He couldn’t stand my being taller than he was. His size embarrassed him, but he wouldn’t let me see that; he pretended I had to sit down out of respect. “Your mother says she tried to tell you about Father Christmas,” he said.
She must have told him that weeks earlier. He’d put off talking to me – because we’d never been close, and now we were growing further apart. “I don’t know why she couldn’t tell you,” he said.
But he wasn’t telling me either. He was looking at me as if I were a stranger he had to chat to. I felt uneasy, unsure now that I wanted to hear what he had to say. A man was approaching the shop. I stood up, hoping he’d interrupt.
He did, and I served him. Then, to delay my father’s revelation, I adjusted stacks of tins. My father stared at me in disgust. “If you don’t watch out you’ll be as bad as your mother.”
I found the idea of being like my mother strange, indefinably disturbing. But he wouldn’t let me be like him, wouldn’t let me near. All right, I’d be brave, I’d listen to what he had to say. But he said “Oh, it’s not worth me trying to tell you. You’ll find out.”
He meant I must find out for myself that Father Christmas was a childish fantasy. He didn’t mean he wanted the thing from the chimney to come for me, the disgust in his eyes didn’t mean that, it didn’t. He meant that I had to behave like a man.
And I could. I’d show him. The chimney was silent. I needn’t worry until Christmas Eve. Nor then. There was nothing to come out.
One evening as I walked home I saw Dr Flynn in his front room. He was standing before a mirror, gazing at his red fur-trimmed hooded suit; he stooped to pick up his beard. My mother told me that he was going to act Father Christmas at the children’s hospital. She seemed on the whole glad that I’d seen. So was I: it proved the pretence was only for children.
Except that the glimpse reminded me how near Christmas was. As the nights closed on the days, and the days rushed by – the end-of-term party, the turkey, decorations in the house – I grew tense, trying to prepare myself. For what? For nothing, nothing at all. Well, I would know soon – for suddenly it was Christmas Eve.
I was busy all day. I washed up as my mother prepared Christmas dinner. I brought her ingredients, and hurried to buy some she’d used up. I stuck the day’s cards to tapes above the mantelpiece. I carried home a tinsel tree which nobody had bought. But being busy only made the day move faster. Before I knew it the windows were full of night.
Christmas Eve. Well, it didn’t worry me. I was too old for that sort of thing. The tinsel tree rustled when anyone passed it, light rolled in tinsel globes, streamers flinched back when doors opened. Whenever I glanced at the wall above the mantelpiece I saw half a dozen red-cheeked smiling bearded faces swinging restlessly on tapes.
The night piled against the windows. I chattered to my mother about her shouting father, her elder sisters, the time her sisters had locked her in a cellar. My father grunted occasionally – even when I’d run out of subjects to discuss with my mother, and tried to talk to him about the shop. At least he hadn’t noticed how late I was staying up. But he had. “It’s about time everyone was in bed,” he said with a kind of suppressed fury.
“Can I have some more coal?” My mother would never let me have a coal-scuttle in the bedroom – she didn’t want me going near the fire. “To put on now,” I said. Surely she must say yes. “It’ll be cold in the morning,” I said.
“Yes, you take some. You don’t want to be cold when you’re looking at what Father – at your presents.”
I hurried upstairs with the scuttle. Over its clatter I heard my father say “Are you still at that? Can’t you let him grow up?”
I almost emptied the scuttle into the fire, which rose roaring and crackling. My father’s voice was an angry mumble, seeping through the floor. When I carried the scuttle down my mother’s eyes were red, my father looked furiously determined. I’d always found their arguments frightening; I was glad to hurry to my room.
It seemed welcoming. The fire was bright within the mesh. I heard my mother come upstairs. That was comforting too: she was nearer now. I heard my father go next door – to wish the doctor Happy Christmas, I supposed. I didn’t mind the reminder. There was nothing of Christmas Eve in my room, except the pillowcase on the floor at the foot of the bed. I pushed it aside with one foot, the better to ignore it.
I slid into bed. My father came upstairs; I heard further mumblings of argument through the bedroom wall. At last they stopped, and I tried to relax. I lay, glad of the silence.
A wind was rushing the house. It puffed down the chimney; smoke trickled through the fireguard. Now the wind was breathing brokenly. It was only the wind. It didn’t bother me.
Perhaps I’d put too much coal on the fire. The room was hot; I was sweating. I felt almost feverish. The huge mesh flicked over the wall repeatedly, nervously, like a rapid net. Within the mirror the dimmer room danced.
Suddenly I was a little afraid. Not that something would come out of the chimney, that was stupid: afraid that my feeling of fever would make me delirious again. It seemed years since I’d been disturbed by the sight of the room in the mirror, but I was disturbed now. There was something wrong with that dim jerking room.
The wind breathed. Only the wind, I couldn’t hear it changing. A fat billow of smoke squeezed through the mesh. The room seemed more oppressive now, and smelled of smoke. It didn’t smell entirely like coal smoke, but I couldn’t tell what else was burning. I didn’t want to get up to find out.
I must lie still. Otherwise I’d be writhing about trying to clutch at sleep, as I had the second night of my fever, and sometimes in summer. I must sleep before the room grew too hot. I must keep my eyes shut. I mustn’t be distracted by the faint trickling of soot, nor the panting of the wind, nor the shadows and orange light that snatched at my eyes through my eyelids.
I woke in darkness. The fire had gone out. No, it was still there when I opened my eyes: subdued orange crawled on embers, a few weak flames leapt repetitively. The room was moving more slowly now. The dim room in the mirror, the face peering out at me, jerked faintly, as if almost dead.
I couldn’t look at that. I slid further down the bed, dragging the pillow into my nest. I was too hot, but at least beneath the sheets I felt safe. I began to relax. Then I realised what I’d seen. The light had been dim, but I was almost sure the fireguard was standing away from the hearth.
I must have mistaken that, in the dim light. I wasn’t feverish, I couldn’t have sleepwalked again. There was no need for me to look, I was comfortable. But I was beginning to admit that I had better look when I heard the slithering in the chimney.
Something large was coming down. A fall of soot: I could hear the scattering pats of soot in the grate, thrown down by the harsh halting wind. But the wind was emerging from the fireplace, into the room. It was above me, panting through its obstructed throat.
I lay staring up at the mask of my sheets. I trembled from holding myself immobile. My held breath filled me painfully as lumps of rock. I had only to lie there until whatever was above me went away. It couldn’t touch me.
The clogged breath bent nearer; I could hear its dry rattling. Then something began to fumble at the sheets over my face. It plucked feebly at them, trying to grasp them, as if it had hardly anything to grasp with. My own hands clutched at the sheets from within, but couldn’t hold them down entirely. The sheets were being tugged from me, a fraction at a time. Soon I would be face to face with my visitor.
I was lying there with my eyes squeezed tight when it let go of the sheets and went away. My throbbing lungs had forced me to take shallow breaths; now I breathed silently open-mouthed, though that filled my mouth with fluff. The tolling of my ears subsided, and I realised the thing had not returned to the chimney. It was still in the room.
I couldn’t hear its breathing; it couldn’t be near me. Only that thought allowed me to look – that, and the desperate hope that I might escape, since it moved
so slowly. I peeled the sheets down from my face slowly, stealthily, until my eyes were bare. My heartbeats shook me. In the sluggishly shifting light I saw a figure at the foot of the bed.
Its red costume was thickly furred with soot. It had its back to me; its breathing was muffled by the hood. What shocked me most was its size. It occurred to me, somewhere amid my engulfing terror, that burning shrivels things. The figure stood in the mirror as well, in the dim twitching room. A face peered out of the hood in the mirror, like a charred turnip carved with a rigid grin.
The stunted figure was still moving painfully. It edged round the foot of the bed and stooped to my pillowcase. I saw it draw the pillowcase up over itself and sink down. As it sank its hood fell back, and I saw the charred turnip roll about in the hood, as if there were almost nothing left to support it.
I should have had to pass the pillowcase to reach the door. I couldn’t move. The room seemed enormous, and was growing darker; my parents were far away. At last I managed to drag the sheets over my face, and pulled the pillow, like muffs, around my ears.
I had lain sleeplessly for hours when I heard a movement at the foot of the bed. The thing had got out of its sack again. It was coming towards me. It was tugging at the sheets, more strongly now. Before I could catch hold of the sheets I glimpsed a red fur-trimmed sleeve, and was screaming.
“Let go, will you,” my father said irritably. “Good God, it’s only me.”
He was wearing Dr Flynn’s disguise, which flapped about him – the jacket, at least; his pyjama cuffs peeked beneath it. I stopped screaming and began to giggle hysterically. I think he would have struck me, but my mother ran in. “It’s all right. All right,” she reassured me, and explained to him “It’s the shock.”
He was making angrily for the door when she said “Oh, don’t go yet, Albert. Stay while he opens his presents,” and, lifting the bulging pillowcase from the floor, dumped it beside me.
I couldn’t push it away, I couldn’t let her see my terror. I made myself pull out my presents into the daylight, books, sweets, ballpoints; as I groped deeper I wondered whether the charred face would crumble when I touched it. Sweat pricked my hands; they shook with horror – they could, because my mother couldn’t see them.
The pillowcase contained nothing but presents and a pinch of soot. When I was sure it was empty I slumped against the headboard, panting. “He’s tired,” my mother said, in defence of my ingratitude. “He was up very late last night.”
Later I managed an accident, dropping the pillowcase on the fire downstairs. I managed to eat Christmas dinner, and to go to bed that night. I lay awake, even though I was sure nothing would come out of the chimney now. Later I realized why my father had come to my room in the morning dressed like that; he’d intended me to catch him, to cure me of the pretence. But it was many years before I enjoyed Christmas very much.
When I left school I went to work in libraries. Ten years later I married. My wife and I crossed town weekly to visit my parents. My mother chattered, my father was taciturn. I don’t think he ever quite forgave me for laughing at him.
One winter night our telephone rang. I answered it, hoping it wasn’t the police. My library was then suffering from robberies. All I wanted was to sit before the fire and imagine the glittering cold outside. But it was Dr Flynn.
“Your parents’ house is on fire,” he told me. “Your father’s trapped in there. Your mother needs you.”
They’d had a friend to stay. My mother had lit the fire in the guest-room, my old bedroom. A spark had eluded the fireguard; the carpet had caught fire. Impatient for the fire engine, my father had run back into the house to put the fire out, but had been overcome. All this I learned later. Now I drove coldly across town, towards the glow in the sky.
The glow was doused by the time I arrived. Smoke scrolled over the roof. But my mother had found a coal sack and was struggling still to run into the house, to beat the fire; her friend and Dr Flynn held her back. She dropped the sack and ran to me. “Oh, it’s your father. It’s Albert,” she repeated through her weeping.
The firemen withdrew their hose. The ambulance stood winking. I saw the front door open, and a stretcher carried out. The path was wet and frosty. One stretcher-bearer slipped, and the contents of the stretcher spilled over the path.
I saw Dr Flynn glance at my mother. Only the fear that she might turn caused him to act. He grabbed the sack and, running to the path, scooped up what lay scattered there. I saw the charred head roll on the lip of the sack before it dropped within. I had seen that already, years ago.
My mother came to live with us, but we could see she was pining; my parents must have loved each other, in their way. She died a year later. Perhaps I killed them both. I know that what emerged from the chimney was in some sense my father. But surely that was a premonition. Surely my fear could never have reached out to make him die that way.
PHYLLIS EISENSTEIN HAS BEEN writing professionally since 1971, both on her own and in collaboration with her husband Alex. She has published seven novels: Born to Exile, Shadow of Earth, Sorcerer’s Son, In the Hands of Glory, The Crystal Palace, In the Red Lord’s Reach and The City in Stone, as well as some three dozen novellas and short stories in the fantasy, horror and science fiction genres.
Her short fiction has been nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards five times, and her first collection, Night Lives: Nine Stories of the Dark Fantastic, appeared in 2003.
Since 1989, Eisenstein has been an adjunct professor in the Fiction Writing Department of Columbia College, Chicago, teaching science fiction and, more recently, fantasy. In the late 1990s she edited two volumes of Spec-Lit, an anthology series showcasing the work of her students.
“At the time I wrote ‘Dark Wings’,” the author remembers, “I thought it was inspired by one of my favourite Robert Heinlein stories. Only later did I realize that it also had roots in a Galaxy cover I saw in my childhood.
“The original painting for that cover, by Ed Emshwiller, now resides in the Eisenstein art collection. But to say more about either of those sources would be to say too much, and identifying them must be left as an exercise for the reader.”
THE HOUSE SEEMED LARGE and empty now that her parents were dead. And yet it was also so soothingly quiet that Lydia would sometimes just stand in the high-ceilinged dining room and relish the silence. No shrill voice came floating from the upper story, no gravelly, grating one from the oak-paneled study, no orders, demands, advice, admonishments. The electricity was gone from the air, leaving nothing but solitude.
She had dreamed of such peace, dreamed as the years and her youth ebbed away, eroded by a struggle she was too weak to win. Dutiful and self-sacrificing, people had called her – nurse, maid, cook, buffer between her parents and the outside world. But behind her back, she knew, they had clucked their tongues over the poor, dried-up spinster. What did they know of the guilts and fears that her parents had instilled in her, of the elaborate net of obligation they had spun about her, till she was bound to them with ties that only death could sever. And death had come, at last, like a knight on his pale charger, and borne away two coffins that set her free. Still, people clucked their tongues, because Lydia lived much as before, alone in her parents’ house, alone in her heart. If anything, she was quieter than ever.
Yet some things had changed for her. She painted a great deal more these days, uninterrupted. She had moved her studio from the basement to the big bedroom upstairs, where the light splashed in from windows on three sides. On fine days, she would open those windows and let the sea air wash away the smell of paint. In the evenings she walked by the shore, sharing it with tourists and young lovers, and there were no responsibilities to call her home at any particular time. Some nights, she would be there long after the noises of traffic had faded to nothing, till only the bell of a distant buoy remained for company. She hardly thought about anything at those times, only enjoyed the dark and the starlight on the waves, and the blessed, blessed sile
nce.
On one such night she saw the bird for the first time. The moon had risen as she watched, its light splashed like a pale and shimmering highway crossing the restless ocean toward Europe. Like a shadow upon that path, the bird caught her eye, its dark wings limned by silvery radiance. For a moment, it glided over the waves, pinions motionless in the still night air, and then it swooped upward and vanished in the darkness.
She stood awhile by the shore, straining her eyes for another glimpse of the creature, hoping it would wheel and make a second pass over the glittering water. It was a hawk of some sort, perhaps even an eagle – size and distance were deceptive out over the ocean, where there were no references to judge by. She wanted it to be an eagle, for they were rare in these parts, and protected. She had only seen a live eagle here once before, when she was a small child. But though she waited till the moon was high and shrunken, she saw the bird no more, though perhaps she heard the beat of its wings far above her head. Or perhaps she only heard the cool surf beating at the rocks below her feet. At night, by the sea, time, distance, and direction all seemed to muddle together, playing tricks on the eyes, the ears, and the mind.
At home, she could not sleep for thinking about the bird, and before dawn she was in the studio by yellow, artificial light, with a fresh canvas and dark acrylic pigments spread over her palette. Swiftly, she recreated the impression of the scene, the silver moonpath, the dark bird an instantaneous silhouette, and all surrounded by an impenetrable black that seemed to suck light away from the hard, sharp stars. Blue-black she used, instead of true black – Prussian Blue, that velvety shade so dark that only a careful eye could tell it from black, but warmer somehow, softer, deeper. The sky and the bird, Prussian Blue. But when dawn added its radiance to her lamps, she saw that she had not captured the mood of that moment. The canvas was dull and dim. Her dilated pupils had perceived a patch of luminous, ethereal night in a vaster darkness, but the paints had given her only the latter.
The Mammoth Book of Terror Page 14
