Free Home for Christmas by Lily Everett

minute, waiting for Libby to grab her puffy pink coat from the backseat. “It’s the Opening Ceremony to welcome everyone to the village. There’s a parade and everything, and we can walk around and check out the stalls.”
    â€œWill there be any place selling nativity sets, do you think?” Libby asked keenly.
    She’d spent the entire afternoon rummaging through the attic, opening unlabeled boxes and sifting through tissue-wrapped treasures looking for Christmas decorations. She’d unearthed enough ornaments to trim at least four eight-foot fir trees, and enough lights to get her started. But she hadn’t found Grandmother’s hand-painted nativity, even though Grandfather swore it was up there somewhere.
    Nash had helped in the futile search, but Grandfather refused, saying his bones were too old and creaky to be dragged up the attic stairs. But Nash had a sneaking suspicion that the old man couldn’t bear to see the mementoes of the family he’d pushed away. Grandfather had been morose, in his own cantankerous way, all day. It was a relief when he had his chauffeur take him down to the Christmas Village early to run through his part in the Opening Ceremony … and, presumably, to drive the festival organizers crazy with his contradictory orders and petulant demands.
    Even Libby, who seemed determined to find the good in their difficult grandfather, had visibly relaxed a little once Dabney was out of the house. But she still hadn’t managed to find the nativity and now she was determined to replace it. Maybe she thought a replacement set would disperse the gray clouds that permanently hovered over that sad old house, but Nash had his doubts.
    â€œI don’t think any of the stalls sell nativity sets,” Nash told her apologetically.
    â€œIt’s been a while since you came to one of these though, right?” Libby zipped up her coat with a flourish and plopped her red knit hat over her messy blonde hair. The pom-pom on top bobbed merrily at Nash as they slipped into the crowd of festivalgoers streaming toward the town square. “Maybe there are some new vendors since the last Christmas Village you went to,” Libby continued hopefully.
    â€œMaybe.” Nash couldn’t help the skepticism weighing down his tone. “The stalls are set up by the businesses that line the town square, and I don’t think there’s been a new one or a change of ownership in the last two hundred years.”
    â€œGosh. Well, keep your eyes peeled anyway. This is amazing!”
    She bounced, reminding him briefly of the little girl he used to tease and torment. “You don’t remember any of this, do you?”
    Craning her neck to try and see over the shoulders of the people in front of her, Libby shook her head. “Not exactly. I have … flashes, I guess? Little moments that might be memories, or they might only be pretty things I dreamed up. It’s hard to tell the difference, sometimes.”
    Before Nash could ask what kind of things, they’d reached the blockades keeping vehicular traffic off of Main Street. The sheriff’s department had people out, lining the streets and keeping the crowds in check until the parade was over and everyone was allowed to rush across the street and swarm the town square.
    Nash caught a flash of jet-black hair out of the corner of his eye, and his heart, which had quickened at the first sight of the khaki uniforms of the sheriff’s department, took off like a runaway reindeer.
    â€œCome on,” he said, grabbing Libby’s mittened hand and tugging her through the throng of people. “We need to find a good spot to watch the parade. It’ll be starting any minute.”
    â€œNot so fast,” Libby panted along at his side, cheeks as red as the apples Miss Ruth draped in caramel and nuts and sold from a stand like the one where she offered homemade ice cream in the