355: Victorian Christmas ❄️🐎
Daily Image created using ChatGPT (Anime AI Art)
❄️ The Fifth Button
Snow fell like sifted flour over the cobbled lanes of Wrenford, softening the clatter of hooves and the chatter of townsfolk. Gas lamps flickered against the dusk, casting golden halos on garlands strung between chimneys and shop signs. The scent of roasted chestnuts mingled with pine and coal smoke, and the air buzzed with the kind of cheer that only arrived once a year but only if you believed in it. Martha Bellamy did not.
She stood outside the haberdasher’s, gloved hands clenched around a parcel wrapped in brown paper and twine. It contained four large brass buttons, each etched with a snowflake. The fifth had been lost, snapped clean off her brother’s coat last Christmas Eve, the night he vanished into the frost chasing a runaway horse. The constables had found the coat along with other traces near the riverbank and presumed the river had carried them away.
Martha believed the river had no appetite for boys who knew its bends better than their own bedroom walls. That’s why tonight, she was still waiting. The carriage came just past seven, as it always did. Black lacquer, red wheels, driver in a top hat. It slowed at the corner, hooves steaming, lanterns glowing. Martha stepped forward.
“Evening, miss,” the driver said, tipping his hat. “Cold one.”
“Cold enough,” she replied. “You’re late.”
He blinked. “Beg your pardon?”
“You’re late,” she repeated, and held out the parcel. “This belongs to the boy who ran after your horse last year.”
The driver looked down at the package, then back at her. “I’ve no horse gone missing, miss. Not last year. Not ever.”
Martha stared. The carriage was identical. The driver looked similar. But his eyes were green, not grey.
She lowered the parcel. “Sorry. I thought..”
A voice interrupted. “Martha?”
She turned. A boy stood behind her, taller now, coat patched, cheeks ruddy. In his hand, there was a brass button.
“I was found unconscious holding this on the riverbank,” he said. “Took some time to heal and get my memories back.”
She couldn’t speak. She just reached out, took the button, and embraced her brother tightly, weeping with joy. The carriage rolled on. Snow kept falling. And for the first time in a year, Martha Bellamy believed in Christmas again, because sometimes, the river gives back.
