Wonder

Every December 14th for the past nine years, I’ve re-written a holiday story through a queer lens, retelling it as a way to retroactively tell stories to my younger self that include people like me. The first year, I wrote “Dolph,” (a retelling of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer). Then I wrote “Frost,” (a retelling of Frosty the Snow-Man), “Reflection,” (a retelling of “The Snow Queen”), “The Five Crowns and Colonel’s Sabre,” (a retelling of “The Nutcracker and Mouse King”), “The Doors of Penlyon” (a retelling of “The Christmas Hirelings”), “A Day (or Two) Ago” (a retelling of “Jingle Bells”), “The Future in Flame,” (a retelling of “The Little Match Girl”), “Not the Marrying Kind,” (a retelling of “The Romance of a Christmas Card.”), and then last year, “Most of ’81” (a queer story inspired by “Christmas Wrapping”).

All of those stories are now included in a collection I released last month, Upon the Midnight Queer, alongside a new Little Village Novella included in the collection, “Folly,” which is a queer romance inspired by the poem “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas.” When I released Upon the Midnight Queer, and wrote “Folly,” I figured that would be this year’s retelling, but then I started to receive notes from people who’ve been reading this series of queer retellings for the last decade, and one or two of them said they couldn’t wait to see what story I chose for my blog this year, as reading the yearly retelling was something they looked forward to every year.

This goes to show I’m (a) open to flattery, and (b) hadn’t maybe thought through the reality of “Folly” being something you had to purchase if you wanted to read it. That’s on me, but this year, I’d also signed up for a writing retreat in the week leading up to today (I got home yesterday) and I devoted all that time to writing a new Village Novella, so I thought the window for coming up with a new story for the blog was closing before I could even open it.

The reason for this season’s offering is Giancarlo Herrera and Hannah Schooner’s wonderful performances in this collection’s audiobook.

But then two things happened, really. The first was directly because of the writing retreat. Because of my injured arm and propensity for migraines, I forced myself to take breaks that would normally happen via Max (huskies are very good at putting you on a schedule where you leave your keyboard to walk them four times a day). While I was on those breaks, since I was working on a Village story, I decided to re-listen to the audiobook versions of the Village stories that came before: Handmade Holidays, Faux Ho Ho, and the new Upon the Midnight Queer (all performed by Giancarlo Herrera, joined by Hannah Schooner for Upon the Midnight Queer’s audio version, and he and they did such an amazing job on that I cannot even tell you). And I’d been listening to “A Day (or Two) Ago” while getting lost on foot on my way to an Arnprior Bakery (long story) but when I found the bakery, the second thing happened: “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” was playing on the stereo there and…

Well. This year’s story was scribbled in a notebook when I wasn’t at the keyboard, and when I got home, I rested my arm enough to make it possible to transcribe it today, so here’s the first of these queer retellings of holiday stories, carols, and songs to also be a sequel.

All thanks to a bakery, coincidence, and the wonderful talent and skill of Giancarlo Herrera and Hannah Schooner, I bring you “Wonder,” a queer retelling of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland,” and a revisit of Master Samuel Brunswick from “A Day (or Two) Ago.”

Wonder

I’d been in my study working on a new tale when the winter night’s silence was broken by the softest trace of sleigh bells. At the barest hint of their crystalline, joyful noises, I lifted my gaze to the window, looking beyond the Manor grounds to the lane beyond, where snow glistened under the moonlight in the most delightful way, and felt a happiness rising in my chest alongside the wisps of golden light forming in the corners of my vision.

Spirits, I always thought of them, and they arrived more often than even before since Christmas last, when I’d made the acquaintance of a particular russet-bearded handler of horses. He was one Mr. Henry Wilson, the protege to the now late Mr. Edmund Pierpont, and as of the start of the previous holiday season—or three starts, if you counted things a certain way—he’d taken over the yearly tradition of my family hosting a series of sleighs the village could ride at their leisure. 

In the morning, no doubt my eldest brother, who had returned for the season with his wife and daughter and the news of another child on the way, would claim his traditional right to the first sleigh ride. Likely, my middle brother and his new wife, the former Miss Fanny Bright, now Mrs. Fanny Brunswick, would claim the second sleigh for themselves, thereafter.

My parents didn’t often partake of the sleighs these days, both being of an age where the comfort of the indoors and fireplaces were of a greater draw, but I would find my way down to the stables as soon was proper.

After which propriety would be the last thing on my mind.

There! My first glimpse of that first sleigh and a powerful horse to pull it. I itched to go down to the stables right this very moment, though I knew I could not. My family might afford me some wilful dismissal over my career as a writer of some fame and monied successes enough to even make mention of it among the peerage, but wandering down to the stables on a cold winter’s night just to say hello the local horse breeder?

Likely that would be seen as odd, even for me.

As the sleigh bells rang and the brilliantly gliding sleigh and horse both cleared the final rise and came up the lane towards the already opened gate, I did, however, move my lantern to my window, and I raised a hand.

The figure in the sleigh waved back. The ringing bells, louder now, conjured golden spirits and ignited my muse as always. This time, they appeared as a whole murmuration of new, gold and shining birds, birthed of the wonderful sound of the sleigh bells, and swirling in an ever-changing cloud of light and joy and all of it orbiting Mr. Henry Wilson’s hand as he waved in my direction.

Oh, how sleep would evade me tonight. 

*

The morning brought a wondrous land of winter perfection like those painted on the Christmas Cards my mother had purchased and written and sent with her wonderful mix of decorum and pious cheer. She’d confessed to have been unable to choose between two designs this year, and had instead ordered printings of both. Upon their arrival, my father had gently teased her, for to his eye they were so similar as to be identical, and I had to admit his point: two cards, both with pictures of the same cabin, though the latter from further away and framing the woods behind where the former had come up close and peeked through an open door to see a woman waiting at a table for a visitor.

They were perhaps a bit overtly sentimental for me, but deftly painted and charming, and my mother liked them, and it seemed to amuse her to choose which of the two variations to send to each of our peers. 

But as I turned my gaze out the window to the layer of white glistening snow, and my eldest brother and middle brother did indeed announce their intentions to take the first two sleighs, it wasn’t the coziness of my mother’s paper cabins I imagined. 

“I might take a walk later this morning,” I said, laying a foundation of deceit and rather enjoying the game of it. “I had some musings last night, and I need to allow them to settle properly in my mind before I attempt to put them to paper.” 

My parents made noises that were assent enough, if of a variety best described as bemused, a state I confess I often drove them to. Neither John nor James paid much attention to my career, but the former Miss Fanny Bright leaned forward, engaging me in discourse in a way none of the rest of my family or in-laws tended to do, which had frankly been one of the truly most delightful things about her marrying my brother James.

“Another tale of adventure, or a fable?” she asked.

“I confess I haven’t even made it that far,” I said, trying not to gesture too wildly with my toast as I recalled the murmuration of bird-like spirits from the night before. “But I believe it will involve a new bird.” 

“Delightful,” she said, while James eyed her with an expression I often spotted on his features since marriage: a sort of befuddled expression that I rather thought denoted he’d made at least some of the journey to understanding he had been outclassed, outsmarted, and outdone by his wife and should consider himself rather bloody lucky on all accounts. 

I’d had a hand in that, truth be told, though perhaps it best be described as a finger. 

The former Miss Fanny Bright had certainly handled most of it herself.

*

I waited until the fourth sleigh had left our stables, for it was always a quartet Old Mr. Pierpont had maintained, and I knew full well Mr. Henry Wilson would offer nothing less, and then bundled myself up for the winter air, exited the manor with as little fanfare or attention as I might gather, and headed for my “walk.”

That said walk entailed little more than a trek to the stables was of no concern to anyone else, frankly. 

Henry looked up as I entered, and his gaze flitted past me, out into the snowy courtyard beyond, and though there were none behind me and none in earshot, he teased me with the most polite of greetings, and measured tone of respectability both. 

“Ah, Master Samuel,” Henry said, putting his hands behind his back and squaring those wonderfully broad shoulders of his. “Good morning.” 

Two could play this game. 

“A good morning, Mr. Wilson,” I said, dipping my chin, though I confess no matter how much effort I put into attempting that cool, politeness my family had of speaking with those below their own social standing, I rather ruined my effort by allowing my eyes to speak as well. 

My eyes, it must be understood, had more or less already professed I was there for the lips visible in Mr. Henry Wilson’s russet beard, and the rest could follow the bluebirds, which is to say, anything but those lips of his could simply go away, and not think of returning until at least spring.

Presently, we found a nook tucked to the side of the stables and greeted each other much more honestly, with a stolen kiss that had me rising somewhat on my toes—I need not repeat that I am not  a tall man, as I am sure you recall this fact—but once stolen, that kiss did little to want me to return my feet fully to the ground again.

We stood there a moment together, until Henry let out a soft laugh, a noise of his I delighted in being the cause of. “Well,” he said. “These days are going to be a trial.” 

He wasn’t wrong. Over the months, I’d managed to procure several interviews with him for my writing—I was half-way through a sextet of tales featuring man and horse, and they’d proven quite popular among my readers—and if those interviews had often required us to take to his private stables for me to ensure my details remained accurate, none had found fault with my determination for correctness.

Those interviews, however, occurred on the land he leased, rather away from the eyes of my family, the Manor servants, any villagers who might come along, or anyone else, for that matter. 

“Meet me here tonight,” I said. “After all are asleep.” He’d be staying with the servants for the duration of the few days he and his sleighs were available for the Villagers, and I’d managed to arrange for him to have a room to himself, rather than a duet, and while I knew it was not possible to guarantee he wouldn’t be seen, he could likely invent a reason to be checking in on the stables at any hour of the night, were he pressed.

Henry put his warm, strong hand around the back of my neck and stole another kiss. 

I confess I rather took it as agreement, but he followed it up with a barely breathed, “Tonight,” which was thoughtful and communicative on his part.

*

I often stay up later than the rest of the Manor and just as often dismiss the few servants to still feel an obligation to tend for my wayward self and my odd ways of settling at a desk and writing for hours upon end by lamplight. 

As such, no real effort nor obfuscation was required for my plan, and while I confess to a single moment of setting my heart to a gallop when I thought I spotted someone in the kitchen, which instead turned out to be an apron on a hook, I availed myself of the delivery door and was outside under not a sky full of moonlight and stars as it had been the evening before, but one of fat flakes of snow that fell and chilled the nose and clumped together delightfully under ones boots.

Ideal, in fact, as any trace of my exit and return would both be covered by the morning. The notion struck me as particularly thrilling, and I aimed a festive smile of gratitude at the sky, to be delivered on my behest to the spirits of winter itself.

“Your complicity is appreciated,” I said.

The snow didn’t reply, of course, but I rather believe the flakes danced in a way best described as devilish. 

I found Henry in the stables, as bundled as myself, his own nose already a trace pink, and he took my hand in his and tugged me through the rear of the stables and we walked amongst the snowflakes, hand in hand. 

“It may be cold,” I noted, after we’d walked far enough from the Manor our voices wouldn’t carry. “But your company does lend ones spirit a boost.”

Henry laughed. “Oh, I love your way with words.” He paused our walk, turning me to face him. “I’m happy, too.” 

This kiss was not stolen, but freely given, returned in kind, and compounded with interest at a most successful rate. Enough time was spent with it, in fact, that when he did pause for breath, his strong eyebrows had been dusted with the fat flakes that were falling all around us, and I reached up to stroke them clean again. 

He turned his beared lips to my palm, and we invested a little more. 

Finally, we walked again, neither of us wanting this evening to end, but both realizing upon reaching the meadow that this should be our farthest point. As children, it had been the same. My parents had often noted we were not to go further than here, which neither John nor James took as a particularly firm rule, but one to which I remained devotedly observant. 

With a sly smile that tilted his beard to one side, Henry knelt, and gathered some snow in his gloved hands.

“If that is intended to become a projectile, Mr. Wilson, I shall have to throw myself at your mercy, for I’ve no skill in the art of war, not even with snow,” I said, holding up both hands in immediate surrender, the ghosts of snowball fights past with my brothers lining up in a series of humiliating reenactments. 

“I would never, Sam,” he said—I did so love it when he called me Sam—then his beard tilted again. “Though I wouldn’t mind you at my mercy.” 

What is a man to say in the face of such indecent and open scandal? “You delight me,” I said.

He winked, and then rolled the little ball he made, and in a moment, I’d recognized his intent.

“Are you building a snowman?” I laughed.

“Will you help me? It’ll go faster with two.”

And so I did. Playful and silly and entirely a side of Henry I rarely got to glimpse, it delighted me to see him frolic this way, and while he managed an excellent base for the snowman and the snowman’s middle by the time I’d rolled what would be the snowman’s head, the end result was a fairly typical specimen of the wintry construct, and at a certain angle, my less-than-perfect head could have been mistaken for having a rather pointed chin.

In fact… I scooped up more snow, patting it into place a handful at a time, then using a few fingers to carve it just so, and… I grinned, turning. The somewhat triangular features were—to my eye at least—unmistakeable.

“Why Parson Brown,” I said, putting a hand to my chest. “Fancy meeting you out here, so late at night.”

Henry did a double-take, then laughed. I could see the moment he spotted the resemblance—one did have to pity Parson Brown’s countenance a little, having been born with a chin that rather made him resemble a cut of cheese—but mockery of a snowy incarnation did not feel quite so cruel.

“Out alone at night, Parson,” Henry said, shaking his head and tutting, then pointing at himself. “Oh, me? Well…” He bit his bottom lip as if caught out, glancing at me and continuing the game.

“You see, Parson,” I said, rising to the occasion. “There really is a respectable reason for our midnight preamble, and it is this…” I glanced at Henry, who’d split a wide grin now, and then—with a boldness that set my heart to gallop again—I said simply, “we’d hoped to run into you, in fact. For we require your services.” I took Henry’s arm, looping his around my own. “If you’d accept the job, the next time you’re in town?” 

Henry’s delighted laughter—and his gathering of me in both of his strong arms—meant my joke and, I hoped, the admission buried within it, had been received well, and I partook of another kiss or two or three—who can count clearly when russet beards are involved?—and then we needed to begin our walk back to the Manor. 

“I almost feel bad leaving the Parson behind,” Henry said.

“We can have our fun with him until someone knocks him down,” I said. “My brothers always delighted in that. I used to make whole circuses of snowmen—smaller ones, of course—and they took easily enough to the roles of rampaging elephants.”

He’d kept one arm around me, and he tugged me to him now. Our boots sounded in tandem in the falling, clumping snow, and the flakes continued to fall. 

“I would, you know.” Henry broke the comfortable silence we often fell into while we were together. 

“Would?” I glanced at him, but he seemed unable to meet my gaze, instead looking ahead. His nose truly had gotten pink in the cold. We’d both be better served to be warm again soon. 

“Let Parson Brown do his job,” Henry said, finally looking down at me. “Were it allowed.” The caveat came with a wry smile, but without a great deal of bitterness, which was a thing Henry managed much easier than I, and yet I found oddly contagious. 

“If John’s new child is a son,” I said, speaking something I’d yet to say aloud, even to myself. “The matter of inheritance becomes a foregone conclusion.” 

Henry regarded me, a line between those strong brows of his, but he nodded.

“There is a house—not Brunswick Manor, but a house of decent standing, formerly of my aunt’s possession, my father’s eldest sister—with some land…” I shook my head, because Henry didn’t need the peerage version of this, only the most salient pieces. “It could be mine,” I said, and now it was my turn not to be able to look his way. “Which would mean many things, not the least of which would be my need to staff it.” 

I didn’t dare look at him. Our steps continued as before, paced together, my stride longer than usual to keep up with his, which he shortened for me. 

“That sounds like it could be a wonderful thing, Sam,” Henry said. 

I finally looked at him. Henry’s tone had been good, and welcome. His eyes spoke more eloquently.

*

The final night of the sleighs, my father invited Henry to our parlour after the meal alongside all the other head servants, a tradition I believe born of something his grandfather did at Christmas, though I’ll admit to never truly paying attention to his version of the history, as frankly none of the rest of my family had a particularly strong grasp of the telling of stories. They tended to simply state things in order, with no compelling turning of events, nor clever asides, and so I found myself attempting to edit their speeches even as I listened, and the end result was most often a waste of mental foolscap, all told.

Still, it did afford me the chance to be indoors with Henry, and he in his finest, which still bore the mark of being a part of a working man’s closet, and did nothing to hide the man beneath, thankfully. Some played cards—none invited me to that particular endeavour now the former Miss Fanny Bright could make up for a proper quartet of women alongside our housekeeper, my mother, and John’s wife Mary—and some drank brandy, including our butler, and my brothers and father, but as it happened, I managed to maneuver myself to the fireplace, and Henry accomplished the same feat.

This one night we could speak to each other and none would so much as glance our way. 

“You seem thoughtful, Master Brunswick,” Henry said, in his soft, plain voice, and yet I still required comportment not to fight off a shiver. He had a glass of brandy himself.

“I am dreaming, I think,” I said, gesturing to the fire. “Or perhaps conspiring.” 

“Conspiring?” he said, raising one eyebrow.

“Earlier today, I made plans to change residences,” I said, keeping my voice as close to the same plainness as he had managed, though even so I knew a trace of delight and perhaps nervousness had snuck through. “I’m going to set up my own household.” I faced him, and this time, I did raise my voice, just enough that I saw James—and the former Miss Fanny Bright—glance my way. “Come to think of it, Mr. Wilson, it occurs to me you might be of aid in this endeavour.”

Henry did a remarkable facsimile of surprise. “How so, Master Samuel?” 

“It has land, and a large stable. The one obstacle I’m rather sure I’d never clear myself—my aunt, who ran the home last, had a great interest in the breeding of horses, but as you well know from my many questions, it’s an area of knowledge I lack.” 

“It’s true,” James chipped in, which I doubt was intended as a helpful support so much as a chance to underline my deficiencies. “He can barely ride.” 

“Who did Mr. Pierpont rent from, Mr. Wilson?” Fanny said, tucking her cards down a bit as she, too, entered the fray—though this time, I rather thought in my favour. “Do you maintain his lease?” 

“I rent from the Whiddons,” Henry said, aiming his answer back at Fanny, before turning back to me. “Am I to understand you’re thinking of leasing?” 

“More of hiring, in fact,” I said. “Given I know your skills far surpass mine. I’ll confess I don’t know all the details of what that would take, but if it’s something you’d be willing to discuss?”

“Perhaps at another time,” my mother added. “When it’s not Christmas?” 

“Of course,” I said, raising a hand of apology for my mother. “Of course.”

The women returned to their cards, the men to their brandy, and side-by-side, Henry and I stared into the flames of the fireplace.

“Conspiracy suits you, Sam,” Henry said, voice barely a whisper. 

“Dreams suit us both, Henry,” I returned the sentiment in kind.