19. Nineteen

19

PRESENT

I t snows steadily through the night, and by the time I wake up the next morning, the world outside my bedroom window has been transformed into the kind of winter wonderland that makes me almost glad I told Dad I wouldn’t be coming into the bookstore today. Because I might be spending the morning with Elliot Sinclair instead, but, hey: at least I won’t have to listen to Levi bang on about how it’s the first real snowfall in Bramblebury in ten years, almost as if Elliot’s return has fulfilled some kind of ancient prophecy and triggered a second winter.

“I know, I know. I should’ve said no. I don’t know what came over me.”

I’m standing in the kitchen at home, speaking to my aunt Lorraine, who I suspect has been sent here by Dad, to make sure I’m still in my right mind, given that this is the first day off I’ve had in months.

“It’s definitely an unexpected decision from you,” Lorraine says, the expression on her face making it clear that she’s going to be reporting back that no, I’m most definitely not in my right mind. “I thought you said you didn’t want anything more to do with Elliot Sinclair? Or have I been picking you up wrong all these years? Has the complaining just been, I don’t know, some strange kind of performance art, and you’ve been secretly hoping to see him all this time?”

Lorraine looks at me shrewdly, and I turn quickly to check my reflection in the mirror by the door.

“No,” I reply miserably. “You’re not wrong. I did want nothing more to do with him. But then…”

“You saw him again, and it was like no time had passed?”says Lorraine, who’s a self-confessed Vivienne Faulkner fan, and is going to love my new book for her, seriously. “Your eyes met, and you realized you still loved each other?”

“No, of course not,” I reply, before she can get too carried away. “Anything there was between Elliot and I ended years ago, when he left the way he did. It just … well, it just feels like there’s unfinished business between us, that’s all.”

Like why he left the way he did, for instance. That’s the main thing I want to know, but have been too afraid to ask.

But all of that’s in the past; and, of course, you can’t rewrite the past, no matter how much you might want to; or be secretly attempting to, via your latest ghostwriting project.

I sigh, and turn back to Lorraine.

“I don’t know why I said I’d go with him,” I tell her honestly. “It was a moment of madness, I guess.”

It was the snow, starting up right at that minute. It was the way it sent me back in time, and made me remember how it felt when I met him. It was the way he looked at me and laughed at the snowflakes falling on us, and the way it all felt exactly like the first time.

So, actually, I guess I do know why I agreed to go with him after all.

I’m just not willing to admit it.

“Speaking of madness,” says my aunt. “Have you seen Martin lately? He keeps ‘popping in’ to ask me how you are.”

“I haven’t seen him,” I reply, not wanting to admit that I’ve hidden in the office — and, on one occasion, under the counter in the Coffee Corner — every time Martin’s ‘popped in’ to the bookstore for the same reason. “But he’s texted me a few times. I wish he wouldn’t. I hate having to keep telling him we’re not getting back together. It’s like kicking a kitten.”

“Keep kicking, though,” says Lorraine firmly, making me smear the lipstick I’m attempting to apply onto my cheek in shock. She’s normally such an animal lover. “Not literally,” she adds hastily. “But seriously, Holly, don’t go back to Martin. He’s not the one for you.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” I reply, surprised by the intensity in her voice. “Why are you so against the idea, though? I thought you liked Martin?”

“I do like Martin,” she insists. “He’s … nice. I just think you can do better than just nice , that’s all.”

And there’s that word again. ‘Nice’ is the word everyone uses to describe Martin. Well, everyone except Levi, who once described him as “completely delulu, and not in a good way”. ‘Nice’ might translate to ‘boring’ in Martin’s case, though, but that’s the reason we got together after Elliot left. Because ‘nice’ might mean ‘boring’, but ‘boring’ means ‘safe’. And sometimes safety feels like the best option.

“I’m not getting back together with Martin,” I reassure Lorraine, who finally leaves, taking the first few pages of my Vivienne Faulkner book with her, promising to read them and let me know what she thinks. Once she’s gone, I pace anxiously up and down the kitchen floor, watching the snow continue to float lazily down outside the window until a sleek black car pulls up outside, and Elliot climbs out, looking around with interest at the little street perched on top of the hill.

“Nice place,” he says, as I open the door to meet him, quickly stepping through it so he doesn’t expect me to ask him inside. “I’m sure I recognize these houses. Isn’t this the hill we used to…?”

“That’s not why I bought the house,” I cut in quickly, closing the door behind me. “I just like the view, that’s all.”

“It’s a great view,” Elliot agrees, pretending not to notice how defensive I sound.

I cringe inwardly at myself. It’s not like he was accusing me of buying a house near the bench we used to sit on just for old time’s sake, was it? But now I’ve made it sound like I did do that, which means our trip together is off to a predictably awkward start. Not that there’s any way us taking a trip together could be anything other than awkward, I suppose.

Remind me why I agreed to this, again?

“Where are you staying, by the way?” I ask once we’re safely cocooned inside Elliot’s hire car and driving away from the hill and its memories. “I keep meaning to ask. I’m guessing it’s not The Rose this time?”

“The Globe, you mean?” he says, with a chuckle which suggests he’s much more comfortable with references to his book than I am. “No, I decided to give it a miss this time. I’m staying in an Airbnb just outside town. My assistant found it for me. It’s pretty nice, actually. You’d like it.”

There it is again; that casual assumption that he still knows me. It’s both infuriating and confusing, because it makes it hard for me to pretend we’re just two random strangers who happen to be taking a car ride together; which would be my preference for this situation.

But Elliot continues talking as if we’re a couple of old friends who haven’t seen each other in a while, and he does it all the way to the house the auction is taking place in; which is, as he said, on a country estate around 10 miles from Bramblebury. By the time we pull into a parking space in front of the old Georgian manor which sits at its center, I know he’s living in Sarasota now, in a house near the beach, and that he has three nephews and a niece, all of whom he dotes on. I know he made enough from The Snow Globe to not have to join the family law firm after all, and I know his parents discovered they were actually pretty okay with that turn of events after all — presumably once the royalties started rolling in.

“So, what do you actually do , though?” I ask, as we get out of the car and crunch our way across the vast, circular driveway towards the house, which looks straight out of a Regency romance. “If you’re not writing, I mean? What do you do with your time?”

“Oh, I still write,” Elliot replies vaguely. “Just … nothing like The Snow Globe .”

His answer only gives me even more questions, but before I have time to ask any of them, we’re walking up the steps to the polished front door, where a well-dressed woman greets us and hands us a glossy brochure each, before directing us to the ‘great hall’ as she calls it, where the auction will be being held.

“Isn’t this place amazing?” says Elliot as we make our way down a long hallway lined with oil paintings, our feet sounding unnaturally loud against the tiled floor. “It has a maze in the grounds, apparently. And it looks like it’s haunted. Don’t you think?”

“Oh, it’s got to be haunted,” I agree, as we pass a particularly creepy painting of one of the previous owners, who looks like he probably sleeps in a coffin and comes out at night to stalk his innocent victims. “I’d be thoroughly disappointed if it wasn’t.”

“Same,” replies Elliot. “I’d be asking for my money back if there wasn’t a mysterious lady in white, at the very least; or a creepy little girl, say. Twins, ideally.”

I laugh, remembering the night we watched The Shining together on the tiny screen of his laptop, and I dropped the entire box of popcorn on the floor when the twin girls appeared.

Elliot smiles down at me as if he’s thinking of the same thing, and my laughter abruptly turns into a wave of sadness for the life we could have lived if things had been different. The movies we could’ve watched together. The books we would’ve read, and then completely re-written in our heads when we compared notes on them later. The trips we would’ve taken, and the completely uneventful evenings we’d have spent at home, doing nothing more exciting than simply being together.

“Um, I think it’s this way,” I say, breaking eye contact before Elliot can figure out what I’m thinking, in that uncanny way he always had of knowing what was on my mind almost before I knew myself. “Either that or this is where all the ghosts are, judging by the noise.”

The low murmur of voices guides us to the hall, where rows of chairs have been set up, all facing a makeshift stage, which a man in a tweedy kind of suit — the auctioneer, presumably — is standing on.

“What is it you’re hoping to find here, anyway?” I ask as we take our seats near the back of the room, me very aware that this is nothing like the jumble sale I’ve been imagining ever since Elliot told me about it. “You said you thought there might be some things that belonged to Evie?”

“One thing in particular,” Elliot replies, flicking through the brochure. “Let me try to find it…”

I can’t begin to imagine what kind of thing Evie Snow might have left behind that would hold any clues at all to what happened between her and Elliot’s great-grandfather, Luke, but the auctioneer is clearing his throat loudly, then banging his gavel on the desk to signal the start of the auction, so I leave Elliot to his brochure, and turn my attention to the front of the room instead.

It’s the first time I’ve ever attended an auction, and I’m pleased to find that it’s almost exactly the way it always looks on TV, with the auctioneer talking very fast, and a smattering of people standing at the back of the room with phones clamped to their ears and serious expressions on their face.

The goods on offer, meanwhile, range from the eye-wateringly expensive (A tall and rather ugly vase, which sells for ￡30,000), to the comparatively affordable (A portrait of a sad-looking dog that only reaches ￡90, although that’s only because I sit on my hands to stop myself putting in a sympathy bid, just to make it feel better), and I look on, fascinated, as all of these little fragments of the past find their way to new owners.

“You really wanted that vintage teddy bear, didn’t you?” whispers Elliot during a short gap in the proceedings while a gigantic tapestry with a picture of a frog on it is hauled up to the front of the room. “I saw the look on your face.”

“Don’t,” I groan, holding my hands over my face. “It was the saddest thing ever. Imagine some child having that, and cherishing it, and then it ends up at some auction, unloved. It makes me want to cry. And, well, buy it.”

Most other people would laugh at this, but Elliot just nods, as if it makes perfect sense to feel sad over the fate of some long-ago child’s much-loved toy being auctioned off to the highest bidder — whose bid was actually disappointingly low, as it happens. But the auctioneer is starting up again, so I sit firmly on my hands once more, terrified to move in case I inadvertently buy something, as the frog tapestry sells for more than I paid for my car, and the next lot is carried up onto the stage.

“Lot 32,” calls the auctioneer. “Antique snow globe making kit, dating back to the early twentieth century.” He continues speaking, but now my attention is focused on Elliot, who sits up a little straighter in his seat, his eyes fixed on the front of the room.

I’m confused. Elliot said the item he was interested in buying belonged to Evie Snow. He didn’t mention anything about snow globes.

What does Evie Snow have to do with snow globes?

Surely it can’t be…?

“… which would be ideal for collectors of holiday memorabilia,” finishes the auctioneer, whose speech I’ve completely missed. “Can I start the bidding at ￡100?”

Elliot’s hand instantly rises. So does someone else’s at the back of the room. There are only two bidders, though, and if I was hoping for a dramatic, to-the-death style bidding war — which I secretly was — I’m doomed to be disappointed, because the other bidder drops out quickly, leaving Elliot the proud owner of the kit, for just ￡185.

“I’d have paid much more than that,” he says, his eyes shining as we gather our things, and get ready to leave, a few minutes later. “Come on, let’s go and pick it up.”

I pull on my coat and follow him wordlessly to the collection point, which is in a smaller room next to the hall.

“Elliot,” I say, watching him hand over his credit card, before carefully taking possession of a sturdy looking polished wooden box with the initials E and S embossed on the lid. “How did you know Evie made snow globes? I’m assuming that’s what you’re thinking here?”

“I didn’t know,” he replies, turning to me and looking at the object in his hands as if he can’t believe his luck. “I had absolutely no idea until Katie told me some of her things were being sold off, and I looked at the auction listing. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. And I don’t suppose it’s got any connection to … well, to our snow globe. But, look, let’s go out here and take a look, shall we?”

He nods in the direction of a set of double doors which have been propped open to allow visitors to exit via the back of the house, where there’s a wide flight of steps leading down to an ornamental garden, with a little tearoom in a conservatory off to one side. There’s even a pond off in the distance, with a pair of swans appearing to float effortlessly on its glass-like surface.

It’s really too cold to be sitting outside, but now that the snow’s finally stopped, the sky has turned a clear, bright blue, which makes the snow on the ground sparkle in the sun, and there are a few hardy souls sitting at the picnic tables dotted around the terrace, their hands cupped around steaming mugs of something that smells nauseatingly spicy. Elliot and I choose a table close to the garden and sit down, the wooden box in front of us.

“Ready?” asks Elliot, looking exactly like the little boy he must once have been, opening a gift on Christmas morning.

I nod, smiling at his enthusiasm. I know from the auctioneer’s description that the kit inside the box is only a partial one, with just enough to make one or two snow globes. It was sold, according to the brochure, as a collector’s piece, rather than as something actually usable — I guess most people just buy snow globes in shops, or from market stalls, like we did, rather than making them themselves — so I’m not really expecting much. The fact that the mystery woman in Elliot’s photos apparently had a hobby that even tangentially links her to us is a big enough coincidence for me to get my head around, without the contents of the box being actually interesting. But then Elliot reaches out and carefully opens the lid of the box, with the air of a man about to unleash all of Pandora’s secrets into the world, and we both lean forward, our heads almost touching as we peer into the velvet-lined interior.

Inside the box is a jumble of items, including tiny houses and other buildings presumably designed to go inside a snow globe, plus a single glass dome.

“It smells funny,” I comment, registering the musty scent of the interior. “It reminds me of churches.”

Elliot isn’t listening, though. Instead, he reaches back into the box, carefully moving the contents aside as he picks up something very small that’s lying in one corner.

“Oh, my God,” I breathe, all thoughts of churches and their smell forgotten as he holds the item up to show me.

There, on the palm of his hand, stands a tiny couple, locked in an embrace; her in a bright red coat, him in an Army uniform, with dark hair and glasses. The colors are a little faded from all the years that have passed since they were painted, but they’re still instantly recognizable.

“It’s them ,” I say, my eyes meeting Elliot’s over the tops of the little couple’s heads. “It’s the exact same couple as the one in our globe.”

He nods, as if he doesn’t quite trust himself to speak.

“Does that mean Evie made our globe, too?” I ask, hardly able to believe this can be the case. “I mean, seriously; what are the odds?”

“I think she might have,” Elliot replies, putting the little figures carefully back inside the box. “I guess it’s possible she just bought all of this as a kit, and it was mass-produced somewhere, but I don’t think so. Look, there are paintbrushes in here too.”

There are; plus a couple of tubes of paint, which have long-since dried up.

“I think she at least decorated them herself,” he goes on, sifting through the various items. “Which means there’s probably a reason she painted them the way she did.”

“You mean the army uniform?” I say. “The coat?”

I think of the photo of Evie in her swishy-skirted coat. It’s in black and white, so there’s no way of telling what color the coat was, but … I guess it could’ve been red.

“Yup,” says Elliot, grinning so widely that a woman who happens to be walking past our table turns to look at him curiously. “Something must have inspired her to dress them like that, right?”

“Meaning?”I’m pretty sure I know what he’s getting at here, but I want to be totally sure.

“Meaning exactly what you said.” He leans back in his seat, practically rubbing his hands together with glee. “It’s them , Holly. It’s Evie and Luke. They’re the real couple in the snow globe.”

Or, to put it another way: it’s us .