Maggie swept the hearth back carefully, suppressing a faint murmur of guilt. They’re only sparks burning in the soot, she told herself. If you leave them, they’ll spread up the pot, and you’ll have a chimney fire, and then where will you be? But she failed to alarm herself. It felt wrong to sweep away the fire fairies on Christmas Eve.

She took out her ill-feeling on the fire, raking it out thoroughly before she made it up, then glanced at the clock, satisfied with her calculation. The coals would have burnt through to a welcoming glow by the time the photographer arrived, with just a flicker of flame, picture perfect, just as it should be. She roamed the room, moving cushions, tweaking the cards on the mantel to sit squarely, and then going back to set them carefully, artistically, askew again.

All the usual yearlong clutter had been swept away from the desk, replaced with five slips of colored tissue and a fine pen, and behind that an artificial scatter of acceptable litter—a slight indication of spilt glitter, a reel of festive tape, a few cards (though all their cards, of course, had been sent weeks ago) and even two or three spare stamps.

They annoyed her, the stamps. They must have been bought just for show, and they would have to be thrown away. There could be no parsimonious use of Christmas stamps in January for them, and Heaven forfend that they should be caught using this year’s design next year. But there, that was the deal, and the secretary had done what was asked of him, and done it well.

She forced herself to go back to the window seat and tried to work. She had brought a report to review, one slim enough to slip into the drawer before she was interrupted.

It might be well known that she had a career of her own, but being a politician’s wife, that career had better be invisible. Unfortunately, in selecting for brevity, she had chosen something dense enough to challenge her errant concentration, and she found herself watching the snow fall instead.

It amused her that, although even her husband’s extremely efficient secretary could claim no credit for it, the scene outside was picture perfect too—the flurry just heavy enough to touch up the few faults in the view, hiding tracks and re-cloaking the wall where the boys had swept off the first covering for snowballs, but too light to cause any problems, even out here. No serious trouble on the roads, no interruption to the power, or to the phone lines, however much she might wish for it. And she did wish for it, suddenly, viciously, surprised by her own vehemence—one night with the man she had married.

A sudden crack from the fire startled her, but it was only the coals settling, sending a little flock of fairies—of sparks, she told herself firmly—up the flue. She picked up the report again, shrugging off her pique. Paul was a good man doing a good job, and the journalist’s request had been a reasonable one, on the face of it, and by that measure difficult to turn down.

Sooner than she expected she found herself turning on the lamp. She checked her watch, irritated to have made so little progress, but found that she had only misjudged the overcast. She still had time in hand, and she read on placidly, soothed and reassured at last by the familiar hiss and crackle of the fire. When she finally heard the door, and excited voices from the hall, she slipped the report into the drawer, but she did not go to greet them; it was all part of the set scene. The perfect husband taking over the care of his perfect sons so that his perfect wife has a few hours to add perfect final touches to their Christmas. And never mind that the boys are, well, boys (demons as often as they are angels, and she would have it no other way) or that it takes a permanent staff of three to maintain this perfection, not to mention the hairdresser, the tailor, the tutors, and a dozen others.

It was only a moment before the door opened that she recognized the false note: there was only one adult voice in the hall, and it was unlike Paul to fail in drawing out his companion. Her sons had exploded into the room before it could worry her, and three boys, excited by a recent snowball battle, are enough to distract anyone from abstract concerns. She had risen to meet them without thought, and found herself swept into an embrace that would never have done for the cameras.

He laughed at her surprise, and joshed her for not noticing how much thicker the snow had been falling. It was lucky, he said, that the photographer had seen the forecast in time and called to cancel.

“So, how about those wishes?”

And he threw himself into the chair that had been only a stage set, and made it real, and the boys gathered eagerly around him, young enough to cling to the ritual even if they no longer believed in it. They had watched their wishes flare and vanish and be taken by the fairies before he realized that he had only one slip of tissue left.

He looked at her over their heads with that little boy lost look that was only for her.

“Have I been a bad boy? No wish for me?”

“No, darling, that one’s for you. I had mine early.”