Page 32 of Holly and Ivar
The trees fell away beneath them.Wind rushed past.Snowflakes sparkled like stars.The forest became a patchwork of white and green, and Holly laughed from the rush of it all.How she’d missed this.
And Ivar?He groaned behind her, his grip on her waist tightening as they soared forward, then suddenly down, descending into a clearing of untouched snow.
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tree's company
Ivar
Themomenthisbootshit the snow, Ivar bent double and retched into a nearby snowbank.His head spun.He’d flown.On a broomstick.In the sky.How could any of this be real?
Maybe he’d hit his head last week helping Eli hang Christmas lights, and he’d been in a coma ever since.Either that or his research into the Kringle family had been a waste of time because Holly Kringle—beautiful, infuriating, impossible Holly—wasn’t related to Santa Claus.
She was a witch.
He turned to find her, half afraid she’d turn him into a frog, and froze.
The clearing stretched out around them, hushed and perfect, with snow lying thick on the ground.But it was the tree at the center that held him.
It towered over every tree in the area and was alive in a way that defied everything he knew about life.Its bark shimmered faintly, like moonlight breathing through wood grain.Light threaded through the branches, not from any visible source but from within—silver and gold, shifting like embers.The air itself pulsed to an invisible rhythm, as though the forest had a heartbeat.
“This is it,” he whispered.“This is the tree.”
He took a step closer.An ache rose behind his ribs that was half wonder, half recognition.As a boy, he’d stumbled into the woods terrified and lost, and the light had found him, protected him, and wrapped him in warmth.
The truth hit him with force.He hadn’t imagined it.And now, the tree welcomed him back, as if it had been waiting.
Holly stood several yards away, utterly still.Her expression was somewhere between awe and surrender.For a long moment, he didn’t move, afraid to disturb her communion.Then he saw the glint of a tear sliding down her cheek.
He crossed the snow quietly, removed his gloves, and slipped his hand into hers.
The moment their fingers touched, the air around them stirred.A faint hum rose.It was low, melodic, and not sound so much as vibration.The wind lifted, swirling the snow into slow spirals around the clearing.The snow at their feet began to glow with a soft, pulsing light that spread outward in concentric circles.
Holly gasped, her fingers tightening around his.“Do you feel that?”
“Yes,” he answered, though he wasn’t sure either of them had spoken aloud.
Warmth spread from their joined hands, up his arm, through his chest.Her heartbeat synced with his own, matching the pulse of the earth.
The branches above them swayed despite the absence of wind, and the roots of the tree became visible beneath the snow—a glowing lattice spreading outward, and up, up, through the earth and into them both, pulsing with the same silvery light that ran through the trunk.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the phenomenon subsided, leaving only a subtle shimmer that seemed to emanate from the tree’s very essence.
They stood hand in hand in the hush that followed, breathing in unison.
“You didn’t imagine it,” she whispered.
“No,” he said, voice rough with wonder.“I suppose not.”
“I thought...we all thought it was a myth.”
“We?”he asked.“Like other witches?”
That earned a laugh, and she turned to him.“No.Not like other witches.I’ll tell you everything, but not here.Not now.For the moment, let’s just be… here.”
He looked from the tree to her, and the shimmer of light seemed to live within her, threading through her skin like starlight made flesh.In that moment, the forest faded, and she was all he saw.Radiant.Impossible.She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever known.
For a heartbeat, everything—her, the forest, the light—was bound together, bound to him.His entire world.Everything he needed.All that he wanted.
