Page 34 of Sweet Silver Bells

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

C onfused, Hunter cocked his head, but he didn’t get a chance to answer as a man in a coat and top hat ushered them inside, taking their tickets and displaying the biggest smile.

“Let’s get your lady out of this mist. Enjoy yourselves.”

Olivia wrapped her arm around Hunter, holding her skirt up with her other hand.

It struck Hunter for the first time how it looked like she really belonged there.

The elegance of the way she walked was like a ballet dancer sashaying across lily pads.

The certainty of how she held herself was that of a person who’d had power her entire life, but it was normal, unremarkable to her.

Everything that this ball was trying to be, the holiday magic so forced, was everything that Olivia truly was.

This ball didn’t deserve her.

They moved through the grand foyer, where a large Christmas tree sat in the middle of the room to greet them, and a line for the open bar wrapped partially around it as gentlemen in black coats waited to bring champagne flutes to their dates.

“You're upset,” Hunter said.

Olivia was too quiet. The energy that radiated off of her was tense, despite the slight dimples in her cheeks as she smiled and ignored his words. That smile did not meet her eyes.

His alarm bells were going off as he studied her face, her mouth neutral, her head hanging high as she scanned the room.

“Is it the tree?” Hunter asked.

Olivia shook her head.

Flickering candles lined the end tables of the room, shadows striking against the bells and holly lining the walls in draped greenery—a classic holiday look. Hunter felt his throat tighten, nervous, sensitive to every look, every twitch of Olivia’s nose.

This was once her home.

Maybe this was too soon.

“I’m sorry,” Hunter said. “We shouldn’t be here, should we?”

A trance seemed to fall over her, Olivia’s voice a higher pitch than her normal tone.

“No songs tonight, do you think you can make it? We can turn around right now,” Hunter said, gripping her hand tighter. “Whatever you need, I will make it so.”

A small smile played across her lips at that. She turned her chin up to him. “There are no Danishes here, I’m afraid.”

Hunter laughed and pulled her entirely into him, hugging her.

“Excuse you two, the foyer is not for standing around,” an elderly woman bumped into them. “Get into the dance hall; go on now.”

Olivia giggled and picked up her skirt, floating across the floor on Hunter’s arm as they proceeded forward.

“I want to be here,” she said.

The dance hall looked just as Hunter had seen it so many times between the field trips and the wedding.

This time, it was filled with couples attempting to waltz, some beautiful dancers, others struggling.

The ceilings were over twenty feet high, and dancers floated across a marble floor that seemed to trap any color or light that hit it.

He had been so focused on Olivia that he hadn’t stopped to think of what seeing this room during an event might do to him, as he saw the ghost of Sarah swaying back and forth in her white princess gown, laughing and begging him to dance.

I’ve said goodbye.

He pushed the guilt down, though it wouldn’t leave properly. He adjusted the band of his watch uncomfortably.

“This is where it happened,” Olivia whispered to him.

Indeed, it was, for both of them.

“I cannot promise I won’t step on your feet,” Hunter said, offering his hand with a crooked, self-deprecating smile. “But I feel it’s my solemn duty to ask you to dance.”

Olivia tilted her head, gaze shimmering with mischief beneath the candlelight. “A duty? My, how terribly noble. Tell me, Mr. Gunnan, do you often offer yourself as tribute to ballroom casualties?”

He smirked, bowing slightly. “Only to the most dangerous women.”

“Then you ought to be more careful,” she said, placing her hand in his. “I’ve been known to leave a mark.”

As he guided her onto the floor, she moved like mist, graceful, impossible to hold. “You dance like someone with something to prove,” she said, eyes twinkling as she floated beside him.

“I probably do,” he murmured. “I haven’t done this since the wedding, and before that, when Mother pushed me into ballroom lessons when I was a teen. How about yourself?”

“Oh, I dance to keep the ghosts in their place,” she replied lightly, though her gaze flicked toward the grand chandelier as if watching something invisible sway above them. “They tend to grow bold when the violins begin.”

Hunter studied her face, his grin fading. “You alright?”

She gave a small smile, too perfect to be real. “Do I appear otherwise?”

“You’re quiet. Even for you.”

Her gaze drifted over the polished floors, the gilded crown molding, the shadows cast by flickering candlelight. “This room is a mirror. It remembers things I’d rather not see.”

“Then let’s leave,” he said immediately. “We can leave now.”

Olivia turned to him slowly, her voice a murmur, almost a laugh. “And miss all the fun? I’ve grown rather fond of my ghosts, you know. We’ve shared so many seasons together.”

Hunter’s grip on her waist tightened slightly. “You shouldn’t have to keep them company.”

She looked up at him then, and for a moment, her mask slipped. “At least ghosts answer back.”

He stopped moving. The room spun gently without them.

“Talk to me,” he said. “Don’t make me guess.”

Her lips curved into a soft, strange smile. “Isn’t it a bit romantic, though? All this glitter and memory. The illusion of joy stitched over something broken. Like lace over a wound.”

“Don’t do that,” Hunter said, voice low. “Don’t make it poetry so that it hurts less.”

Her chin lifted. “I wasn’t. Some things are beautiful because they hurt.”

Hunter brushed a gloved thumb along her cheek, steady and tender. “You don’t have to carry it alone.”

For a breath, she just looked at him—like he was something wild she didn’t know how to hold. Then, quietly, “You don’t know what it is to be from a place that loved you once, and looks right through you now.”

“Then tell me,” he said. “Make me see you.”

Olivia’s voice softened, formal and haunting. “This room watched me become someone I no longer recognized. I stood here in silk and silence while everything I loved unravelled beneath crystal chandeliers. And unfortunately, everyone noticed.”

He stepped closer. “Is it better if they didn’t?”

Her eyes glistened, but she blinked the tears back like a lady taught never to let emotion show. “I think I’d like to stay, just a little while longer. I want to see if the ghosts remember me.”

Hunter wrapped her in his arms and began to sway, ignoring the tempo of the music entirely. “Then we’ll stay. And if they do, let them know you’re not alone anymore.”

Counting his steps in his head, Hunter spun Olivia, her dress fanning out around her as colors combined, the other dancers and their gowns twirling to the same choreography. He was keeping up well. There were no moments of pain or stumbling. Olivia fit in like she was born to be here.

That’s because she was.

They moved to music that was really there, that wasn’t in his head. He appreciated that, seeing the eight-piece orchestra, the violinists who played with their entire bodies, dressed in black as if they were supposed to fade into the walls but instead showed up to be noticed.

The music was fast and lively—magic, a twinkle in the energy, in the air, as a large grand clock ticked, filling the room with natural percussion counting down until midnight.

Until Christmas.

Smiles lingered on faces, and cups clanged together in toasts as groups celebrated.

A whirl of joy surrounded them like dust from a faerie sprinkled over their heads.

Hunter felt lighter, more in control, as he breathed in Olivia’s scent.

Her skin, her neck, and her lips were inches from his face at all times.

He wanted to freeze time, to live in a moment of bliss where Olivia smiled, secrets hidden behind those eyes, secrets for him to discover, to obsess over.

This would be short-lived; their world crashing down as the reality of their pain overwhelmed both of them.

Hunter could see him running out of there as Sarah crept into the back of his mind.

The last time he’d danced with a woman here was when she was in his arms.

How do I disappear into you? Hunter thought, as Olivia’s eye bore into him.

She saw him, like no one else did. She saw his pain in a different light, not as someone who needed help or saving, but as a companion. Both of them existed in a haunted sadness that would never be lifted, except for the comfort of each other’s arms.

The music slowed and came to an end, the ballroom breaking out in applause and appreciation as the band announced a small break and waiters came through with small hors d'oeuvres and champagne in small, stemmed circular glasses.

Olivia didn’t let Hunter look away from her, their bodies not breaking from their dance as everyone moved more casually around them, a few awkward stares thrown in their direction.

“Hunter.” Her face, the quiver of her lip, told him all he needed to know about where her heart lived.

“The last time I was in this ballroom, I was called the worst possible thing imaginable. A boy who held me close, who said the most beautiful words to me, called me a witch. You called me a siren. It is the same, isn’t it? ”

It hurt her, that word.

It shouldn’t hurt, Olivia. I don’t want it to hurt.

“But Olivia,” Hunter said, his hands slipping down to her waist, pulling her into him, into their bubble hidden from the world, “you are a witch.”

She pushed herself away so fast, tears filling her eyes instantly.

“No, stop.” He grabbed her hand before she could turn, her body poised to run. She stilled, as he asked.

“You didn’t let me finish.”

“I didn’t think you could hurt me. I thought you were different, Hunter.”

“Olivia, you are a witch. And I’m so proud of you,” he breathed.

“What?”

“I am so proud of everything you are. You can be terrifying, sure, but who isn’t sometimes?

You are the strongest person I’ve ever met, you are sure of yourself, you are more beautiful than any forest, than any moon, mother nature bows down at your feet because she cannot compare to your beauty, she cannot compare to the compassion you hold in your heart. ”

“I want them all dead,” Olivia said. “Everyone who walks on two legs and shares a tongue like mine. How is that for compassion? You are proud of me, of this evil being that I am, of this horror.”

Hunter put his hand under her chin. “Stop, Olivia. It isn’t 1914. Everything you are and everything you want to be is something that I love. I love you.”

She did stop. The slight angling away from him, the pull of her body against him, ceased. There was a limpness in her, as if she were about to faint into him.

It would be okay if she did. He would hold her, carry her forever.

“Who could ever love a witch, Hunter? What does that say about you?”

“I don’t care what anyone says. Because you could do nothing to scare me away, there is nothing you can do to make me feel differently. I am here with you in this ballroom, in this place filled with the ghosts you speak of, my own ghosts, because you wanted to stay. I will always stay.”

“Let myself be a witch, then? That’s what I should do? And then say it back, say that I love you?”

“I would never tell you what to say,” Hunter said.

Olivia’s chest rose and fell as she breathed, staring at him silently, thinking, contemplating.

“I don’t belong in this world, Hunter.”

“I know.” He nodded.

“You don’t belong here either.”

“No?”

“No. That’s why your song woke me up. That’s why you heard the music.” Olivia stepped back, her heel hitting the marble with a new intent. Her hand lingered on his as she grabbed him, tugging, asking.

“Come with me,” she whispered, but it was loud enough for him to understand, to grab hold of unspoken promises, of seduction under holiday decor and a grandiose display of wealth.

“Where?” he asked, clearing his throat. “Where do you want to go?”

“Away, Hunter. I’ve always just wanted to take you away. Say yes.”

“I’m yours. However, you need me. However you’ll have me.”

She looked at him as if that was not answer enough, or she was unsure.

“Let me clarify,” he continued. “Yes.”

It’s all she seemed to be waiting to hear—her breath caught in the space between them, eyes wide like a flame had just been lit behind them.

Then her body was moving, reaching for him as though the ache of distance had been unbearable, as though it were possible for them to become one soul in two skins.

Her hands found the sides of his face, velvet-gloved and trembling slightly as she hummed, and her scent changed to something sweet, something toxic.

It didn’t come shyly, nor gently. Olivia kissed him like a woman desperate to memorize his taste before time pulled them apart.

And he kissed her back just as fiercely, as though the shape of her mouth was the only true thing he’d ever known.

Their lips moved like they had something to say that couldn’t be told in words.

As if life itself hung in the balance of that moment—hungry, breathless, full of everything they had never dared admit.

The world around them softened. The sounds of laughter and music dulled to a hush, like someone had placed thick velvet over the whole ballroom. The candles flickered taller. The air thickened.

When they finally pulled apart, their foreheads resting against each other’s, Hunter shivered.

Not from cold—but from something deeper, stranger. A chill that bloomed inside his ribs and radiated outward, like a snowfall beginning in his lungs. His fingers tightened instinctively around the band of his watch. The metal felt too warm, too still.

Something is off.

The feeling wasn't fear exactly—it was wonder laced with disquiet. The sense that they weren’t entirely real anymore.

That they were simply figures inside a snowglobe someone had shaken too hard—spinning, swirling, trapped in perfect motion.

The storm outside still howled against the windows, but the droplets never touched the glass.

Time hadn’t just slowed.

It had stopped.

And in that eerie stillness, something inside him whispered: Remember this. This is the last time you’ll ever feel the world breathing.

Olivia pulled back just enough to look at him. Her eyes were wet, shining with something that looked too big to name.

“It’s calling. Can you hear it?” she whispered.

Hunter could.