My legs almost buckle. “What? Hello?” I turn the volume up, which saturates the room with static. “Can you hear me?”
“I can hear you,” the female voice replies, soundingbored, as if it’s totally normal to converse with somebody through a radio. I stare at the round band of warm yellow light. There’s a subtle shimmer in it, like tiny glitter specks that turn sideways as they tumble through midair, flashing briefly, illuminating my hands, which are clutching the mahogany box in a death grip.
“Who is this?” I ask.
“You played ‘Auld Lang Syne’ on New Year’s Eve at preciselythe stroke of midnight using a magical musical mechanism, did you not?” she inquires, a few degrees above exasperated.
“Yes to the first part. To the second, I don’t think so? My record player is just a regular old record player.”
“It’s never exhibited any supernatural behaviors?” The radio dial waffles back and forth like a compass needle, tipping from AM to FM.
“Well.” I bite my lip. “It once summoned the Holiday Spirit.”
“In that case, I’ll repeat: you have unlocked your New Year’s Resolution. You may cast it now or at your next convenience.”
“New... Year’s... Resolution,” I repeat slowly, trying to untangle her meaning. “Can you clarify?”
She inhales sharply through her nose, and the yellow light flickers. “Is this a prank call? Those punk interns from Arbor Day? I’ve had enough of you hooligans. The holiday switchboard is busy enough at this time of year without you giving me extra work.”
“No, no, this isn’t a prank!” I exclaim, panicking. If she hangs up on me, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get her back. “I’m a human. Uh, from earth. Down here. I get to do a resolution? What is that, exactly?”
“A resolution is a decision or determination. With magical influence behind it, the determination then acts as a wish. Some rules and restrictions may apply.”
I lie down on the floor, head spinning. “A wish.”
I have so many wishes, I could springboard into a pool of them and not sink anywhere near the bottom. I want to rewind time. I want to repeat the last two weeks of December on a loop. I want to go back to Christmas at midnight and live inside that moment, building castles and kingdoms in it, and to never have Hall taken away. I want to not feel like I’ve got a beehive inside me, a restlessswarm, whenever I’m not in the spotlight or whenever I’m in the spotlight but it isn’t for good reasons. I want to live a hundred different lifetimes and see who I might have been in each of them, and I want Hall to be able to taste every flavor of coffee creamer, and I want all of my siblings’ dreams to come true. I want for everyone I know and love to be marvelously content, always. But I’ve already cast my wishes; I’ve cast hundreds of them.
All I can think about is the whirlwind force that is Hall, and how much he’s changed my life. How much I admire him, how much I want to be like him. If I’m going to be like Hall, then there’s only one way to respond to a once-in-a-lifetime chance like this. “Can I grant somebody else’s greatest wish?”
I jump back at the sound that emits from the speakers, a click followed by an ethereal and exceptionally loudAhhhhhh. “Rare achievement unlocked,” a clear new voice resounds in monotone.“Paying it forward.”
“That’s new,” the operator remarks, sounding almost interested. “I’ve never had someone donate their wish before.”
I’m feeling weak by this point. “Yeah, well. I figure I’ve already had my turn.”
“Noble.” She’s back on her sass. “To whom am I paying your wish forward, then?”
“Hall. I want for Hall’s greatest wish to be granted. He deserves it.” I swallow. “He’s just, this absolutely amazing person, with the most dazzling smile conceivable and adorable sweaters he knits himself, and he deserves the best, anything he wants.” If he wants to roam among the dinosaurs, he should get to. If he wants to be flattened and digitalized as aPeanutscharacter to live inside the world ofA Charlie Brown Christmas, then so be it. Even if I never see him again, it lights me up with the best feeling in theuniverse to know that foronce, I’m going to turn the tables and be the one to makehisdreams come true.
The operator has no patience for my sentimentality. “A wish that’s been paid forward operates at a higher frequency, with fewer regulations. The last time this happened, the quokka was invented.”
“Wait. How loose with the regulations are we talking here? Last I checked, there were tons of restrictions on what a holiday spirit could and could not do.”
“Do, yes. But we’re talking aboutreceiving, by another subset of magic with its own power and rules. The New Year’s Resolution laws and licensing are a different beast entirely, which most fail to appreciate. I can’t tell you how many holiday spirits only bother to learn about the laws of their own preferred holidays. It’s all in the legislation! I don’t know why everyone who calls in here is so unfamiliar with the legislation: it’s only eighty thousand pages, and you’re human, so it’s not like you have anything better to do. What, do youneedto watch another episode ofStorage Wars?”
I have approximately one billion follow-up questions. “So then—”
“Nope!” she interrupts in a faux chirpy voice. “I’m suuuper busy, so let’s not. What is Hall’s location?”
Whereishis location? My mind blanks. “He’s a holiday spirit? So maybe—”
“Hold, please. Connecting.”
The lights hiss and dim, digital numbers on the cable box blinking as they rearrange. I think it’s supposed to readBOOT, but theTis missing.
“Somebody call for me?” a voice over my left shoulder booms. I turn, and there is a man in my living room. But this might beeven more bewildering than the last time it happened, because instead of a cheerful, grinning Hall in an ugly Christmas sweater, there’s a tall strange man with shoulder-length black hair that is halfway between Rod Stewart and The Rachel, in white face paint and heavy black eyeliner. He spreads out his arms to show off the costume bat wings attached to a bright silver jumpsuit, the lights in my ceiling fixture flashing orange and purple. Dry ice fog curlicues out of the carpet, swathing his lower half, which includes thigh-high platform boots with sparkly spiders sewn on. “BOO!” he thunders. Lightning flashes.
“Who the hell are you?”
