Hall and I slow our pace until the others have outstripped us, falling quiet.

The Grand Canyon, I think, heartbeat faltering. Chalk. Herbie the car. Every math teacher I’ve ever had.

“Oh, this’ll never do.” He groans. “I’m supposed to be cheering you up! I’m the shame of holiday-spiriting.”

“You’re not. You’re the best, only I wish you weren’t. I wish you were rotten at your job.”

“I once got employee of the month for one hundred and eighty-two consecutive months,” he tells me. “Toppled from my throne in 1996 by a Holiday Spirit who helped Adam Sandler come up with ‘The Chanukah Song.’ Brought him the chorus in a dream, and after that, yours truly was old news.”

“I don’t believe you.”

His lips curve, eyes scanning the horizon. The rest of my family have wandered out of sight. The sky has gone to sleep, fading to black when we’re not looking. Snow hangs suspended in streetlamps’ beams, fluttering without appearing to be falling. Hall magicks a red umbrella for me, a green one for himself; we twirl them, listening to sleet pitting off the nylon. When I let my umbrella list to the side while spinning it, a cyclone of snow goes curling off the top, a bright spray in the dark.

The wind ruffles his hair. “Do you see what I see?”

In the air, like a soft wind, a faint chorus of “Do You Hear What I Hear” accompanies, and I feel my cheeks lift.

“What do you see?”

He twists a lock of my hair around his finger, wistful. “A beautiful girl who makes me laugh. Who, the longer I’m with her, the more unbearable it feels that I must ever stop.”

My smile falls.

He clears his throat, looking away. “And, I see a world I have so much affection for. A tiny little town of silver and gold.” He toes a rock aside with his shoe, brow lowered. I think he’s trying to fight back the thoughts that are troubling him, but willpower can only get you so far. He’s learning that being human means dealing with your feelings as they strike, and not simply choosing more pleasant ones with the click of an internal button. “Do you like it here?”

I haven’t always. But now? I’m not so sure.

He follows my attention, sweeping in a wide western arc across the indigo sky, up to the west, down again like a looping roller coaster. This town was supposed to be a temporary stopover, an irritation to overcome and then forget. But, unclouded by those feelings, all I see is alpine beauty, triangles of mountain that flush red, purple, blue in the sunset, like paper cutouts. The big, round clock of Town Hall glowing like a full moon, tower shrouded in fog, its cobblestone courtyard strung with twinkly lights. Streetlamps twined with garland and red velvet bows mark each corner, the one-way gravel tributaries that wind off into the trees, into the mountains, disappearing into nowhere.