He said to me, his voice all the more honeyed and attractive without its notes of sleigh bells and crackling embers, “Want to start where we left off?”
I leapt at him and wouldn’t let go. He didn’t mind at all when the cookies, which he’d put in the oven to celebrate his “birthday,” burned to charcoal briquettes.
Afterward, he opened his Christmas presents, which I’d kept under the tree in my living room, and didn’t have the heart to put away. (“Scrapbooks! A camera! I love all of this!”) Then I marshaled my relatives onto FaceTime so that he could say hello, assure them he loved me, that he wasn’t going anywhere ever again and had been tied up with an unavoidable work thing, and that he’d quit his job over it.
Now, Hall is simply a man: unmagical, and yet the most magical person there ever was.
*
It’s been nearly a year since he returned. Today is Christmas, and we are at the Watsons’ house.
“My vote’s for the wedding to take place in Lapland,” Grandma is saying, for the fifth time in an hour. There’s no reason for her to still be bringing this up, as if Hall, her biggest fan, has a prayer of going against her wishes. “I want to be the matron of honor.”
“Mom’s the matron of honor, Grandma.”
Mom pivots so that no one will tease her for crying. She keeps bursting into happy tears whenever she’s reminded that I asked her to be my matron of honor.
“Then I want to be the best man. With a black lace tux.”
“Yes. Done,” Hall responds at once. I shake my head at him, bemused. He’s going to pass out when he traipses down the aisle to discover Lacey Chabert standing there as officiant, which is a surprise I’m working hard to pull off. By that, I mean that Athena has dirt on the Hallmark Channel and has called in a favor.
We’ve set a date for the wedding, next year on December twenty-first—it’s a long engagement, the reason being that Hall hasn’t finished proposing yet. He’s intent on bringing to life all of his ideas that were left on the cutting-room floor when he first proposed (spontaneously, forgetting the fireworks). It’ll be months before Hall’s proposed to me in enough ways for him to be satisfied. It took an eternity to narrow down which season we wanted the wedding to take place in, because he loves the idea of summertime nuptials just as much as he wants to get married under a maple tree in the fall. Don’t even get me started on his scrapbookof possible themes, thirty percent of which involve a reindeer-pulled carriage and excessive burlap. Mark my words, we’re going to end up renewing our vows every few years so that he can carry out his many (many, many) ideas.
A lot is different about this year compared to last. For starters, there was no nifty teleportation to carry us here—we had to make do with a regular old airplane (as we were coming back from a trip to Santa Monica), which made Hall bright-eyed with nostalgia.I was somewhere up here when you granted my wish, he said.In the clouds, watching the world’s lights blink on and off and feeling like mine would never turn back on again.
Also, he lost the ability to shape-shift our twin bed into two bunks. Neither of us is upset by that at all.
And lastly, it turns out that Hall cannot ice skate for his life. Without magic, his legs splay like a newborn goat’s. But he won’t give up trying—Hall’s been out on the rink every morning at dawn, practicing. With his determination, he’ll go pro. Between bussing at Cracker Barrel and working for Channel 10 News (he’s the most charismatic weatherman the station has ever known, and his good looks and enthusiasm have attracted a national audience), he’s quite busy. He’s only made it one one-hundredth of the way through his latest list of hopes and dreams. My list is much shorter, and I feel like I’ve achieved so many wins that it would be pushing it to ask for more. Last week I sold my one thousandth box of cards, and I’ve successfully kept a houseplant alive since August. Hall brings me breakfast in bed every Sunday morning.
Life is good.
Hall doesn’t mind going about his life “manually,” having to pack the snow into snowmen by hand. He doesn’t mind measuring out exact ingredients for his pies, waiting for the clouds todecide they want to gift us with snow rather than spurring it on with a click of his fingers. The only magic he can accomplish now is the David Copperfield variety, which is his favorite, anyway, as he so loves to say with a mysterious and enigmatic air: “And for my next trick...” right before he sweeps me off my feet with a kiss.
He adores watching the seasons change at their leisure, too, and has admitted in the dead of night, in a hushed whisper, that he thinks he might like autumn the best. But I am not to tell a soul. He’s the Holly King, after all.
“Take it from me,” says Felix. “A spring wedding is the way to go.”
Felix finally gave Marilou the big wedding of her dreams in April, and their relationship is still going strong, so he believes his curse has broken and he is now an expert on all things wedding and marriage. “Felix,” I groan. “Stop giving Hall ideas. I’ve already settled on wearing a velvet cape over my wedding dress, and a giant crown that looks like it’s made of icicles. I’m going to be a vision for the ages. Icicle crowns and velvet capes don’t fit with spring!”
He talks over me. “And of course, I’m going to be in charge of the bachelor party.”
“No,” I reply in tandem with at least five other voices.
Felix is undeterred. “You’ll have to lock down my services soon, because my calendar’s filling up. Shooting starts in June.”
“You’ll be finished long before December,” Mom reminds him.
“I know. But we’ve gone thirty minutes without talking about my movie, which gives me indigestion.”Leon of Napleswill be filming in Toronto. My sisters and I will be there to lend our enthusiastic support.
“Felix.” Hall pivots. He’s wearing thehall i want forchristmas is yousweater, which has a few runs in the fibers from excessive wear. “Tell me every little molecular detail about your movie.”
“It’s a good movie.” Dad clears his throat, sitting forward earnestly. “Very fun, very strange. I’m proud of you, Felix. And all of your creative endeavors.” He drums his fingers on his knees.
Felix glows. “Thank you, Dad and favored brother-in-law. Well, it starts with an old-timey man called Neapolitan—” We all groan.
Sean tosses a blueberry muffin at my brother’s head.
Grandma cranks up the volume of the TV, drowning him out. Felix throws her a peeved look. But soon, even Hall and his award-winning attentiveness can’t resist the allure of Freeform’s 25 Days of Christmas programming. “Is this...?” His face colors.
