Home in Time for Christmas

by Heather Graham

  She took off up the stairs, shaking her head. “See you guys in thirty.”

  Thirty minutes later, they were on the porch.

  And Keith had done an extraordinary job with Jake.

  He was strikingly handsome. While Keith hadn’t given him a short cut, he had cleaned up a bit of the rough edges. Jake was clean shaven. He was wearing black dress jeans, a black turtleneck sweater with a jagged red Z down it, and a clean-cut dinner jacket beneath Keith’s black wool coat.

  He could have posed for GQ in a flash.

  Her brother was equally impressive in shades of black and amber.

  She was glad that she had taken Keith’s warning to heart and dressed up a bit. She had never been able to understand the desire to wear something sleeve less beneath a coat, even if most places did heat up the insides to a toasty warmth. She had chosen a long-sleeved black velvet dress with a wicked side slit and a sweetheart neckline. She didn’t actually own a pair of stilettos, but she did break down and wear stockings and heels, a pair her mother had bought her at a sale at Filene’s Basement. There were actually beautiful shoes, with rhinestones down the back of the shoe and the heel. She’d only worn them a few times.

  Keith whistled when he saw her come out on the porch.

  Jake asked Keith if whistling was all right because he was her brother, or if it was offensive to whistle, or perhaps expected these days.

  “Good question, my man,” Keith told him. “If a pretty girl is just walking down the street minding her own business, I never whistle. If I’m seeing a friend, my sister, my mom, or the new light of my life, I whistle. Because they know I mean it as a compliment. Whistling. Hmm. That’s one you have to play by ear.”

  “May I?” Jake asked Melody.

  She laughed. “Go for it,” she said. He whistled.

  “Great whistle. Okay, whose doing the driving, you or me?” she asked Keith.

  “Neither of us.”

  “We’re clubbing it on the front porch?” she asked.

  “Keith has arranged for a livery,” Jake said.

  “What?”

  “Sis, I hired a car. For some reason, I don’t see Jake here really getting blitzed, but who knows? And he doesn’t have any ID anyway, and he doesn’t know how to drive a car. Personally, I’d pay to see you a little snookered. And I didn’t feel like making any promises. So—voilà. There he is—our hired town car. Right on time.”

  Melody arched a brow. She was thinking that she should protest.

  But she didn’t want to. The idea of the three of them out on the town with Christmas on the way was a pretty nice one.

  “Where are we going?” Melody asked.

  “I thought Jake should see Boston. What do you think?”

  “Boston sounds fun,” she agreed.

  “As I told Jake, I would dearly love to see Boston as it is today,” Jake said.

  “Let’s go,” Melody said.

  “George,” Mona called to her husband from the laundry room.

  “Wait, just a second, Mona,” George said. “I’m just waiting to see if the construction worker from Des Moines gets the Big Money!”

  “Oh, George! He gets the money. He’s a very smart fellow.”

  “How do you know, Mona?”

  “It’s a repeat!”

  “Oh.” George was deflated.

  “I’m so sorry, dear.”

  “It’s all right.”

  Mona heard him rising and walking back to the laundry room.

  “What is it?” George asked.

  “I picked up Jake’s clothing in Keith’s room. Will you look at this? Hand-darned socks. His clothing is all made by hand, look at the stitching. It’s amazing work.”

  “Well, he must work at one of those places where they do everything exactly like they did in Colonial times,” George said, shrugging.

  “It’s amazing. Everything about that young man is amazing, really. I mean, his name. His association with that book I have…”

  “Mona, this is New England. Every town has a Main Street. Everyone is named after everyone else. What’s so amazing?”

  “George, you have no imagination.”

  “Mona, you’re always accusing me of having too much imagination.”

  “There’s something up here,” she said firmly.

  “What? You think he plopped down on us from Colonial times?” George said dryly.

  “Maybe.”

  “Oh, Mona. CSI is on. I’ve got to watch.”

  She sighed. “Yes, dear, so you can complain about what they’re doing wrong?”

  “I don’t complain.”

  “You do.”

  “Well, come join me anyway.”

  “I’ll just get the laundry started and…hmm, let’s have some warm wine!”

  “Whatever you like, dear.”

  He headed on back to the family room. Mona studied the fine hand stitching in Jake Mallory’s clothing once again.

  They started off at a place called Trinity. The music tended toward trance, and the dance floor was hopping. There was no conversation because it was impossible to speak over the music. But they had a drink, and Jake managed to insist that Keith and Melody dance on the dance floor with it’s huge strobe lights.

  After one number, Keith told Jake that he needed to dance.

  “I don’t know these dances,” he said.

  “You don’t have to know anything. Just gyrate,” Melody told him.

  “I think I’ll observe a bit longer.”

  “That’s okay, we’re moving on. How about some kind of heavy-metal rock next?” Keith asked Melody.

  “I’m along for the ride,” she said.

  And it was a ride well worth being on. Jake was entranced by the skyscrapers dotting the landscape, and more fascinated to see that Faneuil Hall was still standing. They asked their driver to let them off and circle the block a few times so that Jake could see the changes. Through his eyes, the world seemed new. He pointed out where incidents had taken place, where a printing shop had stood, where he had first met John Adams.

  Jake walked away, staring at the shops that now surrounded so much that was historical. “We’ll come back in the daytime,” Keith called to him, “and you can see the Old North Church.”

  “I’d like that,” Jake said.

  The car came back around for them. They opted for their next spot, down near the Boston Common. This one played hard rock. Jake was fascinated by the amps.

  “Do you play anything?” Melody shouted to Jake.

  “Some fiddle, a bit on the flute, a few other instruments…” he told her. He pointed. “That’s like a harpsichord, or a piano.”

  “Right—it’s called a keyboard now!” Melody shouted.

  “Do the players go deaf after a while?” Jake shouted back.

  “Yes!” Keith assured him.

  They ordered chicken wings and beer, and listened while the band played.

  “This is good music. Good dancing music,” Keith said.

  “The couples do seem to be dancing together,” Jake pointed out.

  “That’s a hustle, super easy,” Keith said. “Melody, show him how.”

  “I—I—I can’t lead,” Melody said.

  “Jake, one, two, back step, one, two, back step. Follow Melody.”

  “Well?” Jake offered her a hand.

  “I’m not that good.”

  “I won’t know, will I?” Jake asked.

  They went out on the dance floor together. Jake was awkward at first, but he was willing to be back-led. And it was a simple step, and after a moment, he had it. And as he followed her, she found her confidence growing. “Okay, you’re swinging me,” she told him.

  “Swinging you where?” he asked.

  “Just go with it,” she said.

  She took a chance, got him to raise his arm, and she went out in a spin, then led him into a counterspin. When the number finished, she was flushed and excited. They met Keith back at the table, and he looked like the cat
who had eaten the canary, very proud of himself.

  “Time to move on!” Keith told them.

  Apparently, her brother had done some planning. The next place they went, the band played oldies and the decibel level was a bit lower. Jake seemed very happy there, listening to renditions of Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Journey, Boston, Styx and a number of other bands.

  This venue offered jalapeño poppers, and Keith thought Jake should certainly try them as a tasty treat. And Jake seemed to enjoy them.

  “Heading on to a pub now. Mahoney’s,” Keith advised.

  The band at Mahoney’s was actually Irish. Jake grinned as they took seats at a booth and ordered Guinness stout.

  “I know that ditty!” he told them.

  “I’m familiar with it,” Melody said.

  “I can dance to this,” Jake told her, grinning. “I can even lead.”

  “Well, I can’t dance to it,” Melody said.

  “I was willing to take a chance,” Jake said. “Have some faith—in me? Please?”

  She nodded. He spoke quietly as they headed for the dance floor. “Basic steps,” he said. “Very easy, I swear. Point your right toe, straight out from your knee. Step, and bring your left foot together behind it—one, two. Then, right toe to your left knee and do a wee hop. Right leg back, and hop on your left foot.”

  “This isn’t easy—it’s complicated!” Melody protested.

  “Easy, you’ll get it. Just doing it, you’ll get it. Now, right foot on the floor behind your left foot, three small steps behind you, starting with your left, repeat it two times, all with your right foot in front.”

  “Jake, this is a lot harder than step, step, back step!” Melody told him.

  “But you’ve got it.”

  And more or less, she did. The band was encouraging them, the place was clapping. She was hopping, spinning and laughing, and having the time of her life.

  “Hey, buddy!” the fiddler player asked. “You play, too?”

  Jake looked at Melody.

  “Buddy is an expression. He doesn’t know your name,” Melody advised.

  “Should I play with them?”

  “If you know a tune.”

  “Several.”

  “Go on up!” Melody prodded.

  He hesitated, then accepted a fiddle. He spoke with the band members for a minute, and then they began to play.

  Keith came to stand behind Melody.

  “There’s the coolest guy I’ve met since I don’t know when,” Keith said.

  “Too bad he’s crazy.”

  “Maybe he’s not.”

  “Keith, please! What he’s saying is impossible.”

  Keith swung her around. “Melody! How do we know that for sure? A man on the moon—that’s crazy. Space travel, laser surgery, microchips—they’re all crazy. Maybe, just maybe, he’s telling the truth.”

  Melody watched Jake.

  And Jake seemed to be in his element.

  “He wants to go home,” Keith said. “He’s worried sick about his sister.”

  “And that’s…commendable, I guess. Whether it’s real—or in his head,” she said firmly.

  “Pity,” Keith said.

  “What’s a pity?”

  “He will figure out a way to go back. With or without your help. He’ll figure it out somehow.”

  “Why is it a pity, if it’s what he wants?” she asked.

  Keith looked at her. “Because I wish that he would stay. And if you decided to get honest with yourself for just a minute, you wish it, too.”

  He started to walk away from her.

  “Hey!”

  “What?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to get another Guinness and watch the music. Don’t want to waste that limo, eh?”

  “Yeah, wait a minute, how are you affording that limo?”

  “Building Web sites, sis, building Web sites. If you were smart, you’d let me build one for you—and you could start selling your art. Then you’ll quit worrying about breaking up with Mark, ’cause, ya see, though it’s none of my business, that’s not going to make it.”

  She opened her mouth to protest that she hadn’t been hanging on for gain—in any way or form. It wasn’t true.

  She had been having a hard time trying not to hurt Mark.

  But maybe, just maybe, she had been hanging on too long.

  Because she did lack faith.

  In herself, as well as in others.

  6

  “Eye of newt and toe of frog?” George teased, slipping into bed beside his wife. She had barely noticed him coming to bed, she was so engrossed in her reading. He recognized the book; it was one of the old diaries from the attic.

  “You know, you could offer that diary to the Peabody Essex Museum and make a mint, maybe,” George said.

  “Lovely, dear,” she replied.

  “The moon fell into the Atlantic tonight,” George said.

  “Hmm. Great.”

  “The sun is due to drop into the Pacific at 3:00 p.m. eastern time tomorrow.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Mona!”

  “What? What!” The old diary nearly went flying as she jumped.

  “Why on earth are you so spell bound?” he demanded.

  “It’s this journal—by Serena Mallory,” Mona said.

  George groaned. “I know—you are related to her somehow, and her talents for witchcraft have come through the genes through the centuries!”

  “Don’t be silly, George. We’re not related. You and I bought this house when I graduated from nursing school. No, I’m just reading what this woman wrote, and it’s fascinating. George, it’s all relating.”

  He plumped his pillow. “What’s all relating?”

  “You and I, dear.”

  “We have been married since time began,” he said with a sigh.

  She was no longer completely concentrating. She gave him a good jab in the ribs.

  “Ouch!”

  “Speak for yourself, my love. I am not that old.”

  “Hmm.”

  “And, my dear husband, you do recall that you might be considered an alchemist.”

  “Right. Just like Merlin. Where’s the sword? I can pull it out of a stone.”

  “George, Merlin couldn’t pull the sword from the stone. Only King Arthur could do that. No, what I’m saying is this. Serena Mallory speaks—sorry, writes—with a lot of metaphors, but she had tremendous faith. Beautiful faith, really. Magic existed in her world to protect the good. Those who did not practice goodness and love pretty much deserved what evils the earth might cast their way, but those who were fighting for their poorer neighbors or for justice—”

  “Truth! And the American way,” George put in.

  She rewarded him with a warning glare.

  “We’re not talking Superman here, George.”

  “Just superpowers, eh?”

  “My darling, you must take me seriously here. I do that for you. Have I ever protested at the rise of our bill for fire extinguishers?”

  “No,” he said, giving her a peck on the forehead. “No, you have not.”

  “Well, we all know that you folks teased me for years about my belief in tea—especially green tea. And now, of course, the health benefits of tea are touted all over the place,” Mona said.

  He nodded. “Um, Mona, I don’t think that the health benefits of tea align with magic.”

  “Hear me out. I told you about the reference to a sort of black hole by the scout who knew the Massasoit chief?”

  “What?”

  “Research, George, research.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Well, Serena Mallory believed that such places existed, and when they didn’t exist, certain herbs could be combined to create a fissure in time and place, bringing the black hole where it needed to be.”

  “That’s impossible. A black hole is—a black hole.”

  “A black hole in space, perhaps. We don’t rea
lly know what a black hole is yet, do we? But, perhaps, as well as in space, there are black holes in time. And a black hole in time must be found. And perhaps other elements are needed for a black hole to be at the time that the black hole is needed in time. Maybe Serena even knew how to move a black hole in time.”

  “That’s impossible, Mona.”

  “George! How dare you—you know that things exist beyond what we see.”

  “Well, of course, but—”

  “But, but, but! Is it science, George, or is it magic? Or maybe a bit of both exist.”

  “All right, dear, go on.”

  She smiled and told him, “Guess where the black hole is?”

  “I thought that you thought that it could be moved?”

  “Maybe—but it has to be somewhere to be moved from that place.”

  George groaned. “Okay, where is the black hole?”

  “Out in our backyard.”

  George stared at her, then shook his head. “Mona—how long have we owned this place? A quarter of a century? How many dogs and cats have those kids brought home? We’ve never lost a single animal. No, once they get here, we seem to keep them.”

  “The black hole isn’t just open. I believe that either herbs and magic or sound waves and frequencies—your line—can create the black hole.”

  “Mona, could we turn out the light now?”

  “Almost, George. Just think about it, okay?”

  “I have been playing around back there with sound waves, microwaves and frequencies for almost as long as we’ve been married, Mona.”

  “Right place, right time, right circumstances and a bit of magic.”

  “So, you’re trying to tell me that this fellow, Jake, isn’t really a friend of Melody’s. He dropped into her car magically when she was on her way home. If that’s so, he didn’t come through the black hole.”

  “Roses!” Mona said.

  “What?” George demanded. He fell back on the bed, groaning as he covered his face with his pillow.

  “Roses, coated with a mixture of herbs. Perhaps it’s only illusion. Perhaps they cause a mist in the air, and what happens is all real and tangible, but not seen.”

  “Mona, can we watch Jay Leno?”

  “George! The last passage here was written just before Christmas, 1776. Serena Mallory is about to head to New York City because she’s gotten word that her brother is to be executed as a warning to other Patriots. Listen, George!” She began to read aloud. “‘Through the Great God Our Father and all the blessings on earth of ancient gods and goddesses, through all that has been put at human disposal, and mostly, through all He has granted through our hearts and the power of love and the human spirit, I swear that I shall prevent such a cruelty. And at this time of the year when we have chosen to celebrate the birth of His Only Son, our Christ, He will not allow injustice, so I believe, and in my belief, I will travel. I am armed with my faith, and with the knowledge He has granted, and with the wisdom of my mothers, and the goodness of the earth. So much is put here for us; so much lives in our hearts. I know that He will travel with me, and that love and the spirit will prevail.’”