A Snowfall of Silver

by Laura Wood

  Kit wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me close. “Mistletoe sounds like an excellent idea,” he murmurs into my hair.

  And then, we’re kissing again and it’s bliss and I begin to see the appeal of strewing the house with mistletoe after all.

  “It’s snowing again,” I murmur, dazed, when we come up for air. Fat flakes drift in drowsy curlicues to settle in Kit’s hair, on his dark wool coat, to melt against my warm cheeks. In the early evening light, the world around us is fairy-touched, shining silver.

  “I hope you’re not feeling so averse to romance any more?” Kit asks.

  I laugh. “Now that I know what it really feels like, I’ve decided I’m very much in favour.”

  “Good. We had better go back, before we’re caught out in another blizzard.”

  I don’t want to let him go. “You can come in for a hot chocolate. Meet my sister.”

  “I’d love to. For one thing, I hear the place is covered in mistletoe.”

  I shove him gently and we turn back towards Lou’s. “Actually, it’s a good job we’re going back,” I say. “I’m starving. I haven’t eaten for days. Well, I’ve eaten, of course – but not at my normal capacity.”

  “I came prepared.” Kit reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bar of chocolate.

  “This is why you’re the best person in the world,” I say, taking it.

  “I’m only surprised you left the house without a satchel full of sandwiches.”

  “That was a good day,” I say, thinking about that magical afternoon at the abbey. Staging Kit’s play, the set coming to life in my mind from the skeleton of a ruined abbey.

  “It was a lot of fun,” Kit agrees, and the words ring in my ears.

  A thought strikes me then, a thought so wonderful it’s as if lightning parts the sky and shoots right through me. I freeze, glued to the spot, my eyes wide, my breathing suddenly rapid.

  “Freya?” Kit turns to me, concern writ large across his face.

  “It was fun,” I say. “It was the most fun I ever had. It brought me joy. It felt right.”

  “Ye-es.” Kit’s confusion is clear. “That’s good.”

  His confusion is not dispelled in the slightest when I begin to laugh manically. I whirl towards him, reaching up on my tiptoes to plant a swift kiss on his lips. “I have to go!” I exclaim. “I’ll explain later, I’m sorry, but … there’s something I need to do.”

  “Wha—” Kit starts, but I reach up and kiss him again, because I can, because I want to.

  And then, I swirl away and begin to run, leaving him standing in the falling snow.

  When I reach the theatre, I head directly to the stage door. They will be preparing for their evening’s performance. The touring company may be finished, but the theatre’s own production of The Nutcracker runs right up to Christmas Day. And I know Mr Cantwell and Miss Meriden have meeting after meeting lined up in the building.

  “Hello, Joe!” I call, as I bustle through the door, shaking snow from my boots. “I need to see Mr Cantwell. It’s urgent.”

  “Mr Cantwell’s not here, miss,” Joe says, his crumpled face appearing at the window.

  My face falls.

  “Miss Meriden is in her office, mind,” Joe adds, and I’m already moving, calling my thanks over my shoulder.

  I knock on Miss Meriden’s door, my knuckles beating a jittery tattoo.

  “Come in,” I hear her voice call and I push the door open. “Freya!” she exclaims, startled, taking in my flushed cheeks, my dishevelled, just-run-through-the-snow appearance.

  “Miss Meriden, it’s so good to see you!” I say. And then, “I need to see Mr Cantwell,” I blurt out with no finesse at all. “Do you know where he is?”

  She turns the gold watch at her wrist to look at its face. “We’re going to meet a producer for dinner. He’s due any minute.”

  I sigh gustily with relief. “May I wait with you?” I ask. “There’s something I simply must talk to him about.”

  “Of course,” she says, gesturing to the seat across from her. “Why don’t you sit? I must say, I’m glad to see you, we didn’t get a chance to talk after we got back and I wondered…”

  The door swings open.

  “Blast it, Meriden, it’s bloody snowing again and that ass Thurlow is going to want us to traipse halfway across town…” Rhys Cantwell notices me and stops, his bushy white brows shooting up.

  “Miss Trevelyan. About time you showed your face around here.”

  “S-sir?” I say, momentarily thrown.

  “I understand no one’s seen hide nor hair of you since we got back to London. Shouldn’t you have turned up asking me for a job by now?”

  “Well, actually, that’s why I’m here.” I twist my hands anxiously in front of me.

  “Good. I understand Nora has been very pleased with your work, and I’m sure…”

  “I’m not here about my old job.” I glance at Miss Meriden whose face is a smooth mask of polite interest. “I’m here about a different job.”

  Mr Cantwell sighs. He looks for a moment as though he has a toothache. “If it’s acting work you want, Freya, there’s nothing right now,” he says heavily. “You do need training. I can perhaps introduce you to…”

  “No, it’s not acting work I want either. But training is precisely what I’m here about,” I break in eagerly. “I realized I don’t want my old job, not as a wardrobe assistant or as an understudy.” I pause. “The job I really want … is yours!”

  “Mine?” His brow crumples. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “I want to direct,” I say, and I know as I say it that I do want it, more than anything in the world, and it feels real this time, not like a dream I can’t remember being without. “I’m not made to be an actress, I know that now, and I thought it was the end of everything, but then it hit me – what I loved, all along, was making something. It’s the creative vision, the idea of bringing all the pieces together into something better than the sum of its parts. Just like you said.”

  “I said that, did I?” he mutters weakly, casting a hopeless glance at Miss Meriden, who is pressing her lips together as though to try and hide a smile.

  “Something very like it,” I reply. “When we were in the abbey working on Kit’s play, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more alive or full of joy than I did then. And as soon as I understood, I just had to come and ask you, Mr Cantwell, whether you might consider taking me on, as as an assistant.”

  He frowns. “I don’t have the time to train someone.”

  “I wouldn’t be a burden,” I insist. “I want to learn, and I want to learn from you. I can do this. Give me this opportunity and let me prove it to you.”

  “You did say she showed excellent instincts,” Miss Meriden breaks in.

  Mr Cantwell glowers.

  “Oh, did you?” I ask, delighted.

  “Harrumph,” says Rhys Cantwell.

  “And you know you could use another pair of hands,” Miss Meriden continues ruthlessly. “I’m stretched desperately thin, and things are falling through the cracks – why, look what happened at Runleigh. I’m sure I could squeeze a little out of the budget.”

  I hold my breath as Mr Cantwell glares at me. “It would be a very little out of the budget,” he says finally.

  “Oh, Mr Cantwell!” I exclaim, flinging myself at him and kissing him on the cheek before whirling round to do the same to Miss Meriden. Miss Meriden laughs then, a startlingly loud and unruly arpeggio, quite at odds with the rest of her.

  “You won’t regret it!” I turn back to the director. “I promise you won’t.”

  “I already told you, Miss Trevelyan: don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  I beam beatifically. “But this time, sir, I know I can keep it.”

  Epilogue

  Eight months later

  It is my second ever opening night. And this time, I don’t watch from the wings, but from a seat in the audience, and we’re not in Oxford, but
in London. As soon as the tour reviews started rolling in, Miss Meriden found herself inundated with invitations to stage Mr Cantwell’s next project, trying to tempt him away from the Queen Anne, but they decided to stay. It’s home – at least for now.

  At my side Mr Cantwell, smart in his tuxedo, sits very still. I riffle through the programme, my fingers tapping nervous patterns on the arm of my seat as we wait, the heavy red curtain like an impenetrable wall before us. I turn anxiously to look around and watch the seats as they slowly fill up.

  “Freya, if you don’t stop wriggling I will have you ejected from this theatre,” Mr Cantwell grinds out.

  I still instantly. “Do you think Viola took the note about her entrance? In the dress rehearsal it didn’t come off exactly right…”

  “It’s done,” Mr Cantwell says. “There’s no more you can do now. This is the moment of truth, where you let it all go and see if it can walk on its own.” He turns to me, his expression grave. “This is an important lesson for you. What you’re about to experience is simultaneously the best and the worst moment of directing – the part where you find out if your job is done.”

  I take a deep breath, letting his words wash over me. Striving for some kind of calm. This production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been all that has occupied my mind for months. My new job has proved even harder work than my last one, and I’ve loved every moment of it. I have learned so much, and I’m still learning, watching, taking it all in. Most of what I’ve been doing has been grunt work, real bottom-of-the-ladder stuff. Let’s just say I’ve been making a lot of cups of tea, and that Mr Cantwell takes his with milk and one and a half sugars.

  But, but there are a couple of my notes that made it into the play we’re all about to watch, and that feels incredible. And, after I lobbied for it doggedly, with detailed notes as to how it would not only work but offer a fresh perspective on the role, Mr Cantwell agreed to cast Viola as Puck, and that has proven to be a wonderful decision. Big things are going to happen for her, I know they are. Finally, she is on a London stage, where she has long deserved to be.

  It all feels good.

  It feels right.

  I twist around in my seat.

  Somewhere behind us in the dark auditorium are my family. Midge and Pa came all the way from Cornwall, with Alice and Jack … and Aunt Irene. No one was more surprised than I when the old bat herself arrived, but apparently she insisted. While she’s made her opinions of my life choices very clear, she hasn’t quite been able to conceal the tiny hint of pride.

  “You should have heard her all over the village,” Alice told me, wide-eyed. “It was all, my niece, yes, the one working with Rhys Cantwell, she’s a close personal friend of Eileen Turner, of course.” Alice’s Aunt Irene impression is always spot on, and I could imagine the scene exactly.

  Lou and Robert are here as well. Lou finally put Robert out of his misery and she proposed to him under an apple tree in Cornwall. They’re waiting for Caitlin and Lucky to come over before they get married. Apparently Caitlin has a lot of plans for the wedding and there have been several entertaining long-distance phone calls taking place.

  I’m so glad they’re here to see this. Robert and Lou sent an enormous bunch of roses to the theatre and I put them into a vase in the office, next to the daisies from Kit.

  My other family is here too.

  Right now, I know that they’re running about backstage, a perfect swirl of organized chaos. Nora will be there, buttoning people into their costumes and adjusting hems with the help of her new assistant, Martin. (Russ would have been devastated, I’m sure, but he got another job with a different company, and we don’t see much of him these days.) Alma, with whom I now share a very mean flat that rarely has hot water, but where we are both blissfully happy, will be muttering lines under her breath. And Kit, with whom I share my whole life, will be busy shouting instructions at people hauling scenery around, and thinking, perhaps, of me out here and of the play we’re working on together.

  Maybe he’s thinking of a small jewel of a theatre, and the little manager there who is only too happy to stage the work of an up and coming playwright, and a young female director this Christmas. Particularly as they seem to be the only people other than Rhys Cantwell who can tempt Eileen Turner out of retirement.

  Maybe he’s thinking about the party we’ll be having tonight with all the people we love. Where we’ll laugh and dance and he’ll whirl me about in his arms like he’ll never let me go.

  When I think about it, about all of these people, coming together in one place, in this golden, perfect moment, I feel as though my heart may burst.

  I know that I am exactly where I am meant to be.

  Ambition. Opportunity. Want.

  The curtain rises.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book was written during an extremely strange and difficult time for all of us, and it certainly wouldn’t exist without the very vocal and enthusiastic encouragement of many people.

  Chief of these is my agent, Louise Lamont, who loved this book when I couldn’t, and who saw what it was going to be even when I was in the depths of despair. Thank you so much for being Freya’s biggest fan and for long, gossipy phone calls and for Babylon Berlin. I’m so grateful for you.

  Thank you to Gen Herr, who made my job so much easier, and who worked like an absolute demon to get this done. I’m so thankful for your encouragement and your insight. You make everything better. I love writing books with you.

  Thanks to Jenny Glencross for copyediting – I’m so happy that you were involved in a bit more of Lou’s story, which is only right. Thanks to Pete Matthews, Lauren Fortune, Harriet Dunlea, and the rest of the team at Scholastic – truly the best of people. Thank you AGAIN to Jamie Gregory and Yehrin Tong for their beautiful work, and for making my books the best looking on any bookcase.

  Thank you as always to my family and friends. You have all made sure I kept my sanity while writing a book during a global pandemic, which is a real miracle. I love you all so much. Special thanks to my lovely friend Ben Fowler, who acted as my theatre consultant and answered all my daft questions.

  Finally, I have to say an enormous thank you to you readers who loved A Sky Painted Gold. I can’t tell you what it has meant to me to hear from so many of you. Thank you for loving Lou and her family as much as I do. Thank you for cheering me on, for sharing the book, for your beautiful pictures and words. I hope that this book makes you happy – I wrote it for you.

  Laura Wood is the winner of the Montegrappa Scholastic Prize for New Children’s Writing. She has a PhD from the University of Warwick studying the figure of the reader in nineteenth century literature. She is also the author of A Sky Painted Gold, Under a Dancing Star, Vote for Effie and the Poppy Pym series.

  lauraclarewood.com

  Follow Laura on Twitter – @lauraclarewood

  Instagram – @lauracwood

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  Observer

  Published in the UK by Scholastic Children’s Books, 2020

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  Text © Laura Wood, 2020

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