Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Next morning, I came downstairs to find Camille and Iris discussing a shopping trip.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“We’re going shopping for a tree. Apparently, they decorate trees for the holidays here too, though a lot of people celebrate Christmas instead of the Solstice.
I think I remember Mother talking about that when we were young,” Camille said.
“Iris is going to help us get everything we need.” Her eye sparkled, and she seemed to be more excited than I’d seen her in a long while.
“That sounds like fun. I’ll come, too. I wish we could take Menolly with us,” I said.
“I know, but she can help decorate tonight. We’ll make popcorn and cocoa and just spend the evening together. Hopefully, we won’t be interrupted by those freaking redcaps,” Camille said.
Iris handed me a plate of bacon, eggs, and toast. “I’ll make fudge today.
And you haven’t seen any of the season’s movies.
I’ve got several DVDs we can watch: It’s A Wonderful Life, and A Christmas Carol—which you’ll like regardless of what holiday you celebrate—and a few others.
I love this time of year,” she said, beaming.
“It reminds me of being home in Finland.”
“How long have you been gone from there?” I asked.
“A long time,” Iris said. “I don’t like to talk about it, though. There are some memories that should stay in the past.” She looked so serious that I wondered what had happened, but she obviously didn’t want to talk about it, so I changed the subject.
“How tall of a tree can we get?” I asked.
“Well, the ceiling in the living room is at least fourteen feet,” Iris said. “How tall of a tree do you want?”
“Ten feet, at least,” I said.
Camille looked at me. “Are you sure? That’s a lot of tree.”
“We should create our own traditions. And since Father didn’t like a lot of fuss for the holidays, at least after Mother died, we can go all out this year. Please? Pretty please?”
Letting out a sigh, Camille gave me a begrudging grin. “All right, we’ll find a nice, full, tall tree. But we should move some furniture out of the way first so that when we get it home, we aren’t stuck with doing that before we bring it inside.”
“What kind of ornaments do you want? I know a couple little boutiques that carry some of the most beautiful pieces,” Iris said.
“I don’t know—something wintery and magical,” Camille said.
We spent the rest of breakfast discussing what was available, and how we wanted to deck out the house. It felt freeing, one more step to having our own lives, even if we were a world away from our relatives.
After stopping to put a ‘closed for the day’ sign on the Indigo Cresent, we headed out in search for a tree.
It seemed every open lot had been taken over by tree salesmen, with bold signs advertising the best of the best for low, low, low prices.
None of the prices were that low, but by now I was used to the hyperbole of sales hype.
The tree lot was fairly empty. Most people seemed to buy their trees after work.
The morning was cloud-free for a change, though cold.
All bundled up, we wandered around the lot, looking at the different types of trees.
The smell of wet timber was intoxicating to me, though I knew it was my Tabby responding to the fragrance.
When I was in my cat form, I loved wandering through the woods, taking in all the sights and smells.
Iris gave me a wary look. “Don’t you dare shift forms here. There’s too much traffic on these streets and you’d get your fuzzy little butt run over first thing.”
“I’ll try to restrain myself,” I said, rolling my eyes.
The salesman headed our way, and before long, we were standing in front of an eleven-foot tall blue spruce. It looked like a sprinkling of snow had showered its branches, but it was just the shimmer of the needles.
“This is so pretty!” I said.
“I know,” Camille agreed. “I’d like to grow a few of these in the yard. We could decorate them each year, as well.”
“We can do that,” Iris said. “I’ll check into prices, and you figure out the places where you want them planted. So, will this work?”
I nodded, and so did Camille. The salesman wrote up a receipt, Camille paid him, and he carried it to her Lexus, securing it on the roof. As we headed toward the strip-mall where the first boutique was, Iris suggested that we stop for takeout on the way home.
The first boutique was filled with mostly outdoor décor, and we decided to go simple the first year, opting for lights for the house, a massive wreath and garlands for the porch.
Camille added some decorative bird feeders, after making me promise I wouldn’t go after the birds, and she bought clings for the windows depicting snowflakes and birds and polar bears.
At the next boutique, we looked through the hundreds of options they had and finally settled on gold and silver balls, crystal moons, stars, and suns, red beaded garland, and a frosty blue twinkle lights.
Camille insisted on buying more than we probably needed, because the tree was so big that she wanted to make sure we were covered.
As she paid for the ornaments, I silently thanked our mother.
She had set us up with all the documents we might need should we decide to come Earthside later on.
We had social security cards, a bank account that allowed us to buy the house and to live off what was left for a while, and the official documents identifying us as citizens of Y’Elestrial.
Since our mother was born here, we also had dual citizenship.
We finished our shopping and headed home, where somehow, Camille and I managed to wrangle the tree into the house.
Though she wasn’t that athletic or tall, all three of us were stronger than most humans.
Actually, Menolly was incredibly strong, thanks to her vampire nature.
She could have easily wrangled the weight of the tree by herself, though at five-one, it would have been a little logistically difficult.
She wouldn’t have just been able to toss it over her shoulder, given we’d picked out an eleven-foot tall tree.
Once we got it inside, Iris showed us how to stabilize it into a large tub of water, and it was up, in the corner opposite the fireplace. We pulled it out to make decorating the back of it easier, and then, we brought in all the decorations.
“I think we should ask Menolly to put the lights on the roof. She can levitate up to reach the highest points. I’d like to make sure all the gables are decorated,” Camille said.
“That’s a good idea. Though I can crawl out on the roof—”
“In cat form, I’d say go for it,” Iris interjected. “But right now the roof is covered in snow and it’s going to be slippery.”
“She’s right, Kitten,” Camille said. “Why don’t we eat lunch and then get busy?”
Iris fixed sandwiches, while we sorted out the different garlands, lights, and other décor. As Camille shook out the tinsel garlands, though, I felt something twitch inside. I reached out and swatted one as she fluffed it out.
“Hey, none of that, Missy,” she said, laughing. “You’re not here to play, you’re here to help me.”
“I know, but they’re so shiny,” I said, grinning at her.
“I like shiny too…oh, aren’t these adorable?
” She held out a set of resin gnomes that looked ready for the holidays.
They were decked out in red and white stripped hats, with necklaces made out of garland, and each gnome held some sort of treat—one a gingerbread man, another held a glass of wine, another a peppermint stick.
“I love the variation they have over here,” I said. “Back home you’d never find anything like this unless it was hand-carved and painted.”
“I know,” Camille said. “What do you think Mother’s life was like, here? She never said much about it but…”
“I wonder about things like that, too. The pictures we have of her and Father together make me think things must have been so different. He’s smiling in those pictures, and he looks so happy. I wish…” I trailed off.
What I wished could never happen. Our mother had died when Camille was just barely the equivalent of a teenager, and Father had put her in charge of raising me and Menolly.
We needed her so much that she had to stuff her own grief so far down that it never full healed.
I wanted to go back, to before Mother fell off the horse.
I wished so hard that I could have stopped her from going out riding.
That I had pretended to be sick. Then, maybe, life would have been what it was supposed to be—with all of us a happy family.
If wishes were pennies…
“What are you thinking?” Camille asked.
I shook my head, realizing I’d been off in my own little world. “Nothing, really.” I didn’t want to bring her down. But she was astute at reading people, and she knew my moods—and Menolly’s—like the back of her hand.
“Mother?” she asked.
I nodded, sighing. “Yeah. Just thinking about that time when we were little, and you broke her favorite ornament.”
Camille jumped up. “I know Father didn’t like us decorating, but I have a surprise for you—and for Menolly. I’ll be right back.” She headed for the stairs.
I continued to sort out the decorations until she returned.
She was carrying a box which she carefully placed on the coffee table. “Be very careful with these,” she said. “I decided to bring these with me when we came over.”
Curious now, I crossed over to where she was standing. “What’s in there?”
Camille opened the box. There were three items inside, heavily wrapped in bubble wrap. “When we arrived, I switched out the wrapping on these,” she said, slowly unwrapping the first. As she exposed what was hiding within, I teared up.
“You didn’t…you remembered these? I haven’t seen them in years!”
“That’s because Father stopped us from having a tree,” she said.