“Baz is fine,” Agatha insisted as I climbed out.
“He’s not fine! We just found out that he was in a coffin for six weeks.”
They were leaning into each other between the front seats, turned completely around to shout at me.
Penny: “He’s fine now!”
Agatha: “Get back in the car!”
I put my hand on the door and bent over so I could see them. “He shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“He isn’t!” they both said.
“I should keep an eye on him.” I stood up again.
“We’ll drive you back,” Agatha said.
“No. No. You’ll be late for Christmas Eve. Go.” I shut the door, turned around, and immediately started to run.
*
I didn’t think rich people actually ate this way. At a long table covered with red and gold cloth. Thick napkins tied with poisonsettias. Platters with heavy silver lids.
It wouldn’t surprise me if rich people really don’t live like this—but that the Pitches do it, just to make a scene. If this is Christmas Eve, what do they have planned for tomorrow?
“Sorry we’re late, Mother,” Baz says, pulling out a chair.
“What a nice surprise, Mr. Snow,” his dad says. He’s smiling, but in a way that makes me regret my decision to come back.
“Thank you, sir. I hope I’m not intruding.”
Baz’s stepmum smiles, too. “Of course not.” I can’t tell if she means it or is just being polite.
“I invited him,” Baz says to his father. “It’s not like he has anywhere else to go at Christmas.” I can’t tell if Baz is actually being rude to me or doing it for show. I can’t read any of their faces—even the baby just looks bored.
I thought there might be extended family here for the holidays, miscellaneous Grimms and Pitches, but it’s just Baz’s parents and his siblings. There’s the older girl, Mordelia, then two other little girls, maybe twins—I’m not sure how old, old enough to sit up by themselves and gnaw on turkey legs—and a baby in a fancy carved high chair tapping a rattle onto his (her?) tray.
They all look like Baz’s stepmum: dark hair, but not black like Baz’s, with round cheeks and those Billie Piper mouths that don’t quite close over their front teeth. They don’t look dangerous enough to be Baz’s siblings—or his father’s children. Penny says the Grimms are less political and less deadly than the Pitches, but Baz’s dad looks like a pit viper wearing a pin-striped suit; even his snow-white hair is scary.
“Stuffing?” Baz asks, handing me a platter. It seems like their servants have the day off. (I’ve counted at least four since I’ve been here: Vera, two women cleaning, and a man out front shovelling the walks.) I take a big scoop of chestnut stuffing and notice that there’s almost nothing on Baz’s plate. The platters and boats go around twice, and he just passes them to me—I wonder if he has an eating disorder.
I eat enough for both of us. The food here is even better than at Watford.
*
“Did you ever believe in Father Christmas?” Baz asks. He’s laying out blankets and pillows for me on his couch. His stepmother brought them up after Baz explained that I didn’t want to sleep in the guest room. “He’s afraid of the wraiths,” he told her.
That made his little sisters giggle. They were eager to get to bed, so that Father Christmas could get here. “Did you tell Father Christmas that you’d be here?” Mordelia asked me. “So that he can send your presents?”
“I didn’t,” I told her. “I should have.”
“I don’t think so,” I tell Baz now. “I mean, sometimes the home would get somebody to dress up like Father Christmas and hand out crap gifts, but I don’t remember believing in him. What about you?”