‘The secret to toasting marshmallows is to hold them over the embers and twist for about thirty seconds,’ said Helen. She and Makena were sitting side by side in front of the fire, forks outstretched. ‘Timing is everything. Too close to the flames and they’re burned to a crisp. But with patience and a touch of daring, this is the result: honeycomb-brown on the outside, gooey in the middle. How’s that? Any good?’
Mouth full, Makena nodded approval. It was Christmas night. Toasted coconut marshmallows were the final item on the menu of Helen’s long-delayed Christmas feast. Makena could barely fit them in but they were worth the effort.
‘Nothing quite like a stroll on the mountain in a wee blizzard to make you appreciate the simple things in life,’ commented Ray, who was sitting on the sofa putting the finishing touches to a wood carving. ‘Show me the man who thinks that a posh London restaurant can produce anything superior to a toasted marshmallow and I’ll show him.’
He glanced over at Makena, who was twirling a marshmallow as instructed. When it was just the right side of crispy, squishy and burned, she popped it into her mouth. Her eyes squeezed shut in ecstasy. ‘My face right now?’ she suggested, opening them again.
Ray grinned. ‘As I was saying, the simple things beat the finer things every time.’
To Makena, the events of the day had taken on a surreal quality, especially the part where she’d been put on a stretcher and flown over the snowy mountains in an orange helicopter. Ray had summoned it soon after finding her. It had swooped in out of the storm, blades thumping, and plucked them both to safety. Within the hour, Makena had been thawing out in a hot bath.
It would be a while before she stopped feeling guilty for causing so many people so much anguish. She’d tried to apologise to the rescue pilot for dragging him out on Christmas Day, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
‘Ach, away with you. It’s nae bother. This is what I signed up for – something more thrilling than Agatha Christie on the telly. Besides, you’ve returned the favour already. I’ve been spared lunch with the mother-in-law.’
Seeing Helen again had been a lot harder.
‘As long as I live, I don’t ever want to feel this way again,’ she’d told Makena after they’d had a good cry and a cuddle. ‘When I saw your empty bed and footsteps in the snow, I thought I was going to have a heart attack on the spot.’
‘I thought you didn’t want me. I thought you’d only been pretending to care and that you’d send me away as soon as Christmas was over.’
‘Well, now you know that nothing could have been further from my mind,’ said Helen. ‘I was writing to the adoption agency to ask if you could stay longer. As soon as you stepped off the plane, all I could think was how silly I’d been to suggest fostering you for four short weeks. I knew right then that I wanted you to stay for a lifetime.
‘I was determined to give you a perfect Scottish Christmas in the hope that I could convince you – and the authorities, of course – to allow me to adopt you, but everything kept going wrong. Your flight was delayed, I nearly scalded you with hot chocolate, then the weather was foul, then Dad fell ill and … oh, you know the rest.’
Makena was sheepish. ‘Yes, I do. I read an email that was private, got the wrong idea, ran away, nearly fell over a cliff, got hypothermia and ruined everyone’s Christmas.’
Helen laughed. ‘That’s a version of events, but it won’t be the one I remember. Makena, don’t you understand what a blessing you’ve been? I have a chance of adopting the daughter I’ve always dreamed of. More than that, you’ve given me back my dad. Whatever the challenges going forward, this will always be the best Christmas of my life. Which reminds me …’
She stood and went over to the mantelpiece. She handed Makena a purple envelope. ‘DO NOT OPEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS DAY! THAT’S AN ORDER!’ was scrawled across the top in silver ink.
Makena stared at the postmark. ‘I don’t know anyone in Chicago.’
Helen smiled. ‘Why don’t you open it and find out who it’s from?’
As soon as Makena saw the poppy card inside, she knew.
Happy Kissmass, Kissmass!
My new mom wanted me to spell it properly but I said it had to be this way. You’d understand.
They tell me you’re in Scotland. You can probably fill a jar or two with snow over there. I could fill a few million here in Chicago. Everyone here calls me Diana because there’s so much actual snow it got confusing. That’s cool with me. After all, I am named after the Queen of the Supremes.
You probably want to know how I fell off the earth. I thought the same about you. You’re getting the short version because I can’t fit much on the card.
Remember me telling you that life sometimes springs a nasty surprise, and that’s why we get at least three magic moments every day - to make up for it? Well, it’s all true.
I don’t remember the part where the bulldozer ran over me. When I finally woke up in hospital, I didn’t know my own name. They said it was amnesia caused by shock. The doctors and nurses were all depressed-looking and they started going on about my future in a wheelchair. I told them to put that thought in the rubbish bin where it belonged because this girl is going to dance and have her name in lights like Michaela DePrince. Funny, I didn’t remember much but I remembered Michaelaand you.
You’re wondering where the magic moment is, aren’t you? I went on about Michaela so much that word got to a surgeon who volunteers for a charity that works in war zones. He’d seen her dance with the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Long story short, he operated on me for free. It helped a lot. I also got glasses. Who knew that words and pictures could be so clear?! Eventually, my memory came back and I got adopted by an African American family. They’re the best. I’m their third and last (maybe) adopted kid. The others are from Japan and Burundi. My new sister, May, says that the twenty-second Emperor of Japan was an albino!
’Course, life is no fairy tale, so I’m a little way from joining the Dutch National Ballet, like Michaela. About three operations and a decade of practice away. Meanwhile, I’ve started ballet classes. I sit in my chair and watch but I’m plotting the moves for when it’s my time.
Sorry I didn’t get you a Christmas present. You gave me one and you didn’t even know it! I used to have three magic moments every day. Now I’m guaranteed four. Sunrise, sunset and a random one. The fourth moment is a memory. You and me dancing Slum Lake while Innocent and his crew played their hearts out. We nailed it, girl, didn’t we?
Keep dancing and climbing those mountains.
Love,
Diana (Snow to you) xx
Your best friend (I hope!) xx
The words blurred before Makena’s eyes. She was incapable of speech. Helen did it for her.
‘Friendships like yours and Snow’s, they’re for life. I’ll do everything in my power to see that the two of you are reunited soon. The same goes for Africa. It’ll always be home to both of us. Whether we’re in Scotland, thinking about ways to help Hearts4Africa, or in Nairobi with Edna at the Home for Girls, you’ll always be connected to your country. But in time I hope you come to love Scotland too.’
Makena speared another marshmallow and looked over at Ray. She couldn’t get over the change in him. Neither could Dr Brodie.
‘If Ray were an ordinary mortal, a mountain rescue operation in a blizzard so soon after near-pneumonia would have killed him,’ he’d told Makena when he came to check her over. ‘Ironically, it seems to have been the exact tonic he needed. Makena, you’ve reminded him of his purpose in life – to help people and teach them to enjoy the mountains safely. He’s a man reborn.’
They’d done a great deal of talking, Makena and Ray. Helen was right. They did have a lot in common. But the subject to which they kept returning was the silver fox.
When it came flying out of the snowstorm like a silver bullet, yelping at him to follow it, he’d doubted the evidence of his own eyes. In all his years in the mountains, he’d never seen an Arctic fox. ‘We don’t have silver foxes in the wild in Scotland, Makena, only red ones. If I’d encountered one before I’d have remembered, I can assure you.’
‘So the night I saw an Arctic fox standing beside you in the garden, you had no clue it was there?’
Ray shook his head. ‘I did not. I do recall a powerful sense of peace coming over me as I looked up at the mountain. In all honesty, I hadn’t felt that way since before I lost my wife. I stayed longer than I should have because I didn’t want to break the spell. But no, I didn’t see any silver fox – not that night and not until it appeared out of the blizzard.’
‘What do you think it was, then, the fox on the mountain?’ persisted Makena. ‘An escaped Arctic fox that’s super-smart and likes saving humans who like saving animals? Or was it a ghost? Or maybe an angel?’
‘Perhaps it was a combination of all three,’ suggested Helen. ‘Maybe it was everything and everyone you’ve ever loved made manifest in one perfect fox.’
‘Could be,’ agreed Ray. He leaned forward and handed Makena the finished carving. ‘A present for you, hen. Better late than never. Happy Christmas.’
It was a fox with tiny wings. Every feather and every whisker was perfectly sculpted in walnut wood. Makena stroked it. ‘A fox angel! Oh, it’s beautiful. Is it really for me?’
‘Absolutely. No one else I know appreciates foxes quite as much as you and I do.’
Makena pressed it to her cheek. The wood was still warm from his workings. ‘Thanks, Ray. It’s going on my bedside table next to my precious things – my mama and baba’s photos and my Snow jar.’
‘I’m delighted you like it so much, hen. Believe it or not, I started carving it before I saw the fox on the mountain, after I spotted you sneaking out in the midnight garden to feed the cubs. I wanted to thank you. I knew at once that we were kindred spirits.’
‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Helen remarked drily. ‘Partners in crime is another. I can see I’m going to have to keep a close eye on you both.’
A rush of happiness filled Makena to bursting. The faces of her mama and baba floated into her mind and she no longer felt guilty. She knew that they would have wanted this for her, wanted her to find a special home and a loving family.
‘Mum,’ she said shyly, testing out the word, ‘would you mind if I put the fox angel at the top of the tree?’
Helen’s smile was so wide it could have wrapped around Makena twice. ‘Do you know, I can’t think of anything I’d like more. Looks to me as if it belongs there.’
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