12. O Holy Night #2
Jasper nodded, though part of him still believed this banquet hall must be an elaborate hallucination. But then again, nothing about his current situation made any sense whatsoever. Why should the dining room be different?
The path to the grove wound upward through winter-bare fields, strips of old snow hiding in the shadows of the stone walls.
As Jasper and Zahir climbed, their shoes already regretting the muddy ground, the excited chatter of the crowd ahead gradually softened to something more reverent.
The air felt different here—sharper, more alert, as though the atmosphere itself understood the significance of what was about to take place.
The oak grove emerged from the twilight like a cathedral built by nature itself.
Ancient branches reached toward the darkening sky, their bare limbs black against deep purple.
These trees had sheltered Oak Haven’s first refugees, had witnessed countless rituals, had grown strong on centuries of magical energy.
Even Jasper, who couldn’t sense magic directly, felt something profound.
For him it was like standing in the Sistine Chapel, or holding a document signed by Thomas Jefferson. It was history, but alive. Breathing.
The crowd moved with quiet purpose now; their footsteps hushed against the frozen ground. Here and there, witches reached out to brush their fingers against the rough bark of the oaks as they passed, like parishioners dipping their hands in holy water.
All this reverence made Scarlett’s barely contained excitement all the more conspicuous as she bounded up behind them.
She was practically vibrating with energy, and it wasn’t the Saturnalia kind.
“There you guys are!” She grabbed Jasper’s arm, her voice far too loud for the solemn mood.
“Hey, Jas. Ready for our casino adventure?”
Before he could answer, she raised her hands. “Wait. Hey, Nate, get your butt over here.” She positioned her partner beside Jasper. Jasper turned to Nate, confused, but Nate’s shrug indicated this was standard behavior where Scarlett was concerned.
“Last spell before the ritual,” she said with a wink. She closed her eyes and raised both arms, her palms flat and fingers splayed. Golden light shimmered around both Jasper and Nate, and suddenly they were wearing perfectly tailored tuxedos.
“Can’t have you boys looking like a coupla local yokel hobo types when we hit the poker tables.”
“Um, I don’t know if I’m comfortable with—” Jasper started, but then caught his reflection in a frozen puddle. “Oh. Actually, that’s... huh.”
“Not bad, right?” Scarlett circled him appraisingly. “I was worried you’d look like Ichabod Crane on prom night, but no. Very Frank and Dino at the Sands . Jasper, congratulations: you clean up surprisingly well for someone so spindly.”
“I am not spindly !”
“Dude.” Nate clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re like an after-photo of Benedict Cumberbatch on hunger strike.”
“Totally,” Scarlett agreed. “You have ‘haunted Victorian radiator’ energy.”
Jasper had to laugh. “Are you guys about finished?”
“Shhhh!” Several witches shot them disapproving looks, and Jasper felt himself flush. Right. Solemn ritual.
Ahead, a woman stood slightly apart from the others, her arms wrapped around herself despite the black velvet coat that pooled around her feet like ink.
Even in the gathering darkness, Jasper could see there was something deliberate, even guarded, in her posture.
Unlike Delilah and Scarlett, who treated their magic as casually as an old handbag, this woman carried her power with a kind of deliberate grace—something not casually given nor casually maintained.
Nate and Zahir immediately moved to join her, and the three friends embraced.
“This is Aphra,” Scarlett said, her voice finally dropping to match the hushed atmosphere. “She owns the yarn store, Sometimes a Great Notion. We all grew up together. Come on, let me introduce you.”
Zahir had wrapped Aphra in a bear hug. “You’ve got this,” he was saying. “Just like every year.”
“I know, I know.” She managed a wobbly smile. “It’s just... it’s different for me, you know?”
“Sure.” Nate squeezed her shoulder. “Of course we do. Oh hey, Aphra, this is Jasper Hopkins. He’s um... he’s applying for the job of town scarecrow.”
“Oh good,” Jasper chuckled. “I’m so glad that’s continuing. Hello.” He reached out to shake Aphra’s hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Same.” Aphra took Jasper’s hand with both of hers. “This is quite a night for you to visit our little town. Hey, Scarlett.” She reached out and the women hugged. “I guess we should get this over with, huh?”
“You’re gonna be fine, my girl,” Scarlett assured her.
Jasper tilted his head. “Everything okay?”
Scarlett and the guys all glanced at one another, unsure how to answer.
But Aphra just laughed. “Oh, everybody is so polite round these parts, it’s adorable.
Jasper, they’re all tiptoeing because when we were growing up together, I was raised as a boy.
It was only later I came to know my true self.
Which is all well and good, but on Saturnalia, when we give up our powers?
Well, when you spend the first part of your life hiding what you can do.
.. The act of choosing to give everything up, even temporarily.
..” She shrugged. “It hits different—let’s put it that way. ”
“But you’re your true self now,” Nate said quietly. “That’s not going away just because of a few days without magic.”
“He’s right.” Zahir squeezed her shoulders. “Powers or no powers, you’re still our Aphra.”
Something clicked in Jasper’s mind; his historian’s instinct suddenly scattered facts into a pattern.
He thought about all those historical records he’d encountered in all his studies; all the people who’d had to hide who they were for one reason for another.
And it struck him suddenly how some of them might have found sanctuary here, in this strange little town that didn’t appear on any map.
“Okay,” Aphra said boldly. “C’mon, Scar. Let’s get this done.”
Scarlett wrapped her arm around Aphra’s. “I got you. See you boys after.”
The witches began arranging themselves in a loose circle around the grove’s largest oak, its massive trunk wider than three people standing together.
The oak trees seemed to be reaching toward each other overhead, their bare limbs intertwining like clasped hands.
One by one, the witches moved forward to touch the oak.
Each contact produced a subtle shimmer in the air, like heat waves rising from summer pavement.
Threads of light began to weave between the women’s hands, a web of golden energy that pulsed in time with some rhythm Jasper couldn’t hear but somehow felt in his bones.
His eyes found Delilah in the crowd without trying; his vision seemed to have developed its own magnetic north where she was concerned.
The golden light from the oak caught in her dark hair, making her look otherworldly, untouchable.
She looked like just the sort of creature a man gives up everything for.
This is dangerous, he told himself firmly. Never forget, this isn’t your world .
But then she glanced his way. Her eyelashes fluttered shyly, and she smiled a reluctant smile that made his chest ache, and his logic crumbled like old parchment.
The web of light grew brighter, climbing the massive oak like luminous ivy.
Where it touched the bark, frost began to form—not the dull white of normal ice, but something that sparkled with captured magic.
The effect spread from branch to branch until the entire tree glowed like a crystal sculpture touched by starlight.
The other trees followed, one by one, their branches encasing themselves in magical ice until the whole grove blazed with captured power.
Zahir was standing beside him, and all of a sudden Jasper heard his breath catch.
“You okay?” Jasper whispered.
“Oh yeah.” Zahir wiped his eyes quickly. “Just nice to remember that some things are worth staying for.”
The web of light began to fade, leaving only the crystalline trees behind. For a moment, nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The only sound was the winter wind through ice-covered branches, like distant windchimes.
Then someone (probably Scarlett) let out a whoop that shattered the silence.
Grins and hugs and laughter were everywhere.
Someone started singing; it was something old, some tune Jasper didn’t recognize.
The crowd began moving back down the hill toward town as one, toward feasting and dancing and whatever chaos the first night of Saturnalia might bring.
But Jasper lingered there, gazing up at the frozen trees. The magic trapped in their branches cast strange shadows, making the oaks look both familiar and alien. Like his own world, but shifted just enough to make him question everything he thought he knew.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
He turned to find Delilah beside him. She wasn’t looking at the trees.
Dangerous , his mind whispered again. But in the moment, he couldn’t remember why.
They walked down the hill together, trailing behind the celebrating crowd.
“So,” Delilah said finally. “Saturnalia. What does your historian brain make of all this?”
“Well, technically speaking, the ancient Romans would have included a lot more gambling and public nudity.” He caught her raised eyebrow. “But, ah, your version is... lovely?”
“Lovely?” She snorted. “Wow. Don’t strain yourself with the enthusiasm there, Hopkins.”
“No no, I just mean...” He gestured helplessly at the grove behind them.
“It’s hard to put words to. And it’s very striking, seeing magic just.
.. stop like that. Usually in historical accounts, the loss of magic is violent.
Witch trials, persecution...” He winced. “Sorry, probably not the best example.”
“No, it’s okay.” Her voice was quiet. “That’s kind of the point, actually. We choose to give up our power. To remember what it feels like to be powerless. So we don’t... I don’t know. So we never become the ones doing the persecuting, I guess.”
“Delilah. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Everything.” She kicked at a frozen clump of grass.
“My sister’s about to do something spectacularly stupid, and instead of stopping her, I’m going along with it.
Meanwhile my other sister is off who-knows-where, presumably studying more of the same old pointless nonsense she always does.
My mother’s trying to hold the town together with tinsel and fruitcake, and I’m.
..” She threw up her hands. “I’m flirting with a county clerk who’s just going to forget me anyway! ”
From the look on her face, Jasper could tell that last statement was more earnest than she’d intended. Very sweet, though, and his stomach did a disconcerting little flippy-floppy thing. “I have to say, your version of flirting has an odd note of hostility around the edges.”
“Yeah.” She blushed a little. “Sorry. It’s a Melrose trait, unfortunately.”
Jasper stopped walking and faced her directly “I’m not going to forget you.”
They both knew it was a lie. But it was a pretty sort of lie.
“You can’t promise me that. Which is my whole point. Because this?” She gestured at the space between them. “You and me? This is temporary. Like Saturnalia. Like everything else in this town.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” The words surprised him as much as her.
She turned to face him fully, and something in her expression made his heart stumble. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t know.” But he did know. He just wasn’t ready to say it out loud. “I just... maybe some things are worth remembering.”
Behind them, the frozen grove glittered like a thousand captured stars. Ahead, the sounds of celebration drifted up from town: music and laughter and the promise of feasting. Of belonging.
Delilah took a step closer. “Jasper?—”
“There you are!” Scarlett’s voice shattered the moment like an icicle dropping from a tall roof. “Come on, you two! Casino’s waiting.”
“Scarlett, it’s so late already. Shouldn’t we wait until tomorrow?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Who knows when that big magician meeting is happening—it could be going on right now, for all we know.
We could be missing it. Plus? Casinos don’t have clocks for a reason .
Shake a leg, Nate’s waiting at the bottom of the hill.
” Scarlett turned and skipped down the path, singing “Viva Las Vegas” with Oak Haven substituted in the lyrics.
“Your sister,” Jasper said carefully, “seems very excited about a plan that might get us in a fair amount of trouble.”
“She gets like this when she’s nervous. When we were kids, she once sang half the score of Les Mis while we were trying to smuggle a dragon’s egg out of the inn’s kitchen.”
They stood awkwardly for a moment, the weight of their interrupted almost-something settling between them like frost.
“We should . . .” Jasper gestured vaguely downhill.
“Right.” Delilah smoothed her coat, a gesture that seemed more about collecting herself than fixing her appearance. “Time to go spy on some magicians. You know, normal Saturday night stuff.”
But neither of them moved.
“Delilah, listen. I?—”
“Don’t.” She shook her head. “Not now. Not when we’re about to do something monumentally stupid.” She managed a crooked smile. “Let’s save the monumentally stupid emotional conversations for after the monumentally stupid breaking and entering, okay?”
He wanted to argue, to finish what they’d started.
But she was already walking away. He watched her go, thinking of that randy old joke about I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave.
In truth, though, there wasn’t any sense in which he loved seeing Delilah moving farther away from him than absolutely necessary. So after a moment, he followed.
Behind them, the crystalline grove continued to glitter, holding Oak Haven’s magic in trust until the witches returned to claim it. Ahead, the casino’s neon lights painted the winter sky in unnatural colors, like a challenge. Or maybe a warning.