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XIII. Lights in the dark

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Because of the pre-Christmas rush, Regina didn't find the time to drive out to the farm until two days after her visit to Gold's store. She didn't want to hand the necklace to Zelena between doorsteps while she was at work, so she had baked a spice cake decorated with sugar stars by Henry as an excuse. Her gut told her it was better if Freek didn't find out the real reason for her visit. By the time she turned into the driveway of Birch Hill, darkness had fallen. Unlike most of the other buildings in town, the house was not decorated with colorful lights and she felt a gloomy touch emanating from it. She turned off the engine and marched to the entrance with the cake pan in her hands, her boots sinking into the fresh snow. At her knock, something stirred in the house. She heard shuffling footsteps and when the door opened, Zelena's husband stood in front of her.

"What do you want?" he snarled at her without a greeting. His breath smelled of alcohol.

Regina put on her friendliest smile. "Good evening, Mister West. I just want to drop off a little something for you and your wife. It's spice cake, after all, we have Christmas in a few days. Is Zelena here too?"

Gruffly, he called her name, whereupon she came out of the kitchen, a stained apron tied around her and her wild curls pinned up. Their eyes met as they stood in front of each other. Freek put his hand on her shoulder, what could have been a husband's tender gesture, but Regina didn't miss the way Zelena stiffened in response.

"Miss Mills," she said with studied politeness, as if the friendly conversation at the Christmas market had never happened.

"Hi, Zelena. Nice to see you. You're probably cooking right now, so I won't keep you off for too long. Actually, I just wanted to wish you a pleasant holiday season." She handed her the cake pan. "Perhaps you and your husband would like to join my son, my girlfriend and me for Christmas dinner." She noticed Zelena's barely perceptible shake of her head as she repeated her earlier invitation from the Christmas marked now to the couple, but she did not reply, as if waiting for her husband's permission. "We're having roasted turkey and baked apples for dessert."

"Sounds good," Freek finally stated. "We'll be glad to come. Thank you."

"I'm glad to hear that, so Christmas Eve at 5 o'clock p.m. I'll write down the address if you give me a note."

Zelena then turned away and disappeared into the kitchen for a moment, returning without the cake pan but with a small notepad and a pencil. Freek nodded just briefly to Regina before trotting off. Inwardly, she breathe in private. Quickly, she noted her address and handed both back to her.

"I brought you something else," she said softly, whereupon she pulled the silver necklace from her coat pocket.

Wide-eyed, Zelena accepted the piece of jewelry. "But... the shopkeeper surely didn't give it away cheap. I can never repay you for that."

An honest smile found its way to Regina's lips. "It's yours after all, and you brought me the book. You know what it means to me."

"Thank you, Regina. I mean that." She literally winced as Freek called after her. "I have to get back to the kitchen. I'll see you..."

"Well, good luck then. See you soon, and bring plenty of appetite for the dinner."

"We certainly will." She looked up so that their eyes met. "You'd better not come here again."

Before Regina got around to saying anything back, she heard him bark her name again, and this time more impatiently. In the next moment, Zelena had already closed the door and all she could still perceive were the hastily receding footsteps in the hallway. She sighed deeply before walking down the porch steps to get back to her Benz. This encounter had only reinforced her belief that the relationship Zelena had with her husband was not a particularly loving one. The redhead deserved better than that.

She turned on the radio, whereupon the familiar tones of a Christmas carol echoed from the speaker. Most of them were too sentimental for her, but this time she was somehow in the mood and she began to hum the tune softly. The reflective holidays had always been important to her father, but not so much to her mother. Meanwhile, she saw it mostly through the eyes of her son, who by now no longer believed in Santa Claus, but still loved the celebration. This year, for the first time in years, they would not be just the two of them. She was looking forward to share her cherished family traditions with Emma.

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Zelena stared out the kitchen window, from which she could see the red back lights of the car rapidly moving away. She was thankful that Regina had found an excuse to come to the farm and sneak the necklace to her. Freek would take it from her and keep it for himself should he learn of it. Under his impatient gaze, she lit the old gas stove to heat the oil for the fish sticks in a pan.

"Since when are you interested in Christmas dinner?" she finally asked him.

He laughed out loud. "Well, you shouldn't turn down such a nice invitation. When else are we going to get to have a roasted turkey?"

"Maybe we would once in a while, if you drank less. Because then I'd have more money left over to buy other food than frozen meals."

"Those are enough to get fed," he returned with a shrug. "Now hurry up with dinner, I'm hungry!"

As long as she fried the chopsticks in the pan until golden brown and prepared a small salad for herself on the side, she kept silent. The smell of the old fish oil caused a nauseous feeling in her stomach, but Freek did not allow her to take new until it really could not be avoided. He kept sitting expectantly by the kitchen table the whole time, which made her nervous. After dinner, he threw himself in front of the old tube TV with a liquor bottle, what gave her a chance to back off. She filled up the washing machine before allowing herself a little rest. She looked critically at her reflection as she undressed, wondering if perhaps her father was right to blame her for putting on weight. The faded jeans, which had never been particularly tight, stretched around her hips. She just had to eat even less so he wouldn't find any reason to fault her weight. Under the pleasantly warm shower, she thoroughly washed her long locks and braided the wet hair into two pigtails afterwards, just as her mother had always done when she had been a little girl.

Wearing comfortable sweatpants and a faded sweater, she finally sat on the bed, one of her favorite books in her hands. Back around Christmas time, when her mother had read to her from A Christmas Carol, it had, of course, only been the child-friendly chapters, so Zelena had much later grasped the plot in its entirety. Melia had sit at her bedside with the book in her hands when she had been ill. Hearing her voice, even without really being able to follow the content, had helped her. She had gotten well. But then her mother had caught the fever. Zelena had been only seven years old, so she could already read by herself, but not yet well enough to cope with difficult words and longer sentences. Still, she had tried to read to her from the story, at least until her father had angrily kicked her out of her parents' bedroom and slapped her hard across the face the first time. She remembered the electric candlestick Melia had placed in the living room window every year at the beginning of Advent. That particular December, she had taken it from there and brought it to her mother's bedroom so she could see it. After Melia's death, it had disappeared. His light had never shone again.

Zelena suddenly remembered something she had discovered in the cellar among dusty junk. Since she had only wanted to get an idea if there was anything of value down there that could be sold, she had not opened the box, which was labeled with a thick black sharpie. To avoid that Freek would hear her, she slipped downstairs barefoot. To her relief, she recognized his gurgling snores from the living room, so he had fallen asleep in front of the TV. Unnoticed, she was able to retrieve the flashlight from the dresser before groping further down the dark hallway to the basement door. The stone staircase was icy cold under her bare soles, but she continued on her way undeterred. What she was looking for was at her chest level on one of the rickety shelves. In the cone of light from the flashlight, she read the box's label. Christmas ornaments. Quietly she lifted it down, whereupon a thick cloud of dust rose and she just managed to stifle a cough. Inside lay lots of beautiful colorful decorations. Balls in different colors, shiny stars, candles, fairy lights. For a moment she wished she could take all of it upstairs to decorate a Christmas tree like she used to long ago, but she quickly dismissed the thought. Freek would never let her do that. Finally, she took out a wooden display stand with a single large star attached to it. Loosely a wire was wrapped around it. She heaved the box back onto the shelf before leaving the basement and cautiously slipping back to her room.

She placed her discovery in front of the window and looked at it devoutly. Probably the little light in it didn't work at all by now, but that didn't matter. As she unrolled the cord without much expectation and plugged it in tentatively, she wondered if Glinda, the girl who had lived here earlier, had also loved to decorate her room festively at Christmas time. Had she liked living on the farm? Had it been hard for her to leave this place then? The star lighted up brightly. Touched, Zelena extinguished the ceiling lamp, so that the only brightness in the room came from the decoration in the window. She felt reminded of her mother's candlestick. With the book in her hands, she lay down on the bed under the warming blanket. The light was not enough to read, so she just held it, remembering Melia's soft melodic voice. Three days before Christmas, her mother had died. The festive magic had gone out forever that day like a candle blown out by a sudden gust of wind. The following year, alone in her attic room on the run-down farm, Zelena had realized that she had simply been forgotten by Santa Claus.