Chapter 14: A Quiet Sunday?

When I woke up on Sunday, it was a lovely bright but chilly day, the sun streaming through the window. I must have slept through to mid-morning. I awoke without a dare in the world and noticed that Junior was already up and I swear I could smell bacon grilling.

“Hello darling, favourite hubby of mine,” I declared, “sorry I overslept, you must’ve worn me out last night.”

And that was the last thing I remembered of the previous night as I kissed him on the cheek.

“I thought you were the one who exhausted me, because I got up twice in the night for snacks and both times you were in the dining room writing in your journal. You were so into it I didn’t want to interrupt, especially the second time, it was almost dawn and you had obviously gone out during the night because you were dressed for outside and not in your pyjamas.”

“I had? I don’t remember going out,” I really didn’t.

“I suspected you were out putting a secret Santa prezzie under the tree in the Main Square.”

“I’ve seen presents there, piled up, do people do that?

“Of course they do, but you wouldn’t know that because this time last year we were still strangers and we spent all our time on Christmas Day and Boxing Day in the Main House and didn’t visit Elf Town and the Main Square until after Christmas. By that time all the Secret Santa presents had been handed out and opened. We’ll be there this Christmas morning after the big breakfast though. So, if you weren’t ‘Secret Santa-ing’, where were you?”

“I don’t remember...”

I honestly couldn’t remember anything other than strange unconnected snatches of dreams.

“Perhaps this will remind you?” Junior held up a winter coat with one hand and opened his other fist to reveal pine needles in his palm. “These were in your hood. And there is paint on the back of this coat. Any idea where that came from?”

He turned the coat and I could see the yellow paint run down the back.

I shook my head. I didn’t have a clue, but I, pointed out, “That, Junior, is not even my coat.”

“On the BBC News this morning, there had been an arrest for terrorism, a young man known to the police, investigated for plotting some terrorist attack on his computer, if convicted he would probably get 25 years without parole. They showed a snatch of film of someone with a coat over his head being led away from Shane’s block of flats. Know anything about that?”

Again, I didn’t remember a thing.

“What about your journal?” Junior suggested, what does that say?”

Well, I had an answer on that, a golden rule apparently.

“Wylenmast told me never to look back or read any previous entries, or correct anything because it would affect the clarity of my new entries. I was to be candid in my entries as he would edit it and let me approve the final draft. I even had to start each new entry on a left hand page so, as, not, to see what went before.”

“We must read your journal.”

We did and it was exciting and disturbing stuff, more fiction than fact, but I didn’t remember any of the last week’s entries.

Junior pulled a lovely wooden box from his Santa’s sack. It looked how I had described James’ box from his mother, me.

“Did you know that Gronwynk’s husband is a master cabinet maker? Hykrone’s work is often described as masterpieces and he and St Nick are old friends, almost since St Nick arrived here in the middle of the 4th century.”

“Where did that box come from, other than from your sack?”

“My wardrobe at home, that’s where I keep it.”

“No, silly. Where did you get it?”

“I was a teenager in England when WWII started but by Christmas 1942 I was 18 and was called up to serve. With my gift for languages I was drafted into the SOE, trained for six months then sent to Holland to help the resistance as a spy. Walking through walls came in handy as well as sifting out naughty double agents. On 6 December 1943 St Nick ported into my room in Holland and gave me that box, saying that one day my wife, meaning you my dear, would need this to revisit a place, he emphasised, to right a wrong. But to remember that whatever was in the box works only one way.”

“Did he tell you not to open the box?”

“He did, and told me to only open it when you, my future wife, told me to.”

“Please open the box, Junior.”

He opened the box, inside was a replica of the Santa Claus figurine that had come to me from St Nick as I had apparently described in the journal.

“We can use this to go back to 2045.”

“We?”

“We. I’m not trusting you to go on your own, Jen. If we can’t get back here, at least we’d be stranded together.”

“Wait, before we go, I need to check the tree for a secret Santa present.”

“Why?”

“Just in case.”