A Magical Christmas (18 page)

Her children, talking, laughing as well.

All the warmth.

Without her.

It didn’t matter. She needed to be alone. She suddenly felt as if she were going to cry, and she didn’t even know what she was going to cry about.

She turned to head back up the stairs. But she’d
barely taken a step before she heard her name called.

“Julie!”

Julie spun around.

Clarissa was at the foot of the stairs, smiling up at her with genuine enthusiasm.

“Julie!”

Clarissa had a way of saying a name that made it sound as if she were absolutely delighted to see you.

“I was beginning to think that my husband had lost you all in the forest! How was the ride? Beautiful, I hope. Not too cold?”

“No, no, the day was great.”

Jon was up now, too, a mug of the wine in his hands as he stood at the foot of the staircase, looking up at her. He looked nice, she thought. Handsome in a crimson sweater and jeans. Hair half brushed back, half falling over his forehead.

“The kids?” he inquired just a bit anxiously.

“They did great.”

“Ashley?”

“Ashley rode Midget. She did very well.”

“Where is she?”

“At the stables.”

“Ashley is still out—”

“With her brother and sister.” Julie glanced at Clarissa. “They were braiding Midget’s mane. Your husband told them it would be fine.”

“My husband is an excellent horseman,” Clarissa said. Her tone was proud. Her smile was just a bit tremulous. “You had a nice ride, I imagine? Jesse knows these woods like the back of his hand.”

“He was wonderful with the children, Clarissa.”

Clarissa Wainscott nodded. “He would be,” she murmured softly.

Oddly, Julie found herself clearing her throat. “I assume the kids will be back to the house soon.”

“You needn’t worry about them. They’re perfectly fine on the property,” Clarissa assured her. “Well, excuse me for a moment, will you? I’ve got a few things to see to in the kitchen. Julie, come down; the wine is my specialty.”

“I’ve tried it; it’s delicious.”

“Try more,” Clarissa said, her smile curling as if with some inner secret. “It gets better and better with each sip. Jon, draw your wife another mug, enjoy the fire. I’ll be right back with you.”

She left them, heading off to the kitchen.

And for the first time in years and years, Julie found herself feeling just a bit unsettled.

She was alone with the man she’d been married to for almost all of her adult life. The man she lived with day after day. And he was, in a way, a stranger who had just shared a more personal conversation with the mistress of Oak River Plantation than he had shared with her for a very long time. She was
surprised to realize that she was a little breathless. And that she wanted to hear him talking to her as he had been talking to Clarissa. She wanted him to talk, and she wanted to listen.

She wanted something back that she had lost, but that might still be there. She wanted to touch him, and be touched in turn.

Anger was a very cold emotion, she realized. She had lived in the chill of it for a very long time. She knew suddenly what she wanted for Christmas.

She wanted to be warm.

“S
o…” Jon murmured, lifting his hands just slightly, awkwardly. “You really did enjoy the ride.”

Julie came down the stairs to the parlor area. “I really did enjoy the ride. How about you? How was your day?”

“Uneventful,” Jon said. “I walked. There’s a beautiful little pond nearby, completely frozen over. I walked all the way around it and back.”

“Nice,” Julie murmured.

She had brought her empty wine mug down with her. Jon took it from her. “I’m supposed to be refilling this, I think.” He walked toward the fireplace and the kettle. “You do want more?”

“Please.”

He refilled her mug. Julie felt oddly as if she were conversing politely with a stranger, looking for casual things to say. “The wine is very good.”

“Very,” he agreed. “Everything here is good.”

“Yes, it is. It was a good idea, coming here. The children are having a really good time. I heard them laughing this morning and…” She shrugged. “The ride was wonderful. The horses were beautiful; the landscape here is out of this world.”

“And Jesse Wainscott must be far better company than that which you’re accustomed to.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing more than exactly what I said. They’re both wonderful people.”

“Jesse—and his wife, of course.”

“Right,” Jon said.

“She seems to be very easy to talk to,” Julie said.

“Yeah, she is,” Jon admitted. But then, it seemed that he was determined to avoid a quarrel. He smiled. “But we were just talking about life in general, and it seems you can get bogged down in that discussion easily. Tell me more about the ride. It must have been more interesting.”

“Oh… well, like I said, it was really wonderful. The trails are beautiful; the air is perfect. We met the Wainscotts’ son today—or at least Christie did.”

“Oh?”

“In the cemetery.”

“The cemetery?”

“There’s an old family graveyard in the most marvelous green copse.”

“And he was just hanging around in this cemetery?”

Julie smiled. “I think he’d been riding, too, and he’d happened to stop there.”

“So did he join you for the rest of your ride?”

“No, but I think he made something of an impression on Christie.”

Jon arched a brow. “Really? I wonder if he’ll be at the Christmas Eve party.”

“The party?”

Jon nodded. “There’s a big party here. Everyone comes. I met a couple of oddball neighbors outside. They assured me that they came every Christmas Eve.”

“Well, that should be fun.”

“A very traditional costume ball, so it seems.”

Julie smiled. “Wouldn’t a traditional costume ball be Halloween?”

“Not here. This is an old-fashioned Christmas, remember.”

Suddenly, they heard the sound of the front door banging.

“Ashley?” Christie called.

“Mom, Dad!”

“It was your fault!” Christie told Jordan.

“Mine? You’re the one who yelled at her and told her that she did braids like a retard!”

Julie stared at Jon, then raced for the foyer where
Jordan and Christie, red-faced and frightened, were staring at one another, hurling accusations.

“Both of you stop it and tell me what happened!” Julie demanded.

They whirled around and stared at her. They glanced at one another.

The color drained from their faces.

“Ashley… is gone,” Christie said.

“Gone!” Julie gasped in panic.

Jon set a hand on her shoulder. “She can’t have gone far.”

Tears welled in her eyes and Julie shrugged off his touch. “Gone—what do you mean, gone? For how long? When did you last see her?”

“Christie yelled at her,” Jordan said.

“You called her a pest,” Christie told him.

“Yeah, but you’re the one who made her cry.”

“She cries at anything!”

“How long has she been gone?” Jon demanded.

Jordan stared at his father, flushing uncomfortably again. “Just a few minutes, tops, Dad. We thought that maybe she’d come in the house.”

“We didn’t see her, but it’s not impossible,” Jon said.

“There’s a pond on the property!” Julie said. She heard the panic rising in her voice.

“Frozen over,” Jon assured her.

“It’s dark away from the house. It’s horribly dark,
and cold. There are thick woods. She could fall, hurt herself, start to freeze to dea—”

“Julie, she’s only been missing a few minutes,” Jon reminded her. “Come on, Jordan—you and I will search outside. Christie, take your mother, go through the house.”

Julie was about to protest; she didn’t need anyone to tell her what to do. She would search from now until forever for her daughter.

Oh, God! she thought. Please don’t let Ashley’s disappearance be a punishment for us being awful people.

Jon and Jordan left the house. Julie whirled around, so panicked she was ready to scream.

Clarissa Wainscott, calm and dignified as always in her voluminous period dress, was there. Julie hadn’t heard her come back into the room.

“I’m sure that she’s fine,” Clarissa said, her beautiful eyes very soft, filled with understanding. Apparently, she had heard what was going on.

But Julie wasn’t so sure she wanted understanding: She was even a little bit irritated at the moment with the oh-so-perfect Clarissa Wainscott. “You don’t know, you don’t…” Julie choked out in a whisper.

Clarissa didn’t know what?
Julie taunted herself.
That she was a bad mother and she deserved to lose her
daughter? Oh, God, she’d sell chocolate from here to eternity with a smile if she could just see Ashley’s face again
.

“I know that we’ll find her,” Clarissa said with assurance. “And I’m equally certain that no one is at fault in her disappearance; children can be very stubborn at times, and they certainly do have their own minds. We’ll search the house.”

She turned around, heading for the stairs. Julie followed her, her heart sinking.

Her sister and brother were monsters, Ashley had determined. For a few minutes, everything had been nice. They’d been having a good time together—even Christie had loved the horses.

Then suddenly Christie and Jordan had started fighting, and she’d tried to say something that would stop them, and they’d both lashed out at her instead.

“Stinks, stinks!” she said aloud. She sniffed loudly, trying to stop her sobs. Wouldn’t matter, not up here. She had found her way up another flight of stairs to a dark, musty little room lit up only by the moonlight. She was far above them all, wondering just what she should do.

Run away.

Make them all sorry for being so mean to her!

She sniffed again.

“Are you all right?”

She gasped, and almost ruined it all by screaming at the top of her lungs in sheer terror. She had thought that she was all alone with the old trunks and dressmaker’s dummies, boxes, papers, and spiderwebs.

But she wasn’t. Yet she managed not to scream because it wasn’t anybody scary or threatening who was talking to her; it was a young girl.

She was older than Ashley, younger than Christie.

And like everyone else around here, she was dressed up in an old-fashioned long gown. It was dark blue, with a very fine lace collar. Her hair was dark and had been braided, and then her braids had been pinned to the back of her head. It was a very pretty hairdo.

“I’m—I’m—” Ashley began.

“Big brother, eh?” the girl asked wisely.

“Big brother and big sister,” Ashley said. She drew her knees up beneath her, resting her hands on her knees and her chin on her hands. “They’re just so—mean!”

“They can be,” the girl agreed. “But most of the time, I don’t think they mean it.” She sighed. “They get old so fast, and they forget what it’s like to have fun. They start to take themselves so very seriously!”

Ashley nodded in agreement, sniffing, looking at the girl again.

“You’re kind of old.”

“A little old, but not that old. Young enough for this to still be my favorite place in the house.”

“Where are we, anyway?”

The girl laughed. “What do you mean, where are we? We’re in the attic.”

“The attic?”

“You’ve never been in an attic?” the girl demanded incredulously.

“We don’t have them where I live,” Ashley said indignantly. “At least, I don’t think we do. Well, anyway, my house doesn’t have an attic.”

“Well, then, you’re in for a treat!” the girl said. “An attic is a playground. An attic is where everything old is kept: your mother’s clothes, and her mother’s clothes, and old clocks, and trunks—and see, there’s my old wooden rocking horse from when I was just about your age.”

Ashley saw the old horse; it was great. She looked at the girl eagerly. “May I use your horse?”

“Of course. And you have to go through the trunks. You have to dress up for Christmas Eve, you know.”

“Dress up?”

“Sure.”

“You mean, not just you people who live here, but everyone gets to dress up?”

“Sure,” the girl said. She seemed amused, but nicely so. She wasn’t making fun of Ashley or anything.

Ashley went running over to the rocking horse. She carefully climbed atop it, thinking how pretty it was, how beautifully painted. The girl walked around the attic, opening trunks.

“Here are some of my things from when I was about your size,” the girl said. “Find yourself something in here. Then, of course, you could bring your family up here to find something special to wear, too.”

“Yeah,” Ashley said. She smiled. “But I’m going to find my dress first and make Christie ask me nicely where I found it!”

“That sounds only fair,” the girl agreed.

“What’s your name?” Ashley asked.

“Mary.”

“I’m Ashley.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“I’ve heard people talking to you,” Mary explained.

She was older, and smart. And she smiled a lot at Ashley, but not in a bad way. Ashley liked her.

“Ashley!”

She heard her mother’s voice then, calling to her. And she sounded really upset, as if she’d been crying.

Ashley wasn’t so sure that she wanted to run away anymore. Her brother and sister might be monsters sometimes, but it hurt way deep inside to hear her mother’s voice sound the way it did now.

“Mommy!” she called. Regretfully, she crawled off the rocking horse. “I guess I have to go down.”

“Come back up when you need to.”

“Are you always here?”

“I play here a lot.”

“Will you be coming down to dinner?”

Mary brought a finger to her lips. “I’m not really supposed to be here. But I’ll see you at the party on Christmas Eve, if not before!”

Ashley nodded vigorously. She heard her mother’s voice again, calling her name. And Ashley could hear in her mother’s voice that she was about to cry. A feeling of shame overwhelmed her and she rushed to the attic door and opened it, then hurried down the narrow wooden staircase to the second-floor landing below.