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They rounded a corner, and there it was, all of a sudden: an explosion of light surrounding a small ranch-style house. And there, another sign, bigger: HANUKKAH LIGHT SHOW.

Theirs appeared to be the only car there. Leo coasted to a stop, but neither one of them made a move to get out. “If it is a serial killer,” Shira said, “they put a lot of effort into it.”

“Yeah,” said Leo. “Maybe we should just let them kill us. They’ve earned it.”

Before either of them could work up the nerve to get out, the door to the house burst open, and children poured out. Four of them, at least, though they looked like mere outlines against the lights in the yard. “Someone’s here!” Leo could hear one of them squeal. “Our sign worked!”

Okay, fine. If these children were serial killers, they could have him. Leo swung open the door and stepped out, Shira close behind him. “We couldn’t resist,” he said. “We’d never seen a Hanukkah light show before.”

“Oh boy, oh boy,” one of the other kids said. Leo was beyond abominable at picking out children’s ages—shout-out to the second cousin he’d infuriated by asking if he was seven when he was actually nine and three-quarters—but he thought they probably ranged from around five to preteen. “Come on, come on.”

Leo glanced around. “Is there an adult here or something?” Following a bunch of random children into dark woods seemed like a good way to get in trouble.

One of the smaller kids pointed. “Back there. On the porch.” Sure enough, barely illuminated by strings of white lights, Leo could make out an older couple standing and watching. Upon seeing him looking, they waved. Leo waved back, Shira echoing him a second later. “Okay, see? Now come on.”

“We don’t pay you or anything?” Shira asked, feet beginning to drift after the kids as if compelled by some outside force. Leo remembered as a kid hearing Shira tell him stories she’d heard in Hebrew school of Jewish demons and monsters and goblins. On the fourth night of Hanukkah is when the veil between the worlds thins, she might have said, though she probably hadn’t, it was probably just Leo’s imagination. And why was his imagination now remembering that story about the corpse bride from the old country, about the man who accidentally placed a wedding ring on the bony finger of a dead woman and ended up entangled in the world of the dead? Just don’t try to marry anyone tonight, Leo, he told himself, and he blinked, and for a moment he saw Emily, face stricken, hands over her mouth. His heart twisted. Just don’t try to marry anyone at all.

Shira didn’t look like a corpse bride, even in the shadows as they were. She was healthy, vibrant, full of life, practically bouncing with every step. Every so often she’d look over her shoulder as if to make sure he was following, and a flash of worry ran through him that she’d trip over a root or walk into a tree.

“You can tip us at the end if you think we did a good job,” the kid was saying to Shira up ahead, almost too far off for Leo to hear. That stirred Leo’s boots into motion; he wasn’t going to let Shira walk into a tree (more likely), or allow a dead man to slip a ring on her finger (less likely).

He was surprised by the flash of jealousy that went through him at the thought of anyone slipping a ring on Shira’s finger. Anyone but him. But then he blinked, and there was Emily’s face again, her chin now trembling with tears. He shook away both images and hustled after the group.

Like Leo’s dad’s backyard, these kids’ backyard was mostly trees; the small house bordered the pinelands as well. Except, unlike Leo’s dad, who’d done nothing with the trees behind his house other than take walks back there and hide away the swing set, these kids had turned theirs into a winter wonderland. A Hanukkah wonderland, specifically. “Start here,” the oldest kid directed, motioning him and Shira to a circle of rainbow lights. “And follow the rainbow throughout. If you get lost, yell for us. We’ll be waiting.” He smiled, and was it extra toothy, or was that just Leo’s imagination working overtime in the dark?

But Shira had grabbed Leo’s hand already and was tugging him forward. They were both wearing gloves, so there was no actual skin-to-skin contact, though a jolt ran through his arm as if there were. “Thank you,” she called over her shoulder. They turned a corner, and everything disappeared except for the lights.

Their first light scene ahead was, inappropriately, centering Santa Claus. A big light-up Santa stood over a crowd of lit-up—Leo had to lean in to verify—action figures and Barbies. “Wait,” said Shira, also leaning in. “It looks like someone tried to color in Santa’s hair and beard with marker. And there’s a Burger King crown on his head.”

“Hmm,” Leo said. “Do you think Santa Claus is supposed to be God here?”

“I mean, you can’t exactly go buy a light-up figure of God, right?” Shira said. “They were probably working with what they had.”

Leo and Shira continued on, much amused. They passed some Stars of David designed in string lights and some small light-up animals before stopping at the next scene, where light-up Jesus was conferring with some light-up Wise Men. “Jesus is wearing a yarmulke,” said Leo. And there was an inflatable hammer leaning against his side, one of those used for carnival games. “Is he supposed to be Judah Maccabee?”

“The Three Wise Men are wearing kippahs, too,” Shira said, a laugh caught in her voice. “I think these are supposed to be the Maccabees. Maybe Santa Claus wasn’t God, he was supposed to be King Antiochus?” Probably catching Leo’s blank stare, she clarified, “You know, the evil king who wanted to ban Judaism and sparked the whole rebellion that became the Hanukkah story?”

“Right,” Leo said. “And it turned out the whole time that Santa Claus was his twin. What a coup.”

“They’re doing their best,” Shira said, whapping him lightly with her wrist. “We live in a Christian society. It was probably all they could find.”

With that in mind, they admired the next scene of an assorted group of reindeer (wearing kippahs) who were trying to light a menorah with empty bottles of olive oil that each contained a battery-operated candle inside, probably so you couldn’t miss that they were supposed to contain olive oil. “This is from the next part of the Hanukkah story, after the rebellion,” said Shira. “After they sent the king packing and celebrated that they could continue to practice Judaism, the temple was still destroyed and desecrated. They needed to light the sacred menorah, but they could only find enough sacred oil to last one night, even though it would take eight nights to make more. But then the miracle of Hanukkah was that—”

“The oil that was only supposed to last one night lasted all eight nights, until they were able to make more, I know,” said Leo. “I remember that much from all your elementary school presentations.” As one of the few Jews in their elementary school, Shira had been tasked with telling their class every year about Hanukkah, a task she took to with great enthusiasm and bags and bags of gold-foil-wrapped chocolate gelt, which made the class enthusiastic about it, too. Leo wondered, not for the first time, what it would have been like if his parents had enrolled him in Hebrew school. If he’d gotten bar mitzvahed, and if he’d gotten up in front of the class every year with Shira to tell his class about all the holidays.

If maybe she hadn’t had to be the only one to perform.

Shira was still talking about the Hanukkah story, something about the morals and the meaning and the fact that it wasn’t a very important holiday after all, that general American society just thought it was important because of its proximity to Christmas, and people felt bad that only the Christian kids got presents. Leo did his very best to pay attention as they neared what seemed to be the final light display, since they’d circled back around enough that he could see the house in front of them. They passed more light strings looped in patterns that were probably supposed to evoke something Hanukkah related, a few menorahs and dreidels, and then there they were.

The kids had put the scene together with a bunch of elves, though the kids had looped glittery Hanukkah garlands around their necks and placed kippahs on their heads (they must have raided their synagogue’s stores, unless their parents had been popular enough to have attended a million bat mitzvahs and Jewish weddings). Two larger elves, probably the parents, were standing in the middle before a glowing light-up menorah. Their—Leo counted—twelve smaller elf children were arranged in a semicircle around them, their faces all turned toward the fake candles. “Aw,” Shira said, her voice for some reason a little froggy. “It’s a Hanukkah party.”

The figures were surrounded by scraps of glittery wrapping paper (pinned to the ground so that it wouldn’t blow away) and scattered plastic dreidels and bits of gold foil (also pinned down) from gelt that Leo assumed the kids had eaten themselves. It would have been irresponsible to leave chocolate outside; chocolate was poisonous to dogs—who knew if it was poisonous to deer and squirrels and whatever else lived out here as well?

That’s what he was thinking when Shira kissed him.

21

Shira Levinson was kissing him.