What Happens at Christmas

by Evonne Wareham

  Tomorrow, unless he had miscalculated, was Christmas Eve.

  The time of the year when he always avoided people, and celebrations.

  Reminders of all that loss.

  Now he was desperate for contact with another human being.

  Irony?

  There’d been more snuffling and grunting outside the hut early this morning, as it was getting light, and later he’d heard a dog bark. He’d shouted then, even though he’d known that the animal was probably too far away for him to be heard. As dusk was falling he’d thought again that he heard a car, but he couldn’t be certain. He wasn’t sure if his ears were playing tricks on him. He spent a lot of time staring into space, playing counting and word games, anything to stop his mind drifting.

  Or returning to the hamster wheel of who and why.

  He slumped against the wall of the hut, feeling the rough wood against his back. The wind was getting up. It was rattling the windows and there was a draught blowing through an ill-fitting panel near the door.

  Happy Christmas.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Christmas Eve, Early Morning

  Lori stood in the Cwtch, nursing her first mug of tea of the day and watching mist drift around the valley.

  Like standing in a cloud.

  Maybe not a day for outdoor activities – although she suspected the fog would burn off by lunch-time.

  She started a little, slopping tea, as Griff jumped down from some hiding place on one of the beams, and began to strop around her legs.

  ‘Okay, yes, breakfast. But first we go and see if Misty is awake. She was dead to the world when I snuck out about ten minutes ago.’

  She was still dead to the world, spread out like a starfish across the bed, with Bunny, her favourite and well-loved toy, clutched in one small hand. Lori smiled and gently brushed a strand of hair away from her niece’s face. When she was awake Misty was confident and articulate – so grown–up it was sometimes hard to remember that she was only four years old. Asleep, she looked very sweet and very young.

  Lori edged out of the bedroom and padded downstairs to start on breakfast. Smiling, she flipped on the radio at low volume, to hear the news. Misty found the task of winding the handle to power up the radio entirely fascinating, which was fine by Lori. There was probably nothing to smile about in the news, which she’d somehow managed to miss hearing for a few days, but it was Christmas Eve, so there might be one cheerful item.

  ‘… Fears are growing for the safety of best-selling author Andrew Vitruvius. Vitruvius was last seen on Sunday night when he was taking part in a celebrity kidnapping for the Phil Philmore show, but failed to turn up at the rendezvous at the close of the evening.’

  Caught by the words ‘best-selling author’, Lori stopped in the act of pouring cereal into bowls, to listen. She hadn’t watched the Philmore show. Her ancient TV had already gone to storage, but in any case she’d been too busy with last-minute packing. Paulie and Mike had been talking about the show and its aftermath on Monday morning, but then she’d been dismantling her bed and hadn’t really paid proper attention.

  ‘The fundraising event netted nearly three quarters of a million pounds for a selection of charities, chosen by the participants. Friends of the author, known for his in-depth research for his best-selling action fantasy novels, have expressed concern at his disappearance, which coincides with the eighteenth anniversary of the Brighton rail disaster, in which his wife and baby son were tragically killed. Police are appealing for any information …Yesterday a weather system over the Atlantic—’

  Lori put down the cereal packet and opened a drawer, looking for spoons and listening with half an ear to the rest of the bulletin. Andrew Vitruvius was a mega best-seller. She stifled an ignominious twinge of envy. I wish.

  She’d never read anything he’d written – not her thing – but there was a whole row of his paperbacks in the bookcase in the Cwtch. She’d been curious enough to investigate and found two of them were signed. Probably when the man had come to the Hay Festival, she thought idly, as she let herself into the laundry room to retrieve the milk from the window-sill. She gave it an exploratory sniff. It was fine, but if they could get out to pick up some fresh milk today, it would be a bonus – otherwise it would be long-life or powdered tomorrow. She carried her trophy back to the kitchen. Griff slurped the last mouthful of his breakfast and gave the plate a hopeful push, making it clatter on the tiles.

  Lori shook her head. ‘That’s your lot, mate. I don’t know where you put it all as it is.’

  Irritated but not surprised, Griff stalked off to sit in the long French windows to wash, giving her the high tail on the way. Grinning, Lori gave him the finger back.

  ‘Love you too, sweetie.’

  She poured apple juice and sliced a banana to add it to the bowls of cereal. The humans’ breakfast was now ready. All she needed was someone to eat it.

  She loped up the stairs, on impulse diverting to scoop one of Vitruvius’ books from the shelf, turning it over to look at the author photo on the back. The picture confirmed that the guy was traditionally tall, dark and handsome, brooding beside a dust-covered jeep in a desert somewhere. It took a second to figure out the reason for the desert shot, and then she made the connection. The man apparently had a taste for stunts, dressed up as research. She remembered Dean, the fitter from work, going on at length about some TV programme he’d watched, where Vitruvius had been shadowed by a camera crew while white-water rafting. Dean was a big Vitruvius fan. She wrinkled her nose. Is that what this is about? Publicity to make people buy more books?

  She turned the book over. A heavily armed and partially clad Celtic type was wielding a fancy looking sword over the red slash of the title.

  The Irish Stone.

  Maybe she should read it?

  She turned the book again. Difficult to believe the author shot was of a widower of nearly twenty years. It could be an old photo or good Photoshop, or perhaps it was just luck and excellent genes. Or maybe the guy has a portrait degenerating in the attic?

  She studied the author picture, staring at the eyes, narrowed against the desert sun. There’d been a hint of something dark in the news broadcast, and the loss of his wife and son was heart-breaking. Was there still pain there? Hard to tell from a photo. She remembered that crash. She’d still been in school. It had hit all the headlines, so close to Christmas. A lot of people had died. Leaving families whose Christmases would never be the same.

  She sighed. All her family members were still with her. Maybe they were difficult and distant, but they were still alive. She’d never been in that position, but anniversaries could be hell, she knew that much.

  But would a man take on something for charity and then …?

  No. She shook her head. According to Dean, the guy was notorious for extreme research – being abandoned on desert islands, climbing mountains, trekking across the tundra. No doubt he’d re-emerge with some story to tell. Probably today, as it was Christmas Eve. Maybe the extra publicity would do the charities some good. Maybe that was the idea?

  She put the book back on the shelf – really not her thing – and went to call her niece.

  ‘Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve,’ Misty chanted as she arranged a sticker of a fairy on a piece of stiff card. Satisfied with her labours, she propped it gently next to a pine-cone. ‘Pine-cone, Holly, Ivy.’ She counted along the row. Her morning’s work. Each cardboard fairy was arranged in a display with its natural equivalent.

  Lori looked up from the pan of risotto she was cooking. With leaves and cones, some cotton-wool snow, a handful of animal ornaments and miniature pine trees that Lori had found in the back of a cupboard in the kitchen – probably supposed to go on the top of a Christmas cake – Misty had created a creditable woodland scene on a low shelf beside the back door. Some of the proportions were a bit off, the pine-cones towering over the tiny trees, but the effect was still charming.

  ‘Mist-toe.’ Misty looked u
p from her sticker book. ‘We need it for the mist-toe fairy.’

  ‘Mistletoe,’ Lori corrected. She checked the picture in the book that Misty was holding up for her to see. Her niece was right; she’d correctly identified the white shiny berries in the last fairy picture of the Christmas section. Someone, maybe Gilly, had been teaching her to read. Lori grinned. Misty was precocious enough now. Once she could read, there would be no stopping her.

  Misty was nodding ‘The fairy wood,’ she pronounced confidently. ‘We’ll go and look for some in the fairy wood.’

  The fairy wood was the clump of white-barked birch trees on the edge of the woodland track.

  Lori stirred the risotto. There was unlikely to be any mistletoe in the wood, but it wouldn’t really matter, Misty would be happy just to go and look. Lori glanced over her shoulder, beyond the island of units that separated the kitchen and the main room, to the French doors that gave onto a small terrace beside the barn. As she’d hoped, the fog had lifted and the sun was beginning to shine. It would be good to get out and the lonely track wouldn’t be creepy in daylight.

  ‘Lunch first.’ She reached for shallow bowls to dish up the risotto. ‘Then we’ll go and hunt the mistletoe. And when we come back we can look for the best place in the barn to hang up your stocking and put out the mince pie and the carrots for Father Christmas and the reindeer.’

  The water was getting low. The bucket, on the other hand, was full. His stomach was growling for some more substantial food, he was sore, stiff and his skin felt itchy all over, not just his beard.

  The wind had dropped in the night, as suddenly as it had come, but the light had been a long time coming. Drew suspected a morning fog that had been slow to lift. It was brighter outside now, but the hut felt even more dank and chill. And soon it would be getting dark again.

  Christmas Day.

  He’d had a few seconds of hope when he heard a dog bark again, this time close to the hut. He’d held his breath as it came sniffing around – probably lifting a leg. He’d called out then, provoking a volley of barking, but nothing had happened. If the dog had an owner, they hadn’t come near enough to hear.

  He was battling a growing seed of panic. He’d tried again with the cuff and chain, risking splinters of wood in his fingers and under his nails as he grappled to work the fastening off the wall. If they’d attached the chain to the bench, not the hut itself, he could have picked up the whole thing and used it to batter his way out. That was what one of his protagonists would do.

  But you didn’t arrange this scenario.

  He breathed deep, trying to stay calm. He’d gone missing in just about the most public way possible. People would be looking for him. He had friends who were good with that kind of stuff. All he had to do was hang on. People would be looking.

  But how will they know where to look?

  After hours of staring into darkness, chasing his thoughts around, he’d arrived at a short list of people who had sufficient information to sabotage the arrangements, but he hadn’t been able to come up with a whisper of motive for any of them.

  Which means that there’s someone else?

  He was looking down the barrel of another night under the dust sheet. And then it was Christmas Day. For exactly half his life, this had been the worst time of his year. And this year looked like it was going to be worse than worst.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Christmas Eve, Afternoon

  The sun was shining when they reached the turning into the woods. The trees enclosed them, but it was still light under the leafless branches. Lori nosed the car cautiously along an even narrower track that ran off to the side, that they’d learned about at the village shop. In summer the farm workers apparently used it to get to a hut, where they stored tools and chainsaws and other equipment, for use on that side of the wood, but in the winter the building was cleared and empty and the place deserted.

  The owner of the small store in the village had explained all this, when they were buying milk, after a long and involved conversation with Misty about the fairy properties of silver birch trees.

  ‘If she wants to visit again, that old track would be shorter for little legs. It gets you right in amongst the trees. There’s a clearing where you can turn the car around and we’ve had no rain lately, so it shouldn’t be too muddy. ’

  ‘I don’t have little legs,’ Misty protested indignantly.

  The shop owner grinned. ‘I was thinking of your auntie, pet.’

  Now tall, pale trunks loomed on either side of the car. And there was the clearing, as Misty’s new friend had promised.

  Lori turned the car carefully, to face the way they had come, and stopped. The ground was dappled by sunlight under the trees, which showed ruts where another vehicle had parked recently in the same spot. Misty was chattering excitedly about mistletoe and fairies.

  ‘In a minute, sweetheart.’

  Lori opened her door, leaning out to check the state of the ground. Not soggy enough to cause problems getting the car out and no problem at all for two intrepid mistletoe hunters equipped with stout wellingtons.

  She could see that the trail was much narrower leading out of the clearing on the other side, presumably towards the equipment hut, and then up over the hill behind, but someone had made a rough job of pushing back the undergrowth on either side, breaking it and bending it out of the way.

  Lori looked up at the fragments of sky she could see though the branches, and then at her watch. They probably had about an hour before it started to get dark.

  Plenty of time.

  ‘Come on, trouble.’ She helped Misty out of her car seat. ‘Let’s go and look for those fairies.’

  He’d finally lost it. He was hallucinating. There were voices coming towards him and then receding.

  Two voices.

  Singing.

  Christmas carols.

  He was hallucinating.

  Good King Wenceslas and his page were coming for him, through the woods.

  Drew jerked upright from the half doze he’d been lost in. The voices were still there. It wasn’t a dream. The page was warbling now, in a high treble. The singing was real.

  Oh God.

  He stumbled to his feet, leaning against the wall of the hut, as close as he could get to the source of the sound. His heart was thumping so hard it took him two attempts to find his voice, and then it came out as a hoarse rasp. Frantic, he tried again.

  ‘Hello! Can you hear me?’ That was better. ‘I’m here, in the hut. I can’t get out. Can you hear me?’

  The voices had stopped. The silence stretched, ominously. Was it kids? Had he scared them in to running away?

  He tried again. ‘Hello?’ There was a humiliating catch in the word.

  ‘Hello?’ A voice answered him. A grown-up voice, not the page.

  ‘Hello.’ Relief was making him dizzy. And repetitive. ‘I’m here, in the hut. I can’t get out. I need help. It’s not a joke. Please. If you can just open the door.’ The unhappy thought that the door might be padlocked raised its ugly head. ‘If you could try.’

  He strained to hear. There seemed to be a muffled conference going on, too low-pitched for him to make out the words.

  ‘Who are you? What are you doing in there?’

  The location of the voice had changed. It sounded as if she, he thought it was a she, was standing closer. In front of the hut. Oh God, a woman and a small child?

  ‘My name is Andrew Vitruvius,’ he said the words carefully. ‘I got locked in here … by accident. If you could just open the door.’ He tried to make his voice as reassuring as he could. The dry rasp was no help.

  ‘Andrew Vitruvius?’ Now the voice sounded suspicious. ‘The writer?’

  ‘Yes. If you could open the door …’

  More muttering. He thought he could hear the words ‘stupid joke’. Panic flared. ‘It’s not a hoax, at least, not on you. Please.’

  Relief like he’d never experienced before threatened to swamp him
at the sound of a hasp being lifted.

  No padlock.

  The door opened, outwards, very slowly and cautiously, and scraped to a standstill. There was a long beat, and then a silhouette appeared in the opening, with a much smaller figure bouncing around behind it. The child, a girl, if the pink bobble hat and mittens were an indicator, stopped bouncing to sneak closer, peering at him from behind her mother’s legs.

  He blinked to clear his vision. Two sets of identical grey eyes stared at him, out of two heart-shaped faces.

  The little girl spoke first. ‘Is it Jesus?’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Christmas Eve, Afternoon

  Lori squinted into the dark interior of the hut, ready to run if necessary. She had a stout branch in her right hand, hidden by the doorframe, and Misty had strict instructions to run to the car the second Lori told her to. She wished they both had footwear suitable for a quick sprint, rather than wellington boots. She balanced on the balls of her feet, as far as she could, ready to slam the door on whoever or whatever was inside.

  He was sitting on a bench on the far side of the hut. Dark hair and broad shoulders, which matched the picture of Andrew Vitruvius, as far as it went. He didn’t look like the picture on the back of the book. He didn’t look too good.

  In fact, he looked terrible.

  A few days growth of beard, bruises and … Lori swallowed. Was that dark stain blotching the front of the once-white shirt blood?

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Long story.’ He tipped his head back to rest against the wall of the hut. ‘Thanks for being brave enough to open the door.’

  Misty had crept forward and was peering around the doorframe, obviously having forgotten her instructions not to get too close. ‘We’re very brave.’

  He clearly saw his mistake. The dark head tipped forward again. ‘I’m sure you are, and I’m very grateful.’ He hesitated. He seemed uncertain how to go on, which was strange. Why isn’t he standing up and getting out of there?