“I know. But the two of you have one job and that is to be kids. Nothing more. It’s not the job of children to fix messes that grown-ups make.”
“Full offence, Aunt Opal, but adults seem to make a lot of mess.”
“Well,” she shrugs. “Amen.”
I listen, for a moment, to the happy chatter in the kitchen. I can hear Mum laughing and Gran singing ‘Carol of the Bells’. She’s doing her funny soprano voice and I hear Freddy, Marley and Leanna laughing as well.
“I think everything is going to get a lot better,”
I finally say.
I look down at a pile of books by the door. Some of my homework exercises are sat on the top. Most of them were set to me because of my learning difficulty.
“Oh,” I say, laughing a little hysterically, as I lift up the handwriting tasks I’ve been set. “I was supposed to do these while I was at Loch Ness.”
Opal eyes the homework and laughs dryly. “Come on now, Ramya. I don’t care if you’ve been trying to save Scotland, you have to do your pointless anti-neurodiversity exercises.”
Suddenly, it’s just too funny. The silliness of it. My school’s obsession with trying to fit me into their narrow lines.
When I’ve been flying a dragon and fighting Sirens.
There is a knock at the door and we both look over. The Stranger pokes his head around the frame and I let out a sound of derision and disbelief.
“How do you keep breaking into our house?”
I demand.
“I visit every house, eventually,” he says calmly.
Opal gets to her feet and hands him the scrap of fabric. “Thanks for the favour.”
“You’re welcome.”
They share a meaningful look and then my aunt leaves the room. I stare at the Stranger and, as always when I’m in his presence, I forget the millions of questions that I always want to ask him. Except one. This time, one remains at the forefront of my mind.
“You said people couldn’t come back from
the dead.”
“I did. But I’ve been doing this job for a very long time, and exceptions are bound to happen. Timings sometimes are not quite right. Hence why people sometimes live out their doctor’s expectations or wake up at the morgue. It happens. Sometimes.”
“You said a few days ago, when we were discussing the Ripple, no spell could bring a human back
from death.”
“I did. But I did not use a spell on your aunt. I merely… looked the other way.”
I stare at him in wonder. It never seems possible to say the true reality of who and what he is out loud. He once said that he had many names. I think I can guess at some of them.
“Yes, spells cannot bring humans back from the dead,” he confirms cheerfully. “Now,” he scoops up a sweet, unwraps it and pops it into his mouth, “non-humans on the other hand. That’s a different tale. They could be brought back if their hex were reversed. It would take quite the witch to do it, though.”
I suddenly understand his meaning and my eyes widen in shock and desperate hope. He smiles and tips his hat.
“Merry Christmas, Ramya. Eat lots and sleep well. You’ve earned it.”
Then he is gone.
*
I find Marley in the front room, by the fire. I slowly sit down beside him.
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” he eventually says. “Living through something?”
That is exactly what this has felt like, I realise. As if our story is no longer our own, and we’ve been part of something massive and shattering. Something that will change the way we see things from now on.
We’re not the same as we were last Christmas.
“It’s always going to be you and me,” I tell him quietly. “I’m sorry my thinking got so black and white. I’m sorry I kept believing I was the chosen one.”
He laughs at that. “You’re the one with all of the magic, I thought you were the chosen one, too.’
“Turns out Aunt Opal was and we’re just pawns.”
He shrugs. “I don’t think of it like that.”
I frown. “No?”
“No. That’s how Portia would think. Ren, too. That’s how they view everything. So, we shouldn’t think like that. You’re important. I’m important. And we tried to do the right thing.”
