Page 43 of Christmas Ever After
I try to piece everything back together. The reindeer have been decapitated in the fall, and the trees are in shards, but part of the snowy ground they were standing on has come loose, and I wriggle it around. It’s loose because it’s not actually joined. With thick glycerin liquid and an abundance of glitter on top, you’d never be able to tell, but in broken pieces right in front of me, with nothing obscuring it, it’s not joined… so it can revolve freely.
As I pull it, I can feel something below it, and I shift around on the floor until I can grip the broken base between my thighs and give the loose part a sharp yank, until it comes away, revealing a tiny motor that’s wired up to the same circuit board.
We’ve got a motor, a tiny electrical hub, and a power source, all in the base of the snow globe. So how does he do it? Is it remote controlled? Does he press a button somewhere and the loose part revolves? Surely he would have been caught out by now. And in my shop, when he handed me the globe, both his hands were on it, there’s no way he could have had a hidden remote somewhere…
Hands.That’swhat the thingamabobs and pinprick holes are! That’s why, on every snow globe I’ve seen him give so far, he’s carefully positioned the hands of the two people holding it. When he handed the nutcracker snow globe to me, there were inadvertently two pairs of hands holding it.
I shift again until I can jigsaw the base into an approximation of what it should look like. Four thingamabobs. Four pinprick holes. Two on each side of the wide base. Absolutely impossible to cover with one pair of hands.
Even though the motor itself has got wet, I lay the motorised part of the base on my leg, and try to grab all the thingamabobsin my left hand, and sure enough, when all four of them are in my grasp, the motor sputters and burns out with a pop.
And it all starts to make sense. Horrible, profiteering, money-grabbing sense.
The thingamabobs are sensors. The pinprick holes, hidden inside the fancy swirls and scrolls and decorations on each base, are hiding motion sensors, so far apart that it’s impossible for one person to cover each one at the same time. It’sonlywhen two pairs of hands hold the snow globe together that the sensors detect the motion, send the signal to the motor, and the motor spins a cleverly disguised section of the scenery inside the globe.
This is why it only ever works once – because how many people ever pick up the snow globe together again? How many couples ever have all four of their hands in the exact same position as the first time? None of them. My mum shook up her snow globe many times, alone. I shook it up when I was little, willing it to show me the magic she’d once seen inside it, but nothing ever happened.
When Raff gave me that nutcracker snow globe, I was never meant to see it move because he never intended to hand it to me.
Because one pair of hands can’t cover the sensors that trigger the movement. One pair of hands can’t uncover the secret, unless they drop it from a great height onto a hard surface and use their thighs as a substitute hand.
And now,thispair of hands has uncovered the secret and…
…and it feels like the sky is falling.
I immediately wish I didn’t know.
After all the time I’ve spent with Raff lately, Iwantedit to be true. I wanted him to be a magical snow globe maker. I wanted his grandfather to really be the matchmaking guru that his family revere him as. I shouldn’t be as surprised as I am. I’ve always known it was a trick. Everyone knows that magical matchmaking snow globes aren’t a real thing, but everythinghas felt so magical with Raff lately, that I’d kind of hoped… that maybe there really was some kind of enchantment going on here. If there was any magic in the world,hewould be able to channel it.
And now I have this information in my head, and I don’t know what to do with it. A few weeks ago, I’d have taken a photo for proof, dashed from the shop and phoned the local newspaper while simultaneously posting it oneverysocial media site. I’d have been over the moon to discredit Dardenne Snow Globes and humiliate them in the most public way possible.
Emotions war in my head as I sit there on the floor, surrounded by bits of broken snow globe. This is exactly what I’ve wanted since the moment we were pitted against each other. This is a one-way ticket to saving my shop. All I have to do is reveal this information and the council will kick him out immediately. There will be no contest and my nutcrackers will be safe.
But things are different now. The thought of Raff being publicly humiliated makes me want to wrap my arms around him protectively. If this gets out, it will destroy him, and his family. His lovely, warm, kind family, who all genuinely believe their grandfather had magical powers.
The thought of being the one to ruin that spurs me into scrambling to my feet. I sweep the broken bits of base into the dustpan, and when I throw it away, I bury it at the bottom of the bin, hidden beneath the other rubbish. The last thing I want is for Raff to know that I know. I don’t want him to think I’ve got something to hold over him. He’ll worry that I might tell people. He’ll know I’ve got this ace up my sleeve – that I could reveal this information at any moment and end this competition between us once and for all. A few weeks ago, I’d have been jumping for joy – now, I wish I didn’t know. I don’t want to win over him –I want usbothto win, and it would feel horribly wrong to even think about undermining him with this revelation.
I’m still pacing the shop in frustration, wishing I could wring my hands together when Raff comes back.
‘I come bearing gifts.’ He holds up two steaming paper cups with a mountainous swirl of whipped cream on top of each one from the pop-up hot chocolate bar that’s arrived on Christmas Ever After for the month. ‘Well, hot chocolate. It would be a pretty rubbish gift, even if itisTerry’s Chocolate Orange hot chocolate. You okay?’
With one look, he can tell instantly. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I dropped one. I’m so sorry. I should have known better than to pick up something valuableandbreakable with one hand. I’ll pay for it, obviously.’ I had no idea what I was going to say until the words come out. ‘And I lost a customer.’
‘Dead?’
I snort at the randomness of his response. ‘Not that I know of. Splashed shoes and an overwhelming fear of “you break it, you buy it”. Are dead customers a regular occurrence?’
‘Well, I wondered if you’d dropped it on her head or something because you look like you’ve spent all afternoon burying a body. C’mere.’ He puts the hot chocolates down on the counter and reaches a hand out, and when I step closer, he tucks my hair back and brushes glitter out of it and picks a few snowflakes from the strands. They must have been where I pushed my hair out of the way while cleaning up.
Before I know what he’s doing, he’s draped an arm around my shoulders and squeezed me into his side. ‘Don’t worry about it. The living customer or the dead snow globe. These things happen. Why are you so wound up? You can’t honestly think I’d hold that against you?’
‘I’ll pay for—’ I go to repeat but he doesn’t let me finish the sentence.
‘Don’t be daft, I won’t hear of such a thing. It happens. Why d’you think there’s a hazard sign behind the counter? If there’s one thing I excel at, it’s causing hazards. Don’t give it another thought. Are you okay? You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?’
I shake my head mutely, struggling to come up with an answer in the face of his compassion.
