Beloved Tradition

            Alicia Winters sighed as she stepped into the shortest checkout line. It was at least a mile long, probably stretched all through the store, ending somewhere near the dairy produce. She fought the scowl threatening to transform her face into a fearsome mask, and smiled as the elderly lady in front of her glanced back.

            “You’re getting so little,” the woman commented, eying the few random goods Alicia was clutching to her chest. “Did you do all your Christmas shopping early?”

            Normally such an innocent question would have been answered courteously, but today was not the best of days. In fact, it was, for all intents and purposes, already night and Alicia would really rather be home. Asleep. Forget homework. That was her justification for the lies that came out of her mouth, but really there was no reason to be so cruel.

            “Oh, we don’t celebrate Christmas the same way as other people,” she said sweetly, smiling. Anyone who knew her would have noted the sharp edges of her grin and backed away. Although it wasn’t like anyone actually knew her.

            The little old lady in front of her looked mildly affronted at the very idea of someone not enjoying a good, wholesome, traditional Christmas, complete with consumerism and a little dash of fable. It just encouraged Alicia.

            “See, we get together with all of our extended family.” Was that a brief look of relief on the woman’s face? Not for long. “We trade off whose house we stay at, and this year it’s ours. I’m so grateful that all of my little cousins finally get to see the great town I live in. They’ve really been enjoying the weather, because some of them live where it’s sunny all the time. We can hardly get them inside for dinner. But tonight’ll be different. Tonight is when the real celebration begins.”

            There was a look of consternation at her last sentence. Christmas eve wasn’t for a few days.

            “See, today is the solstice,” Alicia continued, glad that she’d noticed the little words on her calendar that morning. “Traditionally we go outside as soon as darkness falls, but Dad forgot to buy some of the materials we need.”

            Now it was time to get creative. The objects in Alicia’s arms did not lend themselves to obvious witchcraft or Satan worship, so she would have to tailor her story slightly. She had a pack of white shirts, a blown glass vase, a set of turkey carving knives, and a bag of colored marshmallows.

            “I don’t think it’ll matter too much, though. We’re only going out back to the barbeque pit. And Mom got the lamb a week back so we could start feeding it properly.”

            The woman’s eyes were bugging out of her head by this point, and she seemed extremely uncomfortable. However, Alicia knew that she also wasn’t positive about the conclusion she’d drawn. She would remain an attentive audience for a while longer.

            “I just really wish I hadn’t had to run to the store. We really need the knives to begin and the sooner we start the better.”

            The old lady turned away from Alicia, deciding to ignore her. Or attempt to. Her concentration was fixed firmly on the contents of her cart now. Well, it didn’t matter. Alicia didn’t have a cart, so she could stand right behind the woman and keep on with her story.

            “See, when I get back, Mom’s going to take the knives, and she’s going to kill the lamb. We’ll catch the blood and use it to draw symbols onto our shirts. The symbols will bring us a happy, lucky new year, but after that they’ll only bring bad luck, so once the lamb is dead and skinned, we’ll start up a fire, burn the old shirts, and roast the lamb. Then it’s time to chant and dance around, offering up meat to the demons who watch over us. Usually someone gets possessed and starts having a fit, but only three have ever died that I know of. Once this is through we have to keep vigilance until dawn, so we’ll sit around the fire and tell Christmas stories and roast marshmallows. Then, when it is dawn—.”

            The woman seemed to finally get enough. With a huff of annoyance she yanked her cart to the side and scuttled off towards the back of a different line. Alicia moved forward and a minute later found herself facing a bored looking cashier.

            She was grinning the entire way home, her smile still in place as she slipped inside her house and scampered up the stairs to wrap her gifts. The gullibility of some people was astonishing. Surely the woman could see that she was just buying a few presents.    

Lack of Words

            Jacques felt his insides nearing the consistency of butter with all of the churning they were doing. The hallway leading to his father’s study suddenly seemed inordinately long and ominous. The once friendly, turquoise walls with their smiling goldfish that he had helped paint suddenly felt dark. The fish were mocking him.

            Slowly, holding the platter of cookies his mother had handed him carefully level, he made it past his door. It was painted sea foam green with silvery bubbles. On the right, he passed by the open bathroom door, the interior glowing rosily and invitingly. Then he was edging past his older brother’s door, the point of no return. The crabs there, with their sharpied in mustaches and eyebrows, looked particularly frightening.

            The door to his father’s study lay at the very end of the hallway. It remained obstinately plain, a dark varnished hardwood thing that seemed to ridicule the rest of the walls for their cheerful decorations. It was also ajar.

            Jacques paused once he was close enough to hear his father talking on the phone. He was busy. He was always busy, something that Jacques’ mom, Kelsey, seemed to conveniently forget every time he was in the house. The fact that her husband spent most of his time either locked up in his room with business, or out traveling irked her to no end. And when he wasn’t around, she spent almost no time in the house. She claimed that the decorations he’d helped paint just reminded her of him, but Jacques had the sneaking suspicion that she just wanted to spend all of the money her husband made.

            Today she had been in an exceedingly cheerful mood, however. Cheerful enough to interrupt Jacques’ homework and demand that he help her make cookies. He hadn't refused, and once they were out of the oven he figured he'd done enough. But then she’d handed him a platter and told him to run off and give it to his father with a pat on the head.

            Taking a deep, fortifying breath, he pushed his way into the dreaded study. Directly in front of him was a large window. He remembered sitting on the windowsill and day dreaming when he was younger. Beside it were large bookshelves. The room expanded to the right, and it was against the far wall that is father sat, desk a barrier between him and anyone who would approach.

            He was on the phone, leaning back in his great leather chair, legs propped up on one corner of his expansive desk. The rest of its surface was littered with papers and open folders and the monitor and keyboard of his computer.

            He glanced up as Jacques slipped in, frowning slightly. His concentration was only broken for a moment, though. Then he returned to the phone conversation.

            “Uh-huh,” he nodded. It sounded as though he was being lectured or something. Impatiently, he gestured for Jacques to approach.

            He did, platter held before him like an offering that might save him from being told off. His arms trembled slightly under the weight.

            “Um,” Jacques mumbled, ready to explain his mission, but his father held up a hand, cutting him off. The voice on the other side of the phone buzzed on. The clock hanging on the wall ticked loudly. Jacques swallowed.

            “Urrrr,” he tried again, lifting the plate a little higher, so his father would notice it.

            With great and obvious annoyance, a cookie was snatched up and slammed down on a closed folder. It crumbled slightly, shedding small chunks in fright. It needn’t have worried, though, because Jacques’ father promptly ignored it.

            Jacques waited another moment, hoping to see some sign of appreciation or at least a promise that the food would be eaten so that he could report it back to his mother, but none came. Dejectedly, and under the baleful glare of his father, he shuffled back out into the hallway, latching the door behind him.

            Just as he was preparing to head back to the kitchen, the door beside him was wrenched open and Jean stood there. His hair was sticking up slightly and he looked as though he’d just woken from a nap on one of his textbooks. He drew up short at the sight of his younger brother and all of the cookies.

            With a grin, he snatched one up, shoving it completely into his mouth. A look of bliss crossed his face, his eyes closing and his mouth turning up slightly in a smile that caused the few crumbs stuck there to tumble onto the floor.

            “Mm-mmm,” he exclaimed, ruffling Jacques’ hair. Before the younger boy could react, his brother’s hand had settled firmly between his shoulder blades and he was being guided back into Jean’s room, his cookie plate growing lighter by the minute. 

Blue Thoughts

            Summer sunlight flickered through the trees above them. Her hand was in his, warm and soft. Her nails were chipping and painted in reflection of her usual quirkiness. The thumb had been blue with yellow stars stamped on, but now it only had one star in a small patch of shining color. Her hair was floating freely, too. It washed against his shoulder in a light breeze. Her face was turned away from him, but he could still make out the color of one eye. It was brown, with a ring of green close to the center. And her skin was tanned, but smooth, with a dusting of barely visible freckles. He wondered vaguely if she had Scottish or Irish blood in her. It would account for her hair color and some of her temperament at least.

            As though she could feel his attention on her, she turned to look him right in the eye, smiling brilliantly. He felt the moment rise, expectations pressing against the back of his eyes, feelings crowding to his tongue like it was a life raft, but he had no words that would adequately describe his jumbled thoughts. She didn't even seem to notice his dilemma. In another moment she had turned away and was saying something about the weather, or the garden, or how her brother would really love this place, or maybe she was explaining how she would be heading back to boarding school soon.

            Elliot had never really thought of himself as the type to have a school boy crush. The fact of the matter was, he hadn't really thought about liking anyone in a long time. Maybe when he was young enough, before his parents died. Maybe when he was still in elementary school and most of the other boys had been avoiding girls because of their coodies. He wasn't sure, couldn't remember. But it still remained. He had never expected to find himself in this position. Ever.

            There was a knock at his door and he scrambled to stuff the small ribbon, bright blue like the sky had been that day, into his pocket, or behind him, before the door opened all the way. Lily was standing there, frowning at him. Her eyes were sharp and always had been. She stood there a moment, not speaking, just casting her suspicious gaze around his room. When her attention finally returned to him it was with some impatience and annoyance.

            "Mom's going to be late tonight. As usual. So I'm going to make dinner. Is there anything you'd prefer?" she asked in a sullen tone. Elliot couldn't understand why she was so upset. After all, they had just spent the majority of their summer in the presence of her boyfriend, Matt, and soon they'd be returning to school where she'd see him all day.

            "Yeah," he said after some careful consideration. "I'd like a meat lover’s pizza with extra cheese, mushrooms, olives, and pineapples."

            Her face suffused with color at this and she slammed his door without even commenting. She had been a vegetarian since he'd met her some eight years back and nothing had changed. Unless one counted an increase in her angry defense of harmed animals.

            It didn't matter, though. He would order the pizza himself later. In the mean time... Sophia Piper. She was out of his reach now. Her parents had driven her to school two days ago so that she would have time to get settled. Thomas had gone too, which was also a pity, although not as great a one as Sophie's escape. He had really meant to tell her how he felt before she left. Because it had to mean something that he always wanted to be around her, to hang out with her, even if he was in a bad mood and wanted to talk to no one. It had to mean something that she had heard about his parents and shown just the right amount of sympathy and understanding so that he wasn't overwhelmed with pity. It had to mean something that she could be as childish and as adult as she wanted, and bring these things out in him. It had to mean something that her whole family just welcomed him with open arms as though he was as much a rightful member of it as she was.

            But no, he had chickened out at the last minute. That day, under the tree... Her mother had arrived to pick her up moments later and she had scampered off after giving him a hug that was more enthusiasm than accurate. She had been gone for a good five minutes, and he had sat there thinking for those five minutes, before he'd noticed the blue hair ribbon that had slipped free and now lay in the grass beside him. It was satiny and smelled faintly of grass and the shampoo she used. Of course, if he kept running it through his fingers, the smell wouldn't last, but the important part was that it was a reminder of Sophie, the Sophie he'd known.

            People change, and he knew that quite well. In one moment they could become something completely foreign. So it was important that he remember what she had been, how she had made him feel, in case she wasn't the same when they next met. Oh, but he hoped she was the same. He wasn't sure how he was going to last an entire year of school before he saw her again. Maybe he'd be able to visit the Piper house for the holidays, though. That might be nice. As long as she returned. He got along well enough with Jean, but Mat was not his favorite person no matter the facade he put on for Lily's benefit. He hadn't really gotten to know any of the other Pipers. It would be awkward to be at her family home without her there. It would seem so much more empty.

            "Elliot, dinner!!" Lily shouted from downstairs. She sounded just about angry enough to have poisoned him, but he knew better than to tempt her further. If he didn't come running she would hunt him down.