Or, maybe better, I hope we can prove to you that you’re not a villain. If, in the end, I fail to do this, I hope you’ll read this book. It’s made me see the best in people all my life. Maybe it can do the same for you.
Yours Most Sincerely,
Kate Buckner.
He parsed her words, picking them apart alongside everything he now knew about her. Everything in him wanted to stay angry with her, to cling to that pain that shot straight through him when she’d asked about the festival. It was no small thing for him to open up, so it was no small thing to be betrayed.
But…what if she hadn’t betrayed him? The gift had been sitting there since her arrival that morning. She’d written all of this before they’d known each other, wrapped it with care when the last time they’d spoke he’d carelessly insulted her home and everything she cared about… Even then, she didn’t think he was a monster. Even then, she saw good in him. And gave him something without any expectation of a return.
Clark sunk to the lowest pits of despair. She’d been honest all along. Sure, the festival was important to her, but this morning before she even knew him, she wanted to help him. He’d misjudged her character. He’d failed her, not the other way around. He would not cry. He would not cry. He would not cry. He just needed to see what was so special about this book. He sniffled, holding back his torrent of angst as much as possible. Delicate as he could, Clark turned to the title page and read the bold print declaring the name of Kate Buckner’s favorite piece of literature.
A Christmas Carol.
In Prose.
Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.
By Charles Dickens.
Oh, no… He’d have to read this thing, wouldn’t he?
Chapter Seventeen
Christmas Day
“Kate! Kate!”
To her profound disappointment, Kate Bucker did not sleep until January second as she’d been hoping. Groaning from her place under the blankets, she reached a single hand out and shooed whoever thought it smart to intrude this morning. No doubt word of her story and failure with Clark made its way around town by now—Miss Carolyn was many things, but discreet could not be counted among them—and she did not want to spend her new least favorite day of the year listening to her friends try to comfort and console her. For the first time in her life, Christmas Day would be hers to do with exactly as she liked. With no festival to plan and run, she could stay in bed until well past noon and listen to heavy metal or whatever it was anti-Christmas people listened to on December 25.
“Go away.”
The security in her apartment didn’t exactly rival Fort Knox. On most nights, since she didn’t have a working lock on her front door, she usually kept a can with a bunch of coins in it directly in front of the door as a kind of makeshift alarm system. Apparently, she’d forgotten to put the can out.
Some mumbling voices, dampened by the comforter pulled over her head, didn’t make enough sense for her to understand their words, but she did recognize the voices. Emily and Michael. Those two. The best friends a girl could have…except for when she didn’t want any friendship. Petty though she knew it was, she wanted to wallow in her own self-pity, not accept it from anyone else. She’d always been the reliably cheerful, good ship lollipop kind of gal, but for once she had a real reason to disappear into her mattress. The mumbling stopped, only to be followed by the clicking of heels against hardwood and the sound of a closing door.
Wish granted. She was alone once more. Moments passed with no noise.
“Emily?” she called. No response. “Michael?” Again, no response.
The covers flew away from her body as she sat up and faced the day, but when Kate opened her eyes, something strange happened. Her little apartment didn’t look as she’d left it. Decorations that had been shoved into the bowels of her trashcan—now crumpled—were placed back on her walls. Light shone through her windows though she could have sworn she closed the curtains before she fell asleep. Everything was almost exactly as it was when she woke up on Christmas Eve.
Why was her apartment back to normal? She shot up to sit in bed, giving herself a head rush. Spots appeared in her vision. She never slept well, so the sensation could almost certainly be caused by oversleep. The clock on the wall read 9:30. When had she ever slept that late?
It was then, as she checked the clock, that Kate noticed that something was out of place. There, on the windowsill, sat a book with a sticky note upon it. Sunbeams played on gold lettering.
“READ ME,” it said.
A stubborn denial locked Kate’s limbs. She recognized that book. Of all the books in all the world, it was the one she’d recognize anywhere. And she wasn’t interested in reading it ever again. With a single bound, she was on her feet, ready to throw the book back into the garbage where it belonged—her best guess was that Emily or someone heard about her night and snuck in to make her feel better, a losing proposition—but then something hanging over her front door halted her stomping.
Her heart clenched. She gasped.
The Belle dress. The one she’d never gotten to wear after staying with Michael after he’d broken his leg, with its green velvet and perfect bustle, hung from a satin hanger over the lip of her door, complete with a corset, stockings and those shoes she’d always wanted to steal. Makeup and a curling
