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DISCLAIMER: The name "Jericho" and all character names and trademarks associated with the television program are the intellectual property of Junction Entertainment, Fixed Mark Productions, CBS Paramount Television and/or CBS Studios, Inc. The following story is a work of fan fiction intended solely as an intellectual exercise without profit motive. No infringement of copyright is intended or should be implied.

 

Happy holidays to all!

 

 

 

 

 

Sleigh ride night was the best night.

She knew she'd liked it last year, looked forward to it this year, but now something had surprised her.

She didn't usually care about the night all that much. Darkness in general made her feel smaller, farther away from everyone else, left out. It was hard enough during the day, watching carefully as people spoke quickly, conversations jumping around and she tried to piece them together and throw her own thoughts out there before they moved on to something else. The other kids knew they were supposed to include her (so many embarrassing moments watching the teacher lecture everyone on her behalf, trying to stare back at them with a friendly enough smile like this was something that happened to everyone) but they would get excited, get interested in the thing they wanted everyone to know, and forget that they were supposed to consider her, working twice as hard as them to join in. At night when most of the light was gone, it was even harder work.

Night wasn't as important as day on the farm, anyway. Much as she didn't like being ordered to bed, she was used to the early mornings, doing her part to keep things going. Chickens. Milk. Fast cereal, do-you-have-your-lunch and where's-your-gym-shoes and a rush for the bus almost every time. Who cared about the day's end when you had such bluster and purpose at the start of the day?

But tonight, sleigh ride night, something unexpected and secret was revealing itself. Had revealed itself. The air was chilly, but not as burning cold as it had been the past week. It was a gentle cold, surrounding them softly like the snow muffling the darkness. The sleigh was a big one – her cousins charged people admission and took it around a Christmas fair in Walkerton on the weekends, but tonight they'd set up a special ride for the kids from school. Everyone was packed in tightly, squished together and bundled up in snowsuits, their faces wrapped in scarves and hoods pulled near their eyes. They weren't talking to each other, but she could feel an excitement buzzing through them as they were all whisked over the snow.

She was sitting nearest the front, nearest her cousin Will, the driver. She turned around in her seat, facing forwards, watching the horses, the bells on their harnesses catching a little light from their lanterns. She took her mittens off to lay her hands against the smooth wooden edge of the sleigh, feeling its steady glide forwards, so different from a tractor or even a horse-drawn wagon. Everything felt calm and quiet, but at the same time bursting and alive. Alive but bundled up in sweaters, covered in a coat of snow, and gently lit with stars on the first clear night this week. She turned her head up to the sky and leaned back, closing her eyes, in a darkness but with so much of this strange but comforting energy all around her. It was a welcoming moment, this night.

It seemed like anything could happen. Like wonderful things were just secretly, stealthily, waiting to happen, crouched up there in the starry sky and around them in the cheerfully chilly air. She had no real reason to think it, there was no particular lesson that'd taught her this, but she thought to herself, “Magic is real.”

Not the kind of magic people used to try to tell her about. Not wishes on stars or presents left in your stockings. That kind of magic she knew wasn't real. Last year was the year she knew it for good.

She'd already suspected it, had worried, anticipating the mourning she would have to do. Throughout the year she had been realizing little things she wished for or imagined didn't actually come to pass in real life. Stepping on a crack doesn't break your mother's back. Rainstorms don't skip over your softball games because you sing a song and wishing doesn't bring back a chick that only makes it one hour after hatching, if it's “just not meant to be.” There was no single event, no present she wished for and didn't get or dramatic reveal with a bad mall Santa wearing a fake beard. She compared notes with a few friends, some less willing to give up this kind of magic, some already resigned.

On Christmas Eve, watching Stanley build their fire in the fireplace, clinking their hot cocoa mugs together and watching a special on TV, she just knew. She sank further into the couch, kept her mug in front of her face, and reminded herself not to cry. There were a lot worse things, weren't there? Magic not being real. They had worse things to worry about, didn't they?

Not that they talked about them out loud. They always tried to keep things cheerful. It seemed more important to Stanley than her. Christmas was different from one year to another. Sometimes they went to a relative's house, sometimes it was just pancakes for two. Sometimes Stanley would get all antsy about getting the nicest tree or finding something in the attic Mom used to put up and they just had to have it out or Christmas wouldn't come and time would stop. She'd watch his face start to go red like a volcano about to erupt and then he'd catch himself and smile at her, the biggest, most painful looking smile stretched over his face. And she'd smile back.

So she kept the secret last year. Magic was pretend, a heartbreaking secret, but it seemed important to Stanley that they keep it. She hung up her stocking. She wrote a note to go with the cookies. She even woke him up early, smiling a little when he protested that even the chickens weren't awake yet. It wasn't the same, but the pancakes still tasted good, she loved the stuffed Simba and Nala under the tree, and Stanley seemed to like the cologne she bought him at the drug store. It would pass, this tiny heartbreak, the part of her that realized the sad secret in the first place seemed to be telling her. Smile and it will get easier.

It had. A year had passed so slowly but somehow she'd blinked and now it was December again. She was more at peace with magic than she had been last year. But now this night, with this moment and this certainty she still didn't understand, she could feel a new magic.

Maybe it wasn't even the right word. It wouldn't bring her a bike or make the horses talk to her at midnight after all. But the feeling was familiar in a strange way, in all its newness. Anything can happen, the wind seemed to say as it brushed her face. Such adventures lie ahead, the horses' sleek legs ambling over the snow seemed to promise. This moment, this night, something all around her, something inside of her, seemed to be repeating.

She turned around again, leaning her back against the wooden railing, looking across at the others, lost in their own private experiences as they huddled together. Stanley was sitting on the other side of cousin Charlie. He noticed her looking at him. They smiled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They didn't usually use the sleigh at night. Most of the time he used it during the day when the snow prevented their other vehicles from making the trip. It was for deliveries, really. Supplies to town or another farm. Kids to school, Mimi to work. Once in a while something exciting – Sean with a broken leg to the clinic, Christmas chocolates and other imported treats from Dale and Skylar's warehouse outside of town to the Bailey's Christmas party. Usually though, it was a combination of metal and wood, barely noticed except when it didn't work as it should and they needed to scrounge a part or tighten something that had gotten loose.

Tonight they were out of their usual routine, though part of the bigger routine of the year. There was a Christmas concert at the school. The kids had come home with the neighbours earlier but Mimi was still in town so it was just him and them and all their knitted hats and scarves and layers of sweaters, going to meet her there and watch Clark's class do “Jingle Bell Rock.” He'd fixed lanterns to the front of the sleigh so they could see the well-worn path. As usual, he found himself waiting outside with Ben as Clark and Tessa dawdled over their buttons and zippers inside. It was Ben who suggested putting the bells on the harness. His father agreed, since they were going to the Christmas concert after all. Maybe if the kids were listening for the bells, there'd be less squabbling.

After yelling into the house that they didn't want to miss “Jingle Bell Rock” and hoping that would convince Clark to hurry his sister along, they finally emerged and everyone got settled into the sleigh.

The actions were so familiar, holding the reins, directing the team, moving through the darkness, that he could let his mind wander. He went through the maintenance tasks he still had to do before the worst of the winter storms hit, that not-really-a-fight weird conversation he'd had with Mimi last night, and if they'd need to order any more feed from the store before the next supply run. It was the warmest night so far this week – the softly falling snow seemed to be helping, insulating them a bit – so the kids weren't burrowing down under the blankets as much as usual. He could vaguely hear them talking around him, but he'd lost track of what they were saying sometime back when the teachers' performance at this year's concert was the topic.

His mind drifted further and then lapsed into some sort of calm quiet as they turned the bend and went by the Wellands' ranch. When they passed the tall tree by the fence post, he looked at it against the muted, snowy sky, and found himself drawn out of the nothing he'd been thinking about.

It was like waking up, trying to remember what he'd been dreaming, but also certain that whatever it had been, it couldn't have been as real as this moment. This night, this moment, something surprising and intense and he wasn't quite sure what it was, but he felt an energy go through him. What was it? Something forgotten? Something missing or was it something found?

He shifted a bit in his seat, feeling a chill though the air was almost balmy, for a snowy night. He kept his eyes on the road ahead, blinking quickly, breathing in, feeling that – that something suddenly in the air all around them.

It seemed like he could sense everything sharply. Snowflakes falling on the part of his face not obscured by a hat or scarf. Tessa leaning beside him, squished by her older brother every time they made a turn, and Ben on his other side, patting his knee every now and then as he emphasized something he was saying. The hushed movements of the world around them, cut into by the sounds of their sleigh, horses' muffled steps, and those bells. The kids were still talking about the teachers' made-up song from last year, debating the funniest parts. This moment was so clear, so now, but it wasn't the only thing here and now. Moments before, perhaps moments that would come long after, wound over and through it all, like tangled twine or maybe like that Jacob's ladder toy he'd had as a kid. Cascading from all directions, tangling into his heart.

It shouldn't be surprising, he thought to himself. It had happened before, he remembered. In fact, it happened more than he ever allowed himself to notice. If you noticed it too often, you'd lose track of the moment happening right now, the reins you had to hold, the kids waiting for you to help them step down and make their way inside. He was usually good at not seeing it, pushing around or over or under it, not looking directly.

But some nights you could only go through it. He held on, driving them forward, breathing, hearing, looking. Waiting.

They arrived at their destination, he secured the team and the sleigh, and he watched his son run ahead to join his class for their warmup. He held Tessa and Ben's hands as they went into the auditorium, trying to push aside the thought that they would probably only let him do that in public for a short time. It would go so quickly. Mimi had saved them seats and he chuckled at her predictability – close to the front so she could see her first-born onstage, off to the side so no one would bother her. They chatted about mundane things as they waited for the show to start and he managed to join in, though his mind was still struck with the strange but familiar sense that now was so much more than now.

He half paid attention to a lot of the concert. Heather and Emily were sharing the emcee job this year and they made a funny team, it seemed, from how much everyone was laughing. Clark's class seemed to be singing in different keys but everyone applauded with gusto. Mimi's rapt attention, broken only for a moment when she caught him grinning at her and rolled her eyes but then smiled and turned back to the stage, entertained him almost as much as watching his son proudly sing and shake the string of bells he'd been given.

He mingled with his friends afterwards, eating the cookies someone had laid out for the audience and congratulating all the kids on their show. The twins took turns begging Sean for airplane rides. Johnny Green, dressed as Santa in a red bathrobe and the hat and beard that his father and uncle traded every year for the Bailey's Christmas party, kept pulling the hat back up as it slipped over his eyes (and as various friends and relatives, kept rearranging it). Skylar and Dale surprised everyone with chocolates on their way out into the night.

There were no moments of surprise on their way home, but the effects of their first trip still reverberated. Mimi and the kids talked and he joined in some of the time, but his mind wandered over memories, plans, past, future, and now.

He carried a sleeping Ben inside when they got home, feeling again that familiar, shocking wave of overlapping time. Ordinary concerns and conversations carried through the house as they took off their coats and boots. We'll fix it in the morning. No, Tessa, you're already up late. I put your favourite mug back in the cupboard, hon.

He paused a moment putting away his coat, looking down at the well-worn, very familiar orange knitted hat. He held it in his hands and closed his eyes for a moment.

“Dad?” Clark was standing there, holding onto the bag he'd been entrusted to carry inside, the Santa costume the Greens had passed over because it was his turn this year. His son looked with curious, discerning eyes. “Is magic real?”

Still holding the hat, he considered his answer. He wanted to say yes, but it's not always happy. He would have to explain then that it's not all sad either. It's strange, unexpected, familiar, and nothing like they ever told you it was. But then, he couldn't explain, could he? That was the point of it.

He decided to go with the answer his parents had taught him. “What do you think?”

Clark's brow furrowed, he stared back at his father for a moment, but then he said “I think so.”

He wasn't convinced, from that answer, but he hugged his son and let him continue up the stairs. He'd have to figure it out for himself anyway, wouldn't he?



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