On Christmas Eve Stephie eyes Aunt Märta uneasily as she opens the package with the pot holder in it. Will she find it ugly and uneven? No, Aunt Märta seems pleased. She thanks Stephie and hangs it right up on a hook by the stove.
Uncle Evert gives Stephie a paint box and brushes and a pad of watercolor paper. Aunt Märta gives her a cap and mittens she’s knitted in a matching pattern. Stephie can’t figure out how Aunt Märta managed to knit them without her noticing. The wool smells of mothballs.
Lying in bed later, she hears the voices of Uncle Evert and Aunt Märta from their bedroom.
“You ought to have bought her a few more things,” says Uncle Evert. “The kind of trinkets girls like.”
“Trinkets,” Aunt Märta snorts. “What she needs are warm clothes.”
“True enough,” says Uncle Evert. “But children need different things for different reasons.”
“Are you telling me I don’t know what’s best for the girl?”
“Not at all.”
“So what are we arguing about?”
The conversation ends. A little while later, Stephie hears Uncle Evert’s voice again.
“She’s a fine girl. I’m glad we took her in.”
The wind begins to whine outside Stephie’s window and she doesn’t hear Aunt Märta’s reply.
They’ve been invited to spend Christmas Day at Auntie Alma and Uncle Sigurd’s. There are lots of others there, too. Everyone’s related, and for the first time Stephie realizes that Aunt Märta and Auntie Alma are related, too-they’re cousins.
Nellie gives Stephie a Christmas present, a tin of candies, hard on the outside but with soft chocolate centers. The tin is pretty, with a blue-and-gold pattern.
“You can keep things in it afterward,” Nellie points out.
Nellie isn’t wearing her coral necklace, as she usually does when she’s dressed up. Her soft, pale neck looks very bare without it.
“What was in Sonja’s package?” Stephie asks her, trying to sound nonchalant.
“A rubber frog,” Nellie says. “It hops when you squeeze a ball.”
“Did you give her a present?”
Nellie nods.
“What was it?”
Nellie doesn’t answer, just looks away, her bottom lip quivering slightly.
“You didn’t give her your coral necklace, did you?”
Nellie nods again.
“Idiot,” Stephie says. “What do you think Mamma will say when she finds out?”
“You were the one who told me to!”
“Well, you should have known I didn’t mean it.”
“What did you say it for, then?”
“I was kidding,” Stephie says. “I never thought you’d be dumb enough to give away Mamma’s coral necklace.”
“I’m going to write and tell her,” Nellie says. “I’ll tell her you tricked me into it.” She looks as if she might burst into tears.
“Oh, it’s done now,” Stephie hurries to say. “Come on, let’s go see what Elsa and John are up to.”
After Christmas the weather turns colder. The air is raw and damp, full of salty humidity from the ocean. It prickles their cheeks and stings their nostrils. The steep islets Stephie can see from the bay window are capped with snow. They remind her of mountaintops. It’s as if the mountains had sunk under the water and left only their tops protruding.
Along the shore and in the inlets, the ocean is frozen over. The ice is a dull gray-green, ribboned with white snow. Farther out, the open water gleams, steel blue. Stephie walks on the beach and feels the thin ice shatter, crunching under her feet. Sometimes she goes right through the layer of ice and snow and down into the stiff, frozen seaweed.
Stephie likes the snow; it transforms the island from gray to white. She makes snowballs and finds targets to aim at, like the rocks out in the water. She slides down the slope behind the house over and over, until Aunt Märta scolds her, saying she’ll wear out her boot soles.
By the school there’s a real sledding hill. Nellie got a sled for Christmas, and she spends hours and hours at the hill every day with her friends. She’d probably lend it to Stephie if she asked, but Stephie doesn’t feel like asking. She hasn’t got anyone to go sledding with anyway.
Uncle Evert is out on the fishing boat again. He comes home the morning of New Year’s Eve. It’s a beautiful day, with a blue sky. The air is clear. Stephie’s sitting at the table in her room, using her new paints.
“You ought to be outside on a day like this,” Uncle Evert says. “Youngsters need fresh air.”
“I was out this morning,” Stephie replies.
“The sledding hill over by the school was jammed with kids.”
Stephie nods, not looking up from her painting. Uncle Evert sits quietly for a while, just watching her.
After coffee Uncle Evert asks Stephie to come outside with him. She buttons her coat and puts on her new cap and mittens. Uncle Evert holds the door open as if for a fine young lady, and she accompanies him out onto the front steps.
At the bottom of the steps is a sled. It was red once, but the paint is worn and peeling. It’s a fine sled, though, made of narrow slats and soft, curved runners.
“Do you like it?” Uncle Evert asks.
“Is it for me?”
Uncle Evert nods. “It’s been standing in the shed for years. We’ll give it a coat of paint, but I thought maybe you’d like to try it first.”
“Whose was it before?” Stephie asks, but Uncle Evert’s already ahead of her, pulling the sled toward the slope behind the house.
Stephie sleds for a while. Uncle Evert asks if she’d like to go to the big sledding hill right away, but Stephie wants to paint her sled before she takes it there. They carry the sled down to the basement, and Uncle Evert teaches her how to sand off the old paint. When the surface is smooth he finds a can of paint and a little brush.
It takes a long time to get the brush in between the slats and to do all the edges. When they’re finished painting, though, it’s as shiny and red as new.
“It’ll be dry by morning,” Uncle Evert tells her, “and you’ll be able to take it out.”
In the blue dusk of early evening they roll firm snowballs and put them in a ring to make a snow lantern at the bottom of the front steps. Aunt Märta gives Stephie a little candle to set in the middle. On top of the first ring they make a second, slightly smaller one. Carefully they go on constructing a pyramid of snowballs, until they reach the very top, where there’s room for only a single snowball.
Uncle Evert takes out some matches and lights the candle. It shines from inside the lantern, giving off a lovely glow, a soft, reddish sheen that brightens the whole area.
Stephie sighs. “It’s gorgeous.”
Aunt Märta comes out onto the steps to admire their handiwork.
“Very pretty indeed,” she says.
Coming from Aunt Märta, that’s quite a compliment.
To celebrate the coming of the new year, they have their dinner in the front room, saved for special occasions. Aunt Märta’s made a roast with potatoes, gravy, and peas. It feels like a real celebration, in spite of the fact that it’s just the three of them.
Back in Vienna, the Steiners would have company for dinner on New Year’s Eve, another family with two children Stephie and Nellie’s ages. They’d set the table for a party, with a white cloth and folded napkins, gold-edged china and silver cutlery. Candles made the wine in the grown-ups’ glasses gleam like enchanted gems. The housemaid, in her black dress and white apron, carried in the platters and served each person, while the cook perspired over the pots and pans in the kitchen.
After the meal all four children were sent to rest in the nursery. They would lie there whispering and giggling, much too excited to sleep. Mother came and got them at a quarter to twelve, and they would all go out onto the balcony and listen to the many church bells in Vienna ringing in the new year.
“May I stay up until midnight?” Stephie asks.
“Absolutely not,” Aunt Märta replies.
“Oh, why not?” says Uncle Evert. “It’s New Year’s Eve only once a year. And a new decade, like tonight, only once every ten years.”
Aunt Märta changes her mind. “Well, all right, then,” she says. “Put on your nightgown and be all ready for bed. It’s just this once, though.”
At a few minutes to twelve Aunt Märta turns on the radio. A deep male voice recites a poem:
“Ring out, wild bells…”
Uncle Evert opens the window. The ringing of the bells on the radio mixes with the ringing of the island’s church bells and with the delicate chiming of Aunt Märta’s wall clock.
The year 1939 is over. The new year of 1940 has begun.
“Let this be a better year,” Stephie whispers to herself. “Please, please, let it be a better one. I’ll try my very best to be good, I promise.”