Page 99 of Sweet Silver Bells
“You’ll hear it always, the song,” Olivia promised. “The Earth, it’s all around us. Calling me, calling us.”
A man stopped in his tracks, staring at Olivia in disbelief. “Will you save a dance for me?”
“I’m spoken for,” she said. He shrugged and walked away.
Olivia held out her hand for Hunter to grab, and he obliged. It was unbelievable that anyone here wouldn’t already know that he was hers. He felt his chest puff out, his posture straighten, like a peacock presenting to keep other suitors away.
Her hand in his was soft, and she gripped him hard. Her touch always felt good, but now it was a new type of euphoria, a glittery new drug running through his bloodstream. The snowglobe effect around him made the lights glow a little brighter, and the greens especially were more pigmented. Everything else, though, had become extremely displeasing, nearly hurting his eyes.
Electricity seemed to hum, a loud buzzing in his ear like a fly that wouldn’t leave him alone. Furniture that would be considered handsome—sofas, tables, and chairs, seemed victimized—like dead bodies fallen where no one could hear them scream.
The marble floor, which moments ago was shiny and gleaming, was now a portal threatening to open up and swallow him whole.
But Olivia stroked his cheek, bringing his focus back to her, and it felt so good, too good, like he was now in a dream, and her touch would convince him to never wake up.
“What did you do?” Hunter asked.
“You said yes,” she said, before pulling him forward, walking him out of the ballroom and back through the foyer where the Christmas tree had so much life, so much passion—so much beauty that felt like he was in the presence of God. Tears pooled in his eyes.
“Yes to what?”
“To being free.”
The humming, the electricity, the music that no one else heard—it was all still moving around him, caressing him, whispering to him, seducing him.
Olivia kept her eyes forward, guiding him away, not stopping as eyes in the room darted to her, the maiden who was practically running for the door.
The loud crashing sound of the grandfather clock flowed through Hunter’s body, the vibrations in the floor moving up through his feet, his knees, as others around them toasted to the stroke of midnight.
Merry Christmas.
“Whoa, whoa there!” The door attendant laughed. ”We don’t give refunds for lost glass slippers. Where are you off to so quickly?”
It was hard to tell with the music around him, with every heartbeat adding to the beat and rhythm that serenaded his soul, but Hunter heard discordant voices and screams behind him. His head was light, and it was hard to look back, like looking to the past was no longer something he would ever be capable of—as if he really had been set free.
Olivia ignored the man, pulling Hunter down the walkway. Instead of going to the parking lot, her heels hit sleet and snow over grass as they turned the corner, marching over the picnic area and straight toward the forest.
Hunter’s vision was still affected, and now that he saw only nature in his view, he wondered if anyone had ever seen a beauty like this before. The white on the ground, the frost and the ice that dripped off of bushes that marked their path—all of it was a ghostly transparent diamond light, filling what should be darkness, a disco ball of sparkles and joy, a shaken snow globe where he was the nutcracker inside watching a world of wonder.
“The world is new.” Hunter stopped moving, taking it all in.
His heightened sense of touch was overwhelming. He responded to Olivia’s pull against him in the way a wolf would react to a bunny—carnal, wanting, needing.
Everything in his world was a sensation; everything in the world rang true with life.
The music swept him off his feet, begging him to waltz.
The trees in the distance called out to him. They sang, begging him to submit to a dance before he walked out into the night with his haunting love.
“Forever,” he said. “My body is saying forever.”
“It will always be like this,” Olivia said. “I’m happy you like it. I’m happy that you can be a part of me now.”
“Now?” Hunter asked. “Olivia, what did you do?”
“I made it so you can be with me forever,” she said, tugging on his arm again, pulling him further until he stepped under trees, until he was in her home.
Our home.
