12 Stocking Stuffers

by Beverly Barton

  Jason nodded slowly. “You’re right. Hell, you’re probably more familiar with the lake than anyone in town.” He stared at her face. “But what about…the other?”

  She nodded. “I’m open. I’m just…not getting anything yet.”

  “So you just…wait?”

  “You keep us afloat, Jason. I’ll worry about the spooky stuff, all right?”

  He seemed completely baffled. “I can’t help in some way? Like at your place the other night?”

  She pursed her lips, sent him a sad smile. “It’s all right, Jason. I realize it probably freaked you out a little—that night, I mean. All the Witchcraft stuff.”

  He tipped his head to one side.

  “Look, it’s all right. Some people aren’t comfortable with Witchcraft, and that’s fine. But I can’t give it up, Jason. I think I had to go through this past year of trying to before I realized that. It’s who I am.” She reached to the wheel, putting her hand over his on it, and moved it slightly.

  “I kind of figured that out before you did, remember? Wasn’t I the one who tried to tell you that very thing?”

  “Yeah, you did at that.” She smiled slightly. The wind was whipping strands of hair that had escaped her knit hat. “That was pretty cool of you, especially given your feelings about it all.”

  “What feelings? What are you talking about?”

  She shrugged, averting her eyes, scanning the pitch-dark waters again. Then her eyes went stone-cold serious. “This way,” she said. She lifted a hand and pointed.

  He steered the boat where she instructed. “Well?” he prompted. “Dori, don’t tell me you suspect I have a problem with your witchiness?”

  “Are you saying you don’t?”

  “I don’t. Tell me where you got the idea that I did.”

  She bit her lips, then shrugged and blurted it. “You haven’t asked me out again since you found out.”

  “Ah, hell, Dori.” He faced her, gripped her shoulder with one hand to keep her attention. “I haven’t asked you out again because you told me you were as determined as ever to leave Crescent Cove. And because I couldn’t take your walking out on me again.”

  She stared at him. “Really? That’s why?”

  “It almost killed me last time. You’ve got no idea how hard it hit me, Dori. No idea.”

  She blinked, and he thought there might have been tears pooling in her eyes. But all of a sudden, they widened, and she swung her head around. “They’re close!” she shouted. “This way!” She grabbed up the spotlight and turned it slowly over the water, shouting the boys’ names over and over again.

  The wind came harder, snow blasting them now with such force it stung his face. He got caught up in her certainty, though the logical part of his brain told him this wasn’t possible. There was no way she could just know. No way.

  And then her light fell on something, and she whispered, “There they are.”

  It was a little boat, bouncing on the rough waters. And it was capsized.

  Chapter Eight

  The boys were in the water, clinging to the boat, cold and exhausted and weak. “Over here, help us,” was all Dori heard. There were three of them. Dori clutched Jason’s arm as he steered the boat closer. “How many were missing?”

  “Three. It’s all right, Dori. They’re all there.”

  She felt the tension rush out of her, and would have sagged in her seat, except that he needed her. Those boys needed her. Jason eased the boat alongside the capsized, smaller craft, and before he even came to a stop, Dori was leaning over the side, reaching for them.

  “Take Kev first,” said the boy nearest her outstretched arms. He pulled his limp, soaking wet friend nearer, struggling to keep a grip on him at the same time. “He can’t hold on anymore. I’ve b-been keeping his head above water for the p-past half hour.”

  Kev. This was Kevin, she thought, as she pulled the boy’s soaking wet, icy cold upper body into the boat. Jason was beside her then, helping her. They got the boy into the boat, but he didn’t open his eyes.

  Dori dragged him to the port side, to provide a counterbalance to Jason as he hauled the other two boys aboard. Kevin was freezing cold and drenched, but he was breathing and had a pulse. Poor thing must be damn near frozen.

  “We have to get him warm, Jason.”

  “We have to get back to shore first.” He helped the other two boys onto the bench-type seat. Kevin was on the floor in front of them.

  Dori leaned over the boy, tucking an emergency blanket around him.

  “I can’t believe you managed that, Dori. I can’t…you’re something else.”

  “Yeah. The question is, what?” She’d done all she could. She was shivering, her fingers numb with cold as she got back into her seat. Jason had put the boat back into motion now, was speeding along, into horizontal snow and a wind that blew the small boat sideways with at least as much velocity as its small engine drove it forward. They continued that way for more than thirty minutes, plenty of time for them to have gotten back to where they’d started. But there was no shoreline in sight. Then again, it could have been twenty yards away and they wouldn’t have seen it in this blizzard.

  “Jason?”

  “Yes?”

  “Where are we?”

  He looked at her, licked his lips. “I don’t know. I do know we’re headed east, and I believe that wind is blowing us toward shore. We’ll find it.”

  She leaned closer to him. “Will we find it before that boy goes into shock?”

  “I don’t know.” He stared into her eyes. “But if you have any more tricks up your sleeve, baby, now would be a good time to pull them out. Can’t you conjure up or something? Isn’t that what Witches do?”

  “I haven’t been much of a Witch for a year now. And when I tried, my casting and conjuring didn’t amount to much.” She drew a breath. “Then again, maybe I wasn’t working for anything I really needed. I thought I was at the time. But with hindsight…”

  He frowned at her. “Dori?”

  “Stop the boat.”

  He didn’t even question her. He just eased back on the throttle. “I can’t stop us entirely. The wind…”

  “This is fine.”

  She sat there a moment, grounding into herself, into her body, into the waters beneath them, all the way to the bottom and then into the Earth. She opened her senses, becoming one with the wind that blew around her, even with the frigid, piercing snow that snapped the skin right off her face. One. One. She swore her body temperature dropped. She opened her arms wider, rose slowly from her seat.

  “I am the wind,” she whispered. And she felt it. The wind moving through her, within her, her body, her mind. And she was the wind. “I am calming. I’m slowing. I’m easing.”

  It was working. She felt it.

  “I am the snow,” she said. “And I am fading, slowing, stopping. I am the lake and I am calming, calming, calming. I am the Goddess, and all things are within me. By my power, I still the wind, and the water, and the snow.”

  She opened her eyes slowly, brought her hands down to her sides with deliberation and intensity. “So mote it be!”

  For a moment, just a moment, nothing happened. But she stood there, still, holding up a hand to the others for silence, her eyes straining in the darkness. And then, so gradually it might have been all in her mind, the winds began to die down. And then a little more, and a little more.

  “Holy cow,” one of the boys muttered.

  The snow fell, soft puffs instead of a blinding blizzard and the water lay calm. And still she stood, scanning the horizon. But it was Jason who pointed and said, “Look! What is that?”

  A single tiny flare of light caught her eye, and she didn’t know how she knew it or why she knew it, but she knew without any doubt that it was the light of that magic candle. Her special solstice candle.

  In an instant, it changed. It became another light and another, until it seemed a thousand stars twinkled in the distance. But they were not stars
. They were candles, and lanterns, and flashlights, and lighters and anything else the people of Crescent Cove could find that would give off light. They were guiding them back, showing them the way home.

  Jason clutched her hand, pulled her until she sat down, and guided the boat in the direction of the lights. As soon as she sat, her concentration broke. The wind picked up, blasting her, and the snow whipped again. But it didn’t matter. They had found their way.

  “At the darkest moment of the darkest night,” she whispered, “that’s the very instant when the light is reborn.”

  She felt Jason’s eyes on her, felt something in them, but couldn’t quite tell what it was. And then they were at the dock, and men came running out to grip the sides of the boat, tug it farther in and tie it off. Jason handed the still-unconscious Kevin off to one of them. Others had helped his two companions out. Then Jason helped Dori out, as well, and climbed onto the dock.

  “You’re nearly frozen yourself,” he told her.

  “I could use some dry clothes,” she admitted. She watched the boys being taken to the ambulances that waited on the shore, amid what had to be a hundred people, all holding lights and candles.

  Someone started to sing “Silent Night.” Dori thought it fitting, whether one was celebrating the birth of the son, or the rebirth of the sun, or the reuniting of these mothers and their sons. One by one, others joined in the song. Dori’s eyes filled with hot tears that she imagined were probably freezing on her cheeks even as they fell. Jason’s arm came around her, and he helped her away from the dock, toward his car.

  As they moved through the crowd, people touched them, patting their shoulders, arms. Voices broke in their singing to thank them.

  They stopped near the ambulance where the men had taken Kevin. He was already inside, bundled in blankets, and his mother was about to get in with him, when she paused and met Dori’s eyes. She didn’t say anything, just stared at her for a long moment. Then a sob broke free as if ripped from her lungs, and she flung her arms around Dori’s neck. It was a brief, fierce embrace. The woman turned away just as quickly and climbed into the back of the ambulance. The doors closed, and the vehicle trundled away.

  A hand fell on Dori’s shoulder. The husband. Dori had already forgotten his name. He smiled at her. “He’s going to be all right,” he said. “Thanks to you. Both of you,” he added. He reached out to clasp her hand, then Jason’s. Then he hurried off to his vehicle, a pickup truck, and took off to follow the ambulance.

  Jason asked one of his men to lock up the rec center and another to let the state police know the boys had been found. Then he led Dori to his car and put her inside. “Your place or mine?” he asked.

  She stared at him blankly.

  “For dry clothes, some heat and maybe something hot to drink,” he clarified. “And then a talk I think is long overdue.”

  “My place is closer. And I’m sure there’s something of Uncle Gerald’s you could put on. Not to mention, I have cocoa.”

  “No power.”

  “Gas range. And I always have p-plenty of candles. Hell, I’m starting to shiver.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” He put the car into gear and drove.

  Chapter Nine

  She heeled off her hiking shoes as soon as she got through the front door, peeled off her coat and ran in damp socks into the living room while Jason was still shucking his frozen outerwear. The fire had burned low. Glowing coals gleamed from the hearth, and were the only light in the room.

  Dori removed the fire screen, set it aside and knelt to take logs from the nearby stack and toss them onto the coals. Tongues of flame licked up around them, and the room grew brighter. She replaced the screen as Jason’s footsteps came closer.

  “Get warm by the fire,” she said. “I’ll go find you some dry clothes.”

  “Change first,” he said. “Here.” Something clicked and a light appeared. “Take my flashlight with you.”

  “Thanks. There are some candles on the mantel. Matches, too.”

  “Got it.”

  Dori took the light and headed up the stairs to the loft bedroom, still shivering. She opened dresser drawers, pulled out items, happy to have the flashlight to help her find a warm pullover, plaid flannel pajama pants and, best of all, a pair of thick, cushy socks. She set the light on her dresser, than sat down on her bed to remove her frozen socks. The bottoms of her jeans were stiff and icy. She stripped everything off and put on the comfortable clothes. Then she went to the closet, where she’d packed away the clothing Uncle Gerald had left behind. Suits hung in a fat garment bag, but the more practical items were packed in boxes. She found sweatpants, a sweatshirt, put them on the bed and then found her way back down the stairs with help from the flashlight.

  She’d only been gone a few minutes, but Jason was efficient. He’d lit every candle he could find. She heard him rattling around in the kitchen. “Jason?”

  He appeared in the doorway, lit by the glow of the ancient hurricane lamp that had hung from a nail beside the front door for as long as she could remember. “Sit by the fire. I’ve got the water heating.”

  She went to him and took the lamp from his hands, replacing it with the flashlight. “I’ll finish the cocoa. Go on upstairs and change. I left some clothes on the bed for you.”

  He was about to argue, so she held up a finger. “Go on.”

  Smiling, he obeyed. By the time he came back into the living room, she had two mugs of hot cocoa sitting on the coffee table, and she’d pushed a rocker and an overstuffed chair up closer to the heat. She was sitting in the rocker, a blanket from the back of the sofa draped around her shoulders.

  “I smell chocolate.” He flicked off the flashlight and set a bundle of clothes on the floor near the fire before sitting down. “Getting warm yet?”

  “My feet have thawed out. Now they hurt. You?”

  He lifted his cup of cocoa from the table and stretched his feet out so they were closer to the fire. “Getting there.” He sipped his cocoa. “So.”

  “So,” she said.

  He drew a breath. “So you really thought I stopped asking you out because you’re a Witch?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah. I really did. It wasn’t such an illogical conclusion, was it? You asked me several times and then you stopped.”

  “I stopped right after you shot me down the first time. And then we had that talk the other day. The one where you told me you still planned to leave here as soon as you could.”

  She tipped her head to one side. “I never made any secret about that. I always planned for my stay here to be a temporary one.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe I was a little too dense to get that. Or maybe I was hoping you’d change your mind. But when you put it to me the way you did…well, I realized I was deluded.”

  “Maybe I was the one who was deluded.”

  He stared at her in the light of the fire. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, every résumé I’ve sent out has resulted in a response of ‘Thanks, but no, thanks.’” She shrugged. “Maybe I’m not supposed to go back to Manhattan.”

  “But you still want to.”

  She frowned at him. “I thought I did. All this time, I thought that was all I wanted. My old life back. Now I…now I don’t know what I want.”

  He sipped his cocoa again, didn’t say anything for a long time. The fire painted his face in shadows and light. He seemed brooding, deep, and clearly, hours had gone by since his morning shave. She caught herself wanting to run her palms over his stubbly cheeks.

  “I owe you an apology. A long overdue one.”

  He looked up at her, met her eyes. “For what?”

  “For leaving you the way I did. With just a letter.”

  He shrugged. “It wouldn’t have mattered how you left me, Dori. It was the leaving that did me in.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Hell, it’s water under the bridge. It’s not your fault. I felt something you didn’t. It happens.”

  “If I h
ad known—”

  “You’d have what? Stayed? No, Dori. I don’t think that would have happened, and I’m not sure it even should have happened. You needed to get out of here, test your wings. It changed you.”

  “Did it?”

  He nodded. “You figured out who you were. You have something now that you didn’t have before. I’ve been trying to figure out what it was since the first day I saw you back in town, and now I think I’ve nailed it.”

  “Really? What is it?”

  “I don’t know if it has a name. It’s like you always had this wellspring of…something deep down. But going away gave you the chance to find it, to tap into it, to bring it all bubbling up to the surface. You glow now. An inner light. A core of power. Maybe…maybe it’s that you found your magic.”

  “I thought I had,” she said. “And then I thought it was gone again, when I lost everything and had to come back here. Only—it wasn’t really. I turned my back on it, not the other way around. It came so clear to me out there on the lake tonight.”

  “Did it?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been lost. I’ve been floundering around in the darkness, wondering where the light went. But it’s here, it’s been here all along, just waiting for me to see it. It burns just the same, whether I’m here or in Manhattan. I’m the keeper of my own flame. No one has the power to put it out but me. Not a job, not prestige, not a huge income or a Mercedes or a penthouse apartment. Where I live or what I do for a living has nothing to do with who I am.”

  He smiled at her. “That’s great, Dori. I’m glad for you.”

  “But?” She waited, draining her cocoa, then putting her cup on the floor.

  He shrugged. “But nothing.”

  “Come on, Jason, don’t hold back. You’ve been pretty instrumental in my reaching a lot of the conclusions I have. Don’t stop now.”

  He pursed his lips in thought, then finally nodded. “Okay. I’ll give it to you straight.” He set his cup down, got out of his chair and took her hands to pull her to her feet.