Mollie + Chester

Chapter Twenty-Four

The sun finally but reluctantly sunk below the horizon, leaving the crowded park lit only by the thousands of twinkling fairy lights strung on trees and light posts. Kids ran around screaming, dressed in terrible Christmas shirts that read things like: dear Santa, I let Mum dress me in this shirt, please put me on the nice list. I adjusted my own Christmas decoration, a piece of pink tinsel tied in my short hair and smiled when I saw Alyssa waving like crazy at me. She was back to wearing her signature 'I don't care what you think' clothes matched with her moss green beanie and short, messy braids.
Mum handed me a handful of gold coins and gave me a kiss on my forehead. I could see in the flashing rainbow lights the tears that were in her eyes. I understood.
This was one of Seth's favourite days.
It was the Twelve Christmas Wishes festival which started way back when the town was founded. Two nights before Christmas, the eleven families would write wishes on lanterns and light them,~letting them go into the lake where the little flames would bob up and down until they were collected when the sun set on Christmas Day.
It became twelve wishes when Mum was a kid, someone would hide a shiny stone in the park somewhere and at dawn on Christmas~Eve, and all the children would search for it. They said the stone would make all your wishes for a year come true.
Every year since my first Christmas when I was nine months old, I would wake up before the sun with Seth and Mum and we would run down to the park to join the search. I can't remember the first few years but Mum had photos of me toddling around the park with her following me as I searched for a stone in the grass. There were also photos of Seth running around with his friends trying to win the year supply of wishes wearing his baseball caps with his hair gelled up so it was spiky. Seth never found the stone.
The Christmas before I fell off my bike, Seth ran off, leaving a four-year-old me wandering around the park with Mum watching me from outside the gate. Parents were banned from coming inside the park that year because the year before Pepper Jackson's Mum found the stone which was not allowed.~Only a few adults wearing bright coloured Christmas shirts and flashing lights on their hats supervised from the inside, making sure the vicious Tamwood kids didn't fight.
I was tired so I took a seat on the park bench trying to catch my breath - the cancer was already inside- and I watched all the kids scrambling and looking high and low.
I curled my fingers under the bottom of the chair, leaning forwards and trying to get my toes to touch the ground when I felt something smooth and cool. I jumped off the chair excitedly, and bent down, coming back out from under the chair holding the smooth stone in my palm.
Seth had come running over, annoyed he had left me alone and I had found the stone without him but proud his little sister was one of the youngest to win.
"Now you get wishes for a whole year!" Seth whispered to me, "what are you gonna wish for?"
I closed my eyes and squeezed the stone in my palms wishing for a swimming pool of M&Ms.
That wish obviously never came true. Later I wished that there was a cure for my cancer and I wouldn't have to make Mum and Dad and Seth cry.
I lost faith that that stone really worked.

"Oh hi, Alyssa," Mum sighed trying to smile but it looked like a grimace.
"Hi Mrs Mocomile," she said politely.
I looked her up and down, trying to mock the Big Nose Society ladies who looked down their oversized noses at what we wore.
"You aren't wearing any Christmas things!" I exclaimed, faking a horrified expression.
"I was not putting on that red tinsel dress Mum bought for me," she said shuddering at the thought of wearing a dress.
I pulled my tinsel out of my hair and tore it in half, tying one piece in one of her braids.
"Pink!" She yelled looking at her hair as if a monster had just bitten it off.
"Yes, pink," I said poking my tongue out at her. "Deal with it."
"Fine," she said. "Do you want to get some baubles now? The line is short..." She pulled me by my arm to the stall that sold colourful Christmas balls.
When my Mum was little, there were too many lanterns being let into the lake because there were way more than eleven families in town by then, so someone decided to sell baubles that town people would write their wishes on. Then they would hang them on the old willow tree in the middle of the park.
Alyssa dropped one of her coins in the box and chose and red decoration, me doing the same choosing a green decoration and Miss Denver, who was collecting the donations for a new area in the park to be built next year, smiled warmly.
"Your favourite colour is purple!" Alyssa said eyeing off the ball in my hands I shrugged and tossed it in the air before catching it again. The colourful Christmas lights reflected off the shiny plastic as it spun.
"Seth's favourite colour is green."
Alyssa put her arm around my shoulders and led me towards the marker table. "This is his favourite day, he must be here."
Alyssa always knew the right thing to say.
Our coins hit the bottom of the box noisily and Mrs Scowd handed us each a marker, smiling with her fake smile. Her grumpy baby, now a grumpy one-year-old, sat on the grass next to her in a terrible Santa costume shaking the life out of a shiny toy train. Even Christmas couldn't bring out the best in them.
Carefully, I took off the lid and wrote my wish over the smooth Christmas ball. My hand slipped on the letter g but otherwise it was the neatest I had ever written.
I held the decoration close to my chest as Alyssa turned away from the table.
"What did you wish for?" She asked holding her ball so I couldn't see the writing.
"Not telling!" I said laughing, trying to get a peek at hers. "Then it won't come true!"
To be honest, I didn't believe my wish would come true and never had since I found that wishing stone but I didn't want to tell Alyssa what I wrote. Even though she was like my sister, we never shared our wishes, it was like an unwritten law in the sacred friendship book.
We made our way over to the tree that had bent over like an old lady with a bad back, the long, thin branches reaching the ground, curving over to make a sort of dome shape.
The town members had already placed dozens baubles and each of the coloured decorations twinkled in the flashing lights that danced through the sky above us. I ducked under the branches and found an empty spot where I could place my wish.~
Standing under the branches, it was like a little enclosed room lit barely with the lights filtered through the green leaves. Shiny Christmas decorations revealed the wishes of the town and they spun slowly in the wind.
I wish I can get a pony... I wish for happiness... I wish people will stop telling me to cut my hair... I read each of the baubles near me carefully, seeing if anyone had the same dreams as me. It was strange seeing the words of the town tangled in the branches, their deepest desire out on the tree for everyone to see. For such a closed town that wore carefully constructed veneers, it was like I could read their minds.
This was one part of the festival Seth told me he liked. He said that Christmas created a bridge for our dreams to be let out, no matter how tiny they seemed, and the words were a vessel to capture our thoughts for the world to see.
The rest of the town, however, including me thought that it was fun to write things on baubles and read people's minds. We didn't have such author-y thoughts like Seth.
I remembered one time we were here and I was about seven or eight. Seth and me had bought our Christmas decorations and written down our wishes and we were standing by the lake waiting for the eleven chosen children were about to let their lanterns go.
Seth tipped his head back and looked at the ugly grey clouds that covered the sky and all of the stars.
"I should have wished for the stars to come out tonight, Doofus," Seth said ruffling my hair through his fingers. I slapped at him angrily and crossed my arms over my chest.
"Don't call me Doofus," I said. "And why do you need the stars out? Stars are stars, we see them every night."
"Because," he sighed putting his arm around me and squeezing tight. "Writers will never pass up an opportunity to see something beautiful. The lanterns will glow across the smooth lake waters and the stars should be sparkling overhead lighting up the smiling faces of..."
"Okay, I get it!" I said nudging him and he faked losing his balance since I was so tiny and could never push him over for real. "I don't need you to describe everything, it's happening right in front of me!"
He laughed at me and tilted his head back up towards the sky, hoping the clouds would part for one tiny moment.
"Mollie," Alyssa said yanking me out of me memories. "Let's go or all the good food will be gone! I still have five dollars left." She held out her palm stacked with five gold coins as if proving her point to me.
"Okay, I'm coming," I said squeezing my own gold coins in my palm.
She didn't try and sneak a look at my bauble, only looked around at the other decorations purposely.
My hand lightly traced the edge of my green bauble and I spun it around so it reflected the light over my face. The black, carefully written letters showed my wish to the world.
I wish for the stars to come out tonight.

I stood wedged in between my parents, Mum silently balling her eyes out and Dad staring with his glassy eyes off into the distance. Everyone in town had now crowded around the lake waiting for the clock to strike midnight signifying the beginning of Christmas Eve when the lanterns would be set onto the water.
The willow tree seemed to bend lower under the weight of so many coloured ball balls hooked onto the branches that shone in the flashing light, the heart of the magical park.
Alyssa stood a few metres away close to her Mum wrapping her arms around herself in attempt to keep out the cold chill that had drifted in the with night. Mum had driven home to get me a jacket and beanie which she forced me to wear when the sun went down, despite it being summer. The Bently triplets wriggled in their pram even though Mr Bently quietly whispered to them to stop or he will take away their Christmas presents and old Mrs Ranchfield sat on the park bench watching the children get ready with their lanterns.
The giant clock at the edge of the park lit up as someone hung White Christmas lights around the clock face suddenly showing the larger hand edging closer to the top and everyone starting counting down from twenty.
I tilted my head up towards the sky and caught sight of the grey clouds covering the stars Seth described as beautiful. I closed my eyes, crossed my fingers and hoped.
"Seven... Six... Five..." Everyone said in unison. I felt my Mum clasp my hand, her fingers twisting around mine as if she were afraid I would leave her too.
"Three... Two... One..." The park erupted into cheers and people clapped their hands.
I opened my eyes and saw the clouds moving across the sky, the shining stars peeking out quickly like kids playing hide and seek before they hid again.
I watched the eleven white lanterns with their flicking candle flames float across the dark lake water, sailing over the light ripples caused by the wind.
I let my crossed fingers relax took hold of Dad's hand squeezing it tightly. He blinked, his glassy eyes suddenly filling with emotion, like a doll coming to life at night.
"Seth would go home after this and write three whole pages describing the lantern's lights," I whispered so only he could hear. The wind carried my voice to him and he looked down at me, his aged face framing his eyes that were the same shape as mine.
"I think you might be wrong..." He said. "Seth would write ten pages on the candle light."
I laughed and he pulled me in close, his prickly chin resting on top of my head.
I looked up at him and I swear I saw a tear run down his prickly cheek, shining in the light of the silver glittering star that peeked out from behind the clouds for a second. I imagined that star was Seth, the only star up there interested in this strange small town festival, and knew he would be smiling. He knew Dad was distant, a trait he adopted once I fell off my bike, but finally he had broken down that steel wall that protected him from hurt and he became my Dad again.