My intro and official return to this site is on the previous short story post. (The two are unrelated, so you don’t have to read one to understand the other, but it would make me very happy if you read both!) Without further ado, here is Comet’s story!

Comet

December 25th

7:30 am

Charlotte is home in Basil Hills for the Christmas season, and I wish I could have told Scar and Brescia. 

But Charlotte has no real reason or way to contact Jack and his family, and so I’m here in Basil Hills, where the light dusting of snow on the trees looks too magical to be real, and it’s early morning on Christmas day. 

The house is quiet. Everyone must be asleep. It’s been busy with Charlotte’s extended family staying the night too, as well as a new friend she’s met in her university classes who didn’t have any family to come home to, so Charlotte, in her ever generous nature, drove her new friend Clara home with her. 

Clara’s sleeping in Charlotte’s room on the floor in a sleeping bag, so I’m reduced to sleeping in the living room. But there’s Christmas classical music playing in the background from a radio somewhere, and the light on the trees is just light enough to be comforting while not having the disruptive power to keep me awake in its brilliance. 

Underneath the tree are brightly wrapped presents in silver, gold, green, and red. There are bags with tissue paper billowing out the top like smoke from a fire. And on the topic of fire, the fireplace is low and has been going all night, making no noise and just being there to provide ambience. Our windows are closed and frosty, with snowflake-like patterns forming a beautiful crust over them. 

A light goes on in the kitchen and I see Charlotte’s mom is awake and making coffee. I get up, stretch, and walk over to her. She grins when she sees me and gives me a loving pat on the top of my head. 

“Atta good girl, Comet. How’d you sleep? You sleep all right in this big, busy house full of big, busy people?” Charlotte’s mom kneels down and pets me, and I can’t help how my tail wags. I’ve gotten to love that little reaction of mine – when my big tail hits my legs and tickles my back, it brings me a small sense of joy that’s quite unique to family life at Charlotte’s. 

I want to start barking with joy, but I remember that most of the house is asleep, and I settle for panting and lying belly-down on the tile floor. Charlotte’s mom puts food in my bowl and as I eat, the sound of the coffee maker brings a certain home-y energy that I can’t quite put into words. 

Soon, there are more sounds of footsteps and the light creaking of a door. It’s Charlotte’s friend, Clara. She’s in an oversize tee-shirt with small candy cane patterns all over it, and some of the fuzziest red pants I’ve seen in a long time. Her dark, straight hair falls down her back and it’s somewhat tangled, and as she rubs her nose, I notice a little hole in it: she’s taken her nose ring out for the night. 

“Good morning, dear,” says Charlotte’s mom. “Do you drink coffee?”

“Thank you… yes, I do,” says Clara, her voice deeper than I remember. “Sorry, morning voice,” she adds with a clearing of her throat. Charlotte’s mom chuckles.

“Coffee will be ready very soon dear. Do you take milk, sugar, or cream?” 

“Milk would be great, thanks. You’ve been very kind.”

“Oh, it’s no worry at all! Any friend of Charlotte’s is welcome here, and you’ve been an absolute angel since you came!”

Clara flushes slightly, and smiles gratefully. 

“You know, you’re not the only one who Charlotte’s taken in, so to speak,” says Charlotte’s mom, pointing down at me. “Frankly, it’s none of my business what your business is with your folks, but Comet here used to be a stray. Charlotte spent many days getting to know her and getting her accustomed to life surrounded by love and kindness.” 

I was surrounded by love and kindness. But of course, Charlotte’s mom wouldn’t know that. 

Clara sits down cross-legged in front of me and looks at me with solemn, sad eyes. They remind me a little bit of Brescia’s eyes – they’re a darker brown than Brescia’s are, but they have the same depth to them. The same warmth. Clara hesitantly reaches her hand out and I walk up to her, placing my head underneath her outstretched palm. 

“My dad died before I was old enough to remember him. My mom did her best, I suppose, but we still never really had the best of relationships. Technically, I could have gone home with my mom and stepdad, but I felt like it would just dissolve into something uncomfortable,” said Clara in a voice just a little louder than a whisper. “I told myself I’d go if they invited me, because at least it would show they cared.”

I approach Clara and lay my head on her legs. I can feel her breathing more deeply now, and I can feel her visibly relax to the point where she almost slumps forward a little bit. 

“Thank you, again, Ms. Riemann. This has been the first Christmas in a while that’s actually gone well for me.” 

“You’re absolutely welcome, dear. Charlotte speaks highly of you, you know.” 

Clara grins. 

“Yo, Clara!” calls Charlotte from across the hall. “I’m up, where’d you go?”

Clara sighs, gets up, and goes to Charlotte’s room. I follow her, only to pass the many rooms of Charlotte’s siblings. Jeremy has a sports-themed room with trophies and posters on the walls. Quinn seems to be very much into space, with star stickers on her ceiling that seem to glow. Her twin Kyle has a pretty plain room except for two bookshelves against the back wall, neatly organized, but I can’t tell in which order.

“Morning, Comet – no, no, out of the room for now. It’s…” Charlotte looks back over her shoulder. “…there isn’t enough floor space with Clara’s mattress. No – Clara, I swear, don’t even worry about it. Jer and the twins should be already up by now, it’s later in the morning than I thought. No – Clara, if you apologize about being here one more time, I’m…” 

I turn from the friends and shake my head affectionately. This is to be expected from Charlotte. She is affectionate and stubborn, a lot like me and other members of my family. Maybe that’s why we get along so well. 

I get into Jeremy’s room first – the sports one – and he is fast asleep, his arm and almost half his body hanging over the side of his bed. I climb up onto the bed and lay down next to him, and I can feel the bed dip under me. Jeremy doesn’t move, so I make one low and loud woof. He snorts and stretches. 

“Oh god, Charlotte sent you. Okay, I’m up,” he says. “CHARLOTTE! COME GET COMET, I’M AWAKE!”

“GET HER OUT YOURSELF, I’M WITH CLARA!”

“FINE…”

Jeremy rolls off the bed and onto the floor, bringing the blanket with him. I follow him off the bed, sniff him once or twice, then saunter out of the room successfully. The screaming seems to have woken up the twins, who are standing in the doorway with tired eyes and a yawn or two. 

Clara and Charlotte get out of the room as well, and Clara sticks her phone in a pocket that I didn’t think existed on the fluffy red pants. 

“Merry Christmas, everybody,” says Clara with a grin. “I brought stuff for you, I didn’t know when the best time to give it out was…” she adds sheepishly. 

“In our house, we all sit around the tree and open gifts one at a time: I hope that’s okay!” says Quinn. 

“Oh – of course! Whatever works for your family, of course.”

“Santa could have visited a second time and left in the time it takes you guys to get ready for breakfast,” says Charlotte’s dad with a laugh as he comes down the hall. “Clara, how’d you sleep? These kids give you any trouble?” He ruffles Quinn’s hair, and she protests, waving him away from her head.

“The night was very peaceful, thank you,” says Clara gently. “It’s been a very pleasant stay.”

“Glad to hear it! Come on down, there’s coffee, hot chocolate, and pancakes.” 

🐾

Once everyone sits down around the Christmas tree, filled with pancakes but sipping on whatever hot drink Charlotte’s mom made, they start opening gifts. I watch as everyone opens a gift in turn, then hugs whoever it was that the gift was from. Clara brought the family a couple boxes of chocolates that are apparently some kind of luxury chocolates, by the way that everyone reacted to them. Clara blushed and said she ‘couldn’t come empty-handed’ and that Charlotte had once said they were her family’s favourite, so it was ‘only natural’.

Even I got a gift: a new chew toy and a big bone. 

As the family went to their various morning activities, I followed Charlotte and Clara, holding my chew toy since, according to the adults, the ‘bone stays in the kitchen’. 

Now that I had more time to think, I was brought back to the Christmases I had at the Den. We were stuck in an endless loop of having just enough, then having nothing, and needing to provide basic necessities. It just wasn’t possible to give gifts as extravagant and meaningful to those we loved. We would try, of course: Scar would take over some Alpha duties while Brescia was left to relax and enjoy a day off. Sometimes he would bring Brescia to special places and they’d enjoy a day to themselves, and I’d take over Alpha duties with Trey and M by my side.

We’d always joke, the three of us, about the kinds of gifts we’d give each other. It was more-or-less the same stuff every year, but it got funnier as time went on because they’d always get more elaborate. 

🐾

“Merry Christmas, guys – the most wondrous time of the year. Live, laugh, it’s really damn cold and our Christmas gift from the world this year is that another plank broke off the Den in the wind,” she pointed out with a snort. 

“I’ll push you into a snowbank,” I said. “It’ll be a surprise gift: forget Santa at night, it’s just Comet coming in the middle of the day to push you in a snowbank. Because what are friends for?”

“I think it’s just me being here that is a gift to you guys,” said Trey with her signature snark. “I’d appreciate a little revelling in my presence as a form of gratitude. I also accept a week of night duty instead of me having to do it.”

At that point, I’d push Trey into the snowbank, revelling instead in the peals of laughter from M. 

🐾

We joked about it, yes. But now, with Trey gone, her being here would be the gift of a lifetime. 

The day is slow, and I decide to nap under the (now empty) Christmas tree. But as I start getting closer to waking up, closer to opening my eyes and facing the day, a dream slips into my consciousness. Or is it unconsciousness at this point? Either way, a small conversation plays itself out in my head as my brain enters the final stage of sleep. 

🐾

I’m in the Den again, and it’s winter. It’s cold, or at least, I should feel cold, but it’s a dream. I’m comfortable, and I can enjoy the beauty that the light covering of snow gives my home. 

“Merry Christmas, Comet,” comes a voice from beside me, and I turn to see a black Labrador. One that I thought I would never see in my life. 

“Trey,” I breathe, and barrel into her with excitement. As we roll over, and I find myself on top of her, I jump off and start berating her. “Where do you get the absolute audacity to die six months ago and then wander into my dreams on Christmas like nothing ever happened?” 

Trey laughs, getting to her feet. 

“You said it yourself, it’s a dream. None of this is really my doing. I think, if anything, you brought me here. I’m probably saying exactly what you want me to say, or at least exactly what you want the conjured-up, dream-scape version of me to say.”

I lay back down on the Den floor with a sigh.

“I miss you, Trey. I’ve been missing you for months. I don’t think that will ever stop.”

“I miss you too. But… I also don’t regret what I did.”

“And I wouldn’t want you to. You saved lives. I would have saved yours if I could.”

“Comet, don’t go back to that. Don’t… don’t do this to yourself. What’s done is done. It was six months ago. I’m gone, yes. You can’t change anything anymore. There’s no point in ruminating over what could have been.”

“Right… right.” I sigh, and turn to look at her. She has a slight glow about her in my dreams. “Every dream I’ve had of you since has been a bad one. I wake up crying, or sweating, or heart racing. How is this happening?”

“It’s a dream. I don’t know.”

I stay silent for a bit. I don’t want to wake up, but another part of me knows the conversation is getting closer to ending. I’m bound to wake up soon, whatever happens next.

“Before you wake up, tell me about your life now and in the past six months. How are Scar and Brescia? How is M? The pups? Darrell?” asks Trey, sliding closer to me in the supposed cold.

“We’re alright, actually. You’d be glad to hear that…” I continue talking about the experiences we’ve had over the past six months, and it’s comforting to be talking to my best friend again, even in my dreams. Maybe she really has subconsciously given herself to me for Christmas, in some weird way. Whatever the case, I’m not going to complain, even when I wake up. Even a lucid dream moment with her is a joy and a moment to be cherished.

There is a rustle next to me. A rather large amount of rustles. 

“You’re about to wake up, now, I think,” says Trey lightly.

“Probably, but… oh, when will I see you again?”

“In which way?”

I think about it for a second. I’m now conscious about the fact that I’m manually keeping my eyes closed, and once I open them again, I’ll be awake, and Trey will be gone again. But something tells me I’m not going to have nightmares of her death again. And if I will, they will be fewer and far between. Trey grins at me with a wink. 

“Merry Christmas, Comet. Come here, really quick, before you wake up for good.” 

“Merry Christmas to you too, Trey. Where are you taking me?”

“Just come on!”

I follow Trey, trying desperately not to wake up.

“I love you, you know,” she says.

“I love you too.”

Trey looks at me for a solid ten seconds, then shoves me as hard as she can. I didn’t expect her to be actually corporeal and have any real effect on my body, but then I hit a snowbank with force, and that’s what forces me out of sleep.

🐾

What in the world was that for, Trey? I ask the lingering image of her in my head as I stand up and blink, seeing the family getting into snowsuits and carrying sleds throughout the house that must have come from the downstairs storage closet. 

The image in my head winks and says “Merry Christmas, Comet” before disappearing, and now I know I am fully awake.

Dream Trey told me essentially to move on, and to live my life without hoping that something about that one fateful day six months ago could be changed. I used to never take her advice. But for once, I think I will. I will never forget her, that much is certain. But she’s in a better place now, no matter how cheesy and sentimental that sounds. I’ll always love her and I have reason to believe she’ll always love me. 

🐾

Soon, I am speeding down a hill in a public park on a plastic sled, my tongue hanging wildly out of my mouth and my ears flopping backwards. I come to a gentle stop at the bottom of the hill, and Charlotte’s loving arms around me and her affectionate kisses on the top of my head make life all the more worth living. 

I’m ready for whatever comes next in the new year, and as long as Charlotte is by my side, we can do anything. I can do anything. 

I think the best Christmas gift of all, in the end, is knowing that there’ll be someone who loves you and will be by your side in the new year and in as many of the coming years as they can.

And I think I found all of that, right here in Basil Hills, and in the gloom and urban cityscape of Fog Lake City. 

I wouldn’t exchange it for the world.

OUTRO

I hope you enjoyed this little story and I hope you’d consider checking out my novels and I hope if you haven’t read the first story I’ve posted, that you’d go and do that! And if you’ve read both, let me know what you think!