Page 19 of A Winter in Wonderland
Chapter 9
I woke to an insistent knock on the door.
‘Myla Everwood, are you all right in there?’ came Daan’s voice.
I leapt out of bed and ran to the door, checking my jeans and jumper were all decent and not bunched up weirdly. ‘I’m so sorry, I fell asleep,’ I cried, mortified. Oh God, I was already messing up and I’d been in Lapland less than two hours.
‘It’s OK, I’m rounding people up, I think quite a few travellers have experienced the same thing.’
He was so nice, thank God. Promising I’d be down in less than a minute, I yanked open my case and threw my belongings around the room, looking for my hat, then swiftly pulled on my boots, coat and scarf, and after a quick check of my appearance, added a little dab of glittery highlighter to my sallow cheeks, and raced down to the lobby, just in time to hear Daan explain what we were doing this evening.
My tummy growled. I hoped we were going for food. I bet Lapland had great food.
‘Tonight, we’re heading over to have some fun at … Santa Claus Village,’ he proclaimed. ‘Tonight is, drum-roll, the official opening of this year’s Christmas season!’
I gave a gasp of joy along with the others while in my mind I wondered how the Venn diagram of Fun at Santa Claus Village would intersect with Myla Needs Some Grub. I gave my tummy a little rub right at the moment I met Josh’s eye, who was standing the other side of the Christmas tree. I dropped my hand and looked away, a little concerned he might think I was signalling I was either planning to eat him or have his baby.
There were more people here now than I’d arrived with, additional staff members who’d reached the hotel at different times during the day, so our little group was perhaps around forty, forty-five strong? This suited me just fine. The bigger the crowd the easier it was to get lost within it.
It was a ten-minute walk to Santa Claus Village, a park which held Santa’s Main Post Office, various shops and cafés, and amusements, and as we neared, I was kissed from all sides with air chilled to minus fourteen degrees Celsius – colder than I’d ever experienced at home – plus falling snow, twinkling lights and Christmas music coming from speakers. I really didn’t think I could be anywhere else on earth than in Lapland right now, especially since I was about to witness the opening of Christmas. Officially.
I couldn’twait.
No, sorry, I promised Shay I would give this a good go and so I had no choice but to embrace all the magic of the season. Sigh.
When we stepped over the threshold into the central square of Santa Claus Village, my heart had a battle with my head. The old me, the child version of Myla who still sparkled when the days counted down towards Christmas, felt her eyes widen and a smile twitch the corners of her mouth. She felt a rush of deep-down excitement and belonging and familiarity and wonder because this place was beautiful,magical. But the grown-up Myla, the Myla I was now, wanted to turn and run all the way back to London because I didn’t think I could handle this overload of the senses, these overwhelming reminders of what Christmas has become for me.
From where we stood in the square, I was surrounded by wooden cabins, their roofs sloped and trimmed with fairy lights, some with steeples rising into the night sky. The dark night air was cold, but warm lamps of green, red, purple and pink pooled at the bottom of the large pine trees and around the footprint of the buildings. Soft white snow slept upon the buildings and the ground. Christmas trees with tiny white lights dotted the edge of the square. A trombone solo of ‘Jingle Bells’ floated through my consciousness.
‘OK, first thing is first,’ Daan said, clapping his hands together in the manner of a school teacher who drew the short straw and had to take out a group of unruly teens. ‘The celebration will be busy, lots of people arrive from all over the world to witness this evening, so out of courtesyfor the holidaymakers we ask that, even though this will be a very special evening for you too, please stand back and enjoy from a distance. You can still join in all the fun, but don’t, what is the phrase, hog the limelight.’
We all nodded dutifully and I looked around me at the shops and cafés that made up the surrounding buildings. The pièce de résistance appeared to be a larger building constructed of wood and stone, with an arched entranceway and a big illustration of a smiling Santa. This was the Santa Claus office, and I wasn’t sure what went on in there but other people from my group were excitedly trying to edge towards it.
I spotted a series of tall, red pillars with stone bases, all in a line, withARCTIC CIRLEwritten down the length of them. Now, that looked a little more my scene. When Daan gave us the OK to explore, I made my way towards them, blowing into my hands as I went.
This was pretty cool. I stood a step back between two of the Arctic Circle pillars and knew that at this point, I was crossing the line to where I would experience polar nights, known in Finland askaamos. I closed my eyes for a moment to let this sink in, the sounds and smells of Santa Claus Village, of music and chatter and laughter and aromatic mulled wine being pushed away from the forefront. Tomorrow I’d be heading further north into the Arctic Circle, further into Lapland, further into the dead of winter and away from England, from my family and friends and my cosy flat that was no longer mine anyway. There was no turning back after this point.
With my eyes still closed, I took a deep breath through my nose, filling it with Arctic air, and stepped over the line.
And squashed my nose against someone’s back.
I opened my eyes in time to see Josh step away in surprise, and then turn to me with that big smile of his.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t really walk backwards in a crowded place, I guess.’
‘I shouldn’t walk with my eyes closed,’ I admitted, rubbing my nose.
‘How cool is this place?’ Josh asked, putting his gloved hands in his pockets. ‘It’s winter wonderland!’
‘Yeah!’ I tried to match his enthusiasm. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing Luosto the day after tomorrow though; it looks beautiful in the pictures.’
‘So beautiful,’ he agreed.
‘Hey, um, sorry again about the plane, I didn’t … ’
‘ … You didn’t think we’d be colleagues for the next two and a half months?’
‘Yes. Sorry.’
