“My wishes never came true before and I seriously doubt they’ll start now,” she said skeptically to the empty room as if the snowflake would answer.
With a deep breath, January turned off the lights around her house, grabbed her phone, and got herself ready for bed.
As she stripped herself free of her clothes, she dove under the sheets, not even caring that she was only wearing a pair of panties.
Her phone pinged with another message.
Unknown: Hope you got home okay. This is Deckard, btw.
She immediately hit reply.
January: Came home to a nightmare. Will tell you at lunch. How did you get my number?
Deckard: Your friend came by the store and gave it to me.
January didn’t know what to think. She was angry with Samantha for giving Deckard her number, but she supposed she should have given it to him herself. And if it wasn’t for Samantha, January may not have realized that she really did want to date Deckard.
At her pause, another message came across.
Deckard: Don’t be mad. She meant well.
January: I’m not. Just getting ready for bed. Tired from all the excitement tonight.
Deckard: I had a good time too. Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.
January: Goodnight.
Deckard: Sleep well.
As January closed her eyes, she knew that she would do as Deckard wished. Her mind was running playback of her night with him, and as she fell asleep, she had a smile grace her lips.
Chapter Three
January rolled over in bed and slapped at the alarm clock radio with a flailing arm, wishing that she had five more minutes to finish the dream between her and Deckard.
The music seemed louder this morning, and as she pried her eyes open to figure out the time, dawning fell on January. The radio wasn’t playing a Christmas carol or commercial. No, it was blaring one of her favorite songs from the summer.
“Huh?” she wondered as she sat up in bed and grabbed the radio, changing the stations, listening carefully as she flipped through.
“No,” she gasped. Rushing out of bed, her feet tangled in the sheets, and she fell headfirst out of her bed, smashing her face against the hardwood floors. But she didn’t feel the pain, she felt panic instead.
Running out of the bedroom clad in just her panties, January didn’t even bother to check to see if her window coverings were closed. Her bare feet pounded down the hallway, and at the opening, she stared in shock at her living room. There wasn’t a single remnant of Christmas in the space. Not a bow, not a light, not even a broken pine needle from the tree. The room was empty.
“Oh no,” she gasped. “Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. What did I do?”
January felt faint. Her mind whirled and she stumbled over to the couch to sit, tucking her head between her legs as her mom used to show her. The walls continued to feel as if they were closing in and January struggled to catch her breath.
She couldn’t believe that she made that stupid wish last night, and now she’s deprived an entire world of a joyous time, simply because she had been wronged as a child.
It can’t be real, she thought. January was sure her parents were playing a prank on her. They knew how much she wanted nothing to do with the holiday.
Pushing away from the couch with new resolve, January sprinted back to her room, tugged on a sweatshirt, and slipped on her fur-lined boots. She was glad she always kept around an oversized sweatshirt as this one hung down to her knees.
With heavy steps, January left her bedroom and walked right out her front door. She almost slipped as she dashed down the stairs to her yard.
The snowman out front was gone, as was the string of lights. But January’s stomach dropped as she took in her neighbor’s houses. Her head turned to the left, then right, then left again – everything was bare.
No red and green. No lights. No giant inflatable lying dormant on the ground. It was all gone.
January’s breath began to catch again in fear, but a voice sounding from the sidewalk had her spinning on her heels and almost falling on her butt in the cold snow.
“If this is how you greet everyone in the morning, I’m likely to get jealous.”
“Deckard,” she spoke softly, tears pooled along her lower lids as the gravity of what had transpired began to settle. She needed someone and he was here at the perfect moment.
She scurried toward him and January threw her arms around his waist as she let her emotions get the better of her. January hadn’t even noticed the two paper cups he held in his grasp as she fell into him.
“Oh my gosh, Deckard. It’s all gone. Everything. And it’s all my fault.”
“What? Were you robbed, January?” Deckard asked, now on high alert as he looked around her yard.
Confused, she looked up at him and tilted her head with furrowed brows. “No. Christmas. It’s all gone.”
Deckard’s shoulders sagged in relief that she hadn’t been robbed. His arm loosely wrapped around January’s shoulders as he tried to guide her back into the house, the coffee cups still in his hands.
“Let’s get you inside, okay? You’re going to catch a cold out here with no pants.”
“Deckard, I’m serious.” She tried to pull herself away from him, but he tightened his arms protectively.
“So am I, January. Your neighbors are starting to watch. Let me get you inside and we can talk, okay?”
January looked around and noticed that everyone had started filing out of their houses and were taking in her display. She knew she had been yelling frantically, but she was completely freaked out.
“And as much as I would hate it, let’s get some pants on you.”
She let him guide her inside the house, setting their cups on the kitchen island as they passed. Deckard followed her into her bedroom and she watched him look around the gray and cream room as she tugged on a pair of boxer shorts.
“Am I supposed to feel better with you wearing another man’s boxers?”
January wanted to laugh, but her mind was too preoccupied wondering what was going on to care.
“Sorry, they’re comfortable to sleep in. Can we figure out what the hell is going on before I have another panic attack, please?”
He nodded as he dutifully followed her from the bedroom into the living room, where he watched her pace back and forth along her rug.
She was murmuring to herself about the Christmas tree and the ornament and how someone was playing a cruel joke on her.
“Want to explain to me what’s going on before you wear a hole in your rug?” he suggested as he placed both of his hands on her shoulders. The touch was soft, placating, like he was trying to keep her from running away.
“I’m not crazy, Deckard.”
“I know you’re not, sweetheart. But you’re freaking out right now and I want to understand why.”
“It’s gone. Christmas. I wished it away last night and it happened.”
“Christmas?”
“Yes!” she shouted, trying to get him to understand.
“I don’t know what Christmas is? Is it a pet, like a cat? Did it get loose?”
“No! Gah!” she cried out, commencing her pacing.
“Christmas is a holiday that happens on December twenty-fifth. It’s a religious holiday and a commercial one. There are presents, and parades, and Santa, and I ruined it all!” January felt like she was growing more hysterical as every second lapsed, and Deckard stared at her in confusion.
“Okay, let’s have a seat and you can tell me more about it. It sounds like the winter solstice festival the town has in a few days.”
He ushered her to the couch and she willingly sat with his help. January was afraid that she was losing her mind, or had already lost it.
“Deckard,” she asked, licking her now dry lips, “How did we meet?”
“You don’t remember?”
“Obviously, I’m second-guessing everything,” January snarled.
“Maybe y
ou hit your head last night. You seemed fine after dinner.”
Urgency pulsated in January’s veins and she prompted Deckard again to answer how they met.
“Well, you came in the shop with your friend, and you were looking for a gift for your parents for the winter solstice celebration. You chose a beautiful gold star.”
“Wow. Okay. So how we met is exactly the same, but the reasoning is different. Winter solstice is on December twenty-first, right?”
“Yes. And we went to dinner last night, and you unloaded on me your reasons for hating the winter solstice because it overshadowed your birthday on the twenty-fourth.”
“Damn,” January mumbled as she looked around her living room in despair. Everything was lining up the same, but she knew with complete certainty that it was all wrong.
“Do you think I’m crazy, Deckard?” she whispered as she looked over to him. Without pause, he replied, “Not at all. You seem really shaken up over this and I can see the honesty in your eyes. Tell me what happened.”
January sighed in relief. He believed her, or at least, wanted to believe her.
Taking a deep breath, she launched into the last two days, not leaving out a single detail. She told Deckard about the snowflake and how she had stupidly made a wish on it, and hung it on her Christmas tree that sat in the corner, then went to bed. His eyes widened with each sentence and she was almost afraid he was going to have her committed to an asylum at any moment.
“Wow, that’s. . .uh. . .something.”
“I’m not lying, Deckard. It happened, I swear to you. People have been celebrating Christmas for eons.”
Placing his hand on top of hers, his touch instantly calmed her hysterics. “Don’t get worked up again, I believe you. Let me help you. Maybe we can figure out what is going on. You’re a reporter, right? Do you think we can look through some old papers or something.”
“Oh my gosh, you’re a genius!” she exclaimed, placing her hands on the sides of his face and pulling him close. She smacked a quick kiss on his lips before jumping up from the couch.
“I’m going to take a quick shower and then we can get to work,” January shouted as she began to back away, but then turned to look over her shoulder at Deckard, who had started to slouch back against the couch. “Thank you, Deckard. For trusting me.”
“January, I really like you. Even if we are only ever friends, I will always trust you.”
Nodding her head, January made her way back to her bathroom praying that she doesn’t let either of them down. And she wasn’t just thinking about Christmas.
In record speed, January finished her shower and dressed. By the time she stepped back out into the hallway, only ten minutes had elapsed. As her soft steps carried her into the living room, she found Deckard no longer on the couch but sitting on one of her barstools sipping one of the cups he brought with him. He was speaking on the phone, and January didn’t want to interrupt or eavesdrop, but she couldn’t help herself.
“No, Gram. I’m really worried. Something’s happened and it’s really affecting her. I’m going to spend the day helping her figure it out. I’ll be back to work tomorrow, Gram, but maybe keep my evenings free. Yeah, I really like her. I love you too.”
As he ended the call, January stepped into the kitchen and snatched the other cup Deckard had brought.
“So. . .”
“I knew you were there, I could smell your perfume.”
Dang. So much for incognito.
“Where are we headed first?” he asked as he took a final sip from his cup and placed it in the trash can at the end of the island.
“The archives. They’ll have everything I can search through.”
“Sounds good. Let’s go.”
The wind swirled around them as they stepped outside, kicking up the ends of January’s scarf, tickling her nose. Deckard pressed his key fob, and January didn’t want to argue about who was going to drive, so she wordlessly followed him toward his car.
They drove in silence and as they approached the newspaper’s building. Grabbing her badge from her bag, January scanned it at the front desk, while taking note that the lobby wasn’t covered head-to-toe in holiday decorations. Instead, stars dangled from the two-story ceiling in celebration of the solstice. Deckard followed her down the steps toward the basement where they kept the old published papers and January prayed that many of them had been scanned into the electronic database. If not, that made their task much more difficult.
There was a line of computers against the furthest wall and January headed in that direction first, Deckard trailing on her heels.
“Here, you run a search on the word Christmas,” she typed on the screen in front of him, “and I’ll search for some of the other lingoes regarding the holiday. We’re bound to come up with something.”
But two hours later, both of their searches came up short. The closest recognition January could find was regarding Saint Nicholas, who was a real person. There was no mention of the holiday, Santa, or even any of the other religious connotations regarding the Christmas celebration. It was as if the entire holiday never existed.
Pushing away from the desk, January slumped in the office chair in defeat.
“I just don’t understand. I didn’t make it up, Deckard. It was a holiday that meant so much to so many people. It couldn’t have disappeared.”
Deckard looked at her with pity and she hated that feeling of questioning herself. She couldn’t blame him. Even to January, her story was beginning to sound a bit far-fetched.
“Hey, we still have a list of sections that seem to ping a few articles that we can look at. We just need to search through the shelves,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, okay.”
Dust filled the room as they went through a few boxes of older papers, many dating back to when the town of Pineville came to be. There were mentions of a religious celebration on December 25, but nothing specifically related to Christmas.
Everything regarding town-wide festivals were centered around the winter solstice. She could see where the Christmas celebrations she hated for so long had been changed into a different theme.
She frantically sifted through more and more boxes, not finding anything to ease her frustrations. January was close to tossing each and every paper into a pile in the corner in her haste to find an answer.
“Hey, hey. Calm down,” Deckard consoled with a soft touch on her arm.
“Deckard, I. . .I just don’t understand.”
He pulled her away from the box of papers she had been sorting through and held her in his arms, trying to ease her disappointment by taking it into himself. He was prepared to be her anchor and she was willing to allow him to act like it.
Because though he wasn’t saying it, she was afraid she had gone crazy.
“Come on, sweetheart. We’ve been here for three hours. Let’s grab some lunch and maybe we can get some clarity.”
“Maybe. . .” she began to say, doubt seeping into her skin causing her to question herself.
“Don’t, January. I believe you. If there was something special that we’re missing out on, I want to know all about it. Maybe it will help.”
“Yeah,” she murmured against his chest as he continued to hold her close. January allowed his touch and smell to soothe her. His hand rubbed up and down against her spine, leaving trails of heat across her back.
Together they walked away from her office toward the bakery across the street. The air smelled like snow and cookies and January closed her eyes to take a deep breath. Deckard was careful not to bring up any of the celebrations coming up in the town, but as they stepped inside the eatery, two of her co-workers approached and asked if she still planned on being in the solstice festival with Samantha.
January floundered; she couldn’t be in a celebration that she knew nothing about. She vaguely remembered that Samantha had signed them up to be in the Christmas parade when she interviewed the group running the festival. This must be the alternative.
It seemed like she was living in an alternative universe.
Noticing the horror on her face, Deckard wrapped an arm across her shoulders and tugged her body against his. “Actually, January is going to have to decline the participation at the celebration. She’ll be observing the solstice with my family this year.”
The jaws on their faces collectively slackened, forming large gaping holes just below each their noses.
“It’s a new development,” January chimed in, hoping that she didn’t sound as freaked out as she felt with Deckard holding her so close.
Using the firm hand on her shoulders, Deckard steered them toward a table in the corner and kept her back facing the door. He offered to grab them both a sandwich from the counter and she nodded in thanks.
Delving her hands into her bag, the metal of a spiral spine bit at her palm and she gripped her notebook, pulling it out of its confines. The pages flipped through her fingers until she landed on the page of the religious celebrations that were still eminent during the season. She skimmed through the scribbles then turned to a blank page just as Deckard sat back down with a tray of sandwiches and two cups of water.
“So, how do we celebrate Christmas?”
January paused while lifting the large club sandwich toward her mouth, a piece of turkey dangling from between her fingers.
“Well, Christmas began as a cultural and religious holiday, and I suppose that it was still celebrated in that aspect. But it really picked up as a commercial holiday around the 1940’s, or that’s what a lot of people claim. There was a movie called Miracle on 34th Street that many people say launched Christmas into a new stratosphere. Since then, it’s only become more and more commercialized. Presents and their worth tend to overshadow everything people used to love about the holiday.”
Deckard looked at her fondly, his kind eyes listening to her every word, but with a wrinkle knotted between his brows as if he was trying to figure her out.
“What?” she asked as she took a hearty bite of her sandwich, loving how the simple flavors burst in her mouth.
“I’m just trying to figure something out. You appear truly distraught over this holiday no longer in existence, but your lips curled in revulsion with every word you spoke.
A Snowflake Wish Page 5