Chapter Text
'Okay. That's you, Artie, Claudia, Leena, Steve, Mom and Dad, Tracy... I just need to go get Pete's.'
Ducking into a shallow alcove to avoid the relentless tide of shoppers, Myka checked names off her list while Helena set gift bags down to give her arms a much needed break. As she waited she looked around at the brightly lit storefronts, buzzing food stalls and small booths selling trinkets. In the middle, outshining them all, was a thirty feet high Christmas tree strung with lights, baubles and tinsel. At the foot of it stood a small hut marked ‘Santa’s Grotto’ with a line of children snaking out of the door and through a maze of fake snow, garishly colored Christmas trees and oversized lollipops.
As she looked across at the scene, she became aware of the acute sadness which always overcame her at this time of year. Although there had been a century of Christmases since she’d last celebrated with Christina, the only few she’d experienced in the last years before her bronzing had been cold, formal affairs in which she’d only grudgingly participated.
She didn’t know what to make of this new Christmas, so familiar and so not. Used to London streets – including the ones her family would certainly not have approved of – Helena was no stranger to busy streets and public frivolity. However, the scene in front of her was a fantasy land of illuminations. Instead of traditional carols ringing out from street corner choirs, upbeat music pumped out from unseen speakers. Harried people were laden with plastic bags instead of paper packages, dodging not carriages but bored teenagers passing out leaflets in lurid costumes.
Then there were the families, swarming past them with singing, chattering, shrieking children. Infants rode along in modern perambulators with elder siblings trotting beside them, clutching their parents’ hands. She saw expression after expression pass by – smiles and giggles, tears and tantrums. She was particularly taken by one small child sitting astride his father’s shoulders, gazing with wonder at the lights and decorations and reaching down a chubby hand to accept candy from one of Santa’s elves.
'Helena?'
She looked up as the sound of Myka's voice gently pulled her back to the present. Her friend was looking at her with an expression of sad concern, almost as if she could see her wistful thoughts.
'You okay?'
Helena shook her head and blinked away the last vestiges of her distraction.
‘I’m fine. Pete next?’
Myka nodded.
‘There’s this amazing candy store just across the way. I’m thinking a giant candy hamper.’
Helena pressed herself away from the wall, and as they left she stole a final glance at the scene that had captivated her so. Of course Myka had known, she thought. She'd been staring so intently at it all that colored ghosts of the lights still danced across her vision.
Things were quite subdued as they made their way across the busy mall. Helena could feel Myka’s anxious looks in her direction, and when they turned into a quieter hall she finally spoke.
'I'm sorry.'
'What on Earth for?'
'Back there... I should have thought, before asking you here. I didn't mean to remind you...'
A slight squeeze of Helena's hand on her arm stalled her.
'It's okay, Myka. Not all memories are bad ones.' She gestured for them to continue walking. 'Besides, I rather wanted to come. I was quite looking forward to spending time with you.'
She arched her trademark eyebrow and flashed Myka a charming grin. Then she watched with satisfaction as her usually composed friend turned a rather pleasing shade of pink. Bless Myka, she was ever so fun to tease.
A few moments later Myka cleared her throat and hesitated for a beat before speaking.
'Tell me about her?'
For a moment, Helena was taken aback. She paused, casting her mind back - through all those years that seemed both an eternity and just moments ago.
'It's okay if you don't want to, I just thought.-'
‘No, it’s just… no-one’s asked me that in such a long time.’
As they made their way nearer to the candy emporium, Myka glanced at Helena, who had dropped the charm and was lost in thought. Instead of entering the store she led them out of the mall into a side street, making a beeline for a nearby bench. Then she sat and waited, until Helena finally took a breath and looked at her with a faint smile.
‘She loved Christmas. She is Christmas, as far as I’m concerned. It was only just taking off back then, there wasn’t any of this,’ she gestured around at the strings of lights across the street and the signs offering half price sales. ‘We had an extravagant party and a tree, but it wasn’t much different to the rest of the year. Just another excuse for my parents to show off and for Charles to prattle about his latest genius.
‘Until she came along. I’ll never forget the look on her face the first time we showed her the Christmas tree all covered in candles… of course she wanted to touch them, and the year she learned to walk we were at our wit’s end. It was almost a relief the time I took my eye off her and she burned her finger. She never got too close after that, but she was still transfixed by it every time she entered the room.
‘Then when she was three she got to decorate it for the first time. My mother would only let her decorate the back branches – she never would let her cause a mess – but she loved it all the same. Her maid helped her make her own decorations from paper and string, and when I came home one night her bedchamber was covered in them. The next year we got her her very own tree, and from her reaction you’d have thought I’d given her the moon.’
Myka listened, captivated, as Helena spun tales of Christmases past, of trees and trips, outings and feasts, games and traditions – all centered around her precious girl.
‘She was never one to be seen and not heard, and of course I encouraged it in her, which incensed my mother. She took to her dance and singing lessons much more willingly than I ever did, and would flit around the room performing carols and accepting favours. She was like a little angel in her Christmas dress, and she had everyone wrapped around her little finger. Even Charles and his admirers doted on her, and they were so much more bearable when they were distracted from their usual preening.’
‘By the time she was seven, Christmas was a bigger affair. There were stockings and cards and books and songs. And of course, working at the Warehouse, there was always some extra Christmas magic. Nothing dangerous of course – the furthest I went was making it snow indoors, which made us all a little shivery until the New Year.
‘But the real joy in it all was seeing how enchanted she was by everything. She was my Christmas magic.’
All of a sudden, Helena seemed to run out of steam. They sat there for a moment, neither really knowing what to say until suddenly, the tears came. It started as a silent stream she couldn’t quite wipe away, and the next thing she knew she felt Myka’s arms around her, holding her as she wept.
It seemed she would go on forever, a century of suppressed emotion flooding out of her. But eventually she could go on no more. She coughed out a final sob before disentangling herself from Myka and taking a fresh lungful of air. Myka sat back to give her some space, simply handing her a tissue and waiting as she wiped her tears and used her fingers to rake her hair from her face.
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I wasn’t intending to cause a spectacle.’
‘You don’t have to apologize.’ Myka’s heart went out to the woman before her, for whom the happiest time of year was filled with heartbreaking memories. ‘Wanna go home?’
Helena shook her head.
‘We can’t come back all this way again, and we’re nearly finished. Let’s go and get Pete his candy.’
They stood up from the bench and re-entered the mall, enjoying the waft of heat as they came in out of the cold. Then they headed straight for the store, which stocked more kinds of candy than Helena could really comprehend. Myka grabbed two baskets and pressed one into her hand.
‘I know what Pete likes, but we can’t come here and not buy for Claudia too. Let’s go.’
In the end, they ended up finding treats for everybody. Myka’s basket ended up piled high with what seemed like every candy in the store, while Helena located truffles for Leena, fancy fudge slices for Artie, chocolate slabs for Steve and some vicious colored candies for Claudia that claimed to explode in the mouth. She even managed to sneak some Twizzlers into the basket from the display that had them in every color and flavor imaginable.
She felt quite drained after her conversation with Myka. Although barely a day went by when she didn’t think about Christina, usually her thoughts were dark and filled with fury. Today she hadn’t thought about anything but the happy times, which made her sad rather than angry. And while anger fueled her, ignited her, pushed her on, sadness just made her want to retreat. To curl up and sleep and lick her emotional wounds.
Her surroundings were suddenly overwhelming. The lights, the music, the cheer. She gritted her teeth and carried on following Myka round the store, glad that this was their final stop and soon they’d be out of here.
A minute later her nerves were shot by a piercing shriek, followed by an excitable outcry.
‘Moooooooooommmmm!!! Look at all the CANDY!’
She wasn’t the only one who turned to face the doorway, to see a little girl aged maybe five or six bouncing up and down in delight, blonde ringlets bouncing around her face. Her mother looked faintly embarrassed at her daughter’s outburst.
‘Angie! Indoor voice, please.’
The girl clamped her hand over her mouth.
‘Sshhhhhhhhhhhhh!’
‘That’s right. Sshhhh. Other people want to do quiet shopping.’
Most of the shoppers in store chuckled as little Angie followed meekly beside her mother, finger still held against her mouth. ‘Shshshshshshshshshshsh,’ she babbled as she navigated the store, and everyone else turned back to what they were doing. Helena looked at Myka wearily.
‘Done?’
‘Last thing, I promise. Just need to get some candy canes for the tree.’
They headed toward the stand of different colored candy canes, quickly opting for the traditional red and white stripes. But as they turned away, Helena heard a squeal.
‘CANDY CANES!’
She looked up just in time to see a blonde head tearing towards them before the child careered into her and rebounded off, falling hard onto the tiled floor.
Helena winced, bracing herself for the inevitable cries that never came. Instead, the girl scrambled to her feet and past Helena to grab a fistful of candy canes.
‘Found them!’ she cried as her flustered mother eventually caught up with her.
‘I am so sorry,’ she exclaimed before crouching before her unruly daughter. ‘Angela! What’s got into you today?! Say sorry to the lady!’
Big blue eyes turned on her and the girl looked up at her excitably.
‘I’m sorry! I was just getting the candy canes. They’re for our Christmas tree and then we’re going home to put them on the tree because it’s got EVERYTHING on it, except not an angel yet, but FIRST we’re going to see Santa and I never saw him before!’
‘That’s quite alright,’ Helena said weakly.
‘Come on then, Angie. Let’s go pay. Again, I’m so sorry. She’s never usually like this.’
Her mother took her hand firmly and pulled her over to the cashier’s line.
‘That must have hurt. What’s she made of, rubber?’ Myka asked incredulously as they followed to take their place in the line.
The girl and her mother were just ahead of them, and as they waited Helena watched Angie, who seemed to want to make friends with everyone and never stopped moving. She wriggled out of her mother’s grip, but was content to bounce restlessly on the spot. She turned the occasional circle and talked endlessly about their plans for Christmas, asking her mother WHEN it would be Santa time every few minutes and looking wildly this way and that. Eventually they reached the cashier and her mother quickly paid for her purchases before being practically dragged by the hand out of the store.
‘Christmas crazy, huh?’ Myka asked as they made their way to the till. ‘Was Christina ever like that?’
‘I’d have liked to see her try. Spoiled, perhaps. Disobedient, no. Behaving like that, I’d have had her home and straight to bed before she had time to say ‘Christmas’.’
It seemed to take forever to ring up all their items, but eventually they were finished and started heading in the direction of the parking lot. They headed through the crowded main section of the mall, and all Helena wanted was to make her way through the crowds and get home. But suddenly Myka stopped so abruptly that she walked into the back of her. Confused, she looked around to see what was going on.
There was a commotion going on at the foot of Santa’s Grotto. Several mall security guards were hurrying towards the scene, where a crowd was gathered at the bottom of the Christmas tree. At the front, a woman they recognized was screaming.
‘ANGIE! Angie, COME DOWN! Come down to Mummy, you’re going to fall!’
Helena followed her gaze upwards to see what Myka had seen – a small blonde figure climbing resolutely up the huge tree. Angie seemed deaf to the commotion below her. She climbed upwards and upwards, the branches becoming perilously thin and spindly.
‘She’s after the angel,’ Myka whispered beside her.
Everyone in the mall held their breath as her mother sobbed, security seemed clueless as to what to do, and Angie continued obliviously on her mission.
After what seemed like an eternity, just as the crowd began to part for the ladder being carried towards the Grotto, she finally came within arm’s reach of the sparkly golden angel. With the top of the tree swaying perilously, she reached one arm up and snatched it from the top of the tree. Then she looked down, and Helena thought she saw an expression of pure joy on the child’s face before suddenly, she fell.
Her mother’s scream echoed throughout the silent room as she dropped like a stone towards the floor. One of the guards was nearly knocked over as he caught her, another lifting the limp child from his arms before he staggered to the floor. Then they watched with horror and fascination as Angie’s entire body became rigid and she started twitching.
Myka and Helena looked at eachother, Myka wearily voicing the thought in both of their minds.
‘Artifact?’
‘Artifact.’