Page 20 of Mistletoe

None came. A lucky break, for once.

Careful to step quietly, Hal made his way toward the tallest building. Tall being relative. It was three stories tall, hardly the skyscraping towers he remembered.

This place, though, felt familiar. He couldn’t say why exactly. In all this time in captivity, his brother had sketched out the basics of what happened. The colony ship went off course. The new planet had complications.

Mutations, to be exact. That he knew. Ethan had been transformed into a vampire. Hal into… this.

That was as far as the conversation went. Draven never mentioned the world outside his mountain fortress. Hal never asked.

The buildings crowded together haphazardly with little concern for safety codes or regulations. The town was like something out of a historical drama. Quaint. People in costumes. The entire situation felt unreal, like a glass barrier separated him from reality.

The tall building was a music hall or theater. He entered through an attic window. Footsteps of a dozen people in a hurry sounded below, along with chatter and shouted orders. There was the rhythmic stomping of feet, which meant dancing and the noise of a band.

No one bothered with the attic. It appeared to be used for storage. Judging from the dust, no one had been in the attic in some time.

It was dry and out of the wind. Despite the cold seeping in through the uninsulated walls, it was the ideal spot to wait until dark.

Then what? Return to the abandoned cabin? Return to Emma’s barn? Hal had no real plan. Living moment to moment as he had, imagining any kind of future seemed presumptuous.

Hal waited. He failed. Patience was never a strength.

Moving as quietly as possible, he searched through the old trunks and boxes. Frilly sequined costumes filled trunk after trunk. They were amusing but not useful. He found a dusty makeup box. The pans of paint had dried up, but a tube of white grease paint remained usable. He smeared the white paint on the back of his hand, testing the coverage. It hid the green completely.

Very useful. The grease paint wouldn’t fool anyone up close, but with the scarf covering his lower face, it might be enough to escape notice if he kept a low profile.

He tucked the tube into the coat’s inner pocket and patted the lump, pleased that he had a plan. Wait until dark. Return to Emma’s barn.

Presumptuous, he knew, to rely on her hospitality. She had been kind to him once before, but no further obligation existed.

On her side, at least. Hal felt an obligation to repay her kindness. How remained a mystery, which summed up his existence nicely.

More waiting. Music drifted up through the floorboards. For the first time since he fled Lord Draven’s mountain fortress, he had time to sit with his thoughts.

He didn’t enjoy the experience.

That persistent glass barrier he sensed earlier kept him detached from much of his memories. He could see them but not reach them, touch them to confirm that they were real and not wishful thinking. He came from a world with advanced technology, but those luxuries were for the wealthy. For the working, for those barely scraping by, the flying cars, household automatons, and spaceships might as well have been fairy tales. For far too many people, clean air and water were unreal. He knew all that, but it felt like another person’s lived experience.

Not him. Someone else called Hal Radcliffe.

He adjusted the scarf, inhaling the scent of rosemary and lavender.

Emma was real. More real than phantom memories. There was a pull that connected them. He didn’t understand only that it was more than the kindness she showed him. It was real.

She made him real.

Chapter Seven

Emma

Sweetwater Point

Sheriff’s Office

Hours passed.The sheriff placed Emma in a cell in the basement. Floorboards creaked from people walking above, causing dust to rain down. Murky light filtered through the dirt-covered window high in the wall.

She was locked in the dungeon, essentially. It was cold. It was damp. Emma could perfectly imagine succumbing to some dreadful, old-fashioned malady.

The situation was unacceptable. She needed to be released.

---