May 1st 2023
Chapter 121
We Feast On Magic
It took just as long to figure it out for himself, but the first days of December were a turning point of sorts for Lucas. And all of it was thanks to the family's... connection... to some Christmas fairies. The other bonus came from the fact that, like it or not, he didn't often leave the house these days except for check-ups and ongoing recovery, so he had a lot of time to think... and scheme... and put sneaky ideas into action.
Fairy night had not been the same as what they had been used to over however many years they had been 'visited.' It had always been Lucas' thing to see to the outside, the lights on the house, the big decorations, be they inflatable or made of painted wood... He couldn't go anywhere near that, not this time, couldn't even really do... a lot of what he might have been drawn to do instead. He could have been bummed out about this, but there was no space for him to do that, not with Maya there, and especially not with his girls there.
Marianne kept wanting to sing, and she would keep on catching herself back, like she was suddenly reminded that they were trying to make it so her little sisters didn't wake up and discover them 'in the act.' She'd try and keep her voice down, singing in a whisper, and she'd have her brother-in-law harmonizing with her in kind, and then her mother, too.
She still believed - and put blame on herself for it - that it was her singing that had led to Lucy coming along and finding them in the midst of playing fairies, decorating the living room. Both Lucas and Maya had tried to tell her that it was likelier that Lucy had woken up on her own and gone looking to find her parents, a story that matched what the five-year-old claimed, but Marianne still felt that she had broken 'the magic.' She hadn't shown it that night, as she'd recruited a very happy Lucy to be her assistant, gifting her with her very own fairy 'crown,' made of the same stuff as their father's invisible hat, and taking her through the process until the younger girl looked ready to keel over and was sent back to sleep. She had done a very good job the following morning, acting like her sisters as they discovered the fairies' work. To those who knew she was fibbing, it was about the funniest thing of that morning.
It was later on that day, as Maya had told him about Marianne's laments about the magic on the ride to school, that Lucas had started to consider his options, following the spark of an idea. It was fortunate then that his companions that morning were Eliza and baby Hannah. While Aubrey was completely focused on and enamored with her tiny cousin, Lucas could call on his sister-in-law to pull together a few supplies for him. Eliza had been immediately on board with the project, so much so that their conversation had spiraled beyond the one thing Lucas had had in mind into what would become a week and then some of showing Marianne Friar that the magic could not be erased for knowing the truth. And it began that very night when everyone came home.
The biggest trick and Lucas' personal goal as the days advanced was to see to it that even the 'over five years old' population of the house also got taken into his tricks. He had accomplices, as much to do the things he could not physically do as to ensure that his 'witness,' Aubrey, didn't see anything as it happened. Eliza helped, and Thomas, and Pappy Joe and Patty, and Shawn, and Katy... Sylvie came and helped once, and it was maybe the most important contribution to him.
She wasn't back at work yet either and, if he was having concerns trip him up about returning, his fears were nothing compared to hers. Yes, she was up and about and had only spent a few days in the hospital before she'd been able to go home and carry on there, but it didn't erase what she had been through. She covered them up well, but she definitely still had physical signs of her attack. They would have time to heal completely and there would still be psychological ones lingering. She barely left the house alone, so much so that just going to visit the Friar house had been a self-appointed challenge. She'd called Pawel to come and get her for the trip home.
Before she did go, she would see to the implementation of the latest chapter in the fairies' campaign. Here as before, the goal was the same. It was not about convincing those who knew the truth that the fairies actually existed and were the true decorating force who visited them year by year. Instead, the goal was to show them that, fairies, or none, it didn't matter. The magic was real, and it was in all of them. They had the power to make it happen, for themselves as for their loved ones and even complete strangers.
"Do you think you'll come back?" Lucas signed, as they waited for Pawel to come. It was not pushing or prying by any means. It came from a place of the two of them being friends and colleagues who had shared this traumatic incident. Sylvie looked at him as she had to reflect.
"I want to go," she started, sighed. "I love my job. I miss all of it. But I'm not ready and I don't know when I will be." She left it at that, though to Lucas the statement 'or if I will be' felt implied.
"You take all the time you need," Lucas told her. "We both will."
They could not carry this on eternally, and maybe more to the point, Lucas had come to think of the perfect way for this scheme to evolve. They'd had days of it all happening in their home, all of them together, and it had been wonderful, but now it was time for them to turn things around. It was time for them to be the ones to find the magic and share it into the world... within reason and without doing anything damaging to themselves, others, or anything at all. It was taking just enough of a risk where the littler ones were involved especially, but Maya and Lucas both felt that they needed to trust their girls in this, and so the ball had been placed in their court.
If Lucas was glad enough to see that his entire project had been a success so far for everyone else, it wasn't until this latest twist that he was to realize, happily so, that it was working on him, too. He'd never seen it coming, but it had been building up in him. Maybe it wasn't some Christmas miracle where he suddenly felt all better, not a trace of nightmares or fear in him, but he definitely slept better, for one thing. After that, what he came to realize was how much his perspective had come to shift, his being mid recovery no longer felt like the center of his day to day, instead feeling more like it existed alongside and sometimes in the background of his days. That might not have felt like much of a difference to some people, but it did to him. It felt like he'd come up for air, at least a little, and that was better than not at all.
The one thing that came from this that he could not have evaded no matter how hard he tried was something that had already been looming, a thought that would have struck home sooner or later and, once it did, would stand tall and unavoidable all around them. Yes, Christmas was coming, and they were all so excited for it, but... Melinda...
Lucas could only speak for himself, but he knew that his own love for the holiday had been cultivated through his mother, who loved so much whenever she'd get to host family and friends in their home for the holidays, this one above all others. He could still remember how excited she'd been when he and his friends had asked if they might have a Christmas party right at the peak of a summer scorcher, and she had come through like an entire squad of fairies in one tall woman's shape. And once she'd become a grandmother, oh... It was like her next evolutionary stage as a Christmas Queen.
And now she was gone, now, for the first time, they would all be doing Christmas without her. It didn't feel possible, didn't feel... right... They would have to, though, wouldn't they? If this thought had come to him a week ago, Lucas wasn't sure what he would have done, but as it came now... They could do this. They had to. They would ring in the holidays in peak Melinda fashion. Yes, he knew they could.
"Hey..." Lucas called quietly that evening, after Marianne had wished him a good night and had started up the stairs.
Maya was already upstairs, seeing to the triplets, who were convinced there were fairies in their room, and as Marianne was going up that way, she stopped on the landing. As every morning and night, even if she had her own framed copy in her room, she took a moment to greet her grandmother's picture, but this time she'd just stayed there, like something had come to her in that instant and stalled her on the spot, and he had a feeling he knew just what it was, the same thing he'd realized.
"Come here," Lucas held out his hand and she moved back down to join him, dropping at his side on the couch. "It'll still be Christmas the way she would have wanted it," he told her, and she blinked, surprised that he knew what she'd been thinking about. "She's with us, you always say she is, don't you?" he smiled at her.
"I do," Marianne nodded. "But... Sometimes I don't know anymore," she admitted, which was a surprise.
"How come?" Lucas asked. She hesitated before finally looking up at him.
"I guess... maybe I thought that, if she was there, she could have... I don't know... found a way to stop the people that hurt you and Sylvie and took the horses. But that happened, and..."
"Hey... hey..." he put his arm around her, and she took the hug gladly. "I'm going to tell you something I never told anyone about, okay?"
"No one?" Marianne blinked up at him, and he leaned in a bit with an air of quiet confidence between them.
"Not even your mom," he revealed, and her eyes widened further.
"What is it?" she whispered.
"When I was in the hospital, that first time I woke up, before that, in my head, in my dreams... my nightmares... I think she was there with me. Your grandmother." She gasped, covered her mouth a moment.
"She was in your nightmares?"
"Not part of them, more like a way out, or just... trying to protect me, to get me out of there. I saw her a lot that way, all those days in the hospital, even here after I got back. And maybe she's just... in my imagination, and it's not really her, but..."
"But maybe it is," Marianne filled in, looking as though she'd been regifted her ghosts.
"So, maybe she won't be with us physically at Christmas, but she'll be with us in other ways, and the best way we can honor that is to lead the way, like she would have."
Marianne was satisfied with this answer. She kissed her father good night a second time and hurried to the stairs, wished her grandmother another one as well, and moved along, nearly running into Maya as she went but stopping to tell her the same.
"What was that about?" Maya laughed as she went to join Lucas.
"Oh, that was... ghost stories."
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
