Chapter Thirty-Eight - Solstice

Dreamer was very excited.

The cafe, and their home above, was all nice and decorated. There were more plants than usual, some of them cut up into wreaths that Abigail explained symbolised various alchemical circles that helped people in different ways. There was a thin layer of snow outside too, the crunchy kind that went ‘cruk cruk’ when people stepped on it.

There were other decorations too, of course. Pam, Dreamer’s weird clone, had figured out how to make long strung out paper hangy things using long bits of folded paper. With Charlotte’s help, they’d strung those out over the doors and across the room.

There was a weird plant hanging over the kitchen door called a mistletoe. Abigail had explained that when two people stood under it at the same time, they had to hug, and if they were special friends they could kiss too.

For some reason she had vetoed Dreamer’s mistletacles. The mistletoe didn’t actually make people hug, it was only a traditional thing.

Dreamer suspected that it was less a tradition and more an excuse that Abigail and Daphne came up with so that they could tentacle wrestle with their tongues some more.

When evening of the Winter Solstice came, they closed up the cafe and all of their friends gathered upstairs in their living room. It was Dreamer and Pam, and of course Abigail. Charlotte was there with Poutine, who looked a bit nervous, and Daphne was fussing over a few pretty boxes with bows tied up above them.

Dreamer was bouncing on the spot she was so excited for this part.

Everyone picked out a place to sit, some of them next to piles of gifts, and Dreamer’s entire being twitched as she saw her name on some of the tags hanging from some gifts.

“Alright,” Abigail said. “Who wants to start?”

“Me!” Dreamer shouted.

There were chuckles all around. “I would never have imagined that you wanted to go first,” Daphne said.

Dreamer nodded very fast. “Yes.”

Rents opened in space, and from those came her gifts. She didn’t know how wrapping worked, so she had mostly just wrapped the gifts in layers and layers of colourful wrapping paper, then there had been an incident with a roll of tape (even now, two of her tentacles kept trading the same tiny ball of tape back and forth, eternally unable to get it off without the tape sticking to the tentacle removing it from the other).

Still, her gifts were all there.

“Okay, okay,” Dreamer said. She grabbed her gifts and ran around the room, giving them to her friends. To Charlotte she gave a teeny tiny time travel box. That way she could put something in it if she wanted it yesterday. She gave Daphne a picture of Abigail sleeping. She got Charlotte to help her frame it. Charlotte thought that it was a very funny gift, but Dreamer didn’t get that. She just knew that Daphne liked it when Abigail slept.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

For Poutine she gave him a styrofoam cup. They didn’t even have those in this universe, so she really had to go far to get one. He seemed confused by it, but that was fine.

Pam got to live, which was a great gift, Dreamer figured.

And then it was time to give Abigail her gift.

Abigail sat on the edge of her seat, a smile just itching to come out. “Did you get me anything special?” she asked.

Dreamer nodded. “Yes,” she said. She pulled the plushie out from a rift, then held the box carefully. She had gotten help to wrap this one because it was special. “Here,” she said.

Abigail took the box and carefully undid all the tape holding the paper around it in place. Dreamer bounced while she waited. Why did Abigail have to be so... Abigail about the paper?

Then it was all off and folded on the side, and Abigail carefully opened the box.

“Oh!” she said. She raised the plushie, then grinned at Dreamer. “It’s very cute,” she said.

Dreamer nodded. It was. “Yeah, it’s a me, but small and plush. So that you have something to hug and keep you happy, even when I’m not there, which I won’t not be because you have plushie me.”

“I think I get it,” Abigail said. She hugged the plushie, then patted her lap for Dreamer to sit on. “Alright, does anyone mind if I go next?”

No one did, so Abigail reached behind her seat--which was tricky with Dreamer on her lap--and pulled out some gifts of her own.

Most of them were nice and simple things. Socks and felt hats, and whatever it was that Daphne got, it made her blush a lot before she closed her box and hid it under her seat.

“And this is yours,” Abigail said.

She placed a gift box on Dreamer’s lap.

Dreamer ripped the box apart, shreds of wrapping paper flying all over, soon followed by the cardboard underneath as she dug for her gift.

She gasped.

Carefully, Dreamer raised her gift up.

It was a hat.

Not just any hat though.

It was a bowler hat.

Only important people wore those.

Hers had little felt tentacles on the brim, and on the very front, embroidered into the dome-like cap, was her name. “Dreamer.”

“It’s so pretty!” Dreamer said. She wiggled it a bit and was immensely satisfied by the way the tentacles sticking out of it bounced.

“I’m glad you like it,” Abigail said. “Try it on?”

Dreamer did. It fit just right.

“I’m going to put this at the very very top of my tower of hats,” Dreamer said. That way, any who saw it would gasp in awe, and they would know that it was the greatest of all hats.

More gifts were passed around, snacks were brought out, hugs were given, the mistletoe used its strange traditional magics on Daphne and Abigail some more, awesome hats were worn, and all in all, it was the best night ever.

***