CHAPTER FIVE #2
“Obviously, there is some overlap between these categories,” Avery said, drawing a circle around each group. With a flick of her pen, the circles arranged themselves into a Venn diagram.
“But they all have something in common. When someone forgets about these principles, this Christmas Canon, if you will,” Avery allowed herself a small smile at her own brilliance, “they have lost their way. But! Christmas is also a time for redemption. And by remembering, or learning for the first time, to embrace Generosity, Community, and Belief, those who have lost the Christmas spirit—or never had it in the first place—can be redeemed.” She wrote the word “Redemption” in the center slice of the Venn diagram.
Avery paused her lecture and turned to Louis. “How am I doing?”
Louis was reclining on the couch, an ankle resting on his opposite knee, one hand stroking his chin. A mischievous smile began to bloom on his lips. “Oh, just fine,” he said, his tone underwhelmed, but his eyes twinkling. “Your knowledge of films is impressive, of course.”
She raised an eyebrow and popped a hand on her hip. “But?” Avery asked, anticipating a challenge.
“So what?” he said, gesturing dismissively at the detailed diagram before him with a smirk. He glanced at Avery’s face and quickly looked away, fighting a broader smile and setting his mouth in a serious line. “Why does any of this matter?”
She recognized that old familiar tone of a professor trying to lead her to a conclusion. He seemed to Avery to be enjoying needling her. She slowly stalked around to the back of the couch and stood behind him.
He continued staring straight ahead.
She leaned down, her lips an inch from his ear.
“I’m so glad you asked,” she said in a low, dangerous voice.
He shuddered.
“It matters, Louis,” she said, straightening up and walking back to her invisible chalkboard with newfound swagger, “because people say that it matters. Storytellers invent tales about Christmas because they think it matters. And by telling these stories, they make it matter.”
She gestured broadly at all of her notes, which now spanned the length of the library.
“At the end of the day, these are all the same story, because they’re all about Christmas—or at least adjacent to it.” Avery waved at a column at the far end of her notes entitled "Miscellaneous,” which contained a smattering of controversial titles, including Die Hard, Brazil, and Rocky.
“Why do we tell this story over and over?” she asked, rhetorically.
“Because we all know Christmas means something—something we have to keep relearning. It’s a time for Generosity, Community, Belief, yes, but it’s also about the cycle of forgetting, and remembering.
Sometimes we forget what Christmas means.
Sometimes we forget that it even has meaning in the first place.
Sometimes we’re just going through the motions and expect Christmas to simply happen to us because the decorations are up and there it is on the calendar.
And when we forget, we feel lost, but we aren’t sure why.
” Her momentum slowed. “Our hearts ache. We feel empty around the holidays. We lose our...spark...”
She stood quietly for a moment, looking at the words glowing in the air in front of her.
Her mom would have loved this.
She ran the hawk feather on the end of her pen between her fingers.
Louis got up off the couch and stood beside her.
“But?” he gently prompted.
Avery continued gazing at the glowing words. “But—we can remember,” she said, glancing at him. A small smile fought for purchase on her lips.
“We can be redeemed,” she continued, turning back to her notes.
“Because Christmas isn’t just a collection of qualities or principles.
It’s a state of mind. A way of operating.
And we inhabit that again, make it mean something again, by simply…
remembering that it has meaning in the first place.
Sometimes we just need to remember it for ourselves, when the things we thought gave Christmas meaning are gone. ”
Avery drew a large circle around her Venn diagram and scrawled above it in big letters: “THE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS.”
She stepped back and ran her eyes over the words. She thought that was it. It felt significant. But no bell rang. She ran the feather from her pen across her cheek. “Hmm.”
Louis raised his hands in front of him, framing Avery’s chart. He pushed his hands together to shrink her diagram. Zooming out.
“I thought I had it,” she said, deflated. “It’s a bit hard for me to swallow that I don’t really know what Christmas is all about.”
He let out a disbelieving scoff.
She turned to him. “Aren’t you supposed to be tutoring me or something?”
Louis faced Avery. He took off his paper hat and gestured helplessly toward her presentation. “Avery, be serious. You don’t need a tutor.”
“But there was no bell,” she insisted. “I didn’t pass. What am I missing?”
He took the pen from her hand. He drew yet another, larger circle around the whole of what she’d written.
“Just one thing. When you do find redemption, when you remember the meaning of Christmas,” he said, taking her hand and gently pressing the enchanted pen back into her palm, “what does it feel like?”
A warm, shimmering glow once again spread from where their hands met, up her arm, and across her whole body. It flooded her system. She warmed from the inside out, nearly catching fire as Louis trailed his thumb in a small circle on the back of her hand.
With renewed conviction, Avery grasped the pen and scrawled the word “LOVE” in a flowing arc along the top of the circle Louis had drawn. Glowing sparks flew from the end of her pen as she finished the last letter.
Somewhere on the other side of the enchanted windows, a dozen church bells began to chime. Avery exhaled, setting the pen down on the coffee table.
“Congratulations,” Louis said with warm amazement. “You passed.”
She looked back up at Louis and the collective of green leaves and white berries, tied with a red ribbon, now fully formed in the air above his head. He didn’t bat it away this time.
She at last recognized it: mistletoe.
She took a step closer. Louis didn’t flinch. He simply breathed in deeply through his nose.
“I have to ask you a serious question,” she said.
Louis stood a bit straighter.
“I’ve felt so...electrified since we met. Enchanted. And I have to be sure. Did you use Christmas Magic to make me fall for you?”
He grabbed her arm as if to steady himself. “Avery—you don’t mean—fall—”
“Answer the question, Louis,” she said softly, taking a small step to close the gap between them.
“No,” he insisted. “No. That’s not how Christmas Magic works.
I can’t make—but—I would never dare try to interfere with someone’s free will.
And you of all people—your strength, and—and your ferocity, that’s what makes you who you are, that’s why you’re just…
astonishing. Bewitching. Bloody hell, Avery, I can hardly—”
Avery reached up and put a hand on his cheek.
He let out a quiet whimper.
She surged up on her toes, bringing her mouth even with his, their lips only molecules apart.
“Please kiss me,” she whispered.
The miniature grand piano on the coffee table played a sweeping glissando, accompanying the wind that suddenly swirled around them, dotted with snow, urging them together. The breeze ruffled her hair and fluttered through the pages of the dozens of books now floating around them.
She pulled back just far enough to look him in the eyes. The wind held its breath, the glittering snow frozen in the air around them, the last unresolved chord of the piano suspended between them.
Louis smiled serenely, his eyes barely open, cheeks flushed, a golden, shimmering glow pulsing off his skin, the same glow enveloping and inhabiting every inch of her.
“Avery, I can’t begin to tell you how much…oh, we should wait,” he whispered, brushing the tip of his nose against hers.
Avery kissed his cheek. She slid her hand to the back of his neck, running her fingers through his hair.
The sustained chord from the piano was stretched to its breaking point. The glittering atmosphere throbbed in time with her heartbeat.
“Your test—I can’t interfere,” he said, running his fingertips along her brow, his other hand coming to rest on the middle of her back.
Avery brushed her mouth against his other cheek.
“This is going to make everything harder,” Louis warned, placing a hand under her chin and tilting her head up toward him.
Avery licked her lips.
“Oh, sod it,” he declared.
With revelatory force, he wrapped one arm around her waist, diving his other hand into her hair to cradle her head, dipping her backward, right as tinny, high-pitched music began to whine from Avery’s wrist. An 8-bit rendition of Here Comes Santa Claus was emanating from her bracelet.
“What’s going on?” she asked, mid-swoon.
“Biscuits! I was afraid they might—” Louis stood Avery back up, withdrew his hands, cleared his throat, and straightened his jacket.
The piano quieted, and the floating books thumped down unceremoniously on the coffee table.
“Apparently, it’s time for your interview with your potential future client. ”
“I’m going to meet Santa?” Avery asked, bouncing on her toes. “Right now?”
Louis exhaled hard.
“Avery,” he said, taking hold of her wrists and looking into her eyes. “You are full of Christmas Magic. I’ve never met anyone like you before in all my lifetimes.”
“Lifetimes?” she asked.
He forged ahead. “You are ready. You have been training for this moment your whole life. You know Christmas. You are Christmas. You know the answers. Do not let anyone make you doubt that. Do you understand?”
“Louis, what’s wrong?” she asked, growing concerned. “What’s going on?”
The music from Avery’s bracelet grew louder.
“I have to go. I’m terribly sorry,” he said, backing up toward the door. “Someone will be here to retrieve you shortly.”