Magic, Miracles & Mistletoe
By Diane Majeske
Copyright 2011 by Diane Majeske
Smashwords Edition
This novella is dedicated to my family. Without them there’d be no magic at all.
Cover art designed by J.D. Stroube at Dreamscape Covers
http://www.dreamscapecovers.com
Ornamental Escapades
Martha Tanner pulled back on the box of ornaments, ignoring the persistent ache in her upper arms. So close. Just a few more inches, and it would slide loose from its precarious perch. She pulled, hard.
The box came free with a jerk, the sudden release knocking Martha backwards.
“Oh, my goodness!” she breathed as she started to tumble. She could feel herself falling, tried to catch herself, her arm flailing behind her as she fell. Stubbornly, she kept her arm tightly clasped around the white oblong box.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” called Peter, her husband, climbing the steps by two to reach his wife in time. Just before her bottom hit the hallway, he caught her under her arms, lessening the impact considerably. He eased her slowly to the floor; she looked up at him gratefully.
“Thanks, honey,” she said, putting a hand over her heart to catch her breath. “That was a close one!”
She stretched her back. She was sore, more sore than she wanted to admit, far more uncomfortable than she’d ever tell Peter. She was happy she hadn’t fallen. Lord knows what would have happened then. Gracious. She’d probably have broken a hip, become an old person stereotype, earned the wrath of their two children.
Gloria and Tim always were after both their parents to settle down, to do less, to … Martha didn’t even finish the thought. She knew what they wanted. They wanted the two of them to move to … well … Martha’s eyes rolled even as the words formed in her mind … a retirement community. Her lips pursed.
“No thank you,” she said out loud. “Thank you very much.”
Her husband smiled at her. “What’s that, sweetie?”
She looked at him fondly. He probably didn’t have his hearing aid turned up. He sometimes forgot about things like that in the evening, when his head had been buried in a book.
“I just said, ‘Let’s take a break,’” she said to him, holding out her hand for a little help up.
The elderly couple held hands all the way to the kitchen, breaking the clasp only when Peter sat down at the table to squint at the newspaper in front of him.
Martha took a cup from the cupboard and put on the teakettle, then moved over to stand by Peter’s side. She gazed around the house thoughtfully, a hand on his shoulder. It was a good house, a sturdy house, one that offered all they needed and more.
It was just ….bare.
Peter looked up. “What is it?” he said. “What’s wrong?” It was like he could read her mind. Not surprising after nearly 50 years of marriage, she thought with affection.
Martha sighed. “It’s just … it’s just this house,” she said. “It just doesn’t feel like Christmas here this year.”
Peter patted her hand. “Oh, I know, I know,” he said. “You’re still upset that the kids can’t come until the holiday, but you know they can’t help that. Gloria told you that …”
She interrupted him. “It’s not that, Peter,” she said. “You know it’s not that.”
Peter looked vaguely upset. That bothered her, upsetting him. She knew he was trying to remember exactly what was bothering her, and remembering was getting a little harder these days. She didn’t want him to have to try too hard. So she started again.
“I just wish that …”
He suddenly interrupted again. “You wish that we had decorated,” he finished. She looked away. But he was right.
It was silly.
That was exactly what she was wishing. Normally, by this time, the house was a veritable Santa’s village. There were garlands of evergreens decking the halls with candy canes tucked in every swag. Bunches of mistletoe were hung over each threshold. Bright poinsettias lined the mantel, and a miniature lighted Santa’s village, with ice skaters, carolers and busy shoppers walking on sparkling snow lined the dining room window seat.
And the Christmas tree – their amazing, wonderful Christmas tree – that was the best part. They’d brew a pot of tea and spend Christmas Eve trimming the tree, unpacking each and every ornament with a memory and exclamation of joy.
Every angel, elf, baby, drummer boy, rocking horse, sleigh, Santa … they’d all been bought or made, hand-picked over the years. Each holiday they were lovingly unpacked and hung with care.
But not this year. This year was different. First had come a nasty cold that lingered for weeks; it turned into a flu that left both of them nearly bedridden.
Then Peter slipped on the ice. It was nothing, he insisted. But he limped for weeks. The Christmas season had arrived and they had both felt weak and listless.
The decorations stayed packed in their boxes.
The tree had been delivered, just like every year, but this year, it just sat on the back porch.
It was heavy. Moving it was hard.
“Let’s just wait till the kids get here,” Peter suggested.
It just made sense, Martha knew. So why did it bother her so much?
Setting up a tree took a lot of heavy lifting. And decorating was a lot of work. She remembered years ago, when the four of them, she, Peter and the kids, put up the tree, taking out each ornament with a shout, placing each piece of Christmas décor on the shelf, on the tree, on the mantel, until nearly every inch of the house held Christmas cheer.
Now the kids were grown and gone, raising children of their own. Martha smiled slightly at the thought of her rambunctious grandchildren, whose shouts of glee would soon fill the quiet house.
And now Peter, her beloved Peter, was frail – far more frail than she remembered him being last year. Funny, she never saw him that way. She never saw herself that way, certainly. But taking that box of ornaments out of the closet … why, a simple box of ornaments … she could still feel the slight stiffness in the back of her legs starting from where she’d fallen.
How ridiculous, this growing old. She shook her head. Leaving Peter to his newspaper, she wandered back down the hall, to the unopened box of ornaments that had nearly done her in just awhile ago.
She’d stacked it with the other boxes in the living room. Tomorrow morning – or afternoon, probably, the kids would get here – grandkids, too – and they’d bring in the tree and unpack all the decorations and the house would finally have that warm holiday glow.
But it wouldn’t hurt just to take a little sneak peek tonight. Maybe set up just a few things. Sure, the doctor had told her to take it easy, but goodness, hanging a few garlands couldn’t raise a person’s blood pressure too much, now could it?
Martha kneeled down by a long white box, lifted the lid and smiled. The open box seemed to glow. No wonder it had come free from its perch so quickly. These ornaments realized it was their time to shine. No beauty like this should be kept in a box.
Martha unwrapped the top ornament from its bed of tissue paper. A porcelain angel looked up at her, blue eyes wide, wings outspread, the rich, delicate folds of her dress unmoving.
“Melanie,” Martha said softly, tracing the outline of the angel’s wings, running her fingers over her hair, her skin, her dress. “I’m so sorry … angels don’t belong in the dark.”
Melanie’s eyes shone.
Martha rose with effort and placed the angel in the center of the mantel, smoothing the angel’s dark hair. She remembered when she and Peter had been shopping, years ago, and seen the angel through the snow-encrusted window of a Christmas store in Italy. The angel had seemed so ethereal, so beautiful – Martha knew that having her at the top of their Christmas tree would be like bringing a real angel to watch over the house.
Even the shopkeeper had seemed reluctant to part with her.
“She is a true angel, this Me-lo-nee,” he had said, sounding out each syllable, looking almost regretful as he packed her up carefully for Martha. “Take care of her well.”
It was funny, Martha thought, that an ornament had been given a name. But somehow, Martha thought, the angel did look like a Melanie.
Every year, she looked forward to seeing her again.
Putting Melanie at the top of the tree was the highlight of the decorating season. She wondered, briefly, almost sadly, what would happen to Melanie when she and Peter were gone. She put the idea out of her head.
She touched the angel one last time and turned back to the box. She hung a few garlands and added a few candy canes, and Peter watched her from the door.
“Take it easy, hon,” he warned. But then he smiled and held up a cluster of mistletoe. He reached up, attaching it to a hook in the doorway between the living and dining rooms. “Then come here and kiss me.”
Martha smiled. The clock struck 10.
She gave one last, regretful look to the partially decorated room, and the couple went slowly to bed.
****
Nearly two hours passed before Melanie dared to move, to stretch her wings and blink her eyes, to let her dress rustle or drop her arm.
She looked around in surprise. Usually at this time, she was delighted to be awake, looking down in wonder from the top of the tree. She felt different. But she was sure she was the same. She ran her hands over the folds of her silky dress, fingered the pearls on her tiny necklace. She touched her hair, smoothed her bangs out of her eyes. She straightened her back, flexing the feathers on her broad wings. She was still an angel, most definitely.
And she was awake, just like she was every Christmas Eve.
But something was wrong. She wasn’t on the tree. There wasn’t a tree. And the Christmas spirit that enveloped her each year when she awoke was missing. The air wasn’t warm and soft. It was, in fact, a little chilly around her. She wondered why she herself wasn’t cold.
“It’s because you’re loved,” said a voice from below. She looked down from the mantel, startled. Had she spoken aloud?
“What?” she said, and then remembered her manners. “Excuse me?” she said. A box below her shivered and shook, and the lid inched to the side. An oversized Elf, his cap askew, stuck his head out and looked up at her.
“Whew!” he said with a grin. “That’s quite a climb from the bottom of the box!”
Melanie stared at him, hard. She recognized him, vaguely … yes, he was definitely the one who nearly made the tree fall over by jumping from branch to branch after a little too much holiday punch last Christmas Eve. But he had always been droll and pleasant, and something inside her told her he might have the answers she was looking for now.
“I’m sorry?” she said.
“Oh, you’re not sorry,” he said with a wink, using his wiry arms to work his way out of the box. “Why, I wouldn’t say that at all.”
“Hey!” said a tiny wooden hobby horse that he inadvertently knocked to the ground.
“Oh, oops!” said the Elf. “Didn’t see you there, Dobbin. My apologies.” The Elf turned his attention back to the angel, who was by now watching him with some consternation.
“Oh, my,” said Melanie. “I feel … confused.”
The Elf stopped smiling. His expression turned serious. He hopped from the top of the box to the garland hanging from the mantel and shimmied up the side until he reached the top. Then he straightened his tunic, took off his hat, smoothed his hair and walked up beside her.
Melanie watched him, wide-eyed. He didn’t say anything for a minute, and then he took one of her delicate hands.
“You’re not cold because you’re loved,” he said. “We’re all loved. That’s what keeps us warm. It’s what lets us move, what brings us to life each Christmas Eve.”
She nodded slowly.
“But this Christmas Eve is different,” she said, looking at him, her gaze steady. “I feel it inside.”
He nodded back. “It is,” he replied. “Our people aren’t well. There’s no spirit here … can you feel the air … how cold it is? How sad it feels?”
She did. “That’s terrible,” she told him, her face full of concern. “Someone should do something.”
He nodded and raised his eyebrows. He looked at her expectantly, and the silence between them stretched long. She stared back.
“Oh, no!” she said finally. “I couldn’t do anything – certainly, not me. I … don’t think that’s what Christmas angels are for.”
He laughed at that, and she felt a frisson of irritation. At least, she thought that’s what it was.
“What?” she asked him. “Why are you laughing?” Melanie placed her hands on her hips.
The Elf sat down on the mantel, leaning against the mirror. He stretched out his legs and flexed his pointed boots. He looked up at her.
“Then what?” he asked. “What do you think a Christmas angel is for?” His grin faded, and for a moment, he looked very serious. “Why are you at the top of that Christmas tree? Why do you look over us all each year and come awake each Christmas Eve?”
Melanie felt uncertain. She looked in the mirror, at her pretty face and beautiful gown. Then she looked away, at the darkened living room and the unpacked boxes filled with Christmas décor.