Chapter 37
be-leaf in magic
Holly
The noon sun glinted off the snow, bright enough to make Holly squint as she helped Liv tie the last garland to the gazebo rail. Her fingers were numb, her cheeks flushed, and yet there was a deep satisfaction in seeing the square come together.
Tomorrow was the last day of the carnival, and Liv wanted the gazebo to look spectacular as it would host a full day of choirs and bands before the festivities ended with a town-wide dance.
She reached for the last garland, laughing under her breath as Liv adjusted it for the third time. “Perfectionist tendencies run in your family, you know.”
Liv arched an eyebrow. “You’re one to talk.”
Before Holly could answer, a familiar voice carried across the square.
“Holly!”
She turned. Chad stood at the base of the gazebo, his expression sharp enough to cut through ice.
“Hello, Chad,” she said carefully. “Enjoying the festival?”
“Hardly.” He took a few measured steps closer, boots crunching on the packed snow. “You must be proud of yourself.”
“Proud?”
“Rowan called the town hall today. She’s blocking the development. She says you and your friends convinced her to keep the land as it is. Now she’s even talking of moving here.”
“We never told her not to develop the land,” Liv said, moving beside Holly.
“Not in so many words.” His hand shook as he ran it through his hair. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re obviously not an investor. So tell me, Holly, who are you?”
“I’m someone who believes this forest deserves to stay whole.”
Chad let out a humorless laugh. “Whole? You think these people will thank you when the jobs don’t come? When nothing changes?”
“They don’t want change if it destroys what’s already good.”
He started to go, then paused. The edge in his voice broke for the first time. “Rowan’s all I’ve got left. You should’ve stayed out of it.” Without another glance, he disappeared down the snowy street, swallowed by shadow and distance.
Holly exhaled shakily, realizing her hands were clenched. Liv placed an arm around her. “Don’t let him upset you.”
Suddenly, Ivar appeared behind them, out of breath, with Al trotting at his side.
“Ivar? What on earth? Did you run here?” Liv asked.
He nodded, still catching his breath.
“Why?”
“The wind… I heard… never mind. Are you guys okay?”
Holly nodded. “That was Chad. Rowan said no to the development.”
“Well, that’s that then,” Liv said, though her tone was more bewildered than triumphant. “Not gonna lie, I thought it would take more than that. Anyway, I’ve gotta get back to the inn. Enjoy your peaceful victory. Oh, and Ivar? You might want to start jogging again.”
Liv shrieked and ran down the gazebo stairs as a snowball narrowly missed her hat.
Ivar threw another snowball for Al to chase before stepping into the gazebo beside Holly. They stood together in silence, staring down the empty path where Chad had disappeared.
“I know our plan was to change their minds,” Holly said finally, “but this feels… anticlimactic. I guess I’m a sucker for a Hollywood ending, but it’s weird for something to end without fireworks. Why am I not happy it’s over?”
A gust of wind whipped through the town square, knocking over signs and blowing snow.
Al let out a low whine, ears twitching.
Ivar scratched the dog’s head and reached for Holly’s hand. “Because it’s not,” he said quietly.
***
Ivar
By late afternoon, the clouds had moved in and the snow had started. Ivar checked the weather. Heavy snowfall was predicted, but not a storm. Just winter in Vermont. He normally liked days like this, but Ivar couldn’t settle.
He paced between his desk and the window, boots creaking against the floorboards. Al lay nearby, ears pricked, tail twitching restlessly. Every few seconds, he gave a low, uneasy whine.
“I know,” Ivar muttered. “I feel it too.”
He tried to focus on the reports scattered across his desk—trail maintenance logs, updated permit lists—but the words blurred. The forest felt wrong today. Not loud, not dangerous… off.
Al rose suddenly, padding to the window, nose pressed against the glass. A soft growl vibrated in his throat.
“What is it, buddy?” Ivar joined him, scanning the tree line.
He reached for his jacket, the hair on the back of his neck prickling when the door burst open and Chad barged in.
Ivar didn’t know what to expect from the man.
“Ivar, thank goodness you’re here.”
The man’s tone wasn’t angry this time. It was frayed and coated with fear.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Rowan. We were fighting over the land, and we both said some horrible things. She took the car and drove off. Now she’s not answering her phone. I’m worried something happened to her.”
Ivar’s heart dropped. “When did she leave?”
“Two hours ago. Maybe more. I thought she’d cool off and come back, but—” His voice cracked.
“How do you know she’s not simply having dinner in the next town over?”
“She doesn’t have her wallet. It’s on the kitchen table. And she hates driving in the snow.”
Ivar grabbed the phone and called Carla. “We need a search and rescue party organized. Now.”
“Stay by your phone,” Ivar said, moving with determination around the office, assembling gear.
“I’m coming too.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“I don’t care. She’s my sister.”
Within thirty minutes, the whole town had gathered in the square. The carnival lights were still on, but the cheer had been replaced with silent determination and concern.
“Our trained search and rescue volunteers have their assignments. Everyone else, it’s too risky to send you into the forest. If you’re going to search, I want you in groups of three or four.
Check the back roads, the main roads in and out of town, anywhere she might’ve pulled off.
I don’t want anyone else to go missing. Keep your radios on channel three.
Liv and Mim are coordinating at the town hall.
So if you can’t get through on your radio, call them there. ”
“Ivar,” Holly called, catching him as he headed to his snowmobile. “Listen to me for one minute.”
He stopped walking.
“I’ll go up. Into the air,” she whispered.
“It’s too risky. There’s too much snow, and it’s dark.”
“We go out in the snow all the time.”
“Yeah, but don’t you have routes? Coordinates?”
“Not when we go out for fun.”
“But would you go out for fun in this? I can’t let you do that. It would be flying blind.”
“I can’t stay here and do nothing. I’ll go with you.”
Ivar, about to agree, was interrupted.
“I’m going with him,” Chad said, walking over to them. “She’s my sister. I’m not sitting here waiting for news.”
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Ivar nodded once. “Fine.” He pulled Holly aside. “Stay with Liv in the office. I could use your help in coordinating the volunteers. And Al, stay with Holly.”
She leaned in and hugged him. He was hoping for another kiss on the cheek. Instead, she whispered, “Listen to the forest, Guardian.”
For a heartbeat, everything else fell away except for the echo of her words and the weight of what they meant.
When she stepped back, he could only nod. Then, with his pulse thudding in time with the wind through the trees, he returned to his snowmobile.
“Put this on while I hook up the rescue sled,” he said to Chad, tilting his head toward a snowmobile suit.
“What about you?”
“I’m used to it,” Ivar said. “I’ll be plenty warm.”
With the sled attached, he zipped up his parka and pulled on his mitts. “Is there somewhere she might go? A favorite trail?”
There was a pause while Chad considered this.
“Betty used to take us swimming at a pond,” Chad said.
“I haven’t been there since I was ten. Rowan would have been three at the time, but Betty took her there each summer.
Just the other day she told me how much she loved it.
” He gave a short, uneasy laugh. “I used to hate it. The forest made my skin crawl. It still does.”
Ivar glanced at him. “But you’re coming anyway?”
“She’s my sister.”
They set off in the direction of the Hale property. “What did this pond look like? Do you remember anything specific?”
“Nothing really. But Rowan pointed to the road you take to the trail head the other day as we drove past. It's a bit east of the house.”
Ivar knew where he meant. He’d been in that part of the forest before—just not often, and not recently. It wasn’t a popular hiking route, maybe because it ran too close to the Hale house.
Twenty minutes later, the snowmobile’s headlight swept across a small clearing and caught the gleam of Rowan’s car.
Ivar had barely cut the engine when Chad jumped off and sprinted toward it.
“It’s empty!” he shouted, running back to the snowmobile. “Come on. Let’s go!”
“Wait. I need to think.” Ivar killed the engine. The snow was tapering off, and the wind was dying down. Still, the infrequently used trail would be hard to follow.
“What are you doing?” Chad yelled, his panic reverberating inside Ivar’s helmet.
“Trust me, I need a minute.” There was something in his voice. Authority? Whatever it was, it made Chad sit still.
Meanwhile, Ivar’s mind was spinning—too many paths, too many sounds, all blending together into static. He needed it clear.
He gripped the handlebars tighter and took a deep breath. Sometimes it’s not magic, Holly had said. It’s observation.
Fine, he’d observe.
He shut out the noise, even Chad’s breathing through the Bluetooth headset, and listened. Really listened.
Images, sensations, memories began forming a cohesive message. The day they’d found the tree. They hadn’t forced their way forward; they’d followed.
I’m listening. He pushed the thought out into the night.
And the forest answered.
It began as a pulse beneath the snow, subtle as a heartbeat. The trail appeared, as clear as daylight, cutting through the trees where there’d been only darkness.
“Hold on,” he said.
He turned on the snowmobile, gunning the engine, and the snowmobile launched forward. The path unfolded before him, bending and widening as the forest itself guided them through. He knew every turn, every hidden rock, every low branch before it came.
While one part of his brain remained locked on the trail, another part fractured open—falling, spinning, expanding.
It was like slipping through time.
The darkness burst into color, flashing in wild succession: flocks of birds rising over lakes; fish twisting through sunlit water; flowers blooming and wilting in fast motion; trees budding, greening, turning gold, then bare again.
He felt the tremor of roots under ice, the deep groan of rivers, the flicker of firelight under snow.
He saw himself—a boy standing beneath the Yule Tree, light spilling over him like a golden dawn. Then, as a man holding Holly’s hand in his, their hearts beating as one, and then, it changed again. A flash of blue. A small boy, lost in the forest. Chad.
Another flash. Rowan, stumbling through the snow, her scarf whipping in the wind.
“There!” Ivar shouted. “She’s up ahead!”
“How do you—”
But Ivar was already accelerating, eyes locked on the invisible path only he could see.
The forest opened, and as they tore through the clearing, the hum beneath the ground rose like a wild, ancient song and guided him straight to her.
A flash of red reached him through the darkness, followed by movement at the base of a slope. He cut the engine, and quiet rushed in like a tide.
“There!”
They ran, boots sinking into knee-deep snow. Ivar reached her first. Rowan was curled against a fallen log. She’d made a partial shelter out of pine boughs, but was shivering, and her face was almost as white as the snow.
“Rowan!” Chad’s voice cracked, half shout, half prayer.
“Hey,” Ivar said softly, dropping to his knees beside her. “You’re okay now. We’ve got you.”
Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused for a moment before she saw Chad. “You came,” she whispered.
“Of course I came. You’re my sister,” he said, breathless, his voice rough. He kneeled beside her, pulling her into his arms. “You could’ve frozen out here, Ro.”
She let out a trembling laugh. “I told you I’d be fine. I just needed to think.”
“Next time,” Chad said, holding her tighter, “think somewhere warm.”
Ivar stood, scanning the trees as the pulse that had guided him faded into a slow, steady rhythm.
He glanced down at the siblings. Chad murmured something that made Rowan smile through her tears. Their relief was palpable. Chad still had his fear, but it was nothing compared to the love for his sister.
When Rowan was steady enough to stand, Ivar helped her to her feet. She leaned against her brother, weak but smiling.
“Let’s get you home,” Ivar said. “I’m going to carry you to the snowmobile and wrap you up warmly in the rescue sled. It’ll be a bit bumpy, but I’ll radio for someone to meet us at the trailhead.”
They made their way back to the snowmobile in silence.
With Rowan secured and warm, Ivar started the engine, glancing once more into the dark forest. The pines stood still, sentinel and ancient. And for a moment, he thought he saw a faint green glow deep among the trees, like a breath of the aurora.
He turned back to the trail, the rumble of the machine carrying them toward Winterwood. Back toward home.