Which raises the question: “Who the hell took this picture?”

“I did,” he replies, flipping to the second page. This one’s got a Polaroid of the two of us with a broken bowl on the floor at our feet. In the picture, he’s holding the red book, showing it to me. A caption in gold ink shimmers beneath:

“Who the **** took this picture?”

“I did.”

The asterisks intended to preserve sensitive eyes from the word hell are, upon closer inspection, miniature poinsettias. “Ahhh,” he sighs, gaze welling with fond emotion as he strokes the book’s spine. “Memories.”

I grab the book. It’s labeled the time i was invited to the physical plane by bettie monica hughes and tried sunny d for the first time ever and it was so awesome. The title’s a combination of alphabet stickers and cut-out magazine headlines. “My middle name is Gardenia,” I say, dumbstruck.

The word Monica disappears, Gardenia fading in. “That was a placeholder, since I didn’t know. I really love the name Monica. It’s technically the most beautiful human name, tracing back to the fourth century.”

I stare at him.

“But Gardenia is fine.” He snatches the scrapbook back. It vanishes. “I’ve been waiting forever for you to wake up again. Why are there so many dead plants in here? I bandaged your cut and put together a nice gingerbread loaf, if you’re hungry.”

That explains the smell and the stretchy beige material wrapped around my right hand. I don’t know what to make of that. It strikes me as both kind and violating.

“Right,” I croak.

“I think the reason why you slept so long is because you’ve been consuming drinks that make you tired,” he continues radiantly. “Not to worry. I’ve dumped them out.”

“You what?”

“Gingerbread loaf?” he offers, snapping his fingers. A plate appears between us, floating, a slice of brown cake staring up at me. I say staring because it’s got candy eyes, a red M&M for a nose, and pretzels sticking out the top to form antlers.

“What are you?” I demand, shoving the reindeer in my mouth even though I absolutely know better than to take food from strangers. Why stop making bad decisions now? “Where’d you come from? Where’d you get these pretzels?”

“I am the Holiday Spirit, but you can call me Hall. As in—”

I’m starting to remember his spiel. Or shreds of it, anyway. “Holiday.”

“Yes!” His megawatt grin is a solar flare, painful to look at. He rocks back onto his heels. “Due to an obscure typo in the Festivities Legislation, the Holiday Spirit . . .” I’m walking into the kitchen now, checking on the stash of sherry bottles in the cabinet. They’re gone. Hall follows, craning his head around the side of the cabinet door. “. . . can be conjured by playing the current Billboard Hot 100 number one hit, if it is a holiday hit, and if it is played backwards, on vinyl.”

I replace the batteries in Eileen’s carbon monoxide detector and test it. Seems to be working.