by L. C. Mawson
“No, I guess not.”
Cold
Freya was pretty sure that it hadn’t really snowed for years. Sleet, hail and ice? Sure. But no real snow. Not even out in the little village where she had been before, so she assumed that the city definitely hadn’t seen any.
But this year, on Christmas Eve no less, all she could see out of Damon’s window was a constant flurry of white.
Freya’s foster parents were up a height, so she had decided that being at home wasn’t the best plan. Margaret’s parents had come up to see them for Christmas (though they were arriving that night and staying in a hotel until Christmas Day) and Ryan’s sister was staying over with her daughter.
Thankfully, Damon didn’t celebrate Christmas, so there was no problem with her being round at his while Ryan fussed over any of the food prep he could do early and Margaret panicked about the tablecloth being the wrong colour.
“So, does this mean that you don’t get days off for your own holidays?” Freya had asked him when he had wondered what Christmas was.
He had simply shrugged in that evasive manner of his, saying that he “didn’t really celebrate any kind of holiday.”
Freya’s attention was drawn back to the TV as the credits started to roll. She had insisted that they watch Die Hard, given that it was Christmas. They had wrapped themselves up in blankets on the sofa and Freya couldn’t help but smile when she had learnt that Damon had very precise specifications when it came to hot chocolate.
“What next?” Freya asked. “Oh, I know! We should watch the Muppets’ Christmas Carol!”
Damon didn’t respond. He seemed too preoccupied with his phone. Though, after a moment, she noted how his knuckles were white - or, well, whiter than usual - as he clutched it.
Freya peeked over to the screen. He had been scrolling through a website she didn’t recognise, though it looked like some kind of joke/meme collection. She could see the beginning of a rage comic at the bottom of the screen.
The joke at the forefront of the screen just said “Trigger Warnings - Because I’m a special snowflake who needs to be babied.”
Freya seethed at the “joke”, though she was momentarily confused by Damon’s reaction. His friends regularly found that kind of thing funny, along with “get back in the kitchen” jokes. Damon had stopped using them only when his uncle had heard and scolded him. The scolding, much to Freya’s delight, had come with a reminder that Freya could disarm him in less than a minute when they sparred together.
“You okay?” Freya asked him.
He finally put the phone down, a little more forcefully than necessary, as he answered. “Hmm? Yeah, I’m fine.”
She raised an eyebrow to indicate that she didn’t believe him.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he muttered, picking up the remote and returning to searching through the Netflix Christmas movie collection. After a moment, he gave a frustrated sigh, putting down the remote.
“Can we not watch Christmas stuff?” he asked.
Freya did her best not to flinch at the venom in his voice. She hated how sensitive she was to sharp tones. Especially given that she could take physical damage in battle with little complaint.
“Of course,” she replied. “We can watch whatever.”
He seemed to have realised how unnerved she was, despite her efforts to hide it, softening his expression a little.
“I just... First it was Halloween, and then Bonfire Night, and now this... This w- country is still so foreign to me. It reminds me that this isn’t home... But being away from there... From my father... It wasn’t home there, either.”
Freya didn’t really know what to say to that and so she did the only thing that made sense to her in the whirlwind of emotion, picking up her blanket from around her and wrapping it around him, giving him another layer.
He frowned a little, looking confused, but smiled after a moment.
“Thanks.”
She shrugged as she finally managed to figure out what she wanted to say.
“It takes time to make somewhere feel like home. Trust me on that. You’ve just got to be patient.”
He snorted. “Coming from you, that’s a little hypocritical.”
“What do you mean?”
“Freya, you are the least patient person I know.”
She gently punched the mound of blankets, knowing that he couldn’t feel it.
The action was quickly followed up, however, by a sneeze.
“Now I feel bad about taking your blanket,” Damon said as she sniffed a little.
“It’s fine,” she assured, though that was quickly followed by another sneeze.
“That doesn’t sound fine to me,” Damon said. “It sounds like a cold.”
Freya didn’t really have an argument for that. Her distaste for being ill wouldn’t be taken into account by the virus.
They were interrupted by Gregor storming through, the front of his festive jumper soaked. Freya had asked when she had arrived why he was wearing it, if they didn’t celebrate Christmas, and he had told her that it had been a gift from his boyfriend.
“Of course, the plumbing had to go haywire on Christmas. It’ll be impossible to get anyone out...”
“What happened?” Damon asked him.
“The tap exploded out of nowhere! I managed to get it off and then it did it again. It looks like it’s settled now, but we’ll have to call someone out if it does it again.”
He turned his attention to Freya.
“Though, on a different note, it’s getting pretty bad outside. If you want to get home tonight at all, I should probably take you now.”
Freya groaned, not really wanting to leave. She didn’t imagine that things would have calmed down at home in her absence.
“Are you sure it’s not a hassle to drive me back?” Freya asked.
Gregor raised an eyebrow. “In this weather? There’s no way I’m letting you walk home.”
FREYA ARRIVED HOME to her worst nightmare, as her foster parents scurried around the house, finding new things to fix or clean every five seconds.
“I picked out a dress for you to wear,” Margaret told her as soon as she walked through the door, barely looking up as she lit the candles on the mantle. “Go change into it now. Jessica will be here any minute.”
Freya raised an eyebrow. Jessica was Ryan’s sister, and all that she had heard from Margaret since Ryan had asked his sister join them for Christmas was that she was some kind of ‘hippie’ with a poor taste in men, who had been left pregnant without a partner. Her daughter, Nightingale, had just turned five last month.
From what she had heard, Freya doubted that Jessica would care what Freya was wearing when they met. Still, she was no mood to pick a fight with Margaret, so she acquiesced.
By the time Freya made it back downstairs in her lacy black skater dress, Margaret was opening the door to her sister-in-law.
Jessica mostly looked like Ryan, with his stocky build, tan skin, hazel eyes, and short, mousy-brown hair, though hers was streaked with purple. She was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, with a black leather jacket and matching boots. She had several piercings that Freya could see, making her face sparkle.
“Auntie Mar!” the little girl at her side shouted as she saw Margaret. She looked little like her mother, with much paler skin and blood-red hair.
“Hello there, little one,” Margaret greeted with a grin, letting the girl jump into her arms, hoisting her up. “Haven’t you grown?”
“I’m not heavy!” the girl protested, out of fear that she might be put down.
“Of course you’re not,” Margaret agreed, taking the girl through to the living room.
Jessica picked up her bag, throwing it over into the corner before shutting the door.
“You must be Freya,” she greeted.
“Yeah,” Freya replied. “You’re Jessica, right?”
“Yup. So... How’s my brother dealing with the cooking stress?”
“He
hasn’t left the kitchen since I got home. Though I think he’s finished with stuff for tomorrow and has switched to making mulled wine instead.”
“That sounds like exactly what I need after a three hour drive.”
FREYA WAS SHARING HER room with Nightingale that night, which meant that they both had to be in bed at nine. Freya didn’t particularly mind, but she knew that she was going to be sitting up awake for a few hours. As she brushed her teeth, she wondered if there were any spells she could practice quietly without Nightingale noticing.
As she finished up, she found herself assaulted by another sneeze.
And, as if in response, water exploded out of the tap.
Freya quickly reached her left hand out, halting the spray of water before it coated everything. As she took in the sight around her, she groaned. Of course a cold would cause her magic to go haywire. She was no longer allowed anything as simple as a sniffle-y nose.
Before she managed to redirect the water to the sink, she was caught off-guard by another sneeze.
The water burst forth with even more explosive force than before, soaking her.
A third sneeze came before she had the time to even roll her eyes, and the shower sent water everywhere.
Freya clenched her fists, standing defiantly, as if daring another sneeze to try her.
A fourth sneeze was followed by a fifth, and Freya spent all of the control she had keeping the water from seeping out beneath the door.
Thankfully, that seemed to be the end of it, allowing Freya to direct the water down the drains and toilet, carefully wringing out her clothes and hair of every last drop.
Freya sighed once she was done, glaring at her reflection. There had to be an answer.
She sound-proofed the room before calling out for her guardian.
“What is it?” Amber asked as she appeared in her familiar, ghostly form. She had been distant over the past week, never appearing without being called upon.
“I have a cold,” Freya told her.
“And?”
“And every time I sneeze, the taps explode.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah, no shit, ah. There are already four other people in the house, and tomorrow it will be six. If I cause a mess in front of them, I don’t think I can wipe all of their memories fast enough.”
Amber nodded, frowning. “There are potions to soothe a cold, but I doubt you have all of the ingredients in the house. Has Human medicine not advanced to this point yet?”
Freya gave a frustrated sigh. “Ryan had half a pack of lozenges in a kitchen drawer. So far, they haven’t helped. Most places are closed now and, even if they weren’t, the roads are too bad to get anywhere.”
Amber shrugged. “Then there is little you can do, other than try to exercise better control.”
She disappeared before Freya demonstrated just how difficult exercising control was by reactivating the shower out of shear frustration.
“YOU’RE ILL!” NIGHTINGALE announced after Freya’s third post-light-out sneeze.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she replied sarcastically, rolling over to bury her face in her pillow, hoping that squashing her nose would solve the problem.
Thankfully, there were no liquids in her room. Nightingale had finished her mug of warm milk before Freya had finished in the bathroom, and Freya had been sure to take any half-finished glasses downstairs earlier. She hoped that would be enough for the night, but she wasn’t entirely confident that it would be. Both she and Nightingale were mostly made of water, after all.
That thought meant that she spent the next little while fending off a panic attack at the thought of potentially causing her kind-of cousin to explode or something.
You’re not that powerful, she tried to assure herself, but it rang hollow in face of the Demon she had blown a hole through.
Despite her best efforts, she sneezed again. This time, despite her managing to hide the sneeze in her pillow, it was accompanied by a large crashing noise.
Freya tensed for a moment before realising that it had probably just been the snow shifting off the roof.
“What was that?” Nightingale asked excitedly as she bounced upwards, going to the window.
Freya quickly followed her.
Well, she hadn’t been wrong about the snow, at least. It had indeed crashed to the ground. What she hadn’t been counting on were the intricate spirals of ice, that were very clearly not natural, budding from the snow mound.
“Wow,” Nightingale said softly before running to the door. “Come on! We have to go see!”
“No!” Freya protested, thankful that the soundproofing charms around her room would keep the adults from being disturbed. “We can’t!”
“Why not?” she asked.
Freya usually thought of herself a rather silver-tongued. It was a talent which had served her exceptionally well over the years, and her sister Alice had always said that it was the only reason anyone else was under the impression that she was neurotypical.
But this was far from her finest moment, she decided as she found herself hissing “Because Santa!”
Nightingale thankfully stilled at that.
“Santa?”
Freya nodded. “He was the one who knocked the snow from the roof. But, if you see him, then he’ll leave, and you won’t get any presents.”
Nightingale seemed to think this over for a moment before shaking her head.
“I don’t believe you,” she announced as she folded her arms.
Freya held back an irritated groan just as inspiration struck. She focused her mind, sensing the snow still on the roof.
After a moment, they heard soft, rhythmic thudding noises. Almost as if reindeer were on the roof.
“Still think it’s not Santa?” Freya asked.
Nightingale seemed less sure.
Freya went for one last sound effect, making the snow make another, albeit softer, crashing sound.
“That’ll be him down the chimney. Do you really want to ruin Christmas by going downstairs?”
Nightingale hurried over to the mattress she was sleeping on without any more argument.
“Do you think he’s still there?” she asked, after what couldn’t have been longer than a minute.
“Shh!” Freya told her. “If he thinks you’re awake when he comes up to fill your stocking, he’ll leave it empty.”
That shut her up, and, thankfully, Freya’s nose seemed content to leave her alone as she finally got to sleep.
FREYA WANTED NOTHING more than to sleep. She was sure that she hadn’t been so tired since she had been almost beaten to death.
But Nightingale had no care for such things, a fact that Freya learnt as she awoken to something heavy landing on her as the young girl announced “It’s Christmas!”
Freya had to jam her lips shut with her teeth to stop herself from responding with the rest of the Slade song.
She sat up to inspect whatever it was that had been thrown at her, only to find a bright blue stocking, with a white snow man on it. On the top was a label that said “Freya.”
As Freya looked over, she saw that Nightingale had a similar red one.
Well. She hadn’t been expecting that. She had known that Nightingale would have one - Margaret had told her to distract Nightingale with it if she woke up too early - but she hadn’t expected to have one of her own.
It’s just because Nightingale has one, she told herself. If she wasn’t here, you wouldn’t have one either. You’re too old for them to bother.
Freya decided to ignore that thought in lieu of unwrapping a chocolate lolly she found.
“Is it time to go downstairs yet?” Nightingale asked excitedly, having already up-ended her own stocking to reveal a collection of chocolate coins, various hair accessories, and odd bits of stationary.
Freya checked her phone, finding that it had just gone eight, which was when Margaret had asked her to keep Nightingale entertained until.
“Yeah. But go wake
everyone up first.”
Nightingale ran out of the room as Freya put on her dressing gown, coming back with a disgruntled Margaret.
“I should have said nine,” she muttered.
“I’ll put the coffee on,” Ryan told her as he passed them in the hall.
“Mmm, yes, coffee.”
Freya worried the edges of her dressing gown as Margaret looked as if she was about to follow her husband downstairs.
“Thank you,” Freya managed quietly. “For the stocking, I mean.”
Margaret just smirked as she rubbed her eyes. “Probably want to hold the thanks until you’ve seen downstairs. Ryan gets a little overexcited when it comes to Christmas shopping...”
Freya didn’t have a response to that as Margaret headed downstairs.
She managed to galvanise herself to follow her down after a few moments, though she was halted at the bottom of the stairs by a cup of coffee being branded in her face.
“Here,” Jessica offered. “I made one for you.”
“I thought Ryan was the one making the coffee.”
“My brother is terrible at it,” Jessica reasoned. “He said that you didn’t like coffee, but I think that’s just because nobody here makes it right.”
Freya swallowed her immanent protest, deciding that it would be only polite to humour Jessica.
And she was right. The coffee wasn’t as harsh as it had been before, and was far milkier. It was also sweet.
“It’s a caramel latte,” Jessica explained. “I always bring my own syrup when I’m staying with Ryan. I just wish I had remembered the cream and marshmallows...”
“Thank you,” Freya said.
“Are you going to open these or not?” Margaret called from the living room. “We’ve all got to get dressed and tidy before my parents get here.”
Jessica raised an eyebrow. “I hope you’re ready for that. Her parents are the best at making passive-aggressive comments.”
“I’m sure I’ll manage,” Freya replied with a smile as she made her way to the living room.