[Arry]

Willem found himself crossing his fingers behind his back as the flames drew down lower and lower into the embers. He’d piled on the shavings and stacked the kindling just so. Over it all the holly and the slender rowan branches had been placed, all at the nodding of Goody.

‘Please, please, please . . .’ he found himself whispering. Just as he had done those years past when he was a little boy wanting something to turn our right. ‘If I never get another thing,’ he mouthed toward the fireplace, as if his request might fly up the chimney with the smoke, ‘then let this be the one thing.’ He closed his eyes and wished again, and then once more.

Third time’s the charm . . .

He could remember his Gran saying that. And as the last of his little vows left his lips, he leveraged open one eye.

Willem gasped as the first fingers of flame poked up through the piled wood. They wrapped themselves about the curled shavings, the slender limbs, and crushed them greedily in their scorched fists. At the heart of the log, the embers began to glow and waver in the increasing heat.

‘The Yule Log, Granny! It’s going to be alright now. All of it . . .’

The Hobbit uncrossed his fingers, bringing his hands round in front of him. He rubbed them carefully, working the numbness and tingling from them as the blood coursed through them now without hindrance.

‘Going to be alright, now . . .’