Midwinter's Eve: Chapter Seven
Not every moment announces itself. Some simply begin the rest of your life in silence.
The auditorium doors hush closed behind him, sealing the echo of laughter inside.
Outside, the night feels wider, alive and breathing. Nicolas pauses under the awning, the cold meeting his face like a familiar greeting. He pulls his jacket tight, the script tucked under his arm, still warm from the stage lights.
The air is clear, the kind that hums when you breathe it in too deep. Snow clings to the curbs in pale mounds, glazed from the storm a few days ago. Sidewalks shine where salt and ice have fought to a draw. It’s later than usual. The town runs on its night heartbeat now, fewer cars, longer shadows, that stillness of December after seven o’clock when even the houses seem to settle.
He decides to walk.
It’s only a mile or so, and he likes the time between things, the pause between leaving one world and stepping into another. After rehearsals, imagination always clings to him like static. It hums behind his eyes, replaying the lines, the lights, the way it feels when a scene clicks.
His boots scuff softly on the pavement. A thin crust of snow crackles under each step.
A car glides past, tires whispering, headlights sweeping across him before fading away.
He looks up. Cloudless. A cold, dark blue glows faintly above the rooftops. Somewhere, a jet blinks its way across the horizon. The world feels both enormous and completely his.
He exhales, watching his breath twist into the night, a small ghost drifting away. He smiles, not wide, just enough to show he’s listening.
Nights like this always feel like they’re leading somewhere.
At the corner, Nicolas stops and waits for the walk signal to change. The light above him shines red on the wet pavement. He shifts his weight, the script tucked close against his chest. Into the Woods printed across the cover, the corners softened from use. A play about what happens when wonder grows up. Lately, that part feels more real than the fairytale.
He stands beside the bus-stop shelter, leaning against the outside. Inside, a mother and daughter wait on the bench, their breath fogging the glass. The little girl slouches, swinging her legs, mittened hands folded in her lap. Her hat tilts to one side, the pom on top wobbling as if it’s tired too.
Nicolas watches a moment longer. Then, without thinking, he slips off his red mittens, pockets them, and draws a Christmas tree on the fogged glass panel beside him. The lines are uneven, the branches crooked, but under the streetlamp’s yellow glow the tree feels alive.
The girl looks up. Her eyes widen; the weariness disappears. She hops off the bench and steps closer to the opposite side of the glass. Her mitten traces a small box beneath his tree, then another, each wrapped with an invisible ribbon.
Nicolas smiles. He adds one more branch, then lifts his finger to draw a star at the top.
The girl beams, her whole face lighting up. She presses both hands against the glass as if to steady the tree, her breath misting over the star until it glows even brighter.
Her mother checks her phone, unaware. A bus pulls up, headlights sweeping across the sidewalk, brakes sighing as the doors fold open.
The girl hesitates, gives the tree one last look, then follows her mother inside.
The light turns green. Nicolas steps off the curb and crosses the street. His boots click against the pavement, steady and calm.
As he reaches the opposite corner, the bus rolls past. Through the window, he spots the little girl again, smiling wide, her mittened finger tracing tiny snowflakes on the glass beside her seat.
Nicolas watches, a quiet smile finding its way to his face. There’s something beautiful about seeing that kind of joy, about knowing he helped spark it. It feels good to know that wonder is still alive.
He keeps walking, the night clear and calm, his breath rising soft against the cold.
He slows near an open field, the kind of space that feels endless at night. The snow lies mostly untouched, smooth except for a few scattered tracks left earlier in the day. He crouches and scoops a handful of snow, bare-handed. The cold bites instantly, but he keeps shaping it, letting the top layer melt just enough to pack firm.
He looks across the field to a tall tree near the path. A grin spreads across his face.
“Bottom of the ninth,” he whispers. “Two outs. Runner on first.”
He sets his feet, bends low, and pretends to field a groundball. With a flick of his wrist, he fires the snowball across the open field. It sails true, striking the trunk with a sharp thwack.
“Out at first!” he shouts, spinning in triumph.
When he turns, he sees an old man standing on a porch across the street. The man wears a heavy coat and slippers, a steaming mug in one hand. He doesn’t call out, just smiles and raises his free arm, mimicking an umpire’s signal with perfect form.
Nicolas freezes for a beat, then breaks into a laugh. He gives a small salute, half embarrassed, half proud, and starts walking again.
As he glances back, the porch light glows warm across the snow, and the mark on the tree gleams faintly in the dark. He slips his red mittens from his pocket and pulls them on, the warmth blooming through his fingers.
“Great call, Blue,” he mutters through laughter. “Could’ve gone either way.”
Nicolas turns down a smaller street where the houses sit close together, each one trimmed with faint traces of light. Halfway down the block, a small movement catches his eye, a boy, maybe six or seven, kneeling in a yard under a dim porch light. His gloves are caked with snow, his face flushed red from the cold. In front of him lies a half-collapsed snowman, its head split in two, button eyes buried somewhere in the drift.
Nicolas crosses the street without thinking. “He had a rough night, huh?”
The boy’s breath comes out in quick little clouds. He nods, gripping the misshapen head that keeps sliding off the body.
“Okay,” Nicolas says, dropping to a crouch. “Trick is tighter snow and a better base. Watch.”
He breaks the torso back down, packing snow hard with the flats of his palms. Turns it. Packs again. The boy copies him, eyes narrowed with purpose instead of panic. Together they press fresh snow against the base, smoothing the sides until it feels sturdy. The head goes back on, balanced and straight.
Nicolas studies it, then loosens the scarf from around his neck, still warm from his breath, and wraps it gently around the snowman’s shoulders. The red stands out against the white, bright under the porch light. He stays there on one knee beside the boy, brushing snow from his mittens.
“Now he looks like a snowman,” Nicolas says quietly.
The boy stares for a moment, face pink from the cold, and nods with a grin that feels too big for his face. “He really does,” he says softly.
They both stay there a moment longer, just looking at what they made. The street is still, wind whispering through the trees, a porch chime rattling faintly. Then the boy bounces once on his heels, sudden energy returning.
“He needs a name,” the boy says.
Nicolas pauses, still on one knee. His eyes catch the red scarf, the way it flutters faintly in the cold. He turns toward the boy until they’re eye to eye. A small smile forms, quiet and sure.
“How about Merryweather?”
“Merryweather!” the boy shouts, as if calling someone from far away. He bolts for the porch, a trail of boots and joy. “Mom! Dad! Come look at Merryweather!”
Nicolas stands, brushes himself off, and smiles to himself as the voice echoes down the block and turns into laughter behind him.
A few houses down, a man stands halfway up a ladder, a bundle of Christmas lights looped around his arm, muttering to himself as he works.
“Careful, Mr. Russo,” Nicolas calls.
The older man peers down over the rung. His knit cap has a ridiculous pom, and somehow that makes him look more dignified. The strand slips from his glove and tumbles toward the ground. Nicolas catches it before it hits.
“Nice catch, kid,” Russo says, climbing down one step, then another.
“Would’ve been a shame not to see them all lit,” Nicolas says, feeding the strand back up the rungs like a rope in a rescue.
“You ain’t kidding,” Russo replies, clipping the end of the lights to the gutter.
They both step back, looking up at the drooping line of bulbs. Russo plugs them in with a grunt that’s equal parts triumph and arthritis. The bulbs hesitate, blink, then give in all at once. Color washes the snow, red on the walk, warm white on the aluminum mailbox so it looks like a decoration instead of a dent.
“Still got it,” Russo murmurs, proud in a way that has nothing to do with lights.
“Looks great. Night, Mr. Russo,” Nicolas says, stepping back toward the sidewalk.
“Night, kid. Merry Christmas.”
At the next corner, the town opens up again. A small diner sits at the end of the block, its windows glimmering against the cold. The sign above the door buzzes faintly, one letter flickering in and out. Inside, a few late customers linger at the counter while a waitress refills coffee for a man half-asleep over his plate.
Nicolas slows as he passes. Through the glass he spots a girl standing on a stool, painting snowflakes on the window with a small brush. She’s about his age, maybe a year younger. Her hair falls loose over her shoulders, and she wears a gray sweatshirt streaked with white paint.
The lights from inside halo her reflection, layering her image against the night outside. For a moment Nicolas can’t tell which one of her, the real or the reflected, is facing him.
Her brush moves easily, an arc across the glass, then a looping flake. She leans back to check her work, head tilted slightly.
She catches him watching and lifts one eyebrow. Through the glass her voice is muffled but amused. “Something wrong with it?”
“No,” he says, pointing vaguely at the pane. “Just a little off-center.”
She snorts softly. “Bold from a stranger.” But she shifts the next line anyway, right by a fraction only people who care would notice. “Better?”
He squints, and for once the performance lands right. “Eh…”
Her brow lifts higher in mock outrage. He grins, and it’s a peace treaty without a signature. “Yeah,” he says. “Better.”
She laughs, then studies him with curious eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Nick.”
She grins, dips her brush, loads a little white, and in the corner, in small, looping letters, writes Saint Nick.
Nicolas blinks and laughs before he can decide not to. “I’ll try to live up to the name.”
Her eyes find his through paint and glass and light. “Don’t try,” she says, and it isn’t a joke at all. “Do something with it.”
The sentence lands so precisely he actually sways backward. There’s no edge in the words. It isn’t a dare; it’s a challenge.
He opens his mouth to say something - anything, everything - but her brush is moving again, each stroke small and decisive.
“Better get started,” she adds without looking up, and the bell on the diner door rings somewhere behind the counter, as if it had been waiting for that line.
Nicolas stands there for a beat too long, the cold making a better argument by the second. He doesn’t know if he’s been called out or called forward - maybe both.
When he finally starts walking again, the cold feels different, softer somehow. He glances back once more. Inside, her reflection shimmers between the painted flakes and the faint glow of the words Saint Nick.
Nicolas turns onto his street and slows as his house comes into view. The tree in the front window blinks in its steady rhythm, the same one that’s been set since he was a kid. Inside, shadows move faintly across the curtains, a familiar dance of comfort and routine.
He steps onto the porch and eases the door open. Warmth greets him all at once, smelling faintly of pine and fireplace. His dad is already upstairs asleep, the television humming low in the background. His mom stands at the sink, rinsing her mug, already half-turned toward the stairs.
“Hey, you,” she says, not surprised to see him. “How’d rehearsal go?”
“Good,” he says, setting his script on the table. “Lines are finally sticking.”
She smiles, soft and easy. “Can’t wait to see it.” She dries her hands on a towel, then points toward the living room. “Don’t stay up too late,” she says as she starts up the stairs.
“I won’t,” he lies gently, because it’s tradition.
As the house settles, he kneels by the tree, adjusting a strand that’s slipped loose near the bottom. He reaches under the lowest branches, checking the wire where it meets the outlet. The lights blink once, then steady again, their rhythm slow and patient. The faint scent of pine rises as his arm brushes the needles.
When he looks up, he realizes he’s half under the tree, the same way he used to crawl beneath it when he was little, lying there for what felt like hours, just watching the world through the warmth.
For a moment everything else, the snow, the diner, the quiet streets, falls away. He’d spent the night giving out little sparks. Now the house gave one back.
A sound behind him. He turns. His mother stands at the foot of the stairs, one hand on the railing, the other holding her mug. She’s watching him, a small smile finding her face.
Their eyes meet.
In hers, the same quiet understanding that’s always been there.
In his, a sheepish smile that says without words, I know he’s not real.
And in hers again, the warmth that answers, I know. But you are.
She takes a slow breath, the moment hanging gently between them.
“Goodnight, Nic,” she says, her voice soft, almost a whisper.
“Goodnight, Mom.”
She turns toward the stairs. The step that usually creaks doesn’t. It never does on nights like this.
Nicolas stays where he is, lying beneath the tree, surrounded by the quiet pulse of its light. He exhales slowly, the air now warm - and the night exhales with him.
He stays there for a while, listening to the hum of the house. The lights from the tree pulse in slow rhythm, blinking warm against the walls. Somewhere upstairs, a door clicks shut, and the quiet deepens.
After a moment, he rises and walks to the old record player near the window. The wood is worn smooth from years of December hands lifting its lid. He slides out the record without looking, Frank Sinatra: A Jolly Christmas.
The vinyl slips onto the turntable with a soft scrape. He lowers the needle, and for a moment there’s only the faint hiss of dust in the grooves, the whisper before the memory starts to sing.
He drops into the couch, and the warmth of the room folds around him.
“Have yourself a merry little Christmas…”
Sinatra’s voice drifts through the air, low, close, familiar. The tree lights double themselves in the window so it looks like there’s another living room out there, and there probably is.
“Let your heart be light…”
A fogged window. A Christmas tree drawn by one hand, presents by another. The soft gasp of a child’s joy, her mitten pressed to the glass like she’s holding the world in place.
“Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore…”
A snowball flying clean and true. The echo of laughter across the park. An old man on his porch, eyes bright, calling the play with a grin he hasn’t worn in years.
“Faithful friends who are dear to us…”
A boy and his snowman standing taller than before, scarf wrapped tight around his neck. Merryweather, the name called out into the night like an old friend’s return.
“Through the years, we all will be together…”
The girl painting the diner window. How she’d met his teasing with that small, fearless smile, then spoke with a confidence that felt like light breaking through glass. Her eyes held his, calm and certain, steadying the noise inside him until all that was left was her.
“…if the fates allow.”
So magical