“You have actual trees in here?” she asked, looking at the rows of fir trees lining the snowy pathway leading away from the cabin.
“Yeah, they’re in giant pots that, as you can see, we cover with scenery painted to look like snowy verges. We move them in each year from the plot of land behind the barn, and then replant them in January. It takes, like, a week to do it—but it’s worth it, to see the kids’ faces when they step through the door.”
“It issoworth it,” she said, smiling. “And the ceiling! Oh my god!”
Ryan followed her gaze upward to where the barn ceiling had been painted to look like the night sky, complete with the Northern Lights. “Oh, wait, that’s not the best bit, stay there a minute.” He dashed off, out of view, and a moment later the lights went out and the sky was illuminated with hundreds of twinkling stars and a projection of meteor showers trailing across the cosmos.
“Oh wow! Ryan, it’s magical,” she said, when she felt him return to stand beside her.
“I’m glad you like it.”
She could hear the smile in his voice. As she stood with her face upturned, taking it all in, she reached her hand outto the side and found his, and he automatically interlaced his fingers with hers.
“I realize this is probably a weird time to ask, and you can say no—that would be fine and understandable, given the evening you’ve just had—but would you like to go on a date with me? Like not a mate date but adatedate?” he asked.
Fred turned her face to look at him and found him watching her. Her heart began to race again, but this time in a good way. “I would.”
He beamed, and she knew her own face was a mirror image. “Want to take the woodland walk?” he asked. And then added, “This isn’t the date. Also, it won’t take long, as we are only in a barn and not in an actual woodland, but the advantage is there won’t be any dog crap hiding beneath the fallen leaves.”
She laughed. “Barn woods sound like my kind of thing.”
“Okay, give me one minute; if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it with the full shebang.”
He let go of her hand and disappeared into the trees. She flexed her fingers, feeling the cold breeze in the barn without his warmth. With a dull click the trees along the path became gently uplit from beneath the scenery, in shades of color that faded in and out, now purple, now gold, now orange, now blue. From somewhere above “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” began playing through invisible speakers, and just ahead of her an animatronic stag dipped its head out from the trees, making her squeal in surprise.
Ryan hopped over the fake snowbank and joined herback on the path. “Ready?” he asked, holding out his elbow for her to link her arm with his.
“Ready.”
The tree-lined path had been set out in a deep zigzag, rather than a straight line to the door, so that it felt like you really were meandering through an admittedly small forest, but a forest nonetheless, especially if you were a little kid. All along the path there were things to see between the trees. There were more moving reindeer and a family of waving polar bears. Long-legged Christmas gonks peeped out between the low branches while others sat higher in the trees, legs dangling. An old Victorian streetlamp bathed Mr. Tumnus, who stood beneath it in warm light and, further along the next bend, a mannequin of the White Witch sat in a sleigh, draped in furs, a box of Turkish delight open on her lap.
The path itself was thickly spread with orange and brown leaves, and cotton-wool snow drifts were banked up at the edges to blend in with the painted scenery boards. The leaves swished as they wandered slowly through them.
“Boy, this place really has evolved, huh?” said Fred, remembering the somewhat smaller grotto from when she was a kid.
“Everything is big, these days; consumers expect to be wowed, and everyone’s a keyboard-critic. We have to keep up or risk falling behind.”
“It’s kind of sad when you put it like that.”
“Not really. You know my dad; he loves tinkering with all this stuff. We add a little bit to it each year—the skatingpenguins were this year’s acquisition—and we all chip in with the maintenance. We don’t take it down after Christmas like we used to—well, apart from the trees, they go back outside—but other than that, this is now a permanent feature. We built Dad a new workshop for his sixtieth birthday so he didn’t fill the house with all the crap he used to store in here.”
“Ha, yeah, I can imagine your mum would not take kindly to that.”
They’d reached the end of the path at the barn door.
“If you want to wait here, I’ll just run round and turn everything off, and then I’ll drive you home,” Ryan said, dropping his arm from hers.
“Sure.”
—
Ryan’s Land Roverwas an unholy mess. The back seat was filled with boxes and discarded paper cups, and strewn with paper and envelopes.
Ryan saw her looking. “Ah, yes, sorry about the mess. I promise you, this is not indicative of how I live; my flat is very tidy, and my sheets are always clean…and I don’t know why I told you that.”
She smiled. “It’s fine, I like to have all the intel…” She paused. “I probably should have gathered a bit more intel on Warren.”
Ryan shrugged. “You have to take chances on people, or you become just another cynic. By the law of averages some of them will disappoint you, but hopefully the ones thatdon’t will have made it worth the risk.” He started the engine, and they drove slowly along the high street, avoiding the revelers spilling out of the pubs and into the road.
