Snow piled heavy on the ground outside Betsy's cabin. The witches sat on a sofa under a thick blanket, a fire blazing in the hearth. Lucy read a book beside it, the reflection of the flames flickering in her glasses. Alice had a purple full-body pajama set on with white dots on it, her hat discarded and hanging on the wall beside the door. Susie had on a robe tied tightly at the waist, her hair pulled back into a ponytail because she was feeling lazy. Betsy had her usual braided ponytail with a simple blue nightgown on. Lucy was wearing a pair plush slippers with elephant faces on the front, little ears and trunks sticking out. She was dressed just as plainly as the others. Sweatpants and a sweater had been the choice of the day.
After a while Lucy looked around the cabin. There were no Christmas decorations in there at all. Just a few strand lights adorning the walls, bathing them in a cool white glow. She looked back at the witches, pondering something. Susie caught her eyes first, being the most attentive, so she asked her.
"Hey, Susie." She pondered, looking up at the head witch. "Where's your Christmas tree? And the decorations? It's the twentieth of the month."
The witches exchanged glances with one another. Lucy had no difficulty figuring out that they were trying to figure out which of them should speak, or exactly how to phrase their answer. It was the same glances that she saw her parents give her whenever she asked them a difficult question. Eventually Betsy spoke up, standing with a cup of hot tea in her hands. She walked to her kitchenette as she talked, speaking in a normal and calm tone to Lucy.
"Well, we don't celebrate Christmas you see. We celebrate the Winter solstice, and the New Year. The cycle of nature and time rolling by is what is important to us."
The adopted aardvark looked down at the pages of her book in thought. She had considered that as a possibility, but she didn't know what the exact circumstances were behind their beliefs. After silence filled in a few seconds, Susie jumped in.
"We're pagans. So we don't really do Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Passover, Hanukkah, you get the gist. We celebrate them with the campers if any of them have a holiday during the summer. Y'know, help them not feel so homesick. We personally celebrate the equinox, solstices and Samhain, Yule and so on. You know, the passing of the seasons, the cycle of nature. What Betsy said."
Alice decided she would jump in, sipping her eggnog between sentences.
"Tomorrow we'll go find an big, old dead tree, chop it down and pull out the stump, and use that as firewood. Then we'll have a big dinner to celebrate the last year. Then, we'll take something from the past that's important to us, and we'll throw it into the fire."
Lucy seemed interested in the whole thing, her eyes searching Alice's face like it held more information. She decided she'd ask.
"Okay... well, why do you do that?"
Betsy returned to her seat, deciding to speak over Alice. "Well you see, Yule is partially to honor the things we let go, and the way time passes. What came before. So we'll take something of personal importance that only really exists in the past, and we'll burn it. Just like the old tree in the fire, it has to do with letting go. It also shows how temporary everything is."
The glasses wearing girl replied. "Honestly sounds like this holiday's a bit of a bummer, not gonna lie."
Her comment earned her a laugh from Susie, who stood up. She stretched as she replied, a small pop from her back sounding through the cabin.
"Well, nature's a bit of a bummer kid. Things change, people change. Time flows. By respecting it, you can start to see how it all works. So, we live by the seasons and keep it simple."
The cabin fell quiet as Lucy pondered this method of living. To go by nature, to keep things in perspective. Even as the glasses wearing aardvark turned her attention back to her book, the ideas wore on her. It was so different from what she had grown up by. To run around between sides of the family and friends, getting everyone presents, being grateful for what they had and then receiving more. Decorating a Christmas tree, the hectic energy in the air. In a lot of ways it felt two-faced. Enforcing gratitude on people, receiving gifts when the point was to be grateful for what she had. Christmas was never a good time of year for Lucy on the whole, but the more she thought about it, the more she felt like maybe she wouldn't celebrate Christmas this year either.
This holiday being described to her was much less energetic, but it had a mood to it. One she could see through the witches and how they talked about it. It was important to them. It was a much less tarnished idea in Lucy's mind. Christmas was marred with her family, the same family she hadn't heard from in months. Even before that, Christmas was more a series of obligations for her and her parents. It didn't feel like a genuine holiday, the more that Lucy thought about it. Not in the way she'd been shown. The intentions behind Christmas didn't match with the reality.
She pretended to read again as an idea formed in her head. One that maybe she'd feel better about, afterwards.
The new moon left the sky dark as Lucy snuck her way out of her cabin. She shut the door as quietly as she could, even though she knew the snow muffled most of the sound outside. She made her way over to Betsy's abode, where the witches had been hosting their Yule dinner. Snow gently fell in twirling flakes around her, dancing on the wind. The well oiled hinges on the door swung open quickly, before she shut it again, moving as quietly as she could in her boots. In her hand she clutched a rolled up photograph, clutched tight in her mittened grip.
Lucy stealthily removed her boots. Betsy was slumbering in her bed, Susie had seemingly gone back to her place from what Lucy could see, and Alice was in a sleeping bag across from the horse witch. Once she saw the coast was clear, she stepped over in her socks towards the fire. It was burning quite low, with the charcoal at the bottom glowing orange beneath tiny licks of flames. Within the ashes littering the hearth, Lucy could see bits of paper, as well as what looked like metal buttons one would sew onto a coat.
The aardvark looked down at her hands, unfurling the photograph awkwardly. Her mittens hindered her dexterity more than she thought, straightening out the creases in the picture. It was a simple photo of her old family. Her father's arm around her shoulder in of her bedroom, with all her things in it. Her mother holding her hand. Outside the window overlooked the city she knew, with the school she used to attend. All the soft moments growing up with them, the little victories, her birthdays. Her breath caught in her throat, gripping the photograph tight in her fist.
Memories came flooding back, but Lucy had already made up her mind. She extended her arm over the fire, took a deep breath, and unclenched her hand. The photo fell just as her eyes clouded with tears. It had been months. Over a quarter of a year since she'd heard anything from her parents. The last thing she knew was her mother running off, her father being in legal trouble for some reason, and then complete silence. She had not heard anything from them since then. No letters, no phone calls, nothing. As the finish of the photo darkened in the flame, she sat down in front of the hearth, putting her head in her knees. It was time to accept that they were gone. She was a smart girl... she couldn't keep believing they'd come back when it was clear they never were.
Over the soft whisper of the flame licking up the picture, Lucy heard a voice. It interrupted her just as she was about to fall into a full sobbing fit, despite her best efforts to be quiet. She turned her head to see Susie, who had been laying down on the couch beneath the covers. Just enough that Lucy hadn't noticed her upon walking in.
"Hey... kid, you okay? Come here." Susie said, sitting up and patting the seat beside her.
Lucy had thought she wanted to be left alone for this, but... after a moment, she stood up. She shrugged out of her coat on her way over, dropping it into a puddle of wool beside the couch. Susie wrapped the blanket around the aardvark as she sat down. She could see the redness of Lucy's eyes, even though she had just started to cry. She looked over at the fire, where she'd seen her drop something, before putting it together. She wasn't about to ask... figuring it was obvious.
For a quiet moment neither of them spoke. The flames finished reducing the photograph to crumpled ash, returning to their dim glow. The moment it was over Lucy turned, hugging Susie and shoving her face against the witch's middle. The cat didn't know what to do... or what to say. Instead of trying to comfort her with words, Susie decided to give the gift that Lucy needed most. Her arms wrapped around the former camper turned adopted aardvark, and she let her head rest on top of hers. She watched the Yule fire go out as Lucy's crying was muffled by her chest. With her mourning stifled by a parental embrace, the fire went out. So passed her first Solstice with the witches, just as the clock struck midnight.
The next morning Lucy awoke to find herself leaning on Susie's shoulder, holding the cat's hand tightly in her sleep. She had passed out hard after crying for over an hour, and had been dead to the world until late in the morning. On either side of her sat a witch as they quietly watched a crime drama. All four of them were swathed in an extra large blanket. The entire situation felt warm and true to form. The spirit of what was going on was pure in Lucy's heart. The cat felt her stir, looking to see if Lucy was okay after last night. Their eyes met, and they both silently went back to watching television. Both of them understood. It was something to discuss another time, with someone who could word it better. What was important, was that it had happened. Even if Susie couldn't put that to words.
Alice turned up the television, and pointed at the screen.
"This is my favorite part, when it's revealed the accountant was actually the one who did it!" She said excitedly.
With a deep breath, Lucy sat up, still holding Susie's hand. It was a good day.