What did I expect? Him to run into my arms and forget all about it? My involvement has cost him the North Pole Forest and caused one of his closest friends to commit what must feel like a huge betrayal.
I sigh and attempt to focus because getting this wrong will be one more reason for him to hate me.
I’m dodging tourists as I walk towards the post office, skulking nearby to catch Freya on her round, and of all the things that have gone wrong lately, I half expect her not to turn up, but sure enough, at 10 a.m. on the dot, she trudges up the road, pushing a cart brimming with colourful envelopes.
‘Sasha!’ She seems surprised when I jump out from behind a holly bush. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Yes!’ I rethink. ‘Er, no, actually. I need your help. Can you come up to the house for a minute?’
She glances indecisively at the cart she’s pushing. There are so many letters now that they no longer fit into even the biggest bags. I unlock the post office door, take it off her and wheel it inside, and then she unloads the two heavy bags from her shoulders to mine, and I throw everything inside to be dealt with later and shut the door.
Got her, by the post office, walking up now, I text Tav.
‘How are you?’ she asks.
‘Fine,’ I say breezily.
‘I haven’t seen you for a few days, and I saw Tav yesterday and he looked so down that I thought one of his reindeer must’ve died, but he assured me they’re in good health.’
‘All on top lichen-eating form.’ I try to sound cheerful to push away the image of Tav being so sad.
‘Only I couldn’t help noticing things seem a bit … frosty around here?’
I laugh at the turn of phrase considering everything is covered in multiple layers of snow. ‘Everything’s fine. Just busy.’ I nod towards the third group of tourists we’ve had to sidestep while they stop to take selfies.
The house is in sight, I text Tav again.
I see you. A typically curt response.
Passing the house, I text him back as we get closer. Three steps from position.
Two steps from position.
He replies, Look up.
I nudge Freya and incline my head across the road, and that’s it. Her eyes lock onto the eyes of the man standing next to Tav at the base of the hill. I’ve never heard the sound of glitter before, but I’m fairly sure a twinkling thread weaves across the road between them, and if I didn’t know better, I’d be certain an elf just peeked out from behind the roof of the nearest cabin.
Freya’s breath catches as Osvald lifts a hand and offers a nervous wave, his face obliterated by a smile that starts slowly and widens so much that it’s soon brighter than Boris Johnson’s swimming trunks.
My eyes meet Tav’s and instead of looking away like I expected, he gives me a smile, his eyes soft, his face missing the pinched look of earlier.
Freya’s eyes have filled with tears. ‘How did you …’
‘Christmas magic.’ I smile as I hand her a tissue, and shield her while she turns away to blot the tears before Tav and Osvald cross the road towards us.
‘This is Osvald,’ Tav says when they reach us, and Freya takes a deep breath and turns around to meet him.
‘And this is Freya, postwoman extraordinaire and friend of the North Pole,’ I say.
Osvald shakes both our hands, but he can barely take his eyes off her.
‘Some elves told us you two should meet.’ The emotion in both of their eyes is making me emotional and my voice wobbles when I speak.
‘I’ve been looking …’ His voice sounds jittery and nervous. ‘I came back last year but I couldn’t find you. It was only when I saw something online about Santa letters that I thought it might be a good place to start.’
‘I’ve looked for you every day,’ she says, and then folds her arms and looks between Tav and me. ‘And you two …’
‘It wasn’t us, it was the nisse.’
Tav produces a card from his pocket and holds it out. ‘And I happen to have a coupon here for a free festive meal at the restaurant in the local village. They’re expecting you both for lunch.’
‘You’re trying to make me skive off work, young man.’ Freya scolds him but takes the coupon with a huge grin.
Osvald offers her his arm and she takes it carefully and they walk off down the road, chatting as they go, so bewitched with each other that they forget to wave to us.
‘Don’t wait until next Christmas to swap numbers!’ I call after them.
Tav’s standing next to me, close enough to touch, which is a good few metres closer than he’s been in the past couple of days.
I look up at his face. ‘You don’t think he’s a serial killer then?’
He laughs out loud and then looks like the laugh has caught him off-guard, but he hasn’t instantly run away, so I’m taking that as a good sign.
‘Can we talk?’ I say quickly, hoping to grab him while his heart’s still melting as we watch their silhouettes disappear into the distance.
He shakes his head. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about what’s happened. I knew it was going to go wrong. I knew better than to get my hopes up.’
‘Yeah, but it’s my fault.’
‘It’s not your fault, Sash.’ He finally takes his eyes off the distant road and looks at me. ‘Well, yeah, okay, it is your fault, but it’s my fault for believing in it. I knew it was impossible to save this place, and for just a little while, I let myself dream. I let myself believe in your plans.’
‘I thought you thought nothing was impossible at Christmas’
He shrugs. ‘Some things are beyond even Christmas magic.’
‘I don’t know how to fix it. I’d do anything to change this, Tav. If there’s any way—’
‘Leave a bowl of rice porridge out for the nisse on Christmas Eve and make a wish. It’s as good a solution as any.’
I should smile at the childlike simplicity of his answer, but he sounds like a man who has completely given up.
He nudges his arm gently against my shoulder. ‘I know you feel bad, but none of this would be happening without you either, Sash.’ He indicates the many visitors. ‘The good and the bad. And honestly, we don’t know who these new owners are yet. They could be absolutely genuine in wanting it to stay as it is. And you’ve given us the best chance of that happening. Look at this place. It’s alive again. It’s buzzing with guests because of you. That makes buyers unlikely to pull it down without at least investigating the idea of keeping it open. That’s a good thing.’
‘But …’
‘It was going to come to this one way or another, no matter how nice it was to think otherwise for a little while, but that wasn’t reality. There’s nothing we can do. Your father is the owner and has every right to accept an offer made to him. I can’t be angry at him for that. I’m not angry with either of you – I’m angry with myself for letting anyone in when I know how these things end, always.’
‘That’s it? What about us?’
‘What about us? You’re going home and I’m staying here. There is no us. Whatever happened was … I got carried away with sparkly Christmas magic and the feeling that maybe anything is possible if the stars align and you’re in the right place at the right time. Your enthusiasm got under my skin and I let myself get drunk on possibility, on Santa magic and the Northern Lights and whatever else has been zinging around here lately. Maybe there is some sort of hallucinogenic in the water supply.’
I’d laugh at the throwback if he didn’t sound so completely and utterly defeated.
‘I told you I don’t want my life intertwined with anyone else’s because it gets too complicated. If this isn’t absolute proof of that then I don’t know what is. You only run into trouble when you start thinking you need other people. Being alone has always been what’s best for me. This has done nothing but prove it. So thank you for that – it’s a lesson I’m not going to forget again.’
‘Don’t say that. The worst thing to come from this is the
fact it’s done this to you, and—’ I’m cut off by my phone ringing, and Debra’s name flashes on the screen.
Talk about bad timing.
Tav indicates for me to answer it. I don’t want to but there’s something impossible to ignore about a phone ringing and vibrating in your hand, and a few of the visitors are giving me irritated looks. I reluctantly accept the call.
‘Sasha! Where on earth are you? I’ve been to your house three times but you’re never in!’
‘I’m in Norway,’ I say distractedly.
‘Norway?’ Her voice gets distant as she must pull the phone away from her ear and bang it. ‘Bad line, I think. There’s no way you said Norway. You never go anywhere; you’re certainly not going to make a trip like that.’
I bristle and go to snap a response, but Tav starts walking away and I reach out and grab his sleeve, making him stop. I shouldn’t have answered the stupid phone. Deb can wait, but if I let Tav go now, we’ll never be able to reopen this conversation.
‘What do you want?’ I bark, hoping to get her off the line before Tav pulls his sleeve out of my grasp.
‘Oh! Great news! My sister-in-law’s got a new job so you can come back to work for me. Isn’t that fabby?’
Fabby. Even the word makes my cringe. She’ll be on about holibobs any second too.
Tav looks down at my hand on his sleeve and tries to tug it away, but I flap my phone around, trying to make a “halt’ gesture with both hands occupied and my mind reeling, and not just from use of the word “fabby”.
‘What?’ Tav mouths.
I hold the phone away from my ear. ‘Debra offering me my job back.’
‘Wow.’ He sarcastically elongates the “o” and makes a scoffing noise. ‘Unbelievable. You got everything you wanted and then some. Talk about being handed life on a silver platter. Lucky you, Sash. I hope you’ll be very happy.’ This time, he rips his sleeve out of my grasp and stalks away.
‘Tav!’ I yell after him.
‘What?’ Debra says through the phone. ‘What’s a tav? Is it a breed of dog?’
‘And when would I get to keep the job until this time?’ I say into the phone as I chase after Tav, who can cover ground a lot faster than I can. ‘Until someone more important than me comes along? Someone you like better?’
‘Oh, I’m sure we could work out something a little more permanent,’ Debra is saying, but I can’t concentrate because Tav spins around and comes back, and I pull the phone away from my ear again.
‘You know what the saddest thing about this is? It’s that you think that is how friends treat friends. She couldn’t give a damn about you. After months of hard work for her, undoubtedly more work than she ever did, she still didn’t have any loyalty to you. You don’t treat employees like that and you definitely don’t treat friends like that. You don’t work with someone for months and then fire them because someone else wants their job and then call them back when that someone else has found something better. If you want to go back to that, you deserve to be as unhappy as you’ve been up until now.’ He takes a breath and softens. ‘No matter what’s happened here, you are brilliant, and you deserve a job that recognises that. Don’t settle for less than you deserve, Sash. I’m not sure I’ll able to sleep at night knowing you’re back there working for Ms Holibobs.’
I burst simultaneously into laughter and tears, which frightens a few nearby children.
‘No, Debra,’ I say into the phone. ‘Thank you, but no.’
I hang up and breathe a sigh of relief. I thought I’d be overjoyed to have my old job back, but even thinking about it set my nerves jangling, and Tav somehow understood that and said exactly what I needed to hear at the exact moment I needed to hear it.
He gives me that gentle smile again, and that’s it. I leap on him. I throw my arms around his neck and drag him into an enforced hug, giving him no choice but to catch me.
His arms come up around my waist, holding me secure, but he’s not open and relaxed like he’s been when I’ve hugged him before. It’s not like I expected anything different, but I press my face into his neck as I speak into his shoulder.
‘Thank you for making me feel valued. Thank you for making me realise what it’s like to matter to someone. To be important in someone’s life. I’m changed for meeting you, no matter how this end—’ I stop abruptly when I realise something and push myself off him as the idea rolls through my mind like a snowball, picking up size as it gathers speed.
It takes me too long to think about it, but once the idea is there, that’s it. ‘This isn’t over! Taavi Salvesen, this isn’t over!’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘It isn’t?’
‘I don’t want to go back there. I want to stay here. Right here. With you and your nine million reindeer—’
‘Twenty-three.’
‘And your nisse and your letters and your Christmas magic and your height and your voice and—’
‘We don’t always get what we want, Sash.’
‘No we don’t, but we’ve got a bargaining chip.’
‘What’s that?’
I grin at him and then take off running down the road. ‘My dad is Santa Claus.’
***
‘I counter!’ I yell as I blaze past the queue and slip-slide headfirst into the grotto. ‘I counter their offer!’
‘Sasha, children!’ Nils hisses. He’s dressed in his red and green striped elf costume and helping out in the grotto while Anja is still covering the house tours.
‘Oh-ho-ho, my elves are getting overexcited today,’ Dad says to the little boy on his lap. ‘Why don’t you tell Santa what you want for Christmas while they get themselves under control?’
The boy reels off a Christmas list so long that I’m convinced he’s here on behalf of his entire school while I stand there waiting, hopping from one foot to the other and trying to contain my excitement.
‘Now, what’s all this?’ Dad says when the boy and his parents are safely herded out.
‘The other buyers. I counter their offer. A seller has a right to receive and review all offers, and you’ve just received another offer. Well, you will have, when I figure out how to do it.’
‘A verbal offer?’ Nils suggests.
‘Yes, that!’ I give him a thumbs up. ‘I want to buy the North Pole Forest and I must have some first right of refusal because I’m your daughter and Santa grants Christmas wishes. I’m making a verbal offer, right here, right now.’
‘Can you afford to do that?’
‘The house. The house back in the UK. I’ll sell up and move here. I’m willing to throw everything into this. I believe in it.’
‘You can’t be serious, Sasha. You would give up your security for this?’
‘It’s all I have. I don’t have savings. I don’t have a great salary because I don’t work in a hotel like you think I do. I don’t know how much the house is worth, probably less than your offer, but there’s something special about this place. About what we can do here. I can’t give up on it. You don’t really want to sell, you’re just trying to make me happy, but the only thing that’s made me happy in years is being here. And I know you feel the same. I know you’re happy here.’
Dad’s eyes shift to Tav, who’s come in the grotto door. ‘Happy with someone else too, Santa wouldn’t wonder.’
‘He’s already accepted the offer,’ Tav says quietly.
‘Don’t say that.’ I spin around and point a finger at him before turning back to Dad. ‘I’m not giving up on this. It’s not too late. Anything is possible at Christmastime. Sellers can pull out of transactions. And you can say you’ve been coerced into it, or accepted without the agreement of your business partner, therefore making it invalid. Property sales fall through all the time. Have you signed anything yet?’
‘Well, no, but …’
‘There you go!’ I grab Tav’s hand in excitement and hold it between both of mine. ‘This is not over. I said we could save this place and we can. What we just did with Freya
was so special. That’s the kind of thing that doesn’t happen in real life, and it’s a true privilege to get to share in people’s lives like that. The same with the letters. What children write to Santa deserves to be read and cared about. I meant what I said earlier – meeting you has changed my life, Tav. You made me see what’s important. I don’t want to go back and work for someone who only cares about their spray tan and designer footwear. I want to stay here and do something that makes people’s lives better, with someone who makes the world better just by being in it.’
I don’t realise I’m crying until he encircles me in his arms and squeezes me tightly.
‘I wondered how long you’d leave it before telling me about the hotel,’ Dad says.
I smack at Tav’s side. ‘You weren’t going to tell him.’
‘He knew?’ Dad sounds surprised. ‘I only know because I follow you on Instagram. You’re always posting photos of the dogs you’re walking. At first I thought it was part of the hotel service but I quickly realised … And then realised what an awful father I must’ve been that you didn’t feel you could tell me.’
‘It wasn’t that—’
‘It’s okay, Sash. It doesn’t matter. Christmas is not the time to focus on mistakes, but on the good that can come of them.’ Dad strokes his white beard. ‘I thought you wanted me to go home?’
‘You are home. I’ve known that from the moment I saw you. Whatever you’ve been searching for in the past twenty-four years, you’ve found it here. I still think the temperature is dangerous, I still wish we were nearer to a hospital, but what I was most worried about was you trying to do everything on your own. Things will be different now. We can afford to take on staff—’
Nils cheers.
‘We’ve got visitors. We’ve got a great online presence and bookings stacking up for next year. There is so much good we can do here and I can’t walk away from that.’
‘And if we fail?’ Tav says. ‘You’ll have lost your house, your security, your—’
‘We won’t.’ I shrug out of his arms far enough to look up and meet his eyes. ‘You are the only thing I can’t bear to lose, Tav. You’re the best person I’ve ever met. You’ve made it feel like home in the middle of nowhere. I’ve never left where I live now, and I’ve never felt anything like what I feel when I’m with you. Maybe it’s time to try something diff—’
The Post Box at the North Pole: The perfect cosy and uplifting Christmas romance to curl up with in 2021! Page 27