My True Love Gave To Me: Twelve Holiday Stories

by Perkins, Stephanie

  Then she’s out the door again. Says the worst words she knows when she sees that the snow has stopped. There is the snow-blotted blanket, the joint, and the Mars-bar wrapper.

  She leaves the Christmas cake on the window ledge. Maybe the birds will eat it.

  * * *

  Daniel is still asleep on the couch. She wakes him up. “Merry Christmas,” she says. “Good morning.” She gives him his present. She’s made him a shirt. Egyptian cotton, gray-blue to match his eyes. But of course it won’t fit. He’s already outgrown it.

  * * *

  Daniel catches her under the mistletoe when it’s past time for bed, Christmas night and no one wants to go to sleep yet, everyone tipsy and loose and picking fights about things they don’t care about. For the sheer pleasure of picking fights. He kisses Miranda. She lets him.

  It’s sort of a present for Elspeth, Miranda rationalizes. It’s sort of because she knows it’s ridiculous, not kissing Daniel, just because she wants to be kissing someone else instead. Especially when the person she wants to be kissing isn’t really a real person at all. At least not most of the time.

  Besides, he’s wearing the shirt Miranda made for him, even though it doesn’t fit.

  In the morning, Daniel is too hungover to drive her down to the village to catch the bus. Elspeth takes her instead. Elspeth is wearing a vintage suit, puce gabardine, trimmed with sable, something Miranda itches to take apart, just to see how it’s made. What a tiny waist she has.

  Elspeth says, “You know he’s in love with you.”

  “He’s not,” Miranda says. “He loves me, but he’s not in love with me. I love him, but I’m not in love with him.”

  “If you say so,” Elspeth says. Her tone is cool. “Although I can’t help being curious how you’ve come to know so much about love, Miranda, at your tender age.”

  Miranda flushes.

  “You know you can talk to me,” Elspeth says. “You can talk to me whenever you want to. Whenever you need to. Darling Miranda. There’s a boy, isn’t there? Not Daniel. Poor Daniel.”

  “There’s nobody,” Miranda says. “Really. There’s nobody. It’s nothing. I’m just a bit sad because I have to go home again. It was such a lovely Christmas.”

  “Such lovely snow!” Elspeth says. “Too bad it never lasts.”

  * * *

  Daniel comes to visit in the spring. Two months after Christmas. Miranda isn’t expecting him. He shows up at the door with a bouquet of roses. Miranda’s aunt’s eyebrows go almost up to her hairline. “I’ll make tea,” she says, and scurries off. “And we’ll need a vase for those.”

  Miranda takes the roses from Daniel. Says, “Daniel! What are you doing here?”

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” Daniel says.

  “Avoiding you? We don’t live in the same place,” Miranda says. “I wasn’t even sure you knew where I lived.” She can hardly stand to have him here, standing in the spotless foyer of her aunt’s semidetached bungalow.

  “You know what I mean, Miranda. You’re never online,” he says. “And when you are, you never want to chat. You never text me back. Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  “No,” she says. Grabs her bag.

  “Don’t bother with the tea, Aunt Dora,” she says loudly, “We’re going out.”

  She yanks at Daniel’s hand, extracts him violently from her life, her real life. If only.

  She speed walks him past the tract houses with their small, white-stone frontages, all the way to the dreary, dingy, Midlands-typical High Street. Daniel trailing behind her. It’s a long walk, and she has no idea what to say to him. He doesn’t seem to know what to say, either.

  Her dress is experimental, nothing she’s ever intended to wear out. She hasn’t yet brushed her hair today. It’s the weekend. She was planning to stay in and study. How dare he show up.

  There’s a teashop where the scones and the sandwiches are particularly foul. She takes him there, and they sit down. Order.

  “I should have let you know I was coming,” Daniel says.

  “Yes,” Miranda says. “Then I could have told you not to.”

  He tries to take her hand. “Mirandy,” he says. “I think about you all the time. About us. I think about us.”

  “Don’t,” she says. “Stop!”

  “I can’t,” he says. “I like you. Very much. Don’t you like me?”

  It’s a horrible conversation. Like stepping on a baby mouse. A baby mouse who happens to be your friend. It doesn’t help that Miranda knows how unfair she’s being. She shouldn’t be angry that he’s come here. He doesn’t know how she feels about this place. Just a few more months and she’ll be gone from here forever. It will never have existed.

  They are both practically on the verge of tears by the time the scones come. Daniel takes one bite and then spits it out onto the plate.

  “It’s not that bad,” she snaps. Dares him to complain.

  “Yes it is,” he says. “It really truly is that bad.” He takes a sip of his tea. “And the milk has gone off, too.”

  He seems so astonished at this that she can’t help it. She bursts out laughing. This astonishes him, too. And just like that, they aren’t fighting anymore. They spend the rest of the day feeding ducks at the frozen pond, going in and out of horror movies, action movies, cartoons—all the movies except the romantic comedies, because why rub salt in the wound?—at the cinema. He doesn’t try to hold her hand. She tries not to imagine that it is snowing outside, that it is Fenny sitting in the flickering darkness here beside her. Imagining this is against the rules.

  * * *

  Miranda finishes out the term. Packs up what she wants to take with her, boxes up the rest. Sells her sewing machine. Leaves a note for her aunt. Never mind what’s in it.

  She knows she should be more grateful. Her aunt has kept her fed, kept her clothed, given her bed and board. Never hit her. Never, really, been unkind. But Miranda is so very, very tired of being grateful to people.

  She is sticky, smelly, and punch-drunk with jetlag when her flight arrives in Phuket. Stays the night in a hostel and then sets off. She’s read about how this is supposed to go. What you can bring, how long you can stay, how you should behave. All the rules.

  But, in the end, she doesn’t see Joannie. It isn’t allowed. It isn’t clear why. Is her mother there? They tell her yes. Is she still alive? Yes. Can Miranda see her? No. Not possible today. Come back.

  Miranda comes back three times. Each time she is sent away. The consul can’t help. On her second visit, she speaks to a young woman named Dinda, who comes and spends time with the prisoners when they are in the infirmary. Dinda says that she’s sat with Joannie two or three times. That Miranda’s mother never says much. It’s been over six months since her mother wrote to either Elspeth or to Miranda.

  The third time she is sent away, Miranda buys a plane ticket to Japan. She spends the next four months there, teaching English in Kyoto. Going to museums. Looking at kimonos at the flea markets at the temples.

  She sends postcards to Elspeth, to Daniel. To her mother. She even sends one to her aunt. And two days before Christmas, Miranda flies home.

  On the plane, she falls asleep and dreams that it’s snowing. She’s with Joannie in a cell in the prison in Phuket. Her mother tells Miranda that she loves her. She tells her that her sentence has been commuted. She tells her that if Miranda’s good and follows the rules very carefully, she’ll be home by Christmas.

  * * *

  She has a plan this year. The plan is that it will snow on Christmas. Never mind what the forecast says. It will snow. She will find Fenny. And she won’t leave his side. Never mind what the rules say.

  Daniel is going to St. Andrews next year. His girlfriend’s name is Lillian. Elspeth is on her best behavior. Miranda is, too. She tells various Honeywells amusing stories about her students, the deer at the temples, and the girl who played the flute for them.

  Elspeth is getting old. She’s still the most be
autiful woman Miranda has ever seen, but she’s in her sixties now. Any day she’ll be given a knighthood and never be scandalous again.

  Lillian is a nice person. She tells Miranda that she likes Miranda’s dress. She flirts with the most decrepit of the Honeywells, helps set the table. Daniel watches everything that she does as if all of it is brand new, as if Lillian has invented compliments, flirting, as if there were no such thing as water glasses and table linens before Lillian discovered them. Oh newfound land.

  Despite all this, Miranda thinks she could be fond of Lillian. She’s smart. Likes maths. Actually, truly, really seems to like Miranda’s dress, which, let’s admit it, is meant as an act of war. Miranda is not into pretty at the moment. She’s into armor, weaponry, abrasiveness, discomfort—hers and other peoples’. The dress is leather, punk, studded with spikes, buckles, metal cuffs, chain looped round and around. Whenever she sits down, she has to be careful not to gash, impale, or skewer the furniture. Hugging is completely out of the question.

  * * *

  Lillian wants a tour, so after dinner and the first round of cocktails, Miranda and Daniel take her all through Honeywell Hall, the parts that are kept up and the parts that are falling into shadow. They end up in one of the attics, digging through Elspeth’s trunks of costumes. They make Lillian try on cheesecloth dresses, hand-beaded fairy wings, ancient, cakey stage makeup. Take selfies. Daniel reads old mail from fans, pulls out old photos of Elspeth and Joannie, backstage. Here’s Joannie perched on a giant urn. Joannie, her mouth full of pins. Joannie, at a first-night party, drunk and laughing and young. It should hurt to look at these pictures. Shouldn’t it?

  “Do you think it will snow?” Lillian says. “I want snow for Christmas.”

  Daniel says, “Snowed last Christmas. Shouldn’t expect that it will, this year. Too warm.”

  Not even trying to sound casual about it, Miranda says, “It’s going to snow. It has to snow. And if it doesn’t snow, then we’re going to do something about it. We’ll make it snow.”

  She feels quite gratified when Lillian looks at her as if Miranda is insane, possibly dangerous. Well, the dress should have told her that.

  “My present this year,” Miranda says, “is going to be snow. Call me the Snow Queen. Come and see.”

  Her suitcases—her special equipment—barely fit into the Tiger. Elspeth didn’t say a word, just raised an eyebrow. Most of it is still in the carriage house.

  Daniel is game when she explains. Lillian is either game, or pretending to be. There are long, gauzy swathes of white cloth to weave through tree branches, to tack down to the ground. There are long strings of glass and crystal and silver ornaments. Handcut lace snowflakes caught in netting. The pièce de résistance is the Snowboy Stage Whisper Fake Snow Machine with its fifty-foot extending hose reel. Miranda’s got bags and bags of fake snow. Over an hour’s worth of the best quality fake snow money can buy, according to the guy who rented her the Snowboy.

  It’s nearly midnight by the time they have everything arranged to Miranda’s satisfaction. She goes inside and turns on the Hall’s floodlights, then turns on the snow machine. A fine, glittering snow begins. Lillian kisses Daniel lingeringly. A fine romance.

  Elspeth has been observing the whole time from the kitchen stair. She puts a hand over her cocktail. Fake snow dusts her fair hair, streaks it white.

  All of the Honeywells who haven’t gone to bed yet, which is most of them, ooh and ah. The youngest Honeywells, the ones who weren’t even born when Miranda first came to Honeywell Hall, break into a spontaneous round of applause. Miranda feels quite powerful. Santa Claus exists after all.

  * * *

  All of the Honeywells eventually retreat back into the house to drink and gossip and admire Miranda’s special effects from within. It may not be properly cold tonight, but it’s cold enough. Time for hot chocolate, hot toddies, hot baths, hot water bottles and bed.

  She’s not sure, of course, that this will work. If this is playing by the rules. But isn’t she owed something by now? A bit of luck?

  And she is. At first, not daring to hope, she thinks that Daniel has come from the Hall to fetch her in. But it isn’t Daniel.

  Fenny, in that old justacorps, Miranda’s stitching around the piece above his pocket, walks out from under the hawthorn tree.

  “It worked,” Miranda says. She hugs herself, which is a mistake. All those spikes. “Ow. Oh.”

  “I shouldn’t be here, should I?” Fenny says. “You’ve done something.” Miranda looks closely at his face. How young he looks. Barely older than she. How long has he been this young?

  Fake snow is falling on their heads. “We have about an hour,” Miranda says. “Not much time.”

  He comes to her then, takes her in his arms. “Be careful,” she says. “I’m all spikes.”

  “A ridiculous dress,” he says into her hair. “Though comely. Is this what people wear in this age?”

  “Says the man wearing a justacorps,” she says. They’re almost the same height this year. He’s shorter than Daniel now, she realizes. Then they’re kissing, she and Fenny are kissing, and she isn’t thinking about Daniel at all.

  They kiss, and Fenny presses himself against her, armored with spikes though Miranda is. He holds her, hands just above her waist, tight enough that she thinks she will have bruises in the shape of his fingers.

  “Come in the Hall with me,” Miranda says, in between kisses. “Come with me.”

  Fenny bites her lower lip. Then licks it. “Can’t,” he says.

  “Because of the rules.” Now he’s nibbling her ear. She whimpers. Tugs him away by the hair. “Hateful rules.”

  “Could I stay with you, I vow I would. I would stay and grow old with you, Miranda. Or as long as you wanted me to stay.”

  “Stay with me,” she says. Her dress must be goring into him. His stomach, his thighs. They’ll both be black and blue tomorrow.

  He doesn’t say anything. Kisses her over and over. Distracting her, she knows. The front of her dress fastens with a simple clasp. Underneath she’s wearing an old T-shirt. Leggings. She guides his hands.

  “If you can’t stay with me,” she says, as Fenny opens the clasp, “then I’ll stay with you.”

  His hands are on her rib cage as she speaks. Simple enough to draw him inside the armature of the dress, to reach behind his back, pull the belt of heavy chain around them both. Fasten it. The key is in the Hall. In the attic, where she left it.

  “Miranda,” Fenny says, when he realizes. “What have you done?”

  “A crucial component of any relationship is the capacity to surprise the one you love. I read that somewhere. A magazine. You’re going to love women’s magazines. Oh, and the Internet. Well, parts of it anyway. I won’t let you go,” Miranda says. The dress is a snug fit for two people. She can feel every breath he takes. “If you go, then I’ll go, too. Wherever it is that you go.”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” he says. “There are rules.”

  “There are always ways to get around the rules,” Miranda says. “That was in another magazine.” She knows that she’s babbling. A coping mechanism. There are articles about that, too. Why can’t she stop thinking about women’s magazines? Some byproduct of realizing that you’re in love? “Fifteen Ways to Know He Loves You Back.” Number eight. He doesn’t object when you chain yourself to him after using fake snow in a magic spell to lure him into your arms.

  The fake snow is colder and wetter and heavier than she’d thought it would be. Much more like real snow. Fenny has been muttering something against her neck. Either I love you or else What the hell were you thinking, Miranda?

  It’s both. He’s saying both. It’s fake snow and real. Real snow mingling with the fake. Her fake magic and real magic. Coming down heavier and heavier until all the world is white. The air, colder and colder and colder still.

  “Something’s happening, Fenny,” she says. “It’s snowing. Really snowing.”

  It’s as if
he’s turned to stone in her arms. She can feel him stop breathing. But his heart is racing. “Let me go,” he says. “Please let me go.”

  “I can’t,” Miranda says. “I don’t have the key.”

  “You can.” A voice like a bell, clear and sweet.

  And here is the one Miranda has been waiting for. Fenny’s she. The one who catches foxes in traps. Never lets them go. The one who makes the rules.

  It’s silly, perhaps, to be reminded in this moment of Elspeth, but that’s who Miranda thinks of when she looks up and sees the Lady who approaches, more Honeywell than any Honeywell Miranda has ever met. The presence, the puissance that Elspeth commands, just for a little while when Elspeth takes the stage, is a game. Elspeth plays at the thing. Here is the substance. Power is something granted willingly to Elspeth by her audience. Fenny’s Lady has it always. What a burden. Never to be able to put it down.

  Can the Lady see what Miranda is thinking? Her gaze takes in all. Fenny keeps his head bowed. But his hands are in Miranda’s hands. He is in her keeping, and she will not let him go.

  “I have no key,” Miranda says. “And he does not want to go with you.”

  “He did once,” the Lady says. She wears armor, too, all made of ice. What a thing it would be, to dress this Lady. To serve her. She could go with Fenny, if the Lady let her.

  Down inside the dress where the Lady cannot see, Fenny pinches the soft web between Miranda’s thumb and first finger. The pain brings her back to herself. She sees that he is watching her. He says nothing, only looks until Miranda finds herself again in his eyes.

  “I went with you willingly,” Fenny agrees. But he doesn’t look at the Lady. He only looks at Miranda.

  “But you would leave me now? Only speak it and I will let you go at once.”

  Fenny says nothing. A rule, Miranda thinks. There is a rule here.

  “He can’t say it,” she says. “Because you won’t let him. So let me say it for him. He will stay here. Haven’t you kept him from his home for long enough?”