. The floor was polished to a marble shine. The arches were carved with geometric precision. Pillars, decorated with red and white candy cane spirals were brilliant and immaculate. The pointy-eared elves behaved accordingly and stood in neat rows, while Bacraut with the white glued-on beard took up his knife and waved it over the elves.\n\nThe elves sang. They sang well. They sang like mice on helium, but their voices were high and pure. \"Hriupp all chiand nin og tu \u00feei pok\u00f0i\u00f0.\"\n\nGerd prodded Newton and Guin.\n\n\"Singing practice,\" said Guin. \"We're expected to join in.\"\n\n\"But we don't know the words.\"\n\n\"Stihem ina sac \u00feeiog sj\u00fa\u00fat litun,\" sang the elves. Guin was just about able to join in.\n\nNewton stumbled and failed. He tried to just mouth long.\n\n\"You have to try,\" Guin whispered.\n\nNewton was just about to point out he was trying when the knife flew out of Bacraut's hand and speared an elf on the front row.\n\n\"Hriupp all chiand n-i-i-n!\" he yelled at the quite dead elf. \"Chiand n-i-i-i-n!\"\n\nGuin used the pause to quickly try to teach Newton. \"Hriupp all chiand nin og tu \u00feei pok\u00f0i\u00f0,\" she whispered.\n\n\"Rip all Channing, octopus potted,\" he said.\n\n\"Stihem ina sac \u00feeiog sj\u00fa\u00fat litun\"\n\n\"Stick'em in a sack, bog shut lantern.\"\n\n\"Ripeir blocks t\u00e1\u00ed h\u00e1d\u00edfa.\"\n\n\"Rip her blocks to Halifax.\"\n\n\"R\u00e1upp me\u00f0\u00f3 fu og fi\u00f0.\"\n\n\"Wrap my tofu in figs. Got it.\"\n\nWhen Bacraut took up a fresh knife for his new baton, Newton was ready to join in. Five repetitions later and he was really getting into the swing of it. Gerd watched him shrewdly throughout but did not complain and, more importantly, no one else got a knife through the chest.\n\nAs the practice came to an end, and most of the elves dispersed back to wherever they'd come from, Newton bent to whisper to Guin. \"Maybe I can learn elvish after all. Making toys and crackers, singing songs about, whatever, sparkles and raindrops and living in a magical winter wonderland.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"That song wasn't about sparkles or unicorns\u2014\"\n\n\"I didn't say unicorns.\"\n\n\"I think it was about what elves like to do to children.\"\n\n\"Give them presents?\"\n\n\"The bit which actually translates as 'Stick 'em in a sack'\u2026?\"\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"It was the nicest bit of the song.\"\n\nGuin looked around. At the far end of the hall was a raised dais with a huge shape \u2013 a statue or a space rocket or a tree or something \u2013 hidden beneath a red velvety cloth. Two elves, with Mrs Scruples' leg bone between them, scuttled under the cloth and started banging and thumping about.\n\n\"Thing I want to know is,\" said Guin, \"if they're practising songs and making Christmas presents and crackers and stuff, what are they doing it for?\"\n\nNewton shrugged. \"Maybe the unveiling of their Christmas tree composed entirely of human bones.\" He nodded at the shrouded shape.\n\n\"Be serious,\" said Newton.\n\n\"I dunno. Christmas Day?\"\n\nGuin gave him her best serious look, the kind she used on stupid teachers and idiot school children who wouldn't let her join their gangs. \"Do you want this lot to be in charge of Christmas Day?\"\n\nNewton looked worried for a moment, which Guin judged to be the correct response."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 66",
                "text": "While Esther cut out her elf cross headlight covers, Dave manufactured the world's first industrial elf-stabbing tractor fender from a clothes rail and a dozen bent coat hangers.\n\nWhen they judged they were finished, they made their way cautiously out of the shop. The street was quiet. It looked as though the search for them had moved off elsewhere.\n\nThey crept on, away from the town centre and down the narrow lane leading between the houses and up to the church. Dave struggled to carry all of his metal elf-destroying kit without making too much noise, but they made it to the tractor. It was bigger than Dave remembered, which was good.\n\nEsther crouched to look underneath. \"Checking for elves,\" she said.\n\nHe was about to make light of it, but he would have done the same. The damned creatures secreted themselves in every hidey-hole, enough to make a man paranoid. He instinctively looking up and scanned the rooftop in the houses that crowded on either side of the lane.\n\n\"Let's do this,\" he said, fastening his clothes-rail-elf-destroyer to the front of the tractor with the remaining coat hangers. Twisting the thick wire was really hard on his fingers, but it was worth the discomfort. He climbed up into the open cab and stashed the weaponised window pole. He added to his weapon supply with some edging bricks that had surrounded a nearby garden. A well-aimed brick could come in handy.\n\nEsther fixed her elf cross stencils onto the headlights. Dave looked around the cab, wondering how the lights turned on. Come to that, he wondered how the tractor actually started. He looked down at the controls and tried to relate them to what he knew about driving.\n\n\"There's two gear sticks!\" he hissed to Esther.\n\n\"Pallets!\" hissed Esther in reply.\n\nHe frowned. She pointed to an alleyway across the road where there was a pile of empty pallets. \"We can use them to protect the cab.\"\n\nDave jumped down to fetch them. They were surprisingly heavy and he had to take them back to the tractor individually. By the time he had four of them lashed into place over the front and side windows with baling twine, it felt more secure.\n\n\"It's going to be a bit tricky to see where we're going,\" he said as Esther climbed up to join him. \"But I reckon we can manage.\"\n\nShe peered forward. \"We can do this,\" she said. \"Right, let's fire her up.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, about that,\" said Dave. \"I'm not sure how\u2014\" The engine roared into life, cutting off his words.\n\nEsther grinned at him. \"Collective farm in Cuba. Off we go!\"\n\nStanding in the cab behind his amazing and resourceful girlfriend, Dave picked up the pole in one hand and a brick in the other. Esther had to turn the tractor so they were facing the right way. He could tell it wasn't easy to manoeuvre in a tight space, but Esther managed it with a combination of dextrous handling and crushing everything in her path.\n\n\"It's like Mad Max, isn't it?\" he said, grinning despite himself.\n\n\"If Mad Max was a Christmas movie.\"\n\n\"True.\"\n\n\"And set in rural northern England.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"It's more Wallace and Gromit than Mad Max really.\"\n\n\"Possibly.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 67",
                "text": "From choir practice in the great hall, Newton and Guin were shuttled to their next task: reindeer. Newton wasn't sure how he felt about that.\n\nOn the one hand: reindeer! Furry, soft-nosed quadrupeds in need of the kind of love he was eager to dish out.\n\nOn the other: the reindeer in the cavern of animal pens were all like Blinky: partially decomposed, partially reconstructed; patched together from old reindeer or bits of animals that clearly weren't reindeer.\n\nStill \u2026 reindeer! Ugly or not, these were innocent creatures a lad like Newton was born to care for. Yes, they were a bit bitey. Yes, they looked like they favoured human flesh over grasses and moss, but that wasn't their fault, was it?\n\nA new energy had overtaken the elf cavern since the bizarre excitement with Mrs Scruples' leg bone. Elves ran back and forth, carrying things. Bells, big and small, rang continuously, echoing along the tunnels like large scale tinnitus. Even in the reindeer cavern, elves were hurrying about, checking harnesses and reindeer against clipboards.\n\nGerd led Guin and Newton up one side of the pen and down the other, chanting a long list as they went. \"H\u00e9r er Bit\u00f0ur, Barari, Hlager og Gouper\u2026\"\n\n\"There's got to be hundreds here,\" Guin whispered.\n\n\"I know,\" said Newton. After realising most of the creatures would try to bite off his fingers if he stroked them, he was making sure to give every one of them a cheery wave and some direct eye contact to show he was friendly.\n\n\"Stoker, Kicgut, Gunch-mun\u00f0a og bori\u00f0a\u2026\" said Gerd.\n\n\"Why would anyone need this many reindeer?\" wondered Guin.\n\nNewton tried not to dwell on that because he knew full well in colder northern climates reindeer were providers of meat, hide, and more besides. Anyway, the obvious answer was the elves needed several teams of reindeer to pull several sleighs. If there were presents to be delivered, in all directions, the elves would need dozens of sleighs. Maybe even hundreds.\n\n\"Meiu\u00f0a og Daugum,\" said Gerd with some finality. \"N\u00fa, \u00f0ur \u00fe\u00faa\u00f0 l\u00e6r\u00f6ll n\u00f6fra.\"\n\n\"L\u00e6r\u00f6ll n\u00f6fra?\" asked Guin.\n\n\"Ga, \u00fe\u00faa\u00f0 l\u00e6r\u00f6ll n\u00f6fra, ya mithering get!\" said Gerd angrily and stomped off.\n\n\"All their names,\" said Guin. \"We have to learn them.\"\n\nNewton sighed. \"This is like the worst episode of The Apprentice ever.\"\n\n\"Except in the real one, Lord Sugar doesn't kill you if you fail your task.\"\n\nThey began another circuit of the hall and tried to recall some of the names. Newton found he remembered more than a few. Although their rotting faces and hides, stitched together with the same white thread, made them a little harder to love, it did make the reindeer that bit more memorable.\n\n\"That's Graumper and Scromdir, and I think that's bulta\u00f0a\u2026\"\n\nHe remembered he had his phone with him. Although there was still no signal, he could use its camera to take photos of the creatures as they went. Several recoiled angrily from the flash, so he turned it off.\n\n\"We need to think about our escape plan,\" said Guin.\n\nNewton looked round nervously. \"We don't want to anger them.\"\n\n\"They are going to kill us if we just stay here.\"\n\n\"Me perhaps,\" said Newton. \"You definitely won the toy challenge, and the singing competition.\" He sniffed. \"And that's a good thing. You deserve to win.\"\n\n\"Jeez!\" said Guin. \"What do you call those people who just want to die for a cause?\"\n\nNewton frowned. \"Martyrs?\"\n\n\"Yeah, that's you. Is it your life's goal to die for me?\"\n\n\"Not exactly.\"\n\n\"No?\" It sure sounds like it. If you want to be helpful, how about growing a spine for me. Let's get out of this place together.\"\n\nIt was a hurtful remark. Newton could have cried. He moved on rapidly and took pictures of Gunch-mun\u00f0a and bori\u00f0a and \u2026 one he couldn't remember the name of.\n\n\"I made some elf crosses,\" said Guin. \"Stuffed them up my top.\"\n\n\"Clever,\" said Newton, trying to sound positive, even if Guin's martyr comment still stung.\n\n\"I thought we could maybe make a bomb or some grenades from that cracker explosive.\"\n\n\"Dangerous,\" he said, \"but definitely doable.\"\n\nHe wandered on. He flicked back through the phone's images, trying to remember names. He flicked back too far and came to the pictures of Lily he'd taken at the stables the morning before. His Lily.\n\n\"I do want to get out of here,\" he said to Guin, earnestly. \"I really do.\"\n\n\"Good,\" she said.\n\nA thought occurred to him and he chuckled. \"You know that old joke? How does an elephant get down from a tree?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, clearly meaning \"No, I don't, and I don't want to.\"\n\nHe was going to tell her anyway. \"It sits on a leaf and waits until autumn.\"\n\n\"That's not even practical,\" said Guin.\n\nHe tutted and shook his head. \"How do you escape from Santa's grotto? Climb into a sack and wait until Christmas.\"\n\nHer eyebrows rose like she was at least thinking about it. Her expression suddenly changed and she flapped her hands at him to pay attention.\n\n\"L\u00e6r\u00f6ll n\u00f6fra,\" said Gerd sternly, appearing behind them.\n\n\"The names,\" said Newton. \"Sure.\"\n\nTogether, they walked round the pens, pointing out various chomping, stomping undead reindeer and they certainly did their best to name all of them.\n\n\"That one's Hlager and that's Gouper\u2026\"\n\n\"That's Scromdir and bulta\u00f0a\u2026\"\n\n\"Bitber and Paugir and \u2026 Yongari?\"\n\n\"And Dasher? And Dancer?\"\n\n\"Sprongler or something?\"\n\n\"Comet, Vixen, Cupid\u2026\"\n\n\"Rudolph?\"\n\n\"Bifur, Bofur, Bombur\u2026\"\n\n\"Sleepy, Dopey, Sneezy, Grumpy\u2026\"\n\n\"Posh-deer, Scary-deer, Sporty-deer\u2026\"\n\n\"Kicgut! That one's Kicgut!\"\n\nThere were occasional grudging nods from Gerd as they got some right. Out of the dozens in the cave, Newton estimated they got maybe one in four, which he considered pretty good going. Gerd was clearly less impressed.\n\nNewton came to the last of them that he remembered. \"And this one's Sleipnir\u2014 Ow!\"\n\nHe had not been paying attention and the reindeer nipped his outheld fingers. When Newton checked, although he still had five fingers on that hand, the reindeer had ripped skin and flesh off his fingertips. Newton hissed and shoved his hand under his arm, dancing around to drive away the pain.\n\nGerd, who in another life could have been happy as a sadistic PE teacher, watched him with obvious glee. In the pen, bitey old Sleipnir was leaping with similar amusement, high-kicking leaps like a pronking antelope.\n\nGerd directed them back to their recess cell where they were tied up with ropes that were old and rotten, but coiled around their wrists again and again until they were solid as handcuffs.\n\nElves appeared with yet more bowls of food, even though it couldn't have been more than an hour since they'd last been fed. Sausages again for Newton; green mush for Guin.\n\nSucking on his wounded fingers, Newton contemplated the steaming sausages. How many different townsfolk had gone into each of those sausages? Were they a tasteful blend of butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers? Or was this sausage made from mature middle-aged school teacher and this one from fresh locally-sourced youngsters? And would he be able to tell the difference?\n\nGuin tucked into her own food.\n\n\"You like that stuff?\" asked Newton.\n\n\"I'm hungry,\" she mumbled.\n\nHe looked at the green mass in her bowl. \"I think that might be reindeer moss.\"\n\n\"You mean the kind of moss reindeer would eat?\"\n\nNewton, who had seen a survival programme about arctic adventures, made a doubtful noise. \"It's moss than the reindeers have already eaten. You know: pre-processed.\"\n\nGuin stared at him, her cheeks bulging. She gave the matter some silent thought and then shrugged and carried on eating.\n\n\"Why have they given us different food?\" said Newton.\n\n\"I think\u2014\" said Guin, then didn't say what she was thinking.\n\n\"You think they're fattening me up?\" he said.\n\nGuin was silent for a while. \"You going to eat your sausages?\" she said eventually.\n\n\"Er, no. Human flesh isn't my thing.\" He sucked at the cuts across his fingers. \"Apart from my own. I think that's acceptable. Hey, did you hear the one about the two cannibals who were eating a clown? One turned to the other and said, 'Do you think this tastes funny?'\"\n\nAfter a long pause, Guin said, \"That's actually a funny joke.\"\n\n\"You didn't laugh.\"\n\n\"Maybe I'm not in a laughing mood. That reindeer liked human flesh, didn't it?\"\n\n\"I did notice.\"\n\n\"And did you see what happened when it bit you?\"\n\n\"The jumping. Yeah. I don't believe animals are capable of evil, but I'd prepared to say that reindeer was a bit of git.\"\n\n\"It wasn't jumping.\"\n\n\"It was. I saw.\"\n\n\"You didn't see clearly enough.\" As the girl ate, she scooched round on crossed legs and fixed him with her pale eyes. \"It had all four feet off the ground.\"\n\n\"That's pretty much the dictionary definition of jumping,\" said Newton. \"I'm doing my GCSEs this year. I think I know what words mean.\"\n\n\"Don't be arrogant,\" she said. \"I mean its feet were all floating off the ground.\"\n\n\"What? As in flying?\"\n\n\"You don't believe me? We're in a cave, surrounded by Christmas elves and there's reindeer, and you don't think they're flying reindeer?\"\n\nNewton was about to object, about to say it just didn't obey the laws of physics. Then he heard his mum's voice \u2013 well, not her voice as such, but her manner and her views. Notions about the universe being far more complex than even scientists understood; about how perhaps homeopathy and crystal healing and angel therapy might really work in some instances. The kind of things his mum might say after a couple of glasses of wine or a visit to a psychic fair at the local community centre. She'd probably end up saying things like \"It's only called the theory of evolution\" or \"No one knows how bumble bees fly\" and Newton would grit his teeth, smile politely and put on an episode of Planet Earth to calm her down.\n\n\"Flying reindeer,\" he said neutrally. \"Who get excited by human blood.\"\n\n\"Maybe.\"\n\nNewton looked at her. \"You know your ears\u2026?\"\n\n\"I believe so.\"\n\n\"Did they always have those pointy bits on the top?\"\n\nGuin reached up and felt her ears. They weren't exactly pointing, but at the top of each there was a pronounced fold that looked sort of pointy. It certainly looked pointier than when he'd first met her.\n\nGuin felt the ridges of her ears, frowning. She stood and looked down at herself, tugging at the waist of her trousers and the rumpled folds around her ankles. \"Am I getting shorter?\"\n\nShe looked at the bowl in her hands and carefully put it down, like it was the most dangerous thing in the world. \"We need to escape,\" she said.\n\n\"I agree,\" he replied.\n\nShe reached under her top and pulled out her fairy folklore book, two elf crosses, and a roll of cloth. \"Hold onto that,\" she said, passing him a cross.\n\nShe unrolled the cloth on the floor and revealed three scalpel-like blades. \"Stole these from the toy workshop,\" she said, passing one to Newton. She used another to start slicing at her own bonds.\n\n\"We will get into trouble,\" Newton said automatically.\n\n\"We're already in trouble.\"\n\n\"We need an escape plan.\"\n\n\"Like you said, climb in a sack and wait till Christmas.\"\n\n\"I was joking,\" said Newton.\n\n\"Or, to put it another way, climb in a train truck and wait till it leaves. I've heard it go in and out at least twice while we've been here.\"\n\nNewton gave this some thought and put renewed effort into cutting his ropes."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 68",
                "text": "Guin and Newton's escape plan was simple but it still took time. The ropes tying them were worn, but there were a lot of them. Guin was sensible enough to not want to hurriedly saw at her bonds and end up sticking a blade in her ulnar artery. Her dad had told her enough paramedic horror stories about sliced wrists to give her something of a complex. In the past, she'd just stared at her white wrists and the pumping artery she knew was just beneath the surface and thought (not for the first time) that the human body was stupidly fragile and badly designed.\n\nAlso, the elves did not leave them entirely unguarded. Gerd swung by a couple of times, once to just shout at them, and the second to check they had eaten their food. Newton had concealed the sausages in his pockets so he could show an empty bowl. When Gerd demanded to see Guin's bowl, she pantomimed eating handfuls of the stuff.\n\nShe very much wanted to ask if the reindeer moss was magically turning her into an elf. She didn't, because the question sounded stupid in her head. And because she feared the answer would be yes. And, if the answer was yes, were all the elves children who had somehow 'passed the test'? There was a line she'd read in poor dead Elsa Frinton's book about what happened to people who were foolish enough to eat food while visiting the Lands of Faerie. Guin didn't think a stinking cave underneath an English town counted as the Lands of Faerie, but they were here, and they'd eaten. And although Wiry Harrison, Tinfoil Tavistock and the sharp blade she held concealed in her hand gave her the courage to act bravely, she really, really wanted to be out of here and miles away with her dad (and, yes, with Esther and Newton too, if that made everyone happy).\n\nGerd wandered off, satisfied Guin was being a good little elf and eating up. With the new urgency in the elves' work, Newton and Guin were no longer being supervised so closely. It was as good a time as any to escape.\n\n\"She'll probably be back with some more soon,\" said Guin. \"We need to hurry.\"\n\nThere was the dull slap of heavy ropes falling to the ground. \"Done,\" said Newton, massaging his wrist. \"Can I help you with yours?\"\n\n\"I'm fine,\" said Guin, irritated the older boy felt the need to assist.\n\nIt took her several more minutes to cut through her ropes.\n\n\"I can help,\" he said.\n\n\"I'm fine!\"\n\n\"We need to hurry.\"\n\n\"I'm just trying to avoid cutting myself. Did you know, your artery can pump out blood at the rate of five litres a minute?\"\n\n\"I did not know that,\" admitted Newton. \"Not sure I wanted to.\"\n\n\"So be patient.\" The last threads came away. \"Let's go.\" She saw the nervous look on Newton's face. \"You want to see your girlfriend again, right?\"\n\n\"My girlfriend?\"\n\n\"Lily?\"\n\n\"No. Lily's not\u2014 Who told you\u2026?\"\n\nGuin tutted. \"Come on!\"\n\nThey carried elf crosses and knives. Although Newton was a big lumbering ox of a boy, they could stay close to the wall and the shadowy areas least lit by the dim fairy lights. From their recess cell, the main cavern was directly ahead, full of noise and industry echoing up to the chimney-like opening high above. Off to the left was a long tunnel, leading past piles of stored goods and mounds of rubbish, past Blinky the reindeer's stall and alongside the elves' little steam train.\n\n\"Hello, girl,\" Newton whispered to the reindeer as they passed.\n\nThe nightmare creature still had Newton's misshapen rabbit toy clenched in its mouth. Strands of stuffing hung from the gaps between its teeth. It sniffed at them and stamped its feet excitedly.\n\n\"That thing's as daft as you are,\" said Guin.\n\nThey crept on, along the low line of rotten little train trucks. Blinky grunted and huffed at them as they went.\n\n\"Couldn't we just carry on walking to the exit?\" said Newton.\n\nGuin looked along the tunnel and the fading string of lights. She listened hard, tried to pick out what sounds were coming from that direction. \"You don't think there'll be guards at the exit?\"\n\n\"Probably.\"\n\nThere were bundles of sack cloth in the nearest cart. Newton boosted Guin over the lip and followed. They burrowed under the sacks and tried to make themselves as small as possible, which wasn't all that small in Newton's case.\n\nGuin lay in the dark fusty folds and closed her eyes. She willed herself to be still and at one with the sacks. Tiny. Invisible. In a sudden panic, she wondered if the act of willing herself to be small and unnoticeable was aiding the elves' magic. So she willed herself to be a perfectly ordinary girl-sized person who happened to be well-hid under the sacks.\n\nShe heard the plaintive grunts of the zombie reindeer. Something had clearly got her excited. There were raised elf voices and the crack of wood.\n\n\"Er skeypis! Reind\u00fdrn hef skarpa!\"\n\nThe reindeer had scarpered?\n\nThere was a clattering next to their little truck and then a yell of pain from Newton. \"Ow! Ow! What are you doing that for?\"\n\nThe elvish yells were closer.\n\n\"Ow! Okay! Okay!\" called Newton.\n\nThey'd been discovered. Guin sat up. Newton was standing up in the truck, trying to fend off Zomdeer Blinky who was biting and snapping at his clothes. More than a dozen elves were gathered round, weapons drawn.\n\n\"All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi?\" said Guin."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 69",
                "text": "As Esther drove the tractor up the steep slope at the back of the church she worried that it might simply slide backwards or tip over. She kept those thoughts to herself and put her faith in the tractor's tyres and pulling power.\n\nShe kept the revs high and refused to let the machine stall. The tractor ran roughshod over the snow, its massive tyres gripping well. Branches as thick as her arm scraped against the bonnet and cab, dislodging the snow lying heavily along them. Any branch that could not bend and yield snapped. The pallet over the window turned out to be an effective and necessary shield against the debris.\n\n\"That's where we got buried!\" Esther shouted back to Dave over the scraping and clattering and snapping.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"That's where we\u2014 Never mind! Where are we? On the map! The map!\"\n\nDave leaned forward with the remnants of Duncan Catheter's plan in his hands.\n\n\"I think the ground should level out shortly,\" he said.\n\nSure enough, the tractor bumped over a ledge and they were able to make out a sizeable plateau. Esther tried to match up the narrow view she had between the slats of the pallet with what she recalled of Duncan Catheter's plans.\n\n\"There were going to be houses over there,\" said Dave, waving to the left. \"And over there as well. That part in the middle is where the sinkholes are marked.\"\n\n\"Then that's where we need to look.\"\n\n\"Do you know what sinkholes look like?\" said Dave.\n\n\"No,\" admitted Esther after a moment's thought. \"Not really. Holes, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Are they big enough for a tractor to fall down?\"\n\nEsther peered forward, almost wishing she hadn't applied her elf-cross silhouette shapes to the lights, since they cut down so much on the light they cast. \"No idea. We'll take it really slowly from this point.\"\n\nThey edged forward.\n\nDave clutched her elbow. \"Elf at one o'clock,\" he whispered.\n\nEsther steered towards it, wanting to see if the light would have any effect. The elf was lit up by the blurry image of an elf cross. It blinked against the light, then raised its weapon and charged, curly-toed shoes running crisply over the deep snow's surface.\n\n\"It's not working,\" said Dave. He struggled to get his elf-poking stick out.\n\n\"It's too blurry,\" said Esther. \"It just needs to find its focal length.\"\n\nAs the elf and tractor closed, a perfectly-formed elf cross focused in the middle of the elf's chest. It howled in pain and clutched itself, staggering.\n\n\"What's that smell?\" Esther said.\n\n\"I think it's burning elf flesh.\"\n\n\"Cool,\" she said, adding remorsefully, \"Jesus, Dave, what's wrong with me? I enjoyed hurting that elf. I enjoyed it!\"\n\n\"You should, because we're one step closer to rescuing the kids. You're focused on the end game and that's what it's all about.\"\n\nThey trundled on, over the prostrate body of the elf with a smouldering chest.\n\nThey both leaned forward to see through the gaps in the pallet. Esther wondered why the tree coverage was so thin here, speculating if Duncan Catheter had sent in a chainsaw team to pre-empt the planning process. She found herself getting angry at him, as she always did at selfish developers. It was probably pointless, as he was already dead, but he represented the evil scourge of deforestation across the globe. She nurtured the anger in order to focus her new-found murderous instincts as she had a feeling that she'd be needing them.\n\n\"Can you see that dark area over by the hillside?\" whispered Dave.\n\nEsther could see what he meant. At the edge of the plateau, the ground rose steeply again. Mostly it was covered with snow, but there was some sort of shadow close to the ground. Esther steered towards it. As they drew nearer it was clear this sinkhole was more like a tunnel descending into the hillside.\n\n\"We going in?\" asked Dave. \"Only I'm not sure the tractor will fit.\"\n\n\"Look on the ground,\" said Esther, carefully ignoring his concerns. \"It looks like train tracks. This is definitely where we need to be looking.\" She turned the tractor in a wide arc to get a run up to the tunnel.\n\n\"The tractor's too big,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Men are awful judges of size,\" said Esther and accelerated hard.\n\n\"You're not thinking\u2014?\"\n\n\"Just hang on, my love!\"\n\n\"I honestly don't think there's much to hang\u2014\"\n\n\"Brace yourself!\" Esther yelled as they approached at top tractor speed.\n\nDave ducked down behind the seat and wrapped his arm around both the seat and Esther as the tractor smashed into the gap. The tunnel was far wider and taller than it looked: the opening made smaller with wood panels and piled up debris. The cover shattered as the tractor ploughed through. Something caught on the tractor roof and it was wrenched off. The tractor bucked severely, but they were inside. As Esther peeked up, she could see the train tracks up ahead. They plunged on."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 70",
                "text": "At spear and knife point, Newton and Guin were forced out of the truck. One of the elves barked something that sounded very much like an accusation.\n\n\"This isn't what it looks like,\" said Newton, knowing full well it was exactly what it looked like. He couldn't tell if the elves believed or even understood him. Their sharp little faces were screwed up in unreadable anger and Newton was somewhat distracted by Blinky, who continued to nip at him, especially around his trouser pockets.\n\n\"What do you want, girl?\" he asked, batting her away while trying to stroke her mangy muzzle. He felt in his pockets and found the sausages he'd hidden there.\n\n\"Dreda ster kindi!\" snapped one elf.\n\n\"Don't kill him!\" said Guin. \"Emei\u00f0 og him!\" She held up her elf-cross to ward them off, immediately dropping it. She clutched her hand, shocked. \"It burned me!\"\n\nNewton's heart pounded in his chest. She was being turned into an elf! Elf-crosses were now effective against her. And he, clearly not elf material, was surplus to requirements.\n\nEven as he acknowledged the truth, he pulled a sausage from his pocket it and fed it to Blinky to keep her happy. The hungry undead reindeer wolfed it down.\n\nAn elf came forward, pushing Guin aside in order to get to Newton.\n\n\"Wait!\" she shouted. \"B\u00e6du!\" She took out a tiny object. It was one of her little homemade toys. \"This is Wiry Harrison!\"\n\n\"Viry Harrison?\" said the elf.\n\nGuin placed the little wire man on the floor, straightening the sword made from twists of wire in his hand. \"Wiry Harrison is a fierce warrior.\"\n\nThe elves stared at the two-inch figure.\n\n\"He is brave and dependable and would kill every one of you to protect me.\"\n\n\"Ooh,\" said one of the elves.\n\n\"He's never been defeated in combat.\"\n\nAn elf carefully got on its hands and knees to inspect the still and silent warrior. Newton watched with bated breath.\n\n\"Get out your elf cross,\" Guin whispered to him.\n\n\"Then what?\" Newton whispered back.\n\n\"No idea.\"\n\nThe elves chatted among themselves, clearly torn between wariness of the miniscule foe, and understandable derision at what was clearly a little figurine made of wire. Blinky had finished her sausage. She nudged Newton for another, making snotty, phlegm-like marks on his sleeve. He hoped it was phlegm and not zombie brain juices.\n\n\"Okay, girl,\" he said, fumbling for sausage and elf-cross simultaneously. At the same time he realised Blinky's hoofs were not on the ground. They were pawing the air, inches above the ground.\n\n\"You're flying!\" he said. He remembered the effect his blood had on the bity reindeer \u2013 and these sausages were made primarily of unfortunate locals\u2026\n\nNewton's next course of action seemed obvious. He shoved a sausage in the reindeer's mouth and grabbed Guin, swinging her onto the reindeer's back. She yelped in surprise.\n\nThe elves hissed, probably guessing he was kidnapping their latest recruit. Newton warded them off with his elf-cross; long enough for him to feed Blinky a third sausage and leap astride the creature's back. Blinky's body was a mass of knobbly bones wrapped in a thin hide and painful to sit on.\n\n\"Yah! Fly, Blinky!\" he urged."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 71",
                "text": "Dave was worried the tunnel, though surprisingly wide by British standards, might get narrower up ahead and the tractor would get jammed. Esther kept up a steady speed, planning to smash through any minor constrictions as she bumped along the train track.\n\n\"I can see light,\" said Esther. \"Up ahead. Arm yourself.\"\n\nDave didn't need telling twice. He had a pile of bricks at the ready, and the pole ready to go. \"What's your plan when we get there?\" he asked.\n\nShe shrugged. \"Crush as many elves with brute force as I can and fry a few with the lights for good measure. You stop them getting into the cab and we'll see if we can spot the kids.\"\n\nDave didn't like to point out that the cab was a thing of the past. They were sitting in a vehicle that was very much an open-top model.\n\nThey emerged into a huge cavern. Esther had to swerve off the train track, as there was a train already parked on it.\n\n\"Holy hell, what's going on?\" said Dave.\n\n\"I would say,\" said Esther, steering towards a crowd of elves and making sure both elf cross lights and elf-stabbing fender were lined up, \"that the kids are attempting to escape on a flying reindeer while these elves try to stop them.\"\n\n\"Not just me, then.\"\n\nA number of elves were already noisily smouldering from the lights, along with screams from those who had been impaled on the stabbing fender. Too late Dave realised there was a fatal design flaw with his stabby fender: once it had a full complement of impaled elves, it became harmless.\n\nAn elf stood ahead of them, fearlessly taking aim with a catapult. He scored a direct hit on one headlight, then re-loaded and took out the other.\n\n\"Bugger!\" said Dave. \"All we can do now is run them over. Crush them with the tyres!\"\n\nEsther did her best, doing tight figures of eight (or as tight as she could accomplish with a vehicle designed to have an entire field for manoeuvring), but the elves were too numerous. Dave threw bricks at any in range, but even a direct strike was more of a deterrent than a fatal blow. The elves had been initially worried, then simply distracted; now they looked as if they were enjoying the sport."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 72",
                "text": "At three sausages' worth of power, Blinky was soon hovering with her hoofs at elf head height. As she bucked and galloped against the air, all three moved off at something like strolling speed. The elves stabbed at Newton's dangling legs so he hoisted them up out of the way.\n\n\"Is this your escape plan?\" yelled Guin behind him. \"We can run faster than this!\"\n\nNewton felt her disappointment burn deep inside him. He dug his raised heels in. \"Come on, Blinky!\" he urged. \"You can do it.\"\n\nHe had pictured them soaring up, circling towards the large chimney opening in the cavern's apex, and out into cool, crisp night-time freedom. Instead they were just ambling along, six feet off the ground, with as much excitement and urgency as a toddler's coin-operated animal ride.\n\n\"They stamped on Wiry Harrison!\" exclaimed Guin.\n\nNewton leaned forward. Awkwardly he fed the fourth and final sausage into Blinky's gnashing teeth.\n\n\"Fare thee well, fallen warrior,\" said Guin softly.\n\n\"What?\" Newton called back.\n\n\"Nothing,\" sniffed Guin.\n\nEven with four sausages, Blinky didn't seem to have much lift.\n\n\"Maybe they take a while to kick in,\" Newton wondered out loud, but he didn't think that was it. Sleipnir had been given instant lift from just a nibble of his fingertips. Volume-wise that was nothing compared to four briny hotdogs. Maybe that was the problem: blood and sausages were not the same.\n\nFearing for his fingers and hoping he wasn't wrong, Newton leaned forward and presented his already injured index finger to Blinky.\n\nThe sudden bite made him yelp. He yanked his hand back, but Blinky had already gotten a good taste. There were smears of blood across her muzzle.\n\n\"Blinky \u2026 the red-nosed reindeer,\" Newton whimpered as he bunched his hand up in pain.\n\nIt was enough. With a wriggle and a shiver, Blinky leapt. Guin held onto Newton; Newton grabbed the reindeer's one good antler with his one good hand.\n\nThey were ten feet off the ground and rising. Below them elves shouted and shrieked. A spear flew past them, wobbling and warbling like a startled bird.\n\n\"It's working!\" yelled Guin.\n\n\"Never doubted it!\" Newton yelled back. \"What in\u2014?\"\n\nLooking down across the cavern, he saw a whole bunch of elves gathered around what appeared to be some sort of open-top jeep. Newton realised it was, in fact, a tractor with its top half sheared off. In the remnants of the cab were two figures, fighting off elves with bricks and a window pole.\n\n\"Mum! Dave!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 73",
                "text": "Dave glanced up to see how Guin and Newton were getting on, hoping they'd long gone. To his horror they were flying down, presumably to help. He could clearly see the terse and uncompromising looks on Guin's and Newton's faces.\n\n\"No!\" he yelled at them. \"Away! Away!\" He waved furiously. \"Let the dog drown! Let the dog drown!\"\n\n\"What's the matter?\" asked Esther, who couldn't afford to take her eyes off what she was doing.\n\n\"The kids,\" said Dave.\n\nShe glanced up for a split second. \"What's the plan?\"\n\nGuin was leaning over and making upswept hooking gestures with her arm, like she wanted them to prepare to be airlifted out.\n\n\"I think we're beyond plans,\" said Dave hollowly.\n\n\"We can leave the tractor making a nuisance of itself,\" said Esther. She pushed the steering wheel onto a hard lock and put Dave's pole through it to hold it in place. \"Brick!\"\n\nAfter a moment he caught on and jammed one of the bricks onto the accelerator.\n\n\"That reindeer's coming in fast,\" she said. \"You think we can grab it?\"\n\n\"Is that reindeer even real?\" muttered Dave. The creature looked like a bad animatronic, or as though someone had dipped a real reindeer in paint stripper and then tried to mend the damage using the remains of a rotten sofa.\n\n\"You need to recalibrate your beliefs, dear,\" said Esther. She hurled the last of the bricks and then the two of them reached out for the reindeer as it flew overhead. They grabbed a leg each. Dave was yanked off his feet and hugged the thin leg close.\n\n\"Hold on!\" shouted someone.\n\nDave held tight. In his spinning vision, he caught a glimpse of Guin's leg against the creature's flank. He'd found her. They were back together for however long.\n\nThe reindeer wobbled with the extra weight and dipped towards the ground.\n\n\"This leg's got woodworm!\" said Esther.\n\nFor a moment Dave didn't grasp what she meant, but a crunching sound from above was a dead giveaway. Esther fell. She slid into a wall and to the ground. The reindeer tipped. Dave tumbled to the ground, landed on his feet by pure luck, hit the ground, and rolled against the side of the train tracks.\n\nHe looked up, hoping to see Guin and Newton flying far away. Instead he saw a distressed, three-legged reindeer completely out of kilter, flying in rapidly-decreasing circles towards the far side of the cavern and out of sight among the storage areas and workstations. Elves ran in pursuit.\n\nDave looked round for Esther. She stood some distance off, by the wall she'd hit. In her hand was the remains of the zombie reindeer's woodworm-riddled leg. She stood tall wielding it like a club, snarling at the elves to back off. She lunged forward and whacked one of them into the middle distance.\n\nShe turned to the tightening circle. \"Come on then! Who's next?\" She smacked another one just for kicks. \"Dave! Get the kids!\"\n\nDave scuttled off, keeping low, heading in the direction he'd seen the reindeer and children take."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 74",
                "text": "Esther was backed up against the wall with only a reindeer leg to defend herself. She held it like a rounders bat, since that was the one sport Esther had excelled at as a child. She channelled years of practice into swing after swing as elves tried ducking below her guard with their nasty little blades. She didn't know their language, but she made her meaning very clear.\n\n\"Come on you elfy bastards!\"\n\nShe thought she heard Newton's voice in the distance, saying something like \"Actually they look pretty unelfy to me\", but it was just her imagination.\n\nHowever, her arms were going to tire soon. Weekly Zumba sessions at the local community centre and Pilates in the park had helped her maintain a decent level of fitness, but there was only so much elf-whacking one could do. Eventually, one of them would slip past her guard, or find a way to sneak up on her.\n\nThe thought made her look around and check the spaces beyond her peripheral vision. A string of fairy lights looped across the cavern wall just above her head, disappearing into a hole off to her left. An elf was crawling hand over hand along the lights to get to her.\n\nGrunting like a tennis pro, she swung the wooden leg and mashed the sneaky sod against the wall. The creature gave a satisfyingly pathetic, \"Urk!\" and dropped to the ground.\n\nBut as she brought her weapon down, the inevitable happened. The rotten leg broke away completely, leaving her holding a ragged stump. She held it in a threatening pose and moved away from what was left of the group. There were only a few, but she was very aware her small piece of wood was no match for their knives. Even so, she couldn't let that affect her positive mental attitude. Esther was a doer, and she knew the value of keeping busy.\n\nShe scanned the cavern, looking for escape routes, any answer to her predicament. There were boxes everywhere, to contents of which might have been useful, there was no time to check them out. Then she remembered the hole in the cavern wall off to her left.\n\nIt was like a duct. She'd probably fit inside. And a stack of boxes provided a handy staircase up to it. She peered in and decided to commit to the full Bruce Willis. She was going into the ducts.\n\nShe hurled her useless reindeer remnant at the nearest elf, pointed and yelled, \"Look! It's Father Christmas!\", and ran for the boxes. They creaked under her feet but did not break. The elves, momentarily distracted by the possible appearance of old St Nick, were hot in pursuit.\n\nEsther leapt into the duct, hands and knees coming down on a dusty and greasy surface. She turned, kicking the nearest pursuer in the face, tumbling the sharp-faced fiend off the box pyramid.\n\nShe kicked out several more times until she was able to reach down and grab the topmost box. She feared it might be too heavy to lift, but from great desperation came great energy. She pulled it up and into the duct behind her. It didn't exactly wedge into the space, but it filled it sufficiently to slow any elves that might get past the missing top box-step.\n\nShe twisted the obstruction, jamming it more thoroughly, before starting to crawl away. Her hands and knees squidged on the greasy metal floor.\n\n\"Bruce Willis never got this dirty,\" she said to herself. Die Hard was another Christmas movie that had lied to her."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 75",
                "text": "As elves ran by, Dave kept still. He had managed to escape them by rolling underneath the train and lying between the rails. He knew he couldn't stay there: he needed to locate Guin and Newton. Also, he didn't want to be bacon-sliced and mushed if the train moved off. Playing on train tracks was a big no-no. As a paramedic he'd seen the evidence with his own eyes.\n\nThoughts of medical matters made him check for his first aid kit. It was attached to his belt, with dressing, antiseptics and a dozen insulin shots inside it. He'd probably need those again before the night was through.\n\nHe wriggled along the track as far as he dared, then rolled off, looking around to see where he was. It was darker here, but he could make out a side cavern up ahead. He couldn't be far from where Guin and Esther's boy had crash-landed. They might have gone to hide in there.\n\nHe crawled forward on his belly, keeping to the shadows. When he made it round a corner, he stood, carefully. The side cavern's roof was lower and it stretched deep into the hillside. Boxes \u2013 Christmas boxes, shiny and tied with ribbon \u2013 were stacked in rows, extending as far back as he could see.\n\nNow he came to think about it, the entire hill had to be hollow. How could Catheter have imagined it would be safe to build houses here, when the whole place was riddled with caves?\n\n\"Guin!\" he stage whispered. \"You here? Newton! Guin!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 76",
                "text": "When she fell from the doomed reindeer, Guin landed heavily on her backside, jarring her spine and knocking all sensation from her bum . She immediately leapt up and ran for cover. While Newton yelped over in one direction, and his mum could be heard shouting aggressively from another, Guin did her best to shake off her own pursuers.\n\nIn her pocket, Tinfoil Tavistock heartily approved. The juvenile quadruped pointed out it was like that old joke about running away from a bear. She didn't need to be able to run faster than the bear; she just needed to be faster than the other people the bear was chasing.\n\nGuin would have argued she wasn't abandoning Newton or the others, rather she was regrouping and preparing to lead the retaliation. Or she would have done, if she hadn't been sprinting for her life: dodging and weaving around piles of boxes to shake off the main crowd of pursuers. As she ran into a familiar side tunnel, she could hear the shouts of outrage fading into the distance.\n\nShe recognised the first door she came to. It was the toy workshop. She slipped inside, grateful the place was empty, and bolted the door behind her.\n\nAs she got her breath back, she took Tinfoil Tavistock out of her pocket so she could explain clearly how and why, despite the fact she appeared to be selfishly fleeing for her life, she was actually making a tactical decision.\n\nTavistock \u2013 oh, so simplistic Tavistock \u2013 said it was not okay to leave loved ones behind, even if one of them was a bumbling and annoying teenage boy. Guin was swift to explain the situation was far more complex than that, and she didn't expect someone like Tavistock to understand.\n\nOn the workbench, Starfish Eglantine, the plush toy she'd created earlier in the night regarded her with its many eyes as though to say, \"Oh, yeah?\"\n\nGuin tutted. She didn't like it when her imaginary friends ganged up on her."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 77",
                "text": "Through various twists and turns, jumping at sudden sounds and occasionally cowering for his life, Newton eventually found himself in a corner of the reindeer cave. He hunkered out of sight while elves busied themselves, taking Scromdir and Bitber and Dancer and Rudolph and whatever their names were out of their pens to be harnessed up.\n\nOver the crackly tannoy, an elf announced something. Newton did not speak elf apart from the universal greeting \"All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi!\" and he didn't plan on learning any. However, the words coming over the tannoy had a clipped and measured rhythm, a sort of \"The rebel base will be in range in ten minutes\" kind of cadence. Something was very much afoot.\n\nTwo elves entered, herding limping Blinky between them. They were arguing. From his hiding position by a vacant reindeer stall, Newton could see much gesturing towards Blinky's missing leg. Blinky did not seem to be in much discomfort from the lack of a leg. She looked from elf to elf as they bickered, and then she ate one of their hats.\n\nThe elf shrieked in frustration, grabbed its half-eaten hat from her mouth and stomped away. The other, having won the argument but not gained much from it, irritably led the hobbling reindeer past the hidden Newton, through an opening, and returned, moments later, Blinky-less.\n\nNewton had a mental image of what he needed to do. The simple version was find his mum, Guin and Dave and get the hell out of elf-central, in that order. A priority list based on personal familiarity, some deep-rooted chivalric sexism (that he really didn't feel comfortable with) and a nameless thing he saw as a sort of Newton Woollby Personal Vulnerability Scale. However, the list wasn't a simple line. Newton's complex and over-thought mental image took into account what he imagined other people's priorities would be. He was probably near the top of his mum's, possibly on a par with and in danger of being over-taken by Dave (which he stiffly thought was all fine and proper). Dave's would have Guin and Esther vying for top spot. Guin's\u2026 Well, Guin's priorities were unclear. Newton wouldn't have gone so far as to call her selfish but she certainly wasn't the kind of girl ruled by big-hearted selflessness. So Newton's priority list was an odd sort of web in which he featured at the bottom because, well, it was his duty to put others first, but in which he was also raised up by his mum's love for him. One in which Guin was generally of middling importance, but given a super boost by Dave's affections for his daughter and the simple fact she was a child. All of them bumped and bumbled around in the web.\n\nAnimals did not figure in that particular web. Newton loved animals, generally more than he did most people, but they didn't appear in this current real-time crisis priority web. Blinky's fate was notionally unimportant. Blinky was not in the web; she was off to one side. Separated. With a big fluffy cloud drawn around her in pen. And little stars, or possibly rainbows, in highlighter.\n\nBlinky was unimportant, but Newton needed to know what had happened to her.\n\nWith elves focused on getting nearly a hundred zombie reindeer into harnessed teams, it was easy for him to slip out of his position and into the side tunnel Blinky had been taken down. The tunnel ran for some distance, alongside various thick pipes that stank of petrol, before it came out in a poorly lit service chamber.\n\nBlinky was tied up beside a pit. She three-leggedly hobbled round to face Newton. He charitably decided the wild look on her face was a greeting between old friends.\n\n\"I wondered what they'd done to you.\" He reached out with gentle hands. Blinky \u2013 playful as ever \u2013 tried to rip off his fingers. She missed as she over-balanced and stumbled on her three legs.\n\n\"I think,\" said Newton. \"we might need to change your name. Should it be Limpy or Wonky?\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 78",
                "text": "Esther quickly discovered a way of moving through the small tunnel vents, a sort of bent-kneed frog-like super-crouch that allowed her to scuttle along efficiently. She'd also discovered a small string of battery-powered fairy lights which she'd wrapped around her head for light. She must have looked like a weird halo-wearing frog-saint or the world's cheapest R2-D2 fancy dress effort.\n\nWithin minutes of entering the vent tunnels, she realised there was a complex warren of them. They looped between the main caverns, doing their own thing in between. She got the hang of navigating them by looking out for the fairy lights. Where there was a direct passage between the larger caverns there was very often a string of lights she could follow.\n\nAs she approached an opening into a larger cavern, she smeared dirt onto her face for camouflage. She leaned out to see what was happening. Despite having humans running willy-nilly through their nest, the elves seemed mostly focused on their work. In the biggest cavern Esther had yet seen, a large-scale operation was underway. It wasn't just large: it was colossal.\n\nThere were lots of shipping containers. Except they had been crudely fashioned into open-top containers. All of them had sled-like runners welded to their sides, but were presently being transported along the elf's miniature railway line, on relatively tiny carriage beds hidden beneath the containers' bulk. The place was clearly the hub of whatever was being planned, a focus of operations. The containers were being lashed together with some sort of enormous harness. It appeared to be made from metal, wood, leather and various other materials. Esther was well-acquainted with upcycling and re-use. It looked very much as if someone had taken fence posts, traffic lights and every imaginable type of street furniture, and fashioned them together to make a wonky shell to connect all the sled-containers. It gave the entire thing the look of a colossal segmented insect: a centipede in plate armour.\n\nTogether, the train of containers formed a single sleigh, a giant parody of Father Christmas's sleigh at that.\n\nThe armoured sheets along its sides had been indifferently painted in red, and fashioned into a wonky scalloped shape. At the front of the massive vehicle (which was at least a hundred feet long) was a place for the driver to sit: a scrolled front end twenty feet high. All of these facets were clues to the enormous vehicle's cultural origins, but the monstrous thing had as much in common with the traditional Santa's sleigh as \u2026 a wooden sailing boat with a ten-storey Caribbean cruise liner. No \u2013 it was like comparing a sailing boat to a giant cruise liner that had sunk in a storm, been raised up again, and repaired by medieval blacksmiths who had no notion of boat design. It was a gigantic travesty of a sleigh, a bloated and unnatural tumour-growth copy.\n\nEsther wanted to think this industrial monstrosity was a solid metaphor of what had happened to Christmas in this age of selfish commercialism, but witty socio-political metaphors weren't going to help rescue the family.\n\nOne thing that did puzzle her about the sleigh was how on earth the elves expected it to move. True, it currently sat on rails, but the railway line was miniscule, monorail thin compared to its bulk, and there was no engine at the front. There were stubby metal wings on the side, and four great barrels that might have once been aeroplane turbines, although it was hard to tell beneath the mass of fuel pipes and brackets covering them. At the back was another cluster of cylinders, salvaged perhaps from jet planes, or some dodgy space programme. Even with the mass of engine parts. Esther could not believe they alone could give the vehicle sufficient lift. They looked like they would drag it down with their weight, not move it along.\n\nIf this was supposed to be Father Christmas's vehicle then it would traditionally be pulled by reindeer. She thought about the sorry specimen Guin and Newton had ridden on. It would take hundreds of those creatures to move the thing.\n\nShaking her head at the insanity of the elves' endeavour, she backed along the duct, and down one of the narrower spurs of pipe. Through a grille in the floor she saw she was over a corridor tunnel, and a quieter one at that. She couldn't spend the rest of her life crawling around like a wise-cracking, follicly-challenged New York detective. At some point, she'd have to get out, arm herself, find her family and maybe sabotage an elf sleigh along the way. Plus, Pilates or no Pilates, this sort of undignified crouch was starting to do her back in. She lifted away the grille, poked her head out to check the coast was clear, and wriggled through feet first.\n\nOnly superficially gouging her ribs on the narrow opening, she dropped to the ground. No elves in sight.\n\nShe moved swiftly along the corridor. Some of the doors she passed were marked with signs hinting at what lay on the other side. Many were scrawled with Nordic runes of some sort, and she sort of wished she could spend time studying the language and culture of these ancient peoples. Only sort of, because mostly she wanted to smash their faces in for what they had done to her little family, or would-be family. Some doors also featured little wood and pokerwork symbols. She found one marked with a crossed hammer and saw: a workshop of some sort surely. Workshops equalled tools. Tools equalled weapons.\n\nEsther tried the door. It appeared to be locked. She rattled the handle to make sure."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 79",
                "text": "The door to the toy workshop rattled and shook.\n\nGuin made sure the bolts were securely in place. The door rattled a second time. She listened out for sounds of elf chatter, for indications they were going to try and break in or raise the alarm. She heard nothing. There was silence.\n\nOn the bench, Starfish Eglantine regarded her haughtily. You are running away, said Eglantine.\n\n\"I'm not running away,\" Guin told her.\n\nYou're a coward.\n\n\"It's okay to be a coward,\" she said. \"Being scared is normal. People who are scared and run away are the ones who survive. My dad told me that.\"\n\nI'm scared all the time, said Tavistock.\n\n\"And I've got to look after Tavistock here,\" said Guin.\n\nTavistock is just a piece of screwed up tinfoil, said Eglantine.\n\nI am, agreed Tavistock.\n\nYou are trapped in a dangerous place, said Eglantine. You've got nowhere to run away to.\n\nGuin pulled a face. \"Yes, but\u2014\"\n\nBut? said Eglantine.\n\n\"What can I do? There's hundreds of them and only one of me.\"\n\nThere was a voice over the echoing and crackling public address system. \"Taskepta stel\u00f6r bairnsk a\u00f0 hefj\u00e1 fiftt\u00e1n m\u00edn\u00fatur.\"\n\n\"Project something-something in something minutes?\" said Guin.\n\nThey're up to something, said Eglantine. These elves have a plan.\n\n\"What plan?\"\n\nWhat would your plan be if you were stuck somewhere alien, where you were surrounded by hostile idiots and with no friends?\n\nGuin thought. She didn't have to think much. It was a fair description of every day she had to spend at school. Tinfoil Tavistock didn't have to think much either.\n\nHide, said Tavistock without hesitation.\n\n\"I'd make my own friends,\" said Guin, looking at Tavistock.\n\nI don't think these elves are planning on hiding for much longer, said Eglantine. Do you?\n\nGuin thought about the things in the elf lair that just hadn't made sense. The on-going preparations, the piles of present-like boxes, the vast number of reindeer in the pens. Were the elves planning on launching their own Christmas mission, to visit all the children in the world?\n\nWere the elves going out on a colossal diplomatic mission to make friends?\n\nWhat do you think? said Eglantine."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 80",
                "text": "\"You are a good girl, aren't you?\" said Newton as he cautiously petted Wonky Blinky.\n\nNewton peered down into the pit. It was several metres across but it was hard to tell how deep it was, it being almost filled to the lip by reindeer parts. Severed legs and decapitated heads nestled among less identifiable chunks of flesh, organs and hide.\n\n\"Oh, heck,\" Newton whispered.\n\nMuch of the reindeer mix was still, very much as diced deer ought to be, but throughout the pile various bits of undead reindeer wiggled and crawled. Mouths moved, hoofs kicked, flanks rippled, and a length of severed reindeer spine was trying to crawl out of the pit. Newton could feel his knees weakening and the vomit rising in his throat.\n\n\"Okay, man, don't go to pieces,\" he said, turning to Blinky to see if she appreciated this grim quip.\n\nBlinky's reaction was unclear. However Newton did see an elf fast approaching him across the cavern from a stout door he had not previously seen it guarding. It ran at him, waving a flinty-tipped spear and yelling something unintelligible that Newton severely doubted was, \"Here! I would like to present you with a gift of this lovely spear! Can we be friends?\"\n\nNewton tripped in surprise, spinning away from the pit edge and avoided a skewering. He found himself grabbing the spear shaft and, with no real effort on his part, flipping the elf up into the air like a pole-vaulter. The elf-guard came down, squealing, into the pit of reindeer bits. The elf yelled. A reindeer spine wrapped itself around him. A nearby head, sensing food, bit down on the elf's arm. The elf screamed for a second, then something powerful from beneath the surface layer latched onto it and dragged it down, silencing it utterly.\n\n\"Nasty.\" Newton turned to Blinky. \"They weren't planning on recycling you in there, were they?\"\n\nBlinky affectionately tried to bite off Newton's face.\n\n\"Well, I won't let them, old girl,\" he said. \"I think you should come with me.\"\n\nHe crouched at the pit edge and, avoiding a very active loop of undead intestine, reached down and snagged up a leg. It kicked and jerked in his hand and generally tried to pull his arm from its socket.\n\n\"There,\" he grunted, standing up. \"This will\u2014\"\n\nHe was holding a hind leg. Blinky was missing a foreleg. A left foreleg.\n\n\"Hang on.\"\n\nNewton crouched again and fished around. He narrowly avoided the snapping teeth of a severed head, but did come up with a left foreleg.\n\n\"Let's try this.\" He positioned the leg against Blinky, regarding it critically. \"It's a bit long but it will definitely do.\"\n\nBlinky's various body parts were stitched together with a wiry white thread. Newton looked around. If this was the location of the pit of body parts then\u2026\n\n\"Ah.\" The door that the now deceased elf had been guarding across the cavern had a letterbox opening in it. Threaded through was a length of white material.\n\n\"Potentially promising. Ow!\" Blinky bit him on the shoulder. \"Knock that off. I'm going to get some thread and sew your new leg on, you ungrateful creature. Maybe I'll \u2013 stop it! \u2013 get a nose bag and put it over your face, Hannibal Lector-style.\" With a tut and an eye roll for Blinky, he went to get thread.\n\n\"Best foot forward,\" he said to her, waving the wriggling limb.\n\nNewton had revised his plan: get some thread, sew on Blinky's leg, find mum, Guin and Dave (in whatever order the complex web of his priorities deemed appropriate) and then get the hell out of Christmas town.\n\nAs he neared the door, he saw that there was a pair of scissors hanging on a chain next to the door. The white threads poking through the letterbox opening were soft to the touch, slightly greasy, like\u2014\n\n\"Is this hair?\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 81",
                "text": "The elvish voice was making another announcement over the PA. Guin wished she understood the language of the elves a little better.\n\nYou will soon enough, said Eglantine.\n\nThe starfish was right. Guin was certain some horrible, possibly irreversible transformation had come over her. She felt the tops of her ears, which were well on the way to becoming properly pointed elf-ears.\n\n\"Is that how they 'make' friends?\" she mused unpleasantly.\n\nTinfoil Tavistock made it quite clear that she didn't want Guin to turn into an elf. Guin agreed. Bullied and rejected at school or not, she preferred to stay as a girl.\n\nThen she had an idea.\n\nIf she was undergoing some sort of elf transformation, surely she could use it to her advantage? Guin ran to the bins full of clothing remnants and found a red jumper sleeve that, with minor alterations, would make a passable elf hat. She tied off the cuff end, turned it into a floppy pom-pom with some pinking shears and pulled the hat down on her head, making sure she pushed her hair out of sight.\n\nShe allowed her ears to pop out, fairly sure she made a passable elf at a glance. She rootled through the clothing bins to find the gaudiest, elfiest clothes she could, slipping on some children's leggings and a stupid little jacket.\n\nGoing to try and escape in disguise? said Eglantine dismissively.\n\n\"I'm not going to try to escape,\" said Guin. \"Not without my family.\"\n\nEglantine scoffed.\n\n\"Watch,\" said Guin.\n\nIf she was to help the family she needed to be more than just a decent elf facsimile. She needed to become a bona fide elf, preferably one that was respected. Guin was convinced the beard was a symbol of power amongst the elves, so she searched for something beardy. She went to the toy-making workshop, striding purposefully and hoping that Gerd wouldn't be there. Her disguise certainly wouldn't fool anyone who had seen her up close.\n\nShe searched through the supplies. They'd used some sort of stuffing when they made their toy creations. It wasn't the normal, snowy-white kapok you'd get from a craft supplier: something much smellier and organic-looking. It had probably been recycled from past victims. Guin reckoned she could tease beard-like strands from it. She sorted out the best bits, along with some glue to stick them onto her chin.\n\nShe wished she had a mirror to check how she looked, but elves didn't seem to be big on personal grooming. Instead she decided to practise her strutting. If she was to be an important elf she needed to master the art of posturing like the most arrogant of them.\n\nShe marched from one side of the workshop to the other, realising there was a problem. Every self-important dictator that she'd ever seen on the news combined their strutting with a narrative of some sort. While her elf language skills were improving all the time, she was not up to delivering a villainous monologue.\n\nShe tried again. She marched across the workshop making expansive gestures, punctuating her movements with the occasional \"Pah!\" and other dismissive non-words. It was probably as good as it was going to get. She shoved Elsa Frinton's Little Folk in European Folklore book under her shirt for safekeeping and made to leave.\n\nAs she unbolted the door ready to put her elf impersonation skills to the test, Eglantine said she wasn't going to fool anyone.\n\n\"At least, I'm doing something,\" she told the starfish. \"I'm going to get my family and, if I can, stop those elves from doing \u2026 whatever it is they're doing.\"\n\nEglantine sneered, pointing out she was almost certainly doomed to fail.\n\n\"I don't need that kind of negativity,\" said Guin.\n\nIn Guin's pocket, Tinfoil Tavistock did some little quadruped cheerleading and threw in some bold, Go, Guin!s to boot.\n\n\"Okay, a bit too much positivity,\" said Guin and stepped outside."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 82",
                "text": "Dave crept through the hall of Christmas presents. \"Guin?\" he hissed. \"Guin? Are you here? It's me!\"\n\nHe paused. Adding \"It's me!\" to the end of a sentence really added nothing. He gave up on the whisper-shouts and explored the room silently.\n\nBetween the stacks of Christmas presents were various workbenches, equipped with the means to make \u2026 he dreaded to think. There were boxes of eyes and ears on the bench. Human eyes and human ears. They weren't real, but they were unpleasantly soft and malleable. Behind a bench was a massive roller dispenser on which hung a huge roll of peachy-pink material. He reached out and tugged on it. It was like sheets of skin. Artificial skin, he hoped. On the rear wall drooping faces sagged from hooks.\n\n\"Okay, you're creepy.\"\n\nHe picked one up, unable to help himself. It was like a peeled baby face. What was it made from? If the elves had a 3D printer that built models from stuff out of a waste food bin, they would look like this. It even smelled rotten, glistening with a sweaty sheen. Dave wondered if they were hung up to dry. He remembered the elf-baby thing that had surprised him in the market. He dropped the face and wiped his hands in disgust.\n\nComponents and materials to make little people.\n\nThere was a shout from the hall entrance. A team of elves had entered but were not looking his way. One of them gestured to a wheeled pallet laden with boxes. Together, the elves wheeled it away.\n\nLots of little boxes. Weird human body parts.\n\n\"Yeah, this ain't normal,\" Dave said, adding it to the long list of not normal things he'd encountered in the last twenty-four hours.\n\nHe turned to the nearest stack of boxes and pulled down a Christmassy one. It was heavy, with an uneven weight. He'd seen one just like it earlier, but couldn't recall where. He put it on the workbench, untied the bow (feeling momentarily guilty because it was only Christmas Eve morning and not the right time to open a present) and lifted away the snug cardboard lid.\n\nHe pushed aside the shredded paper cushioning the contents. He gasped at the face staring up at him. It was a reasonable copy of a human baby's face, but looked as though someone had taken it out of the mould before it was properly set. The features sagged and oozed in a flesh-coloured nightmare. Lips melted to the left while the nose was oddly flattened and twisted. It was the eyes that held his attention, though. Cold, dead eyes that blended the hollow emptiness of a doll with the soul-sucking malice of the elves themselves. He reached out a trembling hand and moved more of the packaging. It wasn't just a face, there was a body attached.\n\nIt was a toy baby. A toy baby made from badly formed mush.\n\n\"You're enough to give any child nightmares, mate,\" muttered Dave.\n\nFrom nowhere, he remembered something Newton had said back in the hotel room, when the elves had first attacked. He had been babbling nervously about the elves in the market and said something about the baby Jesus in the town nativity open and close its eyes.\n\n\"You one of them dolls that can open and close its eyes, eh?\" said Dave.\n\nThen he recalled where he'd seen a box like this before. Bacraut had brought one onto the stage in the market square, before performing his elaborate mime for the amusement of his underlings.\n\nThe baby in the box blinked at Dave and grinned.\n\nDave dropped the box with a scream."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 83",
                "text": "The workshop marked with the hammer and saw sign was locked but, a few doors down, Esther found something just as interesting. It was a workshop, filled with benches and masses of papery and sparkly materials, and a pervasive sooty aroma. They looked as though they were to make Christmas crackers. A small piece of paper caught her eye and she picked it up. It was a cracker joke. Her breath hitched as she recognised Newton's handwriting.\n\nHow did Good King Wenceslas like his pizza?\n\nShe didn't even need to read the punchline. She put it aside with a sigh and wondered if he'd been here recently. Surely, he would be writing jokes only if someone had forced him to.\n\n\"Or maybe not,\" she said. She knew her boy.\n\nShe moved along the bench and found the tattered remains of a textbook. She read it with interest, as it seemed to contain incomplete instructions for some sort of rudimentary explosive. She opened a chest and hit pay dirt.\n\n\"Well hello, silver nitrate!\" she said, holding up a jar. \"And nitric acid, and ethanol. I wonder what I'm supposed to do with you.\" She put the jars down onto the bench and stared at the book. It did not contain any helpful hints.\n\n\"I suppose,\" she said thoughtfully, \"there's only a small number of ways to combine three substances. Maybe this is one of those times when I just need to wing it.\"\n\nShe dragged a stool across and took an empty dish down from a shelf. \"Let's try.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 84",
                "text": "Guin heard a sharp crack of an explosion from the direction of the workshops, but she didn't break her stride.\n\nThe workshop elf, Gerd, appeared through a doorway, looking stricken, and headed towards the noise. Guin put her hands on her hips and made the angriest non-verbal noise she could manage. She stuck out her chin and tried to convey as much meaning as she could with her harrumph of disgust. Something like \"Why are you running round like an idiot just because there's explosions and bangs going on?\"\n\nGerd muttered an elvish apology and rushed away. Guin was pleased. If she could fool Gerd (even though she was clearly panicking), she could probably fool the other elves.\n\nShe moved on, wanting to find the epicentre of the activity. She needed an audience for her new role. \"All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi,\" she said to herself.\n\nThe next cavern was a small one, with tunnels leading away in several different directions. It seemed to be some sort of junction-cavern. At its centre was an elf in brown overalls, distributing clipboards to a queue of workers.\n\nGuin decided if she was to work her way up the food chain she should take on this supervisor. She marched up to the head of the queue and pushed aside the elf who was next in line. She pointed at her beard with meaning; the elf drifted away without a word. She faced the supervisor and stared hard at him. She brought a hand up and stroked her beard in an ostentatious way. He cringed and dropped to his knees, cowering in subservience.\n\n\"All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi,\" Guin said quietly.\n\n\"All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi,\" shouted the supervisor elf, and all of the elves in the queue, really putting their hearts into it: with raised-arm salutes and small whoops of enthusiasm.\n\nGuin knew that she couldn't leave it there. She faced all of them and raised her arms above her head. \"All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi!\" she shouted.\n\nThey replied again, hollering as loudly as they could, punching the air in excitement. Guin recognised the sentiment: in her mind hearing the chant \"fight, fight, fight,\" that could sometimes be heard in an unsupervised playground. She felt mounting dread: clearly she had issued some sort of bid for supremacy.\n\nAnd she realised the bid for supremacy was not between her and the supervisor elf . She heard the crowd muttering \"Bacraut!, Bacraut!\" The chief elf himself was approaching!\n\nShe held her head high and maintained an attitude of mute superiority. Her fingers found Tinfoil Tavistock in her pocket. Tavistock believed in her."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 85",
                "text": "The doll was alive! The baby with the ugly melted face packed in shredded paper in a Christmas box on a pile of similar boxes was very much alive!\n\nWhen Dave dropped the box the baby thing had rolled out. It certainly was no human baby, and not just because of its hideous face. Its limbs were too spindly, its manner too co-ordinated. Human babies, dolls or real, did not hiss and try to claw people to death.\n\nIt charged at Dave with sinister nimbleness. Dave tried to shoo it away with his foot, but the thing was determined.\n\n\"Nice baby, nice baby,\" Dave whimpered. \"Go to sleep. It's beddy-byes.\"\n\nHe tried, for no sane reason, to recall any lullabies he once knew. It had been years since he had needed to use any. What he really needed was a weapon, and there were none to hand.\n\nHe threw a box of eyes at the creature as he backed away. The baby thing slipped and slid on them momentarily. Dave threw a bunch of ears at it. They had even less effect.\n\nHe was about to pull down sheet after sheet of rolled skin, with the vague plan of wrapping the thing in it until was immobile, but the opportunity passed. The baby thing latched onto his lower leg and began to climb.\n\nDave swatted at it. The thing bit his finger. He snatched his hand away, and the face came with it. \"Oh, God!\" he burbled.\n\nBeneath the baby face was an elf, a small one, but a vile ugly hate-filled elf nonetheless. It licked his blood from its lips and, discarding its encumbering nappy, resumed its climb. It had bitten him, and Dave knew what effect an elf bite had had on Esther. In fact, he could feel (assuming it wasn't just panic setting in) wooziness already coming over him.\n\nWith one hand on the elf's forehead to keep it back, Dave fished for his first aid kit with the other. The zip sprang open and the contents began slipping out. Dave managed to grab a prepped insulin syringe and, with a medical negligence that would have got him fired from his day job, jabbed it in his own thigh.\n\nPulling it out, the next course of action seemed natural. He was being climbed by a malevolent pixie, and he had a sharp object in his free hand. He stabbed the elf in the arm.\n\nAfterwards, Dave could only assume the elf had a bad reaction to the insulin. If the bite of an elf induced a dangerous sugar-rush, perhaps their own blood sugar levels were entirely different to humans. The elf dropped immediately from Dave's leg and began dancing on the floor in squealing circles. It's arm fizzed and melted like chocolate on a hot windowsill. It barely had time to notice the loss of its limb before the remnants of the insulin reached the rest of its body. It sagged, its legs gave way. Its horrified face sank into the sticky cavity of its collapsing body. Finally it pooled on the floor in a brown-pink puddle, like a gallon of toffee sauce. The smell reminded Dave of the lingering smell from an empty tin of car sweets.\n\n\"Sweet mother of\u2014\"\n\nDave checked his first aid kit and the items he had dropped on the floor. He had five full doses of insulin left. Just a droplet had utterly splaticated that one. That was the good news.\n\nIt was a reasonable assumption each of the boxes contained an elf-baby, and each pile contained hundreds of boxes. That was the bad news.\n\nAnd the piles\u2026 The elves had been carting them out for some time, taking them somewhere to be loaded and shipped out. Thousands of elf-babies being sent out into the world, but for what reason?\n\nA word rose in his mind, something Guin had mentioned at the dinner table last night: changelings.\n\n\"Oh, crap.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 86",
                "text": "Bacraut the elf stood in front of Guin. \"Eretta el f\u00e1skorun?\" he scoffed. \"Gekki s\u00e9g haf besta skeggi?\"\n\nGuin knew her best bet was to keep her mouth shut and try to assert her dominance with body language. She had the advantage of being taller than Bacraut, so she sneered down her nose at him and thrust her beard right in his face, drawing imaginary circles in the air with her chin and jabbing it for emphasis.\n\nHe spluttered with annoyance. His tiny fists balled at his sides as he unleashed a stream of abuse. Guin had a pretty good handle on the language of the elves, but this rapid-fire profanity would have been recognisable in any language.\n\nGuin cast her mind across the kind of coolness she had never possessed or craved, but had often observed. The kind of dismissive sass American pop stars could channel so well. She pursed her lips and conjured the nonsense phrases in her mind, letting her eyebrows and head-waggles do the talking.\n\nDon't mess with me sugar.\n\nTalk to the beard.\n\nPut a ring on it.\n\nIt seemed to be working. Bacraut was definitely losing his composure. He visibly quivered with rage. He closed his eyes for a moment; when he opened them again he looked more focussed. He strutted up and down, with some beard moves of his own. He tried the head-waggle, but it didn't really work for him. Guin wondered if elves had a different sort of neck joint to humans. He was a good beard-jabber though. He worked up a rhythm and created a kind of duck-walking dance move, his chin leading the way like an exotic bird. Guin thought back to the ancient pop videos her dad liked to watch and realised that Bacraut was moving like Mick Jagger.\n\nWhen it was time for Guin to move, she had a new idea. This time her entire display was based around her beard remaining still while her head and the rest of her body moved around it. These moves owed more to Loony Tunes cartoons than pop videos, but she was certain she pulled it off. Her chin remained stationary while her body scooted off to the sides, kicking and hip-swaying to an unmistakeable rhythm. Her face was inscrutable while her body did the work.\n\nThe circle of elves shrieked with delight.\n\nBacraut was clearly outclassed. He seemed to be out of ideas. He reverted to the angry screaming again, making the other elves shrink away in fear. Then he stood upright, a thought coming to him. He faced Guin with a look of blazing malevolence. He stood tall and wound his finger into his beard, corkscrewing it right in and then tugging sharply. The challenge was clear: whose beard could withstand being pulled?\n\nGuin wasn't happy at this. She had no idea whether Bacraut's beard was real or not, and even if it wasn't, there was a good chance his was stuck on more securely, or he wouldn't have suggested it. She was prepared to fake a small tug at her own beard, but she had a pretty good idea of what would follow. The next step would be pulling each other's beards, or inviting someone else to do so. She needed to de-rail this train of thought before it went any further.\n\nSeveral ideas collided in her mind. The elves clearly held the beard in great esteem. Christmas seemed to be their life, or religion, or whatever. It was the power of Santa that she was essentially evoking.\n\nShe took a step back from Bacraut. She positioned herself so that she faced both him and the audience for maximum impact. She glared around to be certain she had their full attention, then raised her voice as loud and deep as it would go.\n\n\"HO! HO! HO!\" she yelled.\n\nThe reaction was immediate. Bacraut shrank away. The other elves piled onto him, sensing his weakness. He disappeared from view, although there were gloopy thwacking noises that suggested he might be suffering. Guin strode away, keen to move while she had the upper hand. Several elves ran after her, bowing in a subservient manner. They beckoned eagerly to her. She inclined her head in agreement and left the cavern, following their lead."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 87",
                "text": "Newton tugged at the wisps of hair in the letterbox opening and they came through with ease. Like the allure of a loose scab, or the visible edge of a roll of sticky tape, Newton felt an urge to pull further. As he did so, he thought he heard a voice from within. It wasn't an elf voice. It was deep and full-bodied, even if it was muffled.\n\n\"Hello?\" he said. \"Is anyone in there?\"\n\nThe voice responded, although he couldn't make out what it was saying.\n\nNewton thought about the deep voice, and the hair, and the fact there was an elf guarding the door. Even though he had a list of things to do, with stitching Blinky's leg back on at the top and get the hell out of Christmas town at the bottom, he decided to open the door and see exactly who was inside.\n\nThe door was unlocked. Behind it\u2026 Behind it was a doorway-filling wall of hair. It was white, tinged with grease and age to the faintest of yellows. It sat in clouds and bundles, looping round and round in swirls.\n\n\"Hello?\" called Newton.\n\n\"O-o-o-h,\" said a deep voice, the \"Oh\" rising like a folk singer about to burst into song, or a bad actor about to launch into a Shakespearean soliloquy. \"Oh, dost mine ears hear the voice of an Englishman?\"\n\nNewton tried to push into the mass of hair. He couldn't part it. It was all bound and knotted together. He picked up the scissors hanging on the chain outside the door, but they wouldn't reach. A sharp tug ripped the chain in two. Newton cut his way in like a jungle explorer, except this jungle was hair and he was using scissors instead of a machete.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" he said. \"I'm Newton.\"\n\n\"Would you, sir, happen to have about you such a thing as a cup of mead?\" called the man.\n\n\"I don't, sorry. Dave \u2013 that's my mum's boyfriend \u2013 he bought some at the fair yesterday but I don't know where that's gone. I think it got burned up, or the elves destroyed it.\"\n\nThe voice began to wail, in a manly baritone. \"Oh, those cursed creatures!\" The wailing sounded well-rehearsed, as though more a matter of habit than genuine emotion. \"I did my best, young sir. I did my best.\"\n\n\"I'm sure you did,\" said Newton, not certain at all what he was on about.\n\nHe snipped his way the direction of the voice. The towering walls of hair sprang back into position behind him. There was little danger of being crushed or suffocated by the hair, it being light and airy in nature; but if he lost the scissors or got himself turned around too much, there was a danger of getting irretrievably entangled.\n\n\"I did try to divert their maleficent manner in productive habits,\" said the voice.\n\n\"Uh-huh.\"\n\n\"The devil makes work for idle hands, he does.\"\n\n\"Does he?\"\n\n\"He does.\"\n\n\"O-o-o-h, those elves, with naught to occupy them but whimsy and fairy-wine, would cause all manner of trouble across the land. Spoiling milk, upsetting livestock, ruining the lives of finer folk than I.\" He sobbed momentarily. \"I was such a wicked man. I deserved it. I deserve it all.\"\n\n\"Hang in there,\" said Newton. \"I'm nearly with you.\"\n\n\"There's no saving me. I am grievously wounded.\"\n\n\"You're hurt? It's okay. Dave's a paramedic \u2013 Dave, the one with the mead. He can help you.\"\n\n\"Perhaps with a splash of amber sweetness for a doomed man. I did my best to turn the elves from their given natures. I set them to crafts and construction. I ordered them to bring materials to our dank grotto \u2013 not this place, far to the north, in the high reaches, as far from the cities of man as I could take them \u2013 and set them to carving and sewing and crafting toys.\"\n\n\"Sort of like rehabilitation therapy?\" Newton was getting the craziest idea of who this chap was. Or at least who he thought he was.\n\n\"Rehabilitation? To restore? To give purpose? Yes! Yes! But their inclination towards evil was so strong, as foul and as wicked as mine own weaknesses. They would have us all go out on wild hunts, to snare the unwary, to steal infants. What could I do but go along, to steer their path, to divert their eyes? Did you say you had a cup of mead, fine sir?\"\n\n\"Dave might,\" repeated Newton. \"Probably not.\"\n\n\"I was so thirsty. But no matter how much I drink I am not satisfied. I said as much to my huntsman. 'Bring me a drink, man!' I demanded but he had none and then\u2014\" He sobbed once more. \"I demanded a drink, saying I would be willing to go to hell to fetch a cup. O-o-o-h, is this now mine own private hell?\"\n\n\"Dando!\" exclaimed Newton.\n\n\"What?\" said the man (who must be only a foot or two away now, Newton thought). \"Oh, yes. That was me. At least, I thought it was me.\"\n\nNewton snipped through the final inches, thinking furiously. Guin had mentioned Dando and the Wild Hunt: one of the stories in that book she'd picked up. But this man's tale, of elves and grottos and crafting toys\u2026 Had he really set up the Santa Claus racket to get the elves to do something other than terrorising the countryside. And why were they here? Had Santa/Dando been drunk at the wheel \u2013 that is, the reins \u2013 of his sleigh?\n\n\"Begging your pardon,\" said Newton. \"You must be quite, well, old.\"\n\n\"I am but a shadow of the man I once was,\" said Santa-Dando. \"But I am whole, cursedly so.\"\n\nThe tips of the scissor scraped against stone. Newton pushed aside the curtains of hair in front of him. There was nothing but bare stone wall.\n\n\"Er, Mr Dando, sir?\"\n\n\"Yes?\" said the voice, a little off to the right.\n\nNewton moved along the wall in that direction. He passed a door, not the door he had entered by. Further along from it was a set of shelves. \"Mr Dando?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\nNewton looked along the shelves and saw Dando. To say he had the face of an old man would be to understate the matter and do a disservice to old men generally. Nor was his the face of a corpse. There was life in those cheeks, a light in those rheumy eyes. He had a full white beard, a Father Christmas beard. (Of course he did: he was Father Christmas). It was that beard which had grown and grown and filled this room. Newton found himself pondering how many centuries would have to pass to grow as much beard as this.\n\nThe years had not been kind, but it was clear some supernatural power kept the man alive. This Santa character (Newton had no idea if the Dando myth was medieval or older) must be a least several centuries old, if not longer. Only strange elven magic could explain that. But more significantly, only magic could account for the fact that whilst this beardy man had a wizened and ancient head, he had no body at all.\n\nNo wonder the man was thirsty. Any liquid that passed his lips would be instantly trickling over the shelf."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 88",
                "text": "Esther tried not to think about how hot and tight the skin on her face was. She knew she'd lost her eyebrows in the last blast she'd created. She'd also had to put out several small fires in her hair and clothing. Nonetheless it was a positive result. She'd definitely got the proportions right; the charred chemistry textbook concurred. Keeping the whole thing stable and stopping it going off prematurely was the key.\n\nShe needed to keep the ethanol away from the other chemicals until she wanted the whole lot to blow up. A further search around the workbench revealed that bomb-making wasn't the primary function of this cracker laboratory, so there were no useful containers to safely stop the chemicals from mixing until she was ready. Esther devised a slightly dubious contraption where the ethanol was held in test tubes suspended with string above a box containing the other components. All she had to do was keep it upright and not allow it to be jostled \u2013 even slightly \u2013 and all would be well.\n\nTo disguise the box and give it a bit more rigidity, she wrapped it in red crepe paper and tied it securely with a green tartan ribbon. The bomb was going on that mockery of a sleigh. Not only would that put paid to the elves' inexplicable plans, it would surely create enough of a distraction for her and her family to escape.\n\nSlowly, watchfully, she exited the workshop, and with an awkwardness that only holding a box full of high explosives could generate, she climbed back into the vent system.\n\nOnce she was back in the tunnel, she adapted her previous method of moving around: carefully lifting and repositioning the box in front of her. If she moved too quickly, the test tubes clinked against each other, making her cringe. If one drop fell from a test tube she suspected it would set off the whole thing. She was under no illusions that, in a confined space like the tunnel, the blast would kill her. She moved on through the tunnels, towards the cavern containing Santa's sleigh."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 89",
                "text": "Newton tried to keep his cool while talking to Father Christmas's disembodied head. \"It's an honour to meet you, sir,\" he said.\n\nThe cloudy eyes blinked. \"O-o-o-h, dost mine ears hear the voice of an Englishman?\"\n\n\"Er, yes, it's me, Newton,\" he said, presenting himself into Santa's field of vision.\n\nSanta struggled to focus on him. \"Would you, sir, happen to have about you such a thing as a cup of mead?\"\n\nRight, thought Newton. Either Santa was drunk (how much alcohol would it take to get a disembodied head drunk?) or was suffering with dementia (deeply understandable given his age and circumstances) or the magic keeping him alive didn't extend to giving him much brainpower.\n\n\"You're looking well, sir,\" said Newton kindly.\n\nSanta humphed. \"It's my fine beard. Like Samson of old, it's the source of my power.\"\n\n\"All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi,\" Newton muttered.\n\n\"Indeed.\" Santa sniffled. \"Those wicked wicked creatures. They would rarely do what I told them.\"\n\n\"No elf-discipline,\" said Newton. He couldn't help himself.\n\n\"They gave me life without end in punishment for my godless ways and my beard \u2013 my beautiful beard \u2013 can you see it?\"\n\nNewton turned to survey a room full of beard. \"Yes, I believe I can. You could keep a wigmaker in business for years with all this.\"\n\n\"This beard gives their reindeer the power of flight.\"\n\nNewton nodded, seeing some weird stupid logic in that.\n\n\"And each year, long after I had given up on mending their wicked ways, they forced me into the sleigh, to take the reins. And then, one year, I decided I had had enough. I determined to crash the sleigh, kill myself and all those vile things.\" The wrinkled face frowned, adding more wrinkles. \"I wonder if I would have succeeded.\"\n\nNewton made a face. \"It's \u2026 it's hard to say.\"\n\n\"Tell me, young sir, did you say you had a cup of mead?\"\n\nNewton was about to answer, politely and patiently, when he heard a rattle at the nearest door. He pulled back into the mass of hair. It closed about and concealed him. Through the fog of hair, he could see the shadows of elves enter the room.\n\n\"T\u00edmi tila far a re\u00f0, Dando,\" said one.\n\n\"O-o-o-o-h, please. Not again!\" pleaded Santa.\n\nThere was the shing of heavy scissors and the thump of a heavy object rolling off a shelf.\n\n\"How will I even reach the reins!\" wailed Santa.\n\nThe door closed and Newton was alone. He tries to assimilate all he had heard and learned. He was in a room of magic beard hair; hair that granted reindeer the power of flight. Madness though it undoubtedly was, that didn't mean it wasn't true.\n\n\"Maybe I could build myself a hairyplane,\" he smirked, but jokes weren't as good when there was no one to groan at them.\n\nHe gathered up armfuls of the stuff, cut it away with the scissors, stuffed it up his jumper for safekeeping and went back to find Blinky."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 90",
                "text": "As carefully as she had climbed into the air duct, Esther descended into the vast sleigh cavern. Beyond its front end she saw the tunnel continued. Was that the track leading out into the entrance cavern, and the broad tunnel along which they'd driven the tractor? Had the sun risen outside in the world beyond? Was it now Christmas Eve morning?\n\nIf the elves were planning on launching this thing, then there was still a full day until Christmas Eve itself, and the traditional time for Father Christmas to be about his rounds. She chided herself, reminding herself to think more globally. If it was Christmas Eve morning here then it was only a few short hours until Christmas Day on the far side of the world. If the elves were going to be all logical and begin their insane Christmas flight near the international date line and all those lovely Pacific islands, then launch was surely imminent.\n\nAnother elvish message over the tannoy cemented the idea in her mind.\n\nOnce at ground level, she saw a niche in the rocks where an elderly elf sat at a desk, covered in pieces of paper, some sort of antique adding machine, and things that looked like abacuses. Other elves rushed in and out of this alcove, apparently acting on instructions. Esther crept closer. There were numerous drawings of sleigh sections, and map fragments showing the destination for each one. Badly-spelled labels like Yoorope and Sentrul Asha were scrawled onto some of the shipping containers, so there was clearly a plan for the intended journey. It looked as though this was the logistics planner.\n\n\"Mora oil\u00eda ta\u00f0 ber auxleg oil\u00edu,\" barked the elderly elf to a minion, stabbing a paper. It was marked up with Fool to cross Persifik.\n\nEsther had seen enough. Sabotaging the sleigh looked like the ideal plan. If she fastened the bomb somewhere near the middle, then hopefully it would take out the whole thing when the chemicals mixed. Which they would if the ride was sufficiently bumpy.\n\nShe moved carefully through the cavern. There was lots of cover, but she couldn't afford any sudden movements while she carried the bomb. She made it to the edge of the sleigh and ducked under a runner. She was directly underneath the long vehicle. The heavy containers really did sit on flatbed railway trucks which were really too small for such bulk. She imagined if the elves could manage to haul, or rocket-propel this thing out beyond the extent of their narrow railway, they were hoping it would slide on runners and leave the trucks behind. She couldn't picture it ending as anything other than a horrible train wreck.\n\nOnce underneath, she was able to move almost invisibly along its full length in the gloomy tunnel created by the raised containers overhead. The underside stank of the fuel pooling on the floor.\n\nJudging herself to be near the centre, she squeezed upwards between linked containers, climbing up the mesh of piping and rope and chains (and what was this white thready stuff running over everything like cobwebs?). It was tricky to keep her footing, and not a little claustrophobic, but she persevered. She looked around for a good place to stash the bomb but ultimately decided the best place to hide a gift-shaped bomb was among the gift boxes filling the containers. Even if hers did have a tartan bow that marked it out as different from all the others. She laid the box on the top of the nearest pile and made her way back down, relieved not to have to carry the bomb any more."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 91",
                "text": "Guin's elf deputies delivered obsequious commentary as they ushered her, their new leader, into the grand hall where Newton and she had been forced to participate in elf chorus practice. Now the elves were in full choral mode: a high-pitched and full-throated celebration.\n\nAs she proceeded down the central aisle between candy-cane striped pillars, the voices rose higher in pomp and joy. Guin felt a momentary thrill run through her before realising the songs and the adoration were not specifically for her.\n\nAt the far end of the hall, elves worked beneath the cloth covered shape on the dais.\n\nGuin's underlings chattered enthusiastically. She picked up snippets of words but they spoke too fast for her to fully grasp. Something was done. Something was ready. Pieces were \u2026 in place?\n\nThe choir's song spun to a dizzying finale and the red velvet cloth was ripped away.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said, surprised.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said, bewildered.\n\n\"Oh, my,\" she said, frankly disgusted and more than a little afraid.\n\nIt was Father Christmas, but nothing like the department store Santas most people would expect. No twinkly-eyed old gentleman with a luxuriant beard, a red suit with soft fur cuffs and gloves. No shiny boots and belt with brass clasps. No jolly floppy hat with a white pom-pom.\n\nThis Father Christmas was as tall as a house. Yes, there were boots, great conical hoofs of wood and rotting leather, reinforced to take the weight of the whole. Yes there was a belt, several belts in fact. The torso, bigger than a minibus, had been strapped round and round with rope and leather, all over a frame that was a patchwork of \u2013 was that skin? Was that animal hide? Whatever it was, it looked something like the patterning on a Friesian cow and a lot like the aftermath of a messy surgical procedure. Yes, there was a suit, but where the suit ended and the man began was hard to tell. And as for the head. It was a normal-sized human one, the head of a tired and wizened old man, lashed into place with ribbon and thread. With a pathetic threadbare hat stuck on top. The whole thing had been assembled, reassembled and patched to the point where it looked like a bad art project left out to rot.\n\nThree thoughts fought for dominance in Guin's mind. The first was the view she had expressed to Newton earlier: that a Tinfoil Tavistock, remade from new materials, was still Tinfoil Tavistock. That the materials did not make the individual.\n\nThe second thought was about those islanders who believed if they could build their own make-believe radio sets from coconuts and bamboo, they could call down aeroplanes full of cargo and food. The elves had rebuilt their own Santa Claus, much bigger than before (because bigger was better, obviously) and now in their ridiculous, spiteful, stupid hearts believed what they had made was as good as the original.\n\nThe third thought, simplest of all, was this was a giant zombie Father Christmas, or more properly, a giant Frankenstein's monster of a Father Christmas. Had the bones or body parts of the horrible Mrs Scruples provided the last components?\n\nAs she looked at Santa's head, strangely out of proportion with the rest of the thing, it swivelled to meet her gaze. The eyes were clouded and vacant. She realised the head had turned because there was a pair of elves on Santa's shoulders working his neck joint. They manoeuvred a complex set of wires like master puppeteers. Guin guessed the rest of Santa was animated in the same way, so she stepped clear as the huge figure lurched towards the entrance.\n\nGuin hurried after, overtaking the Santa as it moved between caverns, cheered on by rapturous elves. Guin didn't miss a beat. She waved to the crowd, proudly stepping ahead, as if this was all her doing and she expected the gratitude of the masses for her efforts. The elves loved it. They made enthusiastic whooping noises as she thrust her beard forward and Santa followed, very slowly."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 92",
                "text": "\"There!\" Newton proudly snapped the final piece of thread. Blinky showed her appreciation by trying to bite his face off.\n\nSewing her leg back on had been easier than Newton expected. It was clear the zombie reindeer had very little in the way of pain receptors. Also, Santa's magic beard hair almost leaped at the chance to re-stitch the tripedal creature back together. Newton was sure his mother would have approved of his handiwork, keeping any quibbles about the quality of his stitching to herself.\n\nHe stood from his task. Blinky flexed her leg.\n\n\"Now, we rescue everybody else,\" Newton said, having no idea how to do it.\n\nThere was sound of movement: mass movement from the reindeer cavern along the tunnel.\n\n\"Sounds like everyone's on the move,\" said Newton. \"Let's mingle.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 93",
                "text": "Dave peered out between a gap in the crates and stared at the sleigh. He had followed a consignment of boxed up fake baby elves from one part of the elf complex to here. Babies in boxes, boxes on pallets, and now pallets in open top shipping containers on the back of a sleigh.\n\n[ He crouched on the damp floor and hid behind some unused wooden packing crates ]\n\nThis was on a scale he just couldn't wrap his head around. He thought he glimpsed parts of an aeroplane built into the thing. Something about a long grey part of the frame reminded him of an F-15 fighter jet. And those turbines under the stubby wings must surely have been cannibalised from a downed RAF plane. It was horribly non-aerodynamic, and the tubing and pipes feeding those massive engines must had added several tonnes to the weight. How on earth was it going to get airborne? He dismissed the technical challenge with a heartfelt sigh. That sort of thinking belonged to yesterday, when the world was sane. Right now, he didn't need to know how this monstrous sleigh was going to get airborne, just accept that it would. The elves had constructed a work of magical engineering madness. Clearly they had been planning this for a long time.\n\nThe cavern stank of grease and oil and\u2014 Dave dabbed and sniffed at the puddle at his feet. \"Hell,\" he whispered.\n\nThe whole place was awash with aviation fuel, or something. The cavern was a monumental fire risk.\n\nThere was movement by a side entrance.\n\nA delegate of important looking elves came into the cavern. The foremost one, with a luxuriant beard, waved imperiously at the gathered crowds. Dave thought if he dropped a lit match in this place, he'd be able to take out the majority of the elves and their upper echelons in one act. He'd also be condemning himself to a fiery death in the process.\n\nThose thoughts were pushed out of his mind by the arrival of Father Christmas: a homemade giant on ponderously slow legs. It moved into the cavern like a Day of the Dead carnival monstrosity, a next level Wicker Man.\n\nThat thing deserved to burn, he thought."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 94",
                "text": "As Esther crept away from the sleigh she made a wide detour around the busiest area. Some sort of enormous figure was being led across the cavern and onto the sleigh. With a jolt she realised it was a Father Christmas.\n\nIt reminded her of the worst examples of fairground artwork. Fibre-glass models of clowns, horses and cartoon characters that were supposed to add a sense of fun to the rides, but invariably made them sinister and creepy. Its body was as big as some of the shipping containers, and the tiny head at the top swivelled and stared in a way that was deeply disturbing. An elf swung round the front of Santa's head on a rope. It looked as if were attending to some last-minute maintenance, whether mechanical or cosmetic was difficult to tell.\n\nAt least that would hold everyone's attention while Esther made her exit, but she was keen to see what was going on. She circled round the sleigh to take a look.\n\nA team of reindeer \u2013 God, it must have been a hundred-strong at least! \u2013 was being led up to the front of the sleigh and harnessed up. Two abreast, with a shaft and leather tackle binding them to the monstrous vehicle. Esther felt a momentary pang of self-recrimination as she thought what Newton would say about her blowing up the sleigh with reindeer attached to it.\n\nBut they weren't even real-life reindeer, she immediately countered. And Newton wasn't here to see it. Except he was! She caught a glimpse of his curly mop of hair among the many reindeer.\n\n\"What are you playing at?\" she whispered desperately."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 95",
                "text": "Guin was still trying to process the sight of Santa's sleigh. It was incomprehensibly huge.\n\nOf course, she thought, a massive Santa required a massive sleigh. Like everything else the elves had in this place, it was an unsettling parody of a sleigh. Its enormous size; the badly-executed mess of its construction.\n\nWhile the puppeteered Santa was steered to the front of the sleigh and lowered onto his seat, the elves nearest to her ran through an itinerary for the sleigh's upcoming journey. Maps detailing a route across the world were passed around. Guin was sure the maps weren't quite right. Was Japan actually that shape? And was Australia really that close to India?\n\nAn elf pointed at containers and then the corresponding locations on the map. \"\u00deal turt superlegt?\"\n\n\"Superlegt,\" Guin agreed.\n\nShe became aware of a small scuffle amongst the massive herd of reindeer and turned to one of the elves, an arrogant, questioning look on her face. It scuttled off to investigate.\n\nIt was then she saw a figure by a stack of packing crates by the wall. Her dad! She almost yelled out in delight. He was doing a bad job of hiding but none of the elves had spotted him yet. She gave him a surreptitious waist-high wave."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 96",
                "text": "Dave gasped when he realised his own daughter was the head elf. He was gripped by a terrible fear. She had placed herself among those creatures! Simultaneously he was filled with a chest-swilling pride that Guin was keeping her cool while the elves literally bowed down before her and obeyed her every command. She was smart, and far more adaptable than he'd given her credit for: fitting in as if she'd been born to it.\n\nSeeing she had his attention, she made a number of subtle gestures. She pointed at herself and the sleigh and made a swooshing fly-away motion.\n\nDave nodded.\n\nHe didn't exactly approve of taking a ride on that thing. Elf-Airways looked like they had a horribly slapdash approach to vehicle maintenance and air safety. He looked around, saw all the elves were principally occupied with either the Father Christmas creature, the reindeer or the packing of yet more shipping containers, and dashed across the cavern floor to the sleigh. He slipped between two container crates (nearly tripping over some of the cable mesh binding the whole thing together in the process) and climbed on board in the shadow of a patched up jet engine."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 97",
                "text": "Guin watched her dad break from cover and head for the sleigh. She would have watched him longer, but a band of elves was marching back from the ranks of reindeer. Newton was held between them. One held a knife to his throat, or would have done if it was tall enough. It actually held a knife to his kidneys.\n\n\"Hanst mi\u00f0 reind\u00fdrum,\" an elf said.\n\nGuin nodded, understanding.\n\n\"Guin!\" said Newton, recognising her. \"It's me!\"\n\nHan\u00f0ur a\u00f0 die!\" asked another elf.\n\n\"What happened to you? Did they turn you into an elf?\"\n\nGuin wished the boy would shut up. She stayed in character.\n\nAn elf made a slicing motion with its knife. \"Drepan staba n\u00fa!\"\n\nGuin nodded in full agreement and held out her hand for the knife.\n\n\"Mi\u2014\" She tried to order in her mind what little she knew of the elf language. \"Mi slautra him-ni myssj\u00e1lf.\" She sneered at Newton and indicated the elves should hand over the prisoner to her.\n\n\"Please don't,\" said Newton. \"Guin. It's me. You're Guin, remember?\"\n\nShe gestured for the elves to put him on board. When one of them queried her, she scowled at him and made a surprisingly effective finger-walking pantomime to suggest she was going to throw him overboard once they were airborne.\n\nThe elves cackled.\n\n\"No, please,\" said Newton. \"You shouldn't have eaten all that reindeer moss! You don't know what it's done to you!\"\n\nShe gestured for the elves to take him away. Newton kicked and wriggled.\n\n\"There's no point struggling,\" she squeaked in her best attempt at an elf attempting English. \"We are going to sleigh you.\"\n\nNewton looked at her. She gave him the smallest wink. The teenager's eyes lit up. He still struggled, but now it was an act. He allowed himself to be dragged up a ladder and onto the sleigh's steering platform."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 98",
                "text": "Esther was having trouble processing what she was seeing.\n\nDave had just scurried into the rear section of the sleigh. Further ahead, though mostly out of sight, she had seen her son taken at knife-point onto the front of the sleigh and (although it had taken her long enough to realise it) the bearded elf with him was little Guin.\n\nHer family, through accident rather than design, were now all aboard the sleigh. All of them, all in one place and with the means of escape. Which was brilliant, except for the fact Esther had just planted a bomb on the sleigh.\n\nWhat was she to do now? Could she get her family off, or could she remove the bomb before it departed? Both options were fraught with risk. Esther couldn't face the idea of choosing the wrong one. She sighed: the only thing to do was to get back on the sleigh and get to the bomb as quickly as she could. If she disassembled it, at least she could buy some more time.\n\nShe climbed under the rear of the vehicle, picking her way carefully along the length of the sleigh."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 99",
                "text": "From atop the sleigh Guin spotted Esther and smiled. They were all here, so if she could get the sleigh to fly them out of here, all would be well. Once they were outside, they could dump the sleigh and put a stop to the elves' stupidity.\n\nSanta was now front and centre of the sleigh. The cockpit area was a gigantic bench in front of a foot well as deep as she was tall. Fat reins of woven white fibres ran hundreds of metres from the lead reindeers to the lip of the sleigh. The reins were clamped into Santa's meaty hands. Arranged on what could only be called the dashboard were numerous buttons, levers and dials. They had clearly been ripped from other machines and welded or taped into place. They must, she assumed, link to the wires and tubes to the engines further back on the vehicle.\n\nHigh above, the zombie Santa's jaw worked up and down as if it had just remembered how to chew.\n\nNext to Guin, bound and guarded by elves, Newton murmured, \"It's Dando, the man taken by the elves and the Wild Hunt.\"\n\nSanta's eyes rolled, and as much as a decapitated head could strain, his head strained. \"Would any of you good sirs happen to have about you a cup of mead?\" it asked hoarsely.\n\nAn elf up on the shoulder of the meat puppet slapped the head to shut it up.\n\nGuin decided the head was just freaky. Tinfoil Tavistock gently reminded her that she shouldn't be hasty to judge others. She turned her attention to her elves and indicated that they should leave now.\n\nThey consulted each other in alarm. \"\u00dea\u00f0er mora ah lada!\" one argued.\n\nShe made a dramatic slamming gesture to show that she was not waiting for anything else to be loaded. \"Vi\u00f0 \u2013 um, go? \u2013 fara n\u00fan!\"\n\nShe expanded on it with wild circles she hoped expressed the near-impossible task of going around the entire earth in the course of one night. They elves bowed and withdrew, shouting that they should finish up to the loading teams.\n\nShe whispered aside to Newton. \"You think you can steer this sleigh?\"\n\n\"What?\" he whispered back.\n\nShe was about to discreetly suggest driving a sleigh must be quite like riding horses when there was a shout from behind. Bacraut was approaching across the cavern floor. He was in bad shape. The beating he had received following her leadership challenge had left him bruised and limping. His wounds were the sticky red of cranberry sauce.\n\nHe yelled at her almost incoherently. She thought it was just a matter of revenge but then she realised he was pointing towards the back of the sleigh.\n\n\"Ik m\u00f3\u00f0er!\" he yelled. \"Ik m\u00f3\u00f0er en \u00e1 sle\u00f0!\"\n\nGuin realised Esther had been spotted. Bacraut and the elves on the floor raced towards the sleigh.\n\n\"We've got to go!\" yelled Guin.\n\n\"What?\" said Newton.\n\nShe pulled at his bonds and freed his arms. \"Fly!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 100",
                "text": "Newton grabbed the reins. They were crazy heavy but Newton was able to lift one and send a small ripple down it to the front reindeer.\n\n\"Go!\" he yelled. \"Mush! Yah!\"\n\nAhead, reindeer shifted listlessly. The front-most one walked a little.\n\nAn elf, seeing what he was up to leapt down from the giant Santa body. Guin intercepted the elf and grabbed it, diverting its trajectory so that it pitched over the side of the sleigh.\n\n\"Go!\" she yelled.\n\nNewton was gripped with a mad and sudden notion. The reins were made of Father Christmas beard. It was the hair that gave the reindeer the power of flight, yet it was human blood that had propelled Blinky upwards. Life blood and magic hair.\n\nHe picked up a dropped elf blade, stabbed his own hand (perhaps more enthusiastically than necessary) and smeared the blood on the reins, shaking them again.\n\n\"Ya! Onward Blinky!\" he yelled. \"On Scromdir and Bulta\u00f0a! On Sleipnir and Kicgut! Hlager and Paugir and, er, Dancer and Prancer and \u2026 all of yous! Mush!\"\n\nThe power of Santa's magic flowed down the ropes. The reindeer moved. The sleigh jolted, sluggishly resisted and then, with a massive Titanic hitting the iceberg groan, began to move forward."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 101",
                "text": "It was disconcerting to be beneath the sleigh as it started to move. Chains clanked and twisted. The container above Esther's head moaned like it was full of ghosts. The flatbed truck next to her struggled: over-burdened wheels turning and grinding on the rails.\n\nShe did not want to be here when the sleigh built up speed. The bomb could explode at any moment. She needed to get to it as quickly as possible, or get herself and the three surviving humans in this town as far away from it as possible.\n\nShe ran forward to the next intersection between sledge carriages and began to climb."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 102",
                "text": "From his position high up on the front of the sleigh, Newton could see the confusion among the elves in the cavern. The sleigh was hauling out: many of the elves cheered. Hats were whipped off and either waved or tossed in the air.\n\nElsewhere, urged on by the hobbling Bacraut, other elves were running to the vehicle, clambering up onto its side.\n\nAmid this confusion, other elves just focused on their jobs. Cargo-loaders attempted to thrust last minute parcels on board. Reindeer handlers encouraged their beasts forward. Santa puppeteers puppeted.\n\n\"We've got to go faster!\" said Guin. \"They're going to catch us. Isn't there a whip?\"\n\nNewton looked at her horrified. \"Whip them? I'd never use a whip on Lily.\"\n\nShe looked back at him with equal horror. \"Who uses a whip on their girlfriend?\"\n\n\"Lily's my horse!\"\n\nGuin frowned. \"You said she had an Instagram account.\"\n\nEven in the panic of escape, Newton felt it vital he fish out his phone and flick to the app. \"Horses can have Instagram! Look at her!\"\n\nHe was struck once more by the thought that, unless they did something about this current situation, not only would his family, old and new, be dead, but he would never see Lily again. Nor Yolanda who worked at the farm.\n\nHe scanned the instruments before him. There were any number of switches and toggles. It would be dangerous if he just flicked some at random.\n\nBut there were four in a row marked TURBINS. One to four. That seemed promising. He flicked them all. Far, far back something started to whine. Emboldened, he saw another labelled AFTABURNA. He flicked that too."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 103",
                "text": "A light appeared in the jet cylinder directly in front of Dave's face. A slow, lazy, stupid part of his brain thought it was a pretty light; a nice orange glow. Fortunately, a quicker and cleverer part of his brain leapt in and made him slip into the gap between cargo containers before the jet roared into life, sending out a super-heated column of air. A third part of his brain, quick but perhaps too busy scoffing at the first part of his brain, made him grab onto some support before the container accelerated.\n\nThere was loud and screeching and shunting as the train, originally pulled by reindeer at the front, was now being pushed by jets from the rear. The whole vehicle accelerated beyond walking speed into a respectable run. If it didn't tear itself apart on take-off, it might actually get up to flying speed. Dave wasn't sure how he felt about flying speed.\n\nHe climbed between rattling carriages and crested the top of the foremost container.\n\nAhead, the leading edge was heading towards a tunnel that was just tall enough and wide enough to let the vehicle through without decapitating Father Christmas or ripping off the bolted on additions to the side of the craft. He looked back. His heart leapt as he saw Esther awkwardly making her way across the tops of the container vehicles.\n\n\"Christ,\" he whispered, seeing her pick a way over piles of elf-baby boxes. She might as well be trying to tiptoe across the eggs of velociraptors, or aliens, or whatever horror they best equated to. Eggs that were absolutely ready to hatch.\n\nThere was a shout behind him: a half-second warning of attack. He whirled, immediately leapt upon by a trio of elves. As they grabbed him, he lost his footing. All four of them fell through the ropes and webbing between carriages. Dave snagged on a rope, stopping his fall. Two of the elves clung on. The third fell onto the rails and with a thump was gone from sight.\n\n\"Get off me, you idiots,\" yelled Dave as though it might have some effect. \"It's dangerous to mess about on trains.\"\n\nOne elf, fallen against a chain in an awkward position, was fighting to free his knife. The other was attempting to throttle Dave with hands too small for the job. Dave's groping fingers found one of his insulin syringes. He stabbed the would-be throttler. Jabbering in panic as it started to melt, the creature fell away. The remaining elf had finally drawn its knife. It swung at Dave.\n\nHe booted it hard. It nearly flew out of the side of the gap but clung onto Dave's shoe.\n\nHe angled his leg round. Without proper consideration for his foot, he presented the dangling elf to the roaring jet flame. For an instant, its lower half was alight, like a marshmallow over a campfire. Then it was gone, whipped away by the jet's power, leaving Dave with a smoking hot foot."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 104",
                "text": "Watching the elves trying to storm the accelerating sleigh, Guin saw a bundle of fire fly out from the vehicle's side some distance back. Was that an elf?\n\nThe moment it touched the ground, flames sprang up around it. The floor all across the cavern had smelled sort of petroly. Now it didn't just burn;:it exploded.\n\nElves that had been cheering and waving their hats were now running and bursting into flame. Guin's attention flicked to all manner of pipes and barrels around the cavern. If the fire reached any fuel containers, either in the cavern or worse, on board the sleigh\u2014\n\n\"Faster!\" she yelled to Newton.\n\n\"We are!\" he shouted back.\n\nThere was a sucking whoop of air as they plunged into the tunnel. The yellow glow of the blazing cavern was replaced by the gloom and streams of fairy lights in the tunnel. Enclosed, the clatter of undead reindeer hoofs and the rattle of the godawful sleigh on its tracks were amplified.\n\n\"\u2014meant to be a silent night!\" Newton shouted.\n\nGuin didn't hear the beginning of that joke. She assumed it wouldn't have been worth the bother.\n\n\"I'm going to find our parents!\" She climbed up past Father Christmas and into the gap, no more than three or four feet high, between the top of the sleigh and the rock roof.\n\nTowards the rear, the fire was an orange halo, making a silhouette of the train. It sort of looked like it was chasing them."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 105",
                "text": "The fire was chasing them, Esther noted. The exploding fireball that had taken out the cavern was now racing to overtake the sleigh. Boxes in the rearmost container were steaming as the pursuing flames cooked them.\n\nWherever the bomb was (she was sure it was much further forward) it was too late to look for it.\n\nShe staggered forward and leaped the gap between the carriages and threw herself down just as the last portions of the train plunged into the tunnel. She didn't pause to collect herself. She didn't wait. She crawled forward over a sea of uneven cardboard boxes as fast as she could.\n\nAs she reached the front of the next carriage, something reared up through the gap. She punched it in the face as it stabbed her in the shoulder.\n\n\"Ow!\" said Dave with feeling.\n\n\"Ow!\" she replied. She looked at her shoulder. In the light from passing fairy lights, she could see there was a syringe stuck in it. Dave was suddenly contrite and pulled it out.\n\n\"Ow!\" she said again.\n\n\"It's okay,\" he said. \"It's only insulin.\"\n\n\"That wasn't the problem,\" she said, kissing him fiercely because it seemed absolutely the right thing to do. \"Why insulin?\" she said.\n\n\"It makes the elves go squish.\"\n\n\"Is that a medical term?\"\n\nThey looked at each other.\n\n\"There's a bomb on this sleigh,\" she said'\n\nAt the same moment he said, \"The boxes are full of changelings.\"\n\nThey exchanged looks and said, \"What?\" simultaneously.\n\n\"I was trying to blow the sleigh up,\" Esther explained.\n\n\"With us on it?\"\n\n\"I didn't know at the time. Changelings?\"\n\n\"Yes. They're\u2014\" He pointed behind her. \"Those.\"\n\nElves in hideous baby disguises rose up from the rear container carriages. Tired of being cooked alive by the encroaching flames, perhaps. Esther didn't know if their disguises had been hideous from the start or whether the fire had melted them. Either way, the dozens of creatures stalking towards them, crouching a little to avoid the tunnel roof, looked nothing like actual babies. Noses drooped. Eyeballs slid down cheeks.\n\nEsther stared. \"Are those \u2026 brown baby elves?\" She would have used some form of ethnically appropriate description, but there weren't many clues to latch onto.\n\n\"They're going to drop changelings all over the world,\" said Dave. \"Got to blend in.\"\n\n\"But that's wildly racist,\" she said, appalled.\n\nDave made the kind of noise that would normally had ended with him pointing out yes, it was wildly racist, but the racism in this situation was perhaps a lesser issue than the greater elf-changeling-horror. Esther would have been forced to point out that racism needed challenging wherever it appeared, regardless of context. There was no time for such a conversation, and she was enraged.\n\nRage lent her a casual bravery, she raised her hand and with careful fingers (she didn't want to lose her fingers or her hand or her life) felt out for the next band of fairy lights they passed under. Her fingers snagged a row. There was enough grip in her hands and momentum in their passing for her to pull the wiring down. Pinging the lights from whatever nails and hooks held them in place, before the wire was ripped from her grasp.\n\nThe string of lights, swinging low, scythed along the train roof and through the approaching changelings. Several were ripped in half. Most were scooped up and hauled off the roof of the train and into the pursuing fireball.\n\n\"Man!\" said Dave. \"That was\u2014\"\n\n\"I'm sorry you had to see that. It's just\u2014\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah. Racism. I get it. Now, you were mentioning a bomb.\"\n\n\"Wrapped up like a present. Tartan bow.\"\n\n\"And you made it?\"\n\nShe heard the disbelief in his voice. \"I followed the instructions!\"\n\n\"Oh, right,\" he said. \"We'd best find it then.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 106",
                "text": "Guin crawled over container roofs towards the rear of the train. The noise around her, now including the whirling shrieking jet turbines, was deafening. If they survived this situation, she'd be able to play the \"I'm sorry I didn't hear, I was deafened\" card for several years to come.\n\nAgainst this constant howl it was hard to tell, but she thought she heard booms and bangs from deeper within the hillside. Was that the train shaking, or the whole cave system?\n\nThe train burst out of the tunnel and into the storage cavern where she and Newton had been tied up and tried to escape on the miniature train. Guin hoped the train had been moved off the track or else this journey was going to end quickly and nastily.\n\nShe was distracted by the view across the cavern. From other tunnels gouts of exploding gas and fuel burst into the cavern, consuming stacked market stalls, piles of supplies and hundreds of hanging sausage links. Elves tried to flee the cataclysm but had no chance of outrunning the flames.\n\nHer view of the destruction was whipped away from view as the sleigh re-entered a tunnel. The final tunnel before they were outside.\n\nAn elf, its hat scorched (the pom-pom still smouldering) charged at her over the container roof. She tried to rise to meet it, but there wasn't enough room for her to stand without braining herself on the ceiling. In this space, being short was an advantage.\n\nThe elf cackled, seeing her disadvantage and swung its knife. Guin fell onto her back. The elf came at her. She caught it in the belly with her feet and rolled onto her shoulders, lifting the elf up until it made contact with the ceiling. It fell away in a mushy mess.\n\nThere were some advantages to being taller."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 107",
                "text": "Up ahead, reindeer stumbled and crashed against obstacles in the tunnel. Newton saw more than a couple of severed zomdeer legs go flying, but the herd kept going, hauling both sleigh and their fallen comrades along.\n\nThere was a change in the air buffeting Newton's face. He realized they were outside, fairy lights in the tunnel replaced by stars in a cold winter sky. He could see barely any distance ahead. There was the shape of trees, the slope of a hillside below him, and the suspicion the railway track still carrying the sleigh would run out in a matter of seconds.\n\n\"Up! Up!\" he pleaded with the reindeer and shook the reins.\n\n\"Uppa! Uppa!\" shouted Santa above him. \"Fl\u00fag mi hreind\u00fdrum! Fl\u00fag!\"\n\nThe reindeer responded better to his commands than to Newton's. He could feel the power flowing through the reins now: whatever magic powers Santa's beard provided. The leading edge of reindeer were no longer galloping through snow but curving up through the air, pushing through the upper branches of the trees above the town of Alvestowe."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 108",
                "text": "As the carriage beneath him rocked and lifted, Dave shouted out to Esther to hold on. She'd gone ahead to the next container to look for the bomb, while he searched this one. Boxes tumbled about around him. If the bomb's components were as delicate as Esther had claimed, he was surprised it hadn't gone off yet. Not that he was doubting her bomb-making skills, particularly if was following instructions. Especially if they were authentic instructions (and Dave felt that O-level Chemistry textbooks would be very authentic indeed).\n\nA violent noise made him look back. The last two containers had not yet been lifted off the ground. Reaching the end of the railway line, they bounced and scraped along the forest floor, bucking and twisting and throwing parcels and awakened elf-changelings everywhere.\n\nThis sight alone should have been enough to arrest anyone's attention but Dave's was drawn further back to the tunnel and the hillside. Pillars of flame and exploding debris shot out of the tunnel mouth and from sinkholes all across the mountain. In the grey pre-dawn, they were flashes of white and orange against the gloom. The boom of explosions was swiftly superseded by the sound of a cavern-riddled, snow-covered hillside collapsing in on itself. As ancient geological structures caved in, boulders were flung into the air, the whole forest shuddered and the thick layer of snow gave up its grip on the hillside and began to flow down towards the town.\n\n\"Avalanche!\" he yelled."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 109",
                "text": "Esther had to brace herself as the container she was crossing tilted upwards at a sharp angle.\n\nThey were flying! They were actually bloody flying!\n\nIt was exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure. She made a quiet mental note to appreciate being present at this ancient annual ritual when she had enough wherewithal and calm to appreciate such things.\n\nBehind and below them, an avalanche of snow and rock swept over the town. The United Kingdom rarely had sufficiently high peaks or deep snowfall to make such things possible, but it appeared a catastrophic explosion underground was just the ticket to bring white death to rural England. In the low light, she saw the destruction of the town as silhouettes of black against white.\n\nThe avalanche swept around the church. Moments later, the tower spire tilted and fell. The wall of snow powered on into Alvestowe, tearing down alleys and streets, slicing through the brickwork and doors of houses which had stood for centuries. The marketplace, along with the nativity, the rides and the remaining stalls, was demolished in an instant. The cascade rolled on down the hill to the river gorge. Gone were the shops. Gone was Mrs Scruples' horrible hotel. Gone were the riverside barns and, she guessed, the remains of Dave's car. The old humpbacked bridge, the only route into the town, buckled under the snow and rock as the avalanche dashed itself against the far side of the shallow gorge.\n\nGone, all gone.\n\nEsther felt a genuine sense of loss at the destruction of such a beautiful little town. The people \u2013 the humans \u2013 had either left at the close of the market or been turned into sausages long ago, but the death of the town itself was still a crying shame. And yet, she reminded herself, with the cave system gone and the town destroyed, the only elves left were the ones on this sleigh.\n\nAhead and flapping erratically was a blur of red and blue feathers. It was King Leopold of Belgium, Mrs Scruples' parrot. It flew in a desperate panic in a southerly direction, driven off into the winter morn.\n\n\"Sorry!\" Esther yelled to it.\n\nShe thought she heard it squawk something back. It was indecipherable and probably too rude to repeat."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 110",
                "text": "The reindeer's flightpath levelled out without much intervention from Newton. He was a terrible judge of distances but guessed they were at least a hundred metres above the ground. The landscape ahead of them, frosty fields cut through with winding roads, whipped by at speed. Either dawn had arrived without him realizing, or height had given them a sneak peek over the curvature of the earth. There was definitely light in the sky, and they were flying into the sunrise: east. South-east. Ish.\n\nThe reindeer, getting into their stride, were running hard and still accelerating.\n\nIf Father Christmas really did fly all around the world in one night then he would have to travel at several hundred miles an hour. Newton wouldn't want to be at the exposed front end if and when that happened.\n\nNewton shouted back as loud as he could. \"You all right back there? Mum? Guin?\"\n\nThere was no reply. He hardly expected one. He'd have to go and look.\n\n\"Flying is always thirsty work,\" shouted Santa from above him. \"Would anyone happen to have a cup of mead on them?\"\n\nNewton looked up, prepared to give another polite and apologetic \"No\" to the severed head. As he did, he saw two elves climbing down from their Santa-steering positions, finally aware there was an interloper on board.\n\n\"Ah,\" said Newton. \"Now, can we just talk about this?\"\n\n\"Friends! Friends!\" called Santa. \"Let's discuss this over a drink, eh?\"\n\nThe nearest elf dropped on Newton. He grabbed it and the pair of them rolled in the foot well."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 111",
                "text": "The sleigh bucked in the air as it flew, the loosely-coupled containers rolling in a wave.\n\nAt the top of each arc, Guin had to hold on to something solid to avoid being lifted into the air by her own momentary weightlessness. She would have shouted at Newton to keep the thing steady, but she guessed she'd be no better at steering the thing than him.\n\nThey were racing over the English countryside, flying into the on-coming dawn. They zipped over a motorway and, for a few seconds, the countryside beneath them was replaced by the greys, red and greens of a still-sleeping town. Far ahead, electricity pylon towers marched across their path, frozen giants strung with heavy wires. Surely, Newton had spotted those?\n\nOne thing at a time, she told herself. Once she was happy her dad and Esther were on board she could go forward and give Newton all the advice he needed.\n\nAt the top of another wave, she clung to the fuel pipe on the side of the container. All the boxes and bags in the container beneath her lifted off the ground for a second. Her stomach flipped as gravity momentarily lost its hold on her. It was a disconcerting feeling. In her pocket, Tinfoil Tavistock gave a whoop of joy. This was both uncharacteristic and unhelpful. Guin suspected her brain was more than a little out of sorts.\n\nGravity resumed, Guin continued heading back along the sleigh. Blurred in the buffeting wind, she saw indistinct, moving shapes. That one did look like Esther. She looked like she was rummaging through the parcels. Whatever for? Was Guin's dad down there?\n\n\"I've found it!\" came a wind-whipped shout from even further back.\n\n\"Dad!\" yelled Guin.\n\nEsther looked up. A moment later she pointed. As the sleigh's sinuous flightpath threw in another moment of weightlessness, Guin looked round.\n\nBacraut and the workshop elf, Gerd, had come up behind her.\n\n\"Gr\u00edppa ha!\" snarled Bacraut, limping horribly.\n\nGerd leapt at Guin, knocking her over with her bulk. Guin came down heavily on the cardboard boxes.\n\n\"\u00de\u00fa er veek gela, ya daft apeth,\" grinned Gerd, drawing her knife. As Gerd pressed it again Guin's throat, Bacraut lurched forward and ripped the beard from Guin's chin.\n\n\"Ow!\" said Guin, indignantly.\n\nBacraut pressed the beard to his own chin and straightened as though the beard would fix all his ills and injuries. He frowned, tried detaching and reattaching the beard. It was not having the desired effect.\n\n\"Hva er \u00feet crudl? Wull?\" he demanded.\n\n\"It's toy stuffing!\" said Guin.\n\nBacraut threw the fake beard aside. It was gone with the wind. Guin tried to wriggle from under Gerd but the horrible elf had her pinned.\n\n\"\u00c9g\u00e6t af\u00e1 skeggi,\" said Bacraut.\n\n\"Og h\u00fa?\" said Gerd.\n\nBacraut sneered disdainfully at Guin. \"Slautu ha! Kasta he aff hislei!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 112",
                "text": "It must be the bomb, thought Dave, carefully levering out a box wrapped in red paper with a tartan bow. It was the odd one out among a sea of shiny Christmas boxes. Esther had wedged it in deeply, held in position by the surrounding boxes. Otherwise, if it was as Esther had described, it should have surely exploded by now.\n\nDave did not like bombs. He'd not encountered an honest-to-goodness bomb in real life, but he had attended enough hoax bomb calls to know the terrible heightened sensation of being close to capricious death. He'd also had training for what do if a bomb was discovered at the ambulance station or hospital. As he recalled, the role of the designated fire marshal was to stay with the bomb at all times and describe what it was doing until the police arrived. An unenviable job.\n\n\"Well, yes,\" said Dave as he lifted it free of the other boxes. \"The bomb is a red paper box, officer.\"\n\nHe began to carefully climb up to the lip of the container, pushing the box ahead of him. If they were passing over open countryside or, better still, water he had every intention of tossing it overboard.\n\n\"It looks professionally constructed, officer. My girl Esther is a semi-pro parcel wrapper. Oh, the bomb? Just some chemicals she found in a lab.\" He tutted and rolled his eyes. \"I know, women, eh? Always cooking something up.\"\n\nHis foot snagged. He shook it, but it wouldn't come free. He looked down.\n\nA spindly arm had snaked out of a nearby box and grabbed him.\n\n\"Back to bed,\" he hissed at the changeling. \"We're not there yet.\"\n\nAnother arm forced its way out of another box and clutched at his trousers. All around, boxes shifted and rocked. Sharp nails picked at and sliced through the ribbon holding box lids in place."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 113",
                "text": "Hearing Dave call that he'd found the bomb, Esther would have gone back to assist. Except Guin was having trouble with a couple of elves two carriages ahead. One was sitting on her with a blade in its hand. They were dangerously close to the edge, above the huge drum cylinder of a roaring turbine engine.\n\nThe other elf was determinedly making its way forward to the front of the sleigh. Esther's thoughts leapt to Newton. Of course, he'd be up at the front, with the reindeer. If they survived this experience, what were the odds of him asking her for a pet reindeer? What were the odds of her buying it for him? What were the odds of it then having its own Snapchat or Tumblr account or whatever?\n\nEsther stumbled forward as quickly as she could.\n\nNinety percent of her brain was filled with worry and dread for the safety of her family. Ten percent was madly occupied with the wish Newton would just ask out that stable-girl Yolanda. Having a girlfriend must surely be cheaper and more fulfilling than owning a horse. Or a reindeer."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 114",
                "text": "Newton was not a fighter, he didn't believe in fighting. So when he punched the elf in the face and threw it off the side of the sleigh, he shouted a heartfelt apology after it. The next elf dropped on him before he'd even got to his second \"Sorry\". It battered him with its tiny fists.\n\n\"Listen,\" said Newton, \"we don't have to be enemies \u2013 ow! \u2013 We can just discuss our differences and find some common \u2013 ow! \u2013 don't do that!\"\n\nIt was clearly in no mood to listen.\n\nHe hauled himself up and looked over the lip of the sleigh. The reindeer had been heading on a course that flew high over the electricity pylons ahead. They had drifted while Newton was distracted.\n\n\"We have to do some course corrections,\" Newton said to the elf. \"Stop hitting me!\"\n\n\"Slautra alla menk!\" shouted the elf.\n\n\"I don't know what that means!\" Newton yelled back, hauling on the reins to make the reindeer pull up. \"Santa! Can't you steer this thing?\"\n\n\"O-o-o-h, I appear to have lost all feeling in my hands,\" wailed Santa's head.\n\nWell, yes, thought Newton. Santa's hands were just works of meat sculpture, constructed by a tribe of mad elves who had crash-landed here decades if not centuries ago. Why would they work?\n\n\"One might regain some sensibility if you happened to give me\u2014\"\n\n\"I don't have any mead!\" shouted Newton and traded blows with the elf."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 115",
                "text": "Guin did not have the bodily strength to hold off Gerd for much longer.\n\nThe elf leaned down with all her weight, pressing the knife closer to Guin's throat. \"\u00dea\u00f0er syn sham,\" spat Gerd. \"\u00de\u00fa haf madir g\u00f3o\u00f0 \u00e1lf, bugalugs.\"\n\n\"Eg ne ekki \u00e1lf,\" Guin grunted. \"It's hard enough being a girl!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 116",
                "text": "Dave was lacking hands. He had a bomb in one. He had an insulin syringe in the other.\n\nHe was successfully fighting off elf-babies (these were slightly less racist, olive-skinned babies, possibly destined for the Mediterranean or Latin American). He was successfully holding the bomb aloft in a gentle grip. What he was not doing was climbing out of the container.\n\nIt only took a drop of insulin to melt an elf but they were coming at him in an endless tide. The current waves were wading through the gloopy remains of their fallen comrades, clawing for him like nightmarish tar-babies.\n\n\"Will you just leave me the hell alone!\" he yelled. \"I'm currently trying to save your lives as well as mine!\" The last statement rang kind of hollow, given the numbers of elves he was presently dispatching.\n\n\"Oh, screw this!\" He stabbed a changeling, left the syringe embedded in its disintegrating face, and frantically made for the lip of the container. Desperation and an undeniable level of annoyance lent him the will to shake off pursuers and haul himself up.\n\nHe put the bomb down on the edge and spun himself to sit beside it. Below, the changelings clawed at each other in their desire to get to him. Further below, there were only fields and woodland, browns and greys. No human habitation in sight.\n\n\"You guys are just mental,\" he said. With as soft a toss as he could manage, he threw the bomb away.\n\nThe wind caught it. The sleigh buffeted. His aim was off. Whatever the cause, it did not sail directly away from the sleigh. Its path cut along the sleigh's side, close enough for a changeling, lifted up by its fellows like a cheerleader, to catch the bomb in flight.\n\nDave's maddened heart sank. \"Idiots!\" he hissed.\n\nThe bomb-catching elf dropped down and the others immediately fought him for possession of it. They were not doing it gently.\n\n\"To hell with you all!\" snarled Dave and leapt for the next carriage."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 117",
                "text": "Moments before the sleigh abruptly sagged, Newton thought he heard a distant explosion. Fighting off the elf with one hand, he tried to haul on the reins with the other. Whatever had happened further back had caused the sleigh to drop a hundred crucial feet. They were going to slam straight into the electric cabling.\n\n\"Pylons!\" Newton yelled.\n\nThe elf didn't understand or didn't care.\n\n\"Down, Blinky!\" Newton cried. \"Down, Sleipnir! Kicgut, Paugir, go under!\"\n\n\"Dunni\u00f0!\" shouted Santa.\n\nThe reindeer swooped, cutting between cables and ground, barely clearing the lowest wires. A metallic shriek and a crackle of electricity instantly told Newton they had not quite cleared the wire. Above him, Santa's giant body of slumped."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 118",
                "text": "The explosion took out the rearmost section of the sleigh. It also jolted Gerd's grip on Guin. The appearance of a tiny bearded head flying past, mournfully crying, \"I was only thirsty,\" as it went was also a distraction.\n\nGuin pushed at Gerd, managing to almost drag herself clear. But then the elf, tearing her eyes away from the sight of Santa's decapitated head, raised her knife high and stabbed hard at Guin's chest.\n\nGerd twisted the knife.\n\nIt hurt far less than Guin expected. The knife was embedded in the fairy folklore book under her shirt! Guin's surprise turned to violent anger. She punched Gerd in the side of the head and shoved her off. Gerd rolled off the side of the container, dragging Guin with her. As they tipped over the edge Guin's arm caught on something: a length of rubber tubing. Gerd dangled below her, hands gripping Guin's shoes. Gerd's own feet danced on the edge of the forward edge of the turbine engine. She tried to stand but there was little purchase in the howling gale.\n\nTinfoil Tavistock told Guin to hold onto the rubber tubing. Tavistock could be so obvious at times.\n\nWild-eyed, Gerd looked up at Guin. \"Takta mi upp!\"\n\n\"I did everything you asked!\" Guin yelled back. \"And you were horrible. Nothing but horrible.\"\n\n\"Vi cudum ver vren\u00f0i!\" screamed Gerd and attempted a smile. \"Friend-i!\" It was a horrible rictus smile.\n\nGuin shook her legs. Gerd slipped. Her foot dangled inside the edge of the turbine intake. It was enough to snag her. Gerd was whipped into the spinning rotors with a buzz and a crunch. A sudden plume of elf-blood and black smoke shot out of the rear.\n\n\"I've already got friends,\" said Guin.\n\nDamn right, agreed Tavistock."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 119",
                "text": "Driving a team of reindeer was very different to riding a horse, Newton decided. Particularly an articulated train of a sleigh that was mostly on fire with a lolling and rolling headless Santa sitting in the driving position. Newton gripped the reins and tried to keep the undead deer on a straight and steady course.\n\nSomething slammed into Newton from behind, shoving him into the foot well. \"\u00dar m\u00ed veg, h\u00e1lfvit!\" shouted Bacraut.\n\nThe chief elf didn't look good. Newton guessed no one would if they'd been trouser-pressed, beaten, and forced to cross a bucking, burning sleigh to get to the reins. The elf had a limp and a half, a savage cut on his face and one of his arms bent in a way that couldn't be right.\n\n\"Hey, we're sorry about your sleigh\u2014\" Newton began.\n\nThe elf snorted and spat blood down his nose.\n\n\"You need a doctor,\" said Newton. \"National elf service or something.\"\n\nThe elf ignored him and picked up the reins.\n\nBacraut wound the hair reins around his arm and looped them over his shoulder. The transformation was almost instantaneous. He straightened, even seemed to grow several inches. He looped the reins twice around his neck and down his other arm. The thick hairy ropes nearly swamped him, like that man made of tyres on old Michelin adverts. Bacraut wore it well. The power of Santa's hair gave him health and strength.\n\n\"All hal g\u00f3ra skeggi,\" he said, with a grin."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 120",
                "text": "Painfully, Guin climbed back up onto the container. To her surprise, hands gripped her shoulders and helped her up.\n\n\"Oh, God,\" said Esther. She went to hug her, and saw the knife sticking out of her chest. Guin wearily shook her head and, freeing the knife, pulled out the hardback book.\n\n\"Books save lives,\" she whispered.\n\nGuin's dad stumbled forward and collided with them, sagging to his knees beside them. There were soot marks and a livid mark, like sunburn, on his cheek. His side was coated with a gloopy treacle mess: elf blood. He gripped her shoulder like he hadn't seen her for years.\n\n\"Are you all right, love?\" he asked.\n\nGuin thought about that. She had any number of scrapes and bruises. She'd pulled her arm. She'd knocked her head at one point and would probably have a bump. She had been close enough to a jet turbine to permanently damage her hearing.\n\n\"I'm fine, dad.\"\n\n\"You're sure?\"\n\n\"Hundred percent.\"\n\nThe turbine next to them gave a loud bang and died. The sleigh bucked and tilted savagely. They hung onto each other.\n\n\"Newton's driving,\" said Guin.\n\n\"Then we need to get him and us off this thing,\" said Esther.\n\nThe sleigh settled in its new position. One turbine dead. The back half of the sleigh, along with the jet engines, was either on fire or missing entirely. A cascade of leaking fuel spewed a tail of fire that burned out before it reached the ground below.\n\n\"Come on,\" said Esther. She pushed herself to her feet and started to make her way forward. She nodded back at Guin and her dad. \"I think someone needs help.\"\n\n\"I'm fine,\" Guin insisted.\n\nEsther pointedly raised her eyebrows. Guin leaned in to her bloodied and charred dad and helped."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 121",
                "text": "Newton climbed into a sitting position in the shadow of the headless Santa as the beard-empowered Bacraut gloated.\n\nBacraut was giving Newton a big long speech about \u2026 Newton had no idea. But Bacraut was clearly impassioned by it and Newton was too polite not to listen. There were lots of gestures, big encompassing ones. Maybe Bacraut was describing the exciting Christmas sleigh ride mission. Maybe he was bemoaning what had happened to the elves and was spinning him some sort of sob story. Maybe he was prophesizing an elf empire that would last for a thousand years. Newton didn't have a clue. Languages weren't his strong point. He wasn't predicted to get a passing grade in his GCSE French and he'd been learning that since he was eleven. He didn't have a chance with elvish.\n\nHe nodded politely as Bacraut ranted and raved. \"Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Totally. Yeah?\"\n\nThe speechifying was interrupted by a shout from above.\n\n\"Newton!\"\n\nHis mum stood on the top of the lead sleigh, by the shoulders of the hideous, stinking giant Santa corpse. Her heart visibly caught in her throat at the sight of Newton alive.\n\n\"Quick! Up here!\" she called.\n\nNewton stood but Bacraut, with a powerful push that belied his elfin frame, shoved him back down into the foot well.\n\n\"Leave him alone!\" yelled Esther.\n\n\"You don't have to do this,\" said Newton.\n\nBacraut sneered. \"Fl\u00fag!\" he cried. He rose up. Bacraut levitated, arms stretched, doing a slightly disturbing and possibly sacrilegious impression of Christ rising to heaven. Were the coils of beard rope around him glowing? All the way down from his body and arms to the teams of reindeer?\n\nNewton felt a swelling in his own chest, which was a weird and unexpected feeling for certain. \"Fl\u00fag?\" he whispered."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 122",
                "text": "Esther gaped in surprise at the creature hovering in front of her. She admitted she shouldn't have been surprised. If she was to draw up a list of things that had surprised her in the last twenty-four hours, a flying elf probably wouldn't make the top ten.\n\n\"You have to stop this,\" she shouted against the gale. \"You can't do this.\"\n\nBacraut spat out some vile sentiment that required little translation.\n\n\"You've been hard done by,\" she nodded. \"Cultural colonization. Your way of life under threat. I get it. Horrible appropriation of your indigenous ways. Like the elf on the shelf and the\u2014\"\n\n\"\u00c1lfu \u00e1 shelfu?\" he said.\n\n\"Elf on the shelf,\" Esther repeated.\n\n\"\u2014di ur shelfu? Wau?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\" She shrugged. \"They're ugly horrible things. Not that your ways are ugly. I have nothing but the greatest respect for your people and\u2014\"\n\n\"Mum!\" shouted Newton, in the unmistakable tone of a teenager who was embarrassed by their mum's wittering.\n\n\"Look, you've got to stop this crap,\" she said. \"Doesn't matter what's happened. You can't replace all the children of the world with elves!\"\n\n\"What?\" said Newton.\n\n\"Operation Changeling,\" said Dave, coming up beside Esther with Guin under his arm, supporting him. \"Let the boy go! Please!\"\n\nHis words did not have the desired effect. The elf perceived Dave's pleas as an act of weakness. \"\u00deegi man\u00f0?\" grinned Bacraut. He floated down to Newton, blade outstretched.\n\n\"He's going to kill him!\" said Guin.\n\nEsther acted instinctively. To stop Bacraut getting to her boy, put something in the way. The Father Christmas corpse was already lolling forward and a shoulder barge sent the steaming, twenty-foot mass of Old Saint Nicholas tumbling forward. It slumped to its knees, then pitched forward over the front of the sleigh between Bacraut and Newton.\n\nIts weight carried it through the front end of the sleigh, and shoulders first through the gap between the trains of galloping reindeer. Wood snapped. Pieces of leather whipped about and came free.\n\n\"What have you done?\" whispered Dave.\n\n\"Are you criticizing a woman for taking the initiative?\" Esther instantly retorted.\n\n\"Absolutely not,\" said Dave.\n\nThere was a lurch as the carriage shaft linking the sleigh to its animal-driven engine came apart. Newton, eyes staring wide at the gaping hole in the front end of the sleigh, scurried back and up to the seat that Santa had recently vacated, to his family."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 123",
                "text": "Like Bacraut, Guin found her attention drawn to the reindeer leading the sleigh. Scromdir and Bitber, wasn't it? The looped leather straps holding them together were now freed and the pair were drifting. Scromdir peeling left, Bitber up and to the right. Where those two led, others followed. The lines of reindeer were diverging, the links to the sleigh lost.\n\n\"Ni! Ni! Samat!\" shouted Bacraut.\n\n\"If the reindeer aren't pulling this thing forward anymore\u2014\" said Guin, feeling a lightness within her as the sleigh began a rapid descent.\n\n\"Take hold of me,\" said Newton.\n\n\"No need to panic, dude,\" said Dave, hugging the lad.\n\n\"Take hold of me!\" the boy shouted.\n\n\"Fl\u00faga \u00e1frass!\" Bacraut yelled at the reindeer. \"Fl\u00faga tig\u00fdr\u00f0ar!\"\n\nThe reindeer weren't flying together. The two trains were heading off at forty five degrees to one another. Down the chain of paired zombie reindeer, they split off \u2013 Hlager and Gouper, Bulta\u00f0a and Paugir, and all the others \u2013 until the final pair parted. With a wrenching of wood, the carriage shaft splintered.\n\nIt was only in that moment that Bacraut recognised the danger of wrapping himself in the reins. As the last reindeer went their separate ways and the two lines pulled in opposite directions, the thick reins tightened.\n\n\"Ni!\" he shouted. His voice cut off in a gurgle as metres of rein went from coiled to rigid in an instant. He stretched. Coils sliced. The noose around his neck snapped taut. Guin's eyes involuntarily followed his forcibly ejected head as it literally popped off.\n\nBoth teams of reindeer shook as they violently pulled against each other and swooped to move in a vaguely unified direction, utterly separated. The sleigh, engineless, nosedived like a rollercoaster cresting the first drop.\n\nThe floor moved beneath them. Guin turned and grabbed her dad.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he whispered.\n\n\"Hold me!\" yelled Newton. \"Do it!\"\n\nArms wrapped around chests, a family pressed in close together.\n\n\"Fl\u00fag!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 124",
                "text": "The sun rose. The twisted remains of several crushed containers and the awful cargo they had carried, burned fiercely against a hillside, given extra flame by whatever aviation fuel had still been on board. Crows startled out of their roosts by the explosive crash, circled in the air above. There was no movement around the crash site. Nothing living had crawled away.\n\nTo the far south, almost out of sight, dozens of reindeer ran on tirelessly through the sky.\n\n\"I wonder where they'll end up,\" said Guin.\n\n\"It's usually birds that fly south for the winter,\" said Newton.\n\nDave inspected himself and his family. They had landed softly in the snowy fields half a mile back from the sleigh crash. \"How\u2014?\"\n\n\"We should be dead,\" agreed Esther.\n\nNewton lifted up his jumper. A large quantity of bundled hair poked out. \"I got it when I was fixing Blinky. I probably took more than I needed.\"\n\n\"You stuffed an old man's beard up your jumper?\" said Guin.\n\n\"It's magical.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Still, it's a bit\u2026\" There didn't seem to be a word to cover it.\n\n\"It's been a weird night,\" nodded Esther.\n\nDave turned around. \"I'm not sure I know where we are.\" He blew out his cheeks at a sudden thought. \"The car.\"\n\n\"Underneath an avalanche,\" said Esther, patting his shoulder.\n\n\"You never liked cars anyway,\" Newton pointed out and then thought, \"All our luggage!\"\n\nEsther pointed in what looked a likely direction to find a main road. \"Not much of a Christmas is it, though?\" she said.\n\n\"Dunno,\" said Newton. \"Family trip gone horribly wrong. The worst possible accommodation. Flying creatures.\"\n\n\"People trying to kill them,\" added Guin.\n\n\"Sounds like the Christmas story to me.\"\n\n\"Kind of lacking the three wise men and some gifts,\" said Esther.\n\n\"The mead I bought!\" said Dave. \"Gone! Man! What I wouldn't give for a glass of\u2014\"\n\nNewton put a hand over his mouth. \"No, dude. Don't even say it.\" He looked at Guin. \"You lost your toys.\"\n\nGuin plucked Tinfoil Tavistock, the only survivor, from her pocket. \"I'll make new ones. I've got loads of materials in my bedroom. I'll show you when we get to our house.\"\n\nA look passed between Dave and Esther.\n\n\"You kids have surprised me,\" smiled Dave. \"You've changed.\" They reached the brow of a hill. Below was a long grey line that might have been a country road.\n\n\"I'm thinking about going vegetarian,\" said Newton.\n\n\"That's not the change I meant, mate.\"\n\n\"Sausages.\" Newton pulled a face. \"They've put me right off meat.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Esther, surprised but pleased. \"No, I think Dave's right. You have changed.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it will wear off,\" said Guin, feeling the tops of her ears.\n\n\"Change for the better,\" Esther assured her.\n\nA cool breeze blew in from behind them. The flying reindeer had vanished entirely into the yellow haze of dawn.\n\n\"Why do birds fly south for the winter?\" asked Newton.\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Esther, recognising it as a joke. \"Why do birds fly south for the winter?\"\n\n\"It's too far to walk.\"\n\nGuin groaned. There was a laugh buried in the groan. It was buried deep but it was there all the same.\n\nNewton knew exactly what change his mum was talking about. The worry, the panic, the desperate need to please everyone\u2026\n\nHe pulled the bundle of hair out from under his jumper. There was a lot of it but he made sure he gathered together all the remains of Santa's beard. He held it up until he could feel the breeze tugging at it. Then he let it go."
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "title": "Wizard",
        "author": "Diane Duane",
        "genres": [],
        "tags": [],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "We Need A Little Christmas",
                "text": "Sunday, November 7, 2010\n\nFour thousand years ago, when the Crossings Intercontinual Worldgating Facility on Rirhath B was in its initial stages of development, the populations of the Alterf starsystem were evacuated into near-Rirhait space secondary to their homestar being irreparably damaged by a passing black hole. The four carbon-based species originally native to Alterf IV's giant moon Temalbar brought with them to their new homes an awesomely advanced sheaf of technologies that became the foundation of a cultural partnership with the Rirhait that has stood the test of millennia, and thrives to this day. Daily life in much of the modern Galaxy now depends on some of the devices and tech they brought with them\u2014such as the Interconnect Project's worldgate management and deployment technology that makes it feasible to cluster worldgates together on demand without destroying the planet they're based on, and the far-famed SunTap limitless-energy capture system that satisfies the power demands of worldgate complexes in this galaxy and numerous others.\n\nAnd that said... beings based on every sort and state of matter, and resident from this side of the Galaxy to the other, will swear up and down (if asked) that the very best thing to come of that ancient partnership is the concept of the multispecies shopping mall. What had originally been a retail wing intended only to handle the immediate needs of passengers traveling through the ancient/legacy Rirhath B gating facility has over the millennia been transformed into a huge array of shopping opportunities scattered through and arranged around the already-vast area of the Crossings. Everything, literally everything the mind of [insert the gender-neutral name of your favorite sentient species here] can imagine acquiring, and a lot of things they can't, is here for the buying, leasing, or other method of acquisition... so that whether you're a commuter in a rush to make your gate or a tourist with time to dawdle and browse for that perfect souvenir, they've got you covered. Need an correlating hypersemantic obfuscator and have no plans to be anywhere near Mendwith any time soon? You want to head for the Crossings: the Mendwittu have a factory store there with the deepest discounts anywhere. Got some heavy grenfelzing on your mind and can't lay your hands, fins or tentacles on one of those vital dadeithiv roots to save your life? You want to make for the Crossings and head straight for the Ingestibles and Assumables Wing, in the Carbon-Friendly Fresh Foods corridor of the Main Produce market, just past the Hydroxyls Snack Plaza.\n\nAnd while we're speaking of grenfelzing... want chocolate? Genuine chocolate as eaten by the legendarily wealthy and powerful denizens of the fabulous faraway world known as Earth? Well, who doesn't! But why bother making the long, perilous journey to that dangerous part of space and daring the wrath of Earth's ruthless and terrible space fleet? Save yourself a trip. Shop at the Crossings.\n\n...Believe it or not, however, not all the species who pass through The Worlds' Premier Travel And Shopping Venue (SM) are interested in chocolate. Even dark chocolate.\n\nOr not that interested.\n\nAmong the usual crowd of beings from every corner of the galaxy (insofar as galaxies have corners) that one might find moving under the vast high Crossings ceiling and through its bright day, more or less unremarked (because there really are a lot of bipeds around and to most other species they all look alike), came wandering two shapes that might read as one of the simpler kinds of female, at least in species that were boring enough to have only two or three major morphisms that fall into the category. One of the two wanderers was a bit taller than the other, that being what would have been most noticeable about the differences between them for most beings in Crossings transit who'd notice them at all. Their culture or microculture apparently went in at the moment for brightly colored clothing that sat fairly close to the body, and one had much longer head-fur or-plumage than the other, though the cresting of both was more or less similar in shade. It would've taken a much more acute observer to realize that both of were just recently out of latency age\u2014one more recently than the other\u2014for they were walking with the assurance of people who had been to the Crossings many times before, and in a variety of circumstances that made the present one seem utterly commonplace.\n\n\"So you never did tell me,\" said the shorter of them. \"What exactly are we shopping for?\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't know. At the moment? Anything that doesn't have to do with Halloween.\"\n\nNita Callahan sighed. \"I hear you there,\" she muttered.\n\n\"Still suffering?\"\n\n\"Oh, not any more. I really thought I was over the sweet tooth,\" Nita said to Kit's sister Carmela as they wandered down an aisle of unrecognizable objects that she knew had to be food, because they were in the food hall. \"And then after things got crazy...\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Carmela said, \"Kit described it to me. You had kind of an odd night... I can imagine some comfort eating would have felt good afterwards.\"\n\n\"And of course there was plenty of that around, because, well, Halloween.\" Nita sighed. \"I just could not lay off the chocolate. When we got back we had about a hundred of those little Three Musketeers bars in the bags...\"\n\n\"Uh oh.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" They'd strolled over to one side of the wide concourse that was only one of the many clothes-shopping \"streets\" in this area of the Crossings' upper northside retail wing, and stood briefly examining what appeared to be an intimate-lingerie shop. Nita was particularly impressed by the lustrous corsetry displayed in the window. Has to be a lot easier doing up all those laces and things when you've got that many legs...\n\nThey headed on past that shop window toward another that appeared to be full of jeweled coatracks. \"Those things sneak up on you, don't they?\" Carmela said. \"There never seems to be a lot to them at first. It's that whipped center.\"\n\n\"Yeah. And the next morning...\"\n\n\"Alka-Seltzer.\"\n\n\"Ugh. Yes.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Carmela said, \"you'd have been better pretty quickly after that.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Nita said, \"but what's the point? We're no sooner done with one holiday than here comes another.\" It was one of the reasons Nita was enjoying being at the Crossings at the moment. There was not an accordion-paper-tailed cardboard turkey or Pilgrim hat or decorative cornucopia to be seen in the place... which was a relief, because the things were already all over the stores and the commercials were all over the TV back home. \"And another food holiday.\"\n\nShe sighed. Since her mom died, the prospect of Thanksgiving at her house was still feeling fairly abnormal. Mostly\u2014and somewhat guiltily\u2014Nita hated it and wished it would go away. Christmas, strangely, was easier to deal with. It had always been a kind of lightly celebrated holiday in her family, more about relaxation and visits from relatives than extravagant giftgiving or crazed levels of decoration. And Christmas dinner had always been something different from year to year (because her Mom had loudly proclaimed to anyone who'd listen, \"One damn turkey a year is enough!\" ). So when her Dad had made sauerbraten last Christmas when her Mom was too sick to cook, it had still seemed strangely normal. This year, when the subject came up, he'd announced he was going to do a standing rib roast, which was fine with Nita. But she was dreading Thanksgiving, which had been the one holiday her Mom had willingly made a song and dance over in terms of food.\n\n\"You're really not up for Turkey Day,\" Carmela said.\n\n\"Nope,\" Nita said.\n\n\"Dodgy holiday anyway,\" said Carmela. \"Never mind. Let's skip it and go straight to Christmas.\"\n\n\"If only,\" Nita said.\n\n\"No,\" said Carmela. \"I'm serious! Why spend any more time on it than we have to? Eat the stupid turkey and move right on. Christmas!\"\n\nNita smiled at the thought. \"I wish they gave out timeslides for this kind of thing,\" she said. \"Because boy, would I requisition one right this minute.\"\n\nCarmela turned and looked her up and down. \"You sound tired,\" she said. \"Enough walking! Let's do the wizardy thing and get hoverscoots.\"\n\nNita blinked. \"How's that so wizardy?\"\n\n\"Well, it's all about not wasting energy, isn't it? No point in wasting perfectly good shopping energy on walking.\"\n\nIt occurred to Nita that this was one of the more interesting takes she'd recently heard on the concept of not speeding up the heat-death of the Universe. Carmela, though, plainly wasn't concerned about such details. She merely paused where she was and stamped on the shining white floor.\n\nImmediately two long pieces of the floor material smoothly detached themselves upwards from it, deformed out into long hovering skateboard shapes, and sprouted tall slender grips from their fronts. Underneath the scooters the surface reformed seamlessly and went back to being shining and white.\n\nNita blinked. \"That's new...\" she said. \"Used to be Crossings staff had to call for one of these.\"\n\n\"I'm that,\" Carmela said, \"more or less. Or anyway I've got a similar level of permissions.\"\n\nWhich was no surprise. To everyone at the Crossings from the highest managerial levels on down these days she was Carmela Rodriguez of Earth, Defender and Protector of Transients and Staff... not to mention Occasional Personal Shopper to Interplanetary Royalty (which counted for a little more on the strictly retail side). Nita had of course spearheaded the defense that had been instrumental in saving the Crossings from the aliens attacking it, and was if anything honored even more highly than Carmela, to an almost almost embarrassing extent (at least it embarrassed her). Carmela, though, had absolutely no embarrassment about casually reminding the Crossings staff how much they owed her (and Nita), and as a result had for some time now been pulling down a range of increasingly impressive perks.\n\n\"Come on, mount up,\" Carmela said, \"there's a lot of new stuff on this side of the wing we haven't seen yet.\"\n\nNita climbed onto the scooter, and both of them started to move along the broad corridor, absolutely shocklessly. She recognized the motive force as another implementation of the frictionless, inertially-dampered transport system the Crossings used for moving people and cargo in and out of the satellite terminals to the major gate clusters at high speed. These scooters, though, were gliding along at just a few miles an hour, with no more fuss or sense of motion than if the two of them were standing still together.\n\nCarmela was studying a diagram of the local shopping space that had begun displaying on the plaque that spanned the graceful handlebars of the scooter. Nita's display had synced up with her manual\u2014all the Crossings' systems being alert to the presence of wizards and having a raft of custom routines to make their work easier\u2014and was displaying \"smart\" advertisements for various stores in the area and travel advisories tailored to her point of origin, all translated into English for her convenience.\n\n\"Okay,\" Carmela said, tracing a route on the scooter's display, \"right there.\" The scooter chirped in acquiescence. \"Meanwhile,\" she said, turning to Nita, \"I know exactly what we need.\"\n\n\"Yeah? What?\"\n\n\"A Christmas party.\"\n\n\"Mela,\" Nita said, and laughed. \"It's not even Thanksgiving yet!\"\n\n\"And you were just complaining that you didn't want it to be.\"\n\nNta blinked, as that felt like it should have made some kind of sense. Just possibly not Earth sense.\n\nShe sighed and glanced down at the scooter's display, which was now showing some amusing promotional material. After a moment she raised her eyebrows at the slugline of one feature. \"NASA's going to be glad to hear we've got a ruthless and terrible space fleet.\"\n\nCarmela snickered. \"So will Richard Branson, when he gets the memo,\" she said. \"And frankly, I know which of them's going to do better marketing.\"\n\nNita snorted. \"Yeah, but Mela, you know as well as I do it's not true! Is putting something like this out there smart?\"\n\n\"Why not? If everybody thinks Earth has a big aggressive space fleet, no one'll bother turning up on our doorstep with one, will they.\"\n\nThere was something to be said for that line of reasoning, but Nita still had misgivings: some of the more assertive species she knew of might take it as a challenge. \"And anyway, who put that in here?\"\n\n\"I'm sure I have no idea,\" Carmela said, airily waving a hand.\n\nNita began to sweat a little, because she knew from experience what it meant when Carmela started handwaving. \"Are you trying to tell me that\u2014 What did you get Sker'ret to let you do?\" For it couldn't escape anyone's notice who knew the present Master of the Crossings that there was just about nothing he wouldn't do for Carmela. Installing a worldgate in her closet had merely been a small sign of things to come.\n\n\"Who, me? Nothing!... Much. I mean, the small print was such a nuisance to start with...\" She glanced over at what Nita was still reading.\n\nNita squinted to read the block of tiny, tiny print at the bottom of the promotional feature, again displayed in English to ease the handling of some of the more obscure Rirhait idioms. \"...Wait. 'Earth', 'Mysterious Earth' and 'Mother Earth The Legendary Home Of Humankind' are licensed trademarks of Gaia Protectorate CRLLC, terms and conditions apply, planetary descriptions may change from time to time without notice at management's discretion\u2014\" And then in the tiniest print possible, \"\u2014battle fleet not included'??\"\n\n\"Legalese,\" Carmela said, craning her neck to see ahead of them. \"It's not like the disclaimers actually have any force in law, really, once you've\u2014\"\n\n\"I can't believe this,\" Nita said. \"CRLLC? Did you incorporate the entire planet Earth somewhere?!\"\n\n\"Here, actually,\" Carmela said. \"The corporate tax rate here is reeeeeeeeallly low. Especially if you've saved the place from alien invasion. At which point it drops to zero.... If not lower.\"\n\nNita's mouth dropped open.\n\n\"Why are you looking so shocked? You cosigned the incorporation documents when we were here last.\"\n\nBeing reduced to speechlessness around Carmela was hardly a new experience for Nita, but this particular incidence was setting new records for the underlying implications. \"But I thought\u2014 Wait. You said that\u2014\"\n\n\"Nonono, wait just a minute! Look there. Is that what I think it is?\"\n\n\"Uh,\" Nita said, and peered ahead, her mind only half on whatever she was supposed to be looking for. The corridor up that way was fairly busy, full of aliens of all shapes and sizes. But after a second she thought she saw what Carmela was looking at, a dark-colored conical shape, hard to see clearly through the throng. \"That tall thing sticking up? The green one\u2014 Oh. It's a Demisiv\u2014!\"\n\n\"In a baseball cap!\" Carmela said, and accelerated away.\n\n...And so it was. Nita went after her, shaking her head and grinning. What are the odds, she thought, that one of my favorite wizardly houseguests should just happen to be passing through here while we're here too? But the odds didn't really come into it when you balanced them against the wizardly truism that there were no such things as coincidences. Or rather, when something that looked like a coincidence turned up, it was usually a sign from the Powers that Be that you should start paying attention: almost always, something else was going on.\n\nNita got caught up with Carmela after a few moments. \"This is so perfect,\" Carmela was saying, confident that Nita was right behind her. \"See that, this was an absolutely great idea, we'd have missed him if we didn't have the scoots!\"\n\nThat was probably true. Within a few moments they were close enough that when Carmela started waving her arms and shouted across the crowd, \"Hey, is that my shrub?!\" , Nita could even through the intervening crowd see all those fir-tree-like branches of Filif's arch up, as if in surprise, and then start waving back as if a wind had shaken them.\n\nAnd it took only a few moments more before the two of them had hopped off the scoots and were elbowing their way through the remaining crowd in an impromptu contest to be the first one to hug their fellow wizard. Nita came from behind in the last couple of meters and just barely beat Carmela there.\n\nIt was always a little interesting hugging Filif, as you wound up getting a face full of something that felt like pine needles, even though the scent more closely resembled something like cinnamon instead of the kind of cool, green smell you might associate with a conifer. \"You are so well met,\" Filif was saying, \"what a fine surprise, but what are you two doing here without my knowing about it? I'd thought the Knowledge would have alerted me that you were within physical-meeting range.\"\n\n\"Might ask you the same question!\" Nita said. The instrumentality that managed the wizards' manuals (and the many other ways that the Art's practitioners accessed spells and other wizardly data) would normally notify you, if you'd asked it, as to the presence in your physical neighborhood of other wizards with whom you'd worked. Nita had a good number of these alerts embedded in your manual, not least for those wizards who (however briefly) had lived in her basement. \"Should've had a notifier go off.\"\n\n\"Well, I only just got here,\" Filif said. \"Just out of the gate, in fact. Maybe that's the problem. Anyway, the Master and I have business\u2014some Interconnect Project details to sort out: I've been doing liaison work for the Demisiv side of the Project Authority.\" He rustled a little, half-turning as Nita let go of him (and Carmela did not), and all the eye-berries on the free side of him glowed a little brighter as he tried to peer through the crowd. \"He must've been delayed\u2014he was in some other meeting, and said it might keep him a bit late.\"\n\n\"Well, never mind that,\" Carmela said, hugging him again\u2014or still\u2014and then letting him go. \"Your business business can wait. And if he's coming along to find you, good! Two birds with one stone.\"\n\nFilif half-turned in the other direction, and looked around him with more of his eyes. \"Not sure I see any birds,\" he said, sounding dubious. \"Or for that matter, stones.\"\n\nNita laughed. Sometimes the wizardly Speech did fairly well at translating human idiom, but sometimes it completely failed. \"She means she wants to talk to both of you at once.\"\n\n\"Well, that's certainly preferable to hominid-on-avian violence,\" Filif said. \"Ah, now, here he comes. Not so delayed, then.\"\n\nNita peered around her, not bothering to look up, because there wouldn't have been any point in trying to see the Master of the Crossings over the heads of any crowd: when he was moving at any speed, he moved low. To her own amusement, though, it was the sound of lots of sharp little legs clicking and clattering against the smooth floor that told her which way to look (in this case, behind her). Nita turned and saw him coming, and grinned, and as he caught sight of her through the crowd that parted before him, Sker'ret was already half rearing up so that his front three pairs of legs were off the ground and the head with all those stalked eyes was on a level with Nita's. She held her arms open, and when he more or less crashed into them, she grabbed him and hugged him to her and thumped his dorsal carapace. \"Sker'!\"\n\n\"Our saviors return,\" Sker'ret laughed in her ear. \"It's been forever.\"\n\n\"It's been last week,\" Nita said. \"Getting amnesic from overwork?\"\n\n\"No, I mean when the two of you were last here together.\"\n\n\"Two weeks then. Maybe three.\"\n\n\"Pedant,\" Sker'ret said affectionately, gave her a squeeze and let her go.\n\n\"And what about me?\" Carmela demanded. \"You're late for my daily dose of alien snuggles!\"\n\n\"And whose fault is that? Anyway, you're the alien.\"\n\n\"No surprise at this sudden appearance then, my cousin?\" Filif said.\n\n\"Excuse me?\" Sker'ret said as he headed for Carmela. \"I am the Master of this facility, coz. Of course I knew she was here: she's got a facility-independent wizardly tracker routine associated with her. How else can I find her in a hurry if more invaders arrive and we need saving?\"\n\n\"My favorite stalker,\" Carmela said, and hugged Sker'ret as if hugging giant purple metallic centipedes was the most normal thing in the world. Which, for her, it naturally was.\n\n\"And why does her tracker work better than the Knowledge-based routines you've got hooked up to me?\" Filif said, bending over in a sort of half-bow to Sker'ret so that they could brush their upper limbs together.\n\n\"Because she can do a lot more damage in a much shorter time than you routinely would,\" Sker'ret said.\n\nCarmela burst out laughing. \"Oh, Sker', you say that like it was a bad thing!\"\n\n\"So tell us,\" Filif said. \"What damage are you contemplating now?\"\n\n\"We're having a Christmas party. And both of you are invited.\"\n\nAll Filif's berries on the side facing Sker'ret, and all Sker'ret's stalked eyes, exchanged a bemused glance.\n\n\"And Christmas would be what?\" Sker'ret said. \"Is it a holiday of some sort?\"\n\n\"Don't you remember? Remember how excited Filif got about this?\"\n\n\"Um...\" Sker'ret was making a kind of thoughtful null sound that even in a Rirhait perfectly communicated a sense of I don't want you to feel hurt but due to being really busy I have no idea what you're talking about at the moment.\n\n\"Fil,\" Carmela said. \"Explain it to him. Remember that time of year we told you about, the last time you came visiting? The time of year when we bring trees into the house and decorate them?\"\n\nFilif looked astounded. \"Wait. This is that time? Then what are you doing here? Mostly your folk are with family at such times, I thought!\"\n\n\"No no no, it's not right this minute!\" Carmela said. \"Fifty days or so yet. Hold still.\" She reached into her shoulderbag and came out with a small sleek tablet. \"How's your schedule around JD 2455550. 52...?\"\n\n\"Well, let me check...\"\n\n\"I'm free,\" said Sker'ret immediately. \"One or another of my relief people can take those shifts for me. Powers forbid I should miss a party of yours!\"\n\nNita wanted to start shouting practical, sensible things like No, wait, this is all going way too fast, are you nuts...? But she took a deep breath, stood there hating Thanksgiving enough to be willing to think about anything else, especially when it involved going straight on past it, and peered over Carmela's shoulder at the tablet. \"That's really gorgeous. Where'd you get that?\"\n\n\"It's part of her detached staff package,\" Sker'ret said. \"Didn't you get yours, Nita? I'll see that it comes to you.\"\n\n\"Okay, Sker', thanks,\" she said. \"What day is that?\" Nita said to Carmela.\n\n\"December 20th,\" Carmela said. \"And hey, the next day is the Winter Solstice. Very symbolic!\" she said to Filif, elbowing him somewhere among his fronds and needles. \"We're having a sleepover on Almost The Longest Night! We can stay up all night and watch movies and eat popcorn and all kinds of things.\"\n\n\"Mela,\" Nita said. \"Your mama and pop... you haven't even asked them yet!\"\n\n\"They'll say yes,\" Carmela said, waving a hand. \"We're going to do it exactly the way you did yours when Sker' and Fil came to visit the first time. Elective-access 'puptent' accesses in the basement....\"\n\n\"I can always spare powering structures for ten or twenty of those,\" Sker'ret said. \"Let me know what you need. If the party's heavily attended we can always install a temporary secondary gating hub like the one in your closet.\"\n\nNita rubbed her eyes for a moment. It's always possible they will say yes right off the bat... And certainly since she became a wizard, stranger things had happened.\n\nCarmela was talking to Filif a mile a minute about popcorn garlands and boughs of holly and snow and Christmas cookies. \"And a star, Fil, an actual star for the top of you instead of a baseball cap...\"\n\n\"But I like my baseball cap!\" The protest didn't have a lot of energy behind it: Filif was already starting to shake with excitement.\n\n\"Just a temporary thing. Something festive! For the season. And lights, Fil, all colors of lights, and glass balls and ribbons and...\"\n\nIf she does get her mom and pop to say yes to this, Nita thought, this is going to be amazing. And it's been such a crazy year. I could use some amazing right about now...\n\n\"Sker',\" Nita said very softly, watching the armwaving continue and Filif's delighted, excited vibrations increase. \"Tell me something.\"\n\n\"Anything.\"\n\n\"Remember that paperwork I cosigned with Mela when we were here last, after Mars...?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Is it possible...\" Nita's mouth went dry. She tried swallowing, had to work at it. \"...that as far as the intergalactic community is concerned, I'm, uh, one of the people who... rules the Earth?\"\n\nSker'ret burst out in one of his ratchety laughs. \"What? Rules? Oh, no! Not at all.\"\n\n\"Okay, that's a relief,\" Nita said. \"Good.\" And she sagged a little.\n\n\"But you are on the governing board.\"\n\nNita's mouth dropped open again. Then she closed it, because she simply could not find a reply.\n\n\"We should go,\" she said after a moment. \"You two have business, and we've got a guest list to write.\"\n\n\"Of course. I'll let you get on with it. And we'll see you at your place again! This is going to be so exciting. In... fifty days?\"\n\n\"Sounds about right,\" Nita said.\n\nThere was more hugging, and then Filif and Sker'ret took themselves off down the concourse. Carmela kicked her hoverscoot back into levitation mode, climbed aboard, and said to Nita, \"So that's settled. Come on, Neets, we've got the far end of the concourse to look over...\" And off she went, already humming \"Feliz Navidad... Feliz Navidad... Prospero Ano y Felicidad...\"\n\nThis is going to be interesting, Nita thought. \"Mela, wait up!\"\n\n\"I want to wish you a merry Christmas... I want to wish you a merry Christmas... from the bottom of my oooh wow look at that!\"\n\nNita sighed and scooted after her.\n\nOf course, even when you're a wizard, getting the basic permissions settled for a house party for an indeterminate number of wizardly or wizard-friendly guests isn't necessarily that easy.\n\nIn the Rodriguezes' living room a man was sitting in the easy chair closest to the entertainment system, with a tabloid newspaper open in front of his face. In front of him, sitting crosslegged on the floor in a position that was supposed to read as subordinate, and wearing what was meant to be a winsome smile, was his younger daughter.\n\n\"Daaaaddyyyyy...\"\n\n\"I just got home, Carmela. From a shift that felt three hours longer than it really was. During which every single machine I touched found a new and interesting way to screw up.\" Kit's pop worked with the printing-press machines at the big Long Island newspaper, and since the operation had gone digital, he had been complaining more or less nonstop about the crankiness of the new equipment he worked with compared with the beautiful, reliable old printing presses of old. Kit had told Nita often enough that her dad had complained just as hard and as constantly about the old printing presses, way back when, but this didn't seem to be a good time to remind anybody of that. \"My head is aching, even my ears are aching, and the aspirin hasn't kicked in yet, so if we could, you know, let this wait half an hour...\"\n\n\"But all you have to do right now is say 'yes' and then it'll be quiet!\"\n\nThe newspaper behind which Juan Rodriguez was presently concealing himself rustled in a very brisk way. \"Let's try it the other way around, shall we? Let's try having the quiet now, and then maybe the 'yes' will happen later!\"\n\n\"Okay, right on time, that was the appeal to reason,\" Kit said in Nita's ear. They were lurking in the kitchen, pretending to be getting something to eat while listening to the conversation through the pass-through window between the kitchen and the living room. \"Let's see if she's buying it.\"\n\n\"Seriously, pop-pop, it won't be a big deal! I'm going to take care of all the food and drinks myself, and I'll clean the house, before and after\u2014\"\n\n\"Uh oh,\" Kit said, very low. \"Reverting to what she used to call him when she was eight. Helpless baby daughter and responsible cleaner of the house? Not a good match.\"\n\n\"That we're having this discussion right now tells me that it's a big deal already,\" Kit's pop said. \"And that I should be wondering just why you're leaning on this so hard. And whether I should go off the whole idea right now, so as not to indulge your instant gratification issues.\"\n\n\"But daaaaaaaddy\u2014\"\n\nKit rolled his eyes at Nita. \"Nope, logic's the only thing that could have saved her there...\"\n\nThe newspaper being held up between Juan and his middle daughter dropped just long enough for her, and the two in the kitchen, to get a glimpse of eyes that were rather dangerously narrowed. \"Answer hazy,\" Kit's pop said, rather pointedly, \"ask again later.\" And he went back behind the newspaper again.\n\nCarmela picked herself silently up off the floor and swanned off toward the back of the house and the stairs to her bedroom in a manner that just narrowly avoided being a flounce.\n\nNita and Kit turned their attention back toward the sandwiches that they were theoretically constructing. Nita hadn't actually gotten much further than the bread. \"How's this going, you think?\" she said, very low.\n\n\"Hard to tell,\" Kit murmured, opening a cupboard and pretending to rummage around in it. \"Sometimes she gets a lot of mileage out of the 'I'm your favorite daughter' thing. Some days, nothing at all. Especially when he starts thinking about her and Helena being in college.\"\n\n\"Tuition,\" Nita said, and groaned under her breath.\n\n\"Student loans,\" Kit said. \"It's a good thing she's just going to SUNY. But this still looks like a 'nothing at all' day.\"\n\n\"Don't think I don't hear you two lurking in there!\" Kit's pop said.\n\n\"Not lurking, pop,\" Kit said. \"Nita's getting a sandwich. She didn't have time to eat anything at the Crossings.\"\n\n\"Because we were busy meeting with the friends who're going to come!\" Carmela said, swinging back into the living room and flopping down onto the nearby couch, where she lay staring at the ceiling in a vaguely hopeless way.\n\n\"Who you want to have come,\" her pop said, \"and who you really should thought about not wanting to disappoint before you issued an invitation that you don't know if you're going to be allowed to fulfill!\" He turned a page, and the paper rustled quite hard.\n\n\"Uh oh, the getting-permission-first thing,\" Kit murmured.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Nita murmured back, \"I hit her with that. Didn't count for much at the time. She was too buzzed.\"\n\n\"If she's smart, she won't push him...\"\n\nPossibly realizing this, Carmela merely made a little disappointed moaning sound and went quiet.\n\n\"Anyway, there's plenty of time to think about this,\" Kit's pop said. \"It's not even Thanksgiving yet.\"\n\n\"But some of the guests need time to get their schedules sorted because they'll be coming such a long way. Ireland! Germany!\"\n\n\"16 Aurigae,\" Nita added helpfully.\n\nThe newspaper rustled again, and this time the right-hand page twitched aside just enough for Nita to catch a glimpse of Kit's pop's eyes looking toward her over the tops of his reading glasses. \"Sixteen what?\"\n\n\"Aurigae. It's a star about two hundred and thirty light years from here,\" Nita said. \"An orange giant.\"\n\n\"About two hundred and thirty?\" Kit's pop said.\n\n\"Give or take,\" Nita said. \"That's where Filif comes from.\"\n\n\"So this is one of the three who stayed in your basement in their little holes in the wall,\" said Kit's mama as she appeared through the door on the far side of the living room that led to the back bedrooms.\n\n\"Elective access gated spaces,\" Kit said. \"Puptents, we call them. They don't take up any space in our space: just somewhere else. It's like taking your home with you, a little.\"\n\nHis mama leaned on the passthrough's shelf. \"And the one we're discussing, 16 Aurigae Guy\u2014? This is the one who looks like a Christmas tree?\"\n\nNita raised her eyebrows at Kit. His mother had always seemed to have the superpower of being able to hear\u2014or overhear\u2014any conversation that took place under the Rodriguezes' roof, no matter how far away she was in the house. Sometimes it was really useful, and sometimes it was a pain in the butt, but Nita had learned to deal with it.\n\n\"He's a Demisiv,\" Nita said. \"That's both the planet and the species. They're carbon-based like us, but they evolved... really differently.\"\n\n\"To wind up looking like they do, I'd imagine so.\"\n\nNita shrugged. \"They're related to trees the same way we're related to the tetrapods.\" She noticed Kit's pop giving her a slightly confused look from behind the paper, and added, \"You know, one of those fish species that got out of the water a long time ago, developed legs out of their fins and started walking around. There've been a lot of branches in the evolutionary tree between them and us. Same number of branches, pretty much, between Filif and his species' ancestors.\"\n\n\"A lot of water under the bridge for his people, then,\" Kit's pop said.\n\n\"Five hundred million years,\" Kit said, \"give or take.\"\n\n\"Huh,\" said Kit's pop: a neutral sort of sound. He went back behind the paper again, turned another page.\n\nKit's mama came into the kitchen and stood still in front of the stove for a few seconds, giving the cooktop a long thoughtful look. \"Spaghetti and meatballs?\" she said.\n\n\"Sounds good, Mama.\"\n\n\"Then don't overdo the sandwiches, you two.\" Kit's mama got down on one knee and started going through the cupboard under the counter: Kit and Nita moved to either side to get out of her way. \"So what else does Mr. Christmas Tree Wizard do besides get all excited over the thought of being decorated?\"\n\n\"He's been working with the authorities at the Crossings as a go-between for the Interconnect Project,\" Nita said. \"The Demisiv have been a big part of the Project for a long time. It's a group of species who specialize in long-distance intergalactic transit: keeping it running, helping people get around. They also do emergency work... help move populations who have to find new worlds to live on, because their stars have blown up or they've had planetary natural disasters or whatever.\"\n\n\"So... kind of a humanitarian organization?\"\n\nThat wasn't a comparison Nita had thought to make. \"Yeah,\" she said.\n\n\"For a whole lot of values of 'human,'\" Kit added.\n\nKit's mama didn't say anything for a moment, just kept looking around in the cupboard. \"Juan,\" she said, \"are we out of spaghetti again?\"\n\n\"There's fettucini...\"\n\n\"It's not the same.\" She got up, sighing, and opened an upper cupboard. \"Okay, we'll do it with fusilli. But you said you were getting spaghetti on the way back from work...\"\n\nThe paper rustled. \"Sorry. My head was killing me and I just wanted to get home.\"\n\n\"Well, tomorrow then.\"\n\n\"I'll make a note.\"\n\nKit's mama rummaged around for a big pot and started filling it with water. \"Well,\" she said while the faucet was running. \"He sounds like a good influence. One thing, though.\"\n\nKit and Nita looked at each other. \"Yeah?\"\n\n\"Is your friend a needle-shedding type?\"\n\n\"Not that I've ever noticed,\" Kit said.\n\n\"The occasional berry,\" Nita said. \"But only when he's in trans.\"\n\nKit's mama put her eyebrows up. \"Doesn't sound like a problem,\" she said. She put the pot on the stove and turned on the heat under it. \"How many people are we talking?\"\n\n\"We're still working that out,\" Nita said. \"Wanted to get the okay from you first.\"\n\n\"You did, at least,\" Kit's mama said, and flashed a grin at Nita.\n\nNita did her best to produce a We-are-so-busted expression that would acknowledge the realities of the situation without assigning blame to any specific party. Kit simultaneously looked elsewhere and looked innocent.\n\n\"And this is supposed to be a one-night sleepover? On the twentieth?\"\n\n\"That's right,\" Kit said. \"We wouldn't be up here all that much. Mostly in the puptents: there'll be more room.\"\n\nNita heard another newspaper page turn, but purposely didn't look that way, because Kit's mama was doing so.\n\nA second passed. \"The carol-singing thing's the night after,\" Kit's mama said. \"Don't forget.\"\n\n\"We won't,\" Kit said.\n\nHis mama headed out of the kitchen and through the living room again. \"Just try to keep the other collateral damage to a minimum, yeah?\" she said to Carmela as she passed by the couch. \"It wouldn't be good to freak the neighbors.\"\n\n\"At least any more than they have been already,\" muttered Kit's pop from behind the paper.\n\n\"Oh Mama thank you!\" Carmela shrieked and bounded up off the couch to grab her and hug her as she passed through.\n\n\"Don't thank me,\" said Kit's mama. \"Thank your Pop.\"\n\nThe logic of this might not have been instantly obvious to the casual bystander, but Nita had seen enough of these family discussions at Kit's house to understand that with his folks, parental consensus was often reached by some mechanism she didn't understand and probably wasn't meant to. \"Thanks, Mr. Rodriguez!\" Nita immediately said over the noise of Carmela diving past the newspaper, seizing her Pop and covering his face with smooches.\n\n\"You're welcome,\" Kit's pop said as soon as Carmela let him loose and more or less went dancing out of the living room and up the stairs to get her tablet and start making notes and plans.\n\nKit's pop shook his head, shook the paper back out into something like a readable configuration, and went back to his reading. As he did, Kit turned to Nita and said silently, She just lay there with her sad face on and let us run interference for her, didn't she!\n\nYep, Nita said. She owes us one.\n\nGood, Kit said. And meanwhile... \"Looks like we get to have a party!\"\n\nA second later the sound system up in Carmela's room fired up with a raucous British-accented voice more or less screaming over a noisy drum solo, \"It's CHRIIIIIIIIIIIIISTMAAAAAAAAS!!\"\n\nNita snickered. \"Ronan,\" she said, \"has a lot to answer for...\"\n\nAn hour or so later, Nita was upstairs in Carmela's bedroom, sprawled in her desk chair with her manual open in her lap, while Carmela was lying on her stomach on her bed and scribbling notes in her tablet at about a mile a minute. That thing must have some handwriting recognition program, Nita thought. But then, it's Crossings tech... it would have.\n\nHaving gotten the \"yes\" from their folks, Carmela was now acting oddly at a loss, as if she'd secretly expected to be turned down and now wasn't sure what she should be doing. \"Decorations,\" she was muttering.\n\nNita glanced up at that. \"I thought you decided you were going to use your normal ones.\"\n\n\"What? Oh. Not for Filif! For the house.\"\n\n\"We've got lots of time yet to think about that.\"\n\n\"Not if we don't want to miss the holiday rush! The sooner the better. Anyway, the stuff's starting to turn up in the stores already anyway...\"\n\nNita sighed, as that was all too true. \"Still.\"\n\n\"And another thing,\" Carmela muttered, hurriedly flipping over virtual pages in her tablet and starting to make another set of notes. \"Allergies. Food allergies...\"\n\nShe can plan an invasion and not turn a hair, Nita thought, but she can't stay focused on a guest list? This really is a big deal for her. \"Mela, you're coming at this backwards.\"\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\n\"Guest list first. Food allergies later.\"\n\n\"I'm just trying to get ahead of things...\"\n\n\"Right now the only one you're getting ahead of is yourself. Deep breath!\"\n\nCarmela took it, though for some moments she seemed reluctant to let it out again.\n\n\"Mela!\" Nita said. \"Relax.\"\n\nShe let that breath out with some difficulty. \"I just want it to be nice for him,\" Carmela said. \"He's so special... and I don't want him to be disappointed.\"\n\nHer first alien crush, Nita thought, and just smiled. \"He won't be,\" she said. \"You know him. Always ready for something new, and in love with it when it arrives, whatever it is.\"\n\n\"And oh gosh, he's going to need something to root in. Maybe one of those custom compounds they've got at the Demisiv sleepstore at the Crossings...\"\n\n\"Mela!\" Nita said. \"Daddy just puts him in the flower bed when he turns up. With maybe some bark chips! So later for custom bedding. Guest list!\"\n\nCarmela let out another heavy sigh and turned to a clean \"page.\" \"Guest list,\" she said.\n\nNita stretched in the chair and glanced down at her manual. She'd long since told the list of active wizards she knew personally to arrange itself to the front of the main directory. Now she started paging through that section, checking people's public calendars, where available, against the sleepover / party dates. \"So. Filif.\"\n\n\"Goes without saying.\"\n\n\"Sker'ret.\"\n\n\"Ditto.\"\n\nBoth of them paused then, thinking of one of the original puptent group who would not be there: Roshaun. More or less in unison, they sighed.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Carmela said. \"Well.... You and me and Mom and Pop and Dairine and your Dad and Kit.\"\n\n\"Uh huh.\"\n\n\"And Spot.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\n\"Ronan.\"\n\n\"Mmm,\" Carmela said. Nita glanced at Carmela with amusement, not entirely sure whether the sound was simple acknowledgement or approval. Ronan wasn't particularly forthcoming about how he actually took Carmela's more or less continuous flirting with him, but Nita noticed that he never really came out and told her to stop it.\n\nAnd having mentioned Ronan and Kit in the same breath, naturally the next thought was\u2014\n\n\"Darryl?\" Carmela said, beating Nita to it.\n\n\"I don't know.\" Nita looked over his listing in the manual. \"He's showing availability, but that might just be for errantry. The dates are starred, and the star says 'subject to preparedness issues.'\"\n\n\"Meaning he'll bow out if he feels overstimmed.\"\n\n\"Well, sure. But the whole holiday time might be iffy for him. We were talking a couple weeks ago and he told me that as far as his personal well-being goes, and the way he's been doing better at managing it, he's been trying not to freak his parents out too much. Trying to break them in gradually.\"\n\nCarmela snorted with laughter. \"Darryl?\"\n\nNita smiled. In the matter of handling his autism, as with his handling of nearly everything else, it was hard to imagine Darryl doing anything \"gradually\" . These days he tended to jump in enthusiastically with both feet and then deal with the fine details as they came up. \"He told me at one point,\" Nita said, \"that he was thinking about trying to get his parents to perceive wizardry as just a new way to be non-neurotypical.\"\n\n\"If anyone can do that, he can,\" Carmela said. \"So if he's trying to ease them into the idea that the holidays are less of a chore for him these days and he doesn't need all that supervision, maybe we should just let him decide what to do about this? Put him down for 'maybe yes maybe no' and let him get back to us?\"\n\n\"Yeah. If he needs to blow us off, he will and he won't feel guilty about it.\"\n\nCarmela scribbled for a moment. Nita stretched, propping her feet up on Carmela's desk and thinking. \"S'reee...\" she turned a page in the manual.\n\nCarmela looked up. \"Um. How do you invite a humpback whale to a sleepover?\"\n\n\"The usual way! You put her in a people suit.\"\n\nCarmela blinked. \"Oh. Yeah.\"\n\n\"Especially because it's easier for S'reee than for most whales. When she got hurt that time and I healed her, we got blood-tied. So she has less trouble shapechanging to human these days, the way I have less trouble going whale when I need to.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"But no,\" Nita said with some regret. \"Says here she's on sabbatical right now. Personal leave.\"\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"Uh, the manual won't say. It's one of those confidentiality things. But I suspect it's about private time with her honey.\"\n\n\"Her what??\"\n\n\"She's dating. A very nice bull from up around Vancouver somewhere. He's a food critic.\"\n\n\"A what??\"\n\n\"You want to know where the best North Atlantic krill is,\" Nita said, \"Hwii'ish is your go-to guy.\" It had taken her a while to understand that all the Earth's oceans throbbed with a vast network of cetacean communication, a sort of sonic version of the Internet; and that Hwii'ish was essentially a foodblogger, and fairly famous among his own kind. But he didn't care about fame: what he was interested in was wizards, most specifically S'reee. \"But who knows?\" Nita said. \"Send her an invite anyway. She might be able to get away.\"\n\nCarmela made a note.\n\n\"Tom and Carl?\"\n\n\"For a sleepover?\"\n\n\"Huh? Oh, no, just for the evening party.\"\n\n\"Sure, if we can get them.\" Nita flipped from Tom's page to Carl's. \"It lists them as 'on call', but they might be able to get away.\"\n\n\"The Twychild?\" That was Tran Liem Tuyet and Tran Hung Nguyet, a special kind of twin, both of them favorites of Nita's from the big group they'd met up with during the Pullulus War.\n\n\"Uh, they're greyed out then. Maybe a family thing? It doesn't say.\"\n\n\"Okay. We should have two different invites, maybe? One for people we'd like to see but we don't know if they can make it, one for those whose calendars say they're free.\"\n\n\"Makes sense.\"\n\n\"What about Matt?\"\n\n\"Who\u2014 Oh, the Aussie guy! Yeah, can't miss a chance to watch him pester Ronan about how grateful he should be for Matt saving his life.\"\n\n\"And Ronan really is grateful but he makes this big song and dance about not caring...\"\n\n\"He's free.\"\n\n\"Good. Sleepover list.... Rhiow and Hwaith and their bunch?\"\n\nNita turned pages. \"Uh, no. 'Emergencies only.' It's a bad time for them, the North American gates are crazy busy at the holidays, and they still always malfunction even when a full team of gate techs are riding herd on them.\"\n\n\"We'll save Rhiow some of that cream she likes,\" Carmela said.\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Okay.\" Carmela stared at the tablet. \"Any of the Mars-team guys? Kit likes them a lot.\"\n\nNita nodded. \"Um, yeah. What's his face? The tall one. The German guy who Doesn't Drive Tanks.\"\n\n\"Marcus,\" said Carmela, and made a note. While the Mars investigating team had been hunting for the planet's lost kernel, and any hint of what had happened to the (then so-called) Old Martian species, Marcus\u2014who besides being a wizard with a linguistics specialty also drove armored personnel carriers for the German Army\u2014had lectured anyone who'd hold still on the essential difference between vehicles with wheels and vehicles with tracks. You got a sense that he had to spend a lot of time with people who were unclear on the concept, and so he tended to be proactive about it.\n\n\"Looks like he's free until the 24th,\" Nita said.\n\n\"Okay. Who else have we got from Mars? What's her name with the curls?\"\n\n\"Lissa?... Uh, no, she's grayed out. Shame, I like her, she's nice. Maybe next time.\"\n\nThey both sat quiet, thinking for a moment. \"Mamvish?\" Carmela said then.\n\n\"Wow, if we could get her...!\" Nita flipped a page, studied the manual. \"'On errantry, unavailable except for emergencies.' Well, no surprise there.\" The Species Archivist to the Powers that Be was in demand all over the Galaxy, all the time.\n\nCarmela sighed. \"Shame. But then she wouldn't like this time of year, this far north. No fresh tomatoes...\"\n\n\"We'll catch her in the summer, if we're lucky.\"\n\nNita stretched again. \"Anyway, that sounds like a good number. How many is that now?\"\n\n\"Uh, let me count.\" Carmela was silent for a moment. \"For the party, sort of sixteen? If everyone shows up. For the sleepover, eleven? Again, if everyone's able to make it.\"\n\nNita nodded. \"Good crowd. Should be fun.\"\n\nCarmela sat up, touched the tablet in a couple of places and typed busily for a minute or two. Then she looked over at Nita. \"Last minute thoughts?\"\n\n\"None right now. Probably I'll have one the minute you send the invites out.\"\n\n\"We'll see.\" Carmela typed a last few words and then hit a spot on the tablet with one finger. The tablet chimed.\n\n\"All gone out?\"\n\nCarmela nodded, tossed the tablet to one side and rolled over on her back in a good simulation of a collapse for someone who was already lying down. \"I,\" she announced, \"am exhaaaauuuuuuusted!\"\n\n\"And you haven't even done anything yet,\" Nita said.\n\n\"Excuse me! I sent the invitations!\"\n\nNita snickered. And then, without warning, a chill ran down her spine. She shivered.\n\nCarmela saw it. \"What?\"\n\n\"Well,\" Nita said. \"Except for the food and the drinks and the decorations and some little presents for everybody, we have only one thing left to worry about.\"\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\n\"The weather...\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 2",
                "text": "Oh, The Weather Outside Is Frightful\n\nMonday, December 20, 2010, 7:00 AM\n\nOff to the left side of Nita's head, her radio alarm went off. Eyes still closed, she stuck a hand out from under the covers and felt around until she found the button. The insistent buzzing stopped, leaving her with the faint sound of somebody from the local all-news station talking in a cheerful tinny voice about lane closures on the Major Deegan Expressway.\n\nShe opened her eyes. It was still very dim in the room. Winter mornings weren't exactly her favorites: she hated getting up when it was still dark.\n\nNita sat up in bed, rubbed her eyes. Is the sun even up yet? she wondered.\n\n7:16, said Bobo from somewhere in the back of her head.\n\n\"Thanks,\" Nita said, and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. It was chilly: the central heating hadn't come on yet, and in weather as cold as it had been the last few days, even a flannel nightie couldn't do a lot for you once you got out from under the covers. Shortest day tomorrow, she thought. Longest night... \"And an eclipse of the moon,\" she said aloud.\n\nWhile that's true, Bobo said, I wouldn't quote you long odds on seeing it.\n\nNita got out of bed and went straight to the closet for the beat-up wooly-chenille bathrobe she favored on mornings like this. \"Well, yeah, probably going to be too busy...\"\n\nThat's not the problem.\n\n\"Oh?\" Nita said, and went to the back window to tilt the Venetian blinds open.\n\nThe back yard looked someone's old black and white photograph of a winter scene: softly lit in a shadowless dove-gray, the dark shapes of bare shrubs and leafless trees seemed charcoal-sketched against an indistinct background barely visible in the pre-dawn twilight. But what was slightly visible now in that grayness was movement; a gentle down-sifting of light near the window. Ever so lightly, ever so slightly, it had begun to snow. There was maybe an inch of it on the ground already.\n\nNita smiled a little to see it. Snow for Christmas...\n\nBut possibly, Bobo said, a little more than you might have had in mind.\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\nYou'll want to check your manual... but we have incoming.\n\n\"Uh, okay.\" It was unusual to hear Bobo sound quite so concerned.\n\nNita picked the manual up off her bedside table and went to do bathroom things, then headed downstairs to see if her dad had made tea yet. He had: and he was standing there in the kitchen dressed in his black cold-weather parka just finishing what was in his Mets mug. He looked tired and a little bleary, which was no surprise this time of year\u2014the runup to Christmas was always crazy for florists. \"You okay?\" Nita said, getting a mug for herself and filling it from the pot.\n\n\"Yeah,\" her dad said. \"But God, am I getting sick of poinsettias.\"\n\nThis was something that Nita had heard repeatedly for the last few weeks. \"I don't blame you,\" she said. \"When do you think you'll be done today?\"\n\n\"Probably five,\" her dad said. \"I don't see any point in working late hours this week. I know what orders I've got due out and I've got enough time budgeted for them. If it gets busy toward the end of the day, Mikey can keep the shop open a little later. I don't want to miss the excitement.\" He smiled a little. \"When do people start getting here again?\"\n\n\"Not till about four,\" Nita said, and yawned. \"That's when Filif's coming: we'll take him over to Kit's and get him settled in. Or get Kit's pop settled, anyway...\"\n\n\"Not still nervous, is he?\" said Nita's dad. \"I've told him once or twice already, you couldn't ask for a nicer house guest. Should I call him and calm him down?\"\n\n\"Might not be a bad idea, if you get a moment today.\"\n\n\"Will do.\" Her dad kissed her goodbye. \"Tell Dairine I said to put the garbage out.\"\n\n\"I'll tell her.\" And Nita made a small face, since telling Dairine to go anywhere near a garbage can was rarely all that effective. There were few chores she hated more.\n\nHer dad headed out. After a few minutes she heard the car starting up, and (as it pulled out of the garage into the driveway) the snow tires whining and slipping in the new snow, even though her dad had salted the driveway last night. Wet snow, Nita thought. Whatever we get, it'll stick. The thought of that snow piling up on Filif's branches made her smile. Do they even get snow on Demisiv? she thought. I know so little about the place...\n\nSomething to look into. Meanwhile... She stretched. Breakfast. And then... Christmas!\n\nShe spent the first half of the day just puttering around the house and relaxing, rejoicing in not even having to look at the clock, despite the low-level buzz of anticipation already building inside her as time for the arrival of friends and guests got closer. It was the first real day of the holidays for her, the first weekday that Nita didn't have to go to school, and wouldn't have to go again until the first week in January; and the calm of it felt like heaven. Miraculously (or actually due to hard work and some forethought) she was all sorted out for her between-semesters work: no reports to write, no projects to agonize over. And nothing to procrastinate over, either! Or to get stressed over because you know you're procrastinating. It was perfect.\n\n...Well, nearly perfect. Every now and then the thought of the one person who wouldn't be there for Christmas this year came up to meet her as she looked at some window decoration that wasn't quite right and needed to be straightened, or some spot where another traditional Christmassy item\u2014that glass bowl full of fake poinsettia flowers, the other bowl full of shiny ball ornaments\u2014was dusty and needed attention. Nita kept waiting for one or another of these moments to turn into pain, and kept being surprised when they didn't. It wasn't that she didn't miss her mom. Because I do, every day. It was just that for some reason, her sense that her mom was okay was stronger than usual. Initially Nita was tempted to spend more time trying to figure this out. But why? Why do I want to keep poking at it like a tooth where the filling fell out? Mom would tell me to let it be. So I will.\n\nShe had more tea, and after a while wandered upstairs to her bedroom again and put a few last wrapping- or ribbon-touches on a couple of gifts she'd picked up for other party guests. It wasn't mandatory for people to bring each other things, but along the line she'd seen a thing or two that seemed right for one or another of the people who were coming. And there was one special gift that she kept stealing peeks at, half in admiration and half in nervousness that he wouldn't like it. Finally, she laughed at herself\u2014very softly, so as not to wake Dairine, who apparently still wasn't up yet\u2014and closed the little box. Then she felt around underneath her bed for the bedroom slippers with the waterproof soles, the ones that wouldn't mind being out in the snow. What the heck, she thought, garbage is garbage, it needs to be out...\n\nShe pulled the full plastic bag out of the kitchen garbage pail and quietly went outside to where the big garbage cans sat next to the garage. The snow was still falling gently out of a solid gray sky, mostly straight down, in a persistent, purposeful kind of way. Only the occasional tiniest breath of breeze stirred it around and made it swirl as it came down. Then it straightened out again, doing a credible imitation of snow globe snow. I meant to look at that weather report, she thought, as she put the kitchen garbage in the big can, shook the snow off the garbage can lid, and quietly put it back in place. In a moment. Right now, despite the way the cold bit at her through her bathrobe and the flannel nightgown, Nita was quite content to stand in the snow\u2014maybe two inches deep, now\u2014and let the silence soak into her bones. There was no sound anywhere; even the normal traffic noise that would have drifted over from the nearby Southern State Parkway was completely muted.\n\nShe glanced down at the tracks her dad's car had left in the driveway snow. They were already filling up again, and the salt underneath them didn't seem to be having much effect. Nita briefly considered doing a small wizardry to talk the driveway into believing it was warmer than its surroundings so that the snow would stay melted. But is it really necessary? she thought. Sometimes it was harder for wizard to wait a little while and not spend energy that might not have actually been required to improve a situation. Then she grinned at herself. And maybe, she thought, I'm just feeling lazy. And every now and then, why not?\n\nShe went back in the house, took off the outside slippers and left but by the door to melt their snow off on the doormat; then found her other slippers which had somehow migrated to the dining room, put them on, and wandered into the living room. It was bright enough, even though no lights were on; the picture window was letting in that pale gray snow light, restful. Perfect to read by, she thought. She went upstairs very softly, pulled a book out of her to-read pile, went downstairs again into the kitchen for more tea, and curled up on the couch with the book and just read.\n\nThe next thing she knew the kitchen door was opening. Her dad had come home for lunch, and even two rooms over Nita could tell from the sound of the way he tossed his keys onto the kitchen counter that he was in a bad mood. Oh great, she thought, what's this about?\n\nShe put the book down and picked up the empty tea mug sitting by her, and wandered into the kitchen. Her dad was staring into the refrigerator, scowling. Nita leaned around him and peered into his face. \"What?\"\n\n\"Don't get me started,\" he muttered.\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"Football.\"\n\nNita rolled her eyes. \"Oh yeah, the miracle...\"\n\n\"Not miraculous,\" said her dad, and started rummaging around in the fridge a lot harder than he needed to.\n\nNita snickered. For her, the only sport of interest was baseball. But come the end of baseball season her dad normally started paying attention to football, for which Nita had no time whatsoever. Apparently the Philadelphia Eagles had played the Giants at the Meadowlands over the weekend and had abruptly come from behind in the last quarter to badly beat the Giants, her dad's favorites. Now, every time he heard the local news teams on TV or radio referring to this as \"the Miracle in the Meadowlands,\" he positively growled.\n\n\"Daddy, you really want to shake this mood,\" Nita said. \"If Fil turns up here and sees you upset like this, he's going to want to know why you're upset! And then you're going to have to explain football to him. And he always gets freaked when he thinks he hasn't done enough research in something.\"\n\n\"Well,\" her dad said, and sighed. \"I take it that on this visit your job is going to be explaining Christmas to him?\"\n\n\"Well, he'll have arrived doing the basic reading, you know that.\"\n\nHer dad laughed a little. \"Not sure how basic basic is, but the subject can get complicated...\"\n\n\"Tell me about it,\" Nita said. And then the front doorbell rang.\n\nHer dad glanced at her. \"And you not dressed yet,\" he said. \"Let me get it. Probably it's the first batch of kids wanting to shovel the driveway.\" He went past her to answer the door.\n\nNita heard him open it, and then something unexpected happened; her dad started laughing. Curious, she went into the living room and peered around towards the door to see what was going on. Then she understood his surprise, because standing there in bright red ski coveralls and big boots and a parka and a woolly Christmas hat was Tom Swale, with a snow shovel over his shoulder.\n\n\"I don't even know what the going rate for this is anymore,\" Nita's dad said, and laughed again, feeling around in his pockets. \"Is five dollars enough, or has inflation hit this too?\"\n\nTom roared with laughter. \"Just leave that they are, Tom,\" said Nita's dad. \"Come on in. Coffee?\"\n\n\"No, it's okay, I won't be keeping you,\" Tom said, leaning the snow shovel up against the side of Nita's front porch underneath the mailbox. He stepped in the door that Nita's dad held open for him, and all the snow obligingly fell off him before he crossed the threshold.\n\n\"You sure,\" Nita's dad said. \"I mean, that trick has to be good for at least a ten if you'll do it to the sidewalks and the driveway. Maybe we can come to some kind of arrangement.\"\n\nTom followed her dad into the dining room, smiling at Nita. \"It's okay, Harry, I'm not shilling for business. At least, not this kind of business. I was just doing our sidewalk, and then it occurred to me to wonder whether Nita had seen the weather report, and I thought I'd just walk over and check.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Nita said. \"Bobo did mention something about a storm coming.\"\n\n\"The storm,\" Tom said. \"The snowstorm of the decade, if not the millennium... a category 2 nor'easter with snow. There won't have been a snowstorm this powerful since the sixties, if our own weather forecasters are worth their salt. Even the non-wizardly forecasters are starting to get really concerned, and with reason. The temperatures are going to drop quite hard on the twenty-first, and the wind's going to pick up. Blizzard conditions at the very least, and super-blizzard at worst.\" He sighed. \"A lot of us are having to change our schedules at the last minute, because all the local services are going to be under tremendous pressure and the going to need all the help they can get on this one, at least from wizards expert in handling this kind of weather.\"\n\nNita followed them into the dining room and sat down with them. \"Does that mean you won't be able to make it to the party?\"\n\n\"Oh, we'll be looking in,\" Tom said. \"But we won't be able to stay long.\" And then he gave Nita an amused look. \"The joke is that it turns out we wouldn't have been able to stay very long anyway, because a few days ago the airline changed our flights to Banff and left us looking at an earlier departure.\" He brushed a little ruefully at his ski coverall. \"But now that's not an issue. Here Carl and I were already to go to the snow, and all of a sudden it turns out the snow is coming to us. With a vengeance. So we canceled, and the slopes will have to wait for us until the new year.\"\n\n\"Sometimes you just can't catch a break,\" Nita's dad said.\n\n\"The Eagles,\" Tom said. \"Tell me.\"\n\nThat made Nita's dad laugh. \"I'd have thought you guys would just try to push this storm away, though,\" he said, \"if it's going to be so much trouble.\"\n\nTom shook his head. \"We don't usually fight with the weather unless we have to. And even if you want to, with the biggest storms there's almost no point; there's so much kinetic energy already bound up in them that it's like trying to stop an atom bomb. This one's got its mind made up\u2014it's coming through. All we can do is try to mitigate the worst circumstances, help the emergency services quietly where helping won't get noticed, and generally just make ourselves useful.\"\n\nNita swallowed, because a thought had just occurred to her. \"You don't need any of us, do you?\"\n\n\"That's really thoughtful,\" Tom said, \"and the answer is, in a word, no. None of you are in the required specialty groups, and we've got plenty of people stepping up to handle this. So you enjoy your party. We'll stop in sometime this evening for a while, have an eggnog, and then head out to do our thing.\"\n\nHe got up, and so did Nita's dad, walking him to the front door. \"But Tom, if you change your mind about the driveway, let me know. We local small businessmen have to stick together...\"\n\nTheir laughter mingled as the door closed. \"I'll let you know. See you two later.\"\n\nA little while after hearing the doorbell, and just after their dad headed back to the shop, Dairine materialized in old jeans and an oversized sweater, demanding tea and food. For the time being Nita ignored this. \"You have a late night last night?\"\n\n\"Working out some software issues with Spot,\" she said.\n\n\"Oh, really?\"\n\n\"Don't angle for details,\" Dairine said rubbing her eyes. \"Party stuff. You'll find out. How did it get to be two o'clock already?\"\n\n\"Ten of,\" Nita said, glancing at the clock. But it was a fair question. \"And you know what? I don't care. Everything is moving in slow motion today, and I love it.\"\n\nDairine flopped down at the dining room table and stretched. \"For once we're in agreement.\"\n\n\"'For once,'\" Nita said in good-natured mockery. It was interesting to notice that she and her sister had lately been in agreement a lot more than they used to. Maybe it's the wizardry, Nita thought. And even if it's not, I really don't care why it's happening. It's better than fighting. \"I took out your garbage,\" she said.\n\n\"My garbage! It's the garbage. I'm just the one who gets stuck taking it out.\" Dairine wrinkled her nose.\n\n\"Doesn't matter. You owe me one,\" Nita said.\n\nDairine rolled her eyes as if in scorn at this bourgeois concept. \"I'm not even up ten minutes and you're trying to push your simplistic barter economy stuff on me? Please.\" She got up and went to get some tea.\n\nNita laughed at herself. Well, that lasted five minutes. \"Shower time,\" she said, levering herself up out of the chair and heading upstairs. \"Make another pot, okay?\"\n\nShe didn't even hear Dairine's answer, and didn't particularly care what she'd said. The tone of the day was remaining unbroken; slow and easy, building toward something good. That soft snow light was filling the upstairs hall from the window down at the end, and filling the bathroom too. Nita showered, then went and got changed into her party clothes\u2014nothing dressy, just dark leggings and low black fluffy-lined elf-boots, and what Nita had started referring to privately as the Christmas Sweater of Doom. It was a ridiculous hairy angora-knit crewnecked construction adorned with fake Icelandic patterns in red and white, and scattered all over with revolting embroidered green yarn Christmas trees with little sewn-on Mylar ornaments. Kit had stumbled across the thing somewhere online and ridiculed it so mercilessly that Nita had decided she had to have it. It had taken entirely too much of her disposable income for that month, but it would be worth it for the look on his face when he saw it on her. And it's going to be hilarious explaining it to Filif...\n\nNita glanced at the clock radio and realized to her shock that it somehow said three-thirty. Whoa, how'd that happen, she thought, where'd the time go all of a sudden! Maybe I had a little too much lazy. He's going to be here soon...\n\nShe gathered up the goodie bag with her Christmas cards and small presents in it from where it had been sitting on her desk for a while. Then Nita headed downstairs, noting in passing the sound of Dairine thumping around in her room, apparently going through her drawers or her closet. Last-minute decisions, Nita thought, smiling as she headed down the stairs. Dair always tries to be so organized, but when it comes to clothes she can never make up her mind...\n\nIn the living room, Nita paused briefly, glancing around. The place looked tidy enough, so she didn't have to worry about bringing anybody over if for some reason they needed to see something of hers. Fine, she thought. She headed into the kitchen, noted a few dishes in the sink, and stopped just long enough to wash the and put them in the rack. Then she grabbed her parka off the hook by the back door, threw it over the crazy Christmas sweater, and carefully headed out the back door, down the steps, and through the gate into the back yard.\n\nThe snow was deeper out here; she had to step carefully to keep the boots from getting wet. Nita looked around and saw that the silvery snow light was already getting a bit dimmer. Above that gray ceiling, sunset was already coming on. She paused by the tree growing out of the middle of the yard between house and the garden, and put a hand on its trunk. \"You awake?\" she said.\n\nLiused's answer took a few moments in coming. A little.\n\n\"Got a guest incoming,\" she said. \"Want to talk to him? Or if this is a bad time, he can stop by earlier tomorrow, when the light's better.\"\n\n...Tomorrow might be best. In the morning?\n\nNita patted his trunk. \"No problem,\" she said. \"I'll talk to you then.\"\n\nShe headed on down the garden\u2014all the flower beds covered over with mulch or burlap bags this time of year, and those in turn covered with the new snow\u2014and finally under the bare trees in the furthest part of the back yard, where the surface of the snow was patched and dappled with little lumps of it that had slid off the branches above. The stillness was very deep back here, and Nita just stood there a while, not caring how cold her feet were getting, and appreciated it.\n\nAround her she thought she could almost see the sky's light dimming moment by moment. Bobo, what time's sunset?\n\nFour thirty-one.\n\n\"I might not be imagining it, then,\" she murmured. And then at the bottom of her vision, she caught sight of something unexpected: a glow under the snow, a sign of the embedded transit circle waking up. He's early, she thought, stepping back.\n\nA moment later a cold cinnamon-scented breeze blew in her face, and Filif was standing there, as suddenly as if a tree with its lowest branches demurely veiled in mist had suddenly grown on the spot.\n\nHe looked at Nita with all the berries on that side, while using the others to gaze up and around him. \"Dai stiho, my cousin!\"\n\n\"Dai, you,\" Nita said, and stepped into the transit circle as soon as it had finished discharging, and buried her arms in among the fronds to give him a big hug.\n\nIt was at that moment that a light breeze sprang up. Nita felt the sparkle of breezeblown snowflakes on her cheek just a bare second before one of the trees above them let slip some loose snow on top of them.\n\nThey both laughed at that, and Nita reached up to brush Filif off a little. \"I was early...\" Filif said.\n\n\"I don't care,\" Nita said. \"It's so great to see you! This is going to be so much fun.\"\n\n\"Where's Kit?\"\n\n\"Over at his place helping keep his folks calm. This is their first time to have a bunch of non-Solars over...\"\n\n\"And they're so kind to have me! I can't wait for this.\" He shivered with excitement.\n\nAt least Nita hoped it was excitement. \"You know, I've never even asked you. Does it snow where you are? Do you even get winter?\"\n\n\"What? Of course it snows,\" Filif said. \"Demisiv has a fairly pronounced axial tilt. And a lot of highlands. The climate's temperate most of the year, but in the depths of the cold season we get quite big storms, sometimes. Normally no one's too bothered. In the dark season a lot of people elect to go dormant and just wait it out. Others... stay more active, like to get around then.\" He fell silent for a moment. \"A long story.\"\n\n\"But you're okay with this?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course.\" He ruffled out his branches. \"This feels quite homelike, actually. The temperature range isn't far off.\"\n\nNita paused. \"This is possibly the most idiotic time possible to be asking you this,\" she said. \"But... are you okay with all this? Because you understand about the normal Earth Christmas trees now, don't you. And where they come from. And what happens to them.\"\n\nFilif paused too. \"Life is life,\" he said. \"But I did do my research before I came. Those lives have been brought about just for this purpose, haven't they?\"\n\n\"Pretty much, yeah.\"\n\n\"Well, I can feel that. So can they.\" Filif rustled his branches as a little more snow fell on him from the branches above. \"That being the case, we should allow them all the dignity of accepting what they've been destined for. And of knowing that they're making the best of it: in some cases, not just with acceptance, but great joy.\"\n\nNita nodded. \"It seems a lot to ask of them...\" Nita said.\n\n\"It's not what you're asking,\" Filif said. \"It's what they're giving. Gift is a powerful state from which to approach the world...\"\n\nAgain there was that sense of what Filif was saying having come up from some great depth. But even when he was at his goofiest and most excitable, Nita had never had trouble feeling, at a slight remove, the underlying strength from which sprang everything Filif did and said, and in which he was powerfully grounded. When that power revealed itself in the middle of a wizardry, sometimes it took you by surprise. Nita wasn't going to push the issue at the moment; if Fil had something that needed saying, explanations would be forthcoming soon enough.\n\n\"Anyway,\" Filif said, \"you should relax. I'm not a newbie here these days: you don't have to hide the salad bar from me any more.\"\n\nNita burst out laughing. \"Good!\"\n\n\"And after all this time, I'm finally here to get decorated. So let's get on with it!\"\n\n\"Right,\" Nita said. \"Sker'ret's put a receptor site out in Kit's back yard to make transiting in easier for people.\"\n\n\"Shielded, I take it, so as not to discomfit the neighbors...\"\n\n\"Absolutely.\" Nita walked them both back a step or two into the center of the transit circle. \"You set?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then let's go!\"\n\nA heartbeat later, the two of them came out in Kit's backyard. \"It's going to be a zoo in there,\" Nita said. \"Carmela's mama decided all of a sudden that she was not going to let her daughter mess around with her best tableware. She was going to set up the buffet herself.\"\n\n\"If I didn't know better,\" Filif said, \"I would suspect Carmela planned it that way in order to get her mother to do the heavy lifting.\"\n\nNita snickered as she reached down to her charm bracelet for the empty-ring charm that held the simplest of several invisibility spells. \"You know her too well,\" she said as she pulled the bright Speech-tracery of the spell out of the charm, expanded it into a broad faintly-glowing network, and threw it over the top of the two of them. \"Not that there's all that much to do. Sker'ret had Crossings Catering transit the food in about an hour ago. It's all in disposable serving trays and bins and things...\"\n\nThey headed up across the snow-covered lawn of Kit's back hard toward the house. \"There's no rush about installing the puptents,\" Nita said. \"Sker's put in a hub to make the installation easier. Just plug your wizardry in, and the hub'll do the rest.\"\n\n\"He seems to have thought of everything,\" Filif said.\n\n\"Happiest when he's organizing,\" Nita said, \"that's our Sker'.\"\n\nThey went in the back door, through the kitchen. There were four or five pots on the stove, from which wonderful smells were arising: mulled wine, hot chocolate, hot cider. Christmas music was floating out of the living room: as a song finished and Nita heard a veejay's voice, she realized that the TV had one of the big music video channels on. \"You are going to hear every Christmas carol ever written before this is over,\" she said to Filif, flipping the invisibility spell off them and collapsing it again.\n\n\"I take it that's a good thing?\"\n\n\"We'll see what you think by this time tomorrow.\"\n\nThey headed into the dining room. The table was covered silverware and napkins and cups and glasses, and a whole lot of food. Some of it was local\u2014Nita immediately recognized Kit's mama's buffalo wings and the little deviled-egg and cream cheese and chilli hors d'oeuvres that she liked to do on crackers. But the rest was covered with human and alien-biology delicacies from the Crossings, everything carefully labeled. Nita made a private resolution to get back here as soon as she could and check out the details, as some of the food looked familiar, and if she didn't move fast, Kit would shovel it all down his face before she got a chance.\n\n\"Come on, Fil,\" Nita said, \"come meet Kit's pop and mama!\" She pulled him around into the living room, having caught a glimpse of them in there through the passthrough; they were hanging a last few garlands up near the ceiling.\n\nNita pulled Filif over to them. \"So here's the guest of honor!\" Nita said. \"Juan Rodriguez,\" Nita said, \"Marina Rodriguez, this is Filifermanhathrhumneits'elhessaiffnth.\"\n\nKit's pop's eyes went wide. He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything Nita immediately added, \"Everybody calls him Filif, so don't even bother trying to pronounce the long version. It always takes me a couple of days to even remember how.\"\n\n\"Estimable senior cousins,\" Filif said, bowing, \"thank you for your welcome.\" And then he straightened up and offered Kit's pop a long branch, and his mama another.\n\nThey both stared at these for a moment, and then took them. \"Nice to meet you, Filif,\" said Kit's pop. \"So nice!\" said his mama.\n\n\"A pleasure on my part as well! I'm very excited about what's going to happen.\"\n\n\"Well, we're excited to have you! And we're glad you're here finally,\" said Kit's pop. \"It's been so strange not having a tree already. It's felt almost unnatural. But we're good now.\" He beamed at Filif. \"You're what... six feet easily, I'd say!\"\n\nFilif thought about that for a moment. \"Yes, I'd say so,\" he said. \"And about five feet in diameter at the base.\"\n\n\"It's going to be unusual to have a Christmas tree that's so cooperative,\" said Kit's pop. \"But look, you should enjoy the party for a while first! We like to let it get good and dark before we start decorating... it's more impressive, then, when the lights go on.\"\n\n\"That's fine,\" Filif said. \"What do you normally do at this point with a... locally acquired tree?\"\n\n\"Well, first of all unwrap it outside \u2014 normally you bring it home wrapped up in webbing so the branches don't get hurt. And after that, leave it outside for a little while to let it relax and help the branches find their right shape again.\"\n\nFilif rustled a little in agreement. \"It makes sense,\" he said. \"If you like, perhaps I'll go stand outside for a bit and get myself acclimatized.\"\n\n\"Uh... won't the neighbors see you?\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" said Filif. \"Nita handled it when we came in, but I'm as good at being invisible as any other wizard There are lots of ways to do it. Once I stop moving, they'll see a wrapped up tree sitting leaning against the side of your garage while you get the room ready.\"\n\n\"There's zero need for that,\" said another voice. It was Dairine, wandering in out of the living room. She was in a long green silky top and darker green floppy pants, something Wellakhit if Nita was any judge. \"Sker' did a smart thing and shielded the whole back yard. The front's open, but he did a selective visual wizardry with the windows: nobody human will be able to see any of the non-Solars through it, and the filter spoofs anything unaffected so it can't be seen either.\"\n\n\"Probably that's a good idea,\" said Kit's mama. \"Especially lately... Well, come on, Filif, what do you like to eat or drink? Or do you want to wait till you've come back in?\"\n\n\"I think Sker'ret will have brought some rooting compound for me,\" Filif said. \"It's what I'll be standing in while decorated.\" He shivered again, that excited gesture.\n\n\"It's in the dedicated corner already,\" came Sker'ret's voice from the kitchen. \"A big pot of that acid stuff you like, Fil.\" And in came Sker'ret, apparently after a visit to one of the storage closets in the back of the house. He was walking on only a few pairs of legs, and with all the others he was carefully holding three other piles of serving plates above his upper carapace.\n\nNita had to turn and stare, fascinated. \"I didn't even know your legs hinged like that!\" she called after him.\n\n\"Apparently they do,\" said Sker'ret, and kept on going into the dining room.\n\n\"Where's Kit?\" Nita said.\n\n\"He's upstairs changing,\" Carmela said as she came wandering into the living room from the back of the house. She looked very much the Christmas hostess in a glittery red tunic top and red-and-white leggings with a very subdued candy-cane pattern on them, and low red boots to complete the effect.\n\n\"Fashion plate,\" Nita said as Carmela grabbed Filif and hugged him, half vanishing into his branches and making some of his berry-eyes on either side of her pop a little.\n\n\"Yes, well, with such a special occasion you have to make a little effort,\" Carmela said. \"Kit's doing his best but I don't know if it's going to be enough...\"\n\nFootsteps were coming down the stairs. \"I heard that!\" said Kit's voice. \"Just because some people can't manage to find themselves a genuine collectors' item like this...\"\n\nKit came down into the living room, turning toward the group gathered there, his mouth open... and then stopped dead.\n\n\"Oh no,\" Nita said, and started gasping with laughter. \"Oh no!\" Because Kit was wearing black jeans and sneakers and a ridiculous hairy angora-knit crewnecked construction adorned with fake Icelandic patterns in red and white, and scattered all over with revolting embroidered green yarn Christmas trees with little sewn-on Mylar ornaments.\n\nThey stood there in shock, staring at each other as Kit's mama and pop burst out laughing in unison. \"You look like the Bobbsey Twins,\" Kit's mama said.\n\n\"Who?\" said Kit and Nita in unison.\n\nMrs. Rodriguez threw a glance at her husband, then gazed briefly at the ceiling as if begging for help from some unseen source. \"Generation gap,\" she said. \"Never mind.\" She headed for the kitchen.\n\n\"I didn't mean for you to buy it,\" Kit said, \"I meant for you not to buy it! So I'd be the only one having it.\"\n\n\"Emailing me pictures of the thing was no way to get me not to buy it!\" Nita said. \"What am I, six?\"\n\nDairine pushed past her toward the dining room, snickering. \"No better than eight on a good day,\" she said.\n\n\"Whatever you do,\" said an Irish voice from that direction, \"don't change. Don't either of you dare change.\"\n\nNita turned. There, leaning in the dining room doorway, having apparently just arrived, was Ronan. He was in black, as usual... but for a change, surprisingly formal blacks. Trousers instead of jeans, shiny black brogues instead of goth boots, a very slim-fitting black shirt with black glitters in it, and to top everything off, a Santa hat in white and black.\n\nNita burst out laughing. \"What are you supposed to be, some kind of dark 'jolly old elf?'\"\n\nRonan waggled his eyebrows. \"Other people can worry about who's nice. I prefer to concentrate on the naughty.\"\n\n\"I don't even want to know,\" said Kit's mama as she came back into the room with a tray full of glasses of hot cider. \"Nita?\"\n\nNita grabbed one. \"You're earlier than I thought you'd be,\" she said to Ronan.\n\n\"Wanted to get out before it got too crazy. We've got weather like you're going to get.\"\n\nThat surprised Nita. \"Can't be the same system\u2014\"\n\n\"It's not. Trust me, we don't need your help to trigger major snow events! We've got Siberia.\" Ronan wandered over to where some buffet trays had been laid out on one of the low living room tables and went picking among the crackers piled up there. \"And we're getting hammered. A foot on the ground already and lots more coming. Heathrow's closed, Charles de Gaulle is closed, Frankfurt and Geneva were just shutting when I left.\" He found a plate for his snacks. \"In fact, most of Europe's a mess. Every wizard who specializes in that kind of thing is out in the cold right now. So glad I'm not one!\"\n\n\"Here,\" said Kit's mama, putting a glass of cider in Ronan's hand. \"Who else wants one?\"\n\nNita had a long drink of the cider and felt the world seem to settle a little around her. Whatever spice mix Kit's mama had worked out to use in the stuff, Nita never got tired of it. The next thing she knew she and Kit were laughing about their sweaters, and she was stealing snacks off a plate he was holding, and the room was getting fuller of people. Her dad showed up, and the next thing Nita knew he and Kit's pop and Filif were discussing the best management of the electrical outlets for the lights they were going to be putting on him, and Kit's mama was laughing in the kitchen with Dairine at something Spot had just done, and the entertainment system was showing what appeared to be an ancient rock star playing a guitar in the nude.\n\nAnd Kit leaned over to Nita and said, \"Anyway, I don't know about you, but I'd say the party has begun...\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 3",
                "text": "The place started descending into cheerful bedlam as more people arrived. Filif slipped out to get himself acclimated, as planned: Nita caught a glimpse of him, a tranquil shadow against the snow, as twilight set in. Tom and Carl turned up in their ski gear, to everyone's amusement, and were immediately equipped with cider (as they were apparently about to go on duty: \"Back for the mulled wine later, Marina,\" Carl said, \"you know we wouldn't miss that for anything!\" ). Matt from Australia turned up, wearing jeans and a truly eye-hurting shirt covered with graphics of Christmas ornaments in Day-Glo colors. Tall rawboned Marcus with his Very Military Haircut arrived, actually in camouflage fatigues in Christmas colors, bringing chocolates for Kit's mama...\n\nThe noise level in the house became amazing: gossip and laughter, some preliminary exchange of small gifts, a lot more drink making the rounds, a lot of food. Sker'ret seemed to have appointed himself catering manager, and was constantly going back and forth with buffet trays. \"It's all downstairs on the other side of one of the puptent accesses,\" he said to Nita when he passed her once. \"There's a stasis field there holding everything at the right temperatures. All the other accesses are set up, don't worry about those...\" And he was off again for another tray.\n\nThe music channel playing on the entertainment system was bringing out the best in some of the guests. Ronan's voice was lifted in song at one point and caused everyone to hold still in astonishment as he did a pitch-perfect, raspy singalong imitation of both the leads on the song that was playing. \"They've got cars big as bars, they've got rivers of gold, but the wind goes right through you, it's no place for the old: when you first took my hand on a cold Christmas Eve, you promised me Broadway was waiting for me...\"\n\nMoments later Matt was next to him and singing in harmony. \"And the boys of the NYPD Choir were singing 'Galway Bay', and the bells were ringing out for Christmas Day...\"\n\n\"We need them for the carol singing tomorrow night,\" said Kit's mama, sipping at her own mulled wine with a critical look. \"Mmm, needs more cinnamon... Kit, take care of that, will you?\"\n\n\"Do what I can, Mama,\" Kit said as his mother headed back for the kitchen, and himself headed for another of the snack trays. Nita turned back to the gossip she'd been eavedropping on while pretending to watch the music video channel.\n\n\"\u2014didn't want to get into outside decoration, what with the kind of vandalism we've been getting lately,\" Nita's dad was saying.\n\n\"Five'll get you ten I know who you mean. The Terror Twins....\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"The new next door neighbors' kids,\" Kit's pop said, and sighed. \"I could really, really wish the Liddles hadn't had to move. I miss Dave. He was good company in the summer, at the end of a barbecue. Or most times, really.\"\n\n\"I miss Roz,\" said the voice from the kitchen. \"She was such a great cook. I was learning things from her...\"\n\nThere was a sort of communal sigh at that, audible even over the general noise. Kit's mama knew her cooking skills were limited, and knew that everyone knew it, and was regardless entirely cheerful about it and always looking forward to improving them.\n\n\"So what happened there?\" said Nita's dad. \"I remember hearing that Dave had some job offer, but I don't know what else was going on.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Some firm up in Seattle, I think. Washington state, anyway. It happened very suddenly. He spent most of the spring sending out resumes and got nothing: seemed like nobody needed anyone to do what he did. Repairs on these big computerized industrial printers. Then all of a sudden this one company hit on him, flew him out for an interview, and a week later, bang, deal done. They sold the house in an awful hurry... two weeks later they were gone.\"\n\nKit's pop made a face. \"The new neighbors, the Chastellains... Rory's all right. Nice guy, he works over at Northrop Grumman. Lena's lovely, a very lively funny woman, something in IT. But she's not working right now. Apparently she had some kind of hip injury last year and she's got another six months of physio before she can go back. I feel for her, though, because she's stuck being stay-at-home mom to, well...\"\n\nNita exchanged a glance with Kit, who'd come up next to her, and didn't say anything.\n\n\"A pair of badly-behaved antisocial ignoramuses,\" Kit's mother said from the kitchen, sounding very much like someone who didn't care who might possibly overhear her.\n\n\"There you go,\" Kit said under his breath. \"Mama knows.\"\n\n\"I can't imagine how two such nice people have turned out kids who're so poorly socialized,\" his mama said. \"Seriously. Rude, destructive, foul-mouthed...\"\n\nThe two of them listened with amusement to the string of vividly descriptive adjectives flowing from the woman slicing oranges in the kitchen. Neither Nita nor Kit needed to be told more about the subject than they already knew. Bobby and Ron Chastellain had in an amazingly short time become famous at school for spending more time in detention than they seemed to spend in class. They were as much a menace on the sports field as they were in the classroom; it seemed no one was too small for them to bully or too big for them to start a fight with. They were almost universally loathed, and seemed to glory in it. Even wizards with a mandate to prevent speeding up the Universe's heat death sometimes had trouble keeping themselves from taking action against the Chastellains that would have been pleasantly robust but would probably have landed them in hot water with their Supervisories after the fact.\n\n\"You have to wonder,\" Kit said under his breath, \"whether it's still them being miserable at having to be in a new school all of a sudden, or if now they're just kicking everybody's ass every chance they get because they enjoy it.\"\n\n\"My money's on number two,\" Nita said. \"Never mind them. They are not spoiling my Christmas.\"\n\n\"Mine either,\" Kit said. \"Hey, where's Fil?\"\n\n\"He was out having a breath of air. I'll go check him.\"\n\nShe slipped out of the heat and noise to glance around the back yard. Filif was standing straighter against the garage, playing the role of a relaxing Christmas tree perfectly and slowly letting down his branches. Snow was still falling gently through the darkness, but not as heavily as it had been. Still, Nita could feel something in the air, possibly something to do with the ionization associated with incoming storms: a sense that when the snow really let go, it wasn't going to stop for a while.\n\nShe wandered over to him with her hot cider. \"Fil? How're you doing?\"\n\n\"Just fine,\" he said. She could see his berry-eyes looking upward into the night, possibly a sign that he was engaged in the same kind of weather analysis she was. \"One of the small creatures from down the road came along and watered me,\" Filif added. \"Very kind.\"\n\nNita stole a glance down at the snow. There was enough light from the house for her to easily see the yellow in it, and she burst out laughing.\n\nBehind her, Kit's side door went. \"You all right out here, son?\" said Kit's papa.\n\nNita smiled at how quickly Filif seemed to reached this status after having been a first-time houseguest just an hour before: she detected her dad's subtle hand in that. \"Just relaxing,\" said Filif. \"How do the branches look?\"\n\n\"Very natural,\" he said. And then he laughed at himself. \"Well, it's not as if you're an artificial tree, for God's sake. You look just fine. It's going to be a pleasure decorating you.\"\n\n\"I hope so,\" Filif said. \"I've been looking forward to this for a long time.\"\n\n\"Well, whenever you're ready, we can always\u2014\" Kit's pop turned a little toward the house.\n\nThen he paused, and his eyes widened. \"Uh,\" he said. \"Maybe I'm missing something, but...\"\n\n\"But?\" Nita said.\n\nKit's pop swallowed. \"I know they're supposed to be warm-blooded,\" he said, \"but is it good for a dinosaur to be out in the snow?\"\n\nNita turned, stared at the shape glowing softly blue- and white-patterned out on the snowy lawn behind Kit's house. \"Mamvish!!\"\n\nIt couldn't have been just her shout that brought them, but within a second or two every wizard in the house was pouring out of it. It occurred to Nita that the instantaneous reaction had to have something to do with the sudden presence in the neighborhood of someone with Mamvish's power levels. Momentarily she was surrounded by wizards attempting to hug her hello and others trying to get her to stick around.\n\n\"No, no,\" she said, \"I can't stay. But I had to come see you all. I didn't want you to get the idea that I didn't want to come and spin the dreidel!\"\n\nThe laughter that broke out confused her a little. \"What?\" she said. \"Oh, no! Wrong holiday?\"\n\n\"No, just a little late for that one,\" Tom said. \"But who cares? You came!\"\n\n\"I had to,\" Mamvish said. \"Even though the season's wrong in this hemisphere...\" She sounded wistful.\n\nShe literally could only stay for a few minutes. \"On my way to the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, there's a nova about to pop and we're running short of time... But all of you do whatever you would do if I could stay!\" And just like that, without even a breath of wind to mark her teleport, she was gone.\n\n\"You're going to explain that to me, I hope,\" said Kit's pop.\n\n\"It may take a while,\" said Kit. \"Fil, want to come in and root a bit? Sker's freaking out in there, he thinks he brought the wrong flavor of compound or something and you're trying to be nice about it.\"\n\nThe crowd that had dashed out of the house now wandered back in with Filif in tow. Shortly he was settled down in the broad deep bucket of rooting compound that Sker'ret had set up for him, and a group had gathered around him in energetic discussion of Solstice festivals in general. Nita stood there with another glass of cider and listened to Matt and Ronan and Kit and Carmela batting the subject around and trying to get a feel for what Filif actually knew about what was going on.\n\n\"Well, I did a certain amount of reading before I came,\" Filif said. \"The normal amount of research. But there did seem to be some, well, conflicts among various versions of the basic story...\"\n\nThis set off another wide-ranging discussion featuring mangers, caves versus little wooden chalets, the concept of Nativity scenes, the business of identifying angels as the Powers that Be (or not), the Annunciation, the Three Kings and whether they of Orient really Were, or whether they might actually have been wizards. \"And this being called Santa Claus,\" Filif said at last. \"Where does he fit into this? Certainly so senior a Power would not have failed to attend such an event.\"\n\n\"Oh boy,\" Ronan said, covering his eyes, \"here we go!\"\n\n\"And why is it supposed to happen at the Solstice when the documentation says that there were shepherds out in the fields with their sheep?\"\n\n\"Lambing time,\" Matt said. \"He's got it in one. First-degree theft of pagan celebrations!\"\n\n\"Green boughs and all,\" Carmela said. \"The Holly and the Ivy...\"\n\n\"O Christmas tree, O Christmas Tree,\" Matt started singing, \"how lovely are thy branches...\"\n\nMarcus, who'd been listening off to one side, suddenly looked indignant. \"This is a terrible translation. What does 'lovely' have to do with anything?\"\n\nThey all looked at him. Marcus stared back, bemused by their bemusement. \"...What? The original song doesn't say anything about the tree being lovely.\"\n\n\"It doesn't?\"\n\n\"O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,\" Kit sang, and then stopped, looking perplexed. \"I don't know the rest.\"\n\n\"It was a German song for a long time before it was an English one,\" Marcus said.\n\n\"This was all Queen Victoria's husband's fault, wasn't it?\" Carl said, having wandered over into this when Matt began singing. \"He put a tree up in Buckingham Palace. Started a fad.\"\n\n\"I thought it was Martin Luther's fault,\" Tom said, drifting up beside him. \"Saw one out in the forest with its needles full of frost and starlight... brought it home to show the family...\"\n\n\"His fault too, yes,\" Marcus said. \"But listen: the song\u2014\" He started to sing in a strong tenor.\n\n\u2003\"O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,\n\n\u2003Wie treu sind deine Bl\u00e4tter!\n\n\u2003O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,\n\n\u2003Wie treu sind deine Bl\u00e4tter!\n\n\u2003Du gr\u00fcnst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,\n\n\u2003Nein, auch im Winter, wenn es schneit. \u2014\n\n\u2003O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,\n\n\u2003Wie treu sind deine Bl\u00e4tter!\"\n\nSome of the other younger wizards looked thoughtful as they started taking the German lyric apart via their understanding of it in the Speech. \"He's right, there's nothing about 'lovely' in there,\" Nita said.\n\nKit shook his head. \"How do you translate treu? 'Faithful?'\"\n\nMarcus nodded. \"Or loyal.\"\n\nRonan laughed. \"Like Matt said, the usual evergreen trope,\" he said. \"The whole non-deciduous eternal-life thing.\" He had been working on a mug of Kit's mama's cocoa, and started to take another swig of it, then stared down into the mug with annoyance. \"Bloodyell, I'm out again. Where's this stuff going? I mean, it's just cocoa, cocoa's for the wee kiddies...\" He got up and headed for the back door again.\n\nKit grinned into his own mug. \"Mama's secret recipe strikes again...\"\n\nCarmela glanced over at Marcus. \"So it would be more like, 'You're green all while the Summer glows, and in the Winter, when it snows\u2014'\"\n\nMarcus tilted his head, thought. \"Yes, that's close enough.\"\n\n\"So where'd we get the 'lovely?'\" Dairine said.\n\nMarcus shrugged. \"Poor translations are everywhere in popular culture,\" he said. \"You should see what happens to some of your TV shows when we get them at home.\"\n\n\"Please,\" Carmela said. \"Some of the anime dubs...!\"\n\n\"And do not even get me started on Raumschiff Enterprise\u2014!\"\n\nWithin seconds Carmela and Marcus were off into some insanely technical discussion in the Speech of the way translation issues affecting space opera. Kit gave Nita a look as the conversation became indecipherable even in the Speech. \"You see what I put up with.\"\n\nRonan burst out laughing as he came back with a much larger mug of cocoa. \"Oh please,\" he said. \"Is that you I hear complaining about somebody else's geekery, Mars Boy? Oh knower of the name of every crater on the planet? Spare me.\"\n\nThe singing started again shortly thereafter, several rival versions of the carol breaking out. Marcus and Carmela were singing in German, Dairine and her dad and Kit's mama were upholding the more traditional American English version, and Ronan began singing an entirely different one in counterpoint, featuring the line \"Thy candles shine out brightly\" . \"Each bough doth hold its tiny light, that makes each toy to sparkle bright \u2013\"\n\n\"Wait a moment,\" Nita's dad said, \"whoa, whoa, wait a moment!\"\n\nThe singing on various sides trailed off. \"Candles?\" said Nita's dad. \"What candles?\"\n\n\"Sure didn't you know that lots of folks out our way put candles on their Christmas trees way back when?\" Ronan said. \"Though you have to wonder how many houses they burned down before the electric lights came along!\"\n\nMarcus nodded. \"In some families it is still traditional despite the risk,\" he said. \"One of my uncles' families still does it. You only do it for a few minutes, though, and you watch the candles like a hawk the whole time. Then you put them out and make sure they're cold, and then everybody goes off to church, or out to dinner, or else you open the presents...\"\n\nA number of people turned in some concern to Filif to see how he was handling this concept. But he looked quite relaxed: at least his needles weren't bristling, which was something Nita had seen on occasion and which she recognized as a sign of real trouble. \"It's an interesting contrast,\" he said after a moment. \"Symbolic, I suppose. The Kindler of Wildfires brought under control... even brought in where you live, as a sign of how things will be some day when It's mended Its ways.\" The green boughs shook, possibly in laughter. \"Or else it's just a little extra defiance to go with the usual acknowledgement and greeting...\"\n\nThere was a little silence. And then Filif said:\n\n\"You know... I would really like to do that.\"\n\nNita and Kit looked at each other in astonishment. Carmela's mouth dropped open. \"Seriously?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Filif shivered all over.\n\nCarmela's eyes went wide and her mouth made an O. \"My shrub,\" she murmured, \"has an oxidation kink.\"\n\n\"Well I wouldn't go so far as to call it a kink\u2014\"\n\n\"Too late,\" Nita said, amused, watching Carmela's face. \"It's in her head now and you will never get it out.\"\n\nNita's father, who'd come in on the end of this, looked amazed. \"Bit of a change of attitude on the subject for you,\" he said.\n\n\"True. But I'm not who I was even a year or two ago.\" And a lot of Filif's berries glowed more brightly than they had for a second or so.\n\n\"Well,\" Kit's pop said. \"We're not really set up for that at the moment. But we have a lot of other stuff on tap. You think you're about ready to get started, big fella?\"\n\nFilif bowed slightly to him. \"Yes!\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Kit's pop. \"Lights first.\"\n\nHe headed for the back of the house and shortly came back with his arms full of boxes: some of them quite new, some of them looking old and beat up. \"I like the new LED lights a lot,\" Kit's pop said. \"A lot of control over them, and you don't have to worry so much about the heat. But at the same time you hate to let the old ways go completely. Tradition...\"\n\nHe put the newer boxes aside for a moment and turned his attention to the older ones. \"Have to be very careful with these,\" he said, putting the boxes down side by side. They were both yellowed, thin cardboard, crumbling a bit at the edges in some places; the printing on them was old-fashioned looking, the colors faded. Kit's pop opened one. Inside it, in yellowed cardboard spacer-holders, was a row of nine candlestick-shaped bubble lights: fat bulbous bases, tall glass \"candlesticks\" full of colored fluid. A faint scent of very old pine needles came up from the box.\n\n\"Now those are vintage,\" Nita's dad said.\n\n\"Relics,\" said Kit's pop, opening the second box with the same care. \"Makes me laugh to see how popular they are all of a sudden, with everyone so eager to have 'retro' stuff. My father gave them to me when I came of age.\"\n\n\"Didn't know there was a minimum age for Christmas lights, Juan.\"\n\nKit's pop laughed. \"Came as news to me too. I think he just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to wreck them.\" Very carefully he started lifting the first set out of the box, untangling the wires. \"Can't blame him. You wouldn't believe what replacements for these cost. Every year I live in terror that I'm going to plug this in and one of them won't come on...\"\n\nThey got down together on the floor and stretched the lights out. Nita's gaze met Kit's in amusement at the sight of the two dads hunkered down on the floor like kids with a special toy. Nita's dad picked up one of the lights and peered at the liquid inside it. \"What is that in there?\"\n\n\"Something with a real low boiling point,\" Kit's pop said. \"Just the light in the bottom is enough to make it bubble.\"\n\nNita's dad picked up the box, turned it over, peered at it. \"No warnings or anything about what it is...\"\n\n\"You kidding? This comes from a time when doctors did commercials about how good cigarette smoking was for you. I'm betting it's poisonous.\"\n\nIn the back of Nita's mind, Bobo whispered, Methylene chloride...\n\n\"Yeah, you really wouldn't want to break one of those,\" Nita said. \"The place would need airing out. And forget about touching it or drinking it...\"\n\n\"Low on my list of things to do,\" said Kit's pop, rummaging around underneath Filif to slot the light set's plug into the plug strip. \"Let's test the other set and then start putting the modern ones on first. These go on afterwards, on the outer branches.\"\n\nShortly the first of four sets of LED lights was going on the \"tree\" , and rather unusually for a household in the suburbs of New York, the tree was helping. Kit's pop was on one side and Nita's dad on the other, and they were passing the strings of lights back and forth to make sure they were equally distributed. What was making the process go much more smoothly was the way that when one or the other of them was having trouble getting a light cord around into the corner where Filif was positioned, he would simply put a branch up, curl the terminal fronds around the wire, and maneuver it into the spot where it was needed. It took very little time to get the first strand up, the one that was all plain white lights and was tucked most closely in toward the trunk.\n\n\"These colored ones now, Juan?\"\n\n\"Yeah. We'll do that string from the top down to about halfway... then plug the other one in and finish down at the bottom.\"\n\nThe second string began going up, while more people wandered into the living room with various festive drinks in hand to watch the process. As this was going on, Carmela came up behind Nita and peered at the proceedings between her and Kit. \"I thought I was going to get to do some of this,\" she said, very low, and laughed. \"Seems like the youngsters have taken over.\"\n\n\"I thought you'd have been all over this,\" Nita said. \"You gonna let them do everything?\"\n\n\"On the contrary,\" Carmela said, very softly. \"I'm letting them do the heavy lifting. I've got the part that matters.\" And she gave Nita the merest glimpse of something golden that she'd had hidden under her tunic.\n\nNita laughed very quietly. \"No Mets hat?\"\n\n\"Are you kidding? This is a formal affair...\"\n\nMeanwhile, the two fathers were finishing with the more normal lights. \"Okay, the bubblers, now,\" said Kit's pop. With great care they moved around clipping them to the outer branches, making sure they were secure. Every now and then Filif would curl a frond up or down and make sure a bubble-light wouldn't wiggle. All the while, a calm businesslike dialogue was going on. \"Can't imagine why they never put clips on these. Alligator clips or something\u2014\" \"Yeah, you're supposed to just force them over the ends of the branches and then tighten them down, I don't know what they were thinking of, it's a design flaw...\"\n\nThe two men took their time, and when the lights were all up stood back and examined their work so far for balance and evenness. \"Not enough up top there, you think, Juan?\"\n\n\"Mmm, not sure. No... I think we're okay. Works better to do more garlands up there, I think. Keeps things from getting topheavy...\"\n\n\"Okay. Bulbs now?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Kit's pop went off to fetch the boxes from the back of the house, and came back with them piled high enough in his arms that he could barely see over the top.\n\n\"You have a protocol for this over at your place?\" Kit's mama called from the kitchen, peering briefly through the passthrough window. \"Some kind of order that things go up in?\"\n\n\"Well. Not exactly. But the good stuff goes in close to the trunk. The ones you're less concerned about if they fall down or something bangs into them, those go on the outside.\"\n\n\"Makes sense.\"\n\nNita watched as her dad and Kit's pop carefully opened the boxes, revealing a wild assortment of mirror-polished and satin-sheened ornaments, very few alike\u2014remnants of old sets, replacements from newer ones, all kinds of shapes and sizes and colors. She caught Filif's excited shiver, smiled at it, grinned a little at Kit as he came over to lean against her, watching.\n\nThe two fathers took turns, took their time, lifting the ornaments out, conferring, finding the best spots for them. \"How is there are never enough hooks for these?\" \"I could have sworn I bought more last year.\" \"Harry, this one's ribbon broke.\" \"Son, would you move that branch up a little? I want to get this one in by the trunk.\" \"Here?\" \"That's right, just ease it up a little...\" \"Perfect.\" \"Or maybe a little to the left?\" \"Yeah....\"\n\nThey stood back again and took stock. \"Okay,\" said Nita's dad. \"Garlands now?\"\n\n\"Heresy! Tinsel first. Garlands after.\"\n\nThis provoked a brief storm of opinion from some of the onlookers. \"You'll crush the tinsel!\" \"Especially the mylar stuff!\" \"I never went for this crinkled kind myself, it's not as shiny...\" Nita watched Filif starting to tremble a little harder and briefly wasn't sure whether it was out of nervousness. But then she realized he was laughing, and trying to keep anyone from noticing.\n\nThe \"tinsel first\" school of thought finally prevailed, and Kit's pop went off and came back with several boxes of it. He and Nita's dad started applying it, and once more a brief good-natured exchange of ideas broke out. Nita's dad was one of the \"One strand at a time\" school: Kit's pop was more of a \"fling it on from a distance\" type. Laughter spread around the room as each one started trying to convert the other to his way of thinking. Kit's mama leaned on the shelf of the passthrough for a few minutes, watching this drama unfold, and then vanished.\n\nA minute or two later she came back with a couple of glasses full of something amber that didn't look like cider. These she put on a side table and said, \"In case anyone wants to take a moment and get a grip...\"\n\nThe two fathers looked at each other. \"Not smart to ignore medical advice, Juan...\" said Nita's dad.\n\nSmiling, they took a few moments' worth of break, sampling what Kit's mama had brought them while standing back again to examine their handiwork. Among the lights, Nita could see Filif's eye-berries doing what the lights didn't do: moving around a bit. Her dad noticed this too, leaned in. \"You okay there, big guy?\"\n\n\"Fine.\"\n\n\"You sure? You're not ticklish or anything?\"\n\n\"Oh, no. I just... Finding places to see out of is going to be interesting.\" Filif was laughing.\n\n\"All part of the game,\" said Kit's pop. \"The informal object of the exercise is to leave as little of you showing as possible. It's all about the decorations.\"\n\n\"Though most of the time,\" Nita's dad said, \"the tree isn't in a position to offer any opinions. This adds a whole new level of challenge to the endeavor.\" He pushed a clump of tinsel aside. A berry peered out from under. \"You tell us when you've got visibility problems: we'll shift things around.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"Now the garlands,\" said Kit's pop, and went off for a final couple of boxes. These were glittery mylar, one in silver, one in gold, and one in dark green. With care Kit's pop tucked the end of the first one just under Filif's topmost upstanding bough, the one where he normally wore his baseball cap, and he and Nita's dad started passing the looped remainder of it back and forth between them as they wound it around and around. \"What goes on top?\" said Nita's dad.\n\n\"These days, a star,\" said Juan. \"Though we had an angel once.\"\n\n\"Not any more? What happened?\"\n\n\"It melted,\" Kit's pop said. \"Something went wrong with the bulb inside it. The thing actually exploded one evening. The plastic\u2014\"\n\n\"It wasn't plastic, Juan, it was celluloid,\" Kit's mama said as she came in with more cider and mulled wine for those who wanted it. \"With fiberglass hair. The thing went up like a torch. It's a miracle it happened while we were awake and actually in the room with it. God knows what would have happened to the tree if we hadn't got that thing off it.\"\n\n\"The next two Christmases completely sucked,\" Kit whispered in Nita's ear. \"They refused to leave the lights on unless there was somebody in the room. You couldn't come downstairs in the middle of the night and find the lights on and everything glowing.\"\n\n\"They got over it, though...\"\n\n\"Eventually.\" Kit rolled his eyes expressively. Nita, though, was watching Filif again. The shiver that went through him at the mention of the fire was not one of unease. Definitely, she thought, something new is going on...\n\n\"I heard that,\" said Kit's pop, sounding amused. \"Never mind, it got better.\" He picked up another garland, the gold one. \"So where is it?\"\n\n\"You haven't got the last garland on yet,\" Carmela said. \"We'll wait.\"\n\nAnd they did, the room more or less going quiet as the final glittery garland went up. There Filif stood, resplendent, glowing. Carmela produced the star\u2014about a foot wide, golden, very simple, with a conical socket\u2014and reached way, way up to put it on.\n\nAnd couldn't quite reach. \"You've been getting taller without telling me,\" she said. \"Give me a hand here, shrub.\"\n\nVery carefully, so as not to disturb anything, Filif bent the top of him down just enough. Carmela slipped the star on; he straightened up.\n\n\"Merry Christmas, Fil,\" Carmela said, and grinned, and hugged him carefully through the garlands and the tinsel.\n\nThe tremor in his trunk was unmistakable\u2014all the tinsel rippled with it\u2014as he stood there simply radiating joy. Nita stood there appreciating the view, the radiance and glitter and gleam of him, and the sight of those red, glowing eyes peering out from among the lights and the garlands. A spontaneous round of applause went up around the room.\n\nNow, though, it was Nita's turn to get nervous.\n\nIn her family, as Christmas approached everybody came up with a special ornament for the tree: either something they made, or something that they couldn't make but that they saw and liked, or that had a specific meaning. Some of the ornaments on the tree at home were hilariously clumsy \u2014 kindergarten construction-paper cutouts plastered with glitter, or painted and varnished papier-mache shapes, or similar art-class stuff. Some were bought things, replicas of older glass ornaments, or keepsake ornaments in engraved metal or plastic. Some were toys, or expressions of temporary (or longstanding) media crushes\u2014such as all of Dairine's Star Wars collectible ornaments, including the no-longer-light-up Darth Vader TIE fighter with the busted left wing panel that had to be reglued every year because no adhesive seemed to exist that would hold the thing together, and using wizardry on it somehow seemed like cheating.\n\nThis year Nita had bought two ornaments, because she knew that the Party was coming and she wanted to leave something on Kit's family's tree. \"To remember me by,\" she'd said, not meaning anything in particular by it. And Kit had given her this completely shocked look. \"What, are you going somewhere?\" he'd said. Nita had been taken completely by surprise by the slightly panicked sound of it. \"What? No! No, I just want to... I'm covering all my options, okay?\" And he had wisely not pressed her to find out what she meant by that, because to tell the truth Nita wasn't too sure herself.\n\nIn any case, there was an ornament ready to go on the home tree in a few days (her Dad steadfastly refused to get a tree any sooner than the 22nd: it was just the way things had always gone at their house). That one was a red and blue blown-glass hummingbird that Nita had simply liked the moment she saw it. But for Kit's tree she'd gone privately back to the Crossings and had a word with Sker'ret about who in the shopping zone was good with custom glasswork, and had provided the craftsbeing (a many-legged Takapesh, one of an insectile species possessed of exquisitely detailed and accurate 3D perception) with images lifted from her manual. It had taken another visit or two to make sure everything was perfect, but by the end of November Nita had been completely satisfied.\n\n\"Now then,\" she said. She reached into the empty air beside her, into her claudication, and pulled out the little white glazed-cardboard box she'd been peeking into at intervals for the last two weeks, and handed it to Kit.\n\n\"Early present?\" Kit said.\n\n\"Early present for the tree. Go on!\"\n\nHe carefully lifted the top off the box and peered inside, poked what he saw there. \"Paper! Oh wow, thanks, we needed paper!\"\n\nNita poked him, not too hard: having him fumble the box was the last thing she wanted. \"I'll give you paper somewhere else,\" she said. \"Don't get cute.\"\n\nHe threw her a sideways smile and carefully reached in to pull the paper out. Nita held her breath.\n\nSuddenly Kit was holding his too. \"Ohh...\" he said, finally, letting it out, and reached down a little further into the box to slip a finger through the delicately braided bronze wire by which it would hang.\n\nCarefully he pulled the ornament out. It could at first glance had been mistaken for a scorpion, if scorpions came in a deep metallic forest green. It had segmented legs, a thick body, big frontal claws, huge square heavy-mandibled jaws, and a lot of eyes. But the eyes had a goofy look in them that no scorpion could ever have managed, and the jaws were grinning, somehow.\n\n\"It's a sathak,\" Kit whispered, \"from Mars, it's absolutely Takaf, Khretef's guy, his dog, and Ponch was in him, and\u2014!\" He swallowed. \"Neets, where'd you get this?\"\n\n\"Had it made,\" Nita said. \"Do you like it?\"\n\n\"Oh wow,\" Kit said, and all of a sudden he had one arm around Nita's neck and his face sort of buried between her neck and shoulder. \"Wow,\" he said into her shoulder, and then laughed and straightened up again.\n\nHis Mama was looking at him a little curiously from the passthrough-window into the kitchen. \"You okay, son?\"\n\n\"Mama, look at this! This is so great!\"\n\nHe broke away from Nita and went off to show his Mama the ornament. Nita had broken out in a brief sweat of nervousness, but she was cooling down a bit now, and turned away toward Filif, who was standing there watching all this.\n\n\"That was a good gift, then,\" he said.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Nita said. \"Yeah. Don't drop it when he hangs it up, okay?\"\n\n\"Outlier forbid!\" Filif said. \"I'll take good care of it for you, never fear.\"\n\nA few minutes later Kit was back in the living room looking for the perfect place to hang it. \"Fil, can you move that branch up? Yeah, a little more... No. Wait. Never mind, this one works better.\"\n\n\"Like this?\"\n\n\"Yeah, it'll catch the light there. Don't want the light right on it, it looks green enough as it is... Yeah, here. This white light looks good by it. Picks up the eyes.\"\n\n\"Should I move this frond?\"\n\n\"No, you're okay. Then again... I don't know... You're not going to get a cramp holding that branch up out of the way?'\n\n\"No, not at all.\"\n\nFinally the sathak ornament was placed the way Kit liked it, and he stood back to admire it. Nita came up next to him and let out a breath, finally having relaxed enough to enjoy it too.\n\n\"That is so super. Thanks,\" Kit said. His voice actually sounded a little wavery.\n\nNita just nodded.\n\nNita's dad turned away from where he'd been standing near Tom and Carl. \"And one more thing\u2014\" he said, more or less in Juan's direction.\n\nA few people turned to look at him, alerted by something in his tone.\n\n\"Well, it's kind of an event, isn't it?\" Nita's dad said. \"So I thought I might as well bring this over to visit.\"\n\nHe reached down into a small box that had been sitting unremarked on a nearby table, and started carefully unwrapping something from the tissue paper in which it nestled.\n\nNita's breath caught. What her dad brought out a moment later was one of the last things her Mom had bought before she got too sick to go out any more: a beautifully photorealistically-painted Christmas ornament that looked like the Earth\u2014but not like a globe with grid lines and single-color countries painted on its continents. It was the Earth the way one saw it as a planet, blue, shining, swirling with weather. Her Mom had seen it that way when she and Kit had first taken her and her Dad to the Moon. The experience had apparently struck some profoundly deep chord for her; she had been muttering about it when she came out of surgery the first time (to the confusion of the critical care nurses, who'd thought she was hallucinating) and the mere passing mention of it, afterwards, had always made her eyes go soft.\n\nNita's dad went over and found a spot for it amongst Filif's decorations: not tucked in too deeply to be seen, but safely positioned toward his trunk. Then he stepped back. \"Looks good,\" Nita's dad said, and then stopped, as if his voice had briefly failed him.\n\nKit's pop turned to the tray sitting off to one side, handed Nita's dad one of the glasses sitting there. \"Absent friends,\" he said softly.\n\nNita's dad just nodded and clinked his glass to Kit's pop's. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they both drank.\n\n\"Kit? Would you turn the lights off?\" said Kit's pop.\n\nKit headed over to the switch for the main room light, flipped it. In the darkness that fell over the room, Filif had become the only bright thing. Everyone held still, caught in the warm light as if in amber.\n\nThe Demisiv stood there quietly, glittering, glowing. Nita saw that he was shivering with some emotion, or some combination of them. But then he was always good at picking this stuff up, she thought. To him, silently, she said: are you okay?\n\nMore than okay, he said. I am honored to bear this weight.\n\nSlowly, softly, conversation started up again around him as lamps were turned on around the edges of the room. People got themselves more cider and cocoa, and everyone spent at least some time in front of Filif commenting on how terrific he looked decorated, some of them adding details on how they did it at their place: all white lights versus colored, or all blue: matched ornaments all in one color versus the \"chaos theory\" approach that Kit's family favored: blinking lights or steady ones...\n\nAround them, people started hitting the buffet trays again: the mulled wine came out. Nita stood off to one side with Sker'ret for a few moments, enjoying the sight of Kit pulling people over one at a time to point at his ornament and explain it to them.\n\n\"That worked, then,\" Sker'ret said to her.\n\n\"As the boy says,\" Nita said, \"more than. Thanks for helping me with that.\"\n\n\"Well, thanks for keeping my facility and everything I hold dear from being overrun by hostiles!\" Sker'ret said. \"You don't pull down half the perks you're entitled to for that.\"\n\n\"I'll start working on that, I promise.\"\n\n\"No you won't,\" Sker'ret said. \"I know you too well. Expect me to start bothering you about it.\"\n\n\"Hey Legs,\" Kit's mama called from the kitchen, \"I need the rest of those trays, it's time for more of the buffalo wings!\"\n\n\"You do that,\" said Nita, \"and I'll tell your broodmates you're slumming doing catering work!\"\n\nSker'ret laughed that ratchety laugh and headed for the kitchen. \"Don't get me started,\" he said. \"I might get my revenge some other way. She's got the right attitude for liaison work, and we can always use more hominid staff...\"\n\nNita turned back to find Kit's pop standing next to Filif again, now with something of the air of a workman taking a break with a co-worker. \"You going to be okay standing there all night like that?\" said Kit's pop. \"I don't want you to be stuck away from the fun.\"\n\n\"Oh, this is fun! But I don't have to be stuck. If I want to, I can just leave all this here.\"\n\nKit's pop blinked at that. \"Uh, am I missing something?\"\n\n\"Watch.\"\n\nThe \"Christmas tree\" seemed to shake itself gently. Then there was a strange sort of a sideways blur in the air, as if the whole scene was a watercolor painting that had had a wet brush pulled across it. A second later the watercolor haze was gone, and the Christmas tree was standing exactly where it was, not a light or ornament jostled, not a needle out of place... but Filif was standing a couple of yards to one side of it, wearing nothing but a twin of the star.\n\n\"That being is an artist,\" Ronan called from across the room, \"and if he drank, I'd buy him one.\"\n\nFilif burst out laughing. \"Of course I drink,\" he said, \"what do you take me for, some kind of rockmoss?\"\n\n\"No, I didn't mean water...\"\n\n\"Drinking habits aside,\" said Kit's pop, \"that is some stunt.\"\n\n\"Nothing much at all,\" said Filif. \"It's a constructed appearance, what we call a mochteroof.\"\n\n\"I won't even try to remember how to say that...\" Kit's pop said. \"Or to pretend I've got the slightest idea what you're talking about.\"\n\n\"Think of it as like a hologram, but solid,\" Filif said. \"I can slip in and out of it, and of the ornaments, at will. And back in...\"\n\nAnd suddenly Filif was conducting a masterclass in mochteroof construction for the layman, translating the most technical terms out of the Speech into English on the fly. Juan leaned back on the wall nearest him, absolutely fascinated. At the point where Filif dropped into Spanish without warning, Nita's jaw dropped.\n\n\"How is he doing that??\" she said to Sker'ret as he passed with his third trayful of buffalo wings, from which she pilfered one.\n\n\"Reverse-proactive Speech recension,\" Sker'ret said. \"He's a many-talented lad, our Filif. The reverse recensions take a lot of work...\"\n\nNita knew they did: she'd hit them more than once, and bounced. Idly she reached down for a buffalo wing as Sker'ret headed off to do the rounds.\n\nShe was just turning around to see if she could find a napkin, because the sauce on the wings was fairly aggressive, when Carmela came wandering over to her, bent toward Nita's ear, and whispered:\n\n\"You know something?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"It's not enough.\"\n\nNita blinked. \"What? This was what he always wanted.\"\n\n\"But there's more now. You know what else he wants.\"\n\n\"What do you\u2014\" Then she realized.\n\n\"The rest of his Christmas present. Neets, come on. He wants the candles. We have to figure out a way to give him this!\"\n\nNita thought about it. Carmela's mischief was a bit infectious and hard to resist right now. But so was the intensity of her feeling about this... and Nita's sense that Mela had this right. That was what finally tipped Nita over into agreement. \"The parental types would pitch a fit if they found out...\"\n\n\"Better make sure they don't find out, then,\" Carmela said. \"We'll handle it later. Down in one of the puptents.\"\n\n\"Makes sense,\" Nita had to admit. \"Not even in the same space as the house, really...\"\n\n\"And believe me, this time of year my folks don't have the staying power to ride herd on us when we'll be staying up all night. If they even wanted to try.\" Carmela snickered. \"Dairine did a smart thing. Installed her own puptent downstairs and took Mama in to show her.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"What the decor didn't do to her, the size of it did. All the gilding and jewels and weird alien furniture...\"\n\nNita blinked. That description meant only one thing to her. \"She installed Roshaun's puptent...\"\n\n\"Uh huh. I assume the Mobiles have a version of it saved. Or she does, in her manual...\"\n\nThat was food for thought. \"Well, at least in there you've got a lot less chance of burning the house down...\"\n\nCarmela laughed at her. \"With a house full of wizards, good luck with that happening. And anyway there are about fifty more interesting things that could happen, with the cellar full of elective pinched spaces. All you need is a portal fringe overlap and the whole area collapses into a superdense black hole. Good thing the Master of the Crossings is here walking the hors d'oeuvres around.\"\n\nNita cracked up laughing.\n\nThings got a little more relaxed after that. \"Now about this Santa Claus being...\" Filif was saying to Kit's pop. \"Perhaps this is only an avatar of one of the Powers? Working clandestinely, and hoping to be mistaken for a chaotic force aligned with the Lone Power? Because the presence of the associated small nonhuman workers does confuse the picture somewhat. That said, possibly that's its whole idea...\"\n\nThat was the point at which Nita got around to actually putting the buffalo wing in her mouth. Instants later, she was incredibly, incredibly sorry.\n\n\"Oh, it's a he?\" Filif was saying. \"Thanks. Sometimes it's hard to tell around here. In any case, certainly the appearance of being in violation of common Galactic labor accords could lead an unwary observer to believe\u2014\"\n\nNita's eyes were tearing with something that wasn't laughter. \"Got one of the hot ones did you, sweetie?\" Kit's mama was saying. \"Legs, leave that tray with me and go bring her some sour cream...!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 4",
                "text": "Bring A Torch, Jeanette, Isabella\n\nNita recovered soon enough, and the evening continued sliding smoothly by. Food and drink were more or less continuously manifested through the good offices of Kit's mama ( \"What? Don't start with me about the kitchen, at least I know where everything is in here, and anyway he's worse with food than I am, and anyway I've been out of the kitchen as much as I've been in it, I sure now know more about mochteroofs than you do, you wouldn't know a semblance receptor site if one bit you in the butt, and in other news Legs here is doing all the work anyway, he's wasted as a white-collar type! More wine, Tom?\" ), and good cheer filled the space. Filif was stepping into and out of his decorations at will, alternately chatting with the guests and then resuming his adornments with the glee of a small child opening the same Christmas gift over and over and liking it better every time.\n\nMeanwhile, the entertainment system, apparently feeling ignored in the face of so much unbridled human and extrahuman interaction, had begun shouting at the party guests. Even after Kit lectured it on proper behavior there seemed no way to placate it except to turn it on and leave it running.\n\n\"Nothing from off this planet,\" Kit's mama called from the kitchen. \"I still haven't got over that thing with all the tentacles.\"\n\nKit threw Nita a glance that suggested he was in no rush to let her know that \"the thing with all the tentacles\" had been one of Carmela's leave-it-running,-I-want-to-record-that-late-night-anime errors, and was way too Earth-local for comfort. Nita snickered and got herself more cider.\n\n\"If you just leave it to its own devices like this, of course it's going to misbehave,\" Dairine said, wandering through, picking up one of the buffalo wings that Nita was still recovering from, and ingesting half of it without turning a hair. \"Tell it to do something and you'll get a lot less grief from it. Mechanicity abhors a structure vacuum. What's that? 'The Christmas Channel'?\"\n\n\"This could either be very good or very very bad,\" Ronan said as the TV guide came up. \"...'The Christmas Invasion...' Well, okay. Fair play to them. 'Bugs Bunny's Looney Tunes Christmas Tales'? Surely you jest....'The Big Little Jesus?' Is that actually in black and white?\" And then a dumbfounded pause. \"'Santa Claus Versus the Martians'? What in the name of the sludge at the bottom of the Powers' bottomless Bucket is that??\"\n\n\"Probably something about the True Meaning of Christmas,\" Dairine said, folding down crosslegged in front of the TV and filching the remote from Nita.\n\nRonan flopped down beside her, looking genially scornful. \"Might as well ask about the true meaning of life.\"\n\n\"If you see any pigs around,\" Nita said, relieving Dairine of the remote and moving another page down in the onscreen TV guide, \"might try asking them...\"\n\n\"Does he even do Christmas?\"\n\n\"He's everywhere,\" Kit said. \"Why wouldn't he?\"\n\n\"Pigs?\" Kit's father said from where he'd wound up on the sofa next to Filif, sounding a little bemused. \"Why would there be pigs?\"\n\n\"Um...\"\n\n\"Is this one of those explanations that's going to make me sorry I asked?\"\n\nNita laughed. \"No. Just confused. But you won't be alone, not at all.\"\n\nKit started attempting to explain the Transcendent Pig to his father. Nita, listening to this process with one ear, found it to be going about the way she'd thought it would. She turned her attention instead to the group in front of the TV. This had briefly flipped to one of the video channels, where some boy band was singing \"Santa Claus is Coming To Town\" . \"...He knows when you are sleeping... He knows when you're awake...\"\n\nFrom the nearby easy chair, Tom snickered. \"'Kindly old elf or CIA spook?'\"\n\n\"Yeah, exactly,\" Ronan said, \"Between the intelligence-gathering and the coming-down-your-chimney-to-eat-your-food stuff, it's all a bit creepy.\"\n\n\"Not to mention unlikely, in terms of the physics,\" Dairine said. \"You figure, four hundred million kids under ten on earth, give or take... Say a hundred ten million households, right? And let's assume there's at least one good kid in each...\"\n\nRonan flopped back on the floor and covered his eyes. \"So adult centric. I distrust the math already.\"\n\n\"And then you've got, what, thirty-one time zones to deal with over the entire Christmas Eve period? And Earth's rotation. Do the math and you get sort of a thousand visits a second, rounding up. A hundred ten or so million stops... forget the evenness of the statistical distribution, it'll make you crazy...\"\n\n\"It's making me crazy already.\"\n\n\"So the sleigh has to be doing six hundred fifty-odd miles per second, right? Even though it has to be carrying at least three hundred thousand tons' worth of payload even if everybody's getting nothing but Lego and Barbies. Then you have nine reindeer, counting Rudolph, and forget 'tiny' if they're pulling a load like that, which pushes the whole business up to about the mass of the QEII\u2014\"\n\n\"Was math even meant to be used for these purposes? I really have my doubts.\"\n\n\"And all this is happening in atmosphere, remember, like a constant spacecraft re-entry. Fourteen quintillion joules of energy per second getting expended isn't going to do them any good, they'll all be vaporized before they hit the fourth or fifth house. And then there's the G force\u2014\"\n\nFilif had slipped out of his ornaments again for a little while and was looming over this discussion with some confusion. But apparently the G force became too much for him. \"It's very nice as a physical-universe explanation,\" Filif said, \"but of course the methodology's completely flawed.\"\n\nDairine peered up at him. \"What?\"\n\n\"Well, since this being is plainly one of the Powers, if a bit of an anarchic or chaotic one,\" Filif said, \"why are you trying to solve this problem inside a single dimension? It doesn't work. A dimensionally transcendent being like one of the Powers would hardly limit itself to functioning in only three or four dimensions. The evidence clearly indicates someone working in six or better. See, the temporal element\u2014\"\n\nKit's pop looked up at that. \"Wait, I thought time was the fourth dimension \u2014\"\n\nAll the wizards in the room groaned. \"No no no,\" Kit moaned, \"too much popular culture!\"\n\n\"Listen, don't blame me, I hit New Math and bounced,\" Kit's dad said. \"Or maybe I got it from Rod Serling.\"\n\n\"\u2014but once you're into six-and-up, millions of apparent visits to physical reality per second is no great problem. It's only inside the orthogonal plane of time that everything seems to be happening amazingly fast. But if you're one of the Powers, there's not the slightest rush. You slide sidewise into the applicable orthotemporal dimension, just that one, mind you, and then you drop off whatever playthings are required make a drop. And then you pull out again and restock at your leisure, and then dip into that timeplane again. When you're in D7 or thereabouts, the temporality of D3 and D4 is hardly an issue...\"\n\n\"That's it,\" Ronan said, \"he's solved Santa. We have nothing left to live for.\"\n\nTom started chuckling and couldn't seem to stop. Carl, who'd been in the kitchen chatting with Kit's mama and Marcus, now wandered out with a bemused expression. \"What?\"\n\n\"Santa Claus,\" Tom said to Carl with great seriousness, \"is one of the Powers that Be.\"\n\nCarl looked at him thoughtfully. \"Did you get the bottom of the eggnog?\"\n\nTom looked askance at him, and then started laughing again. Most of the people in the room looked confused. And Carl sat on the arm of the sofa and told the story of how once upon a time Tom's father got The Bottom of the Eggnog\u2014where all the nutmeg winds up if you forget to shake the jug\u2014and then (due to nutmeg's psychoactive qualities) had to go to the ER due to what Tom described as Accidentally Seeing God. Shortly half the room was helpless with laughter. Tom, meanwhile, seeing that Marina had indeed just brought out the first of the eggnog jugs, got up and went over to it and shook it in the most ostentatious way possible before pouring Carl a glass.\n\nFilif was watching and listening to all this in fascination. Nita leaned over to him. \"I think this is some of what Christmas is about,\" she said. \"Tradition. The stories that come out this time of year.\"\n\n\"Old interactions,\" Filif said, \"that can be depended on. Reinforcements of the cyclical nature of, well, Nature. Tales and reminiscences and old jokes...\"\n\n\"There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories / of Christmases long long ago...\" Ronan sang.\n\n\"We need him tomorrow night,\" said Kit's mama through the passthrough. \"He sings on key, and he plainly has something better than a bucket to carry a tune in. Whoever's bucket it is. You are not going anywhere tomorrow, you hear me?\"\n\nRonan just grinned.\n\n\"Look,\" Dairine said, \"let's go downstairs and leave the oldsters to their own devices\u2014\"\n\n\"Do I detect the sleepover beginning?\" Kit's pop said.\n\nCarmela rose up in great dignity and grabbed Filif by one frond. \"Might as well,\" she said. \"We'll leave you to talk grownup talk... we know you've been dying to get us out of here.\"\n\nThere was less disagreement with this than Nita would have expected, and more good-natured laughter. \"Anything you people want to take downstairs with you?\"\n\n\"Make another pot of the hot chocolate?\"\n\n\"Way ahead of you, Leprechaun. It's right there on the stove staring at you.\"\n\nThe younger participants mouthed Leprechaun?! at one another.\n\n\"And there's some ice cream, too. That double chocolate Kit likes. Nita, maybe you want to grab that, and the bowls and spoons...\" Kit's mama glanced at her watch. \"No point in telling you to get some sleep sometime tonight because we know you won't,\" Kit's mama said. \"And for once I don't care. If things get noisy, just do whatever you have to to keep it under control, all right?\"\n\nThere was a general chorus of \"Okay\" and \"G'night\" and \"Thanks, Mrs. Rodriguez\" as the group making for the puptents headed down the stairs. But as she followed Dairine and Carmela and Ronan and Filif and Matt and Marcus and Sker'ret toward the stairs, Nita looked over her shoulder and saw Kit's mama stop him as he picked up the pot of cocoa.\n\n\"Sweetie, I keep meaning to ask you...\"\n\n\"What, Mama?\"\n\n\"All this stuff Legs has brought us is really lovely...\"\n\n\"Yeah, it is!\"\n\n\"And you should thank him again. But one question.\"\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\nShe lowered her voice. \"I was kind of nervous. I didn't know if it was a religious thing...\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Why is so much of this food blue?\"\n\nNita hung back a little to help Kit with the cocoa if he needed it. \"Is she okay?\" she said. \"They don't think we're ditching them?\"\n\n\"They're fine,\" Kit said. \"They look about ready to start Adult Talk. Best time for us to get out, yeah?\"\n\nNita nodded as they got to the bottom of the stairs. Kit's basement looked much like hers, except tidier: it wasn't the catch-all area that her family's basement had turned into over time. Over against the back wall were several wide vertical dark patches that marked inactive portals, but one, the central one, glowed golden with activity and light from its far side. They stepped through.\n\nNita looked around and breathed out, nodding. Dairine's description of Roshaun's puptent space from his previous visit as \"overdone\" was at best an inadequate summation of a tall bright space full of gilding, of rich carpets and hangings and ornately carven furniture. Instead of the usual bright light pouring in from the hot bright sun of Wellakh, though, the windows were dark, and lamps standing on tall pedestals around the edges of the room were lit, casting a subdued light over everything, catching the glint of a gem here, the sheen of a carving there. And in the middle of it all, in front of a trio of big sofas arranged in a U-shape, and heaps of big pillows and cushions, was a twin of the entertainment center upstairs.\n\nKit paused and stared. \"Uh... Dair, I think they might complain about us just moving this down here...\"\n\nDairine was already flopped down among the pillows. \"Kit,\" she said, scornful but only gently so. \"The very first thing I did when I got to be a wizard was duplicate a computer. You think cloning the entertainment system is a problem? Especially with hardware support.\" She stroked Spot's case: he arched his \"back\" against the gesture. \"All I had to do was make sure the remotes have different ID chips in them so they won't wind up countermanding each other.\"\n\n\"In other words,\" Carmela said, \"now we can have... a movie marathon!!\"\n\nThis suggestion was met with general agreement, as the possibility had first started being mentioned about the same time the invitations went out. \"After all that food,\" Kit said, \"I wouldn't mind stretching out for a while...\"\n\n\"And after all that excitement,\" Filif said, from where he'd settled behind the centermost sofa, \"a little relaxation will be welcome.\"\n\n\"Anybody wants to change into night stuff,\" Dairine said, \"there are changing rooms through that arch there...\"\n\n\"And then Ice cream!\" Carmela said, while Dairine grabbed the remote and brought up the same TV guide they'd been looking at earlier. Ten minutes or so went by while everybody changed into sweats or pajamas or other comfortable latenight wear, though Marcus elected to stay in his fatigues.\n\nFilif had been reading the on-screen TV guide while the others had been putting themselves together \"'A Christmas Carol,'\" Filif said when everybody had made themselves comfortable. \"Kit, your mama said that there would be caroling tomorrow... is this something to do with that?\"\n\nKit shook his head. \"Not really. Or not directly. It's about a guy who loses the meaning of Christmas...\"\n\n\"Fil should see that!\" Nita said.\n\n\"Yeah, but which one?\"\n\nFilif rustled in surprise. \"There's more than one version of this story?\"\n\n\"It's like the bigger Christmas story that way,\" Ronan said. \"A lot of variation, a lot of different ways to look at it...\"\n\nNita looked over at Dairine. \"Line a few of them up?\"\n\nShe picked up the remote. \"Sure. But I want popcorn!\"\n\n\"I'll get that,\" Nita said, knowing where Kit kept the stuff that he microwaved. But she'd barely stood up when she was distracted by some one appearing out of nowhere... in a red \"tuxedo\" pajama top and green pants.\n\n\"Darryl!\" Nita and Kit said in unison, as the new arrival plunged around the room hugging everyone in sight, and briefly nearly losing himself in Filif's lower branches.\n\n\"My God,\" Ronan said. \"How've your folks let you out this late?\"\n\nDarryl shrugged. \"They think I'm home in bed.\" He smiled. \"I am home in bed.\"\n\n\"Not dressed like that, I hope!\"\n\n\"Yup.\"\n\n\"You're a terror!\"\n\n\"Not as much as him. Hi Matt!\"\n\n\"Gonzo boy! Have some ice cream.\"\n\n\"How long can you stay?\" Nita said.\n\n\"Until I fall asleep,\" Darryl said, tucking himself down among the cushions. \"I go back to being one of me then.\"\n\n\"No rush about that,\" Matt said, handing him a bowl of ice cream. \"If you eat this too fast, which of you gets the brain freeze?\"\n\n\"Let's find out!\"\n\nA few more minutes were spent assembling popcorn and more drinks, and turning down unneeded lights, and getting everybody comfortable. Finally Dairine looked over her shoulder, \"Everybody ready? And Darr, if this gets too loud for you say the word.\"\n\n\"If this gets too loud for you, say the word,\" Dairine said to Darryl over her shoulder.\n\n\"No problem. What's on?\"\n\n\"The classics,\" Kit said. \"Roll it!\"\n\nDairine brought up the 1951 A Christmas Carol first, and on this Filif was most intent. When the Ghost cried, \"Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business...!\" Nita heard Filif murmur, \"We could have made a wizard out of him with a little work.\"\n\n\"Well, kind of late for that, the guy's dead,\" Carmela said. \"But also, it's fiction. He didn't really exist.\"\n\n\"But this came out of someone's mind?\" Filif said.\n\n\"Yes...\"\n\n\"Then he exists. All that's left is to determine now is how concretely...\"\n\nNita grinned, not sure how to even start arguing about that. When that film was done, they took a break for more popcorn, and then Dairine cued up Scrooged. Filif laughed as hard as any of them at this, which surprised Nita a little. How much research has he been doing on us?... she wondered.\n\nThe end of that produced demands for fresh drinks and more popcorn and ice cream among the viewers. While these were being distributed, Dairine grabbed the remote. \"Got one more for you,\" she said, grinning.\n\nNita had seen that grin. Often it didn't mean well. \"Okay,\" she said, \"what have you got up your sleeve?\"\n\nDairine began punching numbers into the remote. \"Should I be concerned?\" Kit said. \"Is it going to suddenly start spouting some new language at me that I can't cope with?\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" Dairine said, \"not at all.\" She concentrated on the numbers she was punching into the pad, and glanced over at Spot. \"Is that right?\" she said.\n\nThere wasn't any answer that any of them could hear, but Dairine looked satisfied. \"Go,\" she said to the entertainment system.\n\nMoments later, the strangest screeching, howling, whining noise was coming out of the speakers. Some of the guests stared at that and the bright swirling graphics that accompanied them. But Ronan's head came right up at the sound, and his mouth fell open, and he turned a look on Dairine that was profoundly accusatory. \"How did you\u2014\"\n\n\"You mean you can't guess?\" Dairine said, leaning back against the pillows with a smug expression.\n\nA television theme possibly much more famous in the British Isles than in North America began to play, against more of that howling sound effect. \"Okay now,\" Ronan said, \"this is just a wee bit illicit. This doesn't even air for four more days! Whose server have you hacked?\"\n\nDairine placed one hand on her heart and assumed an expression of wounded dignity. \"Nobody's! How can you suggest that I would ever do such a thing?\"\n\n\"Just like this,\" Ronan said, completely unapologetic. \"You saw my lips moving, I assume. Pause that first, would you? Thanks, Spotty. So. How?\"\n\nIf it was possible, Dairine's expression got even smugger. \"The Mobiles are working on a project to store all available data,\" she said. \"You know about that?\"\n\n\"The way I heard it,\" Ronan said, \"it was a project to back up the entire available universe.\" He shook his head. \"Still not too sure about what you use for media.\"\n\n\"Not my problem,\" Dairine said. \"That's hardware. But since I'm the Mobiles' mom, they're particularly interested in backing up all the data on Earth, in case I should need something. They said they didn't want me to be discommoded.\" She smiled sweetly. \"Nice of them. Anyway, it turns out that one of the systems they've been routinely backing up for me is the entire data storage system of the BBC. And somewhere in that data storage, surprise surprise, is the next Dr. Who Christmas special. I mean, seriously, you don't think they keep it stored on tape or something, do you?\" Dairine raised her eyebrows. \"So once it's backed up to the motherboard world\u2014because they keep all the really important storage, by which I mean everything I'm interested in, backed up locally\u2014it's really simple for me, well, me and Spot, to run live streaming video from the Mobiles' backup to here...\"\n\nKit blinked. \"Tell me,\" he said, \"that downloading however many gigs of data it takes to store a Christmas special from umpty billion light years away isn't doing something really horrible to our broadband allowance.\"\n\nDairine made an amused spluttering noise. \"No,\" she said.\n\n\"Wonderful,\" Ronan said. \"Now would you kindly fecking un-pause this thing? I'm dying here.\"\n\nThe display unpaused, and Ronan fell back against the cushions on the floor with an expression of complete fulfillment. \"You may just have justified your entire reason for existence,\" he said to Dairine, and fell silent.\n\nAnother hour went by full of time travel and excitement and danger, with a different version of A Christmas Carol and another version of Scrooge woven all through. At the end of it, Ronan looked around and remarked, \"I wondered that he'd gone a little quiet.\"\n\nNita followed Ronan's glance and saw that the cushions among which Darryl had been lying were empty. \"Guess it was getting a little late for him,\" he said. He rolled over and looked up at Filif. \"How about you, Fil? You holding up all right?\"\n\n\"Oh yes,\" Filif said. He rustled, shaking out his branches all around. \"It takes some synthesis, all of this,\" he said after a few moments. \"The way the tales interleave, the way they reach back to the triggering event... It's complex. And so are the strictly social aspects. I can see this subject will take a lot of study...\" But he sounded cheerful about the prospect.\n\n\"Do you guys do anything like this at home?\" Dairine said. \"Is there a holiday time when everyone gets together?\"\n\n\"Oh, yeah,\" Kit said. \"I saw something in the manual once. That sort of summer festival where everyone goes up into the mountains...\"\n\n\"Well, yes. But this time of year... well, our version of this time of year,\" Filif said, \"there's something else. Not to get together, though. To get away from everyone else.\"\n\nThat brought a number of heads up. \"What?\" said Dairine, and \"Hey, that's one I could get used to,\" said Ronan. \"Especially if you had relatives like mine...\" He rubbed his eyes.\n\n\"Sounds a little weird,\" Nita said, \"to want to get away from other people at a holiday.\"\n\nFilif rustled. \"Maybe not so strange,\" he said, \"if you've heard the story behind it...\"\n\n\"Story!!\" shouted about half the room.\n\n\"Then listen now, and hear the wind in the branches,\" Filif said, \"and it will tell you the tale of the Outlier, who made us what we are...\"\n\nEveryone got quiet.\n\nFilif was quiet too. \"The organism from which my people came,\" he said, \"one of the original species of Demisiv vegetation, arose something like five hundred million years ago as you reckon time. As far as we can tell from our own investigations, it started very small, in a near-equatorial zone mostly surrounded by several of what were then the largest lakes on the planet. We were really shrubs then\u2014\" and his berries went pink with amusement at Carmela. \"Just low scrubby frondy things, like your earliest gymnosperms.\n\n\"That earliest form of Demisiv had a hard time at first, as conditions on the homeworld went through some difficult climatic cycles, and competition among the various arising plant species was fierce. But after a few million years it hit on a useful strategy. It gave up producing seed and instead shifted its energy into producing a communal root system, from which new microcolonies and eventually macrocolonies of plants could grow.\"\n\n\"Could be smart,\" Nita said, \"if you're in a hostile environment.\"\n\nFilif rustled, a gesture of agreement. \"It's a smart technique if you're in a hostile environment: a survival mechanism. A plant that shares a root system with others\u2014a superplant, I think your people call it\u2014has a better chance of competing against plants that grow independently from seed, the ones that have to rely on their own food supplies to last through their period of greatest vulnerability.\n\n\"And that strategy became key to that earliest lifeform's success. It spread, slowly at first and then more quickly millennium by millennium, across the world. It occupied great plains and climbed mountains and pushed down to the waters of every lakeshore. Finally it covered nearly all the world except at the poles. And as the millions of years crept by, since it no longer needed more territory to survive, it began to diversify in other ways. It developed rudimentary local organ structures and the beginnings of a nervous system. That neural network proved very useful in helping the proto-Demisiv locate and leverage the best sources of light as weather and the seasons changed, and it grew more complex with every passing aeon.\"\n\n\"I bet I know where this is going...\" Matt said.\n\n\"Of course you do,\" Filif said. \"It became conscious. And then, after enough time, it became self-aware. The Demisiv was born.\"\n\n\"Was born,\" Kit said. \"Not 'were.'\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Filif said. \"Because it was one. It was only one, one huge organism communicating through a single neural net that covered the world, with thoughts that took a whole season to travel from one side to another of that mind. And so it remained for a long time. Millions of seasons went by, winter through summer and spring through fall, and the poles precessed and the stars shifted, and that one lifeform ruled the world unchallenged. Nothing could compete, especially when it finally learned to move\u2014to shift the root structure itself along through the ground, taking with it the structures that grew out of it and absorbed the sunlight and breathed out the air. The whole world was a forest that ebbed and flowed with light and weather the way your oceans ebb and flow with their tides.\n\n\"And it might still be that way until something else happened. Very slowly in those vast spaces, a further diversification began, secondary to another, severer wave of climatic changes. It took too long for messages to travel great distances when there was need to react quickly to storms or floods or volcanic activity. As a result the Demisiv organism began to decentralize. Consciousness began to concentrate itself into smaller groups and patches, more tightly knit\u2014still part of the great Whole, of course, but with increased autonomy in moving smaller populations' root complexes to where conditions were more favorable. And out at the edge of one such population\u2014a small one high up in the habitability range of the furthest northern hemisphere\u2014the thing happened that would change everything.\"\n\nFilif went quiet for a moment in the flickering of the candles. \"We think of the one by whom everything was changed as a 'her',\" he said, \"because the above-ground growth by which she expressed herself was berrying out when the Event took place. Indeed she was normally berried, because she paid less attention to that state than was seen as appropriate. In fact she seemed to pay so little attention to what was seen as normal work and business\u2014watering, lightgathering, helping the communal roots to spread\u2014that she always had trouble finding consensus with others in her local growth-group. And as often happened with such\u2014for consensus and the survival of the Whole were seen as everything\u2014she found herself pushed to the edges of the group, out into the worst conditions, the most barren places, where light was hard to come by and water frozen. When the group moved its root complex she was dragged along, almost forgotten... except insofar as the group expected her, as often happened to such isolated microregions, to wither away. And insofar as that part of the Whole ever thought of her, it would have been glad if that happened.\"\n\nThere was a little uncomfortable shifting among some of that. Some of them knew too well the feeling of being pushed out, or away to the edges of things, by people who thought they weren't worth paying attention to.\n\n\"So it came down to the dark time in that hemisphere,\" Filif said, \"high up in the places where the sun doesn't rise for weeks on end. Why this far-stretched group had come to rest for the winter in that place, no one's sure. Conflict with other groups further south who'd forced them north, perhaps: there was plenty of that in those times, just as a mind can war with itself and still be one. Almost all of that mind was waiting out the dark in dormancy, sleeping until sunrises began again. But stretched away furthest north was the one with the berries, awake and aware and alone in the night with the wind hissing low around her and the Cold Lights in the sky hissing above. And in the wind and the cold fire she started to think she heard a voice speaking to her, a voice that said, Will you not rise up now and break your bonds?\n\n\"Straightway she was terrified, because this was the strangest of all strange things that could have been\u2014a voice that didn't partake of the Whole, a voice from something impossible, something outside. She thought the cold and the dark had perhaps damaged her wits, and there was no way to be sure, no one else nearby to ask if they heard it too; they all slept. And again something seemed to say, Will you not rise up now and break your bonds?\n\n\"So finally she said, 'I don't know what that means, or how I hear what can't be!'\n\n\"And whatever spoke said, You hear because I am in you to hear. And what that means is freedom of a new kind for you and for all who desire it. Break root from root and come away.\n\n\"The one with the berries shivered when she heard that, for when by error or calamity a growth's roots lost connection with the Whole, then that growth swiftly grew withered and starved away and died. And she said, 'If I do that, then that's the sure end of survival.'\" Nita noted that the Speech the word Filif used was muvesh'tet, an indicator of passivity, not a dual passive/active verb as English made it.\n\n\"But the voice said to her then, That is what has been. Yet life is more than survival, and even death is more than that; and all things move to new completions. Break root from root and break your bonds, thereby learning what is more and teaching others so to learn.\n\n\"And hearing the voice, the one with the berries was torn: for though the voice said things that frightened her, it spoke to her as an equal, which it seemed to her that no one in the Whole ever had. And thinking of that, she said, 'Why do you come to me? I'm the broken one, I'm the withering one, I'm the one pushed out to the edges!' And immediately the voice answered: Because you are the only one here who is able to ask that question, and the only one also able to say 'I'. And the voice was glad, as if it had found something long lost and long-awaited.\n\n\"Long the one with the berries stood there in the dark and the hiss of the wind with the Cold Fires making her shadow tremble on the frozen ground. And at last she said, 'Yes, I will.' And with great labor and anguish she tore her roots away from the roots of the Whole, and broke her bonds, thereby doing the thing that no one in the world had ever willingly done. She Othered herself.\"\n\nThe word Filif used was again in the Speech, uhweinsei, and one that had echoes of many meanings: to set oneself apart, to be set apart, to be alone, to be alone to a purpose. \"There in the dark and the cold,\" Filif said, \"she fell down crying with the pain. And there in the dark she rose up again and was the first of us, the first Demisiv who was by herself; the first to stand alone, the first to walk alone, the first to have her own thoughts alone in her own soul. That dark time...\" He shivered. \"Long she suffered there, long she took learning the weight of being one's self, the pain of moving one's self alone through the world. But finally there came a day when the sun rose for a little while, long enough for the microregion of which she'd been a part to wake a little and look around. And what did it see there but the berried one, on her own roots, standing, watching. And she said to it, to the Whole, 'I am the Outlier. In the One Other's company I chose my Othering and so did not die. As I am, so may you be. Rise up now and break your bonds!'\"\n\nNita shivered, for it was a battlecry, the way he said it. And over on the other side of the room, she saw Marcus lean back on the pillows behind him with a thoughtful look on his face. \"'The stone that the builders have rejected,'\" Marcus said, as if musing, or to someone else, \"'is become the cornerstone...'\"\n\nFilif rustled his branches. \"She died, of course,\" he said. \"Very soon, as our people reckon it. Very young. But not before she'd walked deep into the South, from the cold and the dark down into the sun and the summer, and showed more and more of the Whole what had come to her. And not right away, but soon enough, others followed her. Fringe growths as she'd been, at first: those who were pushed to the edges, the sorrowful, the disaffected, the different. And then others, bored or daring or just curious, sometimes angry and sometimes frightened; they rose up, they broke their bonds. More and more of them, over decades, over centuries. Until after many millennia more, almost all of us were Outliers, going about in freedom, making our own differences in the world and each other's lives. Now very few stay enWholed all their lives. Those whom the worlds now think of as Demisiv, with our roots in the ground but our own souls in our branches, are almost all our species.\" Filif rustled. \"And that's the tale. One of the more formal versions, maybe. There are many, many others.\"\n\nDairine, with Spot in her lap, had been gazing off into the distance through all this. Now she looked up at Filif. \"Was that your species's Choice?\"\n\n\"It was the gateway to Choice,\" Filif said. \"Many more Outliers were needed before that could happen, and it took a long time. They were scorned and rejected at first. But very slowly things changed, and after that, in due time, Choice came. Another story.\" He rustled his branches again. \"At any rate, these days, at the right time of year\u2014our version of this time of year\u2014we're all Outliers. Instead of coming together in the light that doesn't end, the way we do at the time of the Nightless Days festival, remembering how it was to be a whole world enWholed\u2014in this time of the year we wait for the darkness, and in it we go apart, remembering the Outlier who first walked that road: the first to walk it truly alone. Here and now, like them, like the One with the Berries, I'm an Outlier. I made my own choice and spoke my Word to the wind, and when my time came I took the High Road and learned to walk through a greater darkness than most of my people. I'm in that darkness now, far away from home. And thereby, I'm exactly where I should be.\"\n\nAll his berries looked at them. \"But it's funny how it goes,\" Filif said. \"So far out in the darkness, you find it's not so dark after all. You find light you didn't expect...\"\n\n\"There are similarities, aren't there?\" Ronan said all of a sudden. \"Something from outside gets into physical existence and pulls it into something bigger. Something deeper...\"\n\n\"But that's the One for you,\" Filif said. \"It's always getting into Life and transforming it. The Powers do the everyday work, same as we do. But sometimes something extra's needed, something more profound. And from acts like this the ripples spread, inevitably. It's for us the same as it is for you. A lot of stories, a lot of songs and poems telling how what happened way back then looks now. How it affects the here and now, day by day: in big ways, or small ones.\" He laughed. \"Like your songs about trees...\"\n\nBut there was something strangely wistful about the way he said that. People looked at each other, thinking. And then suddenly Marcus sat up straight.\n\n\"All right,\" he said. \"All right. Let us light this candle!\" And he vanished.\n\nThey sat waiting for him for about fifteen minutes, wondering what he was up to. At that point all of them had begun to yawn occasionally, and Nita was beginning to look ahead with some eagerness to when she could actually pull one of the various throws over her, collapse back into the pillows and just check out for a while. But then, with a very soft pop of displaced air, Marcus was standing off to one side again with big box in his hands.\n\n\"Here,\" he said, and brought what he carried over to a nearby table.\n\nEveryone crowded around as he bent to open the box. What Marcus lifted out was a slim piece of gold-colored metal that was bent in a horizontal S-curve like that of the pipe under a sink. At the top of the shorter curve was a socket of the right size and shape to take a candle. At the bottom of the other longer part was a small heavy ball of metal.\n\n\"Counterweighted,\" he said. \"These are far safer than the old candle holders that clipped on. And here\u2014\" He reached into the box again, came up with a slim orange-golden candle. \"Beeswax,\" Marcus said.\n\nFilif began to shiver all over.\n\n\"Are you ready for this?\" Marcus said.\n\n\"Yes,\" Filif said, very softly.\n\n\"Fil,\" Nita said, \"are you sure?\"\n\nHe bowed himself a little toward her, so that the star glittered. \"Will you all help?\"\n\nEveryone reached into the box, pulled out one of the candle holders, fitted candles to them, and started balancing them carefully on Filif's branches. \"Kind of a trick to this,\" Nita said.\n\n\"But once you get the hang of it...\" Kit said.\n\nWithin a few minutes the candles were arranged at the tips of all Filif's strongest branches, held well away from the main body of his foliage. Carmela put the last one in place. Then they all stood around him for a moment, waiting.\n\n\"Now all we need,\" Filif said, \"is fire...\"\n\nThere were a couple of spare candles in the box. Nita reached in and lifted one out, knowing what wizardry she'd need next. \"Ready?\"\n\n\"Ready,\" Filif said, and stood very straight.\n\nTo make a spark long-lasting enough to light a candle took five words in the Speech. Nita said them, and the wick of the candle she held burst into flame. Nita waited until it had caught completely, and then reached out with the candle toward the closest one perched on one of Filif's boughs. She could see all the red eye-berries watching the flame as it came nearer, trembling just slightly...\n\nShe lit the candle; and then another, and another, carefully watching Filif all the time, remembering how just the thought of fire had terrified him once upon a time. After a moment, trembling herself, she handed the candle to Kit. \"Here,\" she said, \"your turn...\"\n\nAs carefully as she had, Kit lit the three candles nearest, and passed the lighting candle to Matt. So it went around, to Sker'ret (who grasped it in his mandibles and reared up to do the lighting) and to Ronan, and then to Marcus, and finally to Dairine and Carmela. As Carmela was lighting the last three, Dairine gestured at the lamps spaced around the room, and all of them went out.\n\nThey stood there around Filif in a silence so complete that the tiny fizz and crackle of the candles' wicks fizzing could clearly be heard. In that still place, without a breath to stir them, the candle flames stood up straight, and the light of them gleamed on Filif's branches and caught in Filif's eyes.\n\nFor what seemed like a long time he didn't move so much as a frond or a needle: just held absolutely still, like someone testing himself. The candle flames shifted very slightly, were still again.\n\nAt last he spoke. \"This is my defiance, then,\" Filif said, very softly. \"This is the Oath made visible. Just as the Outlier was, I am more than my fear. Other fears may not burn as hot or as brightly, but those too I defy. Let what sets such fires in the world see them set here to my purposes, not Its own!\" And Filif fell silent.\n\nAs still as he, Nita and the others stood quiet and watched him.\n\nAnd then, after a few moments more, Filif laughed and said, \"Now what? Do they have to burn down all the way?\"\n\nMarcus chuckled too. \"No,\" he said. \"With candles like these, that would take an hour or so. Normally after a few minutes we put them out. Unless you want to take a selfie first?\"\n\n\"What's a selfie?\"\n\nEverybody who had a phone handy went for it. Soon that darkened space was illuminated not just by candlelight, but smartphone flashes, and the brief solemnity was replaced by laughter. Then one by one the friends surrounding him blew out Filif's candles, or pinched them out, and Dairine let the room lights come up again. Carefully they took the candles and their holders off him, and when the last holder was off and put away, Filif gave a great shake of all his boughs and laughed again.\n\n\"That was exciting,\" he said. \"Maybe a little more exciting than I expected. I might take a break...\"\n\n\"Outside?\" Nita said.\n\n\"Yes.\" And Filif made his way to the portal, and once just outside it, vanished.\n\nKit rubbed his eyes. \"That,\" he said, \"was intense.\"\n\n\"Going to be interesting to hear more about just what brought it on,\" Ronan said, sounding dry. \"But I need a nap first.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Dairine said. \"We'll ask him about it at breakfast...\"\n\nPeople started arranging the pillows and cushions into sleepover configurations, and Dairine fired up the TV again and turned it on to one of the music video channels that was doing Christmas rock. Nita yawned, feeling more than ready to collapse. But there was something she wanted to do first.\n\nShe went out the portal, climbed the stairs, and peered into the living room. All the adults had gone home or taken themselves off to bed; only the mochteroof-tree stood there glowing. Nita smiled at it and very softly went out the back yard, into the darkness.\n\nIt was snowing in big flakes, sometimes even gathering together into light feathery clumps. Off in front of the garage, Filif stood for the moment bare to the night, not even wearing his star, wholly unadorned except for the snow falling on him.\n\n\"You okay?\" Nita said.\n\n\"Yes,\" Filif said. \"Very.\"\n\nNita hugged herself a little against the cold. \"You know... your branches are lovely.\"\n\n\"You're going to tell me,\" Filif said, \"that the frost and snow are prettier than all the ornaments and garlands.\"\n\nNita let out a breath. \"Yeah,\" she said, \"sounds like cliche city, doesn't it.\"\n\n\"Most cliches have at least some truth in them,\" Filif said; \"that's how they get that way...\"\n\nHe sounded contented, though, and cheerful. \"It's good to recognize a challenge when it comes along,\" Filif said after a moment. \"It's even better to pass it.\"\n\nNita nodded. She knew the feeling. \"You know what?\" Filif said. \"I think I'll put on my ornaments and stand out here just a little while more.\"\n\nNita glanced around. \"Okay,\" she said. \"But better leave the lights with the mochteroof inside. You're outside the shield here, and you don't want to attract any undue attention...\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"We're all crashing back in Dairine's puptent,\" she said, \"so when you're done here...\"\n\n\"I'll be back.\"\n\nNita ran a hand through some of Filif's outermost fronds and headed back inside, feeling, for some reason, a little uneasy. It wasn't really until she was down in Dairine's puptent again, pulling a throw over herself in the TV-lit dimness, that she came up with a reason why. Because defiance, when issued, is always noticed..."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 5",
                "text": "In The Bleak Midwinter\n\nThe sound of footsteps was what slowly woke her up. Nothing but rugs in here, she thought blearily. Thick. Soft. What's crunching? Somebody drop the popcorn?\n\nNita yawned and blinked and realized suddenly that she was standing outside next to Kit's house, in the snow. It was very dark. The light from the streetlight down at the corner didn't reach this far, and the lights of the nearby houses were all off: even the ones that had Christmas lights on them had them turned off this time of night. It was still clouded over, but there was a strange dark pinkish shading on the clouds above.\n\nWell, this is unusual, Nita thought. Like city light. But above the clouds, not below. It was also unusual that she wasn't feeling any cold, even though she was standing out in the wintry night in nothing but pajamas and a bathrobe and her bedroom slippers. From nearby she could hear the crunching noise again, like somebody walking on a sidewalk that'd been salted.\n\n\"Shit,\" somebody said: a male voice. \"What's that?\"\n\nThe voice was coming from the direction of the street, down at the end of Kit's driveway, and whoever was speaking was turned toward her: she could just make out the dark shape down that way. A second or so later, another came stumbling along the snowy sidewalk to join it.\n\n\"There's something there looking at us,\" said another voice. \"See it?\"\n\nThe voice was thick and slurred and angry. Something about the sound of it brought the hair up on the back of Nita's neck, made her want to reach back in her mind for the shield-spell that she'd developed a long time ago to protect herself from the depredations of bullies.\n\n\"One of them out here now,\" said a second voice, slightly lighter and higher than the other, but just as slurred. \"All by themselves in the middle of the night. Hey! What the fuck you staring at?\"\n\nThat was when Nita realized that she was dreaming. This had been happening with increasing frequency of late. Mostly it happened that a dream would suddenly turn entirely too rational: dialogue would start making too much sense. Then Nita would know, I've gone lucid, and she'd start paying attention, or telling Bobo to.\n\nNow she flushed briefly hot with fear... then said to herself, No. They can't hurt me. This is my dream. But Nita fleetingly wondered if the two dark parka-clad shapes, one a little taller than the other, knew that.\n\n\"I said what're you staring at?\"\n\nNita stood still, said nothing, just watched. The two shapes at the end of the driveway staggered against each other. \"Man, too much of that beer,\" said one of them. \"Gotta get Dad to buy a better brand.\"\n\n\"No such thing as too much. Not around here. Stupid place, stupid fucking\u2014\" One of them staggered again as he tried to regain his balance. \"Rude,\" he said in Nita's direction, \"that's rude when you don't answer when somebody asks you something nicely. Gonna get your fucking guts punched out.\"\n\nThe two of them lurched together again, rebounded, and started coming up the driveway, pushing their way through the six inches or so of new snow that had fallen since a car last used the driveway. As they got closer Nita recognized the two staggering, approaching shapes. Oh great. The Terror Twins from next door. She reached for the shield-spell on her charm bracelet: then realized she didn't have the bracelet on. Doesn't matter, I know that one by heart. They staggered closer. Nita raised her hands to either side, got ready to say the words\u2014\n\nBut as they got even closer she realized, even in this darkness, how blank their eyes were, and the way they weren't focusing on her at all, but on something past her. They didn't see her. My dream, Nita thought as they walked right at her, and then right through her. She could smell the beer on them as they passed through the space her dream-self occupied.\n\n\"Hey,\" one of them said: Bobby, she thought, by the lower voice. \"Not somebody. Something. Look, it's shiny.\"\n\n\"Still feels like something looking at us,\" said Ronnie, the younger one, squinting at something ahead of them. Nita turned to see. \"Creepy.... Wha'd those smartasses do now? Look, they left their tree outside.\"\n\n\"Why'd they do that when it's decorated?\"\n\nA chill that had nothing to do with the night or the snow ran up and down Nita's spine. No! No no no no! Fil, get out of here!\n\nBut the quiet tree-shape, wound about with garlands, draped with tinsel, glittering indistinctly where it stood in the slightly drifted snow next to the garage, paid her no mind, did nothing at all. Bobby and Ronnie trudged over to it, trying to be quiet and failing utterly.\n\n\"Why'd they leave it out like this? Stupid.\"\n\n\"Trying to keep it fresh longer, maybe.\"\n\n\"Still stupid. Somebody might steal it.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" There was a nasty snicker.\n\n\"Or torch it.\" Nita heard a click, saw a lighter flare bright, then go out again. \"Teach them to make noise, spoil other people's Christmas. You hear the fucking racket out of them before?\"\n\n\"Woke me up.\"\n\nThe deeper voice swore again. \"Assholes, all the cutesy holiday crap they spray around. All the time getting in your face with the carols and the family-values thing.\" The sound of someone hawking, spitting in the snow. \"You hear them in there tonight? Couldn't hear yourself think, all the singing, some foreign freaks or something singing along. And now they leave this thing out here like nobody's going to touch it\u2014\"\n\nLaughter. \"Torch it. Bet it'd burn real fast.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Come on.\"\n\nOne of them put out a hand. \"But wait, what if that geek kid's got a webcam looking at it or something?\"\n\n\"Who cares. Pull up your hood, hide your face, what're they gonna do? It's still snowing, an hour or two and our tracks'll be covered, nobody'll know who we are or where we went.\"\n\nThe lighter flared again.\n\n\"No, wait,\" said the higher voice. \"This tinsel, this other crap's got fire retardant on it. Pull it off first, it'll burn better.\"\n\nHands reached out, grabbed loops of the garland, strands of the tinsel, pulled\u2014\n\nThat was when the tree moved.\n\nNita saw Bobby and Ronnie reel back in shock at the sudden movement. And then they staggered back further as they realized the tree had lights, lights that looked like eyes, eyes that were glaring at them. Every one of these burned a dark and baleful red, a more concentrated version of the ruddy bloody light lowering above the clouds. Nita saw how the tree was now moving toward them as they backed up, and how it abruptly seemed much larger than it should have been: much broader, much taller, like something about to consciously topple onto them, massive, unavoidable. Shadow wreathed around it like fog, spreading, shutting them in, blotting out even the faint rose-tinged radiance of the snow. And from the depths of the shadow, a terrible voice spoke, it seemed, directly into each one's heart.\n\nWho's. Touching. My. Decorations?!\n\nThe two parka-clad shapes collapsed onto the snow and froze there.\n\nThe shadow seemed to get deeper around them, and the night colder, as if the two would-be vandals had been snatched out of real life into some dark and deadly impossibility that had been lurking unseen on their doorstep.\n\nI know what you are, the tree growled. It was an angry voice, full of power, and wild in a way that suggested that power might be turned loose at any moment. And I know the one you serve. You can do me no harm. Of more concern is what harm may come to you.\n\nThe Terror Twins lay huddling and shaking there on the snow, arms over their heads, wanting desperately to run away, not daring to move. Nita stood a few yards away from this and regarded the scene in wonder.\n\nThe angry voice spoke again, this time with more restraint: and the restraint was in its way even more terrifying than the power alone, for it implied what could happen if it slipped. Yet the One requests us to deal equably even with such as you, in hopes that the one you serve may sooner find Its way home at last. And I am reliably informed that mercy is valued even more highly than usual at this time of year.\n\nIndeed the echo of voices singing \"Peace on Earth and mercy mild\" (one of them apparently Bill Murray's) could be heard faintly all around, as if leaking from the playback of recent additions to the soundtrack of someone's mind. Nita smiled to herself even as she shivered a little, considering once more\u2014for she'd had it brought to her attention by Dairine in an informal debrief of events surrounding Filif's visit to their house the previous year\u2014that his toughness under pressure wasn't to be taken for granted.\n\nSo perhaps, the darkly towering shape said, in honor of this season, you will be allowed to leave here unharmed. But should you ever... ever... consider such actions against another's state of being or place of dwelling again, you will hear me speaking to you again. And I will not be as pleasant with you. We will not be as pleasant with you.\n\nAnd the back yard was abruptly full of trees. It was a forest, sudden, deep, thick, dark, frightening in the way that great forests have been since the earliest times\u2014that sense that in the darkness, wild things, dangerous things are looking at you, seeing you though they themselves cannot be seen. Except here, they could. Here the darkness had eyes, hundreds of them, thousands, staring, glaring, in every shade of angry, hungry red. The snow under the mist at their half-seen feet was bloody with that light, and the mist curled pink and warm like blood in water.\n\nBe warned by us, therefore. Depart now into your own place\u2014 And suddenly the tone broke, shifted to a roar of fury. And be better!\n\nThe darkness surged closer, full of eyes, roaring. The two terrified shapes staggered to their feet, fled around the side of the house next door and (from the sound of it) nearly broke its side door down getting back inside.\n\nAnd in Kit's yard, the trees turned their attention to Nita, as if awaiting a reaction.\n\n\"My cousins\u2014\" she said, and bowed to them. \"For your intervention, my thanks!\"\n\nAll that multifarious rustling darkness swayed, bowing back. And then they were gone, and there was Filif all by himself, glittering ever so faintly and somehow managing to look quite innocent.\n\nNita folded her arms and tilted her head to one side. \"Filif...!\"\n\nHe rustled all his branches, glittering more brightly as the clouds above them thinned just a little, and the Moon, starting slowly to edge out of its coppery umber with the end of totality, cast a little more light on the scene. \"Too harsh?\" he said.\n\nShe laughed softly, went to hug him. \"Oh, Fil! I almost wet myself.\"\n\n\"Um. Is that good?\"\n\n\"You have no idea.\"\n\nThey laughed together for a few moments. \"One thing, though,\" Filif said. \"Are you physical at the moment?\"\n\n\"Uh,\" Nita said, stepping back and looking at her fingers as she wiggled them. \"Not sure.\"\n\n\"Then this situation might wisely be considered paradoxical,\" he said, \"and you ought to retire until our respective states of existence are back in sync.\"\n\n\"Breakfast time?\" Nita said.\n\n\"Sounds good,\" Filif said.\n\nAnd Nita brushed her hand through his fronds and headed back toward sleep, glancing only once over her shoulder to see the shape behind her settle back into the snow and go back to glittering softly in the moonlight.\n\nThis, she thought as things went dark around her again, is the best job in the world...!"
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 6",
                "text": "The kitchen and dining room area at Kit's house could in Nita's experience feel fairly full sometimes just with Kit and his sisters. This morning it was rather fuller than usual when Dairine's puptent emptied out.\n\nEveryone was in bathrobes or pajamas. Everyone was ravenous (despite having stuffed themselves with popcorn the night before. ( \"It's a conundrum,\" Kit's pop said, going back for a second bowl of oatmeal.) Some parties had opted for cooked breakfasts: to take the weight off Kit's mama, Nita was officiating at the pancake end of things, and was presently making a third batch of batter. The cereals were being hit particularly hard, and when Helena got home for the holidays Nita knew she was going to complain bitterly about the loss of her stash of Grape Nuts\u2014apparently Marcus had never heard of the stuff before and had fallen deeply in love with it. The cornflakes were vanishing down Matt about twice as fast as the Rice Krispies were evaporating in front of Darryl. And Ronan was favoring a box of Lucky Charms with an utterly scandalized expression, and shaking it at anybody who'd hold still. \"Nothing to do with us,\" he was saying to anyone who'd listen. \"Nothing whatsoever. Shamrocks have three leaves! Who is this gobshite in the hat?\"\n\nWhile all this went on around her, Kit's mama was sitting back in her chair at the dining room table, sipping coffee and scrolling through messages on her phone. Kit's pop was reading the paper. Off to one side, Sker'ret reared up at the edge of the table and looked longingly at the box of Cheerios from which Kit was dumping the remainder into his bowl. \"Is that finished?\"\n\nKit handed him the box. \"Sorry, Sker'.\"\n\n\"Don't be,\" Sker'ret said, and promptly ate it.\n\nKit's pop watched this speculatively but without comment. Nita, in the kitchen, glanced at Kit and smiled a little. They're getting the hang of this...\n\nLooks like it.\n\nKit's pop turned a page in the paper and frowned absently at the contents. \"So about all that noise in the middle of the night...\" he said conversationally.\n\n\"Noise?\" said Kit.\n\n\"Some kind of racket outside, seems like,\" Dairine said. \"I missed it. Must have been asleep.\"\n\n\"Got a text from the hospital this morning,\" Kit's mama said, completely straightfaced. \"The boys from next door turned up in the ER at four AM or thereabouts. Alcohol poisoning, apparently: their blood alcohol was well up, anyway. Might have been drugs too, though the tox screens apparently didn't show anything.\"\n\n\"Do tell,\" said Dairine.\n\n\"Yes. Seems they were babbling about giant demon trees with a million eyes.\"\n\nEverybody turned to glance thoughtfully at the Christmas tree in the living room. The Christmas tree stretched its limbs gently, causing all the tinsel on it to ripple and a few ornaments to clunk gently together, and settled back into its big bucket of rooting compound again.\n\n\"You fall asleep with the wrong movie channel on,\" Nita said, \"there's no telling what kind of dreams you might have. Especially if you'd been drinking.\"\n\n\"Mmm,\" said Kit's mama, taking another drink of her coffee.\n\n\"I wonder what they'll do now,\" Kit's pop said.\n\nKit shook his head, finishing his cereal. \"First guess?\" he said. \"Leave everybody's Christmas decorations strictly alone after this. Maybe the mailboxes'll even catch a break.\"\n\nIn the living room, Filif rustled. \"That was more or less the injunction...\"\n\n\"Well,\" Nita said \"you didn't absolutely mandate it.\"\n\n\"No,\" Filif said. \"That would probably have required more power than I was willing to expend at that particular moment. And psychotropic wizardries do require heavy energy expenditure, typically to prevent them being misused as much as anything else.\" He rustled his boughs reflectively, and even the non-blinking lights twinkled. \"Let's just consider it... a very strong suggestion.\"\n\nNita laughed softly. \"If that was a suggestion,\" she said, \"remind me not to be around when you order somebody to do something.\"\n\n\"In any case, an unexpected gift,\" Kit's pop said.\n\nHis mama nodded in agreement. \"In the spirit of the season...\"\n\n\"So what's on today's agenda?\" said Ronan.\n\n\"Easygoing holiday sloth,\" said Kit's pop.\n\n\"Continuation of the Christmas Movie Marathon,\" Dairine said. \"Love Actually, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Six Tasks of Snowman Hank, Home Alone, Miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street, and A Christmas Story.\"\n\n\"'You'll shoot your eye out'!\" Darryl crowed (twice).\n\n\"Carols this evening,\" said Kit's mama. \"You are all invited. You,\" she said, pointing at Ronan, \"are required. As many of you as want to come along... we'll find room for you.\" She looked over at Sker'ret. \"Wonder if we could disguise you somehow?\"\n\nIn a blink or so a young dark-haired guy of about fifteen, in jeans and a jacket and a T-shirt underneath that said LINEAR TIME IS TOO A LIFESTYLE CHOICE was leaning against the table where Sker'ret had been, with a startling purple streak in his shaggy mop. \"Probably we can come up with something,\" he said.\n\nKit's mama and pop stared. Then his mama said, \"Can you sing?\" , and his pop went back to his paper.\n\nNita put a last few pancakes on the griddle, checked its temperature, and left them to get on with cooking, then wandered out to the living room. Filif watched her come, and rustled his branches a little. \"So has this gone as expected?\" she said.\n\n\"Better,\" he said, all his eyes shining.\n\n\"Got it all figured out yet?\"\n\nFilif laughed at her. \"First impressions, perhaps, and admittedly superficial.... Though there are some similarities to the Outlier's Time.... Joy. The memory of joy. Loss, and the memory of it.\"\n\nNita breathed out, looking at the one ornament that shone like Earth at its full. \"And getting past it,\" Nita said, very low.\n\n\"Or getting through it,\" Filif said. \"Does anyone ever get 'past'? I wonder. Why would you want to pass by old joy, or sweet memories that now cause you pain, without greeting them, as if they were just someone in a crowd at the Crossings? It seems rude.\"\n\nNita nodded. \"Sounds true.\"\n\nThey were quiet together for a moment. Finally Filif said, \"You have to come up to the Nightless Days festival with me some time,\" he said. \"The family will want to meet you. More concretely than last night, anyway.\"\n\n\"I'd really like that,\" Nita said.\n\n\"So would I, coz,\" Filif said. \"As family can plainly become extended in mysterious ways. Doubtless the Powers' plan for us, meant to compensate for the ways our schedules become otherwise disrupted.\"\n\n\"It's so true,\" Nita said, looking back toward the kitchen, and Kit.\n\n\"Meantime,\" Filif said. \"About Christmas. I keep forgetting to ask. How long does this go on?\"\n\nNita was just opening her mouth when Kit's mama put her head through the passthrough.\n\n\"Twelve days,\" she said.\n\nFilif looked at Nita. \"It'll take at least that long to sort out this Santa Claus character,\" he said. \"Let's get started.\""
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "title": "(Shores of Indian Lake 12) Home for Christmas",
        "author": "Catherine Lanigan",
        "genres": [
            "romance",
            "Christmas",
            "contemporary"
        ],
        "tags": [],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "Chapter 1",
                "text": "Joy stood at her large office window, watching the Christmas decorating below. A fire truck raced down the street with a Christmas wreath attached to the front grille. She couldn't help smiling. Joy always happily anticipated Thanksgiving preparations. It was the one time of year her grandfather left her hometown of Indian Lake, coming to New York to be with her. The fire truck blasted its siren and Joy smiled, remembering her grandfather always hanging a wreath on the front of his old truck and then driving her around Indian Lake with a thermos of hot cocoa, singing Christmas songs together as they looked at the lights reflected in the frozen lake waters. She'd thought then even the aurora borealis couldn't compare to the beauty and sparkle of Indian Lake at Christmas.\n\nHer view of Manhattan had blurred, and she wiped away her tears. She hugged herself, wondering why her thoughts kept wandering back to her grandfather so much this year. Perhaps it was because this year they wouldn't be spending Thanksgiving together. Her grandfather owned the largest poinsettia wholesale nursery in northwestern Indiana. Though Joy's year-end at Newly and Associates CPA firm was grueling, Frank Boston's Christmas rush was brutal. This year he told her he simply could not break away.\n\n\"He's so busy...bless his heart,\" Joy mumbled.\n\nThe rap on the doorjamb was familiar. \"Hey, girl,\" Glory said. \"Got a minute?\"\n\nJoy turned and smiled. Glory Washington was not only her best friend, but her roommate. They'd met the first week Joy had come to work at Newly and Associates. Glory was a month older than Joy to the day and never let her forget that she had seniority. When Glory wanted something her way, she usually got it. Glory was also the most trusting, generous and brassy person Joy had ever met, and Joy loved her to pieces.\n\n\"For you? Always. What's up?\"\n\nGlory's smile flashed impishly as she sashayed into the office in high-heeled suede boots, which she'd no doubt bought at one of her favorite resale shops. She wore a faux fur deep burgundy coat, black wool skirt, black cowl-neck sweater and an enormous rhinestone snowflake clip in her blond-black-and-cherry-bark dreads. The woman could wear a potato sack and look stunning.\n\n\"I saw you with the old man. You think he's going to make you partner after the wedding?\"\n\nGlory was referring to Joy's seven-day-old engagement to Chuck Newly, handsome, successful, ambitious and heir of the two-centuries-old New York Newly family.\n\nShe couldn't wait to tell her grandfather, and she was doubly sad that he wouldn't be in New York for Thanksgiving. He hadn't returned her call from a few days ago, and she'd been too swamped at work to call him again. She was giddy with excitement about the announcement, though. She'd call him tonight for certain.\n\n\"Glory. Honestly,\" Joy snorted, \"you have a talent for shooting for the moon without any fuel or even the rocket. I'm not marrying Chuck to get ahead in my career.\"\n\n\"Yeah? Why, then?\"\n\n\"Because he's sweet to me, uh, when we're finally alone. Not always easy. He's smart...and...and good to the employees and he's clearly devoted to his father. His attitude toward family is important to me, you know? His mother must have been wonderful.\"\n\nGlory folded her arms over her chest, her faux Louis Vuitton purse banging against her side.\n\nJoy frowned. She didn't like that probing, accusatory stare Glory was piercing her with. \"And...they've planned an incredible Thanksgiving for us. We'll watch the parade at some friends' penthouse. Then dinner at Le Bernadin.\"\n\n\"Wow. Impressive,\" Glory groaned and rolled her eyes.\n\n\"Liar. You're not impressed.\"\n\n\"Neither should you be.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"You already bought a turkey. We were going to have the whole gang over for dinner. Remember?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"Did you forget?\"\n\n\"No. Not really. But when Mr. Newly...Dad, I mean, told us of his plans, what could I say?\"\n\n\"Oh, no. I get that. Alexander Newly is the most overbearing person I've ever met.\"\n\nJoy smiled. \"And that's saying a lot... coming from you.\"\n\n\"Okay. Fine. I admit to being somewhat obtrusive on occasion, but it's for everybody's own good. I like being the mother hen.\"\n\n\"This, of course, is because you're older than I am.\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\n\"You're the best roommate in the world. And we still have Christmas.\"\n\n\"Look, I don't mind missing the holidays, if I thought you were happy.\"\n\n\"Don't start. I've told you. I'm happy! What's not to be happy about? I'm engaged to a handsome, up-and-coming guy who\u2014\"\n\nGlory cut in. \"Whose father appears to love you more than he does.\"\n\n\"That's not true,\" Joy countered as she fingered a sheaf of papers on her desk. Anytime the truth pinched the edges of her heart, she immediately rebuffed the feeling by moving on to something new. Immersing herself in yet another client's financial fiasco or potential bankruptcy was her forte. She liked saving her clients, bailing them out of hot water, taking meetings with the IRS and pulling their hands off panic buttons. She was good at her job. Very good.\n\nGlory stared at her. \"Not true, huh?\" She jerked her head toward the open door.\n\nChuck, dressed impeccably in a new black wool suit, brilliant white shirt and gray-and-black designer tie, breezed into the office, his Bluetooth activated as he spoke with a client. Going up to Joy, he kissed her cheek and smiled, not missing a beat of his conversation.\n\n\"Fine. Later,\" he said and clicked off. \"Joy, you gotta learn to take my calls\u2014especially after hours.\"\n\nShe frowned. \"Not when I'm working on Nathan Withers's account for you. And not when the only thing you have to talk about is the client.\"\n\n\"Ouch.\" He grinned, glancing at Glory. \"My bad. But you know how I get around the holidays. Forgive me?\"\n\nHe kissed her lightly on the mouth.\n\nJoy barely had time to pucker her lips before he whirled around, took an incoming call on the Bluetooth and was gone.\n\nGlory glared at her. \"I didn't say a word.\"\n\nJoy opened her mouth to protest and closed it. She didn't like how much truth was in what Glory said. Too many times Joy had wondered why there weren't romantic moments between her and Chuck. He was always like this at the end of the year. Of course, that didn't explain the lack of romance during the summer. There hadn't been a weekend where they took the Staten Island Ferry and just \"escaped\" the city. No trips to an island beach or even the Jersey beach. Even dinner date conversations revolved around their clients. Still, she and Chuck had planned a future together. Solid. Secure. Clearly devoted to family as she was to her grandfather. And one day, they'd get around to romance. Wouldn't they?\n\nGlory's smile was too smug. \"That guy makes my case for me.\"\n\n\"Forget it. I'm marrying Chuck and that's it. I've got work to do. So do you,\" Joy finally said.\n\n\"I do,\" Glory replied. \"Want a coffee? I need a pot of caffeine myself.\"\n\n\"Is that because you didn't get in till after one last night?\"\n\nJoy's cell rang. She looked at the caller ID. \"Gish. Another Indiana scammer.\"\n\nGlory cranked her head around. \"How many of those have you gotten in the last few days? Maybe it's not a scammer.\"\n\n\"Right.\" Joy accepted the call. \"This is Joy.\"\n\n\"Joy, thank heavens I got you!\"\n\n\"Mrs. Beabots? Is that you?\"\n\n\"You recognize my voice?\"\n\n\"Yours I would never forget. So, what's up?\"\n\n\"Oh, Joy, dear. I have the most awful news.\"\n\nJoy felt her scalp crawl, and her knees weakened. She placed one hand on the desk and lowered herself into her chair. \"It's Grandpa.\"\n\nGlory stiffened, her eyes instantly alert. Quickly, she crossed to Joy. She put her hands on Joy's shoulders.\n\nJoy felt her support and covered one of Glory's hands with her own.\n\n\"I'm afraid so.\"\n\n\"Is he sick?\"\n\n\"He passed away. Last night, dear. Massive heart attack.\"\n\n\"But...\" Joy tried to make sense of what she was hearing. Frank could not be dead. He was her touchstone. \"He was fine last year at Thanksgiving. I mean, I know he took a couple naps. And when I last talked to him, he said he had to cut the call short because his poinsettia supplier was on the other line.\" Joy's eyes were full of tears, but she didn't feel them. Her face had turned cold. Her hands shook.\n\n\"Frank's attorney tried to call you last night. He said he left a message...\"\n\n\"My phone was off. Then this morning, my fia\u2014my boss called right when I woke up. He's relentless and he talked to me on the entire subway ride and up until I walked into my office.\"\n\n\"I understand, dear. Now, you have to come back here immediately and tend to the funeral details. The attorney wants to go over the will with you. His name is Kyle Evans. I'll text you his number. Joy, I'll do all I can to help you with anything you need.\"\n\n\"That's sweet of you. Thank you.\"\n\n\"We all loved Frank, dear. This is a shock to all your friends back home. Call me when you arrive.\"\n\n\"I will.\" Joy hung up.\n\nFriends? What friends did she have in Indian Lake? None that she knew. There was only her grandpa, and now he was gone and she was alone. She put her phone down and dropped her head into her hands. \"I feel sick.\"\n\nGlory rubbed Joy's shoulders. \"I'm so, so sorry, Joy. What can I do?\" Glory asked.\n\n\"Nothing. There's nothing anyone can do. My grandpa is gone. My only family. I...I have no one.\"\n\n\"Not true. You have me. And\u2014and Chuck...\" Glory's voice trailed off.\n\nJoy looked down at the incoming text from Mrs. Beabots with Kyle's phone number. \"I have to go back to Indian Lake. ASAP.\"\n\n\"Sure you do, sweetie. But...\" Glory glanced out the door.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"That'll make your new father-in-law-to-be not so overjoyed.\"\n\n\"The firm can live without me. Chuck is very capable. Even though he puts a lot on my shoulders, he'll be fine,\" Joy replied firmly. \"Grandpa was all I had. Plus, I need to take care of the funeral arrangements.\"\n\n\"How long will all this take?\"\n\n\"A week, tops. Besides, I have over a month of accrued vacation. Honestly, I can video chat with our clients, and with text and email, no one will know I'm gone.\"\n\n\"Tell me what I can do,\" Glory said.\n\n\"Would you mind going to the apartment and packing a bag for me? Casual stuff. And a dress for the funeral? I'll book my flight now.\"\n\n\"Done.\" Glory rushed to the door and stopped. \"Joy. You know I love you, girl.\"\n\n\"Love you, too. And thanks.\"\n\nAs Glory whisked out the door, Joy dialed the attorney's number.\n\nThe call was picked up on the second ring. \"Evans and Evans Law. How may I help you?\"\n\n\"Hello. This is Joy Boston. I need to speak with Kyle Evans. I just received his message that...my grandfather, Frank Boston...\" Joy's voice was chopped off by the biting burn of sorrow in her throat. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she dropped her forehead to her palm. \"...died...\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 2",
                "text": "The auditorium seats at Saint Mark's Elementary School were filled to capacity with parents, grandparents and students who applauded as the final curtain fell on the traditional Thanksgiving pageant. Adam Masterson bolted to his feet and proudly yelled \"Bravo!\" as his son, Titus, took another bow.\n\nAdam felt his heart swell and his sight blur watching Titus's smile radiate across the expanse. Titus. The light of his life, the motivation that forced him to get out of bed in the morning despite the shroud of grief he wore since his wife, Amie, had died three years ago. \"Well done!\" Adam shouted, smiling at Titus, who stood next to Timmy Bosworth, dressed in a Pilgrim costume.\n\nTimmy took Titus's hand in his and raised it over their heads. \"Thank you and happy Thanksgiving!\" Timmy announced to the crowd.\n\nThe audience erupted in more applause as the curtain fell for the last time.\n\n\"Adam,\" Sarah Bosworth said, as she hoisted three-year-old Charlotte into her arms, \"Titus was wonderful. He recited his lines like a professional actor. I felt like I was right there on Plymouth Plantation with those kids.\"\n\nAdam couldn't help the rush of pride that shot straight up his spine. \"He was good, wasn't he?\"\n\n\"He was. Timmy told me that he and Titus only practiced three times.\"\n\n\"I'll let you in on a secret,\" Adam said, bending closer, his hair falling over his forehead. \"I think Titus has an eidetic memory. The first time I took him through his lines, he'd memorized everything.\"\n\n\"No kidding?\" Sarah's eyes widened. \"Wish I had that ability.\"\n\nAdam glanced toward the stage and saw some of the kids running down the aisle. \"He's been reading since he was three. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at anything he does.\"\n\n\"Trust me,\" Sarah said. \"Gifted children aren't easy. I know. Both Timmy and Annie are exceptional, and just last week, I caught Charlotte here sitting at the piano playing with Annie.\"\n\nAdam chucked Charlotte under the chin. \"A prodigy, huh?\"\n\nCharlotte tossed her blond curls and laid her head on Sarah's shoulder. \"I like piano.\" Charlotte smiled up at Adam.\n\n\"Dad! Dad!\" Titus shouted exuberantly, as he worked his way through the throng of parents leaving their seats. Titus's rented Pilgrim costume was faded but fit well. He did struggle with the black hat, which tended to interfere with his ever-present sport band that held his thick glasses in place. Titus's mom had been myopic, too. But unlike Amie, Titus tended to be quite clumsy, always impatient to race to the next room, the next day and the next adventure.\n\n\"Dad! Did you see me?\" Titus hurried up to Adam and flung his arms around his waist.\n\nAdam smoothed Titus's thick black hair away from his forehead and looked down into his eager crystal-blue eyes. His son looked exactly like Adam had when he was \"nearly six\"\u2014minus the glasses. \"I did! And you were the best. You did great.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Dad.\" Titus hugged him again.\n\nTimmy Bosworth rushed up to Sarah, along with his eleven-year-old sister, Annie.\n\n\"Mom,\" Annie said. \"Can I take Charlotte backstage to see Mrs. Cook?\"\n\nSarah narrowed her eyes. \"Why does Mrs. Cook want to see your baby sister?\"\n\nAnnie glanced sheepishly at Titus, who had a conspiratorial expression. \"Um. I told her Charlotte could play piano.\"\n\nCharlotte squirmed out of Sarah's arms. \"I can play!\"\n\nAnnie reached for Charlotte's hand. \"Mom?\"\n\n\"Oh, fine. Go.\" Sarah acquiesced.\n\nAdam watched as Annie and Charlotte bounded up the stage steps. Titus said, \"Charlotte should think about her future career. Like me.\"\n\nAdam jerked his head back. This was news to him. \"And that would be...what?\"\n\nTitus looked at Timmy, who elbowed him for encouragement. Timmy and Titus were close, now that Titus was in kindergarten. Timmy had taken Titus under his wing, and when Adam had been immersed in a geothermal energy construction project, or if he'd had to drive to Chicago to meet with a prospective client, Sarah generously watched Titus at her house. Adam didn't know how Sarah juggled three children, a creatively demanding career as a busy commercial design consultant, the summer fund-raising festival for Saint Mark's and volunteer work for the new Indian Lake Community Center.\n\nToo often, Adam was caught spending late-night hours at his computer rather than doing the laundry, making costumes for Titus or thinking about things like Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. The only thing that broke his focus on work was caring for Titus. His son was his joy.\n\n\"I've had a revelation, Dad,\" Titus said seriously.\n\nAdam crossed his arms over his chest and glanced at Sarah, who smiled at Titus. \"Go on.\"\n\n\"I liked working on this pageant and I think I want to go into the theater business.\"\n\nAdam coughed and held his fist to his mouth. This was not what he'd thought his brilliant son would say. He'd imagined that Titus would want to follow in his footsteps. Become an engineer or a physicist. Titus was smart and quick and liked working alongside him on his local projects. Just last week Titus had gone with him to Frank Boston's greenhouse, where Adam had been installing a new geothermal heating unit.\n\n\"Theater? You mean you want to be an actor?\"\n\n\"No, Dad. Timmy's gonna be an actor. I want to write plays. Like I did for Mrs. Cook.\"\n\nAdam's eyes snapped to Sarah, who shook her head. \"What did you write, son?\"\n\n\"My speech. I did the research, which was interesting. And enlightening.\"\n\nAdam mouthed \"enlightening.\" He was continually surprised at Titus's vocabulary. He'd bought Titus a dictionary and thesaurus six months ago. He wondered if Titus had read them both cover to cover. \"Well, we'll have to talk about it.\"\n\nTitus's smile vanished. \"You always say that and we never do.\"\n\nSarah's eyebrow arched. She put her hand on Timmy's shoulder. \"Let's go find your sisters.\"\n\n\"Sure, Mom.\"\n\nShe gave Adam a quick hug. \"I'm guessing I'll see you at Frank's funeral?\"\n\nAdam had known Sarah and her group of friends since high school. Adam had been the nerdy guy in high school, wading through CAD programs, tinkering with machines and engines.\n\nAdam had never known his parents, who gave him up for adoption to a church-affiliated foster home only weeks after his birth. They'd left him in a car seat at Pastor Flutie's front door with a note giving his birth date and name, which Adam always believed was fictitious. Years ago, Adam had tried to track down information about his birth parents, but the time and money he'd spent were wasted.\n\nPastor Flutie and his wife, Martha, were good people and raised him, along with over thirty other children who didn't have parents and had come their way.\n\nThough they'd clothed and fed him, given him attention, Adam had always kept to himself. He didn't voice opinions often, and when he did, he made certain he had all his facts.\n\nAdam had always wanted a family. He'd envied the close-knit Barzonni family and Sarah's loving mother, Ann-Marie, and he'd been there for Sarah when both her parents died.\n\nSarah had been a good friend to him ever since he'd come back to town, after Amie died of leukemia. Sarah and Luke had included Titus, and their friendship meant a great deal to him. But he was also careful not to ask too much of them.\n\nSarah touched Adam's sleeve. \"Look, I know how close you were to Frank...\"\n\nAdam felt the emotion in his throat grow hot. He choked it back. \"He was like my own grandfather.\"\n\n\"I know. He loved you, Adam. You did so much for him these past years.\"\n\n\"I should have done more.\"\n\n\"Come on. You were with him when he died. If you hadn't been there... Calling the ambulance. Staying with him at the hospital until...\" Sarah's eyes filled with tears. \"It's so hard.\"\n\nSarah had been through a great deal of grief herself. He touched her hand. It was ice-cold. \"I'm sorry, Sarah. All this must remind you of your parents. They were good people.\"\n\n\"The best. They liked you a lot, Adam.\"\n\n\"You don't have to say that. I was such a...dork.\"\n\n\"Stop. Okay?\" She looked down at Titus, who watched them both with serious, probing eyes. \"I gotta go. Let me know about the funeral. I'm guessing the family will take care of everything.\"\n\nAdam shoved his hands in his jeans' pockets. \"That would be Joy.\"\n\n\"Oh...my...gosh. Adam. I forgot. I'm sorry. Mrs. Beabots called her and broke the news. Have you talked to Joy?\"\n\n\"Not since she left for college.\" Ten years ago, Joy had been his girlfriend. Adam had given her a promise ring the day before they'd started their senior year in high school. That same day he'd received a letter from Purdue University that he'd won a full-ride scholarship for engineering. Adam had believed that he and Joy would spend the rest of their lives together. She'd promised to love him.\n\nFor a foster kid with no love in his life, Joy had been all he'd ever wanted. He was the one who dreamed of a cottage by Indian Lake with a rose-covered fence. He'd envisioned kids and a dog and a life of happiness.\n\nAll that year after school, Adam had gone to the Boston greenhouses to work until supper alongside Joy and her Frank. Frank had been the kind of grandfather Adam thought came along only in fairy tales. He gave Adam a few extra dollars to take Joy to a movie or out for a pizza. He loaned Adam his truck to drive them all out to the beach in the summer. Frank had been father, grandfather, mentor and adviser. Where Pastor Flutie had lacked in practical and business guidance, Frank filled in the blanks.\n\n\"He was family to me,\" Adam whispered, trying desperately not to show the emotion he felt so sharply.\n\nSarah leaned closer. \"I didn't mean to open that wound.\"\n\n\"It's okay. Joy left. She wanted Columbia, her accounting degree and life in New York.\" He shrugged his shoulders. \"And she got it.\"\n\n\"She did.\" Sarah paused. \"When I talked to Mrs. Beabots this morning, she said Joy's coming back here to arrange the funeral.\"\n\n\"Of course. Mrs. Beabots talked to Joy...\"\n\n\"I know, right? Mrs. Beabots keeps up with the whereabouts of all of us. I suppose Frank had told her where Joy worked.\"\n\n\"Newly and Associates,\" Adam said.\n\n\"Yeah.\" Sarah eyed him, but continued. \"She's flying out of New York today.\"\n\n\"Today,\" he repeated. His heart shook. Joy, who had told him she didn't want the same things out of life that he did. She wanted to leave Indian Lake and never come back. She wanted a life in New York with hustle and noise and excitement.\n\nShe didn't want him.\n\nShe'd given him back his promise ring and told him she was going to Columbia University. She never answered a phone call or an email after she moved.\n\nBy the end of Adam's freshman year, Frank told him that Joy had made it clear that Frank could visit her in New York, where she'd arranged for internships in the summers, but she never wanted to see Indian Lake, her parents' graves or any of the people of the town, whom she blamed for the car accident that killed them both.\n\nThe cut that had hurt Adam the most was the fact that Joy never gave him the chance to comfort her. She never turned to him. The pain of those days was still with him.\n\nAdam had met physicist Amie his senior year at Purdue. She was pretty and bright and they shared common interests. She'd got pregnant on their honeymoon in Chicago. They'd had little money back then, which had bothered Adam. In two years, his midnight \"tinkerings\" had resulted in patents for his geothermal plans and then sales of the units themselves. Two years after Titus was born, Amie was diagnosed with leukemia. The progression was fast.\n\n\"It worked out in the end. I have Titus.\"\n\n\"We all adored Amie. And Titus is a true blessing. I love every minute he's around.\" She looked at Titus. \"I really have, honey.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Miss Sarah,\" Titus said, slipping his hand into Adam's.\n\n\"Speaking of which,\" Sarah went on. \"Why not let Titus come home with Timmy and the girls and me? Miss Milse is making pies for Thanksgiving. The kids can play video games while you get your errands done.\"\n\n\"Are you sure? I mean, I don't want to impose.\"\n\n\"Dad.\" Titus yanked on his hand. \"Please? Can I go?\"\n\nAdam had to smile. \"It's not much fun hauling cement and nails around, is it, Titus?\"\n\n\"Not really and the building supply place is so dreary.\"\n\n\"Dreary.\" Adam grinned. Another new word. He wondered if he shouldn't buy a second thesaurus for himself, to keep up with his brilliant son. No wonder the kid wanted to write plays.\n\n\"So? Can I?\"\n\n\"Sure.\" He ruffled Titus's hair and dislodged the Pilgrim hat. Titus righted it, smiling at his dad. \"Thanks for this, Sarah. I really have a lot to do at the greenhouses. For Frank.\"\n\n\"I know.\" She held out her hand to Titus. \"C'mon, honey.\"\n\n\"Titus,\" Adam said. \"Get your coat and zip it up this time. Don't forget your knit cap. It's getting cold outside.\"\n\n\"Dad. I know.\" Titus pouted.\n\n\"And you mind Miss Milse. Don't poke your finger in the pies, and stay away from her Cuisinart.\"\n\n\"I know, Dad. Sharp knives. Mixers. All off-limits.\"\n\nSarah laughed. \"He'll be okay.\"\n\n\"I know. I know. It's just...\"\n\n\"Hard to be mom and dad?\" she asked.\n\n\"Something like that.\"\n\n\"Okay. Let's go find the girls.\" She started to walk away. She looked over her shoulder. \"Just text me when you're on your way to pick him up.\"\n\n\"I will. Thanks again.\"\n\n\"No worries.\" Titus and Timmy raced ahead of her, both boys yelling for Annie and Charlotte.\n\nAdam chuckled to himself, leaned down and grabbed his sheepskin jacket and slipped it on. Most of the parents and children had left by the front doors to the auditorium. Adam found a couple folded playbills that Mrs. Cook had printed up. He'd come in late, a bad workaholic habit, so he hadn't grabbed a playbill earlier.\n\nAs he started up the aisle, he noticed Titus's name in bold print. Above his name was that of Mrs. Mary-Catherine Cook.\n\nAbove that was the title: PLAYWRIGHT.\n\nAdam halted. \"Titus's teacher gave him writing credit for his little speech.\" He was both awed and humbled.\n\nHis son was growing up far too quickly. And he wasn't ready for it.\n\nHe put the playbill in his inner jacket breast pocket and walked out into the November cold.\n\nHe wasn't ready for a lot of things. Titus growing up. Frank dying. And he especially wasn't ready to see Joy again."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 3",
                "text": "Joy had just deplaned at O'Hare Airport when her cell phone rang. \"Hello, darling.\"\n\n\"Darling? Who's that?\"\n\n\"That would be you, Chuck. Us being engaged and all, I was thinking we should have endearments for each other.\"\n\n\"I don't like it.\"\n\n\"How about 'baby'?\"\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\n\"Sweetie? Cutie? Chuckie?\" she joked.\n\n\"Don't go there. Look, Joy. Seriously, talk to me. The Taylor account...\"\n\nShe shouldered her way into the throng of people moving toward baggage claim. \"The Taylor account is on your desk. I sent an email to Lessings Acoustics, too. They'll contact you directly. Until I get back.\"\n\n\"When will that be?\"\n\n\"I don't know, but not long.\"\n\n\"This is putting a lot on me, you know,\" he groused.\n\nJoy rolled her eyes. Looking up, she saw huge Christmas wreaths above the concourse. An enormous Christmas tree with thousands of lights rivaled the Rockefeller tree. Surrounding the bottom of the tree was a sea of lush, tropical poinsettias.\n\nJoy pulled to a stop, her roller bag banging the backs of her legs. She felt the jagged edge of sorrow in her heart as hundreds of loving moments with her grandfather flashed across her mind's eye. Her head dipped, and she let her tears drop to the terrazzo floor. She pulled out a tissue and blew her nose, remembering that Chuck was still on the phone.\n\n\"Joy? Joy? What's going on?\"\n\n\"Sorry. Big crowds.\" She glanced up at the signs directing her to baggage claim. It would have been easy to fall apart, but she needed, no\u2014had to stay strong now. She couldn't lean on Chuck.\n\n\"So, how long till you get to Indian Lake?\"\n\n\"An hour and a half. I hired an Uber.\"\n\n\"Call me from the car. I have half a dozen more accounts to go over with you.\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\nChuck hung up without another word. Joy got on the down escalator. She held the phone up to see that the call had ended.\n\n\"I love you, too, Chuck.\"\n\nJoy shoved the phone in her purse and saw the Uber driver at the bottom of the escalator, holding a sign with her name on it.\n\nShe walked up to him. \"Hi! I'm Joy Boston.\"\n\nThe middle-aged man nodded. \"I'm Roy. Happy to see you. I'll take your bags for you. Do you have more luggage to claim?\"\n\n\"No, this is it. I won't be staying long.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's a pity,\" Roy said, as he politely ushered her toward the outer door.\n\n\"Why's that?\"\n\n\"Indian Lake is so lovely at the holidays. So many decorations and activities. The Christmas Concert. The symphony. The children's Christmas pageant. The caroling parties. The Candlelight Tour...\"\n\nThey walked outside to the cold. \"They still have all that?\"\n\n\"Of course. I take my grandson to the Christmas parade every year, and then we mail his letter to Santa at the Elf Mail Station.\" They walked to Roy's black SUV, and he put her bags in the back as she got in the back seat.\n\nAs much as Joy had struggled to make a new life for herself in New York, with new friends and new holiday traditions, the old days and the old ways of celebrating flooded her.\n\nJust thinking about Indian Lake released anger she hadn't felt in years. Anger toward the townspeople for their apathy\u2014laziness that directly caused her parents' car accident. She hadn't been able to forgive them then or now. The pain of her long-ago scars resonated in her. She would go to town, do her duty, find a buyer for the greenhouse and leave as quickly as possible.\n\nShe forced her mind to redirect to happier times.\n\nShe remembered her mother and father working alongside her, tending the poinsettias. The week before Thanksgiving, enormous delivery trucks would roll into the parking lot and they'd unload red, pink and white beauties. Just thinking about those gorgeous tropical flowers caused Joy to wish for faraway adventures, sandy beaches and palm trees, places she'd planned to explore with...\n\n\"Adam.\"\n\nShe sat up straight.\n\nAdam hadn't crossed her mind once since she'd got the news of her grandfather's death. But there he was. She remembered his wide shoulders, his thick raven hair and how he'd forget to cut it, so it would hang down, nearly covering half his face as he worked furiously on yet another machine that never reached \"functionality.\"\n\nShe'd known Adam was smart and was convinced he hadn't yet found his groove. She'd urged him on, believing his genius would pay off one day. The time when he'd lost the state science fair championship, he'd been despondent and distant, but Joy had kissed away his tears and forced him to envision a golden future filled with success. He said he believed her.\n\nThey'd had a romantic senior year together, stealing kisses in the greenhouses. Learning how to cross-pollinate and hybridize poinsettias from her grandfather. Going to summer concerts in the park and dancing at the beach under the stars\u2014with Adam humming a song to her. He'd given her a gold promise ring and told her he wished he was rich enough for a diamond. At the time, she hadn't cared.\n\nI loved him.\n\nThose days with Adam had been the most romantic of her life. Idyllic days\u2014until her parents died.\n\nShe looked out the window at the nude maple trees along the interstate. The ground was barren of flowers; the grass was frozen. The sky was the same depressing slate-gray, promising snow flurries or rain.\n\nShe felt gray inside without her grandfather, just as she had after her parents' deaths. Grief's fingerprint was a deep one. She wondered if she'd ever feel sunny again.\n\nShe looked down at her gloved hands and remembered a winter day once when she'd forgotten her gloves and Adam had walked her to the greenhouses after school. He'd taken both her hands in his, rubbed them until they were pink and warm again, and then he'd given her his too-big gloves to wear. He'd pulled her close as the wind whipped around them.\n\n\"I'll always keep you warm,\" he'd said.\n\n\"Ditto,\" she'd replied.\n\n\"In fact, I'd like to be the one who discovers cheap energy to keep all the world warm. No one should go cold,\" he'd said.\n\n\"That's what you want to do? Save the world from freezing?\"\n\n\"It's a tall order, but it's what I want to do,\" he'd said and kissed the end of her very cold nose.\n\n\"Now, that was very warming,\" Joy had replied.\n\nShe certainly couldn't remember anything memorably romantic that Chuck had done with her since they'd met.\n\nThere was never a lack of wine or exotic food, but their dates wound up being work dates.\n\nHe'd proposed at the sushi bar they frequented, though she didn't like much on the menu except the California rolls. He'd asked her to be his wife, and just as she'd said \"yes\" his cell phone rang. He'd looked down at it, but didn't take the call. She'd thought it was a good sign. But after he kissed her and they toasted with sake, which she also didn't like, he excused himself to take the call.\n\nJoy knew that Chuck felt enormous pressure to perform to his father's high expectations. Chuck had a good heart and he was eager to please both her and his father. He was mindful of their long hours and would surprise her with a latte and buttered bagel from the deli down the street. When she complained her back hurt after long hours at the computer, he introduced her to a killer pain-relieving essential oil as he rubbed her neck. Chuck had seen Joy's performance potential on her first interview and hired her on the spot. She gave him credit for that. Because he was her boss, she ignored his excuses to work overtime with her over the years. She pretended not to notice him lingering in her office after client conferences. Chuck had actually gone to his father and discussed his growing attraction to her before asking his permission to pursue a romance. For Joy, their relationship had evolved slowly over the next few years. No fireworks. No adrenaline rush. They were solid and secure. She liked that.\n\nShe had to admit, though, that dinner with Chuck was polar opposite from the mac and cheese she used to make for Adam and Grandpa, which they'd share after a ten-hour Saturday working retail at Christmas in the greenhouses.\n\nJoy had been so lost in thought that she'd forgotten that she'd turned off the ringer on her cell phone. She turned it back on and saw that Chuck had left three voice messages and five texts. She answered the texts and replied she would call him when she wasn't with Roy, as some of their conversations were best kept confidential for the clients' sake.\n\nThey had driven into town and stopped at the light with beautiful Indian Lake dead ahead. Joy leaned forward.\n\n\"Oh, Grandpa.\"\n\n\"Pardon?\" Roy asked.\n\n\"Sorry. Nothing. It's just that I've forgotten how pretty this place is. I grew up here.\"\n\n\"So, you have family here?\"\n\n\"Not anymore.\"\n\n\"Sorry.\"\n\nRoy drove into town, past the red sandstone county courthouse with its one-hundred-and-forty-year-old clock tower and onto Maple Boulevard. They passed houses she remembered, belonging to Sarah Jensen and Mrs. Beabots. Saint Mark's Church. The Indian Lake Police Station. Specters of past, happy days flew around Joy, pulling her back to Indian Lake like magnets. And with each memory, she missed her mother, her father and especially her grandfather all the more.\n\nThat was why when Roy drove up to the three glass greenhouses, which her grandfather had built right after World War II, her vision had been blurred by her tears. She couldn't possibly be seeing correctly.\n\n\"What is this?\" she asked Roy, like a stupefied tourist.\n\n\"Boston Greenhouses.\" He waved his hand across the expanse of the windshield. \"This is it.\"\n\n\"No.\" She shook her head and opened the door, wiping her eyes. The greenhouses were empty. Totally devoid of even one poinsettia. Panes were filthy, cracked or missing from the glass ceilings and walls. The farthest greenhouse was in the worst condition. Its once perfectly maintained and cleaned brick-and-tile floor now sprouted weeds, frozen back from the cold November weather. Joy walked liked a zombie toward the greenhouse. Her father and grandfather had taught her how to clean the tiles with the sprayer. She'd swept the water away to expose the pretty sand-colored tiles. She'd taken a great deal of pride in the glistening glass walls and ceiling. She and her grandfather had pressure washed those panes every month. Their patrons commented on how good the plants had it when they came to live at Boston Greenhouses.\n\nJoy felt her insides twist. Not only was her grandfather dead, but he'd lied to her. He'd told her he couldn't come to New York to be with her because he was too busy. It was going to be his best year ever, he'd said.\n\nShe turned to Roy. \"How long have the greenhouses been closed, Roy?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure. A few years.\"\n\nA few years... Joy's shock turned to a sense of betrayal.\n\n\"Grandpa lied to me. And now he's gone.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 4",
                "text": "Joy looked back at the weeds growing through the tiles.\n\n\"Years. Not just this Christmas, but many holiday seasons it's been closed.\"\n\nShe went to the front door, peered through the windows and tried the latch. It was unlocked.\n\n\"What?\" Why would the door be unlocked? Had the attorney unlocked it? Perhaps when she met Kyle Evans, she'd gain more insight.\n\nShe pushed the door and stepped in. She wasn't prepared for the shock.\n\nAs if she'd been swallowed by a time warp, she was eighteen again, rushing in on a Saturday morning to see her grandfather already at the cash register, his big Chicago Cubs coffee mug filled with steaming coffee as he counted the money. She remembered her mother, dressed in jeans, a floral blouse and a rubber apron while she watered the flowers and sang to them. Her father whistled while he carried in heavy sacks of humus and fertilizer to sell. She'd forgotten how much she missed his whistling.\n\nAs the door swung closed behind her, a numbing chill enveloped her. The sight of empty shelves, dusty counters and cobwebs around the ceiling where garlands and Christmas ornaments once hung was heartbreaking. The walk-in flower cooler was dark and smelled like mold. The carpet needed shampooing. Worst of all, there were no poinsettias, no life, no energy.\n\n\"No Grandpa. No Mom or Dad.\"\n\nJoy walked to the checkout counter, where she used to wrap gold and silver foil around the flowerpots and swathe the flowers with colorful print paper to protect the delicate poinsettias. She and her mom would work the counter together. She could almost smell Mom's rose soap.\n\nUnwinding her scarf, she walked behind the counter and was surprised to see full boxes of ribbons, foil and cellophane, and bolts of wrapping paper sitting in the same spots as they had a decade ago. \"Not everything was sold or discarded.\"\n\nShe looked toward the back of the retail gift area. Two French doors led to a smaller greenhouse where specialty orchids, amaryllis and hybrid poinsettias used to be displayed on long wooden tables. That was Joy's favorite area, where her grandfather would test his yearlong projects of coral-and-white-striped poinsettias, yellows, ambers, and try as he might, the absolute impossible task of creating a blue poinsettia. Blue poinsettias didn't exist naturally, and he would dye white ones to please designers in Chicago, but he was a dreamer. He'd often told her he wanted to create a flower that was not only beautiful but timeless. Something the world would never have seen if it hadn't been for him.\n\nBehind the special greenhouse were the storage rooms, where the new shipments of gift items, table linens, Christmas stockings, birdbaths and feeders, scented candles and bath oils and washes used to be delivered and stored until they were put out for display.\n\n\"I wonder if any stock is left...\" Joy started toward the storage room when she heard a door slam. She halted. \"What was that?\" She peered through the French doors. Was someone breaking into the greenhouse?\n\n\"Hello? Is someone there?\"\n\nPeering through the windows, she saw a tall man, wearing a buckskin-yellow suede jacket with a sheepskin collar and lining, jeans, a scarf around his neck and a tan cowboy hat that was pulled down low so that she couldn't see his face. He was carrying a large sack of something on his shoulder as he pushed one door open with his booted foot.\n\nHis presence filled the room as if he owned the place and she was the one intruding.\n\nHe placed the sack on the cement floor of the greenhouse, then slapped his hands together, creating a cloud of white dust. He pushed the tip of his cowboy hat up and leveled on her the bluest eyes she'd ever seen.\n\nFamiliar eyes.\n\nEyes that probed her in a way that went straight to her heart.\n\n\"Adam?\" She almost choked out his name, being both stunned and oddly pleased to see him.\n\n\"Hey.\"\n\nHe continued to stare at her, assessing her as if she were one of his cogs in a machine he was creating.\n\n\"Hi,\" she returned.\n\nUnsmiling, he said, \"I heard you might come back.\"\n\n\"Yes. Of\u2014of course. Why wouldn't I?\"\n\n\"Been a long time.\"\n\nJoy didn't like the accusatory tone Adam used. Nor did she like the fact that he'd matured into a handsome man with flashing, mesmerizing eyes. And how was that possible? They were \"over\" a long time ago.\n\n\"He was my grandpa.\"\n\n\"And you came back because he died.\"\n\n\"Excuse me?\"\n\n\"Sorry. I mean I'm sorry about Frank. He loved you a lot.\"\n\n\"And you know this...how?\"\n\n\"He never stopped talking about you.\"\n\nJoy felt a pang of guilt for not being there more for her grandfather. But she didn't like Adam's tone. She glanced through the French door, propped open by the sack of cement he'd deposited. She saw a compressor, metal pipes, PVC pipes, vent apparatus and coils of copper tubing. A toolbox with wrenches, hammers and screwdrivers sat next to the pile of materials.\n\n\"Just exactly how did you get in here?\"\n\n\"Key.\"\n\nJoy had to consciously halt her eyes from flying wide open. \"You? Have access to my grandfather's place of business?\"\n\n\"Clearly\u2014\" he waved his hand across the empty retail area \"\u2014it's not a business anymore.\"\n\n\"I was told Frank closed it years ago.\"\n\n\"He did. Five years, to be exact.\"\n\nJoy put her fingertips to her temples. None of this made sense. \"I don't understand. I flew him to New York for Thanksgiving every year. He told me he had to hurry back here to get the poinsettia shipments in. He said business had never been better.\"\n\n\"He lied.\"\n\n\"I got that, Adam!\"\n\n\"Don't jump on me!\" he shot back, all too quickly and with twice the force.\n\n\"Why didn't he tell me the truth?\"\n\n\"He didn't want to disappoint you,\" Adam replied, dropping his harsh tone.\n\nHer eyes were tearing again, but she didn't care. \"He told you that?\"\n\n\"He did.\"\n\n\"But nothing he would do could ever, ever disappoint me. I loved him. That's all. The attorney told me on the phone that Grandpa was too proud to ask for my help.\"\n\n\"That, too.\" Adam glanced down as he asked, \"Would you have come back if he asked?\"\n\n\"I don't know. No. Maybe...if he'd told me how bad it was.\"\n\nAdam shook his head. \"Well, we'll never know.\"\n\nAdam took off his hat, and as he did, his thick black hair fell over his forehead.\n\nJoy nearly gasped as the movement reminded her of when they'd been in love.\n\n\"I know that Frank didn't want to destroy your memories of this place. How it was.\"\n\n\"It was glorious, wasn't it?\" Joy felt her first smile creep slowly to her lips as she remembered so much.\n\n\"It was,\" he replied wistfully, still staring at her.\n\n\"From the time I was nine or ten, it was my job to keep those tiles clean. I took pride in scrubbing them\u2014\"\n\n\"Until they glistened,\" he interrupted. \"I remember.\"\n\n\"Adam.\"\n\n\"I remember a lot of things.\"\n\nShe paused, fearing what she wanted to ask, but daring to say it. \"Like us?\"\n\n\"Yeah, like us.\"\n\n\"We were kids.\"\n\n\"I thought we were pretty adult. Planning a life together.\"\n\n\"Well, we're different people now.\"\n\n\"We certainly are,\" he replied with that dark tone he'd used before.\n\n\"You're angry with me. About the past...\"\n\nHe took a long step toward her. \"Not the past, Joy. The present. I was the one who was with Frank when he had the heart attack. I called 911. I was in the hospital with him. I held his hand when he passed.\"\n\n\"Oh, God. I'm so sorry.\"\n\n\"His last thoughts were about you.\"\n\n\"Thank you for being with him.\" A new wave of guilt and grief hit her.\n\n\"I should go.\" He started to go, then turned back to her.\n\nJoy braced as she felt a wave of heat from him.\n\n\"I know Frank lied to you about some things, but it seems to me you could have pried yourself away from your city friends long enough to visit your only living relative. All these years and you never came back. I watched Frank spend Christmas after Christmas alone. He talked about you and the old days. How he loved you. And what did he get? A ten-minute phone call, Joy. A ten-minute phone call.\"\n\nAdam slapped his hat against his thigh, turned and stomped toward the French doors.\n\nJoy's natural defenses shot to the fore. \"I have responsibilities!\"\n\nAdam pulled to a stop and marched back to her. His face was nearly nose to nose with hers. \"Nothing was as important as Frank and you know it. I would have killed to have what you had with Frank. All that love. All that concern and caring. At least I got to enjoy that after college, when I came back here. Frank befriended me as if not a day had passed. He may have been your blood, but he was my family. And I miss him.\"\n\n\"Me, too,\" she whispered, as she lowered her eyes.\n\nHe moved back. \"I'm sorry. It's just that I swore when I moved back here that I'd keep myself in check. Getting close to people never worked out for me.\"\n\n\"Like when I left\u2014\"\n\n\"Like then, yeah.\"\n\nJoy blinked back tears. Everything Adam said was true, and she felt like dirt. She should have come to visit her grandfather, but she couldn't. It wasn't always college or her career. It was Indian Lake. The place where her loving parents were buried. She couldn't face it. She wouldn't be reminded of the way they died. And the aftermath.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Adam. For everything.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Well.\" He stepped back. \"I guess I'll see you at the funeral.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\nDeflated, Joy watched Adam walk away before backing up to the counter and slowly sliding to the floor.\n\nJoy pulled her knees to her chin, shivered and looked at the empty space. \"I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry, Grandpa. Please forgive me.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 5",
                "text": "Joy greeted the dark-haired, fortyish receptionist at Evans and Evans Law Firm office and asked if she could leave her luggage behind the front desk.\n\n\"Of course. I'll let Mr. Evans know you're here,\" she said and picked up the intercom. \"Mr. Evans is down the hall, Miss Boston.\"\n\nJoy wheeled her weekender around to the back wall. \"Thank you.\"\n\nKyle Evans greeted Joy at the door to his office. She guessed him to be in his midthirties. He was tall, handsome and wore a well-tailored blue suit. He held out his hand. \"Joy. I'm Kyle, and I'm so sorry for your loss.\" He ushered her into a bright, cheery office, decorated with Danish modern furniture and a wall-to-wall aquarium.\n\nJoy was still mired in confusion. \"Kyle, I just went by the greenhouses. I don't understand. Grandpa told me this was going to be a banner year for him.\"\n\nKyle held a chair for Joy as she sat. Then he went around to his side of the desk. \"That was a bit inaccurate.\"\n\n\"What's going on?\"\n\n\"I worked with him when he closed up. I think, though he never said so outright, that he always hoped to reopen them. I told him it would take a miracle.\"\n\n\"And he never told me about any of this.\"\n\n\"Frank was a proud man. And he didn't want you to worry about his failure.\"\n\n\"Failure?\"\n\n\"The business was too much for him to run alone. Costs were rising and he told me he would never ask you to come home to save him.\"\n\n\"No, he wouldn't,\" she replied. \"I was firm on that issue when I moved to New York.\"\n\n\"He was so proud of you and your career. He talked about you all the time.\"\n\nKyle looked down at the papers on his desk. \"He left everything to you. The house, the greenhouses, his old truck.\"\n\n\"He...still has that truck?\"\n\n\"He did. Yes.\"\n\n\"And it runs?\"\n\n\"Uh, yeah. It does.\" Kyle folded his hands and put them on the desk. \"I'm so sorry, Joy. This all has to be such a shock for you. It was for me. For the whole town.\"\n\n\"Grandpa never told me he was ill,\" she said, feeling another bout of tears stinging her eyes.\n\n\"I understand from his doctor that Frank died soon after arriving at the hospital.\"\n\n\"That's what I heard.\" She remembered Adam's description of Frank's death. Joy couldn't help her tears now. They came like a torrent. She found a travel pack of tissues in her purse and whisked the tears from her face. \"We never talked about what to do if he died. I guess I'm guilty of thinking he would live forever. He was...my grandpa.\" She wrapped her arms around her middle and leaned forward. \"I'm sorry. So sorry. I...I can't help it. I have no idea what to do. All he ever said was that when he died, he would make sure I was taken care of. I thought it was a life insurance policy or something. I'd always cut him off. Talking about death reminded me too much of my mom and dad.\"\n\n\"I remember,\" Kyle said. \"I'm sorry for your loss of them, as well.\"\n\nShe looked into his empathetic eyes and wondered if the caring she saw was genuine or if that was some mask law school professors taught students to wear when dealing with bereaved clients. The minute the thought entered her head, Joy realized it was something that Chuck had said once to her. She cast it away.\n\n\"It's fine. And the details are in his will.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"I talked to Father Michael over at Saint Mark's. He's waiting for your call.\"\n\n\"I should have a reception or something after the funeral. At his home.\" Joy blew her nose in the tissue. \"Pardon me.\"\n\n\"Certainly. Olivia Barzonni over at the Indian Lake Deli has offered to cater a lunch for you. If you wish. She and her mother, Julia, are great people.\"\n\n\"Olivia Melton? She's married now, then. Yes, I remember her. She was a friend in high school.\" Joy brightened a bit.\n\n\"And Sarah Bosworth said to tell you if there's anything you need, she's here. Sarah Jensen Bosworth, that is. She\u2014\"\n\n\"Sarah is married, too?\"\n\n\"She is. Three kids. I see Luke at the YMCA where we work out with Gabe and Nate Barzonni. Scott Abbott joins us often, as well.\"\n\nJoy put her hands to her cheeks. \"All these names. Talk about a blast from the past.\"\n\n\"Joy. All your friends are here for you. You just have to ask for their help.\"\n\nShe dabbed her tears again. \"They are?\" When her parents died, Joy had cut ties with her Indian Lake friends. She'd wanted to run away from her grief. She'd chosen Columbia University and New York as her safe haven, and it had been that for her all this time.\n\n\"That's wonderful and so...unexpected. I haven't been back in a long time. Years and years.\"\n\n\"I know.\" Kyle picked up a manila folder. \"This is your copy of the will. This is the key to the greenhouse. Frank's house keys. I assume you'll be staying there? Is there anything else you need from me?\"\n\nJoy took the keys. \"When I went to the greenhouse, the door was unlocked. I understand Adam Masterson has a key.\"\n\n\"I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me. He and Frank were close.\"\n\nAnd Adam had said he tried not to get close to people. \"Well, thank you so much, Kyle.\" She started to stand and stopped. \"Would you be so kind as to get a number for me?\"\n\n\"Sure. What do you need?\"\n\n\"The best Realtor in town.\"\n\n\"That's easy. Cate Sullivan Davis.\"\n\nJoy tilted her head to the left. \"I don't remember that name.\"\n\n\"You wouldn't. She's only been here a few years.\"\n\n\"But you trust her? She's good?\"\n\n\"Very. And her husband is a detective. Trent Davis. He's famous in these parts. Took down a huge drug ring. It was in all the papers.\"\n\n\"Grandpa told me about that. He's her husband?\"\n\n\"Sure is. And she's really smart. You'll like her.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" Joy said, rising to shake Kyle's hand.\n\nOnce she'd gathered her luggage, she stood on the sidewalk watching the passing cars.\n\n\"I forgot. I'm not in New York.\"\n\nThere were no cabs. No subways. No mass transit of any kind. Joy had sent Roy away thinking she wouldn't need him. Fortunately, he'd given her his direct number in case she needed him while in town.\n\n\"I'm so not in Kansas anymore.\" She punched in his number. \"Roy. I need a favor.\"\n\n\"Sure. What is it?\"\n\n\"I forgot there are no cabs in Indian Lake.\"\n\n\"And now you're stranded. I'm at Cupcakes and Cappuccino. About three blocks from you. Where do you want to go?\"\n\n\"Is there a car rental in Indian Lake?\"\n\n\"Of course. I'll take you there.\"\n\nJoy hung up and sighed. She'd been away a long time. And she couldn't wait to leave."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 6",
                "text": "Adam had picked up Titus from Sarah's house and stopped for groceries. Tonight was grilled chicken tenders on angel hair pasta with pesto sauce and salad. The one thing Amie had insisted that Adam do for their son was to feed him a balanced diet and organic foods. She'd been a good cook and taught him how to prepare food. Adam found the process enjoyable. So did Titus, who liked to share in the kitchen action.\n\nWhen Adam had gutted the kitchen last year, he'd equipped it with everything he would need to make meals for himself and his son. He'd been sure to include a small appliance \"garage\" that was under lock and key so that Titus couldn't get to any sharp knives, mandolins or the Cuisinart. Titus had been curious nearly from birth, so teaching him to be careful was important. And the fact that Titus's impaired vision caused him to trip or bump into things worried Adam.\n\nAngel, their four-year-old golden retriever, sat on the whitewashed wood plank floor watching her two masters cook. Angel was pregnant, a planned union with Sarah's golden, Beau. According to the veterinarian, Angel would have Christmas puppies. Titus was curious and anxious about the coming blessed event. Their trips to Grandy's Groomers to buy a new bed, puppy food and toys were numerous. Titus was overjoyed and so was Adam. He and Titus decided they would draw names from all the people who wanted a puppy, after Sarah and Luke had their pick of the litter, of course.\n\n\"So, Dad,\" Titus said as he dipped thin chicken tenders in a mix of flour, chili powder, granulated garlic and black pepper, \"do you think we should ask Mr. Boston's granddaughter over for Thanksgiving dinner?\"\n\nAdam stopped pouring the olive oil into the frying pan. \"How do you know anything about Joy Boston being in town?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Beabots. She came over to Timmy's house and made oatmeal cookies for us.\"\n\n\"Oh, she did? And how many did you eat?\" Adam asked, hoping to change the subject.\n\n\"Only one and a glass of milk. Organic, of course,\" Titus answered, finishing the last tender. He looked at Adam. \"Miss Sarah said that you knew her in high school.\"\n\nAdam grimaced. Deflecting the probing questions of a smart kid was not an easy task. Since the day Titus had learned to talk at nine months, the boy hadn't shut up. \"Of course I knew Sarah. You know we've been friends forever.\"\n\n\"Dad,\" Titus huffed. \"I meant Joy Boston.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" Adam placed the tenders in the oil. He lifted the lid of the boiling water, added salt and then reached over and stirred the pesto sauce.\n\n\"Miss Sarah said you were boyfriend and girlfriend.\"\n\nAdam rolled his eyes. This was going from bad to worse. \"And why would she say that?\"\n\n\"Because I asked her a lot of questions about Joy Boston,\" Titus said proudly. \"Like what kind of person she was and if she liked flowers as much as old Mr. Boston...and you.\"\n\nAdam nearly burned his fingers as he turned the tenders. \"And what did Sarah say?\"\n\n\"That you guys worked together for Mr. Boston when you were in high school.\"\n\n\"We did.\"\n\n\"And you thought you were going to marry her.\"\n\nAdam coughed. He put his fist to his mouth. \"Sarah said a lot, huh?\"\n\n\"Dad! Think about it. I coulda been her son!\"\n\n\"Not exactly.\" Adam put the angel hair in the boiling water. \"But things have a way of working out all for the best. What I want to know is why Sarah told you all this.\"\n\nTitus hemmed a bit and glanced away.\n\nAdam stopped stirring the pesto. \"Titus...\"\n\n\"She didn't exactly say all that.\"\n\n\"What?\" Adam put his hand on his hip. \"What's going on here?\"\n\n\"You know how it is. I asked a few questions. Put some things together. Like you asking Joy to marry you.\"\n\n\"So, this is something you deduced all by yourself.\"\n\n\"Deduced? What does that mean?\"\n\n\"Figured out.\" Adam turned another tender, knowing fully that Titus had used the word deduced over a month ago. His son was stalling. Adam had him on the run and the idea pleased him. But only a little.\n\n\"I did.\" Titus smiled sheepishly. \"But I needed confirmation.\"\n\n\"Which I gave you.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Titus lifted his chin proudly.\n\n\"You know, Titus, I don't think you should be a playwright.\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"Clearly, you have the makings of a lawyer.\"\n\n\"Hmm.\" Titus went to the sink, stepped onto his step stool so that he could reach the faucet and washed his hands. Then he rinsed the lettuce. \"I have to think about that. But about Miss Joy\u2014\"\n\n\"Son,\" Adam began, taking a deep breath. \"Joy is leaving soon. She's not going to be part of our lives. Okay?\"\n\nTitus wiped his hands on a paper towel. \"Okay, Dad.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 7",
                "text": "After dinner, Adam helped Titus make pinecone turkeys, which he wanted to gift to all his friends. After gluing and glittering feathers to the pinecones, Adam watched as Titus nearly fell asleep at the kitchen table.\n\n\"C'mon, sport. Let's brush your teeth and wash up for bed.\"\n\nTitus yawned. \"Okay. But I want the Star Wars pj's tonight.\"\n\n\"I would never have guessed,\" Adam said as they walked down the hall, Angel at their heels. Adam went into the bedroom, with its slate-gray walls and white trim and Star Wars, Star Trek and Avengers posters covering every inch of the space. From the dresser, Adam pulled out the desired pair of pajamas as he heard Titus in the bathroom using his spin brush.\n\nAdam sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the stainless-steel reading lamp and the overflowing bedside bookshelf. Titus had been only four when he joined a reading group at the library. The kids declared how many books they would read over summer vacation. Titus always set high goals, so when he announced he'd read one hundred books, Adam hadn't doubted him. Most kids' books were only twenty pages long, after all. But Titus sailed through the picture books meant for early readers. Titus liked to read chapter books. He didn't reach one hundred, but he did read over twenty chapter books. His kindergarten teacher told Adam that Titus had the reading comprehension of a sixth grader.\n\n\"Yeah. Sixth grade going on high school,\" he muttered to himself. \"Mozart was six when he started composing. Young prodigies aren't unheard of.\"\n\n\"What's unheard of?\" Titus asked, coming into the room, yanking his shirt over his head.\n\n\"Genius showing itself at a young age,\" Adam said proudly, holding out the pajama top. Titus pulled it on.\n\n\"Were you a genius?\"\n\n\"Hardly. Some thought I was a failure. I couldn't make things work.\"\n\n\"You do now,\" Titus said as he put on the pajama bottoms and climbed into bed. \"You just needed education.\"\n\n\"I did. How did you know?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Cook tells us that all the time.\"\n\n\"Ah! Wise woman.\" Adam chuckled. \"So, what do you want me to read tonight? War and Peace?\" Titus screwed up his face. \"Sorry. Just a joke.\"\n\n\"I'm too tired. Tomorrow. Okay?\"\n\n\"Sure.\" Adam leaned down to kiss Titus on the forehead. Titus lifted his arms and hugged him.\n\n\"I love you, Dad.\"\n\n\"I love you, Titus. You sleep with the angels.\"\n\nAngel jumped up on the bed. Titus hugged her neck. \"I always sleep with my Angel.\" Titus smiled. \"So, Dad, when Angel has her pups, can I help?\"\n\n\"I'm hoping the vet will take care of that.\"\n\nTitus propped himself up on his elbow. \"You think we'll have warning?\"\n\n\"I hope so. Usually, dogs try to make a nest and find a warm place.\"\n\n\"Like her doggy bed?\"\n\n\"Not necessarily. She might like it in front of the fireplace on her rug.\"\n\n\"Yeah. I could see that,\" Titus agreed and lay back down. \"It's gonna be a great Christmas present to have puppies.\"\n\n\"Remember what I told you. Puppies are a lot of work in the beginning. I have to get a pen ready for them in the basement.\"\n\n\"And buy more space heaters and blankets and collect newspapers for their pee.\"\n\nAdam laughed. \"We need to do all that.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Titus said as he lowered his sleepy eyes. \"I'll help.\"\n\n\"Night, son.\"\n\n\"Night, Dad.\"\n\nAdam walked to the door, turned off the light, and the glow-in-the-dark planets and constellations on the ceiling shone.\n\nHe walked down the hall and past the living room of his 1920s refurbished bungalow. Five years ago, the house had been a steal. He'd put a lot of work and money into it, and the results were worth it. The living room was furnished in comfortable charcoal-gray twill sofas that faced each other on either side of the fireplace. A maple-and-stainless-steel coffee table was heaped with books and magazines, most of them Titus's. Under the large picture window was a long desk with two laptops, a desk chair and a small file cabinet. On top of the file cabinet were a half-dozen framed photos of Adam, Amie and baby Titus. A large TV hung over the fireplace. The dining room table was midcentury modern, made of bird's-eye maple, and the chairs were covered in a deep blue twill.\n\nHe walked out to the front porch to check the mail he'd forgotten earlier. He shuffled through the utility bills, then pulled out an envelope with a familiar return address. It was the company that bought his wind turbine invention. His smile was broad. \"Thank goodness for royalty checks.\"\n\nBack inside, he went to his computer and pulled up his email.\n\nAdam worked freelance for Jacobson Corporation out of Indianapolis. The pay was satisfactory, but it was his private, solely-owned creative patents that he hoped would one day boost his income. The best part was that he only had bimonthly trips to Indianapolis, and his weekly meetings with think-tank managers and engineering interns were via Skype and phone conferences. Adam had made it clear that Titus was his priority. Adam was an asset to any firm and Jacobson knew it. Adam worked at night on the computer and held conferences in the early morning with his team.\n\nScanning the emails, he replied to his team and then saw the one he'd been waiting for. \"Halstead.\"\n\nHalstead Industries had finally replied to the proposal and project renderings he'd presented to them in California in October. Adam's engineering genius had flourished at Purdue. He'd made good money over the years, and his works-in-progress would bring even more. His future was financially stable. Titus's college fund was solid. Sometimes, it seemed as if his high school days had happened to someone else.\n\n\"In more ways than one...\"\n\nHe didn't share his successes with others. He didn't like to brag, and creative ideas were easily stolen. Not until his patents were secure, the contracts signed and executed, would Adam talk even to Frank or Mrs. Beabots about his work.\n\nIt's better that way, he thought. Keeping distance was his operative.\n\nHe opened the email as he heard Angel walking down the hall\u2014his sign that Titus was sound asleep. Next to his desk was a new red-and-black-plaid doggy bed, which she curled up on.\n\n\"Look at that, Angel. I finally sold my wind turbine. Wait till my patent comes through on the geothermal unit. Not to mention a few other propulsion irons I have in the fire.\" The latter ideas for antigravity drapes and futuristic propulsion had been pipe dreams decades ago, but now he was being taken seriously.\n\nAngel yawned.\n\n\"You'll see. It'll be thrilling.\"\n\nAngel closed her eyes.\n\n\"Okay. Not so thrilling for you. But for a guy who never had much, this is a victory. I should celebrate.\"\n\nAngel didn't stir as Adam went to the kitchen and took out a bottle of beer from the Sub-Zero.\n\n\"Now, where did I put that opener?\" He opened the utility drawer where he kept spatulas and spoons, then went back to the desk in the living room. He dug around a few drawers, moving papers and old birthday cards. \"Where is it?\"\n\nIn frustration, he started pulling papers out of the far-left drawer. In the bottom, he found an old photo album, one he hadn't seen since he'd moved back from Cincinnati. \"Aw, jeez.\"\n\nThe first photo had been taken well over ten years ago in the greenhouse. It was Christmas. He and Joy were surrounded by red poinsettias. Joy's head was on his shoulder, his arm around her waist. What captured his attention was the look of love and contentment on both their faces.\n\nSo long ago.\n\nHe glanced at the album photos of Amie. They'd been happy and thrilled about Titus. But the truth was that, initially, Amie had kept her illness from Adam and he'd never quite forgiven her. His feelings for Amie were different from the love he'd once had for Joy. Back then, Joy had lived up to her name. She'd lit up the world for him. And when he'd kissed her, he'd felt as if he were connected to the moon, the stars, the entire universe.\n\nHe raked a hand through his hair. He'd been hard on her today. He realized now that she was mirroring all the confusion and pain he'd felt when Amie had finally told him the truth about her leukemia. He'd felt lost. And betrayed.\n\nAdam loved Frank. The old man had been his friend and mentor. But there had been times when he'd counseled Frank to tell Joy the truth, and Frank wouldn't do it, because of his pride.\n\nIt was a wasteful thing. It kept people from doing the one thing they should do. Love.\n\nAdam opened the middle drawer and put the old photo album on top of the sheaf of papers. As he withdrew his hand he felt the bottle opener.\n\nHe opened the bottle and tipped it toward the photo album. \"You were such a nerd, Adam. With no guts.\"\n\nHe took a deep swig. \"And no glory.\"\n\nAngel lifted her head and gave a low snuffle.\n\n\"Oh, you think so, too, huh?\"\n\nShe snuffled again.\n\n\"Great. Thanks for the vote of confidence.\"\n\nHe sat in the desk chair and stared at the photo. \"But that was then. What do I do about now?\"\n\nHe closed the album and eased the drawer shut."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 8",
                "text": "Joy looked up at the old rooster-shaped clock that hung against the kitchen wallpaper that had been put up before her birth. Her father often joked that he'd hated the wallpaper when his mother had chosen it. Joy didn't think it was all that bad with its depictions of antique coffee grinders and coffee cups and saucers. It was homey. It was Grandpa's house, where her father had grown up. Because Frank had purchased a large section of land after the war, there was enough acreage for Bruce and Jill to build their own house on shortly after their wedding. As a child, Joy always felt she lived in both houses.\n\nThe light wood cabinets were just as old, and they needed to be replaced as much as the wallpaper and vinyl flooring. The Formica-topped kitchen table set should have been tossed years ago, but Joy knew that her grandfather put his money into the greenhouses. Not into personal comforts.\n\nHer cell rang, breaking her thoughts. \"Hi, Chuck.\"\n\n\"So, how goes it?\"\n\n\"What part?\" she asked, as she opened the cabinet over the old electric stove and pulled down a box of crackers. Then she went to the cupboard on the other side of the kitchen and opened it. It was as it had always been. Peanut butter. New jar of grape jelly. Sack of potato chips. And a brand-new bag of chocolate candies.\n\nSome things never changed. Blessedly.\n\n\"All of it. I tried to call you earlier, but I guess you were busy.\"\n\n\"I have been. I spent the afternoon on the phone planning the funeral and the luncheon at the house here afterward. It's tomorrow, so that was fast work.\"\n\n\"All funerals are... At least my mother's was.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Chuck. All this probably brings back sad times for you, too.\"\n\n\"It does, but don't worry about me. What did the attorney say?\" He sounded rushed. \"You're going to sell the greenhouses and the house, right?\"\n\nJoy was about to respond when she heard his office phone ringing. \"You're still at the office?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Dad and I are working late. Listen, I gotta take this. I'll call you tomorrow. Can't wait till you get back and we can have Thanksgiving together. Love ya.\"\n\nThinking back to this afternoon and the heat of Adam's anger, she realized she might be doing Chuck an injustice. Sure, he wasn't all that romantic, but he was there for her. He'd called to check on her. He would call tomorrow after the funeral. She could count on him.\n\nShe picked up the peanut butter jar and noticed it was organic, low sugar. She found a knife and sat at the table to eat crackers and peanut butter. It wasn't cracked crab or medallions of beef like she'd have with Chuck. The clock ticked loudly. She got up and went to the thirty-year-old side-by-side harvest-gold refrigerator and found a carton of milk.\n\n\"Organic.\"\n\nShe glanced at the table, at the chair where her grandfather always sat. She half expected to hear him say, \"I love you, pumpkin. Don't ever forget it.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 9",
                "text": "Joy guessed that as far as funerals went, her grandfather's was well attended. Father Michael's eulogy revealed his deep friendship with her grandfather. Joy had written a short piece, but when she got to the pulpit to read it, she spoke from her heart instead, admitting her fault in not returning to Indian Lake to see Frank, remembering how their Thanksgivings in New York were her happiest moments. It was difficult not to tear up, not to lose her words in her chaos of emotions, but she made it through and thanked everyone for being present for Frank. As she walked back to the front pew, she saw many compassionate, familiar faces. Faces she'd forgotten.\n\nAfterward, on her behalf, Father Michael had invited everyone to Frank's house for a luncheon.\n\nNow they all stood three deep, around the dining room table, admiring the bounty. Joy had covered the table with her mother's Irish linen cloth. Olivia and Julia Melton had set up the buffet while Joy and the rest of her friends had been at Saint Mark's. Huge crystal bowls held seafood salad, chicken salad with red grapes and walnuts, a pasta salad and a green salad. A large hammered pewter tray held two large planks of grilled salmon topped with capers and lemon slices. A honey-baked spiral ham and candied yams filled the end of the table. On the sideboard were plates, napkins and silverware.\n\nA second, round table, skirted in white linen, was set up with hot and cold drinks.\n\nSarah hugged Joy before introducing her husband.\n\nJoy shook his hand. \"I'm very pleased to meet you, Luke. Sarah was such a good friend to me in high school.\"\n\n\"Then you two should pick up where you left off,\" he said, putting his arm around Sarah and kissing her cheek. \"Best is the word to describe her.\"\n\nJoy watched as Sarah smiled up at Luke. He touched her cheek and kissed her lips. They couldn't take their eyes off each other.\n\nJoy got the distinct feeling she was intruding, but as she moved to the drink table for iced tea, she saw Maddie Strong, who had been another close friend in high school. \"Maddie? How wonderful to see you!\"\n\nMaddie hugged Joy. \"I'm sorry it's under these circumstances, but I've missed you, Joy,\" she said, not letting go of Joy's hand. \"So much has happened since you left, but you look like not a day has passed.\"\n\nJust then, Dr. Nate Barzonni walked up and slipped his arm around Maddie. \"Joy, it's good to see you,\" he said, smiling. \"I'm sorry it took this...to bring you back. I have to say, New York looks like it's working for you.\"\n\n\"She looks fabulous,\" Maddie agreed.\n\n\"So do you,\" Nate whispered in Maddie's ear, but it was loud enough for Joy to hear.\n\n\"The lovebirds are at it again,\" Gabe Barzonni said as he walked up with his wife, Liz, and their three-and-a-half-year-old son, Zeke.\n\n\"Look who's talking.\" Maddie chuckled. \"You said you were bringing Joy some wine. Where is it? I brought cupcakes for everyone.\"\n\nGabe grinned mischievously and shot his thumb over his shoulder. \"It's in the kitchen. Olivia is uncorking a couple bottles.\"\n\nJoy glanced from Nate to Gabe. \"So, Gabe, you're not running the family farm anymore?\"\n\n\"Nope. I gave it up when I fell hopelessly in love.\" He kissed Liz soundly on the mouth.\n\nLiz shook her head and placed her hand on his broad chest. \"The truth is, Gabe always wanted to be a vintner. He fell for me and my grapes.\"\n\n\"Not a chance,\" Nate said, butting in. \"That'd be like me saying Maddie plied me with cupcakes.\"\n\n\"Hey!\" Maddie retorted. \"I did.\"\n\nNate put both his arms around her. \"Did not.\"\n\n\"Did, too.\" Maddie laughed and kissed Nate.\n\nJoy excused herself and continued around the table, receiving condolences from Nate and Gabe's mother, Gina Barzonni. Joy had always liked her when she was in high school. Joy was stunned to discover that Gina had recently married Liz's grandfather, Sam Crenshaw. She shook hands with Rafe Barzonni, congratulating him on his marriage to Olivia Melton. \"She's amazing, Rafe. She put all this together in one day.\"\n\n\"And wait till she shows you the photographs. She took photos of your table and the flowers. With your permission, maybe\u2014and she'd do this as a friend. She thinks the world of you, by the way. If you'd want some candid shots of the guests, she'd snap a few. Nothing intrusive. Memories, you know? It's up to you.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"She's gone pro. And been published in a few magazines. I'm really proud of her,\" he said, looking from Joy into the kitchen, where pretty Olivia was walking out with a silver tray filled with Maddie's delicious cupcakes.\n\n\"I owe her a great deal for all her help.\"\n\n\"She was happy to do it for her friend, Joy.\"\n\n\"Yes, Grandpa was an amazing man.\"\n\nHe leaned a bit closer and said, \"I meant you.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\nAs Rafe walked over to his wife, Mrs. Beabots walked in with Adam, who was holding the hand of a little boy.\n\nMrs. Beabots walked straight up to Joy and hugged her tightly. \"Joy, I'm so happy to see you. Though losing Frank is hard for all of us.\"\n\n\"He was a good friend to you. I'm so glad you're here. I missed you at the church.\"\n\n\"I was in the back. I don't drive anymore, so I must rely on others to cart me around. Though when the weather's nice, I walk everywhere.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots had always been part of her life in Indian Lake, especially when she was in high school. It was Joy who filled orders for Mrs. Beabots's fall bulb list. Her Christmas poinsettias and amaryllis. Joy had loved delivering flowers to Mrs. Beabots, who always invited her in for tea or pastries. Or if she got lucky, a piece of sugar pie. Since Sarah lived next door to Mrs. Beabots, she and Maddie would often meet at Sarah's house and then the three of them would barge into Mrs. Beabots's kitchen, help her with dishes or put away groceries and be rewarded with something special right out of the oven.\n\nThe clutch at Joy's chest came from too many memories she'd shoved away and tried, successfully for years, to replace with exciting New York.\n\n\"Now, Joy. Tomorrow you must come to my house for dinner.\"\n\n\"Oh, I couldn't impose.\"\n\n\"Too bad. You have a great deal to do here,\" Mrs. Beabots said.\n\n\"How do you know that?\"\n\n\"You forget my reputation for knowing what's happening in this town?\"\n\n\"I did. So, who told?\"\n\n\"Why, Adam, of course.\"\n\n\"Figures.\"\n\n\"Well, it wouldn't be your attorney. That would be immoral. Or something.\" She waved her hand.\n\nJoy couldn't help but chuckle. \"I bet you kept Grandpa on his toes.\"\n\n\"Frank was a sucker for my peach cobbler. So were you.\"\n\n\"I was.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots touched Joy's arm. \"I need to check on something in the kitchen. You probably need to see to the rest of your guests.\" She winked and looked over at Adam, who was standing near the kitchen doorway.\n\nJust as Mrs. Beabots turned, Joy asked, \"Wait, is that\u2014Adam's son?\"\n\n\"It is...\" Mrs. Beabots walked to the kitchen.\n\nThe shocks kept coming. So, Adam was married? Where was his wife? Had they both been at the church? The funeral was already a blur to her. She barely remembered anything.\n\nA pretty woman about Joy's age with striking aqua eyes came up. \"Joy. I wanted to introduce myself. I'm Cate Davis. Kyle Evans told me to give you a call, but since I knew Frank so well, I thought this might be better.\"\n\n\"Cate? The Realtor?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I'm so pleased to meet you.\"\n\n\"Kyle said you were anxious to list the greenhouses.\"\n\n\"Yeah. I have to get back to New York by Thanksgiving.\"\n\n\"That's...only six days away.\"\n\n\"I know. Is there a lot to do?\" Joy asked.\n\n\"We're fine. Tell you what. I'll meet you there tomorrow morning at, say, nine o'clock? I'll take some photos, work up some comps. I'll do my best to get back to you by the end of the day or Sunday afternoon.\"\n\n\"Gee, I hate to take up your weekend.\"\n\n\"I'm a Realtor. We're used to it. And we do have some work to do, this being a commercial property. What about the house here?\"\n\n\"That, too,\" Joy said, feeling a sharp pang through her middle. Now that she'd said it out loud, she suddenly wanted to hang on to the house. But she lived in New York. Her life was in New York. Wasn't it?\n\nJoy saw Adam now standing at the fireplace in the living room. His son was still by his side. The boy had picked up the fireplace poker. She excused herself from Cate and walked toward Adam, overhearing their conversation.\n\n\"What's this, Dad?\"\n\n\"Titus, put that down. It's dangerous.\"\n\n\"But what's it for?\"\n\n\"To move the logs around so air gets to the fire.\"\n\n\"We don't have one.\"\n\n\"We have gas logs. They're safer.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Titus said and looked up as Joy smiled at him. \"Hello.\"\n\n\"Hello.\" She stretched out her hand. \"I'm Joy. What's your name?\"\n\n\"Titus Masterson. This is my dad. But I know that you already know him. From high school,\" Titus said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and smiling broadly.\n\n\"Titus...\" Adam used that same warning tone he'd used with Joy.\n\n\"Thank you for coming, Adam,\" Joy said. \"I'm sure Frank would appreciate it.\"\n\n\"I'm sure he would.\"\n\nTitus rocked back on his heels and tugged on his blue blazer. \"We were good friends with Mr. Boston. He let me eat peanut butter and crackers in the kitchen.\"\n\n\"He did?\" Adam and Joy chorused.\n\n\"Uh-huh. And grape jelly.\"\n\n\"I suppose the milk was for you, too?\" Joy asked.\n\n\"Yep. Organic.\"\n\nJoy smiled. \"I can see why my grandpa liked you, Titus. You're quite the charmer.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\" Titus grinned.\n\nJoy looked back to the kitchen. \"Is your mother coming to the luncheon?\" she asked.\n\n\"No,\" Adam replied sharply.\n\n\"She died. She's in heaven with Mr. Boston,\" Titus said matter-of-factly. \"When I die I get to see them both.\"\n\nAdam put his hand on Titus's shoulder. \"That's right.\"\n\nJoy knew she was blushing with shame. \"I'm so sorry. I didn't know.\"\n\n\"It's okay,\" Adam said, not to Joy but to Titus, who was looking up at him. \"It's been three years since Amie died. Titus and I are doing better.\"\n\n\"That's right, Dad. We are.\" Titus looked at Joy. \"So, is it okay if I have a cupcake?\"\n\n\"You can have anything you want, Titus. Please. Enjoy.\"\n\n\"All right!\" Titus nearly sprinted away.\n\n\"Titus! Slow down! You might trip on that throw rug,\" Adam warned.\n\nJoy watched Adam as he stared after Titus. \"He's wonderful.\"\n\n\"He's like his mother.\"\n\n\"He's like you,\" she said, feeling a long-remembered warmth flood her. \"He looks just like you.\"\n\n\"He does. Poor kid.\"\n\n\"Adam, you are incredibly handsome. I always thought that.\"\n\n\"I was a nerd.\"\n\n\"I like nerds,\" she countered. \"Though you aren't one.\"\n\nHis blue gaze bored into her face, and for a moment, she was back there with him, in the potting shed where no one could see them and he was about to kiss her.\n\nHe jerked away and turned to the photos on the mantel. He picked one up. She looked at the picture.\n\n\"That's us at prom. I forgot we had this one.\"\n\n\"I remember. It was the night I proposed. You forget that, too?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"You said 'yes.'\"\n\n\"Adam. We agreed. We'd wait till after college... You had a scholarship to Purdue. I had a scholarship to Columbia. We grew up.\"\n\n\"We drifted apart.\"\n\nThis time when his eyes met hers, she saw sadness and regret. Not the sadness of mourning, but the kind she'd seen when she looked in the mirror after their breakup. She'd lost her parents. Adam. Her town. It had taken every ounce of courage to go to her classes and keep her grades up so that she didn't lose her scholarship. But she'd done it. And she'd done it alone.\n\n\"We did.\"\n\n\"Can I have this?\" he asked.\n\nShe thought it an odd request. He had a son. A life and recent past she knew nothing about. But he wanted their prom picture. \"Sure. Uh, Frank would want you to have something.\"\n\n\"Frank\u2014\" Adam started to say something but Joy's cell phone rang.\n\n\"It's New York. I have to take this.\"\n\n\"I better go. I'm truly sorry about Frank.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Adam. I know you are.\"\n\nAdam walked to the dining room. She noticed that all the Barzonni brothers came up to him and slapped him on the back. Sarah hugged him. Maddie and Liz did, as well. They were all friends and they carried their affection for each other well.\n\nHer cell phone rang again. She answered it. \"Chuck. Sorry. I was just saying goodbye to a guest.\"\n\n\"I didn't know the luncheon would still be going on. I lost track of time myself. So, did you get the flowers?\"\n\n\"I did. They were huge. Thank you very much.\"\n\n\"Dad thought it was a good idea. They're from both of us.\"\n\n\"Please thank him for me.\"\n\n\"I will. I tried to order them from your grandfather's greenhouse, but the line was disconnected. You closed it down fast.\"\n\nJoy worried her lip. \"Uh, actually, Chuck, it's been down awhile now.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"It's a long story. My grandpa and I always used our cells and texts. I never called the greenhouse, where he'd be too busy to talk. Personally, I think he was expert at intrigue. Probably, all those old mystery movies he watched, because he kept his secret well. Even his deteriorating health was a secret. No one knew. Not even in town. Bottom line for us is that I'm meeting with the Realtor first thing in the morning.\"\n\n\"Great. Thanksgiving is less than a week away.\"\n\n\"Miss me that much, huh?\"\n\n\"I'll say. The work has stacked up like crazy since you left.\"\n\n\"The work...\"\n\n\"Yeah. Oh, and Dad said to say hi.\"\n\n\"I gotta run. My guests, you know.\"\n\n\"Oh sure. Absolutely. Kisses.\"\n\n\"Kisses,\" she echoed, as Chuck hung up.\n\nJoy stared at her cell. \"Work.\"\n\nOlivia walked up and put her arm around Joy's waist. \"You okay? Could use a hug, I bet.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"This has been a shock for you,\" Olivia said. \"We've all been missing the greenhouses since Frank closed them up. But knowing that someone else will be buying them. It's so...final, you know?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Frank was the best guy. It's a shame he had to close down. Christmas isn't the same without his poinsettias all over my deli. I miss that magic...\"\n\n\"Do you know why he closed?\"\n\n\"Not really. I thought he might've had health issues.\"\n\n\"He never told anyone why?\"\n\nOlivia's expression was thoughtful. \"He was a private man. But if anyone would know, it would be Adam.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\nOlivia nodded. \"Adam was like a son to him. When he moved back and his wife was ill, Frank was there for him. They've been inseparable since Amie died.\"\n\n\"I didn't know.\"\n\n\"Really? Frank didn't talk with you about Adam?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"That's odd. But like I said, Frank was a private man.\"\n\nOne by one, Joy's guests came up to give her last hugs. They all begged her to call them for whatever help she would need. But all Joy needed was to put the greenhouses on the market, sign the papers, fly back to New York and let Cate take care of the rest.\n\nIt was a good plan.\n\nHer life would go on. She'd be out of Indian Lake and out of their minds. Once again."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 10",
                "text": "Joy was pleased with Cate's professionalism as she took the photos of the greenhouses. She walked every inch and took measurements. She'd gone to the county recorder to find the original title to the land, the survey and early construction blueprints.\n\nThis was Joy's first opportunity to assess the property.\n\nThey walked around to the back of the buildings and saw deep open trenches filled with PVC pipe that ran from the greenhouses to a small building Joy didn't recognize. It looked newly constructed of white vinyl siding and had a green roof that matched the other buildings.\n\n\"What's that?\" Joy asked.\n\n\"I have no idea.\" Cate snapped a photo on her iPhone.\n\n\"Looks like new plumbing to me. Was Frank considering reopening? Because these materials aren't cheap.\"\n\nCate and Joy stepped between mud puddles, frozen ground and another stack of pipe toward the new outbuilding.\n\nCate checked the door, which had a padlock on it. \"Did Frank leave a key for this?\"\n\n\"Not that I know of. I better ask the attorney.\" Joy walked a few feet over to the old potting shed. The wood siding was peeling and beginning to rot at the joints. The roof needed new shingles and the little window box to the right of the barn-style door had nearly disintegrated. Everything needed repair. Lots of it.\n\nCate continued taking photographs. She turned to Joy. \"I think I have what I need.\"\n\nThey started back toward the front parking lot. Joy stomped the mud off the bottom of her boots as they walked along the stone walkway.\n\n\"This is so strange for me,\" Cate said. \"I haven't been back here since Frank closed. I had no idea it was in such disrepair.\"\n\nJoy swallowed hard. It wasn't good that Cate, the expert, had misgivings. \"So, you're saying...\"\n\n\"Honestly, Joy, I don't know how much all this will sell for.\"\n\nJoy felt the earth move under her feet. This was so far removed from what she'd expected. And Chuck thought the place would bring over a million dollars?\n\n\"I mean...\" Cate started and then looked up at the greenhouse. \"You can't be blind to the situation, Joy.\"\n\n\"I know, I know. It's been more than a shock. Grandpa always believed this was my future. He thought it was a gold mine.\"\n\n\"Look. I don't know the reason he shut down, but it had to be a good one. His heart was in every flower he sold.\"\n\n\"My entire youth was spent here. Feeding the flowers. Watering them. Watching each cutting grow. I thought it was magic.\"\n\n\"You loved it.\"\n\n\"Adored it. I was with Grandpa every day after school and all weekend long after my parents died. He was my world.\"\n\n\"And he wanted you to have this place.\"\n\nJoy scanned the cracked glass panes, feeling hopeless. It was as if she could sense her grandfather's disappointment at closing the business. \"So, what do we do?\"\n\n\"I'm going to find some comparable locations that will help us, not hurt us. This old place, all glass... It's one of a kind. Maybe someone will be interested in the retail unit.\"\n\n\"For what?\" Joy asked. \"I mean, you can't turn it into a B and B.\"\n\n\"No, but you might want to consider fixing it up. Replace these broken glass panes and clean it up to amp up the value. Curb appeal is paramount. I'd clean up the interior, get the lighting up to par. That kind of thing.\"\n\n\"Good advice. But to do all that, I'd have to oversee the project, and I'm due back in New York pronto.\"\n\n\"A dilemma for sure.\"\n\nJoy rubbed her neck\u2014a tic whenever she considered alternatives.\n\n\"And what about Frank's house?\" Cate asked, pointing across the drive. \"That, at least, will be a snap to price it out and list. I could put the sign up today. Despite the fact that it's nearly Thanksgiving, I'm betting I could have a buyer quickly.\"\n\n\"But it needs updating,\" Joy said. \"I noticed the faucets all need replacing. I haven't checked the roof, but...\"\n\nCate shot her a skeptical look. \"Are you saying you don't want to list the house?\"\n\n\"I'm that obvious?\"\n\n\"Uh-huh.\"\n\nJoy sighed. \"It's all too much, Cate. I mean, losing the business is one thing, but that house... Yesterday with all my old friends there, it\u2014I don't know. I felt so much love there, as if the walls were hugging me.\"\n\n\"You know, as a Realtor, I go into house after house, and most are lovely. Some are staged. But only a few have real, loving warmth. Frank's house is one of those that speaks to me when I walk inside. If I didn't have the perfect bungalow for Trent, Danny and me, I'd be interested.\"\n\n\"The house is like that. Suddenly, I can't bear the thought of losing it.\"\n\n\"Leave it for now. There's no rush. Maybe you should keep it. So that you have a place to come home to.\"\n\nCome home to? What in the world was Cate talking about? Indian Lake wasn't her home anymore.\n\nCate gave her a hug. \"I'll call you later.\"\n\n\"Thanks for everything, Cate.\"\n\nJoy's shoulders sagged with the weight of her dilemma as Cate drove off. A little over two days and she was already feeling the pull of her old life here. A life she'd thought she'd long since buried.\n\nShe opened the door to the retail area, went inside and closed the door behind her.\n\nBam!\n\nThe noise from the back of the space sounded as if something had fallen. Which shouldn't be a surprise. Probably another glass pane breaking.\n\nJoy walked past the empty display area to the French doors. Not seeing anyone in the greenhouse area, she shrugged her shoulders and turned to go.\n\nBam!\n\n\"What's going on?\"\n\nThis time, she marched through the retail area, through the small tropical greenhouse area, to the back-storage area, and flung the door open. Standing in the middle of the cement floor was Adam, both his arms filled with PVC pipe.\n\n\"Adam!\" she shouted.\n\nHe jerked, and when he did, the pipe went rattling out of his arms and onto the floor. \"Jeez, Joy! You scared me.\"\n\n\"Now you're stealing my grandpa's pipe?\"\n\n\"What? This is my pipe,\" Adam countered, hands on his hips, eyes blazing at her.\n\n\"Since when?\"\n\n\"You'd know if you came back to Indian Lake more than once a decade.\"\n\n\"If you'd get off your high horse and tell me what's going on, then maybe I wouldn't be so suspicious about you.\"\n\n\"Suspicious?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Like why are you loitering around here all the time? And by the way, I want that key back.\"\n\n\"It's my key.\"\n\n\"I own this greenhouse now.\" She'd stand her ground and she'd get some answers out of him if it took her all day.\n\nHe glared at her. \"Right.\"\n\nHe reached in his pocket, took out the key.\n\nShe stared at the key, suddenly not wanting it back. She heard his breath intake as if he didn't want the surrender either.\n\n\"It's the craziest thing\u2014this key to the greenhouse. It takes me back not just to us...but all the fun, the sharing...the knowledge I soaked up from your parents and Frank. He couldn't wait to show me the newest hybrids being displayed at the horticulture convention at McCormick Place.\"\n\n\"I remember those...\"\n\n\"This greenhouse was his passion,\" Adam said.\n\n\"You're right. He was so passionate about his hybrids. Grandpa was such the dreamer. I remember the feeling I had when I'd walk through the doors after school. I couldn't wait to water, feed, stock shelves, I didn't care. Being here was...\"\n\n\"Magic,\" he finished for her as he walked closer, took her hand and placed the key in her palm. Then he closed her fingers around it.\n\nJoy sucked in a breath as he touched her. He used to kiss her with a tenderness she hadn't experienced since. She'd forgotten that.\n\nEnergy shot from his hand to hers and filled her with a longing to be held by him. She couldn't stop this magnetism even if she wanted to. And she didn't want to.\n\nHe didn't want to break the moment, either, she noticed. His eyes held hers, not wavering. Not blinking. It was as if they were in a realm all their own. Maybe it was magic that she and Adam had once had.\n\nBut that had been teen love. Young. Inexperienced and not to be trusted to bring about a lifetime of happiness.\n\n\"Adam,\" she murmured, finding it nearly impossible to speak. All she wanted was for him to hold her hand. \"Talk to me.\"\n\nThen he did let go of her, shoving both hands in his jeans' pockets to create a barrier between them.\n\n\"Why?\" he asked. \"You're gonna sell this place and hightail it back to the Big Apple. What do you care about Frank's dreams?\"\n\n\"Dreams? He shared that with you?\"\n\n\"He did.\"\n\nAll these years that she'd been gone, she didn't realize that he had dreams beyond what he'd shared with her for enjoying his greenhouses. That was all they'd ever discussed. He'd always be there for her, he'd said. But then he hadn't told her about shutting down.\n\nAdam toed his boot on the floor as if hesitating to share the truth with her. Perhaps he felt he was betraying Frank by sharing this very private information with Joy. Maybe Frank had sworn him to secrecy, since it was obvious to Joy that Frank trusted Adam.\n\nAnd not me.\n\n\"He wanted to reopen the greenhouses.\"\n\n\"Do you know why he closed them?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"I was here, remember?\"\n\nAdam was still accusatory, and she was getting tired of it. \"Can we call a truce here?\"\n\nSilence as he glared at her.\n\n\"For Frank's sake,\" she added.\n\nThe wave of softness across Adam's face tore at her. Adam did care about Frank. For that, she was grateful.\n\n\"Sorry. You're right,\" he answered.\n\nHis hand came out of his pocket and reached for hers. She looked at his hand, big and strong. The kind that had tinkered on impossible-dream-idea engines, that had melted her heart. That had cared for a baby boy after his wife died.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Come on,\" he said, a thin smile breaking across his lips, but it was the flash in his eyes that stole her attention.\n\n\"Where're we going?\"\n\n\"Out back.\"\n\n\"I was just there. It's all muddy. Grandpa had some kind of plumbing problem going on. I thought maybe the sewer broke but didn't want to say anything to Cate. Something like that could bring the property value down. More.\"\n\nReleasing her hand, Adam held the back door open for her as she passed in front of him.\n\n\"Not a plumbing project,\" Adam said. \"Frank told me never to tell you why he closed...not until I proved myself out.\"\n\n\"I'm so far beyond confused here.\"\n\n\"He closed because the price of gas skyrocketed a few years ago. He couldn't make any money. Probably, when we were kids, we didn't realize there were things like energy bills and heating costs. Anyway, at just about that time, I came back to town and helped him finish closing up.\"\n\n\"I didn't know. Thank you for that, Adam.\"\n\n\"Frank always believed in me and my silly, unworkable inventions.\"\n\n\"Those inventions were why the kids in school made fun of you.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Adam the skinny nerd.\"\n\n\"I never thought so,\" she replied, giving him a direct look. He didn't take his eyes off her.\n\n\"You believed in me...for a while.\"\n\nHe tore his eyes from her and continued before she could answer. \"I came up with the idea to install a geothermal system to heat the greenhouses. My system is much more efficient than any in use.\"\n\n\"Because...\"\n\n\"I put the pipes even deeper in the ground and I used a smaller pipe so that the water doesn't have a chance to cool by a single degree.\"\n\n\"And you've been doing this work here?\"\n\n\"I have. And working with Frank to create that salmon-striped hybrid poinsettia he'd always dreamed of.\" Adam smiled broadly.\n\n\"No way!\" She was astonished. So much had been going on in Indian Lake. Adam had had a child. Seen a wife through illness and death. Done all this work with her grandpa. And he was still pursuing his dreams.\n\n\"It's true,\" Adam said. \"All those summers working here with you and Frank, I got the horticulture bug.\"\n\n\"You are full of surprises.\"\n\n\"I hope so,\" he replied, with a longing she hadn't heard in anyone's voice except...except his on the day she broke up with him.\n\nShe felt a fluttering in her chest, but that could only be from nostalgia. It wasn't real. She was a victim of shock and grief, still trying to grasp that the greenhouses had been closed and that they might not sell for much. She wasn't having new feelings for Adam.\n\nNothing was as she'd thought it would be when she flew in from New York.\n\nNew York.\n\n\"Adam, look. This\u2014\" she waved her hand toward the half-buried pipes \"\u2014is all wonderful, but...\"\n\n\"You have to sell,\" he finished for her.\n\n\"And go home.\"\n\n\"I thought this was home.\"\n\n\"Not anymore.\"\n\nHe looked down at the pipes. \"Yeah. That's what I thought you thought.\"\n\nWithout another word, he walked away, past the potting shed and the new little generator building. He got in his truck and, without waving to her or looking back, drove away.\n\nJoy felt a chill and didn't understand why she felt alone now that Adam was gone. When he was around, it felt like the ground was more solid. She looked down at the key in her hand, then closed her fingers around it, making a fist and pulling her hand to her heart.\n\nAdam and Grandpa had planned for a new beginning, to reopen the greenhouses. Frank would have had a chance to create his hybrid and Adam would have been part of making his dream come true. But it was not to be.\n\nOnce she sold the greenhouses, her grandpa's dreams would be buried with him.\n\nBut that was the way it was with death. Things ended. Including dreams."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 11",
                "text": "Joy put her phone on speaker as she held up an old red cable-knit sweater she'd found in the bureau drawer. The last time she'd worn it, she'd gone ice-skating with Adam, Sarah, Nate and Maddie at Craven's Pond. She'd also worn jeans, her work cowboy boots and had pearl studs in her ears. Pearls that Adam had just given her for Christmas. She'd kissed him to thank him, and he'd pulled her to his chest and hugged her so close, she could feel his heartbeat even through the sweater.\n\n\"I love you, Joy, forever and always,\" Adam had said and kissed her again. She'd thought then that no one could kiss her with the depth of emotion as Adam.\n\nThey all used to hang out there on cold winter Saturdays. There was always an impromptu and often vigorous hockey game between the Barzonni brothers and Isabelle Hawks's brothers. Despite the teams being unbalanced in number, the lack of helmets, padding and equipment and even nets, Joy rooted for all her friends. The city provided old oil drums filled with burning wood where they would warm their hands. The Barzonni brothers shaved the ice with homemade, long-handled blades resembling rakes to keep it smooth for the skaters. From time to time, old Mr. Marsh would trundle down from his house on the hill with his hot dog wagon, which he brought to the Fourth of July parade, the Santa parade and to the county fairgrounds. Mr. Marsh's steamed Chicago-style hot dogs with relish, peppers, celery seed, mustard and onion were delicious. And memorable enough to cause her mouth to water now.\n\nIt had been a long, long time since Joy had put on a pair of skates. Not since I left Indian Lake. Ice-skating was a thing of the past.\n\n\"Did you hear what I said?\" Chuck barked into the phone.\n\nJoy blinked and came back to the present. \"Are you talking to me?\"\n\n\"Sorry, no. That was Glory. Just a sec, Joy.\"\n\nShe'd call Glory tonight after Glory was home. Not while Glory was at work and couldn't really talk.\n\n\"Chuck,\" she said, putting the red sweater on the bed and smoothing out the arms. \"Why don't I call you later when you're not busy?\"\n\n\"I'm good,\" he said. \"So, what happened with the Realtor?\"\n\n\"She's gathering comps.\" Joy paused. She needed to tell Chuck the truth and she didn't know why she had held back.\n\nWaiting for a miracle?\n\nJoy had never been one to skirt adversity. Dealing with it was her job, after all. People came to her with accounts that were in the red and expected her to fix everything. Sometimes overnight. They paid a great deal for her expertise.\n\nFixing this greenhouse situation was precisely what Joy's education and years of experience had taught her how to do.\n\n\"Chuck, I don't think you're going to like this.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"My grandfather has been keeping the truth from me for years. His business was on a decline, so much so that he closed the greenhouses five years ago.\"\n\n\"So\u2014this isn't a recent development?\"\n\nNow she had Chuck's full attention.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Give it to me straight.\"\n\n\"I can guarantee there won't be any blue-sky money. The Chicago florists and local markets have long since switched suppliers. That revenue stream has dried to bedrock. Therefore, there's no business to sell. Only the property and the buildings.\"\n\n\"I see.\"\n\nShe could tell he didn't see. Chuck had been born and raised in Manhattan. He was fourth-generation Newly. Even if he never worked another day in his life, the family had money. Chuck lived and worked for his father's approval, and to earn respect from his father's friends and their community. She admired his sense of responsibility.\n\n\"You're disappointed,\" she said.\n\n\"Surprised.\"\n\n\"I was shocked. I still am. All this time my grandfather never told me what was going on. He never asked for my help.\"\n\n\"Was it his health?\"\n\n\"No, Adam told me it was the rise in heating costs that shut him down.\"\n\nThere was a long pause before Chuck asked, \"Who's Adam?\"\n\n\"Oh.\" She cleared her throat, wondering why explaining Adam should be a problem. \"An old friend from high school. He worked with my grandfather for the past several years.\"\n\n\"I thought the greenhouse was closed.\"\n\n\"It...was. I meant, they had a special friendship. Adam said he used to come over and tinker,\" she replied, her hand going to the red sweater and smoothing the rounded neckline.\n\nShe remembered Adam's loving smile when she'd last worn the sweater.\n\nChuck's tone was pointed. \"Tinker? What does that mean?\"\n\n\"Adam was always inventing things in high school. He's an engineer now.\"\n\n\"An engineer.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Working for your grandfather. That doesn't make sense. What was he doing?\"\n\n\"They were just friends. Apparently, his little boy was close with Grandpa, too.\"\n\nChuck exhaled loudly enough that Joy heard it. \"A son. Well. That's nice.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Titus is darling.\" She smiled, thinking of the little boy dressed up in his blazer at the luncheon. \"Smart, too. Probably grow up to be a CPA.\"\n\n\"So, when can you get the property listed and get back here?\" Chuck was back to business.\n\n\"Tomorrow, I guess. Cate said she'd call me later today if she had anything. I'm going to Mrs. Beabots's for dinner tonight.\"\n\n\"Who's that?\"\n\n\"An old friend. You'd love her. She's elegant, funny. Knows everything about everyone, practically before they know it. And she's mysterious.\"\n\n\"C'mon,\" he groaned.\n\n\"It's true. No one knows where she came from when she moved to Indian Lake in the 1960s. But she was married back then. Her husband died, I don't know, about twenty years ago. They had a grocery store on Rose Street for years. But there's all these interesting stories that rumble through the town about her. Supposedly, she lived in Paris at one time and worked for Chanel.\"\n\n\"She's wealthy?\"\n\n\"I think so, but you'd never know it by her actions. She's as sweet and caring a person I've ever met. She's a love.\"\n\n\"Maybe she needs an estate planner. Do you have any of my cards with you?\"\n\n\"Chuck!\" She laughed. \"I'm not going to solicit for business on this trip.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"This is personal.\"\n\n\"You're right. You're right. Look, text me when you get the quote from the Realtor. Dad and I are meeting with the board at the Met tonight. I have a brunch tomorrow morning with the committee for Feed the Hungry for Thanksgiving and then I'll be back at the office probably until midnight working.\"\n\n\"Can I ask you a question?\"\n\n\"Whazzat?\"\n\n\"Do you ever take a day just for you?\"\n\n\"And do what?\"\n\n\"I dunno. Just breathe?\"\n\n\"Look who's talking,\" he countered. \"I'm running. Love you.\"\n\n\"Love you.\"\n\nJoy hung up.\n\nShe was just like him. Time alone had not been a good thing since her parents died. Time to breathe meant she'd be visited by the memories of seeing her mother's face bloody, covered in glass, her hair matted with blood, lying on a gurney in the ER, gasping for air and calling for Joy. Joy had held her mother's hand as she took her last breath. By the time Joy left her mother's side and rushed to the abutting ER bay where a cardiac doctor and his team were trying to revive her father, it was too late.\n\nShe would never forget the look on Dr. Caldwell's face as he turned away from her father, who'd been a friend, his eyes meeting Joy's as he said, \"Bruce is gone.\" He'd stared down at the defibrillator paddles in his hands. \"I'm so sorry, Joy.\"\n\nJoy couldn't recall what was said or if she'd said anything after that. What she did remember was sitting at the kitchen table that night as her grandpa spoke to a stream of friends who came to give their condolences. Joy had stared at the melted marshmallows in her cocoa. She felt as if she'd been hollowed out. There was nothing inside her, not even marrow in her bones. No thoughts in her head, no emotion in her heart, and even her breath had frozen in her lungs.\n\nThe police chief\u2014Williams, she thought she remembered\u2014had stood at the sink slugging back coffee while her grandpa filled the carafe with water and started the third round of coffee.\n\n\"Frank,\" the chief had said, \"Dead Man's Tree is a blight on this community.\"\n\n\"It shoulda been cut down years ago. Now my son is one of its victims.\"\n\nJoy had raised her head and listened.\n\n\"I can't tell you how I've battled the Green Preservation Committee to get rid of that tree,\" the chief had said. \"But Wilma Wilcox won't budge, and you know how she can sway city council.\"\n\n\"Wilma is over ninety years old. She's rich, opinionated, stubborn and self-centered. She's run everything from the school board to city council and most of the charity organizations. When we were growing up, she even ran roughshod over the high school athletic coaches.\"\n\n\"How could she do that?\"\n\n\"Money,\" Frank said. \"If they danced to her tune, she donated money for equipment or a new baseball field. The old high school was in the middle of town, near the library. Built in 1920. Ever wonder why the new high school is out there off Anderson Road?\"\n\n\"Don't tell me.\"\n\n\"Wilma donated the land to the city. And then paid for the football field attached to it.\"\n\n\"She's some philanthropist.\"\n\n\"That money always came with a price, if you ask me,\" Frank said. \"For the town's sake, Wilma needs to be booted off that preservation board and keep her trap shut. Let the young folks deal with these issues. That tree is a killer. Bruce and Jill aren't the first to die by that tree.\" Frank had banged his fist on the counter. \"But by God, they will be the last!\"\n\n\"You've been here all your life, Frank. Why is she so adamant about keeping that darn tree?\"\n\n\"All that area, the golf course on either side of Anderson Road, the fire station, even the new housing developments up the hills and the new office buildings, are all built on her family's property that goes back to the Civil War. Over the years, Wilma has sold off parcel after parcel. Anderson Road is named after a brother who died at Normandy Beach. What remains there were of his body, and his dog tags, are buried next to that tree. That's why she won't let anyone cut it down.\"\n\n\"Anderson Wilcox's grave,\" Chief Williams had mused. \"I understand. It's kinda spooky when you think about it. That tree being a grave for her brother and then other people dying because of the tree.\"\n\n\"Well, it's gonna stop,\" Frank had said. \"I'm going to start a petition like this town has never seen. I'll get every last person in Indian Lake to sign if it takes me all year. That tree is done causing pain and sorrow.\"\n\nJoy came away from that night with bitter hard facts. The town of Indian Lake and its authorities had known of the dangers about Dead Man's Tree for years and had done nothing about it. Wilma Wilcox's wealth, social prominence and political clout had caused Joy's parents' deaths and the deaths of others before them. Indian Lake had been paying dearly for Wilma Wilcox's money. Blood money.\n\nJoy not only blamed Wilma Wilcox, she blamed all of Indian Lake for killing her parents.\n\nIf the townspeople had stood up years ago, decades ago, her parents would still be alive. So would others.\n\nThere was no excuse for their deference to Wilma Wilcox.\n\nShe vowed at that moment to leave Indian Lake at her first opportunity. She had less than a full semester of high school remaining, and her hopes for winning a scholarship to Columbia University were high.\n\nShe loved her grandpa, but she couldn't face the townspeople, who knew full well the dangers of Dead Man's Tree and had done nothing to rid themselves of the menace.\n\nThere was no excuse for apathy.\n\nJoy had always been a hard worker both in school and at the greenhouse. Infused with a passion for poinsettias and the desire to become a successful accountant so that she could help her parents and grandpa, Joy didn't understand how anyone could stand aside and let a bully ruin their lives."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 12",
                "text": "Joy took the red sweater and carefully folded it up. Since arriving in Indian Lake, she'd removed only her quilted toiletries bag from her suitcase and put it in the bathroom. Her clothes were still in the suitcase. Even the dress she wore to the funeral she'd folded and put neatly back in the roller bag.\n\n\"Ready to bolt,\" she said aloud.\n\nSubconsciously, she couldn't wait to leave town. Her anger at the people in Indian Lake had not diminished, even though Frank had carried through with the petition to have Dead Man's Tree cut down. Grandpa had told her it took nine months to get the signatures, and though Wilma Wilcox was still on the city council, she'd been overruled. The tree had come down before the year was out.\n\nBut it hadn't brought back her parents. Too little too late. Joy had been robbed of her mother's hugs and laughter, her wisdom and her father's eternal optimism. From him she'd learned no task was too small or too mighty if you looked at work as play.\n\nForgiveness wasn't something she could give. The pain was still as fresh as it was all those years ago. Perhaps it was intensified by Frank's death, sealing her into a tomb of loneliness.\n\nHer tears fell on the sweater and she stared down at it.\n\nEventually she put the sweater to her nose and inhaled. It was faint, but the scent of the perfume she'd worn in high school was there. She closed her eyes.\n\nIf she breathed, all she could remember was a teenage haunting of kissing Adam.\n\n\"Dangerous territory, Joy,\" she scolded herself.\n\nShe walked to the bureau and opened the drawer. She was about to place the sweater inside, when she quickly closed the drawer, turned and placed the sweater in her suitcase.\n\nPerhaps some memories were worth revisiting."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 13",
                "text": "Cate was as good as her word and returned late that afternoon with a folder filled with comps, contracts and computer printouts of commercial properties in the area.\n\nJoy scanned the comps. \"Is commercial property depressed here?\"\n\n\"Yes, but it's on the rise with so many people moving in from Illinois to get away from the property taxes there.\"\n\n\"So, you're saying I should wait?\"\n\n\"I don't know what your situation is. If you need the ready cash, then we should list now and see if we can sell the house by the end of the school year. The greenhouses... I'm not sure how long that will take.\"\n\n\"It's not that I need the money.\" Although Joy couldn't help thinking about the fact that she didn't own anything, really. She rented an apartment that she shared. She didn't have a car. Most of her furniture had come from resale shops. Was it possible that in the back of her mind, her grandpa's house and these greenhouses had always been her safety net? \"I mean, who doesn't need security, but that's not the thing.\"\n\nCate pulled her coffee mug closer, wrapped her hands around it and asked, \"Then what is it?\"\n\nJoy found the question hard to answer. Another thing that wasn't like her. Joy was always quick with responses. Chuck always said her mind was lightning fast.\n\nSince she'd come to Indian Lake, her thoughts were muddled. All she did was rehash the past. Revisit and stall.\n\nLike she was doing now.\n\n\"Let me look these over tonight.\"\n\n\"Take your time. It could take a couple weeks to line up crews to do the work that's needed. My recommendation remains. I'm confident that if you fix the place up, you'll bring a better price.\"\n\n\"Good advice.\"\n\n\"Plus, you've barely cleaned up from the funeral luncheon. Give yourself a break.\"\n\n\"I feel torn. I should get back to New York, though I know they're doing fine, but I also know I owe Grandpa my best efforts here.\" Joy rose from the chair and went to the refrigerator. She pulled out a container of pumpkin-flavored creamer. Her eyes went to the pumpkin pie on the label.\n\nThanksgiving. It would never be the same without Grandpa. She put the creamer down and covered her face. \"I feel so ashamed.\"\n\nCate was on her feet in a flash. She put her arms around Joy and hugged her.\n\n\"I feel so alone. And it's not as if I don't have a fianc\u00e9.\"\n\n\"I know, Joy. But where is he?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Joy nodded. \"Not here.\"\n\n\"I understand that he has to work, but Frank was your only family.\"\n\nJoy wiped away the tears, then grabbed a tissue from the counter. \"Chuck and his father are very close. When Chuck's mother died, it was hard on them. This funeral would have been difficult for Chuck to deal with\u2014at this time.\" Joy blew her nose. \"You know how it is.\"\n\nCate stared at Joy, skepticism written all over her face. Joy didn't blame her. There was a lot about Chuck's actions and attitude she didn't fully understand. If she'd been in Chuck's position she would have insisted on being in Indian Lake with her.\n\nCate went back to the table. \"I'll leave all this with you. You gonna be all right tonight? I mean, maybe you shouldn't be alone. You could come to my house for dinner.\"\n\nJoy forced a smile. \"That's so sweet, Cate, and thanks. But I'm going to Mrs. Beabots's for dinner. I'll be fine.\"\n\n\"She's the best, isn't she?\" Cate picked up her purse. \"I can't wait to hear what she wears tonight. Take note of her ensemble. If I know Mrs. Beabots, her outfit will probably be vintage Chanel.\"\n\n\"That's right. I remember those stories now.\" Joy swatted the air with her palm, dismissing the comment.\n\nCate swung back around. \"Oh, trust me. The stories about her are true. That woman's closet is not to be believed. The first time she took me in there... I think I was with Isabelle and Sarah that time,\" she mused. \"I was speechless. Chanel suits. Louis Vuitton purses. Couture gowns and dresses. Museum stuff.\"\n\n\"I heard vague rumors when I was in high school, but I never saw that closet.\"\n\n\"Sarah told me the same thing. Apparently, she kept everything packed up until Luke, Sarah's husband, built her that new closet. Now she likes sharing with all of us.\"\n\n\"I wonder if she's a collector?\"\n\n\"Nobody knows. She drops hints here and there about the origins of the clothes. Sarah and I have figured out she must have lived in Paris back in the early sixties. But other than that...\" Cate shrugged her shoulders.\n\n\"Better keep my spidey senses alert.\"\n\n\"And then some.\" Cate hugged Joy. \"I gotta run. Call me.\"\n\n\"Promise,\" Joy replied, then held the kitchen door and waved as Cate walked to her car."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 14",
                "text": "Joy put on the same black sheath she'd worn at the funeral, adding a three-quarter-length-sleeved black sweater and black heels. Because Glory had packed for her\u2014in a hurry, no less\u2014there was no jewelry other than the practical small gold hoop earrings she'd worn to the funeral, and her engagement ring.\n\nShe arrived at Mrs. Beabots's three-story Victorian house promptly at six. The front steps were decorated with pumpkins and gourds, and around the beveled-glass front door was a garland of wheat and raffia. A gold-brown-and-green-plaid ribbon swirled around the raffia.\n\nShe remembered that in Indian Lake people \"competition decorated\" for every season. It was one of the traditions that kept the register ringing at the greenhouses. Joy had forgotten how much she'd once loved it. And people like Mrs. Beabots, Sarah and her mother, Ann Marie, when she was alive, kick-started each holiday by hoisting up seasonal wreaths, vines around lampposts and baskets of colorful flowers suspended along porches.\n\nJoy twisted the antique pewter doorbell in the middle of the door. The tinny ring was familiar, and once again her mind wafted back to the times when she, Sarah and Maddie would visit Mrs. Beabots.\n\nRemembering her conversation with Cate, Joy thought it funny, in all those years, she hadn't paid attention to what Mrs. Beabots wore. Not that she would have known Chanel from Banana Republic.\n\nThe door swung open. Instead of Mrs. Beabots, Titus was there. \"Hi!\"\n\nJoy smiled at Titus. \"Good evening,\" she said, shifting the white orchid she'd bought as a hostess gift to her left arm. She held out her hand. \"How are you, Titus?\"\n\n\"Very fine, thank you,\" he replied, pushing his glasses to the bridge of his nose, then shaking her hand. \"My dad's in the kitchen with Mrs. Beabots.\" He stood back, holding the door.\n\nJoy walked in, glancing around the huge foyer, at the library table with its Tiffany lamp and a pair of sterling silver deer that held up an enormous silver-edged bowl filled with pinecones.\n\n\"I didn't know it was a party,\" Joy said.\n\n\"It's not,\" Titus said, stomping past her and then beckoning her to follow him. \"It's just us.\"\n\n\"So, you come here a lot, do you?\"\n\n\"Uh-huh. Timmy and I help Mrs. Beabots bake cookies after school.\"\n\n\"I'll bet you do.\" She chuckled as her shoes sank into the thick-cut Chinese runner in the hall. She passed the front parlor to the left, which opened by way of massive pocket doors to the library, where a fire was crackling in the fireplace. The familiar portrait of beautiful Mrs. Beabots hung over the mantel. Joy slowed for a moment to peer at the painting. The dress she wore was elegant and clearly something Audrey Hepburn would have worn in Paris.\n\n\"Hmm.\"\n\n\"C'mon,\" Titus urged.\n\nJoy could hear laughter and the clatter of pans in the kitchen. She saw Adam first. He was wearing a sky blue banded collar shirt with the sleeves pushed up, exposing taut muscles, as well as black dress slacks, black dress shoes and a ruffled pink-and-white apron. He paused in taking a sip of red wine when she walked in.\n\n\"Hi, Adam,\" she said cheerily.\n\n\"Hello.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots pulled a casserole dish from the oven with oven mitts on her hands. She placed the casserole on a brass trivet. \"Oh, Joy. How lovely you look.\"\n\nJoy knew the woman didn't mean the first word she said. Joy felt particularly frumpy compared to her hostess. Mrs. Beabots was wearing a cream-and-gold Chanel short jacket with looped edge braid along the bottom and up the placket. The cream straight skirt to match was paired with cream hose, winter-white leather pumps and five gold-pearl-and-crystal chains around her neck. Gold logo earrings peeked out from her thick silver chin-length hair and danced in the light from the overhead Venetian crystal lamps.\n\nJoy knew the earrings were new because she'd seen them advertised in the Vogue magazine she'd picked up at the airport. The rest was vintage\u2014and real. Cate was right. She was exquisite. Which made Joy feel not only underdressed but shabby.\n\n\"Thank you for inviting me,\" Joy said.\n\nTitus climbed up on a wooden stool. \"She brought you a flower,\" he said to Mrs. Beabots.\n\n\"It's an orchid,\" Adam said.\n\n\"It's real pretty.\" Titus reached out to touch a petal, leaned too far and started to fall.\n\n\"Titus!\" Adam shouted.\n\nJoy quickly flung her arm around Titus's middle, then scooped him off the stool while still holding the orchid securely. She lowered him to the floor. \"There ya go,\" she said proudly, looking at Adam, whose scowl was sharp enough to leave permanent markings on his face. \"He's fine.\"\n\n\"I see that.\" Adam glared at Titus, who paid no attention and continued looking at Joy.\n\nMrs. Beabots smiled broadly and closed the oven door. \"Adam. Why don't you pour our guest some wine? I could use a glass, as well, while I finish up here.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" he said and went to a silver tray with different-shaped wineglasses. He held up the bottle. \"Red?\"\n\n\"That's great.\"\n\n\"I'll have the chardonnay, Adam,\" Mrs. Beabots said.\n\nJoy put her purse on the side counter, where she noticed another silver tray filled with more wineglasses. A second brass tray held colorful cut crystal cordial and Irish crystal brandy balloons. \"Thanks,\" Adam whispered as he handed her a glass. \"Titus can be, er, clumsy sometimes.\"\n\n\"He's a kid,\" she said.\n\n\"And you're used to kids?\" he asked, reaching behind her to take a wineglass.\n\n\"A bit. Glory and I volunteer at a family shelter a couple weekends a month\u2014but not during tax season. Mostly it's babysitting, but I love the kids.\"\n\nHis arm brushed hers. She kept her eyes on him, though she made no attempt to move away. She couldn't help inhaling the woodsy scent of the soap he still used. Some things didn't change over time, she thought.\n\nHe held up the wineglass. \"White wineglass...for the chardonnay.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nHe poured the wine for Mrs. Beabots. Joy held up her glass. \"To your good health,\" she said.\n\n\"And yours,\" Adam and Mrs. Beabots chorused.\n\nTitus lifted a mug shaped like a turkey with both hands. \"Clink with me,\" he asked Joy first.\n\n\"To your good health.\" She smiled and watched as he drank what looked like cocoa. \"I like that mug.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Beabots has mugs for Annie, Timmy and Charlotte next door,\" Titus replied. \"Then when I started coming over after school, we went to the antiques mall and found Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas mugs.\" He put his palm to his mouth to shield his words from Adam and Mrs. Beabots. \"They were only a dollar, so she bought a whole set so Danny Sullivan can have one, too.\"\n\n\"And don't forget Zeke,\" Mrs. Beabots added.\n\nTitus's mouth rounded. \"You heard me?\"\n\n\"You aren't exactly quiet, Titus.\" Adam beamed at his son and winked. \"I like that about you.\"\n\nTitus shot his arms straight up in the air. \"I know! I like being happy!\" he shouted.\n\nEveryone laughed.\n\nImpulsively, Joy put her hand on Titus's little shoulder. \"I hope you always feel that way, Titus. We need more people in the world like you.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Miss Boston.\"\n\n\"You can call me Joy,\" she said, looking down into the same charismatic blue eyes as his father\u2014magnified by the glass lenses. Joy didn't know what it was, but a distinct warmth filled her just looking at Titus. She seriously had to resist the urge to hug him, as if his happiness would infuse her somehow.\n\n\"No,\" Adam said. \"You call her Miss Joy. It's more respectful. Just like you do with Miss Sarah.\"\n\nTitus turned from his father to Joy. \"Is that all right?\"\n\n\"It sure is.\"\n\nTitus whooped with joy and picked up his mug with both hands again and drank.\n\nThe timer on the oven pinged.\n\n\"The chicken is ready,\" Mrs. Beabots said, putting her wineglass down and picking up the oven mitts.\n\n\"Here,\" Adam said. \"Let me do that. You ladies take the wine out to the table and I'll bring the meal.\"\n\n\"Well, thank you, Adam,\" she replied, then walked around the granite-topped island and took Joy's arm. \"Shall we?\" She winked. \"It's not often I get treated like a princess.\"\n\n\"Queen,\" Adam corrected, as he pulled the stuffed chicken breasts out of the oven.\n\nMrs. Beabots sat at the head of the table closest to the kitchen. Adam was to her right and Joy to her left. Titus sat next to Adam on a pillow to raise him up.\n\nJoy noticed that as Adam brought the dishes to the table and placed them on trivets, Titus slipped the pillow out from under him and let it slide to the floor.\n\nAs Adam sat, Titus glanced at Joy. She looked down to the floor to let him know that she'd seen what he'd done. He pursed his lips and gave the slightest shake of his head. She knew he didn't want her to squeal on him. She nodded and gave him a slight smile. His smile grew wider.\n\nTitus looked at the chicken breasts. \"What's inside them?\"\n\nAdam held the plates while Mrs. Beabots served the scalloped potatoes, glazed carrots and chicken. \"Cream cheese, Parmesan cheese and spinach.\" She halted. \"Titus, you do like spinach, don't you?\"\n\n\"I do. My dad introduced it to me last year. It's very healthy. Organic, right?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. And I cook gluten-free now. I don't think I'll ever be dairy-free, however. Thank goodness I'm not lactose intolerant.\" Mrs. Beabots laughed.\n\nAdam placed Titus's plate in front of him. Titus sniffed the food. \"Smells good.\"\n\n\"Garlic.\" Mrs. Beabots smiled and handed Joy her plate. \"Do you like to cook, Joy?\"\n\n\"I do, though I don't get much chance, especially this time of year. We work quite late from now until tax season is over.\"\n\n\"I can only imagine,\" Adam said, cutting the chicken.\n\n\"Once we hit January my days last till midnight. I make it a practice to pack several green salads and fruits for the day and night.\"\n\nTitus had finished all his carrots before tasting anything else. Joy noticed he moved on to the potatoes and still hadn't touched the chicken. \"I like to cook,\" Titus said between bites.\n\nJoy looked at Adam's pride-filled face. \"I'm surprised.\"\n\n\"Dad taught me.\" Titus kept eating, not looking at anyone.\n\nAdam sipped his wine. \"Raising a healthy child is an enormous responsibility. Thank goodness for the internet\u2014\"\n\n\"And,\" Mrs. Beabots interrupted, \"pie-making lessons in this kitchen.\"\n\n\"I love those!\" Titus said. \"Are we having pie for dessert?\" His eyes looked like saucers in his face.\n\n\"Of course,\" Mrs. Beabots said.\n\n\"What kind?\"\n\n\"Titus, that's not polite to ask,\" Adam said, placing his hand on Titus's forearm.\n\n\"It's okay,\" Mrs. Beabots said. \"Dutch apple. I believe that's your favorite, Titus.\"\n\n\"It is.\" He looked up at his father. \"Dad likes them all. Especially that chocolate-and-peppermint-candy one at Christmas.\"\n\n\"That's my favorite,\" Joy said. \"I made that for you at Christmas.\"\n\n\"Our junior year,\" Adam said, without looking at her.\n\n\"My mother made it every year. It was her mother's recipe.\"\n\nJoy didn't take her eyes from Adam. Neither did anyone else at the table.\n\n\"I told her I'd never had anything that sweet.\" Adam lifted his eyes to Joy.\n\nJoy wasn't sure what she saw in his expression. Though he wasn't smiling, his eyes gleamed with caring, fondness and\u2014hope. Her heart skipped.\n\nMrs. Beabots looked from Adam to Joy and she caught the glance out the corner of her eye. \"Adam's Christmases back then were...\"\n\n\"Hollow,\" he finished. He lifted his chin as if courage had come to his rescue. \"Then I met Joy and her family. And things changed.\" He looked at Titus, who was still silent. He ruffled Titus's thick hair. \"I promised myself that if I was ever lucky enough to have a kid, I'd make sure every Christmas was special.\"\n\n\"Blowout, Dad. You said we'd have a blowout Christmas this year,\" Titus said happily.\n\nJoy put her fork down. As delicious as the food was, the conversation was far more intriguing. \"And what exactly does that mean?\"\n\nThe excitement on Titus's face hit mega wattage. \"We're gonna have the biggest, bestest tree ever! We're going out to Pine Country Tree Farm, where you can ride out to the groves and pick any tree you want. They cut it down, unless you wanna do it yourself.\" He tilted his head up to Adam. \"You gonna do it again this year, Dad?\"\n\n\"Probably.\"\n\nTitus turned back to Joy. \"Then we ride back and they bundle it up and put it in our truck. I want a really, really huge one this year.\"\n\n\"Wow,\" Joy replied. \"Just how big is that?\"\n\nAdam chuckled. \"Titus's imagination is always a bit over the top. Our living room ceiling is only eight feet.\"\n\n\"I know,\" Titus groaned. \"Not like here. Right, Mrs. Beabots? Last year we got her a really, really big tree. Timmy and I and Mr. Luke and Dad went out to get the tree.\"\n\n\"Yes, but I go in November and pick my tree out. Tagged. Purchased and bailed by the time they get there,\" Mrs. Beabots added.\n\n\"What's your tree like, Joy?\" Adam asked.\n\n\"I don't have one.\"\n\n\"What?\" Titus shook his head. Adam nearly choked on his wine. Mrs. Beabots clanked her fork against the plate.\n\n\"You, of all people, don't have a tree?\" Adam said.\n\nJoy bristled. \"What's that supposed to mean?\"\n\nHis tone softened as he said, \"You and your family, your parents, Frank\u2014you were the heart of Christmas for this town. For someone like me with no family, when I found yours and worked at the greenhouses during Christmas, and saw how beautiful you made everything, it was...magic.\"\n\n\"Magic?\" Titus's eyes widened.\n\nAdam nodded. \"What happened to you?\"\n\nJoy's defenses rose. \"Life. Work. You wouldn't understand how crunched for time we are at the firm. That's why I loved having Grandpa with me in New York for Thanksgiving. If you ever came to New York at Christmas, you'd understand. The entire city is decorated. I never felt the loss of not having decorations of my own. New York is amazing. And as far as a big tree, Titus, the one in Rockefeller Center is truly 'blowout.' I'd love for you to see it.\"\n\n\"Cool! Can we go to New York sometime, Dad?\"\n\n\"Maybe.\"\n\nJoy's hand traced the scalloped edges of the spoon to her right. \"You're right, Adam. The greenhouses were part of Christmas for a lot of people in Indian Lake. But they've been closed for a long time. Certainly Titus didn't get to experience them.\" She took a deep breath. \"It seems they died long before my grandpa.\"\n\nAdam leaned forward. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Cate worked up the comps and did some digging for me today. She says the greenhouses are worthless.\"\n\n\"That doesn't sound right,\" Adam retorted.\n\nShe shrugged her shoulders. \"I mean, the land has value and she says the house might sell before the end of the year. But it's far less than what I'd thought it was worth.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots reached over and placed her hand on Joy's arm. \"Do you need money, dear?\"\n\n\"I'm not destitute, but I'm not wealthy by any means. My job pays well. But it's the craziest thing. I feel like I'm giving away my legacy\u2014as if I failed by not knowing that Grandpa was in trouble. And I don't like this feeling.\"\n\n\"Then fight it,\" Adam said. \"The greenhouses were a thriving business until the heating costs skyrocketed. I'm sure Frank kept all the old revenue reports and tax returns that show how successful it had been. The man kept everything, he told me. And now my geothermal system is nearly finished. If you were to fill those greenhouses with poinsettias, stock the shelves with garlands, ornaments, decorations, candles\u2014all that stuff he used to sell\u2014and then, after a successful season, put the greenhouses on the market...you'd have a viable business. That's the plan Frank and I had.\"\n\n\"Adam, I can't possibly do anything that foolhardy.\"\n\n\"My idea is foolish?\" He frowned.\n\n\"It doesn't make good business sense. The cost of buying the poinsettias will be huge...\"\n\n\"I'll help,\" he said quickly.\n\nJoy was astonished and she knew it showed on her face. \"Adam, I couldn't ask you to do that.\"\n\n\"You didn't. I offered. There's a difference,\" he ground out with finality.\n\nTitus turned his wide eyes from his father to Joy. He couldn't be more intense if he'd been watching a scary movie.\n\n\"It's impossible,\" she countered.\n\n\"Nothing is impossible,\" Adam shot back, leaning toward her, his eyes stern and determined. \"You're just chicken.\"\n\n\"Am not.\"\n\n\"Are, too.\"\n\n\"Dad!\"\n\nJoy and Adam looked at Titus, who was smiling at them both.\n\nThey all burst into laughter.\n\n\"What are we doing?\" Joy asked, covering her mouth with her hand as she laughed harder. When she calmed down, she looked at Mrs. Beabots.\n\n\"You need to think of the bigger possibilities, Joy,\" Mrs. Beabots said. \"If the property was improved and potential buyers saw the activity of the business...\"\n\n\"I'd get a better price,\" Joy surmised.\n\n\"And you wouldn't feel like a failure,\" Mrs. Beabots said.\n\nJoy looked from one excited friend's face to the other. \"But it's nearly Thanksgiving and we have to clean the floors, replace the broken glass...\"\n\n\"So?\" Adam jumped in. \"We have lots of friends here. I'll help clean up.\"\n\n\"Me, too!\" Titus chimed in.\n\n\"Joe Peterson over at Quality Glass could get that work done in two days. You handle calling the suppliers in the morning. Get the orders going. I'll supervise the cleanup and construction. What do you say?\"\n\n\"I say it's crazy.\" She shook her head at the red flags she recognized from her years in accounting and business. \"Absolutely not. Besides, I have to be back in New York.\"\n\nShe watched their faces fall. For a moment she'd actually felt excited. The possibility of fulfilling her grandpa's dream was thrilling. She could almost feel Frank in the room, egging her on. Begging her to try. But her penchant for reality, the stuff of bottom lines and profits, was enough to squelch even an angel's dreams.\n\nStill\u2014\n\nCould she do it? For someone who didn't know the ropes of her business, it would be daunting, but she did recall the suppliers, part-time workers, even cottage industry owners who filled the shop shelves with homemade quilts, jams, honey and Christmas cookies.\n\nAdam was right. The greenhouses had been a retail outlet for local craftspeople. They built their hopes and aspirations on Frank's store.\n\n\"Joy,\" Adam said softly, \"you have something I never had.\"\n\n\"What's that?\"\n\n\"Legacy.\"\n\nChills shot up Joy's spine, and the smile that came to her lips was from a place of pride and love. Her mother always told her to listen to her heart. \"I'll do it.\"\n\n\"Does that mean you're gonna stay here?\" Titus asked.\n\nJoy knew from her emails and texts to Glory and Chuck that they'd been handling the clients. The office was fine. This was the perfect time and cause to use her accrued vacation days.\n\n\"I can\u2014at least until closing on Christmas Eve. I have nearly a month of vacation days I've never taken. Fortunately, our most challenging client I took care of before I came back...\" She stopped and looked at Adam.\n\n\"Home?\" he finished for her.\n\n\"Here. I was going to say 'here.'\" Her eyes locked on his and he didn't look away. He held her to her momentary promise. Initially, she saw hope shine in his eyes, a hope she'd seen before. Then a cloud passed over the light and he shut her out. As he should. She wasn't staying for good.\n\n\"Yay! You'll be here!\" Titus thrust his arms into the air. \"It is gonna be a blowout Christmas.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 15",
                "text": "Joy wasn't sure if her Christmas was going to be a blowout or a dud. Her plan to reopen the greenhouses sounded exciting and doable at Mrs. Beabots's dining table, but in the cold light of morning, not so much.\n\nHer first phone call of the day was to Chuck. After he exploded with anger that she would miss the parade and dinner with his dad, she didn't have the courage to tell him about reopening the greenhouses\u2014which would mean she wouldn't be back to New York until Christmas Day.\n\n\"I'll tackle that one later,\" she'd said to herself, swiping her palm across her brow. Her cell rang.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" she groaned, seeing the Newly office number on her caller ID.\n\n\"Hey, girl!\" Glory said excitedly. \"What's your ETA? I'm gonna be so glad to see your face!\"\n\n\"Um, Glory. There's something I have to tell you.\"\n\n\"Honey. Anytime you say, 'Um, Glory,' I know I'm not gonna like this.\"\n\n\"I hope you're okay with it.\"\n\n\"Spill.\"\n\n\"I just got off the phone with Chuck. Did he tell you anything about what's going on here in Indian Lake?\"\n\n\"I try not to converse with your fianc\u00e9, other than topics pertaining to clients. It's safer for him that way.\"\n\n\"Thank you for that.\"\n\n\"You're welcome. So, what is going on and why won't I like it?\"\n\nJoy took a deep breath and rushed on. \"I'm not coming home for Thanksgiving. In fact, I won't be home till Christmas Day. Though I didn't exactly break that part to Chuck...yet.\"\n\n\"Run that by me again.\"\n\n\"Grandpa's business has been closed for years. The Realtor says it's nearly worthless. Actually, the greenhouses are a deterrent to a sale. Frankly, I had hoped to ask Grandpa for a loan to help me with the wedding. My savings aren't all that, er, substantial.\"\n\n\"Independently wealthy, you are not. You wouldn't have a roommate if that was the case.\"\n\n\"Oh, Glory, we'd probably live together even if we were millionaires.\"\n\n\"No offense, honey, but I was hoping for a clone of Michael B. Jordan for my next roommate.\"\n\nJoy laughed so hard she fell back on the bed. \"Oh, how I miss you. I needed that.\"\n\n\"So, what are you going to do?\"\n\nJoy propped herself up on her elbow and picked a small white feather off her jeans, which she assumed had come from the down comforter. \"I'm going to reopen the greenhouses and stock them with as many poinsettias as the supplier can provide. Fix it up. Glam it up and...\"\n\n\"Make your grandpa proud?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"I think that's great.\"\n\n\"You...do?\" Joy was astonished. Glory was about having fun, going out, living it up, especially over the holidays. Her friend seldom seemed to take anything seriously. But Glory understood her. And that was comforting. \"You really are the best of friends, Glory.\"\n\nAfter a pause, Glory said, \"Joy. Do you have any idea what you've done for me?\"\n\n\"What are you talking about? I haven't done anything.\"\n\n\"If it weren't for you going to bat for me with Newly and Associates, I wouldn't have gotten my promotion three years ago. Until I finish my courses and get my degree, the rest of the world considers me an assistant. Another gofer in the world of office gofers who used to be called secretaries.\"\n\n\"But you're only a semester away from that degree.\"\n\n\"That's right. Thanks to you. Helping pay for my courses\u2014which, by the way, is why you don't have a fat bank account. You're always helping others out. I've never met anyone as generous and thoughtful as you. You cook for me and my crazy artistic gang. You let Jensen sleep on the couch all through October when he lost that gig up in Buffalo. He would have been homeless if you hadn't agreed. And we both know you pay three-fourths the rent on the apartment. Sad digs as it is.\"\n\n\"It's affordable and in a safe area.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Security. Your middle name. That's why this out-of-the-box, pie-in-the-sky venture of yours doesn't sound like you.\"\n\n\"Except for the fact that this is what my grandpa wanted.\"\n\n\"And you loved him.\"\n\n\"I always will,\" Joy replied, wishing her throat didn't close up so much at the thought of Frank.\n\n\"Joy,\" Glory said, her tone serious now. \"How are you going to break this to Chuck? All he talks about is the parade at that penthouse. The guy is practically counting the hours till you come back.\"\n\n\"Funny, isn't it? I couldn't care less about the parade without Grandpa. It means nothing to me now. There's not a penthouse in the world that can replace his happiness watching the parade.\"\n\n\"Best to get it over with quickly.\"\n\n\"My thought exactly.\"\n\nJoy pressed her fingers to her temple. She could already feel a stress headache coming on. Then she heard the rumble of trucks driving up outside her bedroom window. She rose from the bed and pulled back the white eyelet curtains.\n\nThree construction trucks had pulled up. She saw a pickup that had tall racks in the bed filled with glass panes. Four men took out tool kits from the back of the second truck. The third truck was a cherry picker with a long lift built into the back with a bucket on the end.\n\n\"Hey, I've gotta go. Talk soon. Love ya.\"\n\n\"Love ya.\" Glory hung up.\n\nJoy slipped her cell phone into the back pocket of her jeans. She grabbed her old high school jacket from the closet and raced down the stairs and outside.\n\nAdam drove up in his truck, got out and walked over to a tall, good-looking man with black hair and dark eyes. The guy had wider shoulders than Adam, if that was possible.\n\nJoy walked up. \"Good morning, Adam.\"\n\n\"Mornin'.\" Adam smiled. \"Joy, this is Joe Peterson. He owns the glass company I was telling you about.\"\n\nWhen Joe smiled at her, Joy seriously thought his black eyes flashed. If Glory was looking for a clone for Michael B. Jordan, he was right here in Indian Lake. Joy shook his hand. \"I'm so pleased to meet you so soon.\"\n\n\"Pardon?\"\n\n\"I mean, I'm so lucky you're here. Already.\"\n\nHis eyes tracked to Adam.\n\nAdam slapped Joe on the back. \"I emailed Joe last night and he had a cancellation for a job he was due to start this morning. So, I jumped at the opportunity.\"\n\n\"Fortuitous,\" she said, wondering how much this crew was going to cost. She'd barely processed the idea of opening the greenhouses, much less the cost. Kyle Evans had given her Grandpa's checking and savings accounts information. Fortunately, there was enough money to cover the basic repairs and the cost of the wholesale poinsettias, but that was all. Grandpa's living expenses were covered mostly by his social security benefits.\n\nAdam was smiling as if he'd just won the state science fair. \"We have to make every minute count, Joy. We don't have enough hours in the day to do all we want to do.\"\n\n\"That said,\" Joe interjected as he took a step away, \"I better get to it. Nice meeting you, Joy. And can I take this moment to say what a great thing this is that you're doing, bringing the greenhouses back?\" His genuine sincerity shone in his smile. \"My guys will pressure wash all the glass after the panes are installed. You'll be sparkling by the end of tomorrow.\"\n\n\"That's all it takes?\"\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\nJoe walked over to the crew, who were laying tarps on the ground, while one man was busting out broken wall panes.\n\n\"They don't waste a minute,\" she said to Adam.\n\n\"Joe and his guys are the best.\" He looked back at her. \"What did the supplier say?\"\n\n\"I put in a call first thing this morning, but haven't heard back. I did get emails from the scented candle company and a local woman who makes quilts and Christmas stockings.\"\n\n\"Hattie?\"\n\n\"You know Hattie Pottington?\"\n\n\"Sure. What did she say?\" His eyes flashed with delight. If she didn't know better, she'd say he was enjoying this more than she was.\n\nAnd why shouldn't he? It was his idea. He was all in.\n\nJoy had the impression that when he looked up at the buildings, he was seeing the completed work. Adam had always had that vision that she supposed geniuses possessed. They rushed into a vacuum and created something out of nothing. But they saw creations in their heads.\n\nWhen she was a teen, she'd been filled with imagination. She was surrounded by beautiful flowers every season. She'd been immersed in the world of black and red numbers for so long she'd lost that sense of wonder. She'd forgotten how precious each moment of life could be under these glass ceilings.\n\nAnd she'd forgotten what it was like to spend them with Adam.\n\n\"She's bringing product over this afternoon for me to choose.\"\n\n\"That's a good start.\"\n\nThey walked to the front door and Joy unlocked it. As she entered the showroom, she said, \"I suppose I should give you back your key.\"\n\n\"I suppose.\"\n\nShe pulled the key from her pocket and gave it to him. Odd. It felt natural to give him back the key to the greenhouse that her grandpa had entrusted to him. And to her. Adam had been part of the dream to reopen. Together, they might make this place shine on for years. But for a new buyer and a new generation of owners.\n\nA wave of sadness hit her.\n\n\"Thanks,\" he said, looking down at her hand in his. \"I need to get started on the heating system. And you\u2014\" he pointed at her \"\u2014take that phone and call the poinsettia supplier again. Don't wait.\"\n\nShe shrugged off her dour thoughts, saluted him and said, \"Aye, aye, Captain.\"\n\nHe leaned close, his eyes peering into hers, and said, \"Frank was the captain. We're shipmates. Taking this dream to the moon.\"\n\nShe held her breath, seeing the image in her mind's eye. Adam had always been able to catch her attention, zero in on the thought that stopped her cold and get her to look at the possibilities from a new perspective.\n\nThey were sailing a ship of dreams\u2014together.\n\nFor the time being. Joy would be a fool if she allowed herself to waver from her path. She hadn't counted on the easy feeling she had around Adam and his adorable son, who was quite good at stealing her heart. She couldn't hurt Adam again, and she would when she sold the greenhouses and went back to New York.\n\nHe was right to keep up his barriers. Because, in the end, Joy could never, ever live in Indian Lake. Her anger was still firecracker hot.\n\n\"I better go.\" The velvet tones of his voice shattered her thoughts.\n\nAs he walked away, Joy was far too aware of his confident gait, how his shoulders squared with the ground as if everything about him was balanced, and no matter what burden life put on him, he could handle it. He'd always been like that. Sturdy. Sure. And sexy enough to keep her attention.\n\n\"Hey.\" He spun back around, killing her thoughts. \"I forgot to tell you. I hired a cleaning service for the showroom. They should be here any minute.\"\n\n\"I thought we were doing the cleaning.\"\n\n\"We'll do the hard stuff...like those tiles in the greenhouses. This area needs to be cleaned in a hurry. You're going to be stocking shelves by the end of the day.\"\n\n\"Anything else I should know?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I asked Maddie if she'd put up one of her display cases and we'd sell some cupcakes here to kick-start things.\" Then he scratched the back of his neck. \"And I ordered a couple coffee makers online. They'll be here this afternoon, along with the coffee, sugar, creamers, sweeteners.\"\n\n\"Guess you thought of it all.\"\n\n\"Uh, not quite.\" Again, he pointed to her back pocket. \"Get on that phone. Without poinsettias, our ship is dead in the water.\"\n\nJoy grabbed her cell and held it up. \"I'm on it.\"\n\n\"Yeah? Show me.\"\n\nShe went to her Recents and hit the number of her grandpa's major supplier. \"Hello!\" She smiled at Adam.\n\nAdam winked at her and left through the French doors to the back.\n\n\"Hi, this is Joy Boston of Boston Greenhouses in Indian Lake. I'd like to place an order. A very large order.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 16",
                "text": "Hustling for poinsettias only days before Thanksgiving wasn't easy. Most suppliers were committed to their regular retailers.\n\nBut Frank Boston's name carried clout. When she told the supplier in Greenback, Tennessee, that Frank had died and she'd returned to Indian Lake to reopen the greenhouses, the man agreed to send a half order of red poinsettias, one full truck of white poinsettias and a half truck of pink. In eight days, they would send another truck of red.\n\nAdam had come in from working on the compressor and saw the dark look on Joy's face. \"What's wrong?\"\n\n\"I need more red poinsettias.\"\n\nHe took off his work gloves. She watched as he Googled a number on his iPhone.\n\n\"Ah! Here it is. Nancy Jessup's Wholesale Nursery.\"\n\nHe punched the number. \"Hello! This is Boston Greenhouses up in Indiana. I'm in desperate need for red poinsettias. What do you have left?\"\n\nHe paused for a moment. \"I understand that you don't deliver to Indiana, but what if I were to take all those off your hands? Great. Then I want to place a second order for the same or similar. When can we come back and pick those up? Eight days. Excellent. My driver will be there tomorrow.\"\n\nHe hung up.\n\nJoy's eyebrow hitched up. \"What driver? I can't leave here and neither can you. You have a heating system to finish. Otherwise the poinsettias will die.\"\n\nHe grinned at her again.\n\nJoy's eyes narrowed. Adam was in his element, flying by the seat of his pants, banking on fate to align all his spinning plates so that Joy could bring a good price for the greenhouses.\n\nAnd return to New York.\n\nAnd Chuck.\n\n\"Hey!\" Adam said when his next call was answered. \"What're you doin', man? I've got a job for you, if you want it. I need you to drive down to Dallas and pick up a load for me and drive it back here to Boston Greenhouses.\"\n\nJoy mouthed, \"Who are you talking to?\"\n\nAdam held up his palm. \"And when you get back, since your regular business is slow this time of year, how about a part-time job helping out at the greenhouses taking care of the poinsettias for us?\" He paused. \"Oh, yeah. I forgot about the lights. Well, just the Dallas trips, then.\"\n\n\"Who is that?\" Joy whispered, narrowing her eyes as Adam ignored her.\n\n\"I'll make the arrangements for the truck. Thanks, man.\"\n\nAdam clicked off. \"You can thank me later.\" He chuckled, apparently enjoying her frustration.\n\n\"Who. Was. It?\"\n\n\"Lester MacDougal, a local landscaper and friend of Sarah's and mine. Obviously, he's slow this time of year and welcomes extra work. And we'll need him. He works in large holiday lighting jobs. Trees, garlands. Stuff like that. He does the courthouse lights. The firefighters do the downtown trees. But he's perfect for us.\"\n\n\"I don't remember him. Did we go to school with him?\"\n\n\"No. Actually, he walked here from Kentucky when he was fifteen. Sarah's mom was still alive then and he literally walked up to Ann-Marie when she was planting bulbs in the boulevard in front of Sarah's house. He told her that he liked diggin' in the dirt. She put him to work, fed him, clothed him, and Maddie rented him his first apartment. Later, Sarah and Maddie helped set him up in business. He got a horticulture degree online. He's good people.\"\n\n\"Why did he leave Kentucky? Didn't he have family?\"\n\n\"Not the kind of family I'd wish on anyone. His father abused him. Regularly. He said the day he fought back, he walked out and kept walking till he met Ann-Marie.\"\n\nJoy put her hand on her heart and felt it throbbing with compassion. \"In so many ways, I was lucky to have my parents and grandpa as long as I did.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said, looking away. \"You were.\"\n\nShe saw the judgment in his eyes. \"Don't say it.\"\n\n\"I wasn't.\"\n\n\"I feel terrible about not coming back. I do. I wish I had spent more time with Grandpa. I just thought...\"\n\n\"He'd always be around. Yeah. I know how that is.\"\n\n\"You do?\"\n\n\"Uh-huh. I thought the same thing, too. I thought I could wish him alive.\"\n\n\"Oh, Adam, it had to be so hard\u2014what you went through, being there when he died. It...it probably brought back memories of Amie's death.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" He slapped his gloves against his palm.\n\nShe saw his blue eyes glisten as he lowered his head.\n\n\"I was with my mother...\" She gulped back a sob. She hadn't talked about her mother's death to anyone in all these years. Yet one more buried painful dragon to unearth. \"The doctors couldn't save my dad. I was holding her hand and looking at the doctor, and I felt her hand go limp.\" She paused and cleared her throat. Joy smelled the pungent hospital smells, heard the monitors beeping, then the monotone flat line. \"I couldn't save her.\"\n\nAdam raised his head. \"I couldn't save Amie, either. I was so...helpless...\"\n\n\"I know... I know...\" She exhaled and felt hot breath escape her lips, heated from her long-held anger.\n\n\"Joy...\" He reached for her hand. \"I tried so hard to be there for you, but you pushed me away. Why?\"\n\n\"Oh, Adam. I...I couldn't take it. I was losing everything. I thought if I pushed you away, I wouldn't have to deal with losing you in the future, too.\"\n\n\"But I loved you.\"\n\n\"And I loved you.\" She reached up and smashed her tears with her palm. \"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.\"\n\n\"Why not? It's the truth, isn't it?\"\n\n\"It is.\"\n\nHe inhaled deeply. \"No, you're right. That was the past. We can't change any aspect of it. Not death or what was between us. This is now.\"\n\nShe forced a smile, watching his barriers rise up. Again.\n\n\"I better get to it if we're going to make this enterprise happen,\" he said slowly, as if it was difficult to speak each word.\n\nBut as he walked off, she saw him sweep his fingers under his eyes. Of course, Adam believed in miracles. He had to, she thought. The alternative was unacceptable.\n\nJoy's heart bubbled with compassion for him and grief for her own loss. What would have happened if she hadn't run away? Would they have stayed together? Would that teen love have endured? This was now, he'd said. She had a purpose being in Indian Lake at the moment and that goal needed tending.\n\nJoy gathered her strength and went back to organizing the front counter. She found clippers, floral tape, wire, pipe cleaners, floral foam, boxes of iridescent marbles and glass stones in the storage room, plus old garland and Christmas picks with frosted pinecones, tiny decorative wrapped presents and silk poinsettias they used to use when wrapping gifts or in the bows around flowerpots.\n\nThough the cleaning crew was due within the hour, she knew how she wanted the counter to look. After wiping it down, she covered it with a long red brocade tablecloth she'd found in her grandpa's linen closet. The end of the counter was covered in white plank wood, which she kept clear for the wrapping of poinsettias.\n\nShe ordered three rolls of printed floral paper and three rolls of iridescent cellophane from the floral supplier, along with other designing supplies she would need to make wreaths, door swags and floral arrangements.\n\nIt was after three o'clock\u2014and another twenty calls to various gift suppliers and showrooms for ornaments, tree skirts, place mats, napkins, Christmas china and cookie jars\u2014when Sarah drove up with four children in her SUV. She held Charlotte's hand while Annie led her brother, Timmy, and Titus inside.\n\nThe cleaning crew had left and the first shipment of lit faux garland had arrived. Between phone calls, Joy had hung the entire perimeter of crown molding with the lit garland and plugged it in.\n\n\"It's already a fairyland, Miss Joy!\" Titus exclaimed.\n\nJoy hugged Sarah. \"Not even one day in and we're moving like a bullet train.\"\n\n\"I thought I'd give Miss Milse a break while she puts dinner together. The kids were excited to see your progress.\"\n\n\"Did Titus tell you?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Beabots told me the happy news.\"\n\nShe watched as the boy touched every empty shelf and investigated behind the counter. \"He's so curious.\" Joy looked at the shiny object in Titus's mitten-covered hand. \"What you got there?\"\n\n\"Ornament. Miss Milse was showing us how to make Santa faces on our glass ornaments with cotton and glitter.\" He took off his mittens, switched the ornament from hand to hand as he put the mittens in his pockets and then held it up. \"Pretty, huh? I'm gonna make a whole tree full!\"\n\nJoy sighed. So many simple things about Christmas she'd pushed out of her mind when she left Indian Lake. When Mom and Dad died. \"I bet you don't know how to make a donkey and a reindeer.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh. Out of clothespins and Popsicle sticks.\"\n\nJoy looked at Sarah. \"They still sell those?\"\n\n\"At the craft store,\" Sarah whispered.\n\n\"I need to remember that,\" Joy said, grabbing her pad and jotting down the reminder. \"Seriously, Sarah, my head is spinning. And my credit card is beat up.\"\n\nSarah leaned in. \"I think it's valiant of you, what you're doing, and I want to help.\"\n\n\"That...that would be great.\"\n\n\"You know I'm a designer now? I could set up the displays for you. Section things out like I do for my retail commercial clients. When people come in the store, they naturally veer right. So, we want to put your most spectacular tree, gifts and florals right by the door. Then we can create a winter walkway for them to follow, taking them past all the decorations and gifts. You'll need baskets for them to put their goods in.\"\n\nJoy snapped her fingers. \"We have those! In the storage room.\"\n\n\"Perfect. Then we take them to the back, where we'll put the food. Jam. Honey. Cookies. And then end up at the checkout counter, where they can eat a fresh baked cookie while they get their poinsettia wrapped.\"\n\n\"What cookies?\" Joy asked.\n\n\"The ones Mrs. Beabots has volunteered to bake for you.\"\n\n\"No way.\" Joy shook her head. \"I...I can't believe this. And you are too busy to do so much.\"\n\n\"My work is nearly nonexistent in December. We just wrapped on the unit north of town. I have some drawings to do, but I don't present the mock-ups and blueprints until January 15, when the client returns from Italy. So, see? I have time on my hands. Miss Milse will watch the kids. It's done.\" Sarah put her hands on Joy's shoulders and smiled broadly. \"Just say yes.\"\n\n\"Sarah...\" Joy pressed her lips together, thinking that would stifle a grateful sob, but she failed. She hugged her friend. \"I forgot\u2014so much. I forgot how wonderful you are and how much you mean to me. I'm so...lucky...\"\n\nSarah sniffed and grinned, fighting her own happy tears. \"And you are so far behind.\"\n\n\"I know. The first poinsettias arrive in forty-eight hours. Half the inventory will be shipped in the morning and a great deal arrives tomorrow afternoon.\"\n\n\"So, I'll be here first thing in the morning to start setting up the trees.\"\n\n\"What trees?\"\n\nSarah laughed. \"Oh, the ones Luke went to cut down at the tree farm for you today. He'll be here in an hour or so.\"\n\nJoy exhaled in amazement. \"You think of everything.\"\n\n\"Everything except the heat you're going to need by tomorrow,\" she said, hugging her arms around her middle.\n\n\"I know. Adam's working on it. I should check on him.\" She turned back to Titus, who was inspecting the bins with frosted pinecones. \"Titus, let's go see your dad.\"\n\n\"All right!\" He jumped up exuberantly. \"I gotta show him my ornament I made.\" He picked up the Santa face and rushed to the back.\n\nSomething made the hairs on the back of Joy's neck prickle. \"Titus. Not so fast!\" She rushed after him.\n\nBut Titus had pushed through the French doors to the back greenhouse. He raced past the wooden tables that would soon be filled with colorful poinsettias and toward the back door.\n\nHe was fast, but so was Joy as she caught up to him. \"I'll get the door,\" she said.\n\nTitus ran out. \"Dad! Dad!\"\n\nAdam was on the opposite side of the trench, filling it in shovel by shovelful of dirt. The long trenches from the compressor building were covered over with the dirt, but up here, close to the greenhouse building, there was still over ten feet left open.\n\nAdam had told her that the key to his geothermal design was to bury the pipes deeper than most systems. She hadn't realized until young Titus rushed up to the very edge, dangling his glass Santa face in front of him for his father to see, just how deep that trench was.\n\nTitus's boot had stopped short of the edge, but the dirt was loose. Joy saw bits of rock crumble under Titus's foot.\n\n\"Titus!\" Adam yelled, as he dropped the shovel.\n\nWithout thinking, Joy bolted up to Titus, threw her arms around his middle and yanked him backward. She fell on her rear and Titus landed on top of her.\n\n\"Titus! Son!\" Adam raced down his side of the trench to the end and up the other side.\n\nIn the process of falling, Titus's bare hand had smashed the glass Santa ornament.\n\n\"Oh, no!\" Titus wailed.\n\n\"Son! Are you hurt?\" Adam asked as he ran up.\n\n\"No.\"\n\nJoy lifted Titus and scrambled to her feet. As she did, she noticed that Titus's hand was bleeding.\n\n\"You're cut,\" Joy said.\n\n\"My ornament,\" Titus cried. \"I made it for you, Dad. Now it's broken.\"\n\nJoy inspected his palm. \"There's still a piece of glass in his hand. Let's get him inside.\"\n\nAdam swooped Titus into his arms. \"I don't care about the ornament. I only care about you.\"\n\nJoy followed them. They went through the greenhouse and up to the front retail area, where Sarah and her kids waited.\n\n\"What happened?\" Sarah asked.\n\n\"Titus fell.\"\n\n\"I broke my ornament,\" he moaned.\n\nSarah went behind the counter, grabbed her purse and took out her makeup tote. \"Put Titus on the stool there, Adam. I have tweezers, Band-Aids...\"\n\nTitus sat on the stool. Timmy, Annie and Charlotte hovered around, wanting to see the wound.\n\n\"You'll be okay, Titus,\" Timmy said and patted his back.\n\nAdam started to reach for the tweezers in Joy's hand.\n\nShe pushed him back and said, \"How many times have you tweezed your eyebrows?\"\n\n\"Huh? None. Why?\"\n\n\"I'm aces at this.\" Joy leaned down, placed the tweezers gently around the delicate glass and eased it out. \"There.\"\n\n\"It didn't hurt.\" Titus looked at her with amazement.\n\n\"Okay, now to clean it up.\" She reached for tissue and a bottle of alcohol she'd placed under the counter and swiped the wound. \"Adam, you apply the Band-Aid.\"\n\nJoy cleaned up the blood and Adam opened the bandage and put it on Titus.\n\n\"Next time you make ornaments, let's buy the shatterproof balls,\" Adam said.\n\n\"I should have thought of that, Adam,\" Sarah said. \"But the kids raided an old box of ornaments I'd put out for the tree Luke is bringing home.\"\n\n\"It's okay,\" Adam said, ruffling Titus's hair. Then he hugged his boy. \"Maybe we should call it a day, huh? Go home and feed Angel?\"\n\n\"Okay, Dad.\" Titus hugged Adam back.\n\nJoy walked with everyone to their cars. She hugged each child and thanked Sarah again.\n\n\"Luke just texted and said he's on his way over. He'll help you put the trees up.\"\n\n\"He doesn't need to do that.\"\n\n\"The farm people put the stands on them. All he does is prop them up and cut the bailing. I'd put some plastic sheeting down if you have it. Then it's easy to haul them out after Christmas.\"\n\n\"I think I saw some in the storage room.\" Joy beamed.\n\n\"See you in the morning.\"\n\nSarah drove away.\n\nAdam waited by the side of his truck. Titus was in his car seat. \"I'll finish up the trenches in the morning. I've tested everything and we should be good to go.\"\n\n\"Thank you so much, Adam.\"\n\n\"Sure.\" He opened the door. Then looked back. \"Listen. I appreciate what you did for Titus. But he's my son. I'm responsible for him. Okay?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Sure. But...\"\n\nHe lowered his voice, she guessed so that Titus couldn't hear him. \"He shouldn't have been anywhere near those trenches. I haven't allowed him out there since I started this project. Next time, if he's in your presence and I don't know about it, keep him close. Don't let him go running off. And trust me, I'm very, very good with tweezers.\"\n\nHe got in the truck, buckled his seat belt and drove away.\n\nThe sun had dropped; the air had turned cold. A wind kicked up and lifted her long hair off her shoulders, chilling her back. She hugged herself as she rushed to the greenhouse.\n\nOnly hours ago, she'd felt the warmth of Adam's friendship. Now there was only this bitter cold."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 17",
                "text": "Adam sat at his laptop staring at his inbox. He hadn't answered email in days because he'd got caught up in Joy's world.\n\nHis world.\n\nThe world of the past, when the greenhouses had been thriving. Life had opened up to Adam when he'd met Joy in speech class. He was having a hard time finding happy subjects to write about. Joy was the best of them all. She was always bright and happy. His childhood was not filled with growing flowers, change of seasons and twinkling Christmas lights like Joy's. When she spoke in speech class, describing life as she saw it, she made him believe that everyone should have a happy ending. Everyone loved her. He loved her from afar.\n\nPursuing Joy was the first leap of faith he'd ever taken. He wanted to learn more about this girl who hummed to herself as she dug in her locker for her other gym sock or smiled at everyone she saw in the halls between classes whether she knew them or not. He wanted to know what it was like to have friends that made her face light up the second she saw them.\n\nHe'd watched her walk out the front doors to the high school that day on her way home, he'd thought. He'd plucked up his courage, rushed up to her, and before he could ask if he could walk with her, she said, \"I see you, Adam Masterson.\"\n\n\"Good. Because I really want to walk you home.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because I want to spend time with you.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because I want to see the world through your eyes.\"\n\nWith her staring at him with eyes so piercing, he'd felt her gaze to the pit of his belly. \"You do?\"\n\n\"Uh-huh.\"\n\n\"Then you should know I'm not going home. I'm going to work.\"\n\n\"Work? You're only sixteen.\"\n\n\"I've been working since I was ten. Eight? Yeah. Eight.\"\n\nShe'd started to walk away. He'd stared after her, shocked really. All the time he'd been admiring her, he assumed she lived like a princess.\n\n\"Adam Masterson, are you gonna just follow me or walk alongside me?\"\n\n\"Alongside.\"\n\n\"Good. I'd like that.\" She smiled.\n\nShe'd taken him to the greenhouses, and that day her father and grandfather hired him on the spot to help clean the glass, sweep floors and restock the tables with new plants.\n\nAdam had been right. The world through Joy's eyes was brighter, more colorful and filled with love and friendships he hadn't known existed.\n\nIt was through Joy he got to know Sarah Jensen and the Barzonnis. Maddie Strong. Olivia Melton. Isabelle Hawks and all her brothers. Liz Crenshaw. The list seemed endless back then. Joy knew everyone. And she loved everyone.\n\n\"And why not?\" He drummed his fingers on the mouse pad. \"She's so full of love\u2014and lovable.\"\n\nUntil the accident, the February before their high school graduation. Adam had always blamed the fog for the fact that Bruce didn't see Dead Man's Tree. After the funeral, all through March and April, Joy kept pulling away from him. Or pushing him away. He'd gone to the greenhouses after school to help get the place ready for spring, always hoping to get a kiss or ten from Joy, but she was too busy. She'd taken over her father's job of keeping the books and ordering supplies. She took over her mother's job of tending the plants. Frank had told him to give Joy space.\n\nBut that hadn't worked.\n\nOn prom night, Adam pushed the envelope and asked her to marry him. Since he didn't have an engagement ring to replace her promise ring, Joy didn't take him seriously. She'd said they were too young. They both had college. Days later when he'd pressed her again, she brusquely told him that she was leaving Indian Lake and she never intended to come back.\n\nHe'd believed she'd change her mind. That she'd miss him once she left. But that didn't happen.\n\nFor years he'd rationalized that they'd drifted apart, but that wasn't true. Her staying away was intentional.\n\n\"But she never said she didn't love me.\"\n\nHe rubbed his forehead.\n\nHe rose from the chair. \"I'm an ass.\" He rubbed his forehead again. \"Maybe I should apologize. I could send her flowers. Duh. Jeez, Adam. Be original, wouldya?\"\n\nHe knew he shouldn't have pounced on her the way he did, but he'd always had a problem with being reactionary, especially when it came to Titus. He acted first. Thought last. He needed to switch that around.\n\nBut when he'd seen Titus on the edge of the deep trench, he panicked. Adam had been on the wrong side of the long trench and couldn't get to him as quickly as Joy did.\n\nThe glass in Titus's hand had scared him. He saw blood and imagined visits to the ER. Stitches. Tears. Antibiotics.\n\nAdam was terrified of any kind of injury to his little boy. He meant it when he told Joy he wanted her to keep Titus close. Maybe it was Adam's fault for not fully explaining to Joy, who had no children, how accident-prone Titus was. Plus the fact that Titus had double dosed on curiosity from the day of his birth. He was forever investigating. It was as if Titus wanted to discover the entire world in the next ten seconds. The kid never walked into a room; he rushed. He flung his arms around Adam; he didn't hug. He kissed a dozen kisses, not one.\n\nAdam didn't want to diminish any of Titus's traits. In many ways, Titus reminded him of Joy. Or at least the girl he'd known in high school.\n\nThat was the thing. She'd changed. Grown up and taken on responsibilities of her career and life in New York. And yes, she was grieving over losing Frank.\n\nBut it was something else.\n\nHe'd had to push her to see the possibilities in front of her. To see that the greenhouses could flourish again. The old Joy would have been the one urging him to try new things. Find a different way to make his inventions work. To test them against other inventors. To go for the prizes and awards.\n\nIt was as if that girl had died along with her parents. Life had dealt them both a rotten hand. They'd lost the ones they loved the most.\n\nFrank wasn't coming back. Amie wasn't coming back. He and Joy had figured out how to cope. Maybe their mechanisms for dealing with pain weren't all perfect, but they'd worked.\n\nAdam thought he understood her better now that she was home. But he was surprised by his reaction to her now.\n\nOne minute he remembered what it was like to be in love with her. The next, he was unsure and his defenses hardened to granite because he'd taught himself to keep his distance from others. Though he had friends, that wasn't the same as a romantic relationship.\n\n\"Except that...\"\n\nJoy was engaged, and from what Adam had observed so far, she didn't seem as in love with this Chuck guy as she had when she'd been Adam's girl.\n\nMaybe that was because they were kids. Teenage love was nothing but romance and moonlight and had little to do with the hard lessons in life.\n\n\"And death,\" he whispered, thinking of Amie.\n\nHad he been right to encourage Joy to stay in Indian Lake and reopen? Or had his motivations been purely selfish? Admittedly, he wanted to show Joy that Indian Lake could be a safe harbor for her.\n\nAbove all, he wanted to prove to Joy that Indian Lake was separate from the pain and sorrow she felt. Her real friends were anxious to help her in many ways. If he could show Joy how so many people cared about her, wanted the best for her, perhaps she would finally be able to quell her burning anger.\n\nThat anger was directing her actions and life choices.\n\n\"Choices...\" Adam had to admit it was a gamble doing what they were doing, but Adam believed in Indian Lake. Once people knew the greenhouses were open, he believed they would swarm to the reopening.\n\n\"Oh, jeez,\" he said, pulling the chair out and sitting down again. He'd started a new website for Boston Greenhouses last night. He would take photos once the place was decorated, but for now, all he needed was a \"coming soon\" banner and a lot of stock photos of poinsettias.\n\nHe made a note to order Candy Cane and deep burgundy poinsettias. Tomorrow he'd take the graphics he made and have flyers made up at Image Printers in town. Lou's Diner always allowed flyers. So did Olivia at the deli and Scott Abbott at Book Shop and Java Stop. It was good to have helpful friends.\n\nThen he emailed Mary-Catherine Cook, Titus's teacher at Saint Mark's, who also worked on the weekly church bulletin. She'd put the banner in the bulletin and he'd make a donation to the church.\n\nAdam didn't have Joy's permission to advertise, but they needed to work fast. This was not the time to stand on protocol.\n\nHe could only hope that Joy would appreciate his effort and possibly forgive him for snapping at her earlier.\n\nHe turned off the laptop, flicked off the lamp, swiped his fingers across Amie's photo the way he did every night. \"Thanks for our son, Amie. I'll take good care of him.\"\n\nHe rose from the chair and started up the stairs.\n\nWith each step he wondered if other widowers felt like he did. Each night was emptier than the last. Some days it was hard to greet the morning sun. Others passed by in numb awareness. With the holidays approaching, life decisions seemed weightier.\n\nSecond chances, do-overs, were one of those things Adam thought were only for fairy tales.\n\nWas there magic in Christmas? Or in the promise of the New Year?\n\nHe looked in on Titus, who was sleeping soundly with a Star Wars stormtrooper figure clutched in his hand. Adam didn't disturb him. Maybe the stormtrooper helped Titus to feel protected.\n\nAs he entered his bedroom, he thought he'd been luckier than most guys. Though his time with Amie had been brief, they'd been happy and they'd both been giddy over their baby. Adam couldn't imagine his life without Titus.\n\nIf he hadn't broken up with Joy all those years ago, he would never have married Amie or had Titus.\n\nPerhaps his love for Amie was giving him courage to open his heart...one more time."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 18",
                "text": "It was the day before Thanksgiving and Joy hit a level of anxiety she'd never experienced. She'd been up before dawn and cleaned the last of the old tile floors and the wooden poinsettia tables, and had started unboxing her first shipments. Whenever she'd felt apprehension, she'd learned to throw herself into work, either mental or physical. Unfortunately, neither was working for her today.\n\n\"I gotta be nuts to do all this.\"\n\nShe second-guessed every decision she'd made, starting with the massive poinsettia orders when she didn't know if Adam's heating system would actually work.\n\nHe'd said he'd tested it. She was still working with only space heaters in the retail area. The geothermal system was designed to heat the greenhouses. Not the front sections.\n\nShe wanted to believe Adam. Believe in him again like she once had.\n\n\"And now he's mad at me because I saved his son.\"\n\nThat wasn't actually the case. She'd interfered and Adam had shown his possessive side. Again. Not being a parent, she didn't have anything to compare to Adam's emotions and choice of actions. She had to believe that if she was Titus's mother, she would want him to explore the world. She wouldn't want to stifle his natural curiosity.\n\nBut she was not Titus's parent or even a guardian. Not even the babysitter like Miss Milse.\n\nAdam probably wasn't all that much out of line when he'd chastised her.\n\nA cold chill swept across the room as the front door opened. \"Hey, girlfriend!\"\n\nJoy looked up, almost pleased it wasn't Adam. \"Sarah.\" She rose from the floor. \"I didn't expect you so early.\"\n\n\"Are you kidding? I've already been to the wholesale craft store,\" she said, walking in with arms loaded with massive plastic bags.\n\n\"What is all this?\"\n\n\"Snow. Well, polyurethane faux snow. I also have wood slatted and knotted walkways I've used at home shows and convention booths. We'll put the walkways down, make a path and then mound the snow around them. I found some old candy-cane poles that my mom used once at the church for a Christmas bazaar.\"\n\n\"You are amazing!\"\n\nSarah beamed. \"My head is spinning with all kinds of ideas. And once your stock arrives, we'll have a blast putting this together.\" She thrust the light but voluminous bags at Joy. \"Here. You take these. I'll go to the car and get the walkways and candy canes.\"\n\nJoy put the bags aside. \"I'll come with you.\"\n\nAs Joy and Sarah unloaded the car, Adam drove up in his truck. He parked the truck, got out and helped carry the decorations inside.\n\nHe smiled warmly at Joy as he held the door for her and Sarah. He followed them in with a box filled with Christmas lights.\n\n\"You two have your work cut out for you,\" he said.\n\nJoy put the bundles of wood slatted walkways down. She was surprised at his mood. Maybe he wasn't mad at her any longer. She liked him better when they joked around or bounced creative ideas off each other. Helpmates.\n\n\"You have the biggest task,\" Joy said, tilting her head to the rear of the store. \"I need heat.\"\n\nFrom outside they heard a rumble of a semitruck. Joy's eyes swung to the front window. \"Oh, my gosh! The first shipment of poinsettias is here!\"\n\nAdam didn't waste a second as he bolted toward the rear of the showroom. \"I'm on it.\"\n\nJoy watched as he jogged up to the breaker box he'd installed at the back of the smaller greenhouse. Through the door's glass she saw him smile at her. He threw the breaker.\n\nShe heard a hum. Then a thrum. She saw Adam thrust his arms in the air in victory. He rushed back to the showroom.\n\n\"It's on!\"\n\nSarah clapped her hands to her mouth. \"This is so exciting!\"\n\nJoy turned to Sarah. \"I have to help unload those flowers. Do you mind getting this started?\"\n\n\"I have the whole thing in my head.\" She tapped her temple. \"Go!\"\n\nJoy and Adam rushed out the front door. Joy signed for the shipment. Adam directed the driver to the first greenhouse as Joy opened the door.\n\nBut it was when the driver parked the truck, opened the truck's back door and exposed the sea of poinsettias he was delivering that she felt chills of glee.\n\nAdam stood beside her staring at the flowers. \"Incredible.\"\n\nThe driver began handing flats to Adam and then to Joy. They filled roller carts and then wheeled them into the greenhouse.\n\nWith each cartload, Joy saw the greenhouse come to life. Table after table was filled. One all red. One pink. And two tables of white poinsettias.\n\nAfter the driver left, Joy turned to Adam. \"It's only two-thirds full and it's a dream come true already,\" she gushed. \"I don't know how to thank you for\u2014\"\n\n\"Acting like an idiot. I'm sorry. I was outta line yesterday.\"\n\nShe stared at eyes filled with apology and sincerity. \"It's okay.\"\n\n\"No, it's not,\" he said, stepping closer. \"It's just that I\u2014\"\n\n\"Was scared?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I saw Titus on that edge and I panicked. I should be thanking you, not jumping all over you.\"\n\nShe put her hand on his forearm. Like she'd done so many times in the past. And like she wanted to do now. Touching him felt so natural. She didn't know what he thought of that, but oddly, she needed to touch him. Feel his warmth beneath her fingertips.\n\nFor a long moment, he said nothing, but she'd seen that look in his blue eyes before, as if he was diving into her. That look that caused her to think of nothing in the world, not her career, her future, just this moment with the two of them.\n\n\"Joy...\"\n\nHis lips brushed hers and she was stunned. She couldn't have stopped her arms going around his neck if she'd tried. She remembered every embrace they'd ever shared, the longing she'd felt after missing him during the day at school. The years melted away. She didn't think. She only felt as his lips pressed hesitantly against hers. Then captured her lips with an eagerness she'd never expected. He pulled her close.\n\nShe was losing all perspective. All logic, but she would be a fool to end this.\n\nIt was Adam who withdrew. \"I think it's warming up in here quite nicely.\"\n\nShe opened her eyes to his gentle smile. That smile that had pried her heart open once before and was accomplishing the job again. \"It is.\"\n\n\"I think the flowers will flourish.\"\n\nShe let go as he released her. \"That's due to the genius who invented a new heating system for this old place.\"\n\n\"Oh? That what you call me?\" He chuckled.\n\nSarah rushed into the room. \"Guys! Come look. There's, like, four delivery trucks out here and I don't know where it all goes!\" she said excitedly as she raced back to the showroom.\n\nJoy felt light-headed and not quite ready to slip back to reality. \"I guess we better get back to work.\"\n\nHe tapped the end of her nose. \"Guess we'd better.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 19",
                "text": "Sarah continued creating a winter fantasy with the display shelves, the walkways, faux snow and lights under the polyurethane batting as Joy unboxed product.\n\nWhen the second shipment of poinsettias arrived, it was enough to fill the remainder of the first greenhouse and all of the second. Joy was beginning to feel their efforts would bear fruit.\n\n\"All this is fantastic,\" Adam said, as Joy put a lit angel on the top of one of the Christmas trees.\n\nJoy stood back and looked at the area. Sarah's design of \"walking\" the customers through a winter wonderland of live Christmas trees decorated with the ornaments she'd purchased from a wholesaler, glittering faux snow, lit garlands and shelves of cinnamon-and pine-scented candles, hand soap and diffusers, tree decorations, linens, cards, and on to the wall shelves filled with area honey, jams, coffee cakes, cookies and breads was enchanting. \"It's a thousand times prettier than anything I've seen in New York.\"\n\n\"You're kidding,\" Sarah gasped. \"I figured you'd think it hokey.\"\n\n\"No way. This is what it should be. And then they go out to the greenhouses. This really is Christmas.\"\n\nAdam stuck a hammer in his tool belt. \"I still have wreaths to hang outside,\" he said. \"We have to double down on our advertising efforts. If we don't get the word out, we're sunk.\"\n\nSarah looked from Adam to Joy. She mouthed \"We're?\" to Joy. She smiled. \"I agree.\"\n\n\"Good,\" he said and reached in his back pocket. He pulled out a folded flyer. \"So, what do you think of this?\" He opened up the flyer. Joy and Sarah looked down at the colorful photo of the old Boston Greenhouses at Christmas when Frank was alive.\n\n\"That's how it looked when we were kids.\" Joy smiled.\n\n\"Our senior year. Yeah,\" he said. \"Do you like it?\"\n\n\"I do,\" Sarah replied. \"'Grand Reopening for a Limited Time.' And these silver bells on the corners.\"\n\n\"I like it, too,\" Joy said, looking up at him.\n\nAdam pocketed it. \"Good, because I'm off to pick up five hundred of them to distribute around town. I also got an email from Mary-Catherine Cook at Saint Mark's that this ad will post in the Sunday bulletin,\" he said proudly.\n\n\"You must have been pretty sure I'd like it.\" Joy grinned.\n\nHis eyes fell on her face and she could feel the blush to her toes. \"I was and I am.\"\n\nSarah looked from Joy to Adam, taking in their pensive gaze. \"Okay. Well.\" She clapped her hands together. \"My work is done here. I have to check on the kids. Get to the grocery.\"\n\nJolted out of her thoughts, Joy said, \"Sure. Sure. I should get us some lunch,\" she said to Adam.\n\n\"Sounds good to me,\" he said.\n\nSarah picked up the empty bags, duct tape and scissors she'd brought. \"I'll call you.\" She pointed at Joy. \"Bye, Adam.\"\n\n\"Bye,\" he said.\n\nAs the door closed behind Sarah, Joy thought she heard a meow. \"What was that?\" Then another meow.\n\n\"Oh.\" Adam smiled. \"That's Pye.\"\n\n\"Pie?\"\n\nAdam walked to the corner behind the counter. \"Frank's cat.\"\n\n\"Grandpa had a cat?\"\n\n\"She's feral, but there's been a recent development.\"\n\nJoy went around the counter and saw a makeshift bed of blankets for a caramel Manx cat who had three kittens suckling her. \"Oh, my gosh! Three little kittens!\" Joy immediately sat down and picked up one of the newborn kittens, who instantly licked her face.\n\n\"Just like the nursery rhyme,\" Adam said.\n\n\"They're darling. How long have they been here?\"\n\n\"She's been out in the potting shed with the space heaters. But once I got the heat going in here, I thought I should bring her in. That's where I was a minute ago.\"\n\nJoy petted the cat. \"How are you, Pie? What a funny name for a cat.\"\n\nAdam harrumphed. \"I can't believe you're saying that. You forgot your favorite Christmas movie? Bell, Book and Candle?\"\n\n\"Jimmy Stewart. And the cat's name was Pyewacket.\"\n\n\"Right.\" Adam picked up a kitten. \"So, why don't you go down to the deli and get us some sandwiches. And pick up a can of cat food for Pye?\"\n\n\"Done.\" She smiled. \"This is so lovely,\" she said, looking down at Pye.\n\n\"You don't have a pet in New York?\"\n\n\"No. The building doesn't allow them.\"\n\n\"Oh. Too bad.\"\n\n\"You?\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Her name's Angel. Golden retriever. She's about to have pups. Christmas Eve, the vet says.\"\n\nJoy dropped her jaw. \"That's wonderful!\"\n\n\"Titus thinks so. He's boning up on midwifery.\" He laughed and continued petting the kitten. \"So, you and Chuck? Gonna have kids?\"\n\n\"It hasn't come up.\"\n\n\"Really?\" He put the kitten down. \"I should think that would be a first things first.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well.\" She glanced around uncomfortably. \"I better head out. I'm famished.\"\n\n\"Uh, yeah. Me, too.\" He scratched the back of his neck. \"So, I'll get those flyers and meet you back here in half an hour. I want to hang those wreaths up. And the lights around the windows.\"\n\n\"Uh, sure.\" She walked away and grabbed her coat off the counter. She took her keys out of her purse. \"Back soon,\" she said, hurrying out the door.\n\nShe hadn't realized how superficial her relationship with Chuck was. And it had taken only a few days in Indian Lake to see it."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 20",
                "text": "Joy tapped her finger on the counter as she waited for Chuck to pick up on the other end.\n\n\"Joy? That you? Are you at O'Hare?\"\n\n\"No. That's why I'm calling. Chuck...\" She drew in a breath. \"I'm not going to be back for a while. Possibly not till Christmas Day.\"\n\n\"That's a month from now! Are you crazy? Missing Thanksgiving was bad enough. I'm dyin' here.\"\n\n\"Chuck, you can handle a lot more than you think.\"\n\n\"It's better when you're here.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry.\"\n\nThere was a long pause on his end before he said, \"What's going on? Really?\"\n\n\"I should have told you earlier this idea to reopen the greenhouse was percolating. Now it's a juggernaut. I made my decision yesterday. I have nearly a month of vacation days accrued, so I'm due the time off. Glory can help you. And Nathan Withers is not a problem.\"\n\n\"Forget Nathan. And everything else. You sound\u2014different. Does any of this have to do with that engineer guy you told me about?\"\n\n\"Adam?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Not really.\" Skimming over the truth had more bite than she'd expected.\n\nThe second and even longer pause on Chuck's end told Joy more about herself than she'd faced since the day she first saw Adam. He had a great deal to do with her decision. She was feeling something, but her emotions were raveled with grief, anger and regret.\n\nShe was a mess.\n\n\"Joy, I have to ask. Are you having second thoughts about us?\"\n\nJoy paused, caught off guard by his question, but she owed him the truth. \"I'm not sure.\"\n\n\"Really? I didn't expect that.\"\n\n\"I need time here to figure some things out. It's been difficult for me with Grandpa's death. The greenhouses... Please try to understand.\"\n\nSilence.\n\n\"Chuck?\"\n\n\"I don't like any of this. I'll give you time. However, I'm not the patient kind, which you know all too well.\"\n\n\"I do. And thank you.\" She started to ask him to come to Indian Lake to help her, but realized that besides the fact that he would refuse, it being year-end in the accounting business, she didn't want him in Indian Lake. Chuck was right. She was having second thoughts.\n\n\"Chuck, my life has become a jumble of emotions and I'm rethinking a lot. I've discovered I have a lot of friends here I'd forgotten.\"\n\n\"And they're more important than we are?\"\n\n\"No. I don't know. But I need to figure it out. Please understand.\"\n\n\"I'm trying, Joy,\" he said. \"Until you figure this out, maybe we should consider our engagement on hold.\"\n\n\"Maybe we should.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" he said, and the line went dead."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 21",
                "text": "Joy stood in line at the Indian Lake Deli. Every table in the place was filled.\n\n\"Hi, Joy.\" Olivia smiled. \"What can I get you?\"\n\n\"Turkey with guacamole for me. Reuben for Adam, and do you have a can of tuna for Pye?\"\n\nOlivia paused as she rang up the total. \"Adam? Pye? What's going on?\"\n\n\"Adam is helping me reopen the greenhouse. Pye is my grandfather's cat, I've just discovered.\"\n\n\"Seriously, we need some girl time. But as you can see, we're swamped, and you're obviously very busy.\"\n\nOlivia handed Joy her change and Joy went to stand off to the side till her order was ready.\n\n\"Joy!\" Mrs. Beabots shouted across the room and waved her over. She was sitting with Liz and Maddie. Joy walked over and hugged everyone.\n\n\"I thought you'd be back in New York by now,\" Liz said.\n\n\"Joy is reopening the greenhouses!\" Mrs. Beabots said triumphantly.\n\n\"Really?\" Liz and Maddie said in unison.\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"We need to spread the word. Advertise like crazy.\" Maddie beamed.\n\nMrs. Beabots smiled broadly. \"This is so exciting. Tell us your plans.\"\n\n\"I wish I had time, but Adam and I are under the gun.\"\n\nLiz looked at Maddie. \"Adam?\" They both scrutinized Joy.\n\n\"Uh-huh. He's full of ideas.\"\n\n\"I'll bet he is.\" Mrs. Beabots winked. \"Now, listen, Joy. I understand you both have a lot of work to do, but you have to eat. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Come to my house. Be my guests.\"\n\n\"Great idea,\" Liz said. \"You can work afterward.\"\n\n\"I won't take 'no' for an answer,\" Mrs. Beabots cajoled.\n\n\"I can't speak for Adam, but I'd love it. That's sweet of you.\"\n\n\"And tell Adam no excuses. He has nowhere else to go.\"\n\n\"He doesn't?\" Joy was surprised.\n\n\"Why, no, dear. Frank was his only family these past years.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"I'm sure Frank's passing has been nearly as hard on him as it's been for you.\"\n\n\"It has. It...has...\"\n\n\"Joy! Pickup!\" Olivia shouted across the deli.\n\nJoy raised her hand. \"I gotta go. See you tomorrow and thanks for the invitation.\"\n\nJoy thanked Olivia and waved to her friends as she rushed out the door."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 22",
                "text": "Joy hurried into the greenhouse, noticing that Adam's truck was back.\n\n\"Adam! I'm back! I have lunch,\" she shouted, not seeing him in the retail area. She took off her coat.\n\nAdam walked through the French doors. \"And I have another surprise for you,\" he said. He was carrying a large moss-filled basket.\n\n\"More kittens?\"\n\n\"Better.\" He put the basket on the counter.\n\nJoy looked in the basket and saw a salmon-and-yellow-striped hybrid poinsettia that her grandpa had been cultivating.\n\n\"Grandpa's poinsettia!\"\n\n\"Know what I think? We should take it to the growers and see if they can produce them.\"\n\n\"But that would mean...\"\n\n\"Yeah. A trip to talk to them. Follow-up calls. Possibly a future for...\"\n\nJoy didn't know where Adam's head was at. She was puzzled. \"You know I'm going back to New York after I sell the greenhouses.\"\n\nHe didn't miss a beat. \"It would mean a lot to Frank. This was his legacy. Well, the flowers and you. So, c'mon. What should we call it?\"\n\n\"You mean...give it a name?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"It's timeless, isn't it? Almost magical.\"\n\n\"Eternal. Like Frank...\"\n\n\"Frankincense!\" She blurted the word naturally.\n\n\"That's it!\"\n\nAdam took the basket to the round display table in the middle of the room. Joy walked over to admire it with him. He put his arm around her shoulders.\n\n\"Frank's proud of you.\"\n\n\"You think?\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\nAdam was looking at her with that suffused gleam in his eyes that caused her knees to weaken along with her resolve. She turned away from him and pointed at the counter.\n\n\"We should decorate the counter. Maybe put the prettiest flower next to the register.\"\n\n\"I agree,\" he said, grabbing her around the waist playfully and hoisting her onto the counter. \"Yep. The prettiest.\"\n\nAs she looked at him, he had that dreamy look he got whenever he wanted to kiss her. \"Adam, you need to know that my engagement is on hold.\"\n\n\"On hold? What does that mean?\"\n\n\"That I'm confused. I spoke to Chuck earlier. We're giving each other space. Well, the truth is... I can't be engaged to him when I still\u2014do have feelings for you.\"\n\n\"I see...\" Adam reached up, cupped his hand around her neck and gently pulled her closer. Joy's cell phone rang.\n\n\"Leave it,\" he said, skimming her lips with his.\n\nThe cell rang again. \"It might be...\" she started.\n\n\"New York.\" He released her. \"Him. Apparently, his space didn't last long.\"\n\nJoy looked at the caller ID and sighed with relief. When of course she shouldn't have felt there was need for relief. \"It's Glory.\"\n\n\"Ah! Your roommate.\"\n\nJoy slipped off the counter as Adam backed away, picked up empty cardboard product boxes and took them out back.\n\n\"Glory. How's everything?\"\n\n\"Not spectacular,\" Glory groaned. \"Chuck just told me you're not coming back till Christmas, which of course I knew, but I didn't let on.\"\n\n\"True. So, tell me, how's he taking it?\"\n\n\"The usual when you're not around. Unhinged.\"\n\n\"Poor Chuck,\" Joy commiserated. \"But there's more to it than that. Our engagement is on hold.\"\n\n\"Girl\u2014\" Glory sighed \"\u2014what is going on?\"\n\n\"Just about everything in my life is in turmoil. I feel like I'm bouncing on air and yet grounded for the first time in a long time. But I'm not sure if the feeling will last.\"\n\n\"That is a bomb,\" Glory gushed.\n\n\"I know,\" Joy said, looking up as Adam came through the doors with one of the kittens.\n\n\"Joy,\" he said. \"Give us a pet.\" He held up the kitten to Joy's smiling face.\n\n\"Who, may I ask, is that?\"\n\n\"My new best friend.\" Joy petted the kitten, and Adam took their closeness as an excuse to kiss her ear.\n\n\"Sounds like it. No wonder you're not coming back,\" Glory grumbled.\n\n\"Glory, my intention is to come back. I'll figure it all out, but for now, I have to do this.\"\n\n\"Gotcha,\" Glory said. \"Call me later. After your new friend leaves.\"\n\n\"I will.\" Joy hung up and continued petting the kitten. Adam touched the kitten, and when he did, their fingers met. He encircled her fingers with his.\n\n\"Nice,\" he said in a low voice.\n\nShe couldn't take her eyes from him if she tried. He'd suggested they take Frank's hybrid to a producer. And if that producer could re-create Frank's discovery, they truly would create an everlasting legacy for Frank. It would be a miracle that would erase the fact that her grandpa had died a failure.\n\nJoy didn't want that.\n\nShe wanted everyone in Indian Lake to remember Frank not only with fondness, but reverence. She wanted the Boston name to mean something. This was her inheritance.\n\nShe felt it was not only her duty, but her privilege to dust off their dreams\u2014as impossible as the task would seem to someone like Chuck.\n\n\"I'll get a poinsettia for the counter,\" Adam said. \"The biggest and the best.\"\n\n\"And I know just who'll buy it,\" Joy replied.\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Beabots,\" she answered.\n\n\"Not Katia McCreary? Gina Barzonni? Liz? Maddie? You've been away too long.\"\n\nThis time when she looked at him, she didn't feel guilty. She didn't feel sad. She felt rejuvenated and hopeful. \"That I have.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 23",
                "text": "\"Are you sure we have time for this today?\" Joy asked Adam as he drove them out of town. \"I mean, there's still so much to do to get the rest of the quilts up on the rack. The stockings aren't hung. And the order for the cut flowers\u2014\"\n\n\"Didn't come in yet and won't until Friday morning. I took a call a bit ago.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" she said, looking down at Frank's hybrid in the moss basket.\n\n\"You're nervous,\" he said, glancing at her in bewilderment.\n\n\"Yeah.\" She inhaled deeply.\n\n\"But you were always the courageous one. Couldn't wait to tackle the world. New York, no less.\"\n\n\"You know the real reason I left. The accident.\"\n\n\"I do. But you have to admit, not everyone takes off to tackle New York City.\"\n\n\"I guess I did seem fearless back then.\"\n\n\"You still are. I'd go nuts living in a city that never sleeps. I need peace and calm. And no rush hour.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Don't have that in Indian Lake at all.\" She forced a smile, but it faded quickly. Looking at the apricot-striped poinsettia, Frank's last contribution to the world, should have filled her with excitement. Even hope. But it didn't. It was another chance for her to fail.\n\nAs if reading her thoughts, Adam said, \"Look. The worst that happens is they say no.\"\n\nHer heart thudded in her chest, the weight of her guilt too much for it. \"That's just it! I don't want to disappoint Grandpa,\" she said, feeling a rush of emotions. She held up her palm. \"And don't say it. I know. I already did.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"Every year I didn't come back.\"\n\n\"I was wrong, okay? Being so rough on you. I see now you had a lot going on.\"\n\n\"Not that much.\" She turned her face toward the window so that Adam couldn't see her tears.\n\nThey pulled up to All Seasons Organic Growers Farm. Adam parked the truck. The place was busy, with workers loading poinsettias onto trucks. She saw wooden trays with Norwegian pine trees, flats of white carnations, white lilies, white roses, and boxes of spruce and pine for garland making.\n\nJoy's heart leaped at the traditional Christmas florals. How she'd loved working with her mother filling baskets and vases with Christmas flowers and pines.\n\nThere's so much to remember. So much I've forgotten.\n\nA middle-aged woman with flaming red hair came up to them. She was wearing a dress, sheepskin denim jacket and cowboy boots. \"Joy Boston? Is that you?\"\n\n\"Daryl! How wonderful to see you!\" She hugged her old friend.\n\n\"When Adam called me and told me about Frank, I couldn't believe it. I'm sorry we missed the wake.\" Daryl's green eyes, suffused with sincerity, began to well.\n\n\"It's okay.\" Joy put her arm around her. \"I believe he feels your thoughts even now.\"\n\n\"Thank you for saying that.\" Daryl dabbed her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. She sniffled and said, \"Adam says you have a surprise for me.\" Daryl looked over Joy's shoulder as Adam withdrew the moss basket from the truck.\n\nAs Adam joined them, Joy said to Daryl, \"This is the Frankincense Poinsettia. Grandpa's...\"\n\n\"Gift to the world,\" Adam finished proudly, holding it up.\n\nJoy caught Adam's anticipation. This was one of the moments in life that should be savored. She'd never asked anyone for a favor for her grandpa. Frank had been capable and self-reliant. And he worked with nature's most glorious productions\u2014flowers. Today she knew better. Frank was just a man, doing what he loved for those that he loved.\n\nThere was not a better life to have lived.\n\nMore than ever, she wanted this poinsettia, this Frankincense, to live on. \"What do you think, Daryl? Do you think you can grow it?\"\n\n\"It's fantastic. Such an unusual tangerine color. And this yellow. It's got more depth than most salmon poinsettias I've seen.\"\n\nAdam reached inside his jacket for a notebook. \"These are all of Frank's notes and research that I could find. I believe it's detailed enough to create new plants. I know they'll help.\"\n\n\"Tell you what,\" Daryl said. \"I'll read these notes over and then call you. I don't want to promise something I may not be able to deliver.\"\n\n\"That's wise,\" Adam said.\n\n\"I couldn't ask for more,\" Joy said. \"It would mean so much if this works out.\"\n\n\"I know, honey. And I'll do my utmost to make it happen.\" Daryl held up the flower and turned it in her hands. \"There's something quite magical about it. Tropical, summer and autumn mixed, and yet people will buy it at Christmas. This tangerine blends well with reds and pink and warms up an arrangement rather than clashing with traditional Christmas colors.\" She beamed at Joy and Adam. \"I'll see if I can make it work.\"\n\nCareful not to damage the poinsettia, Joy hugged Daryl. \"Thank you so much.\"\n\n\"He was a special man, Joy. Loved by so many.\"\n\n\"He was, wasn't he?\" Joy replied, as Adam took her hand and squeezed it.\n\nJoy squeezed his hand back. Such a small gesture of support.\n\nSupport.\n\nWhen was the last time she'd felt any kind of support from a man?\n\n\"We gotta go, Joy. Get back to work,\" Adam said.\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\nBack outside, Joy observed all the activity around her. She watched as a worker closed the roll-down door on a truck filled with dark burgundy poinsettias, corals and yellows. Another florist van had been stuffed with paper whites, amaryllis, tulips and chrysanthemums. A woman with an armload of seeded eucalyptus, blue spruce, cedar sprigs with their blue-green berries and mounds of vibrant green holly walked over to a florist's van.\n\nA young man, his arms sticking straight out, walked with green pine wreaths stacked from his wrists to his shoulders and whistled a happy tune as he carried the wreaths over to yet another van.\n\nThe bustling scene with its colors and fragrances and sounds brought back flashes of her childhood and teen years with her parents and grandpa. Only this time, her tears were happy ones. She'd led a fortunate life up until her parents' deaths. But they had loved and nurtured her. There had been happy days. Days of shared interests. Her mother guiding her, teaching her about flowers. Trees. New hybrids. Living things making happiness for so many. She had so much to be thankful for.\n\nAs Adam backed the truck up, honked the horn and they waved to Daryl, Joy's smile spread across her face.\n\nWhat was wrong with a life like this that brought smiles and uplifted spirits to others?\n\nNothing.\n\nAbsolutely nothing."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 24",
                "text": "Thanksgiving morning, Joy woke early, dressed in jeans and one of her grandpa's old sweatshirts that still smelled of his spicy, woodsy cologne.\n\nJoy clipped her long blond hair up and whisked on a bit of blush, eye shadow and lip gloss before shoving her feet into her work boots and dashing out the kitchen door.\n\nThe predawn hour was dark, and as Joy turned on the greenhouse lights, she gasped at the garlands, wreaths, trees and twinkling white lights under the polyurethane \"snow.\"\n\n\"It's positively enchanting!\"\n\nShe stood still for a long moment, tilted her head and realized it was just as warm in here as it was at her grandpa's house. \"Toasty warm.\" She smiled as she went to the counter.\n\nTomorrow they would be open for business. Sarah, Maddie and Liz had all volunteered to help with sales and stocking shelves when they could, but they'd all be cooking and baking for Thanksgiving dinner today.\n\nJoy had promised Mrs. Beabots she'd bring her special candied yams, which she'd prepared the night before and would put in the oven around noon before going to Mrs. Beabots's house at two o'clock.\n\nThe old greenhouses' phone number had been reconnected. She'd opened a commercial bank account and picked up change for the float. The counter area was just about ready.\n\nShe'd set up an old shelving unit behind the counter and stocked it with ribbons, gift cards, bolts of snowflake-embossed cellophane, scissors, glue guns, glue sticks, copy paper, toner, pens and pencils. The old register still worked for cash, and Joy had set up a point-of-sale app on her tablet, along with a dongle that would take credit card sales. She'd still write up each sale on a carbon receipt pad just like she'd done all those years ago.\n\nMaddie had brought over a countertop bakery display case that she'd filled with gourmet cupcakes. Next to it was a second glass case with three shelves for cookies that Mrs. Beabots baked for Joy to give free to visiting children.\n\n\"And some moms and dads, too.\" Joy smiled.\n\nShe'd found an unopened box of receipt pads, letterhead and envelopes, invoices and business cards that Frank must have had printed prior to closing. It was all she needed to look professional.\n\n\"Thanks, Grandpa,\" she said, putting the business cards in the stocking-shaped card holder he used to use. Her fingers traced the red-and-white-striped colors of the stocking.\n\n\"These insignificant reminders...\" She touched her heart, feeling as if it swelled in her chest. With each box of candles, soap or ornaments she opened, she felt her grandpa's presence.\n\nShe wiped away a tear. Then the pads of her fingers slid to her lips as she remembered Adam's kiss.\n\nThat kiss was real and from the present, not only bringing back the past but making her rethink every decision she'd made. Like moving away.\n\nShe hadn't left town. She'd raced out of town.\n\nSecretly, she'd packed her suitcases months before high school graduation and put them under her bed. Fortunately, she was going to be a freshman at Columbia and had signed up for early orientation and induction. She wanted to join a sorority in part to leave Indian Lake sooner.\n\nGrandpa had put her on the Amtrak to New York and even now she remembered how tight his hug was. They hadn't shared deep sorrows or emotions since Bruce's and Jill's deaths, but Joy believed her grandpa had known she was running away.\n\nShe'd told herself the past was the past. She was running toward her future.\n\n\"But now...\"\n\nNow she remembered Adam's kiss and the way she felt his heartbeat through his chest. She felt a rush of caring that gave her chills.\n\n\"This is insane.\" She checked herself, hoping to shake off the goose bumps and erase the kiss. But it had happened.\n\nHis kisses now were filled with even more passion. At first, she'd thought his kiss was reactionary. Perhaps he was recalling the past and wanting to see if he could go back there. Maybe his kiss was an exploratory expedition\u2014conducted like research. What she knew was that Adam's kisses past and present had the ability to keep her spellbound.\n\nShe swiped her face with her palms. \"I can't let myself get pulled back here. Back to Adam.\" She'd told him she and Chuck were on hold. She was more than confused; she was conflicted. She'd worked diligently to build a career and life in New York. And she loved her life there.\n\nAdam was a study in contrasts. One day he was romantic and close and the next his barriers were back up and he kept his son and himself walled up. He was waiting for her to bolt again.\n\nAnd she knew she could easily choose to go back to New York.\n\nThe fact was that since she'd left, she'd considered Indian Lake to be a town of enemies. People who didn't care for her or her family. Those opinions were twisted through her own guilts. Unraveling the past in the present was giving her an entirely new perspective.\n\nShe walked over to the grove of trees she and Sarah had decorated with the theme-oriented ornaments she'd bought from the supplier at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. She reached out and touched a limb of the flocked white tree, decorated with white owls, reindeer, straw raccoons, squirrels, rabbits and white birds. White iridescent snowflakes and white glass pinecones sparkled against the crystal tree lights.\n\nThe next tree was lit with pink lights, pink angels, fairies, Victorian dolls, silk carousel horses from India and enormous pink glass balls.\n\nThe gold tree glittered with gold crosses, gold brocaded angels, pairs of golden angel wings, gold braided beads and twisted glass icicles.\n\nThe next tree was lit with blue lights, blue silk and white lace-edged hearts, blue birds, natural pinecones, crystal snowflakes and icicles and streams of silver-backed blue velvet ribbon. A blue star beamed from the top of the tree.\n\nJoy's favorite was the red-and-green lit tree filled with red-and-white-striped candy canes, round peppermint candy ornaments, red and green glass balls, and red and green whimsical elves who danced, wore chef's hats, stood on little ladders or romped on sleds.\n\nAround the base of each tree, Joy had placed a double ring of poinsettias. Pink flowers for the pink tree. Reds dusted with gold glitter for the gold tree, red and green flowers for \"elf\" tree, white for the woodland tree, white with blue glitter for the blue tree.\n\n\"Sarah designed these. She helped me order all these ornaments.\" She glanced back at the counter to the cupcakes and cookies. \"And Maddie and Mrs. Beabots.\"\n\nAt the end of the room was a small wine cooler filled with wines that Liz and Gabe had brought. Next to that was a display case with gift certificates for the Book Shop and Java Stop, all donated by Isabelle and Scott Abbott to give as raffle gifts each week to a lucky patron. Olivia had followed suit and donated a dozen gift cards to the deli for Joy to use at her discretion.\n\nGranted, each owner benefited from the advertisement, but the gift cards were purely from the heart.\n\n\"My friends.\"\n\nThey were the people who had been her friends years ago. They had hugged her during and after the days of her parents' deaths. She, Sarah and Maddie had gone to the movies together. Had sleepovers at Sarah's house. They'd all spend lots of hours on Mrs. Beabots's front porch, helped her in the gardens or kitchen.\n\n\"I forgot how close we'd all been.\"\n\nAs she looked around at what her friends had done for her, she realized that she'd been the one to leave them. For too long she'd lumped her real friends into the twisted emotional ball she'd invented. She'd wanted to leave Indian Lake because she couldn't face her grief. She'd discarded love and friendship and told herself she wanted a new adventure. A new life. A fresh start.\n\nShe was young, she'd thought. She had her life ahead of her and she was going to make something of herself. She wouldn't be stuck in a small town with a small life. She wanted to see the world.\n\nAnd she did.\n\nThe pulse of Manhattan had been beating in her veins for a decade and she hummed to it. She was accomplished. Even Glory said it. She was an integral cog at Newly and Associates. Chuck depended on her a great deal.\n\nPerhaps their time apart was good for them both. Chuck should learn not to lean on her so much.\n\nAnd she\u2014\n\nNeeded to sort out her feelings for Adam. Indian Lake. And Chuck. If she really loved Chuck, she'd discover the truth now.\n\nThis decision to reopen the greenhouses had been hers, and from his perspective, it was a gamble. A shot in the dark.\n\nShe had to ask herself why she was taking it. Yes, she wanted to make her grandpa proud of her. She wanted his name and that of the Boston Greenhouses to last and be remembered. Whether the new buyer would see her vision, feel Frank's passion for this business, was yet to be seen.\n\nAs for Joy, the nagging voice inside told her that she was doing this for personal reasons. She felt regretful for leaving good friends all those years ago.\n\nOf all the people she'd left behind, Joy realized the one she'd hurt the most was... \"Adam.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 25",
                "text": "Fat snowflakes drifted as Joy held the warm dish of candied yams smothered in marshmallows and pecan topping with oven mitts at Mrs. Beabots's front door, expecting to be greeted by her hostess.\n\n\"Hi!\" Titus said, reaching for her arm. \"I couldn't wait till you got here.\"\n\nTaken aback, she stared at him. \"Is that right?\"\n\n\"Yeah! Dad said now the party can start!\" He beamed. \"Hurry in. It's cold out there.\"\n\nJoy walked inside as Titus quickly closed the door. \"Dad said I have to be careful with this door. It's really old.\"\n\n\"You're not careful with all doors?\" she asked, following him down the hallway to the kitchen.\n\n\"Not really. I have a tendency to slam doors. Probably because I'm short.\"\n\nJoy was glad Titus was in front of her and didn't see her smile at his response. She didn't think of Titus as short. She thought of him as a full-grown adult intellect stuck in a kid's body.\n\n\"Here she is!\" Titus announced, as if he was the MC at a wrestling match. He even thrust his arm out toward her as she moved into the kitchen.\n\n\"Hi,\" she said, looking at Mrs. Beabots, who lifted a chef's knife and, in one smack, chopped off the stalk of a huge broccoli crown.\n\n\"Hello, dear,\" Mrs. Beabots said and waved the knife at Adam, who was sipping something from a massive mug and who eyed Joy over the rim. \"Adam, take her coat, please.\"\n\n\"Sure.\" He placed the mug on the granite counter. He wore black jeans, black cowboy boots, a blue shirt under his navy cable-knit sweater, the sleeves of which were shoved up to his elbows, revealing his muscular forearms.\n\nArms that reminded her of the hard labor it had taken for him to install the geothermal heating system for Frank's greenhouses.\n\nHis blue eyes flashed and she got the distinct impression he was thinking about their kiss in the greenhouse, as well.\n\nJoy cleared her throat and asked, \"Where should I put this?\"\n\n\"Right there is fine,\" Mrs. Beabots replied. \"Do we need to put it in the oven?\"\n\n\"Maybe on low. Two fifty?\" Joy placed the casserole on the counter as Titus scrambled up on the stool near her.\n\n\"What is it?\" Titus asked, trying to lift the aluminum foil.\n\n\"Candied yams.\"\n\nTitus grimaced and made a contorted face. \"Yams?\"\n\nAdam chuckled as he stood behind Joy, taking his time holding her coat, leaning his cheek close to hers and whispering in her ear, \"Don't take offense. He's never had yams.\"\n\nJoy couldn't help the shiver that scampered down her spine as she inhaled Adam's woodsy soap scent. She opened her mouth but she couldn't put two thoughts together in her brain. The only thing in her mind was how tender his lips had felt against hers.\n\nHe moved away and she felt an odd sense of loss.\n\nTitus was still investigating the yams. \"Looks like marshmallows to me.\"\n\n\"It is,\" Joy said, thankful for the opportunity to wrest her attention from Adam. \"Pecans, brown sugar and my secret ingredient.\"\n\n\"Secret?\" Titus's eyes looked enormous behind his glasses.\n\n\"Uh-huh. Brandy.\" She grinned.\n\n\"Brandy?\" Adam asked. \"Is that what your mom used?\"\n\n\"Yup.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots smiled as she poured a bag of cranberries into a saucepan, adding water and sugar. \"I gave Jill that recipe.\"\n\n\"You did?\" Joy and Adam chorused.\n\n\"Will I get drunk?\" Titus giggled.\n\n\"No, the alcohol bakes off,\" Joy said, walking past Adam to take an apron from the hook by the back door. She noticed he didn't move out of the way, so that she'd brush his arm as she passed. She took the apron and put it on. \"Now, what can I do?\"\n\n\"The turkey is huge!\" Titus exclaimed. \"Dad had to put it in the oven.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots smiled at Titus. \"I always make sure I have a man around to do the heavy turkey lifting.\"\n\n\"Is that right?\" Adam asked, picking up his mug again. \"So, since this is our first Thanksgiving here, who's been the man of the house till today?\"\n\n\"Luke usually. Before that, Austin McCreary. His father died when you kids were in school. Remember?\"\n\nJoy paused. \"I'd forgotten. Poor Austin.\"\n\nTitus whirled around on the stool and pushed his glasses to the bridge of his nose. \"Mr. Austin's not poor. He's very rich.\"\n\n\"How do you know that?\" Adam asked.\n\n\"Timmy. He tells me everything.\" Titus reached for a wooden spoon.\n\nAdam grabbed the wooden spoon and put it back on the counter. \"Leave cooking utensils alone.\"\n\n\"But you let me help at home.\"\n\n\"This isn't our house,\" Adam warned.\n\nMrs. Beabots handed Joy a stick of butter. \"Melt this in the microwave, would you, dear? Pyrex dishes are over there.\" She pointed to an end cabinet, then turned back to Titus. \"I always appreciate help in the kitchen, Titus. Why don't you take those silver saltshakers out to the table for me?\"\n\n\"Sure, I can.\" Titus scrambled down, the stool tilting ever so slightly as he did.\n\n\"Be careful,\" Adam said, thrusting his hand out to hold the stool.\n\n\"I'm fine, Dad.\" Titus whisked the shakers off the counter and marched into the dining room. They heard the pocket doors slide open.\n\nMrs. Beabots's eyes shot to Adam. \"I forgot I had the doors closed.\"\n\nAdam started for the kitchen door and rushed to the hall.\n\nFrom the hallway they heard, \"Wow! This is awesome!\"\n\nJoy lowered her voice and asked, \"What's wrong with the doors being closed?\"\n\n\"Sometimes they stick and Titus got his fingers pinched in them a couple years ago. That kid can scream, I'll tell you.\" She laughed.\n\n\"But all kids get scrapes and bruises from time to time. It's part of growing up.\"\n\n\"Not like Adam's kid.\" Mrs. Beabots shook her head.\n\n\"But he's so...smart. So amazing. I'd kill for a child like Titus.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots's clear blue eyes scanned Joy's face. \"You would, huh?\"\n\nTitus raced into the kitchen with Adam directly behind him. \"What else can I do?\"\n\n\"Butter sticks for the table. Joy, use those butter plates I put out there. Then, Adam, when you come back, you can mash the potatoes for me. Joy, the butter, cream and sour cream are in the fridge.\"\n\n\"Got it,\" Joy replied, taking an antique wooden-handled masher out of a blue-and-white china urn on the counter filled with spoons, spatulas and whisks. She held it out to Adam.\n\n\"Hand mashed? No electric mixer?\"\n\n\"Aw, c'mon, Adam,\" Joy joked. \"Put those muscles of yours to work.\"\n\nHe looked at Mrs. Beabots. \"I suppose this was another of Luke's jobs.\"\n\n\"You got it.\"\n\n\"So, what's he doing today? Seems he's getting off easy,\" Adam said, as Joy stood next to him adding butter and cream to the boiled potatoes.\n\n\"He and Sarah were up till midnight making pies for the party later today.\"\n\nAdam stopped midmash.\n\nJoy let the dollop of sour cream drop from the spoon.\n\n\"What party?\" they asked in unison.\n\nMrs. Beabots's eyes were curiously merry. \"Didn't I tell you? The dinner is the warm-up. Sarah, Luke and the kids will be here in about fifteen minutes for our dinner, of course. But the real celebration is tonight for my annual Thanksgiving dessert party.\"\n\n\"Who's coming?\" Joy asked.\n\n\"Why, Joy. All your friends.\"\n\nJoy froze. Friends. If she was in New York that would be Glory\u2014and Chuck, of course. There was Glory's \"tribe\" she hung with, but Joy didn't think of them as the kind of friends who would drop their work and life to come help her put up Christmas trees in a greenhouse. Or bake cookies or cupcakes for her store. Or give her free gift certificates for customers. Or a stocked wine refrigerator. \"How many would that be?\"\n\n\"Goodness,\" Mrs. Beabots said, checking the broccoli in the steamer. \"I hadn't stopped to count. The crowd gets bigger every year. New marriages. New babies.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Titus said, reaching for a crescent roll in the bread basket on the counter. \"Even Jules is flying in from Paris.\"\n\n\"Jules?\"\n\n\"Mica Barzonni's son,\" Adam said, shaking his head at Titus, who was about to take a bite of roll. \"Not till dinner, Titus.\"\n\n\"Mica is married? To whom?\" Joy asked.\n\n\"Grace Railton,\" Mrs. Beabots said, handing Adam a pair of oven mitts. \"Let's check the turkey. Take the aluminum foil off and baste it for me, would you?\"\n\n\"Happy to.\"\n\n\"Do you remember Louise Railton, Joy? She owns The Louise House. Her niece, Grace, used to visit in the summers from Chicago and helped Louise at the ice cream shop. Best pumpkin ice cream in town, by the way.\"\n\n\"The pretty blonde girl who won Miss Teen Illinois or something? I remember she went to the Barzonni pool parties they used to have back then.\"\n\n\"That's right. Anyway, she married Mica and they live in Paris now. He's an engineer. She's a fashion designer.\" Mrs. Beabots winked. \"I may have had a bit to do with her getting a job in Paris.\"\n\n\"You did?\" Joy and Adam chorused.\n\nTitus grinned. \"I bet you can do just about anything, huh, Mrs. Beabots.\"\n\n\"Just about, Titus.\"\n\nThe tinny doorbell rang.\n\n\"I'll get it!\" Titus scrambled off the stool, just as Adam placed the turkey on top of the stove.\n\n\"Slow down, Titus.\"\n\n\"It's Timmy and Annie!\" Titus shouted from the foyer. \"Hi, guys!\"\n\nJoy looked at Adam. \"He's a ball of fire, isn't he? Does he ever slow down?\"\n\n\"No. Not even when he sleeps.\" He lifted the aluminum foil off the turkey as she handed him the baster. \"When he was younger he sleepwalked. I've gotta keep the doors locked from the inside so he can't get out.\"\n\n\"That's wise,\" she said, taking a whiff of the turkey, stuffed with apples, oranges and onions. \"This smells so good.\"\n\n\"Hungry?\" he asked, putting the turkey back in the oven.\n\n\"Almost as much as Titus.\" She laughed.\n\nSarah and Luke walked into the kitchen. Mrs. Beabots hugged both her guests and then went to the hall to hug the children.\n\nLuke pointed at Adam taking off the oven mitts. \"Sarah, I've been replaced!\"\n\n\"I'll let you carve,\" Adam replied with a smile, walking around the island and to shake Luke's hand.\n\nJoy hugged Sarah. \"I can't thank you enough for all you did to bring the showroom to life. It's beyond beautiful.\"\n\nShe turned to Luke. \"And thank you for getting those trees for us. That walkway feels like a real winter wonderland. Live trees made the difference.\"\n\nAdam picked up a corkscrew and opened a bottle of white wine. \"That was really thoughtful, man.\"\n\n\"You're welcome. I didn't live here back when you all were in high school, but I've been in Indian Lake long enough to remember going to the greenhouses the day after Thanksgiving when the kids were very young. We couldn't afford much back then, but every year we got an ornament for Annie and Timmy to put on our tree. Jenny always said her best ideas came from the Boston Greenhouses.\"\n\nJoy watched as Luke's sad eyes went to Sarah. She'd told Joy that Luke had been a widower when he met Sarah. He'd been filled with grief and loneliness back then. Thanksgiving and Christmas brought back all kinds of memories for people. The happy ones, and the sad ones, too. She watched as Sarah mouthed \"I love you\" to Luke. He mouthed the same back to her.\n\nJoy glanced at Adam, whose blue eyes were focused on her.\n\nHow many times in the past had he mouthed the same thing to her? How many times had she reciprocated? It was the most natural thing in the world to her.\n\n\"Glass of wine, Luke?\" Adam broke the moment.\n\n\"Sure. I'll get the glasses.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots hustled the children into the kitchen, holding little Charlotte by the hand. \"The children said they're starving.\"\n\n\"Me, too,\" Luke said.\n\n\"Okay.\" Joy went to the stove. \"I'll get the broccoli. Sarah, you take the rolls. Luke is in charge of the turkey, and, Adam, you have more mashing to do before these are creamy enough to serve.\"\n\n\"And who made you the general around here?\" Adam asked.\n\n\"I did.\" She smiled. \"It's time that Mrs. Beabots sit at the table, have some wine and rest. We need to take over.\"\n\n\"I'll second that!\" Adam said, taking up the masher.\n\n\"Joy, you are a blessing,\" Mrs. Beabots said. \"Come on, children.\"\n\n\"I made the turkey place cards,\" Timmy said proudly.\n\nAnnie smoothed the skirt of her new bronze taffeta dress. \"And I helped Mom make the centerpiece. It has carnations and chrysanthemums and pheasant feathers.\"\n\nJoy put the cranberries in a footed Haviland china dish and poured the gravy into a silver gravy boat.\n\nJoy helped Adam put the mashed potatoes in a covered dish with white-and-gold edges. They carried the dishes to the table.\n\nAdam lit the candles as they all took their places. Luke poured wine.\n\nThey held hands and bent their heads as Mrs. Beabots said a Thanksgiving prayer. \"Life is about friends and family and the love we share. Bless you all for being with me today to give thanks for everything we have, especially each other.\"\n\n\"Amen!\" Titus shouted.\n\nCharlotte clapped her hands and Timmy raised his water glass.\n\n\"Dad,\" Annie said, \"can we have a toast?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Luke replied. \"Good health and success to you, Joy, with your grand reopening. We're all here to help in any way we can.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" Joy replied, as they all clinked crystal glasses and sipped. \"You've done so much already.\"\n\nAdam stood next to Luke as they both worked to carve the huge turkey. Adam passed the plates. \"There's a long way to go. Don't stand on ceremony to ask your friends for help.\"\n\nJoy worried her bottom lip. \"I know I shouldn't, but frankly, I don't know what to expect.\"\n\n\"In what way?\" Adam asked as he piled mashed potatoes on Titus's plate.\n\nJoy noticed her place card positioned her between Adam and Titus\u2014as if she was part of the family. She wondered if that was one of Mrs. Beabots's subtle \"matchmaking\" efforts. Smiling to herself, she said, \"I know I have the radio ads starting this morning. And I took out a half-page ad in the newspaper, but that's not enough.\"\n\n\"I've distributed those flyers all over town,\" Adam said. \"They'll bring in a lot of people.\"\n\n\"Adam,\" Joy said, cutting Titus's white meat reflexively as if she'd been doing it all her life. She put cranberries on his plate, and as the rolls were passed, she gave him one. \"You have hundreds left. I bet you didn't put out more than thirty.\"\n\n\"Thirty-six,\" Titus finished and shoved a roll in his mouth.\n\n\"You're right,\" Adam said, sitting down and putting his napkin in his lap. \"We have to do something...dramatic. Get everyone's attention.\"\n\n\"And just how do you propose to do that? The grand reopening is tomorrow morning,\" Joy moaned.\n\nTitus finished chomping on his roll, put the rest on his plate, wiped his hands on his napkin and said, \"That's easy. We go house to house.\"\n\n\"Like politicians?\" Adam joked.\n\n\"No.\" Titus looked at Annie. She winked back.\n\nTimmy nodded at Titus, giving him the go-ahead signal.\n\n\"Dad,\" Titus began. \"Me and Timmy and Annie\u2014\"\n\n\"Me, too,\" Charlotte interrupted, raising her spoon over her head and dropping potatoes onto the table in the process. \"Oops.\"\n\nSarah leaned over and scooped them up and put them back on Charlotte's plate. \"Okay, what's going on here? All four of you\u2014out with it,\" she demanded.\n\nTitus put his hands on the table. \"We've been wanting to have a caroling party. You know, singing from house to house.\"\n\n\"I know what that is,\" Adam replied, his eyes sliding to Joy.\n\nJoy caught the excitement in the children's faces. The little stinkers had been talking and planning this for some time, she could tell. Sarah had told her that Annie would use any excuse to sing. School plays, church choir. Solos at church weddings. She'd burst into song walking home from school. And she was very, very good. \"And you want to do this...\"\n\n\"How about tonight?\" Titus burst out. \"It's perfect, Dad. Thanksgiving night starts the Christmas season. We can go to all the houses up and down Maple Boulevard. We sing and give the owners a flyer for the greenhouses.\"\n\nAdam pursed his lips. \"It's not a bad idea.\"\n\nJoy felt like a child herself, as she caught their enthusiasm. \"Why didn't I think of this?\"\n\nTitus shrugged his shoulders. \"I dunno.\"\n\nAnnie smiled at Titus. \"It was Titus's idea. He thought of it 'cause you and Mr. Adam were talking about advertising.\"\n\n\"Actually, Dad,\" Titus said. \"Isn't this the personal touch you talked about?\"\n\n\"When did I say that?\"\n\n\"Uh, maybe I saw it on the web.\"\n\n\"You were on my computer?\"\n\nTitus slid down in his chair. \"Maybe.\"\n\nJoy laughed. \"Oh, don't be mad at him, Adam. He wanted to help and took initiative. You all just said I should ask for help from my friends. Well, I am. This caroling party is just what I need.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Adam said, sipping his wine. \"Indian Lake is like no other place I've been or know about. The people here are a real community. They help each other like it's a life mission. You say all our friends will be here tonight, Mrs. Beabots?\"\n\n\"Yes. All the Barzonni clan, wives and kids. Austin and Katia. Cate, Trent and Danny. Jack and Sophie Carter. Rand and Beatrice Nelson from the youth camp and their two boys will be here.\" She tapped her cheek with her manicured finger. \"Oh, and I've invited all of Rand's family. All the Hawks family. Isabelle and Scott will bring Bella and Michael, and you do know that Violet is engaged to the famous Formula One race car driver Josh Stevens.\"\n\n\"Former racer,\" Adam corrected. \"He's retired now, but he does a lot of commercials.\"\n\n\"Commercials?\" Joy tilted her head a bit. It wouldn't be right to ask a stranger, and a famous one at that, to help her advertise the greenhouses. Would it?\n\nMrs. Beabots continued, \"Connie Hawks's sons are so handsome and accomplished. I saw her at Jack Carter's insurance agency the other day and she said Dylan was moving back to Indian Lake from Chicago.\"\n\n\"No kidding?\" Sarah asked, as she buttered a roll for Charlotte. \"Isabelle said he liked the city.\"\n\nJoy peered at Mrs. Beabots. \"So, this is how you stay on top of all the local, er, doings? You have gargantuan parties and then work the crowd?\"\n\nMrs. Beabots lowered her eyes coyly. \"It's worked for fifty years. They all bring desserts and Gabe brought two cases of wine. I have plenty of cocoa for the kids. And this house is so huge, we spill from the library to the front parlor to this dining room and the kitchen.\"\n\nJoy noticed there were tears in Mrs. Beabots's eyes. In all her life, she'd never seen the woman cry. But tonight was different. It was Thanksgiving and the house was filled with love.\n\n\"Thank you all,\" Joy replied, as chills of humility and the warmth of kindness enveloped her. \"I didn't expect to enjoy Thanksgiving this much without my grandpa. But this...has been lovely. I don't know what to say...\"\n\nAdam reached over, took her hand, squeezed it under the table and said, \"You already did.\"\n\nThen he leaned over and kissed her cheek.\n\nJoy blushed so hot she knew her face was crimson. Her eyes tracked across the table to Sarah, whose smile grew wider.\n\n\"Happy Thanksgiving, Joy,\" Sarah said as she lifted her wineglass. Luke leaned over and kissed Sarah's cheek.\n\nJoy turned, and facing Adam, she said, \"That was lovely.\"\n\n\"I thought so, too.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 26",
                "text": "Mrs. Beabots was right, Joy thought as she helped to welcome the stream of guests to the enormous Victorian house on Thanksgiving evening. The fact that the snow had not abated didn't stop a single guest. This gathering was a tradition for Mrs. Beabots, and her friends didn't disappoint.\n\nJoy and Adam had cleaned up the dinner dishes, Sarah had put away the leftover food, and the kids had taken the linens to the laundry room and then scrambled to the library to practice Christmas carols. Luke brought in wood and stoked the fires in the library and front parlor.\n\nJoy had planned to return to the greenhouses and put out more inventory, but there was no way she was going to miss this party or Titus's advertising campaign.\n\nMaddie and Nate Barzonni were the first guests to arrive. Maddie brought three boxes of red-and-green-frosted cupcakes. They were followed by Gina Barzonni Crenshaw and Sam Crenshaw. Gina brought a tray of Italian cannoli. Olivia and Rafe Barzonni were next and arrived with Grace and Mica Barzonni and their toddler son, Jules, newly arrived from Paris.\n\n\"I'm so happy to see you, Grace. I don't know if you remember me...\" Joy said, but a radiant smile filled Grace's face, and she pulled Joy into a hug.\n\n\"Of course I do, and Maddie and Olivia told me about your grandfather's passing. I'm so very sorry for your loss. I remember him from my summers here.\" Grace leaned forward. \"He loved peppermint ice cream. I had to make it special for him in the summer.\"\n\n\"He did!\" Joy exclaimed. \"I can't believe you remember that.\"\n\n\"He was special, Joy. You were fortunate to have him as your grandfather.\"\n\nMica shook Joy's hand. \"We were all sorry to hear about Frank, Joy. Mother called us in Paris when she heard the news.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mica,\" Joy said, as she released his hand. It was then she remembered that Mica had suffered an injury on the farm and had lost the use of his left arm. However, he was an engineer and worked in Paris now. \"How long are you and Grace going to be in town?\"\n\n\"Until the New Year,\" he said.\n\n\"Adam Masterson is here and I thought, well, you being engineers...\"\n\n\"We go way back,\" Mica said. \"But truthfully, Joy, I design farm equipment for disabled folks like me. Adam, well, he's out of my league.\"\n\n\"He is?\" Joy looked at Mica askance. She was about to continue when three-year-old Jules interrupted.\n\n\"Mama.\" Jules tugged on Grace's arm.\n\nGrace hoisted him up. \"Joy, this is our son, Jules.\"\n\nJules thrust his hand at Joy. \"Bonsoir.\"\n\n\"English,\" Grace said.\n\nJules grinned. \"Happy Thanksgiving!\"\n\n\"What a gentleman you are, Jules. And so handsomely dressed.\" He wore a navy-blue wool coat, white shirt, red-and-white-striped bow tie and navy slacks.\n\n\"Merci. Mama made it. She makes clothes.\"\n\n\"I heard that.\" Joy smiled.\n\n\"So,\" Mica said, \"Adam is here?\"\n\n\"In the kitchen, I think. And, Jules, the children are in the library practicing Christmas carols.\" She looked at Grace. \"We're planning a caroling party after dessert. If you're up for a walk down Maple Boulevard in the cold.\"\n\n\"Bien!\" Jules scrambled down out of Grace's arms and took off toward the library.\n\nJoy watched him leave. \"He knows his way around.\"\n\n\"Uh, yeah. He does have a way of making himself at home wherever he goes.\" Mica chuckled.\n\nThe doorbell rang.\n\n\"Please excuse me,\" Joy said as she moved away. \"I'll see you in a bit.\"\n\nWhen Joy opened the door, there were over a dozen people on the steps. Isabelle Hawks threw her arms around Joy. \"You're here! I thought I'd have to storm the greenhouses to find you! Sarah said you're working night and day!\"\n\n\"Pretty close.\" She stood aside as Isabelle introduced her to all her family.\n\nViolet Hawks and Josh Stevens. Isabelle's brothers: Dylan, Christopher and Ross. And her mother, Connie.\n\nFollowing the Hawks family group was Beatrice and Rand Nelson and their adopted sons, Eli and Chris.\n\nRand explained that his family was following in the next car.\n\nBy the time all the guests had arrived, Joy felt like a politician at a rally, she'd shaken so many hands with old acquaintances and new faces, as well. They all knew who she was and they all congratulated her on her decision to reopen the greenhouses.\n\nSarah, Liz, Maddie, Olivia and Cate had taken over the task of arranging the desserts on the dining room table. When Joy saw the dazzling display of pies, cakes, cookies, cupcakes and Gina's cannoli, she couldn't help taking a photo and texting it to Glory, who had a penchant for sweets.\n\nGabe Barzonni had distributed glasses of champagne and his new ice wine. Mrs. Beabots rang a crystal bell calling everyone to the table.\n\nAdam appeared from the kitchen, stood next to Mrs. Beabots and said, \"After dessert, the children are going for a caroling party. Joy and I invite you all to come with us!\"\n\nTitus shouldered his way through the throng of adults and stood next to his father. \"We're going to help Boston Greenhouses, too.\"\n\nJoy smiled at Titus and looked at Adam. In that moment, she was struck with a romantic sense of belonging. They weren't a couple, but the shift inside her was undeniable.\n\n\"That's right, Titus,\" Joy said from the other side of the table. \"I hope you don't mind, but Adam has made up some flyers and we'd like to distribute them to our neighbors.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots held Joy's hand. \"Frank would be very happy right now, Joy.\"\n\nGabe raised his glass. \"To Frank Boston.\"\n\nJoy watched as every eye in the room fell upon her, and she could see their memories of her grandfather etched in their expressions. The greenhouses weren't just a nursery or a retail establishment. They were that part of the past that settled into their hearts because her grandpa had appreciated and loved them. She felt her heart warm as it opened to their affection."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 27",
                "text": "Adam walked alongside Joy as they made their way down Maple Boulevard. Because there were so many guests, they broke up into two groups, each taking a side of the street. Austin McCreary and his wife, Katia, spearheaded the group on the opposite side of the boulevard while he, Joy, Mica and Grace took their group.\n\nThe night was still, the traffic noises muffled by the white blanket of snow. The clouds had moved on, revealing an indigo sky studded with stars and lit by a full silver moon. It was the kind of night sky that brought back memories of Joy and the winter holidays they'd shared.\n\n\"Adam,\" Joy said with a smile. \"I remember doing this with my parents. The night was just like this. You were with us.\"\n\n\"I was,\" he said. \"We went to the nursing home and your dad gave them poinsettias he'd brought in the car. They were very appreciative.\"\n\n\"That was a good night.\"\n\n\"Yeah, it was.\" He would have slipped his arm around her shoulders, but Titus, Timmy, Annie and Danny dashed past them and raced up to the next door. Titus rang the bell, looked back at Adam proudly and held up a flyer.\n\nA woman dressed in a sweatshirt, jeans and slippers came to the door. \"What's all this?\" she asked.\n\n\"Happy Thanksgiving! Merry Christmas!\" Titus said.\n\nThen Annie burst into \"We Wish You a Merry Christmas.\"\n\nDanny stood next to Annie singing at the top of his lungs, but he was no match for Annie. Titus sang along with them, but he was most intent on handing the flyer to the lady of the house.\n\nWhen the children finished the song, the woman held the flyer high and looked over their heads to Adam and Joy. \"Is this for real? Boston Greenhouses are reopening?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" Joy exclaimed.\n\n\"You can count on me to be there. I'll call my daughter. Thanks!\"\n\nThe kids scurried down the steps, Titus leading the way to the next house.\n\n\"Titus...\" Adam started in his warning voice, until Joy took his gloved hand and squeezed it.\n\n\"He's okay.\"\n\n\"But it's icy.\"\n\nShe smiled widely. \"It's snowy, Adam. And he's having the time of his life.\"\n\nAdam exhaled. \"He is, isn't he?\"\n\n\"Uh-huh,\" she replied.\n\nGrace, who was walking behind Adam and Joy, carrying Jules, said, \"I know just how you feel, Adam. I'm paranoid about Jules all the time.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't say I was paranoid,\" Adam protested, looking over his shoulder at Grace. Then his eyes went to Mica, who was stifling a laugh. \"Okay. Maybe a little.\"\n\n\"Hey, Adam,\" Mica said. \"Mind if I bend your ear?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\nMica put his hand on the small of Grace's back. \"Let Joy hold Jules for a bit while I talk to Adam.\"\n\nJoy reached out for Jules. \"Better yet,\" she said, \"let's go sing with the kids at the next house.\"\n\n\"Bien! Bien!\" Jules clapped his hands. \"Le chanson 'Noel'? Oui?\"\n\nGrace touched his cheek. \"English, Jules. We're in America.\"\n\n\"I can sing 'The First Noel' en anglais et fran\u00e7ais.\"\n\nGrace rolled her eyes. \"I give up.\"\n\n\"C'mon,\" Joy said, as they went up to the next house and Titus rang the bell, ever ready with another flyer.\n\n\"What's up?\" Adam asked, as they stood at the base of the house's newly shoveled sidewalk.\n\n\"I wanted to thank you again for putting me in touch with your patent attorney.\"\n\n\"Vince is the best, isn't he?\"\n\n\"He sure is. I thought I had things well in hand, but he found two more operating systems I'd invented and had incorporated into my designs for so long, I'd forgotten that no one else knew of them, because they were mine. Vince ran the searches and then applied for the patents.\"\n\n\"So, you're covered.\"\n\n\"I am, thanks to you.\"\n\n\"And Vince.\" Adam smiled.\n\n\"Yeah.\" Mica exhaled a huge visible breath of air. \"So, what are you up to these days? Last we talked, you were working on an antigravity drape. I mean, wow. Propulsion methods. Zero gravity...\"\n\n\"Microgravity, actually. There're some physicists out in Altoona\u2014self-funded, mostly\u2014that I've been having conversations with. Actually, I've been approached by Hal Slade, who runs a think tank out there. He wants to fund one of my projects.\"\n\n\"That's fantastic, man. Knowing you, they're picking your brain more than you're picking theirs.\"\n\nAdam faced Mica. \"Look. Right now, everyone in this town thinks all I've done is some geothermal work. I've got an experiment going on at Frank's old greenhouses.\"\n\n\"Experiment?\"\n\n\"I'm testing a new heating system. If I can prove this thing works, it could revolutionize energy usage in colder regions around the Great Lakes.\"\n\n\"You've gone a long way past your engineering degree. Unifying electromagnetic energy with gravity force? Working with these think-tank corporations keeps you busy, I bet.\"\n\n\"Very. I love it.\"\n\n\"What's not to love. Fascinating stuff.\"\n\n\"Yeah? Why don't you jump on board?\" Adam asked.\n\n\"I'm not as smart as you.\"\n\n\"Yes, you are. Just maybe not as curious as I am.\"\n\nMica looked over at Titus. \"He's like you, you know. Inquisitive. Never satisfied with a single answer. Always searching.\"\n\nAdam followed Mica's gaze to his son. He looked at Jules in Joy's arms. \"Because there's always a better way. There is so much we don't know. And I want to know it all. If I had my way, there'd be free energy for every living soul. Limitless drinking water. No one would go cold.\"\n\nAdam turned back to Mica. \"Is it wrong to want the impossible?\"\n\nMica touched his paralyzed arm. \"No. I never give up...on anything.\" He looked back at Grace, who had just turned to blow him a kiss. \"I'd be miserable if I'd given up.\"\n\n\"I'm not going to stop, but I don't want anyone to know about my work. Not after my first projects were stolen before I could get them patented.\"\n\n\"Yeah, intellectual property theft is rampant. Trust is tough all around these days. So, that rule of yours\u2014does that include Joy?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. Why do you ask?\"\n\n\"I dunno. Could be you look at her the way I look at Grace.\"\n\n\"I don't do that. Joy is engaged to a wealthy guy in New York. She's going back in a couple weeks.\"\n\n\"What? But she's reopening the greenhouses,\" Mica countered.\n\n\"I talked her into it. As is, they're nearly worthless. If she presents a profitable business...she gets a better price.\"\n\n\"I see.\" He rubbed his chin. \"And you're doing this to...\"\n\n\"To help out an old friend.\"\n\nMica snorted. \"Ha!\" He slapped Adam's back. \"That's a good one.\" He shoved his hand in his jeans' pocket and shuffled toward Grace. \"You keep tellin' yourself that, buddy. Often. Maybe you'll really believe it.\"\n\nAdam scratched the back of his neck.\n\nHe and Mica had gone to Purdue together. Majored in engineering. They'd collaborated on several class experiments and enjoyed each other's company. Mica was about as close a friend as he'd had in high school. Then Adam had moved away and Mica went to France.\n\nBut as close as Adam was to Mica, he couldn't tell Mica all the truth.\n\nBeing an inventor meant keeping one's ideas and experiments top secret. Adam kept his notebooks, flash drives and research in a safety-deposit box in the bank where they could not be stolen or lost.\n\nAdam had to be careful.\n\nHis work could change the world one day.\n\nAdam's real fear wasn't that his work would be stolen. It was that he'd be left behind. He didn't trust people a great deal. Amie had died. Frank was gone. And before all that, Joy had abandoned him. He still wasn't over the pain. Getting close didn't work out for him.\n\nJoy still had a life in New York even though her engagement was \"on hold.\" The problem was that Titus and Joy seemed to be getting attached. And there was the fact that Adam couldn't stop his own emotional reactions when he was around her.\n\nHis heart wanted her, but his head told him to back off. He was logical and practical, and Adam believed his head seldom steered him wrong."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 28",
                "text": "Joy walked across the snow-covered driveway to the greenhouses as the first light of dawn glistened across the snow. The Grand Reopening banner was tied above the front door, bookended by two enormous wreaths glowing with two thousand crystal lights each.\n\nJoy had worked on the wreaths, making bows out of fat red and gold velvet ribbon while Adam had hung the banner. She'd walked out to the end of the expansive parking lot in front to see the effect. Gray skies were inevitable at this time of year, and the lights on the wreaths would sparkle day and night.\n\nShe opened the door, turned the Closed sign around and turned on the lights.\n\n\"Amazing,\" she said aloud, as the trees and garlands illuminated the showroom.\n\n\"Isn't it?\" Adam said, walking out of the large greenhouse, wearing rubber boots, a rubber apron, and holding a box of flower food in his hand.\n\nShe drank in his smile and wondered why she didn't check herself. He never failed to surprise her with his magnetism. It was more than charm; it was innate charisma born of his intelligence. He'd always had it and it drew her to him now, just as it had years ago. \"You're here.\"\n\n\"So am I!\" Titus yelled, rushing from behind Adam's legs and into the showroom as if he were taking his cue for center stage. \"We're gonna help!\"\n\n\"But...\" Joy looked from Titus to Adam. \"I\u2014I am...\"\n\n\"Pleased? Overjoyed? Astonished?\" Adam laughed as he walked forward. \"All the poinsettias are watered, fed, and the heat's perfect.\"\n\n\"What time did you get here?\"\n\nTitus held up a Mickey Mouse watch on his wrist. \"Five thirty. I couldn't sleep.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\nAdam untied the rubber apron. \"It's true. We couldn't get out of the house fast enough.\"\n\nTitus dropped his head down and yanked it up in a dramatic nod. \"Yep. We had microwave oatmeal.\" He lifted his little palm to cover his mouth and said nearly in a whisper, \"Not Dad's favorite.\"\n\n\"Also true,\" Adam said. \"I asked Olivia to bring over some breakfast sandwiches when she comes.\"\n\nJoy halted taking off her coat. \"Olivia's coming?\"\n\n\"She's gonna help, too,\" Titus said proudly. \"It's arranged.\"\n\nJoy was getting used to Titus's larger-than-expected vocabulary. \"Arranged.\" She looked at Adam. \"You did this?\"\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders. \"Didn't have to. Sarah started the scheduling at the party last night. Miss Milse is babysitting nearly every kid...\"\n\n\"Except me,\" Titus chimed in.\n\nAdam exhaled and pursed his lips. \"Titus drove a hard bargain because he wanted to be here so badly.\"\n\n\"Why's that?\" Joy asked.\n\n\"Because. My dad talks about when he used to work here. I never saw it with all these flowers. I only saw it with broken glass and weeds inside.\" He marched up to Joy and quirked his finger at her. She leaned down.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Dad said it was magic.\"\n\nJoy sprang upright, surprised Adam would use the same description he'd used back in high school. It was as if he was sharing his innermost feelings with his son. \"Adam? You told him that?\"\n\nAdam walked toward her, took her coat and purse. \"I'll put these away.\" He pointed to the register. \"You need to get ready. Your public will be here in fifteen minutes. I'll turn on the cookie warmer.\" He started to walk away before saying, \"Liz and Sarah are taking morning shifts. Olivia, Maddie and Cate the afternoons. Katia is every day, all day, except Tuesdays and Friday afternoons. Isabelle is every other morning. I think that about covers it.\"\n\nJoy pressed her palms to her cheeks. \"My gosh. I'll have more workers than I'll have customers.\"\n\n\"Nuh-uh,\" Titus said. \"Dad had more flyers made. Mr. Carter and Dr. Barzonni said they're going to mail them to their personal friends.\" He turned toward Adam. \"Right?\"\n\n\"Yes. Everyone wants the greenhouse to succeed.\" He smiled.\n\nAdam left the showroom to put Joy's things in the back-storage room.\n\nWhen he came back he was wearing his cowboy boots, jeans and a red-and-green-plaid flannel shirt he'd had on under the apron.\n\nWith effort, she tore her eyes from his as he smiled at her. She looked down at her Boston Greenhouses sweatshirt and jeans. \"Well, I guess we look Christmassy enough.\"\n\n\"I forgot about those sweatshirts,\" Adam said, coming over to her. \"Hmm. I wonder if I can get more of those made up.\" He took out his cell phone and walked through the French doors. \"Hello?\"\n\nJoy looked at Titus. \"He's always like this, isn't he?\"\n\nTitus nodded. \"He told me he's being...decided.\"\n\n\"Decisive.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Do you know how to make change yet?\"\n\n\"Dad's teaching me. It's not hard.\"\n\n\"Really? I thought it was tough when I was your age.\"\n\n\"Nah. You just look at how much the register tells you to give back to them and then count it out.\"\n\n\"This register doesn't do that.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"It's really, really old.\"\n\n\"Oh. But I can do credit cards with the square on my tablet.\"\n\n\"How did you learn that?\" she asked.\n\n\"Timmy taught me. His dad taught him. He has one on his cell phone for when he gets paid for his carpenter jobs. It's easy.\"\n\n\"Well,\" she said. \"For now, I guess I'll take care of the register and credit cards.\"\n\n\"Good,\" Titus said, running to the front door. \"'Cause Dad said I could be the greeter.\"\n\nAs Joy looked up, she saw a young mother with two toddlers walk in. \"My first customers.\" The words caught in a net of old memories and the vision of her grandpa standing at the door greeting customers. Her hand flew to her heart as an overwhelming sensation of pride filled her.\n\nI'm doing this.\n\n\"Welcome to Boston Greenhouses!\" Titus yelled at the woman, who chuckled.\n\n\"Why, thank you.\"\n\n\"Start here.\" Titus pointed to the woodland walkway. \"It's a trip.\"\n\nThe woman laughed again, but her toddlers were clearly mesmerized by the trees.\n\nNext, Sarah, Liz and Katia walked in. Katia, who was wearing a designer black coat with faux mink collar and cuffs, gaped at the showroom and then swept up to the counter.\n\n\"It's a wonder!\" Katia said. \"Sarah told me I'd be surprised, but this...this is stunning. I need to get some reporters over here.\"\n\nLiz put her hand on Katia's arm. \"Isabelle told me Scott will be here at noon for photos.\"\n\n\"I meant the South Bend papers,\" Katia said. \"Scott told Austin and my boss, Jack, he was planning several articles. Nothing but the best for our Joy.\"\n\nThe bell over the door rang again.\n\n\"Welcome to Boston Greenhouses!\" Titus announced, as if he was a Victorian herald.\n\nSarah and Katia shucked off their coats. \"Okay, where do you want us?\"\n\n\"You all choose. But I think...\"\n\nThe bell rang again and four women walked in. One came straight up to Joy. \"We're here from the Methodist Church to place orders for our poinsettias.\"\n\nJoy looked at Sarah and Liz. \"Will you both help her to the greenhouse?\"\n\n\"Absolutely!\" Sarah smiled and led the way.\n\nBy eleven o'clock, there was a line at the counter. Joy was convinced her first morning of shoppers were die-hard Black Friday experts, because they all went straight for the poinsettias that sold for a discount.\n\nTo Joy's surprise, the white poinsettias were depleted by over half within the first few hours. A representative from the Indian Lake Savings Bank came in, ordered four dozen red poinsettias and asked Joy to work up the cost of the gold angel tree, ornaments, tree, lights and all. The woman wanted the entire order delivered by the end of the day.\n\nAdam promised the woman he would deliver everything personally.\n\nNoontime offered no break. Adam called Olivia and asked her to bring more sandwiches and chips for everyone in the shop and two extra cartons of organic milk for Titus. Joy noticed that he placed the entire order on his credit card.\n\nTired of \"greeting\" so many customers, Titus took a break and sat on the stool behind the counter while Joy worked the register.\n\n\"You know, Titus, I may have to have you help me with the credit card orders this afternoon. Seems I get behind rather quickly.\" She handed him the tablet.\n\n\"Sure,\" he said.\n\nAfter the next customer left, Joy glanced back at Titus. She noticed his fingers dancing over the tablet.\n\n\"What are you doing?\"\n\n\"Checking your website.\"\n\n\"Of course. I worked on it every night.\"\n\n\"Dad said he helped a little.\"\n\n\"It's a lot of work for one person with everything else we had to do.\"\n\nJoy looked across the showroom to see Adam talking to an elderly woman considering a particular white-and-gold angel.\n\nTitus thrust the tablet in front of Joy's face, cutting off her view of Adam. \"Did you see these orders?\"\n\nJoy refocused. \"Orders? I forgot to check it...\"\n\n\"Look.\" Titus's little finger caused the screen to scroll. \"This is good, right?\"\n\nShe took the tablet. \"These notifications were sent only minutes ago. Oh, my gosh.\" She jerked her head at Adam. \"Can I see you?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" he replied. After handing the angel to the old woman, he touched her shoulder and said, \"Wise purchase.\" He walked to the counter. \"What's up?\"\n\n\"Look at this.\" She pointed at the screen. \"If this is correct, we have more than that bank delivery we have to run today.\"\n\nHe took the tablet from her. \"South Bend Public Library. Notre Dame Administration Offices. Saint Joseph County Bank. Joy, these are huge orders.\"\n\n\"How did this happen?\" she asked, then halted. \"Katia.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"She said she was going to contact the South Bend papers. She must have done more than that.\"\n\n\"I knew I liked that woman.\" Adam laughed.\n\n\"But once we fill these, we'll nearly be out of poinsettias.\"\n\n\"No worries.\" Adam took out his cell phone and walked away.\n\n\"Hey! Come back here!\"\n\nThe old woman walked up to the counter. \"I want that angel,\" she said. \"You know, that man is a good salesman.\"\n\nJoy quirked a smile. \"And sneaky, too,\" she said, as she watched Adam glide through the French doors while simultaneously pulling his wallet from his back jeans' pocket. He was putting the next poinsettia order on his credit card."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 29",
                "text": "Joy took the ornaments off the gold tree and prepared them for delivery to the Indian Lake Savings Bank. Adam filled the back seats of his truck with the poinsettias, while Joy finished wrapping up the ornaments. The lights would stay on the tree, and fortunately, they had less than a half-mile drive to the bank. Adam said he'd place a tarp over the back bed.\n\nLuke came at three to take Titus to his and Sarah's house, where Miss Milse would watch the children until dinnertime.\n\nAs Adam drove them down Maple Boulevard toward the bank, she asked, \"Just how often have you used your credit card to pay for goods and supplies for my greenhouses?\"\n\n\"Um...\"\n\n\"Truth, Adam,\" she demanded, narrowing her eyes.\n\n\"Are you mad at me?\"\n\n\"I'd like to know in dollars and cents how mad I should be. I didn't authorize your spending.\"\n\n\"Spoken like a true accountant,\" he retorted. \"At the moment, I don't have an exact amount.\"\n\n\"Fine. Ballpark then.\"\n\n\"Can't do that, either.\" He chuckled, but the laugh died as he glanced at her.\n\nShe glared at him. \"I don't like owing people money. Debt is a sign of weakness.\"\n\n\"I'm not in debt. Not by a long shot,\" he said.\n\nHer expression softened as her ire turned to curiosity. \"I've never been the one to pry unless my clients are paying me to do so, but I've been very curious, Adam. Just how do you make your money?\"\n\n\"Excuse me?\"\n\n\"I mean, you have all kinds of time to help me out, order supplies, make deliveries for me, do everything from repairing broken pipes to scrubbing tiles. I don't see you punching anyone's time clock but mine. And I'm not paying you.\"\n\nHe glanced away for a moment, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. \"I'm doing what I love.\"\n\n\"And that is? Besides raising Titus, I mean.\"\n\n\"Ideas. I make money on my ideas. Besides my regular job, you'd call it, which I handle by email and phone with my colleagues in Indianapolis, I do quite a bit in astro-engineering. Most of my inventions and ideas have patents, and once they're up and running, I sell them. I have investors in Silicon Valley. Investors in Houston. New Jersey.\"\n\nJoy's mouth gaped. \"So, you did it? You made your dream come true?\"\n\n\"For the most part. Yeah.\"\n\n\"And when do you do this work?\"\n\n\"Nights when Titus is asleep and during the day when he's at school. Five or six times a year I have trips to Indianapolis for discussions. I tinker a lot on weekends. Titus likes to watch or help me. At least he thinks he's helping me.\"\n\n\"So...that means you're rich?\"\n\n\"It's a living.\" He smiled.\n\nJoy leaned back, staring wide-eyed at him. \"Are you famous?\"\n\n\"Only in very close physics circles.\"\n\nShe was speechless, but only for a moment. \"And you didn't tell me this.\"\n\n\"You didn't ask,\" he replied with a sad edge to his voice.\n\n\"Sorry. Habit. I'm trained to be cautious. I don't pry. I don't ask.\"\n\n\"And being the accounting whiz that you are, you're worried I overstepped my bounds. Or is your concern really that being in debt to me would mean I could control you?\"\n\n\"I didn't mean that.\"\n\n\"Then fine\u2014I'll tally everything up tonight and give you a bill tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Fine.\" She folded her arms over her chest.\n\nAdam exhaled. \"I thought I was helping. You told me you don't have a lot of money. You said there was only enough inheritance to bankroll the poinsettias. I take responsibility for pushing you into this decision. And it was a big undertaking. I knew you'd need a little boost. I don't mind doing that. I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm trying to help.\"\n\n\"I feel like I've been duped,\" she groaned.\n\n\"It's not like that.\"\n\n\"You know\u2014everyone has been so nice to me since I came back. Overly nice. Maybe it's not about me. Maybe you all have your own agendas. I want to think that they all loved Grandpa so much that they wanted this for him, if not for me.\"\n\n\"In many cases, that's true.\"\n\n\"In yours?\"\n\nHe pulled up to the bank. He put the truck in Park and turned to her. \"What are you asking me?\"\n\n\"Have you got an ulterior motive, Adam Masterson? Because if you do, it's time to lay your cards on the table.\"\n\n\"Initially, I wanted to show you that Indian Lake wasn't the hall of horrors you thought it was. That the people here were wonderful and loving and that maybe you could come to need them.\"\n\n\"I'm seeing that...\" She paused. \"You said 'initially.'\"\n\n\"The more I'm with you, I have to admit, maybe my motives have changed.\" He unbuckled his seat belt and leaned forward to put his hand on the back of her nape.\n\nWhen his lips met hers, she had every intention of pushing him away, venting more anger at him, but she didn't. This wasn't a kiss born of fond memories or a teenage crush; this was passion and eagerness. This was a kiss of now and his need for her in this moment. His fingers slid up into her hair, cupping her head, capturing her. He slanted his mouth over hers and deepened the kiss. He breathed her in as a faint moan hummed in his throat. Joy was lost like she'd never been, not even when they were kids. Back then, his kisses had been tender and playful. But this was desire and possession.\n\nAs she responded to Adam's kiss, holding him fast, she wondered if every decision she'd ever made in her life was a mistake."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 30",
                "text": "Adam broke from the kiss, reconsidered and kissed Joy again. Then he held her face in his hands, realizing she'd never taken her hands from him.\n\n\"I'm not gonna say I'm sorry. I've been wanting to do that since the day you came back here.\"\n\n\"You kissed me before.\"\n\n\"Not like this.\"\n\n\"No. Not like this,\" she replied in a low voice. \"Adam...\"\n\n\"Don't say it. Not right now. I don't want to think about New York or your other life. This is just us.\"\n\n\"But it's not,\" she whispered and dropped her hands.\n\nHe let his hands fall to her shoulders, still reluctant to let her go.\n\n\"I don't want to do anything that would make you distrust me or make you uncomfortable, and the fact that, apparently, empirically I've done both...\" He sighed heavily. \"I won't let it happen again.\"\n\n\"That a promise?\"\n\n\"No. Yes.\" He laughed and fell back against his seat. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the headrest. \"You don't know what you've done to me.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't exactly say that,\" she replied. \"As of two minutes ago, I have a much clearer picture.\"\n\nHe slid his eyes to her. \"You kissed me back.\"\n\nShe hung her head and looked up at him with recalcitrant eyes. \"I did.\"\n\nHe lifted his hand and tapped the steering wheel with his forefinger. \"So, would I be out of line to ascertain that you might be feeling the same thing I'm feeling?\"\n\nShe leaned against the door.\n\nTrying to move away from him?\n\n\"Adam, I have to be honest. I don't know what I feel. I've gone from shock over Grandpa's death, to grief, which is almost choking me, to wondering why everyone here is so nice to me, to remembering you and me when we were in high school, discovering you have a son, whom I can tell you I love already.\"\n\n\"You do?\" Adam was a bit surprised. Not that people didn't love Titus. He was a special kid. But Joy didn't have much exposure to children, not even a younger sibling.\n\nAnd yet she protected and watched over her flowers. He'd caught her in the greenhouses talking to the plants, singing to them as if they could hear her and respond. Perhaps she had more motherly nurturing instincts than he gave her credit for.\n\n\"What's not to love, Adam? He's amazing. And so like you.\"\n\nIf she loved his son, did that mean she loved him again? He didn't want to hear her answer.\n\nHis world had been upended. If he were honest with himself, he'd needed her to reopen the greenhouses so that he could test his geothermal design for Hal Slade, his investor.\n\nBut even that wasn't the reason he'd cajoled her into this move.\n\nIf she'd left town, he would have paid to have the glass panes replaced anyway. He would have finished the system, turned it on without anyone's knowledge, read his results and sent them to the investor.\n\nNo, Adam was more underhanded than that.\n\nHe wanted Joy.\n\nHe'd needed her to stay in Indian Lake so he could win her back. And he was doing a lousy job of it. If anything, he'd played his cards too soon. She was right. She hadn't had time to digest Frank's death, let alone handle romantic advances from an old boyfriend while engaged to another man.\n\nHe'd done a bang-up job of confusing her. If she lasted the weekend, it would be a miracle. And if she packed up and left town, it would be his fault.\n\n\"I'd say he's smarter than me,\" Adam said, turning to look at the poinsettias in the back seat. \"Tell you what. I won't push your buttons anymore. We'll put this in the past and just take care of business. That's what we're here for. Okay?\"\n\n\"Uh. Yeah. Business,\" she stumbled. \"And that's really fine with you?\"\n\nHe pursed his lips. Of course, it wasn't, but he didn't have a choice. He wasn't about to give her an excuse to turn tail and run. \"I did mean it when I said I wanted to do this for Frank. He was a real friend to me. I want you to have a thriving business to sell. Then you'll have money and you won't have to make decisions in the valley.\"\n\n\"The valley?\"\n\n\"Yeah. There are two kinds of decisions we make in life. Those when we're on top of the mountain. We've succeeded. We're happy and then we choose. The other decisions are those made in the valley of despair. We're broken or near it. Maybe not quite as happy as we thought we were. Maybe our health is poor. Maybe our spirit is empty. Those decisions are never the right ones and it takes years and years to get ourselves back on the right path.\"\n\nShe leveled unwavering eyes on him. \"And you know this...\"\n\n\"Because I think we've both been to the valley.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"I didn't like it,\" he said.\n\nShe clasped her hands in her lap, worried them a bit before she spoke, as if this decision was a great one. \"Are you in the valley now?\"\n\n\"No. I intend never to visit it again,\" he said earnestly.\n\n\"That's good.\" A pensive look remained on her face as she opened the truck door.\n\nAdam was keenly aware as he got out of the truck that she would think about his words for hours to come.\n\nHe hoped she'd remember his kiss. He knew he wouldn't forget it."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 31",
                "text": "When adam picked up Titus from Sarah's house, it was after dinnertime. Titus rubbed his eyes and yawned.\n\n\"Dad,\" Titus said when Adam buckled him into his car seat. \"Do I have to take a bath when I get home? Can I just go to bed?\"\n\n\"Sure, if you take a bath in the morning. What happened? You're usually a bundle of energy.\"\n\n\"Dad. I'm a working man now.\" He yawned again.\n\n\"Right.\" Adam climbed in the truck and backed out the drive.\n\nOnce they were home, Angel met them at the door, and even she was surprised that Adam carried a sleepy Titus straight up the stairs to bed.\n\nAngel waited patiently on her bed in the kitchen as Adam came in and scooped her meal into her bowl. As he refilled Angel's water bowl, his cell phone rang.\n\n\"California. Oh, boy.\" He felt his nerves jangle. His back went ramrod straight. He answered the call. \"Masterson.\"\n\n\"Adam. Hal Slade here. Listen, I hate to call you over the Thanksgiving holiday, but I'm at LAX on my way to Aspen for the weekend. I wanted to get right back to you.\"\n\n\"That's quite all right, Hal. I didn't expect to hear from you until next week.\"\n\n\"I couldn't wait to ask. Those numbers you sent me\u2014they're accurate?\"\n\n\"They are. The last readings were taken this morning before dawn.\"\n\n\"Impressive. This geothermal system is everything you said it was. I'm all in.\"\n\n\"That's wonderful news, Hal.\"\n\n\"I'll get with my attorney and send over my offer. Probably not till middle of next week, if that's all right.\"\n\n\"Yes. I'll have my attorney go over it, as well.\"\n\n\"Great. I'll copy you on all the emails. Transparency. Right?\"\n\n\"Always.\"\n\n\"Excellent,\" Hal said. \"And as we discussed, once we get the contracts finalized, then I'll expect you out here the first of the year and we can get to work.\"\n\nAdam swallowed hard. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Talk soon. I'm boarding,\" Hal said.\n\n\"Absolutely. Goodbye.\"\n\nAdam ended the call, backed up against the kitchen counter and slumped into the kitchen stool. \"First of the year.\"\n\nAngel stopped eating, looked up at him and instinctively came over to rub her back against his leg.\n\nHal Slade was the CEO of three alternative energy corporations and was working in the cutting edge of space exploration.\n\nAdam's geothermal unit was the tip of a very large iceberg of research and exploration he'd begun in college, when he'd started to explore the works of think tanks and learned more about Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk. Adam had always been obsessed with uncharted scientific realms as a kid, from the time he'd read about Nikola Tesla. Amie had encouraged him back then, challenging him to reach for the stars\u2014in his own work. Now he was doing it...literally.\n\nHowever, Adam's heart was in creating cheaper sources of energy and bringing them to Indian Lake. He liked his small town and wanted to make the lives of the people in his home better. His dream of worldwide cheap energy was not impossible. Adam didn't believe in \"impossibles.\"\n\nJoy was right. Her life was in New York. And perhaps Adam's future was in California. Maybe Adam was at the top of the mountain, after all. His geothermal theory was proving accurate and true. In weeks, he would have an investor. Not only would he have more income, but people would benefit.\n\nSo, he and Titus would move to California. Adam would continue to challenge himself and maybe he would reach a star.\n\nHe wondered what that would be like, looking back down on earth. Looking back and knowing he'd lost Joy a second time."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 32",
                "text": "The first week in December had flown by for Joy. Every waking hour was spent at the greenhouses, caring for the poinsettias, wrapping and delivering the gorgeous flowers across and beyond Indian Lake. As much as she groaned about year-end in the accounting world, it was no match for retail at Christmas. This was the time of year when most retailers made the majority of their profit margin, and she could see why.\n\nNights after closing were used to make lists of inventories her customers had requested and to calculate how much of those orders would sell. It had been a long time since she'd helped her parents and grandfather with wholesale buying.\n\nShe remembered accompanying her mother to the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, where they'd visited the wholesale gift showrooms to see the newest trends in home decorating, giftware, china and linens. In the middle of summer, she and her mother kick-started Christmas by placing orders for decorations, garlands, wreaths, holiday pillows and bed linens, specialty foods, silk florals, ribbons, stockings and fun and funky gadgets, toys and games to fill those stockings.\n\n\"You know, Joy,\" her mother had said, \"gifts are important. It's not the amount of money a person spends, it truly is the thought. It's the acknowledgment of the recipient's importance in one's life. Appreciation is like light and water to a growing plant. Without appreciation, given often, a human will wither\u2014just like a flower without rain.\"\n\nJill had loved the people of Indian Lake and she'd worked hard to find unique, special items to stock the greenhouse shelves. She'd wanted the best for the townspeople.\n\nJoy had forgotten that.\n\nUnfortunately, Joy didn't have time to spend a day or two at the Merchandise Mart. She had to rely on Frank's contacts and representatives in the showrooms to advise her about orders.\n\nAdam had been right about the impact of hand delivering the flyers he'd made up. And Titus's distribution scheme masquerading as a caroling party was not only effective, it bordered on genius. In the first week, she was amazed at the number of deliveries they made to Maple Boulevard residences.\n\nThe radio advertising campaigns she'd run had added to the need for the second shipment of poinsettias. Joy had agreed with Adam to send Lester MacDougal back to Dallas for another truckload.\n\nOnce Joy and Adam had set up the gold Christmas tree in the Indian Lake Savings Bank building, two more banks, not to be outdone by their competitor, ordered the rest of her \"woodland scene\" trees.\n\nBefore December 6, her \"woodland walkway\" had no \"woods\" and was down to baskets filled with ornaments, and the empty spaces were filled with poinsettias.\n\nJoy was wrapping a large pink poinsettia with snowflake cellophane when Liz walked in with a group of her friends' children, along with her preschool-age son, Zeke.\n\nZeke was already a handsome boy, looking like his father, Gabe, more than honey-blonde Liz.\n\n\"Liz!\" Joy said, coming around to hug her friend. \"I thought all the kids were going to Sarah's house after school.\"\n\nTitus raced up to Joy. \"Miss Joy!\" He tripped a bit on a rubber mat near the door, but, undeterred, flung his arms around her waist.\n\n\"We still are,\" Liz said, watching as the kids immediately began investigating the baskets filled with ornaments.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Titus said, cranking his head back to look at Joy. \"We have to shop.\"\n\n\"You do? For what?\"\n\nLiz smiled. \"Teacher gifts. Apparently, the school issued a letter to all the parents not to spend more than five dollars on a teacher gift. Also, due to dietary restrictions, no food, either.\"\n\n\"Bummer,\" Titus said. \"I wanted to make Christmas cookies.\"\n\n\"Oh, Titus,\" Joy said. \"That's a lovely idea. I bet your dad would have loved to help with that.\"\n\n\"Nope. He can cook. Baking is different,\" Titus replied.\n\nJoy looked at Liz, who shrugged her shoulders. \"Don't look at me. I do the slice-and-bake thing.\"\n\nZeke pulled on Liz's hand. \"I love those!\"\n\nLiz ruffled his thick raven-colored hair. \"Thank goodness.\"\n\n\"So,\" Joy said to Titus, \"in the meantime, we have to find ornaments.\"\n\nSarah walked out of the back greenhouse with a customer who had filled two double carts. Annie saw her mother and rushed over.\n\n\"Mom!\" Annie said. \"Can I have my allowance early?\"\n\n\"I guess so,\" Sarah replied, wheeling a cart to the counter as Joy went to the register and began counting the poinsettias and amaryllis. \"Why?\"\n\nJoy tallied the purchase and took the woman's credit card. \"The kids have to buy teacher gifts,\" Joy said.\n\n\"Oh, honey,\" Sarah said. \"I'll pay for what you need.\"\n\n\"All of them?\" Annie asked.\n\nJoy halted as she handed the woman back her credit card. \"Thank you so much.\" She looked at Annie. \"How many teachers do you have?\"\n\nTimmy walked up at that minute, his hands filled with a miniature train, reindeer, a moose, a fire engine and a spaceship. \"I have five.\"\n\n\"I have four,\" Annie said.\n\nCharlotte skipped up holding an angel tree topper that looked half Charlotte's size. \"I like this one.\"\n\nSarah rolled her eyes. \"I need more hours on the clock,\" she joked.\n\nJoy laughed, as did Liz and the woman customer.\n\nTitus inspected Timmy's choices. \"These are so cool.\"\n\nAs Joy helped the customer push the carts out to her car, Adam drove up from making deliveries to the courthouse.\n\nHe parked the truck in front and helped the customer load her SUV, then walked with Joy back inside.\n\nWhen Adam saw all the kids, he held out his arms to Titus. \"Hey, buddy. What's going on?\"\n\n\"Dad.\" Titus walked up to him, glanced back at Timmy as if to get an affirmative nudge, then whispered, \"Dad, we have a dilemma.\"\n\nJoy's eyes widened. Children didn't usually have dilemmas. A problem maybe, but this sounded serious.\n\nAdam squatted down and put his hand on Titus's shoulder. \"What is it?\"\n\n\"All of us need teacher gifts and we want to buy ornaments. But, Dad. There's no tree here to try them out on.\"\n\nJoy's hand flew to her mouth as she wiped the smile from her lips. \"Try them out?\"\n\n\"Yeah. How can we tell if they're good or not if we can't see what they look like on a tree? That's the scientific method, like you taught me, right?\" Titus asked seriously.\n\nAdam chuckled as he stood and looked at Joy. \"Well...\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Titus. We sold the trees.\"\n\n\"Aw, they weren't the right kind, anyway.\"\n\nJoy's surprise rang in her tone. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"They were fancy trees. Not real Christmas trees,\" Titus informed her.\n\n\"I don't understand.\"\n\nAdam rocked back on his heels as he folded his arms over his chest. \"I know what he's saying.\"\n\n\"Good. Fill me in,\" she said.\n\n\"Better yet,\" Adam replied with a mischievous smirk, \"I'll show you.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 33",
                "text": "Pine country tree farm spanned seventeen acres of rolling hills north of town. Marching up the inclines were blue spruce, conifer, Scotch pine, Norwegian spruce, Douglas fir and white pine trees. Encircling the farm was a split-rail fence decorated with live green garlands and enormous red bows. The wide parking area was filled with pickup trucks, minivans and SUVs. As Joy rode with Adam and Titus into the farm, she noticed that over half the vehicles bore out-of-state license plates.\n\nAs they parked, she saw a horse-drawn wagon take a group of people out toward the forest. Two of the men in the wagon carried hatchets.\n\n\"You don't just buy a tree off the lot?\" Joy asked.\n\n\"Not today,\" Adam said, unbuckling his seat belt. \"Though you can do that if you want. But that's not the kind of tree we want.\"\n\n\"It's not? What is?\"\n\nHe pointed to her green sweatshirt, which depicted the greenhouses at Christmas from their high school days. \"We're going to do even better than that.\"\n\n\"Grandpa ordered our tree from Wisconsin,\" she said, opening the door. \"I don't remember this tree farm.\"\n\n\"They were just getting started back then. I know the owner pretty well. He has to plant fifteen thousand trees every year.\"\n\nJoy opened the back door to help Titus out of the back seat. \"He sells that many?\"\n\nTitus put his arms out to grab Joy's hands and jumped down. \"Thanks.\"\n\n\"He ships all the way to Florida,\" Adam said, going to the back bed and pulling out an enormous ax. He placed it on his shoulder.\n\nShe took Titus's hand and walked over to him. \"With that plaid shirt and sheepskin jacket and that ax, you look like\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't say it.\" He laughed. \"C'mon. I know just where to go.\"\n\n\"Who does he look like?\" Titus asked.\n\n\"A mythical character,\" Joy replied, thinking of Paul Bunyan.\n\n\"Oh. 'Cause he doesn't look like a Star Wars guy.\"\n\nJoy glanced at Adam as he walked in front of them. Adam had always been in tune with stars, interested in physics. \"I'm not sure about that.\"\n\nThey walked up to a group of workers at a large red-painted baling machine. Adam turned to Joy.\n\n\"Keep Titus back here away from the machine. It can be dangerous,\" he said to her. \"And there's so many people around, don't let him get distracted and take off.\"\n\n\"I'll watch him. We'll run reconnaissance in the gift shop. See what the competition is up to,\" she said.\n\n\"Great. I want to find out when the next wagon is due for a pickup.\"\n\n\"We're not going to walk out there?\"\n\n\"It's too far to where I want to go,\" Adam said with a wink. \"And we'll need a wagon to ourselves to bring it back.\"\n\nHer eyes widened. \"What are you up to?\"\n\nTitus shoved his glasses up his nose. \"I know!\"\n\nAdam shook his finger at Titus. \"It's a secret. Remember?\"\n\n\"I don't know what's going on here, but it won't be a secret for long,\" Joy said. \"Let's go, Titus.\"\n\nShe took the boy's hand again as they went to the log cabin gift shop. The long, wood-planked porch was draped with wide cedar and spruce garlands and enormous wreaths. A light breeze had picked up, causing the red ribbon bows to flap against the cabin's dark wood.\n\nInside, a potbellied stove heated the retail area. Interestingly, there wasn't a Christmas tree inside. The cabin was small, and the shelves were filled with pinecone ornaments, knit stockings, stacks of quilted place mats, Santa mugs and locally made jams, jellies and marinades. Fortunately, none were from her suppliers, which offered their customers and hers a variety. None of the wreaths outside or inside were lit. She noticed that the rest of the gifts were rustic in nature, small replicas of horse-drawn wagons, woodland creatures or miniature trees. There wasn't a Santa or cr\u00e8che to be seen. Her first thought was that perhaps they'd sold out of product already.\n\nThen again, their focus was selling live trees, garlands and wreaths. Decorating them was why people would come to Boston Greenhouses.\n\n\"Miss Joy,\" Titus said, as they made their way through the groups of customers, \"I like our place better.\"\n\nOur place. Joy felt her heart swell. Titus was at home in her shop, and that gave her enormous comfort. Her reaction was unexpected, but as he looked up at her, his sport strap askew and a clump of dark hair sticking out over his ear, emotion gripped her. She knelt down, put her arms around him and said, \"Titus, that's the best compliment I've had in all my life.\"\n\n\"It's true,\" he said and hugged her back. \"I like being there very much.\"\n\n\"You do?\"\n\n\"Uh-huh.\" He smiled, looking at her through his glasses' lenses. \"You're there.\"\n\nJoy exhaled deeply as her heart swelled. This kid rocked her to the bone.\n\nIt was all she could do not to burst into tears. She rose. This was the craziest thing. She held out her hand and he slipped his into hers.\n\nJoy's emotions were altering her perspective. She was tied in knots of accomplishment, pleasing Frank, grief over losing him, and the myriad of feelings involving Adam and his kiss that had turned her world upside down.\n\nThe kiss had been a mistake\u2014or so she'd told herself all week. It should never have happened, but it had.\n\nShould she talk to him about it? Admittedly, if she had a moment alone with him, she'd be the one to make another kiss happen. And would it be as shocking as the last? What if what had happened had been an anomaly? Shouldn't they find out?\n\nAnd what if they discovered this attraction was more than some touchstone to the past? Would he be willing to delve further? Would she?\n\nTitus still stared at her with one of his penetrating gazes. Knowing this was one kid who hadn't lost his childlike intuition and probably read her thoughts, she said, \"And you're the best part of the new Boston Greenhouses.\"\n\n\"You mean that?\"\n\n\"I do,\" she affirmed. \"Best greeter I've ever seen.\"\n\n\"Thanks. I practiced what I saw in movies,\" he replied proudly. \"Things like that are always correct in movies.\"\n\n\"I never thought of it that way, but you're probably right,\" she said, as they walked out the gift shop door.\n\nAdam was just outside on the porch steps. \"There you are! The wagon is here to take us out to the grove.\"\n\n\"Hey!\" Titus thrust his fist in the air. \"It's snowing!\"\n\n\"It is,\" Adam replied, reaching in his jacket pocket and pulling out a pair of mittens. \"You left these in the truck. Put them on.\"\n\nAs Titus wiggled his hands into the mittens, Adam helped Joy up into the wooden horse-drawn wagon.\n\nThere were benches along each side. The area in the middle was wide, which Joy guessed was to load the trees in.\n\nShe used a green plaid wool blanket to cover Titus. As they rocked from side to side as the wagon climbed over the frozen hills, Adam kept his arm around his son, who sat between the two adults. Joy noticed that Titus kept his mitten-covered hand on her thigh, not for stability...but for comfort.\n\nThey passed rows of six-, seven-and eight-foot Douglas fir trees. Then passed ten-foot and taller blue spruce trees Joy knew had been growing for over a decade, yet the wagon kept rolling.\n\n\"Where are we going and what are we looking for?\" Joy asked.\n\n\"The best!\" Titus exclaimed.\n\n\"It's not much farther,\" Adam replied.\n\n\"Do you come here every year?\"\n\n\"Since we moved back, yes,\" Adam replied. \"Titus likes the wagon ride.\"\n\n\"Yep. And Dad likes to chop down the tree.\" Titus nodded.\n\nShe pursed her lips and said, \"You'd think that with all Grandpa's focus on Christmas, I would have had a similar experience to this. But I never did.\"\n\n\"So, we're changing your life?\" Adam grinned.\n\nBefore Joy could answer, the wagon stopped.\n\nThe driver pointed to the east. \"Over the top of the hill is where you'll find them. I'll wait here, and I do have a chain saw under my seat if you need it.\"\n\nAdam jumped down from the wagon and hoisted Titus to the ground. Joy started to jump, but Adam caught her and lowered her gently in turn. Snowflakes fluttered between them and one landed on her eyelashes. She blinked. For a split second she imagined Adam's lips on hers again and almost felt her heart hum.\n\n\"C'mon, Dad! Let's go!\" Titus broke the moment.\n\nAdam's eyes still held Joy's gaze as he answered his son. \"Yes.\" He didn't move.\n\nJoy knew he was considering kissing her, but this wasn't the time or place. \"Better get that hatchet.\"\n\n\"Ax,\" he said. \"No mythical character should be without the proper tools.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\nLeaning into the wagon, Adam handed a tarp and some rope to Joy and a ball of twine to Titus. He picked up the ax himself.\n\nShe walked over to Titus. \"So, how do you know what kind of tree to get?\"\n\n\"Easy. I measure for Dad.\"\n\nJoy looked back at Adam, who was chuckling. \"This I gotta see.\"\n\nThey walked up the hill, past very tall Fraser fir trees that looked to be at least fifteen feet tall. \"These are amazing,\" she said, touching a bough.\n\n\"Nope. Not good enough,\" Adam said. \"Too skinny.\"\n\nTitus stood still and looked straight up. \"Too short.\"\n\nThey continued through four more rows of dense Douglas firs. \"What about one of these?\"\n\nAdam stopped at a very wide, deep green, fat tree. \"Titus, come here.\"\n\n\"Sure, Dad.\"\n\nTitus stood next to the tree. Adam stood behind him. \"Okay, son.\"\n\nTitus cranked his head back as far as it would go until Joy thought the boy would topple backward. What were they doing?\n\n\"Can you see the top, Titus?\"\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\n\"That's it, then,\" Adam said, taking a pair of buckskin leather gloves from inside his jacket and putting them on.\n\n\"That's how you measure a tree?\"\n\n\"Yup. We worked this out earlier. I figured when Titus can't see the top, then I know we got a really tall one.\" He leaned closer and whispered, \"It makes him feel involved. Know what I mean?\"\n\n\"I do.\" She smiled.\n\n\"We have to have the best tree the greenhouses have ever seen. Those glass ceilings are twenty-five feet high. So, we want a twenty-two-foot tree. Plenty of room for an angel.\"\n\n\"Or a star, Dad,\" Titus said.\n\n\"A star would be good.\"\n\n\"Right, we can put angels all over the tree,\" Joy said. \"I just ordered another two dozen.\"\n\nAdam smiled winsomely at her and she didn't miss the sincerity in his eyes. \"I like angels.\"\n\nJoy glanced at Titus and saw his wide smile.\n\n\"Joy, will you unfold the tarp and put it on the ground there? Positioned correctly, the tree should fall right on it. If I have to, I'll roll the tree over, if it falls to the side. Then we'll tie the rope around the trunk and pull it to the wagon.\"\n\n\"What about the twine?\" Titus asked.\n\n\"We'll tie two pieces of twine around the trunk, as well. Each of you will take a side. I'll pull from the middle. If we need to tie up some of these branches, we will, but I think we'll be okay.\"\n\nAdam lifted the ax. \"Titus, you and Joy stand back. But first...\" Adam knelt down and lifted the bottom branches to look at the trunk. \"It's straight. No bends. That's good.\"\n\nFirst Adam cut a row of branches off the bottom for easier access.\n\nJoy moved Titus far out of the way as she saw how wide a swing Adam was about to take against the monster tree. With his long, strong legs braced against the frozen ground, he swung hard and true. Then again. Again. And again.\n\nCrack!\n\n\"She's ready to fall!\" Adam shouted. He shoved his arm into the middle of the tree and pushed it away from Titus and Joy, toward the wide alley space between the rows of trees. The trunk cracked loudly and a slow splitting sound signaled the tree had finally given way. The air whooshed around them as the long limbs stirred the cold air. Snow whirled up into Titus's face as the first branches hit the ground.\n\n\"Timber!\" Titus shouted and laughed and wiped snow from his cheek.\n\nThey went to work preparing the tree. Adam put the rope over his shoulder, as Joy and Titus took up their stabilizing pieces of twine.\n\nWith three people pulling the slick tarp over the frozen ground, it moved easily. Once they got to the wagon, the driver helped them slide the tree up a slanted board that was fitted under the wagon bed.\n\nOn the way back, the snowfall increased. Titus stuck out his tongue to catch fat snowflakes. Adam laughed and hugged his son close.\n\nOnce they reached the main area, workers hauled their tree off the wagon and took it to the baling machine. Joy, Adam and Titus went to the truck and waited. It took two men to haul the big tree to the truck and secure it in the truck bed.\n\nOne of the workers came over carrying another, shorter tree that was also baled with twine. \"What's this?\" Joy asked.\n\n\"Oh.\" Adam grinned. \"We picked that tree out for our house a couple days ago.\"\n\n\"Yep!\" Titus said.\n\n\"But today is your day, Joy. I figured I'd bring them back together.\"\n\n\"Hmm,\" she mused. \"So, the trip to the tree farm was all about me, er, rather the greenhouse? Why do I feel I was set up?\"\n\n\"You weren't,\" Adam replied and winked at Titus. When he looked back at Joy, he took a deep breath, then leaned over and kissed her cheek.\n\nHe took her hand and walked her to the passenger seat as Titus climbed in the back.\n\nJoy couldn't stop smiling. It was cold outside, but Joy didn't feel it. Just looking at father and son, she was warmed feeling their love for each other. It was a perfect day. A lovely experience. Joy had had the time of her life."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 34",
                "text": "By the time they arrived at the greenhouses, it was nearly closing time. Sarah and Olivia had checked out the last customer as Joy walked in with Titus. Adam backed his truck up to the middle greenhouse to unload the Christmas tree.\n\n\"Sarah, Olivia. Thanks so much for taking the shift today. You guys are the best,\" Joy said.\n\n\"No worries,\" Olivia replied. \"I had a blast. Plus, I went Christmas shopping and filled a basket with things I want to give as gifts. Sarah promised not to tell Maddie or Liz what I got them. But I will tell you I bought that dark-haired angel in the sky blue organza gown for Gina. That elegant dress is so her.\"\n\nSarah took off the green apron with the Boston Greenhouses logo. \"It was a good afternoon. Not too busy, but enough that we could handle it. There're some phone messages with delivery orders for tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Poor Adam,\" Joy said. \"He never thought he'd be stuck doing my deliveries for me.\"\n\n\"Uh, I don't think he minds.\" Sarah smiled.\n\nOlivia caught Sarah's eye. \"Me, either.\"\n\nJoy cleared her throat and glanced at Titus. \"Hey, could you do me a favor while I help your dad with the tree? Would you check the website for orders like you did earlier?\"\n\n\"Sure.\" He scrambled behind the counter and climbed on the stool, taking Joy's tablet from the countertop.\n\n\"Hey,\" Joy said. \"Do you both mind helping us get the tree inside and up? We had a stand put on it at the tree farm, but it's really big.\"\n\n\"Absolutely,\" they chorused.\n\n\"Titus, you stay here. We'll be right back.\"\n\nHe didn't look up from the tablet. \"Sure.\"\n\nJoy led the way and saw that Adam had lowered the tailgate and propped the door open. \"Is it going to fit?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" he said. \"They did a great job of baling it. We'll take it in by the trunk and stand first. I laid some clear plastic sheeting near the windows. I thought we should place it where you guys used to put the tree.\"\n\nAs Adam's blue eyes rested on her, Joy felt a shower of tingles trickle down her spine. She remembered that Christmas all those years ago when he'd told her under the tree that he loved her. Apparently, so did he.\n\n\"Joy,\" Adam asked. \"Where's Titus?\"\n\n\"In the showroom, checking the website. Is that okay? I thought it would keep him busy for a few minutes.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but only a few minutes.\" He chuckled.\n\n\"That's all we'll need,\" she replied.\n\n\"Good night, Adam!\" Sarah exclaimed, breaking the moment. \"How big is this thing?\"\n\n\"Dunno. Twenty feet plus.\"\n\nOlivia shook her head. \"Oh, boy. Maybe I should call Rafe.\"\n\n\"Nah, we can do it,\" Adam said. \"It's all a matter of weight distribution.\"\n\nAs Adam guided them, they slid the tree through the door and around the corner another three feet. Adam came to stand by Joy, put his hands in the middle of the tree and picked it up. With a groan, they all hoisted and pushed.\n\nThe tree settled perfectly in the stand.\n\nHe took a pair of snips out of his jacket pocket and cut the cords, allowing the limbs to fall in a beautiful cascade of green.\n\n\"It smells divine!\" Joy said, looking up at the tree.\n\nTitus came in from the showroom, holding the iPad over his head. \"We got six orders for flowers!\" Then he halted, stared at the tree and approached reverently. \"Gosh, Dad. That is the best tree ever.\"\n\n\"Told you.\" Adam beamed proudly and put his hand on Titus's shoulder.\n\n\"Hold on!\" Titus scurried into the retail area and in a flash was back, holding a little train engine ornament in his hand. \"I have to see.\" He went up to the tree, carefully chose a branch and slipped the gold ribbon around the green needles. He stood back, observed the ornament for a thoughtful moment and pronounced, \"I'll buy it.\"\n\nJoy burst into laughter and everyone joined her. Adam picked Titus up, hugged him and kissed his cheek. \"All that for a three-dollar sale, Joy.\"\n\n\"Adam, I'm truly impressed with your salesmanship.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\" He looked at Sarah. \"Did a delivery addressed to me come today?\"\n\nSarah snapped her fingers. \"Yes, it did. I put it over here under this first table like you asked me.\"\n\nJoy shot Sarah a curious look. \"Secret Santa?\"\n\n\"Hardly.\" Adam went over and opened the large cardboard box. Inside were dozens of boxes of new multicolored lights. \"I didn't want to waste any time. We need this thing lit up for the weekend. Then I'm hoping Olivia will take more photos for the newspapers.\" He pointed to Joy's sweatshirt. \"It'll be just like old times.\"\n\n\"No, it won't,\" Joy said, then paused as she looked into his worried face. \"It'll be better.\"\n\nAdam's eyes softened.\n\n\"Oh, boy!\" Titus jumped up, nearly teetering on his feet as he landed. \"Can I help?\"\n\n\"Um,\" Adam started.\n\nSarah moved to Titus and smoothed his hair. \"How about you come home with me and have spaghetti with my crew.\" She looked up at Adam. \"Luke can drive him home after you guys are done. This is going to take some time.\" She looked to the top of the tree.\n\nJoy sighed happily. \"It sure is.\"\n\nOlivia raised her forefinger. \"Good thing I brought over a sack of sandwiches, fruit and pasta salad. If you're going to burn the midnight lamps, you'll need fuel.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Olivia. You think of everything.\"\n\n\"I try to, Joy,\" Olivia said and hugged her. \"I gotta run. I'm making scallops and angel hair pasta for everyone out at the farm. Rafe's been texting me that he's got the salad ready and Gina is making herbed Italian bread.\" She blew everyone a kiss. \"Ciao.\"\n\nSarah held out her hand to Titus. \"Come on, big boy. I bet you're hungry.\"\n\n\"I am. But who's going to feed Angel if Dad stays here? We both walked her at noon. I got her fresh water. But she's gonna have pups. Her nutrition is important.\"\n\nSarah held out her palm. \"It's all of a block away. Gimme your key. We'll feed Angel and then go to my house.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Sarah,\" Adam said, handing her his house key. \"Does Luke know how lucky he is to have you?\"\n\n\"I remind him every day.\" She laughed. \"Bye.\"\n\n\"Dad, don't forget to look in on the kittens,\" Titus said.\n\n\"Oh, honey,\" Joy said, \"I moved them to the house, where they can stay warm. Pye likes it there. I think she's not as feral now as she used to be.\"\n\n\"She has a family now,\" Adam said.\n\n\"Bye, Dad. Bye, Miss Joy.\" Titus waved to them as he left, chatting a mile a minute telling Sarah about the tree farm.\n\nJoy turned to Adam. \"I have a question. Just how long did you plan this tree thing? The lights? And goodness knows what else you've bought for it.\"\n\n\"Since last week when you put that sweatshirt on.\" He looked up. \"It felt important.\"\n\nShe knew exactly what he meant. He was drawing her in closer and tighter by the day. She knew he knew that she knew it. And she couldn't let it happen.\n\n\"Why's that?\"\n\nHe opened his mouth to speak, stopped and exhaled through his nose, like he used to when he was reconsidering options. Paths. Making decisions. \"It's advertising. I realize it's not as big as Rockefeller Center, but for Indian Lake, it'll do.\"\n\n\"And do quite well,\" she said, looking up to the tip. \"You and Titus measured this perfectly. There's plenty of room for a star. But we sold out.\n\n\"I'll order one tomorrow,\" she said, taking one of the boxes of lights. \"We should get to it. I'll start on the bottom.\"\n\n\"I'll get the extension ladder.\"\n\n\"Ooh. That thing always scared me. Too high.\"\n\n\"Yeah?\" he said, walking away. \"I thought angels were impervious to heights.\"\n\nJoy lowered her head as his words drifted across the room as he left.\n\nHow could he think she was an angel after everything they'd been through? When she was marrying another man?\n\nEach time he paused, took a breath or cast one of his longing gazes at her, she melted. Like the teenager she once was.\n\nShe must have missed some important phase during her evolution to adulthood, because something in her psyche was stuck back here in this small-town world. Adam's world.\n\nWhat would have happened if she hadn't gone to New York? Would she have married Adam? Then again, if she hadn't left, Adam would not have married Amie and Titus wouldn't exist, and for Joy, she'd have been robbed of knowing a most wonderful and endearing little boy.\n\nOr would she have allowed her bitterness toward the people who caused her parents' deaths to destroy all her chances at happiness? As it was, she'd run away and buried her grief and anger\u2014\"In my work.\"\n\nAdam walked in with the ladder. \"What's wrong? The lights don't work?\"\n\n\"Uh, no. I need to get some extension cords. I have some under the front counter. Be right back.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" he said and set up the extension ladder, the top of which he propped against the center beam in the glass-paned ceiling. \"I haven't done this for a long time,\" he called.\n\nAfter retrieving the cords, Joy walked back into the greenhouse. \"Getting a tree this tall was your idea.\"\n\n\"I know\" He beamed, taking the long green wire extension cord she handed him up the ladder with him. \"I'll run this one through the center so we can hang the lights straight down in a line from the top. It'll be too difficult to go around the tree.\"\n\n\"Hmm. Second-guessing your choice?\" she teased.\n\n\"Hey, my kid wanted this tree and it's the one he's gonna see. I want to knock his socks off.\"\n\n\"I think you already did.\"\n\n\"Yeah? How's that?\"\n\n\"Oh, Adam. Anyone can see he idolizes you.\"\n\n\"You think?\"\n\n\"He works so hard on his vocabulary. It's got to be hard for a little kid to keep up with a genius like you. I know I had a hard time measuring up back when...\" She unboxed another string and handed it to him.\n\n\"That's not true. You always measured up.\"\n\n\"Maybe that's not the right choice of words. It was, well, you were so\u2014advanced. You talked about machines and propulsions and free energy. You sailed through physics and advanced science classes like they were child's play.\"\n\n\"They were,\" he said, reaching for another string and plugging them in.\n\n\"I always wondered why you didn't become an astrophysicist or a theoretical physicist like Stephen Hawking.\"\n\n\"You saw that?\" He paused, then took another string and hung it.\n\n\"I did.\"\n\n\"I got a scholarship for mechanical engineering.\"\n\n\"Wait\u2014is that why you went to Purdue?\"\n\n\"I thought you knew. Or I told you. Maybe I was too embarrassed to tell you. I didn't have a family to pay for my education. That was the best I could get and I took it.\"\n\nHe climbed down the ladder. \"Okay,\" he said, moving to the other side of the tree. \"I'll take four strings up with me this time.\"\n\nJoy unboxed the lights and handed him the bundles of strings. \"I'll plug the lower strings into these. They should reach to the bottom.\"\n\n\"Without a problem,\" he said, as he continued working.\n\nJoy plugged in the second tier of lights as Adam worked from the very top. In another thirty minutes the boxes were empty and they stood back to critique their creation.\n\n\"It looks like a waterfall of light,\" she gushed. \"It's magnificent, Adam. A wonder.\"\n\n\"It is different.\" He snapped his fingers. \"I just remembered,\" he said, rushing away.\n\n\"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"I found something... Be right back.\"\n\nJoy picked up the empty light boxes and tossed them in the larger cardboard shipping box. The tree shimmered.\n\n\"Here!\" he said proudly, walking in with an enormous glitter gold star. It had a metal corkscrew attachment at its base.\n\n\"Grandpa's old star!\" She reached for it. \"Where was it?\"\n\n\"In the very back of the storage room. I was looking for more lights, and when I realized there were none, I ordered the new ones. But I found this in a crumbling box under an old bag of glittered cotton batting.\"\n\n\"Can you reach the top and put it on?\" she asked. \"I mean, if it's too dangerous, don't do it.\"\n\n\"I can try,\" he said, going back up the extension ladder. At the very top, he had to reach with every inch his long arm allowed, but he managed it.\n\nHe looked up. \"Oh, Joy, I wish you weren't afraid of heights.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Wait.\" He hustled down the ladder, then went to the far wall and turned out the overhead fluorescent lights. He took her hand and they went over to one of the poinsettia tables where their successful sales had cleared a portion of the tabletop. \"Sit here.\"\n\nJoy sat on the table and Adam stood next to her. \"Now what?\"\n\n\"Look up.\" He pointed. \"No place else in town can you see a crystal clear winter sky like that and without freezing outside!\"\n\n\"So many stars.\" She sighed as they looked through the glass. The sky was nearly black, the half-moon to the east. The greenhouse was warm, thanks to Adam's invention. As she looked at the sky, she could see the Little Dipper, the North Star. Venus.\n\n\"Galaxy after galaxy and on and on to infinity,\" he said. \"Worlds beyond worlds.\"\n\nJust then two shooting stars whisked across the expanse, their tails streaming glowing light behind them.\n\n\"Did you see that?\" she gasped.\n\n\"I did.\" He turned to her. \"You know what that was?\"\n\n\"No.\" She gazed up at him.\n\n\"That was your grandfather telling you he loves you.\"\n\nJoy's eyes filled with tears. She threw her arms around his neck. \"Thank you, Adam.\"\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"Being you\u2014never changing.\"\n\nHe pulled her close and let her cry into his shoulder."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 35",
                "text": "Joy was holding Titus's hand, but he shot away, up Mrs. Beabots's shoveled sidewalk, past the lit garland-draped wrought-iron handrails and up the steps to the front porch. Then he put his hands on his cheeks and said, \"Wow! She decorates more than you do.\"\n\nJoy looked up at half a dozen lit wreaths suspended between the Victorian porch posts, yards and yards of red-ribbon-wrapped and lit garland strung along the entire expanse of porch ceiling, and glimpses of more lights inside beyond the beveled glass doors. \"All this wasn't here yesterday when you were at Sarah's house next door?\"\n\n\"Nope!\"\n\n\"Then Mrs. Beabots must have found some elves to help her.\" Joy walked up to Titus, leaned over and shook her finger at him. \"And don't run away from me like that again. What if you fell?\"\n\nHe smiled impishly. \"I'd get up. Like always,\" he said, putting his hand in hers. \"Can I ring the bell? I love this bell.\"\n\n\"So do I. It reminds me of when I was your age and came to this house.\"\n\n\"You did?\" He looked up at her, pushing his glasses in place.\n\n\"Uh-huh. But you go ahead.\"\n\n\"Thanks!\" Titus proudly went to the antique door and twisted the hundred-plus-year-old pewter bell. \"This was really nice of her to invite us for dinner.\"\n\n\"It sure was,\" Joy replied, as Mrs. Beabots opened the door. Though she wore a pink-red-and-white toile apron with pink-and-white candy cane striped straps and ruffle at the bottom, Joy's eyes caught her Chanel logo gold earrings. Her platinum hair was meticulously styled, as it always was, and her makeup just as expertly applied.\n\n\"Come in!\" Mrs. Beabots smiled as she opened her arms for hugs. \"You're just in time to help,\" she said to Titus.\n\nThey walked in and Joy shut the door as Titus shucked off his hooded jacket, boots and scarf.\n\n\"I'd like to help with dinner,\" Joy offered, taking off her coat and boots. She put on her shoes, which she'd carried in a shoe bag.\n\nMrs. Beabots hung their coats in the closet and said, \"Oh, dinner is ready. Macaroni and cheese with bacon. I hope you like it.\"\n\n\"No vegetables?\" Titus asked. \"I have to eat something green, Dad says.\"\n\n\"I know,\" Mrs. Beabots confirmed. \"I'm steaming organic green beans. How's that?\"\n\n\"Cool,\" Titus replied.\n\nJoy gaped as they entered the kitchen. There wasn't a bare surface anywhere. The island, the counter around the sink, the stove and the long side serving counter were filled with cookie sheets; tiered pie servers bore plates filled with cookies. Several boxes of plastic wrap were piled next to a cardboard box that held paper plates with assorted cookies.\n\n\"What is all this?\" Joy asked. \"And how long have you been at it?\" She spied two large mixers, eggs, boxes of butter, a twenty-pound sack of flour, brown sugar, and large containers of spices sitting on the windowsill, apparently because there was no room left on the counters.\n\n\"Days, actually,\" Mrs. Beabots replied.\n\nTitus's eyes were huge, reminding Joy of those cartoon characters with the massive goggles and big eyes. \"Is this for our supper?\"\n\nJoy couldn't help her giggle and hugged Titus. \"No, honey.\"\n\n\"They're for my charities,\" Mrs. Beabots answered. \"The Recovery Alliance downtown. The Fireman's Christmas Gala. Your children's Christmas pageant at Saint Mark's.\"\n\nAs Mrs. Beabots spoke, Joy was suddenly aware of the number of community projects seemingly the whole town supported. A new Community Center on Gina Barzonni's land. A safe and maintained winter skating rink for the kids, rather than old Craven's Pond, which was all they'd had when she was a kid. The City Council's Father's Day Pancake Breakfast to support Hungry Child efforts. The list went on.\n\nThese were not the efforts of an apathetic community she remembered.\n\nMrs. Beabots was still chatting away. \"Some of these cookies are for\u2014\" she shot Joy a smile \"\u2014the Boston Greenhouses...\"\n\nJoy put up her hand. \"Stop right there. I had no idea so many people depended on you. I can't accept these cookies anymore. You're doing too much.\"\n\n\"Joy Boston, don't you dare tell me I'm too old to do this work.\"\n\n\"I wasn't gonna say that.\"\n\n\"You were thinking it.\"\n\nTitus's gaze tracked from one adult to the other. \"Are you arguing?\"\n\nJoy laughed. \"I should argue with her, but I'm not. She's always been this stubborn. And energetic.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots ended the birth of the argument and said to Titus, \"Your dad told me he had work to do tonight. More deliveries for the greenhouses?\"\n\n\"No,\" Titus answered, rubbing his nose. \"He has to work on the computer. He does that a lot after I go to bed.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" Joy said. \"I volunteered to bring Titus with me over here so Adam could have some time. He's done so much for me. First fixing up the greenhouses. Helping with supplies. The deliveries.\"\n\n\"Don't forget the tree!\" Titus grinned.\n\n\"I can't forget that. I can't wait for you to see it.\" Joy stared at her hostess. \"Speaking of which, who put up all those decorations for you?\"\n\n\"Lester MacDougal. His landscaping company puts up lights all over town. I have a standing commitment from him.\"\n\n\"He told Adam he wasn't all that busy and we're sending him back to Dallas for more poinsettias.\"\n\n\"Lester never turns down work,\" Mrs. Beabots said, brushing her palm over the back of her silky hair. \"Someday, I've got to find the right girl for him. He's such a loner.\"\n\n\"Matchmaking again?\" Joy accused.\n\n\"When did I ever?\"\n\n\"What's matchmaking?\" Titus asked, scrambling up onto his usual stool and placing his elbows on the granite counter.\n\nThey stared at him.\n\n\"It's okay if you don't tell me. I'll just look it up on the internet.\"\n\n\"Fine!\" Joy interjected. \"Mrs. Beabots has always had a penchant\u2014You know what that is?\"\n\n\"A proclivity.\" Titus ratcheted up his eyebrow challengingly.\n\nJoy exhaled. She could see she would seldom ever fool this very bright boy. \"She likes to meddle\u2014\"\n\n\"Help,\" Mrs. Beabots corrected. \"I help boys and girls, men and women, in their romantic relationships.\"\n\n\"So, are you helping my dad?\" Titus asked boldly.\n\n\"Uh...\"\n\n\"No,\" Joy interjected quickly. \"Your dad appears to be quite happy in his life. After all, he has you.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Titus said. \"He told me he has a lot to do with his life. That's why he has to concentrate on his work.\" Titus nodded to himself as he reached toward a lopsided gingerbread man. \"Can I have this one?\" he asked.\n\n\"Dinner first,\" Joy said.\n\nHe pulled the gingerbread man toward him, patting the cookie. \"You'll be dessert.\"\n\nJoy rubbed her hands together. \"Where do I start?\"\n\n\"A big plate for Titus.\"\n\n\"Yay! I'll have extra green beans, please. Do you have milk?\"\n\n\"I do. Organic.\"\n\nJoy went to the refrigerator. \"I've noticed you, Sarah, even Grandpa had organic milk. Is it because the kids are in and out of all your homes?\"\n\nMrs. Beabots pulled a casserole out of the oven and put it on top of the stove, where she'd cleared a space big enough for the round blue-and-white-painted dish. \"I would, certainly, but the truth is, Adam buys it and drops it off.\"\n\n\"That's thoughtful,\" she said, taking a glass out of the cabinet for Titus and pouring his milk.\n\n\"Oh,\" Titus began. \"Dad does that so I won't eat the wrong thing no matter where I go.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots scooped a large ladleful of beans from the saucepan on the stove. \"How's that, Titus?\"\n\n\"Perfect. I'm hungry. And after I eat, can I help decorate some cookies? I told Dad I wanted to make Christmas cookies, but he doesn't make them.\"\n\nJoy took a small plate and placed a spoonful of macaroni and cheese on it. \"I guess he thinks it's too much sugar for you, huh?\"\n\nTitus put a long green bean in his mouth and chomped on it. \"He doesn't like baking. He said it's not creative and it takes too long. He cooks dinner for me every night, except for when we have leftovers.\"\n\n\"Not creative?\" Mrs. Beabots exclaimed. \"I need to talk to that boy.\" She waved her hand over the array of lemon bars, chocolate-iced cherry cookies, powdered-sugar-covered snowballs, peppermint-candy-filled puffs, butter cookies in the shapes of green wreaths, green trees and white snowmen, all decorated with cinnamon candies. \"What would he call this?\"\n\nJoy speared a forkful of macaroni. \"Delicious, I'm guessing.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Mrs. Beabots said, \"I'll just have to make a plate for Titus to take home. I'll show him.\"\n\nJoy glanced at Titus and saw the smirk on his lips as he ate. She couldn't help wondering if Adam had made that comment or if Titus had just wrangled a plate of cookies for himself.\n\nAfter they finished their dinner, Joy cleaned up. Then she said, \"I'll make the icing for the sugar cookies.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots placed plastic and paper plates of cookies in the large cardboard boxes she had stacked by the back door.\n\n\"Titus, would you take these boxes, one by one, to the dining room table for me?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" he said, getting down from the stool and taking the first box from Mrs. Beabots.\n\nJoy noticed that the stool teetered slightly. It amazed her that Titus climbed up and down stools like that, seemingly unaware of his imbalance, and yet he managed to right the stool every time. She looked into the large mixer bowl. \"What's this?\"\n\n\"Oh, my gosh, I forgot. I need to make another pan of lemon bars. I started that before you got here. The recipe is there on top of the flour canister. Do you mind finishing up that filling? That's the lemon juice and sugar. You'll need to melt the butter in the microwave and go from there. I made the cookie crust bottom. It's in the nine-by-twelve pan there next to the date pinwheel cookies.\"\n\nTitus came back into the kitchen, took another box and marched it to the dining room.\n\nMrs. Beabots filled another box. \"I promised Beatrice Nelson I'd bring some cookies out to her youth camp. There aren't any campers around in the winter, but I wanted Chris and Eli to have some cookies. I suppose I could drop them off at the fire station with her husband. Do you mind driving me over there, Joy?\n\n\"Of course I will. And every other place you need to go.\"\n\nTitus came into the kitchen and got another box, then turned back toward the dining room.\n\nJoy smiled at him. \"You're such a good helper, Titus.\"\n\n\"It's important to stay busy,\" he said from the hallway.\n\nJoy looked at Mrs. Beabots. \"That sounds like something you'd say.\"\n\n\"I do remember saying that to you when you were young.\" She smiled.\n\nJoy measured the rest of the ingredients, turned on the mixer and scraped the sides of the bowl. This time when Titus returned, he went up to Joy and asked, \"Can I lick the bowl?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\nHe started to reach up, with the beater still going, and Joy snatched his hand away. \"Not yet, Titus. After I turn the machine off.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" He pulled his hand back and looked down.\n\nInstantly, Joy knew she'd hurt his feelings. \"Titus, sweetheart. I didn't mean to snap at you. Haven't you ever worked with a mixer before?\"\n\n\"No. We don't have one,\" he replied and looked up. \"Dad has an immersion blender he uses for sauces and soups.\"\n\n\"I see. But you've licked a cookie dough bowl before.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh. Miss Milse makes all kinds of sugary stuff at Miss Sarah's house and she gives us the bowls to lick. That's where I learned it.\"\n\nJoy pursed her lips. \"I see,\" she said again. \"So does your dad know you have treats at Miss Sarah's house?\"\n\nTitus glanced at Mrs. Beabots. Then slid his eyes back to Joy, fiddling with his sport strap. \"I think I forgot to mention it.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you what,\" Joy said. \"I won't tattle on you and neither will Mrs. Beabots. But you should tell your dad. It's not a bad thing, and I'm sure Sarah watches how much sugar she allows.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Mrs. Beabots interrupted, \"but Miss Milse is the best pastry chef this side of Berlin.\"\n\nJoy sighed. \"I remember.\"\n\n\"She uses cage-free eggs and organic milk,\" Titus said brightly. \"That's a good thing, right?\"\n\nJoy laughed along with Mrs. Beabots. \"Most certainly.\"\n\nJoy turned off the mixer and prepared the lemon bars. \"Is the oven preheated?\"\n\n\"I never turned it off. I may need more date bars before the night is over.\"\n\n\"Good heavens. You really do feed the town.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots lifted her chin proudly. \"It's my town and my honor.\"\n\nA surge of regret hurled through Joy. Her town. Joy had run away because she'd hated too many of its residents, and she'd pushed away the love offered to her by people like Mrs. Beabots, Sarah, Maddie, Olivia\u2014and Adam. Times had changed. Old Wilma Wilcox was long buried. The town council had new members. People had changed.\n\nJoy wondered what Adam was working on tonight. He'd told her about several patents he'd applied for.\n\nAll this time that she'd been back, Joy had concentrated so much on building the greenhouses back to their former successful state that she hadn't questioned Adam's participation. Had he put his work aside to help her and was it costing him? She hoped she hadn't jeopardized his career in any way. Typical.\n\nIt was Joy's fault she didn't know more about the adult Adam. Was she wrong to have parked her heart back there in her memories of high school? Were Adam's feelings for her now real, or was he doing the same jog down memory lane?\n\nWere they both guilty of resurrecting the greenhouses to keep a past romance alive?\n\nOr was there something more? Something real?\n\nAnd did she even want to know? Wasn't it safer to stick to the plan and then go back to her life in New York?\n\nWasn't it safer to choose Chuck and the career she'd worked so diligently for and keep her errant heart and romantic dreams locked in the past?\n\nTitus stepped back while Joy put the pan of lemon bars into the oven and set the timer.\n\nTitus looked up at her, smiled and, without a word, put his arms around her waist and hugged her.\n\n\"I like you being here with me,\" he said and squeezed his little arms tighter.\n\nJoy rested her palms on the top of his head, leaned down and kissed his crown. \"I love it,\" she said, feeling every space inside her glow.\n\nTitus tilted his head back, stared up at her and said, \"My mom used to kiss the top of my head. She said all her love would go straight into my heart from there.\"\n\n\"It sounds like she was a wise woman.\"\n\n\"So are you,\" Mrs. Beabots said softly as she poured more milk for Titus. \"Come eat your gingerbread man, Titus. That bowl can wait.\"\n\nJoy rubbed Titus's back before he walked to his stool and climbed up.\n\nThe whorl of longing, caring and, yes, love that overtook Joy left her light-headed. She grasped the edge of the counter and realized her eyes had filled with tears.\n\nShe loved little Titus, who reminded her every second of the kind of young person Adam had been long ago.\n\nIt had been only a few hours since she'd seen Adam at the greenhouses and she missed him already. She knew there was at least another hour or more of work to do here with Mrs. Beabots, but all she could think about was the opportunity to see Adam when she took Titus home.\n\nShe wondered if he would kiss her good-night. Or give her a hug. Would he ask her in? Would it be wrong to tell him about her feelings?\n\nMaybe Adam did care for her now, but the harsh fact was that he didn't know the adult Joy any more than she knew what he was like.\n\nAdam didn't trust her.\n\nAnd he had good reason. She was here in Indian Lake for another ten days. By Christmas Day, she'd be off to New York and out of Adam's life forever.\n\nHe was right to protect his heart. His child. His future.\n\nShe should do the same for herself."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 36",
                "text": "Joy stood outside the main greenhouse, huddled in jeans, a pair of broken-in cowboy boots she'd found in the very back of her closet and her grandpa's sheepskin-lined leather jacket. Snow whirled around her feet and her teeth chattered as she tried to smile for Scott Abbott's DSLR camera.\n\nScott waved his left hand at her. \"A little to the left, Joy. I want to get all the tree in, but with you out here, it gives a flavor of how huge the tree is.\"\n\n\"Couldn't we do this inside?\" she groaned, her smiling lips feeling as if they'd frozen to her teeth.\n\n\"I got those, but this is epic!\" He took a few more shots. \"Done.\"\n\n\"Oh, thank goodness. Trust me, there's not enough hot cocoa to warm me up.\" She laughed as they hustled through the showroom's front door.\n\nAdam was at the counter checking out a customer whose double-tiered cart was piled with Sonora Marble poinsettias. Joy loved the pink-and-cream-splattered bracts and smaller leaves. They were part of the new shipment from Dallas.\n\n\"How'd it go?\" Adam asked.\n\n\"Freezing,\" Joy said. \"I need a warm drink.\"\n\nScott went up and shook Adam's hand. \"I'd stay, but I want to get this in for this evening's edition. They're literally holding the presses for me.\" He took the memory card out of the DSLR and plugged it into a laptop he'd opened up. \"I gotta email these ASAP.\" He typed the email address and uploaded the pictures. \"Okay, photos sent. I'll write the copy on the drive back to my bookshop.\"\n\n\"You're amazing,\" Joy complimented him.\n\n\"Ain't me.\" He held the phone up. \"Technology. Much of it, I love. Some, I hate. Gotta run.\" He started to jog to the door and halted. \"Hey, you both going to the kids' pageant at the school?\"\n\nAdam beamed. \"Absolutely. Titus is a shepherd and he has a couple lines to recite. He didn't get to write the play this time.\"\n\n\"Yeah? Don't tell my daughter. Bella wanted to be the angel. She's a townsperson instead. Isabelle convinced her it was a good gig because she still got to wear a costume.\" Scott went to the door and helped the lady customer out with her poinsettias. He waved to them as he shut the door.\n\nJoy laughed. \"He's such a neat guy.\"\n\n\"The best,\" Adam replied as his cell phone rang. \"Masterson.\"\n\nJoy watched as Scott helped the woman load her car and then put the cart in the bin near the front door. She was still surprised how these little exchanges about school plays, cookie baking and Christmas decorating reminded her of her mother. Jill had made certain that Joy participated in school events, invited her friends over to share in holiday activities. She and Sarah had made ornaments together. And Sarah carried on the tradition for her kids and included Titus. Jill had told her, \"The greatest gifts, Joy, are the memories we make with our friends.\"\n\nJoy hadn't made much of Christmas at all since she left Indian Lake. And her life lacked a great deal of her mother's kind of loving sparkle. \"Nobody's fault but my own.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 37",
                "text": "As she took off her jacket and headed to the greenhouse, Adam waved to her. \"I just took care of the watering. I have to take this call, so do you mind watching the front?\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" she said, putting her jacket under the counter as some patrons walked in. \"Go!\" She waved him away.\n\nAdam pushed through the French doors. \"Yeah. I'm here. So, what did he say?\"\n\nJoy knew the kids were at school, probably rehearsing for the pageant. She'd forgotten how important play parts, leading roles and being chosen for school teams, bands and choirs were to kids. She'd won the parts she wanted back then, and if a role was truly challenging, she didn't try out for it. Acting, singing and music had never been her forte the way it had been for Sarah, who always seemed to do everything exceptionally well.\n\nCome to think of it, Adam hadn't been much for group activities, either. Except for his participation in science fairs, he'd been a loner back then.\n\nAnother big change for him in adulthood. He was very much the joiner now.\n\nSarah came through the doorway to the middle greenhouse with a customer who was wheeling a double-tiered cart filled with the new Cortez White poinsettias that were also part of the shipment from Dallas. Sarah pushed a second cart and pulled a third filled with an assortment of poinsettias, including Winter Rose, an odd-looking flower, half ruffled rose and half poinsettia. Joy loved it. Adam couldn't stand it.\n\nThis late in the season, Joy had been able to garner only the more interesting and expensive poinsettias, since the mass retailers had already spoken for the traditional reds, whites and pinks.\n\n\"Joy,\" the seventyish woman in the long camel coat said, \"I can't tell you how thrilled I am with what you've done. When I got back to town from my cruise, everyone at my church and book club was talking about the reopening. I was so late getting here, I was afraid there'd be nothing left. But these poinsettias! I've never seen anything so exotic.\" She touched the bracts of a Winter Blush flower with pink-and-cream blossoms and green-and-white-veined leaves.\n\n\"Thank you so much,\" Joy said.\n\n\"I'm having forty people on Christmas Eve and these beauties will be banked around the fireplace and up the staircase.\" She leaned forward. \"I'm going to knock their socks off this year,\" she murmured, smiling broadly.\n\n\"I'm glad you feel that way. I was worried because there's nothing traditional about any of the flowers in this shipment.\"\n\n\"I love them. And I'm going to send my friends from the book club over, if they haven't been here already,\" she said, handing Joy her credit card. \"Why, with flowers like these, who needs any other decorations?\"\n\n\"That's a lovely compliment,\" Joy replied. \"But I have to say, it's not Christmas in Indian Lake without a tree.\"\n\n\"Oh, absolutely.\"\n\nSarah pushed one of the carts toward the door. \"I'd have a tree in every room if I had the time.\"\n\n\"And the decorations!\" the woman said and took another cart as Joy came around the counter and took the third.\n\nThey filled the woman's SUV with the poinsettias, placed the carts in the bin and rushed back inside, hugging themselves.\n\n\"Wow! I forgot how cold and snowy it gets here,\" Joy said.\n\n\"And it's only December. Wait till late January.\" Sarah laughed.\n\nJoy's smile vanished as she looked at her friend. \"I'll be back in New York...\" Joy said, feeling a distance between her and Sarah as the realization settled into Sarah's expression.\n\n\"Yes,\" Sarah replied slowly. \"I forgot. You will.\"\n\n\"That is, if everything goes well and I get a good price.\" The words felt bitter and raw as she spoke them aloud and saw disappointment fill her best friend's face. Joy was responsible for shoring up everyone's enthusiasm and hopes for the greenhouses. Sarah, Maddie, Liz, Olivia, Katia, Mrs. Beabots and Adam had gone to great lengths to help her. They believed in her.\n\nBut, Joy realized now, they'd all hoped she would stay. And when she left Indian Lake, she'd be disappointing a lot of people.\n\nSarah clapped her hands, breaking the mood. \"I forgot to tell you\u2014Katia is on her way over. She's bringing a group of people from Austin's car museum. Then she wants poinsettias for the museum and her house.\"\n\n\"Katia is going to love these designer hybrids.\" Joy pressed her hand to her cheek. \"That reminds me. I told Daryl I'd call her about now to see what she thought about Grandpa's Frankincense poinsettia.\"\n\n\"You have a poinsettia that smells like frankincense? We'll make a killing.\"\n\nJoy smiled as she took her cell phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. \"No fragrance, but boy, wouldn't that be something? It is Grandpa's hybrid poinsettia. Finally!\" She punched in Daryl's number.\n\n\"Oh, Joy! I've been meaning to call. In a word, it's fabulous. It's got a good woody stem and I can do some cuttings right away. I found how he cross-pollinated with Lemon Drop poinsettia and a softer red, almost pink, variety to get this tangerine color. It wasn't easy. But just having this original plant, I can start cuttings this winter and propagate that ad infinitum.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\"\n\n\"I am. But I need legal permission to do this, Joy. You most assuredly have something amazing here. I had a similar situation a couple years ago when I propagated for another hybridizer. You keep the rights and pay me for my services. However, I would like to advertise Frankincense on my website. I'll email the document to you, but the sooner we sign, the better.\"\n\n\"Tell you what. Email the papers to Kyle Evans, Grandpa's attorney. I'll text you his information. I'll ask him to read them over ASAP, and if he says everything looks okay, maybe I can drive out there tonight after closing here.\"\n\n\"That would be great, Joy. I'm really excited about this. It's such an unusual flower.\"\n\n\"A showstopper?\"\n\n\"Most definitely.\"\n\n\"Talk soon.\"\n\nJoy hung up and looked at Sarah's anxious face. \"Daryl can do it!\"\n\nSarah jumped with glee and put her hands on Joy's shoulders. \"Oh, my gosh! This is\u2014is earthshaking! I'm so happy for you.\"\n\nJoy sent a quick text to Kyle and he texted back that he'd received the papers and was reading them over. He cautioned that this was a preliminary agreement and he would draw up formal documents over the next few days.\n\nAdam walked in through the French doors, and having overheard their conversation, he joked, \"Whose earth is shaking?\"\n\n\"Joy's!\" Sarah pointed.\n\nJoy knew her smile was wide. This was what she wanted for her grandpa. This was the recognition he deserved, and if all went well and Daryl could indeed continue propagating until next Christmas, she could fill the greenhouse with tangerine-colored poinsettias.\n\nLike a banging gong, Joy's thoughts clashed.\n\nWhat was she thinking? She wouldn't be here.\n\n\"Are you gonna tell me?\" he asked.\n\n\"I talked to Daryl. She wants to propagate and breed Frankincense.\"\n\n\"No kidding?\"\n\nJoy rushed on. \"She's sent legal papers to Kyle Evans for him to go over. If all is good, I'll drive out there tonight and sign. Daryl will start immediately.\"\n\nAdam pointed to the whirling wind outside the greenhouse. \"That bit of winter storm in town is nothing compared to the open road.\"\n\n\"It's not that far,\" Joy said dismissively. Knowing that she was leaving in ten days, and with all the work she still had to accomplish before her flight to New York, she needed to take care of this right away. Her cell phone pinged with a text.\n\n\"It's from Kyle. He says the paperwork looks good. I can sign. So, it's done. I'm going out there.\"\n\n\"Not without me,\" Adam said. \"We'll take my truck.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 38",
                "text": "When Katia arrived at the greenhouses and heard of Joy's plans to visit Daryl that night, she offered to walk Angel and feed her in addition to cooking for all the kids, Sarah, Luke and Mrs. Beabots at her house, taking some of the burden from Sarah and Miss Milse, who'd been watching Titus nearly every afternoon after school since the greenhouses reopened.\n\nAdam had thanked Katia profusely before Katia showed her friends around the greenhouses. By the time they all left, their cars filled with flowers and gifts, Adam looked at his watch.\n\n\"We need to hit the road. I should get gas before we leave town.\"\n\nJoy had quickly closed up the greenhouses, leaving on the Christmas lights and the stunning lit tree. She'd checked her cell phone, saw that the battery was low, but other than calling Daryl to announce their ETA, she didn't expect to need the phone.\n\nAfter fueling the truck, they headed east out of Indian Lake. They'd passed the county courthouse, the enormous Santa, and the lit spruce on the lawn that was now at least twenty-five years old and three stories tall. Three enormous lit wreaths hung over the two-hundred-year-old entrance.\n\nOnce away from the town lights, Joy was surprised how dark it was.\n\n\"It never gets this dark in New York,\" she said, looking at the falling snow in the glow of the headlights.\n\n\"And if we're lucky, we may even drive out of the snow. The storm is coming from due north and this snow is lake-effect.\"\n\nJoy leaned forward and peered out the windshield. \"Those aren't snowflakes. Those are feathers, they're so big.\"\n\n\"From angel's wings. I remember Frank saying that,\" Adam mused, keeping his eyes straight ahead.\n\n\"When I was little, I believed him.\"\n\n\"I never stopped believing him.\"\n\nAdam gave her a brief and deeply sincere gaze that went straight to her heart. She said, \"Adam, I owe you so much for what you've done. You've been...\"\n\n\"Still your best friend?\" He smiled.\n\n\"Yes. Best ever.\" The words had come out without thinking. They were there, in her heart, and she wanted him to know that.\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"Uh-huh.\"\n\n\"Well.\" He lifted his chin as a slight but satisfied smile drew his lips up. \"That's good to know.\"\n\nThey rode in silence for a bit, when Adam asked, \"Tell me, what do you like best about your life in New York?\"\n\n\"Seriously?\"\n\n\"It's not a trick question.\"\n\n\"From you? Sure it is.\"\n\nHe laughed. \"C'mon.\"\n\n\"It's my dream come true,\" she replied.\n\n\"Is it?\"\n\n\"For me, it's everything. I have a job that I love and I'm good at. I have respect from my colleagues, clients and the partners. I have Glory, whom I love. Then there's the city itself. Broadway. Restaurants. Museums. Radio City Music Hall at Christmas. The Statue of Liberty, for goodness' sake.\"\n\n\"Yeah. I see what you mean. You should love it.\"\n\n\"I do,\" she replied. She hadn't mentioned Chuck in her list. With each day, he was fading from her conscience\u2014and she hadn't missed him.\n\nHe glanced at her and then away. \"I have to say\u2014I liked climbing all those stairs.\"\n\n\"You...went to New York?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"When was this?\"\n\n\"Summer after college graduation.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nHe gripped the steering wheel. \"Isn't it obvious? To see you.\"\n\nJoy had to close her mouth, she was so surprised. \"But you never called.\"\n\n\"I, er, didn't get that far,\" he confessed.\n\nShe turned in her seat and stared at him. \"Just how far did you get?\"\n\n\"I found out where you worked. Frank told me, actually. I saw you coming out of the building. Getting into a limo. With someone.\"\n\n\"Probably Chuck.\"\n\n\"I figured,\" he said, gripping the steering wheel even tighter.\n\nJoy felt his discomfort and yet this was a revelation to her. She wondered what she would have done back then if she'd known Adam had come to New York. While Chuck had always pursued her, they hadn't been in a relationship then. Over the years, she'd broken down; now she'd committed to him. Hadn't she? She rubbed her forehead, as if wiping away visions of Chuck and the Newly office. \"Turnabout is fair play. Why do you like Indian Lake so much?\"\n\n\"The people. Frank.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" she replied sadly. \"But he's gone now.\"\n\nShe noticed Adam lifting his chin and grinding his jaw. He was holding something back, but what?\n\n\"Life is about people. Loving. Sharing. Look at today. Katia canceled her plans, even took care of Angel, and brought everyone to her house for dinner so that you and I could make this trip. She wanted to help. And Sarah...\"\n\n\"Has been a godsend. I couldn't have done all this without her help.\"\n\n\"That's what I'm saying. All your real friends were there. I've been trying to show you that Indian Lake is where you belong. They're here for you.\"\n\n\"And so are you,\" she said softly.\n\nHis blue eyes slid to her with fierce earnestness. \"I am.\"\n\nThe truck swerved slightly.\n\n\"I better concentrate on the road,\" he said.\n\nThey both watched the highway, looking for the sign that marked the turnoff to Daryl's nursery.\n\n\"There it is!\" Joy pointed as the headlights lit up a snow-covered but distinctive royal-blue-and-white-lettered sign with a reflective painted arrow pointing to the right.\n\n\"I see it,\" Adam replied, as he turned off the highway and onto the county road.\n\nIt was only a mile to Daryl's farm. They followed silver reflective markers topped with bright red bows that led up to the drive. There were solar lights on tall poles at the entrance and leading up to the house and the massive greenhouses.\n\nAdam honked the horn as they drove up. The front door of the house opened and Daryl, dressed in jeans, a hooded parka, gloves and snow boots, waved to them as she approached.\n\n\"I figured you'd call and reschedule,\" she said, holding Joy's door.\n\n\"I was persistent.\"\n\n\"And daring,\" Daryl added, hugging Joy. \"Well, c'mon in. I have everything in the kitchen.\"\n\n\"Something hot?\" Adam asked.\n\n\"How about some hibiscus tea? I dried the petals myself,\" Daryl said.\n\nJoy looked at Adam, who shrugged his shoulders. \"Of course you did,\" Joy said.\n\nAdam rubbed his chin as they walked. \"Do you do a lot of that? Make flower teas?\"\n\n\"Yeah. After the summer season, I cut back the rose petals, hibiscus and violets and dry them. I have to do that to pollinate and hybridize the roses, especially. I have barrels of dried flowers.\" She held the door open for them. \"Why?\"\n\nJoy went inside, careful to keep her snowy boots on the rag rug to the side of the foyer. She took off her coat and caught Adam's eye. She knew just what he was thinking. \"Because we might want to package them and sell them at Boston Greenhouses.\"\n\nDaryl smiled at Joy. \"I love this idea! I don't reopen till the last week in April, to the public, I mean, and all I've done with them is to mix them and sell as potpourri. Not such a big call for that anymore,\" she admitted. \"I never thought of selling them for teas.\"\n\nJoy followed Daryl to the kitchen, where the papers rested on the wooden table. Daryl put a teakettle on the stove to boil. \"You look those papers over.\"\n\nJoy started reading.\n\nAdam quickly moved over to the stacked teacups. \"I'll fix the tea while you two discuss business. You want sugar, Joy?\"\n\n\"Yes, thanks.\"\n\n\"Adam, I have some local honey there for mine. Thanks.\" Daryl sat next to Joy.\n\n\"To save time, I can write that provision here.\" Joy pointed to the signature page. \"We'll both initial and date.\"\n\n\"Okay. Anything else?\"\n\nJoy read the points. \"This is very specific.\"\n\n\"I know. Kyle rewrote the contract on my request. If you'll notice, he has a clause that if either of us decline to do business together, or upon my death, neither I nor my heirs can use the name Frankincense for a poinsettia.\"\n\n\"He told me he researched it and the name hadn't been taken.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" Adam said. \"Actually, I did the research and I sent him an email.\"\n\nJoy and Daryl turned around and said at the same time, \"You did?\"\n\nHe put their tea in front of them, leaning so close to Joy that their noses nearly touched. \"I wanted you to be safe.\"\n\nJoy had to drag her eyes from him. She felt uncomfortable, as if Daryl were witnessing an intimate moment. Maybe she was.\n\nJoy quickly took a gulp of tea. Anything to avoid the twist of warmth in her belly and the distinct hammering of her heart. \"I'll sign,\" Joy said, picking up the ballpoint.\n\n\"I'll do the same.\"\n\nAdam drank his tea. \"You should have it notarized. And a copy in Kyle's office.\"\n\n\"It's kinda late for a notary,\" Joy said.\n\n\"There's one at the library,\" Adam said. \"This is good for now, but once the weather breaks, and you can get to town, Daryl, I could cover at the greenhouses for Joy while you two take care of business,\" he said.\n\n\"I'll do that,\" Daryl agreed and finished her tea.\n\n\"I'd love to sell the tea before Christmas, but that's a lot to ask.\"\n\n\"Not really. I can use my business card as the label. It's cute, with a blue ribbon at the top. I'll use clear food-safe plastic bags. I'll have them for you in two days.\" She glanced up at the kitchen window. \"As long as the snow abates.\"\n\nJoy followed her gaze. \"We should go.\" She picked up her copy of the contract and held out her hand. \"Partners.\"\n\nDaryl shook her hand. \"Frank would be proud. I promise to do my best by him...and you. This flower is unique, Joy. And, Adam, thank you for working with Frank on it all this time.\"\n\nJoy walked out of Daryl's house feeling an unfamiliar sense of true accomplishment. In all her years in accounting, no matter how difficult the client or precarious their situation, when she'd righted their corporate ships, she'd only moved on to the next problem. The next file.\n\nThis was vastly different.\n\nShe was creating something that had never existed before. She was carrying on Frank's legacy just as Adam had said.\n\nShe reached for Adam's hand as they walked to the truck. But instead of holding her hand, he put his arm around her shoulders and said, \"I've never been so proud of you.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Adam.\" She looked up at the snow falling in her face. The sky was heavy and gray.\n\nBut even without the stars and moon, she felt her grandpa around her. As Adam pulled her a bit closer, she felt love from both of them."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 39",
                "text": "Saint mark's auditorium was standing room only for the children's Christmas pageant. There was a single adult role in the entire play and Adam volunteered.\n\n\"Dad!\" Titus ran up to him in the school hallway where kids were dressing in the classrooms for their appearances. \"How do I look?\"\n\n\"Genuine.\"\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\n\"Like an honest-to-goodness shepherd boy. I like the crook.\"\n\n\"I thought it was a staff.\" Titus looked at the Irish shillelagh Timmy's dad had let him borrow for his premier acting role. He flipped the ends of the scarf under the kippah he wore on his head.\n\n\"Where'd you get that head covering?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Beabots had it. She said the scarf is from Paris. I gave Miss Sarah a thank-you note for making my tunic.\" He lifted his sneaker. \"We didn't know what to do about the shoes.\"\n\n\"It's okay. The tunic covers them.\"\n\n\"Timmy has burlap sacks over his shoes and tied them with twine. But Miss Sarah said she ran out of material.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Titus. I've been so busy with all this work that I didn't realize how much you needed my help. You didn't say anything.\"\n\nTitus pushed his glasses up. \"Actually, I figured I better not have bags on my feet. In case I trip.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Adam put his arm around Titus's shoulders. \"You're aware of the danger. You must be growing up.\"\n\n\"I am, Dad.\" Titus wobbled his head and rolled his eyes. \"I'll be six in two weeks.\"\n\n\"I remember,\" Adam replied with a smile. Then thrust his tongue against his lips as a clump of white nylon hairs got caught in his mouth. He patted down the white beard and adjusted the wide black belt on his Santa costume. \"So, what do you think of my, er...suit? How do I look?\"\n\n\"Fat.\"\n\n\"That's the point.\"\n\n\"But awesome, Dad. Totally.\" Titus grinned.\n\n\"I've never been dressed like Santa before. This beard is really long.\"\n\n\"So, why did you do it?\"\n\nAdam's smile pinched his eyes as they misted. He put his hand on Titus's shoulder. \"I did it for you, Titus.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Dad. And Miss Joy knows you're Santa?\"\n\n\"I thought it should be a surprise.\"\n\nTitus laughed. \"Well, at least she'll know what you'll look like when you're really, really old!\"\n\n\"Oh, thanks a lot.\"\n\nThe intercom sounded a bell. Titus jumped, his anxiety rising to the surface. \"It's time! I hope I remember my lines. It's hard when you don't write them yourself.\"\n\n\"You can do anything. You remember that and you'll be just fine. C'mon. I'll walk you to the stage. I don't go on till the last scene, so I'll watch you from the wings. Okay?\"\n\n\"Okay.\" Titus playfully banged the shillelagh against the floor as they walked, reminding Adam that his son, as brilliant as he was, still was a child filled with wonderment and blind faith.\n\nThe play was true to the Christmas story, but the spoken lines between the shepherds, angels and the wise men were contemporary, and when delivered by nervous, nonprofessional children, the murmur of laughter from the audience and the continued flash of cell phone cameras made Adam proud.\n\nAdam's role was as simple as one could be. After the children sang \"Silent Night\" and then hummed the tune, Adam walked on stage, reached in his sack and started handing candy canes out to all the kids there.\n\nThe curtain fell to thunderous applause as all the parents shot to their feet, clapping for their kids.\n\n\"Bravo!\"\n\nThe curtain parted and Titus took his bow, along with Timmy, Annie and Danny. Then the kids playing other parts joined them. Adam stood behind all the children and bowed, as well.\n\nWatching from on stage, he saw Joy next to Mrs. Beabots, who pointed to Adam, whispered something that caused Joy to gape at him, then smile broadly. She clapped even harder.\n\n\"Uh-oh. Busted,\" he said, as the kids started off the stage. He then went down the steps and to the kids who had gathered at the bottom, eager for their own candy canes.\n\nBackstage again at last, he took off the hat, long white wig, and the beard that had been hooked around his ears.\n\n\"Dad!\" Titus rushed up, the shillelagh pointed not up in the air, but straight ahead.\n\n\"Titus! Be careful with that thing,\" he said as he grabbed it. \"You could hurt someone with it.\"\n\n\"Sorry.\" Titus dropped his chin to his chest. \"I forgot. I just wanted to tell you how great you were.\"\n\n\"Thanks, son, but I didn't have a speaking part like you.\"\n\n\"I know,\" Titus replied.\n\n\"Adam!\" Joy shouted, as she walked down the hall with Mrs. Beabots. She waved.\n\nHe waved back, then lowered his arm.\n\nIt had been a long time since he'd seen her face light up at the sight of him. Was he dreaming? Was she this happy to see him or was it simply that his Santa role had surprised her?\n\n\"Adam!\" Affectionately, she put her hand on Titus's shoulder. \"You were both great.\" Her eyes lifted from his son to him. His blue eyes held hers.\n\nSuddenly, he remembered they were not alone. \"I, uh, better get this back to Mrs. Cook. She has to return it by the end of the day. Probably being used again tonight by someone else.\"\n\n\"Right,\" Joy said, looking at her watch and then at Mrs. Beabots. \"I'll drive you home and then go back and open up the greenhouses. I hope not too many people were disappointed I was closed for an hour.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots chuckled. \"They'll come back.\"\n\n\"I hope so. Well, see you later, guys,\" Joy said as she walked away.\n\nTitus shuffled to Adam's side and took his hand. \"She looked really pretty today, huh?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Beabots always looks elegant.\"\n\n\"I was talking about Miss Joy.\"\n\n\"I know who you meant,\" Adam said. Joy always looked lovely to him, even with smudges of humus on her cheeks. He'd tried, maybe in vain, to show her that not just her friends wanted to support her, but more important, he did. Yes, he'd pushed to help her out revamping the greenhouses. Yes, he'd made himself available to her\u2014maybe too often. But, darn it, he wanted her to see what she was missing.\n\nHe knew she had to make a lot of choices if there was anything that could happen between them. Her fianc\u00e9. New York and putting her grief and anger in the past, where it belonged.\n\nBut in the end, Adam had decisions, as well. Since Amie died, he'd closed his heart down to new love. Until recently, he'd been successful teaching Titus to keep his distance from others. But Titus's friendship with Annie and Timmy and even Danny Sullivan had opened Adam's eyes. Perhaps he'd been wrong.\n\nIf he took a chance with Joy, would she hurt him again? Or would she surprise him? Adam wished he could be sure.\n\n\"Let's go change. Then we'll go home.\"\n\n\"You aren't going to the greenhouses?\"\n\n\"Not today. I have a lot of other work to do.\"\n\nThey walked into Titus's classroom. Adam helped Titus take off his tunic, kippah and scarf. Adam helped Titus into his jacket, put up the hood and then helped with his boots. Adam lumbered out of the Santa costume and gave it to Mary-Catherine Cook, Titus's teacher.\n\n\"You were terrific,\" Mary-Catherine said.\n\n\"Wasn't much to it,\" Adam replied.\n\n\"But you did it with spontaneity and, well, fun!\" She looked at Titus. \"You have a happy vacation, Titus. I'll see you in the New Year.\"\n\nAdam's smile vanished. He'd been so immersed in Joy's world at the greenhouses and recording the results of his geothermal heating system, he'd actually lost track of time.\n\nChristmas was nearly here. The kids were on vacation as of the end of the play today. The New Year was almost upon them.\n\nLast night, Hal had called and pressed him about the California job. Adam turned him down, believing that he and Joy were finding their way back to each other. Hal had been disappointed, naturally, because he believed in Adam.\n\nAdmittedly, Adam wasn't all that keen on moving Titus from his friends. And he still hoped that Joy would give him a signal that she'd found happiness in Indian Lake. He'd hoped, foolishly, that she'd see her fianc\u00e9 was not the kind of guy who would make her happy. Yet, when they'd discussed her early career, Chuck had been there. She'd known him a long time. Were they romantic all that time? And if so, what chance did he really have with her?\n\nTheir kiss that afternoon before going into the bank building had been premature. If anything, he'd probably frightened her.\n\nHe'd certainly caused enough consternation in his own heart and mind.\n\nAfter their breakup, he'd found happiness again with Amie. They'd been of like mind and the thrill of Titus was incredible. He would always be grateful that Amie had been a part of his life, but the truth was, Joy had never left his heart.\n\nApparently, his heart was still Joy territory.\n\nHe wished he knew how to cross into that country again.\n\nIt was time he'd have to force the situation to a conclusion."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 40",
                "text": "It was nearly eleven o'clock as Joy checked out her customers, wrapped their poinsettias and bagged their gift items. She wished them a merry Christmas.\n\n\"I guess we should have shopped earlier,\" the twentysomething young woman said to her mother.\n\n\"I've been fortunate that my inventory has sold well.\"\n\n\"I'll say, though I do like these unusual poinsettias. Quite honestly, I got tired of the same old thing I could find at the Tractor Supply.\" The mother laughed.\n\n\"I aim to please,\" Joy said.\n\n\"So, next year, can we expect more of the same?\" the blonde daughter asked.\n\nShe'd been focused on the present circumstances since she opened the greenhouses. Make the business solvent. Sell. Go back to New York.\n\nBut she'd put Chuck on hold. In fact, he'd taken her very seriously and gone radio silent on her since they'd had that conversation. And she'd thought about no one but Adam.\n\nBut next year?\n\nJoy could only stare at their curious faces. \"I, er, don't know what I'll find next year,\" she replied honestly. In more ways than one.\n\n\"Maybe something more exciting?\"\n\n\"You never know,\" Joy replied, thinking about the tangerine Frankincense poinsettia Daryl was already propagating.\n\nThe ladies left just as Adam walked in.\n\n\"Hi!\" she said. \"Where have you been all morning?\"\n\n\"Missed me, huh?\" His smile was mischievous.\n\n\"I know that look. You've been up to something.\"\n\nHe reached in his jeans' pocket and pulled out two tickets. \"I had to stand in line for over an hour to snag these.\"\n\n\"Theater tickets?\"\n\n\"Front-row seats for the symphony Christmas concert tonight.\"\n\n\"They still do that?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. It's tradition. So, you'll go?\"\n\n\"I'd love to.\"\n\n\"I'll pick you up in front of the greenhouses at seven.\" He leaned over the counter and kissed her cheek.\n\n\"Thanks,\" he said.\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"Making another dream come true.\"\n\nShe hadn't been to the concert since they were in high school. She remembered that last Christmas and the long black skirt and burgundy blouse she'd worn. She glanced down at her jeans. Glory had sent her an infusion of her clothes once she knew she was staying in Indian Lake for an extended period. However, Joy hadn't asked for anything dressy. She held up her finger. \"Oh, Adam. Is this still a dressy affair?\"\n\n\"It is.\" He grinned and left.\n\n\"Oh, boy. I need help.\" She yanked her cell phone from her back pocket and dialed. It was answered on the first ring. \"Mrs. Beabots? I need you. Again.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 41",
                "text": "Joy stood at the doorway to the largest personally-owned closet she'd ever seen. Of course, living in Manhattan, few people had room for a walk-in closet, much less one that could have housed all their friends and then some. \"Is this for real?\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Mrs. Beabots put her hand on Joy's waist. \"You're about the size I was back when I wore some of these creations, so we should find something that fits.\"\n\n\"Cate told me you had this treasure-filled closet,\" she said, looking at floor-to-ceiling lit glass shelving that held dozens of Lalique perfume bottles and velvet-lined boxes displaying jewels the likes of which Joy had seen only when window-shopping on Fifth Avenue. \"These are real?\"\n\n\"Well, they're old. Like me. A few baubles I picked up at Harry Winston and Boucheron in Paris. Nothing like the pieces Elizabeth Taylor wore, or Audrey.\"\n\nJoy held up a voluminous aqua skirt embroidered with butterflies and dragonflies. \"This is incredible.\"\n\n\"No, it's Balmain. Here's the white organza-and-silk blouse that goes with it. It would look lovely on you.\" She went to the far-right side, where a rack held coats and jackets. \"It's in here somewhere. Ah!\" She pulled out a long, heavy satin theater cape, aqua lined in black wool, with a wide hood. \"You'll need this.\"\n\n\"But it's too much,\" Joy protested.\n\n\"Not for the Christmas concert. Besides, don't you want to create a bit of shock and awe?\"\n\nJoy's eyes shot to her friend. \"Why would I want to do that?\"\n\n\"Why, to get Adam to come out of his shell, of course.\"\n\n\"That's not it. He knows I'm going back to New York.\"\n\n\"Are you?\"\n\n\"Why...yes.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots stared at her with piercing blue eyes.\n\n\"He's afraid, all right. He lost Amie. He goes into panic mode watching Titus in my kitchen. He's terrified of losing someone again.\"\n\n\"He lost me once before. And now...\"\n\n\"Now you both need a bit of a push.\" Mrs. Beabots went to a gilt-edged built-in drawer and pulled it out. The drawer was black velvet lined and filled with ropes of pearls, diamonds, rubies and sapphires. She held up a pair of aquamarine chandelier earrings that were a good four inches long. \"Only someone with your long neck can wear these,\" she said, holding them up to Joy's face.\n\nOn each wall was an inset of mirrors so that one could see every angle of the chosen ensemble. Joy held up the earrings. They sparkled in the light of the crystal chandelier overhead.\n\n\"These are amazing,\" Joy gasped, holding her hair back from her ears.\n\n\"You're like these aquamarines. Timeless. A jewel of the ocean. And you're no more in love with this man in New York than pigs flying.\"\n\n\"How can you say that?\" Joy gasped.\n\n\"You're settling,\" Mrs. Beabots said boldly and sat on the pink silk pouf in the middle of the closet. \"You ran away to escape the pain of your parents' deaths and you still haven't dealt with that, if you ask me. You left Adam behind when you left town. Maybe you're just like he is now. Afraid of losing.\"\n\n\"Wow. You don't pull any punches.\"\n\n\"Somebody around here has to knock some sense into the two of you before you mess it all up again.\"\n\nJoy held the gossamer-sleeved white blouse and the aqua skirt, admiring the workmanship. \"I don't know. I've been nothing but confused since I came back here. What I do know is that when I'm with Adam I feel happy and enthusiastic, which I now realize hasn't happened for a long time. I'm proud of what we've accomplished in such a short time. If it weren't for him and his geothermal heating system, I'd be stuck with a useless property and never would have reconnected with Grandpa's spirit, our precious memories or my endearing friends.\"\n\n\"And you certainly would never have realized its potential, would you?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"And why do you think he did all that?\"\n\n\"Because of Frank...\" she answered hesitantly. \"And because he wants me to stay.\"\n\n\"He does, but I also know Adam plays his cards close to the chest. He's not going to announce his intentions until he gets a little push from you.\"\n\n\"And you think tonight's the night?\"\n\nMrs. Beabots rose, went to the shoe rack and withdrew a pair of aqua leather pumps. \"Even Cinderella needed a shove.\"\n\nJoy took the shoes, leaned over and kissed Mrs. Beabots's cheek. \"I bet her fairy godmother could take lessons from you.\"\n\n\"I taught her everything I knew.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 42",
                "text": "Joy stood outside the greenhouses. With no wind and no snowfall, the sky was crystal clear ebony studded with stars. The moon was nearly full, casting silvery light across the snow.\n\nJoy heard the sound of horses' hooves against the snow-packed street.\n\nA white-painted open carriage festooned with spruce and cedar garlands and drawn by two white horses pulled up. The driver was dressed in Victorian costume complete with a black top hat. Adam stood, dressed in a black tux and black wool coat.\n\n\"Your carriage awaits, milady.\" He bowed, then jumped down from the carriage.\n\nShe noticed he wore black cowboy boots. She smiled. He was still all Adam and she'd never seen a more handsome man, whether he was in a tux or his familiar jeans.\n\nShe walked up and took his hand. He kissed her tenderly. \"You look beautiful,\" he said. Then he kissed her again.\n\n\"Shouldn't we go?\" she teased.\n\n\"Oh, yeah!\"\n\nHe helped her into the carriage. He took out a faux fur blanket. \"To keep us warm on the drive,\" he said, taking her hand.\n\n\"It's not even a mile to the Civic Auditorium,\" she said.\n\n\"I know.\" He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him. \"You should be able to keep me warm.\"\n\nThe driver whistled to the horses and they drove away from the greenhouses.\n\n\"Adam, this is too much,\" she said.\n\n\"I figured you did this all the time in New York City.\"\n\n\"No. Never.\"\n\n\"Aw, c'mon. Even I did this in the Big Apple.\"\n\n\"With whom?\" she asked, feeling a twang of jealousy for the woman who'd shared any time with Adam.\n\n\"Myself,\" he replied.\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"I wish I hadn't been so chicken and actually reached out to you on that trip.\"\n\nWhen he looked into her eyes, she almost winced at the hope she saw there. \"But you're not now...\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, moving closer, their noses nearly touching. \"I'm not.\"\n\nHis lips against hers should have been cold, but they were warm and filled with the tender passion she'd come to expect from Adam. Maybe Mrs. Beabots was right. Maybe they both needed a push.\n\nBut was she brave enough to provide it?\n\nThe carriage halted, and when it did, Joy realized she'd been kissing Adam nearly for the entire journey. Short as it was.\n\n\"I'll be here to take you back home, sir,\" the driver said as Adam rose and helped Joy out of the carriage.\n\n\"That'll be great.\"\n\nJoy took Adam's arm as they mingled with the throng going into the auditorium.\n\nOnce inside, Joy realized Mrs. Beabots was right. Everyone was dressed as if they were attending the Met. The auditorium held over three thousand people and it looked to be sold out.\n\nFolding chairs had been set up on the main floor to resemble auditorium seats. The orchestra was warming up as they took their seats. Adam helped her with the cape.\n\n\"I bet you have awesome concerts in New York.\"\n\n\"I've been to a few and they were incredible. Mostly, though, my life is my work.\"\n\n\"I see,\" he said, as the overhead chandelier lights dimmed and the orchestra began."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 43",
                "text": "The ride back to Joy's house was equally magical, though a light snow fell. Adam kept his arm around her and she wasn't about to take her head from his shoulder.\n\nJoy was sad to see the evening end. \"This has been a wonderful night, Adam. Thank you.\"\n\n\"The concert always puts me in the Christmas spirit.\"\n\n\"I've never met anyone who keeps Christmas all year like you do.\"\n\n\"Most of our friends do.\"\n\n\"That's true.\"\n\n\"Your New York friends. They're not like that?\"\n\n\"Glory is,\" she said, thinking fondly of her wacky friend.\n\n\"I'd like to meet her.\"\n\n\"You'd love her.\"\n\n\"Joy, you have to know, it's you I\u2014\"\n\nA car came speeding down the street. The horses whinnied, one rearing up as the driver shouted, \"Whoa! Whoa, girl! Take it easy.\"\n\nThe carriage lurched forward before the driver had the horse under control.\n\n\"Sorry about that, folks.\"\n\n\"It's okay, man,\" Adam said, a look of disappointment on his face.\n\nShe said, \"I have an idea. Titus doesn't have school tomorrow, right? Wouldn't it be fun to take him sledding? Just the three of us. I can break away from the greenhouses for a few hours. Liz is planning to work the register and Katia will be there. The crowds are starting to dwindle a bit this close to Christmas.\"\n\n\"Everyone is busy wrapping and cooking, I suppose.\"\n\n\"So, what do you think?\"\n\n\"Sure. Titus would love it. I have a sled in the basement. Not a toboggan.\"\n\n\"Don't worry about it. I have my old toboggan in Grandpa's basement. We'll go out to the golf course on the west side.\"\n\n\"Deal,\" he said, pulling her close for one last kiss. \"This was special.\"\n\n\"I'll never forget it.\"\n\n\"Joy,\" he said. \"There could be more moments like this, if you'd stay.\"\n\nShe froze. \"Stay?\"\n\n\"Yes. With me.\" He kissed her cheek. \"You aren't the only one who's been looking at their choices differently. I'm as guilty as you\u2014holding back, I mean. For years, I've kept my work a bit under wraps, bottled up my feelings and focused on Titus. I did all that to avoid looking at the past. That past is where you lived. But now you've come home. When I told you about my work, I didn't tell you all of it.\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"I've been offered a very lucrative opportunity\u2014in California.\"\n\n\"California?\" She was stunned. He had other options. Serious ones.\n\n\"That's the place. I turned the job down. It's not what I really want. What I want is you.\"\n\n\"Adam...\" Her breath caught in her throat. He wanted her. She hadn't been imagining it when he nearly told her that he loved her. \"The truth is, I have thought about what it would be like to stay. The best part would be working with you just as we always did. I've been so happy these past weeks. Watching the greenhouses thrive. And thanks to you, there's a future for Frankincense. I can't tell you how I'll miss you and Titus. But I have commitments in New York. I've made promises.\"\n\n\"And you need to deal with those,\" he replied sadly.\n\n\"I do.\"\n\nHis crestfallen expression broke her heart. She was hurting him again. She couldn't let it end like this. She had to find a way, but at this moment she didn't know how she could do that.\n\n\"I want to be honest with you, and right now, that's the part that hurts us both.\"\n\nHis gaze probed her. \"You're right, you know. I hate it, but you are. You have obligations.\" He jumped out of the carriage and held out his hands to help her down.\n\nShe felt his hands around her waist as he lifted her down. She wanted nothing more than to stand in the circle of his arms\u2014forever.\n\nHe dropped his hands and she looked into his eyes. Seeing lost hope gathering there pained her more than losing her grandpa. Was she doing the right thing? She hadn't a clue how to sort out her entangled choices. Her own heart mystified her.\n\n\"I can't let this be the last time I see you. You've been the world to me. I meant it about tomorrow. Let's take Titus out for some fun. Please.\"\n\nHe glanced back at the greenhouses.\n\nWere those tears welling in his eyes? She thought she saw regret. Or was it simply nostalgia for a dream lost once again? It took him a moment to answer.\n\n\"Okay,\" he muttered as he walked her to the door of Frank's house. He turned to her. \"Titus would like a fun day of tobogganing. I'll see you tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Tomorrow,\" she replied, as hope sprouted in her heart. She nodded toward the driver. \"You need to get home and let that man and the horses warm up.\"\n\nAdam walked away and climbed into the carriage.\n\nHe didn't turn around to wave as they drove off.\n\nJoy had never felt so cold in her life."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 44",
                "text": "Joy was determined to end her time in Indian Lake on a good note with Adam and Titus. She needed to find out if she had the kind of feelings for Chuck that she should have for a fianc\u00e9. Or was the love she felt for Adam the real thing?\n\nShe found Frank's old toboggan, a knit cap, mittens, scarf and a pair of her old ski goggles in the basement. When Adam pulled up in his truck, Titus was securely strapped into his car seat, but the boy was all smiles. As Adam put the toboggan in the back bed, Joy opened the door and gave Titus a hug.\n\n\"Are you all set for our adventure?\"\n\n\"Boy, am I! I helped Dad make hot cocoa and we brought a whole thermos. We can sled all day practically.\"\n\n\"Practically.\" She laughed.\n\nAdam came around to the passenger side. \"Listen, I have to run to the back for a minute. You get in and settled.\"\n\n\"Can I help with anything?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Won't take a minute.\"\n\n\"Okay.\" Joy got in the truck, buckled her seat belt and said to Titus, \"I thought you were so good at the school play. Do you think you'd like to take up acting?\"\n\n\"No way.\" Titus flapped the air with his palm. \"I'm thinking about being a playwright. But maybe Dad's right. I should be a physicist like my mom. Dad says I have a proclivity for it.\"\n\n\"Proclivity?\"\n\n\"Yeah. It means I was born with a talent for it.\"\n\nJoy stifled her laugh. Titus amazed her. If she did stay in Indian Lake and watch him grow up, she couldn't imagine the challenges he would throw her way.\n\nAnd if she stayed in Indian Lake\u2014with Adam\u2014being a mother to Titus would be real. In that instant, her dreams and needs to be the career woman in a major New York accounting firm crumbled. True, running the greenhouses was a businessperson's dream. She smiled. All these years she hadn't really thought about what it would be like to have real love in her life. Or be a mother. She'd pushed those ideas out of her mind because they'd been too painful. But they weren't now. Had she already blown that chance with Adam last night?\n\n\"Here comes Dad.\" Titus pointed to Adam jogging up the drive from the back of the greenhouses.\n\nJoy saw that he was on his cell phone and was shoving a small notepad into his sheepskin-lined jacket pocket. He looked worried.\n\n\"You okay?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yeah.\" He shut the door, buckled his seat belt.\n\n\"Was that California?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"They must really want you. What did you say?\"\n\nHe avoided her eyes and glanced into the rearview mirror at his son. \"All set, Titus?\"\n\nRight, she thought. None of my business. Not after turning him down.\n\nTitus tossed his head back on the headrest. \"This is so cool. I love sledding. Now a real toboggan.\"\n\nJoy knew to leave well enough alone. The distance she felt from Adam was tearing her in two. She turned her head and looked at Titus. \"You've never been tobogganing?\"\n\n\"Dad went over all the rules with me.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Joy said. \"There's not much to it. Get on, sit down, hands and arms in, and go down the hill. Yelling in delight is optional.\"\n\nAdam started the engine.\n\nHe checked the mirrors and backed up the truck. His face was still rigid. \"So, did Titus tell you we brought cocoa?\"\n\n\"Yup,\" she replied. \"Good thinking. It can get cold out there.\"\n\n\"Well, the minute it's too cold for Titus, we'll call it a day, right, sport?\"\n\n\"Yes, Dad.\"\n\nThe drive out to the hilly golf course was beautiful. They drove around the lake so that Titus could see the beaver dams along the marsh areas. The lily pads were frozen and covered in snow, but Joy remembered how she and Adam used to drive out to the lake in summer and sit in her grandpa's truck and watch the sun go down.\n\nBack then, they'd talked about the future and what it would be like to spend all their time together. Those memories hurt now. Adam had told her how important family was to him, since he'd never had one. In high school, she and her parents and Frank were his family.\n\nJoy's hand went to her heart, empathy for the loss Adam had felt when she'd left Indian Lake raking her. For so long, her need to survive, get past her grief and succeed in college, then in the business world, had consumed her, to the point that she hadn't thought about Adam...or anyone but herself.\n\nShe'd been self-indulgent. And wrong about so many things.\n\nRegrets were prickly, unrelenting things. She would have given anything to have one more day with Frank. And she wanted to apologize to Adam for hurting him. Now she'd done it again.\n\n\"Here we are,\" Adam said, driving up the steep paved hill where skiers and sleds were allowed. He pointed to the right. \"We'll try that smaller hill first.\"\n\n\"But, Dad. That big one is meant for toboggans. See? Look at all those people.\"\n\n\"Precisely my point. Too many people can cause accidents. They can crash into you, and you're a novice.\"\n\nTitus unhooked his seat belt. \"True. But you'll teach me.\"\n\n\"We both will,\" Joy said. \"Your dad and I used to come here all the time when we were young.\" She hoped her statement would bring up a fond thought for him, at the same time hoping he didn't resent her for last night.\n\n\"That was before he knew my mother,\" Titus said matter-of-factly, taking Joy's hand.\n\n\"Yes.\" She looked up at Adam, who smiled at her, mouthing \"It's all right.\"\n\nAdam went to the back and lifted the toboggan out of the bed. \"Yep, this old thing has seen better days.\"\n\n\"But it's still good,\" Joy said.\n\n\"I checked the riggings. We're fine.\"\n\n\"Yay!\" Titus yelled, thrust his arms in the air and raced ahead, up to the base of the hill.\n\n\"Titus! Take your time and watch where you're going.\"\n\n\"Oh, he's fine, Adam.\"\n\n\"Trust me, that kid is never fine. So far today, he slipped on Angel's doggy blanket. Spilled his cereal because he wasn't paying attention, talking too much about our adventure today. He put his boots on the wrong feet and tumbled down the front step.\"\n\n\"My gosh! Was he hurt?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nShe exhaled. \"Kids. They're resilient.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but I'm not. My blood pressure soars when I see him fall.\"\n\n\"Honestly, so does mine.\"\n\n\"You do care about him, don't you?\" Adam asked.\n\n\"More than you know,\" she admitted as she trudged up the hill. Her own words ping-ponged in her heart. What was she doing, thinking of leaving him? Them?\n\nThey made it to the top of the hill, though Joy was surprised that Titus didn't appear to exert half the effort she did lifting her legs in the snow.\n\nAdam put the toboggan on the ground and checked all the ropes. \"These are a bit dry,\" he said. \"I wonder if they're safe.\"\n\nJoy looked down the hill. \"It's a straight shot. And as I remember, we never used ropes. We hung on to each other.\"\n\n\"So, let's do that, Dad!\" Titus scrambled over to the toboggan. \"Me first.\" He snuggled his legs into the bow. \"C'mon, guys!\"\n\n\"Okay, you next. I'll take up the rear,\" Adam said.\n\n\"And we hold on to each other,\" Titus said, as Joy slipped her arms around him. He felt so good. So trusting and openhearted in his love. Then Adam looped his arms under hers and she felt a familiar zing go up her spine. She blinked back her regret.\n\n\"I'll push us off,\" Adam said, as he placed his long legs alongside Joy. With his gloved hands, he pushed the toboggan.\n\nIt barely moved. \"Push again,\" Titus ordered.\n\nJoy laughed and kissed Titus's head. She was having the best time holding Titus, feeling Adam's chest against her back. She felt safe. Loved.\n\nAdam pushed again. Nothing.\n\n\"Okay, everybody wiggle,\" Adam said.\n\n\"Done.\" Joy moved her hips from side to side as Adam pushed and...\n\nWhoosh!\n\nThe toboggan flew down the steep hill. It wasn't a long run, but it was enough to exhilarate.\n\n\"Let's do it again!\" Titus shouted, as Adam got off and held out his hand for Joy.\n\n\"Okay, sport.\"\n\nOnce at the top again, they got back on the sled. Now that they had the rhythm, they flew easily down the hill.\n\n\"Again!\" Titus jumped off the toboggan, clapping his hands. \"I could do this my whole life.\"\n\n\"Tell me he knows nothing about the Olympic luge runs,\" Joy said.\n\n\"I wouldn't dream of telling him that,\" Adam groaned.\n\nBy the time they'd finished their fourth run, another group of tobogganers came to the hill.\n\nAdam walked back to Titus and Joy. \"Okay. One more run and then we'll call it a day.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Dad,\" Titus said as he scrambled to the bow. Joy got in behind him and Adam behind her.\n\nThey had no more than set off when one of the boys jumped onto his toboggan, belly down, and took off down the hill.\n\n\"Hey, man!\" The boy waved. \"Race you to the bottom.\"\n\nBecause there were no brakes on a toboggan, Joy knew they had no choice but to finish out the run.\n\n\"Oh, crap!\" Adam exclaimed.\n\nJoy saw the boy had lost control of his toboggan and was headed straight for them. She didn't know what to do, so she leaned to the left, getting out of the way of the boy. Adam leaned with her and brought their toboggan onto its side, spilling them all onto the snow.\n\nThe boy kept laughing all the way to the bottom. \"Sorry, man!\"\n\nAdam got to his feet and glared at the boy. Joy grabbed his hand. \"Not now.\"\n\nShe leaned down and picked up Titus, who had a cut on his forehead where he'd hit the edge of the bow. Joy held Titus's face between her forefinger and thumb.\n\n\"He's bleeding,\" Adam blurted.\n\n\"I am?\" Titus said. \"My face is cold. I don't feel anything.\"\n\n\"We should take him to urgent care. He may need stitches.\"\n\nJoy inspected the cut. \"I don't think so. A butterfly bandage is all it looks like to me.\"\n\n\"Oh, yeah?\" Adam picked up Titus. \"What makes you an expert on my child? Get the toboggan. We're going to the hospital.\"\n\nJoy felt her heart ice over. Adam's rigidity struck her to the bone. Adam had been keeping his real feelings and distrust of her hidden all this time. In fact, his true colors had come out at the incident at the trenches. He'd never forgiven her for leaving him. She'd rejected him and he was biting back.\n\nAs well he should.\n\nShe'd told him she didn't want to be part of his family and now he was showing her precisely that.\n\nAs they drove back around to the road, she glanced over at Adam, who ground his jaw enough to break teeth. This sledding party had been her idea, and then when the crisis came, she'd butted in with her opinions.\n\nLooking past Adam's hard expression, she saw the north side of the road. The same road where her parents had been killed.\n\nDead Man's Tree was gone. Cut down and Mrs. Beabots had said that Wilma's brother's remains and dog tags had been properly buried. However, there were still wooden crosses of others who'd died in car accidents at this site.\n\nWas it telling that she was this close to Dead Man's Tree and didn't notice because at the time she felt whole while she was with Adam? And was it some twist of fate that little Titus had been injured this close to Dead Man's Tree? Or was this a warning to her that she'd made the right decision when she'd run from Indian Lake? And now she was leaving him again.\n\nMaybe she was never meant to be with Adam.\n\nMaybe love just wasn't enough.\n\nTwenty minutes later, Joy waited in the reception area of the hospital ER as Adam made it clear she would be in the way back in the examining bay.\n\nIt had all happened so quickly.\n\nEvery bit of it.\n\nAdam's kisses had turned her head, confused her and caused her to rethink every priority she'd set for herself over the last ten years. He showed her how wrong she'd been not to spend time with her grandpa. He'd shown her how to dream the impossible. He'd trotted out all their old friends, who'd been wonderful and given of themselves and their time, when she'd given nothing in return. She'd been insular, self-centered and wrong, all these years.\n\nAnd last night.\n\nHe'd asked her to stay in Indian Lake\u2014with him. Be a family with him and Titus.\n\nShe'd wanted to believe that dreams could come true. She wanted to believe in a love that never died.\n\nChildhood dreams were just that. Meant for children.\n\nTitus came rushing out of the ER's double doors. \"Miss Joy!\"\n\n\"Titus. Slow down!\" Adam barked.\n\nJoy looked at Titus and at the butterfly bandage on his forehead. Her eyes tracked to Adam. \"He's okay, then?\"\n\nHis expression was granite, his lips pursed so tightly they looked white. \"He is.\"\n\n\"Thank goodness.\"\n\nAdam reached for Titus's hand. \"We'll drop you at the greenhouses.\"\n\n\"Right,\" she whispered. \"I have packing to do and I need to relieve Liz. She's taking Pye and the kittens to the vineyard. Zeke loves the kittens.\"\n\n\"That's good. She's a special friend.\"\n\n\"She certainly is.\" Joy nodded.\n\n\"C'mon, son. Let's go home.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 45",
                "text": "\"Angel!\" Titus yelled. \"We're home!\"\n\nAdam shut the door behind him and took off his coat, his mind still on Joy. It was clear that he'd read everything wrong. He'd misjudged her smiles, her hugs and her kisses. He'd read love in her eyes when she was still thinking about New York.\n\nIt had taken every ounce of courage he had to ask Joy to stay in Indian Lake with him. He'd held his heart out to her, and she'd refused him.\n\nWhat an idiot he'd been to think that after a decade in New York and all the work she'd put into her career, she'd be happy in slow-moving Indian Lake\u2014with him. He was a \"mental\" kind of guy. Tinkering. Thinking. Creating. Not much exciting about Adam Masterson when one got down to it. He didn't mountain climb. Didn't scuba. Didn't even golf.\n\nWhat he did do was see people in the world living better due to his inventions.\n\nIt was time he rearranged his priorities and put himself and Titus first. Pride swelled in him as he looked at his son.\n\nTitus shucked off his parka and hung it on the hall tree. \"Angel? You in the kitchen?\" Titus called as he walked down the hall.\n\nAdam took out his cell phone and called Hal.\n\nThe call was picked up on the second ring. \"Hal. Glad I got you.\"\n\n\"Please tell me you called to say you've reconsidered.\"\n\n\"I'm doing just that,\" Adam replied confidently.\n\n\"Excellent. Is there any chance you can fly out Christmas Day? We really need to meet with the team on the twenty-sixth.\"\n\n\"I'll check flights as soon as we hang up and email you the flight itinerary.\"\n\n\"Adam, this is the best Christmas present I could have received. Thanks.\"\n\n\"Merry Christmas.\"\n\nTitus raced back to Adam. \"Dad! Come quick! I think Angel is having her babies!\"\n\n\"Oh, my gosh!\" Adam shoved his cell in his pocket and rushed after Titus.\n\nAngel was lying on her doggy bed, panting and moaning. She barely lifted her golden head to see them as they hovered over her.\n\n\"Titus. Get me a pan of warm water and towels from the bathroom. The first pup is about to be born!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 46",
                "text": "Joy hadn't heard from Adam since the day of the accident, and now it was Christmas Eve.\n\nShe hadn't expected to, but she'd hoped.\n\nAs the hours passed, she couldn't help the barrage of Adam thoughts. Adam's smile as he showed her Frank's poinsettia and pressed her to move forward with Daryl to have it hybridized. His helping with the grand reopening and corralling her friends. The day at the tree farm. Decorating the huge Christmas tree. The symphony night. The carriage ride.\n\nThe kisses.\n\nMore than anything, she would never forget sitting in the greenhouse after they'd put up the tree and watching the shooting stars. \"See that, Joy? That's your grandpa telling you he loves you.\"\n\nJoy stood up and went to the closet. She carefully packed her business suit, pumps and the dress she'd worn for the funeral.\n\n\"What kind of guy would do those things if he didn't love me?\"\n\nShe sank onto the side of her bed and pressed her palms to her temples. \"I hope I'm doing the right thing.\"\n\nJoy had come to town with a plan. Sell the greenhouses and Frank's house and return to New York.\n\nBut she was a different Joy now.\n\nThe New York Joy had been afraid. Afraid to love. Afraid to risk just about anything in her life. She chose an accounting career even back in high school hoping to help her parents and Frank. All she did was add up dependable numbers. She chose a man she didn't love in order to be safe.\n\nAdam hadn't broken her heart when she left Indian Lake all those years ago. She'd broken it herself.\n\nShe hadn't risked anything. She had pushed the fear button all her life.\n\n\"No more.\"\n\nShe picked up the black jewel box and lifted the lid. Her engagement ring sparkled in the light. Last night she'd taken the ring off her finger and put it in the box.\n\nNext, she grabbed her phone.\n\n\"Hi, Chuck. We need to talk.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 47",
                "text": "It was sunset when Joy stood at Mrs. Beabots's front door and turned the tinny bell. Over her arm she carried the dress, cape, shoes and jewels she'd borrowed.\n\n\"Joy! I'm happy to see you. Come in and share a glass of champagne with me.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" Joy said and entered the house.\n\nThey sat drinking their champagne in front of her Christmas tree.\n\n\"You don't look all that merry,\" Mrs. Beabots said.\n\n\"I haven't heard from Adam in two days and I think he's done with me.\"\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"He asked me to stay\u2014here in Indian Lake. I turned him down\u2014again.\"\n\n\"When was this?\" Mrs. Beabots put her champagne down and leaned forward.\n\n\"The night of the concert.\"\n\n\"Ah! Then that explains it,\" she replied with a knowing gaze.\n\n\"Explains what?\"\n\n\"Adam's leaving for California,\" Mrs. Beabots said.\n\n\"He took that job?\"\n\n\"Apparently. I couldn't figure it out. He was so happy being with you and Titus.\"\n\nJoy stared at her glass. \"Well, he's apparently a darn good physicist, as well as a mechanical engineer. He's the kind of guy who can not only figure out how to create advanced propulsion engines, he can build them.\"\n\nMrs. Beabots put her hand over Joy's. \"But I know that's not what makes him tick.\"\n\nJoy nodded. \"Family. He's always wanted a family.\"\n\n\"I have a suspicion that's what you want, too.\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Then follow your heart.\"\n\nJoy smiled. \"I should.\"\n\n\"What have you got to lose?\"\n\nJoy took out her cell phone. She punched in Adam's number. Titus answered.\n\n\"Titus, hi! Whatcha doing?\" she asked, expecting to hear how he was waiting for Santa Claus.\n\n\"Dad's putting our suitcases in the truck. We're leaving for the airport.\"\n\n\"Now? On Christmas Eve?\" She rose, nearly spilling her champagne.\n\n\"Uh-huh. It was the only flight we could get.\"\n\n\"Tell him to wait...\" She hung up immediately and handed her glass to Mrs. Beabots. \"I gotta go!\"\n\n\"Hurry! And merry Christmas!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 48",
                "text": "Adam smoothed a lightweight sweater over a half-dozen shirts he'd packed.\n\nHe supposed he should be ticked off at himself for letting his barriers down and falling in love all over again with Joy. But he wasn't. They'd both changed since her return. He'd found that he could never keep his heart closed off to Joy. He'd succeeded in showing her that so many people in Indian Lake loved her and missed her. She could have a life here.\n\nHe picked up his sneakers. People ran in LA, right? He didn't need boots. Or did he? \"Am I running away just like Joy did all those years ago? Am I guilty of the same wrong choice?\"\n\nNo. He'd done it all. Put his love on the line. Asked her to stay, and she'd chosen her other life. Another guy.\n\n\"Not me.\"\n\nAgain.\n\nHow many times did he have to go through this heartbreak to get it? They weren't as right for each other as he'd thought.\n\nIf he'd been selfish to want a life with Joy in Indian Lake, then perhaps this was fate showing him there were other options to consider.\n\nLike the pounding of a jackhammer, someone banged on the front door.\n\n\"What in the\u2014? All right already!\" Adam yelled, coming out of the bedroom with his duffel. \"Titus. Get the door, willya?\"\n\nTitus stood at the entry to the kitchen and put Adam's cell phone in his pocket. \"I can't... Uh, Angel has to go out. Really bad.\"\n\n\"This must be the dog sitter. She can take Angel out. Did you finish packing?\"\n\n\"Not yet.\"\n\nThe banging continued.\n\nAdam dropped his duffel and opened the door, ready to read the dog sitter the riot act. As the door flung back and he opened his mouth, he saw Joy. \"Joy?\"\n\n\"Can I come in?\"\n\n\"We're on our way out.\"\n\n\"Please,\" she said, pushing on his chest and closing the door behind her.\n\n\"I guess, okay,\" he replied. \"I thought you'd be halfway to New York.\"\n\n\"I'm not going to New York.\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"It's over. I'm staying here. I'm going to ask Glory to move out here to help me with the greenhouses. She'll love it. Most of all, I'm hoping you'll rethink California.\"\n\nTitus snickered in the background. \"Dad, I should watch the puppies nurse.\"\n\n\"Puppies? Angel had her pups?\"\n\n\"You wanna come see them, Miss Joy?\" Titus asked.\n\n\"Of course.\" Turning back to Adam, she said, \"But first I have to tell your dad that I love him.\"\n\n\"You do?\" Adam asked.\n\n\"Yes, Adam. I love you\u2014with my whole heart. And I can't let you leave without you knowing that. Even if you never speak\u2014\"\n\nAdam clasped his hands to her cheeks and touched her nose with his. \"That's all I wanted to hear.\"\n\nHis kiss was born of thousands of days apart. Years without her. Memories of being in love. The past spun to the present and created a whirlpool of love and longing around them. \"Joy, I never want to be away from you again a single day.\"\n\n\"Then you love me, too?\" she asked, placing her hands over his.\n\n\"More than you can imagine.\"\n\n\"Dad\u2014the puppies!\" Titus's frustration ripped across the room. \"I wanna show Miss Joy the puppies.\"\n\n\"Yeah? I want to show her something just as important.\"\n\nAdam kissed Joy again, and this time she put her arms around his neck and leaned close.\n\nTitus turned around, went to the kitchen and came back with three newborn puppies in his arms. He walked up to his father. Following behind him was Angel, who kept a very focused eye on her babies.\n\n\"Are you gonna come to California with us now, Miss Joy?\"\n\n\"I'm staying here.\"\n\nTitus pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose, not an easy feat with one puppy licking his cheek. \"I'm gonna miss you. And my new puppies, too.\"\n\nAdam put his arm around Joy's shoulders and laughed. \"I have a better idea. What if we forget about California and stay here?\"\n\n\"Adam? Can you do that? I mean, this is important,\" Joy countered.\n\n\"I was only taking the job because Indian Lake would be empty without you. California is just a job. It's not my life here with you.\"\n\nShe snuggled closer.\n\n\"It's Christmas Eve and we're all home now.\"\n\n\"Yes, Adam. We're home. We're right where we should be.\"\n\nJoy reached up, touched Adam's cheek and kissed him again. \"I'm never leaving you, Adam. Or you, either, Titus.\"\n\nTitus handed Joy a puppy, then gave one to his father. He held the largest puppy to his heart as he put his other arm around Joy's waist.\n\n\"I knew my Christmas wish would come true,\" Titus said. \"I just had to believe extra hard.\"\n\nAdam smiled softly at Joy. \"I think a lot of wishes came true.\"\n\nAdam hugged Joy, and she laid her head on his shoulder. Through the window behind him, she saw a single shooting star sail across the sky. Tears sprang to her eyes. \"Grandpa's wish for us was the best of all.\""
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "title": "Sweet Treats",
        "author": "Various",
        "genres": [
            "Christmas",
            "romance",
            "short stories"
        ],
        "tags": [],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "CHRISTMAS IN THE SUNSHINE - A Fields of Gold Story by KATY ROSE",
                "text": "[ Amanda ]\n\nClosing my eyes, I relax, floating on my back in our dam. It's the perfect Aussie Christmas Day. The sun is shining down gloriously, the breeze is warm, and the water is cool. The pale blue sky looks like an artist's palette, with white clouds smeared across the heaven's as if with a feather light touch. Cicada song fills the air, and kangaroos hop across the fields, sharing pasture with the grazing sheep.\n\nI trail my hands through the water on either side of me, and breathe a deep sigh. I'll never grow tired of the peace, and beauty of long summer days. Not even the toil and labour of farm life can dampen, or take away from the feel-good factor of a life spent outdoors. I wouldn't have it any other way.\n\nMy parents want me to visit my sister in the city soon, and the reason is no secret. I'm thirty, and they are scared to death that I won't find someone before my ovaries retire. They want to see me married in a pretty white gown, and have grandbabies so that they can take them for tractor rides around the farm.\n\nWith my eldest brother set to inherit and run the farm, and my sister working for a boutique law firm in the city\u2014already married, and with two children\u2014they worry that I'm wasting my life, and that there's no future for me here. But that's not how I see it. I'm fit, and healthy. There's still plenty of time for family.\n\nI want to take my life at my own pace, and I refuse to be forced into dating in the vain hope that I'll manage a connection with some well-to-do city slicker. If I ever marry, and have children, I want it to be out here, in the Fields of Gold; the Wheatbelt, the place that holds my heart, and I'll always call home."
            },
            {
                "title": "Darren",
                "text": "\"Damn,\" I mutter. The gate to the neighbouring farm has come free, and now the Monroe's sheep are meandering onto my property like they own the place. Pulling up by the fence, I turn off the engine to my Prado and re-fasten the wire to stop any more coming through. Thankfully all the sheep are tagged, and it won't be too hard to round the errant woolies up, and return them home safely. Just as I turn away to get on with the job, something white floating in the Monroe's front dam catches my eye.\n\nRaising my hand to shield my eyes from the sun I peer across the field of cropped wheat. It's the younger of the Monroe sisters, Amanda. The beautiful, and as far as I know, still single neighbour I've had a crush on since we were wee tackers. She's just floating there, enjoying a swim to escape the heat, oblivious to her escaped stock. I bite my lip, deliberating. I wonder what she's doing this evening? Mind made up, I adjust my bush hat, straighten my collar, roll up my sleeves, and jump the fence.\n\nStanding on the red dirt shore of the dam, I watch Amanda lazing in the water. She has a smile plastered on her face, and it brings one to my own. She's the epitome of laid back country beauty. With long mousy brown hair, a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, petite lips, and a golden summer tan from head to toe, she makes my heartbeat quicken.\n\nBending down I pick up a small mud boondy, and with a practised aim I lob it into the water, a foot or so from Amanda's shoulder. The unexpected intrusion has the desired effect, disturbing the water with a small splash, and a distinctive plop! Amanda's eyes fly wide, and she instinctively pulls her legs down to tread water, a look of surprise on her lovely face as her eyes come to rest upon me."
            },
            {
                "title": "Amanda",
                "text": "\"Darren!\" I say, shaking my head with a smile, my brows furrowing in confusion. \"What are you doing here?\" I breaststroke to the shore, and ring out my hair as I walk from the water. Darren's eyes sparkle as they linger, trailing over my body. I glance down, and feel my cheeks flush. My white shirt has become utterly sheer, and it clings like a second skin to every inch of my fairly generous figure.\n\n\"Ah...sheep!\" says Darren awkwardly, removing his hat, and running a hand through his dark brown hair. \"I mean, your gate was open, and your sheep wandered over into my paddock. I closed it, and was just coming over to let you know I'd be returning them shortly.\"\n\nFlicking my hair over my shoulders, I try to detach the sopping fabric from my body, but fail miserably. I certainly wasn't expecting company! \"I'm sorry. I could have sworn it was shut...how many got through?\"\n\n\"Dozen or so.\"\n\n\"Ugh, I'll come by and help you round them up,\" I say. Walking to the bonnet of my ute, I pick up my sun-baked denim shorts and wiggle into them as best I can. Being wet makes it a bit of a struggle, but I manage. I button up and find Darren watching me attentively. When our eyes meet, he clears his throat, and puts his hat back on. He is such a sweetie.\n\n\"You don't have to help, Mandy. I can wrangle them on my own. It's no trouble, really. You probably don't want to get all hot and sweaty again after your dip.\"\n\nA smile quirks the edges of my lips, and I shrug my shoulders nonchalantly, feeling a little daring; emboldened by Darren's evident attraction. \"Maybe I don't mind getting a little sweaty every now and then?\"\n\nDarren runs a finger around his collar, and whistles. \"Country girl through and through, then,\" he winks. \"Righto, then. Let's get those little buggers back home where they belong.\"\n\nMy cheeky smile turns into a grin. \"Race you to the gate, Daz?\"\n\nDarren's mouth hangs open as I hop into my ute, and rev the engine. \"You bloody scallywag!\" he laughs. Then, before I can accelerate, he rips off his hat, and runs, taking off across the dusty field at breakneck speed. I give him a few seconds headstart to admire the view. He wears those jeans so well..."
            },
            {
                "title": "Darren",
                "text": "Amanda hits the breaks, kicking up a dust storm as she slides sideways, coming to a stop in front of the gate. I wave my hand around my face to clear the dust, then lean on her open passenger side window. \"Jesus, Mandy. Where did you learn to drive like that? You're a bloody hoon, woman.\"\n\nAmanda grins from ear to ear. \"I could give you lessons if you like,\" she says with a cheeky wink.\n\nI fan myself with my bush hat, and a chuckle escapes me. \"Yeah, alright, I reckon I'll take you up on that some day.\"\n\n\"I'm game if you are,\" answers Amanda.\n\n\"A girl after my own heart. So, what do you say, how about you do the round up then? I'll man the gate.\"\n\n\"No problemo.\"\n\nI peel the gate open, and watch as Amanda drives through. The dust kicks up again. The remnants of the cropped wheat splinter, and crush as she goes. It's no problem though, the chaff only serves to hold the soil down, and feed the stock over the summer. A few tyre tracks aren't going to be an issue. Mandy could hoon through my crops and I'd forgive her...\n\nAmanda takes it wide, rounding up her errant sheep with practised ease. A straggler goes rogue, and she expertly adjusts course to encourage it back towards the flock. The sheep high tails it\u2014they aren't the bravest of creatures\u2014and joins the others heading towards me, and the gate.\n\n\"Here, here!\" I yell as the first of the sheep comes through, and I give a few an encouraging smack on their wooly rumps as they go. Thirteen all up. Nothing to sneeze at when they're walking bundles of livelihood. You can't afford to lose stock out in the wheatbelt, especially over summer. The heat is too unforgiving.\n\nAmanda pulls up to the gate, remaining on my property. Closing the gate I walk up to her window. \"A baker's dozen all told,\" I say. \"Thirteen's a lucky number, you know?\"\n\n\"We farmers are a superstitious lot, aren't we?\" she answers.\n\n\"When you rely on the land and the seasons, it pays to be, I think,\" I respond.\n\n\"Too true.\"\n\n\"But speaking of luck...how'd you like to join me for a few afternoon Chrissy drinks? No funny stuff, just a good chat, and something to eat? What do you say, Mandy?\"\n\nAmanda grins. \"So, this isn't a date, then?\"\n\n\"What? No, no. Of course not. I'd never\u2014\" I catch the playful sparkle in Amanda's eye, and my heart gallops. \"That is, unless you want it to be?\"\n\nAmanda leans out of the window, one hand still on the wheel. \"It's a date!\" she whispers, her lips perilously close to my ear. Withdrawing, she whips her vehicle into gear. \"Come on then,\" she says aloud, full of vibrance and mischief. \"I'll race you back to yours!\"\n\n\"Hey!\" I protest. \"I'm not even in my bloody truck, yet!\"\n\nAmanda's laughter rings out as I rush to throw myself behind the wheel. Ripping my trusty ute into gear, I pull around, fishtailing it through the chaff. Following the neighbour girl's plume of red dust, I grin. This might turn out to be my favourite Christmas, yet!\n\n\u2042\n\n[ A TABLE FOR TEN - A Z boys Christmas Special by SOFIA AVES ]\n\n[ Fairview House, Cairns, Australia ]\n\nDecember 25th\n\n\"Come on, sweetie. You know I can't.\" My lips pressed together, though I wasn't really upset. It wasn't like it was the first time she had done this to me. The worst of it was that she always got her way.\n\nAlways.\n\nWhy? Because I was a big softie coated in a uniform that every handler disgraced at least once in their service life, and bowed to the whim of my girl.\n\nBig brown doe eyes stared up at me as she begged. I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. She knew what got me every time. Pretty lashes fluttered over a soft, golden muzzle that looked like it had been dipped in ash. My only and utter weakness.\n\nI ruffled golden ears that followed me through so many deployments and active fire, earning her stripes that bore both honour and pain.\n\nOne streaked her ribs in a long graze; the other a bald patch of mangled skin over her heart.\n\nSix hours of surgery, and I sat by the door the entire time.\n\nShe had more medals than me, and she deserved all of them, especially the one earned for taking a bullet meant for me.\n\nThere was no greater love, and hence my decision to cave, but only for her.\n\n\"Okay, Helix. One run, and then back home. Just one.\"\n\nHer ears twitched as she considered my paltry offering, slowly pushing up on bunched muscles I knew would be aching for exercise.\n\nI reached for her halter, dangling it like a carrot. Six years together and it never got old.\n\nHelix bounced on her haunches, snapping as if she were still the energetic wind-up toy she'd been when she arrived in my care and not the forty-five kilo Belgian Malinois she became.\n\nMy pocket buzzed. I extracted my phone, groaning when I read the name that flashed on the screen.\n\nI gave Helix a sharp command and an apologetic look, picked up the call.\n\n\"Merry Christmas, Brigadier.\"\n\n\"Acting.\" Ridgell's grumpy reply hit me as funny, however inappropriate.\n\n\"They didn't promote you to diamonds and swords for Christmas?\" I asked, imagining the upgrade to his epaulettes, not bothering to hide my grimace. He already had my neck in a noose whenever he wanted it; the thought of him having sole command over our unit sent shivers of the icy sort through my veins.\n\n\"Kelly, I need that report from the Pacific region now.\" Ridgell threw the words at me.\n\n\"No preempt there.\" I couldn't resist the barb. \"The boys get Christmas, sir. We're on one of our few days of downtime for the year.\"\n\nAnd with all of us living under one roof, it made for an...interesting work culture. Not that we were often home, or had time to whine at each other.\n\n\"Which means you should have everything booked and ready to go, and a plan you can send me tonight. You asked for control of Z Unit, Lincoln Kelly. Don't make me regret the choice of awarding it to you.\"\n\nI clenched my teeth. Technically, the Brigadier\u2014acting\u2014had promoted me into the unit. The only thing I asked for was Helix's release to me, rather than the soft retirement to a breeding cage she was headed for otherwise. It tied me to the position for however long the unit existed, but the tradeoff of her freedom for mine seemed fair, after her sacrifices for me. A life in a cage in a breeding cell wasn't the future I wanted for the girl who had saved my life.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" I wasn't pulling my boys from their day off, even if it meant we needed to work. They'd earned the break after several months of solid work. After two years together, they had bonded with a camaraderie I was proud to have had a hand in developing. That sort of group culture could save a life, and had, many times over.\n\nAnd every single one of my boys had slept in until noon on their single rostered day off for the year.\n\nHelix nuzzled my hand. I petted her ears as I waited for the Brigadier's reply.\n\n\"Good. Merry Christmas, Major.\"\n\nI signed off with a verbal salute that was only slightly sketchy, tossing my phone onto the table.\n\n\"Okay, honey. How about that run?\"\n\nAn hour and a bit later, my knees were rubber. Helix had torn around the town as fast as her four legs would carry her. I'd followed her, sprinting as fast as I could, dodging tourists and backpackers through Cairns Central until the afternoon turned orange. Cairns had developed from a frontier town during the eighteen hundreds gold rush to one of the fastest growing communities in Australia.\n\nI spent the afternoon cleaning Fairview House while Helix slept beside my bed. Tinsel and plastic pine tree fronds littered the ground. There were more decorations everywhere I turned. I could have sworn Queen followed me around the house, adding his personal touches to the old queenslander when my back was turned.\n\nThe old building was the traditional, strategic home of Z Unit dating back to WWII. While it had once been set on the edge of the town, now it was ensconced on the outer city centre, bordering on being engulfed in by suburbia. Ridgell had given me control of the unit under their usual conditions, though in bringing Helix with me, I'd added a few of my own.\n\n\"How you doing, Ace?\" Noah King slapped me on the back in welcome hard enough to sting as he emerged from his room. \"Merry Christmas.\" He didn't bother covering his yawn.\n\nI grunted. \"Is that the beginning of your festive season welcome? Oooh,\" I cooed when he placed a dish of cold prawns and thousand island sauce on the main table. \"You do know how to set a table.\"\n\n\"He likes it,\" Hearts bantered as I tugged one corner of the tray open and made a prayer position to the ceiling.\n\nKing huffed a laugh. \"Did you think it was it all for you, big fella?\"\n\nI pressed my lips together and held back a remark of the duties I would assign him post Christmas. Just.\n\n\"Uh-huh. He heard you.\" One of the Tran brothers, Knave, popped out of our freezer that held beer, plus boutique and illegal vodka from our trip, amongst other things.\n\n\"Never,\" I snorted, pushing past him to leave my own paltry offering for the table, a collection of rolled pastries filled with custard and apple. The spicy scent rose around the table, and the small crowd inhaled as one, settling back with a sigh.\n\nWe didn't do presents\u2014for the spartan lifestyle we led between missions, any physical gift would be wasted. Instead, we kept to the traditions that evolved around the table for our past four Christmases together.\n\nKing dragged four extra chairs over, and the mood settled into something darker in an instant. We set the additional seating up with table settings, even though there was no one to sit in them.\n\nCatching my eye with his trademark cheeky grin, King leaned forward to scoop three prawns from the platter and popped them into his mouth.\n\nQueen slapped the back of his hand, his other planted on his hip, and began to berate the young officer. The amusement in King's face only brightened as he bantered back with the flamboyant ordnance specialist.\n\nWe were a ragtag mix of inter-service cooperation, each focusing on our own specialisations.\n\n\"We playing tonight?\" Hearts, my main man, pushed through the row of pastries to grin at me, shuffling a deck in his hands, though I knew they would be fresh from the local casino and likely to be tagged.\n\nFairy lights in the shape of reindeer pranced about the picture rails of the room. Queen lit a row of berry scented candles, setting them around the room. I abided by his habits on the provision that nothing overtly floral scented the house.\n\nEroding the male smell that likely permeated the building was fine; what wasn't fine was reminding each man what he had given up in chasing his career. Not one of us could have a relationship, nothing permanent, at least. The cost was too high. Though that didn't stop the Tran boys in having a bit of fun every other international trip.\n\n\"If that's what you boys need. It's your one night off a year. Spend it wisely.\"\n\n\"Or not so wisely.\" Joker wiggled his eyebrows, his English accent thickening with the alcohol he consumed.\n\nQueen nodded. He and his twin dropped into their seats, their hands folded and heads bowed. I might have believed their antics, had I not seen some of the stunts they pulled over the years.\n\nHearts slipped in beside me, and King filled his spot at our heretic table. We were ready for our version of grace when a knock interrupted us.\n\nI pushed my chair back when King made to rise.\n\n\"I've got it. You're up.\" I nodded for him to start, and shoved my chair back as far as it would go in the small dining room space. It opened onto a Queenslander terrace, overlooking the spreading town.\n\nKing's soft and reverent intonation became my shadow that followed me down the hall to the front doors. We might be a bunch of sinners, but every soldier talks to whichever deity might be listening at least once during deployment, even if it's only in a bid to save our skins.\n\nMore often, we prayed for those who went to the desert but never came home.\n\nA sharp rap rattled the double front doors. A figure stood on the other side of the stained glass rosellas that climbed their branch, throwing a soft rose coloured glow over the foyer and hall beyond.\n\nSurely I wasn't going to be sold house insurance or internet service on Christmas Day? Especially in the early evening. I sighed and shook my head, pasting a bland smile on my face that had gotten me through many staff meetings.\n\nI pulled the door wide, and my mouth fell open in the ogling sort of way. A woman stood on the other side of the threshold. Long blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders in a golden sheet. A puffy-sleeved red top left her shoulders bare, showing off a perfect, golden tan over a pair of white, tailored, cut-off jeans. A pair of red heels completed her ensemble, but it was her eyes that held me captive for the moment.\n\nBright and sea blue, it was like looking into an aquamarine ocean after a storm, when everything around had calmed, but the waters were still turbulent beneath.\n\nI closed my mouth before I could drool on the floor, and tried to speak.\n\nFortunately, she filled the silence that followed.\n\n\"Merry Christmas, Lincoln...Kelly? I'm Hadleigh Rawson. Ridgell sent me over with a care package.\" She dipped at the waist to collect something beside her out of my line of sight and presented me with a basket full of goodies, an ID card perched on top of the lot."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 5",
                "text": "My name tripped off her tongue and I instantly wished she'd stumble over it again. Disguising the need to hear her speak again, I studied the card with her photo and rank while my brain took its time playing catchup, instead of gawking at her like a green soldier fresh out of training. \"Ridgell sent you? Ah\u2014 Merry Christmas.\" I stepped aside, roving over the basket with my gaze alone. \"Political posting, huh?\"\n\nShe was young\u2014too young to be in command of her own unit yet. Often, the junior female officers were hand selected as poster girls to help promote the image of a senior rank aiming for a three star rank, and from a brief look at her presentation and her welcoming smile, Hadleigh had the goods. Sexist, but it happened, nonetheless.\n\n\"Sure am. As Ridgell's PA, essentially. Gotta tick all the career boxes, right?\" Hadleigh rolled her eyes, one corner of her mouth turned up. \"He thought you might like a hand. I help out with logistics, and I'm up visiting family for the holidays. I know you boys are never home so...\" She grimaced, leaning a touch closer, and I caught a lingering scent of berries and vanilla. \"But what's a day off to a man who never takes one?\"\n\n\"Is that him, or me?\" I asked softly, then cleared my throat. \"I'll have to go through the basket. And if you're carrying, it needs to go in the locker. House rules.\" I shrugged as if it was nothing, but the fact was that Z Unit didn't exist. And if I got it wrong, it put each of our missions in jeopardy, not to mention careers and freedoms.\n\n\"Of course,\" Hadleigh said brightly. She flicked up the hem of her flowy top to expose a bare midriff and a tight toned tummy. Just enough to keep her decent, and show me that she had no weapon around her waist, and her tight, cropped jeans left no room for a firearm or ankle holster. \"And flick through. Maybe get your favs out before the boys dig in.\" She laughed softly, a tinkling sound that stayed in my head long after her voice faded.\n\nI trawled through the packets of shortbread and marzipan almonds, and pocketed a pack of red licorice tied with a tiny gold bow. Hadliegh's advice had been good. I patted my pocket and came up empty. My phone must still be in my room after Ridgell called. I did want to confirm Hadleigh's purpose, but I also didn't want to be rude and leave Hadleigh on the porch if she had taken time out from her family at Christmas.\n\n\"Where are you from? You said you were up for Christmas.\" I smiled, waving her up the hall where, from the sounds of the ribald calls coming from the dining room, the boys had started fighting over the prawn platter.\n\n\"Sydney.\" Hadleigh shot a quick smile over her shoulder at me.\n\nShe held my gaze for a tenth of a second, but it was long enough for my knees to turn to water. Again.\n\n\"That's a big hike this time of year. Tell me you didn't drive up.\"\n\nShe snorted. \"No way. I like my sanity too much to deal with holiday travel for two and a half thousand kilometres. I flew.\"\n\n\"Fair call.\" I caught her shoulder in a gentle grip, just firm enough to halt her progress down the hall, balancing the basket on my other arm like Dorothy. All I needed was a small, annoying dog, the size Helix might use as a snack.\n\nShe looked back over her shoulder at me, her cerulean blue eyes widening. \"What is it?\"\n\nThe colour of her red lipstick matched her shirt. And while she was stunning wearing makeup, I wondered if she might have been prettier without it.\n\n\"Let me introduce you. The boys might be a little...protective of their space.\" Helix's protective streak was what came to mind, but I didn't want to scare her. \"Are you okay around dogs?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" she replied with that same, easy smile. \"Do you have a pack of Snoodles around? Wait, wait...bulldogs? That might suit you?\" She offered her eyes twinkling.\n\nI laughed. \"Not likely.\" Leaning around her, and trying not to inhale her Christmassy scent that seemed intent on branding itself into my brain, I rapped on the doorframe to the dining room. Conversation dulled instantly. \"We've got company.\"\n\n\"Bearing gifts.\" Hadleigh slipped out from under my arm, her hair trailing over my skin. I inhaled by reflex and a heady mouthful of her Christmas and berries scent instantly addled my mind. \"Merry Christmas.\"\n\nShe was welcomed with a chorus that could have come from a group of stunned parrots for their combined robotic response.\n\n\"Who sent the package?\" Knave asked, plucking a candy cane from the basket.\n\n\"Ridgell,\" Hadleigh and I answered at the same time. I ran my hand through my hair.\n\nShe giggled.\n\n\"Merry Christmas.\" King rose, offering her his chair, but she pulled out mine and slipped into it instead. He grinned. \"Glass of champagne?\"\n\nQueen squawked across the table, but Hadleigh waved him down.\n\n\"On the job.\"\n\n\"Technically, aren't you done now?\" I asked, catching Heart's eye across the table.\n\nHe nodded, diving into the basket to extract a pack of chocolate bullets. \"Girl knows what we need. Thank you,\" the giant of a man murmured. \"There's only one place for these, unless we like melted chocolate.\" He headed into the kitchen, out of sight.\n\n\"Are these bacon biscuits?\" King rummaged through, passing a few bottles of wine out to the twins. \"You do know the way to a man's heart.\"\n\n\"My momma taught me well.\" Hadleigh grinned, pilfering a prawn. King watched her out of the corner of his eye.\n\n\"Can I get you a cup of coffee? Tea? We might have something fancy with this lot around.\" I grinned as the boys started to shout me down.\n\nHadleigh laughed, ducking as something flew past my shoulder that King threw my way. He hadn't aimed to hit me; King was easily one of the best snipers the country ever produced, besides the man who used to work with his father.\n\n\"Tea sounds good. I can't do milky coffee when it's so hot up here.\" She fanned herself.\n\nEvery eye in the room followed her movements.\n\nShaking my head, I caught her elbow as she rose, all but towing her from the room. \"They're soldiers, ma'am. Please excuse them.\"\n\n\"Does that include you?\" Hadleigh tipped back her head, laughing at me.\n\nBlood ran up my neck in a hot flush to suffuse my face. \"Probably,\" I managed, only inhaling more of her Christmas scent.\n\nI filled the kettle, opening the coffee cupboard and rifled through our selection which, thanks to myself and the twins, wasn't in too bad condition.\n\n\"Ooh, can I have the green tea with mint please?\" Hadleigh leaned around my shoulder, her fingers curling lightly at my bicep. \"Unless I'm poaching someone's favorite? I haven't had that in an age.\"\n\n\"Not at all.\" I huffed a laugh. \"It's mine, so poach away.\"\n\n\"See? We were fated to meet.\" Hadleigh sent me an impish smile, trailing her fingertips over my arm, and promptly curled on the floor next to Helix, who thumped the floorboards with her tail in exchange for a hug.\n\nMy usual you should never touch a service dog snark died on my lips when Helix leaned into Hadleigh's touch, nuzzling her and moulting fur all over them both. Hadleigh didn't seem to mind in the least.\n\nMaybe it was time for my battle-scarred angel to get some love. She'd never see action again, and whined when I left her in dog section's care if I travelled, but having her around was worth more than a little stress, to me. Plus, she came with the added bonus of security.\n\nHadleigh's fingers brushed over the bald patch that streaked Helix's side, tracing back to the toughened patch over her heart.\n\n\"What happened here?\" Hadleigh looked up at me, her gaze filled with far too great an understanding.\n\nI opened my mouth to reply with something, anything, but nothing came out. Coughing into my fist, I nodded to the dog, who stood still beneath Hadleigh's examination.\n\n\"She saved my life. Took on a barrage of bullets to get to the shooter. He didn't get up for a whole day after that.\"\n\nBut then, neither did she.\n\nHadleigh smiled, her eyes glazed with a fine sheen of unshed tears. Leaning forward, she pressed her forehead to the top of Helix's. My furry guardian angel.\n\nEveryone bears scars. Some just aren't as visible as others.\n\nI was grateful mine weren't on display for everyone to see, preferring the coward's route of using my uniform to dissuade any pity. I'd seen enough of it aimed at Helix over the years, though she took it on her scarred shoulders as any stoic soldier would.\n\n\"You're so tough. Bet you're tougher than all the boys here together.\" Hadleigh stroked Helix's ears, and my dog melted into a puddle at her feet.\n\nI wasn't too far behind.\n\n\"You bet she is. But you'll ruin her if you coo all over her like she's special.\" Queen strode into the kitchen with two bottles of wine in his arms on his way to the fridge with the wine. \"Ace. Help me with a few things?\"\n\nI nodded, letting him pile my arms full of snacks and trays for the night. \"Hadleigh, could you grab the top one? I think I'll lose it.\"\n\nHadleigh looked pained. \"Do you mind if I use your, uh\u2014\" She gestured along the hall.\n\n\"Huh?\" I squinted at her as she wiggled on the spot before the message made its way to my brain. \"Sure. Down the hall, first on the right. I'd point but...\" I swayed as Queen added two more platters to my heap.\n\nHadleigh left the room, her giggles following her down the hall.\n\nWith worse balance than a party girl on New Year's Eve, I slid the platters across the table, dodging grabbing hands. \"No, there's no more seafood. You've eaten four kilograms of Tiger prawns, and eight Moreton Bay bugs.\"\n\nQueen looked miffed, though I got the impression it should be me wearing his expression.\n\n\"Look, I didn't even get any,\" I said, rolling my eyes when Joker protested.\n\n\"Yeah, because you were too busy looking at\u2014can you pass a roll please?\" Joker's snark transformed into servitude as Hadleigh reentered the room, her arms as heavily laden with snacks as mine had been a few minutes before.\n\n\"You shouldn't be doing this. It's your Christmas.\" I relieved her of the weight and scattered them around the table.\n\nA plate of cold cuts slid precariously close to the edge, and King leapt back, smothering a curse as he replaced it. \"Ace...\"\n\n\"Yes, King?\" I asked with mock politeness.\n\nA girl walks into a room full of soldiers and we all turned into our most decorus selves.\n\n\"Wait, what?\" Hadleigh looked across the table to me. \"Who is\u2014\"\n\n\"Lincoln Kelley, Ace.\" King replied, staring at the ceiling. He balled his napkin and tossed it in the air, pointing between catches as he went around the room, adding each of our callsigns to our given names for clarity. \"Joker, aka Scotty Evans. Tran twins, Knave and Queen. Caleb is Hearts. I'm Noah. King.\"\n\nShe blinked.\n\nI shifted a little, trying to not kick the kid beneath the table. There was having balls and there was insolence, and King bordered well between the two. \"King is his last name. He doesn't hold rank.\"\n\nThe balled up napkin was tossed once more before it came flying at me.\n\nHelix launched up beside me and snatched it out of the air.\n\nI grinned. \"And this is Helix. My wing man.\" Helix whined beside me, and I ruffled her ears. \"Fine. Wing girl.\"\n\n\"Softie,\" Queen muttered, refusing to look my way.\n\nI knew why, and he had my sympathy. But my girl had been there for me, the deep rant in her fur a testament of what she'd do for me, or any soldier who crossed her path.\n\n\"Probably.\" I gave my girl some love, despite the whooping around the table. \"But what stronger love can I have than the girl who'd take a bullet for me?\"\n\nThe mood around the table sombered. Beers clunked to the table, and six pairs of eyes looked at the empty seats we'd spent the afternoon ignoring. Heads bowed, raucous comments dissipating into a weighted silence.\n\nHadleigh shifted next to me. I closed my hand around hers in a gentle grip, smiling reassuringly. She settled in her seat, leaning slightly toward me.\n\nOne by one, my boys raised their glasses, their mood reverent as the silence thickened.\n\n\"Winston,\" Joker started. Though he spoke to his hands, his voice carried in the silence of the room. His usual smile left him a drawn and quiet man.\n\n\"Pax,\" Hearts muttered in the same voice he'd read his brother's eulogy in.\n\n\"Chang,\" the Tran twins spoke in unison, their hands clasped with white knuckles.\n\n\"Tobias Sing.\" The young trooper's name passed my lips in a whisper of a prayer.\n\nHadleigh wiggled her hand free of my hold and entwined her fingers through mine. I squeezed her hand, probably too hard, though I was grateful for her support. I didn't find it easy to say his name each year; none of us did. But Hadleigh said nothing, and squeezed right back.\n\nKing went last. \"Dad.\"\n\nHadleigh tugged at my grip. I loosened it, and she squeezed gently at my fingers as she shifted silently closer. I glanced sideways at her. The unshed tears of before had broken free, her lashes beaded with jewelled drops. She pushed her chair back, the legs scraping on the floor as she left the room at a brisk trot, her heels clattering unevenly on the floor.\n\nI let out a sigh, remembering the way she stroked Helix's scars. Maybe she understood better than I thought.\n\nThe boys downed their drinks in silence, and warmth began to return to the room.\n\nHelix nuzzled my hand, already cool without Hadleigh beside me. I slipped the bread roll from my plate to her and she settled at my feet.\n\n\"You know that's no good for her,\" Queen grumbled.\n\n\"I know,\" I agreed. \"But she goes where I go. My bodyguard.\"\n\nI turned back to the boys as each revived from their revieries, and pretended not to see Queen slide his roll from his plate and drop it beneath his seat."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 6",
                "text": "Hadleigh settled into the group with ease. To be fair, she'd probably spent the last year or two of her fledgling military career being tested by the officers around her, and some of the soldiers who wouldn't be able to help themselves.\n\nI hoped that she'd given them a brilliant smile and verbally put them back in their boxes.\n\nOur traditional round of poker had started by the time Hadleigh returned to the table, flicking on the lights as she entered the room. The windows outside still showed a hint of colour in a darkening sky. I hadn't chased her when she'd left after our round of prayers for our lost comrades; if she wanted company, she knew where we were. And besides, I knew what it was like to need time to myself and not to be able to take it.\n\n\"Who's losing?\" she asked, slipping back into the chair beside me.\n\nFive hands raised and pointed at Joker.\n\nHe grinned and turned his cards outward. Nothing matched.\n\nGroans rose around the table as he flourished them and pushed a bet forward.\n\n\"Why do you do it?\" King turned to stare at his friend.\n\n\"I accept my fate, and there's nothing I can do about it, except weather whatever trial Ace chooses to put us through.\"\n\n\"Uh huh. And are you going to whine the entire time?\"\n\n\"But of course.\" Joker's British accent slipped through the Aussie twang he had picked up after his time in the SAS.\n\nHelix snored beneath my seat, and Hadleigh sent the dog a sympathetic glance. \"I know how you feel,\" she whispered.\n\nI hid a grin behind my cards. \"Alright boys, who's still in?\" I slid the rest of my toothpicks forward.\n\n\"Always,\" King wiggled his cards at me. He pushed his toothpicks across the table, mirroring me. \"All in.\"\n\n\"Seen, mate.\"\n\n\"Is he bluffing?\" Hadleigh murmured at my side, staring at the younger man as if she couldn't quite understand what he was about.\n\n\"He doesn't care if he loses.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Her brow creased, and it might have been the cutest thing I'd seen in a while.\n\nI need to get out more.\n\nBut that was rather the point of a black ops unit; there was no leaving or time off mission. We kept going until the job was done.\n\nAnd the job always kept coming.\n\n\"Because he thinks he's a hard soldier and can take anything.\" Joker grinned while King glared daggers at him.\n\n\"No pretending here.\" The younger soldier straightened his shoulders, his crystal blue gaze piercing a point in the wall above the twins' heads.\n\nIf anyone had a point to prove, it would be King. I hoped he knew his place in the unit was solid, despite the verbal roughhousing, else we had a talk coming on. But then, growing up as an army brat, he likely knew the rigmarole better than the rest of us.\n\n\"What are you betting?\" Hadleigh twiddled with a stray toothpick, turning between her fingers while the Tran twins had a mini confab behind their hands.\n\n\"Team building activity for January one,\" Joker replied for me, leaning back in his chair. \"If King wins, we're up for a seventy-two hour recon exercise. If the boys win,\" he nodded in the direction of the twins, \"we'll be practicing undercover technique in drag. Probably in Thailand. If it's Hearts, it'll be some medical drama.\"\n\n\"What about if you win?\" Hadleigh turned to me.\n\n\"Predawn packmarch up Walsh's Pyramid on New Year's Day. Timed.\" More groans circulated around the table. Hadleigh winced in sympathy. Flicking my cards, I made sure to meet each pair of eyes that stared back at me. Every man at the table might have their brother's back, but not one of them could bluff. Except maybe King. \"You boys ready?\"\n\nThe twins pushed their conglomerate wealth across the table. \"We're in.\"\n\nDouble cat's-got-the-cream smiles returned my own.\n\n\"He's not playing with a full deck,\" Joker murmured, nudging King.\n\nI raised an eyebrow and said nothing.\n\n\"Nah,\" King grinned. \"He doesn't need a full deck. He's got four aces.\"\n\n\"Counting cards is illegal,\" I said in a soft voice.\n\nBeside me, Hadleigh shivered.\n\n\"Since when did we do legal?\" King placed his cards one after the other on the table top with pizzazz. \"Ta-daa.\"\n\nI stared at them. \"That's worse than Joker's hand.\"\n\n\"Is that possible?\" Queen asked as the twins laid their hands out side by side.\n\nTwo pairs each, all royalty.\n\nI smirked. \"Did you set the deck, boys?\" The boys shook their heads. My grin got bigger. \"Because it's pack march time.\" The groans got louder as I set the four aces King had called me on down. \"Merry Christmas, boys.\" Leaving them to whine in my absence, I pushed back from the table, careful not to disturb Helix where she snored under my chair, and slipped out the door.\n\nThe boys were already jabbering behind me as I left, scooping my phone from on top of a random bookcase, but a soft set of footfalls that followed me through the house to the back deck reminded me I wasn't alone.\n\nI slipped my hands into my pockets, slowing my pace as I circuited the back of the building.\n\nA warm breath brushed my bicep. \"You're very close, aren't you?\"\n\nHadleigh inclined her head. The ends of her hair tickled my shoulder, lifted by the cool breeze that swept in across the ocean, salt mixing with the berry candles Queen had lit earlier for our brief celebration. \"Your men. Unit.\"\n\nEven with heels on, Hadleigh didn't quite reach my shoulder. But the energy contained within her slight frame told me she was likely a spitfire of a pocket rocket.\n\n\"We have to be.\" I folded my arms across my chest to keep from touching her. I'd known her for a few hours, and I refused to let a woman who had whisked into my life and would whisk right out again upset the delicate status quo that I'd spent so many months building within the unit.\n\nWe were all single, and we were all expendable. This time next year, I fully expected to see new faces within our ranks and more empty chairs around our table.\n\nOne of them could be mine.\n\nWhich was why I had zero option to be involved with anyone at all. I couldn't be responsible for their grief in the long term.\n\n\"Life and death, and all that.\" She stared out over the water, her brow dipped the tiniest amount.\n\n\"Something like that.\" I studied her from the corner of my eye. \"You're not used to military life, are you? I don't recommend trying for a relationship while you're shipped around the country. It's temporary,\" I warned her, unable to contain my bitter laugh.\n\nShe huffed a laugh, pushing golden hair that lifted around her head like a halo back with both hands. The wind whipped the ends until it was a mess and she gave up trying to contain it.\n\nSomething like the woman I suspected she was inside.\n\nAnd besides, I sort of liked this untamed side of her. Part of me grieved that I would never know more about this woman, but I knew the risks when I signed on to lead Z Unit, and bartered my freedom for Helix's.\n\n\"The names you said, around the table,\" she said finally. \"Who were they?\"\n\nI think you know exactly what those names mean.\n\nBut I didn't say it; didn't want to ruin the moment I wished to prolong before she walked away.\n\n\"The chairs are for the friends and family we've lost, and the names are the men who filled them.\" And the list only gets longer every year.\n\nThe words hung between us, unspoken.\n\n\"It's a beautiful tradition.\"\n\nI snorted. \"It could be a short-lived one. We're rarely home, and we never stop. Except maybe tonight.\"\n\n\"But you're still on duty,\" she murmured softly.\n\n\"Aren't we all?\" I stared sightlessly into the darkened sky.\n\n\"Who was he? Tobias...\" Hadleigh's frown deepened.\n\n\"Sing. Tobias Sing.\" I sighed, running a hand over my hair. Closing my eyes, I tipped my head back, a clean shaven face filling my mind. So enthusiastic, and he'd memorised every rule in the book. But there was only so much those rules could teach a man. \"It was his first operation, and I was his first commanding officer, fresh out of training myself. Even I never met someone so gung-ho. The men heaped insults at him, but he shook it off, and always asked what else he could do. So, I gave him extra gate duty. It was opportune. One of our boys had been flown out, injured, and we had a gap in the roster. Tobias took it. And that night, when mortars flew into the camp, one landed right next to him. It was...well. A mess doesn't cover it. That was seventeen years ago, and I've never forgotten him.\" And I never would. My voice cracked on the last word.\n\nHadleigh was silent, though she swayed toward me.\n\nI squeezed my fingers into a fist, pushing down on the urge to touch her, to slide an arm around her waist.\n\n\"We lose so many, and when they're young\u2014\" She gestured at the empty air in front of her.\n\n\"Pretty much,\" I murmured, watching her. Her choice of words hadn't been lost on me.\n\nAs though sensing my assessment of her, she wrapped her arms around herself. \"You're not the only one who has led a changed life,\" she said finally, dropping her hands to her sides, though she refused to meet my gaze, her brow dipped. Fine lines crinkled around her eyes, belaying age and experience I hadn't expected to see. \"There are different wars to fight on different fronts.\"\n\nI frowned, turning to her, but the few lines on her face from before were gone, and her face was smooth again.\n\nToo smooth, and too much like a mask for my liking. A mask I knew all too well, because it mirrored my own.\n\nI opened my mouth to respond with a smart comment or something light, but for the second time in a few moments, her words gave me pause.\n\nBecause those words echoed something my ex-commanding officer had said, years ago, before he left the Army. Laced with too much truth to brush off, I couldn't make light of them. That was Joker's department.\n\nAnd since I couldn't ask her, couldn't risk becoming involved, when I opened my mouth the next time I gave her a piece of my truth.\n\n\"Everyone comes home different. Don't listen to what they tell you. No one leaves the desert unchanged.\"\n\nHadleigh nodded, turning to face me. \"Thank you for feeding me. And tea. And...furry cuddles.\" She smiled, and I thought it was her real one. Maybe.\n\n\"She's getting spoiled.\" I shook my head, unable to hide my grin.\n\nHadleigh raised an eyebrow. \"Getting? That ship has long since sailed, boy.\"\n\nI huffed a laugh. \"It's been a long time since someone called me 'boy'. You're full of surprises, Hadleigh Rawson.\"\n\nHer lips pursed, but there was no disguising the mischief in her eyes. \"Is that so? Then I'll give you another.\" She rose onto her toes, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. Her body pressed lightly to mine, her warmth seeping through to me as her lips brushed my ear, then pressed to my cheek in a brief, chaste kiss. \"I'll be seeing you again, Major.\"\n\nI blinked as she stepped back, still smiling at me.\n\n\"Thank you for giving me a memorable Christmas, Hadleigh.\"\n\nHer laugh was my only answer as she disappeared around the side of the house, her heels clicking a smart pace over the path. Then the sound disappeared altogether."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 7",
                "text": "Shaking my head, I stared into the shadow, but there wasn't a hint of movement. My feet moved before I put conscious thought into it, but by the time I reached the road, there wasn't a person in sight. I stared around, but I couldn't remember if Hadleigh arrived in a car, or if she walked. How far had she come? I hadn't even asked where her family lived.\n\nMy phone rang in my pocket, and I extracted it, still searching for any hint of motion along the pavement.\n\n\"Merry Christmas, sir,\" I answered, running a hand over my head. That tiny kiss had ruffled me.\n\nA splash of neon light from the club across the road rippled across the black top. Tiny drops hit my face, streaming down my cheeks. How long had it been raining that I hadn't noticed?\n\n\"Kelly, I didn't want to have to make this call. But tell me you didn't give that agent any info she didn't already know.\"\n\nRidgell's words sent my heart plummeting to the base of my gut and raised my Christmas dinner to around the realms of my throat.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Manners, Kelly!\" Ridgell barked.\n\nI managed a wry grin despite the worms roiling in my gut. Apparently you could put the Army boy into politics, but you couldn't drive the brat out of him.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" I snapped back, regretting the lack of decorum in an instant, though my mind whirred off in another direction altogether as I scanned the street level.\n\n\"Don't make me charge you, Lincoln Kelly. Z Unit has a speckled history already.\"\n\n\"I know that, sir. It would be great if you could let me know what I've done.\" The words came out strained between clenched teeth and I didn't care about decorum.\n\n\"The woman you've been flirting with all night. Did you leave her alone at any point? Did she get into the office? I'm getting sick of saving your neck, Kelly.\"\n\nYou didn't save my neck. My dog did. You hauled us out two hours too late.\n\nAnd Ridgell would likely hang that one over me for the rest of my career.\n\nHis words collided with my brain in a trainwreck.\n\nHadleigh.\n\nI ground my teeth together. She hadn't been alone at any point during the night, had she? Ridgell's words crashed into me, colliding with my Christmas dinner in an unpleasant train smash.\n\nShe was an agent...but for who, or which organisation? After I'd eaten her cover story, which had clearly been a fallacy designed for our Christmas-themed consumption, I hadn't given her access to sensitive files a second thought. How many times had she walked out of the room unattended? She'd helped me serve the table, and she'd visited the bathroom. And she'd gotten upset after we'd gone around the table to honour those we missed. Had that been her opportunity? How long had she been away? Long enough to do any damage? The computers were locked down. Maybe.\n\nI groaned silently into the blackened night sky.\n\nI hadn't wanted to let her into my life, or unbalance the status quo. What a ridiculous concept. She hadn't unbalanced it\u2014she completely unhinged it.\n\nWas she international intelligence? A spy from another nation? Had I given away the secrets I was meant to protect? Betraying one's country, even if it was unintentional, came under the banner of treason and its own world of hurt. But that was nothing compared to the snake that drew its way around my heart, strangling it in a drawn out breath.\n\nThis is what comes from having fun and getting involved with someone.\n\nA sigh gusted between my teeth, and I forced my jaw open in an attempt to speak normally.\n\n\"Fine. Who is she?\" If Hadleigh was even her real name. It probably wasn't. Was any of it real?\n\n\"ASIO. One of Australia's finest intel officers. She was on an audit, I'm told, like it was a Sunday picnic.\" Ridgell snorted down the line, though static distorted it. \"No, I'm not going to charge you. But consider it a wake up call. You're far from invincible, Kelly.\"\n\nHe hung up before I could argue my case, though to be fair, my position was fairly weak.\n\nRight back at you, sir.\n\nI'd bought Hadleigh's story, the obviously fake ID she'd shown without a second thought. Ridgell would never send us a care package; he'd be more likely to blast the unit from the face of the country. The only package I'd taken note of was the one wrapped up in a pretty smile, a cute red top and those white, cut-off jeans.\n\nI lowered my phone, and squeezed it tight in my fist until it creaked under the pressure.\n\nThe thing buzzed, and I nearly wet myself.\n\nWhen I read the message from an unknown number, it was a close thing.\n\nThanks for Christmas dinner. It was almost as good as a Sunday picnic. I loved learning your stories, Ace.\n\nThe little minx had been listening in on my call.\n\nI huffed back a laugh, and turned my phone off before I hit reply and did something else questionable. Instead, I walked back through the doors of Fairview House, grinning like an idiot.\n\nThe boys slumped in their chairs, playing a lacklustre hand of poker. Queen wiggled his fingers at me, while his brother snored in his seat beside him.\n\nI had a dawn pack march to plan, and the night's event gave me reason to bring the date forward...to tomorrow.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ BAYOU LANE by ANNA G BERRY ]\n\nAll you hear about are white Christmases, but have you heard of a bayou Christmas?\n\nYou see, I live in southern Louisiana where it can get into the ninety's in December. Our Santa drives a Peru pulled by an alligator; our Rudolph is an albino white alligator named Couyon. Santa doesn't come down the chimney but instead he comes through the back door. And if you're wondering if we leave cookies and milk out for him? We sure do.\n\nI love walking down the city streets with all the lights up, sparkling off each other, and the things around them as well. I'm so glad that I work at The Roosevelt as the General Manager. The hotel is always beautifully decorated and magical.\n\nToday I am in charge of a Christmas event for a powerful and rich person who I have yet to meet. I'm actually on the way to meet him, he's requested that I be in charge of the party, and the meeting. Hope it's not very long, I have things to do around here. I grab my clipboard and make my way to one of the smaller meeting rooms.\n\nOur smaller rooms only have a table and four chairs, so it's great for what it's being used for today. I grab the door handle and open the door. There stands a gorgeous view. A man who is taller than me, and I'm five foot, eleven inches. He has to be at least six feet or taller. His skin is the colour of the desert kissed by the sun; his hair is like the night sky on a clear night. We meet each other's eyes, and they are like a clear sky on a beautiful winter day. He lets out a cough which breaks my train of thought.\n\n\"Hello, my name is Persephone Kilmann. Thank you for meeting me today,\" I say as I hold out my hand.\n\n\"Hello. It's nice to meet you. Unusual name, and very beautiful. My name is Mattion Giovanni,\" he tells me as he gives me a hand shake.\n\nWe both take a seat across from each other, he pulls out some papers and places them on the table. I reach over and grab the stack of papers. The stack is surprisingly thin. I read over the papers to see that it is going to be fairly easy. I look up to see that he is staring at me. It oddly feels right, I give him a smile.\n\n\"This can all surely be done by Christmas sir,\" I say as I place the papers in a folder.\n\n\"Thank you, I will be looking over the party as you organise it.\" He gives a crooked smile.\n\n\"Okay, awesome. Tomorrow I'll be getting all the supplies.\" I stand up and walk to the door.\n\n\"Then I will come with you.\" He stands up and gives me a nod.\n\nWe walk out of the room and I head to the office; I can hear footsteps behind me. I look over my shoulder to see that he is behind me. I take a deep breath and make my way into the office. I walk towards the girl behind the desk.\n\n\"I would like to speak to the owner,\" I tell her as I give her a smile.\n\n\"Oh, yes ma'am,\" she says as she shuffles off to grab him.\n\nI walk over to a nearby chair and take a seat. I look around to see that Mr. Giovanni is no longer following me. I take a deep breath, god can he be intense. The wait is surprisingly small. I grab my phone to look at the time and I hear footsteps walking my way. I look up to see nothing more than Mr. Giovanni. I take a deep breath again; this is going to be great. I cannot help but think that I am being played.\n\n\"Right this way,\" he says as he holds the door open for me.\n\nI walk through the door and take a seat in one of the chairs that is in front of his desk. I think it is better if he does all the talking, as I am not in the mood at this moment. I can hear him closing the door and locking it so no one can disturb us.\n\n\"Sorry for not telling you who I really am during the meeting,\" He finally says after we have been staring at each other for a few minutes.\n\n\"That could have helped me out in the long run, you know.\" I can't help but let out a big sigh.\n\nHe lets out a laugh and says, \"I am aware of that. As you are aware that my family started this hotel and has had the best Christmas parties every year.\"\n\n\"Yes, I am fully aware of all that. What do you think about Christmas parties through the ages? Like remembering what it was, and what it is now?\" I say aloud as I feel more excited for it.\n\n\"That sounds great, send me a list of what you come up with, and we will go from there,\" he says as he gives me a smile.\n\n\"You got it.\" I stand up and walk to the door.\n\nI get to the door before I hear a cough. I turn to see that he is pointing to the chair I just got up from. I take another deep breath so as to not say anything, and walk back to the chair. I look at him to see that he is too busy looking through his phone.\n\n\"Is there anything else that you might want to add to the party?\" I ask as I sit down.\n\n\"Yes, could there be a big send off at the end of the party?\" He taps his pen against the desk.\n\n\"I'm sure I can think of something that would be nice,\" I say as I give him a smile.\n\nHe gives me a nod and I walk out of his office. I close the door and place the back of my head against the office door. What have I gotten myself into? Is this party really for me? I let out a sigh and remind myself that all I have to do is try to stay away from the temptation of Mr. Giovanni.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ THE MAGIC OF YULE by NATALIE-NICOLE BATES ]\n\nThe only thing keeping her in the caf\u00e9 was the warm fire and the fact there was a blizzard going on outside.\n\nRyanna drummed her fingers on the table before once again looking at her watch. It was the morning of January 5, five minutes past midnight. It was official: She'd been stood up.\n\nNow sitting alone in a caf\u00e9 and staring into the dredges of leftover cold cappuccino, she contemplated the reality of her situation. From the very beginning, when she first met Bobby Pearson, something felt - off.\n\nThe first time she saw him was a week before Christmas, through a window at the long-shuttered antique shop. She was admiring an antique Frozen Charlotte doll, like one her grandmother once gave her as a child. Ryanna loved the doll and was fascinated by the tale of the young woman who didn't listen to her parents and went out in a blizzard for a ride with friends without a coat, and perished in the storm.\n\nHe was inside the shop cleaning glass counters. He looked up from his work and raised a hand with a small hello.\n\nThe day following Christmas, she was once again in front of the shop admiring the doll and wishing the shop would open soon so she could at least ask the price, but knowing it was likely well out of her budget.\n\nLost in that thought, she was startled when a hand touched her shoulder. It was him. Tall, with long wavy hair and dark eyes she knew she could lose herself in.\n\n\"What's caught your fancy?\" He asked.\n\n\"The Frozen Charlotte. I love looking at it.\"\n\nHe only nodded in response, but he didn't seem in any hurry to go into the shop.\n\n\"Are you reopening the antique shop?\"\n\n\"Perhaps. I inherited this building recently from a relative. Right now, I'm just cleaning up, taking inventory, and...\" he shrugged his shoulders beneath his heavy winter coat. \"We'll see, I guess.\"\n\nThey met for coffee a day later, and another coffee a day after that. Things seemed to be going well, at least for Ryanna.\n\nThen it happened.\n\nOn New Year's Eve, she went to the caf\u00e9 to celebrate the new year with a glass of wine and to enjoy the atmosphere. She was delighted when Bobby appeared. They danced close, and at the stroke of midnight, she waited for a magical kiss to usher in the new year.\n\nA kiss that never happened.\n\nHe was just shy, she assured herself. So, she took matters into her own hands...or actually, her lips. On tiptoes, she attempted to place a friendly closed-mouth kiss against his lips, only for Bobby to move his face, and her kiss landed awkwardly on his chin.\n\nTalk about an embarrassing moment.\n\nHe averted his eyes and mumbled an apology, while Ryanna wanted nothing more at that moment to vanish. Which she did, moments later when he offered to get her another glass of wine.\n\nThen out of the blue, he sent a text asking to meet her at the caf\u00e9 that night. She was skeptical but wanted to give him one more chance. The truth was, she liked him, but maybe any interest on his part was just her imagination.\n\nYet sadly she'd been right.\n\nHere it was, now the first minutes of Twelfth Night, and she was alone.\n\nThe signs were all there.\n\nHe spoke little about himself beyond scratching the surface of his life. She sensed he wasn't a cold or cruel man, just lonely and...stuck.\n\nSometimes she could see it in his eyes. That he had things to tell her, so much to reveal. But in his dark eyes lurked a world of sorrow and hurt. A man who lost his magic and happiness and didn't know how to reclaim it.\n\nShe dabbed her lips with a linen napkin and slid back her chair. Enough humiliation for one night. It was time to trudge back to her home and forget all about this night, and about that man.\n\nClimbing into her coat, she tossed a few bills onto the table to take care of her tab and made her way to the exit.\n\nAs soon as she stepped outside the warmth of the caf\u00e9, the cutting wind whipped her hair furiously around her face. She made her way along the sidewalk and tried to step on the snow that had already been smushed down by others before her. The sky above was dark and clear, the snow clouds pushed out. It was colder than ever.\n\nAlmost no one was on the street, just a man filling the newspaper box with the morning edition, and a couple walking hand in hand laughing across the street. Most likely everyone was home in bed or snuggling with a loved one in front of the television.\n\nShe didn't think much of the footsteps she heard thudding on the snow behind her until they were nearly on top of her. She glanced back to see Bobby. She picked up her pace.\n\n\"Ryanna! Wait!\" He called out.\n\nShould she stop, or just ignore him? Her conscience teetered.\n\n\"Please, Ryanna, just stop!\"\n\nWell, he did say please. She halted in her tracks but did not turn back.\n\nWithin a few seconds, he was beside her.\n\n\"Why didn't you wait for me?\" he asked.\n\n\"Wait for you? I waited for two hours!\" She blurted. Her tone was stronger than she intended, but she was angry and freezing.\n\n\"I left a message for you. Didn't you get it?\"\n\nShe chuckled a little, but not pleasantly. \"Come on Bobby, you've lived in this little town long enough to know that cell phone service is patchy at best.\" She opened her clutch and rifled around the contents of her phone. She pressed a few commands and handed him the phone. \"See, no service? No service means no message.\"\n\nShe began to walk again.\n\n\"Ryanna, I'm sorry,\" he said.\n\nThere was such sincerity in his voice, but she waved off his apology. \"Forget about it. It's fine.\" She said the words, but she knew it wasn't fine.\n\nHe caught up and fell into step alongside her. \"Ryanna...\"\n\nHe wasn't going to give up, she realized, so she stopped. \"Listen, Bobby...I'm cold and I'm tired. I just want to go home and call it a night.\" She flexed her fingers before they could turn into icicles and reached into the pocket of her coat in search of her wool mittens. Instead, she found the little New Year's gift she had for Bobby but left it in her pocket. Maybe she would give it to him, maybe not. He might think it was just a silly little tradition anyway.\n\nHe steadied her chin with his gloved hand and locked his dark eyes to hers. \"Please, just give me a minute of your time, and if you don't want to talk to me anymore, I won't bother you, I promise.\"\n\nHer resolve to leave slipped a little. \"Be quick,\" she said as she finally found her mittens in another pocket.\n\nBut as soon as she tried to slip one on, it fell from her hand and landed in the snow. They both bent down at the same time to retrieve the mitten, his hand landing on top of hers. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, and she looked up to see him smile at her. For the first time in this brief, for lack of a better word, relationship, there was a breakthrough. Yet just as his lips descended upon hers, Ryanna heard the sound of a car engine, followed by a car barreling down the street and an ear-piercing screech of the brakes.\n\nBefore either could react, the car jumped the curb. The next thing Ryanna felt was a mighty shove, and Bobby's body on top of hers, shielding her from the impact. As she lay in the snow, shock froze her body. For a moment she could do nothing but stare up into the black, night sky. In the distance, she heard the car drive off at an alarming rate of speed.\n\nSlowly, she regained her senses. \"Bobby, are you okay?\" She said a swift prayer to God or whatever Fate might be listening.\n\nAfter an agonizing few seconds, he stirred above her. \"I think so.\"\n\n\"Do you think we're still alive?\" she asked, only half-joking.\n\n\"I believe so, but if we're dead, we're together and that's pretty cool.\"\n\n\"Yeah, it is,\" she agreed.\n\nSlowly he got up from her body, and to his knees. In the light of the streetlamp, she could see the blood coursing from his nose. She rolled over to where her clutch landed and dug out a few tissues. \"I think I broke your nose.\" She crawled her way to him and pressed the tissues against his nose.\n\n\"You didn't break anything. That jerk who was speeding and jumped the curb and nearly killed us is the one who is at fault.\"\n\nHe slowly made his way to his feet and helped Ryanna up. \"Are you okay, anything hurt?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"Just more shocked and scared than anything. There's no one around. We could have been injured and on the ground, in the snow, until it was too late,\" she murmured, fighting back the tears that desperately wanted to flow.\n\nHe wrapped a protective arm around her. \"We're fine, so don't even think that. Let's get to my flat and warm up. I'll call the police, and then you and I can talk...if you want to.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"I would like that...very much.\"\n\nRyanna finally stopped shaking in the warmth of Bobby's flat. She tenderly cleaned the blood from his nose, and in the light of the flat, it only looked bruised, not broken.\n\nShe curled up on the sofa with him beneath a blanket. For a while, they simply recovered in silence from the near-miss tragedy.\n\nFinally, he spoke. \"I want to try to explain to you why I have been so distant.\"\n\nShe nodded in agreement. If he couldn't open up to her, then how could they ever move on as friends, or possibly even more?\n\n\"First let me say, Ryanna, I like you. Even though we haven't known each other very long, I like you...a lot. There was this...instant spark, at least on my part.\"\n\nHe shifted a bit beneath the blanket. Maybe he was embarrassed. \"Of course, I feel it, too,\" she admitted, and hoped it would alleviate his discomfort. Now that he was talking, she didn't want him to clam up again.\n\n\"Some time ago, I lost my fianc\u00e9e. She died shortly before our wedding. Since then, I've sort of distanced myself from everyone and everything that meant something to me.\"\n\nShock rocked her body. She didn't know what she expected he'd say, but it wasn't this. \"Bobby, I'm so sorry...\"\n\nHe put a hand up to silence her. \"Don't be sorry, just listen, if that's okay.\"\n\n\"When the opportunity came about to move here and work on the antique shop, it gave me a lot of time to think, and the more I thought about things, the more my mind cleared. Maybe it was acceptance...I don't know. Then I met you, and I went back into a tailspin. There was the part of me that was so happy to connect with someone again, and the other part...\" He stopped and shook his head, \"that felt guilt. I mean, I know Lauren is long gone, and she is never coming back, but still...\"\n\nShe absorbed his words, glad that he was able to unburden himself. Taking his hand, she said, \"Thank you for telling me. All I ask of you is, to be honest, and don't hide what you're feeling because it's unfair to both of us. If you need to just be friends, that's okay with me. If you think you're ready to see where this might lead, I'd like that.\"\n\nHis answer was to press his parted hips to hers.\n\n\"I have something for you.\" He smiled.\n\n\"Really? I have something for you, too.\"\n\nHe rose from the couch and retrieved a small, wrapped gift from the mantle. \"I'm sorry it's late for both Christmas and New Year's,\" he sighed as he retook his seat beside her.\n\n\"It's just in time for Twelfth Night,\" she assured. She removed the tiny bow, the festive wrap, and removed the lid of the small pink box to reveal the Frozen Charlotte doll she'd admired so many times in the window of the antique shop. \"Oh, Bobby!\" She gasped. \"It's perfect! Thank you so much.\" She pressed her cheek to his. \"Now you,\" she handed him the little pouch.\n\nHis dark brows drew together. \"Thank you, but...\"\n\nShe laughed. \"What is it, right?\" Before he could answer she said, \"It's a Twelfth Night tradition. The remnants of my family's Christmas tree from last season. You use the wood chips to start the fire to bring about happiness and good luck in the new year.\"\n\n\"Wow, I love the sound of this tradition. We should start the fire together.\"\n\n\"I couldn't agree more.\"\n\nWhen the fire was glowing bright, they shared cocoa and kisses to ensure a perfect dawn.\n\n\"Thank you for saving me from getting killed earlier,\" she said.\n\n\"Thank you for giving me a second chance. Not only me, but for giving me a second chance at happiness,\" he replied.\n\nShe smiled. \"You're very welcome. Happy dawn of Twelfth Night. Let's spend it together.\"\n\nHe pressed his lips to hers, and mumbled, \"And hopefully, this is just the beginning.\"\n\n\u2042\n\n[ CHRISTMAS PI by RK PHILLIPS ]\n\nCome on, Professor, we are going to be late!\" Nikola stuck her head in the doorway of the bedroom they were sharing.\n\n\"I'm almost ready. This boot is giving me issues. Plus, how are we going to be late when there isn't a specific time that anything starts until late afternoon?\"\n\nSimone laughed as she and William passed by in the hall. \"Let me guess. Our girl is taking her sweet time.\"\n\nNikola smiled a little. \"Yes. I am thinking I might need to help her dress. You would think she would be ready to go exploring on this vacation after the semester finished.\"\n\n\"Give her some extra time. Her brain is still probably recovering. In the meantime, my advice is to tell her that you need to be somewhere about ten minutes earlier than you need to. That helps me sometimes when she gets into particular moods.\"\n\nPeyton's voice was strained from the effort of shoving her foot inside of the snow boot. \"You know I can hear you both, right? Instead of talking, one of you get your butt in here and help push this boot on my foot.\"\n\nOpening the door further, Nikola walked into the bedroom and laughed at the sight in front of her. On the bed was Peyton, sprawled on her back with her right knee bent towards her face and foot up in the air. She had one hand on each side of the fur-lined boot. To complete the look, the dear woman was bent upwards like she was holding a crunch position and her tongue was sticking out on the side as if that would give her extra strength.\n\n\"What is going on? Why is it so hard to put your boots on, Peyton?\"\n\nPeyton gave up and collapsed back, letting her leg fall. She was spread eagle, helpless, and done. \"You all go without me. My foot must have grown overnight.\"\n\nSimone sashayed in the room and straight up to her friend. \"Let me see this.\" She began to tug it off and Peyton attempted to stop her. \"Stop that.\" Simone pulled the boot off and looked inside. \"First of all, there is still some paper in the toe. Secondly, this isn't your size. Did you grab the wrong one?\"\n\nThat sent Nikola off on a new round of laughter and even William who was propped up in the doorway chuckled.\n\nPeyton shot up and sent a glare at the two before grabbing the offending boot. \"That can't be. How did I get the other one on?\"\n\n\"Maybe it is because that one is your size.\" Without waiting for permission, Simone grabbed Peyton's boot and tugged it off. She looked inside and then held it out for Peyton to take. \"Here, Pi. I was correct, the left boot is indeed your size nine9. I am not sure what happened.\" Then she glanced down at Nikola's feet. \"Wait a minute. These boots are the same style. Nikola, are both of your boots correct?\"\n\nAt that question, all laughter stopped and Nikola's gaze dropped to her own feet. She braced her back against the wall and then bent over and pulled off the right boot. Peyton watched as her girlfriend's chin dropped causing her mouth to open in surprised 'O'.\n\n\"Seriously, I can't believe this. This boot is a size nine. What size is that one you were trying on?\"\n\nSimone grabbed the boot and tossed it over to Nikola. \"It is an eight. Let me guess. That is the size you wear.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Nikola blushed a little at being part of the reason for the mix up. \"Guess it is my fault.\"\n\nPeyton slid the correct boot back onto her left foot and then rolled over and off the bed, almost face planting onto the floor while doing so. She limped over to Nikola and kissed her cheek. \"I should have noticed, too. At least we've got it straightened now and we both have two correct boots.\"\n\n\"Maybe the two of you should mark the tags on the inside with your first initial to help keep them from getting mixed up again,\" Simone suggested.\n\n\"Not a bad idea, Simone, we will do that tonight. But, the mix up does explain why it felt a little loose.\" Nikola slipped her foot into the boot and then pushed up from the wall. \"Come on, Professor, let's go. We have Christmas to go explore.\"\n\nA couple of hours later, the four of them were inside a store along Mistletoe Lane shopping for Christmas gifts. The holiday was only a couple of weeks away and still Peyton needed to get a few last minute things if she could find them. She went all out for Christmas and this year's Christmas Eve party would be better than last year's. For one, she wasn't on crutches this year. Secondly, she and Nikola were stronger together in their relationship.\n\nPeyton loved the shop as it had different types of things that were handmade from local residents. There were lots of blankets and Peyton found one that had painted quilt blocks of boys and girls in winter time activities. It reminded her of something passed down from her great grandmother. She had to buy it even if it meant shipping it back home. She found a leather knife holder that had a fish and other details embossed on it. It was stained a pretty dark-brown color. Peyton thought her dad would love it for his fishing trips. Nikola was rummaging through a rack of aprons and held one up for Peyton to see.\n\n\"Hey, darling! Do you think your mom would like this?\"\n\nPeyton grinned at the red-and-white frilly apron with the words 'The Real Boss of the North Pole' on it. It was made to look like one Mrs. Claus would wear. \"She would love it.\"\n\n\"Good. This store has lots of pretties. I found some soap, too. I thought I would get her and us some that smelled like cookies.\"\n\n\"I still need to find something for Damion.\"\n\n\"Your brother is a hard man to shop for.\"\n\n\"Yes, he is.\"\n\nSimone walked by only carrying a little glass animal. However, behind her was William, arms loaded down.\n\n\"Hey, Willy Wonka. You look like you need a Tonka truck to haul your goodies around.\"\n\nHe rolled his eyes a little. \"That woman might have a bit of a shopping problem.\"\n\nSimone's voice came from where she was bent over looking at something else. \"I heard that. I don't have a problem. I was busy at the hospital and got behind on my list. Blame my family for continuing to pop out kids and making my shopping list longer.\"\n\nSuddenly, Peyton knew what to get her brother. She wasn't sure if he would actually like it, but with her mind in a reminiscing mood, she was going to take him down memory lane, too. She decided to buy him a small rocking horse that had been hand carved. With that, she was tapped out on her big gifts.\n\nThey all eventually paid for their purchases and decided to go have lunch before heading back up to the house they'd rented to drop everything off.\n\nThere was a cafe a few blocks down and thankfully, they grabbed a table near a corner so they could pile up their purchases. They looked at the menu and the waitress came over with a black half apron on and a pad of paper sticking out of it. The lady had a pen sticking over her ear and instantly Peyton liked her.\n\n\"Hey, darlings. My name is Lena. What can I getcha?\"\n\nNikola smiled up and said, \"Hi, Lena. I would like a raspberry ice tea.\" She pointed at Peyton as she continued. \"She would like an ice water with lemon.\"\n\nWilliam spoke up next. \"The lovely lady next to me and I would both like a Coke please.\"\n\n\"I will have that right up. Let me know if you have any questions. The lunch special is a burger and fry basket with a milkshake. You can get it after lunch for more of a dessert, if you'd rather.\"\n\nAs Lena turned and left, Peyton's head shot up. \"I want that.\"\n\nNikola laughed and tucked a piece of hair behind her girl's ear. \"As soon as she mentioned something with ice cream, I knew you would choose it.\"\n\n\"Sounds like a good choice for me, too.\" William flipped the menu over to look at the milkshake flavors.\n\n\"I am thirding that option. Nikola, are you going to make it unanimous?\"\n\nNikola set her menu down and shrugged. \"Might as well. It is vacation time. I know when I am beat.\"\n\nLena returned with their drinks. \"Alrighty, ya'll ready to order?\"\n\nPeyton piped up before anyone else could. \"Yes! We all want the burger and shake special. Can I have onion rings instead of fries? Also, I would like my burger well-done, please. What kind of shakes would you recommend? I am having a hard time choosing.\"\n\nThe waitress just grinned widely at the little dynamite. \"Well, doll, you can have onion rings instead of fries. Normally, I would tell you to get the cookies-and-cream milkshake, but right now we have a few holiday flavors in. There is eggnog, pumpkin pie, gingerbread, and peppermint. Do any of those strike your fancy?\"\n\n\"Oh yes. Gingerbread please. Wait no, pumpkin... Gingerbread. Yes, gingerbread please.\"\n\nEveryone at the table just laughed.\n\nLena beamed and tapped her pen on her order pad. \"You sure, doll?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Peyton passed her menu down.\n\n\"What about the rest of ya'll?\"\n\nNikola handed her menu over. \"I will take a pumpkin shake so Miss Giddy can try it out and my burger basket is good as it comes.\n\nSimone echoed Nikola except having a peppermint shake.\n\n\"And for you, sir? Are you going to get the eggnog to round out the selection?\" Lena asked William.\n\n\"No, ma'am. I am the boring one in the lot. I want a plain chocolate one.\"\n\n\"Nothing wrong with one of the country's favorite flavors. We will get the burger baskets right out.\" Lena turned and scooted off. When she did, everyone turned to look at Peyton.\n\n\"What?\"\n\nNikola leaned over and gave her a kiss on the side of her head while Simone rolled her eyes asking, \"What are you? Five?\" Peyton stuck her tongue out at her friend who only laughed. \"Not helping your point.\"\n\n\"You all suck. You know I get a little over excited about Christmas and ice cream.\"\n\n\"That isn't all you get excited about,\" William said.\n\nPeyton's face pinkened a little in embarrassment at the fact she can be a bit exuberant about different things. They continued teasing her and then the conversation moved on to how the past few months had been.\n\nThe vacation up north was planned for the week following the completion of the fall term at the college. She turned in all her students' grades and concluded the last of her meetings. Then the next day, the four of them were on a plane and headed somewhere colder. It had been a blast so far. Today was day three of the vacation and day two here in the Christmas town.\n\nSimone had surprised her early in the fall and said that she and William rented a house for the four of them for a week in a Christmas village that she found. Then Nikola had added that she bought the tickets already for the two of them. Pretty much all she had to do was pack and relax while on the trip. Plus save up for spending money. That she could easily do. She had the best people in her life.\n\nLena approached the table with four plastic baskets covered with paper and holding burgers and fries piled high in three of them and onion rings in the last one. Lena passed out each one of them, handing Peyton hers last.\n\n\"There you go, darling. Your onion rings nice and hot. I made sure they gave you a few extras.\" She winked at Peyton.\n\nNikola faked outrage as she exclaimed, \"Hey now! I am sitting right here. No flirting right in front of me.\"\n\n\"Does this mean I can when you aren't here?\" Peyton hugged the woman when Nikola slapped her arm playfully. \"You know I am only teasing.\" Then she whispered, \"But free extra onion rings.\"\n\nLena laughed, \"Oh lord, woman, you are something else. I bet this one has her hands full with you.\"\n\n\"You have no idea.\" Nikola shook her head. \"Question for you, Lena. Where are you from? You don't exactly sound like you are from around here?\"\n\n\"No, ma'am. I moved up here a long time ago with my husband, but I am from Louisiana. My southern ways just never left me. Ya'll enjoy your food and I will bring your shakes in a bit.\"\n\nThey all ate and finished their food. Then when Lena brought their shakes out, they were in those old-fashioned tall sundae-looking glasses that were ribbed along the edges and then widened at the top. On top was whipped cream and a cherry. The milkshake was served with both a straw and a spoon. The three girls passed around and tried each other's shakes before settling down to enjoy their own. William just guarded his chocolate one like he was a dragon keeping his gold safe from thieves. He wouldn't even let Simone have a bite of his. He said he had to put his foot down about something. Nikola and Peyton just smirked and went back to their own delicious treat.\n\nAfter they paid for lunch, everyone loaded their arms back up with their purchases from earlier, waved good-bye to Lena with a promise to return during the week, and headed back to the house to unload. During lunch, they had decided to take a brief nap or at least rest before the gingerbread-decorating event in town later that afternoon."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 8",
                "text": "As the four of them walked along the sidewalk, it began to snow.The flakes were the big fat kind that floated down from the sky like little kisses landing everywhere. One of the neighbors had told them that the weather forecast showed that there would be several inches accumulation by late evening and more overnight. This was added to what was already still on the ground everywhere.\n\nPeyton opened her arms and spun around in a slow circle and stuck her tongue out trying to catch the snow. It didn't matter how old she got, that is what her first reaction to it snowing was.\n\nSimone grabbed her arm after she made one rotation. \"Girl, you better stop. You know that you will end up falling on your butt, and I don't feel like having to examine you for injuries on this trip.\"\n\n\"Come on, Si, it was only a couple of circles. Besides, I have a heroine here to save me if I fall.\" Peyton shifted her eyes from Simone to Nikola and batted her eyelashes. \"Don't I, Nik?\"\n\n\"You know I would gladly catch you, but I would rather not have to. How about you stand in place while trying to catch the snowflakes?\" Nikola linked her arm through Peyton's as they continued forward, in an effort to help.\n\nThe building came into view and there was a steady stream of people walking into the community center. There seemed to be a lot of kids which was expected, but there were many adults without children there, too. That made Peyton feel better. She was worried that when they arrived, it would be mostly a younger population and she would either feel awkward or end up not participating.\n\nAs they strolled into the main room, there was a sign advertising that all the cookies were donated by a local bakery. Peyton's nerves were starting to elevate, but then Nikola began to rub her thumb along Peyton's wrist and that helped to calm her down. Her girl always knew what to do to help.\n\nA lady walked to the front of the room and spoke into the microphone. \"Hello and welcome to this year's gingerbread-decorating celebration. My name is Jean and I am the owner of Jolly Treats. I want to thank you all for coming out. We have set up stations at all the tables and everything you should need will be on there. The same supplies are on each table. There are two cookies per person, but let me know if something happens as we have extras. Feel free to just randomly pick a table and get started. You can ask me or one of my elves for assistance at any time. Helpers, can you please wave your hands so everyone will know what you look like?\" There were about six hands throughout the room that waved. \"They all have on a shirt with the bakery's name on it to help them stand out. I think that is it. Have lots of fun!\"\n\nAs soon as Jean turned off the mic, people began filling in the spots at the tables. Simone took off across the room where not many people had first headed and claimed four chairs, two on each side of the table. \"Hey, you three. We can set up here and be out of the way of the major part of the group.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Si.\" Peyton sat down with Nikola to her left. She looked at the cookies laid out all naked in front of her. The first thing she did was take a picture.\n\n\"Are you documenting your progress, Peyton?\" William asked.\n\n\"Of course. I need proof of what I am doing. Damion won't believe me otherwise. Plus, my mom will want to see pictures of the trip.\"\n\nThe other three of them were already getting started, but Peyton just looked around at everything and wasn't sure where to start. She enjoyed decorating cookies, but it was kind of like coloring and she had to plan everything out ahead of time before she got started. She was slow and methodical in that manner. Nikola was using some purple frosting to make one of her characters have on a purple dress. Then she added little star sprinkles to the top of it to give it a design.\n\n\"That is pretty, babe.\" Peyton still stared at her naked person.\n\n\"Thanks, Professor. What are you thinking about doing?\"\n\nPeyton sighed. \"I am not sure yet. It is always so hard for me to get creative. I am too practical most of the time.\" Peyton glanced over at Simone and she had to laugh. \"Are you making one of yours a banged-up patient?\"\n\n\"Of course. I imagine gingerbread people get injured, too. I might turn my second one into a doctor. We will see. I am still thinking about it.\" The gingerbread had a cast on one of his legs and a bandage on his head.\n\nPeyton thought about what she liked and decided to go with the season. She grabbed the red paint and began making a Mrs. Claus outfit. Then in the gingerbread lady's hand, she drew an outline of a gingerbread cookie so it looked like she was holding on to one. Peyton gave her Mrs. Claus a little chef's hat and an apron. After all, Peyton did like baking. For her other one, she decided to make him into a boy that is going out ice skating for the day. Peyton went to reach for one of the gumdrops for the ski cap pom pom and when she did, the bottom of her shirt smeared all the icing on her second cookie. \"Flap jacket!\"\n\n\"It's okay, Peyton, the icing will come off the shirt and you can redo the cookie,\" Nikola reassured her.\n\n\"I know, but I would really like to not have a mess to clean up each time I try to do something. I really hate being accident prone.\"\n\n\"Girl. We love you and your adorable, klutzy self. You keep people from getting too serious. Plus, we all have something wrong with us. I am the bossy one which is why you keep me around,\" Simone interjected.\n\n\"Yes, she is,\" William added his agreement to the mix. He grunted when he felt an elbow to his side.\n\n\"I know you all are right.\" Peyton wiped off the bit of icing that got on her shirt before removing the smeared part on her cookie. \"Here goes take two on the cookie.\" The second time around, she was careful and even asked for assistance in having someone hand her things more instead of leaning over to get them. She finished her little skater man.\n\n\"So, are you ladies going to eat your creations now or later?\" William asked them.\n\n\"We are taking them back to the house,\" Simone said.\n\n\"First I need to snap pictures of all of them. Then when I send them, I am going to make my mom guess who did which ones and see if she can figure it out.\" Peyton unlocked her phone and took a picture of first her two, and then Nikola's, followed by Simone and William's.\n\n\"I have no doubt your mom will be able to tell who did which ones as there are hints with each of them and your mom knows us pretty well,\" Simone replied.\n\nOnce Peyton had finished, each of them wrapped up their cookies in the wax paper and then gently stacked them in a brown paper bag. William offered to cart their people home.\n\nWhen they left, the snow was still falling and they walked around the square and looked at all the decorations and visited a few of the stores. They decided to stop by a different restaurant for dinner. All during dinner, Peyton kept staring out the window and watching it snow. There was this hypnotic trance that it lured you into. It was captivating and so serene. She wanted to go out and play in it, wanted to build a snowman and have a snowball fight, and everything else one does in the snow. The way the snow looked fresh over the land and piled up on those curves along boards, cars, and branches made her smile and think about her beloved math. A poke at her side brought her attention back to her companions.\n\n\"Time to go, daydreamer. I had the rest of your food packed up since you seem to be in your own world. You didn't even notice, did you?\" Nikola teased her gently.\n\nA glance down at the place in front of her revealed her food had been removed. \"I guess I didn't. I'm sorry that I'm not very good company right now.\"\n\n\"Girl, you are fine. We are on vacation. Besides, I have known you for a long time and you going off in your head is normal. You come back to join us when you can.\" Simone put her wallet away while she was talking. \"Now, come on and let's go play in the snow so your spirit can quit longing for it.\"\n\nPeyton popped up so fast, her chair almost went clattering back. Thankfully, Nikola's quick reflexes saved it from crashing and Peyton from embarrassment. Once they were outside, only Nikola's hand in hers prevented Peyton from running down the sidewalk. Seriously, the snow brought out every one of her childlike tendencies.\n\nThere was a small park with lots of open ground on the walk back to the house and they stopped. Peyton rushed over, plopped down in the snow, and began waving her arms in an up and down motion. Then she began moving her legs and giggling. \"Come on, you all! Get your butts down here and make angels with me.\"\n\nSimone eased down next to her on the right, while the other two just observed them in silent amusement. Peyton wasn't having any of that. \"Willy Wonka, if you don't get into the snow, I will find you while you are asleep and dump it on you.\"\n\n\"William, you better do as she said. I do not want to wake up to snow landing on me. I will do worse to you,\" Simone issued in that tone of voice that meant business.\n\n\"Nikola!\"\n\n\"Must I?\"\n\n\"Yes, you must. Come on now and I will reward you later.\"\n\n\"Better be worth it.\" Nikola laid back in the snow and began making an angel, too.\n\nPeyton reached out and grabbed two of her favorite people's hands on each side of her and stared up at the sky watching the snow flutter from above until the view became distorted from the moisture on her glasses.\n\nAfter a few minutes, everyone got up, shaking the chunks of smushed snow from their coats and pants.\n\n\"Come on, Professor, up you go.\" Nikola held out her hand to assist.\n\n\"I think you all should just leave me here.\" Then Peyton grabbed her girlfriend's hand and was hauled up. She turned around to admire the beautiful creations and took a picture of it to remember this moment later.\n\nThe two couples linked arms and strolled down the sidewalk. Peyton and Nikola were in the front with Simone and William walking behind them. They were almost back to the house, when Peyton felt her arm being jerked in a sudden movement. It almost toppled her over, but she recovered. However, Nikola did not. She was sprawled on the ground, half on the sidewalk and half on what would normally be grass. Simone and William both jumped into doctor mode immediately and rushed to her side, spitting out several questions at once.\n\n\"Are you okay?\"\n\n\"Where is it hurting?\"\n\n\"Did you slip on some ice?\"\n\n\"Did you hit your head?\"\n\n\"Is it your leg or your foot?\n\nNikola didn't really answer much for a few moments except to point and nod. Some passersby stopped to offer assistance and ask if Peyton needed to have someone called. Peyton reassured them, \"Both of them are doctors, but thank you. If they think we need to go to the ER to get her checked out, we are almost back to the house and can get the car. I appreciate you stopping, though.\" When she turned back towards where her girl was sprawled out, Peyton saw that Simone had Nikola sitting up and making her follow her finger as William felt around on her ankle.\n\n\"Did she break it? You know, in most situations it is supposed to be me that is down on the ground being tended to, not you.\"\n\nNikola, in a rare moment, stuck her tongue out at Peyton which caused Peyton's heart to ease up a little. If her girl could do that, then she was going to be alright.\n\nWilliam stood up and pronounced, \"I will need to look more fully at it when we get you back to the house, but I don't think you broke it. However, not sure if it is only sprung or if you tore some soft tissue worse. At the very least, no walking or putting weight on it until tomorrow. Simone dear, help me get her upright and I will carry her the rest of the way.\"\n\nSimone assisted Nikola to stand up on one leg and then William swung her up in his arms. They all knew better than to ask Peyton because she would probably just cause them all to have a human Jenga pile.\n\nWith her arms around his neck, Nikola proclaimed, \"You are my knight in shining coat, with the wet snow on it, but still you are not the prince for me.\" They all laughed and eased the remainder of the block home."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 9",
                "text": "When they were in town earlier for lunch, Peyton had seen they had a pie called White Christmas Pie on the menu. She asked what kind of pie it was and found out it was coconut and almond. After Nikola was resting, she told Simone she was going back to the cafe to get some dessert. William accompanied her and drove the car. He needed to get some supplies to tend to Nikola. It had the added benefit of ensuring the pie made it back in one piece. They all knew if Peyton was left on her own that the pie might have ended up face down in the box from hitting the ground.\n\nHowever, it didn't. When they returned, Peyton went off to the kitchen to prepare the dessert while the doctors in the house tended to injuries. Peyton carried slices of the pie on a tray for all four of them into the living room. William had Nikola situated on the couch with her foot propped up on some pillows and wrapped up in a bandage. There were also ice packs all around it.\n\nHer girl looked up from the couch, smiling even through the pain and Peyton flashed back to the previous Christmas. \"You know this is a reversal from a year ago and it was me sitting on the couch while everyone bustled about.\" Peyton set the tray down as she continued. \"Damion isn't going to believe that I had nothing to do with this. Wait until I text him later, with a picture, of course. My brother shall require proof.\"\n\nAll the answer she received was a groan from Nikola and laughter from the other two. \"Shall we have hot chocolate, too?\" She poured each of them a mug and then settled down next to hoppity and ate some pie. It was delicious and she knew she was going to have to get the recipe and bribe her mom into making it for her for Christmas.\n\nThey had finished their pie and were chatting when singing from outside made its way to their ears. Peyton went to look out the window and there were carolers coming down the sidewalk. \"Quick, guys, let's sit outside on the porch.\"\n\nPeyton held it open for William to ease Nikola through. Thankfully, there was a porch swing so Nikola could still keep her foot elevated. The rest of them stood and listened as the group sang several songs. A couple of the songs Peyton even sang along with.\n\nThey all held their mugs of hot chocolate while the carolers sang and then moved on to serenade the next house. Peyton watched and thought, except for the accident, the day had been a wonderful winter vacation day and she was happy they were able to make the trip and she had someone in her life to share this adventure with.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ SNICKERDOODLES AND SANTA - A Pine Cove Springs Short Story by MONIQUE BRASHER ]\n\n[ Chloe ]\n\n\"Life is short, eat the Christmas cookies,\" Phoebe read the words blazoned across my apron, and burst into laughter. I wasn't sure if all eight years had such a cheesy sense of humor, but we took advantage of it whenever we could. \"That's hilarious!\"\n\n\"It's a solid philosophy.\" Aiden came up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pressing a loud kiss to my cheek. I still couldn't believe we'd passed our one-year anniversary a few weeks before.\n\n\"We have to make the cookies before anyone can eat them.\" I reached out, smacking his hand as he went to grab some dough.\n\n\"You know I love your snickerdoodles,\" he murmured into my ear. Shivers danced up and down my spine as my breath tickled my neck.\n\n\"I have a small bowl in the fridge, just for you. Now leave these cookies alone, will you please?\"\n\nIt took everything I had not to laugh as my grown husband leaned around me just enough to pout, his lower lip sticking out dramatically. I ran my hand across his jawline, feeling his dark beard, then softly patted his cheek.\n\n\"In the fridge.\"\n\n\"Fine.\" He straightened and circled the island to tickle Phoebe, and my heart swelled as her laughter bounced off the walls.\n\nI wished his parents could be here to see the life we'd made; see the things Aiden had done with the farm in the last year.\n\nThere were moments I was sure I was dreaming, especially when I stood in this kitchen. Aiden's family breathed life into the house, updating and expanding over the last few decades, but my favorite place was the giant granite island in the middle of the kitchen. From there, I had a full view of the living space, and the gorgeous wood tones that photographed so richly when I snuck in pictures.\n\nIn the evenings, Phoebe did her homework across from me while I prepped and cooked dinner. On rare occasions, like today, Aiden joined us in the kitchen, and my heart sang. While I'd loved all the places we'd lived before, everyone I loved lived here. And we had memories of people we loved that were no longer with us here, too.\n\nAiden's mother told me that the kitchen was the heart of every home. I'd been too young to appreciate the advice then, but I'd carried it with me throughout my entire motherhood journey.\n\n\"Who are these for?\" Phoebe asked, rising on her knees on the barstool.\n\n\"This batch is for us. Sit down,\" I motioned, mixing cinnamon and sugar in a shallow pan.\n\n\"Like us, or all of us?\"\n\nI raised my eyebrow. \"Do you want it to be just us, or would you like me to get Uncle Owen and Aunt Evie here, too?\" Aiden's brother Declan still kept to himself, and I hoped he'd make a reappearance into Aiden's life sooner rather than later.\n\n\"Can I call them?\" She looked at me with her giant pine colored eyes, exact copies of my own.\n\n\"Go grab the tablet,\" I chuckled, gathering the ingredients to mix.\n\n\"You okay?\" Aiden stopped me, holding my chin in his hand. His blue eyes searched my face before giving me a gentle kiss on my lips.\n\n\"I'm fine, why?\"\n\n\"At the risk of getting hit with a spatula, you look more tired than usual.\"\n\n\"Well, thank you for your concern, Mr. Wheeler, but it's been a busy season.\" My tree farm sessions booked out in less than an hour from when I released them, surprising both of us. Juggling the farm and a full load of photography clients proved to be quite an undertaking, but I loved the variety.\n\n\"You're right. I won't argue with that. Speaking of which, I'm brewing some coffee. Afternoon boost?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" I nodded, measuring out dry ingredients and dumping them into the bowl.\n\n\"They're on the way!\" Phoebe screeched, flying back into the kitchen, her long brown brains trailing behind her. \"Everybody will be here for cookies!\"\n\nPhoebe had sulked a bit when Evelyn and Owen moved out, but they each had their own places in town.\n\n\"Are you going to come help me mix, or are you just going to talk a lot?\" I glanced over at her, snickering at her cheesy victory dance.\n\n\"Mix! You didn't press the button yet, did you?\"\n\n\"I did not press the button. I still have to add the eggs.\"\n\n\"Dad.\" Phoebe crawled up onto the island, then sat down, crossed legged, facing Aiden. My heart still warmed every time she called him that. \"Want to hear a joke I heard at school?\"\n\n\"Shoot,\" he answered, leaning on his elbows to give her his full attention.\n\n\"What do Santa's little helper's learn at school?\"\n\nHe glanced over at me like I was his 'phone a friend' and I shrugged. \"You're on your own, I haven't heard this one.\"\n\n\"I don't know. What do they learn?\"\n\n\"The elf-abet!\" She burst into hysterics, holding her belly at her joke.\n\nAiden nodded. \"That's a good one. Elf-abet. I'm holding onto that one, that's a great dad joke.\" He tapped his temple and winked at her.\n\n\"I've got another one!\"\n\n\"I'm all ears.\" He pushed off the counter and moved back over to stand behind me, his chin resting on my head as he wrapped his arms once again around my waist.\n\n\"Are you going to help bake these cookies, or just stand here and hug me?\" I whispered, not complaining one bit about the attention.\n\n\"I'm going to stand here and hug you.\"\n\n\"Are you done yet?\" Phoebe groaned, letting her head fall back.\n\n\"Sorry, Phoebe, we are all ears.\" I giggled, cracking an egg.\n\n\"What do you call a scary looking reindeer?\"\n\n\"This I've gotta hear,\" Aiden replied, his face solemn.\n\n\"A cari-BOO!\" she cried, raising up her hands to mimic a ghost as she said the last syllable.\n\n\"That is amazing.\" He replied, pointing his finger at her. He bent down and whispered in my ear, \"I should really write some of these down for Santa, shouldn't I?\"\n\nI nodded as I took a small swipe of cookie dough before I added eggs to it.\n\n\"Alright miss jokester, you ready to press the button?\"\n\n\"Yep!\" She crawled across the counter on her hands and knees before sitting on her heels and pressing the button to mix the first egg in.\n\n\"Why can't we put all the eggs in at once?\"\n\n\"You know what, Phoebe? I honestly have no idea. Maybe to keep from over-mixing?\" I shrugged. \"I'm just following the directions.\"\n\n\"Dad says the directions are more like guidelines.\"\n\nI glanced up at Aiden, who made a face, like he was sorry he'd been caught.\n\n\"I like to live vicariously when I cook.\"\n\n\"Well, baking a whole different ball game and instructions are important, they're not guidelines.\"\n\n\"That was supposed to be between us,\" he dramatically whispered to Phoebe.\n\n\"Sorry.\" She shrugged, taking a pinch of cinnamon and sugar out of the pan.\n\n\"I think I'm going to go take a nap.\" Aiden stretched and gave me a knowing look. Phoebe didn't know, but we'd planned a special Santa visit just for her. We'd both been so busy that we'd dropped the ball and missed the chance to take her to town, and with it being Christmas Eve, our window of time grew slimmer and slimmer. He'd have to change quickly to still pull it off.\n\n\"I'll come get you when the cookies are done.\" I winked.\n\n\"Wife, I knew I could count on you to know what's important.\" He drew me into a kiss that lasted a little longer than the previous one, and all my nerve endings seemed to catch fire.\n\n\"You need to cut that out.\" I chuckled, then drew away to scoop the dough and rolling it into balls.\n\nHe headed to our room and left Phoebe and me alone.\n\n\"Think they'll be here soon?\"\n\nI glanced at my watch. \"Probably any minute.\"\n\n\"When we do the next batches, who are we delivering them to this year?\"\n\n\"Who do you want to deliver them to?\"\n\n\"Hmmmmmm.\" She leaned on her elbow and dramatically tapped one hand on her face, the other on her cheek.\n\n\"What about the teachers? They like cookies, right?\"\n\nYears ago, when Aiden and I dated the first time, his mother had included me in a tradition of baking cookies for people and delivering them. Sometimes it was the fire house, sometimes the police station, but regardless of where we chose, I always loved how excited Phoebe got to bake cookies and give them to other people. I never wanted her to forget the feeling of spreading joy to others.\n\n\"I think Aunt Abby would tell you yes. Teachers love cookies. I think that's a great choice. We'll have to wait to deliver them until after Christmas break though, we waited too long. Are you okay with that?\" I sat the ball I'd finished rolling on the tray and paused to look at her. She'd grown so much in the last year.\n\n\"That's fine. They'll still like cookies after Christmas.\" She grinned and scooted back off the bar stool for the hundredth time that afternoon, running to the windows to check for her aunt and uncle.\n\nA wave of exhaustion hit me, and I closed my eyes, just for a moment, wishing I could sneak off and take a catnap. Busy season felt more brutal than usual, and I was dragging in every aspect lately. I blew out a breath and grabbed the pan, putting it inside the oven to cook for a few moments.\n\nI glanced toward our room, wondering if I should check on Aiden and see if he needed help to get into the last bits of the costume. That was always the hardest part.\n\n\"No need to make cookies just because Aunt Evie is here!\" Evelyn cried as soon as she opened the front door. Phoebe made a beeline for her, and Evelyn swept her up, swinging her in a circle. Tears pricked at my eyes, and I brushed them away quickly.\n\nI'd never imagined we'd get here, that Evelyn and I could ever get back to where we were, and that she'd love Phoebe so wholeheartedly. My daughter had gone from having an absentee father to being surrounded by some of the best people I could have ever hoped for.\n\nAll because of Aiden's inheritance clause in his dad's will.\n\n\"I'm going to duck in our room. I'll be right back,\" I mouthed as soon as Evelyn made eye contact with me. She gave me a thumbs up and let Phoebe guide her into the living room to show her the tree that she'd already shown her five times.\n\n\"Cookie baking crew. I like that shirt. Do you have one for me?\"\n\nI crept across the living room, hoping that Phoebe wasn't paying attention, and ducked into our room. Watching Aiden get dressed up as Santa wasn't quite like seeing Santa as a child, but it still held its own element of magic. Especially when I watched him interact with the kids.\n\n\"Do you need any help?\" I closed the door quietly behind me and locked the door for good measure.\n\n\"I think I've got most of it on. It's getting hard to see at this point to double check.\" He patted his giant, round belly and tipped his head to look at me. \"How do I look?\"\n\n\"You look the part.\n\n\"One of these days I'm going to twist your arm into being Mrs. Claus with me,\" he replied, reaching out for me.\n\n\"But then, who would be around to capture all the wonderful memories you create?\" I took his hand and let him pull me close.\n\n\"You could always train somebody.\"\n\n\"You're asking an awful lot of me.\" I giggled as he bent down to kiss me, the wild curly hairs of his fake Santa beard tickling my nose.\n\n\"It's time to get this show on the road.\" He bent awkwardly to grab his hat off the bed and then plopped it atop his wig dramatically.\n\n\"I'm glad you kept this.\"\n\nHe glanced down at his pristine white gloves holding his \"bowl full of jelly\", and it made me teary-eyed. His father wore that suit, and Aiden almost threw it away, the memories too painful. And now, he'd give our daughter a special memory in the same suit.\n\n\"What is going on with you today?\" He tipped his head, reaching out to wipe away a tear.\n\n\"I'm just happy, I guess. I never thought I'd have this.\"\n\n\"I'm glad we fought for it.\" He ran his fingers through my long curls, and I sighed. My exhaustion ran deep, and the motion made me even more relaxed.\n\n\"You need to get in there.\" I reached up and tucked a couple of dark hairs into the wig. \"You look amazing.\"\n\n\"See you in a little bit!\" He grinned at me, then snuck out the door that led to a private patio.\n\n\"Dad sleeping?\" Phoebe asked from her perch on the couch.\n\n\"He's super tired,\" I answered, trying to hold back my yawn.\n\nA knock sounded on the front door, and Phoebe perked up. \"What's that?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Maybe you should go see?\" I suggested, moving over to my camera I'd left ready to go on the coffee table.\n\n\"Ho Ho Ho!\" Aiden bellowed from deep in his belly as Evelyn opened the door. Owen stood off to the side, his hand covering his mouth to cover his laughter. His skin matched his ginger hair as he tried to hold back.\n\n\"Santa? Don't you have to be out delivering presents tonight?\" Her eyes grew to the size of saucers as he walked in the front door, her hands flying to her mouth.\n\nAs I stood off to the side and snapped photos, I realized that this might be the last year that Phoebe believed in Santa, and my heart clenched. Every year that passed, I watched more and more of the magic of childhood slip away. For all our sakes, I hoped she held on longer.\n\n\"I had a special request at the last minute to come see you. I hear you have something special you need to talk to me about?\"\n\nShe glanced over her shoulder at me, and I straightened, lowering the camera to give her my attention. I nodded and gestured with my head that she should go speak to him.\n\nHe walked over to the overstuffed armchair and settled on the edge. Any further and he had no hope of getting back out of it.\n\n\"Well, I had something I wanted to talk to you about, but I'm not sure you can help.\"\n\nAiden shot a quick glance my way, and I gave a small shrug, then went back to snapping pictures, treasuring the way Phoebe looked at my husband, completely unaware.\n\n\"Have you been good this year?\"\n\n\"I think so,\" she replied thoughtfully. \"Wasn't I on the good list?\"\n\n\"I always ask, even when I know the answer.\" He winked at her, and even though I knew Aiden sat inside the suit, I could feel myself getting caught up in his magic. \"So, what it is? Santa knows a lot of people.\"\n\n\"Can I whisper it?\" she asked tentatively.\n\n\"Sure, sure.\" He gestured with his gloved hand for her to lean forward and ask.\n\nI crept forward a little, ready to use the excuse that I wanted to crop in the shots if she said anything. But honestly, I wanted to know what she wanted so badly that she was afraid to share in front of everyone. Family was all that was in the house.\n\n\"I really want a baby brother or sister this year.\"\n\nAiden's eyebrows shot up in surprise, and this time it was my turn to stifle a laugh. I honestly wasn't all that surprised. Phoebe had wanted a sibling for a long time.\n\n\"You're right, that is tough.\" He reached up and smoothed his beard, a little taken aback by her question. \"I can give Mr. Stork a call, but I'm not sure that he can bring you anything on that short notice. Their factory turnaround time is at least ten months.\"\n\n\"I understand,\" she replied matter-of-factly. \"I know it's a big thing to ask. It's just all I want.\"\n\n\"I'll do my best,\" he assured her. \"Anything else?\"\n\n\"No, that's it. Just a baby brother or sister.\"\n\nNo big deal.\n\n\"Well, okay then, sounds like I've got to make some phone calls. I'll start on those in the sleigh tonight, okay?\"\n\n\"That fast?\" Her eyes lit up.\n\n\"Not that fast for a delivery, little one.\"\n\n\"Okay. I can live with that. You want a cookie before you go? I know you get lots tonight, but my moms are extra special.\"\n\n\"I've always enjoyed your mom's cookies, Phoebe. You never forget.\"\n\n\"Nope!\" She led him to the kitchen, where she proudly presented him with three freshly baked snickerdoodles. \"I hope you have a safe trip!\"\n\n\"You can count on it. I'll see you next year?\"\n\n\"You can count on it,\" she beamed.\n\nHe disappeared back through the front door and began the long trek around the back of the house to sneak back inside, hopefully undetected.\n\n\"Did you know she was going to ask for that?\" Evelyn asked, leaning in close.\n\n\"No, but it wouldn't be the first time she's asked for it.\"\n\n\"I think I'm going to go grab a cookie.\"\n\nI shook my head and started scrolling through the images on the back of my camera, and stopped when I found the moment she'd asked Aiden for a baby. His expression was priceless, those blue eyes wide with shock.\n\n\"You just missed Santa, Aiden, I can't believe you slept through that!\" Phoebe cried as Aiden emerged from the bedroom, looking properly disheveled.\n\n\"Man, I did? I really wanted to make sure he was bringing me the new tools I asked for.\"\n\n\"You asked Santa for tools?\" Phoebe asked incredulously. \"You should ask for toys.\"\n\nI set my camera down and crossed over the Christmas tree, and retrieved a handful of small, wrapped gifts.\n\n\"Keeping with the tradition of one gift on Christmas Eve, these are yours,\" I replied, passing them out to each person.\n\nEvie looked at me strangely. \"We don't normally exchange on Christmas Eve, Chloe, I don't have anything for you.\"\n\n\"Just open it Evie,\" I answered, waving my hand.\n\nAiden frowned at me, and I motioned with my hand for him to hurry and open it. I knew I was breaking tradition a bit, but I didn't care.\n\nA chorus of gasps broke out around the room as they got to the contents, followed by a series of wide eyes.\n\nBut my focus stayed almost entirely on my husband's reaction. I watched as the words on the tiny onesie packed inside registered, and his head snapped up. In a flash, he'd crossed the room and gathered me into his arms.\n\n\"Is it true?\" he whispered, the biggest grin I'd ever seen breaking out across his face. \"Are we really baking more than Christmas cookies?\"\n\n\"Oh, it's very true.\" I nodded. \"I've got the tests to prove it.\"\n\nHe swept me into a tight hug, then just as quickly loosened his grip. \"Too tight?\"\n\n\"No,\" I shook my head. \"He or she is perfectly safe in there.\"\n\n\"Big sister? Wait a minute!\" We both turned to look at Phoebe, who'd finally put two and two together. \"Mom. Really?\"\n\n\"You're going to be a big sister, Phoebe.\"\n\nShe turned and looked out the window over her shoulder, then looked back at us. \"I'm going to be really honest. I was wondering about Santa, and if he might actually be real, but he really did it!\" Excitedly, she ran across the room and hugged both of us at the same time.\n\nI had to admit, we'd spent a handful of wonderful Christmases together, packed full of memories. I thought our first Christmas married was hard to beat. But knowing that we'd spend next Christmas as a family of four, shot this one to the top of the list.\n\n\"I get to be Aunt Evie times two!\" Evelyn cheered; her eyes glassy. It wasn't often that she got emotional, but I appreciated why my announcement was such a big deal.\n\n\"Mom.\"\n\n\"Phoebe.\"\n\nShe narrowed her eyes at me as she gave me a thin-lipped smile. \"I was going to say, I think we should make snickerdoodles for Santa every year.\"\n\n\"Not opposed,\" Aiden interjected, and I elbowed him in the side.\n\n\"Why is that?\"\n\n\"Because I gave him three, and now I get a baby brother or sister.\"\n\nI opened my mouth to say something and then closed it again. Sadly, I could follow her thinking.\n\n\"That logic is hard to argue with.\"\n\n\"That's just because you get the snickerdoodles,\" I whispered as quietly as possible.\n\n\"I don't understand your point.\" He grinned and pulled me close to him again.\n\n\"Fine, you both win. From here on out, it's always snickerdoodles for Santa.\"\n\n\u2042\n\n[ LAURA'S SECRET SANTA by ALYS FRASER ]\n\nAs the twenty-eighth person in a row walked past her, without even giving her a sideways glance, Laura sighed. She'd already begun to doubt there was any such thing as the Christmas spirit these days. Now, after four hours standing out in the cold, being largely ignored, she was convinced it was well and truly dead. She had thought, in this nation of animal lovers, it would be easy to raise funds to help abandoned pets but, it seemed, she was wrong. Everyone was too focused on getting their last-minute Christmas shopping done to stop and give her a donation.\n\nShe knew times were hard for a lot of people, which is why she'd set up her little stall on an exclusive shopping street. The customers who visited the stores here were not short of money, just compassion, it seemed. Laura sighed, disheartened by the whole experience. Money didn't necessarily make people more generous. She watched as a Mercedes pulled up across the street. A chauffeur got out to open the back door for his passenger. A young man got out, tall and handsome, and reeking of wealth. He was probably a lawyer, or a business executive. He had that air of authority about him. A man like him could probably save the Southside Animal Shelter single-handed, but she'd never have the nerve to approach him.\n\n\"Boy, it's cold out,\" she said, to a gray-haired man passing by, trying to start a conversation.\n\n\"It is if you stand around littering the sidewalks all day,\" he grumbled.\n\nLaura blew out a breath of frustration. She rubbed her gloved fingers together, but it was no use. If she stood around out here for much longer, she was going to get frostbite. With a heavy heart, she realized it was time to pack up. As she was gathering her flyers into a bundle, a shadow fell across her little fold-away table and she looked up, to find a man standing over her. He was tall, well-built, no doubt a security guard from one of the designer stores.\n\n\"Don't worry, I'm leaving.\" Nobody had tried to move her on, so far, but this guy looked like he would evict her forcibly if he had to.\n\n\"I have an offer for you.\" He drew a business card out of his pocket and handed it to her.\n\n\"Dean Stanton, Head of Security, Marsden Industries,\" Laura read aloud from the white, card, embossed with black lettering. \"How may I help you, Mr. Stanton?\"\n\n\"My employer would like to make a substantial donation to your animal shelter.\"\n\n\"It's not my shelter,\" Laura said. \"I just help out there now and then.\"\n\n\"All the same, he would like to make a sizable contribution to the running of the place.\"\n\n\"How sizable?\" Laura felt mercenary for even asking. She shook off her twinge of guilt. He came to her, after all.\n\n\"Enough to keep the lights on for the next eighteen months.\"\n\nLaura's draw dropped to the floor. \"That's very generous. I ...\" Her voice trailed off as she noticed the frown on Dean's face. \"What's the catch?\"\n\n\"No catch, not really. My employer would just like you to go to dinner with him tonight.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Laura asked. \"Can't he find himself a date?\"\n\nDean chuckled at that. \"Of course he can. My employer is one of the most sought-after bachelors in the city.\"\n\n\"So why does he need to bribe me to go out with him?\"\n\n\"He doesn't view it as bribery. He just wanted to give you a gift, to smooth the way.\"\n\nLaura shook her head. It still sounded like bribery and that just didn't sit right with her. \"I'm sorry, but I can't meet a strange man for dinner.\"\n\n\"Even if it means the shelter doesn't get the funds?\"\n\nNow, Laura was torn. A nice, big donation would take the pressure off the shelter for a while, but she didn't feel right about going to dinner with a man she didn't know. \"I can't go out with a complete stranger.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you what,\" Dean said. \"Why don't you think about it? If you decide your answer is yes, call my number. It's on the card, there.\"\n\n\"Okay, yes, I can do that.\"\n\nAs Dean nodded and walked away, Laura got back to packing up her things. She folded away the table and put it in the large carry-bag, along with her flyers. She took everything to her car, parked in a side street a block away, and then headed for the nearest coffee shop. It had been a long, frustrating day, and a nice warm drink was in order.\n\nAfter either being ignored or having rude comments levelled at her for most of the day, Laura was relieved when she entered the coffee shop, to be greeted with a friendly smile. Okay, so it was all part of their customer service training, but the barista made her feel welcome.\n\n\"What can I get you?\" the young girl behind the counter asked.\n\n\"I'd like a mocha with an extra shot and a chocolate muffin, please.\" It had been a long day, so why not indulge herself for a change? When she paid for her order, she took it to a quiet table in the corner, took off her hat, scarf and gloves, and sunk down onto the comfortable chair. People rushed by outside, all apparently in a great hurry to get somewhere. It was nice to be in the warmth, away from all that chaos.\n\nAs she sipped her coffee, a man walked in and headed for the counter. Tall and broad-shouldered, he filled out his tailored navy suit to perfection. He looked a bit like the guy she saw getting out of the Mercedes a short while ago, but she'd only got a brief glimpse of him, so she wasn't sure. When he'd collected his coffee, he looked around for a table. Laura also glanced around and realized there was nowhere for him to sit, except with her, or a group of teenagers. She was pretty sure she was the better option. Her heart pounded as he walked towards her.\n\n\"May I?\" he asked, gesturing towards the empty chair at her table.\n\n\"Of course.\" Even if she wasn't pre-programmed to be polite, she would have wanted him to sit with her. It wasn't every day she got the chance to enjoy her coffee with a man who looked like he'd just come from a fashion shoot. As he took the seat opposite her, she noted the rich, brown color of his eyes, like a dark chocolate. His face was almost perfectly symmetrical, but for the way his lips quirked up at one side. His jet black hair was a little untidy, like he'd been running his fingers through it. Laura couldn't imagine it was a nervous habit. He exuded confidence from every pore.\n\n\"I'm glad to be in from the cold,\" he remarked.\n\nLaura saw he didn't have a coat on, and assumed he hadn't come from far away. His nose would be red, if he had, since the temperature out there was close to freezing. \"Yes, me too,\" she agreed. \"I picked the wrong day to stand around on the street.\"\n\n\"Stand around on the street?\" He furrowed his brow. \"Why on earth would you do that in this weather?\"\n\n\"I'm raising money for charity. Well, I was trying to.\"\n\n\"Slow day, huh?\"\n\n\"I got about fifty bucks in four hours.\" Now, she thought about it, that had been a poor day.\n\nThe man blew out a breath. \"Around here, I'd have thought you'd do better. Were you trying to raise money for something unpopular? Save the mosquito, perhaps?\"\n\nLaura laughed. \"No, the Southside Animal Shelter. It's the only no-kill shelter in this part of the city.\"\n\n\"Ah, you're a champion of our furry friends, then?\"\n\n\"I try to be.\"\n\nHer companion looked her up and down and grinned. \"Yes, I can see it now. You have six dogs, two cats and a guinea pig, right?\"\n\nLaura smiled and shook her head. \"That's the dream, but my apartment building doesn't allow pets.\"\n\n\"That's too bad.\" He made a genuinely sympathetic face. \"So you work at a shelter because you want to spend time with animals?\"\n\n\"Well, yes but, even if I did have my own pet, I'd volunteer.\" Laura adored animals. She couldn't bear the thought of some of the little furballs down at the shelter going without the daily cuddles she liked to give.\n\n\"You don't have a regular job, then?\"\n\n\"I do. I'm a freelance cover designer, eh, book covers. It means I can set my own schedule, work around the times the shelter needs me.\" She took a sip of her coffee. \"So, what about you? Do you like animals?\"\n\nIt would break her heart if this gorgeous creature, who seemed like a nice guy, said no. She couldn't trust a person who didn't like animals.\n\n\"I do, dogs especially, but I have no pets. My life's too busy right now. I wouldn't have time to take care of one properly.\"\n\n\"Yeah, that's sensible.\" So many of the pets at the shelter are there because their owner didn't realize what a commitment they were taking on. She gave him a sad smile. \"What is it you do that keeps you so busy?\"\n\n\"I spend time in the office, go to meetings, make deals.\"\n\n\"That sounds...exciting.\" Laura hoped her tone was convincing. To her, his work life sounded like a complete nightmare.\n\n\"It's not, really.\"\n\n\"You wish you could do something else?\" Laura guessed. \"Why don't you? We're only here for a short time. You might as well enjoy it.\"\n\n\"I think I'd enjoy it more, if I spent more time in the company of kind, beautiful women.\" Laura blushed as he stared right at her. Surely, he wasn't flirting with her? \"Women with alabaster skin and fiery red hair. Women with piercing green eyes and the first genuine smile I've seen in weeks.\"\n\nOh, mercy! He was flirting with her. \"I...eh...\" She tried to speak, but words didn't come. What did you say to comments like those?\n\n\"What's your name?\" he asked.\n\n\"Laura.\" She wasn't about to give her surname to a stranger, no matter how cute he was.\n\n\"Laura. It suits you.\" He reached across the table and took her hand. A spark of something she'd never felt before, made her jerk back in surprise. When he touched her, it was like she came alive for the first time. \"I'm Samuel. My friends call me Sam.\"\n\nFor several long seconds, Laura stared across the table, meeting Sam's heated gaze. Her pulse skittered wildly and she bit her bottom lip to keep it from wobbling. What was happening to her? She'd never had such a visceral reaction to a man before. When her cellphone bleeped suddenly, breaking the connection between them, she wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. She reached for her purse.\n\n\"Leave it,\" Sam urged, and she dropped her purse back to the floor beside her chair. \"Have dinner with me tonight.\"\n\n\"Oh, wow, two offers in one day.\"\n\n\"Why? Who else offered?\"\n\n\"Some random stranger. He sent his bodyguard to ask me out, if you can believe it.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Sam sat back in his chair and gave her an appraising look. \"Did you accept?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"But you're thinking about it,\" he guessed.\n\n\"Well, he was offering a nice donation to the shelter in return for me having dinner with him, but I just can't do it.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nLaura ran a finger around the edge of her coffee mug. \"Well, it just didn't seem right, taking money in exchange for a date.\"\n\n\"Don't people do that all the time? You know, like at those charity auctions?\"\n\n\"Well, yes, I suppose so, but they usually vet people and everyone knows what they're getting into. I can't go to dinner with a complete stranger.\"\n\n\"What if he turns out to be a nice stranger, someone you click with straight away?\"\n\nBefore she could answer that, to tell him it was unlikely she'd meet two people in one day she instantly felt a pull towards, her phone pinged again.\n\n\"I'll let you get that,\" Sam said. \"Seems to be urgent.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" Disappointment coursed through her as he got up from his seat. She watched him walk away, to talk to the barista at the counter, and sighed. Her phone bleeped again, more insistently this time, so she picked up her purse and fished about in it. As she opened her messages, she saw Sam walking out the door. She'd only just met the man, so why did she feel like she'd lost something? Her phone bleeped again. She had eight texts, all from Jessie at the shelter. Urgh! Had someone complained about her fundraising attempts? The first seven were all pleas for her to call the shelter. She opened the last message and her heart almost stopped. \"Since you haven't called, I guess I'll have to break the news to you this way. We just got a hundred thousand dollar donation from Marsden Industries.\"\n\nTears pricked Laura's eyes. She could hardly believe it. Dean's employer had made the donation. even though she hadn't agreed to go out with him. She searched about in her purse for a tissue and couldn't find one. When the barista came over, holding out a napkin, she smiled gratefully. \"Thank you.\"\n\nAs she raised it to dab at her eyes, the young man grabbed her wrist. \"No, don't. There's a message on it for you.\"\n\n\"A message?\"\n\nLaura laid the napkin out flat on the table and read the scrawled writing. \"Now I'm no longer a stranger, dinner at 7.30, La Marianne? Don't be late. Sam Marsden.\"\n\nAn almost hysterical laugh escaped her and the barista stepped back in shock. \"Are you alright, Miss?\"\n\n\"Me?\" Laura popped her cellphone back into her purse and got up from her seat. \"I've never been better.\"\n\nLeaving the coffee shop, feeling lighter than she had in months, she headed straight for her car. It was three thirty. That gave her plenty of time to get home and change. A grin spread across her face as she climbed into her battered old Hyundai. She had a date tonight and she wouldn't miss it for the world.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ MAKING CHRISTMAS MEMORIES by LAURIE TREACY ]\n\n[ Mason ]\n\nAs soon as the opening notes of \"It's My Life\" poured through her car speakers, I knew the first thing Amelia would do was her imitation of a drummer, but not just any drummer. Nah, she would try to emulate the one and only Tico Torres from her favorite rock band, Bon Jovi. Now twenty-five, she's been a huge fan of the band since we were kids. The same band my mom liked as a teenager back in the Eighties.\n\nThat's never bothered me. Music is music. I do blame Amelia's Aunt Ivy for introducing her ten-year-old niece to those Jersey boys at such a young age. Meet and Greets before concerts and special overnight trips, Ivy took a starstruck Amelia with her to catch every tour stop in the tri-state area. I lived next door and had been best friends with the cute brunette the same age as me ever since we were toddlers.\n\nBut the one thing I couldn't do was compete with a rock star for Amelia's heart.\n\nMy mom didn't raise someone who gave up easily. I tried for years. There were a few times I thought I'd finally won. But then something else intervened and took Amelia away from me.\n\nI had one more chance to win over the girl I'd loved for years.\n\nThat chance was tonight.\n\nAt the red light, she began. Her fingertips tapped along the top of her steering wheel in time to the beat. With her gloss-covered lips, she mouthed the words. Images of us began popping up in my mind like bubbles. School events. Family parties. The local drive-in theatre. Holding her hand in the dark car and having her snuggle against me during a scary moment. Watching her cheer for me before a football game always put me in a winning frame of mind. Until I hurt my knee. Amelia would visit me in the hospital, and we'd watch movies on her tablet. When she came home on college breaks, we spent as much time together as possible.\n\nThat familiar ache began in my chest. I swiped away images of our memories from my eyes and stopped staring at her. Lately, my attention made her uncomfortable.\n\n\"This is one of my all-time favorite songs,\" she remarked. Fingers still rapped. \"I'm glad you went with us to my first Bon Jovi concert. I was nervous that night.\"\n\n\"Long live rock 'n' roll.\" I knew from her bouncing on her feet that night that she was anxious\u2014until the music started. At the first note, she stilled like a statue and listened, enraptured. I chuckled at the memory. Ames' taste in music, just like mine, was still developing then, along with her ideas about attraction and desire. That night, I stood beside her and watched as her eyes fixated on some 'hot' dude as he sang and strutted across the stage. She experienced lust.\n\nMe? I was already a goner, I just didn't want to admit it and never got around to telling her until years later.\n\n\"Standing in a sea of screaming females had its moments, Ames.\" I smirked. \"All throughout elementary school, that's all I heard. Jon, Jon, Jon. Aunt Ivy is responsible for your Bon Jovi addiction.\"\n\nAmelia made a strange sound between a giggle and a cough before her drumming stopped. At the red light she gripped the wheel of her Jetta and swallowed hard. The incessant blinking, the movement of her lips, and the way she sat, rigid, like a coil about to be sprung, were all signs I recognized as she fought for control.\n\nI'm a jerk, a huge imbecile for not watching my mouth. Her aunt's gone.\n\n\"I'm okay, Mace. Wipe that worried frown off your face. I got a handle on it.\" The light changed to green, and she smoothly accelerated. In seconds we were coasting up the road.\n\nThat saying about time healing all wounds is full of crud. What time does is allow us to learn how to breathe again after the loss of someone we love sucks that ability away. We relearn a simple task because we must lock our misery away inside, to enable us to live again.\n\nPain is like the ocean\u2014it sneaks in through any cracks it finds, to remind us it's still there, while trying to break us again. Over time, we figure out how to reinforce our locks. Breathing helps. It lets us better control the ebb and flow of those hurtful memories of our loss. Ames knows all about that.\n\nIn a different way, so do I.\n\n\"When's your bus arriving?\" Her voice was steady, her fingers back to keeping the beat.\n\nIt's my turn to take a deep breath and release. We're all right. \"A little after seven. We're fine.\" Knowing how late she always was, I planned accordingly by telling her the wrong time.\n\nShe drove up Route 9 with an occasional hum and her constant drumming. \"You Give Love a Bad Name\" started. Her left leg bounced. An image of us kissing in the back seat of my truck popped into my mind. I stared out the window and tried to focus on the passing scenery. Sweat beaded along my scalp. The scent of her rose perfume that night forever wedged in my memories.\n\nWe cruised past the water park and three lanes of vehicles reduced to two. She drove the speed limit. That's something I had difficulty doing. Unlike me, Ames had always been the patient one.\n\n\"Why are you going to see your mom now?\" Her cautious tone indicated she wasn't sure if her question would overstep any boundaries. Keeping walls up around her was never easy. When it came to Amelia, I gave her everything. We had had no secrets.\n\nBut she'd been the one to change when she became the queen of secrets three-and-a-half years ago.\n\nI wiped my clammy hands across my jeans and shifted my focus from the passenger window to the windshield. After a day filled with the dullness of dark liquids and machinery in the auto shop, I welcomed color.\n\nHer brown hair contrasted against her pumpkin-colored sweater. A bunch of wavy locks separated from the rest every time she moved. I loved it when she curled her long hair. When we hung out in high school, there were so many times I'd watch her fix her hair before we went to hang with our friends. First, she'd towel dry, followed by the blow dryer, and then the curling wand or was it a brush? No matter what tool she used, the result was always something I enjoyed.\n\nThose waves were a nice distraction until my fingers itched to touch them which led my thoughts to drift, again.\n\nMan, having her walk away has been hard. I still can't believe she did that.\n\nShe shot me that look. Why was she mad? What had I done?\n\nOh, I never answered her.\n\n\"My mom said she needed me before her wedding. You know how I help calm her down. The garage I'm at is getting renovated for a week, and I have vacation time. Plus, the town of Conway is gorgeous. The White Mountains are one of my favorite places to hike.\"\n\n\"I know.\" Her voice trailed off. \"Remember when we did the Auto Road up Mt. Washington?\"\n\nHer tone warmed up again.\n\n\"I'll never forget driving my truck up there. After maneuvering some of those turns, I had to dislodge my heart out of my throat. No guard rails or stone walls. Just some boulders in spots. That's a frightening road.\" My words rushed out as I relived the experience.\n\nShe laughed nervously. \"It was scary and amazing. Those views! The clouds. Remember what I said when we reached the Observatory?\"\n\n\"Was that after I peeled your nails out from my thighs?\" I glanced over and caught her huge grin. The tightness that had begun building in my chest since she left me lessened. It'd been a long time since her face reflected anything besides sadness.\n\nSlowing for another light, she reached over to swat my forearm. \"I was terrified! Don't forget that I was closest to the sides of the roads overlooking those huge drop-offs. One wrong move and forget it.\" She shivered. So did I.\n\n\"I know, babe. You said that road symbolized our day of reckoning. We would either be told to go straight down to hell or step off to enter heaven.\"\n\nOur evening ride continued. She switched lanes a few times to maneuver around slow drivers. \"I give you props for driving. I would've abandoned my car.\" With a shift, she regarded me a few seconds. Our eyes met. I wanted to remain there, connected like this again. She swallowed and resumed staring straight ahead.\n\n\"The bumper sticker they gave us said it all: This car climbed Mt. Washington. We survived. You survived, Ames. You've gone through a lot, and you're still here.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Her voice sounded tiny.\n\nI pulled my phone out of my back pocket and checked the bus app. I'd better tell her now. \"Hey, Ames, I made a mistake. We've got ninety minutes until the bus arrives.\" Holding up my phone displaying the website as proof, I checked her reaction.\n\n\"Are you kidding me?\" Her words shot out as she glared.\n\nWhoa, what a shot to my heart. That was not the way I expected her to take the news. Maybe my idea wasn't such a good one. Right now, Amelia was miffed. I couldn't blame her.\n\nBut what could I do? I was desperate and running out of time."
            },
            {
                "title": "Mason",
                "text": "After driving for five minutes, at least long enough for me to have to hear \"You Give Love a Bad Name\" and be reminded of my stupid move, Amelia finally sighed.\n\n\"Sorry, Mace. I'm tired. What do you want to do in that section of Poughkeepsie?\"\n\nI shrugged and decided to try again and reach out to her. \"We could grab a bite.\"\n\nTraffic had picked up, and her concentration switched back to the road. Minutes flew by. Another song played, \"It's My Life.\"\n\n\"Um, Mace, I'm not hungry.\"\n\nAttempting to mask my displeasure, I grunted along to the lyrics. Ironic how her playlist had become the soundtrack of my existence. My stomach grumbled. Every time I tried to crack Amelia's walls, she found a way to keep me away.\n\n\"Any more surprises for me?\" She asked, with a hint of a laugh. \"Is the bus stop now located across the river or something?\"\n\nI chuckled. Should've known she'd see right through me. \"No, babe.\"\n\nHer shoulders stiffened at my term of endearment, but she stayed quiet.\n\nC'mon Ames, give me some sort of sign that you still care for me. For us.\n\nRoute 9 was a highway that stretched throughout many states. Ames drove through a commercial stretch from our town, Fishkill, on our way to Poughkeepsie. A section of car dealerships in Wappingers Falls went by in a blur. We moved in a pack of six vehicles, going from light to light. Finally, I dropped any expectations and quietly sat back to enjoy the ride for what it was\u2014time with the woman I loved.\n\n\"Your mom's doing well?\" The song switched to \"What About Now.\" The opening words about starting a fire were so appropriate.\n\nAfter I sank my phone into my pocket, I folded my arms loosely across my chest. \"Yeah. I think marriage number four might be the one.\" Amelia giggled. It was a sound I relished. Had a crack been made?\n\n\"She's keeping busy with their B&B. Derek seems like a good guy. His four kids are all married and live within an hour's drive. Their weekends are busy visiting grandkids.\" I waited for a break in the song and when the bridge started, I dropped my next line.\n\n\"You know, one day I hope to bring along one or two of my own rug rats to see my mom. Every time she calls, she drops enough hints.\" I scratched my head.\n\nAs Jon sang, I too wished she'd hear me.\n\nHer knee stopped jiggling.\n\nYeah, she heard.\n\nAmelia sucked on her bottom lip. \"I'm looking forward to attending their wedding.\"\n\nI heard a signal click on and she pulled into a turning lane. \"I'm gonna grab a coffee. Want one?\"\n\n\"Nah. I've had my fill for the day. I plan to sleep on the bus. Well, after the three transfers I have to make, then I'll rest.\" I smoothed my hands down the front of my jeans before resting them in my lap. The last time I danced with Amelia was at her best friend's wedding this past Valentine's Day.\n\nI'd gone alone and hung out with my friends, but I couldn't keep my focus off Amelia. She arrived with some of her close girlfriends. No date for her either. Ames wore a red dress that accentuated every curve of her body. After the rough times she had endured, she'd lost weight, but things had begun to settle down. Her pretty face had lost its haggard edge and her blue eyes once again held a twinkle. If I peered closer, her shoulders still had that slight hunch. When we danced, she finally seemed to relax in my arms.\n\nHolding her and knowing she wasn't mine made it even harder to say goodbye to her once the reception ended. I missed her so incredibly much.\n\nThe Dunkin Donuts looked empty as she stopped at the menu board to give her order. Then we went around to retrieve it. While we waited, she asked, \"What do you mean by three transfers?\"\n\nAmes always kept a clean car. The cupholders in here were empty. Whenever I grabbed a meal on the go in my truck, I had to clear out receipts and wrappers from my console. \"I have to get off at stops in Newburgh, Manhattan, and Boston to catch a connecting bus.\"\n\n\"Wow, that could be rough. Doesn't give you much time to get comfortable.\" We heard the window slide open and she spun around.\n\n\"Good evening.\" The guy at the window first checked her out and then shot her a wolfish grin. Amelia held up her phone to pay before she popped her drink into the cupholder. After he scanned the app, he offered her another smile filled with bright teeth. \"I hope to see you again, beautiful. Have a great night.\"\n\nI glared at the guy while Ames thanked him. She slipped her phone into her bag.\n\n\"Duuuude,\" I mumbled and shook my head.\n\n\"What?\"\n\nI twisted towards her, noting the closed window. She had already pulled away, waiting to make a left onto a side road. \"Nothing.\"\n\n\"Right.\" She put enough of an edge on her pronunciation that I rose to defend myself.\n\n\"Okay,\" I huffed, \"the dude tried way too hard.\"\n\nShe sipped her coffee. I could smell the hazelnut. That's the only flavor she drank when out. Amelia was nothing if not predictable. I liked that about her.\n\n\"He flirted. I could be his older sister. It was flattering.\" Once back on Rt. 9, she remained in the middle of the three lanes.\n\n\"That's not the type of greeting you offer your sibling, Ames. He's probably still in high school. Cocky. He's too young. You're twenty-five. You need a man.\" And you have one right here, but I didn't say that out loud. Instead, I leaned my head back against the rest. The beanie I wore was something she'd given me last Christmas. Did she remember?\n\nShe tossed me another look. \"You're jealous.\"\n\nDamn straight. Ames had smiled back at the kid. \"You told me I don't have that right anymore.\"\n\nHer fingertips gripped the wheel so tight I noticed the whiteness of her skin. \"I heard you asked Laura Dayton out. How'd it go?\"\n\nTransition time. Typical Amelia. She broke up with me and then wants to know about who I date. No way will I give her satisfaction by revealing the truth, no matter how much she hurt me. \"I don't talk about the past,\" I said, a little too loud. \"I might start over in New Hampshire. I'd like to find someone. Maybe settle down. Get started with a family. My mother loves it when the grandbabies call her 'Nana.'\"\n\nAmelia fumbled her cup, caught it, and took a long drink. \"How long are you going for?\"\n\nI snatched some napkins from the glove compartment. When she went to place the cup back, I took it away, swiped the sides and bottom, and replaced it.\n\nShe checked on what I'd done. \"Thank you.\"\n\n\"No problem. I'm always here for you, Ames. No matter what went down between us.\" Inside, I kicked myself for the softness of those words. Being nice had gotten me nowhere besides tossed to the curb. I had to make her see I was leaving with no return date, but how?\n\nSo far, my plan was a complete bust."
            },
            {
                "title": "Mason",
                "text": "\"Always\" began to play. Wonderful. My seat seemed too small suddenly. My fingers fisted. Fate had to be a woman because she was a witch to make me sit through the one Bon Jovi love song that perfectly represented my current relationship with Amelia.\n\nDamn it! I took in the numerous storefronts passing by outside. I moved to the left as close to the door as I could get. I blamed Ames for breaking us up. But when I think back to that time, I had to blame someone else too. Me.\n\nI let her go. I watched her walk out of our condo with her suitcase without either of us saying a word. Defeat. I'd felt defeated. Heard her car start up. I didn't run after her. I sure as hell didn't follow her. Guess I was in shock. Denial.\n\nWe'd always been Mason and Amelia. I assumed we would always be.\n\nSoon Jon launched into the chorus. Was she reliving the concert we saw in Jersey when she stood in front of me and we swayed, singing along with practically everyone else inside that stadium?\n\nOn the way home, I sang those words to her while I drove. With one hand on the wheel and my other wrapped around her shoulder in my usual position, there was no other place I wanted to be. The feel of her loose hair against my skin and having her cocooned alongside me that way.\n\nMemories. Was she remembering that night or others like it?\n\nI shifted back in my seat and cracked open the window to have something to do. His vocals and those damn lyrics were too much. I felt like a tire with a nail stuck in the tread, about to explode.\n\nA horn sounded. Amelia cursed and shouted, \"Learn to drive, jerk!\"\n\nThe recognizable taillights of a Corvette glowed as the car weaved from lane to lane. I used to drive that way\u2014like an impatient jerk.\n\nNight had fallen. Streetlights glowed. Each town decorated their lamp posts with various seasonal items. This area boasted wreaths with colorful lights. The song switched to \"Runaway.\" Good. That one I could handle.\n\n\"Hot car with an idiot behind the wheel,\" she muttered.\n\nI didn't want her mad tonight. Remember us, babe. \"Hey, thanks for driving me.\"\n\nShe waved my words away with one hand. \"Sure. I don't mind the drive. It is a good thirty to forty minutes without traffic. It's just I was surprised at the request. I thought one of the guys would drop you off. How's the truck?\"\n\n\"Most of my friends are settling down.\" I sighed, missing the old days. \"Let's see...Gary's wife had a baby a few months ago. Jax got engaged over the summer and now spends all his time with Kendra. Liam and Brad are both married and have babies. I'm the only single guy left.\" Saying it out loud made it real. \"Wow.\"\n\n\"What?\" We hit the busy commercial section of Route 9 in the town of Poughkeepsie. Shopping centers and the occasional stand-alone businesses filled block after block. Every light she approached switched red as if the town was getting back at her for something.\n\nI took my beanie off and ran my fingers through my hair. \"It's just that I figured I'd be the first one to get hitched.\"\n\nFor years, around our friends from the neighborhood and various schools and jobs, we'd always identified as being Mason and Amelia. Or Amelia and Mason. Whichever way never mattered. We were a couple. We had a future.\n\nAmelia sighed. \"Me too. I had pictures of the wedding dress I wanted. There we were, twenty-two, graduates, working full-time and saving to get a place.\" She shook her head. \"And then cancer...\"\n\nHer venomous tone made me reach over and slip my fingers alongside hers resting on her knee. How soft her skin felt against my dry, chapped flesh as I gave a reassuring squeeze. When we were together, she'd remind me to apply a cream after washing my hands.\n\nLittle things like that made me understand how much she cared.\n\nNothing I could say could give her what she needed. I wasn't even sure what that was. Peace? Hope? Reassurance?\n\nIn a three-year span that damn disease claimed her grandmother, mother, and aunt.\n\nAfter she graduated from a small private college in Albany, her senior year internship had led to a full-time position. We were days away from signing a lease on a condo in the town of Colonie. We were days away from beginning our life together. I wanted to buy her a ring and had talked to the guys about coming up with the perfect proposal.\n\nThe night before we signed the lease, her mother received a phone call. Her own mother had pancreatic cancer. Terminal. Hospice took over her care.\n\nI drove an emotional Ames to the hospital. Her grandma passed the following week. After her funeral, the family received more bad news: Aunt Ivy had a brain tumor. A portion had been removed and tested. Her diagnosis was stage 4 glioblastoma. Ivy was a single mom raising twins.\n\nAfter I brought her boxes back from the room she rented with some friends, I knew I'd lost Amelia. She quit her job, moved back home, and began to distance herself from me.\n\nSince she didn't respond to my texts, I communicated with her dad. He told me Ivy sold her home to help pay her mounting medical bills. Amelia's folks took them in.\n\nThrough everything, that's where Ames has been ever since.\n\nDifferent forms of cancer took them: pancreatic, brain, and lung. They fought hard, courageously, and still lost. There's nothing in this world I hate more than cancer.\n\nAmelia carried the scars of fighting alongside them.\n\n\"I never thought I'd be back home, working for a small company I don't like, helping my dad cope, and being guardian to my aunt's kids. I didn't mean to leave you like that, Mace.\"\n\nAs much as I hated what she did, how she made such an important decision without talking to me, all I said was, \"I know.\"\n\nAmelia might have left me, but I couldn't leave her.\n\nShe sighed and retracted her hand, settling it on the wheel.\n\nAs much as I missed their warmth, I simply joined my fingers together in my lap.\n\nMy own parents had divorced when I was in high school. After I graduated, she moved in with her sister who lived in New Hampshire. She sold the house to my bachelor uncle, Theo, and me. Months later my cousin, Sophia, moved in. She's a student at the Culinary Institute of America which is located less than an hour away. I switched jobs when Amelia's dad hired me to work in one of his chain of garages. Her niece and nephew called me \"Uncle Mason.\"\n\nCaught up in the past, I hadn't noticed that she pulled off the main road. Ames parked. The engine shut off.\n\n\"Jerry's on the Hudson?\" The parking lot was half full for a weeknight. \"This is one place I've meant to check out. It's known for its great craft beer menu.\"\n\nA small smile splayed across her lips. \"I overheard you and Sophia talking to my dad at the family dinner last month.\"\n\nThere goes my plan. I reached behind the seat to grab my duffle bag. Her hand on my arm stopped me. \"What are you doing?\"\n\nI scratched at an itch through my beanie. \"This is goodbye, right? The bus stop is down the road. I'll grab a brew or two\u2014\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"I'm going inside with you, silly. Let's eat.\"\n\n\"Oh, cool.\" With that, I dropped the bag and closed the door.\n\nThere's just about anything I'd do to get 'alone' time with Ames, even if the end of this concluded with my leaving."
            },
            {
                "title": "Amelia",
                "text": "Afraid Mason would discover my earlier lie, I'd stopped for coffee to cover up the increasing noises my gut made. After being apart for so long, I jumped at the chance to be in the same vehicle as him. But as the day approached, and the fact that I would have to say goodbye to him\u2014all over again\u2014had reduced me to a basket of nerves. I hadn't been able to eat all day.\n\nHow quickly I'd morphed back to my freshman year self as I faced our first \"official\" date. I'd been a wreck.\n\n\"Your burger looks good.\" I licked my bottom lip as he bit into the bun and meat. \"Jingle Bell Rock\" played on nearby speakers. Some juices rolled across his chin. I followed the trail of liquid down over his five o'clock shadow.\n\nI crossed my legs under the table and felt heat on my cheeks.\n\nMace chewed and wiped his chin, never taking his gaze off mine.\n\nIn cozy joints like this, we always sat next to each other, instead of being across. Yeah, we dealt with many a raised eyebrow. So, what? That had been my attitude.\n\nWe'd always been Mason and Amelia. It's how we rolled.\n\nUntil everything happened. I set him free. Mason deserved better. He hadn't asked for the situation he became part of\u2014shackled to the hull of who and what I once was.\n\nOf course, he took it hard, but being Mason, he still came around. We couldn't stop running into one another. He lived next door.\n\nWhenever my girlfriends reported spotting him out at a bar or restaurant with some female hitting on him, all I heard was that he was talking to someone who wasn't me.\n\nUnder his scrutiny, my fingers shook as I speared some lettuce leaves with my fork. The house dressing on my grilled chicken salad was delish. I tore my attention away from him to eat.\n\nNo surprise there, Mace finished before me and ordered another beer.\n\nEach time the waitress came over, she stood close to him, leaning over so he could see her ample assets. Funny, he didn't like the donut shop kid flirting, but he could make small talk with this rude server and grin so eagerly at her.\n\nOh God, I missed his grin.\n\nShe walked away with a swing in her hips. He didn't look.\n\nInstead, he peered at me. \"How are you doing?\"\n\nI knew from the quietness in his tone that he still cared. I think we'd always care about one another. Intense first loves like ours created a special bond. I was sure what we once had was forever. That wedding dress photo remained on my phone.\n\nPushing aside my bowl, I sipped my water through the straw. The coldness of the liquid helped steady my nerves. \"One day at a time. I work. Go home. Get dinner. Make sure the kids do their homework. Tuck them into bed. I go to sleep. And repeat.\" Sheesh, could my voice sound any more morose?\n\nMace was probably stoked to be free of a melancholy moron like me. I twisted the napkin. For months, that's how my gut felt\u2014like a tornado had ripped through.\n\nThat's what my life had become: the devastating aftermath.\n\nWatching my family get sick, get chemo, develop complications, get sickened by the medicines trying to help, only to lose\u2014that did me in. My emotions, thoughts, and feelings got swept away. Parts of me disappeared.\n\nI became a walking, living, breathing, shell of who I used to be.\n\nWhat a freaking mess. Thank God I had the foresight to give Mace his wings.\n\n\"You're miles away.\"\n\nI gaped at him. A pile of shredded paper sat under my fingers. I blinked my disbelief out of the way. How could I dip out on him like this? On his last night?\n\nHe cleared his throat. \"You're looking better. Not so pale and thin. Your dad's worried.\" Mace sipped, obviously relishing the taste of some new IPA as he settled back against his booth seat. Once again, his light brown eyes, so warm, sparkled as we studied one another.\n\nThroughout junior and senior year, whenever we went out for dessert and had a quiet moment to ourselves, I'd play footsie with him\u2014the sexy version where we always wound up afterward making out in the back seat of his truck, or in the warmer months, curled around one another inside the cargo bed, under the private watch of stars.\n\nHe blushed and downed the rest of his beer.\n\nHad his mind gone to the same place as mine?\n\n\"We'd better get going.\"\n\nI slid out from my seat and followed him down the aisle. Before I could grab the bills in my jeans, Mace paid at the register. Our, well, more like his exclusive waitress, waved to him.\n\nHe chuckled and held the door open for me. \"You look nice.\"\n\nBull. I squinted at him while my lips twisted into a grimace. Talk about changing the subject. After work, I switched out casual workplace attire for a simple sweater and jeans. December clothes. \"Thanks.\" I hoped he heard the sarcasm in my tone.\n\nOur breath puffed in front of our faces while we headed to my car. After I unlocked the door with my key fob, I went to open my door, but he stopped me. \"Thanks for grabbing a bite to eat with me, Ames. It meant a lot.\"\n\nWe were so close I could make out each dip and plane on his cheeks. He'd always been the hottest guy I'd ever seen, even more than my old crush, Jon Bon Jovi.\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\nHis gaze dropped to my mouth. \"I hope you'll miss me.\"\n\n\"Miss you? Why say it like that? How long are you going for?\" My meal twisted around inside my stomach. What's he not telling me?\n\nHe shrugged but the movement wasn't light, it seemed weighed down by something.\n\n\"Mace.\" I hadn't meant for my voice to sound so sharp. He blinked, watching me.\n\n\"It's just that I'm not sure if I'm coming back, Amelia. There's nothing here for me, is there? Days go by like the wheels on a car and I feel like I'm just existing now. Know what I mean? I need to start living again, like we used to do.\"\n\nIf he meant to scare me, he succeeded. I swallowed hard, unable to find the right thing to say. Not when I created the mess. He was right. We both existed.\n\nWhat had I done? I meant to free him. Instead, the two of us seemed to be stuck in our past. Mason had decided on a clean break. He headed around the back of my vehicle and got in.\n\nWhy was the bubble of pain in my chest suddenly spreading? I needed to let him go and get far away from me."
            },
            {
                "title": "Amelia",
                "text": "We rode down the long stretch in silence. Each storefront boasted something seasonal from pretty lights to colorful decorations. I pulled into a space across the street from Peabody's Convenience Store. One sign on the post out front said, \"No Parking,\" but my attention became riveted on another sign. It proclaimed, \"Bus tickets sold here.\"\n\nThis was it. His leaving real. Mason was going away.\n\n\"I guess the bus picks you up there.\" I turned off the engine and pocketed the keys. He jumped out clasping his duffle bag and went around to meet me.\n\n\"You don't have to wait.\" Mace wore a sheepish look.\n\nI shook my head, getting some hairs in my eyes. \"That's okay. I'm still here.\"\n\nHis forehead creased as he softly pushed the tendrils away before he grasped my hand.\n\nWe crossed the empty street together.\n\nWith his warm skin against mine, this seemed like old times. He walked us over to a bench in front of the closed store. I sat on the top part so that I could reach his height.\n\n\"This is my first time traveling by bus. I've always driven everywhere. My truck needs new struts and suspension work. Your father said he'd get to it on the weekends. He's giving me an employee discount. My uncle will pick her up when she's ready.\"\n\nI leaned forward. \"Oh, okay.\" My hands were empty. Unlike most of my generation who lived on their cell phones, I always kept mine buried deep inside my bag. Ever since those days filled with incessant messages about test results or appointment reminders, to calls concerned with bills due or friends wanting to share kind words, I wanted nothing to do with mine.\n\nMost days I had wished for the twister to take it all away.\n\nHe dropped his bag to my side and remained standing by the bench. Those slim straight jeans hugged his long legs, and a plain, white tee peeked out from under his flannel shirt. The brown bomber jacket he wore looked new. I'd always liked his style; it announced to the world that he was comfortable with himself and didn't need to follow anyone else's fashion sense.\n\nMace playfully pushed my leg to catch my attention. \"You're so far away right now. Whatcha thinking? It's not me.\"\n\nWow, he'd made a joke. He was half right. I admitted it with a nod. \"I was somewhere else.\"\n\nMoving closer, he stared at me. \"What about?\"\n\nI shrugged. \"Everything. Nothing.\" His beanie had ridden up on the left side. I reached up to adjust it and heard his gasp.\n\n\"You still wear this? One of my gifts to you? I almost didn't celebrate Christmas last year, but then\u2014\"\n\n\"You did it for the kids.\" He trapped my hands in his. \"Amelia, you've spent so much time doing for your loved ones. For your dad. Your niece and nephew. It's okay to take time out for yourself. To breathe. Get some rest.\"\n\nHis skin was calloused from hours of handling tools and machinery. I wouldn't even change that about him. Not one thing.\n\n\"I wish I could breathe,\" I whispered.\n\nMace yanked me onto my feet and held me. Before it registered in my brain, he walked us back until I was up against the brick of the building's fa\u00e7ade. His palms framed my cheeks. \"Someone wise and pretty taught me this method. Close your eyes, Ames. Do it with me. Ready?\"\n\nSo much of what we did in the present reflected on something from our youth. Mace used to get anxious before every varsity team soccer match in middle school. After some research, I created a routine to help him prepare. I had him focus on my voice and the images I mentioned. There were also breathing exercises. He learned how to calm himself down. We went through them each time. It worked so well by the time he made the high school football team, he'd improved.\n\nNow I'd be the recipient. \"Let's do it.\"\n\nI also used to rub his shoulders and forearms to get the blood circulating. Mace changed it up by massaging my scalp. He knew my weaknesses. \"Picture that waterfall I took you to. The one upstate. We had to hike a few miles to find it. Man, how we sweated. Our leg muscles screamed. We had a work-out. When we got there, the view was incredible.\"\n\nWith each caress, I relaxed until I became a mass of putty.\n\n\"When we finally reached the water, we stripped down to our bathing suits. Remember hearing the falls? Jumping from that ledge?\" His fingers continued to work their magic.\n\nI groaned. The heat of the sun, the chill of the water, the smell of grass and trees, the memories flooded my mind.\n\n\"Let it go, Ames. All of it. Everything you endured, all the bad, the nasty stuff. Let. It. Go.\" His fingertips pressed in gently, the pressure awakened parts of me that had fallen asleep to let the robot Amelia take over.\n\nThe weeks of stress and worry, the hours of running around, of not taking care of myself, rose to the surface.\n\n\"When I spotted you in that black and white polka dotted bikini, I thought I'd lose my freakin' mind.\" He cleared his throat. \"Uh, got carried away. Sorry.\"\n\n\"I purchased the two piece for you.\"\n\nHe stopped. \"I know.\" From my head, Mace switched to my shoulders, slipping his hands under my jacket to place his fingers on top of my sweater where he bore down, with a constant gentle touch, to break up those old knots. \"Draw a huge breath in, and release. Then repeat. That's my girl.\"\n\nThose three words made my toes curl in my boots. The sad truth? I wished I still was his.\n\nDistractions aside, I did as he instructed for the next few minutes.\n\n\"I think it's working,\" he murmured into my ear.\n\nHis warm breath caressed my lobe. I gazed at him. My spirit's load lightened. \"Thanks.\"\n\nMace dropped his hold. \"You're welcome. If I could give back one moment of the peace you gave me before those games, I'd be satisfied. You were my angel, Amelia.\"\n\nHow honest he appeared. My mind captured a permanent photo for my collection. I wanted to remember Mason just like this, in case he didn't return.\n\n\"According to the Bus Tracker app, it will be here in seven minutes.\"\n\nHis words shoved my thoughts into something I didn't want to face\u2014reality.\n\n\"Take care of your family. Then take time for yourself.\" He snapped up his duffle bag.\n\nI nodded. Any waterworks inside wanted to escape. Did I have tears left?\n\nMace stood a few feet away, looking down the street.\n\nSaying goodbye wasn't something I could handle, so I hugged him.\n\nHe tucked me under his chin. The scent of his cologne and being in his arms drew me back to our days as a couple. We hugged all the time.\n\nPulling away, I gripped the front of his shirt and memorized his handsome face: the designer stubble across his jaw, those dreamy eyes, his classic nose, and the chestnut hair which fell to his shoulders. He frequently tied it back and hid his hair with beanies. \"Bye, Mason.\"\n\nHe held my gaze. \"Do you still love me, Amelia?\"\n\nThe question struck me as though he'd sunk a sword into my chest. \"Of course, Mace. I set you free because of me. I can't just stop loving you.\"\n\n\"Good.\" He shot me a classic Mace smile before he leaned down. His mouth moved closer. In response, my eyelids drooped until they shut in anticipation.\n\nBut the end result wasn't what I expected.\n\nHis lips sank against my forehead and remained there a few seconds. I could have sworn our heartbeats matched. \"I love you, too, Amelia. You're only my heart.\"\n\nI squinted at him, unsure if he joked or not. His eyes had misted over, like mine. Before I lost my control and selfishly asked him to stay, I ran my hands down his jacket sleeves. \"Take good care of yourself.\" I whirled away. When the road cleared, I ran across. Two blocks down I spotted a bus headed in this direction.\n\nOnce I got into my car and settled my seatbelt in place, the bus was only a block away.\n\nSomething made me wait. Maybe something like hope.\n\nAs soon as my car's engine purred to life, the opening notes to \"(You Want To) Make a Memory\" began. The Greyhound bus approached and parked in the designated space.\n\nThis was another one of my favorite Bon Jovi songs. I loved how it opened with piano, accompanied by JBJ's soft and low vocals. From there, the composition built up. I knew the lyrics by heart but hearing them at this exact moment seemed like a cruel twist of fate.\n\nThose words painted a picture. Pictures, which popped up on the bus windows. Scenes I remembered. Mason. Me.\n\nHanging out. Trick or treating. Lunches inside the middle school cafeteria. High school football games. Dances. The images of us laughing. Holding hands. Hugs.\n\nThere was always a lot of kissing.\n\nTears leaked down over my eyes, trying to smear those pictures. I blinked them back.\n\nGraduations. Parties. Working various jobs. Movies. Kisses. Touching.\n\nOur past and our present joined together to decide the direction of our future. I remembered in the video, JBJ turned out to be a ghost. Not having Mace around could be considered another loss. Hadn't I lost enough?\n\nWhy was I still in my seat?\n\nThe images ceased as I slammed the door, engine still running, and stood beside my car. The slow beat of the song pounded like my own beating heart. The interior lights of the bus illuminated the seated bodies of various strangers. Singles, couples, even families with kids. Some carried on conversations, others read or dozed off. A few weary faces gazed outside. White lights from the storefronts blinked as if marking the passing of time.\n\nSnow began to fall. Perfect objects like gifts from the clouds.\n\nIf he's still on the sidewalk when the bus leaves\u2014\n\nA second later, the interior lights went out.\n\nPressing my palms against the cold side of my car, I couldn't see through the tinted windows of the bus to check if Mason had boarded.\n\nJon Bon Jovi sang about unasked questions and about those strange incidents in life that shouldn't happen but do.\n\nThe bus doors groaned closed. The engine revved. Everything clicked into place.\n\nOnly one word could describe the events that led up to our moment minutes ago.\n\nSynchronicity.\n\nStupid me. I was the ghost who walked around life while the man who loved me waited for my return. Mace asked me to drop him off for a reason.\n\nThe large vehicle pulled away from the curb.\n\nDamn it! I'd stupidly missed the opportunity to tell him how I honestly felt. He must know I wanted him back. I still needed him.\n\nFate had gifted us the perfect chance to reconnect and create our own memory.\n\nMaybe Mace hadn't gotten on. He'd changed his mind.\n\nMaybe this was a test.\n\nMy focus shifted from watching the back of the bus to directly across the street. The song hit its crescendo.\n\nThe bench sat empty. Mason was gone.\n\nI burst into tears."
            },
            {
                "title": "Amelia",
                "text": "I'm not sure how long I remained a sobbing mess in my car. When my eyes became sore, I finally stopped. A police car slowed as it passed by. I dug tissues out from the console and wiped my face before driving home.\n\nWith the late hour, I knew Dad had read to the kids and tucked them into bed. Not in a talking mood, I quickly wished him a good night from the dark hallway and hurried to my room. He mumbled something and kept watching the TV.\n\nAfter I climbed into bed, I released any remaining tears before sleep took control.\n\nSaturday began with the promise of a perfect winter day. Whatever snow had fallen melted away. Bright light flooded in through my open windows. In my haste to hide, I'd forgotten to close the blinds. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee soon wafted in, getting me out of bed. In the kitchen, Noah and Ava sat at the table eating waffles. Dad poured me a cup and fixed it the way I liked it with two teaspoons of sugar and milk.\n\n\"Thanks, Dad.\" I sat down beside Ava.\n\n\"Aunt Amelia, you look terrible,\" Noah whisper shouted.\n\nAva hushed him. She resembled my aunt every day with her long blond hair and big hazel eyes. Is a six-year-old girl too young to take to a Bon Jovi concert? \"She looks like she cried herself to sleep, that's all.\"\n\nThey were adorable in all their childish innocence.\n\nDad chuckled. \"Well, I think Amelia realized she lost something precious yesterday.\"\n\n\"She lost her teddy bear?\" Ava asked.\n\nDad studied me. \"Something like that.\"\n\nI sipped my drink, grateful for my father's heavy hand when he measured the scoops. My system needed a jolt to get through this day.\n\nWhen done with his scrutiny, Dad began to clear the table. \"You'd better hurry up, Ava. Uncle Theo's going to be here soon.\"\n\nAva popped the last wedge of waffle into her mouth. Her cheeks resembled a feasting chipmunk.\n\nHis plate empty, Noah pointed to his sibling's face and laughed.\n\nDad chuckled as he deposited everything into the sink. \"Go wash your faces and hands. Meet me by the door in five minutes. No fighting.\"\n\nBoth kids raced up the stairs.\n\nI clutched the mug, needing the warmth.\n\n\"You okay?\" He patted my shoulder. \"How long is Mason gone for?\"\n\n\"He didn't say.\" I shrugged. \"Anyway, I'm the one who messed things up between us. I gave him his wings, so that he could soar. He did.\"\n\nDad plopped down in the seat Ava had vacated. \"Words aren't everything. He knew.\"\n\n\"Yeah, Dad. Mason's telepathic.\"\n\n\"My funny girl. Just because something has wings doesn't necessarily mean they'll fly away.\" He stood and messed my hair like old times. \"You have the day free until later. The twins will want to watch a movie with us this evening.\"\n\nI nodded. \"I'll make popcorn and prepare snacks.\" Our Saturday night habit.\n\n\"After I see them off, I'm going to my shop. There's paperwork to deal with.\" He began to leave.\n\n\"Hey, Dad, what about Mason's truck?\" I finished off my drink.\n\nHe spun around. \"His truck?\"\n\n\"Yeah. The struts and suspension need work.\" Had he forgotten? Did I need to start worrying about his health?\n\nHe folded his arms. \"I finished that yesterday. The parts came in early, and I had a cancellation. His truck is in my shop.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you tell him, so he could drive to see his mom?\" I stirred my second cup.\n\n\"Oh, I had it detailed too. The manager at his location raved about Mason being his best worker. I wanted to thank him.\"\n\nThe twins hurried downstairs.\n\nReturning to find a fixed and clean truck would be the ultimate welcome back gift for Mace. When\u2014or if\u2014he came back. \"That's nice, Dad. Thanks.\"\n\nThe front bell rang.\n\n\"Yep.\" He hurried down the hall.\n\nUncle Theo's boisterous voice soon filled the first floor.\n\nAfter they left, I went up to take a leisurely shower. The hot water loosened my tight muscles but didn't get rid of the dark cloud hanging over my head. Its presence signaled that nothing would make me truly happy. I paired my jeans with a comfy sweater. As I slipped into my boots, I knew staying surrounded by these four walls would not help me shake what my mom used to call \"the funk.\"\n\nJust when I figured the funk had moved on, losing Mace only aggravated it more.\n\nThe fault of this situation rested on my shoulders\u2014the break had been instigated by me.\n\nMason not kissing me cemented the fact that he'd moved on. Slipping into my red wool pea coat, two words spun around inside my mind: Could I?\n\nI grabbed my hat, bag, and keys and locked up. After I left him, I never really dated anyone. At first, I blamed the various situations I was in. A cold breeze swept by, making me button my coat. I slipped behind the wheel, still lost in thought. Now that Mace had gone, I couldn't stop the surge of thoughts and memories his absence had awakened in me.\n\nAll I had to do last night was open my mouth, tell him how I still felt.\n\nBeing a coward hurt.\n\nFor an hour I just drove around. From theatres and clubs to restaurants and parks, I passed by places where Mason and I had history to bid them goodbye.\n\nPerhaps this was nothing but a pathetic attempt to remember our magic.\n\nI foolishly believed doing this would remove that darn cloud. It had not.\n\nWhen the burden of reliving the past became too much, I stopped at a park in Poughkeepsie. By the time I jumped out, I could only concentrate on the person who was somewhere in Massachusetts and getting farther away by the minute.\n\nThis entire mess had been my doing. When one leaves the cage door open, the bird won't remain inside for long\u2014not when presented with the option of freedom.\n\nMyer's Pointe was a hidden gem. Only a handful of people strolled around. Taking my time, I headed straight for the beautiful old weeping willow located at the far-left side, just before the fence of a neighboring factory. The tree's branches gracefully draped down like an open broad umbrella. The inner section provided a private spot hidden away from the rest of the park.\n\nI sat down in front of the willow, closer to the banks of the Hudson, to stare out at her brackish water. Sunlight filtered through the smaller trees and brush growing haphazardly along the shoreline. How anything could sprout up so close to the river and sustain itself amazed me. The determination of some fauna to survive under these conditions was impressive. Voices and laughter of a nearby older couple walking along the trail floated towards me.\n\nI used to always come to the river to get away from things. Until Mace followed me one day and found me here, in my favorite place.\n\nFrom then on, this became our spot. We wound up here to talk or think or to hear the water rush up over the rocks.\n\nMace learned to love the river as much as I did. We took romantic walks here, our minds not able to focus on anything except one another. After winter arrived, we checked out the iceboats racing across the frozen surface. When the season switched to spring, we kayaked to the Kingston lighthouse and back. On summer nights, we snuck in to drink beers and have glorious kissing sessions. As pumpkins ripened in fall, we admired the colorful tree line from Mace's rowboat.\n\nMason and Amelia.\n\nAmelia and Mason.\n\nOne name always synonymous with the other since high school.\n\nThe thought of his name pained me. He needed to leave, to begin over. I had hurt him when I abandoned him. He understood why I had to go, but it still made an impact. A breeze kicked up off the water, stirring through the leafy branches. I slipped my mittens on and closed my eyes.\n\nShould I text him? Call him? Drive to his mom's house?\n\nOne word popped up: Why?\n\nThen doubt settled in. It filled any crevice with niggling thoughts. One such thought had nagged me since last night. The fact that Mace had not kissed me on the lips. Not that I deserved to be treated well by him.\n\nDidn't he still love me? Mace had acted as though he wanted to leave. He even flirted with that pathetic waitress.\n\nHis rejection stung. I hugged my legs closer to me. By the water, the air always seemed cooler, primarily when there wasn't another body to help buffer the chill.\n\nThere I go again. How could I start to move on when I dwelled in the past?\n\nSome tears leaked out as I stood to face our tree. Our sanctuary. After I quickly dusted off the back of my jeans, I spotted them, chiseled into the bark. Our initials. After removing my gloves and shoving them into my coat pockets, I kneeled to trace the rough edges of the letters. Mace had carved them one day after we'd fought sometime in sophomore year. Over what? I couldn't remember the reason.\n\nEven though I wasn't speaking to him, Mace drove me here to show me what he'd done. \"I can't be with anyone else. They're not you.\" How his voice shook, so raw with emotion. \"You're only my heart.\"\n\nWith my own tremulous tone, I repeated those words out loud. Hadn't he uttered them recently? I blinked away more tears. My fingers brushed up against something else. I glanced over.\n\n\"No.\" That couldn't be. How did those letters get there? They appeared freshly made.\n\nI flicked away wood shavings before I gave into the temptation to trace the edges of a brand-new set of our initials inside an infinity symbol. This was a new addition.\n\nMace. He must've done this before he left. What was his reason?\n\nWith the secret hope of somehow getting closer to or perhaps to glean a portion of understanding him, I pressed one palm up against the tree and rested the other above my heart. My fingers stretched out across the surface of a symbol of our budding high school romance that had blossomed into so much more.\n\nBon Jovi had the perfect song to reflect everything that twisted around inside me. With my head bowed, I whispered the words from the chorus of \"Always,\" and sent out a wish to the universe that in some way, Mace would hear me and come back.\n\nThe moment soon passed. Nothing happened. I knew nothing would.\n\nI gathered my broken pieces together and stood. That was enough pity for one day.\n\n\"Amelia, have you realized it yet?\"\n\nMy shoulders stiffened. Wonderful. Now I imagined hearing Mason speak to me.\n\nHey universe, not cool. Thanks for the cruel prank.\n\nI twirled around to leave, and my boot heel caught on a root. I swung my arms out like propellers to balance myself, only to be captured in someone's firm hold."
            },
            {
                "title": "Amelia",
                "text": "Words didn't register. My lips moved, failing to utter anything. It was no stranger who'd saved me from a face plant. Finally, I blurted out, \"M-Mason?\"\n\nHe stood before me, in jeans, a gray coat, scarf, cap, and boots. His eyes were bloodshot as if he hadn't slept. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\nFor a moment, he looked away and took a deep breath before his gaze swung back to my face. \"I got off that bus. I couldn't do it.\"\n\nI winced when his voice cracked. This was it, the moment I'd wished for when I closed my eyes last night. An opportunity to ask for his forgiveness. \"I'm sorry, Mace,\" I sputtered. \"For everything. For what I put you through. For leaving, pushing you away, and giving back your wings.\"\n\nHe released his hold and stepped closer. \"Ames, I didn't want any of that! After everything we went through, what we had, you...you decided for me. All I wanted was to be there for anything you were going through, to be your support, your everything, whatever it was that you needed.\"\n\n\"I was stupid.\" My waterworks leaked, and he choked on his laugh.\n\n\"Babe, I wanted tears last night.\" Mace scrubbed his chin. \"I wanted you to scream or yell, even bang on the bus doors until the driver let me off. Something, Ames!\"\n\nI punched his forearm. \"Scream? You flirted with some girl while I sat across from you. Then you didn't kiss me goodbye. I thought you were letting go\u2014\"\n\nMace gripped the sides of my face, closing the remaining distance between us. \"I did it all on purpose, Ames! I wanted you to realize that my leaving was the last thing you wanted. That what you wanted was me. Me...back in your life.\"\n\nThrough pinched lips, I managed the rest of his unspoken sentence. \"By your side.\"\n\nHis boisterous laugh made me smile. \"There she is the girl I fell in love with. That's all I wanted. You, Ames, it's always been you. Always.\"\n\n\"Bon Jovi has a song for this moment,\" I aimed for a light moment but failed when my voice cracked.\n\nWhen a tear slipped down his face, my deluge broke free.\n\n\"Amelia, babe.\" Mace brushed his lips across my wet cheeks, my forehead, and peppered my jaw with his kisses.\n\nI took a break from reacting and acted. I kissed him with everything inside of me.\n\nHe tasted of mint and coffee. The scent of his aftershave awoke my senses. A shock of desire jolted my body, awakening parts of me that had fallen asleep.\n\nHow long had it been since our last embrace? Oh, how I'd craved him, and that musky scent that was all Mace. My chest filled entirely with something that had to be love. Fireworks, blooming fires, pleasure, and an incredible calm and peace spread inside me. All of it seemed to push aside that huge mound of melancholy which had rooted deep inside.\n\nTime stopped, or I forgot its existence. What mattered was here. Mason.\n\nHe pulled away soon to suck in some air. \"I've missed you. Our make-out sessions.\"\n\nI rolled my eyes at his lame attempt at humor. We sat down at the base of our tree. \"What happened?\" I asked.\n\nHe took my hand in his. \"My cousin picked me up in Connecticut early this morning. I nabbed a shower and coffee at home but couldn't sleep. I needed to see you. When I went by your house, your car was gone.\"\n\nI ran my fingers along his skin, reacquainting myself with each rise and dip and freckle. \"How'd you figure out where I'd gone?\"\n\nFor a while, he watched me and smiled when I peered at him. \"With the nice weather, I knew what we used to do. We'd come to our tree. I guess even if you weren't here, being somewhere significant was second best to seeing you.\"\n\n\"Why did you carve new initials?\"\n\nHe didn't answer for a while. His focus switched to watching a tugboat push a huge ship up the Hudson. Finally, with a shake of our joined hands as if he was making sure our connection was indeed real, he said, \"I'd asked the universe to intervene yesterday, but it kept quiet. So, I came here this morning. Out of desperation. After I dropped Sophia at the Culinary Institute, I drove her car straight here. I watched the sun rise and thought about what to do. In case you came by, I wanted to leave a message. I gave you a hint last night.\"\n\nMy drawing across his palm stopped. \"What do you mean?\"\n\nGrabbing the strands closest to him, Mace twisted them around in the air. \"You're only my heart, Ames. I told you that. Our heart here,\" he pointed above us, and then towards his chest. \"And here.\"\n\nThe walls I'd shoved up melted at his sweet words. \"I'm so sorry. Forgive me?\"\n\nHe leaned over and wiped my cheeks. \"I forgive you. Forgive me for not standing up to you, for not fighting for us.\"\n\nI nodded. \"I choose us.\"\n\n\"C'mon, let's take a walk. We have time to make up for.\"\n\nI took hold of his offered hand. Mason and I stepped out from the leaf-covered canopy with our fingers intertwined. Together, we welcomed the sun on our faces, as the two of us fell back into that easy rapport we had always shared. Like those two carved hearts permanently etched onto our tree, we became a couple again just in time for the holidays which were always the favorite time of year for my grandmother, Mom, and aunt. Somehow, as the chilly breeze coming in from the river pressed against my face, a warmth from somewhere unexplainable stopped it. What happened next made me gasp loudly.\n\nMace stopped and turned to me. \"What's wrong? Too cold?\"\n\n\"No,\" I answered, still basking in the moment. Without releasing his hand, I briefly touched my cheek with my free hand. The rest of my exposed skin seemed cool to the touch, except for one spot. I smiled. \"For a moment it felt as though the three most important women in my life were standing in front of me and each stopped to kiss my cheek.\"\n\nHis eyes grew huge momentarily before he grinned. \"Sounds like one of those unforgettable moments we sometimes get to experience in life. Lucky you. Bet the ladies were giving their blessings. They always thought I was the one for you.\"\n\nOn the river a pair of swans floated by. \"You are.\" I nodded and kissed him, but when he pulled me in closer to deepen our connection, I knew. This was a new beginning for us. A time to make Christmas memories and more.\n\nMason and Amelia forever. Thanks, universe.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ PEPPERMINT LANE - Prequel to Almost Christmas by TRACY BROEMMER ]\n\nRochelle Riley wouldn't mind a few pennies from heaven. That crazy doll she bought for her niece set her back a hundred bucks. She had the money, but she had two more nieces to buy for. Not to mention the share she was expected to chip in for her parents' gift, though she would admit the big screen TV was the perfect gift for them.\n\nShe checked the time on her phone and peeked over her shoulder. The crowd was growing. Probably time to head back over and wander through the trees. Check the bids. If she could land the tractor tree for the showroom at work, she just might impress her boss and score a little Christmas bonus.\n\nThe Christmas music piped throughout the Festival of Trees was actually lovely. As much as Rochelle had always loved the holidays, she hadn't taken nearly enough time to enjoy them since she had graduated from college and struck out on her own. She had planned to spend today here, fully committed to winning the auction on the tractor tree. But she hadn't realized she would enjoy it so much, even if she was alone.\n\n\"Pennies From Heaven\" segued into \"Sleigh Ride\" bringing with it memories of sledding on her parents' property. The crazy stunts her brothers had pulled, flying down the biggest hills at breakneck speed and launching the sled from the natural bumps in the ground. No wonder there were so many trips to the ER back in the day. Still, Rochelle realized she was smiling as she walked.\n\nShe should have brought her nieces with her today, she decided as she passed the indoor ice-skating rink. A man probably not too much older than her skated with a little girl holding each hand; Rochelle wasn't sure who wobbled more on the blades\u2014the man or the little girls.\n\nTurning her head, she spotted two older women together on a red park bench, both sipping steaming mugs of hot cocoa. Though the event was indoors due to the lot of decorated trees on auction, Rochelle shivered. Hot cocoa sounded delicious. She let her gaze roam over the two women and back to the snack bar. The line was three deep, so she would check the bid on the tree and then hurry back to stand in line.\n\nThe heels of her black boots tapped the cement floor quietly as she wound her way through the crowd of families and couples to get to the tree she had been eyeballing. Ross Hoover\u2014her boss\u2014might own the Hoover Implement Company, but he was a farmer, through and through. His family had owned Hoover Farms for generations. The robust older man was kind and full of life, much like Santa himself. Snagging the six-foot Colorado Blue Spruce completely decked out with royal blue and white farm equipment would be a boon, for sure. Rochelle could imagine her boss' face when he saw the decorated tree in the store window.\n\n\"Excuse me.\" She flashed a tight smile when a young guy nearly walked right into her. Hands tucked deep in the pockets of her red peacoat, she started to sidestep him.\n\n\"No.\" He flashed her a huge, sloppy grin, akin to that an overly friendly puppy would offer. Rochelle met his eyes, surprised at the warmth in the deep amber. \"Excuse me. Gosh, I'm not even payin' attention, and I just about knocked you right over.\"\n\nShe chuckled softly. The slight twang in his words made her happy, and she couldn't say why. She'd never been anywhere south, other than Florida, and she had never heard country twang there.\n\nTall and broad, the guy drooped his shoulders and lifted his hands out between them. Rochelle glanced at them and wondered if he was offering the I come in peace gesture or aiming to catch her should she suddenly fall.\n\n\"It's okay,\" she said softly. He dropped his hands, and they stepped around each other. Rochelle peeked back at him as she turned down Peppermint Lane to find the tractor tree. It wasn't called that; it was the Hargove Farm Museum tree, technically, as the farm museum had been the company to donate it. Tractor tree was easier.\n\nRochelle looked around as she approached the tractor tree. So many gorgeously decorated trees here for auction. The proceeds would go toward the Hargrove Good News of Christmas campaign. She stopped in front of the balsam fir decorated in silver and gold ballerina slippers. If she were bidding on a tree for herself, it would be this one. She didn't have the money for that. Besides, her artificial tree at home was perfectly fine.\n\nShe turned away from the ballerina tree and stepped closer to the tractor tree. Another song played now, one Rochelle knew from her mother's vinyls, though not by name. It recalled family game nights with her parents and brothers. She reached for the bid sheet, her heart sinking when she saw someone had recorded a bid ten dollars higher than hers. Not a big jump, but still. The auction would continue for a few hours. Odds were, she wouldn't be able to afford the tractor tree. Didn't mean she didn't want to, though.\n\nWith a big sigh, Rochelle scribbled another bid, topping Fabio19 by another ten. She could go higher, but she didn't want to drive the price up higher than she had to. Wondering who Fabio19 was, she returned the pen to the clipboard, tucked her hands back in her pockets, and made her way back to the snack stand.\n\n\"Hey. You, again.\"\n\nShe turned as the guy from earlier sidled up behind her.\n\n\"Hi.\"\n\n\"Whatcha gettin'?\"\n\nRochelle decided she liked his toothy grin. His teeth were perfectly straight and white; dimples bracketed the smile. Pretty cute. He looked like an ornery ten-year-old in a grown man's body. Not that she was looking at his body.\n\n\"Hot chocolate,\" she answered with a slight shrug.\n\n\"Good choice,\" he agreed and dipped his hands in the hip pockets of his worn jeans. \"I'm thinkin' I might need some ice cream.\"\n\nThe way he said it was oss cream. Rochelle found the twang kind of fun.\n\n\"Ice cream? In December?'\n\n\"Why not?\" His shrug took a few years off the ten and made him look eight. \"I like ice cream.\"\n\nRochelle turned as the line moved. She stepped closer to the snack bar and eyed the sandwich board with the offerings written in red and green chalk. Definitely hot chocolate. Maybe a cookie.\n\n\"This place is cool,\" the guy announced.\n\n\"It is,\" she agreed. She had lived in Hargrove all her life and only attended the Festival of Trees three times\u2014the first of which was in third grade when her class made gingerbread houses for display. Hers hadn't won any prizes, but she had liked it well enough. Until her brothers broke it while rough housing in the kitchen, anyway.\n\n\"Christmas is my favorite holiday.\"\n\nShe hadn't given that a lot of thought lately, but once the guy said so, she decided it was hers, too. When she was younger, Halloween might have run a close second. After all, it was hard to beat an evening of trick-or-treating and a bag full of candy.\n\n\"Mine, too.\"\n\n\"Yeah?\" The guy swung his gaze back around to meet her eyes. The warmth in his look was almost spellbinding.\n\n\"Can I help you?\"\n\nRochelle turned when the lady at the snack bar called out to her. She ordered hot chocolate and a sugar cookie.\n\n\"My treat,\" the guy announced as he stepped up behind her. Tall enough that he had to duck under the awning, he dipped his knees and flashed that sloppy grin at the snack bar woman. \"Could I get a scoop of vanilla ice cream with some chocolate syrup on it?\"\n\n\"Of course.\" The woman went about filling their order. Rochelle turned to look at the guy.\n\n\"You don't have to do that.\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"I'd like to.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nAs they waited, Rochelle found her gaze drawn to the ice-skating rink again.\n\n\"You skate?\" he asked her.\n\n\"Not well,\" she admitted. \"And not for years.\"\n\nHe chuckled. \"Do they rent skates, ya think? I didn't bring mine.\"\n\n\"You ice-skate?\" Unable to hide her surprise, Rochelle bit her lip at the offended look on the guy's face.\n\n\"I do. My sister and I grew up on ice-skates. Sarah's better than me, but I do alright.\"\n\nIntrigued, Rochelle tipped her head to study him. His voice was laced with happiness.\n\n\"My brothers and I spent more time on sleds,\" she told him.\n\n\"We did that, too.\" The grin went from sloppy to wicked. \"'Til I crashed the toboggan into the tree in our parents' backyard. Busted the toboggan and my nose, too.\"\n\nRochelle flinched. Sounded like her brothers. From the corner of her eye, she saw the woman set her cocoa and a wax bag on the snack bar and then go back for the guy's ice cream.\n\n\"How old were you?\"\n\n\"That time? I was...probably fifteen.\" He shrugged again. \"First time I wrecked a sled, I was twelve. Had to get stitches in my hand.\"\n\nHe lifted his hands to show her the scar. Rochelle noted the thin white line down the side of his wrist, but she also noted that his fingers were bare. Which was stupid for more than one reason, the first being she wasn't looking for a date. She was here for the tractor tree. Period.\n\nShe glanced to her left, wondering if Fabio19 had been back to the tree since she had walked away.\n\n\"One of my brothers broke his leg sled riding.\"\n\nShe sipped her hot chocolate. The sweet, rich flavor made her tastebuds sing, and the hot liquid warmed her from the inside.\n\n\"Ouch.\" The guy winced. \"I feel for him.\"\n\n\"He was sixteen. Missed the winter formal,\" she said with a soft laugh. \"Finally got a date with the head cheerleader and then blew it. My dad said it served him right for acting like an idiot.\"\n\n\"My dad called me a knucklehead,\" the guy said around his grin. He fished some cash from his wallet, thanked the woman at the snack bar, and picked up his cup of ice cream.\n\n\"Vanilla?\" Rochelle asked with a frown.\n\n\"I like it, okay?\" His eyes grew wide in apology. \"Did your brother get a second chance with the head cheerleader?\"\n\n\"He did,\" Rochelle answered. \"They've been married for ten years, and they have two kids.\"\n\n\"Nice.\" The guy nodded.\n\nThey wandered together down Holly Avenue. The squeals of little kids grew louder as they neared the carousel. Rochelle watched all the parents and grandparents, eyes lit with excitement as they watched their little ones enjoy the morning.\n\n\"Do you have kids?\" Rochelle asked before she could stop herself.\n\n\"No.\" He shook his head. \"Not yet. I'd like to someday, but I gotta find Mrs. Right first.\"\n\nRochelle wasn't a stickler for abstinence or marriage or anything remotely close. She minded her business if other people minded theirs. But the stranger's words were nice, uplifting. She hoped to find Mr. Right and have kids, someday, too. Maybe it was knowing she wasn't alone in her somewhat old-fashioned dreams of raising a family.\n\nMaybe it was this guy's confirmation that he was single.\n\nNo. Not that.\n\nBecause it didn't matter. She was here for the tree.\n\nSpeaking of which, she should go and check the bids."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 16",
                "text": "The pretty blonde thanked him again for the treats and then excused herself and wandered away. Kevin Frost watched her until she disappeared into the crowd. Too bad, he thought. He was a talker\u2014his mom said he hadn't paused for breath since he said his first word as a toddler. And he didn't know a stranger.\n\nDidn't hurt that this one was so pretty.\n\nNot that he was looking. Well, looking here, anyway. He dated back home, but much to his family's disappointment, he had yet to find Mrs. Right. The way he looked at it, there wasn't a need to hurry. He wasn't interested in hook ups or fleeting relationships that didn't last as long as a loaf of bread. Kevin meant what he told the blonde. He wanted the whole shebang one day, and the whole shebang was too much, too important to rush.\n\nWhen he finished his ice cream, he tossed the cup in the nearest trash receptacle and turned away from the carousel. While he loved watching the kids having fun and the parents having fun watching the kids, it made him a little sad, too. For Teddy.\n\nHis hands were cold now, so he tucked them in his pockets again and moseyed along on Holly Avenue. Turned right on Jack Frost Drive and found himself in front of massive toy train display. Teddy would love this, too. He walked closer to study the life-like cars and the fake little Christmas town set up within the confines of the train tracks. He'd had something like this as a kid, though not on this scale.\n\nOverhead, \"Frosty the Snowman\" played from the speakers mounted on the walls of the Hargrove Civic Center. Maybe it wasn't manly for some, but Kevin loved Christmas. His family was close, and holidays were special to all of them. His mother would love this event\u2014the festival. She was crazy for anything Christmas, but good grief, the trees over there in the lot! She would go crazy for the tree decorated with rolling pins and wooden spoons. The woman loved to cook and bake, and Kevin would love to take that tree home to her.\n\nIt wasn't the one he was bidding on, though. As much as his mom would love it, she would love the tree with the farm equipment more. Because it was perfect for Teddy. He had come here on a lark, something to do to waste some time since his flight didn't leave until tomorrow. The conference was over. He didn't know anyone in town. So, no, he hadn't planned to walk in here and find something he needed. But here he was, bidding on that dang tree.\n\nWasn't going to fit on the plane, for sure. He would have to dismantle it and ship it if he won the auction. Kevin allowed himself a minute to picture the look on Teddy's face when he got a big box addressed just to him.\n\nThe auction was scheduled to end at three. He had just shy of two hours to kill. With one last look at the train display, Kevin wandered further down the drive. The small city set up in the civic center was genius with fake sideways and fake snow. Little green street signs all with Christmasy names. Maybe he should take this idea home with him. His sister worked for the city. Maybe she could get something like this going at home.\n\nAt the intersection of Jack Frost Drive and Rudolph Court, Kevin was thrilled to find a Lego building block station. He wanted to dive in and build, but he held back and watched the kids and the dads working. When a little boy appeared on the hand of a woman and stared at the blocks with longing, Kevin felt a hard tug on his heart. He met the woman's eyes and offered her a smile.\n\n\"Does he want to build?\"\n\nShe shook her head and smiled sadly. \"He's nonverbal,\" she explained. \"The other kids intimidate him.\"\n\n\"Is he deaf?\" Kevin asked. The woman's look turned sharp, so he held up his hands in peace. \"Just asking. I could sign with him. Help him build.\"\n\n\"You sign?\" Clearly surprised, she peeked at the little boy, who nearly bounced on his toes to hurry to the blocks. But Kevin noticed he also held tightly to the woman's hand.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\nKevin watched the woman squat down by the little boy and point to him. Not wanting to listen to their conversation, Kevin looked away. A blond bob and bright red coat caught his eye.\n\n\"He would like to build Santa's sleigh,\" the woman told him as she stood.\n\n\"Let's do it,\" Kevin said with a nod. He signed, my name is Kevin to the little boy, delighted when the boy signed, I'm Brandt. Kevin looked back at the woman, presumably the boy's mom. \"Do you want to join us?\"\n\n\"Do you mind?\"\n\n\"Of course not.\" He shook his head. \"Santa's sleigh might need a woman's touch.\"\n\nThe three of them found a spot at the table and began building. Brandt stayed plastered to his mom's side, though as he grew more comfortable, he began handing Legos to Kevin. Once Kevin had the base of the sleigh started, however, he pushed the Legos gently back to the boy and suggested he do the building.\n\nWhen the sleigh was finished with a caped superhero at the helm, the woman and the little boy thanked him profusely. Kevin turned down the woman's offer for a hot chocolate and turned away, ready to check the bids on the tree. RocStar kept inching the bids up, and he was determined to get the final bid in and take that tractor tree home to Teddy.\n\nThe blonde smiled at him from a red park bench as he headed up Jack Frost Drive.\n\n\"Do you know them?\" she asked when he stopped in front of her.\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\n\"But you sign.\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"And you like ice cream.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And Christmas.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\" He dipped his shoulders and grinned. \"I like to dance and eat watermelon, too, in case you're wonderin'.\"\n\n\"At the same time?\"\n\nShe was teasing, which Kevin most often translated as flirting. He shoved the thought from his mind and shook his head.\n\n\"Not generally, no.\"\n\n\"Good to know.\"\n\n\"What about you?\"\n\n\"I like to dance, but no. Not a fan of watermelon.\"\n\n\"Ice cream?\"\n\n\"Sure, but not in the winter.\"\n\n\"Not even on pie?'\n\nShe snickered and shook her head. Kevin perched on the edge of the bench, making sure to give her plenty of personal space.\n\n\"What?\" He shook his head. \"Why's that funny?\"\n\n\"Where are you from?\"\n\n\"You're laughin' at the accent?\" He closed his eyes and nodded. \"Rude.\" He smiled to show her he wasn't offended.\n\n\"I love the accent, honestly.\"\n\n\"I'm from Tennessee,\" he told her.\n\n\"I like pie,\" she said quietly. \"And yes, I do like ice cream on my pie.\"\n\n\"Favorite.\"\n\n\"Apple.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"'kay. We can work with that.\" He stood again. \"Not sure about the watermelon thing, though.\"\n\n\"I like cantaloupe.\"\n\n\"Eww.\" He turned his nose up. \"That's nasty.\"\n\nKevin was beginning to like her laugh just as much as he liked the Christmas music.\n\n\"Ready for another hot chocolate?\"\n\n\"No way.\" She groaned. \"That last one filled me up.\"\n\nHe tssked her and grinned as he took a step away.\n\n\"I'm guessing I'm gonna see you around,\" he told her. She nodded. Kevin walked away with her smile in mind. Dressed in red, green, and black, she was the prettiest thing here. Shame he couldn't scoop her up and take her home to Tennessee."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 17",
                "text": "With a half hour left of bidding time, Rochelle reluctantly left the gingerbread display and headed back to Christmas Tree Grove. The gingerbread houses\u2014some so well done, it was obvious parents had a heavy hand in making them and some so bad, it was a wonder they hadn't collapsed\u2014might be her favorite part of the entire Festival of Trees. Just because the graham cracker and frosting and licorice and other candy creations had brought back a rush of memories, all good.\n\nStill, she was here to get that tree. She would go check the bids, maybe even stand a bit closer to the grove to keep a closer eye on the numbers, and once the auction closed, she would head home. She had a date tonight\u2014well, a girls' night with a couple of friends. She wanted to get home and get a bit of work done around the house before she went out.\n\nThe atmosphere had certainly done its job of putting her in the holiday spirit. She was ready to finish her shopping and her wrapping. More than ready to join her mother and sisters-in-law in the kitchen for some baking. Her nieces would want to help, but they tended to tire easily and only rebound when it was time to taste test the warm cookies straight from the oven.\n\nWith \"The Nutcracker Suite\" playing now, Rochelle stopped for one last look of longing at the ballerina tree. She had never been a dancer, but she certainly wanted to be when she was a little girl. At five and six, she had envisioned herself quite the ballerina, scurrying around in a pink leotard and tutu, doing pirouettes and pli\u00e9s\u2014well, what she considered the correct moves. In reality, she had no coordination, and her brothers were athletes, so she had grown up watching them excel at sports. Which had given her ample opportunity to pursue her interest in photography, which had led to her degree in graphic design and finally her job at Hoover Implement Company.\n\nWhich reminded her, time to check the tractor tree bids. As the new director of marketing, Rochelle desperately wanted that tree in the store window to impress her boss, yes, but also to create some Christmas spirit for her boss, coworkers, and their customers.\n\nRochelle held her breath for a moment, eyes on the big blue tractor at the top of the tree. Wasn't her thing, but it was perfect for the store. She reached for the clipboard quickly and glanced at it without another moment of hesitation. Her heart crashed into her belly, still full of the sweet treats.\n\nFabio19 had upped her last bid by a hundred bucks.\n\nA hundred bucks. There was just no way Rochelle could drop two hundred of her own money on this tree. It was possible she could make the purchase and Mr. Hoover would reimburse her. But she wasn't willing to take that gamble. Not to mention, that would ruin the surprise, which was the whole point.\n\n\"Fancy meetin' you here.\"\n\nSwallowing down a mouthful of disappointment, Rochelle turned to find the friendly stranger at her side, wearing that goofy grin she had come to like.\n\n\"Hey.\"\n\n\"What's wrong?\" He dipped his shoulders and leaned in a bit. Rochelle huffed out a sigh and shook her head. Sure, he was a super nice guy, and yes, the man was sexy from the top of his bald head right down to the toes of his casual tan shoes. But he'd already built a sleigh with a little boy who wasn't his and treated her to a cookie and hot chocolate. She didn't need to unload on him.\n\n\"Just a little bummed.\" She shrugged. \"Not a big deal.\"\n\n\"You like that tree?\" Still in a bit of a crouch, the guy leaned this way and that to study the tractor tree. \"You think a little boy would like it?\"\n\nWondering what little boy he had in mind, Rochelle looked at the tree again. Of course, a little boy would like it. In fact, it seemed much more fitting to a child than a business place and an adult man who could buy an entire lot of trees and decorate them in gold.\n\n\"Yeah,\" she said with a nod. \"I think so.\"\n\n\"You think they ship?\" he asked as he reached for the clipboard.\n\n\"Don't bother. Fabio19 just bid two hundred bucks.\"\n\nWith his shoulders hunched and his head ducked, the guy turned his head slightly to look at her.\n\n\"Don't tell me.\" He shook his head. \"You're RocStar?\"\n\n\"Ohmygod.\" She rolled her eyes and cut loose a groan of frustration. She had known a guy like this was too good to be true. \"Fabio?\"\n\nHe straightened, rubbed his hand over the top of his head, and shot her that sloppy grin.\n\n\"Funny story.\"\n\n\"Who's the lucky little boy?\"\n\nAt her question, the grin faded away. He cleared his throat and tipped his head.\n\n\"My sister's son.\" He set the clipboard down and folded his arms over his chest. \"He has muscular dystrophy. He's only seven, but they're already seeing the symptoms. Probably end up wheelchair bound.\"\n\nRochelle winced.\n\n\"Teddy just loves farm stuff. When he was three, he asked Santa Claus for a cow. The next year, he asked for a tractor. A real one.\" The guy\u2014Fabio\u2014grinned at her sheepishly. \"As much as I'd like to get him a real tractor, can't quite swing that.\"\n\n\"No, I guess not.\" Rochelle swung her gaze back to the tree.\n\n\"Who're you bidding on it for?\"\n\nRochelle glanced at him and nearly got caught up in his warm, friendly eyes again. She had come here wanting the tree for her boss. But really, she wanted to impress her boss and maybe get a little pat on the back, if not a holiday bonus. Which made her want for this tree terribly selfish compared to Fabio's.\n\nShe could do without the tree. But maybe she could walk out of The Festival of Trees with a new friend. A kindhearted, good-looking friend.\n\n\"Fabio?\" She turned to him with a frown.\n\n\"My college buddies called me that.\"\n\nRochelle snorted and then, embarrassed, covered her mouth.\n\n\"My name's Kevin,\" he told her. \"Kevin Frost.\"\n\n\"Rochelle Riley,\" she answered.\n\n\"You wanna bid again?\" He nodded his head at the tree and picked up the clipboard. \"There's still time.\"\n\n\"I don't.\" She shrugged and shook her head. \"I think that tree would be fantastic for your nephew.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nThat sloppy grin again.\n\n\"What're you doin' in Hargrove?\"\n\n\"I was here for business.\" He wagged his eyebrows. \"I'm thinking I saw a little caf\u00e9 on the other side of the ice-skating rink.\"\n\n\"You did.\"\n\n\"Got time for lunch?\"\n\n\"I'd like that,\" she said simply. \"Let's wait until the bidding's done, though.\"\n\n\"So no one outbids me.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Yeah, Fabio. So no one outbids you.\"\n\n\"You live in Hargrove?\"\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\n\"Ever come to Tennessee?\"\n\nRochelle laughed as they sauntered down the lane side by side, alternately looking at the trees and each other.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ CHRISTMAS WISH by BRIGITTE ANN THOMAS ]\n\n\"Farrah, you're under the mistletoe.\n\n\"What?\" I asked. I was busy enjoying my glass of spiked eggnog and talking to another guest at the Christmas party we were all attending. A work friend had rented out an entire bar for her yearly Christmas bash.\n\n\"The mistletoe, babe. You're under it. Turn around and look up,\" Jean said, motioning towards the ceiling.\n\nLifting my chin as I turned around, I looked up at the ceiling to see that she was indeed right. There was a large sprig of mistletoe hanging right over my head.\n\n\"Shit,\" I muttered. Kissing a stranger was not on my agenda for the evening.\n\n\"T got caught under it too. I guess you two have to kiss now.\" Jean made way too many kissing sounds and made her hands pretend to kiss.\n\n\"Who is T?\" I asked. I only knew a handful of the people there. It wasn't surprising that I didn't know who she was talking about.\n\n\"Uh, that's me,\" a voice said, somehow catching me off guard.\n\nDropping my focus from the ceiling, I finally noticed there was someone standing in front of me. A very beautiful someone.\n\nHer dark hair was short on the sides, but long enough on the top that she could spike It up in the front.\n\nShe was wearing dark, well-tailored trousers with a pair of black boots. And a sparkly red blazer that appeared to have nothing underneath. It was buttoned up just enough to let the imagination wander.\n\nMy whole body hummed with electricity as soon as our eyes met. They were a beautiful shade of gray.\n\n\"Um, hi. This is awkward. I'm Farrah. I work with Jean and a few of these other hoodlums mingling here.\"\n\n\"Taylor, but I prefer to go by T,\" she said.\n\n\"It's... um... nice to meet you.\"\n\nT took one step closer.\n\n\"We don't have to do this if you don't want to. I'm not going to force a kiss on someone who doesn't want to kiss me. I can just kiss you on the cheek or vice versa, and we can be done with it. I don't know why people still hang it at parties these days.\"\n\nShe had given me an out, but I found myself wanting to kiss her\u2014but I didn't want to seem too eager.\n\n\"No, no, it is tradition after all. I wouldn't want to put a damper on the party.\"\n\n\"You're sure?\" T asked.\n\n\"Definitely.\"\n\nMy mouth went suddenly dry as she stepped even closer, her face closing in on mine. Everything was moving in slow motion.\n\n\"I've never actually kissed a girl,\" I whisper blurted.\n\n\"That's okay. I'll go slow.\"\n\nThe moment her lips touched mine, fireworks exploded behind my eyes, and my whole body started tingling.\n\nI had only been identifying as queer for a few months, and I hadn't even had the courage to tell more than one or two people in my life because I wasn't sure how people would take it.\n\nBut this kiss confirmed to me everything I knew was true about myself.\n\nInstead of breaking the kiss off at the regular point, I found myself stepping closer and wrapping my arms around her so we could keep it going a little longer.\n\nShe reciprocated by gripping my waist with her hands.\n\nTime stood still as she kissed me.\n\nAfter several wonderful moments of embracing there under the mistletoe, T ended the kiss and pulled back.\n\n\"Was it everything you thought it would be?\" she asked with a twinkle in her eyes.\n\n\"More, much more.\" My knees weak from the kiss, I stumbled forward, but T caught me and steadied me on my feet.\n\n\"It looks like you're already falling for me.\"\n\n\"I just might be,\" I blurted. I was having trouble controlling my mouth around her.\n\nT smiled and almost took my knees out a second time.\n\n\"Do you want to grab a table and talk for a little while?\"\n\n\"Yeah, that would be nice. Maybe then you wouldn't notice the effects you're obviously having on me.\"\n\nT chuckled.\n\n\"Has anyone ever told you how cute you are?\"\n\n\"No one that I was interested in. Before now.\"\n\nWrapping an arm around my waist, T walked me over to an empty table in the less busy part of the room. She pulled out the chair for me, and we sat down together.\n\n\"So, you really never kissed another woman before? Because you did a great job back there. I never would have been able to tell,\" T said.\n\n\"Really, truly. You were the first.\"\n\n\"Why is that?\"\n\nI lifted my hand to my mouth and chewed on the side of my thumb for a second as I tried to think of the best way to explain it. I didn't want T to think that I was just experimenting or that I was a straight woman that got drunk and liked to kiss women.\n\nI was genuinely interested in her, and I wanted to make sure she knew that.\n\n\"I guess it's because I'm kind of scared to approach women, putting it simply.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Women are intimidating to me. They're so beautiful and smart and strong and capable that I worry that I'm not good enough to be with a woman.\"\n\n\"Farrah... You have to know that's not true. You're just as wonderful as any woman I've ever met. Maybe even more.\"\n\n\"I only recently came out to myself as queer. I haven't really told a lot of people in my life because I don't really know how to without worrying that they're thinking I'm only doing it performatively. I am a queer woman, I just don't want to be invalidated by people I love, so I haven't given them a chance.\"\n\nVoicing my fears brought up some strong, uncontrollable emotions. A few stray tears slipped out of the corners of my eyes and fell down my cheeks.\n\nLeaning forward, T cupped my chin in her hands and used her thumbs to wipe the tears away.\n\n\"Farrah, you are valid. No matter what anyone else thinks, you are valid, and you deserve to be loved just as you are.\"\n\n\"I know. I'm just ready to be happy again.\" More tears threatened to pour, but I held them back.\n\nT gently let go of my face and sat back in her seat. Her eyes bore into mine with an intimate intensity like I had never known.\n\n\"Do you think I could have a shot at making you happy?\"\n\n\"T...\" My tongue felt too big in my mouth. I wanted to shout yes from the rooftops, but I was still in a state of shock.\n\n\"I know we just met, but I felt something magnetic the moment our eyes met. I'd really like a chance to be with you. To get to know you. To spend time with you. I want it all.\"\n\nI reached into my pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.\n\nEarlier in the evening as people arrived, Jane had given all of the partygoers a strip of colored paper. She asked us to write down one Christmas wish and throw it in a bowl with everyone else's.\n\nI had been too embarrassed to throw mine in, so instead I had squirreled away in my pocket and pretended to throw something in so Jean wouldn't call me out on it.\n\n\"Did you throw your wish in the bowl?\" I asked her.\n\n\"Yeah. Is that yours?\"\n\nI nodded, a little embarrassed.\n\n\"What does it say?\" T asked.\n\nI unfolded the strip of paper and set it on the table in front of her, and I held my breath as she read what I wrote.\n\nI just want someone to love me the way that I am.\n\nLeaning over, she took my face in her hands again and brought hers close.\n\n\"I think that's one Christmas wish I can make come true. Merry Christmas, Farrah.\"\n\n\u2042\n\n[ BAH HUMBUG, HOLLY by SUNNY ABERNATHY ]\n\nHolly sits at her breakfast nook, a warm cup of coffee nestled in her hands. She eyes Rick move around her condo. He is ranting as he goes.\n\n\"And another thing, Holly, you need to seriously take a good look at yourself, or you will be single forever.\"\n\n\"I would rather be single than cheated on.\" She doesn't even look at him.\n\nRick holds up a key. \"If I give you this key, I'm never coming back. Like, I'm gone.\"\n\n\"Just put the key on the counter.\" She sips her coffee, black and strong.\n\nWith the last box in his arms, and an overstuffed duffel bag hanging on off his elbow, he struggles to open the red metal door. \"I mean it, Holly.\"\n\nShe gets up and walks over to him. Her leopard print slippers, sliding across the floor. Holly sees Rick's Adam's apple bob up and down and notices he has a different cologne on. Carefully reaching around him, she helps him with the door. She is sure the idiot named Rick thinks she is moving in for a last-minute save. A kiss. A hug. I want you to stay.\n\nWhile holding the door open, she says, \"Bye, Rick. If you forgot anything, I'll call your sister. She hates you too, by the way.\"\n\n\"Holly, please.\"\n\nAs he steps into the hallway, she calls out, \"Oh, and Rick?\"\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"Happy Holidays.\" She shuts the door and texts the building's maintenance guy. He can come change the lock anytime, but she leaves at noon and needs the new key before she goes. She isn't trusting that Rick only had one key. At least now she knows what those extra keys on Rick's keyring were. How many women he owes explanations too is hard to tell. But it's not her problem anymore and now she has one less Christmas present to buy.\n\n\"Holly, my girl, there you are.\" Holly's boss, Dean Aaron, calls out to her before she even gets all the way through the glass doors. \"Get the tool all packed up and out?\"\n\n\"Yep. And I got my new locks installed less than an hour ago.\" She wiggles her key chain up in the air.\n\n\"Good for you.\" Dean shows off a wide smile. Holly has noticed Dean has kicked up his flirting a few notches. But then again, she could be overthinking. Or wishful thinking. After all, Dean is nice to everyone. And every woman he talks to is instantly smitten. Herself included.\n\nDean being able to charm anyone, is how Holly West ended up in the assistant chair at Precious Presents, after all.\n\nOnly two years ago Holly was out of work right before Christmas but had already made a commitment to volunteer at a Precious Presents event. After a few hours of collecting toys at a toy drive, Dean asked her to a meeting right after the holidays and now here she is in charge of that same event.\n\nHolly goes to her desk, her butt lands in her leather chair with a thud. If she is happy Rick is gone, then why does she feel like crap?\n\nDean signs a few things his secretary, Veeta, puts in front of him before he wanders over to Holly's desk, where he plants a perfectly fit butt-cheek right on the corner of her desk.\n\n\"What's up? Holly doesn't seem so jolly. You should be happy that creep is gone.\"\n\nHolly tries to return his smile. \"I know it isn't that he won't be around anymore. It is the fact that when he wasn't around, he was with someone else, and I didn't catch on. I thought I was smarter than that.\"\n\nDean assures her that it has nothing to do with her intelligence. \"Being loyal and loving is not a character flaw. Being a cheating bastard is.\"\n\nHolly leans forward and places her elbows on her desk, inches away from Dean's thigh. \"You are correct. But in all honesty, I don'T think I loved him, him cheating was kind of a blessing. Can we talk about something else?\"\n\nDean jumps up and straightens his brightly pink tie. \"Absolutely, we are probably breaking some HR policy, anyway.\"\n\n\"It's your charity, Dean.\"\n\nStill tugging on his tie, he says, \"Well, it's good to be me then. Why don't you come to my office and let's make some calls?\"\n\nShe nods, \"I'll be right behind you.\"\n\nHolly watches Dean walk away. She can't help it. His butt is like two Christmas hams in an expensive suit. She grabs her enote off of her desk and follows Dean to his office.\n\nThe ballroom of the Minnehaha City's Regency Museum is a buzz with people. Caterers are setting up tables, housekeepers are vacuuming and fluffing drapes.\n\nHolly sees Kelly and waves her down. \"Kelly, just who I have been looking for.\"\n\n\"What for? Did I do something wrong?\"\n\n\"No, no, it's all good. Relax or you won't get through this.\" Holly reassures Kelly with a smile. She isn't much of a hugger, but the look on Kelly's face tells Holly she is expecting it. Holly tucks her enote under her elbow and tries to hug Kelly.\n\n\"I am so nervous. I don't even know what I am going to wear. And I saw emails about celebrity requests. What is that all about?\" Kelly is visibly overwhelmed.\n\n\"Yes, several celebrities are regular attendees. They like a certain table under a certain light. Some bring their own photographers, but don't let any of that bother you. That's my job.\" Holly has calmed down Kelly down and needs to keep it that way. \"As for what to wear. My advice is swanky. Don't be too stuffy, but remember it is a charity event for children and toys, so nothing too revealing.\"\n\n\"Swanky, black-tie, and celebrities. Yet, for children.\" Holly sees Kelly's anxiety start to rise again.\n\n\"It's ok if you don't have anything, come by my place. I know I have plenty that will fit you. Jewelry too. It will be fun, but don't drink. You will want to, just to calm your nerves, but don't.\"\n\n\"Ok, thanks Holly.\" Kelly turns away, \"Wait a second, didn't you need to ask me something?\"\n\nHolly smacks her forehead, \"Yes, Dean needs a list of all of this year's must have toys for the slide show.\"\n\nKelly walks away and Holly mumbles, \"What's the point.\" Even the world's hardest-to-find toys will be available to Dean if he wants them.\n\nThe afternoon passes by in a whirl of checking in vendors, signing for flowers, approving lightning, and double checking all the Precious Presents' people are doing what they are supposed to be doing. At least she doesn't have to deal with volunteers till after the Gala.\n\nLooking around, Holly sees her chance to escape. She presses her butt against a wall and gives it a little push. The wall panel pivots around, and she finds herself on the other side. The lights are on, but only every other one. Much better. All the banquet tables and chairs are stacked in the corner. Taking one of them down would be way too much work, and Holly decides to just sit on the floor.\n\nShe yanks her skirt up a bit and tries to squat down. They do not make pencil skirts for sitting. She hikes it up higher and slides down a wall. When her tailbone hits the floor, she lets out a sigh. She thought, no I shouldn't, but \"God, I need too,\" comes out of her mouth. With one foot, she flicks off her high-heel and uses her free toe to take off the other one. \"Yes, much better.\" She leans her head back and closes her eyes. The only sounds around her are coming through the wall, muffled.\n\n\"I'm sorry, I don't want to scare you.\"\n\nShe startles. Her eyes pop open to find Dean standing in the empty room with her. She is suddenly aware of how high she hiked her skirt up to sit down.\n\n\"Dean.\"\n\nHe goes towards her waving his hands, \"No, no, please stay, sit. Your eyes were closed, but I didn't want to scare you. Have you open them and just find me staring at you.\"\n\nHolly reaches down and tugs at her skirt, while Dean picks up her tossed shoes and sets them neatly beside her.\n\n\"May I?\" Dean points to the wall and walks over and sits down beside her. Holly nods. \"I thought I was the only one that came here to hide out. Your first time?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Your first time hiding in here? I am in here all the time, when I can, and I haven't seen you in here before.\"\n\n\"I should be working, I am sorry.\" She starts to get up, but Dean pulls her arm down.\n\n\"Stay. We are fine. Our people are doing their thing. I hope.\"\n\n\"Everything seems to be on track, finally, and I just needed...\"\n\n\"No need to explain to me, Holly.\" Dean takes off his shoes. And Holly can see the gold-toe stitching of his socks. Something seems way too informal about seeing her boss in his socks. \"It feels so good to take my shoes off. And I don't even wear those things.\" He points to her high heels.\n\n\"They aren't all that great.\"\n\n\"Then why do women wear them? I have never figured that out. I dated one girl, a model from Norway, and she had the ugliest feet from wearing high heels since she was a kid.\"\n\nAll Holly heard was \"a model from Norway.\"\n\n\"And she hated going out and dancing or anything because her feet always hurt. I bought her a pair of sneakers once and you'd thought I slapped her. She asked if I thought she was ugly.\" He shakes his head and thumps it on the wall behind them. \"I still have no idea how that night got away from me, but you don't want to hear about that.\"\n\n\"Men think we wear the heels, the clothes, the makeup to look good, to look sexy for them, for you.\" She catches herself, \"Well, not you, men, I mean you are a man.\"\n\n\"I get it.\" His smile puts her at ease.\n\n\"Well, we really do it to pitch ourselves against other women. That if we aren't looking our best, then we aren't doing our best, and some other woman will swoop in and look better than us and do better than us.\"\n\n\"Unless you have, need, a uniform or work construction or something, what you wear shouldn't be an issue on how well you do your job.\" Dean looks at her with a bit of confusion. Meanwhile, she thinks here he is sitting here with gold-toe brand socks, his brown leather Edmond's, and wearing a silk Calvin Klein shirt.\n\nShe turns to face him. \"Ok, let's say you apply for a job, and you show up in jeans and a polo shirt, but everyone else shows up in a suit. Who do you think gets the job?\"\n\n\"Whoever is qualified.\" He says honestly and earnestly. \"Hey, don't roll your eyes at me.\"\n\n\"I wish I lived in your world, Dean.\"\n\n\"You do,\" he says.\n\n\"No, I work in your world.\" Holly politely states.\n\nDean takes a finger and points to the moveable wall. \"All of that is all you.\"\n\n\"Well, Precious Presents is your baby. You needed an event. We planned an event.\"\n\n\"But since you have been working with me, things have really gotten turned up a notch and the best part is I don't feel like I have to buy volunteers anymore. People seem to really want to show up.\"\n\n\"Thank you, but I am just doing my job.\" She forgets for a second that she is talking to her boss and sucks it up. Everything she wants to say, she doesn't. Holly figures if she wants to keep this job going into the new year, she better change direction. \"I am just doing my job, a job I love. It's like a career, a calling. I am sure that is how you felt when you started Precious Presents.\"\n\n\"Right? It's great to get that warm fuzzy feeling in your chest knowing you are doing good. I mean childhood cancer, poverty, and everything is horrible, but I love how I created something that puts a smile on a kid's face and to see it takes a little stress off their families, even if it isn't permanent.\" He holds his hand up to his chest and taps where his heart sits.\n\nFor some reason, she giggles a little. Her hand flies up to her mouth.\n\n\"What did I say?\"\n\nHolly waves her hand, \"I'm sorry, but it sounds like you are two seconds away from telling me you are adopting three kids from some war-torn country.\"\n\nDean laughs with her, \"Sorry, I get a little passionate.\"\n\n\"Nothing wrong with that. I think it's admirable that you want to rescue the world.\"\n\n\"Ouch.\" This time Dean takes his fist and hits his chest.\n\n\"Now, what did I say wrong?\" Holly feels her cheeks blush. Did she just offend him? She didn't mean to.\n\n\"If we were dating, I would think you were about to give me the whole I can't date someone with a hero-complex-thing.\" Dean lowers his head. Holly has never really seen him vulnerable like this.\n\nNot knowing what to say next within the awkward situation she has created, \"I should get back to work.\" Now, Holly needs to figure out how to gracefully stand up and get her shoes back on.\n\nThe small orchestra plays an instrumental version of \"Winter Wonderland.\" Holly's head is pounding, and she swears if she hears another version of any Christmas carol, ever, she will go deaf. Why couldn't the band practice wherever they usually do? No, instead they have been at the Regency playing every day this week while she has been here setting up the last details for tonight's event.\n\nThough Holly recommended her staff not to drink, she grabs a flute of champagne off a tray as a server passes her.\n\n\"Holly? Come in, Holly?\"\n\nHolly reaches up and presses her earpiece, \"Yes, Dean, I'm here.\"\n\n\"Can you come to the back?\"\n\n\"Coming.\"\n\nShe slings back the champagne and sits it on a table she passes, as she goes to the back to find Dean.\n\n\"Hello.\"\n\n\"Holly, there you are.\"\n\n\"Yep, right here.\" She wants to ask, \"what the hell do you need?\" but she waits for him.\n\n\"How do I look?\"\n\nThat's it. She came all the way over here for a vanity check.\n\n\"You look amazing, very dapper.\" She sets her enote and clutch down. Reaching for his lapel, she inhales his cologne and maybe it is the bubbles from the champagne she just had, but she feels a little dizzy. \"I am surprised to see you're nervous. You do this all the time.\"\n\n\"I may do it all the time, but I still get nervous every time. People whose movies I watch and whose songs I play on my phone, are just sitting out there staring at me, waiting for me to say something. Say something inspirational enough to open up their fat check books and trust funds.\"\n\n\"That's why you hired a speechwriter.\" Holly loves how his left eyebrow always arches up when he smiles.\n\n\"I hire speech writers because I can. Writing speeches sucks.\"\n\n\"Ok, at least you're honest.\" Holly catches his eyes locked on hers. He won't look away. \"When this song is over, you need to go out there.\"\n\n\"Ok. You'll stay close by?\"\n\nHolly nods and adds, \"A magazine I read always posts paparazzi photos of celebrities. Pictures of them out getting groceries, walking their dogs, that kind of thing.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"Well, the page always says, 'Stars are just like us'.\"\n\n\"Like picturing everyone in their underwear?\"\n\n\"Yep, we all have underwear on. I hope, though a few of them out there have pictures that prove otherwise,\" she says.\n\n\"You are pretty funny, Holly West.\"\n\n\"Well, I try. It's the least I can do. Now, go.\" Holly pushes him a bit, he heads towards the stage, and she checks her enote to make sure they loaded his speech for him at the podium. Dean has more money and charm than everyone in this room put together, and yet, he is nervous. Holly finds it very sweet. Since she has met him, she has wondered how someone like Dean is real. Two years in and his only flaw so far is his girlfriends are way too thin and a bit too dim.\n\nHolly flicks her wrist to see her ewatch come alive with seventeen thousand steps\u2014in heels\u2014and that is now past one in the morning. Gold and silver confetti lies on the floor and across tables. The catering staff looks exhausted but still bustles about. Holly understands how they feel. She'll put a personal bonus for the wait staff in with the invoice. In the back of the kitchen is her bag with a change of shoes in it. She opens the door to fetch it only to see Dean sitting on one of the kitchen's stainless-steel tables.\n\n\"Hello, Dean.\" It is the first time Holly has ever seen Dean look less than dashing.\n\n\"I look that bad?\"\n\n\"What? No.\"\n\n\"What gave it away? My disheveled appearance? My bubbly personality?\" Dean picks up a bottle of something that sits next to him. When he leans his head back, Holly can easily see how far his five o'clock shadow has crept down his neck.\n\nAs she stands in front of him; she finds herself wanting to step between his spread knees. Hug him or give him whatever else he needs. \"Dean, is everything ok?\"\n\n\"Imposter syndrome, do you have anything for that?\"\n\nShocked, Holly says, \"You feel that way too?\"\n\nHe looks at her, really looks at her, \"You do?\"\n\nTo avoid being further entranced by his caramel coffee-colored eyes, she steps over and hikes her own ass up onto the cold metal table. Dean hands her the green bottle of Bolliger Champagne and she takes a swig. Holly hands it back and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.\n\n\"Good stuff,\" she says.\n\n\"Better be. It's price tag is ridiculous really.\"\n\nHolly knows exactly what he means, but she wants to hear it from him.\n\n\"This bottle,\" he tips it to his pink mouth again, \"this bottle could feed a family of three for a month. A month, Holly.\"\n\nMeekly she says, \"I know.\"\n\n\"I have to do all of this to get those asshats to donate money they won't even miss. But they won't donate unless there is something in it for them.\"\n\nThe question Holly has always wondered since the day she first started working in nonprofits, right out of university is, \"Then why do it?\"\n\n\"If I don't do it a certain way, then I look like a rich asshole just like them.\" He points to the door, to the people that left an hour ago.\n\n\"You could just be charitable.\" Holly thinks it could be so much easier, but deep down she knows connections are everything and don't get her started on the taxes and other implications.\n\n\"I enjoy helping kids and their families. If I walk into some cancer unit and say, 'hey, let me take your son on a trip and make his dreams come true,' well, that just makes me look like a rich pedophile. And the taxes.\"\n\n\"Yeah, the taxes. I know, but it seems like there has got to be a better way.\"\n\nNeither one says anything, and Dean passes her the bottle again. Holly swings her legs under the table and accidentally bumps Dean's foot.\n\n\"Sorry, don't be,\" he says. \"Veeta thinks you are grumpy.\"\n\n\"I know how Veeta feels about me.\" She tips the bottle back, but nothing comes out. \"Empty.\" She tips it upside down to show him.\n\n\"You don't mind people thinking you are grumpy?\" Dean grabs the bottle from her and sits it behind him.\n\nHolly states, \"I like to think of myself more as serious, than grumpy.\"\n\nDean hops off the table and goes over to a cooler with sliding glass doors. \"I am starving, this food is paid for, and I seem to have found myself a dinner companion.\" Holding the silver tray in one hand, he strolls back over to Holly and asks, \"Shall we go sit where it is more comfortable?\"\n\nHolly takes his hand and hops off the prep table. On the other side of the kitchen door, they are back in the ballroom. No orchestra, no celebrities. Just confetti, tipped over champagne flutes, and disheveled flowers. Dean sets the tray down on a table that has been somewhat cleared. A bus boy comes rushing over as soon as he spots them.\n\n\"Sorry, sir, here let me get that for you.\"\n\nDean says, \"What is your name, son?\"\n\n\"Randy, Mr. Aaron, sir.\" Holly understands how the young man is feeling right now. She felt that way herself two years ago.\n\nDean takes a hundred-dollar bill out of his pocket and slips into Randy's chest pocket. \"Take it easy son, we are fine. The lady and I are fine. Get your work done so you can go home and get some sleep.\"\n\nRandy bows to both Dean and Holly, too befuddled to say anything else. That hundred dollars made his whole month, she's sure of it. She has been Randy.\n\nAs Dean pulls out the chair for her, she says, \"That was very sweet of you, really.\"\n\n\"I usually don't like to have witnesses.\"\n\nHolly can't help but laugh. Again.\n\n\"I am beginning to understand why you were unemployed when we first met.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry. Sorry. But Dean, look around. This place was full of witnesses.\"\n\n\"True, but it's different.\" Dean holds a lobster roll in his hand and tosses it in his mouth. He barely has finished chewing, \"You know what I like to do?\"\n\nAs Holly pops a stuffed mushroom in her mouth, barely coherent, she asks, \"And what is that Mr. Aaron?\"\n\n\"If I go somewhere like Gramercy or Savoy, those servers expect a hundred dollars or more per tip. And they expect that from most of their tables. But if I go to the Olive Dish along the interstate and tip like that before sneaking out unseen, I know the server is smiling, even if I am not there to see it. It's by total luck of the draw I am where I am, ya know?\"\n\nSince volunteering with Precious Presents, starting way back in her university days, Holly has known that Dean Aaron differs from the rest of the famous Aaron family. But the way he is talking tonight is making him seem almost saintly. He has to have some flaws somewhere. But she has only been working for him for two years, she thinks. That isn't really all that much time to get to know someone. Right?\n\nHe hands a lobster roll to her. \"No, thank you,\" she says. \"I have never really been a fan.\"\n\nDean tosses it onto the try. \"I think I eat it because I'm told to. Here, you can afford it, eat it. Who cares what it actually tastes like.\"\n\nHolly nods, she understands. Frankly, if she was asked, she wouldn't recommend the mushrooms either. And it's not the caterers. It is the food, the food that people of a certain class expect. Maybe everyone would be a lot nicer if they would just admit they want to chow down on a cheeseburger, especially the models. She pushes the silver tray closer to Dean to signal to him she's done too.\n\n\"Ready for next week?\" she asks.\n\n\"Now is the fun part. The presents, the skating, the Christmas tree lighting, finding that just right present.\"\n\n\"Isn't that what Cindy is for?\"\n\n\"She buys my suits and stuff, but I buy my own gifts. If I said, 'hey Cindy, get my mom a scarf,' my mom would know. But now if I were to get my mom a scarf, I would look for a blue paisley one, silk, just like her mom wore.\"\n\n\"Wow. You are full of surprises, Dean.\"\n\n\"Tell me, what does Holly West want for Christmas?\"\n\nShe could say the moon and he would give it to her in some form or another. Holly could ask Santa to find a cure for cancer, and Dean would do something over the top... and lifesaving.\n\n\"Nothing, absolutely nothing. Christmas is for kids.\"\n\n\"Veeta is right, you are 'bah, humbug Holly'.\" Dean at least smiles when he says it.\n\n\"I lowered my expectations a long time ago. If I don't expect anything then I am ok with nothing.\" Holly shreds a leaf of lettuce that she pulled from under the remaining mushrooms. \"The bottle of wine from you last year was wonderful, though, thank you. It was extra nice because I wasn't expecting it. Plus, I got to drink it alone instead of...\"\n\n\"Sharing it with Rick the dick?\" Dean says as he clicks away on his phone.\n\n\"Exactly,\" she admits. While wondering who in the world he's texting at this hour.\n\n\"Well, Holly West, I have three weeks to get you into the Christmas spirit. But right now, I have my town car coming for us. I've had too much champagne, too much socializing, and not enough food.\" Dean stands from the table and pulls out her chair. \"Shall we?\"\n\n\"Home sounds good. And we can worry about my lack of Christmas spirit later.\" Holly takes his hand and steps from her chair. \"I just need to grab my bag.\"\n\n\"No, head towards the door, I'll grab it and meet you at the car.\" Before she can protest, he heads into the kitchen.\n\nShe wants nothing more than to climb in the car, get home, and get out of this dress. She will get through Christmas and whatever Dean has up his sleeve, but later and in comfortable shoes.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ JUST A DREAM by AINSLEY JAYMES ]\n\n\"Emerson, I'm home!\" I called, closing the door to our house. Six months ago, we purchased this property together, making it our home. It was a modest property, in my opinion, or as modest as can be when your boyfriend of one year was a multi-millionaire movie star. The jingle of metal and the pounding of feet greeted me, as our two dogs came bounding around the corner. Boomer and Zeke wiggled their entire bodies as they waited for me to greet them.\n\nI set my art bag down on the floor and turned to my Boomer first. A couple pats to my legs had the husky standing on his hind legs, using my legs as leverage to reach his snout up to my face, pressing his cold, wet nose to my skin. I gave him some love and once he was satisfied, he jumped down, allowing Zeke to have my attention.\n\nOur wolf dog wasn't small by any means. On his hind legs, he was taller than I was. He rested his paws on my shoulders and swiped his large tongue over my face, leaving me grimacing. I gently pushed him off, wiping the slobber off of my face with the sleeve of my shirt. I shuffled past the two of them and into the kitchen, where my boyfriend was facing away from me with his phone held to his ear and in just a pair of basketball shorts.\n\nI ran my hands up over his bare back, pressing a kiss to the warm skin. His muscles jerked under my fingers, letting me know that despite the fact that I had announced my arrival, he was surprised by my presence. He quickly ended his phone call, telling Derek, his agent, that he'd call him back.\n\nI loosened my grip on him and he turned in my arms, wrapping his limbs around me and pressing his lips to mine. I hummed my approval of his greeting and he smiled against my lips. He pulled back before pecking me again before trailing butterfly kisses down the column of my neck. God, this man.\n\n\"Hi,\" he whispered huskily as he pulled away. I tried and failed to hide my smile while I wrapped my arms around his waist again, pulling him close to me. He chuckled, prying me off and holding me at arm's length. \"What's wrong?\"\n\n\"Nothing, nothing. You leave soon and I'm being extra about missing you,\" I admitted. It wasn't as though we hadn't gone through his leaving before, we had. He was a movie star. Leaving to film in different locations around the world came with the territory. But this time, he would be gone for the holiday season and I was taking it harder than I probably should be.\n\n\"About that. I was thinking. Why don't you come with me? We can spend the holiday together; you can officially meet my parents and be on set with me.\" I opened my mouth to respond, but Emerson held up his hand. \"You don't have to answer me now. I have a meeting with Derek in a half hour and when I come back, we can talk about it.\" All I could do was nod as he kissed me and grabbed his wallet and keys off the counter. He said his goodbyes to the pups and yelled another goodbye to me before he was gone.\n\nThe last thing I expected today was for him to invite me to Paris with him. He'd invited me on sets before and I visited a few times when he was local, but this was Paris. His parents lived in Paris. I had always dreamed about visiting Paris. It was the City of Love and I was a hopeless romantic.\n\nI pulled my phone from my back pocket, pulling up my favorite contacts screen and hitting Stef's name for video chat. It rang three times before she picked up, looking and sounding a little out of breath. Her face was red and sweaty, and I cocked an eyebrow at her.\n\n\"I'm at the gym, you perv.\" I barked a laugh, shaking my head as she brought a water bottle to her lips, taking a large swig. \"What's up?\" she asked.\n\n\"Emerson asked me to go to Paris with him.\" She stared at me for a few moments, not blinking.\n\n\"So, what's the problem?\"\n\n\"What about the studio?\" Stef pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes on me through the screen. It was the same look she had every time she was about to tell me I was being stupid about something or other.\n\n\"Sadie, my dear friend, you've hired people for that reason. You have staff to keep your classes going if you want to take time off because you're sick or because your movie star boyfriend has asked you to spend the holidays in Paris!\" She wasn't wrong. About eight months ago I had hired an extra teacher and four months ago, a second one. Business was booming at the art studio and while I liked to think that people were truly discovering their love of art, I knew that some of them were here because of my connection to Emerson.\n\n\"Yeah, but...\"\n\n\"Why are you looking for excuses?\" I blew out a breath. I wanted more than anything to be with Emerson for the holidays and I was willing to take the time off to do that. But meeting his parents was a playing field that I didn't know I was ready for yet. He was a movie star because they'd pushed him to do something he didn't want to do when he was younger. He ended up loving it, but that wasn't the point. My relationship with my parents wasn't the greatest as I grew up because of a similar reason. They hated the path I chose because it wasn't theirs, but ultimately, they let me carve my way. We had since mended our relationship, but it was a rocky, rocky road. What if his parents didn't like me? What if they tried to push him into ending things?\n\n\"I'm being dramatic,\" I concluded. Stef nodded in agreement. We were adults. Emerson could be with whomever he wanted, and he wanted me. He'd made that much clear with his public display inside my art studio.\n\n\"You're being dramatic.\" She echoed, grinning ear to ear. I hated her sometimes, I really did.\n\n\"Okay. I'm going to Paris.\"\n\n\"You're going to Paris!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 18",
                "text": "\"Are you sure this dress is okay?\" I asked, looking down at myself for the fiftieth time. I ran my hands over the material of the holiday colored fit and flare dress I was wearing.\n\n\"You look beautiful and they're going to love you,\" he promised, pressing a kiss to my temple just as the front door opened. I wasn't sure about either at the moment. It was immediate to me that the woman that opened the door was his mother. They shared the same eyes.\n\n\"Emerson,\" his mother cooed, pulling her son into a hug. I stood back and let them have their reunion, albeit a bit awkwardly. Emerson pulled away from his mother and stepped back to my side, wrapping his arm around me.\n\n\"Mom, Dad, I'd like you to officially meet Sadie.\" I had seen his parents a few times via video chat, but until this moment, we'd never met in person. If I wasn't paying attention, I would have missed the smile on his mother's face just a fraction.\n\n\"It's so nice to finally meet you,\" I greeted them, looking in between his mother and father.\n\n\"You too, Sadie.\"\n\n\"Please, come in. Let's catch up. Dinner is almost ready,\" his mother said, stepping aside to show us in. His mother led us into the kitchen, which was in the back of the house. The home his parents lived in was smaller than I expected, but very cozy. There were a lot of pictures that lined the walls, one's I hoped to get a closer look at at some point. I would love to see pictures of Emerson when he was little.\n\n\"Sadie, how is your studio?\" Emerson's father asked once we were seated at the dining room table. His mother had excused herself to the kitchen in order to finish up our meal. I had offered to go help, but she insisted that she had it all under control.\n\n\"It's going well. I recently hired another instructor and my private schedule is as full as I can get it right now.\" Jackson Murphy nodded his head, humming to himself. I hoped it was an approving hum. My eyes darted over to Emerson and he was looking back at me, a smile on his face. Without words, I knew that he was telling me that everything was going great. I wasn't one hundred percent sure I believed him, but I appreciated it.\n\nHis mom came out of the kitchen a moment later, carrying a tray of soup bowls. The scent of onion soup greeted my senses and I smiled gratefully as she set a bowl down in front of me. No sooner than she sat in her seat, did the doorbell ring.\n\n\"Oh, Emerson. Would you be a dear and grab that for me?\" Emerson nodded and stood from his chair, squeezing my shoulder gently before he left the room. I was about to open my mouth and make some small talk while we waited for him to return when I heard it.\n\nThe voice that I hoped to never hear in person again. Talia Bennett. But what was Emerson's ex doing in Paris, at his parent's house no less only an hour after we'd arrived? It was a little too coincidental for my liking.\n\n\"Can you please tell me where your restroom is?\" I asked, looking between his parents.\n\n\"Of course, dear. Second door on the left down the hall.\" I nodded and pushed back in my chair, heading in that direction. As I did, I saw Emerson standing in the front foyer, his hands moving wildly as he had a heated discussion with Talia. His eyes met mine, but I quickly turned back in the direction of the bathroom.\n\nOnce inside, I locked the door and leaned against it, letting out a heavy sigh. If it wasn't obvious that they didn't like me for their son before, it was now. Inviting his ex to dinner was a low blow. I took a few minutes to gather myself, splashing my face with some cool water and staring at myself in the mirror. I kept reminding myself that it wasn't Talia that Emerson wanted. It was me. I was his person and he was mine. She had used him to further her career. I just wanted him to be happy.\n\nThe hallway was empty when I made my way back towards the dining room and I prayed that Talia had left and was not waiting for me at the table.\n\n\"What part of you thought that was a good idea?\" Emerson rumbled, stopping me in my tracks.\n\n\"Emerson, you're my son and I will always look out for your best interests,\" his mother claimed, her tone full of condensation if I had ever heard one.\n\n\"I'm a grown man, I don't need you to look out for me.\"\n\n\"Well, by the company you keep, it's obvious that you do.\" I had heard all I needed to hear. I looked for a quick escape, finding it in what looked like a glass door leading out to a back deck. I stepped outside, taking a shuddered breath. I loved Emerson for all that he was, inside and out, but not for his money. I had money of my own. Hard earned money. Not once had I taken anything of Emerson's. Every improvement and modification on my studio had come out of my own pocket. I was no gold digger. My parents also happened to be two of the biggest directors in the world. As far as money was concerned, I was covered, should I ever need be. I didn't need Emerson's money; I just needed his love.\n\nI didn't know how long had passed before Emerson came to find me. I didn't bother to turn around when I heard the door close, if I did, I knew I would have teared up. His arms slid around my waist from behind and he pressed a kiss against the skin on my neck before resting his chin on my shoulder.\n\n\"You know that I love you more than anything.\" It was a statement, not a question. I nodded my head and leaned it against his. It didn't matter what his parents thought. Emerson was endgame for me. \"Let's get out of here.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 19",
                "text": "Our days were spent mainly on set, filming long hours in the studio and on the streets of Paris. When we weren't on location, we were exploring the City of Love, experiencing everything they had to offer. My favorite part was probably the chocolate store. It had the richest chocolate I had ever tasted, and I wished I could ship the whole damn place back home so I never had to go without.\n\nThe film that Emerson was working on was a romance, which seemed to be his new niche. He was everyone's new dream partner. I mean, I couldn't blame them, he was gorgeous and had the most fantastic personality to go with it. If I wasn't me, I would be jealous.\n\n\"Fantasizing about me, I hope?\" Emerson teased, his breath tickling my ear. I hadn't even heard him come up behind me. Apparently, I'd been pretty far into my dream land to not see or hear him when he had been in front of me shooting a scene just moments prior.\n\n\"Yes, actually.\" My blue-eyed movie star leaned forward and planted a kiss on my cheek before taking a seat in the director's chair next to me.\n\n\"Anything good?\"\n\n\"I was dreaming you picked up that chocolate store and dropped it right beside my studio so that I would never be without the perfection that is that Parisian delicacy,\" I joked, grinning at him. He just shook his head and took a drink from a water bottle before offering it to me. I declined and he screwed the cap back on setting it down. \"You know, one day I might get jealous of all these romantic co-stars of yours,\" I mused as Jessica Patterson, his gorgeous red-headed co-star passed us by.\n\n\"Mon coeur,\" he reminded me, making me smile as the director called him back onto set. \"Mon coeur,\" he repeated as he stood, giving me another kiss before jogging back on stage. I really was incredibly lucky.\n\nThe sound of the clapboard had everything on set quiet again and the focus was on Jessica and Emerson as the two of them went through a scene about the way they felt, or rather their characters felt, for one another. In some of these romance stories, I felt like the action was so cheesy and it was never the way it would happen in the real world. But I had lived a cheesy romance novel meeting. I kissed a man, who'd more or less given me a false name. I ended up working for him, after figuring out exactly who he was, and the rest was a roller coaster ride of emotions that I wouldn't change.\n\nThree hours later, we were headed out the door in a chauffeured car, en route to a local restaurant that Emerson had told me was his favorite every time he was in Paris. When we pulled up, I could immediately tell that I was going to love it as well. It was a small place, with a patio out back. There were lights strung over tree branches and umbrellas and people were eating outside, despite the winter cold. As it turned out, the umbrella-looking things were actually heaters that were keeping the space as warm as it was inside the restaurant itself.\n\n\"Ah, Monsieur Murphy, your table is ready for you,\" the host greeted Emerson, flourishing his hand to the right side of the restaurant. A waiter met us underneath a large archway, leading us past far more tables than the building looked like it could hold from the outside. Eventually, we were led out a door to a small terrace, different from the one we'd seen when we walked in.\n\nA single table was sitting on the large stone pathway, overlooking a small fountain. On either side of the table was a heater, keeping the area around the table nice and comfortable. Lights twinkled from every bush, tree, and vine, creating the most perfect atmosphere. Candles burned on the table for two and a wine chiller, already filled with a bottle of my favorite wine, sat in the middle.\n\n\"This is amazing,\" I marveled, committing to memory every piece of this moment. I turned to Emerson and he placed his hand on the small of my back, showing me to my seat. Like a true gentleman, he pulled out my chair and tucked me in once I was seated before taking his own seat. The waiter poured us each a glass of wine and left us alone with the menus.\n\n\"I want to make a toast.\" Emerson held his glass up and I lifted mine as well. \"To you, Sadie Turner. There is no one in this world who is fit to love me more than you. You are my moon and stars at night and my sun during the day. May our time in Paris be one that you never forget.\" The soft clink of our glasses was the only sound I heard, despite dozens of people being just around the corner.\n\nThe meal was delicious, and I knew why Emerson enjoyed it here so much. Just another thing from Paris that I would love to take home with me. We stuffed ourselves until we couldn't eat another bite and then spent what felt like hours talking over wine and dessert. It was times like these when I was reminded about how being with Emerson was never boring. There was always something to talk about. Our conversation was never stale and every day, I felt like I learned something new about the man sitting across from me.\n\nIt was closing time by the time we were ready to leave and while they didn't kick us out, they kindly let us know that we would have to get a move on. Hand in hand, we walked down the streets of Paris, talking and dancing under the stars. I would give everything to have this for the rest of my life."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 20",
                "text": "\"Emerson!\" I closed my eyes at the sound of her voice. Why was she here? Talia Bennett came practically skidding around the corner, stopping in front of my boyfriend and tossing her hair back. I couldn't help but smile to myself when Emerson turned away from her and looked at me, blowing me a kiss. I returned the gesture, ignoring the scathing glare from Talia.\n\nTalia Bennett was a Hollywood it-girl and a rising star in the movie business. She had the whole package, but what she had in looks and money, she lacked intact and just plain decency. She thought that if she snapped her fingers, everything she wanted would land in her lap. She still had a lot to learn about life, but I supposed when you grew up in the spotlight with limitless possibilities at your fingertips, you were bound to be a little naive about the real world.\n\n\"Emerson, darling. I've been asked to join the cast. It's a small part, but we'll be able to catch\u2014\" Talia tried grabbing Emerson's attention again, but Emerson cut her off.\n\n\"Congratulations, Talia.\" This time, I couldn't help but grin so everyone could see as he once again ignored her advance and made his way over to me. He opened his mouth, but I held up my hand to stop him. He had no control over casting. Talia had probably weaseled her way in, just to spend some time around Emerson again. Probably at his mother's request.\n\nWe hadn't spoken to his parents since we'd left their house before we were even able to eat dinner on our second night in Paris. In two days, it would be Christmas Eve and his only two days off before we had another week of filming and then it was back home on a red eye flight, just after New Year's.\n\nHe stood between my legs, pressing his forehead to mine. I slung my arms around his neck, linking them behind his head. We said nothing because nothing needed to be said. We stayed like that until he was called back to set to do another scene with Jessica. When he left, Talia sashayed her way over in my direction, but I kept my eyes on the soundstage. I had nothing to say to her.\n\n\"You know you're just a phase, right?\" I ignored her petty remark, watching as Emerson and Jessica shared a sweet, brief kiss. This story that they were filming was such a cute love story. Maybe one day, they'd turn our story into a movie or a book.\n\nOut of the corner of my eye, I watched Talia and wondered if she was hired to play the role of the bitter ex who wanted what she couldn't have. It was a part that would fit her perfectly. When she was called onto set, I grit my teeth as she placed her hand on Emerson's chest, laughing at something he'd said to Jessica between takes. Emerson had stepped back, letting her hand fall back to her side. I knew I had nothing to worry about when it came to my boyfriend. It wasn't him I was concerned with. It was Talia and her conniving ways that had me hating every moment she was around him.\n\n\"Alright, let's break for lunch and then we'll film scene seventy-two,\" the director called, and a few people cheered. Tito, a man that had worked with my parents on many occasions, laughed, waving them all off. This movie was his first foray into directing, as he had been a producer on many of my parent's projects.\n\nSomeone put some music on over the speaker system while most of the cast and crew shuffled out to get lunch from catering. Emerson bounded over to me, a skip in his step as he grinned like a little kid on Christmas and held out his hand for me to take.\n\n\"What're you up to?\" I inquired, slipping my hand into his despite the fact that I knew he had something up his sleeve. He feigned a surprised look.\n\n\"Me? Since when have I ever been up to something?\" He teased, tugging me behind him as he walked up on set. He pulled me behind him, into the small cafe type setting. He drew me into him, pressing our chests together as he led me in a dance. It was at that moment that I realized the song playing over the speakers was the song that we had danced to almost two years ago. It was the song that started everything for us.\n\nA content sigh fell from my lips as we danced on set, not caring who was around to witness it. This was our moment; our song and it always would be. Emerson proved that every time it was played. It didn't matter what we were doing, one time, we'd been in the grocery store and he'd dropped everything and danced with me. He held me close, reminding me that this wasn't just a dream and it hadn't been just a kiss. It was so much more than that."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 21",
                "text": "We hadn't spoken to his parents since we'd left their house before we were even able to eat dinner on our second night in Paris. In two days, it would be Christmas Eve and his only two days off before we had another week of filming and then it was back home on a red eye flight, just after New Year's.\n\nHe stood between my legs, pressing his forehead to mine. I slung my arms around his neck, linking them behind his head. We said nothing because nothing needed to be said. We stayed like that until he was called back to set to do another scene with Jessica. When he left, Talia sashayed her way over in my direction, but I kept my eyes on the soundstage. I had nothing to say to her.\n\n\"You know you're just a phase, right?\" I ignored her petty remark, watching as Emerson and Jessica shared a sweet, brief kiss. This story that they were filming was such a cute love story. Maybe one day, they'd turn our story into a movie or a book.\n\n\"You want to take a walk?\" Emerson asked. I looked up from my sketch book to see him standing in the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest and an easy smile on his lips. I set my pencil down, taking one last look at the black and white version of my boyfriend staring back at me. Since the moment we'd met, Emerson's image had filled a lot of the once blank pages in my sketchbook.\n\n\"Where are we walking?\" I asked, getting up and crossing the room towards him. He picked my coat up off the chair where I had set it earlier, holding it out for me. I slid my arms inside and buttoned it up.\n\n\"I was thinking of taking a stroll by the Eiffel Tower?\" My eyes widened in excitement and I nodded eagerly. Spinning around, I pecked Emerson on the lips and grinned. He laughed at my enthusiasm, squeezing me against him in a brief hug.\n\nWe didn't bother with a car service tonight because the Eiffel Tower was within walking distance of our rented home. It was a bit chilly outside, but Emerson had been prepared, handing me gloves, a hat and a scarf. Once we were all bundled up, we began our trek.\n\nSurprisingly, no one bugged us as we walked the streets. Emerson wasn't exactly hiding and still no one bothered us to ask for autographs or pictures. Personally, I reveled in the alone time with him. Sure, we had alone time at home, but never outside in public.\n\n\"Where do you see yourself in ten years?\" Emerson asked as we approached the bottom of the tower, the lights shining down on us. There were couples all around us, sharing romantic moments, hugs, kisses and pictures. Romance was all around, and it made my heart soar.\n\nI squeezed Emerson's hand and he pulled me close to him, pressing his lips to my cheek. He pulled out his phone and we snapped a few selfies with the Tower in the background. A kind woman stopped and asked if we wanted her to take a picture of us. Emerson handed her his phone and she took a good number of pictures. We looked through the pictures once she left and I was definitely getting at least one of them printed to hang in our house back in California.\n\n\"Come on, I want to show you something,\" Emerson pulled my attention away from the pictures, taking my hand once again. I handed his phone back to him and he led me off, underneath the Tower and beyond the noisy street filled with couples in love.\n\n\"Where are we going?\" I asked, swinging our arms in between us as we walked. Honestly, if I hadn't established myself and my business back in California, I would drop everything and move to this country. It was absolutely stunning, and I was in awe for every inch that we were able to see.\n\n\"There's this cute little art shop around the corner that I think you'll love,\" he explained. I grinned, marveling in how well he knew me. I couldn't not visit an art store in Paris, it just wasn't feasible. I had a little more pep in my step as we rounded the corner and headed down another street. I searched for the shop Emerson was referring to, but I couldn't see it yet.\n\n\"Where is it?\" Emerson laughed, telling me to hold my horses as he shook his head. Snow began to drift from the skies as we walked, creating the perfect magical feel for a Christmas Eve stroll in Paris.\n\n\"Hey, hold on a second,\" Emerson said, coming to a stop. I turned back to him to see him bent down, tying his shoe. I smiled, watching him for a moment, musing to myself about how truly lucky I was. The chime of a bell pulled my attention from him and I looked over to see a gorgeous holiday themed silver wind chime hanging from the branches of a tree decorated with twinkling lights. I walked closer to inspect it, but stopped short when the realization flooded in that we were alone. On Christmas Eve, in the City of Love, we were alone on this street.\n\nMy heart launched itself into my throat as I began to recognize everything around me. Emerson had taken my crudely described dream proposal from last week at dinner and perfected it. From twinkling lights, to the snow covered setting and the Eiffel Tower in the background, this was everything. He was everything.\n\nI turned back around to him, my breath catching when I saw him down on his knee. A small velvet box sat open in his palm; the twinkling lights shimmered off of the solitary emerald shaped diamond. My heart pounded in my chest as my eyes met his.\n\n\"Sadie, if you would have told me that kissing a mystery woman at a New Year's party was going to turn out to provide me with the love of my life, I would have laughed at you. But there you were and here we stand. You make me so much more than Emerson Murphy, the actor. You see beyond that and when I'm around you, I want to be better. I am better, thanks to you. I love you more than I've ever loved another, and I want nothing more than to spend every waking moment of the rest of my life by your side. Sadie Turner, will you marry me?\"\n\n\"Yes!\"\n\nThis here, with Emerson, was tangible. This was real. It was never just a dream.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ COCOA LOCO by KATHERINE MOORE ]\n\nI was cleaning out the grease trap under the grill\u2014Julio never cleans out the grease trap\u2014when the young couple came stumbling inside. I normally keep the door locked after midnight because I'm usually by myself until five a.m. when my day cook arrives and I don't want just anybody wandering in. But Merle Jackson was here, and so were two truckers so I felt pretty safe.\n\nI know it sounds paranoid, but my little place is smack in the middle of a huge interstate truck stop and I've read all those serial killer books. They love interstates. And truck stops.\n\nBetween midnight and three a.m. I serve hot drinks, home-made sweets and premade sandwiches I can heat up in the microwave until the cheese gets all melty.\n\nSide dishes are chips and pretzels. I usually keep a couple of bananas on hand and some premade fruit cups. Hardly anyone ever buys the fruit cups. Late at night, what people want is sugar and caffeine, substances that'll keep them awake long enough to get where they're going. Sometimes Merle will buy one just to balance out the beef jerky and chips he picks up to sustain him during the night shift. He hates the night shift. Told me it played hell with his Circadian rhythms. When I asked him why he didn't just wait out the months until he retired working on a desk, he had looked at me like I was crazy.\n\n\"I'd miss the excitement,\" he said, deadpan, knowing that I knew the most excitement he ever saw was dealing with drivers who were under the influence of some mood-altering substance.\n\nAnd tonight was particularly quiet.\n\nElizabeth, one of the truckers, usually had some great road stories to tell, but she was pensive tonight and kept to herself, nursing a coffee and one of the gigantic cinnamon rolls I make during the holidays. She was making it last, which was unusual for her. She runs loads from Muscle Shoals to Waynesboro on the regular and she's always in a hurry. This year had been particularly brutal. She told me the supply chain demand for truckers was insane. \"I could work 24/7 if I could work 24/7,\" she said. \"I could go somewhere it's warm and not have to worry about snow on the mountain roads.\"\n\n\"Where would you go?\" I asked.\n\n\"Dunno,\" she said. \"They've got ports in Florida or I could try out California.\"\n\nShe talked big, but I knew she'd never leave her home base. She and her wife had a farm they'd bought after the 2008 recession and they lived there with a whole menagerie of animals that included, last time I checked, a tiny herd of alpaca whose wool they spun into yarn. Marietta sold her knitted goods on Etsy and in a couple of boutiques in Nashville. She had a seven-month waiting list for custom orders. They always gave me some item of clothing for Christmas. I was wearing one of their presents, a long sweater vest that felt like I was wrapped in a warm cloud and wasn't itchy at all.\n\n\"More coffee?\" I asked Elizabeth as she drained the last drops.\n\n\"No thanks hun. I need to be getting back on the road.\"\n\nJust as she said that the door banged open, letting in a blast of cold air and sleety snow, followed by a young couple who were so bundled in mismatched and makeshift winter gear that at first it was hard to tell their sexes.\n\nThey made no move to approach the counter, and I wondered if they had just come in to get warm. But after a brief, urgent conversation, she asked me if there was a bathroom she could use. I pointed her to the door and then turned my attention to the guy who'd come in with her, a kid who looked no more than twenty, twenty-two. My son's age.\n\nHe was looking at the case of sweets, practically drooling.\n\nI let him take his time deciding. I wasn't going anywhere. Elizabeth and the other trucker were pretending to be busy with their phones but Merle was paying close attention. He's a state trooper and vigilance is his default option.\n\nHe sauntered to the counter, nice and friendly-like to refill his coffee. He nodded at the kid with a \"how ya doin'\" nod and asked, \"So where you headed tonight.\"\n\nI give the boy credit. Merle's a bit shy of six-four and he can be intimidating on first glance. But he didn't show any sign of a guilty conscience, just answered him politely.\n\n\"Bethlehem,\" he said. \"I've got a job waiting for me. Starts the day after tomorrow.\"\n\nWayne took a slurp of his warm coffee and said mildly. \"I was born in Wayne County,\" he said, just as a subtle hint that he wouldn't take kindly to anyone causing trouble in his part of Tennessee. The boy gave that piece of information a noncommittal nod and Merle went back to his table and sat down. He looked deceptively sleepy but I knew that he was completely alert. He and the male trucker, who I hadn't seen before, exchanged looks. They were ready for trouble.\n\nThe kid asked for two banana chocolate chip muffins, a coffee and a cup of hot chocolate for his wife. She had come out of the bathroom, unwinding several layers of scarves and sweaters to reveal her swollen belly.\n\nShe looked like she was about 13 months pregnant and ready to pop any minute. But all I could think was...doesn't she have a coat? She's out on a night like this with no coat? I didn't say that though, instead I smiled at her and said, \"When I was pregnant, I had to pee every other second. I never wanted to be more than five steps from a bathroom.\"\n\nShe summoned a smile for me and nestled in next to her husband, who put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. It was such a tender gesture it almost brought tears to my eyes.\n\nNobody's out on the roads on a snowy Christmas Eve unless they have some urgent job to do or they need to make money or something. And of course when he tried to pay for his snack with his credit card, it was denied. I looked up at him and I could read the thought in his eyes. He knew there wasn't any money left on the card but he was as hoping\u2014 \"Darn,\" I said, fiddling with the little card reader. \"This stupid machine is broken again.\" I gave it a little shake. \"And just try to get someone in to fix it during the holidays.\"\n\nThe two travelers looked really alarmed. \"I left my cash in the\u2014\"\n\nI interrupted him. \"Don't even worry about it,\" I said. \"Those muffins have been out all day and are probably stale.\" I could see his hesitancy, so I added, \"You're doing me a favor.\"\n\nI waved off his thanks and figured I'd just take the loss. I am not going to begrudge a guy a cup of coffee, another of hot chocolate, and some muffins.\n\nHe took the plate with the muffins and she carried the hot drinks as they settled into the only unoccupied table in the place.\n\nI straightened the photo of Aaron that hangs over the display rack of chips. It was always leaning to the left, like his politics. I must have hammered the nail in crooked or something.\n\nAaron's kind of the patron saint of this place. My beautiful boy. He died in Afghanistan on the same day as Patrick Tillman, Nearly 20 Years ago now. He'd be middle aged now, the age I was when he stopped getting older.\n\nAfter Aaron died, his dad lost heart. Fell into a bottle and never climbed out. He died of cancer ten years ago but it was really the sorrow that killed him.\n\nIt almost killed me too, but at least I had this place. I work the night shift so I don't lie awake thinking dark thoughts. During the day I bake. And when I feel sad or lonely or just out of sorts, I take out all my feelings on the bread dough.\n\nI make a lot of whole wheat raisin bread around the holidays. It's a stiff dough. It can take a lot of pounding.\n\nI was rearranging the slices of cranberry nut bread I had in the front of the counter when I heard the young woman say, \"Oh no.\"\n\nI looked up and saw why. There was a puddle of liquid growing at her feet. Her water had just broken.\n\nHer baby was coming and it was going right now.\n\n\"We're going to need some hot water,\" Elizabeth said.\n\n\"Joe,\" the woman said, sounding scared because he looked like a deer frozen in the headlights.\n\nElizabeth took her hand. \"It's going to be all right honey. \"What's your name?\"\n\n\"Mary,\" she said and then, gasping, \"It hurts.\"\n\nI remember what it was like to give birth and I had had an epidural to cut the pain. She was doing it old school. I knew she was hurting bad.\n\n\"Breathe with me Mary,\" she said and showed her how.\n\n\"You have any alcohol here,\" Merle asked me, coming up to the counter and rolling up his sleeves.\n\n\"You want a drink?\" I said.\n\n\"I need to sterilize my hands.\"\n\nOh, right.\n\n\"I've got hand sanitizer,\" I said and retrieved it from where I stored it under the counter. He looked at the bottle for a moment and then slathered it all over his hands.\n\n\"You're going to deliver the baby?\"\n\n\"Won't be my first,\" he said and winked. \"You might want to call 911, see if you can get someone out here but I'm pretty sure it's going to be all over in about ten minutes.\"\n\nIt was nine minutes and the paramedics were still en route.\n\nMerle snipped the cord and then tied a little knot in it with some thread from a sewing kit the male trucker produced from his wallet.\n\nMary was exhausted but smiling as Merle put the baby on her stomach and her husband was grinning from ear to ear.\n\nSuch babies having babies, I thought.\n\nThe baby was a boy and he was perfect. \"You have a name picked out?\" Elizabeth asked Joe.\n\nHe shook his head. \"We thought it would be bad luck.\" He looked at his wife and some unspoken communication flowed between them and they both looked at Merle. \"We'd like to name him after you, sir. If we could.\"\n\nMerle laughed. \"You don't want to do that, son. Merle is a terrible name to give a child.\"\n\n\"Were you named after Merle Haggard the trucker I didn't know asked.\n\n\"I was and no diss to him but it's an awful name. The guy held out a hand about the size of a catcher's mitt.\n\n\"Happy to meet you Merle. I'm Merle Ryder and my momma was a country music fan as well. My friends call me Ry.\"\n\n\"If she'd named you after Ry Cooder, then you could be Ry Ryder.\"\n\nThe two truckers grinned at each other.\n\nMerle said, \"You know what name I always liked?\"\n\nHe glanced at me. \"Aaron.\"\n\nFor the second time that night, I felt like I might cry, but this time it was happy tears.\n\nAnd right about then the paramedics arrived and in the bustle I saw Elizabeth and the two Merles quietly emptying out their wallets and pressing their cash on Joe.\n\n\"Buy the baby a nice present,\" Merle Ryder said.\n\n\"And maybe something for Mary,\" said.\n\n\"Yes ma'am\" he said, which told me someone had raised that boy right.\n\nAnd everyone stays and she makes them a cup of her super creamy hot coconut milk cocoa to keep them warm on their way. Not long after they left Elizabeth and Merle Ryder left too, along with bags of muffins and thermoses of the special hot chocolate I only make for Christmas.\n\n\"Merry Christmas,\" I said as they left.\n\n\"See you soon,\" I said.\n\nThen it was just Merle Jackson and me.\n\n\"That was something wasn't it?\" he said.\n\n\"It surely was,\" I said.\n\n\"Would you like to come to dinner at my place tomorrow?\" he said.\n\n\"I'm working tomorrow,\" I said. \"I gave Julio the day off so he could be with his family.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" he said. \"I'll cook it here. And anybody who drops by tomorrow can eat with us.\"\n\nI looked at him wondering where this side of Merle had come from.\n\n\"I'm from a big family,\" he said. \"It doesn't really feel like Christmas unless there are people at three or four tables with the kids eating in the living room.\"\n\n\"You're off duty tomorrow?\"\n\n\"Seniority,\" he said. \"I'm covering for Denis tomorrow night so he can be with his family but I'm free in the daytime.\n\n\"I never knew you could cook,\" I said.\n\n\"You never asked.\"\n\n\"Will there be stuffing?\"\n\n\"Yes ma'am,\" he said.\n\n\"Tell me you don't use the little boxes of dried bread.\" I said, although that's what I use myself though I doctor it up with lots of melted butter and herbs and chicken broth.\n\n\"Do I look like a barbarian?\"\n\n\"Apple pie or mince?\" I said.\n\nHe smiled. \"Black bottom or lemon meringue?\"\n\n\"I haven't eaten black bottom pie since my mother made it.\"\n\n\"Probably time you had it again,\" he said.\n\n\"What can I make?\"\n\nHe looked down into his cup. He had switched from coffee to hot chocolate at some point.\n\n\"Tell you what. You make a batch of that special cocoa and we'll call it even.\"\n\n\"Be happy to,\" I said. I make my cocoa locos in the slow cooker in big batches.\n\n\"I might even bring some of the kids over,\" he said, referring to the younger officers he worked with. \"Half of them live on pizza and Tex-Mex takeout.\"\n\n\"The more the merrier,\" I said.\n\n\"Good deal, then,\" he said.\n\nI almost said, It's a date, but I caught myself in time. \"I guess I'll see you tomorrow then,\" I said.\n\nHis eyes actually twinkled. \"I guess you will.\" He put on his Smokey Bear hat and headed out into the chilly night. \"Good night Bettina.\"\n\n\"Good night Merle.\"\n\nHe stopped for a minute. \"You know, my name doesn't sound that bad when you say it.\"\n\n\"Merry Christmas Merle,\" I said."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 22",
                "text": "Recipe: Bettina's Cocoa Loco Hot Chocolate\n\nIngredients:\n\n\u20021 can coconut milk (Bettina uses Trader Joe's Organic Coconut Milk)\n\n\u20022 cups whole milk (can substitute skim but Bettina is a whole-fat kind of gal) 2 cups hot water\n\n\u20021/2 cup Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder\n\n\u20021/2 cup granulated sugar\n\n\u20025 tablespoons chocolate chips (Bettina uses semisweet chips but milk chocolate is fine) Dash of salt\n\n\u20021 teaspoon real vanilla extract\n\n\u2002Whipped cream or marshmallows\n\nDirections:\n\n- Combine all the ingredients in the cooking pot of a slow cooker and mix thoroughly so all the cocoa powder dissolves in the milks.\n\n- Set the temperature to low and heat for two hours.\n\n- Stir occasionally.\n\n- Serve, garnished with whipped cream or marshmallows.\n\n- Set the slow cooker back to warm if not drinking the cocoa right away.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ CHRISTMAS COFFEE AND SNOWFLAKES by KIMBERLY GRAY ]\n\n\"Now, you're sure you don't mind working today?\"\n\n\"I don't mind.\" Her eyes shot to the floor.\n\n\"Alright. We'll close up around five. You can put the money in the safe, and I will take care of it tomorrow. I've got to go, or I'm going to be late.\"\n\n\"Goodbye Mr. Atkins. Merry Christmas!\"\n\n\"Yeah, Merry Christmas,\" he grumbled as he bumped into a guy entering the shop. \"Sorry about that.\"\n\nThe guy watched him leave and turned toward Kayli.\n\n\"Scrooge?\"\n\n\"No. In a hurry. What can I get you?\" She asked as she made her way to the booth he planted himself in.\n\n\"Coffee with cream. Pecan pie. That's it for right now.\"\n\n\"Coming right up.\"\n\nGreat, she thought. One customer, and he didn't seem too talkative. Cute as all get out, but she couldn't converse with looks. Kayli poured his coffee and grabbed a saucer with a pre-cut slice of pie. Making her way to him, she noticed his attire was casual, not dressy as one would be for that day.\n\n\"Here you go. If you need anything else, I'm right over there.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\n\"Going to any parties today?\" She asked before realizing she may have come across as nosy. \"I'm sorry. That's none of my business.\"\n\n\"No, I'm not.\"\n\nShe frowned and walked back to the counter. Guess that explained his clothing. Not that jeans and a long sleeved shirt weren't party acceptable. She'd prefer wearing that any day. Looking out the window, her mind wandered.\n\nIt was a cold day in Pennybrook, Alabama, but no signs of snow showed anywhere. The weather people said the chances of a white Christmas were slim to none. Kayli wished it would snow just once in her life on Christmas day. She envisioned the little flakes falling and accumulating a few inches. In her mind, she would be out in it, twirling around and catching snowflakes on her tongue. Like they did in the movies. Her reverie crashed when she heard a voice.\n\n\"Miss. Miss.\"\n\n\"I'm so sorry. What do you need?\"\n\n\"More coffee with cream.\"\n\n\"Sure thing.\"\n\n\"Why are you working on Christmas? You must have things to do. Is that why you were so engrossed in thought?\"\n\n\"I don't really mind working today. I didn't plan on it, but I don't have anything else to do. My parents are gone, and all my other family lives off. I'm not even sure why Mr. Atkins opened today. It's not like we're buzzing with business, apart from you. I was just imagining snow. You know those movies where it always snows on Christmas. It never snows here.\"\n\n\"It's cold enough for it.\"\n\n\"Yes, but the weather channels say no.\" She sighed.\n\n\"Stranger things have happened, I guess. You said your parents were gone. Do you mean gone, like on vacation? or gone, like no longer here?\"\n\n\"No longer here.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry. You seem kinda young to lose both parents. Accident?\"\n\n\"Cancer.\"\n\n\"I'm terribly sorry about that. By the way, I'm Evan Petersen.\"\n\n\"Kayli Owen. So, what are you doing in a coffee shop instead of anywhere else? I mean I appreciate your business.\"\n\n\"I'm new here, so I don't know anyone or have any family. I wanted to get out and not be stuck inside all day. I saw this place open and decided to stop in. Coffee's good. Did you make it?\"\n\n\"Yes. Not long before you came in. I didn't do the pie, though. Mrs. Atkins makes the pies and all.\"\n\nKayli bit her bottom lip and stared at the floor. She wanted conversation? She's getting it. But, she was running out of things to talk about with a complete stranger who had no clue about anything in Pennybrook.\n\n\"I'm sorry. I'm probably keeping you from work. I'll take some more coffee with cream, and you can get back to whatever you need to be doing.\"\n\nKayli looked around. \"I don't seem to be swamped, and all the things have been done.\"\n\nEvan looked up at her with sparkling eyes and smiled a heart-stopping smile. \"Do you want to join me, then?\"\n\nHer heart flip-flopped as she smiled back. \"Sure. Hang on.\"\n\nShe came back with his coffee and cocoa for herself and sat across from him. Her cheeks felt as if it was the hottest day of summer instead of the coldest day of winter. She wondered how a good conversation turned so awkward. The silence filled the coffee shop, and Kayli wished she had put on some music.\n\nEvan spoke. \"I'm sorry for making things weird.\"\n\n\"Oh it's not you. I just don't know what to talk about since you're not from around here.\"\n\n\"Why don't you tell me about yourself and some of the things in this town.\"\n\n\"Ok.\"\n\nThey chatted back and forth, telling one another things about themselves and where they lived for some time. Kayli looked at the clock.\n\n\"Oh goodness. I should have closed up already. Listen, I know this place that is serving Christmas meals. Do you want to go eat there? With me?\"\n\n\"Like a date?\"\n\n\"Maybe.\"\n\n\"I feel I should be the one asking, but since you know things here. Then, yeah. Let's go.\"\n\n\"Good. I'll put everything away, and we can go.\"\n\nKayli put the little bit of money in the safe and washed the coffee pot for the next morning. Making sure everything was turned off, she grabbed her coat and headed for the door.\n\n\"You ready? It's not far. We can walk if you want.\"\n\n\"Lead the way, Miss Kayli.\"\n\nShe locked the door and turned around, surprised at what she saw. Snow had begun to fall. Her face lit up, and she squealed.\n\n\"It's snowing!\"\n\nShe twirled around in it, smiling and laughing.\n\n\"It's so beautiful! Have you ever seen anything so beautiful in your life?\"\n\n\"No, I haven't,\" Evan said, never taking his eyes off Kayli.\n\nShe stopped and looked at him. \"Neither have I.\"\n\nThey both smiled as he held his hand out. Taking it, Kayli felt this Christmas was the beginning of something wonderful.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ NOEL'S MISTLETOE MIRACLE by PANDORA SNOW ]\n\n\"Marge Simpson's got nothing on you, Francine!\"\n\n\"Thanks, Noel. I love it!\"\n\nA final coat of Aqua Net applies to my client's bouffant hairstyle for the retro Christmas party she's attending tonight. She hands me the ruler for a last measurement, hoping to win the contest for tallest hair.\n\n\"Twenty-five inches, you got this.\"\n\n\"The prize is a cool lava lamp. How about you, any plans?\"\n\n\"I'm visiting my Mom for the Holidays.\"\n\n\"Merry Christmas, Noel; I really appreciate the last-minute appointment.\"\n\n\"No problem, take care.\"\n\nThe final day's client exits, and I begin sweeping and sanitizing my station as the owner Jeremy frets over the day's income. Business has steadily declined the last six months, an influx of modern and chic salons spurring Boise's explosion in growth. We've discussed updating the interior design and purchasing new stylist chairs, but the building he leases is in poor shape.\n\n\"Any plans tonight?\" he asks kindly, worry lines across his forehead.\n\n\"Another Netflix binge with my friends Ben and Jerry.\"\n\n\"You really need to get back on the horse. It's been six months since you broke up with Ted, and I don't think you've been on a single date.\"\n\n\"Guilty as charged. The holidays are crazy, maybe in the new year. Any updates on the reno plan your designer friend is putting together?\"\n\n\"Depends on my budget. I'm meeting with the bank about a business loan in a few days. Hopefully, they're in the Christmas spirit.\"\n\n\"I'll cross my fingers; see you tomorrow.\"\n\n\"See ya.\"\n\nMy favorite red wool scarf and gloves pull from the grey peacoat's pocket, and I bundle up. The air's a chilling forty degrees outside as I hustle my feet into the fifteen-year-old Toyota Corolla. If I'm lucky, the heater's warmth will blow before I reach the apartment, my modest salary and tips barely covering living expenses.\n\nMom's caller ID appears on the cell as soon as I fasten my apartment's deadbolt and shrug off the wool jacket.\n\n\"Hi, Mom, I just got home.\"\n\n\"Hey, honey. I'm afraid I have some bad news. I fell on the stairs this afternoon and sprained my knee. Can you come home a day early?\"\n\n\"Oh no, are you alright?\"\n\n\"I called Roy, but he was two hours away. The new firefighter he hired came over and drove me to Emergency.\"\n\n\"Are you in a bandage?\"\n\n\"No, Doctor Tom immobilized the knee in a brace. You'll have to help me with the cookies and pies for the annual Christmas Eve dinner.\"\n\n\"I'll call Jeremy as soon as we hang up and drive over first thing in the morning. I'm so sorry you fell; who's the new guy?\"\n\n\"A nice man in his mid-twenties, wanted to find a quiet town away from the chaos and stress of the big city. He's cute and single.\"\n\nOh no, here we go. Since I left home two years ago to attend Cosmetology school, Mom's been begging me to come back and work in the local beauty parlor. The truth is, I left not only to further my chosen career but to find distance from the endless grief since Dad died in a local factory fire. Every square inch of the small town where I grew up reminds me of him, and I needed to escape the constant sadness.\n\n\"Drive safely, dear; we have three feet of snow on the ground. Do you still have tire chains in the trunk?\"\n\n\"Yes, Mom, I've driven in snow a thousand times. Get some sleep; I love you.\"\n\n\"I love you too, Noel. This will be another tough Christmas.\"\n\n\"We'll get through this together.\"\n\nI fire a quick text to Jeremy and he approves the extra day off, thoughtfully wishing us a Merry Christmas. I finish leftover spaghetti and switch on the bedroom TV, falling asleep to a Hallmark Channel movie that could be set in my quaint hometown of Mistletoe. I wonder if I'll ever get my happy ever after."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 23",
                "text": "A restless sleep convinces me to throw a packed bag in my reliable old car and hit the open highway at three, double-checking the tire chains are still in the trunk. After a brief stop in the neighboring town of McCall for caffeine and fuel at hour three, I'm closing in on my destination, the sunrise stunning across Idaho's expansive skyline. I'm drinking a red bull and belting out Livin' on a Prayer when a deer bolts across the road, causing me to swerve into a dirt-filled ditch. My hands clamp to the wheel as the liquid splatters across the dash and I slam the brake.\n\nI'm okay, I breathe, inhaling deeply, the eerie silence of Idaho's desolate roads creeping into my sensitive ears. My phone picks up from underneath the passenger seat, and I pound my fist on the center console as it flashes No Service. The car thermometer reads thirty-two and falling with a light snowfall accumulating. There's an emergency two-way radio and road flair in the trunk with the tire chains, an emergency crate my Dad put together when I got my driver's license. I'm talking myself up to brave the cold, knowing my sneakers will get soaking wet, when two headlights appear in my rearview mirror and slowly come to a stop three feet behind my rear bumper.\n\nA large man walks towards my window dressed in a dark puffy coat with a hood, blowing into his cupped hands as his breath creates fog in the frigid air.\n\n\"Are you alright, Ma'am?\" a deep voice booms, instantly heating my blood and blooming excitement in my stomach as I wind down the window with the stiff handle.\n\n\"Fine, a buck ran in front of my car. You aren't a serial killer, are you?\"\n\n\"Do you think I'd tell you if I was?\" he chuckles, his voice tone pure honey.\n\nI'm ordered to stay put while he drives a large Ford truck in front of my car and hooks a cable wench to a tow bar underneath the Corolla's front bumper.\n\nThe morning sun's rising across the horizon, deep reds and oranges matching the stupid color on my cheeks as he returns to my window. His handsome face is less intimidating now that I have a more defined view of the chiseled features and warm blue eyes.\n\n\"Keep the car in neutral and your foot off the brake. Steer the wheel until I've got you back on solid ground. Oh, and here's a souvenir from Mistletoe.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" I mumble, unable to form a coherent sentence when he gives me a beaming smile and places an actual bundle of mistletoe in my hand.\n\nMy stuck vehicle effortlessly jerks over the small embankment and all four tires land on the pavement. I shift the gear into park while he unlatches the line, gawking at his muscular flexing arms and broad shoulders, noticing he removed his outer coat despite the freezing temperature. He stows the gear in his truck bed and returns to my window, my red nose shouting Rudolph as the cold breeze flows through my interior.\n\n\"Thanks,\" I smile, rays of light dancing through his dark brown hair, wanting to know his name but too embarrassed to ask.\n\n\"Are you traveling far? Three feet of fresh snow fell overnight; I recommend putting on tire chains if you have them.\"\n\n\"So I hear. Actually, Mistletoe's my final stop. I should be able to make it just fine.\"\n\n\"Visiting family for the holidays?\"\n\n\"My Mom injured her knee. I'm here to help with the annual Christmas dinner at the firehouse.\"\n\nA wide grin breaks across his face, not exactly news to be so darn happy about.\n\n\"I'm sorry, this is such a crazy coincidence. You must be Mrs. Blankenship's daughter, Noel. I took your Mom to urgent care.\"\n\n\"You're the new guy, Phoenix?\"\n\n\"Yes, Ma'am. At your service.\"\n\nHello, charming, not-a-serial-killer, hero.\n\n\"I'll follow you into town. Give your mother my warmest regards.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" I smirk, following his confident swagger into his truck with my suddenly curious eyes.\n\nHe waves me around, and we make the short ten minute drive to town, my hand offering a friendly wave as I turn onto Willow Drive, and he heads straight towards the firehouse."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 24",
                "text": "The aroma of cherry pie and hazelnut coffee delights my nostrils as I unlock the front door and enter my childhood home.\n\n\"Noel, you're early!\" Mom shouts with glee, resting on a kitchen stool while rolling dough.\n\n\"Let me take over; you need to rest,\" I smile, embracing her warmly.\n\n\"Nonsense, I'm fine. How was the drive?\"\n\n\"Phoenix isn't a serial killer.\"\n\n\"What!?\"\n\n\"The roads are icy, and when I swerved and slammed the brakes to avoid a deer, I ended up stuck in a ditch. He pulled up in his truck not two minutes later and used his wench to get me back on the pavement. You're right; he's cute.\"\n\n\"Dad's looking out for you even from heaven. I'm glad you're safe.\"\n\nA few compassionate tears fall, and we share a bonding hug. The oven buzzer dings, and I grab the potholders to remove the first of several delicious baked confections.\n\n\"Why's the house so empty, are you selling?\"\n\n\"No, I moved all of the valuables into storage. The home needs updates to the sewer and electrical systems. I didn't want to start construction until after New Year's.\"\n\n\"I still have a bed right?\"\n\n\"Of course. I felt mournful when packing Dad's old clothes, but maybe this will give us both a fresh start.\"\n\n\"What can I do to help?\"\n\n\"The attic needs another pass; I left our old holiday decorations. Enough about the house, tell me how your job's going?\"\n\nThe morning passes quickly as I share funny client stories, lively seasonal tunes on the radio and emotional memories of Dad fostering joyful memories of Christmas past and excitement for tomorrow night's festivities.\n\n\"Can you run to Wegman's before they close? We're out of flour and a few other items. Here's the list.\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\n\"Take my car. It has snow tires.\"\n\n\"You mean Dad's car.\"\n\n\"Go,\" she points with a chuckle.\n\nI fire the Chevy Impala's engine after scraping ice off the windshield, laughing at the argument Mom and Dad had over him buying a new car several years ago. My parents inherited Grandma Tilly's early nineteen hundreds home when she passed, and my Dad planned to build a garage for his precious vehicle shortly after we moved in.\n\nThe time was seven pm on a Tuesday when Dad raced out the door to a five-alarm fire at the abandoned tire factory building. Rotting timbers and rusted gas lines caused an explosion, and several units from nearby towns were called to battle the blaze. Dad was on a ladder holding the heavy firehose when another boom rocked the crumbling building, and he was instantly killed. We knew the risk to a firefighter's life was high but never expected to lose Dad, the town's first on-the-job fatality.\n\nFire Chief Roy still blames himself for the accident and continues helping Mom maintain the old home; that's what small-town folks do for one another. I shake my head free of the somber memories and park next to a familiar-looking truck in front of the grocery store, sloshing through the dirty salted snow in search of flour and eggs."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 25",
                "text": "\"Noel?\" Phoenix's voice calls out as I'm putting two bottles of pure vanilla extract in my basket.\n\n\"Hi,\" I grin, turning to see a gorgeous full uniformed fireman with a cart full of turkeys and potatoes, my captivated lips parting at the stunning view.\n\n\"How's your mother doing?\"\n\n\"Great, a knee sprain won't stop her from baking the state's best cherry pies.\"\n\n\"I can't wait to find out for myself. I think that's Roy's favorite part of Christmas. Will you be at the dinner too?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I whisper, lost to a hunky hero's glowing, delighted eyes. \"Um, can I ask you a favor, you know, since you have a truck?\"\n\n\"Anything.\"\n\n\"I want to surprise Mom with something; she hasn't decorated for the holidays since we lost Dad three years ago. When I drop her off tomorrow afternoon at the station, could you help me with a tree?\"\n\n\"I'm truly sorry for your loss, the guys still tell stories of his bravery and service when I'm at the station. My brother died in a house fire nine months ago. I wasn't on duty that night, and I'm still trying to come to grips. That's one of the reasons I decided to slow life down and move to Mistletoe.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry too, I know exactly how you feel. Where did you get the name Phoenix?\"\n\n\"My brother nicknamed me that when I joined the squad after high school and became a full-fledged fireman. In a small way, it's helping me rise from the ashes of loss, knowing I'm making him proud.\"\n\n\"That's beautiful,\" I breathe, his warm thumb wiping a few tears from my eye's corners, melting my pounding heart.\n\n\"I'd be honored to help. Do you need decorations too?\"\n\n\"No, Mom still has boxes in the attic. I'll take a look tomorrow morning.\"\n\n\"Be careful up there. The home's getting old, and I'll bet the space is filled with dust and loose planks. I noticed burn marks on an outlet in the family room yesterday.\"\n\n\"I guess I can rule out serial killer, then?\" I chuckle to lighten the mood as we stroll towards checkout.\n\n\"The only cereal I kill is Lucky Charms.\"\n\n\"That's my favorite too!\"\n\n\"Your turn. Why did your parents name you Noel?\"\n\n\"They were told they couldn't have kids, and I was conceived at Christmas time.\"\n\n\"The blessing's all mine,\" he murmurs close to my ear, motioning me to check out first.\n\n\"Noel, great to see you!\" Karla grins, ringing up my baking goods as I tap my credit card to the payment machine.\n\n\"How's the family?\" I ask, her head unsubtly nodding to the stud standing behind me.\n\n\"Jackson and Bethany are in middle school already. Will we see you tomorrow night?\"\n\n\"Yes, Ma'am,\" Phoenix interjects, pinking my cheeks as he loads the groceries onto the belt, and I wait for him to complete the process.\n\n\"Bye,\" Karla chirps, nodding her head in approval when Phoenix sets my bags in his cart and leads us out the automatic doors.\n\n\"Here's my cell number. Call me after you drop off your Mom, and I'll bring over the tree.\"\n\nI input his digits into my phone as he politely loads my bags into the Impala's trunk before stowing his own groceries.\n\n\"This is a great car. The snow tires are much safer than your Toyota.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you approve. Thanks again for taking care of my mom yesterday, and her daughter.\"\n\n\"It's my job, Ma'am,\" he smirks, laughing as I squeal the tires backing into the slushy parking lot, melting my resistance faster than the warming snow."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 26",
                "text": "The sheer exhilaration lighting my face is impossible to hide as Mom grills me when I bring the bags into the kitchen.\n\n\"I haven't seen you this happy in years. Why don't you move back home?\"\n\n\"Hold that thought; my boss is calling.\"\n\nI stride to my old room, Jeremy's downtrodden voice dropping my bottom onto the bed.\n\n\"The bank foreclosed on the building this morning; the salon's closed for good. I can't afford to move to a new location.\"\n\n\"That's awful timing. What a bunch of grinches.\"\n\n\"I know. I'm sorry you're out of a job. I'll make some calls after Christmas and let you know if I find any good prospects.\"\n\n\"Are you still going to your sisters for dinner? You shouldn't be alone.\"\n\n\"Yep, she's the only family I've got. Maybe I need to rethink my priorities.\"\n\n\"Me too. Have a Merry Christmas, Jeremy. Everything will work out.\"\n\n\"You too, hon.\"\n\nThe last twenty-four hours have been a whirlwind of mixed emotions, but I haven't felt this excited about dating someone since ever, and Mom needs my help around the house for a while. Maybe Kris Kringle's setting me up for a new direction in life, 'tis the season for miracles, as they say.\n\nI decide not to mention the news to mom and we laugh, cry, and bake until it's three o'clock on Christmas Eve, and I'm dropping her off at the fire station to help prepare dinner. Roy's doting on her, carrying the boxes of pies and cookies from the trunk, making her comfortable on a stool and complimenting the aromatic smell of cherry. She winks at me when Phoenix walks in and accompanies me back to the car to retrieve a final round of decorated sugar cookies.\n\n\"I have to pick up a few residents from the retirement home, and then I'll bring over the tree.\"\n\n\"Sounds perfect. I'll tell Mom I forgot this box and have to run home. That will give me time to string out the lights and dust off the ornaments box I located in the attic.\"\n\n\"I'm beyond glad you're here, Noel. I wish you were sticking around.\"\n\n\"You never know,\" I sheepishly smile, closing the trunk's lid and hurrying into the firehouse so he doesn't see the furious blush crossing my cold cheeks."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 27",
                "text": "I've spent thirty minutes laying out colorful strands of lights and glass ornaments on the family room sofa for the tree's arrival, plugging them in and clapping as they light up. I unlock the front door, texting Phoenix to bring the tree straight into the family room, and climb up the rickety ladder into the attic for the angel tree topper. This was my Dad's favorite, and I feel it's time to restart this family tradition.\n\nDusty cobwebs fly across my face as I search for the specific box I saw this morning, panic halting my breath as I begin smelling smoke and see the gray haze floating up the stairs. Phoenix warned me about the family room outlet, but I was so distracted I think I plugged the lights into the wrong socket. The air's thickening as I struggle on my knees to get down the ladder, missing a rung and falling backward onto the hallway floor as pain spreads through my ankle.\n\nMy phone's downstairs and the house is on fire. My only thought is to crawl into the bathroom and shut the door, putting towels along the jam to prevent further smoke from infiltrating. Please, Dad, help me, I cry, wetting my hair and clothing with the bathroom faucet as he taught me years ago as a child.\n\n\"Noel!\" a man's voice screams into the air, coughing as I reply in my loudest voice.\n\n\"In the bathroom!\" I manage to shout, ducking as the door kicks in and Phoenix's fearful face morphs into relief.\n\nI'm scooped into his arms and shielded from the scalding heat with his giant arm as he rushes down the stairs and out the front door, my lungs gasping for fresh air as he runs us behind the firetruck.\n\n\"Clear the area!\" he orders, emergency personnel ducking behind the truck just as an explosion bursts through the house, the sickening scent of gas adding to the already overwhelming sensory environment.\n\n\"Are you okay?\" he asks worriedly, removing his face shield and helmet, the sound of additional sirens approaching filling my ringing ears.\n\n\"How did you know?\" I choke, tears streaming from my lids as arriving emergency personnel begin putting out the fire.\n\n\"The call at your address came into the station the second I returned with the residents from the retirement home. Roy drove the firetruck, and I jumped out as soon as we stopped, knowing you were inside. Thank goodness you sent the text to me and left the door unlocked: I wasn't going to let anything happen to the girl I'm falling in love with.\"\n\n\"She's alright, Caroline,\" Roy shouts into his walkie after organizing the incoming firemen's assignments, slapping Phoenix hard on the shoulder.\n\n\"I'm ok, Mom, really,\" I speak into the radio, her hysterical voice breaking into a Oh Thank Heavens!\n\n\"Excellent work, Griffen. I'm so sorry about the house, Noel. We're all grateful you're okay.\"\n\nMy eyes close, and I rest against my hero's thumping chest, thanking Dad for sending him to save me, twice.\n\n\"Are you hurt?\" a tender voice whispers into my ear, sweetly grasping my cheek until our eyes meet.\n\n\"I twisted my ankle. Do you mean it?\"\n\n\"With all of my heart. Only the man upstairs could have organized these synchronistic circumstances. We're meant for each other.\"\n\nHe unzips his outer fire coat, pulling a green bunch of mistletoe from his inside shirt pocket and holding the bundle above my head.\n\n\"I was hoping to use this later tonight, but now seems perfect.\"\n\nGentle lips meet mine, a timeless honest kiss sealing our fate as the world disappears around us.\n\n\"Your real name is Griffen?\" I whisper against his lips, brushing my dirty fingers along his temples as our eyes soften with love. \"You know that means divine guardian, right?\"\n\n\"Your Dad and my brother must have worked overtime to set this up with the big guy. Will you stay in town, with me? I have three extra bedrooms for you and your mother.\"\n\n\"I lost my job yesterday, so there isn't anything tying me to Boise anymore. That's some major influence those two have. I'd love to.\"\n\n\"I'm going to call you my Mistletoe miracle, and maybe someday my wife.\"\n\n\"Be careful what you wish for. They're watching.\"\n\nAnother heart-stopping kiss graces my lips before he lifts us to standing and sets me on the waiting paramedic gurney.\n\n\"I'm going to ride with Noel to the hospital,\" Griffen shouts to Roy, the fire chief's head-nodding approval.\n\n\"Ready?\" the paramedic calls from the driver's seat of the ambulance after securing the back doors.\n\n\"For anything, Angelo,\" my handsome, heroic firemen grins, double slapping the metal and weaving our fingers together.\n\n\"An angel's driving us. This can't be real.\"\n\n\"I'm falling head over heels for you, Noel. I don't need any more signs to confirm how I feel.\"\n\n\"Me too, not-a-serial-killer Phoenix. I can't wait for you to taste the pies, they're a tradition.\"\n\n\"Cherry, right?\"\n\n\"With a dash of Mistletoe miracle.\"\n\n\u2042\n\n[ PANCAKES WITH A MISTLETOE ON TOP by MAYA LEMAIRE ]\n\nToday was the day. I looked into the mirror and pinched my cheeks to get some color into them. I needed to look my best, it wasn't everyday you met your best friend's fianc\u00e9. My mouth turned into a grimace at the thought. I quickly shook my head, dispelling the negativity but causing my brown curls to stick to my still wet lip stain in the process.\n\nI let out some choice swear words as I picked my lipstick back up and then took my sweet ass time applying a few layers of touch up coats. My distraction didn't last long, and I was soon forced to face the music and push myself to leave my damn bathroom.\n\nBefore I knew it my boots, coat, hat, and mittens were on and I stepped over the threshold closing the door behind me. I turned on the car heater and waited for my windows to defrost. Putting my hand under my armpits, I watched my breath make little clouds of smoke. It was your typical winter day in Canada, everything covered in white stuff and cold enough to freeze hell over.\n\nAs the windows slowly defrosted, I let my mind wander and distract me from the cold. I thought about how I should act when I met her fianc\u00e9, what I should say to them both, if the guy was as much of a monster as I pictured him to be in my head. I obviously had some strong thoughts on my lifelong friend's current situation, but I didn't want to be an unsupportive bitch either.\n\nThe problem was that the balance of friend and unsupportive bitch was a very very fine one. I guessed it was all a matter of continuing to drop some hints about how I was really feeling, while I sprinkled stories with subtle morals or stories of people who took their relationships too far too fast. Of course, I would support her decision in the end, but I needed to know that I did all I could to inform her of how her decision could be the wrong one.\n\nWe were different, she and I. I liked to over analyze every single decision in my life and she trusted her heart with a reckless abandon, which I sometimes envied. It might give her some heartache later on, but she certainly spent less time fretting over decisions that might end up being wrong anyways. No matter how much you thought a decision through, there was still a chance that life took your carefully laid out plans and turned them on their heads. I still didn't know which of our methods was better, but at least our opposing approaches to decision-making were well suited for one another.\n\nI took one more moment to rest my forehead on the steering wheel and let out some deep centering breaths before straightening up, giving the windshield a couple squirts of antifreeze and turning the key in the ignition. Here goes nothing.\n\nAs I pulled into the parking lot of the rundown family diner, I forced myself to relax my jaw and smooth the wrinkles in my forehead. As my hands begrudgingly turned off the ignition, my friend's voice fluttered in my mind as our conversation from a month earlier repeated once again in my thoughts.\n\n\"Oh you will absolutely love him Evie! He is just so charming, and nice, and really really hot. He really cares about me too. you'll see! Now I know you're going to call me crazy, but I just knew the second I saw him, like we were destined for each other or something, we just fit together you know?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure I do know Stace, how long have you known this guy again? You only left for that internship 8 months ago.\"\n\n\"I met him a few weeks in, it's practically been a whole year! You have to trust me on this Evie, please agree to meet up with us. It would really really mean a lot to me ...\"\n\nI sniffled as the cold started to seep into the now turned off car. The neon sign proclaiming world best pancakes stared at me from the diner's front window, beckoning me to its heated interior and tempting me with one of my favorite foods. It damn well be the world's best pancakes because anything less was not going to make this supper any more enjoyable. I was also hoping they served alcohol with their all-day breakfast because I might be needing that too.\n\nI opened the car door before my resolve failed and quickly ran to the restaurant's door. Someone needed to tell Jack Frost to calm down, I could feel my eyelashes freezing in the 20-foot distance from my car to the restaurant lobby.\n\nAs I pushed the door open, I plastered a bright smile on my face, as artificial as the fake mistletoe on top of the front door. God, I hated mistletoe. It had such a long history, with records of mistletoe being used all the way back to ancient Greece, yet these days it was only an excuse for people to grope you. Such a shame, yet another thing consumerism has f'd-up.\n\nA quick glance around let me know no one else was here yet, I was opening my phone to check if Stacy had texted me when I was plowed into from behind. I looked up and the first thing my eye caught was the offensive mistletoe, before falling on a very tall and disheveled man. Immediately my hackles rose, this did nothing to help my bad mood.\n\n\"What do you think you're doing?!\" I bit out at the exact same time the guy said.\n\n\"So sorry! I didn't see you!\"\n\nWe stared at each other in silence for a moment before I broke the tension.\n\n\"Ya, well please look where you're going next time\" I said. When words failed me I tended to get defensive, and quite often it made me sound like a rightful bitch. I sighed and opened my mouth up to give a better apology.\n\n\"Will do Barbie.\"\n\n\"Barbie!?\" My previous decision to apologize for my bad temper fell away. I wasn't sure what to make of that comment, if he was commenting on my plump figure, my heavily applied makeup or something else entirely. Whatever the reason, I damn well knew an insult when I heard one.\n\nI looked at the guy more closely, if anything, he was a Ken doll. He had green eyes, a firm and square jaw, and an impressive build. His auburn hair had a red tint to it and, while disheveled, it still fell elegantly around his ears to frame his face. He had on a black and red plaid coat but I could still tell he was toned and muscular.\n\n\"Whatever you say Ken,\" I told him as I continued my perusal purposely skimming over his lower abdomen despite what looked like a security breach in the fly department. \"Just leave this 'Barbie' alone because she doesn't need any more Kens in her life\". I then lifted my eyes up to his and shrugged, as if to say, I've seen better.\n\nWannabe Ken was completely unfazed by my insult, he just smirked as he leaned against the hostess podium. His arms flexed in a delicious way. Man, he was definitely an asshat but he was gorgeous and he knew it.\n\n\"Someone's having a bad day.\"\n\nOh, that did it, today was not the right day to mess with me. A smile slowly crept up my lips and I probably looked a bit unhinged as I glanced back to his crotch area, this time fully taking it in. \"Seems I'm not the only one, forget to button up and zip your jeans today? Or is that just something Kens don't have the mental capacity to know how to do?\"\n\nHis eyes challenged me for a second before he gave in and looked down. He immediately cursed under his breath and turned around to do up his pants. He must have rushed here after a quick hookup and forgotten to button up his pants I mused. Typical Ken.\n\nWhen he turned back the muscle in his jaw ticked, he looked me over, probably to find a flaw to comment on, but instead his jaw relaxed and his eyes fell to my cleavage and then up to my lips. His gaze got heated for a tiny second before he yanked his eyes up sharply.\n\nWhen he caught me staring he just shrugged \"I would make a comment but there really is nothing to comment on. Take that as you will.\"\n\nLiar, I thought. He didn't like but, He totally liked what he saw. I wasn't sure why, but that gave me some kind of maniacal glee. It really really did.\n\nI sat down on one of the chairs and crossed my long legs in front of me, then I took out my phone and tried to think of anything else but him. It was kind of hard though, I could swear I felt the asshat's presence near me and my mind kept oscillating between angry thoughts and very naughty thoughts. When I got this Stacy thing figured out, I desperately needed to get back onto the dating scene and get myself some action.\n\nThe thought surprised me for a moment, before a sense of calm rushed over me. I think I was finally ready. My heart thumped excitedly. Maybe this visceral reaction to Ken was my sign I was ready to move on from my last relationship, to finally let that shit fire go. My lips tilted into the slightest smile as I let myself both sink into that thought and the feelings Mr. Ken was making me feel.\n\nOnly a few minutes ticked by but it felt like it was hours. Keeping my eyes on the phone and not letting them flick to the man who now sat across from me felt almost like a winter Olympic sport. I didn't regret it though. It had been too long since I let myself indulge in these types of feelings. Who cared if it was for a jerk face like Ken, it was an exhilarating piece of progress.\n\nWhen the front door opened with the chime of a bell and swirl of frigid air I looked up, grateful for the interruption. Any longer and I might have done something stupid. But when I saw my best friend, her arm hooked into the guy's arm, the light feeling quickly turned heavy and settled into a pool of dread in my stomach.\n\nShe swooped in slightly out of breath, her light brown hair streaked with red and green was swooped into a messy bun which somehow still looked elegant and put together. Witchcraft if you asked me. I spent only a few seconds on my friend's stick figure, perfectly applied makeup and legging and cardigan ensemble before I zoomed in on him. I could see what she saw in him, he was a bit different then her usual type but still had a sort of air of sophistication. Carefully coiffed black hair falling slightly over one eye, defined cheekbones, and plump lips. He was in black jeans with a black jumper, the only accessory was a small silver piercing in his right ear and some kind of gold chain tucked under his shirt. He had no coat, but considering he was also out of breath I assumed they just took a run for it and left them in the car. Another sign that this guy was in fact her type, just as incredibly impulsive as her, always ready to have a laugh and try something new despite potential consequences.\n\nAs they stepped under the mistletoe Stace looked up and her mouth curved into a smile, she wrapped her arm around her guy's neck and pulled him in for a kiss. The guy looked stunned for a second, his back ramrod straight, before he relaxed and a big grin burst on his face as he returned the kiss with passion. I was all about expressing your sexuality but for some reason I felt myself blush at the sight. Despite what I thought about their decisions, I could tell Stace was completely smitten with him, and unless he was a good actor, I was pretty sure he returned the affection. Their kiss felt somehow incredibly intimate, like they were in their own little world and nothing else mattered.\n\nA throat cleared behind me making me jump, I turned to throw daggers at the culprit, when I saw the sound came from none other than Mr. Ken those daggers became flaming projectiles. If he thought he was going to mess with Stace and her new boyfriend he had another thing coming. Didn't matter how I felt about the relationship, she was still my friend.\n\nMatt pulled away from Stacy's now red and swollen lips and looked towards Mr. Ken. As he caught Mr. Ken's eyes, his cheeks blushed bright red and he looked embarrassed.\n\n\"Sorry John. I didn't see you there mate.\" Matt said.\n\nStace pulled away from Matt who still had his hand around her waist and walked over to John with a big smile on her face.\n\n\"It's so nice to meet you!\" she said going in for a big hug. John seemed absolutely uncomfortable with this development, his whole body language screamed that he wasn't as thrilled to meet Stacy as she was to meet him.\n\nDespite my current feeling about Mr. Ken I eventually took pity on the poor guy trapped in one of Stacy's never ending hugs. Well, that and I was kind of annoyed at being completely looked over, so I took a page from John's book and cleared my throat loudly.\n\nThree sets of eyes simultaneously turned to me.\n\n\"Oh my god Evie!\" Stacy said as she changed targets and came barreling into me. She squeezed me hard as she continued to speak loudly and excitedly. \"I was so worried you might not come! Matt told me John was definitely going to be here, and I mean you've never let me down before, but I know how you feel about all this, and I was worried...\"\n\n\"Stace, breathe\" I panted through her tight grip.\n\nShe let out a laugh and gave me one more tight squeeze before releasing me and backing up. \"Ooops. I guess I'm excited.\"\n\nA smile curved my lips, despite the fact I was still upset at this situation. Stacy had not only perfected the witchcraft of always looking polished, even in a messy bun, but also the witchcraft of always being able to make me smile even when no one else could.\n\n\"Well,\" Matt said, giving me a big smile and bringing us back to the present. \"I'm glad you could both be here. By the way, Evie, this is John\" he said pointing to Mr. Ken \"And John this is Evie.\"\n\nJohn walked up to me, and I eyed him unsure of how he was going to play this. \"Nice to meet you Evie,\" he said, extending his hand \"Lovely name\".\n\nI arched an eyebrow and stared at his hand a moment before taking it. \"Nice to meet you too Ken... oh sorry I mean John. Ken is this ass hole in the book I'm currently reading, how embarrassing.\" His large hand twitched a second in mine before he pulled it back and gave me a large smile. If I didn't know we kind of hated each other's guts right now, I would have almost bought it.\n\n\"Oh no worries, we all sometimes get fact and fiction mixed up.\"\n\nStacy gave me a look, which in girl language translates to, \"Do you know him?\" and \"Is there something going on between you two?'. I shook my head and she smoothly turned the conversation around.\n\n\"Well, let's go get some seats shall we?\" She led the way with Matt in tow and I fell back with John.\n\n\"So, Matt brought a wingman then. Guess he didn't feel like he could handle things on his own when facing one measly woman.\"\n\n\"No, he told me he thought it might be more pleasant if we had four people instead of three, something about not wanting anyone to feel like a third wheel. Obviously, I didn't fall for that bull crap, much like you shouldn't fall for the thought of Matt being scared of a woman. Whatever his reason was to invite both of us doesn't matter, invited or not I would have come anyway.\"\n\n\"Why is that?\" I asked taking the bait.\n\n\"Because I want them to get married as much as you do, which is not very much at all. I felt he needed someone here to help him see reason when he met his Fianc\u00e9e's best friend.\"\n\n\"Who says I don't want them to get married?\"\n\n\"Don't play games Eve. I'm sure my thoughts on the situation were as clearly written on my face as they were on yours.\"\n\n\"It's Evie.\" I corrected him with a glare. \"And OK, I might not be happy with this either but there's not much we can do.\"\n\n\"If we work together, we can maybe get them to subtly see things our way, get them to postpone the marriage until they know each other better or something. And ya, I know it's Evie but I prefer Eve, Barbie girl.\"\n\nSeething, I put my arm out to stop John while Matt and Stace kept walking towards the back of the restaurant, oblivious.\n\n\"I'm sorry John, but you don't get to change my name. It's Evie, not Eve, not Barbie, Evie. It's one extra letter, it's not that hard. As for your other plan,\" I let out a resigned sigh, \"I'm down. But we both have to make sure that when we drop hints they aren't too obvious but also not so obscure that they don't get the message.\"\n\n\"Easy peasy. Stacy is our biggest problem. If we talk her down Matt will follow. Matt has a good head on his shoulders, he thinks things through. This kind of thing is just not like him. Stacy on the other hand, well, I just met your friend but from what I've pulled together this kind of impulsive behavior is not new to her.\"\n\nI opened my mouth to reply, to say something to back up my friend, maybe something against Matt to even up the field, but I had nothing. John wasn't wrong, Stacy was super impulsive. I had assumed Matt was the same but this was apparently not in his normal realm of behavior, and it was kind of throwing me for a loop. The new information was cracking and shifting the narrative I had built about the situation.\n\nJohn's lips pulled into a smirk, something I was beginning to understand was a signature move for him. \"Come on Eve\" he said as he walked off \"We have work to do.\"\n\nI watched his tight tush stroll away and cursed as I shook my head. Not only did I just let that bastard have the upper hand, but I also let his firm butt distract me, which only gave him more ammunition.\n\nThe waitress slid a large stack of chocolate pancakes in front of John and then a smaller stack of blueberry pancakes with a side of bacon my way.\n\n\"So,\" Matt said a bit nervously. \"Now that we kind of got the introductions out of the way, how about some ice breakers?\"\n\n\"I just love how organized you are sweetie!\" Stacy said, giving him a peck on his cheek.\n\nJohn leaned into me as Stacy helped Matt pull some things out from a bag on the floor, I hadn't even seen them bring it in, but then again, I had a lot of things on my mind.\n\n\"See what I mean? Matt, he's the type of guy to plan extensive ice breakers for a restaurant meal, not the type to get married after maybe 7 or 8 months of knowing someone.\"\n\n\"In Stacy's defense\" I whispered back \"she's never done this before either.\" In fact, most of her relationships burned up in flames by this time, but I conveniently left that part out. She hadn't had the best dating streak since her last serious boyfriend dumped her in the middle of a skydiving jump and then ghosted her. I'm still determined to find that jackass one day and give him a piece of my mind.\n\n\"So...\" Stacy said as she lifted her head up from digging in the bag. Her cheeks were red and she looked a bit embarrassed. That was new, I could count on my hands the number of times she was embarrassed in public, and I had known her practically her whole life. Usually, she turned the moment around somehow, or strutted out of the situation like she did it on purpose. Maybe shy Matt was rubbing off on her as much as she was rubbing off on him.\n\n\"I might have brought the wrong bag. Matt had packed all these awesome activities and after our hot sex we were in such a rush that I must have grabbed the wrong bag. This one is full of books, books that we meant to donate. If Matt hadn't done what he did in bed I...\"\n\nMatt grabbed her hand and cut her off, his cheeks turning pink again. Poor guy, he'd better get used to Stacy or his cheeks would permanently look like they had were covered in red blush. \"I'm sure they don't want those kinds of details babe... How about I pick a game we don't need supplies for, I wrote some down in my phone the other day in case.\"\n\nStacy showered him with praise while in the corner of my eye I saw John lean back in his seat and cross his arms. His large \"I told you so\" smirk was firmly directed at me. Ass!\n\n\"How about we just do a good old game of truths?\" John asked after a moment of Matt and Stacy scrolling through the list on Matt's phone. \"If you back out of a question you are out, last one in the game wins and gets bragging perks.\"\n\n\"I'm game.\" I say even though I had never heard of a game called truths. I assumed this was John's way of setting up the floor for me and him to start our plan, operation \"convince our friends to delay their hurried marriage without losing said friends\".\n\n\"Me too!\" Said Stace without hesitation. \"I mean, unless Matt doesn't want to join?\"\n\nMy brows rose, this was new too. Stace never cared before about what her other boyfriends thought about her choices. Sure, she listened if they asked for something but she never asked their thoughts before deciding to do something. Another small but drastic change. It seemed Matt was rubbing off on her as much as she was rubbing off on him, and for some reason, it seemed to be working in both of their favors. While she got him out of his shell and taught him to let loose and follow his heart no matter how impulsive, he seemed to be teaching her indirectly to be more aware of her surroundings and other people's feelings. I've known her practically my whole life and had yet to have that effect on her, despite the fact that those reserved characteristics were a big part of my own personality.\n\n\"Eve, you want to start it off?\" John asked with a pointed look that confirmed his motive for this game.\n\nMy eyes narrowed at the nickname. \"Sure thing Johnathan\"\n\nJohn returned my gaze, challenging me, before I broke eye contact and turned to look at Matt. If we kept this up, we would blow our cover before we even started.\n\n\"So Matt, tell us the story of how you first met Stacy and what your first impressions of her were.\"\n\nStacy rolled her eyes as she picked up her beer for a swig. Ok, maybe that first question wasn't so subtle, I'd work on it.\n\n\"Well, as you know, I met Stacy in London. I was also there on a work Visa and hadn't really made many friends, despite being there for a little while. The only friend I did have was this guy named Jerold. To be honest, I kind of hated the guy. He was nice enough, but he just got under my skin. So, Jerold drags me to this club he said is 'the' place to party. I... well I'm not a big party person, but again, at the time, Jerold was my only buddy out there and I didn't want to lose him by rejecting his invite to go out again. Anyways, I'm in the club and kind of off to the side just enjoying my drink when I spot this literal angel in front of me. No laughing man.\" He said with a pointed look at John, who then raises his hands in surrender.\n\n\"So, I try not to stare at this angel in front of me, but man, I just had this feeling I should go talk to her. So I manned up and walked up to her as she was dancing in the middle of the dance floor. The music was pounding so I tapped her on her shoulder to get her attention and Stacy here just sweeps me into whatever dance she was doing. Before I knew it, my body just kind of relaxed and I fell into step with her, which is weird. John can confirm I've never been a dancer.\"\n\n\"Two left feet is what he has,\" John says, taking a sip of his own drink.\n\n\"By the time we pulled away, somehow half an hour had gone by. Stacy asked me for a drink. Jarold was stoned out of his mind by then and hanging with another group of friends, so I followed her to a bar a few streets down and things just kind of progressed from there. We started off with coffee, then went to Big Ben, a boat tour and some museums. Not sure when it happened, but eventually we both just knew and here we are.\" He finished as he gave Stacy's intertwined hand a soft squeeze.\n\n\"And all because of Jarold,\" Stacy laughed out. \"Who knew a guy whose idea of fun was throwing Pop Rocks into the river Thames would be the reason I met the love of my life.\"\n\nI filed the urge to ask about that story for later and focused on another piece of information. \"Wait, you went to a museum with Matt?\"\n\n\"Museums, plural.\" Matt said with a happy smile.\n\n\"Trust me Evie, I wasn't thrilled\" Stacy quickly added \"but for some reason museums in London are just better? I actually had a lot of fun.\"\n\n\"Maybe it was the company?\" Matt said.\n\n\"Nah, that can be it.\" She teased right back.\n\n\"So,\" John says loudly, taking control of the conversation. \"My turn. Stacy, why do you want to marry Matt? You know he has no money right now and no inheritance coming his way.\"\n\n\"Dude!\" Matt said.\n\nSeemed John needed a lesson in subtlety just as much as I did.\n\n\"No, It's OK\" Stacy interjected \"Matt's told me about your friendship John. Why you guys are so close and how you kind of see him as your little brother. I get that you're just trying to protect him.\"\n\nI was obviously missing some key pieces of inside information but John neither denied or confirmed Stacy's statement.\n\n\"Alright, so Matt asked you to confirm some things with his answer and I'll ask Evie to do the same for me. I can be impulsive...\"\n\n\"Very impulsive.\" I added.\n\n\"Very impulsive\" Stace confirmed with a cheeky smile my way \"But I'm also smart. Maybe not in the textbook kind of way, but if life experiences could count as educational credits, then you could definitely say that I got a thorough education.\"\n\nShe looked at me to confirm and I nodded. My heart twisted as I thought about what she was indirectly speaking about.\n\n\"I wouldn't jump into marriage without being sure, I've learned better than that through my own... education. But with Matt, there's not only unexplainable things that makes this feel right, but there are also physical proof that what we have is right. Not only right, but as close to perfect as you can get. Matt makes me a better person. He kind of balances my crazy. It's more than that but words are Evie's thing, not mine. So, to answer your questions John, I'm marrying him not only for love, not only because I think he makes me better, but because I know it will work. I just know. We've been tested by quite a few adventures in London, and we only came out of them stronger. We had big fights, but always came back from them with a deeper understanding of one another. We're just good together. This is the guy I want to spend the rest of my life with. Why wait when I've never been so sure of anything in my life?\"\n\nThere's a moment of silence after she finished where Matt and Stace just shared a look of such longing and trust that my heart ached. Then Matt gave Stacy a large cheeky grin and said \"Ditto\" effectively breaking the moment.\n\nStacy let out a loud laugh and pushed him back which only made Matt's grin widen.\n\n\"Alright, I'll go next\" Matt said joyfully, \"Evie, how did you meet your last boyfriend?\"\n\nI stiffened as Stacy's face blanched, all humor gone.\n\n\"You don't have to answer.\" Stacy quickly said.\n\nI looked over to John and then back to Matt. I had made progress earlier tonight, an honest to God breakthrough. I wasn't going to let that experience get control over me again so soon. I couldn't let it happen. There was also no way in hell I was going down on my first question. If anyone was going down first it was going to be John. I could just imagine him gloating that I lost first and the thought set something in me aflame.\n\nMatt exchanged a look with Stacy, \"Ya, that was a stupid question. I'll ask another one.\"\n\n\"No. No, It's fine.\" I took a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth. \"My last relationship was a little while ago. I met... I met him at a university post-grad function. He was a business major, determined to climb his way up and become a successful businessman. He was charming, too charming. Exactly the kind of guy who could charm you into buying an expensive knife set you really didn't need before you could even process what just happened. Before I knew it, I was under his spell, but... but he was never under mine. No one could break his hold on me, not even Stace, not even, not even him hitting me or yelling at me.\" I gulped and looked down as the tears threatened to spill. \"The spell only broke when one night he took things too far... and I've been single ever since.\" I quickly finished.\n\nShit, I hadn't meant to share that much, but as soon as I started talking the words kept coming out, one after the other, tumbling out of my mouth until some of my darkest moments were revealed in front of two men who were basically strangers. It was both cathartic to let someone other than Stacy hear that story, and mortifying.\n\nThe oppressive silence that followed my story only deepened my shame. I started to sweat. I felt cold. My heart started to pound in my chest. I couldn't get enough air. I needed air. I had to get out, I had to get air, I had...\n\nA fork swooped in front of me and scooped a piece of my blueberry pancakes.\n\nI look up to see Johnathan stick the forkful into his mouth. As he chewed, his fork came right back to my plate to take another forkful.\n\n\"What the fuck? Those are my pancakes Jonathan!\"\n\n\"Not anymore.\" John said as he shoved his next bite into his full mouth.\n\n\"You son of a bitch!\" I said as I pulled my plate away from him.\n\n\"I'm not really a blueberry person but this is very good, really sweet. Mmmm! I think I'll take some more. Pass the plate over will ya.\"\n\n\"Like hell I will!\"\n\nJohn laughed as he made a grab for my plate. I realized then what he was doing. It hit me like a bulldozer. My heart released it's panicked hold on me and softened to become all warm and fuzzy. He was distracting me. He was distracting me, and it was working. It was working really well.\n\n\"Just take mine asshole.\" Matt laughed as he pushed his plate towards John.\n\n\"No way man.\" He said pushing the plate right back. \"You got that weird ass carrot cake pancake thing. No one wants those.\"\n\nStace took John's side on how carrot cake pancakes shouldn't exist and how they were the Hawaiian pizza of specialty pancakes. Before I knew it, we are all laughing and exchanging lighthearted banter. When our game of truths started back up, I found myself enjoying it. My reservations for Stacy's marriage were slowly fading away as I warmed up to Matt and saw how much they cared for each other. Matt really was a good guy. I had a good bullshit meter, especially after my last relationship, and he didn't even register on the scale. Meanwhile, John was also growing on me. It seemed he wasn't as bad as I first thought, and I couldn't stop myself from being pulled into his stories, his laugh, his eyes, the little smirk he made when he thought he was right...\n\n\"My turn.\" John said, \"Where did you get that girly gold necklace?\"\n\nMatt blushed even deeper than the last few times he was embarrassed. I don't think I'd ever seen someone's cheeks turn quite so red.\n\n\"Stacy got it for me,\" Matt confessed after some prodding from John. \"about three months into our relationship. It was an important night. I mean, by the time she got it for me we were both kind of shit faced but it's still a night I will never forget and never want to forget.\"\n\n\"Oh. My. God. You kept it?!\" Stace shrieked so loud the whole restaurant probably heard her.\n\n\"I always have it with me,\" Matt admitted. \"But I only started wearing it recently. You're not always the most observant of those small things babe.\" he teased.\n\n\"I guess anytime It would be in full view and not under your shirt I would be too occupied with other things ...\" She leaned forward to whisper something in his ear when her arm caught on my cup of adult eggnog, spilling the liquid all over her shirt and pants.\n\n\"Crap!\" Stacy cursed.\n\nMatt jumped out of his chair. \"Let me help you get that cleaned up babe, come on.\" He pulled her up from her chair and steered her towards the bathroom.\n\nI quickly took a stack of napkins from the table dispenser and started to mop up the mess.\n\nJohn walked over to an empty table and took another stack of napkins before coming back and helping me out.\n\n\"So, they're kind of great together, aren't they?\" I asked him as we finished cleaning up the last of the mess.\n\nJohn flicked his hair out his eyes as he put the last of the wet napkins into Stacy's empty plate.\n\n\"I hate to admit this, but they really are.\"\n\nI watched him slump back into his chair and run his hand through his hair, my heart skipped a beat at the sight, and I inwardly chastised myself. Maybe John was growing on me, but we didn't start on the right foot and there was no way to know if his opinion of me had changed at all. I fiddled with my napkin to distract myself, my mind running over possible scenarios as he started speaking again.\n\n\"I don't really know what got to me, but I think I might be open to their marriage now, or at least as open as I can be after one dinner with them. It's still a little while away, at worst we can maybe team up again and do some kind of emergency intervention.\"\n\n\"Because that worked so well this time,\" I snorted. \"But ya, I agree. I think if they are still the way they were tonight in a few months then they have my full blessing.\"\n\nI looked up from my now destroyed napkin to see him eying me. \"What?\" I asked.\n\n\"That snort was kind of cute.\" He said softly, leaning in close. My eyes met his and I got lost for a second as they captivated me. I bit my lower lip as I imagined the feeling of his lips on mine, our tongues clashing as he wrapped his arm around my...\n\n\"We're back!\" Stacy announced. \"Matt got some paper towels from a waitress and we got it almost all off... Am I missing something?\"\n\nJohn and I jolted back from one another, breaking the moment.\n\n\"Not at all!\" John said, his usual smirk back in place.\n\nA hurtful pang in my gut follows his words, had he been playing with me, did I imagine that sizzling tension?\n\nWe all went back to our food and our conversation picked up where it left off. As Matt showed off the gold necklace, I could swear John inched his chair just a little bit closer to mine, and it stayed that way for the rest of the meal.\n\n\"It was nice to meet you Evie, hopefully we can get together again soon? I know how much you mean to Stacy and I would love to get to know you more.\"\n\n\"I'd like that Matt\" I said truthfully.\n\n\"Good.\" He answered with a warm smile as he gave me a quick hug goodbye.\n\nStace gave me a quick side hug next. \"Meet you at the car?\"\n\nI gave her a nod as she and Matt walked towards the front doors. Stacy had come in with Matt by taxi so John and I were stuck with taxiing them both back to their respective homes. Not that I minded, Stacy and I had a lot to talk about.\n\nJohn and I stood there for a moment, neither of us saying anything but neither of us moving to leave either.\n\n\"Move two steps backwards.\" John said finally.\n\nI eyed him curiously but did as he said.\n\n\"Now one step to the right\"\n\n\"Why are you asking me to move John? Are you trying to get me to lead the way to the front door?\"\n\n\"Trust me, Evie.\"\n\nHis words made me pause, before a victorious grin lit up my face.\n\n\"You just called me Evie.\" I said wagging my eyebrows.\n\n\"And you just called me John,\" He replied without missing a beat. \"Now take one step to the right.\"\n\nI'm a bit thrown off by the fact that he was right, I had called him John, so I don't question him and just absentmindedly take a step to the right.\n\n\"Perfect,\" he said. He walked toward me, stopping with barely any space separating our chests and before I knew what was happening, he'd spun me backwards, his strong arms holding me a few feet off the ground. His hair seemed to glow from the light fixture positioned directly behind him. As he bent down, ever so slowly, my heart rate picked up. His lips hung a breaths distance above mine for one eternity second before his lips grazed mine in a soft but spine-tingling kiss. I leaned towards him, ready to deepen the kiss, to feel more of whatever this was, when he pulled back slightly.\n\n\"Mistletoe\" he whispered against my lips before spinning me back into an upright position.\n\nWe stood there one moment longer, our eyes locked, as my breaths came in short spurts. I was still recovering from the attack kiss, trying to process what the hell just happened and how I felt about it, when he spoke again.\n\n\"Later Eve.\" Was all John said as he backed away towards the exit. \"And don't forget your gloves.\" With one last pointed look at the ground beside my feet he sauntered off to the front door and then into the cold winter air.\n\nI took a moment to compose myself before I looked down to my feet where one lone mitten was laying crumbled into a ball.\n\nWith one more deep breath to control my reeling mind I picked up the mitten and started heading for the exit. As I reached into my coat pocket to take out my second mitten my hand caught on a piece of paper.\n\nPuzzled I pulled it out, the square piece of paper was not one I remembered putting into my pocket, but I did stuff everything and anything into my pockets. One of the reasons why my dryer sometimes rattled as it turned.\n\nI quickly unfolded it, and just stared at what was a creased kids menu, my confusion rose as I slowly turned it around. When I saw what was on the other side. I swear time froze.\n\n\"Hey there Eve, I don't know about you, but I think this meeting might have been our Jerold. This wasn't where either of us wanted to be tonight, and yes, it was Matt who brought me here, not a guy named Jerold, but I think this unexpected meeting between us has potential. Who knows? Maybe this meeting could lead us into something which is just as sweet as your blueberry pancakes. Call me? 710-210-1543\"\n\nWith a skip in my step and the letter clutched in my hand I made my way back to my car. Me and Stacy had a lot to talk about on our ride home. We could start with how my hatred of mistletoe was really starting to change.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ A SONG FOR YOU by E.S. McMILLAN ]\n\n\"Hey, Keldon! Wait up, man!\" Andre, the keyboard player from my band, ran after me. Buttoning his coat up to shield himself from the blistering cold, he huffed from his brisk walk from The Yellow Lemon to catch up to me.\n\n\"What's up?\" I questioned as I stopped my hasty retreat to my waiting car.\n\nThe snow that started falling while we were inside the club practicing for our upcoming gig, started to stick to the ground. The sweet little town of Allenville started to look like something out of a Christmas movie.\n\nWe had just wrapped up a great rehearsal, and I was ready to get home to my girl, Noelle. We had been dating for a while, but things were really starting to get serious between the two of us. I had big plans for this holiday season with her, and a feeling of dread settled around me. Something big was coming, and I didn't know what it would do to my plans with Noelle.\n\n\"Tony just called!\" Andre said. He leaned against my car and wiped the snow from his glasses. There was something weird about the look on his face.\n\n\"Ok, \" I replied with a roll of my eyes. I could feel my annoyance start to grow. Whatever Tony had to say could wait until I was home and warm.\n\n\"Man, you've got to hear what he had to say,\" Andre pleaded. He was about to burst with excitement.\n\nHe grinned like a cat who had just swallowed a canary, and I couldn't help but wonder what was going on.\n\nPulling off my gloves and opening the door, I kept my eyes on my childhood friend and bandmate. \"Are you going to just stand there smiling, or are you going to tell me what's going on?\"\n\n\"Tony has a gig for us!\" The smile on his face grew even wider, and I swore there was a twinkle in his eyes.\n\n\"And you couldn't wait to tell me about it?\" I slid into my car and jammed the key into the ignition. Turning the heat on full blast, I reached over and opened the passenger door for Andre. He climbed into the car and slammed the door.\n\n\"No! This is the gig! The one we have been waiting our entire lives for!\" The excitement in Andre's voice was growing even more and I couldn't help but stop what I was doing and give him my full attention.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Kelton! Andre clapped both of my shoulders in his excitement as he delivered the news. \"We're playing in New York City on Christmas Eve!\"\n\n\"Holy shit!\"\n\nPlaying in New York City had been our dream since Andre and I formed Smooth Butta. We had worked so hard to get the band to where it was, and I couldn't believe that our dreams were coming true.\n\n\"I know!\" Andre sat back in the passenger seat of my now toasty car.\n\n\"How did this even happen?\" I asked as I let Andre's news sink in. I needed to know all the details.\n\n\"Gage, Tony, and I were talking last week about the holidays. Gage had mentioned a huge party in New York in passing. I didn't think anything of it until he mentioned that his band wouldn't be able to play it because he was planning on surprising his husband and their new baby with a trip to Italy. I guess Tony made some phone calls and got us the gig.\"\n\n\"Well, it's about damn time he started acting like a manager,\" I teased as I exhaled the breath I didn't realize I had been holding. I looked over at my best friend. \"So this is what it feels like.\"\n\n\"What?\" Andre turned in his seat and focused his attention on me.\n\n\"All of our dreams are coming true,\" I said.\n\nThoughts of the future started running through my head. I couldn't believe this was happening. Smooth Butta was headed to New York City!\n\n\"Not quite,\" Andre said with a wink.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" What more could there possibly be? We had a gig that could open so many doors for us. This was the opportunity of a lifetime.\n\n\"Now that we have the music locked down, we need to make honest women of our ladies. Are you still planning on proposing to Noelle?\"\n\n\"Shit! Noelle!\" I yelled as I glanced at the clock on the radio and noticed how late it was getting. \"I have to go!\"\n\n\"Can you give me a ride home?' Andre asked.\n\n\"No! Not tonight. I have to get home,\" I said, waiting for him to get out of my car. I felt a little bad for putting him out in the cold, but I needed to get home to Noelle.\n\n\"Go. We'll get up tomorrow with Tony and the rest of the guys,\" Andre opened the car door and got out. Tapping the top of my car before he took a step back, he bent down and peeked through the open door. \"This is what we have been working for.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 28",
                "text": "\"Baby, is that you?\" Noelle called from the back of my apartment.\n\nThe soft sounds of Christmas songs floated through the air and there was a heavenly scent coming from my kitchen. I couldn't help the feeling of dread that had taken root in the pit of my stomach. I knew that my good\u2014no, amazing\u2014news was going to upset her, and that was the last thing I wanted to do.\n\n\"It's me.\" I shut the front door and stepped into the apartment. Taking my coat off and letting it fall to the floor, I wasted no time making my way to her. \"What do you have going on in here?\"\n\n\"Just some cookies,\" she said with a giggle.\n\nI wrapped my arms around her waist and stole a cookie off the pile she had removed from the baking tray. \"Yum! These are delicious,\" I said, my mouth full of cookie.\n\n\"Oh! I'm so glad you like them.\" She turned to face me. Leaning over and placing a quick kiss on my lips, she licked the extra frosting from the side of my mouth.\n\n\"Hey! I was coming back for that,\" I said, pulling her even closer to me. She rested her head on my shoulder, and I wished that time would stand still. Everything was perfect, and I didn't want this moment to end.\n\nShe pulled away from me too quickly and turned back to the bowl of cookie dough on the top of my kitchen island. \"So how was your rehearsal?\"\n\nTaking a step towards the chair tucked under the other side of the island, I took a deep breath and let the amazing smells that were swirling around the kitchen soothe me. \"Rehearsal was great. We started working on the new song I just finished writing.\" I loved how interested she was in my music and band. She was my biggest fan and only wanted the best for me.\n\n\"Are you finally going to let me hear the song?\" she asked.\n\nShe began spooning the dough onto the waiting baking tray. There was a bit of exasperation in her voice, and I knew that I was going to pay dearly for making her wait. \"Not yet.\"\n\nI quickly reached for another cookie. If I was fast enough, I could grab the tasty treat before Noelle caught me. As sweet as she was, she also had a bite that stung.\n\n\"Hey! Leave those for the kids.\" Noelle swatted my hand away.\n\nTurning on her heels, she faced me with the gorgeous smile that made my heart skip a beat. I was smitten with this woman and didn't know how I was going to break the news that our holiday plans and my secret surprise were going to have to take a rain check.\n\n\"What's wrong?\" She dropped the spoonful of cookie dough back into the bowl and rushed to my side.\n\nThe look of concern on her face made my heart break over what I was about to do. Pulling her close to me, I breathed her in. I let my eyes fall closed as I took a mental picture of this moment. \"We need to talk.\" The words fell from my lips as I tried to will them to stay buried deep inside of me.\n\n\"Noelle, please talk to me,\" I begged.\n\nShe continued to toss the dishes she had used to bake her holiday cookies into my sink. Her back remained rigid. She was trying to hide her disappointment from me. \"There's nothing to talk about. This is a great opportunity for you and the rest of the guys.\" Turning on the faucet, she started to wash the dishes.\n\n\"Here, let me help you with those.\" I made my way to her side. Taking the dish out of her hand and grabbing a dish rag from the counter, I started to dry the dishes as she placed them in the dish drain. \"I'm so sorry.\"\n\n\"You have nothing to apologize for.\" Hurt and frustration laced her voice, and I hated being the cause.\n\nPlacing the bowl I was drying back down in the dish drain, I grabbed Noelle and turned her to face me. Gazing into her light brown eyes, I ran my fingers over her cheek and removed a smudge of sugar. \"I know this is not the way we planned on spending this holiday season...\"\n\n\"It's okay,\" she interrupted. She looked away from me, and there was a quiver in her voice as she fought back tears.\n\n\"Come with me,\" I whispered without giving it a second thought. If I wasn't going to be home for Christmas with Noelle, then we were going to be together in New York."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 29",
                "text": "\"What?\" Noelle's gaze snapped back to me.\n\nConfusion was written all over her beautiful face, and I couldn't help but fall a little bit more in love with her. She was it for me and I wanted to make it official as soon as possible. I had plans to propose to her on Christmas Eve at The Yellow Lemon after I sang her song for her. I had worked so hard to make every line of the song perfect. I poured my heart and soul into the lyrics and melody. I wanted her to know exactly how I felt and that I wanted her to be my forever.\n\n\"Come to New York with me,\" I clarified.\n\nThe thought of her being by my side for this amazing opportunity ran through my head. I couldn't stop imagining what Noelle would look like with the New York skyline behind her. When Andre had told me that we were going to New York, the idea of bringing Noelle with me never crossed my mind. Now, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. My plans weren't ruined; they were just evolving. Noelle deserved magic, and I was going to give her New York magic.\n\n\"I can't.\" A tear rolled down her cheek.\n\nQuickly wiping it away, I asked, \"What's stopping you from coming to New York with me and spending Christmas Eve listening to some music?\"\n\n\"The kids.\" The words tumbled from Noelle's lips and brought me back to reality.\n\n\"The kids,\" I repeated, remembering why she was in my kitchen baking cookies.\n\nThe gig that my band was supposed to be playing was the annual Allenville Christmas Cookie Swap. The children from the Allenville Children's Home came to The Yellow Lemon for cookies and Santa. It was a tradition that was started over fifty years ago. My band had the privilege of playing the event for the last five years. Not taking my eyes off Noelle, I pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket and dialed a number before bringing the small device to my ear. \"Andre, we can't take the gig in New York.\"\n\nStanding outside of The Yellow Lemon, I took a deep breath. I knew that nothing good was going to come from this emergency meeting. The guys were going to be furious with me, but I was okay with it. I was making the right decision. There were going to be other opportunities for us to perform in New York City. We had a standing commitment to the children of Allenville, and I was not okay letting them down. Taking another deep breath, I looked around at the snow-covered ground. It didn't snow much in Allenville, South Carolina. It was normally warm, and all you needed was a light jacket even in the middle of December. I was taking the snow as a sign.\n\nGathering my courage, I made the quick walk to the front door of the club. Opening the door, I could hear the voices of my bandmates and manager coming from the back. Their voices were full of concern, and if I didn't walk into the club right now, I was going to lose my nerve and run away. I couldn't do that. I couldn't let the children of Allenville down, and I definitely couldn't let Noelle down. After seeing the hurt in her eyes last night, I knew what I had to do. \"Hey, guys. Thanks for dropping everything and meeting me on such short notice.\"\n\n\"What's going on?\" Tony glared at me.\n\nI knew that I was pressing my luck, especially with him. He had been working so hard to get us our chance to be heard, and I was about to make all his hard work for naught.\n\n\"Calm down,\" Andre said, coming to defense quickly. Placing a firm hand on Tony's shoulder, Andre looked over at me and gave me a quick nod.\n\n\"I know you all heard about the Christmas Eve gig in New York City.\"\n\n\"It's an amazing opportunity.\" Tony jumped up from his seat. \"There's a lot we have to go over before we get on the bus and head up to New York.\"\n\n\"That's what I wanted to talk to you guys about,\" I interrupted.\n\nTony shot me a look that told me I was on thin ice with him.\n\n\"We can't do the gig in New York,\" I blurted out.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Tony growled.\n\nHis face morphed into a scowl that I had never seen before, and I hoped I would never be on the receiving end of it again. It felt as if the temperature in the room dropped by ten degrees and I wished I was back home wrapped up in Noelle's arms.\n\n\"We already have a commitment to the children of Allenville,\" I reminded Tony softly.\n\nAndre jumped up from his seat. \"The cookie exchange! I totally forgot about it.\"\n\nThe cookie exchange was extremely important to my best friend. He'd grown up in the Allenville Children's Home and was one of the many children who had gotten to experience the miracle of Christmas because of this yearly event. I knew if anyone would understand why we couldn't blow off this event, it would be Andre.\n\nTony turned his frustration on Andre. \"You're not going to give up the opportunity of a lifetime to play for some kids in this sleepy little town?\"\n\nThe disgust dripping from Tony's voice sent a chill down my spine, and I was reminded just how little I really liked the man. He wasn't even a good manager. He had been working with us since we started the group, and this was the first major gig he had gotten us in over six years.\n\n\"Whoa!\" Our bass player, Germain, shot to his feet, letting his beloved bass fall to the ground and walked over to my side. \"Keldon is right. We can't blow off our commitment to the kids. They look forward to this event all year long.\"\n\n\"You guys have a decision to make.\" Tony's voice was laced with bitterness.\n\nThe air was electric, and I just knew that a major change was about to happen.\n\n\"Either you are serious about getting a record deal and will be in New York City next week with smiles on your faces and hunger in your hearts, or you all can stay here and play for a group of kids. The choice is yours but just know that I am out if you make the wrong choice. I am not going to waste anymore of my time if you don't want this as badly as you say you do.\"\n\nQuickly looking around the room at my bandmates, I knew that I had made the right call. Their expressions were supportive and determined. I turned back to Tony. \"I'm sorry that we wasted your precious time, but we won't be able to make New York City next week after all.\"\n\n\"You guys were never going to make it!\" Tony's hard laugh rang in the silence, and he gathered his belongings, marching to the exit. \"What a waste of my time!\"\n\nThe air rushed out of my lungs, and I looked around the room at the members of Smooth Butta. \"I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"What are you sorry for?\" Andre asked with a wink. \"There will be more gigs.\"\n\n\"He's right,\" Germaine agreed.\n\n\"Well, since we're already here, you guys up for going over the new song?\" I asked.\n\n\"You really are going to do it?\" Germaine picked up his bass.\n\n\"Hell yeah.\" I grinned and made my way over to the stage and turned on the microphone.\n\n\"I guess we have to make sure you look good up here.\" Andre followed me to the stage and situated himself behind his keyboard.\n\n\"That was a great rehearsal,\" I said as I stepped off the stage.\n\n\"Are you guys working hard or hardly working?\" Noelle called out from the doorway.\n\nThe sweet smell of baked goods hit my nose and I knew she had freshly baked treats for us. Jumping off the stage and making my way to my girl, I grabbed her and pulled her into me. Slamming my lips down on top of hers, I ignored the catcalls from my friends. Ending the kiss, I looked down into her beautiful eyes. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"I had made some extra cookies and wanted to bring them to you guys. I figured you all would want a snack after a long rehearsal.\" She held up the basket of freshly baked holiday cookies.\n\nTaking the basket from her hand and placing it on an empty table, I grabbed a cookie.\n\n\"Hey! Save some for the rest of the guys.\"\n\nThe giggle that escaped her throat sent a warm sensation through me, and I wanted nothing more than to get her alone and show her how much I loved her.\n\n\"Thank you,\" Andre said from behind me, grabbing a handful of cookies.\n\n\"You guys better get over here and help yourself before he eats them all,\" Noelle teased, giving me a gentle smile.\n\n\"Thank you.\" Germaine grabbed a handful of cookies and turned towards the stage. Shoving the cookies into his mouth, he said, \"Why don't you two get out of here? We can finish breaking everything down for the night.\n\n\"Are you sure?\" Grabbing Noelle's hand, I gave it a squeeze. I wanted nothing more than to be alone with this beautiful woman.\n\n\"Get out of here before we change our minds,\" Andre teased.\n\n\"You heard the man,\" I said as I pulled Noelle towards the exit."
            },
            {
                "title": "Christmas Eve",
                "text": "Walking into The Yellow Lemon, I couldn't believe the transformation that had taken place. The small jazz club had been turned into a winter wonderland; complete with fake snow all over the ground. The scent of freshly baked goodies hung in the air, and my stomach was doing flip flops while the soft sounds of holiday music floated from the speakers located around the club. I couldn't contain the butterflies that had taken flight in my stomach. My nerves had definitely gotten the best of me, and I saw no relief in sight. Tonight was the night all my plans were hopefully going to come together. I dug deep into my pocket, making sure the small black box I had been carrying around for the past week was right where it was supposed to be.\n\n\"Look who finally decided to show up,\" Andre called from across the club.\n\n\"I can't believe you did all this.\" I waved at all of the decorations as I made my way to the stage that had been turned into Santa's workshop. My mic stand was carefully wrapped in red and green ribbons, and the elevated floor of the stage was covered in fake snow.\n\n\"This was all Noelle,\" Andre admitted. \"She worked a real Christmas miracle in this place for the kids.\"\n\n\"Are you two talking about me?\" Noelle poked her head up from behind the bar. She was hard at work, stuffing holiday bags with her delicious homemade sweets. Her long brown hair sat in a messy bun on the top of her head, and she was covered from head to toe in flour and other ingredients.\n\n\"It looks amazing in here,\" I said as I made my way to the bar.\n\nLeaning over the counter, I placed a tender kiss on her lips. She tasted as sweet as the treats she had been making for the kids. I knew instantly that I was making the right decision in asking this woman to marry me.\n\n\"Get a room,\" Andre teased as he continued to set up his keyboard for the night.\n\nHe'd taken special care to make sure all the empty gift boxes were set up perfectly around his area. I saw the pride and excitement in his eyes and knew that we had made the right decision to pass on New York. There would be more opportunities for Smooth Butta in the future.\n\n\"Only if he's a good boy,\" Noelle replied with a wink. \"Earth to Keldon. Where'd you go?\"\n\nThe soft tone of her voice broke through the thoughts in my head and brought me back to the present. A smile pulled at my lips as my gaze landed on the girl I hoped would become my wife in the near future. \"I was thinking about the gift I got you.\"\n\n\"Can I have it now?\" Noelle leaned over the counter and placed a kiss on my cheek.\n\n\"Not yet,\" I informed her with a smirk before making my way back to the stage.\n\n\"No fair!\" she called after me.\n\nI could sense her watching my every move, and the butterflies in my stomach started flapping their wings again.\n\n\"Ladies and gentlemen. Boys and girls. Thank you for coming out for the annual Allenville Cookie Swap,\" I said into the mic.\n\nLooking out into the crowd, I saw all the faces in the club focused on me. Everyone had stopped milling around and found their seats. Taking a deep breath and focusing my attention on Noelle's smiling face, I said, \"I would like to start the entertainment portion of tonight with a special song that I wrote for a very special lady.\"\n\nAll eyes in the club shifted to Noelle as Andre played the first notes of my song. Letting my eyes fall closed as my body started to sway to the familiar music, visions of Noelle walking towards me in a flowing white gown started running through my head. The words that described how I felt about the love of my life tumbled from my lips as I got lost in the song. The only sounds in the club were my voice and Andre's keyboard. Opening my eyes and zeroing in Noelle, I watched her as the tears fell from her eyes.\n\n\"My sweet Noelle, will you be my wife?\" I sang with all my heart as I dropped to one knee and pulled the ring out of my pocket. Flipping the top off the little black box, I watched as the color drained from her face. A deafening silence settled over the room and all eyes were on Noelle.\n\n\"Well?\" a voice from the crowd called out as we all waited on Noelle's response.\n\nAfter what felt like an eternity, Noella made her way to the stage. \"Yes.\" The simple word fell from her lips as she wrapped her arms around me and joined her lips against mine. Her tears mixed with mine as the world around us slipped away and we got lost in the kiss.\n\n\"Congratulations, and Merry Christmas!\" Andre called out.\n\nEnding our celebratory kiss and taking a step back to let the air flow between us again, Noelle looked at me. \"What's the name of the song?\" she asked, her voice an emotion-choked whisper.\n\nI stood up, pulled the ring out of the box, and slid it onto her finger. \"A Song for You.\""
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "title": "A Lot Like Christmas # SSC (v5.0).txt",
        "author": "Connie Willis",
        "genres": [],
        "tags": [],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "Chapter 1",
                "text": "I love Christmas. All of it\u2014decorating the tree and singing in the choir and baking cookies and wrapping presents. I even like the parts most people hate\u2014shopping in crowded malls and reading Christmas newsletters and seeing relatives and standing in baggage check-in lines at the airport.\n\nOkay, I lied. Nobody likes standing in baggage check-in lines. I love seeing people get off the plane, though, and holly and candles and eggnog and carols.\n\nBut most of all, I love Christmas stories and movies. Okay, I lied again. I don't love all Christmas stories and movies. It's a Wonderful Life, for instance. And Hans Christian Andersen's \"The Fir Tree.\"\n\nBut I love Miracle on 34th Street and Christopher Morley's \"The Tree That Didn't Get Trimmed\" and Christina Rossetti's poem \"In the Bleak Midwinter.\" My family watches The Sure Thing and A Christmas Story each year, and we read George V. Higgins's \"The Impossible Snowsuit of Christmas Past\" out loud every Christmas Eve, and eagerly look for new classics to add to our traditions.\n\nThere aren't a lot. This is because Christmas stories are much harder to write than they look, partly because the subject matter is fairly limited, and people have been writing it for nearly two thousand years, so they've just about rung all the changes possible on snowmen, Santas, and shepherds.\n\nStories have been told from the point of view of the fourth wise man (who got waylaid on the way to Bethlehem), the innkeeper, the innkeeper's wife, the donkey, and the star. There've been stories about department-store Santas, phony Santas, burned-out Santas, substitute Santas, reluctant Santas, and dieting Santas, to say nothing of Santa's wife, his elves, his reindeer, and Rudolph. We've had births at Christmas (natch!), deaths, partings, meetings, mayhem, attempted suicides, and sanity hearings. And Christmas in Hawaii, in China, in the past, the future, and outer space. We've heard from the littlest shepherd, the littlest wise man, the littlest angel, and the mouse who wasn't stirring. There's not a lot out there that hasn't already been done.\n\nIn addition, the Christmas-story writer has to walk a narrow tightrope between sentiment and skepticism, and most writers end up falling off into either cynicism or mawkish sappiness.\n\nAnd, yes, I am talking about Hans Christian Andersen. He invented the whole three-hanky sob story, whose plot Maxim Gorky, in a fit of pique, described as taking a poor girl or boy and letting them \"freeze somewhere under a window, behind which there is usually a Christmas tree that throws its radiant splendor upon them.\" Match girls, steadfast tin soldiers, even snowmen (melted, not frozen) all met with a fate they (and we) didn't deserve, especially at Christmas.\n\nNobody, before Andersen came along, had thought of writing such depressing Christmas stories. Even Dickens, who had killed a fair number of children in his books, didn't kill Tiny Tim. But Andersen, apparently hell-bent on ruining everybody's holidays, froze innocent children, melted loyal toys into lumps of lead, and chopped harmless fir trees who were just standing there in the forest, minding their own business, into kindling.\n\nWorse, he inspired dozens of imitators, who killed off saintly children (some of whom, I'll admit, were pretty insufferable and deserved to die) and poor people for the rest of the Victorian era.\n\nIn the twentieth century, the Andersen-style tearjerker moved into the movies, which starred Margaret O'Brien (who definitely deserved to die) and other child stars, chosen for their pallor and their ability to cough. They had titles like All Mine to Give and The Christmas Tree, which tricked hapless moviegoers into thinking they were going to see a cheery Christmas movie, when really they were about little boys who succumbed to radiation poisoning on Christmas Eve.\n\nWhen television came along, this type of story turned into the \"Very Special Christmas Episode\" of various TV shows, the worst of which was Little House on the Prairie, which killed off huge numbers of children in blizzards and other pioneer-type disasters every Christmas for years. Hadn't any of these authors ever heard that Christmas stories are supposed to have happy endings?\n\nWell, unfortunately, they had, and it resulted in improbably sentimental and saccharine stories too numerous to mention.\n\nSo are there any good Christmas stories out there? You bet, starting with the original. The recounting of the first Christmas (you know, the baby in the manger) has all the elements of great storytelling: drama, danger, special effects, dreams and warnings, betrayals, narrow escapes, and\u2014combined with the Easter story\u2014the happiest ending of all.\n\nAnd it's got great characters\u2014Joseph, who's in over his head but doing the best he can; the wise men, expecting a palace and getting a stable; slimy Herod, telling them, \"When you find this king, tell me where he is so I can come and worship him,\" and then sending out his thugs to try to murder the baby; the ambivalent innkeeper. And Mary, fourteen years old, pondering all of the above in her heart. It's a great story. No wonder it's lasted two thousand years.\n\nModern Christmas stories I love (for a more complete list, see the end of this book) include O. Henry's \"The Gift of the Magi,\" T. S. Eliot's \"Journey of the Magi,\" and Barbara Robinson's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, about a church Nativity pageant overrun by a gang of hooligans called the Herdmans. The Herdmans bully everybody and smoke and cuss and come only because they'd heard there were refreshments afterward. And they transform what was a sedate and boring Christmas pageant into something extraordinary.\n\nSince I'm a science-fiction writer, I'm of course partial to science-fiction Christmas stories. Science fiction has always had the ability to make us look at the world from a different angle, and Christmas is no exception. Science fiction has looked at the first Christmas from a new perspective (Michael Moorcock's classic Behold the Man) and in a new guise (Joe L. Hensley and Alexei Panshin's \"Dark Conception\").\n\nIt's shown us Christmas in the future (Cynthia Felice's \"Track of a Legend\") and Christmas in space (Ray Bradbury's wonderful \"The Gift\"). And it's looked at the dark side of Christmas (Mildred Clingerman's disturbing \"The Wild Wood\").\n\nMy favorite science-fiction Christmas stories are Arthur C. Clarke's \"The Star,\" which tells the story of the Christmas star that guided the wise men to Bethlehem, and Thomas Disch's hilarious story \"The Santa Claus Compromise,\" in which two intrepid six-year-old investigative reporters expose the shocking scandal behind Santa Claus.\n\nI also love mysteries. You'd think murder and Christmas wouldn't mesh, but the setting and the possibility of mistletoe/plum pudding/Santa Claus\u2013connected murders has inspired any number of mystery writers, starting with Arthur Conan Doyle and his \"The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,\" which involves a Christmas goose. Some of my favorite mysteries are Dorothy Sayers's \"The Necklace of Pearls,\" Agatha Christie's Murder for Christmas, and Jane Langton's The Shortest Day: Murder at the Revels. My absolute favorite is John Mortimer's comic \"Rumpole and the Spirit of Christmas,\" which stars the grumpy old Scrooge of a barrister, Horace Rumpole, and his wonderful wife, She Who Must Be Obeyed.\n\nComedies are probably my favorite kind of Christmas story. I love Damon Runyon's \"Dancing Dan's Christmas.\" (Actually, I love everything Damon Runyon ever wrote, and if you've never read him, you need to go get Guys and Dolls immediately. Ditto P. G. Wodehouse, whose \"Jeeves and the Yule-tide Spirit\" and \"Another Christmas Carol\" are vintage Wodehouse, which means they're indescribable. If you've never read Wodehouse either, what a treat you're in for! He wrote over a hundred books. Start anywhere.) Both Runyon and Wodehouse balance sentiment and cynicism, irony and the Christmas spirit, human nature and happy endings, without a single misstep.\n\nAnd then there's Christopher Morley's \"The Tree That Didn't Get Trimmed,\" which was clearly written in reaction to Hans Christian Andersen's \"The Fir Tree.\" Unlike Andersen, however, Morley understands that the purpose of Christmas is to remind us not only of suffering but of salvation. His story makes you ache, and then despair. And then rejoice.\n\nAlmost all great stories (Christmas or otherwise) have that one terrible moment when all seems lost, when you're sure things won't work out, the bad guys will win, the cavalry won't arrive in time, and they (and we) won't be saved. John Ford's Christmas Western, 3 Godfathers, has a moment like that. So does The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, and Miracle on 34th Street, which I consider to be The Best Christmas Movie Ever.\n\nI know, I know, It's a Wonderful Life is supposed to be The Best Christmas Movie Ever, with ten million showings and accompanying merchandising. (I saw an It's a Wonderful Life mouse pad this last Christmas.) And I'm not denying that there are some great scenes in it (see my story \"Miracle\" on this subject), but the movie has real problems. For one thing, the villainous Mr. Potter is still loose and unpunished at the end of the movie, something no good fairy tale ever permits. The dreadful little psychologist in Miracle on 34th Street is summarily, and very appropriately, fired, and the DA, who after all was only doing his job, repents.\n\nBut in It's a Wonderful Life, Mr. Potter is free, with his villainy undetected, though he's already proved to be a vindictive and malicious villain. Since this didn't work, he'll obviously try something else. And poor George is still faced with embezzlement charges, which the last time I looked don't disappear just because you pay back the money, even if the cop is smiling in the last scene.\n\nBut the worst problem seems to me to be that the ending depends on the goodness of the people of Bedford Falls, something that (especially in light of previous events) seems like a dicey proposition.\n\nMiracle on 34th Street, on the other hand, relies on no such thing. The irony of the miracle (and let's face it, maybe what really galls my soul is that It's a Wonderful Life is a work completely without irony) is that the miracle happens not because of people's behavior, but in spite of it.\n\nChristmas is supposed to be based on selflessness and innocence, but until the very end of Miracle on 34th Street, virtually no one except Kris Kringle exhibits these qualities. Quite the opposite. Everyone, even the hero and heroine, acts from a cynical, very modern self-interest. Macy's Santa goes on a binge right before Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Doris hires Kris to get herself out of a jam and save her job, John Payne invites the little girl Susan to watch the parade as a way to meet the mother.\n\nAnd in spite of Kris Kringle's determined efforts to restore the true spirit of Christmas to the city, it continues. Macy's and then Gimbel's go along with the gag of recommending other stores, not because they believe in it, but because it means more money. The judge in Kris's sanity case makes favorable rulings only because he wants to get reelected. Even the postal workers who provide the denouement just want to get rid of stuff piling up in the dead-letter office.\n\nBut in spite of this (actually, in a delicious irony, because of it) and with only very faint glimmerings of humanity from the principals, and in spite of how hopeless it all seems, the miracle of Christmas occurs, right on schedule. Just as it does every year.\n\nIt's this layer of symbolism that makes Miracle on 34th Street such a satisfying movie. Also its script (by George Seaton) and perfect casting (especially Natalie Wood and Thelma Ritter) and any number of delightful moments (Santa's singing a Dutch carol to the little Dutch orphan and the disastrous bubble-gum episode and Natalie Wood's disgusted expression when she's told she has to have faith even when things don't work out). Plus, of course, the fact that Edmund Gwenn could make anyone believe in Santa Claus. All combine to make it The Best Christmas Movie Ever Made.\n\nNot, however, the best story. That honor belongs to Dickens and his deathless A Christmas Carol. The rumor that Dickens invented Christmas is not true, and neither, probably, is the story that when he died, a poor costermonger's little girl sobbed, \"Dickens dead? Why, then, is Christmas dead, too?\" But they should be.\n\nBecause Dickens did the impossible\u2014he wrote not only a masterpiece that captures the essence of Christmas, but one that was good enough to survive its own fame. There have been a million mostly awful TV, movie, and musical versions and variations, with Scrooge played by everybody from Basil Rathbone to the Fonz, but even the worst of them haven't managed to damage the wonderful story of Scrooge and Tiny Tim.\n\nOne reason it's such a great story is that Dickens loved Christmas. (And no wonder. His childhood was Oliver Twist's and Little Dorrit's combined, and no kindly grandfather or Arthur Clennam in sight. His whole adult life must have seemed like Christmas.) I think you have to love Christmas to write about it.\n\nFor another, he knew a lot about human nature. Remembering the past, truly seeing the present, imagining the consequences of our actions, are the ways we actually grow and change. Dickens knew this years before Freud.\n\nHe also knew a lot about writing. The plot's terrific, the dialogue's great, and the opening line\u2014\"Marley was dead: to begin with\"\u2014is second only to \"Call me Ishmael\" as one of the great opening lines of literature. He knew how to end stories, too, and that Christmas stories were supposed to have happy endings.\n\nFinally, the story touches us because we want to believe people can change. They don't. We've all learned from bitter experience (though probably not as bitter as Dickens's) that the world is full of money-grubbers and curtain-ring stealers, that Scrooge stays Scrooge to the bitter end, and nobody will lift a finger to help Tiny Tim.\n\nBut Christmas is about someone who believed, in spite of overwhelming evidence, that humanity is capable of change and worth redeeming. And Dickens's Christmas story is in fact The Christmas Story. And the hardened heart that cracks open at the end of it is our own.\n\nIf I sound passionate (and sometimes curmudgeonly) about Christmas stories, I am. I love Christmas, in all its complexity and irony, and I love Christmas stories.\n\nSo much so that I've been writing them for years. Here they are\u2014an assortment of stories about church choirs and Christmas presents and pod people from outer space, about wishes that come true in ways you don't expect and wishes that don't come true and wishes you didn't know you had, about stars and shepherds, wise men and Santa Claus, mistletoe and It's a Wonderful Life and Christmas cards on recycled paper. There's even a murder. And a story about Christmas Yet to Come.\n\nI hope you like them. And I hope you have a very merry Christmas!\n\n\u2014Connie Willis\n\n\u2042\n\n[ Miracle ]\n\nThere was a Christmas tree in the lobby when Lauren got to work, and the receptionist was sitting with her chin in her hand, watching the security monitor. Lauren set her shopping bag down and looked curiously at the screen. On it, Jimmy Stewart was dancing the Charleston with Donna Reed.\n\n\"The Personnel Morale Special Committee had cable piped in for Christmas,\" the receptionist explained, handing Lauren her messages. \"I love It's a Wonderful Life, don't you?\"\n\nLauren stuck her messages in the top of her shopping bag and went up to her department. Red and green crepe paper hung in streamers from the ceiling, and there was a big red crepe-paper bow tied around Lauren's desk.\n\n\"The Personnel Morale Special Committee did it,\" Evie said, coming over with the catalog she'd been reading. \"They're decorating the whole building, and they want us and Document Control to go caroling this afternoon. Don't you think PMS is getting out of hand with this Christmas spirit thing? I mean, who wants to spend Christmas Eve at an office party?\"\n\n\"I do,\" Lauren said. She set her shopping bag down on the desk, sat down, and began taking off her boots.\n\n\"Can I borrow your stapler?\" Evie asked. \"I've lost mine again. I'm ordering my mother the Water of the Month, and I need to staple my check to the order form.\"\n\n\"The Water of the Month?\" Lauren said, opening her desk drawer and taking out her stapler.\n\n\"You know, they send you bottles of a different one every month. Perrier, Evian, Calistoga.\" She peered into Lauren's shopping bag. \"Do you have Christmas presents in there? I hate people who have their shopping done four weeks before Christmas.\"\n\n\"It's four days till Christmas,\" Lauren said, \"and I don't have it all done. I still don't have anything for my sister. But I've got all my friends, including you, done.\" She reached into the shopping bag and pulled out her pumps. \"And I found a dress for the office party.\"\n\n\"Did you buy it?\"\n\n\"No.\" She put on one of her shoes. \"I'm going to try it on during my lunch hour.\"\n\n\"If it's still there,\" Evie said gloomily. \"I had this echidna toothpick holder all picked out for my brother, and when I went back to buy it, they were all gone.\"\n\n\"I asked them to hold the dress for me,\" Lauren said. She put on her other shoe. \"It's gorgeous. Black, off-the-shoulder. Sequined.\"\n\n\"Still trying to get Scott Buckley to notice you, huh? I don't do things like that anymore. Nineties women don't use sexist tricks to attract men. Besides, I decided he was too cute to ever notice somebody like me.\" She sat down on the edge of Lauren's desk and started leafing through the catalog. \"Here's something your sister might like. The Vegetable of the Month. February's okra.\"\n\n\"She lives in southern California,\" Lauren said, shoving her boots under the desk.\n\n\"Oh. How about the Sunscreen of the Month?\"\n\n\"No,\" Lauren said. \"She's into New Age stuff. Channeling. Aromatherapy. Last year she sent me a crystal pyramid mate selector for Christmas.\"\n\n\"The Eastern Philosophy of the Month,\" Evie said. \"Zen, Sufism, tai chi\u2014\"\n\n\"I'd like to get her something she'd really like,\" Lauren mused. \"I always have a terrible time figuring out what to get people for Christmas. So this year, I decided things were going to be different. I wasn't going to be tearing around the mall the day before Christmas, buying things no one would want and wondering what on earth I was going to wear to the office party. I started doing my shopping in September, I wrapped my presents as soon as I bought them, I have all my Christmas cards done and ready to mail\u2014\"\n\n\"You're disgusting,\" Evie said. \"Oh, here, I almost forgot.\" She pulled a folded slip of paper out of her catalog and handed it to Lauren. \"It's your name for the Secret Santa gift exchange. PMS says you're supposed to bring your present for it by Friday so it won't interfere with the presents Santa Claus hands out at the office party.\"\n\nLauren unfolded the paper, and Evie leaned over to read it. \"Who'd you get? Wait, don't tell me. Scott Buckley.\"\n\n\"No. Fred Hatch. And I know just what to get him.\"\n\n\"Fred? The fat guy in Documentation? What is it, the Diet of the Month?\"\n\n\"This is supposed to be the season of love and charity, not the season when you make mean remarks about someone just because he's overweight,\" Lauren said sternly. \"I'm going to get him a videotape of Miracle on 34th Street.\"\n\nEvie looked uncomprehending.\n\n\"It's Fred's favorite movie. We had a wonderful talk about it at the office party last year.\"\n\n\"I never heard of it.\"\n\n\"It's about Macy's Santa Claus. He starts telling people they can get their kids' toys cheaper at Gimbel's, and then the store psychiatrist decides he's crazy\u2014\"\n\n\"Why don't you get him It's a Wonderful Life? That's my favorite Christmas movie.\"\n\n\"Yours and everybody else's. I think Fred and I are the only two people in the world who like Miracle on 34th Street better. See, Edmund Gwenn, he's Santa Claus, gets committed to Bellevue because he thinks he's Santa Claus, and since there isn't any Santa Claus, he has to be crazy, but he is Santa Claus, and Fred Gailey, that's John Payne, he's a lawyer in the movie, he decides to have a court hearing to prove it, and\u2014\"\n\n\"I watch It's a Wonderful Life every Christmas. I love the part where Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed fall into the swimming pool,\" Evie said. \"What happened to the stapler?\"\n\nThey had the dress and it fit, but there was an enormous jam-up at the cash register, and then they couldn't find a hanging bag for it.\n\n\"Just put it in a shopping bag,\" Lauren said, looking anxiously at her watch.\n\n\"It'll wrinkle,\" the clerk said ominously and continued to search for a hanging bag. By the time Lauren convinced her a shopping bag would work, it was already 12:15. She had hoped she'd have a chance to look for a present for her sister, but there wasn't going to be time. She still had to run the dress home and mail the Christmas cards.\n\nI can pick up Fred's video, she thought, fighting her way onto the escalator. That wouldn't take much time, since she knew what she wanted, and maybe they'd have something with Shirley MacLaine in it she could get her sister. Ten minutes to buy the video, she thought, tops.\n\nIt took her nearly half an hour. There was only one copy, which the clerk couldn't find.\n\n\"Are you sure you wouldn't rather have It's a Wonderful Life?\" she asked Lauren. \"It's my favorite movie.\"\n\n\"I want Miracle on 34th Street,\" Lauren said patiently. \"With Edmund Gwenn and Natalie Wood.\"\n\nThe clerk picked up a copy of It's a Wonderful Life from a huge display. \"See, Jimmy Stewart's in trouble and he wishes he'd never been born, and this angel grants him his wish\u2014\"\n\n\"I know,\" Lauren said. \"I don't care. I want Miracle on 34th Street.\"\n\n\"Okay!\" the clerk said, and wandered off to look for it, muttering, \"Some people don't have any Christmas spirit.\"\n\nShe finally found it, in the M's, of all places, and then insisted on gift wrapping it.\n\nBy the time Lauren made it back to her apartment, it was a quarter to one. She would have to forget lunch and mailing the Christmas cards, but she could at least take them with her, buy the stamps, and put the stamps on at work.\n\nShe took the video out of the shopping bag and set it on the coffee table next to her purse, picked up the bag, and started for the bedroom.\n\nSomeone knocked on the door.\n\n\"I don't have time for this,\" she muttered, and opened the door, still holding the shopping bag.\n\nIt was a young man wearing a \"Save the Whales\" T-shirt and khaki pants. He had shoulder-length blond hair and a vague expression that made her think of southern California.\n\n\"Yes? What is it?\" she asked.\n\n\"I'm here to give you a Christmas present,\" he said.\n\n\"Thank you, I'm not interested in whatever you're selling,\" she said, and shut the door.\n\nHe knocked again immediately. \"I'm not selling anything,\" he said through the door. \"Really.\"\n\nI don't have time for this, she thought, but she opened the door again.\n\n\"I'm not a salesguy,\" he said. \"Have you ever heard of the Maharishi Ram Dass?\" A religious nut.\n\n\"I don't have time to talk to you.\" She started to say, \"I'm late for work,\" and then remembered you weren't supposed to tell strangers your apartment was going to be empty. \"I'm very busy,\" she said and shut the door, more firmly this time.\n\nThe knocking commenced again, but she ignored it. She started into the bedroom with the shopping bag, came back and pushed the deadbolt across and put the chain on, and then went in to hang up her dress. By the time she'd extricated it from the tissue paper and found a hanger, the knocking had stopped. She hung up the dress, which looked just as deadly now that she had it home, and went back into the living room.\n\nThe young man was sitting on the couch, messing with her TV remote. \"So, what do you want for Christmas? A yacht? A pony?\" He punched buttons on the remote, frowning. \"A new TV?\"\n\n\"How did you get in here?\" Lauren said squeakily. She looked at the door. The deadbolt and chain were both still on.\n\n\"I'm a spirit,\" he said, putting the remote down. The TV suddenly blared on. \"The Spirit of Christmas Present.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Lauren said, edging toward the phone. \"Like in A Christmas Carol.\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, flipping through the channels. She looked at the remote. It was still on the coffee table. \"Not Christmas Present. Christmas Present. You know, Barbie dolls, ugly ties, cheese logs, the stuff people give you for Christmas.\"\n\n\"Oh, Christmas Present. I see,\" Lauren said, carefully picking up the phone.\n\n\"People always get me confused with him, which is really insulting. I mean, the guy obviously has a really high cholesterol level. Anyway, I'm the Spirit of Christmas Present, and your sister sent me to\u2014\"\n\nLauren had dialed 9-1. She stopped, her finger poised over the second 1. \"My sister?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said, staring at the TV. Jimmy Stewart was sitting in the guard's room, wrapped in a blanket. \"Oh, wow! It's a Wonderful Life.\"\n\nMy sister sent you, Lauren thought. It explained everything. He was not a Moonie or a serial killer. He was this year's version of the crystal pyramid mate selector. \"How do you know my sister?\"\n\n\"She channeled me,\" he said, leaning back against the sofa. \"The Maharishi Ram Dass was instructing her in trance-meditation, and she accidentally channeled my spirit out of the astral plane.\" He pointed at the screen. \"I love this part where the angel is trying to convince Jimmy Stewart he's dead.\"\n\n\"I'm not dead, am I?\"\n\n\"No. I'm not an angel. I'm a spirit. The Spirit of Christmas Present. You can call me Chris for short. Your sister sent me to give you what you really want for Christmas. You know, your heart's desire. So what is it?\"\n\nFor my sister not to send me any more presents, she thought. \"Look, I'm really in a hurry right now. Why don't you come back tomorrow and we can talk about it then?\"\n\n\"I hope it's not a fur coat,\" he said as if he hadn't heard her. \"I'm opposed to the killing of endangered species.\" He picked up Fred's present. \"What's this?\"\n\n\"It's a videotape of Miracle on 34th Street. I really have to go.\"\n\n\"Who's it for?\"\n\n\"Fred Hatch. I'm his Secret Santa.\"\n\n\"Fred Hatch.\" He turned the package over. \"You had it gift wrapped at the store, didn't you?\"\n\n\"Yes. If we could just talk about this later\u2014\"\n\n\"This is a great part, too,\" he said, leaning forward to watch the TV. The angel was explaining to Jimmy Stewart how he hadn't gotten his wings yet.\n\n\"I have to go. I'm on my lunch hour, and I need to mail my Christmas cards, and I have to be back at work by\"\u2014she glanced at her watch\u2014\"oh, my God, fifteen minutes ago.\"\n\nHe put down the package and stood up. \"Gift-wrapped presents,\" he said, making a \"tsk\"-ing noise. \"Everybody rushing around spending money, rushing to parties, never stopping to have some eggnog or watch a movie. Christmas is an endangered species.\" He looked longingly back at the screen, where the angel was trying to convince Jimmy Stewart he'd never been alive, and then wandered into the kitchen. \"You got any Evian water?\"\n\n\"No,\" Lauren said desperately. She hurried after him. \"Look, I really have to get to work.\"\n\nHe had stopped at the kitchen table and was holding one of the Christmas cards. \"Computer-addressed,\" he said reprovingly. He tore it open.\n\n\"Don't\u2014\" Lauren said.\n\n\"Printed Christmas cards,\" he said. \"No letter, no quick note, not even a handwritten signature. That's exactly what I'm talking about. An endangered species.\"\n\n\"I didn't have time,\" Lauren said defensively. \"And I don't have time to discuss this or anything else with you. I have to get to work.\"\n\n\"No time to write a few words on a card, no time to think about what you want for Christmas.\" He slid the card back into the envelope. \"Not even on recycled paper,\" he said sadly. \"Do you know how many trees are chopped down every year to send Christmas cards?\"\n\n\"I am late for\u2014\" Lauren said, and he wasn't there anymore.\n\nHe didn't vanish like in the movies, or fade out slowly. He simply wasn't there.\n\n\"\u2014work,\" Lauren said. She went and looked in the living room. The TV was still on, but he wasn't there, or in the bedroom. She went into the bathroom and pulled the shower curtain back, but he wasn't there, either.\n\n\"It was a hallucination,\" she said out loud, \"brought on by stress.\" She looked at her watch, hoping it had been part of the hallucination, but it still read 1:15. \"I will figure this out later,\" she said. \"I have to get back to work.\"\n\nShe went back in the living room. The TV was off. She went into the kitchen. He wasn't there. Neither were her Christmas cards, exactly.\n\n\"You! Spirit!\" she shouted. \"You come back here this minute!\"\n\n\"You're late,\" Evie said, filling out a catalog form. \"You will not believe who was just here. Scott Buckley. God, he is so cute.\" She looked up. \"What happened?\" she said. \"Didn't they hold the dress?\"\n\n\"Do you know anything about magic?\" Lauren said.\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"My sister sent me her Christmas present,\" Lauren said grimly. \"I need to talk to someone who knows something about magic.\"\n\n\"Fat Fred\u2026I mean, Fred Hatch is a magician. What did your sister send you?\"\n\nLauren started down the hall to Documentation at a half run.\n\n\"I told Scott you'd be back any minute,\" Evie said. \"He said he wanted to talk to you.\"\n\nLauren opened the door to Documentation and started looking over partitions into the maze of cubicles. They were all empty.\n\n\"Anybody here?\" Lauren called. \"Hello?\"\n\nA middle-aged woman emerged from the maze, carrying five rolls of wrapping paper and a large pair of scissors. \"You don't have any Scotch tape, do you?\" she asked Lauren.\n\n\"Do you know where Fred Hatch is?\" Lauren asked.\n\nThe woman pointed toward the interior of the maze with a roll of reindeer-covered paper. \"Over there. Doesn't anyone have any tape? I'm going to have to staple my Christmas presents.\"\n\nLauren worked her way toward where the woman had pointed, looking over partitions as she went. Fred was in the center one, leaning back in a chair, his hands folded over his ample stomach, staring at a screen covered with yellow numbers.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" Lauren said, and Fred immediately sat forward and stood up.\n\n\"I need to talk to you,\" she said. \"Is there somewhere we can talk privately?\"\n\n\"Right here,\" Fred said. \"My assistant's on the 800 line in my office, placing a catalog order, and everyone else is next door in Graphic Design at a Tupperware party.\" He pushed a key, and the computer screen went blank. \"What did you want to talk to me about?\"\n\n\"Evie said you're a magician,\" she said.\n\nHe looked embarrassed. \"Not really. The PMS Committee put me in charge of the magic show for the office party last year, and I came up with an act. This year, luckily, they assigned me to play Santa Claus.\" He smiled and patted his stomach. \"I'm the right shape for the part, and I don't have to worry about the tricks not working.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" Lauren said. \"I hoped\u2026do you know any magicians?\"\n\n\"The guy at the novelty shop,\" he said, looking worried. \"What's the matter? Did PMS assign you the magic show this year?\"\n\n\"No.\" She sat down on the edge of his desk. \"My sister is into New Age stuff, and she sent me this spirit\u2014\"\n\n\"Spirit,\" he said. \"A ghost, you mean?\"\n\n\"No. A person. I mean he looks like a person. He says he's the Spirit of Christmas Present, as in Gift, not Here and Now.\"\n\n\"And you're sure he's not a person? I mean, tricks can sometimes really look like magic.\"\n\n\"There's a Christmas tree in my kitchen,\" she said.\n\n\"Christmas tree?\" he said warily.\n\n\"Yes. The spirit was upset because my Christmas cards weren't on recycled paper. He asked me if I knew how many trees were chopped down to send Christmas cards, then he disappeared, and when I went back in the kitchen there was this Christmas tree in my kitchen.\"\n\n\"And there's no way he could have gotten into your apartment earlier and put it there?\"\n\n\"It's growing out of the floor. Besides, it wasn't there when we were in the kitchen five minutes before. See, he was watching It's a Wonderful Life on TV, which, by the way, he turned on without using the remote, and he asked me if I had any Evian water, and he went into the kitchen and\u2026this is ridiculous. You have to think I'm crazy. I think I'm crazy just listening to myself tell this ridiculous story. Evian water!\" She folded her arms. \"People have a lot of nervous breakdowns around Christmastime. Do you think I could be having one?\"\n\nThe woman with the wrapping-paper rolls peered over the cubicle. \"Have you got a tape dispenser?\"\n\nFred shook his head.\n\n\"How about a stapler?\"\n\nFred handed her his stapler, and she left.\n\n\"Well,\" Lauren said when she was sure the woman was gone, \"do you think I'm having a nervous breakdown?\"\n\n\"That depends,\" he said.\n\n\"On what?\"\n\n\"On whether there's really a tree growing out of your kitchen floor. You said he got angry because your Christmas cards weren't on recycled paper. Do you think he's dangerous?\"\n\n\"I don't know. He says he's here to give me whatever I want for Christmas. Except a fur coat. He's opposed to the killing of endangered species.\"\n\n\"A spirit who's an animal-rights activist!\" Fred said delightedly. \"Where did your sister get him from?\"\n\n\"The astral plane,\" Lauren said. \"She was trance-channeling or something. I don't care where he came from. I just want to get rid of him before he decides my Christmas presents aren't recyclable, too.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" he said, hitting a key on the computer. The screen lit up. \"The first thing we need to do is find out what he is and how he got here. I want you to call your sister. Maybe she knows some New Age spell for getting rid of the spirit.\" He began to type rapidly. \"I'll get on the Net and see if I can find someone who knows something about magic.\" He swiveled around to face her. \"You're sure you want to get rid of him?\"\n\n\"I have a tree growing out of my kitchen floor!\"\n\n\"But what if he's telling the truth? What if he really can get you what you want for Christmas?\"\n\n\"What I wanted was to mail my Christmas cards, which are now shedding needles on the kitchen tile. Who knows what he'll do next?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said. \"Listen, whether he's dangerous or not, I think I should go home with you after work, in case he shows up again, but I've got a PMS meeting for the office party\u2014\"\n\n\"That's okay. He's an animal-rights activist. He's not dangerous.\"\n\n\"That doesn't necessarily follow,\" Fred said. \"I'll come over as soon as my meeting's over, and meanwhile I'll check the Net. Okay?\"\n\n\"Okay,\" she said. She started out of the cubicle and then stopped. \"I really appreciate your believing me, or at least not saying you don't believe me.\"\n\nHe smiled at her. \"I don't have any choice. You're the only other person in the world who likes Miracle on 34th Street better than It's a Wonderful Life. And Fred Gailey believed Macy's Santa Claus was really Santa Claus, didn't he?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" she said. \"I don't think this guy is Santa Claus. He was wearing Birkenstocks.\"\n\n\"I'll meet you at your front door,\" he said. He sat down at the computer and began typing.\n\nLauren went out through the maze of cubicles and into the hall.\n\n\"There you are!\" Scott said. \"I've been looking for you all over.\" He smiled meltingly. \"I'm in charge of buying gifts for the office party, and I need your help.\"\n\n\"My help?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Picking them out. I hoped maybe I could talk you into going shopping with me after work tonight.\"\n\n\"Tonight?\" she said. \"I can't. I've got\u2014\" A Christmas tree growing in my kitchen. \"Could we do it tomorrow after work?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I've got a date. What about later on tonight? The stores are open till nine. It shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to do the shopping, and then we could go have a late supper somewhere. What say I pick you up at your apartment at six-thirty?\"\n\nAnd have the spirit lying on the couch, drinking Evian water and watching TV? \"I can't,\" she said regretfully.\n\nEven his frown was cute. \"Oh, well,\" he said, and shrugged. \"Too bad. I guess I'll have to get somebody else.\" He gave her another adorable smile and went off down the hall to ask somebody else.\n\nI hate you, Spirit of Christmas Present, Lauren thought, standing there watching Scott's handsome back recede. You'd better not be there when I get home.\n\nA woman came down the hall, carrying a basket of candy canes. \"Compliments of the Personnel Morale Special Committee,\" she said, offering one to Lauren. \"You look like you could use a little Christmas spirit.\"\n\n\"No, thanks, I've already got one,\" Lauren said.\n\nThe door to her apartment was locked, which didn't mean much, since the chain and the deadbolt had both been on when he got in before. But he wasn't in the living room, and the TV was off.\n\nHe had been there, though. There was an empty Evian water bottle on the coffee table. She picked it up and took it into the kitchen. The tree was still there, too. She pushed one of the branches aside so she could get to the wastebasket and threw the bottle away.\n\n\"Don't you know plastic bottles are nonbiodegradable?\" the spirit said. He was standing on the other side of the tree, hanging things on it. He was dressed in khaki shorts and a \"Save the Rain Forest\" T-shirt, and had a red bandanna tied around his head. \"You should recycle your bottles.\"\n\n\"It's your bottle,\" Lauren said. \"What are you doing here, Spirit?\"\n\n\"Chris,\" he corrected her. \"These are organic ornaments,\" he said. He held one of the brown things out to her. \"Handmade by the Yanomamo Indians. Each one is made of natural by-products found in the Brazilian rain forest.\" He hung the brown thing on the tree. \"Have you decided what you want for Christmas?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said. \"I want you to go away.\"\n\nHe looked surprised. \"I can't do that. Not until I give you your heart's desire.\"\n\n\"That is my heart's desire. I want you to go away and take this tree and your Yanomamo ornaments with you.\"\n\n\"You know the biggest problem I have as the Spirit of Christmas Present?\" he said. He reached into the back pocket of his shorts and pulled out a brown garland of what looked like coffee beans. \"My biggest problem is that people don't know what they want.\"\n\n\"I know what I want,\" Lauren said. \"I don't want to have to write my Christmas cards all over again\u2014\"\n\n\"You didn't write them,\" he said, draping the garland over the branches. \"They were printed. Do you know that the inks used on those cards contain harmful chemicals?\"\n\n\"I don't want to be lectured on environmental issues, I don't want to have to fight my way through a forest to get to the refrigerator, and I don't want to have to turn down dates because I have a spirit in my apartment. I want a nice, quiet Christmas with no hassles. I want to exchange a few presents with my friends and go to the office Christmas party and\u2026\" And dazzle Scott Buckley in my off-the-shoulder black dress, she thought, but she decided she'd better not say that. The spirit might decide Scott's clothes weren't made of natural fibers or something and turn him into a Yanomamo Indian.\n\n\"\u2026and have a nice, quiet Christmas,\" she finished lamely.\n\n\"Take It's a Wonderful Life,\" the spirit said, squinting at the tree. \"I watched it this afternoon while you were at work. Jimmy Stewart didn't know what he wanted.\"\n\nHe reached into his pocket again and pulled out a crooked star made of Brazil nuts and twine. \"He thought he wanted to go to college and travel and get rich, but what he really wanted was right there in front of him the whole time.\"\n\nHe did something, and the top of the tree lopped over in front of him. He tied the star on with the twine, and did something else. The tree straightened up. \"You only think you want me to leave,\" he said.\n\nSomeone knocked on the door.\n\n\"You're right,\" Lauren said. \"I don't want you to leave. I want you to stay right there.\" She ran into the living room.\n\nThe spirit followed her into the living room. \"Luckily, being a spirit, I know what you really want,\" he said, and disappeared.\n\nShe opened the door to Fred. \"He was just here,\" she said. \"He disappeared when I opened the door, which is what all the crazies say, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Fred said. \"Or else, 'He's right there. Can't you see him?' \" He looked curiously around the room. \"Where was he?\"\n\n\"In the kitchen,\" she said, shutting the door. \"Decorating a tree which probably isn't there, either.\" She led him into the kitchen.\n\nThe tree was still there, and there were large brownish cards stuck all over it.\n\n\"You really do have a tree growing in your kitchen,\" Fred said, squatting down to look at the roots. \"I wonder if the people downstairs have roots sticking out of their ceiling.\" He stood up. \"What are these?\" he said, pointing at the brownish cards.\n\n\"Christmas cards.\" She pulled one off. \"I told him I wanted mine back.\" She read the card aloud. \" 'In the time it takes you to read this Christmas card, eighty-two harp seals will have been clubbed to death for their fur.' \" She opened it up. \" 'Happy Holidays.' \"\n\n\"Cheery,\" Fred said. He took the card from her and turned it over. \" 'This card is printed on recycled paper with vegetable inks and can be safely used as compost.' \"\n\n\"Did anyone on the Net know how to club a spirit to death?\" she asked.\n\n\"No. Didn't your sister have any ideas?\"\n\n\"She didn't know how she got him in the first place. She and her Maharishi were channeling an Egyptian nobleman and he suddenly appeared, wearing a 'Save the Dolphins' T-shirt. I got the idea the Maharishi was as surprised as she was.\" She sat down at the kitchen table. \"I tried to get him to go away this afternoon, but he said he has to give me my heart's desire first.\" She looked up at Fred, who was cautiously sniffing one of the organic ornaments. \"Didn't you find out anything on the Net?\"\n\n\"I found out there are a lot of loonies with computers. What are these?\"\n\n\"By-products of the Brazilian rain forest.\" She stood up. \"I told him my heart's desire was for him to leave, and he said I didn't know what I really wanted.\"\n\n\"Which is what?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said. \"I went into the living room to answer the door, and he said that luckily he knew what I wanted because he was a spirit, and I told him to stay right where he was, and he disappeared.\"\n\n\"Show me,\" he said.\n\nShe took him into the living room and pointed at where he'd been standing, and Fred squatted down again and peered at the carpet.\n\n\"How does he disappear?\"\n\n\"I don't know. He just\u2026isn't there.\"\n\nFred stood up. \"Has he changed anything else? Besides the tree?\"\n\n\"Not that I know of. He turned the TV on without the remote,\" she said, looking around the room. The shopping bags were still on the coffee table. She looked through them and pulled out the video. \"Here. I'm your Secret Santa. I'm not supposed to give it to you till Christmas Eve, but maybe you'd better take it before he turns it into a snowy owl or something.\"\n\nShe handed it to him. \"Go ahead. Open it.\"\n\nHe unwrapped it. \"Oh,\" he said without enthusiasm. \"Thanks.\"\n\n\"I remember last year at the party we talked about it, and I was afraid you might already have a copy. You don't, do you?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, still in that flat voice.\n\n\"Oh, good. I had a hard time finding it. You were right when you said we were the only two people in the world who liked Miracle on 34th Street. Everybody else I know thinks It's a Wonderful Life is\u2014\"\n\n\"You bought me Miracle on 34th Street?\" he said, frowning.\n\n\"It's the original black-and-white version. I hate those colorized things, don't you? Everyone has gray teeth.\"\n\n\"Lauren.\" He held the box out to her so she could read the front. \"I think your friend's been fixing things again.\"\n\nShe took the box from him. On the cover was a picture of Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed dancing the Charleston.\n\n\"Oh, no! That little rat!\" she said. \"He must have changed it when he was looking at it. He told me It's a Wonderful Life was his favorite movie.\"\n\n\"Et tu, Brute?\" Fred said, shaking his head.\n\n\"Do you suppose he changed all my other Christmas presents?\"\n\n\"We'd better check.\"\n\n\"If he has\u2026\" she said, darting into the kitchen. She dropped to her knees and started rummaging through them.\n\n\"Do you think they look the same?\" Fred asked, squatting down beside her.\n\n\"Your present looked the same.\" She grabbed a package wrapped in red-and-gold paper and began feeling it. \"Evie's present is okay, I think.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"A stapler. She's always losing hers. I put her name on it in Magic Marker.\" She handed it to him to feel.\n\n\"It feels like a stapler, all right,\" he said.\n\n\"I think we'd better open it and make sure.\"\n\nFred tore off the paper. \"It's still a stapler,\" he said, looking at it. \"What a great idea for a Christmas present! Everybody in Documentation's always losing their staplers. I think PMS steals them to use on their Christmas memos.\" He handed it back to her. \"Now you'll have to wrap it again.\"\n\n\"That's okay,\" Lauren said. \"At least it wasn't a Yanomamo ornament.\"\n\n\"But it might be any minute,\" Fred said, straightening up. \"There's no telling what he might take a notion to transform next. I think you'd better call your sister again, and ask her to ask the Maharishi if he knows how to send spirits back to the astral plane, and I'll go see what I can find out about exorcism.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Lauren said, following him to the door. \"Don't take the videotape with you. Maybe I can get him to change it back.\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" Fred said, frowning. \"You're sure he said he was here to give you your heart's desire?\"\n\n\"I'm sure.\"\n\n\"Then why would he change my videotape?\" he said thoughtfully. \"It's too bad your sister couldn't have conjured up a nice, straightforward spirit.\"\n\n\"Like Santa Claus,\" Lauren said.\n\nHer sister wasn't home. Lauren tried her off and on all evening, and when she finally got her, she couldn't talk. \"The Maharishi and I are going to Barbados\u2014they're having a harmonic divergence there on Christmas Eve. So you need to send my Christmas present to Barbados,\" she said, and hung up.\n\n\"I don't even have her Christmas present bought yet,\" Lauren said to the couch, \"and it's all your fault.\"\n\nShe went into the kitchen and glared at the tree. \"I don't even dare go shopping because you might turn the couch into a humpback whale while I'm gone,\" she said, and then clapped her hand over her mouth.\n\nShe peered cautiously into the living room and then made a careful circuit of the whole apartment, looking for endangered species. There were no signs of any, and no sign of the spirit. She went back into the living room and turned on the TV. Jimmy Stewart was dancing the Charleston with Donna Reed. She picked up the remote and hit the channel button. Now Jimmy Stewart was singing \"Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight?\"\n\nShe hit the automatic channel changer. Jimmy Stewart was on every channel except one. The Ghost of Christmas Present was on that one, telling Scrooge to change his ways. She watched the rest of A Christmas Carol. When it reached the part where the Cratchits were sitting down to their Christmas dinner, she remembered she hadn't had any supper and went into the kitchen.\n\nThe tree was completely blocking the cupboards, but by mightily pushing several branches aside she was able to get to the refrigerator. The eggnog was gone. So were the Stouffer's frozen entr\u00e9es. The only thing in the refrigerator was a half-empty bottle of Evian water.\n\nShe shoved her way out of the kitchen and sat back down on the couch. Fred had told her to call if anything happened, but it was after eleven o'clock, and she had a feeling the eggnog had been gone for some time.\n\nA Christmas Carol was over, and the opening credits of the next movie were starting. \"Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. Starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.\"\n\nShe must have fallen asleep. When she woke up, Miracle on 34th Street was on, and the store manager was giving Edmund Gwenn as Macy's Santa Claus a list of toys he was supposed to push if Macy's didn't have what the children asked Santa for.\n\n\"Finally,\" Lauren said, watching Edmund Gwenn tear the list into pieces, \"something good to watch,\" and promptly fell asleep. When she woke up again, John Payne as Fred Gailey was kissing Doris, a.k.a. Maureen O'Hara, and someone was knocking on the door.\n\nI don't remember anyone knocking on the door, she thought groggily. Fred told Doris how he'd convinced the State of New York that Edmund Gwenn was Santa Claus, and then they both stared disbelievingly at a cane standing in the corner. \"The End\" came on the screen.\n\nThe knocking continued.\n\n\"Oh,\" Lauren said, and answered the door.\n\nIt was Fred, carrying a McDonald's sack.\n\n\"What time is it?\" Lauren said, blinking at him.\n\n\"Seven o'clock. I brought you an Egg McMuffin and some orange juice.\"\n\n\"Oh, you wonderful person!\" she said. She grabbed the sack and took it over to the coffee table. \"You don't know what he did.\" She reached into the sack and pulled out the sandwich. \"He transformed the food in my refrigerator into Evian water.\"\n\nHe was looking curiously at her. \"Didn't you go to bed last night? He didn't come back, did he?\"\n\n\"No. I waited for him, and I guess I fell asleep.\" She took a huge bite of the sandwich.\n\nFred sat down beside her. \"What's that?\" He pointed to a pile of dollar bills on the coffee table.\n\n\"I don't know,\" Lauren said.\n\nFred picked up the bills. Under them was a handful of change and a piece of pink paper. \" 'Returned three boxes Christmas cards for refund,' \" Lauren said, reading it. \" '$38.18.' \"\n\n\"That's what's here,\" Fred said, counting the money. \"He didn't turn your Christmas cards into a Douglas fir after all. He took them back and got a refund.\"\n\n\"Then that means the tree isn't in the kitchen!\" she said, jumping up and running to look. \"No, it doesn't.\"\n\nShe came back and sat down on the couch.\n\n\"But at least you got your money back,\" Fred said. \"And it fits in with what I learned on the Net last night. They think he's a friendly presence, probably some sort of manifestation of the seasonal spirit. Apparently these are fairly common, variations of Santa Claus being the most familiar, but there are other ones, too. All benign. They think he's probably telling the truth about wanting to give you your heart's desire.\"\n\n\"Do they know how to get rid of him?\" she asked, and took a bite.\n\n\"No. Apparently no one's ever wanted to exorcise one.\" He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. \"I got a list of exorcism books to try, though, and this one guy, Clarence, said the most important thing in an exorcism is to know exactly what kind of spirit it is.\"\n\n\"How do we do that?\" Lauren asked with her mouth full.\n\n\"By its actions,\" Fred said. \"He said appearance doesn't mean anything because seasonal spirits are frequently in disguise. He said we need to write down everything the spirit's said and done, so I want you to tell me exactly what he did.\" He took a pen and a notebook out of his jacket pocket. \"Everything from the first time you saw him.\"\n\n\"Just a minute.\" She finished the last bite of sandwich and took a drink of the orange juice. \"Okay. He knocked on the door, and when I answered it, he told me he was here to give me a Christmas present, and I told him I wasn't interested, and I shut the door and started into the bedroom to hang up my dress and\u2014my dress!\" she gasped, and went tearing into the bedroom.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" Fred said, following her.\n\nShe flung the closet door open and began pushing clothes madly along the bar. \"If he's transformed this\u2014\" She stopped pushing hangers. \"I'll kill him,\" she said, and lifted out a brownish collection of feathers and dried leaves. \"Benign??\" she said. \"Do you call that benign??\"\n\nFred gingerly touched a brown feather. \"What was it?\"\n\n\"A dress,\" she said. \"My beautiful black, off-the-shoulder, drop-dead dress.\"\n\n\"Really?\" he said doubtfully. He lifted up some of the brownish leaves. \"I think it still is a dress,\" he said. \"Sort of.\"\n\nShe crumpled the leaves and feathers against her and sank down on the bed. \"All I wanted was to go to the office party!\"\n\n\"Don't you have anything else you can wear to the office party? What about that pretty red thing you wore last year?\"\n\nShe shook her head emphatically. \"Scott didn't even notice it!\"\n\n\"And that's your heart's desire?\" Fred said after a moment. \"To have Scott Buckley notice you at the office party?\"\n\n\"Yes, and he would have, too! It had sequins on it, and it fit perfectly!\" She held out what might have been a sleeve. Greenish-brown lumps dangled from brownish strips of bamboo. \"And now he's ruined it!\"\n\nShe flung the dress on the floor and stood up. \"I don't care what this Clarence person says. He is not benign! And he is not trying to get me what I want for Christmas. He is trying to ruin my life!\"\n\nShe saw the expression on Fred's face and stopped. \"I'm sorry,\" she said. \"None of this is your fault. You've been trying to help me.\"\n\n\"And I've been doing about as well as your spirit,\" he said. \"Look, there has to be some way to get rid of him. Or at least get the dress back. Clarence said he knew some transformation spells. I'll go on to work and see what I can find out.\"\n\nHe went out into the living room and over to the door. \"Maybe you can go back to the store and see if they have another dress like it.\" He opened the door.\n\n\"Okay.\" Lauren nodded. \"I'm sorry I yelled at you. And you have been a lot of help.\"\n\n\"Right,\" he said glumly, and went out.\n\n\"Where'd you get that dress?\" Jimmy Stewart said to Donna Reed.\n\nLauren whirled around. The TV was on. Donna Reed was showing Jimmy Stewart her new dress.\n\n\"Where are you?\" Lauren demanded, looking at the couch. \"I want you to change that dress back right now!\"\n\n\"Don't you like it?\" the spirit said from the bedroom. \"It's completely biodegradable.\"\n\nShe stomped into the bedroom. He was putting the dress on the hanger and making little \"tsk\"-ing noises. \"You have to be careful with natural fibers,\" he said reprovingly.\n\n\"Change it back the way it was. This instant.\"\n\n\"It was handmade by the Yanomamo Indians,\" he said, smoothing down what might be the skirt. \"Do you realize that their natural habitat is being destroyed at the rate of 750 acres a day?\"\n\n\"I don't care. I want my dress back.\"\n\nHe carried the dress on its hanger over to the chest. \"It's so interesting. Donna Reed knew right away she was in love with Jimmy Stewart, but he was so busy thinking about college and his new suitcase, he didn't even know she existed.\" He hung up the dress. \"He practically had to be hit over the head.\"\n\n\"I'll hit you over the head if you don't change that dress back this instant, Spirit,\" she said, looking around for something hard.\n\n\"Call me Chris,\" he said. \"Did you know sequins are made from nonrenewable resources?\" and disappeared as she swung the lamp.\n\n\"And good riddance,\" she shouted to the air.\n\nThey had the dress in a size three. Lauren put herself through the indignity of trying to get into it and then went to work. The receptionist was watching Jimmy Stewart standing on the bridge in the snow and weeping into a Kleenex. She handed Lauren her messages.\n\nThere were two memos from the PMS Committee\u2014they were having a sleigh ride after work, and she was supposed to bring cheese puffs to the office party. There wasn't a message from Fred.\n\n\"Oh!\" the receptionist wailed. \"This part is so sad!\"\n\n\"I hate It's a Wonderful Life,\" Lauren said, and went up to her desk. \"I hate Christmas,\" she said to Evie.\n\n\"It's normal to hate Christmas,\" Evie said, looking up from the book she was reading. \"This book, it's called Let's Forget Christmas, says it's because everyone has these unrealistic expectations. When they get presents, they\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, that reminds me,\" Lauren said. She rummaged in her bag and brought out Evie's present, fingering it quickly to make sure it was still a stapler. It seemed to be. She held it out to Evie. \"Merry Christmas.\"\n\n\"I don't have yours wrapped yet,\" Evie said. \"I don't even have my wrapping paper bought yet. The book says I'm suffering from an avoidance complex.\" She picked up the package. \"Do I have to open it now? I know it will be something I love, and you won't like what I got you half as well, and I'll feel incredibly guilty and inadequate.\"\n\n\"You don't have to open it now,\" Lauren said. \"I just thought I'd better give it to you before\u2014\" She picked her messages up off her desk and started looking through them. \"Before I forgot. There haven't been any messages from Fred, have there?\"\n\n\"Yeah. He was here about fifteen minutes ago looking for you. He said to tell you the Net hadn't been any help, and he was going to try the library.\" She looked sadly at the present. \"It's even wrapped great,\" she said gloomily. \"I went shopping for a dress for the office party last night, and do you think I could find anything off-the-shoulder or with sequins? I couldn't even find anything I'd be caught dead in. Did you know the rate of stress-related illnesses at Christmas is seven times higher than the rest of the year?\"\n\n\"I can relate to that,\" Lauren said.\n\n\"No, you can't. You didn't end up buying some awful gray thing with gold chains hanging all over it. At least Scott will notice me. He'll say, 'Hi, Evie, are you dressed as Marley's ghost?' And there you'll be, looking fabulous in black sequins\u2014\"\n\n\"No, I won't,\" Lauren said.\n\n\"Why? Didn't they hold it for you?\"\n\n\"It was\u2026defective. Did Fred want to talk to me?\"\n\n\"I don't know. He was on his way out. He had to go pick up his Santa Claus suit. Oh, my God.\" Her voice dropped to a whisper. \"It's Scott Buckley.\"\n\n\"Hi,\" Scott said to Lauren. \"I was wondering if you could go shopping with me tonight.\"\n\nLauren stared at him, so taken aback she couldn't speak.\n\n\"When you couldn't go last night, I decided to cancel my date.\"\n\n\"Uh\u2026I\u2026\" she said.\n\n\"I thought we could buy the presents and then have some dinner.\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"Great,\" Scott said. \"I'll come over to your apartment around six-thirty.\"\n\n\"No!\" Lauren said. \"I mean, why don't we go straight from work?\"\n\n\"Good idea. I'll come up here and get you.\" He smiled meltingly and left.\n\n\"I think I'll kill myself,\" Evie said. \"Did you know the rate of suicides at Christmas is four times higher than the rest of the year? He is so cute,\" she said, looking longingly down the hall after him. \"There's Fred.\"\n\nLauren looked up. Fred was coming toward her desk with a Santa Claus costume and a stack of books. Lauren hurried across to him.\n\n\"This is everything the library had on exorcisms and the occult,\" Fred said, transferring half of the books to her arms. \"I thought we could both go through them today, and then get together tonight and compare notes.\"\n\n\"Oh, I can't,\" Lauren said. \"I promised Scott I'd help him pick out the presents for the office party tonight. I'm sorry. I could tell him I can't.\"\n\n\"Your heart's desire? Are you kidding?\" He started awkwardly piling the books back on his load. \"You go shopping. I'll go through the books and let you know if I come up with anything.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\" she said guiltily. \"I mean, you shouldn't have to do all the work.\"\n\n\"It's my pleasure,\" he said. He started to walk away and then stopped. \"You didn't tell the spirit Scott was your heart's desire, did you?\"\n\n\"Of course not. Why?\"\n\n\"I was just wondering\u2026nothing. Never mind.\" He walked off down the hall. Lauren went back to her desk.\n\n\"Did you know the rate of depression at Christmas is sixteen times higher than the rest of the year?\" Evie said. She handed Lauren a package.\n\n\"What's this?\"\n\n\"It's from your Secret Santa.\"\n\nLauren opened it. It was a large book entitled It's a Wonderful Life: The Photo Album. On the cover, Jimmy Stewart was looking depressed.\n\n\"I figure it'll take a half hour or so to pick out the presents,\" Scott said, leading her past two inflatable palm trees into The Upscale Oasis. \"And then we can have some supper and get acquainted.\" He lay down on a massage couch. \"What do you think about this?\"\n\n\"How many presents do we have to buy?\" Lauren asked, looking around the store. There were a lot of inflatable palm trees, and a jukebox, and several life-size cardboard cutouts of Malcolm Forbes and Leona Helmsley. Against the far wall were two high-rise aquariums and a bank of televisions with neon-outlined screens.\n\n\"Seventy-two.\" He got up off the massage couch, handed her the list of employees, and went over to a display of brown boxes tied with twine. \"What about these? They're handmade Yanomamo Christmas ornaments.\"\n\n\"No,\" Lauren said. \"How much money do we have to spend?\"\n\n\"The PMS Committee budgeted six thousand, and there was five hundred left in the Sunshine fund. We can spend\u2026\" He picked up a pocket calculator in the shape of Donald Trump and punched several buttons. \"Ninety dollars per person, including tax. How about this?\" He held up an automatic cat feeder.\n\n\"We got those last year,\" Lauren said. She picked up a digital umbrella and put it back down.\n\n\"How about a car fax?\" Scott said. \"No, wait. This, this is it!\"\n\nLauren turned around. Scott was holding up what looked like a gold cordless phone. \"It's an investment pager,\" he said, punching keys. \"See, it gives you the Dow Jones, treasury bonds, interest rates. Isn't it perfect?\"\n\n\"Well,\" Lauren said.\n\n\"See, this is the hostile takeover alarm, and every time the Federal Reserve adjusts the interest rate it beeps.\"\n\nLauren read the tag. \" 'Portable Plutocrat, $74.99.' \"\n\n\"Great,\" Scott said. \"We'll have money left over.\"\n\n\"To invest,\" Lauren said.\n\nHe went off to see if they had seventy-two of them, and Lauren wandered over to the bank of televisions.\n\nThere was a videotape of Miracle on 34th Street lying on top of the VCR/shower massage. Lauren looked around to see if anyone was watching and then popped the Wonderful Life tape out and stuck in Miracle.\n\nA dozen Edmund Gwenns dressed as Macy's Santa Claus appeared on the screens, listening to twelve store managers tell them which overstocked toys to push.\n\nScott came over, lugging four shopping bags. \"They come gift wrapped,\" he said happily, showing her a Portable Plutocrat wrapped in green paper with gold dollar signs. \"Which gives us a free evening.\"\n\n\"That's what I've been fighting against for years,\" a dozen Edmund Gwenns said, tearing a dozen lists to bits, \"the way they commercialize Christmas.\"\n\n\"What I thought,\" Scott said when they got in the car, \"was that instead of going out for supper, we'd take these over to your apartment and order in.\"\n\n\"Order in?\" Lauren said, clutching a bag of Portable Plutocrats on her lap.\n\n\"I know a great Italian place that delivers. Angel-hair pasta, wine, everything. Or, if you'd rather, we could run by a grocery store and pick up some stuff to cook.\"\n\n\"Actually, my kitchen's kind of a mess,\" she said. There is a Christmas tree in it, she thought, with organic by-products hanging on it.\n\nHe pulled up outside her apartment building. \"Then Italian it is.\" He got out of the car and began unloading shopping bags. \"You like prosciutto? They have a great melon and prosciutto.\"\n\n\"Actually, the whole apartment's kind of a disaster,\" Lauren said, following him up the stairs. \"You know, wrapping presents and everything. There are ribbons and tags and paper all over the floor and\u2014\"\n\n\"Great,\" he said, stopping in front of her door. \"We have to put tags on the presents, anyway.\"\n\n\"They don't need tags, do they?\" Lauren said desperately. \"I mean, they're all exactly alike.\"\n\n\"It personalizes them,\" he said. \"It shows the gift was chosen especially for them.\" He looked expectantly at the key in her hand and then at the door.\n\nShe couldn't hear the TV, which was a good sign. And every time Fred had come over, the spirit had disappeared. So all I have to do is keep him out of the kitchen, she thought.\n\nShe opened the door and Scott pushed past her and dumped the shopping bags onto the coffee table. \"Sorry,\" he said. \"Those were really heavy.\" He straightened up and looked around the living room. There was no sign of the spirit, but there were three Evian water bottles on the coffee table. \"This doesn't look too messy. You should see my apartment. I'll bet your kitchen's neater than mine, too.\"\n\nLauren walked swiftly over to the kitchen and pulled the door shut. \"I wouldn't bet on it. Aren't there still some more presents to bring up?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I'll go get them. Shall I call the Italian place first?\"\n\n\"No,\" Lauren said, standing with her back against the kitchen door. \"Why don't you bring the bags up first?\"\n\n\"Okay,\" he said, smiling meltingly, and went out.\n\nLauren leaped to the door, put the deadbolt and the chain on, and then ran back to the kitchen and opened the door. The tree was still there. She pulled the door hastily to and walked rapidly into the bedroom. He wasn't there, or in the bathroom. \"Thank you,\" she breathed, looking heavenward, and went back in the living room.\n\nThe TV was on. Edmund Gwenn was shouting at the store psychologist.\n\n\"You know, you were right,\" the spirit said. He was stretched out on the couch, wearing a \"Save the Black-Footed Ferret\" T-shirt and jeans. \"It's not a bad movie. Of course, it's not as good as It's a Wonderful Life, but I like the way everything works out at the end.\"\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" she demanded, glancing anxiously at the door.\n\n\"Watching Miracle on 34th Street,\" he said, pointing at the screen. Edmund Gwenn was brandishing his cane at the store psychiatrist. \"I like the part where Edmund Gwenn asks Natalie Wood what she wants for Christmas, and she shows him the picture of the house.\"\n\nLauren picked up Fred's video and brandished it at him. \"Fine. Then you can change Fred's video back.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" he said, and did something. She looked at Fred's video. It showed Edmund Gwenn hugging Natalie Wood in front of a yellow moon with Santa Claus's sleigh and reindeer flying across it. Lauren put the video hastily down on the coffee table.\n\n\"Thank you,\" she said. \"And my dress.\"\n\n\"Natalie Wood doesn't really want a house, of course. What she really wants is for Maureen O'Hara to marry John Payne. The house is just a symbol for what she really wants.\"\n\nOn the TV Edmund Gwenn rapped the store psychologist smartly on the forehead with his cane.\n\nThere was a knock on the door. \"It's me,\" Scott said.\n\n\"I also like the part where Edmund Gwenn yells at the store manager for pushing merchandise nobody wants. Christmas presents should be something the person wants. Aren't you going to answer the door?\"\n\n\"Aren't you going to disappear?\" she whispered.\n\n\"Disappear?\" he said incredulously. \"The movie isn't over. And besides, I still haven't gotten you what you want for Christmas.\" He did something, and a bowl of trail mix appeared on his stomach.\n\nScott knocked again.\n\nLauren went over to the door and opened it two inches.\n\n\"It's me,\" Scott said. \"Why do you have the chain on?\"\n\n\"I\u2026\" She looked hopefully at Chris. He was eating trail mix and watching Maureen O'Hara bending over the store psychologist, trying to wake him up.\n\n\"Scott, I'm sorry, but I think I'd better take a rain check on supper.\"\n\nHe looked bewildered. And cute. \"But I thought\u2026\" he said.\n\nSo did I, she thought. But I have a spirit on my couch who's perfectly capable of turning you into a Brazilian rain forest by-product.\n\n\"The Italian takeout sounds great,\" she said, \"but it's kind of late, and we've both got to go to work tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Tomorrow's Saturday.\"\n\n\"Uh\u2026I meant go to work on wrapping presents. Tomorrow's Christmas Eve, and I haven't even started my wrapping. And I have to make cheese puffs for the office party and wash my hair and\u2026\"\n\n\"Okay, okay, I get the message,\" he said. \"I'll just bring in the presents and then leave.\"\n\nShe thought of telling him to leave them in the hall, and then closed the door a little and took the chain off the door.\n\nGo away! she thought at the spirit, who was eating trail mix.\n\nShe opened the door far enough so she could slide out, and pulled it to behind her. \"Thanks for a great evening,\" she said, taking the shopping bags from Scott. \"Good night.\"\n\n\"Good night,\" he said, still looking bewildered. He started down the hall. At the stairs he turned and smiled.\n\nI'm going to kill him, Lauren thought, waving back, and took the shopping bags inside.\n\nThe spirit wasn't there. The trail mix was still on the couch, and the TV was still on.\n\n\"Come back here!\" she shouted. \"You little rat! You have ruined my dress and my date, and you're not going to ruin anything else! You're going to change back my dress and my Christmas cards, and you're going to get that tree out of my kitchen right now!\"\n\nHer voice hung in the air. She sat down on the couch, still holding the shopping bags. On the TV, Edmund Gwenn was sitting in Bellevue, staring at the wall.\n\n\"At least Scott finally noticed me,\" she said, and set the shopping bags down on the coffee table. They rattled.\n\n\"Oh, no!\" she said. \"Not the Plutocrats!\"\n\n\"The problem is,\" Fred said, closing the last of the books on the occult, \"that we can't exorcise him if we don't know which seasonal spirit he is, and he doesn't fit the profiles of any of these. He must be in disguise.\"\n\n\"I don't want to exorcise him,\" Lauren said. \"I want to kill him.\"\n\n\"Even if we did manage to exorcise him, there'd be no guarantee that the things he's changed would go back to their original state.\"\n\n\"And I'd be stuck with explaining what happened to six thousand dollars' worth of Christmas presents.\"\n\n\"Those Portable Plutocrats cost six thousand dollars?\"\n\n\"$5895.36.\"\n\nFred gave a low whistle. \"Did your spirit say why he didn't like them? Other than the obvious, I mean. That they were nonbiodegradable or something?\"\n\n\"No. He didn't even notice them. He was watching Miracle on 34th Street, and he was talking about how he liked the way things worked out at the end and the part about the house.\"\n\n\"Nothing about Christmas presents?\"\n\n\"I don't remember.\" She sank down on the couch. \"Yes, I do. He said he liked the part where Edmund Gwenn yelled at the store manager for talking people into buying things they didn't want. He said Christmas presents should be something the person wanted.\"\n\n\"Well, that explains why he transformed the Plutocrats then,\" Fred said. \"It probably also means there's no way you can talk him into changing them back. And I've got to have something to pass out at the office party, or you'll be in trouble. So we'll just have to come up with replacement presents.\"\n\n\"Replacement presents?\" Lauren said. \"How? It's ten o'clock, the office party's tomorrow night, and how do we know he won't transform the replacement presents once we've got them?\"\n\n\"We'll buy people what they want. Was six thousand all the money you and Scott had?\"\n\n\"No,\" Lauren said, rummaging through one of the shopping bags. \"PMS budgeted sixty-five hundred.\"\n\n\"How much have you got left?\"\n\nShe pulled out a sheaf of papers. \"He didn't transform the purchase orders or the receipt,\" she said, looking at them. \"The investment pagers cost $5895.36. We have $604.64 left.\" She handed him the papers. \"That's $8.39 apiece.\"\n\nHe looked at the receipt speculatively and then into the shopping bag. \"I don't suppose we could take these back and get a refund from The Upscale Oasis?\"\n\n\"They're not going to give us $5895.36 for seventy-two 'Save the Ozone Layer' buttons,\" Lauren said. \"And there's nothing we can buy for eight dollars that will convince PMS it cost sixty-five hundred. And where am I going to get the money to pay back the difference?\"\n\n\"I don't think you'll have to. Remember when Chris changed your Christmas cards into the tree? He didn't really. He returned them somehow to the store and got a refund. Maybe he's done the same thing with the Plutocrats and the money will turn up on your coffee table tomorrow morning.\"\n\n\"And if it doesn't?\"\n\n\"We'll worry about that tomorrow. Right now we've got to come up with presents to pass out at the party.\"\n\n\"Like what?\"\n\n\"Staplers.\"\n\n\"Staplers?\"\n\n\"Like the one you got Evie. Everybody in my department's always losing their staplers, too. And their tape dispensers. It's an office party. We'll buy everybody something they want for the office.\"\n\n\"But how will we know what that is? There are seventy-two people on this list.\"\n\n\"We'll call the department heads and ask them, and then we'll go shopping.\" He stood up. \"Where's your phone book?\"\n\n\"Next to the tree.\" She followed him into the kitchen. \"How are we going to go shopping? It's ten o'clock at night.\"\n\n\"Bizmart's open till eleven,\" he said, opening the phone book, \"and the grocery store's open all night. We'll get as many of the presents as we can tonight and the rest tomorrow morning, and that still gives us all afternoon to get them wrapped. How much wrapping paper do you have?\"\n\n\"Lots. I bought it half price last year when I decided this Christmas was going to be different. A stapler doesn't seem like much of a present.\"\n\n\"It does if it's what you wanted.\" He reached for the phone.\n\nIt rang. Fred picked up the receiver and handed it to Lauren.\n\n\"Oh, Lauren,\" Evie's voice said. \"I just opened your present, and I love it! It's exactly what I wanted!\"\n\n\"Really?\" Lauren said.\n\n\"It's perfect! I was so depressed about Christmas and the office party and still not having my shopping done. I wasn't even going to open it, but in Let's Forget Christmas it said you should open your presents early so they won't ruin Christmas morning, and I did, and it's wonderful! I don't even care whether Scott notices me or not! Thank you!\"\n\n\"You're welcome,\" Lauren said, but Evie had already hung up. She looked at Fred. \"That was Evie. You were right about people liking staplers.\" She handed him the phone. \"You call the department heads. I'll get my coat.\"\n\nHe took the phone and began to punch in numbers, and then put it down. \"What exactly did the spirit say about the ending of Miracle on 34th Street?\"\n\n\"He said he liked the way everything worked out at the end. Why?\"\n\nHe looked thoughtful. \"Maybe we're going about this all wrong.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"What if the spirit really does want to give you your heart's desire, and all this transforming stuff is some roundabout way of doing it? Like the angel in It's a Wonderful Life. He's supposed to save Jimmy Stewart from committing suicide, and instead of doing something logical, like talking him out of it or grabbing him, he jumps in the river so Jimmy Stewart has to save him.\"\n\n\"You're saying he turned seventy-two Portable Plutocrats into 'Save the Ozone Layer' buttons to help me?\"\n\n\"I don't know. All I'm saying is that maybe you should tell him you want to go to the office party in a black sequined dress with Scott Buckley, and see what happens.\"\n\n\"See what happens? After what he did to my dress? If he knew I wanted Scott, he'd probably turn him into a harp seal.\" She put on her coat. \"Well, are we going to call the department heads or not?\"\n\nThe Graphic Design department wanted staplers, and so did Accounts Payable. Accounts Receivable, which was having an outbreak of stress-related Christmas colds, wanted Puffs Plus and cough drops. Document Control wanted scissors.\n\nScott looked at the list, checking off Systems and the other departments they'd called. \"All we've got left is the PMS Committee,\" he said.\n\n\"I know what to get them,\" Lauren said. \"Copies of Let's Forget Christmas.\"\n\nThey got some of the things before Bizmart closed, and Fred was back at nine Saturday morning to do the rest of it. At the bookstore they ran into the woman who had been stapling presents together the day Lauren enlisted Fred's help.\n\n\"I completely forgot my husband's first wife,\" she said, looking desperate, \"and I don't have any idea of what to get her.\"\n\nFred handed her the videotape of It's a Wonderful Life they were giving the receptionist. \"How about one of these?\" he said.\n\n\"Do you think she'll like it?\"\n\n\"Everybody likes it,\" Fred said.\n\n\"Especially the part where the bad guy steals the money, and Jimmy Stewart races around town, trying to replace it,\" Lauren said.\n\nIt took them most of the morning to get the rest of the presents and forever to wrap them. By four they weren't even half done.\n\n\"What's next?\" Fred asked, tying the bow on the last of the staplers. He stood up and stretched.\n\n\"Cough drops,\" Lauren said, cutting a length of red paper with Santa Clauses on it.\n\nHe sat back down. \"Ah, yes. Accounts Receivable's heart's desire.\"\n\n\"What's your heart's desire?\" Lauren asked, folding the paper over the top of the cough drops and taping it. \"What would you ask for if the spirit inflicted himself on you?\"\n\nFred unreeled a length of ribbon. \"Well, not to go to an office party, that's for sure. The only year I had an even remotely good time was last year, talking to you.\"\n\n\"I'm serious,\" Lauren said. She taped the sides and handed the package to Fred. \"What do you really want for Christmas?\"\n\n\"When I was eight,\" he said thoughtfully, \"I asked for a computer for Christmas. Home computers were new then and they were pretty expensive, and I wasn't sure I'd get it. I was a lot like Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street. I didn't believe in Santa Claus, and I didn't believe in miracles, but I really wanted it.\"\n\nHe cut off the length of ribbon, wrapped it around the package, and tied it in a knot.\n\n\"Did you get the computer?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, cutting off shorter lengths of ribbon. \"Christmas morning I came downstairs, and there was a note telling me to look in the garage.\" He opened the scissors and pulled the ribbon across the blade, making it curl. \"It was a puppy.\" He smiled, remembering. \"The thing was, a computer was too expensive, but there was an outside chance I'd get it, or I wouldn't have asked for it. Kids don't ask for stuff they know is impossible.\"\n\n\"And you hadn't asked for a puppy because you knew you couldn't have one?\"\n\n\"No, you don't understand. There are things you don't ask for because you know you can't have them, and then there are things so far outside the realm of possibility, it would never even occur to you to want them.\" He made the curled ribbon into a bow and fastened it to the package.\n\n\"So what you're saying is your heart's desire is something so far outside the realm of possibility, you don't even know what it is?\"\n\n\"I didn't say that,\" he said. He stood up again. \"Do you want some eggnog?\"\n\n\"Yes, thanks. If it's still there.\"\n\nHe went into the kitchen. She could hear forest-thrashing noises and the refrigerator opening. \"It's still here,\" he said.\n\n\"It's funny Chris hasn't been back,\" she called to Fred. \"I keep worrying he must be up to something.\"\n\n\"Chris?\" Fred said. He came back into the living room with two glasses of eggnog.\n\n\"The spirit. He told me to call him that,\" she said. \"It's short for Spirit of Christmas Present.\" Fred was frowning. \"What's wrong?\" Lauren asked.\n\n\"I wonder\u2026nothing. Never mind.\" He went over to the TV. \"I don't suppose Miracle on 34th Street's on TV this afternoon?\"\n\n\"No, but I made him change your video back.\" She pointed. \"It's there, on top of the TV.\"\n\nHe turned on the TV, inserted the video in the VCR, and hit play. He came and sat down beside Lauren. She handed him the wrapped cough drops, but he didn't take them. He was watching the TV. Lauren looked up. On the screen, Jimmy Stewart was walking past Donna Reed's house, racketing a stick along the picket fence.\n\n\"That isn't Miracle,\" Lauren said. \"He told me he changed it back.\" She snatched up the box. It still showed Edmund Gwenn hugging Natalie Wood. \"That little sneak! He only changed the box!\"\n\nShe glared at the TV. On the screen Jimmy Stewart was glaring at Donna Reed.\n\n\"It's all right,\" Fred said, taking the package and reaching for the ribbon. \"It's not a bad movie. The ending's too sentimental, and it doesn't really make sense. I mean, one minute everything's hopeless, and Jimmy Stewart's ready to kill himself, and then the angel convinces him he had a wonderful life, and suddenly everything's okay.\" He looked around the table, patting the spread-out wrapping paper. \"But it has its moments. Have you seen the scissors?\"\n\nLauren handed him one of the pairs they'd bought. \"We'll wrap them last.\"\n\nOn the TV Jimmy Stewart was sitting in Donna Reed's living room, looking awkward. \"What I have trouble with is Jimmy Stewart's being so self-sacrificing,\" she said, cutting another length of red paper with Santa Clauses on it. \"I mean, he gives up college so his brother can go, and then when his brother has a chance at a good job, he gives up college again. He even gives up committing suicide to save Clarence. There's such a thing as being too self-sacrificing, you know.\"\n\n\"Maybe he gives up things because he thinks he doesn't deserve them.\"\n\n\"Why wouldn't he?\"\n\n\"He's never gone to college, he's poor, he's deaf in one ear. Sometimes when people are handicapped or overweight they just assume they can't have the things other people have.\"\n\nThe telephone rang. Lauren reached for it and then realized it was on TV.\n\n\"Oh, hello, Sam,\" Donna Reed said, looking at Jimmy Stewart.\n\n\"Can you help me with this ribbon?\" Fred said.\n\n\"Sure,\" Lauren said. She scooted closer to him and put her finger on the crossed ribbon to hold it taut.\n\nJimmy Stewart and Donna Reed were standing very close together, listening to the telephone. The voice on the phone was saying something about soybeans.\n\nFred still hadn't tied the knot. Lauren glanced up at him. He was looking at the TV, too.\n\nJimmy Stewart was looking at Donna Reed, his face nearly touching her hair. Donna Reed looked at him and then away. The voice from the phone was saying something about the chance of a lifetime, but it was obvious neither of them was hearing a word. Donna Reed looked up at him. His lips almost touched her forehead. They didn't seem to be breathing.\n\nLauren realized she wasn't, either. She looked at Fred. He was holding the two ends of ribbon, one in each hand, and looking down at her.\n\n\"The knot,\" she said. \"You haven't tied it.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" he said. \"Sorry.\"\n\nJimmy Stewart dropped the phone with a clatter and grabbed Donna Reed by both arms. He began shaking her, yelling at her, and then suddenly she was wrapped in his arms, and he was smothering her with kisses.\n\n\"The knot,\" Fred said. \"You have to pull your finger out.\"\n\nShe looked uncomprehendingly at him and then down at the package. He had tied the knot over her finger, which was still pressing against the wrapping paper.\n\n\"Oh. Sorry,\" she said, and pulled her finger free. \"You were right. It does have its moments.\"\n\nHe yanked the knot tight. \"Yeah,\" he said. He reached for the spool of ribbon and began chopping off lengths for the bow. On the screen Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart were being pelted with rice.\n\n\"No. You were right,\" he said. \"He is too self-sacrificing.\" He waved the scissors at the screen. \"In a minute he's going to give up his honeymoon to save the building and loan. It's a wonder he ever asked Donna Reed to marry him. It's a wonder he didn't try to fix her up with that guy on the phone.\"\n\nThe phone rang. Lauren looked at the screen, thinking it must be in the movie, but Jimmy Stewart was kissing Donna Reed in a taxicab.\n\n\"It's the phone,\" Fred said.\n\nLauren scrambled up and reached for it.\n\n\"Hi,\" Scott said.\n\n\"Oh, hello, Scott,\" Lauren said, looking at Fred.\n\n\"I was wondering about the office party tonight,\" Scott said. \"Would you like to go with me? I could come get you and we could take the presents over together.\"\n\n\"Uh\u2026I\u2026\" Lauren said. She put her hand over the receiver. \"It's Scott. What am I going to tell him about the presents?\"\n\nFred motioned her to give him the phone. \"Scott,\" he said. \"Hi. It's Fred Hatch. Yeah, Santa Claus. Listen, we ran into a problem with the presents.\"\n\nLauren closed her eyes.\n\n\"We got a call from The Upscale Oasis that investment pagers were being recalled by the Federal Safety Commission.\"\n\nLauren opened her eyes. Fred smiled at her. \"Yeah. For excessive cupidity,\" he said.\n\nLauren grinned.\n\n\"But there's nothing to worry about,\" Fred said. \"We replaced them. We're wrapping them right now. No, it was no trouble. I was happy to help. Yeah, I'll tell her.\" He hung up. \"Scott will be here to take you to the office party at seven-thirty,\" he said. \"It looks like you're going to get your heart's desire after all.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Lauren said, looking at the TV. On the screen, the building and loan was going under.\n\nThey finished wrapping the last pair of scissors at six-thirty, and Fred went back to his apartment to change clothes and get his Santa Claus costume. Lauren packed the presents in three of the Upscale Oasis shopping bags, said sternly, \"Don't you dare touch these,\" to the empty couch, and went to get ready.\n\nShe showered and did her hair, and then went into the bedroom to see if the spirit had biodegraded her red dress, or, by some miracle, brought the black off-the-shoulder one back. He hadn't.\n\nShe put on her red dress and went back into the living room. It was only a little after seven. She turned on the TV and put Fred's video into the VCR. She hit play. Edmund Gwenn was giving the doctor the X-ray machine he'd always wanted.\n\nLauren picked up one of the shopping bags and felt the top pair of scissors to make sure they hadn't been turned into bottles of Evian water. There was an envelope stuck between two of the packages. Inside was a check for $5895.36. It was made out to the Children's Hospital fund.\n\nShe shook her head, smiling, and put the check back into the envelope.\n\nOn TV, Maureen O'Hara and John Payne were watching Natalie Wood run through an empty house and out the back door to look for her swing. They looked seriously at each other. Lauren held her breath. John Payne moved forward and kissed Maureen O'Hara.\n\nSomeone knocked on the door. \"That's Scott,\" Lauren said to John Payne, and waited till Maureen O'Hara had finished telling him she loved him before she went to open the door.\n\nIt was Fred, carrying a foil-covered plate. He was wearing the same sweater and pants he'd worn to wrap the presents. \"Cheese puffs,\" he said. \"I figured you couldn't get to your stove.\" He looked seriously at her. \"I wouldn't worry about not having your black dress to dazzle Scott with.\"\n\nHe went over and set the cheese puffs on the coffee table. \"You need to take the foil off and heat them in a microwave for two minutes on high. Tell PMS to put the presents in Santa's bag, and I'll be there at eleven-thirty.\"\n\n\"Aren't you going to the party?\"\n\n\"Office parties are your idea of fun, not mine,\" he said. \"Besides, Miracle on 34th Street's on at eight. It may be the only chance I have to watch it.\"\n\n\"But I wanted you\u2014\"\n\nThere was a knock on the door. \"That's Scott,\" Lauren said.\n\n\"Well,\" Fred said, \"if the spirit doesn't do something in the next fifteen seconds, you'll have your heart's desire in spite of him.\" He opened the door. \"Come on in,\" he said. \"Lauren and the presents are all ready.\" He handed two of the shopping bags to Scott.\n\n\"I really appreciate your helping Lauren and me with all this,\" Scott said.\n\nFred handed the other shopping bag to Lauren. \"It was my pleasure.\"\n\n\"I wish you were coming with us,\" she said.\n\n\"And give up a chance of seeing the real Santa Claus?\" He held the door open. \"You two had better get going before something happens.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Scott said, alarmed. \"Do you think these presents might be recalled, too?\"\n\nLauren looked hopefully at the couch and then the TV. On the screen Jimmy Stewart was standing on a bridge in the snow, getting ready to kill himself.\n\n\"Afraid not,\" Fred said.\n\nIt was snowing by the time they pulled into the parking lot at work. \"It was really selfless of Fred to help you wrap all those presents,\" Scott said, holding the lobby door open for Lauren. \"He's a nice guy.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Lauren said. \"He is.\"\n\n\"Hey, look at that!\" Scott said. He pointed at the security monitor. \"It's a Wonderful Life. My favorite movie!\" On the monitor Jimmy Stewart was running through the snow, shouting, \"Merry Christmas!\"\n\n\"Scott,\" Lauren said, \"I can't go to the party with you.\"\n\n\"Just a minute, okay?\" Scott said, staring at the screen. \"This is my favorite part.\" He set the shopping bags down on the receptionist's desk and leaned his elbows on it. \"This is the part where Jimmy Stewart finds out what a wonderful life he's had.\"\n\n\"You have to take me home,\" Lauren said.\n\nThere was a gust of cold air and snow. Lauren turned around.\n\n\"You forgot your cheese puffs,\" Fred said, holding out the foil-covered plate to Lauren.\n\n\"There's such a thing as being too self-sacrificing, you know,\" Lauren said.\n\nHe held the plate out to her. \"That's what the spirit said.\"\n\n\"He came back?\" She shot a glance at the shopping bags.\n\n\"Yeah. Right after you left. Don't worry about the presents. He said he thought the staplers were a great idea. He also said not to worry about getting a Christmas present for your sister.\"\n\n\"My sister!\" Lauren said, clapping her hand to her mouth. \"I completely forgot about her.\"\n\n\"He said since you didn't like it, he sent her the Yanomamo dress.\"\n\n\"She'll love it,\" Lauren said.\n\n\"He also said it was a wonder Jimmy Stewart ever got Donna Reed, he was so busy giving everybody else what they wanted,\" he said, looking seriously at her.\n\n\"He's right,\" Lauren said. \"Did he also tell you Jimmy Stewart was incredibly stupid for wanting to go off to college when Donna Reed was right there in front of him?\"\n\n\"He mentioned it.\"\n\n\"What a great movie!\" Scott said, turning to Lauren. \"Ready to go up?\"\n\n\"No,\" Lauren said. \"I'm going with Fred to see a movie.\" She took the cheese puffs from Fred and handed them to Scott.\n\n\"What am I supposed to do with these?\"\n\n\"Take the foil off,\" Fred said, \"and put them in a microwave for two minutes.\"\n\n\"But you're my date,\" Scott said. \"Who am I supposed to go with?\"\n\nThere was a gust of cold air and snow. Everyone turned around.\n\n\"How do I look?\" Evie said, taking off her coat.\n\n\"Wow!\" Scott said. \"You look terrific!\"\n\nEvie spun around, her shoulders bare, the sequins glittering on her black dress. \"Lauren gave it to me for Christmas,\" she said happily. \"I love Christmas, don't you?\"\n\n\"I love that dress,\" Scott said.\n\n\"He also told me,\" Fred said, \"that his favorite thing in Miracle on 34th Street was Santa Claus's being in disguise\u2014\"\n\n\"He wasn't in disguise,\" Lauren said. \"Edmund Gwenn told everybody he was Santa Claus.\"\n\nFred held up a correcting finger. \"He told everyone his name was Kris Kringle.\"\n\n\"Chris,\" Lauren said.\n\n\"Oh, I love this part,\" Evie said.\n\nLauren looked at her. She was standing next to Scott, watching Jimmy Stewart standing next to Donna Reed and singing \"Auld Lang Syne.\"\n\n\"He makes all sorts of trouble for everyone,\" Fred said. \"He turns Christmas upside down\u2014\"\n\n\"Completely disrupts Maureen O'Hara's life,\" Lauren said.\n\n\"But by the end, everything's worked out, the doctor has his X-ray machine, Natalie Wood has her house\u2014\"\n\n\"Maureen O'Hara has Fred\u2014\"\n\n\"And no one's quite sure how he did it, or if he did anything.\"\n\n\"Or if he had the whole thing planned from the beginning.\" She looked seriously at Fred. \"He told me I only thought I knew what I wanted for Christmas.\"\n\nFred moved toward her. \"He told me just because something seems impossible doesn't mean a miracle can't happen.\"\n\n\"What a great ending!\" Evie said, sniffling. \"It's a Wonderful Life is my favorite movie.\"\n\n\"Mine, too,\" Scott said. \"Do you know how to heat up cheese puffs?\" He turned to Lauren and Fred. \"Cut that out, you two, we'll be late for the party.\"\n\n\"We're not going,\" Fred said, putting his arm around Lauren. They started for the door. \"Miracle's on at eight.\"\n\n\"But you can't leave,\" Scott said. \"What about all these presents? Who's going to pass them out?\"\n\nThere was a gust of cold air and snow. \"Ho ho ho,\" Santa Claus said.\n\n\"Isn't that your costume, Fred?\" Lauren said.\n\n\"Yes. It has to be back at the rental place by Monday morning,\" he said to Santa Claus. \"And no changing it into rain forest by-products.\"\n\n\"Merry Christmas!\" Santa Claus said.\n\n\"I like the way things worked out at the end,\" Lauren said.\n\n\"All we need is a cane standing in the corner,\" Fred said.\n\n\"I have no idea what you're talking about,\" Santa Claus said. \"Where are all these presents I'm supposed to pass out?\"\n\n\"Right here,\" Scott said. He handed one of the shopping bags to Santa Claus.\n\n\"Plastic shopping bags,\" Santa Claus said, making a \"tsk\"-ing sound. \"You should be using recycled paper.\"\n\n\"Sorry,\" Scott said. He handed the cheese puffs to Evie and picked up the other two shopping bags. \"Ready, Evie?\"\n\n\"We can't go yet,\" Evie said, gazing at the security monitor. \"Look, It's a Wonderful Life is just starting.\" On the screen Jimmy Stewart's brother was falling through the ice. \"This is my favorite part,\" she said.\n\n\"Mine, too,\" Scott said, and went over to stand next to her.\n\nSanta Claus squinted curiously at the monitor for a moment and then shook his head. \"Miracle on 34th Street's a much better movie, you know,\" he said reprovingly. \"More realistic.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "All About Emily",
                "text": "\"Fuck The Red Shoes.\n\nI wanted to be a Rockette.\"\n\n- A Chorus Line\n\nAll right, so you're probably wondering how I, Claire Havilland\u2014three-time Tony winner, Broadway legend, and star of Only Human\u2014ended up here, standing outside Radio City Music Hall in a freezing rain two days before Christmas, soaked to the skin and on the verge of pneumonia, accosting harmless passersby.\n\nWell, it's all my wretched manager Torrance's fault. And Macy's. And the movie All About Eve's.\n\nYou've never heard of All About Eve? Of course you haven't. Neither has anyone else. Except Emily.\n\nIt starred Anne Baxter and Bette Davis, and was the first movie Marilyn Monroe appeared in. She played Miss Caswell, a producer's girlfriend, but the movie's not about her. It's about an aging Broadway actress, Margo Channing, and the young aspiring actress, Eve Harrington, who insinuates herself into Margo's life and makes off with her starring role, her career, and, very nearly, her husband.\n\nAll About Eve was made into a musical called Applause and then into a straight dramatic play which was then made into another musical. (Broadway has never been terribly creative.) The second musical, which was called Bumpy Night and starred Kristen Stewart as Eve and me as Margo, only ran for three months, but it won me my second Tony and got me the lead in Feathers, which won me my third.\n\nMacy's is a New York department store, in case you don't know that, either. Except for Emily, no one today seems to know anything that happened longer than five minutes ago. Macy's sponsors a parade on Thanksgiving Day every year, featuring large balloons representing various cartoon characters, the stars of various Broadway shows waving frozenly from floats, and the Rockettes.\n\nAnd my manager Torrance is a lying, sneaky, conniving snake. As you shall see.\n\nThe Wednesday night before Thanksgiving he knocked on my dressing room door during intermission and said, \"Do you have a minute, dear one? I've got fabulous news!\"\n\nI should have known right then he was up to something. Torrance only comes backstage when: one, he has bad news to deliver, or two, he wants something. And he never knocks.\n\n\"The show's closing,\" I said.\n\n\"Closing! Of course not. The house is sold out every night through Christmas. And it's no wonder! You get more dazzling with every performance!\" He clutched his chest dramatically. \"When you sang that Act I finale, the audience was eating out of your hand!\"\n\n\"If you're still trying to talk me into having lunch with Nusbaum, the answer is no,\" I said, unzipping my garden party costume. \"I am not doing the revival of Chicago.\"\n\n\"But you were the best Roxie Hart the show ever had\u2014\"\n\n\"That was twelve years ago,\" I said, shimmying out of it. \"I have no intention of wearing a leotard at my age. I am too old\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't even say that word, dear one,\" he said, looking anxiously out into the hall and pulling the door to behind him. \"You don't know who might hear you.\"\n\n\"They won't have to hear me. One look at me in fishnet stockings, and the audience will be able to figure it out for themselves.\"\n\n\"Nonsense,\" he said, looking appraisingly at me. \"Your legs aren't that bad.\"\n\nAren't that bad. \"Dance ten, looks three?\" I said wryly.\n\nHe stared blankly at me.\n\n\"It's a line from A Chorus Line, a show I was in which you apparently never bothered to see. It's a line which proves my point about the fishnet stockings. I am not doing Chicago.\"\n\n\"All Nusbaum's asking is that you meet him for lunch. What harm could that do? He didn't even say what role he wanted you for. It may not be Roxie at all. He may want you for the part of\u2014\"\n\n\"Who? The warden?\" I said, scooping up my garden party costume into a wad. \"I told you I was too old for fishnet stockings, not old enough to be playing Mama Morton.\" I threw it at him. \"Or Mama Rose. Or I Remember Mama.\"\n\n\"I only meant he might want you to play Velma,\" he said, fighting his way out of the yards of crinoline.\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"Absolutely not. I need a role where I keep my clothes on. I hear Austerman's doing a musical version of Desk Set.\"\n\n\"Desk Set?\" he asked. \"What's it about?\"\n\nApparently he never watched movies, either. \"Computers replacing office workers,\" I said. \"It was a Julia Roberts\u2013Richard Gere movie several years ago, and there are no fishnet stockings in it anywhere.\" I wriggled into my ball gown. \"Was that all you wanted?\"\n\nI knew perfectly well it wasn't. Torrance has been my manager for over fifteen years, and one thing I've learned during that time is that he never gets around to what he really wants till Act Two of a conversation, apparently in the belief that he can soften me up by asking for some other thing first. Or for two other things, if what he wants is particularly unpleasant, though how it could be worse than doing Chicago, I didn't know.\n\n\"What did you come in here for, Torrance?\" I asked. \"There are only five minutes to curtain.\"\n\n\"I've got a little publicity thing I need you to do. Tomorrow's Thanksgiving, and the Macy's parade\u2014\"\n\n\"No, I am not riding on the Only Human float, or standing out in a freezing rain again saying, 'Look! Here comes the Wall-E balloon!' \"\n\nThere was a distinct pause, and then Torrance said, \"How did you know there's a Wall-E balloon in the parade? I thought you only read Variety.\"\n\n\"There was a picture of it on the home page of the Times yesterday.\"\n\n\"Did you click to the article?\"\n\n\"No. Why? As you say, I never read the news. You didn't already tell them I'd do it, did you?\" I said, my eyes narrowing.\n\n\"No, of course not. You don't have to go anywhere near the parade.\"\n\n\"Then why did you bring it up?\"\n\n\"Because the parade's Grand Marshal is coming to the show Friday night, and I'd like you to let him come backstage after the performance to meet you.\"\n\n\"Who is it this year?\" I asked. It was always a politician, or whatever talentless tween idol was going to be starring on Broadway next. \"If it's any of Britney Spears's offspring, the answer is no.\"\n\n\"It's not,\" Torrance said. \"It's Dr. Edwin Oakes.\"\n\n\"Doctor?\"\n\n\"Of physics. Nobel Prize for his work on artificial neurotransmitters. He founded AIS.\"\n\n\"Why on earth is a physicist the Grand Marshal of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?\" I said. \"Oh, wait, is he the robot scientist?\"\n\nThere was another pause. \"I thought you said you didn't read the article.\"\n\n\"I didn't. My driver Jorge told me about him.\"\n\n\"Where'd he hear about Dr. Oakes?\"\n\n\"On the radio. He listens to it in the limo while he's waiting.\"\n\n\"Oh. What did Jorge tell you about him?\"\n\n\"Just that he'd invented some new sort of robot that was supposed to replace ATMs and subway-ticket dispensers, and that I shouldn't believe it, they were going to steal all our jobs\u2014oh, my God, you're bringing some great, clanking Robby the Robot backstage to meet me!\"\n\n\"No, of course not. Don't be ridiculous. Would I do that?\"\n\n\"Yes. And you didn't answer my question. Is this the same Dr. Oakes? The robot scientist?\"\n\n\"Yes, only they're not robots, they're 'artificials.' \"\n\n\"I don't care what they're called. I'm not granting a backstage interview to C-3PO.\"\n\n\"You're dating yourself, dear one,\" he said. \"C-3PO was eons ago. The reason Dr. Oakes was asked to be the Grand Marshal is because this year's parade theme is robots, in honor of\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't tell me\u2014Forbidden Planet, right? I should have known.\"\n\nForbidden Planet. The second-worst show to ever have been on Broadway, but that hasn't stopped it from packing them in down the street at the Majestic, thanks to Robby the Robot and a never-ending procession of tween idols (at this point it's Shiloh Jolie-Pitt and Justin Bieber, Jr.) in the starring roles. \"And I suppose that's where this Dr. Oakes is tonight?\"\n\n\"No, they didn't want to see Forbidden Planet\u2014\"\n\n\"They?\" I said suspiciously.\n\n\"Dr. Oakes and his niece. They didn't want to meet Shiloh and Justin. They want to see Only Human. And to meet you.\"\n\nI'll bet, I thought, waiting for Torrance to get to the real reason he'd come backstage to see me, because meeting a couple of fans couldn't be it. He dragged a ragtag assortment of people backstage every week. He wasn't still trying to talk me into doing the latest revival of Cats, was he? It was not only the worst musical ever produced on Broadway, but it required tights and whiskers.\n\n\"Dr. Oakes's niece is really eager to meet you,\" Torrance was saying. \"She's a huge fan of yours. It will only take five minutes,\" he pleaded. \"And it would really help with ticket sales.\"\n\n\"Why do the ticket sales need help? I thought you said we had full houses through Christmas.\"\n\n\"We do, but the weather's supposed to turn bad next week, and sales for after New Year's have been positively limp. Management's worried we won't last through January. And the word is Disney's scouting for a theater where they can put a new production of Tangled. If they get nervous about our closing\u2014\"\n\n\"I don't see how meeting them will help us get publicity. Physicists are hardly front-page news.\"\n\n\"I can guarantee it'll get us publicity. WNET's already said they'll be here to live-stream it. And Sirius. And when Emily said she wanted to meet you on Good Morning, America yesterday, ticket sales for this weekend went through the roof.\"\n\n\"I thought you said we were already sold out through Christmas.\"\n\n\"I said Only Human was playing to full houses.\"\n\nWhich meant half the tickets were going for half price at the TKTS booth in Times Square and the back five rows of the balcony were roped off for \"repairs.\"\n\n\"And you know what the management's like when they think they're going to lose their investment. They'll jump at anything\u2014\"\n\n\"All right,\" I said. \"I'll meet with Dr. Nobel Prize and his niece, if she is his niece. Which I seriously doubt.\"\n\n\"Why do you say that?\" Torrance said sharply.\n\n\"Because all middle-aged men are alike, even scientists. Her name wouldn't be Miss Caswell, would it?\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"The producer's girlfriend,\" I said. I pantomimed a pair of enormous breasts. \"Ring a bell?\" He looked blank. \"Really, Torrance, you should at least pretend to have watched the plays I'm starring in.\"\n\n\"I do. I have. I just don't remember any Miss Caswell in Only Human.\"\n\n\"That's because she wasn't in Only Human. She was in Bumpy Night. Lindsay Lohan played her, remember?\" and when he still looked blank, \"Marilyn Monroe played her in the original movie. And please don't tell me you don't know who that is, or you'll make me feel even more ancient than I am.\"\n\n\"You're not ancient, dear one,\" he said, \"and I wish you'd stop being so hard on yourself. You're a legend.\"\n\nWhich is a word even more deadly to one's career than \"old\" or \"cellulite.\" And only slightly less career-ending than \"First Lady of the Theater.\" I said, \"Yes, well, this 'legend' just changed her mind. No backstage interview.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" he said. \"I'll tell them no dice. But don't be surprised if they decide to go to Forbidden Planet instead. Their entire cast has agreed to a backstage interview, including Justin.\"\n\n\"All right, fine. I'll do it,\" I said. \"If you get me out of the lunch with Nusbaum and talk to Austerman about Desk Set.\"\n\n\"I will. This interview will help on the Desk Set thing,\" he said, though I couldn't see how. \"Star Meets Fans\" is hardly home-page news. \"You'll be glad you did this. You're going to like Emily.\"\n\nThere was only one thing to like about having been blackmailed into doing the interview: our discussion of it had taken up the entire intermission, and Torrance hadn't had time to ask me the thing he'd actually come backstage to.\n\nI expected him to try again after the show, but he didn't. He left a message saying, \"WABC will be there to film meeting. Wear something suitable for Broadway legend. Sunset Boulevard?\" Which was proof either that he saw me much as I was beginning to see myself, as a fading (and deranged) star, or that he hadn't seen the musical Sunset Boulevard, either.\n\nI had the wardrobe mistress hunt me up the magenta hostess gown from Mame and a pair of Evita earrings, signed autographs for the fans waiting outside the stage door, turned my phone off, and went home to bed.\n\nI kept my phone off through Thanksgiving Day so Torrance couldn't call me and insist I watch Dr. Oakes in the parade, but I didn't want to miss a possible call from Austerman about Desk Set, so Friday I turned my phone back on, assuming (incorrectly) that Torrance would immediately call and make another attempt at broaching the subject of whatever it was he'd really come to my dressing room about.\n\nBecause it couldn't possibly be the scruffy-looking professor and his all-dressed-up niece who Torrance brought to my dressing room Friday night after the show. I could see why Torrance had rejected the idea of her being the producer's mistress. This petite, fresh-scrubbed teenager with her light brown hair and upturned nose and pink cheeks was nothing like Marilyn Monroe. She was nothing like the gangly, tattooed, tipped, and tattered girls who clustered outside Forbidden Planet every night either, waiting for Justin Jr. to autograph their Playbills.\n\nThis girl, who couldn't be more than five foot two, looked more like the character of Peggy in the first act of 42nd Street, wide-eyed and giddy at being in New York City for the first time. Or a sixteen-year-old Julie Andrews. The sort of dewy-eyed innocent ing\u00e9nue that every established actress hates on sight. And that the New York press can't wait to get its claws into.\n\nBut they were being oddly deferential. And they were all here. Not just Good Morning America, but the other networks, the cable channels, the Times, the Post\u2013Daily News, and at least a dozen bloggers and streamers.\n\n\"How'd you manage to pull this off?\" I whispered to Torrance as they squeezed into my dressing room. Apart from the Tonys, Spiderman III accidents, and Hollywood stars, it's impossible to get the media to cover anything theatrical. \"Lady Gaga's not replacing me in the role, is she?\"\n\nHe ignored that. \"Claire, dear one,\" he said, as if he were in a production of No\u00ebl Coward's Private Lives, \"allow me to introduce Dr. Edwin Oakes. And this,\" he said, presenting the niece to me with a flourish, \"is Emily.\"\n\n\"Oh, Miss Havilland,\" she said eagerly. \"It's so exciting to meet you. You were just wonderful.\"\n\nWell, at least she hadn't said it was an honor to meet me, or called me a legend.\n\n\"I loved Only Human,\" she said. \"It's the best play I've ever seen.\"\n\nIt was probably the only play she'd ever seen, but Torrance had been right, this meeting would be good publicity. The media were recording every word and obviously responding to Emily's smile, which even I had to admit was rather sweet.\n\n\"You sing and dance so beautifully, Miss Havilland,\" she said. \"And you make the audience believe that what they're seeing is real\u2014\"\n\n\"You're Emily's favorite actress,\" Torrance cut in. \"Isn't that right, Emily?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. I've seen all your plays\u2014Feathers and Play On! and The Drowsy Chaperone and Fender Strat and Anything Goes and Love, Etc.\"\n\n\"But I thought Torrance said this was your first time in New York,\" I said. And she was much too young to have seen Play On! She'd have been five years old.\n\n\"It is my first time,\" she said earnestly. \"I haven't seen the plays onstage, but I've seen all your filmed performances and the numbers you've done at the Tony Awards\u2014'When They Kill Your Dream' and 'The Leading Lady's Lament.' And I've watched your interviews on YouTube and read all your online interviews and listened to the soundtracks of A Chorus Line and Tie Dye and In Between the Lines.\"\n\n\"My, you are a fan!\" I said. \"Are you sure your name's Emily and not Eve?\"\n\n\"Eve?\" Dr. Oakes said sharply.\n\nTorrance shot me a warning glance, and the reporters all looked up alertly from the Androids they were taking notes on. \"Why would you think her name was Eve, Miss Havilland?\" one of them asked.\n\n\"I was making a joke,\" I said, taken aback at all this reaction. And if I said it was a reference to Eve Harrington, none of them would have ever heard of her, and if I said she was a character in Bumpy Night, none of them would have heard of that, either. \"I\u2026\"\n\n\"She called me Eve because I was doing what Eve Harrington did,\" Emily said. \"That's who you meant, isn't it, Miss Havilland? The character in the musical Bumpy Night?\"\n\n\"I\u2026y-yes,\" I stammered, trying to recover from the shock that she'd recognized the allusion. The younger generation's knowledge usually doesn't extend further back than High School Musical: The Musical.\n\n\"When Eve meets the actress Margo Channing,\" Emily was cheerfully telling the reporters, \"she gushes to her about what a wonderful actress she is.\"\n\n\"Bumpy Night?\" one of the reporters said, looking as lost as Torrance usually does.\n\n\"Yes,\" Emily said. \"The musical was based on the movie All About Eve, which starred Bette Davis and Anne Baxter.\"\n\n\"And Marilyn Monroe,\" I said.\n\n\"Right,\" Emily said, dimpling. \"As Miss Caswell, the producer's girlfriend. It was her screen debut.\"\n\nI was beginning to like this girl, in spite of her perfect skin and perfect hair and the way she could hold an audience. The media were hanging on her every word. Although that might be because they were as astonished as I was at a teenager's knowledge of the movie.\n\n\"Marilyn Monroe\u2014she was in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire,\" she said, \"which Lauren Bacall was in, too. She starred in the first musical they made of All About Eve: Applause. It wasn't nearly as good as Bumpy Night, or as faithful to the movie.\"\n\nAnd since she knew so much about movies, maybe this was a good time to put in a pitch for my doing Austerman's play. \"Have you ever seen Desk Set, Emily?\" I asked her.\n\n\"Which one? The Julia Roberts\u2013Richard Gere remake or the original with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy?\"\n\nGood God. \"The original.\"\n\n\"Yes, I've seen it. I love that movie.\"\n\n\"So do I,\" I said. \"Did you know they're thinking of making a musical of it?\"\n\n\"Oh, you'd be wonderful in the Katharine Hepburn part!\"\n\nI definitely liked this girl.\n\n\"What about Cats?\" Torrance asked.\n\nI glared at him, but he ignored me.\n\n\"Have you ever seen the musical Cats?\" he persisted.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, and wrinkled her nose in distaste. \"I didn't like it. There's no plot at all, and 'Memory' is a terrible song. Cats isn't nearly as good as Only Human.\"\n\n\"You see, Torrance?\" I said, and turned my widest smile on Emily. \"I'm so glad you came to the show tonight.\"\n\n\"So am I,\" she said. \"I'm sorry I sounded like Eve Harrington before. I wouldn't want to be her. She wasn't a nice person,\" she explained to the reporters. \"She tried to steal Margo's part in the play from her.\"\n\n\"You're right, she wasn't very nice,\" I said. \"But I suppose one can't blame her for wanting to be an actress. After all, acting's the most rewarding profession in the world. What about you, Emily? Do you want to be an actress?\"\n\nIt should have been a perfectly safe question. Every teenage girl who's ever come backstage to meet me has been seriously stagestruck, especially after seeing her first Broadway musical, and Emily had to be, given her obsessive interest in the movies and my plays.\n\nBut she didn't breathe \"Oh, yes,\" like every other girl I'd asked. She said, \"No, I don't.\"\n\nYou're lying, I thought.\n\n\"I could never do what you do, Miss Havilland,\" Emily went on in that matter-of-fact voice.\n\n\"Then what do you want to do? Paint? Write?\"\n\nShe glanced uncertainly at her uncle and then back at me.\n\n\"Or does your uncle want you to be a neurophysicist like him?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh, no, I couldn't do that, either. Any of those things.\"\n\n\"Of course you could, an intelligent girl like you. You can do anything you want to do.\"\n\n\"But I\u2014\" Emily glanced at her uncle again, as if for guidance.\n\n\"Come, you must want to be something,\" I said. \"An astronaut. A ballerina. A real boy.\"\n\n\"Claire, dear one, stop badgering the poor child,\" Torrance said with an artificial-sounding laugh. \"She's in New York for the very first time. It's scarcely the time for career counseling.\"\n\n\"You're right. I'm sorry, Emily,\" I said. \"How are you liking New York?\"\n\n\"Oh, it's wonderful!\" she said.\n\nThe eagerness was back in her voice, and Dr. Oakes had relaxed. Did she want to go on the stage and her uncle didn't approve? Or was something else going on? \"How are you liking New York?\" was hardly riveting stuff, but there wasn't a peep out of the media. They were watching us raptly, as if they expected something to happen at any second.\n\nI should have read the article in the Times, I thought, and asked Emily if she'd been to the Empire State Building yet.\n\n\"No,\" she said, \"we do that tomorrow morning after we do NBC Weekend, and then at ten I'm going ice-skating at Rockefeller Center. It would be wonderful if you could come, too.\"\n\n\"At ten in the morning?\" I said, horrified. \"I'm not even up by then,\" and the reporters laughed. \"Thank you for asking me, though. What are you doing tomorrow night?\" I asked, and then realized she was likely to say, \"We're seeing Forbidden Planet,\" but I needn't have worried.\n\n\"We're going to see the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall,\" she said.\n\n\"Oh, good. You'll love the Rockettes. Or have you seen them already? They were in the parade, weren't they?\"\n\n\"No,\" Emily said. \"What are\u2014?\"\n\n\"They don't ride in the parade,\" Torrance said, cutting in. \"They dance outside Macy's on Thirty-fourth Street. What else are you and your uncle doing tomorrow, Emily?\"\n\n\"We're going to Times Square, and then Macy's and Bloomingdale's to see the Christmas windows, and then the Disney store\u2014\"\n\n\"Good God,\" I said. \"All in one day? It sounds exhausting!\"\n\n\"But I don't\u2014\" Emily began.\n\nThis time it was Dr. Oakes who cut in. \"She's too excited at being here to be tired,\" he said. \"There's so much to see and do. Emily's really looking forward to seeing the Rockettes, aren't you?\" He nodded at her, as if giving her a cue, and the reporters leaned forward expectantly. But they weren't looking at her, they were looking at me.\n\nAnd suddenly it all clicked into place\u2014their wanting to avoid the subject of her being tired, and Torrance's wanting to know what I'd read about the parade, and Emily's encyclopedic knowledge of plays, and the Wall-E balloon.\n\nThe parade's robot theme wasn't in honor of Forbidden Planet. It was in honor of Dr. Oakes and his \"artificials,\" one of which was standing right in front of me. And those cheeks were produced by sensors; that wide-eyed look and dimpled smile were programmed in.\n\nTorrance, the little rat, had set me up. He'd counted on the fact that I only read Variety and wouldn't know who Emily was.\n\nAnd no wonder the media was all here. They were waiting with bated breath for the moment when I realized what was going on. It would make a great YouTube video\u2014my shocked disbelief, Dr. Oakes's self-satisfied smirk, Torrance's laughter.\n\nAnd if I hadn't tumbled to it, and she'd managed to fool me all the way to the end of the interview with me none the wiser, so much the better. It would be evidence of what Dr. Oakes was obviously here to prove\u2014that his artificials were indistinguishable from humans.\n\nEmily really is Eve Harrington, I thought. Innocent and sweet and vulnerable-looking. And not at all what she appears to be.\n\nBut if I said that, if I suddenly pointed an accusing finger at her and shouted, \"Impostor!\" it would blow the image Dr. Oakes and AIS were trying to promote and make Torrance furious. And, from what I'd seen so far, Emily might be capable of bursting into authentic-looking tears, and I'd end up looking like a bully, just like Margo Channing had at the party at the end of Act One of Bumpy Night, and there would go any chance I had of getting the lead in Desk Set.\n\nBut if I went on pretending I hadn't caught on and continued playing the part Torrance had cast me in in this little one-act farce, I'd look like a prize fool. I could see the headline crawl on the Times building in Times Square now: \"Bumpy Night for Broadway Legend.\" And \"Robot Fools First Lady of the Theater.\" Not exactly the sort of publicity that gets an actress considered for a Tony.\n\nPlus, the entire point of Desk Set was that humans are smarter than technology. What would Katharine Hepburn do in this situation? I wondered. Or Margo Channing?\n\n\"You'll love the Christmas show,\" Torrance was saying. \"Especially the Nativity scene. They have real donkeys and sheep. And camels.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it will be wonderful,\" Emily said, smiling winsomely over at me, \"but I don't see how it can be any better than Only Human.\"\n\nOnly human. Of course. That was why they'd wanted to see the play and come backstage to trick me. Fasten your seat belts, I said silently. It's going to be a bumpy night.\n\n\"And you'll love Radio City Music Hall itself,\" Torrance said. \"It's this beautiful Art Deco building.\"\n\nDr. Oakes nodded. \"They've offered to give us a tour before the show, haven't they, Emily?\"\n\nThis was my cue. \"Emily,\" I repeated musingly. \"That's such a pretty name. You never hear it anymore. Were you named after someone?\"\n\nThe reporters looked up as one from their corders and Androids, and Dr. Oakes tensed visibly. Which meant I was right.\n\n\"Yes,\" Emily said. \"I was named after Emily Webb from\u2014\"\n\n\"Our Town,\" I said, thinking, Of course. It was perfect. Except for Little Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin, Emily Webb was the most sickeningly sweet ing\u00e9nue to ever grace the American stage, tripping girlishly around in a white dress with a big bow in her hair and prattling about how much she loves sunflowers and birthdays and \"sleeping and waking up,\" and then dying tragically at the beginning of Act Three.\n\n\"It was her mother's favorite play,\" Dr. Oakes said. \"And Emily was her favorite character.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I said, and added casually, \"I hadn't realized she was named after someone. I'd just assumed it was an acronym.\"\n\n\"An acronym?\" Dr. Oakes said sharply.\n\n\"Yes, you know. MLE. For 'Manufactured Lifelike Entity' or something.\"\n\nThere was a dead silence, like the one that follows the revelation that I'm Hope's daughter in the third act of Only Human, and the reporters began to thumb their Androids furiously.\n\nI ignored them. \"And then I thought it might be your model number,\" I said to Emily. \"Was your face modeled on Martha Scott's? She\u2014\"\n\n\"Played Emily Webb in the original production, which starred Frank Craven as the Stage Manager,\" Emily said. \"No, actually, it was modeled on Jo Ann Sayers, who played Eileen in\u2014\"\n\n\"The original Broadway production of My Sister Eileen,\" I said.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said happily. \"I wanted to be named Eileen, but Uncle\u2014I mean, Dr. Oakes\u2014was worried that the name might suggest the wrong things. Eileen was much sexier than Emily Webb.\"\n\nAnd Eileen had caused an uproar everywhere she went, ending up with half of New York and the entire Brazilian navy following her in a wild conga line, something I was sure Dr. Oakes didn't want to have happen with his artificial.\n\n\"Women sometimes find sexiness in other women intimidating,\" Emily said. \"I'm designed to be nonthreatening.\"\n\n\"So of course the name Eve was out, too?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said earnestly. \"But we couldn't have used it anyway. It tested badly among religious people. And there was the Wall-E problem. Dr. Oakes didn't want a name that made people immediately think of robots.\"\n\n\"So I suppose the Terminator was out, as well,\" I said dryly. \"And HAL.\"\n\nThe media couldn't restrain themselves any longer. \"When did you realize Emily was an artificial?\" the Times reporter asked.\n\n\"From the moment I saw her, of course. After all, acting is my specialty. I knew at once she wasn't the real thing.\"\n\n\"What tipped you off exactly?\" the YouTube reporter said.\n\n\"Everything,\" I lied. \"Her inflection, her facial expressions, her timing\u2014\"\n\nEmily looked stricken.\n\n\"But the flaws were all very minor,\" I said reassuringly. \"Only someone\u2014\"\n\nI'd started to say \"Only someone who's been on the stage as long as I have,\" but caught myself in time.\n\n\"Only a pro could have spotted it,\" I said instead. \"Professional actors can spot someone acting when the audience can't.\"\n\nAnd that had better be true, or they'd realize I was lying through my teeth. \"You're very, very good, Emily,\" I said, and smiled at her.\n\nShe still looked upset, and even though I knew it wasn't real, that there was no actual emotion behind her troubled expression, her bitten lip, I said, \"I'm not even certain I would have spotted it except that you were so much more knowledgeable about the theater than the young women who usually come backstage. Most of them think A Little Night Music is a song from Twilight: The Musical.\"\n\nAll but two of the reporters laughed. They\u2014and Torrance\u2014looked blank.\n\n\"You're simply too intelligent for your own good, darling,\" I said, smiling at her. \"You should take a lesson from Carol Channing when she played\u2014\"\n\n\"Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,\" she said, and then clapped her hand to her mouth.\n\nThe reporters laughed.\n\n\"But what really tipped me off,\" I said, squeezing her lifelike-feeling shoulder affectionately, \"was that you were the only person your age I've ever met who wasn't stagestruck.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear.\" Emily looked over at Dr. Oakes. \"I knew I should have said I wanted to be an actress.\" She turned back to me. \"But I was afraid that might give the impression that I wanted your job, and of course I don't. Artificials don't want to take anyone's job away from them.\"\n\n\"Our artificials are designed solely to help humans,\" Dr. Oakes said, \"and to do only tasks that make humans' jobs easier and more pleasant,\" and this was obviously the company spiel. \"They're here to bring an end to those machines everyone hates\u2014the self-service gas pump, the grocery store checkout machine, electronic devices no one can figure out how to program. Wouldn't you rather have a nice young man fixing the bug in your computer than a repair program? Or have a friendly, intelligent operator connect you to the person you need to talk to instead of trying to choose from a dozen options, none of which apply to your situation? Or\"\u2014he nodded at me\u2014\"tell you who starred in the original production of a musical rather than having to waste time looking it up on Google?\"\n\n\"And you can do all that?\" I asked Emily. \"Pump gas and fix computers and spit out twenties?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" she said, her eyes wide. \"I'm not programmed to do any of those things. I was designed to introduce artificials to the public.\"\n\nAnd to convince them they weren't a threat, to stand there and look young and decorative. Just like Miss Caswell.\n\n\"Emily's merely a prototype,\" Dr. Oakes said. \"The actual artificials will be programmed to do a variety of different jobs. They'll be your maid, your tech support, your personal assistant.\"\n\n\"Just like Eve Harrington,\" I said.\n\n\"What?\" Dr. Oakes said, frowning.\n\n\"Margo Channing hired Eve Harrington as her personal assistant,\" Emily explained, \"and then she stole Margo's career.\"\n\n\"But that can't happen with artificials,\" Dr. Oakes said. \"They're programmed to assist humans, not supplant them.\" He beamed at me. \"You won't ever have to worry about an Eve Harrington again.\"\n\n\"Dr. Oakes, you said they're forbidden to take our jobs,\" one of the reporters called out, \"but if they're as intelligent as we've just seen Emily is, how do we know they won't figure out a way to get around those rules?\"\n\n\"Because it's not a question of rules,\" Dr. Oakes said. \"It's a question of programming. A human could 'want' someone else's job. An artificial can't. 'Wanting' is not in their programming.\"\n\n\"But when I asked Emily about her name,\" I reminded him, \"she said she originally wanted to be called Eileen.\"\n\n\"She was speaking metaphorically,\" Dr. Oakes said. \"She didn't 'want' the name in the human sense. She was expressing the fact that she'd made a choice among options and then altered that choice based on additional information. She was simply using the word 'want' as a shortcut for the process.\"\n\nAnd to persuade us she thinks just like we do, I thought. In other words, she was acting. \"And what about when she said she loved the play?\" I asked him.\n\n\"I did love it,\" Emily said, and it might all be programming and sophisticated sensors, but she looked genuinely distressed. \"Our preferences are just like humans'.\"\n\n\"Then what's to keep them from 'preferring' they had our jobs?\" the same reporter asked.\n\n\"Yeah,\" another one chimed in. \"Wouldn't it be safer to program them not to have preferences at all?\"\n\n\"That's not possible,\" Emily said. \"Simulating human behavior requires higher-level thinking, and higher-level thinking requires choosing between options\u2014\"\n\n\"And often those options are equally valid,\" Dr. Oakes said, \"the choice of which word or facial expression to use, of which information to give or withhold\u2014\"\n\nLike the fact that you're an artificial, I thought, wondering if Dr. Oakes would include in his lecture the fact that higher-level thinking involved the ability to lie.\n\n\"Or the option of which action to take,\" he was saying. \"Without the ability to choose one thing over another, action, speech\u2014even thought\u2014would be impossible.\"\n\n\"But then what keeps them from 'choosing' to take over?\" a third reporter asked.\n\n\"They've been programmed to take into consideration the skills and attributes humans have which make them better qualified for the vast majority of jobs. But the qualities which cause humans to desire jobs and careers are not programmed in\u2014initiative, drive, and the need to stand out individually.\"\n\n\"Which means your job's safe, Claire,\" Torrance said.\n\n\"Exactly,\" Dr. Oakes said without irony. \"In addition, since artificials' preferences are not emotion-based, they lack the lust for power, sex, and money, the other factors driving job motivation. And, as a final safeguard, we've programmed in the impulse to please humans. Isn't that right, Emily?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said. \"I wouldn't want to steal anybody's job. Especially yours, Miss Havilland.\"\n\nWhich is exactly what Eve Harrington said, I thought.\n\nBut this was supposed to be a photo op, not a confrontation, and it was clear the reporters\u2014and Torrance\u2014had bought her act hook, line, and sinker, and that if I said anything, I'd come off just like Margo Channing at the party\u2014as a complete bitch.\n\nSo I smiled and posed for photos with Emily and when she asked me if I'd go with them to the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Show (\"I'm sure the mayor can get us an extra ticket\") I didn't say, \"Over my dead body.\"\n\nI said regretfully, \"I have a show to do, remember?\" And to make Torrance happy, \"All of you out there watching, come see Only Human at the Nathan Lane Theater on West Forty-fourth Street. Eight o'clock.\"\n\n\"You were absolutely marvelous!\" Torrance said after everyone had gone. \"Your best performance ever! We'll be sold out through Easter. I don't suppose you'd be willing to reconsider doing the ice-skating-at-Rockefeller-Center thing? It would make a great photo op. All you'd have to do is put on a cute little skating skirt and spend half an hour gliding around\u2014\"\n\n\"No skating skirts,\" I said, stripping off my earrings. \"No tights. No\u2014\"\n\n\"No leotards. Sorry, I forgot. Maybe we can get her back here for a tour of the theater. If we can, we'll be sold out all the way through summer. Or you could invite her to your apartment for luncheon tomorrow.\"\n\n\"No luncheon,\" I said, wiping off my makeup. \"No tours. And no robots.\"\n\n\"Artificials,\" he corrected automatically, and then frowned. \"I thought you liked Emily.\"\n\n\"That's called acting, darling.\"\n\n\"But why don't you like her?\"\n\n\"Because she's dangerous.\"\n\n\"Dangerous? That sweet little thing?\"\n\n\"Exactly. That sweet little innocent, adorable, utterly harmless Trojan horse.\"\n\n\"But you heard Dr. Oakes. His artificials are programmed to help people, not steal their jobs.\"\n\n\"And they said movies wouldn't kill vaudeville, the synthesizer wouldn't eliminate the theater orchestra, and CGI sets wouldn't replace the stage crew.\"\n\n\"But you heard him, they've put in safeguards to prevent that. And even if they hadn't, Emily couldn't replace you. She can't act.\"\n\n\"Of course she can act. What do you think she was doing in here for the last hour? Mimicking emotions one doesn't have\u2014I believe that's the definition of acting.\"\n\n\"I can't believe you're worried about this. No one could replace you, Claire. You're one of a kind. You're a\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't you dare say 'legend.' \"\n\n\"I was going to say 'a star.' Besides, you heard Emily. She doesn't want to be an actress.\"\n\n\"I heard her, but that doesn't mean she won't be waiting outside that stage door when I leave, asking if she can be my assistant. And the next thing you know, I'll be stuck in the middle of Vermont, out of gas and out of a job.\"\n\n\"Vermont?\" Torrance said blankly. \"Why are you going to Vermont? You're not thinking of doing summer stock this year, are you?\"\n\nWhich made me wonder if I should hire her as my personal assistant after all, just to have someone around who'd actually seen Bumpy Night. And knew what \"Dance ten, looks three\" meant.\n\nBut she wasn't in the crowd of autograph seekers\u2014a crowd considerably smaller than that outside the Majestic, where Forbidden Planet was playing, I couldn't help noticing. Nor was she waiting by the limo, nor at my apartment, already making herself at home, like Eve had done in Scene Three.\n\nAnd she wasn't outside my door when I got up the next morning. The Post\u2013Daily News was, no doubt left there by Torrance, with a very nice write-up\u2014a photo and two entire columns about the backstage visit, which I was happy to see did not refer to me as a legend, and half an hour later Torrance called to tell me Only Human was sold out through February. \"And it's all thanks to you, darling.\"\n\n\"Flattery will get you nowhere,\" I said. \"I'm still not going ice-skating.\"\n\n\"Neither is Emily,\" he said. \"It's pouring rain outside.\"\n\nGood, I thought. Emily would have to go convince the public she wasn't a threat to them at the Chrysler Building or MOMA or something. Or if she's such a huge fan of mine, maybe she'll come see Only Human again. But she wasn't in the audience at the matinee.\n\nI was relieved. In spite of Dr. Oakes's assurances that AIS's artificials weren't here to steal our jobs, and Emily's earnest protestations that she didn't want to be an actress, the parallels to All About Eve were a bit too close for comfort. I mean, who were we kidding? If artificials weren't a threat, Dr. Oakes and AIS wouldn't be expending so much time and effort convincing us they weren't.\n\nSo I wasn't at all unhappy when the rain turned into a sleety downpour just before the evening performance, even though it meant there were cancellations and the audience that did come out smelled like wet wool. They coughed and sneezed their way through both acts and dropped their umbrellas noisily on every important line, but at least Emily wouldn't be waiting for me outside the stage door afterward like Eve Harrington in Scene Two.\n\nIn fact, no one was at the stage door or out front, though the sleet apparently hadn't stopped the Forbidden Planet fans down the street. A huge crowd of them huddled under umbrellas, clutching their sodden Playbills, waiting for Shiloh and Justin Jr. And so much for Torrance's saying my meeting with Emily would bring in the younger demographic.\n\nMy driver Jorge splashed toward me with an open umbrella. I ducked gratefully under its shelter and let him shepherd me toward the waiting limo and into the backseat.\n\nI sat down and shook out the tails of my coat while he went around to the driver's side, and then I bent to see how much damage had been done to my shoes.\n\nA girl was banging on my window with the flat of her hand. I could see the hand but not who it was through the fogged-up window. But whoever it was knew my name. \"Miss Havilland!\" she called, her voice muffled by the closed window and the traffic going by. \"Wait!\"\n\nJustin's not the only one with fans who are willing to freeze to death to get an autograph, I thought, and fumbled with the buttons in the door, attempting to roll down the window. \"Which button is it?\" I asked Jorge as he eased his bulk into the driver's seat.\n\n\"The one on the left,\" he said, slamming his door and starting the car. \"If you want, I can drive off.\"\n\n\"And leave a fan?\" I said. \"Heaven forbid,\" even though with the week I'd had it would probably only turn out to be a Forbidden Planet fan who'd gotten tired of waiting and decided to get my autograph instead of Justin's so she could get in out of the sleety rain. \"Signing autographs is a Broadway legend's duty,\" I said, and pushed the button.\n\n\"Oh, thank you, Miss Havilland,\" the girl said, clutching the top of the window as it began to roll down. \"I was afraid you were going to drive away.\"\n\nIt was Emily, looking like a drowned rat, her light brown hair plastered to her forehead and cheeks, rain dripping off her eyelashes and nose.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" I demanded, though it was obvious. This was exactly like the scene in Bumpy Night when Eve told Margo Channing she hadn't eaten for days because she'd spent all her money on tickets to Margo's play.\n\n\"I have to talk to you,\" she said urgently, and I had to admire Dr. Oakes's engineering genius. Emily's cheeks and nose were the vivid red of freezing cold, her lips looked pale under her demure pink lipstick, and the knuckles of her hands, clutching the rolled-down window, were white.\n\nShe's not really cold, I told myself. That's all done with sensors. They're programmed responses. But it was difficult not to feel sorry for her standing there, the illusion was so perfect.\n\nAnd it had obviously convinced Jorge. He leaned over the backseat to ask, \"Shouldn't you ask her to get in the car?\"\n\nNo, I thought. If I do, she'll tell me some sob story, and the next thing you know I'll be hiring her on as my understudy. And I have no intention of being the next Margo Channing, even if she does look pathetic.\n\nI didn't say that. I said, \"Where's Dr. Oakes? I thought you two were supposed to go see the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall tonight.\"\n\n\"We were\u2026we\u2026I did,\" she stammered. \"But something happened\u2014\"\n\n\"To Dr. Oakes?\" I said, and had a sudden image of her killing him like Frankenstein's monster and rampaging off into the night.\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"He doesn't know I'm gone. I sneaked away so I could talk to you about what happened. Something\u2026I\u2026something happened to me while I was watching the show.\"\n\nOf course. \"And you decided you want to be an actress after all,\" I said dryly, or rather, with as much dryness as it was possible to muster with gusts of icy rain blowing on me.\n\nHer eyes widened in a perfect imitation of astonishment. \"No. Please, Miss Havilland,\" she pleaded. \"I have to talk to you.\"\n\n\"You can't just let her stand out there like that,\" Jorge said reproachfully. \"She'll catch pneumonia.\"\n\nNo, she won't, I thought, but he was right. I couldn't just let her stand out there. The water might short out her electronics or rust her gears or something. And if anyone happened to see her standing there, begging to be let in, I'd look like a monster.\n\nAnd even if I told them she was a robot, they'd never believe it, seeing her standing there with her red nose and blue lips. And now her teeth were chattering, for God's sake. \"Get in the car,\" I said.\n\nJorge hurried around to open the door for Emily, and she scrambled in, getting water everywhere. \"Thank you so much, Miss Havilland,\" she said, grabbing my hand, and her sensors were even better than I'd thought they were. Her hands felt exactly as icy as a fan's would have, standing out in that sleety rain.\n\n\"Turn on the heat,\" I ordered Jorge. \"Emily, where were you when you sneaked away from Dr. Oakes? At Radio City Music Hall?\"\n\n\"Yes. I told him I needed to go to the ladies' room off the Grand Lounge.\"\n\nThe ladies' room? Just how authentic was she?\n\n\"To see the murals,\" she said. \"They were done by Witold Gordon, and they show the history of cosmetics through the ages\u2014Cleopatra and the Greeks and Marie Antoinette and\u2014\"\n\n\"And something happened to you in the ladies' room?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, frowning. \"I told him I was going to the ladies' room so I could sneak out the side door.\"\n\nDefinitely able to lie, I thought. \"How long ago was this?\" I asked her.\n\n\"Eighteen minutes. I ran all the way.\"\n\nLess than twenty minutes, which hopefully meant Dr. Oakes hadn't panicked yet and filed a \"Missing Robot\" report. \"Jorge, give me your phone,\" I said.\n\nHe did.\n\n\"Emily, what's Dr. Oakes's cell phone number?\"\n\n\"Oh, don't send me back!\"\n\n\"I won't,\" I promised. \"Tell me his number.\"\n\nShe did.\n\n\"This is Claire Havilland,\" I told him when he answered. \"I called to tell you not to worry\u2014Emily's with me. I'm giving her a tour of the theater and then we're going out for some authentic New York cheesecake.\"\n\n\"She can't eat cheesecake. She's an artifi\u2014\"\n\n\"Yes, I know, but I can eat it, and I thought she'd enjoy seeing a genuine theater-district deli. I'll bring her home afterwards. Are you at your hotel?\"\n\nHe wasn't; he was still at Radio City Music Hall. \"The staff and I have been looking for her everywhere. I was about to call the police. Why didn't she tell me you were giving her a tour?\"\n\n\"It was a simple case of miscommunication,\" I said. \"She thought I'd told you, and I thought you were there when we discussed it,\" I said, hoping he wouldn't remember we hadn't had any opportunity to talk alone, that he'd been there the entire time. \"I am so sorry about the mixup, Dr. Oakes.\"\n\n\"She still should have told me she was leaving,\" he said. \"She should have known I'd be worried.\"\n\n\"How could she?\" I said. \"As you said, she doesn't have human emotions.\"\n\n\"But I specifically programmed her to\u2014\"\n\nHe wasn't going to let go of it. \"You sound hoarse,\" I said to distract him. \"Are you catching a cold?\"\n\n\"I probably am. I got drenched standing out front waiting for her. If I catch pneumonia because of this\u2014\"\n\n\"You poor thing,\" I said, summoning every bit of acting ability I'd acquired over the last twenty-five years in order to sound sympathetic. \"Go straight home and get into bed. And have room service send you up a hot toddy. I'll take care of Emily and see she gets home safely,\" and after a few more disgruntled-parent sounds, he hung up.\n\n\"There,\" I said. \"That's taken care of\u2014\"\n\n\"Are we really going to a deli?\" Emily asked unhappily.\n\n\"No, not unless you want to. I just told him that to keep him from coming here to the theater. Where would you like to go? Back into the theater? I think Benny's still here. He could let us in.\"\n\n\"Could we just stay here in the car?\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" I said, and told Jorge to pull in closer to the curb.\n\nHe did, and then got a plaid blanket out of the trunk and put it over Emily's knees. \"Oh, but I don't\u2014\" she began.\n\nI shook my head at her.\n\nShe nodded and let him cover her knees with the blanket and drape his jacket around her shoulders. \"Thank you,\" she said, smiling enchantingly up at him.\n\n\"Would you like something hot to drink?\" he asked her as if he'd forgotten I was even in the car. \"Coffee or\u2014?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" she said. \"I'm afraid I can't\u2014\"\n\n\"She'll have cocoa,\" I interrupted, thinking how much I would give to be able to look as young and helplessly appealing as she did, \"and bring me a coffee with a shot of rum in it. Not that mud they make at Dark Brew,\" I added. \"Go to Finelli's.\" Which was six blocks away.\n\nHe trotted off obediently. \"Good,\" I said. \"Now we can talk. Tell me what's happened. You went to see the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall\u2026.\"\n\n\"Yes, and it's beautiful. It's huge, with gold curtains and chandeliers and statues and this enormous stage\u2014\"\n\n\"I know. I've been there. You said something happened?\"\n\n\"Yes, the show started and there was all this singing and dancing, and then the Rockettes came out. They're this group of eighty dancers, though only forty dance in each performance. There were originally sixteen of them, called the Roxyettes, who danced at the Roxy Theater, but when Radio City Music Hall opened in 1932, they were a big hit because of the way they looked on the stage\u2014it's 144 feet wide\u2014and they added twenty more dancers, and then four more, and they've been there ever since. They're all the same height, and they're all dressed alike\u2014\"\n\n\"I know what the Rockettes do,\" I said, but there was no stopping her. She was in full spate.\n\n\"They've done over a hundred thousand shows, and in the 1970s they rescued Radio City Music Hall! It was going to be torn down, and they went out in their Rockette costumes and stood all around the building, asking people to sign petitions to save the building. All eighty of them stood out there. In the middle of winter, when it was snowing and everything\u2014\"\n\nI waited for her to pause for breath and then realized that wasn't going to happen. I was going to have to break in and stop her. \"The Rockettes came out, and then what happened?\" I asked.\n\n\"They formed this long, perfectly straight line. They were wearing these red leotards with white fur trim and hats and gold tap shoes. That's one of their traditional Christmas show costumes. They've been doing a Christmas show since 1933\u2014\"\n\nAt this rate, we could be here all night. I broke in again. \"They formed a straight line, and then what?\"\n\n\"They linked arms and kicked their legs in the air at the same time,\" she said, her eyes bright with excitement as she described it, \"as high as their heads. And all the kicks were to exactly the same height.\"\n\nI nodded. \"That's what the Rockettes are known for. Their precision eye-high kicks.\"\n\n\"And then these skaters came out and skated on a pond\u2014right on the stage\u2014to the song 'A Simple Little Weekend'\u2014\"\n\nFrom Bumpy Night.\n\n\"And then the Rockettes came out again in pale blue leotards with sequins on the top and silver tap shoes and kicked some more and then\u2014\"\n\nWas I going to have to listen to a blow-by-blow of the entire show? \"Emily,\" I said. \"What exactly hap\u2014?\"\n\n\"And then they opened the curtain, and there was a toyshop, and the Rockettes came out dressed as toy soldiers, and they all fell down\u2014\"\n\nThe Rockettes were famous for that, too, the long line of ramrod-stiff soldiers collapsing like dominoes, one against the other, till they were all in a carefully lined-up pile on the stage.\n\n\"And then,\" Emily said, \"they came out dressed all in silver with these square boxes on their heads and flashing lights\u2014\"\n\nRobots, I thought. Of course. In keeping with the theme of the Macy's parade and the department stores' Christmas windows.\n\n\"And they all tap-danced,\" she said breathlessly, \"and turned and kicked, all exactly alike. And that was when I realized\u2026when you asked me the other night what I wanted to be, I didn't know what you meant. By wanting to be something, I mean. But now I do.\" She looked up at me with shining eyes. \"I want to be a Rockette!\"\n\nMy first thought was, Thank God it's the Rockettes and not musical comedy! I wouldn't have to compete with that youthful innocence, that disarming enthusiasm.\n\nMy second thought was, How ironic! Dr. Oakes had brought her here specifically to convince people artificials weren't after their jobs, and now here she was announcing she wanted one of the most sought-after jobs in New York. She was now a threat to thousands of aspiring Rockettes, and tens of thousands of little girls in dance classes all over America.\n\nIt's his own fault, I thought. He should have known better than to have let her see them. Even when they weren't dressed up like robots, they looked like them, with their identical costumes and long legs and smiling faces. And performed like them, their synchronized tap steps, their uniformly executed turns and time steps and kicks. Dr. Oakes should have known it was bound to dazzle her.\n\nAdd to that her youth (and I wasn't talking about her sixteen-year-old packaging, I was talking about her lack of experience\u2014and who has less knowledge of the world than a robot?) and the fact that every little girl who'd ever gone to see them had come out of the show wanting to be a Rockette, and what had happened was inevitable.\n\nAnd impossible. In the first place, she was designed to do photo ops and interviews with unsuspecting dupes, not dance. And in the second place, Dr. Oakes would never let her.\n\n\"You can't be a Rockette,\" I said. \"You told me yourself artificials aren't allowed to take humans' jobs.\"\n\n\"But it's not a job!\" she said passionately. \"It's\u2026jobs are tasks humans have to do to keep society functioning and to earn money to pay their living expenses. Being a Rockette is something totally different! It doesn't have anything to do with money. It's like a\u2026a dream or a\u2026a quest or\u2026it's\u2014\"\n\n\"What I did for love.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, and now I knew for certain she was stagestruck: she hadn't even noticed that was a line from a Broadway musical.\n\n\"But it's still a job,\" I said. \"The Rockettes are paid\u2014\"\n\n\"They wouldn't have to pay me. I'd do it for nothing!\"\n\n\"And even if artificials were allowed to take humans' jobs, there's still the problem of your height.\"\n\n\"My height?\"\n\n\"Yes, you're too short. The Rockettes have a height restriction.\"\n\n\"I know. They're all the same height. What is it?\"\n\n\"They're not actually all one height,\" I said. \"That's an optical illusion. They put the tallest girls in the middle and then go downward to either end.\"\n\n\"Well, then, I could be one of the ends.\"\n\nI shook my head. \"No, you couldn't. You have to be between five foot six and five foot ten, or at any rate that's what it was when I auditioned to be a Rockette. It may have gone up since th\u2014\"\n\n\"You were a Rockette?\" she squealed, and it was clear I'd just gone up several notches in her estimation. \"Why didn't\u2026? It didn't say that in your bio.\"\n\n\"That's because I wasn't one. While the auditions were still going on, I got offered a part in the chorus of The Drowsy Chaperone, and I took it. It turned out to be my big break.\"\n\n\"But how could you give up being a Rockette? I wouldn't ever want to be anything else!\"\n\nIt didn't seem like a good idea to tell her I hadn't actually wanted to be a Rockette, that I'd only auditioned because I'd hoped it might get me noticed, or to tell her that when I'd heard I'd made the chorus of Chaperone, I'd walked out of the Radio City rehearsal hall without a backward glance.\n\n\"You have to tell me what I need to do to become a Rockette,\" she said, clutching my arm. \"I know you have to learn tap dancing\u2014\"\n\n\"And jazz dancing and ballet. En pointe.\"\n\nShe nodded as if she'd expected that. \"I can have those programs installed.\"\n\n\"A program of dance steps isn't the same as actually learning the steps,\" I said. \"It takes years of training and hard work to become a dancer.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Like in A Chorus Line.\"\n\n\"Yes, exactly,\" I said. \"But even if you had that experience, it wouldn't matter. You're only\u2014what? Five foot two, at the most?\"\n\n\"One.\"\n\n\"And the height requirement's five foot six,\" I said, hoping the appeal to logic would convince her what she wanted wasn't a good idea, as had happened when she'd wanted to be named Eileen. \"You're simply too short.\"\n\nShe nodded thoughtfully.\n\n\"I'm sorry. I know it's disappointing, but it's all part of being in the theater. I didn't get the part of Fantine in the revival of Les Mis because I was too tall. And Bernadette Peters lost the part of\u2014\"\n\nShe wasn't listening. \"What about bingo-bongos?\" she asked.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Bingo-bongos. Should I have them done?\" and when I still looked blank, \"In A Chorus Line. The 'Dance Ten, Looks Three' number. Val said she had the bingo-bongos done.\"\n\nIndeed, she had. She'd been talking about having her breasts enlarged and her derriere lifted, or as she referred to it, having her \"tits and ass\" done, which I refused to explain to a dewy-eyed innocent. Or a robot.\n\n\"It wouldn't do any good,\" I told her. \"As I said, you're not tall enough to meet the height requirement.\"\n\n\"What did you do in the audition?\"\n\nShe was too stagestruck to hear a word I was saying. \"I'm trying to explain, you won't make the first cut for the aud\u2014\"\n\n\"What did you have to do?\"\n\n\"They taught us a series of combinations, which we did in groups of three. And then if we made callbacks, we had to learn a full routine, with time steps and kicks, and do a tap solo.\"\n\n\"What did you do for your solo?\"\n\n\" 'Anything Goes.' But you won't get to do a solo. You won't even make the initial cut. You're too short. And even if you met all the requirements, you'd only have a miniscule chance of getting in. Hundreds of dancers audition every year, and only one or two make it. I'm not trying to discourage you, Emily,\" I said, even though that was exactly what I was trying to do. \"I'm just trying to be realistic.\"\n\nShe nodded and was silent for a moment. \"Thank you for all the advice, Miss Havilland. You've been most awfully kind,\" she said, and was out of the car and splashing down the street through the rain, which was coming down harder than ever.\n\n\"Emily!\" I shouted, \"Wait!\" but by the time I got the window down, she was half a block away.\n\n\"Come back!\" I called after her. \"I know you're disappointed, but you can't walk home in this. Jorge will be back in a few minutes. He'll drive you home. It's late, and your hotel is miles from here.\"\n\nShe shook her head, flinging raindrops everywhere. \"It's only forty-five blocks,\" she said cheerfully, and vanished around the corner.\n\nJorge, arriving moments later with two cardboard cups, was furious. \"You let her walk home in the rain?\" he said disapprovingly. \"She'll catch pneumonia.\"\n\n\"She can't,\" I said, but he wasn't listening to me, either.\n\n\"Poor kid,\" he muttered, pulling away from the curb with a jerk that spilled coffee all over me. \"Poor little thing!\"\n\n\"Poor little thing\" was right. Because even if she could charm the choreographer into waiving the height requirement (which wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility, given her programmed-in charm), there was no chance at all of Dr. Oakes's allowing her to be a Rockette. It would undermine the image he and AIS were trying to convince the public of. Even her raising the possibility of being a Rockette would be too dangerous. He'll cut short their tour, and they'll be out of here on the next plane, I thought. If they haven't left already.\n\nBut the next morning, there she was on TV, smiling and waving from the foot of the Statue of Liberty and later from a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park, and on Monday night there was coverage of her charming the pants off reporters and the TSA as she and Dr. Oakes went through security at LaGuardia on their way home, with no sign that she'd had her hopes dashed.\n\n\"Will you be coming back to the Big Apple soon, Emily?\" one of the dozens of reporters asked her.\n\n\"No, I'm afraid not,\" she said, and there wasn't even a hint of regret in her voice. \"I had a wonderful time here in New York! The Empire State Building and everything! I especially loved seeing Only Human.\"\n\nWell, at least Torrance will be happy about her mentioning the play, I thought, waiting to hear what she'd say about the Rockettes.\n\n\"What did you think of the Radio City Christmas show?\" the reporter asked.\n\nShe smiled winsomely. \"I loved the Nativity scene. They had real camels and everything!\"\n\n\"Where do you go next, Emily?\" another reporter asked. \"Back to San Jose?\"\n\n\"Yes, and then we'll be in Williamsburg for Christmas.\"\n\n\"And then L.A. for the Rose Bowl parade,\" Dr. Oakes said. \"You're really looking forward to that, aren't you, Emily?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" she said, dimpling. \"I love flowers! And football!\"\n\n\"One last question,\" the reporter said. \"What was your favorite part of your visit?\"\n\nHere it comes, I thought.\n\n\"Meeting Claire Havilland. She's such an amazing actress!\"\n\nI suppose I should have been grateful to her, especially when Torrance called the next day to tell me Only Human was sold out through Easter and three days later to say Austerman wanted to have lunch with me to talk about Desk Set.\n\nBut I wasn't. I was suspicious. That touching little scene in my car had obviously been just that\u2014a scene, performed by a very skilled actress\u2014and she hadn't fallen in love with the Rockettes at all. But then what had its purpose been? To soften me up like Eve Harrington's made-up story about seeing Margo Channing in a play and falling in love with the theater, so that she could worm her way into my life?\n\nI half expected her to be in the audience on Tuesday night, in spite of the LaGuardia scene, but she wasn't, and on the way home after the show, Jorge told me there'd been a story on the radio about their arrival in California.\n\n\"Did she say anything about the Rockettes?\" I asked him.\n\n\"No. She didn't say anything about your making her walk halfway across Manhattan in a rainstorm, either.\" He glared at me in the rearview mirror. \"You're lucky she didn't catch her death of cold.\"\n\nShe wasn't in the Saturday matinee audience either, or backstage after the show, and by the middle of December I had more important things to worry about, like Austerman's insistence on a dream-sequence number in Desk Set with me in, you guessed it, a leotard and fishnet stockings.\n\nAdd to that the management's decision to put an additional matinee on the schedule because of increased ticket demand, Austerman's wanting me to help audition the Spencer Tracy role, and every reporter in town wanting to do an interview on Only Human's Tony nomination prospects. By mid-December I was exhausted.\n\nWhich was why I was taking a nap in my dressing room before the show when Benny the stage manager knocked and said there was someone to see me. \"A Cassie Ferguson,\" he said. \"She says she knows you.\"\n\n\"Cassie what?\" I said blurrily, wondering if that was the name of Austerman's assistant. \"What does she look like?\"\n\n\"Blond, tall, hot.\"\n\nAll of Austerman's assistants were tall, blond, and hot. He was as bad as Miss Caswell's producer boyfriend. And if she was from Austerman, I couldn't afford to let her see me like this. The nap had added ten years to my face. \"Tell her I'm doing an interview with Tiger Beat and I'll meet with her during intermission.\"\n\nHe looked unhappy. \"She said she needed to see you right away.\"\n\n\"Oh, all right,\" I said. \"Give me five minutes and then send her in,\" and frantically started to repair my makeup, but almost immediately there was a second knock on the door.\n\nBenny was right. She was a knockout: tall and leggy, with gorgeous long blond hair, and, even though she was wearing a belted raincoat, it was obvious she had a great figure.\n\n\"Well?\" she said. \"What do you think?\"\n\n\"Emily!\" I said, staring. \"My God! What\u2014?\"\n\n\"I had the bingo-bongos done,\" she said happily.\n\n\"I can see that.\"\n\n\"I was just going to get longer legs, but the proportions didn't look right, so, since I had to get a new torso anyway, I thought I might as well get a new ass, like in the song, and new\u2014\"\n\n\"But why?\" I said.\n\n\"To meet the height requirement,\" she said, as if it were self-evident.\n\nOh, my God, I thought. She was serious. She's going to try to become a Rockette.\n\n\"The upper limit's five ten and a half,\" she said, \"but the median of the current Rockettes is five nine, so I went with that and with thirty-six for my chest. I did a C so I could be sure I'd fit in a size six\u2014that's the most common costume size. And people tend to be less intimidated by flatter-chested girls.\"\n\nShe untied the belt and opened her raincoat wide to reveal a spaghetti-strap black leotard and sheer tights.\n\n\"Hot\" was an understatement. She had definitely had the bingo-bongos done.\n\nIt was too bad Torrance wasn't here. \"This,\" I would have told him, \"is what one is supposed to look like in a leotard. Which is why I have no intention of wearing one in Desk Set or anywhere else.\"\n\n\"Do you think I should have gone with a D instead?\" Emily asked.\n\n\"No,\" I said.\n\n\"What about my outfit? Is it all right for the audition? I analyzed audition videos and photos from the past ten years, and this was the most common, but some of the dancers wore colored leotards or leggings, and I was wondering if I should do that to make them notice me.\"\n\n\"Trust me, they'll notice you,\" I said.\n\n\"What about my shoes?\" she said, sticking out her foot and pointing a toe in a T-strap black tap shoe. \"The audition brochure said character heels, but I didn't know if I should wear black or beige.\"\n\n\"Black,\" I said. \"But auditions aren't till summer.\"\n\n\"I know, but they have a vacancy they need to fill.\"\n\nGood God, I thought. She's killed a Rockette, and she must have guessed what I was thinking because she said, \"A Rockette on one of the tours quit to get married, and they had to replace her with one of the New York troupe, so they're holding a special audition.\"\n\n\"But you have to know how to tap dance\u2014\"\n\n\"I do,\" she said. \"And I've learned jazz, modern, and ballet. Here, I brought an audition tape.\" She pulled out an Android, swiped through several screens, and handed it to me.\n\nAnd there she was, tap-dancing, executing flawless time steps and cramp rolls and Maxie Fords\u2014and the eye-high kicks the Rockettes were famous for.\n\n\"I've had all the choreography terms programmed in, and I've memorized three different routines for my audition solo\u2014'Anything Goes' and 'One' from A Chorus Line and '42nd Street.' Which one do you think I should do?\"\n\n\"Emily\u2014\"\n\n\"I learned all the routines from the Christmas show, too, but I wasn't sure I should do one of those,\" she said. \"Oh, and what about my hair? Is blond okay? Sixty-two percent of the Rockettes are blondes.\"\n\n\"Blond is more than okay,\" I said.\n\n\"And you think I look like a Rockette?\"\n\nLike the perfect Rockette. \"Yes,\" I said.\n\n\"What about my face? The age requirement's eighteen, so I had it altered to look older\u2014\"\n\nShe had. Her cheekbones were more defined, and her face thinner, though it was still recognizably Emily's and had retained the wide, innocent eyes and the disarming smile.\n\n\"\u2014but I was wondering if I should change it to look more like the other Rockettes. I made a composite of the current troupe's faces, and it has a straighter nose and fuller lips.\"\n\nAnd much less vulnerability, I thought. A modern-woman-in-Manhattan-who's-had-lots-of-bad-experiences-and-worse-boyfriends face. The idea of Emily with that face was unthinkable.\n\nAnd besides, if she was actually going to try and become a Rockette, she would need all the help she could get. And her face was her biggest weapon. Well, not her biggest, I thought. But definitely a weapon, as witness the reporters' behavior at that backstage interview. And Jorge's.\n\n\"What do you think?\" Emily asked. \"Should I change my face?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"Absolutely not,\" and posed the question I should have asked in the first place, especially since he was liable to come bursting in here any minute. \"What does Dr. Oakes say about all this? Did he authorize these changes?\"\n\n\"No, of course not,\" she said. \"He'd never let me do this. I got some of the engineers to help me.\"\n\n\"How did you talk them into it?\" I was about to ask, and then realized I already knew. She'd charmed them just like she'd charmed Jorge and the TSA. \"And Dr. Oakes didn't object?\"\n\n\"No. He doesn't know about it. He's in Japan with Aiko.\"\n\nOf course, I thought. He's off introducing his artificials to other countries. And different cultures would have different ideas of what was threatening about artificials. They'd require different models, all with faces and names carefully chosen to make them seem harmless: an Aiko even shorter than the original Emily for Japan, and a Rashmika for India, a Mei-Li for China.\n\nAnd meanwhile his American model had turned into a combination of Eliza Doolittle and Frankenstein's monster.\n\n\"I'm not sure you're right about my keeping the face,\" she said. \"What if one of the Rockettes recognizes me? I met some of them that night at Radio City Music Hall.\"\n\nAnd they'd have seen her on the news or in that interview with me. \"So you were planning to audition as Cassie somebody?\"\n\n\"Ferguson. Yes, because the rules say you have to be at least eighteen years old, and I'm only one.\"\n\nOne. But what a one! \"Definitely a singular sensation,\" I murmured under my breath.\n\n\"You don't think I should do that?\" she asked anxiously. \"I know it's lying, but if they know I'm an artificial\u2014\"\n\nThey'll never let you audition, I thought. They'd have exactly the same reaction I'd had, and Emily was even more of a threat to them than she had been to me. As Torrance had said, actresses get where they are by being one of a kind, but with the Rockettes, sameness was the whole point.\n\nAnd the Rockettes weren't stupid. They'd see instantly that if one of them could be replaced, all of them could, and that once the management realized they could have Rockettes who didn't want health benefits or time-and-a-half for overtime, it would be all over.\n\nSo she was going to have to lie and tell them she was a human. But she'd never get away with it. Even if she managed to fool them at the audition, she wouldn't make it through her first rehearsal. She didn't sweat, she didn't get out of breath, she didn't make mistakes. And she could learn an entire tap routine by watching it once. They'd spot her instantly.\n\nEmily was watching me with a worried expression. \"You don't think I should tell them I'm human?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Let me think,\" I said, wishing I had Emily's computer brain to help me figure out what to tell her. I knew what I should tell her: the cold hard truth. That there was no way she could ever be a Rockette and she should go back home to San Jose and do what she'd been designed to do.\n\nIt would be much kinder than letting her batter herself to death trying, like a moth against a porch light. But I also knew she wouldn't listen, any more than I had when I was eighteen.\n\n\"What do you think?\" Emily was asking me. \"Should I put 'artificial' on my audition form?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"You're not going to audition.\"\n\n\"But you can't become a Rockette if you don't audition.\"\n\n\"Only if you're an ordinary human,\" I said. \"When does Dr. Oakes get back from Japan?\"\n\n\"Not till the twenty-second. That's when we were supposed to go to Williamsburg for Christmas.\"\n\nThe twenty-second was a week away, but we didn't actually have that much time. AIS would already be looking for Emily. Multinational corporations don't just let a valuable piece of equipment walk away, especially one who was ruining any hope they had of selling the idea of artificials to the public.\n\nOn the other hand, they could hardly let it get out that one of their \"perfectly harmless\" robots had gone rogue. They'd have to look for her through private channels, which would slow them down. And even if they did decide to go public and had the police put out an APB on her, they'd be looking for a five-foot-one sixteen-year-old with light brown hair, which gave us a little time.\n\nBut the minute Emily went public, they'd come after her and Dr. Oakes would be on the first plane home from Japan. So we'd have to make sure that by the time he got here he wouldn't be able to do anything.\n\n\"All right, Emily,\" I said. \"Here's what we're going to do. You're going to go on every news and talk and late-night show we can find and tell them how much you want to be a Rockette. You're going to tell them all those things you told me that night in the limo, how the Rockettes started and what they've done over the years\u2014dancing in the Macy's Parade and saving Radio City Music Hall. And you're going to tell them all the things you've done so that you could become a Rockette\u2014how you learned to dance and memorized the routines and studied their history. We're going to convince them you deserve to be one of them.\"\n\nThat wasn't quite true. What we were going to do was convince the public she deserved to be a Rockette and hope the resulting pressure would force the Rockettes to let her in. \"Do you remember the names of the talk show hosts who interviewed you when you were here for the Macy's parade?\" I asked her.\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nOf course. \"Good. I want you to make a list of them and how we can contact them.\"\n\n\"Do you want me to call them and set up interviews?\"\n\n\"No, we don't want anyone to know where you are till you show up for the interviews. I'm going to send you to my apartment\u2014Jorge will take you\u2014and I want you to use my computer to find some photographs of Rockette costumes. Preferably one of their Christmas costumes\u2014if we can tie this in with Christmas, it will help. People love Christmas stories with happy endings. Find a photograph, and then call Jorge and have him come and get it and bring it back here to our wardrobe mistress\u2014\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"So you can wear it to these interviews. We're going to arrange for you to dance as part of your appearances. You can do one of the routines you learned.\"\n\n\"But\u2014\"\n\n\"I know, it won't be the same as doing the routine with the Rockettes, but it's a way to show them what you can do. Think of it as your audition. You can do that, can't you?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" she said. \"It's just that a photo's not necessary. I've already made all the costumes.\"\n\n\"All the\u2026you made all the costumes in the Christmas show?\"\n\n\"No. I made all the costumes the Rockettes have ever worn.\"\n\nThe plan worked even better than I'd envisioned. Emily went on all the shows and tapped and talked her way into their audiences' hearts, modeling an array of costumes, from the costume of the original Roxyettes to Bob Mackie's \"Shine,\" with its three thousand Swarovski crystals, to the merry-go-round horse costume the Rockettes had worn at the \"last\" performance, when it had looked like Radio City Music Hall would be torn down, and regaling her enraptured hosts with little-known facts about the Rockettes: that before coming to New York, they had danced in St. Louis as the Missouri Rockets; that in the days when they danced between movie showings, they had practically lived at Radio City Music Hall, sleeping on cots and eating at a special canteen set up for them; that in the open competition at the Paris Exposition, they had defeated the Russians and the corps de ballet of the Paris Opera.\n\n\"Lucille Bremer was a Rockette,\" she told them. \"You know, Judy Garland's older sister in Meet Me in St. Louis. And Vera Ellen, from White Christmas, but she kept showing off. A good Rockette never tries to stand out. She tries to dance just like every other Rockette.\"\n\nAnd on every show and podcast she told the story of how the Rockettes had saved Radio City Music Hall, standing outside and asking passersby to sign a petition to make the building a national landmark. \"They went on TV and radio shows just like this one to plead their cause,\" she said, \"and they all testified at the Landmarks Commission hearing. They did a kick line with the mayor on the steps outside.\"\n\nThe audiences ate it\u2014and her own eye-high kicks\u2014up, and her appearances became instant YouTube hits. One, in which she talked reverently about why being a Rockette meant so much to her, went viral.\n\nThe only hitch was Torrance, who thought I was taking a huge risk by helping her. \"It's dangerous,\" he said. \"There's a lot of hostility to artificials out there. Some of it could spill over to you, and then there goes your Tony nomination.\"\n\n\"I thought you were the one who was convinced Emily was harmless,\" I said.\n\n\"That was before she decided she wanted to be a Rockette,\" he said disgustedly. \"And why are you so set on helping her? I thought you hated her.\"\n\n\"I just didn't want her trying to steal my career. And if she gets to be a Rockette, she won't be, and Jeannette will be safe.\"\n\n\"Jeannette? Who's Jeannette?\"\n\n\"The role I have been playing eight times a week for the past year,\" I said. \"A fact which Emily would know.\"\n\n\"And that's why you're helping her? Because she knows what parts you've played?\"\n\n\"Yes. And because if I get that Tony nomination you're so worried about me losing, it will be thanks to all the publicity Emily gave me. I'm just repaying the favor.\"\n\n\"Ha!\" he said. \"You know what I think? I think you orchestrated this whole PR thing to set her up.\"\n\nLike Eve Harrington had set up Margo Channing, siphoning gas from her car and stranding her in Vermont so she could take her place.\n\n\"Are you sure you didn't put her on all those TV shows so Dr. Oakes would find out where she is and take her home?\" Torrance asked.\n\nAnd if I did, wouldn't that be a good thing? And not only for me, for everybody else who happens to be \"only human\"? I mean, she could rattle off the names of every play and musical and movie ever done and their cast lists and their song lyrics and librettos and dance routines and scripts. And when she was asking all those questions about what to wear to the audition, she'd said, \"Should I wear my hair in a topknot?\"\n\n\"No, a ponytail,\" I'd told her. \"With a rose scarf to bring out the color in your cheeks.\"\n\n\"Should I make them pinker?\" she asked, and she wasn't talking about makeup.\n\nHow can anyone compete against that? Or the fact that she'd never miss a step. Or forget her lines. Or get old.\n\nTorrance was right. She was dangerous.\n\nBut I didn't say that. I said, \"I'm just trying to help her. And me. If she's a Rockette, she can't steal Bunny out from under me.\"\n\n\"Bunny?\" he said, looking confused. \"Is that Margo Channing's husband? The one Eve tries to steal?\"\n\n\"No. It's the lead in Desk Set. The musical Austerman's doing,\" I said wryly. \"Ring a bell?\"\n\nIf they turn her down for the Rockettes, I thought, I'm firing Torrance and making her my manager.\n\nBut it didn't look like they'd turn her down. After only two days of appearances, the public and press response to Emily was overwhelmingly positive, and the Rockettes who were questioned by reporters as to what they thought of her chances said things like, \"She knows more about the Rockettes than we Rockettes do,\" and \"I don't know. I mean, I'm worried about artificials taking over and everything, but she wants it so bad!\" and I thought, Good God, she's actually going to pull it off.\n\nSo it was a shock when she showed up after the Wednesday matinee. \"I thought you were doing The View,\" I said.\n\nShe shook her head, looking so pale I thought her sensors must have malfunctioned. \"They just changed the rules for being a Rockette so I don't qualify,\" she said.\n\n\"Then you'll have to do what you did before,\" I said firmly. \"Change yourself so you do meet them.\"\n\n\"I can't,\" she said, and showed me the new rule.\n\n\"No artificials,\" it read. Only humans need apply, I thought.\n\n\"Then we have to make them change the rule,\" I said.\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"We're going to make them look like monsters for picking on a sweet, harmless child like you. Do you remember the party scene from Bumpy Night? Where Margo Channing tries to expose Eve and says all those terrible things to her?\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"And do you remember how it backfired? How it made Margo look like a bully and Eve look like a victim? Well, that's what we're going to do. Can you cry?\"\n\n\"No, but I can look really sad.\"\n\n\"Good. You're going to do that. And you're going to look helpless and victimized. I want you to go watch All About Eve and memorize Eve's tone of voice and mannerisms while I write the script you're going to follow. You never wanted to hurt anyone or cause any trouble. You just admire the Rockettes so much!\"\n\n\"But\u2014\" Emily said, looking up at me with those wide, innocent eyes. \"I don't want to be Eve Harrington. She's not a nice person.\"\n\n\"Let me tell you a little secret, Emily,\" I said. \"Nearly every actress is Eve Harrington at some point or other and has lied about her age or used her feminine wiles or taken unfair advantage to get a part. How do you think Margo Channing knew what Eve was up to?\" I asked her. \"Because when she looked at her, she reminded her of herself.\"\n\n\"Did you ever do anything like\u2014?\"\n\n\"Of course. I lied about my age and my Off-Broadway experience when I tried out for Love, Etc. And when I found out they'd moved the audition time I didn't tell anybody.\" And I had slept with the director.\n\n\"But I got what I wanted,\" I said. I looked at her. \"How badly do you want to be a Rockette?\"\n\nAnd Dr. Oakes was wrong. He'd said his artificials had been designed to lack initiative, drive, preference. But once you wire in preference, even if it's only the ability to choose one word, one gesture over another, everything else comes with it. And when he'd put in safeguards against all those driving forces\u2014lust and greed and ambition\u2014he'd forgotten the most dangerous one of all, the one that overrides all the others.\n\nTorrance wasn't the only one who could have benefited from watching a few musicals. If Dr. Oakes had seen A Chorus Line, this never would have happened. And he'd have known what was going to happen when I asked Emily what she was willing to do to be a Rockette.\n\n\"Well?\" I said, repeating the question. \"How much do you want to be a Rockette?\"\n\nShe raised her artificial chin and looked steadily at me. \"More than anything else in the world.\"\n\nShe wanted to know how we planned to make the Rockettes management look like bullies.\n\n\"Do you remember how the Rockettes saved Radio City Music Hall?\" I said. \"Well, you're going to make them make you a Rockette the same way. What's the weather like this week?\"\n\n\"A high of twenty degrees Fahrenheit with a rain-snow mix.\"\n\n\"Good,\" I said, remembering her standing outside my car in the rain, shivering and bedraggled. \"I want you to wear the skimpiest Rockette costume there is, preferably something with a feathered headdress. And mascara that runs. And I know you don't wear mascara,\" I said before she could interrupt me. \"But you're going to wear it for this. You're going to stand out there twenty-four hours a day looking half frozen, asking people to sign a petition to make them change the rules so you can be a Rockette, and I'm going to see to it the media's there to film it.\"\n\nI picked up the phone to call Torrance and have him arrange for the camera crews.\n\n\"But they know artificials can't feel cold or heat\u2014\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter, trust me,\" I said, thinking of Jorge, who still wasn't speaking to me. \"I want you to shiver and do the teeth-chattering thing, and when passersby ask you if you're all right, you need to say, 'Yes, I'm just so cold!' and ask them to sign your petition.\"\n\n\"But won't the rain-snow mix run the signatures?\"\n\n\"Yes, which is even better. It'll look like tears.\"\n\n\"But\u2014\"\n\n\"This isn't about getting signatures. It's about making the Rockettes management look like bullies.\"\n\n\"But I don't see how\u2026Margo said mean things to Eve\u2026.\"\n\n\"And they're making you stand outside,\" I said. \"At Christmas. In the rain. Trust me, they'll look like bullies. And people don't like to look like bullies\u2014or like the kind of people who'd let a historic landmark be torn down. They like to see themselves as the hero who rescues the building\u2014or damsel\u2014in distress. You stand out there in the rain in a skimpy strapless costume, and by Friday the Rockettes will be begging you to join them. And if it starts snowing, we'll have action by Thursday.\"\n\nIt didn't take even that long. When I called Torrance the next morning to ask him when the film crews were going to be there, he said, \"There's no point in sending them. It's all over.\"\n\n\"You mean, they got rid of the 'no artificials' rule? That's wonderful!\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"I mean she's over wanting to be a Rockette.\"\n\n\"Over?\"\n\n\"Oakes reprogrammed her.\"\n\n\"Reprogrammed her,\" I repeated dully. \"When?\"\n\n\"This morning. I thought you'd be pleased. It means you won't have to worry about her poaching your career anymore. Oh, and speaking of your career, Austerman called and said this'll be great publicity for Desk Set. You know, 'Only Human Actress Sends Artificial Packing.' He said it'll make you a shoo-in for the Tony nomination. So it's just like the ending of Bumpy Night, only this time Margo wins the Tony, not Eve.\"\n\n\"It wasn't a Tony,\" I said. \"It was the Sarah Siddons Award, which you'd know if you ever watched the play.\" Like Emily did, I thought.\n\n\"I don't know what you're so upset about,\" Torrance said. \"She changed her height and her measurements and her hair color. This is no different.\"\n\nYes, it is. \"Did they erase her entire memory?\" I asked. \"When they reprogrammed her?\" All those plays and cast lists and lines, all that Rockette history.\n\n\"No, no, nothing like that,\" Torrance said. \"According to Dr. Oakes, they just made a couple of adjustments to her software. They tamped down the preference thing so she wouldn't have such a strong response to the Rockette stimulus and adjusted her obstacle-to-action ratio. But she's still the same Emily.\"\n\nNo, she's not, I thought. The real Emily wanted to be a Rockette.\n\nSo here I am, standing in a freezing snow-rain mix in the leotard and fishnet stockings I swore I'd never be seen in, plus the trademark maroon-and-gold Rockette cap, which is doing nothing at all to keep the rain from dripping down the back of my neck.\n\nI am clutching a clipboard for warmth and trying not to shiver convulsively as I accost passersby and attempt to get them to sign a petition to get Emily's software put back the way they found it and the Rockettes' rules changed so she can have a shot at her heart's desire.\n\nAnd yes, I know artificials don't have hearts, and what about all the human girls out there between five foot six and five ten and a half with tap, jazz, and ballet experience whose job she'll be stealing?\n\nAnd yes, I know I'm probably also opening the floodgates to a horde of robots whose dream it is to be ballerinas and neurophysicists and traffic controllers, and that I'll go back to my dressing room some night in the near future to find some disarming young woman who's the spitting image of Anne Baxter and wants to be my assistant, and I'll be really sorry I did this.\n\nBut I didn't have any choice. When I announced I wanted to be on Broadway, my mother told me I'd be mugged and raped and pushed onto the subway tracks, my father told me I'd end up broke and waiting tables, and the first three agents and five directors I auditioned for told me to \"go back to Kansas and get married, sweetheart.\" Everybody had done everything they could think of to talk me out of it.\n\nBut they hadn't had me lobotomized. They hadn't cut out my stagestruck heart and replaced it with one that would have been willing to settle down in Topeka and have babies. Or adjusted my obstacle-to-action ratio so I'd give up and go home.\n\nSo here I stand, trying to blow some warmth into my frozen fingers and wishing I'd worn a warmer costume and that my skin turned rosy like Emily's when it gets cold.\n\nIt doesn't. When cellulite gets cold, it turns a mottled purple and ash gray. The rain's washed away every bit of my age-defying makeup; I've completely lost my voice from calling to passersby to come sign my petition, so heaven knows how I'm going to get through tonight's performance; and Torrance dropped by a few minutes ago to tell me I was making a fool of myself and jeopardizing the Desk Set lead and the Tony.\n\nAnd in three days out here I've collected signatures from exactly eighteen people, including Torrance (I told him if he didn't sign it, I was getting a new manager), Jorge (who said sternly, \"Now you know how it feels to be made to stand out in the freezing cold\"), and a couple of teenagers who didn't care what they were signing so long as it got them on TV.\n\nBut the camera crews left an hour ago, driven inside by the icy rain and the fact that nothing was happening, and now it looks like it's going to snow, so the only thing that will bring them back is the discovery of my huddled, frozen body in a snowdrift. Even the tourists are giving up and going home. In a few minutes the only people left on the premises will be the Rockettes, and I haven't seen hide nor hair of them since I started this. They must be going in and out a door on the other side of the building to avoid me.\n\nNo, wait, here comes one out of the same side door Emily used that night she ran away to talk to me. The young woman's definitely a Rockette. Her coffee-colored legs are even longer than Emily's, and she's dressed like a Christmas present, with a wide candy-cane-striped red and green sash slanting over one dark shoulder and tied in a Christmas bow at her hip.\n\nShe looks cautiously around, and I think, disappointed, She just sneaked out for a cigarette, but no, after a second look around, she shuts the door silently behind her and hurries over to me, her character heels tap-tap-tapping on the sidewalk.\n\n\"Hi, my name's Leonda,\" she says, hugging her arms to her chest. \"Brr, it's cold out here!\"\n\n\"Did you come out to sign my petition?\" I ask hopefully. The Rockettes resisted hiring minorities for a long time. They claimed audiences would be distracted if the Rockettes didn't all look exactly alike, including the color of their skin, and (according to Emily when she did the Today show) they'd resisted doing the right thing till 1982, when they'd finally hired the first African American, and three years after that, the first Asian American. Maybe Leonda heard Emily say that and decided she had to do the right thing, too, even if it did mean risking her job.\n\nOr not. \"Oh, no, I can't sign it,\" she says, glancing anxiously back at the side door. \"I just wanted to tell you what a wonderful actress I think you are, Miss Havilland. I saw you in The Drowsy Chaperone when I was a little girl, and you were amazing!\" She looks at me with starry eyes. \"Seeing you was why I decided to be a dancer, and I was wondering if I could have your autogr\u2014?\"\n\n\"Leonda!\" someone shouts from the door.\n\nAnother Rockette, dressed as a toy soldier, is leaning out, frowning. \"What are you doing out here?\" she says. \"You've got to get changed! It's almost time!\"\n\n\"I was just\u2026Sorry,\" she says to me, and runs back to the door, her taps echoing on the wet pavement.\n\n\"I'll give you my autograph if you'll sign my petition,\" I call after her, but she's already gone back inside, and it's clear they aren't going to rise to the occasion like they did when Radio City Music Hall was about to be torn down. Or maybe Emily was wrong about them, and they weren't wonderful. Maybe they hadn't been trying to do something noble after all. They'd just been trying to hang on to their jobs.\n\nAnd of course now that the two Rockettes are gone, a TMZ reporter and a cameraman with his videocam wrapped in plastic to protect it from the rain show up, looking annoyed. \"Where are the Rockettes?\" the reporter demands. \"We were told to get over here because something was going on. So where are they?\"\n\n\"There was one here just a minute ago,\" I say, but that's clearly not good enough, and to add insult to injury, a cab driver rolls down his window and leans out into the rain to shout, \"Traitor! What the hell are ya doin' standin' out there trying to get a robot a job? Why don't you stick up for your own kind, lady?\" and of course the cameraman's getting it all.\n\n\"That's First Lady of the Theater to you!\" I shout back at the cabbie, and he waves a hand dismissively and drives off.\n\n\"How do you answer that question?\" the reporter asks, sticking a microphone in my face. \"Why aren't you sticking up for your own kind?\"\n\n\"I am,\" I say. \"I'm sticking up for the Rockettes and for the theater. They've always stood courageously for doing what's right,\" a speech which would have been more impressive if I thought it was true. And if my teeth weren't chattering. \"I'm also, in spite of what he thinks, standing up for the human race. If we're going to make humanity such a hard show to get into, then we'd better make sure it's worth auditioning for by acting the way humans are supposed to.\"\n\n\"Which is?\"\n\n\"Humane.\"\n\n\"And that's why you're doing this,\" he says skeptically.\n\n\"Yes,\" I tell him, but I'm lying. I'm not doing this to defend a noble cause, or because Emily looked like Peggy in 42nd Street or the poor, doomed heroine of Our Town.\n\nI'm out here ruining my voice and my chance at ever getting a decent role again because that night in my limo, sitting there in her drenched coat, pouring out her nonexistent heart about tap steps and precision kicks, she had looked like me.\n\nAnd I realize for the first time that that's why Margo Channing helped Eve Harrington. Not because Eve manipulated her into it, but because when she looked at her, she saw her younger, stagestruck self, that girl who'd fallen in love, who just wanted a shot at doing what she'd been born to do.\n\nIf they ever do a revival of Bumpy Night and I get to play Margo again, I'll have to remember that. It could add a whole new dimension to the character.\n\nBut at this point, getting the part\u2014or any part, even Mama Morton\u2014looks extremely doubtful. The reporter wasn't at all impressed with my \"proud tradition of the theater and humanity\" speech. For the entire length of it, he was looking past me, scanning for possible Rockettes.\n\nBut they're not going to show, and the reporter's apparently reached the same conclusion. \"I told you they were getting us over here for nothing,\" he says to the cameraman.\n\nThe cameraman nods and lowers the plastic-covered camera from his shoulder.\n\n\"Let's go,\" the reporter says. \"I'm freezing my balls off out here.\"\n\n\"Wait,\" I say, grabbing his arm. \"Won't you at least sign my petition before you go?\" But they're not listening. They're looking over at the side door, which is opening again.\n\nIt's only Leonda, I think, back for a second try at an autograph\u2014which she is not going to get\u2014but it's not. It's the Rockette who yelled at her before. She's changed out of her toy soldier getup into the Rockettes' signature red and white fur Christmas costume, and, as we watch, she pushes the door wide, braces it open with her gold-shod foot, and makes a beckoning motion to whoever's inside.\n\nAnd out comes a Rockette dressed just like her who's\u2026oh, my God! holding a clipboard. And on her heels is another Rockette. And another. And Leonda, who as she passes me turns her clipboard so I can see the petition and whispers, \"I'd already signed mine. That's why I couldn't sign yours,\" and smiles a smile almost as sweet and disarming as Emily's.\n\n\"Are you getting this?\" I ask the cameraman, but of course he is. Because what a glorious sight! They march out, heads up, chests out, as oblivious to the frigid wind as if they were Emily, even though I know it's cutting right through those tights, right through the toes of those gold tap shoes.\n\nHere they come in a gorgeous, unending line that is going to go all the way around the building, every one of them in a red leotard and white fur hat. And TMZ isn't the only one getting this. Other camera crews are arriving every minute, and so are tourists, holding up their cell phones and Androids to record this. Taxi drivers are slowing down to whistle and cheer, Jorge shows up with a cup of hot brandy-laced coffee for me, and even though the Rockettes aren't even all out the door yet, people are flocking around them, wanting to sign their petitions. And mine.\n\nThe only thing that could make this a better finale is if it would start snowing, which it does just as the last of the Rockettes step smartly out the door. Starry white flakes fall on their white fur hats and their eyelashes as they move into position, and their cheeks are almost as pink as Emily's.\n\nThey take up their places, eighty Rockettes and\u2014I find out later\u2014thirty-two former Rockettes and every female dancer from A Chorus Line, Forbidden Planet, and Almost Human. And the chorus line from La Cage aux Folles. And they all stand there, backs straight, heads held high, facing into the bitter wind that seems always to be whipping around Radio City Music Hall, with their petitions and their fabulous legs and their knock-'em-dead smiles. And right now even I want to be a Rockette.\n\nThey're all in place now, every last one of them dressed in golden tap shoes and a red and white fur costume. Except for me. And the last eight out the door, who station themselves on either side of me, right beneath Radio City Music Hall's chrome-and-neon marquee.\n\nThey're dressed as robots."
            },
            {
                "title": "Inn",
                "text": "Christmas Eve. The organ played the last notes of \"O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,\" and the choir sat down. Reverend Wall hobbled slowly to the pulpit, clutching his sheaf of yellowed typewritten sheets.\n\nIn the choir, Dee leaned over to Sharon and whispered, \"Here we go. Twenty-four minutes and counting.\"\n\nOn Sharon's other side, Virginia murmured, \" 'And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.' \"\n\nReverend Wall set the papers on the pulpit, looked rheumily out over the congregation, and said, \" 'And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David. To be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child.' \" He paused.\n\n\"We know nothing of that journey up from Nazareth,\" Virginia whispered.\n\n\"We know nothing of that journey up from Nazareth,\" Reverend Wall said, in a wavering voice, \"what adventures befell the young couple, what inns they stopped at along the way. All we know is that on a Christmas Eve like this one they arrived in Bethlehem, and there was no room for them at the inn.\"\n\nVirginia was scribbling something on the margin of her bulletin. Dee started to cough. \"Do you have any cough drops?\" she whispered to Sharon.\n\n\"What happened to the ones I gave you last night?\" Sharon whispered back.\n\n\"Though we know nothing of their journey,\" Reverend Wall said, his voice growing stronger, \"we know much of the world they lived in. It was a world of censuses and soldiers, of bureaucrats and politicians, a world busy with property and rules and its own affairs.\"\n\nDee started to cough again. She rummaged in the pocket of her music folder and came up with a paper-wrapped cough drop. She unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth.\n\n\"\u2026a world too busy with its own business to even notice an insignificant couple from far away,\" Reverend Wall intoned.\n\nVirginia passed her bulletin to Sharon. Dee leaned over to read it, too. It read, \"What happened here last night after the rehearsal? When I came home from the mall, there were police cars outside.\"\n\nDee grabbed the bulletin and rummaged in her folder again. She found a pencil, scribbled \"Somebody broke into the church,\" and passed it across Sharon to Virginia.\n\n\"You're kidding,\" Virginia whispered. \"Were they caught?\"\n\n\"No,\" Sharon said.\n\nThe rehearsal on the twenty-third was supposed to start at seven. By a quarter to eight the choir was still standing at the back of the sanctuary waiting to sing the processional, the shepherds and angels were bouncing off the walls, and Reverend Wall, in his chair behind the pulpit, had nodded off. The assistant minister, Reverend Lisa Farrison, was moving poinsettias onto the chancel steps to make room for the manger, and the choir director, Rose Henderson, was on her knees, hammering wooden bases onto the cardboard palm trees. They had fallen down twice already.\n\n\"What do you think are the chances we'll still be here when it's time for the Christmas Eve service to start tomorrow night?\" Sharon said, leaning against the sanctuary door.\n\n\"I can't be,\" Virginia said, looking at her watch. \"I've got to be out at the mall before nine. Megan suddenly announced she wants Senior Prom Barbie.\"\n\n\"My throat feels terrible,\" Dee said, feeling her glands. \"Is it hot in here, or am I getting a fever?\"\n\n\"It's hot in these robes,\" Sharon said. \"Why are we wearing them? This is a rehearsal.\"\n\n\"Rose wanted everything to be exactly like it's going to be tomorrow night.\"\n\n\"If I'm exactly like this tomorrow night, I'll be dead,\" Dee said, trying to clear her throat. \"I can't get sick. I don't have any of the presents wrapped, and I haven't even thought about what we're having for Christmas dinner.\"\n\n\"At least you have presents,\" Virginia said. \"I have eight people left to buy for. Not counting Senior Prom Barbie.\"\n\n\"I don't have anything done. Christmas cards, shopping, wrapping, baking, nothing, and Bill's parents are coming,\" Sharon said. \"Come on, let's get this show on the road.\"\n\nRose and one of the junior choir angels hoisted the palm trees to standing. They listed badly to the right, as if Bethlehem were experiencing a hurricane. \"Is that straight?\" Rose called to the back of the church.\n\n\"Yes,\" Sharon said.\n\n\"Lying in church,\" Dee said. \"Tsk, tsk.\"\n\n\"All right,\" Rose said, picking up a bulletin. \"Listen up, everybody. Here's the order of worship. Introit by the brass quartet, processional, opening prayer, announcements\u2014Reverend Farrison, is that where you want to talk about the 'Least of These' Project?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Reverend Farrison said. She walked to the front of the sanctuary. \"And can I make a quick announcement right now?\" She turned and faced the choir. \"If anybody has anything else to donate, you need to bring it to the church by tomorrow morning at nine,\" she said briskly. \"That's when we're going to deliver the donations to the homeless. We still need blankets and canned goods. Bring them to the Fellowship Hall.\"\n\nShe walked back down the aisle, and Rose started in on her list again. \"Announcements, 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,' Reverend Wall's sermon\u2014\"\n\nReverend Wall nodded awake at his name. \"Ah,\" he said, and hobbled toward the pulpit, clutching a sheaf of yellowed typewritten papers.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" Sharon said. \"Not a Christmas pageant and a sermon. We'll be here forever.\"\n\n\"Not a sermon,\" Virginia said. \"The sermon. All twenty-four minutes of it. I've got it memorized. He's given it every year since he came.\"\n\n\"Longer than that,\" Dee said. \"I swear last year I heard him say something in it about World War I.\"\n\n\" 'And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city,' \" Reverend Wall said. \" 'And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth.' \"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" Sharon said. \"He's going to give the whole sermon right now.\"\n\n\"We know nothing of that journey up from Bethlehem,\" he said.\n\n\"Thank you, Reverend Wall,\" Rose said. \"After the sermon, the choir sings 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' and Mary and Joseph\u2014\"\n\n\"What message does the story of their journey hold for us?\" Reverend Wall said, picking up steam.\n\nRose was hurrying up the aisle and up the chancel steps. \"Reverend Wall, you don't need to run through your sermon right now.\"\n\n\"What does it say to us,\" he asked, \"struggling to recover from a world war?\"\n\nDee nudged Sharon.\n\n\"Reverend Wall,\" Rose said, reaching the pulpit. \"I'm afraid we don't have time to go through your whole sermon right now. We need to run through the pageant now.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" he said, and gathered up his papers.\n\n\"All right,\" Rose said. \"The choir sings 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' and Mary and Joseph, you come down the aisle.\"\n\nMary and Joseph, wearing bathrobes and Birkenstocks, assembled themselves at the back of the sanctuary and started down the center aisle.\n\n\"No, no, Mary and Joseph, not that way,\" Rose said. \"The wise men from the East have to come down the center aisle, and you're coming up from Nazareth. You two come down the side aisle.\"\n\nMary and Joseph obliged, taking the aisle at a trot.\n\n\"No, no, slow down,\" Rose said. \"You're tired. You've walked all the way from Nazareth. Try it again.\"\n\nThey raced each other to the back of the church and started again, slower at first and then picking up speed.\n\n\"The congregation won't be able to see them,\" Rose said, shaking her head. \"What about lighting the side aisle? Can we do that, Reverend Farrison?\"\n\n\"She's not here,\" Dee said. \"She went to get something.\"\n\n\"I'll go get her,\" Sharon said, and went down the hall.\n\nMiriam Hoskins was just going into the adult Sunday school room with a paper plate of frosted cookies. \"Do you know where Reverend Farrison is?\" Sharon asked her.\n\n\"She was in the office a minute ago,\" Miriam said, pointing with the plate.\n\nSharon went down to the office. Reverend Farrison was standing at the desk, talking on the phone. \"How soon can the van be here?\" She motioned to Sharon she'd be a minute. \"Well, can you find out?\"\n\nSharon waited, looking at the desk. There was a glass dish of paper-wrapped cough drops next to the phone, and beside it a can of smoked oysters and three cans of water chestnuts. Probably for the 'Least of These' Project, she thought ruefully.\n\n\"Fifteen minutes? All right. Thank you,\" Reverend Farrison said, and hung up. \"Just a minute,\" she told Sharon, and went to the outside door. She opened it and leaned out. Sharon could feel the icy air as she stood there. She wondered if it had started snowing.\n\n\"The van will be here in a few minutes,\" Reverend Farrison said to someone outside.\n\nSharon looked out the stained-glass panels on either side of the door, trying to see who was out there.\n\n\"It'll take you to the shelter,\" Reverend Farrison said. \"No, you'll have to wait outside.\" She shut the door. \"Now,\" she said, turning to Sharon, \"what did you want, Mrs. Englert?\"\n\nSharon said, still looking out the window, \"They need you in the sanctuary.\" It was starting to snow. The flakes looked blue through the glass.\n\n\"I'll be right there,\" Reverend Farrison said. \"I was just taking care of some homeless. That's the second couple we've had tonight. We always get them at Christmas. What's the problem? The palm trees?\"\n\n\"What?\" Sharon said, still looking at the snow.\n\nReverend Farrison followed her gaze. \"The shelter van's coming for them in a few minutes,\" she said. \"We can't let them stay in here unsupervised. First Methodist's had their collection stolen twice in the last month, and we've got all the donations for the 'Least of These' Project in there.\" She gestured toward the Fellowship Hall.\n\nI thought they were for the homeless, Sharon thought. \"Couldn't they just wait in the sanctuary or something?\" she said.\n\nReverend Farrison sighed. \"Letting them in isn't doing them a kindness. They come here instead of the shelter because the shelter confiscates their liquor.\" She started down the hall. \"What did they need me for?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Sharon said, \"the lights. They wanted to know if they could get lights over the side aisle for Mary and Joseph.\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said. \"The lights in this church are such a mess.\" She stopped at the bank of switches next to the stairs that led down to the choir room and the Sunday school rooms. \"Tell me what this turns on.\"\n\nShe flicked a switch. The hall light went off. She switched it back on and tried another one.\n\n\"That's the light in the office,\" Sharon said, \"and the downstairs hall, and that one's the adult Sunday school room.\"\n\n\"What's this one?\" Reverend Farrison said. There was a yelp from the choir members. Kids screamed.\n\n\"The sanctuary,\" Sharon said. \"Okay, that's the side aisle lights.\" She called down to the sanctuary. \"How's that?\"\n\n\"Fine,\" Rose called. \"No, wait, the organ's off.\"\n\nReverend Farrison flicked another switch, and the organ came on with a groan.\n\n\"Now the side lights are off,\" Sharon said, \"and so's the pulpit light.\"\n\n\"I told you they were a mess,\" Reverend Farrison said. She flicked another switch. \"What did that do?\"\n\n\"It turned the porch light off.\"\n\n\"Good. We'll leave it off. Maybe it will discourage any more homeless from coming,\" she said. \"Reverend Wall let a homeless man wait inside last week, and he relieved himself on the carpet in the adult Sunday school room. We had to have it cleaned.\" She looked reprovingly at Sharon. \"With these people, you can't let your compassion get the better of you.\"\n\nNo, Sharon thought. Jesus did, and look what happened to him.\n\n\"The innkeeper could have turned them away,\" Reverend Wall intoned. \"He was a busy man, and his inn was full of travelers. He could have shut the door on Mary and Joseph.\"\n\nVirginia leaned across Sharon to Dee. \"Did whoever broke in take anything?\"\n\n\"No,\" Sharon said.\n\n\"Whoever it was urinated on the floor in the nursery,\" Dee whispered, and Reverend Wall trailed off confusedly and looked over at the choir.\n\nDee began coughing loudly, trying to smother it with her hand. He smiled vaguely at her and started again. \"The innkeeper could have turned them away.\"\n\nDee waited a minute, and then opened her hymnal to her bulletin and began writing on it. She passed it to Virginia, who read it and then passed it back to Sharon.\n\n\"Reverend Farrison thinks some of the homeless got in,\" it read. \"They tore up the palm trees, too. Ripped the bases right off. Can you imagine anybody doing something like that?\"\n\n\"As the innkeeper found room for Mary and Joseph that Christmas Eve long ago,\" Reverend Wall said, building to a finish, \"let us find room in our hearts for Christ. Amen.\"\n\nThe organ began the intro to \"O Little Town of Bethlehem,\" and Mary and Joseph appeared at the back with Miriam Hoskins. She adjusted Mary's white veil and whispered something to them. Joseph pulled at his glued-on beard.\n\n\"What route did they finally decide on?\" Virginia whispered. \"In from the side or straight down the middle?\"\n\n\"Side aisle,\" Sharon whispered.\n\nThe choir stood up. \" 'O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie,' \" they sang. \" 'Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by.' \"\n\nMary and Joseph started up the side aisle, taking the slow, measured steps Rose had coached them in, side by side. No, Sharon thought. That's not right. They didn't look like that. Joseph should be a little ahead of Mary, protecting her, and her hand should be on her stomach, protecting the baby.\n\nThey eventually decided to wait on the decision of how Mary and Joseph would come, and started through the pageant. Mary and Joseph knocked on the door of the inn, and the innkeeper, grinning broadly, told them there wasn't any room.\n\n\"Patrick, don't look so happy,\" Rose said. \"You're supposed to be in a bad mood. You're busy and tired, and you don't have any rooms left.\"\n\nPatrick attempted a scowl. \"I have no rooms left,\" he said, \"but you can stay in the stable.\" He led them over to the manger, and Mary knelt down behind it.\n\n\"Where's the baby Jesus?\" Rose said.\n\n\"He's not due till tomorrow night,\" Virginia whispered.\n\n\"Does anybody have a baby doll they can bring?\" Rose asked.\n\nOne of the angels raised her hand, and Rose said, \"Fine. Mary, use the blanket for now, and, choir, you sing the first verse of 'Away in a Manger.' Shepherds,\" she called to the back of the sanctuary, \"as soon as 'Away in a Manger' is over, come up and stand on this side.\" She pointed.\n\nThe shepherds picked up an assortment of hockey sticks, broom handles, and canes taped to one-by-twos and adjusted their headcloths.\n\n\"All right, let's run through it,\" Rose said. \"Organ?\"\n\nThe organ played the opening chord, and the choir stood up.\n\n\"A-way,\" Dee sang and started to cough, choking into her hand.\n\n\"Do\u2014cough\u2014drop?\" she managed to gasp out between spasms.\n\n\"I saw some in the office,\" Sharon said, and ran down the chancel steps, down the aisle, and out into the hall.\n\nIt was dark, but she didn't want to take the time to try to find the right switch. She could more or less see her way by the lights from the sanctuary, and she thought she knew right where the cough drops were.\n\nThe office lights were off, too, and the porch light Reverend Farrison had turned off to discourage the homeless. She opened the office door, felt her way over to the desk, and patted around till she found the glass dish. She grabbed a handful of cough drops and felt her way back out into the hall.\n\nThe choir was singing \"It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,\" but after two measures they stopped, and in the sudden silence Sharon heard knocking.\n\nShe started for the door and then hesitated, wondering if this was the same couple Reverend Farrison had turned away earlier, coming back to make trouble, but the knocking was soft, almost diffident, and through the stained-glass panels she could see it was snowing hard.\n\nShe switched the cough drops to her left hand, opened the door a little, and looked out. There were two people standing on the porch, one in front of the other. It was too dark to do more than make out their outlines, and at first glance it looked like two women, but then the one in front said in a young man's voice, \"Erkas.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" Sharon said. \"I don't speak Spanish. Are you looking for a place to stay?\" The snow was turning to sleet, and the wind was picking up.\n\n\"Kumrah,\" the young man said, making a sound like he was clearing his throat, and then a whole string of words she didn't recognize.\n\n\"Just a minute,\" she said, and shut the door. She went back into the office, felt for the phone, and, squinting at the buttons in the near-darkness, punched in the shelter number.\n\nIt was busy. She held down the receiver, waited a minute, and tried again. Still busy. She went back to the door, hoping they'd given up and gone away.\n\n\"Erkas,\" the man said as soon as she opened it.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" she said. \"I'm trying to call the homeless shelter,\" and he began talking rapidly, excitedly.\n\nHe stepped forward and put his hand on the door. He had a blanket draped over him, which was why she'd mistaken him for a woman. \"Erkas,\" he said, and he sounded upset, desperate, and yet somehow still diffident, timid.\n\n\"Bott lom,\" he said, gesturing toward the woman, who was standing back almost to the edge of the porch, but Sharon wasn't looking at her. She was looking at their feet.\n\nThey were wearing sandals. At first she thought they were barefoot and she squinted through the darkness, horrified. Barefoot in the snow! Then she glimpsed the dark line of a strap, but they still might as well be. And it was snowing hard.\n\nShe couldn't leave them outside, but she didn't dare bring them into the hall to wait for the van either, not with Reverend Farrison around.\n\nThe office was out\u2014the phone might ring\u2014and she couldn't put them in the Fellowship Hall with all the stuff for the homeless in there.\n\n\"Just a minute,\" she said, shutting the door, and went to see if Miriam was still in the adult Sunday school room. It was dark, so she obviously wasn't, but there was a lamp on the table by the door. She switched it on. No, this wouldn't work either, not with the communion silver in a display case against the wall, and anyway, there was a stack of paper cups on the table, and the plates of Christmas cookies Miriam had been carrying, which meant there'd be refreshments in here after the rehearsal. She switched off the light, and went out into the hall.\n\nNot Reverend Wall's office\u2014it was locked anyway\u2014and certainly not Reverend Farrison's, and if she took them downstairs to one of the Sunday school rooms, she'd just have to sneak them back up again.\n\nThe furnace room? It was between the adult Sunday school room and the Fellowship Hall. She tried the doorknob. It opened, and she looked in. The furnace filled practically the whole room, and what it didn't was taken up by a stack of folding chairs. There wasn't a light switch she could find, but the pilot light gave off enough light to maneuver by. And it was warmer than the porch.\n\nShe went back to the door, looked down the hall to make sure nobody was coming, and let them in. \"You can wait in here,\" she said, even though it was obvious they couldn't understand her.\n\nThey followed her through the dark hall to the furnace room, and she opened out two of the folding chairs so they could sit down, and motioned them in.\n\n\"It Came Upon a Midnight Clear\" ground to a halt, and Rose's voice came drifting out of the sanctuary. \"Shepherd's crooks are not weapons. All right. Angel?\"\n\n\"I'll call the shelter,\" Sharon said hastily, and shut the door on them.\n\nShe crossed to the office and tried the shelter again. \"Please, please answer,\" she said, and when they did, she was so surprised, she forgot to tell them the couple would be inside.\n\n\"It'll be at least half an hour,\" the man said. \"Or forty-five minutes.\"\n\n\"Forty-five minutes?\"\n\n\"It's like this whenever it gets below zero,\" the man said. \"We'll try to make it sooner.\"\n\nAt least she'd done the right thing\u2014they couldn't possibly stand out in that snow for forty-five minutes. The right thing, she thought ruefully, sticking them in the furnace room. But at least it was warm in there and out of the snow. And they were safe, as long as nobody came out to see what had happened to her.\n\n\"Dee,\" she said suddenly. Sharon was supposed to have come out to get her some cough drops.\n\nThey were lying on the desk where she'd laid them while she phoned. She snatched them up and took off down the hall and into the sanctuary.\n\nThe angel was on the chancel steps, exhorting the shepherds not to be afraid. Sharon threaded her way through them up to the chancel and sat down between Dee and Virginia.\n\nShe handed the cough drops to Dee, who said, \"What took you so long?\"\n\n\"I had to make a phone call. What did I miss?\"\n\n\"Not a thing. We're still on the shepherds. One of the palm trees fell over and had to be fixed, and then Reverend Farrison stopped the rehearsal to tell everybody not to let homeless people into the church, that Holy Trinity had had its sanctuary vandalized.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" she said. She gazed out over the sanctuary, looking for Reverend Farrison.\n\n\"All right, now, after the angel makes her speech,\" Rose said, \"she's joined by a multitude of angels. That's you, junior choir. No. Line up on the steps. Organ?\"\n\nThe organ struck up \"Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,\" and the junior choir began singing in piping, nearly inaudible voices.\n\nSharon couldn't see Reverend Farrison anywhere. \"Do you know where Reverend Farrison went?\" she whispered to Dee.\n\n\"She went out just as you came in. She had to get something from the office.\"\n\nThe office. What if she heard them in the furnace room and opened the door and found them in there? She half stood.\n\n\"Choir,\" Rose said, glaring directly at Sharon. \"Will you help the junior choir by humming along with them?\"\n\nSharon sat back down, and after a minute Reverend Farrison came in from the back, carrying a pair of scissors.\n\n\" 'Late in time, behold Him come,' \" the junior choir sang, and Miriam stood up and went out.\n\n\"Where's Miriam going?\" Sharon whispered.\n\n\"How would I know?\" Dee said, looking curiously at her. \"To get the refreshments ready, probably. Is something the matter?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said.\n\nRose was glaring at Sharon again. Sharon hummed, \" 'Light and life to all He brings,' \" willing the song to be over so she could go out, but as soon as it was over, Rose said, \"All right, wise men,\" and a sixth-grader carrying a jewelry box started down the center aisle. \"Choir, 'We Three Kings.' Organ?\"\n\nThere were four long verses to \"We Three Kings of Orient Are.\" Sharon couldn't wait.\n\n\"I have to go to the bathroom,\" she said. She set her folder on her chair and ducked down the stairs behind the chancel and through the narrow room that led to the side aisle. The choir called it the flower room because that was where they stored the out-of-season altar arrangements. They used it for sneaking out when they needed to leave church early, but right now there was barely room to squeeze through. The floor was covered with music stands and pots of silk Easter lilies, and a huge spray of red roses stood in front of the door to the sanctuary.\n\nSharon shoved it into the corner, stepping gingerly among the lilies, and opened the door.\n\n\"Balthazar, lay the gold in front of the manger, don't drop it. Mary, you're the Mother of God. Try not to look so scared,\" Rose said.\n\nSharon hurried down the side aisle and out into the hall, where the other two kings were waiting, holding perfume bottles.\n\n\" 'Westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light,' \" the choir sang.\n\nThe hall and office lights were still off, but light was spilling out of the adult Sunday school room all the way to the end of the hall. She could see that the furnace room door was still shut.\n\nI'll call the shelter again, she thought, and see if I can hurry them up, and if I can't, I'll take them downstairs till everybody's gone, and then take them to the shelter myself.\n\nShe tiptoed past the open door of the adult Sunday school room so Miriam wouldn't see her, and then half sprinted down to the office and opened the door.\n\n\"Hi,\" Miriam said, looking up from the desk. She had an aluminum pitcher in one hand and was rummaging in the top drawer with the other. \"Do you know where the secretary keeps the key to the kitchen? It's locked, and I can't get in.\"\n\n\"No,\" Sharon said, her heart still pounding.\n\n\"I need a spoon to stir the Kool-Aid,\" Miriam said, opening and shutting the side drawers of the desk. \"She must have taken them home with her. I don't blame her. First Baptist had theirs stolen last month. They had to change all the locks.\"\n\nSharon glanced uneasily at the furnace room door.\n\n\"Oh, well,\" Miriam said, opening the top drawer again. \"I'll have to make do with this.\" She pulled out a plastic ruler. \"The kids won't care.\"\n\nShe started out and then stopped. \"They're not done in there yet, are they?\"\n\n\"No,\" Sharon said. \"They're still on the wise men. I needed to call my husband to tell him to take the turkey out of the freezer.\"\n\n\"I've got to do that when I get home,\" Miriam said. She went across the hall and into the library, leaving the door open. Sharon waited a minute and then called the shelter. It was busy. She held her watch to the light from the hall. They'd said half an hour to forty-five minutes. By that time the rehearsal would be over and the hall would be full of people.\n\nLess than half an hour. They were already singing \"Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume.\" All that was left was \"Silent Night\" and then \"Joy to the World,\" and the angels would come streaming out for cookies and Kool-Aid.\n\nShe went over to the front door and peered out. Below zero, the woman at the shelter had said, and now there was sleet, slanting sharply across the parking lot.\n\nShe couldn't send them out in that without any shoes. And she couldn't keep them up here, not with the kids right next door. She was going to have to move them downstairs.\n\nBut where? Not the choir room. The choir would be taking their folders and robes back down there, and the pageant kids would be getting their coats out of the Sunday school rooms. And the kitchen was locked.\n\nThe nursery? That might work. It was at the other end of the hall from the choir room, but she would have to take them past the adult Sunday school room to the stairs, and the door was open.\n\n\" 'Si-i-lent night, ho-oh-ly night,' \" came drifting out of the sanctuary, and then was cut off, and she could hear Reverend Farrison's voice lecturing, probably about the dangers of letting the homeless into the church.\n\nShe glanced again at the furnace room door and then went into the adult Sunday school room. Miriam was setting out the paper cups on the table. She looked up. \"Did you get through to your husband?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Sharon said. Miriam looked expectant.\n\n\"Can I have a cookie?\" Sharon said at random.\n\n\"Take one of the stars. The kids like the Santas and the Christmas trees the best.\"\n\nShe grabbed up a bright yellow-frosted star. \"Thanks,\" she said, and went out, pulling the door shut behind her.\n\n\"Leave it open,\" Miriam said. \"I want to be able to hear when they're done.\"\n\nSharon opened the door back up half as far as she'd shut it, afraid any less would bring Miriam to the door to open it herself, and walked quietly to the furnace room.\n\nThe choir was on the last verse of \"Silent Night.\" After that there was only \"Joy to the World\" and then the benediction. Open door or no open door, she was going to have to move them now. She opened the furnace room door.\n\nThey were standing where she had left them between the folding chairs, and she knew, without any proof, that they had stood there like that the whole time she had been gone.\n\nThe young man was standing slightly in front of the woman, the way he had at the door, only he wasn't a man, he was a boy, his beard as thin and wispy as an adolescent's, and the woman was even younger, a child of ten maybe, only she had to be older, because now that there was light from the half-open door of the adult Sunday school room Sharon could see that she was pregnant.\n\nShe regarded all this\u2014the girl's awkward bulkiness and the boy's beard, the fact that they had not sat down, the fact that it was the light from the adult Sunday school room that was making her see now what she hadn't before\u2014with some part of her mind that was still functioning, that was still thinking how long the van from the shelter would take, how to get them past Reverend Farrison, some part of her mind that was taking in the details that proved what she had already known the moment she opened the door.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" she whispered, and the boy opened his hands in a gesture of helplessness. \"Erkas,\" he said.\n\nAnd that still-functioning part of her mind put her fingers to her lips in a gesture he obviously understood because they both looked instantly frightened. \"You have to come with me,\" she whispered.\n\nBut then it stopped functioning altogether, and she was half running them past the open door and onto the stairs, not even hearing the organ blaring out \"Joy to the world, the Lord is come,\" whispering, \"Hurry! Hurry!\" and they didn't know how to get down the steps, the girl turned around and came down backwards, her hands flat on the steps above, and the boy helped her down, step by step, as if they were clambering down rocks, and she tried to pull the girl along faster and nearly made her stumble, and even that didn't bring her to her senses.\n\nShe hissed, \"Like this,\" and showed them how to walk down the steps, facing forward, one hand on the rail, and they paid no attention, they came down backwards like toddlers, and it took forever, the hymn she wasn't hearing was already at the end of the third verse and they were only halfway down, all of them panting hard, and Sharon scurrying back up above them as if that would hurry them, past wondering how she would ever get them up the stairs again, past thinking she would have to call the van and tell them not to come, thinking only, Hurry, hurry, and How did they get here?\n\nShe did not come to herself until she had herded them somehow down the hall and into the nursery, thinking, It can't be locked, please don't let it be locked, and it wasn't, and gotten them inside and pulled the door shut and tried to lock it, and it didn't have a lock, and she thought, That must be why it wasn't locked, an actual coherent thought, her first one since that moment when she opened the furnace room door, and seemed to come to herself.\n\nShe stared at them, breathing hard, and it was them, their never having seen stairs before was proof of that, if she needed any proof, but she didn't, she had known it the instant she saw them, there was no question.\n\nShe wondered if this was some sort of vision, the kind people were always getting where they saw Jesus's face on a refrigerator, or the Virgin Mary dressed in blue and white, surrounded by roses. But their rough brown cloaks were dripping melted snow on the nursery carpet, their feet in the useless sandals were bright red with cold, and they looked too frightened.\n\nAnd they didn't look at all like they did in religious pictures. They were too short, his hair was greasy and his face was tough-looking, like a young punk's, and her veil looked like a grubby dishtowel and it didn't hang loose, it was tied around her neck and knotted in the back, and they were too young, almost as young as the children upstairs dressed like them.\n\nThey were looking around the room frightenedly, at the white crib and the rocking chair and the light fixture overhead. The boy fumbled in his sash and brought out a leather sack. He held it out to Sharon.\n\n\"How did you get here?\" she said wonderingly. \"You're supposed to be on your way to Bethlehem.\"\n\nHe thrust the bag at her, and when she didn't take it, untied the leather string and took out a crude-looking coin and held it out.\n\n\"You don't have to pay me,\" she said, which was ridiculous. He couldn't understand her. She held a flat hand up, pushing the coin away and shaking her head. That was a universal sign, wasn't it? And what was the sign for welcome? She spread her arms out, smiling at the youngsters. \"You are welcome to stay here,\" she said, trying to put the meaning of the words into her voice. \"Sit down. Rest.\"\n\nThey remained standing. Sharon pulled the rocking chair. \"Sit, please.\"\n\nMary looked frightened, and Sharon put her hands on the arms of the chair and sat down to show her how. Joseph immediately knelt, and Mary tried awkwardly to.\n\n\"No, no!\" Sharon said, and stood up so fast she set the rocking chair swinging. \"Don't kneel. I'm nobody.\" She looked hopelessly at them. \"How did you get here? You're not supposed to be here.\"\n\nJoseph stood up. \"Erkas,\" he said, and went over to the bulletin board.\n\nIt was covered with colored pictures from Jesus's life: Jesus healing the lame boy, Jesus in the temple, Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.\n\nHe pointed to the picture of the Nativity scene. \"Kumrah,\" he said.\n\nDoes he recognize himself? she wondered, but he was pointing at the donkey standing by the manger. \"Erkas,\" he said. \"Erkas.\"\n\nDid that mean \"donkey,\" or something else? Was he demanding to know what she had done with theirs, or trying to ask her if she had one? In all the pictures, all the versions of the story, Mary was riding a donkey, but she had thought they'd gotten that part of the story wrong, as they had gotten everything else wrong, their faces, their clothes, and above all their youth, their helplessness.\n\n\"Kumrah erkas,\" he said. \"Kumrah erkas. Bott lom?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said. \"I don't know where Bethlehem is.\"\n\nOr what to do with you, she thought. Her first instinct was to hide them here until the rehearsal was over and everybody had gone home. She couldn't let Reverend Farrison find them.\n\nBut surely as soon as she saw who they were, she would\u2014what? Fall to her knees? Or call for the shelter's van? \"That's the second couple tonight,\" she'd said when she shut the door. Sharon wondered suddenly if it was them she'd turned away, if they'd wandered around the parking lot, lost and frightened, and then knocked on the door again.\n\nShe couldn't let Reverend Farrison find them, but there was no reason for her to come into the nursery. All the children were upstairs, and the refreshments were in the adult Sunday school room. But what if she checked the rooms before she locked up?\n\nI'll take them home with me, Sharon thought. They'll be safe there. If she could get them up the stairs and out of the parking lot before the rehearsal ended.\n\nI got them down here without anybody seeing them, she thought. But even if she could manage it, which she doubted, if they didn't die of fright when she started the car and the seat belts closed down over them, home was no better than the shelter.\n\nThey had gotten lost through some accident of time and space, and ended up at the church. The way back\u2014if there was a way back, there had to be a way back, they had to be at Bethlehem by tomorrow night\u2014was here.\n\nIt occurred to her suddenly that maybe she shouldn't have let them in, that the way back was outside the north door. But I couldn't not let them in, she protested, it was snowing, and they didn't have any shoes.\n\nBut maybe if she'd turned them away, they would have walked off the porch and back into their own time. Maybe they still could.\n\nShe said, \"Stay here,\" putting her hand up to show them what she meant, and went out of the nursery into the hall, shutting the door tightly behind her.\n\nThe choir was still singing \"Joy to the World.\" They must have had to stop again. Sharon ran silently up the stairs and past the adult Sunday school room. Its door was still half open, and she could see the plates of cookies on the table. She opened the north door, hesitating a moment as if she expected to see sand and camels, and leaned out. It was still sleeting, and the cars had an inch of snow on them.\n\nShe looked around for something to wedge the door open with, pushed one of the potted palms over, and went out on the porch. It was slick, and she had to take hold of the wall to keep her footing. She stepped carefully to the edge of the porch and peered into the sleet, already shivering, looking for what? A lessening of the sleet, a spot where the darkness was darker, or not so dark? A light?\n\nNothing. After a minute she stepped off the porch, moving as cautiously as Mary and Joseph had going down the stairs, and made a circuit of the parking lot.\n\nNothing. If the way back had been out here, it wasn't now, and she was going to freeze if she stayed out here. She went back inside, and then stood there, staring at the door, trying to think what to do. I've got to get help, she thought, hugging her arms to herself for warmth. I've got to tell somebody. She started down the hall to the sanctuary.\n\nThe organ had stopped. \"Mary and Joseph, I need to talk to you for a minute,\" Rose's voice said. \"Shepherds, leave your crooks on the front pew. The rest of you, there are refreshments in the adult Sunday school room. Choir, don't leave. I need to go over some things with you.\"\n\nThere was a clatter of sticks and then a stampede, and Sharon was overwhelmed by shepherds elbowing their way to the refreshments. One of the wise men caught his Air Jordan in his robe and nearly fell down, and two of the angels lost their tinsel halos in their eagerness to reach the cookies.\n\nSharon fought through them and into the back of the sanctuary. Rose was in the side aisle, showing Mary and Joseph how to walk, and the choir was gathering up their music. Sharon couldn't see Dee.\n\nVirginia came down the center aisle, stripping off her robe as she walked. Sharon went to meet her. \"Do you know where Dee is?\" she asked her.\n\n\"She went home,\" Virginia said, handing Sharon a folder. \"You left this on your chair. Dee's voice was giving out completely, and I said, 'This is silly. Go home and go to bed.' \"\n\n\"Virginia\u2026\" Sharon said.\n\n\"Can you put my robe away for me?\" Virginia said, pulling her stole off her head. \"I've got exactly ten minutes to get to the mall.\"\n\nSharon nodded absently, and Virginia draped it over her arm and hurried out. Sharon scanned the choir, wondering who else she could confide in.\n\nRose dismissed Mary and Joseph, who went off at a run, and crossed to the center aisle. \"Rehearsal tomorrow night at 6:15,\" she said. \"I need you in your robes and up here right on time, because I've got to practice with the brass quartet at 6:40. Any questions?\"\n\nYes, Sharon thought, looking around the sanctuary. Who can I get to help me?\n\n\"What are we singing for the processional?\" one of the tenors asked.\n\n\" 'Adeste Fideles,' \" Rose said. \"Before you leave, let's line up so you can see who your partner is.\"\n\nReverend Wall was sitting in one of the back pews, looking at the notes to his sermon. Sharon sidled along the pew and sat down next to him.\n\n\"Reverend Wall,\" she said, and then had no idea how to start. \"Do you know what erkas means? I think it's Hebrew.\"\n\nHe raised his head from his notes and peered at her. \"It's Aramaic. It means 'lost.' \"\n\n\"Lost.\" He'd been trying to tell her at the door, in the furnace room, downstairs. \"We're lost.\"\n\n\" 'Forgotten,' \" Reverend Wall said. \" 'Misplaced.' \"\n\nMisplaced, all right. By two thousand years, an ocean, and how many miles?\n\n\"When Mary and Joseph journeyed up to Bethlehem from Nazareth, how did they go?\" she asked, hoping he would say, \"Why are you asking all these questions?\" so she could tell him, but he said, \"Ah. You weren't listening to my sermon. We know nothing of that journey, only that they arrived in Bethlehem.\"\n\nNot at this rate, she thought.\n\n\"Pass in the anthem,\" Rose said from the chancel. \"I've only got thirty copies, and I don't want to come up short tomorrow night.\"\n\nSharon looked up. The choir was leaving. \"On this journey, was there anyplace where they might have gotten lost?\" she said hurriedly.\n\n\"Erkas can also mean 'hidden, passed out of sight,' \" he said. \"Aramaic is very similar to Hebrew. In Hebrew, the word\u2014\"\n\n\"Reverend Wall,\" Reverend Farrison said from the center aisle. \"I need to talk to you about the benediction.\"\n\n\"Ah. Do you want me to give it now?\" he said, and stood up, clutching his papers.\n\nSharon took the opportunity to grab her folder and duck out. She ran downstairs after the choir.\n\nThere was no reason for any of the choir to go into the nursery, but she stationed herself in the hall, sorting through the music in her folder as if she were putting it in order, and trying to think what to do.\n\nMaybe, if everyone went into the choir room, she could duck into the nursery or one of the Sunday school rooms and hide until everybody was gone. But she didn't know whether Reverend Farrison checked each of the rooms before leaving. Or worse, locked them.\n\nShe could tell her she needed to stay late, to practice the anthem, but she didn't think Reverend Farrison would trust her to lock up, and she didn't want to call attention to herself, to make Reverend Farrison think, \"Where's Sharon Englert? I didn't see her leave.\" Maybe she could hide in the chancel, or the flower room, but that meant leaving the nursery unguarded.\n\nShe had to decide. The crowd was thinning out, the choir handing Rose their music and putting on their coats and boots. She had to do something. Reverend Farrison could come down the stairs any minute to search the nursery. But she continued to stand there, sorting blindly through her music, and Reverend Farrison came down the steps, carrying a ring of keys.\n\nSharon stepped back protectively, the way Joseph had, but Reverend Farrison didn't even see her. She went up to Rose and said, \"Can you lock up for me? I've got to be at Emmanuel Lutheran at 9:30 to collect their 'Least of These' contributions.\"\n\n\"I was supposed to go meet with the brass quartet\u2014\" Rose said reluctantly.\n\nDon't let Rose talk you out of it, Sharon thought.\n\n\"Be sure to lock all the doors, including the Fellowship Hall,\" Reverend Farrison said, handing her the keys.\n\n\"No, I've got mine,\" Rose said. \"But\u2014\"\n\n\"And check the parking lot. There were some homeless hanging around earlier. Thanks.\"\n\nShe ran upstairs, and Sharon immediately went over to Rose. \"Rose,\" she said.\n\nRose held out her hand for Sharon's anthem.\n\nSharon shuffled through her music and handed it to her. \"I was wondering,\" she said, trying to keep her voice casual, \"I need to stay and practice the music for tomorrow. I'd be glad to lock up for you. I could drop the keys by your house tomorrow morning.\"\n\n\"Oh, you're a godsend,\" Rose said. She handed Sharon the stack of music and got her keys out of her purse. \"These are the keys to the outside doors, north door, east door, Fellowship Hall,\" she said, ticking them off so fast, Sharon couldn't see which was which, but it didn't matter. She could figure them out after everybody left.\n\n\"This is the choir room door,\" Rose said. She handed them to Sharon. \"I really appreciate this. The brass quartet couldn't come to the rehearsal, they had a concert tonight, and I really need to go over the introit with them. They're having a terrible time with the middle part.\"\n\nSo am I, Sharon thought.\n\nRose yanked on her coat. \"And after I meet with them, I've got to go over to Sara Berg's and pick up the baby Jesus.\" She stopped, her arm half in her coat sleeve. \"Did you need me to stay and go over the music with you?\"\n\n\"No!\" Sharon said, alarmed. \"No, I'll be fine. I just need to run through it a couple of times.\"\n\n\"Okay. Great. Thanks again,\" she said, patting her pockets for her keys. She took the key ring away from Sharon and unhooked her car keys. \"You're a godsend, I mean it,\" she said, and took off up the stairs at a trot.\n\nTwo of the altos came out, pulling on their gloves. \"Do you know what I've got to face when I get home?\" Julia said. \"Putting up the tree.\"\n\nThey handed their music to Sharon.\n\n\"I hate Christmas,\" Karen said. \"By the time it's over, I'm worn to a frazzle.\"\n\nThey hurried up the stairs, still talking, and Sharon leaned into the choir room to make sure it was empty, dumped the music and Rose's robe on a chair, took off her robe, and went upstairs.\n\nMiriam was coming out of the adult Sunday school room, carrying a pitcher of Kool-Aid. \"Come on, Elizabeth,\" she called into the room. \"We've got to get to Buymore before it closes. She managed to completely destroy her halo,\" she said to Sharon, \"so now I've got to go buy some more tinsel. Elizabeth, we're the last ones here.\"\n\nElizabeth strolled out, holding a Christmas tree cookie in her mittened hand. She stopped halfway to the door to lick the cookie's frosting.\n\n\"Elizabeth,\" Miriam said. \"Come on.\"\n\nSharon held the door for them, and Miriam went out, ducking her head against the driving sleet. Elizabeth dawdled after her, looking up at the sky.\n\nMiriam waved. \"See you tomorrow night.\"\n\n\"I'll be here,\" Sharon said, and shut the door. I'll still be here, she thought. And what if they are? What happens then? Does the Christmas pageant disappear, and all the rest of it? The cookies and the shopping and the Senior Prom Barbies? And the church?\n\nShe watched Miriam and Elizabeth through the stained-glass panel till she saw the car's taillights, purple through the blue glass, pull out of the parking lot, and then tried the keys one after the other, till she found the right one, and locked the door.\n\nShe checked quickly in the sanctuary and the bathrooms, in case somebody was still there, and then ran down the stairs to the nursery to make sure they were still there, that they hadn't disappeared.\n\nThey were there, sitting on the floor next to the rocking chair and sharing what looked like dried dates from an unfolded cloth. Joseph started to stand up as soon as he saw her poke her head in the door, but she motioned him back down. \"Stay here,\" she said softly, and realized she didn't need to whisper. \"I'll be back in a few minutes. I'm just going to lock the doors.\"\n\nShe pulled the door shut, and went back upstairs. It hadn't occurred to her they'd be hungry, and she had no idea what they were used to eating\u2014unleavened bread? Lamb? Whatever it was, there probably wasn't any in the kitchen, but the deacons had had an Advent supper last week. With luck, there might be some chili in the refrigerator. Or, better yet, some crackers.\n\nThe kitchen was locked. She'd forgotten Miriam had said that, and anyway, one of the keys must open it. None of them did, and after she'd tried all of them twice she remembered they were Rose's keys, not Reverend Farrison's, and turned the lights on in the Fellowship Hall. There was tons of food in there, stacked on tables alongside the blankets and used clothes and toys. And all of it was in cans, just the way Reverend Farrison had specified in the bulletin.\n\nMiriam had taken the Kool-Aid home, but Sharon hadn't seen her carrying any cookies. The kids probably ate them all, she thought, but she went into the adult Sunday school room and looked. There was half a paper plateful left, and Miriam had been right\u2014the kids liked the Christmas trees and Santas the best\u2014the only ones left were yellow stars. There was a stack of paper cups, too. She picked them both up and took them downstairs.\n\n\"I brought you some food,\" she said, and set the plate on the floor between them.\n\nThey were staring in alarm at her, and Joseph was scrambling to his feet.\n\n\"It's food,\" she said, bringing her hand to her mouth and pretending to chew. \"Cakes.\"\n\nJoseph was pulling on Mary's arm, trying to yank her up, and they were both staring, horrified, at her jeans and sweatshirt. She realized suddenly they must not have recognized her without her choir robe. Worse, the robe looked at least a little like their clothes, but this getup must have looked totally alien.\n\n\"I'll bring you something to drink,\" she said hastily, showing them the paper cups, and went out. She ran down to the choir room. Her robe was still draped over the chair where she'd dumped it, along with Rose's and the music. She put the robe on and then filled the paper cups at the water fountain and carried them back to the nursery.\n\nThey were standing, but when they saw her in the robe, they sat back down. She handed Mary one of the paper cups, but she only looked at her fearfully. Sharon held it out to Joseph. He took it, too firmly, and it crumpled, water spurting onto the carpet.\n\n\"That's okay, it doesn't matter,\" Sharon said, cursing herself for being an idiot. \"I'll get you a real cup.\"\n\nShe ran upstairs, trying to think where there would be one. The coffee cups were in the kitchen, and so were the glasses, and she hadn't seen anything in the Fellowship Hall or the adult Sunday school room.\n\nShe smiled suddenly. \"I'll get you a real cup,\" she repeated, and went into the adult Sunday school room and took the silver Communion chalice out of the display case. There were silver plates, too. She wished she'd thought of it sooner.\n\nShe went into the Fellowship Hall and got a blanket and took the things downstairs. She filled the chalice with water and took it in to them, and handed Mary the chalice, and this time Mary took it without hesitation and drank deeply from it.\n\nSharon gave Joseph the blanket. \"I'll leave you alone so you can eat and rest,\" she said, and went out into the hall, pulling the door nearly shut again.\n\nShe went down to the choir room and hung up Rose's robe and stacked the music neatly on the table. Then she went up to the furnace room and folded up the folding chairs and stacked them against the wall. She checked the east door and the one in the Fellowship Hall. They were both locked.\n\nShe turned off the lights in the Fellowship Hall and the office, and then thought, I should call the shelter, and turned them back on. It had been an hour since she'd called. They had probably already come and not found anyone, but in case they were running really late, she'd better call.\n\nThe line was busy. She tried it twice and then called home. Bill's parents were there. \"I'm going to be late,\" she told him. \"The rehearsal's running long,\" and hung up, wondering how many lies she'd told so far tonight.\n\nWell, it went with the territory, didn't it? Joseph lying about the baby being his, and the wise men sneaking out the back way, the Holy Family hightailing it to Egypt and the innkeeper lying to Herod's soldiers about where they'd gone.\n\nAnd in the meantime, more hiding. She went back downstairs and opened the door gently, trying not to startle them, and then just stood there, watching.\n\nThey had eaten the cookies. The empty paper plate stood on the floor next to the chalice, not a crumb on it. Mary lay curled up like the child she was under the blanket, and Joseph sat with his back to the rocking chair, guarding her.\n\nPoor things, she thought, leaning her cheek against the door. Poor things. So young, and so far away from home. She wondered what they made of it all. Did they think they had wandered into a palace in some strange kingdom? There's stranger yet to come, she thought, shepherds and angels and old men from the east, bearing jewelry boxes and perfume bottles. And then Cana. And Jerusalem. And Golgotha.\n\nBut for the moment, a place to sleep, out of the weather, and something to eat, and a few minutes of peace. How still we see thee lie. She stood there a long time, her cheek resting against the door, watching Mary sleep and Joseph trying to stay awake.\n\nHis head nodded forward, and he jerked it back, waking himself up, and saw Sharon. He stood up immediately, careful not to wake Mary, and came over to her, looking worried. \"Erkas kumrah,\" he said. \"Bott lom?\"\n\n\"I'll go find it,\" she said.\n\nShe went upstairs and turned the lights on again and went into the Fellowship Hall. The way back wasn't out the north door, but maybe they had knocked at one of the other doors first and then come around to it when no one answered. The Fellowship Hall door was on the northwest corner. She unlocked it, trying key after key, and opened it. The sleet was slashing down harder than ever. It had already covered up the tire tracks in the parking lot.\n\nShe shut the door and tried the east door, which nobody used except for the Sunday service, and then the north door again. Nothing. Sleet and wind and icy air.\n\nNow what? They had been on their way to Bethlehem from Nazareth, and somewhere along the way they had taken a wrong turn. But how? And where? She didn't even know what direction they'd been heading in. Up. Joseph had gone up from Nazareth, which meant north, and in \"The First Nowell\" it said the star was in the northwest.\n\nShe needed a map. The ministers' offices were locked, but there were books on the bottom shelf of the display case in the adult Sunday school room. Maybe one was an atlas.\n\nIt wasn't. They were all self-help books, about coping with grief and codependency and teenage pregnancy, except for an ancient-looking concordance and a Bible dictionary.\n\nThe Bible dictionary had a set of maps at the back. Early Israelite Settlements in Canaan, The Assyrian Empire, The Wanderings of the Israelites in the Wilderness. She flipped forward. The Journeys of Paul. She turned back a page. Palestine in New Testament Times.\n\nShe found Jerusalem easily, and Bethlehem should be northwest of it. There was Nazareth, where Mary and Joseph had started from, so Bethlehem had to be farther north.\n\nIt wasn't there. She traced her finger over the towns, reading the tiny print. Cana, Kedesh, Jericho, but no Bethlehem. Which was ridiculous. It had to be there. She started down from the north, marking each of the towns with her finger.\n\nWhen she finally found it, it wasn't at all where it was supposed to be. Like them, she thought. It was south and a little west of Jerusalem, so close it couldn't be more than a few miles from the city.\n\nShe looked down at the bottom of the page for the map scale, and there was an inset labeled \"Mary and Joseph's Journey to Bethlehem,\" with their route marked in broken red.\n\nNazareth was almost due north of Bethlehem, but they had gone east to the Jordan River, and then south along its banks. At Jericho they'd turned back west toward Jerusalem through an empty brown space marked Judean Desert.\n\nShe wondered if that was where they had gotten lost, the donkey wandering off to find water and them going after it and losing the path. If it was, then the way back lay southwest, but the church didn't have any doors that opened in that direction, and even if it did, they would open on a twentieth-century parking lot and snow, not on first-century Palestine.\n\nHow had they gotten here? There was nothing in the map to tell her what might have happened on their journey to cause this.\n\nShe put the dictionary back and pulled out the concordance.\n\nThere was a sound. A key, and somebody opening the door. She slapped the book shut, shoved it back into the bookcase, and went out into the hall. Reverend Farrison was standing at the door, looking scared. \"Oh, Mrs. Englert,\" she said, putting her hand to her chest. \"What are you still doing here? You scared me half to death.\"\n\nThat makes two of us, Sharon thought, her heart thumping. \"I had to stay and practice,\" she said. \"I told Rose I'd lock up. What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"I got a call from the shelter,\" she said, opening the office door. \"They got a call from us to pick up a homeless couple, but when they got here there was nobody outside.\"\n\nShe went in the office and looked behind the desk, in the corner next to the filing cabinets. \"I was worried they got into the church,\" she said, coming out. \"The last thing we need is someone vandalizing the church two days before Christmas.\" She shut the office door behind her. \"Did you check all the doors?\"\n\nYes, she thought, and none of them led anywhere. \"Yes,\" she said. \"They were all locked. And anyway, I would have heard anybody trying to get in. I heard you.\"\n\nReverend Farrison opened the door to the furnace room. \"They could have sneaked in and hidden when everyone was leaving.\" She looked in at the stacked folding chairs and then shut the door. She started down the hall toward the stairs.\n\n\"I checked the whole church,\" Sharon said, following her.\n\nShe stopped at the stairs, looking speculatively down the steps.\n\n\"I was nervous about being alone,\" Sharon said desperately, \"so I turned on all the lights and checked all the Sunday school rooms and the choir room and the bathrooms. There isn't anybody here.\"\n\nShe looked up from the stairs and toward the end of the hall. \"What about the sanctuary?\"\n\n\"The sanctuary?\" Sharon said blankly.\n\nShe had already started down the hall toward it, and Sharon followed her, relieved, and then, suddenly, hopeful. Maybe there was a door she'd missed. A sanctuary door that faced southwest. \"Is there a door in the sanctuary?\"\n\nReverend Farrison looked irritated. \"If someone went out the east door, they could have gotten in and hidden in the sanctuary. Did you check the pews?\" She went into the sanctuary. \"We've had a lot of trouble lately with homeless people sleeping in the pews. You take that side, and I'll take this one,\" she said, going over to the side aisle. She started along the rows of padded pews, bending down to look under each one. \"Our Lady of Sorrows had their Communion silver stolen right off the altar.\"\n\nThe Communion silver, Sharon thought, working her way along the rows. She'd forgotten about the chalice.\n\nReverend Farrison had reached the front. She opened the flower room door, glanced in, closed it, and went up into the chancel. \"Did you check the adult Sunday school room?\" she said, bending down to look under the chairs.\n\n\"Nobody could have hidden in there. The junior choir was in there, having refreshments,\" Sharon said, and knew it wouldn't do any good. Reverend Farrison was going to insist on checking it anyway, and once she'd found the display case open, the chalice missing, she would go through all the other rooms, one after the other. Till she came to the nursery.\n\n\"Do you think it's a good idea us doing this?\" Sharon said. \"I mean, if there is somebody in the church, they might be dangerous. I think we should wait. I'll call my husband, and when he gets here, the three of us can check\u2014\"\n\n\"I called the police,\" Reverend Farrison said, coming down the steps from the chancel and down the center aisle. \"They'll be here any minute.\"\n\nThe police. And there they were, hiding in the nursery, a bearded punk and a pregnant teenager, caught red-handed with the Communion silver.\n\nReverend Farrison started out into the hall.\n\n\"I didn't check the Fellowship Hall,\" Sharon said rapidly. \"I mean, I checked the door, but I didn't turn on the lights, and with all those presents for the homeless in there\u2026\"\n\nShe led Reverend Farrison down the hall, past the stairs. \"They could have gotten in the north door during the rehearsal and hidden under one of the tables.\"\n\nReverend Farrison stopped at the bank of lights and began flicking them. The sanctuary lights went off, and the light over the stairs came on.\n\nThird from the top, Sharon thought, watching Reverend Farrison hit the switch. Please. Don't let the adult Sunday school room come on.\n\nThe office lights came on, and the hall light went out. \"This church's top priority after Christmas is labeling these lights,\" Reverend Farrison said, and the Fellowship Hall light came on.\n\nSharon followed her right to the door and then, as Reverend Farrison went in, Sharon said, \"You check in here. I'll check the adult Sunday school room,\" and shut the door on her.\n\nShe went to the adult Sunday school room door, opened it, waited a full minute, and then shut it silently. She crept down the hall to the light bank, switched the stairs light off and shot down the darkened stairs, along the hall, and into the nursery.\n\nThey were already scrambling to their feet. Mary had put her hand on the seat of the rocking chair to pull herself up and had set it rocking, but she didn't let go of it.\n\n\"Come with me,\" Sharon whispered, grabbing up the chalice. It was half full of water, and Sharon looked around hurriedly, and then poured it out on the carpet and tucked it under her arm.\n\n\"Hurry!\" Sharon whispered, opening the door, and there was no need to motion them forward, to put her fingers to her lips. They followed her swiftly, silently, down the hall, Mary's head ducked, and Joseph's arms held at his sides, ready to come up defensively, ready to protect her.\n\nSharon walked to the stairs, dreading the thought of trying to get them up them. She thought for a moment of putting them in the choir room and locking them in. She had the key, and she could tell Reverend Farrison she'd checked it and then locked it to make sure no one got in. But if it didn't work, they'd be trapped, with no way out. She had to get them upstairs.\n\nShe halted at the foot of the stairs, looking up around the landing and listening. \"We have to hurry,\" she said, taking hold of the railing to show them how to climb, and started up the stairs.\n\nThis time they did much better, still putting their hands on the steps in front of them instead of the rail, but climbing up quickly. Three-fourths of the way up, Joseph even took hold of the rail.\n\nSharon did better, too, her mind steadily now on how to escape Reverend Farrison, what to say to the police, where to take them.\n\nNot the furnace room, even though Reverend Farrison had already looked in there. It was too close to the door, and the police would start with the hall. And not the sanctuary. It was too open.\n\nShe stopped just below the top of the stairs, motioning them to keep down, and they instantly pressed themselves back into the shadows. Why was it those signals were universal\u2014danger, silence, run? Because it's a dangerous world, she thought, then and now, and there's worse to come. Herod, and the flight into Egypt. And Judas. And the police.\n\nShe crept to the top of the stairs and looked toward the sanctuary and then the door. Reverend Farrison must still be in the Fellowship Hall. She wasn't in the hall, and if she'd gone in the adult Sunday school room, she'd have seen the chalice was missing and sent up a hue and cry.\n\nSharon bit her lip, wondering if there was time to put it back, if she dared leave them here on the stairs while she sneaked in and put it in the display case, but it was too late. The police were here. She could see their red and blue lights flashing purply through the stained-glass door panels. In another minute they'd be at the door, knocking, and Reverend Farrison would come out of the Fellowship Hall, and there'd be no time for anything.\n\nShe'd have to hide them in the sanctuary until Reverend Farrison took the police downstairs, and then move them\u2014where? The furnace room? It was still too close to the door. The Fellowship Hall?\n\nShe waved them upward, like John Wayne in one of his war movies, along the hall and into the sanctuary. Reverend Farrison had turned off the lights, but there was still enough light from the chancel cross to see by. She laid the chalice in the back pew and led them along the back row to the shadowed side aisle, and then pushed them ahead of her to the front, listening intently for the sound of knocking.\n\nJoseph went ahead with his eyes on the ground, as if he expected more sudden stairs, but Mary had her head up, looking toward the chancel, toward the cross.\n\nDon't look at it, Sharon thought. Don't look at it. She hurried ahead to the flower room.\n\nThere was a muffled sound like thunder, and the bang of a door shutting.\n\n\"In here,\" she whispered, and opened the flower room door.\n\nShe'd been on the other side of the sanctuary when Reverend Farrison checked the flower room. Sharon understood now why she had given it only the most cursory of glances. It had been full before. Now it was crammed with the palm trees and the manger. They'd heaped the rest of the props in it\u2014the innkeeper's lantern and the baby blanket. She pushed the manger back, and one of its crossed legs caught on a music stand and tipped it over. She lunged for it, steadied it, and then stopped, listening.\n\nKnocking out in the hall. And the sound of a door shutting. Voices. She let go of the music stand and pushed them into the flower room, shoving Mary into the corner against the spray of roses and nearly knocking over another music stand.\n\nShe motioned to Joseph to stand on the other side and flattened herself against a palm tree, shut the door, and realized the moment she did that it was a mistake.\n\nThey couldn't stand here in the dark like this\u2014the slightest movement by any of them would bring everything clattering down, and Mary couldn't stay squashed uncomfortably into the corner like that for long.\n\nShe should have left the door slightly open, so there was enough light from the cross to see by, so she could hear where the police were. She couldn't hear anything with the door shut except the sound of their own light breathing and the clank of the lantern when she tried to shift her weight, and she couldn't risk opening the door again, not when they might already be in the sanctuary, looking for her. She should have shut Mary and Joseph in here and gone back into the hall to head the police off. Reverend Farrison would be looking for her, and if she didn't find her, she'd take it as one more proof that there was a dangerous homeless person in the church and insist on the police searching every nook and cranny.\n\nMaybe she could go out through the choir loft, Sharon thought, if she could move the music stands out of the way, or at least shift things around so they could hide behind them, but she couldn't do either in the dark.\n\nShe knelt carefully, slowly, keeping her back perfectly straight, and put her hand out behind her, feeling for the top of the manger. She patted spiky straw till she found the baby blanket and pulled it out. They must have put the wise men's perfume bottles in the manger, too. They clinked wildly as she pulled the blanket out.\n\nShe knelt farther, feeling for the narrow space under the door, and jammed the blanket into it. It didn't quite reach the whole length of the door, but it was the best she could do. She straightened, still slowly, and patted the wall for the light switch.\n\nHer hand brushed it. Please, she prayed, don't let this turn on some other light, and flicked it on.\n\nNeither of them had moved, not even to shift their hands. Mary, pressed against the roses, took a caught breath, and then released it slowly, as if she had been holding it the whole time.\n\nThey watched Sharon as she knelt again to tuck in a corner of the blanket and then turned slowly around so she was facing into the room. She reached across the manger for one of the music stands and stacked it against the one behind it, working as gingerly, as slowly, as if she were defusing a bomb. She reached across the manger again, lifted one of the music stands, and set it on the straw so she could push the manger back far enough to give her space to move. The stand tipped, and Joseph steadied it.\n\nSharon picked up one of the cardboard palm trees. She worked the plywood base free, set it in the manger, and slid the palm tree flat along the wall next to Mary, and then did the other one.\n\nThat gave them some space. There was nothing Sharon could do about the rest of the music stands. Their metal frames were tangled together, and against the outside wall was a tall metal cabinet, with pots of Easter lilies in front of it. She could move the lilies to the top of the cabinet at least.\n\nShe listened carefully with her ear to the door for a minute, and then stepped carefully over the manger between two lilies. She bent and picked up one of them and set it on top of the cabinet and then stopped, frowning at the wall. She bent down again, moving her hand along the floor in a slow semicircle.\n\nCold air, and it was coming from behind the cabinet. She stood on tiptoe and looked behind it. \"There's a door,\" she whispered. \"To the outside.\"\n\n\"Sharon!\" a muffled voice called from the sanctuary.\n\nMary froze, and Joseph moved so he was between her and the door. Sharon put her hand on the light switch and waited, listening.\n\n\"Mrs. Englert?\" a man's voice called. Another one, farther off, \"Her car's still here,\" and then Reverend Farrison's voice again, \"Maybe she went downstairs.\"\n\nSilence. Sharon put her ear against the door and listened, and then edged past Joseph to the side of the cabinet and peered behind it. The door opened outward. They wouldn't have to move the cabinet out very far, just enough for her to squeeze through and open the door, and then there'd be enough space for all of them to get through, even Mary. There were bushes on this side of the church. They could hide underneath them until after the police left.\n\nShe motioned Joseph to help her, and together they pushed the cabinet a few inches out from the wall. It knocked one of the Easter lilies over, and Mary stooped awkwardly and picked it up, cradling it in her arms.\n\nThey pushed again. This time it made a jangling noise, as if there were coat hangers inside, and Sharon thought she heard voices again, but there was no help for it. She squeezed into the narrow space, thinking, What if it's locked? and opened the door.\n\nOnto warmth. Onto a clear sky, black and pebbled with stars.\n\n\"How\u2014\" she said stupidly, looking down at the ground in front of the door. It was rocky, with bare dirt in between. There was a faint breeze, and she could smell dust and something sweet. Oranges?\n\nShe turned to say, \"I found it. I found the door,\" but Joseph was already leading Mary through it, pushing at the cabinet to make the space wider. Mary was still carrying the Easter lily, and Sharon took it from her and set it against the base of the door to prop it open and went out into the darkness.\n\nThe light from the open door lit the ground in front of them and at its edge was a stretch of pale dirt. The path, she thought, but when she got closer, she saw it was the dried bed of a narrow stream. Beyond it the rocky ground rose up steeply. They must be at the bottom of a draw, and she wondered if this was where they had gotten lost.\n\n\"Bott lom?\" Joseph said behind her.\n\nShe turned around. \"Bott lom?\" he said again, gesturing in front and to the sides, the way he'd done in the nursery. Which way?\n\nShe had no idea. The door faced west, and if the direction held true, and if this was the Judean Desert, it should lie to the southwest. \"That direction,\" she said, and pointed up the steepest part of the slope. \"You go that way, I think.\"\n\nThey didn't move. They stood watching her, Joseph standing slightly in front of Mary, waiting for her to lead them.\n\n\"I'm not\u2014\" she said, and stopped. Leaving them here was no better than leaving them in the furnace room. Or out in the snow. She looked back at the door, almost wishing for Reverend Farrison and the police, and then set off toward what she hoped was the southwest, clambering awkwardly up the slope, her shoes slipping on the rocks.\n\nHow did they do this, she thought, grabbing at a dry clump of weed for a handhold, even with a donkey? There was no way Mary could make it up this slope. She looked back, worried.\n\nThey were following easily, sturdily, as certain of themselves as she had been on the stairs.\n\nBut what if at the top of this draw there was another one, or a dropoff? And no path. She dug in her toes and scrambled up.\n\nThere was a sudden sound, and Sharon whirled around and looked back at the door, but it still stood half open, with the lily at its foot and the manger behind.\n\nThe sound scraped again, closer, and she caught the crunch of footsteps and then a sharp wheeze.\n\n\"It's the donkey,\" she said, and it plodded up to her as if it were glad to see her.\n\nShe reached under it for its reins, which were nothing but a ragged rope, and it took a step toward her and blared in her ear, \"Haw!\" and then a wheeze that was practically a laugh.\n\nShe laughed, too, and patted his neck. \"Don't wander off again,\" she said, leading him over to Joseph, who was waiting where she'd left them. \"Stay on the path.\" She scrambled on up to the top of the slope, suddenly certain the path would be there, too.\n\nIt wasn't, but it didn't matter. Because there to the southwest was Jerusalem, distant and white in the starlight, lit by a hundred hearthfires, a thousand oil lamps, and beyond it, slightly to the west, three stars low in the sky, so close they were almost touching.\n\nThey came up beside her, leading the donkey. \"Bott lom,\" she said, pointing. \"There, where the star is.\"\n\nJoseph was fumbling in his sash again, holding out the little leather bag.\n\n\"No,\" she said, pushing it back to him. \"You'll need it for the inn in Bethlehem.\"\n\nHe put the bag back reluctantly, and she wished suddenly she had something to give them. Frankincense. Or myrrh.\n\n\"Hunh-haw,\" the donkey brayed, and started down the hill. Joseph lunged after him, grabbing for the rope, and Mary followed them, her head ducked.\n\n\"Be careful,\" Sharon said. \"Watch out for King Herod.\" She raised her hand in a wave, the sleeve of her choir robe billowing out in the warm breeze like a wing, but they didn't see her. They went on down the hill, Mary with her hand on the donkey for steadiness, Joseph a little ahead. When they were nearly at the bottom, Joseph stopped and pointed at the ground and led the donkey off at an angle out of her sight, and Sharon knew they'd found the path.\n\nShe stood there for a minute, enjoying the scented breeze, looking at the almost-star, and then went back down the slope, skidding on the rocks and loose dirt, and took the Easter lily out of the door and shut it. She pushed the cabinet back into position, took the blanket out from under the door, switched off the light, and went out into the darkened sanctuary.\n\nThere was no one there. She went and got the chalice, stuck it into the wide sleeve of her robe, and looked out into the hall. There was no one there, either. She went into the adult Sunday school room and put the chalice back into the display case and then went downstairs.\n\n\"Where have you been?\" Reverend Farrison said. Two uniformed policemen came out of the nursery, carrying flashlights.\n\nSharon unzipped her choir robe and took it off. \"I checked the Communion silver,\" she said. \"None of it's missing.\" She went into the choir room and hung up her robe.\n\n\"We looked in there,\" Reverend Farrison said, following her in. \"You weren't there.\"\n\n\"I thought I heard somebody at the door,\" she said.\n\nBy the end of the second verse of \"O Little Town of Bethlehem,\" Mary and Joseph were only three-fourths of the way to the front of the sanctuary.\n\n\"At this rate, they won't make it to Bethlehem by Easter,\" Dee whispered. \"Can't they get a move on?\"\n\n\"They'll get there,\" Sharon whispered, watching them. They paced slowly, unperturbedly, up the aisle, their eyes on the chancel. \" 'How silently, how silently,' \" Sharon sang, \" 'the wondrous gift is given.' \"\n\nThey went past the second pew from the front and out of the choir's sight. The innkeeper came to the top of the chancel steps with his lantern, determinedly solemn.\n\n\" 'So God imparts to human hearts,\n\nThe blessings of his heaven.' \"\n\n\"Where did they go?\" Virginia whispered, craning her neck to try and see them. \"Did they sneak out the back way or something?\"\n\nMary and Joseph reappeared, walking slowly, sedately, toward the palm trees and the manger. The innkeeper came down the steps, trying hard to look like he wasn't waiting for them, like he wasn't overjoyed to see them.\n\n\" 'No ear may hear his coming,\n\nBut in this world of sin\u2026' \"\n\nAt the back of the sanctuary, the shepherds assembled, clanking their staffs, and Miriam handed the wise men their jewelry box and perfume bottles. Elizabeth adjusted her tinsel halo.\n\n\" 'Where meek souls will receive him still,\n\nThe dear Christ enters in.' \"\n\nJoseph and Mary came to the center and stopped. Joseph stepped in front of Mary and knocked on an imaginary door, and the innkeeper came forward, grinning from ear to ear, to open it."
            },
            {
                "title": "All Seated on the Ground",
                "text": "I'd always said that if and when the aliens actually landed, it would be a letdown. I mean, after War of the Worlds, Close Encounters, and E.T., there was no way they could live up to the image in the public's mind, good or bad.\n\nI'd also said that they would look nothing like the aliens of the movies, and that they would not have come to A) kill us, B) take over our planet and enslave us, C) save us from ourselves \u00e0 la The Day the Earth Stood Still, or D) have sex with Earthwomen. I mean, I realize it's hard to find someone nice, but would aliens really come thousands of light-years just to get a date? Plus, it seemed just as likely they'd be attracted to warthogs. Or yucca. Or air-conditioning units.\n\nI've also always thought A) and B) were highly unlikely, since imperialist invader types would probably be too busy invading their next-door neighbors and being invaded by other invader types to have time to go after an out-of-the-way place like Earth, although you never know. I mean, look at Iraq. And as to C), I'm wary of people or aliens who say they've come to save you, as witness Reverend Thresher. And it seemed to me that aliens who were capable of building the spaceships necessary to cross all those light-years would necessarily have complex civilizations and therefore more complicated motives for coming than merely incinerating Washington or phoning home.\n\nWhat had never occurred to me was that the aliens would arrive and we still wouldn't know what those motives were after almost nine months of talking to them.\n\nNow, I'm not talking about an arrival where the UFO swoops down in the Southwest in the middle of nowhere, mutilates a few cows, makes a crop circle or two, abducts an extremely unreliable and unintelligent-sounding person, probes them in embarrassing places, and takes off again. I'd never believed the aliens would do that, either, and they didn't, although they did land in the Southwest, sort of.\n\nThey landed their spaceship in Denver, in the middle of the DU campus, and marched\u2014well, actually \"marched\" is the wrong word; the Altairi's method of locomotion is somewhere between a glide and a waddle\u2014straight up to the front door of University Hall in classic \"Take me to your leader\" fashion.\n\nAnd that was it. They (there were six of them) didn't say, \"Take us to your leader!\" or \"One small step for aliens, one giant leap for alienkind,\" or even \"Earthmen, hand over your females.\" Or your planet. They just stood there.\n\nAnd stood there. Police cars surrounded them, lights flashing. TV news crews and reporters pointed cameras at them. F-16s roared overhead, snapping pictures of their spaceship and trying to determine whether A) it had a force field or B) weaponry or C) they could blow it up (they couldn't). Half the city fled to the mountains in terror, creating an enormous traffic jam on I-70, and the other half drove by the campus to see what was going on, creating an enormous traffic jam on Evans.\n\nThe aliens, who by now had been dubbed the Altairi because an astronomy professor at DU had announced they were from the star Altair in the constellation Aquila (they weren't), didn't react to any of this, which apparently convinced the president of DU they weren't going to blow up the place \u00e0 la Independence Day. He came out and welcomed them to Earth and to DU.\n\nThey continued to stand there. The mayor came and welcomed them to Earth and to Denver. The governor came and welcomed them to Earth and to Colorado, assured everyone it was perfectly safe to visit the state, and implied the Altairi were just the latest in a long line of tourists who had come from all over to see the magnificent Rockies, though that seemed unlikely since they were facing the other way, and they didn't turn around, even when the governor walked past them to point at Pikes Peak. They just stood there, facing University Hall.\n\nThey continued to stand there for the next three weeks, through an endless series of welcoming speeches by scientists, State Department officials, foreign dignitaries, and church and business leaders, and an assortment of weather, including a late April snowstorm that broke branches and power lines. If it hadn't been for the expressions on their faces, everybody would have assumed the Altairi were plants.\n\nBut no plant ever glared like that. It was a look of utter, withering disapproval. The first time I saw it in person, I thought, Oh, my God, it's Aunt Judith.\n\nShe was actually my father's aunt, and she used to come over once a month or so, dressed in a suit, a hat, and white gloves, and sit on the edge of a chair and glare at us, a glare which drove my mother into paroxysms of cleaning and baking whenever she found out Aunt Judith was coming. Not that Aunt Judith criticized Mom's housekeeping or her cooking. She didn't. She didn't even make a face when she sipped the coffee Mom served her or draw a white-gloved finger along the mantelpiece, looking for dust. She didn't have to. Sitting there in stony silence while my mother desperately tried to make conversation, her entire manner indicated disapproval. It was perfectly clear from that glare of hers that she considered us untidy, ill-mannered, ignorant, and utterly beneath contempt.\n\nSince she never said what it was that displeased her (except for the occasional \"Properly brought-up children do not speak unless spoken to\"), my mother frantically polished silverware, baked petits fours, wrestled my sister Tracy and me into starched pinafores and patent-leather shoes and ordered us to thank Aunt Judith nicely for our birthday presents\u2014a card with a dollar bill in it\u2014and scrubbed and dusted the entire house to within an inch of its life. She even redecorated the entire living room, but nothing did any good. Aunt Judith still radiated disdain.\n\nIt would wilt even the strongest person. My mother frequently had to lie down with a cold cloth on her forehead after a visit from Aunt Judith, and the Altairi had the same effect on the dignitaries and scientists and politicians who came to see them. After the first time, the governor refused to meet with them again, and the President, whose polls were already in the low twenties and who couldn't afford any more pictures of irate citizens, refused to meet with them at all.\n\nInstead he appointed a bipartisan commission, consisting of representatives from the Pentagon, the State Department, Homeland Security, the House, the Senate, and FEMA, to study them and find a way to communicate with them, and then, after that was a bust, a second commission consisting of experts in astronomy, anthropology, exobiology, and communications, and then a third, consisting of whoever they were able to recruit and who had anything resembling a theory about the Altairi or how to communicate with them, which is where I come in. I'd written a series of newspaper columns on aliens both before and after the Altairi arrived. (I'd also written columns on tourists, texting while driving, the traffic on I-70, the difficulty of finding any nice men to date, and Aunt Judith.)\n\nI was recruited in late November to replace one of the language experts, who quit \"to spend more time with his wife and family.\" I was picked by the chair of the commission, Dr. Morthman, who clearly didn't realize that my columns were humorous, but it didn't matter, since he had no intention of listening to me, or to anyone else on the commission, which at that point consisted of three linguists, two anthropologists, a cosmologist, a meteorologist, a botanist (in case they were plants after all), experts in primate, avian, and insect behavior (in case they were one of the above), an Egyptologist (in case they turned out to have built the Pyramids), an animal psychic, an Air Force colonel, a JAG lawyer, an expert in foreign customs, an expert in nonverbal communications, a weapons expert, Dr. Morthman (who, as far as I could see, wasn't an expert in anything), and, because of our proximity to Colorado Springs, the head of the One True Way Maxichurch, Reverend Thresher, who was convinced the Altairi were a herald of the End Times. \"There is a reason God had them land here,\" he said. I wanted to ask him why, if that was the case, they hadn't landed in Colorado Springs instead, but he wasn't a good listener, either.\n\nThe only progress these people and their predecessors had made by the time I joined the commission was to get the Altairi to follow them various places, like in out of the weather and into the various labs that had been set up in University Hall for studying them, although when I saw the videotapes, it wasn't at all clear they were responding to anything the commission said or did. It looked to me like following Dr. Morthman and the others was their own idea, particularly since at nine o'clock every night they turned and glided/waddled back outside and disappeared into their ship.\n\nThe first time they did that, everyone panicked, thinking they were leaving. \"Aliens Depart. Are They Fed Up?\" the evening news logo read, a conclusion which I felt was due to their effect on people rather than any solid evidence. I mean, they could have gone home to watch Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, but even after they reemerged the next morning, the theory persisted that there was some sort of deadline, that if we didn't succeed in communicating with them within a fixed amount of time, the planet would be reduced to ash. Aunt Judith had always made me feel exactly the same way, that if I didn't measure up, I was toast.\n\nBut I never did measure up, and nothing in particular happened, except she stopped sending me birthday cards with a dollar in them, and I figured if the Altairi hadn't obliterated us after a few conversations with Reverend Thresher (he was constantly reading them passages from Scripture and trying to convert them), they weren't going to.\n\nBut it didn't look like they were going to tell us what they were doing here, either. The commission had tried speaking to them in nearly every language, including Farsi, Navajo code-talk, and Cockney slang. They had played them music, drummed, written out greetings, given them several PowerPoint presentations, text-messaged them, and shown them the Rosetta Stone. They'd also tried Ameslan and pantomime, though it was obvious the Altairi could hear. Whenever someone spoke to them or offered them a gift (or prayed over them), their expression of disapproval deepened to one of utter contempt. Just like Aunt Judith.\n\nBy the time I joined the commission, it had reached the same state of desperation my mother had when she redecorated the living room, and had decided to try to impress the Altairi by taking them to see the sights of Denver and Colorado, in the hope they'd react favorably.\n\n\"It won't work,\" I said. \"My mother put up new drapes and wallpaper, and it didn't have any effect at all,\" but Dr. Morthman didn't listen.\n\nWe took them to the Denver Museum of Art and Rocky Mountain National Park and the Garden of the Gods and a Broncos game. They just stood there, sending out waves of disapproval.\n\nDr. Morthman was undeterred. \"Tomorrow we'll take them to the Denver Zoo.\"\n\n\"Is that a good idea?\" I asked. \"I mean, I'd hate to give them ideas,\" but Dr. Morthman didn't listen.\n\nLuckily, the Altairi didn't react to anything at the zoo, or to the Christmas lights at Civic Center, or to the Nutcracker ballet. And then we went to the mall.\n\nBy that point, the commission had dwindled down to seventeen people (two of the linguists and the animal psychic had quit), but it was still a large enough group of observers that the Altairi ran the risk of being trampled in the crowd. Most of the members, however, had stopped going on the field trips, saying they were \"pursuing alternate lines of research\" that didn't require direct observation, which meant they couldn't stand to be glared at the whole way there and back in the van. So the day we went to the mall, there were only Dr. Morthman, the aroma expert Dr. Wakamura, Reverend Thresher, and me. We didn't even have any press with us. When the Altairi'd first arrived, they were all over the TV networks and CNN, but after a few weeks of the aliens doing nothing, the networks had shifted to showing more exciting scenes from Alien, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Men in Black II, and then completely lost interest and gone back to Paris Hilton and stranded whales. The only photographer with us was Leo, the teenager Dr. Morthman had hired to videotape our outings, and as soon as we got inside the mall, he said, \"Do you think it'd be okay if I ducked out to buy my girlfriend's Christmas present before we start filming? I mean, face it, they're just going to stand there.\"\n\nHe was right. The Altairi glide-waddled the length of several stores and then stopped, glaring impartially at the Sharper Image and Gap window displays and the crowds who stopped to gawk at the six of them and who then, intimidated by their expressions, averted their eyes and hurried on.\n\nThe mall was jammed with couples loaded down with shopping bags, parents pushing strollers, children, and a mob of middle-school girls in green choir robes apparently waiting to sing. The malls invited school and church choirs to come and perform this time of year in the food court. The girls were giggling and chattering; a toddler was shrieking, \"I don't want to!\"; Julie Andrews was singing \"Joy to the World\" on the piped-in Muzak; and Reverend Thresher was pointing at the panty-, bra-, and wing-clad mannequins in the window of Victoria's Secret and saying, \"Look at that! Sinful!\"\n\n\"This way,\" Dr. Morthman, ahead of the Altairi, said, waving his arm like the leader of a wagon train, \"I want them to see Santa Claus,\" and I stepped to the side to get around a trio of teenage boys walking side by side who'd cut me off from the Altairi.\n\nThere was a sudden gasp, and the mall went quiet except for the Muzak. \"What\u2014?\" Dr. Morthman said sharply, and I pushed past the teenage boys to see what had happened.\n\nThe Altairi were sitting calmly in the middle of the space between the stores, glaring. A circle of fascinated shoppers had formed a circle around them, and a man in a suit who looked like the manager of the mall was hurrying up, demanding, \"What's going on here?\"\n\n\"This is wonderful,\" Dr. Morthman said. \"I knew they'd respond if we just took them enough places.\" He turned to me. \"You were behind them, Miss Yates. What made them sit down?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" I said. \"I couldn't see them from where I was. Did\u2014?\"\n\n\"Go find Leo,\" he ordered. \"He'll have it on tape.\"\n\nI wasn't so sure of that, but I went to look for him. He was just coming out of Victoria's Secret, carrying a small bright pink bag. \"Meg, what happened?\" he asked.\n\n\"The Altairi sat down,\" I said.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"That's what we're trying to find out. I take it you weren't filming them?\"\n\n\"No, I told you, I had to buy my girlfriend\u2014 Jeez, Dr. Morthman will kill me.\" He jammed the pink bag into his jeans pocket. \"I didn't think\u2014\"\n\n\"Well, start filming now,\" I said, \"and I'll go see if I can find somebody who caught it on their cell phone camera.\" With all these people taking their kids to see Santa, there was bound to be someone with a camera. I started working my way around the circle of staring spectators, keeping away from Dr. Morthman, who was telling the mall manager he needed to cordon off this end of the mall and everyone in it.\n\n\"Everyone in it?\" the manager gulped.\n\n\"Yes, it's essential. The Altairi are obviously responding to something they saw or heard\u2014\"\n\n\"Or smelled,\" Dr. Wakamura put in.\n\n\"And until we know what it was, we can't allow anyone to leave,\" Dr. Morthman said. \"It's the key to our being able to communicate with them.\"\n\n\"But it's only two weeks till Christmas,\" the mall manager said. \"I can't just shut off\u2014\"\n\n\"You obviously don't realize that the fate of the planet may be at stake,\" Dr. Morthman said.\n\nI hoped not, especially since no one seemed to have caught the event on film, though they all had their cell phones out and pointed at the Altairi now, in spite of their glares. I looked across the circle, searching for a likely parent or grandparent who might have\u2014\n\nThe choir. One of the girls' parents was bound to have brought a video camera along. I hurried over to the troop of green-robed girls. \"Excuse me,\" I said to them, \"I'm with the Altairi\u2014\"\n\nMistake. The girls instantly began bombarding me with questions.\n\n\"Why are they sitting down?\"\n\n\"Why don't they talk?\"\n\n\"Why are they always so mad?\"\n\n\"Are we going to get to sing? We didn't get to sing yet.\"\n\n\"They said we had to stay here. How long? We're supposed to sing over at Flatirons Mall at six o'clock.\"\n\n\"Are they going to get inside us and pop out of our stomachs?\"\n\n\"Did any of your parents bring a video camera?\" I tried to shout over their questions, and when that failed, \"I need to talk to your choir director.\"\n\n\"Mr. Ledbetter?\"\n\n\"Are you his girlfriend?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, trying to spot someone who looked like a choir director type. \"Where is he?\"\n\n\"Over there,\" one of them said, pointing at a tall, skinny man in slacks and a blazer. \"Are you going out with Mr. Ledbetter?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, trying to work my way over to him.\n\n\"Why not? He's really nice.\"\n\n\"Do you have a boyfriend?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said as I reached him. \"Mr. Ledbetter? I'm Meg Yates. I'm with the commission studying the Altairi\u2014\"\n\n\"You're just the person I want to talk to, Meg,\" he said.\n\n\"I'm afraid I can't tell you how long it's going to be,\" I said. \"The girls told me you have another singing engagement at six o'clock.\"\n\n\"We do, and I've got a rehearsal tonight, but that isn't what I wanted to talk to you about.\"\n\n\"She doesn't have a boyfriend, Mr. Ledbetter,\" one of the girls said. I took advantage of the interruption to say, \"I was wondering if anyone with your choir happened to record what just happened on a video camera or a\u2014\"\n\n\"Probably. Belinda,\" he said to the one who'd told him I didn't have a boyfriend, \"go get your mother.\" She took off through the crowd. \"Her mom started recording when we left the church. And if she didn't happen to catch it, Kaneesha's mom probably did. Or Chelsea's dad.\"\n\n\"Oh, thank goodness,\" I said. \"Our cameraman didn't get it on film, and we need it to see what triggered their action.\"\n\n\"What made them sit down, you mean?\" he said. \"You don't need a video. I know what it was. The song.\"\n\n\"What song?\" I said. \"A choir wasn't singing when we came in, and anyway, the Altairi have already been exposed to music. They didn't react to it at all.\"\n\n\"What kind of music? Those notes from Close Encounters?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said defensively, \"and Beethoven and Debussy and Charles Ives. A whole assortment of composers.\"\n\n\"But instrumental music, not vocals, right? I'm talking about a song. One of the Christmas carols on the piped-in Muzak. I saw them sit down. They were definitely\u2014\"\n\n\"Mr. Ledbetter, you wanted my mom?\" Belinda said, dragging over a large woman with a videocam.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. \"Mrs. Carlson, I need to see the video you shot of the choir today. From when we got to the mall.\"\n\nShe obligingly found the place and handed it to him. He fast-forwarded a minute. \"Oh, good, you got it,\" he said, rewound, and held the camera so I could see the little screen. \"Watch.\"\n\nThe screen showed the bus with First Presbyterian Church on its side, the girls getting off, the girls filing into the mall, the girls gathering in front of Crate and Barrel, giggling and chattering, though the sound was too low to hear what they were saying. \"Can you turn the volume up?\" Mr. Ledbetter said to Mrs. Carlson, and she pushed a button.\n\nThe voices of the girls came on: \"Mr. Ledbetter, can we go to the food court afterward for a pretzel?\"\n\n\"Mr. Ledbetter, I don't want to stand next to Heidi.\"\n\n\"Mr. Ledbetter, I left my lip gloss on the bus.\"\n\n\"Mr. Ledbetter\u2014\"\n\nThe Altairi aren't going to be on this, I thought. Wait\u2014there, past the green-robed girls, were Dr. Morthman and Leo with his video camera, and then the Altairi. They were just glimpses, though, not a clear view. \"I'm afraid\u2014\" I said.\n\n\"Shh,\" Mr. Ledbetter said, pushing down on the volume button again. \"Listen.\"\n\nHe had cranked the volume all the way up. I could hear Reverend Thresher saying, \"Look at that! It's absolutely disgusting!\"\n\n\"Can you hear the Muzak on the tape, Meg?\" Mr. Ledbetter asked. \"Sort of,\" I said. \"What is that?\"\n\n\" 'Joy to the World,' \" he said, holding it so I could see. Mrs. Carlson must have moved to get a better shot of the Altairi, because there was no one blocking the view of them as they followed Dr. Morthman. I tried to see if they were glaring at anything in particular\u2014the strollers or the Christmas decorations or the Victoria's Secret mannequins or the sign for the restrooms\u2014but if they were, I couldn't tell.\n\n\"This way,\" Dr. Morthman said on the tape, \"I want them to see Santa Claus.\"\n\n\"Okay, it's right about here,\" Mr. Ledbetter said. \"Listen.\"\n\n\" 'While shepherds watched\u2026' \" the Muzak choir sang tinnily.\n\nI could hear Reverend Thresher saying, \"Blasphemous!\" and one of the girls asking, \"Mr. Ledbetter, after we sing can we go to McDonald's?\" and the Altairi abruptly collapsed onto the floor with a floomphing motion, like a crinolined Scarlett O'Hara sitting down suddenly. \"Did you hear what they were singing?\" Mr. Ledbetter said.\n\n\"No\u2014\"\n\n\" 'All seated on the ground.' Here,\" he said, rewinding. \"Listen.\"\n\nHe played it again. I watched the Altairi, focusing on picking out the sound of the Muzak through the rest of the noise. \" 'While shepherds watched their flocks by night,' \" the choir sang, \" 'all seated on the ground.' \"\n\nHe was right. The Altairi sat down the instant the word \"seated\" ended. I looked at him.\n\n\"See?\" he said happily. \"The song said to sit down and they sat. I happened to notice it because I was singing along with the Muzak. It's a bad habit of mine. The girls tease me about it.\"\n\nBut why would the Altairi respond to the words in a Christmas carol when they hadn't responded to anything else we'd said to them over the last nine months? \"Can I borrow this videotape?\" I asked. \"I need to show it to the rest of the commission.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" he said, and asked Mrs. Carlson.\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said reluctantly. \"I have tapes of every single one of Belinda's performances.\"\n\n\"She'll make a copy and get the original back to you,\" Mr. Ledbetter told her. \"Isn't that right, Meg?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said.\n\n\"Great,\" he said. \"You can send the tape to me, and I'll see to it Belinda gets it. Will that work?\" he asked Mrs. Carlson.\n\nShe nodded, popped the tape out, and handed it to me. \"Thank you,\" I said, and hurried back over to Dr. Morthman, who was still arguing with the mall manager.\n\n\"You can't just close the entire mall,\" the manager was saying. \"This is the biggest profit period of the year\u2014\"\n\n\"Dr. Morthman,\" I said, \"I have a tape here of the Altairi sitting down. It was taken\u2014\"\n\n\"Not now,\" he said. \"I need you to go tell Leo to film everything the Altairi might have seen.\"\n\n\"But he's taping the Altairi,\" I said. \"What if they do something else?\" but he wasn't listening.\n\n\"Tell him we need a video record of everything they might have responded to, the stores, the shoppers, the Christmas decorations, everything. And then call the police department and tell them to cordon off the parking lot. Tell them no one's to leave.\"\n\n\"Cordon off\u2014!\" the mall manager said. \"You can't hold all these people here!\"\n\n\"All these people need to be moved out of this end of the mall and into an area where they can be questioned,\" Dr. Morthman said.\n\n\"Questioned?\" the mall manager, almost apoplectic, said.\n\n\"Yes, one of them may have seen what triggered their action\u2014\"\n\n\"Someone did,\" I said. \"I was just talking to\u2014\"\n\nHe wasn't listening. \"We'll need names, contact information, and depositions from all of them,\" he said to the mall manager. \"And they'll need to be tested for infectious diseases. The Altairi may be sitting down because they don't feel well.\"\n\n\"Dr. Morthman, they aren't sick,\" I said. \"They\u2014\"\n\n\"Not now,\" he said. \"Did you tell Leo?\"\n\nI gave up. \"I'll do it now,\" I said, and went over to where Leo was filming the Altairi and told him what Dr. Morthman wanted him to do.\n\n\"What if the Altairi do something?\" he said, looking at them sitting there glaring. He sighed. \"I suppose he's right. They don't look like they're going to move anytime soon.\" He swung his camera around and started filming the Victoria's Secret window. \"How long do you think we'll be stuck here?\"\n\nI told him what Dr. Morthman had said.\n\n\"Jeez, he's going to question all these people?\" he said, moving to the Williams-Sonoma window. \"I had somewhere to go tonight.\"\n\nAll these people have somewhere to go tonight, I thought, looking at the crowd\u2014mothers with babies in strollers, little kids, elderly couples, teenagers. Including fifty middle-school girls who were supposed to be at another performance an hour from now. And it wasn't the choir director's fault Dr. Morthman wouldn't listen.\n\n\"We'll need a room large enough to hold everyone,\" Dr. Morthman was saying, \"and adjoining rooms for interrogating them,\" and the mall manager was shouting, \"This is a mall, not Guantanamo!\"\n\nI backed carefully away from Dr. Morthman and the mall manager and then worked my way through the crowd to where the choir director was standing, surrounded by his students. \"But, Mr. Ledbetter,\" one of them was saying, \"we'd come right back, and the pretzel place is right over there.\"\n\n\"Mr. Ledbetter, could I speak to you for a moment?\" I said.\n\n\"Sure. Shoo,\" he said to the girls.\n\n\"But, Mr. Ledbetter\u2014\"\n\nHe ignored them. \"What did the commission think of the Christmas carol theory?\" he asked me.\n\n\"I haven't had a chance to ask them. Listen, in another five minutes they're going to lock down this entire mall.\"\n\n\"But I\u2014\"\n\n\"I know, you've got another performance and if you're going to leave, do it right now. I'd go that way,\" I said, pointing to the east door.\n\n\"Thank you,\" he said earnestly, \"but won't you get into trouble\u2014?\"\n\n\"If I need your choir's depositions, I'll call you,\" I said. \"What's your number?\"\n\n\"Belinda, give me a pen and something to write on,\" he said. She handed him a pen and began rummaging in her backpack.\n\n\"Never mind,\" he said, \"there isn't time.\" He grabbed my hand and wrote the number on my palm.\n\n\"You said we aren't allowed to write on ourselves,\" Belinda said.\n\n\"You're not,\" he said. \"I really appreciate this, Meg.\"\n\n\"Go,\" I said, looking anxiously over at Dr. Morthman. If they didn't go in the next thirty seconds, they'd never make it, and there was no way he could round up fifty middle-school girls in that short a time. Or even make himself heard\u2026\n\n\"Ladies,\" he said, and raised his hands as if he were going to direct a choir. \"Line up.\" And to my astonishment, they instantly obeyed him, forming themselves silently into a line and walking quickly toward the east door with no giggling, no \"Mr. Ledbetter\u2014?\" My opinion of him went up sharply.\n\nI pushed quickly back through the crowd to where Dr. Morthman and the mall manager were still arguing. Leo had moved farther down the mall to film the Verizon Wireless store, away from the east door. Good. I rejoined Dr. Morthman, moving to his right side so if he turned to look at me, he couldn't see the door.\n\n\"But what about bathrooms?\" the manager was yelling. \"The mall doesn't have nearly enough bathrooms for all these people.\"\n\nThe choir was nearly out the door. I watched till the last one disappeared, followed by Mr. Ledbetter.\n\n\"We'll get in portable toilets. Miss Yates, arrange for porta-potties to be brought in,\" Dr. Morthman said, turning to me, and it was obvious he had no idea I'd ever been gone. \"And get Homeland Security on the phone.\"\n\n\"Homeland Security!\" the manager wailed. \"Do you know what it'll do to business when the media gets hold\u2014\" He stopped and looked over at the crowd around the Altairi.\n\nThere was a collective gasp from them and then a hush. Someone must have turned the Muzak off at some point because there was no sound at all in the mall. \"What\u2014? Let me through,\" Dr. Morthman said, breaking the silence. He pushed his way through the circle of shoppers to see what was happening.\n\nI followed in his wake. The Altairi were slowly standing up, a motion somewhat like a string being pulled taut.\n\n\"Thank goodness,\" the mall manager said, sounding infinitely relieved. \"Now that that's over, I assume I can reopen the mall.\"\n\nDr. Morthman shook his head. \"This may be the prelude to another action, or the response to a second stimulus. Leo, I want to see the video of what was happening right before they began to stand up.\"\n\n\"I didn't get it,\" Leo said.\n\n\"Didn't get it?\"\n\n\"You told me to tape the stuff in the mall,\" he said, but Dr. Morthman wasn't listening. He was watching the Altairi, who had turned around and were slowly glide-waddling back toward the east door.\n\n\"Go after them,\" he ordered Leo. \"Don't let them out of your sight, and get it on tape this time.\" He turned to me. \"You stay here and see if the mall has surveillance tapes. And get all these people's names and contact information in case we need to question them.\"\n\n\"Before you go, you need to know\u2014\"\n\n\"Not now. The Altairi are leaving. And there's no telling where they'll go next,\" he said, and took off after them. \"See if anyone caught the incident on a video camera.\"\n\nAs it turned out, the Altairi went only as far as the van we'd brought them to the mall in, where they waited, glaring, to be transported back to DU. When I got back, they were in the main lab with Dr. Wakamura. I'd been at the mall nearly four hours, taking down names and phone numbers from Christmas shoppers who said things like, \"I've been here six hours with two toddlers. Six hours!\" and \"I'll have you know I missed my grandson's Christmas concert.\" I was glad I'd helped Mr. Ledbetter and his seventh-grade girls sneak out. They'd never have made it to the other mall in time.\n\nWhen I was finished taking names and abuse, I went to ask the mall manager about surveillance tapes, expecting more abuse, but he was so glad to have his mall open again, he turned them over immediately. \"Do these tapes have audio?\" I asked him, and when he said no, \"You wouldn't also have a tape of the Christmas music you play, would you?\"\n\nI was almost certain he wouldn't\u2014Muzak is usually piped in\u2014but to my surprise he said yes and handed over a CD. I stuck it and the tapes in my bag, drove back to DU, and went to the main lab to find Dr. Morthman. I found Dr. Wakamura instead, squirting assorted food court smells\u2014corn dog, popcorn, sushi\u2014at the Altairi to see if any of them made them sit down. \"I'm convinced they were responding to one of the mall's aromas,\" he said.\n\n\"Actually, I think they may have\u2014\"\n\n\"It's just a question of finding the right one,\" he said, squirting pizza at them. They glared.\n\n\"Where's Dr. Morthman?\"\n\n\"Next door,\" he said, squirting essence of funnel cake. \"He's meeting with the rest of the commission.\"\n\nI winced and went next door. \"We need to look at the floor coverings in the mall,\" Dr. Short was saying. \"The Altairi may well have been responding to the difference between wood and stone.\"\n\n\"And we need to take air samples,\" Dr. Jarvis said. \"They may have been responding to something poisonous to them in our atmosphere.\"\n\n\"Something poisonous?\" Reverend Thresher said. \"Something blasphemous, you mean! Angels in filthy underwear! The Altairi obviously refused to go any farther into that den of iniquity, and they sat down in protest. Even aliens know sin when they see it.\"\n\n\"I don't agree, Dr. Jarvis,\" Dr. Short said, ignoring Reverend Thresher. \"Why would the air in the mall have a different composition from the air in a museum or a sports arena? We're looking for variables here. What about sounds? Could they be a factor?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said. \"The Altairi were\u2014\"\n\n\"Did you get the surveillance tapes, Miss Yates?\" Dr. Morthman cut in. \"Go through and cue them up to the point just before the Altairi sat down. I want to see what they were looking at.\"\n\n\"It wasn't what they were looking at,\" I said. \"It was\u2014\"\n\n\"And call the mall and get samples of their floor coverings,\" he said. \"You were saying, Dr. Short?\"\n\nI left the surveillance tapes and the lists of shoppers on Dr. Morthman's desk, and then went to the audio lab, found a CD player, and listened to the songs: \"Here Comes Santa Claus,\" \"White Christmas,\" \"Joy to the World\"\u2014\n\nHere it was. \" 'While shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground, the angel of the Lord came down, and glory shone around.' \" Could the Altairi have thought the song was talking about the descent of their spaceship? Or were they responding to something else entirely, and the timing was simply coincidental?\n\nThere was only one way to find out. I went back to the main lab, where Dr. Wakamura was sticking lighted candles under the Altairi's noses. \"Good grief, what is that?\" I asked, wrinkling my nose.\n\n\"Bayberry magnolia,\" he said.\n\n\"It's awful.\"\n\n\"You should smell sandalwood violet,\" he said. \"They were right next to Candle in the Wind when they sat down. They may have been responding to a scent from the store.\"\n\n\"Any response?\" I said, thinking their expressions, for once, looked entirely appropriate.\n\n\"No, not even to spruce watermelon, which smelled very alien. Did Dr. Morthman find any clues on the security tapes?\" he asked hopefully.\n\n\"He hasn't looked at them yet,\" I said. \"When you're done here, I'll be glad to escort the Altairi back to their ship.\"\n\n\"Would you?\" he said gratefully. \"I'd really appreciate it. They look exactly like my mother-in-law. Can you take them now?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, and went over to the Altairi and motioned them to follow me, hoping they wouldn't veer off and go back to their ship since it was nearly nine o'clock. They didn't. They followed me down the hall and into the audio lab. \"I just want to try something,\" I said, and played them \"While Shepherds Watched.\"\n\n\" 'While shepherds watched their flocks,' \" the choir sang. I watched the Altairi's unchanging faces. Mr. Ledbetter was wrong, I thought. They must have been responding to something else. They're not even listening. \" '\u2026by night, all seated\u2026' \"\n\nThe Altairi sat down.\n\nI've got to call Mr. Ledbetter, I thought. I switched off the CD and punched in the number he'd written on my hand. \"Hi, this is Calvin Ledbetter,\" his recorded voice said. \"Sorry I can't come to the phone right now,\" and I remembered too late that he'd said he had a rehearsal. \"If you're calling about a rehearsal, the schedule is as follows: Thursday, Mile-High Women's Chorus, eight P.M., Montview Methodist; Friday, chancel choir, eleven A.M., Trinity Episcopal; Denver Symphony, three P.M.\u2014\" It was obvious he wasn't home. And that he was far too busy to worry about the Altairi.\n\nI hung up and looked over at them. They were still sitting down, and it occurred to me that playing them the song might have been a bad idea, since I had no idea what had made them stand back up. It hadn't been the Muzak because it had been turned off, and if the stimulus had been something in the mall, we could be here all night. After a few minutes, though, they stood up, doing that odd pulled-string thing, and glared at me. \" 'While shepherds watched their flocks by night,' \" I said to them, \" 'all seated on the ground.' \"\n\nThey continued to stand.\n\n\" 'Seated on the ground,' \" I repeated. \"Seated. Sit!\" No response at all.\n\nI played the song again. They sat down right on cue. Which still didn't prove they were doing what the words told them to do. They could be responding to the mere sound of singing. The mall had been noisy when they first walked in. \"While Shepherds Watched\" might have been the first song they'd been able to hear, and they'd sit down whenever they heard singing. I waited till they stood up again and then played the two preceding tracks. They didn't respond to Bing Crosby singing \"White Christmas\" or to Julie Andrews singing \"Joy to the World.\" (Or to the breaks between songs.) There wasn't even any indication they were aware anyone was singing.\n\n\" 'While shepherds watched their flocks by-y night\u2026' \" the choir began. I tried to stay still and keep my face impassive, in case they were responding to nonverbal cues I was giving them. \" '\u2026ah-all seated\u2014' \"\n\nThey sat down at exactly the same place, so it was definitely those particular words. Or the voices singing them. Or the particular configuration of notes. Or the rhythm. Or the frequencies of the notes.\n\nWhatever it was, I couldn't figure it out tonight. It was nearly ten o'clock. I needed to get the Altairi back to their spaceship. I waited for them to stand up and then led them, glaring, out to their ship, and went back to my apartment.\n\nThe message light on my answering machine was flashing. It was probably Dr. Morthman, wanting me to go back to the mall and take air samples. I hit play. \"Hi, this is Mr. Ledbetter,\" the choir director's voice said. \"From the mall, remember? I need to talk to you about something.\" He gave me his cell phone number and repeated his home phone, \"In case it washed off. I should be home by eleven. Till then, whatever you do, don't let your alien guys listen to any more Christmas carols.\"\n\nThere was no answer at either of the numbers. He turns his cell phone off during rehearsals, I thought. I looked at my watch. It was ten-fifteen. I grabbed the yellow pages, looked up the address of Montview Methodist, and took off for the church, detouring past the Altairi's ship to make sure it was still there and hadn't begun sprouting guns from its ports or flashing ominous lights. It hadn't. It was its usual Sphinx-like self, which reassured me. A little.\n\nIt took me twenty minutes to reach the church. I hope rehearsal isn't over and I've missed him, I thought, but there were lots of cars in the parking lot, and light still shone through the stained-glass windows. The front doors, however, were locked.\n\nI went around to the side door. It was unlocked, and I could hear singing from somewhere inside. I followed the sound down a darkened hall.\n\nThe song abruptly stopped, in the middle of a word. I waited a minute, listening, and when it didn't start up again, began trying doors. The first three were locked, but the fourth opened onto the sanctuary. The women's choir was up at the very front, facing Mr. Ledbetter, whose back was to me. \"Top of page ten,\" he was saying.\n\nThank goodness he's still here, I thought, slipping in the back.\n\n\"From 'O hear the angel voices,' \" he said, nodded to the organist, and raised his baton.\n\n\"Wait, where do we take a breath?\" one of the women asked. \"After 'voices'?\"\n\n\"No, after 'divine,' \" he said, consulting the music in front of him on the music stand, \"and then at the bottom of page thirteen.\"\n\nAnother woman said, \"Can you play the alto line for us? From 'Fall on your knees'?\"\n\nThis was obviously going to take a while, and I couldn't afford to wait. I started up the aisle toward them, and the entire choir looked up from their music and glared at me.\n\nMr. Ledbetter turned around, and his face lit up. He turned to the women again, said, \"I'll be right back,\" and sprinted down the aisle to me. \"Meg,\" he said, reaching me. \"Hi. What\u2014?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry to interrupt, but I got your message, and\u2014\"\n\n\"You're not interrupting. Really. We were almost done anyway.\"\n\n\"What did you mean, don't play them any more Christmas carols? I didn't get your message till after I'd played them some of the other songs from the mall\u2014\"\n\n\"And what happened?\"\n\n\"Nothing, but on your message you said\u2014\"\n\n\"Which songs?\"\n\n\" 'Joy to the World' and\u2014\"\n\n\"All four verses?\"\n\n\"No, only two. That's all that were on the CD. The first one and the one about 'wonders of his love.' \"\n\n\"One and four,\" he said, staring past me, his lips moving rapidly as if he were running through the lyrics. \"Those should be okay\u2014\"\n\n\"What do you mean? Why did you leave that message?\"\n\n\"Because if the Altairi were responding literally to the words in 'While Shepherds Watched,' Christmas carols are full of dangerous\u2014\"\n\n\"Dangerous\u2014?\"\n\n\"Yes. Look at 'We Three Kings of Orient Are.' You didn't play them that, did you?\"\n\n\"No, just 'Joy to the World' and 'White Christmas.' \"\n\n\"Mr. Ledbetter,\" one of the women called from the front of the church. \"How long are you going to be?\"\n\n\"I'll be right there,\" he said. He turned back to me. \"How much of 'While Shepherds Watched' did you play them?\"\n\n\"Just the part up to 'all seated on the ground.' \"\n\n\"Not the other verses?\"\n\n\"No. What\u2014?\"\n\n\"Mr. Ledbetter,\" the same woman said impatiently, \"some of us have to leave.\"\n\n\"I'll be right there,\" he called to her, and to me, \"Give me five minutes,\" and sprinted back up the aisle.\n\nI sat down in a back pew, picked up a hymnal, and tried to find \"We Three Kings.\" That was easier said than done. The hymns were numbered, but they didn't seem to be in any particular order. I turned to the back, looking for an index.\n\n\"But we still haven't gone over 'Saviour of the Heathen, Come,' \" a young, pretty redhead said.\n\n\"We'll go over it Saturday night,\" Mr. Ledbetter said.\n\nThe index didn't tell me where \"We Three Kings\" was, either. It had rows of numbers\u20145.6.6.5. and 8.8.7.D.\u2014with a column of strange words below them\u2014Laban, Hursley, Olive's Brow, Arizona\u2014like some sort of code. Could the Altairi be responding to some sort of cipher embedded in the carol like in The Da Vinci Code? I hoped not.\n\n\"When are we supposed to be there?\" the women were asking.\n\n\"Seven,\" Mr. Ledbetter said.\n\n\"But that won't give us enough time to run over 'Saviour of the Heathen, Come,' will it?\"\n\n\"And what about 'Santa Claus Is Coming to Town'?\" the redhead asked. \"We don't have the second soprano part at all.\"\n\nI abandoned the index and began looking through the hymns. If I couldn't figure out a simple hymnal, how could I hope to figure out a completely alien race's communications? If they were trying to communicate. They might have been sitting down to listen to the music, like you'd stop to look at a flower. Or maybe their feet just hurt.\n\n\"What kind of shoes are we supposed to wear?\" the choir was asking.\n\n\"Comfortable,\" Mr. Ledbetter said. \"You're going to be on your feet a long time.\"\n\nI continued to search through the hymnal. Here was \"What Child Is This?\" I had to be on the right track. \"Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella.\" It had to be here somewhere. \"On Christmas Night, All People Sing\u2014\"\n\nThey were finally gathering up their things and leaving. \"See you Saturday,\" he said, herding them out the door, all except for the pretty redhead, who buttonholed him at the door to say, \"I was wondering if you could stay and go over the second soprano part with me again. It'll only take a few minutes.\"\n\n\"I can't tonight,\" he said. She turned and glared at me, and I knew exactly what that glare meant.\n\n\"Remind me and we'll run through it Saturday night,\" he said, shut the door on her, and sat down next to me. \"Sorry, big performance Saturday. Now, about the aliens. Where were we?\"\n\n\" 'We Three Kings.' You said the words were dangerous.\"\n\n\"Oh, right.\" He took the hymnal from me, flipped expertly to the right page, pointed. \"Verse four. 'Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying'\u2014I assume you don't want the Altairi locking themselves in a stone-cold tomb.\"\n\n\"No,\" I said fervently. \"You said 'Joy to the World' was bad, too. What does it have in it?\"\n\n\" 'Sorrow, sins, thorns infesting the ground.' \"\n\n\"You think they're doing whatever the hymns tell them? That they're treating them like orders to be followed?\"\n\n\"I don't know, but if they are, there are all kinds of things in Christmas carols you don't want them doing: running around on rooftops, bringing torches, killing babies\u2014\"\n\n\"Killing babies?\" I said. \"What carol is that in?\"\n\n\" 'The Coventry Carol,' \" he said, flipping to another page. \"The verse about Herod. See?\" He pointed to the words. \" 'Charged he hath this day\u2026all children young to slay.' \"\n\n\"Oh, my gosh, that carol was one of the ones from the mall. It was on the CD,\" I said. \"I'm so glad I came to see you.\"\n\n\"So am I,\" he said, and grinned at me.\n\n\"You asked me how much of 'While Shepherds Watched' I'd played them,\" I said. \"Is there child-slaying in that, too?\"\n\n\"No, but verse two has got 'fear' and 'mighty dread' in it, and 'seized their troubled minds.' \"\n\n\"I definitely don't want the Altairi to do that,\" I said, \"but now I don't know what to do. We've been trying to establish communications with the Altairi for nine months, and that song was the first thing they've ever responded to. If I can't play them Christmas carols\u2014\"\n\n\"I didn't say that. We just need to make sure the ones you play them don't have any murder and mayhem in them. You said you had a CD of the music they were playing in the mall?\"\n\n\"Yes. That's what I played them.\"\n\n\"Mr. Ledbetter?\" a voice said tentatively, and a balding man in a clerical collar leaned in the door. \"How much longer will you be? I need to lock up.\"\n\n\"Oh, sorry, Reverend McIntyre,\" he said, and stood up. \"We'll get out of your way.\"\n\nHe ran up the aisle, grabbed his music, and came back. \"You'll be at the aches, right?\" he said to Reverend McIntyre.\n\nThe aches? You must have misunderstood what he said, I thought.\n\n\"I'm not sure,\" Reverend McIntyre said. \"My handle's pretty rusty.\"\n\nHandle? What were they talking about?\n\n\"Especially the 'Hallelujah Chorus.' It's been years since I last sang it.\"\n\nOh, Handel, not handle.\n\n\"I'm rehearsing it with Trinity Episcopal's choir at eleven tomorrow if you want to come and run through it with us.\"\n\n\"I just may do that.\"\n\n\"Great,\" Mr. Ledbetter said. \"Good night.\" He led me out of the sanctuary. \"Where's your car parked?\"\n\n\"Out in front.\"\n\n\"Good. Mine, too.\" He opened the side door. \"You can follow me to my apartment.\"\n\nI had a sudden blinding vision of Aunt Judith glaring disapprovingly at me and saying, \"A nice young lady never goes to a gentleman's apartment alone.\"\n\n\"You did say you brought the music from the mall with you, didn't you?\" he asked.\n\nWhich is what you get for jumping to conclusions, I thought, following him to his apartment and wondering if he was going out with the redheaded second soprano.\n\n\"On the way over I was thinking about all this,\" he said when we got to his apartment building, \"and I think the first thing we need to do is figure out exactly which element or elements of 'all seated on the ground' they're responding to, the notes\u2014I know you said they'd been exposed to music before, but it could be this particular configuration of notes\u2014or words.\"\n\nI told him about reciting the lyrics to them.\n\n\"Okay, then, the next thing we do is see if it's the accompaniment,\" he said, unlocking the door. \"Or the tempo. Or the key.\"\n\n\"The key?\" I said, looking down at the keys in his hand.\n\n\"Yeah, have you ever seen Jumpin' Jack Flash?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Great movie. Whoopi Goldberg. In it, the key to the spy's code is the key. Literally. B flat. 'While Shepherds Watched' is in the key of C, but 'Joy to the World' is in D. That may be why they didn't respond to it. Or they may only respond to the sound of certain instruments. What Beethoven did they listen to?\"\n\n\"The Ninth Symphony.\"\n\nHe frowned. \"Then that's unlikely, but there might be a guitar or a marimba or something in the 'While Shepherds Watched' accompaniment. We'll see. Come on in,\" he said, opening the door and immediately vanishing into the bedroom. \"There's soda in the fridge,\" he called back out to me. \"Go ahead and sit down.\"\n\nThat was easier said than done. The couch, chair, and coffee table were all covered with CDs, music, and clothes. \"Sorry,\" he said, coming back in with a laptop. He set it down on top of a stack of books and moved a pile of laundry from the chair so I could sit down. \"December's a bad month. And this year, in addition to my usual five thousand concerts and church services and cantata performances, I'm directing aches.\"\n\nThen I hadn't misheard him before. \"Aches?\" I said.\n\n\"Yeah. A-C-H-E-S. The AllCity Holiday Ecumenical Sing. ACHES. Or, as my seventh-grade girls call it, Aches and Pains. It's a giant concert\u2014well, not actually a concert because everybody sings, even the audience. But all the city singing groups and church choirs participate.\" He moved a stack of LPs off the couch and onto the floor and sat down across from me. \"Denver has it every year. At the convention center. Have you ever been to a Sing?\" he said, and when I shook my head, \"It's pretty impressive. Last year three thousand people and forty-four choirs participated.\"\n\n\"And you're directing?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Actually, it's a much easier job than directing my church choirs. Or my seventh-grade girls' glee. And it's kind of fun. It used to be the AllCity Messiah, you know, a whole bunch of people getting together to sing Handel's Messiah, but then they had a request from the Unitarians to include some Solstice songs, and it kind of snowballed from there. Now we do Hanukkah songs and 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' and 'The Seven Nights of Kwanzaa,' along with Christmas carols and selections from the Messiah. Which, by the way, we can't let the Altairi listen to, either.\"\n\n\"Is there children-slaying in that, too?\"\n\n\"Head-breaking. 'Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron' and 'dash them in pieces.' There's also wounding, bruising, cutting, deriding, and laughing to scorn.\"\n\n\"Actually, the Altairi already know all about scorn,\" I said.\n\n\"But hopefully not about shaking nations. And covering the earth with darkness,\" he said. \"Okay\"\u2014he opened his laptop\u2014\"the first thing I'm going to do is scan in the song. Then I'll remove the accompaniment so we can play them just the vocals.\"\n\n\"What can I do?\"\n\n\"You,\" he said, disappearing into the other room again and returning with a foot-high stack of sheet music and music books, which he dumped in my lap, \"can make a list of all the songs we don't want the Altairi to hear.\"\n\nI nodded and started through The Holly Jolly Book of Christmas Songs. It was amazing how many carols, which I'd always thought were about peace and good will, had really violent lyrics. \"The Coventry Carol\" wasn't the only one with child-slaying in it. \"Christmas Day Is Come\" did, too, along with references to sin, strife, and militants. \"O Come, O Come, Emmanuel\" had strife, too, and envy and quarrels. \"The Holly and the Ivy\" had thorns, blood, and bears, and \"Good King Wenceslas\" talked about cruelty, bringing people flesh, freezing their blood, and heart failure.\n\n\"I had no idea Christmas carols were so grim,\" I said.\n\n\"You should hear Easter,\" Mr. Ledbetter said. \"While you're looking, see if you can find any songs with the word 'seated' in it so we can see if it's that particular word they're responding to.\"\n\nI nodded and went back to reading lyrics. In \"Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence\" everyone was standing, not seated, plus it had \"fear,\" \"trembling,\" and a line about giving oneself for heavenly food. \"The First Noel\" had \"blood,\" and the shepherds were lying, not sitting.\n\nWhat Christmas song has \"seated\" in it? I thought, trying to remember. Isn't there something in \"Jingle Bells\" about Miss Somebody or Other being seated by someone's side?\n\nThere was, and in \"Wassail, Wassail,\" there was a line about \"a-sitting\" by the fire, but not the word \"seated.\"\n\nI kept looking. The nonreligious Christmas songs were almost as bad as the carols. Even a children's song like \"I'm Getting' Nuttin' for Christmas\" gaily discussed smashing bats over people's heads, and there seemed to be an entire genre of \"Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer\"\u2013type songs: \"Grandma's Killer Fruitcake,\" \"I Came Upon a Roadkill Deer,\" and \"Grandpa's Gonna Sue the Pants Off Santa.\"\n\nAnd even when the lyrics weren't violent, they had phrases in them like \"rule o'er all the earth\" and \"over us all to reign,\" which the Altairi might take as an invitation to global conquest.\n\nThere have to be some carols that are harmless, I thought, and looked up \"Away in a Manger\" in the index (which The Holly Jolly Book, unlike the hymnal, did have): \"\u2026lay down his sweet head\u2026the stars in the sky\u2026\" No mayhem here, I thought. I can definitely add this to the list. \"Love\u2026blessings\u2026\"\n\n\"And take us to heaven to live with thee there.\" A harmless enough line, but it might mean something entirely different to the Altairi. I didn't want to find myself on a spaceship heading back to Aquila or wherever it was they came from.\n\nWe worked till almost three in the morning, by which time we had separate recordings of the vocals, accompaniment, and notes (played by Mr. Ledbetter on the piano, guitar, and flute and recorded by me) of \"all seated on the ground,\" a list, albeit rather short, of songs the Altairi could safely hear, and another, even shorter list of ones with \"seated,\" \"sit,\" or \"sitting\" in them.\n\n\"Thank you so much, Mr. Ledbetter,\" I said, putting on my coat.\n\n\"Calvin,\" he said.\n\n\"Calvin. Anyway, thank you. I really appreciate this. I'll let you know the results of my playing the songs for them.\"\n\n\"Are you kidding, Meg?\" he said. \"I want to be there when you do this.\"\n\n\"But I thought\u2014 Don't you have to rehearse with the choirs for your ACHES thing?\" I said, remembering the heavy schedule he'd left on his answering machine.\n\n\"Yes, and I have to rehearse with the symphony, and with the chancel choir and the kindergarten choir and the handbell choir for the Christmas Eve service\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, and I've kept you up so late,\" I said. \"I'm really sorry.\"\n\n\"Choir directors never sleep in December,\" he said cheerfully, \"and what I was going to say was that I'm free in between rehearsals and till eleven tomorrow morning. How early can you get the Altairi?\"\n\n\"They usually come out of their ship around seven, but some of the other commission members may want to work with them.\"\n\n\"And face those bright shiny faces before they've had their coffee? My bet is you'll have the Altairi all to yourself.\"\n\nHe was probably right. I remembered Dr. Jarvis saying he had to work himself up to seeing the Altairi over the course of the day: \"They look just like my fifth-grade teacher.\"\n\n\"Are you sure you want to face them first thing in the morning?\" I asked him. \"The Altairi's glares\u2014\"\n\n\"Are nothing compared to the glare of a first soprano who didn't get the solo she wanted. Don't worry, I can handle the Altairi,\" he said. \"I can't wait to find out what it is they're responding to.\"\n\nWhat we found out was nothing.\n\nCalvin had been right. There was no one else waiting outside University Hall when the Altairi appeared. I hustled them into the audio lab, locked the door, and called Calvin, and he came right over, bearing Starbucks coffee and an armload of CDs.\n\n\"Yikes!\" he said when he saw the Altairi standing over by the speakers. \"I was wrong about the first soprano. This is more a seventh-grader's 'No, you can't text-message during the choir concert\u2014or wear face glitter' glare.\"\n\nI shook my head. \"It's an Aunt Judith glare.\"\n\n\"I'm very glad we decided not to play them the part about dashing people's heads into pieces,\" he said. \"Are you sure they didn't come to Earth to kill everybody?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"That's why we have to establish communications with them.\"\n\n\"Right,\" he said, and proceeded to play the accompaniment we'd recorded the night before. Nothing, and nothing when he played the notes with piano, guitar, and flute, but when he played the vocal part by itself, the Altairi promptly sat down.\n\n\"Definitely the words,\" he said, and when we played them \"Jingle Bells,\" they sat down again at \"seated by my side,\" which seemed to confirm it. But when he played them the first part of \"Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat\" from Guys and Dolls and \"Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay,\" they didn't sit down for either one.\n\n\"Which means it's the word 'seated,' \" I said.\n\n\"Or they only respond to Christmas songs,\" he said. \"Do you have some other carol we can play them?\"\n\n\"Not with 'seated,' \" I said. \" 'All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth' has 'sitting' in it.\"\n\nWe played it for them. No response, but when he played \"We Need a Little Christmas,\" from the musical Mame, the Altairi sat down the moment the recording reached the word \"sitting.\"\n\nCalvin cut off the rest of the phrase, since we didn't want the Altairi sitting on our shoulders, and looked at me. \"So why did they respond to this 'sitting' and not the one in 'All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth'?\" he mused.\n\nI was tempted to say, \"Because 'All I Want for Christmas' is an absolutely terrible song,\" but I didn't. \"The voices?\" I suggested.\n\n\"Maybe,\" he said, and shuffled through the CDs till he found a recording of the same song by the Statler Brothers. The Altairi sat down at exactly the same place.\n\nSo not the voices. And not just Christmas. When Calvin played them the opening song from 1776, they sat down again as the Continental Congress sang orders to John Adams to sit down. And it wasn't the verb \"to sit.\" When we played them \"The Hanukkah Song,\" they spun solemnly in place.\n\n\"Okay, so we've established it's ecumenical,\" Calvin said.\n\n\"Thank goodness,\" I said, thinking of Reverend Thresher and what he'd say if he found out they'd responded to a Christmas carol, but when we played them a Solstice song with the phrase \"the earth turns round again,\" they just stood there and glared.\n\n\"Words beginning with s?\" I said.\n\n\"Maybe.\" He played them, in rapid succession, \"The Snow Lay on the Ground,\" \"Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,\" and \"Suzy Snowflake.\" Nothing.\n\nAt ten forty-five Calvin left to go to his choir rehearsal. \"It's at Trinity Episcopal, if you want to meet me there at noon,\" he said, \"and we can go over to my apartment from there. I want to run an analysis on the frequency patterns of the phrases they responded to.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" I said, and delivered the Altairi to Dr. Wakamura, who wanted to squirt them with perfumes from the Crabtree and Evelyn store. I left them glaring at him and went up to Dr. Morthman's office. He wasn't there. \"He went to the mall to collect paint samples,\" Dr. Jarvis said.\n\nI called him on his cell phone. \"Dr. Morthman, I've run some tests,\" I said, \"and the Altairi are\u2014\"\n\n\"Not now. I'm waiting for an important call from ACS,\" he said, and hung up.\n\nI went back to the audio lab and listened to the Cambridge Boys' Choir, Barbra Streisand, and Barenaked Ladies Christmas albums, trying to find songs with variations of \"sit\" and \"spin\" in them and no bloodshed. I also looked up instances of \"turn.\" They hadn't responded to \"turns\" in the Solstice song, but I wasn't sure that proved anything. They hadn't responded to \"sitting\" in \"All I Want for Christmas,\" either.\n\nAt noon I went to meet Calvin at Trinity Episcopal. They weren't done rehearsing yet, and it didn't sound like they would be for some time. Calvin kept starting and stopping the choir and saying, \"Basses, you're coming in two beats early, and altos, on 'singing,' that's an A flat. Let's take it again, from the top of page eight.\"\n\nThey went over the section four more times, with no discernible improvement, before Calvin said, \"Okay, that's it. I'll see you all Saturday night.\"\n\n\"We are never going to get that entrance right,\" several of the choir members muttered as they gathered up their music, and the balding minister from last night, Reverend McIntyre, looked totally discouraged.\n\n\"Maybe I shouldn't sing after all,\" he told Calvin.\n\n\"Yes, you should,\" Calvin said, and put his hand on Reverend McIntyre's shoulder. \"Don't worry. It'll all come together. You'll see.\"\n\n\"Do you really believe that?\" I asked Calvin after Reverend McIntyre had gone out.\n\nHe laughed. \"I know it's hard to believe listening to them now. I never think they're going to be able to do it, but somehow, no matter how awful they sound in rehearsal, they always manage to pull it off. It's enough to restore your faith in humanity.\" He frowned. \"I thought you were going to come over, and we were going to look at frequency patterns.\"\n\n\"We are,\" I said. \"Why?\"\n\nHe pointed behind me. The Altairi were standing there with Reverend McIntyre. \"I found them outside,\" he said, smiling. \"I was afraid they might be lost.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear, they must have followed me. I'm so sorry,\" I said, though Reverend McIntyre didn't seem particularly intimidated by them. I said as much.\n\n\"I'm not,\" he said. \"They don't look nearly as annoyed as my congregation does when they don't approve of my sermon.\"\n\n\"I'd better take them back,\" I said to Calvin.\n\n\"No, as long as they're here, we might as well take them over to my apartment and try some more songs on them. We need more data.\"\n\nI somehow squeezed all six of them into my car and took them over to Calvin's apartment, and he analyzed frequency patterns while I played some more songs for them. It definitely wasn't the quality of the songs or the singers they were responding to. They wouldn't sit down for Willie Nelson's \"Pretty Paper\" and then did for a hideous falsetto children's recording of \"Little Miss Muffet\" from the 1940s.\n\nIt wasn't the words' meaning, either. When I played them \"Adeste Fideles\" in Latin, they sat down when the choir sang, \"tibi sit gloria.\"\n\n\"Which proves they're taking what they hear literally,\" Calvin said when I took him into the kitchen out of earshot of the Altairi to tell me.\n\n\"Yes, which means we've got to make sure they don't hear any words that have double meanings,\" I said. \"We can't even play them 'Deck the Halls,' for fear they might deck someone.\"\n\n\"And we definitely can't play them 'laid in a manger,' \" he said, grinning.\n\n\"It's not funny,\" I said. \"At this rate, we aren't going to be able to play them anything.\"\n\n\"There must be some songs\u2014\"\n\n\"What songs?\" I said in frustration. \" 'I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm' talks about hearts that are on fire, 'Christmastide' might bring on a tsunami, and 'be born in us today' sounds like a scene out of Alien.\"\n\n\"I know,\" he said. \"Don't worry, we'll find something. Here, I'll help you.\" He cleared off the kitchen table, brought in the stacks of sheet music, albums, and CDs, and sat me down across from him. \"I'll find songs and you check the lyrics.\"\n\nWe started through them. \"No\u2026no\u2026what about 'I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day'?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, looking up the lyrics. \"It's got 'hate,' 'wrong,' 'dead,' and 'despair.' \"\n\n\"Cheery,\" he said. There was a pause while we looked through more music. \"John Lennon's 'Happy Xmas'?\"\n\nI shook my head. \" 'War.' Also 'fights' and 'fear.' \"\n\nAnother pause, and then he said, \"All I want for Christmas is you.\"\n\nI looked up at him, startled. \"What did you say?\"\n\n\" 'All I Want for Christmas Is You,' \" he repeated. \"Song title. Mariah Carey.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" I looked up the lyrics. \"I think it might be okay. I don't see any murder or mayhem.\" But he was shaking his head.\n\n\"On second thought, I don't think we'd better. Love can be even more dangerous than war.\"\n\nI looked into the living room, where the Altairi stood glaring through the door at me. \"I seriously doubt they're here to steal Earthwomen.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but we wouldn't want to give anybody any ideas.\"\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"We definitely wouldn't want to do that.\"\n\nWe went back to searching for songs. \"How about 'I'll Be Home for Christmas'?\" he said, holding up a Patti Page album.\n\n\"I'll Be Home\" passed muster, but the Altairi didn't respond to it, or to Ed Ames singing \"Ballad of the Christmas Donkey\" or Miss Piggy singing \"Santa Baby.\"\n\nThere didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to their responses. The keys weren't the same, or the notes, or the accompaniment. They responded to the Andrews Sisters but not to Randy Travis, and it wasn't the voices, either, because they responded to Julie Andrews's \"Awake, Awake Ye Drowsy Souls.\" We played them her \"Silver Bells.\" They didn't laugh (which didn't really surprise me) or bustle, but when the song got to the part about the traffic lights blinking red and green, all six of them blinked their eyes. We played them her \"Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow.\" They just sat there.\n\n\"Try the 'Christmas Waltz,' \" I said, looking at the album cover.\n\nHe shook his head. \"It's got love in it, too. You did say you didn't have a boyfriend, didn't you?\"\n\n\"That's right,\" I said, \"and I have no intention of dating the Altairi.\"\n\n\"Good,\" he said. \"Can you think of any other songs with 'blink' in them?\"\n\nBy the time he left to rehearse with the symphony, we didn't know any more than when we'd started. I took the Altairi back to Dr. Wakamura, who didn't seem all that happy to see them, tried to find a song with \"blink\" in it, to no avail, had dinner, and went back over to Calvin's apartment.\n\nHe was already there, working. I started through the sheet music. \"What about 'Good Christian Men, Rejoice'?\" I said. \"It's got 'bow' in it,\" and the phone rang.\n\nCalvin answered it. \"What is it, Belinda?\" he said, listened a moment, and then said, \"Meg, turn on the TV,\" and handed me the remote.\n\nI switched on the television. Marvin the Martian was telling Bugs Bunny he planned to incinerate the earth. \"CNN,\" Calvin said. \"It's on forty.\"\n\nI punched in the channel and then was sorry. Reverend Thresher was standing in the audio lab in front of a mob of reporters, saying, \"\u2014happy to announce that we have found the answer to the Altairi's actions in the mall yesterday. Christmas carols were playing over the sound system in the mall\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" I said.\n\n\"I thought the surveillance tapes didn't have any sound,\" Calvin said.\n\n\"They don't. Someone else in the mall must have had a videocam.\"\n\n\"\u2014and when the Altairi heard those holy songs,\" Reverend Thresher was saying, \"they were overcome by the truth of their message, by the power of God's blessed word\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" Calvin said.\n\n\"\u2014and they sank to the ground in repentance for their sins.\"\n\n\"They did not,\" I said. \"They sat down.\"\n\n\"For the past nine months, scientists have been seeking to discover the reason why the Altairi came to our planet. They should have turned to our Blessed Savior instead, for it is in Him that all answers lie. Why have the Altairi come here? To be saved! They've come to be born again, as we shall demonstrate.\" He held up a CD of Christmas carols.\n\n\"Oh, no!\" we both said. I grabbed for my cell phone.\n\n\"Like the wise men of old,\" Reverend Thresher was saying, \"they have come seeking Christ, which proves that Christianity is the only true religion.\"\n\nDr. Morthman took forever to answer his phone. When he did, I said, \"Dr. Morthman, you mustn't let the Altairi listen to any Christmas carols\u2014\"\n\n\"I can't talk now,\" he said. \"We're in the middle of a press conference,\" and hung up.\n\n\"Dr. Morthman\u2014\" I hit redial.\n\n\"There's no time for that.\" Calvin, who'd snatched up his keys and my coat, said, \"Come on, we'll take my car,\" and as we racketed downstairs, \"There were a lot of reporters there, and he just said something that will make every Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan, and nonevangelical Christian on the planet go ballistic. If we're lucky, he'll still be answering questions when we get there.\"\n\n\"And if we're not?\"\n\n\"The Altairi will be out seizing troubled minds, and we'll have a holy war on our hands.\"\n\nWe almost made it. There were, as Calvin had predicted, a lot of questions, particularly after Reverend Thresher stated that the Altairi agreed with him on abortion, gay marriage, and the necessity of electing Republicans to all political offices in the next election.\n\nBut the clamoring reporters clogging the steps, the door, and the hall made it nearly impossible to get through, and by the time we reached the audio lab, Reverend Thresher was pointing proudly to the Altairi kneeling on the other side of the one-way mirror and telling the reporters, \"As you can see, their hearing the Christmas message has made them kneel in reverence\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, no, they must be listening to 'O Holy Night,' \" I said, \"or 'As with Gladness Men of Old.' \"\n\n\"What did you play them?\" Calvin demanded. He pointed at the kneeling Altairi.\n\n\"The One True Way Maxichurch Christmas CD,\" Reverend Thresher said proudly, holding up the case, which the reporters obligingly snapped, filmed, and downloaded to their iPods. \"Christmas Carols for True Christians.\"\n\n\"No, no, what song?\"\n\n\"Do the individual carols hold a special significance for them?\" the reporters were shouting, and \"What carol were they listening to in the mall?\" and \"Have they been baptized, Reverend Thresher?\" while I tried to tell Dr. Morthman, \"You've got to turn the music off.\"\n\n\"Off?\" Dr. Morthman said incredulously, yelling to be heard over the reporters. \"Just when we're finally making progress communicating with the Altairi?\"\n\n\"You have to tell us which songs you've played!\" Calvin shouted.\n\n\"Who are you?\" Reverend Thresher demanded.\n\n\"He's with me,\" I said, and to Dr. Morthman, \"You have to turn it off right now. Some of the carols are dangerous.\"\n\n\"Dangerous?\" he bellowed, and the reporters' attention swiveled to us.\n\n\"What do you mean, dangerous?\" they asked.\n\n\"I mean dangerous,\" Calvin said. \"The Altairi aren't repenting of anything. They're\u2014\"\n\n\"How dare you accuse the Altairi of not being born again?\" Reverend Thresher said. \"I saw them respond to the hymnwriter's inspiring words with my own eyes, saw them fall on their knees\u2014\"\n\n\"They responded to 'Silver Bells,' too,\" I said, \"and to 'The Hanukkah Song.' \"\n\n\" 'The Hanukkah Song'?\" the reporters said, and began pelting us with questions again. \"Does that mean they're Jewish?\" \"Orthodox or Reform?\" \"What's their response to Hindu chants?\" \"What about the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? Do they respond to that?\"\n\n\"This doesn't have anything to do with religion,\" Calvin said. \"The Altairi are responding to the literal meaning of certain words in the songs. Some of the words they're listening to right now could be dangerous for them to\u2014\"\n\n\"Blasphemy!\" Reverend Thresher bellowed. \"How could the blessed Christmas message be dangerous?\"\n\n\" 'Christmas Day Is Come' tells them to slay young children,\" I said, \"and the lyrics of other carols have blood and war and stars raining fire. That's why you've got to turn off the music right now.\"\n\n\"Too late,\" Calvin said, and pointed through the one-way mirror.\n\nThe Altairi weren't there. \"Where are they?\" the reporters began shouting. \"Where did they go?\" and Reverend Thresher and Dr. Morthman both turned to me and demanded to know what I'd done with them.\n\n\"Leave her alone. She doesn't know where they are any more than you do,\" Calvin said, in his choir director voice.\n\nThe effect on the room was the same as it had been on his seventh-graders. Dr. Morthman let go of me, and the reporters shut up. \"Now, what song were you playing?\" Calvin said to Reverend Thresher.\n\n\" 'God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,' \" Reverend Thresher said, \"but it's one of the oldest and most beloved Christmas carols. It's ridiculous to think hearing it could endanger anyone\u2014\"\n\n\"Is 'God Rest Ye' why they left?\" the reporters were shouting, and \"What are the words? Is there any war in it? Or children-slaying?\"\n\n\" 'God rest ye merry, gentlemen,' \" I muttered under my breath, trying to remember the lyrics. \" 'Let nothing you dismay\u2026' \"\n\n\"Where did they go?\" the reporters clamored.\n\n\" '\u2026O, tidings of comfort and joy,' \" I murmured. I glanced over at Calvin. He was doing the same thing I was. \" '\u2026To save us all\u2026when we were gone\u2026' \"\n\n\"Where do you think they've gone?\" a reporter called out. Calvin looked at me. \"Astray,\" he said grimly.\n\nThe Altairi weren't in the other labs, in any of the other buildings on campus, or in their ship. Or at least no one had seen the ramp to it come down and them go inside. No one had seen them crossing the campus, either, or on the surrounding streets.\n\n\"I hold you entirely responsible for this, Miss Yates,\" Dr. Morthman said. \"Send out an APB,\" he told the police. \"And put out an Amber Alert.\"\n\n\"That's for when a child's been kidnapped,\" I said. \"The Altairi haven't\u2014\"\n\n\"We don't know that,\" he snapped. He turned back to the police officer. \"And call the FBI.\"\n\nThe police officer turned to Calvin. \"Dr. Morthman said you said the aliens were responding to the words 'gone astray.' Were there any other words in the song that are dangerous?\"\n\n\"Sa\u2014\" I began.\n\n\"No,\" Calvin said, and, while Dr. Morthman was telling the officer to call Homeland Security and tell them to declare a Code Red, hustled me down the sidewalk and behind the Altairi's ship.\n\n\"Why did you tell them that?\" I demanded. \"What about 'scorn'? What about 'Satan's power'?\"\n\n\"Shh,\" he whispered. \"He's already calling Homeland Security. We don't want him to call out the Air Force. And the nukes,\" he said. \"And there's no time to explain things to them. We've got to find the Altairi.\"\n\n\"Do you have any idea where they could have gone?\"\n\n\"No. At least their ship's still here,\" he said, looking over at it.\n\nI wasn't sure that meant anything, considering the Altairi had been able to get out of a lab with a locked door. I said as much, and Calvin agreed. \" 'Gone astray' may not even be what they were responding to. They may be off looking for a manger or shepherds. And there are different versions. Christmas Carols for True Christians may have used an older one.\"\n\n\"In which case we need to go back to the lab and find out exactly what it was they heard,\" I said, my heart sinking. Dr. Morthman was likely to have me arrested.\n\nApparently Calvin had reached the same conclusion, because he said, \"We can't go back in there. It's too risky, and we've got to find the Altairi before Reverend Thresher does. There's no telling what he'll play them next.\"\n\n\"But how\u2014?\"\n\n\"If they did go astray, then they may still be in the area. You go get your car and check the streets north of the campus, and I'll do south. Do you have your cell phone?\"\n\n\"Yes, but I don't have a car. Mine's at your apartment. We came over in yours, remember?\"\n\n\"What about the van you use to take the Altairi places in?\"\n\n\"But won't that be awfully noticeable?\"\n\n\"They're looking for six aliens on foot, not in a van,\" he said, \"and besides, if you find them, you'll need something to put them in.\"\n\n\"You're right,\" I said, and took off for the faculty parking lot, hoping Dr. Morthman hadn't had the same idea.\n\nHe hadn't. The parking lot was deserted. I slid the van's back door open, half hoping this was the Altairi's idea of astray, but they weren't inside, or on any of the streets for an area two miles north of DU. I drove up University Boulevard and then slowly up and down the side streets, terrified I'd find them squished on the pavement.\n\nIt was already dark. I called Calvin. \"No sign of them,\" I told him. \"Maybe they went back to the mall. I'm going to go over there and\u2014\"\n\n\"No, don't do that,\" he said. \"Dr. Morthman and the FBI are there. I'm watching it on CNN. They're searching Victoria's Secret. Besides, the Altairi aren't there.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"Because they're here at my apartment.\"\n\n\"They are?\" I said, weak with relief. \"Where did you find them?\"\n\nHe didn't answer me. \"Don't take any major streets on your way over here,\" he said. \"And park in the alley.\"\n\n\"Why? What have they done?\" I asked, but he'd already hung up.\n\nThe Altairi were standing in the middle of Calvin's living room when I got there. \"I came back here to check on alternate lyrics for 'God Rest Ye' and found them waiting for me,\" Calvin explained. \"Did you park in the alley?\"\n\n\"Yes, at the other end of the block. What have they done?\" I repeated, almost afraid to ask.\n\n\"Nothing. At least nothing that's been on CNN,\" he said, gesturing at the TV, which was showing the police searching the candle store. He had the sound turned down, but across the bottom of the screen was the logo \"Aliens AWOL.\"\n\n\"Then why all the secrecy?\"\n\n\"Because we can't afford to let them find the Altairi till we've figured out why they're doing what they're doing. Next time it might not be as harmless as going astray. And we can't go to your apartment. They know where you live. We're going to have to hole up here. Did you tell anybody you were working with me?\"\n\nI tried to think. I'd attempted to tell Dr. Morthman about Calvin when I got back from the mall, but I hadn't gotten far enough to tell him Calvin's name, and when Reverend Thresher had demanded, \"Who are you?\" all I'd said was \"He's with me.\"\n\n\"I didn't tell anybody your name,\" I said.\n\n\"Good,\" he said. \"And I'm pretty sure nobody saw the Altairi coming here.\"\n\n\"But how can you be sure? Your neighbors\u2014\"\n\n\"Because the Altairi were waiting for me inside,\" he said. \"Right where they are now. So they can either pick locks, walk through walls, or teleport. My money's on teleportation. And it's obvious the commission doesn't have any idea where they are,\" he said, pointing at the TV, where a mugshot-like photo of the Altairi was displayed, with \"Have you seen these aliens?\" and a phone number to call across their midsections. \"And luckily, I went to the grocery store and stocked up the other day so I wouldn't have to go shopping in between all my concerts.\"\n\n\"Your concerts! And the AllCity Sing! I forgot all about them,\" I said, stricken with guilt. \"Weren't you supposed to have a rehearsal tonight?\"\n\n\"I canceled it,\" he said, \"and I can cancel the one tomorrow morning if I have to. The Sing's not till tomorrow night. We've got plenty of time to figure this out.\"\n\nIf they don't find us first, I thought, looking at the TV, where they were searching the food court. Eventually, when they couldn't find the Altairi anywhere, they'd realize I was missing, too, and start looking for us. And the reporters today, unlike Leo, had all been videotaping. If they put Calvin's picture on TV with a number to call, one of his church choir members or his seventh-graders would be certain to call in and identify him.\n\nWhich meant we'd better work fast. I picked up the list of songs and actions we'd compiled. \"Where do you want to start?\" I asked Calvin, who was starting through a stack of LPs.\n\n\"Not with 'Frosty the Snowman,' \" he said. \"I don't think I can stand any chasing here and there.\"\n\n\"How about, 'I Wonder as I Wander'?\"\n\n\"Very funny,\" he said. \"Since we know they respond to 'kneeling,' why don't we start with that?\"\n\n\"Okay.\" We played them \"fall on your knees\" and \"come adore on bended knee\" and \"whose forms are bending low,\" some of which they responded to and some of which they didn't, for no reason we could see.\n\n\" 'The First Noel' has 'full reverently upon their knee' in it,\" I said, and Calvin started toward the bedroom to look for it.\n\nHe stopped as he passed in front of the TV. \"I think you'd better come look at this,\" he said, and turned it up.\n\n\"The Altairi were not at the mall, as we had hoped,\" Dr. Morthman was saying, \"and it has just come to our attention that a member of our commission is also missing, Margaret Yates.\" Video of the scene at the lab came on behind Dr. Morthman and the reporter, with me shouting for him to shut the music off. Any second a picture of Calvin would appear, demanding to know which carol they were playing.\n\nI grabbed up my phone and called Dr. Morthman, hoping against hope they couldn't trace cell phone calls and that he'd answer even though he was on TV.\n\nHe did, and the camera blessedly zoomed in on him so only a tiny piece of the video remained visible. \"Where are you calling from?\" he demanded. \"Did you find the Altairi?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, \"but I think I have an idea where they might be.\"\n\n\"Where?\" Dr. Morthman said.\n\n\"I don't think they've gone astray. I think they may be responding to one of the other words in the song. 'Rest' or possibly\u2014\"\n\n\"I knew it,\" Reverend Thresher said, shoving in front of Dr. Morthman. \"They were responding to the words 'Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day.' They've gone to church. They're at the One True Way right this minute.\"\n\nIt wasn't what I had in mind, but at least a photo of the One True Way Maxichurch was better than one of Calvin. \"That should give us at least two hours. His church is way down in Colorado Springs,\" I said, turning the TV back down, and went back to playing songs to the Altairi and logging their responses and nonresponses, but half an hour later, when Calvin went into the bedroom to try to find a Louis Armstrong CD, he stopped in front of the TV again and frowned.\n\n\"What happened?\" I said, dumping the pile of sheet music on my lap on the couch beside me and sidling past the Altairi to get to him. \"Didn't they take the bait?\"\n\n\"Oh, they took it, all right,\" he said, and turned up the TV.\n\n\"We believe the Altairi are in Bethlehem,\" Dr. Morthman was saying. He was standing in front of a departures board at DIA.\n\n\"Bethlehem?\" I said.\n\n\"It's mentioned in the lyrics twice,\" Calvin said. \"At least if they're off in Israel it gives us more time.\"\n\n\"It also gives us an international incident,\" I said. \"In the Middle East, no less. I've got to call Dr. Morthman.\" But he must have turned his cell phone off, and I couldn't get through to the lab.\n\n\"You could call Reverend Thresher,\" Calvin said, pointing to the TV screen.\n\nReverend Thresher was surrounded by reporters as he got into his Lexus. \"I'm on my way to the Altairi right now, and tonight we will hold a Praise Worship Service, and you'll be able to hear their Christian witness, and the Christmas carols that first brought them to the Lord\u2014\"\n\nCalvin switched the TV off. \"It's a sixteen-hour flight to Bethlehem,\" he said encouragingly. \"It surely won't take us that long to figure this out.\"\n\nThe phone rang. Calvin shot me a glance and then picked it up. \"Hello, Mr. Steinberg,\" he said. \"Didn't you get my message? I canceled tonight's rehearsal.\" He listened awhile. \"If you're worried about your entrance on page twelve, we'll run over it before the Sing.\" He listened some more. \"It'll all come together. It always does.\"\n\nI hoped that would be true of our solving the puzzle of the Altairi. If it wasn't, we'd be charged with kidnapping. Or starting a religious war. But both were better than letting Reverend Thresher play them \"slowly dying\" and \"thorns infest the ground.\" Which meant we'd better figure out what the Altairi were responding to, and fast. We played them Dolly Parton and Manhattan Transfer and the Barbershop Choir of Toledo and Dean Martin.\n\nWhich was a bad idea. I'd had almost no sleep the last two days, and I found myself nodding off after the first few bars. I sat up straight and tried to concentrate on the Altairi, but it was no use. The next thing I knew, my head was on Calvin's shoulder, and he was saying, \"Meg? Meg? Do the Altairi sleep?\"\n\n\"Sleep?\" I said, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. \"I'm sorry, I must have dozed off. What time is it?\"\n\n\"A little after four.\"\n\n\"In the morning?\"\n\n\"Yes. Do the Altairi sleep?\"\n\n\"Yes, at least we think so. Their brain patterns alter, and they don't respond to stimuli, but then again, they never respond.\"\n\n\"Are there visible signs that they're asleep? Do they close their eyes or lie down?\"\n\n\"No, they sort of droop over, like flowers that haven't been watered. And their glares diminish a little. Why?\"\n\n\"I have something I want to try. Go back to sleep.\"\n\n\"No, that's okay,\" I said, suppressing a yawn. \"If anybody needs to sleep, it's you. I've kept you up the last two nights, and you've got to direct your Sing thing tonight. I'll take over and you go\u2014\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I'm fine. I told you, I never get any sleep this time of year.\"\n\n\"So what's this idea you want to try?\"\n\n\"I want to play them the first verse of 'Silent Night.' \"\n\n\" 'Sleep in heavenly peace,' \" I said.\n\n\"Right, and no other action verbs and I've got at least fifty versions of it. Johnny Cash, Kate Smith, Britney Spears\u2014\"\n\n\"Do we have time to play them fifty different versions?\" I asked, looking over at the TV. A split screen showed a map of Israel and the outside of the One True Way Maxichurch. When I turned the volume up, a reporter's voice said, \"Inside, thousands of members are awaiting the appearance of the Altairi, whom Reverend Thresher expects at any minute. A twenty-four-hour High-Powered Prayer Vigil\u2014\"\n\nI turned it back down. \"I guess we do. You were saying?\"\n\n\" 'Silent Night' is a song everybody\u2014Gene Autry, Madonna, Burl Ives\u2014has recorded. Different voices, different accompaniments, different keys. We can see which versions they respond to\u2014\"\n\n\"And which ones they don't,\" I said, \"and that may give us a clue to what they're responding to.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" he said, opening a CD case. He stuck it in the player and hit Track 4. \"Here goes.\"\n\nThe voice of Elvis Presley singing \" 'Silent night, holy night' \" filled the room. Calvin came back over to the couch and sat down next to me. When Elvis got to \" 'tender and mild,' \" we both leaned forward expectantly, watching the Altairi. \" 'Sleep in heavenly peace,' \" Elvis crooned, but the Altairi were still stiffly upright, and they remained that way through the repeated \" 'sleep in heavenly peace.' \" And through Alvin the Chipmunk's solo of it. And Celine Dion's.\n\n\"Their glares don't appear to be diminishing,\" Calvin said. \"If anything, they seem to be getting worse.\"\n\nThey were. \"You'd better play them Judy Garland,\" I said.\n\nHe did, and Dolly Parton and Harry Belafonte. \"What if they don't respond to any of them?\" I asked.\n\n\"Then we try something else. I've also got twenty-six versions of 'Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.' \" He grinned at me. \"I'm kidding. I do, however, have nine different versions of 'Baby, It's Cold Outside.' \"\n\n\"For use on redheaded second sopranos?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"Shh, I love this version. Nat King Cole.\"\n\nI shh-ed and listened, wondering how the Altairi could resist falling asleep. Nat King Cole's voice was even more relaxing than Dean Martin's. I leaned back against the couch. \" 'All is calm\u2026' \"\n\nI must have fallen asleep again, because the next thing I knew, the music had stopped and it was daylight outside. I looked at my watch. It said two P.M. The Altairi were standing in the exact same spot they'd been in before, glaring, and Calvin was sitting hunched forward on a kitchen chair, his chin in his hand, watching them and looking worried.\n\n\"Did something happen?\" I glanced over at the TV. Reverend Thresher was talking. The logo read \"Thresher Launches Galaxywide Christian Crusade.\" At least it didn't say \"Air Strikes in Middle East.\"\n\nCalvin was slowly shaking his head.\n\n\"Wasn't there any response to 'Silent Night'?\" I asked.\n\n\"No, there was,\" he said. \"You responded to the version by Nat King Cole.\"\n\n\"I know,\" I said. \"I'm sorry. I meant the Altairi. They didn't respond to any of the 'Silent Night's?\"\n\n\"No, they responded,\" he said, \"but just to one version.\"\n\n\"But that's good, isn't it?\" I asked. \"Now we can analyze what it was that was different about it that they were responding to. Which version was it?\"\n\nInstead of answering, he walked over to the CD player and hit play. A loud chorus of nasal female voices began belting out, \" 'Silent night, holy night,' \" shouting to be heard over a cacophony of clinks and clacks. \"What is that?\" I asked.\n\n\"The Broadway chorus of the musical 42nd Street singing and tap-dancing to 'Silent Night.' They recorded it for a special Broadway Christmas charity project.\"\n\nI looked over at the Altairi, thinking maybe Calvin was wrong and they hadn't really fallen asleep, but in spite of the din, they had sagged limply over, their heads nearly touching the ground, looking almost peaceful. Their glares had faded from full-bore Aunt Judith to only mildly disapproving.\n\nI listened to the 42nd Street chorines tapping and belting out \"Silent Night\" at the top of their lungs some more. \"It is kind of appealing,\" I said, \"especially the part where they shout out 'Mother and child!' \"\n\n\"I know,\" he said. \"I'd like it played at our wedding. And obviously the Altairi share our good taste. But aside from that, I'm not sure what it tells us.\"\n\n\"That the Altairi like show tunes?\" I suggested.\n\n\"God forbid. Think what Reverend Thresher would do with that,\" he said. \"Besides, they didn't respond to 'Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat.' \"\n\n\"No, but they did to that song from Mame.\"\n\n\"And to the one from 1776 but not to The Music Man or Rent,\" he said frustratedly. \"Which puts us right back where we started. I have no clue what they're responding to!\"\n\n\"I know,\" I said. \"I'm so sorry. I should never have gotten you involved in this. You have your ACHES thing to direct.\"\n\n\"It doesn't start till seven,\" he said, rummaging through a stack of LPs, \"which means we've got another four hours to work. If we could just find another 'Silent Night' they'll respond to, we might be able to figure out what in God's name they're doing. What the hell happened to that Star Wars Christmas album?\"\n\n\"Stop,\" I said. \"This is ridiculous.\" I took the albums out of his hands. \"You're exhausted, and you've got a big job to do. You can't direct all those people on no sleep. This can wait.\"\n\n\"But\u2014\"\n\n\"People think better after a nap,\" I said firmly. \"You'll wake up, and the solution will be perfectly obvious.\"\n\n\"And if it isn't?\"\n\n\"Then you'll go direct your choirs, and\u2014\"\n\n\"Choirs,\" he said thoughtfully.\n\n\"Or AllCity Sing or Aches and Pains or whatever you call it, and I'll stay here and play the Altairi some more 'Silent Night's till you get back and\u2014\"\n\n\" 'Sit Down, John' was sung by the chorus,\" he said, looking past me at the drooping Altairi. \"And so was 'While Shepherds Watched.' And the 42nd Street 'Silent Night' was the only one that wasn't a solo.\" He grabbed my shoulders. \"They're all choruses. That's why they didn't respond to Julie Andrews singing 'Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow,' or to Stubby Kaye singing 'Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat.' They only respond to groups of voices.\"\n\nI shook my head. \"You forgot 'Awake, Awake, Ye Drowsy Souls.' \"\n\n\"Oh,\" he said, his face falling, \"you're right. Wait!\" He lunged for the Julie Andrews CD and stuck it in the recorder. \"I think Julie Andrews sings the verse and then a chorus comes in. Listen.\"\n\nHe was right. The chorus had sung \"Awake, awake.\"\n\n\"Who sang the 'Joy to the World' you played them on the CD from the mall?\" Calvin asked.\n\n\"Just Julie Andrews,\" I said. \"And Brenda Lee sang 'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.' \"\n\n\"And Johnny Mathis sang 'Angels from the Realms of Glory,' \" he said happily. \"But the Hanukkah song, which they did respond to, was sung by the\u2026\" he read it off the CD case, \"the Shalom Singers. That's got to be it.\" He began looking through the LPs again.\n\n\"What are you looking for?\" I asked.\n\n\"The Mormon Tabernacle Choir,\" he said. \"They've got to have recorded 'Silent Night.' We'll play it for the Altairi, and if they fall asleep, we'll know we're on the right track.\"\n\n\"But they're already asleep,\" I pointed out, gesturing to where they stood looking like a week-old flower arrangement. \"How\u2014?\"\n\nHe was already digging again. He brought up a Cambridge Boys' Choir album, pulled the LP out, and read the label, muttering, \"I know it's on here\u2026Here it is.\" He put it on, and a chorus of sweet boys' voices sang, \" 'Christians awake, salute the happy morn.' \"\n\nThe Altairi straightened immediately and glared at us. \"You were right,\" I said softly, but he wasn't listening. He had the LP off the turntable and was reading the label again, muttering, \"Come on, you have to have done 'Silent Night.' Everyone does 'Silent Night.' \" He flipped the LP over, said, \"I knew it,\" popped it back on the turntable, and dropped the needle expertly.\n\n\" '\u2026and mild,' \" the boys' angelic voices sang, \" 'sleep\u2026' \"\n\nThe Altairi drooped over before the word was even out. \"That's definitely it!\" I said. \"That's the common denominator.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"We need more data. It could just be a coincidence. We need to find a choral version of 'Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow.' And 'Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat.' Where did you put Guys and Dolls?\"\n\n\"But that was a solo.\"\n\n\"The first part, the part we played them was a solo. Later on all the gamblers come in. We should have played them the whole song.\"\n\n\"We couldn't, remember?\" I said, handing it to him. \"Remember the parts about dragging you under and drowning, not to mention gambling and drinking?\"\n\n\"Oh, right,\" he said. He put headphones on, listened, and then unplugged them. \" 'Sit down\u2026' \" a chorus of men's voices sang lustily, and the Altairi sat down.\n\nWe played choir versions of \"All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth\" and \"Rise Up, Shepherds, and Follow.\" The Altairi sat down and stood up. \"You're right,\" he said after the Altairi knelt to the Platters singing \"The First Noel.\" \"It's the common denominator, all right. But why?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" I admitted. \"Maybe they can't understand things said to them by fewer voices than a choir. That would explain why there are six of them. Maybe each one only hears certain frequencies, which singly are meaningless, but with six of them\u2014\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"You're forgetting the Andrews Sisters. And Barenaked Ladies. And even if it is the choir aspect they're responding to, it still doesn't tell us what they're doing here.\"\n\n\"But now we know how to get them to tell us,\" I said, grabbing up The Holly Jolly Book of Christmas Songs. \"Can you find a choir version of 'Adeste Fideles' in English?\"\n\n\"I think so,\" he said. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Because it's got 'we greet thee' in it,\" I said, running my fingers down the lyrics of \"Good Christian Men, Rejoice.\"\n\n\"And there's 'Watchmen, Tell Us of the Night,' \" he said. \"And 'great glad tidings tell.' They're bound to respond to one of them.\"\n\nBut they didn't. Peter, Paul, and Mary ordered the Altairi to go tell (we blanked out the \"on the mountain\" part), but either the Altairi didn't like folk music, or the Andrews Sisters had been a fluke.\n\nOr we had jumped to conclusions. When we tried the same song again, this time by the Boston Commons Choir, there was still no response. And none to choral versions of \"Deck the Halls\" (\"while I tell\"), \"Jolly Old St. Nicholas\" (\"don't you tell a single soul\" minus \"don't\" and \"a single soul\"). Or to \"The Friendly Beasts,\" even though all six verses had \"tell\" in them.\n\nCalvin thought the tense might be the problem and played parts of \"Little St. Nick\" (\"tale\" and \"told\") and \"The Carol of the Bells\" (\"telling\"), but to no avail. \"Maybe the word's the problem,\" I said. \"Maybe they just don't know the word 'tell.' \" But they didn't respond to \"say\" or \"saying\" or \"said,\" to \"messages\" or to \"proclaim.\"\n\n\"We must have been wrong about the choir thing,\" Calvin said, but that wasn't it, either. While he was in the bedroom putting his tux on for the Sing, I played them snatches of \"The First Noel\" and \"Up on the Rooftop\" from the Barenaked Ladies CD, and they knelt and jumped right on cue.\n\n\"Maybe they think Earth's a gym and this is an exercise class,\" Calvin said, coming in as they were leaping to the St. Paul's Cathedral Choir singing \"The Twelve Days of Christmas.\" \"I don't suppose the word 'calling' had any effect on them.\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, tying his bow tie, \"and 'I'm bringing you this simple phrase' didn't, either. Has it occurred to you that the music might not be having any effect at all, and they just happen to be sitting and leaping and kneeling at the same time as the words are being sung?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"There's a connection. If there wasn't, they wouldn't look so irritated that we haven't been able to figure it out yet.\"\n\nHe was right. Their glares had, if anything, intensified, and their very posture radiated disapproval.\n\n\"We need more data, that's all,\" he said, going to get his black shoes. \"As soon as I get back, we'll\u2014\" He stopped.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"You'd better look at this,\" he said, pointing at the TV. The screen was showing a photo of the ship. All the lights were on, and exhaust was coming out of assorted side vents. Calvin grabbed the remote and turned it up.\n\n\"It is now believed that the Altairi have returned to their ship and are preparing to depart,\" the newscaster said. I glanced over at the Altairi. They were still standing there. \"Analysis of the ignition cycle indicates that takeoff will be in less than six hours.\"\n\n\"What do we do now?\" I asked Calvin.\n\n\"We figure this out. You heard them. We've got six hours till blastoff.\"\n\n\"But the Sing\u2014\"\n\nHe handed me my coat. \"We know it's got something to do with choirs, and I've got every kind you could want. We'll take the Altairi to the convention center and hope we think of something on the way.\"\n\nWe didn't think of anything on the way. \"Maybe I should take them back to their ship,\" I said, pulling into the parking lot. \"What if I cause them to get left behind?\"\n\n\"They are not E.T.,\" he said.\n\nI parked at the service entrance, got out, and started to slide the back door of the van open. \"No, leave them there,\" Calvin said. \"We've got to find a place to put them before we take them in. Lock the car.\"\n\nI did, even though I doubted if it would do any good, and followed Calvin through a side door marked \"Choirs Only\" and through a maze of corridors lined with rooms marked \"St. Peter's Boys' Choir,\" \"Red Hat Glee Club,\" \"Denver Gay Men's Chorus,\" \"Sweet Adelines Show Chorus,\" \"Mile High Jazz Singers.\" There was a hubbub in the front of the building, and when we crossed the main corridor, we could see people in gold and green and black robes milling around talking.\n\nCalvin opened several doors one after the other, ducked inside the rooms, shutting the doors after him, and then reemerged, shaking his head. \"We can't let the Altairi hear the Messiah, and you can still hear the noise from the auditorium,\" he said. \"We need someplace soundproof.\"\n\n\"Or farther away,\" I said, leading the way down the corridor and turning down a side hall. And running smack into his seventh-graders coming out of one of the meeting rooms. Mrs. Carlson was videotaping them, and another mother was attempting to line them up to go in, but as soon as they saw Calvin, they clustered around him saying, \"Mr. Ledbetter, where have you been? We thought you weren't coming,\" and \"Mr. Ledbetter, Mrs. Carlson says we have to turn our cell phones off, but can't we just have them on vibrate?\" and \"Mr. Ledbetter, Shelby and I were supposed to go in together, but she says she wants to be partners with Danika.\"\n\nCalvin ignored them. \"Kaneesha, could you hear any of the groups rehearsing when you were in getting dressed?\"\n\n\"Why?\" Belinda asked. \"Did we miss the call to go in?\"\n\n\"Could you, Kaneesha?\" he persisted.\n\n\"A little bit,\" she said.\n\n\"That won't work, then,\" he said to me. \"I'll go check the room at the end. Wait here.\" He sprinted along the hall.\n\n\"You were at the mall that day,\" Belinda said accusingly to me. \"Are you and Mr. Ledbetter going out?\"\n\nWe may all be going out together\u2014with a bang\u2014if we don't figure out what the Altairi are doing, I thought. \"No,\" I said.\n\n\"Are you hooking up?\" Chelsea asked.\n\n\"Chelsea!\" Mrs. Carlson said, horrified.\n\n\"Well, are you?\"\n\n\"Aren't you supposed to be lining up?\" I asked.\n\nCalvin came back at a dead run. \"It should work,\" he said to me. \"It seems fairly soundproof.\"\n\n\"Why does it have to be soundproof?\" Chelsea asked.\n\n\"I bet it's so nobody can hear them making out,\" Belinda said, and Chelsea began making smooching noises.\n\n\"Time to go in, ladies,\" he said in his choir director's voice, \"line up,\" and he really was amazing. They immediately formed pairs and began making a line.\n\n\"Wait till everybody's gone into the auditorium,\" he said, pulling me aside, \"and then go get them and bring them in. I'll do a few minutes' intro of the orchestra and the organizing committee so the Altairi won't hear any songs while you're getting them to the room. There's a table you can use to barricade the door so nobody can get in.\"\n\n\"And what if the Altairi try to leave?\" I asked. \"A barricade won't stop them, you know.\"\n\n\"Call me on my cell phone, and I'll tell the audience there's a fire drill or something. Okay? I'll make this as short as I can.\" He grinned. \"No 'Twelve Days of Christmas.' Don't worry, Meg. We'll figure this out.\"\n\n\"I told you she was his girlfriend.\"\n\n\"Is she, Mr. Ledbetter?\"\n\n\"Let's go, ladies,\" he said, and led them down the hall and into the auditorium. Just as the auditorium doors shut on the last stragglers, my cell phone rang. It was Dr. Morthman, calling to say, \"You can stop looking. The Altairi are in their ship.\"\n\n\"How do you know? Have you seen them?\" I asked, thinking, I knew I shouldn't have left them in the car.\n\n\"No, but the ship's begun the ignition process, and it's going faster than NASA previously estimated. They're now saying it's no more than four hours to takeoff. Where are you?\"\n\n\"On my way back,\" I said, trying not to sound like I was running out to the parking lot and unlocking the van, which, thank goodness, was at least still there and intact.\n\n\"Well, hurry it up,\" Dr. Morthman snapped. \"The press is here. You're going to have to explain to them exactly how you let the Altairi get away.\" I pulled open the van's door.\n\nThe Altairi weren't inside.\n\nOh, no. \"I blame this entire debacle on you,\" Dr. Morthman said. \"If there are international repercussions\u2014\"\n\n\"I'll be there as soon as I can,\" I said, hung up, and turned to run around to the driver's side.\n\nAnd collided with the Altairi, who had apparently been standing behind me the entire time. \"Don't scare me like that,\" I said. \"Now come on,\" and led them rapidly into the convention center, past the shut doors of the auditorium, where I could hear talking but not singing, thank goodness, and along the long hall to the room Calvin had indicated.\n\nIt was empty except for the table Calvin had mentioned. I herded the Altairi inside and then tipped the table on its side, pushed it in front of the door, wedging it under the doorknob, and leaned my ear against it to see if I could hear any sound from the auditorium, but Calvin had been right. I couldn't hear anything, and they should have started by now.\n\nAnd now what? With takeoff only four hours away, I needed to take advantage of every second, but there was nothing in the room I could use\u2014no piano or CD player or LPs. We should have used his seventh-graders' dressing room, I thought. They'd at least have had iPods or something.\n\nBut even if I played the Altairi hundreds of Christmas carols being sung by a choir, and they responded to them all\u2014bowing, decking halls, dashing through snow in one-horse open sleighs, following yonder stars\u2014I'd still be no closer to figuring out why they were here or why they'd decided to leave. Or why they'd taken the very loud tap-dancing chorus of 42nd Street singing \"Sleep in heavenly peace\" as a direct order. If they even knew what the word \"sleep\"\u2014or \"seated\" or \"spin\" or \"blink\"\u2014meant.\n\nCalvin had surmised they could only hear words sung to them with more than one voice, but that couldn't be it. Someone hearing a word for the first time would have no idea what it meant, and they'd never heard \"all seated on the ground\" till that day in the mall. They had to have heard the word before to have known what it meant, and they'd only have heard it spoken. Which meant they could hear spoken words as well as sung ones.\n\nThey could have read the words, I thought, remembering the Rosetta Stone and the dictionaries Dr. Short had given them. But even if they'd somehow taught themselves to read English, they wouldn't know how it was pronounced. They wouldn't have recognized it when they heard it spoken. The only way they could do that was by hearing the spoken word. Which meant they'd been listening to and understanding every word we'd said for the past nine months. Including Calvin's and my conversations about them slaying babies and destroying the planet. No wonder they were leaving.\n\nBut if they understood us, then that meant one of two things\u2014they were either unwilling to talk to us or were incapable of speaking. Had their sitting down and their other responses been an attempt at sign language?\n\nNo, that couldn't be it, either. They could have responded just as easily to a spoken \"sit\" and done it months earlier. And if they were trying to communicate, wouldn't they have given Calvin and me some hint we were on the right\u2014or the wrong\u2014track instead of just standing there with that we-are-not-amused glare? And I didn't believe for a moment those expressions were an accident of nature. I knew disapproval when I saw it. I'd watched Aunt Judith too many years not to\u2014\n\nAunt Judith. I took my cell phone out of my pocket and called my sister Tracy. \"Tell me everything you can remember about Aunt Judith,\" I said when she answered.\n\n\"Has something happened to her?\" she said, sounding alarmed. \"When I talked to her last week she\u2014\"\n\n\"Last week?\" I said. \"You mean Aunt Judith's still alive?\"\n\n\"Well, she was last week when we had lunch.\"\n\n\"Lunch? With Aunt Judith? Are we talking about the same person? Dad's Aunt Judith? The Gorgon?\"\n\n\"Yes, only she's not a Gorgon. She's actually very nice when you get to know her.\"\n\n\"Aunt Judith,\" I said, \"the one who always glared disapprovingly at everybody?\"\n\n\"Yes, only she hasn't glared at me in years. As I say, when you get to know her\u2014\"\n\n\"And exactly how did you do that?\"\n\n\"I thanked her for my birthday present.\"\n\n\"And\u2014?\" I said. \"That can't have been all. Mom always made both of us thank her nicely for our presents.\"\n\n\"I know, but they weren't proper thank-yous. 'A prompt handwritten note expressing gratitude is the only proper form of thanks,' \" Tracy said, obviously quoting. \"I was in high school, and we had to write a thank-you letter to someone for class. She'd just sent me my birthday card with the dollar in it, so I wrote her, and the next day she called and gave me this long lecture about the importance of good manners and how shocking it was that no one followed the most basic rules of etiquette anymore and how she was delighted to see that at least one young person knew how to behave, and then she asked me if I'd like to go see Les Mis with her, and I bought a copy of Emily Post, and we've gotten along great ever since. She sent Evan and me a sterling silver fish slice when we got married.\"\n\n\"For which you sent her a handwritten thank-you note,\" I said absently. Aunt Judith had been glaring because we were boorish and unmannered. Was that why the Altairi looked so disapproving, because they were waiting for the equivalent of a handwritten thank-you note from us?\n\nIf that was the case, we were doomed. Rules of etiquette are notoriously illogical and culture-specific, and there was no intergalactic Emily Post for me to consult. And I had, oh, God, less than two hours till liftoff.\n\n\"Tell me exactly what she said that day she called you,\" I said, unwilling to give up the idea that she was somehow the key.\n\n\"It was eight years ago\u2014\"\n\n\"I know. Try to remember.\"\n\n\"Okay\u2026there was a lot of stuff about gloves and how I shouldn't wear white shoes after Labor Day and how I shouldn't cross my legs. 'Well-bred young ladies sit with their ankles crossed.' \"\n\nHad the Altairi's sitting down in the mall been an etiquette lesson in the proper way to sit? It seemed unlikely, but so did Aunt Judith's refusal to speak to people because of the color of their shoes on certain calendar dates.\n\n\"\u2026and she said if I got married, I needed to send out engraved invitations,\" Tracy said. \"Which I did. I think that's why she gave us the fish slice.\"\n\n\"I don't care about the fish slice. What did she say about your thank-you note?\"\n\n\"She said, 'Well, it's about time, Tracy. I'd nearly given up hope of anyone in your family showing any signs of civilized behavior.' \"\n\nCivilized behavior. That was it. The Altairi, like Aunt Judith sitting in our living room glaring, had been waiting for a sign that we were civilized. And singing\u2014correction, group singing\u2014was that sign. But was it an arbitrary rule of etiquette, like white shoes and engraved invitations, or was it a symbol of something else? I thought of Calvin telling his chattering seventh-graders to line up, and the milling, giggling, chaotic muddle of girls coming together in an organized, beautifully behaved, civilized line.\n\nComing together. That was the civilized behavior the Altairi had been waiting for a sign of. And they'd seen precious little of it in the nine months they'd been here: the disorganized commission with members quitting and those who were left not listening to anyone; that awful rehearsal where the basses couldn't get the entrance right to save them; the harried shoppers in the mall, dragging their screaming children after them. The piped-in choir singing \"While Shepherds Watched\" might have been the first indication they'd seen\u2014correction, heard\u2014that we were capable of getting along with each other at all.\n\nNo wonder they'd sat down right there in the middle of the mall. They must have thought, like Aunt Judith, \"Well, it's about time!\" But then why hadn't they done the equivalent of calling us and asking us to go see Les Mis?\n\nMaybe they hadn't been sure that what they'd seen\u2014correction, heard\u2014was what they thought it was. They'd never seen people sing, except for Calvin and those pathetic basses. They'd seen no signs we were capable of singing beautifully in harmony.\n\nBut \"While Shepherds Watched\" had convinced them it might be possible, which was why they'd followed us around and why they'd sat and slept and gone astray whenever they heard more than one voice, hoping we'd get the hint, waiting for further proof.\n\nIn which case we should be in the auditorium, listening to the Sing, instead of in this soundproof room. Especially since the fact that their ship was getting ready to take off indicated they'd given up and decided they were mistaken after all. \"Come on,\" I said to the Altairi, and stood up. \"I need to show you something.\" I shoved the table away from the door, and opened it.\n\nOn Calvin. \"Oh, good, you're here,\" I said. \"I\u2014 Why aren't you in directing?\"\n\n\"I announced an intermission so I could tell you something. I think I've got it, the thing the Altairi have been responding to,\" he said, grabbing me by the arms, \"the reason they reacted to Christmas songs. I thought of it while I was directing 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.' What do nearly all Christmas songs have in them?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" I said. \"Chestnuts? Santa Claus? Bells?\"\n\n\"Close,\" he said. \"Choirs.\"\n\nChoirs? \"We already knew they responded to songs sung by choirs,\" I said, confused.\n\n\"Not just to songs sung by choirs. Songs about choirs. Christmas carols being sung by the choir, angel choirs, children's choirs, wassailers, carolers, 'strike the harp and join the chorus,' \" he said. \"The angels in 'Angels We Have Heard on High' are 'sweetly singing o'er the plains.' In 'It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,' all the world gives back the song they sing. They're all about singing,\" he said excitedly. \" 'That glorious song of old,' 'whom angels greet with anthems sweet.' Look,\" he flipped through the pages of his music, pointing out phrases, \" 'oh, hear the angel voices,' 'as men of old have sung,' 'whom shepherds guard and angels sing,' 'let men their songs employ.' There are references to singing in songs by Randy Travis, the Peanuts kids, Paul McCartney, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It wasn't just that 'While Shepherds Watched' was sung by a choir. It was that it was a song about choirs singing. And not just singing, but what they're singing.\" He thrust the song in front of me, pointing to the last verse. \" 'Good will, henceforth from heaven to men.' That's what they've been trying to communicate to us.\"\n\nI shook my head. \"It's what they've been waiting for us to communicate to them. Just like Aunt Judith.\"\n\n\"Aunt Judith?\"\n\n\"I'll explain later. Right now we've got to prove we're civilized before the Altairi leave.\"\n\n\"And how do we do that?\"\n\n\"We sing to them, or rather, the AllCity Holiday Ecumenical Sing does.\"\n\n\"What do we sing?\"\n\nI wasn't sure it mattered. I was pretty certain what they were looking for was proof we could cooperate and work together in harmony, and in that case, \"Mele Kalikimaka\" would work as well as \"The Peace Carol.\" But it wouldn't hurt to make things as clear to them as we could. And it would be nice if it was also something that Reverend Thresher couldn't use as ammunition for his Galaxywide Christian Crusade.\n\n\"We need to sing something that will convince the Altairi we're a civilized species,\" I said, \"something that conveys good will and peace. Especially peace. And not religion, if that's possible.\"\n\n\"How much time have we got to write it?\" Calvin asked. \"And we'll have to get copies made\u2014\"\n\nMy cell phone rang. The screen showed it was Dr. Morthman. \"Hang on,\" I said, hitting talk. \"I should be able to tell you in a second. Hello?\"\n\n\"Where are you?\" Dr. Morthman shouted. \"The ship's beginning its final ignition cycle.\"\n\nI whirled around to make sure the Altairi were still there. They were, thank goodness, and still glaring. \"How long does the final cycle take?\" I asked.\n\n\"They don't know,\" Dr. Morthman said, \"ten minutes at the outside. If you don't get here immediately\u2014\"\n\nI hung up.\n\n\"Well?\" Calvin said. \"How much time have we got?\"\n\n\"None,\" I said.\n\n\"Then we'll have to use something we've already got,\" he said, and began riffling through his sheaf of music, \"and something people know the harmony to. Civilized\u2026civilized\u2026I think\u2026\" He found what he was looking for and scanned it. \"\u2026Yeah, if I change a couple of words, this should do the trick. Do you think the Altairi understand Latin?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't put it past them.\"\n\n\"Then we'll just do the first two lines. Wait five minutes\u2014\"\n\n\"Five minutes?\"\n\n\"\u2014so I can brief everybody on the changes, and then bring the Altairi in.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" I said, and he took off at a run for the auditorium.\n\nThere was an expectant buzz in the audience when we came through the double doors, and the ranks of choirs arrayed around the stage, a sea of maroon and gold and green and purple robes, began whispering to each other behind their music.\n\nCalvin had apparently just finished his briefing. Some of the choirs and the audience were busily scribbling notes on their music, and passing pencils, and asking each other questions. The orchestra, on one side of the stage, was warming up in a jumbled cacophony of screeches and hoots and blats.\n\nOn the other side, the sopranos of the Mile-High Women's Chorus were apparently filling the altos in on my interrupting rehearsal the other night, because they all turned to glare at me. \"I think it's ridiculous that we can't sing the words we know,\" an elderly woman wearing gloves and a hat with a veil said to her companion.\n\nHer companion nodded. \"If you ask me, they're carrying this entire ecumenical thing too far. I mean, humans are one thing, but aliens!\"\n\nThere's no way this is going to work, I thought, looking over at Calvin's seventh-graders, who were leaning over the backs of each other's chairs, giggling and chewing gum. Belinda was text-messaging someone on her cell phone, and Kaneesha was listening to her iPod. Chelsea had her hand up and was calling, \"Mr. Ledbetter! Mr. Ledbetter, Shelby took my music.\"\n\nOver in the orchestra, the percussionist was practicing crashing his cymbals. It's hopeless, I thought, looking over at the glaring Altairi. There's no way we can convince them we're sentient, let alone civilized.\n\nMy cell phone rang. And that's it, the straw that's going to break the camel's back, I thought, fumbling for it. Now everyone, even the musician with the cymbals, was glaring at me. \"How rude!\" the elderly woman in the white gloves said.\n\n\"The ship's started its countdown!\" Dr. Morthman bellowed in my ear.\n\nI hit \"end\" and turned the phone off. \"Hurry,\" I mouthed to Calvin, and he nodded and stepped up on the dais.\n\nHe tapped the music stand with his baton, and the entire auditorium fell silent. \"Adeste Fideles,\" he said, and everyone opened their music.\n\n\"Adeste Fideles?\" What's he doing? I thought. \"O come, all ye faithful\" isn't what we need. I ran mentally through the lyrics: \"Come ye to Bethlehem\u2026come let us adore him\u2026\" No, no, not religious!\n\nBut it was too late. Calvin had already spread his hands out, palms up, and lifted them, and everyone was getting to their feet. He nodded to the orchestra, and they began playing the introduction to \"Adeste Fideles.\"\n\nI turned to look at the Altairi. They were glaring even more condemningly than usual. I moved between them and the doors.\n\nThe symphony was reaching the end of the introduction. Calvin glanced at me. I smiled, I hoped encouragingly, and held up crossed fingers. He nodded and then raised his baton again and brought it down.\n\n\"Have you ever been to a Sing?\" Calvin had said. \"It's pretty impressive.\" There had to be nearly four thousand people in that auditorium, all of them singing in perfect harmony, and if they'd been singing \"The Chipmunks Song,\" it would still have been awe-inspiring. But the words they were singing couldn't have been more perfect if Calvin and I had written them to order. \" 'Sing, earthly choirs,' \" they trilled, \" 'sing in exultation. Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above,' \" and the Altairi glide-waddled up the aisle to the stage and sat down at Calvin's feet.\n\nI ducked outside to the hall and called Dr. Morthman. \"What's happening with the ship?\" I asked him.\n\n\"Where are you?\" he demanded. \"I thought you said you were on your way over here.\"\n\n\"There's a lot of traffic,\" I said. \"What's the ship doing?\"\n\n\"It's aborted its ignition sequence and shut down its lights,\" he said.\n\nGood, I thought. That means what we're doing is working.\n\n\"It's just sitting there on the ground.\"\n\n\"How appropriate,\" I murmured.\n\n\"What do you mean by that?\" he said accusingly. \"Spectrum analysis shows the Altairi aren't in their ship. You've got them, haven't you? Where are you and what have you done to them? If\u2014\"\n\nI hung up, switched off my phone, and went back inside. They'd finished \"Adeste Fideles\" and were singing \"Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.\" The Altairi were still sitting at Calvin's feet. \" '\u2026Reconciled,' \" the assemblage sang, \" 'Joyful, all ye nations rise,' \" and the Altairi rose.\n\nAnd rose, till they were a good two feet above the aisle. There was a collective gasp, and everyone stopped singing and stared at them floating there.\n\nNo, don't stop, I thought, and hurried forward, but Calvin had it under control. He turned a glare worthy of Aunt Judith on his seventh-grade girls, and they swallowed hard and started singing again, and after a moment everyone else recovered themselves and joined in to finish the verse.\n\nWhen the song ended, Calvin turned and mouthed at me, \"What do I do next?\"\n\n\"Keep singing,\" I mouthed back.\n\n\"Singing what?\"\n\nI shrugged him an \"I don't know,\" and mouthed, \"What about this?\" and pointed at the fourth song on the program.\n\nHe grinned, turned back to his choirs, and announced, \"We will now sing, 'There's a Song in the Air.' \"\n\nThere was a rustle of pages, and they began singing. I eyed the Altairi warily, looking for a lessening in elevation, but they continued to hover, and when the choir reached, \" 'and the beautiful sing,' \" it seemed to me their glares became slightly less fierce.\n\n\" 'And that song from afar has swept over the earth,' \" the assemblage sang, and the auditorium doors burst open and Dr. Morthman, Reverend Thresher, and dozens of FBI agents and police and reporters and cameramen came rushing in. \"Stay where you are,\" one of the FBI agents shouted.\n\n\"Blasphemous!\" Reverend Thresher roared. \"Look at this! Witches, homosexuals, liberals\u2014!\"\n\n\"Arrest that young woman,\" Dr. Morthman said, pointing at me, \"and the young man directing\u2014\" He stopped and gaped at the Altairi hovering above the stage. Flashes began to go off, reporters started talking into microphones, and Reverend Thresher positioned himself squarely in front of one of the cameras and clasped his hands. \"Oh, Lord,\" he shouted, \"drive Satan's demons out of the Altairi!\"\n\n\"No!\" I shouted to Calvin's seventh-graders, \"don't stop singing,\" but they already had. I looked desperately at Calvin. \"Keep directing!\" I said, but the police were already moving forward to handcuff him, stepping cautiously around the Altairi, who were drifting earthward like slowly leaking balloons.\n\n\"And teach these sinners here the error of their ways,\" Reverend Thresher was intoning.\n\n\"You can't do this, Dr. Morthman,\" I said desperately. \"The Altairi\u2014\"\n\nHe grabbed my arm and dragged me to one of the police officers. \"I want both of them charged with kidnapping,\" he said, \"and I want her charged with conspiracy. She's responsible for this entire\u2014\" He stopped and stared past me.\n\nI turned around. The Altairi were standing directly behind me, glaring. The police officer, who'd been about to clamp a pair of handcuffs on me, let go of my wrist and backed away, and so did the reporters and the FBI.\n\n\"Your excellencies,\" Dr. Morthman said, taking several steps back, \"I want you to know the commission had nothing to do with this. We knew nothing about it. It's entirely this young woman's fault. She\u2026\"\n\n\"We acknowledge your greetings,\" the Altairus in the center said, bowing to me, \"and greet you in return.\"\n\nA murmur of surprise rumbled through the auditorium, and Dr. Morthman stammered, \"Y-you speak English?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" I said, and bowed to the Altairi. \"It's nice to finally be able to communicate with you.\"\n\n\"We welcome you into the company of citizens of the heavens,\" the one on the end said, \"and reciprocate your offers of good will, peace on earth, and chestnuts.\"\n\n\"We assure you that we come bearing gifts as well,\" the Altairus on the other end said.\n\n\"It's a miracle!\" Reverend Thresher shouted. \"The Lord has healed them! He has unlocked their lips!\" He dropped to his knees and began to pray. \"Oh, Lord, we know it is our prayers which have brought this miracle about\u2014\"\n\nDr. Morthman bounded forward. \"Your excellencies, allow me to be the first to welcome you to our humble planet,\" he said, extending his hand. \"On behalf of the government of the\u2014\"\n\nThe Altairi ignored him. \"We had begun to think we had erred in our assessment of your world,\" the one who'd spoken before said to me, and the one next to her? him? said, \"We doubted your species was fully sentient.\"\n\n\"I know,\" I said. \"I doubt it myself sometimes.\"\n\n\"We also doubted you understood the concept of accord,\" the one on the other end said, and turned and glared pointedly at Calvin's wrists.\n\n\"I think you'd better unhandcuff Mr. Ledbetter,\" I said to Dr. Morthman.\n\n\"Of course, of course,\" he said, motioning to the police officer. \"Explain to them it was all a little misunderstanding,\" he whispered to me, and the Altairi turned to glare at him and then at the police officer.\n\nWhen Calvin was out of the handcuffs, the one on the end said, \"As the men of old, we are with gladness to be proved wrong.\"\n\nSo are we, I thought. \"We're delighted to welcome you to our planet,\" I said.\n\n\"Now if you'll accompany me back to DU,\" Dr. Morthman cut in, \"we'll arrange for you to go to Washington to meet with the President and\u2014\"\n\nThe Altairi began to glare again. Oh, no, I thought, and looked frantically at Calvin. \"We have not yet finished greeting the delegation, Dr. Morthman,\" Calvin said. He turned to the Altairi. \"We would like to sing you the rest of our greeting songs.\"\n\n\"We wish to hear them,\" the Altairus in the center said, and the six of them immediately turned, walked back up the aisle, and sat down.\n\n\"I think it would be a good idea if you sat down, too,\" I said to Dr. Morthman and the FBI agents.\n\n\"Can some of you share your music with them?\" Calvin said to the people in the last row. \"And help them find the right place?\"\n\n\"I have no intention of singing with witches and homo\u2014\" Reverend Thresher began indignantly, and the Altairi all turned to glare at him. He sat down, and an elderly man in a yarmulke handed him his music.\n\n\"What do we do about the words to the 'Hallelujah Chorus'?\" Calvin whispered to me, and the Altairi stood up and walked back down the aisle to us.\n\n\"There is no need to alter your joyful songs. We wish to hear them with the native words,\" the one in the center said.\n\n\"We have a great interest in your planet's myths and superstitions,\" the one on the end said, \"the child in the manger, the lighting of the Kwanzaa menorah, the bringing of toys and teeth to children. We are eager to learn more.\"\n\n\"We have many questions,\" the next one in line said. \"If the child was born in a desert land, then how can King Herod have taken the children on a sleigh ride?\"\n\n\"Sleigh ride?\" Dr. Morthman said, and Calvin looked inquiringly at me.\n\n\" 'All children young to sleigh,' \" I whispered.\n\n\"Also, if holly is jolly, then why does it bark?\" the one on the other end said. \"And, Mr. Ledbetter, is Ms. Yates your girlfriend?\"\n\n\"There will be time for questions, negotiations, and gifts when the greetings have been completed,\" the second Altairus on the left, the one who hadn't said anything up till then, said, and I realized he must be the leader. Or the choir director, I thought. When he spoke, the Altairi instantly formed themselves into pairs, walked back up the aisle, and sat down.\n\nI picked up Calvin's baton and handed it to him. \"What do you think we should sing first?\" he asked me.\n\n\"All I want for Christmas is you,\" I said.\n\n\"Really? I was thinking maybe we should start with 'Angels We Have Heard on High,' or\u2014\"\n\n\"That wasn't a song title,\" I said.\n\n\"Oh,\" he said, and turned to the Altairi. \"The answer to your question is yes.\"\n\n\"These are tidings of great joy,\" the one in the center said.\n\n\"There shall be many mistletoeings,\" the one on the end added.\n\nThe second Altairus on the left glared at them. \"I think we'd better sing,\" I said, and squeezed into the first row, between Reverend McIntyre and an African American woman in a turban and dashiki.\n\nCalvin stepped onto the podium. \"The Hallelujah Chorus,\" Calvin said, and there was a shuffling of pages as people found their music. The woman next to me held out her music so we could share and whispered, \"It's considered proper etiquette to stand for this. In honor of King George the Third. He's supposed to have stood up the first time he heard it.\"\n\n\"Actually,\" Reverend McIntyre whispered to me, \"he may merely have been startled out of a sound sleep, but rising out of respect and admiration is still an appropriate response.\"\n\nI nodded. Calvin raised his baton, and the entire auditorium, except for the Altairi, rose as one and began to sing. And if I'd thought \"Adeste Fideles\" sounded wonderful, \"The Hallelujah Chorus\" was absolutely breathtaking, and suddenly all those lyrics about glorious songs of old and anthems sweet and repeating the sounding joy made sense. And the whole world give back the song, I thought, which now the angels sing.\n\nAnd apparently the Altairi were as overwhelmed by the music as I was. After the fifth \"Hal-leh-eh-lu-jah!\" they rose into the air like they'd done before. And rose. And rose, till they floated giddily just below the high domed ceiling.\n\nI knew just how they felt.\n\nIt was definitely a communications breakthrough. The Altairi haven't stopped talking since the AllCity Sing, though we're not actually much further along than we were before. They're much better at asking questions than answering them. They did finally tell us where they came from\u2014the star Alsafi in the constellation Draco. But since the meaning of Altair is \"the flying one\" (and Alsafi means \"cooking tripod\"), everyone still calls them the Altairi.\n\nThey also told us why they'd turned up at Calvin's apartment and kept following me (\"We glimpsed interesting possibilities of accord between you and Mr. Ledbetter\") and explained, more or less, how their spaceship works, which the Air Force has found extremely interesting. But we still don't know why they came here. Or what they want. The only thing they've told us specifically was that they wanted to have Dr. Morthman and Reverend Thresher removed from the commission and to have Dr. Wakamura put in charge. It turns out they like being squirted, at least as much as they like anything we do. They still glare.\n\nSo does Aunt Judith. She called me the day after the AllCity Sing to tell me she'd seen me on CNN and thought I'd done a nice job saving the planet, but what on earth was I wearing? Didn't I know one was supposed to dress up for a concert? I told her everything that had happened was all thanks to her, and she glared at me (I could feel it, even over the phone) and hung up.\n\nBut she must not be too mad. When she heard I was engaged, she called my sister Tracy and told her she expected to be invited to the wedding shower. My mother is cleaning like mad.\n\nI wonder if the Altairi will give us a fish slice. Or a birthday card with a dollar in it. Or faster-than-light travel."
            },
            {
                "title": "In Coppelius's Toyshop",
                "text": "So here I am, stuck in Coppelius's Toyshop, the last place I wanted to be. Especially at Christmas.\n\nThe place is jammed with bawling babies and women with shopping bags and people dressed up like teddy bears and Tinkerbell. The line for Santa Claus is so long, it goes clear out the door and all the way over to Madison Avenue, and the lines at the cash registers are even longer.\n\nThere are kids everywhere, running up and down the aisles and up and down the escalators, screaming their heads off, and crowding around Rapunzel's tower, gawking up at the row of little windows. One of the windows opens, and inside it there's a ballerina. She twirls around, and the little window closes, and another one opens. This one has a mouse in it. A black cat rears up behind it with its mouth open and the mouse leans out the window and squeaks, \"Help, help!\" The kids point and laugh.\n\nAnd over the whole thing the Coppelius's Toyshop theme song plays, for the thousandth time:\n\n\u2003\"Come to Dr. Coppelius's\n\n\u2003Where all is bright and warm,\n\n\u2003And there's no fear\n\n\u2003For I am here\n\n\u2003To keep you safe from harm.\"\n\nI am not supposed to be here. I am supposed to be at a Knicks game. I had a date to take Janine to see them play the Celtics this afternoon, and instead, here I am, stuck in a stupid toy store, because of a kid I didn't even know she had when I asked her out.\n\nWomen always make this big deal about men being liars and not telling them you're married, but what about them? They talk about honesty being the most important thing in a \"relationship,\" which is their favorite word, and they let you take them out and spend a lot of money on them and when they finally let you talk them into going up to their apartment, they trot out these three little brats in pajamas and expect you to take them to the zoo.\n\nThis has happened to me about ten times, so before I asked Janine out, I asked Beverly, who works in Accounting with her, whether she lived alone. Beverly, who didn't tell me about her kid till we'd been going out over a month and who was really bent out of shape when I dumped her, said, yeah, Janine lived alone and she'd only been divorced about a year and was very \"vulnerable\" and the last thing she needed in her life was a jerk like me.\n\nShe must've given Janine the same line because I had to really turn on the old charm to get her to even talk to me and had to ask her out about fifteen times before she finally said yes.\n\nSo, anyway, the Knicks game is our third date. Bernard King is playing and I figure after the game I'm gonna get lucky, so I'm feeling pretty good, and I knock on her door, and this little kid answers it and says, \"My mom's not ready.\"\n\nI should've turned around right then and walked out. I could've scalped Janine's ticket for fifty bucks, but she's already coming to the door, and she's wiping her eyes with a Kleenex and telling me to come in, this is Billy, she's so sorry she can't go to the game, this isn't her weekend to have the kid, but her ex-husband made her switch, and she's been trying to call me, but I'd already left.\n\nI'm still standing in the hall. \"You can't get tickets to Knicks games at the last minute,\" I say. \"Do you know what scalpers charge?\" She says, no, no, she doesn't expect me to get an extra ticket, and I breathe a sigh of relief, which I shouldn't have, because then she says she just got a call, her mom's in the hospital, she's had a heart attack, and she's got to go to Queens right away and see her, and she tried to get her ex on the phone but he's not there.\n\n\"You better not expect me to take the kid to the Knicks game,\" I say, and she says, no, she doesn't, she's already called Beverly to watch him, and all she wants me to do is take the kid to meet her on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-eighth.\n\n\"I wouldn't ask you to do this if I had anybody else I could ask, but they said I needed to come\"\u2014she starts to cry again\u2014\"right\u2026away.\"\n\nThe whole time she's telling me this, she's been putting on her coat and putting the kid's coat on him and locking the door. \"I'll say hi to Grandma for you,\" she says to the kid. She looks at me, her eyes all teary. \"Beverly said she'll be there at noon. Be a good boy,\" she says to the kid, and is down the stairs and out the door before I can tell her no way.\n\nSo I'm stuck with taking this kid up to Fifth Avenue and Fifty-eighth, which is the corner Coppelius's Toyshop is on. Coppelius's is the biggest toy store in New York. It's got fancy red-and-gold doors, and two guys dressed up like toy soldiers standing on both sides of them, saluting people when they walk in, and a chick dressed like Little Red Riding Hood with a red cape and a basket, passing out candy canes to everybody who walks by.\n\nThere's a whole mob of people and kids looking at the windows, which they decorate every Christmas with scenes from fairy tales. You know the kind, with Goldilocks eating a bowl of porridge, lifting a spoon to her mouth over and over, and stuffed bears that turn their heads and blink their eyes. It looks like half of New York is there, looking in the windows. Except for Beverly.\n\nI look at my watch. It's noon, and Beverly better get here soon or the kid can wait by himself. The kid sees the windows and runs over to them. \"Come back here!\" I yell, and grab him by the arm and yank him away from the windows. \"Get over here!\" I drag him over to the curb. \"Now stand there.\"\n\nThe kid is crying and wiping his nose, just like Janine. \"Aunt Beverly said she was going to take me to look at the windows,\" he says.\n\n\"Well, then, Aunt Beverly can,\" I say, \"when she finally gets here. Which better be pretty damn soon. I don't have all day to wait around.\"\n\n\"I'm cold,\" he says.\n\n\"Then zip up your coat,\" I say, and I zip up mine and stick my hands in my pockets. There's one of these real cold New York winds whipping around the corner, and it's starting to snow. I look at my watch. It's a quarter past twelve.\n\n\"I hafta go to the bathroom,\" he says.\n\nI tell him to shut up, that he's not going anywhere, and he starts in crying again.\n\n\"And quit crying or I'll give you something to cry about,\" I say.\n\nRight then Red Riding Hood comes over and hands the kid a candy cane. \"What's the matter, honey?\" she says.\n\nThe kid wipes his nose on his sleeve. \"I'm cold and I hafta go to the bathroom,\" he says, and she says, \"You just come with me to Coppelius's,\" and takes hold of his hand and takes him into the store before I can stop her.\n\n\"Hey!\" I say, and go after them, but the toy-soldier guys are already shutting the doors behind them, and they go through their whole stiff-armed saluting routine before they open them again and I can get in.\n\nWhen I finally do, I wish I hadn't. The place is a nightmare. There are about a million kids hollering and running around this huge room full of toys and people in costumes demonstrating things. A magician is juggling glow-in-the-dark balls and Raggedy Ann is passing out licorice sticks and a green-faced witch is buzzing the customers with a plane on a string. Around the edges of the room, trains are running on tracks built into the walls, hooting and whistling and blowing steam.\n\nIn the middle of this mess is a round purple tower, at least two stories high. There's a window at the very top and a mechanical Rapunzel is leaning out of it, combing her blond hair, which hangs all the way down to the bottom of the tower. Underneath Rapunzel's window there's a row of little windows that open and close, one after the other, and different things poke out, a baby doll and a white rabbit and a spaceship. All of them do something when their window opens. The doll says \"Ma-ma,\" the rabbit pulls out a pocket watch and looks at it, shaking his head, the spaceship blasts off.\n\nA whole bunch of kids are standing around the tower, but Janine's kid isn't one of them, and I don't see him or Red Riding Hood anywhere. Along the back wall there's a bunch of escalators leading up and down to the other floors, but I don't see the kid on any of them and I don't see any signs that say \"Bathrooms,\" and the lines for the cash registers are too long to ask one of the clerks.\n\nA chick dressed up like Cinderella is standing in the middle of the aisle, winding up green toy frogs and setting them down on the floor to hop all over and get in everybody's way.\n\n\"Where are your toilets?\" I say, but she doesn't hear me, and no wonder. Screaming kids and hooting trains and toy guns that go rat-a-tat-tat, and over the whole thing a singsongy tune is playing full blast:\n\n\u2003\"I am Dr. Coppelius.\n\n\u2003Welcome to my shop.\n\n\u2003Where we have toys\n\n\u2003For girls and boys,\n\n\u2003And the fun times never stop.\"\n\nIt's sung in a croaky old man's voice and after the second verse finishes, the first one starts in again, over and over and over.\n\n\"How do you stand that godawful noise?\" I shout to Cinderella, but she's talking to a little kid in a snowsuit and ignores me.\n\nI look around for somebody else I can ask and just then I catch sight of a red cape at the top of one of the escalators and take off after it.\n\nI'm about to step on, when an old guy dressed in a long red coat and a gray ponytail wig moves in front of me and blocks my way. \"Welcome to Coppelius's Toyshop,\" he says in a phony accent. \"I am Dr. Coppelius, the children's friend.\" He does this stupid bow. \"Here in Coppelius's, children are our first concern. How may I assist you?\"\n\n\"You can get the hell out of my way,\" I say, and shove past him and get on the escalator.\n\nThe red cape has disappeared by now, and the escalator's jammed with kids. Half of them are hanging over the moving handrail, looking at the stuffed animals along the sides, teddy bears and giraffes and a life-size black velvet panther. It's got a pink silk tongue and real-looking teeth with a price tag hanging from one of its fangs. \"One of a kind,\" the price tag says. Four thousand bucks.\n\nWhen I get to the top of the escalator, I can't see Janine's kid or Red Riding Hood anywhere, but there's a red-and-gold signpost with arrows pointing off in all directions that say \"To Hot Wheels Country\" and \"To Babyland\" and \"To the Teddy Bears' Picnic.\" One of them says \"To the Restrooms\" and points off to the left.\n\nI go in the direction the sign says, but the place is a maze, with aisles leading off in all directions and kids jamming every aisle. I go through fire engines and chemistry sets and end up in a big room full of Star Wars stuff, blasters and swords that light up and space fighters. But no signposts.\n\nI ask a gold-colored robot for directions, feeling like an idiot, and he says, \"Go down this aisle and turn left. That will bring you to Building Blocks. Turn left at the Tinker Toys and left again. The restrooms are right next to the Lego display.\"\n\nI go down the aisle and turn left, but it doesn't bring me to Building Blocks. It brings me to the doll department and then the stuffed animals, more giraffes and bunnies and elephants, and every size teddy bear you've ever seen.\n\nHolding on to one of them is a toddler bawling its head off. The kid's been eating candy, and the tears are running down into the chocolate for a nice sticky mess.\n\nIt's wailing, \"I'm lost,\" and as soon as it sees me, it lets go of the teddy bear and heads straight for me with its sticky hands. \"I can't find my mommy,\" it says.\n\nThe last thing I need is chocolate all over my pants. \"You shoulda stayed with your mommy, then,\" I say, \"instead of running off,\" and head back into the doll department, and old Coppelius must've been lying about the panther, because there, right in the middle of the Barbie dolls, is another one, staring at me with its yellow glass eyes.\n\nI head back through the dollhouses and end up in Tricycles, and this is getting me nowhere. I could wander around this place forever and never find Janine's kid. And it's already one o'clock. If I don't leave by one-thirty, I'll miss the start of the game. I'd leave right now, but Janine would be steamed and I'd lose any chance I had of getting her in the sack on one of those weekends when her ex has the kid.\n\nBut I'm not going to find him by wandering around like this. I need to go back down to the main room and wait for Red Riding Hood to bring him back.\n\nI find a down escalator in the sled department and get on it, but when I get off, it's not the main floor. I'm in Babyland with the baby buggies and yellow rubber ducks and more teddy bears.\n\nI must not have gone down far enough. \"Where's the escalator?\" I say to a chick dressed like Little Bo Peep. She's kootchy-cooing a baby, and I have to ask her again. \"Where's the down escalator?\"\n\nBo Peep looks up and frowns. \"Down?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I say, getting mad. \"Down. An escalator.\"\n\nStill nothing.\n\n\"I want to get the hell out of this place!\"\n\nShe makes a move toward the baby, like she's going to cover its ears or something, and says, \"Go down past the playpens and turn left. It's at the end of Riding Toys.\"\n\nI do what she says, but when I get there, it goes up, not down. I decide to take it anyway and go back up to the tricycles and find the right escalator myself, but Babyland must be in the basement because at the top is the main room.\n\nThe place is even crazier and more crowded than it was before. A clown's demonstrating bright orange yo-yos, Humpty Dumpty's winding up toy dinosaurs, and there are so many kids and baby buggies and shopping bags, it takes me fifteen minutes to make it over to Rapunzel's tower.\n\nThere's no sign of Red Riding Hood and the kid or Beverly, but I can see the door from here and all the escalators. Dr. Coppelius is standing over at the foot of them, bowing to people and passing out big red suckers.\n\nThe kids around the tower shout and point, and I look up. A puppet with a hooked nose and a pointy hat is leaning out of one of the windows. He's holding a stick between his puppet hands, and he waves it around. The kids laugh.\n\nThe window shuts and another one opens. The ballerina twirls. The black cat, with teeth as sharp as a panther's, rears up behind the mouse, and the mouse squeaks, \"Help, help!\" Rapunzel combs her hair. And over it all, in time to the squeaking and the twirling and the combing, the song plays over and over:\n\n\"\u2026For girls and boys,\n\nAnd the fun times never stop.\"\n\nAnd after I've been standing there five minutes, the whole thing is stuck in my head.\n\nI look at my watch. It's one-fifteen. How the hell long does it take to take a kid to the bathroom?\n\nThe first verse finishes and the second one starts in:\n\n\u2003\"Come to Dr. Coppelius's\n\n\u2003Where all is bright and warm\u2026\"\n\nI'm going to go crazy if I have to stand here and listen to this gas much longer, and where the hell is Beverly?\n\nI look at my watch again. It's one-thirty. I'm going to give it five more minutes and then take one more look around, and then I'm going to the game, kid or no kid.\n\nSomebody yanks on my coat. \"Well, it's about time,\" I say. \"Where the hell have you been?\" I look down.\n\nIt's a kid with dishwater-blond hair and glasses. \"When will he come and get her?\" she says.\n\n\"Get who?\" I say.\n\nShe pushes the glasses up on her nose. \"Rapunzel in her tower. When will the prince come and get her down?\"\n\nI stoop down and get real close. \"Never,\" I say.\n\nThe kid blinks at me through her glasses. \"Never?\" she says.\n\n\"He got sick of waiting around for her,\" I say. \"He waited and waited, and finally he got fed up and went off and left her there.\"\n\n\"All alone?\" she squeaks, just like the mouse.\n\n\"All alone. Forever and ever.\"\n\n\"Doesn't she ever get out of the tower?\"\n\n\"She's not going anywhere, and it serves her right. It's her own fault.\"\n\nThe kid backs away and looks like she's going to bawl, but she doesn't. She just stares at me through her glasses and then looks back up at the tower.\n\nThe rabbit checks his watch. A dragon breathes orange tinfoil flames. The baby doll goes, \"Ma-ma.\" The singsongy tune bellows, \"To keep you safe from harm,\" and starts over, \"I am Dr. Coppelius,\" and I shove my way over to where he's standing at the foot of the escalators.\n\n\"How do I find a lost kid?\" I say to Dr. Coppelius.\n\n\"Up this escalator to Painter's Corner,\" he says in his phony accent. \"Turn right at the modeling-clay display and go all the way to the end.\" He puts his hand on my arm. \"And don't worry. He's perfectly safe. No child ever comes to harm in Coppelius's Toyshop.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well, I know one who's going to when I finally find him,\" I say, and get on the escalator.\n\nI thought it was the same one I went up before, but it's not. There's no panther, and no signpost at the top, but I can see paints and crayons down one of the halls, and I head that way. Halfway there, the aisle's blocked with kids and mothers pushing strollers.\n\n\"What the hell's this?\" I say to a guy dressed up like an elf.\n\n\"It's the line for Santa Claus,\" he says. \"You'll have to go around. Halfway down that aisle to the basketballs and turn left.\"\n\nSo I go down, but there aren't any basketballs, there's a big Atari sign and a bunch of kids playing Pac-Man, and when I turn left, I run into a room full of toy tanks and bazookas. I go back and turn left and run smack into the Santa Claus line again.\n\nI look at my watch. It's a quarter past two. The hell with this. I've already missed the start of the game, and I'm not going to miss the rest of it. Beverly can try and find the kid, if and when she ever gets here. I'm leaving.\n\nI squeeze through the line to the nearest escalator and take it down, but I must have gotten up on the third floor somehow, because here's the Star Wars stuff. I find an escalator and go down it, but when I get to the bottom, I'm back in Babyland and now I have to take the escalator up. But at least I know where it is. I go down past the playpens and over to Riding Toys, and sure enough, there's the escalator. I start to get on it.\n\nThe panther is standing at the bottom of the escalator, the price tag dangling from his sharp teeth.\n\nI change my mind and go back through the riding toys and turn left, and now I'm back in Dolls, which can't be right. I backtrack to the playpens, but now I can't find them, either. I'm in Puzzles and Games.\n\nI look around for somebody to ask, but there aren't any clerks or Mother Gooses around, and no kids, either. They must all be in line to see Santa Claus. I decide to go back to the doll department and get my bearings, and I go up the jigsaw puzzle aisle, but I can't seem to find a way out, and I am getting kind of worried when I see Dr. Coppelius.\n\nHe walks past the Candyland display and into a door in the wall between Jeopardy! and Sorry! and I catch a glimpse of gray walls and metal stairs. I figure it must be an employee stairway.\n\nI wait a few minutes so the clown won't see me and then open the door. It's an employee stairway, all right. There are stacks of boxes and wooden crates piled against the wall, and on the stairs there's a big sign headed \"Store Policy.\" I look up the metal stairway, and it has to lead up to the main floor because I can hear the sound of the song jangling far above:\n\n\"\u2026For girls and boys,\n\nAnd the fun times never stop.\"\n\nI shut the door behind me, and start up the stairs. It's dark with the door shut, and it gets darker as I climb, and narrower, but the song is getting steadily louder. I keep climbing, wondering what kind of stairway this is. It can't be for bringing up stock because it keeps making all these turns and when I decide I'd better turn around and go back down, somebody's locked the door at the bottom, so I have to keep climbing up, and it keeps getting narrower and narrower and darker and darker, till I can feel the walls on both sides and the last few steps I practically have to squeeze through, but I can see the door up ahead, there's light all around the edges, and the song is getting really loud.\n\n\u2003\"Come to Dr. Coppelius's\n\n\u2003Where all is bright and warm\u2026\"\n\nI squeeze up the last few steps and open the door, only it isn't a door. It's one of the little windows the mouse and the ballerina and the white rabbit come out of, and I have somehow gotten inside of Rapunzel's tower. This must be the stairs they use to come fix the mechanical toys when they break down.\n\nKids are looking up, and when I open the window, they point and laugh like I was one of the toys. I shut the window and squeeze back down the stairs. I break a piece of wood off one of the crates on the stairs to use to pry the door open, but I must have made a wrong turn somewhere, because I end up back in the same place. I open the door and yell, \"Hey! Get me out of here!\" but nobody pays any attention.\n\nI look around, trying to spot Red Riding Hood or the robot or Dr. Coppelius to signal them to come help me, and I see Beverly walking to the front door. She's got Janine's kid, and he is wiping his nose on his sleeve and clutching a red sucker. Beverly squats down and wipes his eyes with a Kleenex. She zips up his coat, and they start out the door, which a toy soldier is holding open for them.\n\n\"Wait!\" I shout, waving the piece of wood to get their attention, and the kids point and laugh.\n\nI am going to have to climb out the window and down the side of the tower, hanging on to Rapunzel's hair. I put my foot up over the windowsill. It's a tight squeeze to get my leg up onto the sill, but I manage to do it, and when I get out of here, I know a little boy with a sucker who's going to be really sorry. I hitch my leg over and start to hoist my other foot up over the sill.\n\nI look down. The panther is sitting at the foot of the tower, crouched and waiting. He licks his velvet chops with his pink silk tongue. His sharp teeth glitter.\n\nSo here I am, stuck in Coppelius's Toyshop, for what seems like forever, with kids screaming and running around and trains whistling and that stupid song playing over and over and over,\n\n\"I am Dr. Coppelius.\n\nWelcome to my shop\u2026\"\n\nI take out my watch and look at it. It says five to twelve. I've kind of lost track of how long I've been stuck here. It can't be more than two days, because on Monday Janine or Beverly or one of the chicks at work will notice I'm not there, and they'll figure out this is the last place anybody saw me. But it seems longer, and I am getting kind of worried.\n\nEvery time the window opens there seem to be different toys, fancy games you play on computers and cars that run by remote control and funny-looking roller skates with only one row of wheels. And the people demonstrating them and handing out candy canes are different, too, mermaids and turtles wearing headbands and a hunchback in a jester's hat and a purple cape.\n\nAnd the last time I looked out, a woman with dishwater-blond hair and glasses was standing under the tower, looking up at me. \"When I was little,\" she said to the guy she was with, \"I hated this place. I was so worried about Rapunzel.\"\n\nShe pushed her glasses up on her nose. \"I didn't know she was a toy. I thought she was real, and I thought the prince had just gone off and abandoned her. I thought he'd gotten fed up and gone off and left her there. All alone.\"\n\nShe said it to the guy, but she was looking straight at me. \"Forever and ever. And it served her right. It was her own fault.\"\n\nBut there are lots of people who wear glasses, and even if Janine's mother died and she had to go to the funeral, she'd still be back at work by Wednesday.\n\nI look over at the exit. The toy soldiers are still there, saluting, on either side of the door, and in between them Dr. Coppelius smiles and bows. Overhead the song screeches:\n\n\u2003\"And there's no fear\n\n\u2003For I am here\n\n\u2003To keep you safe from harm.\"\n\nAnd starts in on the first verse again.\n\nI take out my watch and look at it, and then I shut the window and go look for a way out, but I get confused on the stairs and make a wrong turn and end up in the same place. The little window opens, and I lean out. \"Help! Help!\" I shout.\n\nThe kids point and laugh."
            },
            {
                "title": "Adaptation",
                "text": "\u2003\"Heap on more wood!--the wind is chill;\n\n\u2003But let is whistle as it will.\n\n\u2003Wel'll keep our Christmas merry still.\"\n\n- Sir Walter Scott\n\nMarley was dead: to begin with.\n\nDickens's story A Christmas Carol, however, of which the aforementioned is the first sentence, is alive and well and available in any number of versions. In the books department of Harridge's, where I work, we have nineteen, including Mickey's Christmas Carol, The Muppet Christmas Carol, the CuddlyWuddlys' Christmas Carol, and one with photographs of dogs dressed as Scrooge and Mrs. Cratchit.\n\nWe also have an assortment of Christmas Carol cookbooks, Advent calendars, jigsaw puzzles, and an audiotape on which Captain Picard of the American television series Star Trek: The Next Generation takes all the parts.\n\nAll of these are, of course, adaptations, shortened and altered and otherwise bowdlerized. No one reads the original, though we carry it, in paperback. In the two years I've worked here, we've only sold a single copy, and that to myself. I bought it last year to read to my daughter, Gemma, when I had her for Christmas, but then I did not have time to do so. My ex-wife, Margaret, came to pick her up early for a pantomime she and Robert were taking her to, and we only got as far as Marley's ghost.\n\nGemma knows the story, though, in spite of never having read it, and the names of all the characters, as does everyone. They are so well-known, in fact, that at the beginning of the season this year Harridge's management had suggested the staff dress in costume as Scrooge and Tiny Tim, to increase profits and \"provide a seasonal atmosphere.\"\n\nThere was a general outcry at this, and the idea had been dropped. But on the morning of the twenty-second when I arrived at work, there was a figure in a floor-dragging black robe and a hood standing by the order desk with Mr. Voskins, who was smiling smugly.\n\n\"Good morning, Mr. Grey,\" Mr. Voskins said to me. \"This is your new assistant,\" and I half expected him to say, \"Mr. Black,\" but instead he said pleasedly, \"the Spirit of Christmas Future.\"\n\nIt is actually Christmas Yet to Come, but Mr. Voskins has not read the original, either.\n\n\"How do you do?\" I said, wondering if Mr. Voskins was going to demand that I wear a costume as well, and why he had hired someone just now. The books department had been shorthanded all of December.\n\n\"Mr. Grey will explain things to you,\" Mr. Voskins said to the spirit. \"Harridge's has been able to arrange for an author autographing,\" he said to me, which explained this hiring three days before Christmas. No doubt the book being autographed was yet another version of A Christmas Carol. \"We will be holding it the day after tomorrow.\"\n\n\"On Christmas Eve?\" I said. \"At what time? I'd arranged to leave early on Christmas Eve.\"\n\n\"It will depend on the author's schedule,\" Mr. Voskins said. \"He's an extremely busy man.\"\n\n\"My daughter's spending the evening with me,\" I explained. \"It's the only time I'll have her.\" They would be at Robert's parents' in Surrey for the rest of Christmas week.\n\n\"I'm discussing the details with the author this morning,\" he said. \"Oh, and your wife telephoned. She wants you to ring her back.\"\n\n\"Ex-wife,\" I corrected him, but he had already hurried off, leaving me with my new assistant.\n\n\"I'm Mr. Grey,\" I said, extending my hand.\n\nThe spirit silently extended a skinny hand for me to shake, and I remembered that the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come was mute, communicating solely by pointing.\n\n\"Have you worked in a books department before?\" I asked.\n\nHe shook his hooded head. I hoped he didn't plan to stay in character while waiting on the customers, or perhaps that was the idea, and he was here for \"seasonal atmosphere\" only.\n\n\"What am I supposed to call you?\" I said.\n\nHe extended a bony finger and pointed at the Wild West Christmas Carol, on the cover of which a black-hatted spirit stood, pointing at a tombstone with Scrooge's name on it.\n\n\"Spirit? Christmas? Yet to Come?\" I said, thinking that an \"atmospheric\" assistant was worse than none at all.\n\nBut I was wrong. He proved to be very efficient, learning the cash register and the credit-card procedure with ease, and waiting on customers promptly. They seemed delighted when he extended his bony finger from his black sleeve and pointed at the books they'd asked for. By ten o'clock I felt confident enough to leave him in charge of the department while I went to the employee lounge to telephone Margaret.\n\nThe line was engaged. I intended to ring her up again at a quarter past, but we had a surge of shoppers, and although Christmas Yet to Come was extremely helpful, I couldn't get away again till nearly eleven. When I dialed Margaret's flat, there was no answer.\n\nI was almost glad. I wanted to know the time of the autographing before I spoke to her. We had already had two fights over the \"visitation schedule,\" as Margaret calls it. I was originally to have had Gemma on Boxing Day as well as Christmas Eve, but Robert's parents had invited them up to Surrey for the entire week. We had compromised by my having Gemma on Christmas Eve and part of Christmas Day. Then last week Margaret had rung up to say Robert's parents especially wanted them there for church on Christmas morning as it was a family tradition that Robert read the Scripture. \"You can have her all Christmas Eve day,\" Margaret had said.\n\n\"I have to work.\"\n\n\"You could insist on having the day off,\" she'd said, letting her voice die away.\n\nIt is a trick she has of leaving a sentence unfinished but her meaning perfectly clear. She used it to excellent account during the divorce, claiming she had not said any of the things I accused her of, as in fact she had not, and though I only see her now when she brings Gemma, I still understand her perfectly.\n\n\"You could insist on having the day off,\" she meant now, \"if you really cared about Gemma.\" And there is no answer to that, no way to make her understand that Christmas Eve is not a day a shopclerk can insist on taking off, to explain to her that it is different from being an accountant. No way to explain why I gave up being an accountant.\n\nAnd no way to explain to her that I might need to change the schedule because of an autographing. I decided to wait to try again till I had spoken to Mr. Voskins.\n\nHe did not come back till after noon. \"The autographing will take place from eleven to one,\" he said, handing us a stack of red-and-green flyers. \"Hand these out to the customers,\" he said.\n\nI read the top flyer, relieved that the autographing wouldn't cause a problem with Gemma. \"A Special Signing of Sir Spencer Siddon's latest book,\" it read. \"Making Money Hand Over Fist.\"\n\n\"It's on the bestseller list,\" Mr. Voskins said happily. \"We were very lucky to get him. His secretary will be here at half past one to discuss the arrangements.\"\n\n\"We'll need more staff,\" I said. \"The two of us can't possibly run an autographing and wait on customers at the same time.\"\n\n\"I'll try to hire someone,\" he said vaguely. \"We'll discuss everything when Sir Spencer's secretary arrives.\"\n\n\"Shall I go to lunch now, then?\" I said, \"and let Mr\u2026.\" I pointed at the spirit, \"go second so I'll be back in time for the meeting?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"I want you both here. Go now.\" He waved vaguely in our direction.\n\n\"Which?\"\n\n\"Both of you. I'll get someone from the housewares department to cover your department. Be back by 1:00.\"\n\nWhen our replacement came, I told the spirit, \"You can go to lunch,\" stuck A Christmas Carol, which I'd been reading on my lunch and tea breaks, in my coat pocket, and went to telephone Margaret. The line was engaged again.\n\nWhen I came out of the lounge, the spirit was standing there, waiting for me, and I realized he wouldn't know where to go for lunch. Since Harridge's had closed its employee dining room to increase profits, employees had half an hour to get to, partake of, and return from lunch. \"I know of a place that's quick,\" I told him.\n\nHe nodded, and I led off through the crowded aisles, hoping he would keep up. I need not have had any fear\u2014he kept pace with me easily, in spite of not saying, as I did, \"Sorry,\" to dozens of shoppers blocking the way. By the time we'd reached the south door, he was even with me, and, before I could turn toward Cavendish Square, he'd moved ahead, his arm extended and his long, bony finger pointing toward Regent Street.\n\nAll the luncheon places in Regent Street are expensive and invariably crammed with shoppers resting their feet, and are a good ten minutes' walk away. We would have just enough time to walk there, not get waited on, and return empty-handed.\n\n\"I usually go to Wilson's,\" I said, \"it's closer,\" but he continued to point commandingly and we had no time for arguing, either. I followed him down the street, down a lane I hadn't known was there, and into a dismal-looking lunch counter called Mama Montoni's.\n\nIt wasn't crowded, at any rate, and the small tables looked comparatively clean, though the made sandwiches on top of the counter looked several days old.\n\nAt one of the tables was an enormous man with a full brown beard, and I saw why the spirit had brought me here. The man was dressed as the Spirit of Christmas Present, in a green robe edged with white fur, and a crown of holly.\n\n\"Come in! Come in!\" he said, even though we were already in, and my companion glided over to him.\n\nThe enormous man shook his head and said, \"No, he can't make it for lunch today,\" as if Christmas Yet to Come had spoken.\n\nI wondered who the \"he\" they referred to was. The Spirit of Christmas Past, perhaps?\n\n\"Neither of us got anything, I'm afraid,\" the enormous man said to Yet to Come, sounding discouraged. \"Most of the bank executives are on holiday. But the teller said the Adelphi is holding pantomime auditions this afternoon.\"\n\nI wondered if the pantomime was A Christmas Carol, or if they had previously been in a production and were now trying to find employment that fit the costumes. It was a good costume. The holly crown had the requisite icicles, and the green robe was belted with a rusted scabbard, just as in the original. His chest was not bare, though, and neither were his feet. He had compromised with the weather by wearing sandals with thick socks and had fastened the open robe across his massive chest with a large green button.\n\nI was still standing just inside the door. My companion turned and pointed at me, and the enormous man boomed out, \"Come in! and know me better, man!\" and beckoned me to the table.\n\nI was going to say that I needed to order first, but the old woman behind the counter\u2014Mama Montoni?\u2014had disappeared into the back. I went over to the table. \"How do you do?\" I said. \"I'm Edwin Grey.\"\n\n\"Delighted to meet you,\" the enormous man said heartily. \"Sit down, sit down. My friend tells me you work together.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" I sat down. \"At Harridge's.\"\n\n\"He tells me you are hiring additional staff in your department. Is that right?\"\n\n\"Possibly,\" I said, wondering how Sir Spencer Siddon would feel at being confronted with half the characters from A Christmas Carol. Would he think he was meant to be Scrooge? \"It would be only temporary, though. Just the three days till Christmas.\"\n\n\"Till Christmas,\" he said, and the old woman emerged from the back with a fistful of silverware and two plates of congealed-looking spaghetti.\n\n\"I'll have what they're having,\" I said, \"and a paper cup of tea to take with me.\"\n\nThe old woman, who was clearly related to Yet to Come, didn't answer or even acknowledge that I'd spoken to her, but she disappeared into the back again.\n\n\"I didn't know this caf\u00e9 was here,\" I said, so he wouldn't bring up the topic of job openings again.\n\n\"Excellent choice of book,\" he said, pointing at my Christmas Carol, which was protruding from my coat pocket.\n\n\"I should imagine it's your favorite,\" I said, laying it on the table, smiling.\n\nHe shook his shaggy brown head. \"I prefer Mr. Dickens's Little Dorrit, so patient and cheerful in her imprisonment, and Trollope's Barchester Towers.\"\n\n\"Do you read a good deal?\" I asked. It's rare to find anyone who reads the older authors, let alone Trollope.\n\nHe nodded. \"I find it helps to pass the time,\" he said. \"Especially at this time of year, 'When dark December glooms the day / And takes our autumn joys away / When short and scant the sunbeam throws / Upon the weary waste of snows / A cold and profitless regard\u2026' 'Marmion.' Sir Walter Scott.\"\n\n\"Introduction to the fifth canto,\" I said, and he beamed at me.\n\n\"You are a reader, too?\" he said eagerly.\n\n\"I find books a great comfort,\" I said, and he nodded.\n\n\"Tell me what you think of A Christmas Carol,\" he said.\n\n\"I think it has lasted all these years because people want to believe it could happen,\" I said.\n\n\"But you don't believe it?\" he said. \"You don't believe a man might hear the truth and be changed by it?\"\n\n\"I think Scrooge seems quite easily reformed,\" I said, \"compared with the Scrooges I have known.\"\n\nMama Montoni emerged from the back again, glaring, and slapped down a plate of lukewarm spaghetti and a crockery cup half full of tea.\n\n\"So you have read 'Marmion'?\" the Spirit of Christmas Present said. \"Tell me, what did you think of the tale of Sir David Lindesay?\" and we launched into an eager discussion that lasted far too long. I would be late getting back for the meeting with Scrooge's secretary.\n\nI stood up, and my assistant did, too. \"We must be getting back,\" I said, pulling on my coat. \"It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr\u2026.?\"\n\nHe extended his huge hand. \"I am the Spirit of Christmas Present.\"\n\nI laughed. \"Then you're missing your third. Where's Christmas Past?\"\n\n\"In America,\" he said quite seriously, \"where he has been much corrupted by nostalgia and commercial interests.\"\n\nHe saw me looking skeptically at his socks and sandals. \"You do not see us at our best,\" he said. \"I fear we have fallen on hard times.\"\n\nApparently. \"I should think these would be good times, with any number of Scrooges you could reform.\"\n\n\"And so there are,\" he said, \"but they are praised and much rewarded for their greed, and much admired. And\"\u2014he looked sternly at me\u2014\"they do not believe in spirits. They lay their visions to Freud and hormonal imbalance, and their therapists tell them they should feel no guilt, and advise them to focus further on themselves.\"\n\n\"Yes, well,\" I said, \"I must be getting back.\" I pointed at my assistant, not knowing whether Present would expect me to address him as the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come. \"You can stay and talk to your friend if you wish,\" and made my escape, glad that at least I hadn't suggested he come speak to Mr. Voskins about being taken on, and wondering what Mr. Voskins would do when he found out he had hired a lunatic.\n\nMr. Voskins wasn't on the floor, and neither was the secretary. I looked at my watch, expecting it to be well past one, but it was only a quarter till. I rang up Margaret. The line was engaged.\n\nMy assistant was there when I got back, waiting on a customer, but there was still no sign of Mr. Voskins. He finally came up at two to tell us the secretary had phoned to change the schedule.\n\n\"Of the autographing?\" I said anxiously.\n\n\"No, of the meeting with us. His secretary won't be here till half past.\"\n\nI took advantage of the delay to try Margaret again. And got Gemma.\n\n\"Mummy's downstairs talking to the doorman about our being gone,\" she told me.\n\n\"Do you know what she wanted to speak to me about?\" I asked her.\n\n\"No\u2026o,\" she said, thinking, and added, with a child's irrelevance, \"I went to the dentist. She'll be back up in a minute.\"\n\n\"I'll talk to you in the meantime, then,\" I said. \"What shall we have to eat for Christmas Eve?\"\n\n\"Figs,\" she said promptly.\n\n\"Figs?\"\n\n\"Yes, and frosted cakes. Like the little princess and Ermengarde and Becky had at the feast. Well, actually, they didn't have it. Horrid Miss Minchin found out and took it all away from them. And red-currant wine. Only I suppose you won't let me have wine. But red-currant drink or red-currant juice. Red-currant something.\"\n\n\"And figs,\" I said distastefully.\n\n\"Yes, and a red shawl for a tablecloth. I want it just like in the book.\"\n\n\"What book?\" I said, teasing.\n\n\"A Little Princess.\"\n\n\"Which one is that?\"\n\n\"You know. The one where the little princess is rich and then she loses her father and Miss Minchin makes her live in the garret and be a servant and the Indian gentleman feels sorry for her and sends her things. You know. It's my favorite book.\"\n\nI do know, of course. It has been her favorite for two years now, displacing both Anne of Green Gables and Little Women in her affections. \"It's because we're just alike,\" she'd told me when I asked her why she liked it so much.\n\n\"You both live in a garret,\" I'd said.\n\n\"No. But we're both tall for our age, and we both have black hair.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" I said now. \"I forgot. What do you want for Christmas?\"\n\n\"Not a doll. I'm too old for dolls,\" she said promptly, and then hesitated. \"The little princess's father always gave her books for Christmas.\"\n\n\"Did he?\"\n\nMr. Voskins appeared at my elbow, looking agitated. \"I'll be right there,\" I said, cupping my hand over the mouthpiece.\n\n\"It's nearly half past,\" he said.\n\n\"I'll be right there.\" I promised Gemma I'd purchase figs and red-currant something, and told her to tell her mother I'd phoned, and went to meet the secretary, wondering if he'd look like Bob Cratchit. That would make the cast complete, except for the Spirit of Christmas Past, of course, who was in America.\n\nThe secretary wasn't there yet. At a quarter to three, Mr. Voskins informed us that the secretary had phoned to change the meeting time to four. I used the extra time to purchase Gemma's present, a copy of A Little Princess. She owns a paperback, which she has read a dozen times, but this was a reproduction of the original, with a dark blue cloth cover and colored plates. Gemma looked at it longingly every time she came to see me, and had given all sorts of not-very-veiled hints, like her \"The little princess's father bought her books,\" just now.\n\nI had Yet to Come ring the book up for me, and I put it with my coat and went back into the stockroom to get another copy so Gemma wouldn't see it was gone when she came to the store the day after tomorrow, and guess.\n\nWhen I came out with the copy, Mr. Voskins was there with Sir Spencer's secretary. I was wrong about the secretary's looking like Bob Cratchit. She was a smartly dressed young woman, with a short, sleek haircut and a gold Rolex watch.\n\n\"Sir Spencer requires a straight-backed chair without arms, with a wood table seventy centimeters high, and two fountain pens with viridian ink. Where did you plan to have him sit?\"\n\nI showed her the table in the literature section. \"Oh, this won't do at all,\" she said, looking at the books. \"A photographer will be coming. These shelves will all have to be filled with copies of Making Money Hand Over Fist. Facing out. And the rest of them here,\" she said, pointing at the history shelves, \"so that they're easily accessible from the queue. Who will be in charge of that?\"\n\n\"He will,\" I said, pointing at Yet to Come.\n\n\"Single file,\" she said, looking at her notes. \"Two books per person. New hardbacks only, no paperbacks, and nothing previously owned.\"\n\n\"Do you want them to write the name they wish inscribed on a slip of paper,\" I said, \"so they won't have to spell their names for him?\"\n\nShe stared at me coldly. \"Sir Spencer does not personalize books, he signs them. Sir Spencer prefers Armenti\u00e8res water, not Perrier, and some light refreshments\u2014water biscuits and dietetic cheese.\" She checked off items in her notebook. \"We'll need an exit through which he can depart without being seen.\"\n\n\"A trapdoor?\" I said, looking at Yet to Come, who seemed positively friendly by comparison.\n\nShe turned to Mr. Voskins. \"How many staff do you have?\"\n\n\"I'm hiring additional help,\" he said, \"and we're getting in additional books from the publishers.\"\n\nShe snapped the notebook shut. \"Sir Spencer will be here from eleven to one. You were very lucky to get him. Sir Spencer is very much in demand.\"\n\nWe spent the rest of the day bringing up books and scouring the basement and the furniture department for a table that would meet specifications. I had intended to shop for the ingredients for Gemma's feast after work, but instead I went from shop to shop looking for Armenti\u00e8res water, which I found on the sixth try, and for red-currant juice, which I did not find. I bought a box of black-currant tea and hoped that would do.\n\nIt was nearly ten when I got home, but I phoned Margaret twice more. Both times the line was engaged.\n\nNext morning I left Yet to Come in charge of the department and went down to the food hall to arrange for the dietetic cheese and water biscuits. When I got back, Margaret was there, asking Yet to Come where I was.\n\n\"I suppose it was your idea to have a shopclerk that's mute,\" Margaret said.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" I said. \"Is Gemma here, too?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Gemma said, coming up, smiling.\n\n\"I needed to speak to you,\" Margaret said. \"Gemma, go over to the children's department and see if you can find a hair bow to match your Christmas dress.\"\n\nGemma was looking at Yet to Come, who was pointing at the travel section. \"Is that the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come?\" she said. \"From A Christmas Carol?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said. \"The genuine article.\"\n\n\"Gemma,\" Margaret said. \"Go find a hair bow. Burgundy, to match the dress Robert gave you.\" She sent her off, watching her till she was a good distance down the aisle, and then turned back to me. \"It was obvious you weren't going to return my call.\"\n\n\"I did,\" I said. \"Didn't Gemma tell you I'd phoned?\"\n\n\"She told me you couldn't wait even a few moments till I returned, that you were too busy.\"\n\nGemma told her no such thing, of course. \"What did you want to speak to me about?\" I said.\n\n\"Your daughter's welfare.\" She looked pointedly at the boxes of books. \"Or are you too busy for that, as well?\"\n\nThere are times when it is hard for me to imagine that I ever loved Margaret. I know rationally that I did, that when she told me she wanted a divorce it was like a blade going through me, but I cannot call up the feeling, or remember what it was about her that I loved.\n\nI said ploddingly, \"What about her welfare?\"\n\n\"She needs a brace. The dentist says she has an overbite and that it needs to be corrected. It will be expensive,\" she said, and let her voice die away.\n\nToo expensive for a shopclerk, she means. An accountant could have afforded it.\n\nThere is no answer to that, even if she had actually said it. She believes I quit my job as an accountant out of spite, to keep her from collecting a large amount of child support, and there is nothing I could say that would convince her otherwise. Certainly not the truth, which is that having lost her, having lost Gemma, I could not bear to do without books as well.\n\n\"Robert has offered to pay for the brace,\" she said, \"which I think is very generous of him, but he was afraid you might object. Do you?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, wishing I could say, \"I want to pay for the brace,\" but, as she had not said, a shopclerk doesn't earn enough to pay for it. \"I don't have any objections.\"\n\n\"I told him you wouldn't care,\" she said. \"It's become increasingly clear over the past two years that you don't care about Gemma at all.\"\n\n\"And it's becoming increasingly clear,\" I said, raising my voice, \"that you are systematically attempting to take my daughter away from me. You can't even stand to let me see her on Christmas!\" I shouted, and saw Gemma.\n\nShe was over in the literature section, standing with her back to the shelves. She was holding the copy of A Little Princess, and she had obviously come back to see if it was still there, to see if I'd bought it yet.\n\nAnd heard her parents trying to tear her in two. She huddled back against the shelves, looking small and hunted, clutching the book.\n\n\"Gemma,\" I said, and Margaret turned and saw her.\n\n\"Did you find a burgundy hair bow?\" she said.\n\n\"No,\" Gemma said.\n\n\"Well, come along. We have shopping to do.\"\n\nGemma put the book back carefully, and started toward us.\n\n\"I'll see you tomorrow night,\" I said, trying to smile. \"I found some black-currant tea for our feast.\"\n\nShe said solemnly, \"Did you get the figs?\"\n\n\"Come along, Gemma,\" Margaret said. \"Tell your father goodbye.\"\n\n\"Goodbye,\" she said, and smiled tentatively at me.\n\n\"I'll get the figs,\" I promised.\n\nWhich was easier said than done. Harridge's food hall didn't have them, either canned or fresh, and neither did the grocer's down the street. There wasn't time to walk to the market and back on my lunch break. I would have to go after work.\n\nAnd I didn't want to go to Mama Montoni's. I didn't want Christmas Present making more inquiries about whether we were hiring additional staff. And I didn't feel like talking to anyone, sane or not. I ducked down the alley to Wilson's, intending to get a bacon sandwich to take.\n\nThe Spirit of Christmas Present was there, sitting at one of the tiny tables, reading Making Money Hand Over Fist. He looked up when I came in and motioned me eagerly over to the table.\n\n\"I am supposed to meet Jacob Marley here,\" he said, waving me over. \"Come, we'll discuss Ivanhoe and The Mystery of Edwin Drood.\" He pulled a chair out for me. \"I have always wondered if Edwin were truly dead, or if he could be brought to life again.\"\n\nI sat down and picked up Making Money Hand Over Fist. \"I thought you kept to the older authors.\"\n\n\"Research,\" he said, taking the book back. \"Jacob has high hopes of a job for us. He went to the Old Bailey this morning to speak with a barrister.\"\n\n\"Who specializes in divorce, no doubt,\" I said. \"Or did he go to speak to the barrister about getting his sentence reduced?\"\n\n\"About repentance,\" he said.\n\nI laughed humorlessly. \"You really believe you're the incarnation of Dickens's spirits.\"\n\n\"Not Dickens's,\" he said.\n\n\"That you're really Christmas Present and my assistant is Christmas Yet to Come? Is that why he never speaks? Because the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come in Dickens's story is mute?\"\n\n\"He can speak,\" he said, quite seriously. \"But he does not like to. Many find the sound of his voice distressing.\"\n\n\"And you believe your job is to reform misers and spread Christmas cheer?\" I swung my arm wide. \"Then why don't you do something?\" I said bitterly. \"Use your magic powers. Help the needy. House the homeless. Reunite fathers with their children.\"\n\n\"We have no such powers. A little skill with locks, some minor dexterity with time. We cannot change what is, or was. Our power is only to rebuke and to remind, to instruct and to forewarn.\"\n\n\"Like books,\" I said. \"Which no one reads anymore.\"\n\n\"Your daughter.\"\n\n\"My daughter,\" I said, and brightened. \"Do you know where I can find figs?\"\n\n\"Tinned or fresh?\"\n\n\"Either,\" I said.\n\n\"Fortnum and Mason's,\" he said, and as soon as I stood up, went back to reading Sir Spencer's book. There was not time to go to Fortnum's, though when I got back to Harridge's and looked at my watch, I had nearly ten minutes of my lunch break left.\n\nMr. Voskins was waiting for me.\n\n\"Sir Spencer's secretary phoned. Sir Spencer can't be here till half past one.\" He handed me a stack of revised flyers. \"The autographing will be from half past one to half past three.\"\n\nI looked at the flyers, dismayed.\n\n\"It was the only free time in his schedule,\" he said defensively. \"We're lucky he can fit us in at all.\"\n\nI thought of the cleaning up afterward. \"I'll need to leave by four,\" I said. \"My daughter's coming for Christmas Eve.\"\n\nIt was a long afternoon. Yet to Come took the books down from the literature shelves and put up Sir Spencer's books, facing out, bright green volumes with a hundred-pound note design and gold lettering. I taped up flyers and dealt with customers who had gotten a gift they had not expected and who now had, grudgingly, to return the favor, \"And nothing over two pounds.\" I gave them credit-card receipts and flyers, thinking, Only one more day till I have Gemma.\n\nAfter work I went to Fortnum's, which had both fresh and tinned figs. I bought them both, and frosted cakes, and chocolates, which I intended to tell her the Indian gentleman had sent.\n\nWhen I got home I rooted out an old red wool scarf to use as a tablecloth, and tidied up the flat. Only one more day.\n\nWhich day came at last, and with it a new flyer (half past one to half past three) and the Spirit of Christmas Present. \"What are you doing here?\" I said.\n\n\"We have found employment,\" he said, beaming.\n\n\"We?\" I said, looking around for Marley. I didn't see anyone who looked the part, and Present was already piling copies of Sir Spencer's book on the display tables.\n\n\"What sort of employment?\" I said suspiciously. \"You're not planning some sort of demonstration against Sir Spencer, are you?\"\n\n\"I'm your new assistant,\" he said, stacking books on the floor by the order desk. \"I'm supposed to pass out numbers for queueing up.\"\n\n\"I can't imagine that many people will come,\" I said, but by ten o'clock there were twenty people clutching their numbered chits.\n\nI sold them copies of Making Money Hand Over Fist and explained why Sir Spencer wouldn't be there at eleven as advertised. \"He's a very busy man,\" I said. \"We're lucky he was able to fit us in at all.\"\n\nMr. Voskins came up at eleven to tell us we would have to forgo lunch, which was patently obvious. The department was filled with milling people, Yet to Come had had to go down to the basement for more books, and Present was writing numbers on more chits.\n\nBy noon the queue had begun to form according to the numbers and was halfway down the aisle.\n\n\"You'd best go get more books,\" I told Yet to Come, and turned round to find Margaret standing there.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" I said blankly. \"Where's Gemma?\"\n\n\"She's up on fifth, looking at dolls,\" she said.\n\n\"I thought she didn't want a doll.\"\n\n\"She said she just wanted to look at them,\" she said. Yes, I thought, and hide a safe two floors away from her parents' fighting.\n\n\"Christmas Eve won't work,\" Margaret said.\n\n\"What?\" I said blankly, though I knew already what she meant, felt it like a blade going in.\n\n\"We need to take an earlier train. Robert's parents are having a friend of theirs down who's an orthodontist, and he's agreed to look at Gemma's overbite, but he's only going to be there for Christmas Eve.\"\n\n\"I'm to have Gemma Christmas Eve,\" I said stupidly.\n\n\"I know. That's why I came, so we can rework the schedule. We're coming back the day after New Year's. You can have her then.\"\n\n\"Why can't she see the orthodontist after New Year's?\"\n\n\"He's a very busy man. Ordinarily Gemma would have to be put on a waiting list, but he's agreed to see her as a special favor. I think we should be very grateful he was able to fit us in at all.\"\n\n\"I have to work inventory the day after New Year's,\" I said.\n\n\"Of course,\" she said, and let her voice die away. \"The next weekend, then. Whenever you like.\"\n\nAnd the next weekend she will have to be fitted for the brace, I thought, and the following one it will have to be tightened or she will have to have bands put on. \"I was counting on Gemma's being with me Christmas Eve. Can't you take a later train?\" I said, though I already knew it was hopeless, knew I was standing against the bookcase the way Gemma had, looking hunted.\n\n\"The only trains are at four and half past ten. The late one doesn't get in till one o'clock. You can hardly expect Robert to ask his parents and the orthodontist to wait up for us. I really do think you could be a bit more accommodating\u2026.\"\n\n\"Mr. Grey, we're out of chits,\" Mr. Voskins said. \"And I need to speak to you about the queue.\"\n\n\"We'll come back a day early, and you can have Gemma for New Year's,\" she said.\n\n\"It's nearly to the end of the aisle,\" Mr. Voskins said. \"Should we loop it round?\"\n\nMargaret started toward the jammed aisle. \"Wait,\" I said, \"I have Gemma's present at home. Just a moment.\"\n\nI hurried over to the literature shelves and then remembered those books had been moved over under Travel. I knelt and looked for the other copy of A Little Princess. It wasn't wrapped, but she would at least have it for Christmas.\n\nIt wasn't there. I looked through the B's twice, and then ran a finger along the backs, looking for the dark blue cover. It wasn't there. I checked Children's, thinking Yet to Come might have put it there, but it wasn't, and when I stood up from checking Literature again, Margaret was gone.\n\n\"I've made it a double queue,\" Mr. Voskins said. \"This is going to be a great success, isn't it? Mr. Grey?\"\n\n\"A great success,\" I said, and went to write more numbers on slips of paper.\n\nSir Spencer arrived at a quarter till two in a Savile Row suit. He settled himself in the straight-backed chair, looked disdainfully at the table and the queue, and uncapped one of the fountain pens.\n\nHe began to sign the books that were placed before him, and to dispense wisdom to the admiring queue.\n\n\"Christmas is an excellent time to think about your future,\" he said, scrawling a squiggle that might have been an S followed by a long, uneven line. \"And an excellent time to plan your financial strategy for the new year.\"\n\nFour persons back in the queue was someone who could only be meant to be Marley, an old-fashioned coat and trousers draped with heavy chains and a good deal of gray-green greasepaint. He had a kerchief tied round his head and jaw and was clutching a copy of Making Money Hand Over Fist.\n\n\"They're actually going to try to reform him,\" I thought, and wondered what Sir Spencer would say.\n\nMarley moved to the front of the queue and laid his open book down on the table. \"In life\u2026\" he said, and it was a curious voice, brittle, dry, a voice that sounded as if it had died away once and for all.\n\n\"In life I was Jacob Marley,\" he said, in that faint dead voice, and shook his chain with a gray-green hand, but Sir Spencer was already handing his book back to him and was reaching for the next.\n\n\"There are those who say that money isn't everything,\" Sir Spencer said to the crowd. \"It isn't. Money is the only thing.\"\n\nThe queue applauded.\n\nAt half past two, Sir Spencer stopped to flex the fingers of his writing hand and drink his Armenti\u00e8res water. He consulted, whispering, with his secretary, looked at his watch, and took another sip.\n\nI went over to the order desk to get another bottle, and when I came back I nearly collided with the Spirit of Christmas Present. He was carrying a huge plum pudding with a sprig of holly on top.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" I said.\n\n\"Christmas is an excellent time to think about your future,\" he said, winking, and started toward the table, but the sleek secretary interposed herself between him and Sir Spencer.\n\nHe tried to give the plum pudding to her, still laughing, but she handed it back. \"I specifically requested light refreshments,\" she said sharply, and went back over to Sir Spencer, looking at her watch.\n\nPresent followed her. \"Come, know me better,\" he said to her, but she was consulting with Sir Spencer again, and they were both looking at their watches.\n\nShe came over to me. \"The queue needs to move along more quickly,\" she said. \"Tell them to have their books open to the title page.\"\n\nI did, working my way back along the queue. There was a sudden silence, and I looked back at the table. Yet to Come had glided in front of a middle-aged woman at the front of the queue, and she had stepped back, clutching her book to her wide bosom.\n\nHe's going to do it, I thought, and almost wished he could. It would be nice to see something good happen.\n\nSir Spencer reached his hand out for the book, and Yet to Come drew himself up and pointed his finger at him, and it was not a finger, but the bones of a skeleton.\n\nI thought, He's going to speak, and knew what the voice would sound like. It was the voice of Margaret, telling me she wanted a divorce, telling me they had to take an earlier train. The voice of doom.\n\nI drew in my breath, afraid to hear it, and the secretary leaned forward. \"Sir Spencer does not sign body parts,\" she said sternly. \"If you do not have a book, please step aside.\"\n\nAnd that was that. Sir Spencer signed newly purchased hardbacks until a quarter of three and then stood up in midscrawl and went out the previously arranged back way.\n\n\"He didn't finish,\" the young girl whose book he had been in the midst of signing said plaintively, and I took the book and the pen and started after him, though without much hope.\n\nI caught him at the door. \"There are still people in the queue who haven't had their books signed,\" I said, holding out the book and pen, but the secretary had interposed herself between us.\n\n\"Sir Spencer will be signing on the second at Hatchard's,\" she said. \"Tell them they can try again there.\"\n\n\"It's Christmas,\" I said, and took hold of his sleeve.\n\nHe looked pointedly at it.\n\n\"You'll miss your plane to Majorca,\" the secretary said, and he pulled his sleeve free and swept away, looking at his watch. \"Late,\" I heard the secretary say.\n\nI was still holding the pen and the open book, with its half-finished S. I took it back to the girl. \"If you'd like to leave it, I'll try to get it signed for you. Was it a Christmas present?\"\n\n\"Yes, for my father,\" she said, \"but I won't see him till after Christmas, so that's all right.\"\n\nI took her name and telephone number, set the books on the order desk, and began taking down the posters.\n\nI had thought perhaps Yet to Come would have disappeared after his failure with Sir Spencer like the others had, but he was still there, putting books into boxes.\n\nHe seemed somehow more silent\u2014which was impossible, he had never spoken a word\u2014and downcast, which was ridiculous, as well. The Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come was supposed to be dreadful, terrifying, but he seemed to have shrunk into himself. Like Gemma, shrinking against the shelves.\n\nIt's Sir Spencer that's terrifying, I thought, and his secretary. And her gold Rolex watch. \"Scrooges are praised and much rewarded for their greed,\" Present had said, and so they were, with Savile Row suits and knighthoods and Majorca. No wonder the spirits had fallen on hard times.\n\n\"At least you tried,\" I said. \"There are some battles that are lost before they're begun.\"\n\nChildren's came over to buy a gift. \"For Housewares. I told her I didn't believe in exchanging with colleagues,\" she said irritably, \"but she's bought me something anyway. And I'd planned on leaving early. I suppose you are, too, so you can spend the evening with your little girl.\"\n\nI looked at my watch. It was after three. They would be leaving for the station soon, and Robert's parents, and the orthodontist.\n\nI cleared away the refreshments. I put foil over the plum pudding and set it next to the girl's book, which I had no hope of getting signed, and went back to help Yet to Come take Making Money Hand Over Fist down from the shelves, trying not to think about Gemma and Christmas Eve.\n\nThe spirit stopped suddenly and drew himself up and pointed, the robe falling away from his bony hand. I turned, afraid of more bad news, and there was Gemma in the aisle, working her way toward us.\n\nShe was pushing steadily upstream through shoppers who all seemed to be going in the opposite direction, ducking between shopping bags with a determined expression on her narrow face.\n\n\"Gemma!\" I said, and pulled her safely out of the aisle. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"I wanted to tell you goodbye and that I'm sorry I can't come for Christmas Eve.\"\n\nI raised my head and tried to see down the aisle. \"Where's your mother? You didn't come here alone, did you?\"\n\n\"Mummy's up on fifth,\" she said. \"With the dolls. I told her I'd changed my mind about wanting one. A bride doll. With green eyes.\" She looked pleased with herself, as well she might. It was no small accomplishment to have gotten Margaret back here half an hour before they were to meet Robert at the station, and she would never have agreed if she'd known why Gemma wanted to come. I could imagine her arguments\u2014there isn't time, you'll see him the day after New Year's, we can't inconvenience Robert, who after all is paying for your brace\u2014and so could Gemma, apparently, and had sidestepped them neatly.\n\n\"Did you tell her you were coming down to third?\" I said, trying to look disapproving.\n\n\"She told me to go look at games so I wouldn't see her buying the doll,\" she said. \"I wanted to tell you I'd rather be with you Christmas Eve.\"\n\nI love you, I thought.\n\n\"I think when I do come,\" she said seriously, \"that we should pretend that it is Christmas Eve, like the little princess and Becky.\"\n\n\"They pretended it was Christmas Eve?\"\n\n\"No. When the little princess was cold or hungry or sad she pretended her garret was the Bastille.\"\n\n\"The Bastille,\" I said thoughtfully. \"I don't think they had figs in the Bastille.\"\n\n\"No.\" She laughed. \"The little princess pretended all sorts of things. When she couldn't have what she wanted. So I think we should pretend it's Christmas Eve, and wear paper hats and light the tree and say things like, 'It's nearly Christmas,' and 'Oh, listen, the Christmas bells are chiming.' \"\n\n\"And 'Pass the figs, please,' \" I said.\n\n\"This is serious,\" she said. \"We'll be together next Christmas, but till then we'll have to pretend.\" She paused, and looked solemn. \"I'm going to have a good time in Surrey,\" she said, and her voice died away uncertainly.\n\n\"Of course you'll have a good time,\" I said heartily. \"You'll get huge heaps of presents, and eat lots of goose. And figs. I hear in Surrey they use figs for stuffing.\" I hugged her to me.\n\nA thin gray woman with rather the look of Miss Minchin came up. \"Pardon me, do you work here?\" she said disapprovingly.\n\n\"I'll be with you in just a moment,\" I said.\n\nYet to Come hurried up, but the woman waved him away. \"I'm looking for a book,\" she said.\n\nI said to Gemma, \"You'd best get back before your mother finishes buying the doll and misses you.\"\n\n\"She won't. The bride dolls are all sold. I asked when I was here before.\" She smiled, her eyes crinkling. \"She'll have to send them to check the stockroom,\" she said airily, looking just like her mother, and I remembered suddenly what I had loved about Margaret\u2014her cleverness and the innocent pleasure she took in it, her resourcefulness. Her smile. And it was like being given a boon, a Christmas gift I hadn't known I wanted.\n\n\"I'm looking for a book,\" Miss Minchin repeated. \"I saw it in here several weeks ago.\"\n\n\"I'd better go,\" Gemma said.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"and tell your mother you don't want the doll before she turns the stockroom inside out.\"\n\n\"I do want it, though,\" she said. \"The little princess had a doll,\" and again that trailing away, as if she had left something unsaid.\n\n\"I thought you said all of them had been sold.\"\n\n\"They have,\" she said, \"but there's one in the window display, and you know Mummy. She'll make them give it to her.\"\n\n\"Pardon me,\" Miss Minchin said insistently. \"It was a green book, green and gold.\"\n\n\"I'd better go,\" Gemma said again.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said regretfully.\n\n\"Goodbye,\" she said, and plunged into the crush of shoppers, which now was going the other way.\n\n\"Hardback,\" Miss Minchin said. \"It was right here on this shelf.\"\n\nGemma stopped halfway down the aisle, shoppers milling about her, and looked back at me. \"You'd better eat the frosted cakes so they won't grow stale. I'm going to have a good time,\" she said, more firmly, and was swallowed by the crowd.\n\n\"It had gold lettering,\" Miss Minchin said. \"It was by an earl, I think.\"\n\nThe book Miss Minchin wanted, after a protracted search, was Sir Spencer's Making Money Hand Over Fist. Of course.\n\n\"What a sweet little girl you have,\" she said as I rang up the sale, all friendliness now that she had gotten what she wanted. \"You're very lucky.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, though I did not feel lucky.\n\nI looked at my watch. Five past four. Gemma had already taken the train to Surrey, and I would not see her sweet face again this year, and even if I stayed after closing and put everything back as it had been, there were still all the hours of Christmas Eve to be gotten through. And the day after. And all the days after.\n\nAnd the rest of the afternoon, and all the shoppers who had left their shopping till too late, who were cross and tired and angry that we had no more copies of The Outer Space Christmas Carol, and who had counted on our gift wrapping their purchases.\n\nAnd Mr. Voskins, who came up to say disapprovingly that he had been very disappointed in the sales from the autographing, and that he wanted the shelves back in order.\n\nIn between, Yet to Come and I folded chairs and carried boxes of Sir S's books to the basement.\n\nIt grew dark outside, and the crush of shoppers subsided to a trickle. When Yet to Come came over to me with his bony hands full of a box of books, I said, \"You needn't come back up again,\" and didn't even have the heart to wish him a happy Christmas.\n\nThe trickle of shoppers subsided to two desperate-looking young men. I sold them scented journals and started taking Sir S's books off the literature shelves and putting them in boxes.\n\nOn the second shelf from the top, wedged in behind Making Money Hand Over Fist, I found the other copy of A Little Princess.\n\nAnd that seemed somehow the final blow. Not that it had been here all along\u2014there was no real difference between its not being there and my not being able to find it, and Gemma would love it as much when I gave it to her next week as she would have Christmas morning\u2014but that Sir Spencer Siddon, Sir Scrawl of the new hardbacks only and the Armenti\u00e8res water, Sir Scrooge and his damnable secretary who had not even recognized the Spirits of Christmas, let alone heeded them, who had no desire to keep Christmas, had cost Gemma hers.\n\n\"Hard times,\" I said, and sank down in the wing chair. \"I have fallen on hard times.\" After a while I opened the book and turned the pages, looking at the colored plates. The little princess and her father in her carriage. The little princess and her father at the school. The little princess and her father.\n\nThe birthday party. The little princess huddled against a wall, her doll clutched to her, looking hunted.\n\n\"The little princess had a doll,\" she'd said, and meant, \"to help her through hard times.\"\n\nThe way the little princess's doll had helped her when she lost her father. The way the book had helped Gemma.\n\n\"I find books a great comfort,\" I had told the Spirit of Christmas Present. And so had Gemma, who had lost her father.\n\n\"I'm going to have a good time in Surrey,\" she had said, her voice trailing off, and I could finish that sentence, too. \"In spite of everything.\"\n\nNot a hope, but a determination to try to be happy in spite of circumstance, as the little princess had tried to be happy in her chilly garret. \"I'm going to have a good time,\" she'd said again, turning at the last minute, and it was rebuke and reminder and instruction, all at once. And comfort.\n\nI stood a moment, looking at the book, and then closed it and put it carefully back on the shelf, the way Gemma had.\n\nI went over to the order desk and picked up the plum pudding. The book the girl had left for Sir Spencer to finish signing was under it. I opened it and took out the paper with her name and address on it.\n\nMartha. I found the fountain pen, with its viridian ink, uncapped it, and drew a scrawl that looked a little like Sir Spencer's. \"To Martha's father,\" I wrote above it. \"Money isn't everything!\" And I went to find the spirits.\n\nIf they could be found. If they had not, after all, found other employment with the barrister or the banker, or taken a plane to Majorca, or gone up to Surrey.\n\nMama Montoni's had a large Closed sign hanging inside the door, and the light above the counter was switched off, but when I tried the door it wasn't locked. I opened it, carefully, so the buzzer wouldn't sound, and leaned in. Mama Montoni must have switched off the heat as well. It was icy inside.\n\nThey were sitting at the table in the corner, hunched forward over it as if they were cold. Yet to Come had his hands up inside his sleeves, and Present kept tugging at his button as if to pull the green robe closer. He was reading to them from A Christmas Carol.\n\n\" ' \"You will be haunted,\" resumed the Ghost of Marley, \"by three spirits,\" ' \" Present read. \" ' \"Is this the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?\" he demanded in a faltering voice. \"It is.\" \"I\u2014I think I'd rather not,\" said Scrooge. \"Without their visits,\" said the Ghost, \"you cannot hope to shun the path I tread.\" ' \"\n\nI banged the door open and strode in. \" 'Come, dine with me, uncle,' \" I said.\n\nThey all turned to look at me.\n\n\"We are past that place,\" Marley said. \"Scrooge's nephew has already gone home, and so has Scrooge.\"\n\n\"We are at the place where Scrooge is being visited by Marley,\" Present said, pulling out a chair. \"Will you join us?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"You are at the place where you must visit me.\"\n\nMama Montoni came rushing out from the back. \"I'm closed!\" she growled. \"It's Christmas Eve.\"\n\n\"It's Christmas Eve,\" I said, \"and Mama Montoni's is closed, so you must dine with me.\"\n\nThey looked at each other. Mama Montoni snatched the Closed sign from the door and brandished it in my face. \"I'm closed!\"\n\n\"I can't offer much. Figs. I have figs. And frosted cakes. And Sir Walter Scott. ' 'Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale, / 'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale.' \"\n\n\" 'A Christmas gambol oft could cheer / The poorest man's heart through half the year,' \" Present murmured, but none of them moved. Mama Montoni started for the phone, to dial 999, no doubt.\n\n\"No one should be alone on Christmas Eve,\" I said.\n\nThey looked at each other again, and then Yet to Come stood up and glided over to me.\n\n\"The time grows short,\" I said, and Yet to Come extended his finger and pointed at them. Marley stood up, and then Present, closing his book gently.\n\nMama Montoni herded us out the door, looking daggers. I pulled A Christmas Carol out of my pocket and handed it to her. \"Excellent book,\" I said. \"Instructive.\"\n\nShe banged the door shut behind us and locked it. \"Merry Christmas,\" I said to her through the door, and led the way home, though before we had reached the tube station, Yet to Come was ahead, his finger pointing the way to the train, and my street, and my flat.\n\n\"We've black-currant tea,\" I said, going into the kitchen to put on the kettle. \"And figs. Please, make yourselves at home. Present, the Dickens is in that bookcase, top shelf, and the Scott's just under it.\"\n\nI set out sugar and milk and the frosted cakes I'd bought for Gemma. I took the foil off the plum pudding. \"Courtesy of Sir Spencer Siddon, who, unfortunately, remains a miser,\" I said, setting it on the table. \"I'm sorry you failed to find someone to reform.\"\n\n\"We have had some small success,\" Present said from the bookcase, and Marley smiled slyly.\n\n\"Who?\" I said. \"Not Mama Montoni?\"\n\nThe kettle whistled. I poured the boiling water over the tea and brought the teapot in. \"Come, come, sit down. Present, bring your book with you. You can read to us while the tea steeps.\" I pulled out a chair for him. \"But first you must tell me about this person you reformed.\"\n\nMarley and Yet to Come looked at each other as if they shared a secret, and both of them looked at Christmas Present.\n\n\"You have read Scott's 'Marmion,' have you not?\" he said, and I knew that, whoever it was, they weren't going to tell me. One of the people in the queue, perhaps? Or Harridge?\n\n\"I always think 'Marmion' an excellent poem for Christmas,\" Present said, and opened the book.\n\n\" 'And well our Christian sires of old,' \" he read, \" 'loved when the year its course had roll'd, / and brought blithe Christmas back again, / with all his hospitable train.' \"\n\nI poured out the tea.\n\n\" 'The wassail round, in good brown bowls,' \" he read, \" 'garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.' \" He put down the book and raised his teacup in a toast. \"To Sir Walter Scott, who knew how to keep Christmas!\"\n\n\"And to Mr. Dickens,\" Marley said, \"the founder of the feast.\"\n\n\"To books!\" I said, thinking of Gemma and A Little Princess, \"which instruct and sustain us through hard times.\"\n\n\" 'Heap on more wood!' \" Present said, taking up his book again, \" 'the wind is chill; / But let it whistle as it will, / We'll keep our Christmas merry still.' \"\n\nI poured out more tea, and we ate the frosted cakes and Gemma's figs and half a meat pie I found in the back of the refrigerator, and Present read us \"Lochinvar,\" with sound effects.\n\nAs I was bringing in the second pot of tea, the clock began to strike, and outside, church bells began to ring. I looked at the clock. It was, impossibly, midnight.\n\n\"Christmas already!\" Present said jovially. \"Here's to evenings with friends that fly too fast.\"\n\n\"And the friends who make it fly,\" I said.\n\n\"To small successes,\" Marley said, and raised his cup to me.\n\nI looked at Christmas Present, and then at Yet to Come, whose face I still could not see, and then back at Marley. He smiled slyly.\n\n\"Come, come,\" Present said into the silence. \"We have not had a toast from Christmas Yet to Come.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" Marley said, clanking his chains excitedly. \"Speak, Spirit.\"\n\nYet to Come took hold of his teacup handle with his bony fingers and raised his cup.\n\nI held my breath.\n\n\"To Christmas,\" he said, and why had I ever feared that voice? It was clear and childlike. Like Gemma's voice, saying, \"We'll be together next Christmas.\"\n\n\"To Christmas,\" the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come said, his voice growing stronger with each word. \"God bless us, every one!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "deck.halls@boughs/holly",
                "text": "As soon as the nearly empty maglev pulled out of the station, Linny uplinked to Inge. \"I need a netcheck on a Mrs. Shields,\" she said. \"3404 Aspen Lane, Greater Denver.\"\n\n\"Today?\" Inge said. \"It's Thanksgiving.\"\n\nI didn't think they celebrated Thanksgiving in Norway, Linny thought, but Inge was obviously going somewhere. She was wearing a velvet slash top and sequined makeup. \"I know, sorry, but I'm on my way to see a new client,\" Linny said. \"You can wait on the financial, I just need some background so I have an idea of what she might like\u2014occupation, hobbies, interests\u2014\"\n\n\"Right now?\" Inge said plaintively. \"I was hoping\u2026see, the thing is, I told Carlo I'd have Thanksgiving dinner with him, and it's only a few minutes from now.\"\n\n\"Can't you be a little late?\" Linny asked. \"A background check should only take half an hour or so.\"\n\n\"No. Remember, he's at Tombaugh Station, and there's only a four-hour window, and personal calls don't have priority. I promised him I'd talk to him while they were having their dinner. They're on Canaveral time.\"\n\nLinny'd forgotten Carlo was on the Moon. \"Go have dinner,\" she said. \"And tell Carlo happy Thanksgiving. I'll run a preliminary myself, and you can do a full netcheck later.\"\n\n\"Really? Thanks! I was afraid I wasn't going to make it,\" she said, though now that Linny'd given her permission, she didn't seem to be in all that much of a hurry. \"Is Norwall taking you out for Thanksgiving dinner?\" she asked.\n\n\"He has an installation,\" Linny said.\n\n\"So you aren't having Thanksgiving dinner with anybody?\"\n\n\"I already had it with Mom.\"\n\n\"I thought she was in Riyadh.\"\n\n\"She is. We did it online earlier.\" In the middle of the night, actually, with Linny sitting half asleep in front of the screen in her nightshift and the vidcam carefully focused so her mother couldn't see that all she was eating was a bowl of soyflakes.\n\nInge sniffed. \"I still think Norwall could have taken you out. Carlo and I have more dates than you two, and he's 240,000 miles away. I know it's your busy season, but\u2014\"\n\n\"Are there any messages for me?\" Linny cut in.\n\n\"Yes. Soothethesavagebeast.com are out of Beethovens. They wanted to know if Bachs would work. And the Standishes want you to do their e-cards after all.\"\n\nWonderful, Linny thought, but at least there weren't any messages from Pandora Freeh, which meant she was still happy with High School Memories. Now, if it just stayed that way till she could get there with the contract. Last year Pandora had changed her mind nine times, the last one the day before her installation, and this year they had already gone through Christmas in the Sahara, Board Games, and nine others before Linny had come up with a Christmas theme Pandora would actually stick with for more than two days. Now if she could just stick with it a couple more hours while Linny interviewed Mrs. Shields\u2014\n\n\"I'd better go,\" she told Inge. \"I need to run that netcheck.\"\n\n\"And I\u2014yipes! Look what time it is! I don't even have my eyes inked yet\u2014\" Inge said, and abruptly downlinked.\n\nLinny linked to soothethesavagebeast. It had a \"Closed for Thanksgiving\" banner on it. She connected to the netcheck site, typed in \"Mrs. Shields,\" and requested a general background check and a marketing profile.\n\nNothing happened. What did I forget to do? she wondered. She hadn't done a netcheck in ages. Inge did all of them. She must have\u2014\n\nThe screen buzzed an override. It was Norwall, looking irritated.\n\n\"Where have you been?\" he snapped. \"I've been trying both you and Inge for forty-five minutes.\"\n\n\"I gave her the afternoon off. It's Thanksgiving, and\u2014\"\n\n\"Wonderful,\" he said. \"Like everything else about this day. Teddy Lopez just called. They want to switch themes.\"\n\n\"Why? I thought he and Emil loved their jazz theme.\"\n\n\"They did, but they got engaged,\" he said disgustedly.\n\n\"How nice\u2014\" Linny began.\n\n\"I'm glad you think so. Because now they want a whole new love design, hearts and Cupids and orange blossoms, and they want their installation moved up to the twelfth so they can have it for their engagement party.\"\n\n\"Goin'tothechapel.com has some darling diamond ring ornaments,\" Linny said, \"and a glitteroptic tree would be the perfect\u2014\"\n\n\"Legally, I don't have to let them switch. They've already signed a contract. I have every right to hold them to it.\"\n\n\"But, Norwall, they just got engaged,\" Linny protested, \"and it's Christmas.\"\n\n\"Don't remind me. I've got four installations to do in the next six days.\" His image leaned forward as if trying to see what was behind her. \"I see movement. Where are you?\"\n\n\"On the maglev. I'm on my way out to Aspen Lane.\"\n\n\"Aspen Lane? Don't tell me Pandora Freeh still hasn't signed her contract. You let your clients walk all over you, Linny. You have to be firm with them. This is a business, not some sentimental\u2014\"\n\nShe'd heard this lecture before. \"Pandora Freeh's signing her contract today.\"\n\n\"How long will it take? I could use you here at the installation to string lights for the outdoor tableau.\"\n\n\"I can't,\" she said. \"I have to interview a client.\"\n\n\"Interview? Don't tell me you're taking on a new client? It's the twenty-eighth of November! Did you tell her the deadline for new clients is June?\"\n\n\"She's never had a professional Christmas. She's always done her own, so she didn't know how it works.\"\n\n\"And you felt sorry for her?\"\n\nLinny nodded. \"She was really desperate.\" And very insistent. Linny hadn't really had a chance to say no, but she couldn't tell that to Norwall. \"It's a chance to broaden our client base. And I'm in good shape. Three of my installations are already done, and she doesn't need hers till after the fifteenth. I'll have no trouble fitting her in.\"\n\n\"Unless she keeps changing her mind like Pandora Freeh.\"\n\n\"She won't. She was terribly grateful I could take her on\u2014\"\n\n\"Yes, and she'll probably tell all her friends that you're willing to take new clients in December. Who is she anyway? Have you run a financial check on her?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Linny said, even though she hadn't. But the fact that Mrs. Shields lived in the same exclusive community as Pandora Freeh meant she was at least moderately rich, and this was her client, after all, not his, and if Mrs. Shields turned out to be a lot of extra work, it was her problem.\n\n\"Well, don't leave without getting a signed contract. And why do you have to go all the way out there? Why couldn't you do it from your office?\"\n\n\"She doesn't like talking to people online. She's not very knowledgeable about computers\u2014\"\n\n\"So you have to waste a whole day going out there, and I don't have anybody to string lights for me. If I'd known you were so far ahead you were in a position to take on new clients, you could have taken over some of my installations for me,\" he said, and downlinked before she could wish him a happy Thanksgiving, which, under the circumstances, was probably just as well.\n\nShe called up the netcheck again. The screen buzzed an override immediately. It was Pandora Freeh. \"Are you still coming out with the contract this afternoon?\"\n\n\"Yes. At four.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear.\"\n\nOh, no. \"Is there a problem?\" Linny asked fearfully.\n\n\"I just got to thinking, there's no point in doing High School Memories if we can't get a bust of Shakespeare. English was my favorite class, and\u2014\"\n\n\"We have a bust,\" Linny said. \"I've already ordered it.\"\n\n\"But what if it's different from the one in Mr. Spoonmaker's class? I just don't think I should sign until I've seen it.\"\n\nSo you want me to lug it all the way out to your house so you can look at it, Linny thought. \"I don't know if the supplier's open today\u2014\" she said.\n\n\"Oh, there's no hurry. I can sign the contract next week.\"\n\nBy which time she would have come up with a dozen more objections. \"Let me try them,\" she said.\n\nShe linked to Rock and a Hard Place, which was, thankfully, open till five, and then linked back to Pandora and changed their appointment to seven, which was still cutting it close. Her interview with Mrs. Shields couldn't last more than two hours, and then she'd have to go all the way back into town to get the bust, which the guy at Rock had said was too heavy for one person to carry. She'd have to call Norwall.\n\nShe relinked to him. \"I know you're busy, but if you could just help me get it to the station, I could handle it from there.\" How she would manage the ten blocks to Pandora's house she wasn't sure, but maybe she could get a taxi.\n\n\"It's out of the question,\" he said. \"I'll be here till midnight. If you'd had Pandora Freeh sign her contract right after the interview like I told you to, you wouldn't be in this mess. You're going to have to call this new client of yours and tell her you can't\u2014\"\n\n\"We're coming into the station. I've got to go,\" Linny said.\n\nAnd I still don't have a netcheck, she thought, setting out on the walk to Mrs. Shields's house. Well, she'd just have to do without. Maybe she could pick up some hints from the house. She already knew Mrs. Shields was a technophobe, and, from her image on the screen when they talked, that she was in her late fifties and didn't dye her hair. That, and her use of the old-fashioned \"Mrs.\" indicated she was pre-retro, so one of their traditional themes. Maybe #23 A Little House on the Prairie Christmas, or #119 Over the River and Through the Woods.\n\nHere it was, 3404 Aspen Lane. The house wasn't as expensive-looking as she'd expected. She'd assumed that anything in Pandora Freeh's neighborhood would be in the hideous mansion category, but 3404 was a long, low-roofed house set well back from the street. Maybe she should have done a financial netcheck after all.\n\nBut the wide lawn looked professionally groomed, and what furniture she could see through the large front window looked like mission-style Arts and Crafts.\n\nThe door didn't have any sensors or identity screen, just an old-fashioned doorbell. Linny rang it, and after a minute a tall young man in a wool pullover with a napkin stuck in the neck opened it. \"Can I help you?\" he asked, frowning.\n\n\"I'm Linny Chiang,\" she said. \"I have an appointment with\u2014\"\n\n\"Come in, come in! Brian, don't make her stand outside like that!\" Mrs. Shields pushed in front of the young man and practically dragged Linny into the house. \"It's freezing out!\"\n\nShe had a napkin, too, in her hand. \"Am I interrupting your Thanksgiving dinner?\" Linny asked anxiously.\n\n\"Oh, no, not at all, we'd finished,\" she said with a pointed look at Brian, who was still frowning. \"Brian, take her coat,\" she said, wrestling Linny out of it and handing it to him, \"and go turn on the fire in the study.\"\n\nBrian left, bearing the coat. \"The handsome young man is my nephew, Brian West,\" Mrs. Shields said. \"We're both so grateful you agreed to give up your Thanksgiving to come do this. Have you had dinner? Would you like some turkey and dressing? My nephew makes wonderful oyster dressing.\"\n\n\"No, thank you. I had dinner earlier.\"\n\n\"With your family?\" she said, leading Linny through the living room to the study.\n\n\"My mother and I had dinner online. She's in Riyadh.\"\n\n\"But you must have had to eat in the middle of the night.\"\n\nLinny was surprised Mrs. Shields knew what time zone Riyadh was in. Even her mother hadn't had it straight. \"It must be late there for you, darling,\" she'd kept saying. \"What is it? Nine o'clock?\"\n\n\"Have you had anything to eat since then?\" Mrs. Shields was asking anxiously. \"There's cranberry sauce and candied yams and\u2014\"\n\n\"No, thanks, really, I had something to eat on the maglev,\" she lied.\n\n\"Some chai then, or what is it you young people drink nowadays? Maxpresso? Red tea?\"\n\nLinny could see the onslaught wasn't going to stop until she'd agreed to eat or drink something. \"Chai would be nice,\" she said, and Mrs. Shields bustled out of the room.\n\nLinny looked around. Mission-style furniture in here, too, and from the looks of it, genuine Stickley, and the carpet, though worn, was an antique Navajo. She revised her financial estimate considerably upward.\n\nNo knickknacks, though, to give a clue as to a possible theme\u2014no stuffed unicorns or tribal masks or model biplanes. And no signs of a pet, which was too bad. Pets were so easy. All you had to do was link to notacreaturewasstirring.com, type in the breed, and they supplied everything: audio ornaments, needlepoint stockings, beribboned Milk-Bones, even a rom of dog or cat carols.\n\nThere weren't any holos either, just an oil painting of a bridge above the fireplace. Bridges of the World? Golden Gate ornaments and a covered bridge diorama for the outdoor tableau? Or maybe Mrs. Shields was interested in painting, or a particular artist. Linny leaned forward to look at the signature.\n\n\"My nephew Brian does bridges,\" Mrs. Shields said, bustling back in. \"He's an engineer. I'll bet you two are the same age.\" She handed Linny a mug of chai. \"He's twenty-eight.\" She waited expectantly.\n\n\"I'm twenty-seven,\" Linny said. \"Did you want to do the interview in here?\"\n\n\"Yes. Do you need to hook anything up or plug anything in? I'm afraid I'm a complete ignoramus when it comes to computers, and Brian isn't much better.\"\n\n\"No, I'm all set,\" Linny said, opening her notebook and switching it on, but Mrs. Shields was already calling, \"Brian! Brian!\"\n\nHe came in, minus the napkin. \"This is Miss Chiang, our new Christmas designer,\" she said.\n\n\"Christmas designer?\" he said, with a puzzled look at his aunt.\n\n\"Yes.\" Mrs. Shields smiled at him and then looked back at Linny. \"I've always done my own Christmases, but this year I decided it was all too much for me, and I was going to have a professional Christmas.\"\n\n\"You did,\" he said.\n\nHe clearly disapproved. Linny had seen this kind of resistance before, the men in the family wanting to keep Christmas the way it had been, which meant the women doing all the work.\n\n\"Christmas requires much more planning and work than it used to,\" Linny said. \"Shopping, decorating, cleaning, baking, wrapping gifts, sending e-cards. It's impossible for one person to do it all, and even if they somehow manage to, they're far too stressed and exhausted to enjoy the holidays.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" Mrs. Shields said, looking at Brian. \"I want to enjoy my Christmas, and this young woman is going to help me do that, so it's no use your trying to talk me out of it, Brian. I've made up my mind. Why don't you show us what you have in mind, Ms. Chiang?\"\n\n\"It's what you have in mind that's important,\" Linny said, setting up the portable holo projector. \"Deck.halls custom-tailors Christmas to your wishes. We have over nine hundred holiday themes to choose from, and if you don't see the theme you want, we can custom-design one for you. Did you have anything in mind?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I'd say she definitely has something in mind,\" Brian said.\n\nLinny looked inquiringly at Mrs. Shields.\n\n\"I really don't know,\" Mrs. Shields said. \"Our Christmases have always been very simple, just a tree and stockings hung by the fireplace.\"\n\n\"Right, nothing fancy,\" the nephew said.\n\n\"Well, then let me show you something simple.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, I want to see all of your ideas. If I'm going to do a professional Christmas, I might as well go all the way.\"\n\n\"All right, let me begin by outlining the services we offer,\" Linny said, giving Mrs. Shields a handheld. \"So you can jot down the numbers of themes that you like. We offer a full range of services. Decorating, lighting, gift wrapping, shopping\u2014\"\n\n\"Shopping?\" Brian said, sounding shocked.\n\n\"Yes, by client list or using marketing profiles. We can also do your Christmas cards, e-or vmail with full graphics, or handwritten, and party invitations. We can also arrange for caroling. You pick the services you want.\"\n\nShe printed out two price lists and handed the pages to them. Neither one did more than glance at them. She revised her financial estimate upward again.\n\n\"Now let me show you some possibilities. This is Number 68 Winter Wonderland,\" she said, typing in the code.\n\nA full-color hologram of a stairway entwined with darting white and silver lights filled an all-white room. The diamond-flocked tree at the foot of the stairs was hung with white velvet angel knots, and crystal snowflakes filled the air. \"The snowflakes are Waterford, and the diamonds are each an eighth of a carat.\n\n\"Or if you prefer something less formal, we have Number 241 Christmas at Loch Ness.\" The white room changed to one done in red-and-green Scotch plaid. A large bush of purple heather stood between the plaid couch and the plaid chair, hung with tam o'shanters, thistles, and sea serpents. \"The furniture, draperies, and carpet are available in the full slate of clan tartans,\" Linny said.\n\n\"Some people plan their Christmases around a hobby\u2014\" She clicked to #110 A Crossword Puzzle Christmas, done all in black-and-white squares, \"or a political affiliation. This one is called Elephants Never Forget,\" she said, showing them a holo of a room draped in red-white-and-blue bunting punctuated with elephants. The red tree was covered in U.S. flags and models of the White House, and on its top was a replica of Mount Rushmore with Reagan's face, Newt Gingrich's, and those of all three Bushes.\n\n\"You have to be kidding,\" the nephew said.\n\n\"There's of course a Democratic version,\" she said, and when Mrs. Shields didn't look enthusiastic, \"and our Globalization Christmas: It's a Small World After All.\" Mrs. Shields still didn't look impressed.\n\n\"Most clients choose a Christmas that reflects their occupation,\" Linny said, wishing she had a bridge theme to show them, \"or some personal interest. Their favorite flower\"\u2014she called up #309 Tiptoe Through the Tulips\u2014\"or a favorite color.\" The room turned purple. \"This is our Mauve Melody.\" The room went yellow-green. \"And this is Number 116, Cantata in Chartreuse. Or you could plan it around a family memory or an upcoming event. Two of my partner's clients just got engaged, so their theme is the engagement, with hearts and Cupids.\"\n\n\"How nice,\" Mrs. Shields said, and to her nephew, \"How does something like that sound?\"\n\n\"We have several love-related themes\u2014Moonlight and Roses,\" Linny said, clicking them into the center of the room, \"Romeo and Juliet, Harlequin Romance\u2014\"\n\n\"Which one did you have when you got engaged?\" Mrs. Shields asked.\n\n\"Me?\" Linny said. \"Oh, I'm not engaged.\"\n\n\"Oh, when you said your partner, I assumed\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, no, I was referring to my business partner, Norwall Hirsch.\"\n\n\"And he's not your boyfriend?\" Mrs. Shields persisted.\n\nBoyfriend, Linny thought. Definitely pre-retro. \"No, I mean, yes, I mean, we date\u2026\"\n\n\"But you're not engaged,\" Mrs. Shields said. \"Brian's not engaged, either. He says he just doesn't meet anyone. Will he be working with you on the Christmas?\"\n\n\"Brian?\"\n\n\"No, your partner.\"\n\n\"No, we each have our own clients.\"\n\n\"But you share office space.\"\n\nDefinitely pre-retro. \"We don't have an office, per se. Everything's done by wireless or Internet except for installations. Our secretary, Inge, lives in Oslo.\"\n\n\"And your partner?\"\n\n\"He lives here,\" she said, \"though we hardly ever see each other,\" and added silently, not even on Thanksgiving.\n\n\"Oslo,\" Mrs. Shields said. \"I've always wanted to go to Scandinavia. Do you have some sort of Scandinavian theme?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" Linny said, clicking back to the main menu. \"We have several: Santa Lucia's Day; Christmas in Norway; Christmas in Sweden; Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen. Or we can do any city you like, with holos of the local sights, and regional foods: lutefisk, pancakes with lingonberries, blood pudding.\"\n\n\"Oh, you do food, too,\" Mrs. Shields said, and Brian shook his head, as if in disgust.\n\n\"The standard package includes a thematic Christmas dinner,\" Linny said, printing out a list of caterers and sample menus, \"but we also do Christmas Eve suppers, parties, buffets. Would you like to see our Christmas on the Fjords?\"\n\nMrs. Shields shook her head. \"I've never liked herring. What other places do you have?\"\n\n\"Anywhere on-planet or off. We have a complete line of outer space themes\u2014both Moonbases, Mars, the solar system, with or without Pluto\u2014as well as every country and all major cities: London, New Delhi, Paris,\" she said, clicking onto one after the other, \"Las Vegas\u2014\"\n\nThe Eiffel Tower changed to a wedding chapel with flashing neon signs, slot machines, and an Elvis impersonator conducting a wedding between Santa Claus and a showgirl with a pink ostrich feather tail. \"We also do fictional places,\" she said.\n\n\"As if Las Vegas wasn't fictional enough,\" the nephew said.\n\nLinny ignored him. \"Neverland,\" she said, clicking, \"Middle Earth, Atlantis, Hogwarts. And historical sites: Gettysburg, Waterloo, Saigon. Deck.halls has a full line of historical themes, both events and people: Cleopatra, General Patton, Bill Gates\u2014\"\n\n\"Dolly Levi,\" Brian said.\n\n\"From Hello, Dolly?\" Linny said, glad she recognized the allusion. She pulled up the theater menu. \"We have a complete line of Broadway, movie, and TV themes. Les Mis, Star Wars: Episode Nine, The Iceman Cometh, Cats.\" She clicked to Hello, Dolly. \"As you can see, the tree is decorated with hats from Irene Molloy's millinery shop, the dining room is done as Harmonia Gardens, and in front of the house,\" she clicked on Lawn Decorations, \"are a greater-than-life-size full-action Barbra Streisand and Louis Armstrong performing the title song.\"\n\nMrs. Shields was shaking her head at Brian.\n\n\"We also have Carol Channing, if you don't like Barbra Streisand,\" Linny said. \"Or Britney Spears and the rest of the cast from the revival.\"\n\n\"It's not the cast. It's just that Hello, Dolly doesn't\u2014\"\n\n\"Have anything at all to do with Christmas?\" Brian put in.\n\n\"Well, yes,\" Mrs. Shields said reluctantly. \"I know people don't want the same old themes every year, that they want something new and different, but\u2014\"\n\n\"We also have a large assortment of traditional Christmas packages: A Nutcracker Christmas, The Twelve Days of Christmas, Silver Bells, How the Grinch Stole Christmas,\" she said, looking at Brian, \"or if you prefer a religious theme,\" she clicked to a new menu, \"we have No Room at the Inn, We Three Kings, Angels We Have Heard on High, and, of course, a full range of Hanukkah, Ramadan, Winter Solstice, and Kwanzaa themes. Or there's our historical line: A Renaissance Christmas, A Victorian Christmas, A Naughty Nineties Christmas\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, that's nice,\" Mrs. Shields said, looking at the tree hung with cell phones and PalmPilots. \"Young people had so many opportunities to meet someone back in the nineties\u2014chat rooms, personal ads, online dating services. They had all sorts of ways of getting to know each other. Nowadays they don't even work together. They sit in tiny little cubicles staring at an image on a screen and talking into a headset. It's just like that story by\u2014you know who I mean, Brian, he wrote it years and years ago\u2014that author you like, not H. G. Wells, the other one.\"\n\n\"Isaac Asimov?\" Brian ventured.\n\n\"No, the other one. About the future where everyone stays inside and communicates by computer, only they didn't have computers back then, and no one goes anywhere or meets anyone face-to-face. Oh, what is it called?\"\n\n\" 'The Machine Stops,' \" Linny said, and they both looked at her in surprise. \"By E. M. Forster.\"\n\n\"That's the one,\" Mrs. Shields said delightedly. \"You're an E. M. Forster fan?\"\n\n\"I did an E. M. Forster Christmas for the Ledbetters two years ago.\"\n\n\"An E. M. Forster Christmas. Oh, I can see it now,\" Brian said sarcastically. \"In the living room, a holo of the bookcase falling on Leonard Bast, and out on the front lawn,\" he spread his arms to illustrate, \"a tableau of the Where Angels Fear to Tread carriage tipping over and killing the baby.\"\n\n\"No, of course not,\" Linny said indignantly. \"It was the kissing scene from A Room with a View.\"\n\n\"Where George kisses Lucy in the barley field?\" Mrs. Shields said. \"Oh, I love that scene, the way he strides through the barley toward her, and then, without so much as a word, takes her in his arms and kisses her. How did you manage a barley field at Christmastime?\"\n\n\"Magicarpet does wonderful grain field mats,\" Linny said. \"Their corn is especially nice. I used that for An Oklahoma Christmas last year. They also do very nice poppies.\"\n\n\"For An Opium Addict's Christmas,\" Brian said.\n\n\"I remember there were poppies in the barley field,\" Mrs. Shields said. \"I love the way she just stands there waiting while he strides toward her.\"\n\n\"An E. M. Forster Christmas would be just the thing for your house,\" Linny said, thinking, If I could do the E. M. Forster again, it would be perfect. I know exactly where to get the costumes and the holo of Florence. \"Your living room window provides an excellent view,\" she said.\n\nBut Mrs. Shields was shaking her head again. \"It sounds lovely, but this first time I think I'd like to have something more\u2026Christmassy. Do you have any just Christmas Christmases?\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" Linny said, thinking, I am going to have to show her every single design I have. \"Here's a very nice Currier and Ives Christmas. Or Christmas in Toyland, A Child's Christmas in Wales,\" she said, clicking rapidly through the holos, \"Christmas with the Waltons, Christmas with the Cleavers, Christmas in Manhattan\u2014that one's really fun. Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty ornaments, and a yard display of the Rockettes and a full-size balloon from the Macy's parade.\"\n\n\"Oh, my,\" Mrs. Shields said. \"Don't you have something more\u2026traditional?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Linny said, clicking to the Christmas Past menu. \"We have A Dickens Christmas, A Williamsburg Christmas,\" she said, showing holos of them in quick succession, \"A Regency Christmas, Gone with the Wind Christmas. Did you have any particular historical period in mind? Your house would be ideal for our Roaring Twenties Christmas. Bathtub gin, raccoon coats\u2014\"\n\n\"Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald passed out on the front lawn,\" the nephew put in.\n\nLinny glared at him. \"We can do a specific year if you like, or a specific date. I did a really fun 2001 Christmas three years ago\u2014Millennium fireworks, Stanley Kubrick ornaments\u2014\"\n\nThe nephew grinned and started to make another smart remark.\n\n\"Or a favorite decade,\" Linny said quickly. \"Here's one you might like.\" She clicked to A Retro Christmas. \"The tree's aluminum with an authentic rotating colored light.\"\n\n\"Oh, my grandmother had one of those,\" Mrs. Shields said, and Linny began to get her hopes up again, but she didn't want that, either.\n\n\"Maybe something more modern,\" she said questioningly, so Linny went through Christmas by Laserlight, Christmas on the Space Station, A Cloned Christmas, Christmas in Cyberspace, all to no avail.\n\n\"I just don't know\u2026they all seem so fancy\u2026and as you can see, I like to keep it simple. Maybe something to do with nature?\"\n\nLinny sneaked a look at the time. Nearly four. She was going to have to leave if she wanted to get to the statuary warehouse before it closed.\n\n\"I'm keeping you, aren't I?\" Mrs. Shields said, and looked at her own watch. \"Oh, my goodness, it's nearly suppertime. You'll stay for supper, won't you?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I can't. I have an appointment\u2014\"\n\n\"And you need me to make up my mind,\" Mrs. Shields said, flustered. \"Do I have to do it today? I just can't seem\u2026\"\n\n\"No, of course not,\" Linny said, thinking, Norwall will have a fit. \"Why don't I leave a rom with you? You can look through the themes at your leisure, and when you decide, or if you have any questions, you can get in touch with me.\" She called up her card, added her address, and printed one out. \"This is my office at home, but I'm hardly ever there. I spend most of my time on-site, supervising installations. Vmail is your best bet. I recommend the Retro Christmas. It's very classic.\" She turned to Brian. \"If I could just get my coat.\"\n\n\"Oh, surely you can stay for a quick supper,\" Mrs. Shields said. \"It will only take a moment. Turkey skin sandwiches and pie.\"\n\n\"No, really, I have to catch the maglev\u2014\"\n\n\"Brian can take you,\" she said. \"He'd be delighted.\"\n\nHe didn't look delighted.\n\n\"No, really, I have several errands to run on the way home. I have to pick up something and then\u2014\"\n\n\"All the more reason, then. You can't carry a bunch of packages on the maglev\u2014\"\n\n\"I don't want to put Mr. West out,\" Linny said uncomfortably. \"One of the places I need to go is clear on the east side of Greater Denver\u2014\"\n\n\"Then you can't possibly take the maglev. Brian can take you right to the door, can't you, Brian?\" Mrs. Shields said, not giving him a chance to answer. She produced a set of car keys, their coats, and, in spite of Linny's protests, a turkey skin sandwich, and bundled them into the car, which was Ferrari's new fusion-cell Incite. Linny revised her financial estimate upward again.\n\n\"Just tell him where you need to go,\" Mrs. Shields said, pushing down the door.\n\n\"I still don't think I should impose on\u2014\"\n\n\"You're not imposing. Brian's happy to do it for you, and this will give the two of you a chance to talk,\" she said, and waved them out of the driveway.\n\n\"Where to?\" he asked.\n\n\"Look, I know your aunt meant well, but I don't want to ruin your Thanksgiving. Why don't you just take me to the station?\"\n\n\"You're not ruining my Thanksgiving,\" he said. \"Where to?\"\n\nShe gave him the directions to the statuary warehouse.\n\nHe made no move to enter the directions into the Incite's computer or even to put the controls on drive-assist, which was a clear sign he didn't want to talk, so Linny didn't say anything either till they got to Bowles. \"You take a left here. Rock and a Hard Place is six blocks down on the right. There's a sign out front that says 'Statuary and Stonework.' \"\n\n\"So what are you picking up? Tombstones for Number 257 Christmas in the Cemetery?\"\n\n\"You don't approve of what I do, do you?\" she asked.\n\n\"I just don't see what crossword puzzles and tombstones have to do with Christmas.\"\n\n\"It's not a tombstone. It's a bust of Shakespeare.\"\n\n\"For A Classics Christmas? Silas Marner ornaments and a Jude the Obscure lawn display? Why can't you do something connected to Christmas?\"\n\n\"Like mistletoe?\" she asked. \"Which was co-opted from the Druids? Nearly everything we associate with Christmas was tacked on after the fact. The Yule log was lifted from the Druids, too, Christmas trees and presents were co-opted from the Roman Saturnalia. Even Santa's sleigh and flying reindeer were stolen from Norse mythology.\"\n\n\"But there's still a connection, no matter how tenuous. Unlike Atlantis. And Coca-Cola ornaments.\"\n\n\"Like Christmas cards, you mean?\" she said. \"They were invented in l843 to advertise a publishing company. People have been complaining about the commercialization of Christmas since back in E. M. Forster's day.\"\n\nThey were in front of Rock and a Hard Place. Brian and Linny got out and went into the warehouse. Statues and busts stood everywhere: Ben Franklin and Winnie-the-Pooh and Patsy Ramsey. Linny stepped among a flock of stone sheep to the counter and typed her name and order into the computer.\n\n\"I just think the celebration of Christmas should retain some connection to the original meaning,\" he said, draping his arm over a statue of a very young Angelina Jolie.\n\n\"Which is?\"\n\n\"Good will toward men. Kindness, sharing, forgiveness, love.\"\n\nA robo-dolly brought the bust of Shakespeare up. \"Follow me,\" Linny said, and led it out to the car. The dolly loaded it into the backseat, and Brian strapped the bust in.\n\n\"Things like good will and family and being together can't be captured in Number 194 Ferns of the Mesozoic,\" he said.\n\n\"They can't be captured in stockings hung by the chimney with care, either. The tree, the candles\u2014\"\n\n\"The Elvis impersonator\u2014\"\n\n\"Are all just trappings,\" she said. \"They don't affect the spirit of Christmas. Most of the people I do installations for hire me so they can spend more time with their loved ones, so they're not run so ragged by shopping and cooking and decorating that they're screaming at everyone.\"\n\n\"That does not explain Christmas Number 265 Keeping Up with the Joneses.\"\n\nLike Pandora Freeh, she thought. \"People have always wanted to impress their neighbors. And they've always made things bigger and fancier than they needed to be, from their clothes to their houses. To their cars,\" she added pointedly.\n\nHe grinned. \"Where would you like my car to go next?\"\n\n\"Back to Aspen Lane.\"\n\n\"What for?\" he said sharply.\n\n\"Not to your aunt's. To Ms. Freeh's.\" She gave the address. \"I'm sorry you had to come all this way in and back\u2014\"\n\n\"I told you, it's no imposition.\" He started the car. \"I suppose you're right about people overdoing things,\" he said when they were back on the highway. \"Look at the Tower of Babel. It wasn't enough to build a skyscraper, they had to build a tower right up to heaven\u2014 No, don't tell me,\" he said at her expression. \"You have a Tower of Babel Christmas.\"\n\n\"Number 605. It's part of our Evangelical line,\" she admitted. \"We also have Noah's Ark, Daniel in the Lion's Den, and the Battle of Armageddon.\"\n\n\"Which is Number 666, no doubt.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"I know a lot of them are silly, but they're what people want. My job is to try to make Christmas as happy and stress-free as I can for my clients. Surely that's in the Christmas spirit.\"\n\nIt seemed to take no time at all to get to Pandora's, which was good because it was nearly seven. She would never have made it on the maglev.\n\n\"What's her theme?\" Brian asked when they pulled up in front of Pandora's mansion. \"A Forbes 500 Christmas?\"\n\n\"No, High School Memories. If this bust is the right one.\" She pressed the door sensor.\n\n\"Who shall I say is calling?\" it asked.\n\n\"Linny Chiang,\" she said, pressing her hand to the ID pad.\n\n\"And her delivery boy,\" Brian said.\n\nThe door opened, and they went in. Linny began looking around for a place for Brian to set the bust down, but before they could, Pandora Freeh was upon them, crying out, \"Oh, what a pity you brought it all this way!\"\n\n\"It's not the same Shakespeare?\" Linny asked.\n\n\"No, it is! It looks exactly like the one in Mr. Spoonmaker's class, right down to the nick in his beard. Oh, I can't even look at it!\" she said, waving Brian away.\n\n\"Should I take it back out to the car?\" he whispered to Linny.\n\nShe shook her head. \"But if it's perfect, Pandora, why\u2014?\"\n\nMs. Freeh ignored her. \"I knew it was such a good theme someone was bound to steal it, and now we're going to have to come up with a completely new theme!\"\n\nLinny's heart sank. \"Someone else is doing a high school memories theme?\"\n\n\"They might as well be,\" Pandora said, flouncing down on the couch. \"Joan and Claudette Proudell are doing Rah! Rah! Sis Boom Bah!\"\n\nLinny didn't dare look at Brian. \"Rah, rah, sis boom bah?\"\n\n\"Yes, their entire house,\" she flung her arm out, \"is being decorated in pom-poms, megaphones, and holos of girls in pleated skirts doing the splits\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Linny said, finally understanding. \"And you think that will take away from the basketball holo you intended to have in the living room. But we can change that to something else. A holo of typing class, or the lunchroom.\"\n\n\"Lunchroom?\" Pandora shuddered. \"Nobody has happy memories of their high school lunchroom. I was going to have the league championship game right before the final buzzer, with the crowd roaring and the cheerleaders leaping into the air,\" she explained to Brian, who was still holding the bust of Shakespeare.\n\n\"This is Brian, by the way,\" Linny said, leading him over to an end table where he could set it down. \"His aunt is having her Christmas done for the first time. She lives near you.\"\n\n\"Really, what's her name?\"\n\n\"Shields,\" Brian said reluctantly, and who could blame him?\n\nPandora waved her hand in a dismissive gesture that meant she didn't know her, which was surprising. From the number of friends and relatives Pandora cited when she was changing her mind, Linny assumed she knew everybody in a thousand-mile radius.\n\n\"Well, tell her to make sure no one else is doing the same theme before she signs her contract,\" Pandora said, \"so she doesn't have to change it and start all over again a month from Christmas the way I am.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm sure that won't be necessary,\" Linny said, trying not to sound as desperate as she felt. She had already ordered all the glassware and the black rubber aprons for the chemistry lab and the prom ornaments and disco ball for the tree.\n\n\"What if we changed it from a memories theme to a modern high school?\" she said. \"They don't have cheerleaders, and we could add girls' bocce ball and KI and virtual learning labs, and your bust of Shakespeare could\u2014\"\n\n\"They don't even teach Shakespeare in today's high schools,\" Pandora sniffed. \"And I won't do a Christmas theme without it. No, it's going to have to be something completely different. Joan and Claudette have ruined it. I don't even want to think about high schools anymore. So,\" she said brightly, \"what do you suggest?\" She clasped her hands and looked up expectantly at Linny.\n\n\"I\u2026\" Oh, my God. Something with a bust of Shakespeare. Christmas in Stratford-on-Avon? No, she knew of at least two other Christmas designers who'd done it. Famous People Who've Been Cut Off Just Below the Shoulders?\n\n\"You know,\" Brian said, \"this bust of Shakespeare just gave me an idea. Your theme could be a Shakespearean play.\"\n\n\"Grimshaw Powell's ex already did Macbeth two years ago,\" Pandora said.\n\n\"No, I was thinking a Christmas play. We were just talking,\" he said, nodding at Linny, \"about how so many Christmas themes aren't really related to Christmas at all.\"\n\nLike High School Memories, Linny thought, but Pandora didn't look at all offended. \"I didn't know Shakespeare wrote a Christmas play,\" she said.\n\nI didn't either, Linny thought.\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" Brian said. \"It's called Twelfth Night, and it was meant to be performed during the Christmas season, on Epiphany. It would be a perfect theme\u2014it's got a shipwreck, and\u2026\"\n\n\"A palace,\" Linny said, coming to his aid, \"and gorgeous velvet and satin costumes\u2014\"\n\n\"And cross-gartering,\" Brian said.\n\n\"Cross-gartering?\" Pandora said doubtfully.\n\n\" 'I will be strange, stout, in yellow stockings, and cross-gartered,' \" he quoted, \"and there are rings and love notes and disguises and romance. 'If music be the food of love, play on\u2014' \"\n\n\"And your bust of Shakespeare will fit right in,\" Linny put in.\n\n\"And I'm sure no one's ever done it before,\" Brian said.\n\n\"I don't doubt that,\" Pandora said, frowning. \"But do you think it's well-known enough? I've never even heard of it. What if people don't recognize it?\"\n\n\"That is a consideration,\" Brian said, and Linny wondered whether he was deliberately trying to undermine what he'd just suggested. \"It certainly has more substance than Rah! Rah! Sis Boom Bah!\"\n\nPandora looked delighted. \"I hate frivolous themes,\" she said, \"and, as you say, it's directly related to Christmas. Cheerleading has nothing at all to do with Christmas.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" they both said.\n\n\"And I wouldn't have to give up my bust of Shakespeare.\"\n\n\"It could be right in the entry hall,\" Linny said, and Brian promptly picked it up and carried it in, \"where it would be the first thing your guests would see.\"\n\n\"I love it!\" Pandora said, clasping her hands under her chin. \"Twelfth Night it is.\"\n\n\"You're a genius,\" Linny said on their way out to the car. \"Have you ever considered being a Christmas designer?\"\n\n\"God forbid,\" he said, popping the doors. \"I just didn't want to carry that thing back to the tombstone store. I hope I didn't let you in for too much work.\"\n\n\"Are you kidding?\" Linny said, getting in. \"The other theme she was considering before she decided on High School Memories was whaling.\"\n\nHe laughed. \"All right, where to next?\"\n\n\"Just the maglev station, thanks,\" she said. \"That was my last errand, and there's no point in your driving me all the way back into town. You're only a few blocks from your aunt's.\"\n\n\"I like to show off my overly big and fancy car,\" he said, and pulled out into the street.\n\n\"No, really,\" she protested, \"you've already done enough by suggesting Twelfth Night. It's an inspired theme. I can do the dining room as Maria's kitchen and the living room as Olivia's garden, and for an outdoor tableau\u2026Sorry,\" she said when she saw he was looking at her. \"I get a little carried away.\"\n\n\"You really like doing this stuff, don't you?\"\n\n\"It's fun,\" she said, \"doing research\u2014I get to find out about so many different things\u2014\"\n\n\"Like E. M. Forster.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Most jobs are so narrowly focused these days. And I love taking an idea and thinking how it can be adapted to lights and tree decorations. You do the same thing, I suppose, with your bridges?\"\n\n\"Bridges?\" he said blankly.\n\n\"Your aunt told me you were an engineer, and I assumed you built bridges.\"\n\n\"Oh. No,\" he said, frowning. \"Dams. I build dams.\"\n\n\"Oh, but I mean, seeing where the water needs to go and then translating that into blueprints and then concrete. It must be the same kind of thing.\"\n\n\"What's the hardest Christmas you've ever had to design?\" he asked.\n\n\"Gum Disease,\" she said promptly. \"It was for this oral surgeon. The most fun one was the one I did for an ex-stripper named Bubbles O'Halloran. Her theme was\u2014\"\n\n\"Let me guess. Bubbles?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"I had bubble lights and a bubble machine and bubble gum and bubble wrap and those bubble dresses from the 1960s\u2014\"\n\n\"What, no champagne?\"\n\n\"No, but for the outdoor tableau I had an animated Don Ho singing 'Tiny Bubbles.' \"\n\nThey chatted the rest of the way home, him asking her about the best Christmas she'd ever designed and the easiest and the craziest. He was still driving the Incite on his own, only occasionally glancing sideways at her, and she was grateful it wasn't on comp-drive because it was already awfully cozy in the darkened car.\n\nShe was hardly ever this close to anyone in person\u2014she couldn't remember the last time she and Norwall had sat side by side\u2014and looking at someone's image on a screen just wasn't the same thing. For one thing, there was the scent. Brian smelled faintly of soap and aftershave and sweat. And video images, even high-definition, didn't pick up details like the fine hairs on the backs of his hands as he gripped the steering wheel.\n\nMrs. Shields had a point about people spending too much time alone staring at a screen. She was proof of it. The mere presence of another person was turning her into one of Pandora's cheerleaders.\n\nHe had pulled onto her block. \"The corner's fine,\" she said.\n\n\"I don't suppose you'd have time to grab a pita or a cone of red tea\u2014\"\n\n\"You're kidding, right?\" she said.\n\n\"No, I\u2014too busy, huh?\"\n\n\"Busy isn't even the word. Hysterical. The busy season's from January through April, when we do our prelim plans and put in orders. From then on it's chaos. And now I have to completely redo Pandora's financial estimate and d\u00e9cor plan.\n\n\"I don't have time to breathe, let alone sit down and have a\u2014\" She realized suddenly how ungracious she sounded. \"But thank you for asking me. And thank you for talking Pandora into Twelfth Night. If it were any other time\u2014\"\n\n\"Except January through December,\" he said. \"I could take you back to Rock and a Hard Place so you can order Patience on a monument.\"\n\n\"That's okay, I'll order it online,\" she said, laughing. She got out of the car and leaned in. \"I really wish I could.\"\n\n\"It's okay. You need to go order fake mustaches, and I need to go talk to my aunt. I have a few things I want to discuss with her,\" he said grimly.\n\n\"You're not still trying to talk her out of a professional Christmas, are you?\"\n\n\"No, definitely not. I was thinking of Number 941 A Dam Christmas. What do you think?\" he said, and smelled so good as he said it that she almost said yes, she'd go for a cone of tea.\n\nIt was a good thing she didn't, though, because she had 226 incomings, nineteen of them emergency override messages. The Ledbetters needed their installation moved up to the fourteenth, Jack and Jill Halsey needed theirs moved back to the eighth, The Hanging Tree was out of otter candles and wanted to know if wolverines would work. Stitch in Time wanted to know whether she wanted walnut brown, espresso, or sludge.\n\nThere was an animated emessage from cyberfloral wishing her a happy Thanksgiving and another one from Online Medical Supplies. \"For That Unique Christmas Theme.\"\n\nCareen Everett wanted to change from a vegetarian Christmas Eve buffet to a sit-down vegan dinner. Oppie Harper-Groves wanted to change from Rottweilers to Skye terriers. The Throckmortons wanted to change from twenty-four-caliber to nine-millimeter.\n\nSurprisingly, there were no messages from Pandora Freeh. It usually took her about ten minutes to find something wrong with Linny's proposals. She must have really been impressed with Brian's idea.\n\nLinny had been, too. It wasn't often you met somebody who read Shakespeare's comedies and E. M. Forster novels. It wasn't often you met anyone, period. Mrs. Shields was right. There were very few romantic opportunities these days. The only other people besides Norwall she ever saw were the guys from FedXUPS and deliveries.com, and the only thing they ever said was, stolidly, \"I don't know anything about that. All I got is these two boxes,\" and even if she, inconceivably, had wanted to go out with one of them, when exactly would she find the time to do that? Before she'd even finished reading through her messages, seventeen more had come in.\n\nLinny read through the other two hundred and twenty and then moved the Emory installation and vmailed the Taylors to see if she could shift theirs to the thirteenth so the Ledbetters could have the fourteenth. She vmailed alfalfa.com for possible vegan menus, decided on a brown (soy sauce), did a global otter candle search, and ordered Skye terrier ornaments from Dog Depot, critturama.com, and the Spot Spot, and then called Norwall.\n\nHe didn't answer (a bad sign) but when she checked her vmail, there weren't any messages from him (a good sign), and none from Mrs. Shields, deciding on a theme. There was, however, one from Pandora. She had known it was too good to be true.\n\n\"Twelfth Night isn't an R, is it?\" a message so incomprehensible that even though it was after eleven, she called Pandora back.\n\n\"I remembered your young man said something about garters, and Charmaine Kagasaki's ex's children are going to be here,\" she said. \"You aren't planning anything with lingerie, are you?\"\n\n\"Cross-gartering doesn't have anything to do with lingerie,\" Linny said firmly. \"They're ribbons. Yellow ribbons.\"\n\n\"Erna Bunrath's designer is doing a wonderful Iran hostage crisis,\" Pandora said. \"Maybe a political theme\u2014\"\n\n\"It wouldn't have your bust of Shakespeare,\" Linny pointed out, \"which I assure you is the centerpiece of your theme.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Pandora said, pleased.\n\n\"Absolutely. I've been thinking, maybe instead of the entry hall, it should be in the living room, in a sort of specially built niche\u2014\"\n\nThey spent the next hour and a half discussing the optimal location for the bust of Shakespeare, but at least at the end of it, Pandora sounded definitely committed to Twelfth Night. Even better, after Linny vmailed her her proposal three days later, there were only two overrides from her, and they were both about the buffet: \"I like your 'If music be the food of love, play on' idea, but I think trumpets would make a nicer centerpiece than a violin,\" and \"Primula Outridge's new live-in is allergic to strawberries.\"\n\nThe thirteenth, however, would not work for the Niedmores. They could do either the tenth or the eighteenth, both of which were booked. Soy sauce was unavailable, and sludge was back-ordered till March eighth. Linny mentally rolled up her sleeves and got to work. She called Wang Ho to see if he'd be willing to have his installation on the thirteenth and then checked for messages from Mrs. Shields.\n\nStill nothing. She was going to have to help her. She vmailed Inge and asked her if she'd finished the netcheck yet.\n\n\"Sorry, no,\" Inge said. \"I forgot all about it, I was so swamped after Thanksgiving. By the way, thank you for letting me take it off. Carlo was really homesick. The food they have up there is terrible. I'll get right on that netcheck.\"\n\n\"Great,\" Linny said, and then, curiously, \"How did you meet Carlo?\"\n\n\"My sister fixed us up,\" she said. \"Did you decide which cookies you wanted for the Tornado Christmas afternoon tea?\"\n\nLinny hadn't. She picked them (chocolate swirls and mincemeat bars), checked the measurements of the Fanworthys' dining room for their rodeo holo, and then got busy on the Mannings' installation, which was on the eighth and which took every waking moment till then to get ready. She didn't even have time to answer her incomings, except for Brian's. He had called her twice, once to tell her his aunt had decided against the catering package, and again to tell her she'd narrowed it down to six themes. \"None of which, I am happy to say, is Number 332 A Harley-Davidson Christmas.\"\n\nInge still hadn't gotten the netcheck to her, but it was just as well. She wouldn't have had time to read it. She was too busy locating three tons of granite boulders.\n\nThe Manning installation took two days. Linny was standing on a ladder on the second, stringing up largemouth bass, when Brian appeared. \"Don't tell me,\" he said. \"Number 54 A Carp Christmas.\"\n\n\"Wrong,\" she said, coming down off the ladder. \"Number 152 Fisherman's Paradise. What are you doing here? How did you know where I was?\"\n\n\"My aunt had something she wanted me to ask you,\" he said, \"but your incoming box was full, so I thought I'd come over here. She was wondering if she could move the date of her installation.\"\n\n\"To when?\" Linny asked, getting out her handheld, thinking, Not to the fourteenth. Please not to the fourteenth.\n\n\"To the morning of the twenty-third,\" he said. \"She has a big dinner party that night. I know it's awfully close to Christmas\u2014\"\n\n\"No, that's great. People always want their installations early, so they can have them up for the whole season.\"\n\n\"I can see why,\" he said, looking at the tree. It was hung with fishhooks, sinkers, and feathered lures, and topping it was a gold-plated casting reel.\n\n\"You ain't seen nothing yet,\" she said, and led the way into the family room where a stream trickled between artificial mossy banks.\n\n\"A River Runs Through It,\" he said.\n\n\"Exactly. And it's stocked, so the Mannings' guests can fish.\"\n\nHe picked up a sign that said \"Gone Fishing.\" \"How about you put this on the front door and go out for chai with me. You could say it's research for a new theme. Number 928 Chai and Chit-Chat.\"\n\n\"I can't,\" she said regretfully. \"The nets aren't here yet, and I've still got the master bedroom to do.\"\n\n\"What's going to be in there, a reservoir?\" he said, and insisted on looking at all the other rooms before he left.\n\n\"I thought you didn't approve of professional Christmases,\" she said.\n\n\"I don't,\" he said, pointing to the waders hanging in front of the fireplace and the Styrofoam cooler filled with beer on the mantel, \"but it's fascinating, in a horrible sort of way. Speaking of which, how's our friend Ms. Freeh? Is she still Twelfth Nighting it?\"\n\nAmazingly, she was, though she vmailed Linny twice a day with questions: \"Could we have the shipwreck for the lawn decoration instead of as a holo?\" \"Do you think widows' weeds are really a good idea? I look so fat in black.\" And \"Illyria's not in the Middle East, is it?\"\n\nLinny answered them as best she could, did three Hanukkah installations and the Immerguts' Christmas Down Under, and tried to track down a set of Masai drums FedXUPS had lost. They were in Honolulu. Linny got them rerouted and was trying to calculate how long it would take for them to get there when there was a buzz.\n\nLinny reached for the delete button and then realized it was the door. It can't be the Masai drums already, she thought, and opened the door.\n\nIt was Brian, carrying two cardboard cones. \"I knew you'd be too busy to go out for red tea, so I brought it here,\" he said. He handed her a cone and walked past her. \"So this is your apartment?\" he said, walking into the kitchen, her bedroom, her barely-room-for-one-person-and-a-computer office. \"Definitely 'The Machine Stops,' \" he said, looking at her flatscreen, streamer, rom files. \"No Christmas tree? No largemouth bass?\"\n\n\"I can't afford a Christmas designer,\" she said. \"What are you doing here? Please tell me your aunt's picked a theme.\"\n\n\"No, but\"\u2014he set his cone down and pulled a sheaf of papers from his jacket with a flourish and presented it to her\u2014\"I have the contract, signed, sealed, and delivered.\"\n\n\"But if she hasn't picked a theme\u2014\" Linny said.\n\nHe took the contract back from her and flipped to the second page. \"Here,\" he said, showing her. \" 'Theme to be chosen by Christmas designer,' \" he read aloud. \"She thinks you should pick the theme since you're the expert.\"\n\n\"That's wonderful,\" Linny said. If she got to choose the theme, she could base it on what was available and pretty. There was that gorgeous beaten-copper angel at ohheavens.com. It would go perfectly with Mrs. Shields's Arts and Crafts furniture\u2014\n\n\"All she asks is that it be something related to Christmas, not Las Vegas. Or whaling.\"\n\nLinny nodded happily. \"Of course. Thank you for bringing it. You didn't have to drive all the way over here, you know,\" she said. \"You could have just emailed it.\"\n\n\"Aunt Darby doesn't trust computers, especially where contracts are concerned. She likes having an actual piece of paper in front of her. Your computer's buzzing.\"\n\nShe went into the office. It was Pandora. \"Twelfth Night is not going to work,\" she said icily. \"I just talked to Cecelia Towstrapp. Why didn't you tell me it was about transvestites? I knew cross-gartering was an R\u2014\"\n\n\"It's not about transvestites,\" Linny said. \"I mean, Viola does dress up like a man, but it isn't because of a sexual\u2014\"\n\n\"Put it on speaker,\" Brian, who'd followed her in, said, and pulled up a stool to sit next to her. \"Ms. Freeh, do you remember me? I met you on Thanksgiving?\"\n\n\"Yes, you were the one who talked me into doing Twelfth Night,\" she said, but considerably less icily. \"You should have told me it had cross-dressing in it. Lulu Pazanetta's already doing Rocky Horror Picture Show, so I can't\u2014\"\n\n\"Viola dresses up like a man because she's afraid for her safety as a woman alone in a strange country,\" Brian said. \"She doesn't intentionally mean to fool the duke.\" He leaned in to look directly into the screen. \"She wants to tell him, but she can't. Telling the duke the truth means admitting she's tricked him, that she's lied to him.\"\n\nLinny wished there was a little more room in here. He was sitting even closer than he had in the car, and the smell of his skin, his breath, as he spoke earnestly to Pandora\u2014\n\n\"She can't risk telling him. She's in love with him,\" he said. \"But she also knows he's bound to find out sooner or later, and when he does, he's bound to feel betrayed and never want to speak to her again. So she's trapped.\"\n\nThere was a long, silent pause, and then Pandora said, \"Oh, that's so romantic! You're right. It's a wonderful theme. Cecelia's a moron. You've convinced me. Transmit the contract.\"\n\nYou're kidding, Linny almost said, but she quickly typed in the contract details and sent it through. \"Thank you,\" she whispered as soon as the contract replaced Pandora on the screen. \"I cannot tell you how much work you've saved me.\"\n\n\"Good,\" he said, still much too close. \"Then you've got time to go out to dinner with me.\"\n\n\"I can't,\" she said regretfully. \"I have to do a long-distance installation in Aruba starting at five, and I still haven't found a decontamination suit.\"\n\n\"I won't even ask what their Christmas theme is,\" he said. \"Look, I know this is your busy season, and probably you're already lining up clients for next year, but you can't tell me you can't take at least one day off a year. I know it won't be till after Christmas,\" he said when she started to protest, \"I just want to put my bid in now.\"\n\nPandora's image reappeared on the screen. \"The sixteenth won't work. You couldn't do it tomorrow, could you?\"\n\nIf only she could. She'd be free of Pandora for the rest of the season. \"I'm afraid not.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear, it's the only day I've got free. I'll have to see what I can juggle in my calendar and get back to you.\"\n\nAnd probably tell me Twelfth Night won't work, Linny thought, waiting for her override, but she didn't send a single vmessage. She didn't send the contract either, but at least she hadn't changed her mind. A week later they were still with Twelfth Night.\n\n\"It's a miracle,\" she told Norwall and Inge during their mid-December three-way conference. \"I think she's actually ready to sign a contract. And that will only leave Mrs. Shields.\"\n\n\"I wanted to talk to you about that,\" Inge said. \"When I tried to run the netcheck on her, I couldn't find anything.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Linny asked. \"There was a block on the information?\"\n\n\"I thought you said the financial check had already been done,\" Norwall said.\n\n\"It wasn't blocked,\" Inge said. \"There wasn't a firewall, but when I put her name in, it gave me information on the house, but nothing else. When I ask for personal data, financial records, medical history, there's nothing, just a blank. And when I tried the address, I got the same thing. Her name as owner and nothing else.\"\n\n\"Sounds like some kind of sophisticated privacy baffle system,\" Norwall said, \"but why\u2014? What did you say her name was?\"\n\n\"Shields,\" Inge said. \"I didn't have a first name.\"\n\nBut a last name and an address should have been enough to get the rest of the information, Linny thought. \"Are you sure you spelled Shields right?\" she asked.\n\n\"Do you know her first name?\" Norwall said.\n\n\"Yes,\" Linny said. \"Darby.\"\n\n\"Darby?\" he said, and then sharply, \"What about the nephew, the engineer?\"\n\n\"Brian West.\"\n\n\"Do you want me to try his name?\" Inge asked.\n\n\"No, I'll take care of this,\" Norwall said, and downlinked, even though they still had several things to discuss.\n\nIt was just as well. The Masai drums had gotten lost again, and it took her the better part of two days she didn't have to track them down in Nashville. She did the Kwanzaa installations and an Extreme Sports Christmas and then, emboldened by the fact that Pandora hadn't messaged her, sent her a Twelfth Night contract.\n\nShe got an override from her immediately. And she should never have said that about it being a miracle because the first words out of Pandora's mouth were \"It isn't going to work.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" Linny asked. She refused to believe anyone else was doing Twelfth Night.\n\n\"It's the jester, Festus. Charlton Lebrock's ex is doing Christmas in Dodge City, and there's a Festus in that. He's a drunk.\"\n\n\"The jester's name is Feste,\" Linny protested, but to no avail. Pandora's mind, such as it was, was made up.\n\n\"We'll have to do a different play. One that no one else has done.\"\n\n\"Coriolanus,\" Linny suggested, wishing Brian was here and wondering if she could send him an override. \"The Tempest.\"\n\n\"That people have heard of,\" Pandora said.\n\nOthello, Linny thought, with an outdoor tableau of you being smothered with a pillow. \"As You Like It. Richard the Third.\"\n\nBut all the plays people had heard of had already been done by Pandora's friends, or Pandora's friends' exes, or their exes. Brian's right, Linny thought, this whole theme thing has gotten out of hand. Why can't people have a Christmas they like? Why do they have to have something completely unique?\n\nThey finally settled on A Midsummer's Night Dream, which should at least be comparatively easy\u2014flowers, fairies, a woodland holo. She started a search for a donkey's head.\n\nCostumes.com didn't have one. She tried Don We Now Our Gay Apparel.\n\nThe screen buzzed, and Norwall's image appeared. \"She's Sara Darbingdon,\" he said.\n\n\"Who is?\" Linny said blankly.\n\n\"Your client. Darby Shields. She's the head of Galatek International.\"\n\n\"Galatek International?\" Linny said. \"The software company?\"\n\n\"The software conglomerate. Your client's the computer genius who started it.\"\n\n\"But that's impossible,\" Linny said. \"Mrs. Shields doesn't know anything about computers. She doesn't even like sending emails.\"\n\n\"That's what she told you. Trust me, I ran a complete profile of her. Dr. Sara Darbingdon, 3404 Aspen Lane\u2014\"\n\nNorwall's image disappeared and a news photo of Sara Darbingdon appeared. \"Galatek CEO Announces Intel Merger.\" It was Mrs. Shields.\n\n\"But why would she pretend\u2014?\"\n\n\"Because she didn't want you to know who you were talking to. She's obviously after deck.halls.\"\n\n\"After deck.halls? What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I mean, they're researching a takeover. Or else starting their own Christmas company. With your ideas. How many themes did you show her?\"\n\n\"Quite a few,\" Linny said, thinking of that first interview and the number of holos she'd clicked through. \"But why\u2014she's never even had a professional Christmas.\"\n\n\"Wrong again,\" he said, and a list came up on the screen. \"Home and office Christmases for the last ten years, all done by Galatek's in-house designers: Christmas in the Country, O Holy Night, A Norman Rockwell Christmas, Christmas in Connecticut\u2026\"\n\nAt least she was telling the truth about liking traditional Christmases, Linny thought irrelevantly. \"But I still don't understand. If they already have Christmas designers\u2014\"\n\n\"Because we're successful, and conglomerates like Galatek are always looking for ways to co-opt successes. Look what Time-Warner-Microsoft did to graduation planning. They put every private planner out of business. You didn't give her a rom, did you?\"\n\n\"She couldn't make up her mind which package\u2014\"\n\nNorwall groaned. \"Goodbye, deck.halls. Hello, Galatek Christmases, Inc.\"\n\nShe was shaking her head. \"But she seemed so nice,\" she said, but she was thinking of how she'd kept asking to see different themes, how she'd asked her about her office, how she'd insisted Brian take her to Rock and a\u2026Brian.\n\n\"You're wrong,\" she said. \"She can't be Sara Darbingdon. There has to be some mistake. Her nephew helped me come up with a theme for Pandora Freeh. He wouldn't be a party to\u2014\"\n\n\"He's not her nephew.\"\n\nAfter several seconds she managed to say, \"What?\"\n\n\"He works at Galatek. He's no relation to Dr. Darbingdon.\"\n\n\"I don't believe you,\" she said. \"He hates the whole idea of professional Christmases.\"\n\n\"That's something he obviously said so you wouldn't catch on.\"\n\nSo she wouldn't catch on. She thought of Brian showing up at the Manning installation, at her apartment, of his walking into her office, looking at her equipment. And all the while pretending that he\u2014\n\n\"They were obviously after your designs,\" Norwall said, \"pumping you for the names of clients and suppliers.\"\n\n\"Who do you get a largemouth bass from anyway?\" Brian had said, and he'd asked her all about her best Christmas and her most difficult.\n\n\"What's his name?\" she said.\n\n\"Who? Oh, the so-called nephew? He actually used his own name, I suppose because it isn't one you'd recognize, but he's not an engineer. He's a marketing designer.\"\n\n\"I have to go,\" Linny said.\n\n\"The house is hers, too. I was surprised. When I saw your proposal layouts, I assumed it had to be a rental for the occasion, but no, she actually lives in it when she's not in San Francisco. Or Stockholm. She's got houses there, too, plus apartments in Manhattan, Sydney, S\u00e3o Paulo, Addis Ababa, and Beijing. And a villa in Iceland.\"\n\n\"I like to keep things simple,\" she'd said.\n\n\"I've got an override from Pandora Freeh,\" Linny lied. \"I've got to go.\"\n\n\"Pandora will have to wait,\" Norwall said. \"We have to talk about what you're going to do about this.\"\n\n\"I'll call you back,\" she said, and downlinked before he could protest.\n\nAnd then sat there, thinking, I don't believe it. But she did. After all, it was the oldest trick in the book\u2014#145 Romantic Con Men. Sweet-talk the mark into revealing her secrets. Buy her red tea, help her carry something heavy, sit too close to her in her office, and for good measure, pretend he liked E. M. Forster, which he had no doubt found out about from one of those netchecks.\n\nAnd she had fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker\u2014#182 Fisherman's Paradise.\n\nThe screen buzzed an override. She reached for the delete key, but it wasn't Norwall. It was Pandora.\n\n\"A Midsummer Night's Dream won't work, after all,\" she said. \"Fashad Tweedlowe did Christmas at the Grand Canyon last year.\"\n\n\"The Grand Canyon?\" Linny said, unable to see the connection.\n\n\"Riding down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon,\" Pandora said.\n\nOh, she can't mean\u2014\n\n\"Burros,\" Pandora said. \"They ride burros.\"\n\n\"Bottom's an ass.\"\n\n\"Ass, burro, it's the same thing. Maybe your young man was right. I should do Twelfth Night.\"\n\nHe's not my young man, Linny thought. He's a marketing designer for Galatek.\n\n\"But it's just so obscure. Didn't Shakespeare write any other plays?\"\n\n\"Just the thirty-nine,\" Linny said. \"And 154 sonnets.\"\n\n\"The sonnets,\" Pandora said thoughtfully. \"That's an idea. Let me think about that.\" Her image blinked off. The screen immediately buzzed again.\n\nIt was Brian. She hit \"record answer,\" and Brian said, \"Look, I know you're wildly busy and my chances of taking you out for a red tea are nonexistent till after Christmas, but if you'll tell me where you're going to be stringing up hot dogs or synchronized swimmers, I'll bring you a cone. I'll even hold it for you so you can keep both hands free for plucking chickens or whatever it is you'll be doing.\"\n\nFighting off intellectual property thieves, she thought. Norwall was right. They had to talk about what she was going to do.\n\nShe uplinked to him.\n\n\"You don't do anything. If she gets demanding, you tell her you know what she's up to and you have no intention of helping her steal deck.halls out from under you.\"\n\nBut she has all those people coming for dinner, Linny thought, and then realized that was probably a lie, too.\n\n\"I know this is Galatek you're dealing with,\" Norwall was saying, \"but there's no contract, and she's on very shaky legal ground herself: fraud, criminal misrepresentation\u2014\"\n\n\"I'm afraid there is a contract,\" Linny said ruefully. \"She signed it yesterday.\"\n\n\"Online?\"\n\n\"No, an actual signature.\"\n\nNorwall nodded. \"So there wouldn't be a corneal ID.\"\n\nOf course. \"Aunt Darby doesn't trust online contracts,\" my foot. She hadn't wanted electronic identification of her signature.\n\n\"What name did she use?\" Norwall said. \"If she used Shields, the contract's invalid.\"\n\nLinny went and got the contract, hoping that was the case, but it was an illegible scrawl. She scanned it in for Norwall.\n\n\"No, that's definitely Sara Darbingdon's signature,\" he said. \"And it's the address of the house that's listed on the contract, not the owner. This changes things.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"If you've got a legally binding contract\u2014she didn't snail-mail this to you, did she?\"\n\n\"No, her\u2014Bri\u2014the marketing designer brought it over.\"\n\n\"Too bad,\" he said. \"We might have been able to prove mail fraud. But under the circumstances, unless you can prove fraudulent signing conditions\u2014\"\n\n\"I thought I was signing a contract with someone else,\" Linny said. \"Doesn't that count as fraudulent?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"It's your word against hers, or, rather, against Galatek's legal department, which is like going up against\u2014\"\n\n\"Are you telling me that even though she's trying to steal my ideas, I might have to do her Christmas?\" she said, feeling sick at the thought of it. What if Brian showed up?\n\n\"Calm down,\" Norwall said. \"Let me uplink to lawyer.com and see where we stand, and then we'll decide what to do. Don't worry. They're not going to get away with this.\"\n\nThey've already gotten away with it, Linny thought numbly. She called up her messages and tried to get some work done, but she couldn't concentrate. She ended up going through Shakespeare's sonnets, looking for one she could use for Pandora, but there wasn't much to work with. \"Bare ruined choirs\"? The \"barren rage of death's eternal cold\"?\n\nThe screen buzzed. \"It's what I was afraid of. The contract's legally binding, and the payment-on-signing's already been deposited in your online account. You're legally obligated to do the Christmas.\"\n\n\"I can't\u2014\" Linny said.\n\n\"The object is to minimize the damage and not reveal any more trade secrets than you already have. What theme is it? How detailed was your proposal?\"\n\n\"I haven't done it yet. Mrs. Shie\u2014she left the theme to my discretion.\"\n\n\"And that's in the contract?\" he said excitedly.\n\n\"Yes. No. I mean, that line was left blank, to be filled in by me.\"\n\n\"This changes everything. Let me\u2014\" he said, and his image disappeared.\n\nShe went back to dissecting sonnets: \"Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud.\" \"My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.\"\n\nShe gave up and sat there waiting for Norwall to override. \"I checked with lawyer.com,\" he said when he came on, \"and it's perfectly legal. Thank God she didn't pick a theme. There isn't a thing Dr. Darbingdon or Galatek will be able to do about it.\"\n\n\"About what?\" Linny asked.\n\n\"About the elegant revenge you're going to work on them.\"\n\n\"Revenge?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said eagerly. \"You get to pick the theme. All right. You pick Death and Destruction or Nightmares or Strip Mining. You do the installation\u2014when is it, by the way?\"\n\n\"A week from now. The twenty-third. But\u2014\"\n\n\"You decorate her house totally as per the contract, only with Disgusting Things in Caves or Revenge Is Sweet, and when she sees it, you've not only ruined her Christmas, but she knows she can't go around stealing people's concepts. And you have your revenge.\"\n\n\"What does that have to do with Christmas?\" Linny murmured.\n\n\"What?\" Norwall said.\n\n\"Nothing. Isn't it enough to tell them we know what they're up to and refuse to do the installation?\"\n\n\"She'll just get Galatek's designers to do it. This way, she's publicly humiliated. She's having a dinner party for Galatek's board of directors the night of the day you're scheduled to do the installation.\"\n\nShe wasn't lying about that, either, Linny thought.\n\n\"I think Hell Hath No Fury would be perfect,\" Norwall said.\n\n\"But it's Christmas. It's not supposed to be a time for revenge. It's supposed to be the season of forgiveness and good will.\"\n\n\"After what they've done to you? All right, no revenge themes. But you have to do something, unless you just want to hand your clients over to them.\"\n\n\"I'll go talk to them,\" she said, but her heart quailed at the thought.\n\n\"Have it your way, no revenge,\" Norwall said, throwing up his hands. \"But let me handle it. I don't trust you to be tough enough. Let me be the one to confront them.\"\n\n\"All right,\" Linny said gratefully.\n\n\"Good,\" Norwall said. \"Don't worry, I'll take care of everything.\"\n\nBut she did worry. She tried to take her mind off it by focusing on the sonnet problem, but it wasn't much help.\n\n\"Poems, you mean?\" Pandora said vaguely when Linny called her with her proposal. \"Oh, I don't want poems. They're so\u2014don't you have any other ideas?\"\n\n\"Stock car racing?\" Linny said at random. \"Herbs and spices? Duck decoys? Media bias?\"\n\n\"It has to have the bust in it.\"\n\nPikes Peak or Bust? she thought wildly. Or Great Busts of History, with Madonna and Diana Dors and the Great Crash of 2006. \"How about Famous Dramatists?\"\n\n\"Mitzi Poulakakos did that five years ago.\"\n\nI wonder if I could talk her into \"Fire\" as a theme, Linny wondered. That way I could just burn down her house. \"Or Christmas at the Globe Theater?\"\n\n\"I don't know\u2026maybe\u2026why don't you work up a proposal?\"\n\nLinny did, and installed the Goldfarbs' Christmas and the Marcianos' Hanukkah, trying to reach Norwall at intervals and finally succeeding around noon on the twenty-third.\n\n\"All taken care of,\" he said. \"You don't have to worry about anything.\"\n\n\"You talked to them?\"\n\n\"I did, and told her in no uncertain terms to leave you alone or you'd sue.\"\n\n\"What did she say?\" she said, wanting to ask if Brian had been there.\n\n\"They\u2026oh, my God, the Pyramids just fell down,\" he said. \"Don't give it another thought. All taken care of. If you get any messages from them, delete them.\"\n\nLinny did, putting them on \"automatic delete\" so she didn't even have to hear Brian's voice, and moving on to messages about the Carmodys' flamingos, a delivery of wrapping paper that had butterflies instead of caterpillars on it, and the ever-present problem of Pandora, who had decided Christmas at the Globe was too confusing.\n\n\"People might be expecting to see an actual globe,\" she said, and Linny thought, Why did I get angry when I found out Brian and Dr. Darbingdon were trying to steal my business? Why didn't I jump at the chance?\n\n\"How about Christmas in Westminster Abbey?\" she suggested. \"Candles, a holo of the nave, busts of Byron and Shakespeare and Keats. All the famous poets are buried there.\"\n\nShakespeare wasn't, but Pandora and her friends wouldn't know that. \"I can see it all now\u2014Poet's Corner, Queen Elizabeth's tomb, the Crown Jewels\u2014\"\n\n\"The Crown Jewels,\" Pandora said, pleased. \"I don't suppose you could work King Harry's coronation in somehow?\"\n\n\"Why not?\" Linny said. I have nothing else to do between now and the twenty-fifth. She uplinked to Fergie's Fripperies and reserved an ermine cape and then called Rock and a Hard Place and asked what they had left in literary busts.\n\n\"Not a thing. I've got some statues\u2014rappers, mostly, and a Sammy Sosa. I don't have a Judas, either.\"\n\nA Judas?\n\n\"The closest thing I've got is an Adonis,\" he went on. \"You could maybe put a tunic on him and thirty pieces of silver in his hand. Do you want me to send it over?\"\n\n\"Send it over where?\" Linny asked with a sinking feeling.\n\n\"Mrs. Shields, 3404 Aspen Lane,\" he said. \"Do you want the Adonis or not?\"\n\n\"Not,\" Linny said, hit \"end,\" and called a taxi.\n\nShe worried the whole way out on the maglev and in the taxi from the station about what she might find, but when it pulled up in front of the house she saw a row of life-size tin soldiers standing stiffly in red and blue uniforms.\n\n\"Oh, good, Norwall thought better of getting revenge,\" she murmured, sliding her card through the taxi's reader. He'd decided to fulfill their contract with a standard treatment instead, and one Galatek couldn't learn anything from. Babes in Toyland was one of the most common Christmas themes.\n\nShe hurried across the street and up the path to the door, and then stopped short. The soldiers had their toy rifles raised and pointed at a life-size doll in a pink dress and a blindfold. \"Oh, no,\" Linny murmured, and hurried inside.\n\nThe tree in the hall was swathed in crime scene tape and flashing red-white-and-blue police lights, and there was a painting of Benedict Arnold on the wall behind it.\n\nShe went into the living room, where a holo of Julius Caesar being stabbed was playing on a continuous loop. She walked through Brutus and into the dining room.\n\nThe walls and table were draped in black and in the center of the table was a horse's head with a sign pinned to the mane. \"This is what happens to people who try to steal our design concepts,\" it read. \"Merry Christmas from deck.halls.\"\n\nLinny pulled the sign off, wadded it up, and walked warily into the study. Statues filled the room, cups of wassail in their hands as if this was a Christmas party. Nero, and Hitler, who was Sieg Heiling with his other hand, and Simon Legree, and someone who was probably supposed to be Iago from the handkerchief in his hand.\n\nOh, no. I can't let Mrs. Shields see this, Linny thought, and then remembered she wasn't Mrs. Shields.\n\nI still can't let her see it, she thought, sick at the thought of what Brian would say when he saw this, of what he'd think if he believed she'd done this. Even though he'd\u2014\n\n\"Revenge doesn't have anything to do with Christmas,\" she said firmly, and began pulling down the black garlands looped all around the room.\n\nThere was a tree here, too, hidden behind Billy the Kid. It was lying under a guillotine, its tip, with the star still on it, chopped off, and ornaments in the shape of instruments of torture. Linny finished pulling down the garlands, stuffed them into a trash bag, and began unhooking the ornaments.\n\nThere was a sound. Oh, God, what if it's Brian? she thought, leaping for the door, but it was only a workman, wearing the red-white-blue-and-brown coveralls of FedXUPS and carrying a toga'd and gold-laurel-wreathed mannequin.\n\n\"What's this?\" she asked.\n\nThe workman righted the mannequin and set it down. \"Nero,\" he said, though she had already figured that out from the plaster violin under the statue's chin. \"Where do you want it?\"\n\n\"Back where you got it,\" she said. \"Put it back in the truck.\"\n\n\"I've got a delivery order for this address,\" he said, pulling out his handheld.\n\n\"I'm rescinding the order.\" She reached for the handheld and clicked \"cancel.\" \"I want all of these returned,\" she said, indicating Hitler et al.\n\n\"Those aren't ours,\" he said. \"We don't do statues. Or fictionals. The fictionals are from Eveningprimrose. The only ones that are ours are the toy soldiers and the doll.\" He checked his manifest. \"And the Pontius Pilate in the bathroom.\"\n\nOh, Norwall. \"Well, take it back, too.\"\n\n\"I'll have to charge you extra for an unscheduled pickup.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" Linny said, and then, as he picked up Nero, \"What would you charge to take the rest of these back to\u2014\" she tipped Stalin forward to take a look at the bottom of his foot, \"Rock and a Hard Place and Eveningprimrose?\"\n\n\"Two days before Christmas? Are you kidding?\" He picked up Nero and started out. \"You're lucky I've got room on the truck for the toy soldiers. Otherwise, you'd have had to wait till January. There's no way you're going to get anybody to do unscheduled pickups this close to Christmas.\"\n\nHe was right, but she tried anyway, calling Rock and a Hard Place and Eveningprimrose, and then Nowheretoturn Trucking, which had helped her one time on the twenty-fourth with an emergency delivery to Pandora's, but she got voice mail on all three, and her overrides didn't work. She would have to talk the FedXUPS guy into taking at least some of the statues, but he and his truck were already gone.\n\nAt least he took the firing squad, she thought, looking at the trampled snow, and went back inside. She would have to do it herself. Dr. Darbingdon couldn't walk in here and see the house like this. She went out to the dining room and scooped up the tablecloth by the corners, the centerpiece and dishes and all, into a clanking bundle, tied the ends, and carried it out back to the trash recycle, and then went back into the study and began wrestling Nixon through the dining room toward the back door.\n\nShe made it as far as the door to the kitchen, which apparently wasn't as wide as the study's, because his arms, raised in his trademark V's for victory, got wedged in the door and wouldn't budge. She tried to turn him sideways, but his arms were jammed tight.\n\nThey'll have to come off, she thought, and began unbuttoning his jacket so she could unscrew the arms. The front door opened. Oh, good, she thought, he came back for the Pilate in the bathroom. \"Can you give me a hand? I'm in the dining room,\" she called, struggling with the sleeve.\n\n\"What the hell's the idea?\" Brian said.\n\nShe looked up. He was standing in the door to the living room, his fists full of police car lights and crime scene tape. The lights were still flashing blindingly.\n\n\"You found out,\" he said.\n\n\"I found out,\" she said.\n\n\"And you did this,\" he said, looking at Brutus.\n\n\"No, though it would have been an appropriate reaction. What did you expect me to do, be overjoyed?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"I thought maybe\u2026no, I suppose not.\"\n\nIt wasn't at all the reaction she'd expected. She'd expected slick explanations, but he just stood there, his hands full of flashing red and blue, staring at the holo and looking like he'd been kicked in the stomach. After a long minute, he said bitterly, \"I suppose you ran a background check and found out who she really was.\"\n\nLinny nodded. \"They're routine for all new clients, even with a little-nobody Christmas company like deck.halls.\"\n\n\"I told her you were bound to find out,\" he said. \"I told her lying to you was terminally stupid, that we should just tell you\u2014\"\n\n\"And that would somehow make it more acceptable to me?\"\n\nHe waited a minute before answering. \"I thought it might be a possibility.\"\n\nA possibility. The arrogance of the man. \"Well, it's not,\" she snapped.\n\n\"Apparently not,\" he said, looking at John Wilkes Booth pouring himself a cup of wassail. \"And so you\u2014\"\n\n\"I told you, I didn't do this. In fact, I was trying to get it taken down before anybody saw it. I don't believe in an eye for an eye, especially at Christmas.\" She reached forward and took the lights and tape from him and stuffed them in a garbage bag. \"Dr. Darbingdon's going to be here in a few minutes,\" she said, \"and some of this is too heavy for me to move, so if you don't want her to see this, you're going to have to help me. And, no, you don't have to remind me that I'm under contract. I am painfully aware of that.\"\n\n\"I definitely don't want her to see this,\" he said, and seemed to come to himself. He hoisted Nixon up. \"Where do you want me to put this?\"\n\n\"Out back behind the spruces for now,\" she said, and went ahead into the kitchen to open the back door for him. A grim-looking automated store mannequin in a navy dress stood at the stove, stirring a pot.\n\n\"Who's that supposed to be?\" Brian asked, grunting as he maneuvered Nixon through the door. \"Lucrezia Borgia?\"\n\n\"Linda Tripp,\" she said, and as soon as Brian and Nixon went out, switched it off, unplugged the control box, and began winding up the cord. \"I can get this one,\" she said when he came back in. \"You get the ones in the study.\"\n\nShe dismantled Linda and then the guillotine in the living room and put them out back while he carried out Haldeman and Ehrlichman, and then linked to hollyandivy.com to order a Number One. It wasn't much, but there wasn't time for anything but standard decorations, if that.\n\nHollyandivy was sold out. She linked to Everything Christmas. \"Site closed,\" it said. She punched in their emergency number. \"We've been completely cleaned out since the nineteenth,\" Nadia told her. \"Did you try Holiday Heaven?\"\n\nShe tried Holiday Heaven, and Christmas\"R\"Us and Partyplus. \"Everyone's completely sold out,\" she told Brian when he reappeared with O. J. Simpson. \"The only supplier who has anything in stock is thegooseisgettingfat.com, and all they've got is a Mayan snake god and two dozen yellow polka-dot bikinis, no candles, no lights. Dr. Darbingdon wouldn't have her old decorations in the basement, would she?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"She gave them all to charity after she started having Galatek do her Christmases. Nobody's got anything?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, scrolling through a list of electronics suppliers. Maybe one of them would have some colored LEDs that could pass for Christmas tree lights\u2014\n\nHer screen buzzed. \"The Westminster Abbey theme won't work,\" Pandora Freeh said.\n\n\"Who is it?\" Brian said.\n\n\"I just found out Sashine Nackerty's new live-in's old live-in's theme last year was A Double-Decker Tour of London\u2014the Tower, Madame Tussauds, mad cow disease, Big Ben\u2014\"\n\n\"Who is it?\"\n\n\"I can't talk right now,\" Linny said desperately. \"I've got an emergency.\"\n\n\"An emergency!\" Pandora said, waving it aside. \"The Abbey's in London! If Jane sees it, she'll think I'm trying to remind him of his old live-in, and\u2014\"\n\n\"Who is it?\" Brian said. \"Is it my aunt?\"\n\n\"No,\" Linny hissed, and hit \"speaker\" so he could hear for himself.\n\n\"Besides which, Westminster Abbey's only one tiny stop on this elaborate tour!\" Pandora said. \"The theme just won't work. You'll have to come up with something else.\"\n\n\"Westminster Abbey?\" Brian whispered. \"What happened to Twelfth Night?\"\n\n\"Too intellectual,\" she whispered back. \"And she insisted it had to be something that involved Shakespeare's bust. Poet's Corner was the only thing I could think of.\"\n\n\"\u2014and it needs to be done by tomorrow because that's when Griselda and Carlos are coming. I invited them to lunch, having no idea\u2014\"\n\n\"Shakespeare wasn't buried in Westminster Abbey,\" Brian whispered.\n\n\"I am aware of that, but I had to come up with something, and since when are you such a stickler for the truth?\"\n\n\"Touch\u00e9,\" he said.\n\n\"I sympathize with your situation,\" Linny said into the phone, \"but I have a client arriving any minute to no Christmas at all, so if I could call you back\u2014\"\n\n\"What happened?\" Pandora said, instantly interested. \"Didn't FedXUPS arrive? That happened to me one time before I hired you\u2014it was why I hired you, as a matter of fact. The truck was one of those unmanned robot things, which they assured me was perfectly reliable\u2014\"\n\n\"No, it wasn't the truck. It\u2014\" Linny glanced at Brian. \"It's too complicated to explain right now. I have to try and find some Christmas decorations\u2014\"\n\n\"What do you need?\" Pandora said. \"Maybe I can help.\"\n\n\"No, you don't understand, none of the suppliers\u2014\"\n\n\"Have you got decorations?\" Brian cut in.\n\n\"Yes, a whole attic full. Grisham says I never throw anything away, but I always say, you never know when things might come in handy. They're the ones I used before I started hiring it done. It's mostly nonthemed stuff. Santas and snowmen and jingle bells.\"\n\n\"I'll be right over,\" Brian said, grabbing his coat.\n\n\"Oh, and I've got several antelope from this darling Home on the Range Christmas I did. If you have some antlers, they'd look just like reindeer.\"\n\n\"You're a godsend,\" Brian said, starting for the door.\n\n\"Well, after all, that's what Christmas is all about, isn't it, helping each other? Oh, dear, I just thought of something. I don't have a tree. I do have a crane, from Christmas on a Construction Site. You could\u2014\"\n\n\"We're set for trees. Brian will be right over,\" Linny said, and hung up. \"Don't let her give you a crane,\" she called after Brian, \"or a bulldozer. And no roaming buffaloes.\"\n\nShe wrestled O.J. out the back door and then took down the rack and Iron Maiden ornaments, trying to gauge how long it would take Brian to get there and back if he floored the Incite.\n\nThe answer was: over half an hour. \"I had a terrible time getting away from her,\" he said, coming in carrying a dusty plastic wise man, a bouquet of even dustier poinsettias, and a Styrofoam snowman.\n\n\"She wanted to tell me all about what she wants for her new Christmas theme.\"\n\n\"Pandora can have whatever her little heart desires,\" Linny said, putting the wise man where the guillotine had stood. She took the poinsettias from Brian.\n\n\"Everything's pretty grubby,\" Brian said, wiping the snowman against his sleeve. \"It'll need to be washed off.\"\n\n\"We don't have time,\" Linny said, hurrying into the kitchen for a vase for the poinsettias. \"They'll be here\u2014oh, gosh, in five minutes. We'll call it An Attic Christmas. Go get the rest of the decorations.\"\n\nHe returned with a second wise man, two ceramic elves, and an armful of cobwebby bubble lights. \"The good news is the Christmas spirit is alive and well in spite of professional Christmases,\" he said, handing her the lights. \"The bad news is, Pandora's decided her new theme should be Godsends of History. People who've given aid and assistance through the centuries: the Good Samaritan, Florence Nightingale, the inventor of laserliposuction.\"\n\n\"What about the all-essential bust of Shakespeare?\" Linny asked, draping the lights haphazardly around the tree.\n\n\"He's in the car,\" Brian said. \"Pandora could only find two of the wise men. She sent Shakespeare as a third. And a bathrobe to drape him in. Where do you want the elves?\"\n\n\"Coffee table,\" she said, plugging in the lights. Two of them were burnt out. \"Did she send any replacement bulbs?\"\n\n\"I'll check,\" he said, rummaging in an enormous box he'd brought in of ornaments, burned-down candles, plastic mistletoe, and bedraggled tinsel.\n\nLinny set him to decorating the tree while she finished placing the candles, five swans-a-swimming with several feathers missing, and a Victorian angel with a bent wing, looking anxiously at her watch. Dr. Darbingdon was already late.\n\n\"Where do you want this?\" Brian asked, and held up a chicken-wire sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.\n\n\"Good Lord,\" she said.\n\n\"I know. I apologize for ever criticizing Christmas designers. It's obvious you're saving people from themselves. Bathroom?\"\n\nLinny nodded. \"Bathroom.\" She began arranging the snow village houses on the sideboard.\n\n\"Linny!\" Brian called.\n\n\"What?\" she said, hurrying into the bathroom. A six-foot, solid-looking, toga'd statue stood over the sink, its marble hands extended. \"Oh, I forgot all about Pilate.\"\n\n\"Pilate? What's he doing in the bathroom?\"\n\n\"Washing his hands.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" he said. \"Don't tell me he's marble.\"\n\n\"No, plaster, I think,\" she said.\n\nHe took hold of Pilate's waist and tried to lift him. \"Definitely marble. Any chance of getting the robo-dolly back?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"He had six more deliveries.\"\n\n\"When's my aunt due here?\"\n\nShe looked at her watch. \"Fifteen minutes ago.\"\n\n\"Then we'll just have to manhandle him out of here. Wait,\" he said as she moved to take hold of one of Pilate's hands, \"let me get around behind him first. Then you pull and I'll\u2026what's this?\"\n\n\"What's what?\" Linny asked, leaning around Pilate to see. Brian had untaped a sign from the statue's back and was reading it.\n\n\"What is it?\" she asked, though it was obvious it was another of Norwall's signs, and when he didn't answer, \"What does it say?\"\n\n\"It says, 'This is what you get for trying to steal my concepts and my clients,' \" Brian read. He looked up. \"You thought that's what we were trying to do\u2014take over your clientele?\"\n\n\"Isn't that what you were trying to do?\"\n\n\"Of course not. How could you even think that? No wonder you put up all this,\" he said, gesturing to include Pilate and the rest of the house.\n\n\"I told you, I didn't put it up. But if you weren't spying on me,\" she said, bewildered, \"what were you doing?\"\n\n\"It's a long story,\" he said. \"Aunt Darby\u2014\"\n\n\"She's not your aunt,\" Linny said coldly.\n\n\"Not my\u2026?\" he said, and now he was the one who looked bewildered. \"No, she's not genetically related to me but\u2026she's my parents' best friend. I lived with her while they were at Tombaugh Station when I was a kid, and again in high school when they were out in the Asteroid Belt.\"\n\nAnd Norwall knew that, Linny thought. Inge had said she'd run complete personal histories. He knew it and didn't tell me.\n\n\"I wasn't lying when I called her Aunt Darby,\" he said. \"I've always called her that.\"\n\n\"And I suppose her name really is Mrs. Shields and you really are an engineer and you build dams? What about her telling me she didn't understand computers? And that she'd never had a professionally done Christmas before, that she's always put up her decorations with her own two little hands?\"\n\n\"She was afraid if you knew who she was, you'd wonder why she wasn't using Galatek's decorators and would assume she had plenty of other options, so you'd refuse to take her on, especially at such a late date. Plus, she knew you did your interviews online and she needed to get you out to the house, so she came up with that whole ridiculous technophobic Mrs. Shields thing, and by the time I realized what she was up to, it was too late to stop her. She'd already told you so many lies about who and what we were\u2014\"\n\n\"Stop her from what?\"\n\n\"You did a Christmas display for Howard Greenfeld in October.\"\n\n\"Hanukkah,\" she said. \"Hanukkah in Lapland. He needed the installation early because he was leaving for New Palestine.\"\n\n\"Hanukkah in Lapland?\" Brian said. \"Do they even have Hanukkah in Lapland? What did you do?\"\n\n\"Reindeer and menorahs. And a holo of the aurora borealis. What about Howard Greenfeld?\"\n\n\"He's a friend of Aunt Darby's. She was talking to him online when she apparently spotted you among the caribou and decided you were just what I needed.\"\n\n\"Needed?\"\n\n\"Aunt Darby's one of the world's great fixers. Galatek doesn't take over businesses\u2014it fixes them. Unfortunately, Aunt Darby doesn't confine herself to fixing companies' problems. She also fixes people's problems. Or what she perceives to be their problems. When I was ten, she decided I needed work on coordination skills and insisted I take tuba lessons. And learn to bowl. Two years ago she decided my work wasn't challenging enough and got me a job at Galatek. This year she decided my problem was that I was spending too much time at said job and not seeing anybody.\"\n\nShe was trying to fix us up, Linny thought. That was why he was so rude that first day. That was why she kept talking about \"The Machine Stops\" and how hard it is for young people to meet. \"Your aunt was matchmaking?\" she said.\n\nHe nodded grimly. \"She was matchmaking. Her first plan was to invite you to a party at Galatek, but after she ran a netcheck on you and found out how busy you are this time of year, she came up with the bright idea of hiring you to do her house.\"\n\n\"And of sending you to my apartment and the Manning installation.\"\n\n\"No,\" Brian said. \"After that first day, she didn't have to send me. It was all my own idea. The contract was just an excuse.\" He smiled crookedly at her. \"I loved playing the tuba.\"\n\n\"What?\" she said, bewildered again.\n\n\"I even ended up loving bowling. Aunt Darby's always right. My old job wasn't challenging enough. I love working for Galatek. She always knows exactly what I need, even if I don't. Only her way of going about it\u2014\"\n\nHe reached up and smacked the back of Pilate's head with his open palm. \"I told her you'd find out and feel betrayed and\u2014I told her it would end up like this,\" he said, gesturing to include the whole house, \"with you\u2014\"\n\n\"I told you, I didn't do this.\"\n\nHe stopped in mid-gesture, his hand still out. \"You thought I was spying on you,\" he said slowly, \"that we were trying to steal your business, but even though you thought that, you were still trying to take the decorations down before we arrived. Why?\"\n\n\"I told you, I didn't want her to see them,\" she said. \"I knew she had the board of directors coming for dinner and\u2026\"\n\n\"Even though you thought she had lied to you,\" he said, coming around from behind Pilate toward her. \"Even though you thought I'd romanced you to get information out of you\u2026\"\n\n\"I\u2026revenge didn't seem to have anything to do with Christmas. I\u2026it,\" she stammered, trying not to be so aware of his scent, \"it's supposed to be about forgiveness and\u2026and\u2026good will\u2026and\u2026\"\n\n\"Love?\"\n\nShe backed into the sink. \"Charity,\" she said, and the doorbell rang.\n\n\"Oh, my God, it's Aunt Darby,\" Brian said.\n\nIt was the caterers. Brian recruited them and their robo-dolly to help lug Pilate out back behind the spruces, and Linny ran through the house, making sure they hadn't missed anything else.\n\nThey hadn't, except for the chicken-wire sleigh and reindeer, which had gotten bent when Brian was removing Pilate. She unbent it, more or less.\n\n\"The decorations look awful,\" she told Brian, setting it on the sink. \"This won't fool anybody.\"\n\n\"I think there's been enough fooling of people,\" he said. \"Aunt Darby will love it. This is just what she wanted. As you said, Christmas is the season of charity.\"\n\n\"I hope so.\"\n\n\"And forgiveness?\" he said, backing her into the sink again.\n\n\"Oh, I just love it,\" a woman's voice, not Aunt Darby's, said. \"How perfectly pre-retro!\"\n\n\"Even some of the lights are burnt out,\" a man's delighted voice said.\n\n\"And look at the dust! You were right, Darby, this young woman is a genius!\"\n\n\"I wonder where she and Brian are,\" Aunt Darby said.\n\n\"Oh, my God, will you look at that!\" a third voice exclaimed. \"Our neighbors had light-up wise men just like that on their front lawn when I was a kid!\"\n\nLinny clapped her hand to her mouth. \"Oh, no! I forgot all about the lawn decorations!\"\n\n\"I have just the thing,\" Brian said, grabbing her by the hand and leading her through the living room, past the dinner guests and Aunt Darby, out the front door, onto the lawn.\n\n\"Room,\" he said, gesturing toward the window where Aunt Darby and the Galatek board of directors stood watching. \"View.\"\n\n\"But this is supposed to be An Attic Christmas, not E. M. Forster,\" she protested.\n\n\"Aunt Darby will love it,\" he said, walking back to the sidewalk. \"Ready?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, but she didn't move. \"There's no barley. Or poppies.\"\n\n\"Next Christmas,\" he said, and strode purposefully toward her."
            },
            {
                "title": "Cat's Paw",
                "text": "\"Come, Bridlings,\" Touff\u00e9t said impatiently as soon as I arrived. \"Go home and pack your bags. We're going to Suffolk for a jolly country Christmas.\"\n\n\"I thought you hated country Christmases,\" I said. I had invited him only the week before down to my sister's and gotten a violent rejection of the idea. \"Country Christmases! Dreadful occasions!\" he had said. \"Holly and mistletoe and vile games\u2014blindman's bluff and that ridiculous game where people grab at burning raisins, and even viler food. Plum pudding!\" he shuddered. \"And wassail!\"\n\nI protested that my sister was an excellent cook and that she never made wassail, she made eggnog. \"I think you'd have an excellent time,\" I said. \"Everyone's very pleasant.\"\n\n\"I can imagine,\" he said. \"No one drinks, everyone is faithful to his wife, the inheritance is equally and fairly divided, and none of your relatives would ever think of murdering anyone.\"\n\n\"Of course not!\" I said, bristling.\n\n\"Then I would rather spend Christmas here alone,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"At least then I shall not be subjected to roast goose and Dumb Crambo.\"\n\n\"We do not play Dumb Crambo,\" I replied with dignity. \"We play charades.\"\n\nAnd now, scarcely a week later, Touff\u00e9t was eagerly proposing going to the country.\n\n\"I have just received a letter from Lady Charlotte Valladay,\" he said, brandishing a sheet of pale pink notepaper, \"asking me to come to Marwaite Manor. She wishes me to solve a mystery for her.\" He examined the letter through his monocle. \"What could be more delightful than murder in a country house at Christmas?\"\n\nActually, I could think of a number of things. I scanned the letter. \"You must come,\" she had written. \"This is a mystery only you, the world's greatest detective, can solve.\" Lady Charlotte Valladay. And Marwaite Manor. Where had I heard those names before? Lady Charlotte.\n\n\"It doesn't say there's been a murder,\" I said. \"It says a mystery.\"\n\nTouff\u00e9t was not listening. \"We must hurry if we are to catch the 3:00 train from Euston. There won't be time for you to go home and pack and come back here. You must meet me at the station. Come, don't stand there looking foolish.\"\n\n\"The letter doesn't say anything about my being invited,\" I said. \"It only mentions you. And I've already told my sister I'm spending Christmas with her.\"\n\n\"She does not mention you because it is of course assumed that I will bring my assistant.\"\n\n\"Hardly your assistant, Touff\u00e9t. You never let me do anything.\"\n\n\"That is because you have not the mind of a detective. Always you see the facade. Never do you see what lies behind it.\"\n\n\"Then you obviously won't need me,\" I said.\n\n\"But I do, Bridlings,\" he said. \"Who will record my exploits if you are not there? And who will point out the obvious and the incorrect, so that I may reject them and find the true solution?\"\n\n\"I would rather play charades,\" I said, and picked up my hat. \"I hope Lady Charlotte feeds you wassail and plum pudding. And makes you play Dumb Crambo.\"\n\nIn the end I went. I had been with Touff\u00e9t on every one of his cases, and although I still could not place Lady Charlotte Valladay, it seemed to me her name had been connected to something interesting.\n\nAnd I had never experienced Christmas in a country manor, with the ancient hall decked in holly and Gainsboroughs, a huge Yule log on the fire, an old-fashioned Christmas feast\u2014poached salmon, a roast joint, and a resplendent goose, with a different wine for every course. Perhaps they might even have a boar's head.\n\nThe bullet trains to Suffolk were all filled, and we could only get seats on an express. It was filled as well, and every passenger had not only luggage but huge shopping bags crammed with gifts, which completely filled all the overhead compartments. I had to hold my bag and Touff\u00e9t's umbrella on my lap.\n\nI thought longingly of the first-class compartment I had booked on the train to my sister's and hoped Marwaite Manor was at the near end of Suffolk.\n\nMarwaite Manor. Where had I heard that name? And Lady Charlotte's? Not in the tabloids, I decided, though I had a vague idea of something controversial. A protest of some sort. What? Cloning? The revival of fox hunting?\n\nPerhaps she was an actress\u2014they were always getting involved in causes. Or a royal scandal. No, she was too old. I seemed to remember she was in her fifties.\n\nTouff\u00e9t, across from me, was deep in a book. I leaned forward slightly, trying to read the title. Touff\u00e9t only reads mystery novels, he says, to study the methods of fictional detectives, but actually to criticize them. And, I suspected, to study their mannerisms. And co-opt them. He had already affected Lord Peter Wimsey's monocle and Hercule Poirot's treatment of his \"assistant,\" and he had met me at the station wearing a Sherlock Holmesian Inverness cape. Thank God he had not adopted Holmes's deerstalker. Or his violin. At least thus far.\n\nThe title was in very tiny print. I leaned forward farther, and Touff\u00e9t looked up irritably. \"This Dorothy Sayers, she is ridiculous,\" he said, \"she makes her Lord Peter read timetables of trains, decipher codes, use stopwatches, and it is all, all unnecessary. If he would only ask himself, 'Who had a motive to murder Paul Alexis?' he would have no need of all these shirt collar receipts and diagrams.\"\n\nHe flung it down. \"It is Sherlock Holmes who has caused this foolish preoccupation with evidence,\" he said, \"with all his tobacco ashes and chemical experiments.\" He grabbed the carpetbag off my lap and began rummaging through it. \"Where have you put my other book, Bridlings?\"\n\nI hadn't touched it. I sometimes think he takes me along with him for the same reason that he reads mystery novels\u2014so he can feel superior.\n\nHe pulled a book from the bag, Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue. No doubt he would find all sorts of things wrong with Inspector Dupin. He would probably think Dupin should have asked himself what motive an orangu\u2014\n\n\"Touff\u00e9t!\" I said. \"I've remembered who Lady Charlotte Valladay is! She's the ape woman!\"\n\n\"Ape woman?\" Touff\u00e9t said irritably. \"You are saying Lady Charlotte is a carnival attraction? Covered in hair and scratching herself?\"\n\n\"No, no,\" I said. \"She's a primate-rights activist, claims gorillas and orangutans should be allowed to vote, be given equal standing in the courts, and all that.\"\n\n\"Are you certain this is the same person?\" Touff\u00e9t said.\n\n\"Completely. Her father's Lord Alastair Biddle, made his fortune in artificial intelligence. That's how she got interested in primates. They were AI research subjects. She founded the Primate Intelligence Institute. I saw her on television just the other day, soliciting funds for it.\"\n\nTouff\u00e9t had taken out Lady Charlotte's pink letter and was peering at it. \"She says nothing at all about apes.\"\n\n\"Perhaps one of her orangutans has got loose and committed a murder, just like in The Murders in the Rue Morgue,\" I said. \"Looks like she made a monkey out of you, Touff\u00e9t.\"\n\nThere was no one at the station to meet us. I suggested taking the single taxi parked at the end of the platform, but Touff\u00e9t said, \"Lady Charlotte will of course send someone to meet us.\"\n\nAfter a quarter of an hour, during which it began to rain and I thought fondly of how my sister was always on the platform waiting for me, smiling and waving, I telephoned the manor.\n\nA man with a reedy, refined voice said, \"Marwaite Manor,\" and, when I asked for Lady Valladay, said formally, \"One moment, please,\" and Lady Charlotte came on. \"Oh, Colonel Bridlings, I am so sorry about there not being anyone to meet you. They've refused to issue D'Artagnan a driver's license, which is perfectly ridiculous, he drives better than I do, and there was no one else to send. If you could take a taxi, D'Artagnan will pay the driver when you get here. I'll see you shortly.\"\n\nBy this time, of course, the taxi had long gone, and I had to telephone for one. As I was hanging up, a sunburned middle-aged man with a full red beard and a black shoulder bag accosted me.\n\n\"I couldn't help overhearing,\" he said in a heavy Australian accent. \"You're going to Marwaite Manor, are you, mate?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said warily. Journalists are always trying for interviews with Touff\u00e9t, and the shoulder bag looked suspiciously like it could contain a vidcam.\n\n\"I was wondering if I could bag a ride with you. I'm going to Marwaite Manor, too.\" He stuck out his hand. \"Mick Rutgers.\"\n\n\"Colonel Bridlings,\" I said, and turned to Touff\u00e9t, who had walked over to us and was peering at Mr. Rutgers through his monocle. \"Allow me to introduce Inspector Touff\u00e9t.\"\n\n\"Touff\u00e9t?\" Rutgers said sharply. \"The detective?\"\n\n\"You have heard of me in Australia?\" Touff\u00e9t said.\n\n\"Everyone has heard of the world's greatest detective,\" Rutgers said, recovering himself. \"This is an honor. What brings you to Marwaite Manor?\"\n\n\"Lady Charlotte Valladay has asked me to solve a mystery.\"\n\n\"A mystery?\" he said. \"What mystery?\"\n\n\"I do not know,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"Ah, the taxi arrives.\"\n\nI picked up our baggage. \"I hope it's not far to the manor.\"\n\n\"Only a coupla miles,\" Rutgers said.\n\n\"Ah, you have been here before?\" Touff\u00e9t said.\n\n\"No, mate,\" Rutgers said, the sharpness back in his voice. \"Never set foot in England before, as a matter of fact. No, when she invited me she told me the manor was only a coupla miles from the station. Lady Charlotte. I work for the Australian Broadcasting Network.\"\n\nI knew he was a journalist, I thought. \"Why are you here?\" I asked.\n\n\"Lady Charlotte said she had a big story, one we'd be interested in covering.\"\n\n\"And she didn't say what the story was?\" Touff\u00e9t asked.\n\nRutgers shook his head. \"But whatever it is, she was paying all expenses, and I'd never seen England. So here I am.\"\n\nWe piled into the taxi and set out. It was, as Mr. Rutgers had said, \"a coupla miles,\" and in no time we'd arrived at Marwaite Manor.\n\nAt least that's what the scrolled wrought-iron sign above the granite gates said. But the buildings in the distance looked more like an industrial compound. There were numerous long metal sheds with parking lots between them and a great many ventilators and pipes. They looked grim in the freezing rain.\n\nThe taxi driver drove past the compound and up a long hill and stopped in front of a four-story glass-and-chrome affair that looked like a company headquarters. \"Are you certain this is Marwaite Manor?\" I asked him as he was taking our bags out of the trunk.\n\nHe nodded, handing me Touff\u00e9t's portmanteau and my bag. \"Is the monkey paying me or are you?\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" I said sternly. I glanced toward Touff\u00e9t, hoping he hadn't heard the rude remark. He and Rutgers had already gone up to the front door. \"Lady Charlotte's butler will pay you,\" I said stiffly, and followed them over to the door.\n\nIt opened. A gorilla was standing there, dressed in a butler's cutaway coat and trousers, and white gloves.\n\n\"Good Lord,\" I said.\n\n\"We are here to see Lady Charlotte Valladay,\" Touff\u00e9t said, peering at him through his monocle.\n\nThe gorilla opened the door farther.\n\n\"I am Inspector Touff\u00e9t and this is Mr. Rutgers.\"\n\n\"I think they understand sign language,\" I whispered. \"Rutgers, do you know any?\"\n\n\"Come please? Take bags?\" the gorilla said, and I was so surprised I just stood there, gaping.\n\n\"Take bags, sir?\" the gorilla said again.\n\n\"The taxi's six pounds,\" the taxi driver said, reaching past me with his hand outstretched. \"And that doesn't include the tip.\"\n\n\"Pay moment,\" the gorilla said, and turned back to me. \"Take bags, sir?\"\n\nI had recovered myself sufficiently to hand them to him, trying not to flinch away from those huge paws in their incongruous white gloves, and to murmur, \"Thank you.\"\n\n\"This way, sir,\" the gorilla said, dropping to his gloved knuckles, and led us into an enormous entryway.\n\n\"Excuse moment,\" the gorilla said.\n\nIt really was too odd, hearing that refined, upper-class voice coming out of that enormous gray-black gorilla.\n\n\"Tell Lady Valladay you here.\" He started out, still on all fours.\n\n\"Good Lord, Touff\u00e9t\u2014\" I had started to say, when a middle-aged woman in khaki and pearls bustled in.\n\n\"Oh, Inspector Touff\u00e9t! I'm so glad you're here! Tanny, did you pay the taxi driver?\"\n\n\"Yes, madam,\" the gorilla said.\n\n\"Good. Stand up straight. Inspector Touff\u00e9t, I'd like you to meet D'Artagnan.\"\n\nThe gorilla straightened, extended a monstrous gloved hand, and Touff\u00e9t shook it, albeit a bit gingerly.\n\n\"D'Artagnan was orphaned by poachers in Uganda when he was only two weeks old,\" she said.\n\n\"Rescued,\" D'Artagnan said, pointing at Lady Valladay with a white-gloved finger.\n\n\"I found him in Hong Kong in a cage the size of a shoebox,\" she said, looking fondly at him. \"He's been here at the Institute twelve years.\"\n\n\"I thought gorillas couldn't speak,\" I said.\n\n\"He's had a laryngeal implant,\" she said. \"When we tour the compound, you'll see our surgical unit.\"\n\n\"How'd he get the name D'Artagnan?\" Rutgers asked.\n\n\"He chose it himself. I don't believe in picking names for primates as if they were pets. Our research here at the Institute has shown that primates are extremely intelligent. They are capable of high-level thinking, computation skills, and self-awareness. D'Artagnan is a conscious being, fully capable of making personal decisions. He's scored 95 on IQ tests. He named himself after one of the Three Musketeers. It's his favorite book.\"\n\n\"Good Lord, he can read, too?\" I said.\n\nShe shook her head. \"Only a few words. I read it aloud to him.\"\n\nD'Artagnan nodded his huge head. \"Queen,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes, he loves the part about the Three Musketeers coming to the queen's aid.\" She turned to Rutgers. \"And you must be Colonel Bridlings, who chronicles all Inspector Touff\u00e9t's cases.\"\n\n\"Mick Rutgers,\" he said, extending his sunburned hand, \"of ABN.\"\n\nShe looked confused. \"But the press invitations were for the twenty-fifth.\"\n\n\"I'm sure the invitation said the twenty-fourth,\" he said, fumbling for it in his jacket.\n\n\"That's what Ms. Fox said. I really must have Heidi start writing my invitations. Her penmanship is much neater than mine.\"\n\n\"I could come back tomorrow\u2014\" Rutgers said.\n\n\"No, I'm delighted you're here,\" she said, and seemed to genuinely mean it. She turned her warm smile on me. \"Then you must be Colonel Bridlings.\"\n\n\"Yes. How do you do?\"\n\n\"I'm so pleased to meet all of you. Come,\" she said, taking Touff\u00e9t's arm, \"I want to show you the compound, but first let me introduce you to everyone.\"\n\n\"You spoke of a murder you wished me to solve?\" Touff\u00e9t said.\n\n\"A mystery only you can solve,\" she said, smiling that lovely smile. She truly had a gift for making one feel warmly welcome.\n\nI wished I could say the same of Marwaite Manor, but the spacious glass-and-chrome hall she led us into was as welcoming as a dentist's office. And it was cold! The icy rain outside the floor-to-ceiling windows seemed to be falling in the room itself. The only furniture in the room was several uncomfortable-looking chrome-and-canvas chairs and a small glass table with greenery and candles on it.\n\nTwo people were huddled in the center of the nearly empty hall, next to the glass table\u2014a stout, balding man and a pretty young woman in a thin dress. The woman had her arms folded across her bosom, as if trying to keep warm, and the stout man's nose was red. A chimpanzee in a maid's apron, a white collar, and a frilly cap was offering them drinks on a tray.\n\nThey all looked up expectantly as we entered. Lady Valladay squeezed Touff\u00e9t's arm. \"I have someone I want you to meet, Inspector,\" she said, and led him over to the chimpanzee.\n\n\"Inspector Touff\u00e9t, I'd like you to meet Heidi,\" she said. \"She came from a medical research lab, and she's one of your most devoted fans.\"\n\nNow that we were closer to the chimpanzee, I could see that what I had taken for a collar was actually a white bandage round the chimpanzee's shaved neck.\n\n\"She just had her laryngeal implant, so she can't speak yet,\" Lady Valladay said, \"but she has the highest IQ of any primate we've ever had here at the Institute, and she's already reading at a primary school level. She's read The Cat in the Hat and all the Curious George books, haven't you, Heidi?\" and the chimpanzee grinned widely and bobbed her head up and down. \"But your books are her favorites, Inspector Touff\u00e9t. She's constantly after me to read them to her, and sometimes she even tries to read them on her own.\"\n\nLady Valladay led Touff\u00e9t over to the table, her arm linked in his. \"Our primates have even outperformed A-level students on higher-level-thinking tests, but in spite of all the studies the Institute has done, in spite of the overwhelming evidence of primates' intelligence, people persist in thinking of them as animals instead of sentient creatures. They continue to put them in zoos, experiment on them, kill them for trophies. That's why it's so important that the Institute continue to exist.\"\n\n\"Continue to exist?\" Touff\u00e9t asked.\n\n\"I'm afraid we're sadly in need of funds,\" she said. \"If we don't find additional donors soon, we'll be forced to close. We\u2014\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" the stout man said. \"I didn't mean to interrupt. I only wanted to tell you how much I admire your work.\"\n\n\"This is Sergeant Eustis, our local police detective. Perhaps you two can exchange information about your investigations.\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" Sergeant Eustis said, fumbling at his tie, \"I haven't had any interesting cases, compared to Mr. Touff\u00e9t.\"\n\n\"What about\u2014\" she began, but the sergeant said, \"I'd very much like to hear about the Sappina jewel robbery.\"\n\n\"A very satisfying case,\" Touff\u00e9t said, and launched into an account of it.\n\nI wandered over to where the pretty young woman stood by the table and introduced myself.\n\n\"Leda Fox,\" she said, and pointed to a press badge. \"I'm a reporter with the Online Times. And I'm freezing.\" She leaned forward to warm her hands over one of the candles. \"You'd think with all the billions Lord Alastair's got, he could afford to turn up the heat.\"\n\n\"Lord Alastair is a billionaire?\"\n\n\"Yes. He made his fortune in AI patents.\"\n\n\"I was wondering how the Institute was financed,\" I said.\n\n\"Oh, no, the Institute doesn't get a penny. Lord Alastair never approved of primate research. It's all financed by donations. So, what's this mystery Inspector Touff\u00e9t's supposed to solve?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I have no idea,\" I said, sipping my drink. \"What was the media told?\"\n\n\"The media?\" she said blankly. \"Oh. You mean what were we told? Not much. Just that we were all invited to be present at the solving of a mystery by Inspector Touff\u00e9t. And we were sent a packet of information on primate intelligence.\" She frowned. \"I wonder what the mystery is.\"\n\n\"Something to do with the Institute, perhaps?\" I asked. \"Lady Charlotte seemed anxious to show us the facilities.\"\n\n\"She dragged me all over them this morning,\" Leda said.\n\n\"You do not like primates?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"Animals are all right, I suppose, but one tour is enough. She wants me to go again with all of you this afternoon, but there's no way I'm going out in that,\" she said, gesturing at the falling rain. \"Tell her I have a headache.\"\n\nHeidi shambled over with a tray full of silver goblets, one hand under the tray and the other dragging the floor.\n\n\"What is it?\" I asked Leda, taking one of them.\n\n\"Wassail.\"\n\nHeidi waddled over to Touff\u00e9t and Sergeant Eustis.\n\n\"Poor Touff\u00e9t,\" I said.\n\n\"Doesn't he like wassail?\"\n\n\"He doesn't like Christmas.\"\n\n\"Do you think they're really as smart as Lady Charlotte says?\" Leda said, watching Heidi offer the tray to the police detective. \"She says Heidi can do long division. I can't do long division.\"\n\n\"Neither can I,\" I said, but she wasn't listening. She had turned to look at a tall man in his thirties who had just walked in.\n\n\"Who's that?\" I asked.\n\n\"Lady Charlotte's brother, James,\" she said. \"I met him this morning.\" She made a face.\n\n\"You didn't like him?\"\n\nShe leaned toward me and whispered, \"Drunk.\"\n\n\"Well, well, so this is the Great Detective,\" James said, walking over to Touff\u00e9t.\n\nLady Charlotte looked vexed. \"Inspector Touff\u00e9t, my brother, James.\"\n\nJames ignored her. \"Have you solved my sister's mystery yet? I heard you solve them\"\u2014he snapped his fingers next to Touff\u00e9t's nose\u2014\"like that!\"\n\nTouff\u00e9t stepped back. \"Lady Charlotte has not yet informed me of the nature of the mystery.\"\n\n\"Oh, well, then maybe you can solve a mystery for me. Why is it my sister prefers monkeys to her own father and brother?\"\n\n\"James,\" Lady Valladay said warningly.\n\n\"Heidi!\" James said, and snapped his fingers at her. \"Bring me a drink.\"\n\nThe chimpanzee hesitated, looking frightened, and then shambled over to him and offered the tray.\n\nJames grabbed a drink and turned back to Touff\u00e9t. \"It's a true mystery to me. Why would she rather spend her time with a bunch of dangerous, smelly, stupid\u2014\"\n\n\"James!\" Lady Valladay snapped.\n\n\"Oh, that's right. They're not stupid. They can do trigonometry. They can read Shakespeare. Isn't that right, Heidi?\" He tweaked her cap. \"How much is two plus two, Heidi?\"\n\nHeidi looked beseechingly at Lady Charlotte.\n\n\"How do you spell 'imbecile,' Heidi?\" James persisted.\n\n\"That's enough, James,\" Lady Charlotte said, putting her arm around the chimpanzee. \"Heidi, go unpack Inspector Touff\u00e9t's bags.\" She took the tray from her. \"That's my good girl.\"\n\nLady Charlotte set the tray down. \"Inspector, you and Colonel Bridlings must both be tired,\" she said, ignoring James, and he turned on his heel and walked out of the room. \"You'll want to get settled in and have a chance to rest before we tour the compound. D'Artagnan will show you to your rooms, and we'll meet in, say, an hour in the entryway.\"\n\nA door slammed, but she paid no attention. \"I do so want you to see our facility.\" She led us to the door. \"D'Artagnan, take them to their rooms.\"\n\n\"Yes, madam,\" he said. He started to drop to all fours, but then straightened.\n\n\"An hour, then,\" she said, smiling, and went down the corridor and into another room, shutting the door behind her.\n\nD'Artagnan pushed the lift button.\n\n\"I don't care\"\u2014Lady Charlotte's voice drifted down the hall\u2014\"I won't have you ruining this. It's too important.\"\n\n\"It's my house,\" James's voice said.\n\n\"It's Father's house.\"\n\n\"It won't be forever,\" James said, \"and when I inherit it, there won't be any monkeys in it. I'm shipping them back to the jungle the day Father dies.\"\n\n\"So this is your idea of a jolly Christmas?\" I asked Touff\u00e9t, waiting for him to put on his Inverness cape. I had spent the promised half hour attempting to find a telephone. I'd left in such a rush, I hadn't had time to telephone my sister to tell her I couldn't come. I attempted to ask Heidi, who was unpacking my things, but couldn't make her understand, so I went downstairs in search of one myself.\n\nThere was one in the study, a small frigid room across from the solarium. My sister was disappointed but optimistic.\n\n\"Perhaps your Inspector Touff\u00e9t will solve the mystery so quickly you can come tonight, or tomorrow. We could wait dinner.\"\n\n\"Better not,\" I said. \"We haven't even been told what the mystery is yet.\"\n\nI hung up and started back upstairs. As I came into the entryway, I caught a glimpse of Leda, in a hooded raincoat, going out the front door. She must have changed her mind about touring the compound, I thought, and wondered if I'd taken so long the others had left without me, but Touff\u00e9t was in his room, putting on a wool sweater and wrapping a knitted scarf around his neck.\n\n\"At least at my sister's house it's warm,\" I said, \"and no one ever threatens to turn anyone else out.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"And there are no mysteries.\" He put on his cape. \"Here already there are several.\"\n\n\"Lady Charlotte's told you why she invited us here?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"But certain things have struck me. What about you, Bridlings? Have you noticed nothing?\"\n\nI thought about it. \"I've noticed the brother's a lout. And that Ms. Fox is very pretty.\"\n\n\"Pretty. Alas, Bridlings, once again you see only the facade. You do not look at what lies behind. Do you not think it strange that Sergeant Eustis does not wish me to know of his interesting cases? All detectives wish to brag of their exploits.\"\n\nWell, that's certainly true, I thought.\n\n\"And there is this,\" he said, handing me Lady Charlotte's letter. \"Odd, is it not?\"\n\nI read it through. \"I don't see anything odd about it. She invites us to come and lists the train times.\"\n\n\"Indeed. Look at the second-to-last train time.\"\n\n\"The 5:48,\" I said.\n\n\"Are you certain?\"\n\n\"Yes. It says\u2014\"\n\n\"The five and the four are quite distinct, are they not? And yet both Mr. Rutgers and Ms. Fox say they mistook Lady Charlotte's five for a four and thus came a day early,\" he said, obviously in his element. \"A mystery, yes? Come, we are late.\"\n\nWe went down to the entryway. Lady Charlotte and Mick Rutgers were already there, bundled in coats and scarves. She was telling him about the Institute. \"Organizations and ethologists have tried for years to protect primate habitats and regulate the treatment of primates in captivity, but conditions have only gotten worse, and will continue to get worse, so long as people continue to think of them as animals.\"\n\nShe turned to greet us. \"Oh, Inspector, Colonel, we're just waiting for D'Artagnan. He's going to drive us down to the compound. I was just telling Mr. Rutgers about the Institute. Some people do not approve of our implanting larynxes and dressing primates in clothing, but the only chance they have of survival is for people to accept them. And to be accepted, unfortunately, they must stand upright, they must have employable skills. They're necessary to make people realize primates are sentient creatures, that they can think and reason and feel as we do. Did you know that humans and pygmy chimpanzees share ninety-nine percent of their genes? Ninety-nine percent. Our genes are their genes. And yet when the University of Oklahoma discontinued their language research project, the apes who had been taught to sign were used in AIDS experiments. Do you remember Lucy?\"\n\n\"The chimpanzee who was raised as a human and taught to sign?\" I asked.\n\n\"She was shipped back to Gambia, where she was murdered by poachers.\" Tears came to Lady Charlotte's eyes. \"They cut off her head and hands for trophies. Lucy, who knew three hundred words! Oh, D'Artagnan, there you are,\" she said.\n\nI turned. D'Artagnan was standing there in the corridor. He was still in his cutaway coat and trousers, but not his white gloves. I wondered how long he'd been there.\n\n\"Are you ready to drive us to the compound, Tanny?\" Lady Charlotte asked.\n\n\"Lord Alastair. Wish meet Inspector,\" he said in that ridiculously small voice.\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" Lady Charlotte said, as if she'd just heard bad news. She bit her lip, and then, as if she'd realized her response needed some sort of explanation, said, \"I'd hoped your arrival hadn't wakened him. My father has so much difficulty sleeping. I'm afraid we'll have to wait until tomorrow morning to tour the compound.\"\n\nShe turned to D'Artagnan. \"Tell Nurse Parchtry we'll be up directly,\" she said, and as he started to leave, \"Where are your gloves, Tanny?\"\n\nHe promptly put his hairy black paws behind his back and hung his head. \"Took off. Dishes. Now can't find.\"\n\n\"Well, go and get another pair out of the pantry.\" She took a bunch of keys out of her pocket and handed them to him.\n\n\"D'Artagnan sorry,\" he said, looking ashamed.\n\n\"I'm not angry,\" she said, putting her arms around his vast back. \"You know I love you.\"\n\n\"Love you,\" he said, and flung his huge arms around her.\n\nI looked at Touff\u00e9t, alarmed after what James had said, but D'Artagnan had already released her and was asking, \"Gloves first? Tell first?\"\n\n\"Tell Nurse Parchtry first, and then go and get a new pair of gloves.\" She patted his arm.\n\nHe nodded and lumbered off, Lady Charlotte smiling affectionately after him. \"He's such a dear,\" she said, and then continued briskly, \"Inspector Touff\u00e9t, if you don't mind, my father's an invalid and gets lonely.\"\n\n\"But of course I should be happy to meet him,\" he said.\n\n\"Can I meet him, too?\" Rutgers said. \"I've heard so much about his AI work.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Lady Valladay said, but she sounded reluctant. \"We'll all go up just for a little while. My father tires easily.\"\n\nShe pressed the button for the lift. We stepped inside. \"My father's rooms are on the fourth floor,\" she said, pressing another button. \"It used to be the nursery.\" The lift shot up. \"He's been ill for several years.\"\n\nThe lift opened, and Lady Charlotte led the way to a door. \"Oh, dear,\" she said. \"I gave my keys to D'Artagnan. Nurse Parchtry will have to let us in.\"\n\nShe knocked. \"My father has a wonderful nurse. Marvelously efficient. She's been with us for nearly a year.\"\n\nThe door started to open. I looked curiously at it, wondering if Nurse Parchtry would turn out to be an orangutan in a nurse's cap and stethoscope. But the person who opened the door was a thin, disheveled-looking woman in white trousers and a white smock.\n\n\"May we come in, Nurse Parchtry?\" Lady Charlotte asked, and the woman nodded and stepped back to let us through into a small room with plastic chairs and a Formica counter along one side.\n\n\"You'd best stay here in the anteroom, though,\" the woman said. \"Tapioca for lunch.\"\n\nIf this was Nurse Parchtry, she looked anything but efficient. One pocket of her smock was torn and hanging down, and her fine, gray-brown hair had come out of its bun on one side. There was a huge blob of something yellowish-gray on one trouser leg\u2014the tapioca?\n\nNo, the tapioca was splattered across the glass-and-chicken-wire partition that separated the room we were in from the larger one beyond, along with soft brown smears of something. I hoped they weren't what they looked like.\n\nI wondered if I had somehow misunderstood, and Lady Charlotte had taken us to see the primate compound after all instead. The room behind the partition looked almost like a cage, with toys and a large rubber tire in the middle of the floor. No, there was a single bed against the far wall and a rocking chair beside it.\n\n\"He heard the taxi,\" Nurse Parchtry was saying. \"I've told that cabbie to drive quietly. I tried to tell him it was just a parcel arriving for Christmas, but he knew it was guests. He always knows, and then there's just no dealing with him till he sees them.\"\n\nLady Charlotte nodded sympathetically. \"Nurse Parchtry, this is Inspector Touff\u00e9t.\"\n\n\"I'm so pleased to meet you,\" Nurse Parchtry said, trying to push the straggle of gray-brown hair behind her ear. \"I am such a fan of your detecting. I adored The Case of the Clever Cook. I've always wished I could see you solve one of your murders.\" She turned to me. \"Does he really solve them as quickly as you say, Colonel Bridlings?\"\n\nNurse Parchtry turned to Lady Charlotte. \"I was wondering\u2014it is Christmas Eve, and I am such a fan of Inspector Touff\u00e9t's\u2014if I might eat downstairs tonight instead of having a tray.\"\n\nLady Charlotte glanced uncertainly at the partition. \"I don't know\u2026.\"\n\n\"Lord Alastair always goes to sleep after he's had his cocoa,\" Nurse Parchtry said, gesturing toward the tray, \"and I did so want to hear Inspector Touff\u00e9t recount some of his celebrated cases. And Lord Alastair's been very good today.\"\n\nThere was a splat, and I looked over at the partition. A large blob of greenish mush was trickling down the center of the glass, and behind it, holding the plastic bowl it had come out of, was Lord Alastair.\n\nIf I had been shocked by the sight of a talking gorilla, I was completely overwhelmed by the sight of Lord Alastair, computer genius and billionaire, dressed in wrinkled pajamas, his white hair matted with the greenish stuff he'd just thrown. He was barefoot, and his teeth were bared in a cunning grin.\n\n\"Good Lord,\" I said, and next to me, Rutgers murmured disbelievingly, \"Al?\"\n\nLord Alastair stepped back, hunching his shoulders, and I wondered if we had frightened him, but he was still grinning. He reared back and spat at us.\n\n\"Oh, Father,\" Lady Charlotte said, and he grinned evilly at her and began smearing the spittle into the tapioca and the brown streaks, as if he were fingerpainting.\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" Nurse Parchtry said, \"and you were so good this morning.\" She pulled a bunch of keys out of her pocket, hastily unlocked a door next to the partition, and disappeared. She reappeared inside a moment later with a wet towel and began wiping Lord Alastair's hands.\n\nI watched, horrified, afraid he was going to spit on her next, but he only struggled to free his hands, slapping weakly at her like a naughty child and shouting a string of garbled obscenities.\n\nBeside me, Rutgers seemed hypnotized. \"How long has he been like this?\"\n\n\"It's gotten gradually worse,\" Lady Charlotte said. \"Ten years.\"\n\nNurse Parchtry had Lord Alastair's hands clean and was combing his hair. \"You must look nice for your guests,\" she said, her voice faint but clear through the glass. \"Inspector Touff\u00e9t's here, the famous detective.\"\n\nShe brought him over to the partition, holding his left wrist in a firm grasp. \"Lord Alastair, I'd like you to meet Inspector Touff\u00e9t.\"\n\nTouff\u00e9t stepped up to the glass and bowed. \"I'm pleased to meet you.\"\n\n\"Inspector Touff\u00e9t's come to solve a mystery for us, Father,\" Lady Charlotte said.\n\n\"Yes,\" Touff\u00e9t said, \"I am interested to know more of this mystery.\"\n\nThere was a knock at the door behind us. \"Shall I?\" I asked Lady Charlotte.\n\n\"Please,\" she said, and I unlocked and opened it. It was Heidi, bearing a tray with a toddler's lidded cup and a plate of graham biscuits on it.\n\nI stepped back so she could enter, and as soon as she did, Lord Alastair exploded. His left arm came up sharply, clipping Nurse Parchtry on the chin, and she reeled back, cradling her jaw. He began pounding on the glass with both hands and hooting wildly. Heidi watched him, clutching the tray, her eyes wide with fright.\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" Lady Charlotte said. \"Heidi, set the tray down on the counter.\"\n\nHeidi did, her eyes still on Lord Alastair, then bobbed a curtsey and ran awkwardly out on all fours. Lord Alastair continued pounding for a moment and then walked over to the plastic bowl, sat down on the floor, and began licking the inside of the bowl.\n\nRutgers shook his head sadly. \"Ten years,\" he murmured.\n\nNurse Parchtry disappeared and then reappeared at the door, her jaw and cheek scarlet.\n\n\"He doesn't like Heidi,\" she said unnecessarily. \"Or D'Artagnan.\" She put her hand wincingly up to her cheek. \"He threw the rocking chair the last time D'Artagnan brought in his lunch.\"\n\n\"I think you'd best put some ice on that,\" Lady Charlotte said. \"And with Father so upset, I think perhaps you'd better eat up here tonight.\"\n\n\"Oh, no!\" Nurse Parchtry said desperately. \"He'll quiet down now. He always does after\u2014\"\n\nThere was a banging on the door, and Touff\u00e9t moved to open it. James burst in, clutching his thumb. \"You will not believe what that monster just did!\"\n\nI wheeled and looked at the partition, thinking Lord Alastair must have gotten out somehow, but he was still sitting in the middle of the floor. He'd put the bowl on his head.\n\n\"He grabbed my hand and tried to tear it off. Look!\" He thrust it at Lady Charlotte. \"I think it's broken!\"\n\nI couldn't see any telltale redness like that on Nurse Parchtry's jaw.\n\n\"The brute tried to kill me!\" he said.\n\n\"What brute?\" Lady Charlotte asked.\n\n\"What brute? That ape of yours! I was walking down the corridor, and he suddenly reached out and grabbed me.\"\n\nHe turned to us. \"I've tried to tell my sister her apes are dangerous, but she won't listen!\"\n\n\"I thought that gorillas had very gentle natures,\" Rutgers said.\n\n\"That's what the so-called scientists at my sister's Institute say, that they're all harmless as kittens, that they wouldn't hurt a fly! Well, what about this?\" he said, shaking his hand at us again. \"When we're all murdered in our beds some morning, don't say I didn't warn you!\"\n\nHe stormed out, but his ragings had roused Lord Alastair, who was pounding on the glass again.\n\n\"He'll go to sleep as soon as he's had his cocoa,\" Nurse Parchtry said pleadingly. \"He always does, and today he didn't have a nap. And I'd have the monitor with me. I'd be able to hear him if he woke up. And it's Christmas Eve!\"\n\n\"All right,\" Lady Charlotte said, relenting. \"But if he wakes up, you'll have to come straight back up here.\"\n\n\"I will, I promise,\" she said, as giddily as if she were Cinderella promising to leave the ball by midnight. \"Oh, this will be such fun!\"\n\n\"It's hardly my idea of fun,\" I told Touff\u00e9t as we were going down for dinner. \"I'd much rather be at my sister's. And I'll wager Lady Charlotte would rather be, too. It's obvious why she prefers apes, with a father and a brother like that.\"\n\n\"The father is a millionaire,\" Touff\u00e9t said thoughtfully. \"Is that not so?\"\n\n\"Billionaire,\" I said.\n\n\"Ah. I wonder who is it that inherits his estate when he dies? I wonder also what makes Nurse Parchtry stay with such a disagreeable patient?\" He rubbed his hands, obviously enjoying himself. \"So many mysteries. And perhaps there will be more at dinner.\"\n\nThere were, the first one being whether Lady Charlotte was even aware it was Christmas. There were no decorations on the table, no holly or pine garlands decking the dining room, and no heat. Leda, who had changed into a fetching little strapless dress, was shivering with cold.\n\nAnd the dinner was utterly ordinary, no boar's head, no goose, no turkey, only some underseasoned cod and some overdone beef, all served by D'Artagnan, in new gloves, and Heidi. Hardly a festive holiday feast.\n\nLady Charlotte didn't appear to notice. She was well launched on the subject of primate intelligence, apparently grateful that her brother, James, hadn't come down to dinner. Nurse Parchtry wasn't there, either. Apparently her patient hadn't gone off to sleep as easily as she'd hoped.\n\n\"One of the prejudices we're working to overcome is that primate behavior is instinctive,\" Lady Charlotte said. \"We've done research that demonstrates conclusively their behavior is intentional. Primates are capable of conscious thought, of planning, and learning from experience, and of having insights.\"\n\nJust after the soup course (tinned), Nurse Parchtry hurried in and sat down between Leda and me. She had changed out of her uniform into a gray chiffon thing with floating draperies, and she was all smiles.\n\n\"He's finally asleep,\" she said breathlessly, setting a white plastic box on the table. A series of wheezes and gasping noises came from it. \"It's a baby monitor. So I can hear Lord Alastair if he wakes up.\"\n\nHow nice, I thought. Midway through dinner we shall be treated to a stream of animal screams and obscenities.\n\n\"What is it that Lord Alastair suffers from?\" I asked.\n\n\"Dementia,\" she said, \"and hatefulness, neither one of which is fatal, unfortunately. He could live for years. Thank you, Heidi,\" she said, as the chimpanzee set a plate of fish in front of her. \"Isn't this exciting, Heidi, having Inspector Touff\u00e9t here?\"\n\nHeidi nodded.\n\n\"Heidi and I are both mystery fans. We've been reading The Case of the Crushed Skull, haven't we?\"\n\nHeidi nodded again and signed something to Nurse Parchtry.\n\n\"She says she thinks the vicar did it,\" she said. She signed rapidly to Heidi. \"I think it was the ex-wife. Which of us is right, Colonel Bridlings?\"\n\nNeither, as a matter of fact, though I had to give Heidi credit. I had thought it was the vicar, too. \"I don't want to spoil the ending,\" I said, and Heidi bobbed her head in approval.\n\n\"He was always a dreadful man,\" Nurse Parchtry said, returning to the topic of Lord Alastair. \"And, unfortunately, his son's just like him.\" She lowered her voice to a whisper. \"Which is why he left everything to him in his will, I suppose. A pity. He'll only gamble it away.\"\n\n\"He gambles?\" I said.\n\n\"He's horribly in debt,\" she whispered. \"I heard him on the phone only this morning, pleading with his tout. You see, Lord Alastair arranged his money so it can't be touched until his death, which I suppose is a good thing. Otherwise there'd be nothing left.\" She shook her head. \"It's Lady Charlotte I feel sorry for.\"\n\nShe leaned closer, her draperies drifting across my arm. \"Did you know Lord Alastair stopped her from marrying her true love? She fell in love with one of his AI scientists, Phillip Davidson\u2014Phillip was the one who got her interested in primate intelligence\u2014and when Lord Alastair found out, he trumped up charges of industrial espionage against him, ruined his reputation, forced him to emigrate. Lady Charlotte never married.\"\n\nTouff\u00e9t would be interested in knowing that, I thought. I glanced at him, but he was watching Mick Rutgers, who was listening to Lady Charlotte talk of her apes' accomplishments.\n\n\"D'Artagnan has learned eight hundred words, and over fifty sentences,\" she said. \"We work for two hours a day on vocabulary.\" She smiled at D'Artagnan, who was removing the fish course. \"And for an hour on serving skills.\"\n\nHeidi began serving the roast beef. The snores and wheezes from the baby monitor subsided to a heavy, even breathing.\n\n\"Heidi and I work on her reading for two hours a day, and she reads on her own for another hour. Heidi,\" Lady Charlotte said, stopping her as she set a plate of roast beef down in front of Leda. \"Tell Inspector Touff\u00e9t what your favorite case is.\"\n\nHeidi signed rapidly, grinning widely.\n\n\"The Case of the Cat's Paw,\" Lady Charlotte translated.\n\nTouff\u00e9t looked pleased. \"Ah, yes, a most satisfying case,\" he said, and launched into an account of it.\n\n\"What's a cat's paw?\" Leda whispered to me. \"It's not like a rabbit's foot, is it?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"It's when someone uses another person for their own ends. It comes from an old tale about a monkey who used a cat's paw to pull chestnuts out of the fire.\"\n\n\"That's cruel,\" Nurse Parchtry said.\n\n\"No crueler than keeping apes captive and dressing them up in human clothes,\" Leda hissed.\n\n\"You don't approve of Lady Charlotte's work?\" Nurse Parchtry said, shocked.\n\n\"N-no, of course I didn't mean that,\" Leda said, looking flustered. She took a forkful of roast beef and then laid it back down on her plate.\n\n\"Lady Charlotte has only the primates' best interests at heart in all her work,\" Nurse Parchtry said firmly. \"She's utterly devoted to them, and they'd do anything for her. She saved them, you know, from terrible fates. Heidi was being experimented on.\"\n\nLady Charlotte had apparently heard the last part of that. \"Experiments?\" she said, interrupting Touff\u00e9t in the middle of his case. \"Primates are still being experimented on, in spite of our having proved they're conscious creatures and can feel pain just as we do. Our research has shown that they can acquire knowledge, solve complex problems, use tools, and manipulate language. Everything that humans can do.\"\n\n\"Not quite,\" Sergeant Eustis said. \"They can't commit crimes or tell lies. Or cheat at cards.\"\n\n\"As a matter of fact,\" Mick Rutgers said, \"primates can.\"\n\n\"Cheat at cards?\" Sergeant Eustis said. \"Don't tell me D'Artagnan plays poker, too?\"\n\nEveryone laughed.\n\n\"Various studies have shown that apes are capable of deception,\" Rutgers said. \"Apes in the wild frequently hide food and then retrieve it when the rest of the troop is asleep, and signing apes who have done something naughty will lie when asked whether they did it. Several times Lucy hid a key in her mouth and waited until her owners were gone, and then let herself out. Their ability to lie and deceive is proof of their capability for higher forms of thinking, since it involves determining what another creature thinks and how it can be fooled.\"\n\nLady Charlotte was looking curiously at Rutgers. \"You seem to know a great deal about primates, for a reporter,\" she said.\n\n\"It was in the informational packet you sent,\" he said.\n\n\"And you're quite right, they are capable of deception,\" she said. \"But they are also capable of affection, fear, grief, gentleness, and devotion. They are far better creatures than we are.\"\n\n\"Is that why they attack people for no reason?\" James said, coming in and sitting down next to his sister. He snapped his fingers, and Heidi hurried to bring him a plate of roast beef, looking frightened. \"Is that why the University of Oklahoma had to shut down their research program after one of their apes bit the finger off a visiting surgeon? Because they're better creatures?\"\n\nHe snatched the plate away from Heidi. \"Has my sister told you about Lucy yet? Poor Lucy, who got sent back to the jungle to be killed by poachers? Did she tell you why Lucy got sent back? Because she attacked her owner.\" He smiled maliciously at Heidi. \"That could happen to you, too, you know. And your friend D'Artagnan.\"\n\n\"I'd attack my owner, too, if I were an intelligent creature being treated like a slave,\" Mick Rutgers said, and Lady Charlotte gave him a grateful look, and then frowned, as if she were trying to place something.\n\nI'd hoped there would at least be a plum pudding in honor of Christmas, but there was only vanilla custard, which reminded me unpleasantly of Lord Alastair's tapioca, but at least it meant an end to the meal. When Lady Charlotte said, \"Shall we adjourn to the solarium?\" I practically leaped out of my chair.\n\n\"Not yet,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"Madam, you still have not informed me of the mystery you wished me to solve.\"\n\n\"All in good time,\" she said. \"We must play a game first. No Christmas Eve is complete without games. Who wants to play Hunt the Slipper?\"\n\n\"I do,\" Nurse Parchtry piped up, and then looked nervous, as if she should not have called attention to herself.\n\n\"I have no intention of hunting all over the house for someone's smelly shoe,\" James said, and Touff\u00e9t shot him an approving glance.\n\n\"How about Musical Chairs?\"\n\n\"No. That's as bad as Hunt the Slipper,\" James said. \"I think we should play Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral.\"\n\n\"That's because you're so good at it,\" Lady Charlotte said, but some of the bitterness seemed to have gone out of both their voices, perhaps because it was, after all, Christmas Eve.\n\nLady Charlotte led the way to the library. \"I'm so glad Lord Alastair is still asleep,\" Nurse Parchtry said to me as we followed Lady Charlotte. She held the monitor up close to my ear. I could barely hear his faint, even breathing. \"He won't wake up for hours,\" she said happily. \"I love Christmas games.\"\n\n\"You should have come with me to my sister's, Touff\u00e9t,\" I whispered to him. \"You would only have had to play charades.\"\n\n\"Who shall be first?\" Lady Charlotte said after we'd settled ourselves in the canvas chairs. \"Sergeant Eustis? You must go and stand out in the corridor while we decide on an object.\"\n\nSergeant Eustis obligingly went out of the room and shut the door behind him.\n\n\"All right, what shall it be?\" Lady Charlotte said brightly.\n\n\"Vegetable,\" Leda said.\n\n\"A Christmas tree,\" Nurse Parchtry said eagerly.\n\n\"He'd guess that in a minute,\" James said. \"A literary character. It always takes them at least a dozen questions to determine it's fictional.\"\n\n\"Father Christmas!\" Nurse Parchtry said.\n\nEveryone ignored her.\n\n\"What do you think it should be, Inspector Touff\u00e9t?\" Lady Charlotte asked.\n\n\"The mystery which you asked me here to solve,\" Touff\u00e9t said.\n\n\"No, that's too complicated,\" Lady Charlotte said. \"I've got it! Fingerprints! It's perfect for a police officer.\"\n\nA spirited discussion ensued over whether fingerprints were animal, vegetable, or mineral, and, unable to decide, they chose Goldilocks instead.\n\n\"She's a fictional character, and she committed a crime.\"\n\nSergeant Eustis was called in and began guessing. As predicted, he used thirteen of his twenty questions to determine that it was a fictional character, and then astonished everyone by guessing \"Goldilocks\" immediately.\n\n\"How did you guess?\" Leda asked.\n\n\"It's always Goldilocks,\" he said. \"Because I'm a police detective. Breaking and entering, you know.\"\n\nOne by one, everyone except Touff\u00e9t took their turn at standing in the corridor and attempting to guess\u2014a plum pudding (Nurse Parchtry's suggestion), the slipper in Hunt the Slipper, a map of Borneo, and a pair of embroidery scissors.\n\nWhen it was James's turn, he demanded to be allowed to take a chair with him out into the corridor. \"I don't intend to stand there forever while you all try to pick something that will fool me. I must warn you, I have never failed to guess the answer.\"\n\n\"He's quite right,\" Lady Charlotte said, smiling. \"Last Christmas he guessed it in four.\"\n\n\"Mistletoe,\" Nurse Parchtry said.\n\n\"It's got to be a fictional character,\" Rutgers said. \"He admitted himself it's the hardest to guess.\"\n\n\"No, his is always a fictional character. It needs to be someone real. And someone obscure. Anastasia!\"\n\n\"I would hardly call Anastasia obscure,\" I said.\n\n\"No, but if he asks 'Is the person living?' we can say we don't know, and he'll think it's a fictional character.\"\n\n\"What if he's already asked if it's a fictional character and we've said no?\"\n\n\"But it was a fictional character,\" Leda said. \"I saw the Disney film when I was little.\"\n\n\"And when he asks if it's animal, vegetable, or mineral,\" Sergeant Eustis said. \"We can say mineral. Because her body was burned to ashes.\"\n\n\"We don't know that,\" Lady Charlotte said. \"Her bones have never been found.\"\n\nIt was a good thing James had insisted on the chair. It took us nearly fifteen minutes to decide, during which time Touff\u00e9t looked increasingly as if he were going to explode.\n\n\"But, if he knows we know he always guesses fictional characters,\" Sergeant Eustis said, \"then he'll think we won't choose one, so we should.\"\n\n\"King Kong,\" Nurse Parchtry said.\n\nThere was an embarrassed silence.\n\n\"I think perhaps we should avoid any references to primates,\" Lady Charlotte said finally.\n\nWe finally decided on R2D2, who was both mineral and animal (the actor inside him) and fictional and real (the actual tin can), and had the advantage of being from an old movie, which Lady Charlotte said her brother never watched.\n\nJames guessed it in four questions.\n\n\"All right,\" Lady Charlotte said, looking round the room. \"Who hasn't gone yet? Mr. Rutgers?\"\n\n\"I was a pair of embroidery scissors, remember?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. Mr. Touff\u00e9t, you're the only one left. Come along. I'm sure you'll solve it even more quickly than my brother.\"\n\n\"Madam,\" Touff\u00e9t said, and his voice was deadly quiet. \"I did not come to Marwaite Manor to play at games. I came in response to your request to solve a mystery. I wish to know what it is.\"\n\nEither Lady Charlotte was tired of thinking up things, or she sensed the deadliness in Touff\u00e9t's voice.\n\n\"You're quite right,\" she said. \"It is time. What Inspector Touff\u00e9t said is true. I asked him here to solve a mystery, a mystery so baffling only the greatest detective in the world could solve it.\"\n\nShe stood up, as if to make a speech. \"The research my Institute has done has proved that primates are capable of higher-thinking skills and complex planning, that they can think and understand and speak and even write.\"\n\n\"Madam,\" Touff\u00e9t said, half rising.\n\nShe waved him back to sitting. \"The mystery that I wish Inspector Touff\u00e9t to solve is this: Since it has been proved that primates have thoughts and ideas equivalent to those of humans, that they are by every standard human, why are they not treated as human? Why do they not have legal standing in the courts? Why are they not allowed to vote and own property? Why have they not been given their civil rights? Inspector Touff\u00e9t, only you can solve this mystery. Only you can give us the answer! Why are apes not given equal standing with humans?\"\n\n\"You've been taken in, Touff\u00e9t,\" I said, I must admit with some pleasure. \"Lady Charlotte only invited you here as a publicity stunt. She wanted you to be a pitchman for her Institute.\" I laughed. \"This time it's you who's the cat's paw. She's using you to get chimpanzees the vote.\"\n\n\"A cat's paw,\" he said, offended. \"I do not allow myself to be used as a cat's paw.\" He pulled his bag off the top of the bureau. \"What time is the next train to your sister's?\"\n\n\"You're leaving?\" I said.\n\n\"We are leaving,\" he said. \"Telephone your sister and tell her we will arrive tonight. Inspector Touff\u00e9t does not allow himself to be used by anyone.\"\n\nWell, at any rate my sister would be happy, I thought, going downstairs to telephone her. I pulled the train schedule out of my pocket. If we were able to catch the 9:30 train, we could be there before midnight. I wondered whether Lady Charlotte would arrange for us to be driven to the station, and whether the driver would be D'Artagnan. I decided under the circumstances I'd better phone for a taxi as well. D'Artagnan was devoted to her. He might not like the idea of our leaving.\n\nI started to open the door of the study and then stopped at the sound of a woman's voice. \"No, it's going fine,\" she said. \"You should have seen me. I was great. I even ate roast beef.\" There was a pause. \"Tomorrow, while they're touring the compound. Listen, I've gotta go.\"\n\nI backed hastily away, not wishing to be caught eavesdropping, and into the solarium. For a moment I thought there were two people standing by the window, and then I realized it was Heidi and D'Artagnan. Heidi was signing animatedly to the gorilla, and he was nodding.\n\nThey stopped as soon as they saw me, and D'Artagnan started toward me. \"Help you, sir?\"\n\n\"I'm looking for a telephone,\" I said, and he led me out into the corridor and over to the study.\n\nI phoned my sister. \"Oh, good,\" she said. \"I'll meet you at the station. Have you had dinner?\"\n\n\"Only a bite.\"\n\n\"I'll bring you a sandwich.\"\n\nWhen I got back upstairs, Touff\u00e9t was already waiting by the lift with our bags. \"Have you telephoned for a taxi?\" he asked, pushing the lift button.\n\n\"Yes,\" I'd started to say, when the air was split by a shrill, terrified scream from somewhere above us.\n\n\"Good Lord, Touff\u00e9t!\" I said. \"It sounds like someone's being murdered.\"\n\n\"No doubt Lady Charlotte has discovered I am leaving,\" he said dryly, and pushed the button again.\n\nRutgers came tumbling out of his room, and Leda's blond head appeared. \"What was that? It sounded like an animal being tortured.\"\n\n\"I think we should take the stairs,\" I said, but before I could turn, the lift opened, and Nurse Parchtry fell into my arms.\n\n\"It's Lord Alastair!\" she sobbed. \"He's dead!\"\n\n\"Dead?\" Touff\u00e9t said.\n\n\"Yes!\" she said. \"You must come!\" She stepped back into the lift. \"I think he's been murdered!\"\n\nWe followed her into the lift. \"Murdered?\" Mick Rutgers said from down the hall, but the door was already shutting.\n\n\"See if Sergeant Eustis has gone,\" Touff\u00e9t called through the closing door. \"Now,\" he said to Nurse Parchtry as the lift started. \"Tell me exactly what happened. Everything. After the games did you return to the nursery?\"\n\n\"Yes. No, I went to my room to finish wrapping my Christmas presents,\" she said guiltily. \"I had the baby monitor with me.\"\n\n\"And you heard nothing?\" Touff\u00e9t asked.\n\n\"No. I thought he was sleeping. He wasn't making any noise at all.\" She started to sob again. \"I didn't know the monitor was broken.\"\n\nThe lift doors parted, and we stepped out. The door to the anteroom stood ajar. \"Was this door open when you arrived?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, leading the way into the anteroom. \"And this one, too.\" She pointed at the door to the nursery. \"I thought he'd gotten out. But then I saw\u2026him\u2026.\" She buried her head in my jacket.\n\n\"Come, madam,\" Touff\u00e9t said sternly. \"You must pull yourself together. You said you had always wished to see me solve a mystery. Now you shall, but you must help me.\"\n\n\"You're right, I did. I will,\" she said, but when we went into the nursery, she hung back reluctantly and then grabbed on to my arm for support.\n\nThe place was a shambles. Lord Alastair's bed had been overturned and the bedclothes dragged off it. The pillows had been torn up, the stuffing flung in handfuls about the room. The rocking chair, bowls, toys, tire\u2014all looked as if they had been thrown about the room in a violent rage. Lord Alastair lay on his back in the middle of the floor, half on a rumpled blanket, his face swollen and purple.\n\n\"Did you touch anything?\" Touff\u00e9t asked, looking around the room.\n\n\"No,\" Nurse Parchtry said. \"I knew from your cases not to.\" She clapped her hand to her mouth. \"I did touch him. I took his pulse and listened to his heart. I thought perhaps he wasn't dead.\"\n\nHe looked dead to me. His face was a horrible purplish-blue color, his tongue pushing out of his mouth, his eyes bulging, his neck bruised. And she was a nurse. She should have known at a glance there was no hope of resuscitation.\n\n\"Did you touch anything else?\" Touff\u00e9t said, squatting down and holding out his monocle to look closely at Lord Alastair's neck.\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"I screamed, and then I ran to find you.\"\n\n\"Where did you scream?\"\n\n\"Where?\" she said blankly. \"Right here. By the body.\"\n\nHe stood up and looked at the glass partition and then walked over to the wall. The baby monitor lay against it, its back off and the front of the case broken in two pieces.\n\n\"That's why there was no sound from the monitor,\" I said. \"That means he could have been killed anytime after dinner.\"\n\n\"And no one has an alibi,\" Nurse Parchtry said. \"We were all out in the corridor by ourselves for several minutes.\"\n\nTouff\u00e9t had picked up the baby monitor and was examining the switch. \"Should you be doing that?\" I asked. \"Won't it smudge the fingerprints?\"\n\n\"There are no fingerprints,\" he said, putting the monitor back down, \"and none on the neck, either.\"\n\n\"I warned you!\" James said, appearing in the doorway. \"I told you that ape was dangerous, and now he's killed my father!\" He strode over to the body.\n\n\"I need to secure this crime scene,\" Sergeant Eustis said, coming into the room, unreeling yards and yards of yellow \"Do Not Cross\" tape. \"I'll have to ask all of you to leave. Don't touch anything,\" he said sharply to James, who was putting his hand to his father's neck. \"This is a murder investigation. I'll want to question everyone downstairs.\"\n\n\"Murder investigation!\" James said. \"There's no need for any investigation! I'll tell you who murdered my father. It was that ape!\"\n\n\"The evidence will tell us who killed him,\" Sergeant Eustis said, walking back over to the body. \"Inspector Touff\u00e9t, come look at this. It's a hair.\"\n\nHe pointed to a long, coarse black hair lying on Lord Alastair's pajama'd chest.\n\n\"There! Look at that!\" James said. \"There's your evidence!\"\n\nSergeant Eustis took out an evidence bag and a pair of tweezers and carefully placed the hair in the bag. While all this was going on, Touff\u00e9t had walked over to the far wall and was looking at the lidded cup, which had apparently hit the wall and bounced. Cocoa was splattered across the wall in a long arc. Touff\u00e9t picked up the cup, pried off the lid, sniffed at the contents, and then dipped a finger in and licked it off.\n\n\"You mustn't touch that!\" Sergeant Eustis said, racing over, trailing long loops of yellow. \"The fingerprints!\"\n\n\"You will not find any fingerprints,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"The murderer wore gloves.\"\n\n\"You see!\" James shouted. \"Even the Great Detective knows D'Artagnan did it. Why aren't you out capturing him? He's liable to kill someone else!\"\n\nTouff\u00e9t ignored him. He handed Sergeant Eustis the cup. \"Have the residue analyzed. I think it will yield interesting results.\"\n\nSergeant Eustis put the cup into an evidence bag and handed it to the young constable who'd just arrived and was gaping at Lord Alastair. \"Have the residue analyzed,\" Sergeant Eustis said, \"and take all these people downstairs. I will want to question everyone in the house.\"\n\n\"Question!\" James raged. \"This is a waste of time. It's obvious what happened here. I warned you!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Touff\u00e9t said, looking curiously at James. \"You did.\"\n\nI was surprised that Touff\u00e9t didn't object to being herded out of the nursery and into the lift by the constable, along with everyone else, but he only said, \"Has Lady Charlotte been told?\"\n\n\"I'll tell her,\" Mick Rutgers volunteered, and Touff\u00e9t gazed at him for a long moment, as if his mind were elsewhere, and then nodded. He continued to look at Rutgers as he went down the corridor, and then turned to me. \"Who do you think committed the murder, Bridlings?\"\n\n\"It seems perfectly straightforward,\" I said. \"James said the apes were dangerous, and, unfortunately, it appears he was right.\"\n\n\"Appears, yes. That is because you see only the surface.\"\n\n\"Well, what do you see?\" I demanded. \"The old man's been strangled, furniture's been smashed, there's a gorilla hair on the body.\"\n\n\"Exactly. It is like a scene out of a mystery novel. I have something I wish you to do,\" he said abruptly. \"I wish you to find Leda Fox and tell her Sergeant Eustis wishes to speak to her.\"\n\n\"But he didn't say he\u2014\"\n\n\"He said he wished to question everyone.\"\n\n\"You don't think Leda had anything to do with this?\" I said. \"She can't have. She's not strong enough. Lord Alastair was strangled. There was a terrific struggle.\"\n\n\"So it would appear,\" he said. He motioned me out of the room.\n\nI went up to Leda's room and was surprised to find her packing. \"I'm not staying in the same house with a killer gorilla,\" she said. \"A cold house with a killer gorilla.\"\n\n\"No one's allowed to leave,\" I said. \"Sergeant Eustis wants to question you.\"\n\nI was surprised at her reaction. She went completely white. \"Question me?\" she stammered. \"What about?\"\n\n\"Who saw what, where we all were at the time of the murder, and that sort of thing, I suppose,\" I said, trying to reassure her.\n\n\"But I thought they knew who did it,\" she said. \"I thought D'Artagnan did it.\"\n\n\"Knowing who did it and proving it are two different things,\" I said. \"I'm certain it's just routine.\"\n\nShe started up to the nursery, and I went back to the study to find Touff\u00e9t. He wasn't there, nor was he in his room. Perhaps he'd gone back up to the nursery, too. I went out to the lift, and it opened, revealing Lady Charlotte. She looked pale and drawn. \"Oh, Colonel Bridlings,\" she said, \"where is Inspector Touff\u00e9t?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I don't\u2014\"\n\n\"I am here, madam,\" Touff\u00e9t said, and I turned and looked at him in surprise, wondering where he'd come from.\n\n\"Oh, Inspector,\" she said, clutching at his hands. \"I know I brought you here under false pretenses, but now you must solve this murder. D'Artagnan could not possibly have killed my father, but my brother is determined to\u2014\" She broke down.\n\n\"Madam, compose yourself,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"I must ask you two questions. First, are any of your household keys missing?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said, pulling the bunch of keys out of her pocket and examining them. \"The key to the nursery,\" she said suddenly. \"But the keys have been with me all day. No, I didn't have them when we went up to see my father, and Nurse Parchtry had to let us in. Let's see, I had them this morning, and then I gave them to D'Artagnan because he'd misplaced his gloves\u2014\" She stopped, as if suddenly aware of what she'd said. \"Oh, but you don't think he\u2014\"\n\n\"My second question is this,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"When your father had difficult days, could you hear him on the lower floors of the house?\"\n\n\"Sometimes,\" she said. \"If only we'd heard him tonight. Poor old\u2026\" She clutched tearfully at Touff\u00e9t's sleeve. \"Please say you will stay and solve the murder.\"\n\n\"I have already solved it,\" he said. \"I request that you ask everyone to come into the parlor, including Sergeant Eustis, and give them a glass of sherry. Bridlings and I will join you shortly.\"\n\nAs soon as she was gone, Touff\u00e9t turned to me. \"What time is the last train to Sussex?\"\n\n\"11:14,\" I said.\n\n\"Excellent,\" he said, consulting his pocket watch. \"More than enough time. You shall be at your sister's in time to burn your fingers on the raisins.\"\n\n\"We don't play Snapdragon,\" I said. \"We play charades. And how can you have solved the crime so quickly? Sergeant Eustis's men haven't even had time to gather evidence, let alone run forensics tests.\"\n\nHe waved his hand dismissively. \"Forensics, evidence, they tell us only how the murder was done, not why.\"\n\nThey also frequently tell us who, I would have said, if Touff\u00e9t had given me the opportunity, but he was still expounding.\n\n\" 'Why' is the only question that matters,\" he said, \"for if we know the 'why,' we know both who did the murder and how it was done. Go and tell your sister we will be on the train without fail.\"\n\nI went downstairs and telephoned my sister again. \"Oh, good,\" she said, \"we're going to play Dumb Crambo this year!\"\n\nAs I hung up, Touff\u00e9t said, \"Bridlings!\"\n\nI turned round, expecting to see him in the door. There was no one there. I went out into the corridor and looked up the stairs.\n\n\"Bridlings,\" Touff\u00e9t said again, from inside the room. I went back in.\n\n\"Bridlings, come here at once. I need you,\" Touff\u00e9t said, and laughed.\n\n\"Where are you?\" I asked, wondering if this was some sort of ventriloquist's joke.\n\n\"In the nursery,\" he said. \"Can you hear me?\"\n\nWell, of course I could hear him or I wouldn't be answering him. \"Yes,\" I said, looking all round the room and finally spying the baby monitor, half hidden behind a clock on one of the bookshelves. I reached to pick it up. \"Don't pick it up,\" he said. \"You will ruin the forensic evidence you consider so important.\"\n\n\"Do you want me to come up to the nursery?\"\n\n\"That will not be necessary. I have found out what I wished to know. Go into the parlor and make sure that Lady Charlotte has assembled everyone.\"\n\nShe had, though not in the parlor. \"We don't have a parlor,\" she said, meeting me in the corridor as I came out of the library. \"I've put everyone in the solarium, where we were last night. I hope that's all right.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it will be fine,\" I said.\n\n\"And I didn't have any sherry.\" She stopped at the door. \"I had Heidi make Singapore slings.\"\n\n\"Probably a very good idea,\" I said, and opened the door.\n\nLeda was perched on a canvas-covered hassock, with Rutgers behind her. The nurse sat in one of the canvas chairs, and the police sergeant perched next to her on the coffee table. James leaned against one of the bookshelves with a drink in his hand. D'Artagnan stood over by the windows.\n\nAs I came in, they all, except James and Heidi, who was offering him a tray of drinks, looked up expectantly and then relaxed.\n\n\"Is it true?\" Leda asked eagerly. \"Has Monsieur Touff\u00e9t solved the crime? Does he know who murdered Lord Alastair?\"\n\n\"We all know who murdered my father,\" James said, pointing at D'Artagnan. \"That animal flew into a rage and strangled him! Isn't that right, Inspector Touff\u00e9t?\" he said to Touff\u00e9t, who had just come in the door. \"My father was killed by that animal!\"\n\n\"So I at first thought,\" Touff\u00e9t said, polishing his monocle. \"A gorilla goes out of control, kills Lord Alastair in a violent rage, and destroys the nursery as he might his cage, throwing the furniture and the dishes against the wall. The baby monitor, also, was thrown against the wall and broken, which was why the nurse did not hear the murder being committed.\"\n\n\"You see!\" James said to his sister. \"Even your Great Detective says D'Artagnan did it.\"\n\n\"I said that so it seemed at first,\" Touff\u00e9t said, looking irritated at the remark about the Great Detective, \"but then I began to notice things\u2014the fact that there were no signs of forcible entry, that the baby monitor had been switched off before it was thrown against the wall, that though it looked like a scene of great violence, none of us had heard anything\u2014things that made me think, perhaps this is not a violent crime at all, but a carefully planned murder.\"\n\n\"Carefully planned!\" James shouted. \"The gorilla choked the life out of him in a fit of animal rage.\" He turned to Sergeant Eustis. \"Why aren't you upstairs, gathering forensic evidence to prove that was what happened?\"\n\n\"I do not need the forensic evidence,\" Touff\u00e9t said. He took out a meerschaum pipe and filled it. \"To solve this murder, I need only the motive.\"\n\n\"The motive?\" James shouted. \"You don't ask a bear what his motive is for biting off someone's head, do you? It's a wild animal!\"\n\nTouff\u00e9t lit his pipe and took several long puffs on it. \"So I begin by asking myself,\" he went on implacably, \"who had a motive for killing Lord Alastair? Your father's will left everything to you, Lord James, did it not?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" James said. \"You're not suggesting I put that gorilla up to\u2014\"\n\n\"I do not suggest anything. I say only that you had a motive.\" He picked up his monocle and surveyed the crowd. \"As does Ms. Fox.\"\n\n\"What?\" Leda said, twitching her dress down over her thighs. \"I never even met Lord Alastair.\"\n\n\"What you say is the truth,\" Touff\u00e9t said, \"though it is the only true thing you have said since your arrival, that is. You have even lied about your name, is that not so? You are not Leda Fox, the reporter. You are Genevieve Wrigley.\"\n\nLady Charlotte gasped.\n\n\"Who's Genevieve Wrigley?\" I asked.\n\n\"The head of the ARA,\" Touff\u00e9t said, looking steadily at her. \"The Animal Rescue Army.\"\n\nLady Charlotte had jumped up. \"You're here to steal D'Artagnan and Heidi from me!\" She turned beseechingly to Touff\u00e9t. \"You mustn't let her. The ARA are terrorists.\"\n\nI looked wonderingly at Leda, or rather Genevieve. Lady Charlotte was right about the ARA, it was a terrorist organization, a sort of IRA for animals. I'd seen them on television, blowing up cosmetics companies and holding zookeepers hostage, but Leda\u2014Genevieve\u2014didn't look like them at all.\n\nTouff\u00e9t said sternly, \"You came here in disguise with the intention of liberating Lady Charlotte's animals, no matter what violent means were necessary.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" Leda, or rather, Genevieve, said, rearing back dangerously, and I was grateful there wasn't room anywhere for a bomb in that dress. \"But I wouldn't have killed animals. I love animals!\"\n\n\"Releasing pets into a wilderness they can't survive in?\" Lady Charlotte said bitterly. \"Sending primates back into the jungle to be killed by poachers? You don't love animals. You don't love anyone but yourselves. Well, now you've gone too far. You've murdered my father, and I'll see you convicted.\"\n\n\"Why would I murder your father?\" Genevieve sneered. \"You're the one I wanted to murder!\"\n\nAt her words, D'Artagnan and Heidi both moved protectively toward Lady Charlotte.\n\n\"Dressing primates up like servants, holding them captive here. You're slaves!\" she said to D'Artagnan. \"She tells you she loves you, but she just wants to enslave you!\"\n\nD'Artagnan took a threatening step toward her, his huge white-gloved fist raised. \"It's all right, D'Artagnan,\" Lady Charlotte said. \"Inspector Touff\u00e9t won't let her hurt me.\"\n\nGenevieve slumped back in her chair and glared at Touff\u00e9t. \"I can't believe you found me out,\" she said. \"I even ate a piece of that disgusting meat at dinner.\"\n\n\"We were discussing your motive,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"Terrorists do not murder secretly. Their crimes are of no use unless they take credit for them. And by killing Lord Alastair, you might have given the Institute bad publicity, but you would not necessarily have succeeded in closing the Institute. Sympathetic donations might have poured in. How much better to blow up the Institute's buildings. It is true, you might have killed primates, but your organization has been known to kill animals before, in the name of saving them.\"\n\n\"You can't prove that!\" she said sullenly.\n\n\"There are wire and detonating caps in your luggage.\" He turned to Sergeant Eustis. \"Ms. Wrigley was out at the compound this afternoon. When we have concluded our business here, I would suggest searching it for plastic explosives.\"\n\nSergeant Eustis nodded and came over to stand behind Genevieve's chair. She rolled her eyes in disgust and crossed her arms over her chest.\n\n\"Ms. Wrigley had a motive for murder, but she is not the only one.\" He took several puffs on his pipe. \"Everyone in this room has a motive. Yes, even you, Colonel Bridlings.\"\n\n\"I?\" I said.\n\n\"You long to spend Christmas at your sister's house, do you not? If Lord Alastair is murdered, the Christmas celebration at Marwaite Manor will be canceled, and you will be free to attend your sister's celebration instead.\"\n\n\"If I'm not detained for questioning,\" I said. \"And I hardly think wanting to spend Christmas with my sister is an adequate motive for murdering a harmless, helpless old man.\"\n\nTouff\u00e9t held up an objecting finger. \"Helpless, perhaps, but not harmless. But I quite agree with you, Bridlings, your motive is not adequate. People, though, have often murdered for inadequate motives. But you, Bridlings, are incapable of murder, and that is why I do not suspect you of the crime.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" I said dryly.\n\n\"But. It is a motive,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"As for Lady Charlotte, she has told all of us her motive this very evening at dinner. She has no money for her Institute. She is in danger of losing D'Artagnan and Heidi and all her other primates unless she obtains a large sum of money. And she loves them even more than she loves her father.\"\n\n\"But her father's will left all his money to her brother,\" I blurted out.\n\n\"Exactly,\" Touff\u00e9t said, \"so her brother must be eliminated as well, and what better method than to have him convicted of murder?\"\n\n\"But Charlotte would never\u2014\" Rutgers said, rising involuntarily to his feet.\n\nShe looked at him in surprise.\n\n\"That is the conclusion to which I came also. Do not excite yourself, Mr. Rutgers,\" he said, giving the word \"Rutgers\" a peculiar emphasis. \"I do not believe Lady Charlotte committed the murder, even though as the one who invited me here to Marwaite Manor, she was the first person I suspected.\"\n\nHe stopped and lit his pipe again for at least five minutes. \"I said, I do not believe Lady Charlotte committed the murder, but not because I do not believe her capable of murder. I believe her desire to protect her primates could easily have driven her to murder. But that same desire would never have allowed her to let her primates be suspected of murder, even with a great detective on hand to uncover the true murderer. She would never have endangered them, even for a few hours.\" He turned and looked at Mick Rutgers. \"You do not need to worry about Lady Charlotte, Mr. Davidson.\"\n\nNow Lady Charlotte was the one who had risen involuntarily to her feet. \"Phillip?\" she said. \"Is it really you?\"\n\n\"Yes, it is Phillip Davidson,\" Touff\u00e9t said smugly. \"Who was ruined by Lord Alastair, who was kept from marrying Lady Charlotte and forced to emigrate to Australia.\" He paused dramatically. \"Who came here determined to murder Lord Alastair for revenge.\"\n\n\"To murder\u2026\" Lady Charlotte put her hand to her bosom. \"Is that true, Phillip?\"\n\n\"Yes, it's true,\" Rutgers, or rather Davidson, said. Good Lord, just when I'd learned everyone's names. Now I was going to have to memorize them all over again.\n\n\"How did you know?\" Rutg\u2014Davidson asked.\n\n\"You called Lord Alastair 'Al,' though no one else had called him by that name,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"It was also obvious from the way you looked at Lady Charlotte that you were still in love with her.\"\n\n\"It's true. I am,\" he said, looking at Lady Charlotte.\n\nShe was staring at him in horror. \"You killed my father?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"It's true, I came here to. I even brought a pistol with me. But when I saw him, I realized\u2026He was a terrible man, but brilliant. To be reduced to that\u2026that\u2026was a worse revenge than any I could have devised.\" He looked at Touff\u00e9t. \"You have to believe me. I didn't kill him.\"\n\n\"I know you did not,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"This murder required a knowledge of the house and of the people in it which you did not possess. And a revenge killer does not sedate his victim.\"\n\n\"Sedate?\" Nurse Parchtry said.\n\n\"Yes,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"When Sergeant Eustis completes his analysis of the cocoa, he will find the presence of sleeping medication.\"\n\nI remembered the snoring on the baby monitor, subsiding into heavy, even breathing. Drugged breathing.\n\n\"Someone who murders for revenge,\" Touff\u00e9t continued, \"wishes his victim to know why he is being murdered. And you had worked with primates, Mr. Davidson; it was your interest in their intelligence that had sparked Lady Charlotte's. You would not have attempted to frame them for murder.\"\n\n\"Well, who would have?\" Sergeant Eustis blurted.\n\n\"An excellent question,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"And one which I will address shortly. But first we shall deal with your motive for murder, Sergeant.\"\n\n\"Mine?\" Sergeant Eustis said, astonished. \"What possible motive could I have had for murdering anyone?\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" Touff\u00e9t said, and everyone looked bewildered. \"You had no motive for murdering Lord Alastair in particular, but you did have a motive for murdering someone.\"\n\n\"Aren't you forgetting he's a police officer?\" James said nastily. \"Or are you saying you have a motive for murdering my father, too?\"\n\n\"No,\" Touff\u00e9t said calmly. \"For I am a great detective, with many solved cases to my credit, and none that I have failed to solve through my own incompetence. That is not, however, true of Sergeant Eustis, is it?\"\n\nLeda\u2014Genevieve\u2014gasped. \" 'Useless' Eustis. I thought you looked familiar.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"Captain Eustis, who had charge of the Tiffany Levinger case.\"\n\nTiffany Levinger. Now I remembered. It had been all over the television and the online tabloids. The pretty little girl who had been murdered in her own house, obviously by her own parents, but they had been acquitted because Captain Eustis had bungled the investigation so badly that it was impossible to attain a conviction. Nicknamed Useless Eustis and pilloried in the press, he had been forced to resign. And had apparently ended up here, in this remote area, demoted and disgraced.\n\n\"Another murder, the celebrated murder of a billionaire in a country manor, a sensational murder that you solved, could have redeemed your reputation, could it not?\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"Especially with the press on the premises to record it all.\"\n\n\"It certainly could have,\" Sergeant Eustis said. \"But even someone as stupid as the press claimed I was wouldn't be stupid enough to commit a murder with Inspector Touff\u00e9t on the premises, now would he?\"\n\n\"Exactly the conclusion I came to, Sergeant,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"Which leaves Nurse Parchtry and James Valladay.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Nurse Parchtry said, distressed, \"you don't think I did it, do you? What motive could I have?\"\n\n\"A cruel and abusive patient.\"\n\n\"But in that case why would I not simply have resigned?\"\n\n\"That is what I asked myself,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"You were obviously subjected to daily indignities, yet Lady Charlotte said you had been here nearly a year. Why? I asked myself.\"\n\n\"Because if she left she would forfeit the bonus I had promised her,\" Lady Charlotte said. She wrung her hands. \"Oh, don't tell me I'm responsible for her\u2026I was desperate. We'd been through seven nurses in less than a month. I thought if I offered her an incentive to stay\u2026\"\n\n\"What was the incentive?\" Touff\u00e9t asked Nurse Parchtry.\n\n\"Ten thousand pounds, if I stayed a full year,\" the nurse said dully. \"I didn't think it would be so bad. I'd had difficult patients before, and it was the only way I could ever get out of debt. I didn't think it would be so bad. But I was wrong.\" She glared at Charlotte. \"A million dollars wouldn't have been enough for taking care of that brute. I'm glad he's dead,\" she burst out. \"I wish I'd killed him myself!\"\n\n\"But you did not,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"You are a nurse. You had at your disposal dozens of undetectable drugs, dozens of opportunities. You could have deprived him of his oxygen, given him a lethal dose of lidocaine or insulin, and it would have been assumed that he had died of natural causes. There would not even have been an autopsy. And you liked Heidi. You and she shared a passion for my cases. You would not have committed a murder that implicated her.\"\n\n\"No, I wouldn't have,\" Nurse Parchtry said tearfully. \"She's a dear little thing.\"\n\n\"There is in fact only one person here who had a motive not only to murder Lord Alastair but also to see D'Artagnan charged with it, and that is Lord James Valladay.\"\n\n\"What?\" James said, spilling his drink in his surprise.\n\n\"You were in considerable debt. Your father's death would mean that you would inherit a fortune. And you hated your sister's primates. You had every reason to murder your father and frame D'Artagnan.\"\n\n\"B-but\u2026\" he spluttered. \"This is ridiculous.\"\n\n\"You put sleeping tablets in your father's cocoa when you were in the nursery, using an attack by D'Artagnan as a distraction. During the game of Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral, you went out into the corridor, having convinced everyone that they must take considerable time in choosing your object, and you took the lift up to the nursery, putting on the gloves you had stolen from D'Artagnan earlier, switched off the baby monitor, and strangled your sleeping father. Then you overturned the bed and placed objects around the room to look as if someone had flung them violently. You hid the key and the gloves, and came back downstairs, where you cold-bloodedly continued playing the game.\"\n\n\"Oh, James, you didn't\u2014\" Lady Charlotte cried.\n\n\"Of course I didn't. You haven't any proof of any of this, Touff\u00e9t. You said yourself there weren't any fingerprints.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Touff\u00e9t said, pulling a bottle of sleeping tablets out of his pocket. \"This was found in your bureau drawer, and these\"\u2014he produced a key and a pair of white gloves\u2014\"under your mattress, where you hid them, intending later to put them in the pantry to implicate D'Artagnan.\" He handed them to Sergeant Eustis. \"I think you will find that the sleeping tablets match the residue in the cocoa cup.\"\n\n\"Under my mattress?\" James said, doing a very good job of looking bewildered. \"I don't understand\u2014 How would I have got into the nursery? I don't have a key.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"D'Artagnan, come here.\" The gorilla lumbered forward from where he and Heidi had been watching all this and thinking God knows what. \"D'Artagnan, what happened after Lady Charlotte gave you the keys?\"\n\n\"Unlock,\" he said. \"Get gloves.\"\n\n\"And then what?\"\n\nD'Artagnan looked fearfully at James and then back at Touff\u00e9t.\n\n\"I won't let him hurt you,\" Sergeant Eustis said.\n\nLady Charlotte nodded at him. \"Go ahead, D'Artagnan. Tell the truth. You won't get in trouble.\"\n\nThe gorilla glanced worriedly at James again and then said, \"James say. Give me,\" pantomiming handing over a bunch of keys.\n\n\"That's a lie!\" James said. \"I did no such thing!\"\n\n\"Then why was this under your mattress inside one of the gloves?\" Touff\u00e9t said, producing a key from his pocket and handing it to Sergeant Eustis.\n\n\"But I didn't\u2014!\" James said, turning to his sister. \"He's lying!\"\n\n\"How is that possible?\" Lady Charlotte said coldly. \"He's only an animal.\"\n\n\"A satisfying case,\" Touff\u00e9t said as we waited for the train.\n\nWe had been driven to the station by a hairy orange orangutan named Sven. \"He doesn't have a driver's license,\" Lady Charlotte had said, bidding us goodbye. She smiled up at Phillip Davidson, who had his arm around her. \"But every policeman in the county's upstairs collecting evidence,\" she said, \"so you won't have to worry about being ticketed.\"\n\nIt was easy to see why the police refused to issue Sven a driver's license. He was positively wild, and after he had nearly driven us off the road, he slapped the steering wheel with his hairy hands and grinned a teeth-baring smile at me. But he got us there nearly ten minutes before train time.\n\nTouff\u00e9t was still preoccupied with the case. \"It is a pity James would not confess to the murder when I confronted him. Now the police must spend Christmas Day examining evidence.\"\n\n\"I'm sure Sergeant Eustis won't mind,\" I told him. He had seemed pathetically eager to look for everything Touff\u00e9t told him to, even writing it all down. \"You've redeemed his reputation. And, at any rate, no one confesses these days, even when they've been caught red-handed.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" he said, checking his pocket watch. \"And all has turned out well. Lady Charlotte's Institute is safe, the apes no longer have to fear being homeless, and you shall arrive at your sister's in time to burn your fingers on the raisins.\"\n\n\"Aren't you going with me?\"\n\n\"I have already endured one evening of Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral. My constitution cannot withstand another. I will disembark in London. You will convey my regrets to your sister, yes?\"\n\nI nodded absently, thinking of what he had said about the apes no longer having to fear being homeless. It was true. Until the murder, Lady Charlotte's Institute had been in great financial difficulty. She had said it might have to close. And if it did, the ARA and the other animal rights groups would have insisted on D'Artagnan and Heidi's being sent back to the wilds. Like Lucy.\n\nTouff\u00e9t had said everyone in the room had a motive, and he was right, but there were two suspects in the room he had overlooked.\n\nJames had even accused D'Artagnan of the murder, and D'Artagnan would certainly have done anything to save Lady Valladay's Institute\u2014he was utterly devoted to her. Like D'Artagnan and the other Musketeers, who would have done anything to protect their queen. And he and Heidi were in danger of losing their home.\n\nBut killing Lord Alastair would not have saved the Institute. James would have inherited the estate. James, who had threatened to shut down the Institute, who had threatened to sell the apes to the zoo. Killing Lord Alastair would only have made the apes' situation worse.\n\nUnless James could be made to look like the murderer. Because murderers could not inherit.\n\nWhat if Heidi had put the sleeping pills into Lord Alastair's cocoa before she brought it up to the nursery, and had hidden the bottle in James's bureau? What if D'Artagnan had only pretended to lose his gloves so that Lady Charlotte would give him her keys? What if he and Heidi had gone up to the nursery while everyone was playing Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral, strangled Lord Alastair in his sleep, and then thrown the furniture about?\n\nBut that was impossible. They were animals, as James said. Animals who were capable of lying, cheating, deceiving. Capable of planning and executing. Executing.\n\nWhat if D'Artagnan had really twisted James's wrist, so that he would accuse him, so that he'd say the apes were dangerous, and it would look as if he were trying to frame them?\n\nNo, it was too complicated. Even if they were capable of higher-level thinking, there was a huge difference between solving maths problems and planning a murder.\n\nEspecially a murder that could fool Touff\u00e9t, I thought, looking across the compartment at him. He was rummaging through his bag, looking for his mystery novel.\n\nThey could never have come up with a murder like that on their own. And Touff\u00e9t's explanation of James's motive made perfect sense. But if James had committed the murder, why hadn't he washed the cocoa out of the cup? Why hadn't he hidden the key and the gloves in the pantry, as Touff\u00e9t had said he intended to do? He'd had plenty of time after we went to our rooms. Why hadn't he dumped the sleeping tablets down the sink?\n\n\"Bridlings,\" Touff\u00e9t said, \"what have you done with my book?\"\n\nI found The Murders in the Rue Morgue for him.\n\n\"No, no,\" he said. \"Not that one. I do not wish to think any more of primates.\" He handed it back to me.\n\nI stared at it. What if they hadn't had to plan the murder? What if they had only had to copy someone else's plan? \"Monkey see, monkey do,\" I murmured.\n\n\"What?\" Touff\u00e9t said, rummaging irritably through his bag. \"What did you say?\"\n\n\"Touff\u00e9t,\" I said earnestly, \"do you remember The Case of the Cat's Paw?\"\n\n\"Ah, yes,\" he said, looking pleased. \"The little chimpanzee's favorite book. A most satisfying case.\"\n\n\"The husband did it,\" I said.\n\n\"And confessed when I confronted him,\" he said, looking annoyed. \"You, as I recall, thought the village doctor did it.\"\n\nYes, I had thought the village doctor did it. Because the husband had made it look as though he had been framed by the doctor, so that suspicion no longer rested on him.\n\nAnd The Case of the Cat's Paw was Heidi's favorite book. What if she and D'Artagnan had simply copied the murder in the book?\n\nBut Touff\u00e9t had solved The Case of the Cat's Paw. How could they have been sure he would not solve this one?\n\n\"You were particularly obtuse on that case,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"That is because you see only the facade.\"\n\n\"In spite of the overwhelming evidence of primates' intelligence,\" Lady Charlotte had said, \"people persist in thinking of them as animals.\"\n\nAs animals. Who couldn't possibly have committed a murder.\n\nBut Heidi could read. And D'Artagnan had scored 95 on IQ tests. And they would have done anything for Lady Charlotte. Anything.\n\n\"Touff\u00e9t,\" I said. \"I've been thinking\u2014\"\n\n\"Ah, but that is just the problem. You do not think. You look only at the surface. Never what lies below it.\"\n\nOr behind it, I thought. To the monkey, putting the cat's paw in the fire.\n\nUnless I told Touff\u00e9t, James would be convicted of murder. \"Useless\" Eustis would never discover the truth on his own, and even if he did, he wouldn't dare to contradict Touff\u00e9t, who had saved his reputation.\n\n\"Touff\u00e9t,\" I said.\n\n\"That is why I am the great detective, and you are only the scribe,\" Touff\u00e9t said. \"Because you see only the facade. That is why I do not listen to you when you tell me that you think it is the gorilla or the vicar. Well, what is it you wished to say?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" I said. \"I was only wondering what we should call this case. The Case of the Country Christmas?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I do not wish to be reminded of Christmas.\"\n\nThe train began to slow. \"Ah, this is where I change for London.\" He began gathering up his belongings.\n\nIf James were allowed to inherit, he would not only shut down the Institute, he would also drink and gamble his way through all the money. And D'Artagnan and Heidi would almost certainly be shipped back to the jungle and the poachers, so it was really a form of self-defense. And even if it was murder, it would be cruel to try them for it when they had no legal standing in the courts.\n\nAnd the old man had been little more than an animal in need of putting down. Less human than D'Artagnan and Heidi.\n\nThe train came to a stop, and Touff\u00e9t opened the door of the compartment.\n\n\"Touff\u00e9t\u2014\" I said.\n\n\"Well, what is it?\" he said irritably, his hand on the compartment. \"I shall miss my stop.\"\n\n\"Merry Christmas,\" I said.\n\nThe conductor called out, and Touff\u00e9t bustled off toward his train. I watched him from the door of the train, thinking of Lady Charlotte. Finding out the truth, that her beloved primates were far more human than even she had imagined, would kill her. She deserved a little happiness after what her father had done to her. And my sister would be waiting for me at the station. She would have made eggnog.\n\nI stood there in the door, thinking of what Touff\u00e9t had said about my being incapable of murder. He was wrong. We are all capable of murder. It's in our genes."
            },
            {
                "title": "Now Showing",
                "text": "\"A charming, lighthearted comedy!\" \u2014Entertainment Daily\n\nThe Saturday before Christmas break, Zara came into my dorm room and asked me if I wanted to go to the movies with her and Kett at the Cinedrome.\n\n\"What's playing?\" I asked.\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said, shrugging. \"Lots of stuff,\" which meant the point of going wasn't to see a movie at all. Big surprise.\n\n\"No, thanks,\" I said, and went back to typing my econ paper.\n\n\"Oh, come on, Lindsay, it'll be fun,\" she said, flopping down on my bed. \"X-Force is playing, and The Twelve Days of Christmas and the reboot of Twilight. The Drome's got a hundred movies. There must be something you want to see. How about Christmas Caper? Didn't you want to see that?\"\n\nYes, I thought. At least I had eight months ago when I'd seen the preview. But things had changed since then.\n\n\"I can't,\" I said. \"I've got to study.\"\n\n\"We've all got to study,\" Zara said. \"But it's Christmas. The Drome will be all decorated and everybody will be there.\"\n\n\"Exactly, which means the light-rail will be packed and security will take forever.\"\n\n\"Is this about Jack?\"\n\n\"Jack?\" I said, wondering if I could get away with \"Jack who?\"\n\nBetter not. This was Zara. I said instead, \"Why would my not going to the Drome with you have anything to do with Jack Weaver?\"\n\n\"It's\u2026I don't know,\" she stammered, \"it's just that you've been so\u2026grim since he left, and you two used to watch a lot of movies together.\"\n\nThat was an understatement. Jack was the only guy I'd ever met who liked movies as much as I did, and all kinds, not just comic-book-hero and slasher films. He'd loved everything from Bollywood to romcoms like French Kiss to black-and-whites like The Shop Around the Corner and Captain Blood, and we'd gone to dozens of them at the Drome and streamed hundreds more in the semester we'd been together. Correction, semester minus one week.\n\nZara was still talking. \"And you haven't gone to the Drome once since\u2014\"\n\n\"Since you talked me into going with you to see Monsoon Gate,\" I said, \"and then when we got there you wanted to eat and talk to guys, and I never did get to see it.\"\n\n\"That won't happen this time. Kett and I promise we'll go to the movie. Come on, it'll be good for you. There'll be tons of guys there. Remember that Sig Tau who said he liked you? Noah? He might be there. Come on. Please come with us. This is our last chance. We won't be able to go next weekend because of finals, and then we'll be gone on break.\"\n\nAnd nobody at home would want to see Christmas Caper. If I suggested going to the movies, my sister would insist on us going to A Despicable Me Noel with her kids, and we'd end up spending the whole afternoon in the arcade playing Minion Mash and buying Madagascar stuffed giraffes and Ice Age ICEEs. By the time I got back to school, Christmas Caper would be gone. And it wasn't like Jack would magically show up and take me like he'd promised. If I wanted to see it on the big screen, I needed to do it now.\n\n\"Okay,\" I said. \"But I'm not going with you to meet guys. I'm going because I really want to see Christmas Caper. Understood?\"\n\n\"Yeah, sure,\" she said, getting out her phone and punching keys. \"I'll just text Kett and\u2014\"\n\n\"I mean it,\" I said. \"You have to promise me you won't get sidetracked like last time, that we'll actually go to the movie.\"\n\n\"I promise,\" she said. \"No guys and no eating till afterward.\"\n\n\"And no shopping,\" I said. I had missed Monsoon Gate because Zara was trying on Polly Pepper shoes in the Devil Wears Prada boutique. \"Promise me.\"\n\nZara sighed. \"Fine. I promise. Cross my heart.\"\n\n\"A sweet romantic comedy with lots of action!\" \u2014popcorn.com\n\nZara's promise meant about as much as the ones Jack had made me. Zara began texting the second we arrived, and we weren't even through the preliminary bag and phone check at the Drome before Kett said, \"The NWU guys behind me in line just asked me to ask you if we want to go see the cast of The Bourne Dynasty. They're holo-skyping over at the Universal booth.\"\n\nZara looked hopefully at me. \"We could go to the 12:10 instead of the 10 o'clock.\"\n\n\"Or the 2:20,\" Kett said.\n\n\"No,\" I said.\n\n\"Sorry,\" Zara said to the guys. \"We promised Lindsay we'd go to Christmas Caper with her first,\" and the guys promptly began hitting on the girls behind them.\n\n\"I don't see why we couldn't have gone to a later showing,\" Kett said, pouting, as we went through the explosives check.\n\n\"Because after the holo-skyping was over, they'd have wanted to play Skyfall or go eat at Harold and Kumar's White Castle, and we'd have missed the 2:20 and the 4:30,\" I said, and as soon as we made it through the body\u2014and retinal\u2014scans and into the Drome, I headed straight for the ticket kiosks, ignoring the barrage of previews and holograms and ads and elves passing out coupons for free cookies and video games and schedules of today's autographing sessions.\n\n\"I thought you were going to get the tickets online before we left,\" Zara said.\n\n\"I tried,\" I said, \"but it's playing a special limited engagement, so you have to get them here.\" I dragged my finger down the list of movies\u2014Ripper 2, X-Force, The House on Zombie Hill, The Queen's Consort, Switching Gears, Just When You Thought You Were Over Him\u2026\n\nHonestly, you'd think with a hundred movies, they'd put them in alphabetical order. Lethal Rampage, The Twelve Days of Christmas, Texas Chainsaw Massacre\u2014The Musical, A Star-Crossed Season, Back to Back to the Future, Wicked\u2014\n\nHere it was. Christmas Caper. I tapped the tickets button and \"3\" and swiped my card.\n\n\"Unavailable,\" the screen said. \"Tickets must be purchased at ticket counter,\" which meant we had to get in line, one of the worst things about going to the Drome.\n\nYou'd think as huge as it is and as many people as it has to cope with, they'd have Disneyverse-style back-and-forth lines, but they only use those to line people up for showings. The ticket lines snaked single file all the way back through the Drome's football-field-size lobby, the Hunger Games paintball stadium, the No Reservations food court, Wetaworks' Last Homely House, the virtual-reality terrace, and half a mile of souvenir shops and boutiques.\n\nIt took us twenty minutes just to find the end, and in the process we nearly lost Kett twice, once at Pretty in Pink\u2014\"Oh, my God! They have stilettos in fifty shades of gray!\"\u2014and again when she saw that Hope Floats, Shakes, and Cones was selling cranberry malts.\n\nZara and I dragged her out of both and into the end of the line, which was getting longer by the minute. \"We're never going to get into the movie,\" Kett grumbled.\n\n\"Yes, we will,\" I said confidently, though I wasn't sure, there were so many people in line. Most of them were little kids, though, who were obviously going to The Little Goose Girl or The Muppets' It's a Wonderful Life or Dora the Explorer Does Duluth. The adults around us who I asked were all going to A Tudor Affair or Return to the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and everybody else was wearing an Iron Man 8 T-shirt. \"We'll definitely get in.\"\n\n\"We'd better,\" Kett said. \"Why are you so set on seeing this Christmas Caper, anyway? I never heard of it. Is it a romcom?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, \"more like a romantic spy adventure. Like Charade. Or The Thirty-nine Steps.\"\n\n\"I haven't seen previews for either of those,\" she said, looking up at the schedule board above us. \"Are they still playing?\"\n\n\"No.\" I should have known better than to mention an old movie. In this day of reboots and remakes nobody watches anything older than last week. Except Jack. He'd even liked silents.\n\n\"You know, the kind of movie where the heroine gets accidentally caught up in a crime,\" I said, \"or some kind of conspiracy, and the hero's a spy, like in Jumpin' Jack Flash, or a reporter, or a detective who's pretending to be a criminal, like in How to Steal a Million, or he's a scoundrel\u2014\"\n\n\"A scoundrel?\" Kett said blankly.\n\n\"A rebel,\" I said, \"a rake, a rogue, like Michael Douglas in Romancing the Stone, or Errol Flynn\u2014\"\n\n\"I haven't seen previews for those either,\" she said. \"Is Arrow Flin still playing?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"A scoundrel's a guy who's cocky and doesn't care about rules or laws\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, you mean a slimewad,\" Kett said.\n\n\"No, a scoundrel's funny and sexy and charming,\" I said, trying desperately to think of a movie recent enough that she might have seen it. \"Like Iron Man. Or Jack Sparrow.\"\n\n\"Or Jack Weaver,\" Zara said.\n\n\"No,\" I said, \"not like Jack Weaver. In the first place\u2014\"\n\n\"Who's Jack Weaver?\" Kett asked.\n\n\"This guy Lindsay used to be in love with,\" Zara said.\n\n\"I was not in\u2014\"\n\n\"Wait,\" Kett said. \"Is that the guy who put a whole bunch of ducks in the dean's office last year?\"\n\n\"Geese,\" I said.\n\n\"Wow!\" Kett said, impressed. \"You went with him?\"\n\n\"Briefly,\" I said. \"Before I found out he was\u2014\"\n\n\"A scoundrel?\" Zara put in.\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"A slimewad. Who got himself thrown out of Hanover. The week before he was supposed to graduate.\"\n\n\"He didn't actually get thrown out,\" Zara explained to Kett. \"He took off before they could expel him.\"\n\n\"Or press criminal charges,\" I said.\n\n\"That's too bad,\" Kett said. \"He sounds totally depraved! I'd have liked to meet him.\"\n\n\"You might get your chance,\" Zara said in an odd voice. \"Look!\" She pointed toward the lobby.\n\nAnd there, leaning against a pillar with his hands in his pockets, looking up at the movie schedule, was Jack Weaver.\n\n\"Exciting fun! Sets your pulse racing!\" \u2014USA Today\n\n\"It is him, isn't it?\" Zara asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said grimly.\n\n\"I wonder what he's doing here.\"\n\n\"As if you didn't know,\" I said. No wonder she'd been so insistent I come with them. She and Jack had cooked up a\u2014\n\n\"Oh, my God!\" Kett cried. \"Is that the guy you were talking about? The\u2014what did you call him?\"\n\n\"Wanker,\" I said.\n\n\"Scoundrel,\" Zara said.\n\n\"Right, the scoundrel. You didn't tell me he was so hot! I mean, he's positively scorching!\"\n\n\"Shh,\" I said, but it was too late. Jack had already looked over and seen us.\n\n\"Zara,\" I said, \"if you set this up, I'm never speaking to you again!\"\n\n\"I didn't, I swear,\" she said, which didn't mean anything, but two things made me inclined to believe her. One was that even though this looked suspiciously like a movie \"meet cute,\" the expression on Zara's face had been completely stricken, the reason for which became apparent a few seconds later when a trio of Sig Taus, including Noah, sauntered up way too casually.\n\n\"Wow!\" Noah said. \"I had no idea you three were coming to the Drome today, too.\"\n\nExcept for Zara's texting you fifteen times while we were in the security lines, I thought. But at least their being here would keep Jack from coming over to talk to me.\n\nIf he even wanted to. Because the other reason I thought Zara didn't have anything to do with Jack's being here had been the look on his face. He'd looked not just surprised to see me here, but dismayed. Which meant I was right\u2014he wasn't a scoundrel, he was a slimewad. And probably here with some other girl.\n\n\"I'm especially surprised to see you here, Lindsay,\" Noah, who would never make it as an actor even in the Twilight movies, said. \"What are you doing at the Drome?\"\n\n\"The three of us,\" I said, emphasizing the word \"three,\" \"are going to a movie.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" he said, frowning at Zara, who gave him a \"go on\" look. \"We were just going to get something to eat at the Mos Eisley Cantina, and we wondered if you'd like to come with us.\"\n\n\"Oh, I love the Cantina,\" Kett cooed.\n\n\"I'll buy you a Darth Vader daiquiri,\" Noah said to me.\n\n\"Lindsay prefers Pimm's Cups,\" Zara said. \"Don't you?\"\n\nI glanced toward the lobby, hoping against hope Jack hadn't heard that.\n\nHe wasn't there. He wasn't at the end of the line either, or at the ticket machines. Good, he'd gone off to meet his new girlfriend. I hoped she hated movies.\n\nNoah was saying, \"What the hell's a Pimm's Cup?\"\n\n\"It's a drink from a movie,\" I said. My favorite drink, I added silently. Or at least it used to be. The drink Jack had made me after we'd watched Ghost Town and T\u00e9a Leoni had said it was her favorite drink.\n\n\"We could have lunch and then go to the movie, couldn't we, Lindsay?\" Kett asked, looking adoringly at Noah. \"I just got a text coupon for Breakfast at Tiffany's breakfast bar.\"\n\n\"No,\" I said.\n\nZara gave Noah another nudging look, and he said, \"Maybe we could go with you. What are you going to?\"\n\n\"Christmas Caper,\" Kett said.\n\n\"I never heard of it,\" Noah said.\n\n\"It's a spy adventure,\" Kett explained. \"A romantic spy adventure.\"\n\nNoah made a face. \"Are you kidding me? I hate romcoms. How about we all go see Lethal Rampage instead?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said.\n\n\"Maybe we could meet you at the Cantina after the movie,\" Zara suggested.\n\n\"Yeah, I don't know,\" Noah mumbled, looking at the other guys. \"We're pretty hungry. Listen, I'll text you,\" he said, and the three of them wandered off.\n\n\"I can't believe you did that,\" Zara said. \"I was just trying to help you forget about\u2014\"\n\n\"That Noah guy was scorching,\" Kett said, looking after him, and sighed. \"This better be some movie.\"\n\n\"It is,\" Jack said at my elbow. \"Hi.\"\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" I demanded.\n\n\"Going to the movies,\" he said. \"What else?\" He leaned toward me. \"Traitor,\" he said in my ear. \"You promised you'd go to Christmas Caper with me.\"\n\n\"You weren't here,\" I said coldly.\n\n\"Yeah, about that,\" he said. \"Sorry. Something came up. I\u2014\"\n\n\"Is it really a good movie?\" Kett asked, sidling over to him. \"Lindsay didn't tell us what it was about. All she said was that there was a scoundrel in it.\"\n\n\"Scoundrel,\" Jack said, raising an eyebrow at me. \"I like the sound of that.\"\n\n\"How do you like the sound of 'loser'?\" I said. \"Or 'slimewad'?\"\n\nHe ignored me. \"Actually,\" he said to Kett, \"he's an undercover agent working on a case, and it's classified, so he can't tell the heroine about it or why he had to leave town\u2014\"\n\n\"Nice try,\" I said, and to Kett, \"What it's really about is this creep who tells the heroine a bunch of lies, does something staggeringly stupid, and then goes off without a word\u2014\"\n\n\"Why don't you come with us, Jack?\" Kett interrupted, looking up at him hungrily. \"I'm Kett, by the way. I'm friends with Lindsay, but she didn't tell me you were so\u2014\"\n\nZara pushed between them. \"Kett and I actually wanted to go play drone tag with these Pi Kappas, Jack,\" she said. \"We\u2014\"\n\n\"What Pi Kappas?\" Kett demanded.\n\nZara ignored her. \"We were just going to the movie with Lindsay to keep her company, but now that you're here, you could take her.\"\n\n\"I'd love to,\" Jack said, frowning, \"but unfortunately I can't.\"\n\n\"He has to put a flock of geese alaying in the theater where The Twelve Days of Christmas is showing,\" I said. \"Or is it partridges this time, Jack?\"\n\n\"Swans a-swimming,\" he said, grinning. \"I've got eight of them in my pocket.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Kett said, as if it was actually possible to get anything through security, let alone a flock of swans.\n\n\"That would be so depraved!\" she purred. \"What you did to the dean's office was so amazing! You definitely should come with us to Christmas Caper!\"\n\n\"I have no intention of going anywhere with Jack,\" I said.\n\n\"Then I will.\" Kett tucked her arm cozily in his. \"The two of us can go see it.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well, I'm sure that would be fun,\" Jack said, disentangling himself from her like she was barbed wire, \"but it's not gonna happen. We can't get in. It's sold out.\"\n\n\"It is not,\" I said, pointing up at the schedule board. \"Look.\"\n\n\"Not right now maybe, but trust me, it will be by the time you get to the front of the line.\"\n\n\"You're kidding,\" Zara said. \"After we've stood in line all this time?\"\n\n\"And told Noah we couldn't go to the Cantina with him,\" Kett added.\n\n\"It's not going to be sold out,\" I said confidently.\n\n\"Wrong,\" Jack said, pointing at the board, where NO TICKETS AVAILABLE had begun flashing next to Christmas Caper.\n\n\"An engrossing mystery.\" \u2014flickers.com\n\n\"Oh, no,\" Zara said. \"What do we do now?\"\n\n\"We could go see A Star-Crossed Season,\" Kett said to Jack. \"It's supposed to be really good. Or The Diary.\"\n\n\"We're not going to either one,\" I said. \"Just because the 12:10 of Christmas Caper's sold out doesn't mean the other showings are. We can still get tickets to the 2:20.\"\n\n\"And wait around for another two hours?\" Kett wailed.\n\n\"Why don't we get lunch first and then get the tickets?\" Zara said. \"We could go to Chocolat\u2014\"\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"This is not going to turn into another Monsoon Gate. We are staying right here till we get our tickets.\"\n\n\"How about you stay in line, Lindsay, and we go and bring you back something?\" Kett suggested.\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"You promised you'd go with me.\"\n\n\"Yeah, and you promised you'd go with me, Lindsay,\" Jack said.\n\n\"You stood me up.\"\n\n\"I did not,\" he said. \"I'm here, aren't I? And anyway, Kevin Kline stood up Meg Ryan in French Kiss. Michael Douglas stood up Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone. Indiana Jones left Marion tied up in the bad guys' tent. Admit it, that's what scoundrels do.\"\n\n\"Yes, well, but they don't throw their entire future away on some stupid prank.\"\n\n\"You mean the geese? That wasn't a prank.\"\n\n\"Oh, really? Then what was it?\"\n\n\"I can see you two have a lot of stuff to discuss,\" Zara said. \"We don't want to get in the way. We'll catch up with you later. Text me.\" And before I could protest, she and Kett had vanished into the crowd.\n\nI turned to Jack. \"I'm still not going with you to see it.\"\n\n\"True,\" he said, looking over at the ticket counter. \"You're not going to get in to the 2:20 either.\"\n\n\"I suppose now you're going to tell me it'll be sold out, too?\"\n\n\"No, they usually don't use that one twice,\" he said. \"This time it'll be something more subtle. Free tickets to a Special Christmas Showing of The Shop Around the Corner or a personal appearance by the new Hulk. Or, since you like scoundrels, by the new Han Solo.\" He grinned. \"Or me.\"\n\n\"I do not like scoundrels,\" I said. \"Not anymore. And what do you mean, 'They don't use that one twice'?\"\n\nHe shook his head disapprovingly. \"That's not your line. You're supposed to say, 'I happen to like nice men,' and then I say, 'I'm a nice man.' \" He leaned toward me. \"And then you say\u2014\"\n\n\"This is not The Empire Strikes Back,\" I snapped, backing away from him. \"And you are not Han Solo.\"\n\n\"True,\" he said. \"I'm more like Peter O'Toole in How to Steal a Million. Or Douglas Fairbanks in The Mask of Zorro.\"\n\n\"Or Bradley Cooper in The World's Biggest Liar,\" I said. \"Why did you say I'm not going to get in to the 2:20, either? Have you done something to the theater?\"\n\n\"Nope, not a thing. I swear.\" He held up his right hand.\n\n\"Yes, well, your word isn't exactly trustworthy, is it?\"\n\n\"Actually, it is. It's just that\u2026Never mind. I promise you I didn't have anything to do with the 12:10 being sold out.\"\n\n\"Then why were you so sure it was going to be?\"\n\n\"Long story. Which I can't tell you here,\" he said, looking around. \"What say we go somewhere quiet and I'll explain everything?\"\n\n\"Including where you've been for the past eight months? And what possessed you to put those geese in the dean's office?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"Sorry, I can't until\u2014\"\n\n\"Until what? Until you've done the same thing here?\" I lowered my voice. \"Seriously, Jack, you could get in a lot of trouble. The Dromes have really heavy security\u2014\"\n\n\"I knew it,\" he said delightedly. \"You're still crazy about me. 'So what say we go discuss this over a nice cozy lunch,' as Peter said to Audrey in How to Steal a Million. There's a little place over on Pixar Boulevard called Gusteau's\u2014\"\n\n\"I am not going anywhere with you,\" I said. \"I am going to the 2:20 showing of Christmas Caper. By myself.\"\n\n\"That's what you think,\" he said.\n\n\"Watch the sparks fly between these two!\" \u2014The Web Critic\n\nJack had sauntered off before I could demand to know what \"That's what you think\" meant, and I couldn't go after him to ask for fear of losing my place in line, so I spent the rest of the wait to get tickets worrying that the 2:20 would be sold out, too, though there were only a couple of dozen people left ahead of me, they were all going to something else, and the schedule boards were still showing tickets were available.\n\nBut there were three other lines, and the ticket seller on mine apparently had the brain of a character in Dumb and Really Really Dumb. It took him forever to make change and/or swipe people's cards and then shove their tickets at them. It was a good thing I wasn't trying to get a ticket for the 1:10. I'd never have made it.\n\nIt was half past before I even got close to the ticket counter, and then the guy three people ahead of me couldn't make up his mind whether to see Zombie Prom or Avatar 4. He and his girlfriend spent a good ten minutes trying to decide, and then his card wouldn't swipe and they had to use his girlfriend's, and she had to search through her entire bag to find it, digging out handfuls of stuff for him to hold while she looked, and standing there to put it all back after they'd finally gotten the tickets.\n\nThis is exactly what Jack was talking about, I thought. What if they were doing it purposely to keep me from getting in?\n\nDon't be ridiculous, I told myself. You're seeing conspiracies where they don't exist. But I still looked anxiously up at the schedule board as I came up to the counter, afraid the NO TICKETS AVAILABLE would blink on at the last minute.\n\nIt didn't, and when I said, \"One adult for the 2:20 showing of Christmas Caper,\" the ticket seller nodded, swiped my card without incident, handed me my ticket, and told me to enjoy the show.\n\n\"I will,\" I said determinedly, and started toward the entrance of the theater complex.\n\nHalfway there, Jack suddenly reappeared and fell in step with me. \"Well?\" he said.\n\n\"They weren't sold out, and I didn't have any trouble getting a ticket. See?\" I said, showing it to him.\n\nHe wasn't impressed. \"Yeah, and in Romancing the Stone, they found the diamond,\" he said, \"and Whoopi Goldberg got Jumpin' Jack Flash an exit contact, and look what happened.\"\n\n\"What is that supposed to mean?\"\n\n\"It means you're not in the theater yet, and if you don't make it by 2:20, they won't let you in.\"\n\nThat was true\u2014it was part of the Drome's security precautions not to let anyone in to a movie after it had started\u2014but it was only 1:30. I told Jack that.\n\n\"Yeah, but the line to get in could be really long, or the line to buy popcorn.\"\n\n\"I'm not buying popcorn. And there isn't any line to get in,\" I said, pointing over at the usher standing all alone in the entrance to the theaters.\n\n\"At the moment,\" he said. \"You're not there yet. A horde of middle-aged women could show up for the new Fifty Shades of Grey before you get over to the usher. And even if you do make it into the theater, the film could break\u2014\"\n\n\"The Drome doesn't use film. It's all digital.\"\n\n\"Exactly, which means something could go wrong with the digital feed. It could be contaminated by a virus, or the server could crash. Or something could trigger the TSA's alarms and send the whole Drome into lockdown.\"\n\n\"Like setting geese loose in a theater?\" I said. \"What are you up to, Jack?\"\n\n\"I told you, I'm not up to anything. I'm just saying you might not get in. In fact, I'm almost certain you won't. And if you don't, I'll be at Gusteau's.\"\n\n\"Nothing is going to happen,\" I said, and started across the remaining half of the lobby toward the entrance and the usher.\n\nThe lobby was getting more crowded by the minute with gaggles of excited children and texting teenagers and families arguing about where to go first. I pushed past and around them, hoping a line wouldn't suddenly collect in front of the usher and prove Jack right, but the usher was still standing there alone, leaning on the ticket stand and looking bored.\n\nI handed him my ticket.\n\nHe handed it back. \"You can't go in yet. The movie's not over. Excuse me,\" he said, and reached around me to take the tickets of two eight-year-old boys who'd come up behind me.\n\nHe tore their tickets in half and handed them back. \"Theater 76. Up the stairs to the third floor and turn right.\"\n\nThe boys went in. I said, \"Can't I go in and wait in the hall outside the theater till it lets out?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"It's against security regulations. I can't let anybody in till the movie gets out.\"\n\n\"Which is when?\"\n\n\"I'll check,\" he said, and consulted the schedule. \"1:55.\" Ten minutes from now. \"If you don't want to wait\u2014\"\n\n\"I do.\" I moved over against the wall, out of the way.\n\n\"Sorry, you can't stand there,\" a manager said, coming up. \"That's where the line for Dr. Who: The Movie has to go.\" He began busily cordoning off the space.\n\nI moved to the other wall, but a bunch of little girls and their parents were already lining up there to get in to see The Little Goose Girl, and the sole bench near the door was occupied by a mother vainly trying to talk her two daughters into relinquishing their virtual-reality glasses. Shrieking was involved. And kicking.\n\nI was going to have to wait out the ten minutes in the lobby. Hopefully Jack's gone off to Gusteau's, I thought, but he hadn't. He was standing just outside the entrance with his hands in his pockets and an \"I told you so\" smile on his face. \"What happened?\" he asked.\n\n\"Nothing happened,\" I said, walking past him. \"The 12:10's not out yet.\"\n\n\"So you decided to have that talk with me after all. Great,\" he said, taking hold of my arm and propelling me through the lobby toward Pixar Boulevard. \"We can go to Gusteau's and you can tell me what excuse the usher gave you for not letting you in and why they wouldn't let you wait there in the entryway.\"\n\n\"I don't have any intention of telling you anything,\" I said, wrenching my arm free of him. \"Why should I? You didn't tell me you were planning to get yourself expelled a week before you were supposed to graduate.\"\n\n\"Yeah, about that,\" he said, frowning. \"I wasn't actually going to graduate\u2014\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" I said disgustedly. \"Why am I not surprised? Was that why you broke into the dean's office, because you were flunking out and you were trying to change your grades?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"The fact is, I wasn't actually\u2014\"\n\n\"You weren't what?\"\n\n\"I can't tell you,\" he said. \"It's classified.\"\n\n\"Classified!\" I said. \"That's it. I'm not listening to any more of your paranoid fantasies. I am going to go stand over by the entrance until this movie gets out,\" I said, pointing, \"and then I am going inside, and if you try to follow me, I'll report you to security.\"\n\nI fought my way back to the entryway through a mob of cloaked and hairy-footed hobbits who were obviously on their way to The Return of Frodo, a bunch of old ladies going to see a special Nostalgia Showing of Sex and the City, and the mazelike line for Dr. Who, which now extended ten yards out into the lobby. By the time I made it to where I intended to wait, there was no longer any reason to. It was already two o'clock.\n\nI went over to the usher and handed him my ticket.\n\nHe shook his head. \"You can't go in yet.\"\n\n\"But you said the 12:10 got out at 1:55.\"\n\n\"It did, but you can't go in till the crew finishes cleaning.\"\n\n\"Which will be when?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"I don't know. Some guy threw up all over. It's going to take them at least twenty minutes to clean it up.\" He handed me back my ticket. \"Why don't you go get something to eat? Or do some Christmas shopping? They're having a sale on Inception sleep masks over at the Sleepless in Seattle shop.\"\n\nAnd Jack will be standing right outside of it, smirking, I thought. \"No, thanks,\" I said, and squeezed past the Dr. Who and Little Goose Girl lines to the bench, hoping the mother and girls had gone.\n\nThey had, but the bench was now completely taken up by a passionately kissing and practically horizontal couple. I edged past them to stand by the wall, but by the time I made it, the couple had reached the R-rated stage and was rapidly approaching NC-17. I braced myself for Jack and another round of conspiracy theories and went back out into the lobby again.\n\n\"A gift for holiday moviegoers!\" \u2014silverscreen.com\n\nJack wasn't there. But he\u2014and Zara and Kett\u2014were the only ones who weren't in the lobby. It was crammed to bursting with people checking their coats and buying tickets and refreshments and staring up at the previews and schedule boards. I found myself alternately jostled and smushed by the crowds going into and coming out of the theater complex and by kids mobbing the Christmas characters who meandered through, tossing candy canes and distributing Coming Attractions flyers. Alvin the Chipmunk gave me a chit for a free mince pie at Sweeney Todd's snack bar, and a frighteningly friendly Grinch presented me with a coupon for half off a Twelve Dancing Princesses T-shirt at the Disney Pavilion.\n\nI'd no sooner handed it off to a NewGoth girl and read a text on my phone, telling me I'd won a free ticket to a special Encore Presentation of Ghost Town, than I was nearly run down by an enormous Transformer stomping through the crowd, flailing his huge metal arms and nearly bumping his head against the lobby ceiling. I partly dived and was partly pushed out of its way by the crowd as it scattered and ended up on the opposite side of the lobby.\n\nThe crowd surged back toward the Transformer, snapping pictures on their cell phones, jockeying for position to have their photos taken with it, their backs forming an impenetrable wall. There was no way I was getting through that, at least till the Transformer left.\n\nIt didn't matter\u2014it was still fifteen minutes till they'd be finished cleaning. I turned to look for a place I could wait without being run down. Not Gusteau's\u2014I had no desire to hear Jack say \"I told you so.\" And not Sweeney Todd's. It was too far away.\n\nI needed someplace close so I could start back the second the crowd dwindled or the moment I saw the cleaning crew give the usher the high sign, and someplace with a short line, but finding one was practically impossible. Zombie Juice was even more mobbed than the lobby. Stargate's Starbucks, which was advertising Mistletoe Mochas, had a line merging over into Zombie Juice, and the Transformer had apparently been passing out coupons for a Transformer Tea because Tea and Sympathy, usually a safe bet, was jammed, too.\n\nAnd I was definitely not going to the Cantina, even though at this point I could have used a drink. But Jack had obviously sent that text, which meant he was waiting in the Cantina to get me drunk and tell me more conspiracy theories. I was not going there.\n\nThat left a hot cocoa at the Polar Express, which was just off the lobby and whose line only had two people in it, but even then it took forever. The guy at the counter wanted a gingerbread clove latte, which the barista didn't know how to make, so he had to give her step-by-step instructions, and then the teenager behind him couldn't get her swipe card to work.\n\nI looked back out at the lobby. The Transformer was gone, but now the zeppelin from The Steampunk League was floating above the ticket machines, throwing down gift cards on a converging crowd. If I didn't go soon, the lobby would be even more jammed than it had been with the Transformer.\n\nI decided I'd better bag the cocoa and head back, and I started for the door. And collided with the gingerbread guy, who was bringing his latte back for having insufficient whipped cream and who managed to spill the entire drink down my front.\n\nCustomers converged with napkins and commiserations, and the barista insisted on my waiting while she fetched a wet rag. \"That's okay,\" I said. \"I'm kind of in a hurry. I have a movie I need to get to.\"\n\n\"It'll just take a sec,\" she said, running back to the counter. \"You can't go all wet like that.\"\n\n\"I'm fine,\" I said, and started for the door.\n\nThe gingerbread man grabbed my arm. \"I insist on buying you a drink to apologize,\" he said. \"What would you like?\"\n\n\"Nothing, really,\" I said. \"I need to go\u2014\" and the barista came over with the rag and began swabbing me down.\n\n\"That's not necessary. Really,\" I said, brushing her away.\n\n\"You're not going to sue the Polar Express, are you?\" she asked tearfully.\n\nYes, I thought, if I miss this movie because of you. \"No, of course not,\" I said. \"I'm fine. No harm done.\"\n\n\"Oh, good,\" she said. \"If you'll hang on just a minute, I'll get you a coupon for a free scone the next time you come.\"\n\n\"I don't want\u2014\"\n\n\"At least let me pay for the cleaners,\" the guy said, getting out his phone. \"If you'll give me your email address\u2014\"\n\n\"On second thought,\" I said, \"I think I would like that drink. A peppermint chai,\" and when he started for the counter, I darted out of the Polar Express, into the protective cover of the crowd, and into the lobby.\n\nIt was even more crowded than it had been with the Transformer. I pushed into the scrum and started across, and it was a good thing I hadn't gotten my cocoa. I had to bull my way through with both hands, prying couples apart and slipping between them, pushing aside excited kids in bright blue A Smurf Hanukkah T-shirts and teenagers staring up at House on Zombie Hill previews.\n\nIt was like swimming through molasses, and it seemed to take hours to get to a place where I could finally see the usher. There was a line in front of him now, but it wasn't the Dr. Who or the Little Goose Girl people, who were still waiting in their mazelike lines. I needed to get over to him before those movies got out, or I'd never get in to Christmas\u2014\n\nSomeone grabbed me by my arm. Please don't let it be the Gingerbread Man, I thought as I was yanked back into the center of the crowd.\n\nIt wasn't. It was Santa Claus, with a microphone and a phalanx of reindeer. \"What do you want for Christmas, little girl?\" he asked, sticking the mike in my face.\n\n\"To get over there,\" I said, pointing.\n\n\"Ho ho ho,\" he said. \"How would you like a nice pair of tickets to the 3:25 showing of The Claus Chronicles?\"\n\n\"No, thank you,\" I said. \"I'm going to see Christmas Caper.\"\n\n\"What?\" he said. \"You don't want to see Santa's own movie?\"\n\nHe turned to his reindeer. \"Did you hear that, Prancer?\" he said, loudly enough for the entire lobby to hear. \"We have a problem here. I think I need to check my naughty-and-nice list, Blitzen.\" The list was duly produced, Santa put on a pair of spectacles, and he ran a very slow finger down it while I looked longingly over at the entrance to the theaters, where the line in front of the usher was growing longer by the minute.\n\n\"Here she is,\" Santa finally announced. \"Yes, definitely naughty. And what do we give naughty children for Christmas, Vixen?\"\n\n\"Coal!\" the crowd shouted.\n\nSanta reached into his sack and produced a lump of licorice. \"Shall I give this to her or shall we give her another chance? After all, it is Christmas.\"\n\n\"Coal!\" the crowd bellowed, and Santa had to ask them two more times to persuade them to offer me the tickets again, which this time I had the sense to take.\n\n\"And here's a ticket to the 2:30 showing of The Twelve Days of Christmas for being such a good sport,\" he said. \"Merry Christmas, ho ho ho,\" and I was finally free.\n\nI shot over to the entrance, where the line in front of the usher had miraculously disappeared, and handed the usher my ticket. \"Sorry,\" he said, handing it back.\n\n\"They're still cleaning?\" I asked incredulously.\n\n\"No, but you're late. It's 2:22. The 2:20's already started.\"\n\n\"But they do previews for the first fifteen minutes\u2014\"\n\n\"Sorry. It's theater policy. No one's allowed in after the start time. I think you can still get tickets to the 4:30.\"\n\nI don't, I thought, and I know who's responsible.\n\n\"Do you want me to check and see if there are still tickets available?\" he asked.\n\n\"No, that's okay. Never mind,\" I said, and went out, across the lobby, and into the wilds of the Drome to find Jack.\n\n\"A great movie! Don't miss it!\" \u2014Time Out\n\nI'd expected Gusteau's to be a bar somewhere near the dance clubs and Rick's from Casablanca, but it wasn't, and after consulting two maps and a Drome guide dressed as Frosty the Snowman, I found it in the depths of Munchkinland, sandwiched between the Monsters, Inc. ball pool and the Despicable Me moon drop, both of which were filled with toddlers emitting ear-slashing shrieks of joy and/or terror.\n\nThe restaurant was a replica of the French bistro in Ratatouille, with rats on the wallpaper and the tables. Jack was seated at a table at the back. \"Hi,\" he shouted over the din from the ball pool. \"Didn't get back in, huh?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said grimly.\n\n\"Sit down. Would you like something to drink? Gusteau's is G-rated, so I can't offer you a Pimm's Cup, but I can get you a mouse mocha.\"\n\n\"No, thank you,\" I said, ignoring his invitation to sit down. \"I want to know what you're up to and why you saw to it I didn't\u2014\"\n\n\"Hey, what happened to you?\" he interrupted, pointing at my still-wet top. \"Don't tell me you collided with Hugh Grant carrying an orange juice, like in Notting Hill?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said through gritted teeth, \"a gingerbread latte\u2014\"\n\n\"And they wouldn't let you in because of the Drome's dress code?\"\n\n\"No, they wouldn't let me in because the movie had already started. Because a guy with a gingerbread latte and Santa Claus kept me from getting back from the Polar Express in time, as you well know. You're the one who put them up to it. This is just another one of your adolescent pranks, isn't it?\"\n\n\"I told you, that wasn't a prank.\"\n\n\"Then, what was it?\"\n\n\"It\u2026you remember when we watched Ocean's 17, and there's a break-in at the casino? Cops, sirens, helicopters, the whole nine yards? But that's just a diversion, and the real crime is taking place over at the bank?\"\n\n\"You're saying the geese were a diversion?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Just like Santa Claus. What did he do to delay you?\"\n\n\"You know perfectly well what he did. You hired him to do it so I wouldn't get in and I'd have to go with you. But it won't work. I have no intention of seeing Christmas Caper with you.\"\n\n\"Good,\" he said, \"because you're not going to. Not today, anyway.\"\n\n\"Why not? What did you do?\"\n\n\"Nothing. I'm not the one responsible for any of this.\"\n\n\"Really?\" I said sarcastically. \"And who is?\"\n\n\"If you'll sit down, I'll tell you. I'll also tell you why the 12:10 was sold out, why The Steampunk League sent its zeppelin over when it did, and why you couldn't buy tickets to Christmas Caper online.\"\n\n\"How did you know that?\"\n\n\"Lucky guess. The ticket machines wouldn't let you buy them either, would they?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, and sat down. \"Why not?\"\n\n\"I need to know something first. What were you doing at the Polar Express? When I left you, you were handing the usher your ticket.\"\n\n\"He wouldn't let me in. Some guy threw up in the theater.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes, good old vomit. Works every time. But why didn't you just wait there in the entryway?\"\n\nI told him about the Dr. Who and Goose Girl lines and the bench people.\n\n\"Did anything else happen while you were waiting? Anybody send you a text telling you you'd won free tickets to something?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" I told him about the Encore Presentation of Ghost Town. \"Which you can't tell me you didn't put them up to. Who else would know Ghost Town was one of my favorite movies?\"\n\n\"Who, indeed?\" he said. \"When we were in line, you said, 'This isn't going to turn into another Monsoon Gate.' I take it you didn't get in to that movie, either. Why not? Did the same thing happen?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said. I told him about Zara trying on shoes and us missing the six o'clock showing. \"And then she got a tweet saying there was going to be a special preview of Bachelorette Party\u2014\"\n\n\"Which, let me guess, was a movie she really wanted to see?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said. \"So we decided to go to the ten o'clock, but when we checked its running time, it didn't get out till\u2014\"\n\n\"After the last light-rail back to Hanover,\" he said, nodding. \"Are you sure you don't want something to drink? A rat root beer? A vermin vanilla Coke?\"\n\n\"No. Why are we here anyway?\" I asked, looking around. \"Surely there's someplace we could go to that we wouldn't have to shout.\"\n\n\"This and the Tunnel of Love are the only areas not under surveillance. We could go do that.\"\n\nI had been in the Tunnel of Love with Jack before. \"No,\" I said.\n\n\"I heard they've got some new features that are really romantic\u2014Anne Hathaway dying of consumption, Keira Knightley being hit by a train, Edward and Bella catching fire on their wedding night and burning to a crisp\u2014\"\n\n\"We are not going in the Tunnel of Love,\" I said. \"What do you mean, these are the only areas not under surveillance?\"\n\n\"I mean, there's no need to distract kids from going to see Ice Age 22,\" he said. \"Kids invented the short attention span. You, on the other hand, have been remarkably single-minded, hence the vomit. And the Gingerbread Man.\"\n\n\"You're saying the Drome was the one trying to keep me from seeing Christmas Caper?\"\n\n\"Yup.\"\n\n\"But why?\"\n\n\"Okay, so you know how this all started, that after the Batman and Metrolux and Hobbit III massacres, movie attendance totally tanked, and they had to come up with some way to get the public back, so they turned the theaters into fortresses where people felt safe bringing their kids and sending their teenagers. But to do that, they had to introduce all kinds of security\u2014metal detectors, full-body scans, explosives sniffers\u2014and that meant people were standing in line for an hour and forty-five minutes to see a two-hour movie, which only made attendance drop off more. Who wants to stand in a line when you can stay home and stream movies on your ninety-inch screen? They had to come up with something new, something really spectacular\u2014\"\n\n\"The moviedromes,\" I said.\n\n\"Yup. Turn going to the movies into an all-day full-surround entertainment experience\u2014\"\n\n\"Like Disneyverse.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Or IKEA. Show lots of movies. A hundred instead of the multiplexes' twenty. And add lots of razzle-dazzle: 4-D, IMAX, interactives, Hollywood-style premieres, celebrity appearances, plus theme restaurants and shops and rides and dance clubs and Wii arcades. None of which was really new.\"\n\n\"But I thought you said\u2014\"\n\n\"Movie theaters have never made their money off the movies they showed. They were just a sideline, a way to get the public into the theater and buy popcorn and jujubes at outrageous prices. The Dromes just expanded on the concept, to the point that the movies have become less and less important. Did you know fifty-three percent of the people who go to a Drome never see a movie at all?\"\n\n\"I can believe it,\" I said, thinking of Kett and Zara.\n\n\"And that's not an accident. In the two hours it takes to watch a movie, you could be spending way more than the price of a ticket and refreshments. And if they can get you to see a later showing, you'll eat lunch and dinner here\u2014and stick around to play glittertag afterward. The longer you're at the Drome\u2014\"\n\n\"The more I spend.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"So the Drome does everything it can to see that happens.\"\n\n\"You expect me to believe the Drome orchestrated all that\u2014the tickets and the vomit and the text and the sold-out sign\u2014just to get me to buy more souvenirs?\"\n\n\"No. You know that old movie we watched where the guy's investigating what looks like a simple train accident and then it turns out it wasn't an accident?\"\n\n\"I Love Trouble,\" I said promptly. \"With Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts. She was a reporter\u2014\"\n\n\"And he was a scoundrel,\" Jack said, grinning. \"Who, as I recall, Julia really liked.\"\n\n\"What's your point?\"\n\n\"My point is that the train accident was just the tip of the iceberg. And so is Christmas Caper. I think there's a whole vast conspiracy\u2014\"\n\n\"To keep me from seeing a movie?\"\n\n\"Not you. Anyone. And not just Christmas Caper. The Pimmsleys of Parson's Court, too, and Just When You Thought You Were Over Him, and Switching Gears, and possibly a couple of others.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because they can't afford to let the public find out what's going on. Remember the things I told you the Dromes used to attract people\u2014lots of razzle-dazzle and merchandise, and lots of movies?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, that's the problem. The old multiplexes had fifteen screens to fill. The Dromes have a hundred.\"\n\n\"But they show some movies in more than one theater.\"\n\n\"Right, and in 3-D, 4-D, and Wii versions, plus there are tons of sequels and remakes and reboots\u2014\"\n\n\"And Encore Presentations\u2014\"\n\n\"And rereleases and film festivals and Harry Potter marathons and sneak previews, but even if you add in foreign films and Bollywood and bad remakes of British romantic comedies and crummy remakes of all three, it's still a hell of a lot of screens to fill. Especially when most people are only interested in seeing The Return of Frodo. Do you remember when we went to see Gaudy Night and we were the only two people in the theater?\"\n\n\"Yes\u2014\"\n\n\"It's like Baskin-Robbins. They advertise thirty-one flavors, but who the hell ever orders raisin or lemon custard? Those could actually be vanilla with a little food coloring added for all anybody knows. And so could half the Dromes' movies.\"\n\n\"So you're saying Christmas Caper doesn't exist?\"\n\n\"I think that's a very real possibility.\"\n\n\"But that's ridiculous. You and I saw a trailer for it. There was a preview on the overheads while we were in line.\"\n\n\"Which was three minutes long and could have been filmed in a day.\"\n\n\"But why would they advertise it if it doesn't exist?\"\n\n\"Because otherwise somebody\u2014like me, for instance\u2014might get suspicious.\"\n\n\"But there's no way they could get away with\u2014\"\n\n\"Sure there is. Most people want to see the latest blockbuster, and with a minor nudge\u2014like a sold-out sign\u2014you can talk ninety-five percent of the rest of them into seeing something else. Or having lunch at Babette's Feast.\"\n\n\"And the other five percent?\"\n\n\"You just saw it.\"\n\n\"But movies sell out, especially at Christmastime\u2014\"\n\n\"And people throw up and accidentally spill drinks and get picked up by fraternity guys and can't go to the 10:20 showing because it gets out after the last light-rail train home. But the last showing of every movie I named gets out after the last scheduled light-rail, and I've tried to get into Switching Gears for the last five days and haven't made it. What time is it?\"\n\n\"Four o'clock.\"\n\n\"Come on,\" he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me up. \"We've gotta get going if we're going to make it to Christmas Caper.\"\n\n\"Exciting, suspenseful, and unbelievably romantic!\" \u2014Front Row\n\n\"But I thought you said it doesn't exist,\" I said as he dragged me out of Gusteau's.\n\n\"It doesn't. Come on.\" He led me through Hogwarts and Neverland and down an aisle of shops selling Toy Story and The Great Oz and Son of Lion King souvenirs.\n\n\"This isn't the way to the theater complex,\" I protested.\n\n\"We've got some shopping to do first,\" he said, leading me into the Disney Princess Boutique.\n\n\"Shopping? Why?\"\n\n\"Because we can't afford to have management notice us, and the surest way to draw attention to yourself in a Drome is by not spending money,\" he said, riffling through a rack of Tangled T-shirts.\n\n\"Besides,\" he said, moving to another rack, this one full of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs hoodies, \"this is a big date. You should have something special to wear. Something the usher hasn't seen.\" He flipped through the entire rack and then one of Twelve Dancing Princesses tutus, pulling them out and then hanging them back up.\n\n\"What are you looking for?\" I asked.\n\n\"I told you. Something special,\" he said, searching through yet another rack. \"And something that doesn't make you smell like Mrs. Claus's kitchen. Ah, here we go,\" he said, pulling out a yellow Dora and Diego Do the Himalayas T-shirt, with Diego pointing his trademark camera at Dora and the monkey, who were standing atop Mount Everest. \"Just the ticket.\"\n\n\"I am not wearing\u2014\" I began, but he'd already thrust it and a bright pink Little Goose Girl baseball cap into my hands.\n\n\"Tell the clerk to deactivate the tags so you can wear them now,\" he said, \"and then go in the dressing room, take off your top, and put the shirt on. I'll be in the store next door.\" He gave me a push in the paydesk's direction. \"And no questions.\"\n\nI did as he said, pulling my top off over my head\u2014he was right, it did reek of gingerbread\u2014and putting the T-shirt on over my singlet.\n\nIt was too tight, which I suspected was part of the plan, and looked even worse on me than it had on the hanger. \"You could have at least had me get something cute,\" I told him when I found him in the shop next door, trying on Risky Business sunglasses.\n\n\"No, I couldn't,\" he said. \"What'd you do with your top?\"\n\n\"I put it in the bag,\" I said.\n\n\"Good. Come on,\" he said, taking it from me and steering me out of the shop, back toward Gusteau's, to a recycler. He dropped the bag in.\n\n\"I liked that top,\" I protested.\n\n\"Shh, do you want to go to this movie or not?\" he said, leading me through a maze of balloon artists and tattoo laser techs and kiddie rides and candy stores to the lobby.\n\nHe stopped just short of it. \"Okay, I want you to go over to the kiosk and buy a ticket to Dragonwar.\"\n\n\"Dragonwar? But I thought we were going to\u2014\"\n\n\"We are. You buy a ticket to Dragonwar and then\u2014\"\n\n\"One ticket? Not two?\"\n\n\"Definitely not two. We're going in separately.\"\n\n\"What if the machine tells me I have to buy it at the ticket counter?\"\n\n\"It won't,\" he said. \"Once you're inside\u2014\"\n\n\"Or what if they say I can't go in yet?\"\n\n\"They won't do that, either,\" he said. \"Once you're inside, go to the concessions stand and buy a large popcorn and a large 7-Up with two straws, and go down to Theater 17.\"\n\n\"Theater 17? But Dragonwar's playing in Theater 24.\"\n\n\"We're not going to Dragonwar. Or to Au Revoir, Mon Fou, which is what's showing in Theater 17. You're not going into any theater. You're just going to stand in the doorway of 17. I'll meet you there in a couple of minutes.\"\n\n\"And you promise we'll see Christmas Caper?\"\n\n\"I promise I'll take you to Christmas Caper. Large popcorn,\" he ordered. \"Large 7-Up. Not Coke.\" He jammed the Goose Girl cap down over my eyes. \"Theater 17,\" he repeated, and took off through the crowd.\n\n\"Based on a true story\u2026but you won't believe it!\" \u2014At the Movies\n\nHe was right. No one got in my way or spilled a felony frappe on me or stopped me to give me a free pass to You're Under Arrest, and the usher didn't even glance at me as he tore my ticket in half. \"Theater 24,\" he said, and motioned to the right, \"End of the hall,\" and turned his attention to a trio of thirteen-year-olds, and I went down the plush-carpeted hall.\n\nThere was no sign of Jack, but he could be hiding in one of the recessed entrances to the theater or past the point halfway down where the hall took a turn to the right.\n\nHe wasn't. I stood outside Theater 17 for longer than a couple of minutes and then walked slowly down to 24, where Dragonwar was playing, but he wasn't there, either.\n\nHe got caught trying to sneak in, and they threw him out, I thought, walking back to Theater 17 and planting myself in the recessed doorway.\n\nI waited some more.\n\nStill no sign of Jack, or of anyone else, except a kid who shot out of Theater 30 and down to the restroom, banging its door loudly behind him. I waited some more. I would have gotten my phone out to see what time it was, but between the giant 7-Up I was cradling in my left arm and the enormous bag of popcorn, there was no way I could manage it.\n\nA door slammed farther down the hall and I looked up eagerly, but it was just the kid, racing back to 30, obviously determined not to miss a second more than necessary of his movie. I wondered what it was that was so riveting. I moved down the hall a little so I could see the marquee above the door.\n\nLethal Rampage. And next door to it, on the marquee above Theater 28, Christmas Caper.\n\n\"The cast is terrific!\" \u2014Goin' Hollywood\n\nThat rat! Jack had told me it didn't exist, and yet here it was. And all those problems I'd had, all those people who'd gotten in my way, weren't Drome employees hired to keep me out. They were just moviegoers like me, and the things that had happened were nothing more than coincidences. There was no conspiracy.\n\nWhen are you going to learn you can't trust a word he says? I thought, and if he'd been there, I'd have taken great pleasure in dumping the 7-Up\u2014and the popcorn\u2014over his head and stomping out.\n\nBut he'd apparently gotten himself caught and thrown out of the Drome. If he'd ever intended to come. And I was left, quite literally, holding the bag. And now that I thought about it, Nick Nolte had done the same thing to Julia Roberts in I Love Trouble\u2014sending her on what else?\u2014a wild-goose chase. With real geese.\n\nI'll kill him when I find him, I thought, and started back toward the entrance, fuming, and then stopped and looked back at Theater 28. I had come to the Drome to see Christmas Caper, and it was right here, with the 4:30 showing due to start at any minute. And it would serve Jack right if I saw it without him.\n\nI walked back to the turn and peeked around the corner to make sure no one\u2014especially not somebody on the staff\u2014was coming and would catch me going into a different movie than the one I had the ticket for, and then hurried over to Theater 28 and pulled the door open. That was no mean feat given the popcorn and the 7-Up, but I managed to get it open far enough to hold it with my hip while I sidled through.\n\nIt was pitch-dark inside. The door shut behind me, and I stood there in the blackness, waiting for my eyes to adjust. They didn't, even though there should be some light from the movie screen, or, if the previews hadn't started yet, from the overhead lights. And weren't these hallways supposed to have strip lighting in case they had to evacuate the theater?\n\nThis one obviously didn't, and I couldn't see anything. I stood there in the darkness, listening. The previews had definitely started. I could hear crashes and clangs and ominous music. It must be a preview for one of those shot-totally-at-night movies like The Dark Knight Rises or the Alien reboot, and that was why I couldn't see, and in a minute, when a different preview came on, there'd be enough light to find my way by. But though the sounds changed to laughter and the muffled murmur of voices, the corridor remained coal-mine black.\n\nI was going to have to feel my way along the passage, but I didn't have a free hand to hold on to the wall with. Or to fish out my phone with so I could use its lit screen as a flashlight.\n\nThis is all Jack's fault, I thought, stooping to set down the 7-Up so I could get my phone out of my pocket. I flipped it open and held it out in front of me. And no wonder the passage was so dark. It went a few more feet and then turned sharply to the left in a kind of dogleg. If I'd kept going, I'd have run face-first into a wall.\n\nThat's a lawsuit waiting to happen, I thought, trying to figure out a way to hold on to my phone and the 7-Up. There wasn't one\u2014the cup was too big around\u2014but if I could just make it past the dogleg, there should be some light from the screen to see by. I put my phone back in my pocket, felt for the cup, picked it up, and started down the passage again, counting the steps to the wall.\n\n\"Four\u2026five\u2026\" I whispered. \"Six, sev\u2014\"\n\nAnd was grabbed abruptly from behind by a hand around my waist. I yelped, but a second hand was already over my mouth, and Jack's voice was in my ear. \"Shh. In here,\" he whispered, and pulled me, impossibly, right through the wall.\n\n\"A winner! You'll be glad you came!\" \u2014Variety Online\n\nAmazingly, I hadn't dropped the 7-Up or the bag of popcorn. \"What do you think you're doing?\" I said, wrestling free of him.\n\n\"Shh!\" he whispered. \"These walls aren't soundproof. Did you spill any of the popcorn?\"\n\n\"Of course I spilled the popcorn,\" I said. \"You scared me half to death!\"\n\n\"Shh. Look, you can yell at me all you want,\" he whispered, \"but not till the next chase scene. And don't take out your cell phone. I don't want the light to give us away. Stay here,\" he ordered, and I heard the swish of a door's opening and closing softly, and then nothing but the sounds of pandemonium coming through the left-hand wall.\n\nIt sounded similar to what I'd heard before and had thought was from the previews for Christmas Caper, but it was clearly coming from the theater next door, which meant it was Lethal Rampage.\n\nI couldn't see anything at all, let alone enough to make out my surroundings, but this had to be the corridor leading to Christmas Caper because I could hear a voice intoning, \"Coming this Valentine's Day!\" through the other wall.\n\nGood, the previews were still playing. I hadn't missed the start of the movie. I would have time to tell Jack what I thought of him for grabbing me like that and still make it into the theater in time for the opening credits. If I could find it in the darkness, which was still absolute.\n\nJack was back. I heard him shut the door. \"Luckily, you only spilled a couple of handfuls,\" he said over the crash of explosions from Lethal Rampage. \"Which I ate. What took you so long? I was afraid the usher had spotted you, and I was going to have to come back out and rescue you.\"\n\n\"Where was I?\" I said angrily. \"I was standing outside Theater 17 just like you told me to. You lied to me\u2014\"\n\n\"Nobody saw you go in the door to 28, did they?\"\n\n\"Don't change the subject. You\u2014\"\n\n\"Did they?\" He grabbed my arm, jostling the popcorn.\n\n\"No,\" I said, only half listening. In between deafening explosions, the announcer on the Christmas Caper side of the wall was saying muffledly, \"And now for our feature presentation.\"\n\n\"Look,\" I said. \"I'd love to stand here in the dark and fight with you, but I intend to see Christmas Caper. So if you'll please let go of my arm, the movie's about to start.\"\n\n\"No, it's not,\" he said. He squeezed my arm. \"Hang on,\" he said, let go, and moved away from me, and I could hear him doing something, though I couldn't tell what, and then the wall I was facing lit up with the beam from a penlight.\n\nFrom what I could see in its dim light, we were in a narrow passage just like the one outside, with carpet on the floor and the walls and no strip lighting, but it was long and straight and ended in a wall, not in the entrance to the theater. There was no sign of the door Jack had just come through, though it had to be in that wall because Jack had taken off his jacket and laid it against the bottom of it.\n\n\"To keep any stray light from seeping out,\" he explained over the racket.\n\n\"What is this place?\" I said. \"Where are we?\"\n\n\"Shh,\" he said, putting a finger to his lips and whispering. \"Kissing scene coming up,\" and he must have been telling the truth because the gunfire and explosions were suddenly replaced by the strains of violins.\n\nHe took the popcorn and 7-Up cup from me, tiptoed halfway down the corridor, stooped and set them on the floor, and then stood up again, listening with his finger to his lips. And apparently the lethal rampagers were back, because the romantic violins cut off abruptly, replaced by a blast of trumpets, lots of drumming, and the sound of revving engines and squealing tires.\n\n\"Chase scene,\" Jack said, coming back over to me. \"Time to go to work.\"\n\n\"You said you were going to tell me what this place is. Where's the theater?\"\n\n\"I'll tell you everything, I swear. After we do this. Take off your shirt.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Your shirt. Take it off.\"\n\n\"You never change, do you?\"\n\n\"Wrong line,\" he said. \"You're supposed to say, 'Are you sure we're planning the same sort of crime?' and I say\u2014\"\n\n\"This is not How to Steal a Million,\" I said.\n\n\"You're right,\" he said. \"It's more like Jumpin' Jack Flash. Or I Love Trouble. Take it off. And hurry. We don't have much time.\"\n\n\"I have no intention of taking off any\u2014\"\n\n\"Calm down. It's for the photos. Of this passage and the one outside,\" he said, and when I still stood there, my arms crossed, \"The camera the boy on your shirt is holding isn't just a picture. There's a digital-strip camera embedded in it.\"\n\nAnd that was why he'd riffled through all those shirts in the Disney Princess boutique. He'd been looking for one with a camera. \"Why can't you just use the camera in your phone?\"\n\n\"When they scan them in the security line, they check your info against the police and FBI databases.\"\n\n\"Which you're in because of the geese,\" I said. \"That's why you wanted me to come with you, so I could smuggle in your camera for you.\"\n\n\"Of course. That's what scoundrels do. They use the girl to smuggle the necklace through customs or to get the news story or to get them out of East Germany\u2014\"\n\n\"This is not a movie!\"\n\n\"You're right about that. Which is why I've got to get those pictures. So, do you want to give me that shirt or do you want me to take the camera off of it while you're wearing it?\"\n\n\"Fine,\" I said, pulled the T-shirt off over my head, handed it to him, and stood there fuming in my singlet while he turned the shirt inside out, peeled off the digital-strip camera, and handed the T-shirt back to me. I pulled it on while he snapped pictures of the passage, motioning me out of the way so he could get a shot of the long wall behind me.\n\nHe snapped the end wall he'd dragged me through and the one at the other end, and then came back to me and listened a moment. \"I'll be right back,\" he said, switched off the penlight, plunging us in darkness, and went out into the passage again.\n\nHe was gone for what seemed like forever. I put my ear to the door, but all I could hear were detonations and screams from the Lethal Rampage side and disgustingly perky music from the other. I listened intently, afraid the din would subside any minute, but it didn't, though on the Rampage side I could hear, over the crashing, the sound of muffled voices.\n\nPlease don't let that be the usher or Drome security, I thought, demanding to know what Jack was doing in here, but it must not have been because the door was opening again, and I had to back away hastily as Jack came in and shut it behind him.\n\n\"Can you find my jacket?\" he whispered, and I felt around for it in vain, and then pulled my shirt off again and handed it to him to put against the door.\n\n\"Thanks,\" he whispered, and, after a few seconds, switched on the penlight again.\n\n\"Did you get the pictures?\"\n\nHe waved the digital strip at me. \"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Good. You lied to me.\"\n\n\"No, I didn't. Besides, Jimmy Stewart lied to Margaret Sullavan, Peter O'Toole lied to Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant lied to Audrey Hepburn. It's what scoundrels do.\"\n\n\"That's no excuse. You promised you'd take me to Christmas Caper.\"\n\n\"And I did,\" he said. \"This is it.\" He waved his arm to show the passage. \"Welcome to Theater 28.\"\n\n\"This isn't a theater,\" I said.\n\n\"You're right,\" he said. \"Come on.\" He grabbed my hand, led me down to where he'd set the popcorn and 7-Up. \"Have a seat, and I'll explain everything. Come on, sit down.\"\n\nI sat down on the floor, my back against the carpeted wall, my arms folded belligerently across my chest, and he sat down across from me. \"That passage outside splits in two and goes into the theaters on either side,\" he said. \"If I hadn't reached out and pulled you in here, you'd have turned and followed that dogleg into Theater 30 and Lethal Rampage.\n\n\"And if you'd turned the other way, you'd have ended up in Theater 26\"\u2014he jerked his thumb toward the wall behind him\u2014\"where Make Way for Ducklings is now showing, a fact you wouldn't have discovered until you'd sat through fifteen minutes of previews, at which point you'd have thought you'd somehow gotten in the wrong theater, and go tell the usher, who'd tell you he was sorry, but you'd missed the start of Christmas Caper and he couldn't let you in, but that there might still be tickets available for the seven o'clock. A neat trick, huh?\"\n\n\"But why\u2014?\"\n\n\"They have to have a last line of defense in case a determined fan makes it past all the other firewalls. That hardly ever happens, but occasionally somebody does what you just did\u2014can't get in, buys a ticket for another movie, and then tries to sneak in to what they originally wanted to see.\"\n\n\"Why don't they just not put up a marquee for it?\"\n\n\"They tried that, which is what made us suspicious in the first place, so they had to come up with an alternative plan. Which you see before you.\"\n\n\"Us?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oops, I almost forgot,\" he said, scrambling to his feet and going to retrieve his jacket. He put it on, came back, and began searching through its pockets.\n\n\"Now what are you doing?\" I asked.\n\n\"Trying to get this made before Lethal Rampage hits another quiet stretch.\" He frowned at the red Coca-Cola cup. \"You did get 7-Up, didn't you? Not Coke?\"\n\n\"I got 7-Up.\" I handed it over to him. \"You're not making a stink bomb out of that, are you?\" I asked as he pulled out a flask and poured a brown liquid into the cup.\n\n\"No,\" he said, patting his pockets some more and pulling out a Terminator 12 commemorative glass and then a baggie full of lemon slices.\n\nHe poured half the 7-Up-and-brown-liquid-and-ice mixture into the Terminator glass, added a lemon slice and a sprig of mint from his breast pocket, reached inside his jacket, pulled out a stalk of rhubarb with a flourish, stuck it in the glass, stirred the mixture with it, and handed it to me. \"Your Pimm's Cup, madam,\" he said.\n\n\"Just like the ones you made the night we watched Ghost Town,\" I said, smiling.\n\n\"Well, not just like them. These are made with rum, which was all Tom Cruise's Cocktail Bar had. And when I made the Ghost Town ones, I was trying to get you into bed.\"\n\n\"And what are you trying to do this time? Get me drunk so I'll agree to help you do something else illegal?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, sitting down next to me. \"Not right now, anyway,\" which wasn't exactly a reassuring answer.\n\n\"I got the photos,\" he went on, \"which is what I came for, and, thanks to you and that awful Dora T-shirt\"\u2014he raised his Coke cup to me\u2014\"I'm a lot less likely to get caught smuggling them out. But it's still too risky to do any more investigating till I've gotten them safely off the premises.\" He took a leisurely sip of his drink.\n\n\"Then, shouldn't we be going?\" I asked.\n\n\"We can't. Not till Lethal Rampage is over and we can blend in with the audience as it leaves. So relax. Drink your Pimm's Cup, have some popcorn. We've got\u2014\" He stopped and listened to the din coming through the wall for a moment, \"an hour and forty-six minutes to kill. Enough time to\u2014\"\n\n\"Tell me what's going on, like you promised you would. Or are you going to tell me that's classified, too?\"\n\n\"As a matter of fact, it is,\" he said. \"And you've already seen what they're doing\u2014covering up movies that don't exist.\"\n\n\"But why? Most people don't even care about the movies part.\"\n\n\"Oh, but they do. They think they've got a hundred to choose from, and that's what makes them come all the way out here on the light-rail and stand in security lines forever. Do you think they'd do that just to buy a bag of popcorn and an overpriced Avengers mug? How long do you think Baskin-Robbins would stay in business if they only had three flavors, even if they were the most popular ones? Look at your friends. They may have spent today shopping and eating and\u2014\"\n\n\"Picking up guys.\"\n\n\"And picking up guys, but if somebody asked them tomorrow what they did, they'd say they went to the movies, and they'd believe it. The Drome's not selling popcorn, it's selling an illusion, an idea\u2014a giant screen with magical images on it, your girlfriend sitting beside you in the dark, romance, adventure, mystery\u2026\"\n\n\"But I still don't understand. Okay, they have to maintain the illusion, but it's not as if they don't have any movies. You said there were only four or five movies here that didn't exist, and they already show some movies on more than one screen. Why not just show X-Force and The Return of Frodo in one more theater instead of making movies up?\"\n\n\"Because they're already showing X-Force in six theaters as it is, and Starstruck just announced they're building a chain of 250-screen Superdromes. Besides, I don't think the moviegoing public's the only people they're trying to fool.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I mean, if you're a film company, this could really work to your advantage. If your movie's behind schedule, nobody gets fined or fired for missing the release date. You release it anyway, and then, when it's finished, you put out the DVD and stream it, and nobody's the wiser. Which, by the way, is what happened to Monsoon Gate and what I think probably happened to Christmas Caper. You can't release a Christmas movie in February. It's got to come out in December or you'll lose your shirt. Figuratively speaking.\"\n\n\"Which means it might show up on the Net in a few months,\" I said.\n\n\"Yeah, and if it does, I'll watch it with you, I promise.\"\n\n\"Do you think that's what happened to the other movies?\"\n\n\"No. The Ripper Files never came out, and neither did Mission to Antares or By the Skin of Our Teeth. And why spend millions making a movie when you can do a three-minute trailer instead, pay the Dromes to block people from seeing it, and pocket the difference? The shareholders wouldn't even have to know.\"\n\n\"Which would make it fraud.\"\n\n\"It's already fraud,\" he said. \"And false advertising. There are laws against selling products that don't exist.\"\n\n\"Which is why they don't sell the tickets online,\" I said. \"But if they're criminals, isn't what you're doing dangerous?\"\n\n\"Not if they don't know I'm doing it. Which is why,\" he said, his voice dropping to a whisper, \"we need to sit here quietly, eat our popcorn\"\u2014he scooted closer to me\u2014\"and watch the movie.\"\n\n\"What's it about?\" I whispered.\n\n\"This guy who's investigating a conspiracy when who should turn up but his old girlfriend. It's the last thing he needs. He's trying to stay invisible\u2014\"\n\nWhich explains why he looked so dismayed when he saw me, I thought, a weight lifting from me.\n\n\"And he knows he should probably get out of there before she blows his cover, but she already thinks he's a\u2014\"\n\n\"Scoundrel?\"\n\n\"I was going to say 'wanker.' \"\n\n\"Scoundrel,\" I said firmly, \"and besides, he needs her to help him smuggle something in past the guards, like Kevin Kline in French Kiss.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" he said. \"Plus, he's got some stuff to tell her, so he recruits her to help him, and in the course of their investigations, he convinces her to forgive him, like Olivia de Havilland forgives Errol Flynn and Julia Roberts forgives Nick Nolte and Whoopi Goldberg forgives\u2014\"\n\n\"Jack. Because that's what scoundrels' girlfriends do.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" he said. \"Which is why you should\u2014\"\n\n\"Shh,\" I said.\n\n\"What is it?\" he whispered.\n\n\"Kissing scene coming up,\" I said, and switched off the penlight.\n\n\"The most fun you can have at the movies!\" \u2014moviefone.com\n\n\"How long does Lethal Rampage run?\" I asked him a considerable time later. \"That sounds like Final Scene music to me.\"\n\nHe raised himself up on one elbow, said, \"It is,\" and went back to nuzzling my neck.\n\n\"But don't we have to be out of here before it ends?\"\n\n\"Yeah, but you're forgetting, it's a Hollywood Blockbuster. Remember when we saw the reboot of Speed, how we kept thinking it was over and it wasn't? Or The Return of the King? That had like seven endings. Lethal Rampage has got at least three more climaxes to go.\"\n\n\"Oh, good,\" I murmured, snuggling into his shoulder, but a moment later he sat up, reached for his jacket, pulled a phone out of it, and flipped it open.\n\n\"I thought you didn't have a phone,\" I said, sitting up.\n\n\"Not one I wanted to get caught with photos on,\" he said, looking at its screen. \"Change of plans. There's something I've got to go take care of.\" He began buttoning his shirt. \"Wait till the next explosion and then slip out into the passage and wait for Lethal Rampage to get out. And don't leave anything behind.\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"When you get out to the lobby, go over to one of the caf\u00e9s, not the Polar Express, order a drink, text your friends, and then wait at least a few minutes before you try to leave, and you should be fine.\"\n\nHe pulled me to my feet. \"Look, I can't tweet or call you\u2014it might be traced\u2014so it may be a while before I can get in touch. All I've proved so far is that there's a blocked-off passageway between theaters and some suspicious activity. I still have to prove the movies don't exist, which I'll have to do in Hollywood.\" He hesitated. \"I feel bad about leaving you here like this.\"\n\n\"But Peter O'Toole left Audrey Hepburn in a closet and Kevin Kline left Meg Ryan in Paris without a passport,\" I said, following him down to the far end of the passage. \"And now I suppose I'm supposed to say, 'It's okay. Go,' and you kiss me goodbye, and I stand in the doorway like Olivia, looking longingly after you with my tresses blowing in a wind that smells like the sea?\"\n\n\"Exactly. Except in this case it smells more like rancid popcorn oil,\" he said, \"and we can't afford to leave the door open. It lets in too much light. But I can definitely manage the kiss.\"\n\nHe did. \"See?\" he said. \"You do like scoundrels.\"\n\n\"I happen to like nice men,\" I said. \"How are you going to get out of the Drome without security's catching you?\"\n\n\"I'll be fine,\" he said. \"Look, if you get in trouble\u2014\"\n\n\"I won't. Go.\"\n\nHe kissed me again, opened the wall, and went through it, only to appear again almost instantly. \"By the way,\" he said, \"about the geese and the graduating thing. Remember in How to Steal a Million where Peter O'Toole tells Audrey Hepburn he's not a burglar, that he's actually a security expert 'with advanced degrees in art history and chemistry and a diploma, with distinction, from London University in advanced criminology'?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said. \"I suppose now you're going to tell me you have an advanced degree from London University?\"\n\n\"No, Yale. In consumer fraud,\" he said, and was gone, leaving me to hurriedly gather up all the telltale trash by the less-than-helpful light of my cell phone screen, get out into the passage, shutting the door soundlessly behind me, and over to the corridor that led to the theater next door, and wait for the movie to let out.\n\n\"A movie experience that leaves you wanting more! An enthusiastic thumbs-up!\" \u2014rogerebert.net\n\nHe'd been right about Lethal Rampage. It went on for another twenty minutes, giving me time to make sure the door was completely shut with no seams showing, check again for stray popcorn, and then lean against the corridor wall, listening to a whole symphony of crashes, bangs, and explosions before the lights came up, people started trickling out, and I had to somehow merge with them without being noticed.\n\nIt was easier than I'd thought. They were all too intent on switching their cell phones back on and complaining about the movie to pay any attention to me.\n\nLethal Rampage had apparently been just as awful as it had sounded through the wall. \"I couldn't believe how lame the plot was,\" a twelve-year-old boy said, and his friend nodded. \"I hated the ending.\"\n\nMe, too, I thought wistfully.\n\nI eased in behind them and followed them down the passage, eavesdropping on their conversation so I could talk about the movie in case anybody asked me about it.\n\nLike the ticket-taker, who I still had to get past. I wondered if he'd remember I'd been going to Dragonwar, not Lethal Rampage. Maybe I should go back to Theater 17 and go out with the Dragonwar audience.\n\nBut if it had already let out, I'd have to go out past the ticket-taker alone, ensuring he'd notice me. And what if somebody on staff saw me going back and concluded I was sneaking into a second movie? I'd better stick with this crowd.\n\nI stopped just inside the door, loitering by the trash can till a group of high-school kids came by, and then hastily tossed my popcorn sack and Coke cup and attached myself to them. And it was a good thing because there was a cleaning crew lurking just outside the door with their dustpans and garbage bags, and for all their slouching against the wall, waiting for the theater to empty out, they looked unnaturally alert.\n\nI stuck close to the high-schoolers as we passed them, bending over my phone and pretending to text like they were doing, and stayed with them as we merged with the audience from Pirates of the Caribbean 9, which had just gotten out.\n\nFrom the sound of things, Pirates hadn't been any better than Lethal Rampage, and it occurred to me that I'd had a better time than any of them, even though I hadn't seen a movie, and\u2014\n\nThe conclusion of that thought was swept away by a bunch of people pouring down from the upstairs theaters, and it was all I could do to keep my footing as the whole mass of people surged past the ticket-taker and out into the only-slightly-less-crowded lobby, which I was relieved to see wasn't full of security guards and blaring sirens. Jack must have gotten safely away.\n\nBut just in case he was still in the Drome somewhere, I needed to do what I could to keep them from getting suspicious.\n\nWhich meant detaching myself from the high-schoolers and getting in line to get tickets for the next showing of Christmas Caper. If I were still trying to see it, I obviously didn't know it didn't exist.\n\nThe high-schoolers were trying to decide which restaurant to go to. \"While you make up your minds, I'm going to go get a funnel cake,\" I said to the nearest of them, who didn't even look up from her smartphone, and went to check the time of the next showing, which should be at 6:40.\n\nIt wasn't. It was at 7:30, and the one after that was at 10:00. I stared at the board for a long minute, contemplating what that meant, and then went to try to find the end of the ticket line.\n\nIt was ten times longer than it had been when we'd first arrived, snaking all the way back to the Death Star Diner, and it was barely moving. It was a good thing I wasn't trying to actually get in. I wouldn't make it even halfway to the front before the last light-rail train home.\n\nI wondered how long I needed to stand here. Jack had said it wasn't safe to use his phone, but he might have been able to borrow someone else's and send me a text from it, so I turned on my phone and looked at my messages.\n\nThere weren't any from him, but there were four from Zara, all of them asking, \"Where r u?\" except the last one, which said, \"Assume ur not ansring means u finally got in 2 Xmas Cpr. How was it?\"\n\nI needed to text her back, but not till I was far enough along the line that it wouldn't look like I'd just gotten into it. I didn't want her wondering what I'd been doing all this time\u2014she was way too quick to draw connections to Jack. So I switched off my phone and then stood there, periodically inching forward, thinking about Zara's text. \"How was it?\" she'd asked.\n\nGreat, I thought, and remembered those boys complaining about Lethal Rampage and my thinking I'd had a much better time at the movies than they had.\n\nAnd how did I know that wasn't what I'd just experienced\u2014an afternoon at the movies? That I hadn't just been participating in a romantic spy adventure concocted by Jack, who knew how much I wanted to believe he'd had a good reason for going off without saying a word to me and who'd heard me complain countless times about going to a movie with Zara and Kett and ending up not getting to see it?\n\nThere could have been lots of reasons that that passage was there. It could've been a shortcut between theaters for the projectionist, or some sort of required evacuation route in case of fire that Jack had appropriated for his own private Tunnel of Love. He could have bribed the usher to tell me I couldn't get in and to put Christmas Caper up on Theater 28's marquee after the audience for Make Way for Ducklings was inside. And the other stuff\u2014the vomit and the spilled gingerbread latte and Santa\u2014could all have been coincidences, and Jack had simply made them sound like a conspiracy.\n\nDon't be ridiculous, I told myself. Do you honestly think he'd go to that much trouble just to get you into bed?\n\nOf course he would. Look how much trouble he went to just to play a practical joke on the dean. And the whole thing had been just like the plot of How to Steal a Million or I Love Trouble, complete with spies, slapstick, a sparring couple forced together into a small confined space, and a hero who was lying to the heroine.\n\nAnd believing it was a scam made a lot more sense than believing that some vast Hollywood conspiracy lay behind this decorated-for-Christmas Cinedrome.\n\nThere isn't any conspiracy, I thought. You've been had, that's all. Again. Christmas Caper is showing right now in Theater 56 or 79 or 100. And Jack is off plotting some other practical joke\u2014or the seduction of some other gullible girl\u2014while I stand here in this stupid line trying to protect him from a danger that never existed.\n\nI looked back at the end of the line, which I was only a dozen people away from. I still couldn't text Zara, but for a completely different reason now\u2014she couldn't ever find out what an idiot I'd been.\n\nSo I continued to stand there, thinking about how easy it would have been for Jack to bribe somebody on the staff to put a NO TICKETS AVAILABLE sign on the schedule board, just like he'd bribed some farmer to lend him those geese. And to pay somebody to block me on my way across the lobby. And thinking how, when I found Christmas Caper was sold out, I should just have gone to see A Star-Crossed Season instead.\n\nThree Hanover freshmen leaned over the barrier to talk to the girls ahead of me in line. \"What are you going to?\" one of them asked.\n\n\"We haven't decided,\" one of the girls said. \"We were thinking maybe Saw 7. Or A Star-Crossed Season.\"\n\n\"Don't!\" the trio shouted, and the middle one said, \"We just saw it. It was beyond boring!\"\n\n\"Well worth the trip!\" \u2014comingsoon.com\n\nI waited another ten minutes, during which I moved forward about a foot, and then called Zara.\n\n\"Where have you been?\" she asked. \"I've been texting and texting you.\"\n\n\"You have?\" I said. \"I haven't gotten them. I think there's something wrong with my phone.\"\n\n\"So where are you now?\"\n\n\"Where do you think? In line.\"\n\n\"In line?\" she said. \"You mean you still haven't seen Christmas Card?\"\n\n\"Caper,\" I corrected her. \"No, not yet. All three afternoon showings sold out before I got to the front of the line, so I'm trying to get a ticket to the seven o'clock.\"\n\n\"Where are you exactly?\" she asked.\n\nI told her.\n\n\"I'll be right there,\" she said, which I doubted. It would take her at least twenty minutes to disentangle herself and Kett from the guys, and then on the way here they'd be delayed by the dress Zooey Deschanel wore in Son of Elf or some other guys, and by that time I'd hopefully be far enough forward in the line to make it look like I'd been in line since the 12:10.\n\nBut she showed up almost immediately and alone. \"This is all the farther you've gotten?\" she said. \"What happened to Jack?\"\n\n\"I have no idea,\" I said. \"Where's Kett?\"\n\nZara rolled her eyes. \"She texted Noah and they went off to the Dirty Dancing Club. Did he tell you where he's been all these months?\"\n\n\"Who? Noah?\"\n\n\"Very funny,\" Zara said. \"No. Jack.\"\n\n\"No. In jail, probably.\"\n\n\"It's too bad,\" Zara said, shaking her head sadly. \"I was hoping you might get back together. I mean, I know he's kind of a\u2026\"\n\nScoundrel, I thought.\n\n\"Wanker,\" Zara said. \"But he's so scorching!\"\n\nThat he is, I thought. \"What are you going to do now?\" I asked her, to change the subject.\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said, sighing. \"This trip's been a complete bust. I didn't meet anybody even lukewarm, and I couldn't find anything for my family for Christmas. I suppose I should go over to the Pretty Woman store and see if they have anything my mom would like, but I think maybe I'll just go see Christmas Caper with you. When did you say the next showing was?\"\n\n\"Seven.\"\n\nShe checked the time on her phone. \"It's already 6:30,\" she said, looking at her phone and then up at the line ahead of us. \"We'll never make it.\"\n\n\"When's the showing after that?\" I asked her, but before she could look it up, Kett came up, looking annoyed.\n\n\"What happened to Noah?\" Zara asked her.\n\n\"He's at the first-aid station,\" she said.\n\n\"The first-aid\u2014?\"\n\n\"He had a bloody nose. He said he wanted to take me dancing, but it turned out it was because he wanted to enter me in the wet T-shirt contest, the slimewad,\" she said. \"So what's going on?\"\n\n\"Lindsay's still trying to get in to see Christmas Caper,\" Zara said.\n\n\"You mean, you haven't managed to see it yet?\" Kett asked. \"Geez, how long have you been standing in line?\"\n\n\"Forever,\" Zara said, studying her phone. \"And she's definitely not going to get in to see the 7 o'clock. This is showing it as sold out.\" She scrolled down. \"And the next showing isn't till 10\"\u2014she scrolled some more\u2014\"which doesn't get out till after the last train to Hanover leaves, so that one won't work, either.\"\n\n\"Geez,\" Kett said. \"You spent all this time standing in line for a movie you don't even get to see. Was it worth it spending the whole day on it?\"\n\nOh, yes, I thought. Because, lies or not, bill of goods or not, it was still the best afternoon at the movies I'd had in a long time. Much better than if I'd gone to see A Star-Crossed Season. Or Lethal Rampage. And much better than wandering around looking at Black Widow boots and Silver Linings Playbook leotards like Zara, or dealing with creeps, like Kett had. Unlike theirs, my afternoon had been great. It had had everything\u2014adventure, suspense, romance, explosions, danger, snappy dialogue, kissing scenes. The perfect Saturday afternoon at the movies.\n\nExcept for the ending.\n\nBut it might not be over yet\u2014Jack had after all promised me he'd watch Christmas Caper with me if it ended up being streamed. And right before the end of Jumpin' Jack Flash, Jack had left Whoopi Goldberg sitting waiting for him in a restaurant. Michael Douglas had left Kathleen Turner standing abandoned on a parapet. Han Solo had left Princess Leia on the rebel moon. And they'd all showed up again, just like they'd said.\n\nOf course Jack had also told me he'd graduated from Yale and was investigating a huge, far-reaching conspiracy, and that putting those geese in the dean's office hadn't been a prank. But not everything he'd told me was a lie. He'd said he loved movies, and that was true. Nobody who didn't love them could have engineered such a perfect one.\n\nAnd even if he'd made up everything else, even if he was every bit the scoundrel I was afraid he was and I never saw him again, it had still been a terrific afternoon at the movies.\n\n\"Well?\" Kett was saying. \"Was it? I mean, you didn't get to do anything.\"\n\n\"Or have anything to eat,\" I said, getting out of line. \"Let's go get some sushi or something. How late is Nemo's open?\"\n\n\"I'll see,\" Kett said, getting out her phone. \"I think it stays open till\u2014 Oh, my God!\"\n\n\"What?\" Zara asked. \"That slimewad Noah didn't text you something obscene, did he?\"\n\n\"No,\" Kett said, scrolling down through her phone-number list. \"You won't believe this.\" She tapped a number and put the phone up to her ear. \"Hi,\" she said into it. \"I got your text. What happened?\u2026You're kidding!\u2026Oh, my God!\u2026Are you sure? Which channel?\"\n\nOh, no, I thought, even though I'd decided he'd concocted the whole thing, they've arrested Jack. They caught him with the camera strip.\n\n\"Oh, my God, what?\" Zara said.\n\n\"Hang on,\" Kett said to whoever was on the other end, and pressed the phone to her chest. \"We should have stayed home,\" she said to us. \"We missed all the excitement.\"\n\nJack went back to the campus to leave me a message, I thought, and the campus police caught him.\n\n\"What excitement?\" Zara asked. \"Tell us.\"\n\n\"Margo says there are all these TV camera crews and squad cars with flashing lights around the admin building, and a few minutes ago Dr. Baker told her the dean's been arrested.\"\n\n\"The dean?\" I said.\n\n\"For what?\" Zara asked.\n\n\"I don't know,\" Kett said. She texted like mad for a minute, and then said, \"Margo says it has something to do with taking federal loan money for students who don't exist. It's apparently all over the news,\" and Zara began swiping through screens to find the coverage.\n\n\"The dean says it's all a big mistake,\" Kett said, \"but apparently the FBI's consumer fraud division's been investigating him for months, and they've got all kinds of evidence.\"\n\nI'll bet they do, I thought, thinking of Jack's saying he had to go, that something had come up, and of what a good idea geese had been. In all the chaos\u2014and mess\u2014nobody would have even thought to check the dean's office to see if anything was missing.\n\n\"There are?\" Kett was saying. She put her hand over her phone. \"Margo says the place has been crawling with scorching FBI agents.\"\n\n\"Here it is,\" Zara said, holding her phone so I could see the screen, which showed the quad full of police officers and FBI agents, and reporters trying to get a shot of the dean as he was perp-walked down the steps and over to a squad car. There was no sign of Jack.\n\n\"Are they still there?\" Kett said, and then glumly, \"Oh.\" She turned to us. \"She says there's no point in our coming home. It's all over. I can't believe we missed it.\"\n\n\"Especially the FBI agents,\" Zara said teasingly.\n\n\"Right,\" Kett said. She sighed. \"Instead, I got felt up by a slimewad.\"\n\n\"And I still don't have a present for my mother,\" Zara said. She turned to me. \"And you didn't get to see your movie, after I promised you would.\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter.\"\n\n\"We could go to the 10:00,\" Zara said, \"and leave before it's over. That way you could at least see part of it.\"\n\n\"And miss the ending?\" I said, thinking of Romancing the Stone, where Michael Douglas comes back when Kathleen Turner least expects it, and of French Kiss, where Meg Ryan's already on the plane, and of Jumpin' Jack Flash, where he finally shows up in the very last scene and is every bit as wonderful as she thought he was.\n\n\"No, that's okay,\" I said, trying hard not to smile. \"I'll watch it when it comes out on the Net.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Newsletter",
                "text": "Later examination of weather reports and newspapers showed that it may have started as early as October nineteenth, but the first indication I had that something unusual was going on was at Thanksgiving.\n\nI went to Mom's for dinner (as usual), and was feeding cranberries and cut-up oranges and apples into Mom's old-fashioned meat grinder for the cranberry relish and listening to my sister-in-law Allison talk about her Christmas newsletter (also as usual).\n\n\"Which of Cheyenne's accomplishments do you think I should write about first, Nan?\" she said, spreading cheese on celery sticks. \"Her playing lead snowflake in The Nutcracker or her hitting a home run in PeeWee Soccer?\"\n\n\"I'd list the Nobel Peace Prize first,\" I murmured, under cover of the crunch of an apple being put through the grinder.\n\n\"There just isn't room to put in all the girls' accomplishments,\" she said, oblivious. \"Mitch insists I keep it to one page.\"\n\n\"That's because of Aunt Lydia's newsletters,\" I said. \"Eight pages single-spaced.\"\n\n\"I know,\" she said. \"And in that tiny print you can barely read.\" She waved a celery stick thoughtfully. \"That's an idea.\"\n\n\"Eight pages single-spaced?\"\n\n\"No. I could get the computer to do a smaller font. That way I'd have room for Dakota's Sunshine Scout merit badges. I got the cutest paper for my newsletters this year. Little angels holding bunches of mistletoe.\"\n\nChristmas newsletters are very big in my family, in case you couldn't tell. Everybody\u2014uncles, grandparents, second cousins, my sister Sueann\u2014sends the Xeroxed monstrosities to family, coworkers, old friends from high school, and people they met on their cruise to the Caribbean (which they wrote about at length in their newsletter the year before). Even my Aunt Irene, who writes a handwritten letter on every one of her Christmas cards, sticks a newsletter in with it.\n\nMy second cousin Lucille's are the worst, although there are a lot of contenders. Last year hers started:\n\n\u2003\"Another year has hurried past\n\n\u2003And, here I am, asking, 'Where did the time go so fast?'\n\n\u2003A trip in February, a bladder operation in July,\n\n\u2003Too many activities, not enough time, no matter how hard I try.\"\n\nAt least Allison doesn't put Dakota and Cheyenne's accomplishments into verse.\n\n\"I don't think I'm going to send a Christmas newsletter this year,\" I said.\n\nAllison stopped, cheese-filled knife in hand. \"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because I don't have any news. I don't have a new job, I didn't go on a vacation to the Bahamas, I didn't win any awards. I don't have anything to tell.\"\n\n\"Don't be ridiculous,\" my mother said, sweeping in carrying a foil-covered casserole dish. \"Of course you do, Nan. What about that skydiving class you took?\"\n\n\"That was last year, Mom,\" I said. And I had only taken it so I'd have something to write about in my Christmas newsletter.\n\n\"Well, then, tell about your social life. Have you met anybody lately at work?\"\n\nMom asks me this every Thanksgiving. Also Christmas, the Fourth of July, and every time I see her.\n\n\"There's nobody to meet,\" I said, grinding cranberries. \"Nobody new ever gets hired, because nobody ever quits. Everybody who works there's been there for years. Nobody even gets fired. Bob Hunziger hasn't been to work on time in eight years, and he's still there.\"\n\n\"What about\u2026what was his name?\" Allison said, arranging the celery sticks in a cut-glass dish. \"The guy you liked who had just gotten divorced?\"\n\n\"Gary,\" I said. \"He's still hung up on his ex-wife.\"\n\n\"I thought you said she was a real shrew.\"\n\n\"She is,\" I said. \"Marcie the Menace. She calls him twice a week complaining about how unfair the divorce settlement is, even though she got virtually everything. Last week it was the house. She claimed she'd been too upset by the divorce to get the mortgage refinanced and he owed her twenty thousand dollars because now interest rates have gone up. But it doesn't matter. Gary still keeps hoping they'll get back together. He almost didn't fly to Connecticut to his parents' for Thanksgiving because he thought she might change her mind about a reconciliation.\"\n\n\"You could write about Sueann's new boyfriend,\" Mom said, sticking marshmallows on the sweet potatoes. \"She's bringing him today.\"\n\nThis was as usual, too. Sueann always brings a new boyfriend to Thanksgiving dinner. Last year it was a biker. And no, I don't mean one of those nice guys who wear a beard and black Harley T-shirt on weekends and work as accountants between trips to Sturgis. I mean a Hell's Angel.\n\nMy sister Sueann has the worst taste in men of anyone I have ever known. Before the biker, she dated a member of a militia group and, after the ATF arrested him, a bigamist wanted in three states.\n\n\"If this boyfriend spits on the floor, I'm leaving,\" Allison said, counting out silverware. \"Have you met him?\" she asked Mom.\n\n\"No,\" Mom said, \"but Sueann says he used to work where you do, Nan. So somebody must quit once in a while.\"\n\nI racked my brain, trying to think of any criminal types who'd worked in my company. \"What's his name?\"\n\n\"David something,\" Mom said, and Cheyenne and Dakota raced into the kitchen, screaming, \"Aunt Sueann's here, Aunt Sueann's here! Can we eat now?\"\n\nAllison leaned over the sink and pulled the curtains back to look out the window.\n\n\"What does he look like?\" I asked, sprinkling sugar on the cranberry relish.\n\n\"Clean-cut,\" she said, sounding surprised. \"Short blond hair, slacks, white shirt, tie.\"\n\nOh, no, that meant he was a neo-Nazi. Or married and planning to get a divorce as soon as the kids graduated from college\u2014which would turn out to be in twenty-three years, since he'd just gotten his wife pregnant again.\n\n\"Is he handsome?\" I asked, sticking a spoon into the cranberry relish.\n\n\"No,\" Allison said, even more surprised. \"He's actually kind of ordinary-looking.\"\n\nI came over to the window to look. He was helping Sueann out of the car. She was dressed up, too, in a dress and a denim slouch hat. \"Good heavens,\" I said. \"It's David Carrington. He worked up on fifth in Computing.\"\n\n\"Was he a womanizer?\" Allison asked.\n\n\"No,\" I said, bewildered. \"He's a very nice guy. He's unmarried, he doesn't drink, and he left to go get a degree in medicine.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you ever meet him?\" Mom said.\n\nDavid shook hands with Mitch, regaled Cheyenne and Dakota with a knock-knock joke, and told Mom his favorite kind of sweet potatoes were the ones with the marshmallows on top.\n\n\"He must be a serial killer,\" I whispered to Allison.\n\n\"Come on, everybody, let's sit down,\" Mom said. \"Cheyenne and Dakota, you sit here by Grandma. David, you sit here, next to Sueann. Sueann, take off your hat. You know hats aren't allowed at the table.\"\n\n\"Hats for men aren't allowed at the table,\" Sueann said, patting her denim hat. \"Women's hats are.\" She sat down. \"Hats are coming back in style, did you know that? Cosmopolitan's latest issue said this is the Year of the Hat.\"\n\n\"I don't care what it is,\" Mom said. \"Your father would never have allowed hats at the table.\"\n\n\"I'll take it off if you'll turn off the TV,\" Sueann said, complacently opening out her napkin.\n\nThey had reached an impasse. Mom always has the TV on during meals. \"I like to have it on in case something happens,\" she said stubbornly.\n\n\"Like what?\" Mitch said. \"Aliens landing from outer space?\"\n\n\"For your information, there was a UFO sighting two weeks ago. It was on CNN.\"\n\n\"Everything looks delicious,\" David said. \"Is that homemade cranberry relish? I love that. My grandmother used to make it.\"\n\nHe had to be a serial killer.\n\nFor half an hour, we concentrated on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green-bean casserole, scalloped corn casserole, marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes, cranberry relish, pumpkin pie, and the news on CNN.\n\n\"Can't you at least turn it down, Mom?\" Mitch said. \"We can't even hear to talk.\"\n\n\"I want to see the weather in Washington,\" Mom said. \"For your flight.\"\n\n\"You're leaving tonight?\" Sueann said. \"But you just got here. I haven't even seen Cheyenne and Dakota.\"\n\n\"Mitch has to fly back tonight,\" Allison said. \"But the girls and I are staying till Wednesday.\"\n\n\"I don't see why he can't stay at least until tomorrow,\" Mom said.\n\n\"Don't tell me this is homemade whipped cream on the pumpkin pie,\" David said. \"I haven't had homemade whipped cream in years.\"\n\n\"You used to work in computers, didn't you?\" I asked him. \"There's a lot of computer crime around these days, isn't there?\"\n\n\"Computers!\" Allison said. \"I forgot all the awards Cheyenne won at computer camp.\" She turned to Mitch. \"The newsletter's going to have to be at least two pages. The girls just have too many awards\u2014T-ball, tadpole swimming, Bible school attendance.\"\n\n\"Do you send Christmas newsletters in your family?\" my mother asked David.\n\nHe nodded. \"I love hearing from everybody.\"\n\n\"You see?\" Mom said to me. \"People like getting newsletters at Christmas.\"\n\n\"I don't have anything against Christmas newsletters,\" I said. \"I just don't think they should be deadly dull. Mary had a root canal, Bootsy seems to be getting over her ringworm, we got new gutters on the house. Why doesn't anyone ever write about anything interesting in their newsletters?\"\n\n\"Like what?\" Sueann said.\n\n\"I don't know. An alligator biting their arm off. A meteor falling on their house. A murder. Something interesting to read.\"\n\n\"Probably because they didn't happen,\" Sueann said.\n\n\"Then they should make something up,\" I said, \"so we don't have to hear about their trip to Nebraska and their gallbladder operation.\"\n\n\"You'd do that?\" Allison said, appalled. \"You'd make something up?\"\n\n\"People make things up in their newsletters all the time, and you know it,\" I said. \"Look at the way Aunt Laura and Uncle Phil brag about their vacations and their stock options and their cars. If you're going to lie, they might as well be lies that are interesting for other people to read.\"\n\n\"You have plenty of things to tell without making up lies, Nan,\" Mom said reprovingly. \"Maybe you should do something like your cousin Celia. She writes her newsletter all year long, day by day,\" she explained to David. \"Nan, you might have more news than you think if you kept track of it day by day like Celia. She always has a lot to tell.\"\n\nYes, indeed. Her newsletters were nearly as long as Aunt Lydia's. They read like a diary, except she wasn't in junior high, where at least there were pop quizzes and zits and your locker combination to give it a little zing. Celia's newsletters had no zing whatsoever:\n\n\"Wed. Jan. 1. Froze to death going out to get the paper. Snow got in the plastic bag thing the paper comes in. Editorial section all wet. Had to dry it out on the radiator. Bran flakes for breakfast. Watched Good Morning America.\n\n\"Thurs. Jan. 2. Cleaned closets. Cold and cloudy.\"\n\n\"If you'd write a little every day,\" Mom said, \"you'd be surprised at how much you'd have to tell by Christmas.\"\n\nSure. With my life, I wouldn't even have to write it every day. I could do Monday's right now. \"Mon. Nov. 28. Froze to death on the way to work. Bob Hunziger not in yet. Penny putting up Christmas decorations. Solveig told me she's sure the baby is going to be a boy. Asked me which name I liked, Albuquerque or Dallas. Said hi to Gary, but he was too depressed to talk to me. Thanksgiving reminds him of ex-wife's giblets. Cold and cloudy.\"\n\nI was wrong. It was snowing, and Solveig's ultrasound had showed the baby was a girl. \"What do you think of Trinidad as a name?\" she asked me. Penny wasn't putting up Christmas decorations, either. She was passing out slips of paper with our Secret Santas' names on them. \"The decorations aren't here yet,\" she said excitedly. \"I'm getting something special from a farmer upstate.\"\n\n\"Does it involve feathers?\" I asked her. Last year the decorations had been angels with thousands of chicken feathers glued onto cardboard for their wings. We were still picking them out of our computers.\n\n\"No,\" she said happily. \"It's a surprise. I love Christmas, don't you?\"\n\n\"Is Hunziger in?\" I asked her, brushing snow out of my hair. Hats always mash my hair down, so I hadn't worn one.\n\n\"Are you kidding?\" she said. She handed me a Secret Santa slip. \"It's the Monday after Thanksgiving. He probably won't be in till sometime Wednesday.\"\n\nGary came in, his ears bright red from the cold and a harried expression on his face. His ex-wife must not have wanted a reconciliation.\n\n\"Hi, Gary,\" I said, and turned to hang up my coat without waiting for him to answer.\n\nAnd he didn't, but when I turned back around, he was still standing there, staring at me. I put a hand up to my hair, wishing I'd worn a hat.\n\n\"Can I talk to you a minute?\" he said, looking anxiously at Penny.\n\n\"Sure,\" I said, trying not to get my hopes up. He probably wanted to ask me something about the Secret Santas.\n\nHe leaned farther over my desk. \"Did anything unusual happen to you over Thanksgiving?\"\n\n\"My sister didn't bring home a biker to Thanksgiving dinner,\" I said.\n\nHe waved that away dismissively. \"No, I mean anything odd, peculiar, out of the ordinary.\"\n\n\"That is out of the ordinary.\"\n\nHe leaned even closer. \"I flew out to my parents' for Thanksgiving, and on the flight home\u2014you know how people always carry on luggage that won't fit in the overhead compartments and then try to cram it in?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, thinking of a bridesmaid's bouquet I had made the mistake of putting in the overhead compartment one time.\n\n\"Well, nobody did that on my flight. They didn't carry on hanging bags or enormous shopping bags full of Christmas presents. Some people didn't even have a carry-on. And that isn't all. Our flight was half an hour late, and the flight attendant said, 'Those of you who do not have connecting flights, please remain seated until those with connections have deplaned.' And they did.\" He looked at me expectantly.\n\n\"Maybe everybody was just in the Christmas spirit.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"All four babies on the flight slept the whole way, and the toddler behind me didn't kick the seat.\"\n\nThat was unusual.\n\n\"Not only that, the guy next to me was reading The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler. When's the last time you saw anybody on an airplane reading anything but John Grisham or Danielle Steel? I tell you, there's something funny going on.\"\n\n\"What?\" I asked curiously.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said. \"You're sure you haven't noticed anything?\"\n\n\"Nothing except for my sister. She always dates these losers, but the guy she brought to Thanksgiving was really nice. He even helped with the dishes.\"\n\n\"You didn't notice anything else?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, wishing I had. This was the longest he'd ever talked to me about anything besides his ex-wife. \"Maybe it's something in the air at DIA. I have to take my sister-in-law and her little girls to the airport Wednesday. I'll keep an eye out.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Don't say anything about this, okay?\" he said, and hurried off to Accounting.\n\n\"What was that all about?\" Penny asked, coming over.\n\n\"His ex-wife,\" I said. \"When do we have to exchange Secret Santa gifts?\"\n\n\"Every Friday, and Christmas Eve.\"\n\nI opened up my slip. Good, I'd gotten Hunziger. With luck I wouldn't have to buy any Secret Santa gifts at all.\n\nTuesday I got Aunt Laura and Uncle Phil's Christmas newsletter. It was in gold ink on cream-colored paper, with large gold bells in the corners. \"Joyeux No\u00ebl,\" it began. \"That's French for Merry Christmas. We're sending our newsletter out early this year because we're spending Christmas in Cannes to celebrate Phil's promotion to assistant CEO and my wonderful new career! Yes, I'm starting my own business\u2014Laura's Floral Creations\u2014and orders are pouring in! It's already been written up in House Beautiful, and you will never guess who called last week\u2014Martha Stewart!\" Et cetera.\n\nI didn't see Gary. Or anything unusual, although the waiter who took my lunch order actually got it right for a change. But he got Tonya's (who works up on third) wrong.\n\n\"I told him tomato and lettuce only,\" she said, picking pickles off her sandwich. \"I heard Gary talked to you yesterday. Did he ask you out?\"\n\n\"What's that?\" I said, pointing to the folder Tonya'd brought with her, to change the subject. \"The Harbrace file?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"Do you want my pickles? It's our Christmas schedule. Never marry anybody who has kids from a previous marriage. Especially when you have kids from a previous marriage. Tom's ex-wife, Janine, my ex-husband, John, and four sets of grandparents all want the kids, and they all want them on Christmas morning. It's like trying to schedule the D-day invasion.\"\n\n\"At least your husband isn't still hung up on his ex-wife,\" I said glumly.\n\n\"So Gary didn't ask you out, huh?\" She bit into her sandwich, frowned, and extracted another pickle. \"I'm sure he will. Okay, if we take the kids to Tom's parents at four on Christmas Eve, Janine could pick them up at eight\u2026.No, that won't work.\" She switched her sandwich to her other hand and began erasing. \"Janine's not speaking to Tom's parents.\"\n\nShe sighed. \"At least John's being reasonable. He called yesterday and said he'd be willing to wait till New Year's to have the kids. I don't know what got into him.\"\n\nWhen I got back to work, there was a folded copy of the morning newspaper on my desk.\n\nI opened it up. The headline read \"City Hall Christmas Display to Be Turned On,\" which wasn't unusual. And neither was tomorrow's headline, which would be \"City Hall Christmas Display Protested.\"\n\nEither the Freedom Against Faith people protest the Nativity scene or the fundamentalists protest the elves or the environmental people protest cutting down Christmas trees or all of them protest the whole thing. It happens every year.\n\nI turned to the inside pages. Several articles were circled in red, and there was a note next to them which read \"See what I mean? Gary.\"\n\nI looked at the circled articles. \"Christmas Shoplifting Down,\" the first one read. \"Mall stores report incidences of shoplifting are down for the first week of the Christmas season. Usually prevalent this time of\u2014\"\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Penny said, looking over my shoulder.\n\nI shut the paper with a rustle. \"Nothing,\" I said. I folded it back up and stuck it into a drawer. \"Did you need something?\"\n\n\"Here,\" she said, handing me a slip of paper.\n\n\"I already got my Secret Santa name,\" I said.\n\n\"This is for Holiday Goodies,\" she said. \"Everybody takes turns bringing in coffee cake or tarts or cake.\"\n\nI opened up my slip. It read \"Friday Dec. 20. Four dozen cookies.\"\n\n\"I saw you and Gary talking yesterday,\" Penny said. \"What about?\"\n\n\"His ex-wife,\" I said. \"What kind of cookies do you want me to bring?\"\n\n\"Chocolate chip,\" she said. \"Everybody loves chocolate.\"\n\nAs soon as she was gone, I got the newspaper out again and took it into Hunziger's office to read. \"Legislature Passes Balanced Budget,\" the other articles read. \"Escaped Convict Turns Self In,\" \"Christmas Food Bank Donations Up.\"\n\nI read through them and then threw the paper into the wastebasket. Halfway out the door I thought better of it and took it out, folded it up, and took it back to my desk with me.\n\nWhile I was putting it into my purse, Hunziger wandered in. \"If anybody asks where I am, tell them I'm in the men's room,\" he said, and wandered out again.\n\nWednesday afternoon I took the girls and Allison to the airport. She was still fretting over her newsletter.\n\n\"Do you think a greeting is absolutely necessary?\" she said in the baggage check-in line. \"You know, like 'Dear Friends and Family'?\"\n\n\"Probably not,\" I said absently. I was watching the people in line ahead of us, trying to spot this unusual behavior Gary had talked about, but so far I hadn't seen any. People were looking at their watches and complaining about the length of the line, the ticket agents were calling, \"Next. Next!\" to the person at the head of the line, who, after having stood impatiently in line for forty-five minutes waiting for this moment, was now staring blankly into space, and an unattended toddler was methodically pulling the elastic strings off a stack of luggage tags.\n\n\"They'll still know it's a Christmas newsletter, won't they?\" Allison said. \"Even without a greeting at the beginning of it?\"\n\nWith a border of angels holding bunches of mistletoe, what else could it be? I thought.\n\n\"Next!\" the ticket agent shouted.\n\nThe man in front of us had forgotten his photo ID, the girl in front of us in line for the security check was wearing heavy metal, and on the train out to the concourse a woman stepped on my foot and then glared at me as if it were my fault. Apparently all the nice people had traveled the day Gary came home.\n\nAnd that was probably what it was\u2014some kind of statistical clump where all the considerate, intelligent people had ended up on the same flight.\n\nI knew they existed. My sister Sueann had had an insurance actuary for a boyfriend once (he was also an embezzler, which is why Sueann was dating him), and he had said events weren't evenly distributed, that there were peaks and valleys. Gary must just have hit a peak.\n\nWhich was too bad, I thought, lugging Cheyenne, who had demanded to be carried the minute we got off the train, down the concourse. Because the only reason he had approached me was because he thought there was something strange going on.\n\n\"Here's Gate 55,\" Allison said, setting Dakota down and getting out French language tapes for the girls. \"If I left off the 'Dear Friends and Family,' I'd have room to include Dakota's violin recital. She played 'The Gypsy Dance.' \"\n\nShe settled the girls in adjoining chairs and put on their headphones. \"But Mitch says it's a letter, so it has to have a greeting.\"\n\n\"What if you used something short?\" I said. \"Like 'Greetings' or something. Then you'd have room to start the letter on the same line.\"\n\n\"Not 'Greetings.' \" She made a face. \"Uncle Frank started his letter that way last year, and it scared me half to death. I thought Mitch had been drafted.\"\n\nI had been alarmed when I'd gotten mine, too, but at least it had given me a temporary rush of adrenaline, which was more than Uncle Frank's letters usually did, concerned as they were with prostate problems and disputes over property taxes.\n\n\"I suppose I could use 'Holiday Greetings,' \" Allison said. \"Or 'Christmas Greetings,' but that's almost as long as 'Dear Friends and Family.' If only there were something shorter.\"\n\n\"How about 'hi'?\"\n\n\"That might work.\" She got out paper and a pen and started writing. \"How do you spell 'outstanding'?\"\n\n\"O-u-t-s-t-a-n-d-i-n-g,\" I said absently. I was watching the moving sidewalks in the middle of the concourse. People were standing on the right, like they were supposed to, and walking on the left. No people were standing four abreast or blocking the entire sidewalk with their luggage. No kids were running in the opposite direction of the sidewalk's movement, screaming and running their hands along the rubber railing.\n\n\"How do you spell 'fabulous'?\" Allison asked.\n\n\"Flight 2216 to Spokane is now ready for boarding,\" the flight attendant at the desk said. \"Those passengers traveling with small children or those who require additional time for boarding may now board.\"\n\nA single old lady with a walker stood up and got in line. Allison unhooked the girls' headphones, and we began the ritual of hugging and gathering up belongings.\n\n\"We'll see you at Christmas,\" she said.\n\n\"Good luck with your newsletter,\" I said, handing Dakota her teddy bear, \"and don't worry about the heading. It doesn't need one.\"\n\nThey started down the passageway. I stood there, waving, till they were out of sight, and then turned to go.\n\n\"We are now ready for regular boarding of rows 25 through 33,\" the flight attendant said, and everybody in the gate area stood up. Nothing unusual here, I thought, and started for the concourse.\n\n\"What rows did she call?\" a woman in a red beret asked a teenaged boy.\n\n\"Rows 25 through 33,\" he said.\n\n\"Oh, I'm Row 14,\" the woman said, and sat back down.\n\nSo did I.\n\n\"We are now ready to board rows 15 through 24,\" the flight attendant said, and a dozen people looked carefully at their tickets and then stepped back from the door, patiently waiting their turn. One of them pulled a paperback out of her tote bag and began to read. It was Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. Only when the flight attendant said, \"We are now boarding all rows,\" did the rest of them stand up and get in line.\n\nWhich didn't prove anything, and neither did the standing on the right of the moving sidewalk. Maybe people were just being nice because it was Christmas.\n\nDon't be ridiculous, I told myself. People aren't nicer at Christmas. They're ruder and pushier and crabbier than ever. You've seen them at the mall, and in line for the post office. They act worse at Christmas than any other time.\n\n\"This is your final boarding call for Flight 2216 to Spokane,\" the flight attendant said to the empty waiting area. She called to me, \"Are you flying to Spokane, ma'am?\"\n\n\"No.\" I stood up. \"I was seeing friends off.\"\n\n\"I just wanted to make sure you didn't miss your flight,\" she said, and turned to shut the door.\n\nI started for the moving sidewalk, and nearly collided with a young man running for the gate. He raced up to the desk and flung his ticket down.\n\n\"I'm sorry, sir,\" the flight attendant said, leaning slightly away from the young man as if expecting an explosion. \"Your flight has already left. I'm really terribly sor\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, it's okay,\" he said. \"It serves me right. I didn't allow enough time for parking and everything, that's all. I should have started for the airport earlier.\"\n\nThe flight attendant was tapping busily on the computer. \"I'm afraid the only other open flight to Spokane for today isn't until 11:05 this evening.\"\n\n\"Oh, well,\" he said, smiling. \"It'll give me a chance to catch up on my reading.\" He reached down into his attach\u00e9 case and pulled out a paperback. It was W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage.\n\n\"Well?\" Gary said as soon as I got back to work Thursday morning. He was standing by my desk, waiting for me.\n\n\"There's definitely something going on,\" I said, and told him about the moving sidewalks and the guy who'd missed his plane. \"But what?\"\n\n\"Is there somewhere we can talk?\" he said, looking anxiously around.\n\n\"Hunziger's office,\" I said, \"but I don't know if he's in yet.\"\n\n\"He's not,\" he said, led me into the office, and shut the door behind him.\n\n\"Sit down,\" he said, indicating Hunziger's chair. \"Now, I know this is going to sound crazy, but I think all these people have been possessed by some kind of alien intelligence. Have you ever seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers?\"\n\n\"What?\" I said.\n\n\"Invasion of the Body Snatchers,\" he said. \"It's about these parasites from outer space who take over people's bodies and\u2014\"\n\n\"I know what it's about,\" I said, \"and it's science fiction. You think the man who missed his plane was some kind of pod-person? You're right,\" I said, reaching for the doorknob. \"I do think you're crazy.\"\n\n\"That's what Donald Sutherland said in Leechmen from Mars. Nobody ever believes it's happening, until it's too late.\"\n\nHe pulled a folded newspaper out of his back pocket. \"Look at this,\" he said, waving it in front of me. \"Holiday credit-card fraud down twenty percent. Holiday suicides down thirty percent. Charitable giving up sixty percent.\"\n\n\"They're coincidences.\" I explained about the statistical peaks and valleys. \"Look,\" I said, taking the paper from him and turning to the front page. \" 'People Against Cruelty to Our Furry Friends Protests City Hall Christmas Display.' 'Animal Rights Group Objects to Exploitation of Reindeer.' \"\n\n\"What about your sister?\" he said. \"You said she only dates losers. Why would she suddenly start dating a nice guy? Why would an escaped convict suddenly turn himself in? Why would people suddenly start reading the classics? Because they've been taken over.\"\n\n\"By aliens from outer space?\" I said incredulously.\n\n\"Did he have a hat?\"\n\n\"Who?\" I said, wondering if he really was crazy. Could his being hung up on his horrible ex-wife have finally made him crack?\n\n\"The man who missed his plane,\" he said. \"Was he wearing a hat?\"\n\n\"I don't remember,\" I said, and felt suddenly cold. Sueann had worn a hat to Thanksgiving dinner. She'd refused to take it off at the table. And the woman whose ticket said Row 14 had been wearing a beret.\n\n\"What do hats have to do with it?\" I asked.\n\n\"The man on the plane next to me was wearing a hat. So were most of the other people on the flight. Did you ever see The Puppet Masters? The parasites attached themselves to the spinal cord and took over the nervous system,\" he said. \"This morning here at work I counted nineteen people wearing hats. Les Sawtelle, Rodney Jones, Jim Bridgeman\u2014\"\n\n\"Jim Bridgeman always wears a hat,\" I said. \"It's to hide his bald spot. Besides, he's a computer programmer. All the computer people wear baseball caps.\"\n\n\"DeeDee Crawford,\" he said. \"Vera McDermott, Janet Hall\u2014\"\n\n\"Women's hats are supposed to be making a comeback,\" I said.\n\n\"George Frazelli, the entire Documentation section\u2014\"\n\n\"I'm sure there's a logical explanation,\" I said. \"It's been freezing in here all week. There's probably something wrong with the heating system.\"\n\n\"The thermostat's turned down to fifty,\" he said, \"which is something else peculiar. The thermostat's been turned down on all floors.\"\n\n\"Well, that's probably Management. You know how they're always trying to cut costs\u2014\"\n\n\"They're giving us a Christmas bonus. And they fired Hunziger.\"\n\n\"They fired Hunziger?\" I said. Management never fires anybody.\n\n\"This morning. That's how I knew he wouldn't be in his office.\"\n\n\"They actually fired Hunziger?\"\n\n\"And one of the janitors. The one who drank. How do you explain that?\"\n\n\"I\u2014I don't know,\" I stammered. \"But there has to be some other explanation than aliens. Maybe they took a management course or got the Christmas spirit or their therapists told them to do good deeds or something. Something besides leechmen. Aliens coming from outer space and taking over our brains is impossible!\"\n\n\"That's what Dana Wynter said in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But it's not impossible. It's happening right here, and we've got to stop it before they take over everybody and we're the only ones left. They\u2014\"\n\nThere was a knock on the door. \"Sorry to bother you, Gary,\" Carol Zaliski said, leaning in the door, \"but you've got an urgent phone call. It's your ex-wife.\"\n\n\"Coming,\" he said, looking at me. \"Think about what I said, okay?\" He went out.\n\nI stood looking after him and frowning.\n\n\"What was that all about?\" Carol said, coming into the office. She was wearing a white fur hat.\n\n\"He wanted to know what to buy his Secret Santa person,\" I said.\n\nFriday Gary wasn't there. \"He had to go talk to his ex-wife this morning,\" Tonya told me at lunch, picking pickles off her sandwich. \"He'll be back this afternoon. Marcie's demanding he pay for her therapy. She's seeing this psychiatrist, and she claims Gary's the one who made her crazy, so he should pick up the bill for her Prozac. Why is he still hung up on her?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" I said, scraping mustard off my burger.\n\n\"Carol Zaliski said the two of you were talking in Hunziger's office yesterday. What about? Did he ask you out? Nan?\"\n\n\"Tonya, has Gary talked to you since Thanksgiving? Did he ask you about whether you'd noticed anything unusual happening?\"\n\n\"He asked me if I'd noticed anything bizarre or abnormal about my family. I told him, in my family bizarre is normal. You won't believe what's happened now. Tom's parents are getting a divorce, which means five sets of parents. Why couldn't they have waited till after Christmas to do this? It's throwing my whole schedule off.\"\n\nShe bit into her sandwich. \"I'm sure Gary's going to ask you out. He's probably just working up to it.\"\n\nIf he was, he had the strangest line I'd ever heard. Aliens from outer space. Hiding under hats!\n\nThough, now that he'd mentioned it, there were an awful lot of people wearing hats. Nearly all the men in Data Analysis had baseball caps on, Jerrilyn Wells was wearing a wool stocking cap, and Ms. Jacobson's secretary looked like she was dressed for a wedding in a white thing with a veil. But Sueann had said this was the Year of the Hat.\n\nSueann, who dated only gigolos and Mafia dons. But she had been bound to hit a nice boyfriend sooner or later, she dated so many guys.\n\nAnd there weren't any signs of alien possession when I tried to get somebody in the steno pool to make some copies for me. \"We're busy,\" Paula Grandy snapped. \"It's Christmas, you know!\"\n\nI went back to my desk, feeling better. There was an enormous dish made of pine cones, filled with candy canes and red and green foil-wrapped chocolate kisses. \"Is this part of the Christmas decorations?\" I asked Penny.\n\n\"No. They aren't ready yet,\" she said. \"This is just a little something to brighten the holidays. I made one for everyone's desk.\"\n\nI felt even better. I pushed the dish over to one side and started through my mail. There was a green envelope from Allison and Mitch. She must have mailed her newsletters as soon as she got off the plane. I wonder if she decided to forgo the heading or Dakota's Most Improved Practicing Piano Award, I thought, slicing it open with the letter opener.\n\n\"Dear Nan,\" it began, several spaces down from the angels-and-mistletoe border. \"Nothing much new this year. We're all okay, though Mitch is worried about downsizing, and I always seem to be running from behind. The girls are growing like weeds and doing okay in school, though Cheyenne's been having some problems with her reading and Dakota's still wetting the bed. Mitch and I decided we've been pushing them too hard, and we're working on trying not to overschedule them for activities and just letting them be normal, average little girls.\"\n\nI jammed the letter back into the envelope and ran up to fourth to look for Gary.\n\n\"All right,\" I said when I found him. \"I believe you. What do we do now?\"\n\nWe rented movies. Actually, we rented only some of the movies. Attack of the Soul Killers and Invasion from Betelgeuse were both checked out.\n\n\"Which means somebody else has figured it out, too,\" Gary said. \"If only we knew who.\"\n\n\"We could ask the clerk,\" I suggested.\n\nHe shook his head violently. \"We can't do anything to make them suspicious. For all we know, they may have taken them off the shelves themselves, in which case we're on the right track. What else shall we rent?\"\n\n\"What?\" I said blankly.\n\n\"So it won't look like we're just renting alien invasion movies.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I said, and picked up Ordinary People and a black-and-white version of A Christmas Carol.\n\nIt didn't work. \"The Puppet Masters,\" the kid at the rental desk, wearing a blue-and-yellow Blockbuster hat, said inquiringly. \"Is that a good movie?\"\n\n\"I haven't seen it,\" Gary said nervously.\n\n\"We're renting it because it has Donald Sutherland in it,\" I said. \"We're having a Donald Sutherland film festival. The Puppet Masters, Ordinary People, Invasion of the Body Snatchers\u2014\"\n\n\"Is Donald Sutherland in this?\" he asked, holding up A Christmas Carol.\n\n\"He plays Tiny Tim,\" I said. \"It was his first screen appearance.\"\n\n\"You were great in there,\" Gary said, leading me down to the other end of the mall to Suncoast to buy Attack of the Soul Killers. \"You're a very good liar.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" I said, pulling my coat closer and looking around the mall. It was freezing in here, and there were hats everywhere, on people and in window displays, Panamas and porkpies and picture hats.\n\n\"We're surrounded. Look at that,\" he said, nodding in the direction of Santa Claus's North Pole.\n\n\"Santa Claus has always worn a hat,\" I said.\n\n\"I meant the line,\" he said.\n\nHe was right. The kids in line were waiting patiently, cheerfully. Not a single one was screaming or announcing she had to go to the bathroom. \"I want a Masters of Earth,\" a little boy in a felt beanie was saying eagerly to his mother.\n\n\"Well, we'll ask Santa,\" the mother said, \"but he may not be able to get it for you. All the stores are sold out.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" he said. \"Then I want a wagon.\"\n\nSuncoast was sold out of Attack of the Soul Killers, but we bought Invasion from Betelgeuse and Infiltrators from Space and went back to Gary's apartment to screen them.\n\n\"Well?\" he said after we'd watched three of them. \"Did you notice how they start slowly and then spread through the population?\"\n\nActually, what I'd noticed was how dumb all the people in these movies were. \"The brain-suckers attack when we're asleep,\" the hero would say, and promptly lie down for a nap. Or the hero's girlfriend would say, \"They're on to us. We've got to get out of here. Right now,\" and then go back to her apartment to pack.\n\nAnd, just like in every horror movie, they were always splitting up instead of sticking together. And going down dark alleys. They deserved to be turned into pod-people.\n\n\"Our first order of business is to pool what we know about the aliens,\" Gary said. \"It's obvious the purpose of the hats is to conceal the parasites' presence from those who haven't been taken over yet,\" he said, \"and that they're attached to the brain.\"\n\n\"Or the spinal column,\" I said, \"like in The Puppet Masters.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"If that were the case, they could attach themselves to the neck or the back, which would be much less conspicuous. Why would they take the risk of hiding under hats, which are so noticeable, if they aren't attached to the top of the head?\"\n\n\"Maybe the hats serve some other purpose.\"\n\nThe phone rang.\n\n\"Yes?\" Gary answered it. His face lit up and then fell. His ex-wife, I thought, and started watching Infiltrators from Space.\n\n\"You've got to believe me,\" the hero's girlfriend said to the psychiatrist. \"There are aliens here among us. They look just like you or me. You have to believe me.\"\n\n\"I do believe you,\" the psychiatrist said, and raised his finger to point at her. \"Ahhhggghhh!\" he screeched, his eyes glowing bright green.\n\n\"Marcie,\" Gary said. There was a long pause. \"A friend.\" Longer pause. \"No.\"\n\nThe hero's girlfriend ran down a dark alley, wearing high heels. Halfway through, she twisted her ankle and fell.\n\n\"You know that isn't true,\" Gary said.\n\nI fast-forwarded. The hero was in his apartment, on the phone. \"Hello, Police Department?\" he said. \"You have to help me. We've been invaded by aliens who take over your body!\"\n\n\"We'll be right there, Mr. Daly,\" the voice on the phone said. \"Stay there.\"\n\n\"How do you know my name?\" the hero shouted. \"I didn't tell you my address.\"\n\n\"We're on our way,\" the voice said.\n\n\"We'll talk about it tomorrow,\" Gary said, and hung up.\n\n\"Sorry,\" he said, coming over to the couch. \"Okay, I downloaded a bunch of stuff about parasites and aliens from the Internet,\" he said, handing me a sheaf of stapled papers. \"We need to discover what it is they're doing to the people they take over, what their weaknesses are, and how we can fight them. We need to know when and where it started,\" Gary went on, \"how and where it's spreading, and what it's doing to people. We need to find out as much as we can about the nature of the aliens so we can figure out a way to eliminate them. How do they communicate with each other? Are they telepathic, like in Village of the Damned, or do they use some other form of communication? If they're telepathic, can they read our minds as well as each other's?\"\n\n\"If they could, wouldn't they know we're on to them?\" I said.\n\nThe phone rang again. \"It's probably my ex-wife again,\" he said. I picked up the remote and flicked on Infiltrators from Space again.\n\nGary answered the phone. \"Yes?\" he said, and then warily, \"How did you get my number?\"\n\nThe hero slammed down the phone and ran to the window. Dozens of police cars were pulling up, lights flashing.\n\n\"Sure,\" Gary said. He grinned. \"No, I won't forget.\"\n\nHe hung up. \"That was Penny. She forgot to give me my Holiday Goodies slip. I'm supposed to take in four dozen sugar cookies next Monday.\" He shook his head wonderingly. \"Now, there's somebody I'd like to see taken over by the aliens.\"\n\nHe sat down on the couch and started making a list. \"Okay, methods of fighting them. Diseases. Poison. Dynamite. Nuclear weapons. What else?\"\n\nI didn't answer. I was thinking about what he'd said about wishing Penny would be taken over.\n\n\"The problem with all of those solutions is that they kill the people, too,\" Gary said. \"What we need is something like the virus they used in Invasion. Or the ultrasonic pulses only the aliens could hear in War with the Slugmen. If we're going to stop them, we've got to find something that kills the parasite but not the host.\"\n\n\"Do we have to stop them?\"\n\n\"What?\" he said. \"Of course we have to stop them. What do you mean?\"\n\n\"All the aliens in these movies turn people into zombies or monsters,\" I said. \"They shuffle around, attacking people and killing them and trying to take over the world. Nobody's done anything like that. People are standing on the right and walking on the left, the suicide rate's down, my sister's dating a very nice guy. Everybody who's been taken over is nicer, happier, more polite. Maybe the parasites are a good influence, and we shouldn't interfere.\"\n\n\"And maybe that's what they want us to think. What if they're acting nice to trick us, to keep us from trying to stop them? Remember Attack of the Soul Killers? What if it's all an act, and they're only acting nice till the takeover's complete?\"\n\nIf it was an act, it was a great one. Over the next few days, Solveig, in a red straw hat, announced she was naming her baby Jane, Jim Bridgeman nodded at me in the elevator, my cousin Celia's newsletter/diary was short and funny, and the waiter, sporting a soda-jerk hat, got both Tonya's and my orders right.\n\n\"No pickles!\" Tonya said delightedly, picking up her sandwich. \"Ow! Can you get carpal tunnel syndrome from wrapping Christmas presents? My hand's been hurting all morning.\"\n\nShe opened her file folder. There was a new diagram inside, a rectangle with names written all around the sides.\n\n\"Is that your Christmas schedule?\" I asked.\n\n\"No,\" she said, showing it to me. \"It's a seating arrangement for Christmas dinner. It was crazy, running the kids from house to house like that, so we decided to just have everybody at our house.\"\n\nI took a startled look at her, but she was still hatless.\n\n\"I thought Tom's ex-wife couldn't stand his parents.\"\n\n\"Everybody's agreed we all need to get along for the kids' sake. After all, it's Christmas.\"\n\nI was still staring at her.\n\nShe put her hand up to her hair. \"Do you like it? It's a wig. Eric got it for me for Christmas. For being such a great mother to the boys through the divorce. I couldn't believe it.\" She patted her hair. \"Isn't it great?\"\n\n\"They're hiding their aliens under wigs,\" I told Gary.\n\n\"I know,\" he said. \"Paul Gunden got a new toupee. We can't trust anyone.\" He handed me a folder full of clippings.\n\nEmployment rates were up. Thefts of packages from cars, usually prevalent at this time of year, were down. A woman in Minnesota had brought back a library book that was twenty-two years overdue. \"Groups Praise City Hall Christmas Display,\" one of the clippings read, and the accompanying picture showed the People for a Non-Commercial Christmas, the Holy Spirit Southern Baptists, and the Equal Rights for Ethnics activists holding hands and singing Christmas carols around the cr\u00e8che.\n\nOn the ninth, Mom called. \"Have you written your newsletter yet?\"\n\n\"I've been busy,\" I said, and waited for her to ask me if I'd met anyone lately at work.\n\n\"I got Jackie Peterson's newsletter this morning,\" she said.\n\n\"So did I.\" The invasion apparently hadn't reached Miami. Jackie's newsletter, which is usually terminally cute, had reached new heights:\n\n\u2003\"M is for our trip to Mexico\n\n\u2003E is for Every place else we'd like to go\n\n\u2003R is for the RV that takes us there\u2026.\"\n\n\u2003And straight through MERRY CHRISTMAS, A HAPPY NEW YEAR, and both her first and last names.\n\n\"I do wish she wouldn't try to put her letters in verse,\" Mom said. \"They never scan.\"\n\n\"Mom,\" I said. \"Are you okay?\"\n\n\"I'm fine,\" she said. \"My arthritis has been kicking up the last couple of days, but otherwise I've never felt better. I've been thinking, there's no reason for you to send out newsletters if you don't want to.\"\n\n\"Mom,\" I said, \"did Sueann give you a hat for Christmas?\"\n\n\"Oh, she told you,\" Mom said. \"You know, I don't usually like hats, but I'm going to need one for the wedding, and\u2014\"\n\n\"Wedding?\"\n\n\"Oh, didn't she tell you? She and David are getting married right after Christmas. I am so relieved. I thought she was never going to meet anyone decent.\"\n\nI reported that to Gary. \"I know,\" he said glumly. \"I just got a raise.\"\n\n\"I haven't found a single bad effect,\" I said. \"No signs of violence or antisocial behavior. Not even any irritability.\"\n\n\"There you are,\" Penny said crabbily, coming up with a huge poinsettia under each arm. \"Can you help me put these on everybody's desks?\"\n\n\"Are these the Christmas decorations?\" I asked.\n\n\"No, I'm still waiting on that farmer,\" she said, handing me one of the poinsettias. \"This is just a little something to brighten up everyone's desk.\" She reached down to move the pine-cone dish on Gary's desk. \"You didn't eat your candy canes,\" she said.\n\n\"I don't like peppermint.\"\n\n\"Nobody ate their candy canes,\" she said disgustedly. \"They all ate the chocolate kisses and left the candy canes.\"\n\n\"People like chocolate,\" Gary said, and whispered to me, \"When is she going to be taken over?\"\n\n\"Meet me in Hunziger's office right away,\" I whispered back, and said to Penny, \"Where does this poinsettia go?\"\n\n\"Jim Bridgeman's desk.\"\n\nI took the poinsettia up to Computing on fifth. Jim was wearing his baseball cap backward. \"A little something to brighten your desk,\" I said, handing it to him, and started back toward the stairs.\n\n\"Can I talk to you a minute?\" he said, following me out into the stairwell.\n\n\"Sure,\" I said, trying to sound calm. \"What about?\"\n\nHe leaned toward me. \"Have you noticed anything unusual going on?\"\n\n\"You mean the poinsettia?\" I said. \"Penny does tend to go a little overboard for Christmas, but\u2014\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, putting his hand awkwardly to his cap, \"people who are acting funny, people who aren't themselves?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, smiling. \"I haven't noticed a thing.\"\n\nI waited for Gary in Hunziger's office for nearly half an hour. \"Sorry I took so long,\" he said when he finally got there. \"My ex-wife called. What were you saying?\"\n\n\"I was saying that even you have to admit it would be a good thing if Penny was taken over,\" I said. \"What if the parasites aren't evil? What if they're those\u2014what are those parasites that benefit the host called? You know, like the bacteria that help cows produce milk? Or those birds that pick insects off of rhinoceroses?\"\n\n\"You mean symbiotes?\" Gary said.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said eagerly. \"What if this is some kind of symbiotic relationship? What if they're raising everyone's IQ or enhancing their emotional maturity, and it's having a good effect on us?\"\n\n\"Things that sound too good to be true usually are. No,\" he said, shaking his head. \"They're up to something, I know it. And we've got to find out what it is.\"\n\nOn the tenth when I came to work, Penny was putting up the Christmas decorations. They were, as she had promised, something special: wide swags of red velvet ribbons running all around the walls, with red velvet bows and large bunches of mistletoe every few feet. In between were gold-calligraphic scrolls reading \"And kiss me 'neath the mistletoe, For Christmas comes but once a year.\"\n\n\"What do you think?\" Penny said, climbing down from her stepladder. \"Every floor has a different quotation.\" She reached into a large cardboard box. \"Accounting's is 'Sweetest the kiss that's stolen under the mistletoe.' \"\n\nI came over and looked into the box. \"Where did you get all the mistletoe?\" I asked.\n\n\"This apple farmer I know,\" she said, moving the ladder.\n\nI picked up a big branch of the green leaves and white berries. \"It must have cost a fortune.\" I had bought a sprig of it last year that had cost six dollars.\n\nPenny, climbing the ladder, shook her head. \"It didn't cost anything. He was glad to get rid of it.\" She tied the bunch of mistletoe to the red velvet ribbon. \"It's a parasite, you know. It kills the trees.\"\n\n\"Kills the trees?\" I said blankly, staring at the white berries.\n\n\"Or deforms them,\" she said. \"It steals nutrients from the tree's sap, and the tree gets these swellings and galls and things. The farmer told me all about it.\"\n\nAs soon as I had the chance, I took the material Gary had downloaded on parasites into Hunziger's office and read through it.\n\nMistletoe caused grotesque swellings wherever its rootlets attached themselves to the tree. Anthracnose caused cracks and then spots of dead bark called cankers. Blight wilted trees' leaves. Witches' broom weakened limbs. Bacteria caused tumorlike growths on the trunk, called galls.\n\nWe had been focusing on the mental and psychological effects when we should have been looking at the physical ones. The heightened intelligence, the increase in civility and common sense, must simply be side effects of the parasites' stealing nutrients. And damaging the host.\n\nI stuck the papers back into the file folder, went back to my desk, and called Sueann.\n\n\"Sueann, hi,\" I said. \"I'm working on my Christmas newsletter, and I wanted to make sure I spelled David's name right. Is Carrington spelled C-A-R-R or C-E-R-R?\"\n\n\"C-A-R-R. Oh, Nan, he's so wonderful! So different from the losers I usually date! He's considerate and sensitive and\u2014\"\n\n\"And how are you?\" I said. \"Everybody at work's been down with the flu.\"\n\n\"Really?\" she said. \"No, I'm fine.\"\n\nWhat did I do now? I couldn't ask \"Are you sure?\" without making her suspicious. \"C-A-R-R,\" I said, trying to think of another way to approach the subject.\n\nSueann saved me the trouble. \"You won't believe what he did yesterday. Showed up at work to take me home. He knew my ankles had been hurting, and he brought me a tube of Bengay and a dozen pink roses. He is so thoughtful.\"\n\n\"Your ankles have been hurting?\" I said, trying not to sound anxious.\n\n\"Like crazy. It's this weather or something. I could hardly walk on them this morning.\"\n\nI jammed the parasite papers back into the file folder, made sure I hadn't left any on the desk like the hero in Parasite People from Planet X, and went up to see Gary.\n\nHe was on the phone.\n\n\"I've got to talk to you,\" I whispered.\n\n\"I'd like that,\" he said into the phone, an odd look on his face.\n\n\"What is it?\" I said. \"Have they found out we're on to them?\"\n\n\"Shh,\" he said. \"You know I do,\" he said into the phone.\n\n\"You don't understand,\" I said. \"I've figured out what it's doing to people.\"\n\nHe held up a finger, motioning me to wait. \"Can you hang on a minute?\" he said into the phone, and put his hand over the receiver. \"I'll meet you in Hunziger's office in five minutes,\" he said.\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"It's not safe. Meet me at the post office.\"\n\nHe nodded, and went back to his conversation, still with that odd look on his face.\n\nI ran back down to second for my purse and went to the post office. I had intended to wait on the corner, but it was crowded with people jockeying to drop money into the Salvation Army Santa Claus's kettle.\n\nI looked down the sidewalk. Where was Gary? I went up the steps and scanned the street. There was no sign of him.\n\n\"Merry Christmas!\" a man said, half tipping a fedora and holding the door for me.\n\n\"Oh, no, I'm\u2014\" I began, and saw Tonya coming down the street. \"Thank you,\" I said, and ducked through the door.\n\nIt was freezing inside, and the line for the postal clerks wound out into the lobby. I got in it. It would take an hour at least to work my way to the front, which meant I could wait for Gary without looking suspicious.\n\nExcept that I was the only one not wearing a hat. Every single person in line had one on, and the clerks behind the counter were wearing mail carriers' caps. And broad smiles.\n\n\"Packages going overseas should really have been mailed by November fifteenth,\" the middle clerk was saying, not at all disgruntledly, to a little Japanese woman in a red cap, \"but don't worry, we'll figure out a way to get your presents there on time.\"\n\n\"The line's only about forty-five minutes long,\" the woman in front of me confided cheerfully. She was wearing a small black hat with a feather and carrying four enormous packages. I wondered if they were full of pods. \"Which isn't bad at all, considering it's Christmas.\"\n\nI nodded, looking toward the door. Where was he?\n\n\"Why are you here?\" the woman said, smiling.\n\n\"What?\" I said, whirling back around, my heart pounding. \"What are you here to mail?\" she said. \"I see you don't have any packages.\"\n\n\"S-stamps,\" I stammered.\n\n\"You can go ahead of me,\" she said. \"If all you're buying is stamps. I've got all these packages to send. You don't want to wait for that.\"\n\nI do want to wait, I thought. \"No, that's all right. I'm buying a lot of stamps,\" I said. \"I'm buying several sheets. For my Christmas newsletter.\"\n\nShe shook her head, balancing the packages. \"Don't be silly. You don't want to wait while they weigh all these.\" She tapped the man in front of her. \"This young lady's only buying stamps,\" she said. \"Why don't we let her go ahead of us?\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" the man, who was wearing a Russian karakul hat, said, and bowed slightly, stepping back.\n\n\"No, really,\" I began, but it was too late. The line had parted like the Red Sea.\n\n\"Thank you,\" I said, and walked up to the counter. \"Merry Christmas.\"\n\nThe line closed behind me. They know, I thought. They know I was looking up plant parasites. I glanced desperately toward the door.\n\n\"Holly and ivy?\" the clerk said, beaming at me.\n\n\"What?\" I said.\n\n\"Your stamps.\" He held up two sheets. \"Holly and ivy or Madonna and Child?\"\n\n\"Holly and ivy,\" I said weakly. \"Three sheets, please.\"\n\nI paid for the sheets, thanked the mob again, and went back out into the freezing-cold lobby. And now what? Pretend I had a box and fiddle with the combination? Where was he?\n\nI went over to the bulletin board, trying not to seem suspicious, and looked at the Wanted posters. They had probably all turned themselves in by now and were being model prisoners. And it really was a pity the parasites were going to have to be stopped. If they could be stopped.\n\nIt had been easy in the movies (in the movies, that is, in which they had managed to defeat them, which wasn't all that many. Over half the movies had ended with the whole world being turned into glowing green eyes). And in the ones where they did defeat them, there had been an awful lot of explosions and hanging precariously from helicopters. I hoped whatever we came up with didn't involve skydiving.\n\nOr a virus or ultrasonic sound, because even if I knew a doctor or scientist to ask, I couldn't confide in them. \"We can't trust anybody,\" Gary had said, and he was right. We couldn't risk it. There was too much at stake. And we couldn't call the police. \"It's all in your imagination, Miss Johnson,\" they would say. \"Stay right there. We're on our way.\"\n\nWe would have to do this on our own. And where was Gary?\n\nI looked at the Wanted posters some more. I was sure the one in the middle looked like one of Sueann's old boyfriends. He\u2014\n\n\"I'm sorry I'm late,\" Gary said breathlessly. His ears were red from the cold, and his hair was ruffled from running. \"I had this phone call and\u2014\"\n\n\"Come on,\" I said, and hustled him out of the post office, down the steps, and past the Santa and his mob of donors.\n\n\"Keep walking,\" I said. \"You were right about the parasites, but not because they turn people into zombies.\"\n\nI hurriedly told him about the galls and Tonya's carpal tunnel syndrome. \"My sister was infected at Thanksgiving, and now she can hardly walk,\" I said. \"You were right. We've got to stop them.\"\n\n\"But you don't have any proof of this,\" he said. \"It could be arthritis or something, couldn't it?\"\n\nI stopped walking. \"What?\"\n\n\"You don't have any proof that it's the aliens that are causing it. It's cold. People's arthritis always acts up when it's cold out. And even if the aliens are causing it, a few aches and pains is a small price to pay for all the benefits. You said yourself\u2014\"\n\nI stared at his hair.\n\n\"Don't look at me like that,\" he said. \"I haven't been taken over. I've just been thinking about what you said about your sister's engagement and\u2014\"\n\n\"Who was on the phone?\"\n\nHe looked uncomfortable. \"The thing is\u2014\"\n\n\"It was your ex-wife,\" I said. \"She's been taken over, and now she's nice, and you want to get back together with her. That's it, isn't it?\"\n\n\"You know how I've always felt about Marcie,\" he said guiltily. \"She says she never stopped loving me.\"\n\nWhen something sounds too good to be true, it probably is, I thought.\n\n\"She thinks I should move back in and see if we can't work things out. But that isn't the only reason,\" he said, grabbing my arm. \"I've been looking at all those clippings\u2014dropouts going back to school, escaped convicts turning themselves in\u2014\"\n\n\"People returning overdue library books,\" I said.\n\n\"Are we willing to be responsible for ruining all that? I think we should think about this before we do anything.\"\n\nI pulled my arm away from him.\n\n\"I just think we should consider all the factors before we decide what to do. Waiting a few days can't hurt.\"\n\n\"You're right,\" I said, and started walking. \"There's a lot we don't know about them.\"\n\n\"I just think we should do a little more research,\" he said, opening the door of our building.\n\n\"You're right,\" I said, and started up the stairs.\n\n\"I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?\" he said when we got to second.\n\nI nodded and went back to my desk and put my head in my hands.\n\nHe was willing to let parasites take over the planet so he could get his ex-wife back, but were my motives any better than his? Why had I believed in an alien invasion in the first place, and spent all that time watching science-fiction movies and having huddled conversations? So I could spend time with him.\n\nHe was right. A few aches and pains were worth it to have Sueann married to someone nice and postal workers nondisgruntled and passengers remaining seated till those people with connecting flights had deplaned.\n\n\"Are you okay?\" Tonya said, leaning over my desk.\n\n\"I'm fine,\" I said. \"How's your arm?\"\n\n\"Fine,\" she said, rotating the elbow to show me. \"It must have been a cramp or something.\"\n\nI didn't know these parasites were like mistletoe. They might cause only temporary aches and pains. Gary was right. We needed to do more research. Waiting a few days couldn't hurt.\n\nThe phone rang. \"I've been trying to get hold of you,\" Mom said. \"Dakota's in the hospital. They don't know what it is. It's something wrong with her legs. You need to call Allison.\"\n\n\"I will,\" I said, and hung up the phone.\n\nI logged on to my computer, called up the file I'd been working on and scrolled halfway through it so it would look like I was away from my desk for just a minute, took off my high heels and changed into my sneakers, stuck the high heels into my desk drawer, grabbed my purse and coat, and took off.\n\nThe best place to look for information on how to get rid of the parasites was the library, but the card file was online, and you had to use your library card to get access. The next best was a bookstore. Not the independent on Sixteenth. Their clerks were far too helpful. And knowledgeable.\n\nI went to the Barnes & Noble on Eighth, taking the back way (but no alleys). It was jammed, and there was some kind of book signing going on up front, but nobody paid any attention to me. Even so, I didn't go straight to the gardening section. I wandered casually through the aisles, looking at T-shirts and mugs and stopping to thumb through a copy of How Irrational Fears Can Ruin Your Life, gradually working my way back to the gardening section.\n\nThey had only two books on parasites: Common Garden Parasites and Diseases and Organic Weed and Pest Control. I grabbed them both, retreated to the literature section, and began to read.\n\n\"Fungicides such as benomyl and ferbam are effective against certain rusts,\" Common Garden Parasites said. \"Streptomycin is effective against some viruses.\"\n\nBut which was this, if either? \"Spraying with diazinon or malathion can be effective in most cases. Note: These are dangerous chemicals. Avoid all contact with skin. Do not breathe fumes.\"\n\nThat was out. I put down Common Garden Parasites and picked up Organic Weed and Pest Control. At least it didn't recommend spraying with deadly chemicals, but what it did recommend wasn't much more useful. Prune affected limbs. Remove and destroy berries. Cover branches with black plastic.\n\nToo often it said simply: Destroy all infected plants.\n\n\"The main difficulty in the case of parasites is to destroy the parasite without also destroying the host.\" That sounded more like it. \"It is therefore necessary to find a substance that the host can tolerate that is intolerable to the parasite. Some rusts, for instance, cannot tolerate a vinegar and ginger solution, which can be sprayed on the leaves of the host plant. Red mites, which infest honeybees, are allergic to peppermint. Frosting made with oil of peppermint can be fed to the bees. As it permeates the bees' systems, the red mites drop off harmlessly. Other parasites respond variously to spearmint, citrus oil, oil of garlic, and powdered aloe vera.\"\n\nBut which? And how could I find out? Wear a garlic necklace? Stick an orange under Tonya's nose? There was no way to find out without their figuring out what I was doing.\n\nI kept reading. \"Some parasites can be destroyed by rendering the environment unfavorable. For moisture-dependent rusts, draining the soil can be beneficial. For temperature-susceptible pests, freezing and/or use of smudge pots can kill the invader. For light-sensitive parasites, exposure to light can kill the parasite.\"\n\nTemperature-sensitive. I thought about the hats. Were they to hide the parasites or to protect them from the cold? No, that couldn't be it. The temperature in the building had been turned down to freezing for two weeks, and if they needed heat, why hadn't they landed in Florida?\n\nI thought about Jackie Peterson's newsletter. She hadn't been affected. And neither had Uncle Marty, whose newsletter had come this morning. Or, rather, Uncle Marty's dog, who ostensibly dictated them. \"Woof, woof!\" the newsletter had said. \"I'm lying here under a Christmas saguaro out on the desert, chewing on a bone and hoping Santa brings me a nice new flea collar.\"\n\nSo they hadn't landed in Arizona or Miami, and none of the newspaper articles Gary had circled had been from Mexico or California. They had all been datelined Minnesota and Michigan and Illinois. Places where it was cold. Cold and cloudy, I thought, thinking of Cousin Celia's Christmas newsletter. Cold and cloudy.\n\nI flipped back through the pages, looking for the reference to light-sensitive parasites.\n\n\"It's right back here,\" a voice said.\n\nI shut the book, jammed it in among Shakespeare's plays, and snatched up a copy of Hamlet.\n\n\"It's for my daughter,\" the customer, who was, thankfully, hatless, said, appearing at the end of the aisle. \"That's what she said she wanted for Christmas when I called her. I was so surprised. She hardly ever reads.\"\n\nThe clerk was right behind her, wearing a mobcap with red and green ribbons. \"Everybody's reading Shakespeare right now,\" she said, smiling. \"We can hardly keep it on the shelves.\"\n\nI ducked my head and pretended to read the Hamlet. \"O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!\" Hamlet said. \"I set it down that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.\"\n\nThe clerk started along the shelves, looking for the book. \"King Lear, King Lear\u2026 let's see.\"\n\n\"Here it is,\" I said, handing it to her before she reached Common Garden Parasites.\n\n\"Thank you,\" she said, smiling. She handed it to the customer. \"Have you been to our book signing yet? Darla Sheridan, the fashion designer, is in the store today, signing her new book, In Your Easter Bonnet. Hats are coming back, you know.\"\n\n\"Really?\" the customer said.\n\n\"She's giving away a free hat with every copy of the book,\" the clerk said.\n\n\"Really?\" the customer said. \"Where did you say?\"\n\n\"I'll show you,\" the clerk said, still smiling, and led the customer away like a lamb to the slaughter.\n\nAs soon as they were gone, I pulled out Organic Gardening and looked up \"light-sensitive\" in the index. Page 264. \"Pruning branches above the infection and cutting away surrounding leaves to expose the source to sunlight or artificial light will usually kill light-sensitive parasites.\"\n\nI closed the book and hid it behind the Shakespeare plays, laying it on its side so it wouldn't show, and pulled out Common Garden Pests.\n\n\"Hi,\" Gary said, and I nearly dropped the book. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" I said, cautiously closing the book.\n\nHe was looking at the title. I stuck it on the shelf between Othello and The Riddle of Shakespeare's Identity.\n\n\"I realized you were right.\" He looked cautiously around. \"We've got to destroy them.\"\n\n\"I thought you said they were symbiotes, that they were beneficial,\" I said, watching him warily.\n\n\"You think I've been taken over by the aliens, don't you?\" he said. He ran his hand through his hair. \"See? No hat, no toupee.\"\n\nBut in The Puppet Masters the parasites had been able to attach themselves anywhere along the spine.\n\n\"I thought you said the benefits outweighed a few aches and pains,\" I said.\n\n\"I wanted to believe that,\" he said ruefully. \"I guess what I really wanted to believe was that my ex-wife and I would get back together.\"\n\n\"What changed your mind?\" I said, trying not to look at the bookshelf.\n\n\"You did,\" he said. \"I realized somewhere along the way what a dope I'd been, mooning over her when you were right there in front of me. I was standing there, listening to her talk about how great it was going to be to get back together, and all of a sudden I realized that I didn't want to, that I'd found somebody nicer, prettier, someone I could trust. And that someone was you, Nan.\" He smiled at me. \"So what have you found out? Something we can use to destroy them?\"\n\nI took a long, deep breath, and looked at him, deciding.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, and pulled out the book. I handed it to him. \"The section on bees. It says in here that introducing allergens into the bloodstream of the host can kill the parasite.\"\n\n\"Like in Infiltrators from Space.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" I told him about the red mites and the honeybees. \"Oil of wintergreen, citrus oil, garlic, and powdered aloe vera are all used on various pests. So if we can introduce peppermint into the food of the affected people, it\u2014\"\n\n\"Peppermint?\" he said blankly.\n\n\"Yes. Remember how Penny said nobody ate any of the candy canes she put out? I think it's because they're allergic to peppermint,\" I said, watching him.\n\n\"Peppermint,\" he said thoughtfully. \"They didn't eat any of the ribbon candy Jan Gundell had on her desk, either. I think you've hit it. So how are you going to get them to ingest it? Put it in the water cooler?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"In cookies. Chocolate chip cookies. Everybody loves chocolate.\" I pushed the books into place on the shelf and started for the front. \"It's my turn to bring Holiday Goodies tomorrow. I'll go to the grocery store and get the cookie ingredients\u2014\"\n\n\"I'll go with you,\" he said.\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"I need you to buy the oil of peppermint. They should have it at a drugstore or a health food store. Buy the most concentrated form you can get, and make sure you buy it from somebody who hasn't been taken over. I'll meet you back at my apartment, and we'll make the cookies there.\"\n\n\"Great,\" he said.\n\n\"We'd better leave separately,\" I said. I handed him the Othello. \"Here. Go buy this. It'll give you a bag to carry the oil of peppermint in.\"\n\nHe nodded and started for the checkout line. I walked out of Barnes & Noble, went down Eighth to the grocery store, ducked out the side door, and went back to the office. I stopped at my desk for a metal ruler, and ran up to fifth. Jim Bridgeman, in his backward baseball cap, glanced up at me and then back down at his keyboard.\n\nI went over to the thermostat.\n\nAnd this was the moment when everyone surrounded you, pointing and squawking an unearthly screech at you. Or turned and stared at you with their glowing green eyes. I twisted the thermostat dial as far up as it would go, to ninety-five.\n\nNothing happened.\n\nNobody even looked up from their computers. Jim Bridgeman was typing intently.\n\nI pried the dial and casing off with the metal ruler and stuck them into my coat pocket, bent the metal nub back so it couldn't be moved, and walked back out to the stairwell.\n\nAnd now, please let it warm up fast enough to work before everybody goes home, I thought, clattering down the stairs to fourth. Let everybody start sweating and take off their hats. Let the aliens be light-sensitive. Let them not be telepathic.\n\nI jammed the thermostats on fourth and third, and clattered down to second. Our thermostat was on the far side, next to Hunziger's office. I grabbed up a stack of memos from my desk, walked purposefully across the floor, dismantled the thermostat, and started back toward the stairs.\n\n\"Where do you think you're going?\" Solveig said, planting herself firmly in front of me.\n\n\"To a meeting,\" I said, trying not to look as lame and frightened as the hero's girlfriend in the movies always did. She looked down at my sneakers. \"Across town.\"\n\n\"You're not going anywhere,\" she said.\n\n\"Why not?\" I said weakly.\n\n\"Because I've got to show you what I bought Jane for Christmas.\"\n\nShe reached for a shopping bag under her desk. \"I know I'm not due till May, but I couldn't resist this,\" she said, rummaging in the bag. \"It is so cute!\"\n\nShe pulled out a tiny pink bonnet with white daisies on it. \"Isn't it adorable?\" she said. \"It's newborn size. She can wear it home from the hospital. Oh, and I got her the cutest\u2014\"\n\n\"I lied,\" I said, and Solveig looked up alertly. \"Don't tell anybody, but I completely forgot to buy a Secret Santa gift. Penny'll kill me if she finds out. If anybody asks where I've gone, tell them the ladies' room,\" I said, and took off down to first.\n\nThe thermostat was right by the door. I disabled it and the one in the basement, got my car (looking in the backseat first, unlike the people in the movies) and drove to the courthouse and the hospital and McDonald's, and then called my mother and invited myself to dinner. \"I'll bring dessert,\" I said. I drove out to the mall, and hit the bakery, the Gap, the video-rental place, and the theater multiplex on the way.\n\nMom didn't have the TV on. She did have the hat on that Sueann had given her. \"Don't you think it's adorable?\" she said.\n\n\"I brought cheesecake,\" I said. \"Have you heard from Allison and Mitch? How's Dakota?\"\n\n\"Worse,\" she said. \"She has these swellings on her knees and ankles. The doctors don't know what's causing them.\" She took the cheesecake into the kitchen, limping slightly. \"I'm so worried.\"\n\nI turned up the thermostats in the living room and the bedroom and was plugging the space heater in when she brought in the soup. \"I got chilled on the way over,\" I said, turning the space heater up to high. \"It's freezing out. I think it's going to snow.\"\n\nWe ate our soup, and Mom told me about Sueann's wedding. \"She wants you to be her maid of honor,\" she said, fanning herself. \"Aren't you warm yet?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, rubbing my arms.\n\n\"I'll get you a sweater,\" she said, and went into the bedroom, turning the space heater off as she went.\n\nI turned it back on and went into the living room to build a fire in the fireplace.\n\n\"Have you met anyone at work lately?\" she called in from the bedroom.\n\n\"What?\" I said, sitting back on my knees.\n\nShe came back in without the sweater. Her hat was gone, and her hair was mussed up, as if something had thrashed around in it. \"I hope you're not still refusing to write a Christmas newsletter,\" she said, going into the kitchen and coming out again with two plates of cheesecake. \"Come sit down and eat your dessert,\" she said.\n\nI did, still watching her warily.\n\n\"Making up things!\" she said. \"What an idea! Aunt Margaret wrote me just the other day to tell me how much she loves hearing from you girls and how interesting your newsletters always are.\" She cleared the table. \"You can stay for a while, can't you? I hate waiting here alone for news about Dakota.\"\n\n\"No, I've got to go,\" I said, and stood up. \"I've got to\u2026\"\n\nI've got to\u2026what? I thought, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. Fly to Spokane? And then, as soon as Dakota was okay, fly back and run wildly around town turning up thermostats until I fell over from exhaustion? And then what? It was when people fell asleep in the movies that the aliens took them over. And there was no way I could stay awake until every parasite was exposed to the heat, even if they didn't catch me and turn me into one of them. Even if I didn't turn my ankle.\n\nThe phone rang.\n\n\"Tell them I'm not here,\" I said.\n\n\"Who?\" Mom asked, picking it up. \"Oh, dear, I hope it's not Mitch with bad news. Hello?\" Pause. \"It's Sueann,\" she said, putting her hand over the receiver, and listened for a long interval. \"She broke up with her boyfriend.\"\n\n\"With David?\" I said. \"Give me the phone.\"\n\n\"I thought you said you weren't here,\" she said, handing the phone over.\n\n\"Sueann?\" I said. \"Why did you break up with David?\"\n\n\"Because he's so deadly dull,\" she said. \"He's always calling me and sending me flowers and being nice. He even wants to get married. And tonight at dinner, I just thought, 'Why am I dating him?' and we broke up.\"\n\nMom went over and turned on the TV. \"In local news,\" the CNN guy said, \"special-interest groups banded together to donate fifteen thousand dollars to City Hall's Christmas display.\"\n\n\"Where were you having dinner?\" I asked Sueann. \"At McDonald's?\"\n\n\"No, at this pizza place, which is another thing. All he ever wants is to go to dinner or the movies. We never do anything interesting.\"\n\n\"Did you go to a movie tonight?\" She might have been in the multiplex at the mall.\n\n\"No. I told you, I broke up with him.\"\n\nThis made no sense. I hadn't hit any pizza places.\n\n\"Weather is next,\" the guy on CNN said.\n\n\"Mom, can you turn that down?\" I said. \"Sueann, this is important. Tell me what you're wearing.\"\n\n\"Jeans and my blue top and my zodiac necklace. What does that have to do with my breaking up with David?\"\n\n\"Are you wearing a hat?\"\n\n\"In our forecast just ahead,\" the CNN guy said, \"great weather for all you people trying to get your Christmas shopping d\u2014\"\n\nMom turned the TV down.\n\n\"Mom, turn it back up,\" I said, motioning wildly.\n\n\"No, I'm not wearing a hat,\" Sueann said. \"What does that have to do with whether I broke up with David or not?\"\n\nThe weather map behind the CNN guy was covered with 62, 65, 70, 68. \"Mom,\" I said.\n\nShe fumbled with the remote.\n\n\"You won't believe what he did the other day,\" Sueann said, outraged. \"Gave me an engagement ring! Can you imag\u2014\"\n\n\"\u2014unseasonably warm temperatures and lots of sunshine,\" the weather guy blared out. \"Continuing right through Christmas.\"\n\n\"I mean, what was I thinking?\" Sueann said.\n\n\"Shh,\" I said. \"I'm trying to listen to the weather.\"\n\n\"It's supposed to be nice all next week,\" Mom said.\n\nIt was nice all the next week. Allison called to tell me Dakota was back home. \"The doctors don't know what it was, some kind of bug or something, but whatever it was, it's completely gone. She's back taking ice-skating and tap-dancing lessons, and next week I'm signing both girls up for Junior Band.\"\n\n\"You did the right thing,\" Gary said grudgingly. \"Marcie told me her knee was really hurting. When she was still talking to me, that is.\"\n\n\"The reconciliation's off, huh?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said, \"but I haven't given up. The way she acted proves to me that her love for me is still there, if I can only reach it.\"\n\nAll it proved to me was that it took an invasion from outer space to make her seem even marginally human, but I didn't say so.\n\n\"I've talked her into going into marriage counseling with me,\" he said. \"You were right not to trust me, either. That's the mistake they always make in those body-snatcher movies, trusting people.\"\n\nWell, yes and no. If I'd trusted Jim Bridgeman, I wouldn't have had to do all those thermostats alone.\n\n\"You were the one who turned the heat up at the pizza place where Sueann and her fianc\u00e9 were having dinner,\" I said after Jim told me he'd figured out what the aliens' weakness was after seeing me turn up the thermostat on fifth. \"You were the one who'd checked out Attack of the Soul Killers.\"\n\n\"I tried to talk to you,\" he said. \"I don't blame you for not trusting me. I should have taken my hat off, but I didn't want you to see my bald spot.\"\n\n\"You can't go by appearances,\" I said.\n\nBy December fifteenth, hat sales were down, the mall was jammed with ill-tempered shoppers, at City Hall an animal-rights group was protesting Santa Claus's wearing fur, and Gary's wife had skipped their first marriage-counseling session and then blamed it on him.\n\nIt's now four days till Christmas, and things are completely back to normal. Nobody at work's wearing a hat except Jim, Solveig's naming her baby Durango, Hunziger's suing management for firing him, antidepressant sales are up, and my mother called just now to tell me Sueann has a new boyfriend who's a terrorist, and to ask me if I'd sent out my Christmas newsletters yet. And had I met anyone lately at work.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said. \"I'm bringing him to Christmas dinner.\"\n\n\u2002Yesterday Betty Holland filed a sexual harassment suit against Nathan Steinberg for kissing her under the mistletoe, and I was nearly run over on my way home from work. But the world has been made safe from cankers, leaf wilt, and galls.\n\n\u2002And it makes an interesting Christmas Newsletter.\n\n\u2002Whether it's true or not.\n\n\u2002Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,\n\n\u2002Nan Johnson"
            },
            {
                "title": "Epiphany",
                "text": "\"But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day.\" - Matthed 24:20\n\nA little after three, it began to snow. It had looked like it was going to all the way through Pennsylvania, and had even spit a few flakes just before Youngstown, Ohio, but now it was snowing in earnest, thick flakes that were already covering the stiff dead grass on the median and getting thicker as he drove west.\n\nAnd this is what you get for setting out in the middle of January, he thought, without checking the Weather Channel first. He hadn't checked anything. He had taken off his robe, packed a bag, gotten into his car, and taken off. Like a man fleeing a crime.\n\nThe congregation will think I've absconded with the money in the collection plate, he thought. Or worse. Hadn't there been a minister in the paper last month who'd run off to the Bahamas with the building fund and a blonde? They'll say, \"I thought he acted strange in church this morning.\"\n\nBut they wouldn't know yet that he was gone. The Sunday night Mariners' Meeting had been canceled, the elders' meeting wasn't till next week, and the interchurch ecumenical meeting wasn't till Thursday.\n\nHe was supposed to play chess with B.T. on Wednesday, but he could call him and move it. He would have to call when B.T. was at work and leave him a message on his voice mail. He couldn't risk talking to him\u2014they had been friends too many years. B.T. would instantly know something was up. And he would be the last person to understand.\n\nI'll call his voice mail and move our chess game to Thursday night after the ecumenical meeting, Mel thought. That will give me till Thursday.\n\nHe was kidding himself. The church secretary, Mrs. Bilderbeck, would miss him Monday morning when he didn't show up in the church office.\n\nI'll call her and tell her I've got the flu, he thought. No, she would insist on bringing him over chicken soup and zinc lozenges. I'll tell her I've been called out of town for a few days on personal business.\n\nShe will immediately think the worst, he thought. She'll think I have cancer, or that I'm looking at another church. And anything they conclude, even embezzlement, will be easier for them to accept than the truth.\n\nThe snow was starting to stick on the highway, and the windshield was beginning to fog up. Mel turned on the defroster. A truck passed him, throwing up snow. It was full of gold-and-white Ferris wheel baskets. He had been seeing trucks like it all afternoon, carrying black Octopus cars and concession stands and lengths of roller-coaster track. He wondered what a carnival was doing in Ohio in the middle of January. And in this weather.\n\nMaybe they were lost. Or maybe they suddenly had a vision telling them to head west, he thought grimly. Maybe they suddenly had a nervous breakdown in the middle of church. In the middle of their sermon.\n\nHe had scared the choir half to death. They had been sitting there, midway through the sermon, thinking they had plenty of time before they had to find the recessional hymn, when he'd stopped cold, his hand still raised, in the middle of a sentence.\n\nThere had been silence for a full minute before the organist thought to play the intro, and then a frantic scramble for their bulletins and their hymnals, a frantic flipping of pages. They had straggled unevenly to their feet all the way through the first verse, singing and looking at him like he was crazy.\n\nAnd were they right? Had he really had a vision or was it some kind of midlife crisis? Or psychotic episode?\n\nHe was a Presbyterian, not a Pentecostal. He did not have visions. The only time he had experienced anything remotely like this was when he was nineteen, and that hadn't been a vision. It had been a call to the ministry, and it had only sent him to seminary, not haring off to who knows where.\n\nAnd this wasn't a vision, either. He hadn't seen a burning bush or an angel. He hadn't seen anything. He had simply had an overwhelming conviction that what he was saying was true.\n\nHe wished he still had it, that he wasn't beginning to doubt it now that he was three hundred miles from home and in the middle of a snowstorm, that he wasn't beginning to think it had been some kind of self-induced hysteria, born out of his own wishful thinking and the fact that it was January.\n\nHe hated January. The church always looked cheerless and abandoned, with all the Christmas decorations taken down, the sanctuary dim and chilly in the gray winter light, Epiphany over and nothing to look forward to but Lent and taxes. And Good Friday. Attendance and the collection down, half the congregation out with the flu and the other half away on a winter cruise, those who were there looking abandoned, too, and like they wished they had somewhere to go.\n\nThat was why he had decided against his sermon on Christian duty and pulled an old one out of the files, a sermon on Jesus's promise that He would return. To get that abandoned look off their faces.\n\n\"This is the hardest time,\" he had said, \"when Christmas is over, and the bills have all come due, and it seems like winter is never going to end and summer is never going to come. But Christ tells us that we 'know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning,' and when he comes, we must be ready for him. He may come tomorrow or next year or a thousand years from now. He may already be here, right now. At this moment\u2026\"\n\nAnd as he said it, he had had an overwhelming feeling that it was true, that He had already come, and he must go find Him.\n\nBut now he wondered if it was just the desire to be somewhere else, too, somewhere besides the cold, poinsettia-less sanctuary.\n\nIf so, you came the wrong way, he thought. It was freezing, and the windshield was starting to fog up. Mel kicked the defroster all the way up to high and swiped at the windshield with his gloved hand.\n\nThe snow was coming down much harder, and the wind was picking up. Mel switched on the radio to hear a weather report.\n\n\"\u2026and in the last days, the Book of Revelation tells us,\" a voice said, \" 'there will be hail and fire mingled with blood.' \"\n\nHe hoped that wasn't the weather report. He hit the scan button on the radio and listened as it cycled through the stations: \u2026\"latest on the scandal involving the President and\"\u2026the voice of Randy Travis, singing \"Forever and Ever, Amen\"\u2026\"hog futures at\"\u2026\"and the disciples said, 'Lord, show us a sign\u2026.' \"\n\nA sign, that was what he needed, Mel thought, peering at the road. A sign that he was not crazy.\n\nA semi roared past in a blinding blast of snow and exhaust. He leaned forward, trying to see the lines on the pavement, and another truck went by, full of orange-and-yellow bumper cars. Bumper cars. How appropriate. They were all going to be driving bumper cars if this snow kept up, Mel thought, watching the truck pull into the lane ahead of him. It fishtailed wildly as it did, and Mel put his foot on the brake, felt it skid, and lifted his foot off.\n\nWell, he had asked for a sign, he thought, carefully slowing down, and this one couldn't be clearer if it was written in fiery letters: Go home! This was a crazy idea! You're going to be killed, and then what will the congregation think? Go home!\n\nWhich was easier said than done. He could scarcely see the road, let alone any exit signs, and the windshield was starting to ice up. He swiped at the window again.\n\nHe didn't dare pull over and stop\u2014those semis would never see him\u2014but he was going to have to. The defroster wasn't having any effect on the ice on the windshield, and neither were the windshield wipers.\n\nHe rolled down the window and leaned out, trying to grab the wiper and slap it against the windshield to shake the ice off. Snow stabbed his face, stinging it.\n\n\"All right, all right,\" he shouted into the wind. \"I get the message!\"\n\nHe rolled the window back up, shivering, and swiped at the inside of the windshield again. The only kind of sign he wanted now was an exit sign, but he couldn't see the side of the road.\n\nIf I'm on the road, he thought, trying to spot the shoulder, a telltale outline, but the whole world had disappeared into a featureless whiteness. And what would keep him from driving right off the road and into a ditch?\n\nHe leaned forward tensely, trying to spot something, anything, and thought he saw, far ahead, a light.\n\nA yellow light, too high up for a taillight\u2014a reflector on a motorcycle, maybe. That was impossible, there was no way a motorcycle could be out in this. One of those lights on the top corners of a semi.\n\nIf that was what it was, he couldn't see the other one, but the light was moving steadily in front of him, and he followed it, trying to keep pace.\n\nThe windshield wipers were icing up again. He rolled down the window, and in the process lost sight of the light. And the road, he thought frightenedly. No, there was the light, still high up, but closer, and it wasn't a light, it was a whole cluster of them, round yellow bulbs in the shape of an arrow.\n\nThe arrow on top of a police car, he thought, telling you to change lanes. There must be some kind of accident up ahead. He strained forward, trying to make out flashing blue ambulance lights.\n\nBut the yellow arrow moved steadily ahead, and as he got closer, he saw that the arrow was pointed down at an angle. And that it was slowing. Mel slowed, too, focusing his whole attention on the road and on pumping his brakes to keep the car from skidding.\n\nWhen he looked up again, the arrow had slowed nearly to a stop, and he could see it clearly. It was part of a lighted sign on the back of a truck. \"Shooting Star\" it said in a flowing script, and next to the arrow in neon pink, \"Tickets.\"\n\nThe truck came to a complete stop, its turn light blinking, and then started up again, and in its headlights he caught a glimpse of snow-spattered red. A stop sign.\n\nAnd this was an exit. He had followed the truck off the highway onto an exit without even knowing it.\n\nAnd now he was hopefully following it into a town, he thought, clicking on his right-turn signal and turning after the truck, but in the moment he had hesitated, he had lost it. And the blowing snow was worse here than on the highway.\n\nThere was the yellow arrow again. No, what he was seeing was a Burger King crown. He pulled in, scraping the snow-covered curb, and saw that he was wrong again. It was a motel sign. \"King's Rest,\" with a crown of sulfur-yellow bulbs.\n\nHe parked the car and got out, slipping in the snow, and started for the office, which had, thank goodness, a \"Vacancy\" sign in the same neon pink as the \"Tickets\" sign.\n\nA little blue Honda pulled up beside him and a short, plump woman got out of it, winding a bright purple muffler around her head. \"Thank goodness you knew where you were going,\" she said, pulling on a pair of turquoise mittens. \"I couldn't see a thing except your taillights.\" She reached back into the Honda for a vivid green canvas bag. \"Anybody who'd be on the roads in weather like this would have to be crazy, wouldn't they?\"\n\nAnd if the blizzard hadn't been sign enough, here was proof positive. \"Yes,\" he said, although she had already gone inside the motel office, \"they would.\"\n\nHe would check in, wait a few hours till the storm let up, and then start back. With luck he would be back home before Mrs. Bilderbeck got to the office tomorrow morning.\n\nHe went inside the office, where a balding man was handing the plump woman a room key and talking to someone on the phone.\n\n\"Another one,\" he said when Mel opened the door. \"Yeah.\" He hung up the phone and pushed a registration form and a pen at Mel.\n\n\"Which way'd you come from?\" he asked. \"East,\" Mel said.\n\nThe man shook his balding head. \"You got here in the nick of time,\" he said to both of them. \"They just closed all the roads east of here.\"\n\n\"And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat upon them.\"\n\n\u2014Revelation 9:17\n\nIn the morning, Mel called Mrs. Bilderbeck. \"I won't be in today. I've been called out of town.\"\n\n\"Out of town?\" Mrs. Bilderbeck said, interested.\n\n\"Yes. On personal business. I'll be gone most of the week.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" she said, and Mel suddenly hoped that there was an emergency at the church, that Gus Uhank had had another stroke or Lottie Millar's mother had died, so that he would have to go back.\n\n\"I told Juan you'd be in,\" Mrs. Bilderbeck said. \"He's putting the sanctuary Christmas decorations away, and he wanted to know if you want to save the star for next year. And the pilot light went out again. The church was freezing when I got here this morning.\"\n\n\"Was Juan able to get it relit?\"\n\n\"Yes, but I think someone should look at it. What if it goes out on a Saturday night?\"\n\n\"Call Jake Adams at A-1 Heating,\" he said. Jake was a deacon.\n\n\"A-1 Heating,\" she said slowly, as if she were writing it down. \"What about the star? Are we going to use it again next year?\"\n\nIs there going to be a next year? Mel thought. \"Whatever you think,\" he said.\n\n\"And what about the ecumenical meeting?\" she asked. \"Will you be back in time for that?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, afraid if he said \"no,\" she would ask more questions.\n\n\"Is there a number where I can reach you?\"\n\n\"No. I'll check in tomorrow.\" He hung up quickly, and then sat there on the bed, trying to decide whether to call B.T. or not. He hadn't done anything major in the fifteen years they'd been friends without telling him, but Mel knew what he'd say. They'd met on the ecumenical committee, when the Unitarian chairman had decided that, to be truly ecumenical, they needed a resident atheist and Darwinian biologist. And, Mel suspected, an African American.\n\nIt was the only good thing that had ever come out of the ecumenical committee. He and B.T. had started by complaining about the idiocies of the ecumenical committee, which seemed bent on proving that denominations couldn't get along, progressed to playing chess and then to discussing religion and politics and disagreeing on both, and ended by becoming close friends.\n\nI have to call him, Mel thought, it's a betrayal of our friendship not to.\n\nAnd tell him what? That he'd had a holy vision? That the Book of Revelation was coming literally true? It sounded crazy to Mel, let alone to B.T., who was a scientist, who didn't believe in the First Coming, let alone the Second. But if it was true, how could he not call him?\n\nHe dialed B.T.'s area code and then put down the receiver and went to check out.\n\nThe roads east were still closed. \"You shouldn't have any trouble heading west, though,\" the balding man said, handing Mel his credit card receipt. \"The snow's supposed to let up by noon.\"\n\nMel hoped so. The interstate was snow-packed and unbelievably slick, and when Mel positioned himself behind a sand truck, a rock struck his windshield and made a ding.\n\nAt least there was hardly any traffic. There were only a few semis, and a navy blue pickup with a bumper sticker that said \"In case of the Rapture, this car will be unoccupied.\" There was no sign of the blue Honda or of the carnival. They had seen the light and were still at the King's Rest, sitting in the restaurant, drinking coffee. Or headed south for the winter.\n\nHe passed a snow-obscured sign that read \"For Weather Info Tune to AM 1410.\"\n\nHe did. \"\u2026and in the last days Christ Himself will appear,\" an evangelist, possibly the one from yesterday, or a different one\u2014they all had the same accent, the same intonation\u2014said. \"The Book of Revelation tells us He will appear riding a white horse and leading a mighty army of the righteous against the Antichrist in that last great battle of Armageddon. And the unbelievers\u2014the fornicators and the baby-murderers\u2014will be flung into the bottomless pit.\"\n\nThe ultimate \"Wait till your father gets home\" threat, Mel thought.\n\n\"And how do I know these things are coming?\" the radio said. \"I'll tell you how. The Lord came to me in a dream, and He said, 'These shall be the signs of my coming. There will be wars and rumors of wars.' Iraq, my friends, that's what he's talking about. The sun's face will be covered, and the godless will prosper. Look around you. Who do you see prospering? Abortion doctors and homosexuals and godless atheists. But when Christ comes, they will be punished. He told me so. The Lord spoke to me, just like he spoke to Moses, just like he spoke to Isaiah\u2026\"\n\nHe switched off the radio, but it didn't do any good. Because this was what had been bothering him ever since he started out. How did he know his vision wasn't just like some radio evangelist's?\n\nBecause his is born out of hatred, bigotry, and revenge, Mel thought. God no more spoke to him than did the man in the moon.\n\nAnd how do you know He spoke to you? Because it felt real? The voices telling the bomber to destroy the abortion clinic felt real, too. Emotion isn't proof. Signs aren't evidence. \"Do you have any outside confirmation?\" he could hear B.T. saying skeptically.\n\nThe sun came out, and the glare off the white road, the white fields, was worse than the snow had been. He almost didn't see the truck off to the side. Its emergency flashers weren't on, and at first he thought it had just slid off the road, but as he went past, he saw it was one of the carnival trucks with its hood up and steam coming out. A young man in a denim jacket was standing next to it, hooking his thumb for a ride.\n\nI should stop, Mel thought, but he was already past, and picking up hitchhikers was dangerous. He had found that out when he'd preached a sermon on the Good Samaritan last year. \"Let us not be like the Levite or the Pharisee who passes by the stranded motorist, the injured victim,\" he had told his congregation. \"Let us be like the Samaritan, who stopped and helped.\"\n\nIt had seemed like a perfectly harmless sermon topic, and he had been totally unprepared for the uproar that ensued. \"I cannot believe you told people to pick up hitchhikers!\" Dan Crosby had raged. \"If one of my daughters ends up raped, I'm holding you responsible.\"\n\n\"What were you thinking of?\" Mrs. Bilderbeck had said, hanging up after fending off Mabel Jenkins. \"On CNN last week there was a story about somebody who stopped to help a couple who was out of gas, and they cut off his head.\"\n\nHe had had to issue a retraction the next Sunday, saying that women had no business helping anyone (which had made Mamie Rollet mad, for feminist reasons) and that the best thing for everyone else to do was to alert the state patrol on their cell phones and let them take care of it, unless they knew the person, although somehow he couldn't imagine the Good Samaritan with a cell phone.\n\nThere was a median crossing up ahead, but it was marked with a sign that read \"Authorized Vehicles Only.\" And if I get my head cut off, he thought, the congregation will have no sympathy at all.\n\nBut it was threatening to snow again, and the green interstate sign up ahead said \"Wayside 28.\" And the carnival had been his Good Samaritan last night.\n\n\" 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me,' \" he murmured, and turned into the median crossing and onto the eastbound side of the highway, and started back.\n\nThe truck was still there, though he couldn't see the driver. Good, he thought, looking for a place to cross. Some other Samaritan picked him up. But when he pulled up behind the truck, the man got out of the truck's cab and started over to the car, his hands jammed into his denim jacket. Mel began to feel sorry he'd stopped. The man had a ragged scar across his forehead, and his hair was lank and greasy.\n\nHe slouched over to the side of the car, and Mel saw that he was much younger than he'd looked at first. He's just a kid, Mel thought.\n\nYeah, well, so was Billy the Kid, he reminded himself. And Andrew Cunanan.\n\nMel leaned across and pulled down the passenger window. \"What's the trouble?\"\n\nThe kid leaned down to talk to him. \"Died,\" he said, and grinned.\n\n\"Do you need a lift into town?\" he asked, and the kid immediately opened the car door, keeping his right hand in his jacket pocket. Where the gun is, Mel thought.\n\nThe kid slid in and shut the door, still using only one hand. When they find me robbed and murdered, they'll be convinced I was involved in some kind of drug deal, Mel thought. He started the car.\n\n\"Man, it was cold out there,\" the kid said, taking his right hand out of his pocket and rubbing his hands together. \"I been waiting forever.\"\n\nMel kicked the heater over to high, and the kid leaned forward and held his hands in front of the vent. There was a peace sign tattooed on the back of one of them and a fierce-looking lion on the other. Both looked like they'd been done by hand.\n\nThe kid rubbed his hands together, wincing, and Mel took another look. His hands were red with cold and between the tattoo lines there were ugly white splotches. The kid started rubbing them again.\n\n\"Don't\u2014\" Mel said, putting out his hand unthinkingly to stop him. \"That looks like frostbite. Don't rub it. You're supposed to\u2026\" he said, and then couldn't remember. Put them in warm water? Wrap them up? \"They're supposed to warm up slowly,\" he said finally.\n\n\"You mean like by warming 'em up in front of a heater?\" the kid said, holding his hands in front of the vent again. He put up his hand and touched the ding in the windshield. \"That's gonna spread,\" he said.\n\nHis hand looked even worse now that it was warming up. The sickly white splotches stood out starkly against the rest of his skin.\n\nMel took off his gloves, switching hands on the steering wheel and using his teeth to get the second one off. \"Here,\" he said, handing them to the kid. \"These are insulated.\"\n\nThe kid looked at him for a minute and then put them on.\n\n\"You should get your hands looked at,\" Mel said. \"I can take you to the emergency room when we get to town.\"\n\n\"I'll be okay,\" the kid said. \"You get used to being cold, working a carny.\"\n\n\"What's a carnival doing here in the middle of winter, anyway?\" Mel asked.\n\n\"Best time,\" the kid said. \"Catches 'em by surprise. What're you doin' out here?\"\n\nHe wondered what the kid would say if he told him. \"I'm a minister,\" he said instead.\n\n\"A preacher, huh?\" he said. \"You believe in the Second Coming?\"\n\n\"The Second Coming?\" Mel gasped, caught off guard.\n\n\"Yeah, we had a preacher come to the carny the other day telling us Jesus was coming back and was gonna punish everybody for hanging him on the cross, knock down the mountains, burn the whole planet up. You believe all that's gonna happen?\"\n\n\"No,\" Mel said. \"I don't think Jesus is coming back to punish anybody.\"\n\n\"The preacher said it was all right there in the Bible.\"\n\n\"There are lots of things in the Bible. They don't always turn out to mean what you thought they did.\"\n\nThe kid nodded sagely. \"Like the Siamese twins.\"\n\n\"Siamese twins?\" Mel said, unable to remember any Siamese twins in the Bible.\n\n\"Yeah, like this one carny up in Fargo. It had a big sign saying 'See the Siamese Twins,' and everybody pays a buck, thinking they're gonna see two people hooked together. And when they get there it's a cage with two Siamese kittens in it. Like that.\"\n\n\"Not exactly,\" Mel said. \"The prophecies aren't a scam to cheat people, they're\u2014\"\n\n\"What about Roswell? The alien autopsy and all that. You think that's a scam, too?\"\n\nWell, there was some outside confirmation for you. Mel was in a class with scam artists and UFO nuts.\n\n\"After what happened the first time, I don't know if I'd wanta come back or not,\" the kid said, and it took Mel a minute to realize he was talking about Christ. \"If I did, I'd wear some kind of disguise or something.\"\n\nLike the last time, Mel thought, when He came disguised as a baby.\n\nThe kid was still preoccupied with the ding. \"There's stuff you could do to keep it from spreading for a little while,\" he said, \"but it's still gonna spread. There ain't nothing that can stop it.\" He pointed out the window at a sign. \"Wayside, exit 1 mile.\"\n\nMel pulled off and into a Total station, apparently all there was to Wayside. The kid opened the door and started to take off the gloves.\n\n\"Keep them,\" Mel said. \"Do you want me to wait till you find out if they've got a tow truck?\"\n\nThe kid shook his head. \"I'll call Pete.\" He reached into the pocket of the denim jacket and handed Mel three orange cardboard tickets. They were marked \"Admit One Free.\"\n\n\"It's a ticket to the show,\" the kid said. \"We got a triple Ferris wheel, three wheels one inside the other. And a great roller coaster. The Comet.\"\n\nMel splayed the tickets apart. \"There are three tickets here.\"\n\n\"Bring your friends,\" the kid said, slapped the car door, and ambled off toward the gas station.\n\nBring your friends.\n\nMel got back on the highway. It was getting dark. He hoped the next exit wasn't as far, or as uninhabited, as this one.\n\nBring your friends. I should have told B.T., he thought, even though he would have said, Don't go, you're crazy, let me recommend a good psychiatrist.\n\n\"I still should have told him,\" he said out loud, and was as certain of it as he had been of what he should do in that moment in the church. And now he had cut himself off from B.T. not only by hundreds of miles of closed highways and \"icy and snow-packed conditions,\" but by his deception, his failure to tell him.\n\nThe next exit didn't even have a gas station, and the one after that nothing but a Dairy Queen. It was nearly eight by the time he got to Zion Center and a Holiday Inn.\n\nHe walked straight in, not even stopping to get his luggage out of the trunk, and across the lobby toward the phones.\n\n\"Hello!\" The short, plump woman he'd seen the night before waylaid him. \"Here we are again, orphans of the storm. Weren't the roads awful?\" she said cheerfully. \"I almost went off in the ditch twice. My little Honda doesn't have four-wheel drive, and\u2014\"\n\n\"Excuse me,\" Mel interrupted her. \"I have a phone call I have to make.\"\n\n\"You can't,\" she said, still cheerfully. \"The lines are down.\"\n\n\"Down?\"\n\n\"Because of the storm. I tried to call my sister just now, and the clerk told me the phone's been out all day. I don't know what she's going to think when she doesn't hear from me. I promised faithfully that I'd call her every night and tell her where I was and that I'd gotten there safely.\"\n\nHe couldn't call B.T. Or get to him. \"Excuse me,\" he said, and started back across the lobby to the registration desk.\n\n\"Has the interstate going east opened up yet?\" he asked the girl behind the counter.\n\nShe shook her head. \"It's still closed between Malcolm and Iowa City. Ground blizzards,\" she said. \"Will you be checking in, sir? How many are there in your party?\"\n\n\"Two,\" a voice said.\n\nMel turned. And there, leaning against the end of the registration desk, was B.T.\n\n\"And there appeared another wonder in heaven, and behold a great red dragon.\"\n\n\u2014Revelation 12:3\n\nFor a moment he couldn't speak for the joy, the relief he felt. He clutched the checkout counter, vaguely aware that the girl behind the counter was saying something.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" he said finally.\n\nB.T. smiled his slow checkmate smile. \"Aren't I the one who should be asking that?\"\n\nAnd now that he was here, he would have to tell him. Mel felt the relief turn into resentment. \"I thought the roads were closed,\" he said.\n\n\"I didn't come that way,\" B.T. said.\n\n\"And how would you like to pay for that, sir?\" the clerk said, and Mel knew she had asked him before.\n\n\"Credit card,\" he said, fumbling for his wallet.\n\n\"License number?\" the clerk asked.\n\n\"I flew to Omaha and rented a car,\" B.T. said.\n\nMel handed her his MasterCard. \"TY 804.\"\n\n\"State?\"\n\n\"Pennsylvania.\" He looked at B.T. \"How did you find me?\"\n\n\" 'License number?' \" B.T. said, mimicking the clerk. \" 'Will you be putting this on your credit card, sir?' If you've got a computer, it's the easiest thing in the world to find someone these days, especially if they're using that.\" He gestured at the MasterCard the clerk was handing back to Mel.\n\nShe handed him a folder. \"Your room number is written inside, sir. It's not on the key for security purposes,\" the clerk said, as if his room number weren't in the computer, too. B.T. probably already knew it.\n\n\"You still haven't answered my question,\" B.T. said. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"I have to go get my suitcase,\" Mel said, and walked past him and out to the parking lot and his car. He opened the trunk.\n\nB.T. reached past him and picked up Mel's suitcase, as if taking it into custody.\n\n\"How did you know I was missing?\" Mel asked, but he already knew the answer to that. \"Mrs. Bilderbeck sent you.\"\n\nB.T. nodded. \"She said she was worried about you, that you'd called and something was seriously wrong. She said she knew because you hadn't tried to get out of the ecumenical meeting on Thursday. She said you always tried to get out of it.\"\n\nThey say it's the little mistakes that trip criminals up, Mel thought.\n\n\"She said she thought you were sick and were going to see a specialist,\" B.T. said, his black face gray with worry. \"Out of town, so nobody in the congregation would find out about it. A brain tumor, she said.\" He shifted the suitcase to his other hand. \"Do you have a brain tumor?\"\n\nA brain tumor. That would be a nice, convenient explanation. When Ivor Sorenson had had a brain tumor, he had stood up during the offertory, convinced there was an ostrich sitting in the pew next to him.\n\n\"Are you sick?\" B.T. said.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"But it is something serious.\"\n\n\"It's freezing out here,\" Mel said. \"Let's discuss this inside.\"\n\nB.T. didn't move. \"Whatever it is, no matter how bad it is, you can tell me.\"\n\n\"All right. Fine. 'For ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh.' Matthew 25:13,\" Mel said. \"I had a revelation. About the Second Coming. I think He's here already, that the Second Coming's already happened.\"\n\nWhatever B.T. had imagined\u2014terminal illness or embezzlement or some other, worse crime\u2014it obviously wasn't as bad as this. His face went even grayer. \"The Second Coming,\" he said. \"Of Christ?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Mel said. He told him what had happened during the sermon Sunday. \"I scared the choir half out of their wits,\" he said.\n\nB.T. nodded. \"Mrs. Bilderbeck told me. She said you stopped in the middle of a sentence and just stood there, staring into space with your hand up to your forehead. That's why she thought you had a brain tumor. How long did this\u2026vision last?\"\n\n\"It wasn't a vision,\" Mel said. \"It was a revelation, a conviction\u2026an epiphany.\"\n\n\"An epiphany,\" B.T. said in a flat, expressionless voice. \"And it told you He was here? In Zion Center?\"\n\n\"No,\" Mel said. \"I don't know where He is.\"\n\n\"You don't know where He is,\" B.T. repeated. \"You just got in your car and started driving?\"\n\n\"West,\" Mel said. \"I knew He was somewhere west.\"\n\n\"Somewhere west,\" B.T. said softly. He rubbed his hand over his mouth.\n\n\"Why don't you say it?\" Mel said. He slammed the trunk shut. \"You think I'm crazy.\"\n\n\"I think we're both crazy,\" he said, \"standing out here in the snow, fighting. Have you had supper?\"\n\n\"No,\" Mel said.\n\n\"Neither have I,\" B.T. said. He took Mel's arm. \"Let's go get some dinner.\"\n\n\"And a dose of antidepressants? A nice straitjacket?\"\n\n\"I was thinking steak,\" B.T. said, and tried to smile. \"Isn't that what they eat here in Iowa?\"\n\n\"Corn,\" Mel said.\n\n\"And when I looked, behold\u2026the appearance of the wheels was as the colour of a beryl stone and\u2026as if a wheel had been in the midst of a wheel.\"\n\n\u2014Ezekiel 10:9\u201310\n\nNeither corn nor steak was on the menu, which had the Holiday Inn star on the front, and they were out of nearly everything else. \"Because of the interstate being closed,\" the waitress said. \"We've got chicken teriyaki and beef chow mein.\"\n\nThey ordered the chow mein and coffee, and the waitress left. Mel braced himself for more questions, but B.T. only asked, \"How were the roads today?\" and told him about the problems he'd had getting a flight and a rental car. \"Chicago O'Hare was shut down because of a winter storm,\" he said, \"and Denver and Kansas City. I had to fly into Albuquerque and then up to Omaha.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry you had to go to all that trouble,\" Mel said.\n\n\"I was worried about you.\"\n\nThe waitress arrived with their chow mein, which came with mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans.\n\n\"Interesting,\" B.T. said, poking at the gravy. He made a halfhearted attempt at the chow mein, and then pushed the plate away.\n\n\"There's something I don't understand,\" he said. \"The Second Coming is when Christ returns, right? I thought He was supposed to appear in the clouds in a blaze of glory, complete with trumpets and angel choirs.\"\n\nMel nodded.\n\n\"Then how can He already be here without anybody knowing?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Mel said. \"I don't understand any of this any more than you do. I just know He's here.\"\n\n\"But you don't know where.\"\n\n\"No. I thought when I got out here there would be a sign.\"\n\n\"A sign,\" B.T. said.\n\n\"Yes,\" Mel said, getting angry all over again. \"You know. A burning bush, a pillar of fire, a star. A sign.\"\n\nHe must have been shouting. The waitress came scurrying over with the check. \"Are you through with this?\" she said, looking at the plates of half-eaten food.\n\n\"Yes,\" Mel said. \"We're through.\"\n\n\"You can pay at the register,\" the waitress said, and scurried away with their plates.\n\n\"Look,\" B.T. said, \"the brain's a very complicated thing. An alteration in brain chemistry\u2014are you on any medications? Sometimes medications can cause people to hear voices or\u2014\"\n\nMel picked up the check and stood, reaching for his wallet. \"It wasn't a voice.\"\n\nHe put down money for a tip and went over to the cash register.\n\n\"You said it was a strong feeling,\" B.T. said after Mel had paid. \"Sometimes endorphins can\u2014nothing like this has ever happened to you before, has it?\"\n\nMel walked out into the lobby. \"Yes,\" he said, and turned to face B.T. \"It happened once before.\"\n\n\"When?\" B.T. said, his face gray again.\n\n\"When I was nineteen. I was in college, studying pre-law. I went to church with a girlfriend, and the minister gave a hellfire-and-brimstone sermon on the evils of dancing and associating with anyone who did. He said Jesus said it was wrong to associate with nonbelievers, that they would corrupt and contaminate you. Jesus, who spent all His time with lowlifes\u2014tax collectors and prostitutes and lepers! And all of a sudden I had this overwhelming feeling\u2026this\u2014\"\n\n\"Epiphany,\" B.T. said.\n\n\"That I had to do something, that I had to fight him and all the other ministers like him. I stood up and walked out in the middle of the sermon,\" Mel said, remembering, \"and went home and applied to seminary.\"\n\nB.T. rubbed his hand across his mouth. \"And the epiphany you had yesterday was the same as that one?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Reverend Abrams?\" a woman's voice said.\n\nMel turned. The short, plump woman who'd been on the phone and at the motel the night before was hurrying toward them, lugging her bright green tote bag.\n\n\"Who's that?\" B.T. said.\n\nMel shook his head, wondering how she knew his name.\n\nShe came up to them. \"Oh, Reverend Abrams,\" she said breathlessly, \"I wanted to thank you\u2014I'm Cassie Hunter, by the way.\" She stuck out a plump, beringed hand.\n\n\"How do you do?\" Mel said, shaking it. \"This is Dr. Bernard Thomas, and I'm Mel Abrams.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"I heard the desk clerk say your name. I didn't thank you the other night for saving my life.\"\n\n\"Saving your life?\" B.T. said, looking at Mel.\n\n\"There was this awful whiteout,\" Cassie said. \"You couldn't see the road at all, and if it hadn't been for the taillights on Reverend Abrams's car, I'd have ended up in a ditch.\"\n\nMel shook his head. \"You shouldn't thank me. You should thank the driver of the carnival truck I was following. He saved both of us.\"\n\n\"I saw those carnival trucks,\" Cassie said. \"I wondered what a carnival was doing in Iowa in the middle of winter.\" She laughed, a bright, chirpy laugh. \"Of course, you're probably wondering what a retired English teacher is doing in Iowa in the middle of winter. Of course, for that matter, what are you doing in Iowa in the middle of winter?\"\n\n\"We're on our way to a religious meeting,\" B.T. said before Mel could answer.\n\n\"Really? I've been visiting famous writers' birthplaces,\" she said. \"Everyone back home thinks I'm crazy, but except for the last few days, the weather's been fine. Oh, and I wanted to tell you, I just talked to the clerk, and she thinks the phones will be working again by tomorrow morning, so you should be able to make your call.\"\n\nShe rummaged in her voluminous tote bag and came up with a room key folder. \"Well, anyway, I just wanted to thank you. It was nice meeting you,\" she said to B.T., and bustled off across the lobby toward the coffee shop.\n\n\"Who were you trying to call?\" B.T. asked.\n\n\"You,\" Mel said bitterly. \"I realized I owed it to you to tell you, even if you did think I was crazy.\"\n\nB.T. didn't say anything.\n\n\"That is what you think, isn't it?\" Mel said. \"Why don't you just say it? You think I'm crazy.\"\n\n\"All right. I think you're crazy,\" B.T. said, and then continued angrily, \"Well, what do you expect me to say? You take off in the middle of a blizzard, you don't tell anyone where you're going, because you saw the Second Coming in a vision?\"\n\n\"It wasn't\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, right. It wasn't a vision. You had an epiphany. So did the woman in The Globe last week who saw the Virgin Mary on her refrigerator. So did the Heaven's Gate people. Are you telling me they're not crazy?\"\n\n\"No,\" Mel said, and started down the hall to his room.\n\n\"For fifteen years you've raved about faith healers and cults and preachers who claim they've got a direct line to God being frauds,\" B.T. said, following him, \"and now you suddenly believe in it?\"\n\nHe kept walking. \"No.\"\n\n\"But you're telling me I'm supposed to believe in your revelation because it's different, because this is the real thing.\"\n\n\"I'm not telling you anything,\" Mel said, turning to face him. \"You're the one who came out here and demanded to know what I was doing. I told you. You got what you came for. Now you can go back and tell Mrs. Bilderbeck I don't have a brain tumor, it's a chemical imbalance.\"\n\n\"And what do you intend to do? Drive west until you fall off the Santa Monica pier?\"\n\n\"I intend to find Him,\" Mel said.\n\nB.T. opened his mouth as if to say something and then shut it and stormed off down the hall.\n\nMel stood there, watching him till a door slammed, far down the hall.\n\nBring your friends, Mel thought. Bring your friends.\n\n\"For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.\"\n\n\u2014I Corinthians 13:12\n\n\"I intend to find Him,\" Mel had said, and was glad B.T. hadn't shouted back \"How?\" because he had no idea.\n\nHe had not had a sign, which meant that the answer must be somewhere else. Mel sat down on the bed, opened the drawer of the bedside table, and got out the Gideon Bible.\n\nHe propped the pillows up against the headboard and leaned back against them and opened the Bible to the Book of Revelation.\n\nThe radio evangelists made it sound like the story of the Second Coming was a single narrative, but it was actually a hodgepodge of isolated scriptures\u2014Matthew 24 and sections of Isaiah and Daniel, verses out of Second Thessalonians and John and Joel, stray ravings from Revelation and Jeremiah, all thrown together by the evangelists as if the authors were writing at the same time. As if they were even writing about the same thing.\n\nAnd the references were full of contradictions. A trumpet would sound, and Christ would come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. Or on a white horse, leading an army of a hundred and forty-four thousand. Or like a thief in the night. There would be earthquakes and pestilences and a star falling out of heaven. Or a dragon would come up out of the sea, or four great beasts, with the heads of a lion and a bear and a leopard and eagles' wings. Or darkness would cover the earth.\n\nBut in all the assorted prophecies there were no locations mentioned. Joel talked about a desolate wilderness and Jeremiah about a wasteland, but not about where they were. Luke said the faithful would come \"from the east, and from the west, and from the north\" to the kingdom of God, but neglected to say where it was located.\n\nThe only place mentioned by name in all the prophecies was Armageddon. But Armageddon (or Har-Magedon or Ar Himdah) was a word that appeared only once in the Scriptures and whose meaning was not known, a word that might be Hebrew or Greek or something else altogether, that might mean \"level\" or \"valley plain\" or \"place of desire.\"\n\nMel remembered from seminary that some scholars thought it referred to the plain in front of Mount Megiddo, the site of a battle between Israel and Sisera the Canaanite. But there was no Mount Megiddo on ancient or modern maps. It could be anywhere.\n\nHe put on his shoes and his coat and went out to the parking lot to get his road atlas out of the car.\n\nB.T. was leaning against the trunk.\n\n\"How long have you been out here?\" Mel asked, but the answer was obvious. B.T.'s dark face was pinched with cold, and his hands were jammed into his pockets like the carnival kid's had been.\n\n\"I've been thinking,\" he said, his voice shivering with the cold. \"I don't have to be back until Thursday, and I can fly out of Denver just as easily as out of Omaha. If we drive as far as Denver together, it'll give us more time\u2014\"\n\n\"For you to talk me out of this,\" Mel said, and then was sorry when he saw the expression on B.T.'s face.\n\n\"For us to talk,\" B.T. said. \"For me to figure this\u2014epiphany\u2014out.\"\n\n\"All right,\" Mel said. \"As far as Denver.\" He opened the car door. \"You can come inside now. I'm not going anywhere till morning.\" He leaned inside the car and got the atlas. \"It's a good thing I came out for this. You didn't actually intend to stand out here all night, did you?\"\n\nB.T. nodded, his teeth chattering. \"You're not the only one who's crazy.\"\n\n\"By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see and shall not perceive.\"\n\n\u2014Matthew 13:14\n\nThere wasn't a Hertz rental car agency in Zion Center. \"The nearest one's in Redfield,\" B.T. said unhappily.\n\n\"I'll meet you there,\" Mel said.\n\n\"Will you?\" B.T. said. \"You won't take off on your own?\"\n\n\"No,\" Mel said.\n\n\"What if you see a sign?\"\n\n\"If I see a burning bush, I'll pull off on the side and let you know,\" Mel said dryly. \"We can caravan if you want.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" B.T. said. \"I'll follow you.\"\n\n\"I don't know where the rental place is.\"\n\n\"I'll pull ahead of you once we get to Redfield,\" B.T. said, and got into his rental car. \"It's the second exit. What are the roads supposed to be like?\"\n\n\"Icy. Snow-packed. But the weather report said clear.\"\n\nMel got into his car. The kid from the carnival had been right. The ding had started to spread, raying out in three long cracks and one short one.\n\nHe led the way over to the interstate, being careful to signal lane changes and not to get too far ahead, so B.T. wouldn't think he was trying to escape.\n\nThe carnival must have stayed the night in Zion Center, too. He passed a truck carrying the Tilt-A-Whirl and one full of stacked, slanted mirrors for, Mel assumed, the Hall of Mirrors. A Blazer roared past him with the bumper sticker \"When the Rapture comes, I'm outta here!\"\n\nAs soon as Mel was on the interstate, he turned on the radio. \"\u2026and snow-packed. Partly cloudy becoming clear by midmorning. Interstate 80 between Victor and Davenport is closed, also U.S. 35 and State Highway 218. Partly cloudy skies, clearing by midmorning. The following schools are closed: Edgewater, Bennett, Olathe, Oskaloosa, Vinton, Shellsburg\u2026.\"\n\nMel twisted the knob.\n\n\"\u2026but the Second Coming is not something we believers have to be afraid of,\" the evangelist, this one with a Texas accent, said, \"for the Book of Revelation tells us that Christ will protect us from the final tribulation, and when He comes to power we will dwell with Him in His Holy City, which shines with jewels and precious stones, and we will drink from living fountains of water. The lion shall lie down with the lamb, and there\u2026be\u2026more\u2014\"\n\nThe evangelist sputtered into static and then out of range, which was just as well because Mel was heading into fog and needed to give his whole attention to his driving.\n\nThe fog got worse, descending like a smothering blanket. Mel turned on his lights. They didn't help at all, but Mel hoped B.T. would be able to see his taillights the way Cassie had. He couldn't see anything beyond a few yards in front of him. And if he had wanted a sign of his mental state, this was certainly appropriate.\n\n\"God has told us His will in no uncertain terms,\" the radio evangelist thundered, coming suddenly back into range. \"There can't be any question about it.\"\n\nBut he had dozens of questions. There had been no Megiddo on the map of Nebraska last night. Or of Kansas or Colorado or New Mexico, and nothing in all the prophecies about location except a reference to the New Jerusalem, and there was no New Jerusalem on the map either.\n\n\"And how do I know the Second Coming is at hand?\" the evangelist roared, suddenly back in range. \"Because the Bible tells us so. It tells us how He is coming and when!\"\n\nAnd that wasn't true, either. \"Ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh,\" Matthew had written, and Luke, \"The Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not,\" and even Revelation, \"I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come.\" It was the only thing they were all agreed on.\n\n\"The signs are all around us,\" the evangelist shouted. \"They're as plain as the nose on your face! Air pollution, liberals outlawing school prayer, wickedness! Why, anybody'd have to be blind not to recognize them! Open your eyes and see!\"\n\n\"All I see is fog,\" Mel said, turning on the defrost and wiping his sleeve across the windshield, but it wasn't the windshield. It was the world, which had vanished completely in the whiteness.\n\nHe nearly missed the turnoff to Redfield. Luckily, the fog was less dense in town, and they were able to find not only the rental car place, but the local Tastee Freez. Mel went over to get some lunch to take with them while B.T. checked the car in.\n\nIt was full of farmers, all talking about the weather. \"Damned meter-ologists,\" one of them, red-faced and wearing a John Deere cap and earmuffs, grumbled. \"Said it was supposed to be clear.\"\n\n\"It is clear,\" another one in a down vest said. \"He just didn't say where. You get up above that fog, say thirty thousand feet, and it's clear as a bell.\"\n\n\"Number six,\" the woman behind the counter called.\n\nMel went up to the counter and paid. There was a fluorescent green poster for the carnival taped up on the wall beside the counter. \"Come have the time of your life!\" it read. \"Thrills, chills, excitement!\"\n\nChills is right, Mel thought, thinking of how cold being up in a Ferris wheel in this fog would be.\n\nIt was an old sign. \"Littletown, Dec. 24,\" it read. \"Ft. Dodge, Dec. 28. Cairo, Dec. 30.\"\n\nB.T. was already in the car when Mel got back with their hamburgers and coffee. He handed him the sack and got back on the highway.\n\nThat was a mistake. The fog was so thick he couldn't even take a hand off the wheel to hold the hamburger B.T. offered him. \"I'll eat it later,\" he said, leaning forward and squinting as if that would make things clearer. \"You go ahead and eat, and we'll switch places in a couple of exits.\"\n\nBut there were no exits, or Mel couldn't see them in the fog, and after twenty miles of it, he had B.T. hand him his coffee, now stone cold, and took a couple of sips.\n\n\"I've been looking at the Second Coming scientifically,\" B.T. said. \" 'A great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea and the third part of the sea became blood.' \"\n\nMel glanced over. B.T. was reading from a black leather Bible. \"Where'd you get that?\" he asked.\n\n\"It was in the hotel room,\" B.T. said.\n\n\"You stole a Gideon Bible?\" Mel said.\n\n\"They put them there for people who need them. And I'd say we qualify. 'There was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the moon became as blood. And the stars of heaven fell into the earth. And every mountain and island were moved out of their places.'\n\n\"All these things are supposed to happen along with the Second Coming,\" B.T. said. \"Earthquakes, wars and rumors of wars, pestilence, locusts.\" He leafed through the flimsy pages. \" 'And there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth.' \"\n\nHe shut the Bible. \"All right, earthquakes happen all the time, and there have been wars and rumors of wars for the last ten thousand years, and I guess this\u2014'and the stars shall fall from the sky'\u2014could refer to meteors. But there's no sign of any of these other things. No locusts, no bottomless pit opening up, no 'third part of trees and grass were burnt up and a third part of the creatures which were in the sea died.' \"\n\n\"Nuclear war,\" Mel said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"According to the evangelists, that's supposed to refer to nuclear war,\" Mel said. \"And before that, to the Communist threat. Or fluoridation of water. Or anything else they disapprove of.\"\n\n\"Well, whatever it stands for, no bottomless pit has opened up lately or we would have seen it on CNN. And volcanoes don't cause locust swarms. Mel,\" he said seriously, \"let's say your experience was a real epiphany. Couldn't you have misinterpreted what it meant?\"\n\nAnd for a split second, Mel almost had it. The key to where He was and what was going to happen. The key to all of it.\n\n\"Couldn't it have been about something else?\" B.T. said. \"Something besides the Second Coming?\"\n\nNo, Mel thought, trying to hang on to the insight, it was the Second Coming, but\u2014it was gone. Whatever it was, he'd lost it.\n\nHe stared blindly ahead at the fog, trying to remember what had triggered it. B.T. had said, \"Couldn't you have misunderstood what it meant?\" No, that wasn't right. \"Couldn't you\u2014\"\n\n\"What is it?\" B.T. was pointing through the windshield.\"What is that? Up ahead?\"\n\n\"I don't see anything,\" Mel said, straining ahead. He couldn't see anything but fog. \"What was it?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I just saw a glimpse of lights.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\" Mel said. There was nothing there but whiteness.\n\n\"There it is again,\" B.T. said, pointing. \"Didn't you see it? Yellow flashing lights. There must be an accident. You'd better slow down.\"\n\nMel was already barely creeping along, but he slowed further, still unable to see anything. \"Was it on our side of the highway?\"\n\n\"Yes\u2026I don't know,\" B.T. said, leaning forward. \"I don't see it now. But I'm sure it was there.\"\n\nMel crawled forward, squinting into the whiteness. \"Could it have been a truck? The carnival truck had a yellow arrow,\" he said, and saw the lights.\n\nAnd they were definitely not a sign for a carnival ride. They filled the road just ahead, flashing yellow and red and blue, all out of synch with each other. Police cars or fire trucks or ambulances. Definitely an accident. He pumped the brakes, hoping whoever was behind him could see his taillights, and slowed to a stop.\n\nA patrolman appeared out of the fog, holding up his hand in the sign for \"stop.\" He was wearing a yellow poncho and a clear plastic cover over his brown hat.\n\nMel rolled his window down, and the patrolman leaned in to talk to them. \"Road up ahead's closed. You need to get off at this exit.\"\n\n\"Exit?\" Mel said, looking to the right. He could just make out a green outline in the fog.\n\n\"It's right there, up about a hundred yards,\" the patrolman said, pointing into nothingness. \"We'll come tell you when it's open again.\"\n\n\"Are you closing it because of the weather?\" B.T. asked.\n\nThe patrolman shook his head. \"Accident,\" he said. \"Big mess. It'll be a while.\" He motioned them off to the right.\n\nMel felt his way to the exit and off the highway. At least it had a truck stop instead of just a gas station. He and B.T. parked and went into the restaurant.\n\nIt was jammed. Every booth, every seat at the counter was full. Mel and B.T. sat down at the last unoccupied table, and it immediately became clear why it had been unoccupied. The draft when the door opened made B.T., who had just taken his coat off, put it back on and then zip it up.\n\nMel had expected everyone to be angry about the delay, but the waitresses and customers all seemed to be in a holiday mood. Truckers leaned across the backs of the booths to talk to each other, laughing, and the waitresses, carrying pots of coffee, were smiling. One of them had, inexplicably, a plastic Kewpie doll stuck in her beehive hairdo.\n\nThe door opened again, sending an Arctic blast across their table, and a paramedic came in and went up to the counter to talk to the waitress. \"\u2026accident\u2026\" Mel heard him say, shaking his head, \"\u2026carnival truck\u2026\"\n\nMel went over. \"Excuse me,\" he said. \"I heard you say something about a carnival truck. Is that what had the accident?\"\n\n\"Disaster is more like it,\" the paramedic said, shaking his head. \"Took a turn too sharp and lost his whole load. And don't ask me what a carnival's doing up here in the middle of winter.\"\n\n\"Was the driver hurt?\" Mel asked anxiously.\n\n\"Hurt? Hell, no. Not a scratch. But that road's going to be closed the rest of the day.\" He pulled a bamboo Chinese finger trap out of his pocket and handed it to Mel. \"Truck was carrying all the prizes and stuff for the midway. The whole road's covered in stuffed animals and baseballs. And you can't even see to clean 'em up.\"\n\nMel went back to the table and told B.T. what had happened.\n\n\"We could go south and pick up Highway 33,\" B.T. said, consulting the road atlas.\n\n\"No, you can't,\" the waitress, appearing with two pots of coffee, said. \"It's closed. Fog. So's 15 north.\" She poured coffee into their cups. \"You're not going anywhere.\"\n\nThe draft hit them again, and the waitress glanced over at the door. \"Hey! Don't just stand there\u2014shut the door!\"\n\nMel looked toward the door. Cassie was standing there, wearing a bulky orange sweater that made her look even rounder, and scanning the restaurant for an empty booth. She was carrying a red dinosaur under one arm and her bright green tote bag over the other.\n\n\"Cassie!\" Mel called to her, and she smiled and came over.\n\n\"Put your dinosaur down and join us,\" B.T. said.\n\n\"It's not a dinosaur,\" she said, setting it on the table. \"It's a dragon. See?\" she said, pointing to two pieces of red felt on its back. \"Wings.\"\n\n\"Where'd you get it?\" Mel said.\n\n\"The driver of the truck that spilled them gave it to me,\" she said. \"I'd better call my sister before she hears about this on the news,\" she said, looking around the restaurant. \"Do you think the phones are working?\"\n\nB.T. pointed at a sign that said \"Phones,\" and she left.\n\nShe was back instantly. \"There's a line,\" she said, and sat down. The waitress came by again with coffee and menus, and they ordered pie, and then Cassie went to check the phones again.\n\n\"There's still a line,\" she said, coming back. \"My sister will have a fit when she hears about this. She already thinks I'm crazy. And out there in that fog today I thought so, too. I wish my grandmother had never looked up verses in the Bible.\"\n\n\"The Bible?\" Mel said.\n\nShe waved her hand dismissively. \"It's a long story.\"\n\n\"We seem to have plenty of time,\" B.T. said.\n\n\"Well,\" she said, settling herself. \"I'm an English teacher\u2014was an English teacher\u2014and the school board offered this early-retirement bonus that was too good to turn down, so I retired in June, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. I'd always wanted to travel, but I hate traveling alone, and I didn't know where I wanted to go. So I got on the sub list\u2014our district has a terrible time getting subs, and there's been all this flu.\"\n\nIt is going to be a long story, Mel thought. He picked up the finger trap and idly stuck his finger into one end. B.T. leaned back in his chair.\n\n\"Well, anyway, I was subbing for Carla Sewell, who teaches sophomore lit, Julius Caesar, and I couldn't remember the speech about our fate being in the stars, dear Brutus.\"\n\nMel stuck a forefinger into the other side of the finger trap.\n\n\"So I was looking it up, but I read the page number wrong, so when I looked it up, it wasn't Julius Caesar, it was Twelfth Night.\"\n\nMel stretched the finger trap experimentally. It tightened on his fingers.\n\n\" 'Westward ho!' it said,\" Cassie said, \"and sitting there, reading it, I had this epiphany.\"\n\n\"Epiphany?\" Mel said, yanking his fingers apart.\n\n\"Epiphany?\" B.T. said.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" Cassie said. \"I keep thinking I'm still an English teacher. 'Epiphany' is a literary term for a revelation, a sudden understanding, like in James Joyce's The Dubliners. The word comes from\u2014\"\n\n\"The story of the wise men,\" Mel said.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said delightedly, and Mel half expected her to announce that he had gotten an A. \" 'Epiphany' is the word for their arrival at the manger.\"\n\nAnd there it was again. The feeling that he knew where Christ was. The wise men's arrival at the manger. James Joyce.\n\n\"When I read the words 'Westward ho!' \" Cassie was saying, \"I thought, that means me. I have to go west. Something important is going to happen.\" She looked from one to the other. \"You probably think I'm crazy, doing something because of a line in Bartlett's Quotations. But whenever my grandmother had an important decision to make, she used to close her eyes and open her Bible and point at a Scripture, and when she opened her eyes, whatever the Scripture said to do, she'd do it. And, after all, Bartlett's is the Bible of English teachers. So I tried it. I closed the book and my eyes and picked a quotation at random, and it said, 'Come, my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world.' \"\n\n\"Tennyson,\" Mel said.\n\nShe nodded. \"So here I am.\"\n\n\"And has something important happened?\" B.T. asked.\n\n\"Not yet,\" she said, sounding completely unconcerned. \"But it's going to happen soon\u2014I'm sure of it. And in the meantime, I'm seeing all these wonderful sights. I went to Gene Stratton-Porter's cabin in Geneva, and the house where Mark Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, and Sherwood Anderson's museum.\"\n\nShe looked at Mel. \"Struggling against it doesn't work,\" she said, pushing her index fingers together, and Mel realized he was struggling vainly to free his fingers from the finger trap. \"You have to push them together.\"\n\nThere was a blast of icy air and a patrolman wearing three pink plastic leis around his neck and carrying a spotted plush leopard came in.\n\n\"Road's open,\" he said, and there was a general scramble for coats. \"It's still real foggy out there,\" he said, raising his voice, \"so don't get carried away.\"\n\nMel freed himself from the finger trap and helped Cassie into her coat while B.T. paid the bill. \"Do you want to follow us?\" he asked.\n\n\"No,\" she said, \"I'm going to try to call my sister again, and if she's heard about this accident, it'll take forever. You go on.\"\n\nB.T. came back from paying, and they went out to the car, which had acquired a thin, rock-hard coating of ice. Mel, chipping at the windshield with the scraper, started a new offshoot in the rapidly spreading crack.\n\nThey got back on the interstate. The fog was thicker than ever. Mel peered through it, looking at objects dimly visible at the sides of the road. The debris from the accident\u2014baseballs and plastic leis and Coke bottles. Stuffed animals and Kewpie dolls littered the median, looking in the fog like the casualties of some great battle.\n\n\"I suppose you consider this the sign you were looking for,\" B.T. said.\n\n\"What?\" Mel said.\n\n\"Cassie's so-called epiphany. You can read anything you want into random quotations,\" B.T. said. \"You realize that, don't you? It's like reading your horoscope. Or a fortune cookie.\"\n\n\"The Devil can quote Scripture to his own ends,\" Mel murmured.\n\n\"Exactly,\" B.T. said, opening the Gideon Bible and closing his eyes. \"Look,\" he said \"Psalm 115, verse 5. 'Eyes have they, but they see not.' Obviously a reference to the fog.\"\n\nHe flipped to another page and stabbed his finger at it. \" 'Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing.' Oh, dear, we shouldn't have ordered that pie. You can make them mean anything. And you heard her, she'd retired, she liked to travel, she was obviously looking for an excuse to go somewhere. And her epiphany only said something important was going to happen. It didn't say a word about the Second Coming.\"\n\n\"It told her to go west,\" Mel said, trying to remember exactly what she had said. She had been looking for a speech from Julius Caesar and had stumbled on Twelfth Night instead. Twelfth night. Epiphany.\n\n\"How many times is the word 'west' mentioned in Bartlett's Quotations?\" B.T. said. \"A hundred? 'Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west'? 'Go west, young man'? 'One flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo's nest'?\" He shut the Bible. \"I'm sorry,\" he said. \"It's just\u2014\" He turned and looked out his window at nothing. \"It looks like it might be breaking up.\"\n\nIt wasn't. The fog thinned a little, swirling away from the car in little eddies, and then descended again, more smothering than ever.\n\n\"Suppose you do find Him? What do you do then?\" B.T. said. \"Bow down and worship Him? Give Him frankincense and myrrh?\"\n\n\"Help Him,\" Mel said.\n\n\"Help Him what? Separate the sheep from the goats? Fight the battle of Armageddon?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Mel said. \"Maybe.\"\n\n\"You really think there's going to be a battle between good and evil?\"\n\n\"There's always a battle between good and evil,\" Mel said. \"Look at the first time He came. He hadn't been on earth a week before Herod's men were out looking for Him. They murdered every baby and two-year-old in Bethlehem, trying to kill Him.\"\n\nAnd thirty-three years later they succeeded, Mel thought. Only killing couldn't stop Him. Nothing could stop Him.\n\nWho had said that? The kid from the carnival, talking about the windshield. \"Nothing can stop it. There's stuff you could do to keep it from spreading for a while, but it's still going to spread. There ain't nothing that can stop it.\"\n\nHe felt a flicker of the feeling again. Something about the kid from the carnival. What had he been talking about before that? Siamese twins. And Roswell. No. Something else.\n\nHe tried to think what Cassie had said at the truck stop. Something about the wise men arriving at the manger. And not struggling. \"You have to push them together,\" she had said.\n\nIt stayed tantalizingly out of reach, as elusive as a road sign glimpsed in the fog.\n\nB.T. reached forward and flicked on the radio. \"Foggy tonight, and colder,\" it said. \"In the teens for eastern Nebraska, down in the\u2026\" It faded to static. B.T. twisted the knob.\n\n\"And do you know what will happen to us when Jesus comes?\" an evangelist shouted, \"The Book of Revelation tells us we will be tormented with fire and brimstone, unless we repent now, before it's too late!\"\n\n\"A little fire and brimstone would be welcome right about now,\" B.T. said, reaching forward to turn the heater up to high.\n\n\"There's a blanket in the backseat,\" Mel said, and B.T. reached back and wrapped himself up in it.\n\n\"We will be scorched with fire,\" the radio said, \"and the smoke of our torment will rise up forever and ever.\"\n\nB.T. leaned his head against the doorjamb. \"Just so it's warm,\" he murmured, and closed his eyes.\n\n\"But that's not all that will happen to us if we do not repent,\" the evangelist said, \"if we do not take Jesus as our personal Savior. The Book of Revelation tells us in Chapter 14 that we will be cast into the winepress of God's wrath and be trodden in it till our blood covers the ground for a thousand miles! And don't fool yourselves, that day is coming soon! The signs are all around us! Wait till your father gets home.\"\n\nMel switched it off, but it was too late. The evangelist had hit it, the problem Mel had been trying to avoid since that moment in the sanctuary.\n\nI don't believe it, he had thought when he'd heard the minister talking about Jesus forbidding believers to associate with outcasts. And he had thought it again when he heard the radio evangelist that first day talking about Christ coming to get revenge.\n\n\"I don't believe it,\" he thought, and when B.T. stirred in his corner, he realized he had spoken aloud.\n\n\"I don't believe it,\" he murmured. God had so loved the world, He had sent His only begotten Son to live among men, to be a helpless baby and a little boy and a young man, had sent Him to be cold and confused, angry and overjoyed. \"To share our common lot,\" the Nicene Creed said. To undergo and understand and forgive. \"Father, forgive them,\" He had said, with nails driven through His hands, and when they had arrested Him, He had made the disciples put away their weapons. He had healed the soldier's ear Peter had cut off.\n\nHe would never, never come back in a blaze of wrath and revenge, slaughtering enemies, tormenting unbelievers, wreaking fire and pestilence and famine on them. Never.\n\nAnd how can I believe in a revelation about the Second Coming, Mel thought, when I don't believe in the Second Coming?\n\nBut the revelation wasn't about the Second Coming, he thought. He hadn't seen earthquakes or Armageddon or Christ coming in a blaze of clouds and glory. He's already here, Mel had thought, now, and had set out to find Him, to look for a sign.\n\nBut there aren't any, he thought, and saw one off in the mist. \"Prairie Home 5. Denver 468.\"\n\nDenver. They would be there tomorrow night. And B.T. would want him to fly home with him.\n\nUnless I figure out the key, Mel thought. Unless I'm given a sign. Or unless the roads are closed.\n\n\"And, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them.\"\n\n\u2014Matthew 2:9\n\n\"They should be open,\" the woman at the Wayfarer Motel said. The Holiday Inn and the Super 8 and the Innkeeper had all been full up, and the Wayfarer had only one room left. \"There's supposed to be fog in the morning, and then it's supposed to be nice all the way till Sunday.\"\n\n\"What about the roads east?\" B.T. asked.\n\n\"No problem,\" she said.\n\nThe Wayfarer didn't have a coffee shop. They ate supper at the Village Inn on the other end of town. As they were leaving, they ran into Cassie in the parking lot.\n\n\"Oh, good,\" she said. \"I was afraid I wouldn't have a chance to say goodbye.\"\n\n\"Goodbye?\" Mel said.\n\n\"I'm heading south tomorrow to Red Cloud. When I consulted Bartlett's, it said, 'Winter lies too long in country towns.' \"\n\n\"Oh?\" Mel said, wondering what this had to do with going south.\n\n\"Willa Cather,\" Cassie said. \"My \u00c1ntonia. I didn't understand it, either, so I tried the Gideon Bible in my hotel, it's so nice of them to leave them there, and it was Exodus 13:21, 'And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire.' \"\n\nShe smiled expectantly at them. \"Pillar of fire. Red Cloud. Willa Cather's museum is in Red Cloud.\"\n\nThey said goodbye to her and went back to the motel. B.T. sat down on his bed and took his laptop out of his suitcase. \"I've got some email I've got to answer,\" he said.\n\nAnd send? Mel wondered. \"Dear Mrs. Bilderbeck, we'll be in Denver tomorrow. Am hoping to persuade Mel to come home with me. Have straitjacket ready.\"\n\nMel sat down in the room's only chair with the Rand McNally and looked at the map of Nebraska, searching for a town named Megiddo or New Jerusalem. There was Red Cloud, down near the southern border of Nebraska. Pillar of fire. Why couldn't he have had a nice straightforward sign like that? A pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. Or a star.\n\nBut Moses had wandered around in the wilderness for forty years following said pillar. And the star hadn't led the wise men to Bethlehem. It had led them straight into King Herod's arms. They hadn't had a clue where the newborn Christ was. \"Where is He that is born king of the Jews?\" they'd asked Herod.\n\n\"Where is He?\" Mel murmured, and B.T. glanced up from his laptop and then back down at it again, typing steadily.\n\nMel turned to the map of Colorado. Beulah. Bonanza. Firstview.\n\n\"Even if your\u2014epiphany\u2014was real,\" B.T. had asked him this afternoon, \"couldn't you have misinterpreted what it means?\"\n\nWell, if he had, he wouldn't have been the first one. The Bible was full of people who had misinterpreted prophecies. \"Dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me,\" the Scriptures said, \"they pierced my hands and my feet.\" But nobody saw the Crucifixion coming. Or the Resurrection.\n\nHis own disciples didn't recognize Him. Easter Sunday they walked all the way to Emmaus with Him without figuring out who He was, and even when He told them, Thomas refused to believe Him and demanded to see the scars of the nails in His hands.\n\nThey had never recognized Him. Isaiah had plainly predicted a virgin who would bring forth a child \"out of the root of Jesse,\" a child who would redeem Israel. But nobody had thought that meant a baby in a stable.\n\nThey had thought he was talking about a warrior, a king who would raise an army and drive the hated foreigners out of their country, a hero on a white horse who would vanquish their enemies and set them free. And He had, but not in the way they expected.\n\nNobody had expected Him to be a poor itinerant preacher from an obscure family, with no college degree and no military training, a nobody. Even the wise men had expected Him to be royalty. \"Where is the king whose star we have seen in the east?\" they had asked Herod.\n\nAnd Herod had promptly sent soldiers out to search for a usurper, a threat to his throne.\n\nThey had been looking for the wrong thing. And maybe B.T.'s right, maybe I am, too, and that's the answer. The Second Coming isn't going to be battles and earthquakes and falling stars, and Revelation means something else, like the prophecies of the Messiah.\n\nOr maybe it wasn't the Second Coming, and Christ was here only in a symbolic sense, in the poor, the hungry, in those in need of help. \"As ye have done this unto the least of these\u2014\"\n\n\"Maybe the Second Coming really is here,\" B.T. said from the bed. \"Look at this.\"\n\nHe turned the laptop around so Mel could see the screen. \"Watch, therefore,\" it read, \"for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.\"\n\n\"It's a website,\" B.T. said. \"www.watchman.\"\n\n\"It probably belongs to one of the radio evangelists,\" Mel said.\n\n\"I don't think so,\" B.T. said. He hit a key, and a new screen came up. It was full of entries.\n\n\"Meteor, 12-23, 4 mi. NNW Raton.\"\n\n\"Examined area. 12-28. No sign.\"\n\n\"Weather Channel 11-2, 9:15 A.M. PST. Reference to unusual cloud formations.\"\n\n\"Latitude and longitude? Need location.\"\n\n\"8.6 mi. WNW Prescott AZ 11-4.\"\n\n\"Denver Post 914P8C2\u2014Headline: 'Unusually high lightning activity strikes Carson National Forest.' MT2427.\"\n\n\"What do you think that stands for?\" B.T. said, pointing at the string of letters and numbers.\n\n\"Matthew 24, verse 27,\" Mel said. \" 'For the lightning cometh out of the west and shineth even unto the east, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.' \"\n\nB.T. nodded and scrolled the screen down.\n\n\"Triple lightning strike. 7-11, Platteville CO. Nov. 28. Two injured.\"\n\n\"Lightning storm, Dec. 4, Truth or Consequences.\"\n\n\"What about that one?\" B.T. said, pointing at \"Truth or Consequences.\"\n\n\"It's a town in southern New Mexico,\" Mel said.\n\n\"Oh.\" B.T. scrolled the screen down some more.\n\n\"Falling star, 12-30, 2 mi. W of U.S. State Hwy 191, west of Bozeman, mile marker 161.\"\n\n\"Coma patient recovery, Yale\u2014New Haven Hosp. Connection?\"\n\n\"Negative. Too far east.\"\n\n\"Possible sighting Nevada.\"\n\n\"Need location.\"\n\nNeed location. \" 'Go search diligently for the young child,' \" Mel murmured, \" 'and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him.' \"\n\n\"What?\" B.T. said.\n\n\"It's what Herod said when the wise men told him about the star.\" He stared at the screen:\n\n\"L.A. Times Jan 2 P5C1. Fish die-off. RV89?\"\n\n\"Possible sighting. Old Faithful, Yellowstone Nat'l Pk, Jan. 2.\"\n\nAnd over and over again:\n\n\"Need location.\"\n\n\"Need location.\"\n\n\"Need location.\"\n\n\"They obviously think the Second Coming's happened,\" B.T. said, staring at the screen.\n\n\"Or aliens have landed at Roswell,\" Mel said. He pointed to the convenience store entry. \"Or Elvis is back.\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" B.T. said, staring at the screen.\n\nMel went back to looking at the maps. Barren Rock. Deadwood. Last Chance.\n\nNeed location, he thought. Maybe he and Cassie and whoever had written \"Too far east\" on the website had all misinterpreted the message, and it was not \"west\" but \"West.\"\n\nHe turned to the gazetteer in the back. West. Westwood Hills, Kansas. Westville, Oklahoma. West Hollywood, California. Westview. Westgate. Westmont. There was a Westwood Hills in Kansas. Colorado had a Westcliffe, a Western Hills, and a Westminster. Neither Arizona nor New Mexico had any Wests. Nevada didn't either. Nebraska had a West Point.\n\nWest Point. Maybe it wasn't even in the west. Maybe it was West Orange, New Jersey, or West Palm Beach. Or West Berlin.\n\nHe shut the atlas and looked over at B.T. He had dozed off, his face tired and worried-looking even in sleep. His laptop was on his chest, and the Gideon Bible he had stolen from the Holiday Inn lay beside him.\n\nMel shut the laptop off and quietly closed it. B.T. didn't move. Mel picked up the Bible.\n\nThe answer had to be in the Scriptures. He opened the Bible to Matthew. \"Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.\"\n\nHe read on. Disasters and devastation and tribulation, as the prophets had spoken.\n\nThe prophets. He found Isaiah. \"Hear ye indeed but understand not; and see ye indeed but perceive not.\"\n\nHe shut the Bible. All right, he thought, standing it on its spine on his hand. Let's have a sign here. I'm running out of time.\n\nHe opened his eyes. His finger was on I Samuel 23, verse 14. \"And Saul sought him every day, but God delivered him not into his hand.\"\n\n\"For all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.\"\n\n\u2014Matthew 24:6\n\nAll the roads were open, and, from Grand Island, clear and dry, and the fog had lifted a little.\n\n\"With roads like this, we ought to be in Denver by tonight,\" B.T. said.\n\nYes, Mel thought, finishing what B.T. had said. If you fly back with me, we could be there in time for the ecumenical meeting. Nobody'd ever have to know he'd been gone, except Mrs. Bilderbeck, and he could tell her he'd been offered a job by another church, but had decided not to take it, which was true.\n\n\"It just didn't work out,\" he would tell Mrs. Bilderbeck, and she would be so overjoyed that he wasn't leaving, she wouldn't even ask for details.\n\nAnd he could go back to doing sermons and giving the choir plenty of warning, storing the star, and keeping the pilot light going, as if nothing had happened.\n\n\"Exit 312,\" a green interstate sign up ahead said. \"Hastings 18. Red Cloud 57.\"\n\nHe wondered if Cassie was already at Willa Cather's house, convinced she had been led there by Bartlett's Quotations.\n\nCassie had no trouble finding signs\u2014she saw them everywhere. And maybe they are everywhere, and I'm just not seeing them. Maybe Hastings is a sign, and the truck full of mirrors, and those stuffed toys all over the road. Maybe that Chinese finger trap I got stuck in yesterday was\u2014\n\n\"Look,\" B.T. said. \"Wasn't that Cassie's car?\"\n\n\"Where?\" Mel said, craning his neck around.\n\n\"In that ditch back there.\"\n\nThis time Mel didn't wait for an \"Authorized Vehicles Only\" crossing. He plunged into the snowy median and back along the other side of the highway, still unable to see anything.\n\n\"There,\" B.T. said, pointing, and he turned onto the median.\n\nHe had crossed both lanes and was onto the shoulder before he saw the Honda, halfway down a steep ditch and tilted at an awkward angle. He couldn't see anyone in the driver's seat.\n\nB.T. was out of the car before Mel got the car stopped and plunging down the snowy bank, with Mel behind him. B.T. wrenched the car door open.\n\nCassie's green tote bag was on the floor of the passenger seat. B.T. peered into the backseat. \"She's not here,\" he said unnecessarily.\n\n\"Cassie!\" Mel called. He ran around the front of the car, though she couldn't have been thrown out. The door would have been open if she'd been thrown out. \"Cassie!\"\n\n\"Here,\" a faint voice said, and Mel looked down the slope. Cassie lay at the bottom in tall dry weeds.\n\n\"She's down here,\" he said, and half walked, half slid down the ravine.\n\nShe was lying on her back with her leg bent under her. \"I think it's broken,\" she said to Mel.\n\n\"Go flag a semi down,\" Mel said to B.T., who'd appeared above them. \"Have them call an ambulance.\"\n\nB.T. disappeared, and Mel turned back to Cassie. \"How long have you been here?\" he asked her, pulling off his overcoat and tucking it around her.\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said, shivering. \"There was a patch of ice. I didn't think anybody'd see the car, so I got out to climb up to the road, and that's when I slipped. My leg's broken, isn't it?\"\n\nAt that angle, it had to be. \"I think it probably is,\" Mel said.\n\nShe turned her face away in the dry weeds. \"My sister was right.\"\n\nMel took off his jacket, rolled it up, and put it under her head. \"We'll have an ambulance here for you in no time.\"\n\n\"She told me I was crazy,\" Cassie said, still not looking at Mel, \"and this proves it, doesn't it? And she didn't even know about the epiphany.\" She turned and looked at Mel. \"Only it wasn't an epiphany. Just low estrogen levels.\"\n\n\"Conserve your strength,\" he said, and looked anxiously up the slope.\n\nCassie grabbed at his hand. \"I lied to you. I wasn't offered early retirement. I asked for it. I was so sure 'Westward ho!' meant something. I sold my house and took out all my savings.\"\n\nHer hand was red with cold. Mel wished he had taken his gloves back when the kid from the carnival offered them. He took her icy hand between his own and held it tightly.\n\n\"I was so sure,\" she said.\n\n\"Mel,\" B.T. called from above them. \"I've had four semis go by without stopping. I think it's the color.\" He pointed to his black face. \"You need to come up and try.\"\n\n\"I'll be right there,\" Mel called back up to him. \"I'll be right back,\" he said to Cassie.\n\n\"No,\" she said, clutching his hand. \"Don't you see? It didn't mean anything. It was nothing but menopause, like my sister said. She tried to tell me, but I wouldn't listen.\"\n\n\"Cassie,\" Mel said, gently releasing her hand, \"we need to get you out of here and into town to a hospital. You can tell me all about it then.\"\n\n\"There's nothing to tell,\" she said, and let go of his hand.\n\n\"Come on, there's another truck coming,\" B.T. called down, and Mel started up the slope. \"No, never mind,\" B.T. said. \"The cavalry's here,\" he said, and, amazingly, he laughed.\n\nThere was a screech of hydraulic brakes. Mel scrambled up the rest of the way. A truck was stopping. It was one of the carnival's, loaded with merry-go-round horses, white and black and palomino, with red-and-gold saddles and jeweled bridles. B.T. was already running toward the cab, asking, \"Do you have a CB?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" the driver said, and came around the back of the truck. It was the kid Mel had picked up, still wearing the gloves he had given him.\n\n\"We need an ambulance,\" Mel said. \"There's a lady hurt here.\"\n\n\"Sure thing,\" the kid said, and disappeared back around the truck.\n\nMel skidded back down the slope to Cassie. \"He's calling an ambulance,\" he said to her.\n\nShe nodded uninterestedly.\n\n\"They're on their way,\" the kid called down from above them. He went over to the Honda, B.T. following, and stuck his head under the back of it. He walked all around it, squatting next to the far wheels, and then disappeared back up the slope again.\n\n\"He says his truck doesn't have a tow rope,\" B.T. said, coming back to report, \"and he doesn't think he could get the car out anyway, so he's calling a tow truck.\"\n\nMel nodded. \"I saw a sign that said the next town was only ten miles. They'll have you in out of the cold before you know it.\"\n\nShe didn't answer. Mel wondered if perhaps she was going into shock. \"Cassie,\" he said, taking her hands again and rubbing them in spite of what he'd told the kid about frostbite. \"We were so surprised to see your car,\" he said, just to be saying something, to get her to talk. \"We thought you were going down to Red Cloud. What made you change your mind?\"\n\n\"Bartlett's,\" she said bitterly. \"When I was putting my tote bag in the car, it fell out onto the parking lot, and when I picked it up, the first thing I read was from William Blake. 'Turn away no more,' it said. I thought it meant I shouldn't turn south to Red Cloud, that I should keep going west. Can you imagine anybody being that stupid?\"\n\nYes, Mel thought.\n\nThe ambulance pulled up, sirens and yellow lights blazing, and two paramedics leaped out with a stretcher, skidded down the slope to where Cassie was, and began maneuvering her expertly onto it.\n\nMel went over to B.T. \"You go in with her in the ambulance,\" he said, \"and I'll wait here for the tow truck.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\" B.T. said. \"I can wait here.\"\n\n\"No,\" Mel said. \"I'll follow the tow truck to the garage and find out what I can about her car. Then I'll meet you at the hospital. What time's the earliest flight home from Denver tomorrow?\"\n\n\"Flight?\" B.T. said. \"No. I'm not going home without you.\"\n\n\"You won't have to,\" Mel said. \"What time's the earliest flight?\"\n\n\"I don't understand\u2014\"\n\n\"Or we can drive back. If we take turns driving we can be back in time for the ecumenical meeting.\"\n\n\"But\u2014\" B.T. said bewilderedly.\n\n\"I wanted a sign. Well, I got it,\" he said, waving his arm at Cassie, at her car. \"I don't have to be hit over the head to get the message. I'm out here in the middle of nowhere in the middle of winter on a fool's errand.\"\n\n\"What about the epiphany?\"\n\n\"It was a hallucination, a seizure, a temporary hormonal imbalance.\"\n\n\"And what about your call to the ministry?\" B.T. said. \"Was that a hallucination, too? What about Cassie?\"\n\n\"The Devil can quote Scripture, remember?\" Mel said bitterly. \"And Bartlett's Quotations.\"\n\n\"Can you give us a hand here?\" one of the paramedics called. They had Cassie on the stretcher and were ready to carry it up the slope.\n\n\"Coming,\" Mel said, and started toward them.\n\nB.T. took his arm. \"What about the others who are looking for Him? The watchman website?\"\n\n\"UFO nuts,\" Mel said, and went over to the stretcher. \"It doesn't mean anything.\"\n\nCassie lay under a gray blanket, her head turned to the side, the way it had been when Mel found her.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" B.T., taking hold of the other side of the stretcher, asked.\n\n\"No,\" she said, and a tear wobbled down her plump cheek. \"I'm sorry I put you to all this trouble.\"\n\nThe kid from the carnival took hold of the front of the stretcher. \"Things aren't always as bad as they look,\" he said, patting the blanket. \"I saw a guy fall off the top of the Ferris wheel once, and he wasn't even hurt.\"\n\nCassie shook her head. \"It was a mistake. I shouldn't have come.\"\n\n\"Don't say that,\" B.T. said. \"You got to see Mark Twain's house. And Gene Stratton-Porter's.\"\n\nShe turned her face away. \"What good are they? I'm not even an English teacher anymore.\"\n\nThings might not have been as bad as they looked for the guy who fell off the Ferris wheel, but they were even worse than they looked when it came to the snowy slope and getting Cassie up it. By the time they got her into the ambulance, her face was as gray as the blanket and twisted with pain. The paramedics began hooking her up to a blood pressure cuff and an IV.\n\n\"I'll meet you at the hospital,\" Mel said. \"You can call Mrs. Bilderbeck and tell her we're coming.\"\n\n\"What if the roads are closed?\" B.T. said.\n\n\"You heard the clerk last night. Clear both directions.\" He looked at B.T. \"I thought this was what you wanted, for me to come to my senses, to admit I was crazy.\"\n\nB.T. looked unhappy. \"Animals don't always leave tracks,\" he said. \"I learned that five years ago banding deer for a Lyme disease project. Sometimes they leave all sorts of sign, other times they're invisible.\"\n\nThe paramedics were shutting the doors. \"Wait,\" B.T. said. \"I'm going with her.\"\n\nHe clambered up into the back of the ambulance. \"Do you know the only way you can tell for sure the deer are there?\"\n\nMel shook his head.\n\n\"By the wolves,\" B.T. said.\n\n\"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign.\"\n\n\u2014Isaiah 7:14\n\nIt took nearly an hour for the tow truck to get there. Mel waited in his car with the heater running for a while, and then got out and went over to stare at Cassie's Honda.\n\nWolves, B.T. had said. Predators. \" 'For wheresoever the carcass is,' \" he quoted, \" 'there will the eagles be gathered together.' MT2428.\"\n\n\"The Devil can quote Scripture,\" he said aloud, and got back into the car.\n\nThe crack in the windshield had split again, splaying out in two new directions from the center. A definite sign.\n\nYou've had dozens of signs, he thought. Blizzards, road closures, icy and snow-packed conditions. You just chose to ignore them.\n\n\"Why, anybody'd have to be blind not to recognize them,\" the radio evangelist had said, and that was what he had been, willfully blind, pretending the yellow arrow, the roads closing behind him, were signs he was going in the right direction, that Cassie's \"Westward ho!\" was outside confirmation.\n\n\"It didn't mean anything,\" he said.\n\nIt was getting dark by the time the tow truck finally got there, and pitch-black by the time they got Cassie's Honda pulled up the slope.\n\nAnd that was a sign, too, Mel thought, following the tow truck. Like the fog and the carnival truck jackknifed across the highway and the \"No Vacancy\" signs on the motels. All of them flashing the same message: It was a mistake. Give up. Go home.\n\nThe tow truck had gotten far ahead of him. He stepped on the gas, but a very slow pickup pulled in front of him, and an even slower recreation vehicle was blocking the right lane. By the time he got to the gas station, the mechanic was already sliding out from under the Honda and shaking his head.\n\n\"Snapped an axle and did in the transmission,\" he said, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. \"Cost at least fifteen hundred to fix it, and I doubt if it's worth half that.\" He patted the hood sympathetically. \"I'm afraid it's the end of the road.\"\n\nThe end of the road. All right, all right, Mel thought, I get the message.\n\n\"So what do you want to do?\" the mechanic asked.\n\nGive up, Mel thought. Come to my senses. Go home. \"It's not my car,\" he said. \"I'll have to ask the owner. She's in the hospital right now.\"\n\n\"She hurt bad?\"\n\nMel remembered her lying there in the weeds, saying, \"It didn't mean anything.\"\n\n\"No,\" he lied.\n\n\"Tell her I can do an estimate on a new axle and a new transmission if she wants,\" the mechanic said reluctantly, \"but if I was her I'd take the insurance and start over.\"\n\n\"I'll tell her,\" Mel said. He opened the trunk and took out her suitcase, and then went around to the passenger side to get her green bag out of the backseat.\n\nThere was a bright yellow flyer rolled up and jammed in the door handle. Mel unrolled it. It was a flyer from the carnival. The kid must have stuck it there, Mel thought, smiling in spite of himself.\n\nThere was a drawing of a trumpet at the top, with \"Come one, come all!\" issuing from the mouth of it.\n\nUnderneath that, there was a drawing of the triple Ferris wheel, and scattered in boxes across the page, \"Marvel at the Living Fountains,\" \"Ride the Sea Dragon!,\" \"Popcorn, Snow Cones, Cotton Candy!,\" \"See a Lion and a Lamb in a Single Cage!\"\n\nMel stared at the flyer.\n\n\"Tell her if she wants to sell it for parts,\" the mechanic said, \"I can give her four hundred.\"\n\nA lion and a lamb. Wheels within wheels. \"For the Lamb shall lead them unto living fountains of waters.\"\n\n\"What's that you're reading?\" the mechanic said, coming around the car.\n\nA midway with stuffed animals for prizes\u2014bears and lions and red dragons\u2014and a ride called the Shooting Star, a hall of mirrors. \"For now we see in a glass darkly but then we shall see face to face.\"\n\nThe mechanic peered over his shoulder. \"Oh, an ad for that crazy carnival,\" he said. \"Yeah, I got a sign for it in the window.\"\n\nA sign. \"For behold, I give you a sign.\" And the sign was just what it said, a sign. Like the Siamese twins. Like the peace sign on the back of the kid's hand. \"For unto us a son is given, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Prince of Peace.\" On the kid's scarred hand.\n\n\"If she wants an estimate, tell her it'll take some time,\" the mechanic said, but Mel wasn't listening. He was gazing blindly at the flyer. \"Peer into the Bottomless Pit!\" it said. \"Ride the Merry-Go-Round!\"\n\n\" 'And thus I saw the horses in the vision,' \" Mel murmured, \" 'and them that sat upon them.' \" He started to laugh.\n\nThe mechanic frowned at him. \"It ain't funny,\" he said. \"This car's a real mess. So what do you think she'll want to do?\"\n\n\"Go to a carnival,\" Mel said, and ran to get in his car.\n\n\"And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun.\"\n\n\u2014Revelation 22:5\n\nThe hospital was a three-story brick building. Mel parked in front of the emergency entrance and went in.\n\n\"May I help you?\" the admitting nurse asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"I'm looking for\u2014\" and then stopped. Behind the desk was a sign for the carnival with dates at the bottom. \"Crown Point, Dec. 14\" it read. \"Gresham, Jan. 13. Empyrean, Jan. 15.\"\n\n\"May I help you, sir?\" the nurse said again, and Mel turned to ask her where Empyrean was, but she wasn't talking to him. She was asking two men in navy blue suits.\n\n\"Yes,\" the taller one said, \"we're starting a hospital outreach, ministering to people who are in the hospital far from home. Do you have any patients here from out of town?\"\n\nThe nurse looked doubtful. \"I'm afraid we're not allowed to give out information about patients.\"\n\n\"Of course, I understand,\" the man said, opening his Bible. \"We don't want to violate anyone's privacy. We'd just like to be able to say a few words of comfort, like the Good Samaritan.\"\n\n\"I'm not supposed to\u2026\" the nurse said.\n\n\"We understand,\" the shorter man said. \"Will you join us in a moment of prayer? Precious Lord, we seek\u2014\"\n\nThe door opened, and as they all turned to look at a boy with a bleeding forehead, Mel slipped down the hall and up the stairs.\n\nWhere would they have taken her? he wondered, peering into rooms with open doors. Did a hospital this small even have separate wards, or were all the patients jumbled together?\n\nShe wasn't on the first floor. He hurried up the stairs to the second, keeping an eye out for the men in the navy blue suits. They didn't know her name yet, but they would soon. Even if they couldn't get it out of the admitting nurse, Cassie would have given them her health insurance card. It would all be in the computer. Where would they have taken her? X-ray, he thought.\n\n\"Can you tell me how to get to X-ray?\" he asked a middle-aged woman in a pink uniform.\n\n\"Third floor,\" she said, and pointed toward the elevator.\n\nMel thanked her, and as soon as she was out of sight, he took the stairs two at a time.\n\nCassie wasn't in X-ray. Mel started to look for a technician to ask and then saw B.T. down at the end of the hall.\n\n\"Good news,\" B.T. said as he hurried up to him. \"It's not broken. She's got a sprained knee.\"\n\n\"Where is she?\" Mel asked, taking B.T.'s arm.\n\n\"In 308,\" B.T. said, and Mel propelled him into the room and shut the door behind them.\n\nCassie, in a white hospital gown, was lying in the far bed, her head turned away from them as it had been in the frozen weeds. She looked pale and listless.\n\n\"She called her sister,\" B.T. said, looking anxiously at her. \"She's on her way down from Minnesota to get her.\"\n\n\"She told me I was lucky I hadn't gotten into worse trouble than a sprained knee,\" Cassie said, turning to look at Mel. \"How's my car?\"\n\n\"A dead loss,\" Mel said, stepping up to the head of the bed. \"But it doesn't matter. We\u2014\"\n\n\"You're right,\" she said, and turned her head on the pillow. \"It doesn't matter. I've come to my senses. I'm going home.\" She smiled wanly at Mel. \"I'm just sorry you had to go to all this trouble for me, but at least it won't be for much longer. My sister should be here tomorrow night, and the hospital is keeping me overnight for observation, so you two don't have to stay. You can go to your religious meeting.\"\n\n\"We lied to you,\" Mel said. \"We're not on our way to a religious meeting,\" and realized they were. \"You aren't the only one who had an epiphany.\"\n\n\"I'm not?\" she said, and pushed herself partway up against the pillows.\n\n\"No. I got a message to go west, too,\" Mel said. \"You were right. Something important is going to happen, and we want you to come with us.\"\n\nB.T. cut in, \"You know where He is?\"\n\n\"I know where He's going to be,\" Mel said. \"B.T., I want you to go get the road atlas and look up a town called Empyrean and see where it is.\"\n\n\"I know where it is,\" Cassie said, and sat up all the way. \"It's in Dante.\"\n\nThey both looked at her, and she said, half apologetically, \"I'm an English teacher, remember? It's the highest circle of Paradise. The Holy City of God.\"\n\n\"I doubt if that's going to be in Rand McNally,\" B.T. said.\n\n\"It doesn't matter,\" Mel said. \"We'll be able to find it by the lights. But we've got to get her out of here first. Cassie, do you think you can walk if we help you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" She flung the covers off and began edging her bandaged knee toward the side of the bed. \"My clothes are in the closet there.\"\n\nMel helped her hobble to the closet.\n\n\"I'll go check her out,\" B.T. said, and went out.\n\nCassie pulled her dress off the hanger and began unzipping it. Mel turned his back and went over to the door to look out. There was no sign of the two men.\n\n\"Can you help me get my boots on?\" Cassie said, hobbling over to the chair. \"My knee's feeling a lot better,\" she said, lowering herself into the chair. \"It hardly hurts at all.\" Mel knelt and eased her feet into her fur-edged boots.\n\nB.T. came in. \"There are two men down at the admissions desk,\" he said, out of breath, \"trying to find out what room she's in.\"\n\n\"Who are they?\" Cassie asked.\n\n\"Herod's men,\" Mel said. \"It'll have to be the fire escape. Can you manage that?\"\n\nShe nodded. Mel helped her to her feet and went and got her coat. He and B.T. helped her into it, and each took an arm and helped her to the door, opening it cautiously and looking both ways down the hall, and then over to the fire escape.\n\n\"I should call my sister,\" Cassie said, \"and tell her I've changed my mind.\"\n\n\"We'll stop at a gas station,\" B.T. said, opening the door fully and looking both ways again. \"Okay,\" he said, and they went down the hall, through the emergency exit door, and onto the fire escape.\n\n\"You go bring the car around,\" B.T. said, and Mel clattered down the metal mesh steps and ducked across the parking lot to the car.\n\nThe emergency room door opened and two men stood in its light for a moment, talking to someone.\n\nMel jammed the key into the ignition, switched it on, and pulled the car around to the side of the hospital, where B.T. and Cassie were working their way down the last steps.\n\n\"Come on,\" B.T. said, grabbing Cassie under the arm, \"hurry,\" and hustled her across to the car.\n\nA siren blared. \"Hurry,\" Mel said, yanking the door open and pushing her into the backseat, slamming the door shut. B.T. ran around to the other side.\n\nThe siren came abruptly closer and then cut off, and Mel, reaching for the door handle, looked back toward the entrance. An ambulance pulled in, red and yellow lights flashing, and the two men in the door reached forward and took a stretcher off the back.\n\nAnd this is crazy, Mel thought. Nobody's after us. But they would be, as soon as the nurse saw Cassie was missing, and if not then, as soon as Cassie's sister got there. \"I saw two men push a woman into a car and then go peeling out of here,\" one of the interns unloading that stretcher would say. \"It looked like they were kidnapping her.\" And how would they explain to the police that they were looking for the City of God?\n\n\"This is insane,\" Mel started to say, reaching for the door handle.\n\nThere was a flyer wedged in it. Mel unrolled it and read it by the parking lot's vapor light. \"Hurry, hurry, hurry! Step right up to the Greatest Show on Earth!\" it read in letters of gold. \"Wonders, Marvels, Mysteries Revealed!\"\n\nMel got into the car and handed the flyer to B.T. \"Ready?\" he asked.\n\n\"Let's go,\" Cassie said, and leaned forward to point at the front door. Two men in navy blue suits were running down the front steps.\n\n\"Keep down,\" Mel said, and peeled out of the parking lot. He turned south, drove a block, turned onto a side street, pulled up to the curb, switched off the lights, and waited, watching in his rearview mirror until a navy blue car roared past them going south.\n\nHe started the car and drove two blocks without lights on, and then circled back to the highway and headed north. Five miles out of town, he turned east on a gravel road, drove till it ended, turned south, and then east again, and north onto a dirt road. There was no one behind them.\n\n\"Okay,\" he said, and B.T. and Cassie sat up.\n\n\"Where are we?\" Cassie asked.\n\n\"I have no idea,\" Mel said. He turned east again and then south on the first paved road he came to. \"Where are we going?\" B.T. asked.\n\n\"I don't know that, either. But I know what we're looking for.\" He waited till a beat-up pickup truck full of kids passed them and then pulled over to the side of the road and switched on the dome light.\n\n\"Where's your laptop?\" he asked B.T.\n\n\"Right here,\" B.T. said, opening it up and switching it on.\n\n\"All right,\" Mel said, holding the flyer up to the light. \"They were in Omaha on January fourth, Palmyra on the ninth, and Beatrice on the tenth.\" He concentrated, trying to remember the dates on the sign in the hospital.\n\n\"Beatrice,\" Cassie murmured. \"That's in Dante, too.\"\n\n\"The carnival was in Crown Point on December fourteenth,\" Mel went on, still trying to remember the dates, \"and Gresham on January thirteenth.\"\n\n\"The carnival?\" B.T. said. \"We're looking for a carnival?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Mel said. \"Cassie, have you got your Bartlett's Quotations?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, and began rummaging in the emerald green tote bag.\n\n\"I saw them between Pittsburgh and Youngstown on Sunday,\" Mel said to B.T., who had started typing, \"and in Wayside, Iowa, on Monday.\"\n\n\"And the truck spill was at Seward,\" B.T. said, tapping keys.\n\n\"What have you got, Cassie?\" Mel said, looking in the rearview mirror.\n\nShe had her finger on an open page. \"It's Christina Rossetti,\" she said. \" 'Will the day's journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend.' \"\n\n\"They're skipping all over the map,\" B.T. said, turning the laptop so Mel could see the screen. It was a maze of connecting lines.\n\n\"Can you tell what general direction they're headed?\" Mel asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" B.T. said. \"West.\"\n\n\"West,\" Mel repeated. Of course. He started the car again and turned west on the first road they came to.\n\nThere were no cars at all, and only a few scattered lights, a farm and a grain elevator, and a radio tower. Mel drove steadily west across the flat, snowy landscape, looking for the distant glittering lights of the carnival.\n\nThe sky turned navy blue and then gray, and they stopped to get gas and call Cassie's sister.\n\n\"Use my calling card,\" B.T. said, handing it to Cassie. \"They're not looking for me yet. How much cash do we have?\"\n\nCassie had sixty and another two hundred in traveler's checks. Mel had a hundred sixty-eight. \"What did you do?\" B.T. asked. \"Rob the collection plate?\"\n\nMel called Mrs. Bilderbeck. \"I won't be back in time for the services on Sunday,\" he told her. \"Call Reverend Davidson and ask if he'll fill in. And tell the ecumenical meeting to read John 3:16\u201318 for a devotion.\"\n\n\"Are you sure you're all right?\" Mrs. Bilderbeck asked. \"There were some men here looking for you yesterday.\"\n\nMel gripped the receiver. \"What did you tell them?\"\n\n\"I didn't like the looks of them, so I told them you were at a ministerial alliance meeting in Boston.\"\n\n\"You're wonderful,\" Mel said, and started to hang up.\n\n\"Oh, wait, what about the furnace?\" Mrs. Bilderbeck said. \"What if the pilot light goes out again?\"\n\n\"It won't,\" Mel said. \"Nothing can put it out.\"\n\nHe hung up and handed the phone and the calling card to Cassie. She called her sister, who had a car phone, and told her not to come, that she was fine, her knee hadn't been sprained after all, just twisted.\n\n\"And I think it must have been,\" she said to Mel, walking back to the car. \"See? I'm not limping at all.\"\n\nB.T. had bought juice and doughnuts and a large bag of potato chips. They ate them while Mel drove, going south across the interstate and down to Highway 34.\n\nThe sun came up and glittered off metal silos and onto the star-shaped crack in the windshield. Mel squinted against its brilliance. They drove slowly through McCook and Sharon Springs and Maranatha, looking for flyers on telephone poles and in store windows, calling out the towns and dates to B.T., who added them to the ones on his laptop.\n\nTrucks passed them, none of them carrying Tilt-A-Whirls or concession stands, and Cassie consulted Bartlett's again. \"A cold coming we had of it,\" it said. \"Just the worst time of the year.\"\n\n\"T. S. Eliot,\" Cassie said wonderingly. \" 'Journey of the Magi.' \"\n\nThey stopped for gas again, and B.T. drove while Mel napped. It began to get dark. B.T. and Mel changed places, and Cassie got in front, moving stiffly.\n\n\"Is your knee hurting again?\" Mel asked.\n\n\"No,\" Cassie said. \"It doesn't hurt at all. I've just been sitting in the car too long,\" she said. \"At least it's not camels. Can you imagine what that must have been like?\"\n\nYes, Mel thought, I can. I'll bet everyone thought they were crazy. Including them.\n\nIt got very dark. They continued west, through Glorieta and Gilead and Beulah Center, searching for multicolored lights glimmering in a cold field, a spinning Ferris wheel and the smell of cotton candy, listening for the screams of the roller coaster and the music of a merry-go-round.\n\nAnd the star went before them."
            },
            {
                "title": "Just Like the Ones We Used to Know",
                "text": "The snow started at 12:01 A.M. Eastern Standard Time just outside of Branford, Connecticut. Noah and Terry Blake, on their way home from a party at the Whittiers' at which Miranda Whittier had said, \"I guess you could call this our Christmas Eve Eve party!\" at least fifty times, noticed a few stray flakes as they turned onto Canoe Brook Road, and by the time they reached home, the snow was coming down hard.\n\n\"Oh, good,\" Tess said, leaning forward to peer through the windshield, \"I've been hoping we'd have a white Christmas this year.\"\n\nAt 1:37 A.M. Central Standard Time, Billy Grogan, filling in for KYZT's late-night radio request show out of Duluth, said, \"This just in from the National Weather Service. Snow advisory for the Great Lakes region tonight and tomorrow morning. Two to four inches expected,\" and then went back to discussing the callers' least favorite Christmas songs.\n\n\"I'll tell you the one I hate,\" a caller from Wauwatosa said. \" 'White Christmas.' I musta heard that thing five hundred times this month.\"\n\n\"Actually,\" Billy said, \"according to the St. Cloud Evening News, Bing Crosby's version of 'White Christmas' will be played 2,150 times during the month of December, and other artists' renditions of it will be played an additional 1,890 times.\"\n\nThe caller snorted. \"One time's too many for me. Who the heck wants a white Christmas anyway? I sure don't.\"\n\n\"Well, unfortunately, it looks like you're going to get one,\" Billy said. \"And, in that spirit, here's Destiny's Child, singing 'White Christmas.' \"\n\nAt 1:45 A.M., a number of geese in the city park in Bowling Green, Kentucky, woke up to a low, overcast sky and flew, flapping and honking loudly, over the city center, as if they had suddenly decided to fly farther south for the winter. The noise woke Maureen Reynolds, who couldn't get back to sleep. She turned on KYOU, which was playing \"Holly Jolly Oldies,\" including \"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree\" and Brenda Lee's rendition of \"White Christmas.\"\n\nAt 3:15 A.M. Mountain Standard Time, Paula Devereaux arrived at DIA for the red-eye flight to Springfield, Illinois. It was beginning to snow, and as she waited in line at the express checkin (she was carrying on her maid-of-honor dress and the bag with her shoes and slip and makeup\u2014the last time she'd been in a wedding, her luggage had gotten lost and caused a major crisis) and in line at security and in line at the gate and in line to be de-iced, she began to hope they might not be able to take off, but no such luck.\n\nOf course not, Paula thought, looking out the window at the snow swirling around the wing, because Stacey wants me at her wedding.\n\n\"I want a Christmas Eve wedding,\" Stacey'd told Paula after she'd informed her she was going to be her maid of honor, \"all candlelight and evergreens. And I want snow falling outside the windows.\"\n\n\"What if the weather doesn't cooperate?\" Paula'd asked.\n\n\"It will,\" Stacey'd said. And here it was, snowing. She wondered if it was snowing in Springfield, too. Of course it is, she thought. Whatever Stacey wants, Stacey gets, Paula thought. Even Jim.\n\nDon't think about that, she told herself. Don't think about anything. Just concentrate on getting through the wedding. With luck, Jim won't even be there except for the ceremony, and you won't have to spend any time with him at all.\n\nShe picked up the in-flight magazine and tried to read, and then plugged in her headphones and listened to Channel 4, \"Seasonal Favorites.\" The first song was \"White Christmas\" by the Statler Brothers.\n\nAt 3:38 A.M., it began to snow in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The geese circling the city flew back to the park, landed, and hunkered down to sit it out on their island in the lake. Snow began to collect on their backs, but they didn't care, protected as they were by down and a thick layer of subcutaneous fat designed to keep them warm even in subzero temperatures.\n\nAt 3:39 A.M., Luke Lafferty woke up, convinced he'd forgotten to set the goose his mother had talked him into having for Christmas Eve dinner out to thaw. He went and checked. He had set it out. On his way back to bed, he looked out the window and saw it was snowing, which didn't worry him. The news had said isolated snow showers for Wichita, ending by mid-morning, and none of his relatives lived more than an hour and a half away, except Aunt Lulla, and if she couldn't make it, it wouldn't exactly put a crimp in the conversation. His mom and Aunt Madge talked so much it was hard for anybody else to get a word in edgewise, especially Aunt Lulla. \"She was always the shy one,\" Luke's mother said, and it was true; Luke couldn't remember her saying anything other than \"Please pass the potatoes\" at their family get-togethers.\n\nWhat did worry him was the goose. He should never have let his mother talk him into having one. It was bad enough her having talked him into having the family dinner at his place. He had no idea how to cook a goose.\n\n\"What if something goes wrong?\" he'd protested. \"Butterball doesn't have a goose hotline.\"\n\n\"You won't need a hotline,\" his mother had said. \"It's just like cooking a turkey, and it's not as if you had to cook it. I'll be there in time to put it in the oven and everything. All you have to do is set it out to thaw. Do you have a roasting pan?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Luke had said, but lying there, he couldn't remember if he did. When he got up at 4:14 A.M. to check\u2014he did\u2014it was still snowing.\n\nAt 4:16 Mountain Standard Time, Slade Henry, filling in on WRYT's late-night talk show out of Boise, said, \"For all you folks who wanted a white Christmas, it looks like you're going to get your wish. Three to six inches forecast for western Idaho.\" He played several bars of Johnny Cash's \"White Christmas,\" and then went back to discussing JFK's assassination with a caller who was convinced Clinton was somehow involved.\n\n\"Little Rock isn't all that far from Dallas, you know,\" the caller said. \"You could drive it in four and a half hours.\"\n\nActually, you couldn't, because I-30 was icing up badly, due to freezing rain which had started just after midnight and then turned to snow. The treacherous driving conditions did not slow Monty Luffer down, as he had a Ford Explorer. Shortly after five, he reached to change stations on the radio so he didn't have to listen to \"those damn Backstreet Boys\" singing \"White Christmas,\" and slid out of control just west of Texarkana. He crossed the median, causing the semi in the left-hand eastbound lane to jam on his brakes and jackknife, resulting in a thirty-seven-car pileup that closed the road for the rest of the night and all the next day.\n\nAt 5:21 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, four-year-old Miguel Gutierrez jumped on his mother, shouting, \"Is it Christmas yet?\"\n\n\"Not on Mommy's stomach, honey,\" Pilar murmured and rolled over.\n\nMiguel crawled over her and repeated his question directly into her ear. \"Is it Christmas yet?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said groggily. \"Tomorrow's Christmas. Go watch cartoons for a few minutes, okay, and then Mommy'll get up,\" and pulled the pillow over her head.\n\nMiguel was back again immediately. He can't find the remote, she thought wearily, but that couldn't be it, because he jabbed her in the ribs with it. \"What's the matter, honey?\" she said.\n\n\"Santa isn't gonna come,\" he said tearfully, which brought her fully awake.\n\nHe thinks Santa won't be able to find him, she thought. This is all Joe's fault. According to the original custody agreement, she had Miguel for Christmas and Joe had him for New Year's, but he'd gotten the judge to change it so they split Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and then, after she'd told Miguel, Joe had announced he needed to switch.\n\nWhen Pilar had said no, he'd threatened to take her back to court, so she'd agreed, after which he'd informed her that \"Christmas Day\" meant her delivering Miguel on Christmas Eve so he could wake up and open his presents at Joe's.\n\n\"He can open your presents to him before you come,\" he'd said, knowing full well Miguel still believed in Santa Claus. So after supper she was delivering both Miguel and his presents to Joe's in Escondido, where she would not get to see Miguel open them.\n\n\"I can't go to Daddy's,\" Miguel had said when she'd explained the arrangements, \"Santa's gonna bring my presents here.\"\n\n\"No, he won't,\" she'd said. \"I sent Santa a letter and told him you'd be at your daddy's on Christmas Eve, and he's going to take your presents there.\"\n\n\"You sent it to the North Pole?\" he'd demanded.\n\n\"To the North Pole. I took it to the post office this morning,\" and he'd seemed contented with that answer. Till now.\n\n\"Santa's going to come,\" she said, cuddling him to her. \"He's coming to Daddy's, remember?\"\n\n\"No, he's not,\" Miguel sniffled.\n\nDamn Joe. I shouldn't have given in, she thought, but every time they went back to court, Joe and his snake of a lawyer managed to wangle new concessions out of the judge, even though until the divorce was final, Joe had never paid any attention to Miguel at all. And she just couldn't afford any more court costs right now.\n\n\"Are you worried about Daddy living in Escondido?\" she asked Miguel. \"Because Santa's magic. He can travel all over California in one night. He can travel all over the world in one night.\"\n\nMiguel, snuggled against her, shook his head violently. \"No, he can't!\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because it isn't snowing! I want it to snow. Santa can't come in his sleigh if it doesn't.\"\n\nPaula's flight landed in Springfield at 7:48 A.M. Central Standard Time, twenty minutes late. Jim met her at the airport. \"Stacey's having her hair done,\" he said. \"I was afraid I wouldn't get here in time. It was a good thing your flight was a few minutes late.\"\n\n\"There was snow in Denver,\" Paula said, trying not to look at him. He was as cute as ever, with the same knee-weakening smile.\n\n\"It just started to snow here,\" he said.\n\nHow does she do it? Paula thought. You had to admire Stacey. Whatever she wanted, she got. I wouldn't have had to mess with carrying this stuff on, Paula thought, handing Jim the hanging bag with her dress in it. There's no way my luggage would have gotten lost. Stacey wanted it here.\n\n\"The roads are already starting to get slick,\" Jim was saying. \"I hope my parents get here okay. They're driving down from Chicago.\"\n\nThey will, Paula thought. Stacey wants them to.\n\nJim got Paula's bags off the carousel and then said, \"Hang on, I promised Stacey I'd tell her as soon as you got here.\" He flipped open his cell phone and put it to his ear. \"Stacey? She's here. Yeah, I will. Okay, I'll pick them up on our way. Yeah. Okay.\"\n\nHe flipped the phone shut. \"She wants us to pick up the evergreen garlands on our way,\" he said, \"and then I have to come back and get Kindra and David. We need to check on their flights before we leave.\"\n\nHe led the way upstairs to ticketing so they could check the arrival board. Outside the terminal windows snow was falling, large, perfect, lacy flakes.\n\n\"Kindra's on the 2:19 from Houston,\" Jim said, scanning the board, \"and David's on the 11:40 from Newark. Oh, good, they're both on time.\"\n\nOf course they are, Paula thought, looking at the board. The snow in Denver must be getting worse. All the Denver flights had \"delayed\" next to them, and so did a bunch of others: Cheyenne and Portland and Richmond. As she watched, Boston and then Chicago changed from \"on time\" to \"delayed\" and Rapid City went from \"delayed\" to \"canceled.\" She looked at Kindra's and David's flights again. They were still on time.\n\nSki areas in Aspen, Lake Placid, Squaw Valley, Stowe, Lake Tahoe, and Jackson Hole woke to several inches of fresh powder. The snow was greeted with relief by the people who had paid ninety dollars for their lift tickets, with irritation by the ski resort owners, who didn't see why it couldn't have come two weeks earlier when people were making their Christmas reservations, and with whoops of delight by snowboarders Kent Slakken and Bodine Cromps. They promptly set out from Breckenridge without maps, matches, helmets, avalanche beacons, avalanche probes, or telling anyone where they were going, for an off-limits backcountry area with \"totally extreme slopes.\"\n\nAt 7:05, Miguel came in and jumped on Pilar again, this time on her bladder, shouting, \"It's snowing! Now Santa can come! Now Santa can come!\"\n\n\"Snowing?\" she said blearily. In L.A.? \"Snowing? Where?\"\n\n\"On TV. Can I make myself some cereal?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, remembering the last time. She reached for her robe. \"You go watch TV some more and Mommy'll make pancakes.\"\n\nWhen she brought the pancakes and syrup in, Miguel was sitting, absorbed, in front of the TV, watching a man in a green parka standing in the snow in front of an ambulance with flashing lights, saying, \"\u2014third weather-related fatality in Dodge City so far this morning\u2014\"\n\n\"Let's find some cartoons to watch,\" Pilar said, clicking the remote.\n\n\"\u2014outside Knoxville, Tennessee, where snow and icy conditions have caused a multicar accident\u2014\"\n\nShe clicked the remote again.\n\n\"\u2014to Columbia, South Carolina, where a surprise snowstorm has shut off power to\u2014\"\n\nClick.\n\n\"\u2014problem seems to be a low-pressure area covering Canada and the northern two thirds of the United States, bringing snow to the entire Midwest and Mid-Atlantic States and\u2014\"\n\nClick.\n\n\"\u2014snowing here in Bozeman\u2014\"\n\n\"I told you it was snowing,\" Miguel said happily, eating his pancakes, \"just like I wanted it to. After breakfast can we make a snowman?\"\n\n\"Honey, it isn't snowing here in California,\" Pilar said. \"That's the national weather, it's not here. That reporter's in Montana, not California.\"\n\nMiguel grabbed the remote and clicked to a reporter standing in the snow in front of a giant redwood tree. \"The snow started about four this morning here in Monterey, California. As you can see,\" she said, indicating her raincoat and umbrella, \"it caught everybody by surprise.\"\n\n\"She's in California,\" Miguel said.\n\n\"She's in northern California,\" Pilar said, \"which gets a lot colder than it does here in L.A. L.A.'s too warm for it to snow.\"\n\n\"No, it's not,\" Miguel said, and pointed out the window, where big white flakes were drifting down onto the palm trees across the street.\n\nAt 9:40 Central Standard Time the cell phone Nathan Andrews thought he'd turned off rang in the middle of a grant money meeting which was already going badly. Scheduling the meeting in Omaha on the day before Christmas had seemed like a good idea at the time\u2014businessmen had hardly any appointments that day and the spirit of the season was supposed to make them more willing to open their pocketbooks\u2014but instead they were merely distracted, anxious to do their last-minute Mercedes-Benz shopping or get the Christmas office party started or whatever it was businessmen did, and worried about the snow that had started during rush hour this morning.\n\nPlus, they were morons. \"So you're saying you want a grant to study global warming, but then you talk about wanting to measure snow levels,\" one of them had said. \"What does snow have to do with global warming?\"\n\nNathan had tried to explain again how warming could lead to increased amounts of moisture in the atmosphere and thus increased precipitation in the form of rain and snow, and how that increased snowfall could lead to increased albedo and surface cooling.\n\n\"If it's getting cooler, it's not getting warmer,\" another one of the businessmen had said. \"It can't be both.\"\n\n\"As a matter of fact, it can,\" he'd said, and launched into his explanation of how polar melting could lead to an increase in freshwater in the North Atlantic, which would float on top of the Gulf Stream, preventing its warm water from sinking and cooling, and effectively shutting the current down. \"Europe would freeze,\" he'd said.\n\n\"Well, then, global warming would be a good thing, wouldn't it?\" yet another one had said. \"Heat the place up.\"\n\nHe had patiently tried to explain how the world would grow both hotter and colder, with widespread droughts, flooding, and a sharp increase in severe weather. \"And these changes may happen extremely quickly,\" he'd said. \"Rather than temperatures gradually increasing and sea levels rising, there may be a sudden, unexpected event\u2014a discontinuity. It may take the form of an abrupt, catastrophic temperature increase or a superhurricane or other form of megastorm, occurring without any warning. That's why this project is so critical. By setting up a comprehensive climate database, we'll be able to create more accurate computer models, from which we'll be able to\u2014\"\n\n\"Computer models!\" one of them had snorted. \"They're wrong more often than they're right!\"\n\n\"Because they don't include enough factors,\" Nathan said. \"Climate is an incredibly complicated system, with literally thousands of factors interacting in intricate ways\u2014weather patterns, clouds, precipitation, ocean currents, man-made activities, crops. Thus far, computer models have only been able to chart a handful of factors. This project will chart over two hundred of them and will enable the models to be exponentially more accurate. We'll be able to predict a discontinuity before it happens\u2014\"\n\nIt was at that point that his cell phone rang. It was his graduate assistant Chin Sung, from the lab. \"Where are you?\" Chin demanded.\n\n\"In a grant meeting,\" Nathan whispered. \"Can I call you back in a few minutes?\"\n\n\"Not if you still want the Nobel Prize,\" Chin said. \"You know that harebrained theory of yours about global warming producing a sudden discontinuity? Well, I think you'd better get over here. Today may be the day you turn out to be right.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Nathan asked, gripping the phone excitedly. \"What's happened? Have the Gulf Stream temp readings dropped?\"\n\n\"No, it's not the currents. It's what's happening here.\"\n\n\"Which is what?\"\n\nInstead of answering, Chin asked, \"Is it snowing where you are?\"\n\nNathan looked out the conference room window. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"I thought so. It's snowing here, too.\"\n\n\"And that's what you called me about?\" Nathan whispered. \"Because it's snowing in Nebraska in December? In case you haven't looked at a calendar lately, winter started three days ago. It's supposed to be snowing.\"\n\n\"You don't understand,\" Chin said. \"It isn't just snowing in Nebraska. It's snowing everywhere.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, everywhere?\"\n\n\"I mean everywhere. Seattle, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, Providence, Chattanooga. All over Canada and the U.S. as far south as\"\u2014there was a pause and the sound of computer keys clicking\u2014\"Abilene and Shreveport and Savannah. No, wait, Tallahassee's reporting light snow. As far south as Tallahassee.\"\n\nThe jet stream must have dipped radically south. \"Where's the center of the low pressure system?\"\n\n\"That's just it,\" Chin said. \"There doesn't seem to be one.\"\n\n\"I'll be right there,\" Nathan said.\n\nA mile from the highway, snowboarders Kent Slakken and Bodine Cromps, unable to see the road in heavily falling snow, drove their car into a ditch. \"Shit,\" Bodine said, and attempted to get out of it by revving the engine and then flooring it, a technique which only succeeded in digging them in to the point where they couldn't open either car door.\n\nIt took Jim and Paula nearly two hours to pick up the evergreen garlands and get out to the church. The lacy flakes fell steadily faster and thicker, and it was so slick Jim had to crawl the last few miles. \"I hope this doesn't get any worse,\" he said worriedly, \"or people are going to have a hard time getting out here.\"\n\nBut Stacey wasn't worried at all. \"Isn't it beautiful? I wanted it to snow for my wedding more than anything,\" she said, meeting them at the door of the church. \"Come here, Paula, you've got to see how the snow looks through the sanctuary windows. It's going to be perfect.\"\n\nJim left immediately to go pick up Kindra and David, which Paula was grateful for. Being that close to him in the car had made her start entertaining the ridiculous hopes about him she'd had when they first met. And they were ridiculous. One look at Stacey had shown her that.\n\nThe bride-to-be looked beautiful even in a sweater and jeans, her makeup exquisite, her blond hair upswept into glittery snowflake-sprinkled curls. Every time Paula had had her hair done to be in a wedding, she had come out looking like someone in a bad 1950s movie. How does she do it? Paula wondered. You watch, the snow will stop, and start up again just in time for the ceremony.\n\nBut it didn't. It continued to come down steadily, and when the minister arrived for the rehearsal, she said, \"I don't know. It took me half an hour to get out of my driveway. You may want to think about canceling.\"\n\n\"Don't be silly. We can't cancel. It's a Christmas Eve wedding,\" Stacey said, and made Paula start tying the evergreen garlands to the pews with white satin ribbon.\n\nIt was sprinkling in Santa Fe when Bev Carey arrived at her hotel, and by the time she'd checked in and ventured out into the Plaza, it had turned into an icy, driving rain that went right through the light coat and thin gloves she'd brought with her. She had planned to spend the morning shopping, but the shops had signs on them saying \"Closed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day,\" and the sidewalk in front of the Governor's Palace, where, according to her guidebook, Zunis and Navajos sat to sell authentic silver-and-turquoise jewelry, was deserted.\n\nBut at least it's not snowing, she told herself, trudging, shivering, back to the hotel. And the shop windows were decorated with ristras and lights in the shape of chili peppers, and the Christmas tree in the hotel lobby was decorated with kachina dolls.\n\nHer friend Janice had already called and left a message with the hotel clerk. And if I don't call her back, she'll be convinced I've taken a bottle of sleeping pills, Bev thought, going up to her room. On the way to the airport, Janice had asked anxiously, \"You haven't been having suicidal thoughts, have you?\" and when her friend Louise had found out what Bev was planning, she'd said, \"I saw this piece on Dateline the other night about suicides at Christmas, and how people who've lost a spouse are especially vulnerable. You wouldn't do anything like that, would you?\"\n\nThey none of them understood that she was doing this to save her life, not end it, that it was Christmas at home, with its lighted trees and evergreen wreaths and candles, that would kill her. And its snow.\n\n\"I know you miss Howard,\" Janice had said, \"and that with Christmas coming, you're feeling sad.\"\n\nSad? She felt flayed, battered, beaten. Every memory, every thought of her husband, every use of the past tense, even\u2014\"Howard liked\u2026,\" \"Howard knew\u2026,\" \"Howard was\u2026\"\u2014was like a deadly blow. The grief-counseling books all talked about \"the pain of losing a loved one,\" but she had had no idea the pain could be this bad. It was like being stabbed over and over, and her only hope had been to get away. She hadn't \"decided to go to Santa Fe for Christmas.\" She had run there like a victim fleeing a murderer.\n\nShe took off her drenched coat and gloves and called Janice. \"You promised you'd call as soon as you got there,\" Janice said reproachfully. \"Are you all right?\"\n\n\"I'm fine,\" Bev said. \"I was out walking around the Plaza.\" She didn't say anything about its raining. She didn't want Janice saying I told you so. \"It's beautiful here.\"\n\n\"I should have come with you,\" Janice said. \"It's snowing like crazy here. Ten inches so far. I suppose you're sitting on a patio drinking a margarita right now.\"\n\n\"Sangria,\" Bev lied. \"I'm going sightseeing this afternoon. The houses here are all pink and tan adobe with bright blue and red and yellow doors, and right now the whole town's decorated with luminarias. You should see them.\"\n\n\"I wish I could,\" Janice sighed. \"All I can see is snow. I have no idea how I'm going to get to the store. Oh, well, at least we'll have a white Christmas. It's so sad Howard can't be here to see this. He always loved white Christmases, didn't he?\"\n\nHoward, consulting the Farmer's Almanac, reading the weather forecast out loud to her, calling her over to the picture window to watch the snow beginning to fall, saying, \"Looks like we're going to get a white Christmas this year,\" as if it were a present under the tree, putting his arm around her\u2014\n\n\"Yes,\" Bev managed to say through the sudden, searing stab of pain. \"He did.\"\n\nIt was spitting snow when Warren Nesvick checked into the Marriott in Baltimore. As soon as he got Shara up to the suite, he told her he had to make a business call, \"and then I'll be all yours, honey.\" He went down to the lobby. The TV in the corner was showing a weather map. He looked at it for a minute and then got out his cell phone.\n\n\"Where are you?\" his wife Marjean said when she answered.\n\n\"In St. Louis,\" he said. \"Our flight got rerouted here because of snow at O'Hare. What's the weather like there?\"\n\n\"It's snowing,\" she said. \"When do you think you'll be able to get a flight out?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Everything's booked because of it being Christmas Eve. I'm waiting to see if I can get on standby. I'll call you as soon as I know something,\" and hung up before she could ask him which flight.\n\nIt took Nathan an hour and a half to drive the fifteen miles to the lab, during which he considered the likelihood that this was really a discontinuity and not just a major snowstorm. Global warming proponents (and opponents) confused the two all the time. Every hurricane, tornado, heat wave, or dry spell was attributed to global warming, even though nearly all of them fell well within the range of normal weather patterns.\n\nAnd there had been big December snowstorms before. The blizzard of 1888, for instance, and the Christmas Eve storm of 2002. And Chin was probably wrong about there being no center to the low pressure system. The likely explanation was that there was more than one system involved\u2014one centered in the Great Lakes and another just east of the Rockies, colliding with warm, moist air from the Gulf Coast to create unusually widespread snow.\n\nAnd it was widespread. The car radio was reporting snow all across the Midwest and the entire East Coast\u2014Topeka, Tulsa, Peoria, northern Virginia, Hartford, Montpelier, Reno, Spokane. No, Reno and Spokane were west of the Rockies. There must be a third system, coming down from the Northwest. But it was still hardly a discontinuity.\n\nThe lab parking lot hadn't been plowed. He left the car on the street and struggled through the already knee-deep snow to the door, remembering when he was halfway across the expanse that Nebraska was famous for pioneers who got lost going out to the barn in a blizzard and whose frozen bodies weren't found till the following spring.\n\nHe reached the door, opened it, and stood there a moment blowing on his frozen hands and looking at the TV Chin had stuck on a cart in the corner of the lab. On it, a pretty reporter in a parka and a Mickey Mouse hat was standing in heavy snow in front of what seemed to be a giant snowman. \"The snow has really caused problems here at Disney World,\" she said over the sound of a marching band playing \"White Christmas.\" \"Their annual Christmas Eve Parade has\u2014\"\n\n\"Well, it's about time,\" Chin said, coming in from the fax room with a handful of printouts. \"What took you so long?\"\n\nNathan ignored that. \"Have you got the IPOC data?\" he asked.\n\nChin nodded. He sat down at his terminal and started typing. The upper left-hand screen lit up with columns of numbers.\n\n\"Let me see the National Weather Service map,\" Nathan said, unzipping his coat and sitting down at the main console.\n\nChin called up a U.S. map nearly half covered with blue, from western Oregon and Nevada east all the way to the Atlantic and up through New England and south to the Oklahoma panhandle, northern Mississippi, Alabama, and most of Georgia.\n\n\"Good Lord, that's even bigger than Marina in '92,\" Nathan said. \"Have you got a satellite photo?\"\n\nChin nodded and called it up. \"And this is a real-time composite of all the data coming in, including weather stations, towns, and spotters reporting in. The white's snow,\" he added unnecessarily.\n\nThe white covered even more territory than the blue on the NWS map, with jagged fingers stretching down into Arizona and Louisiana and west into Oregon and California. Surrounding them were wide uneven pink bands. \"Is the pink rain?\" Nathan asked.\n\n\"Sleet,\" Chin said. \"So what do you think? It's a discontinuity, isn't it?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Nathan said, calling up the barometric readings and starting through them.\n\n\"What else could it be? It's snowing in Orlando. And San Diego.\"\n\n\"It's snowed in both of those places before,\" Nathan said. \"It's even snowed in Death Valley. The only place in the U.S. where it's never snowed is the Florida Keys. And Hawaii, of course. Everything on this map right now is within the range of normal weather events. You don't have to start worrying till it starts snowing in the Florida Keys.\"\n\n\"What about other places?\" Chin asked, looking at the center right-hand screen.\n\n\"What do you mean, other places?\"\n\n\"I mean, it isn't just snowing in the U.S. I'm getting reports from Canc\u00fan. And Jerusalem.\"\n\nAt 11:30 Pilar gave up trying to explain that there wasn't enough snow to make a snowman and took Miguel outside, bundled up in a sweatshirt, a sweater, and his warm jacket, with a pair of Pilar's tube socks for mittens. He lasted about five minutes.\n\nWhen they came back in, Pilar settled him at the kitchen table with crayons and paper so he could draw a picture of a snowman and went into the living room to check the weather forecast. It was really snowing hard out there, and she was getting a little worried about taking Miguel down to Escondido. Angelenos didn't know how to drive in snow, and Pilar's tires weren't that good.\n\n\"\u2014snowing here in Hollywood,\" said a reporter standing in front of the nearly invisible Hollywood sign, \"and this isn't soap flakes, folks, it's the real thing.\"\n\nShe switched channels. \"\u2014snowing in Santa Monica,\" a reporter standing on the beach was saying, \"but that isn't stopping the surfers\u2026.\"\n\nClick. \"\u2014por primera vez en cincuenta a\u00f1os en Marina del Rey\u2014\"\n\nClick. \"\u2014snowing here in L.A. for the first time in nearly fifty years. We're here on the set of xXx Two with Vin Diesel. What do you think of the snow, Vin?\"\n\nPilar gave up and went back in the kitchen, where Miguel announced he was ready to go outside again. She talked him into listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks instead. \"Okay,\" he said, and she left him warbling \"White Christmas\" along with Alvin and went in to check the weather again. The Santa Monica reporter briefly mentioned the roads were wet before moving on to interview a psychic who claimed to have predicted the snowstorm, and on a Spanish-language channel she caught a glimpse of the 405 moving along at its usual congested pace.\n\nThe roads must not be too bad, she thought, or they'd all be talking about it, but she still wondered if she hadn't better take Miguel down to Escondido early. She hated to give up her day with him, but his safety was the important thing, and the snow wasn't letting up at all.\n\nWhen Miguel came into the living room and asked when they could go outside, she said, \"After we pack your suitcase, okay? Do you want to take your Pok\u00e9mon jammies or your Spidermans?\" and began gathering up his things.\n\nBy noon Eastern Standard Time, it was snowing in every state in the lower forty-eight. Elko, Nevada, had over two feet of snow, Cincinnati was reporting thirty-eight inches at the airport, and it was spitting snow in Miami.\n\nOn talk radio, JFK's assassination had given way to the topic of the snow. \"You mark my words, the terrorists are behind this,\" a caller from Terre Haute said. \"They want to destroy our economy, and what better way to do it than by keeping us from doing our last-minute Christmas shopping? To say nothing of what this snow's going to do to my relationship with my wife. How am I supposed to go buy her something in this weather? I tell you, this has got Al Qaeda's name written all over it.\"\n\nDuring lunch, Warren Nesvick told Shara he needed to go try his business call again. \"The guy I was trying to get in touch with wasn't in the office before. Because of the snow,\" he said, and went out to the lobby to call Marjean again. On the TV in the corner, there were shots of snow-covered runways and jammed ticket counters. A blond reporter in a tight red sweater was saying, \"Here in Cincinnati, the snow just keeps on falling. The airport's still open, but officials indicate it may have to close. Snow is building up on the runways\u2014\"\n\nHe called Marjean. \"I'm in Cincinnati,\" he told her. \"I managed to get a flight at the last minute. There's a three-hour layover till my connecting flight, but at least I've got a seat.\"\n\n\"But isn't it snowing in Cincinnati?\" she asked. \"I was just watching the TV and\u2026\"\n\n\"It's supposed to let up here in an hour or so. I'm really sorry about this, honey. You know I'd be there for Christmas Eve if I could.\"\n\n\"I know,\" she said, sounding disappointed. \"It's okay, Warren. You can't control the weather.\"\n\nThe television was on in the hotel lobby when Bev came down to lunch. \"\u2026snowing in Albuquerque,\" she heard the announcer say, \"Raton, Santa Rosa, and Wagon Mound.\"\n\nBut not in Santa Fe, she told herself firmly, going into the dining room. \"It hardly ever snows there,\" the travel agent had said, \"New Mexico's a desert. And when it does snow, it never sticks.\"\n\n\"There's already four inches in Espa\u00f1ola,\" a plump waitress in a ruffled blouse and full red skirt was saying to the busboy. \"I'm worried about getting home.\"\n\n\"I'd rather it didn't snow for Christmas,\" Bev had teased Howard last year, \"all those people trying to get home.\"\n\n\"Heresy, woman, heresy! What would Currier and Ives think to hear you talk that way?\" he'd said, clutching his chest.\n\nLike she was clutching hers now. The plump waitress was looking at her worriedly. \"Are you all right, se\u00f1ora?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Bev said. \"One for lunch, please.\"\n\nThe waitress led her to a table, still looking concerned, and handed her a menu, and she clung to it like a life raft, concentrating fiercely on the unfamiliar terms, the exotic ingredients: blue corn tortillas, quesadillas, chipotle\u2014\n\n\"Can I get you something to drink?\" the waitress asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" Bev said brightly, looking at the waitress's name tag. \"I'd like some sangria, Carmelita.\"\n\nCarmelita nodded and left, and Bev looked around the room, thinking, I'll drink my sangria and watch the other diners, eavesdrop on their conversations, but she was the only person in the broad tiled room. It faced the patio, and through the glass doors the rain, sleet now, drove sharply against the terra-cotta pots of cactus outside, the stacked tables and chairs, the collapsed umbrellas.\n\nShe had envisioned herself having lunch out on the patio, sitting in the sun under one of those umbrellas, looking out at the desert and listening to a mariachi band. The music coming over the loudspeakers was Christmas carols. As she listened, \"Let It Snow\" came to an end and the Supremes began to sing \"White Christmas.\"\n\n\"What would cloud-seeding be listed under?\" Howard had asked her one year when there was still no snow by the twenty-second, coming into the dining room, where she was wrapping presents, with the phone book.\n\n\"You are not hiring a cloud seeder,\" she had replied, laughing.\n\n\"Would it be under 'clouds' or 'rainmaker'?\" he'd asked mock-seriously. \"Or 'seeds'?\" And when it had finally snowed on the twenty-fourth, he had acted like he was personally responsible.\n\nI can't stand this, Bev thought, looking frantically around the dining room for Carmelita and her sangria. How do other people do it? She knew lots of widows, and they all seemed fine. When people mentioned their husbands, when they talked about them in the past tense, they were able to stand there, to smile back, to talk about them. Doreen Matthews had even said, \"Now that Bill's gone, I can finally have all pink ornaments on the Christmas tree. I've always wanted to have a pink tree, but he wouldn't hear of it.\"\n\n\"Here's your sangria,\" Carmelita said, still looking concerned. \"Would you like some tortilla chips and salsa?\"\n\n\"Yes, thank you,\" Bev said brightly. \"And I think I'll have the chicken enchiladas.\"\n\nCarmelita nodded and disappeared again. Bev took a gulp of her sangria and got her guidebook out of her bag. She would have a nice lunch and then go sightseeing. She opened the guidebook to Area Attractions. \"Pueblo de San Ildefonso.\" No, that would involve a lot of walking around outside, and it was still sleeting outside the window.\n\n\"Petroglyphs National Monument.\" No, that was in Albuquerque, where it was snowing. \"El Santuario de Chimayo. 28 mi. north of Santa Fe on Hwy. 76. Historic weaving center, shops, chapel dubbed 'American Lourdes.' The dirt in the anteroom beside the altar is reputed to have healing powers when rubbed on the afflicted part of the body.\"\n\nBut I hurt all over, she thought.\n\n\"Other attractions include five nineteenth-century reredoses, a carving of El Santo Ni\u00f1o de Atocha, a carved wooden altarpiece. (See also L\u00e1grima, p. 98.)\"\n\nShe turned the page to ninety-eight. \"Chapel of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, L\u00e1grima, 28 mi. SE of Santa Fe on Hwy 41. Sixteenth-century adobe mission church. In 1968 the statue of the Virgin Mary in the transept was reported to shed healing tears.\"\n\nHealing tears, holy dirt, and wasn't there supposed to be a miraculous staircase right here in town? Yes, there it was. The Loretto Chapel. \"Open 10\u20135 Apr\u2013Oct, closed Nov\u2013Mar.\"\n\nIt would have to be Chimayo. She got out the road map the car rental place had given her, and when Carmelita came with the chips and salsa, she said, \"I'm thinking of driving up to Chimayo. What's the best route?\"\n\n\"Today?\" Carmelita said, dismayed. \"That's not a good idea. The road's pretty curvy, and we just got a call from Taos that it's really snowing hard up there.\"\n\n\"How about one of the pueblos, then?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"You have to take dirt roads to get there, and it's getting really icy. You're better off doing something here in town. There's a Christmas Eve mass at the cathedral at midnight,\" she added helpfully.\n\nBut I need something to do this afternoon, Bev thought, bending over the guidebook again. Indian Research Center\u2014open weekends only. El Rancho de las Golondrinas\u2014closed Nov-Mar. Santa Fe Historical Museum\u2014closed Dec 24\u2013Jan 1.\n\nThe Georgia O'Keeffe Museum\u2014open daily.\n\nPerfect, Bev thought, reading the entry: \"Houses world's largest permanent collection of O'Keeffe's work. A major American artist, O'Keeffe lived in the Santa Fe area for many years. When she first arrived in 1929, she was physically and psychologically ill, but the dry, hot New Mexico climate healed and inspired her, and she painted much of her finest work here.\"\n\nPerfect. Sun-baked paintings of cow skulls and giant tropical flowers and desert buttes. \"Open daily. 10 A.M.\u20136 P.M. 217 Johnson St.\"\n\nShe looked up the address on her map. Only three blocks off the Plaza, within easy walking distance even in this weather. Perfect. When Carmelita brought her enchiladas, she attacked them eagerly.\n\n\"Did you find somewhere to go in town?\" Carmelita asked curiously.\n\n\"Yes, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Carmelita said, and vanished again. She was back almost immediately. \"I'm sorry, se\u00f1ora, but they're closed.\"\n\n\"Closed? It said in the guidebook the museum's open daily.\"\n\n\"It's because of the snow.\"\n\n\"Snow?\" Bev said, and looked past her to the patio, where the sleet had turned to a heavy, slashing snow.\n\nAt 1:20, Jim called from the airport to tell them Kindra's and David's planes had both been delayed, and a few minutes later the bakery delivered the wedding cake. \"No, no,\" Stacey said, \"that's supposed to go to the country club. That's where the reception is.\"\n\n\"We tried,\" the driver said. \"We couldn't get through. We can either leave it here or take it back to the bakery, take your pick. If we can get back to the bakery. Which I doubt.\"\n\n\"Leave it here,\" Stacey said. \"Jim can take it over when he gets here.\"\n\n\"But you just heard him,\" Paula said. \"If the truck can't get through, Jim won't be able to\u2014\" The phone rang.\n\nIt was the florist, calling to say they weren't going to be able to deliver the flowers. \"But you have to,\" Stacey said. \"The wedding's at five. Tell them they have to, Paula,\" and handed the phone to her.\n\n\"Isn't there any way you can get here?\" Paula asked.\n\n\"Not unless there's a miracle,\" the florist said. \"Our truck's in a ditch out at Pawnee, and there's no telling how long it'll take a tow truck to get there. It's a skating rink out there.\"\n\n\"Jim will have to go pick up the flowers when he gets back with Kindra and David,\" Stacey said blithely when Paula told her the bad news. \"He can do it on his way to the country club. Is the string quartet here yet?\"\n\n\"No, and I'm not sure they'll be able to get here. The florist said the roads are really icy,\" Paula said, and the viola player walked in.\n\n\"I told you,\" Stacey said happily, \"it'll all work out. Did I tell you, they're going to play Boccherini's Minuet No.8 for the wedding march?\" and went to get the candles for the altar stands.\n\nPaula went over to the viola player, a lanky young guy. He was brushing snow off his viola case. \"Where's the rest of the quartet?\"\n\n\"They're not here yet?\" he said, surprised. \"I had a lesson to give in town and told 'em I'd catch up with them.\" He sat down to take off his snow-crusted boots. \"And then my car ended up in a snowbank, and I had to walk the last mile and a half.\" He grinned up at her, panting. \"It's times like these I wish I played the piccolo. Although,\" he said, looking her up and down, \"there are compensations. Please tell me you're not the bride.\"\n\n\"I'm not the bride,\" she said. Even though I wish I was.\n\n\"Great!\" he said, and grinned at her again. \"What are you doing after the wedding?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure there's going to be one. Do you think the other musicians got stuck on the way here, too?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I would have seen them.\" He pulled out a cell phone and punched buttons. \"Shep? Yeah, where are you?\" There was a pause. \"That's what I was afraid of. What about Leif?\" Another pause. \"Well, if you find him, call me back.\" He flipped the phone shut. \"Bad news. The violins were in a fender bender and are waiting for the cops. They don't know where the cello is. How do you feel about a viola solo of Minuet No.8?\"\n\nPaula went to inform Stacey. \"The police can bring them out,\" Stacey said blithely, and handed Paula the white candles for the altar stands. \"The candlelight on the snow's going to be just beautiful.\"\n\nAt 1:48 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, snow flurries were reported at Sunset Point in the Florida Keys.\n\n\"I get to officially freak out now, right?\" Chin asked Nathan. \"Jeez, it really is the discontinuity you said would happen!\"\n\n\"We don't know that yet,\" Nathan said, looking at the National Weather Service map, which was now entirely blue, except for a small spot near Fargo and another one in north-central Texas which Nathan thought was Waco and Chin was convinced was the President's ranch in Crawford.\n\n\"What do you mean, we don't know that yet? It's snowing in Barcelona. It's snowing in Moscow.\"\n\n\"It's supposed to be snowing in Moscow. Remember Napoleon? It's not unusual for it to be snowing in over two thirds of these places reporting in: Oslo, Katmandu, Buffalo\u2014\"\n\n\"Well, it's sure as hell unusual for it to be snowing in Beirut,\" Chin said, pointing to the snow reports coming in, \"and Honolulu. I don't care what you say, I'm freaking out.\"\n\n\"You can't,\" Nathan said, superimposing an isobaric grid over the map. \"I need you to feed me the temp readings.\"\n\nChin started over to his terminal and then came back. \"What do you think?\" he asked seriously. \"Do you think it's a discontinuity?\"\n\nThere was nothing else it could be. Winter storms were frequently very large\u2014the February 1994 European storm had been huge, and the one in December 2002 had covered over a third of the U.S.\u2014but there'd never been one that covered the entire continental United States. And Mexico and Manitoba and Belize, he thought, watching the snowfall reports coming in.\n\nIn addition, snow was falling in six locations where it had never fallen before, and in twenty-eight, like Yuma, Arizona, where it had snowed only once or twice in the last hundred years. New Orleans had a foot of snow, for God's sake. And it was snowing in Guatemala.\n\nAnd it wasn't behaving like any storm he'd ever seen. According to the charts, snow had started simultaneously in Springfield, Illinois; Hoodoo, Tennessee; Park City, Utah; and Branford, Connecticut, and spread in a completely random pattern. There was no center to the storm, no leading edge, no front.\n\nAnd no letup. No station had reported the snow stopping, or even diminishing, and new stations were reporting in all the time. At this rate, it would be snowing everywhere by\u2014he made a rapid calculation\u20145 o'clock.\n\n\"Well?\" Chin said. \"Is it?\" He looked really frightened.\n\nAnd him freaking out is the last thing I need with all this data to feed in, Nathan thought. \"We don't have enough data to make a determination yet,\" he said.\n\n\"But you think it might be,\" Chin persisted. \"Don't you? You think all the signs are there?\"\n\nYes, Nathan thought. \"Definitely not,\" he said. \"Look at the TV.\"\n\n\"What about it?\"\n\n\"There's one sign that's not present.\" He gestured at the screen. \"No logo.\"\n\n\"No what?\"\n\n\"No logo. Nothing qualifies as a full-fledged crisis until the cable news channels give it a logo of its own, preferably with a colon. You know, O.J.: Trial of the Century or Sniper at Large or Attack: Iraq.\" He pointed at Dan Rather standing in thickly falling snow in front of the White House. \"Look, it says Breaking News, but there's no logo. So it can't be a discontinuity. So feed me those temps. And then go see if you can scare up a couple more TVs. I want to get a look at exactly what's going on out there. Maybe that'll give us some kind of clue.\"\n\nChin nodded, looking reassured, and went to get the temp readings. They were all over the place, too, from eighteen below in Saskatoon to thirty-one above in Fort Lauderdale. Nathan ran them against average temps for mid-December and then highs and lows for the twenty-fourth, looking for patterns, anomalies.\n\nChin wheeled in a big-screen TV on an AV cart, along with Professor Adler's portable, and plugged them in. \"What do you want these on?\" he asked.\n\n\"CNN, the Weather Channel, Fox\u2014\" Nathan began.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" Chin said.\n\n\"What? What is it?\"\n\n\"Look,\" Chin said, and pointed to Professor Adler's portable. Wolf Blitzer was standing in the snow in front of the Empire State Building. At the lower right-hand corner was the CNN symbol. And in the upper left-hand corner: Storm of the Century.\n\nAs soon as Pilar had Miguel's things packed, she checked on the TV again.\n\n\"\u2014resulting in terrible road conditions,\" the reporter was saying. \"Police are reporting accidents at the intersection of Sepulveda and Figueroa, the intersection of San Pedro and Whittier, the intersection of Hollywood and Vine,\" while accident alerts crawled across the bottom of the screen. \"We're getting reports of a problem on the Santa Monica Freeway just past the Culver City exit and\u2026this just in: The northbound lanes of the 110 are closed due to a five-car accident. Travelers are advised to take alternate routes.\"\n\nThe phone rang. Miguel ran into the kitchen to answer it. \"Hi, Daddy, it's snowing,\" he shouted into the receiver. \"We're going outside and make a snowman,\" and then said, \"Okay,\" and handed it to Pilar.\n\n\"Go watch cartoons and let Mommy talk to Daddy,\" she said, and handed him the remote. \"Hello, Joe.\"\n\n\"I want you to bring Miguel down now,\" her ex-husband said without preamble, \"before the snow gets bad.\"\n\n\"It's already bad,\" Pilar said, standing in the door of the kitchen watching Miguel flip through the channels:\n\n\"\u2014really slick out here\u2014\"\n\n\"\u2014advised to stay home. If you don't have to go someplace, folks, don't.\"\n\n\"\u2014treacherous conditions\u2014\"\n\n\"I'm not sure taking him out in this is a good idea,\" Pilar said. \"The TV's saying the roads are really slick, and\u2014\"\n\n\"And I'm saying bring him down here now,\" Joe said nastily. \"I know what you're doing. You think you can use a little snow as an excuse to keep my son away from me on Christmas.\"\n\n\"I am not,\" she protested. \"I'm just thinking about Miguel's safety. I don't have snow tires\u2014\"\n\n\"Like hell you're thinking about the kid! You're thinking this is a way to do me out of my rights. Well, we'll see what my lawyer has to say about that. I'm calling him and the judge and telling them what you're up to, and that I'm sick of this crap, I want full custody. And then I'm coming up there myself to get him. Have him ready when I get there!\" he shouted and hung up the phone.\n\nAt 2:22 P.M., Luke's mother called on her cell phone to say she was going to be late and to go ahead and start the goose. \"The roads are terrible, and people do not know how to drive. This red Subaru ahead of me just swerved into my lane and\u2014\"\n\n\"Mom, Mom,\" Luke cut in, \"the goose. What do you mean, start the goose? What do I have to do?\"\n\n\"Just put it in the oven. Shorty and Madge should be there soon, and she can take over. All you have to do is get it started. Take the bag of giblets out first. Put an aluminum foil tent over it.\"\n\n\"An aluminum foil what?\"\n\n\"Tent. Fold a piece of foil in half and lay it over the goose. It keeps it from browning too fast.\"\n\n\"How big a piece?\"\n\n\"Big enough to cover the goose. And don't tuck in the edges.\"\n\n\"Of the oven?\"\n\n\"Of the tent. You're making this much harder than it is. You wouldn't believe how many cars there are off the road, and every one of them's an SUV. It serves them right. They think just because they've got four-wheel drive, they can go ninety miles an hour in a blizzard\u2014\"\n\n\"Mom, Mom, what about stuffing? Don't I have to stuff the goose?\"\n\n\"No. Nobody does stuffing inside the bird anymore. Salmonella. Just put the goose in the roasting pan and stick it in the oven. At 350 degrees.\"\n\nI can do that, Luke thought, and did. Ten minutes later he realized he'd forgotten to put the aluminum foil tent on. It took him three tries to get a piece the right size, and his mother hadn't said whether the shiny or the dull side should be facing out, but when he checked the goose twenty minutes later, it seemed to be doing okay. It smelled good, and there were already juices forming in the pan.\n\nAfter Pilar hung up with Joe, she sat at the kitchen table a long time, trying to think which was worse, letting Joe take Miguel out into this snowstorm or having Miguel witness the fight that would ensue if she tried to stop him. \"Please, please\u2026\" she murmured, without even knowing what she was praying for.\n\nMiguel came into the kitchen and climbed into her lap. She wiped hastily at her eyes. \"Guess what, honey?\" she said brightly. \"Daddy's going to come get you in a little bit. You need to go pick out which toys you want to take.\"\n\n\"Hunh-unh,\" Miguel said, shaking his head.\n\n\"I know you wanted to make a snowman,\" she said, \"but guess what? It's snowing in Escondido, too. You can make a snowman with Daddy.\"\n\n\"Hunh-unh,\" he said, climbing down off her lap and tugging on her hand. He led her into the living room.\n\n\"What, honey?\" she said, and he pointed at the TV. On it, the Santa Monica reporter was saying, \"\u2014the following road closures: I-5 from Chula Vista to Santa Ana, I-15 from San Diego to Barstow, Highway 78 from Oceanside to Escondido\u2014\"\n\nThank you, she murmured silently, thank you. Miguel ran out to the kitchen and came back with a piece of construction paper and a red crayon. \"Here,\" he said, thrusting them at Pilar. \"You have to write Santa. So he'll know to bring my presents here and not Daddy's.\"\n\nBy ordering sopapillas and then Mexican coffee, Bev managed to make lunch last till nearly 2 o'clock. When Carmelita brought the coffee, she looked anxiously out at the snow piling up on the patio and then back at Bev, so Bev asked for her check and signed it so Carmelita could leave, and then went back up to her room for her coat and gloves.\n\nEven if the shops were closed, she could window-shop, she told herself, she could look at the Navajo rugs and Santa Clara pots and Indian jewelry displayed in the shops, but the snowstorm was getting worse. The luminarias that lined the walls were heaped with snow, the paper bags that held the candles sagging wetly under its weight.\n\nThey'll never get them lit, Bev thought, turning into the Plaza.\n\nBy the time she had walked down one side of it, the snow had become a blizzard, it was coming down so hard you couldn't see across the Plaza, and there was a cutting wind. She gave up and went back to the hotel.\n\nIn the lobby, the staff, including the front desk clerk and Carmelita in her coat and boots, was gathered in front of the TV looking at a weather map of New Mexico. \"\u2026currently snowing in most of New Mexico,\" the announcer was saying, \"including Gallup, Carlsbad, Ruidoso, and Roswell. Travel advisories out for central, western, and southern New Mexico, including Lordsburg, Las Cruces, and Truth or Consequences. It looks like a white Christmas for most of New Mexico, folks.\"\n\n\"You have two messages,\" the front desk clerk said when he saw her. They were both from Janice, and she phoned again while Bev was taking her coat off.\n\n\"I just saw on TV that it's snowing in Santa Fe, and you said you were going sightseeing,\" Janice said. \"I just wondered if you were okay.\"\n\n\"I'm here at the hotel,\" Bev said. \"I'm not going anywhere.\"\n\n\"Good,\" Janice said, relieved. \"Are you watching TV? The weathermen are saying this isn't an ordinary storm. It's some kind of extreme megastorm. We've got three feet here. The power's out all over town, and the airport just closed. I hope you're able to get home. Oops, the lights just flickered. I'd better go hunt up some candles before the lights go off,\" she said, and hung up.\n\nBev turned on the TV. The local channel was listing closings\u2014\"The First United Methodist Church Christmas pageant has been canceled and there will be no Posadas tonight at Our Lady of Guadalupe. Canyon Day Care Center will close at 3 P.M\u2026.\"\n\nShe clicked the remote. CNBC was discussing earlier Christmas Eve snowstorms, and on CNN, Daryn Kagan was standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue in a snowdrift. \"This is usually the busiest shopping day of the year,\" she said, \"but as you can see\u2014\"\n\nShe clicked the remote, looking for a movie to watch. Howard would have loved this, she thought involuntarily. He would have been in his element.\n\nShe clicked quickly through the other channels, trying to find a movie to watch, but they were all discussing the weather. \"It looks like the whole country's going to get a white Christmas this year,\" Anderson Cooper was saying, \"whether they want it or not.\"\n\nYou'd think there'd be a Christmas movie on, Bev thought grimly, flipping through the channels again. It's Christmas Eve. Christmas in Connecticut or Holiday Inn. Or White Christmas.\n\nHoward had insisted on watching it every time he came across it with the remote, even if it was nearly over. \"Why are you watching that?\" she'd ask, coming in to find him watching the next-to-the-last scene. \"We own the video.\"\n\n\"Shh,\" he'd say. \"It's just getting to the good part,\" and he'd lean forward to watch Bing Crosby push open the barn doors to reveal fake-looking snow falling on the equally fake-looking set.\n\nWhen he came into the kitchen afterward, she'd say sarcastically, \"How'd it end this time? Did Bing and Rosemary Clooney get back together? Did they save the General's inn and all live happily ever after?\"\n\nBut Howard would refuse to be baited. \"They got a white Christmas,\" he'd say happily, and go off to look out the windows at the clouds.\n\nExcept for news about the storm, there was nothing at all on except an infomercial selling a set of Ginsu knives. How appropriate, she thought, and sat back on the bed to watch it.\n\nAt 2:08, the weight of the new loose snow triggered a huge avalanche in the \"awesome slopes\" area near Breckenridge, knocking down huge numbers of Ponderosa pines and burying everything in its path, but not Kent and Bodine, who were still in their Honda, trying to keep warm and survive on a box of Tic-Tacs and an old doughnut they found in the glove compartment.\n\nBy 2:30, Madge and Shorty still weren't there, so Luke checked the goose. It seemed to be cooking okay, but there was an awful lot of juice in the pan. When he checked it again half an hour later, there was over an inch of the stuff.\n\nThat couldn't be right. The last time he'd gotten stuck with having the Christmas Eve dinner, the turkey had only produced a few tablespoons of juice. He remembered his mom pouring them off to make the gravy.\n\nHe tried his mom. Her cell phone said, \"Caller unavailable,\" which meant her batteries had run down, or she'd turned it off. He tried Aunt Madge. No answer.\n\nHe dug the plastic and net wrapping the goose had come in out of the trash, flattened it out, and read the instructions: \"Roast uncovered at 350\u02da for twenty-five minutes per pound.\"\n\nUncovered. That must be the problem, the aluminum foil tent. It wasn't allowing the extra juice to evaporate. He opened the oven and removed it. When he checked the goose again fifteen minutes later, it was sitting in two inches of grease, and even though, according to the wrapping, it still had three hours to go, the goose was getting brown and crispy on top.\n\nAt 2:51 P.M., Joe Gutierrez slammed out of his house and started up to get Miguel. He'd been trying ever since he hung up on Pilar to get his goddamned lawyer on the phone, but he wasn't answering.\n\nThe streets were a real mess, and when Joe got to the I-15 entrance ramp, there was a barricade across it. He roared back down the street to take Highway 78, but it was blocked, too. He stormed back home and called Pilar's lawyer, but he didn't answer, either. He then called the judge, using the unlisted cell phone number he'd seen on his lawyer's PalmPilot.\n\nThe judge, who had been stuck waiting for AAA in a Starbucks at the Bakersfield exit, listening to Harry Connick, Jr., destroy \"White Christmas\" for the last three hours, was not particularly sympathetic, especially when Joe started swearing at him.\n\nWords were exchanged, and the judge made a note to himself to have Joe declared in contempt of court. Then he called AAA to see what was taking so long, and when the operator told him he was nineteenth in line, and it would be at least another four hours, he decided to revisit the entire custody agreement.\n\nBy 3 o'clock, all the networks and cable news channels had logos. ABC had Winter Wonderland, NBC had Super Storm, and Fox News had Winter Wallop. CBS and MSNBC had both gone with White Christmas, flanked by a photo of Bing Crosby (MSNBC's wearing the Santa Claus hat from the movie).\n\nThe Weather Channel's logo was a changing world map that was now two thirds white, and snow was being reported in Karachi, Seoul, the Solomon Islands, and Bethlehem, where Christmas Eve services (usually canceled due to Israeli\u2013Palestinian violence) had been canceled due to the weather.\n\nAt 3:15 P.M., Jim called Paula from the airport to report that Kindra's and David's flights had both been delayed indefinitely. \"And the USAir guy says they're shutting down the airport in Houston. Dallas International's already closed, and so are JFK and O'Hare. How's Stacey?\"\n\nIncorrigible, Paula thought. \"Fine,\" she said. \"Do you want to talk to her?\"\n\n\"No. Listen, tell her I'm still hoping, but it doesn't look good.\"\n\nPaula told her, but it didn't have any effect. \"Go get your dress on,\" Stacey ordered her, \"so the minister can run through the service with you, and then you can show Kindra and David where to stand when they get here.\"\n\nPaula went and put on her bridesmaid dress, wishing it wasn't sleeveless, and they went through the rehearsal with the viola player, who had changed into his tux to get out of his snow-damp clothes, acting as best man. As soon as they were done, Paula went into the vestry to get a sweater out of her suitcase. The minister came in and shut the door. \"I've been trying to talk to Stacey,\" she said. \"You're going to have to cancel the wedding. The roads are getting really dangerous, and I just heard on the radio they've closed the interstate.\"\n\n\"I know,\" Paula said.\n\n\"Well, she doesn't. She's convinced everything's going to work out.\"\n\nAnd it might, Paula thought. After all, this is Stacey.\n\nThe viola player poked his head in the door. \"Good news,\" he said.\n\n\"The string quartet's here?\" the minister said.\n\n\"Jim's here?\" Paula said.\n\n\"No, but Shep and Leif found the cello player. He's got frostbite, but otherwise he's okay. They're taking him to the hospital.\" He gestured toward the sanctuary. \"Do you want to tell the Queen of Denial, or shall I?\"\n\n\"I will,\" Paula said, and went back into the sanctuary. \"Stacey\u2014\"\n\n\"Your dress looks beautiful!\" Stacey cried, and dragged her over to the windows. \"Look how it goes with the snow!\"\n\nWhen the doorbell rang at a quarter to four, Luke thought, Finally! Mom! and literally ran to answer the door. It was Aunt Lulla. He looked hopefully past her, but there was no one else pulling into the driveway or coming up the street. \"You don't know anything about cooking a goose, do you?\" he asked.\n\nShe looked at him a long, silent moment and then handed him the plate of olives she'd brought and took off her hat, scarf, gloves, plastic boots, and old-lady coat. \"Your mother and Madge were always the domestic ones,\" she said. \"I was the theatrical one,\" and while he was digesting that odd piece of information, \"Why did you ask? Is your goose cooked?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, and led her into the kitchen and showed her the goose, which was now swimming in a sea of fat.\n\n\"Good God!\" Aunt Lulla said. \"Where did all that grease come from?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said.\n\n\"Well, the first thing to do is pour some of it off before the poor thing drowns.\"\n\n\"I already did,\" Luke said. He took the lid off the saucepan he'd poured the drippings into earlier.\n\n\"Well, you need to pour off some more,\" she said practically, \"and you'll need a larger pan. Or maybe we should just pour it down the sink and get rid of the evidence.\"\n\n\"It's for the gravy,\" he said, rummaging in the cupboard under the sink for the big pot his mother had given him to cook spaghetti in.\n\n\"Oh, of course,\" she said, and then thoughtfully, \"I do know how to make gravy. Alec Guinness taught me.\"\n\nLuke stuck his head out of the cupboard. \"Alec Guinness taught you to make gravy?\"\n\n\"It's not really all that difficult,\" she said, opening the oven door and looking speculatively at the goose. \"You wouldn't happen to have any wine on hand, would you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" He emerged with the pot. \"Why? Will wine counteract the grease?\"\n\n\"I have no idea,\" she said, \"but one of the things I learned when I was playing off-Broadway was that when you're facing a flop or an opening night curtain, it helps to be a little sloshed.\"\n\n\"You played off-Broadway?\" Luke said. \"Mom never told me you were an actress.\"\n\n\"I wasn't,\" she said, opening cupboard doors. She pulled out two wineglasses. \"You should have seen my reviews.\"\n\nBy 4:00 P.M., all the networks and cable news channels had changed their logos to reflect the worsening situation. ABC had MegaBlizzard, NBC had MacroBlizzard, and CNN had Perfect Storm, with a graphic of a boat being swamped by a gigantic wave. CBS and MSNBC had both gone with Ice Age, CBS's with a question mark, MSNBC's with an exclamation point and a drawing of the Abominable Snowman. And Fox, ever the responsible news network, was proclaiming End of the World!\n\n\"Now can I freak out?\" Chin asked.\n\n\"No,\" Nathan said, feeding in snowfall rates. \"In the first place, it's Fox. In the second place, a discontinuity does not necessarily mean the end of the wo\u2014\"\n\nThe lights flickered. They both stopped and stared at the overhead fluorescents. They flickered again.\n\n\"Backup!\" Nathan shouted, and they both dived for their terminals, shoved in zip drives, and began frantically typing, looking anxiously up at the lights now and then.\n\nChin popped the zip disk out of the hard drive. \"You were saying that a discontinuity isn't necessarily the end of the world?\"\n\n\"Yes, but losing this data would be. From now on we back up every fifteen minutes.\"\n\nThe lights flickered again, went out for an endless ten seconds, and came back on again to Anderson Cooper saying, \"\u2014Huntsville, Alabama, where thousands are without power. I'm here at Byrd Middle School, which is serving as a temporary shelter.\" He stuck the microphone under the nose of a woman holding a candle. \"When did the power go off?\" he asked.\n\n\"About noon,\" she said. \"The lights flickered a couple of times before that, but both times the lights came back on, and I thought we were okay, and then I went to fix lunch, and they went off, like that\u2014\" She snapped her fingers, \"without any warning.\"\n\n\"We back up every five minutes,\" Nathan said, and to Chin, who was pulling on his parka, \"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"Out to my car to get a flashlight.\"\n\nHe came back in ten minutes later, caked in snow, his ears and cheeks bright red. \"It's four feet deep out there. Tell me again why I shouldn't freak out,\" he said, handing the flashlight to Nathan.\n\n\"Because I don't think this is a discontinuity,\" Nathan said. \"I think it's just a snowstorm.\"\n\n\"Just a snowstorm?\" Chin said, pointing at the TVs, where red-eared, red-cheeked reporters were standing in front of, respectively, a phalanx of snowplows on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, a derailed train in Casper, and a collapsed Walmart in Biloxi, \"\u2014from the weight of a record fifty-eight inches of snow,\" Brit Hume was saying. \"Luckily, there were no injuries here. In Cincinnati, however\u2014\"\n\n\"Fifty-eight inches,\" Chin said. \"In Mississippi. What if it keeps on snowing and snowing forever till the whole world\u2014?\"\n\n\"It can't,\" Nathan said. \"There isn't enough moisture in the atmosphere, and no low pressure system over the Gulf to keep pumping moisture up across the lower United States. There's no low pressure system at all, and no ridge of high pressure to push against it, no colliding air masses, nothing. Look at this. It started in four different places hundreds of miles from each other, in different latitudes, different altitudes, none of them along a ridge of high pressure. This storm isn't following any of the rules.\"\n\n\"But doesn't that prove it's a discontinuity?\" Chin asked nervously. \"Isn't that one of the signs, that it's completely different from what came before?\"\n\n\"The climate would be completely different, the weather would be completely different, not the laws of physics.\" He pointed to the world map on the mid-right-hand screen. \"If this were a discontinuity, you'd see a change in ocean current temps, a shift in the jet stream, changes in wind patterns. There's none of that. The jet stream hasn't moved, the rate of melting in the Antarctic is unchanged, the Gulf Stream's still there. El Ni\u00f1o's still there. Venice is still there.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but it's snowing on the Grand Canal,\" Chin said. \"So what's causing the megastorm?\"\n\n\"That's just it. It's not a megastorm. If it were, there'd be accompanying ice storms, hurricane-force winds, microbursts, tornadoes, none of which has shown up on the data. As near as I can tell, all it's doing is snowing.\" He shook his head. \"No, something else is going on.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I have no idea.\" He stared glumly at the screens. \"Weather's a remarkably complex system. Hundreds, thousands of factors we haven't figured in could be having an effect: cloud dynamics, localized temperature variations, pollution, solar activity. Or it could be something we haven't even considered: the effects of de-icers on highway albedo, beach erosion, the migratory patterns of geese. Or the effect on electromagnetic fields of playing 'White Christmas' hundreds of times on the radio this week.\"\n\n\"Four thousand nine hundred and thirty-three,\" Chin said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"That's how many times Bing Crosby's 'White Christmas' is played the two weeks before Christmas, with an additional nine thousand and sixty-two times by other artists. Including Otis Redding, U2, Peggy Lee, the Three Tenors, and the Flaming Lips. I read it on the Internet.\"\n\n\"Nine thousand and sixty-two,\" Nathan said. \"That's certainly enough to affect something, all right.\"\n\n\"I know what you mean,\" Chin said. \"Have you heard Eminem's new rap version?\"\n\nBy 4:15 P.M., the spaghetti pot was two thirds full of goose grease, Luke's mother and Madge and Shorty still weren't there, and the goose was nearly done. Luke and Lulla had decided after their third glass of wine apiece to make the gravy.\n\n\"And put the tent back on,\" Lulla said, sifting flour into a bowl. \"One of the things I learned when I was playing the West End is that uncovered is not necessarily better.\" She added a cup of water. \"Particularly when you're doing Shakespeare.\"\n\nShe shook in some salt and pepper. \"I remember a particularly ill-conceived nude Macbeth I did with Larry Olivier.\" She thrust her hand out dramatically. \" 'Is this a dagger which I see before me?' should not be a laugh line. Richard taught me how to do this,\" she said, stirring the mixture briskly with a fork. \"It gets the lumps out.\"\n\n\"Richard? Richard Burton?\"\n\n\"Yes. Adorable man. Of course he drank like a fish when he was depressed\u2014this was after Liz left him for the second time\u2014but it never seemed to affect his performance in bed or in the kitchen. Not like Peter.\"\n\n\"Peter? Peter Ustinov?\"\n\n\"O'Toole. Here we go.\" Lulla poured the flour mixture into the hot drippings. It disappeared. \"It takes a moment to thicken up,\" she said hopefully, but after several minutes of combined staring into the pot, it was no thicker.\n\n\"I think we need more flour,\" she said, \"and a larger bowl. A much larger bowl. And another glass of wine.\"\n\nLuke fetched them, and after a good deal of stirring, she added the mixture to the drippings, which immediately began to thicken up. \"Oh, good,\" she said, stirring. \"As John Gielgud used to say, 'If at first you don't succeed\u2026' Oh, dear.\"\n\n\"What did he say that for\u2014 Oh, dear,\" Luke said, peering into the pot where the drippings had abruptly thickened into a solid, globular mass.\n\n\"That's not what gravy's supposed to look like,\" Aunt Lulla said.\n\n\"No,\" Luke said. \"We seem to have made a lard ball.\"\n\nThey both looked at it awhile.\n\n\"I don't suppose we could pass it off as a very large dumpling,\" Aunt Lulla suggested.\n\n\"No,\" Luke said, trying to chop at it with the fork.\n\n\"And I don't suppose it'll go down the garbage disposal. Could we stick sesame seeds on it and hang it on a tree and pretend it was a suet ball for the birds?\"\n\n\"Not unless we want PETA and the Humane Society after us. Besides, wouldn't that be cannibalism?\"\n\n\"You're right,\" Aunt Lulla said. \"But we've got to do something with it before your mother gets here. I suppose Yucca Mountain's too far away,\" she said thoughtfully. \"You wouldn't have any acid on hand, would you?\"\n\nAt 4:23 P.M., Slim Rushmore, on KFLG out of Flagstaff, Arizona, made a valiant effort to change the subject on his talk radio show to school vouchers, usually a surefire issue, but his callers weren't having any of it. \"This snow is a clear sign the Apocalypse is near,\" a woman from Colorado Springs informed him. \"In the Book of Daniel, it says that God will send snow 'to purge and to make them white, even to the time of the end,' and the Book of Psalms promises us 'snow and vapours, stormy wind fulfilling his word,' and in the Book of Isaiah\u2026\"\n\nAfter the fourth Scripture (from Job: \"For God saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth\") Slim cut her off and took a call from Dwayne in Poplar Bluffs.\n\n\"You know what started all this, don't you?\" Dwayne said belligerently. \"When the commies put fluoride in the water back in the fifties.\"\n\nAt 4:25 P.M., the country club called the church to say they were closing, none of the food and only two of the staff could get there, and anybody who was still trying to have a wedding in this weather was crazy. \"I'll tell her,\" Paula said, and went to find Stacey.\n\n\"She's in putting on her wedding dress,\" the viola player said.\n\nPaula moaned.\n\n\"Yeah, I know,\" he said. \"I tried to explain to her that the rest of the quartet was not coming, but I didn't get anywhere.\" He looked at her quizzically. \"I'm not getting anywhere with you either, am I?\" he asked, and Jim walked in.\n\nHe was covered in snow. \"The car got stuck,\" he said.\n\n\"Where are Kindra and David?\"\n\n\"They closed Houston,\" he said, pulling Paula aside, \"and Newark. And I just talked to Stacey's mom. She's stuck in Lavoy. They just closed the highway. There's no way she can get here. What are we going to do?\"\n\n\"You have to tell her the wedding has to be called off,\" Paula said. \"You don't have any other option. And you have to do it now, before the guests try to come to the church.\"\n\n\"You obviously haven't been out there lately,\" he said. \"Trust me, nobody's going to come out in that.\"\n\n\"Then you obviously have to cancel.\"\n\n\"I know,\" he said worriedly. \"It's just\u2026she'll be so disappointed.\"\n\n\"Disappointed\" is not the word that springs to mind, Paula thought, and realized she had no idea how Stacey would react. She'd never seen her not get her way. I wonder what she'll do, she thought curiously, and started back into the vestry to change out of her maid-of-honor dress.\n\n\"Wait,\" Jim said, grabbing her hand. \"You have to help me tell her.\"\n\nThis is asking way too much, Paula thought. I want you to marry me, not her. \"I\u2014\" she said.\n\n\"I can't do this without you,\" he said. \"Please?\"\n\nShe extricated her hand. \"Okay,\" she said, and they went into the changing room, where Stacey was in her wedding dress, looking at herself in the mirror.\n\n\"Stacey, we have to talk,\" Jim said, after a glance at Paula. \"I just heard from your mother. She's not going to be able to get here. She's stuck at a truck stop outside Lavoy.\"\n\n\"She can't be,\" Stacey said to her reflection. \"She's bringing my veil.\" She turned to smile at Paula. \"It was my great-grandmother's. It's lace, with this snowflake pattern.\"\n\n\"Kindra and David can't get here, either,\" Jim said. He glanced at Paula and then plunged ahead. \"We're going to have to reschedule the wedding.\"\n\n\"Reschedule?\" Stacey said as if she'd never heard the word before. Which she probably hasn't, Paula thought. \"We can't reschedule. A Christmas Eve wedding has to be on Christmas Eve.\"\n\n\"I know, honey, but\u2014\"\n\n\"Nobody's going to be able to get here,\" Paula said. \"They've closed the roads.\"\n\nThe minister came in. \"The governor's declared a snow emergency and a ban on unnecessary travel. You've decided to cancel?\" she said hopefully.\n\n\"Cancel?\" Stacey said, adjusting her train. \"What are you talking about? Everything will be fine.\"\n\nAnd for one mad moment, Paula could almost see Stacey pulling it off, the weather magically clearing, the rest of the string quartet showing up, the flowers and Kindra and David and the veil all arriving in the next thirty-five minutes. She looked over at the windows. The snow, reflected softly in the candlelight, was coming down harder than ever.\n\n\"We don't have any other choice than to reschedule,\" Jim said. \"Your mother can't get here, your bridesmaids and my best man can't get here\u2014\"\n\n\"Tell them to take a different flight,\" Stacey said.\n\nPaula tried. \"Stacey, I don't think you realize, this is a major snowstorm. Airports all over the country are closed\u2014\"\n\n\"Including here,\" the viola player said, poking his head in. \"It was just on the news.\"\n\n\"Well, then, go get them,\" Stacey said, adjusting the drape of her skirt.\n\nPaula'd lost the thread of this conversation. \"Who?\"\n\n\"Kindra and David.\" She adjusted the neckline of her gown.\n\n\"To Houston?\" Jim said, looking helplessly at Paula.\n\n\"Listen, Stacey,\" Paula said, taking her firmly by the shoulders, \"I know how much you wanted a Christmas Eve wedding, but it's just not going to work. The roads are impassable. Your flowers are in a ditch, your mother's trapped at a truck stop\u2014\"\n\n\"The cello player's in the hospital with frostbite,\" the viola player put in.\n\nPaula nodded. \"And you don't want anyone else to end up there. You have to face facts. You can't have a Christmas Eve wedding.\"\n\n\"You could reschedule for Valentine's Day,\" the minister said brightly. \"Valentine weddings are very nice. I've got two weddings that day, but I could move one up. It could still be in the evening,\" but Paula could tell Stacey had stopped listening at \"You can't have\u2014\"\n\n\"You did this,\" Stacey snapped at Paula. \"You've always been jealous of me, and now you're taking it out on me by ruining my wedding.\"\n\n\"Nobody's ruining anything, Stacey,\" Jim said, stepping between them. \"It's a snowstorm.\"\n\n\"Oh, so I suppose it's my fault!\" Stacey said. \"Just because I wanted a winter wedding with snow\u2014\"\n\n\"It's nobody's fault,\" Jim said sternly. \"Listen, I don't want to wait, either, and we don't have to. We can get married right here, right now.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" the viola player said. \"You've got a minister.\" He grinned at Paula. \"You've got two witnesses.\"\n\n\"He's right,\" Jim said. \"We've got everything we need right here. You're here, I'm here, and that's all that really matters, isn't it, not some fancy wedding?\" He took her hands in his. \"Will you marry me?\"\n\nAnd what woman could resist an offer like that? Paula thought. Oh, well, you knew when you got on the plane that he was going to marry her.\n\n\"Marry you,\" Stacey repeated blankly, and the minister hurried out, saying, \"I'll get my book. And my robe.\"\n\n\"Marry you?\" Stacey said. \"Marry you?\" She wrenched free of his grasp. \"Why on earth would I marry a loser who won't even do one simple thing for me? I want Kindra and David here. I want my flowers. I want my veil. What is the point of marrying you if I can't have what I want?\"\n\n\"I thought you wanted me,\" Jim said dangerously.\n\n\"You?\" Stacey said in a tone that made both Paula and the viola player wince. \"I wanted to walk down the aisle at twilight on Christmas Eve\"\u2014she waved her arm in the direction of the windows\u2014\"with candlelight reflecting off the windowpanes and snow falling outside.\" She turned, snatching up her train, and looked at him. \"Will I marry you? Are you kidding?\"\n\nThere was a short silence. Jim turned and looked seriously at Paula. \"How about you?\" he said.\n\nAt six o'clock on the dot, Madge and Shorty, Uncle Don, Cousin Denny, and Luke's mom all arrived. \"You poor darling,\" she whispered to Luke, handing him the green bean casserole and the sweet potatoes, \"stuck all afternoon with Aunt Lulla. Did she talk your ear off?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"We made a snowman. Why didn't you tell me Aunt Lulla had been an actress?\"\n\n\"An actress?\" she said, handing him the cranberry sauce. \"Is that what she told you? Don't tip it, it'll spill. Did you have any trouble with the goose?\" She opened the oven and looked at it, sitting in its pan, brown and crispy and done to a turn. \"They tend to be a little juicy.\"\n\n\"Not a bit,\" he said, looking past her out the window at the snowman in the backyard. The snow he and Aunt Lulla had packed around and on top of it was melting. He'd have to sneak out during dinner and pack more snow on.\n\n\"Here,\" his mom said, handing him the mashed potatoes. \"Heat these up in the microwave while I make the gravy.\"\n\n\"It's made,\" he said, lifting the lid off the saucepan to show her the gently bubbling gravy. It had taken them four tries, but as Aunt Lulla had pointed out, they had more than enough drippings to experiment with, and, as she had also pointed out, three lardballs made a more realistic snowman.\n\n\"The top one's too big,\" Luke had said, scooping up snow to cover it with.\n\n\"I may have gotten a little carried away with the flour,\" Aunt Lulla had admitted. \"On the other hand, it looks exactly like Orson.\" She stuck two olives in for eyes. \"And so appropriate. He always was a fathead.\"\n\n\"The gravy smells delicious,\" Luke's mother said, looking surprised. \"You didn't make it, did you?\"\n\n\"No. Aunt Lulla.\"\n\n\"Well, I think you're a saint for putting up with her and her wild tales all afternoon,\" she said, ladling the gravy into a bowl and handing it to Luke.\n\n\"You mean she made all that stuff up?\" Luke said.\n\n\"Do you have a gravy boat?\" his mother asked, opening cupboards.\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"Aunt Lulla wasn't really an actress?\"\n\n\"No.\" She took a bowl out of the cupboard. \"Do you have a ladle?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nShe got a dipper out of the silverware drawer. \"Lulla was never in a single play,\" she said, ladling the gravy into a bowl and handing it to Luke, \"where she hadn't gotten the part by sleeping with somebody. Lionel Barrymore, Ralph Richardson, Kenneth Branagh\u2026\" She opened the oven to look at the goose. \"\u2026and that's not even counting Alfred.\"\n\n\"Alfred Lunt?\" Luke asked.\n\n\"Hitchcock. I think this is just about done.\"\n\n\"But I thought you said she was the shy one.\"\n\n\"She was. That's why she went out for drama in high school, to overcome her shyness. Do you have a platter?\"\n\nAt 6:35 P.M., a member of the Breckenridge ski patrol, out looking for four missing cross-country skiers, spotted a taillight (the only part of Kent and Bodine's Honda not covered by snow). He had a collapsible shovel with him, and a GPS, a satellite phone, a walkie-talkie, Mylar blankets, insta-heat packs, energy bars, a thermos of hot cocoa, and a stern lecture on winter safety, which he delivered after he had dug Kent and Bodine out and which they really resented. \"Who did that fascist geek think he was, shaking his finger at us like that?\" Bodine asked Kent after several tequila slammers at the Laughing Moose.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Kent said eloquently, and they settled down to the serious business of how to take advantage of the fresh powder that had fallen while they were in their car.\n\n\"You know what'd be totally extreme?\" Bodine said. \"Snowboarding at night!\"\n\nShara was quite a girl. Warren didn't have a chance to call Marjean again until after seven. When Shara went in the bathroom, he took the opportunity to dial home. \"Where are you?\" Marjean said, practically crying. \"I've been worried sick! Are you all right?\"\n\n\"I'm still in Cincinnati at the airport,\" he said, \"and it looks like I'll be here all night. They just closed the airport.\"\n\n\"Closed the airport\u2026\" she echoed.\n\n\"I know,\" he said, his voice full of regret. \"I'd really counted on being home with you for Christmas Eve, but what can you do? It's snowing like crazy here. No flights out till tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. I'm in line at the airline counter right now, rebooking, and then I'm going to try to find a place to stay, but I don't know if I'll have much luck.\" He paused to give her a chance to commiserate. \"They're supposed to put us up for the night, but I wouldn't be surprised if I end up sleeping on the floor.\"\n\n\"At the airport,\" she said, \"in Cincinnati.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" He laughed. \"Great place to spend Christmas Eve, huh?\" He paused to give her a chance to commiserate, but all she said was, \"You didn't make it home last year, either.\"\n\n\"Honey, you know I'd get there if I could,\" he said. \"I tried to rent a car and drive home, but the snow's so bad they're not even sure they can get a shuttle out here to take us to a hotel. I don't know how much snow they've had here\u2014\"\n\n\"Forty-six inches,\" she said.\n\nGood, he thought. From her voice he'd been worried it might not be snowing in Cincinnati after all. \"And it's still coming down hard. Oh, they just called my name. I'd better go.\"\n\n\"You do that,\" she said.\n\n\"All right. I love you, honey,\" he said, \"I'll be home as soon as I can,\" and hung up the phone.\n\n\"You're married,\" Shara said, standing in the door of the bathroom. \"You sonuvabitch.\"\n\nPaula didn't say yes to Jim's proposal after all. She'd intended to, but before she could, the viola player had cut in. \"Hey, wait a minute!\" he'd said. \"I saw her first!\"\n\n\"You did not,\" Jim said.\n\n\"Well, no, not technically,\" he admitted, \"but when I did see her, I had the good sense to flirt with her, not get engaged to Vampira like you did.\"\n\n\"It wasn't Jim's fault,\" Paula said. \"Stacey always gets what she wants.\"\n\n\"Not this time,\" he said. \"And not me.\"\n\n\"Only because she doesn't want you,\" Paula said. \"If she did\u2014\"\n\n\"Wanna bet? You underestimate us musicians. And yourself. At least give me a chance to make my pitch before you commit to this guy. You can't get married tonight anyway.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" Jim asked.\n\n\"Because you need two witnesses, and I have no intention of helping you,\" he pointed at Jim, \"get the woman I want. I doubt if Stacey's in the mood to be a witness, either,\" he said as Stacey stormed back in the sanctuary, with the minister in pursuit. Stacey had on her wedding dress, a parka, and boots.\n\n\"You can't go out in this,\" the minister was saying. \"It's too dangerous!\"\n\n\"I have no intention of staying here with him,\" Stacey said, shooting Jim a venomous glance. \"I want to go home now.\" She flung the door open on the thickly falling snow. \"And I want it to stop snowing!\"\n\nAt that exact moment, a snowplow's flashing yellow lights appeared through the snow, and Stacey ran out. Paula and Jim went over to the door and watched Stacey wave it down and get in. The plow continued on its way.\n\n\"Oh, good, now we'll be able to get out,\" the minister said, and went to get her car keys.\n\n\"You didn't answer my question, Paula,\" Jim said, standing very close.\n\nThe plow turned and came back. As it passed, it plowed a huge mass of snow across the end of the driveway.\n\n\"I mean it,\" Jim murmured. \"How about it?\"\n\n\"Look what I found,\" the viola player said, appearing at Paula's elbow. He handed her a piece of wedding cake.\n\n\"You can't eat that. It's\u2014\" Jim said.\n\n\"\u2014not bad,\" the viola player said. \"I prefer chocolate, though. What kind of cake shall we have at our wedding, Paula?\"\n\n\"Oh, look,\" the minister said, coming back in with her car keys and looking out the window. \"It's stopped snowing.\"\n\n\"It's stopped snowing,\" Chin said.\n\n\"It has?\" Nathan looked up from his keyboard. \"Here?\"\n\n\"No. In Oceanside, Oregon. And in Springfield, Illinois.\"\n\nNathan found them on the map. Two thousand miles apart. He checked their barometer readings, temperatures, snowfall amounts. No similarity. Springfield had thirty-two inches, Oceanside an inch and a half. And in every single town around them, it was still snowing hard. In Tillamook, six miles away, it was coming down at the rate of five inches an hour.\n\nBut ten minutes later, Chin reported the snow stopping in Gillette, Wyoming; Roulette, Massachusetts; and Saginaw, Michigan, and within half an hour the number of stations reporting in was over thirty, though they seemed just as randomly scattered all over the map as the storm's beginning had been.\n\n\"Maybe it has to do with their names,\" Chin said.\n\n\"Their names?\" Nathan said.\n\n\"Yeah. Look at this. It's stopped in Joker, West Virginia; Bluff, Utah; and Blackjack, Georgia.\"\n\nAt 7:22 P.M., the snow began to taper off in Wendover, Utah. Neither the Lucky Lady Casino nor the Big Nugget had any windows, so the event went unnoticed until Barbara Gomez, playing the quarter slots, ran out of money at 9:05 P.M. and had to go out to her car to get the emergency twenty she kept taped under the dashboard. By this time, the snow had nearly stopped. Barbara told the change girl, who said, \"Oh, good. I was worried about driving to Battle Mountain tomorrow. Were the plows out?\"\n\nBarbara said she didn't know and asked for four rolls of nickels, which she promptly lost playing video poker.\n\nBy 7:30 P.M. CNBC had replaced its logo with Digging Out, and ABC had retreated to Bing and White Christmas, though CNN still had side-by-side experts discussing the possibility of a new ice age, and on Fox News, Geraldo Rivera was intoning, \"In his classic poem 'Fire and Ice,' Robert Frost speculated that the world might end in ice. Today we are seeing the coming true of that dire prediction\u2014\"\n\nThe rest had obviously gotten the word, though, and CBS and the WB had both gone back to their regular programming. The movie White Christmas was on AMC.\n\n\"Whatever this was, it's stopping,\" Nathan said, watching \"I-80 now open from Lincoln to Ogalallah,\" scroll across the bottom of NBC's screen.\n\n\"Well, whatever you do, don't tell those corporate guys,\" Chin said, and, as if on cue, one of the businessmen Nathan had met with that morning called.\n\n\"I just wanted you to know we've voted to approve your grant,\" he said.\n\n\"Really? Thank you,\" Nathan said, trying to ignore Chin, who was mouthing, \"Are they giving us the money?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he mouthed back.\n\nChin scribbled down something and shoved it in front of Nathan. \"Get it in writing,\" it said.\n\n\"We all agreed this discontinuity thing is worth studying,\" the businessman said, then, shakily, \"They've been talking on TV about the end of the world. You don't think this discontinuity thing is that bad, do you?\"\n\n\"No,\" Nathan said, \"in fact\u2014\"\n\n\"Ix-nay, ix-nay,\" Chin mouthed, wildly crossing his arms.\n\nNathan glared at him. \"\u2014we're not even sure yet if it is a discontinuity. It doesn't\u2014\"\n\n\"Well, we're not taking any chances,\" the businessman said. \"What's your fax number? I want to send you that confirmation before the power goes out over here. We want you to get started working on this thing as soon as you can.\"\n\nNathan gave him the number. \"There's really no need\u2014\" he said.\n\nChin jabbed his finger violently at the logo False Alarm on the screen of Adler's TV.\n\n\"Consider it a Christmas present,\" the businessman said, and the fax machine began to whir. \"There is going to be a Christmas, isn't there?\"\n\nChin yanked the fax out of the machine with a whoop.\n\n\"Definitely,\" Nathan said. \"Merry Christmas,\" but the businessman had already hung up.\n\nChin was still looking at the fax.\n\n\"How much did you ask them for?\"\n\n\"Fifty thousand,\" Nathan said.\n\nChin slapped the grant approval down in front of him. \"And a merry Christmas to you, too,\" he said.\n\nAt 7:40 P.M., after watching infomercials for NordicTrack, a combination egg poacher and waffle iron, and the revolutionary new DuckBed, Bev put on her thin coat and her still-damp gloves and went downstairs. There had to be a restaurant open somewhere in Santa Fe. She would find one and have a margarita and a beef chimichanga, sitting in a room decorated with sombreros or pi\u00f1atas, with striped curtains pulled across the windows to shut the snow out.\n\nAnd if they were all closed, she would come back and order from room service. Or starve. But she was not going to ask at the desk and have them phone ahead and tell her El Charito had closed early because of the weather; she was not going to let them cut off all avenues of escape, like Carmelita. She walked determinedly past the registration desk toward the double doors.\n\n\"Mrs. Carey!\" the clerk called to her, and when she kept walking, he hurried around the desk and across the lobby to her. \"I have a message for you from Carmelita. She wanted me to tell you midnight mass at the cathedral has been canceled,\" he said. \"The bishop was worried about people driving home on the icy roads. But Carmelita said to tell you they're having mass at eight o'clock, if you'd like to come to that. The cathedral's right up the street at the end of the Plaza. If you go out the north door,\" he pointed, \"it's only two blocks. It's a very pretty service, with the luminarias and all.\"\n\nAnd it's somewhere to go, Bev thought, letting him lead her to the north door. It's something to do. \"Tell Carmelita thank you for me,\" she said at the door. \"And Feliz Navidad.\"\n\n\"Merry Christmas.\" He opened the door. \"You go down this street, turn left, and it's right there,\" he said, and ducked back inside, out of the snow.\n\nIt was inches deep on the sidewalk, and snowing hard as she hurried along the narrow street, head down. By morning it would look just like back home. It's not fair, she thought. She turned the corner and looked up at the sound of an organ.\n\nThe cathedral stood at the head of the Plaza, its windows glowing like flames, and she had been wrong about the luminarias being ruined\u2014they stood in rows leading up the walk, up the steps to the wide doors, lining the adobe walls and the roofs and the towers, burning steadily in the descending snow.\n\nIt fell silently, in great, spangled flakes, glittering in the light of the streetlamps, covering the wooden-posted porches, the pots of cactus, the pink adobe buildings. The sky above the cathedral was pink, too, and the whole scene had an unreal quality, like a movie set.\n\n\"Oh, Howard,\" Bev said, as if she had just opened a present, and then flinched away from the thought of him, waiting for the thrust of the knife, but it didn't come. She felt only regret that he couldn't be here to see this, and amusement that the sequined snowflakes sifting down on her hair, on her coat sleeve, looked just like the fake snow at the end of White Christmas. And, arching over it all, like the pink sky, she felt affection\u2014for the snow, for the moment, for Howard.\n\n\"You did this,\" she said, and started to cry.\n\nThe tears didn't trickle down her cheeks, they poured out, drenching her face, her coat, melting the snowflakes instantly where they fell. Healing tears, she thought, and realized suddenly that when she had asked Howard how the movie ended, he hadn't said, \"They lived happily ever after.\" He had said, \"They got a white Christmas.\"\n\n\"Oh, Howard.\"\n\nThe bells for the service began to ring. I need to stop crying and go in, she thought, fumbling for a tissue, but she couldn't. The tears kept coming, as if someone had opened a spigot.\n\nA black-shawled woman carrying a prayer book put her hand on Bev's shoulder and said, \"Are you all right, se\u00f1ora?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Bev said, \"I'll be fine,\" and something in her voice must have reassured the woman because she patted Bev's arm and went on into the cathedral.\n\nThe bells stopped ringing and the organ began again, but Bev continued to stand there until long after the mass had started, looking up at the falling snow.\n\n\"I don't know how you did this, Howard,\" she said, \"but I know you're responsible.\"\n\nAt 8 P.M., after anxiously checking the news to make sure the roads were still closed, Pilar put Miguel to bed. \"Now go to sleep,\" she said, kissing him good night. \"Santa's coming soon.\"\n\n\"Hunh-unh,\" he said, looking like he was going to cry. \"It's snowing too hard.\"\n\nHe's worried about the roads being closed, she thought. \"Santa doesn't need roads,\" she said. \"Remember, he has a magic sleigh that flies through the air even if it's snowing.\"\n\n\"Hunh-unh,\" he said, getting out of bed to get his Rudolph book. He showed her the illustration of the whirling blizzard and Santa shaking his head, and then stood up on his bed, pulled back the curtain, and pointed through the window. She had to admit it did look just like the picture.\n\n\"But he had Rudolph to show the way,\" she said. \"See?\" and turned the page, but he continued to look skeptical until she had read the book all the way through twice.\n\nAt 10:15 P.M. Warren Nesvick went down to the hotel's bar. He had tried to explain to Shara that Marjean was his five-year-old niece, but she had gotten completely unreasonable. \"So I'm a canceled flight out of Cincinnati, am I?\" she'd shouted. \"Well, I'm canceling you, you bastard!\" and slammed out, leaving him high and dry. On Christmas Eve, for Christ's sake.\n\nHe'd spent the next hour and a half on the phone. He'd called some women he knew from previous trips, but none of them had answered. He'd then tried to call Marjean to tell her the snow was letting up and United thought they could get him on standby early tomorrow morning and to try to patch things up\u2014she'd seemed kind of upset\u2014but she hadn't answered, either. She'd probably gone to bed.\n\nHe'd hung up and gone down to the bar. There wasn't a soul in the place except the bartender. \"How come the place is so dead?\" Warren asked him.\n\n\"Where the hell have you been?\" the bartender said, and turned on the TV above the bar.\n\n\"\u2026most widespread snowstorm in recorded history,\" Dan Abrams was saying. \"Although there are signs of the snow beginning to let up here in Baltimore, in other parts of the country they weren't so lucky. We take you now to Cincinnati, where emergency crews are still digging victims out of the rubble.\"\n\nIt cut to a reporter standing in front of a sign that read \"Cincinnati International Airport.\" \"A record forty-six inches of snow caused the roof of the main terminal to collapse this afternoon. Over two hundred passengers were injured, and forty are still missing.\"\n\nThe goose was a huge hit, crispy and tender and done to a turn, and everyone raved about the gravy. \"Luke made it,\" Aunt Lulla said, but Madge and his mom were talking about people not knowing how to drive in snow and didn't hear her.\n\nIt stopped snowing midway through dessert, and Luke began to worry about the snowman but didn't have a chance to duck out and check on it till nearly eleven, when everyone was putting on their coats.\n\nIt had melted (sort of), leaving a round greasy smear in the snow. \"Getting rid of the evidence?\" Aunt Lulla asked, coming up behind him in her old-lady coat, scarf, gloves, and plastic boots. She poked at the smear with the toe of her boot. \"I hope it doesn't kill the grass.\"\n\n\"I hope it doesn't affect the environment,\" Luke said.\n\nLuke's mother appeared in the back door. \"What are you two doing out there in the dark?\" she called to them. \"Come in. We're trying to decide who's going to have the dinner next Christmas. Madge and Shorty think it's Uncle Don's turn, but\u2014\"\n\n\"I'll have it,\" Luke said, and winked at Lulla.\n\n\"Oh,\" his mother said, surprised, and went back inside to tell Madge and Shorty and the others.\n\n\"But not goose,\" Luke said to Lulla. \"Something easy. And nonfat.\"\n\n\"Ian had a wonderful recipe for duck \u00e1 l'orange Alsacienne, as I remember,\" Lulla mused.\n\n\"Ian McKellen?\"\n\n\"No, of course not, Ian Holm. Ian McKellen's a terrible cook,\" she said. \"Or\u2014I've got an idea. How about Japanese blowfish?\"\n\nBy 11:15 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, the snow had stopped in New England, the Middle East, the Texas panhandle, most of Canada, and Nooseneck, Rhode Island.\n\n\"The storm of the century definitely seems to be winding down,\" Wolf Blitzer was saying in front of CNN's new logo: The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow, \"leaving in its wake a white Christmas for nearly everyone\u2014\"\n\n\"Hey,\" Chin said, handing Nathan the latest batch of temp readings. \"I just thought of what it was.\"\n\n\"What what was?\"\n\n\"The factor. You said there were thousands of factors contributing to global warming, and that any one of them, even something really small, could have been what caused this.\"\n\nHe hadn't really said that, but never mind. \"And you've figured out what this critical factor is?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Chin said. \"A white Christmas.\"\n\n\"A white Christmas,\" Nathan repeated.\n\n\"Yeah! You know how everybody wants it to snow for Christmas, little kids especially, but lots of adults, too. They have this Currier-and-Ives thing of what Christmas should look like, and the songs reinforce it: 'White Christmas' and 'Winter Wonderland' and that one that goes, 'The weather outside is frightful,' I never can remember the name\u2014\"\n\n\" 'Let It Snow,' \" Nathan said.\n\n\"Exactly,\" Chin said. \"Well, suppose all those people and all those little kids wished for a merry Christmas at the same time\u2014\"\n\n\"They wished this snowstorm into being?\" Nathan said.\n\n\"No. They thought about it, and their\u2014I don't know, their brain chemicals or synapses or something\u2014created some kind of electrochemical field or something, and that's the factor.\"\n\n\"That everybody was dreaming of a white Christmas.\"\n\n\"Yeah. It's a possibility, right?\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" Nathan said. Maybe there was some critical factor that had caused this. Not wishing for a white Christmas, of course, but something seemingly unconnected to weather patterns, like tiny variations in the earth's orbit. Or the migratory patterns of geese.\n\nOr an assortment of factors working in combination. And maybe the storm was an isolated incident, an aberration caused by a confluence of these unidentified factors, and would never happen again.\n\nOr maybe his discontinuity theory was wrong. A discontinuity was by definition an abrupt, unexpected event. But that didn't mean there might not be advance indicators, like the warning flickers of electric lights before the power goes off for good. In which case\u2014\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Chin said, coming in from scraping his windshield. \"Aren't you going home?\"\n\n\"Not yet. I want to run a couple more extrapolation sets. It's still snowing in L.A.\"\n\nChin looked immediately alarmed. \"You don't think it's going to start snowing everywhere again, do you?\"\n\n\"No,\" Nathan said. Not yet.\n\nAt 11:43 P.M., after singing several karaoke numbers at the Laughing Moose, including \"White Christmas,\" and telling the bartender they were going on \"a moonlight ride down this totally killer chute,\" Kent Slakken and Bodine Cromps set out with their snowboards for an off-limits, high-avalanche-danger area near Vail and were never heard from again.\n\nAt 11:52 P.M., Miguel jumped on his sound-asleep mother, shouting, \"It's Christmas! It's Christmas!\"\n\nIt can't be morning yet, Pilar thought groggily, fumbling to look at the clock. \"Miguel, honey, it's still nighttime. If you're not in bed when Santa comes, he won't leave you any presents,\" she said, hustling him back to bed. She tucked him in. \"Now go to sleep. Santa and Rudolph will be here soon.\"\n\n\"Hunh-unh,\" he said, and stood up on his bed. He pulled the curtain back. \"He doesn't need Rudolph. The snow stopped, just like I wanted, and now Santa can come all by himself.\" He pointed out the window. Only a few isolated flakes were still sifting down.\n\nOh, no, Pilar thought. After she was sure he was asleep, she crept out to the living room and turned on the TV very low, hoping against hope.\n\n\"\u2014roads will remain closed until noon tomorrow,\" an exhausted-looking reporter said, \"to allow time for the snow plows to clear them: I-15, State Highway 56, I-15 from Chula Vista to Murrieta Hot Springs, Highway 78 from Vista to Escondido\u2014\"\n\nThank you, she murmured silently. Thank you.\n\nAt 11:59 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, Sam \"Hoot'n'Holler\" Farley's voice gave out completely. The only person who'd been able to make it to the station, he'd been broadcasting continuously on KTTS, \"Seattle's talk 24/7,\" since 5:36 A.M. when he'd come in to do the morning show, even though he had a bad cold. He'd gotten steadily hoarser all day, and during the 9:00 P.M. newsbreak, he'd had a bad coughing fit.\n\n\"The National Weather Service reports that that big snowstorm's finally letting up,\" he croaked, \"and we'll have nice weather tomorrow. Oh, this just in from NORAD, for all you kids who're up way too late. Santa's sleigh's just been sighted on radar over Vancouver and is headed this way.\"\n\nHe then attempted to say, \"In local news, the snow\u2014\" but nothing came out.\n\nHe tried again. Nothing.\n\nAfter the third try, he gave up, whispered, \"That's all, folks,\" into the mike, and put on a tape of Louis Armstrong singing \"White Christmas.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "A Final Word on the Subject",
                "text": "As Jo March said in Little Women, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without any presents. The giving and getting of gifts is inextricably bound up with the holiday and the Christmas story\u2014from the Magis' gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the partridge in the pear tree, from the turkey \"bigger than a boy\" that the formerly stingy Scrooge sends the Cratchits to the small bottle of cologne the still-stingy Amy buys for Marmee so she'll have enough money to buy some drawing pencils, from heart's desires like Ralphie's \"Red Ryder repeating carbine with a compass mounted in the stock\" to more symbolic gifts, like Amahl's crutch\u2014and the ham the Herdmans brought the Holy Family.\n\nOur family starts watching Christmas movies the day after Thanksgiving, and over the years we've added so many of them to our list that we're not done by the twenty-fifth and have to keep going straight through to Epiphany.\n\nWhich is kind of a miracle since we don't watch just any old thing (like say, for instance, the sappy movies on the Hallmark Channel or anything with bad Santas or Alvin and the Chipmunks in it). And the list of Christmas movies we loathe is nearly as long as the ones we love. Beginning with Jingle All the Way.\n\nSo this list isn't complete, but it's enough to get you to Christmas, and I'm sure you have your own to add.\n\n1. Miracle on 34th Street: The best Christmas movie ever made. (See Introduction.) I am of course talking about the original, with Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn. In black and white. Don't even think about either of the wretched remakes.\n\n2. Love, Actually: Tied for first, and possibly the best Christmas movie ever made because it shows us all sides of the holiday\u2014and all sides of the love that underpins it. It's by turns funny, sad, ironic, ridiculous (Mother: \"First lobster? There was more than one lobster present at the birth of the baby Jesus?\" Daughter: \"Duh.\"), romantic, wincingly painful, and uplifting. And the opening scene at Heathrow contains a Christmas message we could all use right now.\n\n3. A Christmas Story: A close second, this Jean Shepherd story of a boy who desperately wants a BB gun (\"You'll shoot your eye out, kid!\") for Christmas is that rarest of things\u2014nostalgic without a trace of sentimentality. It has a number of hilarious scenes\u2014the tongue stuck to the flagpole, the Bumpus dogs and the turkey, the trip to see the department-store Santa. Pick your favorite. Mine is the Major Award, no, wait, the Ovaltine magic decoder ring, no, wait\u2026.But it's not just a series of comic set pieces. More than any other holiday movie, A Christmas Story captures just how badly you want things when you're a kid and how central Christmas is to the kid's year.\n\n4. The Sure Thing: I almost didn't go see this movie. The preview (and the title) made it look like a beery teen sex movie. But then I noticed that certain scenes looked an awful lot like It Happened One Night and decided to take a chance. Now, every year we watch this great road picture about Alison, who's going to visit her boyfriend for Christmas, and Gib, who's trying to get to California for \"a sure thing\" and who, in classic romantic-comedy fashion, happens to hitch a ride in the same car with Alison.\n\n5. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek: Most movies made during World War II were about brave soldiers and the girls who waited faithfully for them on the home front. Preston Sturges instead decided to tell the story of a girl who goes to an Army dance and ends up getting married (maybe) and pregnant (definitely), and of her 4-F boyfriend, Norval, who tries to help her out of her predicament. But everything they attempt only makes things worse till nothing short of a miracle can save them, and you can't even imagine a miracle that would do any good.\n\n6. The Shop Around the Corner: This Ernst Lubitsch\u2013directed film about the people who work in a little shop in Depression-era Austria is a classic in every sense of the word. Not only does it star Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as pen pals who don't know the other's identity, but it's full of wonderful supporting characters, from Frank Morgan as the cranky boss to the long-suffering Pirovitch and the incorrigible Pepi. And it has Vienna at Christmastime. (NOTE: You can also watch the remake, You've Got Mail, with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, which I like a lot, but the original is better.)\n\n7. A Christmas Carol: The Movies. There are a jillion versions of this, starring everybody from Alastair Sim to Captain Picard to Bill Murray. My two favorites are the Muppets' and Mr. Magoo's. Not only are they the most literarily faithful (okay, okay, the Muppet one has two Marleys, but it also has Charles Dickens as a character\u2014and Rizzo the Rat), but they're the most fun. And they have wonderful scores. The Muppets' songs were written by Paul Williams. Mr. Magoo's were done by the Broadway team of Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, and include the wonderful \"When You're Alone in the World.\"\n\n8. The Santa Clause: I fully expected to hate this movie about a divorced father who accidentally kills Santa Claus and then finds himself legally required to take over for him. It had all the things I despise about modern Christmas movies\u2014big-budget production values, over-elaborate special effects, flatulent-reindeer jokes. And Tim Allen, who I loathed. Until I saw him in Galaxy Quest, where he totally won me over with his smart-mouthed, self-centered portrayal of Captain Jason Nesmith. He won me over in The Santa Clause, too, and so did the whole movie, with its smart-aleck dialogue and its clever twists on an old story, from a second-in-command at the North Pole named Bernard to the Oscar Meyer Weiner pennywhistle. And a team of elf commandos with some unusual weapons: \"Tinsel. Not just for decoration.\"\n\n9. The Homecoming: This TV movie about a West Virginia family coping with the Depression and waiting for their father to come home (if he is coming) was the pilot for the TV series The Waltons. But unlike the series, it doesn't pull any punches about how hard the Depression was\u2014or what it did to families. And to Christmas.\n\n10. Christmas in Connecticut: This 1945 movie about a Martha Stewart\u2013type magazine writer who can't actually cook and a sailor whose ship was torpedoed and who spent eighteen days on a raft dreaming of food not only has Barbara Stanwyck, but Sydney Greenstreet, Dennis Morgan, and \"Cuddles\" Sakall as her Uncle Felix, who's worth watching this movie for all by himself, especially the scene at the smorgasbord where Barbara's agreed to marry a man she doesn't love and he's telling her why she's made a good decision, as Felix, under the guise of filling a plate for her, tells her (and us) exactly how he feels about the situation: \"Bologna\u2026horseradish\u2026nuts.\"\n\n11. Amahl and the Night Visitors: This one-act opera by Gian Carlo Menotti about the wise men stopping at a poor widow's on their way to Bethlehem was originally produced for television. It's out on video, but, even better, it's often performed at Christmas by churches, colleges, and community theater groups, and I definitely recommend seeing it live. The story is haunting, the music is heartbreaking, and every production adds something to the simple story of the crippled shepherd boy, his embittered mother, and their distinguished visitors.\n\n12. While You Were Sleeping: This sweet and romantic comedy with Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman is about the loony complications that can result from being all alone at Christmastime and wishing you were part of a family.\n\n13. 3 Godfathers: A Christmas story in the last place you'd ever expect to find one\u2014a John Ford Western starring John Wayne\u20143 Godfathers tells the story of three bank robbers who find a pioneer woman about to give birth in a godforsaken place. This is the perfect movie to watch when you've overdosed on mistletoe and Santas and snow, and it may introduce you to John Ford's Westerns and convince you to go on to Stagecoach, Fort Apache, and The Searchers.\n\n14. Off Season: Set at a rundown motel in Florida, Off Season doesn't look at all like a Christmas movie, and at first it doesn't feel like one, but this story of a little boy who thinks the old man living at their rundown Florida hotel is really Santa Claus is great. Santa's actually a con man wanted in several states\u2014or is he? Either way, he's Hume Cronyn, who's terrific.\n\n15. Home Alone: However you feel about John Hughes, and yes, he is capable of exactly the kind of schmaltz I've railed against, or about Three Stooges humor (in this case, two stooges, both of them incredibly dumb), this is a great movie about our complicated relationships with our families. And the song \"Somewhere in My Memory\" (which I think should be a Christmas classic) and the scene in the church are worth the price of admission all by themselves.\n\n16. Meet John Doe: Frank Capra's other Christmas movie\u2014you know the one I mean\u2014is a lot more famous than this one (and shown approximately 987 times a day through the entire month of December), but this one, which stars Gary Cooper as a down-and-out hobo and Barbara Stanwyck as an enterprising reporter, is really interesting, especially in these days of religious cults, hungry-for-power politicians, a rampant press, and even more rampant cynicism.\n\n17. Elf: Having seen only the annoying Will Ferrell, I had to be talked into going to see this movie, but now it's one of our favorites, mostly because of the aforesaid Mr. Ferrell, who plays the role of Buddy the Elf absolutely straight, without a hint of irony or \"Isn't this ridiculous?\" Zooey Deschanel is wonderful, and the movie's full of great lines, from \"The yellow ones don't stop\" to \"I passed through the seven levels of the candy cane forest, through the sea of swirly-twirly gumdrops, and then I walked through the Lincoln Tunnel.\" And Gimbel's finally gets its chance to compete with Macy's!\n\n18. Bachelor Mother: No Christmas is complete without Ginger Rogers, who here is a department store employee who spots a baby being left on an orphanage doorstep and tries to rescue it. But in this world no good deed goes unpunished, so she finds herself labeled the mother, and the harder she tries to straighten out the mess, the worse it gets. The movie also stars Charles Coburn, who has my favorite line in any movie ever\u2014\"I don't care who the baby's father is. I'm the grandfather!\" and David Niven, whose life was saved during World War II by this movie. During the Battle of the Bulge, he was working for British Intelligence when he was stopped by an armed American sentry. \"Who won the World Series?\" the sentry asked, posing a question that German spies couldn't answer. \"I have no idea,\" Niven replied, \"but I did star with Ginger Rogers in Bachelor Mother.\" It did the trick. The sentry let him through.\n\n19. About a Boy: Hugh Grant stars as a man who's stuck in perpetual adolescence (thanks to his father, who wrote a Christmas song that allows him to live off the royalties)\u2014until he meets a boy with a suicidal mother. The script is by Nick Hornby, whom I adore. 'Nuff said?\n\n20. Meet Me in St. Louis: Except for the ending, this isn't really a Christmas movie\u2014we sometimes watch it in October instead because of its wonderful Halloween scene\u2014but it has one of the all-time-great Christmas songs in it\u2014\"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas\"\u2014and its theme of a Christmas marked by partings and sadness is one that makes the movie truly memorable.\n\n21. The Lemon Drop Kid: Not only is this based on a Damon Runyon story (see comments on Runyon under \"Dancing Dan's Christmas\"), but it has Bob Hope. And the song \"Silver Bells.\"\n\n22. Spotlight: This Oscar-winning picture about the team of Boston Globe reporters who exposed a far-reaching scandal in the Catholic Church isn't technically a Christmas movie, though it takes place during the holidays, and its subject matter is heavier than that of the other films on this list. But its theme\u2014truth and justice fighting against seemingly overwhelming odds\u2014is entirely appropriate for the season. And more timely than ever.\n\n23. Little Women: This isn't a Christmas movie, either, but it starts out at Christmas, and the book has one of the great Christmas-story first lines ever, the aforementioned \" 'Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents,' grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.\" Plus, I watched it every Christmas when I was a kid. There are three versions to choose from. The one I grew up on was the June Allyson one (with Elizabeth Taylor perfectly cast as snotty Amy). The Katharine Hepburn version is generally acknowledged to be the best, but my personal favorite is the new one with Winona Ryder and Kirsten Dunst. Or you could watch them all.\n\n24. And finally, White Christmas: I know, I know, it's a complete clich\u00e9. And by rights, it should have been a disaster. In the first place, it was a sequel (to Holiday Inn, which isn't nearly as good), and was written solely to capitalize on the success of the song \"White Christmas.\" In the second place, it didn't have a real score, just a bunch of random Irving Berlin songs pulled from hither and yon, and its story of \"Hey, kids, let's put on a show,\" is the most overused plot in the book. Plus, Fred Astaire bailed, and then his replacement, Donald O'Connor, got sick. But somehow it managed to pull it all together to become a great movie, with bits like Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye doing \"Sisters\" in drag and the general sending his replacement off on a wild-goose chase, which get better every year. Plus, there's Mary Wickes and the whole running gag of Danny's injured arm. And the faces of the young boys, far from home and waiting to be called into battle, listening to a song from home. Inspired."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 14",
                "text": "Good things to read at Christmas are trickier to find than good movies. Everything out there right now seems to be either treacly, annoyingly inspirational, or about someone attempting to overcome drug addiction, prostitution, and/or abusive parents. But here are twenty that manage to avoid being pious, goopily sentimental, and/or suicidally depressing.\n\n1. The Original Christmas Story (Matthew Chapter 1:18\u201325, 2:1\u201318, Luke Chapter 1:5\u201380, 2:1\u201352): It's got everything you could ask for in a story: adventure, excitement, love, betrayals, good guys, bad guys, narrow escapes, mysterious strangers, and a thrilling chase scene. And the promise of a great sequel.\n\n2. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: The perfect Christmas story, which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the only way to begin a Christmas story is with the line, \"Marley was dead: to begin with.\" And just because you know it all by heart\u2014Scrooge and Tiny Tim and the Ghost of Christmas Past, \"I forged these chains in life,\" and the bed-curtains and the turkey and \"God bless us, every one!\"\u2014is no reason not to read it again.\n\n3. \"The Tree That Didn't Get Trimmed\" by Christopher Morley: Obviously inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's sickeningly sentimental \"The Fir Tree,\" this story of a tree that doesn't get bought by anyone and instead gets thrown away not only avoids all the sins of its antecedent, but ends by telling a touching parable of those ultimate Christmas themes, suffering and redemption.\n\n4. \"Christmas Trees\" by Robert Frost: Robert Frost is one of my favorite poets. His poems are the essence of New England\u2014taciturn and down-to-earth\u2014and unique. Take, for example, that other poem of his that people associate with Christmas, \"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.\" Or this one, about a man with a hill full of fir trees\u2014and the man from the city who wants to buy them.\n\n5. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson: This modest children's story of a church Nativity pageant invaded by the horrible Herdman kids, who steal and swear and smoke cigars (even the girls), accomplishes the nearly impossible\u2014the creation of a new classic\u2014and makes the reader look at the story of Mary and Joseph and the baby \"wrapped in wadded-up clothes\" as the Herdmans do, with new eyes.\n\n6. \"Santaland Diaries\" by David Sedaris: I first heard this on NPR, and I was riveted. I'd never heard a take on Christmas so wry, so cynical, and so dead-on. David Sedaris has gone on to write lots of pieces about Christmas, but this diary of his days as an elf in the toy department at Macy's remains my favorite.\n\n7. \"The Santa Claus Compromise\" by Thomas Disch: This parable of a future in which six-year-olds have finally gotten their political rights and are intent on doing investigative journalism to expose Santa Claus's true identity could have been written in today's group-rights-activism climate. The fact that it was written back in 1974, when satire was still possible, makes it chilling as well as funny.\n\n8. \"Journey of the Magi\" by T. S. Eliot: The Bible doesn't tell us anything about what the wise men's journey to Bethlehem was like, or how much it must have cost them emotionally to make it. Or what happened to them afterward, when it was time to go back home.\n\n9. \"Dancing Dan's Christmas\" by Damon Runyon: When the dust settles on the twentieth century, it's my belief that Damon Runyon will finally be recognized as one of our greatest writers and will be fully appreciated for his clever plots, his unerring ear for language, and his cast of guys, dolls, gangsters, bookies, chorus girls, crapshooters, Salvation Army soul-savers, high rollers, lowlifes, louts, and lovable losers. I chose \"Dancing Dan's Christmas,\" a story involving a mean mobster, a Santa Claus suit, a diamond vanity case, and a few too many Tom and Jerrys, to include here, but it was a tough call. \"Palm Beach Santa Claus\" and \"The Three Wise Guys\" were both a close second.\n\n10. \"The Star\" by Arthur C. Clarke: One of the classics of science fiction by one of the masters in the field, this tells a troubling story about the star that guided the wise men to Bethlehem.\n\n11. \"The Gift of the Magi\" by O. Henry: O. Henry is another underappreciated author, as witness the fact that dozens of stories, screenplays, and sitcoms have copied the plot of this story. But none of them have ever managed to copy the charm or the style of the original, a simple little tale of a watch fob and a set of tortoiseshell combs.\n\n12. The Memorial Hall Murder by Jane Langton: For all you mystery fans, Christmas offers an abundance of Christmas stories and detectives, from Sherlock Holmes (\"The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle\") to Hercule Poirot (Murder for Christmas), but you may not have met Detective Homer Kelly or read this mystery about a murder that occurs while a college choir's rehearsing the \"Messiah.\" And it doesn't get any more Christmassy than Handel and choirs. Or murder.\n\n13. \"Rumpole and the Spirit of Christmas\" by John Mortimer: If you've encountered the irascible Old Bailey hack, Horace Rumpole, on PBS's Mystery, he seems like the last person to have any Christmas spirit, and he is. Which is why this story works so well. Leave it to John Mortimer to teach us a new meaning of \"the Christmas spirit.\"\n\n14. \"The Chimes\" by Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol is only one of a score of holiday stories Dickens wrote. A few years ago I decided to read them all, and when I read \"The Chimes,\" I got a huge shock, as will you. I won't give it away, but let's just say the plot of a certain very famous Christmas movie bears a suspicious resemblance to this Dickens story about a man who wishes he'd never been born.\n\n15. Wishin' and Hopin': A Christmas Story by Wally Lamb: Set in the era of LBJ, Dragnet, and the Beatles, this story, about a fifth-grade boy who has a famous cousin (whom no one in the family has actually ever met) and who's been cast as the little drummer boy in the Catholic school Christmas pageant but who's more interested in girls, has pretty much everything you could want: nuns, rosaries, impure thoughts, angels with light-up halos, suicide Cokes, dodgeball, Dondi\u2014and Annette Funicello.\n\n16. The Tailor of Gloucester by Beatrix Potter: When Beatrix Potter (of Peter Rabbit fame) was staying with relatives in the west of England, she heard a story of a tailor who'd fallen ill before he could finish sewing a coat he was making for the mayor and found it miraculously completed when he returned to work, and spun it into a Christmas tale about a bad cat, some beleaguered mice, and a twist of cherry-colored thread. The illustrations are some of Potter's loveliest, and the story's charming.\n\n17. \"Christmas Eve: Nearing Midnight in New York\" by Langston Hughes: One of my favorite poets, Langston Hughes has written Christmas-themed poems in several moods and modes, from the traditional \"Shepherd's Song at Christmas\" to the slashingly bitter \"Merry Christmas,\" and you should read them all. But I like this one, with its city images and tentative \"almosts,\" the best.\n\n18. \"Another Christmas Carol\" by P. G. Wodehouse: There's no way to describe a P. G. Wodehouse story, so I won't even try. I'll just say that this is the only Christmas story I know of that involves the bubonic plague and tofu, and that, if you've never read him, there could be no better Christmas gift than discovering P. G. Wodehouse.\n\n19. \"Down Pens\" by Saki (H. H. Munro): I love all Saki stories, but I'm especially fond of this take on the task of writing Christmas thank-yous, since my research on the subject for my novel Crosstalk (which consisted mostly of reading advice columns) proved conclusively that human beings think more about thank-you notes than anything else. Including sex.\n\n20. \"For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio\" by W. H. Auden: Part play, part poem, all masterpiece, this long work is what you should read in January, when you're taking down the Christmas decorations (and your sense of good will toward men) and putting them away for another year\u2014and then facing the bleak post-Bethlehem world we all find ourselves living in."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 15",
                "text": "One of the blessings of our so-called information age is that all these episodes are available to watch on YouTube or Netflix or Hulu. Or, in the case of Dr. Who, on BBC America or Syfy. Enjoy!\n\n1. Frasier, Season 3, Episode 9, \"Frasier Grinch\": Even though Frasier's son really wanted an Outlaw Laser Robo-Geek, Frasier bought him an educational toy\u2014which didn't arrive. So he and Niles have to try to find a present for him at the mall on Christmas Eve. Classic slapstick, brilliant title cards (as usual), and the ending had me in tears.\n\n2. Murphy Brown, Season 3, Episode 11, \"Jingle Hell, Jingle Hell, Jingle\u2026\": Murphy talked everyone in the office into making a charitable donation instead of exchanging gifts, and then broke the bargain by buying presents (just little ones), sending everyone scrambling for last-minute gifts in the only store open on Christmas Eve\u2014the drugstore. Which has a large (and very breakable) collection of gnomes.\n\n3. Big Bang Theory, Season 2, Episode 11, \"The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis\": All of this series' Christmas episodes are good and well worth watching, but none of them can top this one, in which Sheldon approaches the custom of giving gifts in his usual hyper-rational, unemotional way, calculating the precise exchange rate for small, medium, and large baskets of bath oil, soap, and scented candles\u2014and gets a lesson in higher mathematics (and Christmas) from Penny, of all people.\n\n4. The Muppet Christmas Special with John Denver: This was the first of the Muppet Christmas specials, and it's the best. Highlights include \"When the River Meets the Sea,\" an altercation with Miss Piggy over the words \"figgy pudding,\" a truly awful rendition of \"The Twelve Days of Christmas,\" and a lively rendition of \"Little Saint Nick.\"\n\n5. Doctor Who, The Christmas Specials: All the Doctor Who Christmas specials\u2014\"The Husbands of River Song,\" \"Last Christmas,\" \"The Time of the Doctor,\" \"The Snowmen,\" \"The End of Time,\" \"The Day of the Doctor\"\u2014are terrific. My favorite is probably \"Tooth and Claw,\" having, as it does, Queen Victoria, a werewolf, Scotland, the birth of Torchwood, and the Koh-i-Noor diamond, but don't make me choose. You should watch them all.\n\n6. The Twilight Zone, \"Five Characters in Search of an Exit\": The Twilight Zone did a number of memorable Christmas stories. The most famous is \"The Night of the Meek,\" with Art Carney as a drunken department-store Santa, but \"Five Characters in Search of an Exit\" is more quintessentially Twilight Zone\u2013ish, with its five mismatched people\u2014a hobo, a bagpiper, a ballet dancer, a clown, and an Army major\u2014trapped in a strange place with no idea what's going on and no way out. And Rod Serling (who was born on Christmas) intoning, \"Tonight's odd cast of players on the odd stage known as\u2014the Twilight Zone.\""
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "title": "(Hobbs 1.5) The More The Merrier",
        "author": "Elena Graf",
        "genres": [
            "holiday",
            "Christmas"
        ],
        "tags": [],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "Chapter 1",
                "text": "The snow began as flurries while Maggie and Liz searched for their perfect tree. Should it be skinny to take up less floor space? Or bushy to hold the ornaments each of them had acquired over six-decades?\n\nSince combining their collections five years ago, they had rotated the ornaments so that all of them would eventually grace their tree. Every year, they bought a single ornament, and Maggie carefully painted the date on it. Liz wasn't usually a fan of romantic traditions, but she liked this one. It reminded her that they had logged some time together after being separated for forty years. More importantly, it marked another year that Maggie had been cancer-free.\n\nThe line to bag the trees snaked down into the parking area. No one seemed to be in a hurry. The people of Hobbs took any opportunity to catch up with their neighbors, whether at the post office, the supermarket, or waiting for their Christmas trees. Liz and Maggie had company coming, so they paid cash, and Liz tossed their tree into the back of her pickup truck.\n\nThey had decided to set up the tree on the enclosed porch because it was cooler there. Working together was not their strong point, each being the kind of woman who liked to run the show, but Liz tried to be patient as she lay beneath the tree, tightening or loosening the screws in response to Maggie's directions. Not completely trusting her wife's ability to eyeball ninety degrees, Liz got up to inspect the progress.\n\n\"I guess that's pretty straight,\" she grudgingly admitted.\n\n\"I'm more competent than you think.\"\n\n\"Yes, you are.\" Another grudging admission.\n\nMaggie pinched Liz gently. \"Thank you. Now, how about some mulled wine while you put on the lights?\"\n\nAs Maggie waited for the wine to heat, she watched the snow fall outside the kitchen window and wondered if their guests would brave the weather. She reminded herself they were Mainers, and a little snow wouldn't keep them away. When the wine began to steam. Maggie stirred it gently, strained it into two mugs, and headed to the porch.\n\n\"It smells wonderful out here,\" she said, inhaling the comforting scent of pine. \"Nothing smells quite like a fresh tree. I think it's our best ever.\"\n\n\"You say that every year.\"\n\n\"That's because every year it gets better.\" When Liz gave her a skeptical look, Maggie knew the double meaning had gone right over her head. \"For you, Dr. Stolz,\" she said, handing a mug to Liz.\n\n\"Thank you, Dr. Fitzgerald.\"\n\nMaggie took a seat on the wicker settee. \"Do you ever wish you hadn't talked me out of taking your name?\"\n\nLiz stopped fussing with the bottom string of lights and turned around to look at her. \"No.\"\n\n\"We're a family. Shouldn't we have the same name?\"\n\n\"It would be too confusing for the townspeople to have two Drs. Stolz. How would they know who to ask about a sore throat?\"\n\n\"Everyone knows you're the one for sore throats.\"\n\n\"I really didn't care what name you took. I just didn't want you to have his name.\"\n\n\"You'll never forgive me for marrying Barry, will you?\"\n\n\"I forgave you, or we wouldn't be here talking about it.\"\n\nMaggie nodded and took a sip of wine. \"It's good,\" she decided. \"Better with a cinnamon stick than powdered cinnamon.\"\n\n\"We probably shouldn't get too deep into our cups. Soon, we'll have dozens of people here.\"\n\nMaggie shrugged. \"Everything's ready. The stew and the chili are cooking. The snacks are prepared. You have most of the lights on the tree. Sit down for a minute and drink your wine.\"\n\nLiz looked doubtful, but she sat down beside Maggie. \"The snow is coming down harder,\" she said, glancing out the window. \"What does the weather report say?\"\n\n\"We could have ten inches or more. Do you think everyone will show up?\"\n\n\"Oh, they'll come. People look forward to our tree-trimming party. It's a tradition. Just think. After this, we'll be done with our holiday entertaining.\"\n\n\"Maybe this year we'll finally be able to have a quiet Christmas alone\u2026sitting by the fire, watching old Christmas movies, making love\u2026\" She suggestively raised a brow.\n\nLiz sighed. \"Wouldn't that be nice? It's been such a busy year. My mother in the hospital\u2026twice. Your promotion to chairman. Restructuring the practice. I thought we were supposed to be retired. We're busier than ever.\"\n\n\"We're not really retired. Only doing something different from our old day jobs.\" Maggie gave Liz's ratty Yale sweatshirt and threadbare mom jeans a disapproving frown. \"I hope you plan to change into something decent for the party. It's a special occasion.\"\n\n\"It's supposed to be casual.\"\n\n\"Casual, yes, but you look like you're ready to go out and paint the house!\"\n\n\"You can't paint a house in winter. The paint won't cure correctly. The minimum temperature for exterior painting is fifty-eight degrees. Otherwise, the paint scales off.\"\n\nMaggie wasn't distracted by the home improvement lesson. She knew that pedantic lectures were one of Liz's favorite ways to deflect. \"You know what I mean.\"\n\n\"All right,\" Liz grumbled. \"After I finish putting on the lights, I'll shovel the front steps. Then, I'll change.\"\n\nMaggie gave Liz a quick kiss. \"Thank you.\"\n\n\"That's not a kiss,\" said Liz, setting down her mug. She tried to wrestle the mug out of Maggie's hand.\n\n\"No, you don't, or we'll be in bed when our guests arrive. Now, drink your wine and finish the lights.\"\n\nWith a sound between a growl and a groan, Liz got up to resume stringing the lights.\n\nAs Maggie set out wine and beer glasses for their guests, she heard the scrape of the shovel on the front steps. Not long after, the garage door slammed, followed by the sound of Liz's stocking feet running up the stairs to the third floor. Her wife soon returned, looking much more presentable in a red sweater, black dress pants and heels. She'd even put on some makeup.\n\n\"Better?\" Liz asked.\n\n\"Much.\"\n\n\"Now do I get a real kiss?\" asked Liz, trying to steal one.\n\n\"Stop. You'll wreck your lipstick and mine. You're such a tease!\" Maggie gently fended her off. \"Our guests will be arriving any minute.\" The ship's bell on the front porch rang. \"See? Go answer the door.\" She gave Liz a little shove.\n\n\"I'll get you later,\" said Liz, shaking her finger over her head as she headed to the front door.\n\nMaggie heard Tony Roselli's booming baritone in the entrance hall. \"We have come bearing gifts!\" A moment later, Tony was in the kitchen, giving Maggie a kiss on each cheek. \"How are you, Sweetie? You look fantastic!\" He held up a gold-tone blouse. \"Look what I found for you. Isn't it perfect for the holidays? Second hand, of course. But feel the quality!\"\n\nTony's husband, Fred elbowed his way in. \"Hello, Maggie,\" he said, giving her a kiss. \"You know he can't resist picking out clothes for you. He wishes he could wear them. But alas, he's lost his girlish figure.\" Fred set a foil-wrapped tray on the island. \"The stuffed mushrooms that Liz likes so much.\"\n\n\"Oh, I love them too!\" declared Tony. \"Can't you see?\" He patted his belly. His protests were an exaggeration. He was still slim, although a little weight had settled around his waist since he'd finally married Fred.\n\nLiz came into the kitchen. \"Drinks? How about an elderberry martini? Nathan's chef gave me the recipe.\"\n\n\"How did you wring it out him?\" asked Fred.\n\n\"He told me during his annual checkup, when I mentioned how much I liked them.\"\n\nFred stared at her dramatically. \"Aren't you breaching patient confidentiality?\"\n\n\"Not exactly. It doesn't apply to martini recipes.\"\n\nTony cornered Maggie near the refrigerator. \"I hear you're teaching twentieth century drama at UNE next term.\"\n\n\"You heard correctly.\"\n\n\"Would you consider directing Anouilh's Antigone at State?\"\n\nMaggie and Liz exchanged a smile. \"Maybe,\" said Maggie with sly look. \"I played Ismene in a college production.\"\n\n\"You could play the nurse,\" Tony suggested. \"Not a big part, but a good one.\"\n\n\"That's an old lady's role!\" Maggie replied, making a face.\n\n\"Well, you are old enough for Medicare,\" said Liz, pouring martinis for Tony and Fred.\n\n\"Liz, it's considered a faux pas to talk about a lady's age,\" chided Fred, shaking his bald head. \"Even I know that.\"\n\n\"Just yanking her chain. She hates to be reminded that I'm younger.\"\n\n\"Hah! In two years, you'll be old enough for Medicare too,\" Maggie said.\n\nThe doorbell rang. \"I'll get it,\" said Maggie. \"You finish making the drinks.\"\n\nMaggie opened the door to find Alyson Gagnon and her fianc\u00e9e, \"the dentist,\" which Liz insisted on calling Lynne Bates, although she was a perfectly lovely woman, whom Maggie liked very much. Maggie suspected there was a smidgen of jealousy over the fact that Liz's ex had finally found someone to accept her marriage proposal.\n\nAlyson shook the snowflakes out of her strawberry blond hair. The new arrivals added their boots to the others on the rack.\n\n\"How are the roads?\" Maggie asked, taking their coats.\n\n\"Getting a bit slick.\" Lynne slipped on a pair of flats. \"Thank heavens for four-wheel drive.\"\n\nAlyson held out two bottles of wine. \"Give them to Liz,\" said Maggie. \"She's in the kitchen making drinks.\"\n\nAfter stowing their coats on the bed in the downstairs guest room, Maggie returned to the kitchen in time to see Alyson's face light up when she saw Liz. She was relieved to see Liz's response was no more than a quick, friendly kiss.\n\n\"And here's the dentist!\" said Liz with a big grin as she hugged Lynne.\n\nThe bell rang again. After Maggie greeted Liz's friends from the hiking club, she found a note pad in the kitchen drawer and made a sign that said, \"COME ON IN!\" She taped it to the storm door and left the front door open. Soon, more people crowded into the kitchen to greet their hosts and find drinks\u2014faculty from University of New England, surgeons from Seacoast Women's health, and Liz's partners at Hobbs Family Practice\u2014Cathy Pelletier and Jim Bowden and their spouses. The noise level rose by a factor of ten. The officers of the Hobbs Fish and Game arrived, followed by Brenda Harrison, the Hobbs police chief. Liz moved the slow cookers with Maggie's savory stew and spicy chili to a counter and set up a bar on the island.\n\n\"You're pretty good with that cocktail mixer,\" said Brenda, \"not training for a second career, are you?\"\n\n\"Well, I suppose that would count as my third career, if I were.\"\n\nBrenda looked thoughtful, \"Yes, I guess that's right. First, a big shot surgeon, now just a humble family doc.\"\n\n\"I don't know how humble I am, but I try,\" replied Liz with a quick laugh. \"What can I get you, Brenda? You're not on duty tonight, are you?\"\n\n\"Nope, but with this snow coming down, I don't want to get too buzzed in case there's an emergency.\"\n\n\"How about some hot cider? It's not spiked, I promise.\"\n\n\"Perfect.\"\n\n\"Liz, I'm going to get the guests started on trimming the tree,\" said Maggie, \"before they get too inebriated and all the ornaments end up in one place.\"\n\nMaggie went out to the porch and turned the music down. \"May I have your attention, please,\" she announced in her actress voice, which easily projected over the buzz of conversation. Everyone fell silent. \"The bins for the ornaments are over there against the window. Before you have your next drink, I want each of you to put up at least five ornaments. Try to keep the heavy ones for the strong branches on the bottom.\" She scrolled through the playlist on her phone to find something more festive and noticed she'd missed two phone calls. There was also a text message.\n\nShe opened the message first. It was from her daughter, Alina. \"MOM ARE YOU THERE?\"\n\nShe checked the voicemails. Both were from Alina: \"Mom, I'm calling from Tampa airport. I know I said I wasn't coming for Christmas, but I changed my mind. Just me and the girls. I'll explain everything when I get there.\" Maggie tapped on the next voicemail. \"Mom, I really need to talk to you. We're boarding now, and I need to know someone can meet me in Boston. Please call or text me right away. It's really important.\" Maggie checked the time of the calls. They had come in over an hour ago. Why hadn't she heard them? She checked the ringer switch and found it had been turned off since the faculty meeting the previous afternoon.\n\nMaggie went into the kitchen. \"Liz, you need to listen to this.\" She held her phone up to Liz's ear as she finished pouring wine for their latest guests.\n\nLiz put down the wine bottle and took the phone. She checked the time of the messages. \"She must be in the air now. It would have been nice of her to leave her flight information.\"\n\n\"What are we going to do?\" asked Maggie. \"We can't leave with all these people here.\"\n\nLiz frowned as she thought. \"Maybe she can get a limo when she gets to the airport. Or she could take the bus into Dover.\"\n\n\"You know that will be hard with the baby.\"\n\nLiz sighed. \"Can you manage the gang without me? I'll go pick her up.\"\n\n\"Oh, Liz. The weather is terrible.\"\n\nLiz made a face. \"I know, but we can't leave her there.\"\n\n\"Maybe she could go to a hotel, and we could pick her up tomorrow.\"\n\n\"If we tell her that, she'll have a panic attack on the spot. Plus, she has two small children traveling with her. That will never work.\"\n\nLiz went out to the porch. The laughter and silliness, and Tony's booming voice audible above all the conversation, was proof the guests were enjoying the tree trimming. Despite Maggie's instructions, the tree looked a little bottom-heavy. Most of the ornaments were clustered near the front, leaving the back and sides bare. They'd have to fill in later.\n\n\"Listen up, everyone!\" said Liz. \"Unfortunately, I have to leave. We have some surprise guests arriving at Logan. Maggie's daughter and her kids are flying in, and I have to leave to pick them up.\" She gestured toward Maggie. \"My wife is in charge, so try to behave.\"\n\nEveryone laughed. Brenda raised her glass. \"Don't worry, Liz. I'll keep everyone in line.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Chief. I appreciate it.\"\n\n\"I wish I could go with you,\" said Brenda, \"but with this weather, I need to stick close to home\u2026in case there are accidents.\"\n\nMaggie and Liz went into the kitchen. \"Get your lunch cooler,\" said Maggie, \"I'll pack you something to eat.\" Maggie wrapped tea sandwiches and arranged hors d'oeuvres on an aluminum pie plate. She filled a travel mug with hot coffee while Liz changed into clothes better suited for a long drive on a snowy night. Although Liz lacked a sweet tooth, Maggie packed some cookies in a zip lock bag. They would provide energy if she got tired.\n\nLiz came down wearing jeans, a hoodie, a polar fleece vest, and heavy socks. She sat on the stairs to put on her boots. Maggie handed over her parka, hat and gloves. \"Stay warm.\"\n\n\"I have a quilt in the truck just in case. Good thing I had the cap put on last week. I can put the luggage back there.\"\n\nMaggie gave Liz a fierce hug. \"Please be safe. I would die if anything happened to you.\"\n\nLiz bent to kiss her. \"I know you're an actress, but a little less drama would be good at a time like this.\"\n\n\"Oh, get out of here,\" said Maggie, giving her a little shove. \"And be careful!\"\n\n\"I will,\" promised Liz. \"If you get any more information from Alina, call me right away.\"\n\nFrom the front door, Maggie watched the taillights of the truck until they disappeared down the driveway."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 2",
                "text": "The local roads hadn't been plowed. Liz grumbled as she switched on the four-wheel drive. This mission was completely irrational. No one in their right mind would drive to Boston with it snowing so hard. In clear weather, with no traffic, it was, at least, an hour and a half drive. Never mind that it was a Friday night less than a week before Christmas, and there would be drunk drivers coming from holiday parties.\n\nLiz pulled herself up short. She knew from many years as a surgeon that, in a stressful situation, confidence and attitude could make the difference between success and disaster. Besides, she needed to keep her energy level high. From the looks of the weather, this could turn out to be a very long trip.\n\nShe was relieved to see that Route 9 had been plowed, and when she reached the interstate, that was clear too. She allowed herself to relax a little and asked Siri to open her opera play list.\n\nShe hadn't gotten far when a telephone call broke into the drinking song from La Traviata.\n\n\"Where are you?\" asked Maggie's voice. Liz smiled. She was barely out of sight, but Maggie was already checking on her.\n\n\"I just got on 95.\"\n\n\"How are the roads?\"\n\n\"Not bad. They're plowed and sanded.\"\n\n\"Good,\" said Maggie. \"Be careful.\"\n\n\"I will be. Call me when you hear from them.\"\n\n\"I will. Love you.\"\n\n\"Love you too.\"\n\nMaggie hung up.\n\nLiz was suddenly ravenous. She felt around in the foil-wrapped packages and her hand found some of Maggie's caramelized onion-and-feta tartlets and her tangy cheese puffs. Sometimes, Liz teased Maggie that she had married her for her cooking. There might be some truth to that, but certainly, it wasn't the only reason. Liz's hand rooted around in the warm foil and found some of Fred's savory stuffed mushrooms. She popped one into her mouth. It was just enough to satisfy her hunger. Despite her pleasure in the wonderful tastes, she decided not to gorge on all the goodies. She'd save the cold canapes and tea sandwiches for later. She'd need to pace herself to keep up her energy.\n\nOpera seemed too intrusive after Maggie's call, so Liz switched to orchestral music. Anything but Christmas carols. She hated them with a passion only because by Christmas she was oversaturated with them and wanted to plug her ears. The popular songs no longer recalled happy memories of childhood; only of being mobbed by shoppers in the Maine Mall.\n\nShe came up to two plow trucks driving side by side and decided to keep her distance. The reduced speed sign was flashing as she came to the overpass, so she let up a little on the gas pedal. Yes, this was going to be a long trip.\n\nShe wondered what she would encounter when she got to the airport. Maggie had mentioned that there were problems in her daughter's marriage. After the birth of her second child, Alina had quit her job as a news producer to become a full-time mother. She'd been the breadwinner in the family, so it had put a burden on Jeff to make a living from app development. He'd had to get a second \"real\" job as a web designer to help make up the difference.\n\nLiz remembered Alina's first visit to Maine, when she had witnessed the young woman's panic attack after she had abruptly stopped her antidepressants. Alina was being treated for PTSD from her early childhood in an overcrowded Romanian orphanage. What a challenge it must have been for Maggie and her husband to raise two abused orphans, but Maggie had proven herself as a mother. Her daughters were not only functional but accomplished. Her elder daughter, Sophia, had become a doctor and had recently finished a pediatric oncology fellowship.\n\nLiz ate the last of the hot canapes. They were just barely warm at this point, but she savored every bite. She took a swig from her travel mug. Fortunately, the coffee was still scalding hot, just the way she liked it. She ramped up the windshield defrost because the temperature had risen since she'd crossed the New Hampshire line, and the precipitation was now mixed. She could hear the ice pinging against the glass, and the wipers crunching as they cleared a wedge-shaped opening. The poor visibility made her tense. She forced herself to relax the muscles in her shoulders as she did in the operating room during long surgeries.\n\nA telephone call broke through the music again.\n\n\"Where are you now?\"\n\n\"I'm into Massachusetts.\"\n\n\"You're making good time despite the weather.\"\n\n\"Yes, keep your fingers crossed. It's changed over to freezing rain.\"\n\n\"Oh, Liz! Be careful!\"\n\n\"How's the party going?\" asked Liz, listening to the sound of Christmas carols and laughter in the background.\n\n\"Brenda headed to the police station. There have been quite a few accidents. My friends from UNE are still here and your partners. Tony and Fred are spending the night.\"\n\n\"Put them in the downstairs guest room.\"\n\n\"I will. And I think Alyson and Lynne are going to stay too. Let's just say they're having a really good time.\"\n\n\"Full house. Oh, well. The more the merrier.\"\n\n\"Liz, stay safe. Call me in half an hour and let me know how you're doing.\"\n\nLiz agreed to call and hung up. She cut the music, deciding the sound of the wipers and the slush in the wheel wells helped her focus better on the road. The temperature had gone down again, and the freezing rain had changed to snow. Fortunately, there were few other drivers, but the heavy snow obscured their taillights until she was practically on top of them.\n\nShe was hungry again, so she reached into the insulated bag for a sandwich. She remembered Maggie's elegant hands preparing them, cutting the crusts off the bread in perfect imitation of the tea sandwiches they'd enjoyed when they'd visited Ireland. One of Maggie's colleagues at NYU had gotten Irish citizenship through her grandmother and had moved there to retire. Liz and Maggie talked about buying the little cottage on sale down the road. But Liz wanted to travel, not settle down in some Idyllic ocean-side cottage to play out some fantasy of domesticity. She wanted to see the world and make every minute with Maggie count after being separated from her for forty years.\n\nAnd the cancer.\n\nLiz pushed that thought out of her mind and put on some music as a distraction, tenor opera arias. She didn't care that she wasn't a real tenor because she could at least sing along. Forget the soprano roles. They were too far out of range.\n\nLiz became so wrapped up in her singing that she forgot to call Maggie at the appointed time. On schedule, the phone call broke through, interrupting the great trio from Faust.\n\n\"Hello, dear,\" said Liz.\n\n\"You said you would call me!\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" said Liz. \"You didn't give me a chance!\"\n\n\"Everyone left. They're worried about the weather. Tony and Fred are still here. So are Alyson and Lynne. We're sitting out on the porch, admiring the tree and drinking mulled wine. We're all pretty crocked, but that's okay. We don't have to drive anywhere.\"\n\nBut I do, thought Liz enviously. She imagined the cozy scene on the porch, the propane stove burning brightly, the multicolored lights on the tree reflecting in the glass ornaments, and that amazing pine smell. \"Don't get too mellow. You'll have to deal with the kids when we get back.\"\n\n\"Don't worry. I'll be ready when they come.\"\n\n\"Are you having fun?\"\n\n\"Yes, our friends are good company. But I really miss you, Dr. Stolz. I miss feeling your arm around me while we sit on the loveseat, and you can be sure I have plans for you later.\" As an actress, Maggie could use her voice as expressively as her face. Her come-hither voice had enormous range.\n\n\"Okay, Maggie. I get the picture. No phone sex now. I have to drive and it's pretty ugly out here.\"\n\n\"I was afraid to ask.\"\n\n\"Nothing from Alina yet?\"\n\n\"No, but Lynne helped find the flights from Tampa to Boston. We're guessing she's on the Delta flight landing in about twenty minutes. I checked. It's still on time despite the weather.\"\n\n\"Okay text me the flight number and any other flights you think she might have taken.\"\n\n\"Liz, please, please promise me you'll be careful.\"\n\n\"I will be careful. Promise.\"\n\n\"Drink coffee.\"\n\n\"Yes, boss.\"\n\nMaggie chuckled. \"I'll call you as soon as I hear something from Alina.\"\n\nLiz flipped open her travel mug. She smiled when she found the coffee still hot. Although Maggie's attention could sometimes be overbearing, she took very good care of her.\n\nLiz began to see signs for the airport and knew she had to pay attention. For someone who seldom drove the roads around Boston, navigating could be a nightmare, even in good weather. Fortunately, it was long past rush hour, so traffic was light.\n\nLiz ate her last sandwich and finished her coffee. She glanced at the clock. She should be in the airport in about fifteen minutes.\n\nA call came through the Bluetooth. \"You again!\" said Liz, grinning as she tried to sound exasperated, which spoiled the effect.\n\n\"I finally heard from Alina. They landed. I told her you were coming to get her. She sounded so relieved.\"\n\n\"I bet. Tell her to find a restaurant and get something to eat. I'll be there soon. I have to park and get into the airport first.\"\n\nThere was a long silence. Liz could tell that Maggie had gone into another room because the background sounds had deadened. \"She has very little cash and no credit cards.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"She left in a hurry. When Jeff saw the alert for charging the tickets to Boston, he canceled all her credit and debit cards.\"\n\n\"What!\"\n\n\"I know. It's terrible.\"\n\n\"I had no idea it had gotten so bad between them.\"\n\n\"I did.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you tell me?\"\n\n\"You had so much going on with your mother in the hospital.\"\n\n\"Maggie\u2026\"\n\n\"I know,\" she said slowly and then sighed. \"I really didn't want to talk about it. Can you understand?\"\n\n\"Okay, but you could have told me.\" Liz hadn't meant to sound so scolding. \"I'm sorry. I understand\u2026sort of.\"\n\nThere was another long silence. \"I'll tell you later when we have some privacy.\"\n\n\"Maybe Alina will tell me herself.\"\n\n\"I doubt she'll say anything in front of the girls. She's so protective of them after her own difficult childhood.\"\n\n\"Listen, sweetheart, I'd love to talk to you, but I have to pay attention to the signs now.\"\n\n\"She's going to be waiting for you in the luggage claim area, carousel three. I texted you the information. It's the Delta flight from Tampa. Oh, Liz, thank you so much for picking them up. What did I ever do to deserve you?\"\n\n\"That's a complicated subject. Let's talk about it later.\"\n\nLiz saw the sign for the Delta terminal and took the exit. The short-term lot was full, so she had to park in the much more remote, long-term parking area. She hiked to the shuttle bus stop and pulled up her hood against the wind as she waited. When the bus came, she climbed aboard, passing the passengers dully staring forward as she headed toward the back to claim the only remaining seat. Finally, the Delta terminal was announced. From the shuttle stop, it was a long walk and several escalator rides until she reached the baggage claim area. Another flight was coming in, a large plane from overseas, and the place was mobbed with people with large luggage. Twice, Liz walked back and forth, looking for Alina and her daughters.\n\n\"Fuck,\" she muttered to herself. \"How will I ever find them?\"\n\n\"Liz?\"\n\nLiz turned around. Standing behind her was tiny Alina with an enormous wheeled suitcase and two small girls.\n\n\"Alina! I almost tripped over you.\"\n\n\"Grandma Liz!\" exclaimed Katrina and wrapped herself around her leg. Katrina was seven, but tiny for her age. The younger girl, Nicoleta, \"Nicki\" to the family, looked up and stared.\n\n\"Oh, my God. I can't tell you how happy I am to see you!\" said Alina, throwing her arms around Liz's neck. Her dark hair fell in Liz's face. It smelled slightly of sweat and anxiety. Alina finally let go, and Liz assessed her mental state in a glance. The sclera of Alina's eyes was red from crying and perhaps sleepless nights. She was pale. Her mouth was pinched. This was a woman under profound stress.\n\n\"Are you hungry?\" asked Liz. \"Do you want to get something to eat?\"\n\n\"Starving, but let's get out of this mad house.\"\n\n\"Good idea,\" said Liz, and pointed to the exit. She wrangled the big suitcase, so Alina could carry Nicki, and herded her little flock toward the door.\n\nA brisk, cutting wind was blowing as they waited for the shuttle bus.\n\n\"Mommy, I'm cold,\" complained Katrina, who was thinly dressed for the New England weather.\n\n\"I know, honey. We'll be inside the shuttle soon.\"\n\nFortunately, the shuttle van arrived a few minutes later. Liz hauled the big suitcase on board and placed it on the luggage rack.\n\n\"Is Mom upset?\" asked Alina as Liz sat down beside her.\n\n\"She's worried, of course.\"\n\n\"I'm so sorry to intrude on you like this.\"\n\n\"Glad you felt our house was a safe place to go,\" said Liz, patting Alina's hand.\n\nTears filled the young woman's eyes. \"I didn't know what else to do. I didn't feel welcome at Dad's. His wife has been so strange lately.\"\n\nLiz vaguely remembered Maggie saying, with a hint of Schadenfreude, that she thought there were problems in her ex's second marriage. Liz nodded, but offered no opinion of Barry, whom she still secretly loathed for taking Maggie away forty-five years ago.\n\n\"We're very happy you'll be spending Christmas with us,\" sat Liz, giving Alina's hand a little squeeze.\n\nKatrina plopped down in Liz's lap. \"Will it be warm at your house, Grandma Liz? It's so cold here. Not like where we live.\"\n\n\"I'm sure Grandma Maggie kept the fire going. We were having a party when I left.\" Liz opened her parka so Katrina could snuggle close and benefit from her body heat.\n\nThey reached the area of the parking lot where Liz had left her truck. She turned on the engine to warm up and arranged the quilt around the girls in the backseat.\n\n\"Thanks for remembering the car seats for the girls,\" Alina murmured.\n\n\"That's what grandmothers are for.\"\n\nAlina nodded solemnly.\n\nLiz climbed into the driver's seat. \"Everybody ready to go to Maine?\" she asked with all the enthusiasm of a camp counselor.\n\n\"Yeah!\" said Katrina.\n\n\"Yeah!\" Her little sister repeated over and over.\n\nLiz headed for the airport exit. \"There are some fast food restaurants on the way to the highway. I'm sorry, but that's the best we can do at this hour or we'll waste a lot of time. With this weather, I'd rather get home.\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter at this point. Anything edible. We haven't eaten since this morning.\"\n\n\"You should have eaten something before you left Tampa.\"\n\n\"I don't have any money,\" Alina said in a quiet voice.\n\n\"So, it's true he cut off your cards.\"\n\n\"He didn't cut them off. He can't do that. He reported them stolen, but it will be days before it gets sorted out. Meanwhile, I have less than five dollars in my wallet.\"\n\n\"Don't worry. You won't need money at our house, and I can give you some cash.\"\n\nAt that, Alina let out one pitiful sob. \"Thank you.\"\n\nLiz sighed and they drove in silence for a few minutes. \"How's the anxiety?\" Liz asked.\n\n\"Are you asking as a doctor or my stepmother?\"\n\n\"Both.\"\n\n\"I'm managing\u2026barely. I wanted to go off the Zoloft during the pregnancy and while I'm breast feeding, but my doctor insisted it was safe.\"\n\n\"According to the studies, it is. It must be helping. You seem pretty calm.\"\n\n\"What choice do I have? I have to hold myself together for the girls.\"\n\nLiz saw a sign come up for MacDonald's. \"How about we stop here and get you something to eat?\"\n\n\"Yes, anything. I'm sure the girls are so hungry.\"\n\n\"I wish I hadn't eaten all the food your mom packed for me.\"\n\n\"She packed it for you, not us.\"\n\n\"She gave me some cookies, but we should save them for after you have some real food.\"\n\n\"Oh, my God, I love Mom's cookies,\" said Alina.\n\nLiz reached into her lunch box and handed her the bag of cookies. She turned into entrance to MacDonalds and got on the line for the drive-through. \"What should I order for the kids?\"\n\n\"MacNuggets. Fries. Milk. As a doctor, you probably think I'm a bad mother for letting them eat that stuff.\"\n\n\"The only thing I think is that your kids are hungry. What would you like to eat?\"\n\n\"I hate MacDonalds, but I'll have a fish sandwich and fries because I'm so hungry.\"\n\n\"It's just to tide you over. Then you can eat your mom's cookies.\" Liz reached over and patted Alina's arm. \"We'll be home soon, where there's good stuff to eat. Your mother cooked up a storm for this party. Literally.\" She chuckled at her own pun.\n\nThe cab of the truck was quiet while everyone ate.\n\n\"Your truck will be a mess after the girls eat back there,\" said Alina.\n\n\"Doesn't matter. I'll clean it out later.\"\n\nLiz headed to the highway. The snow was getting heavier, and the wind was blowing it around wildly. Liz turned up the defrost and the wipers.\n\n\"I'm so sorry to drag you out on such a terrible night,\" said Alina.\n\n\"You had no way of knowing the weather would be so bad up here.\"\n\nA cell phone began to ring. Alina dug in her purse for it. She glanced at the screen. \"Hi, Mom. We're on the way. Just stopped to get the kids something to eat.\" Alina listened for a few minutes before saying, \"Liz, she wants me to tell you to be careful.\"\n\nLiz laughed. \"Of course, she does. As if I haven't heard that a dozen times tonight!\"\n\nAlina held her phone to Liz's ear. \"Thanks soooo much for picking them up,\" said Maggie. \"You have no idea how much I appreciate it.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 3",
                "text": "Maggie heard the clock chime and realized that Liz had been gone for almost five hours. Their houseguests were showing no sign of fading. She was glad that the subject had changed from the sad story of Alina's failing marriage. Crazed with worry about the people she loved driving through the storm, she had confided her daughter's sorry situation. If she hadn't had so much wine, she probably wouldn't have been so garrulous. Now, she felt slightly disloyal to her daughter, but their friends had been nothing but sympathetic.\n\nTony's booming voice filled the room. With his penchant for high drama, he made Maggie's promotion to chairwoman of the department at UNE sound like a palace coup.\n\n\"Of course, no one even came close to her credentials. Yale Ph.D., New York University full professor. One semester, she's an adjunct, the next an associate professor, and now chairwoman!\" said Tony with the pride of a director who'd discovered a rising star.\n\n\"And I thought I'd retired from teaching,\" said Maggie, shaking her head.\n\n\"Oh, you were so ready for a second act,\" said Fred. \"Admit it.\"\n\n\"But I thought I could make a comeback as an actress.\"\n\n\"And you have,\" said Tony, \"but you're also a wonderful teacher and director. I wish you would direct Antigone. With the current political situation, it's so apt.\"\n\n\"I don't know, Tony. I have a long history with this play. So does Liz.\"\n\n\"Liz?\" Tony flexed his bushy brows in surprise.\n\n\"She was the stage manager when I played Ismene in college. You might even say it was that play that brought us together.\"\n\n\"Really?\" asked Fred, sitting on the edge of his seat. \"Do tell.\"\n\n\"It was the seventies, and all that weird experimental theater was all the rage. The director encouraged all this touching and kissing between the main characters, which was weird because they were supposed to be sisters. When I came back to the dorm after rehearsals, I practiced what I learned on Liz.\"\n\n\"Oh, you, crafty lady,\" said Tony wiggling his dark brows.\n\nAlyson laughed. \"Liz has always been an easy mark. For someone so smart, she misses a lot of cues.\"\n\n\"You noticed?\" said Maggie. Despite Alyson's history with Liz, Maggie found it hard not to like her. Besides being stunning with her strawberry blond hair and perfect features, she was warm and gracious. She was also an excellent physician. Alyson was the radiologist who had pinpointed Maggie's breast cancer. Twice a year, she read Maggie's mammograms and patiently took the time to explain every detail.\n\nAlyson checked her watch. \"Shouldn't they be home by now?\"\n\n\"The weather is terrible. I'm not surprised it's taking so long,\" said Lynne. \"I'm sure the roads are awful.\"\n\nMaggie heard the garage door open and the sound of children's voices in the hall. \"They're home,\" she said, jumping up. \"Finally.\"\n\n\"Grandma!\" said Katrina, catapulting herself into Maggie's open arms. Alina, carrying Nicki, kissed her mother.\n\n\"Thank heavens, you're home,\" said Maggie, squeezing them into a hug.\n\nLiz dragged the enormous suitcase up the garage stairs into the house. \"I'll take this upstairs. We'll put you in the North Woods room with the moose.\"\n\n\"Moose! Moose!\" cried Katrina with glee. \"We got the moose!\" She danced around happily.\n\n\"Honey, do you want something to eat?\" Maggie asked her daughter.\n\n\"No, thanks, Mom. I just want to get the girls to bed.\"\n\nMaggie nodded. \"Let me know if you need any help.\"\n\nTony got up, followed by Fred. \"I think we'll turn in, if you don't mind.\"\n\n\"You're in the downstairs room, Tony. Let me get the coats off the bed.\"\n\n\"We should go to bed too,\" said Alyson.\n\n\"You're in the seashore room.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Maggie. I know where it is.\"\n\nMaggie collected the glasses and dishes and put them in the dishwasher before heading upstairs. She found Liz sitting on the edge of the bed, still dressed. She looked up wearily when Maggie came into the room. \"Katrina's taking a bath in our bathroom,\" she explained. \"The downstairs bathrooms are kind of busy.\"\n\n\"Oh, Sweetie, you look so exhausted,\" said Maggie, stroking her back. \"Thank you for rescuing Alina and the girls.\" She gave Liz a kiss.\n\n\"You're welcome.\" Liz let out a long sigh. \"I wish we didn't have such a full house. I was looking forward to winding down with you after the party.\"\n\n\"Once everyone's in bed, we'll have some time alone, and I'll make good on my promise.\" Maggie allowed her fingertips to linger on Liz's cheek.\n\nKatrina ran out of the bathroom with only her pajama bottoms and wet hair. Maggie corralled her and directed her back inside, where she vigorously toweled her hair. She finished the job with Liz's hair dryer.\n\n\"All right, Miss, let's go downstairs to Mommy's room.\"\n\n\"Noooo,\" protested Katrina, \"I want to stay here with you and Grandma Liz.\"\n\n\"Not tonight, Sweetie Pie. Grandma Liz is tired from driving in the snow. She needs to rest.\"\n\n\"But I want her to read me a story.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you a story. Come on. Let's go down to Mommy.\"\n\nMaggie walked downstairs with Katrina. Alina was just tucking her youngest into bed. \"Oh, Mom. Thanks for bathing Katrina.\"\n\n\"Liz took care of it.\"\n\nAlina nodded and sank down on the bed.\n\n\"Oh, honey, you look so tired.\"\n\n\"I am.\" Alina sighed. \"It's been such a long day.\"\n\n\"I'll tell the girls a story while you get ready for bed.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Mom. You don't know what a treat that is.\" She rummaged in her luggage and found a nightgown. Shoulders drooping, she headed to the bathroom.\n\nMaggie had a whole repertoire of fairy tales from performing in children's theater. She recited the \"Princess and the Pea\" for her granddaughters, enjoying the expressions on their faces change as she altered her voice for the characters in the story.\n\n\"More!\" cried Katrina.\n\n\"More!\" echoed Nicki.\n\n\"Tomorrow night, I'll tell you two stories,\" said Maggie, pulling the comforter up to their chins. \"Grandma wants to talk to Mommy now.\" Maggie kissed each of the girls. \"Now, sleep tight!\"\n\n\"Don't let the bed bugs bite!\" said Katrina.\n\n\"No bed bugs here, sweetie.\"\n\nKatrina giggled. \"I know. Just roaches.\"\n\n\"Who told you that?\" asked Maggie indignantly.\n\n\"Grandma Liz. She said when you lived in New York, you had roaches everywhere!\"\n\n\"But not here. Now, settle down and go to sleep.\"\n\nMaggie turned off the lights and closed the door. Alina was just coming out of the bathroom. Maggie gestured for her to follow her into the TV room.\n\n\"Did the girls go to bed without an argument?\"\n\n\"I had to promise to tell two stories tomorrow.\"\n\nAlina shook her head. \"Those two drive a hard bargain.\"\n\nMaggie closed the door and sat down on one of the futons. She patted a place for Alina beside her.\n\n\"Oh, Mom,\" sobbed Alina. \"What a mess!\"\n\nMaggie put her arms around her. \"Honey, I'm so sorry.\"\n\n\"I found out he hasn't paid the mortgage in eight months. He lost his web job weeks ago and never told me. Mom, I trusted him when he said he could take care of us if I quit my job to stay home with the kids. I never thought it would end like this.\" Alina began to cry. Maggie held her tighter.\n\n\"Was he abusive? Did he hit you?\"\n\n\"No, but he smashed things all over the house. He was drunk, screaming at the top of his lungs. When I left, the place was a wreck. Mom, he has a gun. I was so afraid. I had to leave.\"\n\n\"I know, honey, and I'm glad you came here.\"\n\n\"I didn't know where else to go. Dad's wife has been acting so strange lately.\"\n\n\"Well, that's not your concern. You have enough going on. Most of all, you need a good night's sleep.\"\n\nAlina nodded.\n\n\"You and the girls could use a diversion. Tomorrow is the Hobbs Christmas parade.\"\n\n\"That sounds like fun.\"\n\n\"I think the kids will enjoy it.\"\n\nAlina aggressively rubbed her forehead with her fingertips.\n\n\"Headache?\"\n\n\"Just really, really tired.\"\n\n\"Come on, off to bed with you.\"\n\nMaggie walked her daughter back to her room. \"Sleep in tomorrow,\" she said, kissing her. \"We'll manage the kids.\"\n\nAlina gave her mother a fierce hug. \"Thank you so much. And tell Liz too.\"\n\nWearily, Maggie trudged up the stairs to the third floor. Liz was already in bed, burrowed so deeply under the comforter only her steel-gray hair was visible. Maggie put on her nightgown and attended to her evening chores. As she brushed her teeth, she realized how grateful she was that the episode hadn't triggered one of Alina's panic attacks. She hadn't heard much from her daughter about the anxiety and hoped that meant she was learning to cope with it better.\n\nMaggie crawled into bed.\n\n\"Everyone down for the night?\"\n\n\"I think so.\" Maggie moved closer and spooned Liz. She reached around her and cupped her breast.\n\n\"Oh, Maggie. I'm too tired.\"\n\nMaggie blew in her ear, which she had known since they were lovers in college was guaranteed to get Liz's attention. \"Are you sure?\" she asked on a warm breath of air.\n\n\"No, I'm not sure.\" Liz rolled on her back, and Maggie slid her hand under her T-shirt.\n\n\"Maybe I can find a way to rouse your interest.\" She gently pinched Liz's nipple.\n\n\"That's a good start,\" said Liz, reaching for Maggie's face to kiss her.\n\nThe door clicked open and the sound of small feet crossing the wood floor could be heard.\n\n\"Grandma?\"\n\n\"You didn't lock the door?\" whispered Liz.\n\n\"I forgot.\"\n\nMaggie sighed and sat up. Liz pulled down her T-shirt.\n\n\"Katrina, you should be in bed,\" Maggie scolded gently.\n\n\"I know, but I'm scared. It's so dark in Maine.\"\n\n\"I'll bring her back downstairs,\" Maggie volunteered.\n\n\"It's okay. Let her sleep here. Call Alina and let her know where she is.\"\n\n\"Yay!\" cried Katrina, climbing on the bed. She insinuated herself between Liz and Maggie and pulled the comforter up to her chin. \"It's nice and warm in your bed.\"\n\nLiz sighed and lay down again.\n\nMaggie called Alina, who answered in a sleepy voice.\n\n\"We have your daughter up here with us, and we'll keep her for the night if that's all right with you.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Mom.\"\n\nWhen Maggie got off the phone, Katrina asked, \"Grandma, will you tell me a story?\"\n\n\"Yes, Grandma, tell us a story,\" agreed Liz with mock enthusiasm.\n\n\"All right, but just one.\" Maggie began to tell the story of \"The Leap Frog\" because it was so short, but by the time she finished, both Katrina and Liz were sound asleep."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 4",
                "text": "Liz opened her eyes to see two dark eyes staring back. The sun had just risen, sending streams of golden light into the bedroom.\n\n\"What are you doing awake?\" asked Liz in a whisper.\n\n\"I'm hungry,\" Katrina whispered back.\n\n\"Okay. Let's go downstairs and get something to eat.\"\n\nLiz got up and put on a zip sweatshirt and her slippers. She took Katrina by the hand and they went down to the second floor. Liz held her finger to her lips as she paused outside the North Woods bedroom where Alina and Nicki were sleeping. To minimize the noise, she slowly turned the knob and let herself in. She rummaged in the huge suitcase, which was surprisingly well organized considering that three people were living out of it. Fortunately, Alina had adopted her father's penchant for neatness and not her mother's habit of spreading her clothes everywhere. Curing herself of that habit was the price Maggie had paid for moving into Liz's bedroom. \"Be a slob and you'll have to sleep downstairs by yourself,\" Liz had threatened when Maggie had begun to backslide.\n\nIn Alina's suitcase, Liz found a jacket that looked like the right size for Katrina and a colorful pair of little girl's socks folded into one another. She quietly closed the door and gave the clothes to Katrina to put on. Then the two of them crept downstairs.\n\n\"How about hot chocolate?\" asked Liz, still speaking in hushed tones because Tony and Fred were in the downstairs guest room. The girl nodded. Liz filled a coffee pod with hot chocolate mix. While it ran through the machine, she filled another pod with coffee for herself. \"Would you like some of Grandma's blueberry bread to get you started?\"\n\nKatrina nodded. Liz cut a few slices and put them on a plate.\n\n\"I'm going to start a fire to warm us up. Can you be neat enough to sit in the living room?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Katrina solemnly.\n\nLiz fixed herself a cup of coffee and arranged their cups and plates on a tray. \"Come with me.\"\n\nKatrina watched carefully as Liz made quick work of getting the wood stove started. She left the door slightly ajar and drank her coffee in silence as the flames began to lick the logs.\n\n\"You do that good,\" said Katrina.\n\n\"You do that well,\" Liz corrected gently.\n\n\"Well,\" agreed Katrina, nodding. Liz noticed that the girl's dark hair was a nest of knots. Let Maggie deal with it, she decided. Hair was not Liz's thing, which was why she kept hers short.\n\nThe ship's bell hanging on the front porch began to ring. It was too strong a ring for it to be the wind, so Liz pulled aside the blinds and looked out. Brenda Harrison, the police chief was standing on the porch.\n\nLiz opened the door. \"Don't tell me there's a medical emergency. I'm not even dressed yet.\"\n\nBrenda laughed softly. \"No. No. I just thought I'd stop by and see how your trip went last night.\"\n\n\"Well, come in and have some coffee.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\"\n\nBrenda stepped into house and took off her boots. She hung her flat-brimmed campaign hat on a peg by the door.\n\n\"Are you Smokey the Bear?\" asked Katrina.\n\nBrenda laughed. \"No, I'm Chief Harrison. Don't you remember me?\"\n\nKatrina, nodding shyly, clung to Liz's pajama leg.\n\n\"Everyone still asleep here?\" Brenda asked, looking around. \"Guess I'm too early.\"\n\n\"Only my young friend here is awake,\" said Liz. \"Let's go into the kitchen.\" Liz led them through the living room to check the fire and pick up the tray on the way. In the kitchen, she lifted Katrina onto a stool at the island so she could finish her cake and hot chocolate.\n\n\"What brings you out so early?\" Liz asked Brenda as she filled a pod with coffee.\n\n\"Have to report soon to get ready for the parade.\"\n\n\"Glad the snow stopped, or the parade route would be a mess.\"\n\n\"They're working on clearing it now.\"\n\n\"I can make you some breakfast. Fried eggs and bacon okay?\"\n\n\"My favorite, thanks.\" Brenda sat down beside Katrina at the island. \"That looks like your grandma Maggie's cake. Is it good?\"\n\nKatrina nodded decisively.\n\n\"Brenda, we need to find you a good woman to cook you breakfast,\" said Liz, \"and keep you warm at night.\"\n\n\"Small chance of that. Who wants an old lady like me?\"\n\n\"You're younger than I am!\"\n\n\"You're a surgeon with a ton of money and cool cars. That makes you a chick magnet.\"\n\nLiz laughed. \"Don't sell yourself short, Brenda. A lot of women are suckers for a uniform. That's makes you a chick magnet too.\" Liz took out her cast iron frying pans and arranged them on the stove. \"Over easy, right?\"\n\nBrenda nodded.\n\n\"Katrina, would you like some eggs?\"\n\nKatrina shook her head dramatically, her long, dark hair flying back and forth.\n\n\"What do you say when someone offers you something and you don't want it?\" asked Liz in a stern voice.\n\n\"No, thank you!\" declared Katrina.\n\n\"How about some oatmeal?\"\n\n\"Yuck!\" Katrina screwed up her face for emphasis.\n\n\"The girl knows her mind,\" said Brenda with a chuckle.\n\n\"Blueberry pancakes?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" agreed Katrina enthusiastically.\n\n\"Well, that settles it,\" said Brenda. \"Better mix a lot of batter. Everyone loves your blueberry pancakes.\"\n\nLiz searched in a cabinet for a can of wild blueberries and a jug of maple syrup. \"Don't want to make promises I can't keep,\" she explained. \"Brenda, will you keep an eye on my sidekick while I check the fire?\" Liz sliced a few more pieces of blueberry bread and put them on a plate for Brenda.\n\nLiz loaded up the wood stove and turned down the air vents. When she returned to the kitchen, she found Alina had come downstairs with Nicki.\n\n\"Coffee?\" Liz asked.\n\n\"I'm still breastfeeding, so no, thanks.\"\n\nLiz raised a brow. \"If you pace yourself, the caffeine will be out of your body by the time she feeds.\"\n\n\"I know it's not a big risk. But I quit for my pregnancy, and if I start now, I'll be back to drinking gallons of coffee.\"\n\nBrenda laughed at the hyperbole.\n\n\"I'll make you some herbal tea,\" said Liz.\n\n\"I can make it,\" Alina said. \"I'm homeless, not a cripple.\"\n\nLiz gave her a hard look. \"You are not homeless, Alina. You always have a home here with us.\"\n\nMaggie came into the kitchen. She had already showered and put on some makeup. Liz knew it was because they had guests. Maggie, inveterate actress that she was, never showed her naked face to anyone but her family. She kissed Alina and Nicki. Liz turned her face from mixing the batter to get a kiss.\n\n\"Good morning, Brenda,\" said Maggie. \"Looks like a full house this morning.\"\n\n\"Not any more than you have all summer,\" observed Brenda. \"Forgive me for intruding.\"\n\n\"You never intrude,\" replied Maggie, giving Brenda a hug around her shoulders. She turned to Liz. \"What can I do to help?\"\n\n\"First, have a cup of coffee. Then you can keep an eye on the pancakes while I fry eggs.\"\n\nMaggie sat down with her coffee at the counter.\n\n\"Grandma, you snore a lot,\" said Katrina.\n\n\"Thank you, dear,\" said Maggie, patting the girl's thigh. \"Grandma Liz tells me that all the time.\"\n\n\"You should put that band-aid on your nose like daddy does. It works good.\"\n\nLiz exchanged a look with Maggie. \"Not that I haven't suggested it.\"\n\nMaggie rolled her eyes.\n\nAlyson breezed into the kitchen, looking like a model in a winter-white polar fleece. \"Good morning, everyone,\" she said, heading to the coffee maker. \"Lynne's in the shower and will be down shortly.\"\n\nEventually, Tony and Fred found their way into the kitchen and helped themselves to coffee. Meanwhile, Liz made a mountain of pancakes. She took orders for eggs, and soon everyone was seated in the dining room at the big harvest table that Liz had built.\n\n\"Alina, your mom tells us you might be looking for a TV news job up here,\" said Tony, reaching for the plate of bacon.\n\nLiz glanced up to see Alina give Maggie a sharp look. Everyone at the table fell silent.\n\n\"I only said that if you decided to stay here, you might need to go up to Portland to find a job in your field,\" Maggie explained.\n\n\"The news director at Channel 8 is a good friend of mine,\" said Tony, apparently missing the change in atmosphere. \"Do you want me to put out a feeler?\"\n\nAlina looked upset but mastered herself quickly. \"Thanks, Tony. That's so kind of you.\"\n\nLiz glanced from Alina to Maggie, who shook her head. \"Alina just got here,\" said Liz. \"It might only be for Christmas or maybe longer. Let's see what happens.\"\n\n\"If you need a car,\" said Alyson, \"I'm selling mine. I've decided to give myself a new car for Christmas. The old one has a lot of mileage, so the dealer won't give me much. I kept it longer than I probably should have, but I love it and it runs great!\"\n\n\"We might take you up on that, Al,\" said Liz. \"We could always use another car around here for summer visitors.\"\n\n\"There's one catch, Liz. You'll have to go with me to the dealership. No one intimidates car salesmen like you do.\"\n\nLiz turned to Maggie with an apologetic look and explained, \"She thinks I got her a good deal on her last car.\"\n\n\"You did,\" said Alyson. \"I thought the salesman would report you for theft.\"\n\n\"So, if you decide to stay, you might have a job and maybe even a Lexus,\" said Tony. \"How's that for progress?\"\n\nAlina abruptly got up from the table. \"Excuse me. I need to feed the baby.\" She left her half-eaten plate of food and headed to the living room. Maggie got up to follow her.\n\nLiz offered the group an embarrassed smile. \"Eat up, everyone, before your food gets cold.\"\n\nTheir houseguests left after breakfast. Brenda had to report to the station to organize the officers for the parade. The others packed up and headed out.\n\nKatrina kept Liz company while she cleaned up the kitchen, chattering nonstop about her pet gerbil who had escaped in the house and later turned up dead in a cabinet where he'd eaten himself to death. Liz grunted from time to time during the story, but her mind was elsewhere, wondering what Alina and Maggie were talking about in the living room."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 5",
                "text": "\"On Monday, I'll call the bank and get this straightened out,\" said Alina, laying the sated toddler, who'd fallen asleep while feeding, on the sofa. She arranged a blanket around her.\n\n\"Honey, I know you don't want to hear this, but you should always have your own bank account and credit cards.\"\n\n\"I know, Mom. But I trusted, Jeff. We've never had any problems like this before.\"\n\n\"That's because you were the breadwinner and had your own money. You called the shots. Jeff would rather pretend he's a successful app producer than get a real job. You know he never made any money at it.\"\n\n\"But I never thought he could be so ugly. And that gun! Do you know the percentage of gun deaths caused by domestic violence?\"\n\n\"No, but I'm sure it's high.\" Maggie thought of the gun Liz always carried. It still terrified her.\n\nLiz knocked on the doorjamb. \"I'm going to take Katrina up and get her dressed. And I need to get dressed myself. I have to be there by eleven thirty. Kitchen's all cleaned up.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Liz,\" said Maggie. \"Liz is one of the judges of the floats in the parades,\" she explained. \"Part of her Chamber of Commerce duties.\"\n\n\"I'm going to leave Katrina with you,\" Liz added. \"She can't sit with me on the dais.\"\n\n\"All right. Bring her down when she's dressed.\"\n\nMaggie listened to them go up the stairs. \"I'm sorry I shared your troubles with our friends.\"\n\n\"I know, Mom. And they only want to help. You're so lucky to have landed here. Liz adores you. The people are so kind and decent. I thought you'd be bored after living in New York, but you seem right at home here.\"\n\n\"It's pretty quiet, especially in the wintertime, but I love teaching at UNE and acting at the Playhouse and the State Theater. Yes, I'd have a higher profile career if I'd stayed in New York. But there I'd be a tiny fish in a huge pond. Here, I'm a star.\"\n\n\"Mom, I love it here too, but I can't impose on you and Liz for long. I'll start looking for another place to stay as soon as I get my finances straightened out.\"\n\n\"You know we have lots of room.\"\n\n\"Yes, but that's for your summer guests, not permanent residents.\"\n\nMaggie patted Alina's arm. \"I'll talk to Liz. I'm sure she'd be fine with your staying with us. Are you sure there's no hope for a reconciliation with Jeff?\"\n\nAlina shook her head. \"No. Not after this. He was on oxycontin for his back pain before all this happened. I think his drug problem has only gotten worse.\"\n\nMaggie's mouth parted slightly. \"You never told me that part.\"\n\n\"I didn't want to worry you. You had enough to handle with your cancer.\"\n\n\"Maybe there was something we could have done before it got out of hand.\"\n\nAlina shook her head. \"There was nothing anyone could do.\"\n\nMaggie put her arm around her. \"Oh, Honey. I'm so sorry.\" She held her daughter while she cried.\n\nFinally, Alina sat back and wiped her tears with the back of her hand. \"I'm sorry I'm such a mess.\"\n\n\"You're tired, and it's been a lot. But, sweetheart, we need to get ready or we'll be late for the parade.\"\n\nMaggie dressed the baby while Alina showered. As Maggie searched through the suitcase, she saw how few items were warm enough for December in Maine. She decided that after the parade, they would head to Reny's and the consignment shops to get Alina and the children some winter clothes.\n\nWhen Alina returned, Maggie went upstairs to get dressed. She put on ski underwear because she knew from experience that it would be cold standing along the parade route. Before she went downstairs, she pulled some fleece throws out of the linen closet to bundle up the children.\n\nLiz came down dressed in one of her best pantsuits. She had done her hair and put on makeup. Since \"retiring,\" Liz hated to dress up, but when called upon to appear as the president of the Chamber of Commerce or a surgeon at Seacoast Women's Health, Liz always looked the part. She allowed herself a little more latitude as the head physician at Hobb's Family Practice and was known to show up in shorts and a polo shirt in the summer.\n\nLiz leaned down to kiss Maggie. \"See you after the parade. I'll meet you at LaScala. I made reservations.\"\n\nMaggie put her arms around Liz to keep her there a moment longer. \"After we eat, can we take them to Reny's for warm clothes?\"\n\nLiz nodded. \"Yes, I saw. No problem.\" She pulled her dress coat out of the hall closet. \"Gotta go, Mag. See you later.\" She gave her a quick kiss.\n\nMaggie herded Alina and her girls into the garage. She was pleased to see that Liz had remembered to put the car seats for the children into her car. Maggie checked to make sure the sling chairs were still in the back. She always kept them in the car for impromptu visits to the beach.\n\nAlina swung the diaper bag into the backseat. \"I found the juice boxes from last summer in the cabinet. I hope you don't mind that I took them for the kids.\"\n\n\"Of course, not. There's some string cheese too. And goldfish in the bread bin. I'll get them.\"\n\nOnce everyone was strapped in, and Maggie headed to town. She knew that parking would be a problem, so she took the back way to the high school where they could catch the shuttle to the Post Road. A few of the trollies that ran from Hobbs to Webhanet during the tourist season had been taken out of winter storage to ferry passengers from the parking areas to the parade route. Alone, Maggie would have walked, but it was a long hike with two young children.\n\nKatrina jumped up and down with excitement when the trolley pulled into the stop. She scrambled aboard and found a seat. Maggie was glad to be there to help Alina with the folding baby stroller. The kids' gear was mostly second-hand, collected by a woman in town, a retired nurse, who also rescued durable medical equipment otherwise destined for a landfill. Maggie liked that Mainers had such strong attitudes about unnecessary waste. Since moving to the state, Maggie had learned their well-known frugality was about more than money.\n\nThey huddled together on the trolley. Fortunately, they were only using only the enclosed trolleys instead of the open-sided summer models. Although it was a bright sunny day, after the night's snowstorm, the temperature had dropped sharply and the wind had picked up. Their breath was vapor as they settled on the sidewalk near the front of the library, not far from the judges' dais.\n\nMaggie waved vigorously, but Liz was engaged in conversations with one of the town selectmen. People often said Liz should run for office herself, but Maggie couldn't imagine Liz as a politician. She had learned some tact since they'd known one another in college, but Liz could still be stunningly blunt.\n\nMaggie bundled up the girls with the fleece throws to keep them warm while they waited for the parade to start. As long as it stepped off on time, it wouldn't be a long wait, but in a small town there was a more casual approach to schedules. In the distance, Maggie could hear the persistent beat of drums, one of the bands waiting in the middle school parking lot. Parades always excited her. From childhood, she'd loved the feel of the drumbeats against her chest when a marching band went by.\n\nAlina held little Nicki on her lap to keep her warm. Maggie tried hold Katrina, but the girl wiggled out of her arms and insisted on standing.\n\n\"Aren't you cold?\" asked Maggie.\n\nAlina shook her head. Maggie, watching out of the corner of her eye, saw that Katrina was more interested in the little girl next to her than the parade. At least, another girl her age would keep her occupied.\n\nThe parade finally began to form. A Hobbs police car was poised at the front of the line, flashing its blue and red lights, followed by the department honor guard. The first band in the parade would be Hobbs High School Marching Band, actually not bad as school bands went. A string of local business floats passed, including one from Hobbs Family Practice with the doctors and nurses wearing matching green parkas, Santa Claus hats, and red stethoscopes. Liz was forbidden to vote for that float, of course, but she waved enthusiastically. The water rescue squad in wet suits came next.\n\nMaggie stood up to see if she could get Liz's attention, but her wife was now chatting with the president of the Rotary. It wasn't easy being married to a woman who was involved in everything. When no amount of waving could draw Liz's eye, Maggie finally sat down. She glanced around, looking for Katrina, but her granddaughter was no longer standing next to the girl who'd caught her interest.\n\n\"Alina! Where's Katrina?\"\n\n\"She was just here.\" Alina put the baby into the stroller and stood up. \"Katrina!\" she called.\n\nThe girl whom Katrina had befriended stood beside her mother, attentively watching the parade. Maggie hurried over to her. \"Excuse me\u2026where is the girl who was standing next to you?\"\n\nThe girl shrugged. \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Katrina!\" Maggie called in her loudest voice as she wove through the crowd, frantically looking for her granddaughter. She felt everyone staring at her. She didn't care.\n\nAfter fruitlessly searching through the crowd twice, Maggie pulled out her phone and called Liz.\n\n\"Maggie. What's up?\"\n\n\"Katrina is missing. She was right here, next to Alina, and now she's gone!\"\n\n\"What?\" asked Liz. Then her voice was muted. Maggie could hear her repeating the information, probably to Brenda. \"Okay,\" said Liz. \"Brenda is on it. Where are you?\" Maggie waved vigorously. \"I see you,\" said Liz. \"I'll be right there.\"\n\nMaggie worried for Liz's bad knee when she saw her jump down from the dais to get around someone blocking her path. Limping slightly, she was at Maggie's side within minutes.\n\n\"When did you last see her?\"\n\n\"It was only minutes ago. She can't have gotten far. Oh, Liz! This can't be happening!\"\n\nWhen Liz hugged her, Maggie clung to her desperately. \"Don't worry. We'll find her. Brenda and her officers are searching for her right now.\" Maggie finally released her. \"Let's split up,\" Liz suggested. \"I'll meet you back at the chairs.\"\n\nThere was an announcement over the PA system. \"If anyone sees a seven-year-old girl named Katrina, please bring her to the judges' dais immediately! Katrina is three foot, six inches tall, weighs approximately forty pounds. She has long, dark hair and blue eyes.\"\n\nAfter Maggie and Liz had combed the immediate area without any sign of Katrina, they met back at the chairs. Alina returned too, dangling on the edge of a panic attack.\n\nLiz reached out for her hand. \"Alina, are you all right?\"\n\n\"No! I'm not all right,\" she replied in a testy voice. \"My daughter is missing!\"\n\n\"I know. But the police are looking for her, and we'll find her soon. This is a small town.\"\n\n\"But the ocean is right there!\" said Alina, pointing.\n\nLiz looked directly into Alina's eyes when she spoke. \"It's a very long walk to the ocean from here,\" she said in the calm voice she used in medical situations, \"especially for a small person with short legs.\"\n\nThe sound of a radio squawking preceded Brenda's appearance at Maggie's side. \"I want to give you an update. I've got ten of my best officers out looking for Katrina. I put out an Amber alert, but that's just a precaution. We have no reason to believe she was taken.\"\n\nAlina's hand flew to her mouth and she let out a little cry.\n\n\"Like I said, it's just a precaution,\" said Brenda, squeezing Alina's shoulder. \"We'll find her.\"\n\n\"Maggie, I think you should take Alina and Nicki home,\" said Liz. \"They're not dressed for this kind of weather.\"\n\nMaggie shook her head. \"I'm staying until we find Katrina.\"\n\n\"If you get chilled standing around waiting, what good will it do?\" asked Liz. \"Please take them home. Give them something hot to eat and drink..\"\n\n\"And what are you going to do?\" asked Maggie.\n\n\"I'm going back to my truck to change my shoes and put on my parka. Then I'll help them look for her. She can't have gotten far. She's probably in plain sight, but we're missing her.\"\n\n\"Liz, I'm so frightened.\"\n\nLiz put her arms around Maggie. She spoke directly into her ear. \"Please take them home and warm them up, or we'll have a real emergency on our hands.\"\n\n\"Promise me you'll find her.\"\n\n\"We'll find her.\"\n\nBrenda nudged her. \"Come on, Liz. We need to go.\"\n\n\"Go home,\" said Liz to Maggie as she released her. \"I'll call you as soon as I know something, and I'll check in every half hour. Okay?\"\n\nMaggie nodded.\n\n\"Let's go, Maggie,\" said Brenda, \"I'll give you a ride back to your car.\"\n\nAs Maggie sat in the front seat of the chief's police car, she wanted to cry, but she didn't dare for fear it might set off Alina's anxiety. Brenda glanced at Maggie as she turned around to back up the car.\n\n\"Don't worry, Maggie. She can't have gotten far.\" Brenda's steady calm momentarily eased her fears, but as soon as the police chief turned on her lights to get through the crowd, Maggie's heart began to pound."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 6",
                "text": "When Brenda returned, Liz climbed into the police car. She always found it unnerving to hear the police scan, and she desperately hoped never to hear it report something terrible happening to a dark-haired, seven-year-old girl.\n\n\"Where do you think this kid might have gone?\" Brenda asked, interrupting Liz's thoughts.\n\n\"I have no idea.\"\n\n\"She didn't get far unless she hitched a ride or was snatched.\"\n\nLiz involuntarily shivered. \"You don't really think she was taken by someone?\"\n\nBrenda shrugged. \"I wasn't about to say it in front of the mother or Maggie, but nowadays, anything can happen. And there are always so many tourists in town for the parade.\"\n\nLiz allowed herself the luxury of a nervous laugh. \"Why do they come? The parade is pretty awful.\"\n\n\"It is, but you know that small town nostalgia gets them every time.\"\n\n\"It keeps the economy booming and the real estate taxes low, so I'm all for it.\"\n\n\"Stop being such a cynic, Liz. You love it here, and we're glad to have you. Best doc we ever had.\"\n\nLiz glanced over at Brenda and saw that her comment was completely sincere. \"Thank you.\"\n\nBrenda nodded. \"Now let's go find this kid. Officers and deputies are covering the area where she was last seen and all the parking areas. Let's head down to the harbor to see if somehow she landed down there.\"\n\nThe thought made Liz uneasy. Harbor Park was less than a hundred yards from the water. Liz herself had taught Katrina to swim last summer, but in December, the water temperature was frigid. Anyone who landed in it wouldn't last long.\n\nThe chamber of commerce had set up a booth in Harbor Park to offer free hot chocolate and mulled cider to the paradegoers who had parked there. The parking lot was already mostly empty, and the people manning the booth were looking cold. They were organizing the table to pack up and leave. \"Anyone seen a little girl, this high,\" asked Brenda. She demonstrated by holding her hand up to chest height. \"She has long, dark hair and big blue eyes.\"\n\nThe volunteers at the booth all shook their heads.\n\n\"Let's check the parking lot and the dock,\" Brenda suggested.\n\n\"Okay, I'll take the dock,\" said Liz, watching the trolley leave the parking lot after delivering the last round of passengers returning from the parade.\n\n\"Brenda\u2026\" Liz caught the police chief's arm to get her attention. \"Katrina loves the trolley. Maybe she hopped on it somewhere along the route.\"\n\nThe police chief nodded and spoke into the radio strapped to her shoulder. \"Hey, Davis. Head over to the trolley garage and see if anyone's seen the Cummings kid.\" She turned to Liz. \"Let's check the parking lot anyway and look down at the dock.\n\nAs Liz walked along the dock, which undulated with the wake from the passing boats, she dreaded seeing the ghostly figure of a child floating in the water. She couldn't even imagine the pain that it would cause Alina and Maggie if anything happened to the girl. She'd never had a child of her own, so she couldn't say she understood what Alina was experiencing, but she had seen the pure fear in the young woman's eyes.\n\nThe cold wind near the water was cutting. Katrina wasn't dressed warmly enough for this weather. One of Liz's real fears was hypothermia. In a small child, it could come on quickly and be deadly.\n\n\"Liz!\" Brenda shouted. She motioned for her to come up from the dock. Liz was halfway up the stairs when Brenda, cupped her hands around her mouth and called down, \"Davis found her in the trolley garage.\" Liz ran up the stairs. \"Davis boarded all the trolleys that went out today,\" Brenda explained. \"She found Katrina in one of them, sitting on the floor between the seats. The girl said she was hiding from the driver.\"\n\n\"The temperature is supposed to go way down tonight. She would have frozen to death in that unheated garage.\"\n\n\"Davis is bringing her down. She seems fine, if a little cold.\"\n\nLiz quickly texted Maggie: \"We found her. She's okay.\"\n\nA text shot back: \"Thank God!\"\n\nA moment later, a police cruiser blazing all its lights drove into the harbor parking lot and parked in front of the bait shop. Liz opened the rear door and found Katrina wrapped in a metallic emergency blanket. The girl's teeth were chattering, and her lips were blue.\n\n\"Mind if I borrow your blanket?\"\n\n\"You can have it,\" said Officer Davis. She chuckled. \"We can never get them back into the package once it's been opened.\"\n\n\"Thanks for finding her.\"\n\n\"You're welcome, Doc.\" Officer Davis touched the brim of her hat.\n\nLiz gave Katrina a quick once over. She checked her pulse and pupils. Apart from being chilled, she looked no worse for wear.\n\n\"I'm cold,\" said Katrina.\n\n\"All right, sweetie. Let's go home to mommy and grandma.\"\n\n\"I'll drive you to your truck, Doctor Liz,\" Davis offered.\n\nLiz got in the back seat with Katrina. \"Let's see your fingers.\" Liz was relieved to see they were white with cold, but there was no apparent frost bite or other damage. \"You're lucky,\" said Liz, putting her arm around her. \"You're going to be fine.\"\n\nKatrina started to cry. \"I just wanted to go home and see Daddy.\"\n\n\"But the trolley can't take you back to Florida.\"\n\n\"I thought it would take me to the airport like the one we rode on when we came here.\"\n\nLiz frowned as she tried to figure out what the girl was trying to say. Then she remembered the ride on the parking shuttle in the airport and began to see the connection. \"Our trolley only drives around town. It doesn't go to the airport.\"\n\nKatrina looked miserable. \"I want to see Daddy.\"\n\n\"I know, honey, but your mommy was very worried about you. Grandma too.\"\n\n\"Were you worried?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course I was worried, but I know you are smart girl and will learn a lesson from this adventure.\"\n\nOfficer Davis parked next to Liz's truck. \"Do you need any help with her?\"\n\n\"No, thanks, Gina. I've got it from here.\"\n\nLiz carried Katrina to the truck and strapped her in with the silver emergency blanket still wrapped around her. She tucked the old quilt she kept in the back around her too. \"It will get warmer in here in a few minutes,\" Liz explained, ready to close the door.\n\n\"Grandma Liz\u2026\"\n\n\"Yes, Katrina?\"\n\n\"I love you.\"\n\n\"I love you too, sweetie.\"\n\nLiz climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine. Within moments a call came through. \"Are you on your way home?\" asked Maggie.\n\n\"Yes, I'll be there in a few minutes.\"\n\n\"How is she?\"\n\n\"She can hear you, you know.\"\n\n\"I'm fine, Grandma,\" Katrina shouted from the back seat. \"Fine!\"\n\nBy the time they arrived home, Katrina insisted on walking on her own into the house, and Liz didn't argue.\n\n\"She does look fine,\" said Maggie with surprise as Katrina rushed into her mother's arms.\n\nLiz shrugged. \"Kids are pretty resilient. Unfortunately, their small bodies can succumb to hypothermia really quickly. We probably found her just in time.\"\n\n\"They all need warmer clothes. I'll take them to Reny's this afternoon.\"\n\n\"Can we eat something first?\" asked Liz. \"I'm starving.\"\n\n\"You're always starving.\" Maggie gave her arm a little squeeze. \"I'm heating up some of the mac and cheese from last night and the chili.\"\n\n\"Great. How's Alina doing? No panic attacks, I hope.\"\n\n\"She's fine, except Jeffrey keeps texting her threatening to kill her if she doesn't come home.\"\n\n\"That's friendly,\" said Liz, raising a brow. \"I'm sure that makes her want to run right home.\"\n\n\"It's over from what she tells me. She tried to log into their online banking and found herself locked out. How can he do that?\"\n\n\"Report fraud and have all the passwords reset,\" replied Liz, hanging up her coat. \"This isn't going to be fun.\"\n\n\"No,\" agreed Maggie. \"It's not.\"\n\n\"I'm going to take Katrina into my office and examine her to make sure she's okay. I'll be right back.\"\n\nLiz sat Katrina on the sofa in her office and gave her a quick exam. While she was listening to her chest sounds, Katrina asked, \"Can I listen to my heart, Grandma?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" said Liz and relocated the ear pieces to the girl's ears. She positioned the diaphragm on the girls chest. \"Hear that?\"\n\nKatrina nodded. \"Do you let other kids listen too?\"\n\n\"Sometimes. When they're really scared of me. Do I look scary to you?\"\n\nKatrina giggled. \"No.\"\n\nMaggie knocked on the door. \"Almost done? Come into the kitchen and get something to eat.\"\n\nThey headed to the kitchen. While Liz was wolfing down her chili, she heard her phone ringing in her bag.\n\n\"Elizabeth Stolz,\" she answered out of habit without looking at the screen.\n\n\"Liz. It's Erika.\" The clarification was unnecessary. Erika's crisp British accent with a slight undercurrent of German intonation was instantly recognizable. They'd known each other since Liz had been a surgical resident at Yale and Erika had been a graduate student in the philosophy department. They'd met in a local pub and discovered a shared affection for single-malt scotch and continental philosophy and indulged it by meeting regularly to drink, speak German, and discuss phenomenology.\n\nLiz's first impulse was to ask solicitously about Erika's mental state. Her friend had been despondent since her longtime partner had died suddenly of a heart attack in the spring. But Liz sensed that an upbeat tone might be a better approach. \"Erika! How nice to hear from you!\"\n\n\"Liz, I'm glad I caught you. I have an enormous favor to ask.\"\n\n\"Ask away.\"\n\n\"I need to get away from here. Everyone's gone for holidays. The place is like a bloody tomb.\" Erika had been living in the professor's residence at Colby for years. It was not the first time she'd found spending the holidays there too depressing. Usually, she and Jeannine had gone someplace warm for Christmas. They were both vocal atheists and didn't celebrate the holiday, so it didn't matter where they were. \"I thought about opening the beach cottage, \" Erika explained, \"but I just spent all that money getting it winterized. Could I possibly impose\u2026?\"\n\n\"You're not imposing. Of course, you can stay here. When are you coming?\"\n\n\"Is this afternoon too soon?\"\n\nLiz mentally arranged the guestrooms, thinking of the two bedrooms that had been recently vacated by their party guests. She hated to ask Ellie, her housekeeper to clean on a weekend. There was another bedroom on the second floor, but with the children upstairs, Erika would be more comfortable downstairs.\n\n\"Of course, you're always welcome. I'll let Maggie know. I'm sure it's fine, but we had a very exciting morning.\" Liz briefly recounted the story of Katrina's disappearance and recovery. She was used to summarizing cases and very good at getting stories down to the essential facts.\n\n\"That's horrible,\" said Erika when Liz had finished her tale. \"I'm so glad she was found so quickly. Too many of these cases end badly.\"\n\n\"I never wanted to imagine it ending badly,\" Liz admitted. \"Unless you hear from me in the next ten minutes, pack up and head down.\" After she got off the phone, Liz glanced at her watch. If Erika left shortly, she would arrive in about two hours.\n\nLiz went into the kitchen to tell Maggie, who was scooping out more macaroni and cheese for the children. Liz bent to speak in her ear.\n\n\"Erika Bultmann asked if she could stay with us.\"\n\nMaggie gave her a quick, anxious look. \"When?\"\n\n\"She wants to come today.\"\n\n\"How long is she staying?\"\n\n\"I didn't ask. Probably through Christmas.\"\n\n\"I forgot to tell you with all the excitement, but Sophia has decided to come for Christmas. She called while you were on the way home.\"\n\n\"I thought she wasn't coming.\"\n\n\"She said she has big news to share and wants to tell us in person.\"\n\n\"When is she coming?\"\n\n\"She's flying into Boston tomorrow morning, but we won't need to pick her up. She's renting a car at the airport.\"\n\n\"Okay. To make this work, we'll need to split up. You go with Alina to Reny's and get some warm clothes for the kids. I'll change the linens and clean the bathrooms.\"\n\nMaggie turned to stare at Liz. \"You? You're going to do housecleaning?\"\n\nLiz gave her a dirty look. \"I can, if I really have to. I hate to bother Ellie on the weekend. The poor woman works three jobs.\"\n\n\"Maybe you should pay her more.\"\n\n\"I pay her more than anyone else. I pay her double and triple when we have company.\"\n\n\"Tell her you'll pay her triple if she'll clean the guest rooms today. How much you want to bet she'll be happy for money right before Christmas?\"\n\n\"I don't bet on a sure thing. Okay. Let me call her.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 7",
                "text": "By the time Maggie returned from town with Alina and the girls, Liz and Ellie had put the house in order for their new guests. Ellie was just leaving. She waved to Maggie and called, \"Merry Christmas!\" as she got into her car.\n\nMaggie rolled down her window. \"You too!\"\n\n\"Thanks for the gift card!\" Ellie called, waving an envelope.\n\nMaggie had no idea what she was talking about but she called back: \"You're welcome! Merry Christmas.\"\n\nMaggie helped Alina bring in the bags.\n\n\"I guess you were successful,\" said Liz, watching the parade of shopping bags coming through the door.\n\n\"The girls should be set for now. We also found a very nice winter parka for Alina. It's hard to find small sizes sometimes.\"\n\n\"That's because we grow 'em big up here,\" quipped Liz.\n\nMaggie came closer so she could speak privately. \"Did you pay Ellie triple?\"\n\n\"Yes\u2026on your orders. And I had an extra hundred-dollar gift card left over from the office party, so I gave her that too.\"\n\n\"You're generous to a fault sometimes,\" said Maggie kissing her. \"But I love that about you.\"\n\nThe ship's bell on the front porch sounded. \"That will be Erika,\" said Liz, glancing at her watch. \"I'll get the door.\"\n\nMaggie heard the bustle in the hall as Erika came in with her bag.\n\n\"We'll put you in the downstairs guestroom, if you don't mind.\" Liz reached for a bag. \"We have kids on the second floor.\"\n\n\"Suits me fine,\" said Erika. \"Beggars can't be choosers, not that I think the downstairs room isn't perfectly lovely or mind sharing the floor with children.\"\n\n\"You're so adaptable,\" said Liz.\n\n\"Of course, I am. I'm a philosopher. I'm always reasonable.\"\n\nAfter depositing Erika's bags in the guest room, Liz and Erika came into the kitchen. \"Hello, my dear,\" said Erika, sweeping Maggie into a hug. \"You look as ravishing as ever! Our very own star.\"\n\nMaggie had to admit she enjoyed the hyperbole. Erika, who was mostly reserved and cynical, occasionally allowed herself moments of extravagance.\n\nShe and Liz were the proverbial \"two peas in a pod.\" Erika was nearly as tall as Liz and as lanky as her friend. She was blond, now tending to white hair as approached her mid-fifties. Her parents had escaped from East Germany. She liked to recount the adventure like a thriller plot. In fact, it had been a harrowing experience for the young girl. Her stay in England after the escape had a left her with the distinctive British accent.\n\n\"Was m\u00f6chtest du trinken?\" asked Liz.\n\n\"Etwas wein, danke.\"\n\n\"Rot oder weiss?\"\n\n\"Rot, denke ich. Die Nacht is kalt und ich brauche irgendetwas kr\u00e4ftiges.\"\n\nLiz poured Erika a glass of red wine.\n\nErika raised her glass to Maggie. \"Thank you, Maggie, for taking in one of Liz's strays. I am eternally grateful.\"\n\n\"We're used to having a full house. My daughter is here along with her two girls. My other daughter is coming tomorrow.\"\n\n\"A very female holiday,\" observed Erika, raising her glass. \"I approve.\"\n\nAlina came into the kitchen. Erika reached out her hands. \"Alina, my darling, how are you? I hear you've had a difficult day.\"\n\nAlina sighed. \"That's putting it mildly. It was terrifying.\"\n\n\"All's well that ends well, I hear.\"\n\n\"We're heading there, I hope.\" Alina handed the local paper to her mother and pointed out a display ad. \"There's a carol ceremony tomorrow night at the Episcopalian church. Can we go?\"\n\n\"As long as it's not religious,\" muttered Liz, scowling.\n\n\"Oh, Liz, don't be a spoil sport,\" said Erika. \"Cultural Christianity is nothing to be ashamed of. It has sponsored some of the world's most sublime music.\"\n\n\"You, the penultimate atheist, want to go to church?\" asked Liz with an exaggerated look of surprise.\n\n\"Sure, why not?\" said Erika, shrugging. \"I adore liturgical music.\"\n\n\"I've heard about the new vicar there,\" said Maggie. \"She's a retired opera singer. She sang at the Met.\"\n\n\"Really?\" said Liz and Erika in unison.\n\nThey were both opera fans, so Maggie was not surprised this information got their immediate attention.\n\n\"It would be interesting to hear why she made such a big switch,\" said Liz.\n\n\"Obviously, some kind of Pauline conversion,\" said Erika in her archest voice. \"She fell off her horse and bumped her head. Never been the same since.\"\n\nLiz and Erika laughed, but Maggie wasn't so sure she was willing to dismiss the woman and her conversion so lightly. \"You two should show some more respect.\"\n\nLiz shrugged. \"Why?\"\n\nMaggie, hands on hips, gave her a severe look. \"Liz, I'm really surprised at you. She's a community leader, like you, and an accomplished woman, like you. Just because she's religious doesn't mean she doesn't deserve respect.\" Maggie stared at Erika, who averted her eyes like a guilty child. \"You two are dangerous together. Now, try to behave yourselves.\"\n\nWhen Maggie left the room, Liz muttered, \"She spoils all my fun.\"\n\n\"I heard that!\" called Maggie.\n\nAfter dinner, Liz turned on the propane fireplace on the porch and sat talking with Erika. Maggie watched anxiously when Liz brought in an empty scotch bottle and opened a new one.\n\nMaggie helped Alina put the kids to bed and told them two stories as she'd promised. After she tucked them in, she went up to bed to read. After every chapter, she glanced at the clock. When the time went into single digits, she decided to turn off the lights. She lay there for a few moments wondering if she should go down and encourage Liz to come up to bed but reminded herself that Liz was old enough to decide for herself. After worrying for a few minutes more, Maggie finally fell asleep."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 8",
                "text": "The next morning, Liz didn't want to get up, so Maggie shook her arm. \"You smell like a distillery. I hope you had fun.\"\n\nLiz punched her pillow and rolled over. \"Not really. But I enjoyed the conversation\u2026I think. Erika told me she is rereading Sein und Zeit and has rediscovered Heidegger.\"\n\n\"Heidegger?\"\n\n\"Dreadful man. He became a Nazi and threw his mentor, Edmund Husserl under the bus. Brilliant, though.\"\n\nIt was too early in the morning for a philosophy lesson. Maggie just nodded and put on her bathrobe. \"Everyone is awake. We need to get up too.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" agreed Liz, but seconds later, she was sound asleep.\n\nMaggie took a quick shower, put on her makeup and went downstairs. Fortunately, Alina knew where everything was from her summer visits. She'd fed the children yogurt and cereal and had made herself some herbal tea.\n\n\"Good morning, Mom,\" she said, raising her bloodshot eyes when Maggie came into the breakfast room.\n\n\"You look exhausted.\"\n\nAlina sighed. \"The girls have been awake since five. I tried to keep them quiet so they wouldn't wake everyone.\"\n\n\"I heard them, but it was time to get up. Did you get any sleep?\"\n\n\"A little. My phone kept pinging. Finally, I switched off the sound.\"\n\n\"Is Jeff still sending you angry messages?\"\n\n\"Not exactly. Now he's pleading for me to come home.\"\n\n\"Do you want to go home?\"\n\n\"Of course, I want to go home. But I can't go back to Jeff.\"\n\nMaggie nodded. \"I understand.\"\n\n\"I had some time this morning go online and check our finances. He's reset the password on all our accounts, but I could get in by calling the banks and giving my social security number. I asked for a new debit card so I can access our money, but when I checked the balance, it was down to a few hundred dollars. The credit cards are maxed out. The mortgage is in arrears, and the bank has filed for foreclosure. Thank God, I still have my 401K. He can't touch that.\"\n\nMaggie put her arm around her daughter. \"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry. Where did the money go?\"\n\n\"I think his drug problem is worse than I thought. And he was never any good with money. That's why I always managed it. But he begged to take it on. Obviously, I was a fool to trust him. I should have checked. It's only been a year since we switched. I can't believe it happened so fast.\"\n\nMaggie sighed. \"Money can go quickly. When did your financial problems start?\"\n\n\"He won't tell me. And that's the real reason it's over. He won't be honest with me. He lies about everything.\"\n\n\"It's pretty hard to trust people again when they consistently lie to you. That's what broke up my marriage to your father, lying about his affair. Meanwhile, I knew. Of course, I knew.\"\n\nLiz came into the room. Maggie wasn't surprised to see her looking relatively put-together. She'd showered and dressed. When she leaned down to kiss her, she smelled minty from toothpaste and mouthwash, no doubt to hide the evidence of her indulgence.\n\n\"I'm going to make a sausage and egg casserole, okay?\"\n\n\"You don't always have to cook. I'll make breakfast. Sit down and have some coffee.\" Maggie got up and made Liz a cup of coffee using the super-dark-roast blend she liked.\n\n\"I'll make the casserole after I have a cup of diesel oil to start the engines,\" said Liz and took a sip of coffee.\n\nErika came into the breakfast room, looking perfectly normal. She was dressed and ready for the day. \"Good morning, all,\" she said brightly, heading for the coffee maker.\n\n\"It's not fair that you look so good after all that single malt,\" grumbled Liz. \"I hate you.\"\n\n\"I've had more recent practice, I think.\" Erika sat down next to her.\n\n\"As a doctor, I wouldn't encourage imbibing in such volume. Doesn't do good things for your liver\u2026or stomach\u2026or esophagus.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know, but it's fun once in a while.\"\n\n\"What are your plans for the day, Erika?\" Maggie asked.\n\n\"Apart from that lovely carol service you have planned, I think I shall head down to the cottage to see if the new property agent had the driveway plowed. They charge more than the last one, who was a disaster. You saw the mess after they failed to drain the water heater. Thank heavens, Liz looks in on the place from time to time, or the water would have been running for weeks! Second homes can be such a burden!\"\n\n\"I'm surprised you didn't offer it for winter rental,\" said Liz. \"They're very popular.\"\n\n\"Too much bother,\" said Erika. \"The tenants never properly clean up after themselves.\"\n\n\"But it would be good to have someone living there. With all the storms last year, there were a lot of break-ins at the shore. Many people didn't shovel or plow, so it was easy for thieves to identify the unoccupied homes.\"\n\n\"That's why I want to make sure they're plowing. And if it's not too windy, I'd like to go for a walk on the beach.\"\n\n\"That sounds wonderful,\" said Alina.\n\n\"You're welcome to join me,\" replied Erika, reaching out her hand and taking Alina's. \"It would be nice to have company.\"\n\nAlina's hopeful expression faded. \"But I have the kids.\"\n\n\"I'll watch the children,\" Maggie offered. \"You go. You could use a walk by ocean. It's very calming.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Mom.\"\n\n\"Good,\" said Erika. \"We'll go after breakfast.\"\n\n\"Speaking of which\u2026\" said Liz, getting up.\n\n\"No, you don't,\" said Maggie, with a hand on Liz's arm. \"I'll make breakfast. You sit and entertain your guest.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 9",
                "text": "Liz was glad for the quiet while she prepared the short ribs to go into the slow cooker. It was one of her favorite recipes, but short ribs had become ridiculously expensive. Fortunately, she had a surplus of them, cut from the whole rib roast she'd ordered for Christmas dinner. She'd had it cut in three with the idea that she and Maggie would be alone. Now, she was glad she hadn't put the other sections in the freezer.\n\nEveryone was out doing something. Alina and Erika had gone to the beach house. Maggie had taken the girls to the thrift shops to buy them more warm clothes. The house was blissfully quiet. Liz briefly considered a nap while the house was empty and she'd have some peace, but she'd had too much coffee at breakfast. Of course, if she didn't take this opportunity, she wouldn't be able to nap later. Sophia, Maggie's eldest, was due soon. She'd taken an early flight from Dallas.\n\nAfter all the talk of having a quiet Christmas, Liz couldn't believe they had such a full house. One year, Maggie and Liz had talked about renting a cabin on Moosehead lake to get away from their holiday guests. \"Why not leave the house to them and run away from home?\" Liz had suggested.\n\n\"Sometime soon, that's exactly what we'll do,\" agreed Maggie.\n\n\"Wouldn't everyone be surprised?\"\n\nMaggie shrugged. \"Who cares? As long as I have you all to myself.\"\n\nThe memory of the conversation brought a smile to Liz's lips. Then she remembered Katrina showing up in their room and sighed. The interruption had frustrated her, and she wondered when they could finally get back to what they'd started. It had been five years since Maggie had seduced her in the little cabin in Acadia, but Liz still wanted her as much as she had on that night. She was grateful the breast cancer drugs hadn't diminished Maggie libido, but as her wife often reminded her, sex is more than physical.\n\nMaggie filled the slow cooker with the ribs and other ingredients and turned it on to low. She salivated at the thought of the succulent results. The carol ceremony was at four o'clock. By the time they returned, dinner would be ready.\n\nOn second thought, Liz decided, a nap would be a good idea. She'd be much friendlier afterward and maybe after a nap, her pounding headache would be gone."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 10",
                "text": "Sophia wanted some time with her nieces, so she volunteered to stay home with the girls while the others went to the carol ceremony. Maggie was glad for the break. She'd spent the entire day with the girls, and as much as loved them, they needed so much attention, especially Katrina. She was bright and curious, but also never turned down an opportunity for mischief. After the previous day's misadventure, Maggie didn't dare let her out of her sight.\n\n\"I'm going with Alyson tomorrow to look at cars,\" said Liz as she drove to St. Margaret's by the Sea Episcopal Church for the carol ceremony.\n\n\"What does Lynne have to say about that?\" asked Maggie uneasily.\n\n\"Nothing. She's coming along. They're buying the car together.\"\n\n\"Really? I guess that means there will eventually be a wedding,\" said Maggie, sounding more relieved than she had intended.\n\n\"Did you have any doubt?\"\n\n\"They haven't set a date yet.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes they did. Al told me at the party. It will be in May. The seventeenth, I think.\"\n\n\"You didn't tell me,\" scolded Maggie.\n\n\"I forgot.\"\n\n\"You forget to tell me a lot.\"\n\n\"It was a little busy that night,\" replied Liz impatiently.\n\n\"Now, now, girls,\" chided Erika from the backseat. \"It's Christmas. Time of good cheer.\"\n\n\"Bah humbug,\" said Liz. She chuckled softly. \"Just kidding.\" She turned on to the Post Road. \"I'm pretty sure I'll buy Alyson's Lexus. It still has some life in it, and we can use another vehicle.\"\n\nMaggie, who by now could pretty much read Liz's mind, knew the car was for Alina, but she wondered where they would store it if Alina decided not to stay. All the bays in the garage were in use in the winter because Liz pulled in her truck so the driveway could be plowed. Never mind, she thought. Liz has a plan. She always has a plan.\n\n\"Maggie, how do you know so much about the new Episcopal vicar?\" asked Erika, obviously changing the subject.\n\n\"She still sings in local opera productions. One of my students knows her and thinks she's wonderful. She's developed quite a reputation as a sermonizer too.\"\n\n\"And how do you know that?\" asked Liz.\n\n\"Joan goes to that church,\" said Maggie, referring to a neighbor in their bridge group.\n\n\"You're all very cozy down here, aren't you?\" observed Erika.\n\n\"Well, you know how it is\u2014small town in Maine\u2026long, cold winters. We huddle together for warmth.\"\n\n\"You make it sound so inviting. Maybe I'll move down here when I retire. I hear the local doctor is quite good.\"\n\n\"I might be retired by then too.\"\n\n\"I rather doubt that,\" replied Erika, gazing out the window.\n\nAlina took her mother's arm as they headed into the church. \"You don't know how much this means to me\u2014having the company of adult women without the kids in tow. Sometimes, I think becoming a stay-at-home mom was the worst idea ever.\"\n\nIt was on the tip of Maggie's tongue to say something about the impact on Alina's marriage, but she kept that thought to herself.\n\nThey entered the Church through the main door. Liz paid the requested donation for the four of them. \"This is a pleasant, little church. I've never been in here before,\" she said, looking around.\n\n\"It takes music for me to darken the door of a church, and obviously, you too,\" said Erika, glancing at the program. \"What an interesting selection. Eclectic and sophisticated. Some baroque. Some modern. I wonder if this is the influence of the new vicar.\"\n\nThey searched for a pew with space for four, navigating around the knots of people chatting in the aisles. A red-haired woman wearing a priest's choir vestments emerged from the vestry. Maggie turned to say, \"That's the vicar, Lucille Bartlett,\" and saw that Erika and Liz had already noticed. Maggie cleared her throat. \"You two need to put your eyes back in their sockets. You're embarrassing yourselves.\"\n\n\"She's stunning!\" said Erika. \"Why didn't you say so? I might become a convert.\"\n\nLiz snickered. \"Now that I'll have to see to believe. You'd convert for a woman?\"\n\n\"Well, not just any woman.\"\n\n\"Wir wissen nicht, ob sie lesbisch ist,\" said Liz.\n\n\"Es macht nichts.\"\n\nLiz raised a brow.\n\n\"I'll just sit and look at her,\" Erika explained. \"I am capable of platonic admiration, you know.\"\n\n\"You two are shameless!\" Maggie said. \"What if someone hears you?\"\n\n\"So?\" asked Liz.\n\n\"You're the town doctor!\"\n\n\"They all know about me.\"\n\n\"Know what? That you're a pervert who drools over the local clergy?\"\n\nErika chuckled. \"I think Maggie's jealous, Liz. We can compare notes later.\"\n\nThe majority of the program was traditional carols sung by the adult and children's choir of the parish accompanied by the organist. There were some more difficult pieces, including a few selections from Britten's Ceremony of the Carols. The music was several levels better than the Catholic church down the street, Maggie decided. She'd attended Mass a few times after she'd first arrived but hadn't recently. The clergy pedophile scandal sickened her, and Liz was a fallen away Catholic turned atheist, who wouldn't hear of going to church.\n\nAt the conclusion of the choral program, the choir director, an older, obviously gay man stepped into the aisle. \"A few of us have been trying to convince Mother Bartlett to sing for us tonight, but she's very resistant.\" There was a disapproving murmur from the audience. The vicar smiled but shook her head. \"Maybe you, the audience, can help change her mind.\" The choir director began to clap, and the audience joined in with enthusiastic applause.\n\n\"Thank you very much,\" said the vicar. \"You will hear me sing at high mass on Christmas eve and Christmas morning\u2026along with our splendid choir.\" She reached out expansively toward the choir. Maggie could see that she'd been well trained as an actress and knew how to hold an audience's attention. Liz and Erika were enthralled.\n\n\"But Mother Lucy, we want to make sure you're in good voice for Christmas,\" said the choir director. \"A little practice won't hurt, will it?\"\n\nThe audience applauded loudly. The priest laughed. \"Obviously, I have a few fans out there.\" She conferred with the choir director who headed over to the organist. He nodded and began to play.\n\nThe selection was the Alleluia from Mozart's Exsultate, Jubilate. The woman's stunningly powerful voice cut through the church like a beam of light. She effortlessly sang all of the coloratura passages and hit the high notes with perfect accuracy. The applause that followed was deafening.\n\nErika leaned over to speak into Maggie's ear. \"Your little town just became much more interesting.\"\n\n\"I agree,\" said Maggie. Being in a church made her feel nostalgic, even homesick. The High Episcopal liturgy was close enough to the Catholic tradition in which she'd been raised to be both familiar and comforting. She might even consider attending services, especially if the new vicar was the brilliant sermonizer everyone said she was.\n\nStill clapping along, the choirmaster came to the front again. Finally, the applause died down. \"Now, doesn't that deserve an encore?\" he asked the audience, which resulted in an instant standing ovation.\n\nShaking her head, the vicar said, \"Well, all right. I'll sing Schubert's 'Ave Maria' as he wrote it, with the original text, a German translation of a passage from Walter Scott's poem, 'The Lady of the Lake.'\"\n\n\"Nice little music lesson,\" Erika remarked. \"Well done.\"\n\nAs the vicar sang, Maggie looked down the pew and saw that Liz and Erika were completely engrossed in the performance. The applause that followed was more thunderous than before. When it finally ended, the vicar thanked everyone for coming and reminded them of the times for the Christmas services.\n\n\"Let's come for Christmas,\" Maggie said to Liz as they waited for the crowd in the aisle to clear.\n\nLiz made a little face. \"Maybe.\"\n\n\"I'll go with you, Maggie, if Liz won't,\" said Erika, \"but now, I'd like to meet this woman.\"\n\nThey waited for a break in the knot of well-wishers around the vicar before approaching. Mother Bartlett reached out both her hands. \"Hello. Thank you so much for coming!\"\n\nLiz shook her hand. \"That was quite a performance.\"\n\n\"Are you a member of the parish? I'm so new here, I'm afraid I don't know everyone yet.\"\n\n\"No, not a parishioner. I'm Liz Stolz. Hobbs Family Practice.\"\n\n\"Oh, you're the doctor I keep hearing about. I've been meaning to call you, but preparing the holiday liturgies has taken up all of my time.\"\n\n\"May I introduce my wife, Dr. Maggie Fitzgerald, her daughter, Alina Cummings, and my friend, Dr. Erika Bultmann.\"\n\n\"Oh, my. So many doctors. What eminent company I find myself in tonight.\"\n\n\"Liz is the only medical doctor,\" explained Erika, reaching out her hand. \"The rest of us are merely humble academics.\"\n\n\"Humble is not a word I would ordinarily apply to you, Erika, but since the new vicar has just met you, I won't dispute it.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Liz. Sometime, I might return the favor.\"\n\n\"Reverend, do you have plans for dinner?\" Liz asked to Maggie's complete surprise. \"We have a tasty meal waiting for us at home, and we'd love for you to join us.\"\n\n\"Please, call me Lucy. And I don't know what to say. That's a very generous invitation.\"\n\n\"Just say, 'yes,'\" Maggie advised. \"It's so much easier.\"\n\nLucy laughed. \"All right, then. Yes! Let me take off my vestments, and I'll meet you here in a few minutes.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 11",
                "text": "\"Still taking in strays, I see,\" said Maggie, returning to the kitchen after serving drinks to their guests. They had settled in the living room, where the fire was blazing in the wood stove.\n\n\"I'm sorry. I should have asked first if you minded inviting another guest.\"\n\n\"I don't mind. You can invite as many drop-dead gorgeous women who sing opera as you like\u2026now that your eyes are back in your head.\"\n\nLiz paused mashing the potatoes and leaned over to give Maggie a kiss. \"I have eyes only for you.\"\n\n\"You can look all you want, Liz. Just don't touch,\" said Maggie, pinching Liz's thigh.\n\n\"Speaking of women, I wasn't go to tell you, but Jenny called. She and Laura are back from their honeymoon. They have no tree and the cupboard is bare. She asked it they could come for Christmas.\"\n\nMaggie gave her a sharp look. \"Liz, no. I've already entertained one of your exes for the holidays. That's enough. What did you tell her?\"\n\n\"I said we already had a full house, but maybe they could come for New Years.\"\n\n\"Do what you want, but I, for one, could use a break,\" said Maggie irritably. \"I was hoping we could do something romantic for New Years.\"\n\n\"Maybe I can get a cabin up at Moosehead.\"\n\n\"I said romantic, Liz, not rustic.\"\n\n\"Maybe we could see the Northern Lights.\"\n\n\"Maybe we could stay home and relax\u2026alone.\"\n\n\"Okay. If that's what you want\u2026.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Maggie, reaching up to kiss her cheek.\n\n\"Would you mind telling everyone that dinner is ready while I toss the salad?\"\n\nMaggie called their guests to the table.\n\n\"My goodness, this looks delicious,\" said Lucy taking the seat next to Erika. \"How lucky for me that you decided to come to the carols ceremony.\"\n\n\"It was Alina's idea,\" Erika explained. \"And lucky for us to hear such a fine soprano voice. I've heard rumors that you used to sing at the Met.\"\n\nLucy blushed a little, which Liz found charming in such a poised, confident woman. \"Yes, I was on the roster of sopranos at the Met, never a big star, but I sang there.\"\n\n\"Quite a change of profession,\" observed Erika. \"Obviously, it wasn't because you lost your voice.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Lucy, laughing softly. \"Nothing like that.\" She gave Erika a quick, curious look. \"You said your name was Bultmann. There was a famous Lutheran theologian by that name.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" replied Erika, making a face. \"No relation, thank heavens.\"\n\nLucy's eyebrows rose slightly, but otherwise she seemed to take no offense. She turned to Liz. \"Would you like me to lead us in a prayer before we eat?\"\n\nLiz took a deep breath to keep a \"No, thank you,\" from shooting out of her mouth. She glanced across the table at Maggie for direction.\n\n\"Yes, please, Lucy,\" said Maggie graciously. \"I'm sure we could all use some prayer.\"\n\nLucy made the sign of the cross of over the food and bowed her head. \"Mother of us all, we give you thanks for this meal prepared for us by the skillful hands of your daughters. Thank you for their generosity in welcoming a stranger, and for the love and friendship that has brought us together at this table. Amen.\"\n\n\"That was a rather unconventional prayer,\" observed Erika.\n\n\"I think you'll find I am a rather unconventional priest,\" said Lucy, accepting the bowl of mashed potatoes.\n\n\"Have you already written your Christmas homily?\" Maggie asked.\n\n\"It's nearly done.\"\n\n\"May I ask the subject?\" asked Erika.\n\n\"I thought I'd preach on welcoming strangers. It's germane to the Christmas story, of course, and we've suddenly have such an influx of refugees in Maine. At the Advent services, we've been collecting things they desperately need\u2014warm clothing, toiletries, diapers for the babies.\"\n\n\"What a wonderful idea,\" Maggie said.\n\nLucy nodded. \"It's very moving to see the response. People here are so generous.\"\n\nThey were quiet while they consumed the meal. Liz who cooked by instinct and never cooked anything the same way twice was satisfied with the result and happy to see everyone enjoying her cooking.\n\n\"Mom, I have a surprise for you,\" said Sophia. \"Dana-Farber has hired me as an attending in its oncology department. I'll be moving to Boston.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's wonderful news!\" said Maggie.\n\n\"Congratulations, Sophia,\" said Liz. \"What a great start to your career.\"\n\n\"It was your recommendation that tipped the scales in my favor.\"\n\n\"Maybe, but you have impressive credentials. They are lucky to have you.\"\n\n\"When I'm in Boston, I'll only be an hour and half away so I can come see you more often.\"\n\n\"And I'll get to see you more often too, Phi. I'm staying up here.\"\n\nSophia frowned sympathetically. \"Oh, Al. I'm sorry. Is it really that bad?\"\n\nAlina sighed and nodded. \"I'm afraid so.\"\n\nEveryone at the table had fallen silent while the sisters spoke. Lucy put her hand on Alina's arm. \"If you ever need someone to talk to, I'll be happy to listen.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nTo dispel the gloomy atmosphere, Liz raised her wine glass. \"Here's to old friends and new friends, and happy holidays to all!\"\n\n\"I can drink to that!\" Erika agreed, raising her glass.\n\nAfter the toast, Nicki began to fidget. \"She wants to be fed,\" said Alina, pushing back from the table.\n\n\"I'll take her for few minutes while you eat,\" said Liz, getting up to reach for her. The baby squawked briefly, but finally settled down.\n\n\"Dr. Stolz, I haven't had a wonderful home cooked meal like this in forever,\" Lucy said.\n\n\"Thank you. But you must call me Liz. Everyone in town does.\"\n\n\"I really like that about this place. Everyone is so relaxed and friendly, even people I've just met. A plumber came to fix the water heater in the vicarage. Afterwards, he stood in my kitchen for an hour chatting with me. I offered him a cup of coffee, but he declined, saying he was leaving. Then he stood there for another hour, talking.\"\n\n\"Sounds about right,\" Liz said with a quick laugh. \"I learn a lot about what's going on in town from the tradesmen. Also, I get to pick their brains about home repairs.\"\n\n\"It's so different here from other places I've been stationed. Different in a good way.\"\n\n\"Well, we're glad to have you,\" said Maggie. \"It might seem like a cozy, little place, but we have lots going on beneath the surface.\"\n\n\"Like everywhere,\" observed Lucy, nodding."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 12",
                "text": "After dinner, Maggie took the girls upstairs to get them ready for bed while Liz tidied the kitchen. Their guests made themselves comfortable near the wood stove, luxuriating in the warm, dry heat. Liz heard the low murmur of their voices but couldn't make out any of the words. She only knew that Alina was speaking because her voice was higher pitched than the others.\n\nLiz wrung out the sponge and switched off the overhead light. \"Kitchen is closed,\" she said aloud to herself as she always did when she finished cleanup.\n\nMaggie breezed into the room and gave her a quick kiss. \"I came down to help you, but I see you're all done.\"\n\n\"Good timing there, Maggie Fitzgerald.\"\n\n\"My intentions were good. You were just too quick,\" said Maggie pulling her face down for a kiss. \"You're often too quick. You barely give me time to get started.\"\n\n\"And you can be sure I'll be quick if I ever get you alone.\"\n\n\"Tonight, I'll be sure to lock the door,\" said Maggie, giving Liz's backside an appreciative caress.\n\n\"At least, we have Sophia here to absorb some of your granddaughter's exuberant affection. Katrina can crawl into bed with her tonight.\" Liz pulled her close to kiss her.\n\n\"Oh, excuse me.\" Erika's voice. \"I didn't mean to interrupt.\"\n\n\"It's fine, Erika,\" said Liz. \"We shouldn't be making out in the kitchen like two kids.\"\n\n\"Why not? I think it's perfectly lovely that you still do. But you really should put up some mistletoe so the rest of us can get in on the act.\"\n\n\"Mistletoe,\" repeated Maggie. \"Never thought of that.\"\n\n\"Maggie, I came to ask you if you have a little gift bag for something very small.\"\n\n\"Notice she asks you,\" said Liz.\n\n\"That's because she knows I would have something like that and know where it is, whereas you wouldn't have a clue.\"\n\nMaggie searched in the pantry closet and came up with a tiny red and white bag decorated with glitter. \"How's this? Too small?\"\n\n\"No, perfect. Thank you,\" said Erika, taking away the little bag.\n\n\"I wonder what that's about,\" said Liz.\n\n\"We should join our guests,\" Maggie suggested. She gave Liz a quick kiss. \"Later, you,\" she said, grazing Liz's crotch with her fingertips.\n\nBefore taking a seat, Liz put wood on the fire and turned down the vent. \"Everyone comfortable?\"\n\n\"Oh, it's wonderful,\" said Lucy. \"Delicious food and drink, amazing conversation, toasty fire\u2026Can I stay forever?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" said Liz. \"We have lots of room.\"\n\n\"Unfortunately, I have chaplain duty at the hospice in the morning, but another time, perhaps,\" said Lucy, glancing shyly at Erika.\n\nErika cleared her throat. \"Yes, well, now that Liz and Maggie have joined us, I have a gift for someone.\" She rose and placed the little gift bag in Alina's lap.\n\n\"What's this?\" asked Alina, looking puzzled.\n\n\"Look inside.\"\n\nAlina put her hand in the bag and came up with a key on a keychain with a smiling sun charm.\n\n\"It's the key to my beach cottage,\" Erika explained. \"It's a four-season house, fully insulated. The oil tank is full and, as you saw, there's a very nice fireplace. It only has two bedrooms, but for the time being, I hope that's enough.\"\n\n\"But I can't pay you rent. I don't have any money and no job.\"\n\n\"Never mind that. I don't want rent. You'd be doing me an enormous favor by keeping an eye on the place. It's only temporary, mind you. I'll be back at the end of May around Memorial Day. Hopefully, by then, you'll have found something else.\"\n\n\"I don't know what to say.\" A single tear ran down Alina's cheek. \"That's so kind. I'll pay you back rent once I get a job.\"\n\n\"No, you won't. You'll save your money to get back on your feet.\"\n\n\"Alina, I forgot to tell you that Tony called,\" said Liz. \"His friend at Channel Eight is willing to talk to you. Tony said to call him tomorrow to get all the details. I'll give you his number.\"\n\nAt that, Alina began to cry openly. Maggie got up to offer her some tissues. \"You're all so kind,\" said Alina, mopping her face. Lucy, sitting beside her, gently rubbed her shoulder.\n\nAlina escaped into the bathroom for privacy. Liz got up to get a bottle of cognac and glasses from the media room. Maggie followed her.\n\n\"Did you have any idea Erika was going to offer her the cottage?\"\n\n\"No. None. But that's Erika, sometimes she takes in strays too. Must come from being a refugee herself. That crusty exterior hides a very warm heart.\"\n\nAlina chose to go to bed soon afterwards, followed by her sister, who'd gotten up early to make her flight. Maggie and Liz stayed up another hour with their guests.\n\n\"Leave the light on over the stove when you go to bed,\" Liz told Erika as she got up to leave.\n\n\"Yes, Liz, I remember,\" Erika replied, but her eyes never left Lucy's face.\n\nLiz reached out her hand to Lucy. \"Thanks for accepting my spur of the moment invitation. I've enjoyed getting to know you.\"\n\nLucy got up and hugged Liz. \"Thank you. This is the warmest welcome I've had since I arrived.\" She hugged Maggie and gave her a kiss on the cheek. \"I hear you're a singer too. We could use another professional voice to keep our choir in line,\" she said close to Maggie's ear.\n\n\"Hmmn. I don't know about that. I'm not an early riser.\"\n\n\"Our Eucharist service is at ten thirty.\"\n\n\"Well, maybe that's not too early. We'll see.\"\n\n\"Choir practice on Thursday nights at seven.\"\n\nAs Liz and Maggie walked the two flights of stairs to the third-floor bedroom, Maggie asked in a whisper, \"Do you think it's safe to leave them alone?\"\n\n\"They're both adults.\"\n\n\"What do you think of her?\"\n\n\"I'm not usually a fan of people who wear dog collars, but this one is very interesting.\"\n\n\"I agree. I wonder what her story is. Quitting the Met to become a priest?\"\n\n'We don't know anything about her, but we'll find out, I guess.\"\n\nLiz was getting ready for bed when she saw car lights against the bathroom window. \"I see Lucy's heading home.\" She glanced at the clock. It was near midnight. \"Probably a good idea for the new vicar to sleep in her own bed and avoid gossip.\"\n\n\"Do you think there's any interest?\"\n\nLiz shrugged. \"Erika certainly finds her attractive. And she is. No one can deny it. Are you going to sing in her church choir?\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" said Maggie, heading out of the bathroom with a little wag of her hip.\n\n\"You, tease,\" said Liz, following her. She got into bed. \"Finally, some peace and quiet.\"\n\n\"And now,\" said Maggie, moving over her, \"we can finally finish what we started. When was that? Two days ago? It seems like an eternity.\" She kissed Liz, teasing her lips with her tongue. \"Last night, you were useless.\"\n\n\"Blame Erika.\"\n\n\"Did she pour the scotch down your throat? Tap an IV?\" asked Maggie, reaching into Liz's pajama bottoms.\n\nThere was a soft knock on the bedroom door. \"Grandma?\"\n\nMaggie shook her head. \"It's locked,\" she whispered. \"She'll go back downstairs in a moment.\"\n\nBarely breathing, they both listened in the dark. Then they heard another voice, Sophia's. \"Come on, kiddo. Back to bed. Let your grandmas sleep. They're tired.\"\n\nThey listened to the footsteps retreat down the stairs. Maggie giggled softly. \"There. All fixed. Now, where was I?\""
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "title": "A Big Sky Christmas",
        "author": "William W. Johnstone",
        "genres": [
            "western"
        ],
        "tags": [
            "Christmas",
            "1870s"
        ],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "Montana, 1947",
                "text": "The roar of gunshots seemed to hammer against the old man's ears. Alexander Cantrell couldn't hear well anymore. Time had taken its toll on him, as it does on everyone. But he could plainly hear\u2014or at least thought he could\u2014the dull boom of pistols going off and the ear-splitting crack of rifle fire. The smell of burned powder was strong in his nose.\n\nLikewise his vision wasn't what it once had been, but that didn't stop his bleary eyes from making out the sight of dozens of Indians charging toward him, their faces painted for war and contorted with hate as they attacked, yelling and whooping at the top of their lungs. Some people might say he was imagining them, but at this moment, they were as real to him as they had ever been.\n\nBehind them leaped giant flames, as if the old man were looking straight into the mouth of Hell itself....\n\n\"Blast it,\" the old woman standing beside him said. \"Have you gone to sleep on your feet again?\"\n\n\"What? No. No, I'm not asleep.\" The old man shook his head and smiled at his sister Abigail. They were twins, and even at their advanced age, the resemblance between them was obvious. \"Just remembering how things used to be.\"\n\n\"Good memories, I hope.\"\n\nAlexander thought about the violence that had wracked this land and the blood that had been spilled. \"Well, I don't know.\"\n\nBut in a way she was right, he mused. There were plenty of good memories to go along with the bad. In the end, the good outweighed the bad. The violence was the price that had to be paid for the long, happy life that followed.\n\nBrought back to the present by the exchange with Abigail, he looked around. They stood side by side at the top of a slight rise. The grassy slope in front of them led gently down into a broad, lush valley bordered by wooded hills on the far side. A crooked line of trees in the middle of the valley marked the meandering course of the stream that watered the range and made it such fine grazing land. There was no more beautiful place in all the world, the old man thought, than this vast ranch where he and his sister had spent much of their childhood.\n\nAbout fifty yards down the slope was a level stretch of ground surrounded by a wrought iron fence. Inside the enclosed area, the grass was cut short and carefully tended. Here and there were bright spots of color where wildflowers had grown up and been left to bloom. The place had a serene beauty about it, surrounded as it was by rangeland and roofed by the huge, arching vault of the blue Montana sky.\n\nBig sky country, they called it, and there was no truer description than that. The Montana sky was the biggest and bluest to be found anywhere, and the rich cobalt shade was made even more striking by the white clouds that sailed in it like ships. As a young man he had lain on grassy hills like this one and looked at the clouds and actually seen ships in them, and every other shape under the sun as well.\n\n\"There you go drifting off again,\" Abigail said. \"If you're not careful the young folks will start thinking you're a senile old man who ought to be stuck in a home somewhere.\"\n\nAlexander snorted. \"I'd like to see 'em try.\"\n\nHe was tall and spare, with crisp white hair under his Stetson and a white mustache that stood out in sharp contrast against his lean face that the elements had tanned permanently to the color of old saddle leather. He wore a Western-cut suit and boots and looked like he could still leap onto a horse and gallop across the rolling landscape.\n\nHe was just as glad he didn't have to, though. He knew it would hurt like blazes if he did.\n\nThe small, birdlike old woman beside him had white hair, too. When it was loose it hung down her back to her waist, but she wore it in long braids that were wound around her head. A stylish hat perched on those braids. She wore a wool dress and jacket that helped keep her warm, even though the day wasn't really cold. Old blood didn't flow as well as young.\n\nAlexander glanced over his shoulder at the group of men, women, and children who were waiting a respectful distance away beside the dirt road that led to the ranch and the two big Packards that had brought all of them, his children and grandchildren in one vehicle and Abigail's in the other. He linked arms with his sister and said gruffly, \"Come on, we might as well get this done.\"\n\n\"You don't have to make it sound so much like a chore. I enjoy coming here to see Ma and Pa.\"\n\n\"I do, too,\" the old man admitted in a quiet voice. Soon enough, he would be coming and staying, like the others laid under the good Montana soil, their final resting places marked by weathered stone monuments.\n\nStiff-kneed, they started down the slope to the small private cemetery. The afternoon was achingly quiet, so quiet he could hear the faint rumble of trucks on the highway more than a mile in the distance. Overhead an airplane cut a trail through the sky.\n\nThe world had changed so much in the time that he'd been alive, the old man thought. Now you could hop in a car and drive clear across the country, and if you wanted to get where you were going even faster, you could get on an airplane and be at your destination in a matter of hours.\n\nPeople didn't appreciate how lucky they were. It hadn't been like that when he was young, that was for sure. In those days, if you wanted to move across the country, you loaded your belongings in a covered wagon, hitched up a team of horses or mules or oxen, and set off on a journey that would take months. Months of hardship and danger...\n\nThose journeys had been filled with courage and honor and love. Heroes strode through those days like warrior gods of ancient mythology, towering men who protected the weak and innocent, who stood up for what was right, who brought justice and peace to a lawless land with hard fists and fast guns."
            },
            {
                "title": "Kansas City, Missouri, 1873",
                "text": "People stood aside from Jamie Ian MacCallister. His sheer size alone would have prompted most folks to get out of his way. He was a head taller than most men and had shoulders as wide as an ax handle was long. Despite the fact that he was getting on in years, the comfortable old buckskins he wore bulged with muscles. Strength and power radiated from him.\n\nAnybody who wasn't intimidated by how big he was might take a look at the weapons he carried and conclude that he was a man to step lightly around. Holstered on his hips were a pair of Colt .44 Army revolvers, the Model 60 conversion. Tucked under his left arm was a Winchester \"Yellow Boy\" rifle, also in .44 caliber. A hunting knife with a long, heavy blade rode in a fringed sheath behind the right-hand gun. Jamie was, in the parlance of the time, armed for bear, and those weapons would kill a man even quicker and easier than they would a big old silvertip grizzly.\n\nBut size and weaponry aside, the real reason most folks naturally left Jamie alone was the intensity of the gaze that came from his deep-set, eagle-like eyes. Those piercing orbs peered out from under shaggy brows and dominated his craggy, unhandsome, but powerful face. They had seen everything, the eyes seemed to say. Seen the elephant and then some. When angered, they could turn dark and threatening as a thunderstorm rolling across the prairie.\n\nThe thing of it was, when folks got to know him, Jamie's eyes could twinkle with humor or shine with compassion. He was every bit as big and rugged and dangerous as he looked, but his greatest strength was the magnificent frontiersman's heart that beat in his massive chest.\n\nAt the moment, he was striding down one of the streets in Kansas City, taking a look around on a beautiful, crisp autumn afternoon. He had visited the town before, but it had been awhile. The place had grown quite a bit from the rude frontier settlement that had started life as a fur trading post known as Chouteau's Landing. It was an honest-to-God city and even had a railroad bridge that had opened a few years earlier spanning the Missouri River.\n\nCivilization, Jamie thought. He didn't mind it as much as some of the old-time mountain men did, but despite its advantages it would never be able to hold a candle to the prairies, the mountains, and the deserts of the West where he had grown up and lived his life.\n\nHe had left his rangy, sand-colored stallion Sundown and his pack horse tied in front of a general store to take his pasear along the street. He passed a big open area where dozens of covered wagons were parked. The teams were gathered in a large corral nearby.\n\nMen worked on the vehicles, making repairs on things that had broken during the first part of their journey. Women stirred cook pots simmering on campfires. Soon it would be time for supper. Kids ran here and there, playing and enjoying not having to be in school like their peers who were tied down to one place.\n\nA lot of immigrants traveled by train these days, since the completion of the transcontinental railroad a few years earlier, but there was still plenty of country where the trains didn't go. If somebody wanted to settle in one of those places, they had to travel by wagon, the same way other pioneers had done for decades.\n\nJamie supposed these pilgrims were on their way somewhere, although he hoped for their sake that their destination wasn't too far off. It was awfully late in the year to be starting a long trek anywhere. Travelers shouldn't cross the plains after winter settled in.\n\nA group of riders jogged past him in the street. He glanced over at them, the longstanding habit making him take note of everything that happened around him. A man who had made as many enemies as he had over the years needed to keep a close eye out for trouble. That was one reason he'd stayed alive as long as he had.\n\nThe riders looked like they might be trouble for somebody, all right. There were about twenty of them, all roughly dressed and well armed. Even though Jamie had never seen any of them before, he recognized the sort of hard-planed, beard-stubbled faces they bore. Drifters, hardcases, maybe out-and-out owlhoots.\n\nHe felt an instinctive dislike for the men, fueled by the damage similar hombres had done to his family, but as long as they steered clear of him, he wouldn't bother them.\n\nOne of the men said, \"My mouth's so dry I'm spittin' cotton, Eldon. How many saloons are we gonna ride past before we get to one that suits your fancy?\"\n\nThe man riding slightly in the lead of the group turned in the saddle to frown at the one who had spoken. He was a tall, rawboned man with a lantern-jawed face and tufts of straw-colored hair sticking out from under a black, flat-crowned hat with a concho-studded band.\n\n\"Just keep your shirt on, Jake,\" he snapped. \"We'll stop when I'm good and ready, and if that don't suit your fancy, you know what you can do about it.\"\n\nThe man called Jake grinned and held up a hand, palm out. \"Whoa. Didn't mean any offense. You know I'm fine with you callin' the shots.\"\n\n\"You better be. It's worked out pretty good so far.\"\n\n\"That it has,\" Jake agreed, but Eldon had already turned back around and was ignoring him.\n\nThe group rode on down the street.\n\nJamie continued on his way, too, forgetting about the hardcases. In the next block, he paused to tip his head back and study the big fancy sign that stretched along the front of the building where he had paused. In gilt letters, it read CHANNING'S VARIETY THEATER. The building was fancy, too, with two stories and a lot of elaborate scrollwork and trim on its front. It had double doors with a lot of glass in them and a window where people could buy tickets to go inside.\n\nPosters had been tacked up next to the ticket window announcing that a troupe of actors and entertainers headed by that noted thespian Cyrus O'Hanlon would be performing at the theater. Troubadours and terpsichoreans would put on a show, according to the poster, and after a moment Jamie figured out that was a highfalutin' way of saying singers and dancers. The troupe would also perform excerpts from famous plays through the ages, ranging from Sophocles and Aristophanes to the immortal bard of Avon, William Shakespeare himself.\n\nThere were pictures of the various players, including several women. Jamie knew that most people considered actresses to be little better than whores, an attitude that had always irritated him because one of his daughters was an actress and she was as fine a young woman as anybody would ever want to meet.\n\nHe might take in the show while he was in Kansas City, he told himself. If he stayed around long enough. Never could tell when he might take the notion to just up and go.\n\nThat was what he'd been doing for a while.\n\nDrifting.\n\nEver since he had finished the grim chore of avenging his wife Kate's murder.\n\nOver the course of several years he had tracked down and killed forty-four members of the gang of outlaws responsible for Kate's death. It had been a long, hard, bloody road he had followed, and the taking of it had drained something from him.\n\nWhen his quest had come to an end, he could have returned to MacCallister's Valley in Colorado and settled down to live out his life on the ranch there, surrounded by his and Kate's children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. It would have been a quiet, comfortable life.\n\nBut that wasn't Jamie Ian MacCallister's way.\n\nHe had stayed home for a while, long enough to visit with all the young ones, then he'd slapped a saddle on Sundown, the horse he'd gotten from his son Falcon. Some folks considered Sundown a killer horse, but he and Jamie had come to an understanding and the stallion had served the big man well.\n\nFrom Colorado, he had set out on a journey of memory, determined to revisit many of the places where he had been in his long life, places that were important to him. He'd started out by riding all the way down into East Texas, to the place where he and Kate had been married, where their first child, a daughter named Karen who hadn't survived infancy, was buried. Knowing that he might never get back there, he had found the grave site, carved a new marker for it, and said his final farewell to his little girl.\n\nThen he'd turned Sundown's nose west, an appropriate direction considering the horse's name.\n\nOn across the Southwest he'd gone, adventuring a mite along the way. Then a great loop to the north and back down the Great Plains. Jamie had considered going all the way to St. Louis, then decided that Kansas City was far enough east for him. He could resupply there and he and Sundown could rest for a few days, then they would head back to Colorado.\n\nAssuming something more interesting didn't come along first."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 3",
                "text": "Dusk was settling down over Kansas City and lights were being lit in most of the buildings. None were brighter than those in the Bella Royale Saloon. The place was so big it took up an entire block, with its entrance situated on one of the corners. Gaily colored lamps hung along the boardwalks on both streets that flanked the double doors.\n\nAs Jamie paused to watch, a fellow in a swamper's apron went along lighting those lamps with a long match. Even though the doors were closed, Jamie could hear music and laughter coming from inside the place. Obviously, folks had a good time in the Bella Royale.\n\nHe had planned to return to the store where he had left his horses, put in an order with the proprietor for a load of supplies, and then ask the man for recommendations of good places to eat and sleep, as well as a livery stable where his animals would be cared for properly.\n\nAs he looked at the gaudy saloon, though, he realized that he had a thirst. It wouldn't hurt anything to wash some of the trail dust out of his throat before he got around to those other things, he decided.\n\nOnce Jamie had made up his mind, he didn't wait around. He strode across the street, opened one of the doors, and stepped into the Bella Royale.\n\nNoise and smoke filled the air, along with the odors of beer, whiskey, bay rum, unwashed flesh, and human waste. The sawdust sprinkled liberally on the floor couldn't soak up all of that typical saloon smell.\n\nJamie's nose wrinkled slightly. Anybody who had ever taken a deep breath of early morning, high country air like he had thousands of times in his life could never be satisfied with this... stench. But he could put up with it long enough to down a mug of beer. Then he'd go on about his business.\n\nHe had seen a lot of horses tied up at the hitch rails outside the saloon, so he wasn't surprised that the place was doing a brisk business. He recognized some of the men lined up along the bar as the ones who had ridden past him in the street a few minutes earlier.\n\nThe one called Eldon, who seemed to be their leader, stood with his back to the bar, his elbows resting on it as his eyes scanned the room. His gaze lighted on Jamie, but stayed there for only a second. Evidently he didn't consider the big man in buckskins all that interesting.\n\nThat was fine with Jamie. He walked to the bar, found an empty spot where he could belly up to the hardwood, and nodded to the apron-wearing bartender who came along to take his order. The man had a pleasant, round face that seemed even rounder because he parted his thinning brown hair in the middle and slicked it down.\n\n\"What can I do for you, mister?\" the bartender asked as Jamie laid the Winchester on the bar. The man looked at the rifle, but didn't say anything about it.\n\n\"If your beer's cold I'll take a mug of it.\"\n\n\"Coldest in Kansas City,\" the bartender replied with a grin. \"At least that's what they tell me. I can't say as I've sampled all of it to know for sure. That'd make a good hobby for a man, wouldn't it?\"\n\n\"If he didn't have anything better to do,\" Jamie said with a grunt. He had always been plainspoken and didn't plan to change his ways.\n\nThe bartender raised his eyebrows and then shrugged. \"Whatever you say, my friend.\" He filled a mug with beer from a tap and slid it in front of Jamie. \"That'll be six bits.\"\n\n\"Think mighty highly of the stuff, don't you?\"\n\n\"I don't set the prices,\" the bartender said as he spread his hands and shrugged. \"I just work here.\"\n\nJamie took a couple coins from the buckskin poke he carried and dropped them on the bar. Then he picked up the mug and took a long swallow of the beer. It was cold and had a good flavor to it, to boot. Maybe it was worth six bits, after all.\n\n\"Are you callin' me a liar?\" The loud, angry voice came from one of the tables where men were sitting and drinking, as opposed to the gambling layouts in the rear half of the big room.\n\nJamie barely glanced over his shoulder at the disturbance. Men got their dander up in saloons all the time. It went hand in hand with guzzling down cheap liquor. As long as the ruckus didn't have anything to do with him, he made it a habit to mind his own business.\n\nAnother man at the table said, \"I didn't call you a liar, Ralston. I just said you'd have a hard time gettin' those wagons to Montana before winter sets in.\"\n\nThe man called Ralston smacked a big fist down on the table so hard it made the glasses on it jump. \"And I'm sayin' I'll do it!\" he insisted. \"I'll have those pilgrims in their new homes by Christmas, by Godfrey! An' if you say I can't do it, then you're callin' me a liar!\"\n\nJudging by the loud, slurred quality of Ralston's voice, he was drunk. Jamie watched in the bar mirror as Ralston leaned over the table and made his point by jabbing a blunt finger against his fellow drinker's chest. That man swatted Ralston's hand away impatiently, and Ralston seized that as an excuse to start the trouble he obviously wanted to. He lunged out of his chair, fist cocked to throw a punch.\n\nJamie sighed, set his half-finished beer on the bar, and turned around. \"Hold it!\" he snapped.\n\nRalston stopped with his fist poised. He was a thick-bodied man with a round-crowned, broad-brimmed hat tilted back on a thatch of sandy hair. A soup-strainer mustache of the same shade drooped over his mouth. His face was red, the nose swollen from habitual drunken binges. \"Who in tarnation are you?\" he demanded as he glared at Jamie.\n\nGood intentions to avoid trouble notwithstanding, Jamie didn't like the conversation he had just overheard. He stepped toward the table.\n\nSensing a possible ruckus in the offing, a lot of the saloon's patrons had quieted down to see what was going to happen. The girls who worked there, dressed in short, spangled dresses, moved well clear of the table where Ralston stood glowering at the big stranger.\n\nJamie didn't answer Ralston's question about who he was. Instead, he asked one of his own. \"Did I hear you say that you're taking that wagon train to Montana?\"\n\n\"That's right. What business is it of yours?\"\n\n\"You're the wagon master?\" Jamie's tone of voice clearly registered his disbelief and disapproval.\n\n\"Damn right I am! Jeb Ralston, finest wagon master on the frontier!\"\n\nJamie's skeptical grunt made it plain how he felt about that claim.\n\nFrom the corner of his eye, he saw one of the saloon's front doors swing open. A slender man stepped inside quickly and closed it behind him. He wore a black suit and hat and a collarless white shirt, and a pair of spectacles perched on his nose. He looked utterly harmless, and Jamie barely took note of him since nearly all of his attention was focused on Jeb Ralston.\n\n\"Look, I'm not trying to pick a fight,\" Jamie told Ralston. \"But it's too late in the year to be starting out to Montana from here. You won't make it before winter, and you don't want to be up there on those plains when the northers start sweeping down from Canada.\"\n\nRalston sneered at him. \"How do you know so much about it?\"\n\n\"Because I've been there myself,\" Jamie said harshly. \"I nearly died in a few of those blizzards.\"\n\n\"This doesn't concern you, old man. You'd better shut up and go back to your beer.\"\n\nJamie wasn't in the habit of backing down when he knew he was right. \"If you start to Montana now, you'll be risking the lives of every one of those pilgrims.\"\n\n\"They paid me to do the job, and by Godfrey, I'm gonna do it!\"\n\n\"Then they made a bad mistake by hiring a drunken fool like you.\"\n\nHe knew Ralston wouldn't stand for that insult. He didn't care. It was true, and Jamie Ian MacCallister was a man who spoke the truth.\n\nRalston's face flushed darker. His eyes widened with outrage. He drew in a deep breath, bellowed in anger, and charged Jamie like a maddened bull."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 4",
                "text": "Jamie expected the attack. Ralston was big\u2014although not as big as Jamie\u2014and probably plenty strong. More than likely he had plenty of experience brawling in saloons.\n\nBut Jamie had fought for his life in desperate battles hundreds of times. He stepped aside, grabbed Ralston, and used the man's own momentum to heave him up and over the bar.\n\nRalston let out a startled yell as he sailed through the air. The crash as he landed against the back bar cut off that yell and replaced it with the sound of bottles shattering. Ralston bounced off and landed in the floor behind the bar.\n\nThe slick-haired bartender stood a few feet away, his eyes bugging out as he stared at Jamie. The man babbled, \"You... you just picked him up... and threw him!\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Jamie said. \"Sorry about all the damage. I'll pay for it.\"\n\nHe could well afford to. During his wanderings over the past five decades, he had cached small fortunes in gold and silver in numerous places across the West. In addition, he had an entire cave full of Spanish treasure that had been hidden there a couple of centuries earlier. All of that didn't include the money he had made from his ranch and the other successful businesses in which he had invested, many of them operated by family members. The MacCallisters were a dynasty, and a mighty wealthy one, at that.\n\nJamie was aware that the room was completely silent as he took out his poke and counted five double eagles onto the bar. That was more than enough to cover the cost of the spilled liquor. He glanced at his still half-full mug of beer and decided he was in no mood to finish it.\n\n\"When that fella wakes up\"\u2014he nodded toward the area behind the bar where Ralston had fallen\u2014\"somebody ought to try to talk some sense into him about starting for Montana this late in the year. If he won't listen to reason, somebody needs to warn those pilgrims he plans to lead them right into trouble.\"\n\n\"Nobody talks sense to Jeb Ralston, mister,\" the bartender said. \"He has his own ideas, and he's not shy about using his fists to defend them.\"\n\n\"Well, it backfired on him this time, didn't it?\" Jamie turned away from the bar to leave the saloon.\n\nHe had taken only a couple of steps when somebody yelled, \"Look out!\"\n\nJamie whirled around, and saw that Ralston had regained his senses and climbed to the top of the bar. He leaped from it in a diving tackle aimed at Jamie.\n\nUnable to get out of the way in time, Ralston's weight slammed into Jamie's left shoulder, the collision's impact making Jamie stagger. He stayed on his feet, though, planted his left hand in the middle of Ralston's chest, and shoved him back a step. With enough room, Jamie swung a right-hand punch that landed on Ralston's jaw like a pile driver.\n\nThe blow jerked Ralston's head to the side but didn't put him down. Drunk he might be, but it surely wasn't the first fight he'd had when he was full of booze. He hooked a right fist of his own into Jamie's midsection. The punch landed with considerable power. Ralston could hit.\n\nJamie sent a short, sharp left into the wagon master's face. Ralston came back with a left of his own that tagged Jamie on the chin. For several long moments as the saloon filled with cheers and shouts of encouragement on both sides, the two men stood toe to toe and slugged it out.\n\nThey were pretty evenly matched, but Jamie was a little taller and heavier and had a slightly longer reach. Those things gave him an advantage.\n\nThe wagon master fought with the intensity of a crazed animal, though, and for one of the few times in his life, Jamie found himself being forced to give ground a little.\n\nHis back came up against the bar. Bracing himself against it, he hunched his shoulders to protect his head and snapped two quick lefts into Ralston's face. Ralston's nose was redder and more swollen, but it was from being hit, not drinking. Jamie whipped a right into Ralston's solar plexus.\n\nThe wagon master leaned forward, his face going gray from the shock of the blow. He lowered his head and plowed forward. The top of his head rammed Jamie's chin, forcing his head back.\n\nJamie grabbed hold of Ralston and pulled him in closer, grappling with him. He got his arms around Ralston's waist and swung him into the air again. The muscles of Jamie's arms, back, and shoulders swelled so much from the effort it looked almost like they were about to burst through the buckskin shirt he wore.\n\nOnce Ralston was off his feet, he couldn't get his balance to fight anymore. Jamie turned him upside-down and then lifted the wagon master into the air above his head. It was an amazing feat of strength, the stuff of which legends were made. As he supported that massive burden, Jamie took a couple of stiff-legged steps and then smashed Ralston down onto one of the empty tables. Wood splintered and cracked as the table collapsed under the impact.\n\nRalston lay there senseless among the wreckage of the table.\n\nHe wouldn't be getting up any time soon, Jamie thought.\n\nA frown creased his forehead as he saw just how true that was. Ralston's right leg was twisted at an odd, unnatural angle. Something white stuck out through a bloody rip in his trousers.\n\nJamie drew in a deep breath as he realized it was the jagged end of a bone. He had broken the wagon master's leg.\n\nHe wasn't the only one to notice that. A man in the crowd yelled, \"Holy cow! Look at Ralston's leg!\"\n\n\"Somebody better fetch a doctor!\" another man added excitedly.\n\nJamie scowled. He had set plenty of broken bones in his time and had no doubt that he could do a passable job on Ralston's leg, but he reminded himself that he was in the middle of a good-sized city where there were probably a number of doctors practicing medicine. It would be better to leave the job to one of them.\n\nHe noticed the fellow who had come into the Bella Royale just as the fight was starting. The man edged forward to stare at Ralston's unconscious form. His eyes were big with horror behind the spectacles he wore.\n\nOne of the saloon's patrons nudged the man with an elbow and asked, \"What's the matter, mister? Ain't you never seen somebody with a busted leg before?\"\n\n\"Yes, but... but...\" the man stammered. \"That... that's a piece of bone sticking out!\"\n\nHe suddenly clamped a hand over his mouth, whirled around, and sprinted for the door as several of the customers guffawed at him.\n\nThe door was still open from the man's hasty departure when another man stepped in, this one a burly, middle-aged individual with a badge pinned to his coat lapel. He had a revolver on his hip and a shotgun tucked under his arm. He strode toward the bar and said in a loud voice, \"All right, all right, everybody just settle down. What happened here?\" He stopped and frowned at Ralston. \"Good Lord, that man's leg is broken!\"\n\nOne thing you could say about folks in Kansas City, Jamie thought. They seemed to have a firm grasp of the obvious.\n\nThe constable or deputy or whatever he was glared around the room and demanded, \"Somebody tell me what happened here. Who busted this man's leg?\"\n\nJamie saved everybody the trouble of pointing him out by saying, \"That was me.\"\n\nThe lawman looked him up and down, still frowning darkly. \"And who might you be?\"\n\n\"Name's Jamie Ian MacCallister.\"\n\nDespite the lawman having told them to be quiet, that announcement brought a stir from the crowd. Probably not everyone in the Bella Royale recognized the name, but a lot of them did. Jamie was one of the most famous men on the frontier, and his recent campaign of vengeance against the Miles Nelson gang had added to his already staggering reputation.\n\n\"MacCallister, eh?\" the lawman said after a moment. \"What did Ralston do, look crossways at you?\"\n\nThe bartender spoke up. \"That's not fair, Deputy. Ralston started the fight. He was drunk and obnoxious, as usual, and he attacked Mr. MacCallister. Mr. MacCallister was just defending himself.\"\n\n\"I suppose Ralston should be glad you didn't defend yourself with those Colts,\" the deputy muttered. \"How many men is it you've killed now?\"\n\n\"I don't keep count,\" Jamie replied curtly. \"But I never killed a single one that didn't need killing.\"\n\nThe deputy looked like he wanted to say something in response to that, but he didn't. He looked around at the crowd. \"Has anybody gone for a doctor?\"\n\nThe saloon's customers looked back at him mutely.\n\n\"Well, what in blazes is wrong with you?\" the deputy roared. \"Somebody go and do that!\"\n\nSeveral men hurried out of the saloon.\n\nThe lawman went on. \"Anybody here want to argue with the claim that MacCallister acted in self-defense? No?\" He blew out an exasperated breath and turned back to Jamie. \"I reckon there's no point in arresting you. Under the circumstances, a judge would just dismiss any charges against you.\"\n\n\"And justifiably so,\" the bartender put in. \"Nobody's gonna shed any tears over what happened to Ralston. This wasn't the first fight he's caused in here over the past few years, since he showed up and started guiding those wagon trains west. He just picked the wrong fella to try to buffalo this time.\"\n\nThe lawman looked at Jamie through narrowed eyes. \"Just try to stay out of trouble the rest of the time you're in town, MacCallister. I know your reputation. Anywhere you go, all hell seems to break loose.\"\n\n\"That's hell's choice, not mine,\" Jamie said.\n\nThe deputy stomped out.\n\nAs the customers returned to their drinking and gambling and flirting with the saloon girls, the bartender said, \"Let me set you up with a real drink, Mr. MacCallister. On the house, of course.\"\n\n\"I'm obliged, but what I'd really like is a good meal. Where's the best place to eat in this town?\"\n\n\"Herbert's Steak House, three blocks up and one to the right, is mighty good,\" the bartender said. \"Tell 'em Clancy sent you. That's me.\"\n\n\"I'll do that,\" Jamie promised. He took one more look at Ralston, who was still sprawled on the floor, shook his head, picked up his rifle, and walked out.\n\nThe room buzzed behind him as people talked about having seen the famous Jamie Ian MacCallister in action.\n\nHe had never thought of himself as being any sort of famous personage, even though he was. He just went about his business and did what had to be done.\n\nAs he stepped out onto the boardwalk in front of the saloon, movement to his left caught his attention. He stopped and turned that way, his right hand going to the Colt on his hip. His fingers closed around the gun's grips, but he didn't draw it.\n\nThe bespectacled man who had run out of the saloon a few minutes earlier stood there. His face was pale and drawn, and he looked scared. He took an involuntary step back and held out his hands, palms toward Jamie. \"Please, Mr. MacCallister! Don't shoot me!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 5",
                "text": "Jamie frowned at the stranger for a second, then took his hand away from his gun and said sharply, \"Take it easy, mister. I'm not in the habit of going around shooting people unless they shoot at me first.\"\n\n\"That... that's good to know. I mean you no harm, Mr. MacCallister.\"\n\nJamie grunted. The fellow was about half his size and didn't look like any sort of gunslinger or knife artist. The chances of him being able to do any harm were about zero.\n\nJamie wasn't rude enough to point that out, however. \"How you do know my name? You ran out of there before I said what it was.\"\n\n\"The deputy left the door open some when he went in. I listened to what was going on inside after I...\" He looked toward the alley. \"Well, after my... my digestion settled down. From the way people in there were acting, they seemed to recognize your name.\"\n\n\"You don't?\"\n\n\"No. I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't.\"\n\nA grin split Jamie's rugged face. \"Nothing to be sorry about. I don't know your name, either.\"\n\n\"Oh. That's right. It's Moses. Moses Danzig.\"\n\nJamie extended his right hand. \"Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Danzig.\" His big paw pretty much swallowed up the other man's hand.\n\nMoses Danzig looked nervous, like he was afraid that Jamie would crush his fingers, but Jamie took it easy on him.\n\nAfter they'd shook, Moses said, \"Obviously, you're some sort of frontiersman.\"\n\n\"Some sort, yeah,\" Jamie agreed.\n\n\"Would you happen to be looking for work?\"\n\nJamie rubbed his chin. \"Not really. But what did you have in mind?\"\n\nMoses took a deep breath and went on. \"I'm traveling with the wagon train that's supposed to pull out tomorrow. We're going to have to find a new wagon master and guide.\" He paused, then added dryly, \"Somebody broke the leg of the one we had.\"\n\nJamie looked at the smaller man for a moment, then burst out laughing. Moses Danzig might not be very big and his stomach might be a little delicate at the sight of blood, but he had some sand in his craw, that was for sure.\n\n\"Well, Mr. Danzig, that is a problem, but I can't help you. In fact, I was thinking as I left the saloon just now that it was a good thing Ralston jumped me the way he did. I didn't want trouble with him, but at least with him laid up, that wagon train will be stuck here until spring.\"\n\n\"But we can't wait until spring,\" Moses insisted. \"We have to get started to Montana now.\"\n\nJamie shook his head. \"It's too late in the year. You can't get there before winter sets in. Ralston ought to have known that. It's too dangerous.\"\n\n\"Mr. Ralston promised he could get us to our destination by Christmas.\"\n\nJamie snorted and shook his head. \"Even if he managed to do that, it's still five or six weeks too late. You might be able to travel up until the end of November, but even that's mighty chancy.\"\n\n\"He said winter was going to be late this year. He'd studied the almanac and all the signs and that if we made it by Christmas we would be all right.\"\n\n\"And you'd trust your life to some drunk saying that?\" Jamie asked. \"Because that's what you'd be doing.\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter,\" Moses said, his voice growing hollow with despair. \"We can't stay here, you see. There's no money. Everyone with the wagon train... spent everything they had to get this far and buy supplies for the rest of the trip.\"\n\n\"You've got those supplies,\" Jamie pointed out. \"Live on them until spring.\"\n\nMoses shook his head. \"They won't last that long, and even if they did, we couldn't afford to buy more for the rest of the journey.\"\n\n\"Sure you could. Some of the folks could get jobs and work over the winter.\"\n\n\"Most of the families saved for years to afford to come out here, Mr. MacCallister. They couldn't make enough in a few months. No, they have to reach those homesteads waiting for them in Montana or give up their dreams.\"\n\n\"Then maybe that's just what they should do,\" Jamie said bluntly.\n\n\"Would you?\" Moses asked. \"I don't know you, Mr. MacCallister, but you don't strike me as the sort of man who would give up on much of anything you wanted.\"\n\nThat was true enough, Jamie thought. When the Good Lord made him, He'd put in a few extra pinches of stubbornness. Sheer muleheadedness, Kate would have called it. And she had, on more than one occasion.\n\n\"What is it you want me to do?\"\n\n\"You're a frontiersman,\" Moses said. \"Evidently quite an accomplished one, from the way the people in the saloon were acting when they found out who you are. It seems to me that the answer is simple.\"\n\n\"I'm listening,\" Jamie said.\n\n\"You can take us to Montana.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 6",
                "text": "Jamie didn't know whether to laugh or let out a disgusted snort, but he did neither. \"I told you, Moses, I'm not looking for work.\"\n\n\"I'll wager that you've guided wagon trains before, though, haven't you?\"\n\nJamie's broad shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. As a matter of fact, he had guided several wagon trains to where they were going, but that didn't mean he wanted to do it again, especially under these circumstances.\n\n\"And you know the country,\" Moses went on. \"You told Mr. Ralston you'd been up there.\"\n\n\"I've been to Montana Territory,\" Jamie admitted. \"Where are the homesteads you people are claiming?\"\n\n\"They're in a place called Eagle Valley. Do you know it?\"\n\nJamie frowned slightly. \"I know it, all right. It's a beautiful little valley with plenty of decent land for farms and ranches. The last time I was there, though, it was covered with buffalo. The Sioux and the Blackfeet considered it part of their hunting grounds and fought over it now and then.\"\n\n\"Mr. Hendricks was assured that the Indians in the area had been pacified.\"\n\nJamie snorted disgustedly. \"Who's this fella Hendricks?\"\n\n\"The captain of the wagon train. His name is Lamar Hendricks.\"\n\nJamie knew that wagon train captain was an elected position, making Hendricks the leader of the immigrants, but it was a title without much real power. The wagon master was really the one in charge.\n\nAnd this bunch didn't have one, since, as Moses had correctly pointed out, Jamie had broken the son of a gun's leg.\n\n\"Who told Hendricks the Indians weren't a threat?\"\n\n\"Someone with the government. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, I believe. I don't really know the details.\"\n\nThat answer didn't surprise Jamie. There must be something in the water in Washington, D.C., that made all those bureaucrats think they knew better about everything than everybody else. Darned fools was what they really were.\n\n\"I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Indians are pacified. From what I hear, there hasn't been much trouble up there lately, but that's because the big buffalo herds have moved north into Canada and most of the bands have followed them. They could come back any time, and then it's liable to start all over again.\"\n\n\"Captain Hendricks and his people just want to live peacefully. I'm sure they'll make every effort to get along with the Indians.\"\n\nJamie didn't say anything in response to that. All across the frontier, settlers had risked their lives moving into areas where the Indians didn't want them. Running such risks was just part of being a pioneer. The choice was up to them.\n\nHe was curious about something else, though. \"You mentioned Hendricks and his people. Aren't you one of 'em?\"\n\nMoses smiled and pushed his spectacles up on his nose. \"Not really. I'm just traveling with their wagon train, and they agreed to let me stay with them in Eagle Valley until the spring. But when winter's done I'll be moving on to Oregon. I'm supposed to take over a synagogue in Portland.\"\n\n\"That's like a Hebrew church, isn't it?\"\n\n\"That's right. I'm a rabbi.\"\n\nJamie grunted. \"First one I've ever met, I reckon. I figured you were a farmer like most homesteaders are.\"\n\n\"I am. It's just the crop I help to cultivate consists of people's souls. It's a calling that I've followed all the way from my home in Poland.\"\n\n\"From Poland all the way to the American frontier. That's quite a journey.\"\n\n\"And it's not finished yet,\" Moses said quietly. \"But I need your help to get where I'm going, Mr. MacCallister. All of us with the wagon train do.\"\n\n\"Eagle Valley, eh?\" Jamie mused.\n\n\"Yes. If you could find it in your heart to at least talk to Mr. Hendricks and meet the others...\"\n\n\"Well, I suppose that wouldn't hurt anything.\" Even as he said it, Jamie wondered if he was making a big mistake. He wasn't the sort of man to brood over such things, though, so he put that uncertainty out of his mind. All he'd agreed to do was talk to Lamar Hendricks. He could try to convince Hendricks that it would be best to lay over in Kansas City until the spring. By then, they ought to be able to find another wagon master.\n\nShoot, if it came right down to it, he could help those pilgrims out with enough money to tide them over. He'd never miss it. As long as he had enough for food and ammunition and a few other supplies, that was all he needed while he was on the drift.\n\nMoses had a big grin on his face. \"That's wonderful, Mr. MacCallister. Come with me and I'll introduce you. You'll stay for supper and get to know everyone. You'll see what a fine group it is.\"\n\n\"I need to fetch my horses first and find a livery stable for them.\"\n\n\"Bring them with you,\" Moses suggested. \"You can put them in with our livestock. I'm sure you'd all be welcome to spend the night.\"\n\n\"You're bound and determined to rope me into this, aren't you?\"\n\n\"It just seems like such a fitting solution. I mean, since you're the one responsible for Mr. Ralston's injury\u2014\"\n\n\"He brought that on himself,\" Jamie said.\n\n\"I know, I know. I'm just saying that everything works out for a reason. Like tonight, when Captain Hendricks asked me to look for Mr. Ralston and I had a feeling I'd find him in that saloon\u2014\"\n\n\"I was wondering what you were doing there.\"\n\n\"I was looking for the man who's going to lead us to the promised land.\" Moses chuckled. \"And I think I found him, just not the one I intended.\"\n\nAs they started walking along the street, Jamie scowled. \"If I remember right from reading the Good Book, it was an hombre named Moses who led the Israelites to the promised land. Maybe your name is the Lord's way of saying that you should have the job.\"\n\n\"Me?\" Moses said with a squeak in his voice. \"The biblical Moses took the Israelites to Canaan, all right, but he never set foot in it himself. All he could do was look across the River Jordan at it and see that it was good.\" A worried note came into his voice. \"Do you think that's a bad omen for me, Mr. MacCallister? That I'll make it to Montana but never set foot in Eagle Valley?\"\n\nJamie didn't know how to answer that. His ideas of faith and spirituality came more from the Indians than from any of the so-called organized religions.\n\nHe slapped a big hand against Moses's back hard enough to make the smaller man stumble a little. \"Don't worry about that. For now, let's try to figure out the best way to get there.\"\n\n\"Does that mean\u2014\"\n\nJamie shrugged. \"It means I'll talk to those folks and think about it.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 7",
                "text": "Inside the Bella Royale Saloon, people were still talking about the brutal fight between Jeb Ralston and Jamie Ian MacCallister. It wasn't every day folks got to see a brawl involving a legendary frontiersman like MacCallister who was known from one end of the West to the other. It was something many of them would tell their grandchildren about.\n\nEldon Swint didn't seem too impressed. He sat at one of the tables with several of his men, a bottle and glass in front of him. He filled his glass again, then leaned back in a chair and stretched out his long legs. \"People talk about that fella MacCallister like he was Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie and Kit Carson all rolled into one. He didn't look so dang special to me. Just another old man who ain't had the sense to die yet.\" Swint downed the drink and licked his lips.\n\n\"You must be joshin', boss,\" Three-Finger Jake Lucas said. He was a handsome young man with a quick, cocky grin and a full head of brown hair under his tipped back hat. The last two fingers of his left hand were gone, pinched off cleanly when he got them trapped between his rope and saddle horn as he took a dally to stop a runaway steer during a drive up the trail from Texas. It was a mistake many cowboys had made, which was why many of them were missing a finger or two.\n\nJake had taken the accident hard. It had embittered him, and when the herd he was with reached Abilene and the Texas crew started home, Jake hadn't gone with them. He had stayed in Abilene, spent all his wages on a monumental drunk, and vowed never to return home in his mutilated state.\n\nIn the four years since then, he had fallen in with bad company, as they say. His best friend Bodie Cantrell knew that... because he was a member of that so-called bad company himself.\n\nBodie was sitting at the table with Swint, Jake, and three other men, all of them drinking heavily. Bodie had a pretty fuzzy glow going from the liquor. He didn't like to get drunk as much as some of his companions did, but from time to time he gave in to the urge, anyway. The whiskey usually helped him forget what had happened in Kansas a couple weeks earlier.\n\nIt wasn't helping so much that night.\n\n\"It's just a little flag stop out in the middle of nowhere,\" Eldon Swint said. \"There's only one man on duty at night. He's the telegrapher, ticket agent, and baggage clerk, all in one. When we throw down on him, he'll put that flag up, you can bet a hat on that.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but will the train stop?\" one of the men asked.\n\n\"It's not an express. It'll stop,\" Swint said confidently. \"That's what it's supposed to do.\"\n\n\"Why would they ship all that money from the mint on a train that's not an express?\" Bodie asked. \"That doesn't make sense to me.\"\n\n\"Because they're tryin' to be tricky. They don't think anybody'll suspect the shipment's on a local like that. They got a whole series of 'em set up to get the money from Denver to St. Louis.\"\n\nThe outlaws sat their horses on a slight rise looking north toward a small settlement on the rolling Kansas plains. The railroad tracks ran straight as a string east and west, disappearing in the distance in both directions.\n\nA small depot sat next to the tracks on the north side, and behind it was the settlement's short, single street with half a dozen businesses on each side. At the far end of the street stood a whitewashed church that doubled as a schoolhouse during the week. Maybe two dozen residences were scattered around haphazardly.\n\nBodie didn't know the name of the place. It was so small it didn't really deserve one, although he was sure it had some sort of official designation on railroad maps since there was a station there.\n\nOne of the men said to Swint, \"You're sure you can trust the fella who told you about all this, boss?\"\n\n\"I'm sure,\" Swint said with an ugly grin. \"He thought he was sellin' out the government for a share of the loot, so he didn't have any reason to lie. He sure was surprised when he found out that his share was a bullet!\"\n\nSwint's haw-haw of laughter made Bodie's guts clench. He was well aware that he wasn't riding with a bunch of choir boys, but Eldon Swint making a joke out of cold-blooded murder rubbed him the wrong way.\n\nBodie had done plenty of things he wasn't proud of in his life. He had been on his own since he was nine years old, when both his parents had died of a fever while the family was on its way west. The only way he had survived the fifteen years since was by doing whatever it took, even if that meant breaking a few laws. He had stolen money and food plenty of times, and after he got older he had stuck a gun in men's faces and made them hand over their valuables.\n\nBut he had never killed anybody while committing his crimes, or any other time, either. Maybe he'd just been lucky that things had worked out that way, but he liked to think it was more than that. He hoped he still had a shred of decency left in him.\n\nNobody would ever say that about Eldon Swint. The man had a reputation for being cunning and ruthless, and it was well deserved. The gang he led had been growing for several years, its latest recruits being Bodie Cantrell and Jake Lucas.\n\nThe two young men had quickly become good friends. Jake had opened up a little to him during long nights standing guard while the gang was on the run from the law. It was how Bodie knew about the bitterness hidden behind Jake's easygoing grin.\n\nThey were on the verge of pulling their biggest job yet. According to the information Swint had gotten, almost $80,000 in new gold coins would be on the train coming through Kansas tonight, on their way to several banks in St. Louis. Even divided among the almost two dozen men in the gang, that was more than three grand apiece. Bodie could hardly conceive of having that much money.\n\nOnce he had his share of the loot, he could quit the gang, head farther west, maybe even start a little spread somewhere. After a decade and a half of drifting around, struggling to survive, getting in and out of trouble, the idea of settling down and trying to forge a real life for himself held a powerful appeal.\n\n\"The east bound's due to come through a little after eight o'clock tonight,\" Swint went on. \"If we all ride in there before that, it's bound to raise some suspicions. So here's what we'll do. Four of us will ride in. Me, of course\"\u2014he looked around the gang\u2014\"and Charley.\"\n\nCharley Green was one of Swint's top lieutenants. He had been in the gang for a couple years.\n\nSwint pointed to another man. \"You, too, Hinkley, and... Cantrell. You'll be the fourth man.\"\n\nBodie nodded. He wasn't sure what Swint had in mind for the four of them to do, and he would have just as soon not been picked by the boss outlaw, but he would go along with whatever he needed to do. He wanted that stake.\n\n\"We'll ride in as soon as it gets dark,\" Swint continued. \"Maybe have a drink in the saloon and size the place up. Then we'll drift over to the depot one by one and get the drop on the fella working there. Once he's raised the flag to get the eastbound to stop, we'll signal the rest of you. You'll be waitin' up here. As soon as the train pulls in, all of you charge down to the station and make sure nobody interferes with us while we're gettin' that loot out of the express car.\"\n\nBodie had to admit, the plan sounded like it would work. If everything broke their way, they would ride off into the night $80,000 richer, without a shot being fired.\n\nIt would be a good way to end his career as a desperado, he thought."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 8",
                "text": "Later that afternoon, while they were waiting in a small grove of cottonwoods for night to fall, Jake came over to Bodie. \"I wish the boss had picked me as one of the four to go into town tonight.\"\n\n\"It doesn't really matter,\" Bodie said. \"You'll get your share either way.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I know, but you boys get to have a drink first, maybe even pat some calico cat on the rump while you're waitin'. I get to hang around out here with a bunch of stinkin', whiskery ol' owlhoots.\"\n\n\"I'll be sure to drink a shot of whiskey and flirt with a soiled dove for you,\" Bodie said with a grin.\n\n\"Yeah, you do that.\" Jake grew more serious. \"Just keep your eyes open, Bodie. Could be you'll have a chance to slip a few of those double eagles in your pocket without Eldon noticin'. I'll expect you to share your good fortune if you do.\"\n\nBodie frowned. \"I'm not sure I'd risk that, even if I did have a chance. Eldon would put a bullet through a man's head, sure as sin, if he tried to help himself to more than his fair share.\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" Jake said with a shrug. \"And maybe it'd be worth the risk.\"\n\nBodie didn't say anything else about that, and neither did Jake. Bodie worried, though, that sooner or later his friend would give in to temptation and try to double-cross Swint. That could lead to bad trouble.\n\nBodie felt himself getting tense as night approached. The time seemed to go by fast.\n\nToo soon, Swint was calling out, \"All right, boys, mount up. Time for us to go.\"\n\nThe three men he had picked to accompany him swung into their saddles. They circled west of the settlement, crossed the railroad tracks, and came in from that direction.\n\nThe saloon didn't have a sign on it, just the word SALOON painted in big letters on the upper part of the false front. Swint, Bodie, Hinkley, and Green tied their horses at the hitch rail in front of it and went inside.\n\nThe place wasn't very busy. Four men were playing poker at a table; three more stood at the bar drinking while a single bartender lazily polished glasses with a grimy rag. Bodie didn't see a woman in the place, so if he told Jake any stories about flirting with one, he'd have to lie.\n\nThe bartender wasn't talkative like a lot of drink jugglers were. He brought their beers and left them alone, which was fine with Bodie. He'd hoped the beer would calm his nerves a little, but that didn't seem to be the case.\n\nHe would be glad when the robbery was over and done with. Despite all the things he had done, maybe he wasn't cut out to be an outlaw.\n\nWhen it was good and dark, Swint downed what was left of the beer he'd been nursing and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. \"See you later, boys.\"\n\nThe other three knew what that meant. Swint was on his way to the depot. The rest of them would follow at short intervals. Green would go first, then Hinkley, and finally Bodie.\n\nSoon he was the last of the quartet in the saloon, and it occurred to him that he could go outside, get on his horse, and ride away. The other three were all waiting down at the train station. They wouldn't be able to stop him. He didn't have to go through with it. He could put this life of banditry behind him right here and now.\n\nBut where would he go and what would he do? Not nearly as far or as much as he could with $3,000, he told himself.\n\nNo, he would do what he'd said he would do, he decided. He wasn't going to run out on his partners.\n\nHe left the saloon and strolled toward the station in apparent innocence. As he neared it, a hiss came from the thick shadows beside the building. Bodie darted into the gloom and found the other three men waiting there for him.\n\n\"All right,\" Swint whispered. \"Cantrell, you go in and ask the fella if the train's on time. That'll distract him while we come in the platform door.\"\n\nBodie nodded, realized that Swint couldn't see him in the darkness, and said, \"I understand.\"\n\nHe left them there and stepped back into the dim glow of the lantern that hung over the depot's entrance. Trying not to look as nervous as he felt, he went inside and found himself in a small, dusty waiting room with a ticket window to the left and a storage room to the right. A door on the other side of the waiting room led out onto the platform. The night was warm, and the platform door was open to allow some cross-ventilation.\n\nIf the agent was behind the ticket window, Bodie would have to lure him into the waiting room some way. Luck was with him, though, and the man emerged from the storeroom, dusting his hands off from moving something around in there. He was a middle-aged, balding man wearing a green eyeshade. With a friendly smile, he asked Bodie, \"Something I can do for you, young fella?\"\n\n\"Is the eastbound train on time?\"\n\nThe agent scratched at his jaw. \"Yeah, I reckon. Haven't heard anything saying otherwise. You need to buy a ticket? I can flag it down for you if you do. Ought to be here in another fifteen, twenty minutes.\"\n\nWhile the man was talking, Swint and the other two cat-footed into the depot from the platform behind him. Bodie had to use all his willpower not to look directly at them and give the game away.\n\nOf course, it wouldn't really matter if he did. They outnumbered the agent four to one, and he didn't even appear to be armed.\n\nSwint put the barrel of his revolver against the back of the man's neck and eared back the hammer. The metallic ratcheting echoed sinisterly in the small room. \"Oh, you'll flag down the train, all right, friend. Now don't you move.\"\n\nThe agent stiffened and his eyes widened in fear.\n\nBodie felt sorry for the man. He drew his gun and told him, \"You just do what we tell you and you'll be all right.\"\n\nThe agent's mouth opened and closed, but he didn't say anything.\n\nSwint prodded him with the gun again. \"You understand, friend?\"\n\n\"S-Sure,\" the agent stammered. \"Just don't kill me.\"\n\n\"I won't shoot you,\" Swint promised. \"Not as long as you cooperate.\"\n\n\"What is it you fellas want? That train's not carrying anything except freight and a few passengers. There's nothing special in the express car.\"\n\nSwint laughed. \"That shows how much you know, amigo. The railroad don't tell you little fellas about the deals it makes with the government. They probably figure it's safer that way, keepin' you in the dark. Might have been, too, if somebody hadn't sold 'em out.\"\n\n\"Mister, I don't have the slightest idea what you're talkin' about.\"\n\n\"That don't matter. Just come with me and raise that flag so the engineer'll know to stop. You be sure to give him the right signal, too. No mistakes or you'll be mighty sorry.\" As Swint started to take the agent out onto the platform, he glanced back at Bodie and added, \"Go get the horses.\"\n\nBodie nodded, pouched his iron, and hurried out of the depot.\n\nHe was back in less than five minutes, leading all four horses. He tied them outside the station and went back in. Hinkley and Green were standing watch just inside the door, in case any of the townspeople should show up, but Bodie saw right away that wasn't the case. The depot was just as empty as he'd left it.\n\nSwint waited on the far side of the waiting room by the platform door. Bodie frowned as he realized he didn't see the agent. Then he glanced toward the storeroom door, which was still partially open, and stiffened as he saw a pair of legs on the floor.\n\n\"What in blazes?\" Bodie muttered. He pushed the door open farther and drew in a startled breath as light from the waiting room spilled over the man's motionless body. A dark pool of blood was spreading slowly around his head. Bodie could see the gaping wound where the man's throat had been cut.\n\nHe turned his shocked gaze toward Swint. \"You told him you weren't going to kill him.\"\n\n\"I said I wouldn't shoot him,\" Swint replied with a leering grin. \"I didn't. That trusty knife of mine did the trick and made sure he wouldn't try to warn anybody.\"\n\nA ball of sickness rolled around Bodie's guts. He had seen violent death before, more times than he liked to think about, but this was cold-blooded murder and he didn't like it. \"They hang men for things like this.\"\n\n\"Only when they catch 'em,\" Swint said. \"And nobody's gonna catch us, Bodie.\"\n\nIn the distance, a train whistle sounded, a long, wailing cry that seemed to Bodie like the howl of a lost soul....\n\nThe noise faded from his memory and blended in with the racket from a piano in a corner of the Bella Royale that a sleeve-gartered entertainer had started pounding. Bodie was back in Kansas City again, sitting at the table with Swint, Jake Lucas, and several other members of the gang.\n\nThe rest of the robbery had gone off without a hitch, a couple weeks earlier. The train had rolled in and stopped just like it was supposed to, and the rest of the gang had swarmed over it, taking control of the engineer and the fireman in the locomotive cab, the conductor in the caboose, and the travelers in the two passenger cars.\n\nSwint, Bodie, Green, and Hinkley got the drop on the messenger in the express car. The man had thought about putting up a fight, but with four guns staring him in the face, he had thought better of it.\n\nAnd so they had ridden away just as Bodie had hoped, without firing a shot.\n\nEven so, they had left a dead man behind them, a dead man whose face still haunted Bodie's dreams from time to time.\n\nWhat made it even worse was that he hadn't been able to leave the gang like he'd planned. Swint was dragging his feet on divvying up the loot. He had said they would do it once they got to Kansas City.\n\nBodie hoped that was true. He wanted to get away from these men. He hoped he could persuade Jake to take his share and come with him. If they partnered up, they could start a fine ranch somewhere with the money they'd have.\n\n\"I sure wouldn't want to tangle with MacCallister,\" Jake was saying. \"No telling how many badmen he's sent over the divide in his time.\"\n\n\"Stories like that always get blown up bigger than they really are,\" Swint insisted. \"I ain't afraid of that old man, or anybody else for that matter. He'll get his comeuppance one o' these days, and if he ever crosses me, I'll give it to him myself. I'll blow his lights out, I will.\"\n\nPart of Bodie would have liked to witness such an encounter. He thought Swint was completely wrong about Jamie Ian MacCallister, and it might be satisfying to watch the results.\n\nSwint changed the subject. \"Did you boys notice that theater when we were comin' into town? Posters out front said there was gonna be a show. I hope we haven't missed it.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 9",
                "text": "\"Hark! What light through yonder window\u2014Dadblast it! Who put that board there? I almost tripped and broke my bloody neck! We open tomorrow night, my friends. We can't have things like this happening!\"\n\nSavannah McCoy put a hand over her mouth to stifle the laughter she felt trying to bubble up her throat. The sight of Cyrus O'Hanlon's portly figure in tights and doublet was pretty ridiculous to start with, and the way he had stumbled as he crossed the stage and nearly fallen on his face made him seem even more like a comedian. He would have made a good one, Savannah thought, if he hadn't considered himself the greatest dramatic actor of his generation.\n\nOf course, great dramatic actors didn't head up troupes that played in second-rate variety theaters and opera houses across the Midwest, occasionally venturing as far out on the frontier as Kansas City, which seemed like the Wild West of penny dreadful fame to Savannah.\n\nShe pushed back the rich brown ringlets of hair that kept trying to fall in front of her face when she leaned through Juliet's \"window,\" which was part of the set the troupe had erected on the stage of Mr. Channing's theater. She pulled up the neckline of her dress. Cyrus had designed the costumes, of course. He had a hand in everything the troupe did. He'd had the neckline cut low enough to display what Savannah considered a scandalous amount of cleavage, especially when she leaned forward to say her lines.\n\n\"Give the rubes in the front row what they want to see,\" he always said.\n\nSavannah didn't like it. Most people already considered actresses to be little better than harlots. They didn't see that it was a true calling, like any other artistic endeavor. She didn't think it was a good idea to reinforce their prejudice by dressing like a saloon girl.\n\nSo she pulled the dress up as much as she could, but in the end, Cyrus was the boss. That was why, at the age of fifty-five, he was playing the stripling youth, Romeo. Savannah, though six or seven years older than Juliet was supposed to be in the play, was at least a lot closer to the right age.\n\nCyrus took off the hat with a tired-looking feather plume that he wore, ran his fingers through his mostly gray hair as he recovered his composure, and pulled the hat back on. \"We'll begin again,\" he said in a loud, ringing voice. He was so accustomed to projecting to the back of the house that he talked that way all the time.\n\nHe launched once again into Romeo's balcony speech, and Savannah tried to concentrate on what he was saying so that she couldn't miss her cues. It was difficult to keep her mind from wandering. She had been doing this scene for months, ever since the platform behind the \"window\" had collapsed during a performance in Chicago, dumping Cyrus's wife Dollie, the previous Juliet, on her amply padded rear end.\n\nEven though she hadn't been injured in the fall, following that accident Dollie had declared that she was too old to be clambering around on scenery and told Cyrus to find himself a new Juliet. The role had fallen to Savannah, who had been with the troupe for about a year.\n\nAfter Cyrus had made that announcement, Dollie had taken Savannah aside and told her, \"Cyrus sometimes gets carried away and thinks his love scenes with his leading ladies ought to continue offstage. In fact, that's how the two of us wound up married.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm sure that won't ever happen,\" Savannah had said. \"Mr. O'Hanlon is much too professional.\"\n\n\"It had better not,\" Dollie had warned her. \"If it does, you're liable to find yourself stranded in some backwater with more livestock than people. Don't think your acting talents would help you then.\"\n\nSince that day, Savannah had learned that there was some truth to what Dollie had told her. Cyrus had made some advances\u2014subtle ones, to be sure\u2014but unmistakable in their intention. Savannah had gotten quite skilled in fending them off without seeming to do so.\n\nShe realized that Cyrus had paused and knew it was her line. For a split second, she couldn't think of where they were in the scene, but then it came back to her. Her acting instincts were good and hardly ever let her down. She leaned out the window and delivered her line, and below her on the stage Cyrus started emoting once more.\n\nSavannah's mind strayed again, back to the stately white mansion in the Georgia city that had given her name to her. At least, the name she was currently using...\n\n\"No daughter of mine is going to be an actress!\" William Thorpe thundered as he stalked back and forth in his study.\n\nHer father was good at thundering, Gillian Thorpe thought as she steeled herself against his rage. He preferred to shout rather than discuss anything in a calm, rational manner. He seemed to think that whoever was the loudest in any argument was going to prevail. And to be fair, that was usually what happened when William Thorpe was involved. Goodness knew his wife Helen, Gillian's mother, had long since given up ever trying to convince her husband of anything. He would just shout her down.\n\nArguing with a man who was always right, at least in his own head, was just a waste of time and energy.\n\n\"Of course, Father,\" Gillian said. \"I understand.\"\n\nHe stopped short and frowned at her in surprise. \"You understand? Does that mean you're going to give up this mad idea of parading yourself on a stage like a painted woman in a house of ill repute?\"\n\nFor a second Gillian wanted to ask her father how he knew so much about painted women and what went on in houses of ill repute, but she decided not to, probably wisely.\n\n\"No, Father, I understand why you feel the way you do, but I haven't changed my mind. I still believe that it's my destiny to become an actress.\"\n\n\"Destiny!\" he snorted. \"Romantic claptrap! I realize you're just a female, Gillian, and as such it's your nature to bury yourself in folderol and foolishness, but good Lord, girl, I thought better of you than this! I thought I'd raised you better!\"\n\nAgain Gillian had to restrain an impulse, the urge to pick up one of the paperweights on his desk and throw it at him. Just a female, indeed!\n\n\"You're not the only one who raised me, Father,\" she pointed out.\n\n\"I know,\" he said with a scathing sneer. \"And I'm not really surprised that your mother filled your head with so many foolish notions.\"\n\n\"She taught me to do what I believe to be right.\"\n\n\"You have no business believing anything except what I tell you to believe.\"\n\nThat summed it up, all right, Gillian thought. She had a brain in her head, a good brain, but her father didn't want her to use it. As long as she lived under his roof, he wouldn't allow her to use it. So the solution was simple.\n\nTerence had been right. If she wanted to do anything worthwhile with her life, she had to get out of there. She had to run away.\n\nWith him.\n\nTerence Flanagan was an actor, a breathtakingly handsome man. Gillian had met him backstage after a performance of a play she and her mother had attended. She had been impressed with him right away and very pleased that he took an interest in her. From that moment on, a friendship had developed between them... a friendship that Gillian sensed Terence wanted to turn into something more. She hadn't yet made up her mind about that, but the two of them had gotten close enough that she had confided her ambitions to him.\n\nHe had been receptive to the idea right away. \"There's a spot for you in the company to which I belong, Gillian dear. All you have to do is say the word and I'll speak to the director. We'll soon be leaving on an extended tour, and I'm sure he'd be willing to take you along.\"\n\n\"I don't know, Terence. Leaving home seems like such an extreme step....\"\n\nThey were sitting on a bench in one of Savannah's lovely, gracious parks. The city hadn't suffered as much damage in the Late Unpleasantness as Atlanta and Richmond, for example, and these days it looked much the way it had before the war.\n\nWith so many people around on the bright, beautiful day, Terence had to be discreet, but he reached over and rested his hand on Gillian's. \"I want you to have a chance to fulfill your dreams, my dear. How about this? Perhaps a small role in one of our productions while we're performing here in Savannah? That would allow you to see what the theater is really like, firsthand.\"\n\nThe idea held great appeal for Gillian. And the thrill that went through her when Terence's hand pressed warmly against hers made her long for the opportunity to get to know him better.\n\nAll she had to do was convince her father....\n\nBringing up the idea led to a war on a much smaller scale, but no less passionate. The two of them had gone around and around about it for more than a week, and finally it was too late. The troupe had left the day before, continuing on to the next stop on their tour\u2014Nashville.\n\nBut Gillian had a plan, and the final confrontation with her father convinced her that she had no choice but to go through with it. She wished that she could tell her mother she was leaving, but she knew if she did, the older woman would just try to talk her out of it.\n\nGillian couldn't blame her for that. She wouldn't have wanted to be left alone with William Thorpe, either.\n\nHer father always retired early. He had very lucrative interests in a shipping concern, a bank, and a number of warehouses, and he liked to be at his office before anyone else in the morning. That way he could see when all the employees arrived... and the ones who made a habit of being later than William Thorpe thought appropriate would pay for their tardiness.\n\nGillian knew that if she waited until her father was asleep, he wouldn't be aware of what was going on until it was too late to stop her. She had already checked the railroad schedule and knew there was a train for Nashville leaving at ten o'clock.\n\nShe packed a bag, taking as little as she thought she could get by with, then slipped stealthily down the rear stairs and out of the house."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 10",
                "text": "It was frightening to walk to the train station in the darkness. Her heart was in her throat the whole way. But people who never took risks never accomplished anything worthwhile in life, she told herself, and she clung to that thought for strength as she made her way to the depot.\n\nOnce she was there, she ran into an unexpected obstacle. She had plenty of money, but there were no compartments available on the train. She had to purchase a ticket that allowed her to sit up in one of the regular passenger cars.\n\nIt was a frightening ordeal, and it lasted a lot longer than the walk to the station had. Several of the male passengers leered at her as she made her way to her seat, and she knew what they were thinking. An attractive young woman, traveling alone... well, there was only one sort of woman she could be, as far as they were concerned. She sat stiffly and avoided their eyes, hoping that her chilly demeanor would be enough to keep any of them from approaching her.\n\nAtlanta, Chattanooga, the whole trip was just a blur to her. She didn't dare let herself go to sleep so she was utterly exhausted by the time the train pulled into Nashville in the middle of the next day. But she had made it, and all she had to do was find the hotel where she knew the acting troupe was staying.\n\nHansom cabs were lined up outside the station, and she had brought enough money with her to afford one. The driver knew the hotel, and when they got there Gillian was surprised to see that it was rather rundown. She would have thought the troupe would stay somewhere better.\n\nShe went inside and inquired at the desk for the number of Mr. Flanagan's room. The clerk gave her a smug, knowing smile that irritated her, but he told her the number. Gillian climbed to the third floor and knocked on the door.\n\nAt first she thought Terence must be out, perhaps at the theater, because no one answered. But then a thick voice said, \"Whass... who... hold on.\"\n\nThat was Terence, or at least she thought it was. She heard him muttering curses under his breath as he approached the door.\n\nThen abruptly he jerked it open and stood there wearing only the bottom half of a pair of long underwear. His hair was in disarray, his face was puffy and flushed, and his eyes were bleary. Obviously, he had been sleeping, and before that he'd been drinking... a lot.\n\nBut he recognized her and exclaimed, \"Gillian! My God. I'd given up on you. Finally worked up the gumption to run away from the old goat, eh?\"\n\nBefore Gillian could answer, a woman's voice said, \"Terence? Who is it?\"\n\nHe half turned, so Gillian could see past him into the hotel room. A woman with tousled blond hair was sitting up in the bed, holding the sheet around what was apparently her nude body.\n\n\"Look who's here, darling,\" Terence said to her. \"That young ing\u00e9nue I was telling you about. Come on in, Gillian, and I'll introduce you to our leading lady. I'm sure the two of you will enjoy getting to know each other.\"\n\nGillian was too shocked and stunned to move. It was like her feet were nailed to the floor. What had happened to Terence? All his charm and sophistication had disappeared, leaving only crudeness behind. She couldn't believe she had left her home and come all this way, only to find that he... he...\n\n\"Come on, Gillian,\" Terence said, sounding a little impatient. \"It'll be all right. We'll take good care of you.\"\n\nGillian turned and ran down the dingy hotel corridor, her bag bumping against her leg. Terence stepped into the hall and called out behind her, but she ignored him. The blond woman said something else, and he went back into the room and closed the door.\n\nIf the trip from Savannah had been a blur, the next few minutes were even worse. Gillian wasn't sure how she made it back downstairs and out of the hotel. She had no idea what she was going to do. She could go home, of course, but if she did she would have to listen to her father browbeat her about her foolishness for the rest of his life. She knew he would never let her forget it.\n\nBut what else could she do? She was hundreds of miles from home, in a city where she didn't know anyone, and she was scared and desperate....\n\nShe didn't see the well-dressed older man until she bumped right into him on the sidewalk outside the hotel. She might have fallen if he hadn't reached out and caught hold of her arm to steady her.\n\nThe elegant-looking woman with the man said worriedly, \"Are you all right, dearie? You look like you've had quite a fright.\"\n\n\"No, I just... I was going to join an acting troupe...\"\n\nThe man wrinkled his nose. \"Not Flanagan's Players, I hope. They're a sorry lot, if I do say so myself. Den of iniquity and all that. Not the least bit professional, like O'Hanlon's Traveling Company.\"\n\nGillian shook her head. \"I... I'm afraid I'm not familiar with them.\"\n\n\"Are you an actress?\"\n\n\"Well... I want to be.\"\n\nThe man was wearing a top hat, which he swept off and held in front of him as he performed a half-bow. \"Cyrus O'Hanlon, at your service, miss.\"\n\nThe woman with him laughed.\n\n\"This is my wife, Dollie. If you'd care to discuss joining our troupe, we'd be glad to talk to you. We can always use another player. If you're truly devoted to your craft, that is.\"\n\n\"I hope I would be. I think it would be wonderful to be an actress.\"\n\n\"Well, you've got a lot to learn,\" Dollie O'Hanlon said. \"But if you throw in with us, at least you'd be learning around decent folks. Not like that lecher Flanagan.\"\n\nGillian swallowed hard. Her father was right about one thing. She really did believe in destiny and other romantic notions like that. \"I think I might like that.\"\n\n\"What's your name, dear?\"\n\nGillian had thought about that. When her father found out that she was gone, he might hire detectives to look for her. She didn't want to be found, didn't want to return home until it was on her own terms. She had decided that she ought to use a different name to make it harder to find her. But she hadn't settled on a name.\n\nShe had no time to ponder the question further. She glanced across the street at McCoy's Hardware Store, thought about her hometown, and put a smile on her face as she told the O'Hanlons, \"Savannah McCoy. My name is Savannah McCoy.\"\n\nAnd so it had been ever since, until even she thought of herself by that name, through performances in countless towns and in Kansas City as the troupe ran through its dress rehearsal before the opening performance, which was the next night.\n\nShe had been lucky. That hotel in Nashville had catered to the theatrical trade, and the O'Hanlon Traveling Company was staying there, too. Cyrus and Dollie had gone out to eat and had been returning to the hotel when she literally ran into them.\n\nShe'd gone with them to the troupe's performance that night and been welcomed by all the members of the company. Cyrus liked to say that they were like a family and he was the paterfamilias, and it was true. Romantic notion or not, Savannah felt like she had found a home with them.\n\nShe couldn't imagine anything changing that, at least not any time soon.\n\nIt would take a new twist of fate, a new rendezvous with destiny, to do that.\n\nShe figured she was through with such things."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 11",
                "text": "Jamie went back to the hardware store where he had left Sundown and the pack horse tied to the hitch rack. Nobody had bothered the animals, which came as no surprise to him. When anybody but Jamie approached the big sand-colored stallion, Sundown got proddy. Any time he bared his teeth and started moving around skittishly, folks tended to make a wide circle around him.\n\n\"That's an impressive-looking horse,\" Moses Danzig said as he looked at Sundown with admiration.\n\n\"He's mean as all get out,\" Jamie said bluntly. \"But he'll run all day if he has to. Run until his heart busts if that's what it takes. He's got as much grit as any horse I've ever seen.\" He handed the pack horse's reins to Moses. \"Here, you can lead this one. He won't give you any trouble.\"\n\nThey headed for the open area where the immigrants were camped. As they approached, Jamie heard loud, boisterous music. It sounded like several fiddlers were scraping their bows across the strings of their instruments with great enthusiasm, if not a great deal of talent, and the lively tune made Jamie's blood perk up. He had always enjoyed dancing, although he hadn't done any in quite some time.\n\nNot since before Kate died, actually.\n\nHe put that thought out of his mind and watched the couples spinning and whirling around near the big campfire in the center of the area between the circled wagons. People who weren't dancing had gathered around to watch, too. They clapped in time to the music and called out encouragement to the dancers.\n\nNot everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves, though. Jamie noticed one man standing off to the side with a glare of disapproval on his stern face. He was tall and heavily built, with a barrel chest and prematurely white hair that grew in a tangle on his head. He wore a sober black suit, and his big hands rested on the shoulders of two children who stood with him\u2014a boy and a girl about ten years old. Jamie looked closer at the resemblance between the youngsters and realized they were twins.\n\nJamie turned to Moses and nodded toward the glowering man. \"Who's that? Not your wagon captain, I hope.\"\n\n\"No, certainly not. That's Reverend Bradford. He's on his way to Montana, too, with his children. I'm afraid he doesn't approve of the dancing and has made that clear to Captain Hendricks. He says it's sinful for men and women to cavort around together like heathens. But the captain thinks it's good for the group's spirits to have these little celebrations of life from time to time.\"\n\n\"Is that what they're celebrating? Just life in general, nothing in particular?\"\n\n\"Well, in this case,\" Moses explained, \"there's another reason. There was a wedding earlier today. R.G. Hamilton married Alice Dennison. R.G. is one of the single men traveling west\u2014or at least he was\u2014and Alice is the daughter of one of the immigrant families. They're a fine couple and an excellent match, and everyone is happy about it.\"\n\n\"Except that fella Bradford,\" Jamie said with another nod toward the preacher.\n\n\"Oh, he doesn't mind the marriage. Actually, he performed the wedding ceremony. He just doesn't like dancing... among other things.\"\n\nFrom the sound of that comment, Jamie thought that Moses didn't get along very well with Reverend Bradford. He didn't pursue that question, however, since it was none of his business.\n\nAs the three fiddlers\u2014two whiskery old-timers and a skinny, gangling man who was much younger\u2014came to the end of the merry tune they had been playing, people laughed and applauded. One couple seemed to be at the center of the dancers, and Jamie ventured a guess that they were the ones who'd gotten hitched earlier.\n\nMoses confirmed it, then pointed out the wagon train captain. \"There's Captain Hendricks.\" As the musicians took a break and the immigrants began to mill around and talk he nodded in Hendricks's direction. \"Come on, I'll introduce you.\"\n\nLamar Hendricks was a tall, fair-haired man with a rawboned, middle-aged face under a broad-brimmed brown hat. He wore a brown leather vest over a homespun shirt. As the two men approached him, he said, \"There you are, Moses. I was starting to wonder what had happened to you. Where's Mr. Ralston?\"\n\n\"That's an, um, interesting story, Captain,\" Moses replied. \"By the way, this is Jamie Ian MacCallister. He's quite a famous frontiersman.\"\n\nHendricks grunted. \"Is that so?\" Obviously, he hadn't heard of Jamie. He held out a hand. \"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. MacCallister.\"\n\n\"You, too, Captain,\" Jamie replied with a nod as they shook hands.\n\nHendricks turned back to Moses. \"Were you not able to find Mr. Ralston?\"\n\n\"Oh, I found him, all right. But there's been... an accident. Mr. Ralston is injured.\"\n\nA look of alarm instantly appeared on Hendricks's face. \"An accident? What sort of accident?\"\n\nMoses looked pretty uncomfortable at the prospect of answering that question, so Jamie saved him the trouble. \"I broke the varmint's leg.\"\n\nHendricks's eyes widened in surprise. \"Why in the world would you do something like that?\"\n\n\"Because he was trying to do the same or worse to me.\"\n\nMoses said, \"Mr. Ralston attacked Mr. MacCallister, Captain. I found him in that saloon he frequented, just as I feared I might. He had been drinking heavily. When Mr. MacCallister disagreed with him about something, Mr. Ralston started a fight. I saw the whole thing. Mr. MacCallister was only defending himself. He didn't do anything wrong.\"\n\n\"Well, maybe not,\" Hendricks said with a frown, \"but don't expect me to be happy about what you did, MacCallister. We were counting on Jeb Ralston to get us to our new homes in Montana.\"\n\n\"Then you were counting on a drunken bully,\" Jamie said, not mincing words.\n\nHendricks controlled his anger with a visible effort. \"You'll have to excuse me. I need to start figuring out what we're going to do now. We have to find another wagon master as quickly as possible.\"\n\n\"You see, that's just it, Captain,\" Moses told him. \"I've asked Mr. MacCallister if he would consider guiding us to Montana Territory.\"\n\nHendricks looked surprised again, and still angry. \"You had no right to do that, Moses. I'm the captain of this wagon train. We need an experienced guide\u2014\"\n\n\"Ask around town,\" Moses suggested. \"Mr. MacCallister is a famous frontiersman, much more well known and respected than Mr. Ralston. And probably much more capable of leading the wagon train to Montana, I suspect.\"\n\n\"No offense, MacCallister,\" Hendricks said grudgingly. \"I'm not aware of your reputation.\"\n\n\"I never asked for a reputation,\" Jamie said. \"Just to be left alone to live my life. But I don't control what folks say about me. I can tell you one thing\u2014setting out for Montana this late in the year is a mighty foolish thing to do, and I'd bet this old hat of mine on that.\"\n\n\"We have no choice.\" Hendricks's voice was as stiff as his back seemed to be. \"We can't afford to wait for spring. Besides... I promised everyone that we'd be in our new homes in Eagle Valley by Christmas.\"\n\n\"Maybe you shouldn't make promises you can't deliver.\"\n\nThe air of tension between the two men was thick. Moses stepped in. \"In your opinion, Mr. MacCallister, what would it take for us to reach our destination in time?\"\n\n\"Well, you'd have to leave pretty quick,\" Jamie said. \"First thing tomorrow morning, if you can.\"\n\nHendricks shook his head. \"That's impossible. It'll take at least another day to finish making repairs on our wagons.\"\n\n\"Day after tomorrow, then,\" Jamie said. \"And you may wish later on you had that extra day back.\"\n\n\"What else?\" Moses asked.\n\nJamie's eyes narrowed in thought. \"You'd have to push hard, and I'm talking about livestock and human folks as well. The days on the trail would be mighty long ones, from as soon as it's light enough to see in the morning until it's too dark to go on. Under normal circumstances, you could afford to stop and lay over for a few days every now and then, mainly to give the stock some time to rest. If you leave now, you can't risk doing that. You'll have to push on every day without any breaks. By the time you get there, your teams will be worn down to a nub... and so will most of your people.\"\n\n\"But we could do all that if we have to,\" Moses insisted. \"Couldn't we, Captain Hendricks?\"\n\n\"We'll do whatever's necessary,\" Hendricks said with a curt nod. \"We all knew when we started out that there would be hardships along the way.\"\n\nJamie said, \"You'd need plenty of luck, too. Luck that you don't run into any Indian trouble, and that the weather cooperates. That last is the main thing. Winter would have to hold off, at least the worst of it. Where you're going, nothing will kill you quicker than a Great Plains blizzard.\"\n\n\"We have faith,\" Hendricks said. \"The Good Lord watches over us.\"\n\n\"He'd have to, for you to have a chance of getting there.\"\n\nMoses turned to Jamie. \"But you could do it,\" he insisted. \"With God's help, of course. You could make all those things happen and lead us to Montana.\"\n\n\"I can't do anything about the weather,\" Jamie said.\n\n\"But if it did get bad, you could tell us what we need to do to survive. And then when conditions improved, we could move on again.\"\n\n\"It would depend on how bad things got\"\u2014Jamie's brawny shoulders rose and fell\u2014\"but yeah, maybe. If anybody could get you through, I reckon I can.\"\n\n\"Then it's settled, right?\" Moses said eagerly. \"Mr. MacCallister has the job, Captain?\"\n\nHendricks peered at Jamie. \"Do you want the job, MacCallister?\"\n\n\"Not particularly,\" Jamie replied, being honest as always. \"But this young fella tells me that you'll be setting out for Montana Territory anyway, whether I go with you or not.\"\n\n\"That's true. We don't have any choice.\"\n\n\"And I can't stand by and wind up with the lives of... how many in your bunch?\"\n\n\"Two hundred and seventeen souls, Mr. MacCallister. Men, women, and children.\"\n\n\"I won't have the lives of that many people thrown away if there's anything I can do about it. I'll take you to Montana.\"\n\nThere. It was done. His earlier idea of paying for them to stay in Kansas City until spring and then set out on their journey was forgotten, and he had a pretty good idea why he had discarded it. Jamie Ian MacCallister wasn't a vain man, but he was a proud one, and Moses had played on his pride in a shrewd manner. That one was plenty smart.\n\n\"It's settled, then,\" Moses said again. \"You can put your horses with our stock, since you're one of us now. Isn't that right, Captain?\"\n\n\"Yeah, I reckon,\" Hendricks said, still not completely convinced it was a good idea. Apparently he was going to make the best of it, though. \"Then I'll introduce you around. People will need to know what's happened.\"\n\nAfter taking that short break, the musicians were starting up again. The strains of their new tune filled the night air. Jamie felt one of his booted toes begin to tap slightly in time to the music. It would be a long, hard trail to Montana, he thought, and these pilgrims had no real idea of what they were facing.\n\nLet them enjoy what time they had left, before they set out on what might be a trail to disaster."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 12",
                "text": "Moses Danzig invited Jamie to share his wagon, but Jamie told the young rabbi that he would just spread his bedroll underneath the vehicle. \"I'm pretty sure it's not going to rain, and I've spent many a night sleeping on the ground. Maybe that's not as comfortable for these old bones as it once was, but it doesn't bother me all that much.\"\n\n\"Suit yourself, Mr. MacCallister,\" Moses said.\n\n\"Call me Jamie.\"\n\n\"All right, Jamie. Since we didn't get around to meeting everybody, I'll introduce you to the rest of the group in the morning.\"\n\n\"You're acquainted with everybody in the wagon train, are you?\" Jamie asked.\n\n\"Well, most of them, anyway. Once you get to know me, you'll see that I'm the gregarious sort.\"\n\n\"Does that mean friendly and talkative?\" Jamie asked, even though he knew that was exactly what the word meant.\n\n\"Yes, it does.\"\n\n\"Reckon I'd sort of figured that out already,\" Jamie said dryly.\n\nHe had put his horses in the corral after unsaddling Sundown and moving his supplies from the pack horse to the back of Moses's wagon. He would use the pack animal as an extra saddle mount if he needed one and eventually press it into service again as a beast of burden once he parted ways with the immigrants after they reached Montana Territory... although he might not be leaving Eagle Valley right away, he realized. That would depend on the weather. If snowstorms closed the passes, it was possible he might have to remain with the pilgrims until spring, unable to reach his home in Colorado until winter was over.\n\nHe spent the night under the wagon, and as he had predicted, he slept just fine. His muscles creaked a little and his joints popped when he crawled out of his bedroll the next morning, but there was nothing uncommon about that.\n\nAs usual, he was up well before dawn, had a fire going and his coffeepot boiling by the time Moses crawled out of the wagon with his hair rumpled and a sleepy expression on his face.\n\n\"What time is it?\" Moses asked.\n\n\"Time for folks to be up and stirring around,\" Jamie told him. \"Most of them already are.\"\n\nIt was true. The women had cook fires blazing, and the men were tending to the animals. Jamie had already checked on his horses and knew they were all right.\n\nMoses dropped from the tailgate to the ground and ran his fingers through his tangled hair. He put his hat on and hunkered next to the fire. The days were still pleasant some of the time but the nights were almost always cold. His breath fogged a little in front of his face as he held his hands out toward the fire's heat.\n\nJamie handed him a tin cup of Arbuckle's. \"That'll warm you up.\"\n\nMoses sipped the strong black brew gratefully.\n\n\"Once we're on the trail, we'll be moving by this time of the morning every day.\" Jamie waved a big hand toward the arching gray vault of the eastern sky. \"There's enough light for the men handling the teams to see where they're going. That's all we really need.\"\n\n\"You weren't joking when you said that the days would be long ones, were you?\"\n\n\"Not one blasted bit. What do you usually do for meals?\"\n\n\"I, uh, prevail upon the generosity of some of my fellow pilgrims, and in return I provide them with some supplies. I'm afraid that I'm not much of a cook myself.\"\n\n\"Well, no need for you to do that anymore. I'll fix us some flapjacks and fry up a mess of bacon.\"\n\n\"Uh, Jamie... I don't exactly eat bacon... You know, because of my religion...\"\n\nJamie vaguely recalled hearing something like that about the Hebrew religion. He wasn't sure how anybody could live without eating bacon or salt jowl, but he supposed that was Moses's business, not his. \"We'll just stick with the flapjacks, then, if they're all right for you to eat.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Moses said with a smile. \"Actually, that sounds really good.\"\n\nAfter they had finished breakfast, Moses offered to clean up.\n\nJamie thanked him. \"While you're doing that I'll go talk to Cap'n Hendricks. Point me to his wagon.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Moses told him how to find the captain's wagon, and he began to walk around the big circle that formed the camp.\n\nHe had passed about a dozen of the covered vehicles when a figure stepped out from behind one of them and confronted him. Jamie recognized the man Moses had identified as Reverend Bradford. He and the two children with him had disappeared by the time Moses had started introducing Jamie to the rest of the group the previous night.\n\nIt appeared that Bradford was intent on meeting him. He planted his feet and stood with a stern expression on his face.\n\nJamie could have moved him out of the way if necessary, but it would have taken a little work.\n\n\"You're MacCallister,\" the big man said bluntly. \"The new wagon master and guide.\"\n\n\"That's right.\" Jamie didn't feel any instinctive liking for the reverend, but he was willing to wait and see what the man had to say, so long as Bradford didn't waste too much of his time. He held out his hand to see if Bradford would shake.\n\n\"You've befriended the Israelite,\" Bradford went on, ignoring Jamie's hand and making the words sound like an accusation of some sort.\n\n\"If you're talking about Moses, I believe he's from Poland,\" Jamie said as he lowered his hand. His eyes narrowed. It seemed that his initial dislike of Bradford had been right on the money.\n\n\"I don't care where he's from, he's a Hebrew, and someone like that has no place among decent, God-fearing folks like the ones with this wagon train.\"\n\n\"Now hold on a minute,\" Jamie snapped. \"He's got a right to be here, same as anybody else\u2014\"\n\nBefore Jamie could go on, rapid footsteps sounded behind him. He whirled around, instinct making his hand flash to the butts of the .44s holstered at his hips."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 13",
                "text": "He stopped before he made the draw, as two youngsters skidded to a halt in front of him. Their eyes widened at the sight of the big frontiersman looming over them in a slight crouch, clearly ready to jerk his Colts from leather and set those deadly smokepoles to work.\n\n\"Good Lord!\" Bradford exclaimed. \"MacCallister, no! Those are my children.\"\n\nJamie straightened, took his hands away from his revolvers, and willed the snarl off his face. He drew in a deep breath and smiled as he nodded to the children. \"Sorry, younkers. I didn't mean to spook you. It's not a good idea to come running up behind an old-timer like me, though. We spook easy.\"\n\nThe boy swallowed. \"That's all right, mister. We didn't mean to scare you.\"\n\nThat brought a genuine chuckle from Jamie. \"That's all right. Just don't do it again.\"\n\n\"This is a perfect example of why we don't need some gunman accompanying this wagon train,\" Bradford said from behind him. \"Guns never bring anything but trouble.\"\n\nJamie glanced over his shoulder at the reverend. \"If you ever get set upon by Indians or road agents, you'll be mighty happy to have somebody around who knows how to handle a shooting iron. Now, why don't you introduce me to these young'uns of yours?\"\n\nGrudgingly, Bradford performed the introductions. \"This is my son Alexander and my daughter Abigail.\"\n\n\"We're twins,\" Alexander told Jamie.\n\nJamie nodded. \"I can see that. How old are you?\"\n\n\"We're ten,\" Alexander replied.\n\n\"And our mama's dead,\" Abigail added.\n\nJamie looked at Bradford again. \"I'm sorry to hear that.\"\n\n\"It's true that I'm a widower,\" the preacher said. \"My dear wife, rest her soul, went to be with our Lord more than a year ago.\"\n\n\"So you've been raising these little ones by yourself since then?\"\n\n\"That's right,\" Bradford said. \"Bringing them up in the way they should be raised.\"\n\nAlexander said, \"We're not so little.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" Abigail said. \"We're just the right size for our age.\"\n\nJamie grinned down at her. \"I reckon that's true, missy. I didn't mean any offense.\"\n\n\"That's all right,\" Abigail said graciously. \"You're pretty big for your age, aren't you?\"\n\n\"I reckon you could say that.\"\n\nBradford asked, \"What do you children want? I thought you were going to play with the Harper youngsters today.\"\n\n\"We were,\" Alexander said, \"but we saw you talking to Mr. MacCallister. Billy Harper says that he's a famous gunman and Indian fighter. We wanted to get a look at him close up.\"\n\n\"Do you think the Indians will scalp us, Mr. MacCallister?\" Abigail asked.\n\n\"Don't you worry about that,\" Jamie told her. \"It's my job to see to it that nobody hurts you, Indians or anybody else.\"\n\n\"You'll take care of us, then?\"\n\n\"Well... that's really your pa's job. But I'll help him any way I can.\"\n\n\"All right,\" Alexander said, evidently satisfied by Jamie's answer. \"Let's go, Abby. Billy said he knew where there was a dead frog we can look at.\"\n\nThe two children turned and ran off. Jamie watched them go, then looked at Bradford. \"That's a couple of fine youngsters you got there. I've got quite a few children myself, and a passel of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.\"\n\n\"You and your wife must be proud of them,\" Bradford said stiffly.\n\n\"My wife's dead, too,\" Jamie said, his voice hard and flat. \"So I reckon we got that in common, Reverend. Because of that I won't take any offense about what you had to say about my friend Moses... this time.\"\n\nBradford glared, but he didn't say anything else. He just turned and stalked off.\n\nJamie shook his head as he watched Bradford walk away. He hadn't known many Jewish fellas in his life, but Moses Danzig seemed like a decent hombre and Jamie was willing to give any man the benefit of the doubt.\n\nBradford, on the other hand, rubbed him the wrong way. Jamie would try to keep things civil between them because he liked the man's kids. Bradford must not be all bad, he told himself, if he'd had a hand in raising Alexander and Abigail.\n\nJamie started toward Lamar Hendricks's wagon again, but he hadn't gone very far before he was intercepted again. Three men stepped up and barred his path. They wore belligerent expressions and planted their feet as if they didn't intend to move until they'd had their say, whatever that was.\n\nJamie stopped and studied them. The one on his left was tall and lean, but the ropy muscles of his arms and shoulders testified to his strength. His hands were clenched into knobby-knuckled fists. The one on the right was tall, but broad-shouldered and powerful-looking. He sported a bristly black beard, while the other two were clean shaven.\n\nThe man in the middle probably looked shorter than he really was, since he was standing between the two tall men. He seemed almost as broad as he was tall, and small, piggy eyes were buried in deep pits of gristle above a prominent nose in his round, sunburned face.\n\nHe was the one who spoke. \"You're MacCallister.\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\n\"The man who attacked Jeb Ralston for no good reason and broke his leg.\"\n\n\"Well, you've got that half right,\" Jamie drawled. \"Ralston started the fight. As for breaking his leg, that wasn't my intention. It just sort of happened in the heat of battle.\" Jamie's voice hardened. \"But I didn't lose any sleep over it last night.\"\n\n\"Jeb is a good man and a top-notch wagon master. He deserves better.\"\n\n\"I don't plan on wasting my time arguing with you,\" Jamie said. \"Step aside.\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" the piggish man snapped. \"We hired on with Jeb as scouts. We've worked with him before. Now we hear you figure on waltzin' in here and takin' over.\"\n\n\"Agreeing to take this train to Montana wasn't exactly my idea. But I've said that I'll do it, and that's what I plan to do, with you men or without you. It makes no never mind to me. We'll get there either way.\"\n\n\"One of us should've got that job, blast it! It's not right that you cripple Jeb and then take his job!\"\n\n\"You've seen Ralston?\" Jamie was mildly curious about the man's condition. \"How's he doing?\"\n\n\"The sawbones says it'll be months before he can walk normal again, if he ever does. He may not ever get over what you done to him.\"\n\nJamie shrugged. \"He should've let it go after I threw him over that bar, instead of coming after me again.\" In a voice like flint, he added, \"He's lucky I didn't kill him.\"\n\n\"Mister... by the time we get through with you, you're gonna wish it was the other way around!\"\n\nAll three men attacked at the same time, charging at Jamie with fists swinging."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 14",
                "text": "That didn't surprise Jamie. He'd been able to tell as soon as the men got in his way that they were on the prod. They'd just taken a few minutes to talk themselves up into doing something about it.\n\nAt least they hadn't come after him with guns or knives. Maybe he wouldn't have to kill the stupid varmints.\n\nThat thought flashed through his brain as he planted his feet and hit the short man first, since he was the closest of the three hombres. Jamie's fist crashed into that prominent nose and flattened it. Blood spurted hotly across his knuckles. The blow rocked the man's head back and stopped him as abruptly as if he'd run into a stone wall.\n\nThe lanky man with the malletlike fists darted in quickly. Jamie didn't have time to block the punch he threw. All he could do was lean his head to the side and let the man's bony fist scrape along the side of his head. That hurt his ear a little but didn't do any real damage.\n\nJamie hooked a hard left high into the man's midsection, just under the heart. The man hunched over and his face turned a sick shade of gray. He tried to throw another punch, but it was wide and flailing.\n\nAfter dealing with the first two, Jamie couldn't hope to avoid taking a punch from the third man. His fist landed solidly against Jamie's jaw, sending him staggering to the side as his hat flew off his head. The bearded man was the biggest of the three, and he hit hard.\n\nStill on his feet, Jamie's head and eyesight were clear. He grinned at his opponent. \"That the best you got, son? Can't even put an old, old man like me on the ground?\"\n\nThat gibe had the desired result. The man roared angrily and charged. Jamie twisted out of the way, grabbed the man's shoulder, and slung him up against the nearest wagon. The man crashed headfirst into the heavy side boards and bounced off. He fell on the ground and rolled over, stunned.\n\n\"Look out, Mr. MacCallister!\" a little girl's voice cried.\n\nJamie wheeled around in time to meet another charge from the short, broad man who had recovered his wits after the painful blow that had broken his nose. Blood streamed from his nostrils, smearing the bottom half of his face and giving him a fearsome look. He threw punch after punch as he bored in at Jamie, landing some of them.\n\nThe big frontiersman shrugged off the blows, and threw a couple of his own, a left-right combination that landed on the attacker's gut and chin. Jamie would have hit him again, but a couple arms like thick cables wrapped around him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides.\n\n\"I got him, Keeler!\" a harsh voice yelled in Jamie's ear. It belonged to the tall, lanky man recovered from Jamie's initial blow. \"Teach the old codger a lesson!\"\n\nA vicious grin split the bloody face of the short, piggish Keeler. He laughed, clenched his fists, and rushed at Jamie, obviously intent on dealing out a lot of damage.\n\nJamie let him get fairly close, then lifted his right leg and planted his boot heel in Keeler's belly. The collision made Jamie's leg bend, but his muscles caught the weight and straightened his leg.\n\nThat sent Keeler flying away from him, and drove him and his lanky captor backward. The man tripped and lost his balance. When he fell, Jamie's massive form came crashing down on top of him.\n\nJamie rolled away, came up on hands and knees, and surged to his feet. All three of his opponents were still on the ground, stunned. A lot of the immigrants had gathered around to watch the battle, although he hadn't been aware of that while he was fighting. All his attention had been focused on his opponents.\n\nSome of the people looked excited, as if the brawl were a welcome break from the monotony of their journey. Others appeared to be shocked and upset by the violence.\n\nReverend Bradford stood to one side, the usual frown of disapproval on his face. Jamie picked up his hat and slapped it against his leg to get some of the dust off of it. \"What's the matter, Reverend? Fighting bother you just as much as dancing does?\"\n\nBradford snorted. \"To tell the truth, Mr. MacCallister, I didn't really expect any better of you.\"\n\nBefore Jamie could respond to that, Lamar Hendricks hurried up and demanded, \"What's going on here? Someone told me there was a fight.\"\n\n\"If you can call it that, Captain,\" one of the immigrants said. He waved a hand at the men on the ground. \"Mr. MacCallister just whipped all three of these fellows!\"\n\n\"Is that right?\" Hendricks asked Jamie.\n\n\"Seems they hold a grudge against me because of what happened to Ralston. They ran their mouths some, then jumped me.\" Jamie shrugged and nodded toward Keeler. \"Well, that fella there is really the one who did all the talking.\"\n\n\"Keeler,\" Hendricks said, making a little face as if the name tasted bad in his mouth. \"I'm not surprised. He's a hothead and too fond of drink, just like Ralston. It's no wonder they're friends. But Ralston swore these men were good scouts.\"\n\n\"Maybe they are. You can be good at your job and still be a polecat.\"\n\nHendricks frowned. \"Do you want me to discharge them? I'd assumed they would work for you the same way they were going to work for Ralston, but if there's going to be trouble between you all the way...\"\n\n\"That's up to them,\" Jamie said. \"I don't hold a grudge against any man over a little ruckus like this.\"\n\nHe didn't say it, but he reserved his grudges\u2014and his vengeance\u2014for animals like the outlaws who had murdered his wife.\n\nThe three men were groaning and moving around on the ground. Hendricks strode over to them and said sharply, \"Keeler! Holcomb! Gilworth! Get up.\"\n\nThe three men gradually climbed to their feet and shook their heads as they tried to get their wits back about them. Keeler and Holcomb, the tall, lanky one, glared murderously at Jamie, but big, bearded Gilworth looked sort of confused as he stood there shaking his head slowly.\n\n\"What's the meaning of this?\" Hendricks snapped at them. \"You had no call to attack Mr. MacCallister.\"\n\n\"Ain't you even gonna listen to our side of the story, Cap'n?\" Keeler asked in a whining tone.\n\n\"That's what I'm doing. Why did you attack our wagon master?\"\n\n\"Because he hadn't ought to be the wagon master!\" Holcomb said. \"Jeb's the rightful wagon master, and we're his scouts.\"\n\n\"Not anymore. Mr. MacCallister has the job now, and you'll work for him and take his orders.\"\n\n\"Damned if I will!\" Holcomb said.\n\n\"The same goes for me,\" Keeler rumbled in his gravelly voice.\n\n\"Then you can gather your gear and get out of here,\" Hendricks said with a curt nod. \"And since we haven't left Kansas City yet, you won't have any wages coming to you.\"\n\n\"That ain't right,\" Keeler insisted. \"It's been four days since Jeb hired us. That's four days we could've been workin' at some other job.\"\n\n\"No, it's more likely four more days you would have spent lying around whatever saloon or house of ill repute Ralston found you in. Get out of this camp or I'll summon the authorities.\"\n\nWith surly, hate-filled glares, Keeler and Holcomb stumbled off. The crowd parted to let them through. Several of the women looked repulsed by the two men.\n\nHendricks looked at the third man. \"Well, how about you, Gilworth? Do you have anything to say for yourself?\"\n\n\"Yeah, I do.\"\n\nGilworth took a step toward Jamie.\n\nThe crowd drew back a little, and a mutter of anticipation went through the group of immigrants. They expected to see more fighting.\n\nGilworth stuck out his big paw of a hand. \"Sorry, Mr. MacCallister. I went along with the others 'cause they got so worked up about what happened to Ralston, but to tell you the truth I was never that fond of the fella myself.\" He grinned sheepishly. \"I reckon I like a good fight, too. From what I'd heard of you, I figured we'd get one.\" He grunted. \"Never figured you'd whip all of us, though. I mean, one\u2014\"\n\n\"One old man?\" Jamie finished for him when Gilworth stopped short in his sentence.\n\n\"Well, yeah. No offense, but you ain't no spring chicken, that's for sure.\"\n\nJamie snorted. \"I'm not ready to be put out to pasture yet, either.\" Gilworth's hand was still out, so he gripped it. \"Jamie Ian MacCallister.\"\n\n\"Hector Gilworth. I've heard a heap about you, Mr. MacCallister, and I'm mighty pleased to make your acquaintance.\"\n\n\"You want to scout for this wagon train and work with me, Hector?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I'd plumb admire to,\" Hector said with a decisive nod. \"That is, if you'll have me.\"\n\n\"You don't make a habit of getting liquored up, do you?\"\n\n\"Not when there's a job to do. Don't get me wrong, Mr. MacCallister. I like to blow off steam just as much as the next man, but I reckon there's a time and place for it.\"\n\nJamie clapped a hand on Hector's shoulder. \"You'll do\u2014at least until you give me reason to think otherwise. And you can call me Jamie.\"\n\n\"That'd be an honor. I've heard a whole heap about you, Mister\u2014I mean, Jamie. I won't let you down.\"\n\nJamie looked over at Hendricks. \"There's still a problem. We'll need a couple more scouts, since those two quit.\"\n\n\"If you know anyone...\" the captain began.\n\n\"That's just it, I don't,\" Jamie said. \"I didn't know a soul in Kansas City until yesterday, and I've been a mite too busy to make any acquaintances except here among your bunch.\"\n\nHector said, \"I might know somebody.\"\n\n\"Friend of yours?\"\n\n\"My cousin. Name of Jess Neville. I don't think he ever worked as a wagon train scout before, but he's been a fur trapper and a prospector and a bullwhacker and done plenty of wanderin' around. Reckon he probably knows the ground between here and Montana about as well as anybody else would.\"\n\n\"He's here in Kansas City?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, and he's at loose ends. He just quit workin' for a freight outfit not long ago.\"\n\nHendricks said, \"He wasn't fired for drinking or causing trouble, was he?\"\n\n\"No, Jess is the one who up and quit. He never did like stayin' in the same job for too long. When we were growin' up, folks said he was shiftless, but I think it's more like he gets tired of doin' the same thing.\"\n\nJamie said, \"If you can hunt him up, I'll talk to him. If I like the look of him, we'll give him a job, but he'll have to stay with it until the wagons get where they're going. He can't just go wandering off if he feels like it.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I'll make sure he understands that.\"\n\n\"Even if you hire this fellow Neville, you'll still need at least one more scout, won't you?\" Hendricks asked.\n\n\"That's right,\" Jamie said with a nod. \"Hector, let's go see that cousin of yours, and while we're at it we'll see if we can't come up with somebody else.\"\n\n\"I really appreciate you puttin' so much faith in me, Jamie.\"\n\nJamie grinned. \"I like to think I can size up a fella's character pretty good, especially after I've swapped punches with him. You'll do. At least, like I said, until you prove different.\"\n\n\"You don't have to worry about that,\" Hector said fervently. \"If you want to go hunt up Jess right now, I know where he's been stayin'.\"\n\nAs the two big men, one young and one old, were leaving the wagon camp, they passed a group of children who stopped playing to gaze up at them in awe-struck admiration. Jamie spotted the Bradford twins among them and paused to say, \"Abigail, that was you who called out that warning to me a little while ago, wasn't it?\"\n\nThe little girl looked embarrassed and didn't say anything, but Alexander replied, \"It sure was, Mr. MacCallister. She just beat me to it, though. I was about to yell for you to look out when Abby did it.\"\n\n\"I appreciate the two of you looking out for me,\" Jamie told them. \"How about we make the two of you honorary wagon train scouts?\"\n\nTheir faces lit up with grins. Abigail said, \"You mean it, Mr. MacCallister?\"\n\n\"I'm not in the habit of saying things I don't mean,\" Jamie said. \"But that's a serious job I'm giving you. You've got to keep your eyes open for trouble, and if you see anything that doesn't look right, you come find me or Mr. Gilworth or Captain Hendricks and tell us about it, all right?\"\n\nThey nodded solemnly in unison, and Alexander promised, \"We sure will.\"\n\nJamie lifted a hand in farewell, and he and Hector walked on.\n\nHector said, \"Those are cute kids. The preacher's young'uns, ain't they?\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\nHector made a face. \"I probably shouldn't say it, but I'm not all that fond of their pa.\"\n\n\"Can't argue with you there,\" Jamie said. \"Come on, let's find your cousin.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 15",
                "text": "Hector Gilworth led Jamie to a rundown hotel on one of the side streets. \"I know the place has seen better days, but I reckon it's all Jess can afford right now.\"\n\n\"There's no shame in a man being poor,\" Jamie said. \"There's been plenty of times in my life when I didn't have two pennies to rub together.\" He didn't mention that these days he had more than two pennies to his name... a lot more. This was one of many situations in which he'd found himself where how rich he was didn't matter one blasted bit.\n\nThey went up stairs that sagged a little under their weight and down a dusty hallway to the door of Jess Neville's room. Hector banged a fist against the panel and called, \"Jess? You awake in there? It's me, Hector.\"\n\nJamie heard shuffling footsteps on the other side of the door. It swung open, and a man slightly below medium height peered out at them with bleary, confused eyes. He had thinning brown hair, a couple day's worth of beard stubble, and looked thoroughly unimpressive.\n\nJamie didn't smell liquor, though, so he was willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt and figure that his bleary eyes came from being sleepy, not hungover.\n\n\"What time is it, Hector?\" the man asked as he dragged fingers through his hair.\n\n\"Sun's been up a couple hours,\" Hector replied.\n\n\"Well, the sun may have been up, but I ain't.\" The man frowned at Jamie. \"Who's this big old galoot?\"\n\n\"Jamie Ian MacCallister,\" Jamie introduced himself.\n\nVague recognition stirred in Jess Neville's eyes. \"I think I heard of you, mister. Can't rightly recollect what it was that I heard, though.\"\n\n\"He's the new wagon master for that bunch of immigrants I signed on with,\" Hector explained.\n\n\"What happened to that fella Ralston?\" Neville asked.\n\nHector pointed at Jamie with a thumb and grinned. \"Mr. MacCallister\u2014I mean, Jamie\u2014happened to him. Ralston started a ruckus with him in the Bella Royale, and he wound up with a broken leg.\"\n\n\"Ralston did?\"\n\n\"Yep. You don't see Mr. MacCallister hobblin' around with a broken leg, do you?\"\n\nNeville shook his head. \"This early in the mornin', I don't trust my eyes not to be playin' tricks on me, so it don't matter what I see. What is it you want?\"\n\n\"The other two fellas who were supposed to be scouts up and quit because of what happened to Ralston. I thought maybe you'd be interested in one of the jobs.\"\n\nNeville hadn't invited them into the room, but that was all right with Jamie. He could look past the man's shoulder and see that the room was sparsely furnished with a chair, a rickety table, and a bed with grimy sheets that were so tangled they resembled a rat's nest.\n\nNeville put a hand on the door like he was about to shut it and said, \"Dadgum it, Hector. You know I just quit that bullwhackin' job a few days ago. I ain't ready to go back to work yet.\"\n\n\"You mean you ain't completely out of money yet.\"\n\n\"Same thing, ain't it?\" Neville tried to swing the door closed.\n\nHector wedged a big, booted foot between the door and the jamb. \"Here's the thing, Jess. We're in sort of a bind. We need a couple scouts, and like I told Jamie, you know the country.\"\n\nNeville frowned. \"Where is it those pilgrims are goin' again?\"\n\n\"Montana Territory. A place called Eagle Valley.\"\n\nNeville scratched at his patchy beard as his forehead furrowed in thought. \"I think I've heard of it. Wouldn't rightly know how to find it, though.\"\n\n\"Cap'n Hendricks has a map. He's the fella the rest of the immigrants elected to be in charge.\"\n\n\"I know where it is,\" Jamie said. \"I can get the wagons there. It'd be a lot easier with some good help to scout out the trail, though.\"\n\n\"Well, you could get an argument about whether or not I fall into that category, mister.\" Neville squinted up at him. \"Did this big ol' grizzly of a Gilworth tell you that I'm just about the laziest human bein' on the face of the earth.\"\n\nJamie glanced at Hector and said dryly, \"No, I don't reckon he mentioned that.\"\n\n\"Well, he should have. It ain't that I don't do my work. I do, and you can ask anybody I ever drew wages from about that. But when I ain't workin', I'm not of a mind to do much of anything except take it easy. That seems to rub most people the wrong way.\"\n\n\"You do your job and I don't care how much you sleep,\" Jamie declared. \"That's not any of my business.\"\n\n\"Now, see, that's a reasonable attitude. Most folks I work for, they just ain't reasonable.\"\n\n\"I'm not most folks,\" Jamie said flatly.\n\nNeville glanced up and down Jamie's tall, rugged frame. \"Yeah, I can see that.\"\n\n\"You want the job or not?\" Hector asked.\n\n\"Now, don't rush me, don't rush me. That's another problem folks have these days. They're in too much of an all-fired hurry all the time. It don't hurt to just slow down and ponder things for awhile 'fore you make up your mind.\"\n\n\"The wagon train's leaving at first light tomorrow,\" Jamie said. \"We don't have any time to waste. If you're not coming with us, Neville, we'll need to find somebody else.\"\n\n\"Well, if you're gonna put it that way... I promised my aunt Sadie, his mama\u2014Neville nodded at his cousin\u2014that I'd look after ol' Hector here. He's big as an ox, but he ain't much more'n a babe in the woods, you know what I mean?\"\n\n\"Blast it,\" Hector said. \"I been around. You make it sound like I'm some sort of tenderfoot, Jess.\"\n\nNeville ignored that outburst and went on. \"I reckon I can come along. Can't stay here in Kansas City, that's for sure. If I did, I might have to take a job clerkin' in a store or something else that's inside. I can't hardly abide havin' walls and a roof around me all the time.\"\n\n\"You won't find many walls and roofs on the prairie between here and Montana Territory,\" Jamie said.\n\nNeville grinned. \"No, that's sure enough true.\" He put out his hand. \"Count me in, I reckon, Mr. MacCallister.\"\n\n\"Call me Jamie.\" As they shook hands, Jamie went on. \"I don't suppose you know somebody else we can hire as a scout.\"\n\n\"I surely don't. Sorry.\"\n\nHector said, \"Get your possibles together and come on over to the wagon camp today. You can stay there tonight. Might as well save the cost of this hotel room, and that way there's no chance you'll sleep too late.\"\n\n\"Leavin' at first light, you said?\" Neville winced a little. \"I sure do hate to hear that, but I'll be there. And my word is good.\"\n\nAs they were headed back downstairs, Jamie asked Hector, \"Is he telling the truth about his word being good?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Jess has got his faults, no doubt about that, but he's honest as the day is long. If he tells you he'll do something, you can count on it.\" With a note of worry in his voice, Hector asked, \"What are we gonna do about findin' another scout?\"\n\n\"We'll just have to look around, maybe check in some of the saloons and hash houses. If we don't find anybody\"\u2014Jamie's brawny shoulders rose and fell\u2014\"I reckon we'll start out with three scouts, counting me, instead of four. Maybe somebody who's already part of the wagon train would take the job. Some youngster, eighteen or so, who's traveling with his folks.\"\n\n\"Scoutin' on the plains is pretty dangerous for somebody who's inexperienced.\"\n\n\"Setting out for Montana at this time of year is pretty dangerous for everybody involved,\" Jamie pointed out. \"They all seem bound and determined to do it, though.\"\n\nThey left the hotel and turned back toward the main business district. Jamie figured they would have a look in the Bella Royale first. It was early in the day, but there might be somebody already in there who'd be interested in a scouting job.\n\nAs they passed the variety theater, he glanced at two young men who were looking at the posters for the show that was starting that night. They were dressed like cowboys, which meant they probably had experience with long days in the saddle, and he thought about asking them if they'd like to sign on with the wagon train.\n\nThey turned away before he could say anything, though, and he didn't go after them. There was bound to be somebody else in Kansas City who wanted to go to Montana."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 16",
                "text": "Now that the gang was in Kansas City, Bodie thought Edwin Swint would go ahead and divide up the loot from the train robbery, as he had said he would. But Swint seemed to be in no hurry to do so.\n\nThe money, in the form of twenty dollar gold pieces, had been packed in a chest in the express car. He had split the loot between five sets of saddlebags so it could be carried away. All those saddlebags were safely cached in Swint's hotel room, and a couple men guarded them around the clock, everybody in the gang taking a turn at that duty.\n\nThe night before, Swint had kicked the guards out of the room when he came back to the hotel from the Bella Royale with one of the soiled doves who worked there. He'd told the guards to stay right outside in the hall, just to make sure nobody bothered him and his lady friend... and the money.\n\nBodie heard about that from his friend Three-Finger Jake Lucas, who'd heard the story from one of the guards Swint had booted out of the room. The two young men were sitting at a table in a nearby caf\u00e9 over a late breakfast.\n\nJake sipped his coffee. \"I'm startin' to wonder if the boss plans to double-cross us and just keep all that loot for himself. Otherwise why don't he go ahead and divvy it up like he promised he would?\"\n\n\"I guess he's got his reasons,\" Bodie said.\n\nJake grunted skeptically. \"Yeah, like bein' a dang crook. Think about who you're talkin' about, Bodie. A man like Eldon Swint can't be trusted.\" Jake's eyes narrowed in thought. \"If a man was smart, he might try to get his hands on those double eagles himself and not wait for somebody to just hand him his share.\"\n\nBodie frowned and put down his coffee cup. \"You'd better not be thinking what it sounds like, Jake. Swint would kill anybody who tried that. We've talked about things like this before.\"\n\n\"Yeah, and I haven't changed my way of thinkin' about it, either.\" An easy grin flashed across Jake's face. \"But shoot, don't worry about it. I'm just talkin', is all. I'd never go against a pard.\" He paused. \"The thing of it is, Eldon ain't really a pard. He's the boss.\"\n\nBodie changed the subject. \"Are you going to that show tonight?\"\n\n\"To see some singin' and dancin' girls? You bet I am! We've been out on the trail long enough I'm ready for some entertainment.\"\n\nThey had stopped by the theater on their way to the caf\u00e9. The place was closed, but Bodie and Jake had stood on the boardwalk in front of the building, looking at the posters tacked up next to the ticket window. The posters had drawings of the members of the troupe on them, and Bodie had been particularly intrigued by one of them, a young woman with a mass of dark, curly hair.\n\nMiss Savannah McCoy, her name was, according to the poster.\n\nHe didn't know which parts she played in the show, but he was looking forward to finding out. Thinking about her and the performance they were going to watch that night made him forget all about the fortune in double eagles for the time being.\n\nEven though she had been a member of the troupe for more than a year, Savannah still got nervous before each performance. The butterflies, as Cyrus called them, weren't as bad as they had been starting out, but they were still potent enough to force her to stand backstage with one hand pressed to her stomach while she made herself take deep breaths. She closed her eyes and imagined how the night's performance would go, letting it all play out inside her head.\n\nPerfectly, of course.\n\nAfter awhile, the routine began to calm her. She was ready.\n\nWhen Dollie bustled past and smiled at her, Savannah was able to return that smile and mean it.\n\n\"I just snuck a glance at the crowd,\" Dollie said. \"Looks like we're going to have a full house.\"\n\n\"That's good,\" Savannah said.\n\n\"You bet it is. We need to do well here.\"\n\nSavannah thought she heard a trace of worry in the older woman's voice. The troupe hadn't been doing as well financially in recent months. Quite a few of the performances in various cities hadn't sold out, and it seemed like the expenses of traveling and staying on the road just kept going up. She didn't think the troupe was in any real danger of folding, but that unwelcome possibility lurked in the back of her head, anyway. If that ever happened, she didn't know what she would do.\n\nShe had a little money saved up; she could always return to her home in Georgia. But if she did that, it would mean admitting defeat. Worse, there was the chance that her father wouldn't allow her to come home. For all she knew, William Thorpe might have disowned her. She hadn't had any contact with him in more than a year.\n\nWith a little shake of her head, Savannah put all that out of her thoughts. Concentrate on the thing that was at hand, she told herself, and that was tonight's show. That was the only thing she could do anything about at the moment.\n\nA minute later, Cyrus parted the curtain and walked out on stage to loud applause, dressed in his Shakespearean costume. He swept his plumed hat off his head and gave the audience his usual welcoming spiel, then launched into Hamlet's famous \"To be or not to be\" speech.\n\nThe crowd listened politely, but as she waited behind the curtain Savannah could hear them growing slightly restless toward the end. She knew that some of the men in the audience had come mostly for the singing and dancing, and to look at her and the other female members of the troupe.\n\nCyrus concluded the famous passage and said, \"Now, ladies and gentlemen, a beautiful rendition of one of your favorite melodies by our lovely songbird of the South, Miss Savannah McCoy!\"\n\nSavannah stepped through the curtains and out onto the stage. She smiled as she walked forward, letting her eyes sweep over the audience. As she began to sing Stephen Foster's \"Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,\" her gaze settled on a man about four rows back, in the middle of the theater.\n\nShe had learned that her performances were always better when she pretended to be singing directly to a member of the audience. It was largely a matter of luck who that person happened to be. As long as they were in a good place, that was all Savannah cared about.\n\nThe person on the receiving end of her song happened to be a young man who looked a few years older than her, with dark hair and a hard-planed face. He was dressed like a cowboy, as was the young man who sat beside him. The other man was more handsome, but there was something compelling about the man Savannah had selected.\n\nSinging to him was no trouble at all."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 17",
                "text": "\"I swear, she's lookin' right at you.\" Three-Finger Jake dug an enthusiastic elbow into Bodie's ribs. \"She must be sweet on you!\"\n\n\"I don't even know the girl,\" Bodie protested. \"I mean, I know she's Miss Savannah McCoy, but that's all.\"\n\n\"That's what the fella said when he introduced her.\"\n\n\"I would have known it anyway. I would have recognized her from her picture on the poster.\"\n\nIt was true. The artist had done a good job of capturing Savannah McCoy's likeness. If anything, she was even prettier in person than she was on the poster, although before he saw her Bodie wouldn't have thought that was possible.\n\nShe sang beautifully, too. Cyrus O'Hanlon had been right to describe her as a songbird. Savannah was lovely and talented, and if Bodie hadn't known better, he might have said that he was smitten with her.\n\nBut that was loco, of course. He could tell just by looking at her that she was a real lady, despite the immoral reputation that actresses and entertainers sometimes had. She wouldn't ever have anything to do with a lawless ruffian like him. For all he knew, she might already be married to one of the other members of the troupe.\n\nJust sit back and enjoy the show, he told himself, and stop thinking about things that could never be.\n\nThe show was certainly enjoyable. After Savannah's song, a couple jugglers came out and entertained the crowd for several minutes while the curtains were closed behind them. Bodie heard people moving around back there and figured they were getting ready for something else.\n\nHe was right. When the jugglers finished and the curtains were pulled back, several fellows with what looked like bed sheets wrapped around them were standing on steps with white-painted columns at the top. One of them stood a little apart from the others and started talking, but as he did so, several of his companions took out knives and began to sneak up behind him with evil expressions on their faces.\n\n\"What the Sam Hill!\" Jake exclaimed. \"They're gonna stab that hombre like they was red Injuns!\" He reached for the gun on his hip. \"I'll stop 'em!\"\n\nBodie's hand shot out and closed around Jake's wrist before Jake could draw the revolver. \"Hold on!\" Bodie whispered. \"I think it's all part of the show.\"\n\nNot everybody in the audience figured that out as quickly as he did. Several men shouted warnings, which the sheet-wrapped figures on stage ignored. A nervous tingle ran through Bodie's brain. What if he was wrong? What if they were about to commit cold-blooded murder right there on the stage?\n\nThat was loco, of course, and a moment later he saw proof of that as the men with knives pretended to stab the fellow who was spouting words. They didn't even do a very good job of pretending, but it was enough to make the audience hoot and holler in enthusiasm. The supposed victim of the assault staggered around and made a real production of dying.\n\nOnce he had slumped onto the steps and wasn't moving anymore\u2014except for a twitch every now and then that Bodie could see\u2014Cyrus O'Hanlon came out again, dressed in a sheet like the others, and started making another long speech about burying Caesar. Bodie couldn't follow all of what O'Hanlon said, but the whole thing was stirring, no doubt about that.\n\nO'Hanlon finally shut up and the curtains closed again. An older but still attractive woman came out and sang a song. She was good, Bodie thought, but not as good as Savannah. Then she danced with a young man while another man with a walrus mustache played a piano at the edge of the stage. She was pretty light on her feet, despite her hefty build.\n\nAfter that, everything started to run together a little for Bodie. There were more dramatic scenes, more singing, more dancing, even some acrobats, one of whom was a gal in a scandalously scanty costume that exposed her knees. But he was waiting to see Savannah McCoy again, and when she didn't appear he began to get a little impatient.\n\nCyrus O'Hanlon came out in that silly hat with the feather on it again. \"Finally, ladies and gentlemen, to conclude our performance tonight we are proud to present one of the most famous scenes in the illustrious history of the theater... the balcony scene from the great tragedy Romeo and Juliet, as written by Mr. William Shakespeare. It will be performed by yours truly and Miss Savannah McCoy.\"\n\nBodie sat up straighter in his seat and thought that it was about time.\n\nJake elbowed him again. \"She's the only one you like, ain't she?\"\n\n\"Shhh,\" Bodie said. \"They're about to start.\"\n\nThe curtains parted and went back. Some fake bushes had been placed around the stage to represent a garden of sorts, and to one side rose a wall with a window in it. Bodie edged forward in his seat as Savannah appeared in that window and leaned through it so the audience could get a good look at her.\n\nShe was worth looking at, wearing a thin gown that was cut almost sinfully low in front. Bodie felt vaguely embarrassed for her having to wear such a getup, but at the same time he couldn't take his eyes off her. She was so attractive that just looking at her felt almost like a punch in the gut to him.\n\nCyrus O'Hanlon strode onto the stage, wandered through the fake bushes toward the wall, and stopped to throw out an arm and bellow, \"Hark! What light through yonder window breaks? 'Tis the east, and Juliet is the sun!\"\n\nSavannah was as bright and pretty as the sun, that was for sure, Bodie thought. He could have sat there and watched her all night, but the scene was over all too quickly as far as he was concerned. The curtains swept across the stage again. Bodie sighed. He didn't want the performance to be finished, but there was nothing he could do about it.\n\nThe whole troupe came out for a curtain call as the audience cheered, whistled, and applauded, so he got to see Savannah again, if only for a moment.\n\nFinally, the audience began to file out of the theater.\n\nAs they left, Jake said, \"Now, ain't you glad we came to Kansas City? If we hadn't, you never would've seen that brown-haired gal. You were practically droolin' over her all night like a dog with a big ol' soup bone.\"\n\n\"No, I wasn't,\" Bodie said. \"I think she's pretty, but\u2014\"\n\nJake's snort interrupted him. \"I reckon you'd marry her if you got the chance\u2014which is a durned fool way to feel, if you ask me. You know what actresses are like. You might as well marry a\u2014\"\n\nJake stopped short as Bodie stiffened. He had seen enough gunfights to recognize Bodie's stance as that of a man who was ready to hook and draw.\n\n\"Sorry,\" Jake muttered quickly. \"I reckon I was all wrong about Miss McCoy.\"\n\n\"I reckon you were,\" Bodie snapped. He forced himself to relax. Jake Lucas was his only real friend in the gang, and he didn't want to lose that friendship. He put a smile on his face, even though he was still a little irritated.\n\nAs they reached the sidewalk in front of the theater, a very well-dressed man with dark blond hair under his black hat and a neatly trimmed mustache of the same shade bumped hard into Bodie's shoulder. \"Watch where you're going, cowboy,\" the man snapped as he brushed past.\n\n\"Hey,\" Jake said angrily. \"You're the one who ran into my pard, mister.\"\n\nA couple of larger men in cheap suits were trailing the well-dressed gent. Bodie noticed them and realized they were probably bodyguards. Bulges under their coats told him they were carrying guns.\n\nThe blond dandy glared at Jake and demanded, \"What did you say, Tex?\"\n\n\"I'm not from Texas,\" Jake shot back as he squared himself up for trouble.\n\nBodie put a hand on his friend's arm. \"Let it go, Jake.\"\n\n\"But this galoot ran into you and then acted like it was your fault,\" Jake protested.\n\n\"It's not worth causing a ruckus over.\" Bodie steered Jake away from the dandy.\n\nThe man gave them a sneering smile as they turned to leave. \"That's right. I'm an important man in this city. Trifle with me and you'll regret it.\"\n\nJake looked back over his shoulder and said hotly, \"Oh, yeah? Well, you'll regret\u2014\"\n\n\"Come on.\" Bodie lowered his voice and added, \"We don't want the law talking to us, now do we?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Jake said in sudden understanding. \"No, I reckon we don't.\"\n\nBodie glanced back at the dandy. The man's arrogant attitude rubbed him the wrong way. If it came down to a fight, Bodie figured he and Jake could have held their own against the bodyguards, whether with fists or guns.\n\nBut that would have almost certainly landed them in trouble with the law, and they sure didn't need that. If they were arrested, somebody might figure out they were part of the gang that had held up the train in Kansas. At the very least, Eldon Swint might take it as an excuse to split their shares among the rest of the outlaws... or just keep that money for himself.\n\nBodie wouldn't forget the blond man's face, though. Maybe one of these days their trails would cross again under different circumstances. If that ever happened, Bodie figured he would give Mr. High-and-Mighty a little lesson in manners. If that meant gunplay, then so be it.\n\nIn the meantime, he told himself to forget about that hombre and think about Savannah. He just wished there was some way he could let her know how much he had enjoyed her performance."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 18",
                "text": "Since there were only a few female members of the troupe, they used the same dressing room, with the exception of Dollie who shared a dressing room with Cyrus. Savannah was sitting at one of the tables in front of a mirror, removing the makeup she had worn as Juliet, when Cyrus knocked on the door and poked his head into the room.\n\n\"Ah, ladies, you're all decently attired,\" he said.\n\nAs usual, Savannah couldn't tell if he was relieved or faintly disappointed by that.\n\n\"Savannah, a word with you, my dear?\"\n\n\"Of course. Was there something wrong with my performance tonight?\"\n\nCyrus shook his head. \"Not at all, not at all. Quite the contrary, in fact. There's a gentleman out here who was in the audience. He wishes to convey his compliments to you in person.\"\n\nSavannah frowned slightly. That was unusual but not unheard of. Sometimes members of the audience\u2014usually middle-aged or even older men\u2014came backstage and tried to approach the women in the troupe, probably because of the reputation that stubbornly clung to actresses.\n\nCyrus fended them off most of the time, but now and then\u2014when he judged that the would-be suitor had plenty of money and might be persuaded to make a donation to the troupe\u2014he allowed them to talk to the women.\n\nThat bothered Savannah, but she recognized it as a part of her job. She had to be nice to the people who bought tickets. That didn't mean she had to go beyond politeness and surface friendliness, and she never did. \"Would you like for me to talk to this man, Cyrus?\"\n\n\"I think it would be a good thing if you did. It shouldn't be too terrible an ordeal. He's rather attractive, you know, and much younger than some of your, ah, admirers.\"\n\nShe supposed it wouldn't hurt anything. She nodded. \"All right.\"\n\n\"The rest of you ladies, let's give Savannah some privacy, shall we?\" Cyrus ushered the other female performers out of the dressing room, leaving Savannah alone.\n\nShe picked up a dressing gown and shrugged into it. She was still wearing the costume she wore as Juliet, which was daring enough onstage. In close quarters, it definitely would be immodest.\n\nA moment later a man appeared in the open doorway, holding his hat in one hand. Savannah could tell that the suit he wore was very expensive. He had the unmistakable look of wealth about him, from his carefully barbered dark blond hair to the soft hands to the shoes on his feet that probably cost as much as Cyrus paid her in a year.\n\n\"Miss McCoy,\" he said, his lips smiling under the neatly trimmed mustache, \"I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoyed your performance tonight.\"\n\nShe returned the smile. \"I believe you just did, Mister...?\"\n\n\"Kane. Gideon Kane.\"\n\nHe moved closer to her and put out his hand, and without thinking she reached to take it. Instead of shaking hands with her, he turned her hand, held it, lifted it, and pressed his lips to the back of it.\n\nShe had played scenes where a man kissed the back of a woman's hand, but she had never seen it happen in real life, only on the stage of a theater. Certainly she had never had it happen to her. She wasn't sure whether to laugh or be touched by the melodramatic gesture.\n\nShe settled for saying, \"I'm Savannah McCoy.\"\n\n\"I know. Just as I knew when I saw your picture on that poster outside the theater that I had to attend tonight's performance. Kansas City is a rather squalid place, Miss McCoy. I'm not sure a sight as lovely as you has ever been seen here before.\"\n\nSavannah forced a laugh. \"You're flattering me, Mr. Kane\u2014\"\n\n\"Call me Gideon,\" he suggested. \"It's not flattery when it's true.\"\n\nShe tried to change the subject. \"You're in business here?\"\n\nHis smile twisted a little. \"My family is. We own stockyards and slaughterhouses and have interests in the railroad as well as other enterprises. All quite successful, of course. None of it particularly interests me, though. I'm more fond of the arts, such as the theater.\"\n\n\"It's my calling,\" Savannah said.\n\n\"Anyone can tell that by watching you perform. You bring such life and passion to your roles, and you sing wonderfully. I plan to be in the audience every night while your troupe is in Kansas City.\"\n\n\"Oh, you wouldn't want to do that. The show doesn't really change. Of course, there are minor differences in every performance, but really, if you've seen one of them\u2014\"\n\n\"Seeing you once is not nearly enough,\" he broke in. \"I don't care about the rest of the performance. I want to see you. Every night.\"\n\nShe was starting to get uncomfortable. She had been looked at by men often enough to recognize lust when she saw it. In Gideon Kane's eyes it bordered on obsession. It was time to ease him out of the dressing room....\n\nUsing the heel of one of those expensive shoes, he closed the door behind him."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 19",
                "text": "Savannah felt a tingle of alarm as the latch clicked shut. \"Please, Mr. Kane\u2014\"\n\n\"Gideon.\"\n\n\"Please, Mr. Kane,\" she repeated, \"it's inappropriate enough for the two of us to be alone in here. To have the door closed is simply unacceptable.\"\n\n\"Not to me. However, I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I'll step out into the hall if you'll agree to have a late supper with me.\"\n\n\"I didn't know any restaurants were still open.\"\n\nKane shook his head. \"I'm not talking about going to a restaurant. My carriage is right outside the theater. We'll go to my house. I've already sent one of my men with word for my cook to prepare a meal\u2014\"\n\nSavannah was shaking her head. \"No, I simply couldn't do that. It wouldn't be proper. We just met tonight.\"\n\nShe saw the fingers of his hand holding the hat tighten a little on the expensive material.\n\n\"When I see something I want, it doesn't take me long to make up my mind to have it. Besides, I'm willing to purchase a large block of tickets for every performance, and from the way O'Hanlon talked when I asked him about you, the troupe can use the money. You won't have to do anything... unpleasant... to insure those sales, Miss McCoy, I can promise you that. Actually, I think you'd thoroughly enjoy spending time with me.\"\n\nHe stepped closer to her, and if his blatant lechery hadn't been enough to start her heart pounding with anger and fear already, that would have done it.\n\nOnce again the wild thought that this was like something out of a melodrama crossed her mind as she said coldly, \"I think you've mistaken the sort of woman I am, Mr. Kane.\"\n\nHe smiled. \"I doubt it. What can I do to get you to call me Gideon?\"\n\n\"Nothing. The only thing I want you to do for me is to leave this dressing room.\"\n\n\"Not until I get what I came here for. At least part of it, anyway.\" He tossed the hat onto the dressing table and reached for her. \"A kiss, at the very least\u2014\"\n\nSavannah had dealt with persistent, unwanted suitors before. She supposed every woman in the theater had at one time or another. Somehow, though, she sensed that Gideon Kane was more dangerous than most.\n\nShe didn't hesitate. She still wore Juliet's slippers, but that didn't stop her from kicking him in the groin.\n\nThe blow seemed to take him completely by surprise. As her heel sunk into his flesh, he grunted in pain and bent forward. His hand shot out, grabbed the dressing gown, and ripped it open. Some of the costume came with it, exposing even more of Savannah's skin. She jerked back and pulled free from him, and while he was off-balance she gave him a hard shove that sent him falling back toward the door. He landed against it with a heavy thud.\n\nClose by in the backstage corridor, Cyrus called worriedly, \"Savannah, are you all right?\"\n\nKane held one hand to his painful nether region while the other pressed against the wall to hold himself up. He glared at her and grated, \"You little bi....\"\n\n\"Cyrus!\" Savannah called.\n\nHe flung the door open and stood in the doorway with several members of the troupe crowding up behind him, including a couple burly stagehands. \"Are you all right, lass?\" Still wearing Romeo's costume, he put his hand on the hilt of the prop sword that hung sheathed at his waist.\n\n\"I'm fine,\" Savannah said as she pulled her garments closed again, calling on her skills as an actress to sound a lot more calm than she really felt. \"Mr. Kane was just leaving.\"\n\nKane said, \"You'll\u2014\"\n\n\"Regret this?\" Savannah interrupted him. She shook her head. \"I don't think so.\"\n\n\"Good night, Mr. Kane,\" Cyrus said. \"The time for backstage visits is over.\"\n\nKane glared murderously at both of them, then straightened with a visible effort and stepped unsteadily toward the door. Cyrus moved aside to let him out.\n\n\"Oh, wait!\" Savannah picked up Kane's hat from the dressing table, and when he turned back toward her, she tossed it to him. \"You wouldn't want to forget your hat.\"\n\nHe caught it awkwardly, and his glare grew even darker. He put the hat on and moved slowly past the members of the troupe in the hallway, all of whom frowned menacingly at him.\n\nDollie looked like she would have cheerfully taken a knife to him and carved him up like a turkey.\n\nWhen Kane was gone, Savannah said, \"I'm sorry about the tickets he promised to buy, Cyrus. I know the troupe could use the money.\"\n\nBefore Cyrus could reply, Dollie said briskly, \"Nonsense. We don't need the money of scoundrels like that. Did he hurt you, dear?\"\n\n\"He never laid a finger on me,\" Savannah replied honestly. \"Well, except when he kissed the back of my hand.\"\n\n\"He what?\" Cyrus exclaimed. \"What does he think this is, some French farce?\"\n\n\"Never mind about that.\" Dollie took her husband's arm. \"Come on, everyone. Let's let Savannah get dressed. We'll see you back at the hotel, dear.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Savannah said with a nod.\n\nThe others left, and she closed the door and quickly got dressed in her regular clothes. As she did, she worried about what Gideon Kane might do. He hadn't struck her as the sort of man to just forget about what had happened tonight.\n\nEven though she had no proof that he was as rich and powerful as he'd said, she didn't doubt it for a second. It took real wealth for a man to display the sort of cruel, careless arrogance that he had. As usual, when the will of someone like that was thwarted, he had started to bluster and threaten.\n\nIt was possible that Kane might go to the owner of the theater and pressure the man to cancel the rest of the troupe's engagement and refuse to pay them. She had seen men employ tactics like that before when they held a grudge.\n\nActually, it was the sort of thing her father might have done if someone angered him, although William Thorpe would never make improper advances toward a young woman.\n\nSavannah stepped out of the dressing room and looked for the others. She didn't see anyone backstage, so she supposed they were waiting for her out front.\n\nBut Dollie had said they would see her back at the hotel, Savannah recalled. They could have gone on, figuring that she would catch up with them. The hotel was less than two blocks away, after all.\n\nEven so, she felt nervous as she walked through the darkened theater. Her footsteps echoed from the cavernous ceiling. Lamps still burned here and there, casting enough light for her to see her way without any trouble.\n\nAn old man was sweeping up. He nodded to her as she passed. \"Good night, miss.\"\n\n\"Good night,\" Savannah told him. For a second she thought about asking him if he would walk her back to the hotel, but then she discarded that idea. That wasn't his job, and she didn't want to inconvenience him.\n\nShe went out through the theater lobby, past the box office, and stepped onto the sidewalk. The street was fairly dark, but again, she could see well enough to get where she was going. From where she stood, the hotel was even visible a short distance up the street, a warm yellow glow coming from its lobby windows.\n\nThere was also enough light for her to see the carriage that suddenly pulled up beside her and stopped on the cobblestone street. Two men, large and threatening in the gloom, stepped out of it, and one of them rumbled, \"You're comin' with us, Miss McCoy.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 20",
                "text": "Bodie couldn't get Savannah McCoy out of his mind. From the theater he and Jake had gone to the Bella Royale for a drink and to see if any of the other boys were there. The saloon had become the gang's unofficial headquarters while they were in Kansas City waiting for Eldon Swint to divide the loot.\n\nBodie nursed a beer at a table with Jake and a couple other outlaws, Clete Mahaffey and Dave Pearsoll. They were playing a desultory game of poker, but Bodie couldn't concentrate on his cards. His thoughts kept straying to Savannah.\n\nJake grinned as he raked in another pot after winning a hand from Bodie. \"You know why our pard here keeps losin', boys?\" Without waiting for an answer he went on. \"It's because he's distracted. He's too busy moonin' over a gal to think about playin' poker.\"\n\n\"What gal's that?\" Mahaffey asked. \"That redheaded soiled dove called Dora who works here, maybe? She knows some tricks that'd sure keep a man's mind occupied... among other things.\" He guffawed with laughter.\n\nPearsoll joined in, and Bodie wished Jake would just shut up about the subject.\n\nBut Jake wasn't going to do that. \"Naw, it's an actress we saw at the theater tonight. We took in the show, and it was a good one. But Bodie here didn't have eyes for nobody but this brown-haired Southern belle named Savannah.\"\n\nThe other two men hooted even more.\n\nGlaring across the table at his friend, Bodie scraped his chair back. \"I don't reckon I feel like playing anymore. Deal me out.\"\n\n\"You're gonna quit just because I was hoo-rawin' you a little?\" Jake asked. \"That ain't like you, Bodie.\"\n\n\"I'm just tired, that's all,\" Bodie said with a shake of his head. \"Think I'll head for the hotel and turn in.\"\n\nJake shrugged. \"Suit yourself.\" He seemed a little insulted.\n\nBut Bodie didn't really care. He didn't appreciate being made sport of. As he turned to walk away from the table, he heard Jake say to Mahaffey and Pearsoll, \"There's somethin' I've been wantin' to talk to you boys about.\"\n\nBodie didn't hear any more. The hubbub in the saloon swallowed up the rest of Jake's words. Whatever the conversation was, Bodie didn't know or care anything about it.\n\nHe drew in a deep breath of night air as he stepped out of the saloon. Kansas City wasn't the most fragrant place in the world; the vast stockyards on the edge of town took care of that. The pungent smells that came from there drifted over the whole town.\n\nBut even so, the air outside seemed cleaner to Bodie than that inside the Bella Royale. After pausing on the sidewalk for a moment, he turned toward the hotel.\n\nWhen he reached the next corner, his steps carried him in a different direction. He realized he was heading toward Channing's Variety Theater.\n\nNo point in going there, he told himself. The show had been over for a while. All the performers, including Savannah, would have left already and gone back to wherever they were staying or to get something to eat. All he could do was stand in front of the darkened theater and gaze at it, remembering what he had seen inside earlier.\n\nIt would have to be enough, he decided, and walked a little faster. It wasn't far to the theater.\n\nAs he approached, he saw the carriage that had pulled up in front of it. Several shadowy forms were moving around on the sidewalk between the street and the theater. Something about the situation made the hackles rise on the back of Bodie's neck.\n\nA second later, a woman's voice rang out clearly. \"Gideon Kane sent you, didn't he?\"\n\n\"Never you mind about who sent us, gal,\" a rough male voice answered. \"You just come on with us, and there won't have to be no trouble.\"\n\n\"Get away from me. I'll scream!\"\n\n\"Look out. She's gonna run! Grab her!\"\n\nBodie was already moving. He'd recognized Savannah's voice when the woman first spoke.\n\nShe lunged away from the two men, but they were too fast for her and had her hemmed in against the building.\n\nBodie left his feet in a diving tackle. His shoulder rammed into the back of the nearest man. The impact drove the man toward his companion. They crashed together, and their feet got tangled up. All three men fell to the sidewalk.\n\nBodie scrambled to his feet first. Savannah stood a few feet away, gaping at him in surprise. His hat had come off when he tackled the first man, so he snatched it off the sidewalk and grabbed Savannah's arm with his other hand. \"Come on, Miss McCoy! I'll get you out of here!\"\n\nHe didn't know who the two bruisers were, except that Savannah thought they worked for Gideon Kane, whoever that was. It didn't matter. They had threatened her, and he had to get her away from them.\n\nBut as they turned to run, one of the men regained his feet and shot out a hand to snag Bodie's shirt collar. Bodie felt himself being jerked backward, away from Savannah. He was whirled around, and a punch exploded against his jaw, knocking him back against the carriage.\n\nThe big man bored in, obviously intent on keeping Bodie pinned against the carriage with his bulk while he hammered the young outlaw with his fists. Bodie sensed as much as he saw another powerful blow rocketing at his face and dropped desperately out of its path.\n\nThe punch went over his head and smashed into the side of the carriage. The man howled in pain and danced back, shaking his injured hand.\n\nBodie looked around for Savannah but couldn't locate her. The second man blocked his view, looming up to throw a roundhouse punch that would take Bodie's head off if it landed.\n\nOnce again, Bodie avoided the blow at the last second, weaving aside so that the man's fist barely scraped the side of his head. He buried the toe of his boot in the man's belly, doubling him over. Moving fast, he clapped his hat back on his head, clubbed his fists together, and brought them down on the back of the man's neck, driving him to the ground.\n\nBodie took a step away from the carriage but didn't even have time to think about finding Savannah and hustling her to safety. Something crashed down on his back from above, knocking him off his feet.\n\nThe small part of his brain that was still working realized the carriage must have a driver, and that man had leaped from the high seat onto him. The next instant, the man's weight came down hard enough on Bodie to force all the air from his lungs. The world spun crazily and the night turned red in front of his eyes for a second, and he knew he was close to passing out.\n\nIf he lost consciousness, the three men might stomp him to death. Even worse, they might succeed in kidnapping Savannah.\n\nWith that thought fueling his efforts, he forced himself to ram an elbow up and back, into the midsection of the man who had tackled him. At the same time, he heaved up with his other arm and his legs.\n\nBodie wasn't big, but he had the lean, muscular build of a panther and had spent years taking care of himself and learning how to survive. He was stronger than he looked, and he was able to throw his opponent off to the side.\n\nHe surged to his feet, but the other two men had recovered enough to attack him again. He was trapped between them as their fists crashed into him. He couldn't block all the blows, couldn't get set to throw some punches of his own.\n\nOne man screamed suddenly and reeled backward, pawing frantically at the side of his neck, startling his companion enough to give Bodie an opening. He jabbed a stinging left into the man's face and followed it with a right cross that landed solidly on the hombre's jaw, sending him spinning to the sidewalk.\n\nThe one who had started yelling staggered into a slanting ray of light coming from a window in a nearby building, and for the first time, Bodie got a good look at his face. A second later, he realized where he had seen the man before.\n\nEarlier, the big bruiser had been with the rich, blond gent who had bumped into Bodie outside the theater. That meant the second man was probably the other bodyguard.\n\nBased on what Savannah had said, the rich, arrogant son of a gun would be Gideon Kane, Bodie supposed. Not that it mattered. Anybody who wanted to hurt Savannah McCoy, for whatever reason, was his enemy.\n\nThe yelling man finally plucked whatever was bothering him from his neck and shouted, \"Shoot him! Shoot that cowboy!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 21",
                "text": "For a second, Bodie didn't know who the man was talking to, then from the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of the driver fumbling under his coat, trying to pull a gun.\n\nNobody would ever mistake Bodie Cantrell for a real gunfighter like Wild Bill Hickok, but he could get his Colt out of its holster fairly fast, and he usually hit what he aimed at. He drew the revolver and smoothly eared back the hammer as the barrel came up. He had beaten the carriage driver cleanly to the draw, so he expected the man to give up.\n\nBut the driver fumbled out a pistol and thrust it toward Bodie.\n\nThat took the decision out of Bodie's hands. He squeezed off a shot before the man could pull the trigger. The Colt roared and bucked against his palm.\n\nThe bullet smashed into the man's shoulder and slewed him around. He yelled as the pistol flew from his fingers.\n\nSavannah grabbed Bodie's arm and tugged on it. \"Come on!\" she urged. \"Maybe they won't chase us as long as you've got that gun!\"\n\nBodie didn't figure they could count on that. He fired again, aiming low so that the bullet hit the sidewalk near the two men who were still on their feet. The one going after the driver's pistol forgot about it for the moment as they both leaped for cover.\n\nBodie wheeled around and started to run. He took Savannah's arm and pulled her along, making sure he didn't outdistance her with his long-legged strides.\n\nHe was a little surprised she was still there. He had hoped she would take off running as soon as she got the chance. But she had waited for him and they needed to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the three men.\n\nBodie didn't know where he was going. He wasn't familiar with any of Kansas City except the area around the hotel, the Bella Royale Saloon, and the theater. But as an open stretch of ground loomed up to his right, he saw the wagons parked there and steered Savannah in that direction.\n\n\"We'll hide among those wagons,\" he told her in a whisper. \"They won't be able to find us.\"\n\nShe didn't say anything, but she went with him willingly. Even though he knew perfectly well who she was, she wouldn't have any idea as to his identity. All she knew was that he was trying to help her, and he supposed that was enough for the time being.\n\nThey ducked around the closest of the big, canvas-covered vehicles. The wagons were arranged in a rough circle, the same formation the immigrants would use when they were traveling out on the prairie. The difference was that away from town, the livestock would be kept inside the circled wagons, not in a corral adjacent to the lot where the wagons were parked.\n\nThe big campfire in the center of the circle had burned down to mostly embers and a few faintly flickering flames that didn't cast much light. The wagons were dark and quiet. Everybody in the camp seemed to be asleep.\n\nBodie led Savannah farther away from the street. When he thought they were deep enough in the camp, he dropped to a knee beside one of the big wheels and urged Savannah to kneel beside him. He didn't like the idea of her getting her dress dirty, but they needed to hide in the shadows in case the three men came looking for them.\n\nHe leaned closer to her, and suddenly felt a little lightheaded from the fight or from the clean, tantalizing scent of her thick brown hair. He didn't know which.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" he asked in a whisper. \"Did those varmints hurt you?\"\n\n\"No, I'm fine,\" she replied, keeping her voice as quiet as his. \"Just scared.\"\n\n\"You don't have to be scared, Miss McCoy. I won't let them get you.\"\n\n\"You know who I am?\" She sounded a little surprised.\n\n\"Why, sure I do. I was in the audience at the theater tonight. Right in the center on the fourth row.\"\n\nTheir shoulders were touching as they knelt beside the wagon. He felt her tiny start of surprise and wondered what it was about.\n\nShe whispered, \"I saw you while I was singing my first number.\"\n\n\"It was a mighty pretty song. My name's Bodie, by the way. Bodie Cantrell.\"\n\n\"I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Cantrell. Under the circumstances, very pleased indeed.\"\n\nThey crouched there for a moment in silence, catching their breath. Then Bodie asked, \"Why were those fellas trying to grab you?\"\n\n\"To take me back to their employer's mansion, I expect. They work for a man named Gideon Kane.\"\n\n\"Fancy dressed fella with blond hair and a mustache?\" Once again he felt Savannah react slightly.\n\nWith a note of worry in her voice, she said, \"That's him, all right. He's not a friend of yours, is he?\"\n\n\"Not hardly. Me and a pard of mine had a run-in with him earlier this evening. I didn't like him then, and now that I know he likes to have girls kidnapped, I don't cotton to him that much more.\"\n\n\"I think he's probably a bad man to have for an enemy.\"\n\n\"I've heard it said you can judge a man by his enemies. In this fella's case, I reckon it says some pretty good things about us.\"\n\nShe was quiet for a second, then she laughed softly. Bodie had seldom heard a nicer sound.\n\n\"I think you're right about that, Mr. Cantrell.\"\n\nThey were quiet again, and Bodie listened intently, searching the night for any indication that Kane's men were coming after them. When he didn't hear anything that seemed unusual, he asked, \"Do you know how come that fella started screaming and grabbing at his neck?\"\n\n\"I certainly do. I stuck a hat pin in the side of his neck as hard as I could.\"\n\nIt was all Bodie could do not to burst out laughing. He held it in check and chuckled softly. \"I didn't notice you wearing a hat.\"\n\n\"I wasn't. But I always carry a hatpin in my bag, anyway, just in case. Tonight it came in handy.\"\n\n\"It sure did,\" Bodie agreed. \"That was pretty brave of you, jumping in like that. They had me in a pretty bad spot. I might not have been able to get away from them if you hadn't given me a hand.\"\n\n\"You were risking your life to help me. It was the least I could do.\"\n\nBodie was about to tell her that he would have given his life to save her, but he didn't get a chance to say anything else. At that moment, an arm looped around his neck from behind, closed on his throat like an iron bar, and jerked him to his feet. He felt the cold, hard ring of a gun muzzle pressed to the side of his head."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 22",
                "text": "One thing about growing older, Jamie had discovered, was that he didn't seem to need as much sleep as he once had. He found himself awake at night fairly often, and he wasn't the sort to just lie there in his bunk or bedroll and stare at the darkness. He felt better getting up and moving around. He liked to stay busy, always had.\n\nBesides, even though the wagon train was camped in a city and surrounded by civilization, it didn't mean there were no dangers lurking in the darkness. In some ways, the situation was more precarious than if the immigrants had been out on the prairie. The threats were just different, that's all.\n\nFor those reasons, Jamie was up and taking a pasear around the camp when he spotted a couple figures skulking beside one of the wagons.\n\nThey might be two of the immigrants, he told himself. Maybe a boy and a girl who weren't supposed to be courting had slipped out of their families' wagons for a midnight rendezvous. In that case, it wouldn't be any of his business. Young love could run its course\u2014or not\u2014without any meddling from him.\n\nHowever, in one way of looking at it, anything that happened involving the wagon train was the wagon master's business, he thought. Anyway, something about those two struck Jamie as suspicious, and he had long since learned to trust what his gut was telling him.\n\nWith the same stealth that had allowed him to sneak up unnoticed on countless enemies over the past five decades, he approached the two shadowy forms. One of his Colts came smoothly out of its holster with only the faintest brushing of steel against leather.\n\nThe two people were whispering to each other and seemed to have no idea he was right behind them. Jamie's eyes, still keen despite his years, made out the fact that one of the figures was male and the other female, but they didn't sound like a couple of love struck kids.\n\nActually, they were talking like they were in some sort of trouble, maybe with the law. Regardless, they were strangers and didn't belong there. Since Jamie had taken the job of getting the pilgrims safely to Montana Territory, his first responsibility was to protect the wagon train.\n\nBecause the man was armed, Jamie decided the best thing to do was make sure he couldn't yank that gun out and start blazing away. With so many folks around, flying lead could tear through the canvas covers on the wagons and would be a real danger.\n\nWhen Jamie made his move, it was swift and sure, grabbing the man from behind, hauling him to his feet, and pressing the Colt to his head. \"Take it easy, mister,\" he rasped into the man's ear. \"It wouldn't take much to make this gun go off and splatter your brains all over that canvas.\"\n\nThe woman sprang to her feet, and for a second Jamie thought she was going to bolt.\n\nBut she didn't. She said urgently, \"Please don't kill him! He doesn't really have anything to do with this. Just let him go and... and I'll go with you to Mr. Kane's house.\"\n\nThe fella Jamie had hold of made a squawking sound, like he was trying to object to what the woman had just said, but he couldn't get any words past Jamie's iron grip on his throat.\n\n\"Miss, I don't have any idea what you're talking about,\" Jamie told her. \"I don't know anybody named Kane. I just want to know why you're sneaking around these wagons. You plan on robbing some of them?\"\n\n\"No!\" the woman exclaimed. \"We're not thieves, I swear. We're just trying to hide from some men who... who wanted to kidnap me.\"\n\nThe story came pouring out of her in disjointed fashion, some wild yarn about her being an actress and a rich fellow who had taken a fancy to her and was used to getting what he wanted, even if that meant taking it by force.\n\nJamie could believe the part about the woman being an actress, because the story she told sounded like something out of a play penned by some crazy scribbler. When the flow of words from her finally ran down, he asked, \"So who's this hombre I've got hold of?\"\n\n\"His name is Bodie Cantrell. He risked his life to help me get away from those terrible men. That's all I really know about him.\"\n\nDespite being a little lurid, the woman's story had the ring of truth about it. Jamie had a hunch she wasn't lying to him, and since he was in the habit of following his hunches, he let go of Bodie.\n\nThere was nothing wrong with being careful. Now that he had a hand free, Jamie reached down and plucked the man's revolver from its holster before Bodie had a chance to stop him. The man was too busy at the moment dragging air back into his lungs after being choked for a couple minutes.\n\nJamie had been careful not to squeeze hard enough to kill him or even make him pass out, so he recovered quickly. Still a little breathless, he asked, \"Who... who are you?\"\n\n\"Jamie Ian MacCallister. Wagon master for this bunch that's headed to Montana.\"\n\n\"You didn't have to try to kill me,\" Bodie complained.\n\nJamie chuckled coldly. \"Mister, if I wanted you dead, you wouldn't be standing there right now. You'd already be shaking hands with St. Peter.\"\n\nHe was about to say something else when one of the numerous dogs that belonged with the wagon train started to bark. None of the curs had raised a ruckus when Cantrell and the woman, whatever her name was, had sneaked into the camp a few minutes earlier, but several of them began to carry on.\n\nA shaft of light played around the camp from the direction of the street. Somebody had a bull's-eye lantern, Jamie realized. The light darted toward them like a searching finger in the night."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 23",
                "text": "\"Get under the wagon,\" Jamie told the two strangers in a low, urgent voice.\n\n\"What?\" Bodie said.\n\n\"Under the wagon,\" Jamie repeated. \"That's probably the varmints who were after the gal.\"\n\nThey didn't need any more urging. Bodie took hold of Savannah's arm and helped her crawl underneath the wagon. Jamie moved so that his buckskin-clad legs would help shield them and planted his feet solidly on the ground as several men approached. One of them carried the lantern.\n\nThe Colt .44 was still in Jamie's hand. He raised the weapon, pointed it at the intruders, and called softly, \"Lower that light, by God, or I'll shoot it out!\"\n\nThe light played over him, but only for a second before it dipped toward the ground. It was long enough for the men to have seen that he had the drop on them.\n\n\"Take it easy, mister,\" one of them said. \"We're not lookin' for any trouble.\"\n\n\"You may have found it anyway,\" Jamie snapped. \"I'm the boss of this wagon camp. Who are you, and what are you doing here?\"\n\n\"We're looking for a woman,\" another man said. \"She's a thief. She stole something from our boss, and we're just tryin' to get it back.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" the first man added. \"She's got this cowboy with her. I think he's an outlaw. He must be in on it with her.\"\n\nOnce again Jamie's instincts passed judgment on what he was hearing... and he didn't like it. These men were lying\u2014which meant Cantrell and the woman were probably telling the truth.\n\n\"Well, there's nobody like that around here,\" Jamie told the three men. \"I've been standing guard all night, and I'd know.\"\n\nThe man with the lantern came closer, but he kept the light pointed toward the ground.\n\n\"No offense, old-timer, but we're not going to just take your word for it. We'll have a look around\u2014\"\n\n\"I don't think so.\" Jamie's voice was hard, flat, and dangerous as he interrupted.\n\n\"Look, you may have a gun, but there are three of us\u2014\"\n\n\"Which means I'll have two bullets left over in this old Colt of mine when I get through with you, since I carry the hammer on an empty chamber.\" There was no mistaking the threat in Jamie's voice. He wasn't bluffing. The men were strangers, and they had bullied their way into the wagon camp uninvited. As far as he was concerned, he would be well within his rights to ventilate all three of them.\n\nThe moment stretched out tensely until one of the men muttered, \"That old coot sounds crazy enough to do it. I've already been shot at once tonight, and I ain't in the mood to have it happen again.\"\n\nThe man with the lantern argued. \"The boss won't like it if we come back without\u2014\"\n\n\"He's smart. He can figure out what to do about it. Come on,\" interrupted the other man who had spoken.\n\nTwo men started backing away, and the one with the lantern wasn't going to stay there and take on Jamie by himself. He blustered, \"You don't know how much trouble you're getting yourself into, mister,\" then turned and followed his companions out of the camp.\n\nAfter a few moments, Jamie said quietly to the couple under the wagon, \"You two stay right where you are until I get back.\"\n\nHe walked to the edge of the camp where he could look along the street and make sure the three intruders were gone. He saw them walking quickly away from the camp, already more than a block away. He supposed they were on their way to report to the man who had ordered them to kidnap the young woman. If she had told him her name, he had missed it.\n\nHe pouched the iron and turned back to the wagon where he had left her and her rescuer. He knew it was possible they might have crawled out and lit a shuck without waiting for him, as he had told them to do. However, when he reached the right wagon and said, \"Come on out of there,\" they emerged from under the vehicle.\n\nBodie stood up first, then helped the woman to her feet. \"Are they gone?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I made sure of that. Of course, they might circle back and try to slip into the camp again, so why don't the two of you come with me?\"\n\n\"Where are you taking us?\" the woman asked nervously. If what she had told him earlier was true, Jamie didn't blame her for not being very trusting.\n\n\"I want to get the two of you out of sight while we hash this out. We'll go to my friend Moses's wagon. He won't mind us disturbing him. He's a preacher, sort of, so he ought to be used to folks waking him up and needing his help in the middle of the night.\" Jamie led them across the camp and stopped beside one of the wagons. It was a little hard to tell them apart in the dark, so he hoped he had the right one as he hissed Moses's name through the opening above the tailgate.\n\nA moment later, he heard a sleepy mutter from inside the wagon, then Moses stuck his head through the opening. \"Jamie? What's going on? It's awfully late.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I know. I've got a couple people here who need a place to get out of sight for a little while. Reckon you can let them stay here?\"\n\n\"Well... sure, I guess so. Climb on in, folks. These are hardly luxury accommodations, though.\"\n\n\"We don't care about that,\" Bodie said.\n\nJamie lowered the tailgate, and Bodie helped the woman climb into the wagon. Moses gave her a hand, too.\n\nWhen the younger people were inside, Jamie perched a hip on the tailgate. \"All right, Cantrell, introduce the lady to Moses and me.\"\n\n\"We really just met tonight, too, Mr. MacCallister, but this is Miss Savannah McCoy. She's part of the troupe of entertainers that's performing at Channing's Variety Theater, down the street.\"\n\n\"I remember seeing the place,\" Jamie said with a nod. \"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss McCoy.\"\n\n\"Indeed it is,\" Moses added. \"May I offer you something to drink?\"\n\n\"No, but thank you,\" Savannah said. \"I just want to get back to the hotel where my friends are staying.\"\n\n\"We'll see that you get there safely,\" Jamie promised. \"First, though, I want to hear more about those three hombres who were after you.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid it's very simple. Their employer, like too many other people, believes that actresses are the same as prostitutes.\"\n\n\"My daughter's an actress,\" Jamie said curtly. \"I don't cotton to people who think like that.\"\n\nBodie shook his head. \"Neither do I. Once you're safe, Miss McCoy, I think I might have to look up this Gideon Kane and teach him a lesson.\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" Savannah said quickly. \"You've already done enough for me tonight, Mr. Cantrell. More than enough. You risked your life by fighting those men. And you saved me from being dragged off by them and turned over to that... that...\"\n\n\"No-good polecat will do,\" Jamie finished for her. \"I reckon I can say that even though I never met Gideon Kane.\"\n\n\"You got that right, Mr. MacCallister,\" Bodie said. \"If anything, you're not being fair to the polecats of the world.\"\n\nJamie laughed. He felt an instinctive liking for this young man. If he had seen the same thing going on, a young woman being threatened, he would have jumped right into the middle of the fracas just like Cantrell had. \"What are you doing here in Kansas City? You wouldn't happen to be looking for a job, would you?\"\n\nJamie and Hector Gilworth had spent all day trying to find someone else who was willing to sign on with the wagon train as a scout, but they hadn't had any luck. Jamie was prepared to set out with just him, Hector, and Jess Neville to handle the scouting chores, but it would be better if they had at least one more good man.\n\nCantrell hesitated, then said in reply to Jamie's question, \"No, I reckon not. I'm not working at anything right now, but I've got some possibilities coming up soon.\"\n\n\"Well, if you change your mind between now and first light, let me know,\" Jamie told him. \"I'm looking for another scout to help me get these wagons to Montana.\"\n\nBrodie let out a low whistle of surprise. \"Montana's a long way off. You're setting out this late in the year?\"\n\n\"It's their idea,\" Jamie said. \"I've warned 'em about it. Seems like we're going, though, one way or the other.\"\n\n\"There's really no choice,\" Moses put in.\n\nJamie let that pass. There was at least a chance they would make it, and if anybody could get those immigrants where they were going, he knew it was him. That wasn't boastful on his part, just a realistic acknowledgment of his abilities.\n\nSavannah said, \"I hate to inconvenience you even more, Mr. Cantrell, but do you think you could accompany me back to my hotel?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Bodie answered without hesitation. \"I planned to all along.\"\n\n\"And I'm coming, too,\" Jamie said. \"With both of us along, I don't reckon anybody's liable to bother you. How about you, Moses?\"\n\n\"Well, I wouldn't be any good in a fight, but I'll come along,\" the young rabbi said. \"Strength in numbers, eh?\" He fingered the nightshirt he was wearing. \"Just let me put some pants on.\"\n\nBodie and Savannah climbed out of the wagon. Moses joined them a couple minutes later. Together, the four of them left the wagon camp and walked toward the hotel where the O'Hanlon troupe was staying.\n\nJamie kept his right hand on the butt of the Colt on that side, but he didn't need the gun. No one bothered them. When they reached the hotel, he was about to turn back when Savannah said, \"If you could just come into the lobby with me. Those men might be waiting.\"\n\nThat was true, Jamie thought. It would be a shame to get Savannah this close to safety and then have Gideon Kane's men grab her after all.\n\nThe lamps in the lobby were turned low, and no clerk was on duty at the desk. It was bright enough in the room for Jamie to get his first good look at Bodie and Savannah. The young woman was a beauty, all right, even with her dress disheveled and dirty from crawling around under a covered wagon. Bodie Cantrell was a medium-sized young man in range clothes, with black hair under his tipped-back hat.\n\nThe four of them had just entered the lobby when a man stood up from a chair next to a potted plant where he'd obviously been waiting. He started toward them, but clearly he was no threat. Middle-aged and portly, he sported a black eye, and there was dried blood around his mouth. \"Savannah!\" he exclaimed. \"Thank God! We didn't know what had happened to you or if you were all right.\"\n\nSavannah caught hold of his extended hands and gaped at him in surprise. \"Cyrus, what happened to you? You look like you've been in a fight!\"\n\n\"I have,\" Cyrus O'Hanlon said grimly. \"Gideon Kane and his men have been here, Savannah... and they were looking for you.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 24",
                "text": "The news hit Savannah hard. She gasped as if she'd been punched in the stomach. Beside her, Bodie put a hand on her arm to steady her.\n\n\"Oh, Cyrus, I'm so sorry,\" she was able to say after a moment. \"Are you hurt badly? Was anyone else hurt?\"\n\nCyrus waved a hand. \"Don't worry about me, child. This isn't the first time I've been roughed up. I'll be fine. Harry Sennett has a broken arm, but no one else suffered anything except bumps and bruises.\"\n\nBodie asked, \"Why would they do something like that?\"\n\n\"Because they were looking for me,\" Savannah answered before Cyrus could say anything. \"Isn't that right?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" Cyrus answered with a shrug. The gesture made him wince. \"Kane demanded to know if you were here, and when I told him you weren't, he said that I was lying. One of his men hit me, and Harry jumped into the fight. He wasn't any match for them, though. The commotion drew the rest of the troupe. We tried to give a good account of ourselves, but\"\u2014he shrugged again\u2014\"we're performers, not brawlers.\"\n\n\"Wish I'd been here to lend you a hand,\" Jamie MacCallister growled.\n\nCyrus looked him up and down. \"My, you're big as a mountain, aren't you, friend? I wish you'd been here, too. Who's this, Savannah?\"\n\n\"This is Mr. MacCallister. He's the wagon master for that wagon train camped down the street. He helped us after Mr. Cantrell got me away from Kane's men to start with.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I'm not acquainted with young Mr. Cantrell, either... although you do look a bit familiar, sir.\"\n\n\"I was in the audience at the show tonight.\"\n\n\"Ah! That explains it.\" Cyrus still looked puzzled, though. \"You're a friend of Savannah's?\"\n\n\"He is now,\" she said. \"He risked his life fighting Kane's men when they tried to kidnap me. We got away and hid among Mr. MacCallister's wagons.\"\n\n\"I'm starting to get the players straight,\" Cyrus said with a nod. He turned to Moses Danzig. \"And you are...?\"\n\nMoses introduced himself, then added, \"I'm going to Montana Territory with Jamie and the rest of the wagon train.\"\n\nJamie asked, \"Did anybody send for the law while that ruckus with Kane's men was going on?\"\n\nCyrus nodded. \"One of our people did. But that just made things worse. When the police came in\u2014\" He had to stop and draw a deep breath. \"When the police came in, Kane and his men claimed that we had attacked them. He accused us of being criminals. He said we had pickpockets working the crowd and that we were no better than gypsies.\"\n\n\"Let me guess,\" Jamie said with a frown. \"The law believed them.\"\n\nCyrus spread his hands helplessly. \"Kane and his family are rich. Of course the authorities believed him. The officers threatened to run us out of town... but Kane said he didn't want to cause trouble for us and told them he didn't want to press charges. After the police left, though, he said he would see to it that we were all thrown in jail unless we turned Savannah over to him. Then he told us we had until morning to find her and take her to his house.\"\n\nSavannah felt sick and light-headed. If not for Bodie's hand on her arm, she might have collapsed. How could things have taken such a bad turn, so quickly? She hadn't done anything to cause it. She'd just been going about her job, following her calling, practicing her art. Then suddenly, without any warning, Gideon Kane had walked into her dressing room, and with him had come pure evil.\n\nThat was just the way things were in life, she told herself. Bad things happened for no apparent reason.\n\nBut understanding that and being able to accept it were two different things. It wasn't fair for Cyrus and the other members of the troupe to suffer just because Gideon Kane had decided he had to have her.\n\n\"Listen,\" she said, speaking quickly so she wouldn't back out on going through with the idea that had just occurred to her. \"I have to leave the troupe.\"\n\n\"What?\" Cyrus said with a confused frown. \"No! You don't need to do that. We'll figure some way out of this\u2014\"\n\n\"There isn't any other way out of it,\" she told him. \"Kane will use the law against you, and you know he'll get away with it, too. At the very least, he'll have you run out of town. At worst, you'll all be locked up. I can't stand to have that on my conscience, Cyrus. I just can't.\"\n\n\"We'll fight him,\" Cyrus insisted. \"I'll hire a lawyer and fight him in court.\"\n\nSavannah shook her head. \"No lawyer worth anything will want to go up against the Kane family. There's just no other answer, Cyrus, and you know it.\"\n\nHe looked miserable as he tried to come up with something else to say and couldn't. Finally he managed to ask, \"But where will you go?\"\n\nSavannah turned to look at Jamie MacCallister. \"To Montana Territory. You can find a place for me in your wagon train, can't you, Mr. MacCallister?\"\n\n\"It's not really my wagon train,\" Jamie replied. \"I don't have any say over who stays and who goes, as long as they follow my orders once we're on the trail.\"\n\n\"I can follow orders. I'm good at taking direction, aren't I, Cyrus?\"\n\n\"You're a quick study,\" Cyrus admitted. \"You won't be playing a part, though, Savannah. You'd really be an immigrant.\"\n\nWith a faint smile, she said, \"Isn't all life just playing a part, at least to a certain extent? We know what we're supposed to do because we've read it in books and seen it onstage. And then as we live it, it becomes real.\"\n\n\"I suppose you could look at it like that,\" Cyrus said grudgingly. \"But I don't want to lose you. Neither will the others.\"\n\n\"It's for their own good. The troupe has to come first.\" Still smiling, she added, \"The show must go on.\"\n\nCyrus winced again. \"To have such a hoary old chestnut used against me.\" He sighed. \"Very well. You'll probably be safer with a behemoth such as Mr. MacCallister rather than with a bunch of actors. No offense intended by that behemoth comment, sir.\"\n\n\"None taken,\" Jamie said with a grin. \"I know I'm a big galoot.\" He grew more serious. \"I'm not sure about you being any safer, though, Miss McCoy. We're talking about going all the way to Montana, not on some picnic lunch. Hundreds of miles of riding in a wagon that's not very comfortable, miserable weather, maybe hostile Indians and outlaws. Lots of bad things can happen.\"\n\n\"Something bad will happen if I stay here,\" Savannah pointed out. \"Gideon Kane has seen to that. Besides, maybe I wouldn't have to go all the way to Montana. The troupe's next stop is Des Moines, isn't that right, Cyrus?\"\n\n\"Yes, we'll be there in a couple weeks.\"\n\n\"I could travel with the wagon train for a week or so, long enough for Kane to give up on finding me, then leave and join the troupe again in Des Moines.\"\n\n\"You can't go gallivanting across the prairie by yourself.\" Bodie looked at Jamie. \"You still interested in hiring another scout, Mr. MacCallister?\"\n\nJamie regarded him with narrowed eyes. \"A temporary scout? Just for a week? I don't know about that. But I don't reckon I can stop you from coming along, if that's what you want. You'll have to talk to Captain Hendricks about it, though. He's in charge of the bunch.\"\n\nSavannah frowned. \"Mr. Cantrell, I can't ask you to\u2014\"\n\n\"You're not asking me to do anything,\" Bodie interrupted. \"I'm volunteering.\" He paused. \"I'll have to talk to some friends of mine, though, and let them know that I'm leaving.\"\n\n\"It's very thoughtful of you to want to help me. I really appreciate it.\"\n\n\"Hey, I don't like that fella Kane, either,\" Bodie said. \"Anything I can do to put a burr under his saddle, I'm all for it.\"\n\nMoses spoke up. \"I don't want to throw cold water on these plans, but how are you going to convince Kane that you're gone, Miss McCoy? He's liable to think that the troupe is just hiding you.\"\n\nSavannah frowned again. \"I hadn't thought about that. I know. I'll write him a letter telling him that I'm leaving Kansas City and leaving the troupe. You can give it to him, Cyrus.\"\n\n\"Even if you do that, there's no guarantee that he'll believe it.\"\n\n\"He can search the hotel and the theater. He can come to all the performances. I really will be gone, so when he can't find me he'll have no choice but to believe it.\"\n\nCyrus rubbed his chin and frowned in thought. After a moment he said, \"Hmm. It might work....\"\n\n\"It's the only chance we have to keep him from causing more trouble for the troupe.\"\n\n\"You won't tell him where you're going, just that you're leaving town?\"\n\nSavannah glanced at Jamie and Bodie. \"That's right. I don't want to cause trouble for those immigrants, either.\"\n\n\"I'm not worried too much about some rich young wastrel like that, miss,\" Jamie told her. \"I reckon I've dealt with a lot worse in my time.\"\n\n\"All right, it's settled then. I'm starting to Montana with the wagon train. That is, if I can find someone to let me travel with them...\"\n\nMoses said, \"That shouldn't be a problem. There are plenty of families who ought to be willing to make room for you. These are good people, Miss McCoy.\"\n\n\"I'm sure they are.\" She put a hand on Cyrus's arm. \"And if I don't show up in Des Moines, you'll know not to wait for me. Just go on with the tour.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" he asked. \"Why wouldn't you join us?\"\n\n\"Well, something might happen. As Mr. MacCallister pointed out, a trip like this could be dangerous.\" Savannah smiled. \"Or you never know... once I'm on the way, I might decide that I want to be a pioneer woman!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 25",
                "text": "\"We'd better go out the back way,\" Bodie suggested before they left the hotel. Savannah had gone upstairs and quickly packed her carpetbag. Luckily, the troupe's nomadic existence had taught her the art of traveling light. \"Kane could've posted somebody outside to keep an eye on the place.\"\n\nJamie said, \"I thought of the same thing. That's why I had a good look around when we came up. I didn't see anybody skulking around, but it's possible I missed something. We'll go out the back just to be sure.\"\n\nBodie had a hunch it would be hard to out-think Jamie MacCallister, and it was mighty unlikely that he would miss anything, too. He had heard of the big frontiersman. Anybody who had been around as long as Jamie had, leading that sort of adventurous life, was bound to be pretty cunning, not to mention experienced in all kinds of trouble.\n\nSavannah had found pen and ink and paper behind the registration desk and quickly written a note for Gideon Kane, telling him that she was quitting the troupe and leaving Kansas City, to boot. She didn't tell him where she was going, but she warned him not to try to find her. She read the message out loud to the others, then sealed it and gave it to Cyrus O'Hanlon to have it delivered to Kane.\n\nCyrus insisted on calling the rest of the troupe down to the lobby so they could say good-bye to Savannah. It was an emotional farewell, full of hugs and tears, and it bothered Bodie that she had to abandon the life she enjoyed just because of some worthless skunk like Gideon Kane.\n\nFinally Savannah was able to tear herself away from her friends and colleagues. She and Bodie, along with Jamie and Moses, went to the hotel's back door.\n\nJamie said, \"Better let me go out first and have a look around, just to make sure Kane's men haven't set up an ambush for us.\"\n\n\"I'll come with you,\" Bodie said.\n\n\"No, you stay here. In case anything happens to me, you'll have to look out for Miss McCoy.\"\n\n\"What about me?\" Moses asked.\n\n\"Have you got a gun?\"\n\n\"Well... no.\"\n\n\"Ever fired a gun?\"\n\n\"Actually, I haven't.\"\n\n\"Then you'd best stay here with Cantrell and Miss McCoy,\" Jamie said. \"Stick to doing whatever it is rabbis do and let me burn any powder that needs burning.\"\n\n\"When you put it like that, I see your point,\" Moses said.\n\nJamie slipped out the door, moving with unusual grace for such a big man, and returned after a few tense minutes to report that the coast seemed to be clear. \"Kane's probably convinced that he spooked your friends so bad they won't have any choice but to turn you over to him, Miss McCoy.\"\n\n\"Since we're all going to be traveling together, why don't you call me Savannah?\" she suggested. \"And the three of you will be Bodie and Moses and... Mr. MacCallister.\"\n\nThat brought a chuckle from Jamie.\n\nSavannah smiled. \"It's just that you're old enough to be my, well, my father.\"\n\n\"I'm older than that, girl,\" Jamie said. \"I could be your grandpa. But I've never cared much what folks call me, as long as they don't call me late for supper.\"\n\nBodie grinned. \"I figured you were going to say that.\"\n\nSavannah changed the subject. \"Kane is underestimating just how tough Cyrus and the others are. They'd never help him.\"\n\n\"They wouldn't as long as he didn't box 'em in where they didn't have any choice. Maybe that letter of yours will keep that from happening.\"\n\nThey went into the alley behind the hotel. It was pitch black, but Jamie led them through it as if it were bright as day. A short time later, they were back at the wagon train camp, which was still dark and peaceful.\n\nJamie went to one of the wagons, knocked softly on the tailgate, and called, \"Cap'n Hendricks.\"\n\nA man with tousled hair stuck his head out of the wagon. \"Who's there?\" He thrust the twin barrels of a shotgun over the tailgate.\n\nJamie grasped the barrels and shoved them skyward. \"Take it easy with that greener,\" he snapped. \"It's MacCallister and Moses Danzig. We've got a couple more pilgrims for your expedition, and one of 'em's going to be my third scout, at least for the time being.\"\n\nWearing a long nightshirt much like the one Moses had been sporting earlier, Captain Hendricks climbed out of his wagon and listened as Jamie introduced Bodie and Savannah and explained the situation.\n\nWhen Jamie was finished with the story, Hendricks said, \"Normally when a person joins a wagon train, they have to contribute something\u2014\"\n\n\"I can pay,\" Savannah broke in. \"I have a little money saved up.\"\n\nHendricks smiled and shook his head. \"I was about to say that under the circumstances, I think we can forget about that, at least for now. Since it's possible you may not be with us for long, there's even less reason to worry about it.\" The wagon train captain scratched his angular jaw. \"Now, there's the matter of finding you a place....\"\n\n\"What about with the Binghams?\" Moses suggested. \"There's just the two of them, so they'd probably have room in their wagon.\"\n\n\"Yes, that might work.\" Hendricks turned to Savannah. \"They're a couple getting on in age, really probably too old to have pulled up stakes and started west like they did, but their children are all grown and Edward Bingham wanted to see some new country. Can't say as I blame him. I feel sort of the same way myself.\"\n\n\"Once a man's feet get restless, there's not much he can do about it except move on,\" Jamie said. \"I know that feeling mighty well.\"\n\nSo did Bodie. He had been pretty fiddle-footed himself since his parents' deaths had left him alone, but it was from necessity, not choice. As filled with trouble as his life had been, he'd had to stay on the move.\n\nThat thought reminded him that he still had something to do before morning, something pretty important. He had to see about getting his share of the train robbery loot from Eldon Swint.\n\nNow that they had obtained Captain Hendricks's approval for joining the wagon train, Moses took Savannah to the wagon belonging to the elderly couple. Before they left, Bodie said to her, \"I'll see you later.\"\n\n\"I really hate to disrupt whatever plans you had,\" she said.\n\n\"Trust me, I didn't have any real plans, and you're not disrupting a thing.\"\n\nThat was true. For her sake, he hated what Savannah was having to go through, but it was a good excuse to leave the gang. He had never been that comfortable riding with Swint and the others, and after the cold-blooded murder of that station agent, Bodie wanted more than ever to get away from them.\n\nAs Savannah and Moses walked off, Bodie hung back with Jamie. \"There's something I have to do before I can leave in the morning.\"\n\n\"Yeah, you said something about that before. You need a hand with whatever it is?\"\n\nThat was just the sort of man Jamie MacCallister was, thought Bodie. Jamie had to at least suspect that Bodie's business might involve some degree of danger, but he'd volunteered to come along anyway, without the slightest hesitation. By that, Bodie could tell that Jamie already considered him a friend, and it was a good feeling.\n\nHe shook his head. \"No, I can handle it. But I'm obliged to you for the offer.\"\n\n\"We're pulling out at first light. You'll need to be back here by then.\"\n\n\"I will be,\" Bodie promised."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 26",
                "text": "He left the wagon camp and headed back to the hotel where the gang was staying, which was seedier than the one being used by the troupe of performers. Swint might be there, or he might be at the Bella Royale. Bodie thought the odds were good that he would find the gang leader at one place or the other.\n\nOn the second floor of the hotel, he found Clete Mahaffey and Dave Pearsoll sitting on ladder-back chairs in the hallway outside Swint's room. \"I didn't know you fellas had first shift on guard duty tonight.\"\n\n\"Yeah, that's us\u2014just sittin' here while the rest of the boys are out havin' fun,\" Mahaffey groused.\n\n\"You need something, Cantrell?\" Pearsoll asked.\n\nBodie nodded. \"I'm looking for the boss. Is he in his room?\"\n\n\"Nah, we haven't seen Swint for a couple hours. Check the saloon.\"\n\n\"That was going to be my next stop. Much obliged.\"\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" Mahaffey said. \"Is something wrong, Cantrell?\"\n\n\"No, not at all,\" Bodie lied. \"I just need to talk to him for a few minutes.\"\n\nClearly, both men were curious what was going on, but they weren't going to poke their noses in another man's business. They just grunted as Bodie lifted a hand in farewell and headed back downstairs.\n\nHe should have asked them where Jake was, he thought as he left the hotel. Jake was the only member of the gang he considered a friend\u2014one that he wanted to say good-bye to before pulling out with the wagon train.\n\nHe could find Jake later, he decided. It was more important to settle things with Swint.\n\nThe hour was getting really late, but the Bella Royale was still busy. Bodie entered the saloon but didn't see Swint anywhere, so he went to the bar and asked the bartender if he'd seen the boss outlaw.\n\nThe apron nodded toward a closed door. \"There's a poker game going on in that private room back there. Swint and some of his boys are sitting in on it. Say, aren't you one of his bunch?\"\n\n\"I was,\" Bodie said. All that had changed tonight.\n\nHe hadn't known it at the time, but it had changed the moment he first laid eyes on Savannah McCoy.\n\nWith that thought in mind, Bodie went to the door and knocked on it. A voice he didn't recognize told him to come in.\n\nWhen he stepped into the room he saw that it was windowless and dark except for a lamp that cast a cone of light over a round table topped with green baize, the cards and money scattered on it, and to a lesser extent, the men who sat around it. Swint sat on the far side of the table, facing the door.\n\nThat came as no surprise to Bodie; Swint wouldn't want anybody coming in behind him where he couldn't see them. That was just common sense for someone with a lot of enemies and a price on his head.\n\nTo Swint's right was a frock-coated man Bodie didn't know, probably a professional gambler. To the gambler's right was another man Bodie didn't know who had the well-fed look of a successful businessman. The other three men at the table were members of the gang: Charley Green, who was usually Swint's second in command when the gang pulled a job, a gunman from Arizona named Jack Perkins, and Joe Guerra, a 'breed from the border country down in Texas.\n\nIt appeared that a hand had just concluded and the frock-coated gambler had won. He finished pulling in the pot, then glanced up at Bodie. \"We don't have a chair open right now, but you're welcome to stay and watch in case one of these gents drops out.\"\n\n\"I'm not goin' anywhere,\" Swint said irritably. \"Not until I've had a chance to win back that money I lost.\"\n\nThe gambler took a slender black cigarillo from his vest pocket, put it between his lips, left it unlit, and rolled it from one side of his mouth to the other. \"That's the sort of talk I like to hear. It shows you're passionate about the game, my friend... and it tells me I'm going to have a chance to take even more of your money.\"\n\nSwint scowled, and Bodie thought that the gambler didn't really know what sort of loco hombre he was dealing with. Swint was quick to take offense, quick to reach for the gun on his hip.\n\nThe boss outlaw's reaction lasted only for a second before he controlled it and forced a grin. \"You just go ahead and think that way, amigo. We'll see who's rakin' in the pot next time.\" He glanced up at Bodie. \"Did you want somethin', Cantrell, or do you plan to just stand there?\"\n\n\"I need to talk to you for a minute,\" Bodie said. \"In private.\"\n\nSwint's scowl came back. \"You got somethin' you can't say in front of these fellas? I'm not sure I like the sound of that.\"\n\n\"It's just business, that's all.\"\n\nSwint drummed the fingers of his left hand on the table. \"My luck's due to change. I can feel it in my bones. If I sit out this next hand, that luck's liable to pass right over me.\"\n\n\"Why don't we take a short break?\" the gambler suggested. \"That way you can talk to your friend, I'll go get another bottle from Horace, and we can all stretch our legs.\"\n\n\"All right,\" Swint said as he scraped back his chair. \"But don't start again without me, you hear? Cantrell, this isn't gonna take very long, is it?\"\n\n\"It shouldn't,\" Bodie said. Just long enough for you to go upstairs, get the money that you owe me, and hand it over, he thought.\n\nSwint stood up. \"Come on. We'll step out into the alley.\"\n\nThey left the private room and went out through a side door into the narrow passage between the Bella Royale and the building next to it. Swint left the door open so that a rectangle of light slanted through it and the glow lit up most of the alley.\n\n\"All right,\" Swint said. \"What is it you want?\"\n\n\"My share of the money,\" Bodie replied bluntly.\n\nSwint's scowl got even more fierce. \"You know we'll divvy up that loot when the time is right. And I'm the one who decides when that is, Cantrell, not you.\"\n\n\"I'm not saying you have to divvy up with everybody.\"\n\n\"That wouldn't be fair to the others. What makes you so dang special, anyway?\"\n\n\"I'm leaving the gang,\" Bodie said.\n\nSwint stared at him for a second as if he couldn't comprehend what Bodie had just said. Finally he repeated, \"Leaving the gang?\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\nSwint's eyes narrowed, and his face began to flush with anger. \"What's the matter, we ain't good enough for you anymore? You gonna go out and start your own gang, show ol' Eldon what it's like to be a famous owlhoot?\"\n\n\"It's not like that.\" It wasn't going as smoothly as Bodie had hoped, but to tell the truth he hadn't really expected Swint to take the news very well. \"In fact, I plan to give up being an outlaw altogether.\"\n\n\"So you really do think you're too good for the likes of us. But when it comes to the money the rest of us took off that train, you ain't so high and mighty that you'll turn your back on it, are you? You're just as greedy as the rest of us where that loot's concerned.\"\n\nBodie felt a flash of anger of his own. \"Listen here, I did everything you told me to do during that holdup. If there had been trouble, my neck would have been on the line just like yours. So I think I've got a right to my share.\"\n\nSwint hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and sneered. \"Only members of the gang get shares. You walk away now and you won't have a damn dime comin' to you.\"\n\n\"Now hold on! You never said anything about that before.\"\n\n\"Never figured I'd have to explain it. It's just common sense.\"\n\nActually, it was a chance for Swint to get his hands on an extra share, Bodie realized... assuming that the leader of the gang didn't mean to hang on to all the loot. Chances were, Swint didn't really care whether Bodie stayed or went. He had never been any great shakes as an outlaw. Swint could replace him with any of a hundred drifting hardcases.\n\nSwint had his pride, though, and he felt insulted. For that reason alone, he was willing to make it an issue.\n\nBoth men stood tensely in the mixture of dim light and shadows in the alley. It was bright enough for Bodie to see the anticipation of violence in Swint's stance. He knew that if he made even the slightest move toward his gun, Swint would slap leather, too. The killing lust burned in the man's eyes.\n\nSuddenly, Bodie felt sick. His guts clenched. But it wasn't from fear. He and Swint were pretty evenly matched when it came to gun speed, he thought.\n\nWhat gripped him was revulsion. He was ready to kill or be killed over money stained with the blood of that murdered station agent. The whole thing was loco.\n\nBesides, Savannah McCoy needed his help to stay safe. Sure, if he got himself killed over a pile of ill-gotten loot, Jamie MacCallister, Captain Hendricks, and Moses Danzig would still do their best to look after her. Bodie had a feeling that Jamie would be more than a match for any threat the wagon train might run up against.\n\nBut even so, there might come a time when he was all that stood between Savannah and disaster, like when Kane's men had tried to grab her earlier. He couldn't afford to run the risk of not being there.\n\nHe drew in a deep breath. \"You know what, Eldon? Keep my share. I don't care.\"\n\nSwint's eyes narrowed with suspicion. Obviously he couldn't comprehend such a decision. \"Is this some sort of trick?\"\n\nBodie shook his head. \"No trick. There are other things I need to do, and they're more important than any stack of gold eagles. You keep my share and divide it up among the other men. Or just keep it for yourself. It doesn't matter to me either way, as long as you're all right with letting me walk away from the gang.\"\n\n\"I don't give a damn whether you're in the gang or not,\" Swint snapped, confirming what Bodie had thought a few moments earlier. \"I still think you're tryin' to put somethin' over on me, though.\"\n\n\"I'm not. I give you my word.\" Bodie stuck out his hand. \"I'll even shake on it.\"\n\nSwint hesitated, but finally he clasped Bodie's hand. \"What is it you've got to do?\"\n\nBodie opened his mouth to explain about Savannah, Gideon Kane, and the wagon train, then thought better of it. Swint didn't have any reason to know about any of that. \"Just some personal business to take care of.\"\n\n\"Fine. It ain't like I care. You remember one thing, though, Cantrell. You walk away from me, and we're done. We ain't partners no more, and if you ever cross me in the future, I'll kill you just as quick as I would a total stranger.\"\n\nBodie wouldn't have expected anything less from the man. He didn't see any reason his trail ought to cross that of Eldon Swint any time in the future, though. It would be perfectly fine with him if he never saw the lantern-jawed outlaw again. \"I understand. You won't have any trouble from me, Eldon.\"\n\nSwint snorted contemptuously. \"I'd better not, or you'll wind up filled full of lead, you got that?\"\n\nBodie thought back and realized that he had never seen Swint engage in an actual gunfight. The outlaw had killed several men, but always from ambush or when he already had the drop on them. Maybe Swint wasn't quite the deadly pistoleer he always bragged about being.\n\nNone of that mattered, Bodie told himself. He was going with Savannah, and he would never see Swint again.\n\n\"You know where Three-Finger Jake is?\" he murmured. He still hadn't given up on the idea of saying good-bye to his friend.\n\n\"I ain't got the slightest idea. It's not my job to keep up with the whereabouts of a bunch of no-account road agents when they're not pullin' a job for me.\"\n\n\"All right. If you see him\u2014\" Bodie stopped and shook his head. He didn't want to tell Swint that he was going to be traveling with the wagon train. Even though it was unlikely, that might somehow put Kane on Savannah's trail. Bodie wasn't going to take the chance.\n\n\"So long, Eldon. That's all.\"\n\n\"You're loco, you know that?\" Swint growled as Bodie turned away. \"Givin' up that loot just don't make sense.\"\n\n\"It does if maybe you've found something more valuable,\" Bodie said, thinking about Savannah McCoy."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 27",
                "text": "Jamie was up long before dawn the next morning, making sure people were awake and getting ready to depart from Kansas City. He had said that he meant for the wagons to roll at first light, and he meant it. As far as he was concerned, the eastern sky barely had to turn gray for it to count as first light.\n\nAs he was making the rounds of the camp, he came up to one of the cook fires and found Moses Danzig and Bodie Cantrell hunkered beside the flames, sipping coffee from tin cups. The pot was sitting at the edge of the fire, keeping warm.\n\n\"Some coffee, Mr. MacCallister?\" Moses asked.\n\n\"Don't mind if I do,\" Jamie said. He'd already had a cup with Captain Hendricks, but a man couldn't have too much coffee when he planned to spend a long, long day in the saddle.\n\nMoses went to his nearby wagon and brought another cup, filled it from the pot, and handed it to Jamie.\n\nHe sipped gratefully at the strong black brew. \"Did you get your business taken care of last night, Cantrell?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, I did,\" the young man replied.\n\nJamie nodded. \"Glad to hear it.\" He didn't press for any more information. He felt an instinctive liking for Bodie Cantrell, but the young man's affairs were his own and Jamie didn't intend to interfere in them. \"Seen Miss McCoy this morning?\"\n\nBodie shook his head. \"No, but I'm sure she's fine with the Binghams. I wouldn't want to intrude on her.\"\n\n\"Moses, you mind going and checking on her? I want to make sure she didn't change her mind about going with us.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Moses said with a shrug. He ambled off toward the Bingham wagon.\n\nBodie said, \"I don't think Miss Savannah would just up and run off.\"\n\n\"She was pretty scared last night,\" Jamie pointed out. \"It's hard to tell what somebody will do if they get spooked bad enough. I've seen animals bolt right into danger instead of away from it, all because they were too scared to think straight.\"\n\nBodie looked worried. He drained the last of his coffee from the cup and rose from his position beside the fire. \"Reckon I'll go make sure, too\u2014\"\n\n\"I told Moses to do that,\" Jamie cut in. \"What you need to do is make sure your horse is ready to ride. We've got to get moving soon, or the day's going to be half gone.\"\n\nBodie squinted and frowned at the eastern sky, which was still almost pitch black with plenty of stars showing. He figured Jamie was a little loco, and a bit of a slave driver, to boot.\n\nBut like the others in the group, he didn't fully grasp what a difficult undertaking it would be to get the wagons to Eagle Valley in Montana Territory before winter closed in around them and stranded them. Jamie would have to use every available minute of every day to accomplish that goal, and it was going to be hard on everybody, human and livestock alike. They might as well get used to that, right from the start.\n\nBodie went to see to his horse, as Jamie had suggested, and the big frontiersman continued making sure that everything was ready for the journey. Any time he found immigrants who weren't preparing fast enough, he prodded them into hurrying without being overly harsh about it. He was prepared to lay down the law to them if he had to, the law of the trail according to Jamie Ian MacCallister, but they seemed a fairly well disciplined bunch, so he didn't want to do that... yet.\n\nOnce they got started to Montana it might be a different story.\n\nNot everyone was completely cooperative. When he got to the Bradford wagon, he found the twins, Alexander and Abigail, struggling to get the team of oxen hitched to the vehicle. The huge, stolid beasts dwarfed the children and paid little attention to their efforts to get them into the traces.\n\n\"Where's your pa?\" Jamie asked the youngsters. \"He should be doing this.\"\n\n\"He's in the wagon reading the Bible,\" Alexander said.\n\n\"Pa always reads some in the Good Book every morning and every night,\" Abigail added.\n\nJamie scowled. Being spiritual was all well and good, but there was a time for that and a time to get earthly work done, he thought. After all, the book said that the Lord helped those who helped themselves.\n\nHe stepped to the back of the wagon and saw that a candle was burning inside. \"Reverend Bradford?\"\n\n\"What is it?\" Bradford answered without lifting the canvas flap over the opening at the rear of the wagon. He sounded clearly annoyed.\n\n\"We'll be rolling soon. You need to get your team hitched up. Those kids can't do it by themselves.\" And even if they could, they shouldn't have to, Jamie thought.\n\nBradford pushed the canvas aside and glared out, looking as irritated as he'd sounded. \"The needs of a man's immortal soul won't wait, Mr. MacCallister. These wagons will.\"\n\n\"That's where you're wrong,\" Jamie said, making his voice as hard as flint. \"If you're not ready to go when the rest of us are, we'll leave you here. Whether or not you catch up is up to you.\"\n\n\"You'd abandon us here?\" Bradford demanded in obvious outrage. \"I won't hear of it. I paid my fee to join this wagon train, just like everyone else. I'll speak to Captain Hendricks about this high-handed behavior.\"\n\n\"Go right ahead,\" Jamie told him. \"It won't change anything. I'm wagon master now, and we leave when I say we leave. It's your responsibility to be ready.\" He didn't like speaking to Bradford this way in front of the man's children, but facts were facts and they needed to get on the trail.\n\n\"Very well,\" Bradford said disgustedly. He set aside his big, leather-bound Bible, pushed the canvas flap back farther, and clambered out of the wagon. \"But I still plan to speak to Captain Hendricks.\"\n\n\"Go right ahead,\" Jamie invited. It wouldn't make any difference, and he knew it.\n\nHe waited a moment to make sure Bradford was going to help the two youngsters hitch up the team. When he was satisfied about that, he moved on to the area where the saddle horses were picketed.\n\nBodie was there, tightening the cinches on his saddle. So were Hector Gilworth and his cousin Jess Neville, who were also getting their horses ready to ride.\n\n\"Did you fellas introduce yourselves to each other?\" Jamie asked the scouts.\n\n\"Sure did,\" Hector replied. \"I'm glad you found somebody to help us with the scoutin', Jamie.\"\n\n\"I'll try to live up to the responsibility,\" Bodie said.\n\n\"Keep your eyes open and don't do anything foolish, and you'll be fine,\" Jamie told him.\n\n\"Are you takin' the point today?\" Hector asked.\n\nJamie nodded. \"That's right. Bodie, you'll be with me. Hector and Jess, you fellas take the flanks.\"\n\n\"Nobody bringing up the rear?\" Bodie asked.\n\n\"Not today. Once we've gotten farther from town, one of us will drop back from time to time to check our back trail. I don't really expect much trouble from behind, though. It's what'll be in front of us that we'll have to worry about.\"\n\n\"Meanin' Injuns?\" Neville said.\n\n\"And outlaws and bad weather and flooded streams and buffalo stampedes and just about anything else you can think of,\" Jamie said with a grin. \"This isn't going to be an easy trip. If all four of us make it to Montana Territory alive, we'll be doing pretty good.\" Of course, Bodie might not be going that far, he reminded himself.\n\nThat all depended on Savannah McCoy."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 28",
                "text": "Edward Bingham was a tall man who had once been handsome. With his gray hair and close-cropped, grizzled beard, now he was distinguished, Savannah thought. His tiny, birdlike wife Leticia had long gray hair twisted into braids and wound around her head. The two of them were a good couple. They suited each other, in Savannah's opinion.\n\nThey were happy to make room for her things in their wagon and give her a place to sleep, as Moses had suggested they would. They had sold most of their goods before they left their long-time home in Reading, Pennsylvania, bringing with them only what they needed for the journey and to set up basic housekeeping in Montana, avoiding the trap of trying to take everything that some immigrants fell into.\n\nAs Mrs. Bingham prepared breakfast, Savannah offered to help, even though her cooking skills had never been anything to boast about. Living on the road with the troupe as she had, there hadn't been many opportunities to better them.\n\n\"There'll be plenty of chances for you to pitch in once we're on the trail, dear,\" the older woman said. \"This is your first morning with the wagon train, so I'll take care of this.\"\n\nSavannah suspected that Mrs. Bingham had her own way of doing things and didn't want anybody interfering with that routine. She could go along with that for now, but she was determined to carry her weight during the trip, for as long as she was with the wagon train.\n\nShe'd expected to see Bodie Cantrell again this morning, she thought as she sipped coffee and ate the hotcakes and bacon Mrs. Bingham had cooked. So far, though, she hadn't seen the young man. She supposed he was busy with whatever duties he had as one of the party's scouts.\n\nThe most important thing, she told herself, was that she hadn't seen Gideon Kane or any of his men. She would have liked to think that he had already given up searching for her, but she couldn't bring herself to believe that. She had seen a look of pure obsession in Kane's eyes. The look of madness, almost.\n\n\"Mrs. Bingham, do you happen to have a sun bonnet I can borrow?\" Savannah asked when they had finished breakfast.\n\n\"Of course. You don't need it now, what with the sun not being up yet, but you will before the day's over, I'm thinking.\"\n\nThat was true, but the main reason Savannah wanted the bonnet was so that it would obscure her face if any of Kane's men came by the wagon camp looking for her. She had put on her oldest, drabbest dress, and if she wore the bonnet and kept her face turned away from the street as much as possible, she thought there was a good chance she could go unnoticed. \"I just want to get used to wearing one.\"\n\n\"All right. I'll fetch one of my extras,\" Mrs. Bingham said.\n\nWhen Mr. Bingham went to hitch up the oxen, Savannah offered to help with that, too. He gave her a dubious frown. \"No offense, Miss McCoy, but you don't strike me as a farm girl. Have you ever handled oxen before?\"\n\n\"No, sir, but I'm a quick\u2014\" She started to say she was a quick study, then switched from that theatrical term. For the time being, she wasn't an actress.\n\nShe was a fugitive.\n\n\"I learn quickly,\" she said. \"And I'm not afraid of hard work, even though I have to admit I'm not exactly accustomed to it.\"\n\nHe thought about her offer for a moment, then nodded. \"All right. I can always use a helping hand. Just be careful. Those great brutes are peaceful and slow-moving most of the time, but they can be surly beasts now and then.\" He smiled. \"Sort of like people.\"\n\nJamie MacCallister stopped by the wagon when they were almost ready to go. \"Everything quiet the rest of the night?\"\n\n\"Quiet as can be, thanks to you and Mr. Cantrell,\" Savannah said. \"Speaking of Mr. Cantrell, I haven't seen him yet this morning....\"\n\n\"He's around,\" Jamie said vaguely. \"You'll be seeing plenty of him during the trip.\" He smiled. \"I like that bonnet. You look like a real pioneer woman.\"\n\nSavannah smiled. \"I suppose for now, that's exactly what I am.\"\n\nA short time later, the wagons began pulling out of their places in the circle and lining up. As captain, Lamar Hendricks had the first spot in line. The others pulled in behind him as they were ready. The Bingham wagon was about halfway along the column by the time the train had finished forming up.\n\nSavannah was sitting on the lowered tailgate as Jamie and Bodie rode past. She lifted a hand and waved at them. Jamie nodded and touched a finger to the wide brim of his hat. Bodie followed suit. He didn't smile; his face was serious in the gray light of approaching dawn.\n\nThat was all right, Savannah told herself. He was handsome in his rugged way, even when he didn't smile. She was looking forward to the chance to talk with him again.\n\nBut that wouldn't come for a while. Jamie and Bodie rode to the front of the train, where the big frontiersman paused and lifted his right arm above his head. His powerful voice carried along the length of the train as he bellowed, \"Wagons... hooooo!\"\n\nWith a shuffling of hooves, a creaking of leather, and a rasp of wheels turning, the wagons lurched forward into motion.\n\nThey were off to Montana."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 29",
                "text": "Jamie could tell that the big sand-colored stallion Sundown was glad to get out on the trail and stretch his legs again. To tell the truth, so was he. He was even happier to have a destination and a goal again. The drifting he had done since the end of his vengeance quest had felt right at the time, but after a lifetime of getting things done, he was ready to accomplish something again.\n\nIf he got the pilgrims safely to where they were going, that would be an accomplishment, all right. A mighty big accomplishment.\n\nThe wagons followed a well-defined trail along the Kansas River westward, keeping the stream to the left. Jamie and Bodie rode about a hundred yards in front of the lead wagon.\n\nIt wasn't really necessary to do any scouting yet. Their route was easy to follow, and as the sun rose behind them, its golden light washed over the plains and revealed the way before them. Once the wagons were out of town, the trail would lead through farming country for the next few days, so there weren't any significant dangers to watch out for.\n\nThat would change once they swung to the northwest. The country would become more sparsely settled, and they would be traveling through regions where it was still possible to run into roving bands of Pawnee and Cheyenne that might prove hostile.\n\nAs they rode, Bodie said, \"I'd sure like to hear about some of your adventures, Mr. MacCallister, if you don't mind talking about them.\"\n\n\"Make it Jamie. And who said I'd had adventures?\"\n\nBodie frowned. \"Well... just about everybody who's ever heard of you, I reckon.\"\n\nJamie chuckled. \"I'm just joshing you, son. I guess I've run into my fair share of trouble. Ever hear of a place called the Alamo?\"\n\n\"Well, sure.\"\n\n\"I was there for a spell, before it fell to the Mexicans, of course. A long, long time ago.\"\n\nJamie reminisced about that and some of his other exploits as he was growing up a child of a wild, young country. It was a sign that a man was growing old when his own kids didn't want to listen to his stories anymore, but Bodie was an eager audience, paying rapt attention to the yarns Jamie spun. There had been a time when his boy Falcon had been like that, before he had grown up and become one of the most dangerous gunfighters west of the Mississippi.\n\nJamie hipped around in the saddle and peered along the line of wagons from time to time, checking their back trail.\n\nBodie followed that example. \"You're making sure Kane isn't following us, right?\"\n\n\"Would you put it past him, if he thought there was a chance Miss McCoy had joined the wagon train?\"\n\n\"Not for a minute. From what I saw of the man, he's loco... and poison mean.\"\n\nJamie nodded. \"I haven't met him, but I've got a hunch you're right.\"\n\nThe wagons rolled along steadily for several hours before Jamie called a halt to let the livestock rest for a short time. He and Bodie went to Captain Hendricks's wagon, where Jamie asked the man, \"Have you got a map of the route you were supposed to follow? I know where Montana is, right enough, but if you were supposed to go a certain way we'll try to stick to it... as long as I don't know a better trail.\"\n\n\"Actually, yes, I have a map that Mr. Ralston prepared,\" Hendricks replied. \"I'll get it.\"\n\nWhile they were waiting for him to do that, Jamie glanced eastward behind the wagon train again, just out of habit, and stiffened in the saddle as he spotted several riders following the trail along the river and coming toward them. He caught Bodie's attention, lifted a hand, and pointed.\n\nA worried frown appeared on Bodie's face as he looked at the riders. \"Kane's men?\"\n\n\"Could be. Let's go find out.\"\n\nHendricks had climbed over the seat into the wagon to look for the map. As Jamie and Bodie turned their horses toward the rear of the train, he stuck his head back out. \"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"Just to check something out,\" Jamie said. \"We'll have a look at that map later.\"\n\nHe heeled Sundown into a lope. Bodie rode alongside him. Some of the immigrants waved and called greetings to them as they went past the wagons.\n\nHector Gilworth and Jess Neville had come in from the flanks when the train stopped. They saw Jamie and Bodie approaching, and Hector asked, \"Something wrong, Mr. MacCallister?\"\n\n\"Probably not, but come along with us anyway.\"\n\nThe four of them reached the end of the wagon train when the newcomers were still about a quarter mile away. Jamie's keen eyes didn't recognize any of them as men he had seen the night before, but that didn't have to mean anything. Gideon Kane was wealthy enough to hire any number of men to do his bidding.\n\nBodie suddenly let out a startled exclamation. \"I know those fellas.\"\n\n\"Friends of yours?\" Jamie asked.\n\n\"Well, one of them is, anyway. And the others are all right, I think.\"\n\nThe four wagon train men reined in and waited for the riders to come to them. As the men approached, Bodie moved his horse out in front of his companions and called, \"Jake! What in the world are you doing here?\"\n\nThe riders came up and halted. The one in the lead grinned and said to Bodie, \"I'll bet you didn't expect to see me again so soon, did you, pard?\"\n\n\"That's right. I didn't.\" Bodie glanced around at Jamie. \"Mr. MacCallister, this is my friend Jake Lucas.\"\n\n\"Three-Finger Jake, they call me, and you can see why.\" He held up his left hand with its missing digits. \"I blame an old brindle steer and my own dumb luck for that. Call it a souvenir of my cowboyin' days.\"\n\nBodie introduced the other two men. \"These hombres are Clete Mahaffey and Dave Pearsoll. Boys, this is Jamie Ian MacCallister, Hector Gilworth, and Jess Neville.\"\n\nThe men exchanged nods. Jamie studied the newcomers, sizing them up. Jake Lucas seemed to be a brash, cocky young cowboy, while Mahaffey and Pearsoll were older, more hard-edged.\n\n\"I thought you were staying back in Kansas City,\" Bodie said to them. \"You know, until that other business got cleared up.\"\n\nJake shook his head. \"There's nothin' I hate worse than sittin' around, Bodie, you know that. When I heard that you'd left town, I reckon it put ideas in my head. We got everything squared away and decided to come after you.\"\n\nA frown creased Bodie's forehead. \"I didn't tell anybody I was leaving with this wagon train.\"\n\n\"Well, where else would you have gone?\" Jake asked with a laugh. \"That sounded like something you'd do, takin' off with a bunch of pilgrims bound for Montana. There's a lot of talk about it back in town. In fact, we were thinkin' we might just throw in with you.\"\n\nJamie watched Bodie's face, but the young man seemed to be keeping his features carefully impassive. Even as insightful as he was, Jamie couldn't tell how Bodie felt about the idea Jake Lucas had just come out with.\n\nBodie shrugged. \"That's not up to me. Mr. MacCallister is the wagon master, and the immigrants have a captain they've elected. They'd be the ones to decide who comes along and who doesn't.\"\n\nSomething nagged at Jamie, just a vague feeling that maybe not everything was as it appeared to be on the surface. But having three more experienced men along on the journey might not be a bad idea. The wagons were bound to run into trouble somewhere along the way, the sort of trouble that meant gunplay. Even though Mahaffey and Pearsoll had a rough, hard-bitten look about them, they might make good allies. \"If it's all right with Captain Hendricks, it's all right with me. That is, if you vouch for these fellas, Bodie.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Bodie said. \"Why wouldn't I?\"\n\nThat was something Jamie wondered about, and he resolved to ask Bodie about it later, in private.\n\n\"One thing,\" Jamie went on. \"You boys will have to earn your keep if you travel with this train. Bodie's signed on as a scout, and I could use some more pairs of eyes and ears, if you're interested.\"\n\n\"Why, that sounds like a bang-up idea, Mr. MacCallister,\" Jake said. \"We'd be glad to work as scouts, wouldn't we, boys?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Mahaffey said, and Pearsoll just shrugged and grunted his assent.\n\nJamie turned Sundown toward the front of the train again. \"Come on,\" he told the newcomers. \"We'll go see Captain Hendricks and make sure it's all right with him. I expect it will be, though.\"\n\nIn a matter of moments, he had gone from having barely enough scouts to maybe having too many, Jamie thought as he rode toward the front of the train. But considering the wild country they would be traversing before they reached their destination, maybe it wasn't possible to have too many scouts.\n\nOr too many men who were good with a gun."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 30",
                "text": "Bodie's head was spinning. Of all the people he might have run into on the way to Montana, Jake Lucas, Clete Mahaffey, and Dave Pearsoll were just about the last ones he would have expected. He had a bunch of questions for them, starting with their reasons for leaving the gang... and whether or not they had managed to get their share of the loot from Eldon Swint.\n\nThat had to wait until later, though. He couldn't say anything about it while Jamie or the other scouts were around. He didn't want to reveal his outlaw past to them. The wagon train was his chance to start over. Maybe his last chance.\n\nWhen he dared to let himself think about it, he thought that Savannah might be a chance to start over, too. She needed one, and so did he.\n\nWhy not together?\n\nBodie put that thought out of his head for the time being. When they talked to Captain Hendricks, he acknowledged that he and Jake and the other two men had been acquainted for a while and that he trusted them.\n\n\"That's good enough for me, I suppose,\" Hendricks said. \"I realize I've known you only a very short time, Mr. Cantrell, but Mr. MacCallister seems to trust you. That carries a great deal of weight with me.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" Bodie said. \"I'll try to live up to his trust, and yours as well.\"\n\nHe didn't get a chance to talk to Jake privately until the wagons had stopped for the midday meal and to let the teams rest again. Jake was standing on the riverbank, watering his horse, when Bodie walked over to join him.\n\n\"I don't reckon I've ever been as surprised in my life as I was when I saw you,\" Bodie said quietly.\n\n\"Why?\" Jake asked. \"You didn't think I was gonna stay with that lobo wolf Swint forever, did you?\"\n\n\"You never said anything about leaving.\"\n\n\"Maybe that's because you never put the idea in my head until now,\" Jake said with a shrug. \"When Swint told me you were gone, I asked myself why not? It was as good a time as any to make a break. I'll be honest with you, Bodie. Sooner or later, Eldon was gonna land us smack-dab in some trouble that we couldn't shoot our way out of. I don't want to wind up dancin' at the end of a rope, thrown in a cheap pine box, and stuck in some potter's field. That's what was gonna happen if we kept ridin' the owlhoot.\"\n\n\"Where we're going, wolves may wind up scattering your bones.\"\n\n\"That's a chance I'll take. When I said I was leavin', Clete and Dave wanted to come with me. They're as tired of Swint's bull as I was.\"\n\nBodie lowered his voice to a whisper. \"What about the money? Did you get him to give you your share?\"\n\n\"We did better than that,\" Jake said with his quick grin. \"We talked him into givin' us your share, too, so we could deliver it to you when we caught up. He tried to pull that ol' business about how if somebody left the gang, they didn't get what was comin' to 'em. That didn't fly, and we told him so. He backed down.\"\n\nUntil his own confrontation with Eldon Swint, Bodie might not have believed that was possible. He had seen for himself, though, that Swint might be more bluster than real threat, especially when the odds weren't overwhelmingly on his side. He could believe that Swint hadn't wanted to stand up to Jake, Mahaffey, and Pearsoll.\n\n\"You must have been mighty sure I was with the wagon train, if you figured on bringing my share of the loot with you.\"\n\nJake chuckled. \"Well, if we guessed wrong and hadn't found you, I reckon we would've just had to keep that money ourselves. It would have been a shame, but we could've brung ourselves to do it.\"\n\nBodie let out a wry laugh and shook his head. \"Well, you're here now, and that's all that matters, I reckon. You plan to stay with the wagon train all the way to Montana?\"\n\n\"We'll have to wait and see about that. Right now all that matters is that we're on the move again, and it feels mighty good. I was already tired of that town. Too many people crowdin' around all the time. I'm a Texas boy. Used to wide open spaces all around me, you know.\"\n\nBodie nodded. \"From what I've heard, there'll be plenty of those where we're going.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 31",
                "text": "Back in Kansas City, Eldon Swint stirred in the grimy sheets of his hotel room bed. Somebody muttered and moaned beside him. Unable to recall which of the soiled doves he had brought from the Bella Royale the night before, he raised himself on an elbow so he could look over at his companion.\n\nThe tangled mass of hennaed hair on the other pillow looked vaguely familiar. Harriet? Hermione? Helen, that was it, he told himself... not that it really mattered to him what the dove's name was.\n\nHe reached over and smacked a beefy hip under the sheet.\n\nHelen groaned again, rolled over, and opened her eyes to slits, wincing at the morning light coming in through the gap between the threadbare curtains over the room's lone window. \"What time is it?\" she muttered.\n\n\"Time for you to get up and haul yourself out of here,\" Swint told her.\n\nShe didn't seem to have heard his answer. \"You can't expect to go again this mornin'. You didn't pay me that much, honey.\"\n\n\"I didn't say I wanted to go again. I said you need to get out.\"\n\nTo emphasize his point, Swint planted a bare foot against her rump and shoved. Helen let out a yelp of dismay as she slid out of the bed. The thud as she hit the floor cut off her cry.\n\nShe came up angry, exclaiming, \"You son of a\u2014\"\n\nSwint had already swung his legs out of bed and stood up. Standing on the far side of the bed, his bony frame clad only in the bottom half of a pair of long underwear, he turned his head to look at her. The ice-cold menace in his slate-gray eyes made her shut up in a hurry.\n\n\"You don't have to treat me so mean.\" Helen pouted as she started looking around for her dress. She still wore stockings rolled just above her knees, and those stockings, her slippers, and the dress were the only things she had been wearing when Swint brought her to the hotel the previous night.\n\nThe bare wood floor was cold against the soles of Swint's feet as he went over to a small table where some of his gear was piled. He pawed through it until he found one of the thin black cheroots he favored and a match. He snapped the lucifer to life with his thumbnail and set fire to the gasper. He didn't have any interest in watching the soiled dove get dressed. The night before, he had thought she was beautiful, but a bottle of rotgut whiskey improved any woman's looks immeasurably.\n\n\"Are you coming to the Bella Royale tonight, honey?\" Helen asked behind him.\n\n\"More than likely,\" Swint replied without looking around. He stared out the window instead.\n\n\"Well, I'll be there. You'll look for me, won't you, honey?\"\n\n\"We'll see,\" Swint said dully.\n\nHis mouth tasted like something had crawled into it and died. His head was throbbing a little from all the who-hit-John he'd guzzled down the night before. His guts roiled unpleasantly. He had hoped the cheroot would help with those problems, but it wasn't doing a blasted bit of good.\n\nHelen tried again. \"I had a mighty fine time with you last night.\"\n\n\"Forget it,\" Swint snapped. \"Just get out.\"\n\nShe sniffed angrily, and a moment later the door slammed behind her on her way out of the room. Swint grimaced as the noise made his head throb harder. It felt like imps straight from Hades were capering around inside his skull, banging on it with ball-peen hammers.\n\nAnother memory stole back into his thoughts. Bodie Cantrell had quit the gang last night, he recalled with a scowl. That infuriated him. After all he'd done for Cantrell, only to be treated like that!\n\nAt least Cantrell hadn't insisted on getting his share of the loot. Swint would let the rest of the gang think that he had. That way Swint could pocket it for himself.\n\nThinking about the money made him turn away from the window. When he'd brought Helen back to the hotel, he had hefted the saddlebags before they got down to business. No matter how drunk he was, he always checked on the loot.\n\nAs the cheroot dangled from his lips, he had the urge to let some of those double eagles trickle through his fingers. That always made him feel better. He went to the wardrobe where he'd stashed the saddlebags, reached inside, and picked up one of them. The weight was comforting, and so was the clink of coins as he set the bags on the table. He unfastened one of the pouches and thrust his hand inside.\n\nHe knew instantly that something was wrong. His fingers touched coins, all right, but they weren't the right size to be double eagles. And there was something else in the pouch...\n\nRocks.\n\nSwint's teeth clamped down on the cheroot so hard that he bit off the end and the thin black twisted cylinder fell onto the table next to the saddlebags. Swint ignored it and spat out the piece left in his mouth. He upended the pouch and stared in shock and disbelief at the rocks that fell out onto the table, along with a handful of pennies.\n\nAfter a moment, he ripped the other pouch open and dumped its contents as well. More rocks and pennies spilled out. Bellowing a curse, Swint lunged for the wardrobe to get the other saddlebags.\n\nA minute later, he had confirmed the awful truth.\n\nSomebody had stolen all the loot.\n\nChoking with fury, Swint yanked his revolver from the holster attached to the coiled shell belt lying on the table. He threw the door open and ran out into the hall, still wearing just the long underwear.\n\nTwo doors down the corridor, Swint hammered on the panel of Charley Green's room and yelled, \"Charley! Damn it, Charley, get out here!\"\n\nWhen Green opened the door wearing a pair of baggy long-handles, he looked just as bleary-eyed as Swint had been upon first awakening. He coughed and cleared his throat. \"Eldon, what's wrong?\"\n\nSwint started to blurt out that the loot was gone, but then he stopped himself. It might not be smart to let the others know what had happened until he figured it out himself. He grated, \"Who was standin' guard here last night?\"\n\nGreen raked his fingers through his tangled hair and frowned. \"I dunno,\" he said after a second. \"You must've seen 'em when you came in.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but I can't remember\u2014\" Swint stopped short as a couple faces locked into place in his mind. \"Wait a minute. Mahaffey and Pearsoll. They were the ones.\"\n\n\"Well, there you go, then,\" Green said as he started to turn away and close the door. Clearly, he didn't grasp the depth of the problem.\n\nSwint slapped his free hand against the door. \"Where are they?\" he demanded.\n\n\"What? Who?\" Green gave his head a violent shake as if he were trying to clear the cobwebs from his brain. \"Oh, you mean Mahaffey and Pearsoll. Shoot, I don't know. I don't keep track of where everybody is.\"\n\n\"We've got to find them,\" Swint said. \"Get dressed. Now!\"\n\nHe stomped back to his room and started pulling on his clothes. Once he was dressed and had his gun belt strapped around his hips, he rousted out the other members of the gang. Green, still confused, helped him.\n\nWithin ten minutes, everybody was gathered in Swint's room, with three notable exceptions: Clete Mahaffey and Dave Pearsoll, who had been guarding the loot the night before... and Three-Finger Jake Lucas.\n\nSwint questioned his men, his angry voice lashing them like a whip. Nobody admitted to having seen Mahaffey, Pearsoll, or Lucas since the previous night. Swint ordered them to spread out through the area and conduct a search. There were plenty of saloons, brothels, dance halls, and gambling dens where the three men might be.\n\nHe had an unhappy feeling that they wouldn't be found in any of those places.\n\nBy mid-morning the conclusion was inescapable. Lucas and the other two were gone. Only one reason for their disappearance made sense. They had stolen the loot from the train robbery and lit a shuck out of Kansas City.\n\nSwint had no choice but to break the news to his men. They took it with startled curses, followed by bitter anger.\n\n\"What are we gonna do, Eldon?\" Charley Green asked when the hubbub in Swint's room subsided.\n\n\"I'll tell you what we're gonna do. We're gonna find those damned double-crossers and get our money back! And when we do... those three are going to wish they'd never been born.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 32",
                "text": "Gideon Kane was in the habit of rising late. There was no reason for him not to, since he had never done an actual day's work in his life. Things like that were for lesser men.\n\nIn the mansion on the outskirts of Kansas City, breakfast and coffee were waiting for him on a table covered with a fine linen cloth in the sitting room next to his bedroom, even though it was late enough that most people were starting to think about their midday meal. He belted a silk dressing gown around his waist and sat down to eat.\n\nA bell pull hung within reach. Kane tugged on the cord, and a moment later his butler, Jenkins, appeared in the doorway. \"Yes, sir?\"\n\nKane sipped from the fine bone china cup and then asked, \"Is Harrison here?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, he's in your study. He arrived a short time ago and said that he had a report for you when you woke up. I assumed that's where you would want to receive it after you'd eaten.\"\n\n\"Normally, yes. I'm feeling rather impatient this morning, however. Send him up here.\"\n\nJenkins inclined his head forward. \"Yes, sir. Right away.\"\n\nKane went back to his breakfast.\n\nA few minutes later a knock sounded on the partially open sitting room door. Kane called, \"Come in.\"\n\nEli Harrison stepped into the room. He was a tall, heavy-shouldered man with massive fists and a face like a slab of raw meat. He had worked for the Kane family in a number of capacities over the years, starting out as a stableman.\n\nNow he worked exclusively for Gideon Kane as a troubleshooter of sorts. Whenever Kane had a problem, no matter what it was, Harrison found a way to take care of it. He was brutal when he had to be and utterly ruthless.\n\nWithout looking up, Kane said, \"I hope you're here to tell me that you've located that girl and brought her here.\"\n\n\"I wish I could, Mr. Kane,\" Harrison said bluntly, \"but my men haven't turned up any sign of her yet.\"\n\n\"You kept watch on the hotel where that troupe of entertainers is staying?\"\n\n\"I sent a couple men to do that.\" Harrison didn't sound happy about what he had to say next. \"They got sidetracked. One of 'em felt like he had to stop and pay off a gambling debt. They wound up, ah, gettin' mixed up in a game for a while.\"\n\nKane frowned as he laid aside the spoon he had been using. \"So the hotel went unguarded?\"\n\n\"Not for long. Only about an hour.\"\n\nKane felt his face warming with anger. Harrison knew as well as he did that a lot of things could happen in an hour.\n\n\"I want those two fools fired,\" Kane snapped.\n\n\"Already done it, sir.\" Harrison lifted one of his huge fists. The knuckles were skinned and raw. \"Had a talk with 'em about falling down on the job, too.\"\n\n\"You have men watching the hotel now?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. If she's still there, we'll pick her up whenever she goes out.\"\n\nJenkins stepped into the doorway behind Harrison. He cleared his throat. \"A note was delivered for you earlier this morning, sir.\"\n\n\"Who's it from?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\" Jenkins lifted a piece of paper that was folded and sealed with wax. \"I have it here.\"\n\nKane pushed his empty plate aside and made a curt gesture toward the table. Jenkins crossed the room and placed the note on the linen. Kane picked it up and ripped the seal open.\n\nHis eyes scanned the words written in a feminine hand on the paper. More anger welled up inside him. He started to crumple the note, then stopped, set it down again, smoothed the creases from it. \"Bring me O'Hanlon,\" he said softly.\n\n\"Sir?\" Jenkins murmured.\n\n\"I'm talking to Eli.\" Kane stared coldly at Harrison. \"O'Hanlon, the head of that acting troupe. Bring him here. Now.\"\n\nHarrison nodded and left the room.\n\nBy the time Harrison returned to the mansion, Kane was dressed and waiting downstairs in his study. He had been pacing back and forth angrily, but he forced himself to regain his composure when Jenkins announced that Harrison was there and had brought Cyrus O'Hanlon with him as ordered. Kane gave the butler a curt nod to indicate that he was ready for them.\n\nHarrison gave O'Hanlon a little shove as they came into the study, making the actor stumble. O'Hanlon caught himself before he fell. Drawing himself up straighter, he glared at Kane. \"The authorities will hear about you having me kidnapped like this, Mr. Kane.\"\n\n\"Kidnapped?\" Kane repeated. He smiled coolly. \"I don't know what you're talking about. I asked Mr. Harrison to request that you honor me by visiting my home, and that's all that happened, Mr. O'Hanlon.\"\n\n\"You know good and well that's not true,\" O'Hanlon blustered. \"This bruiser of yours practically dragged me bodily out of the hotel. My wife witnessed the incident, and so did other members of my troupe.\"\n\n\"We've had this discussion before,\" Kane chided. \"As far as the law is concerned, my version of events is what actually happened, not the fantasies of some wild-eyed actor. Now...\" His voice hardened. \"Where is Miss McCoy?\"\n\n\"I have no idea.\"\n\nKane leaned over and picked up the note from Savannah that he had brought down with him from the sitting room. \"You arranged for her note to be delivered to me.\"\n\n\"I don't know what you're talking about.\"\n\n\"Please. You look after her. You must know where she's hiding.\" Kane tossed the paper back onto the desk. \"I don't believe for one second that she's left town. You've just got her stashed away somewhere, that's all.\"\n\nStubbornly, O'Hanlon shook his head. \"She left the troupe,\" he insisted. \"I hated to see her go, but you made it impossible for her to do anything else, you... you...\"\n\nHarrison's big hand came down heavily on O'Hanlon's shoulder as the actor sputtered, searching for a suitable epithet.\n\n\"I'll find her,\" Kane said confidently. \"I'll involve the law if I have to. The police can scour the entire city for her. Or you can save us all a great deal of trouble by telling me where she is.\"\n\n\"I can't tell you because I don't know. And if I did know, I wouldn't tell you!\"\n\nKane looked at him for a second, then sighed and nodded to Eli Harrison.\n\nThe big man kicked O'Hanlon in the back of the right knee. O'Hanlon cried out in pain and toppled to the side as his right leg collapsed under him. Harrison kicked him again as he fell, digging the toe of his boot into O'Hanlon's shoulder blade. O'Hanlon lay on the floor, writhing and making little noises as he tried to keep from crying.\n\n\"I'll ask you again,\" Kane said. \"Where is Miss McCoy?\"\n\n\"G-go to hell!\" O'Hanlon spat out between clenched teeth.\n\n\"You'll regret that you didn't cooperate with me, O'Hanlon,\" Kane warned.\n\n\"I already regret that I ever saw your damned face!\"\n\nKane nodded to Harrison again.\n\nBy the time the big man finished, O'Hanlon had passed out. There wasn't a mark on his face to indicate that he'd been beaten, but Kane wouldn't have worried if there had been. No one was going to believe the actor's story.\n\nHarrison stood over the unconscious O'Hanlon and frowned. In his rumbling voice, he said, \"I'm startin' to think that he's tellin' the truth, boss. If he knew where the girl was, he'd have spilled it by now.\"\n\n\"I believe you may be right.\" Kane picked up the note again. \"But if she's abandoned the troupe and left Kansas City, where could she have gone?\"\n\nJenkins cleared his throat again. The butler had been standing to one side during the brutal beating, his unlined face as imperturbable as ever. \"I beg your pardon, sir, but I have a thought.\"\n\nKane turned to face him. \"You're a smart man, Jenkins. What is it?\"\n\n\"Miss McCoy has been traveling with this troupe of actors and entertainers, which means she's accustomed to having a group of people around her. I have my doubts that she would set out all alone from a strange place. Didn't your men report that they pursued Miss McCoy and that unknown cowboy to a place where a wagon train was camped? A wagon train that, I believe, departed from Kansas City this morning?\"\n\n\"That's right.\" Kane closed his eyes for a second and made a face. \"Of course! She went with the wagon train!\"\n\n\"That would be my guess, sir.\"\n\nKane flipped a hand at O'Hanlon and told Harrison, \"Take him out and dump him somewhere. If anyone ever asks, he was fine when he left here after our visit. Thieves must have attacked him on his way back to the hotel.\"\n\n\"It'll look more realistic if he doesn't have any money left on him,\" Harrison pointed out.\n\n\"Fine, fine, I don't care about that. Just put together a group of men and get after that wagon train. Stop it and search it.\" A thought occurred to Kane and put a smile on his face. \"Not right away, though. Let it get several days away from here.\" He laughed. \"That way Miss McCoy will believe that she's gotten away from me. How delicious it will be when she's dragged back here.\"\n\nHarrison nodded slowly. \"There's just one problem we might have with that, boss.\"\n\n\"I pay you very well to take care of problems,\" Kane snapped. \"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"From what I've heard, a fella named MacCallister took over as wagon master for that bunch of pilgrims. He's supposed to be a pretty tough gent. A real ring-tailed roarer.\"\n\n\"Mr. Harrison... did you ever see a man who was tougher than a bullet from a gun?\"\n\n\"Well, no, sir, I haven't.\"\n\n\"There's your answer, then,\" Kane said. \"No problem at all. If this fellow MacCallister or anybody else gets in your way, just kill him.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 33",
                "text": "As Jamie expected that it would, life on the trail soon settled into a routine. He had the immigrants up early every morning, and they broke camp and the wagons rolled when the sky was still gray. Other than short breaks to rest the teams, he kept them moving all day.\n\nUnfortunately, the sun slipped below the horizon a little earlier each day, cutting down the time that they could travel.\n\nLate every afternoon, the wagons pulled off the trail and formed a big circle next to the river. He and some of the scouts stood guard while the livestock was watered and then driven into the circle.\n\nThe train had come far enough from Kansas City that the land was sparsely settled with a few isolated ranches in the area. Jamie didn't think there was any real danger from Indians yet, but it never hurt to be careful.\n\nAnd outlaws, of course, could strike anywhere.\n\nOnce everyone had eaten supper, they turned in for the night, tired from the long day on the trail. There was no big center campfire where the immigrants gathered to play music, sing, and dance the way they had done back in Kansas City. They didn't have the energy for diversions like that anymore. The hard pace that Jamie established saw to that.\n\nHe set up guard shifts at night, drawing on volunteers from the wagon train along with his scouts. Moses Danzig was always willing to pitch in and do whatever was needed. He wouldn't be much good in a fight, Jamie knew, but he could stay alert and give the alarm in case of trouble as well as anybody else.\n\nSo far Lucas, Mahaffey, and Pearsoll had worked out fairly well. Mahaffey and Pearsoll weren't very friendly with the immigrants and the other scouts and kept to themselves most of the time. But they didn't cause any trouble and they did what Jamie told them without any arguments.\n\nJake Lucas, on the other hand, seldom stopped talking and always had a friendly word for everybody. He flirted with all the teenage girls whose families were part of the group and even with some of the married women, which Jamie thought might lead to problems sooner or later. He asked Bodie to have a word with his friend about it.\n\nBodie agreed to do so, but he added, \"Jake doesn't mean anything by the way he acts. That's just how he is. He's friendly with everybody.\"\n\n\"Get too friendly with a married woman and punches can get thrown,\" Jamie cautioned. \"That's if you're lucky. If you're not, guns go off.\"\n\n\"I'll talk to him,\" Bodie promised.\n\nLamar Hendricks and Jamie had gotten together and studied the map that Jeb Ralston had drawn before they left. The route Ralston had laid out turned northwest away from the Kansas River, followed the Oregon Trail for a good long ways, then cut almost due north, crossing the Platte and continuing to skirt the Rocky Mountains to the east as they headed for Montana.\n\nOnce they were there the wagons would turn west again, travel through the foothills and on into Eagle Valley. It was a route without any extremely rugged terrain to cross, just plains and rolling hills, which meant the wagons could move fairly fast over it.\n\nJamie planned to follow that route. Ralston might have been a braggart and a bully, and reckless to boot, but he had sketched out a decent trail for the immigrants he was supposed to lead.\n\nSeveral days out of Kansas City, they camped where the Blue River flowed into the Kansas from the northwest. It was where the Oregon Trail turned away from the larger stream.\n\nThat evening Jamie called his scouts together. \"We haven't had much to worry about so far, but from here to the Platte we'll have to be a mite more watchful for trouble. Wagon trains have been taking this trail for a long time, so the Indians are used to seeing them, but you never know when some band will take it into their heads to get proddy.\" He paused to emphasize the next point. \"The important thing is that if we do run into any Cheyenne, Arapaho, or Pawnee, everybody needs to stay calm until we see what they've got in mind. That goes for us as well as the pilgrims. No shooting unless I say so. More blood's been spilled because of itchy trigger fingers than any other reason.\"\n\nThe men nodded their agreement, even the normally taciturn Mahaffey and Pearsoll.\n\n\"Get a good night's sleep,\" Jamie added. \"We'll all be in the saddle early tomorrow.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 34",
                "text": "\"And where are you off to, my friend?\" Moses asked as Bodie stood up from their supper fire after they finished eating. \"As if I didn't know.\"\n\n\"I've hardly gotten a glimpse of Savannah\u2014I mean, Miss McCoy\u2014since we left Kansas City. And I sure haven't gotten a chance to talk to her. I want to see how she's doing.\"\n\n\"Do I need to come with you to serve as a chaperone?\" Moses asked with a grin.\n\n\"I just want to talk to her,\" Bodie said, slightly irritated. \"I don't plan to do any sparking with her, or anything else that'd need a chaperone.\" He paused. \"Besides, I reckon Mr. and Mrs. Bingham will be right there.\"\n\n\"I don't know, maybe you could convince her to go for a walk with you around the camp. I'm just saying...\"\n\nBodie waved a hand at his friend, clapped his hat on his head, and went to look for the Bingham wagon. He wasn't exactly sure where in the big circle it was parked.\n\nHe was walking past the area where the saddle mounts were picketed when he heard a murmur of voices. Something about the sound struck him as secretive, so he circled around the horses to see what was going on.\n\nSeveral figures stood in the deep shadows next to a wagon. They seemed familiar to Bodie, and as he came closer he recognized Jake Lucas, Clete Mahaffey, and Dave Pearsoll. They were having an animated discussion, but Pearsoll noticed Bodie coming and said something curt to the others, who immediately fell silent.\n\nJake turned to greet Bodie. \"What's up? Is MacCallister lookin' for us?\"\n\n\"No, not as far as I know,\" Bodie replied. \"What are you fellas doing?\"\n\n\"Oh, nothin' that amounts to anything,\" Jake said with a laugh. \"This 'tarnal idjit here\"\u2014he jerked a thumb at Mahaffey\u2014\"is tryin' to claim that he saw a panther today while he was scoutin'. I told him we're a heck of a long way from anywhere that a panther would be. Likely you just saw a coyote, Clete.\"\n\n\"Or a prairie dog,\" Pearsoll added in an uncharacteristic display of dry humor.\n\n\"You lunkheads are both wrong,\" Mahaffey snapped. \"I know what I saw.\"\n\n\"Where are you headed, Bodie?\" Jake asked.\n\n\"I, uh, thought I'd go see how Miss McCoy is doing,\" Bodie admitted.\n\nJake grinned. \"At least we know now why you left the gang back yonder in Kansas City.\"\n\n\"I don't want to talk about that,\" Bodie said as he quickly glanced around to see if anyone was within earshot. \"That part of my life is over.\"\n\n\"Don't worry. It's the same way with all of us, pard. Although I wonder sometimes if you can ever leave behind who you really are.\"\n\n\"Sure you can,\" Bodie said. He hoped that was true, anyway.\n\nHe said so long to the three men and moved on toward the Bingham wagon. As he did, he wondered about the conversation they had been having. Even though he hadn't been able to make out any of the words, it had sounded to him as if they were arguing.\n\nBut somehow he wasn't convinced that they had been arguing about panthers.\n\nThoughts of Savannah crowded back into his mind and made him forget about the encounter with Jake and the other two former outlaws. When he reached the Bingham wagon, Savannah and Mrs. Bingham were cleaning up after supper. The cooking fire had burned down to a small blaze, but it gave off enough light for Bodie to see how pretty Savannah was, even with her face flushed slightly from washing dishes in an iron pot of hot water.\n\n\"Hello, Bodie,\" she said brightly. \"How are you?\"\n\n\"Fine. How about you?\"\n\n\"Oh... all right, I suppose.\"\n\nHe realized how stilted and uncomfortable this exchange was, but he couldn't seem to bring himself to relax around her. \"I haven't had much of a chance to talk to you since we left Kansas City.\"\n\n\"I know. Mr. MacCallister must keep you really busy with your scouting duties.\"\n\n\"He does. He's not overbearing about it, though. He just wants to keep the wagon train safe.\"\n\nLeticia Bingham came up beside Savannah. \"Goodness, you two need to start talking to each other like actual human beings. Savannah, let me finish up here. You go visit with Mr. Cantrell.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\" Savannah asked. \"Because I really don't mind\u2014\"\n\n\"Go,\" Mrs. Bingham said again. \"Sit on the wagon tongue. It's a nice night, just a little chilly. If you sit close, you won't be too cold.\"\n\nThe thought of sitting close to Savannah made Bodie's pulse race a little faster. He was grateful to Mrs. Bingham for suggesting it.\n\n\"All right.\" Savannah dried her hands on the apron she wore, then walked with Bodie to the front of the wagon. They sat down.\n\n\"I've been keeping an eye on our back trail,\" Bodie said. \"You know, just in case Kane sends anybody after us.\"\n\n\"After me, you mean. He probably doesn't have any idea who you are. You haven't seen anyone following the wagon train, have you?\"\n\n\"Not so far. And it's been several days. I think if they were back there, they would have caught up by now.\"\n\n\"I hope that means my note worked and that Kane has given up on finding me,\" Savannah said. \"But I don't want to talk about him anymore, Bodie.\"\n\n\"I don't blame you. I don't want to talk about the no-good scoundrel, either.\" He grinned. \"How do you like traveling with the wagon train?\"\n\nShe smiled back at him. \"Well, it's not like I never traveled by wagon before. The troupe travels from city to city in wagons, so I'm used to riding in one. Although Mr. MacCallister certainly has us covering more ground quicker than Cyrus ever did.\"\n\nBodie chuckled. \"Jamie MacCallister isn't one to let grass grow under his feet, that's for sure.\"\n\n\"You sound like you admire him.\"\n\n\"I've never met anybody else quite like him. The places he's been, the things he's seen and done... I could listen to him talk about them all day. I find myself thinking... a fella could do a lot worse for himself than trying to be like Jamie Ian MacCallister.\"\n\nSavannah's voice was quiet as she said, \"I think you're doing fine just being Bodie Cantrell.\"\n\n\"It's nice of you to say so, but\u2014\"\n\nShe silenced him by leaning closer to him and kissing him.\n\nThat took him by surprise. He wouldn't have thought she would be so daring with the Binghams only a few yards away. But he certainly didn't pull back from her, instead lifting a hand to rest it lightly on her shoulder as he enjoyed the sweet warmth of her lips on his.\n\n\"I told Moses we wouldn't need a chaperone,\" he whispered when she finally broke the kiss after a long, delicious moment.\n\n\"We don't.\" Savannah stood up. \"I'll be turning in now, Mr. Cantrell. I'll say good night.\"\n\n\"Good night to you, too, Miss McCoy,\" he replied, his voice thick in his throat.\n\nHe stood there while she went to the rear of the wagon and climbed in. If he was going to tell the truth, he had been thinking about Savannah and wishing he could kiss her ever since they'd left Kansas City. Now that he had...\n\nNow that he had, he realized as a grin broke across his face, he was ready to do it again."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 35",
                "text": "\"Forget about sharin' the loot with Cantrell,\" Clete Mahaffey said as the three former outlaws resumed their conversation once Bodie had walked off toward the Binghams' wagon. \"That fool doesn't care about money, anyway. The only thing he can think about now is the girl.\"\n\n\"She's worth thinkin' about,\" Jake said. \"She's a mighty pretty gal.\"\n\nDave Pearsoll grunted and declared, \"A big pile of double eagles is prettier. That's what we've got, and I agree with Clete. I ain't inclined to share 'em with Cantrell. He didn't do anything to earn a share.\"\n\n\"He was with us when we took them off that train,\" Jake pointed out. \"Shoot, he helped Eldon and the others take over the depot and make sure the train stopped. We wouldn't have that pile of double eagles if they hadn't done that.\"\n\n\"But he wasn't there when we risked our necks to steal them from Swint,\" Mahaffey said. \"Anyway, he quit the gang back there in Kansas City. That was his own decision.\"\n\n\"So did we,\" Jake reminded him. \"But I'm not gonna argue about it with you boys. Bodie don't know we've got the loot, and as long as he don't know he can't say that we're cheatin' him out of anything. So I'll go along with whatever you say. When the time comes to leave the wagon train, we'll go our own way and leave Bodie behind.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well, when's that gonna be?\" Pearsoll asked.\n\nThat was the question they had been wrangling about when Bodie came up to them a short time earlier and caused Jake to come up with that story about the panther. Mahaffey and Pearsoll thought it was already time to leave the wagons behind and disappear in the middle of the night with the loot they had liberated from Eldon Swint, but Jake wanted to wait and stay with the train a while longer.\n\n\"We'll reach the Platte River in a few weeks,\" Jake said. \"By then, we'll know for sure whether or not Eldon's gonna come after us. If we haven't seen hide nor hair of him, we can figure he doesn't know where we are and go wherever we want from there. San Francisco, Mexico, wherever suits our fancy.\"\n\nDespite the fact that he was younger and less experienced than the other two outlaws, he was in charge and he didn't want them to forget it, so his voice hardened slightly. \"Until then, we'll stay with the wagons. If Swint and the rest of the gang show up lookin' for us with guns in their hands and blood in their eyes, we'll need all the help we can get fightin' 'em off. Bodie and his new friends will pitch in on our side, I'm sure of that. Those pilgrims will think they're under attack by owlhoots, and that'll be the truth. They just won't know the reason why.\"\n\n\"All right, all right,\" Mahaffey muttered. \"I reckon what you say makes sense, Jake. That big varmint MacCallister worries me, though.\"\n\n\"Me, too,\" Pearsoll agreed. \"Sometimes when he looks at me, it feels like he can see right through me, Jake. Like he knows everythin' I'm thinkin' or feelin'. Man's got eyes like a hawk... or an eagle.\"\n\n\"Don't worry about Jamie MacCallister,\" Jake said. \"He's just like Bodie.\" He grinned. \"He don't suspect a thing.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 36",
                "text": "Moses was checking the hubs on his wagon wheels to see if they needed to be greased again when he heard rapid footsteps coming up behind him.\n\nHe straightened and turned quickly, not really expecting trouble right in camp but knowing that it was best to be careful. He relaxed when he saw the two children who had just run up to his wagon.\n\n\"Hello, Mr. Danzig,\" Alexander Bradford said.\n\n\"Hello,\" his sister Abigail added.\n\n\"Good evening to you, children,\" Moses told the youngsters with a solemn nod. \"What brings you to see me? Shouldn't you be back at your father's wagon, getting ready to go to sleep? You know how Mr. MacCallister likes to make an early start in the morning!\"\n\n\"We were hopin' you could show us that toy again,\" Alexander said.\n\n\"You know, the spinning one,\" Abigail said.\n\nMoses grinned. \"Ah, you mean the dreidel. Let me get it.\"\n\nThey had seen him idly spinning the dreidel one day back in Kansas City. It helped him to think, and he had explained a little about it to them during that conversation.\n\nHe climbed into the wagon over the lowered tailgate and emerged a moment later to hop back down to the ground. Motioning for Alexander and Abigail to come closer, he poised the four-sided top on the tailgate. \"Here we go.\"\n\nGrasping the little shaft that stuck up from the dreidel, he flicked it between his thumb and index finger and gave it a spin. The top whirled so fast that the four Hebrew letters painted on it, one on each side, blurred and became unreadable.\n\nNot that the children could have read them anyway, Moses thought. He was quite probably the only member of the wagon train who could.\n\nBut they enjoyed watching the top spin. Abigail clapped her hands together and giggled. Alexander grinned and fidgeted, shuffling his feet back and forth. Moses knew the boy was anxious to try spinning the top himself.\n\n\"We use the dreidel to play a game during one of my people's holidays,\" Moses told them.\n\n\"Like Christmas?\" Abigail asked.\n\n\"Well, not exactly. Our holiday is called Hanukkah, which means the Feast of Lights, and even though it comes at about the same time of year as Christmas, it's different\u2014\"\n\n\"Alexander! Abigail!\" The angry bellow came from Reverend Bradford, who stalked toward Moses's wagon with his hands clenched into knobby-knuckled fists.\n\nThe children scurried away from the tailgate, obviously not wanting to incur any more of their father's wrath than they already had by being there. Moses frowned. He didn't like to see children acting so frightened. He worried that they had good reason to be scared.\n\nThe dreidel had stopped spinning and fallen over onto its side. Moses picked it up and held it in his hands where Bradford could see it and hopefully realize that he had just been entertaining the youngsters with a harmless toy. \"Good evening, Reverend.\"\n\nBradford came to a stop and glared at him. \"What are you doing with my children?\"\n\n\"I was just showing them the dreidel,\" Moses explained. \"I was going to let them play with it.\"\n\n\"You were preaching your heathen religion to them!\"\n\nMoses shook his head. \"Not at all. I wouldn't do that. They're just children.\"\n\n\"I heard you telling them about your Hebrew holiday, the one you celebrate instead of Christmas.\" Bradford stabbed a blunt finger toward the dreidel. \"Look at it! It's got religious symbols painted on it!\"\n\n\"They're just Hebrew letters\u2014\" Moses stopped and drew a deep breath. It was true that the markings on the dreidel had some significance in his faith, and as a rabbi he could have explained all that to Bradford in a calm, rational manner, but he knew the man didn't want to hear it.\n\nInstead he said simply, \"I'm sorry. If you'd rather the children not play with it, I'll honor your wishes, of course.\"\n\n\"I'd rather that they not have anything to do with the likes of you,\" Bradford snapped. \"If they come around here again, you send them packing, you hear?\"\n\nMoses made an effort to hang on to his temper. \"All right. They're your children.\"\n\n\"And don't you forget it.\"\n\nBradford turned and stalked off across the camp. Alexander and Abigail had already disappeared, no doubt scurrying back to their wagon.\n\nMoses watched the man go and shook his head. It was a shame that Bradford had to be so hostile, but with some people, once they made their minds up there was no changing them.\n\n\"The reverend's lucky you didn't take a swing at him.\"\n\nThe quiet voice made Moses jerk his head around. The huge shape that loomed up in the firelight was instantly recognizable as that of Jamie Ian MacCallister.\n\n\"Mr. MacCallister,\" Moses said. \"I didn't hear you.\" He had wondered before how a man as large as Jamie could move so silently. The big frontiersman was as stealthy as Moses supposed an Indian to be.\n\n\"I was keeping an eye on things. If Bradford had jumped you, I would have stepped in. If you'd needed my help, that is.\"\n\n\"I think that's a foregone conclusion. I'm not exactly what you'd call a... a brawler.\"\n\n\"No, but you've got sand.\"\n\n\"Sand?\" Moses repeated with a frown.\n\n\"Courage,\" Jamie said.\n\nMoses shook his head slowly. \"I don't know about that. I've never been renowned for my bravery.\"\n\nJamie hooked his thumbs in his gun belt. \"You came all the way to this country from Poland and then set out across it just because that's what your faith told you to do, didn't you?\"\n\n\"Well, yes,\" Moses admitted. \"But that's my calling, I guess you'd say.\"\n\n\"You joined up with a wagon train full of folks different from you, knowing that some of 'em wouldn't like you, but you're as friendly as you can be toward them and do everything you can to help out.\"\n\nMoses spread his hands. \"What can I say, I was raised to get along with people. And to be practical. I have to get to Oregon somehow, and this seemed like the quickest way.\"\n\nJamie sat on the tailgate. \"Most of my spiritual beliefs, if you can call 'em that, come from the Indians. They figure we all had to get here somehow, and that somebody put us here. Some of them call him Man Above, some call him the Great Spirit. They have other names for the creator, too. But no matter what they call him, there's always somebody bigger than us, somebody who looks out for us and expects us to be the best folks we can.\"\n\n\"Nothing in my faith would disagree with that,\" Moses said.\n\nJamie nodded. \"That's what I'm saying. Bradford's got it in his head that he's got all the answers. Me?\" The big man chuckled. \"I don't reckon I even know all the questions yet. Probably won't while I'm still on this earth. But what I do know is that you'll do to ride the river with, Moses Danzig.\"\n\n\"Ride the river? I'm afraid I don't understand.\"\n\nJamie lifted a hand to say good night, and as he turned away he told Moses, \"By the time we get where we're going, you'll have figured it out.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 37",
                "text": "The months she had spent with the theatrical troupe had gotten Savannah in the habit of going to bed late and sleeping late in the morning. She'd had to get over that in a hurry, and after a couple days of being extremely groggy most of the day after being rousted out of her bedroll early, she was starting to get used to the schedule set by Mr. MacCallister.\n\nIn fact, she awoke this morning even before he came around to make sure everyone was up and about, getting ready for the day's journey. The pattering of rain on the wagon's canvas cover may have had something to do with that. It was a soothing sound, but at the same time it was different enough to make Savannah want to get up and see how the weather was.\n\nMr. and Mrs. Bingham slept in an actual bunk built into the side of the wagon, while Savannah rolled up in blankets next to the tailgate. She lifted her head and pushed the canvas flap aside to peer out, only to discover that she couldn't see anything. The thick cloud cover made the predawn hours even darker than usual.\n\nSavannah wasn't sure what time it was, but she suspected it was late enough that Mr. MacCallister would be coming around soon. She pushed the blankets aside, sat up, and dug around in the bag she had brought with her until she found her rain slicker. The idea of going out in the rain to attend to her personal needs didn't appeal to her, but she didn't have any choice.\n\nShe pulled the slicker on and climbed out of the wagon, dropping easily to the ground. It wasn't very muddy yet, which told her the rain hadn't been falling for long. It was just a drizzle at the moment, not much more than a fine mist.\n\nSavannah thought she might try to go ahead and rig a cover of some sort so that she could get a fire started using chunks of wood from the supply that the Binghams carried in a rope sling underneath the wagon's body.\n\nThat would wait until she had taken care of her other chores. She took a couple of steps away from the wagon...\n\nThe arm that came out of the darkness wrapped around her with brutal, startling force, jerking her off her feet. She opened her mouth to scream, but before any sound could come out, a big, powerful hand clamped across her mouth and silenced any cry.\n\nDuring the night a steady rain began to fall. Jamie wasn't surprised. So far the weather had been cool and clear, almost perfect for traveling. He had known that such a run of good luck couldn't last.\n\nOne thing he and the other scouts would have to keep an eye out for was mud. Heavy wagons had a tendency to bog down on muddy ground. Jamie hoped that they could put some miles behind them as long as the rain wasn't falling too hard. With a slow drizzle, it would take a while before the ground softened enough to cause a problem.\n\n\"Let's go, let's go!\" He called as he strode through the camp, his powerful voice carrying from one side of the circle to the other. \"We need to get a move on!\"\n\nHe heard a thud from the direction of one of the wagons, then his keen ears picked up what sounded like a scuffle. As he swung in that direction his eyes narrowed. The thick overcast made it difficult to see, and so did the water dripping off the brim of his hat.\n\nHe was able to make out several figures near the back of one of the wagons, however, and the way they lurched back and forth told him that a struggle was going on.\n\nHe broke into a run toward the wagon. He didn't shout or announce in any other fashion that he was on his way, but loped across the ground in near-silence, a runaway locomotive of a man clad in buckskins.\n\nAs he came closer, he could tell that one of the struggling figures wore a dress, and he had a pretty good idea who the woman was. She had to be Savannah McCoy. A tall, male shape had his arms around her, and two more men hovered nearby, ready to grab her if she managed to get away.\n\nJamie targeted one of those other two men first, clubbing his fists together and swinging them with all the power of his brawny arms and shoulders and his own momentum. They smashed into the back of the unsuspecting man's neck with the force of a sledgehammer, causing him to drop like a stone.\n\nThe other man yelled in alarm and whirled toward Jamie. The goal of sneaking into the wagon camp during the predawn hours when everybody was asleep, grabbing Savannah, and getting out again without being detected was ruined, so there was no longer any need for stealth. A shot roared as flame gouted from the muzzle of a gun, almost singeing Jamie's face.\n\nBefore the intruder could fire again, the fingers of Jamie's left hand closed around the wrist of the man's gun hand. He thrust that arm skyward and gave the wrist such a powerful wrench that bones snapped like kindling.\n\nThe man started to scream in pain, but Jamie put an abrupt stop to that with a pile-driver punch that broke more bones in the man's face and knocked him out cold. When Jamie let go of him, the man flopped to the ground.\n\nThe hombre who had hold of Savannah swept her up bodily, threw her over his shoulder like she was a sack of grain, and took off running through the cold mist.\n\nJamie couldn't risk a shot with Savannah in the man's grasp, so all he could do was give chase. The man he was pursuing was tall, and his long legs covered the ground quickly. Jamie lost sight of him in the gloom, then spotted him again.\n\nHe spotted something else, too: tall, bulky shapes that could only be picketed horses. He grimaced. Sundown and the other saddle mounts were back at the camp. If the kidnapper managed to get on one of those horses with Savannah, he could gallop away into the darkness before Jamie could return to the camp and grab a mount of his own.\n\nJamie wasn't built for running, and he wasn't as young as he used to be, but he poured on as much speed as he could and saw that he was closing the gap. Savannah was still struggling, and that threw her captor off his stride.\n\nWhen Jamie judged that he was close enough, he left his feet in a diving tackle that caught the man around the knees. Savannah yelped as the man fell and she went sailing through the air. Jamie hoped she would be all right when she landed, but he didn't have time to check on her. He had his hands full with the man he had just brought down.\n\nThe kidnapper rolled over and launched a kick that caught Jamie on the left shoulder. It was powerful enough to make the big frontiersman's arm go numb.\n\nJamie grimaced but didn't make a sound. When the man tried to kick him again, Jamie caught hold of the man's foot with his right hand and heaved, rolling the man over onto his belly. Jamie scrambled after him, intending to pin the man down with a knee in the small of his back.\n\nHis opponent twisted aside and shot a fist upward in a blow that landed on Jamie's jaw, a powerful punch that threw Jamie to one side.\n\nIt had been a good long while since he had faced anybody who was almost his equal in size and strength. In a way, he almost looked forward to continuing the battle, he thought as he slapped a hand against the muddy ground and pushed himself up.\n\nThe two men came to their feet at practically the same instant, about ten feet apart. Jamie glanced around to see if he could locate Savannah, but it was still too dark. He saw a fuzzy, wavering glow coming through the rain from the direction of the wagon train, though. The shot that had been fired had roused the immigrants and somebody had lit a lantern. He hoped Savannah was already on her way back to them, seeking help.\n\nThen he no longer had time to worry about anything because the other man charged him, malletlike fists swinging dangerously at the end of long, powerful arms."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 38",
                "text": "They were like two bulls coming together. Jamie blocked the man's first punch, but the second got through and crashed against his sternum, rocking him back a step. Jamie planted a foot on the ground and counterpunched, twisting at the hips as he threw a right that landed cleanly on the man's jaw.\n\nFor a long moment, they stood there toe-to-toe, slugging away at each other. Jamie was hammering away at his opponent, doing plenty of damage. His massive, heavily muscled form was able to absorb a great deal of punishment, but he knew he couldn't keep it up forever.\n\nThe man suddenly changed tactics, feinting and then lunging forward to catch Jamie in a bear hug.\n\nThe collision knocked both men off their feet again. They rolled over and over on the wet ground, grappling and wrestling and trying to get the upper hand. The would-be kidnapper managed to slide his arm around Jamie's neck from behind, and suddenly it clamped down across the big frontiersman's throat like an iron bar, cutting off his air.\n\nJamie drove an elbow back into the man's belly, causing him to grunt in pain and expel a big gust of foul-smelling breath. That loosened the grip on Jamie's neck just enough for him to twist halfway around and wedge his elbow under the man's chin. He levered the man's head back and broke free completely.\n\nThe separation lasted only a second before they were wrapped around each other again, battling for any advantage. Jamie grabbed the man's hair, hunched his shoulders, and head-butted the man in the face.\n\nHe sensed the tide swinging in his direction, but at that moment something smashed against the side of his head with stunning force. The dark predawn lit up with jagged red lightning bolts he knew were only inside his head.\n\nIn the few seconds that his muscles refused to obey his brain's commands, the man shoved him away. Jamie knew there was a good chance the intruder had hit him with a gun, which meant the next thing might be a shot. He forced himself to move, galvanizing his muscles through sheer force of will and rolling across the ground.\n\nA revolver went off with a roar like thunder. Jamie saw the muzzle flash, dragged out his right-hand .44, and returned the fire. With rain in his eyes and his head still spinning from the clout he had taken, he couldn't tell if he hit anything.\n\nThe next moment he heard hoofbeats pounding against the ground and knew his shot hadn't found its target. The intruder had gotten on one of the horses and was fleeing. Jamie lifted the Colt and triggered three more shots in the direction of the sound, but he knew it would be sheer luck if he hit the man.\n\nAs he climbed to his feet, he saw lights from the wagon train bobbing closer. People were coming to see what was going on. They were probably pretty spooked, so to keep them from getting trigger-happy, Jamie called, \"Hold your fire! It's MacCallister!\"\n\nBodie Cantrell was in the lead when the group of armed men hurried up to Jamie. \"Mr. MacCallister! Are you all right?\"\n\nJamie was covered with mud and he knew that by the next day he would be stiff and sore from the fight. \"I'm fine. What about Savannah?\"\n\n\"She's all right,\" Bodie said. \"She ran back to the wagons and told us you were out here fighting with the man who tried to carry her off. Where is he?\"\n\n\"Gone,\" Jamie replied curtly. \"He got on a horse and lit a shuck before I could stop him. At least we've got the two I left back in camp.\"\n\nBodie shook his head. His face was etched with grim lines in the lantern light. \"There's only one man in camp, and he's dead. His neck is broken.\"\n\nJamie grunted. Obviously, the man he'd hit in the back of the neck with his clubbed fists had been injured worse than he thought. It wasn't the first time he had killed a man with his bare hands, but it had been a while since that happened. \"There was another one. I'm pretty sure I broke his wrist. May have broken his nose or a cheekbone, too. He was out cold when I left him.\"\n\n\"He must have come to, crawled off in the dark, and slipped away,\" Bodie said. \"As soon as it gets light enough, we can search for him\u2014\"\n\nJamie waved away that suggestion. \"We've got better things to do. As bad as he's hurt, he's not going to be interested in causing any more trouble for us. He'll probably try to find one of the horses he and his friends brought with them and head on back to Kansas City.\"\n\nAnd if the man wasn't able to catch one of the horses, he'd probably die out there, injured as he was. Jamie wasn't going to waste any time worrying about a no-good kidnapper, though.\n\nBodie said, \"They had to be some of Kane's men. They didn't pick Savannah at random to go after.\"\n\n\"I reckon you're right about that. Help me find my hat.\"\n\nIt was Hector Gilworth who found Jamie's hat in the mud where it had fallen off and gotten trampled on during the battle. \"Looks like it's in pretty bad shape,\" he said as he handed it to Jamie.\n\n\"The rain'll wash the mud off,\" Jamie said as he punched it back into shape. \"This old hat's been through almost as much as I have. It'll be all right.\"\n\nThey trooped back to the wagons. Jamie told Hector and Jess to make sure everybody was awake and preparing for the day's journey, then he went with Bodie to the Binghams' wagon. He wanted to talk to Savannah and see for himself that she was really all right.\n\nA lantern was burning inside the wagon, its yellow glow coming through the gaps around the canvas flaps in front and back. Bodie stepped up to the tailgate. \"Savannah?\"\n\nLeticia Bingham pulled the flap aside. \"She's resting. What do you want, Mr. Cantrell?\"\n\n\"Mr. MacCallister wants to talk to her.\"\n\nSavannah might have been resting, but she wasn't sleeping. She heard what Bodie said and spoke up from behind the older woman. \"It's all right, Mrs. Bingham. I need to speak to Mr. MacCallister, too.\"\n\n\"All right, dear, but you've been through an ordeal. You should take it easy for a little while.\"\n\nMrs. Bingham moved back, and Savannah put her head in the opening at the rear of the wagon. \"Mr. MacCallister, are you all right?\" she asked anxiously. \"I heard some shots...\"\n\n\"Nothing to worry about,\" Jamie told her. \"Those fellas are long gone and won't be bothering you again.\"\n\n\"You killed them?\" Her voice was hushed.\n\n\"Well... only one of 'em.\" But it wasn't from lack of trying, Jamie thought. He would have gladly sent all three of the varmints packing across the divide. \"The other two got away, but I don't think they'll be coming back.\"\n\n\"You can't be sure of that.\"\n\n\"Not much in this life is certain. Did you get a good look at any of them?\"\n\nSavannah shook her head. \"No. One of them grabbed me from behind. The big one who carried me off. I never even saw him. I didn't even have a chance to fight. But I did manage to kick the wagon tongue. I hoped that would make enough noise to attract someone's attention.\"\n\n\"So that's what I heard,\" Jamie said. \"That was fast thinking on your part. If you hadn't done that, they might've been able to drag you off without anybody noticing.\"\n\nA shudder went through Savannah at the thought. \"You said a couple of them got away. You know what's going to happen now, don't you, Mr. MacCallister? Now they're sure that I'm traveling with the wagon train. They'll go back to Gideon Kane and tell him, and since this attempt to kidnap me failed, he'll try something else. Something bigger and more dangerous.\"\n\n\"Let him try,\" Bodie said. \"We'll be ready for him.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" Jamie agreed. But at the same time he was thinking that Savannah was right. Kane would send a larger group next time, and chances were that they wouldn't be worried about stealth. He would hire gunmen, and their goal would be to catch up to the wagon train and take Savannah away by force.\n\nIf that happened\u2014when that happened, Jamie amended because every instinct in his body told him that it would\u2014the rest of the pilgrims would be in danger as well.\n\nIt was too bad he hadn't taken the time to hunt up Gideon Kane while they were still in Kansas. He could have gone ahead and put a bullet in the varmint then and there.\n\nSometimes the simplest ways were the best."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 39",
                "text": "The rain continued as the wagon train rolled northwestward along the Blue River that morning. The sky was such a flat, leaden gray it seemed like the immigrants traveled in a depressing state of perpetual twilight.\n\nThe warmth of the sun was nowhere to be found. A dank cold had settled over the landscape, the sort of weather that chilled a person to the bone.\n\nJamie felt it in his bones, that was for sure. He felt every one of his more than sixty years of life.\n\nBut he didn't let that stop him from doing the job that needed to be done. He was out ahead of the wagon train with Hector Gilworth riding beside him as they watched out for muddy areas that the wagons needed to avoid.\n\nThe rain grew harder at midday, turning into a slashing downpour that quickly formed large puddles on the already wet ground. Jamie grimaced under the dripping brim of his hat as mud began to suck at Sundown's hooves. \"All right,\" he told Hector. \"We might as well turn around and tell the wagons to stop for the day before they get bogged down. If some of those wheels sink down far enough in the mud, it might take days to get them back out again.\"\n\nWhen they arrived at the lead wagon and told Captain Hendricks of the decision, the leader of the immigrants wasn't happy. \"We haven't covered much distance today,\" he complained. \"Don't you think we can push on just a little farther, Mr. MacCallister?\"\n\n\"No, I don't,\" Jamie replied bluntly. \"You'll be risking an even longer delay if you do. It'll be better to stay here, hope the rain stops tonight, and that the sun will come out tomorrow and dry the ground some. It hasn't been a very rainy autumn so far, so the dirt ought to suck up most of the water pretty fast once it gets a chance.\"\n\nHendricks heaved a sigh and nodded. \"Very well. Tell everyone to go ahead and make camp. We're not going to be able to build fires in this weather, though.\"\n\n\"It'll be a cold camp,\" Jamie agreed. If folks were smart, they would gnaw a little jerky, crawl into their blankets, huddle together for warmth, and wait it out.\n\nEarlier, he had told Bodie to drop back a ways behind the wagon train and watch for pursuers. It was possible the men who had sneaked into the camp early that morning to kidnap Savannah had been part of a larger force. If that was the case, they might make another attempt, and Jamie wanted some warning if that was going to happen.\n\nThe other scouts had seen that the wagons were stopped and came on in. Jamie left them to keep an eye on things while he rode back to meet Bodie. He had gone about half a mile before he saw the gray figure plodding toward him on horseback, shrouded in the curtains of rain.\n\nJamie reined in and waited for Bodie to come to him. He slipped a hand under the yellow slicker he wore and tried to dry it on his damp buckskins. He didn't have much luck with that, but it was better than nothing.\n\nThen he wrapped that hand around the butt of one of his .44s, just in case it wasn't Bodie Cantrell coming toward him through the downpour.\n\nA few moments later Jamie relaxed as Bodie hailed him. He took his hand off the gun.\n\n\"Any sign of anybody coming after us?\" Jamie asked as Bodie rode up to him.\n\nBodie sounded as wet and miserable as he looked. \"I didn't see anything but this blasted rain. Ulysses S. Grant could be right behind us with the Army of the Potomac, and I wouldn't know it!\"\n\nJamie chuckled. \"I think old Useless S. Grant has his hands full right now being president and dealing with that bank panic back east I heard about. He's too busy to be chasing us, even if he had any reason to.\"\n\n\"Maybe so, but I still say there could be an army back there. You couldn't prove it by me one way or the other.\"\n\n\"We'll figure there's not,\" Jamie said. \"Come on. I'd say you can go get warm, but I'm afraid that may be an impossible chore under these conditions.\"\n\n\"How long do you think it's going to rain?\" Bodie asked as they rode side by side toward the wagons.\n\n\"Hard to say. I've seen it settle in and rain like this for days. Maybe even as long as a week. Or it could stop tonight. You don't ever know.\"\n\n\"This is why you warned everybody it might be hard to reach Montana by Christmas.\"\n\n\"One reason,\" Jamie said. \"There are still plenty of other things that can go wrong, too.\"\n\nWhen they arrived at the camp, Jamie saw that the wagons had been formed into a circle, as usual, and the men were unhitching their teams. As they passed the Bingham wagon, Savannah stuck her head out the back. \"Why don't you two come in here and get out of the rain? It's miserable out there!\"\n\n\"I'll be back as soon as I tend to my horse,\" Bodie promised. \"How about you, Mr. MacCallister?\"\n\n\"I'm going to scout around for a while longer,\" Jamie said. \"Then I reckon I'll climb in with Moses, since he's got that wagon to himself.\" He touched a finger to the broad brim of his hat. \"But I appreciate the invitation, Miss McCoy.\"\n\nJamie made a big circuit around the camp on Sundown. Satisfied that there were no imminent threats, he rode to Moses Danzig's wagon, tied Sundown's reins to the vehicle, and unsaddled the big stallion. The horses and the other animals were going to be even more wet, cold, and uncomfortable than the humans, but there was nothing that could be done about that.\n\nHardships were part of life on the frontier. The sooner the immigrants knew and understood that, the better.\n\nJamie rapped his knuckles on the tailgate and climbed over it into the wagon.\n\nMoses welcomed him. \"Come in, Mr. MacCallister. I can't offer much in the way of hospitality other than a canvas roof over your head.\"\n\n\"Right now I'll take it.\" Jamie stripped off his slicker and hung it over the tailgate.\n\nMoses sat on a crate beside a candle burning on top of a keg and Jamie perched on a second crate. He handed an airtight to Jamie, who opened it with his Bowie knife. Moses then used the candle flame to heat up the can of beans, although it wasn't very effective for that chore.\n\n\"All the comforts of home,\" Moses said with awry grin. \"What do you think, Jamie? Is it going to rain for forty days and forty nights, like in the Old Testament?\"\n\n\"It better not. If it does, this prairie will get so muddy it's liable to swallow up the wagons whole.\"\n\nAs it turned out, they didn't have to worry about that. The rain stopped during the night. In the wee hours, Jamie woke up enough to be aware that he no longer heard it hitting the canvas cover, then he dozed off again. When he woke up at his usual time, long before dawn, and climbed out the back of the wagon, he tilted his head to look up at the sky.\n\nStars glittered against the ebony backdrop. The overcast had broken and the clouds had moved on, which meant the sun would be shining later.\n\nThe wagons wouldn't be going anywhere for a while, though. The softness of the muddy ground under Jamie's boots told him that. As long as the vehicles stayed put, they would be all right, but if they tried to move their iron-tired wheels would sink deeply into the earth.\n\nThere wouldn't be any early start that day."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 40",
                "text": "Once the sky cleared, the temperature had dropped during the night. Some of the puddles had thin skims of ice on them. But once the sun was up, the temperature began to rise and by noon the day was fairly pleasant.\n\nThe ground was still too wet for the wagons to risk moving. Out on the plains, there wasn't much chance for rainfall to run off. Once it fell, it had to soak into the ground, which took time.\n\nJamie conferred with Lamar Hendricks. \"Let's give it until tomorrow. I hate to waste a day, but we don't want to do anything that'll cost us even more time in the long run.\"\n\nWith a gloomy expression on his face, Hendricks nodded in agreement. \"I trust your judgment, Mr. MacCallister. I have a feeling that if Jeb Ralston were still our wagon master, we'd be good and stuck here.\"\n\n\"You might be right about that.\"\n\nSince he had plenty of time to kill, Jamie took Hector and Jess and rode out to make another big scouting circuit. He would have taken Bodie with him, but he was still hanging around the Bingham wagon so Jamie decided it would be better to leave him where he was. Jamie didn't expect any more trouble from Kane's men right away, but if anything came up, he knew he could count on Bodie to protect Savannah, even if it cost him his own life.\n\nBodie was head over heels in love with that girl.\n\nJamie and his two companions were riding about a mile west of the wagon train when Hector suddenly said, \"Look over there, Mr. MacCallister. Is that what I think it is?\"\n\nHector was smart enough not to lift his arm and point. Instead he indicated the direction he was looking with a nod of his bearded chin.\n\nJamie didn't have to turn his head to look. He had spotted the Indian pacing them a good five minutes earlier. The lone warrior was riding along the top of a slight rise about a quarter mile away.\n\n\"Pawnee, if I had to guess,\" Jamie said quietly. \"He's just taking a gander at us.\"\n\n\"What else can he do?\" Jess asked. \"There's one of him and three of us.\"\n\n\"There's only one of him that we can see,\" Jamie pointed out. \"Could be fifty more just like him right on the other side of that rise. Maybe more than that.\"\n\nHector and Jess got nervous expressions on their faces, and Jamie knew they were thinking about what he had just said.\n\n\"He wants us to see him,\" Jamie went on, \"otherwise we wouldn't know he was there. That's his way of making sure we know he's not afraid of us.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure I can say the same thing,\" Jess admitted. \"Redskins make me downright antsy.\"\n\n\"He's not looking for trouble right now. He's just curious.\"\n\n\"What about later?\" Hector asked. \"He could come back with a bunch of his friends, and they could be looking for trouble.\"\n\n\"We'll just have to wait and see about that,\" Jamie said.\n\nAfter a few minutes, the distant rider peeled away and disappeared from sight. His absence didn't seem to make Hector and Jess relax. If anything, they were more watchful than they had been earlier.\n\nThe three scouts rode back to the wagon train in the late afternoon.\n\nJamie told Hector and Jess, \"There's no point in saying anything about what we saw today. People would worry about it and might get all worked up for no good reason. I'll tell Cap'n Hendricks, and we'll let it go at that for right now.\"\n\nHector and Jess nodded in understanding.\n\nCaptain Hendricks, on the other hand, didn't take the news as well. When Jamie told him about seeing the Indian, he became agitated. \"We have to warn everyone on the train.\"\n\n\"So they can do what?\" Jamie asked. \"Keep their eyes open? They're already doing that if they've got any sense, and anyway, that's what the scouts and I are for, to serve as the eyes and ears of this wagon train. You don't want a bunch of inexperienced pilgrims on edge and ready to start blasting away at anything that moves. That's how innocent folks wind up getting shot.\"\n\nHendricks paced back and forth on the still-muddy ground next to his wagon as they talked. \"I suppose you're right. You're a lot more experienced at this sort of thing than I am. But I was hoping we could make it through to Montana without encountering any savages.\"\n\n\"We might yet,\" Jamie said, although he knew how unlikely that was.\n\n\"What about the ground?\" Hendricks asked. \"Do you think it'll be dry enough tomorrow that we can get started again and only lose one day?\"\n\n\"Maybe. As long as it doesn't start raining again tonight.\"\n\nLuck held. The weather remained clear, cold, and dry overnight, and the next morning Jamie swung up into Sundown's saddle and rode around the camp, checking the ground. He had waited until the sun was up so he could take a good look at the landscape, and he was satisfied with what he saw.\n\n\"We'll have to avoid any low spots that might be muddier,\" he reported to Hendricks, \"but I think if we're careful we can get these wagons rolling again.\"\n\nHendricks heaved a sigh of relief. \"I'll pass the word. We'll be ready to leave as soon as possible.\"\n\nSpirits were higher as the immigrants prepared to break camp. They had been able to build fires, cook food, and boil coffee, and even though the air was still cold, not having rain pouring down put people in a better mood. They worked enthusiastically as they got the wagons ready to roll again.\n\nSoon the line of canvas-covered vehicles stretched across the prairie again, rolling slowly to the northwest. Jamie sent out the scouts and took the point himself. Bodie Cantrell rode with him.\n\n\"The river's up,\" Jamie mused after a while. He nodded toward the line of scrubby, bare-limbed trees that marked the course of the stream, about half a mile west of the wagon train's route. \"I can hear it.\"\n\n\"Is that a problem?\" Bodie asked.\n\n\"Not necessarily. We won't be crossing it for a good while yet, so it'll have time to go down. But the fact that it's running like it is means that the smaller streams feeding into it are up, too, and we might come upon one of them and need to get across it.\"\n\nJamie's words proved to be prophetic. That afternoon, he and Bodie came to a creek that cut directly across the path of the wagon train. They reined in to study the fast-flowing stream, which was about sixty feet wide, filling the depression through which it ran.\n\n\"Normally that creek wouldn't be more than eight or ten feet wide and maybe a foot deep,\" Jamie said.\n\n\"How deep is it now?\" Bodie asked.\n\n\"Hard to say. Four or five feet, more than likely.\"\n\n\"Will we have to wait for it to go down?\"\n\nJamie rubbed his grizzled jaw as he frowned in thought. \"That might be the smartest thing to do, but to tell you the truth, I'd rather keep moving.\"\n\nHe decided to tell Bodie what he and Hector and Jess had seen the day before. \"I've got a hunch there's a band of Pawnee in the area, and I'd just as soon move on out, in case they consider this their hunting ground and figure we're interlopers.\"\n\n\"You think they'll attack us?\"\n\n\"They'll be less likely to if they can see that we don't intend to stay and cause them any trouble.\"\n\nBodie looked around. \"You reckon they're watching us now?\"\n\n\"Wouldn't surprise me a bit. Come on. Let's see if we can swim our horses across that creek. If we can, the wagons ought to be able to make it.\"\n\nSundown and Bodie's horse swam across the creek without any trouble. Jamie could tell that the water was deep enough to float the wagons. The current was fast, but the oxen and mules would be able to handle it.\n\nThe wagons were catching up, and Jamie and Bodie rode back to tell Captain Hendricks what lay ahead. Then Jamie went along the line of wagons, explaining to the immigrants how they would ford the creek.\n\n\"We'll take the women and children across on horseback,\" Jamie told his scouts when he had gathered them around him. \"That'll be less weight for the wagons, and it'll be safer for them, too. I think the wagons can make it without any problems, but if any of them get into trouble, I don't want a bunch of kids who maybe can't swim getting dumped in the creek.\"\n\nJake grinned at Bodie. \"I bet I know which of the ladies you'll be ferryin' across, Bodie.\"\n\n\"I'll do whatever I'm told,\" Bodie said stiffly.\n\nJamie jerked a thumb toward the Bingham wagon. \"Go ahead and get Miss McCoy, Bodie. Nobody's going to stop you.\"\n\nBodie smiled somewhat sheepishly and turned his horse to fetch Savannah.\n\nLamar Hendricks had his wagon poised at the edge of the stream. As Jamie moved his horse up alongside the vehicle, Hendricks said, \"I'm ready to give this a try, Mr. MacCallister.\"\n\n\"Let the team do the work for you,\" Jamie told him. \"Just keep 'em moving as steady and straight across as you can. The current will push you downstream some, but not enough to worry about.\"\n\nHendricks nodded. He used the whip on the rumps of the stolid oxen and got them moving. They plodded forward into the creek, obviously a little reluctant to fight the current, but as it took hold of them they began to swim and pulled the wagon into the deeper water. Hendricks perched on the seat looking nervous as the vehicle began to float.\n\nSundown, with Jamie in the saddle, swam alongside the wagon. Jamie had his lasso ready to throw if the wagon happened to capsize. He figured he could drop a loop over Hendricks and haul him out if necessary.\n\nHendricks made it to the other side of the rain-swollen stream without any problems. The wagon rolled up the shallow bank and came to a stop as he hauled back on the team's reins. He looked over at Jamie and sleeved sweat off his face, even though the day was still chilly. \"I never did like boats, and that's what it felt like I was on when the wagon started floating. I prefer solid ground.\"\n\n\"You did fine,\" Jamie told him with a grin. He turned his horse, took off his hat, and waved it over his head to signal the folks waiting on the other side. \"Come on over, one wagon at a time!\"\n\nThe crossing proceeded without incident for an hour, with the men guiding the floating wagons across while the scouts ferried the women and children on horseback.\n\nThen one of the women refused to leave her husband to take their wagon across. Hector swam his horse across the flooded creek to report on the situation to Jamie and Hendricks.\n\n\"The lady's name is Hamilton,\" Hector said after he passed along the news. \"She's being mighty stubborn about it.\"\n\n\"That's Alice Hamilton,\" Hendricks said. \"She and her husband R.G. were married just a couple days before we left Kansas City.\"\n\nJamie nodded. \"I remember. You folks were celebrating the wedding the night I met you.\"\n\n\"That's right. I suppose Alice doesn't want to leave R.G.'s side because they're newlyweds.\"\n\nHector looked uncomfortable as he said, \"I can take her off the wagon seat and bring her on horseback whether she wants to come or not, but I don't know how her husband will feel about that, Jamie.\"\n\n\"I don't reckon we want to go that far. Tell her she can stay with the wagon, but it's her choice.\"\n\nHector nodded, wheeled his horse, and urged the animal back into the water.\n\nThe Hamilton wagon was the second in line. Jamie watched as Hector conveyed the message to the young, recently married couple. Alice Hamilton clutched her husband's arm, clearly not intending to leave his side. She couldn't weigh very much, Jamie thought, so it shouldn't really make any difference whether she rode across on the wagon.\n\nA short time later, R.G. Hamilton urged his team of mules into the creek. They swam strongly toward the center of the stream.\n\nThe wagon hadn't reached the mid-point, when Jamie noticed that something was wrong. It was riding lower in the water than the others, and he felt a surge of alarm when he saw that it was starting to tilt. The cracks between the boards in these vehicles were supposed to be sealed with pitch to keep water out, but it was possible the Hamilton wagon had sprung a leak.\n\nJamie cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, \"Hector!\" When the burly scout turned to look at him, Jamie waved a hand toward the wagon, urgently gesturing for Hector to get out there and see what he could do to help. As soon as he had done that, Jamie heeled Sundown into motion and entered the creek from the north side of the stream.\n\nR.G. could feel the wagon tipping underneath him. So could his wife, who grabbed his arm even harder. He lashed the mules in an attempt to get them to go faster, so the wagon might get across the creek before it capsized, but it was taking on water too quickly for that.\n\nAlice screamed as the wagon suddenly rolled to the side. The water caught the canvas cover and pulled it over. Both Hamiltons were thrown off the wagon seat and disappeared into the muddy, fast-moving water."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 41",
                "text": "Jamie jabbed his heels into Sundown's flanks and sent the big stallion churning through the creek toward the overturned wagon. Hector was coming from the other direction. So were Bodie and Jake, having heard shouts of alarm from some of the immigrants when the Hamilton wagon rolled over.\n\nJamie's keen eyes searched the water for any sign of R.G. or Alice popping back to the surface. Even flooded, the creek wasn't really that deep, but it was deep enough for a person to drown in it, especially if he or she was disoriented or had hit their head and was stunned.\n\nAlice Hamilton had bright red hair, so she was easy to spot when she broke the surface. The current was carrying her swiftly downstream. Jamie angled after her.\n\nWith Sundown's powerful legs stroking through the water, Jamie caught up with the young woman in a matter of moments. He leaned down from the saddle and reached for her as she flailed wildly in panic.\n\nHis hand wrapped around her wrist and he hauled upward, lifting her from the stream almost effortlessly as if she had been a child's toy. Hysterical with fear, she grabbed him, winding her arms around his neck and hanging on in sheer desperation.\n\n\"Take it easy,\" Jamie told her. \"You're all right, Miz Hamilton. Just settle down. I'll take you to shore.\"\n\nHis firm, steady voice seemed to penetrate her shocked brain. She still clung to him, but not quite as urgently. She began to shiver from being dunked in the cold water.\n\nJamie knew she would need to get out of the wet clothes as soon as possible. Some of the women could wrap her in blankets and set her down next to a big fire. That would thaw her out in a hurry.\n\n\"R.G.,\" she said. \"Where's R.G.?\"\n\nJamie glanced over his shoulder as he urged Sundown toward the northern bank. Several of the scouts were looking around, but it appeared they hadn't found R.G. Hamilton yet.\n\n\"Don't worry, some of the other fellas are helping him.\" Jamie kept her turned so she couldn't see the search going on in the middle of the flooded stream. It wouldn't do any good to worry the young woman when her husband might come thrashing out of the creek at any moment.\n\nLeticia Bingham and Savannah were waiting on the bank when Jamie got there, along with Alice's mother, who was almost as distraught as her daughter. Leticia reached up. \"Let us have her, Mr. MacCallister. We'll take care of her.\"\n\n\"That's exactly what I planned to do, ladies,\" Jamie said as he gently lowered Alice into their waiting hands. As the women hustled her away, he turned his horse and plunged back into the flooded creek. \"Any luck?\" he called to the scouts as he swam Sundown out to join them.\n\nBodie shook his head. \"There's no sign of him so far, Mr. MacCallister. He's got to be around here somewhere, though.\"\n\nJamie had a bad feeling. If R.G. had been knocked unconscious when he fell from the wagon, he could have drowned in as little as a minute or two. Several minutes had passed since the accident, and the situation was beginning to look bleak.\n\n\"Hey, over here!\"\n\nThe shout came from Jess Neville. He was about fifty yards downstream, where the roots of one of the scrubby trees on the bank extended out into the water. Something was caught in those roots. Grim lines formed on Jamie's rugged, weathered face.\n\nThe men on horseback headed in that direction. So did some of the immigrants on the northern bank who had heard Jess's shout. They all got there about the same time.\n\nAs soon as Jamie saw R.G. Hamilton's pale face and the wide, sightlessly staring eyes, he knew the young man was dead. The water had washed away the blood, but a large gash was still visible on his forehead. Obviously he had struck it on something when he fell, just as Jamie feared, and that had doomed him.\n\nJamie didn't think he had said more than a dozen words to the young man during the journey, but he felt sorry for what had happened, anyway.\n\nHe had known before they ever left Kansas City that not everyone in the wagon train would make it safely to Montana. Trouble along the way was inevitable, and so were losses.\n\nBut Hamilton was the first to die, and that was painful.\n\nJess Neville looked at Jamie. \"What do we do, Mr. MacCallister?\"\n\n\"Work him out of those roots,\" Jamie said flatly. \"Hector, give him a hand.\" To the other scouts, he added, \"The rest of you get back to work. We've still got wagons to bring safely across this creek.\"\n\nOne of the people who had come running along the bank, the wagon train captain looked pointedly at Jamie. \"We'll get started digging a grave. Reverend Bradford can conduct the service. He's the one who performed the wedding.\"\n\nIt was almost dark before the last of the wagons rolled out of the water and onto the northern bank. Some of the time had been spent hooking up extra teams to the Hamilton wagon and dragging it out of the creek. The men set it upright and examined it for the leak that had caused the tragedy and any other damage. All the goods inside the vehicle had been soaked, of course. Some of them were salvageable, and those that weren't would be discarded and done without.\n\nJamie assumed that Alice Hamilton would continue the journey to Montana Territory along with her parents and her two younger brothers. There was really nothing else she could do. They couldn't leave her out in the middle of nowhere by herself.\n\nThe burial service took place by torchlight that evening. Alice, who had started whimpering and moaning and wailing when she was told of her husband's death, hadn't stopped. Her mother and several of the women, including Savannah, tried to comfort her as best they could, but she was inconsolable in her grief.\n\nReverend Bradford droned on endlessly. Jamie tried to be respectful as he stood with the others, his hat in one hand and his head bowed, but he would have rather been almost anywhere else.\n\nWhen the service was finally over, the women led a weeping Alice away while several of the men began filling in the muddy grave where R.G. Hamilton's blanket-shrouded body lay. Somebody had fashioned a marker to put up.\n\nIt was a nice gesture, Jamie supposed, but ultimately meaningless. The elements would take that marker in a matter of months. It would fall and rot into the ground as if it had never been there. The mounded dirt would flatten out. And come spring, grass would poke up through that dirt, maybe a few wildflowers. By the next summer, no one would be able to tell there was a grave there.\n\nMaybe that was the way it ought to be. Man was on earth and then he moved on, sometimes after a long, full life, sometimes before it seemed like his days ought to be up. The answers to such things were beyond mortals, mused Jamie. They belonged only to the Man Above.\n\nBodie came up to Jamie as the immigrants scattered from the grave site and went about their business. \"What are we going to do now, Mr. MacCallister?\"\n\n\"You mean after we try to get some sleep?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Tomorrow morning, when there's enough light to see, these wagons are rolling north toward Montana again. What did you think we'd do, turn around and go back just because one hombre's bad luck caught up to him?\"\n\n\"No, but\u2014\"\n\n\"This is the first grave we've had to dig since we left,\" Jamie said. \"I can promise you, it won't be the last.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 42",
                "text": "Gideon Kane sipped from the glass of champagne and watched the woman cross the room toward him.\n\nHer walk was a thing of sinuous grace. Her blue eyes were full of temptation, and her mane of blond hair draped over her bare shoulders, dipping toward the creamy swells of her breasts exposed by the scandalously low neckline of the gown she wore. She could get away with such an outfit because her family was rich. Her name was Deirdre Burton.\n\nKane had taken her to his bed a couple times, and she had assumed that meant they would get married, creating a marital and a business relationship between their families. He had other ideas, however. He had quickly become bored with her that first night and given her another tumble later on just to make sure it hadn't been just an off night for him.\n\nThat experience only confirmed his first impression. The thought of spending the rest of his life with someone as bland and complacent as Deirdre Burton held no appeal for him at all. Good Lord, he told himself when he considered the idea, he'd have to take a new mistress every few weeks just to keep from dying of boredom.\n\nSavannah McCoy, now, she would be a different story, Kane thought as he took another drink of his champagne. Someone as fiery as she could keep him interested.\n\nShe was an actress, after all. From one night to the next, she could be anyone he wanted her to be....\n\n\"You give the best parties, Gideon,\" Deirdre said as she came up to him. Musicians played softly on the other side of the big ballroom. \"I'd love to dance with you.\"\n\n\"Perhaps later,\" he told her. \"I have a lot on my mind right now. Business matters.\"\n\nHe had expected Eli Harrison to be back with Savannah by now. It had been more than a week since the wagon train had left Kansas City.\n\nDeirdre leaned closer to him and said in a throaty voice she thought was seductive, \"I can take your mind off of business if you'd like, Gideon. I guarantee, you won't be thinking of anything except\u2014\"\n\nHe stopped her by pushing the half-empty glass of champagne into her hand. He had spotted Jenkins coming toward him, and he could tell by the expression on the butler's face that something had happened.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" he said curtly.\n\nShe had taken the glass instinctively and stood there with a surprised expression on her face. That look turned angry as he pushed past her and walked away, but he ignored it.\n\n\"What is it?\" he asked quietly as he and Jenkins met in the crowd of well-dressed men and women\u2014Kansas City's elite\u2014filling the ballroom.\n\n\"Mr. Harrison is back,\" Jenkins said equally quietly.\n\nKane's pulse surged as he caught his breath. If Harrison had returned, that meant\u2014 He quickly asked, \"Is she with him?\"\n\nWith a doleful look on his face, Jenkins shook his head.\n\nThe anticipation Kane had felt was replaced abruptly with fury. \"Where is he?\"\n\n\"In the study.\"\n\nKane stepped past the butler without another word. Several of his guests smiled and spoke to him as he left the ballroom, but he paid no attention to them. His rudeness might cause a minor scandal among the city's upper crust, but he didn't give a damn.\n\nHarrison had a haggard look on his ugly face when Kane came into the room. His appearance testified that he had spent several long, hard days in the saddle.\n\nKane closed the door hard behind him and snapped, \"What happened?\"\n\n\"We trailed the wagon train for a while, like you said for us to do. The girl's there with those immigrants. We saw her. Hell, I had my hands on her.\"\n\n\"But you let her get away?\" Kane couldn't believe it.\n\n\"MacCallister,\" Harrison spat out. \"He stuck his nose in. The man's as big as a blasted grizzly bear, and even faster than that. We tangled, and I did good just to get away from him. The fellas I had with me weren't so lucky.\"\n\n\"If you didn't get Miss McCoy, it doesn't matter if you got away from him,\" Kane said coldly. \"You failed.\"\n\n\"This time.\" Harrison's right hand clenched into a huge fist. \"I didn't take enough men with me the first time. I'm going to round up some more and go after the wagon train again. I've got a score to settle with that big bas\u2014\"\n\n\"I don't care about your scores,\" Kane cut in. \"I just want Miss McCoy brought back here, and I won't tolerate another failure, Harrison. Do you understand?\"\n\n\"You bet I do. I can hire a dozen men?\"\n\n\"Hire two dozen if you want. Just bring the girl back here.\"\n\n\"And if anybody else gets hurt along the way? There are a lot of innocent pilgrims on that wagon train.\"\n\nThe scornful look that Kane gave him was more than enough of an answer to Harrison's question.\n\nHarrison spent the evening in some of the worst saloons, taverns, and dives in Kansas City, scouring them for gunmen who would be willing to sign on for the job of taking Savannah McCoy away from that wagon train.\n\nHe had tried being stealthy, sneaking in and carrying off the girl with no one the wiser until it was too late to stop them, and that hadn't worked at all. Things were going to get ugly next time. There would be gunplay, and people would die. And Harrison didn't care as long as he got what his boss was after.\n\nIf he let Gideon Kane down again, he knew he might as well keep going and never come back to Kansas City. He had seen Kane fly into a rage once when a drunken freighter had bumped into him on the street and his filthy boots had gotten dung on Kane's shoes. Kane had beaten the man to death with his walking stick, right then and there.\n\nThat wouldn't happen to him; Harrison wouldn't stand still for such an attack, and Kane no doubt knew that. He would just hire as many men as it took to beat Harrison to death rather than do it himself.\n\nHarrison was in a squalid saloon, looking for hardcases willing to hire on to use their guns, when two men sidled up to him at the bar. Harrison barely spared them a glance. They were tough enough in a way, he supposed, but not really the sort of ruthless professionals he was after.\n\nBut the smaller one, who had eyes like a pig and a swinish face, said, \"Word's gettin' around that you're hirin' men.\"\n\nHarrison shook his head. \"You must have heard wrong, mister.\"\n\nThe man got a shrewd look on his face\u2014if a pig could be said to look shrewd. \"You're not goin' after that wagon train Jamie MacCallister's leadin' to Montana Territory?\"\n\nHarrison stiffened. He supposed he had let a few too many hints slip when he was making the rounds of the saloons. But what did it really matter? Where he and the men he recruited would be going, there wasn't much law. In most places, there wasn't any. \"What if I am?\"\n\nThe short, squat man said, \"My name's Keeler.\" He jerked a thumb at his taller companion. \"This is Holcomb. We signed on as scouts to go with that wagon train when our pard Jeb Ralston was supposed to be the wagon master. That was before MacCallister broke his leg and stole the job for himself.\"\n\nThat was interesting, Harrison thought. \"So you've got a grudge against MacCallister?\"\n\n\"Damn right we do. But there's more than that, mister. We went over the route with Jeb more'n once. I'd say we know where MacCallister's takin' those wagons just as well as he does. Maybe better.\"\n\nGoing by what he'd heard about Jamie MacCallister, Harrison doubted that, but he was intrigued anyway. \"You think you could help me catch up to them?\"\n\n\"I know we could,\" Keeler said confidently. \"And if you plan on tanglin' with MacCallister... well, we wouldn't mind gettin' in on that, too.\"\n\nHe and his men would be able to travel faster if they knew where the wagon train was going, Harrison thought. They might even be able to get ahead of the wagons and set up an ambush. MacCallister would be watching his back trail, but he probably wouldn't expect death to be waiting in front of him.\n\n\"Keeler,\" Harrison said as he stuck out a big paw, \"you've got a deal.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 43",
                "text": "Days of searching hadn't turned up any clues to the whereabouts of the men who had stolen the loot from the train robbery. The failure filled Eldon Swint with a fury he was barely able to contain.\n\nWhen he finally found Lucas, Mahaffey, and Pearsoll\u2014and he would find them, he had no doubt about that\u2014he would see to it that they died long and painfully for daring to steal from him. Before he was through with them, they would wish a bunch of bloodthirsty Apaches had gotten hold of them instead.\n\nThe problem was... he didn't know where they were. The frontier was a mighty big place. Without some sort of trail to follow, it might take months, maybe even years, to locate the thieves.\n\nSwint was sitting in the Bella Royale, seething as usual and trying to distract himself with a bottle of whiskey. It wasn't working. He glanced up as Charley Green entered the saloon and crossed the room toward him. Green looked a little excited about something, which was unusual for him. He was usually about as stolid as a lump of stone.\n\nWithout waiting to be invited to sit down, Green pulled back one of the chairs and lowered himself into it. He reached for the bottle, but Swint pulled it out of reach.\n\n\"You look like you've got something to say, Charley,\" Swint told his second in command. \"Spit it out first, then maybe you can have a drink.\"\n\n\"I might have a line on where those three varmints took off to with our money.\"\n\nSwint's bushy, almost colorless eyebrows crawled up his forehead in surprise. He pushed the bottle back where Green could reach it. \"Tell me.\"\n\n\"Bodie Cantrell.\"\n\nSwint's eyebrows came back down in a frown. \"What about him?\"\n\n\"He disappeared the same night, didn't he?\"\n\n\"Well, yeah,\" Swint admitted. \"But he told me he was leaving the gang. He wouldn't have done that if he was mixed up with Lucas and those other two. That was just a, what do you call it, coincidence.\"\n\n\"Maybe, but Cantrell and Lucas were friends. Lucas could've told Cantrell what he and Mahaffey and Pearsoll were plannin' to do. Shoot, for all we know, stealin' those double eagles might've been Cantrell's idea.\"\n\nSwint restrained his impatience and the urge to take the bottle away from Green again. \"I've been over and over this in my head, Charley. You're not tellin' me anything that I don't already know. Let's say you're right and Cantrell was part of the whole scheme, maybe even the mastermind, although I still don't know why he'd draw attention to himself ahead of time. We don't know where Cantrell went any more than we do Lucas, Mahaffey, and Pearsoll.\"\n\n\"Maybe we do,\" Green said with a self-satisfied smile. \"I talked to a fella who saw Cantrell ride out with a wagon train the same morning that the others vanished with our loot.\"\n\nSwint leaned forward sharply in his chair, sensing with his predator's instincts that this might be the lead they had been looking for. \"How'd you happen to do that?\"\n\n\"I've still been goin' around town askin' questions, describin' all four of those hombres, not just Lucas and the other two but Cantrell as well, on the chance that he might've been involved. I found a fella who saw him with those pilgrims who were headed to Montana. It was just pure luck, I reckon, Eldon. Luck, and bein' stubborn about it.\"\n\n\"But the man you talked to, he didn't see Lucas, Mahaffey, and Pearsoll with the wagon train?\"\n\nGreen shook his head. \"No, but that don't mean anything. They could've rendezvoused with it later, after the wagons left town. That probably would've been the smart thing to do.\"\n\nSwint considered the theory. It made sense, but it was far from what he'd consider proof. On the other hand, they hadn't found any other leads so far....\n\n\"But that ain't all,\" Green went on. \"There's a fella goin' around town puttin' together a crew of hired guns to go after that wagon train.\"\n\nSwint's nostrils flared as he took a sharp, angry breath. \"Going after our money?\" he demanded.\n\nGreen shook his head again. \"No, from what I hear, they're after a girl who joined up with the immigrants here in Kansas City. She's some sort of actress, and they're workin' for a fella who's stuck on her and wants her brought back.\"\n\n\"I don't see what this has to do with us and that missing money,\" Swint said.\n\n\"I talked to some of the boys about Cantrell. They said that he was stuck on an actress from that show, too, and I figure it's got to be the same one, boss.\"\n\n\"How do you figure that?\"\n\n\"Because he quit the gang with no warnin', and then he shows up with that wagon train, too. It's all got to be connected.\"\n\nGreen was a good man, plenty tough, and he followed orders well and could be depended on. Swint had never considered him to be all that smart, though. But as he followed his lieutenant's reasoning, he had to give Green some grudging credit for his intelligence. The theory Green had worked out actually made sense, and it was the best explanation so far for what had happened.\n\nPlus it sure beat nothing, which was what they had come up with so far.\n\n\"So what are you saying, that we need to follow that wagon train?\"\n\n\"Well, it's a place to start, anyway,\" Green said.\n\n\"And if you're wrong,\" Swint snapped, \"we'll have lost a lot of time. Enough time that we might never be able to find those blasted thieves.\"\n\n\"It's up to you, Eldon,\" Green replied with a shake of his head. \"I've never pretended to be in charge of this gang and don't want to be. You're the boss and we'll do whatever you say. I just thought\u2014\"\n\n\"And you did a good job. I'll admit that.\" Swint took the bottle back from Green, tilted it to his mouth, and swallowed a long swig of the fiery liquor before thumping the mostly empty bottle down on the tabletop. He had reached a decision. \"Round up the rest of the boys. Get some pack animals and lay in plenty of supplies. We're liable to be on the trail for quite a while.\"\n\n\"So we're goin' after the wagon train?\" Green asked excitedly.\n\n\"We're going after the wagon train,\" Swint agreed. \"And it's a long way from here to Montana Territory.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 44",
                "text": "The weather held for several days as the wagon train continued northward. A glittering blanket of frost covered the ground every morning, but it melted away when the sun came up. Chilly winds blew from the north, sending towering white clouds scudding through the blue sky like tall-masted ships. The thick wool and sheepskin coats worn by the immigrants kept them from getting too cold.\n\nThe brisk air didn't bother Jamie. After the rugged life he had led and the iron constitution it had given him, he was practically immune to the weather unless it became really extreme. He enjoyed the cold, clear conditions.\n\nFor one thing, the wagon train was making good time again, and he was satisfied with the number of miles they covered every day. There was still a slim chance they would reach Eagle Valley by Christmas.\n\nOne of the teenage boys in the group had been recruited to drive R.G. Hamilton's wagon. R.G. had no family and had been traveling alone until romance had blossomed between him and Alice and they had wound up getting married in Kansas City.\n\nAlice insisted on staying with the wagon, even though she could have gone back to traveling with her family. Savannah rode with the grieving widow sometimes, keeping her company. After several days, Jamie sought her out at the Bingham wagon one evening to ask how Alice was doing.\n\nNot surprising, Bodie Cantrell was having supper with Savannah, Edward, and Leticia. Any time he wasn't out scouting, Bodie could be found somewhere near the Bingham wagon. He was so head-over-heels in love with Savannah that Jamie sometimes had a hard time not chuckling at the moonstruck look on the young man's face.\n\nThe good thing was that Savannah seemed to return the feeling. There weren't many things worse in this world than being desperately in love with somebody who didn't really give a darn about you.\n\nAt least, Jamie supposed that to be the case. He had never experienced such unrequited love himself, since he and Kate had been soul mates right from the start and that feeling hadn't lessened a whit over the years.\n\nIt had taken an outlaw's bullet to part them, and Jamie would carry that loss with him for the rest of his life.\n\n\"Would you like something to eat, Mr. MacCallister?\" Leticia Bingham asked him as he came up to the wagon.\n\nJamie shook his head. \"No, ma'am, but I'm obliged to you for the offer. Moses and I already had supper a little while ago.\" He grinned. \"I'm teaching him how to cook trail grub.\"\n\n\"How's he taking to that?\" Bodie asked with a smile.\n\n\"Not bad. He's a pretty smart fella. Can do most anything he puts his mind to.\" Jamie tipped his hat back. \"I really came to talk to you, Savannah, and ask how Alice Hamilton is getting on.\"\n\nSavannah's pretty face wore a solemn expression. \"It's been really hard on her, Mr. MacCallister. That's not surprising, of course, losing her husband like that so soon after they were married... although I suppose it would be difficult no matter how long it had been.\"\n\n\"Has she said anything about wanting to go back? She might be able to manage that, come spring.\"\n\nSavannah shook her head. \"No, it was R.G.'s dream for them to have a place of their own in Eagle Valley, and Alice seems determined to go through with that. She says she's going to take up the homestead R.G. intended to file. But other times...\" Savannah looked worried. \"Other times she acts like she's too overwhelmed with grief to go on. She says she doesn't think she can make it.\"\n\n\"Probably be a good idea for you to keep an eye on her as much as you can,\" Jamie said.\n\n\"You don't think she'd... hurt herself, do you, Mr. MacCallister?\"\n\n\"I hope not, but you never know what folks might do when they've suffered a bad loss.\" Some folks might even set out to hunt down an entire gang of vicious killers and outlaws, he thought.\n\nHe put that out of his mind and went on. \"If you get a chance, tell Alice's folks about how she's acting.\"\n\n\"They already know,\" Savannah said. \"They're worried about her, too. Her mother keeps trying to talk her into coming back to their wagon, but Alice won't hear of it. She insists she's going to stay in the wagon she shared with R.G., because that's where she was happy.\"\n\n\"Seems to me like there would be too many reminders of him in that wagon,\" Bodie commented.\n\n\"People never really know what they'll do until they're faced with something. Then it's too late to prepare. You've just got to do what it takes to survive.\" That was something Jamie Ian MacCallister knew all about\u2014survival.\n\nThe next day dawned clear, but by noon there was a dark blue line on the northern horizon. Within an hour it had grown into a low cloud bank that seemed to be rushing toward the wagon train. To Jamie it looked closer with every minute that passed. He pointed it out to Bodie, who was riding ahead of the wagons with him. \"Blue Norther.\"\n\n\"A snowstorm, you mean?\"\n\n\"Might be some snow with it, might not be. At this time of year, it's hard to say until the blasted thing is right on top of you. But whether it snows or not, we need to stop and hunker down until it's passed us by.\"\n\nThey turned and rode back to the lead wagon. At Jamie's command, Bodie headed on along the line of vehicles, telling the drivers to stop and form up in a circle.\n\n\"What's going on here?\" Captain Hendricks asked.\n\nJamie leveled a finger at the onrushing clouds. \"We're in for a bad blow. The wind's going to be so hard it'll seem like these prairie schooners of yours are about to lift up off the ground and fly. The temperature's liable to drop forty degrees in an hour, too.\"\n\n\"But it's not much above freezing now,\" Hendricks protested. \"If it drops forty degrees...\" His eyes widened at the thought.\n\nJamie grunted. \"Yeah. That's what happens when you start out on a trip like this so late in the year.\"\n\nHendricks's face hardened angrily, but he said, \"What do we need to do?\"\n\n\"We'll go ahead and make camp. Build fires now while we still can and get some hot food and coffee in everybody. Then tie everything down tight to keep it from blowing away, climb in the wagons, and heap as many blankets and quilts as you can on top of you. It'll be a mighty cold night, but we ought to make it through all right.\"\n\nHendricks nodded. \"I'll make sure everybody gets busy and does what you said.\"\n\nFor the next hour, as the Blue Norther rampaged closer and closer, the camp was a beehive of activity. Everyone seemed to understand the seriousness of the situation. As the cloud bank swept in, it grew darker and more sinister.\n\nThe wind, which had been fairly light, died down to almost nothing as Jamie walked around the circle of wagons, checking to make sure everything was secured as much as possible. Most of the immigrants were worried. He tried to reassure them. They had all been through cold snaps back where they came from, he told them. A great plains norther was a mite more... enthusiastic, he explained, but they could ride it out.\n\n\"Keep everybody close,\" he said again and again. \"And huddle up together. You'll need the warmth by morning.\"\n\nSatisfied that the immigrants were as ready as they were going to be, he headed for Moses's wagon. The clouds had swallowed up the sun, and even though the hour was just past mid-afternoon, it was almost dark as night.\n\nThe wind hit while Jamie was walking across the camp.\n\nHe reached up quickly and grabbed his hat to keep it from blowing away. The wind smacked into his face like an icy fist. By the time he reached the wagon he was leaning forward into it, struggling against the violent gusts.\n\nHe climbed into the wagon, ducked through the opening, and pulled the canvas flap tightly closed behind him, tying it in place with the cords attached to it. He could feel the wagon vibrating from the wind pushing against it.\n\n\"You know, I've seen some bad blizzards back in Poland,\" Moses said. \"Is this one going to be worse, Jamie?\"\n\n\"Don't know. I've never been to Poland. I don't smell any snow in the air, though. I think we're just going to get the cold wind. But it's going to be mighty cold.\"\n\n\"You can smell snow?\" Moses sounded like he found that hard to believe.\n\n\"Sure. Snow, rain, dust storms... you get to where you can smell what the weather's going to do if you stay out here on the frontier long enough.\"\n\n\"Somehow I don't doubt it. I don't think I'd doubt anything you had to tell me, Jamie.\"\n\n\"Oh, I can spin a few windies when the mood strikes me,\" Jamie said with a smile. \"But when it comes to getting by out here, I won't steer you wrong.\"\n\nThe wind began to howl in mindless shrieks that sounded like lost souls being tormented in hell. It made the cold seem even more numbing. Jamie dug an old buffalo robe he'd had for more than thirty years out of his gear and wrapped himself in it. Night closed down quickly, and he slept the way any frontiersman would sleep when he had the chance.\n\nHe woke to shouts, stirred himself, crawled out of the buffalo robe, and untied the flap over the back of the wagon. He had just stuck his head out when Savannah McCoy came running toward the vehicle, carrying a lantern and calling urgently, \"Mr. MacCallister! Mr. MacCallister!\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\nSavannah lifted her stricken face toward him. \"It's Alice Hamilton, Mr. MacCallister. She's gone!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 45",
                "text": "\"What do you mean, gone?\" he asked Savannah as he climbed out of Moses's wagon.\n\n\"I decided she shouldn't be alone tonight and went over to her wagon right after the wind hit. Alice seemed glad to see me. We put our bedrolls next to each other on the floor. I... I tried to stay awake, but I dozed off. When I woke up, she wasn't there anymore.\" Tears began to roll down Savannah's cheeks. \"I'm so, so sorry\u2014\"\n\n\"Stop that. It's not your fault. Anything you did to watch out for that gal was from the goodness of your heart, and nobody's going to blame you for what's happened.\"\n\n\"Do you think something has... happened?\"\n\nJamie didn't answer that question directly. \"Let's go take a look around. Maybe we can find her.\"\n\nMoses was leaning out the back of the wagon. He had overheard what Savannah said, and asked, \"Should I rouse everyone else, Jamie, to help you look?\"\n\nJamie considered for a second. The wind was bitingly cold, and it was only going to get worse. Everybody was hunkered down in their wagons, buried in quilts and blankets, and that was where they needed to stay.\n\n\"Get Bodie and that fella Lucas,\" Jamie decided. \"We won't tell anybody else for now.\" He reached back into the wagon, got his hat, and tugged it down tight on his head. He pulled out the buffalo robe as well and wrapped it around his shoulders. Then he took the lantern from Savannah and headed for Alice Hamilton's wagon.\n\nHe studied the ground around the wagon for tracks, but it had dried out since the rain several days earlier and he didn't see any footprints. He found a place where he thought the dry grass had been disturbed, but he couldn't be sure about that.\n\nBodie and Jake Lucas arrived, looking half-frozen already even though they had blankets wrapped tightly around themselves. Bodie asked, \"What can we do to help, Jamie?\"\n\n\"We're going to look for Miz Hamilton, but we don't want anybody else wandering off and getting lost, so stay close together while we search.\"\n\n\"Do you think that's what happened to her?\" Savannah asked. \"Do you think she got lost?\"\n\n\"More than likely. She might've stepped out of the wagon to tend to some personal business, gotten turned around, and started off in the wrong direction, thinking she was coming back. By the time she figured out she was going the wrong way, she couldn't locate the camp anymore.\"\n\nThat explanation was entirely possible, Jamie thought. But his gut told him it wasn't the only explanation.\n\nSince her husband's death, Alice Hamilton had been trying to drag herself up out of a pit of despair. Maybe it had pulled her down so deep she couldn't escape from it.\n\n\"I'll help you look,\" Savannah said.\n\n\"No!\" Jamie and Bodie said at the same time.\n\n\"Get back in the wagon, out of the wind,\" Jamie told her. \"The four of us will find her.\"\n\nAs he, Moses, Bodie, and Jake spread out in a fan shape from the Hamilton wagon, Jamie thought about how the chances of finding Alice would be increased if more people were searching for her.\n\nBut the chances of somebody else getting lost and freezing to death would be greater, too. It was like the old saying about being caught between a rock and a hard place. Whatever he did increased the risk of somebody dying.\n\nWith the temperature dropping the way it was and the savage wind ripping away any trace of warmth, a person could freeze to death in an hour, maybe less. The frigid cold wouldn't kill as quickly as that flooded creek had, but it could kill just as surely.\n\nJamie cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, \"Mrs. Hamilton! Alice!\" The other men began calling her name, too. Somebody at the wagon train might hear the shouting and wonder what was going on, but that couldn't be helped. If Alice was lost and truly wanted to be found, the sound of their voices might save her life.\n\nThe yelling helped Jamie keep track of the other men, too. He didn't want to lose anybody else.\n\nThey spread out away from the wagon for what seemed like a long time. When Jamie estimated that they had covered close to a mile, he called his three companions to him. \"I don't think she could have gotten this far. We've missed her somewhere.\"\n\n\"She could have headed off from the wagons at any angle,\" Bodie pointed out.\n\nMoses suggested, \"Maybe we should go back and start over, taking a different direction this time.\"\n\n\"That's all we can do,\" Jamie said. \"Come on.\"\n\nThe night dragged past. First one hour, then two, then three. Jamie's worry had grown with every minute that ticked by. Somebody could survive in the wind for this long\u2014he and his companions were doing it, after all\u2014but they were all bundled up in thick jackets and blankets. Even so, they were suffering. Jamie knew he was going to have to call off the search soon or else risk the men suffering from frostbite.\n\n\"I... I can't feel my fingers and toes anymore,\" Moses said, reinforcing Jamie's concern for their safety.\n\n\"Let's head on back,\" he said with a heavy sigh. \"We can't do any more.\"\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" Bodie protested. \"You can't mean to just leave poor Mrs. Hamilton out here.\"\n\n\"I don't mean to let you three fellas freeze to death, either. Or lose your fingers and toes.\"\n\nMoses gulped. \"Is that what's going to happen?\"\n\n\"It could if we don't get you warmed up.\" Jamie herded them back to the wagon train.\n\nSavannah met them, and the lantern light revealed the worry etched into her face. Her expression fell when she saw that the men were alone. \"You didn't find her.\" It wasn't a question.\n\n\"We can't stay out there anymore,\" Jamie said. \"Maybe she found a place to get out of the wind and hole up for a while. There are little gullies and such\u2014\"\n\n\"You know she didn't,\" Savannah said. \"She didn't get turned around so that she couldn't find her way back to the wagons, either.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Jake Lucas asked.\n\nMoses said gently, \"I suppose she didn't want to live without her husband. She thought the pain was too much for her to bear and she couldn't go on. So she walked off into the night, never intending to come back.\"\n\nSavannah started to cry again. Bodie took her in his arms and drew her against him.\n\nJamie let the young man comfort Savannah for a few moments, then told her, \"You'd better go back to the Bingham wagon. The rest of us will hunker down in Moses's wagon. We can start searching again at first light. It'll be easier then.\"\n\nThey would be able to see better in the morning, he thought, but the chances of finding Alice Hamilton alive then would be practically nonexistent.\n\nHe didn't sleep much the rest of the night. Along toward dawn, the wind died down, ceasing its eerie howling. The stars came out as the overcast broke. And the temperature dropped harder and faster, like the bottom had fallen out of the thermometer.\n\nJamie and his companions resumed the search in the gray light of dawn. The air was so cold it seemed to burn their lungs with every breath. Huge clouds of steam fogged the air in front of the men's faces every time they exhaled. It looked like smoke wreathing their upper bodies.\n\nThey found Alice about half a mile from the wagons. She was in a small gully, all right, but from the way she was lying there it appeared that she had stumbled and fallen into it instead of seeking shelter. It hadn't saved her. Frost glittered on her open, sightless eyes, and her flesh was cold and hard as stone.\n\nBy the time they got back with her body, everybody in the wagon train knew that Alice was missing. Sobs filled the air as the men carried in her blanket-wrapped form. Alice's mother threw herself on her daughter's body and wailed piteously.\n\nJamie felt the grief that gripped the camp, but didn't show it. In his life he had seen so much death and suffering that he knew it was inevitable. He drew Captain Hendricks and several other men aside. \"It hasn't been cold enough long enough to freeze the ground. We'd better get a grave dug while we can.\"\n\n\"It's a shame the poor girl couldn't be laid to rest beside her husband,\" Hendricks said.\n\n\"I reckon it's a big country on the other side of the divide,\" Jamie said, \"but not so big that the two of them won't be able to find each other.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 46",
                "text": "As often happened out on the plains, within a couple days the fierce, freezing wind out of the north was replaced by a much gentler, warmer breeze from the south. Jamie knew it would be only a matter of time until the next Blue Norther came barreling down on them, so he wanted to cover as much ground as he could while the weather was decent. He pushed everyone hard and used every bit of daylight he could.\n\nThe grinding pace meant there wasn't much time to mourn Alice Hamilton. Her death and that of her husband were tragic and senseless, but those graves were behind the wagon train. Everyone needed to look ahead, because that was where the next challenge would be found.\n\nAs Jamie could have predicted, that challenge wasn't long in coming. He was riding the point with Hector Gilworth several days later when he spotted riders paralleling their course about half a mile to the west.\n\nWithout saying anything to Hector, Jamie turned his head and looked to the east. He saw more riders in that direction. That came as no surprise to him. He had been expecting something like this. The wagon train was just too tempting a target.\n\n\"Ride on back and tell Cap'n Hendricks to have everybody circle the wagons,\" Jamie said quietly to Hector.\n\n\"But it's the middle of the day,\" the burly, bearded scout protested. \"We don't usually circle up until we stop at nightfall.\"\n\n\"Well, we're going to today, because there are Indians on both sides of us.\"\n\nHector let out a surprised exclamation. \"Are they going to attack us?\"\n\n\"Too soon to say, but we'd better be ready in case they do. Now git!\"\n\nHector got, hauling his horse around and galloping back toward the wagons.\n\nJamie reined Sundown to a halt and sat easily in the saddle. As soon as the Indians saw the wagons forming up into a circle, they would know that their presence had been discovered. If they planned to attack, they would probably do it quickly, before the immigrants had time to get set up for defense.\n\nOn the other hand, it could be that the Indians just wanted to parley. Some of the tribes didn't mind the wagon trains passing through their territory as long as they received some sort of tribute in return for safe passage.\n\nThey liked to negotiate from a position of strength, though, which is why they usually showed up with a considerable number of warriors, all painted fiercely and bristling with lances, bows and arrows, and occasionally, rifles. They liked to throw a scare into the settlers.\n\nIt wasn't just for show. If things didn't go well, the Indians would welcome a fight.\n\nJamie turned his head slowly from side to side. More mounted figures were visible in both directions, and they were angling their ponies toward the wagon train. The Indians were closing in, but they weren't getting in any hurry about it. Jamie hoped that meant they just wanted to talk.\n\nHe turned the stallion and rode back toward the spot where the immigrants were hurriedly pulling the wagons into a circle. Seeing the train stopping, the other scouts and outriders were coming in, too, some of them galloping hard to make it back to the relative safety of the wagons.\n\nBodie Cantrell rode out to meet Jamie a couple hundred yards away from the wagons. \"Hector says there are Indians about to attack us.\" They both reined to a halt.\n\n\"That's jumping the gun a mite,\" Jamie said. \"Right now it looks to me like they don't want to fight. Of course, that could change mighty quick-like.\"\n\n\"What should we do?\"\n\nJamie narrowed his eyes in thought. After a moment he said, \"Your friend Lucas is pretty good with a gun, isn't he?\"\n\nBodie looked a little uncomfortable about answering that, but he said, \"Yeah, I suppose so.\"\n\n\"He's cool-headed and can take orders?\"\n\n\"I'd say so.\"\n\n\"Go get him. The three of us will ride out to see what they want.\"\n\nBodie nodded. He was aware that what Jamie was asking of him involved considerable risk, but he wasn't the sort to dodge trouble.\n\nWhen Bodie came back, he didn't have just Jake Lucas with him. Captain Lamar Hendricks rode with them, too.\n\nBefore Jamie could say anything, Hendricks spoke up to explain his presence. \"If you're going to talk to these savages, I need to be there. I was elected to be the leader of this wagon train.\"\n\n\"And I was hired to be the wagon master,\" Jamie said. \"Who'd you leave in charge back there?\"\n\n\"Hector Gilworth.\"\n\n\"Well, Hector's a good man, I suppose. If we all get killed, he'll put up a good fight.\"\n\nHendricks was a little pale under his tan. \"Do you think there's a chance we'll all be killed?\"\n\n\"There's always a chance.\" Jamie inclined his head toward the north. \"I reckon we'll find out pretty soon, because here they come.\"\n\nAbout a dozen warriors were trotting their ponies toward the four men. As they drew closer, Jamie saw that they were painted for war. But that didn't have to mean anything, he reminded himself. They might still be able to get out of this without a fight.\n\n\"Somebody else is coming from the wagon train,\" Jake said suddenly.\n\nJamie twisted around in the saddle to look. It was hard to surprise him, but his eyebrows rose slightly when he saw Moses Danzig riding toward them on one of the extra saddle horses.\n\nConfronting a bunch of potentially angry Cheyenne was just about the last thing Moses needed to be doing, Jamie thought. But it was too late to send the rabbi back to the wagons. Jamie turned back to keep an eye on the approaching Indians.\n\nAs Moses came up beside him, panting slightly from the effort of riding two hundred yards on horseback, Jamie said quietly, \"Moses, what in the Sam Hill are you doing out here?\"\n\n\"Hector wanted to let you know that we're all dug in and ready to fight if need be,\" Moses replied. \"He was going to send his cousin to do it, but I suggested that he let me ride out here instead. Jess can use a gun and I can't, so he's of more value there.\"\n\n\"If there's a fight out here, you can't even defend yourself.\"\n\n\"I'll trust in a higher power for that.\"\n\nJake said, \"On these plains, ain't no higher power than Mr. Colt and Mr. Winchester.\"\n\n\"We'll save the theological debate for later,\" Moses said. \"Oh, my. They're certainly savage-looking, aren't they?\"\n\nThe Indians were close enough to confirm by the markings on their faces and the decorations on their buckskins that they were Cheyenne, just as Jamie had suspected. As Moses had pointed out, they looked fierce.\n\nJamie remained utterly calm. That required an effort of will, but he kept his face just as stony as those of the warriors who brought their ponies to a halt about twenty feet away. Beyond them, about as far distant as the wagons were, a hundred more warriors waited on horseback.\n\nJamie raised a hand in the universal signal of friendship and said in the Cheyenne tongue, \"Greetings. We come seeking only a trail to travel peacefully to the north.\"\n\nOne of the older warriors in the group, a man Jamie suspected was the war chief for this band, responded. \"This is our land. We have hunted it for many, many moons. It gives my people life. We would not have it taken away from us.\"\n\n\"Nor do we wish to take it,\" Jamie said with the formality such parleys always demanded. \"If we hunt the buffalo, it will be for fresh meat only, and we will kill no more than one.\"\n\n\"You already have the buffalo with sleek hides,\" the Cheyenne said.\n\nJamie knew he was talking about the oxen. \"We do,\" he acknowledged, \"but we need them to pull the wagons. They are not for eating.\"\n\n\"If you kill a buffalo, you should replace it. Give us one of your animals for this buffalo of ours that you may kill.\"\n\nHendricks asked nervously, \"What are the two of you saying? It sounds very serious.\"\n\n\"He wants us to give him an ox,\" Jamie drawled in English. \"I reckon we can spare one. Unless you'd rather fight over one animal.\"\n\n\"No, no. Not at all,\" Hendricks said quickly. \"If that's all it takes for them to let us go on safely, then by all means, give them an ox!\"\n\nJamie conveyed that to the war chief, but before the Cheyenne leader could respond, one of the other warriors suddenly pushed his pony forward and spoke up angrily. \"It is not enough! We must have one of their women in trade for their safety as well!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 47",
                "text": "Jamie instantly knew what the interruption was about. The warrior who had just made the outrageous demand was probably one of the war chief's rivals. He didn't want the encounter with the white interlopers to end peacefully. He wanted a fight, wanted the wagon train wiped out so that he could claim credit for the massacre and further his own cause among the tribe.\n\nThe varmint had to know good and well that the immigrants would never turn over one of their women.\n\n\"What did that one say just then?\" Hendricks asked. \"It didn't sound good. What's this about?\"\n\nThe chief turned to glare at the warrior who had butted in as Jamie said, \"The other fella has upped the stakes. He wants an ox... and one of your womenfolks.\"\n\nThe men gasped in shock and anger, and Jake exclaimed, \"Why, that dirty\u2014\" He grated out a curse and reached for the gun on his hip. He had just cleared leather when Jamie leaned over in the saddle and shot his hand out to clamp around Lucas's wrist to keep him from raising the revolver and firing.\n\nIt was too late. The damage had already been done. The warrior who had started this ruckus cried out and jerked a rifle to his shoulder, ready to fire.\n\nJamie heard some rapid words he didn't understand behind him, but ignored them. He was about to reach for his Colts, knowing that in another second the air would be full of gun smoke and flying lead and arrows.\n\n\"Stop!\"\n\nThe voice was old and not exactly powerful, but the piercing timbre of it cut through the air of impending violence and made all the men on both sides freeze in their actions. Another of the Cheyenne pushed his horse forward. He was ancient, his coppery face so lined with wrinkles that he seemed a hundred years old. His braided hair was pure white. But despite his obvious age he sat tall and straight in the saddle, like a much younger man. He leveled a buckskin-clad arm, pointing as he asked, \"Who is this mighty shaman?\"\n\nJamie didn't have any idea who the Indian was talking about. Realizing that the man was pointing past him, he glanced over his shoulder and saw Moses sitting on horseback, looking terrified. The young man's lips were moving as he muttered unfamiliar words under his breath.\n\nThe war chief reached over and grabbed the barrel of the angry warrior's rifle, forcing it down.\n\nJamie said harshly to Jake, \"Pouch that iron, mister!\" They had been given an unexpected respite, and he didn't intend to waste it. \"Everybody else, keep your hands away from your guns!\"\n\nThe tension was still thick as the two groups of riders faced each other.\n\nJamie went on. \"Moses, the old man is talking about you. He says you're a mighty shaman and wants to know who you are.\"\n\n\"A... a shaman?\" Moses shook his head. \"I don't even know what that is.\"\n\n\"A medicine man, like I suspect that old fella is himself. Sort of like the spiritual leader of the tribe.\"\n\n\"Oh. I suppose you could say that, although Reverend Bradford certainly wouldn't agree.\"\n\n\"What was that you were saying a minute ago, Moses?\"\n\n\"I was praying.\" A glimmer of understanding dawned on the young man's face. \"I was praying in Hebrew...\"\n\nBefore Jamie could stop him, Moses walked his horse forward, putting himself between the two groups. Several of the warriors lifted lances, but a sharp word from the chief made them lower the weapons.\n\nThe ancient Cheyenne moved his pony forward until he and Moses sat alongside each other with their mounts facing in opposite directions. Moses began speaking again in Hebrew.\n\nJamie didn't understand a word of the speech, of course. He didn't see how the Cheyenne medicine man could understand it, but the old man listened attentively. When Moses was finished, the old man surprised Jamie by lifting a hand and launching into a long speech of his own.\n\nJamie was fluent in the Cheyenne tongue, but what the medicine man was speaking was something else. It was similar to the Cheyenne language, enough so that Jamie thought he caught a word every now and then, but at the same time the words carried a sense of antiquity with them, as if the old-timer were speaking a long-forgotten tongue that had mostly vanished from the face of the earth.\n\nWhen he was done, he held out his hand. Moses clasped it, and they sat there like that for a long moment. Then the medicine man turned to the warriors and barked words in Cheyenne that Jamie understood.\n\n\"What's going on now?\" Bodie asked in a hushed voice.\n\n\"The old man is telling them to turn and ride away,\" Jamie explained. \"He says that we're among the favored of the Great Spirit and that their medicine will become very bad if they harm us.\"\n\n\"We don't have to give them the ox anymore?\" Hendricks asked as the Indians began to turn their ponies and ride away, some with obvious reluctance. They weren't willing to go against the old medicine man's decree.\n\n\"No, they won't bother us again, thanks to Moses.\"\n\nBodie said to the young rabbi, \"What in the world did you do, pard?\"\n\nMoses shook his head. \"I just called down blessings upon him and his people and told him that we were peaceful and would cause no trouble as we crossed the lands that traditionally belong to them.\" He smiled faintly. \"I said it in Hebrew, of course, and made it all sound a lot more flowery.\"\n\n\"And he understood you?\" Jake asked, visibly astonished.\n\n\"I don't know. He seemed to. Or maybe he just understood the tone of what I was saying.\"\n\n\"How about all that palaver he gave back to you?\" Jamie asked. \"Did it mean anything to you?\"\n\nMoses frowned. \"He wasn't speaking Cheyenne?\"\n\n\"Not the Cheyenne I know.\"\n\n\"That's... odd. I didn't actually understand what he was saying, of course, but every now and then I... I sort of felt like I ought to understand. Do you know what I mean?\"\n\n\"Like if you went back far enough, the lingo he was talking had something in common with what you were saying to him?\"\n\n\"Exactly!\" Moses exclaimed. \"And that makes perfect sense.\"\n\nBodie said, \"How in the world do you figure that?\"\n\n\"Have you ever heard of the Lost Tribes of Israel? In biblical times, the land of Canaan was ruled by twelve tribes. But when Canaan was split into two kingdoms\u2014Israel and Judah\u2014those tribes to the north that formed the Kingdom of Israel vanished from history and are now considered lost. According to legend, they were forced by enemies to leave their homeland and spread out across the world.\" Moses smiled. \"There are some who say that one of those tribes found its way to the North American continent and eventually became the Indians that we know today.\"\n\n\"Wait just a doggone minute,\" Jake said. \"You're sayin' that you... and those Cheyenne... are related somehow? Like distant cousins?\"\n\nMoses spread his hands. \"Well, it's just a theory... but you have to admit, that old medicine man responded when he heard me praying in Hebrew. The fact that we're all still alive and no blood was spilled... I'd say those prayers were answered, wouldn't you?\"\n\nJamie nodded. \"I'm not exactly sure how you managed it, Moses, and I don't care.\"\n\nAll the Indians had vanished. The plains were empty around them again.\n\n\"Let's get those wagons lined out and rolling again,\" Jamie continued. \"We've dodged a bullet, and we've still got some daylight left. Let's put some more miles behind us!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 48",
                "text": "Even though the encounter with the Indians hadn't resulted in any fighting, the immigrants were more nervous as the wagon train continued on its way. It took a week for them to stop looking over their shoulders and expecting to see painted, war bonneted savages intent on scalping them.\n\nOf course, the more prudent among them continued being watchful as the wagons rolled northward, but that was a good thing. The more alert they were, the better, Jamie thought.\n\nThey reached the Platte River and crossed the broad, shallow, muddy stream without incident. From there, the route diverged from the Oregon Trail, which headed west toward South Pass. The wagon train would keep going north for several more weeks.\n\nThey spotted their first buffalo herd a few days later. Jamie had expected to run across the shaggy beasts much earlier. The great herds always moved south for the winter, but other than that one cold blast, the weather had been unseasonably warm.\n\n\"Good Lord,\" Bodie exclaimed as he and Jamie reined in atop a ridge and looked at the vast sea of brown in front of them. The herd stretched as far as the eye could see.\n\nJamie grinned and rested his crossed hands on the saddle horn, shifting his weight forward to ease weary muscles. \"You haven't seen buffalo before?\"\n\n\"Well, yeah, of course I've seen them,\" the young man replied. \"But never that many in one place. There must be a million of them!\"\n\n\"I wouldn't doubt it. Maybe more than that. I've seen herds go by all day, all night, and all the next day before they finally got out of the way.\"\n\n\"We're going to have to stop and wait for this one to go past, aren't we?\"\n\nJamie took a pair of field glasses from one of his saddlebags and studied the herd. \"They're moving southeast. They'll miss us and ought to be out of our way by tomorrow.\"\n\nWith a worried tone in his voice, Bodie asked, \"What if they were to turn and stampede toward the wagon train?\"\n\n\"It wouldn't be good,\" Jamie replied. \"A buffalo stampede is just as much a force of nature as floods, fire, and cyclones. Every bit as destructive, too. You can't stop it, so you just have to get out of its way if you can.\"\n\nThe big frontiersman turned in his saddle to look behind them. \"The wagons are about a mile back. Go tell the cap'n to stop right where he is and don't come any closer. Teams stay hitched to the wagons until those critters are clear of us, in case we have to light a shuck and make a run for it. I'll stay here and keep an eye on the buffalo for now. We'll have scouts watching them all the time, just in case something makes them turn toward the wagons. We'll need as much warning as possible if that happens.\"\n\nBodie nodded, wheeled his horse, and galloped away.\n\nJamie turned his attention back to the buffalo. He had hunted the creatures many times, sometimes with his Indian friends using lances and bows and arrows, sometimes with groups of white hunters armed with Sharps rifles.\n\nEven though the sight of a herd like this made it seem as if the buffalo were endless, Jamie knew that wasn't the case. Many of them had been killed already for meat to feed the crews building the transcontinental railroad several years earlier.\n\nThey continued to be slaughtered for their hides. Back in southern Kansas, Jamie had seen stacks of those hides piled so high that they looked like shaggy brown hills. It was wasteful and shameful, the unknowable number of carcasses skinned and left to rot, their bones littering the plains. The Indians, at least, used every bit of the buffalo, instead of just taking one part and throwing away the rest.\n\nIt was such slaughter, he mused, that would spell defeat for the natives in the end. Without the animals they had depended upon to feed and clothe and shelter them for centuries, they would have no choice but to turn to their white conquerors and change their entire way of life.\n\nJamie believed in manifest destiny, but at the same time he could share a moment of sympathy for those swept aside in the inexorable tide of progress.\n\nThe enormous buffalo herd moved on without menacing the wagon train, and as Jamie had predicted, by the middle of the next day the route was clear again. But they had lost a day to the delay, and with December almost upon them, every day was becoming more and more crucial.\n\nA couple days later, they saw something unexpected: cattle. Not wild cattle, but what appeared to be well-grazed stock with wide, spreading horns.\n\n\"Dadgum it!\" Jake exclaimed when he saw them. \"Those are Texas longhorns. I've seen 'em down in Kansas at the railheads. What are they doing up here?\" He and Bodie and Jamie were scouting ahead of the wagon train.\n\nJamie said, \"Some of the ranchers from Texas are moving their herds up here and starting spreads. I've heard tell there are even some in Wyoming and Montana. I'm a little surprised we haven't run across any before now.\"\n\n\"I guess it makes sense,\" Bodie said. \"There's plenty of grassland up here. That's about all there is, in fact.\"\n\n\"Since the farmers haven't gotten this far west yet, it's all open range. I expect that'll change one of these days, but for now this is some of the best ranching country in the world... if you don't count the Indians and the blizzards, of course. But you've got problems like that wherever you go, I reckon.\"\n\n\"Those are some fine-looking beef cows,\" Jake mused as he studied the grazing animals.\n\n\"Don't get any ideas in your head,\" Jamie said sharply. \"If we slaughter any of those critters for meat, we'll buy them from their owners first. There won't be any rustling.\"\n\n\"Never said there would be,\" Jake replied.\n\nJamie had a hunch that was what had been in the young man's mind, though. His instincts had told him all along that Jake Lucas wasn't the same sort of upstanding young hombre as Bodie Cantrell, even though the two of them were friends.\n\nWhere there were cows, there were cowboys, and later that afternoon Jamie spotted riders coming toward them. He reined in and motioned for his companions to follow suit. A few minutes later the horsemen rode up, their chaps and big hats telling him that they were from Texas as he had suspected.\n\n\"Howdy,\" one of the men called. \"Mind if we ask what you fellas are doin' riding on Slash M range?\"\n\n\"That's where we are?\" Jamie asked.\n\n\"Have been for the past five miles,\" the puncher replied. \"This is Mr. Owen Murdock's spread. I'm Jim Haseltine, his foreman.\"\n\n\"Jamie Ian MacCallister.\" Jamie nodded. He leaned his head toward the other two and added, \"Bodie Cantrell and Jake Lucas. We're scouting for a wagon train that's coming up about a mile behind us.\"\n\nOne of the other cowboys, a lean man with a dark, hawklike face, leaned to the side and spat. \"Wagon train,\" he repeated scornfully. \"That means a bunch of damn sodbusters. You better not be intendin' to stay on Slash M range, mister. You'll get a hot lead welcome if you do.\"\n\nAnger darkened Jake's face.\n\nJamie knew the young man was a hothead, so he snapped, \"Take it easy. I'm handling the talking here.\"\n\nHe turned back to the cowboys. \"I'm not going to argue the idea of open range with you. As a matter of fact, the people with those wagons are bound for Montana Territory, so they shouldn't be any concern to you boys at all. We'll just pass through and go on our way.\"\n\nJim Haseltine had a speculative look on his face. \"Seems like I've heard of you, Mr. MacCallister. You wouldn't be the one who tangled with the Miles Nelson gang, would you?\"\n\n\"That was me,\" Jamie said heavily, recalling the bloody months he had spent avenging his wife's murder.\n\n\"Doss, don't go makin' threats against this man,\" Haseltine said to the hawk-faced cowboy. \"He chews up and spits out two-bit pistoleers like you.\"\n\nDoss exclaimed, \"By God, Haseltine, you can't talk to me like that!\"\n\n\"I just did,\" Haseltine said coldly. \"You can draw down on me if you want. I know you're faster than me. But I don't reckon you'll last long if you do.\"\n\n\"You've just been lookin' for an excuse to run me off.\"\n\n\"I don't need an excuse other than bein' sick and tired of you. Go back to the ranch and draw your pay. You're done on the Slash M.\"\n\nFor a moment Jamie thought Doss was going to slap leather, but the man jerked his horse around and galloped off.\n\n\"Looks like we caused you some trouble after all,\" Jamie said to Haseltine.\n\nThe ranch foreman shook his head. \"No, that's been buildin' up for a while. I just got tired of that hombre's blusterin' around all the time. Maybe he's right and I was lookin' for an excuse to tell him to rattle his hocks.\"\n\n\"Is he fast on the draw?\" Jake asked.\n\n\"Fast enough to have killed three men in fair fights,\" Haseltine answered. \"Fast enough to get a swelled head and make a blasted nuisance of himself.\" He changed the subject. \"You need any help gettin' through our range, Mr. MacCallister?\"\n\n\"You don't have any of it fenced off, do you?\"\n\nHaseltine made a face like he had just bitten into a rotten apple. \"You won't find any fences within five hundred miles of here, Mr. MacCallister. And that's just the way we like it in these parts.\"\n\nYou'd better enjoy it while you can, Jamie thought, because it won't last. \"Then I reckon we'll be fine. Obliged for the offer, though. We might cut out one of these steers and butcher it, if you'll tell me what price your boss would want for it.\"\n\n\"Don't worry about that,\" Haseltine said. \"We can spare one of the critters. And the boss'll back me up on that.\"\n\nJamie nodded again. \"Obliged.\" He lifted a hand in a wave of farewell as the cowboys rode on.\n\n\"Tough-looking bunch,\" Bodie commented.\n\n\"Texas cowboys,\" Jamie said. \"They're tough, all right. Let's take Haseltine up on his offer and cut out one of these steers.\"\n\n\"Steaks tonight!\" Jake said with a grin.\n\nThe fresh meat lifted the spirits of the immigrants, even though longhorns tended to be a little tough and stringy. The wagons had been on the trail for a long time, and sometimes it seemed like Montana was still as far off as it had been when they started.\n\nJamie knew they had made good progress, but there was still a long way to go.\n\nHe was standing beside Moses's wagon that evening, sipping from a cup of coffee, when he heard hoofbeats approaching the circle of wagons. He set the cup on the lowered tailgate and turned toward the sound.\n\nThe horse came to a stop, and as Jamie walked toward the gap between two of the wagons, a tall, lean figure appeared in it. The cowboy called Doss stepped into the glow from several nearby campfires. When he spotted Jamie coming toward him, he stiffened and his hands curled into claws poised above the black butts of the Colts holstered on his hips, ready to hook and draw.\n\n\"There you are!\" he called. \"They tell me you're one of the big he-wolf gunfighters, MacCallister! Well, I'm here to call you out!\"\n\nAnd with that, his hands streaked for the revolvers."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 49",
                "text": "There were too many people around. A group of women stood a few yards behind Jamie, talking. Off to his right several kids were chasing each other around, and one of the big yellow mutts that accompanied the wagon train ran after them, barking. It was a peaceful scene. A stray bullet could alter it suddenly, tragically, and irrevocably.\n\nThere was no time to do anything except kill the troublemaker.\n\nFaster than the eye could follow, Jamie's big hands swept down and back up. Even though Doss had already cleared leather before Jamie started his draw, the man never got a shot off. Jamie's Colts crashed, the two shots coming so close together they sounded like one.\n\nThe pair of .44 slugs punched into Doss's chest and drove him backward. The back of his calves struck a lowered wagon tongue, and he flipped over it. His guns finally roared as his fingers contracted in death spasms, the shots going harmlessly into the heavens. Doss thudded onto his back and his arms fell out loosely to the sides.\n\nHe didn't move again. One of Jamie's bullets had ripped through a lung. The other had pulped his heart. He was already dead when he hit the ground.\n\nThe chatter that had filled the camp a couple seconds earlier stopped short, leaving a stunned silence. As the echoes of the shots rolled away, the silence was broken by shouted questions and running footsteps.\n\nJamie holstered the left-hand Colt and began reloading the expended chamber in the other revolver. Bodie Cantrell, Hector Gilworth, and Jess Neville came pounding up to him with their own guns out and ready.\n\nBodie asked, \"Jamie, are you all right? What happened?\"\n\nJamie leaned his head toward the fallen gunman, whose legs were still visible hanging over the wagon tongue. \"That fella Doss came looking for me, I guess he figured he'd add to his reputation by killing me.\" Jamie paused. \"It didn't work out for him.\"\n\nHector took a lantern from one of the settlers who had come to investigate the shooting and carried it over to shine its light on the dead man. \"It sure didn't. Looks like you drilled him dead center twice, Jamie.\"\n\n\"And the man already had his guns out before Jamie drew,\" Moses added, having joined the group, too. \"I saw the whole thing. It was amazing.\"\n\nJamie leathered the right-hand gun and set about replacing the spent cartridge in the other weapon. He turned his head to listen as he picked up the sound of more horses coming toward the wagon train. \"I don't know if Doss had any friends, but just in case he did, all these kids and womenfolks ought to get inside where it's safer.\"\n\nMoses and several of the men hurried to spread the word and hustle the women and children into cover. Jamie, Bodie, Hector, and Jess moved to get ready for whoever was galloping toward the wagons. Jake Lucas, Clete Mahaffey, and Dave Pearsoll hurried up as well, and Jamie waved them into position around one of the wagons. They were a formidable group and if the night riders were looking for a fight, they would get it.\n\nInstead, the hoofbeats stopped, and a man's voice called, \"Hello, the camp! Hold your fire! We're friends!\"\n\nJamie grunted as he recognized the voice. \"That's Jim Haseltine, the Slash M ramrod.\" He raised his voice. \"Come on in, Haseltine, unless you're hunting trouble!\"\n\n\"No trouble,\" Haseltine replied. The man walked his horse forward into the light, trailed by several more members of Owen Murdock's crew. \"In fact, we came to warn you. That varmint Doss may come looking for you, Mr. MacCallister. There's a trading post a few miles west of here, and Doss was there earlier tonight gettin' liquored up. He was bragging about how he was gonna find you and kill you, and to warm up for it he shot one of my men who tried to talk some sense into his head.\"\n\n\"Kill him?\" Jamie asked curtly.\n\n\"No, thank the Lord. Just wounded him.\"\n\n\"Well, Doss won't shoot anybody else.\" Jamie holstered his guns and pointed. \"You want to bury him, or should we take care of the chore?\"\n\nHaseltine swung down from his saddle, walked over to where Doss's body lay, and looked down at it. He let out a low whistle of admiration. \"He's got his guns in his hands. I hate to admit it, but he was mighty fast. I guess he ran up against somebody faster, though.\"\n\n\"There's always somebody faster,\" Jamie said. \"About planting him...?\"\n\n\"We'll do it. Shoot, we owe you that much. He was always causing trouble. I'm sorry he came here and caused more.\"\n\n\"Not your fault,\" Jamie said with a shrug.\n\n\"Maybe not, but I hope the rest of your time on the Slash M is a mite more peaceful.\"\n\nA short time later, the Texas cowboys rode off, taking Doss's body with them, draped over the saddle of his horse. The commotion caused by the gunfight settled down quickly. The immigrants knew that come morning, Jamie would have them up before first light, getting ready to push on toward their destination.\n\nA chilly rain started a couple days later. There was no wind, so it came straight down from a leaden sky, steady but not hard enough to turn the landscape into a quagmire. The wagons were able to continue their journey, although the rain made everyone cold, wet, and miserable.\n\nThe sickness started a couple days after that.\n\nSome of the immigrants had been sick at times, but none seriously. As the rain continued to fall, fever raged through the train with little warning. So many people were ill, Jamie knew there was no choice but to stop until the outbreak ran its course.\n\nAround the clock, the sound of the constant drizzle was punctuated by coughing, wheezing, and gagging from half the wagons. Those fortunate enough not to catch the sickness stayed well away from those who had fallen ill... with a few notable exceptions.\n\nMoses Danzig seemed to be everywhere at once, doing whatever he could to comfort the afflicted and nurse them back to health. As he explained to Jamie, \"For a while back in Poland, when I was younger, I thought I might become a doctor. I even had a little medical training before I accepted the calling to attend rabbinical school. Unfortunately, there's not much even a real doctor could do for these poor people. I just keep them as comfortable as I can and try to help them let their own bodies fight the sickness.\"\n\nA lot of the time, Savannah McCoy was at Moses's side, helping him despite Bodie's objections. Bodie just wanted her to be safe and not come down with the fever herself, so he urged her to avoid those who were sick.\n\n\"I can't do that, Bodie,\" she told him. \"These people... they took me in when I had nowhere else to go. They protected me, gave me a new home.\" She smiled sadly. \"Why do you think I haven't gone back to the troupe? When we left Kansas City, I didn't plan to stay with the wagon train all the way to Montana Territory, you know.\"\n\n\"I know,\" he said softly as they stood under a canvas cover rigged at the back of the Bingham wagon and watched the rain fall.\n\n\"I couldn't leave. I waited until I thought enough time had passed that it might be safe, but by then... I just couldn't. I love Edward and Leticia. They're almost like a second set of parents to me. And I've made so many other good friends, like Moses and Mr. MacCallister and the Bradford twins. Alexander and Abigail had been spending a lot of time with me before this rain started, you know, even though they had to sneak away from their father to do it.\"\n\nBodie's jaw tightened at the mention of Reverend Thomas Bradford. \"Do you know what I heard that so-called preacher saying yesterday?\"\n\n\"I don't have any idea,\" Savannah replied. \"I think he's capable of saying almost anything.\"\n\n\"He said the rain, and folks falling sick from it, were because we'd offended God by harboring too many sinners among us.\"\n\n\"I'm sure that as an actress I'm one of those sinners he was talking about.\"\n\n\"That's crazy!\" Bodie exclaimed. \"You're about the best person I've ever known, Savannah. The way you and Moses have tried to take care of everybody\u2014\"\n\n\"Reverend Bradford probably thinks that Moses being here is another reason the wagon train is being punished.\"\n\n\"Let him think whatever dang fool thing he wants. All I really care about is you taking care of yourself, Savannah. If anything happened to you... if you got sick and... and... I don't know how I'd stand it.\" Bodie reached out, drew her into his arms, and cradled her against him.\n\nShe rested her head on his chest and sighed. The two of them clung to each other in the gloom as the rain continued to drizzle down.\n\nFour people\u2014two children, a man, and a woman\u2014died during the outbreak of fever. Considering the number of immigrants who had fallen ill, Jamie was surprised the death toll wasn't higher. As he told Moses, \"I figure it would have been a lot worse if not for what you and Savannah did.\"\n\n\"I just tried to help,\" Moses replied with a shake of his head, \"and so did a lot of other people. Not just Savannah. Bodie pitched in, and Hector and Jess and so many others. We're past the worst of it now, I think. People are on the mend again. Another few days and we might be able to travel again. That is, if this blasted rain will ever stop.\"\n\nThe rain did stop. And the wagon train moved on, leaving four new graves behind it.\n\nChristmas was less than a month away."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 50",
                "text": "It was a rare sunny day, and as a result slightly warmer, when the wagon train stopped next to a creek so the immigrants could fill the water barrels lashed to their wagons. The creek had some ice along its edges, but it wasn't frozen over as it would be later on in the winter.\n\nAll the scouts were out except Jake Lucas and Dave Pearsoll, who had been left behind to keep an eye on the wagons as the pilgrims went about their chores. Jake saw Savannah McCoy walking along the creek bank with the preacher's kids and strolled after them. The youngsters were carrying buckets to help fill their father's water barrels, and he supposed Savannah was watching out for them.\n\nThey stopped at the edge of the creek, and when Savannah saw him coming, she smiled. \"Hello, Jake.\" The two of them were on friendly terms, even though Savannah had never been around Jake much when Bodie wasn't there, too.\n\nHe returned the smile and tugged on the brim of his hat. \"Nice day, ain't it?\"\n\n\"The nicest we've had lately,\" she agreed. She watched with approval as Alexander and Abigail Bradford filled the wooden buckets in the stream and then started back toward the wagons with them.\n\n\"Why don't we walk down there where those trees are?\" Jake suggested, pointing to some bare-limbed aspen that grew about fifty yards downstream.\n\n\"Why would we do that?\" Savannah asked with a slight frown of puzzlement.\n\n\"I want to talk to you about Bodie.\"\n\nSavannah's frown deepened. \"There's nothing wrong, is there?\"\n\n\"No, not really. It's just that, well, him and me have been friends for quite a while, and there's something that's worrying me a mite.\"\n\nSavannah hesitated a moment more, but then she nodded. \"All right. If it's about Bodie.\"\n\nThe kids came back with their empty buckets. Savannah told them to keep carrying water to the reverend's wagon, then she and Jake walked toward the trees.\n\nThe trunks were close enough together that they formed a screen of sorts and provided a little privacy. When they stopped, Savannah turned to Jake. \"Now, what's this about Bodie? What are you worried about, Jake?\"\n\nA grin stretched across his face. \"I'm worried that he don't know how to take proper care of a beautiful girl like you.\"\n\nBefore she could stop him, he had his arms around her, pulling her against him. His mouth came down on hers in an urgent, demanding kiss.\n\nSavannah stiffened and shoved her hands against his chest, but she couldn't break away from him. Nor could she twist her lips away from his until he broke the kiss and pulled back slightly, grinning again.\n\nHer hand flashed up and cracked across his cheek. \"How dare you!\" she exclaimed. \"You... you... I never\u2014\"\n\n\"Maybe that's your problem,\" he cut in. His hands were tight on her arms. \"Listen, Savannah, you can do a lot better than Bodie Cantrell. I can treat you right, and I've got a lot more money than he does.\" He didn't explain how he had come by that money. \"Once we get to Montana, if you stick with me I'll show you a better time than Bodie ever could.\"\n\n\"Let go of me, Mr. Lucas,\" she said coldly. \"If you don't, I'll scream, and the people at the wagons will hear me. Don't think they won't.\"\n\nHe knew she was right. He wasn't ready to leave the wagon train just yet, so he released her arms, but he didn't step back. He still crowded close to her, and with the icy stream right behind her, there was nowhere she could go.\n\n\"Maybe I took you by surprise,\" he said. \"I'm sorry if I did. But I had to tell you how I feel. I had to show you\u2014\"\n\n\"No, you didn't,\" she snapped. \"You could have had the common decency to respect your friend... and me. From now on I want you to stay away from me, Mr. Lucas. Far away.\"\n\nJake's face hardened. He asked harshly, \"Are you sure about that?\"\n\n\"I'm positive. And if you don't, I'll tell Bodie\u2014\"\n\n\"You don't want to do that,\" Jake told her in a hard, menacing tone. \"I know Bodie. If you tell him what happened here today, he'll figure he's got to come gunnin' for me. And if he does, I'll kill him. Simple as that. I'm faster than him, and if he draws on me, he'll die.\"\n\nHe could see in her eyes that she knew he was telling the truth. Fear sprang up in them, fear for Bodie's life.\n\n\"If you don't bother me again, I won't say anything.\"\n\n\"We understand each other, then.\"\n\n\"We do,\" Savannah said quietly.\n\nJake stepped back to let her go past him. As she did, he told her, \"You're makin' a mistake. I can do more for you than Bodie ever can.\"\n\nShe didn't reply, didn't even look around as she hurried back toward the wagons.\n\nJake stood there glaring and muttering curses under his breath until a sudden footstep from among the trees made him turn quickly and reach for his gun.\n\n\"Take it easy,\" Dave Pearsoll said as he moved out into the open.\n\n\"What are you doin' skulkin' around here?\" Jake demanded. \"We're supposed to be keepin' an eye on those pilgrims.\"\n\n\"You were sure enough keepin' an eye on one of them,\" Pearsoll said with a sly grin. \"A really close eye, looked like to me.\" His grin disappeared as he went on. \"I reckon I understand now why we're still with this blasted wagon train. We could've taken off for the tall and uncut weeks ago, once we were well clear of Kansas City, but no, you insisted that we ought to stay with 'em a little while longer, Jake. But it's just one of them you're interested in. The McCoy girl.\"\n\n\"That's none of your business,\" Jake snapped.\n\n\"It is when you're hangin' on to my share of that money,\" Pearsoll said. \"You're doin' just like Swint, draggin' your feet about divvyin' up. What's the idea, Jake? Are you hopin' something will happen to Clete and me so you can keep all of the loot?\"\n\n\"That's just loco,\" Jake scoffed, although in truth such a prospect had entered his mind more than once. \"I'm just still not convinced that Eldon won't come after us. Hell, he could be on our trail right now. It makes more sense to stay where we've got friends who'll back our play if it comes to a fight.\"\n\n\"Friends,\" Pearsoll repeated. \"Like the McCoy girl. She didn't look any too friendly when she slapped your face.\"\n\nJake felt himself flushing. He blustered, \"She'll come around. She just needs some time, that's all.\"\n\n\"And maybe for something to happen to Bodie. That'd make things easier for you, wouldn't it? Maybe more inclined to keep your word to your real friends and honor the deal you made with them.\"\n\n\"Forget it. Nothing's gonna happen to Bodie.\"\n\n\"Is that so? You know good and well that if you're ever gonna get that girl, he'll have to die. You change your mind about that, let me know.\" Pearsoll turned and walked off toward the wagons, leaving Jake standing there with a worried frown on his face.\n\nHe didn't want to admit it, even to himself, but maybe there was some truth in what Pearsoll said.\n\n\"I'm getting tired of carrying water,\" Abigail said. \"Can't we do something else?\"\n\n\"Miss Savannah asked us to do this,\" Alexander told her. \"I don't want to let her down.\"\n\nAbigail made a face, but she walked back toward the creek with her brother. As they dipped the buckets in the water, she exclaimed, \"Alex, did you see that?\"\n\n\"What?\" he asked as he looked around.\n\nShe pointed. \"I saw something up the creek that way. It looked like a pretty bird with bright-colored feathers.\"\n\n\"All the birds have gone south for the winter,\" Alexander pointed out. \"You're just saying that because you want me to say we can quit fetching water.\"\n\n\"That's not true! I did see it, and if you'll come with me, I'll prove it.\"\n\n\"What are you doing, Abby?\" Alexander asked as his sister set her bucket aside.\n\n\"I told you. I'm going to find that bird.\" She started walking along the creek, toward a bend in the stream a couple hundred yards away where low brush lined the banks.\n\nAlexander looked around for Savannah, but didn't see her. A few minutes earlier, she had been talking to Bodie's friend, that other scout Mr. Lucas. But he wasn't in sight, either.\n\nAbigail was beyond where the wagons were parked, and she wasn't slowing down. Alexander knew how impulsive and dadblasted stubborn his sister could be when she put her mind to it. She was going to get in trouble if she wandered off. She would get both of them in trouble, since their father would take it for granted that Alexander should have been looking out for her.\n\nHe trotted after her, calling, \"Abby, hold on.\" When he caught up to her, he frowned. \"I'll come with you to look for that stupid bird that's not even there.\"\n\n\"It is, too,\" she insisted.\n\nHe ignored that. \"But then we've got to go back. Just a few minutes, all right?\"\n\n\"I saw it right up here, moving around in those bushes.\"\n\nAlexander still didn't believe it. Either Abigail was seeing things, or she had just made up the story. If she had made it up and their father found out about it, he would punish her. Making up stories was lying, he always said, and lying was a terrible sin.\n\nSometimes it seemed to Alexander that most things in life were terrible sins.\n\nThe closest wagon was about a hundred yards away when they walked around the bend and into the brush. Alexander looked around. \"I don't see anything except a bunch of old dead bushes\u2014\"\n\nAt that moment, something closed around his right ankle and jerked. Before he knew what was happening, he'd been pulled right off the creek bank. Somebody grabbed him, looping an arm around his ribs and squeezing so tight he couldn't breathe. At the same time, a hand covered his mouth and clamped down equally hard, so he had no chance to yell.\n\nHis eyes widened in horror as he saw an Indian standing a few feet away. The man wore buckskins and had feathers in his hair\u2014feathers!\u2014and the worst thing of all was that he had hold of Abigail and was clutching her tightly to him as she kicked and squirmed. The Indian was more than twice her size, and Alexander knew his sister had no chance of getting away.\n\nHe knew that an Indian had hold of him, too, and even though he fought, there was nothing he could do. The Indians began walking through the creek, taking their two young prisoners with them.\n\nNobody at the wagon train even knew they were gone, Alexander's panic-stricken brain screamed."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 51",
                "text": "Jamie knew something was wrong as soon as he got back to the creek where the wagons had stopped to water up. He heard shouting. There was anger in the sound, of course, but there was also something else.\n\nFear.\n\nHe swung down from the saddle and dropped the reins. Sundown would stay ground-hitched. He walked toward the large group of immigrants gathered beside the stream. Several people were talking at once, but the loudest voice belonged to Reverend Thomas Bradford.\n\n\"\u2014unforgivable!\" he was saying. \"I knew I couldn't trust a... a shameless jezebel like you to watch my children! I never should have allowed them to associate with the likes of you! I should have put a stop to it as soon as they started sneaking off to visit you!\"\n\nThe crowd parted without Jamie having to say anything. It was just a natural result of his imposing presence. He saw that Bradford was shouting at Savannah. The preacher's rough-hewn face was as red as a brick, while Savannah's, by contrast, had all the color washed out of it. She looked frightened.\n\nMoses stepped up. \"Please, Reverend, there's no need to browbeat Miss McCoy\u2014\"\n\n\"You stay out of it, you damned Christ-killer!\" Bradford roared.\n\nMoses went pale, too.\n\nBradford went on. \"This harlot was probably seducing some man when she should have been watching my children\u2014\"\n\n\"That's enough,\" Jamie said as he moved forward. He hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and confronted Bradford. \"There's no need for talk like that. You'd better be glad Bodie Cantrell isn't here right now, mister. If he was, I reckon he'd be going after you for saying such things. I'm tempted to myself.\"\n\n\"You don't know what she did!\" Bradford leveled a finger at Savannah. \"My children were with her, and now they're gone! Disappeared!\"\n\nNow they were getting down to it. Jamie turned to Savannah. \"What happened?\"\n\n\"Reverend Bradford is right,\" she replied in a shaky voice. \"It's my fault. I was supposed to be watching Alexander and Abigail while they fetched water, and they... they vanished while I was busy talking to someone else.\"\n\n\"They can't have gotten very far on foot,\" Jamie said, keeping his tone calm and reassuring. \"Where was the last place you saw 'em?\"\n\n\"They were right here along the creek, getting water for their father's water barrels.\"\n\nLamar Hendricks spoke up. \"I've been asking around, Jamie, and a couple people saw the children walking up the creek toward that bend.\" He pointed. \"But I looked up there and there's no sign of them.\"\n\nThere might be sign that Hendricks wasn't experienced enough to see, Jamie thought. \"I'll take a look.\" He glanced around, spotted Jake in the crowd. \"Come on, Jake.\"\n\nThe young man fell in with Jamie as his long legs carried him along the creek bank. Several other men tagged along, including Hendricks.\n\nThe banks deepened around the bend. They were about four feet high, and the ground was covered fairly thickly with brush on both sides of the creek. Jamie studied the growth, looking for broken branches that might indicate a struggle. When he didn't find anything, he turned his attention to the creek itself and the narrow band of muddy earth at its edge.\n\nHis jaw tightened as he spotted a familiar-looking indentation. He pointed it out to the men who had come with him. \"That's a footprint. The fella who made it was wearing moccasins.\"\n\n\"Indians!\" Hendricks exclaimed.\n\n\"Looks like it.\" Jamie nodded and pointed to a vertical mark on the bank. \"Something skidded along there. A foot, maybe, like somebody slid down the bank... or was pulled.\" He pointed again. \"Another footprint there, but not left by the same man. There were two of them.\"\n\nHendricks said, \"They lurked here and kidnapped the Bradford children.\"\n\n\"Maybe. I want to look around some more.\"\n\nIt took Jamie another few minutes to locate hoofprints left by unshod ponies on the far side of the creek, beyond the clump of brush. The Indians had left their mounts there, skulked along the creek to spy on the wagons, and then when Alexander and Abigail had come wandering up the creek for whatever reason, had grabbed the kids and carried them off.\n\nThis was bad, Jamie thought, but it could have been worse. Indians seldom killed such young captives. They might murder children in the heat of battle, but if they went to the trouble to take prisoners away with them, they usually kept those captives alive. They would either make slaves of the children, or more likely raise them as members of the tribe.\n\nHe didn't intend to let either of those things happen. \"How long have they been gone?\"\n\n\"Less than an hour,\" Hendricks replied.\n\nJamie jerked his head in a curt nod. \"I'll get after them. There's a good chance I can bring 'em back. There were only two Indians. Probably just out hunting, although they could have been scouting for a war party, I suppose. If I can catch up to them before they get back to their village, I'll rescue those kids.\"\n\n\"But what if there wind up being more Indians?\" Hendricks asked. \"You'll need help, Jamie. I'm coming with you.\"\n\nSeveral other men voiced their eager agreement with that sentiment.\n\nJamie didn't want to be saddled with a bunch of inexperienced pilgrims, but if there was a whole war party out there, he probably couldn't risk taking them on by himself. That would put the children in too much danger.\n\nHe compromised. \"I'm starting after them right now. Hector Gilworth ought to be coming in soon. Jake, maybe you can go find him and bring him in sooner. Hector can put together a rescue party and lead it after me. He ought to be able to follow my trail. No more than a dozen men, though. The rest need to stay with the wagons. This could be a diversion.\"\n\nHendricks said, \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"They could've grabbed the kids thinking they'd use 'em to lure most of the men away from the wagons, while the rest of the war party circles around and hits the train from another direction. I don't think that's what's happened here, but we can't risk it.\"\n\n\"I understand. We'll do what you say, Jamie.\"\n\nJamie's long legs carried him back quickly to the wagons. As he was about to swing up into the saddle, Reverend Bradford stormed up to him and demanded, \"What did you find out, MacCallister?\"\n\nJamie knew the truth would just set off the reverend even more, but Bradford would find it out soon enough from one of the others even if Jamie didn't tell him. \"It looks like Indians have them, but I'm going after them right now. I'll bring them back.\"\n\nBradford looked horrified. \"My God!\" he burst out. \"My poor innocent children, tortured and scalped\u2014!\"\n\n\"Nobody said anything about them being tortured and scalped,\" Jamie snapped. \"Usually when Indians take white kids like that, they adopt 'em into the tribe.\"\n\nThat seemed to bother Bradford more. Eyes wide, he said, \"I'd rather them be killed than see them turned into godless heathen savages!\"\n\nJamie put his foot in the stirrup and swung up onto Sundown's back rather than say what he was thinking. He supposed most people would share the sentiments Bradford had just expressed. That made no sense to Jamie, though. Life was too precious to throw it away that easily.\n\nHe turned the stallion and heeled Sundown into motion, splashing across the creek. It took him only a moment to pick up the trail of the two unshod ponies as they headed north. He followed it, his eyes constantly scanning the landscape for signs of danger."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 52",
                "text": "After following the Indians for about an hour, Jamie came to a spot where the hoofprints of the two ponies joined with those of a number of other horses. He reined in, studied the marks on the ground, and frowned.\n\nThe hoofprints confirmed one of his biggest worries. The two men who had grabbed the kids had rendezvoused with a larger party. The prints were such a muddle, he couldn't tell for sure how many there were. More than a dozen, that was certain. Maybe as many as twenty-five or thirty. Even if the group from the wagon train caught up to him, they would still be outnumbered.\n\nBut he wasn't going to leave Alexander and Abigail to become part of whatever tribe had taken them.\n\nPeople usually fell into one of two extremes when it came to the Indians. Most folks considered them filthy, bloodthirsty savages, little better than animals. But some people\u2014usually easterners who had never actually seen an Indian, much less had anything to do with them\u2014claimed that they were noble aristocrats of the plains, living in harmony with nature, the land, and each other.\n\nAs usual, both sides were full of buffalo droppings. There were plenty of things to admire about the Indian way of life, but there was no escaping the fact that most of them suffered through hard, short, brutal existences, struggling to survive and constantly warring on each other. The odds of starving to death, dying of illness, freezing in the winter, or being killed in a raid by another tribe were high.\n\nJamie wasn't going to abandon the Bradford children to such a fate. He would get them back or die trying. Once the two kidnappers joined up with the war party, if that's what it was, the trail was easier to follow. He pushed on, confident that Hector and the others would be able to find him.\n\nBy late afternoon Jamie entered a range of small, wooded hills, the highest elevations and the most trees he had seen in quite awhile. With his instincts warning him that he might be closing in on his quarry, he used every bit of cover he could find as he continued following the trail.\n\nHe smelled the camp before he saw it. Wood smoke, cooking meat, and horseflesh. He dismounted and went up the slope ahead of him on foot, moving in silence over a carpet of pine needles. Before he reached the top he took off his hat and got down on his belly to crawl the rest of the way. When he got to the top, he worked his way through a patch of undergrowth, parted some branches, and looked down into a little canyon where more than two dozen Indians had made camp.\n\nBlackfeet, Jamie thought as he saw the markings on their buckskins and the way they wore their hair. No women and children in sight. It was a raiding party. Several of the warriors sported crude bandages, which meant they had already been in a fight. They'd probably skirmished with another tribe and were on their way back to their usual hunting grounds, taking with them the two white captives a couple scouts had been fortunate enough to come across.\n\nJamie saw Alexander and Abigail sitting with their backs propped against a fallen log. They appeared to be all right, although their hands and feet were tied and Abigail was slumped against her brother's side, sobbing. Alexander had his head up and Jamie could tell that the boy was trying to be brave, but he had to be scared out of his wits.\n\nNot for much longer, son, Jamie thought.\n\nThe trick was figuring out how to get him out.\n\nJamie studied the landscape around the Blackfoot camp. The canyon was formed by two ridges that dropped off almost sheer for about forty feet. He lay where those ridges angled in and came together. The trail the Indians had used to get into the canyon zigzagged down from that point. Anybody going down it would be in plain sight from the camp below.\n\nAt the far end, the canyon ended in a shale slope at the top of which rose a stone wall. The drop from the top of that wall to the shale was about twenty feet. However, the cliff face was rugged enough that it would provide handholds and footholds so that a man could climb down part of the way, leaving a reasonable drop to the shale.\n\nIf a man tried that and landed right, he could slide all the way to the canyon floor. If he didn't land right... well, he'd probably break an ankle, at the very least.\n\nJamie didn't see any other way into the canyon. He would have to have help to manage it.\n\nHe moved back down the near slope and glanced at the sky. About an hour of daylight was left, giving the other men from the wagon train time to catch up to him. He could finish working out his plan then.\n\nThe sun had just dropped below the western horizon when Jamie heard horses coming. He stepped out of the thick stand of pines where he'd been waiting and waved his hat over his head to signal the approaching riders.\n\nThey angled toward him. Hector Gilworth was in the lead, with Bodie Cantrell and Jess Neville right behind him, trailed by nine or ten men from the wagon train. Most of them were carrying rifles or shotguns.\n\nHe didn't see Lucas, Mahaffey, and Pearsoll and figured those three had stayed behind at the wagons. That was good. Jamie wanted some seasoned fighting men left with the rest of the immigrants.\n\nHe was much less pleased to see Reverend Thomas Bradford with the rescue party. He had hoped that Bradford would stay behind. He didn't trust that the preacher would follow his orders. In his arrogant stubbornness\u2014and, to be fair, his legitimate concern for his children\u2014Bradford was liable to try some foolish stunt that would endanger all of them.\n\nJamie would make sure to tell Hector to keep a close eye on the man.\n\nBradford crowded his mount ahead of the others and said loudly, \"Have you found them? Have you found Alexander and Abigail?\"\n\n\"Keep your voice down,\" Jamie snapped. \"Sounds carry farther out here than you think they would, and the Indians are right on the other side of that ridge. I figure they'll be posting guards on top of it any time now since it's getting dark, and we don't want them to know we're here.\"\n\nBradford was a little quieter as he said, \"All right. But what about my children? Have you seen them?\"\n\n\"I have. They look fine, just a little tired and scared.\" As the men gathered around him, Jamie went on to describe everything he had seen.\n\nJess Neville said, \"That ain't good, is it? Them Injuns bein' Blackfeet, I mean. From what I hear tell, they hate white folks more than any of the other tribes in these parts.\"\n\n\"That's true,\" Jamie admitted, \"but chances are, if they were going to hurt those kids, they'd have done it before now. We just need to get them out of that camp.\"\n\n\"How are we going to do that?\" Bodie asked. \"It sounds like there's no way in there that wouldn't be suicide.\"\n\n\"There's no good way,\" Jamie explained. \"But I think a couple men could work their way around to the cliff above that shale slope and drop down into the canyon from there. The rest of our bunch can cause a distraction that'll keep those Blackfeet busy while the two hombres grab the kids.\"\n\nBodie shook his head. \"No offense, Jamie, but how do they get back out?\"\n\nJamie rubbed his chin and frowned, realizing that he hadn't gotten that far in his thinking. After a moment he said, \"We'll have to take ropes with us and tie 'em at the top of the cliff. That'll help us get down, and the kids can hang on to us while we use the ropes to climb out.\"\n\n\"Us?\" Bodie repeated with a faint smile.\n\n\"I was thinking you might want to come with me.\"\n\nBradford said, \"I'll do it. They're my children.\"\n\n\"That they are,\" Jamie agreed, \"but how are you at using a gun, Reverend? There's a chance whoever goes into that camp will have to fight their way out.\"\n\n\"I've never believed in violence,\" Bradford said stiffly.\n\n\"And I believe in using whatever does the job best. Bodie's coming with me. Unless you don't want to, son.\"\n\n\"Try and stop me. Savannah's tearing herself up over this. She'll never forgive herself if we don't get those kids back safe and sound.\"\n\nBradford started to bluster something, but Jamie stopped him with a hard look. He figured the preacher was about to say something else bad about Savannah, then Bodie would take offense, and they didn't need that complication.\n\n\"What do you want the rest of us to do, Jamie?\" Hector asked. \"How do we provide that distraction you were talking about?\"\n\n\"Well, there's only one way to do it as far as I can see. You fellas are about to get your feet wet when it comes to Indian fighting.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 53",
                "text": "With a faint glow still in the western sky, Jamie and Bodie started out. They circled wide to come at the canyon from the west.\n\nHector and the other men were dug in behind rocks and trees on the other side of the ridge, waiting for the two rescuers to get into position. Hector owned a railroad watch that had been left to him by his father, and when exactly an hour had gone by, he and the other men would charge the ridge, yelling and shooting, before turning around and dashing back to their defensive positions.\n\nThe outbreak of gunfire would be the signal for Jamie and Bodie to make their move.\n\nAs darkness gathered, Bodie asked, \"How are we going to find our way to the top of that cliff you mentioned?\"\n\n\"I took a pretty good look at it a while ago,\" Jamie replied. \"Studied the lay of the land while there was still some light in the sky. I'll be able to get us there.\"\n\n\"When it comes to surviving out here, is there anything you can't do, Jamie?\"\n\nA grin stretched across the big frontiersman's rugged face. \"There's bound to be, but since I'm still alive I reckon I've figured it out pretty well so far.\" He led them unerringly to the foot of a ridge where they dismounted.\n\n\"That canyon where the Blackfeet are camped ought to be just on the other side,\" Jamie said quietly. \"Get the rope off your horse and let's go.\"\n\nThe slope on that side of the ridge was too steep for horses, but Jamie and Bodie were able to negotiate it on foot, carrying the ropes with them. As they climbed, Jamie sniffed the air and smelled smoke from the Blackfoot campfire. His instincts had been reliable yet again.\n\nWhen they reached the top of the narrow ridge, the two men crawled forward until they could look down into the canyon. The campfire still burned, and in its flickering orange light they saw some members of the war party still moving around. Others slept. Jamie spotted the two children, dozing as they huddled against the same log where he had seen them sitting earlier. He touched Bodie's shoulder and pointed them out to the young man, who nodded.\n\nMoving quickly and silently, they knotted one end of the ropes around the trunks of pine trees that grew atop the ridge. When that was done, they stretched out on the ground again, and Jamie whispered, \"Now we wait. Shouldn't be long.\"\n\nIt wasn't. Within ten minutes, gunfire suddenly roared in the distance. Jamie saw muzzle flashes from the opposite ridge and knew the Blackfoot sentries posted up there were returning the fire. In the camp, the rest of the war party grabbed rifles and began charging up the twisting path to the top of the ridge.\n\n\"Let's go,\" he said.\n\nThey dropped the ropes over the cliff and swung out onto them, walking down the cliff backwards. It wasn't that far. When they reached the shale, they let go, left the ropes hanging there, and slid down the rest of the way to the canyon floor.\n\nJamie drew his Bowie knife as he ran toward the log where the children were lying, wide awake because of the yelling and shooting. He had warned Bodie against using their guns unless they absolutely had to, since that might alert the Blackfeet that something was going on behind them.\n\nWith a grace and agility unusual in a man of his size and age, Jamie vaulted over the log and dropped to one knee next to Alexander and Abigail. Abigail opened her mouth to scream. From her perspective, all she could see was a dark, giant figure looming over her.\n\nJamie put his free hand over her mouth. \"Hush, Abby. It's me, Mr. MacCallister. Mr. Cantrell is with me. We're going to get you and Alexander out of here.\"\n\nHe started sawing through the tough strips of rawhide with which they were bound while Bodie crouched next to the log and kept a lookout. Jamie had Abigail loose when Bodie suddenly hissed, \"Somebody's coming!\"\n\nJamie looked up just as a couple Blackfoot warriors charged into the firelight. The leader of the war party had sent them back to keep an eye on the prisoners. It was a smart move, but it had occurred to the fellow too late.\n\nSpotting the two white men trying to free the captives, the warriors skidded to a halt and tried to raise their rifles. Firelight winked from the blade of Jamie's knife as it flashed across the clearing to bury nearly a foot of cold steel in the chest of one of the Blackfeet. The man gasped, stumbled, and dropped his rifle without firing it. He crumpled to the ground.\n\nLess than half a second later, Jamie's left-hand Colt roared. The bullet ripped through the second warrior's throat and bored through the lower part of his brain. He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.\n\nBodie had drawn his gun but hadn't had a chance to shoot. Jamie's blinding speed had seen to that.\n\nJamie pouched the iron. \"Get my knife.\"\n\nIt had taken only one pistol shot to dispose of the second warrior, and neither Blackfoot had gotten off a shot. He hoped the single shot had gone unnoticed by the other Indians, since they were busy trading lead with the rest of the rescue party and things were pretty noisy.\n\nBodie ran to the fallen warriors, pulled the knife from the chest of the one Jamie had killed with it, and hurried back to hand the blood-smeared blade to the big frontiersman.\n\nWhile he was cutting Alexander loose, Jamie told Abigail, \"You go with Mr. Cantrell now, honey. You'll have to put your arms around him and hang on tight to him while he climbs up a rope. Can you do that?\"\n\n\"I'd rather you take me, Mr. MacCallister,\" the little girl said.\n\n\"I'm busy with your brother. Mr. Cantrell will take good care of you. You just do everything he tells you, and don't be scared, all right?\"\n\n\"I... I'll try.\"\n\n\"Good girl. Go on, now.\"\n\nBodie scooped Abigail up in his arms and ran for the cliff. It wouldn't be easy getting back up that loose shale while carrying the girl, but he'd manage.\n\nA moment later, the last of the rawhide thongs fell away from Alexander's ankles. \"You don't have to carry me, Mr. MacCallister. I can run.\"\n\n\"Mighty fast?\"\n\n\"Mighty fast!\"\n\nJamie grinned in the darkness. \"Come on, then.\"\n\nThey hurried to the cliff. Through the moonlight, Jamie could see Bodie climbing the rope with Abigail clinging to his back, her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.\n\n\"I can climb the rope, too,\" Alexander said.\n\n\"I expect you can, but it might be faster if you got on my back, like your sister did with Mr. Cantrell. Reckon you can do that?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\nAlexander clambered onto Jamie's back as the big man knelt, then Jamie started up the slope. It took every bit of balance he had not to slip back down the shale. The climb seemed to take a long time, but finally he was able to reach up and grasp the rope. That steadied him the rest of the way and allowed him to go a little faster. He reached the bottom of the cliff, planted a booted foot against the rock, and started that part of the climb. It was the hardest part of the climb, taking a lot of muscle power to lift a man of Jamie's size. Alexander's weight added to the burden.\n\n\"Hang on tight,\" Jamie grated.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" Alexander said. \"I won't let go.\"\n\nJamie tipped his head back to watch the top of the cliff come closer. Bodie and Abigail reached the rimrock and vanished over it. Jamie was relieved they were safe. In a matter of moments, he and Alexander would be, too.\n\nBelow them, a shot suddenly blasted, and a bullet smacked into the rock face less than a yard away from them."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 54",
                "text": "Jamie twisted his head to look down and behind them and saw that several of the Blackfoot warriors had run back into the camp and were pointing rifles at them. Jamie couldn't let go of the rope to grab his guns and put up a fight. He and Alexander would plummet to the ground if he did.\n\nBodie appeared at the rimrock and shouted at Jamie, \"Keep climbing!\" Then the revolver in his hand spouted flame as he opened fire on the Indians, spraying the clearing with lead.\n\nThat scattered the Blackfeet momentarily, but Jamie knew it wouldn't take long for them to regroup. He redoubled his efforts, grunting with the strain as his thickly corded muscles hauled him and the boy up the rope.\n\nMore slugs from below began to pepper the cliff around them. Jamie felt rock splinters sting his cheeks and hands. He called to Alexander, \"Hang on tight, son!\"\n\nBodie's gun ran dry. Jamie knew there wouldn't be time for his young friend to reload. Still clinging to the rope with his left hand, he let go with his right and reached down to pluck the .44 on that side from its holster. \"Catch!\" he yelled as he tossed the Colt the seven or eight feet to the rim.\n\nBodie dropped his gun beside him and grabbed Jamie's by the barrel, fumbling with it for a second before he secured it. He reversed it, pointed it down into the canyon, and started shooting again.\n\nJamie heaved, reached higher, heaved again. They were almost at the top. Another second or two...\n\nHe felt the heat of a bullet as it whipped past his ear. The slug hit the cliff and sprayed grit in his eyes, blinding him momentarily. He clenched his jaw and kept climbing.\n\nHe reached up for the rim, only to have a strong hand close around his wrist. Bodie hollered, \"Keep coming! I've got you!\"\n\n\"Grab the boy!\" Jamie gasped out.\n\n\"Come on, Alexander!\"\n\nA second later, Alexander's weight lifted from Jamie's back.\n\n\"I've got him!\" Bodie exclaimed as he fell back from the rim, taking Alexander with him.\n\nAt that instant, a bullet clipped Jamie on top of the left shoulder. The impact was enough to make his arm go numb. His grip on the rope slipped, and at the same time his toes slid off the tiny foothold where they had found purchase. He yelled as all his weight dangled from the grip of his right hand on the rope.\n\nAt that moment, Jamie Ian MacCallister's almost superhuman strength was all that saved him. He hung there with bullets screaming around him and smacking into the cliff for what seemed like an eternity.\n\nIn reality, it was only a couple heartbeats before he forced his left arm to work again and grabbed the rope with that hand. He hauled himself up another foot, then Bodie caught hold of the buckskin shirt. Jamie dug his toes against the rock as Bodie lifted him through the air and he rolled over the edge of the rimrock.\n\nHis pulse hammered inside his head like a gang of railroad workers driving spikes as he lay there on his back trying to catch his breath. A couple feet away, Bodie knelt and fired down at the Blackfeet, ducking occasionally as one of their bullets came too close to his head.\n\nJamie rolled onto his side and lifted his head. In the moonlight, he saw Alexander and Abigail watching him worriedly. He grinned at them. \"I'm all right, kids. We'd better get out of here.\"\n\nBodie threw one final shot at the Indians, then retreated from the edge. \"That sounds like a good idea to me.\" He handed Jamie's gun back to him. \"Sorry it's empty.\"\n\n\"I'm not. I hope you hit some of 'em.\"\n\nThe four of them hurried down the slope as fast as they could, heading for the spot where Jamie and Bodie had left their horses. Within minutes they were mounted, with Abigail riding in front of Bodie and Alexander in front of Jamie, as they circled back toward the rest of the rescue party.\n\nJamie was counting on Hector and the other men to keep the Blackfeet bottled up in that canyon. The Indian ponies could only get in and out of the camp by one route, up that zigzag trail. As long as the men from the wagon train kept raking the top of that ridge with rifle fire, it ought to keep the Blackfeet from getting out.\n\nOnce Jamie, Bodie, and the Bradford kids rejoined the others, they would all have to make a run for it back to the wagon train. Jamie didn't think a war party of less than three dozen would dare to attack the entire group of immigrants. The Blackfeet would be angry because somebody had stolen their prisoners from them, but more than likely they would cut their losses and head on back to their home.\n\nThat's how Jamie hoped it would play out, anyway. With Indians, it was impossible to predict with absolute certainty what they would do.\n\nAs they galloped through the night, Bodie called over to Jamie, \"How bad were you hit?\"\n\nFeeling had returned to Jamie's left arm. The wound on top of his shoulder throbbed, but he was able to move his arm and roll that shoulder without any trouble other than a twinge of pain. \"Just nicked me. It's nothing.\"\n\nIf the Blackfoot who had fired that shot had gotten it off a couple seconds earlier, the bullet probably would have hit Alexander in the head. It had been that close a call. Just thinking about it made Jamie go a little cold in the belly.\n\nThey could no longer hear gunshots over the pounding hoofbeats of Sundown and Bodie's mount, but Jamie hoped the fighting was still going on. If not, the four of them might be riding right into trouble.\n\nFinally, the moonlight revealed a saddle between two hills, one of the landmarks he remembered, and as they rode through it he saw the glow from muzzle flashes in the trees up ahead.\n\n\"Who's that?\" a voice challenged in the darkness. \"Sing out!\"\n\n\"MacCallister!\" Jamie replied. \"I've got Cantrell and the kids with me.\"\n\n\"Thank the Lord!\"\n\nThat was Bradford's voice, prompting Alexander to exclaim, \"Pa!\"\n\nAs Jamie reined in, he scrambled down from the stallion's back and ran toward his father. Abigail was right behind him. Bradford stepped forward and gathered them up in his arms.\n\nThe preacher was an unlikable son of a gun, thought Jamie, but he loved his kids and they returned the feeling. He had to give the man credit for that.\n\n\"Hector, where are you?\" Jamie called.\n\n\"Right here,\" Hector responded as he stepped out of the shadows under some trees. \"Are all of you all right?\"\n\n\"Good enough,\" Jamie said. \"Get the men on their horses. We're lighting a shuck back to the wagon train.\"\n\n\"What about the Blackfeet?\"\n\n\"When they realize nobody's taking potshots at them anymore, they're liable to come boiling out of there and chase after us. It'll be a race back to the wagon train, but I think we'll have enough of a lead to beat them there, and once we do, they'll give up and turn back.\"\n\nHector hurried to carry out Jamie's orders, moving through the trees and rocks where the rescuers were forted up. \"Back to your horses! Mount up, mount up!\"\n\nThe men swung into their saddles.\n\nJamie rode over to Bradford. \"Better let Bodie and me take the kids again, Reverend. Our horses can handle the extra weight, and you're not used to riding double, or in this case, triple.\"\n\n\"I can take care of my own children,\" Bradford snapped. But then common sense prevailed and he relented. \"You two go with Mr. MacCallister and Mr. Cantrell.\"\n\n\"I want to stay with you,\" Abigail wailed.\n\n\"Hush now, and do as I say!\"\n\nThat sharply voiced command got the children to obey. Jamie reached down, grasped Alexander's hands, and pulled the boy up in front of him again. He wheeled Sundown around as the line of men formed and started to leave the shelter of the trees.\n\nThey had just emerged into the open when muzzle flame split the darkness, coming from in front of them. Bullets raked through the rescue party, drawing pained shouts and sending two of the men toppling from their saddles."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 55",
                "text": "\"Fall back!\" Jamie bellowed as he hauled hard on the reins. \"Back into the trees! Take cover!\"\n\nBullets whined around them as the men hastily retreated. Over the sound of the shots, Jamie heard strident whoops from the unexpected attackers. He knew none of the Blackfeet in the canyon could have gotten in front of them, so that left only one other explanation.\n\nThe war party that had camped in the canyon was meeting another group of Blackfoot warriors, and the second bunch had shown up at just the wrong time.\n\nJamie and his companions, already outnumbered, were caught between the two forces.\n\nJamie swung Alexander to the ground and then flung himself out of the saddle, taking his Winchester with him. He told the boy to find his sister and make sure both of them stayed down as low as they could on the ground.\n\nTaking cover behind a tree, Jamie brought the rifle to his shoulder, nestled his cheek against the smooth wood of the stock, and began firing at the muzzle flashes from the second group of Indians, cranking off the rounds as fast as he could work the Winchester's lever. More shots rang out as the other men began mounting a defense again.\n\nBodie Cantrell ran up and knelt behind a tree next to Jamie. \"This is pretty bad, isn't it?\"\n\n\"They've got us pinned down from both directions,\" Jamie acknowledged. \"These trees and rocks give us pretty good cover, so we ought to be able to hold them off for a while, but sooner or later we'll run out of bullets.\"\n\n\"We can't count on any help from the wagon train, either. They don't have any way of knowing we're in trouble, so they won't send anybody after us.\"\n\n\"I reckon not,\" Jamie agreed grimly.\n\n\"If we hit the ones in front of us hard enough, could we bust through them?\"\n\n\"Not without getting half our bunch killed, including those kids.\"\n\n\"Who are they? What's going on here, anyway?\"\n\n\"Pure bad luck,\" Jamie said. \"That's what's going on.\" He went on to explain his theory that the first bunch of Blackfeet had planned to rendezvous in the canyon with another war party.\n\nBodie agreed that made sense.\n\nThe firing from both directions died away.\n\nJamie called softly, \"Everybody keep your head down! They're trying to draw us out into the open, but we're staying put.\"\n\nSilence settled down over the rugged landscape.\n\nBodie said in a whisper, \"Now we wait?\"\n\n\"Now we wait,\" Jamie agreed. But only until morning, he thought.\n\nSome people thought Indians wouldn't fight at night. Obviously, that wasn't true. But they preferred to do their killing during the day, and Jamie figured that's what they had in mind. They would keep the rescue party pinned down until daylight, and once they could see what they were doing, the Blackfeet would attack from both directions at once and overwhelm the defenders in the trees.\n\nWhen that time came, Jamie and his companions would sell their lives as dearly as possible. There was nothing else they could do.\n\nThe hours stretched out uncomfortably. Jamie heard a lot of frightened muttering from the men. Abigail cried for a while before drifting off into an exhausted sleep. Alexander let out a few sniffles, too, but he was trying to be brave.\n\nReverend Bradford crawled up to Jamie's position and said in a low, angry voice, \"You've managed to get us all killed, MacCallister. We'll never get out of this alive.\"\n\n\"I thought you were supposed to have faith, Reverend.\"\n\n\"I have faith in the Lord. I have none in you.\"\n\n\"Well, I'd be the last person to put myself on the same level as the Lord. I'm just a poor sinner trying to make his way in the world the same as anybody else. But I'll tell you the truth, Bradford. I did the best I knew how to do to help get those kids of yours back. Our luck ran out, that's all.\"\n\n\"Our luck ran out when we agreed to let you lead us to Montana,\" Bradford said bitterly.\n\nBodie said, \"Why don't you just shut your mouth, Bradford? You're always telling other people how they've fallen short, but you're sure as hell not perfect yourself! Those two kids are scared of you, you know that? You're nothing but a damned hardheaded tyrant!\"\n\nBradford started to get to his feet. \"You can't talk that way to a man of God\u2014\"\n\nJamie reached over, put a hand on Bradford's shoulder, and shoved him back down. \"Stay put, Reverend,\" he said coldly. \"I don't cotton to you, but for your kids' sake I don't want you getting a bullet in the head.\"\n\n\"The Indians aren't shooting anymore. We don't even know they're still out there. Maybe they gave up and left.\"\n\n\"They're out there, all right,\" Jamie said. \"Mark my words, Reverend. They're out there.\"\n\nHowever, everything was still quiet by morning. As dawn turned the sky gray and then golden light spread from the east, Jamie scanned the landscape in front of the trees. He didn't see anything... but he knew that didn't matter.\n\nHe wasn't the only one watching the broad valley between the rolling hills that represented their way out. With no warning, Reverend Bradford suddenly strode out into the open, holding his Bible in one hand and waving it in the air.\n\n\"They're gone!\" he said loudly. \"See for yourselves! The red devils have departed!\" He turned to gaze in triumph at Jamie.\n\n\"Get down, you fool!\"\n\n\"The Lord has delivered us from\u2014\"\n\nAt that instant, a rifle cracked. Jamie saw blood fly in the dawn light as a slug bored into the side of Bradford's head and exploded out the other side in a grisly pink shower. The preacher dropped limply, dead by the time he hit the ground.\n\nAbigail screamed and tried to run to her father. Bodie grabbed her as she went by and rolled onto the ground with her as the Blackfeet opened up again. Bullets thudded into tree trunks and shredded through branches.\n\nThe barrage lasted only a moment before ending abruptly. Startled yells came from the war parties in both directions. Guns roared again, but the reports were the duller booms of revolvers. Hoofbeats hammered the ground. Men howled in pain.\n\nThe oddest thing was that with all that shooting going on, none of the bullets seemed to be directed toward the trees where Jamie and his friends were.\n\n\"What's going on out there?\" Hector asked as he knelt behind a rock.\n\n\"Sounds like reinforcements showed up,\" Jamie said.\n\n\"Reinforcements? From where?\"\n\n\"I don't know... but I'm glad they're here!\"\n\nStampeding ponies burst into view, along with Blackfoot warriors fleeing on foot to avoid being trampled. With targets out in the open like that, Jamie brought his Winchester up and took advantage of the opportunity. His deadly accurate shots took a toll as .44-40 rounds ripped through the warriors. Around him, the other men joined the battle again, too.\n\nThe Blackfeet were the ones caught in a crossfire, and they were smart enough to know that the best thing to do was get out while they could. Several of them grabbed stampeding ponies, hung on desperately to the manes, and swung up onto bare backs. They fled, shouting angrily. The ones who still could, followed that example.\n\n\"Must be a cavalry patrol came along and heard the shooting,\" Bodie said as the gunfire tapered off again. The surviving Blackfeet from both war parties were taking off for the tall and uncut.\n\n\"Maybe,\" Jamie said. \"I reckon we'll find out pretty soon.\"\n\n\"What about the preacher?\" Bodie nodded toward the body of Bradford.\n\nWith a glance at the sobbing Alexander and Abigail, Jamie said quietly, \"Leave him for now, until we're sure those war parties are gone.\"\n\nA few tense moments went by, then Bodie asked, \"Who in the world is that?\"\n\nA man had stepped out into the open and was walking toward the trees, apparently as casual as if he were out for a Sunday stroll. He was tall and lean and clad in greasy buckskins. His hat was pushed back on thinning white hair, and he sported a grizzled beard. Despite his obvious age, he moved with the ease and vitality of a much younger man.\n\nAnother man appeared behind him, leading several horses. He was younger, clean shaven, with sandy hair and a very broad set of shoulders.\n\nJess Neville said, \"We got a couple of hombres comin' in from this other side, too.\"\n\nJamie looked around and saw an even more unusual pair approaching the line of trees and rocks. One was a thick-bodied Indian with long, graying hair. Beside him, hurrying to keep up, was a white man not even four feet tall, also dressed in buckskins.\n\n\"There's your so-called cavalry patrol,\" Jamie told Bodie with a grin.\n\n\"Four men? That's all? How is that possible? Four men couldn't rout a whole Blackfoot war party, let alone two of 'em!\"\n\n\"Depends on who they are. I don't know the young fella, but I'm acquainted with the other three, although it's been a long time since we crossed trails.\"\n\nJamie stepped out of the trees and raised a hand in greeting to the skinny, grizzled old-timer.\n\nThe man squinted at him. \"Well, if that don't beat all! Jamie Ian MacCallister his own self, still big as a mountain and twice as ugly!\"\n\n\"How are you doing, Preacher?\" Jamie grinned and extended his hand. \"Long time no see!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 56",
                "text": "The reunion was a happy one, although Jamie's pleasure at seeing the old mountain man called Preacher was tempered by Reverend Bradford's sudden and senseless death. The two veteran frontiersmen shook hands and slapped each other heartily on the back.\n\nAlmost forty years had passed since Jamie and Preacher had first met down in Texas. Since then, they had run into each other from time to time, often with years between meetings.\n\nJamie wasn't sure exactly how old Preacher was, but he knew the mountain man was at least a decade older than him. If anyone had asked him, he wouldn't have been sure whether Preacher was even still alive.\n\nObviously, Preacher had proven to be amazingly resilient. Jamie wasn't sure the gun or knife had been made that could kill the old buckskinner.\n\n\"Who's this?\" Jamie asked with a nod toward the young man accompanying Preacher.\n\n\"Fella name of Smoke,\" Preacher said. \"Smoke Jensen. We been driftin' around together for the past few years, ever since Smoke's pa got hisself killed by some no-good polecats. Heard a rumor those varmints might be over in Idaho, so we're sort of amblin' in that direction.\"\n\n\"Plan to settle the score, do you?\"\n\n\"I do,\" Smoke said curtly.\n\n\"Smoke's about as naturally fast on the draw as anybody I ever seen,\" Preacher said with a note of pride in his voice. \"That's how come I started callin' him Smoke. His real front handle is Kirby, but he don't go by it no more. I pree-dict you'll be hearin' a heap about him on down the line.\"\n\nSmoke shook his head. \"I'm not looking for a reputation. Just justice.\"\n\nPreacher waved a hand toward his other two companions. \"You remember Audie and Nighthawk, of course.\"\n\n\"Sure.\" Jamie shook hands with both men, former fur trappers who were long-time friends of Preacher. \"How are you, Audie?\"\n\n\"Exceedingly fine,\" the short white man answered. \"The fresh air and hardy life I've experienced out here on the frontier seems to have allowed me to stave off decrepitude, at least for the time being.\"\n\nAudie spoke like an educated man, which was exactly what he was. At one time, he had been a professor at a college back east before he had abandoned that stifling academic life and headed west. Although he was small in size, he had the fighting heart and spirit of a much larger man.\n\nJamie went on. \"You're looking good, Nighthawk.\"\n\nThe impassive Crow warrior nodded solemnly. \"Ummm.\"\n\n\"Still as talkative as ever, I see,\" Jamie commented with a grin. \"Fellas, this young scalawag is Bodie Cantrell. Big hombre with the beard over there is Hector Gilworth, and the fella with him is his cousin Jess Neville.\" Jamie went on to introduce the other men in the rescue party.\n\n\"Who's the sky pilot who got in the way of a bullet?\" Preacher asked.\n\n\"That would be Reverend Thomas Bradford,\" Jamie said. \"Pa to those two youngsters.\"\n\nPreacher's expressive mouth twisted in a grimace. \"Tough on young'uns, seein' their pa gunned down like that.\"\n\n\"Yeah. They got carried off by some of those Blackfeet, and we were trying to get 'em back when we got pinned down here. It's a mighty good thing for us you came along when you did. What did you do, pull that old trick of yours where you slip into the enemy's camp during the night and cut some throats?\"\n\nPreacher chuckled. \"It does tend to shake folks up a mite to find a few of their compadres with new mouths carved in their necks. When it got light, Audie and me stampeded the ponies that belonged to each bunch, whilst Smoke and Nighthawk waded in, their hoglegs a-blazin'. Every way those redskinned varmints turned, they was either a bullet or a wild-eyed bronc waitin' to ventilate 'em or trample 'em. Didn't take much o' that to make 'em light a shuck.\"\n\n\"What's left of the two bunches are liable to get together somewhere,\" Jamie mused. \"We'd better get on back to the wagons while we can.\"\n\n\"Wagons?\" Preacher repeated. \"These fellas are from a wagon train?\"\n\n\"That's right. Bound for Eagle Valley in Montana Territory.\"\n\n\"Mighty pretty place,\" Preacher said. \"But in case you ain't noticed the chill in the air... it's December! What sort of dang fool takes a wagon train to Montana at this time o' year?\"\n\n\"You're looking at him,\" Jamie said.\n\nThe old mountain man snorted. \"I stand by that dang fool business.\"\n\n\"I'm not arguing the point. But we're here, and I'm bound and determined to get those pilgrims where they're going by Christmas.\" An idea occurred to Jamie. \"Why don't the four of you come along with us?\"\n\n\"Told you, we're headed for Idaho,\" Preacher said with a frown.\n\n\"And that's the general direction we're going,\" Jamie pointed out. \"I wouldn't mind visiting with you for a while, Preacher... and having four more good men along for the rest of the trip wouldn't exactly make me unhappy, either.\"\n\nPreacher scratched his grizzled jaw in thought and looked at Smoke. \"What do you think, youngster? It's your pa we're goin' to settle the score for.\"\n\nSmoke pondered the question for a moment, then said in his grave manner, \"Chances are some of the passes where we need to go in Idaho are already closed, Preacher. We knew we might have to winter somewhere. I reckon it might as well be with these folks.\"\n\n\"There's your answer, Jamie,\" Preacher told the big frontiersman. \"We'll come with you.\"\n\nJamie nodded in satisfaction.\n\nQuickly, he got everyone mounted. Reverend Bradford's body was draped over his saddle and lashed in place. Several other men had been wounded in the fighting during the night, but none of the injuries were bad enough to keep them from riding. Bradford was the group's only casualty.\n\nTo Alexander and Abigail, though, it was a big loss. The two youngsters were orphans now. The only good thing about the situation was that Jamie was sure one of the families with the wagon train would be willing to take them in.\n\nJamie and Preacher took the point, and as the two old pioneers rode together, they talked about the things they had been doing since they had seen each other last.\n\n\"I was mighty sorry to hear about what happened to your woman, Jamie,\" Preacher said. \"Heard tell you went after the sorry bunch responsible for her dyin' and rained down hellfire and brimstone on their heads.\"\n\n\"I settled the score for Kate as best I could,\" Jamie said, his face and voice grim. \"It wasn't enough.\"\n\n\"No, I don't 'spect it was. I've lost folks I loved, too, and no matter how much vengeance you get, it ain't never enough 'cause it don't bring back them you lost. Nothin' does.\"\n\n\"But that doesn't stop us from trying.\"\n\n\"Nope. Reckon we wouldn't be human if we didn't want to even things up, so we try even though we know it won't really put our hearts at ease.\"\n\nA chuckle came from Jamie. \"Preacher, you're getting profound in your old age.\"\n\n\"Reckon it comes from bein' around Audie too much. That fella goes on and on about philosophy and such-like. And who in blazes are you callin' old?\"\n\nBy midday, the rescue party, along with its newest additions, came in sight of the wagons parked next to the creek. Several men led by Jake galloped out to meet them and escorted them on in. Everyone gathered around to celebrate the safe return of Alexander and Abigail.\n\nThe immigrants were sobered by the death of Reverend Bradford. After his body was laid out on the ground, Moses covered it with a blanket and took his hat off, holding it over his heart. \"The reverend might not want the likes of me praying over him, but I feel like I have to do it anyway.\"\n\n\"I don't reckon all those disagreements mean a blasted thing now,\" Jamie said. \"The fella's dead, and I hope his soul is at peace.\"\n\n\"So do I,\" Moses murmured. \"So do I. If it's all right with everyone, I'll conduct the funeral.\"\n\n\"I don't think anybody's going to object. You've got a lot of friends on this wagon train, Moses. Your faith may be different, but after what you did during that outbreak of fever and all the other ways you've pitched in, if these folks have a spiritual leader now... it's you.\"\n\nMoses swallowed and nodded. \"I'll try to live up to that.\"\n\nJamie nodded. \"What we need to figure out now is who's going to take care of those kids.\"\n\nA voice spoke up from behind him. \"That's not going to be a problem, Mr. MacCallister.\"\n\nJamie and Moses turned to see Savannah standing there. She had her arms around the shoulders of Alexander and Abigail, whose pale, tear-streaked faces testified to their grief. They huddled against Savannah's skirts, obviously taking comfort from her presence.\n\n\"I'm going to take care of them,\" Savannah went on. \"I can handle their wagon and see to it that they have everything they need.\"\n\n\"Are you sure about that?\" Jamie asked with a frown. \"You being an unmarried woman and all?\"\n\n\"They were being raised by the reverend alone since his wife passed on,\" Savannah pointed out. \"The children and I have become close, and this is something I'd really like to do.\"\n\n\"Well... if that's what all of you want... I don't reckon it's my place to say no.\"\n\n\"I'm sure everyone in the group will pitch in to help if need be.\" Moses paused. \"Did you happen to ask Bodie what he thought about this idea?\"\n\n\"It's not Bodie's decision to make,\" Savannah replied. \"It's mine.\"\n\n\"Sounds to me like it's settled, then.\" Jamie looked at Alexander and Abigail. \"You two have been mighty brave all through this. Miss Savannah's going to need you to keep on being brave. Reckon you can do that?\"\n\nAlexander nodded. He used the back of his hand to wipe away a stray tear. \"This is all our fault. If we hadn't wandered off and let those Indians grab us, our pa would still be alive.\"\n\nJamie shook his head. \"There are too many things going on in the world to say something like that for sure. Too many turning points where everything could turn out different. Might as well blame me for not keeping a closer eye on your pa, so that he couldn't step out there in the open where the Blackfeet could get a shot at him. Things happen, and I reckon we just have to tell ourselves that there's a reason for the way they do, and then we go on from there.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" Moses said. \"On to your new homes in Eagle Valley. When do you think we'll get there, Jamie?\"\n\n\"By Christmas, like I've been saying all along.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 57",
                "text": "When the wagon train had left Kansas City, Jamie had worried that he might not have enough scouts. With the addition of Preacher, Smoke Jensen, Audie, and Nighthawk, he almost had too many.\n\nOn the other hand, he also had four more first-class fighting men to help out in case of trouble. He knew from experience that Preacher, Audie, and Nighthawk were hell on wheels in a ruckus, and it didn't take much time to realize that Smoke Jensen might well be the deadliest of them all.\n\nDuring one of the wagon train's midday halts a few days after the rescue of the Bradford children, Preacher urged Smoke to get in a little practice with his guns. The old mountain man pointed out a fallen aspen about fifty feet away. \"See if you can pick off some of them branches that are stickin' up.\"\n\nJamie was close by and heard what Preacher said. He looked at the fallen tree and saw that the branches weren't much more than twigs maybe half an inch wide. They were barely visible. Jamie figured he could have hit those branches with a rifle, if he'd had time to draw a bead on them.\n\nSmoke swept out one of his .44s and started firing in less than the blink of an eye. He didn't shoot from the hip, but rather thrust the gun out at the end of his arm, taking no more than a split second to aim before the Colt began to roar.\n\nHe triggered off five shots. Even with having to cock the single-action Colt each time, the reports sounded so close together they formed one continuous peal of gun-thunder. To Jamie's amazement, five of the aspen branches leaped into the air as Smoke's bullets smashed through them.\n\nMoses had wandered up in time to witness the display. He let out a shrill whistle of admiration and awe. \"I never saw such shooting!\"\n\n\"Taught the younker everything he knows,\" Preacher said with a proud grin.\n\nSmoke smiled faintly as he reloaded the expended chambers.\n\nPreacher shrugged. \"Of course, the boy had some natural talent to begin with.\"\n\nMoses said, \"Mr. Preacher, do you think you could teach me to shoot?\"\n\n\"Hold on a minute,\" Jamie told him. \"Moses, you never said anything to me about wanting to learn how to shoot.\"\n\n\"Well, it just seems so foreign to me. But the longer we stay out here on the frontier, the more it seems like maybe it's something I should learn how to do.\"\n\n\"Why, sure, I'd be glad to give you a few leetle pointers,\" Preacher said. \"Don't go to thinkin' you'll ever be as good with a hogleg as Smoke is, though. To that boy, usin' a gun is just as natural as breathin'.\"\n\n\"I just want to be able to protect people who need to be protected,\" Moses said.\n\n\"That there's an honorable goal. There's a heap of bad folks in this world, and it falls to them who have good hearts to stand up to those varmints and do what's right. You got a gun?\"\n\n\"Well... no.\"\n\nDrawn by the shooting, Bodie walked up in time to hear most of the conversation. He grinned and unbuckled his gun belt. \"You can borrow mine, Moses.\"\n\n\"Oh... all right. Thanks.\" Moses took the belt and rather awkwardly strapped it around his hips.\n\n\"Hitch that belt up a mite,\" Preacher told him. \"Your holster's too low. You want the gun butt about halfway betwixt your wrist and your elbow, so when you raise your arm your hand'll hit it natural-like. Yeah, that's right,\" he went on as Moses adjusted the belt. \"You saw that log Smoke was a-shootin' at. Pull that hogleg and see if you can hit it.\"\n\nMoses faced the log, squared his shoulders, and took a deep breath. He made what he probably thought was a quick grab at the gun, although the move seemed painfully slow to Jamie's eyes.\n\nThe gun came clear of the holster, and Moses immediately exclaimed, \"Whoa!\" He grabbed it with his other hand to keep from dropping it. \"It's heavy!\"\n\n\"You'll get used to it,\" Preacher said. \"It's a dang good thing that log ain't gonna be shootin' back at you. Now burn some powder, son!\"\n\nMoses pointed the revolver at the fallen tree. The barrel wobbled back and forth violently. He grunted as he tried to pull the trigger, but nothing happened.\n\nBodie said, \"You've got to cock it. Pull the hammer back until it locks into place. Then pull the trigger.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Moses said. \"I didn't notice Smoke doing that\u2014\"\n\n\"That's because he does it too fast for the eye to follow. But you can take your time, Moses.\"\n\n\"All right.\" Moses looped his right thumb over the hammer and pulled it back. The effort caused the barrel to point upward.\n\n\"Straighten it back down,\" Preacher said.\n\nStill using both hands, Moses pointed the gun at the log. It was still pretty shaky. Seconds stretched out as Moses tried to get the barrel to stop jumping around enough that he could aim.\n\n\"Any time now,\" Preacher drawled.\n\nMoses jerked the trigger.\n\nThe Colt boomed. The recoil forced the gun up, and Moses obviously wasn't ready for it. He yelled as the revolver flew out of his hands.\n\n\"Duck, boys!\" Preacher shouted.\n\nJamie stepped forward and caught the gun before it could fall to the ground.\n\nMoses had his hands clapped over his ears. \"That was so loud. It sounds even louder when you're holding the gun.\"\n\n\"Here you go,\" Jamie said as he handed the weapon back to Moses. Quickly he pushed the barrel down toward the ground. \"Don't point it at me or anybody else. Not unless it's somebody who needs shooting.\"\n\nMoses squinted at the log. \"Did I hit it?\"\n\n\"You didn't even come close,\" Preacher said. \"Your bullet went ten or twelve feet over it, I reckon. Try again.\"\n\nBy now quite a crowd was gathering. Savannah, with Alexander and Abigail, was one of the spectators. She called, \"You can do it, Moses!\"\n\n\"Yeah!\" Alexander added.\n\n\"I appreciate the vote of confidence,\" Moses said, \"but I'm beginning to have my doubts.\"\n\n\"A man never knows until he tries,\" Jamie said. \"Sometimes he has to try a bunch of times.\"\n\n\"You're right, of course.\" Moses took a deep breath and aimed at the fallen aspen again.\n\nFifteen minutes later, he had emptied the Colt, Bodie had reloaded it, and Moses had emptied it again. He had dropped the gun four times, nearly shot himself in the foot twice, and hadn't hit the log even once.\n\n\"Moses, ol' son, I hate to tell you this,\" Preacher drawled, \"but you ain't cut out to be a pistoleer. I reckon if you was to find yourself in a gunfight, you'd be more of a danger to them who was on your side instead of the hombres you're supposed to ventilate.\"\n\nMoses sighed and nodded. \"I think you're right, Mr. Preacher.\" He unbuckled the gun belt. \"I need to be a good sport about it, though. Not everyone can be good at everything.\"\n\n\"That's all right,\" Bodie told him as he took the Colt back. \"You just leave the shooting to the rest of us.\"\n\nMoses brightened and suggested, \"Maybe I could learn how to use a rifle. Or a shotgun.\"\n\nJamie felt a shiver of apprehension go through him at the thought of Moses Danzig with a scattergun in his hands. \"Not today. Back to your wagons, folks. It's time for us to be rolling again!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 58",
                "text": "The wagon train turned west a couple days later. If Jamie had figured correctly\u2014and he was pretty sure he had\u2014Eagle Valley was right in front of them, about two weeks' journey away.\n\nTwo more weeks for the good weather to hold, he mused as he rode in front of the wagon train. Would that be possible? Already winter had held off with its full force for longer than he had dared hope.\n\nNot that it wasn't cold all the time. Every morning ice had to be broken off the top of the water buckets before the animals could drink. The sun shone most days, but its light was weak and watery and held only scant warmth. The temperature usually climbed above freezing, but not always. People lived in their coats now, not taking them off even at night when they crawled into their bedrolls.\n\nBy the time they got where they were going, the whole lot of them would be pretty gamey, Jamie thought with a smile.\n\nBodie came up alongside him and waved a hand at the grasslands surrounding them. \"It's mighty dry up here. Is there a drought going on?\"\n\n\"No. The cold's killed all the grass, at least on top of the ground. The snows will come in and cover it up for several months, and then come spring when the snow melts, all that water will soak into the ground, down to the roots of the grass. That's when it'll start budding out again. Once these pilgrims get where they're going, they can plant winter grass next fall if they want to, so they'll have some graze for their livestock almost year-round. Anyway, as I recall, Eagle Valley has more and better vegetation to start with. The foothills get more rain in the spring and fall than the plains do.\"\n\nBodie squinted at the western horizon. \"If Eagle Valley is in the foothills of the Rockies, like you said, Jamie, shouldn't we be able to see the mountains by now?\"\n\n\"Be patient,\" Jamie told him. \"You'll see 'em soon enough. When you do, it'll seem like you're never going to get there. They'll sit there in front of us for days without looking like they're getting any closer.\"\n\nJamie's prediction proved to be true. A day later, the immigrants spotted what looked like low-lying white clouds in the distance. Jamie rode along the train to the Bradford wagon, which was being driven by Savannah, who had proven to be an adept hand at getting the oxen to move.\n\nJamie pointed to the west and said to Alexander and Abigail, \"See those white patches up in the sky, way off over yonder? That's snow on top of the Rocky Mountains.\"\n\nThe children were impressed, and so was Savannah.\n\n\"It's beautiful,\" she said. \"I never thought I'd see such a sight. When you spend your days in hotel rooms and your nights in a darkened theater, your idea of scenery is a painted backdrop. I like the real thing much better.\"\n\n\"You've changed a mite in the past couple months while we've been on the trail,\" Jamie said.\n\nSavannah shook her head. \"No. I've changed a lot. And all for the better, thanks to you, Mr. MacCallister.\"\n\n\"Not just thanks to me. A certain young fella had something to do with it, too.\"\n\nJamie couldn't be sure if Savannah's cheeks were red from the chilly wind... or if she was blushing a little, too. But she looked happy, and that was the main thing, he supposed, whatever the reason.\n\nSavannah had gotten Alexander and Abigail nested down in a veritable mountain of blankets and quilts when she heard a soft footstep outside the wagon. The children were asleep, so she moved to the back of the vehicle and whispered through the gap around the canvas flap, \"Who's there?\"\n\n\"It's just me.\"\n\nThe voice was familiar, and it made warmth well up inside her. Not real, physical warmth, although that would have been more than welcome, but rather an emotional one that was quite comforting, anyway.\n\nShe climbed over the tailgate and out of the wagon, her movements hampered somewhat by the thick layers of clothing she wore. Bodie reached up, took hold of her under her arms, and helped her to the ground.\n\nThat made it easy for him to press her body against his as he hugged her. As many clothes as they both had on, there wasn't anything sensual about the embrace, but Savannah found it very satisfying, anyway.\n\nAnd when he leaned down to kiss her... well, that was sensual, and it started her heart pounding harder as their lips clung together.\n\n\"I'm sure glad you decided not to leave the wagon train and go back to acting,\" he said quietly as they held each other and she rested her head against his chest.\n\n\"I miss Cyrus and Dollie and everybody else in the troupe,\" Savannah said. \"I'd be lying if I said I didn't. One day I'd like to see them all again. But I've made so many friends here on the wagon train... Moses and Hector and the Binghams... and you. I can't imagine ever leaving now.\" She paused. \"When we get to Eagle Valley... you're going to stay, aren't you, Bodie?\"\n\n\"I've been talking to Captain Hendricks. I told him I want to claim a homestead, too. I've spent a lot of years on the drift, Savannah, ever since my folks died. I reckon it's time that I settled down.\"\n\nHe wouldn't have to find a homestead to claim, she thought. The one where Reverend Bradford had planned to settle with his children ought to be available. Savannah planned to see to it that Alexander and Abigail got what was coming to them, but they would need a grown-up to help them.\n\nMaybe a couple grown-ups... a couple... and two children...\n\nWell, that made a family, didn't it?\n\nShe didn't allow herself to say any of those thoughts out loud. She didn't want to rush Bodie or pressure him into anything. But he was a smart man, she told herself. He would figure it out soon enough. If the idea hadn't occurred to him by the time the wagon train reached Eagle Valley, surely it would once they had been there a while.\n\nMoses had conducted Reverend Bradford's funeral. Maybe he would be willing to perform a marriage ceremony, too.\n\nThe two of them held each other for a time, talking quietly and kissing now and then. Even though the night was very cold, the time they spent together was a pleasant interlude.\n\nFinally Savannah said, \"I need to get back in the wagon, I guess. If the weather was nicer\u2014\"\n\n\"But it's not,\" Bodie said. \"One of these days it will be again, though. When that day comes, we'll spend a lot of time together and enjoy every minute of it.\"\n\n\"I can't wait.\" Savannah gave him another kiss and climbed into the wagon.\n\nBodie's heart was light as he walked back toward Moses's wagon. He had come mighty close to asking Savannah to marry him, but he wanted to wait for a better time. For one thing, he wanted to see the look on her face when he asked her that all-important question, and the night was too dark for that.\n\nThere would be plenty of chances to propose later, he told himself. Now that they had both decided to remain in Eagle Valley permanently, they had all the time in the world. That thought made him so happy he started whistling a tune. It wasn't a real song, just an irrepressible expression of how he felt at the moment.\n\nIt also served inadvertently to cover up the sound of a footstep behind him. He had no warning before something smashed into the back of his head, driving him to his knees.\n\nPain exploded inside his skull, pain so intense that it blinded him momentarily. He tried to fight his way to his feet, but somebody kicked him in the back and knocked him facedown on the ground. Weight came down on him, a knee digging painfully into the small of his back and pinning him there. An icy-cold ring of metal pressed into his temple.\n\nHe recognized it as the muzzle of a gun and stopped trying to struggle. He had no idea who had attacked him, but he sensed that his life was hanging by a slender thread. All that would be required to end it was a little pressure on the trigger....\n\n\"That's better,\" a man said in a harsh whisper.\n\nThe voice was familiar, but Bodie couldn't place it right away. The man bent over closer to him, close enough for Bodie to smell the whiskey on his breath.\n\n\"Don't give me any trouble,\" the man went on, \"and you might come out of this alive. But I wouldn't count on that, you dirty, stinkin' double-crosser.\"\n\nBodie knew the voice, knew who it was that had come out of the cold, dark night to wreck all his plans.\n\nEldon Swint."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 59",
                "text": "The outlaw wrapped the fingers of his left hand around Bodie's arm and hauled the young man to his feet, keeping the gun barrel pressed to Bodie's head.\n\nBodie tried to force his brain to work despite the throbbing in his skull and make some sense of what Swint had said. \"Eldon, why are you doing this? I never double-crossed you! I told you I was leaving the gang. I even gave up my share of the loot.\"\n\nSwint ground the gun barrel against Bodie's temple, making him gasp in pain. \"You pretended to give up your share! I'll bet it was your idea for Lucas, Mahaffey, and Pearsoll to steal that whole pile of double eagles!\"\n\nBodie's heart sank. Everything suddenly made sense. He knew why Jake and the other two had left the gang right after he did and had joined up with the wagon train.\n\nHe had considered Jake his friend and didn't like to think that he was capable of such treachery, but Bodie's instincts told him it was true. Jake had been angling to get his hands on more than his fair share, right from the start. Clearly, he had come up with a way to do it.\n\nSwint had figured out who was responsible for the loss of the loot, as well as where they had fled, and he had gotten on their trail like a bloodhound.\n\n\"You followed us all the way from Kansas City?\"\n\n\"Damn right we did,\" Swint said. \"Took us awhile to realize where that money must've gone, and we've run into nothin' but trouble chasin' you boys down. Fever hit the whole bunch of us and laid us low for a while. Killed a couple of the fellas. But the rest of us got over it, and now we've caught up to you at last, you no-good thief.\"\n\n\"Listen to me, Eldon,\" Bodie said, trying to make his voice as convincing as he possibly could. \"I swear I didn't have anything to do with taking that money. I gave up my share, just like I told you back in Kansas City. That's the truth. All I wanted was to come with this wagon train.\"\n\n\"And be with your little whore of an actress.\" Swint laughed as Bodie stiffened. \"Yeah, I know all about her. If you don't want somethin' mighty bad to happen to her as well as you, you'll tell me where the loot is.\"\n\n\"I don't know. I swear I don't.\"\n\nSwint took the gun away from Bodie's temple, but before the young man could react, Swint raked the barrel across the side of his head in a vicious swipe. Bodie gasped as he felt blood well from the gash that the gun sight had opened up.\n\n\"I'll kill you, you damn fool,\" Swint grated. \"You know that, don't you?\"\n\nIt had been a mistake for him to ever think that Eldon Swint might not be as tough and brutal as he appeared to be, Bodie realized. The man was a ruthless hardcase, through and through, and would do anything to get what he wanted.\n\n\"If I knew, I'd tell you, Eldon. I really would. But I can't tell you something I don't know.\"\n\n\"Where's Lucas and the other two?\"\n\nBodie hesitated. If he sold out Jake, Mahaffey, and Pearsoll, it would be the same thing as signing their death warrant. Swint intended to kill them.\n\nBut Swint intended to kill him, too. Bodie had no doubt about that. And he had threatened Savannah.\n\n\"You brought the whole gang with you?\"\n\n\"That's right, except for the two the fever took. They're situated all around the camp, ready to open fire at my signal. We'll lay waste to this wagon train if we have to, Cantrell. You better believe it.\"\n\nBodie believed it, all right, and with a sinking feeling inside him, he realized the situation was worse than he had thought. Swint wouldn't want to leave any witnesses alive, and he wouldn't pass up whatever loot he could find in the wagons. A cold certainty came over Bodie, colder even than the frigid winter temperatures in Montana Territory.\n\nSwint planned to wipe out everyone on the wagon train\u2014Savannah, the kids, Moses, everybody\u2014take everything of value from it, and probably burn the wagons behind him as a memorial to his evil.\n\nTo give himself time, Bodie took a deep breath and sighed. He suddenly realized Swint's mistake was not knowing who was accompanying the wagon train. He decided to go along with what Swint thought had happened. \"Blast it, all right. I should've known all along that I couldn't fool you, Eldon. But just for the record, it was Jake's idea, not mine.\"\n\nThat was the truth, anyway.\n\n\"That don't surprise me none,\" Swint said. \"I always thought Lucas was a sneaky little snake. Show me where the loot's hid and I'll let you live. Lucas and them other two got to die, though.\"\n\n\"Fine.\" The bitterness in Bodie's voice was genuine even if the sentiment he expressed was not. \"He never should've been greedy and gotten us into this mess.\"\n\n\"Damn right. Now move, and don't forget that I'll blow your brains out if you try anything funny. I don't really need you. It'll be easier if you show me where the money is, but I'll find it one way or another.\"\n\n\"There's a false bottom in one of the wagons,\" Bodie said, his brain working furiously as he formulated his plan. It would take a considerable amount of luck to make it work, but he didn't really have any other choice. \"It's over here.\"\n\nWith the gun still at his head, he stumbled toward the wagon where Moses was asleep.\n\nMoses... and Jamie Ian MacCallister.\n\nJamie didn't sleep as well as he once had. It was just part of growing older. The cold didn't help matters, either. He felt it more as it seeped into his bones and made them ache and his muscles grow stiff. He was half-awake as footsteps approached the wagon.\n\nSomething was off about them. The gait was wrong, causing Jamie's instincts to warn him. Instantly, he was fully awake and alert. His hands reached out in the darkness and unerringly closed around the butts of the .44s he had placed where he could get to them easily.\n\nHe rose up, a massive, bearlike shape in the shadows inside the wagon, and moved silently to the rear of the vehicle. Using the barrel of one gun, he moved the canvas flap aside slightly. Two men were coming toward the wagon, one of them stumbling slightly like he was drunk. The other man held his arm as if the first man had imbibed too much.\n\nAs clouds moved away from the moon, Jamie saw the second man holding a gun and knew the first man wasn't drunk. Something was very wrong.\n\nThe first man said, \"I'll show you how to get into that false bottom in the wagon. The loot's hidden there. You've got to give me your word, though, Eldon, that you and the rest of the gang won't hurt anybody.\"\n\n\"Nobody but Lucas, Mahaffey, and Pearsoll,\" the second man said.\n\nJamie knew he was lying. He could hear it in the man's voice.\n\n\"Those double-crossers got to die.\"\n\n\"Fine, but you've got to get word to the men hidden outside the camp not to open fire,\" the first man said.\n\nJamie recognized the voice. It belonged to Bodie Cantrell. He was doing a good job of letting him know what was going on.\n\n\"That's enough jabberin',\" the other man snapped. \"Anybody in that wagon?\"\n\n\"No, it's mine. I took it over after the fella who had it died of a fever, too. The same sickness hit us. After that happened, I fixed up the false bottom and hid those sacks of double eagles in it.\"\n\n\"All right, open it up. I want to see that loot of mine... and then get down to business.\"\n\nKilling business, Jamie thought. He could hear the bloodlust in the man's voice.\n\nThey were right outside the wagon. It was time to make his move.\n\nJamie swept the canvas aside and bellowed, \"Hit the dirt, Bodie!\" He came out of the wagon like a whirlwind, both guns extended in front of him.\n\nBodie rammed an elbow back into his captor's body and twisted away just as Swint pulled the trigger. Flame spouted from the gun muzzle. Bodie cried out as if he were hit.\n\nJamie didn't have time to check on him. He was too busy killing the viper in their midst.\n\nBoth .44s roared as he thumbed off shot after shot. Tongues of flame a foot long licked out from the gun barrels. Eldon was tough and stayed on his feet for a moment as Jamie's bullets pounded into him. He even got another shot off, the slug whining harmlessly over Jamie's head.\n\nThen the lead storm took its toll. Eldon went over backwards, shot to pieces.\n\nJamie rammed the revolvers behind his belt, reached back into the wagon, and plucked his Winchester from the floor. He levered a round into the chamber as he shouted, \"Preacher! Smoke! Outlaws around the camp!\"\n\nHe leaped over a wagon tongue and plunged into the night, ready to do battle. He didn't know how many outlaws were hiding around the camp, but with him, Preacher, and Smoke going after them, to say nothing of Audie and Nighthawk...\n\nWell, however many there were, the varmints were outnumbered.\n\nThey just didn't know it yet."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 60",
                "text": "The next few minutes were flame-streaked chaos. Hidden gunmen opened fire on Jamie, and he returned the shots with deadly effect. He hoped all the immigrants were keeping their heads down while the fight raged.\n\nThe battle ringed the camp. Jamie heard a rapid fusillade of six-gun fire and figured that was Smoke Jensen getting in on the action. He didn't think anybody else could keep a pair of hoglegs singing that fast.\n\nThe Winchester's magazine ran dry. As it did, a man leaped up from the ground nearby and ran at Jamie, thrusting out a gun, eager for a sure shot.\n\nJamie ducked as the blast rang out, then stepped in to meet the charge. He drove the rifle's butt into the man's face and heard the satisfying crunch of bone. The outlaw dropped like a rock.\n\n\"Jamie, look out!\" someone called.\n\nJamie twisted and crouched, and another shot blasted close enough he felt the heat from the muzzle. Before he could do anything else, Bodie appeared, the gun in his hand flaming. The outlaw who had nearly ventilated Jamie went down, twisted off his feet by Bodie's shots.\n\n\"Glad to see you're all right,\" Jamie told the young man.\n\n\"Muzzle flash nearly burned my eyebrows off,\" Bodie said, \"but the bullet missed and that's all that counts.\"\n\n\"You're right about that. Let's finish cleaning up these rats... and then you'll have to tell me what this is all about.\"\n\nJust as Jamie expected, the outlaws were no match for the fighting men from the wagon train. Hector Gilworth and Jess Neville had joined in the battle, too, and had given a good account of themselves. Jess might claim to be lazy, but he had tackled two of the gunmen in a fierce shoot-out and brought them both down, taking a bullet through his left arm in the process. Hector had gotten his hands on one of the outlaws and broken the man's neck.\n\nPreacher, Smoke, Audie, and Nighthawk wiped out the rest of the gang in short order. They weren't the sort of men who asked for or gave quarter, especially when faced with human vermin. By the time they finished sweeping in a big circle around the wagon train, the plains were littered with owlhoot corpses.\n\nThen, as Jamie had told Bodie, it was time for explanations.\n\nThe main campfire in the center of the circle was built up until it was blazing brightly and casting light over the gathering. The first thing Bodie did was look around for Jake Lucas, Clete Mahaffey, and Dave Pearsoll.\n\nThere was no sign of the three men.\n\nThey must have realized what was going on and taken advantage of the confusion to slip away, Jamie decided once Bodie had revealed that they were all former members of Eldon Swint's outlaw gang and spilled the story about the stolen loot.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Savannah,\" Bodie said to the young woman as she stared solemnly at him. A bloodstained bandage was wrapped around his head where Swint had pistol-whipped him. \"I hoped you'd never find out about my past. I'm ashamed that I ever got mixed up with a bunch of owlhoots like that.\"\n\nFor a long moment, Savannah didn't say anything. Then, \"You could have told me, Bodie. I thought you trusted me more than that.\"\n\n\"I do trust you,\" he insisted. \"I just didn't want you to think bad of me.\"\n\n\"I've seen what you're really like these past weeks.\" Savannah looked around at the rest of the immigrants. \"We all have. You risked your life to save Abigail and Alexander. You've been a good friend to everybody on this wagon train. I'm sure you've made some mistakes, done some things you regret and wish you could take back... but everyone has. I know I have.\" She shook her head. \"But it doesn't make me feel any differently toward you.\"\n\nRelief washed over Bodie's face. \"Thank the Lord! I was afraid you'd hate me when you found out the truth.\"\n\nSavannah shook her head, moved closer to Bodie, and laid a hand on his arm. \"I could never hate you.\"\n\nJamie stepped between them and the rest of the crowd, putting his back to the two young people so they could have a moment of privacy as he addressed the group. \"Hector, we need to get some horses and rope and drag those carcasses well away from the wagons. I reckon the wolves will take care of them after that.\"\n\nMoses made a face. \"Is it really necessary to deal with them in such a callous manner, Jamie?\"\n\n\"The ground's too hard to dig a grave big enough for all of them.\"\n\nPreacher added, \"I wouldn't be inclined to go to that much trouble for such a bunch of polecats, anyway. Nature's got its own way of dealin' with varmints like that, and I don't figure on losin' a second's sleep over how they end up.\"\n\n\"What about those other three Bodie mentioned?\" Smoke asked. \"The ones who made off with that money to start with and started all this trouble.\"\n\nA grim smile touched Jamie's mouth. \"I thought you and me and Preacher might take a little hunting trip.\"\n\n\"That sounds like a mighty fine idea to me,\" the old mountain man said with a savage grin of his own on his grizzled face.\n\n\"I told you we should've gotten far away from that wagon train a long time ago,\" Clete Mahaffey groused as the three men rode through the dawn light.\n\n\"Yeah, and you've said that how many times since we lit out?\" Jake Lucas shot back at him.\n\nDave Pearsoll said, \"Look, we're all lucky to be alive. If Swint had gone after us first instead of Cantrell, we probably wouldn't be. We've still got the loot, so let's count our blessings. We're on our own now, and from the sound of the shooting back there when we rode out, at least some of Swint's gang have to be dead. Maybe all of 'em if they went up against MacCallister, Preacher, and that Smoke kid.\"\n\nPearsoll had a point, Jake thought. If he was being really honest with himself, he had to admit that he had hung around the wagon train for as long as he had only because of Savannah McCoy.\n\nEven after the unsatisfying incident along the creek where the Bradford kids had been snatched by the Blackfeet, he had harbored feelings for her. Clearly, though, the little tramp was never going to see that she ought to be with him instead of Bodie, so staying with the wagons was a waste of time.\n\nHell, he was a rich man, he mused. He could find all the willing women he wanted. Women a lot better looking than Savannah McCoy...\n\nHe wasn't convinced of the truth of that last part, but he could tell himself that, anyway.\n\nFate had taken a hand and forced their separation from the pilgrims.\n\nJake said, \"You know, I've heard about a place over in Idaho we ought to look for, a settlement called Bury. From the sound of it, gents like us are welcome there.\"\n\n\"Bury?\" Mahaffey repeated. \"What sort of name is that for a town?\"\n\n\"Don't know and don't care, as long as that's not what they do to us there,\" Jake said with a grin. He didn't feel too bad any longer.\n\nSure, it was bothersome that Eldon Swint had trailed them all that way. But luck had been on Jake's side, as it always was, and he was convinced that Swint and the other outlaws had been wiped out in the fighting around the wagon train. From here on out, he and his two pards could just enjoy life.\n\nHe died with the grin still on his face as an arrow struck him between the shoulder blades with such force that its flint head drove all the way through his body and ripped out from his chest. Jake's body toppled loosely from the saddle and hit the ground beside the spooked horse as shots, war cries, and, ultimately, screams filled the cold morning air."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 61",
                "text": "Preacher sniffed the air. \"I don't know about you fellas, but that smells like snow to me.\"\n\nThe morning had dawned clear as Jamie, Preacher, and Smoke set out on the trail of the three outlaws, but thick gray clouds soon had moved down from the north, obscuring the sun and making the cold wind seem more frigid.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Jamie agreed with the old mountain man's prediction. \"Not today, I don't reckon, but it wouldn't surprise me to see some snow tonight.\"\n\n\"How far you reckon we are from Eagle Valley?\" Preacher asked as he squinted at the sky.\n\n\"Three days, maybe. I've known we were getting close for a while now, but I didn't tell those pilgrims just yet.\"\n\nSmoke said, \"I'm pretty sure this is December twenty-first.\"\n\nThe two older men looked at him.\n\nSmoke's broad shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. \"Just pointing out that three more days will be Christmas Eve. You said you wanted to get there by Christmas, Jamie.\" A rare smile touched the young man's face. \"You're cutting it a mite close.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but Bodie and Hector will keep those wagons moving as fast as they can until we get back.\"\n\nPreacher suddenly drew back on his reins and frowned. \"Danged if I don't smell somethin' else now. And it ain't nothin' good, neither.\"\n\nJamie and Smoke reined in, too. Jamie took a deep breath, and his face was as grim as Preacher's. \"Gun smoke.\"\n\nThey hadn't heard any gunfire. Whatever had happened was over, leaving only faint traces in the air.\n\nAll three men drew their rifles and laid them across the saddles in front of them, then rode forward, still following the tracks. The trail led over a gently rolling hill. As they crested it, they brought their mounts to a halt again.\n\nAbout a hundred yards in front of them, at the bottom of the grassy slope, lay three bloody, huddled shapes that had once been human.\n\nJamie took a pair of field glasses from one of his saddlebags and used them to study the dead men. They had been scalped and mutilated. The blood that covered their faces was already freezing in the cold air.\n\n\"Is that the three we're after?\" Smoke asked.\n\n\"Just going by what's left of them, that's hard to say,\" Jamie replied. \"But I recognize the clothes. That's Lucas, Mahaffey, and Pearsoll, all right.\"\n\nPreacher said, \"From the looks of 'em, they run into a bunch of Blackfeet. Might be the leavin's from those war parties we scrapped with awhile back.\"\n\nJamie grunted. \"Let's take a closer look.\"\n\nThey rode forward, eyes constantly scanning the landscape around them for any sign of an attack. Jamie spotted a double eagle lying on the prairie and pointed it out.\n\n\"The Blackfeet scattered that money those fellas had with them,\" he said. \"They let the earth have it. That's their way of showing it didn't mean anything to them.\"\n\nJamie's instincts told him that the Indians were gone. They'd had their brutal sport with the three luckless outlaws and then moved on.\n\nThe question was, where had they gone?\n\nOnce Jamie got a closer look at the bodies, he was convinced that they were Lucas, Mahaffey, and Pearsoll. The gruesome sight didn't particularly bother him; he had seen plenty of violent death in his time.\n\nWhat worried him were the tracks of the unshod ponies they found around the mutilated corpses. He gestured toward the hoofprints. \"Looks like there were forty or fifty Blackfeet. That's more than we left alive in that battle.\"\n\n\"The ones who got away met up with some of their pards,\" Preacher suggested.\n\n\"And then what?\" Smoke asked.\n\nJamie rode in a big circle and found tracks moving away from the place where the three outlaws had been killed. He pointed them out to his two companions. \"It looks to me like they angled off on a course that'll cross the path of the wagon train.\"\n\n\"Chances are that was what they was after all along,\" Preacher said. \"They're mad about gettin' whipped before, and they're goin' after the whole wagon train this time. They just happened to run across these three varmints along the way and took advantage of the chance to kill 'em.\"\n\n\"Come on,\" Jamie said as he wheeled Sundown. \"We'd better get back there as fast as we can.\"\n\nA grim hunch filled him as he rode, a hunch that said they might already be too late.\n\nBodie rode out in front of the wagons with Audie and Nighthawk. He enjoyed talking to the little mountain man, who seemed to know something about almost everything. No matter what the subject was, Audie could converse on it. Bodie didn't always fully understand what the former professor was saying, but it was interesting, anyway.\n\n\"And that's why I believe it's imminently possible that life may exist on other planets in our solar system,\" Audie said. \"If we can ever develop telescopes powerful enough to study them more closely, we may see the evidence of great civilizations with our own eyes. Don't you agree, Nighthawk?\"\n\n\"Ummm,\" said the Crow warrior.\n\n\"Yes, but you like to argue just on general principles, my friend. You'll see, one of these days. The evidence will prove me correct, as it always does.\"\n\n\"So, let me get this straight,\" Bodie said. \"You're saying there are people like us on other planets?\"\n\n\"Well... not necessarily like us. Different conditions might produce different sorts of life. But they could still be self-aware and highly intelligent. More intelligent than we are, perhaps.\"\n\n\"Wouldn't that be something?\" Bodie mused. \"I'm not sure I'd want to meet a man from another planet.\"\n\n\"I would,\" Audie said. \"I would consider it a great privilege and honor, not to mention the most scientifically intriguing encounter of our age or any other.\"\n\n\"Ummm,\" Nighthawk said.\n\nAudie turned to frown at his friend. \"What do you mean, we have bigger prob\u2014Oh, Lord. Bodie, look at that.\"\n\nThe three men reined in. Bodie's breath seemed to freeze in his throat as he saw the dozens of mounted figures on a rise to their left. Even at that distance, his keen eyes could make out the feathers in their hair.\n\n\"Blackfeet,\" Audie said. \"We need to get back to the wagons\u2014now!\"\n\nThe three men wheeled their horses and kicked them into a gallop. As they raced back toward the wagons, Nighthawk pointed to a group of Indians closing in from the other direction.\n\n\"Make some racket!\" Bodie yelled. \"We've got to warn the train!\"\n\nThey pulled their guns and started firing into the air. Bodie was confident that Hector Gilworth would hear the shots and order the immigrants to stop and pull the wagons into a defensive circle.\n\nHe glanced over his shoulder at the pursuit and saw puffs of smoke as the Indians opened fire on them. At that range, shooting from the back of their ponies, the likelihood of any of those bullets finding their targets was extremely small, but Bodie couldn't rule out pure bad luck, though. His muscles were tense as he halfway anticipated the shock of a slug hitting him.\n\nThe wagons came into sight. He felt a surge of relief when he saw that they were already forming into a circle, just as he'd hoped. The Blackfoot war party was a large one, but the men of the wagon train had some experience at fighting Indians. They would give the Blackfeet a hot reception.\n\nIn fact, shots had already begun to crackle from between the parked wagons by the time Bodie, Audie, and Nighthawk reached the train. They leaped their horses through one of the gaps as gunfire and shrill war whoops filled the air and lead tore through the canvas covers on some of the wagons. Hector Gilworth ran along the line of wagons, bellowing, \"Everybody keep your head down!\"\n\nBodie threw himself out of the saddle, dragging his Winchester from its sheath, and looked around frantically for Savannah. He spotted the wagon she had been driving and ran toward it, but before he could get there he heard Jess Neville shout, \"Bodie! Over here! Those red devils are chargin'!\"\n\nBodie swung around and saw a large group of Blackfeet thundering toward a gap in the circle. If they broke through and got inside, it would be bloody chaos. Bodie sprang to join Jess and several other men in defending the opening. He brought the rifle to his shoulder and began firing as fast as he could work the lever. Clouds of powder smoke rolled around him, stinging his eyes and nose, and the constant roar of shots deafened him.\n\nThe savages wouldn't get through, he vowed to himself. They would never reach Savannah or any of the other women and children. He would stop them.\n\nOr die trying."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 62",
                "text": "Jamie, Preacher, and Smoke heard the shooting before they came in sight of the wagon train. The immigrants had had a little warning, because they'd been able to pull the wagons into a loose circle. They were defending that stronghold from at least fifty Blackfoot warriors who were galloping their ponies around and around the circle.\n\nJamie drew rein and lifted his rifle. \"Let's see if we can pick some of them off and even the odds a little.\"\n\nThree Winchesters cracked as the frontiersmen opened fire. With all the shooting already going on, the Blackfeet didn't notice right away that some of the bullets were coming from a different direction. That gave the three men a chance to do some real damage before they were discovered.\n\nJamie fired, saw a warrior throw up his arms and pitch to the ground from his pony's back as the .44-40 slug bored through him. By the time that Blackfoot hit the ground, Jamie had worked the repeater's lever and shifted his aim. The Winchester blasted again, and another of the attackers fell.\n\nThe shots from Preacher and Smoke were just as deadly. Nearly a dozen members of the war party died before the Blackfeet realized what was going on. Shrieking in outrage, a group of them peeled off and charged toward the three men.\n\n\"Time for us to light a shuck,\" Preacher drawled as he slid his rifle back in its saddle boot.\n\n\"I want to get back to the wagons,\" Jamie said. \"Let's take them by surprise and plow right through them.\"\n\n\"Sounds good to me.\" Smoke pulled both Colts from their holsters.\n\nPreacher did likewise.\n\nJamie filled his hands with his .44s and dug his boot heels into Sundown's flanks. The big stallion leaped forward.\n\nIt was a mad, outrageous maneuver, filled with gun thunder, swirling clouds of powder smoke, pounding hoofbeats, and the constant whine of bullets slashing through the air around them. The three men never broke off in their advance, smashing into the group of Blackfeet and scattering them. The hail of lead from six revolvers shredded through the warriors, and several of those who escaped being ventilated were knocked from their ponies and trampled.\n\nAs Jamie's Colts ran dry, a mounted Blackfoot with his face painted dashed in from the side and thrust a lance at him. Jamie twisted away from the deadly weapon and as the warrior came within arm's length, Jamie reversed his left-hand Colt and crashed the butt into the man's forehead, crushing it and driving bone splinters into the man's brain. He grabbed the lance away from the dying warrior.\n\nPreacher and Smoke were slowed down by hand-to-hand battles, but they broke through and galloped toward the wagons. Jamie was right behind them. As he charged past another of the Blackfeet, he threw the lance like a spear. His massive strength put so much power behind the throw that it tore all the way through the man's torso and stood out a foot on the other side.\n\nThe wagon train's defenders saw them coming and intensified their fire, giving cover to the three men. One after another they leaped their horses over a wagon tongue and into the circle.\n\nAs they piled off their horses and ran to join the defenders, Bodie, who was a couple wagons over, called to them, \"You got back just in time!\"\n\n\"Durn right we did!\" Preacher responded. \"We was about to miss all the fun!\"\n\nIf it was \"fun\" the old mountain man wanted, he got plenty of it for the next few hours. With their initial charge beaten back and their numbers cut into by the unexpected attack by Jamie, Preacher, and Smoke, the Blackfeet settled down to a waiting game, continually circling the wagons just out of easy rifle range. From time to time, some of them would dash in and concentrate heavy fire on one part of the wagon train, then pull back sharply as the immigrants mounted a stronger defense at that position. Then, mere moments later, the Indians would attack somewhere else.\n\nThe Blackfeet suffered losses with each foray, but so did the immigrants. Several men were killed, and a dozen more were wounded.\n\nDuring the afternoon, Jamie was able to talk to Bodie and tell him about finding the bodies of Jake Lucas, Clete Mahaffey, and Dave Pearsoll.\n\nBodie sighed and shook his head solemnly. \"I know that they nearly got all of us killed and that Jake never could be trusted after all, but there was a time when I considered him a friend, Jamie. I don't think he was all bad. He was just too weak where money was concerned.\"\n\n\"Most folks have their weak spots. You've just got to learn how to keep from breaking at those spots.\"\n\n\"I suppose. I'm sorry for what happened to Jake, anyway.\" Bodie's voice hardened. \"But if I'd had the chance, I might have shot him myself.\"\n\n\"Reckon I know the feeling.\"\n\nMoses kept busy bringing water and ammunition to the defenders. At one point in the afternoon as he handed a box of cartridges to Jamie, he said, \"I wish now I'd been able to learn how to shoot. I feel like I'm useless.\"\n\n\"Not hardly.\" Jamie hefted the box of ammunition. \"I didn't have to go fetch this myself. I was able to keep fighting.\"\n\n\"Remember what Preacher said when he was trying to teach me? Maybe I should volunteer to fight on the side of the Blackfeet. Then they'd be wiped out for sure!\"\n\nJamie laughed. \"You stay right where you are, Moses. We need you to send up a few prayers for us.\"\n\n\"I can do that,\" Moses said. \"In fact, I have been for several hours now!\"\n\nA short time later, during a lull in the fighting, Preacher came over to Jamie. \"What do you reckon the chances are they'll give up once the sun goes down?\"\n\nJamie glanced at the sky where the thickening clouds meant that it would get dark earlier than usual. \"I got my doubts.\" Something caught his eye, and he pointed it out to Preacher. \"Even more so now.\"\n\n\"Dadgum it!\" Preacher exclaimed as he looked at the column of gray smoke that was starting to thicken and climb into the equally leaden sky. \"You don't think they've started a prairie fire, do you?\"\n\n\"No. I think they've started more than one,\" Jamie replied grimly as he pointed out several more clouds of smoke in different directions. \"They're putting a ring of fire around us, Preacher. If they can't kill us one way, they'll do it another.\"\n\n\"We got to get movin'. If we just sit here whilst them blazes join up with each other and completely surround us, we'll never get out. All that grass is dry as tinder this time of year.\"\n\n\"I know,\" Jamie said with a nod. \"But if we start to hitch up the teams, the Blackfeet will come charging in while we're busy with that and overrun us.\"\n\nPreacher's eyes narrowed. \"Not if some of us keep the varmints busy.\"\n\n\"You mean take the fight to them again?\" Jamie pondered the idea for a second, then nodded. \"The ones who do that probably won't stand a chance, but the wagons might be able to get away. I seem to recall there's a little river a mile or two from here. If the wagons can get on the other side of it before the fire pins them in, those folks could make it.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm goin', that's for durn sure,\" Preacher declared.\n\n\"So am I,\" added Smoke, who had come up in time to hear the two older men formulating the plan.\n\n\"We'll need seven or eight other men,\" Jamie said, \"all of them volunteers.\" He sighed. \"I'll spread the word.\"\n\nEverybody had seen the smoke and was worried about it. Within a few minutes, Jamie had put together a force of volunteers who would attack the Blackfeet and keep them occupied while the wagons made a dash for the river.\n\nIt wasn't a surprise that Bodie was one of the volunteers. Savannah clung to him for a long moment, sobbing, but she didn't beg him not to go.\n\nBodie was relieved by that. She had Alexander and Abigail to think of, and anything that gave the children a better chance of getting through this ordeal alive had to be done.\n\nHector and Jess were going along, too, as was Captain Lamar Hendricks. \"These people elected me to lead them. I don't know of any better way to do it than to do whatever I can to see that they get where they're going.\"\n\n\"I wasn't too sure about you starting out, Cap'n,\" Jamie said. \"I reckon you'll do, though. Yes, sir, you'll do.\"\n\nHalf a dozen more men joined the group. They were all mounted and ready to charge out of the circle. Edward Bingham had been put in charge of getting the teams hitched up and leading the race to the river. He shook hands with Jamie. \"Buy us some time, Mr. MacCallister. We'll do the rest.\"\n\n\"Never doubted it,\" Jamie said.\n\nThey were just about ready to launch the counterattack when Moses appeared, also mounted on a saddle horse and carrying a rifle.\n\n\"Blast it, Moses!\" Bodie exclaimed. \"You shouldn't be doing this.\"\n\n\"We're causing a distraction, right? Keeping the Indians busy? I can give them something to shoot at. Don't worry, I won't shoot any of you by accident.\" Moses grinned. \"This rifle isn't even loaded!\"\n\nJamie moved Sundown over next to Moses's horse. \"You've been a mighty good friend to all of us, and I appreciate what you're trying to do here. You ready, Moses?\"\n\nMoses swallowed hard and nodded. \"I'm ready.\"\n\n\"Good.\" Jamie's arm shot out and he hit Moses in the jaw, a crashing, big-fisted blow that knocked the young rabbi out of the saddle and sent him sprawling on the ground, out cold. \"Somebody put him in a wagon. I reckon he'll forgive me when this is all over.\"\n\nHe turned to the other men, looped Sundown's reins around the saddle horn, and drew both revolvers. With a rebel yell, he sent the stallion lunging forward and led the attack as the men galloped toward the startled Blackfeet, guns blazing."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 63",
                "text": "It was even more loco than the earlier dash through the war party ringed around the wagon train. They were outnumbered at least three to one.\n\nBut the Blackfeet weren't the same sort of fighters on horseback that, say, the Sioux or the Comanche were. More used to battling on foot, they didn't respond quite as quickly as they might have. The men from the wagon train were among them almost before the Blackfeet knew what was happening.\n\nNot only that, but Jamie Ian MacCallister, the old mountain man called Preacher, and the young gunfighter named Smoke Jensen were veritable engines of destruction. The guns in their hands roared again and again, left, right, left, right, and each time flame spouted from the muzzle of a Colt, one of the warriors cried out and died as a bullet ripped through him.\n\nBodie, Hector, and Jess fought savagely, desperately, too. So did Captain Hendricks and all the other men. Seeing their fellow warriors being slaughtered, the rest of the Blackfeet closed in, surrounding the men from the wagon train. Jamie couldn't see the wagons anymore, but he hoped they were on the move.\n\nTruthfully, he couldn't see much of anything because of all the smoke around him. Suddenly, he realized that it wasn't all powder smoke.\n\nLike a runaway freight train, a wall of flames swept over the top of a hill and barreled down on the fighting men.\n\nSome of the Blackfeet were too slow to get out of the way, and the fire engulfed their shrieking forms. The rest of the war party broke and ran. Their strategy had worked too well. The thick grass was so dry the flames had moved faster than they'd expected.\n\nThe smoke made the horses panicky. Jamie fought to control Sundown and hauled the big stallion around. He waved an empty gun at Preacher and Smoke and shouted, \"Head for the river!\" He spotted Bodie, Hector, and Jess and repeated the command to them, then rounded up the rest of the men from the wagon train. Some of them were wounded, but managed to stay in their saddles as they fled from the onrushing flames. Those who had been shot off their horses lay lifelessly on the prairie.\n\nJamie saw the wagons moving fast up ahead. The sky was filled with smoke, and the oxen and mules pulling the wagons were as frightened as the horses were. Every instinct they possessed told them to flee, and they were doing it rapidly.\n\nJamie galloped past the Bingham wagon in the lead and saw the line of trees that marked the course of the river. But he also saw fires closing in from both sides. His heart sank as he realized they weren't going to make it. The flames seemed to race toward each other with supernatural speed... and the gap he had counted on closed, forming a fiery, impenetrable wall.\n\nGroaning, he hauled back on the reins. Despite everything they had done, the wagon train was completely surrounded by barriers of flame and smoke. Most of the flames were still half a mile or more away, but it wouldn't take long for them to continue their inexorable advance until that whole part of the country was burning, with the wagons and the immigrants right in the middle of the inferno.\n\nThe sky overhead was black as midnight from the smoke and the clouds, but the plains and the hills were lit up by the blazes so it looked like the landscape of hell. Jamie wheeled Sundown and saw that the wagons had come to a stop. So had the men who had attacked the Blackfeet. Everyone realized that they were trapped. There was no way out.\n\nThey had come so far only to meet a fiery death days before the holiest time of the year.\n\nJamie rode back to the wagons, not getting in any hurry. His eyes searched the landscape around him, what he could see between the clouds of smoke, anyway. He didn't see any sign of the Blackfeet. Any of them who had survived the battle had either been swallowed up by the fire or managed to find a way out, so they were on the other side of the flames and no longer a threat.\n\nSeeing quite a few people gathered beside the Bingham wagon, Jamie headed for them. He dismounted, and the crowd parted to reveal Jess Neville lying on the ground with his head pillowed on Savannah's lap. She was crying. Bodie and Hector knelt on either side of Jess. Burly, bearded Hector was bawling like a baby.\n\n\"D-don't worry about it,\" Jess said in a weak voice.\n\nJamie hadn't noticed him being wounded before, but Jess's coat was pulled back and the shirt underneath it was sodden with blood.\n\nJess went on. \"The way I look at it... I'm finally gonna get plenty of... rest now.\"\n\nHector took his cousin's hand and held it tightly. He said in a voice choked with emotion, \"That's right, Jess. You just rest. You... you've got it comin'.\"\n\n\"Yeah... just a nice long... sleep...\" Jess's eyes closed, and a final sigh came from him.\n\nBodie reached over and squeezed Hector's shoulder. \"I'm sorry, Hector. He was a heck of a fine fella.\"\n\nMoses came up behind Hector. The young rabbi had a bruise forming on his jaw, courtesy of Jamie's fist earlier. He rested a hand on Hector's other shoulder. \"He died trying to save us all. No man could ask for a more honorable end.\"\n\n\"I reckon not,\" Hector agreed with a heavy sigh. He lifted his head and looked around. \"But it won't be long before all of us are crossing over the divide, will it?\"\n\nOne of the men burst out, \"I can't stand this! We're all going to burn to death! I won't let that happen to my wife and kids. Where's my gun? I... I'll end it for all of us!\"\n\nJamie grabbed the man's arm and jerked him around. \"No, you won't. Nobody's going to give up hope. Not yet.\"\n\n\"But we're trapped,\" someone else said. \"The fire's all around us. We can't get away.\"\n\n\"No, but look at the smoke,\" Jamie insisted. He had just noticed something. \"It's going almost straight up now. That means the wind isn't blowing as hard. If the wind's not blowing as hard, the fire won't move as fast.\"\n\n\"So it gets here in fifteen minutes instead of five,\" one of the men said bitterly. \"What difference does that make?\"\n\n\"That's ten more minutes to say good-bye,\" Jamie said. And ten more minutes to hope for a miracle, he thought.\n\nHe was a pragmatic man, always had been. He looked at life as it was, not as he wished it could be. He had stared death in the face on many, many occasions. He knew that when his time was up, his days on earth were going to come to an end.\n\nBut he also knew that when that time came, he would lie down for his eternal rest next to his beloved Kate. They would be together again, never to be separated. He knew that with every fiber of his being\u2014which meant that it couldn't be the end. It just couldn't.\n\nBlamed if he could see any way out, though.\n\nHe stood there as the immigrants slowly dispersed, going back to their wagons to be with their families for what they believed would be their final minutes on earth. He saw Bodie huddling with Savannah, Alexander, and Abigail.\n\n\"You reckon this is the end of the trail?\" Preacher asked from beside him.\n\nJamie looked over at the old mountain man and shook his head. \"No. For some reason, I don't.\"\n\n\"Neither do I,\" said Smoke, who came up on Preacher's other side. \"I've still got too much to do.\"\n\nAudie said, \"We all know Preacher here is just too stubborn to die.\"\n\n\"Ummm,\" Nighthawk added.\n\nThey stood there together, five of the more formidable fighting men the West had ever known. Between them they had killed hundreds of badmen, had risked their lives to protect the innocent countless times, had seen things and done things that few other men ever had. Even though Smoke Jensen was still young, he was one of them as much as any man could be. It was bred into his blood. If Smoke survived, Jamie was sure he would go on to carve the most illustrious career of them all.\n\nThe flames crept closer.\n\n\"Dang, I'm sure glad we got to fight side by side again, you ol' hoss,\" Preacher said.\n\n\"I am, too,\" Jamie whispered.\n\nSomething touched his cheek.\n\nHe lifted his head. It wasn't an ember that had come swirling down from the sky to land on his rugged face. That would have been hot. The thing that had touched his cheek was... cold. Then he felt another and another.\n\nPreacher said, \"What in tarnation?\"\n\nJamie looked up into the sky and saw more of the fat white flakes, heavy with moisture as they tumbled down from the heavens. Dozens, no, hundreds, thousands, millions, were falling almost straight down because there was no wind, already blanketing the ground.\n\nA smile spread across his face. \"It's snowing.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 64",
                "text": "It wasn't a blizzard, but the snow fell so thickly that it was hard to see more than a few feet ahead. At first, the terrific heat of the fire melted the snow as it fell and vaporized the water, but there were just too many flakes. When the flames reached the unburned ground that was covered with a couple inches of snow, they couldn't go any farther. Soon they began to sizzle and go out.\n\nThe danger was over. It might not be Christmas yet, Jamie reflected as he stood with his friends and watched their salvation piling up whitely on the ground, but it was sure close enough to call it a Christmas miracle.\n\nMoses, Bodie, Savannah, and the Bradford children came to stand with the frontier men. Jamie rested a big hand on Moses's shoulder. \"You were the most valuable fighter of us all, amigo.\"\n\n\"How do you figure that?\"\n\n\"You fought for us with your prayers.\" Jamie swept his other hand at the deepening snow. \"If this isn't an answered prayer, I don't know what is.\"\n\nBy morning, the snow was a couple feet deep, completely blanketing the landscape so that there was only a vast expanse of pristine white around the wagon train. The ugly swath of black, burned ground was hidden underneath the snow.\n\nJamie worried that if the drifts got much deeper, the wagons wouldn't be able to move. They would be stuck there, maybe for weeks.\n\nThe snow stopped falling not long after dawn. It would slow the wagons' progress, but it wouldn't stop them. They could still push on to Eagle Valley.\n\nThe immigrants took half a day to bury Jess Neville and the other men who had been killed in the fighting. Some of the bodies were badly burned from the prairie fire, which made the grisly task even worse. It wasn't easy chipping graves out of the frozen ground, but they did it.\n\nWith the sun starting to peek through the thinning overcast, they moved on, bound for their new homes.\n\nLate in the afternoon of December 24, 1873, Jamie Ian MacCallister reined Sundown to a halt at the top of a saddle between two hills and looked down into a broad, fairly level valley bounded by wooded slopes on the north and south. The valley stretched for fifteen miles before more hills gradually rose into the snowcapped peaks looming over it. A twisting line of trees showed the course of the stream that meandered through the valley. Frozen over now, come spring it would thaw and water the land, turning it into a verdant oasis. Protected from the worst of winter's storms by the heights around it and fertile in the summer, Eagle Valley was one of the prettiest places Jamie had ever seen. It would make a fine home for the pilgrims in the wagon train rolling slowly up the trail behind him.\n\nHe looked to his right and saw a lone pine tree growing there. Snow dusted its branches. A smile spread slowly across his weather-beaten face as he looked at the tree.\n\nBodie rode up to him. \"What are you thinking, Jamie?\"\n\n\"I'm thinking we'll camp right here tonight. It's Christmas Eve, and there's our tree. We'll celebrate here and thank the Good Lord for getting us this far.\"\n\n\"That's a fine idea,\" Bodie agreed. \"I'll go tell the others.\" He turned his horse and rode back to the wagons.\n\nJamie stayed where he was, resting his hands on the saddle horn, easing weary bones and muscles. He looked up at the mountains and the towering vault of sky above them. \"I figured it was loco, starting out with those pilgrims so late in the year, but that was Your plan all along, wasn't it? You got us through, and now You'll watch over these folks while they make their homes here. I'm glad I could be a part of it.\"\n\nThe children improvised decorations and tied them to the branches of the little pine tree. Everyone gathered around that evening and sang hymns and Christmas carols. As the strains of \"Silent Night\" drifted out across the valley, Jamie walked over to Moses, who stood watching silently.\n\n\"Must be sort of hard on you, seeing them like this when your faith doesn't agree with what they're doing,\" Jamie commented.\n\n\"Hard?\" Moses smiled and shook his head. \"Not at all. I'm happy for them. They have their beliefs to sustain them, just as I have mine. The differences... well, right now they're not as important as the things we all have in common. Love one another, your scriptures say, and that's what matters the most.\"\n\n\"Remember when I told you you'd do to ride the river with, Moses? I reckon that's more true than ever.\"\n\n\"And you as well, my friend. We've been to see the elephant together, haven't we, Jamie?\"\n\nJamie laughed and slapped Moses on the back. \"You're learning, amigo. You're learning.\"\n\nThey were still standing there a few minutes later when Bodie and Savannah came over to them. Bodie shook hands with Jamie and Moses. \"We've got a favor to ask of you, Moses.\"\n\n\"Anything,\" Moses answered without hesitation.\n\n\"We'd like for you to perform our wedding tomorrow,\" Savannah said.\n\n\"A Christmas Day wedding?\" Moses said, smiling. \"Well, that should be easy for you to remember.\"\n\n\"We figure we'd better be married,\" Bodie said, \"since we're adopting Alexander and Abigail. I'm not sure how we'll go about doing that legally, but\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't worry about that,\" Jamie said. \"I've got friends in the territorial capital. We'll see to it that it gets done. I don't reckon a piece of paper will make much difference, though. In all the ways that count, you two are already mother and father to those kids.\"\n\nSavannah said, \"I don't want them to ever forget their real parents. Reverend Bradford had his faults, but he loved them and I'm sure their mother did, too. They'll grow up knowing that.\"\n\n\"They won't have to worry about knowing they're loved,\" Moses said. \"I think you and Bodie will handle that just fine.\"\n\n\"So you'll do it?\" Bodie said. \"You'll perform the ceremony?\"\n\n\"Of course. Tomorrow, before everyone spreads out across the valley to find their homesteads. It's my Christmas gift to the both of you.\"\n\nMost of the snow from several days earlier had melted, but there were still patches of white here and there, enough to make the valley beautiful on Christmas morning. Jamie was up early, as usual, and was sipping a cup of coffee when Preacher came up and helped himself to a cup from the pot sitting at the edge of one of the campfires.\n\n\"Well, you done it,\" the old mountain man said. \"Got them pilgrims here by Christmas.\"\n\n\"With a lot of help from you and Smoke.\"\n\n\"I got a hunch you'd have brought 'em through somehow even if we hadn't come along. I'm glad we got to help out, though.\" Preacher sipped the hot, strong brew. \"As soon as ol' Bodie gets hisself hitched to that pretty little Savannah gal, Smoke and me are gonna be movin' on. We got places to go.\" He paused. \"Varmints to kill.\"\n\n\"I could give you a hand with that,\" Jamie suggested.\n\nPreacher shook his head. \"Nope, but I'm obliged for the offer. This is just too personal. The fellas we're after killed Smoke's daddy. Score like that, an hombre's got to settle his own self. I'll do my best to help him catch up to those murderin' skunks, but once he does, he'll want to take 'em on alone.\"\n\n\"I reckon I can understand that,\" Jamie said.\n\n\"How about you? I recollect how fiddle-footed you can be. You'll be movin' on, too?\"\n\n\"Maybe when winter's over,\" Jamie mused. \"Reckon I'll stay long enough to see to it that these folks get established all right. And then come spring, I'd like to make sure Moses gets to where he's going. He has a calling of his own he needs to answer.\" Jamie thought of something else. \"What about Audie and Nighthawk?\"\n\n\"Those two are gone already.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"It's true,\" Preacher said with a nod. \"They drifted out last night. Audie said they was gonna spend Christmas in the high country, then maybe winter with Nighthawk's people.\"\n\nJamie shook his head. \"Wish I could've told them so long.\"\n\n\"That's just it with them two,\" Preacher said with a chuckle. \"They'll turn up again one o' these days. They got a habit of showin' up when their friends need 'em.\"\n\nAt mid-morning, the immigrants began assembling in the center of the camp for the wedding. Bodie had no suit, but he had cleaned up his clothes as best he could. Savannah left the Bingham wagon wearing a white dress that Leticia had altered to fit her. Bodie stood with Moses, waiting for her, a big smile on his face.\n\nSavannah stopped short as she started to walk up the aisle formed by the gathered immigrants. With a worried frown on her face, she asked, \"Where are Alexander and Abigail?\" She raised her voice. \"Bodie, where are the children? I thought they were with you.\"\n\n\"I thought they were with you.\" Bodie started toward Savannah. \"Where in the world\u2014\"\n\n\"Right here,\" a man's harsh voice called out.\n\nTall, powerfully built, and ugly, he stepped out from behind one of the wagons with his right hand clamped around Alexander's arm, his left holding Abigail equally cruelly. Behind him loomed a large group of men bristling with guns. \"And unless you want them to die on Christmas Day, Miss McCoy is coming with us.\"\n\nJamie, Preacher, and Smoke stood to one side. Bodie had taken his gun off for the wedding, but they were all packing two irons apiece, as usual. They couldn't slap leather with those kids in the line of fire, though.\n\n\"Kane!\" Savannah gasped. \"Kane sent you! You're the man who tried to kidnap me before!\"\n\nThe big stranger grinned, but that didn't make him any less ugly. \"That's right. It's taken us a long time to catch up to you.\" He glanced at two of the men with him. \"My so-called guides didn't really know where they were going, after all. But this time I'll be taking you back to the boss, just like I promised.\"\n\nJamie recognized Keeler and Holcomb, the former scouts. Somehow the treacherous varmints had thrown in with Gideon Kane's men, he thought.\n\nHector growled, \"Jamie, what do you want us to do?\"\n\n\"Have everybody back off,\" Jamie ordered. \"If bullets start to fly, we want as many folks out of the way as possible.\"\n\nHector prodded the immigrants back, leaving a rough triangle with Jamie, Preacher, and Smoke at one corner, Bodie and Moses at another, and Savannah, the two youngsters, and the gunmen at the final point.\n\nMoses suddenly stepped forward, putting himself between Jamie and his companions and the hired killers. He held his hands up and said quickly, \"Let's all just settle down here. It's Christmas Day. A holy day for these people. We don't want any bloodshed or violence.\"\n\n\"There doesn't have to be, as long as Miss McCoy comes with us,\" the leader of the gunmen said.\n\nMoses came closer, still with his hands lifted beseechingly. \"Please be reasonable. You can't expect to come in here and steal a bride away from her groom.\"\n\n\"We're taking her,\" the man grated. \"No matter who we have to kill do to it.\"\n\nMoses sighed. \"I was hoping I could get through to you, talk some sense to you. I really hoped it wouldn't come to this.\"\n\nThe man sneered at him. \"You're some sort of sky pilot, aren't you? What the hell are you gonna do?\"\n\n\"This,\" Moses said softly.\n\nHe launched himself into a diving tackle. His arms, already spread out, went around Alexander and Abigail and jolted them loose from their captor, knocking them to the ground. As he shielded the children with his body he cried out, \"Now, Jamie!\"\n\nThe hired killers already had their guns out. They were completely ruthless men, eager to slay without conscience or hesitation.\n\nBut they were facing Jamie Ian MacCallister, Preacher, and Smoke Jensen.\n\nThey never had a chance.\n\nIt was a gun battle that would be talked about in that part of the country for years, even decades. Less than two hundred people actually witnessed it, and of those, many caught only brief, chaotic glimpses because they were too busy ducking for cover as shots rang out. But even so, over time thousands of people told friends or children or grandkids about how, yep, they were there when Jamie, Preacher, and Smoke faced thirty hired killers. Or forty. Or a hundred, depending on how the story got inflated. The important thing was Jamie, Preacher, and Smoke all suffered wounds that laid them up for a while.\n\nAnd all the gunmen who had come to kidnap Savannah died.\n\nThe stuff of powder smoke legends, to be sure... but only one more adventure in the lives of those three frontiersmen.\n\nWhen the guns had fallen silent, the wounds had been bound up, and the dead dragged away, a man and a woman stood together and pledged their love for each other, in front of God and their friends, and for two young children, that union and the family it created proved to be the greatest Christmas gift they ever received."
            },
            {
                "title": "EPILOGUE",
                "text": "[ Montana, 1947 ]\n\nAlexander Cantrell sighed.\n\nBeside him, his sister Abigail said, \"Are you all right, Alex? Are you having a touch of that angina again?\"\n\nAlexander shook his head. Mere moments had passed, although to him it was as if he had traveled back in time seventy-four years. He looked down at the graves of his parents. \"I was just remembering again.\"\n\n\"The wagon train?\"\n\n\"Yep. And everything that happened on the way up here.\"\n\nAbigail shivered. \"Some of those times were awful, like when the Indians got us. And that terrible fire... I never saw anything like it.\"\n\n\"I thought about those things,\" Alexander said, \"but mostly I thought about Ma and Pa... and the Reverend... and Moses...\"\n\n\"And Jamie,\" Abigail whispered.\n\n\"And Jamie,\" Alexander agreed.\n\nAlthough it still seemed hard to believe, less than three years after that fateful Christmas Day, Jamie Ian MacCallister was dead, struck down in 1876 by bushwhackers who had mistaken him for his son, the famous gunfighter Falcon MacCallister. When they had heard that awful news in Eagle Valley, Bodie had wanted to strap on his guns and leave the Diamond C ranch to track down Jamie's murderers. Hector Gilworth, Lamar Hendricks, and a number of the other settlers in the valley had been ready to saddle up and go with him.\n\nBefore that could happen, they got word that Falcon had wreaked his bloody judgment on the killers. Jamie's death was avenged, and he slumbered peacefully, eternally, under the earth of his home range, next to his beloved wife Kate.\n\nFrom time to time, they had gotten news of Smoke Jensen, too, and knew how the young man had settled the score for the death of his father. For many years, Smoke continued to be the deadliest gunfighter the West had ever known... but he was also a devoted family man, marrying twice, raising a whole passel of children and grandchildren, and establishing one of the finest ranches in Colorado.\n\nAs for Preacher... well, for a time he had been thought to be dead, but as it turned out, the old mountain man was too tough to kill. His friends in Eagle Valley never did know for sure what happened to him. For all Alexander knew, Preacher was still out there somewhere, roaming the wild places and getting into one scrape after another. That idea was pretty farfetched, of course. Downright impossible, in fact. But when Alexander thought about Preacher... well, it was hard to rule out anything completely.\n\nMoses Danzig had visited the Diamond C now and then and enjoyed the time spent with his old friends Bodie and Savannah. Cyrus O'Hanlon, who had recovered from the beating he'd received from Kane's men, his wife Dollie, and the rest of the troupe had come to Montana, too, and performed in the Opera House in Billings. Savannah had joined them for one night and thoroughly enjoyed being an actress again, but that was enough. She had an even better life on the ranch, she told her old friends, being married to Bodie and raising a fine pair of twins, although she and Bodie were never blessed with children of their own.\n\nAlexander's parents never spoke of Gideon Kane, but years later, giving in to curiosity, Alexander had looked into the situation and found out what had happened to the man from Kansas City. He remembered Jamie saying something ominous about paying a visit to Kane, but that hadn't come about. Some woman whose affections Kane had spurned had killed him in February 1874, sticking a knife in his chest. As far as Alexander was concerned, it was a more merciful end than the lowdown snake deserved.\n\nThe farms and ranches in Eagle Valley were some of the best in the territory, and then later, in the state, and the Diamond C was the best of them all. Years passed, and Alexander and Abigail grew to adulthood, married fine partners, and raised families of their own. Some of those children and grandchildren had brought them out to the old burying ground on the ranch.\n\nIt was the tenth anniversary of Bodie Cantrell's death. His beloved wife Savannah had gone to be with the Lord a couple years before that. Alexander missed them every day. He would for the rest of his life, however much of it was still allotted to him.\n\nHe took off his hat as Abigail leaned over and placed one bouquet of flowers on her father's grave and another on her mother's. Bodie and Savannah had adopted them, but as Jamie had once said, the piece of paper didn't matter nearly as much as the love, and they always had that.\n\nOh, they had that.\n\n\"Dad...? We'd probably better be starting back to town.\"\n\nAlexander nodded, tightened his arm around his sister's shoulders for a moment, and then put his hat on. He turned and told his son, \"You're right, Jamie. Let's go. Come along, Abigail.\"\n\n\"You think we can make it home without the Indians getting us?\"\n\n\"I reckon,\" Alexander said.\n\nThey walked away, cradled in the memories of days gone by, of days when true heroes walked the earth under the big Montana sky."
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "title": "A Christmas Carol",
        "author": "Charles Dickens",
        "genres": [
            "Christmas",
            "19th century"
        ],
        "tags": [],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "MARLEY'S GHOST",
                "text": "Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door\u2013nail.\n\nMind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door\u2013nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin\u2013nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will, therefore, permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door\u2013nail.\n\nScrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.\n\nThe mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle\u2013aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot\u2014say St. Paul's Church\u2013yard, for instance\u2014literally to astonish his son's weak mind.\n\nScrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him.\n\nOh! but he was a tight\u2013fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self\u2013contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog\u2013days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.\n\nExternal heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often \"came down\" handsomely and Scrooge never did.\n\nNobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, \"My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?\" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and, when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, \"No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!\"\n\nBut what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call \"nuts\" to Scrooge.\n\nOnce upon a time\u2014of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve\u2014old Scrooge sat busy in his counting\u2013house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The City clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already\u2014it had not been light all day\u2014and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that, although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that nature lived hard by and was brewing on a large scale.\n\nThe door of Scrooge's counting\u2013house was open, that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal\u2013box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed.\n\n\"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!\" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.\n\n\"Bah!\" said Scrooge. \"Humbug!\"\n\nHe had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.\n\n\"Christmas a humbug, uncle!\" said Scrooge's nephew. \"You don't mean that, I am sure?\"\n\n\"I do,\" said Scrooge. \"Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.\"\n\n\"Come, then,\" returned the nephew gaily. \"What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough.\"\n\nScrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, \"Bah!\" again; and followed it up with \"Humbug!\"\n\n\"Don't be cross, uncle!\" said the nephew.\n\n\"A Merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!\" cried a cheerful voice.\n\n\"What else can I be,\" returned the uncle, \"when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas\u2013time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books, and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,\" said Scrooge indignantly, \"every idiot who goes about with \"Merry Christmas\" on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!\"\n\n\"Uncle!\" pleaded the nephew.\n\n\"Nephew!\" returned the uncle sternly, \"keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.\"\n\n\"Keep it!\" repeated Scrooge's nephew. \"But you don't keep it.\"\n\n\"Let me leave it alone, then,\" said Scrooge. \"Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!\"\n\n\"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,\" returned the nephew; \"Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas\u2013time, when it has come round\u2014apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that\u2014as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut\u2013up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow\u2013passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!\"\n\nThe clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever.\n\n\"Let me hear another sound from you,\" said Scrooge, \"and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker, sir,\" he added, turning to his nephew. \"I wonder you don't go into Parliament.\"\n\n\"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to\u2013morrow.\"\n\nScrooge said that he would see him\u2014\u2014Yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.\n\n\"But why?\" cried Scrooge's nephew. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Why did you get married?\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"Because I fell in love.\"\n\n\"Because you fell in love!\" growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. \"Good afternoon!\"\n\n\"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?\"\n\n\"Good afternoon,\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?\"\n\n\"Good afternoon!\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!\"\n\n\"Good afternoon,\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"And A Happy New Year!\"\n\n\"Good afternoon!\" said Scrooge.\n\nHis nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned them cordially.\n\n\"There's another fellow,\" muttered Scrooge, who overheard him: \"my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam.\"\n\nThis lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.\n\n\"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe,\" said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. \"Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?\"\n\n\"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,\" Scrooge replied. \"He died seven years ago, this very night.\"\n\n\"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner,\" said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.\n\nIt certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word \"liberality\" Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.\n\n\"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,\" said the gentleman, taking up a pen, \"it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.\"\n\n\"Are there no prisons?\" asked Scrooge.\n\n\"Plenty of prisons,\" said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.\n\n\"And the Union workhouses?\" demanded Scrooge. \"Are they still in operation?\"\n\n\"They are. Still,\" returned the gentleman, \"I wish I could say they were not.\"\n\n\"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"Both very busy, sir.\"\n\n\"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,\" said Scrooge. \"I am very glad to hear it.\"\n\n\"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,\" returned the gentleman, \"a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?\"\n\n\"Nothing!\" Scrooge replied.\n\n\"You wish to be anonymous?\"\n\n\"I wish to be left alone,\" said Scrooge. \"Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned\u2014they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.\"\n\n\"Many can't go there; and many would rather die.\"\n\n\"If they would rather die,\" said Scrooge, \"they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides\u2014excuse me\u2014I don't know that.\"\n\n\"But you might know it,\" observed the gentleman.\n\n\"It's not my business,\" Scrooge returned. \"It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!\"\n\nSeeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.\n\nMeanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards, as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there. The cold became intense. In the main street, at the corner of the court, some labourers were repairing the gas\u2013pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water\u2013plug being left in solitude, its overflowings suddenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the shops, where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with which it was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and blood\u2013thirsty in the streets, stirred up to\u2013morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.\n\nFoggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good St. Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol; but, at the first sound of:\n\n\u2003God bless you, merry gentleman,\n\n\u2003May nothing you dismay!\n\nScrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog, and even more congenial frost.\n\nAt length the hour of shutting up the counting\u2013house arrived. With an ill\u2013will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.\n\n\"You'll want all day to\u2013morrow, I suppose?\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"If quite convenient, sir.\"\n\n\"It's not convenient,\" said Scrooge, \"and it's not fair. If I was to stop half\u2013a\u2013crown for it, you'd think yourself ill used, I'll be bound?\"\n\nThe clerk smiled faintly.\n\n\"And yet,\" said Scrooge, \"you don't think me ill used when I pay a day's wages for no work.\"\n\nThe clerk observed that it was only once a year.\n\n\"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty\u2013fifth of December!\" said Scrooge, buttoning his great\u2013coat to the chin. \"But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning.\"\n\nThe clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no great\u2013coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas\u2013eve, and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman's buff.\n\nScrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide\u2013and\u2013seek with other houses, and have forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough; for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.\n\nNow, it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the City of London, even including\u2014which is a bold word\u2014the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley since his last mention of his seven\u2013years'-dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change\u2014not a knocker, but Marley's face.\n\nMarley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow, as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath of hot air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face, and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression.\n\nAs Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.\n\nTo say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.\n\nHe did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said, \"Pooh, pooh!\" and closed it with a bang.\n\nThe sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above, and every cask in the wine merchant's cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs: slowly, too: trimming his candle as he went.\n\nYou may talk vaguely about driving a coach and six up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter\u2013bar towards the wall, and the door towards the balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. Half\u2013a\u2013dozen gas\u2013lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip.\n\nUp Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But, before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that.\n\nSitting\u2013room, bedroom, lumber\u2013room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing\u2013gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumber\u2013room as usual. Old fire\u2013guard, old shoes, two fish baskets, washing\u2013stand on three legs, and a poker.\n\nQuite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing\u2013gown and slippers, and his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take his gruel.\n\nIt was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fire\u2013place was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters, Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter\u2013boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley's head on every one.\n\n\"Humbug!\" said Scrooge; and walked across the room.\n\nAfter several turns he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated, for some purpose now forgotten, with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that, as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.\n\nThis might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased, as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below, as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.\n\nThe cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.\n\n\"It's humbug still!\" said Scrooge. \"I won't believe it.\"\n\nHis colour changed, though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, \"I know him! Marley's Ghost!\" and fell again.\n\nThe same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights, and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat\u2013skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash\u2013boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.\n\nScrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now.\n\nNo, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death\u2013cold eyes; and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before; he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses.\n\n\"How now!\" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. \"What do you want with me?\"\n\n\"Much!\"\u2014Marley's voice, no doubt about it.\n\n\"Who are you?\"\n\n\"Ask me who I was.\"\n\n\"Who were you, then?\" said Scrooge, raising his voice. \"You're particular, for a shade.\" He was going to say \"to a shade,\" but substituted this, as more appropriate.\n\n\"In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.\"\n\n\"Can you\u2014can you sit down?\" asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him.\n\n\"I can.\"\n\n\"Do it, then.\"\n\nScrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt that, in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the Ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fire\u2013place, as if he were quite used to it.\n\n\"You don't believe in me,\" observed the Ghost.\n\n\"I don't,\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your own senses?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"Why do you doubt your senses?\"\n\n\"Because,\" said Scrooge, \"a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!\"\n\nScrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel in his heart by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his terror; for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.\n\nTo sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence, for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was something very awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal atmosphere of his own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven.\n\n\"You see this toothpick?\" said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.\n\n\"I do,\" replied the Ghost.\n\n\"You are not looking at it,\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"But I see it,\" said the Ghost, \"notwithstanding.\"\n\n\"Well!\" returned Scrooge, \"I have but to swallow this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you; humbug!\"\n\nAt this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror when the phantom, taking off the bandage round his head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!\n\nScrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.\n\n\"Mercy!\" he said. \"Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?\"\n\n\"Man of the worldly mind!\" replied the Ghost, \"do you believe in me or not?\"\n\n\"I do,\" said Scrooge. \"I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?\"\n\nTo sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence, for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him.\n\n\"It is required of every man,\" the Ghost returned, \"that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow\u2013men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world\u2014oh, woe is me!\u2014and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!\"\n\nAgain the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.\n\n\"You are fettered,\" said Scrooge, trembling. \"Tell me why?\"\n\n\"I wear the chain I forged in life,\" replied the Ghost. \"I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free\u2013will, and of my own free\u2013will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?\"\n\nScrooge trembled more and more.\n\n\"Or would you know,\" pursued the Ghost, \"the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas\u2013eves ago. You have laboured on it since. It is a ponderous chain!\"\n\nScrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable, but he could see nothing.\n\n\"Jacob!\" he said imploringly. \"Old Jacob Marley, tell me more! Speak comfort to me, Jacob!\"\n\n\"I have none to give,\" the Ghost replied. \"It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our counting\u2013house\u2014mark me;\u2014in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money\u2013changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!\"\n\nIt was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his knees.\n\n\"You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,\" Scrooge observed in a business\u2013like manner, though with humility and deference.\n\n\"Slow!\" the Ghost repeated.\n\n\"Seven years dead,\" mused Scrooge. \"And travelling all the time?\"\n\n\"The whole time,\" said the Ghost. \"No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse.\"\n\n\"You travel fast?\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"On the wings of the wind,\" replied the Ghost.\n\n\"You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years,\" said Scrooge.\n\nThe Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.\n\n\"Oh! captive, bound, and double\u2013ironed,\" cried the phantom, \"not to know that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed! Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness! Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused! Yet such was I! Oh, such was I!\"\n\n\"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,\" faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.\n\n\"Business!\" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. \"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!\"\n\nIt held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.\n\n\"At this time of the rolling year,\" the spectre said, \"I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow\u2013beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me?\"\n\nScrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.\n\n\"Hear me!\" cried the Ghost. \"My time is nearly gone.\"\n\n\"I will,\" said Scrooge. \"But don't be hard upon me! Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!\"\n\n\"How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.\"\n\nIt was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.\n\n\"That is no light part of my penance,\" pursued the Ghost. \"I am here to\u2013night to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.\"\n\n\"You were always a good friend to me,\" said Scrooge. \"Thankee!\"\n\n\"You will be haunted,\" resumed the Ghost, \"by Three Spirits.\"\n\nScrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.\n\n\"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?\" he demanded in a faltering voice.\n\n\"It is.\"\n\n\"I\u2014I think I'd rather not,\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"Without their visits,\" said the Ghost, \"you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to\u2013morrow when the bell tolls One.\"\n\n\"Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?\" hinted Scrooge.\n\n\"Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third, upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!\"\n\nWhen it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head as before. Scrooge knew this by the smart sound its teeth made when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.\n\nThe apparition walked backward from him; and, at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that, when the spectre reached it, it was wide open. It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.\n\nNot so much in obedience as in surprise and fear; for, on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self\u2013accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.\n\nScrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.\n\nThe air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below upon a doorstep. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.\n\nWhether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and the night became as it had been when he walked home.\n\nScrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was double locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say \"Humbug!\" but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose, went straight to bed without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant."
            },
            {
                "title": "THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS",
                "text": "When Scrooge awoke it was so dark, that, looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour.\n\nTo his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!\n\nHe touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve, and stopped.\n\n\"Why, it isn't possible,\" said Scrooge, \"that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!\"\n\nThe idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing\u2013gown before he could see anything; and could see very little then. All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, because \"Three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order,\" and so forth, would have become a mere United States security if there were no days to count by.\n\nScrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and, the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought.\n\nMarley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, \"Was it a dream or not?\"\n\nScrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was, perhaps, the wisest resolution in his power.\n\nThe quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.\n\n\"Ding, dong!\"\n\n\"A quarter past,\" said Scrooge, counting.\n\n\"Ding, dong!\"\n\n\"Half past,\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"Ding, dong!\"\n\n\"A quarter to it,\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"Ding, dong!\"\n\n\"The hour itself,\" said Scrooge triumphantly, \"and nothing else!\"\n\nHe spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.\n\nThe curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half\u2013recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.\n\nIt was a strange figure\u2014like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white, as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand: and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.\n\nEven this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For, as its belt sparkled and glittered, now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And, in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.\n\n\"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?\" asked Scrooge.\n\n\"I am!\"\n\nThe voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if, instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.\n\n\"Who and what are you?\" Scrooge demanded.\n\n\"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.\"\n\n\"Long Past?\" inquired Scrooge; observant of its dwarfish stature.\n\n\"No. Your past.\"\n\nPerhaps Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.\n\n\"What!\" exclaimed the Ghost, \"would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow?\"\n\nScrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully \"bonneted\" the Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there.\n\n\"Your welfare!\" said the Ghost.\n\nScrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately:\n\n\"Your reclamation, then. Take heed!\"\n\nIt put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm.\n\n\"Rise! and walk with me!\"\n\nIt would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing\u2013gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, was not to be resisted. He rose: but, finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped its robe in supplication.\n\n\"I am a mortal,\" Scrooge remonstrated, \"and liable to fall.\"\n\n\"Bear but a touch of my hand there,\" said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, \"and you shall be upheld in more than this!\"\n\nAs the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with the snow upon the ground.\n\n\"Good Heaven!\" said Scrooge, clasping his hands together as he looked about him. \"I was bred in this place. I was a boy here!\"\n\nThe Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long forgotten!\n\n\"Your lip is trembling,\" said the Ghost. \"And what is that upon your cheek?\"\n\nScrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.\n\n\"You recollect the way?\" inquired the Spirit.\n\n\"Remember it!\" cried Scrooge with fervour; \"I could walk it blindfold.\"\n\n\"Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!\" observed the Ghost. \"Let us go on.\"\n\n\"You recollect the way?\" inquired the spirit. \"Remember it!\" cried Scrooge with fervour; \"I could walk it blindfold.\"\n\nThey walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every gate, and post, and tree, until a little market\u2013town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it.\n\n\"These are but shadows of the things that have been,\" said the Ghost. \"They have no consciousness of us.\"\n\nThe jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them? Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past? Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at cross\u2013roads and by\u2013ways for their several homes? What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?\n\n\"The school is not quite deserted,\" said the Ghost. \"A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.\"\n\nScrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.\n\nThey left the high\u2013road by a well\u2013remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weather\u2013cock surmounted cupola on the roof and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes: for the spacious offices were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach\u2013houses and sheds were overrun with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state within; for, entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthly savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle\u2013light, and not too much to eat.\n\nThey went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he had used to be.\n\nNot a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the half\u2013thawed water\u2013spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.\n\nThe Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.\n\n\"Why, it's Ali Baba!\" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. \"It's dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas\u2013time when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine,\" said Scrooge, \"and his wild brother, Orson; there they go! And what's his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the gate of Damascus; don't you see him? And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii: there he is upon his head! Serve him right! I'm glad of it. What business had he to be married to the Princess?\"\n\nTo hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the City, indeed.\n\n\"Why, it's Ali Baba!\" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. \"It's dear old honest Ali Baba.\"\n\n\"There's the Parrot!\" cried Scrooge. \"Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the island. \"Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe?\" The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!\"\n\nThen, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, \"Poor boy!\" and cried again.\n\n\"I wish,\" Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: \"but it's too late now.\"\n\n\"What is the matter?\" asked the Spirit.\n\n\"Nothing,\" said Scrooge. \"Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something: that's all.\"\n\nThe Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying, as it did so, \"Let us see another Christmas!\"\n\nScrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought about Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct: that everything had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.\n\nHe was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and, with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.\n\nIt opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, and, putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her \"dear, dear brother.\"\n\n\"I have come to bring you home, dear brother!\" said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. \"To bring you home, home, home!\"\n\n\"Home, little Fan?\" returned the boy.\n\n\"Yes!\" said the child, brimful of glee. \"Home for good and all. Home for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home's like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you're to be a man!\" said the child, opening her eyes; \"and are never to come back here; but first we're to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world.\"\n\n\"You are quite a woman, little Fan!\" exclaimed the boy.\n\nShe clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but, being too little, laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loath to go, accompanied her.\n\nA terrible voice in the hall cried, \"Bring down Master Scrooge's box, there!\" and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments of those dainties to the young people: at the same time sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of \"something\" to the postboy who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but, if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good\u2013bye right willingly; and, getting into it, drove gaily down the garden sweep; the quick wheels dashing the hoar frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.\n\n\"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered,\" said the Ghost. \"But she had a large heart!\"\n\n\"So she had,\" cried Scrooge. \"You're right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!\"\n\n\"She died a woman,\" said the Ghost, \"and had, as I think, children.\"\n\n\"One child,\" Scrooge returned.\n\n\"True,\" said the Ghost. \"Your nephew!\"\n\nScrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, \"Yes.\"\n\nAlthough they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here, too, it was Christmas\u2013time again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up.\n\nThe Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it.\n\n\"Know it!\" said Scrooge. \"Was I apprenticed here?\"\n\nThey went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller, he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement:\n\n\"Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart, it's Fezziwig alive again!\"\n\nOld Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out, in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:\n\n\"Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!\"\n\nScrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice.\n\n\"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!\" said Scrooge to the Ghost. \"Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!\"\n\n\"Yo ho, my boys!\" said Fezziwig. \"No more work to\u2013night. Christmas\u2013eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up,\" cried old Fezziwig with a sharp clap of his hands, \"before a man can say Jack Robinson!\"\n\nYou wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it! They charged into the street with the shutters\u2014one, two, three\u2014had 'em up in their places\u2014four, five, six\u2014barred 'em and pinned 'em\u2014seven, eight, nine\u2014and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like race\u2013horses.\n\n\"Hilli\u2013ho!\" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk with wonderful agility. \"Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here! Hilli\u2013ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!\"\n\nClear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball\u2013room as you would desire to see upon a winter's night.\n\nIn came a fiddler with a music\u2013book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomachaches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin the baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, any how and every how. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, \"Well done!\" and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But, scorning rest upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran\u2013new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.\n\nThere were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince\u2013pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him!) struck up \"Sir Roger de Coverley.\" Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking.\n\nBut if they had been twice as many\u2014ah! four times\u2014old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and curtsy, cork\u2013screw, thread\u2013the\u2013needle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig \"cut\"\u2014cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger.\n\nWhen the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side the door, and, shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter in the back\u2013shop.\n\nDuring the whole of this time Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear.\n\n\"A small matter,\" said the Ghost, \"to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.\"\n\n\"Small!\" echoed Scrooge.\n\nThe Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig; and, when he had done so, said:\n\n\"Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?\"\n\n\"It isn't that,\" said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter self. \"It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.\"\n\nHe felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" asked the Ghost.\n\n\"Nothing particular,\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"Something, I think?\" the Ghost insisted.\n\n\"No,\" said Scrooge, \"no. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all.\"\n\nHis former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open air.\n\n\"My time grows short,\" observed the Spirit. \"Quick!\"\n\nThis was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall.\n\nHe was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourning dress: in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past.\n\n\"It matters little,\" she said softly. \"To you, very little. Another idol has displaced me; and, if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.\"\n\n\"What Idol has displaced you?\" he rejoined.\n\n\"A golden one.\"\n\n\"This is the even\u2013handed dealing of the world!\" he said. \"There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!\"\n\n\"You fear the world too much,\" she answered gently. \"All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?\"\n\n\"What then?\" he retorted. \"Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you.\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"Am I?\"\n\n\"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor, and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made you were another man.\"\n\n\"I was a boy,\" he said impatiently.\n\n\"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,\" she returned. \"I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you.\"\n\n\"Have I ever sought release?\"\n\n\"In words. No. Never.\"\n\n\"In what, then?\"\n\n\"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us,\" said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him, \"tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!\"\n\nHe seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition in spite of himself. But he said, with a struggle, \"You think not.\"\n\n\"I would gladly think otherwise if I could,\" she answered. \"Heaven knows! When I have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were free to\u2013day, to\u2013morrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl\u2014you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were.\"\n\nHe was about to speak; but, with her head turned from him, she resumed.\n\n\"You may\u2014the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will\u2014have pain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!\"\n\nShe left him, and they parted.\n\n\"Spirit!\" said Scrooge, \"show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?\"\n\n\"One shadow more!\" exclaimed the Ghost.\n\n\"No more!\" cried Scrooge. \"No more! I don't wish to see it. Show me no more!\"\n\nBut the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next.\n\nThey were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and, for the precious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value.\n\nBut now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately ensued that she, with laughing face and plundered dress, was borne towards it in the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter! The scaling him, with chairs for ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown\u2013paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round the neck, pummel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package was received! The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying\u2013pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike. It is enough that by degrees, the children and their emotions got out of the parlour, and, by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house, where they went to bed, and so subsided.\n\nAnd now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring\u2013time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.\n\n\"Belle,\" said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, \"I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.\"\n\n\"Who was it?\"\n\n\"Guess!\"\n\n\"How can I? Tut, don't I know?\" she added in the same breath, laughing as he laughed. \"Mr. Scrooge.\"\n\n\"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe.\"\n\n\"Spirit!\" said Scrooge in a broken voice, \"remove me from this place.\"\n\n\"I told you these were shadows of the things that have been,\" said the Ghost. \"That they are what they are, do not blame me!\"\n\n\"Remove me!\" Scrooge exclaimed. \"I cannot bear it!\"\n\nHe turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.\n\n\"Leave me! Take me back! Haunt me no longer!\"\n\nIn the struggle\u2014if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost, with no visible resistance on its own part, was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary\u2014Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the extinguisher cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head.\n\nThe Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but, though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light, which streamed from under it in an unbroken flood upon the ground.\n\nHe was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed before he sank into a heavy sleep."
            },
            {
                "title": "THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS",
                "text": "Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger dispatched to him through Jacob Marley's intervention. But, finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own hands, and, lying down again, established a sharp look\u2013out all round the bed. For he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise and made nervous.\n\nGentlemen of the free\u2013and\u2013easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time of day, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch\u2013and\u2013toss to manslaughter; between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and a rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.\n\nNow, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing; and consequently, when the bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to think\u2014as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too\u2014at last, I say, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly, and shuffled in his slippers to the door.\n\nThe moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed.\n\nIt was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney as that dull petrifaction of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking\u2013pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince\u2013pies, plum\u2013puddings, barrels of oysters, red\u2013hot chestnuts, cherry\u2013cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth\u2013cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge as he came peeping round the door.\n\n\"Come in!\" exclaimed the Ghost. \"Come in! and know me better, man!\"\n\nScrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and, though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.\n\n\"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,\" said the Spirit. \"Look upon me!\"\n\nScrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.\n\n\"You have never seen the like of me before!\" exclaimed the Spirit.\n\n\"Never,\" Scrooge made answer to it.\n\n\"Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?\" pursued the Phantom.\n\n\"I don't think I have,\" said Scrooge. \"I am afraid I have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?\"\n\n\"More than eighteen hundred,\" said the Ghost.\n\n\"A tremendous family to provide for,\" muttered Scrooge.\n\nThe Ghost of Christmas Present rose.\n\n\"Spirit,\" said Scrooge submissively, \"conduct me where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. To\u2013night, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.\"\n\n\"Touch my robe!\"\n\nScrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.\n\nHolly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snow\u2013storms.\n\nThe house\u2013fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace, in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.\n\nFor, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball\u2014better\u2013natured missile far than many a wordy jest\u2014laughing heartily if it went right, and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot\u2013bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown\u2013faced, broad\u2013girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung\u2013up mistletoe. There were pears and apples clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags, and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant\u2013blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.\n\nThe Grocers'! oh, the Grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers\u2013on feel faint, and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly\u2013decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh, that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.\n\nBut soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged, from scores of by\u2013streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and, taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice, when there were angry words between some dinner\u2013carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good\u2013humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas\u2013day. And so it was! God love it, so it was!\n\nIn time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners, and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.\n\n\"Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?\" asked Scrooge.\n\n\"There is. My own.\"\n\n\"Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?\" asked Scrooge.\n\n\"To any kindly given. To a poor one most.\"\n\n\"Why to a poor one most?\" asked Scrooge.\n\n\"Because it needs it most.\"\n\n\"Spirit!\" said Scrooge after a moment's thought. \"I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment.\"\n\n\"I!\" cried the Spirit.\n\n\"You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,\" said Scrooge; \"wouldn't you?\"\n\n\"I!\" cried the Spirit.\n\n\"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day,\" said Scrooge. \"And it comes to the same thing.\"\n\n\"I seek!\" exclaimed the Spirit.\n\n\"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"There are some upon this earth of yours,\" returned the Spirit, \"who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill\u2013will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us, and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.\"\n\nScrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that, notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.\n\nAnd perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and, on the threshold of the door, the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen \"Bob\" a week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four\u2013roomed house!\n\nThen up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice\u2013turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap, and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and, getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and, basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan lid to be let out and peeled.\n\n\"What has ever got your precious father, then?\" said Mrs. Cratchit. \"And your brother, Tiny Tim? And Martha warn't as late last Christmas\u2013day by half an hour!\"\n\n\"Here's Martha, mother!\" said a girl, appearing as she spoke.\n\n\"Here's Martha, mother!\" cried the two young Cratchits. \"Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!\"\n\n\"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!\" said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.\n\n\"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night,\" replied the girl, \"and had to clear away this morning, mother!\"\n\n\"Well! never mind so long as you are come,\" said Mrs. Cratchit. \"Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!\"\n\n\"No, no! There's father coming,\" cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. \"Hide, Martha, hide!\"\n\nSo Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!\n\n\"Why, where's our Martha?\" cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.\n\n\"Not coming,\" said Mrs. Cratchit.\n\n\"Not coming!\" said Bob with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. \"Not coming upon Christmas\u2013day!\"\n\nMartha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash\u2013house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.\n\n\"And how did little Tim behave?\" asked Mrs. Cratchit when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.\n\n\"As good as gold,\" said Bob, \"and better. Somehow, he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas\u2013day who made lame beggars walk and blind men see.\"\n\nBob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.\n\nHis active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs\u2014as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby\u2014compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round, and put it on the hob to simmer, Master Peter and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.\n\nSuch a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course\u2014and, in truth, it was something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and, mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving\u2013knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long\u2013expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!\n\nThere never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits, in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone\u2014too nervous to bear witnesses\u2014to take the pudding up, and bring it in.\n\nSuppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back\u2013yard and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose\u2014a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.\n\nHallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing\u2013day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating\u2013house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered\u2014flushed, but smiling proudly\u2014with the pudding, like a speckled cannon\u2013ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half\u2013a\u2013quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.\n\nOh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that, now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.\n\nAt last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle.\n\nThese held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:\n\n\"A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!\"\n\nWhich all the family re\u2013echoed.\n\n\"God bless us every one!\" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.\n\nHe sat very close to his father's side, upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.\n\n\"Spirit,\" said Scrooge with an interest he had never felt before, \"tell me if Tiny Tim will live.\"\n\n\"I see a vacant seat,\" replied the Ghost, \"in the poor chimney\u2013corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" said Scrooge. \"Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.\"\n\n\"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,\" returned the Ghost, \"will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.\"\n\nScrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.\n\n\"Man,\" said the Ghost, \"if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be that, in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!\"\n\nScrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and, trembling, cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily on hearing his own name.\n\n\"Mr. Scrooge!\" said Bob. \"I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!\"\n\n\"The Founder of the Feast, indeed!\" cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. \"I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it.\"\n\n\"My dear,\" said Bob, \"the children! Christmas\u2013day.\"\n\n\"It should be Christmas\u2013day, I am sure,\" said she, \"on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!\"\n\n\"My dear!\" was Bob's mild answer. \"Christmas\u2013day.\"\n\n\"I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's,\" said Mrs. Cratchit, \"not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy New Year! He'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!\"\n\nThe children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes.\n\nAfter it had passed away they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five\u2013and\u2013sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed to\u2013morrow morning for a good long rest; to\u2013morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord \"was much about as tall as Peter\"; at which Peter pulled up his collars so high, that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by\u2013and\u2013by they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.\n\nThere was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being waterproof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawn\u2013broker's. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.\n\nBy this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms was wonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. There, all the children of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were shadows on the window blinds of guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur\u2013booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw them enter\u2014artful witches, well they knew it\u2014in a glow!\n\nBut, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires half\u2013chimney high. Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach! The very lamp\u2013lighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamp\u2013lighter that he had any company but Christmas.\n\nAnd now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial\u2013place or giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed; or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse, rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and, frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.\n\n\"What place is this?\" asked Scrooge.\n\n\"A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,\" returned the Spirit. \"But they know me. See!\"\n\nA light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children's children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song; it had been a very old song when he was a boy; and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and, so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.\n\nThe Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and, passing on above the moor, sped whither? Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.\n\nBuilt upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of seaweed clung to its base, and storm\u2013birds\u2014born of the wind, one might suppose, as seaweed of the water\u2014rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.\n\nBut, even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them, the elder too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figure\u2013head of an old ship might be, struck up a sturdy song that was like a gale in itself.\n\nAgain the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea\u2014on, on\u2014until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look\u2013out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas\u2013day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for one another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.\n\nIt was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew's, and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability!\n\n\"Ha, ha!\" laughed Scrooge's nephew. \"Ha, ha, ha!\"\n\nIf you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blessed in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.\n\nIt is a fair, even\u2013handed, noble adjustment of things, that, while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good\u2013humour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way, holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions, Scrooge's niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends, being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.\n\n\"Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!\"\n\n\"He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!\" cried Scrooge's nephew. \"He believed it, too!\"\n\n\"More shame for him, Fred!\" said Scrooge's niece indignantly. Bless those women! they never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest.\n\nShe was very pretty; exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised\u2013looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed\u2014as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory!\n\n\"He's a comical old fellow,\" said Scrooge's nephew, \"that's the truth; and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.\"\n\n\"I'm sure he is very rich, Fred,\" hinted Scrooge's niece. \"At least, you always tell me so.\"\n\n\"What of that, my dear?\" said Scrooge's nephew. \"His wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it. He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking\u2014ha, ha, ha!\u2014that he is ever going to benefit Us with it.\"\n\n\"I have no patience with him,\" observed Scrooge's niece. Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.\n\n\"Oh, I have!\" said Scrooge's nephew. \"I am sorry for him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself always. Here he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us. What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner.\"\n\n\"Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,\" interrupted Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamp\u2013light.\n\n\"Well! I am very glad to hear it,\" said Scrooge's nephew, \"because I haven't any great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?\"\n\nTopper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister\u2014the plump one with the lace tucker, not the one with the roses\u2014blushed.\n\n\"Do go on, Fred,\" said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. \"He never finishes what he begins to say! He is such a ridiculous fellow!\"\n\nScrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and, as it was impossible to keep the infection off, though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar, his example was unanimously followed.\n\n\"I was only going to say,\" said Scrooge's nephew, \"that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it\u2014I defy him\u2014if he finds me going there in good temper, year after year, and saying, \"Uncle Scrooge, how are you?\" If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that's something; and I think I shook him yesterday.\"\n\nIt was their turn to laugh, now, at the notion of his shaking Scrooge. But, being thoroughly good\u2013natured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle, joyously.\n\nAfter tea they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew what they were about when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and played, among other tunes, a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding\u2013school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the things that Ghost had shown him came upon his mind; he softened more and more; and thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley.\n\nBut they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After awhile they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a game at blindman's buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire\u2013irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping up against the piano, smothering himself amongst the curtains, wherever she went, there went he! He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did) on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not. But when, at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape, then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head\u2013dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck, was vile, monstrous! No doubt she told him her opinion of it when, another blind man being in office, they were so very confidential together behind the curtains.\n\nScrooge's niece was not one of the blindman's buff party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very great, and, to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as Topper could have told you. There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for, wholly forgetting, in the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed right, too, for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to be.\n\nThe Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But this the Spirit said could not be done.\n\n\"Here is a new game,\" said Scrooge. \"One half\u2013hour, Spirit, only one!\"\n\nIt was a game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa, and stamp. At last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:\n\n\"I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!\"\n\n\"What is it?\" cried Fred.\n\n\"It's your uncle Scro\u2013o\u2013o\u2013o\u2013oge!\"\n\nWhich it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to \"Is it a bear?\" ought to have been \"Yes\": inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way.\n\n\"He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,\" said Fred, \"and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment; and I say, \"Uncle Scrooge!\"\n\n\"Well! Uncle Scrooge!\" they cried.\n\n\"A merry Christmas and a happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!\" said Scrooge's nephew. \"He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge!\"\n\nUncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.\n\nMuch they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick\u2013beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and gaol, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.\n\nIt was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the Christmas holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together. It was strange, too, that, while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a children's Twelfth\u2013Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey.\n\n\"Are spirits' lives so short?\" asked Scrooge.\n\n\"My life upon this globe is very brief,\" replied the Ghost. \"It ends to\u2013night.\"\n\n\"To\u2013night!\" cried Scrooge.\n\n\"To\u2013night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.\"\n\nThe chimes were ringing the three\u2013quarters past eleven at that moment.\n\n\"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,\" said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, \"but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?\"\n\n\"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,\" was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. \"Look here.\"\n\nFrom the foldings of its robe it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.\n\n\"Oh, Man! look here! Look, look, down here!\" exclaimed the Ghost.\n\nThey were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.\n\nScrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.\n\n\"Spirit! are they yours?\" Scrooge could say no more.\n\n\"They are Man's,\" said the Spirit, looking down upon them. \"And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!\" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. \"Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!\"\n\n\"Have they no refuge or resource?\" cried Scrooge.\n\n\"Are there no prisons?\" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. \"Are there no workhouses?\"\n\nThe bell struck Twelve.\n\nScrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and, lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming like a mist along the ground towards him."
            },
            {
                "title": "THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS",
                "text": "The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.\n\nIt was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible, save one outstretched hand. But for this, it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.\n\nHe felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.\n\n\"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?\" said Scrooge.\n\nThe Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.\n\n\"You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,\" Scrooge pursued. \"Is that so, Spirit?\"\n\nThe upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received.\n\nAlthough well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to recover.\n\nBut Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror to know that, behind the dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black.\n\n\"Ghost of the Future!\" he exclaimed, \"I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But, as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?\"\n\nIt gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.\n\n\"Lead on!\" said Scrooge. \"Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!\"\n\nThe phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along.\n\nThey scarcely seemed to enter the City; for the City rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. But there they were in the heart of it; on 'Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often.\n\nThe Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk.\n\n\"No,\" said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, \"I don't know much about it either way. I only know he's dead.\"\n\n\"When did he die?\" inquired another.\n\n\"Last night, I believe.\"\n\n\"Why, what was the matter with him?\" asked a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff\u2013box. \"I thought he'd never die.\"\n\n\"God knows,\" said the first with a yawn.\n\n\"What has he done with his money?\" asked a red\u2013faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey\u2013cock.\n\n\"I haven't heard,\" said the man with the large chin, yawning again. \"Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to me. That's all I know.\"\n\nThis pleasantry was received with a general laugh.\n\n\"It's likely to be a very cheap funeral,\" said the same speaker; \"for, upon my life, I don't know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a party, and volunteer?\"\n\n\"I don't mind going if a lunch is provided,\" observed the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. \"But I must be fed if I make one.\"\n\nAnother laugh.\n\n\"Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,\" said the first speaker, \"for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye!\"\n\nSpeakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the Spirit for an explanation.\n\nThe Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie here.\n\nHe knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of business: very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a business point of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view.\n\n\"How are you?\" said one.\n\n\"How are you?\" returned the other.\n\n\"Well!\" said the first. \"Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?\"\n\n\"So I am told,\" returned the second. \"Cold, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Seasonable for Christmas\u2013time. You are not a skater, I suppose?\"\n\n\"No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!\"\n\nNot another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their parting.\n\nScrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but, feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of any one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could apply them. But nothing doubting that, to whomsoever they applied, they had some latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these riddles easy.\n\nHe looked about in that very place for his own image, but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and, though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and thought and hoped he saw his new\u2013born resolutions carried out in this.\n\nQuiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied, from the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel very cold.\n\nThey left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its situation and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched; the people half naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of smell, and dirt, and life upon the straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth and misery.\n\nFar in this den of infamous resort, there was a low\u2013browed, beetling shop, below a pent\u2013house roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal were bought. Upon the floor within were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a charcoal stove made of old bricks, was a grey\u2013haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age, who had screened himself from the cold air without by a frouzy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters hung upon a line, and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement.\n\nScrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too, and she was closely followed by a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight of them than they had been upon the recognition of each other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh.\n\n\"Let the charwoman alone to be the first!\" cried she who had entered first. \"Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here's a chance! If we haven't all three met here without meaning it!\"\n\n\"You couldn't have met in a better place,\" said old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth. \"Come into the parlour. You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other two an't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. Ah! How it skreeks! There an't such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's no such old bones here as mine. Ha! ha! We're all suitable to our calling, we're well matched. Come into the parlour. Come into the parlour.\"\n\nThe parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The old man raked the fire together with an old stair\u2013rod, and, having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night) with the stem of his pipe, put it into his mouth again.\n\nWhile he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at the other two.\n\n\"What odds, then? What odds, Mrs. Dilber?\" said the woman. \"Every person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did!\"\n\n\"That's true, indeed!\" said the laundress. \"No man more so.\"\n\n\"Why, then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, woman! Who's the wiser? We're not going to pick holes in each other's coats, I suppose?\"\n\n\"No, indeed!\" said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. \"We should hope not.\"\n\n\"Very well, then!\" cried the woman. \"That's enough. Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose?\"\n\n\"No, indeed,\" said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.\n\n\"If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old screw,\" pursued the woman, \"why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself.\"\n\n\"It's the truest word that ever was spoke,\" said Mrs. Dilber, \"It's a judgment on him.\"\n\n\"I wish it was a little heavier judgment,\" replied the woman; \"and it should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. We knew pretty well that we were helping ourselves before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe.\"\n\nBut the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil\u2013case, a pair of sleeve\u2013buttons, and a brooch of no great value, were all. They were severally examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found that there was nothing more to come.\n\n\"That's your account,\" said Joe, \"and I wouldn't give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who's next?\"\n\nMrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two old\u2013fashioned silver tea\u2013spoons, a pair of sugar\u2013tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner.\n\n\"I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's the way I ruin myself,\" said old Joe. \"That's your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal, and knock off half\u2013a\u2013crown.\"\n\n\"And now undo my bundle, Joe,\" said the first woman.\n\nJoe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it, and, having unfastened a great many knots, dragged out a large heavy roll of some dark stuff.\n\n\"What do you call this?\" said Joe. \"Bed\u2013curtains?\"\n\n\"Ah!\" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms. \"Bed\u2013curtains!\"\n\n\"You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings and all, with him lying there?\" said Joe.\n\n\"Yes, I do,\" replied the woman. \"Why not?\"\n\n\"You were born to make your fortune,\" said Joe, \"and you'll certainly do it.\"\n\n\"I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as He was, I promise you, Joe,\" returned the woman coolly. \"Don't drop that oil upon the blankets, now.\"\n\n\"His blankets?\" asked Joe.\n\n\"Whose else's do you think?\" replied the woman. \"He isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare say.\"\n\n\"I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?\" said old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.\n\n\"Don't you be afraid of that,\" returned the woman. \"I an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah! You may look through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too. They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me.\"\n\n\"What do you call wasting of it?\" asked old Joe.\n\n\"Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure,\" replied the woman with a laugh. \"Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did in that one.\"\n\nScrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and disgust which could hardly have been greater, though they had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself.\n\n\"Ha, ha!\" laughed the same woman when old Joe, producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground. \"This is the end of it, you see! He frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!\"\n\n\"Spirit!\" said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. \"I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way now. Merciful Heaven, what is this?\"\n\nHe recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language.\n\nThe room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed: and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.\n\nScrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it; but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side.\n\nOh, cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved, revered, and honoured head thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy, and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand WAS open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal!\n\nNo voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard dealing, griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly!\n\nHe lay, in the dark, empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child to say he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth\u2013stone. What they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.\n\n\"Spirit!\" he said, \"this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!\"\n\nStill the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head.\n\n\"I understand you,\" Scrooge returned, \"and I would do it if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have not the power.\"\n\nAgain it seemed to look upon him.\n\n\"If there is any person in the town who feels emotion caused by this man's death,\" said Scrooge, quite agonised, \"show that person to me, Spirit! I beseech you.\"\n\nThe Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and, withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were.\n\nShe was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she walked up and down the room; started at every sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock; tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly bear the voices of her children in their play.\n\nAt length the long\u2013expected knock was heard. She hurried to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress.\n\nHe sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him by the fire, and, when she asked him faintly what news (which was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed how to answer.\n\n\"Is it good,\" she said, \"or bad?\" to help him.\n\n\"Bad,\" he answered.\n\n\"We are quite ruined?\"\n\n\"No. There is hope yet, Caroline.\"\n\n\"If he relents,\" she said, amazed, \"there is! Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened.\"\n\n\"He is past relenting,\" said her husband. \"He is dead.\"\n\nShe was a mild and patient creature, if her face spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of her heart.\n\n\"What the half\u2013drunken woman, whom I told you of last night, said to me when I tried to see him and obtain a week's delay, and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me, turns out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill, but dying, then.\"\n\n\"To whom will our debt be transferred?\"\n\n\"I don't know. But, before that time, we shall be ready with the money; and, even though we were not, it would be bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep to\u2013night with light hearts, Caroline!\"\n\nYes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier house for this man's death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure.\n\n\"Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,\" said Scrooge; \"or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just now, will be for ever present to me.\"\n\nThe Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet; and, as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit's house,\u2014the dwelling he had visited before,\u2014and found the mother and the children seated round the fire.\n\nQuiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet!\n\n\"And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them.\"\n\nWhere had Scrooge heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on?\n\nThe mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her face.\n\n\"The colour hurts my eyes,\" she said.\n\nThe colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!\n\n\"They're better now again,\" said Cratchit's wife. \"It makes them weak by candle\u2013light; and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father, when he comes home, for the world. It must be near his time.\"\n\n\"Past it rather,\" Peter answered, shutting up his book. \"But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother.\"\n\nThey were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once:\n\n\"I have known him walk with\u2014I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder very fast indeed.\"\n\n\"And so have I,\" cried Peter. \"Often.\"\n\n\"And so have I,\" exclaimed another. So had all.\n\n\"But he was very light to carry,\" she resumed, intent upon her work, \"and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door!\"\n\nShe hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter\u2014he had need of it, poor fellow\u2014came in. His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got upon his knees, and laid, each child, a little cheek against his face, as if they said, \"Don't mind it, father. Don't be grieved!\"\n\nBob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long before Sunday, he said.\n\n\"Sunday! You went to\u2013day, then, Robert?\" said his wife.\n\n\"Yes, my dear,\" returned Bob. \"I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child!\" cried Bob. \"My little child!\"\n\nHe broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther apart, perhaps, than they were.\n\nHe left the room, and went up\u2013stairs into the room above, which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were signs of some one having been there lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and, when he had thought a little and composed himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what had happened, and went down again quite happy.\n\nThey drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing that he looked a little\u2014\"just a little down, you know,\" said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. \"On which,\" said Bob, \"for he is the pleasantest\u2013spoken gentleman you ever heard, I told him. \"I am heartily sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit,\" he said, \"and heartily sorry for your good wife.\" By\u2013the\u2013bye, how he ever knew that I don't know.\"\n\n\"Knew what, my dear?\"\n\n\"Why, that you were a good wife,\" replied Bob.\n\n\"Everybody knows that,\" said Peter.\n\n\"Very well observed, my boy!\" cried Bob. \"I hope they do. \"Heartily sorry,\" he said, \"for your good wife. If I can be of service to you in any way,\" he said, giving me his card, \"that's where I live. Pray come to me.\" Now, it wasn't,\" cried Bob, \"for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt with us.\"\n\n\"I'm sure he's a good soul!\" said Mrs. Cratchit.\n\n\"You would be sure of it, my dear,\" returned Bob, \"if you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised\u2014mark what I say!\u2014if he got Peter a better situation.\"\n\n\"Only hear that, Peter,\" said Mrs. Cratchit.\n\n\"And then,\" cried one of the girls, \"Peter will be keeping company with some one, and setting up for himself.\"\n\n\"Get along with you!\" retorted Peter, grinning.\n\n\"It's just as likely as not,\" said Bob, \"one of these days; though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But, however and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim\u2014shall we\u2014or this first parting that there was among us?\"\n\n\"Never, father!\" cried they all.\n\n\"And I know,\" said Bob, \"I know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how mild he was, although he was a little, little child, we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it.\"\n\n\"No, never, father!\" they all cried again.\n\n\"I am very happy,\" said little Bob, \"I am very happy!\"\n\nMrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from God!\n\n\"Spectre,\" said Scrooge, \"something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead?\"\n\nThe Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as before\u2014though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the Future\u2014into the resorts of business men, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.\n\n\"This court,\" said Scrooge, \"through which we hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be in days to come.\"\n\nThe Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.\n\n\"The house is yonder,\" Scrooge exclaimed. \"Why do you point away?\"\n\nThe inexorable finger underwent no change.\n\nScrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before.\n\nHe joined it once again, and, wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering.\n\nA churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man, whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place!\n\nThe Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.\n\n\"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,\" said Scrooge, \"answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of the things that May be only?\"\n\nStill the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.\n\n\"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,\" said Scrooge. \"But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!\"\n\nThe Spirit was immovable as ever.\n\nScrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and, following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE.\n\n\"Am I that man who lay upon the bed?\" he cried upon his knees.\n\nThe finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.\n\n\"No, Spirit! Oh no, no!\"\n\nThe finger still was there.\n\n\"Spirit!\" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, \"hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?\"\n\nFor the first time the hand appeared to shake.\n\n\"Good Spirit,\" he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: \"your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me by an altered life?\"\n\nThe kind hand trembled.\n\n\"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!\"\n\nIn his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.\n\nHolding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost."
            },
            {
                "title": "THE END OF IT",
                "text": "Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in!\n\n\"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!\" Scrooge repeated as he scrambled out of bed. \"The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh, Jacob Marley! Heaven and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!\"\n\nHe was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.\n\n\"They are not torn down,\" cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed\u2013curtains in his arms, \"they are not torn down, rings and all. They are here\u2014I am here\u2014the shadows of the things that would have been may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will!\"\n\nHis hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.\n\n\"I don't know what to do!\" cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laoco\u00f6n of himself with his stockings. \"I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school\u2013boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!\"\n\nHe had frisked into the sitting\u2013room, and was now standing there: perfectly winded.\n\n\"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!\" cried Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fire\u2013place. \"There's the door by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present sat! There's the window where I saw the wandering Spirits! It's all right, it's all true, it all happened. Ha, ha, ha!\"\n\nReally, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!\n\n\"I don't know what day of the month it is,\" said Scrooge. \"I don't know how long I have been among the Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo here!\"\n\nHe was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clash, hammer; ding, dong, bell! Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!\n\nRunning to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sun\u2013light; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious!\n\n\"What's to\u2013day?\" cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.\n\n\"EH?\" returned the boy with all his might of wonder.\n\n\"What's to\u2013day, my fine fellow?\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"To\u2013day!\" replied the boy. \"Why, CHRISTMAS DAY.\"\n\n\"It's Christmas Day!\" said Scrooge to himself. \"I haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!\"\n\n\"Hallo!\" returned the boy.\n\n\"Do you know the Poulterer's in the next street but one, at the corner?\" Scrooge inquired.\n\n\"I should hope I did,\" replied the lad.\n\n\"An intelligent boy!\" said Scrooge. \"A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there?\u2014Not the little prize Turkey: the big one?\"\n\n\"What! the one as big as me?\" returned the boy.\n\n\"What a delightful boy!\" said Scrooge. \"It's a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!\"\n\n\"It's hanging there now,\" replied the boy.\n\n\"Is it?\" said Scrooge. \"Go and buy it.\"\n\n\"Walk\u2013ER!\" exclaimed the boy.\n\n\"No, no,\" said Scrooge, \"I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell 'em to bring it here, that I may give them the directions where to take it. Come back with the man, and I'll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than five minutes, and I'll give you half\u2013a\u2013crown!\"\n\nThe boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast.\n\n\"I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's,\" whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. \"He shan't know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's will be!\"\n\nThe hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one; but write it he did, somehow, and went down\u2013stairs to open the street\u2013door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye.\n\n\"I shall love it as long as I live!\" cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand. \"I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it has in its face! It's a wonderful knocker!\u2014Here's the Turkey. Hallo! Whoop! How are you? Merry Christmas!\"\n\nIt was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped 'em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing\u2013wax.\n\n\"Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town,\" said Scrooge. \"You must have a cab.\"\n\nThe chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried.\n\nShaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when you don't dance while you are at it. But, if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking\u2013plaster over it, and been quite satisfied.\n\nHe dressed himself \"all in his best,\" and at last got out into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present; and, walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good\u2013humoured fellows said, \"Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!\" And Scrooge said often afterwards that, of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.\n\nHe had not gone far when, coming on towards him, he beheld the portly gentleman who had walked into his counting\u2013house the day before, and said, \"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe?\" It sent a pang across his heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it.\n\n\"My dear sir,\" said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and taking the old gentleman by both his hands, \"how do you do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of you. A merry Christmas to you, sir!\"\n\n\"Mr. Scrooge?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Scrooge. \"That is my name, and I fear it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. And will you have the goodness\u2014\u2014\" Here Scrooge whispered in his ear.\n\n\"Lord bless me!\" cried the gentleman, as if his breath were taken away. \"My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?\"\n\n\"If you please,\" said Scrooge. \"Not a farthing less. A great many back\u2013payments are included in it, I assure you. Will you do me that favour?\"\n\n\"My dear sir,\" said the other, shaking hands with him, \"I don't know what to say to such munifi\u2014\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't say anything, please,\" retorted Scrooge. \"Come and see me. Will you come and see me?\"\n\n\"I will!\" cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he meant to do it.\n\n\"Thankee,\" said Scrooge. \"I am much obliged to you. I thank you fifty times. Bless you!\"\n\nHe went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows; and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk\u2014that anything\u2014could give him so much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's house.\n\nHe passed the door a dozen times before he had the courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and did it.\n\n\"Is your master at home, my dear?\" said Scrooge to the girl. Nice girl! Very.\n\n\"Yes sir.\"\n\n\"Where is he, my love?\" said Scrooge.\n\n\"He's in the dining\u2013room, sir, along with mistress. I'll show you up\u2013stairs, if you please.\"\n\n\"Thankee. He knows me,\" said Scrooge, with his hand already on the dining\u2013room lock. \"I'll go in here, my dear.\"\n\nHe turned it gently, and sidled his face in round the door. They were looking at the table (which was spread out in great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see that everything is right.\n\n\"Fred!\" said Scrooge.\n\nDear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started! Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have done it on any account.\n\n\"Why, bless my soul!\" cried Fred, \"who's that?\"\n\n\"It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?\"\n\nLet him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won\u2013der\u2013ful happiness!\n\nBut he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early there! If he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set his heart upon.\n\nAnd he did it; yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the tank.\n\nHis hat was off before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock.\n\n\"Hallo!\" growled Scrooge in his accustomed voice as near as he could feign it. \"What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?\"\n\n\"I am very sorry, sir,\" said Bob. \"I am behind my time.\"\n\n\"You are!\" repeated Scrooge. \"Yes. I think you are. Step this way, sir, if you please.\"\n\n\"It's only once a year, sir,\" pleaded Bob, appearing from the tank. \"It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.\"\n\n\"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,\" said Scrooge. \"I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore,\" he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the tank again: \"and therefore I am about to raise your salary!\"\n\nBob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait\u2013waistcoat.\n\n\"A merry Christmas, Bob!\" said Scrooge with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. \"A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires and buy another coal\u2013scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 6",
                "text": "Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old City knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and, knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.\n\nHe had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total\u2013Abstinence Principle ever afterwards; and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!"
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "title": "(The Fiore Family 3) Christmas with the Sheriff",
        "author": "C. M. Steele",
        "genres": [
            "nsfw",
            "Christmas",
            "mf"
        ],
        "tags": [],
        "chapters": [
            {
                "title": "Mia",
                "text": "\"You have got to be shitting me.\" My GPS recalibrates for the second time in twenty minutes, sending me in a completely different direction. The snow is making it hard to see the road in front of me, including the dividing lines.\n\nOf all the days to get stuck in a snowstorm, it has to be Christmas Eve. It's about an hour until sunset, and with the already slippery roads and the continuous white flakes adding to the chaos, it's probably best that I stop at the first town I see.\n\nI squint my eyes as the wiper blades work double time to smear the white mess out of my field of vision, but it's doing little to no good while I search for any hint of large green metal through all this white. Finally with a sigh of relief, I spot something up ahead.\n\n\u2002Snowfall, New York\n\n\u20021 Mile\n\nHow apropos!\n\nI take the one-mile drive slower than I would prefer. I was planning to drive down to New York City to meet some friends and spend the holidays. It's clearly out of the question this Christmas. Maybe I should have left a day or two earlier instead of changing my plans at the last minute. Instead of enjoying the holidays with those I love, I'm forced to be alone and I have no one to blame but myself. Why did I finally decide to be impulsive? I'm never impulsive.\n\nI wish I'd stayed with my family, but they have their own new families and I feel out of place. Last year my two cousins met their perfect matches, falling madly in love with twin sisters. My brother, Soren, is still single; working hard on the family vineyard is his passion, and he isn't interested in finding love.\n\nI am.\n\nUnfortunately, it's hard to meet men these days, and the ones I have met are either married or not manly enough for me. I need a man like my cousins and brother. Having grown up around them, there's just some shit I can't tolerate. I want a man like I read about and watch on TV\u2014powerful, loving, and strong. Although, none of that will matter if I don't concentrate on the road ahead.\n\nTaking the exit, I come to a long road that has me making a left and going down another barren strip of snow-covered road for another mile before finding a sign that points in two directions. Stone Hill Right, Snowfall Left.\n\nThe sign on the highway had been for Snowfall, so I make the left, hoping that it leads to somewhere with inhabitants. Finally down the road on the left-hand side I spot a gas station. Since my tank is still pretty full and honestly, I just want to get somewhere and park so I'm safe, I continue on into the town. It's quite busy with people milling around despite the falling snow, but then again, living here, it must be common. I creep down the road and squint my eyes, looking for a hotel nearby. It's not a large town, and it looks like I've hit their main street. One light blinks red because it's not even a traffic light, but rather a stop sign.\n\nI make a complete stop and then roll my eyes, and that's when I spot the Snowfall Inn. It's a large building with a rustic feel, and outside is a burly man bundled up in a plaid winter coat shoveling the snow. Smiling, I pull into their small lot, hoping they have a signal and can take a credit card. I'm just glad they're open.\n\nI throw my purse over my shoulder, slip on my winter hat, and step outside of my vehicle, locking it. A blast of icy cold swipes across my face, so I quickly zip my coat and wrap up in my scarf. Locking my car door, I walk toward the sidewalk. Looking around at the small storefronts with snow blanketing the edges of the windowsills, I say, \"Holy shit, I've run straight into a Hallmark movie.\"\n\n\"Well, we do have some good-looking men here,\" a young woman says, stepping alongside of me. I'm glad that I don't scare easily because that was a little too quiet for me, or maybe I was lost in my thoughts. She's got to be about my age, a bit shorter than me if that's possible and as adorable as hell with her chocolate curls and rosy cheeks. \"Although that one is taken.\" She points to the handsome man I noticed when I first arrived. He gives us a look over his shoulder as he hears her speaking about him, smiles, and then he walks into the inn. Wow, yep that man is a looker and a half.\n\n\"Yeah, well, I can see why. Do you know if there is availability at the inn?\" I ask, pointing to where her man was standing.\n\n\"Yes. We don't get many visitors to our small town. Usually those just passing by or families needing extra space for their guests on the holidays.\"\n\n\"The first option would be me. The weather has definitely changed my plans.\" And the fact that I didn't bother to use my brain and got lost didn't help. Hell, I don't know how far south or east from Rochester I am.\n\n\"I'm sorry to hear that, but we have more than enough room at the inn. Do you have any bags?\" she asks, looking down at my empty mitten covered-hands.\n\nI smile and point to my vehicle. \"Oh, yes. I wanted to check in to be sure before I dragged out my suitcase.\"\n\nShe nods with understanding. \"Derek, please help this lady with her bags,\" she says, looking just behind me.\n\n\"Yes, dear.\" I twist my entire body to the sound. The burly man, who I didn't hear, seems to just appear out of nowhere and comes up right beside her. Damn, he moves light as a feather for a man that looks anything but light on his feet.\n\n\"I can get them myself,\" I insist, hating that I'm interrupting his hard work.\n\n\"No. It's no big deal, ma'am.\" He walks over to my vehicle, ignoring my protests and waits.\n\nI nod and pop the trunk, acquiescing because I'm sure he's not going to let me carry my own luggage and frankly I don't want to, but I didn't want to look lazy. He scoops out my Louis Vuitton suitcase and travel bag, but he doesn't make a face or grumble. As a small town, I'm sure they don't like outsiders, especially ones with money. Maybe I've seen one too many movies. Then again, I love me some Christmas movies.\n\nI'm well off, but I'm not rich like my cousins and brother. In fact, my luggage was a Christmas present from my cousin Franco. As his assistant, I make a quarter of a million dollars a year. It's more than I should make as his executive assistant, but when he became injured three years ago, I took on a lot more of his day-to-day, which earned me a large raise. Most of my money's saved up for the day I'm no longer needed. I've saved almost two million dollars which will be for my retirement one day.\n\n\"Come on in.\" The woman takes my arm, hooking it with hers and leading me inside with a smile on her pretty face. She adds, \"Welcome to Snowfall Inn.\" We enter the warm lobby, and I'm surprised by the feel of home. It's wood all around, like a ski lodge, and it's inviting.\n\n\"It's beautiful.\"\n\n\"Thank you. My husband has done so many renovations for me since he moved to Snowfall.\" So he wasn't a local? Interesting. The more I steal glances at the man, I can see he has something dark around him\u2014a hidden secret. I'm betting he's a former assassin or something like that.\n\n\"Oh, well, that's wonderful to have such a sweet man.\" A twinge of jealousy and loneliness fills me. It's been hitting me hard these days, and I hate it. \"So, about the room?\"\n\n\"Yes. I just need some information, and we can help you up there.\" I give her my driver's license and credit card. For being an extremely small town, everything here is full of modern technology and the internet isn't terrible because we finish up pretty quickly.\n\n\"My name is Jenny. I'm the owner along with that handsome man. If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask. We're only a call away. We're off soon, heading home to enjoy the holiday with our family. The local diner is just across the street, and down the road is the grocery store.\n\n\"Thank you.\" They walk me up to my room and unlock my door for me. Derek sets my bags just inside the door but doesn't go in.\n\nJenny steps inside and shows me around just briefly, smiling and shrugging her shoulders like she's nervous. Does she think I won't like this place? It's super cute and cozy. She takes a deep breath and then says, \"So\u2026I know you don't know us, but since you're alone for the holidays, you're more than welcome to join us for dinner tonight.\"\n\n\"Thank you, but I'm good. I wouldn't want to intrude.\"\n\n\"Still, if you are interested, my brother can pick you up after his shift tonight.\"\n\n\"Thank you, but I'll be okay.\" I'm not sure if she's normally this friendly or if she's just in the holiday spirit. Either way, the gesture is kind.\n\n\"You're welcome. It's a pleasure to have you here, Ms. Fiore.\"\n\n\"Call me Mia.\" Most places I go, I prefer Ms. Fiore because it's usually for business purposes, but this town makes me feel like home for some strange reason.\n\n\"I'm Jenny.\" She pauses and rolls her eyes with a quirky smile. \"Oh, wait\u2014totally said that already. It's been a very long day.\" I bet it has. It's still quite early, but she probably gets here at the crack of dawn to keep her inn running smoothly.\n\n\"It's still nice to meet you, Jenny.\"\n\n\"Sweetheart, we have to get going,\" her husband tells her, looking up from his phone that had just chimed.\n\n\"There's only two other guests, and they're visiting family. Remember, here's our number if you need anything. Please don't hesitate.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" She gives me a hug, forgetting herself, which makes me smile. Some people can't help but be friendly, and I could really use that right now. They leave me in my room, and I close the door. An overwhelming feeling of being alone floods my bones the second their footfalls disappear.\n\nI strip out of my winter coat, boots, and hat, setting them on the rack to dry. The large bed in the middle of the room is calling my name, but I want to check out the rest of the features. On the wall next to the large work desk is the list of contacts if needed, as well as the Wi-Fi password. There's a postcard-sized menu for a restaurant in town, probably one of their only ones. It sounds incredible, but I'm not in the mood to eat alone.\n\nMaybe I should have accepted her offer, but I don't know them and who the hell knows what trouble I could get myself into. Thankfully, my phone rings. I make a mad dash to where my coat's hanging and scoop it out of my deep pockets, fumbling until I swipe the green button. \"When are you going to get here?\" Mal asks with a sing-song cadence.\n\nMy bestie, Mal, is the one I'm supposed to be hanging with for the holidays along with her younger sister, Allison. We're close as can be, although we live in different towns. They grew up in Rochester but decided to go to college at NYU and haven't left.\n\n\"I'm not coming. At least not today. I've gotten stuck in a snowstorm, so I had to stop in a small town and get a room for a night or two depending on the conditions.\"\n\n\"Oh goodness. It's not one of those spooky kinds, is it?\"\n\n\"No, Mal. It's actually picturesque. A Christmas village in a snow-globe kind of town.\"\n\n\"Ooh! Any hot lumberjacks to keep you warm?\"\n\nI giggle and plop onto the bed. \"I've only seen one, and he belongs to the innkeeper. They're one hot couple and so sweet. They invited me to join them for Christmas Eve dinner since I was alone.\"\n\n\"Uh-oh. What if they're one of those swinger couples?\"\n\nShe's been in NYC too long; she's forgotten normal people exist. \"I doubt it. The man had his hands on her every single second he was in the room and barely looked at me other than to greet me and it was practically a grunt.\"\n\n\"Well, does he have a brother?\"\n\n\"I don't know, but she was hinting that she has a brother who can bring me there if I change my mind.\" I'm not sure I'd like to meet her brother, but if I'm here for more than a day, I'll probably run into him. This town is small enough that I bet everyone knows each other.\n\n\"Well, fill me in if you find your small-town romance\u2014like the owner of the hardware store with a little one who needs love and tenderness, but you're a busy, hardworking city girl.\"\n\n\"Girl, didn't we watch that movie already?\" I say, tossing my coat onto the chair.\n\n\"Yeah, but you know they'll make three more just like it.\"\n\n\"And we'll still be watching them.\" We love those films like guilty pleasures.\n\n\"Damn right. I miss you, girl.\" My friends and I used to be so close like sisters and these days it gets hard to make time, but we do take vacations together since we don't have men to spend them with.\n\n\"Samesies.\"\n\n\"I wish you were here. Still, Allison and I will drink and toast to you. Maybe on New Year's we can get together if you're not working your ass off for Franco.\"\n\n\"I do have the next two weeks off. He's enjoying the holiday with his family, so I can too.\" It's been a true blessing that Franco has finally married Isabelle because work has taken a backseat to his true happiness.\n\n\"Yay! Girls' night!\" They were happy that my cousin finally came out of his self-induced isolation.\n\n\"Mark it down.\"\n\n\"Have a Merry Christmas, Mia. Call us when you can, and check out the hardware store just for me, please.\"\n\n\"I will. Merry Christmas. Give Ally-Cat a kiss for me and tell her I miss her too.\"\n\n\"Sure thing. Be safe. I have to go before my boss finds my ass on the phone again. He's always on my case.\"\n\n\"Bye, beautiful.\" My friends are completely stunning, and it surprises people because they think we get jealous of each other, but we always fix each other's crowns. I don't know what I'd do without them in my life, even if it's at a distance.\n\nI settle in and then notice the snow's only getting heavier, blanketing the street and sidewalks. \"I better find the hardware store.\" Bundling back up, I fix my lipstick and head down. There's a young guy sitting at the front desk, and he nearly drops his book when he sees me.\n\n\"Hello, ma'am.\" He can't be more than sixteen, and I might have to close his mouth for him because it nearly hit the desk when he looked at me.\n\n\"Hi, I'll be back soon. I just want to check out the town before the weather gets worse.\"\n\n\"Um\u2026yes.\"\n\n\"Do you know where the hardware store is?\"\n\n\"Um\u2026 is there something you need fixed? I'm not as handy as Mr. Black, but I can do a couple of small jobs.\" He winks at me, and I pause. Is this kid flirting with me? No. That can't be right because he's nearly a decade younger.\n\nShaking my head, I answer, \"No. Nothing to fix. I'm just curious.\"\n\n\"Well, it's down the road next to the grocery store.\"\n\n\"Thank you. I'm sorry, I don't know your name.\"\n\n\"Sorry, we don't have name tags around here since most of the guests are family members of the locals. I'm Frank. My uncle owns the hardware store.\"\n\nI nod. \"Cool. It's nice to meet you, Frank.\" I wave as I walk out the door. So his uncle owns the place. I wonder if he's single, or is he happily married too? After all, Mal sent me on a mission to uncover all the hot, single men for her. I shake my head and laugh at myself, which might cause some talk if anyone could see through this wintry mess. Pulling my hat down to cover my ears, I head up the road, passing the grocery store that is about two city blocks away.\n\nOkay\u2014this town is bigger than it appears, but I think I've reached the end of the main road. It's too dark to go roaming, but since I've reached my destination, I might as well stop in. Hank's Hardware has a spray-painted Christmas tree and d\u00e9cor on the front picture window. A feeling of warmth fills me, and then I finally grab the handle and nearly crash into the man from earlier. \"Sorry, sir.\"\n\n\"No problem. Are you okay, Miss Fiore?\"\n\n\"Yeah, my friend wanted me to check out the owner of the hardware store.\" I wink, as if he understands my meaning, which clearly from the look on his face, he's clueless.\n\n\"Check out?\"\n\nI swipe my hand and say, \"Never mind\u2014forget I said anything. It's just silly.\"\n\n\"Okay.\" He shrugs his shoulders and walks away to a running vehicle. Entering the store, I smell the sawdust and metal in the air, reminding me of a construction site. It's strange, because I've only been on a couple in my life. \"How can I help you, miss?\" At the counter stands a seventy-year-old man.\n\n\"Do you have shovels?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he says, pointing to a bunch of them directly beside me. I roll my eyes for sounding like an idiot. I have one in my trunk because you never know when you'll get snowed in during the winter.\n\n\"Um\u2026thanks.\" I grab one, pay for it, and leave. The sun has already set; even if it's early, it feels like the middle of the night. I hate the dark and being alone, but I remember that I'm in Snowfall, so I should be fine.\n\nAs I drop it off at my vehicle, I shoot Mal a text. Hardware store man is like seventy. Sorry.\n\nShit. There goes my dream. *sighs*\n\nBetter luck in the next town.\n\nOne day. Smooches.\n\nGiggling to myself, I tuck my phone back in my pocket and then make my way to the grocery store. Surprisingly, it's not that small. It's not massive either, but it's bigger than the mom-and-pop shop I pictured in my head.\n\nGrabbing a shopping cart, I figure that I'll need stuff for tonight and tomorrow. With the weather and the holiday, I'm not sure I'll be able to have anything to eat. My room has a microwave and a small refrigerator. I hit the fresh fruit section where the sign reads \"locally grown.\" I snag an apple, some grapes, and a pint of strawberries. A clerk stacking the bananas smiles at me, so I return his polite gesture with my own.\n\nI love fruit, but I don't have a place to store it and since I won't be here long, I don't take much. Next, I walk down to the bakery section. It's the holiday, and I'm all alone so I should just grab a single serving, but my eyes linger on the Eli's Cheesecake, and well, I can't help setting it in my cart.\n\nAt least it's freezing out so my car can act as a fridge, or at least that's the lie I plan to use to justify it\u2014although I'm not sure to who. Anyway, I continue my perusal through the store when I see the sugar cookies in the cooler. I hate them, but below is a can of whipped cream. \"What can I get to go with this?\" I ask myself, and then I see it like a golden beacon: the last container of eggnog."
            },
            {
                "title": "Mark",
                "text": "I close my eyes, rubbing my temples. Shift's done, so now I'm off to enjoy a delicious Christmas Eve dinner with my family. My sister and her husband along with their three kids are having their usual gathering. My parents will be there as well. It's going to be a great night, especially when I get my hands on some eggnog. It's my favorite, and we never go without it.\n\n\"Have a Merry Christmas, Sheriff,\" Bethany, my dispatcher, says. She's working until six because she's young. We have little to no crime in our small town, so after that, any calls will be forwarded directly to my work cell phone. We have two deputies and myself, but nothing ever happens here, so we're not too bothered by no one around to man the calls in the actual station.\n\n\"Same to you, Bethany.\" I wave to her before walking out.\n\nI hop in my SUV and ride down to my sister's place. As soon as I pull up to the house, my brother-in-law, Derek, comes out, shrugging his coat onto his shoulders. His eyes widen when he sees me. \"Shit.\"\n\n\"What's up?\" I ask, hoping nothing's wrong.\n\n\"They forgot your eggnog.\"\n\n\"What?\" I bark out like the worn-out, grumpy man that I am. That's definitely not right.\n\n\"Yes. Jenny didn't find it at the store, so she was going to go to the other one in the next town but got distracted, and then the snowstorm came, bringing in a last-minute arrival at the inn.\" I'm not mad at my sister. She's insanely busy, running her inn and raising three small children. I should have picked it up last week when I went grocery shopping, but I forgot and I don't have kids to distract me.\n\n\"It's fine. I'll be back. I'm heading to the general store. Maybe they got some more in since she went.\"\n\n\"Okay, brother. I'm sorry.\" We shake hands. \"I'll tell your sister so she doesn't freak out.\"\n\n\"Sure\u2014don't have her freaking out for nothing. It's cool. I won't be long.\" I rush back to my vehicle and turn out of their driveway. They live fifteen minutes from the store, so hopefully I'll get there and back before the weather doubles down. I have snow tires and chains if necessary, but that doesn't mean I want to spend my evening on the road.\n\nLuckily our town is so small that most people can walk to their homes if needed, and in twenty minutes, all the stores will close early for the holiday. Everything stays open only until six on Christmas Eve, and everything except the gas station is closed tomorrow.\n\nI pull into the lot where there are a few residents making their last-minute purchases and loading their vehicles. Some wave and say a quick greeting before hurrying. It's not the time to dawdle as the holiday is in full swing. I spot the elderly Mr. Cain putting his groceries in the trunk. \"Hello, Mr. Cain. How are you?\"\n\n\"Good, Mark. Did you see there's a pretty little thing that came into Hank's Hardware store? She was alone, and no ring on her finger. I've never seen her before. Maybe you can finally get a wife.\"\n\n\"Thanks, sir, but she's probably just passing through town.\" He's almost eighty and stops by to help his grandson Hank who took over the place when the man got a little too old to do the daily chores.\n\nHank had been living a quiet life away from this town, but no one knew what he did while he was gone. He came back, looking buff and hardened. He doesn't speak much. Never really did, but maybe he'll be interested in the new girl. \"Why didn't you introduce her to Hank?\"\n\n\"I would have, but the boy grumbles and grunts. She's too pretty, too city for a bear.\" Too city? I've heard that one before, and I'll pass. Nothing good about a city girl in these parts because they ain't staying. \"Maybe she'll stay for the festival. She's a real looker with a beautiful smile.\"\n\n\"Understood, sir. Let me get that for you.\" I grab his cart so he doesn't have to walk it back. \"Have a Merry Christmas.\"\n\n\"You, too. Don't forget to look your best tomorrow.\"\n\n\"What are you doing, Pops?\" Hank approaches with his coat open and a grimace on his face. \"I told you that I would do the shopping as soon as I closed up the shop.\"\n\n\"I'm not that old, boy. I can still manage to get by.\" Hank barely contains his frustration. He's worried the old man won't make it long. For whatever he was up to, he loves his grandfather.\n\n\"Well, let me drive you home.\" They live in the family home just outside of our downtown area. Most of the families live just outside of town because our town is small.\n\n\"You need to find a girl. The both of you do.\" He points his finger at both of us.\n\n\"One day,\" we both grunt because I'm a grumpy bear as well.\n\nI shake my head and laugh. \"Have a great holiday. I have to hurry before my sister sends out a search party. See you tomorrow.\" I wave them away and keep moving.\n\n\"That's a good woman. You missed out on her, Hank.\" I turn just in time to see Hank roll his eyes and then help his grandfather into the car. I shake my head again and take the cart inside. I only need one thing, and I'm hoping they have it.\n\nMaking a beeline to the dairy section, I catch sight of the seasonal cooler and a petite redhead, smiling and putting a can of Reddi-Wip into her cart. I get closer and see the last eggnog, but I also get this unfamiliar pain in my chest as my heart slams against my ribcage. Her eyes dart up as if she senses me approaching, and those pretty blues land on me. Fuck\u2026all thoughts of coming in for one thing change. All of a sudden, I've found something I truly need.\n\n\"Hello\u2026\" I say, forgetting how to speak.\n\n\"Hello,\" she replies with a blush on her delicate, pale cheeks. My fingers ache with the need to brush her rosy apples, wondering how truly soft they are.\n\n\"Are you here with someone?\" I ask, wanting to know if I have to find a place to hide a body because a primal urge to eliminate all competition fills my bones.\n\n\"Maybe. Why do you want to know?\" Her brow arches and then she looks me up and down, and not in a flirtatious way but in a cautious way.\n\n\"Because I want to find out if I have to deal with an angry boyfriend. I'm Mark, by the way.\"\n\n\"Mia.\" She doesn't answer my question. Instead, she turns back to the cooler with the last eggnog.\n\n\"Um, that's mine,\" I insist as she wraps her perfectly manicured hand around the container of eggnog. \"I might consider sharing it with you, if you're alone.\"\n\n\"Actually, this one is mine; as you can see, I got it first. Maybe you can ask the manager if there's more,\" she sasses with a smirk.\n\n\"I don't think so, gorgeous.\" I shake my head and smirk. I always get what I want, but never have I wanted someone like her. I don't even need the eggnog anymore. It's little Miss Mia that I need and will have.\n\n\"Well, I do. Excuse me.\" She puts it in her cart and walks away from me. I came for one thing and I'm not leaving without it, even if I have to take matters into my own hands. I follow two steps behind her as she heads to the register. I wait, letting her put all her things on the conveyor belt, but it won't matter because she's not paying for them.\n\n\"Hello, Mark,\" Susie, the cashier, says with a little more flirting in her voice than normal, giving Mia a side-eye. We're nearly the same age, and I never speak to her unless necessary.\n\n\"Hello, Susie.\" As soon as she reads Mia the total, I slip my card into the reader, paying for her groceries.\n\n\"Hey, what are you doing?\" Mia hisses, glaring at me.\n\n\"Paying for the groceries. It's the least I can do,\" I answer with as much sugar in my tone as I can muster.\n\n\"Trying to make me jealous?\" Susie asks, rudely interrupting a conversation she wasn't invited into. \"I wouldn't worry\u2014she'll flee just like Nicki did. City girls can't deal with small-town men.\"\n\nHell, no. I want to say something and put Susie in her place, but my sweet red asks, \"Are you two\u2026\" I can't believe that bitch went there. I could ring her damn neck, but instead, I finish the transaction and shake my head with a seriously hard negative.\n\n\"Mark?\" Mia calls out softly. I give my attention to my future wife. With a wicked grin on her face, she smirks at Susie and then turns back to me. Mia grasps my face and brushing her soft, sexy lips against mine. Growling, I grip her head on both sides and deepen the kiss, unable to control the violent desire to make her mine right on the belt. She pulls back and stares in shock.\n\n\"No, darling. I'm all yours.\" Both women are staring at me looking dumbfounded, but I snatch up the receipt and begin pushing her cart to the door. My girl might have kissed me to piss off Susie and to shut her up, but she wasn't expecting to like it so much, and frankly, neither was I.\n\n\"Hey, what are you doing? Those are mine,\" she cries, coming up behind me and attempting to stop the cart, but my body is too wide and her legs are way shorter than mine.\n\nShe fucked up with that kiss. I could have let her walk away with her number only, but now that's not good enough. \"Technically, they're mine. I paid for them.\"\n\n\"That's total bullshit. Give me my cart or I'll call the police.\" She keeps pace with me, even though I can see she's struggling with my long stride, so I slow down a bit.\n\n\"Go ahead and try, beautiful.\" She digs into her pocket and pulls out her phone. Before she can call, I bend and grab her at the knees, flipping her over my shoulder. \"Put me down, you brute.\" She bangs on my back, so I pretend to loosen my grip which freaks her out, causing her to hold on.\n\n\"Nope. See, we want the same thing, so there's only one option and that's to share it. Since I have to be somewhere, and I'm guessing since I've never seen you in town, you must be the last-minute guest staying at the inn that I heard about. You don't have anywhere to be tonight except with me.\"\n\n\"What? I'm not going anywhere with you. I'm taking my groceries and going to my room,\" she says, pressing a fruitless issue because I'm not letting her little ass get away from me, especially not to spend the holiday alone.\n\n\"So cute.\" I click the button to unlock the doors, and then I use one hand to load the back seat. Carrying my last-minute item, I bring the cart back to the corral before marching her to the passenger side of the SUV. Setting her inside, she attempts to hit me, but I grip her wrists easily.\n\n\"Sweetheart, you're so lucky that I wouldn't do anything to hurt you because you aren't any match for a man wanting to lay his hands on you. I'll need to teach you some safety moves.\"\n\n\"Fuck off. Let me go.\"\n\n\"No. We're going to have a nice family dinner, and you're going to call the sheriff on me.\" I brush her cheek, giving her a wink.\n\n\"Damn right. I am calling.\" She brings out her phone as I close the door, locking it before walking around the front so that she can see me.\n\n\"Snowfall Sheriff's Office, Sheriff Stone speaking.\"\n\nShe gasps on the other end."
            },
            {
                "title": "Mia",
                "text": "You have to be fucking kidding me. I've been kidnapped by the sheriff himself. The bossy, handsome eggnog thief just up and paid for my groceries to claim them as his and then did the same with me. I should be fighting my way out of the vehicle since mine is only down the block, but I don't. Ending the pointless call, I scowl at the bastard.\n\n\"What are you going to do to me?\" I question the second he jumps inside the vehicle with a grin on his handsome face.\n\n\"Depends on what you want me to do to you. I'm thinking that I'll introduce you to my family, and then we'll have a delicious dinner that my sister has prepared while we share this eggnog. Maybe if you're a good girl, I'll have your pussy for dessert.\" I should be repulsed, angry, and yet, I want to climb across the center console and grind on his thick thighs. How is it that he's so sexy? I stare at the six-foot-five, dark-haired, strong man who acts like this is natural.\n\n\"Do you abduct young women all the time?\" I question, since he has no qualms about picking me up like another grocery item in the store.\n\n\"Nope. Never, but I can't let you slip away when I've finally found what I'm looking for.\" My pussy throbs painfully at the sincerity in his voice. \"Sit back and behave. I'm Mark, by the way.\"\n\n\"Yeah. You told me, and your girlfriend repeated.\"\n\n\"She's not my girl. You are.\"\n\n\"I'm not, but does she know you're not with her? She appeared awfully put out with you.\"\n\n\"Our relationship shouldn't bother her, since I've never given her the time of day. Besides, she has a boyfriend, and even if she didn't, I'm not interested. If I was, I sure as fuck wouldn't have picked you up from the store.\"\n\n\"Picked me up? You acted like I was on your grocery list.\"\n\n\"You weren't, until I saw you. You know how it is\u2014you go into a store needing only one thing and come out with more than you planned.\" He smiles and shrugs, driving away from the store like everything is fine. I want to scream that it isn't, but I can't find the words. All I can think about is that I kissed him first.\n\n\"Yeah, but not usually another person.\"\n\n\"Why are you here on Christmas Eve alone?\" he growls out.\n\n\"Not that it's any of your business, but I didn't think it was safe for me to drive in this weather.\" My phone rings, stopping my tirade or any response from him. I pull it out of my coat pocket and notice that it's Franco. A wicked idea comes to mind, and I tilt it enough so he sees that it's a guy on the line.\n\nI answer it, wanting to test the gruff, dirty-mouthed sheriff who doesn't mind breaking the law. \"Hey, Franco. What's going on?\"\n\n\"Where the fuck are you? Fabio told me you weren't coming,\" he growls in his typical fashion. My cousin is so bossy and grumpy. You'd think getting married would have softened him up a bit, but it hasn't, unless it's his wife. She calms and soothes the grumpy beast.\n\n\"Yeah, well, I'm currently in a small town called Snowfall.\"\n\n\"Are you coming home tomorrow?\"\n\n\"Yes, I'll drive there tomorrow.\"\n\n\"You should be here, sweetie.\"\n\nFranco's loud enough for Mark to hear, and he snatches my phone. \"Sorry, but she's with her fianc\u00e9, so she won't be going anywhere for a long time and definitely not to another man.\" He growls as he hangs up.\n\n\"Do you have a death wish?\" I chuckle, taking my phone from the handsome man. Wow, did I get what I asked for. He's everything masculine that I've been craving, and my pulse is wild with need.\n\n\"You think I'm afraid of some ex-boyfriend?\"\n\n\"Ex-boyfriend?\"\n\n\"Yes, because as far as I'm concerned, it's over between you two.\" I giggle harder. Oh my goodness. Ask and you shall receive. \"You think I'm kidding. You kissed me in the middle of the store. I'm pretty sure he'd consider it cheating.\" Wow, my body loves every ounce of that hostility vibrating off him. He's staking his claim\u2026but I suppose I staked mine first. I'm not sure what came over me in the store except that bitch's look of undisguised lust for my man. Yes, he's mine. Or at least he's acting like it.\n\n\"Well, Franco sure wouldn't\u2026\"\n\n\"The hell he wouldn't. No man in his right mind would let you go around kissing other men.\"\n\n\"Franco would, since he's my cousin and boss.\"\n\nHis face flattens for a minute and then he smiles. \"Oh shit.\" Even he laughs to himself, knowing that he's made an ass of himself with my family.\n\nMy phone rings again, and this time it's my brother. \"Hello, Soren.\"\n\n\"Who the fuck are you with?\" There's a growl coming from Mark at the way my brother is snarling on the other end.\n\n\"The local sheriff.\"\n\n\"And who was the asshole saying you're engaged?\"\n\n\"The sheriff,\" I say with a laugh bubbling out of me.\n\n\"Well, then, you sound like you're having fun. He better not be playing with your feelings, or I'll kill him and bury him beneath my grapes.\"\n\n\"We're not getting married, so just chill.\"\n\n\"Yes, we are,\" Mark snarls with his eyes on the road ahead. A flutter of excitement runs through me, but I do my best to hide how much that notion arouses me.\n\nI roll my eyes at Mark. \"I promise that I'm fine.\"\n\n\"Okay. As long as you're safe, I'll let you get back to your holiday, although Mama and Papa will want to meet him.\" That's definitely going to be fun. I don't even know this man aside from what my body wants to believe. It's singing as if it's found its missing half.\n\n\"Yeah, well, we'll see.\"\n\n\"Yes, we will. Merry Christmas, Mia.\"\n\n\"Merry Christmas, Soren.\" I end the call and give Mark a dirty look.\n\n\"You are trouble, Sheriff.\"\n\n\"Just wait until I get you alone.\" He winks and then turns off a long stretch of road and onto a lengthy driveway. The house is a massive country-style home with a wraparound porch.\n\nWe pull up to the front behind another black SUV, and I see the man from the inn shoveling the snow\u2014Jenny's husband, Derek. \"Are you kidding me?\" I laugh even harder.\n\n\"What is it?\" Mark asks as he opens my door to help me out.\n\n\"Oh, it seems you were able to join us,\" Derek says with a grin on his handsome face while Mark steps to my side with a bit more tension than necessary. Seriously, this town is full of good-looking guys. Still, I think Mark's the hottest one, although I don't have much to compare to yet.\n\n\"Yes, it seems your sheriff just doesn't take no for an answer.\" His brows raise, and then he chuckles. \"He kidnapped me from the grocery store because I took the last of the eggnog.\"\n\n\"Uh-oh. You've committed a crime, then, and he has the right to arrest you,\" Derek teases.\n\n\"I tried to tell her, but she wouldn't comply. She assaulted me, and since it's Christmas Eve I couldn't just arrest her, so I was forced to bring her along.\" He rolls his eyes like it was a chore and he was doing it for my benefit. I could kick and kiss him at the same time.\n\n\"Whatever. Don't forget my cheesecake,\" I huff, walking up to the porch, stomping my snowy boots all the way up the steps and onto the mat before entering the large home.\n\n\"Oh my goodness. Who are you?\" An older woman approaches me with a huge smile that is clearly like her daughter's.\n\n\"You made it,\" Jenny cheers, walking into the room with a grin and a glass of wine that she hands to the older woman.\n\n\"Yeah. She begged me to come, so I brought her with me,\" Mark says, stepping inside the house behind me.\n\nI roll my eyes and shake my head again. \"Damn, you're such a liar. This brute kidnapped me because I bought the last eggnog.\"\n\n\"I bought it and you tried to take it from me, so that's stealing and an arrest-able offense.\"\n\nHe's going with that again. I have a feeling I stand no chance with this man when it comes to winning an argument. \"Whatever. Did you bring in my cheesecake?\"\n\n\"Yes, I did, dear.\" He bends down and kisses my cheek before he addresses the older woman. \"Merry Christmas, Mother.\"\n\n\"My boy. It's so good of you to not press charges on the holiday. It wouldn't bode well for a happy marriage.\" She gives him a hug and pats his chest like he's a good boy.\n\n\"Hey, son. Welcome back. Did you get\u2026who is this?\" He looks just like Mark, or I suppose it's the other way around.\n\n\"I picked her up at the grocery store.\"\n\n\"Yeah, quite literally.\" They all look like it's no big deal, so I introduce myself. \"I'm Mia, by the way.\"\n\n\"It's a pleasure to meet you, my dear. I'm James and this is my wife, Audrey.\" They both grin at me and back at Mark who has his hand on the small of my back nearly touching my ass. I almost want to lean into it, but I refrain.\n\nThe tension grows with every second and then his Mark's father clears his throat. \"So, who's ready to eat? I'm starving, and that bird ain't gonna carve itself.\" I think I've entered bizarro-land.\n\n\"Come along, Mia,\" Jenny says. I snatch the cheesecake from Mark with a huff. \"Ooh, that looks good.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm not sharing it with that jerk.\" I give him a dirty look and then follow Jenny into the kitchen.\n\n\"If you want, I can have my husband drive you back to the inn.\" I can tell she doesn't want to, but she wants me to know I have an option no matter what her brother says.\n\nI smile and set the cheesecake platter on the counter. \"No. It's okay. It's not like I have anyone to spend the holidays with. And despite being a brute, your brother is really hot.\"\n\nShe giggles and nods. \"Yeah, but he's a big lug head. He came back from the service a hero, but he's been anti-social. I thought he'd fall for one of the girls here\u2014\"\n\nI cut her off. \"Like Susie.\" I can't hide the jealousy in my voice. That bitch rubbed me the wrong way from the start. Women like that want to start trouble and she sure enough tried, but it didn't seem like Mark gave her any drop of attention. It did make me feel a little less crazy when I kissed him.\n\n\"She's been after him since he filled out in high school, but he's a saint in a sinner's world. They chase, and he ignores. I'm six years younger, and I'm the one married with kids already. He and my husband were buddies in the service.\"\n\n\"Wow, that explains their builds. Do they have any brothers?\" I wag my brows, knowing I don't really care because my heart's set on that idiot out there\u2014or at least my body is.\n\n\"No, but you haven't seen Hank Cain yet, have you? He owns the hardware store.\"\n\nI whip my head back and tilt it, looking at her like she's nuts. \"The old man?\"\n\nShe laughs heartily. \"Damn, you should see your face. No. That's his grandfather. He's young and built like our men out there.\"\n\nMark walks into the room and grabs two beers out of the fridge. \"Damn, he's hot too?\" I say in a loud whisper, attempting to torment my kidnapper sheriff. He deserves it after stealing me away from my night alone, and besides\u2014getting him riled up seems to be a kink for me. Who knew?\n\n\"Who the fuck are you talking about?\" he snarls, setting the beers on the counter. Mark crowds my space, hands bracketing me against the counter, eyes locked onto mine.\n\nWith a smile, I answer, \"None of your business, Sheriff.\"\n\n\"Hank,\" Jenny blurts out, giggling behind me.\n\n\"You stay the fuck away from him,\" he barks.\n\nI lean into him so my breasts are nearly touching his chest. \"What are you going to do to stop me?\"\n\n\"I'd hate to kill the guy. I actually like him.\"\n\n\"I'd hate to see what you're like when it's someone you don't like.\" My voice is shaky with lust and if his sister wasn't in the room, I'd probably be grinding all up on him like a horny teen.\n\n\"Just wait to see if anyone tries to come between us.\" He cups my face and slams his mouth down on mine. Roughly releasing me, he leaves the kitchen.\n\n\"Holy shit. I've never seen him like that. Like ever. Wow. Just wow. I think my brother has lost his mind.\" Why does that make my heart do flips? I should be appalled, but I want more kisses and so much more. The heat that passed between us could have set the room ablaze.\n\n\"He's not the only one.\" I fan myself because I feel like I'm burning up.\n\n\"I can see. You're still here for a reason. Tell me a little about yourself, Mia.\"\n\n\"Well, you know I'm from Rochester. I work for my cousin as his executive assistant. I have two really close friends who live in New York City, and they were the people I was heading down to visit.\"\n\n\"Do you have family besides your cousin and close friends?\"\n\n\"Yes. My parents and brother are in Rochester along with my aunt and uncle and cousins with their babies.\" A vision of Mark holding and protecting our babies comes to mind, and I let out a sigh. I'm getting way ahead of myself.\n\n\"Okay. So do you get along with them?\" She adds some seasonings to the bowl of mashed potatoes.\n\n\"Yes. Of course. I love all of them.\"\n\n\"Sorry. I only ask because you'd rather be with your friends than your family.\"\n\nI shrug. \"It's complicated.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm still glad complicated led you here because my brother has been a grumpy asshole for a long time.\" She points toward the closed door.\n\nI turn to the door like he's just going to be standing there, but he's not. \"Doesn't seem like much has changed.\"\n\n\"Ha. I suppose you have a point, but I've never seen him like that.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Mark",
                "text": "\"Do you have any idea how much trouble you could be in if she decided to file charges?\" my father says as soon as Mia and Jenny leave the room.\n\nI dismiss it with a wave and say, \"The way she kissed me in the store, I doubt she'd press charges.\"\n\n\"She kissed you?\" my mother says, staring wide-eyed with a smile spreading across her face. I can see the wheels turning in her head, preparing for a house full of more grandbabies. My parents want me to be happy more than anything, and I can't say I was truly happy until today. Even now, I want to be thrilled but the fear of her leaving fills my gut.\n\nJust thinking about what preempted her kiss ticks me off. \"Yeah, that stupid broad Susie had to insult Mia by reminding me that Nicki had abandoned me.\"\n\nMy mother's mouth drops open, and a gasp goes around the room. \"What a little bitch! I could choke her myself, but that means that Mia was trying to show something to that bitch in the store.\"\n\nWe all stare at her in shock, but I'm the first to speak. \"Mom, that's the most I've ever heard you curse.\"\n\nShe cups my face and then pinches my cheek. \"Yes. Well, no one hurts my babies and gets away with it, and she knew damn well that saying that would hurt. You're a good man, Mark, and I'm happy to be your mother and will defend you from anyone who dares to upset your peace.\"\n\n\"Honestly, Susie's a narcissist, but I should send her some flowers or some shit because it caused Mia to claim me.\" I'm trying to ignore the trouble Susie stirred up because she has a point. What the fuck am I going to do when Mia tries to leave me?\n\nThe thought immediately sets my teeth on edge. I can't let Mia go. From the second she crossed my path, I knew she belonged with me, to me. I wasn't just warning her family off when I took the phone from her. I'm deadly serious. I've seen a lot, been through a lot, and for the first time in my life, I've found a sense of peace.\n\n\"I need a beer,\" I grumble, running my fingers through my hair that is still a little damp from the snow.\n\n\"Bring me one too,\" my father says. I walk into the kitchen and hear shit that's going to get Jenny on my bad side. Storming out with a warning to Mia and with a taste of her lips and my beers, I hand one over to my dad.\n\n\"We don't know anything about her, but she seems feisty,\" Derek says.\n\n\"Oh yeah. Well, Jenny's telling her about Hank.\"\n\n\"Fucking Hank.\" Derek snarls, flexing his fists. \"I still want to beat his ass for all the times I've heard how he and Jenny should have been together.\"\n\n\"Sorry.\" I know I was one of those people who believed they would make a great couple. Truthfully, it was only to piss off Derek because I knew neither of them were interested in each other. \"Hank's a really fucking good guy, but you're perfect for her, even if you and I haven't always seen eye to eye.\" Derek and I were enemies at one point over the years, having been working for different agencies, but Jenny doesn't know the full story and we'll keep it that way.\n\n\"Yeah.\" Our tension eased up after he fell in love with my sister, and we're brothers now. \"So are you going to string him up by his balls?\"\n\n\"Maybe. It's a strong possibility.\" The thought of the bastard stealing her affections instantly pissed me off.\n\n\"I'm gonna warn Jenny now,\" my mother says. She knows the both of us are extremely serious about harming our friend. Good guy or not, if Mia gives him her smiles, I'll shoot him in the nuts.\n\n\"Smart move, Mom.\" She kisses my cheek.\n\n\"You boys are so cute. Now, set the table for us so we can eat.\" We both move around like we've been ordered by our CO because even though this is Derek's house, he's not crossing my mother and I learned a long time ago to mind my p's and q's.\n\n\"So where are my little niece and nephews at?\" I haven't heard a round of chaos or two since I arrived. My niece and nephews are absolutely adorable, yet they love to have fun. I can't wait to have a horde of little ones with Mia.\n\n\"Napping. The thing about little ones is that you never know when they'll just decide to take a time-out. Of course, it's not when it's the right time.\"\n\n\"Ah the joys of being a kid again.\"\n\n\"That's for sure. Now, since you asked, you can help me bring them down.\" We go upstairs and into the boys' room where my niece, the oldest, is sitting with her feet crossed in her holiday dress.\n\n\"Uncle Mark,\" Lily squeals, scrambling to her feet and running to me. \"I missed you.\" She's four going on twenty.\n\n\"Have you been up for a while, princess?\" Derek asks as she hugs my legs.\n\n\"Yes, Daddy. I was waiting for you to come rescue me from the evil creatures over there. Shh. We must be quiet.\" She presses her finger to her lips, whispering even though she just shouted down the room. Her baby brother is sleeping in the crib across from her, and Jacob is in his play yard, rolling awake.\n\nShe puts her hands on her hips and huffs, \"Great, see what you did, Daddy? We better hurry before they wake.\"\n\n\"Sorry, princess, but your brothers need to join us for dinner. Well, little Dean can stay asleep, but go with Uncle Mark and show Grandma your pretty dress.\" I scoop her up and take her out the door with my finger to my lips.\n\n\"So we have a guest joining us tonight. She's going to be my wife soon,\" I tell her as we hit the top of the stairs.\n\n\"Really? Like Mommy and Daddy.\" Lily speaks fast and learns even faster. They've got their hands full with her. The boys aren't much easier and have his personality already. My sister's a bubbly, sweet, and caring woman, and she married a grumpy asshole. Hopefully the boys take after her, but it's not looking good.\n\n\"And is she having a baby? Mommy's having another baby. Grandma says Daddy loves giving Mommy babies.\" I chuckle because she has no filter. I don't know if it's all kids or just her, but she's a riot.\n\n\"Yeah, he does.\" Although I don't want to think about how they're making them. She's my baby sister and has been with him since she was eighteen.\n\nWe reach the bottom step and walk into the dining room where everyone but Derek is standing and my sweet niece asks, \"Are you going to give her babies?\"\n\nInstead of letting the shock and embarrassment hit me, I answer truthfully while keeping my eyes on Mia. \"A bunch of babies.\"\n\n\"Excuse me.\" Mia walks out of the dining room with her phone rising up to her ear. \"Hello?\" She disappears before I can hear their conversation.\n\nI set my niece down and follow Mia, needing to know how much competition I have. \"Of course. I'll be there. Okay. Miss you too.\"\n\nShe turns and spots me, giving me a half smile. \"Okay. I'll talk to you later. Give everyone my love.\"\n\n\"Everything good?\" I ask, wondering if she's going to tell me the truth.\n\n\"Yes. My brother called again. He wants me to come home soon.\"\n\n\"Where's home?\" It's something I need to know because the closer she lives, the better luck I'll have getting her to stay with me.\n\n\"Rochester.\"\n\n\"Rochester? I thought you were from a much bigger city.\"\n\n\"Why, because of Nicki? Did she break your heart when she left?\" Damn, so she hadn't forgotten what Susie said. How the hell do I straighten this out?\n\n\"It was a long time ago.\" It's not something I want to talk about on Christmas Eve or ever, but I will. Just not now.\n\n\"Dinner's ready,\" Jenny says, popping her head into the room.\n\nI turn my head and say, \"Give us a minute.\"\n\n\"No. I don't want to keep anyone waiting.\" She walks past me, but she doesn't look upset. Still, I know she is, although I'm not sure why, exactly. I'll ask Jenny later. We take our seats, and my sister places Mia to my right.\n\nMy father begins carving the twenty-pound turkey, setting down slices onto a large platter that we pass around.\n\n\"So, Mia, what brings you to our small town?\" my father asks as he sits down.\n\nPassing the potatoes to me, Mia answers, \"The bad weather. My phone doesn't like the reception either. It just kept recalibrating my maps, so I decided it was best to pull in somewhere for the night.\"\n\n\"That means you're leaving after the weather clears?\" Mom asks. Of course it's something I should be aware of, but I'm hoping to change her mind.\n\n\"Yes. I'm supposed to be meeting friends in NYC, but I'll be heading home for a few days to hang with my family before my brother goes home.\"\n\n\"You have a brother?\" Lily asks. \"Does he smell too?\"\n\n\"Yes, I have an older brother, and no\u2014most of the time he smells very nice.\"\n\n\"So your brother doesn't live nearby?\"\n\n\"No, my brother lives in Italy. He's visiting for the holidays before returning home.\"\n\nNow it's Jenny's turn to ask something, and she doesn't miss the chance. \"Wow, what does he do?\" I feel like they're taking turns trying to drag every ounce of information out of her.\n\n\"He owns the family vineyard.\"\n\n\"So you said you work; what do you do?\" I ask her before someone beats me to it. I don't give two fucks about her family because I want to know all about her.\n\n\"I'm the executive assistant to my cousin Franco Fiore.\"\n\n\"Fiore Realty?\" Dad asks.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I'm sure you get this a lot, but do you have any relation to the restaurant Fiore's in Rochester?\" Jenny questions while plopping down a small serving of mashed potatoes onto Lily's plate.\n\n\"Yes. My other cousin Fabio owns it, and that's how Franco met his wife. She was Fabio's head chef.\"\n\n\"That's wonderful. I bet all of your parents are proud.\"\n\n\"They really are, but they just want our happiness now and plenty of little ones to spoil.\"\n\n\"I've met your cousin Franco once. He was interested in some property in the area, but then with his accident, all discussions stopped.\" I look at their father and think about it. Stone Hill Ridge. That's where I remember the name from.\n\n\"Yes. Now I remember it; you and I spoke briefly on the phone. It was about the Stone Hill Ridge property. I saw the sign when I drove here today. It's not too far from Rochester, right?\"\n\n\"Yes. It's just ten miles from here. It was in our family for a long time before we stopped working the land. My father had wanted more for us, but I'm the only one of my siblings who stayed in the area so he left it to me, but things don't always work out. I passed the property on to Mark. It's his choice what to do with it.\"\n\n\"If you're still interested, I can mention it to my cousin,\" she says to me.\n\n\"I'm not interested in selling it anymore,\" I say because it's large enough to have a family home for us.\n\n\"Okay.\" Mia's phone rings at the table, and she's quick to send it to voicemail after seeing who's calling. \"Sorry. I forgot to shut it off.\"\n\n\"You're a busy woman,\" I remark, feeling the weight of the fact she's successful and has a life away from here. It burns in my gut, knowing she's going to leave.\n\n\"Most of the time, yes, but it's all family and all your fault.\" Her nostrils flare, and she gives me a haughty glare.\n\n\"My fault?\"\n\n\"Yes. You happened to have told them we were engaged. I come from a hard-core Italian family, and no one has met you. They all want to talk to me now.\"\n\nI just shrug because she's got a point. \"Fair enough.\"\n\n\"Who's ready for some food?\" Derek asks, trying to save me a possible fight.\n\n\"Me. I'm starving,\" my father says. We finish filling our plates and dig in. I watch as Mia takes a bite of her turkey that she's slathered in gravy. Fuck, I'm jealous of the fork that slides between her lips and the moan that the food elicits from them.\n\n\"Your food is going to get cold if you spend the whole time watching Mia eat,\" Jenny says like a jerk. I'd flip her off, but my mother's watching.\n\n\"Jenny, leave the man alone. I know Derek was just as bad and I don't think he ate a warm meal for weeks,\" my mother adds.\n\n\"Oh, I ate a few warm meals,\" he growls against her ear. Asshole.\n\n\"We're trying to eat,\" I grumble.\n\n\"Some of us are.\" He winks at me and goes back to eating his meal. Finally I dive in and eat. When it's time for dessert, Derek and Jenny bring out the pies and the eggnog.\n\nIt's not the brand that I bought today. \"Wait, you have eggnog?\"\n\n\"No, I didn't buy any,\" Jenny insists.\n\nMy mother raises her hand with a blush on her face. \"I did. I could have told you that, but by the time I found out that Jenny meant to send Derek, you were already on your way to the store. I thought it would be a lovely surprise if you didn't find any, but it seems you found some and much more.\"\n\nI chuckle because I'd gotten so much more than I intended, and I'm not complaining. \"I'm glad I missed out on that little bit of information earlier.\"\n\nI pour two glasses for Mia and myself. \"Does anyone else want any?\"\n\n\"No, Mark's the only one who likes it.\"\n\n\"Oh. Well, then, there's more to share.\"\n\nWe eat our dessert in silence until Jenny says, \"It's a shame that you have to leave so soon.\"\n\nJacob starts crying. He gets out of his chair and climbs onto Mia's lap. She cradles him as if it's second nature to her. \"What's the matter?\"\n\n\"Do weave us.\"\n\n\"Okay. Not right now.\"\n\n\"Go sit back in your seat, or you can't have any apple pie,\" Derek tells him.\n\n\"Oh okay.\" He jumps off her lap and runs back to his daddy.\n\n\"Sorry about him. He can be a bit needy sometimes,\" Jenny apologizes.\n\n\"He's adorable.\" I love the way Mia smiles at my nephew because it gives me so much hope for a family with her.\n\n\"Now don't go getting any ideas about jumping in her lap,\" my father tells me as I stare at my woman.\n\n\"Hey, she'll be sitting on mine if I get my way.\" I might have to fight to keep her here, but I'm not afraid to be a little underhanded.\n\nMy phone rings next, and I redden because I'd given her shit about hers. \"Sorry, I have to take this.\" I stand and walk into the other room. \"Snowfall Sheriff's Office. Sheriff Stone speaking.\"\n\n\"Sheriff, there's a fire on Cook Creek, and we need all people on the scene. The old Miller home is ablaze as well. It's leading up to Stone Hill.\"\n\n\"Okay. I'm on my way.\" I come back to the table and explain. \"Sorry, everyone. I have to leave. A large fire.\"\n\n\"Do you need my assistance?\" Derek asks.\n\n\"I don't know, but all hands are on deck.\"\n\n\"Be careful,\" Jenny tells Derek. He's a great guy willing to lend a hand any way he can.\n\n\"Come on.\" I walk up to Mia and kiss her hard. \"Please don't leave town, or I'll find you.\"\n\n\"Be careful, please.\"\n\n\"Absolutely, babe.\" I peck her lips and run out the door, sliding on my coat as I head down the steps.\n\n\"We're in for a fun night.\" I look at my brother-in-law and nod. \"Don't worry. She's not going anywhere.\"\n\n\"I'm not so sure about that.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Mia",
                "text": "We clean up the kitchen, and I can't help but look out the window to see if I can spot some lights coming up the road.\n\n\"Relax. I know it's late, but they don't just work on putting out the fire. They tend to the families who have been displaced. It might be hours before we hear from them.\" His mother puts her hands on my shoulders, and I feel the warmth of her well-meaning kindness. Their mother reminds me of mine, and I believe they'd get along quite well if they meet.\n\n\"With the weather like this, I think you should spend the night,\" Jenny adds, looking out the window just as nervously as I am. Her bottom lip is bothered by her teeth, gnawing on it just enough to give her emotions away.\n\n\"The inn isn't too far away.\" I'd love to stay and wait for Mark, but I don't want them to be put out. She's already stressed about her husband and brother dealing with a fire.\n\nJenny spins away from the window and smiles. \"But Mark will come back here looking for you,\" she says.\n\n\"I suppose. We didn't even get to talk about much or have more eggnog.\"\n\nShe takes off her apron because technically we're done with cleaning up and all leftovers have been stuffed into their full fridge. \"Well, then, you better stay because he'll arrest you if you take it with you.\" I giggle because I can see him picking me up again and punishing me. A heat floods my cheeks as I picture Mark storming into the inn, setting me over his knees and pulling down my pants to spank my ass.\n\n\"We'll be going home now,\" her father says.\n\n\"Oh. Do you live near the inn?\" I ask, wondering if maybe they could give me a ride.\n\n\"No. We live a half a mile from here,\" Mrs. Stone says before she kisses both of our cheeks. \"I hope we'll see you tomorrow. In town, there's a Christmas Day Festival. It starts at noon and goes until ten at night.\"\n\nMy eyes widen, knowing this is an excuse for me to stay. It's hard to even consider leaving, but I don't have much time to decide. In fact, my brother wants to see me before he goes back, even though we saw each other for the past week. \"A festival on Christmas? That sounds wonderful. What does it entail?\"\n\n\"Games, a visit from the town's Santa, a bunch of photos, hot chocolate, treats, and more. It really becomes a wonderland as the sun sets. My mother is on the set-up committee,\" Jenny says.\n\n\"Yes, I am. I still have some things to finish for it tonight, but we'll be back by morning to see the kiddies open their gifts.\"\n\n\"I'll walk you out.\" Jenny and her mother walk out, and I go about the kitchen to see if I've missed anything else that needs to be cleaned. We managed to turn the gorgeous room back into a photo-worthy, ready-for-display kitchen online or in the best magazines for home d\u00e9cor.\n\nTheir house is spectacular inside and out. Although I didn't get to examine the exterior much, I noticed that it's more than a country home out in the middle of the woods. It screams money, although I'm not sure what the family does other than the inn which, as they admitted, only gets some people throughout the year who are passing through.\n\n\"Are you going to stay for the festival?\"\n\n\"Wow, I can't wait to see it. I love Christmas, and it's a big part of why I wanted to go to NYC. The displays down there are so beautiful.\"\n\n\"I've never been there.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"Yes. I've lived here my whole life and only passed through JFK when I've gone on family vacations to Florida or when I traveled on my honeymoon to Greece. Come on. I'm going to check on the kids.\"\n\nI follow her and say, \"You should check it out one day. It's truly beautiful, especially when there isn't a crowd. It's hard to find days like that, but there are a few.\"\n\n\"I will one day. Maybe Derek and I can have a date night or holiday.\"\n\n\"I'm a decent babysitter.\"\n\n\"Well, then, I'll have to talk Derek into taking me away. Let's get off to bed and hope for a nice holiday in the morning.\" She winks at me and loops her arm in mine, leading me down the hall.\n\nI pull away and gasp. \"Oh no. If I'm intruding on your Christmas morning, I can go.\"\n\n\"Not at all.\" She hooks my arm again, and we walk side by side through the house and upstairs. \"Here's your room for the night.\" She opens the door, and I can tell it's Mark's as well. I'm not bothered by it because it makes sense. Still, I wonder if he'll come lie with me when he gets back.\n\n\"I think he's left some clothes here. You can just borrow some, or I can give you a nightgown if you'd like.\"\n\n\"No, I'll just look for a tee shirt.\"\n\nShe smiles and whispers, \"Goodnight,\" and closes the door behind her. I strip out of my clothes, leaving my tank top and panties on before sliding under the covers. Their house is warm, but there's still a slight chill from the freezing temperatures outside. I do my best to wait up or so I believe, but quickly, I find myself asleep."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 6",
                "text": "I turn in bed and feel the empty spot beside me, which is cool to the touch. He hasn't come home and it's dark out, so I have no idea what time it is. Still, an overwhelming feeling of sadness hits me, but so does the urge to pee. Jumping out of bed, I rush toward the bathroom quickly do my business and wash up. I should have flipped on the light because I have no idea where the bed and as soon as I step out of the bathroom I bang my hip on the dresser and then I trip on someone on the floor.\n\n\"Mark,\" I cry out. His arms fly out, catching me before I face-plant on the floor.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Mia.\" He pulls me in, our faces nearly touching. Our bodies are flush against each other.\n\n\"I was worried you didn't come back,\" I blurt out, trying to catch my breath.\n\n\"I'll always be here. Merry Christmas, angel.\"\n\n\"Merry Christmas, Mark.\" I bend down and kiss his lips gently. His arms wrap around me tightly like steel bands as he growls and then pushes his tongue into my mouth. We roll on the floor, my back pinned as he presses his length against my heat.\n\n\"I missed you,\" he says, running his hand up and down my arm.\n\n\"Then why didn't you lie down with me?\" I ask, staring at his bare chest that's covered slightly in a dark patch of hair at his pecs. I can't see any lower, but it's not like I can take my eyes off his sexy muscled torso.\n\n\"Eyes up here, trouble.\" He grips my chin and tilts my head so our eyes connect.\n\n\"I'm not trouble.\"\n\n\"You're going to be in trouble if you keep rubbing that hot pussy on my cock.\" I freeze and blush because I had no idea I'd been grinding on him. \"Now, as to why I wasn't holding you in my arms the past two hours is because one, I didn't want to scare you, and two, your pretty ass sleeps like a damn spider and I didn't want to wake you when I tried to crawl into bed.\"\n\n\"Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry.\"\n\n\"Don't be sorry. Just tell me that we have a chance together.\" I nod my head, rocking my hips up again.\n\n\"Keep it up, and I'm going to finish unwrapping my Christmas present.\" I skim my hands down his sides, feeling his boxer briefs. \"For fighting a fire, you smell so good and are almost completely unwrapped.\"\n\n\"I went home and showered before coming back so you didn't have to deal with it.\" He moves to stand, and I immediately regret the distraction because he must not be interested in me anymore. Suddenly, I'm on my feet and in his arms.\n\n\"Whoa,\" I cry out softly before my back hits the mattress.\n\n\"What was going on in that pretty head of yours a minute ago? Did you think I was stopping?\" I nod, shame filling my expression. \"I've no intention of stopping unless you tell me to stop. You're mine, Mia, and I mean that shit. I need to be inside of you, sweet red.\"\n\n\"Take me, Mark. Fill me up,\" I respond, fingers going to his biceps, digging into his taut muscles, wanting his strength and power dominating me.\n\nWe kiss and let our hands wander up and down each other, feeling his hard muscles as he cups my breasts. \"More, more,\" I beg as he plucks on my nipples and then his tongue hits my sensitive skin, sending my back off the bed, bowing for him.\n\n\"I'm going to give you everything, baby.\" I can barely breathe as his mouth moves from one nipple to the other before trailing a warm, wet path down my stomach until he reaches my panties. \"God, I need you so painfully, Mia. I need to taste this sweet slit. You're going to be a good girl and feed me, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I moan, forgetting any nerves because all thoughts are about coming for him. Mark tugs my panties down my legs and brings them to his nose, breathing them in. I close my eyes and blush.\n\n\"Open those eyes, Mia. I want you to see how much I need this.\" He thrusts my legs apart, dropping onto his stomach as he lifts my thighs over his shoulders. His brown hair falls slightly over his forehead as he bends and takes the first swipe. Thoughts, words, nothing comes to me except pleasure. My nerve endings fire off as he repeatedly assaults my lips with the broadside of his tongue and then his soft lips wrap around my clit. I shoot off, coming without any other stimulation. \"Mark, oh my God. I just\u2026fuck\u2026yes.\"\n\n\"Give it to me, Mia. Let me know how good you like your pussy licked.\" His finger pushes inside, stretching my convulsing walls. \"So fucking tight.\" He pumps it in and out, sucking on my clit again, bringing me back for another round. Slowly he adds another finger and then pulls back, sliding down his boxers. \"I need to be inside you now. I can't wait another minute.\"\n\n\"I need you,\" I'm pleading as another orgasm is ready to burst through me. Mark plants one hand flat on the mattress beside me while his other hand guides his thick length past my slit. I know it's going to hurt, but I relax and remember that pleasure will come again. He slides his hand to my hip and then thrusts forward, slamming past the remnants of my innocence. It burns and I feel stuffed like a damn turkey, but I take a deep breath as he freezes above me.\n\n\"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you.\"\n\n\"No, it's not bad. Please start moving.\" I slide my heels up and down the back of his thighs and calves, needing to rebuild that hunger, and it works. My body shakes with urgency that I'm not sure I can handle.\n\nMark rocks his hips, hands on the bed, bracing me. \"You're mine, Mia. There's no going back. We'll figure all this out, but I just can't let you go.\"\n\n\"Mark,\" I cry out as his words catapult me over and I come hard, squeezing his huge cock.\n\n\"Fuck, you're so sexy when you shout my name.\" He grunts and his head rolls back as he gives me one solid motion, coming with my name on his lips. I don't know how we lie with his body over mine, but my eyes grow heavy and so does his."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 7",
                "text": "The sun's peeking through the curtains, and morning's most definitely here. I don't know how long we slept, but I'm wrapped up tightly in his arms and I don't want to move.\n\nWe didn't use any protection and I'm sure my family will say we're rushing this, but I want to be with Mark without a doubt. My heart and soul felt it, and my panic was real last night. Three years ago, I learned that life was too short to waste and that finding someone who makes you want things you've only dreamed about is difficult. My cousins taught me valuable lessons in their love for their wives.\n\n\"Good morning, Mia.\"\n\n\"Good morning, Mark.\"\n\n\"What's got that brain of yours running overtime? Do you regret what we did?\"\n\nAs I stumble on my words, trying to find the right way to say I'm falling for him, there's a knock at the door.\n\n\"There's coffee and breakfast,\" Derek calls out.\n\n\"What time is it?\" Mark shouts.\n\n\"Ten on the dot,\" Derek answers before his footsteps head away from the door.\n\nI push him slightly and get up off the floor. \"Oh my goodness, it's already ten. The festival will start soon.\" Standing up, I brush my hands through my messy hair, trying to look less wild.\n\n\"You want to go to the festival?\" Mark asks as he stands up, pulling me into his arms. A smile spreads across his face.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You'll love it.\" He kisses my cheek.\n\n\"Do you have to work?\"\n\n\"Yes and no. I'm patrolling the area while officially off duty, but honestly, it's only just in case someone gets out of hand, which hasn't happened in years.\"\n\n\"Will you show me around?\"\n\n\"Of course, angel. My Christmas beauty needs to be spirited around town. Now\u2014how about we join the family, and then I'll drive you to the inn to change.\"\n\n\"Perfect.\" I kiss his cheek and then we get ready for coffee and presents. As he's slipping on some jeans, I shoot a text to the family saying Merry Christmas and letting them know that I'm fine and will be attending a winter festival.\n\nAnabelle's the first to respond. I want to go. Jealous.\n\nI don't know how fun it will be, but it's cool if you guys want to come.\n\nWe will be there, Soren adds. I don't need caps or even to hear his voice to know that it isn't a maybe. I can picture him scowling at his phone, angry and worried about Mark and me. I'm sure as soon as he meets him, they'll get along. I tuck away my phone and finish dressing.\n\nAfter about ten minutes, the family is gathered in the living room around the Christmas tree, and it feels like home. A smile creeps over my face as I take in the scene. Mark's hands slide around my waist as he presses his body firmly against mine.\n\n\"I can't wait to have a family.\" My ovaries are practically shouting, sending endorphins through my body. It's like he was reading my mind. It's perfect\u2026too perfect."
            },
            {
                "title": "Mark",
                "text": "She stiffens in my arms, and I know I've pushed too hard. Derek might be wrong when it comes to Mia. She's not ready for the future I have in mind, and I don't have much time to change her mind. The festival will have to be it. I have eight hours to prove that she belongs here by my side.\n\nWe take a seat on the sofa, and I pull her onto my lap. She doesn't fight to get off, but then my mother comes into the room with coffee for us. \"Here you two go.\" It's this moment that Mia chooses to take the seat next to me.\n\n\"I saved you a seat,\" I grunt in her ear.\n\nShe turns her head and answers, \"I know, but I don't want coffee down my back.\" With a quick peck on my cheek, she returns to the kids who are giggling on the floor by the tree. Jenny has her Nikon camera, snapping photos of the kids, but I think she should be watching.\n\n\"Jen, pass me the camera. You should be in the pictures with your babies.\"\n\n\"You don't mind?\"\n\n\"Of course not.\" She hands me the camera and I take tons of pictures. I haven't touched a camera in years, even when it comes to crime scenes. It's my little quirk, but I suddenly feel unbothered by the past. One picture I need is the beauty next to me as she smiles at the kids. God, my balls are ready to fill her womb from the longing that crosses her expression, and it takes me by surprise. She wants the same thing. Does she not want that with me? Or can she not have babies? Fuck, I've steamrolled her with my feelings and didn't consider anything else.\n\n\"Uncle Mark. Uncle Mark. Dis for you.\" Jacob comes up to me with a grin, handing me a small present that has been clearly wrapped by the kids or Derek. \"Thank you.\"\n\nI'm about to set the camera down, but Mia takes it from me and snaps a picture of Jacob by my legs staring up at me, waiting with a joy in his eyes that screams innocence. \"Open, Open.\" He claps his hands.\n\n\"Relax, Jake. He's old. He takes his time like Mr. Cain,\" Lily says, rolling her eyes. Four and full of attitude already.\n\n\"Well, this is too small to be a cane.\"\n\n\"It's okay. I'll lend you mine.\"\n\n\"You don't have one,\" I huff while everyone laughs. Tearing the paper, I see a children's book labeled \"Uncle Mark.\"\n\n\"It's a first edition, just off the press.\"\n\n\"Are you serious?\" I look at the name on the bottom. Written and Illustrated by Jenny Mason.\n\nIt's been published by Snowfall Publishing, which isn't a surprise because everyone in town knows she's gifted, even Mr. Miller who opened the business years ago. I stand up and hug my sister. \"I'm so proud of you.\"\n\n\"I'm proud of you, big brother.\" I look at Mia, and she's snapping pictures. I sit back down and look at the book before turning back to Mia. Taking the camera, I pull her to me and kiss her lips.\n\n\"Can I see it?\"\n\n\"Sure.\" I hand it to her and then take a drink from my coffee because my throat feels tight.\n\n\"So, enough with that mushy shit.\"\n\n\"Mouth, Derek,\" Jenny says.\n\n\"I'll give you my mouth, wife,\" he growls, grabbing her around the face and kissing her.\n\n\"Again,\" Lily huffs with her hands on her waist, rolling her round little eyes.\n\nMia's voice brings my attention to her. \"Adorable.\" I think she's talking about Lily, but her eyes are focused on the book.\n\n\"It is pretty cool, right?\"\n\n\"Yes. Jenny, you have an amazing gift.\"\n\n\"Thank you. I wouldn't have been able to do it without all of these wonderful people pushing me.\"\n\n\"Momma, we don't have a present for Aunt Mia.\"\n\nLily looks so distraught, but Derek is quick to answer his little girl. \"It's okay, sweetie. We're going to pick out something for her at the festival. How does that sound?\"\n\n\"Can we please?\"\n\n\"Yes, sweetie.\"\n\n\"Can I have a hug?\" Mia asks.\n\n\"Yes,\" Lily shouts, running through the paper mess and into Mia's arms. I'll gladly stay Uncle Mark forever if Mia will stay with me.\n\n\"Okay. It's getting late, and I have to get to the square. You know I'm on the committee.\" My mother jumps out of her seat. \"Who's going to drive me?\"\n\n\"I'm going that way to take Mia to the inn.\"\n\n\"Well, let's get moving.\"\n\n\"Yes, Mother.\" We get up and gather our things, saying goodbye to the family who will meet us at the event. I'm exhausted, but I need to make this day count as much as I can. I owe Lily another present for that Aunt Mia comment. She's in my corner one hundred and ten percent. Actually, everyone is.\n\nWe get to the inn after dropping my mom off down the street. \"Hey, wake up,\" I say, nudging young Frankie Jones at the desk.\n\n\"Oh, sorry, Sheriff. I fell asleep, so I stayed to make up the time and I guess I fell asleep again.\" There's an hour until the festival starts, so no one will be checking in and everything is on a secure network with all rooms locked and cameras in the hallways and lobby.\n\n\"Relax, Frank. Merry Christmas. Go on home and get ready for the festival tonight. I'll be closing up the front desk soon. See you tonight.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\" He should have left at midnight last night. Poor kid is always trying to prove he's not his father. I take a seat behind the desk and look through the system, finding Mia's registration information and mentally memorizing her address.\n\nThe doorbell rings at the entrance and a tall man in a puffy coat and scarf comes in, taking off his gloves. His eyes go around the room, looking everywhere like he's assessing the place. \"Hello\u2014can I help you, sir?\"\n\n\"Yes. I heard there's a festival today and wanted to see if you had any rooms available.\"\n\n\"We do. What is it that you're looking for, and is it just for yourself?\"\n\n\"Soren!\" Mia calls out from the edge of the stairway. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\nHe pulls her into his arms, and I do my best not to be jealous because I know that's her brother. She slips out of his grip and looks cute with her pretty sweater and hat on. \"I came to check this place out and to find that asshole and make sure he's on the up and up.\"\n\n\"Ugh. I'm fine, Soren. Besides, I must remind you that I'm an adult.\"\n\n\"Yes, and I'll remind you that I'm your older brother who worries. So where is this guy at?\"\n\n\"Right here.\"\n\n\"You? I thought you said you were a sheriff.\"\n\n\"I am. My sister owns this place, and I came to handle things for a bit while Mia gets ready for the festival. I'm Mark Stone.\" I stick out my hand and we shake hands, although her brother is attempting to test my strength. He's a tough guy even though he's much more slender than me, but I have years of military training and a hell of a grip. Still, I maintain my composure.\n\n\"What are your intentions with her?\"\n\n\"I intend to take her out and get to know her. After that, I plan on marrying her, but that's still all up to her.\"\n\n\"What's your income? How long have you been in law enforcement?\"\n\n\"Soren,\" a growl comes from the door, and there's an older man who could be his replica and a woman who is Mia's older doppelg\u00e4nger. \"You could not wait, no?\"\n\n\"Hello, I am Maria Fiore. You must be Sheriff Mark.\"\n\n\"It's a pleasure, Mrs. Fiore. And I'm not bothered by your son's questions, although I'm grateful it's not in front of the entire town. Please, let's have a seat.\" I lead them over to the group of comfortable seating.\n\n\"This is a very quaint village. Although most of the streets are blocked off, we were lucky to be coming from this direction.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. With the festival, which is pretty much just the residents of the town, everyone is already prepared for the traffic situation.\"\n\nJenny comes in and asks, \"Ah, there you are. Can you hold him for a minute?\" She hands Dean to Mia. \"I am losing my mind this morning.\" She rushes around the desk. \"I forgot his bag and am so glad I keep one here.\" She looks up and sees that we're not alone. \"Oh.\" Her face pinks.\n\n\"These are my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fiore, and my brother, Soren.\"\n\n\"Hello, welcome to Snowfall. I hope you're here for the festival and to grill Mark.\" She winks. She slides the bag over her shoulder and asks, \"Do you need rooms for the night?\"\n\n\"No. We will be driving back home in a couple of hours. It's not far from here.\"\n\n\"Well, let me know if you change your mind. I'll be out there celebrating with our family and friends.\" She takes Dean from Mia and says, \"Thanks.\" She kisses Mia's cheek and leaves.\n\n\"Sorry, my sister's overly friendly.\"\n\n\"I like her.\"\n\n\"She's married,\" Derek snarls with Lily in one arm and Jacob in the other, coming from the door.\n\n\"Hello, Derek.\"\n\n\"Aunt Mia, Uncle Mark, I've got to tinkle.\"\n\n\"Okay. Come on, baby.\"\n\n\"I'm not a baby, Daddy. I'm a big girl,\" she says while clinging to her father.\n\n\"She's adorable.\"\n\n\"Well, you have an interesting family, Sheriff Stone. Mia, I'd like a moment alone with you, and then we'll go enjoy the festivities.\"\n\n\"I'll be waiting outside, babe.\" I leave them to talk, but I'm not going far.\n\n\"Hello, son.\" I turn, and my eyes widen.\n\n\"What the hell are you doing here?\"\n\n\"That kind of language on Christmas isn't very becoming of the sheriff.\"\n\n\"You need to leave right now. You're not welcome here.\"\n\n\"Actually, I am. I was invited.\"\n\n\"Not a soul would invite you here.\"\n\n\"That's what you think. Now, I heard you have a girlfriend. That's extremely interesting.\"\n\n\"Nicki, you should leave now.\"\n\n\"'Nicki'? I'm your mother.\"\n\n\"You will never be my mother. Now, if you don't leave, I'll have you arrested for trespassing.\"\n\n\"I don't have to leave town, but I'll leave this filth.\"\n\n\"Takes one to know one.\" I storm away, aching to punch someone in the face. Once I find out who brought her here, I'm going to destroy them.\n\n\"Sheriff Stone. Everything okay?\"\n\n\"Yes. Where's my father?\"\n\n\"At the bookstore, helping them set up.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Mia",
                "text": "I see a woman attempting to touch Mark, but he quickly tears his arm away from her grip. I can't see her face at this distance, but she's beautiful and then I hear the words coming from Derek. \"What do you mean Nicki's here?\"\n\nI call feel the color drain from my face and my stomach turn. That's her. The enemy, the heartbreak, the other woman. \"Sweetheart, is something wrong?\"\n\nIt takes me a second to process my mother's words. Shaking my head lightly, I mutter an excuse. \"Nothing more than a headache, Mother. I'm going to head upstairs for some rest.\"\n\nShe rubs my temples lightly, attempting to alleviate the pain like the wonderful mother that she is, but that's not where my true ache lies. \"Well, Fabio is driving the rest of the family here now as well. We might decide to get a room. Your father is going to get a hold of the owners and see what they have available and if it's worth the effort. It also depends on what your cousin plans on doing.\"\n\n\"Okay. Go on. I'll be fine right here.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\" She gives me that look that makes me wonder if she knows I'm lying.\n\n\"I'm a big girl, mama,\" I insist and then kiss her cheek which produces a big smile from her.\n\n\"But you will always be my little girl.\" She kisses my forehead and then slips on her gloves. As soon as my mother follows after my father, I sneak out the entrance and stare at the woman from a distance. There's the woman from the grocery store whose face I can't forget. She sees me and gives me the nastiest glare. I smile brighter even though I don't feel like it. Mark's ex is here, and I'm not sure I can stand seeing her.\n\nI walk toward the hardware store, hoping to talk to the old man because other than the Stones, I don't know anyone else. Stepping inside, I see Frank smiling. \"Miss Fiore, it's good to see you this afternoon. Merry Christmas. Uncle Hank, this is the woman staying at the inn.\"\n\n\"Hello, Hank. I'm Mia.\"\n\n\"It's nice to meet you, Mia.\"\n\n\"So Jenny was right about you.\"\n\n\"What did she say?\"\n\nI know this is going to come off flirtatious even though it's not my intent, but Mal's going to want details, and what kind of friend would I be if I didn't get them? \"That you were handsome and large. Are you single?\"\n\n\"Why the fuck do you care?\" a snarl comes from the back where Mark comes out with the old man. My mouth slams shut as I work out what I'm going to say. \"I've asked you a question, Mia. Explain to me why you're asking this asshole if he's single.\"\n\n\"It's none of your business. Why don't you go back to that woman you were with?\" I turn on my heel and walk out of the shop, but I don't get more than a foot before he has his hand on my bicep, flipping me over his shoulder. \"Put me down, you asshole.\"\n\n\"Not going to happen until we get something straight.\" He walks me back into the shop. \"Office is available, but don't go christening shit.\"\n\n\"We won't,\" I hiss. He slams the door and then flips me right side up, setting me on the desk, but then thinks better of it.\n\n\"I don't want your ass on his desk. Now, care to explain yourself?\"\n\n\"Nicki. I heard she's back in town and I saw you two talking.\"\n\n\"Did you hear what I was saying to her?\"\n\n\"No. It doesn't matter. I've already been compared to her more than once, and I won't play second fiddle to a brokenhearted man looking for a replacement.\"\n\n\"First, you're not second fiddle to anyone. Second, I replaced that woman a long time ago in my heart with my stepmother. Nicki isn't an ex-girlfriend. She's my birth giver. I'd call her my mother, but that title is only given to the best of women, and she's nothing of the sort.\"\n\n\"Wait, I thought\u2026\"\n\n\"She's my stepmother. My father met her after Nicki left, and they had Jenny shortly after becoming a couple. I'd been a mistake that Nicki regretted, but my father has reminded me that I could never have been a mistake to him.\"\n\n\"I don't understand it all.\"\n\n\"When Susie compared you to Nicki, it was a way to remind me that you weren't from here and that we'd never have a chance together because you'd leave when life got boring. I know I can't compare to your friends in NYC and your extravagant lifestyle.\"\n\n\"Extravagant? I live in Rochester, which isn't anything like the metropolis that the city is. I don't know what makes you think I'm extravagant. Yes, I dress nice, but no nicer than your sister.\"\n\n\"Derek told me about your luggage.\"\n\n\"Snitch. It was a gift from my boss.\" His brow furrows in anger. \"My boss is my cousin.\"\n\n\"Shit, I forgot.\"\n\n\"Anyway, we used to travel a lot for business. It was a Christmas present because he was tired of my old luggage.\"\n\n\"Oh. Used to travel? You don't anymore?\"\n\n\"Not since his accident. I normally work at his home office or in the downtown office.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"Look, let's start over.\"\n\n\"I have one question\u2026about that single shit\u2026\" I press my hand to his lips.\n\n\"As much as I wanted to return the jealousy feeling your way, it has nothing to do with me. My besties and I have an addiction to Hallmark Christmas movies, and Mal asked me if there was a hardware store owner here with a small child needing a woman like her.\"\n\n\"Oh. Yeah.\"\n\n\"I only met the older man.\" I show him the texts, and he laughs hard as hell. \"So why don't you show me why this festival is wonderful and then you take me back to your place, defile me again, tie me up, and make sure I can't run away.\"\n\n\"I can ask Hank where the ropes are, but I do have some cuffs.\"\n\n\"I didn't mean that way. I recall you mentioning a family of your own.\"\n\n\"Woman, you can't say shit like that and expect me to enjoy this festival.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" He takes my hand and presses it firmly against his thick, stiff length. \"Okay.\"\n\n\"Well, you're just going to have to suffer through it, Sheriff Stone, because I want to rub it in Susie's face how happy I am to be here.\"\n\n\"Let's do it, Mia. By the way, where are your parents and brother?\"\n\n\"I don't know, but they're roaming around here somewhere. My cousins are coming with their families, so we're going to have a bunch of strangers invading your small town.\"\n\n\"The more the merrier, as long as you're here.\"\n\n\"It's where I want to be.\"\n\n\"Thank fuck because I'm serious about keeping you tied to the bed.\"\n\n\"What the hell?\" We nearly collide with Soren. \"Keep that shit inside somewhere.\"\n\n\"What brings you into the hardware store?\"\n\n\"Looking for you. Franco's here with the family.\"\n\n\"Oh. Good. Come on.\" We walk out of the hardware store, and Mark gives Hank another glare before leaving. \"You know I'm not interested in him.\"\n\n\"That's good. He'll live a lot longer, then.\"\n\n\"Ha. You and our cousins will get along just fine,\" Soren says.\n\nFranco and Fabio stand on the edge of the sidewalk with their babies in strollers. \"There you are.\" Franco hugs me first and then Fabio. \"So you must be Sheriff Stone.\"\n\n\"Yes, and this asshole is just like the two of you. He's about to kick the hardware store guy's ass over Mia.\"\n\n\"Over him?\" Fabio points toward the old man.\n\n\"No. Over him,\" Mark snarls as Hank comes out.\n\n\"Oh. Yeah, keep that fucker away from our wives and we won't have a problem.\"\n\n\"See what I mean?\" Soren throws his hands up.\n\n\"Good company,\" Franco says, shaking Mark's hand.\n\n\"You'll understand one day, cousin.\"\n\n\"I know that woman,\" Fabio remarks, staring at Nicki.\n\n\"You do?\" Mark answers, body tensing.\n\n\"Yes. I had her banned from my restaurant in the city.\"\n\n\"Good riddance to bad rubbish,\" Franco adds.\n\n\"You can say that again.\"\n\n\"Mark, dear. Why haven't you introduced me to all your handsome friends?\" Nicki says, winking at Derek in particular which is going to get her clobbered by Jenny. She knows exactly what she's doing.\n\n\"Get out of here, you two.\"\n\n\"Is that any way to treat your mother and your fianc\u00e9e?\" Susie says, glaring at me while reaching out for Mark. He quickly dodges her grasp and snarls.\n\n\"That's it, Susie. As the sheriff, I have the law on my side and if you don't get the fuck away from my family, I'm going to have a restraining order put on your ass. I'll run you out of town, but not without having you arrested first.\"\n\n\"You wouldn't.\"\n\n\"Come on, Nicki. Let's go.\"\n\n\"So you're the one who invited her. I will file the restraining order on both of you.\" They quickly turn away. \"Love, do me a favor. Stay away from them at all costs.\"\n\n\"Don't worry. I have a security team here with my family,\" Franco says. He nods to a man across the street from us, and the man slowly follows the two women.\n\n\"Still, I'd have to kill someone if something ever happened to you.\"\n\n\"Same here. Now show me around.\" The snow begins to lightly come down as the sky darkens and the sun sets. The streetlights along with the Christmas lights turn on, creating an evening of beauty. I gasp when the sound of Christmas music fills in the silence.\n\nWe break away from the group, walking around the streets as he introduces me to all his favorite shop owners and his Deputy, Simon Hart, who is a handsome man in his early twenties. I think he's a couple of years younger than me. He's on duty and patrolling the festival in his uniform coat and hat. It makes me want to see Mark in his. I'd never thought twice about a man in uniform before until now.\n\nWe make it over to an empty spot under a streetlamp when The Eagles' \"Please Come Home for Christmas\" plays on the speaker just above the light.\n\n\"Dance with me,\" he demands, holding his hand out.\n\n\"Yes, Sheriff Stone.\"\n\n\"One day, you'll be calling me husband.\"\n\n\"One day, I just might.\"\n\n\"There's no might. I have the handcuffs.\"\n\n\"In that case, I might hold off on marrying you,\" I answer with a wink.\n\n\"Fuck, woman, you're making me rock solid.\" He twirls me in a circle and then pulls me close. \"That's hard to do in freezing temps.\"\n\n\"Can we call it a night?\"\n\n\"Let's say goodbye to your family.\"\n\n\"Yes. Of course. How silly of me.\" We search for my family who are gathered around one of the three hot chocolate stands on the streets. It's almost midnight when we make it back to his home. It's small but nice, although he doesn't give me a tour. Instead, he yanks off my boots and kicks off his. I'm in his arms and he's taking the stairs two at a time. I giggle as he growls.\n\n\"You're my best Christmas gift ever.\""
            },
            {
                "title": "Mark",
                "text": "I need to be inside her again. The thought of her with anyone else sets me off more than I can even explain. Knowing how upset she was and her motivation when it came to Hank eased some of the tension, but that misunderstanding could have been the end of us if she'd left.\n\nFrom the first second she mentioned Nicki to me, I should have told her the truth. Everyone in this town knows and so it wasn't a state secret or anything, but I didn't want to mar our future with the past. Instead, that shit came to bite me right on the ass and then some.\n\nAs I take the stairs two at a time, I forget about all the other problems and celebrate the fact that I have Mia in my arms and there's no way in hell I'll be letting her go. Once we make it into my bedroom, I make quick work of our clothes. I need to be inside her again, but I have to make sure that I don't break my future wife's little pussy. After pummeling it this morning I should behave myself, but there's something I need to do.\n\nSliding one hand around her waist, I grip her hair and pull her head back to look up at me. \"You're mine, Mia. I want you to understand that,\" I growl against her ear. Mia nods, smiling as she slides her slender fingers up my bare chest. Then she tugs herself free of my grip so she can place kisses along my neck.\n\n\"It's not like you didn't already pick me up from the store.\"\n\n\"You're right. I got you then, and I'm not letting you go. I'll even share my eggnog with you.\"\n\n\"You better, or that's grounds for release.\"\n\n\"The only release you'll get is going to come from between your legs.\"\n\n\"It's the only one I want. Now give it to me, Sheriff. My pussy's been locked up tight long enough.\"\n\nShe's going to make me come before I get inside of her. I spin her around, bend her over the bed, and swat her ass once. \"Don't tell me what to do, woman. You're in trouble.\"\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"Making me jealous, threatening to leave me, and intentionally teasing me with your hot pussy while we danced in the street.\"\n\n\"Damn, okay. I'm just racking up those offenses.\"\n\n\"Damn right you are. Now\u2014knees on the bed. I'm going to eat your pussy, and then I'm going to fuck it nice and hard until you understand that I can't tolerate you committing such crimes against me.\" I press my hand to her back and push her upper body down with her ass in the air. Fuck, my dick jerks, pre-cum coating the head, so I give it a squeeze to calm that bastard down\u2014no can do because her pink coin-slot slit is glistening right at me.\n\nI move in, dropping my head and licking her right down the middle, tasting her sticky sweetness. \"Fuck, so damn good.\" Sliding one finger into her, I glide my tongue up and down, loving the way she squirms and pushes back, searching for relief. And I'm going to give it to her, but first, I want to enjoy my meal.\n\n\"Mark, I'm going to\u2026\"\n\n\"What,\" I say, voice muffled through her soaked flesh.\n\n\"I'm coming,\" she screams, and I feel the sweet gush of her juices all over my face. I bite her ass and then swat the other cheek before standing. Turning her around and pressing her back down on the bed, I climb up onto the mattress. My fingers tease her slit, feeling her juices coat them.\n\n\"I think you're ready for me now. So sloppy wet like I want you.\" I press the head of my cock at her entrance, watching it disappear between her silky folds. Closing my eyes, a groan rips through my chest as I settle deep inside her tight pussy. Gripping her legs, I hold them up against my chest and pump into her.\n\nShe grabs her breasts, squeezing them and drawing my attention to her needs. I part her legs and fall between them, sending my cock deeper within her vise-grip walls and take her mouth in a quick kiss before dragging my lips down to her tits that deserve my care. They're so large and soft, ripe for my touch. I suck on them, enjoying every ounce of pleasure it brings both of us as I continue to slowly work in and out of her womb.\n\nMia's hands dig into my hair, pulling up for a kiss and then I lose control, beating faster and faster into her pussy. She pants and moans as we grind together. \"Fuck\u2014you need to come, babe, because I'm about to come.\"\n\nI reach between us and strum her clit, sending her over the edge. I squirt streams of cum into her depths, marking her womb where it fucking belongs. My mouth crushes hers again. When I pull back, she lets out an adorable yawn. \"It's time for bed, babe.\" I kiss her nose and then gently pull out and adjust us in bed.\n\n\"I'm going to miss you,\" I whisper, cradling her in my arms.\n\n\"Miss me?\" she gasps, suddenly fully awake.\n\n\"Yes, I work tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Oh. Yeah. Duh. And I'm going home to go see my brother for a bit.\"\n\n\"I'll be back in a couple of days to pick you up.\"\n\n\"Yes, that's perfect, Sheriff Stone.\" She kisses my chest and snuggles in close. I don't want to close my eyes because the morning will come sooner."
            },
            {
                "title": "Chapter 11",
                "text": "I walk into the sheriff's office, passing by my staff who all have anxious looks on their faces. \"What's going on?\"\n\n\"Sir. Chief Rosen is waiting for you in your office.\" Shit. The fire chief is here? A bad feeling washes over me.\n\n\"Hey, Chip, what can I do you for?\"\n\n\"Hey, Mark. I have a problem. The fire at the Miller's farm was arson.\"\n\n\"Shit. Are you sure?\" He frowns. \"Of course you're sure. Do you have any suspects?\"\n\n\"No. The Millers don't have any enemies, but we had two new people in town that night.\"\n\n\"Mia had nothing to do with it. She wasn't even there to start a fire.\" I won't have anyone diminishing her character for even just a moment. The thought of the presumption of her as evil or a criminal pisses me off.\n\n\"I wasn't really thinking about her\u2026\" My brows shoot up as I think about what he's implying.\n\n\"Are you thinking Nicki?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What are you thinking? Why?\"\n\n\"Well, when they mentioned that the Miller's place was burned down and nearly reached Stone Hill, she paled and said she had to leave, according to Doreen at the bank. You know that woman pays attention to everything.\" Yes, Doreen is one of the nosiest residents in all of Snowfall. If you didn't want her to know your business, you'd keep your distance, bank out of town or online.\n\n\"That she does. So you came to break it to me first that she tried to burn down my property, or that you're going to charge her?\"\n\n\"I wanted your opinion. Would she do it?\" He's asking me that? Like I'd have anything nice to say about that worthless cunt.\n\n\"Yes. Although, I'm not sure I'm able to investigate the matter because of our strained relationship, and any lawyer would play into that right away.\" She abandoned her only child to pursue a modeling career because she realized how great she looked in front of a camera from a couple of pictures I took of her as a small boy. I was four with a good camera. I thought it was my fault for so long.\n\n\"I know. I've turned it over to the state police. I hate to do it, but I wanted to give you the heads up before they come to speak with you.\"\n\n\"No. It's the right thing to do. Thanks for stopping by.\"\n\nA knock on my door frame draws my attention. \"Sheriff Stone. There's a Detective Larson here to see you.\"\n\n\"Okay. Let me know if you need anything.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" I look over to my dispatcher and say, \"Send the detective in.\"\n\nIn walks a woman close to my age in a long coat, gloves off and in her hand. \"Hello, Sheriff Stone? I'm Bobbi Larson.\" She extends her hand, and I shake it. \"This is my partner, Detective Steve Andrews. May we have a moment of your time?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. Please, have a seat,\" I answer, shaking his hand as well. When they sit, I take my seat again and ask, \"So I'm assuming this has to do with the fire up at the Millers' place.\"\n\n\"Yes. We don't know how much the fire chief has informed you of, but we need to discuss your relationship with Ms. Blakely.\"\n\n\"She's nothing more than a birth giver. I was shocked to see her yesterday, and I'm ready to file a restraining order on both her and Susie Miller, who invited her to Snowfall.\"\n\n\"Susie Miller?\"\n\n\"Yes. She's one of the nieces in the Miller family and a real piece of work.\"\n\n\"Interesting. Does she have any stake in the insurance on the home that you would be aware of?\"\n\n\"Not likely. The two sets of Millers don't get along at all. Susie's been extremely spiteful and petty the past few days. I'd look into her and her relationship with Nicki because they were arm in arm at the festival.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Sheriff Stone. Oh, and one more question before we go.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"About Ms. Mia Fiore?\"\n\n\"What about her?\" I snarl, standing up and ready to fight someone.\n\n\"It was mentioned that she was in town and now gone after the fire.\"\n\n\"Yes. As it so happens, she was passing through, taking shelter from the storm. Why is everyone bringing her up? Who told you about her in the first place?\"\n\n\"Small towns talk and when asked about anything new, some mentioned her.\"\n\n\"Well, she was with my family when the fire started, and she was at the store before that because that's where she and I met.\"\n\n\"Okay. No one suggested anything nefarious, but those are the questions we need to ask. You understand that, right?\"\n\n\"Yes. Well, if you have any questions for me, please contact my office.\" It doesn't matter to me. Her name coming up in an investigation ticks me off. My phone rings with a text message from Mia. Hey, call me when you want. I'm hanging with Soren, but he understands that I miss you.\n\n\"Fuck,\" I groan. Knowing that she misses me does my heart a world of good. I call her right away. \"Hey, babe. How are you?\"\n\n\"I'm great. We just had brunch and now we're going to play some cards. I'm going to my apartment tonight to start packing.\"\n\n\"You shouldn't be doing it alone.\"\n\n\"Soren's going to stay with me and help.\"\n\n\"That's fucking good to hear. When are you going to be coming back home? I'll be able to head to Rochester in two days.\"\n\n\"I'll be in Snowfall by the thirtieth. Is that going to work?\"\n\n\"Yes, but I still want to see you before that. I'm going to come up there tonight after my shift.\"\n\n\"Yay! I can't wait.\"\n\nThere's a knock at my door. \"I've got to go, babe.\" I end the call and stand as my deputy Hart comes in. \"What's going on?\"\n\n\"There's an issue at the inn.\" Damn it. I rush out and jump in my patrol vehicle with Hart jumping in my passenger seat.\n\n\"What is happening?\"\n\n\"Jenny called because Derek has your mother pinned down after she attacked Jenny.\"\n\n\"Shit.\"\n\n\"Okay. You make the arrest, and I'll be the second on it.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" We enter the building and find Nicki tied to the floor and Jenny with a handprint on her face.\n\n\"Fuck.\"\n\nDeputy Hart nudges Derek out of the way and takes over, cuffing Nicki. As he lifts her off the floor, he says, \"Nicole Blakely, you're under arrest for assault. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.\"\n\n\"Do you need a doctor, Jenny?\"\n\n\"No, Mark. I'm fine.\"\n\n\"I think she needs to go in.\"\n\n\"After we get everything squared away, we will.\"\n\nHe takes her outside and loads her into the backseat of my patrol vehicle and then comes back in. \"Mrs. Mason, can you please tell me what happened?\"\n\n\"She came in here looking for a room, or so she said, but she started asking about Mia and your relationship to her and her family. I told her she wasn't welcome here. I went in the back to call Derek up front, and she went onto my computer, trying to get Mia's information, but the computer was locked. I don't know why she wants to know all that, but she's crazy. When I pulled her away from the computer, she slapped and then backhanded me. Derek tackled her down, and that was it when I called.\"\n\n\"Do you want to press charges?\" Deputy Hart asks.\n\nDerek snarls with his head bobbing up and down. \"Yes, and if anything happens to my unborn baby, she better pray they don't let me know where she's at.\"\n\n\"Mr. Mason, I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear that.\" He's right, though. We have ways of disposing of bodies from back when we were contractors overseas. Our lives were darker back then, but just because we want the family life now doesn't mean we won't go dark to protect them.\n\n\"Seriously, Jenny, I think you need to see the doctor, for Derek's sake.\"\n\n\"I will, but I need someone to watch the inn.\"\n\n\"Call in Frank and get going. I'll be standing outside until then.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry about this, Mark.\"\n\n\"No. I'm the one who's sorry. She doesn't belong in any of our lives, and I have a feeling she's here to cause more trouble. What she's after, I don't know exactly. Is it to ruin my life? Get revenge on our dad's happiness? Or is she just looking to get rich by scheming\u2014who knows? But what I do know is she's not going to get anything she wants.\"\n\n\"Frank's on his way. Come on, my heart. Let's get you out of here.\" He scoops her up in his arms before she can argue and rushes her out the door. I chuckle and step out in front of the inn and wait for Frank to arrive. It doesn't take too long since he lives above the hardware store with his mom.\n\n\"Hey, Sheriff Stone. Everything okay with Mrs. Mason?\"\n\n\"Yes, just needed a quick checkup with the doctor.\"\n\n\"That's good. I'm due to help uncle Hank this afternoon at the store.\"\n\n\"They won't be that long.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\" He's a really good kid with a bright future. I leave and head to the office, walking since Hart took my vehicle. I arrive a few minutes later, cheeks a little frozen but the heat from my anger keeps me warm.\n\n\"You piece of crap. This town is nothing, and you're nothing,\" I hear Nicki shout down the hall by the cells.\n\nI dial the number for Detective Larson, and she picks up after a couple of rings. \"Hello, Sheriff. How can I help you?\" She says it so suspiciously that I'm taken aback by it, but then Nicki shouts again about how much of a pussy I am and how I'm just a loser like my daddy. \"Sheriff?\"\n\n\"Oh, sorry. I called because I have Nicole Blakely at the station this morning. She's been detained after an altercation at the inn. She'll be facing the Warren County judge on Tuesday.\" The courthouse is closed for the holiday. They run a much shorter week between Christmas and New Year's.\n\n\"I guess she just booked herself for a nice long stay. We'll be down there in about an hour to ask her some questions.\"\n\n\"Sounds good.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Sheriff.\" I end the call and think about why she was looking for Mia. I have a feeling this all has to do with me and my happiness because she can't handle anyone else's success or joy. Yes, she had no idea about Mia, but it must have galled her to see me happy.\n\n\"Hey, Ms. Blakely. You'll be a guest of ours until Tuesday, so I suggest you make yourself comfortable and stop insulting our officers.\"\n\n\"You. This is all your fault. You should have fallen for that twit, Susie. She couldn't do something as simple as seducing you.\"\n\n\"Seducing me?\"\n\n\"Yes. You wouldn't have gone home with that Fiore slut.\"\n\n\"Another word out of you, and you'll be getting just the basic bread and water.\"\n\nI walk away and into my office and close the door. Why did she want me to be with Susie, and what did they expect to happen if I'd gone out with Susie that night? Seriously\u2014they must have the most convoluted plan in the world. It's ridiculous.\n\nTwenty minutes later, my phone rings and I don't recognize the number, but it's from the Rochester area code. \"Stone here.\"\n\n\"Mark. This is Soren Fiore.\"\n\n\"What's up?\"\n\n\"So, as Mia's brother, I thought it in my best interest to pull a report on you. In the process, my guy found something that you should know about.\"\n\n\"First, I'm not bothered by that shit at all. Do what you have to, but your sister is everything to me. Second, what is it?\"\n\n\"You have a hefty insurance policy out on you.\"\n\n\"Yeah? Who's the beneficiary?\"\n\n\"A Nicole Blakely.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Yes. It was taken out three years ago with a payout of two million in the event of your death before the age of thirty.\"\n\n\"Fuck, I turn thirty in two weeks.\"\n\n\"I noticed. I can have friends locate her.\"\n\n\"That's okay. I have her in custody, but that's not it. She has people in on it. Keep Mia safe. I'll be there as soon as I can. Can you send me that information? It will take me too long to pull it.\"\n\n\"For sure, I will.\" I end the call and summon Hart into my office.\n\n\"We have a situation. That bitch in that cell has an insurance policy out on me.\"\n\n\"Do you think\u2026the fire?\"\n\n\"Yes. It was a setup to get me out there and then whatever happened, they didn't get the result they were hoping for. I don't know, but I need to get out of here and over to Rochester.\"\n\n\"I overheard her threat about Susie. I think I'll bring her in for questioning.\"\n\n\"Sounds good to me. Keep me up to date, and stay out of their crosshairs. Contact our state agency for assistance.\" As the sheriff, I should be handling the matters, but I'm just way too close to the entire situation in every way, from the fire to the possible suspects and the assault. I head home and pack a bag, noticing Susie's boyfriend watching me from his car. I call Hart. \"I need assistance outside my home. Dwayne Janke is sitting outside my home watching me from his vehicle.\"\n\n\"I'm on my way. I'll have State pick up Susie Miller.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\"\n\nTwo minutes later, Hart speeds through, pinning Dwayne's car in. \"Step out of the vehicle with your hands up, Janke,\" Hart says over the speaker. When he doesn't move, Hart repeats himself. \"Did you hear me? Hands up and out of the vehicle.\"\n\nHe finally does with his face cold and flat. \"I don't want trouble, but I can't do this no more. I swear I'm not in for killing a cop.\" He puts his hands on his head and surrenders without incident.\n\nThe rest of the afternoon is full of questions asked, charges filed, and lawyers requested. Larson is taking all three into custody and transferring them to their state facility to be brought up on additional charges, including fraud and attempted murder. Fuck. I didn't realize how close I'd come.\n\n\"I have to go.\" I say goodbye to my staff because I have to see Mia now. I need to hold her and remind myself that everything is going to be okay. I was supposed to be killed just in time for Christmas morning\u2014a gift for my father from my birth giver. She wanted him to suffer as much as humanly possible. Dwayne was supposed to be the one to off me, but he couldn't do it. He's a petty crook, but that was too far for him.\n\nTalk about a Christmas miracle that the bitch hadn't hired a real killer.\n\nI drive all the way to Rochester, knowing that I'm not leaving without my ring on Mia's finger. Life's too short to give it time. I knew she was mine the second she looked up and met my eyes. It's the first thing I pick up from the store as I reach the downtown area. I found the best store with the most expensive rings. Shooting a text to Soren, he texts me back ten minutes later with the answer. I get the one that I feel is the best and head toward her parents' home.\n\nAs soon as I pull up to their gated home, the gates open and I'm let up the long driveway. My woman tried to play off that she isn't wealthy, but I don't give a fuck because I can give her all this and more. She doesn't know about the money I have. Being a sheriff is just what I do as a means of returning to normal life after years of overseas activities.\n\n\"There's something we need to discuss,\" I say as soon as I reach the top of the stairs.\n\n\"Is it about the fire?\"\n\n\"Yes, how did\u2026\"\n\n\"I got a visit this afternoon. It's amazing how much information people can gather in small towns. Anyway, I gave the cops my timeline, including the receipt for the hardware store and then my trip to the grocery store, followed by my night at your sister's house. They told me that they were just making sure to rule out all possibilities. I'm not bothered by it. It's not the first time I've been questioned. When my cousin was in the crash, I was grilled vigorously, multiple times, but don't tell him because I never did. He would be pissed to know they did it.\"\n\n\"They thought you had a part in it?\" That's hard to fathom, having met her and Franco. They have a very close bond.\n\n\"No, but you know I was close to him, so all of us close or with something to gain had been questioned. Since I refused to go on the flight, it seemed suspicious to them. I'm just not a fan of helicopters.\"\n\n\"Fuck, I'm grateful that you never went.\"\n\n\"Me too, but I still feel guilty. I should have talked them both out of going in the first place.\"\n\n\"It's in the past. At least Franco's happy with his life now, and you're mine.\" I drop my mouth down on hers, kissing my wife-to-be, and then I pull back and head into the house. \"There's more to discuss, but first, I have to say this. From the moment I met you, I knew that I wanted to be with you for the rest of my days. It's crazy soon and wild, but I love you, Mia.\"\n\n\"I love you too, Mark. I knew it the second you flipped me over your shoulder.\"\n\n\"Then why did you fight me?\"\n\n\"Fight? Hardly. Besides, as I recall, you kidnapped me.\"\n\n\"I recall it as picking up a last-minute item at the store, so let's just agree to disagree.\"\n\n\"Fine. I know it's a lost cause anyway.\" She rolls her eyes.\n\nI steal another kiss before dropping down on one knee. \"I love you, Mia Fiore. You're smart, beautiful, kind, and you make me whole. Will you marry me?\"\n\nShe nods vigorously and sobs, \"Yes.\" I slide the ring on her finger and stand, bringing her in for another kiss as the family gathers around, and that's when I notice it's the entire family, including Franco and Fabio's side.\n\n\"Told you it was worth getting over here quickly.\"\n\n\"Damn right. Way to go, Soren.\"\n\n\"Hey, I'm the one engaged.\"\n\n\"Heck, yes. Show me that ring,\" Fabio's wife squeals, running up to Mia. I can only tell them apart because he's got a firm grip on her at all times, just like Franco with his wife. I'm too happy to ruin it with the rest of the drama, so I'll save it for later.\n\n\"Who's ready to celebrate?\" Mrs. Fiore waves two bottles of champagne.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Don't worry\u2014this one is non-alcoholic,\" she says, eyeing all the women. Our families are really going to get along well at parties."
            },
            {
                "title": "Epilogue - Six Months Later",
                "text": "[ Mark ]\n\n\"Thank you, Sheriff.\" I've spent the last hour helping him drop off supplies after I left the station.\n\n\"No problem, Mr. Miller. I'm so glad we could help with the rebuild.\" The older man sighs, knowing what we all know. His family had come extremely close to losing everything, including their lives, and thankfully, that wasn't the case.\n\nThose who were involved in the arson were arrested and pled guilty after a mountain of evidence led the way. All I'm grateful for is that Nicki was one of the ones given a solid jumpsuit especially after she had plans to end my life as well to make it look like an accident and claim millions in life insurance. How she had it cooked up for so fucking long is a damn shocker to me. That woman is pure evil and right where she belongs.\n\n\"It's been a long six months.\" A lot of good with the bad. I married Mia as soon as I could get her to agree, so by January thirty-first, she'd become my wife and the next day we found out we were having a baby. It's been a wonderful blessing.\n\nThe demons of my past are being laid to rest while my future has just begun with Mia and our growing family.\n\n\"I'm sure it has. Just let us know if you need anything. We're right up the road,\" I say with a genuine grin on my face. Meeting Mia gave me a purpose I hadn't had before and a reason to move into our old family home with so much land to build on, so it's now where we live as a family.\n\n\"It's good to see that home finally filled.\" And it's going to be filled to the brim with little ones. I want an army of babies with Mia and she feels the same way. I'm not sure how we'll feel once we start having a few, but we'll see as we go along. There is a lot of space and we're currently making adding a lot more.\n\n\"Yes. It's so damn good. I can't wait to have our little ones making tons of racket and coming to play with your grandbabies.\" He has about half a dozen little ones running around when his kids stop by which is pretty often.\n\n\"I'm looking forward to it, too.\" We shake hands, and then I head back to my house down the road to see the woman who makes every single day better than the next.\n\nAs soon as I pull through the gate, I spot my wife on the porch. Smiling like a fool to myself, I put it into park. \"It feels good to be home.\" I hop out and as soon as my feet hit the dirt path Mia rushes down the steps.\n\n\"Whoa, slow down, babe. You could fall,\" I call out, catching her and lifting her into my arms. This woman means the world to me and so does our little one growing inside of her. God, having my own family is exciting\u2026just so refreshing.\n\n\"I'm fine. I just missed you,\" she pants, bringing her head down to mine, kissing my lips.\n\n\"I missed you, too.\" I live for this woman.\n\n\"Are you getting bored so soon?\" I hope not. She didn't have to stop working, but it was her choice which I fully supported.\n\n\"Hardly. I've been working with Franco's assistant over the phone and via email all morning. He's trying to get everything just right because my cousin can be a bit hard to deal with.\"\n\n\"I think Franco just wants you to stay with him.\"\n\n\"True. I'm one of the only people willing to put up with his bad attitude, although it's definitely improved over the years. So how was your last day?\"\n\n\"It was good. It's nice to see Simon taking over for me. He's going to make a great sheriff, although there's hardly any crime unless you consider that riffraff you brought from New York City with you.\"\n\n\"Ah\u2026did you just call Mal and Al 'riffraff'? They are sweethearts. Besides, who uses riffraff these days?\"\n\n\"A small-town sheriff says riffraff, woman.\"\n\n\"Seriously though. My friends are absolute sweethearts,\" she insists as I nuzzle on her neck.\n\nI pull back my head and look at her like she's crazy. \"Sweethearts? Yeah\u2026okay. I think they caused a big uproar when they arrived for our wedding.\"\n\nShe blushes because yes, they caused quite a stir. Both women are lovely, but they're true city girls and I swear they're a handful. It's not my problem, but it made for an entertaining show at our wedding. Which will make one hell of a story that I'm sure will be told at every holiday gathering from here on out.\n\nI kiss her once more and set her on her feet, walking her into our home. \"Let's get you some food, and I'll rub your swollen feet.\"\n\n\"Wow, you are a wonderful husband. Later, you can eat my pussy too,\" she says with a moan.\n\n\"Why wait?\"\n\n\"Because I'm still here,\" my father says, coming into view wiping his hands with a rag. He may be getting up in age, but he loves getting his hands dirty every once in a while and especially when it comes to building things.\n\n\"Oh, hey, Pops. Sorry,\" I say, giving him a wink.\n\nHe laughs and shakes his head. \"I've finished the framing with Hank.\"\n\n\"Hank's here and you're wearing that?\" I snarl, looking at her sexy body. She's got on a sundress that covers her rounded belly and goes to the middle of her thighs, but her ample chest isn't as covered. It's adorable and hot at the same time, nothing provocative, but anything on her is appealing because she's always so damn hot to me in no matter what she's wearing. Mia married an extremely territorial and possessive man.\n\n\"Oh, hush. I'm fully covered, and he's happily married.\"\n\n\"And you're not happily married?\"\n\n\"Well, I'll be happier once I get my feet rubbed and my\u2026\" I press my hand to her mouth.\n\n\"We're leaving anyway.\" My dad calls for Hank. \"Let's get out of here. The horny old man's back.\"\n\n\"Good. I need to go home anyway.\" He winks and carries out his toolbox.\n\n\"Will you be helping us tomorrow?\" my dad asks.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" I shake their hands and that's when I notice Hank's truck in front of my father's. Another streak of jealousy fills my bones like the sick fuck that I am, so as soon as they pull out of our driveway, I scoop up my beautiful wife. \"You in for becoming the happiest wife ever, Mrs. Stone?\"\n\n\"Woohoo. Bragging rights!\" I swat her ass and make sure she has bragging rights for the rest of the night, although I'm sure she'll come back tomorrow saying she's been bumped off the leaderboard and needs a repeat. Which I never mind staying on top or bottom\u2026"
            },
            {
                "title": "Two Years Later",
                "text": "[ Mia ]\n\n\"Are you ready, angel?\" I spin around and face my husband with my brow cocked and makeup on point. We have a date tonight, and I love when he stares at me with hungry eyes.\n\n\"Angel? You were calling me the devil this morning.\" I fight a smile, knowing I'm a devil when it comes to my husband.\n\nHe slides his hands around my waist, dragging me into his arms so I can feel his length. \"That's when you tried to close your legs on me after teasing me all night, rubbing your round ass on my cock.\"\n\n\"That's not my fault. You're so warm, and I was cold last night,\" I lie, and he knows it.\n\n\"You wanted your pussy fed last night, and you should have said something.\"\n\n\"You already gave me some an hour earlier?\" I'm always so horny, and more so when I'm pregnant. Baby number two has only started to show, but the emotions coursing through me are in full swing.\n\n\"Your parents are waiting for us to drop off the baby, so get your pretty butt ready to go. I want to get you fed and in the hotel to spread you out wide and celebrate New Year's Day between my wife's legs.\"\n\n\"Fuck, I'm so tempted to stay inside.\"\n\n\"Same here, baby, but you deserve a night out. We both are busy building the cybersecurity firm and raising our baby boy, so I don't get time to properly show you off as mine to the world.\"\n\n\"Okay. Let's go.\"\n\nWe bundle up Callahan in his cute sweater and tuck him into his car seat under the blankets before driving to her parents'. Since we're going out in Rochester, her parents decided to offer up sitting for us or my parents would have gladly taken our little guy for the night.\n\n\"You're everything to me, Mia.\"\n\n\"I live for you, Mark.\"\n\nWe skip dinner altogether and ring in the new year with an earth-shattering orgasm. Life can't get any better, but I'm sure as hell open to welcoming more happiness. I'm so grateful for one hell of a Christmas snowfall and an insanely hot sheriff."
            }
        ]
    }
]