Whatever came next—Broadway auditions, family secrets, or magic I still didn't fully understand—I knew one thing for sure, some things were worth waiting for.
And Alex Garland was worth waiting forever.
Chapter thirteen
Alex
The music box sat silent now, next to Johan's ancient tools: two impossible inheritances, side by side. My grandmother had planned all of this—the restoration, the waiting, and Ben himself. She'd known I would come home before I did.
He watched me for a long moment. Whatever he saw in my face made him rise from his chair and cross to a cabinet I hadn't noticed before, tucked beneath decades of sketches and blueprints. He withdrew an aged leather journal, its spine cracked and mended multiple times.
"There's more," Ben said. "If you're ready."
I wrapped my hands around the coffee mug he'd given me earlier, letting the warmth steady me. "After everything tonight? I don't think anything could surprise me."
"Don't be so sure." Ben sat on the arm of my chair—close enough that his thigh pressed against my shoulder—and opened the journal to a page marked with a rust-colored ribbon. "This is Johan's workshop diary. He wrote everything in Swedish except for one section. It's his description of the night he met the stranger."
The handwriting was careful, deliberate English.
The stranger in red showed me marks that speak to the wood itself. When carved with pure intent, they guide those who bear gifts through winter storms.
"You said the marks were a signature," I said slowly. "A promise."
"That's what I understood growing up, but Johan wrote more." Ben turned to a different section, and I leaned closer to see. "The marks aren't just symbols of connection. They're more like... sheet music for reindeer. Notes that tell them where to land, when to rise, and how to find their way through the worst blizzards."
Sheet music. I thought of dance notation—how simple marks on paper could capture complex movement, how choreographers encoded an entire ballet in symbols that looked like nothing until your body learned to read them.
"Can I see?" I reached for the carved piece he'd been working on earlier, the one with hoofprint marks along its edge.
Ben guided my hands to the surface. "Feel how they flow? Like a path through the air?"
I closed my eyes, letting my dancer's instincts read the shapes. The curves weren't random—they had rhythm and momentum like a body's arc through space during a perfect grand jeté.
"It's a language," I said, the revelation catching in my throat. "These aren't merely symbols. They're communication."
"Yes." Ben's hands covered mine, warm and solid. "A way of communicating that's been part of my family since that night in the storm. Every toy we make and every piece we restorecarries some echo of it." He glanced at my mother's music box. "Including that one."
"The marks you added to the base."
"Your grandmother asked me to. She understood what they could do—help the wood hold something more than a melody." His voice softened. "She wanted it to carry comfort. For when you needed it most."
The candles on Ben's workbench flared brighter, their flames stretching toward us like they were listening. His hands tightened on mine.
"They're responding," he said quietly. "The marks recognize you."
A sharp gust rattled the windows. Ben pulled back a heavy curtain, and I followed, standing close enough to feel the heat of his body through his clothes.
Two of the reindeer from the festival had wandered behind the workshop. The larger buck—Donner, the one who'd tracked Ben's movements in the town square—pawed at the snow beneath the window.
"Watch." Ben pressed the carved wood against the window frame. The marks seemed to catch the moonlight, almost humming.
The reindeer's head snapped up. Its nostrils flared as it stepped closer, the second one following with deliberate care.
"What did you carve?"
"A welcome mark. Sort of like stage directions, but for reindeer. This sequence tells them there's shelter from the storm."
The buck pressed its nose against the window precisely where Ben had placed the wood. Its breath frosted the glass in a pattern that matched the marks.
