Fiction Serial: The Midnight Tree (Part 1)
WRITTEN BY CAMILLA KELLY
Enjoy this festive two-part serial, we’ll publish Part 2 on Nov 16.
Tradition is of huge importance in a family of Christmas tree growers – but surely a silly superstition doesn’t count…
They sold their last spruce tree late on Christmas Eve, and by the time they’d helped the customer load it onto the roof rack and then packed up, it was nearly midnight before they realised they didn’t have a tree for themselves.
“How could you forget we need a tree too?” Sarah demanded, smacking her brother on the shoulder.
“Hey!” Ollie pretended to be injured, but no blow of hers had harmed that thick shoulder of muscle for at least ten years, since as a teenager he’d started helping their dad cut and carry trees on the family farm. “I didn’t forget. There’s usually at least two or three left over.”
They looked at each other and grinned. They couldn’t complain about the fact that they’d sold out.
“I can’t wait to tell Dad,” Sarah said.
“If we go back to the house without a tree, he’ll be too disappointed to care. You know how he is about tradition. And Bella will never forgive us – she made a star at school to go on the top and everything.”
Sarah sighed. She was exhausted after the long day of selling. Every year she helped out and yet every year it took her by surprise, just how tiring it was. Maybe Ollie was right, and going away to university had made her soft. She was already in danger of sleeping through Christmas Day.
What did you have in mind?
Ollie smiled, delighting in delivering the news.
“We’re going to have to go and nick one from next year’s crop.”
Sarah slumped. Just the thought of trekking over all those acres in the dark…
“You said you wanted this to be the best Christmas ever,” Ollie reminded her. “We’ll definitely need a tree for that.” He poked her. “Hey, you’re not scared, are you?”
“Terrified,” she said wryly, swatting him away. The woods were as familiar to her as the corridors of their house. But yes, it was important that this Christmas be special, and Bella had been talking about the tree for weeks.
“Let’s go, then. But better not say anything to Dad about it. He always says Christmas Eve is the last day you’re allowed to fell a tree.”
Ollie rolled his eyes at their father’s superstitions. “Agreed.”
It was nearly 1am by the time they brought the tree into the house. Their mother, Mia, was up waiting for them with another tradition – hot chocolate.
Their father, Sylvester, was awake too, lying on the sofa with his leg in a plaster cast, propped on cushions. He cast an expert eye over the tree they’d chosen and eventually pronounced it satisfactory before wanting to know every detail of their day. It killed him not to have been out there with them this year, for the first time ever.
“It was fine, Dad. We managed,” Ollie said, stretching out on the carpet and flexing his toes in their holey socks.
“Better than managed,” Sarah said, taking a mug of chocolate from Mia. “We sold out.” She high-fived Ollie.
“Sold out!” Mia exclaimed. “Maybe we’ll be able to have presents this year after all,” she said with a wink.
“Can we decorate the tree now?” came a voice from the doorway.
Nine-year-old Bella should have been in bed, yet Mia had – somewhat psychically, Sarah thought – already poured a mug of hot chocolate for her. Bella bounded into the room in her pyjamas and stood looking at the tree as appraisingly as her father had.
“This one’s different.”
Ollie and Sarah exchanged a glance.
“It’s smaller than usual,” Sarah said.
“Not just that.”
“I thought so, too,” Sylvester said.
Bella got down on her stomach and wriggled towards the pot, ducking under the skirt of low branches.
“What is it?” Mia asked.
“Come and see.”
Mia, Ollie and Sarah got down beside her. They lay staring through the needles into the central vortex of the tree.
“What?” Sylvester said impatiently.
“It’s…” Ollie said.
“Silver,” Bella said. “It’s silver.”
There was a thump as Sylvester knocked his crutches to the floor, followed quickly by another thump as he lowered himself down. Bella moved to make room for him so he could see.
The trunk was shrouded in a silvery film that glittered. Sarah was reminded of the silver moon in the clear sky when she and Ollie walked through the woods.
Sylvester nodded grimly at Ollie and then Sarah. They looked guiltily back.
I think it’s time for you to come clean.
There were reasons you didn’t cut a tree after Christmas Eve, he said darkly, once they’d owned up. Hadn’t he taught them anything?
“But why, Dad?” Bella demanded worriedly. “What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know, Bells. I never disobeyed my parents when they told me not to.”
“It’s just a story, Bella,” Ollie scoffed. “That’s just dew or sap or something on the trunk.”
Sarah didn’t want to think about it. She got up and pulled Bella after her.
“Come on, let’s start decorating. We’ve got to get to bed before Santa arrives.”
It was through a heavy fog of sleep that Sarah woke in the morning. She reached to switch off her horribly insistent alarm, but then realised that the noise she was hearing was the smoke alarm.
She raced, half stumbling, into the kitchen. Thick smoke filled the room.
Mia, in her nightie and oven gloves, stood over a sad, blackened turkey on the kitchen table.
“I don’t understand how this happened…”
Sylvester finally knocked the smoke alarm off the ceiling with his crutch and got it to stop wailing, just as Ollie slouched in.
“What’s going on?”
“I had it on the timer,” Mia muttered, more to herself than them. “I checked it, I’m sure I did.”
There was a moment of silence for the devastated turkey. Then Bella ducked in under Ollie’s arm and said, “So… pizza for lunch?”
“I think that’s a great idea,” Sylvester said, nodding encouragingly at Mia.
“There will still be roast potatoes, though, won’t there?” Ollie said.
Sarah gave her mum a hug.
“No worries, Mum. Can’t be helped.”
“Well,” Mia said, drawing herself up, “it got everyone out of bed at least. Did you find your stocking, Bells?”
While Bella raced to her bedroom to get it, Sarah took a moment to go back to her own room. When she drew the curtains back she saw that it had started snowing in the night, and was snowing still – big blowsy gusts of it flying against the window. What a relief that it hadn’t started while they were working!
Bella would love a white Christmas… if it calmed down enough for them to go out in it and play. It was a bit aggressive out there just now.
Sarah closed her door and then felt around under her pillow for the small wrapped gift she’d made herself wait until Christmas morning to open, despite having had it for three days. She’d amazed herself with her own willpower.
It was worth it when she unwrapped a velvet jewellery box and saw the vintage silver bracelet inside. Even better, there was a card propped in the lid that said, Next year, a sunshine Christmas in Sydney!
Sarah was elated. It was the loveliest gift she’d ever had – not just a gorgeous piece of jewellery, but the promised future that came with it – and she couldn’t wait to thank Harry.
Even though it was early he answered his phone on the first ring, so she knew he’d been waiting for her to call.
Merry Christmas, Gorgeous. Have you opened your gift?
“Harry, I love it! It’s perfect.”
“I mean it, you know. You and me, as soon as we graduate.”
“I can’t wait,” she said happily, loving the sound of his voice and picturing him in his childhood bedroom a hundred miles away, with the glow-in-the-dark constellation on the ceiling and the Man United posters on the wall.
“I wish you were here,” he said. “Andy’s party was so good. You could have helped drink Mum’s vile eggnog.”
Sarah laughed.
“You know I appreciated the invitation, but if this is going to be my last Christmas at home for a bit, I want to make sure it’s a great one. Christmas is a very big deal in our family.”
“So you haven’t told them about our travel plans yet?” he guessed.
“I will. But not today. It has to be the best Christmas ever. Then maybe they’ll not mind me not being here next year.”
“But you will speak to them?”
“Of course I will.”
Harry was quiet for a moment. She knew he didn’t get why she wasn’t shouting their plans from the rooftops – and she wanted to, but she had to be tactful with her family.
Harry just didn’t understand how their whole year revolved around this period. It was the most special time of the year to them – their livelihood, and their traditions which – like the farm – went back generations.
Harry’s family actually went to a restaurant on Christmas Eve and then had sandwiches for Christmas lunch!
OK, if she was honest, maybe she was a bit ambivalent about not being at home next year for the first time. No matter how much she enjoyed being with Harry, she’d miss home. That was probably what he had picked up on.
“Harry…” she began.
“It’s OK, Sarah. I get it.”
“I’m really excited about our trip.”
“I know. I shouldn’t have pushed. Forget I said anything.”
Sarah felt vaguely dissatisfied when she hung up, wondering if he was cross with her. She put the bracelet on, but the glow of the gift had faded; she hated to think of the usually rock solid connection between Harry and her being damaged.
She looked in the mirror.
So much for the Best Christmas Ever. Things aren’t going so well so far…
She’d have to try extra hard to compensate for the bad start to the day.
She threw on her dressing gown and opened her door. Bella was right outside, her gift-filled stocking limp in her hand.
“I heard you say you’re not going to be here for Christmas next year,” she said, looking at Sarah with huge, hurt eyes.
“I…” Sarah felt wrong-footed. “Harry and I might be travelling…”
“But how long for?”
“I’m not sure… maybe a year?”
A year was an eternity to Bella. She still hadn’t quite forgiven Sarah for going away to university. She looked down at her red elf-feet slippers.
“Come here, Bells,” Sarah said, trying to pull her sister into a hug. But Bella slipped away, racing down the stairs.
Sarah expected Bella to tell the rest of the family straight away – and heaven knew how Ollie was going to take the news! Never mind Dad, the King of Christmas…
But apparently they were too busy with other things to listen to Bella. A pipe had burst in the cellar, and while Ollie was bellowing and getting soaked trying to fix it, Sylvester was hobbling about, trying to save not only the boxes of files they stored down there, but Mia’s Christmas present, which they’d all clubbed together to buy and had been hidden in the cellar out of sight.
“I’m so sorry, love,” Sylvester said, as he hefted the gift – which was as tall as Bella – towards Mia. “Bella made it look so pretty, too.”
The gift had been glorious in its glossy paper and ribbon. Now the paper was blotchy and wrinkled with water stains, and torn on the bottom where Sylvester and Ollie had dragged it out
of danger.
“Let’s hope it’s OK on the inside, eh? Why don’t you open it now, make sure it’s in one piece?”
Mia carefully tore off the rest of the paper, revealing the antique oak music stand that Sarah had found online and Ollie and Sylvester had driven fifty miles to collect a week ago.
Mia put her hands to her face.
“Oh. Isn’t it beautiful.”
Sarah called Ollie so he wouldn’t miss seeing his mother’s face. He trotted up from the cellar and stuck his head in, looking like a man who’d been interrupted in the middle of a wrestling match.
Sarah grinned.
Let me show you the best bit. It’s got a Christmas tree carved into the side.
“It was originally made for St Boniface Church,” Sylvester said. “He was the patron saint of Christmas trees.”
“How perfect,” Mia said. She bent down with Bella to see the carving on the foot of the stand.
They both fell silent.
“What is it?” Sylvester asked.
“It’s OK. It’s still lovely.”
Sylvester and Sarah came forward, seeing what Mia had seen: the pretty Christmas tree had been damaged and was washed out and water-stained too, looking as though it had been soaked for weeks rather than minutes.
“Maybe I chipped it while I was carrying it,” Sylvester said unhappily.
“It doesn’t matter. I still love it. And we might be able to get it restored.” Mia was still upbeat, but it was as if the gloss had been taken off the gift.
Ollie mooched back to the cellar, cracking his knuckles. The windows rattled with the force of the wind.
“What else is going to go wrong?” Sylvester muttered.
“It’s certainly been one thing after another today,” Mia said, with a high pitched chuckle. “And it’s such a shame, because I was determined it was going to be perfect this year!”
Sarah hadn’t realised her mother felt the pressure of Christmas too. Bella glanced at her, obviously thinking of the news that Sarah had yet to give her parents, and Sarah felt flooded with guilt. Anxiously, she rubbed her wrist. That was when she noticed that the bracelet Harry had given her was gone.
“Oh, no.” She glanced around.
“What’s wrong?” Mia asked.
“I lost my bracelet. Oh, this is crazy!”
“I think it’s because of the tree,” Bella said suddenly.
“What is?” Sylvester asked, bemused.
Christmas is all wrong this year. Everything’s weird. I think it’s because we cut down a tree after midnight.
“Bells,” Mia declared firmly, putting an arm around Bella’s shoulders, “that’s just superstition.”
“But Dad said…”
Illustration: Andre Leonard
“Mum’s right,” Sylvester put in. But even to Sarah, it sounded as if he didn’t quite believe it.
“A few mishaps,” he said with a smile. “What’s so weird about that?”
The doorbell rang.
They all looked at each other – all but Ollie, who was still downstairs fighting with the pipe.
“Well… that’s weird,” Bella argued.
Who came visiting this early on Christmas Day – and in a snowstorm?
Sylvester opened the front door, the three women standing, intrigued, in the hall behind him, shivering in the draught.
Their visitor was a short, balding, middle-aged man in a Parka. Despite having very little hair on his head, he had very full eyebrows, which gave him an oddly authoritative appearance – like some old colonel, Sarah thought.
“I’d like to buy a tree,” he said, beaming at Sylvester, as if he’d just stepped out of a drawing room rather than a snowstorm.
“Oh.” Sylvester was nonplussed.
I’m sorry, we’re out of trees. And actually, well, we’re closed.
“Closed?” The massive architecture of one eyebrow shot up.
“It is Christmas…”
“That’s why I need a tree. It’s a bit of an emergency – my grandchildren are going to be arriving any second and you know what kids are like – traditions are so important.”
“For us too, actually.” Sylvester smiled uncertainly. “But I’m very sorry, we can’t help. As I said, we’ve no trees left.”
“I’ve travelled such a long way. Isn’t there anything you could do?”
Sylvester hesitated. Mia stepped forward, putting her hand on Sylvester’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry but my husband’s right. We can’t chop any more trees down.”
“Oh, dear.” The stranger’s smile faltered. “But I promised…”
Her mother looked at the stranger pityingly.
“Why don’t you come out of the cold for a few minutes?”
“Thank you, that’s good of you.”
Immediately he was inside, stomping his feet on the welcome mat with a sense of entitlement – as though that was where he had meant to be all along.
He smiled at Sarah – a smile that seemed too big for his face somehow, so she wasn’t sure how to respond – and winked at Bella.
“Merry Christmas, young lady.”
Bella smiled back shyly. She leaned close to Sarah.
“He’s really odd,” she whispered.
“Bella!” Sarah chided. But she had to agree – especially when he turned to Bella, his expression knowing, as if he was aware he was being talked about.
Mia led the stranger to the kitchen. Bella followed them with her eyes, intrigued by his strangeness and whimsy.
“It’s the tree,” she said in a low voice to Sarah.
He’s here because we broke the rules, I know he is.
“The Christmas tree police?” Sarah teased, trying to dismiss Bella’s fantasies because she was so unsettled by the day’s happenings that she almost believed them herself.
“No, nothing like that…” Bella mused. It was clear she believed something very unusual was going on and Sarah wasn’t going to convince her otherwise.
Sarah looked out of the side window, searching for the man’s car, but couldn’t see it. They had a clear view down the drive right to the end of the road – but the car could be hidden in the cloud of snow, which was dense and swirling now.
She shook herself, wishing Ollie was there with a good lashing of scepticism because she couldn’t help wondering – how had the stranger even found his way here to the house?
