Harry Baby

Chapter 13

On the car ride home, both Christmas Cannon and Baby It's Cold okay on the radio. The snow has started falling even harder. I know my parents are going to make me shovel before we go anywhere tomorrow. I sigh and get out of my car.

Pulling my coat tight against my body, I quickly jog to my house. It's freezing inside. I find a starter log in the basement and put it in the fire. After adding two medium sized logs on top, I use the lighter hanging on the hooks behind the fireplace to light the corners.

Next, I fill the kettle with water for tea. I realize I'm still wearing the white sweater dress and black leggings I had put on for church service this evening.

While the water is boiling, I run up to my bedroom to change. I take my brown fringe boots  and throw them in the back of my closet and strip down to my underwear. I grab a pair of blue pajama pants with polar bears holding cups of coffee and a tight, plain white t-shirt to sleep. I also put on turtle slippers.

From the kitchen, I can hear the kettle whistle and jog down to it. I get the pink coffee mug with a face on it. I sit on couch and turn on the television. The Polar Express is on channel 49. Just then, I realize that I left the DVD at Harry's house. Whoops. At least that gives me an excuse to go see him again.

Yawning, I finish my tea and go upstairs to bed. I set my alarm and drift off to sleep.

I dream about Harry that night. We're baking sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles. All we did was smile and laugh. Occasionally, Harry would feed me a cookie. Then he leaned in and kissed me. His lips were soft just as I had imagined they would.

During the kiss I heard a rustling coming from beneath us.

"What's that?" I ask Harry, pulling m lips off his.

"Don't worry," he answers leaning for another kiss. Then I hear it again.

"There it is again," I say.

"It's fine," Harry responds putting his lips against mine. Then I hear it a third time.

"Seriously, Harry, what is that?" I say pulling away again.

"Want to go check it out?" he asks nonchalant.

"Yes," I say. Then he disappears out of the room. I go back to baking cookies.

I burn a batch but still put frosting and sprinkles on them. Two batches later, Harry still hasn't returned. I go to check on him.

Once I leave the kitchen, I find myself in dark, damp house like the ones in all those horror films.

"Harry," I call but there's not response.

"Harry," I try again reaching the top of the stairs. I take a step on the first one. It creaks loudly. The sound echoes off the walls.

"Harry!" I cry. "Where are you?" I yell taking another step.

Each one creaks louder than the last.  Finally I reach the bottom. For a brief moment everything is silent. Suddenly, the rustling starts again. It only gets louder as each second passes. Until finally I hear Harry shout.

At 9 am my phone starts ringing. I shoot up in bed. Sweat beads on my forehead and my breathing is heavy.

"Holy crap," I say under my breath. The dream felt so real. I honestly thought that Harry was in trouble.

Half awake, I answer the phone. "Hello?" I say sheepishly.

"Hey, Cassie, it's mommy," she says as if she were talking to Georgia.

"I know Mom, I'm not five," I say very cranky.

"Enough with the attitude, it's Christmas," she snaps. "We'll be home in ten minutes. Can you start making chocolate chip pancakes for the girls?" she asks.

"Do I really have an option?" I say crawling out of bed and hanging up.

Hoping we even have them, I look through the cabinet in search of a bag of chocolate chips. Thankfully we have one way in the back. I wouldn't hear the end of it if we didn't. We also have three boxes of pancakes mix. I open one and dump it in a bowl along with water, and three large eggs. I make sure to mix it before adding the chocolate chips. Last time I ended up liquefying most of the chocolate chips. Ally was really upset when she saw chocolate pancakes instead of chocolate chip pancake.

I start scooping the batter out of the bowl and onto the pan. I can only make two at a time because of their size. It still only takes seven minutes to make enough pancakes for everyone else.

With the leftover batter, I make two more pancakes for me and put on a plate. I pour a glass of milk and go to eat my breakfast on the couch. Jessica prefers egg nog. She's a little weird.

It's then that I notice a pile of gifts under the tree that weren't there last night. I'm not talking like three or four presents either. There has to be at least ten additional gifts under the tree. All the rustling in the dream must have been caused by whoever came here and dropped these off. But who would even bother spending that time, and money, on all of this.

All of the tags read 'From Santa' and none of the wrapping paper is anything we have here. There's only one question, who is Santa?