They’re lying, tangled together, on a sofa across from the Christmas tree. Occasionally Miranda has to remove Daniel’s hand from somewhere it shouldn’t be. She doesn’t think he’s doing it intentionally. She kisses him behind the ear now and then. “That’s nice,” he says. Pats her bum. She wriggles out from under his hand. Kisses him again. There’s a movie on television, lots of explosions. Zombies. Cameron Diaz unloading groceries in a cottage, all by herself.
No, that’s another movie entirely, Miranda thinks. Apparently she’s been asleep. Daniel is still sleeping. Why does he have to be so irritatingly good-looking, even in his sleep? Miranda hates to think what she looks like asleep. No wonder the ferret girl dumped him.
Elspeth must have come back from the pub, because there’s a heap of blankets over the both of them.
Outside, it’s snowing.
Miranda puts her hand in the pocket of her dress, feels the piece of damask she has had there all day long. It’s a big pocket. Plenty of room for all kinds of things. Miranda doesn’t want to be one of those designers who only makes pretty things. She wants them to be useful, too. And provoking. She takes the prettiest blanket from the sofa for herself, distributes the other blankets over Daniel so that all of him is covered.
She goes by a mirror, stops to smooth her hair down, collect it into a ponytail. Wraps the blanket around herself like a shawl, goes out into the snow.
He’s there, under the hawthorn tree. She shivers, tells herself it’s because of the cold. There isn’t much snow on the ground yet. She tells herself she hasn’t been asleep too long. He hasn’t been waiting long.
He wears the same coat. His face is the same. He isn’t as old as she thought he was, that first time. Only a few years older than she. Than Daniel. He hasn’t aged. She has. Where is he, when he isn’t here?
“Are you a ghost?” she says.
“No,” he says. “I’m not a ghost.”
“Then you’re a real person? A Honeywell?”
“Fenwick Septimus Honeywell.” He bows. It looks better than it should, probably because of the coat. People don’t really do that sort of thing anymore. No one has names like that. How old is he?
“You only come when it snows,” she says.
“I am only allowed to come when it’s snowing,” he says. “And only on Christmas Day.”
“Right,” she says. “Okay, no. No, I don’t understand. Allowed by whom?”
He shrugs. Doesn’t answer. Maybe it isn’t allowed.
“You gave me something,” Miranda says.
He nods again. She puts out her hand, touches the place on the justacorps where he tore away the fox. So he could give it to her.
“Oh,” Miranda said. “The poor old thing. You didn’t even use scissors, did you? Let me fix it.”
She takes the piece of damask out of her pocket, along with her sewing kit, the one she always keeps with her. She’s had exactly the right thread in there for over a year. Just in case.
She shows him the damask. A few months ago she unpicked all of the fox’s leg, all of the trap. The drops of blood. The tail and snarling head. Then she reworked the embroidery to her own design, mimicking as closely as possible the feel of the original. Now the fox is free, tongue lolling, tail aloft, running along the pink plane of the damask. Pink cotton backing, a piece she cut from an old nightgown.
He takes it from her, turns it over in his hand. “You did this?”
“You gave me a present last year. This is my present for you,” she says. “I’ll sew it back in. It will be a little untidy, but at least you won’t have a hole in your lovely coat.”
He says, “I told her I tore it on a branch. It’s fine just as it is.”
“It isn’t fine,” she says. “Let me fix it, please.”
He smiles. It’s a real smile, maybe even a flirtatious smile. He and Daniel could be brothers. They’re that much alike. So why did she stop Daniel from kissing her? Why does she have to bite her tongue, sometimes, when Daniel is being kind to her? At Honeywell Hall, she is only as real as Elspeth and Daniel allow her to be. This isn’t her real life.
It’s ridiculous, of course. Real is real. Daniel is real. Miranda is real when she isn’t here. Whatever Fenwick Septimus Honeywell is, Miranda’s fairly sure it’s complicated.
“Please,” she says.
“As you wish it, Miranda,” Fenny says. She helps him out of the coat. Her hand touches his, and she pushes down the inexplicable desire to clutch at it. As if one of them were falling.
“Come inside the Hall,” she says. “Just while I’m working on this. I should do it inside. Better light. You could meet Daniel. Or Elspeth. I could wake her up. I bet Elspeth knows how to deal with this sort of thing.” Whatever this sort of thing is. “Theater people seem like they know how to deal with things like this. Come inside with me.”
“I can’t,” he says regretfully.
Of course. It’s against the rules.
“Okay,” Miranda says, adjusting. “Then we’ll both stay out here. I’ll stay with you. You can tell me all about yourself. Unless that’s against the rules too.” She busies herself with pins. He lifts her hand away, holds it.
“Inside out, if you please,” he says. “The fox on the inside.”
He has lovely hands. No calluses on his fingertips. Manicured nails. Definitely not real. His thumb smooths over her knuckles. Miranda says, a little breathless, “Inside out. So she won’t notice someone’s repaired it?” Whoever she is.
“She’ll notice,” he says. “But this way she won’t see that the fox is free.”
“Okay. That’s sensible. I guess.” Miranda lets go of his hand. “Here. We can sit on this.”
She spreads out the blanket. Sits down. Remembers she has a Mars bar in her pocket. She passes that to him. “Sit.”
He examines the Mars bar. Unwraps it.
“Oh, no,” she says. “More rules? You’re not allowed to eat?”