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“That isn’t normal!”
“Nothing about our Christmases has ever been normal!”
“All right. All right,” Frederick attempted to interject. “I understand it’s been—”
“Or what about that shattered kitchen window?” Devra said over him.
“All the glass we had to clean up,” David added.
“The shard that sliced open my foot.”
“The blood we had to clean up for days.”
“The hint of a red footprint we could never quite scrub clean.”
“Or what about that mouse that shat all over the house?”
“Mouse?” Devra looked to David.
“It ruined the Christmas pudding. And I looove Christmas pudding,” he lamented. “You don’t remember? You were pretty young.”
“No, I guess I do, now that you mention it. I just…I don’t remember it being a bad day.”
“Yeah, I guess it wasn’t that awful,” David relented. “Turned out to be kind of fun, actually, organizing that silly hunt, ordering in Chinese food.”
“Dinner was ruined, but we kind of laughed it off, didn’t we?”
David shrugged. “Guess we weren’t primed to expect disaster yet, so it didn’t feel like such a big deal. Must have been the first year everything went sideways.”
“The first?” Devra whipped her gaze to Bradley, who was already rushing toward David.
“The first year?” Bradley took the man by the shoulders. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I guess.” David jostled himself free from Bradley’s grip.
“Not the year of the ponies, then?”
“No. This was before that.” He backed away from Bradley. “What of it?”
“You said there was a mouse? A hunt? What exactly happened that day? Tell me everything you can remember.”
“I don’t recall much. I was only like seven years old. I mostly remember there being poop in the pudding. Scooped some into my mouth before I realized it. Disgusting.”
“What else?” Bradley pushed. “Think, please. A single detail could be vitally important.”
“What’s it to you?” David looked him up and down. “And who even are you?”
“His name is Bradley Mann,” Frederick declared, shuffling closer. “And he’s here to break the curse.”
A beat. A weighted pause.
“Break the—? Hold on a sec.” David raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you just say there was no curse?”
“Who cares what I just said.” Frederick waved an annoyed hand. “That’s not important right now. We need to focus on this, remembering the mouse. It could be the answer we need, as the man said.”
“Do you remember that day, Freddy?” Bradley asked.
He nodded slowly. “I was such a fool before, when you asked me when it began. Because, like Devra said, that day isn’t a bad memory. Because we wouldn’t let it be. It was a morning full of laughter.”
