Untitled chapter

But the next day, Hanna simply couldn't think about anything except the invitation from the previous evening.

In her dream, she waltzed with an angel-faced man who had golden-blond hair and green eyes. A golden crown encircled his forehead, announcing to everyone that he was a prince. She would have loved to draw him the moment she woke up, before the image faded completely into the fog of memory.

Because the instant she awoke to the sound of her alarm clock, she had already forgotten the playful little exchange they'd shared while dancing, whispering into each other's ears. All she remembered was how happy she had been, and how pleasant the prince's ringing laughter had sounded.

She may even have wiped a tear from her cheek as she got up and started getting ready.

And as longing flared again and again like fire in her heart, even during her lectures, she kept her phone hidden beneath the desk and browsed search engines relentlessly. She searched constantly for proof that the ball actually existed.

She searched in Hungarian, English, and even German for "Morningstar Ball," then simply "Morningstar." She tried phrases like "December balls" and "winter solstice ball."

When the finance lecture finally ended, she left with a heavy heart. The fire of desire was beginning to die inside her. She was starting to give up, to accept that perhaps it really had all been a game.

After school, at the accounting firm where she worked part-time alongside her studies, the day was even more boring than usual in the days leading up to Christmas vacation. They had decorated the office a few days earlier so they could at least work in a festive atmosphere before the holidays.

Not that it made things any more pleasant. If anything, it made them worse.

Christmas was supposed to be about rest, intimacy, and promises fulfilled. About the birth of hope.

Hanna always got goosebumps whenever she saw how, for some people, the holiday was nothing but consumption.

After lunch, she and her coworker went for coffee during their fifteen-minute break. Of course, that fifteen-minute break usually stretched into half an hour or even a full hour, and on the last workday before Christmas, neither of them cared much.

"What are your plans for the holidays?" she asked Bettina.

Bettina was in her late twenties, though she'd had about as much luck in love as Hanna. Perhaps even less, although at least she always had a good story about a disastrous date. That was one reason Hanna enjoyed her company so much—they always managed to make each other laugh.

"I'm going home to my family," replied the brunette with hazel-green eyes, blinking behind long eyelashes. "Like always. Just so I won't be alone."

She shook her head, but Hanna noticed the light fading from her gaze.

"What about you?"

"I'm staying with my family," Hanna answered with a bitter smile. "For similar reasons."

She added it in hopes that it might comfort her friend a little.

"But no, I don't have any special plans either. I'll read, and of course I'll go to church for Christmas Mass. I was thinking of doing some volunteer work on the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth if I can find something."

The invitation from the night before suddenly returned to her mind.

She could be spending Christmas in a prince's castle, trying to seduce him at a ball.

"That's really nice," Bettina replied with a faint smile.

Hanna returned to the present, waking from her daydream.

"But I haven't found the right opportunity yet," she said. "You haven't heard of anything like that, have you?"

"No, unfortunately."

She shook her head.

"I'm too selfish to spend my energy helping others instead of feeling sorry for myself."

She laughed bitterly.

"But now that you mention it..."

"If I find something, I'll send it to you too," Hanna promised. "Maybe it'll convince you. Better than feeling sorry for yourself."

She shrugged and offered an encouraging smile.

"We'll see," Bettina said after setting down her coffee cup. "But I don't think that's really my world."

"Of course it is. It's everyone's world. But don't worry. I won't drag you into it if you don't want to. Just take a look. You might like it."

Then she added:

"And if you're afraid to come because you'd feel like an outsider, don't worry. It'll be my first time there too. If we're both lost together, then neither of us is."

"Honestly, why did you join the accounting team? You'd fit much better in marketing."

Bettina laughed.

"Now you've actually made me interested."

Hanna laughed too, though hers was tinged with bitterness. It reminded her that when she had been looking for her previous job, she'd had to turn down a position at a marketing agency because a customer service role had offered more money, and at the time money had been her only consideration.

Later, she had fled that customer service job and ended up here. Then, her only concern had been finding any job at all.

Maybe if she'd made the right choice back then, she wouldn't be here now.

"Then I wouldn't be your coworker," she said aloud.

Because it was true.

Hanna had always believed that everything happened the way it was meant to happen.

"But who knows? Maybe one day I'll leave this place for a marketing agency."

"I doubt they'd wait through a three-month notice period with the job market this competitive. The second applicant could probably start the next day."

Bettina laughed again.

"That's true," Hanna admitted. "But we're still allowed to dream, aren't we? After all, Christmas is about that too."

"I don't know where they hide dreams in a Christmas sweets."

"Wherever they hide them, I just hope they don't mix walnut shells into the filling."

"What kind of pastries are you baking?"

"Just the usual. Gerbeaud cake..."

But she never finished the list.

A thin, distressed voice interrupted her.

"I lost my mommy. Can you help me find her?"

Both Hanna and Bettina turned at once.

A little boy had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

Tears glistened in his dark eyes. His irises were so black they blended into his pupils. He couldn't have been more than ten years old. His hand trembled as he leaned against the table, standing on tiptoe so he could look the seated women in the eye.

"Hanna, we should go," Bettina whispered tensely. "Back to work."

Hanna didn't even look at her.

She was studying the boy.

"Do you know your mother's name? Or your father's?"

Her voice was gentle and soft.

It never even occurred to her not to help.

Out of the corner of her eye, she shot Bettina a murderous glare while Bettina hurriedly finished her coffee.

"No."

"And your own name?"

"Yes," came the quiet reply.

"Where did you see them last?"

Hanna carefully kept her voice kind.

In reality, her own palms had begun sweating beneath the table. She rubbed them against her jeans.

"Over there. In the store."

The boy pointed toward the shopping mall's enormous glass windows.

The café was located on the ground floor.

Hanna nodded hopefully.

"Come on. Let's go to the information desk. They have a loudspeaker there, and your parents will hear the announcement throughout the mall."

She held out her hand.

After a moment of hesitation, the boy accepted it.

Together they set off.

Hanna glanced back at her friend, who still sat frozen in place.

"Betty, could you go upstairs? If anyone asks for me, can you tell them I'll be right back?"

"Of course."

She jumped to her feet.

"Good luck."

"Thank you."

If a thirty-minute coffee break was acceptable, then ten minutes spent helping a lost child certainly wasn't too much.

There was nothing urgent waiting for her.

Work could wait.

Passing through the café, they reached the mall corridor within moments.

Hanna led the boy straight toward the information desk near the entrance.

One prayer followed another in her mind as she hoped they would find his parents.

"There'll be a man here. You'll need to tell him your parents' names. He'll announce it over a microphone, and we'll wait here until they come for you."

She squeezed the boy's hand reassuringly.

"What do they look like? We need to make sure we find the right people so nothing bad happens and you don't end up with strangers, okay?"

The boy's tiny fingers tightened around hers.

He nodded shyly and looked around.

"What's your name?" Hanna asked before approaching the security desk.

But at that moment, the boy suddenly whipped his head around and pointed toward the revolving door.

"There they are! Come on!"

A sharp pain shot through Hanna's wrist.

She nearly fell as the boy broke into a run, dragging her after him through the revolving door.

The moment they stepped into the blazing sunlight, tears filled her eyes. She squinted hard against the glare.

She shouted for him to stop—or at least slow down—but he kept running toward the crosswalk as though he hadn't heard her at all.

Hanna protested again, trying to pull him back.

But it felt as though all strength had left her arm.

The pain in her wrist pulsed violently. She was certain the joint had been dislocated. The boy paid no attention. He ran straight into the street, dragging the helpless Hanna behind him.

Everything blurred before her eyes. Pedestrians and cars became nothing more than streaks and smears of motion.

The screeching of brakes and blaring horns drowned out her own cries of pain and panic.

The last thing she noticed was a yellow taxi. The driver laid on the horn and slammed the brakes.

A moment later, she felt the cold asphalt beneath her head and neck as she collapsed. Her hair fell across her face, blocking out the world.

Suddenly, everything became silent. She couldn't see anything.

She couldn't hear anything except the pounding of her own heart, her breathing. The sound of air leaving her lungs.

The metallic scent of blood filled her nose.

I've been hit. Just a few moments more, and I'll bleed to death.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. -The words echoed through her thoughts.

She didn't know whether they were her own or someone else's. Stars swirled before her eyes. Then everything went completely dark.