She looked around her. It didn’t even seem like Christmas. What I need is a little Christmas cheer.
Perhaps if she hung up some cedar boughs, and baked some gingerbread cookies, it might at least feel Christmassy.
She eased herself up from the rocker, put some wood in the cook stove, threw her wool wrapper on, and exchanged her heavy boots for her slippers. Grabbing a paring knife, she went outside. The afternoon sun shone bright, but the air chilled her. Her breath hung about her in small clouds. She tromped down behind the house where a grove of cedars grew.
The fresh, clean scent of the evergreen lifted her spirit. She harvested a few branches, some with clusters of deeply scented cones attached. Their woodsy, citrus smell enlivened her heart and made her feel a bit more of the joy of Christmas. She thought of Jesus and of him being the ultimate gift.
She stopped her work and sent a prayer up for Oshki. Dear Lord, you came to be with us, to exchange our sorrows for your joys, and give what we could never earn—real, true life. As the angel forewarned Joseph of the harm that would come to his son, I ask you would keep Oshki safe for your purposes, God. Please bring him home to us.
Mauve liked to talk to the Lord as if he were right there next to her. It wasn’t how she’d been raised, but it was whom she’d become. Oshki’s faith had been a big reason for her different perspective. He talked to God like he stood right there next to him. She prayed that was indeed the case.
Mauve wiped her tears with the edge of her sleeve, finished her task, and trekked back to the house to start on baking some gingerbread men.
Maybe after they’re baked, I’ll take them over to the Cotas. The girls might like to help me decorate them.
Soon the house filled with the warm, spicy scent of fresh-baked cookies. Mauve hummed Silent Night while she cleaned up. She changed back into her outdoor gear and packaged the cookies in a basket in between layers of tea towels.
The walk wasn’t far to M. and Mme. Cota’s. In fact, Mauve could see the house through her kitchen window. It lay nestled up against the cliffs of Superior, across the road and the wheat field. Mauve stomped her boots to clear off the extra snow and knocked on the front door.
The door opened with a creak.
“Why, Mauve,” Frances answered in a motherly tone. “You poor dear. Freezing, you must be. Come in. Come in.”
“Thank you.”
Frances stepped aside, made way for Mauve, and helped her off with her wraps. “Now, what brings you our way?”
Her warm words and grandmotherly smile lightened Mauve’s heart even more.
She picked up the basket she carried and uncovered a cookie from its depths. “I brought a surprise for the girls. I thought they might like to help me decorate them.”
Frances clapped her hands delightedly. “What fun! Set them on the table, and I will fetch the girls. I think Jenay, Celeste, and Elizabeth are all upstairs doing some cleaning.” She winked in conspiracy. “I imagine the girls will be all too glad to have a break from dusting.”
Frances moved to the steps and raised her voice. “Jenay! Girls! Company.”
Footsteps and giggles could soon be heard.
“Me first!” young Elizabeth shouted as she raced past her sister. Her dark brown hair trailed after her, free from constraints.
“Lizzy, slow down.” Jenay put forth her futile resistance and sighed. “The girl thinks everything in life a race, especially when it comes to beating Celeste. These girls of mine play competitively as boys.” She shook her head.
“Not if I beat you!” Celeste came flying past and ran down the stairs just before her younger sister reached the bottom.
Frances, their adopted grandmother, turned a stern eye on the little pair of hooligans. “Now, now.”
The girls simmered down underneath her gaze and noticed Mauve.
“Mauve!” they shouted as one and scurried to embrace their sister-in-law.
“I’ve been busy making a treat for the good girls who live here, but they must have stepped out,” Mauve teased, with mock wonderment.
“It’s us.” Elizabeth tugged on Mauve’s sleeve with big eyes.
“We’re here . . . and we’ll be good.” Celeste looked angelic.
“Come, you little monkeys.” She caught them up in a hug and told them why she had come.
“Oooh, how fun. May we get started right away?”
The sisters looked at their mother.
“I suppose dusting can wait,” Jenay conceded. She peeked in Mauve’s basket. “Gingerbread. My favorite. Are adults allowed to join the festivities?”
“I could be persuaded.”
Mauve smiled at her mother-in-law, whom she truly got along with better than her own mother. Being around Jenay calmed her. With Mauve’s mother, she always had to defend some part of herself. They seemed locked in a perpetual battle.
Thank God things have been better between us lately.
The ladies walked towards the kitchen. Jenay and Frances set some items out: tiny candies, raisins, licorice, and powdered sugar, milk, and butter for frosting. They whipped up the frosting in no time. Mauve showed the girls how to get a smooth layer, which she’d learned from her father during many hours of helping at The Candy and Bake Shop. Once each gingerbread man had a layer of sweetness, the group added features such as eyes, buttons, and smiles.
“What do we have here?” Mauve questioned the small, licorice-string loops Elizabeth had protruding from the side of her gingerbread man’s head.
“He needs to hear the Christmas carols. These is his ears,” the little girl said as she pushed some hair out of her face. She smiled up at Mauve with cheeks as pink as roses.
“Ah ha, and what fine ears they are.”
The three ladies shared a smile over her head.
“Can we send one to Oshki?” Celeste paused in decking out her man in red, candy buttons and looked up at her mother.
Jenay stroked the side of her daughter’s face. “That would be nice, wouldn’t it? But I’m afraid the gingerbread man would arrive in pieces. Maybe we can make him something else like fruitcake or fudge?”
Celeste nodded her head with reluctance and went back to detailing her cookie. A bit of cheer left her face.
Mauve figured Celeste missed her brother. Oshki was seven years older than Celeste, but he had never treated her as just a little girl. When he hadn’t been traipsing about with Luis, Lily, and Mauve, he’d spent time with her. Celeste had been his cheery, little shadow for years.
Elizabeth’s eyes sparkled with anticipation. “Aaall done. Can I eat mine?”
“How about you save him for after supper.” Jenay looked at the clock on the wall. “Your father will be home soon.”
Elizabeth pouted but set her cookie man aside and helped her sister, mother, and Frances with getting some supper ready.
“Mauve, why don’t you stay and eat with us? Then we can go to the town event at the park together, and Jacque can give you a ride home afterwards.”
Mauve coveted her mother-in-law’s company. Somehow, she felt closer to Oshki when near Jenay.
“Thank you. That sounds nice.” She accepted with a smile.
All Lily’s hard work organizing had paid off. Most everyone had come to the park with their lanterns and packages. The light from the lanterns dispersed the darkness, and faces and forms shone clearly, each family illuminated like living candles, burning brightly.
Mr. Trent had loaned his red sleigh for the receiving of the Christmas packages, which would be sent off to the town’s young men. Lily had set out a collection box for funds to help cover postage.
It sure did look like Christmas with all the lights and gifts. Job had even hung two lanterns up on either side of the large wreath over the entrance to the park. He had also set up some old, metal barrels he had salvaged and built fires in them for the town’s folk to stay warm by. Thankfully, the wind off Superior was minimal.
Father Thomas and Reverend Hubbard both offered prayers for t
he men who were away from home and those already fighting far away. Mrs. Grey, the local school mistress, led the school children in Silent Night. The whole town joined in on God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Good Christian Men Rejoice, and several other carols.
The evening came to a close and Lily handed out the peppermints she’d gotten from the Murrays. Adam Trent directed his horse and sleigh back to his storage shed to be parked until they could haul the parcels to the post office the next day for mailing.
But not everyone engaged in homey feelings of togetherness. Jeremiah Taylor held back the heavy drape on his upper-story window and peered out at the evening's festivities. The many lanterns lit up the gathering and gave a golden glow to the snow on the ground. Jeremiah could hear the carols being sung.
“Fuss and nonsense,” he declared aloud.
He’d retired from operating his downtown bookshop several years ago, but he still owned the building, which held the shop and his upstairs living quarters. His wife had passed on years back. His only son to make it to adulthood had died in action in the Boer War, some ten years ago. He’d no living siblings and no real friends. He lived frugally, quite alone in his little corner of Webaashi Bay.
Jeremiah thought back to the days when he might have enjoyed such festivities, but no more. He knew he’d let sorrow script him a bitter man. Experience had taught him life was out to get you, therefore, people must be too. The townsfolks’ snide looks, rudeness, and lack of cheer when encountering him had made him sour. They called him Old Mr. Taylor to his back, and no one ever said it in an endearing way.
The light from below highlighted a certain face that caught his attention. Jeremiah squinted down at the cheerful crowd of townsfolk.
Miss Natalie Herman. The woman who owned The Eatery.
He noticed she looked around her and dug in the folds of her cape. He watched as she pulled out a slim package, which she set in Mr. Trent’s red sleigh.
Herman? Isn’t that a German name? Jeremiah pondered.
The paper he’d read that morning warned about German sympathizers among the Canadian population. It gave a directive which said folk were to report suspicious happenings. He might have to visit the constable, which he didn’t relish, because some young upstart had taken the place of Arthur Hayes, whom he had liked. Regardless, he would do his duty and be watchful.
The window covering fell back as Jeremiah let go of the rusty, burnished velvet and shuffled back to his seat by the fire. He sank into his armchair and sipped the cup of cocoa he’d made before he got distracted by the lights and the noise. He flipped open to the page he had bookmarked with a scrap of old ribbon and continued to read from Crime and Punishment.
He tucked the granny square afghan his wife had crocheted years ago under his chin and tried to forget the images of friendship and solidarity he’d witnessed. Instead, one side of his brain focused on trying to figure out what he could do about Miss Natalie Herman while the other read his novel.
England
December 24th, 1914
I miss Mauve, my wife, so much. I cherish her last letter, which I received when I was still at Valcartier. Out of all the things I love about her, I miss her fiery red temper and hair the most. I’ll mail the letters I’ve written on ship when we get to base.
We’ve made it to England, off the ship (which to this date in history, I am sure, is the largest convoy ever to cross the Atlantic), and on our way to a training site in Salisbury. I never thought about how much work it is to move so many men. I feel like an ant in an ant hill.
I can’t help but wonder what the training will be like. I try not to dwell on the fact that I train to kill other men. I think of it as just training to do a job.
I’m told we will have a Christmas celebration of sorts—better food, I hear, and a bit of entertainment. We may even receive some Christmas parcels. Maybe mother will send me some of Tante Angelica’s fruitcake. It is one of our family traditions—Aunt’s fruitcake. I wonder what new traditions Mauve and I will make.
I miss her so . . . I wonder if she’s changed. If I had a wish this Christmas, it would be to see her, but I know it’s not possible. She’s home, safe, and warm, and I learn to fight to keep it that way.
The madness of love
Is the greatest of heaven’s
Blessings.
Plato
Chapter Five
Late April 1917
Halifax, Novia Scotia
Victoria General Hospital
“Shhh. You are safe. I’m here.”
Her voice comforts me. It holds a familiar lilt, and I can’t help thinking I know this woman. Something burns painful about the remembrance, however, which I just can’t quite fathom. The bandage over my eyes prevents me from telling. The sharp smell of disinfectant reminds me of where I am—an army hospital for the wounded.
I survived the attack. Oshki would call me “one lucky Canadian” again. I suppose he’s right. Why I have slipped through death’s clutches so many times these last years is beyond me. I barely remember my stay at the Casualty Clearing Station in France near Vimy Ridge or the trek across the Atlantic on the hospital ship, the HMHS Letitia, and now I’m on homeland for the first time in two and a half years—but still fighting the war in my mind.
I’ve awoken from yet another dream. This time, a picture show of gray snow, mud, and human remains showered down around me. I wanted to leave the forbidding theater in my sleep, but my feet were nailed to the floor by some unknown force, and I watched, again and again.
“Yes. Thank you.” I grope for Nurse Greenwood. She meets and firmly clasps my hand. Her hand nestles small but strong in mine. “Can you sit for a while?”
I like it when she sits by my bed and we talk, or she reads to me.
“All right.” She hesitates. “Matron is having lunch, and no pressing needs present themselves at the moment. But I can’t stay long.”
I hear her scoot a chair close to my bed. She still holds my hand.
“Tell me again about your home.” I want new images instilled in my brain in the hopes that they may just replace some of the ones which plague me.
“Well, it’s out in the country. My father and mother still live on the small family farm. The house is an old clapboard with blue trim and nestled in the midst of a gentle valley. Daisies, chicory, and Queen Anne’s lace dot the grassy slopes. When the sun rises over the crest of the valley, it’s beautiful.”
I sigh. “I wish I could paint such a scene.”
Will I ever draw, sculpt, or paint again? The doctor tells me I have a fifty percent chance of renewed eyesight and the same odds of being stone blind or somewhere in between.
“Are you an artist, then?”
“I like to think so.” I smile a bit.
“You have a nice smile.”
I can hear the smile on her face as she comments on mine. I wonder what she looks like. Are the planes of her face harsh and angular?
I think not. I imagine her soft, with rounded cheeks, large eyes, and a petite, china-doll mouth. But I don’t know.
“Not many women have told me so.”
I think back. There was a young lady when I attended university attracted to me, but my lack of interest faded hers. At the time, I was consumed with my art and had no time for romance. And, of course, there was Gretchen.
“I hardly think that would be the case, Lt. Wilson.” Her voice teases me.
“Luis.” I pause and take a leap. “Please tell me your name, your Christian name.”
I want to get a better picture of this angel of mercy in my mind. I’ve heard some of the men call the nurses “Bluebirds” because of their white headgear and the white aprons they wear over their blue dresses, but the likeness I draft of her in my mind is incomplete. I require more definition. I need a name.
“We are not supposed to reveal intimate details.”
“Please,” I beg again. “I cannot see you. I need words to help me picture my helper.”
I squeeze he
r hand. She squeezes back.
“Very well . . . my name is Rose. Rose Greenwood.”
A botanical and lovely name. Rose. It’s just how I pictured her. My ears were right.
“Thank you.” I’m truly grateful.
I hear her stand and reposition the chair. “I must go now . . . Luis, but I’ll be back later to change your dressing.”
She lets go of my hand, and I feel lost at sea. Her hand anchors me to a tangible part of life. I must have one more piece of information.
“Wait!” I plead on impulse. “One more thing. What color are your eyes?”
“You will have me spilling all my secrets at once.” Her voice turns up in a playful cadence.
“It’s not fair that the other men get to see the eyes of their ‘Bluebird’, and I don’t.” I try to sway her.
“They are . . . green,” she whispers close to my ear, and leaves.
February 1915
England
A little more than two years earlier
Luis had made it through the rough days at the secret training site. He stood on English soil now, where he was to be issued a German officer’s uniform, a new identity, and a mission. He waited on a sunny bench in the chilly hall of an old estate near Margate. The British government had taken over Warrington Estates to be used as headquarters for tactical and special operations. A thick door opened. It was hammered with bronze studs, giving it a medieval feel.
A man dressed in the British military’s fatigue green appeared, a thick file folder in hand. Luis had been told to address him as General Daily. The red band surrounding his cap and the colorful patches pertaining to his standing above his left breast pocket stood out amidst the green. His brass buttons shone, and his leather belt and holster gleamed smoothly. The general appeared rather like his Grandpapa Wilson to Luis—thin and tailored to a T.
Luis stood at attention.
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