About the best she’d been able to manage was picking up a second gingerbread man on a whim and tucking it into her pocket, with some sort of vague thought about how she might give it to Pierce later once she caught up with him.
Thinking about it now, she cringed a little. What, exactly, would she say to him?Hi, sorry I dumped you without explanation twenty years ago – have some gingerbread?
But something about the festive green and red frosting had just reminded her of his ridiculous – yet somehow adorable – Christmas sweater, and she’d found herself picking it up and buying it before her brain could catch up with her.
Oh, well. If all else fails, I’ll just have to eat it myself to drown my sorrows. Though I’m sure he’d be gentleman enough to accept such a silly gesture, even if he secretly thought it was ridiculous.
The sound of approaching voices snapped her back to her senses, but she quickly realized that it was just the kids heading back toward the party, their animal-tending duties ended.
Still…
Oh, no! Not good! Not good!
Those voices were definitely heading inherdirection – and, looking around wildly, she realized that she had absolutely nowhere to go, and no reason whatsoever to be hanging around what was essentially a dead-end street.
The voices got louder, excitedly talking about all the things they were going to eat, and Celeste did the first thing she could think of: jump into some bushes.
Ow.
Turned out that jumping into a bush wasn’t quite as easy or painless as it appeared on TV.
Dragging her legs in, she managed to get herself more or less hidden from sight. She hoped.
She barely dared breathe as the voices approached, getting louder and louder as the agonizing seconds ticked by.
“Well,Iheard that Mrs. McFadden’s rum balls have so much rum in them, you can get drunk off eating just one!”
“No way!” The other kid sounded awed. “We havegotto get us some of those!”
Celeste relaxed a little. The kids were clearly distracted, and her hiding place – no matter how ridiculous – was doing its job. Once they were gone, she could go track down that horse, and find out justwhyit was messing with her head. One good look at it, and she could reassure herself that it was just a regular old horse – albeit a beautiful and majestic horse, with the most amazingly convincing fake wings she had ever seen – and go about the rest of her day like a normal person who felt no need to jump into hedges.
“Are you okay, Miss?”
Clearly, her hiding spot wasn’t quite as hidden as she’d hoped – and, sure enough, when Celeste raised her eyes, she could see two small, slightly concerned-looking faces belonging to two children of about ten years old, who were gazing down at her where she was crouching in the hedge, and clearly wondering ifshemight have over-indulged in some of the rum balls they’d just been discussing.
Celeste shot to her feet before her brain could catch up with the rest of her body, and she laughed, brushing herself off with frantic hands.
“Ha ha! Yes, I’m fine! I was just, ah,” she racked her brain frantically, “heading over to Mrs. Eriksson’s house, and I tripped and fell into this bush here! But I’m all right now. Really.” She laughed again, and it sounded even more fake than before.
Shoot me now. Oh my God.
“Uh…” The girl was clearly trying to be diplomatic. “Mrs. Eriksson lives over on Raleigh Road. It’s three streets that way. But she’s at the parade.”
“Oh! Thanks!” Celeste stammered, plastering a grin on her face. “I’ll just, uh, clean myself up, and then head over to the parade to go see her. Thanks!”
She barely managed to keep herself from making shooing motions towards the children, instead making a big show of extracting herself from the bushes and freeing her sweater from where it was caught on an errant twig.
“… Uh. Sure,” mumbled the girl, andfinallythe two kids started to wander off toward town, glancing back suspiciously over their shoulders at Celeste, who gave them an awkward wave.
“That’s that weirdo who lives in the lighthouse,” she heard the boy say, followed by a knowingohhfrom the girl. Like that explained everything!
Celeste tried very hard not to swear as she picked some twigs out of her hair. That hadnotbeen her finest moment! Although, to be fair, twenty years with only herself and a library full of books for company had probably not improved her ability to think on her feet when it came to interacting with other actual human beings.
Next time, just go back the way you came or say that you’re lost! You don’t have to sneak around like a fool!
In any case, the children had actually disappeared around the corner, so she was – hopefully – now free to go look at this horse, reassure herself that it was, in fact, a horse, and go back to her shack and die of mortification for having got caught up in such a silly situation.
Walking up to the field in a way that hopefully looked natural, she steeled herself and peered over the top of the fence, not sure exactly what she was hoping to see.
