An Xmas tale
Once upon a time, not so long ago and not so far away, Christmas came in a real winter. There was snow up to your knees everywhere, and in some places it lay deeper. Spruce and pine surrounded all the little houses, and brushed the clouds as if to frost themselves more. Snow had drifted down all day for days before Christmas, and still drifted down that morning.
A not-so-little girl woke to Christmas morning before anyone else in her house did. At least, she couldn't hear anything but her own scrapes and brushes as she sat up and kept the covers around her. When she grew still, she only heard the creaks and snaps the old house made. Her grandfather had grown up in the house, so it had a lot of snaps and creaks in it. Even so, on a normal morning she would have heard muffled sounds that she'd recognize as her father's voice or her mother's voice. Later, she'd have heard quiet sounds from the kitchen that she'd know pans made when put on the stove or the countertop.
The quiet told her that she'd woken very early Christmas morning. She felt a little strange about that since she didn't believe in Santa Claus any more. She didn't believe any more even though every Christmas morning gifts waited that hadn't lain under the tree when she went to sleep. She suspected her parents meant to keep the magic of Christmas alive for her, and waited to get some presents out until she slept.
She quietly moved to look out her window. Enough light found its way through the clouds to let her know morning had arrived, but just barely. She had about decided to go back to sleep and let her parents wake her when she saw something in the trees. She looked again, and couldn't see it. How strange! The trees didn't grow that thickly together this near her little town. Usually she could plainly see a deer or a cow or a dog if one stood or moved among the trees.
Once again she saw something and didn't see it again so fast that part of her wanted to say nothing really had happened. If the covers hadn't draped her so thickly, she'd have stamped her foot. She watched carefully. She saw nothing. That annoyed her. If something or someone was going to play tricks on her, they'd better not do it in her trees.
She got dressed very quietly, staying under the covers until she had enough clothes on. Even while she dressed, she watched through the window. She saw nothing. For a moment at the door, she thought again about just going back to bed and waiting for her parents. No, whatever or whoever flickered out there teased her, not her parents. She'd show them. But first she had to find the tease.
She crept down the stairs and to the inner door, avoiding the boards that would squeak. She unlatched the door and slipped out too quickly to let the cold in, much. She slipped into her icy boots and her heavy coat, and took down her snowshoes. She opened the outer door, and put her snowshoes down just where the steps disappeared in the snow. She stepped carefully onto each one and strapped it on to her boot. Once she was outside, even while she put on the snowshoes, she watched the trees she could see on the same side of the house as her window. She might have seen the same kind of flicker, but she hadn't the certainty she'd had before. That annoyed her more.
She stepped carefully around the house until she stood under her window. She waited until she knew for sure which direction she'd seen the first of those two flickers, and then walked toward the trees in that direction. She made as little noise as she could, mainly because she didn't want to wake her parents. When she reached the trees, she stooped and examined the snow; she walked on into the trees a little and stooped down again. The third time she found tracks!
Someone else had left snowshoe tracks out here! Someone her size, so it was probably someone she knew from the town. Whatever were they doing out here this early? She followed the tracks in the direction whoever had walked, and they disappeared. She stood still in the snow for a little and wondered how who had done that. She stooped and examined the snow again. No, no traces of anything packing it down at all.
She stood up and stared in the direction she had been walking, then looked back toward her house. The second flicker she'd seen might have happened a little further along in the direction the tracks had lead her. She walked on carefully in the same direction. She could go back and walk in a circle later if she didn't find the tracks just ahead.
But there they lay! Snowshoe tracks again, about the same size as her own and about as far apart as her own steps. She stopped and looked back at her tracks where they lay all alone in the snow. She could have made a dozen snow angels along that path! Oh well, she wouldn't learn any more just standing here.
She followed the new tracks until they disappeared again. She looked back at her window. She must have about reached the edge of what she could see from her bed. Since it had worked before, she walked on in the same direction. After a while she looked back along her own tracks; she'd walked alone about as far as the last time the tracks had vanished. She thought about it, then went on. She had almost decided to start the circle when she found the tracks again.
She looked back at her house, or at least in that direction. She could barely see hints of it through the trees here. She thought about it and went on; she wondered how someone left these long places without tracks. She wanted to know how they flickered twice just when she woke up and looked out the window. She wanted to see how they did this disappearing thing. She resented it as a trick on her, but it might be useful.
She started along this third set of tracks, and had to climb a slight rise. The soft wet snow made it extra work. When the snow leveled off and started back slightly down, she stopped again. Only parts of the roof of her house still showed. She probably ought to go back, but she wouldn't. Not now. Her breathing had returned to its normal rate, so she stepped out again.
And froze. Somewhere not far ahead, a clump of snow had fallen and she'd heard what sounded like a hiccup. As she walked more carefully forward, stepping even more quietly, she listened to her memory of the sound. Not exactly a hiccup, but between it and a sob maybe.
She stepped as quietly and as carefully as she could, and kept following the tracks. Then they ended again. Darn! Now her house was completely out of sight, and she probably couldn't yell loud enough to reach the house, much less into it. Should she go on? Not at all. Would she? Of course.
This time she had to cast about a bit when she knew she had walked without the tracks farther than they'd disappeared before. She used her best guess of the direction the sound had come from to help, and there they lay. The steps fell closer together here, and didn't follow as straight a path, so she looked up from the trail more often.
There! Something flickered just beyond a spruce. She hurried toward it, and kept seeing the flicker. At first she thought someone her size stepped behind the tree and back into her sight really fast. No, no one she knew could move that fast in the snow, not and keep it going this long. Whoever did it hadn't seen or heard her yet, she thought. Maybe he or she was crying.
As she approached, she saw it looked like a boy. Of course. And he paid her no attention at all, just kept coming into and going out of sight. When she got just out of arm's reach, she lost patience. "Stop that!", she said and stamped her foot.
Of course she fell when she stamped her foot. But so did the maybe-boy, trying to turn towards her too fast. More important, maybe-he stopped flickering. "I was just practicing!" he said, and his voice cracked.
They both managed to stand back up, and looked at each other. This was definitely no one she knew. If he visited someone in town, how did he get out here? Then she realized he must have come from very far away - nobody but nobody dressed like that around here or in any pictures she'd ever seen.
He must have just recognized how foreign she looked too, if boys noticed things like that. Something made surprise show on his face. "You're not a monitor!" he accused.
She didn't recognize the word he used, but she knew what he meant. She also knew he wasn't sure. "Close enough!" she asserted.
They faced each other in challenge across the snow. Suddenly she saw him and herself as if from a treetop, and tried not to laugh. It bubbled out, and he laughed too. She lost her balance and fell again. As she climbed out of the snow, she saw him doing the same thing and a new laugh started.
They laughed like that for several minutes. As soon as one started to get serious, the other would laugh newly and catch the serious one up in the laugh. They quit when they had both run out of breath. By then they had become friends in a way.
"Who ARE you?" she asked, and he answered a word she couldn't at first pronounce. He settled for "Ethelred" eventually, and she tried to teach him Juanita. When she asked, "Where do you live?" the boy got very serious. Whatever he said raised goosebumps on her forearms and neck. When he held out his hand, she thought a minute before taking it.
He said something, and she blurted, "What?" He shushed her, and squeezed his face up like boys at school did when they tried hard to think. He said his word again, and she listened carefully. He looked hopeless, so she said, "Try it again." As he said it, she said it with him.
Suddenly the woods changed. More light showed trees she'd never ever seen and no snow fell. They both cried out and the forest immediately resumed its familiar (to her) trees and snow drifted down again. She yanked her hand away from him and almost yelled, "What did you DO?" Then she realized he had done exactly the same thing, yanked his hand away from her and yelled something at her that meant exactly "What did you DO?"
She started to laugh again, and after a peal or two, so did he. She recovered first. As his laugh stopped, she asked, "Was that your woods?"
"Forest," he said. Of course. If she had a woods, a boy would have to have a forest. She didn't say anything about that though.
"Can you do that anytime you want?" she asked, and wished she hadn't. He started to nod, turned red, and shook his head no. "That's why I was practicing," he said and then mumbled something at the snow. She waited and watched him. He brought his eyes back up to hers and said, "I got lost."
"How did we do that?" she asked, "What did we say?"
He looked very serious, looked away and mumbled, then looked at her and said something like, "The Name."
She didn't know what he meant, but she held out her hand again. He took it, and may have looked a little frightened. She counted silently with her fingers, opening another with each downstroke of her hand. On three, they said it together again. Her woods changed to his forest again.
Very slowly she released his hand and looked all around her. The trees reached much farther toward a brighter sky. Their branches didn't begin until higher than she could reach. They had no leaves, and their trunks came out of the snow bigger around than any tree she'd ever seen.
Just as in her woods, though, they stood near a low ridge. He held a finger to his mouth with one hand, waved her to follow him with the other, and moved up the slope toward the crest. When she could just see over it, he stopped and pointed. After a minute she realized that she saw a large log structure beyond the bare branches; the only familiar thing about it was a chimney with smoke rising from it.
By silent agreement they moved back to where they'd come into this forest.
"Your house?" she asked, sure of the answer.
He nodded, of course. "Mother must be up now," he said, "I'll have to go in soon." He looked uncomfortable, "Will you stay?"
She thought about the odd-shaped house; she thought about the strange trees; she thought about the Christmas that waited in her own house. She shook her head, and caught herself before she said, "Another time." And now she said aloud, "I have to get back!"
They stared at each other in surprise. This time, he reached his hand toward her and, when she took it, started to count silently with his fingers. On three, they said the word together and, just as her woods began to appear, let go of each other's hand.
It worked! She stood alone in her woods, and after a while whispered "Ethelred" as if to remind herself. Then she began to walk back toward her house, carefully stepping on his tracks all the way until they really disappeared. Then she walked carefully and directly back to her front door. She looked over to the woods and whispered "Ethelred" again before she went inside. She hung up her coat and snowshoes, then tugged off her boots. She knocked the snow crust off her boots, and let herself in the inner door.
As she started toward the stairs, her mother came out of the kitchen. "Oh, there you are! Where did you go?"
"Out," she said and grinned, "Did Santa come?" Then she ran over and hugged her mother as tight as she could.
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