Clarice stopped abruptly. The stream was to her right, identifiable now only as a winding strip of level ground between the banks.

They must all have seen her, but it was Mrs. Paget, ten feet closer, who moved first. She plunged forward through the deep snow, flailing her arms, crossing the ground with extraordinary speed. She reached Clarice in moments, her face contorted with fury.

Clarice stepped back, but not quickly enough. Mrs. Paget grasped hold of her, fingers like a vise, pulling her toward the stream, dragging her along. She had no time to think. She struggled, but her fists struck only the other woman’s heavy cloak.

Dominic was shouting something, but another avalanche from above drowned his words. The snow was melting.

Now they were on the flat icy surface of the stream itself, where it was easier to move.

“It won’t hold you!” Mrs. Paget shouted back at the man, triumph loud and high in her voice. “Step onto it, too, and we’ll all go down!” She turned back to Clarice. “Struggle too hard and you’ll crack the ice under us, clever vicar’s wife! Believe me, the cold under there will kill you!”

Clarice stopped moving instantly.

“Good,” Mrs. Paget said with satisfaction. “Now come with me, slowly, carefully. When we get to the far side, I might let you go. And then I might not. They’re too heavy to come after us. Nothing they can do.” She pulled again, hard, and Clarice nearly fell.

Boscombe and Dominic stopped at the brink, aware that their weight would break the ice.

Mrs. Paget laughed with a high, vicious sound. She yanked on Clarice’s arm and started forward again. Clarice did all she could to resist, but her feet had no purchase on the ice. She heard it before she realized what it was: a sharp sound, like a shot, then another, more like ripping cotton.

Mrs. Paget screamed, grabbing at Clarice and clinging to her hand so hard, Clarice cried out in pain. Mrs. Paget had fallen down on her back, legs thrashing. The ice swayed and tipped, the cracks in it fanning out, the black water swirling over it, as cold as death. Her big cloak imprisoned her in its folds.

Clarice felt the water with a shock that almost took the air from her lungs. The cold was unbelievable. She could not even cry out.

Dominic started out across the ice, calling her, heedless of the danger to himself. Boscombe was in the churning ice floes of the shallows, knee-deep, then waist-deep, his whole body outstretched to hold on to Dominic’s arm.

Clarice was paralyzed with the cold, her hand still gripped by Mrs. Paget’s like a small animal caught in the jaws of a trap.

Dominic seized her other hand, pulling hard, but Mrs. Paget would not let go. If she drowned, Clarice would drown with her.

Dominic reached past her. There was a piece of branch in his hand. He swung out hard, striking Mrs. Paget’s fingers with a force enough to break the bone. She shrieked once, drawing the black water into her lungs, and then she was gone, sucked into the current as it swept under the unbroken ice, carrying her away.

Dominic and Boscombe dragged Clarice out. She was almost unconscious, and shuddering so violently she could barely breathe. She saw lights in the gloom and heard voices, then drifted into a kind of sleep.

She woke with someone rubbing her hands and arms, then her legs. Someone else put hot tea between her lips, and she swallowed it awkwardly. It hit her stomach like fire and made her choke.

Then she saw Dominic, his face white with fear.

“Don’t be so silly,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’m not going to drown. I was just…detecting…”

He laughed, but there were tears in his eyes and on his cheeks.

“Of course you were,” he agreed. “You have to hear my Christmas sermon.”

There were murmurs of assent, and more tea, and then it all faded into a blur, distant and happy and full of kindness.

The usual Watch Night service was not held, in deference to the death of Maribelle Paget. However, word rapidly spread of exactly how it had come about, if not why. Nor did anyone mention that she was really Maribelle Boscombe.

But in the morning every man, woman, and child was in the village church to celebrate Christmas Day. Even old Mr. Riddington was there, wrapped in a blanket and warmed with liberal doses of blackberry wine.

The bells rang out over the snow, carrying the message of joy across fields and woodlands, from spire to spire throughout the land. Inside the organ played the old favorites, and the voices sang-for once-in total unison.

Dominic went to the pulpit and spoke simply, passionately, knowing that what he said was true.

“Christmas is the time when we give gifts, most especially to children. Many have spent long hours making them, carefully and with love, putting into them the best that they have. There are dolls, toy trains, a wooden whistle, a new dress, painted bricks.”

He saw nods and smiles.

He leaned forward over the pulpit rail. “We are the children of God, every one of us, and nearly nineteen hundred years ago He gave us the greatest of all the gifts He has, greater even than life. He gave us hope: a way back from every mistake we have made, no matter how small or how large, how ugly or how incredibly stupid, or how shameful. There is no corner of hell secret enough or deep enough for there to be no path back, if we are willing to climb up. It may be hard, and steep, but there is light ahead, and freedom.”

Deliberately he did not look at Sybil Towers or Peter Connaught; nor did he look at the Boscombes with their children, or Mrs. Wellbeloved or Mr. Riddington. Only once did he glance at Clarice and saw the pride and the joy in her. It was all the reward he ever wanted.

“Do not deny the gift,” he said. “Accept it for yourself, and for all others. That is what Christmas is: everlasting hope, a way forward to the best in ourselves and all that we can become.”

“Amen!” the congregation replied. Then again, with passion, they rose to their feet one by one. “Amen!”

Above them the bells pealed out across the land.

ANNE PERRY

ANNE PERRY is the bestselling author of No Graves As Yet, Shoulder the Sky, and Angels in the Gloom; two earlier holiday novels, A Christmas Journey and A Christmas Visitor; and two acclaimed series set in Victorian England. Her most recent William Monk novels are Death of a Stranger and The Shifting Tide. The popular novels featuring Charlotte and Thomas Pitt include Southampton Row, Seven Dials, and Long Spoon Lane. Her short story “Heroes” won an Edgar Award. Anne Perry lives in Scotland. Visit her website at www.anneperry.net [http://www.anneperry.net].