Chapter 15 #2
“Not at all!” She licked her lips as she struggled to find her will to say the things she hated to say out loud.
But as her friends surrounded her, making her feel seen and heard in every sense of the words, Grace found that talking to them wasn’t that hard at all.
“Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever really had friends. ”
“Ever?” Olivia gaped and shook her head in disbelief. “That can’t be true. I mean – have you ever even met you?” She paused and tapped her chin at how odd that sounded. “Scratch that. You know what I mean.”
Grace chuckled lightly. “My Father was in the military. We were never in one place long enough for me to be known as anyone other than the ‘new girl.’ I don’t think I ever fully unpacked a suitcase.
Not till Chuck, anyway. But by that point, it felt like I was too old to make friends.
Too far in life to make connections, too riddled with time to be welcomed anywhere.
I mean,” she paused and looked between them all, “this even feels unreal to me at certain points.”
“Unreal how?” Caroline asked.
“As in, it won’t last.”
Caroline paused in the middle of the street, not caring for the people that had to cut around them.
A deep and unavoidable sincerity filled her face as she grasped onto Grace’s hands tightly.
“Now you listen to me, Grace Baker. The three of us were born and raised in Holiday Hollow. We’ve never known anything except this place, except for each other. ”
Grace felt her shoulders begin to fall. It seemed as though Caroline was only confirming her greatest fears – whatever she had with them wouldn’t ever be as strong as what they would have with each other.
She didn’t have the luxury of being raised in a small town, where everyone knew everyone else for all their lives.
At that moment, Grace had never wished for a different childhood more.
“But nothing ever made total sense.”
Grace’s head lifted. “What?”
“There was always something missing,” Caroline continued. “Between the three of us, I mean. Like we weren’t whole yet. Like we were waiting for the missing piece before it could be how it should be.”
Anna stepped closer, her hand resting over Grace’s left shoulder. “Holiday Hollow has always been a wonderful place, Gracie. But not perfect.”
“Not until now, anyways.” Olivia beamed as she took Grace’s right shoulder next. “Everything’s just fitting together, isn’t it?”
“I-I don’t understand,” Grace murmured, though she was sure that she did, deep down. There was only the insecurity in the back of her mind doubting everything they said, intent on lingering within the despair, within the solitude, within the loneliness.
Caroline squeezed Grace’s hands, laugh lines wrinkling around her eyes. “You fit within us, Grace, because it is always where you were meant to be. We aren’t going anywhere, and neither are you.”
Elation flooded through Grace, the feeling so strong that she almost mistook it as sadness at first. But there wasn’t an ounce of sadness anywhere she looked.
Smiling faces stared back at her, ready to welcome her further into their lives with open arms. She hadn’t ever felt such comfort, such belonging, such assurance that there wasn’t anywhere else she needed to go.
No more running.
No more searching.
No more hiding.
There might’ve been a murder within Holiday Hollow’s borders, a violence deadly enough to drag her into the conflict, but Grace could hardly care.
She would take every ounce of the bad times, if it meant that she got to revel in the good ones as much as she wanted.
And as far as she was concerned, the good times were easily outweighing the bad.
Grace lifted her head to the sky. Curls of emerald greens and amethyst purples hovered through the dark evening sky.
The strands moved like tendrils over their heads, bouncing and fading and growing and shrinking before bursting into a series of unimaginable colors.
Grace was enamoured by the light show instantly, her eyes growing wider by the second.
“Those can’t be the Northern Lights, can they?” she asked.
Caroline raised her head and laughed lightly. “That’s what most people think at first.”
“What are they?”
“Don’t you remember when I told you about the town’s magic? The innate thrum of energy that brought all these supernatural creatures here a very long time ago?”
Grace nodded.
“This is that magic,” she explained. “It is the energy that is born through bringing all these people together and celebrating the holidays. It is happiness, in its purest form. You see it in the sky now, but it courses through the entire town. It lets us all survive here, thrive here.” Caroline beamed as she poked her nail into the center of Grace’s chest, where her heart was beating.
“It’s what brought your magic to the surface after being buried deep within you for so long. ”
Grace let her eyes drag up to the sky once more. Happiness, in its purest form. She found herself grinning as she stared, stretching a toothy smile across her face. Her arms stretched out, as if to catch the magic and collect it back within her chest.
How could she have been so lucky to have wound up in a place like Holiday Hollow?