Ivy looked up at her with her big eyes. Holly let out a sigh. The reindeer weren’t to blame. As far as they knew, humans couldn’t see them. They weren’t used to having to work to stay hidden.
“I know,” Holly said, petting the young reindeer’s head. “It’s okay. Things are just a little strange around here. I think the four of you should try to stay hidden in the forest during the daytime, just in case.”
She let out a breath and decided to change the subject. “Painting Santa’s sleigh is on the agenda today. Not ours,” she added quickly when Dasher looked toward the golden sleigh stashed deeper in the woods. Though the sleigh was supposed to be invisible to anyone’s eyes but hers, after Ash’s comment, she wasn’t certain about anything. She’d covered it with a few branches that morning for good measure. “It’s for Emerald Hollow’s holiday parade.”
Holly chatted with the reindeer for a few more minutes, soaking up the sunrise. The reindeer seemed content to nestle their heads against Holly’s palm. It still felt strange to be still, not constantly dashing from place to place to capture Cheer or to avoid losing it.Is this something that could continue if I unlock the secret of the Cheer at Emerald Hollow? Is that something I would even want?
A low whistle snapped her out of her thoughts, and she turned to see Comet loping toward her. “Hello, puppy,” she said, walking toward him. She threw a quick look over her shoulder and was relieved to see the reindeer dashing into the woods.
Once Comet reached her, he rubbed his head against Holly’s hand eagerly. A few moments later, Ash emerged from around the corner.
“There you are!” he called to Comet, who didn’t even glance up from his love session with Holly. Ash smiled when he saw her. “He usually comes immediately when I whistle. Apparently, he likes you more than me.”
“Maybe he smells the re—the roll I was just eating.”
“You’re out here early. What time do you want to get started on the sleigh? I can take you over and get you set up whenever you’re ready. Should we grab some coffee to go?” Ash was talking in that overflowing way he had a habit of, all of his questions coming out one after another.
“Oh, I don’t drink coffee. But I’d love a hot cocoa,” Holly said, and Ash raised his eyebrows.
“How do you survive without caffeine?” He looked at her as if she were a living miracle.
“Too much of it makes me feel weird,” Holly replied, thinking how overstimulated she typically was from the signals of all the emotions around her. She’d added caffeine on top of that in the past, and it had been a disaster. She wrinkled her nose at the thought.
Ash put his hands up in a show of surrender. “All right. All right. Hot chocolate, it is. And three espresso shots in a mocha for me.” He rubbed his hands together.
Holly wondered if that explained his seemingly endless energy and enthusiasm.
“Aren’t you cold? Do you want my jacket?”
She was wearing a thin brown sweater and jeans, while he was bundled up in a Carhartt jacket. Holly hadn’t expected to see anyone that morning, so she hadn’t taken her usual care to dress appropriately for the weather.
“I’ll grab my coat when we go inside,” she said quickly.
Once they were inside, she went to her room to gather her jacket, beanie, and scarf while Ash ordered their drinks from the café.
Her watch was humming pleasantly, and she checked to confirm the Cheer meter was already at capacity for the cycle. Unlike when she’d come in the fall, she wasn’t in a rush to return to the North Pole and discharge it. Something about the Cheer in Emerald Hollow had led to the brightest light the North Post had given off in years, and she had to figure out why.
Holly almost felt like she could hear Lumi Kringle whispering in her ear, telling her toexperience. She decided that the best course of action was to simply go with the flow in Emerald Hollow, against everything she knew about gathering Cheer. If an opportunity was presented to her, she would take it. She would live like a resident and see where that got her. And at the moment, that meant painting a sleigh.
* * *
Ten minutes later,Holly and Ash were in a small workshop on the Emerald House property, situated between the main building and the woods. The workshop was laden with scraps of wood, metal, boxes, tools, and old paint.
“We do lots of projects for the house and the town activities out here,” Ash said, reading Holly’s thoughts.
“Is the sleigh in here too?” Holly peered around the piles, searching for anything that looked like a sleigh and not seeing anything.
“That and all the other float supplies are behind that wall there.” Ash pointed at a tall wood wall that covered half the space.
He walked toward it, and Holly followed. Her eyes immediately landed on a dilapidated wooden sleigh in the middle of the makeshift room. The red wood on every panel was chipped.
“It got left outside for a few days after the parade last year by accident.” Ash looked a little guilty, and he scratched the back of his neck. “We got a bunch of snow during that time, and the paint didn’t hold up too well.”
Holly nodded, glancing at the cans of paint and boxes of decorative supplies. The building must be where Ash stored all the seasonal decor that didn’t fit in the storage room inside the hotel.
“We load up the sleigh on that flatbed trailer when it’s time for the parade.” He gestured through a window in the back of the workshop to a trailer parked outside.
“Do you decorate the trailer too?” Holly was taking in everything around her, her brain doing inventory automatically.
