Maggie Shayne: An Enchanted Season

Holly went back into the shed to return the hammer and nails to their spots, so Maureen would find them right where she’d left them. She flipped on the lights this time. She hadn’t had to before—it had still been light outside.

The back corners of the shed were illuminated, and she spotted what she hadn’t seen before: a giant box, taped shut. Her mother’s handwriting was on the side of it. She’d written one word with a Sharpie marker. “Santa.”

“It can’t be,” Holly whispered. Then she ran forward, falling onto her knees and tearing at the packing tape like a child tearing at her first present on Christmas morning. She got it loose, and pulled the box open. Then pawed her way past the bubble wrap and newspapers that lined the thing.

And then she sat back on her heels, smiling through her tears. Santa smiled up at her from his sleigh. She looked around and found the other box, the one that contained the reindeer. Everything was in pristine condition. After all, they’d used the set only that one year. The year before Holly’s family had died.

“Aw, Mom. If I’d known this was still here…” She brushed her tears away. “No regrets, right? Okay. I’m putting him up on the roof, where he belongs!”

And with that, she carefully took Santa and his sleigh out of the box, carried them to the ladder, and laid them on the ground beside the ladder. Then she did the same with the reindeer. Finally, she searched the shed until she found a sack full of twine, and she strung it all together until she had a nice lengthy piece. She tied one end to Santa, climbed the ladder, and hauled him up.

The brackets that had held him and his crew in place were still there, right along the peak, though she crawled around feeling for them, because of the darkness. She made it work, though, and then hauled the reindeer up and was anchoring them to the roof, when the snow began falling, sticking to her hair, her shoulders, her eyelashes.

Headlights from the driveway drew her gaze downward.

“ OH. MY. GOD.”

Matthew could not believe that in a few short hours, the tumbledown farmhouse had turned into the tackiest display he’d ever seen. Lights lined the roof, up into the peak and down and along the edges. They lined every window, painting their borders in color. They outlined the door, twisted candy-cane-like over the railings that flanked the front steps, and marched all the way around the front porch. It looked like something out of a children’s theme park.

He shut off the car, and opened the door to get out.

“Hello!” someone called.

Slowly, he lifted his gaze, following the sound of that voice, gazing through the tumbling jumbo-sized snowflakes until he saw her. That crazy, good-looking hippie was on the roof ! His stomach knotted up. “What the hell are you doing ?”

“Decorating.” She shook her head. “As if that’s not obvious. Do me a favor and turn your headlights back on?”

“Huh?”

“Car. Headlights. On.” She thumped a fist on her chest. “Jane need light.”

He almost smiled. Almost. He stopped himself barely in time. Instead he leaned back into the car and flipped on the headlights. They didn’t help much, he imagined, but a little. She bent then and tugged, and he saw reindeer flying. Well, not actually flying. They were sort of rising, as she pulled them up by the rope.

And the snow, he thought, was coming down harder. “Look, it’s gonna get very slick up there very fast. You need to come down before you break your neck.”

“I promise I won’t break my neck.”

“You will if you fall.”

“ Don’t make me think about falling. I wasn’t even thinking about falling. Now you’ve gone and put falling into my head, which makes it possible.”

“Huh?”

“What, you don’t believe in quantum physics?” She turned, the rope slung over her shoulder now, and dragged the reindeer higher up onto the roof. Then she sat on the peak, one leg over each side. A position he thought was much more stable than her former one. So he relaxed a little. She stood the reindeer up, bending over their feet and fastening whatever device she’d rigged to hold them there. It worked great. She was more than a hippie, she was a female MacGyver, he thought. Then she made her way back to the edge and sat down beside the ladder, her oversized boots, which looked like furry moonboots to him, dangling over the side. She was holding something in one mittened hand.

“Would you do me a favor and toss me the business end of that extension cord?” She pointed as she said it, and he saw the heavy-duty cord twined at the bottom of the ladder, one end snaked toward the house, and he saw that it was already plugged into a heavy-duty, outdoor outlet.

He sighed. “I can’t believe I’m going to be a party to this.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he muttered. He went to the cord, unwound a length, and tossed the end up to her.

She caught it easily, a huge smile on her face. “Ready?” she asked.

“Not exactly.”

She plugged it in. Santa’s sleigh lit up like the runway lights at Detroit Metro. His reins glowed, his sleigh’s entire shape was lined in lights, and they twinkled from key points on his suit. Every reindeer’s harness glowed, illuminating its face. All nine of them. The traditional eight, plus one riding point with a glowing red nose.

“Happy birthday, Jesus,” he muttered.

“How does it look?” she called. She was standing now, right on the edge, turning her back to him to try to get a better look at the display. He lifted his hands in a “stop” kind of gesture, and grunted the opening syllable of a stern warning. But that was as far as he got before she fell.

He tried to catch her, but only resulted in breaking her fall a bit.

She landed on her back right at his feet.

Her eyes were closed. Not in an unconscious sort of a way, but in an “I’m scrunching up my entire face in agony” kind of a way.

“Ouch,” she said. And then her face unscrunched and her eyes popped open. “Isn’t this the place where you’re supposed to be dropping to your knees, and lifting my broken body up and asking in a desperate, emotion-choked voice if I’m okay?”

He shrugged and remained standing. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

He extended a hand. “Help you up?”

“My hero.” She clasped his hand with her mitten, and he braced while she pulled herself to her feet. “You’re a romantic devil, aren’t you?”

He chose to ignore her comment. “I t old you you were going to fall,” he said instead.

“And that’s why I did. Thanks a lot.”

“You deserved it. This poor house would hide its face in humiliation if it could.”

“I beg your pardon! This house loves to dress up and show off. It hasn’t had the chance for a while. And I happen to think it looks great!” She stood staring at it, arms crossed over her chest, and then turned to look at him again. “Why are you here, anyway?”

“The place is for sale. I was thinking about buying it, and the Realtor refused to show it to me tonight. So I thought maybe you could give me the grand tour yourself.”

She narrowed her eyes on him. “My ass hurts,” she said. “I really don’t feel like taking that giant ladder down and stashing it back in the shed.”

He lifted his brows. “Uh-huh. And if I were willing to do that for you?”

“Then I’d ask you to bring in some firewood. Enough to last overnight.”

“This is getting to be a pricey tour. And if I do both those things?”

“Then I’ll give you the grand tour, and tell you everything I know about this house. And I know most everything about it. I grew up here.”