Maurice barely restrained himself from cheering when one doe licked Holly's cheek, as if in farewell, before she turned to go back into the woods.
"That's pretty
cool." He watched the does meander back the way they had come. Something
ached inside him when Holly's delighted glow vanished with the deer. She turned
and trudged back into the warmth of her little house.
She shed her coat,
leaving it on a hook by the back door. The Wishing Ball's images changed,
following her through the house as she checked doors and windows and turned off
lights. In the kitchen she made herself a big mug of hot chocolate, rinsed out
the pan, then turned off the light and headed upstairs.
He liked it that she
made hot chocolate the old-fashioned way, with real milk and cocoa and sugar.
He watched until she went into her bedroom, put the mug on her nightstand, and
snagged a dark blue flannel nightgown off a hook on the back of her bedroom
door.
"Gonna be here a
while," he muttered, for the sake of whoever might be watching him. The
last thing he wanted was to be accused of being a Peeping Tom.
When Holly stepped
into her bathroom, he scurried away from the Wishing Ball. He scrounged in the
shelves under the cash register until he found a couple pads of paper and a
quilted book cover that needed mending. With his back to the Wishing Ball and
whatever Holly was doing, he dragged them back and set up a couch to sit in
comfort. By the time he had everything to his satisfaction, Holly was safely in
her nightgown and padding back to her bedroom, barefoot.
Maurice sighed relief
and settled down on the makeshift couch. Holly climbed into bed, plumped her
pillows against the headboard, and pulled the covers up past her waist. That
glow returned to her face as she reached for the book, three inches thick, at
the very least, sitting on her nightstand.
In the glow of the
lamp, Maurice could read the age-darkened spine. "Robin Hood, huh? And the
really old stories, too," he muttered. "Okay, good choice. But
watching you read a good book isn't my idea of quality entertainment,
y'know?"
Holly turned three
pages, before he decided this was even less thrilling than watching paint dry. His
wings were dry and warm again, so he flew upstairs to check in with Angela.
Maybe she was done with her book, and he could talk her into playing poker.
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