CHAPTER NINETEEN
A few weeks later,on the Friday night before finals, Avery has Leo, Aaron, and me over for a holiday party. I’ve taken to calling our little groupThe Clairs, but only in my own mind. It’s my way of distinguishing them from the O-Chi’s, because yes, my life has become that compartmentalized.
Avery welcomes me into her apartment with a flourish, her multitude of bracelets tinkling like bells.
“What smells so good?” I ask.
“Spiced cider.”
From the sofa, Aaron winks. “Hardspiced cider.”
Like an eager child, Avery opens the small gift bag I hand her. “Krampus!” she laughs when she pulls out the scented black candle. “This is fantastic.” She lights it and places it alongside the others on the windowsill, making sure to spin the jar so we can all appreciate the demon on the label.
Leo arrives the moment I flop down on the couch. He’s gone rogue tonight and is wearing color—a deep wine-red, to be exact—that brings out the rosy brown in his eyes. In the flickering candlelight, they’re mesmerizing.
He greets us all. “Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Seasons Greetings, whatever?—”
Avery interrupts, “Yule, Leo. Yule and only Yule.”
“Okay, then,” I say, “So how do we celebrate Yule?”
“Drink. Everyone come get some cider.”
We all squeeze into the kitchen and ladle the hot, spicy beverage into our mugs. As we sip, Avery tells us about Odin’s Wild Hunt. I know a bit of Norse mythology, but not this tale, and it’s one that shocks me. On the Winter Solstice, Odin rides through the sky on his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, striking down the bad people and showering the good with gifts.
“Get your chin off the floor, witchling,” Avery says when she recognizes the shock on my face. “Christians didn’t invent Santa Claus.”
“I don’t know who sounds worse, Odin or Krampus. Why do we have to scare the hell out of people to get them to be good?”
Aaron flashes us a grin. “I say, why not just let them be bad?”
“Cheers to that!” Avery clanks her mug with Aaron’s and we toast all around.
Why not be bad, indeed? I’ve spent almost twenty years trying to be good, or at least trying not to disappoint people. But why? Because I feel their disapproval so keenly? Maybe one of these days I’ll muster up the nerve to be bad, just for the fun of it.
Back in the living room, I take my time admiring Avery’s holiday decorations. Real evergreen boughs, pomanders, pinecones, and a wreath made of bound twigs and orange slices.
“What’s with all the oranges?” I ask her.
She licks the sweet cider off her lips. “They’re a symbol of the returning sun.”
Hmm. There’s something primal about celebrating the longest night of the year and the brighter, warmer days to come. We modern humans like to think we’re above nature and that it doesn’t impact our daily lives, but it does.
“I could really get into this Yule thing,” I say. “It’s peaceful.”
“I know.” Avery sighs and inhales the citrusy, spicy scents. “Gotta get my fill before I go home to the Bauer family holiday chaos.”
I nod in sympathy. I’d love to spend the season enjoying the crisp air and chasing the dark away with candles, but there won’t be time for that. For the first six days of the break, I’ll be in Raleigh with Zander, visiting his family. Then I head home to my own.
Double the families, double the chaos.
Avery tells us she’ll be spending half her break in Palm Beach for her sister’s equestrian tournament. Evidently, she has two sisters, both younger than her and both everything her parents want Avery to be. “I’m the black sheep,” she admits with a shrug.
What follows is a chorus of “me too’s.”
Leo shocks us all by revealing that he has a sister.
“How old is she?” I ask. “What’s her name?”
