“He was a changeling child who had lived out his life in the fairy court, favored by both king and queen. But because of me, he ran back to the mortal world—ran to a world he had never known. He vanished into London at midwinter, a beautiful boy who believed in magic lost in the streets of Southwark, not even speaking the language, and—” He choked.
Laurence closed his eyes and tried not to imagine it. Even in his London, in a kinder age, there were so many ways that could have gone wrong.
“I don’t want to tell this story,” Avery said abruptly. He was shaking in the circle of Laurence’s arms.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I was careless, so horribly careless, and he paid the price for it.”
“And they punished you? Where were they to comfort him when his heart was breaking?”
“They don’t think like that,” Avery whispered. “I hurt him, and I bear the price. He survived, so they let me live, but when they brought him back, he wasn’t—” He stopped again, and Laurence felt hot tears fall on his neck.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said again.
“It was. It was, but I have paid my price. I want to live outside these shadows, Laurence. I want it so much. I want to see flowers again.”
Laurence pulled him close and swore to himself that he would end this, soon he would end this. He would give Avery back all the other seasons of the year, give him leaves that were not evergreen, the flowers of spring and the fruits of autumn.
And if he had to give his heart to Avery to achieve that, nothing would bring him more joy.
Chapter Seven
AS THE nights drew in, Laurence’s nerves grew taut. The cottage was homelike again, and he crossed off every day on his calendar, watching the days gradually fill up. He struggled to learn the mechanical calculator, cross-checking every painstaking sum against Elspeth’s more agile mind. He found it easier if he had the processes written out step-by-step, so Elspeth typed them up for him and had them mounted on card with a little sliding rule so he could track his way through the calculation, measure for measure. He was still reluctant to work anything out without checking with someone else, but his confidence grew with every correct answer.
Elspeth took her entrance exams and went off to Oxford interviews. She came back bubbling with excitement, and Laurence found himself wishing all her hopes would be realized. Maybe Avery could take her place—he had a good brain for numbers, and it would give him a role in the village. Laurence started piecing together a story for him, of an eccentric veteran seeking a quiet life. His own limitations were now well enough known in the village that he hoped no one would question him having live-in help.
Or maybe Avery too would want to go away and study, here in a brave new world crammed full of ideas.
The vicar delivered his advent sermons, meandering through Bible texts and local anecdotes as his mathematically minded daughters pinched each other awake in the front pew. The old ladies of the village came to complain to Laurence about their aches and pains and left Christmas puddings and mince pies in their wake, tutting at the thought of him spending Christmas alone.
Althea and Millie invited him to dinner twice and very pointedly talked about anything but the village and the upcoming season. Laurence appreciated it more than he could say.
It was a warm wet winter that year, none of last year’s snow, but endless days of drizzling rain and trudging through wet mud. The thrush still sang bravely in the depths of the holly copse, and the daffodils sprouted early, pushing out of the damp earth in green spears.
Christmas Eve dawned wet. Laurence woke well before the light and wandered downstairs to nurse a first cup of tea and stare out at the garden. When would Avery be here? Would it be as good as last year?
Would Avery come at all? What if he didn’t come?
Laurence made another cup of tea from the same tea bag—blasted rationing.
He walked through the cottage, checking every room. It wasn’t the same as it had been when Avery’s magic brought the place to life, but it was comfortable, as warm and cozy as he could make it. It even had electricity now, and a refrigerator in the pantry. He’d finished up his food coupons for the month and, although he couldn’t produce quite the feast Avery had given him last year, there was enough here.
He spent half an hour tuning the wireless, making sure the signal would be clear tomorrow. He checked the cottage again and then forced himself to sit by the window and write a long letter to his parents, filling it with all the amusing details of a village Christmas.
Shortly before noon, the rain stopped and the clouds parted enough to allow thin winter sunshine to wash across the rain-wet garden. Laurence went outside, his heart in his throat.
The mistle thrush was singing, its full fluting song ringing over the soft drip from the still-drenched leaves.
Laurence almost missed the moment when it stopped.
Then golden light shimmered along the spiked leaves of the holly, and Avery was there, standing across the garden from him as if he had never vanished at all.
Laurence walked straight to him, no longer lost but certain of his path, and Avery fell forward into his arms, golden light still glinting in his hair and eyes. Laurence kissed him with the intention of never letting him vanish again.
And it was magical.
He barely noticed the golden light fading until Avery pulled back and said, “Laurence?”
Laurence looked at him then and saw him as he had in only the most unguarded moments of their last Christmas. The man he held in his arms now was not the brilliant warlock who haunted these woods, but a very human figure—still broad shouldered and handsome, but also a little tired and bewildered, shadows under his eyes and an uneven flush in his cheeks.
“Come inside,” Laurence said.
“Yes,” Avery said, taking his hand too tightly for comfort.
Laurence didn’t mind. He led Avery inside and paused when Avery stopped in the doorway to the sitting room, his eyes going wide as his hand clenched on Laurence’s again. “I…. Usually when I wake, the house is cold.”
“I’ve been living here since midsummer,” Laurence reminded him and nudged closer. “I spoke to you in dreams, remember?”
He saw Avery swallow hard. “I didn’t dare hope…. Is this all for me?”
“For both of us,” Laurence said. When Avery turned to stare at him, he added gruffly, “Mind you, we’ll have to be cunning to make it work without rousing suspicion.”
Avery laughed and clicked his fingers. “Why, then, we will beguile them with illusion and….” He trailed off and then clicked his fingers again, frowning a little.
“What’s wrong?”
Avery lifted his hand to his mouth. “My magic. ’Tis gone.”
“Gone?”
Avery nodded. Then, to Laurence’s surprise, he began to smile, widemouthed and uncertain. “Gone. Laurence… Laurence!” And then he threw himself at Laurence, burying his face in Laurence’s shoulder. “You broke it! You broke my curse!”
“We can’t know for certain,” Laurence started, but he couldn’t help wrapping his arms around Avery and kissing that dear face when Avery looked up at him, caught between tears and laughter.
Avery kissed him back, fierce and clumsy. “I thought I would never—I had stopped hoping.”
Laurence said, the words caught between kisses, “You gave me hope. I had to find a suitable gift in return.”
“And so you gave me back my summers.”
Laurence swallowed hard. “We won’t know for certain until Twelfth Night is over.”
“I believe,” Avery declared grandly, then smiled at him, bright with simple joy. “But you are a skeptical man of science, are you not, my love? Let us wait, then, and prove it true.”
“Twelve days of Christmas to fill before then,” Laurence said, feeling his own heart grow light.
Avery laughed, the sound light and happy, “So let us make merry, my heart, and while the time away.
”
AND SO they did, with both comfort and joy, until the Twelfth Night passed, the Yule log crumbled to nothing in the hearth, and they sat with their hands clasped to watch the sun rise on a new day, a thirteenth day, a new beginning.
Outside, in the holly, a robin, not a thrush, began to sing, and inside, two lovers met, encircled within each other’s arms, no longer lost in either time or space, but come safe at last to a place where both belonged.
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear….
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V
Author’s Note
LAURENCE AND Avery’s story is a fairy tale, and like most fairy tales, it dances around reality in several ways. Whilst a close look at a map of Hampshire will reveal that Privett is a real village and allow a keen reader to trace the route Laurence takes from the station, they will not find Mistle Cottage at the end of that path. Nor is there any local legend about a cursed wizard from any era, and the village (and villagers) described in this story are not meant to bear any resemblance to the real Privett, now or then.
As for the rest of the story, the winter of 1947 really was one of the worst on record in the UK, but it didn’t really get started until January. Laurence’s time in the head-injury ward in Oxford would have been spent in the grounds of St Hugh’s College, which was requisitioned for the duration of the war. Jeannie likely spent her war at Bletchley Park or one of the other British code-breaking sites. Millie’s escapade with the Typhoon is unlikely, but not entirely impossible—the only WW2 pilot who ever successfully landed a Typhoon after its underside fell off was a real ATA pilot, Diana Barnato Walker.
Would Laurence really have been able to get his license back? I don’t know, but since this is a fairy tale, let’s allow him a happy ever after.
AMY RAE DURRESON is a quiet Brit with a degree in early English literature, which she blames for her somewhat medieval approach to spelling, and at various times has been fluent in Latin, Old English, Ancient Greek, and Old Icelandic, though these days she mostly uses this knowledge to bore her students. Amy started her first novel a quarter of a century ago and has been scribbling away ever since. Despite these long years of experience, she has yet to master the arcane art of the semicolon. She was a runner-up in the 2014 and 2016 Rainbow Awards.
Blog: amyraenbow.wordpress.com
Twitter: @amy_raenbow
By Amy Rae Durreson
Aunt Adeline’s Bequest
A Frost of Cares
Gaudete
The Ghost of Mistletoe Lock
The Holly Groweth Green
Lord Heliodor’s Retirement
Random Acts of Kindness (Dreamspinner Anthology)
Spindrift
Steamed Up (Dreamspinner Anthology)
Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS
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Published by
DREAMSPINNER PRESS
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Holly Groweth Green
© 2017 Amy Rae Durreson.
Cover Art
© 2017 L.C. Chase.
http://www.lcchase.com
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dreamspinnerpress.com.
Digital ISBN: 978-1-64080-307-7
Published December 2017
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
The Holly Groweth Green Page 6
