Deck the Shelves (Village of Berkingsley #2)

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree

Chapter Three

(in an Elf Costume)

P laying Secret Santa required three things:

A fake-it-til-you-make-it love for early mornings.

A tolerance of all things Christmasy, especially artificial polyester snow and garland covered in flakes of glitter that stick to freaking everything.

And an assortment of elves to help you, which, in this case, a best friend would do.

The walk over to my parents’ store was cold but pleasant. The early morning crisp nipped at my cheeks, and the smokey aroma of firewood burning from chimneys reminded me I was no longer in the city. While the chill had me speed-walking like the heroine in a clown-filled horror film, I felt an aura of peace settle over me. There was just something about the stillness of an early morning that restored the soul.

I arrived at the doorstep of Spines ‘n’ Wines a bit after six, in all my hoho glory, wearing my favorite Christmas jumper paired with thick candy cane tights and an elf hat. I woke up eager and ready to completely transform the shop into a winter wonderland before my parents ventured downstairs. I dug through my purse, looking for the spare key. Where could it be? I know I tossed it in here. Gently pushing the ball of fur that sat inside over a smidge, I found them warm and comfy under my pup’s bottom. “Pippy, you cheeky thing. You really don’t want to see Winston, do you? Well, I’m absolutely sure he feels the same.”

As I nudged the wooden door open, the delicious scent of paper and ink infiltrated my senses. Sweet, like almonds and vanilla. Ahh, this had to be one of the most comforting smells in the world. A shop full of books. It took every ounce of self-restraint in me not to grab some novels from the front table and get lost in the pages. Mum’s stern voice filled my head. “This is not a library, Alice. It’s a bookstore, and we can’t sell books if someone’s already pawed their way through them.”

That didn’t always stop me, though. When I was younger and she was busy preparing meals upstairs, my dad would sometimes sneak a book to me with a wink and an unspoken agreement that I would leave the spine and pages as pristine as I received them. Once, I had forgotten and left a book open while Scarlett and I played outside. God, I remember the panic, the over-dramatic fear that entered a child’s head when she broke a cherished item of the family. I was petrified of what Ma would say and equally afraid that Dad would never loan me a book from the store again. That incident was actually what led me down the path of fashion, right into the guiding arms of my Aunt Lily, who was visiting at the time.

Aunt Lily was the epitome of a fashion-forward woman. Divorced, she lived on her own, somewhere outside of Berkingsley, somewhere big and adventurous in my childhood imagination, and she wore the most remarkable silk shirts and wool cashmere coats. She was spectacular and worldly in my ten-year-old eyes. When she found me frantically ironing the pages of the misfortunate book, she instantly took me under her wings. “Irons are not for books, dear. Here, let me show you an easier way.” She brought her portable steamer over from her hotel and showed me the proper way to get wrinkles out of clothing and… well…paper. One thing led to another, and I soon found myself sorting through her luggage, trying on her headbands, necklaces, and wraps. She opened my eyes to a world outside of our village. I knew then that I wanted to dress people and make them feel as fabulous as I did while prancing around our flat in her clothes.

Back in the shop, I peeled off my coat and gloves and set my bag on the ground, freeing Pippy from her cloth prison. She instantly started doing zoomies around the room, darting between the tables of books.

“Good grief, dog. Most of the village hasn’t even had their morning cuppa, and you’re just bursting with the energy of a thousand Redbulls.” I laughed as she ran back over to me, her tongue hanging out and her head tilted as if asking me to chase her. I tapped the top of her head with affection. “I’m sure Winston will be down soon enough, Pippy.”

At the back of the shop, the storage room sat undisturbed, with the door tightly shut. I gave it a good shove (the darn thing had been sticking for years) and flicked the light switch up.

What in the bloody hell? My eyes couldn’t believe the sight before me. Damn the Secret Santa plan. I frantically backed out of the room and headed toward the stairs, calling my mum’s name at the top of my lungs.

“Over an inch. No, a little more. No, back just a bit. There! Perfect.”

“God, Em. I hope you aren’t this difficult to please in bed.” I stepped back and scrutinized the stocking display we had managed to hang with a bit of tacky over the fireplace. A tad uneven, but it’ll do. Now, how to keep Winston from pulling these down…

Hands on her hips, Emilia shook her head at me. “You mock me, but as I recall, you are the one who won’t stop saying it needs to be perfect while humming bippity boppity boo nonstop.”

I sunk to my knees and straightened the tree collar, taking care to rearrange the handful of fake-wrapped gifts that had shifted. “How old do you think this tree collar is?” I asked, patting down the edges that stuck up.

“Kathryn mentioned that her mother had crocheted it back when she was a tyke, so I’d have to say as old as King Charles himself.” Kathryn had been the owner of the hotel before Emilia and, therefore, the previous owner of all of these crotchety decorations.

I scrunched my nose in distaste. “It’s ugly as shite, but at least it doesn’t smell too much like mothballs.”

“Just be thankful I haven’t had time to donate these old decorations yet, or we’d be stringing paper chains across the room instead.” She pulled some tinsel from a box on the floor, holding it up in scrutiny. “Although, making that Christmas countdown out of red and green construction paper every season with my mom will always be one of my favorite holiday memories with her.”

I looked over at Emilia and asked gently, “How are you holding up as the holidays approach without her here?”

She sighed. “This will be my third Christmas without her. Most days, I’m excited to spend the holidays with Theo as a newly engaged couple. But sometimes, I wish she was here to share in that excitement.”

“That’s understandable.” Emilia’s mother raised her alone in the suburbs of Boston, nurturing her musical abilities and supporting her as she grew into a talented pianist. They traveled together for all of her international performances until she passed away a couple of years back.

“I try to incorporate little snippets of the traditions we share as Theo and I make new ones.” She smiled warmly. “Just last week, Theo and I camped out under the Christmas tree in our drawing room the night we trimmed the tree, just like I did as a kid. My mom always made extra-rich hot chocolate, from real chocolate, not the powder, and we’d load our mugs with marshmallows while we read Christmas stories in our sleeping bags. It was pure magic falling asleep to a sky full of twinkling lights.”

“That sounds lovely. It’s interesting to hear what others do while celebrating the season. I imagine there are some differences growing up across the pond.”

“Maybe, but the sentiment is the same. I can’t get over how lucky we are that I haven’t gotten around to donating these decorations yet. I ordered a truckload of decorations for our first Christmas living at Blackley Manor. I just wanted it to feel like my own, you know? Especially since it’s my favorite season.”

“I’m surprised Kathryn allowed some of these monstrosities to hang in the hotel.” I held up an old figurine of Father Christmas, who, with an indented face, looked like he should be in a Halloween display. “I mean, this is just begging to be in a Tim Burton film.”

“I’m not sure she actually used any of these. Her eye for design is too strong to have allowed these in the hotel. I think some she just held on to for sentimental reasons. Now that she is living with William in his cottage, she has no room for them.”

“You don’t want to hang on to any of them? I mean, how can you resist the charm of this Santa Claus?” I asked, waving him in the air. “He’s every child’s dream. I’m putting him front and center in the display window, right next to little George and Maeve.”

I set the deformed Santa in the cottony wonderland at the front of the bookshop. “I’m just so relieved this village set withstood the water damage from the pipe that burst. It’s already tragic enough that the other decorations were completely waterlogged.”

When I entered the storage room earlier, I hadn’t seen the usual carpeted and well-organized closet that my dad prided himself in maintaining. The usual shelves of bins filled with holiday decorations, store display signs, and extra boxes of wine waiting to be stocked up front were missing. The room was stripped bare down to stone and brick, and a musty, earthy smell permeated the air.

Rushing up the stairs, calling my mum’s name hysterically was probably a bit dramatic, even for me. She flew out of her room, one arm in her dressing gown, with Dad following behind in his pajamas.

“Alice? Alice, is that you?” her voice asked, dripping with worry.

Dad was a bit angrier and unforgiving once he saw me decked out as a festive elf, safe and sound, standing in the kitchen.

“What the bloody hell, Alice! What are you doing giving us a fright this early? You better have a good explanation, young lady.”

“What happened to the storage room? Where are all our decorations and the extra books and supplies? Where is Fluffers and my box of journals?” Fluffers was my beloved stuffed bunny, and while I had an image to uphold in my adult life that kept him stored away, I wouldn’t survive in this world if he wasn’t okay.

“Oh, dear. Oh, nuts. Come and take a seat. I’ll make some tea.” Mum filled the kettle with water and placed it on the stovetop. To my mum, tea was always the answer to everything.

I flung my arms across my chest and sat down, no longer feeling jolly. I narrowed my eyes at my parents. “I knew you were acting weird yesterday. What haven’t you told me? Spill it, you two.”

My father looked at Mum, seeming to confirm what to disclose to me.

“Mm-hmm. And don’t leave anything out,” I added petulantly.

“Well, honey. First of all, Fluffers and your things are just fine. A few weeks ago, one of the pipes in the wall burst and completely flooded the back room. The things that weren’t on the top shelves were destroyed, and of course, the room needed to be irrigated and dried out by a professional company. Luckily, very little water escaped the doorway into the shop. We just needed to replace the rug in the children’s corner, and one shelf of books.”

“Is that why you haven’t decorated for Christmas?”

Dad looked at Mum, but her eyes quickly turned to the kettle as she poured the tea into my cup.

“Yes, Alice. We lost most of the decorations in the flood.”

I could tell they were holding something back, but honestly, my brain was sorting through all the things of mine that could have potentially been lost. I wondered if my photos and yearbooks from school survived and if my early notebooks filled with fashion designs and future dreams were gone.

Back in the present, I finished arranging the final gold and red striped gift box under the tree. I took a step back to admire my work. Not half bad for what we were working with. The tree twinkled with gold lights and spirals of red ribbon cascading down from the top. White and gold bulbs hung from the branches and paired with the white buds of poinsettias, I thought it was quite pretty. Different from our usual tree adorned with tinsel and dozens of book-shaped ornaments, but hey, change was a good thing, right? That’s what I’ve been telling myself these last few weeks, at least.

“I can’t believe the bookstore flooded, and your parents tried to hide it from you,” Emilia said, breaking up my thoughts.

“I think they are still just somewhat in shock and had hoped to get things back to normal before I came home. But I would have noticed the missing decorations, so I’m not sure what they were thinking. Who knows if they would have even told me if I hadn’t barged into their flat early this morning wondering where the decorations were.” I bent over and shifted through a box on the floor. “Did you say that you had a toy train we could set up in the children’s area?”

“Yes, I did. Maybe it’s still in Theo’s truck. I’ll go out and take a look.” She grabbed her jacket off the stair railing and headed toward the door.

“Ah, ha. Just what we were missing,” I said to myself, pulling out a string of icicle lights from the box. Grabbing the stepladder and the pile of lights, I wandered over to the romance section. I found the end and plugged it into the electrical outlet and was pleasantly surprised when the bulbs lit up in a silver radiance. “Perfect.”

I stepped up on the ladder and started to drape the lights across the top shelf, highlighting books by Paige Toon, Josie Silver, and Mhairi McFarlane. The chime on the door rang as it opened, setting Pippy off in a tither. She resumed the zoomies from earlier, adding a chorus of yips as she ran.

“Pippy, please. It’s just Emilia.” She rushed past the nonfiction section and back around to where I stood on the ladder, reaching up and doing my best to get the strand of lights to stay on top of the shelf. I don’t think the sticky putty is going to do it. I might need to figure out another way to get these to stay.

“Bloody dog. Knock it off.” I was having a difficult time trying to get these things to stay put without her piercing bark hitting my ears, making every muscle in my body tense. Her yips grew more frantic as she circled back once again, this time knocking into the ladder. Her minuscule amount of body weight did very little to move the step, but the lights began to slide off the shelf at the same time, and as I reached to steady them, I felt myself wobble.

“Oh shite,” I exclaimed, losing my balance. The lights slid off the shelf at the same time gravity took me captive, and together we fell back. Well, if the lights weren’t tangled before, they would be now.

I prepared for my crash landing on the wooden floor, but instead felt myself sink into a broad chest and two strong arms that instantly engulfed my 5 ‘4 frame. I turned my head and looked up into the eyes of someone who was definitely not Emilia.