Frost (2 page)

“She may eat the leaves for all I know,” Jack said. “And then the cup.”

I relaxed. It was cool that we were able to show each other vulnerabilities, a synonym for
family
as far as I was concerned. Tomorrow was my turn. After Christmas morning apart at our respective home bases, we’d spend Christmas dinner with my pregnant mom, her boyfriend, Stanley, and my
afi,
my grandfather. And this without even my dad to factor in. He was still in California finalizing his plans to move to Norse Falls and open a wind turbine factory.

I sat back from the Snjossons’ dining-room table, so stuffed even my ears were clogged. I had been wary of a forewarned menu of mutton stew with rutabaga. Mutton, insofar as I could tell, just meant old lamb. And as much as I appreciated my meal having had a full life before ending up on my plate, old meat meant tough. As for the rutabaga, anything that was classified as a tuber was not fit for consumption. The lamb, a term I definitely preferred to mutton, hadn’t been half bad, after all. Jack’s mom had used parsnips instead of rutabaga, a kinder and gentler member of the underground veggie world. And, though I routinely avoided words with the confusing Icelandic
d
that sounded more like a
th,
the
laufabrauð,
the leaf bread, with its intricate design was almost too pretty to eat and as complicated to say as it probably was to make.

“Gifts now,” Jack’s grandmother said, clapping her hands with authority. Her economy of words hinted at her being biologically related to Jack’s dad, as would the matching bristled eyebrows.

We gathered around the tinseled tree.

Alda handed out rectangular packages wrapped in hunter-green paper and tied with raffia. “Kat first,” she said.

I slid the soft-sided gift from under its ribbon, gently tearing the wrapping. Inside lay a hand-knit sweater of crimson red with a motif of snowflakes trimming its yoke.

“Thank you. It’s beautiful,” I said, holding it to my chest. “Did you make it?”

“I did,” Alda said. “It’s been so many years since Jack would wear one of my creations.” I looked at Jack. His holiday attire consisted of a white button-down and Levi’s, only a slight upgrade from his usual — faded T-shirts and Lee jeans. Despite temperatures tumbling daily, I’d yet to see him in a jacket. A Nordic sweater clinging to his ropy shoulders? I just couldn’t picture it.

“I’m very flattered,” I said. “It looks like a lot of work.”

“It will keep the
Jolakottur
away,” Jack’s grandmother said.

“I beg your pardon?” I asked, pushing my arms into the sleeves of the sweater.

“The
Jolakottur,
the Yule Cat,” Alda replied. “An old character from Icelandic folklore. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it.”

Families didn’t get much more Icelandic than mine, so I was surprised, too. I could, of course, name all thirteen of the Yule Lads: Spoon Licker and Door Slammer tying as favorites, and Meat Hook had headlined as the bogey in a few of my childhood nightmares.

“The Yule Cat belongs to the child-eating ogress Grýla. At Christmas, everyone in the family must be gifted an article of clothing, or else the Yule Cat will attack,” Jack’s
amma
said, wagging her index finger.

“Attack?” I asked, poking my head through the neck and shrugging the sweater down over my torso. It was beginning to feel more like a warning than an old wives’ tale.

“In the olden days,” Alda said in a gentler tone than her mother-in-law, “people hurried to finish all autumn’s wool work before the holiday season. Children were pressed into service with stories of a gigantic black cat that made a Christmas Day meal of anyone without a new piece of clothing.”

Finally, a legend I could wrap my mind around. A vicious fashion-frenzied feline prowling the streets and tearing into the poorly attired.

The rest of the gifts were exchanged. I gave everyone, except Jack, a selection of California-themed items: Ghirardelli chocolates, La Brea Bakery granola, Napa Valley dipping oils, Palm Springs dates, Kern County pistachios, all of which my mom had thought of and assembled. In addition to the sweater, I received apple butter, an
All Apple All the Time
cookbook, and, from Jack’s grandmother, a bag of rocks. Literally.

“They’re moonstones,” she said.

“They’re very pretty.” I shook a few from the small black velvet pouch onto my palm. They were of various colors from light browns to grays and engraved with symbols. I ran the tip of my finger atop one of the gold-painted engravings. It looked like a pitchfork.

“That one’s
Mannaz,
” Jack’s grandmother said. “The rune symbol for man. The runes are the Norse pre-Christian alphabet.”

“Oh. I get it.” I didn’t. I already had an alphabet. It was working fine; I didn’t think I needed another, not an ancient one, anyway. Besides, language seemed the kind of thing that moved forward or progressed, like science or medicine, or synthetic and blended textiles. “Thank you,” I said. “They’re very interesting.”

It became painfully obvious that Jack and I hadn’t exchanged our gifts. Alda raised her eyebrows. “Is that it for gifts?”

“I think I’m going to take Kat on a little sleigh ride,” Jack said, standing up. “Is that OK? The horses could use the exercise.”

“Sure,” Alda said. “Don’t be too long, though. You still have to drive Kat home.”

“Watch out for the Yule Cat,” Jack’s grandmother said.

“I’m not worried,” I said, accepting Jack’s hand as he led me out of the room.

While bundling up, I was grateful for the new sweater; it was beautifully crafted, warm, and another layer in my connection to Jack’s family. Bring on the Yule Cat, the child-eating ogress, and all thirteen Yule Lads — Meat Hook included — I mused to myself. I had complete confidence in my companion. The buddy system: now that was something I believed in.

Jack drove the sleigh down a path that headed to the back of the property, one that had been frequented by trucks and tractors during harvest season. A few scant inches of white powder covered the ground, but, by all accounts, the winter was off to a slow start, with snowfall well below average. The weak light of the winter sun was no match for the advancing dusk. There was less than an hour left in the day. I noticed that Jack had packed several very large battery-operated lanterns.

If passing through the road-front gate felt like time travel, dashing through the snow in an open sleigh felt like waking up on the front of a Hallmark card. I was sure that
Season’s Greetings
was scrawled at our feet in calligraphy.

Finally, Jack pulled up along the edge of a small creek that gurgled with brackish water.

“Are you warm enough?”

I was bundled in both of the thick lap blankets that Lars had swung over the seat. “Yep.”

He pulled me close to him. I tucked into the nook created by his outstretched arm. “Gifts now,” he said, clapping his hands as his grandmother had.

I laughed. “I went first last time. Your turn.” From inside my parka, I pulled a wrapped gift and placed it in Jack’s hands.

He turned it over several times, shook it, knocked on it, and even sniffed it.

“It’s a gift, not a melon,” I said.

He took his time, lifting the tape gingerly, folding the paper back carefully. I finally reached over, dug my nails in, and ripped.

“There’s always that way,” he said.

Inside was a folded navy-blue LA Dodgers cap. He shook it out. “What’s this?” he asked.

“A new hat.”

With a puzzled look, he held it up to the fading light, turning it one way and then another. OK, so maybe the Dodgers were an acquired taste. “I already have a hat, a lucky one,” he said teasingly.

The cap in question was, indeed, lucky, having once skittered and drawn me away from an out-of-control truck. Still, it wasn’t the most stylish of things. “It’s always nice to have options,” I said.

“So, am I supposed to wear this thing?” He dropped it on his lap.

“Let me show you,” I said, cramming it over his shaggy bangs.

“It makes a statement, I suppose,” he said.

“The statement being: I’m with Kat Leblanc, California Girl, Dodgers fan.”

“You think I need a reminder?” he said, lifting my chin with his forefinger. “You’re not exactly the kind of girl one forgets.”

“I’m sure you say that to all the girls you’ve saved from being dragged into another realm.” Hard to believe I could be so flip about that horrible night and Wade’s evil plan. I supposed making light of it was a way to deal. Jack had almost died. I shivered to think of it.

“Only the ones with whom I’ve survived drowning incidents and bear encounters.”

It was comforting to know that he, too, could joke about our brushes with death, especially as neither one of us thought our ordeals were behind us. He kissed my eyelid. It fluttered as if about to take flight.

“But about the cap,” he said.

“What about it?”

“Does it come in another color?”

“Dodger blue, buddy. No other color.”

He adjusted its fit. It was a definite improvement over the mesh John Deere cap.

“Your turn,” he said, pulling a small round-shaped package from under the sled’s front seat.

Unlike Jack, I knew how to open a gift properly. Within moments the shredded paper lay at my feet and I held a beautiful snow globe on a squat black base. The domed scene depicted a dark-haired boy and a blond girl in a red coat skating on a tree-lined rink.

“How did you . . . ?” I asked with a catch in my voice. It was so eerily reminiscent of our fateful encounter: the winter day, five years ago, when Jack and I miraculously survived a skating accident. Even the red coat with white trim was accurate. “Did you have this made?”

Jack shook his head no. “I found it in a box of my grandmother’s old Christmas decorations.”

“But . . . it looks so much like . . .”

“Turn it over,” he said.

I upended the glass. A stamp on the bottom read “
Gleðileg Jól
1946.”

“Merry Christmas 1946,” I said.

“Yep.”

Before even our parents were born, our likenesses were entrapped in a snow globe.

“Weird. Isn’t it?” I asked.

“I don’t ask anymore. I just accept.”

He had the right attitude. Certain aspects of our lives were almost too much to contemplate. I shook the globe. Snow fell, powdering the girl’s hair and shoulders and dusting the pine trees. “I did ask for a white Christmas. It’s perfect.”

“That’s just part one of your gift,” he said, stretching out his arms.

A light snow began to fall.

“Hooray,” I said, cupping flakes in my joined palms. “My white Christmas.”

It began to snow a little harder.

I looked around, awestruck. “But how? Before, it only happened when you were mad, or jealous, or out of control in some way.”

“I’ve been practicing,” he said.

The flakes grew large and feathery. They clung to the horses’ hides and tails, and my lap blanket was soon coated with a thick band of white.

“I can see that.” I scooted in for a kiss, something we’d been practicing together. It struck me that, like the proverbial snowflake, no two kisses were ever the same. This one was all the more special, given the holiday setting. And it had a delicious contrast between the cold air and the heat we were generating. The tips of our noses were chilly, but our hot breath and lips were smoldering. I shrugged my hands out of my gloves and walked them under his shirt and up his ribs. For one of the Winter People, his skin was always thermal. Nor would he ever have occasion to complain about my icy fingers. I sat on his lap. His groan, though not a complaint, was raw. Forget the Hallmark greeting card; we were now rifling through the pages of a Harlequin romance.

I pulled away and leaned my head back. The snow was falling like confetti now; giant crystalline flakes clung to my eyelashes and wet my face. I was startled to see Jack with a cap of white hair, as if the intensity of our kiss had prematurely aged him. Looking around at the cloaked landscape and night falling as fast as the snow, I knew it was time to bring things down a notch.

“Uh, Jack?”

“Yes.”

“This seems like an awful lot of snow.”

“Huh?”

“Maybe you should turn it off now.”

“Crap!”

“What?”

“I’m trying.”

“And?”

“It’s not working.”

I jumped off his lap. “Quit fooling around.”

“I’m not.” His voice was tight.

I could barely see my hand outstretched in front of my face. The wind howled like a wolf, hungry and irritable. We’d jumped books to
Little House on the Prairie:
the blizzard scene where Pa had to tie a rope to his waist so as not to get lost between the house and the barn.

“We gotta go now,” Jack said. “Before it gets worse.”

“It’s going to get worse?”

“It could,” he said.

“How are we going to see our way back?”

Jack lightly switched the horses with the reins. “These girls know the way.”

That didn’t help. Our welfare was in the hands of a couple of nags: one called Moonbeam and the other called Bubbles. Neither name, if you asked me, inspired much confidence. I’d have preferred a Saint Bernard named Hero.