“Okay,” Cherry agreed as she tucked the blanket in tighter around her legs. There was a chill up here from the snow, and the blankets were a welcome addition.
The sleigh pulled down the main street of the village quietly as we stared at the clear, starlit sky. Around us, the town lights twinkled, and it truly did feel like Christmas. I thought back to what Fiona had said about bringing terminally ill children here.It was a wonderful idea, and this would be a trip the family would cherish.
Kit expertly steered the sleigh, clucking his tongue at the horse pulling it, and turned onto a path. This wound among the trees and would take us to our final destination. We passed a gingerbread house with snow decorating it, and Cherry and I made an awed noise. Then, slowly, the horse pulled us through the grotto.
I gasped, astounded at the level of detail. There were houses, igloos, and decorations scattered through the trees.
“Stop!” Cherry called out as the tunnel arch came into sight.
Kit stopped, and Cherry pointed.
Freddie began laughing even as she turned the camera toward Cherry, who was gaping. There were a couple of rows of candy canes, all different sizes and colours. There was red and white, blue and white, green and white, and so on. What had caught our attention was the fact that they were moving—not in a way that animatronics would move either!
The smaller candy canes had bounced over to the larger ones and were, for lack of a better word, pole dancing! They hopped up and wrapped their bodies around the stem of the taller canes and leaned backwards and forwards and sideways. Some curled themselves around the stems several times before unravelling with speed.
I knew my mouth was open in surprise, but I couldn’t control my reaction. The taller candy canes, not to be left out, suddenly unravelled their ribbons and wrapped them around the smaller ones. The smaller canes twisted around their ribbons and flung themselves out like maypole dancers.
“Oh, damn!” Freddie laughed as she kept filming. “They could show strippers some moves.”
I closed my eyes against the image of two large candy canes grinding against each other in what could only be called suggestive.
“Can’t say I’ve ever seen that!” Kit exclaimed from the driver’s seat.
“No? They’re putting it on just for us!” I replied, opening my eyes and watching four candy canes play leapfrog with each other. One fell over as it caught the hooked part of the ‘frog’. Clearly unamused at what it deemed sabotage, the smaller cane jumped upright and then leapt in the air and ‘kicked’ the taller one.
Cherry began to cry with laughter at the antics. But I heard other laughter—children’s. I pulled out my voice recorder and set it to play as I turned on the Ovilus, but turned the volume down.
Words flowed at an incredible pace, and I was grateful that Freddie had messed with this. It had a small printer, which she’d installed. The words printed on it as they flashed up on my screen.
‘More. Fun. Again. Make it jump. No, mister, that’s funny.’The comments kept coming, and I knew they were from the children.
“Connor,” Merrick murmured and pointed at the REM Pod. He hadn’t turned the sound up high, but it kept lighting up. Cherry moved and stiffened as she saw what was happening. The temperature had certainly dropped, and I knew there was a spirit in the sleigh with us.
“Hi, I’m Connor. Do you like that? It’s called a REM Pod. If you touch it, it lights up and makes a noise. We’ve turned it down because it can be very loud,” I said.
The REM Pod lit again, and I glanced down at the Ovilus.
‘Come. Look at this. New toys. Papa, play,’the words were printing very fast.
‘Papa, look, it’s writing my talk.’
‘Eric, come away, son. We don’t know them.’
‘Aw, Papa!’
We all gaped as the blankets moved as if someone was pushing through them, and then the sleigh rocked a little as if someone had jumped off.
‘Watch the silly sticks, Eric,’Papa clearly ordered.
“Oh my God,” Cherry exclaimed faintly.
The candy canes suddenly turned normal and moved to their original places, where they became still. The atmosphere changed around us and became warmer, and I knew the ghosts had moved on.
“Tell me you got all that,” I said to Freddie, who nodded.
“Shall I continue?” Kit asked.
“Let me get a few base readings, although I think they’ve been done now,” I said and scrambled out.
