On the First day of Christmas...
Well, the first day of Christmas is finally here! Today marks the launch of the brand new Christmas short story I've been working on surrounding the Twelve days of Christmas.
The
Twelve days of Christmas that the song traditionally refers to actually start
on December 25th and carry on into January – there are reasons for
it, but I don’t really know them that well (Wiki will be able to tell you all
about it). But I thought that there was something kind of nice and magical
about the lead up to Christmas instead, so for my story that is just what it
is: the twelve days leading up to Christmas, starting on the 13th
and ending on the evening of the 24th.
The story is called Twelve to Heart: Abby Leightley's Greatest Christmas, and without further ado, we'll begin with the first day:
On
the first day of Christmas, Abigail Leightley woke up to the chilly dawn,
rubbed her eyes and shrieked in terror as a mysterious bird flew in through the
window and landed on the dresser.
It was bizarre for all of three
reasons: One, because Abby didn’t own a bird and couldn’t fathom how it had got
there in the first place; two, because she was pretty sure it was a partridge
and reading had told her they didn’t like heights much; and lastly because it
was wearing a very tiny Santa hat and green scarf.
Abby stared at the partridge for a
moment, and the partridge stared right back at her.
Memory provided the image of her
shutting the window late last night after stumbling back to her flat
from the pub, and for the life of her she couldn’t figure out why it was open
now.
Throwing back the covers Abby vaulted
out of bed, ran to the window and looked out onto the Street. It was a cold
morning and little gusts of snowflakes flicked along the wind from outside
to nip her nose, but fortunately the window didn’t appear to be broken. Or
fiddled with – which was a relief considering East London wasn’t the safest
place in the world to live.
Still, someone had opened it somehow
in order to let the bird inside.
A cooing sounded and Abby turned back
to the stare at it, noticing a card on the vanity when she did.
“What..?”
She rushed over snatch it up. It was a
Christmas card with a tree on it, she thought it may have been from the Twelve
days of Christmas but it was so artsy Abby couldn’t really be sure.
Opening it, she read the message.
On
the first day of Christmas, your true love gives to thee: a Partridge named
Frosty... A pear tree was too hard to get in this weather. Pears and kisses –
X.
Well, that sort of explained the
Partridge sitting on top of her dresser, but not necessarily how this ‘X’ got
it and themself into the house.
Although, there was one thing she
hadn’t thought of yet.
“Jess? Did you let someone into my
room with a bird last night?”
Her flatmate, tall, blonde,
goddess-like Jess padded in from the living room. “Not exactly,” she said with
a sheepish grin. “It was this morning. Cute guy; tall, tanned and very handsome
– said you knew him.”
“Did he say what his name was?”
“Nope – told me to keep it a secret.”
Then the grin shifted to one of conspiracy and intrigue. Abby hated when Jess
got that look because it meant that she was up to something that she probably
wasn’t going to like. “You’ve got a secret admirer, roomie. Enjoy it!” Then as
she turned to head back to the kitchen and continue with the breakfast museli
potion she was concocting, added, “By the way, before you freak out, he didn’t
go in your room; he gave the note and the bird to me and told me what to do.”
But that still never explained why the
window was open.
Abby Leightley worked at a publishing
firm in Central London, not far from Fleet Street, and had a head so filled
with stories she pretty much suited her job.
She was an editor, not in chief or top
dog or anything like that, just a run of the mill editor who happened to
specialise in romantic fiction. She was lucky enough to score herself a
wonderful job almost three whole years ago at the tender age of twenty-three
and hadn’t looked back since; she’d even slogged it hard through the GFC and
made herself a pretty little niche in the company.
But as she strolled through the doors
that morning alongside Jess, resident young adult fiction editor-in-chief and
boisterous roommate, she was too distracted to think about the latest pile of
fuzzy romances sitting on her desk.
Not even the sight of the delicious
Damien McAvoy, adventure fiction editor and the love of Abby’s life for three
years running, managed to take her mind off of the mysterious partridge and Christmas
card from X.
The thought of having a secret admirer
was somewhat upsetting for a number of reasons. The first of which was that she
had no idea who it could be and that made her nervous; the second because she
was so over the moon for Damien that she’d suffered nothing but a string of
failed dates over the past few years; and lastly because of who she was.
As a romance editor, she read a lot of
romances. It went without saying that Abby had a supremely shaped and idealised
view of how romance was supposed to be, and every day she had yet another book
to enjoy that left her with fuzzy feelings about love. She also spent a good
deal of time fantasising about Damien, usually that he did for her what the
heroes in the stories she read did for their leading ladies, and as Jess had
told her a hundred times already, that wasn’t necessarily the healthiest.
But that never stopped Abby from
wishing on a star at every opportunity. This was likely to be the third
Christmas that she silently prayed to Santa to tie Damien up in a little bow
with a change of heart and big step to the better side of the friend zone. For
the third year in a row, Abby kind of expected to be disappointed.
That was probably the biggest reason
that the secret admirer was so unsettling; she was worried she wasn’t the best
person, ironically, to appreciate the romance of the whole thing. What if she couldn’t
enjoy it the way it was meant to be enjoyed?
“Morning, Bee, you have enough coffee
yet? You look a little spaced out.”
Abby practically jumped a foot in the
air when Damien appeared at her elbow with a pearly white grin that never
failed to dazzle her. He had a Starbuck’s coffee in his hand that he wiggled at
her in offering.
Blushing, she took it and held it up
to cover her face.
“Sorry, Dee – was just off with the
fairies this morning.”
“Yeah I heard – Jess told me you got
some Christmas card and a bird from some secret admirer.” He playfully elbowed
her in the ribs lightly. “You go, girl.”
Abby grinned at him and elbowed back,
but secretly she died a little on the inside.
Well, she thought, unfortunately that
probably ruled Damien out as being her secret admirer.
Merry Christmas
Sam xox
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