Chapter Seven
Nolan
Twenty minutes later, Harriet and I are standing in the middle of a tree field with snow up to our knees. When I said we had work to do, I didn’t expect it to be quite so … rural.
“I’m glad you told me to change. I would have been freezing in my pajamas.”
I grunt in response, my hands shoved deep in the pockets of my jacket. I didn’t tell her to change because I was worried she’d be cold. I told her to change because if I had to watch the tiny strap of her camisole drift over her shoulder one more time, I was going to put my fist through a wall.
Pajamas. Those flimsy shorts with the slit in the side were not pajamas. She was wearing a garment constructed by the devil, designed specifically to bring men to their knees.
“I guess I didn’t notice in the last memory, but the past feels different,” Harriet continues, oblivious to my distraction.
She wiggles in the snow, testing it, then holds out her hand and catches a snowflake in the middle of her palm.
It holds its minuscule, crystalline shape half a second longer than it’s supposed to, then melts into her skin.
“The cold is only sort of cold. It’s like being in a bubble,” she muses. “Or a space suit.”
“We’re observers,” I explain. “Not participants.”
While current Harriet ponders the logistics of the memory we’ve landed in, past Harriet is doing her damnedest to cut down a tree. All I can see is her jeans-clad legs from beneath a tangle of branches. She’s been trying to cut it down since we arrived. I have no idea what she’s doing under there.
And I have no idea what we’re doing here, in this memory.
It’s another perfectly innocuous peek at Harriet’s past. Completely ordinary.
We’re in a serene snow-covered field full of rich Fraser firs.
Christmas music drifts from the big red barn in the distance.
Laughter comes in fits and bursts as kids run by with their parents, and beneath her tree, Harriet persists with what I assume is a horribly inefficient saw.
Maybe she’ll somehow set the tree on fire and reduce the whole farm to ashes? Perhaps the tree she is attempting to destroy is a precious heirloom? Maybe she’s cutting down the tree to spite someone else with … holiday spirit?
What is she hiding?
“It’s like I’m here, but I’m not,” Harriet continues, spinning on her heel while I brood silently next to her. She bends at the waist and scoops some snow into her hands, dumping it out again. “The snow feels like marshmallows.”
“It’s because we’re in the past,” I say again, tilting my head in concern as the tree begins to wobble. I take in the empty field. What if it falls? She’s out here by herself and there’s no one here to help her with the damned tree.
Does anyone know where she is? Is she even using a saw, or is she gnawing through the trunk with her teeth? My hands flex at my sides. “Stop scooping the snow,” I snap, annoyed. Annoyed that I’m annoyed. “You’ll make your hands cold.”
“I don’t feel it, though.”
“You will when we get back,” I explain, watching the tree sway back and forth. “These things tend to linger.”
“Really?”
I nod. If she’s not careful, she’ll feel the chill of the snow for days. I’ve never cared very much about it, but I seem to care with Harriet.
I am annoyed.
She looks at her hands, flexing her fingers. “How strange.”
I fumble around in my pockets, searching. “Do you want my mittens?”
“You have mittens?”
“It’s winter. Of course I have mittens.”
I pull them out of my pocket, dangling them in front of her. She grabs them and tugs them over her hands. They’re comically large. More like oven mitts than mittens.
She claps them together, delighted. “Did you knit these yourself?”
“No.” Yes. I have an obscene amount of time on my hands and very few hobbies.
I knit. I read. I take care of the cats that inexplicably show up at my window every few months.
I occasionally steal one of the small fishing vessels docked in the harbor and take it out for a joyride.
“I picked them up at that mercantile store by the dock in 1976.”
Her thick eyelashes are a fan across the tops of her cheeks and the tip of her nose is pink from the cold. Her coat is pink, too. She looks like cotton candy over there.
But, fuck, she’s pretty.
“Nineteen seventy-six?” she asks.
“Mm-hmm,” I lie, turning back to the other Harriet and the precariously leaning tree. “They were having a sale.”
“A sale on mittens.”
“Correct.”
“In 1976.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I watch her out of the corner of my eye as she digs one mittened hand into the pocket of her coat. “You’re lying, but that’s fine.”
She continues to struggle, her arm fully caught in the confines of her pocket, her elbow winging out like a chicken in distress. She wiggles to the left, then the right.
“All right?” I ask, peering down at the top of her head.
“’M fine.”
“You sure?”
She nods, going still. A moment later, she tries to wedge her hand free again. I leave her to it, content to watch her struggle.
Finally, she turns and stares mournfully up at me. Her arm is still pinned to her side.
“I need your help,” she says.
I bite the inside of my cheek against my grin. “With what?”
“My hand is stuck.” She wiggles her arm around for emphasis. “And I can’t get my candy cane out.”
“Where’s the candy cane?”
“In my pocket. I always keep candy canes in my pocket.”
Of course she does. That makes sense, given the sheer amount of them she has in her house at any given moment.
I raise my eyebrows. “And how would you like me to help?”
“Untangle me?” She twists and offers me her elbow. “One good tug should do it.”
“A tug?”
“Yes, a tug. I found this coat at Goodwill and the pockets are too small. This happens a lot.” I imagine it does, with all the candies she’s apparently shoving inside it. Harriet seems like she’s a catastrophic mess, 80 percent of the time.
She shimmies closer, pressing her arm against my chest. She nods at it. “Go on.”
I hesitate. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, please. I’d like to use my arm again today. And I could use a candy cane.” She nods at her past self, still sawing away at the tree. There’s a muffled thud and a groaning sound. “If I remember correctly, we’re going to be here for a while.”
“You know this memory?”
She nods, a secret smile flirting with the corners of her mouth. My attention fixes there, holding until she knocks her arm against my chest. I grab it, fingers gripping tight. The coat she’s wearing is just as soft as the sweater she had on the other day, but thicker.
“Nolan.” Harriet laughs. “C’mon. Help me out.” I adjust our stance and pull gently on her arm.
“What’s that? What are you doing?” she asks, sounding like she’s on the verge of laughter. I can’t see her face like this, her body wedged against mine, her hair obscuring her features. “That’s not going to do anything.”
“I shouldn’t have given you my mittens,” I grumble. “You don’t have an appreciative bone in your body.”
“My hands are nice and cozy, thank you very much. Now try again. Put some muscle into it.”
I put more than a little muscle into it.
I pour all of my frustration and a little bit of my resentment, too.
I have no idea how I keep finding myself in these ridiculous situations with Harriet, but I’d like very much to do my job and call it a day for the holiday season.
I shouldn’t be offering my assignment the mittens that took me close to a month to make.
I certainly shouldn’t care whether her hands are cold.
But I did and I do and despite my best efforts to the contrary, I don’t regret any of it.
I pull too hard and she squeaks, her hand coming loose in a single, rough movement.
She loses her balance in the snow, arms flailing, a rogue candy cane and an obscure box dropping in the bank to our left.
I wrap my arm around her waist before she can go toppling over after it, her mittened hands clutching the front of my coat.
I hold her there until I’m sure she has her footing, then hold her for a second longer. She’s warm and solid and real and it’s been so damn long since I’ve felt the press of someone else’s body against mine.
I flex my fingers against her back. Her hands find my shoulders.
She exhales and her warm breath brushes against my throat.
I spread my fingers wide and tug her half an inch closer. She bends slightly, her head tipping back. It does something dangerous to my control. My magic rolls in my chest, a low hum.
“Okay?” I ask.
She nods, silent, her eyes blown wide. I straighten and set her back on her feet. When she’s standing without any additional slippery mishaps, I let her go and bend at the waist, plucking her items from the snow.
I hold them out to her.
“Thank you,” she murmurs. I’m so busy watching her blush work its way over her skin that I miss her trying to shove the box at my chest.
I grab her wrist. “What are you doing?”
“These are for you.” She shakes the box, something rattling around inside. “Candies. You said you like cinnamon right? I got you a box.”
I blink at her. “A gift?”
“I suppose it is, sure.” She shrugs, her cheeks still a ferocious pink. “It’s not a big deal. I saw them and thought you might like a treat.”
I don’t. The denial sits heavily on the tip of my tongue. It won’t be worth it. Whenever I eat anything, I get only a vague impression of the taste. The reason I like Hot Tamales so much is because the cinnamon bites through the numbness. It’s the closest I’ve come to enjoying a flavor in decades.
If visiting the past is like being underwater, then existing in the present is like being frozen solid. Nothing gets through.
Harriet goes to dig in her troublesome pocket again. “I also have lemon drops, if you’d rather—”
I grip her wrist again. “Hands out of the pockets, trouble.”
She stills. “Yeah. Good point.”
“How much candy do you have stocked on your person?” She smiles at me. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”