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Iris’ mind buzzed with questions, but she bit her tongue, trusting that Blair would get to the details in due course. She pulled in closer to the table, her focus sharp even as her eyes ached with tiredness.

“The only people who knew of my condition were my immediate family and my father’s cousin, Nathaniel, though he was sworn to secrecy and wasn’t even allowed to tell his own wife or children about me. When I was very young, Nathaniel urged my parents to move, knowing I wasn’t safe in Boston with the paranoia that was spreading like a sickness through the city. If anyone found out what I was… So, my parents moved us to Plymouth, to the house where they live now. Well, the original house burnt down. It wasn’t my fault, I promise.” Something like a smile flitted briefly across his face. “But it was rebuilt, and it’s been there ever since. When I was twelve, the witch hunts began. They were the worst in Salem, but Boston wasn’t immune. It was lucky we left when we did.”

Iris tried to store all of this information in her head, but it was a lot. She also wanted to ask him exactly what he transformed into, though she was fairly sure she already knew.

“When I grew up, my mother said that I would have to live with them until I learned to control myself. I was allowed to leave the house very occasionally under supervision, but otherwise I was expected to stay at home. I started journaling and making art to try to work through my emotions and learn how to control them. Sometimes it worked, but often I would slip up. And it felt like my mother was looking for any excuse to make me stay.” He was silent for a moment, his eyes glassy and faraway.

Iris bit at her thumbnail. “And your sisters? They were allowed to leave?”

Blair nodded. “They moved out hundreds of years ago. Technically, I was allowed to leave, too. But I was told over and over again that it would be a mistake. I was afraid that my mother was right and I wasn’t capable of being on my own; that I might lose control and reveal what I was, or that I might hurt someone. And the longer I hid, the more difficult it became to consider leaving.”

“What made you decide to finally go?”

Without warning, Blair shoved back his chair and disappeared down the hallway. Iris’ heart sank. Had she pushed him too far? But a moment later, he returned, his journal tucked under one arm. Blair flipped to a page near the front as he sat back down.

“Gabriel knows now, so you might as well know, too.” He held the journal out to her, an almost pleading look in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Iris, this is so embarrassing. Please don’t judge me too harshly.”

“I never would,” Iris promised. She reached tentatively for the journal, feeling as though something sacred was passing into her hands. Blair’s cursive was small and neat, like he didn’t believe he had the right to take up too much space, even in his own journal. She peered up at him, silently asking for permission. He inclined his head in an almost imperceptible nod, and she began to read.

“I know it’s strange,” Blair rambled as Iris’ eyes flew across the page. “I mean, I let myself stew in that house for centuries, and then one little prophecy comes along, and I⁠—”

“Your mother saw you living with me and Gabriel?”

Blair wrung his hands. “Yeah.”

She read a few more lines. “Wait…so you could physically see her vision just by touching the words she’d written in her journal?” She looked at him in amazement.

Blair took another hurried sip of tea before nodding, glancing away as if that ability was something to be ashamed of. “I knew she was keeping something from me. She’d been acting so secretive. So when she left for work one morning, I found the journal where I knew she wrote down her visions, and… It’s crazy, isn’t it?”

Iris reached the end of Blair’s journal entry, which he had written on the bus ride into Vitford detailing why he’d decided to leave home. She had a desperate urge to flip the page, to find out what Blair’s first impressions of her and Gabriel had been, but she stayed her hand. Swiveling the journal around to face him, she slid it back across the table. Blair was here in front of her, and she should only be interested in the details he was willing to share.

“I don’t think it’s crazy,” Iris said. “I think it’s brave.”

Blair sighed. “If I was really brave, I would have left long ago. My parents never locked our gate from the inside; I was trapped by obligation rather than by any physical barrier. I don’t think it occurred to them that I would ever feel strong enough to leave.”

But Iris understood completely. Because it was all too easy to stay in your comfort zone until something so good came along that it made your fear pale in comparison to what could be. That was hope, and that wasn’t crazy at all.

“One reason I overreacted tonight was because of the time I was raised in. I’m sure I don’t have to explain to you how uncompromising Christianity was in puritan New England. When I was small, my family went off to church while I was forced to stay at home. In the eyes of the puritans, I would have been perceived as an irredeemable monster. And though they never said it, I think my family secretly thought that, too. When I feel myself transform, when I can’t hold it back…it’s easy to believe that I’m some demon from the underworld.”

“But you’re not,” Iris assured him. She wanted to reach over and pull him into her arms, to take his pain away, but that would have been a little difficult with the expanse of the kitchen table between them. “Can I ask, though…what is your, um, condition called, exactly?”

He gave a humorless laugh. “There’s no one name for it. We’re known as different things depending on the culture and its unique myths. My mother was abandoned at birth and raised by humans, so they didn’t know enough to be able to tell her. And I’ve only met one other person like me before. But it’s okay. It’s oddly comforting that it doesn’t have a name.”

Iris nodded, wondering what exactly he meant by that. She wanted to ask where Blair had met the person outside of his family who shared his condition, but he had told her so much that night, and she didn’t want to pry. Her eyes caught on the glowing time displayed on the kitchen stove, and she gave a small gasp.

A flicker of concern crossed Blair’s face, as if he was afraid that even after all of her assurances, Iris had decided to judge him after all. “What is it?” he asked.

“It’s midnight. Merry Christmas, Blair.”

Blair’s expression cleared, his tension melting away at once. “Merry Christmas, Iris.”

The single candle in the Menorah had nearly burnt down to a stub. Iris curled her hand around the flame before blowing it out. For a long while, they sat in silence and listened to the soft patter of wet snow against the roof, while the tiny Christmas tree lights glimmered like fireflies in the dark.

19

Christmas day turned out to be a well-earned moment of peace in the chaos that had descended upon their lives. By the time Iris’ mother arrived at 9 AM sharp, the presents were already piled beneath the teal Christmas tree, a steaming homemade apple pie dusted with Gabriel’s signature blend of powdered sugar and cinnamon waited on the counter, and the clean breakfast dishes were stacked neatly in the drainer, the plates gleaming like ground diamonds.

Gabriel was relieved to not have to discuss the previous night’s turmoil with Iris’ mother; Iris pulled her aside the moment she arrived to inform her that Blair had suffered a bout of food poisoning and would prefer not to discuss it. Her mother looked as though she wanted to argue, but she held her tongue.