It Started With A Christmas Tree - A Lizzie Fuller Christmas Novella (4 page)

BOOK: It Started With A Christmas Tree - A Lizzie Fuller Christmas Novella
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Yeah, fair enough, my tree did look pretty
sad. I hadn’t added the new decorations to it yet. But she seemed more
interested in the decoration that had come with the tree. I watched as she
looked at me, her eyes filling with tears and then back at the decoration.

As the afternoon sun moved its way across
the sky and flooded through the front window, the rays hit the glass bauble and
sent prisms of light bouncing around the room. The woman watched, happiness
replacing her tears. I could almost hear her laughter as the breeze stirred the
branches and the coloured light danced on the walls.

She turned to me and pointed. My eyes followed
her and I too was hypnotized by the light. After a while I started to make out
patterns in the rays. The patterns turned to letters and as I looked closer
trying to decipher what they said, I heard the lady clap her hands excitedly. I
turned my attention away from the light to look at her but she was gone. The
room was empty and all I was left with was a sense of loss.

It was Cat’s meow that woke me but what I
found when I woke was that I was sitting on my couch with a note pad in my hand
and my scribbled handwriting had drawn across the page— cold 11200LL

WTF?

Now I have been known to sleep walk before
but I have never actually written anything down. Even though, it was almost
illegible with the numbers and letters all mixed together.

I pulled the paper away from the notepad
and scrunched it up, feeling stupid. Standing, I walked to the waste paper bin
and dropped it in, rubbing my arms to alleviate the goosebumps as I did so.

Bloody Sapphire, I thought. Why did she
have to put stupid ideas into my head?

 

****

 

Every Friday night my siblings
and I got together for a catch up. We always mixed it up as to where we met,
but this week it was to be at my place. That was okay, they could sit in awe of
my new Christmas tree and maybe they could even help me decorate it.

I made sure I had enough alcohol in the
cupboard and as usual we were ordering pizza, so I didn’t need to worry about
cooking. I will confess that neither Molly, Danny nor I had inherited mum’s
cooking abilities. We all sucked at it. I
was
getting better at it, and I hadn’t poisoned Riley yet so that was good
thing, right? Even though, I did scare myself the night that he vomited after
eating my first roast, but I later found out six of his work buddies vomited
also and I hadn’t fed them, so it wasn’t my fault. But to this day, I still
haven’t cooked another one and Riley hasn’t asked.

Riley arrived home just after I had put
the vacuum away. I screwed up my nose as he leaned in for a kiss.

“It smells like you had a successful day,”
I said after kissing him on the lips.

“What? Don’t you like the smell of fish?” He
laughed, pulling his shirt over his head and ready to move it to the laundry
basket.

I considered the smell for a minute and
looked at his stomach, all muscles clearly defined and a soft trail of hair
leading its way to his jeans.

Bugger the smell, I thought, following
him.

 

****

 

At exactly six o’clock, there
was a knock at the door. I knew it was Danny. He was the only person I knew who
could knock with such drama. I jumped out of bed, pulled on my jeans and
t-shirt and smoothed my hair. I looked at Riley, stretched out on the bed and
sighed, wondering if I could ignore the door and pretend we weren’t home. Knowing
Danny, I knew that would never happen. He would just keep knocking and ringing
until I opened it. I turned my back on Riley, hearing him laugh. The only
defense I had against him was not to look. Once I did that, I was history.

I put Cat in the bedroom and closed the
door behind me, leaving Riley to finish getting dressed. Walking down the
stairs, I skipped over the now fixed stair tread and moved to the front door. That
tread had been loose when I first moved in here and on more than one occasion I
had slipped on it and fallen down the stairs. After my third fall, I avoided it
and even though Riley had fixed it months ago, I still found myself skipping
over it.

“Hi guys,” I smiled, opening the door and
stepping back to allow them entry.

“God, take long enough?” asked Danny,
lightly kissing my cheek as he moved past.

“Hello possum,” smiled Drew, the more
patient of the two.

“Hi Drew,” I said, giving him a small hug.

At that moment Riley opened the bedroom
door and moved towards the stairs, pulling a clean shirt over his head. I
looked at Danny and saw his jaw drop and maybe even a little bit of drool run
down his chin.

“Alright, you’re forgiven,” he whispered,
giving me a sly smile.

I was about to close the front door, when
I heard Molly sigh. I turned to see her staring at Riley also.

“Enjoy the view guys, but remember—he’s
mine!” I laughed.

“Judging by the smile, you just affirmed
that with him too,” said Molly, kissing me on the cheek as her dog Harper ran
between my legs, sniffing the ground, looking for Cat.

Danny and I had rescued Harper from the
local animal shelter for Molly’s last birthday and it turned out he was a bit
of a hero. When I needed a knight in shining armor, he had appeared to me in a
white fluffy suit.

I closed the door and ushered everybody
into the lounge whilst I went to the kitchen and got Harper his chewy treat. I
will always appreciate what he did for me, helping me fight off the bald-headed
sedan man who had stalked me earlier this year. Without him, I may not even be
here.

“Harper!” I called. I watched as he ran at
me, tongue hanging out to the side. I wanted to give him a bone, but he’d had
the last of his front teeth removed last month, so a bone would just be cruel. He
didn’t mind though. He loved his Smacko’s just as much.

“Lizzie, you have to stop giving them to
him,” reprimanded Molly. “The vet said he’s getting fat.”

“Oh, a little thing like that won’t make
any difference,” I replied, noticing Harper’s bulging belly. Maybe I should
give him half a one next time.

“Your tree is lovely, poppet,” smiled
Andrew as I followed Harper into the lounge room. Riley handed me a glass of
wine as everyone took a seat on the couch.

“Thanks Drew,” I said. “Riley and I are
starting a new tradition this year. We’re having a real tree from now on.”

“That’s what we should do, Drew!” yelled
Danny. Drew sighed.

“Well, they are lovely but they make such
a mess,” commented Drew, sounding awfully like my mother. Actually Drew was
probably closer to my mother’s age than he was to Danny’s. He was about
seventeen years older than Danny and at least thirty years more mature. Which
was a good thing. Danny acted like a child most of the time. I looked at my
brother and sister sitting next to each other on the couch and smiled. There
was Danny in his skinny jeans and black t-shirt, his hair scrunched up into a
messy style tonight and Molly in her skinny jeans and black lacy top, with her
long dark hair scrunched into a mess of curls. Somehow her mess of curls looked
sleek and sexy where as my mess of curls looked frizzy and a mess! The only
real difference between Danny and Molly tonight was that Danny’s hair was fire
engine red again.

“I’m just going with the plastic one,”
said Molly, pulling my attention back to the tree.

“You suck at decorating though,” said
Danny, lifting his glass and drinking from it.

“I haven’t finished it yet!” I replied
indignantly. “That’s what you’re here to help me with.” I grabbed my shopping
bags and placed them in front of the tree. “We’ve got plenty to choose from.”

“Did you leave anything in the shop for
anybody else to buy?” asked Danny. As you can see, he shares Molly’s sense of
sarcasm.

“Blame Grandma Mabel for that,” I
answered, pulling the first of the decorations out of its’ bag. “Come on
everyone, dig in.”

Thankfully everyone pulled up a bag and
started to fill the tree. Molly had moved to my iPod and found a few Christmas
songs I had downloaded, and we all started to sing along. It didn’t take long
for us all to be in a very festive mood.

“This one is beautiful,” said Molly,
pulling a glass orb from the branches and holding up for everyone to see.

“It came with the tree,” I explained,
telling them the story of Earl and how I found this decoration once we had the
tree home.

“It’s really strange but I dreamt about it
today,” I said.

“Did you have a nana?” asked Danny,
smirking.

“Maybe. But that’s not the point,” I
huffed. “The point is,the dream felt real.” I quickly filled them in on the
dream and how I woke up with the scribbled code.

“You didn’t tell me about that,” said
Riley.

“Yeah, well….I was a bit preoccupied when
you got home,” I mumbled. Riley replied with a grin.

“Show me the note,” said Molly, intrigued.

“Maybe it’s Lizzie the psychic who wrote
the note,” laughed Danny.

Ignoring him, I walked to the bin and
pulled out the paper I had scrunched and thrown away
earlier.

Danny grabbed the note and looked at my scrawl.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said, passing
it to Drew. Molly stepped up next to Drew and read over his shoulder.

“I know. That’s because I wrote it in my
sleep,” I explained slowly, looking at Danny like he was an idiot. “I thought
you’d find it funny.”

Everyone looked more intrigued than
amused.

“What if it’s a clue?” said Danny,
excitement dancing in his eyes.

“It’s not a clue! It’s the scrawl of
someone sleep writing!” Jeez, they just didn’t get it.

Molly shrugged. “Did the woman talk in the
dream?”

“No. She just looked sad.”

“I think you’re right, poppet,” said Drew.
“It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Maybe you weren’t supposed to get the
decoration,” said Molly. “Maybe the tree was ear marked for someone else and
Earl gave the wrong one to you.”

“I don’t know. There was only one tree to
take,” I shrugged.

“Why don’t you go back and ask Earl about
it? If it was meant to go to someone else and he gave it to you by accident
then he might be stressing. Poor guy sounds really sweet, I’d hate to think he
was in trouble for selling it to you,” said Danny, wrinkling his brow.

“Maybe, but honestly, I think it was just
a promotion thing. Get a free bauble with every tree.”

“It looks pretty expensive,” said Molly,
holding up and inspecting it. “In fact, I think it might be crystal.”

“You think so?” I asked, taking it off of
her and having a closer look. “It looks like glass to me.

“Ask your mum,” said Drew. “She’s been
collecting crystal for years. If anybody would know, she would.”

“Yeah, maybe. I’ll show her on Sunday at
dinner if I remember to take it.”

By the time the pizza arrived we had
finished decorating the tree and had all consumed our fair share of the wine. I
am happy to announce that I can now drink a little bit more than half a glass
without getting drunk. I’ve moved up to a full glass.

I sat on the couch snuggled into Riley,
Andrew and Danny were sitting together on my oversized chair and Molly was on
the floor with Harper asleep in her lap. Life was pretty good right now.

Just as I was closing my eyes and
listening to the story Drew was telling us of a Christmas he spent I Mexico,
Molly’s phone rang. I watched as she pulled it out of her bag, read the caller
ID, turned red and stood, ready to step outside to take the call. Once she was
out of earshot, I spoke up.

“Did anybody else see that?” I asked,
excitedly sitting forward in my seat.

“Yes!” exclaimed Danny. “She went as red
as Rudolph’s’ nose!”

“I wonder who she’s talking to?” I stood
and moved into the hall, trying my best to eavesdrop. Danny followed me. As we
both stood with our ears pressed against the door, we heard a distinctive
giggle from Molly.

“She’s got a boyfriend!” said Danny.

“How about you give her some privacy?”
said Drew from the lounge room.

“Bugger privacy. If she’s got some hunk of
spunk chasing after her, I want to know about it.”

“Yeah and what about letting us in on the
details?” I sulked. “She wanted to look at my handy man when I hired him.”

“Yeah and look how
handy
he’s turned out,” said Danny quietly.

“I heard that,” called Riley.

I giggled. Molly giggled some more.

Hearing her goodbyes, Danny and I quickly
retreated to the lounge and sat back pretending we had never been
eavesdropping. Molly walked into the room, her eyes shining brightly.

“Hear enough?” she asked, looking between
Danny and myself.

At least I had the graciousness to blush.

BOOK: It Started With A Christmas Tree - A Lizzie Fuller Christmas Novella
8.62Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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