ONCE UPON A [holly] TIME

[Holly Ashdown]

scenes from the past and present life of miss holly ashdown, featuring selected cameos from a diverse cast

[Holly Ashdown]

and I would wait right here forever
just to be where you are

She had known Nathan for four months before she showed him the hope chest.

It wasn’t really a chest; it was an old red tobacco tin with a thin metal handle, its colour faded and paint chipped. When she had pulled it out from underneath her bed, retrieving it from under the loose floorboard there, it had been covered in dust – furrows drawn in the fuzzy cover by exploring fingertips from previous visits.

They had sat on the bed, thighs touching; then she opened it up and he peered inside, his blue eyes wide with curiousity.

It was like a child’s treasure trove. A long scarlet hair ribbon; one end darkened to purple where it had been dropped in ink, and speckles of the same stains patterning the red silk. A faded Polaroid of an old woman laughing, pipe in hand but face blurred from movement. A collection of mint-scented lace handkerchiefs. A ring made out of an old iron nail. A couple of tiny keyring-notebooks – Holly knew he wanted to ask about them, he was fairly vibrating with curiosity.
There would be time enough for that later, she thought as he reached into the tin, and drew out a long string of tiny pearls that seemed to glow softly in the thin light. She had kept them in the box since her mother’s death, and she'd almost forgotten they was there, at the bottom of the box.

With patient and clever fingers, he slid the pearls from their place amongst the other treasures and round her neck; his warm hands were light on her neck as he fixed the necklace there. The stones were cold against her skin, but began to warm quickly; passed down from mother to daughter since her great-great grandmother had been given them by a far-too-rich suitor.

He lifted her hand to his mouth, brushing a kiss over her knuckles before pulling a cigar box from his jacket, hanging on the end of the bed. The lid was warped and stuck, so he fussed over it for second before it came free. Holly giggled as the force of opening it sent the paper inside up into a mini snowstorm, the scraps settling on her head and shoulders and across the bed. He chuckled as he began to pick them up carefully and lay them out on the duvet, his long-fingered hands gentle with the frail scraps.

There were a few old photos of a gangly teenaged Nathan, smiling softly out of the picture. Young Nate wore a pair of thin-rimmed glasses - which he revealed in the bottom of the tin, coated in dust - explaining that before he had afforded laser surgery, those had been his eyes. The majority of the thin paper scraps were ticket stubs from plays; from Shakespeare to Willy Russell, he must have been to over fifty shows in his twenty-four years. Each stub, ink smudged, was carefully tucked away as a memento; a reminder of a performance that would never be replicated, of sitting on faded red seats, of tiny tubs of ice cream served in the interval, of words that made the world shine.

But that wasn't what he was looking for.

Digging through the layers of photos, letters, notes, cards and a dried poppy almost perfectly preserved between the pages of an old passport – Nathan found what he was looking for. He slid the ring onto her finger before she even had a chance to see it. It was loose, turning so the small stone caught between her fingers until she span it back round.

“We can have it resized,” he murmured, a hopeful smile colouring his low voice as she stared down at the simple gold band, the diamond chip catching the light in such a way as to make it glow. “I suppose never realised how big my mother's hands were.” His blue eyes searched her face uncertainly, waiting – she looked up.

“We’ll get it resized,” she smiled beautifully, taking his face between her shaking hands and kissing him, her eyes flickering closed in contented bliss.

Sixteen years old and utterly in love, Holly was on top of the world.

lyrics (C) lifhouse