by Paula Guran
“I don’t intend to hurt you,” she insisted, wincing herself from the accusation in his depthless eyes. “I’m one of those love-and-light witches, remember?”
“There is more than one kind of battle,” he gasped, crumpling onto the dirt floor, exhausted. “You are my enemy, this night.”
She realized, then the full meaning of his bruised expression, and why, even at his worst, he had not completely frightened her.
“You’re scared,” she said, surprised. “Your darkness isn’t anything as simple as evil, is it? It’s fear, even withdrawal—you’re scared to let me close enough to help you, maybe to let anyone close enough. And it’s distrust. And maybe it’s the loss of power—if you let me help you, it might change who you are, and who knows what you’d be.”
His eyes slid shut as the drug overpowered him, and his breathing fell into a soft, steady rhythm.
“You’ve been weakened by the very things you stand for,” she whispered . . . then yawned.
The cat crept out of its corner, sniffed the plate of stew, then turned with annoyance to Ivy and meowed. Loudly. She knew better than to eat that stuff.
“You’re right,” said Ivy. She herself had not eaten as much of the stew, or the drug, as Duncan Bercilak. But she was smaller. She couldn’t count on much time before she, too, became useless. So if she meant to do anything significant to protect herself, now was her chance.
“I don’t have to kill him, do I?” she asked the cat, now sniffing the unconscious man. Now the cat ignored her.
He’d meant to kill her, right? Or had he? He’d passed up on enough chances. In any case, Ivy wasn’t sure she could do something like that, neither cut his throat with his own dagger—yuck!—nor drag him back into the snow and leave him to the elements. He’d said himself: there was more than one kind of battle.
She would not defeat darkness by giving into it. But neither would she win by waiting passively for the light to return on its own. Not without helping it along.
“The meaning of Yule?” she suggested to the cat, with a wry smile.
The cat moved back to her towel by the fire and curled into the classic feline-at-rest pose, front legs tucked under, tail wrapped neatly around herself. Her eyes narrowed into satisfied slants.
Decided, Ivy kneeled beside Duncan, drew the long, double-edged dagger from his boot, and gingerly moved it to her own backpack. Then, like any good Ivy Girl, she bound the Holly King with strips of cloth that she tore from her sheets, securing both his wrists and ankles.
Warmth radiated off him, despite lying on a near-frozen floor. He had strong legs, chiseled wrists. This was not only the Holly King, after all. This was a man named Duncan Bercilak, who had for whatever reason taken on the job.
Pausing to brush brown hair from his troubled face, she wondered how bad his year had been, to drive him this far. But she still tied him. And that, she decided, wiping her hands on her jeans, was as pragmatic and mundane as she meant to get tonight.
Then she swayed—and shivered. She wasn’t out of danger yet. Exhaustion blurred her vision, and it was so cold out! To stay with this man would be dangerous. So would be trying to leave in the middle of a still-howling blizzard, to hike a good half-mile to her car through the night woods, then to drive while tranquilized.
After a long moment’s consideration, she pulled her sleeping bag closer and wrestled Duncan Bercilak’s heavy form onto it, off the frozen floor. Then she added her extra blanket and reluctantly lay beside his warmth.
Later on, we’ll conspire / As we dream by the fire . . .
It seemed the right thing to do, and not just because she felt so cold.
It seemed the right thing to do in the same, subtle way that magic worked . . .
When she awoke, Ivy felt blessedly warm, curled against Duncan Bercilak’s chest. His arms encircled her protectively in his sleep, and the cat—she realized from the vibration of its purr—cuddled against the back of her legs. The winds had fallen silent, marking the end of the long storm. The fire was nearly dead, and only her Coleman lantern and the two pillar candles—one red, one green—lit the cabin. The morning held that hushed magic that had blessed her Christmas mornings as a child, her Yuletide mornings once she recognized herself as a witch.
She hated to leave such peace and warmth for a long, dark, snowy trek to her car.
Then it occurred to her that Duncan’s arms were around her, despite her having tied his hands! Holding her breath, she slid from his heavy embrace and slowly sat up . . . then sighed with relief to see that he still slept. Somehow in the night his hands had worked free of their bonds. So much for her job as the Ivy Girl.
She found it even harder to believe that he would kill her now than she had before. Did a handsome face blur her judgment so terribly much . . . or were there stronger powers at work here?
The cat stalked away, then sat with its back to her in silent protest at the disruption to her sleep. Bitter air tingled at Ivy’s skin, deprived of Duncan’s warmth, as though she weren’t wearing layered winter clothing. It burned in her lungs and misted her breath as—deciding not to risk waking Duncan by trying to re-tie him—she crept to her supplies and put on her quilted winter coat, her gloves, her scarf. She didn’t dare the noise of repacking her supplies—the only belonging she’d considered irreplaceable was her athame, and it, she saw, was a pitted, misshapen thing on the dying embers.
Magic might well exist . . . but so much for her chance at finding proof this year, anyway. On an afterthought, Ivy opened the flap of her half-empty backpack and clucked softly to the gray tabby cat. As if it understood, it trotted over, tried her patience with only a moment of cautious exploration, then crawled into the safety of the bag.
Ivy shouldered the pack, checking its pocket for Duncan’s dagger, lest he come after her. When she reached the door, she turned and looked back for a final moment. It really might be best for her physical safety if she killed him, or at least bashed him over the head.
As if she could be sure of not killing him if she bashed him over the head, anyway.
But it would not, she thought, be best for the world, to add even one more act of violence to it. When she got to the closest town, she could do her mundane duty by reporting him as an intruder to the police. Perhaps they could keep him from harming anyone else. But she would not empower the darkness by hurting him. It might seem stupid, on the physical level. But on deeper levels, magical levels, it felt surprisingly . . . right. Again.
Impulsively, Ivy blew a kiss at the sleeping man. Then she turned, unlatched the door, and swung it open.
Face to face with an older man, his eyes piggy and small over his purple scarf, she screamed.
Only as the man’s voice fell silent in surprise did Ivy realize that he’d been chanting, chanting something that she did not quite understand but which her subconscious did, and it made all the fine hairs on her body stand up. He advanced and she retreated, fumbling the dagger from its pocket in her backpack. Behind her she heard noise—
Duncan’s squared hand closed hard around her wrist, made her drop the knife as he pulled her against him, trapped her arms with his hands. Then, to her surprise, Bercilak and the newcomer exchanged familiar glances.
“Silas,” said Duncan in his clear, authoritative voice. “I thought perhaps you’d deserted me.”
“I searched as quickly as I could Dun—that is, my lord,” assured the older man ingratiatingly. Ivy thought he looked guilty. “I searched through the night, despite the storm. You cannot know how frantic I was for your safety.”
The man reeked of deceit. More than her fright, Ivy felt amazement that Duncan, who’d seemed intelligent enough, did not see it. Perhaps that was what his distance and apathy had done to this Holly King’s instincts.
The stranger, Silas, seemed to sense Ivy’s hostility. He searched her face with his piggish eyes. “M’lord,” he ventured, “if we might speak for a moment?”
“Granted,” said Duncan, as if he truly
were a king . . . or a god. With a parting glare to Ivy, he set her further into the cabin before releasing her. Then he picked up his dagger and strode out into the darkness of the cold, early morning, his feet crunching in the snow, leaving her alone to contemplate her fate.
Ivy knew she should be afraid . . . but it seemed impossible to fear someone mussed by sleep, someone who had yet to do more to her than threaten and disarm her.
She let the cat out of the backpack. Then she checked her watch—past six a.m. Almost dawn.
“Bring back the light,” she said softly, firmly, as she waited. “Bring back the light. Bring back the light . . . ”
It felt better than doing nothing.
“My lord,” whispered Silas, outside. “I am surprised you’ve left her alive this long. Dawn is almost upon us . . . ”
“And as you can see,” noted Duncan, more annoyed by the blind fool than usual, “I still live.”
“But she remains a threat. She cannot allow the Solstice to arrive without defeating you. It is foreordained! One of you must vanquish—”
Duncan glared the older, weaker man into silence. Sadly, it was temporary.
“Ah,” said Silas now, more ingratiating than ever. He’d played his role in the Holly King’s reign thus far, but . . . “If you do not wish to distress yourself by doing the deed—”
Duncan allowed his face to show his contempt at the assumed insult. “Silas,” he corrected. “I am no schoolboy to be softened by a night with a pacifistic white-lighter. You would not deny me my pleasure, would you?”
Silas smiled, obviously relieved by this show of authority. “No, m’lord. I would not.”
Duncan sighed. After preparing for this moment for so long, he found himself wishing the danger, the uncertainty, were over. Soon, now. Soon. “I only wish I had time for more creativity . . . but you are right. Daylight presses.”
When he strode back into the dugout, the woman named Ivy MacDaraich looked up and smiled at him. Smiled! “Are the stars out?” she asked. “Now that the storm’s passed, I mean?”
He stared at her, incredulous. He knew the power of the Oak King’s representatives as well as anyone, and still she amazed him. How frightened would most pretty young women be, alone in a cabin with him? How many chances had he given her to destroy him? How many excuses to hate him?
How many opportunities to choose darkness at long last?
Curious, unwilling to waste these last few moments, he strode to stand in front of her. Her eyes widened slightly as she stared up at him, more in curiosity than fear even now. Then, as he bent and covered her mouth with his own, she caught her breath with surprise. Touching a tentative hand to his sweatered chest, she kissed him back.
Their kiss deepened. She smelled of wood-smoke, pine, cinnamon and bayberry. Of Yule.
Drawing back from her, Duncan studied her face for a moment longer, resigning himself to what he must do. Her dazed, sated look ought not have made this more difficult.
“You know, one can resist the darkness without denying it,” he scolded, almost gently, as he raised a hand to her cheek. “One can accept it without embracing it. You should not have trusted me.”
“I didn’t,” she reminded him, voice husky with sleep—and something else. “I just refused to be you.”
He slid his hand downward, found just the right place on her soft throat with his fingers—yes, there. “So you did.”
Her green eyes widened, then fluttered shut. In a moment, she’d crumpled as if boneless to the frozen floor.
The cat she’d thought to have hidden from him arched its back and hissed. Duncan ignored it to crouch beside Ivy MacDaraich. He touched her cheek again, touched the tree pendant she wore around her neck on a leather thong.
Then, retrieving his knife from his boot, Duncan slashed it downward toward her throat . . .
He strode into the graying morning, crunching through the snow, and raised an eyebrow at his lackey. “Surely you did not doubt me, Silas?”
“Of course not, m’lord,” assured Silas, too quickly.
Duncan looked at the dagger in his hand, contemplating. In a sudden moment, he turned and threw it back into the cabin. With a distinct thud, it buried itself into the opposite wall. He met his companion’s surprise with superiority. “We cannot let people think that the Holly King is stingy,” he said haughtily. “The next poor wretch who falls upon this place in a snowstorm might be hungry.”
Silas stared, startled by the viciousness of Duncan’s statement. Then, belatedly, he began to laugh. Amused by the obnoxious man’s ignorance, Duncan joined him, and together they hiked downward toward the road and their transportation—and the new year, with its possibilities for change.
In the pocket of his coat, Duncan fingered Ivy’s tree-shaped amulet and made plans for the future.
Plans for growth.
Ivy’s head hurt. As she became aware of her own existence, sucked deep breaths, the throbbing softened—slightly. Disoriented, she sat up. Dizziness blurred the edges of her sight to a yellow black, and she felt cold . . . so cold.
And . . . alive?
Not that she wasn’t grateful, but . . . why?
The cat butted its striped head against her hip as Ivy stared out the still-open door. Iron gray expectation was beginning to lighten the winter sky. Perhaps Duncan had left her alive to twist the knife—so to speak. He’d won, hadn’t he? He’d not killed her . . . but there was more than one kind of battle. She hadn’t “defeated” him, either.
Assuming she’d really been acting in the role of the light, or he in the role of Holly King. Assuming their strange night meant anything on the astral, magic realm at all.
Slowly she stood, shuffled to the doorway and braced herself against the doorjamb. Occasionally, through snow-draped branches on the path far below the cabin, she caught glimpses of the two men descending the hillside. As the sky lightened, Duncan’s hair took on an unexpected, burnished tint.
Behind her, in the cabin, the cat yowled.
She’d survived him. He’d kissed her—the most intense kiss she’d ever known, from god or man—and he’d left her feeling more alive than she’d felt in months. Not that she approved of his behavior, of course! But suddenly, the crisp smell of snow and pine and wood smoke seemed to tingle through her with something akin to . . . joy. She’d guarded against the darkness, hadn’t given into it. The worst of it had passed, and now she appreciated what she had more than ever.
“Winter Solstice,” she whispered, understanding, and smiled as the eastern horizon brightened. Then she frowned. Damn, but she’d wanted to do that spell.
If only the son-of-a-bitch hadn’t destroyed her athame.
The cat yowled again. When Ivy turned to look, she saw the tabby sitting purposefully beneath something stuck in the wall. Something that had not been there before. Something that caught the waxing light.
What she felt then was still subtle—no pyrotechnics, no levitation. But it also was very real. True magic. She crossed the room to take a closer look, to make sure. Slowly, she pulled Duncan Bercilak’s hunting knife out of the wooden wall.
He’d left it for her?
That was not the sort of thing the Holly King would do, was it? The Holly King tested, challenged, reigned over a world that slowly became barren and cold. He took away. The god who gave was the . . .
She remembered how the Duncan Bercilak’s hair had glinted in the distance.
When Ivy turned toward the doorway with the knife in her hand, its double-edged blade caught and glowed with the Solstice morning’s rising sun.
Connie Willis confronts the issues of holiday newsletters, alien invasion, and families . . . all of which, in other hands, might provide fodder for fright rather than the amusement she supplies. Holiday newsletters arose as an extension of sending Christmas cards. Sir Henry Cole commissioned the first commercial cards in 1823 in London, as he was too busy to handwrite all his holiday greetings. Artist John Calcott Horsley designed the cards,
which depicted a jolly Victorian family feast with wineglasses raised in an apparent toast to the recipient. Portrayals of charitable acts flanked the center art. The charming scene proved controversial, however, since even the children appeared to be imbibing alcohol. Cards did not catch on immediately, but by 1871 there was an editorial complaint in at least one British newspaper about people trying to outdo one another in the matter of the number of cards sent and received.
Newsletter
Connie Willis
Later examination of weather reports and newspapers showed that it may have started as early as October nineteenth, but the first indication I had that something unusual was going on was at Thanksgiving.
I went to Mom’s for dinner (as usual), and was feeding cranberries and cut-up oranges into Mom’s old-fashioned meat grinder for the cranberry relish and listening to my sister-in-law Allison talk about her Christmas newsletter (also as usual).
“Which of Cheyenne’s accomplishments do you think I should write about first, Nan?” she said, spreading cheese on celery sticks. “Her playing lead snowflake in The Nutcracker or her hitting a home run in PeeWee Soccer?”
“I’d list the Nobel Peace Prize first,” I murmured, under cover of the crunch of an apple being put through the grinder.
“There just isn’t room to put in all the girls’ accomplishments,” she said, oblivious. “Mitch insists I keep it to one page.”
“That’s because of Aunt Lydia’s newsletters,” I said. “Eight pages single-spaced.”
“I know,” she said. “And in that tiny print you can barely read.” She waved a celery stick thoughtfully. “That’s an idea.”
“Eight pages single-spaced?”
“No. I could get the computer to do a smaller font. That way I’d have room for Dakota’s Sunshine Scout merit badges. I got the cutest paper for my newsletters this year. Little angels holding bunches of mistletoe.”
Christmas newsletters are very big in my family, in case you couldn’t tell. Everybody—uncles, grandparents, second cousins, my sister Sueann—sends the Xeroxed monstrosities to family, coworkers, old friends from high school, and people they met on their cruise to the Caribbean (which they wrote about at length in their newsletter the year before). Even my Aunt Irene, who writes a handwritten letter on every one of her Christmas cards, sticks a newsletter in with it.
