Her Christmas Wish

Chapter 1

Hannah Hollybaker

Boston, Massachusetts

Christmas Eve Eve, 1919

I am exhausted after yet another high society Christmas party. It went until well past midnight and my face hurts from smiling so much. I rub my jaw to try to loosen it. While I love Christmas more than any other holiday, the ridiculousness of the parties is getting to be too much for me to handle. Give me a tree, lots of decorations, a few presents, good food, and the people I love surrounding me. That would be more than enough. I manage to get my dress over my head, my panties off, and my nightgown on. God, how I hate this thing. It’s like a straight jacket. A cream-colored cotton monstrosity that has a high neck, long sleeves, and drags the floor. It gets twisted up in my sheets every night to the point where I can’t breathe. Will it ever be appropriate to sleep naked? I pull my hair down out of its elegant twist, well what’s left of the elegant twist I put it in at the beginning of the night and braid it. Then I sit down at my vanity and wipe off my makeup until my pale face pinkens with my efforts.

Then I move to my little writing desk in the corner. I go over the correspondence that was delivered today, but nothing is urgent enough to warrant a return response be written tonight. Most are invitations to New Year’s Eve parties, but I haven’t decided on which one I am going to attend yet. While I would like to forgo the hoopla this year, I know that I can’t. I will be expected to attend at least one party. I would give anything to be able to remain at home and play a card game or something.

Grabbing a fresh sheet of parchment, I dip my fountain pen into the inkwell in order to begin a list.

I am writing down my Christmas Wish List because I am a firm believer in sending what I want out into the Universe so that it comes back to me. I have a feeling something huge is on the horizon for me, but I am running out of time. My father is breathing down my neck to get married to his grotesque business partner, Ethan Pennyworth. I have heard that he murdered both his first and second wives if the rumors are to be believed and I do believe them. I would rather die first; you know before I marry him, but I am running out of time. I have begun to feel as though I am a woman living in the wrong time. I don’t take heed of what men tell me to do, at least the ones that I don’t find worthy.

Once I turned sixteen, my mother, a leading advocate for women’s rights, and I have been marching the streets of Boston with other like-minded women in order to obtain the right to vote, amongst other things. I don’t want to marry a man for anything other than love. Or at the very least marry a man on my own terms. As I am an only child of only children, it gets pretty boring around this huge house. I know that one day, I want to have as many children as humanly possible.

Which brings me to the man that I know I love, even though I have never met him. I set my pen down and sigh wistfully. For as long as I can remember, I have dreamt of the same man. He is dressed very differently from the men around me and while I think he’s in Boston, it’s unlike any part of Boston I’ve ever seen. He haunts me on a nightly basis. Everything in me tells me that I have to find him in order to give him the love he needs. Everywhere I go, I look for him, but in all my years I’ve never once seen him. He’s tall, dark, and handsome with an abundance of facial hair. I fold my list in quarters and put it in the pocket of my nightgown. I may have a need to refer to it later. Why I would need to do that, I have no idea.

I finish preparing for bed and pray for him, whoever he is, to come and find me, to rescue me. I thought I’d never need a man to save me, especially with all the basic rights women are getting, but as long as it’s him doing the rescuing, I’ll be happy.

Once in bed, I turn out the lights and pull the covers over me. My braided light hair is already coming loose. That figures, it never stays. By morning it will look wild and unbrushed.

Just as I am about to fall asleep, I feel the house shaking. At least, I think it’s shaking. Things are rattling off of my shelves and my vanity, crashing to the floor. We don’t get massive earthquakes here, but something is definitely happening. I can’t even manage a scream before I am hurtling through the darkness. I squeeze my eyes shut tight to stave off the urge to vomit. I am in what can only be described as a vortex, devoid of light or sound. I have no idea how much time passes while this is going on. Just as suddenly as it began, my body slows down before I crash into a hard surface, face first, with a loud thud.