Leo
“What’s that you’re carving?” I asked as I took a seat on the steps of the back porch beside Briar, who was steadily digging his knife into a birch tree log in between sips of the delicious cocoa he’d made earlier in the day.
“A wish and a thank you,” he explained. “Mav already did his earlier, when he was up baking the cookies, so once I finish, it will be up to you to add yours, if you’d like.”
“What do we do with it after we finish carving?”
“Burn it,” Briar explained. “It’s a yule log. We find the perfect one every year, and we carve our biggest wish for the new year in it, and then we carve a message of thanks for the thing we were most thankful for from the previous year. Since the fireplace inside is electric, we are going to burn this one in the fire ring and tell stories while we watch it burn.”
“What kind of stories?”
“Any that you want to share,” he explained. “Sometimes Mav and I tell ghost stories and try to scare the crap outof one another, but other times we share old stories that our grandparents and great-grandparents have handed down. It just depends on the mood and the night. Will be fun having you add your stories now. Breathes new blood into the tradition.”
“Sounds like an amazing tradition, but I’ve never carved anything in my life,” I explained. “I’d hate to have to add the tale of how I lost half a digit to the stories we tell later on.”
“I won’t let that happen,” Briar said. “Here, come sit in front of me. I’m just about done. Tradition dictates that you carve your own story, but that doesn’t mean I can’t show you how to do it, so we don’t wind up with another medic visit.”
“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” I asked.
“Ech, maybe. Eventually. When you do something to top it, anyway.”
What more could I do but laugh and lean back to look up at him grinning down at me as he placed the Yule log in my hands, along with the knife?
“Now, the key is to scratch the letters in there, not try and dig the knife in deep and shove; that’s how people get hurt, using force instead of trying to finesse it. You’re just going to take your time, think about what you want to write, and try to use block lettering; that’s so much easier than lowercase. There’s plenty of untouched log space, so I think if you start right here,” he explained as he turned it in my hands to show me a space where there were no scratches at all, “you’ll be all good.”
“Scratch, not dig, got it. I can do that,” I said as I stared down at the wood, thoughtfully considering the wish I wanted to make.
A part of me felt like it would be greedy to even make a wish after the two men the fates had sent me this holiday season, though there was one aspect of my life that could use some help.
My career.
Now that I could muster up a wish for it, I very carefully began to scratch the first letter in. Briar’s hand gently closed over the one I held the knife with, adjusting it so it scored the wood easier. I felt like I had better control over the knife that way and dutifully started carving my wish into the wood. Being able to contribute to the household was important to me, as was doing so through the mediums I was passionate about. I carefully worded my wish to reflect just that.
What I was thankful for was much easier. By the time I’d gotten to that part, Maverick had appeared several times, carrying out blankets and trays of cookies, arranging our seats in a horseshoe around the fire ring, and arranging kindling in the bottom. He whistled Trans-Siberian Orchestra carols as he moved things, placing tall thermoses beside every chair. I could only imagine that they held more of that wonderful cocoa in them. What shocked me was the miniature tray, with a tiny cup and cookie on it, that he placed near the edge of the woods. I wanted to ask about it, but talking and carving seemed a bit risky, and I liked my digits where they were. Every now and again, Briar repositioned my hands, though it happened with far less frequency as I got the final letters carved in.
“Wow, that looks all kinds of cozy,” I said once I’d finished and had the chance to get a full look at the space Maverick had set up for us.
“Wanted us to be warm out here tonight,” he said. “I’m just glad the winds died down, or we’d have had to put this off until things were calmer. Mother Nature can’t seem to decide what she wants to do this year.”
“I know, right,” Briar said as he stood, dusted himself off, and walked over to join us around the fire ring, the Yule log I’d passed back to him held tenderly in his hands. “She’s given us tonight, though, so let’s get snuggled into our chairs and make the best of it.”
“Why did you put that tiny saucer and cup over there with the cookie on it?” I asked as I headed over to the chairs.
“Another tradition,” Maverick explained. “It’s an offering of thanks to the Goddess, for bringing you into our lives.”
“Ohhh,” I said, stunned speechless as a lump caught in my throat.
My eyes stung too, as tears threatened to spill over. I couldn’t wait to get started and hear the stories they had to tell. Hell, I couldn’t wait to learn the rest of the customs and traditions that would now be a part of my life. I should have known they wouldn’t let it work like that, though. My snow leopards were cagy beasts who had no qualms about ganging up on me, staring at me with beseeching eyes that were as heart-melting as when they were in their fur.
“Let me guess,” I remarked as I drew one of the blankets up over my lap. “You want me to go first.”
“Yup,” Briar said, as he straightened up from placing the yule log on top of the crackling, burning kindling.
“Absolutely,” Maverick said, “but first, open up.”
“Open…” I muttered until one of his decadent cookie confections appeared in front of my face, and I opened my mouth to take a bite out of it.
Holy melt-in-your-mouth perfection. My taste buds were caressed by coconut. Creamy, soft, nutty, gooey coconut.
