Mistletoe and Magic, page 16
“That must have been so hard.”
“It was. But it was also … not. Gran was brilliant. Difficult and complicated and carrying her own grief, but brilliant. She loved me. That was more than a lot of people get.” He looked at Eva. “The thing is, I spent so long being angry at my parents for leaving that I almost missed what I had. A grandmother who chose me every day, even when choosing me reminded her of everything she’d lost.”
“Is that why you reacted so strongly when I was researching her?”
Charlie sighed. “Part of it. I’ve spent years trying to reconcile the grandmother I knew with the woman I discovered in her letters. She was so heartbroken, Eva. So full of regret. But she was also the person who taught me to ride a bike and make proper Yorkshire puddings and find beauty in old maps. How do you hold all of that at once?”
“Maybe that’s what makes us human,” Eva suggested. “The ability to be broken and whole at the same time. Have you ever seen the Japanese art kintsugi? It’s this process where they take broken vases or ceramics and fill the cracks with gold. It’s supposed to stand as a reminder that the broken or damaged is still beautiful.”
She let the words float between them as they sighed and sunk into one another in the gardens.
As they walked back to the car, Castle Howard glowing behind, Eva felt a shift inside herself. Not a solution to all her problems, not a clear path forward, but something smaller and more important: the beginning of believing she might be worth her own story.
They climbed into the Land Rover, Tilly immediately claiming her spot between them with a satisfied huff. She could get used to this. Charlie started the engine, then paused, reaching behind his seat.
“I got you something,” he said, almost shyly, pulling out a package wrapped in brown paper. “Saw you looking at it at the market the other night.”
Eva unwrapped it carefully, her breath catching when the paper revealed the green leather journal from the craftsman’s stall. It was even more beautiful than she remembered, the leather soft under her fingers, the brass clasp gleaming in the afternoon light filtering through the windscreen.
“Charlie,” she whispered. “I can’t accept this from you—this is too much—”
“It’s not,” he interrupted. “You’re a writer, even if you’ve forgotten. And let’s face it, you’re living a story worth documenting. Gran would have said the same.” He paused, then added quietly, “Maybe you can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can tell when one deserves to be written in.”
Eva clutched the journal, tears threatening again but for entirely different reasons than this morning. She thought back to the tattered notebook she’d boarded the plane with, filled with shopping lists and to do tasks. To the chaotic pages of Inn stationery she’d scribbled across. Looking down at Charlie’s gift, she saw this as something more than just a journal. “Thank you. This is … it’s perfect.”
“Well,” Charlie said, clearly uncomfortable with the emotion of the moment, “Tilly picked it out really. I was just the one with opposable thumbs and a credit card.”
Eva laughed, the sound bright in the confines of the car. She opened the journal to the first page, running her fingers over the blank paper that seemed full of possibility.
“What will you write?” Charlie asked, pulling out of the car park.
“I don’t know yet,” Eva admitted. “But for the first time in a long time, that thought feels like the beginning of something rather than the end.”
Chapter Twelve
The Trail of Kindness
Eva woke with a sense of purpose she hadn’t felt in years. The green leather journal Charlie had given her lay open on the bedside table, its first pages already filled with fragments of Margaret’s story. Outside, York was dressed in frost, the December morning crisp and bright—the kind of day that made everything look like a Christmas card.
She dressed quickly, not even bothering to style her hair, something she had done every day since her mother told her she looked unkempt unless the length of her ponytail was smooth. But today Eva left her long, loose waves to cascade free over her shoulders down her cream sweater and coat. Today, she would follow Margaret’s trail properly, armed with Charlie’s tentative blessing and her own growing certainty that this story needed to be told.
Her first stop was Fossgate, where Mr Trinkett had mentioned an elderly shopkeeper who’d known Margaret personally. The shop—Whitby’s Antiquarian Books—was squeezed between a modern café and a vintage clothing store, its window display thick with dust and appearing unchanged since approximately 1862.
A bell tinkled as Eva pushed open the door, releasing the scent of old paper and leather bindings. Behind the counter sat a man who seemed to be composed entirely of wrinkles and wisdom, his thin hands sorting through a stack of Victorian postcards.
“Mr Whitby?” Eva ventured.
He looked up, eyes sharp behind wire-rimmed spectacles. “Haven’t been called that in years. Most people just call me Arthur. You’re the American asking about Margaret Wells.”
News travelled fast in York. “Yes, my name is Eva. I—”
“Saved my life, she did.” Arthur set down the postcards with careful precision. “Not dramatically, mind you. Margaret wasn’t one for dramatics. But she saved it all the same.”
Eva pulled out her journal, and Arthur nodded approvingly. “Good. Someone should write it down proper.”
“My father died at Dunkirk,” Arthur began, his voice steady despite the weight of memory. “Left Mum with four boys and a shop full of books nobody could afford to buy. I was the youngest, just a baby thankfully — my eldest brother was fourteen at the time and convinced he’d have to leave school, get work and provide for my mother.”
He stood, moving to a shelf behind the counter with surprising agility. “Then one day, he came home to find his schoolbooks for the next year already waiting. A little rough around the edges, they were second hand, but they were his. Mum swore she hadn’t bought them.”
“Margaret?”
“Took him three years to work it out. She’d come in the shop, chatting with Mum about this and that. Must have seen the worry, understood what wasn’t being said.” Arthur pulled down a leather-bound ledger, its pages yellow with age. “Found this after Mum died. Margaret had been contributing to our account, making it look like general sales, but it was for us. Clever woman.”
He opened the ledger, pointing to entries in faded ink. “See? ‘Mrs M. Wells—Various titles.’ Every month like clockwork, right through my teenage studies.”
“Did you ever thank her?”
“Tried to. Went to her house when I was eighteen, full of grand speeches.” Arthur smiled. “She served me tea, listened politely, then said she hadn’t the faintest idea what I was talking about. Said I must have her confused with someone else. Had that way about her—made you feel foolish for trying to unmask her kindness. Always wanted to redirect the praise of thanks to someone else. Selfless.”
Eva made notes, thinking of Charlie’s words about his grandmother helping everyone but herself. “Did she seem happy?”
Arthur considered this. “Content, maybe. But there was always something …” He trailed off, searching for words. “A person’s eyes tell you a lot, Miss Eva. It was almost like she was watching life through a window. You know? Present but not quite participating. She was a beautiful woman, though. Inside and out, had that dark hair and those eyes that seemed to see right within you.”
Eva’s next stop was The Olde Stables pub, where Florence had said the hospital administrator took his lunch every day. She found Dr Malcolm Hartley exactly where promised, nursing a pint and working his way through a crossword.
“Margaret Wells?” He set down his pen when Eva introduced herself and her mission. “Now there’s a name that deserves remembering.”
Dr Hartley had the kind of voice made for storytelling—rich and measured, with the hint of a Yorkshire accent beneath his educated tones. “I’ve been at York Hospital for forty years. Started as a junior doctor, worked my way up. But the stories about Margaret—they were legend long before I arrived.”
He pulled out a tablet, surprising Eva with his tech-savviness. “Digitised all the old records last year. Dull work, but fascinating too.” His fingers moved across the screen with practiced ease. “Here we are. Margaret Wells, Voluntary Aid Detachment, 1943 to 1947.”
“Four years?”
“Stayed on after the war ended. That was unusual—most VADs couldn’t wait to get back to normal life. But Margaret …” He showed Eva a black and white photograph on the screen. A group of nurses standing outside the hospital, and there in the middle, a young woman with dark hair and a measured smile.
“She worked primarily with the traumatised soldiers. What we’d now call PTSD, though back then it was ‘shell shock’ or ‘lack of moral fibre’.” His voice carried old anger at the term. “Margaret understood that sometimes the wounds you couldn’t see left just as much damage as those that needed stitches. She started things, initiatives, clubs I guess you could call them. She had a weekly reading group, art therapy sessions before anyone even called it that. Small things that made big differences in those men’s lives.”
“I heard she left notes?”
“Ah, yes. The famous notes.” Dr Hartley smiled. “Started with the soldiers who couldn’t sleep. She’d leave little poems, quotes, sometimes just a few words of encouragement on their bedside tables for them to find in the small hours. Word got around. Soon patients were specifically asking for ‘the note nurse’.”
He swiped to another document. “See this? Discharge report from 1945. ‘Patient shows marked improvement in mood and outlook. Attributes recovery to therapeutic interventions by VAD Wells.’ That’s medical speak for ‘Margaret’s magic worked again’.”
“Magic?”
“That’s what the patients called it. Margaret’s little magics. Never anything grand—a book that arrived just when someone needed it, a conversation that changed a perspective, a note that made someone feel recognised and heard in their struggles.” He looked at Eva over his glasses. “You know she paid for a young soldier’s train ticket home when he was discharged? Told him the hospital had a ‘transportation fund’. There was no fund, Eva.”
Eva thought of the brass key in her pocket, of Florence’s worried face over the inn’s finances. Patterns repeating through generations. “She gave a lot.”
“Everything, some would say. I honestly don’t know how she managed it all.” Dr Hartley’s expression grew thoughtful. “I treated her once, years later when I was still junior. Came in with pneumonia, wouldn’t admit how sick she was. Kept trying to check on other patients from her bed. I asked why she didn’t have many family visiting. She said her family was the whole of York.”
“That’s beautiful.”
“You think so?” He took a long pull of his pint. “Or is it sad? Woman gives everything to strangers, keeps nothing for herself. Makes you wonder why, doesn’t it? She was devoted to anyone but herself, what makes a person do such a thing? She was lucky to have her grandson in the end, I think.”
Eva’s final stop was the York Library, where the head librarian, Mrs Patricia Chen, had agreed to meet her in the local history section. The room smelled of old paper and furniture polish, dust motes dancing in the afternoon light streaming through tall windows.
“Margaret Wells established our children’s reading program in 1946,” Mrs Chen said, pulling out a cloth-covered album. “Called it ‘Stories for Tomorrow’ because she said these children would be the storytellers of our future.”
The album was filled with photographs—children clustered around Margaret as she read, their faces rapt with attention. Some wore patched clothes, some had the hollow look of wartime poverty, but in every photo, they were smiling.
“Many of these children had lost fathers in the war,” Mrs Chen explained. “Margaret understood that stories could fill some of those hollow spaces. She came every Saturday without fail, even when she was ill.”
“Did she ever read her own stories?”
Mrs Chen’s expression grew careful. “She wrote the most beautiful tales. I’ve heard of some of the fragments—stories about brave girls and lost princes, about bridges between worlds and love that transcended time. But she never thought they were good enough to share properly, she only ever read a short excerpt when really pushed by keen listeners. Always said she was still practicing.”
“Practicing for what?”
“The right moment and the right tale she said. The story that truly mattered.” Mrs Chen closed the album gently. “I don’t think she ever completed it. Or maybe she did and just couldn’t bear to tell it after all that waiting.”
She led Eva to a display case near the back of the room. “This is one of our Christmas traditions, started by Margaret in 1946.”
Inside the case was a collection of small, wrapped packages—books, mittens, toys. A sign read: ‘Take what you need, leave what you can. Christmas magic is meant for sharing.—M.W.’
“Every December, people still contribute,” Mrs Chen said. “Anonymous gifts for anyone who needs them. Last year, a single mother found a winter coat in her size with a note that said ‘For the late-night walks when the baby won’t sleep.’ That’s pure Margaret magic—knowing exactly what someone needs before they even ask.”
As they walked back through the stacks, Eva noticed small sprigs of dried mistletoe tucked above certain sections — Poetry, Letters, Romance.
“Margaret?” she asked, pointing.
“Every year until she passed,” Mrs Chen confirmed. “But never in the obvious places. She’d put them where people lingered alone—above the grief counseling books, the war memoirs, the section on starting over. Said mistletoe shouldn’t just be for those already in love, but for those who’d forgotten it was possible.”
Eva thought of Charlie’s gentle forehead kiss at The Shepherd’s Rest, how he’d called it ‘technical compliance’ when really it had been something far more careful, more considerate. Like Margaret’s mistletoe—placed where it might remind someone that tenderness could exist even in unexpected moments.
“Did it work?” Eva asked. “Did anyone ever …?”
“Once,” Mrs Chen smiled. “A widower and a young mother, both reaching for the same book on helping children through loss. They’ve been married twelve years now. Margaret sent them a note on their wedding day that just said: ‘Some bridges are worth crossing, even when you can’t see the other side’.”
Eva made her way back to the inn as the winter sun began its early descent, her notebook full of stories, her heart full of questions. She found Charlie in the pub area, Tilly at his feet, both staring morosely at the unlit fireplace.
“Successful hunting?” he asked without looking up.
“Very.” Eva sat beside him, pulling out her journal. “Your grandmother was extraordinary, Charlie. The lives she touched, the kindness she spread—”
“I know.” His voice was quiet. “But knowing and understanding are different things.”
They sat in silence for a moment, Charlie drumming his finger against his leg in deliberation with his own thoughts. Then, he stood abruptly as he decided. “Come on. If you’re going to write about her, you should see the rest.”
He led her upstairs to a room she hadn’t noticed before—small, tucked under the eaves. Charlie produced a key and unlocked it, revealing what appeared to be a storage room. Boxes lined the walls, all carefully labelled in Charlie’s neat handwriting.
“After she died, I couldn’t bear to throw anything away,” he admitted, pulling down a box marked ‘Notebooks— 1943-1950’. “Florence helped me organise it all. Said someday someone would want to understand.”
Inside were Margaret’s journals—not diaries exactly, but notebooks filled with observations, story fragments, sketches. Eva handled them reverently, aware she was holding pieces of a life.
“Look,” she breathed, opening one at random. The page was covered in Margaret’s careful handwriting, a story about a girl who collected stars in jam jars. But the next page was torn out, leaving only jagged edges.
“There are gaps,” Charlie said, anticipating her question. “Pages torn out, entire notebooks missing from certain periods. I think … I think there were things she couldn’t bear to leave behind, even in death.”
“What things?”
Charlie was quiet so long Eva thought he wouldn’t answer. Then: “Something deeper, more private? Maybe writing she couldn’t bare to read over herself. Like love letters, maybe. She was careful about what story she left behind.”
Eva traced the torn edges with her finger. “Did you look for the missing pages?”
“No.” Charlie’s voice was firm. “She chose what to keep and what to destroy. That’s her right.”
They spent the next hour going through notebooks, Eva reading passages aloud while Charlie provided context. Margaret’s voice emerged from the pages—witty, observant, heartbreakingly lonely at times.
“‘The soldiers think I’m healing them,’” Eva read, “‘but they’re wrong. They’re healing me, showing me that broken things can still be beautiful, that incomplete stories can still have meaning.’”
“That’s from 1945,” Charlie said softly. “The American must have already left by then.”
Eva looked up sharply. “You know about the American?”
Charlie’s laugh was bitter. “Hard not to. She never said his name, but he haunted everything. The way she flinched at the accent, the way she always happened to be busy on the fourth of July, the way she kept every Stars and Stripes newspaper even though she never read them.”
Eva pulled out the brass key. “Charlie, I think this might—”
