Page 17 of Magically Generated
“Well, there were some very creative lyrics to the tune of ‘Jingle Bells.’”
“The Batman ones?”
“Slightly different from any Batman lyrics I’d heard before, though it was hard to tell.Even though they sang it at least a dozen times, there was too much laughter to make out all the words.”
He smiled at the image.“How old are the kids?”
“My niece is five and my nephew is three.My sister’s kids.”
“This is the nephew who gave you the dinosaur?”
“I was hoping you’d forget about that,” she muttered.
“I didn’t.In fact, I got your dino a little gift.”Just something he’d found it in his closet.
“How disturbing.”
“Please hold your judgment until you see it.”
“I’ll try,” she huffed, but her lips twitched.
It took them more than forty-five minutes to get to the latest sculpture, owing to a mechanical issue on the TTC.All the other times they’d gone to see the snow sculptures, it had been dusk, but now, the sun shone brightly and it was difficult to get a good look at the sculpture because of the large crowd.
“Dammit, I’m too short,” Nora said.
“I could carry you.”
“Ha.”
He’d been joking, but had she wanted, he would have acquiesced.
When a group moved aside, he and Nora took their place, and she had no trouble seeing past the small children in front of her.
“I didn’t think there would be one today,” she said.“The others were three days apart, so I figured it would be tomorrow.”
“Maybe they’re trying to be unpredictable.”
In her subsequent silence, he couldn’t help wondering if she had any suspicions about him—he’d come home late last night, and the next morning, a snow sculpture had appeared—but she gave no indication of it.
“What do you think?”he asked, gesturing to the two rabbits and their mugs of hot chocolate.The rabbits were sitting by a fireplace.
“I just can’t believe this was all done in one night, and nobody saw it happening.In this day and age, there’s always someone with a phone around.”
“Yeah, it does seem unlikely.”
“Yet it’s here.The sculptures are real, and that’s what I care about.In a world where people are always trying to get you to believe things that aren’t true… they’rereal.”
She spoke the last part with such conviction, and it sent a chill down his spine.
Or maybe that was the gust of wind.
“A bit of Christmas magic,” he murmured.It was truer than she could know.
She took a few pictures, and then they walked back to the subway.On the way, she absently picked up some snow and made a snowball with her mittened hands.She threw it at the trunk of a tree.
Back in their apartment building, outside their respective doors, he hesitated after putting his key in the lock.“Nora,” he said, his voice weirdly scratchy, “would you like to come in?For hot chocolate or hot buttered rum?”He paused.“As a thank you for last night.”
As he waited for her response, his heart thumped wildly.
