by D B Nielsen
Christmas was fast approaching and because Mum was unable to leave what Fi had dubbed the “Manor House of Pestilence”, I offered to pick up the Norway spruce from the Christmas tree farm in Downe. When Fi offered to assist me, I waved her away – her hawk-like surveillance of my every move, as if she anticipated that I was likely to be attacked at the first opportunity, was beginning to grate on my already frayed nerves. She was reluctant to agree to let me go by myself until I almost screamed at her in frustration. But in the end, I agreed to her borrowing Dad’s Lexus SUV to retrace the route to the farm taken several weeks prior. After all, I had to face the fact that I still didn’t have my licence.
I found that if I kept myself busy I had less time to fret over St. John’s absence and my own feelings of emptiness and anxiety when he wasn’t around. I didn’t hear from St. John after the phone call placed to Gabriel – but Gabriel had called me back telling me that I wasn’t to worry as they had it all under control. Whatever that meant.
But, true to his word, Gabriel had sent me St. John’s Christmas present. Arriving just that morning by courier, the midnight blue velvet box housed the sterling silver ring I’d ordered. I was thrilled and impressed with the craftsmanship and hoped that St. John would be too. The beauty of the piece far outdid the game pieces left by the Rephaim or Grigori for us to find – it almost felt like a talisman when I held it and I couldn’t wait to present it to St. John when next I saw him after Christmas.
When Fi and I pulled into the car park of the Christmas tree farm, it was teeming with station wagons and four-wheel-drives as shoppers raced to purchase, at the last minute, the perfect tree.
‘I’m staying in the car,’ Fi said, cranking up the volume on Katy Perry’s latest hit, ‘There’s no reason why we both have to suffer.’
I sighed in exasperation. Typical Fi!
Alighting from the Lexus, I felt the cold hard gravel crunching under my boots and the chill winter wind whipping my long hair in reminder of Jack Frost’s eminent arrival. I rubbed my hands together for warmth, intending to make this a short trip.
As I made my way towards the converted farmhouse festooned with its abundant decorations, a sample of the wreaths and garlands on sale inside, I saw a figure slowly moving towards a delivery van, its rear laden with holly and mistletoe. I would have passed by without giving him a second glance, but something in the way he held himself made me briefly pause.
He moved with lithe grace as he picked up an immense bundle of holly bush tied together with a leather thong and slung it over one shoulder. I could see that he was taller than I had expected up close and not as stocky as I’d first thought, but there was no mistaking the young man I’d seen twice now; once at Satis House and again in the woods. He wore a pair of muddy hiking boots and faded jeans with a dark brown leather coat and I could tell that he was solidly built; all hard muscle with not an ounce of fat on him. The way he wore his clothes showed his contempt for fashion but I knew from our encounter in the forest that he appreciated natural beauty. He reminded me of the character of Dickon from The Secret Garden which I’d read as a child.
It was difficult to see his face which was covered entirely from view by his dirty hunting hat. But, as he walked past me, I could hear him whistling a low tune and its sweet, bell-like tone was both surprising and haunting.
I must have betrayed myself in some way because he looked up then from under the rim of his hat and, once again, I was struck by the intense lapis lazuli shade of his eyes. He was so close in proximity to me that I could have reached out to touch him and, as I gazed upon his exquisite face, I noted a myriad of insignificant details at a single sweeping glance – the long dark curl of his eyelashes which made his vivid eye colour seem even more striking, the jet black of his hair as his longish fringe flopped down to partially cover his eyes, the pallor of his skin so much like porcelain, and the scowl that was plastered on his face in reaction to my gawking. His stance was rigid, defensive; he was leaning away from me just as he had leant away from Fi when last I saw him.
‘Hello,’ I said, smiling, trying to be neighbourly.
He didn’t even respond. Not even a grunt. He looked through me as though I didn’t exist – and I might even have believed that he was unaffected by my presence if it weren’t for the way he held himself. I blushed in embarrassment at his lack of manners.
But his whistling had ceased now – as if I had disturbed his peace of mind.
Well, good! I thought. After all, he’d disturbed mine!
He turned away from me, hitching the bundle on his shoulder slightly tighter and moved it a little more forward so that it obscured his face as he marched towards the farmhouse.
God, he was so strange!
I followed in his wake, keeping a distance between us in case he should think I wished to pursue a conversation or was stalking him or something equally bizarre.
Reaching the farmhouse, I found a sales assistant and, flourishing my receipt, asked to pick up the Norway spruce we’d ordered over a fortnight ago. The sales assistant, looking slightly harassed by the amount of customers doing their Christmas shopping with their demands for snappy service, asked me to wait while he checked on my order and hurried out the back via the storeroom. White Christmas was being piped into the store, the usually smooth strains of Frank Sinatra crackling with static every now and again due to the antiquated department store stereo system and I couldn’t help compare this to the melodious whistling that I’d just heard outside in the parking lot.
Within moments, the sales assistant reappeared and informed me that my Christmas tree was ready for collection and would be brought to my car if I’d like to drive round to the pick-up zone. I thanked him and exited the store, crossing to the Lexus to make my way round the back.
‘Good, you’re back,’ Fi grumbled, squirming in her seat.
‘What’s up with you?’ I asked in surprise at her tone as I climbed back into the Lexus.
‘I’m busting to go to the toilet,’ she muttered, driving the car round to the pick-up zone and hopping out immediately to run to the public lavatories, leaving me on my own once again.
I had not thought to encounter the young man again so soon, so it was a slight shock to realise that he was assisting me in loading my Christmas tree onto the roof racks, something I couldn’t have done by myself. Without a word or even a glance in my direction, he hoisted the Norway spruce which was a good fourteen feet tall onto the roof of the Lexus as if it weighed no more than a feather. Again his actions struck me as far too graceful for his size, the action accomplished with an ease that belied the height and shape of the spruce.
‘Thank you,’ I managed to get out, the words lagging behind the dullness of my mind.
I didn’t expect a reply and I didn’t get one.
I would have called him surly but for the look he finally gave me as he finished his job – again what struck me as it had that day in the forest was his expression of despair. My breath hitched in my throat.
Remembering suddenly that Fi still had his sketchpad and that he would probably like it back, I remarked, apologetically, ‘I’m sorry about last time. Fi didn’t mean any harm. I’ll get her to return your sketchpad.’
As I was turning away from him, I caught a low, deep mumbling that seemed to come from beside me and I realised that the young man had finally spoken.
Arrested, I looked back over my shoulder and asked, ‘I’m sorry. What did you say?’
When he spoke again, laconically, his voice was still low but so smooth with the slightest hint of an accent – which I couldn’t quite place – that it was like being caressed, ‘Is that her name?’
‘My sister, you mean?’ I asked. ‘Yeah, that’s her name. It’s short for Saffron.’
He nodded, lapsing back into his usual brusque behaviour, and turned away then, satisfied by my answer. Walking away from me without another word as if he no longer had any use for me, I watched him till he disappeared from view around the back o
f the farmhouse. And only then did I get into the car to wait for Fi to drive us home; my thoughts replaying the bizarre episode over again. But I remained unsure of exactly what had just transpired between us.
‘Bloody hell!’ Fi complained as she jumped back into the driver’s seat and started the car, oblivious to what had just transpired, ‘The queue was incredible! Good thing I wasn’t desperate!’
Her sarcasm was lost on me. On the drive home, I debated about whether to inform her of my encounter with its young caretaker but knew that sooner or later she’d find out anyway, then realised that I still hadn’t questioned Fi about what she had meant to tell me in our phone conversation about Satis House, and I was determined to do so.
‘Remember that you were going to tell me something about Satis House?’ I began, turning to face her in the confines of the car.
‘Mmm,’ her answer was noncommittal.
‘Well?’ I insisted. ‘What about it?’
She hesitated before answering, concentrating on the road ahead. ‘Haven’t you ever thought it kinda strange that we live so close to the Dickens’ place? I mean, have you never wondered who owned it? Why is it still in such a run-down condition? Why do they keep trespassers away?’
To be honest, my thoughts had rarely flown to Satis House – there were more pressing issues at hand.
‘Not really,’ I answered, ‘it’s derelict after all. And National Trust would certainly be involved in its restoration – and you know how difficult that is.’
‘No,’ Fi denied, shaking her head, ‘that isn’t what I meant. Haven’t you ever thought that place is spooky? I get a certain vibe from it. And the fissures on the photos are so similar to those taken of the Seed...’
That triggered a thought. I was going to raise with my sister the transformed sight I had beheld at Satis House but, as Fi continued to talk, somewhere in the course of her explanation I became distracted. In the distance, by the side of the road, I could see a dark figure framed in the corner of the windscreen. My mind was shrieking all kinds of warnings, but for some inexplicable reason it was impossible for me to make the slightest sound or gesture to Fi. As the car approached, closing the distance between us, everything seemed to slow down, as if time was trickling by like the drops of water from the ancient pump near the entrance to the catacombs.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
I felt the strangest shock of recognition as my eyes met the burning gaze of the dark figure. There was a familiarity in the look we exchanged, as if our eyes had met dozens of times previously. The man stood beside the road in his dark fur coat, untouched by the falling snow; the snowflakes seeming to fall around him but not on him, as if he were both there and not there at the same time. The closer we came to passing the dark figure, the more my heart pounded in my chest, like a hummingbird caged. The dark figure was unnaturally still. He simply stood and watched and waited.
I returned his gaze – felt compelled to do so – and the merest hint of a smile flickered across his expression. But it never reached his eyes – those burning, amber-lit eyes, eyes that smouldered and flared like the lit end of a smoking cigarette. My attention was riveted on his eyes.
And then I was falling, tumbling into an abyss, drowning...
‘Wake up, sleepy head,’ Fi commanded, prodding me, her hand at my shoulder, jerking me awake. ‘We’re home.’
Surprised, dazed, I sat up in the passenger seat where I’d slumped, yawning with fatigue.
‘Next time you want to ask me something important, pay attention!’ Fi groused, as she pulled into the driveway of the Manor House. ‘It’s not like I don’t have to listen to you often enough!’
I gazed out the passenger window as we drove round the back of the estate, blinking in confusion. It was as if a kind of dreamy lassitude had stolen over me as I’d listened to Fi talking. It was as if my mind had quite suddenly gone to sleep, leaving my body still slumped in the seat. How long I continued to sit there, I couldn’t say, but when roused from my half-dreaming as Fi demanded a hand with the tree, I had the strangest feeling that somehow I’d lost precious moments in time. And yet, on our return, with Mum, Jasmine and Alex so excited about the arrival of the long-awaited Christmas tree, all other thoughts flew from my mind.
Christmastime was a significant family event in the Woods’ household as we threw ourselves wholeheartedly into the spirit of the season. As we brought the Christmas tree in to the drawing room, placed it in a stand and began to decorate it with both shop-bought and homemade ornaments, I put on some Christmas songs and Jasmine and Alex joined in with a comical chorus of sneezes and coughs.
We worked steadily for the next few hours and, in the end, our tree looked magical with its glass ornaments and bulbs which Mum had bought at Harrods and the decorations my siblings had made in my absence. I was suitably impressed with their efforts considering that most of our Christmas decorations, like the majority of our furniture, were in a shipping container due to arrive sometime in the next month. But Jasmine and Alex had been very busy while I was away – which would have been a deliberate ploy by Mum to contain their boisterous, undirected energy. There were chains of stelline and campanelle dried pasta in tiny star shapes and flattened bell shapes spray painted gold and silver; the pine cones we’d collected that day in the forest also spray painted in bright gold; cardboard cut-outs of snowmen and rows of Santa Claus figures decorated with bright texta, cotton wool and glitter; and candy canes and gingerbread men to hang on the tree.
In between all of the decorating, I rushed upstairs and wrapped my gifts in brightly coloured Christmas paper and ribbon from the rolls left in the study, sticking little labels on them to place beneath the Christmas tree, not wishing for it to be unadorned at its base. St. John’s gift, however, remained in my bedroom, hidden in my top drawer for me to give to him in private.
Mum must have had the same idea as soon beneath the tree a pile of gifts built up, signalling that the festive season had well and truly arrived at the Manor House. By the time Fi exercised Indy and Dad arrived home that evening, the Christmas tree was decorated, the candles were lit, the fireplace was emitting its warmth, and Mum greeted them with glasses of mulled wine and eggnog, in keeping with Dad’s Nordic background, as we sat cheerfully in the drawing room discussing our move to Kent while Jasmine and Alex kept themselves entertained by making guesses about the contents of each gift. Even Indy wished to get in on the act, having to be kept away from sniffing round the tree with its edible delights.
And for a brief time, I was again able to forget about my woes.
The temperature overnight dropped significantly and, surprisingly early for the south of England, snow continued to fall heavily covering the landscape in a shroud of virginal whiteness. I first became aware of this fact when whooping and hollering could be heard echoing up the stairwell as Jasmine and Alex caught sight of the freshly adorned winter wonderland surrounding the Manor House. Snuggled under the covers in my toasty bed, I tried to ignore the hysteria downstairs and fall back to sleep, until it all got a little too raucous. Tossing aside my quilt, I pulled on my thick dressing gown and UGG boots and slowly made my way to the kitchen from which the noise emanated.
‘SAGE!’ Jasmine cried, catching sight of me in the doorway, cheeks flushed a ruddy red in an effort to suppress a coughing fit, ‘Look! It snowed during the night and the garden’s covered in it!’
It was hard to repress a smile at her enthusiasm and I shared a look with Mum who was trying to explain the need for them to remain inside to recover fully from their flu. It was a losing battle.
‘Please, please, please,’ Alex begged my mother, ‘can’t we go out for a little while? Just to build a snowman?’
Jasmine jumped up and down, unable to contain herself at the thought of building a snowman, drowning out Mum’s voice.
Addressing Mum, I offered, ‘I’ll take them outside for a bit after I make myself a tea. The fresh air might do them good.’
Mum nodded gratefull
y, knowing that I would keep them out of trouble, but my words sparked another cacophony in the kitchen that was enough to wake the dead. I didn’t know how Fi could sleep through all this noise. As I strained tea into a mug – not fast enough for the liking of my younger siblings – I instructed Jasmine to retrieve a few pieces of coal from the grate in the study and Alex to find a decent-sized carrot in the crisper section of the fridge to help construct our snowman.
The crisp air of an icy morning slapped the sleep from my face, tiny needles of chill wind prickling my skin, and I huddled further into the warmth of my dressing gown, wrapping my hands tightly about my mug of steaming tea to retain some warmth. Mum had forced Jasmine and Alex into a change of clothing – rugged up in galoshes, beanies, scarves and thick jackets they were better protected from the elements than I was. Indy accompanied us outside, showing all the excitement of an oversized puppy, bounding and barking around us as I showed Jasmine and Alex how to go about rolling snowballs and patting them down to make a snowman.
My UGG boots sank into the thick carpet of snow layering the ground, quickly soaking them through, and I could feel the uncomfortable warm wetness of the wool under my toes. But I ignored this and concentrated instead on enjoying the moment. The snowman took shape rather quickly; his rotund body pierced through vertically with an old mop I managed to find in the garden shed, a legacy left by the previous owner. The straggly, stringy grey ends forming a mop of hair on top of a snowball head – its nose, a carrot; its eyes and mouth, beads of coal. When we finally finished our masterpiece, the result was quite pleasing, and Jasmine and Alex shone with pride as if they’d just sculpted the statue of David.
