Page 22 of Christmas Cove

Leo shrugged, and America thought it best to let this one go for now. The subject was too touchy, and her prying would do nothing to help. She had no say in when or where a dam was or was not built. What she did have some say over was Main Street. She was there to experience a joyful holiday and help the town have something to celebrate. There was no good in rubbing salt in a clearly open wound.

Leo fumbled a keyring in his fingers and flipped through a dozen or so brass and silver keys.

She took his hand in hers and removed the key ring. “Which one do we need?”

Leo locked his eyes on hers. “The tarnished copper one.”

America flipped the ring around and spotted the patinaed green hue. She pushed it into the keyhole of the enormous carved wood door and turned it. With a click and a creak, she turned the knob and pushed the door open.

Town Hall smelled only slightly better than the musty barn had earlier. It was as though the doors hadn’t been thrown open for some time. Although, she suspected the smell was from neglect tinged in the sadness that the whole town exuded, and not from any true defect.

“What are we doing in here, anyway?” she asked. “I thought we were starting with stringing lights over the street.”

Leo flipped a brass wall switch, and a wooden chandelier illuminated above them. The light bathed the hallway in a soft yellow glow. The colonial architecture’s simple symmetry highlighted the space with comfort. Portraits and framed documents lined the walls above a shoulder-high chair rail, and several doors divided the walls into equal sections.

“In here,” Leo said and turned into the second door to her right.

“Your office?”

“The mayor’s office,” he said and opened a narrow chest on the outer wall.

“Aren’t you the mayor?” she asked.

“I told you, there’s not much to govern around here,” Leo said and moved a lever up.

“It sounds to me like you, Mr. Mayor, have given up,” America said, and immediately regretted the accusation. “What I mean is—”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he shot back and slammed the wall panel.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re absolutely correct. I don’t know. But I see the way you care about this town and—”

“I’m really not talking about this. Can we drop it for now?”

“Of course.” America nodded. The familiarity she felt with him was an illusion. They were barely more than strangers, and there she was, accusing him of lackadaisical governance with no evidence. The fact was clear, they didn’t know each other in a way that allowed her to speak so frankly with him. Her goal was to help bring back Christmas to the Cove so that she would have something to write about.

Leo took America’s hand and led her back down the hall and out to the sunny steps. She shied away from the sun as her eyes adjusted. A sound like bubbling soda fizzing in a can was all around them, and she couldn’t account for such an unnerving noise.

“What is that?”

“Wait for it...” Leo said. “Wait for it.”

Edwin looked over his shoulder from down below with a grin spread from ear to ear. His gay smile put her at ease. With a reaction such as Pa’s, whatever they were waiting for couldn’t be so bad.

A shriek came from beneath the street and traveled towards them like a metal snake tunneling through a granite cave. America covered her ears as water erupted in front of her and flew into the sky. She was certain she screamed at the unexpected sight, though she pretended the noise had come from someone else.

He chuckled and bit his cheek like he was trying to hide his amusement. Leo pointed back at the place where the geyser had been a moment earlier. A four-tiered fountain appeared once the spraying stopped, and the water that had been sprayed skyward froze and floated down like flurries around them.

Although her face was damp from the mist, she didn’t care. The fountain was the first thing she had seen since coming to the Cove that seemed alive as it should have been. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “But why now?”

“We call it Hope Fountain,” Leo said and moved down the steps. “People used to come here all year round and throw a coin in with a prayer for the future.”

“Why hope and not wishes, then?”

“Someone once said that a prayer is not a wish, it’s a vision of hope. So, that’s what we call it.”

“I like that,” America said. “May I?”

“Go for it.”

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