December 5 – Zoey

Molly came back to herself again as Jade accepted the little gingerbread house. “But won’t your father miss this for the season?” the Snow Queen asked.

“No,” Sarah said, smiling. “He’ll be able to see it here every day. Besides, he’s the boss now. He doesn’t have to drive around if he doesn’t want to.” She looked slyly over her shoulder and winked at her father, who had just stepped up as the chief of police for Carter’s Cove.

Jade carefully hung the ornament on the tree as Sarah made her way back to stand with her family. When the Snow Queen turned back to the crowd, Molly saw that Lily’s best friend Zoey had taken Sarah’s place. In her hand was something Molly recognized instantly.

“This is from our very first year at Carter’s Cove,” Zoey said, holding up the snow globe. “I didn’t believe in magic when we moved here, especially not Christmas magic. I thought it was something that only little kids believed in. After all, I’d never really SEEN magic. Not like this.”

When the fog cleared, it was dark, and Molly smelled smoke. Not the comforting smoke of a Christmas fireplace – this was thick, choking smoke that forced its way up her nose and down her throat, carrying with it the tang of loss and fear. Schrodinger pressed himself against her. 

“I’d forgotten how bad it was,” she said, watching the firemen fighting to save Zoey’s home from the fire that had been started by an electrical spark while they’d been at the Snow Queen’s ball. The remains of the decorations that they had all put up in the family’s front yard were trampled, wet, and stained with smoke. The entire house had been a total loss.

And yet, I’ll bet Zoey still thinks this is the best Christmas she ever had, Schrodinger said. He jumped slightly as one of the roof timbers fell into the flames with a crash. Even as they lost everything, they gained so much.

It was true. The entire Cove had come together to replace nearly everything that had been lost to the fire, and the family had been bundled into Molly’s own family for Christmas Day. And that too had been a day…

As if her thoughts had conjured it, the fiery night turned to the bright sunshine of morning, and she watched Old Man Winter’s sledge come up the driveway to the ruin of the house. Everyone got out, and Zoey opened the box that had been left for her under the tree from Santa. She took the snow globe out, shook it, and then stepped back, astonished, as snowflakes had shot from the ornament. They whipped around the yard and then into the hole that had once been the house. As they all watched, the house had rebuilt itself, including all the decorations that had been a gift to the family. 

Molly blinked, and saw they were back in the present. Zoey was saying, “I thought this was the worst move we’d ever made, coming to this town, because nothing ever happened in small towns. I thought I’d miss the city we’d lived in before. But Carter’s Cove is the best place in the world to live, because of the people.” She held out the snow globe to Jade. “The magic is just the icing on the cake. I don’t ever want to live anywhere else, because there isn’t anywhere else where people are your friends even if they don’t know you.”