Page 51 of Back to December
“What about them?” Ella asks. “I’m not sure how much help we can be.”
“How do they work exactly?”
Ella blinks. “I always put them in the enchanted mailbox. One of them, anyway. And then it just…does its magic thing, I guess?”
“Interesting,” Luke says. “I don’t think I always used the mailbox. Sometimes I’d just put it under my pillow, and it would be gone when I got back.”
This gives me hope that my plan might actually work. Sebastian has his theories about magic and how it nudges people together in this town. I’m not sure why he cares, but my reasons are simpler.
“Oh, well, that’s lovely,” Ella says, smiling up at him. “I suppose they really do have a mind of their own?”
I clear my throat. “That’s sort of what I was hoping for. But I might’ve given them a little boost.”
Worry shadows Luke’s face. “Look, man, I know you’re torn up about Laila leaving, but magic isn’t the solution.”
Ella elbows him in the ribs, earning me a grunt and a mumbled apology.
“What he means is, magic is tricky.” She shoots him awithering look before she turns back to me. “Would you like to tell me about it?”
I wasn’t nervous before, but I am now.
“Sebastian gave me a coin. About a year ago? And I noticed it got warm in my pocket whenever I leaned toward a decision that brought me closer to Laila. Being more honest and open, you know? Less afraid to tell her how I felt.”
It hasn’t done that since October. The metal’s been cold every time I touch it, like it knows something between us fractured. Maybe that’s just how magic works, it mirrors what it’s given.
Ella’s eyes round. “Really? I don’t suppose it’s all that different from the letters. Not if you’re soulmates,” she whispers the last word almost reverently. “But that means she’d have to believe in them.”
“The last day of our weekend together last year, she told me she did. Believe in them, that is.”
“Really?” She lets out a soft sigh and presses her hand to her heart. “That makes our conversation earlier this week make more sense.”
“What did you talk about?” I ask. I’m being nosy, but if it helps, I want to know.
“You. Charlotte. I didn’t realize she was in so deep, emotionally.”
“I gave her the coin. I’m wondering if—maybe—it’ll extend the magic to wherever she is? Maybe I can write to her.”
Luke scratches his head. “Like a homing device?”
I shrug. “I guess. Magic doesn’t make much sense to me. But I have to try, don’t I?”
Ella nods empathetically. “You do. She may not be readyto hear it yet, Holden. But I think that your lives are already aligned. This is, like you said, just a boost.”
“Come into the house.” Luke claps me on the shoulder. “Mom would love to hear about this. We’ve got fresh cider.”
“Gran would also love to hear about this,” Ella says, winking at me as she hooks her elbow in mine. “You’ll fit right in here with all the romantics. Except Luke.”
“I’m coming around,” he yells as he opens the screen door.
“You are.” Ella giggles. “Do you know my dad’s story about The Gumdrop Trail?”
I nod. “They’re all sort of legendary around here. Didn’t Aurora Thorne put them all into a treasury?”
“She did. Consider the letters gumdrops. Every letter is a light back home.”
It hits me then—why she named her gingerbread man Gumdrop.
Maybe every letter, every crumb of what we built, is just a way home.
