The day before Christmas Eve passed in a flurry of wrapping, typing, and preparation. Bear and Betty disappeared into the library after breakfast and weren’t seen for the rest of the day, taking their lunch at the tables by the window. Maple spent her morning after breakfast in the music room, working on something mysterious with Miss Organ. She wouldn’t even let Eagle see - or hear - what it was. Eagle flew out the window after breakfast and wasn’t seen again until nearly dinner. Mrs. Fox and Mr. Cat spent the day in the kitchen, mixing up breads and cakes with tantalizing spicy smells that they wouldn’t let anyone else see. Puppy kept eagerly peeking in at everyone, asking questions, helping Betty and Bear with their last stories.
Hilary and Troll spent almost the entire day working on their two-person (well, one woman and one monster) Christmas Carol in the cavernous ballroom. She gasped when he switched on the lights and a massive crystal chandelier flooded the room with dazzling rainbows of golden light. Yanking dusty sheets off odd-shaped forms revealed a gleaming grand piano and a stage that ran the length of the back of the room. She leaned into the soft red velvet curtain. It was finer than anything hanging at the Nixon that moment. She wanted to have a dress made from it.
“This is incredible.” She felt more like a queen than Scrooge’s fiancee as she made her way onstage. “You know,” she added, “we should do something with this room for Christmas Eve tomorrow. We could dress up, bring in Miss Organ with that piano, dance, maybe have a big dinner. I know we were just going to finish up our plans for Christmas morning tomorrow night.”
“You know,” he rumbled slowly, “it might be fun, at that. Bear and Eagle aren’t good dancers, but I don’t think they’d mind wearing good clothes and spending time with your sisters. Besides, it would celebrate our last…” he coughed loudly. “Our last week together. I don’t think we’ll be around after New Year’s Eve, unless…”
She rubbed his back when he nearly doubled over coughing. “Good grief, that one just about knocked you into the stage! Unless what?”
“Unless…” He coughed so hard, he fell to his knees, clutching his chest. “Unless…I can…the c…c…”
She hurried to the kitchen and came back with a glass of water. “Here. You do that every time we even remotely discuss that curse and what happened to this household. You still haven’t told me how you all came to live in a house owned by my ex-husband in the first place.”
“Thank you.” It took a few minutes for the wracking coughs to subside. “I haven’t told you because I can’t. All I can say is that we’ve lived here since…” He coughed again, but not as hard. “Since last September.”
Hilary raised an eyebrow. “That would have been right after Jeff and his Lost Boys came back from Europe and Pavla announced he was in love with her.”
“It’s not true! She LIED!” His voice roared with such fury, Hilary leaped back. The almond eyes flared with unbridled anger. “The only thing she loves is her career and herself. He…I…” His wracking coughs nearly sent him to the floor again. “She wanted me, too! She wanted the money, the entrance into the US, my theatrical connections. She does want to be an actress, that much is true. But we…my friends and I…we heard what she did to other actors and producers in Europe who crossed her. We knew about…what she’s capable of, but Sco…my friend who did the decoding said it was a load of hooey and we shouldn’t be afraid. He was wrong.”
“Obviously.” She helped him onto the stage. “I think we could use a good party. It’ll help us forget everything that’s going on. Especially your friend Eagle. If it wasn’t for Maple, he’d throw himself so much into those papers, he’d probably forget the rest of us exist.”
“He was always like that.” Troll managed to stand, despite still coughing. “Vic…well, he’s always been kind of an egghead. Even when he had a woman in his life, he focused on his work. I’m not sure he’d know what to do without it.”
“Another woman?” Hilary smirked. “Don’t tell Maple that. She’s wild about him.”
“She’s long gone.” He flipped through his script. “She was an actress. Wanted him to be part of her entourage, but he’s addicted to his work. You’ve seen him.” He nodded at the script. “Want to work on the first act, where Scrooge meets Marley, and then when he sends his fiancee away after she says he’s too interested in his work to notice her?”
Hilary took one look at those commanding dark almond eyes and almost melted. “Uh-huh. I’m reading Scrooge, of course.” She grabbed hold of his arm, ignoring how her fingers slid on the slimy, bony appendage.
He nodded, his boyish grin making her knees weak. “Of course. And after we work on the first act, we’ll tell Mrs. Fox about our idea for the Christmas Eve party. She already has a lot to do, but I think she could whip up something, and there’s clothes in the attic to wear.”
“Um, yes. That…that’ll work. We’ll go to her right after we work on this, then tell the others.” His eyes were so familiar! She knew them as well as her own name, but…how? How could he…it couldn’t be! It was all she could do to focus on the first lines of the script in her shaking hands. “Yes, well, we’ll start. ‘Marley was dead, to begin with, as dead as a doornail…’”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Mrs. Fox said “no” at first, when they suggested it during dinner. “I have enough to do without making party food too!” She protested loudly. “I have to finish the yule log cake, and Christmas dinner, and I haven’t even started the New Year’s food yet!”
“Oh, Mrs. Fox, I wouldn’t mind the extra work!” Puppy’s wide, blue eyes and her trembling golden paws would break any heart. “I could aid the women in searching the attic for gowns to wear, and Mr. Rabbit and I could decorate the ballroom. It’s already set up for A Christmas Carol. We could add wreaths and things, and push Miss Organ in to play music, since we could never hire a full orchestra on short notice.”
“Please, Mrs. Fox?” Bear’s big brown eyes were even wider. “I wouldn’t mind…chopping extra wood…if I could dress nice. Bear not see party. Bear never been in ballroom. Not since we’ve been here. Bear be with Betty on Christmas.” Betty just blushed as he rubbed her small hand.
“I’ll even help you with the cooking.” Troll patted her paw. “I’m not too shabby. After all, even the Master can lend a claw or two.”
That was that. Puppy took her and her sisters upstairs to the attic right after dinner. Hilary knew her sisters had searched the attic when they were looking for Jeff and the others, but they hadn’t been looking for clothes.The dark, dusty space was filled with nothing but trunks. Trunks piled on top of each other, trunks leaning against the wall, like dusty shadows. Racks of beautiful old gowns, ghosts of forty years before, lacy specters of past balls and parties.
“It’s like a museum in here!” Maple dug into a trunk and came up with a whalebone corset. “I ain’t gonna have to wear this, am I?”
Hilary made a face. “Not unless you’re a whale. Thank heavens those went out two decades ago.” She handed her middle sister a green evening gown with a full skirt and huge ruffled collar. “This might go well with your hair, though.” She pulled out a red velvet that swished when she walked for herself. “This would be just perfect for me.”
Betty and Puppy dug around a rack of smaller dresses. “This might work for me.” Betty emerged in a blue sateen dress with a slightly higher skirt and wide lace panels running down the front. “It’s a bit much, but I think that was the style then.”
“Hey, you look pretty snazzy, sis!” Maple emerged in the dark green velvet gown with the gold tulle train…and Hilary’s voice caught. “Do I look ok, Hilary? I almost tripped in this train. I mean, it looks cute n’ everything, but it’s like draggin’ the Orient Express.”
“You look just like the pictures of Mother Father thinks I don’t know he has on his dresser at home.” She tugged the skirt down and pulled the low-cut collar over her considerable decolletage. “Mother wore a dress like this when Father first started courting her. You’re so much like her, Maple.”
Betty sighed as she and Puppy admired a lacy white summer organdy dress. “I wish I’d known her. I don’t really remember her well, and C.J remembers her even less.”
“You look gorgeous in it, Miss Maple!” Puppy breathed. “Just like a princess.”
“I think we should all be princesses.” Hilary opened a smaller case. “Well, well. Look at what I found.” She pulled out a glittering gold tiara with sparkling cherry-red stones. “It’s gold plate and cheap paste gems, but it looks real enough. Too bad there’s no crowns for the men here. We could all be royalty.”
There were two more tiaras of gold and silver plate with green and blue paste gems for the girls. Betty found an adorable little girl dress for Puppy, low-waisted cranberry red taffeta with a huge lace collar, shiny red strap shoes, and a wide white silk ribbon for her curly lop ear. Hilary dug through an old, flaking leather trunk and came up with a long black velvet gown with a white apron for Mrs. Fox and a bellboy’s uniform with shiny brass buttons for Mr. Rabbit.
Christmas Eve morning was a whirlwind of activity. Betty, Troll, and Hilary spent the morning after a quick oatmeal-and-fruit breakfast putting the finishing touches on various gifts. Maple and Eagle helped Puppy and Mr. Rabbit decorate the ballroom with pine wreaths and garlands. Eagle was a huge help. He could dust the chandelier with his tail feathers, put the star on the top of the Christmas tree in the living room, and reach the highest spots to hang garlands and banners.
They all gathered around the stage in the ballroom after a lunch of hot vegetable soup and cheese sandwiches. Hilary wore green velvet and fur-trimmed cape and old-fashioned bonnet she’d found in the attic for their Christmas Carol reading. Troll’s old-fashioned suit still hung off him like drapes on the living room window and his silk top hat looked absurdly small on his enormous head, but the navy blue did look rather nice on that sickly green skin of his.
She hadn’t appeared on stage in over a year and a half, but the moment they stepped out together and Mr. Rabbit threw a spotlight…actually, a large lamp from the library…on them, it was like she never left. Troll was the perfect partner. He knew how to play off of her, when to let her command, and when to command himself. It was like they’d been appearing together for years. It just felt…right.
His reading of the Ghost of Christmas Present in particular threw chills down her spine. When he “showed” her the make-believe children under his navy jacket, she jumped away, truly afraid. When he cackled as the old man gathering scraps from the charwoman and the undertaker, she gasped in horror. It wasn’t just that he was already terrifying. It was the way his eyes looked. He made her believe it.
When they read “God Bless us, every one!” they took their bows to overwhelming applause. Bear’s big paws alone rang through the ballroom. “Hey,” he said with a cheeky grin, “you two were really good! You should have an act!”
Troll grinned that wide, toothy, boyish smile. “Maybe we should.”
She had to grab his hand to keep from ending up on the stage. “Yes, maybe we should. Um, you know, I still have things to finish, and we have to prepare for that party. Why don’t I, um, meet you at the entrance to the ballroom at 7, right after dinner?”
He nodded, rubbing her hand. “And then, maybe you’ll be ready to answer my proposal.”
She could barely breathe. “Maybe then, I will.” She ran all the way back to her room, ignoring her sisters’ calling her to help them decorate the Christmas tree in the living room. She needed time to think and process everything…but if the pounding of her heart and her head were any indication, she already knew the answer.
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