Matilda, Child of Fire

TSoT/HMV: Winter in Norwegian Wood

18 TSoT/HMV: Winter in Norwegian Wood

"Og alt rundt henne er et sølv lysbasseng"

Translation: "And everything around her is a silver pool of light" -Bailey Pelkman cover (slow version) of KT Tunstall, song "Suddenly I See"

7 pm, Universitetsgata, Oslo, Norway

Wearing sleek, wool-lined winter boots and holding each other's gloved hand, Harry and Macy carefully plodded down Stortingsgata toward Roald Amundsens gate. They had come prepared for the season, having donned thick scarves, sleek Nordic coats, and (in Macy's case) stylish black velvet earmuffs. The pair turned right and continued down Universitetsgata, passing what appeared to be a large field called "Studenterlunden Park," its landscape now covered in an inches-thick layer of pristine snow. A perfect escape to welcome the first day of the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, Macy mused to herself as wafts of their breath were made visible in the crisp, frigid air. It was amazing the date nights Harry had planned up his sleeve these days...

The beckoning conversational, cacophonous clatter of cozy restaurants emanated forth, interspersed with the koselig glow of the Christmas Market, its wooden stalls filled with busy holiday shoppers and cheery carolers. Harry noticed how each symmetrical line of market stalls, with lights overhead, converged on one singular point—the tall evergreen Christmas tree, fully decked out in twinkling holiday lights and ornaments of every which shape, size, and color. Macy, still holding Harry's hand, gasped aloud at the mesmerizingly captivating snowy scene.

"Are you alright, love?" Harry's well-meaning gaze fell upon his wife.

Macy nodded as she quietly squeezed his hand. "The tealights," she murmured, half to herself, drinking in the beauty of her surroundings. "It's so beautiful." She silently counted and multiplied the number of market stall rows and the number of stringed lights above them—so far, she had estimated two thousand being used. Damn that's a lot of tealights, she mused to herself, as she detected a faint whiff of fresh cardamom-infused gingerbread and aromatic piping-hot apple cider brewing in the distance.

To their right further down was a long, rectangular ice skating rink, mainly used by local sports teams for training over the summer, or else closed off; Macy recalled that the rink itself was free and open to the public from November to March every winter season. And indeed, it was November.

7:30 pm, Spikersuppa Ice Rink, Universitetsgata, Oslo, Norway

Harry exchanged his kroner for two pairs of ice skates, both made of eggshell-colored leather, with sturdy wooden-rubber soles upon which were affixed a sleek metal blade designed specifically for the ice that lay before them. To their right, separated by a wooden fence, was the giant Christmas Market centerpiece tree in all its splendor; to their left were three white tent gables from which shoppers could gaze upon the festive holiday scenery.

They spent the next several minutes lacing themselves up, after which they balanced themselves tenuously on the other, making their way toward the glistening sheen of the glossy, slippery, frigid rink surface. Macy understood that Oslo was filled with fancy executive office buildings; indeed, she saw one in the distance, its Fjordlcraft logo faintly glowing in the darkness, but here, she was with her husband of countless years, to enjoy a transatlantic night on the town. She heard the loudspeaker echoes of the next song, which to her surprise, wasn't holiday-themed at all, but rather a slower and altogether ethereal, haunting cover version of KT Tunstall's "Suddenly I See," made famous by its use years ago in the movie "Devil Wears Prada."

On a whim, Macy broke away from Harry's grip, and skated forward, doing a figure eight in the middle of the rink, laughing aloud at the sheer surrealist absurdity and sublime beauty of being here, in Norway of all places, once more. If someone had asked her twenty-five-year-old scientific self where she saw herself in three decades, she would've said the basement of a laboratory in a big city, far, far away, tinkering away on the next big discovery and/or project. Little had she known she would become one of the three gifted Charmed Ones, married to a Whitelighter husband who positively worshipped the ground she walked on.

She glanced over her shoulder to Harry, who was open-mouthed, and holding onto one of the wooden side benches that lined the ice rink. "What?" she asked, intrigued by his expression. He shook his head, smiling to himself as he pushed forward, eventually skating over to be by her side.

"Do you know how divine you look?" Harry murmured, his eyes twinkling, as he spoke mere inches away from Macy.

"Maybe, but it's only because you're here to remind me—and I love it when you do," she replied back flirtatiously. Macy would have held hands skating forward with Harry, but she had learned in skating lessons as a child, that one was more likely to stumble and fall that way, due to shifting centers of gravity atop the hardened surface. Something about equal and opposing forces from one of her physics lessons back in the day.

7:34 pm, Spikersuppa Ice Rink, Universitetsgata, Oslo, Norway

Harry and Macy gracefully skated across the icy surface, one time, twice, then three times, at a slow then moderate pace. The center of the rink had what appeared to be a lamplit post, encircled by a wooden seating area in the event skaters' legs grew tired, and they wanted to people watch anyways. Wishing to experiment, Macy motioned Harry to take both of her hands in his, and she skated backwards as he followed forwards in her direction. In all their years of marriage, Harry had never grown tired of spending time with his curly-haired beloved.

7:45 pm, Spikersuppa Ice Rink, Universitetsgata, Oslo, Norway

Noticing that they'd been skating for awhile, Macy motioned Harry over to the center bench of the rink, where that sat in silence, observing the small blond-haired children, and older teens, brunettes, dark-haired folk, congregating and gliding in effervescent ellipses around them both. "I like that song," remarked Macy. "The cover, I mean," she said, clarifying. "It reminds me of—"

"—Matilda," finished Harry, his hand clasped in hers. Macy nodded.

"Someone once told me that as a mother, I'd be only as happy as my least happy child," she said after several more seconds had passed.

"Sounds rather unpleasant to tell a woman," Harry couldn't help but remark with the raise of his eyebrow, and Macy laughed.

"I don't think it was meant that way," she replied. "Maybe the person meant that as a mother, you worry about how your kids are doing, no matter how old they are—and whether they're happy or not. A mother's job—"she peered over at Harry—"and a father's job, for that matter—are kind of never-ending, in a funny sort of way..." Macy trailed off, as she watched a small child trip and fall in the distance, the child's mother standing back watching the tiny person rise back up and continue skating.

"I always used to worry about Matilda, given her troubling fire powers. Would she be happy? Would she have a solid career? Would she eventually find the love of her life?" Macy mused aloud, as her husband listened.

"Macy, love, she is happy enough with her life," Harry responded, reaching an arm out to hug Macy and bring her closer for warmth. "Matilda's come a long way from who she was at twenty-one, and I think that's due to no small effort from ourselves—and Morgana—and whatever on earth happened at Camp Wanaka. Her time there gave her a level of focus and discipline I'd never seen in her before—"

Macy nodded. "True. And now our littlest girl is all grown up, starting a brand-new consulting job at Purgatory Corporation—in Pittsburgh!"

"Honestly, I'm just glad she isn't in jail—" Harry couldn't help but remark, as Macy elbowed him in the ribs. "What? I'm just being honest, she was a right juvenile delinquent back in the day—"

"But she's changed. And this job will be a fresh start for her. I just know it. Something tells me this'll be the best thing that's ever happened to her," Macy stated, as she reached over, smoothed Harry's chestnut and silver-flecked hair from his temple, and kissed him squarely on the lips, as it began to snow once more.