My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories(13)

“Fenwick Septimus Honeywell.” He bows. It looks better than it should, probably because of the coat. People don’t really do that sort of thing anymore. No one has names like that. How old is he?

“You only come when it snows,” she says.

“I am only allowed to come when it’s snowing,” he says. “And only on Christmas Day.”

“Right,” she says. “Okay, no. No, I don’t understand. Allowed by whom?”

He shrugs. Doesn’t answer. Maybe it isn’t allowed.

“You gave me something,” Miranda says.

He nods again. She puts out her hand, touches the place on the justacorps where he tore away the fox. So he could give it to her.

“Oh,” Miranda said. “The poor old thing. You didn’t even use scissors, did you? Let me fix it.”

She takes the piece of damask out of her pocket, along with her sewing kit, the one she always keeps with her. She’s had exactly the right thread in there for over a year. Just in case.

She shows him the damask. A few months ago she unpicked all of the fox’s leg, all of the trap. The drops of blood. The tail and snarling head. Then she reworked the embroidery to her own design, mimicking as closely as possible the feel of the original. Now the fox is free, tongue lolling, tail aloft, running along the pink plane of the damask. Pink cotton backing, a piece she cut from an old nightgown.

He takes it from her, turns it over in his hand. “You did this?”

“You gave me a present last year. This is my present for you,” she says. “I’ll sew it back in. It will be a little untidy, but at least you won’t have a hole in your lovely coat.”

He says, “I told her I tore it on a branch. It’s fine just as it is.”

“It isn’t fine,” she says. “Let me fix it, please.”

He smiles. It’s a real smile, maybe even a flirtatious smile. He and Daniel could be brothers. They’re that much alike. So why did she stop Daniel from kissing her? Why does she have to bite her tongue, sometimes, when Daniel is being kind to her? At Honeywell Hall, she is only as real as Elspeth and Daniel allow her to be. This isn’t her real life.

It’s ridiculous, of course. Real is real. Daniel is real. Miranda is real when she isn’t here. Whatever Fenwick Septimus Honeywell is, Miranda’s fairly sure it’s complicated.

“Please,” she says.

“As you wish it, Miranda,” Fenny says. She helps him out of the coat. Her hand touches his, and she pushes down the inexplicable desire to clutch at it. As if one of them were falling.

“Come inside the Hall,” she says. “Just while I’m working on this. I should do it inside. Better light. You could meet Daniel. Or Elspeth. I could wake her up. I bet Elspeth knows how to deal with this sort of thing.” Whatever this sort of thing is. “Theater people seem like they know how to deal with things like this. Come inside with me.”

“I can’t,” he says regretfully.

Of course. It’s against the rules.

“Okay,” Miranda says, adjusting. “Then we’ll both stay out here. I’ll stay with you. You can tell me all about yourself. Unless that’s against the rules too.” She busies herself with pins. He lifts her hand away, holds it.

“Inside out, if you please,” he says. “The fox on the inside.”

He has lovely hands. No calluses on his fingertips. Manicured nails. Definitely not real. His thumb smooths over her knuckles. Miranda says, a little breathless, “Inside out. So she won’t notice someone’s repaired it?” Whoever she is.

“She’ll notice,” he says. “But this way she won’t see that the fox is free.”

“Okay. That’s sensible. I guess.” Miranda lets go of his hand. “Here. We can sit on this.”

She spreads out the blanket. Sits down. Remembers she has a Mars bar in her pocket. She passes that to him. “Sit.”

He examines the Mars bar. Unwraps it.

“Oh, no,” she says. “More rules? You’re not allowed to eat?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve never been given anything before. When I came. No one has ever talked to me.”

“So you show up when it snows, creep around for a while, looking in at the windows. Then you go back wherever when the snow stops.”

Fenny nods. He looks almost abashed.

“What fun!” Miranda says. “Wait, no, I mean how creepy!” She has the piece of embroidery how she wants it, is tacking it into place with running stitches, so the fox is hidden.

If it stops snowing, will he just disappear? Will the coat stay? Something tells her that all of this is very against the rules. Does he want to come back? And what does she mean by back, anyway? Back here, to Honeywell Hall? Or back to wherever it is that he is when he isn’t here? Why doesn’t he get older?

Elspeth says it’s a laugh, getting older. But oh, Miranda knows, Elspeth doesn’t mean it.

“It’s good,” Fenny says, sounding surprised. The Mars bar is gone. He’s licking his fingers.

“I could go back in the house,” Miranda says. “I could make you a cheese sandwich. There’s Christmas cake for tomorrow.”

“No,” he says. “Stay.”

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll stay. Here. That’s the best I can do in this light. My hands are getting too cold.”