“Music is out,” said Walter.
“Yes. No more violin. We’ll monitor his listening. There are questionable composers. Tchaikovsky, Bernstein, I’ll read up.”
“Enough!” said Santa. His upset brought terror to Kathy’s heart. “You don’t see.”
“We don’t?” said Walter.
“No, I—”
Wendy touched Santa’s arm. “Maybe we should let them—”
“Yes, you’re right. Rest. We’ll be back. The sharing of dreams may achieve what we cannot.”
Before Kathy could probe further, Santa waved a hand and he and Wendy were gone, the room stripped of greenery and lamplight in an instant.
“What the heck just happened?” asked Walter, his voice weakening into sleep as he reached the last word.
Kathy barely managed to parse what he said before she too fell asleep.
Chapter 11. A Spellbinder’s Spell Unravels
GRONK FOLLOWED THEM OUT OF MAGIC TIME and down the stairs. Santa tore through the house in high dudgeon, out the front door, and off the porch, Wendy hurrying to keep up. Bounding into his sleigh and taking up the reins, he paused an instant for Wendy to leap in before leather smacked his team’s idle haunches and he shouted, “Away!”
Were it not for that pause, Gronk would have missed the rising runners. As it was, he clung now, his grip precarious, to the black lacquered curve of the sleigh-back as they jostled and rose.
“I’ve never seen such strayward adults in my life.”
“It’s habit,” said Wendy. “Deeply engrained modes of thought. Undoing them won’t be easy.”
Santa again slapped rein to haunch and cracked his whip. “By God, they’ll shut that boy down before they’ll honor who he is! Alcoholism indeed. I tell you, Wendy girl, I’m out of my league. You see why I like children? They sparkle with natural humility and purity and wide-eyed wonder. The good ones anyway, and that’s who I’m best with. Their minds flex. They can lay aside one set of goggles and try on another, quick as a wink. Why, even that bully, with his wretched parents and naughty friends, shows more flexibility than these damned Strattons.”
Though Gronk was devilishly pleased at Santa’s difficulties and knew his mother would take great delight in them too, he marveled at how upset Santa was. Wendy did as well, judging from the way she let his tempest blow over her.
“If I could only tear their eyes out and shove in a fresh pair,” he continued. “Cultural brainwashing, Wendy, that’s what we’re seeing. They’re doomed, all of them. There simply aren’t enough meditators, and Buddhists, and window washers among them. How can we possibly persuade such people that what they’re seeing is not only normal but blessed by God? And, oh my heavens, the preacher’s bound to be worse, accepting the lies dunned into his noggin at seminary, then blithering on and on about them from the pulpit for thirty years.”
“Not to mention his flock!
“You saw the Strattons. They’re mostly good people, polite and kind. But they hold these warped views on certain issues, views that compromise their integrity-based lives. They do their best to act out of righteousness, but their lockstep allegiance to institutionalized nonsense damns them to their own hell! How does one even begin to change that?”
“Lead with the heart,” said the little girl calmly, “and the mind will follow.”
Santa seemed not to hear her. “I can’t play the power card. I can’t say, I’m from God, he’s right, you’re wrong. They’ve got to see the big picture and embrace it freely, or it won’t stick. How does one undo years of habit? Let mortals sneak past nine years old and they’re lost!”
“I’m seventeen, Daddy.”
“Yes, but you’re nine at heart. You’ve kept your connection to childhood. They’ve strayed a ba-zillion miles from it. How do we get them back? It’s hopeless.”
“Daddy,” said Wendy, “we’ve still got a bunch more visits. And there’s the dreamscape, don’t forget that.”
Gronk watched Santa loft his great head to renew his rant. Then he calmed. A smile peeked out of his whiskers. “You’re right. Our visitants will be sharing a dreamscape. They’ll gather together over the lessons we’ve taught them.” Then he grew agitated again. “Some lessons! What guarantee is there that they won’t go further off the rails? That they won’t sink deeper into prejudice and make things worse, years earlier, for Jamie?”
“We’ve got to have faith,” insisted Wendy. “You know what I love most about you, Daddy? You overflow with generosity. It’s your stock in trade. When you get so angry, you frighten me. It means you’ve given up before you even try. Be more generous toward yourself, that’s my advice. You can do it. We can both do it. Michael wouldn’t have appeared to us if that weren’t so. We haven’t even seen the preacher yet. Maybe our visit will be, I don’t know, this huge miracle for him, the blinding light on his road to Damascus. Our mission has the backing of God himself. That’s going to count for much with Ty Taylor. And if we can persuade him, why he’ll go into the dreamscape with all sorts of truly righteous ammunition to turn Jamie’s parents around. He’s their pastor. Please don’t give up hope, Daddy. It’s too early in the game for that.”
The girl’s eyes glistened. Gronk could have leaned forward and licked the tears off her cheeks. But he dared not do that. No, he would observe their third visit, getting as close as he could to the next mortal, as he had with the other three. Again would he offer subliminal suggestions to magnify the mortals’ unspoken fears and stoke their naughtiest impulses.
The sleigh shifted abruptly downward. Gronk’s grip failed and he fell off behind it. Down toward a house on the south side arrowed the sleigh, Gronk following in hot pursuit.
* * *
Earlier that day, having polished the text of his Thanksgiving Day sermon, Ty Taylor washed and ironed his pajamas, the monogrammed ones Alison had given him the Christmas before she died, and folded them neatly into his dresser drawer. He prided himself on keeping the house spotless. Men sana in corpore sano; indeed, a clean house encouraged a cleanliness of body, mind, and spirit which truly went hand-in-hand with godliness. A thorough cleansing would correct so many of society’s ills. The minds of sinners, even the faithful, were so cluttered with secular trash, it was difficult to reach them. He needed a God-sized broom and a divine mandate to sweep their lives clean. The chore was Herculean. For not only were the faithful fallen, but those in Satan’s iron grip were deeply fallen. The worst were defiant in their hellish ways, lambs bleating from the satanic sheepcote as though they roared like lions ramping free and proud.
Keeping his house immaculate allowed Ty to focus on these things, to gird his loins against the foe, keeping himself holy, then banding together with other worthy believers to beat back on all fronts the rising tides of secularism. The Almighty had his ways, which were mysterious indeed. Even so, the righteous were not to question them, but be God’s soldiers with every breath granted them. This special season brought much to be thankful for. Topping Ty’s list were the strength and stamina to hold Christ’s banner high and press boldly into the moral fray.
He showered and toweled himself dry. Those same pajamas he took from the well-oiled drawer to cover himself. Placing his slippers just so by his bedside, he set his glasses neatly on his night stand, slid beneath the crisp sheets and comforter, closed his eyelids to ask God’s forgiveness and to bless Alison and a list of recently deceased, grieving, or ailing parishioners, and fell asleep.
Only to find himself, moments later, fumbling awake.
“Hello, Ty,” said a male voice he had never heard, but knew at once. “Hi, Mister Taylor,” echoed a girlish voice in equally astounding tones.
“Marauders,” said Ty, slurry with dream. He groped for his glasses. “I should be afraid. But I feel such joy in your presence. Let me look at you. Dear God in heaven, I’m insane out of my head. And oh my, the scent of pine is overwhelming.”
“Ty,” said one who could not be, but was indeed, Santa Claus, “this is
Wendy, my stepdaughter. We’re here for the first of three visits tonight, to open up new vistas for you.”
“I must be dreaming.” He put a hand to his face. His heart pounded. “This can’t be good for me. But it’s marvelous! You’re a godsend. Literally. Am I right?”
Santa said yes to that. But Ty saw that he had no interest in dwelling on his connection with God. The girl chimed in, “To be more exact, the archangel Michael sent us.”
“Did he, dear?” said Ty, delighted.
“Whether Michael or God himself,” said Santa, sweeping a hand past the baseboard of Ty’s bed, “we’re here to show you some of your flock.”
The bedroom walls fell away, and there before him sat the Stupplebeens at their breakfast table, egg-encrusted plates set aside, newspaper sections snapped open over coffee.
“My heavens, it’s George and Vera. They’re very righteous, very generous, double tithers, and always deeply engaged by my sermons.”
“Listen,” said Santa.
And the old couple’s words came bell-clear to Ty’s ears. George smacked the newspaper. “The queer boys and cross-dressers are pushing their agenda again. Another bleeding heart corporation’s added benefits for so-called domestic partners.”
“They’ll roast in hell,” said Vera. “Which company is it this time?”
George told her.
“All right, we won’t spend a penny on their products ever again. Find out who the CEO is. I’ll singe his cowardly ears with a few choice words.”
“Money’s all they understand,” said George. “Homo’s are rich. No kids, no responsibilities. But us Christians are richer. We’ll throw enough money at this to drive them back into the closet where they belong.”
“In hell paying for the sins of the flesh is where they belong.”
Santa cut the sound off.
“Their faces are so...ugly,” said Ty in astonishment. “Dripping with hatred. That’s not the way they are with me.”
The Stupplebeens faded and Santa brought up Bill and Susie Franklin, trading anti-gay barbs as they window-shopped in Manitou Springs. Then Freddie Collins sitting on a park bench sharing vicious jibes with his cairn terrier about a lesbian couple passing by. Ty was astonished. “But Freddie’s eyes glow with such joy as he shakes my hand at the church door. The Franklins too. Their words hold nothing but praise to the Lord.”
“People are different in their private lives,” said Santa. “But let’s observe them in a more public setting.”
Before Ty’s bed arose a view of himself preaching. In the near pews sat Freddie Collins and the Franklins and Stupplebeens. But Ty saw silken ribbons of connection between his heart and theirs, ribbons that shimmered at his words. “Woe unto the sodomites,” he thundered. Last Sunday’s sermon. “For in hellfire more intense than any fireball, eternally refueled by the ferocity of their sins on earth, shall the sodomites burn. They must turn from their wicked ways, my friends. This bound guidebook from God himself, this holy scripture whose text is eternally fixed, condemns them for what they do. The Bible verses are incontrovertible. Oh, they do their damnedest to minimize them, do they not? Or pervert their meanings, just as they pervert and pollute and befoul and besmirch the bodies the good Lord has given them to sing his praises with. They even have the temerity—dear God, are there no limits—to found so-called Christian churches of their own. How hooded are their eyes? How deaf their ears? As deaf as demons. As hooded as hawks.”
Ty thrilled at his delivery. Yet what he saw moving along the connecting ribbons, and the overheard thoughts of those hanging on his every word, gave him pause. They were filled with pride at not being among those who would burn in hell. They hated the sodomites, or rather the image he himself had painted. And for all his golden words, for all his carefully wrought phrases, the one message he saw snaking along those ribbons into their hearts was, “Hate queers.”
“But I don’t understand,” he said. “What I’m telling them is the gospel truth.”
The little girl said, “No it isn’t, Mister Taylor.”
“Child,” he said, “Leviticus tells us—”
“You shall not,” said Santa, blushing with anger, “befoul my daughter’s ears with your fixation on questionable passages from the Old Testament, draping your own prejudice in sanctimony, exalting a man-made collection of writings over the self-evident truth of God’s love for all he has created.”
“But I—”
“Look at yourself, flailing your arms and contorting your face. You’re no better than a showman, and worse than many, because you hawk poison to the soul. Of all the sects you could have embraced, this is the one you chose. Behold the young.”
And Ty saw thin ribbons to the children, some very young indeed, most of them half listening or sighing in boredom. But even these his ribbons of judgment entered. Here sat Cully Harmon and his anorexic mother; there the Pine twins, Gayle and Tara, between their parents.
“We’ll see them again on our next visit, older.”
Wendy touched his sleeve. “Now show Mister Taylor...you know.”
With a flick of Santa’s finger, Ty’s entire congregation came into view. But it seemed as if two bright lights shone in varying mixes upon them, a red light indicating attraction to their own gender; a blue, attraction to the opposite. While most of his flock were bathed in varying shades of blue, many were tinged pink or red, and some were completely red, though they expended much mental activity in denying it. Hank Febinger, sitting beside his wife of sixty years, was a bright cherry-red. A babe in arms, as well; a third-grader named Jamie Stratton; and Bessie Pullman, a middle-aged spinster who had joined the church last week.
But what most startled Ty was the color of his own body as he stood at the pulpit, bright blue broken up by intense patches of red, perhaps twenty percent of the whole. It would explain his youthful uncertainties, at seminary especially, about such matters.
“So that old devil Kinsey had it right after all.”
“Yes,” said Santa. “A scale of attraction.”
“But that doesn’t abrogate God’s word.”
The elf took umbrage at that.
“Daddy!” Wendy grabbed her father’s upraised arm.
“In fact it confirms it,” said Ty. “Are you threatening me? God’s true emissary would not threaten.”
Blood pounded in Ty’s temples as the enraged creature hovered over him, his eyes ablaze with intolerance. That this immortal elf could, at any instant, strike him dead he had no doubt. Jacob had wrestled with an angel. Perhaps such a death would be his fate.
Santa contained his rage. “I’m all right. I’m fine.”
“The alcoholic is born so, yet he learns—”
“Enough!” said Santa. “I ought to smite you on the spot. But I’ll not do that. I won’t. Wendy, come. You, sleep, little Ty all grown up. You haven’t seen the last of us.”
“God has sent you as a trial, to test my resolve to uphold his word, no matter what.”
“Ah,” said Santa, taking a swipe at Ty’s face. And he was gone, him and the girl and the pine boughs and their marvelous scent. The bedroom plunged abruptly into darkness, Ty’s tight blinds shutting out the least hint of moonlight.
Ty marveled then, but somnolence drained the life from him and he slipped at once into the land of dreams.
Chapter 12. Friends Reform, Foes Regroup
AT THE NORTH POLE, FRITZ, HERBERT, and two dozen others worked on the Beluzzo replica, adding ornate carvings to the oak drawers of a replacement dresser and to thick turned bedposts where Matt’s actual bed had none. They arced back the roof on its hinges so that snowdrifts could be strategically built up in scatterings about the bedroom, enough to make an impact without hindering their work.
Ordinarily, they would have been a happy crew, trading quips and pitching in wherever extra hands were needed. Not so now. For Gregor had kept up the pressure. His rants at the Chapel continued and grew more condemnatory. He had gone so far as to have a centr
ally situated bed, with a thin mattress and no posts to obscure his view, built in the dormitory, abandoning on nights unpredictable his bed in the stables to sleep among them.
Some time during the night he would appear. You could never tell when, but you could always be sure he would be gone in the morning, and no one had ever seen him shut his eyes or put on a nightshirt. Always the eagle eye. If you dared glance toward his bed, Gregor would be staring back at you, his fierce glower accusing you of looking his way because you were about to sneak a fingertip up your nostril.
And sometimes that was so.
It was most unsettling.
What had been a harmless, unconscious habit became for many an obsession. Their thoughts turned continually to the nose and the finger, to observing the noses and fingers of their brothers, wondering if they had come into satisfying contact when Gregor or his spies let their guard down.
That was the worst of it. Gregor had split their once harmonious community in half. There were those who joined him wholeheartedly in his police efforts. Fritz knew, and Herbert confirmed with a nod, that the most public of these were in fact deeply closeted nosepickers, who, when they weren’t busy snitching or scolding, slipped off in solitude to extract bodily manufacture from a nostril, licking and sucking in the throes of guilt, savoring and swallowing, enjoying the added zing of doing something completely sinful and getting away with it.
Hypocrisy tasted sweet.
So did mucus.
The other elves had no strong opinion one way or the other. Some picked their noses, some did not. But all of them marveled at their community’s down-drooping devolution and felt helpless to halt or reverse it. At first they murmured about it in hushed tones. But soon that felt like a waste of time and dangerous to boot. For having no strong opinion was tantamount to subversion. And being seen murmuring in hushed tones about anything at all, well, that was regarded in some circles as well-nigh treasonous.
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