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“Hey,” he said, tugging it back off, and rubbing his hair.
“Oh, sorry.” She laughed. “Did I damage the shampoo hair? You don’t wear hats much, do you?”
“I do,” he said indignantly. “Just has to be a… certain kind of hat.”
Piper was squinting in a mirror at a pink striped hat she’d picked, before swapping it for another. “What kind of hat do you like? A Stetson? A beret?”
He sighed. “I usually wear the flat hats. A newsboy cap.”
She spun and looked at him, “Like a gangster?”
He started walking away and she hurried to pay for her hat.
“I was wearing those hats long before that TV show started.” He smiled. “Let’s just call it an old family tradition.”
“It was your dad’s?” she asked as she caught up with him.
“It was my granddad’s. I have pictures of him wearing the same caps that I do. I like it. It just feels… right.”
They moved next to a stall selling German sausage and schnitzel. Next to another selling Christmas decorations and carved wooden characters. “This place is huge,” she admitted. “How are we going to find what we’re looking for?”
He stopped and turned around, taking in the stalls around them. “So, the clue said something about celestial bodies. Do you think they mean decorations?” He peered over at one of the trees adorned in stars, suns, moons. He fingered one of the ornaments. “Are we meant to find one of these?”
Piper shook her head. “I don’t think so. It said celestial being. Wouldn’t that be an angel?”
Dawson’s face fell and he held out his arms. “Welcome to the Christmas market,” he said, shaking his head, “There are angels everywhere.”
Piper stopped and looked from stall to stall. True enough, no matter what else each stall sold, all seemed to have Christmas angels somewhere, either to top a tree, or to hang from the branches. Some of the stall holders were even dressed as angels.
“The food,” she said suddenly. “It has to be something to do with food.”
“Angel cookies?” Dawson asked. “Angel muffins?”
Piper pulled the card from her pocket again.Find a mix of two traditions where celestial being, and honey, ginger, and cinnamon meet.
Her mouth opened and she looked up at him. “What if we get this one wrong? We’ve found the market, and we think we’re looking for an angel. But it feels like honey, ginger, and cinnamon could be in just about every dessert we find here.”
She was starting to get nervous. The night had gone so well. She’d been relaxed around Dawson. They’d been getting on well, and the Christmas market was wonderful. But what if they picked the wrong thing tonight?
Dawson slid his arm around her shoulders guiding her away from the crowd and turning her around to face him. “Stop panicking. We know we’re in the right place.” He nodded to the stalls around him. “This is a German market. Let’s look for a traditional German food that’s eaten around Christmas. Muffins and cookies seem so generic. There must be something that we haven’t found yet. We have plenty of time. Let’s just keep looking.”
Piper took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s do this.” She took another sip of her mulled wine to calm her nerves. They wandered from place to place.
There was a giant sign for people to take pictures that they posed next to. They followed a group of tourists with multiple bags, watching them drift from stall to stall. They moved around all the specialist German hot foods, potato pancakes, gourmet pretzels, and a whole array of cheeses, served with sausage and crackers. “We could have eaten our way around this place,” murmured Dawson.
“I think I’d need a bigger size of clothes if I ate my way around this market,” said Piper, as someone walked past with a plate piled high with sauerkraut. She nudged him. “Let’s move to the other side. I think there’s more desserts over there.”
Dawson pulled his phone out and shot a few short clips of the Christmas market. Was he really going to make a story out of this?
It could go two ways. It could be massive or disappear without a trace. Piper guessed it all would depend on whether they solved the final clue and actually inherited the land.
When he finally put his camera away, they found iced cookies, an ice cream stall, and followed the delicious smell of sugar-coated roasted nuts. Piper stopped at another stall of carved figures. They were all painted in a variety of colors and totally unique. A baker, a clockmaker, a policeman, a chimney sweep, an artist, and a nutcracker. They were gorgeous and she ran her fingers over some of them. Dawson bent low, his warm breath at her ear. “I get the impression you would happily come here every night of the week.”
Piper’s heart gave a little lurch. “I haven’t managed the last few years,” she admitted, “And I’d forgotten just how wonderful they were.” She pulled a face at him. “We haven’t even reached the candles yet, and sorry, but I can’t go home without one.”
Dawson gave a resigned sigh. “We’re still looking for our angel, so I can live with the fact you can justify going ’round every stall. But I feel obliged to let you know this place closes at midnight.”
She widened her eyes. “Don’t worry, we’ll have found our angel by then. And I’ll likely have spent my entire month’s salary by that point, too. So don’t worry. Try and get in the Christmas spirit.”
