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  “Oh, right. Give me like five minutes? I can meet you back here.”

  “Sure.”

  Ryleigh smiled and went off to the employee’s bathroom down the hall. While she was gone, Lincoln considered his brother’s weird behaviour. Ryleigh returned a couple of minutes later, now dressed more casually and carrying a backpack.

  “How do I look?” She asked.

  “Never would have known you were an elf,” Lincoln said.

  “Perfect, that’s what I’m going for.”

  “What’s with the backpack?”

  “Oh, it’s just my work stuff. I had it in the locker in there but I’m worried if I leave it, I’ll completely forget to come back for it later and that would not be great. So where to?”

  “Oh… I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you have some shopping to do? That’s usually why people come to the mall.”

  “Kind of? It’s really Parker who had specific things he needed to buy. I just came along for the ride, really. Is there any shopping you need to get done?”

  “Nothing I absolutely need to do, but I’ve been meaning to go check out the new scented candles at Bath and Body Works.”

  “The Christmas ones?”

  “Yep, I want to go smell all of them while telling myself I’m not going to buy any of them, and then spend my whole paycheck there because I have no self-control.”

  Lincoln looked slightly confused but he said, “Sounds like a plan. Let’s go.”

  They started walking in that direction.

  “So that was Parker, right?”

  “Oh yeah. Sorry I didn’t introduce him, it didn’t even occur to me. You remember him at all?”

  “Uh… not really, honestly. I have vague memories of him walking you home from school when we were really young. He’s a few years older than you, right?”

  “Six years, yeah. That’s a really random memory for you have, though.”

  “I know, I don’t know why that’s what I remember of anything. Let’s see what else I can remember… In theory, there should be a lot since we were such close friends as kids. So you have three siblings, Jared, Ellie and Parker. You’re the youngest. You live over on Manor Street. I’m sorry, I don’t remember your exact address. You never had any pets growing up, but you always wanted a dog. Is there anything I’m missing?”

  “Well, there’s a lot you’re missing if we’re talking about every detail of my life but as far as important information about my life, I guess that about covers it. I’m impressed that you remember anything about me, honestly.”

  “Alright, let’s see what you remember about me now.”

  “Oh gosh, okay… you are also the youngest. You have two brothers, Benjamin and Jaxon. You had three cats back in the day, I don’t know if you still do—”

  “We got a fourth this summer, actually.”

  “Wow. Alright, you have four cats. You were always really into science and we always joked that you would become a mad scientist when you grew up. I think that’s about the same amount of information that you have about me.”

  She nodded. “Pretty good. You know, besides the slip up of how many cats I have.”

  He shook his head in disappointment.

  “I know, I can’t believe I didn’t magically know you got another cat. Clearly, I have not honed my mind-reading skills as well as I’d thought.”

  “That’s really too bad,” Ryleigh said. They reached Bath and Body Works. Ryleigh immediately led the way to the candle section. They spent the next half hour smelling the Christmas candles.

  “I think the peppermint ones are my favourite,” Lincoln said.

  “Hmm, those are okay, but I find them a bit too sweet. I prefer the natural scents, like balsam or fir.”

  “Really? Those don’t seem as Christmas-y to me.”

  “If you only use them at Christmas time, you will start to associate them with the holidays.”

  “Guess I can’t argue with you there. But I’m not sure I would consider something you have to condition yourself to associate with Christmas as a Christmas candle, you know?”

  “Well, I already associate it with Christmas, I was just saying you could do that. But I guess that’s fair.” They walked out of the store. “What do you want to do now?”

  “You know I’m surprised.”

  “Hm? Why?”

  “You said you were going to spend your whole paycheck in there, but you didn’t buy a single candle.”

  “Oh yeah, you’re right… guess I’ll just have to come back. Oh look, there’s Parker.” She raised her hand to wave at him. “Who’s that with him? Your sister?”

  Lincoln looked over and groaned. He blinked a couple of times, hoping he was seeing things, and that she would disappear. No matter how hard he tried, though, Ellie was still walking towards them.

  “Parker, why?” He muttered. He loved his sister but if she was here, that could only mean one thing — they were plotting something.

  “Hey guys!” Ellie said.

  “Ellie? What are you doing here?” He asked.

  “Oh, Parker called and asked if I wanted to come help you guys shop!”

  “But this morning you said you were busy,” he said slowly. “You said you had work to do.”

  “And I finished it! Anyway, you must be Ryleigh. I’m Ellie, Lincoln’s sister.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Ryleigh said.

  “So, Parker mentioned that you two were friends as kids. How long has it been since you’ve seen each other?”

  “Oh, just a couple of years, we kept touch through high school,” Ryleigh said.

  “It’s so great that you two ran into each other here! You know—”

  “Anyway, Ryleigh and I are going to Tim Hortons now,” Lincoln interjected.

  “Unless you two need help shopping,” Ryleigh offered.

  “No, no, you two go have fun!” Ellie said. “Oh! Before you go — we’re having a Christmas party next week, and we would love it if you came!”

  “Huh?” Lincoln asked.

  “Our Christmas party,” Ellie said.

  “Yes, I know we’re having a Christmas party, Ellie,” Lincoln said. “But it’s so last minute, I’m sure Ryleigh has plans. Right?”

  “Uh, you didn’t actually tell me what day the party was,” Ryleigh said.

  “It’s on Saturday,” Ellie said. “Starts at three o’clock, but you can stop by any time!”

  “Okay, thanks,” Ryleigh said. “I think I’m free, but I can let you, or let Lincoln, know later this week.”

  “Great! I’m going to meet Parker, Millie and Ollie now. I’ll see you two later!”

  She headed off down the hallway happily.

  “Sorry about her,” Lincoln said. “My family can be very overbearing.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Ryleigh said. “I’m pretty sure I’ve met Ellie before, right?”

  “Probably. She was three years ahead of us at school.”

  “Right, that makes sense. Anyway, Tim Hortons?”

  “Yeah. I think there’s one in the food court but then we run the risk of seeing Ellie and Parker again, so do you want to go to the one down the street?”

  “By the skating rink? Sure.” They headed outside and walked to the Tim Hortons. As they passed the skating rink, Ryleigh said, “I can’t even remember the last time I skated. I played hockey when I was young, but I haven’t gone skating since then, I think.”

  “I haven’t been skating in years, either,” Lincoln said. He looked at the sign. “They have skate rentals here. Want to do it?”

  “Go skating?”

  “Yeah. I mean, we’re here and there— there are skates, so we could just… go skating.” He gestured at the skating rink in the square then shook his head in embarrassment and dropped his arm again.

  “Sure. If you want to,” Ryleigh said.

  “It’s up to you.”

  “Oh, we both know I can’t make decisions. Don’t you remember in third grade
when we had to choose between popsicles or fudgesicles at our class pizza party, and I burst into tears?”

  Lincoln laughed. “Oh yeah. Mrs. Stewart was so overwhelmed that she just gave you both so you would stop crying.”

  Ryleigh shook her head. “I still feel bad about everything that happened that day. That party was to celebrate the end of the year and her retirement, and we were all being so awful. I don’t remember everything, but I remember the sense of total chaos.”

  “I’m pretty sure Jerry and Brian tried to throw a desk out the window when she stepped out of the classroom.”

  Ryleigh gasped. “I forgot about that! Oh, she was so mad when she came back in.”

  “But nothing happened because then the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the school, only to then realize it wasn’t a planned drill, so we had to wait outside until literally twenty minutes before the bell. On the last day of school.”

  “It was definitely for the best that was the last day of school because if Mrs. Stewart had to come back the next day, I think she would have had a breakdown.”

  “Oh, I’m certain she would have. Hey, didn’t something like that happen in grade six?”

  Ryleigh tilted her head. “When? I don’t remember that.”

  “I can’t remember what exactly happened, but we definitely had a different substitute teacher every day for the two weeks before Winter Break.”

  “Oh right! But it wasn’t ten different teachers, it was the same three or four who just kept switching. I remember we had the one who gave us candy like four times.”

  Lincoln frowned. “The one who gave us candy? I don’t remember that one?”

  “What, how do you not remember her? She gave us all a piece of Halloween chocolate at the end of the day but she also would give us candy randomly throughout the day for like, helping out or whatever.”

  Lincoln laughed. “I have no recollection of this woman at all but that sounds wonderful.”

  “It was quite something.” She took a deep breath. “But anyway, do you want to go skating or Tim Hortons?”

  “You’re trying to trick me into deciding!” Lincoln accused.

  “Of course, I am, have you already forgotten the popsicle story?”

  “You think I’m any better at making decisions?”

  “Well one of us has to decide!”

  “Why don’t we flip a coin?” Lincoln suggested.

  “I guess we could…” Ryleigh said. “But what if we don’t agree with the coin’s decision?”

  “If we don’t agree with what the coin decides then we’ll know we actually want to do the other thing.”

  “That’s not a foolproof system! What if I want to do each activity equally?”

  Lincoln groaned. “Okay fine, how about this? Would you rather go skating first and get Tim’s after, or get Tim’s first then go skating after?”

  Ryleigh bit her lip. “I don’t… skating first? No, Tim Hortons! Wait no, skating! I—”

  “The first thing you said was skating then Tim’s so let’s do that,” Lincoln said. Ryleigh still looked unsure, but she agreed to it regardless. They went to rent skates.

  “Good thing they have hockey skates,” Ryleigh said as they laced up. “I’d fall flat on my face if I tried to use figure skates.”

  Lincoln snorted. “Tell me about it. Ellie tried to teach me once and it didn’t end very well.”

  “Oh, Ellie skates?”

  “Ellie does everything. It’s really annoying, actually.”

  “I’m sure she doesn’t do everything. There must be something that you’re better at than her.”

  Lincoln thought for a moment. “Nope.”

  Ryleigh rolled her eyes. “Come on. What’s her degree?”

  “She’s in nursing at the University of Toronto.”

  Ryleigh’s jaw dropped. “Okay… so she’s very smart.”

  “Yeah, she’s smart, beautiful, naturally gifted at everything she tries, and everyone likes her. I literally want to hate her, but I can’t because she’s so nice to me.”

  “Well, what’s your degree in? You must be better at whatever your degree is because she hasn’t studied it.”

  “I’m in Business at Western.”

  Ryleigh rolled her eyes. “Classic.”

  “What? It’s a good program!”

  “Yeah, I know. Which is why every person we know goes there.”

  “I wouldn’t say every person.”

  “At least half our graduating class went to Western and I would say the majority of the boys went for business.”

  “Yeah, that’s fair. But it doesn’t matter because I love the program.”

  “Anyway, back to my original point, you probably know more about business than Ellie since you’ve actually studied it.”

  “But here’s the thing — just because I’m better at it doesn’t mean she’s bad at it. And yes, I know I’m being annoying and jealous, but I hate with a passion that there is not a single thing on this earth that she is even remotely bad at.”

  “Are you sure you two share the same genes?”

  “No. In fact, I’m entirely certain that she is from a different planet.”

  “I knew it. Now we just need to find a way to prove it.”

  “You read my mind. Not sure how we could do that, though.”

  “Yeah…” Ryleigh thought about it for a second. “Oh! You know who would know?”

  “Who?”

  “Ellie.”

  “I hate you.” Without another word, he got up and walked towards the rink. His gait was awkward since he wasn’t used to walking on skates and it didn’t get much better when he got on the ice. While it took Ryleigh a minute to get her balance, once she did, she went flying. Lincoln had a bit more trouble. He didn’t fall but he struggled to take long strides, so he looked like he was trying to walk on the ice rather than properly skating. Ryleigh did a lap of the rink then circled back around to skate next to Lincoln again.

  “Come on, Lincoln, I thought you knew how to skate,” Ryleigh teased.

  “Give me a break, it’s been a long time! Plus, I never formally learned, Ms. Hockey Player.”

  “Lincoln, I’ve seen you skate before, and you were not this bad.”

  “Like I said, it’s been a while.”

  Ryleigh switched so she was skating backwards in front of him instead of skating beside him.

  “You need to glide, Lincoln,” she said.

  “I’m trying!”

  “Come on, I’m sure you have the muscle memory. Just put your mind to it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re not even trying.”

  “You’re being mean.”

  “I prefer calling it tough love. Look, you’re getting better.”

  “That’s not because of you. I just got used to being on skates again.”

  “Hm, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. Come on.”

  She spun around again and skated off. He picked up speed to keep up with her.

  “Do you go skating often?” He asked as he skated next to her.

  “Not nearly as much as I want to,” Ryleigh said. “But alas, c’est la vie.” She grinned. “Sorry, is that French too hard for you? I know you always struggled with it in high school.”

  “Hey, I am not that bad at French!”

  “I seem to remember Mlle. Lavigne putting her head down on the desk and crying that you were so stupid.”

  “Okay, that wasn’t just me, that was when she was marking the tests.”

  “Your test in particular.”

  “My test was just the straw that broke the camel’s back!” Lincoln defended. “It wasn’t just because of me. My French could not have been bad enough to make her cry.”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” Ryleigh said. Lincoln scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Race you to the other side?”

  “You’re on.”

  They did nine races in total, Ryleigh easily winning six of them. One of them came out to a
draw. Ryleigh claimed she was the victor, but Lincoln claimed she cheated, and as there was no official judge, they had no choice but to call a tie. The sun had been out when they first started but after about forty-five minutes, it disappeared behind some clouds and there was no sign of it coming out again. It began to get uncomfortably cold.

  “Ready to head off now?” Lincoln asked after a few minutes of them both shivering as they skated.

  “Yeah, I think so,” Ryleigh said. “I could really use a coffee right now.”

  They went back to the bench where their stuff was to take the skates off.

  “My hands are frozen,” Ryleigh said. “I can’t even untie my laces.”

  “Should have worn gloves,” Lincoln said. He was already taking off his second skate, unimpeded by frozen fingers.

  “Wow, what an idea. Maybe I would have if I’d known I was going skating, Lincoln.” She picked up one of Lincoln’s gloves, which was laying between them on the bench and threw it at him. It hit him lightly on the face.

  “You wound me,” he said, putting a hand to his chest.

  “You’ll live.” She finally managed to get her laces undone and pulled the skates off.

  “I’ll go return them,” Lincoln said. “I’ve already got my shoes on.”

  “Thanks.” She put her shoes on and collected all her stuff. By the time he got back, she was ready to go.

  “Okay, Tim Hortons!” Lincoln said. He paused. “I know we were planning to go to the one down the street, but honestly the mall is closer, and I don’t feel like walking far.”

  “We can go to the food court if you’d prefer that. It doesn’t really matter to me.”

  “Why don’t you decide?” He asked slowly. She glared at him.

  “I will leave.” He didn’t respond so she started to walk away. He quickly grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

  “Okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said. Ryleigh laughed. “Let’s go to the food court, it will make it easier to find Parker again later, seeing as he is my ride home.”

  She nodded in agreement and they walked back into the mall.

  “So how are you working here and going to school? Are you commuting?”

  “Well, I’m renting a place near McMaster with some roommates which is where I’ve been staying for most of the year but now that I’m working here, I’m commuting back and forth a bit. I was in Hamilton Monday to Thursday when classes were running. Now that we’re in exams, I’ve just been driving back for exams. It means I can pick up more shifts which is always good.”