“You see?” he whispers. “He’s carrying the whole moon over there. It shines out of his eyes when he looks at you.”
This is the last thing I need to hear. “I suppose,” I mumble uncomfortably.
“Yousuppose? I hope you see what’s in front of you, and that you appreciate who you have.” Grandpa is rarely stern with me and can’t keep it up for long. “I worry about you.”
“I know I’m lucky. I appreciate Hall very much.” I’m going to cry if I don’t get out of here. “Night, Grandpa.”
“Merry almost-Christmas, sweetheart.” He pats my back fondly, letting me go. I walk on wobbly legs upstairs, dodging children hiding from their parents. I close my bedroom door behind myself, gulp down a sharp and shaky breath, and have to sit down. Except the bunk bed is gone.
Hall enters with two steaming cups of hot chocolate, expression turning sheepish when his gaze travels from me to the bed. Bed, singular. “Sorry about this. My magic is, ah, blinking out a bit. Happens sometimes.”
“Your magic spontaneously turned the bunk bed into... what is this, a queen?”
He nods slowly, eyebrows high. “I’m as surprised as you are.I’ll do a maintenance check on my magic in the morning, but I’m so exhausted right now from a very long day of Christmas Eve magic-making that I can’t possibly set it right tonight.” He looks convincing, but I eye one of the romance novels he bought at Gold Rush with suspicion, lying on his nightstand with half its pages dog-eared to mark favorite passages.
“All right.” I slide into bed on the left side; he climbs in on the right and then passes me a hot chocolate. I’m incredibly full; if I consume one sip or bite of anything more, I might explode, and also I just brushed my teeth. But I accept it, of course.
“Nice bedspread.” I tug the covers up to my middle. It features a giant red pickup truck with pine trees sticking out of the bed.hall’s christmas tree haul.
“Thank— Oh? I hadn’t noticed. Would you look at that! Yes, so it is. I’m glad my subconscious magic picked it.”
“Your subconscious magic has good taste.” I glance at him, then away, then back at him. He’s in an old-fashioned stocking cap, the end of it drooping onto his shoulder, with a fuzzy white pom-pom. “Never mind.”
“What, this?” He reaches up to touch it. “It’s traditional Christmas Eve garb. You want one?”
“No.”
“Your loss.” Under the bedspread, he crosses his ankles. Sighs dreamily. “My first Christmas Eve night in a human body.”
“Did it live up to the hype?”
“Itdid, Bettie. It lived up to it so much that all my past dreams have shattered into a billion pieces. Ka-boom. I’ll remember it always.” He turns to me. “Will you?”
“I can’t imagine forgetting a Christmas Eve that involves dancing Sugar Plum Fairies and a hamster in your pocket.”
“Hildy. Don’t forget to take care of her.”
“Hall.”
“I’ve added some savings to your bank account, but not so much cushion that by the time it thins out beneath you, you’ll have reverted back to your old habits.”
“Hall.”
“I wonder if I’ve got one more trip to Cracker Barrel left in me. I’m haunted by the chicken tenders I could’ve had.”
“Hall, you’re making it snow.”
He stops chattering. Stares around. “Oh. Sorry.” He rubs his palms together and the flurry ceases, then disappears. “We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
“You must be excited.”
“You can’t possibly imagine. I’ve been waiting to be on the inside of a happy, cozy home for Christmas morning—well, for always. Do you think I should get a Christmas piñata? Is that a thing?”
“We could make it a thing.”
“Good idea. I can’t wait to have the whole family sit down together, hold hands, and recite what we’re grateful for.” He sighs again. “I hope your grandmother says she’s grateful for the life-size wax mannequin I made of her, in character as Priscilla Presley from the 1993 movieMy Life with Elvis, for which she won Best Supporting Actress. If I were here in summer, I would take her to the opera, and we’d wear bedazzled denim jackets. That’s the dream. Along with being a meteorologist.”
He’s being serious about the meteorologist part (every morning he watches the weatherman’s report with naked envy), but I think he’s laying the rest on thick, trying to turn my blue thoughts toward sunlight with good-natured rambling. He goes quiet, perhapsthinking about what he would really do if he were here in the summertime. I bet he would love picnics. I bet he’d want to go to every small-town street fair in the Midwest and sample deep-fried novelties. Visit every amusement park. Join a local Wiffle ball league. I’ve never done anything like that and wish we could go on all those adventures together. Hall’s immortal, yet he’s had such a short life.
