With Liam closely following her, Adria focused on being quiet for the sleeping beauty and her prince, and wondered where the dogs were as she approached the pull-down stairs leading to the attic. “Can you please pull that down for me?”
Liam was right behind her and it was the perfect opportunity to send him into the attic to get the stuff while she stayed down inside the cabin away from the bugs and bats if any were still floating around.
“Sure.” He climbed the stairs and disappeared. Two by two he carried all the boxes down to the living room. At this point, Devin and Becca were awake, both standing in the kitchen waiting for coffee.
“Oh, hey, good morning.” Liam stared at Becca.
Adria couldn’t help but notice that Becca’s hair was out of place, and her eye makeup was like what she’d wear on the runway. “Goodness, Becca, you look like you're ready for the catwalk. Have you looked outside lately?”
Becca silently looked at her and then spoke. “Well, dear sister, you're in luck, I brought an extra bit of personality with me so you can borrow it.” She walked to the back door and Adria waited.
“Heaven help me, it’s been snowing forever.” Barefoot she walked back to the kitchen after closing the door and Adria wondered if she’d gotten rid of those uncomfortable-looking shoes she’d worn yesterday.
“See. So there was no need for a facelift before breakfast.”
Becca eyed her, not at all happy. “Well, one always needs to leave their grumpiness before breakfast or it puts everyone else in a bad mood.”
Adria laughed. “You got me on that one, sis. After we decorate, I really want to go to the wishing well. It's only a few hundred yards away. Do you think we can make it?”
Adria eyed Devin, smiled and looked back at her sister. She might not pursue Devin since it was clear he only had eyes for Becca, and Liam seemed interested in her, but that didn't mean she couldn’t look. Thankfully, he didn't catch her that time.
Devin spoke up. “You’ll need snowshoes or a snowmobile for that.”
Liam interjected with a wicked smile. “Nah, you can make them with old tennis rackets in a pinch. I apologize. I was snooping around in the attic when you had me bring down the ornaments and I saw at least six tennis rackets. Did someone play tennis?”
Adria rushed to the window, excited, and tried very hard to ignore her attraction to Devin. “So we can go!” Outside the snow had stopped, but to her utter surprise something had happened to the wishing well that she couldn’t believe. “Guys, Becca, you have to see this! Come over here.”
Liam filed in on one side, Devin on the other and Becca squeezed herself in between them. “What?”
“Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing, Adria?” Becca spoke up, her face plastered to the frosty cold window. “How is it possible that the wishing well has no snow on it or around it?”
“I thought it was me too. Perhaps someone slipped some rum in my coffee.”
Liam said nothing, Devin threw his two cents in at that moment. “An act of God.”
The sisters were determined to get to the wishing well for whatever reason they had in their heads and Liam was no help suiting them up with makeshift snowshoes and letting them go out into the snow.
He watched as the two ladies gingerly made their way over the snow and stopped just shy of the wishing well.
“Well, that is certainly odd, but whatever it is, there is some kind of magic here.” Liam was talking again and Devin wanted very much for him to stop because he didn't like him enough yet.
Still, he wanted to interject his own thoughts and memories. “They used to call it the magic cabin because their mother seemed to have a way with animals, nature, and basically anything. No matter what or who it was, she put everyone at ease. It’s where Adria gets it from. I don’t think Becca was lucky enough to acquire that skill, she’s too preoccupied.”
“I think it’s pretty cool, and how lucky they were to have a mother like her.”
Five
Thankfully, the cabin was big enough for everyone who was snowed in. Adria immediately got to work after she and her sister got back from the wishing well. Every day when they were children, they would run out to the well and toss a coin in and make a wish like their mother told them.
It had been a mystery how the wishing well had got there. Their mother had always told the story of her great-grandmother getting it as a gift from a suitor and somehow, he had it brought from far away to this spot.
It didn't matter to Adria. It was as much a part of her and Becca’s family history as everything else at this cabin. She’d made countless wishes over the years, half of them probably never came true and never would. Some probably came true by sheer luck and others did by some mystical power.
What was mind-blowing was the fact that it was completely clean. “How do you think it got clean, really?” Becca was hanging decorations throughout the house, Liam had taken over assembling the tree which looked an utter mess and Devin was nowhere to be seen.
Adria was certain the dogs had found the treat drawer since things were awfully quiet in the kitchen and they were MIA. “I don’t know, Becca, it's on my mind too. It is such a mysterious thing and something Mother would have smiled at, waved her hand at the heaven and earth and moved on not missing a beat.”
“You're right.” Becca stopped, clutching a beautiful angel with gold wings. “She would. She was always so easily accepting and understanding of those things that no one else was. Do you have someone like that in your life, Liam?”
