As Christmas stories go, this one isn’t as sad as it could be.
I’m not Tiny Tim. There were no Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, or Future. All told, it is a tale completely free of angels and elves, wise men and shepherds. Even Santa didn’t make an appearance.
Nope. As it turns out, I was visited by Hulda.
“Yes. Yes.” I heard her voice, high and clear, through the crowd of people who stood too close, wearing coats that were too heavy. Our collective breath clung to the windows, almost hiding the sight of the 747 that was waiting right outside. I shifted on my feet, wondering if there is any place on earth more chaotic than Chicago O’Hare Airport five days before Christmas.
Families ran for connections. Carols played over a scratchy PA system while people stood crowded together. Waiting. But for some reason I couldn’t stop staring at the blond girl leaning against the counter at gate H18.
“New York,” the girl said. “I will go there please. Now.”
Her voice carried an accent that I couldn’t quite place—the consonants too precise, like someone who is very worried she might not be understood.
She slid her ticket toward the gate agent then forced a smile, an afterthought. “Please.”
The agent took one glance at the piece of paper and forced a smile of her own. “Oh, I’m sorry, but this isn’t a ticket to New York.”
The blond girl rolled her eyes. “Yes. That is why I stand in this line and talk to you. You can change it to New York, no? It is okay. I will wait.”
The gate agent shook her head and punched a few keys on her computer. True to her word, the girl waited.
“No. I’m sorry,” the agent said a moment later. “Your ticket is nonexchangeable and nonrefundable. Do you understand?”
“I am Icelandic. I am not moronic.”
“Of course. Yes. It’s just that . . .” The agent trailed off, looking for words. “I’m afraid that this ticket cannot be used on this flight. And even if it could, this flight is full.”
“But I must go to New York! I thought I could fly to where this ticket takes me and then take a bus or a train to New York, but it is very far. In Iceland, the distances . . . they are not so far. And now I am going to a place I do not want to go, to see someone I do not wish to see, and—”
“I’m sorry.” The gate agent shook her head. “You can purchase a ticket for New York. We have another flight leaving at six a.m. tomorrow. If you wish to go to New York you must buy a ticket for that flight.”
“But I have a ticket!” the girl snapped and pushed her old ticket forward again.
Meanwhile, another gate agent was approaching the door, propping it open as she announced, “Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to flight 479 with nonstop service to New York’s LaGuardia Airport.”
The lady behind the counter gave a desperate look to the even more desperate girl. “You will either need to buy a ticket for a later flight or go to your original destination.”
“But my boyfriend is in New York! And if you would only change my ticket—”
“This flight is full.”
“But I do not love him!”
The woman looked confused. “Your boyfriend in New York?”
“No.” The girl shook her head and shrugged. “My other boyfriend.”
“Oh,” the woman said, her mouth forming a perfect circle. Then she leaned closer. A kindness filled her eyes. “Are your parents here?”
The girl shook her head. “I am alone.”
And right then I totally knew the feeling.
I watched the girl push away from the desk and start through the crowd of people that swarmed, jockeying for position as the gate agent announced, “We would like to welcome our first-class passengers at this time.”
En masse, the crowd took another step forward, jostling the girl, who dropped her bag and wiped her eyes. Her footsteps faltered.
And that was when I did it.
I don’t know why I did it. It wasn’t even a conscious thought, a decision. Instinct alone was driving me as I stepped forward and blurted, “You want to go to New York?”
The girl looked at me, confused, but before she could even answer, I thrust my own ticket toward her and said, “Here. Take it. You can have it if you give me yours.”
“But that is your ticket.”
“You can have it. We can trade. Here.” I waved my ticket, but the girl glanced nervously at the gate agent standing by the door.
“It’s okay. They don’t check IDs during the boarding process,” I told her. “If you want to go to New York, this is your chance. Just give me your ticket. Give me your ticket and go.”
I could practically see what she was thinking. I was a teenage girl, too. We were about the same height, the same weight. To anyone in that heavily secured airport we might have even looked like sisters. It’s not like I was a creepy dude asking her to get into my van, but the offer probably sounded too good to be true. Which meant it probably was.
She hesitated, then snatched the ticket from my hand, held hers out to me.
“Go ahead.” I motioned toward the open door. “You’re boarding.”
She pointed to another open door a few gates away, another mass of crowding people. “So are you.”
It really was that easy, believe it or not. I started toward the open doors. For the first time in my life I did not look back, not until I heard the girl call, “You don’t even know where I was going.”
I shrugged and shook my head and said the only thing that mattered: “If you just want to go away then any ticket will get you there.”
“Miss?” the voice came through the blackness, and yet I did not move. “Miss!” The flight attendant seemed almost sorry. “It’s time. We’re here.”
That’s when I realized the plane was on the ground; all the other passengers were gone. The lights were down and the tarmac was dark. Wherever the girl was going, I was there.
Walking through the nearly deserted terminal, I made a list of what I had to do. I had enough cash for a hotel and a car, but they’d never rent one to a minor. Especially a minor traveling alone. I took the battery out of my phone, knowing I’d need to buy a burner. I would have to—
“Hulda!” someone yelled.
I looked at the crowd of people waiting just outside of security.
“Hulda!” the woman at the front of the crowd yelled again, a massive Welcome (to your new) Home, Hulda! banner unfurled in front of her. “We’re so glad you’re here!”
As she rushed forward, she must have crossed into a secure area because an alarm started sounding—both in my head and out of it.
This was dangerous.
This was wrong.
This woman was invading territory that was better left roped off. Secured. Barricaded and impenetrable to intruders. But the breach had already happened, and I let myself give in to the hug.
It was, after all, a really nice hug.
“Well, look at you!” The woman held me at arm’s length. “You changed your hair.”
I thought back to the short blond locks on the girl in the airport. The girl with the accent. The girl from Iceland. The girl these people were evidently waiting for.
I felt myself starting to panic, needing to run . . .
“You look so different from your picture,” the woman said, and I managed to breathe.
The girl these people had evidently only seen in pictures.
Maybe they wouldn’t get suspicious, call security. The police. Maybe I could just bide my time and slip away quietly and . . .
“Well, what am I doing hogging all the hugging? Ethan!” the woman yelled. She looked around, and I followed her gaze to the boy who was walking around the corner.
He wore Wranglers and boots and a plaid shirt heavy with starch. Until then, I’d thought boys like him only existed on the covers of romance novels. He must have been shocked by the looks of me, too, because he stopped short, frozen in the process of sliding a phone back into his pocket. Hulda’s words came back to me:
I don’t love him.
My other boyfriend.
“Ethan!” the woman yelled. “She’s here!”
I started to spin, but I was too late. He was already there. Looking at me. I could see the truth playing across his face, the realization that I was not an Icelandic girl name Hulda. I was not his girlfriend.
“It’s . . .” The boy started, and, mentally, I filled in the blanks.
An imposter!
A liar!
A fraud.
He moved closer.
“So good to see you!” the boy said.
And then he kissed me.
So it turns out that if you swap tickets with a girl who doesn’t want to go see her boyfriend, then there’s a good chance said boyfriend will meet you at the airport.
Along with his entire family.
“This is Aunt Mary,” the boy—Ethan—said, pointing to the woman with the really good hugs. “You’ll be staying with her,” he added before pointing to the others. “My mom, Susan. Dad, Clint.”
Clint took my hand in his big, beefy, calloused one, but he gave me a warm smile.
“Welcome.” His voice had a soft, southern twang. They all did.
“Oh, and that’s Emily. She’s my sister,” Ethan said as Emily looked up at me with the biggest bluest eyes that I’ve ever seen. I’m pretty sure she could see right through me.
“I’m twelve,” she said before I could ask. “I’m older than I look.”
We were walking toward the baggage claim, past a nativity scene where all of the wise men were dressed like cowboys, when the boy’s mom looked at me and asked, “So, is this your first trip to Oklahoma?”
Oklahoma.
Middle of the country. Middle of nowhere. Approximately a thousand miles from New York, another thousand from LA. It was . . . perfect.
“First time,” I said.
There was a long pause while everyone waited for me to do something. I felt like an animal at the zoo, an exhibit called Icelandic Girl in the Wild. But I wasn’t an Icelandic girl. And I couldn’t let them know that.
“It’s nice to meet you all,” I tried.
“My goodness,” Aunt Mary started, “Ethan said your English was good, but it’s perfect. Just perfect.”
“I watch a lot of American TV,” I said, and they all nodded as if that made sense.
“Okay, let’s get your bags.” Clint clapped his hands together.
“Oh, I don’t—” But before I could finish, a huge suitcase came around the conveyor belt, a giant sticker of the Icelandic flag plastered to the side. “I guess that’s mine.”
Clint went to grab the old-fashioned suitcase, lifting the giant thing as if it weighed nothing at all. I had to wonder how long Hulda was expected to stay.
But that didn’t matter. I wasn’t Hulda.
“So . . . Hulda?” Ethan asked, and it took an embarrassingly long time to realize he was talking to me.
“Yes, Evan?” I asked.
“Ethan,” he whispered. “My name is Ethan. You might want to remember that since you just flew halfway around the world because you are so in love with me.” I studied his profile in the dim light of the backseat of his parents’ SUV as it pulled away from the airport. His jaw was strong, and he kept his gaze straight ahead, as if trying to stare down the horizon. “You’re never going to get away with this, you know? Pretending to be Hulda.”
“Hulda is fine,” I told him. “I didn’t gag her and shove her in a closet if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Oh, I know. She called to tell me that she didn’t get on the plane. She asked me to look out for you, and that is the only reason I’m going along with this crazy stunt. Hulda is a good person. You did her a favor, so I’m doing you a favor because . . .” He trailed off, then looked at me anew. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“No.”
“Because if you are . . . if there’s something about you that brings trouble to my family—”
“I’m not in any trouble.”
“Because girls always trade plane tickets with strangers in airports. They’re always flying off to meet some stranger’s boyfriend.”
“That’s funny. According to the people in this car, you’re Hulda’s boyfriend. But Hulda didn’t think so.”
“What’s your point?”
“We all have secrets.”
He turned and stared straight ahead again. “I went on a foreign-exchange trip to Iceland last summer.”
“And . . .”
The corners of Ethan’s mouth turned up in something not quite resembling a smile. “What happens in Iceland stays in Iceland.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He glanced back at me. “So, what’s in it for you?”
“I didn’t want to go to New York.”
“What’s in New York?”
Aunt Mary was leaning between the front seats, talking to Ethan’s mother and father. Emily was wearing headphones—I could hear faint traces of music as she closed her eyes, fading in and out of sleep. Ethan and I were alone in the last row, but the SUV was too quiet. Someone might overhear. Get suspicious. Find out.
I swore right then that no one would ever find out.
“I needed to get away, okay? I saw my chance, and I took it. I’ll be out of your hair, and you can start mending your broken heart or whatever just as soon as we stop. I will disappear, and you will never have to see me again.”
I expected him to protest, to complain that I was putting him in an impossible position. I didn’t expect him to actually say, “You can’t just run away.”
But I was not in the mood to hear what I couldn’t do. The list had been too extensive for too long.
You can’t eat that.
You can’t go there.
You can’t be this.
Ethan didn’t know that I was in that SUV-bound-to-nowhere because I had solemnly sworn to never let anyone tell me what I could or could not do ever again, so I leaned closer. “Watch me.”
But he only laughed. “No. You don’t understand. I know my father, and there is no way this vehicle stops until we get home.”
“So I’ll split as soon as we get there.”
But that must have been hilarious, because Ethan just laughed harder.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, but he sank lower in his seat, closed his eyes and whispered, “You’ll see, Not Hulda. You will soon see.”
In case you were wondering, by “soon” Ethan meant four hours later.
That’s how long I sat squeezed into the backseat, listening to Hulda’s fake boyfriend snore. He kept his cap pulled low over his eyes, so I sat alone in the dark vehicle, staring out over the lights of the towns in the distance and the red glow of the taillights of the trucks that passed us by.
When Clint finally pulled off the interstate and onto a small highway I thought we must be almost there, but it was another hour before we turned onto a narrow gravel road that wound and curved through the darkness. The lights of the city were long gone. There were only stars. Millions of stars. Honestly, it was like we were the only people on earth when Clint stopped beside a small white house with a wraparound porch and said, “We’re here.”
“This is your house?” I asked Ethan as we crawled out of the backseat.
“No.” Ethan yawned, and I realized it must be after midnight. “Aunt Mary lives here. We’re next door.”
I turned to look, but saw only dark hills beneath that blanket of stars—a moon so large that it felt like I could touch it.
“With next door being . . .”
“About a half mile on the other side of that ridge.” Ethan pointed to the darkness.
A cold wind blew my hair into my face, jolting me awake. I watched as Clint carried Hulda’s huge suitcase up the stairs and through a door that opened without a key. That’s when I realized I was literally in a place where people didn’t lock their doors at night and the distance to the nearest neighbor was measured in miles.
If all I wanted was to go away then I’d done it. But Aunt Mary was beaming at me. Ethan’s parents were giving me hugs and wishing me good night. And Ethan kept looking at me as if he expected me to bolt off into the darkness at any moment.
I had to congratulate myself on finding the perfect place to hide.
It was a shame I couldn’t stay.
“You got everything you need, sweetie?”
Aunt Mary knocked on the bedroom door and it swung open. If she thought it was weird that I was still sitting on the bed with my backpack on my lap, she didn’t say so.
“Do you need some help unpacking?” She pointed to Hulda’s huge suitcase, but I shook my head.
“No, thank you.”
“That’s okay.” She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. “You’ve got five months to settle in.”
Five months. A whole semester. I tried to imagine living in a tiny white farmhouse in the middle of nowhere for almost half a year. I had one bar on my cell phone (I’d checked before removing the battery again), and there was no cable TV. Could a person even live like this? Then I thought about the unlocked door, the big Christmas tree, and the handmade stocking already hanging on the mantel, the name Hulda sewn on in green sequins. And I knew that, for some people, the answer was absolutely yes.
“Your house is nice,” I told her.
“It’s old. Like me.” Aunt Mary laughed. “And it’s empty now that my husband and little girl aren’t here. But it’s mine. I was born here, you know.” She glanced at the old building as if expecting it to finish her story. “This was my room when I was your age. And then it was my daughter’s room. And now it’s yours.” She gave me a wide smile. “We’re glad you’re here, Hulda.”
“I’m very glad to be here,” I said because it was the first lie that came to mind.
For a second, though, I thought it must not have been the right lie, because Aunt Mary looked as if she knew there was something wrong with Hulda. Wrong with me.
Then she shook her head. “I just can’t get over how good your English is.”
“Thank you,” I said, and remembered what Ethan had told me on the drive. “Ethan helped me with it when he was in Iceland last summer.”
“Of course. He’s a good boy,” Aunt Mary said, but then something in the woman’s countenance grew serious. She studied me anew. “I would hate for him to get hurt.”
I looked into her big brown eyes. “I would hate that, too.”
And at that moment I meant it.
I swear, I really did.
“She’s so quiet.” I could make out the words, but I couldn’t place the voice. Or the room. Or the house. Or the overwhelming stillness that seemed to permeate everything around me. There were no honking horns, no dinging elevators or room-service carts being pushed down anonymous, never-ending hallways. That was when I told myself that I was still sleeping, that it had to be a dream.
“It’s a long flight. She must have been exhausted,” someone else said, and I remembered: Aunt Mary. The little white farmhouse with the big Christmas tree.
Ethan. Iceland. Hulda.
I threw off the covers and bolted upright in bed. The sun was too bright, burning through the white lace curtains that covered the windows. It felt like a spotlight, and I knew I had to get away—to get out of there before someone looked too closely, asked too many questions. By now, it would be obvious that I hadn’t shown up in New York, and people would be looking for me. If they found Hulda, they could find Ethan. And if they found Ethan, they’d find me.
“Hulda!” Aunt Mary called from the door. “Good. You’re awake. Come on downstairs, hon. Everyone’s waiting.”
“Okay . . . I . . . Everyone?”
Turns out I just thought I’d met all of Ethan’s family.
Clint and Mary had a younger sister who had a set of identical twin girls a year behind Emily in school. They stared at me in stereo. It felt like something from a horror movie as they tilted their heads in unison and asked, “Do we know you?”
“Nope. Sorry. One of those faces,” I said, and moved on through the crowd.
Clint’s older brother had three daughters, two of whom were already married, one of whom had a baby boy of her own. The names and faces all ran together. The kitchen was a blur of smiles and hugs and plates full of eggs and biscuits and gravy. So much gravy. I started to shake.
“Hulda, why don’t you tell us about your family?”
I heard the question, but I didn’t know who’d asked it.
“How was your flight, Hulda?” someone else asked.
“What do you like to do?”
“How do you like Oklahoma?”
“Have you ever been on a ranch?”
The questions swirled around me so fast that I was almost dizzy.
Aunt Mary’s hand was on my arm. “Honey, have you called home? Does your momma know you made it?”
“My mom is . . .” I started but couldn’t finish. “I . . . I need to go to the bathroom,” I blurted and ran for the tiny room and locked the door.
There was a narrow window, and before I even had time to think, I pushed open the glass and threw a leg over the edge. I was halfway down when I heard a deep voice say, “Good morning.”
The voice made me freeze. I dangled from the window. My feet didn’t touch the ground, but I didn’t have the upper body strength to pull myself back up again, so I just hung there, listening to Ethan laugh until I finally gave up and asked, “How far is it?”
Two hands gripped my waist.
“Drop,” Ethan said, and I did.
“Well, thank you.” I tried to sound as cool as possible as I pushed my hair out of my eyes. It had snowed overnight, and I shivered without a coat, but Ethan was in his boots and jeans, a heavy jacket, and very worn gloves.
He looked at me, eyes mocking. “Does your room not have a door? It wasn’t nice of Aunt Mary to put you in a room without a door. . . .”
“I . . .”
“You thought you’d run away this morning,” he said. “Better than running away last night at least, I’ll give you that. But if I know Aunt Mary, there’s gravy inside. A person should never run away from Aunt Mary’s gravy.”
I’m not allowed to eat gravy, I wanted to say, but instead I asked, “How far is it to the nearest town?”
“Define town?”
I glared at him. “I thought I was the one who was supposed to have English as a second language.”
“Bethlehem is three miles that way.” He pointed to the east.
“Bethlehem?” I practically rolled my eyes. “At Christmas. Perfect.”
“It’s not much of a town, though. Just a post office and a Baptist church. If you mean town with a grocery store and a school, you’ll have to go forty miles that way.” This time he pointed due north. “If you need a movie theater, Walmart, or hospital, well, then that is sixty miles that way.” This time he pointed to the south. “And, as you saw last night, the nearest airport is in Oklahoma City, which is literally hours away, so tell me, Not Hulda, what kind of town exactly are you needing?”
I walked away from him, toward the fence. Sunlight bounced off the smooth white hills, and I squinted against the glare. I needed a cab. A hotel. A different life.
I would have given anything for a different life.
“Real Hulda texted me, by the way,” Ethan yelled after me. “She made it to New York.”
I spun on him. “Did she . . .” I trailed off as I realized I couldn’t exactly ask Did she see anyone waiting for me? Did they find her? Do they know where I am? So I didn’t say anything at all.
But something shifted in Ethan’s eyes. Like the wind, he was growing colder. His heart was freezing over, and this wasn’t the adventure it had been the night before. Now, in the light of morning, Ethan was worried, and I couldn’t blame him.
“Who are you?” He covered the distance between us in three long strides. “What are you doing here? Who are you running from?”
“No one. Nothing.” The cold metal of the fence pressed through my shirt as I stepped back.
“Then tell me why I shouldn’t march in there right now and have my parents call the police or the FBI or whoever you’re supposed to call when there’s a stray teenage girl who needs to be taken back to her parents.”
“Is that what you think?” I didn’t mean to shout, but I couldn’t help it. My nerves had been fraying for days. Weeks. Years. And right then I felt them starting to snap. “Well, you’re wrong, Mr. I’ve-Got-a-Whole-House-Full-of-People-Who-Love-Me. My parents are not looking for me. There is absolutely no one who loves me who is worried about me at this moment. On that you have my word.”
“Okay.” Ethan took off his hat and ran his hand through his wavy brown hair. “Tell me your name at least. Please. Just tell me your name.”
Even that question wasn’t as simple as it should be.
“Lydia,” I said after a moment. “You can call me Lydia.”
“Okay. Hi, Lydia.”
“Hi.” I smiled. “So what happens now?”
“Now I’ve got to go feed.”
I looked back at the house full of strangers and questions and gravy. Then I looked at the wide-open sky and the really cute boy. “Want some company?”
The tires of the old, beat-up truck rattled in and out of the deep ruts in the ground. Ethan pushed the clutch and shifted gears, and I thought that it was maybe the single sexiest thing I’d ever seen. He was so confident, so at home and at ease. This was his domain, the cab of this old truck with its big bale of hay and long line of black, hairy cows trailing behind us. They would have followed him to the ends of the earth, I could tell.
But Ethan and I stayed quiet in the cab of the truck that, even with the heater blowing at full blast, was still cold. I could see my breath. I put my hands between my knees. Ethan pulled off his gloves and handed them to me.
Finally, the silence must have been too much because he flipped on the radio and, instantly, music filled the cab. It was supposed to be “O Holy Night” but there were too many backup singers and the tempo was too fast. It made me want to be sick.
“Sorry about the station,” he said. “Emily or the twins must have been in here. They love that teenybopper stuff.”
He turned off the radio and I pulled on his gloves. They were still warm inside. “That’s okay.”
“Do you like music?” he asked.
“I used to. When I was a kid.”
“And now that you’re so old you’re over it?” he asked with a grin.
“Yeah,” I said. “Something like that. How long have you lived here?” Suddenly, I was desperate to change the conversation.
“Well, I’m seventeen now, so . . . seventeen years.”
“Has your family always lived here?”
“I’m generation number five,” he said, but the words sounded strange—not like Ethan had roots tying him to that place. It was more like he had chains.
“It’s nice that you have a big family. That you all get to live together and work together.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Why did you go to Iceland?”
I don’t know where the question came from, but I could also tell that it was the right question—that somehow the answer mattered.
Ethan shifted gears again and started over a ridge. The ranch spread out before us, white and clean and stretching for miles. It was the kind of place most people only see in movies and out of airplane windows.
“I was born here. I’m going to live here and work here for the rest of my life. And, someday—if I’m lucky, a long, long time from now—I’m going to die here. And . . . well, I guess I just wanted one little part of my life to be not here. And Iceland seemed about as not here as a place could possibly be.”
I looked around at the rolling hills, the distant dots of cattle. “Here doesn’t seem that bad to me.”
“Yeah.” Ethan shifted gears again. He didn’t face me. “What about you? Where is your home? Or is that secret, too?”
“No secret,” I told him. “I don’t have a home.”
“Hey, honey,” Aunt Mary said when I finally returned to the house. She was kneeling on the living room rug while Emily stood on an ottoman with her arms outstretched, dressed like an angel. “We missed you at breakfast.”
“I’m sorry I left without telling you. I—”
“You had to choose between running off with a handsome cowboy you haven’t seen in months or staying in a house full of rowdy strangers . . .”
“And gravy,” I told her. “I also ran away from the gravy. Which might have been a mistake.”
“Then tomorrow I’ll teach you how to make it. Would you like that, Hulda?” She looked as if she expected me to protest. Or maybe confess. I was officially paranoid.
“I’d probably burn down your house.”
“It takes a lot more than you to turn this place to ash.”
“Aunt Mary, are you done yet?” Emily shifted from foot to foot.
“Stop fidgeting,” Aunt Mary commanded, then pulled a straight pin from the puffy band on her wrist and studied Emily’s too-long costume.
“I’m tired,” Emily complained, but Aunt Mary just cut her eyes up at her.
“You’re not being very angelic,” Aunt Mary said. “So, Hulda, do you have everything you need?”
“Yes.”
“And are you settling in okay?”
“I guess so.”
“And you know you can come to me, right? If there’s anything you want to talk about. Anything at all.”
“Of course.” I smiled. I lied.
If it’s possible for real life to turn into a montage from a movie, that’s what happened next.
Every morning Ethan knocked on Aunt Mary’s door and I went to help him feed. (My job was opening the gates. According to Ethan, it was a very important job.)
Every afternoon I helped Aunt Mary cook and deliver food to the older people in the community who couldn’t get out in the snow. “Here,” she said the first day, handing me the keys. “I don’t drive much anymore.”
Emily and the twins tried to teach me how to two-step.
Clint grilled steaks and we had big, noisy dinners at Ethan’s house with everybody taking turns holding Ethan’s cousin’s baby.
Aunt Mary put me in charge of wrapping presents and the twins let me hold a baby pig.
And through it all, Ethan was there, teaching me how to drive a stick shift in the chore truck, teasing me when my boots got so bogged down in mud that I actually stepped out of them and had to walk back to Aunt Mary’s on bare feet.
He didn’t talk about Hulda.
He didn’t ask me where I was from or why I was running.
He didn’t look at me like I was a liar or a fraud or a cheat.
And, for a few days there, I wasn’t really Hulda and I wasn’t really me. For a few days, I was just . . . happy.
Because, for a few days, I had a family.
“You’ve got to keep stirring,” Aunt Mary told me. It was the day before Christmas Eve, and even though it was below freezing outside, Aunt Mary’s kitchen was hot. Steam collected on the windows while the brown concoction on the stove boiled and popped like something in a witch’s cauldron.
“Are you stirring?” Aunt Mary asked.
“Yes,” I said.
She eyed the boiling caramel. “Stir harder.”
When the caramel began to splatter, Aunt Mary said, “Oh, hon, you’re gonna get that all over your pretty top. Go grab an apron.”
There was a hook full of aprons in the laundry room and I grabbed one that was pink and covered with white flowers. But as soon as Aunt Mary saw me, something in her eyes made me stop.
“What?” I asked, then looked down and saw the name embroidered on the pocket. Daisy. “Oh, I’m sorry. Is this your daughter’s?”
“Yes, it is. But . . . you wear it,” Aunt Mary said. “She’d want you to wear it.”
When I started pulling my hair up into a ponytail Aunt Mary asked, “Did anyone ever tell you your hair looks nice away from your face?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “My mom.”
“Do you miss her, sweetie? We can call her, or—”
“No,” I said too quickly. “I mean, that’s okay. The time difference, you know. It can wait.”
The back door slammed open as Emily yelled, “Aunt Mary!”
“Boots!” Aunt Mary said, but Emily was already pulling off her muddy boots and leaving them by the back door.
“Aunt Mary, do you have any potatoes?” she asked.
“Why?” Aunt Mary sounded skeptical, but Emily cut her eyes at me.
“You’ll see.”
“Surprise!” Emily and Susan yelled in unison when we arrived at Ethan’s house that night.
There was another sign. This one hung in the dining room, announcing Happy Þorláksmessa, Hulda!
“What is all this?” I asked.
“Well, we know it must be hard for you to be away from your family at Christmas,” Aunt Mary said. “The holidays are always hard without your family.”
Maybe I was imagining things, but it felt like the room changed as she said it. For a second, no one could meet anyone else’s gaze.
“So . . .” Mary went on, “we thought we’d bring a little of Iceland to you!”
“Oh. Yay!” I tried. Only then did I really look around the room.
There were shoes sitting in all the windows. Yes, shoes. Sinister looking Santas lined the center of the table, and a pile of potatoes was arranged on a serving tray like some kind of strangely festive centerpiece.
“Wow. Someone went to a lot of trouble.”
“Well, of course we did, silly. It’s Saint Thorlakur’s Day!” Ethan’s mom said. Then she grew serious. “Am I saying that correctly?”
“Yeah, Hulda,” Ethan said. “Is she saying that correctly?”
“Yes. Very good,” I told her, and Susan beamed. Ethan smiled like he was about to choke on the canary he’d just eaten.
“Sit, sit.” Aunt Mary ushered us all into chairs. “Part of the fun of hosting an exchange student is learning about their home culture. So we thought we’d have you teach us all about Christmas in Iceland!”
“Hulda is an expert on Christmas in Iceland,” Ethan said, moving away before I could kick him under the table.
“We did a little research online,” Susan said. “But we still have so many questions.”
“Yeah,” Emily said. “Like what’s the deal with all the shoes?”
“Yes, Hulda.” Ethan leaned back in his chair. “Tell us all about the shoes!”
“Oh, well . . .” I started slowly. “The shoes are really fascinating.”
I looked back to the windows, the shoes that sat on every ledge. “We put them in the windows, you see . . .”
“Oh, we do see.” Ethan nodded. “But why, Hulda? Why are the shoes in the windows?”
“Um . . . well . . . that’s because in olden times . . . people would forget their shoes and . . . people left extra shoes in windows and that way travelers could find shoes when they needed them. Because Iceland is a hard place to live without . . . you know . . . shoes. Land of Ice,” I added seriously.
“I thought Greenland was the one covered by ice,” Clint said.
“That too,” I said.
“Why does Santa look so scary?” One of the twins was eyeing the little red-clad man who sat right in front of her, staring at her like he might be an axe murderer.
“That’s a great question,” Ethan said. “Tell us, Hulda, why does Santa look so scary?”
“That’s not Santa,” Emily said. “He’s one of the Yule Lads.”
“Yule Lads!” I blurted, as if I’d come up with the answer all on my own. “That’s who that is. I guess they’re kind of like our Santa?”
“How many are there?” Clint asked.
“Nine,” I said, but Emily was already crinkling her brow.
“I thought there were twelve?” she asked.
“Well, maybe it varies in different parts of the country,” Ethan said. “Right, Hulda?”
“Right!” I agreed. “Some places there are twelve, but where I live there are nine because . . . the other three died because they forgot their shoes.”
Everyone at the table nodded as if that made perfect sense.
“Isn’t that exciting? We have our own traditions, you know,” Aunt Mary said. “Nothing fancy, but you can’t live in a community called Bethlehem and not have a few Christmas traditions.” She laughed. “We all meet at the church on Christmas Eve. There’s a live nativity.”
“That means real goats, and lots of small children dressed like wise men,” Ethan clarified as his aunt talked on.
“And we sing carols and read the Christmas story. And everyone gets a sack of candy.”
“That sounds nice,” I said. But something about it made me feel sick. Like I was going to contaminate them all with my presence. With my lies.
“I . . .” I pushed away from the table. I had to get out of there. I had to get away. “I have a headache. I’m so sorry. I just . . .”
“Ethan,” Clint said, “take her home.”
Outside, the cold air burned my lungs. The sky was so clear and bright—too bright for three hours after sundown. No matter how long I stayed there, I would never get used to seeing so many stars.
“You okay?” Ethan asked, but I couldn’t breathe, much less speak.
“I’ve got to tell them,” I finally choked out. “They’re so nice. They’re going to hate me. They’re going to hate you! I have to tell them. Right now. Tonight. I’ll—”
“No.” Ethan shook his head, firm in his resolve. “Tell them now and you’ll break Aunt Mary’s heart right before Christmas.”
“She won’t care about that. Her husband and daughter will be home soon and—”
But the look in Ethan’s eyes cut me off. It wasn’t shock. It was absolute sorrow.
“Gosh, Lydia. I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“They died,” he said. “About a year and a half ago. Car accident.”
I heard Aunt Mary’s words: I don’t drive much anymore.
“This is only her second Christmas without them,” Ethan finished, and I felt like someone hit me in the gut. I thought of Aunt Mary’s hugs, her empty house. Of the tree and Hulda’s handmade stocking.
“It was one of the reasons why I thought Hulda coming was such a good idea,” Ethan told me. “Aunt Mary doesn’t like to be alone, and the holidays are so hard. . . .”
“Yeah. Of course. I wish I’d realized. I would have—”
“No! Don’t change anything, okay? She gets enough sympathy from everybody else. It’s nice having someone who doesn’t treat her like she’s fragile. She hasn’t been this happy since the accident. If you tell her now . . . it’ll crush her.”
“She’s going to find out eventually, Ethan. It’s not like I can stay here. Eventually, I’m gonna have to leave.”
“We don’t want you to leave, okay?” He ran his hand through his hair again. “I don’t want you to leave.”
I didn’t realize how close we were standing or how warm his hands were on my arms. I didn’t see the way our breath mingled in the cold air. I didn’t realize I was falling until it was too late, probably because I never hit the ground. It was a fall of faith, of hope, of . . . if you want to be technical about it, love. Or something like it.
And then Ethan’s lips were on mine and I pressed against the warmth of his strong chest, his arms around me, holding me tight. And I wasn’t running away anymore. I was running toward. This moment. This place. This boy.
“Just wait until after Christmas, okay?” Ethan pulled away and stared into my eyes. “Everything will look different after Christmas.”
And I nodded, perfectly content to go on living with the lie.
On Christmas Eve, Ethan picked me up to take me to the church that sat between a wheat field and a pasture. It was tiny and white with a steeple climbing up into the sky. By the time Ethan parked the truck, the church bells were already chiming.
“Come on.” He took my hand. “We’re late.”
Together we ran laughing toward the doors, but as soon as we stepped inside I straightened and stopped. Ethan’s hand was still in mine, though, as we stood at the back of the crowded room.
“Hulda! Ethan!” Ethan’s mom whispered, motioning to where the family was saving us a pair of seats.
“Good evening, everyone!” I looked up and, for the first time, noticed Aunt Mary standing behind the pulpit, a hymnal in her hands. “Merry Christmas,” she said.
The entire congregation echoed her. “Merry Christmas!”
The room was lit entirely by candles and the white twinkle lights of a half dozen Christmas trees. Mistletoe hung on the end of every one of the old-fashioned pews. It wasn’t like walking into a church. It was like walking back in time. The people of Bethlehem had been celebrating Christmas Eve in that way for a hundred years. There was a comfort in knowing they would probably celebrate it that way for a hundred more.
“You okay?” Ethan whispered, and I nodded. At the front of the room, a pianist began to play.
“Let’s begin with hymn number 101,” Aunt Mary said as Ethan and I sat down on the end of his family’s pew.
There was a fluttering of noise as people picked up songbooks and turned to the page, but I didn’t need to see the music. I knew every word. Every note. And yet, when Aunt Mary sang “O Holy Night,” there was no way I could join in.
“The stars are brightly shining . . .”
Suddenly, I wasn’t in that little church in the middle of nowhere. I was in a hospital room singing for the small, frail woman on the bed. I was picking out the song on my keyboard. I was watching her eyes fill with tears as she asked me to sing it again.
“It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth . . .”
I was glad for the dim lights and crowded room. No one was watching me. No one noticed how my eyes began to water and my hands began to shake. And, most of all, no one looked at me and expected me to dance or sing. No one in that room cared if I ever sang again.
“Long lay the world, in sin and—” Aunt Mary’s voice cracked. The words faltered. She moved her lips, but no sound came out as her face turned white and she seemed lost, frozen.
“This was Daisy’s favorite,” she said after awhile, her voice so soft it was barely a whisper. It was like Aunt Mary was lost in a fog of memory and regret and the realization that she would never again share that hymn with her daughter. The pianist kept playing, but no one sang. No one moved.
Ethan’s mother wiped her eyes, and I felt the overwhelming wave of emotion that was rushing through the room. It was about to overtake us. And when the pianist reached the chorus, I felt it overtake me.
It was like when I offered Hulda my ticket; I didn’t make the decision to stand. I didn’t will myself to sing. But before I knew it, I was standing, walking to the front of the room.
“Fall on your knees . . .” The words came pouring out of me, my voice filling the tiny church as I stared into Aunt Mary’s eyes and realized she was no longer crying. She held out her hand, and I took it and sang louder.
“Oh hear the angel voices!” I sang like I hadn’t sung in years.
And I kept singing. I sang just for the joy of it. For the moment and the music and for me. I sang for Aunt Mary and Daisy and for all the people who couldn’t sing anymore. I sang because not singing would never bring them back but singing might make us all remember.
I sang because that is what I do when I am happy and when I’m sad. I sang because it is who I am when I am being the best possible version of me. I sang because I wasn’t alone as I held Aunt Mary’s hand.
I sang because it was Christmas.
When the song was over, I went back to sit by Ethan, who had his phone out. He was looking between it and me as if something didn’t quite make sense.
“It’s you!” One of the twins spun around and looked at me from the next pew, her voice was almost vibrating. “We knew it was you. We knew—”
“Hulda.” Ethan’s voice was cold, and I could tell he wasn’t calling me by my fake name. He wasn’t acting along. Instead, he held out his phone so I could read the message on the screen.
From: Hulda
Tell Liddy they’re coming!
“What are you doing here?” the other twin asked. “How did you meet Ethan? Where—”
But I couldn’t make out the words. The packed room was suddenly freezing. I swear I felt a chill. And when I looked up, I saw someone standing by the back door of the church. His hair had been blown askew by the strong wind. He wore a dark overcoat and a red scarf, Italian loafers that were perfectly polished. He didn’t belong in that place. In that world. But I also knew that there was no way he was leaving.
“Who’s Liddy?” Ethan’s voice sounded a thousand miles away. “Look at me.” He took my arm. “Who is Liddy?”
“I am,” I had to admit.
“You said your name was Lydia.”
“It is. I mean, it was. My mother called me Liddy.” I met his gaze. “Ethan, I’m Liddy Chambers.”
I waited for the words to sink in—for the name to mean something. But Ethan just asked, “Who?” and I could have kissed him. He didn’t scream my name or roll his eyes. I was neither adored nor abhorred by that boy in that moment, and I think I might have loved him for it. Just a little.
“What does Hulda mean, they’re coming?” he asked.
“She’s wrong.” I shook my head and looked at the man who stood by the doors, glaring at me. “They’re here.”
I wasn’t looking as Emily walked down the center aisle, moving to the front of the church, but she sounded like an angel as she began to read the Christmas story from the Book of Mark. The lights dimmed even further. Little boys dressed like shepherds were carrying baby goats and taking their place at the front of the room, but it felt like I was in a trance as I eased away from Ethan and his family, clinging to the shadows before I slipped outside.
The man who followed didn’t offer me a hug. He didn’t ask if I was okay or tell me how worried he had been. No. The first words out of his mouth were, “Did you know you had a show tonight?”
“Didn’t you see? I just did one,” I shot back.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the helicopter that was sitting in a nearby field, waiting for us.
“A helicopter, Derek?” I rolled my eyes. “Really? Subtle.”
“Come on. We’re leaving.”
“No,” I shouted. “I have to say good-bye. I have to—”
“Lydia!” Ethan’s voice sliced through the clear night air. “Wait.”
It was all I could do to pull away from Derek long enough to look back.
“Who are you?” Aunt Mary was half a step behind Ethan and closing the gap between us quickly. “Where are you taking her? That child is my responsibility!”
Aunt Mary looked and sounded like a force of nature, and Derek might have recoiled a little if there hadn’t been so much riding on that moment. Riding on me.
He puffed out his chest and spat, “No. She’s not. And she’s leaving this place. Now.”
“Hulda, what’s going on here?” Clint had appeared at his sister’s side. “Is this man bothering you?”
“Clint, he’s trying to take her away,” Aunt Mary explained.
“Are you her father?” Clint asked, and Derek laughed.
“I’m her legal guardian.” Derek eyed Clint in his starched Wranglers and Carhartt coat. “And you, sir, are going to get out of our way before I have you arrested for kidnapping.”
“Kidnapping!” Clint shouted.
“They didn’t know!” I wedged myself in between Clint and Derek. “I ran away. I pretended to be an exchange student named Hulda. I lied, and they took me in.”
The church was quickly emptying, and it seemed as if all of Bethlehem now gathered around us. I kept waiting for someone to make a “What Child Is This?” joke, but no one said a thing. We had all said too much already.
“My name is Lydia,” I told them. “Liddy. Liddy Chambers.”
The night was clear and cold, and my breath fogged as I struggled to make sense of all that had happened.
And that was when I heard the singing.
It was my own voice, but not the song they play on the radio. It was the version of “O Holy Night” I’d recorded in Mom’s hospital room three years before. It was the song that was played ten million times on YouTube. It was the reason Derek and the record company came calling.
And when Mom got really sick—when we could no longer ignore the fact that she wouldn’t be around to raise me—that song was a big reason why she made Derek my guardian, why she thought she was giving me my dream.
“It’s her!” One of the twins held up her phone, playing the video for everyone to see. “See. It’s really her. It’s Liddy Chambers!”
“No.” Ethan shook his head. “It’s Lydia.”
Derek made a motion in the air and, in the pasture beside the church, the helicopter turned on its blades. Snow began to spin, filling the night sky with a swirling white. Derek started toward the chopper, but I was staring at Ethan and his family.
“Liddy!” Derek yelled. “Now!”
I took a few steps, then looked back. I was glad for the spinning snow and dark night. I didn’t want them to see the tears that filled my eyes as I said, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I lied and—”
“Oh, honey,” Aunt Mary said. “You think we didn’t figure out that you weren’t an Icelandic girl named Hulda? You think we weren’t on to you ages ago?”
“You were?” I didn’t know whether to feel hurt or relieved. “Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you send me away?”
“Sweetheart, when you lose someone, you lose a little bit of yourself, too.” I wasn’t sure if Aunt Mary was talking about what happened to her or what happened to me, but it didn’t matter. It was true in any case. “And that missing piece? Sometimes you have to lose the rest of yourself to find it. Besides”—she cut her eyes at Derek—“I’m pretty sure I would have run away, too.”
Derek buttoned his coat and gathered his scarf as it blew wildly in the air. “I’m her guardian. And she’s coming with me.”
Derek reached for me again, but I jerked away.
“You’re not my guardian—you’re my manager,” I yelled, as if that could make any of them see the difference. “I’m an act to you. A property. I sing and I dance and . . . my mom was dying. She was sick and scared, and we were broke. That’s why she granted you custody.” Even though it hurt to admit it—not to the people of Bethlehem, but to myself—I had to say, “My mom didn’t know what was best for me.”
“Liddy, get in the chopper. Now! Before I call the authorities,” Derek warned.
“You mean the sheriff?” Aunt Mary asked. Then she pointed to a man in the crowd. “That’s him right there. Let’s ask him. Hi, Ben.”
“Hey, Mary. You need some help?” the sheriff asked.
“No, thanks. I’ve got this.”
“That’s corruption,” Derek said.
“Yeah. Let’s ask the county judge.” Aunt Mary turned to the woman who had been playing the piano. “Your honor?”
The judge gathered her hands together and studied me. “I see no reason to remove this child from your care, Mary. I’m certainly not letting her leave with some man we don’t know. And since the courts are adjourned for the holidays, I see no choice but to allow her to remain with you at least through Christmas.”
“This is ridiculous,” Derek scoffed. “She’s Liddy Chambers and I’m her legal guardian! When the press hears about this—”
“When the press hears what, Derek?” I snapped. “That I ran away from you? That you had no idea where I was for almost a week and never notified the authorities? That my mother was under the influence of so many painkillers when she gave you custody that she couldn’t even remember her own name? Huh? Tell me exactly what you’re going to tell the press. Because there are a few things I’d like to tell them, too.”
“Liddy.” Derek lowered his voice, pleading. “Come with me. Come with me now and we’ll forget this ever happened.”
“Do you want to go with him?” Aunt Mary asked, but it was Ethan who found my gaze and kept it.
“Do you?” he asked, and I couldn’t deny the truth, the reason why I never could stop running.
“If I don’t go, he’ll come back.” I thought about what Ethan had asked me the night we met. “I’m worth a lot of money to them.”
“Oh, honey,” Aunt Mary said, “don’t you know you’re worth more than money to us?”
“You had your little break, Liddy. Now, stop kidding yourself. You want to be a star. You can’t give that up,” Derek said. It was almost like a dare.
“You’re right. I used to love music. I used to love singing and playing and making people happy—that made me happy. But . . . but I didn’t know what happy was then.”
“And you do now?” Derek sounded like he would have laughed if he hadn’t been so inconvenienced.
He didn’t know what I know. About the way Aunt Mary’s house smells when she cooks bacon, or how the cold wind feels on your face when you do chores at six in the morning, slapping you awake as if, until then, you had been sleepwalking your whole life. If he’d only looked up, he could have seen how big the sky really is and how easy it was to get lost there.
“Now I know what real stars look like,” I told him. “I’m sick of the imitations.”
I felt the townspeople gathering around me, but it wasn’t an angry mob. It was a blanket, a shelter. And, slowly, Derek backed away.
“Enjoy your Christmas, Liddy. I’ll be back,” he called. “I’ll be back to get you.”
The helicopter rose and disappeared in the blackness as I stood, surrounded by the entire town of Bethlehem. The stars were so bright overhead that a part of me couldn’t help but wonder if they’d led me there, guided me to that place and time.
“So, Liddy,” Aunt Mary said, “I was thinking that—if you wanted—you could stay with me permanently. The judge thinks we can get your custody situation changed. If you want that. You don’t have to decide right now, of course. It’s just that—”
“Yes!” I felt tears sting my eyes again. This time for entirely different reasons. “Yes, please.”
Aunt Mary pulled me into a tight hug, but I couldn’t stop looking at the boy standing just over her shoulder.
When Aunt Mary released me, he said, “You’re staying.” It wasn’t a question.
“I’m staying,” I said.
“No more running.” Ethan shook his head and stepped closer.
“No more running,” I said, and then he kissed me. And then he held me close and I looked up at the stars over Bethlehem, knowing I’d come home.
