Home in Time for Christmas (11 page)

“What are you two squabbling on and on about?” George demanded.

“Nothing,” Melody said.

“She's whining about feeding the dogs,” Keith said, grinning.

“I am really going to strangle you!” she hissed to him.

Keith was having way too much fun with this. She dragged both him and Jake down the hall to the parlor, and away from her parents.

“One more! One more crack, and I'm going to tell that the girl you brought home that year was a stripper,” Melody warned.

“A stripper?” Jake asked.

“I'll take you to see a few soon enough, my friend,” Keith promised. “Melody, okay, okay, I'm sorry. I'll lay off.”

“Lay off—and perhaps tell me the truth?” Mona's voice demanded.

They all swung around, even Jake, surprise and guilt on their faces.

Mona stared at them one by one, stern accusation in her eyes. “Well?” she demanded.

“What—um—truth?” Melody asked.

“Child, you have actually sucked as a liar all your life,” Mona informed her. “Not a bad thing, not really.” She gave Keith a parental swat on the shoulder. “And you! The lies come a bit glibly to your lips. And it's not nice to torture your sister.”

“I wasn't torturing her—”

“Just shut it,” Mona said firmly. “Shut it!”

She stared at Melody. “You didn't know Jake before, did you?”

“What?”

“You didn't know him before the day you came here.”

“Well, I met him…”

“We met in the middle of an icy road, Mrs. Tarleton,” Jake said. “I never meant for anyone to lie to you. Melody simply assured me that no one would believe the truth.”

“And what is the truth?” Mona persisted.

“I hit him in the road, Mom. Jake has—amnesia.”

“I do not have amnesia,” Jake protested.

“Then?” Mona demanded.

“Mom—”

“From him, young lady,” Mona said.

“Where's Dad?” Keith asked.

“He's gone out back. Let me hear this, then I'll decide what he'll believe and what he won't,” Mona told them.

Melody inhaled on a deep breath, trying to still think of some way to hedge.

But Jake took a step forward. “I was being hanged, Mrs. Tarleton. It was a beautiful morning, crisp and clear, in New York, New York, but I had been captured by the British, and a certain commander had determined that Christmas season or no, I should be hanged. Serena Mallory is my adopted sister. She came to the city and I was terrified that she would do something to stop the execution, and that they would find some way to…hurt her. She said a few words and threw rose petals into the sky, and the next thing I knew, I was on the road, and lights were coming at me. Extraordinary lights. From an
automobile.
And the thing is, I have to get back. I have to find my sister, and I have to make sure that she's all right, that she made it home from New York.”

Mona stared at him as Jake finished speaking.

Melody thought that her mother would burst into laughter.

Or that she would shake her head in disgust and demand to know the real truth.

She did neither. She looked at Melody.

“Why didn't you just tell me the truth from the beginning?” Mona demanded.

“Mom…I don't think, honestly—I mean, it's not possible. It's just not possible. I believe that Jake does work for a reenactment company, or the park service, or some such entity. I think that he went down in the snow and hit his head. I believe that Jake believes what he's saying—sorry!” she added quickly, looking at Jake. “But that what he's saying is just not possible.”

“Honestly, daughter, where's the magic in you?” Mona asked her, shaking her head.

“Um, you believe all this, Mom?” Keith asked.

“I certainly think we've seen a few unusual
coincidences
regarding this young man and our own home, and he certainly knows a great deal…and his clothing and boots are amazingly authentic. I think it's sad that you thought you had to lie to me. And I think it's wonderful that you're here for Christmas, Jake, because whatever time period you came from, and from wherever in all the frequencies of life, you are a fine young man, and it's a delight to have you in my house. Now, the three of you—get out. Go snowboarding or something. Give me a bit of time to try to get a few ideas going, and get some research done! Shoo—shoo!”

“Um….” Melody said.

“Go!” Mona told her.

“Mom, are you—really all right?” Keith asked.

“I'm fine, just fine. And, by the way, I knew perfectly
well that the young lady you brought home that year was a stripper. Though it may not be the most family-friendly activity, she was, at the least, honestly employed. So, excuse me—I have a few things to do. Go on. Get out of here. All of you.”

But they didn't leave. They were all still stunned, and they stood there.

Finally, Jake took a step forward. He reached for Mona's hand, and held it. “Thank you. Before God, what I'm telling you is the truth. And your kindness and charity toward me have been amazing. If there is ever any way for me to repay you, I would most humbly beg the chance.”

Mona grinned. “You've done quite enough, young man. You've brought a lot of…magic into our house. Now, get out of here. All of you. And trust me, by the way.” She stared at Melody. “And your father. He's a little slow at the gate sometimes, but he's an amazing and brilliant man.”

“You're not going to tell Dad any of this—” Melody began.

“Not yet, not yet, don't worry. I know how to handle your father. So, please, right now—go!”

Melody was too surprised to do anything other than what her mother had ordered. She headed for the closet and reached in for their coats.

“Go up the old hill, they have tubes to rent. You'll have a great time,” Mona called over her shoulder.

“Let's go up the hill, like Mom told us,” Melody said, still stunned and uneasy.

“Sure, sure, let's just get out of here for now,” Keith agreed.

They stepped outside. It was a beautiful day. The
snow appeared brilliantly white in the dazzle of the sun. The sky was blue, with just a few powder-puff clouds rolling slowly by.

Jake stepped down to the walk, looking around, seeing the sky and the snow.

“Tubing,” Keith said numbly. “We really should just go tubing.”

“I don't think I really have all that much time,” Jake said. “I keep feeling that…I'm supposed to be home for Christmas.”

“But—this is your home. Or was your home,” Melody reminded him.

He didn't answer. He was just staring at the day again.

“Jake?” she said quietly.

He turned to her; she had his full attention.

“I'm sorry, I was just thinking.”

“Thinking what?” she asked.

“How happy I am just to be alive.”

I
t was cold, but they were in the right shoes, right parkas, and, if that wasn't enough, Melody had bought a bunch of hot packets. They were really quite incredible; you broke the packet—almost like a glow-in-the-dark necklace—and it released heat. They could go in boots, down your back, your front, or anywhere you thought you might need a little extra heat.

Right at the beginning, after their first wild ride down the hill, Keith decided that his rump was freezing and he used two. Then his rump was too hot and he jumped around trying to shift the packets. A group of teenage girls laughed gleefully, and that started a snowball fight.

The second run, Melody hopped on with Jake when he didn't seem to know how to get the tube going. They flew down the hill, her arms locked around his chest. At the bottom, the tube tossed them out and over, and they lay locked in the snow together, laughing.

When she looked into his eyes, she knew that she was suddenly praying again that he had merely lost his memory, that he would turn out to be a guide in Boston, Salem or Concord, perhaps, that he would prove to be
unmarried and unattached, and she could spend her life with him….

Ridiculous thought. She didn't know him that well.

She did know that she wanted to get to know him. She knew that she could have stayed there in the snow with him forever, no matter how cold it was, that she was warm enough with him above her, that his closeness promised everything in the world that she could ever want.

“Here! I'll help you up!” Keith said, running over with their lost tube.

Jake was quickly up, of course, and they both reached a hand to her, bringing her to her feet.

“Great. Wow. Thanks so much, Keith!”

He didn't seem to catch a bit of her muted sarcasm.

Yes, he did.

He was grinning as he looked away.

They did several more runs down the hill—Jake and Melody together every time. And every time they landed entangled and laughing, and she wanted the day to go on forever.

Even with Keith there to make sure they moved every time before the next tubers could come crashing down.

They broke in the early afternoon, heading to a hill's little coffee shop, and warmed up by ordering rich clam chowder served in bread bowls.

“I should have been doing…something,” Jake said. “But, I must admit, that was tremendous fun.”

“I wouldn't worry, my mom will be doing something,” Keith told him.

“There's the afternoon,” Melody said.

He shook his head. “I have to get to the castle and practice with the band.”

“Of course, wow, I forgot that,” Keith said. “But, as I said, don't worry, my mom will be up to something.”

“Don't tell him that,” Melody said.

“Why? Your mother is extraordinary,” Jake said.

“My mother is ever so slightly crazy!” Melody protested.

She saw Jake's hand tighten around his coffee mug. But his voice was level when he looked at her. “You don't believe me, but she does.”

Melody shook her head. “Jake, you can't travel through time. I'm so sorry, but…no. And if your memory doesn't return soon—”

“My memory is in perfect working order,” he said.

She let out a breath. “Okay, say everything that you're saying is true. That doesn't mean that there is an answer. It doesn't mean that you can go back. Maybe this was the only way that you could be saved and your sister knew it. Would it be so terrible if you had to stay here?”

She felt the tension ease out of her. Once again, he was staring at her with his crystal eyes, hazel eyes that held green and brown and, more than the color, something that oddly spoke of honor and humor, and his fascination with life. Maybe even with her.

“Oh, come on. That would hold impossible logistics,” Keith said. “He wouldn't have a birth certificate. Or a social security number.”

She didn't really hear her brother.

“It wouldn't be terrible at all to be here,” Jake said softly. His hand covered hers. “I don't know about the rest of this world. But I do know that you have created a beautiful place in time and history here, you and your
family. But what if…what if I was supposed to be in my own time? What if…I don't know. Christmas comes, and the noose tightens? More than that, I must try. You have to understand. Serena was willing to die for me. I have to make sure she is all right, that she made it home. I have to know that she made it alive and well. Truly. I could not live with myself if I did not do everything in my power for her.”

“But what if you just can't get back?” Melody asked.

“There is a way. I know there is a way,” he said. He almost reached out and touched her. He seemed to remember that her brother was there, that they were in a crowded room, and he did not. He offered her a rueful smile, and gave his attention to his food.

“We'll get you to the castle so you can rehearse. We'll be there with my folks when the party starts,” Keith told him.

“That will make the evening complete. I'll be able to pay you back for some of what you've given me,” he said.

“You really don't owe us anything, you know. Heck, you could have sued Melody for a small fortune,” Keith said.

“What?” Melody protested.

“Pardon?” Jake said.

“Oh, you really don't understand our day, do you?” Keith inquired. “We've done some good things. We've also become a sadly litigious society. A car accident like that? Melody running you down in the snow? You could sue her to smithereens.”

“But I wasn't hurt,” Jake said.

“A good lawyer could get you a bundle,” Keith told him.

“Why would I want a good lawyer to get me a bundle when I wasn't hurt? That would be horrible. A frivolous lawsuit would be a terrible event in which to engage,” Jake said seriously.

Keith looked at Melody and shrugged. “He means it.”

She rose. “Let's go. We have to get Jake to the castle.”

 

Melody was worried when she left Jake with the Irish band. God alone knew what he might say or do. The band members greeted him with claps on the back and welcoming words; they liked him. They had played with him. Music was a universal language, so they said, and it was constantly proven true.

It must be a timeless language, as well.

One of the fellows, a tall blond man, raised a hand to Melody and Keith as they drove away. “Will be seein' you later?” he asked politely.

“Oh, yes, thanks!” Melody returned.

Keith backed along the drive to make a U-turn. Melody sat in brooding silence.

She felt her brother looking at her.

“Really, Melody, what if this is all true?” Keith asked.

“It's not.”

“It could be.”

“No.”

“Then pretend he is telling the truth. What if something goes terribly wrong if he isn't returned to his own time?”

“Keith, stop it. I don't care how…how good he makes it all sound. It's simply impossible.”

“Hey—Christmas is impossible. It's faith, and faith is impossible. Is it tangible? Can we touch it? No. Does that make us all a bunch of fools or liars? Melody, what I'm saying is—”

“Keith! The truth of it all is this—he's either an actor having a hell of a time, or he should sue me because he has really whacked his head. And I'll find out he's married. And he has four children, or something of the like.”

Keith was quiet a minute. “Maybe you should just go ahead and think that way. Because you really can't keep him. He isn't a stray.”

She flashed her brother an angry glance. “I don't know what you're talking about. Of course I know I can't keep a man!”

She winced. “I mean—”

He laughed. “That didn't come out quite right, did it? You can keep a man—evidently. You just wound up keeping one that you didn't want, and now you want to keep the one that you can't have.”

She shook her head. “Give it up!”

“No,” he said, his tone quiet and serious. “No, because…I believe him more every day. And I understand how he feels. And I intend to help him.”

“Abracadabra! Magic. We'll send him back,” she said. “Honestly, Keith—”

“Honestly. You wait. Our mother will have thought of something.”

“Great, yeah, wonderful, she can contrive with Dad, and between her potions and Dad's experiments, we'll just—heck, we could blow him up. Great. Then he'll
be in bits and pieces and we'll all be in jail. It will be wonderful.”

“You don't want him to go back, do you?” Keith asked.

“Keith, you're missing my point. I just don't believe that there is a past he can go back to. And it's almost Christmas. We need to have a nice time for Christmas.”

“What happens after Christmas? When it's time to get back to the real world? Then we take him to a hospital, the police, a psychiatric ward?”

“I just keep praying that he'll figure out who he really is, and then…Keith, please, really. It would be easy. We could all fall for it, you, me and Mom. Because he is so believable. But, yes, I guess, if we don't figure something out in the next few days…”

To her surprise, her brother laughed. He reached over and tousled her hair.

“Until then, I'll just let you live the little dream.”

“I'm not living any dream.”

“You're made for each other.”

Melody swung on him. “I have to accept one thing. If we can't get him to remember something by Christmas, I'll have to bite the bullet. We'll have to find out who he really is. I suppose I should have taken him to the hospital right off, but…I don't know. I didn't. It was cold, it was snowy…I was trying to get home.”

They had reached their parents' house. Keith turned off the car engine and turned to her.

“Bizzare, preposterous, absurd. There's still just something about him I believe. Maybe he's doing the same thing. He's really just trying to get home in time for Christmas.”

“All right. Sure,” she said.

“Smile.”

“I am smiling.”

Inside, they found Mona busy in the kitchen. She was working over a big spaghetti pot, but it didn't smell like spaghetti sauce.

“What's cooking, Mom?” Melody asked.

“Something weird,” Keith said. “Hey, Mom, you don't need to cook dinner. The event is being catered. We saw all the trucks at the castle when we dropped Jake off.”

“Never you mind, children. I'm working on something for the future,” Mona said.

“What?” Melody asked her.

“It's a new recipe. I don't want to be distracted.”

Neither Melody nor Keith moved.

Mona looked up at them. “Didn't you hear me? Shoo—go away.”

“Weird smell, Mom,” Melody said.

“Herbs,” she said. “Some are very pungent.”

“That's not really something that we're going to eat or drink, is it?” Keith asked worriedly.

“Two seconds more, and I'll find the frying pan and give you a whack,” Mona warned.

“Mom, it is a bit—no, it's
very
pungent.”

“Not one of those aromas that lures you to the kitchen, for sure,” Keith agreed.

“Go away,” Mona commanded. “I need to finish this, and then get ready for tonight. Oh, and remember, dress accordingly.”

She pushed the two of them out of the kitchen. Heading down the hall, Keith looked at Melody. “What the heck is she steaming up in there? I don't want to hurt her feelings—”

“Too late, I think.”

“Oh, please! You'd let that stuff touch your lips?” Keith demanded.

“Maybe it's for the dogs.”

“Don't wish it on the poor dogs.”

“She'll tell us when she's ready, I guess.”

“Wow, you can smell it down the hall. I think all the pets are hiding. Even a blind cat is too smart to hang in close.”

“Forget it—let's get dressed. I want to get back to the castle as soon as possible,” Melody said. “Come on, we have to dress ‘accordingly.'”

“What's accordingly? I have a feeling people will show up in all kinds of apparel.”

“Probably. As far as Mom goes? I think we're supposed to avoid red and green and Santa hats. I don't know. The Wiccan stores I've been in around Christmas carry everything. I'm going to wear a long black velvet dress and that cape Mom bought for me in Salem years ago.”

“Got a dress for me?” he teased.

“Black. Basic black. You'll be fine,” she said.

Upstairs, they parted ways. Melody laid out her clothing, showered, and washed her hair. She realized she was giving particular attention to her hair and dress. Jake.

She walked over to a snow globe music box her parents had bought for her, years ago in Orlando. Beauty and the Beast danced, standing in a field of snow.

And red roses. The red roses were tiny hearts that fell with the snow when the globe was shaken.

She watched the snow and the roses fall, and she
thought about Jake, and then she realized that she did little else but think about Jake lately.

She heard a noise in the hallway and stuck her head out, certain that Keith would be about to ask her if his apparel was appropriate and if he had dressed “accordingly.” But Keith wasn't in the hall; it was her mother, and Mona was headed up the stairs to the attic.

Melody started to call out to her, but waited. When Mona had gone up the draw-down steps, she followed.

The attic was the type that might be found, certainly, in the Addams Family house. It was an absolute mishmash of old trunks and wardrobes, dressmaker's dummies, modern-day cardboard, Christmas ornaments that didn't make the yearly cut, a giant Easter bunny, dressers her father intended to fix one day, and toys. They'd never parted with anything; Mona loved it all too much. Many of the things were decades—even centuries old.