“I didn’t did dat!” #4
“And Alfie is ‘cooking with gas,’ along with the young countess-to-be, I think,” Nigel said, pointing out his son, who was flailing around on the dance floor with the Countess Claudine’s oldest girl.
“That boy’s got moves,” Luna said and grinned up at him. “Just like his daddy.”
“Green Mother help him,” Nigel murmured.
The song finished, and the portable radio sputtered momentarily, thaumatic wavelengths disrupted. Suella gave it a sound hit with her fist, and it came back on with a blast of the all-too familiar strains:
“Oh, love! Like a rose in the rain!
Each petal a sigh, each thorn a sweet pain!”
Great cries of protest went up among the party-goers. “Not that old song!” Alfie groaned.
“Hey, watch it!” Nigel called out above the din. “That’s my favorite song!”
His opinion was booed out the door, however, and the radio was promptly switched off. Instead, the street fiddler struck up a lively rendition of the ‘Gronk Cat Boogie,’ and everyone joined in, singing:
“You’re so mean, Gronk Cat, watch out,
Green Yule's coming, let’s twist and shout,
Boogie Woogie fun, we’ll dance it out,
Show Gronk Cat what it’s all about!”
Movement outside the shop window drew Nigel’s gaze.
He glanced up sharply in time to see a large, black shape skulking down the sidewalk of Addle Street.
For just a moment, it paused, turned its massive head.
The streetlamp flashed in a pair of lantern-like gold eyes.
Observing the festivity within and hearing the words of its banishment song, the Dire entity hissed, revealing sword-like fangs.
Then it slinked off into the night in search of less-festive victims. Soon it vanished into the drifting haze of snow.
“Daddy, come dance wif me!”
Nigel looked down to find Loni wrapped around his knees, hanging her head back and grinning up at him with all the chubby-cheeked confidence in the world. “Pardon me, my dear,” Nigel said with a last swift kiss on his wife’s forehead. “Your husband is a man in demand.”
With Baby Tea still on his hip and his hand gripped in both of Loni’s, he let himself be dragged out from behind the counter onto the dance floor.
There he performed quite a credible boogie-shuffle, all the while spinning and twirling his daughter until he feared she would be sick right there on his shoes.
Just as the song reached its end, Loni pointed suddenly above his head. “What’s dat, Daddy?”
Nigel tilted his chin up. All the ceiling pipes were festooned with garlands and lights, as per Luna’s request, but he spied it there almost immediately. Smugly tucked in amid some holly, its white berries very nearly blending in with the red. But not quite.
“That, sweetheart,” Nigel said, “is a nemesis.”
“What’s a demisis?”
Crouching, he scooped the girl up in his free arm and, with a grunt, stood straight again. She wrapped her skinny legs around his waist and clung to his shoulder. “I’m afraid,” Nigel said, “it means I’ve got to kiss you.”
“You gots to?”
“Yes. There’s no escaping it. Are you ready?”
Loni scrunched her eyes shut. “Ready!”
He leaned in and planted a huge, noisy smooch on her cheek. This inspired Baby Tea, who uttered a screech of delight and smashed her wet mouth to his cheek in turn.
“Now, hold on just a minute!” Luna’s voice interrupted as she stepped out onto the floor. “Is there mistletoe kissing happening over here without me?”
Nigel angled the two girls off to each side, giving his wife room to slip her arms around his neck, pull his face down to hers, and plant a kiss on him that made all their guests let out great whoops and catcalls and hollers of, “Merry Green Yule, Mr. Grimm! Oi! Oi!”
Luna drew back, smiling beatifically up at him. He grinned a bit stupidly back, only to be nearly knocked off his feet the next moment when a small someone hit the back of his knees and wrapped arms around him from behind. “Don’t forget me!” a little voice cried.
“No, Alfie, never!” Luna said, picking her oldest up and swinging him around. She kissed his cheek, laughing when he swiped it off with the back of his hand.
Then the street fiddler began to play the lilting strains of the old hymn, and everyone took up the chorus.
“Hear our laughter fill the air,
As the snowflakes gently fall.
Together we will rise and share
Green Yule Spirit to one and all.”
Nigel began to sway. A daughter in each arm, his wife’s hand on his breast, their son perched on her hip, he moved slowly, gently, guiding them all across the dance floor together. Luna, gazing up into his eyes, said softly, “This is my favorite Green Yule hymn. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” he murmured. “I know. You told me once. A long time ago.”
And his eyes focused on the shape of her lips as she sang along with him:
“In the still of winter's night,
Where the frost begins to play,
Like a whisper of love, a gleam of light
Hails the hope of dawning day.”
THE END