Page 11 of Mistletoe Sky
But just a few days ago, Amelie had read the announcement online.Willa Caraway to direct three commercials for the Mackinac Island Tourism Society, namely the Christmas Festival Committee. Amelie couldn’t believe her eyes. She wondered why Willa agreed to this. A mystery had opened up. Was that why she’d been calling?
After a bit more digging, Amelie had come to understand that the commercials were to be filmed this very Christmas season,plus in January if they needed more footage. Everyone knew that Mackinac Island kept its Christmas decorations up through January and sometimes into February. They loved the magic. There was plenty to go around. It meant there was time to film multiple commercials and capture the spirit of the season.
Amelie couldn’t imagine that Willa had readily agreed to this project. But had the Christmas Festival Committee sought Willa out specifically? Amelie guessed so. They must have bribed her, somehow. That, or Willa felt too nervous about her new position at the advertising company to say no. Amelie had followed Willa’s career enough to understand that she’d deserved her promotion for many years before she got it.
Willa was trapped on Mackinac Island. Amelie felt sure of it. It was the twin thing all over again.
The only question was whether their family had anything to do with it.
Amelie had driven from California to see her sister again. To try to protect her, if that was even possible. But the reality of seeing her like this, there across the road, nearly knocked her sideways. How could she possibly approach her after all this time?
Amelie got off her stool and pressed the end of her pen into her chin. She watched her sister intently, cursing herself for not having texted or called her back. She’d been overwhelmed, and then she’d gotten in her car and driven across the continent. Why was it always so much easier for her to drive thousands of miles than to make a phone call? She needed to be studied by scientists. She needed someone to tell her what was wrong with her.
“Can I get you anything else?” The barista was wiping the counter down and eyeing Amelie, giving her a look that meant she wanted Amelie to get out so she could close.
Amelie looked at her for a moment, then snapped her head around to watch as a carriage approached Willa, eager to scoop her up. This was a tragedy. If the carriage ran off without Amelie saying anything, how would she know where to find Willa? Her heart pounded. The barista turned the music up louder, still more proof that her shift was coming to a close. Amelie focused intently on the driver of the carriage, who was smiling happily and handsomely down at Willa. Amelie wished she could read her lips.
That was when she realized that she knew that man. They both did.
Amelie’s anxiety spiked. Reaching for the door, she reckoned with what Willa was probably going through. Marius Isaacson was the driver of that carriage; Marius Isaacson was the first person who’d approached Willa after nineteen years away. But before she lurched outside, she realized that nothing in Marius’s expression indicated that he recognized Willa. This was curious, given everything that had happened. But Willa was essentially buried in scarves and winter clothing. Nobody on Mackinac would recognize her, save for her twin sister. Amelie would have found Willa in a crowd of a million. She would have seen her in a clown costume.
But now, incredibly, Willa was throwing her bags into the carriage and getting in! Amelie couldn’t believe it. As she sat, Willa adjusted her scarves around her face and said something to Marius. She was probably telling him where she was staying. Amelie threw her head back, laughing. She couldn’t run across the street now. She’d give Willa’s game away.
The carriage clopped off, disappearing in the swirling snow.
She should have thrown herself across the street and taken Willa in her arms immediately. She should have fixed this. Now, she had no idea where Willa was.
Amelie paid for her coffee and slung her bag over her shoulder, her face a mask of surprise. She’d reached the island only a couple of hours ago, taking the 3 p.m. ferry. She hadn’t imagined that she and Willa would reach the island on the same day. She hadn’t anticipated feeling such love when she saw her sister, either. But here it was, flowing through her like blood and oxygen. She wanted to forget every horrible thing they’d ever said to one another. She wished she didn’t carry those dark memories with her. She wished they didn’t squash her spirit so.
The last time Amelie and Willa saw one another in the flesh was five years ago. They were thirty-two at the time, yet they still carried the arrogance of twenty-somethings, convinced they’d left Mackinac for all the right reasons, and that their careers were about to explode. At the time, Amelie was writing the book she was sure would make her famous (a different one from the previous one), and Willa was still writing advertising copy for the same company that had given her the promotion and sent her here. They’d agreed to meet in Tennessee for their birthday. Amelie was living in Georgia at the time, and Willa was in Chicago, so it felt like halfway, sort of. They’d rented a cabin in the mountains and planned a few hikes and dinners out. But it had rained almost every day of the trip, forcing them indoors, to read or eat or bicker with one another. When the storm got especially heinous, thunder clapping and lightning slashing through the sky, Amelie had said, “We never used to fight when we were kids.”
Willa had said, “Maybe we’re stupid for trying this. Maybe distance is best.”
They hadn’t spoken on the phone for an entire year after that. Amelie had always let Willa take the lead on their lives. She’d guessed that if Willa thought they were better off apart, maybe they were? But she’d been depressed for the better part of that year, finishing her book and struggling to find an agent, movingfrom Georgia to Texas to Mexico City. When you lost your twin, everything about the world felt incomplete.
Had the distance between them actually been the best course? Amelie considered this as she stepped out of the coffee shop and walked through the snow. They were twins, and they’d spent every moment of every day together till the age of eighteen, and maybe that was enough. Maybe they’d done all they could for one another. Their mother had said there were dreams out there, waiting for them. They had to go after them. They had to build the lives they wanted.
But what if Mom was wrong? What if nothing is waiting out there for us but money problems, advertisements, and failed relationships? Amelie wondered.
Amelie walked for a full minute, engaging with the Christmas lights, watching the last of the day’s tourists dipping in and out of shops and restaurants, removing gloves one finger at a time before they sat at ornate tables with the people they loved. She stopped outside of her father’s favorite restaurant, the one that sold thick and juicy steaks. She remembered countless birthday celebrations, cakes with buttercream frosting, and sneaking her first glass of wine with Willa in the bathroom. They’d giggled so much and given themselves away.
It was as if every inch of the street, the island, and the lake before them pulsated with memories. And as she drew herself deeper into downtown, she knew what was coming. She tried to prepare herself and calm her racing heart. She wondered if Willa had felt drawn to it as well—or if she’d rejected the notion of coming in this direction.
There it was: Caraway Fudge Shoppe, waiting for her on the corner.
But Amelie soon realized that the shop wasn’t what it once was. For starters, it looked like it had wrapped up sales early; the lights were off, and "CLOSED" was written on the sign thathung on the door. It was odd. Especially around Christmas, the Caraways liked to keep it open as long as possible to earn Christmas cash and serve the tourists who lingered later into the year. But as Amelie studied the shop, things grew increasingly dire. Ordinarily, there were still slabs of fudge in the window and in the glass counter. But it looked to her like the window was empty. There weren’t even any decorations!
Amelie hurried over to the other side of the road to inspect further. Sure enough, there wasn’t a lick of fudge in the entire room, and there was a layer of dust on the glass countertop that she knew for sure Grandma Mary wouldn’t have let happen if she’d been in there recently. Amelie felt frantic, like she wanted to rip open the door and get to work. But she also felt like a fraud. How long had it been since she’d called home? How long had it been since she’d even googled the old fudge shop? Anything could have happened in the intervening years.
She felt a stab of guilt. She’d always wanted to take over this old place. She’d had a sense of ownership, a sense that this was her destiny. But she’d squandered all forms of her destiny and wound back up here: broke, without a book, without a husband or a child, and without, really, a friend.
She didn’t even have Willa.
She took a step back to peer up at the top two floors, which were also dark. She remembered that strange year, when she slept up there more times than she could count. But she didn’t like to think about that time in her life. She didn’t want to think about how confusing life on Mackinac had become.
“Hello? Can I help you with something?”
A voice rang out from behind her, frightening her. She leaped around to find a man on the other side of the street, bundled up and leaning against the doorway of what looked to be a bed-and-breakfast, a new place that had taken the place of whatever the building had been before, painted a turquoise blue. The manwas maybe in his late thirties or early forties, with long, slender limbs and shaggy blondish hair. His eyes were playful, glinting with the Christmas lights strung over the porch of the B&B.
