A Christmas Miracle For Daisy
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The house was very silent, save for the occasional creaking of old beams overhead. It had been a long day at the shop; after closing up I’d gone to a friend’s house for a glass or two of mulled wine and some good food. Now it was late, and I needed my bed. The fire in the grate was a welcome comfort on this frosty December night, but not as comforting as my own snug little bedroom.
I yawned again as I pulled off my shoes and left them by the door, then went to take off my coat. But before I could reach the wardrobe to hang it up, something caught my eye. Something shiny on the floor.
At first, I thought it must have fallen out of a pocket, but as I approached, it became clear that this was no ordinary object. A brooch? What did women wear with brooches? Not shirts, I realised. Unless… Perhaps it had been meant to fasten to the skirt she’d made earlier that day.
I picked it up gingerly, thinking back to her last words: “Oh, don’t look now, dear—it looks like the snow might start falling any moment.” I turned away from the window, feeling sure there was no way she would have made such a silly mistake.
I walked into the kitchen, where the light from the single lantern cast strange shadows across the room, and set the brooch on the table. Then I went to turn on the electric lights. They flickered and died, so I went to switch the gas fire instead. I didn’t bother to relight the lantern; there wasn’t much point.
But when I went to take the brooch from the table, something was wrong. It was not a brooch at all. I felt around the edges and saw it was more like an envelope—and there were words inside.
The message was in Daisy’s hand, and it read: “Dear Mary,
Meet me on the stairs tonight. I want you to take my picture. Don’t be late.”
What the devil?
I couldn’t help thinking that maybe I should check if Daisy had gone upstairs. I wasn’t sure how I knew this, but it was an instinctive reaction. It was just that somehow I had the distinct feeling she hadn’t left the house yet.
As I walked toward the staircase, something made me pause, and I turned to the door of the kitchen. In the darkness beyond it was a flickering light—a candle burning on the windowsill. I could see nothing more, but I instinctively knew there was someone else in the room.
It took me a moment to realize that whoever it was must have been standing right behind me.
“Hello?”
I turned around. A tall man with a bushy beard and long hair stood in the shadows, smiling at me. “Can I help you, sir?”
He said his name was Matthew and that he had just come back from walking Daisy. He was wearing what looked like a military uniform and carried a camera in his hand. As I stared at him, I became aware of something strange about the way he stood, and I realized that his legs seemed to go on forever.
“How do you know Daisy?”
I said I was her uncle and explained what had happened. At first, I was afraid Matthew would laugh—but he didn’t. Instead, he asked me questions, as though I were an actor in a play. “Yes, of course, I can see that Daisy would be very upset indeed,” he said after I’d described my suspicions. “I’m very sorry to have interrupted your evening. But perhaps you could tell me—who are you?”
“I’m Mary.” I was trying to sound polite and calm, but all I wanted to do was scream and shout. This was just too strange; no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t quite believe that I was here in the middle of the night in front of a stranger in my own house, who knew the name of my niece and seemed to have the same sort of powers I did.
“Do you live in this house?”
“Well, not exactly. I’m just here for the weekend. I’m visiting family.”
“Ah, so this is the shop you have? The one where Daisy works?”
I nodded.
“So, how do you feel about that? About your niece being a witch?”
I had to think carefully before answering. “She’s a very good seamstress, really. A much better one than I am.”
Matthew laughed. “Yes, I imagine she would be! And do you think there’s any truth to the rumors?”
I shrugged. “Not as far as I know. I mean, I’ve heard them, too, but I don’t believe it. I can’t see why anyone would want to be a witch, do you?”
“Not everyone sees things the way you do, I’m afraid. As you probably already know, there are many people who have taken up the cause of witches. In fact, some of them even claim they have had direct experiences with witches themselves. Have you ever felt the touch of magic yourself?”
“Oh, yes. All the time.” I remembered the night when I’d seen the rabbit and the white cat in the woods, and thought of all the times I had touched someone with my magic, only to make them sick or faint.
“But what about tonight? What did you feel?”
I could tell he was asking me a serious question, so I told him about how I’d just wanted to check on Daisy and then suddenly been aware of someone watching me from behind—and how I had turned around and found myself face-to-face with Matthew.
“Well,” he said, “that makes sense, doesn’t it? The witch senses another witch. I understand that sometimes that can happen.”
“Do you know who I am?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t a clue, sir. You must think me very strange.” He glanced toward the door.
“You know,” I said, “I think it’s getting late. Why don’t we go out to your car? Then we can talk some more. It’ll be better in the daylight.”
We walked back outside, where the streetlamps were burning. I made him sit down while I got our drinks. He put his hand inside his coat and I saw a large camera and a knife on his belt. There was also something that looked like a small gun under his jacket.
“So,” I said. “How exactly do you know Daisy?”
He seemed pleased by this and told me she had become friendly with a local girl at work. She was always talking about her and asking him if he would mind looking after Daisy.
“What does she do for you?”
Matthew said that Daisy sometimes helped him take pictures around the village.
“And what about her family? Is there anyone else here in the village who helps you?”
“Her parents are dead,” he said. “And I haven’t seen her friends since school.”
“But she hasn’t gone to college or anything?”
He shook his head. “She had a terrible time at school. She just wanted to get away and work in a shop.”
I told Matthew I had never known Daisy to have a boyfriend and wondered what kind of a boy could interest such a beautiful girl.
“Yes,” he said. “That is very odd. But then again, that might be part of the problem. When we first met—well, let’s just say that it was obvious from the start that there was some tension between her and her boyfriend, although she refused to discuss what had happened. I was the only person she felt comfortable speaking to.”
“Why did you want to help her?”
He smiled at me and shrugged. “She was a lonely girl who needed someone to talk to. As far as I could see, she didn’t have any other friends in the village.”
“Have you ever spoken to her parents?”
Matthew looked away for a moment. “No.”
I asked him what Daisy was like and whether she seemed happy about the job.
“Very good.”
“But is she a good seamstress?”
“Oh, yes. She can sew anything. And she’s a hard worker.”
I felt uncomfortable talking about this to him because I knew how much he liked his niece and how he thought of her as family. He was being too honest with me—or perhaps he simply had no choice but to be honest, since he had told me where Daisy was.
“What else does Daisy do when she’s not working?”
“She’s a very keen artist—painting in oils, mainly, and I’m afraid the local people don’t really appreciate it. It’s rather pretentious.”
“I think I’ve seen her paintings at the gallery in town,” I said.
He nodded. “And she’s always drawing.”
“So she likes to paint,” I said, thinking that Daisy must have inherited her love of art from her father.
“Yes. That’s what she says.”
I glanced at my watch and saw that it was late. Matthew asked if we could go to his car so we could talk more comfortably. As we were walking across the street, I noticed a group of kids hanging out on the other side of the road. They had seen us and one of them came running over, waving his arms.
“Hey, Mister! Hey! Come look at this!”
He was pointing behind me, and as we walked closer I saw that a girl who couldn’t have been much older than Daisy was standing against a tree holding a white rabbit by the ears. A big black cat was watching her.
Matthew looked around in confusion as the kids laughed.
“Is there something funny?”
The boy took his glasses off and wiped the lenses on his shirt. Then he took his hands out of his pockets and pulled down his jacket. “What is it?” he said. “Look!”
There were several little cuts along the kid’s face and I wondered whether he might have been attacked recently. There were also fresh bruises under his eyes. He was obviously a troubled child.
“It’s a joke,” he said, grinning. “You’ve got to see it.”
I glanced at Matthew, who had no idea what was going on.
“Are you all right?”
I shook my head.
“We’ve got to tell him.”
“Who is he? Where are you?”
“In the alleyway.”
Matthew started to walk toward the alley, then turned around again.
“Wait here,” he said.
“I’m coming too.”
We followed the boy into the narrow lane, which was dark even though it was still light outside. We stopped behind a hedge at the edge of the street so that no one could see us.
“It’s really bad, isn’t it?” Matthew said quietly.
“Yeah.”
We didn’t say anything else for a while. Then the boy stood up, put his glasses back on and pointed to the ground in front of him.
“Look.”
Matthew leaned forward and stared.
“Wow.”
It was a dead body—a girl in her early teens with her throat cut. Her eyes were open and staring.
“What do we do now?” Matthew asked me.
“We go to the police,” I said.
“No,” he said. “Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because…”
He hesitated.
“What about Daisy’s family?”
“They’re away. In France.”
“But we must warn them.”
He shook his head. “That might be too late.”
“You don’t think they’ll believe us?”
“Daisy’s father is a magistrate,” he said. “He would know how to deal with this.”
“So what should we do?”
Matthew sighed and looked at me. “What if Daisy’s parents are worried?”
I thought of her father and knew that he was the kind of man who always had an answer for everything. I also remembered Matthew telling me how he had taken care of Daisy when she was hurt.
“There’s no harm in calling them,” I said. “Do you have their number?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s call them.”
“All right,” he said, nodding.
“Maybe you’d better use the phone in my car,” I added.
“Thanks.”
We walked across to my BMW and climbed inside. Matthew found the key in his pocket and drove slowly through the streets toward the center of town. We talked as we drove.
“Did you really tell the police that Daisy had killed herself?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you just say it was a joke? And then ask them not to contact her parents until they could get back from France?”
He shrugged. “We wouldn’t have believed. Nobody wants to hear a lie. It’s like…it’s like there’s this cloud over everything, like something bad has happened to everyone—you don’t want to tell lies because they feel so wrong.”
He turned the wheel and slowed down as we passed a set of traffic lights.
“And what about this boy?” he said, looking at me. “You don’t think he was telling the truth?”
“I don’t know.”
“We have to warn his family.”
“No. Not yet.”
He looked at me and frowned. “I’m still not sure. Maybe we should go to the police first.”
“All right.”
“And then we can do whatever we want.”
I smiled, but he wasn’t joking. Matthew had always been like that: willing to take action and do what needed to be done. Sometimes it was better to wait until things were settled and then act, rather than to make a decision now and regret it later.
“There’s something else,” Matthew said. “Daisy was probably being bullied in school. That’s why she didn’t want to go back.”
He glanced at me.
“Was that what you thought? She wouldn’t want to go back because of all the bullying?”
“Yes.”
Matthew kept driving. He seemed nervous and I wondered if he had realized that he might have told us something too sensitive.
“So what did you do?” I asked him.
“I talked to her and promised to get help for her—but when I tried to talk to her parents, she didn’t want me to.”
“Maybe you should have talked to a teacher or someone.”
“I know. But Daisy knew what I was doing. She must have.”
He shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
I stared out of the window at the buildings flying past. We were going into town. As we passed one of the small industrial units, my cell phone started to ring. Matthew reached over to answer it.
“Hello?”
He listened for a while before nodding. “It’s OK. I’ll tell them to call back.” He hung up and looked at me. “My parents.”
I nodded and put on the brakes. We had almost stopped in front of a set of traffic lights. When they went green, Matthew pulled away from the curb. He drove slowly, taking care to stay close to the left-hand lane, and we followed the road round in a big arc toward the center of town.
He had just found out that Daisy wasn’t dead, she was still alive. Maybe that was why he was so quiet and tense. I hadn’t spoken to him since the beginning of our adventure. We had both been silent, listening to the radio. His hand was resting on the gearstick.
“You know,” he said after a while. “I think I’ve done enough now. I don’t feel comfortable knowing where Daisy is and what she’s doing. It’s too risky.”
“What about the boy?”
He turned to look at me and nodded. “It’s only a matter of time before people notice that something’s wrong with Daisy. Her parents are away, and her friends will be wondering what happened. If it were you, wouldn’t you want to know if you were missing?”
“I suppose.”
“We have to find out who took her and bring them to justice,” he said. “I know that sounds stupid, but that’s the way we’re going to feel.”
“But we can’t do that yet.”
“Not until we’ve talked to her parents first. It’ll help us decide what to do next. That’s all there is to it.”
I nodded, although I didn’t agree. Matthew knew this wasn’t what I wanted to do. It would be better to wait until Daisy had been found and then talk to her family. It seemed pointless to involve the police yet when they weren’t even aware that their daughter was missing.
But maybe Matthew was right—Daisy could be in a lot of danger. I hadn’t thought of that. She was so young and vulnerable.
“All right,” I said, looking back at him. “If you’re sure about this, let’s go talk to Daisy’s parents. Do you think you can get the address off the Internet?”
He smiled. “Of course.” He pulled out his phone and started typing. “I’ll be able to find it in no time.”
I nodded.
“I’ll drive,” he said. “Just try to stay calm, OK?”
“OK.”
The End