Fate Succumbs (22 page)

On our first day there I
discovered an old, tattered edition of
The
Foxfire Book
along with
War and Peace
and
Anna Karenina
. I promptly ignored the
two giant tomes, despite not having read anything since Liam bought
me a Nicholas Sparks book at a gas station outside Milwaukee and I
paid him back by reading a few choice selections aloud. However, up
against the magnitude and overwhelming literary-ness of
War and Peace
and
Anna Karenina
, even
Nicholas Sparks sounded appealing.

The Foxfire
Book
, on the other hand, quickly became my
new best friend. My dad’s father had a full set of them on his
bookshelf, and always liked to tell me how when my zombies came to
overtake the earth I would need to remember where those books were
so I could survive. Turns out, I did need the books to survive,
although it was the wilds of Canada forcing me to live without
modern amenities instead of the living dead.

We didn’t have a gun, which
would have made hunting a bit easier, but I made spears out of
limbs from the trees Liam chopped down. Pairing my Shifter
super-abilities with the hunting tips I got from
The Foxfire Book
, I was
able to kill something one out of every three hunting trips. Then,
once again using the book as a guide, I would dress and cook my
kill.

The first time I served Liam something he
could actually eat I couldn’t stop smiling long enough to eat any
myself. My heart hurt from wanting to call Jase, Charlie, and
Talley and relay my many accomplishments, including my new mad
cooking skills.

Every afternoon, just before the sun
disappeared, we trained. I taught Liam martial arts, and he taught
me to fight dirty. I taught him how to use a stick like a bokken,
and he taught me how to stab someone with a knife. We both ended up
bleeding onto the freshly fallen snow more often than not, and
loved every single moment of it.

The only time our schedule changed was in
December. I was making an impassioned speech about the injustice of
using basket weaving as the go-to easy college major in my head
while attempting to coax some splints I made into a hamper when
Liam came stomping through the forest, a tiny evergreen tree
trailing in his wake.

“
What on earth are you
doing?” It would have made more sense to hack it to bits where he
chopped it down and bring it back piece by piece.

The smile stretched across his face made him
look all of five years old. “It’s December sixth!”

“
Yes, I saw that on the
calendar you insist on etching on the wall.”

His boyish enthusiasm wasn’t the least bit
marred by my cynicism. “It’s Saint Nicholas Day!”

“
Of course. Saint Nicholas
Day.” Whatever that was. “You do remember I’m not Canadian,
right?”

The temperature had dropped throughout
November, and now we looked forward to days where the high was only
three ice cubes below freezing. Rarely did we venture outside
without the full regalia of hats, scarfs, and gloves, but Liam had
shed his ubiquitous Trapper John hat, letting snow crystals
decorate his chestnut and copper hair. His teeth were a brilliant
white and his eyes almost silver against the redness of his
cheeks.

“
Saint Nicholas Day is a
European thing, not Canadian,” he said, smile still firmly in
place. “My family always celebrated by putting up our Christmas
tree and getting candy in our shoes.”

Europeans are so weird.

“
So, this is our Christmas
tree?” It was a small affair, not nearly as filled out as the fake
tree my mom put up every year, but I kept my mouth shut out of fear
of sounding too much like
Peanuts
’ Lucy. Not to mention, I
would really hate for a dog - or wolf - to show me up by proving
how a little love could make even the scrawniest of trees
beautiful.

Our normal daily chores were suspended in
favor of getting the tree inside and set up. Once it was firmly in
place, I couldn’t help myself.

“
O come all ye faithful…” I
began.

“
Joyful and
triumphant…”Liam joined in.

We made it through the first three words of
the second verse, and then realized we didn’t know any more.

“
Liam?”

“
Yeah?”

“
We could be the two worst
singers in the history of the entire world.” I don’t actually know
anything about pitch or harmony or any of those things which
signify good singing, but even my tone-deaf ears could hear how
much of a train-wreck that was.

“
Even worse than that girl
who was really happy about it being Friday?”

“
Yes. Even worse than
Rebecca Black.”

Liam sighed. “I guess that means no more
Christmas carols then.”

“
What are you talking
about? We’re going to sing all the freaking time. Did you know no
one else lets me sing? Angel says it hurts her ears, and Jase says
I throw off his rhythm. But you…” I poked him in the chest. “You
can’t sing either. I can’t screw you up any more than you can screw
me up.”

Liam’s laugh was rich and deep, and I
briefly wondered how anyone who could sound so good laughing
managed to sound so awful when he tried to sing. “And we’re out
here in the middle of nowhere. No neighborhood dogs to upset.”

“
Exactly! We’re going to
become a freaking Disney movie, singing about anything and
everything!”

And while that may have been a tiny bit of
an exaggeration, we did sing every Christmas carol we knew over the
next few weeks. We even decorated the tree. I folded soup labels
into little stars and fashioned tinsel out of Pop-Tart wrappers.
Liam cut a star out of a Cheerios box and stuck it on top. When
Christmas finally rolled around it looked…

Well, it still looked like
a really crappy tree covered in trash, but it was
our
really crappy tree
covered in trash.

Christmas morning started like every other
non-full moon morning. I woke up wrapped around Liam, burrowed into
his warmth. That morning I sent up a silent prayer to Baby Jesus
that Santa’s gift to me would be getting to spend a few extra
minutes enjoying Liam’s body heat and smell without accidentally
waking him up. In the end, though, I didn’t risk it. Yes, the cold
sucked, but not as much as having to own up to the fact Liam and I
snuggled every night.

I snuck out of the bed and tip-toed across
the cabin. From behind the cans on the third shelf of the left
cabinet I gathered two wrapped packages. Liam started to stir at
the crinkling of paper, and I raced across the room and threw them
under the tree. Then, I turned around, gathered as much air as
possible into my lungs, and yelled with all my might, “It’s
Christmas! It’s Christmas! Santa came! It’s Christmas!”

Liam threw the covers over his head, and I
giggled. No wonder Angel did this every year. Torturing people with
Christmas Cheer is fun.

Well, it would have been
fun if I hadn’t broken my own heart by thinking of the little
sister I missed more than geeks miss
Firefly
.

No,
I thought to myself.
You need this.
Liam needs this. You
will
have a merry little Christmas, and not in the
wrist-slitty Judy Garland way.

I wiped the moisture from my eyelashes and
dove onto the bed.

“
Come on, Sleepyhead!
It’s
Christmas!
”

“
Hey,” came a voice from
his cocoon. “Could someone maybe tell me what today is?”

“
It’s
Chhhhrrrrriiiisssssttttmmmmaaassss!” I yelled, pulling back the
covers.

Liam’s glower would have been much more
impressive without the twinkle in his eye. “You know, a perky Scout
is not only wrong, it’s really disturbing.”

“
Up and at 'em, Grinchy
McGrinch. I was visited last night by the spirits of Christmas
Past, Christmas Present, and Buddy the Elf, and now I want keep
Christmas in my heart all year long. Wake up so I get a move on
it.”

Of course, mentioning being visited by
spirits at night nearly made me cry again. I didn’t know where Alex
had gone, but I hadn’t seen him since I fell asleep on the bus a
million and a half years ago.

God, was Christmas always this
depressing?

“
Come on.” The words came
out sounding more like an actual desperate plea than barely
contained excitement. I plastered an overly wide smile on my face
to compensate. “It’s time for Christmas breakfast.”

If Liam noticed my slip in enthusiasm, he
didn’t show it. “Oh no, we’re not having spaghetti and maple syrup,
are we?”

“
One, that’s a dinner meal,
not breakfast.” I pulled him up into a sitting position, but only
because he let me. “And two, we don’t have any maple syrup because
I’m living with the only Canadian in the world who doesn’t know how
to make it.” I slid off the bed, only slightly wincing at the sharp
sting of coldness on my feet. I had two pair of the super-expensive
socks on, but that helps very little when you’re in the middle of
the frozen tundra with nothing more than a tiny fireplace to keep
you warm. “I do have a special breakfast treat for us, though,” I
said, digging around in the cabinet, stretching on my tiptoes to
reach behind the barrier of cans I constructed two weeks ago. My
hand finally touched cardboard and I pulled it out with a flourish.
“Pop-Tarts!”

Liam was across the room before I could even
pry them open.

“
You said we were out,” he
accused, jerking the box out of my hand.

“
I lied,” I said, grabbing
the box back. “I was saving them for today.” They weren’t cinnamon
toast, the traditional Christmas breakfast in the Donovan
household, but brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts was as close as I was
going to get. When I realized we were down to only one box, I put
them back so we would have a special Christmas morning treat. I
knew Liam would have found it more of a treat if it had been some
ridiculous non-breakfast flavor, like chocolate, but a Pop-Tart was
a Pop-Tart, and any Pop-Tart was better than our normal breakfast
of plain, no sugar or flavor added, oatmeal.

There was a strong chance I would never eat
oatmeal or canned food again once I finally made it back to the
real world.

And I would not think about how very little
time I would have to eat anything before I would have to face off
with Sarvarna and her Knife of Doom once we returned to
civilization. It was Christmas. We were going to be festive, damn
it.

We each ate a package of Pop-Tarts and
agreed to split the last one on New Year’s Day. When I couldn’t
stand it anymore, I sent Liam to the tree.

“
You bought me presents?”
Liam never showed much emotion, but over the months I began to pick
up on the slightest change in tone and facial expression and was
able to decipher the stronger emotion lying beneath each. The
slight widening of the eyes and nearly imperceptible twitching on
the right corner of his mouth was new, but I knew what it meant all
the same. Liam was touched by my big-hearted kindness. I saw the
potential for one of those deep bonding moments Sam and Dean have
all the time on
Supernatural
and reacted quickly.

“
Yes, Liam. I went to the
mall and grabbed you something from The Gap, but I had to order the
other one from Amazon.”

The corners of Liam’s eyes crinkled and
there were lines down each of his cheeks were he suppressed a grin.
I knew this look well. It meant he was laughing at my awesome wit.
Sadly, it was a look I saw on the rarest of occasions, so I allowed
myself a moment to bask in its glow before bringing the focus
back.

“
Open them,” I demanded
impatiently.

He tried to take his time. I imagine he is
one of those people who carefully lift each corner of a wrapped
gift, but since I only had empty potato chips bags to work with, it
didn’t take long for him to unwind the top.

He spent a long time looking down into the
bag.

“
Your socks.”

Liam pulled them out of the bag. “I
see.”

“
No you don’t.” I leaned
over and examined the toe of each before flipping one up for his
inspection. “This is the one you hooked on that board by the front
door. I darned it for you.”

“
You darned my sock? You?
Scout Donovan?” This time a full grin spread over his face. “Jase
would be so proud to hear how domesticated you’ve
become.”

“
I cook. I clean. I darn
socks. I’m a regular June Cleaver.” I clasped my hands together and
batted my eyelashes. “Oh, Liam, do you think Santa brought me a
vacuum cleaner? And maybe a new washer and dryer?”

Although, in truth, I would have loved a
washer and dryer that would magically work in the forest without
electricity. Breaking the ice at the creek where we got our water,
hauling up a few buckets to the cabin, heating them in the washtub
over our outdoor fire pit, and then scrubbing our clothes with one
of the millions of bars of Safe Guard we had was the exact opposite
of fun and easy.

“
Actually,” Liam said,
reaching under the bed. “I think Santa might have brought you
something useful.”

When Liam pulled my gift out from under the
bed I couldn’t stop the single tear that snuck out of my eye and
trailed down my cheek. I wasn’t expecting any gifts from Liam, and
the ones I wrapped for him - a darned sock and a bag full of nuts I
gathered - hardly showed the same thoughtfulness and level of
awesomeness as what he handed me.