by Speer, Flora
Sound returned—loud, jarring noises, as if someone was running a rusty piece of machinery, the various parts of which were constantly scraping against each other as the machine worked. Carol put her hands to her ears, but could not shut out the racket.
Slowly the blackness receded until the sky above was a dull gray. Cold rain fell heavily, freezing on the ground.
Carol stared at the machine laboring in the middle of the square. Then she looked at the rest of her surroundings and recoiled in horror.
“Oh, my God.” She could say no more. The black-draped figure beside her moved, stretching out an arm.
“Welcome to the twenty-second century,” said Lady Augusta. “Welcome to the future
Part IV.
Christmas Future
Lond, 2168
Chapter 10
“What is that thing?” The machine in the square looked to Carol like some huge, rusty-red insect. “What is it doing?”
“It is time to erect this year’s World Tree,” Lady Augusta answered her.
“Is that like a Christmas tree? I don’t think it will improve the appearance of the square.” Carol fell silent, appalled by what she saw. On all sides once-elegant houses lay in ruins. Only three or four of them looked as if they might still be habitable. Gaps here and there, like open spaces between rotting teeth, marked the spots where individual buildings had been completely demolished. Through one such gap Carol had a clear line of sight straight out to the horizon.
Carol searched for the house that was most familiar to her. When she found it she understood why Lady Augusta had not appeared to her in her room. Her bedchamber was gone and so was Lady Augusta’s suite of rooms. What was left of Marlowe House was just one story high. Piles of rubble in front and to either side of the house were apparently the remains of the former upper floors. The front doorway was barred by an assortment of heavy wooden boards reinforced with metal strips.
The square was still an open space, but the grass, the trees and bushes, and the flower beds were all gone, and in their place was a solid gray paving material. In that paved area a few figures wearing heavy layers of dark, tattered clothing were directing the movements of the screeching, unwieldy machine.
Carol shuddered. Everything she could see was dingy gray or black, broken, ugly, noisy. And cold. Icy rain continued to fall, the drops running off her raincoat in streams. The dampness seeped upward through the thick soles of her sensible walking shoes. Water dripped off her hair and down her neck.
“If this is Christmas in the future,” she said, “it certainly does not look like any Christmas I have ever known. And that is no Christmas tree, either.”
The object now being lifted into the center of the square by the rusty machinery was not a real tree at all, but a heavy metal excrescence as gray and lusterless as the sky above. Its trunk was at least twenty feet in circumference and three times as tall as the men who were guiding it into place. This bulky trunk had along its length a few crooked projections that might have been intended to represent branches. At its uppermost level the metal monstrosity divided into three sections that spread wide like arms, and each of the arms then separated into five gnarled fingers. The whole thing was wrapped around and around with thick metal cords in grotesque imitation of vines.
“I don’t think I have ever seen anything so ugly,” Carol said, staring at the fifteen upwardly stretched fingers that appeared to be waiting— or perhaps aching—to grasp and hold some huge object.
“Do not let anyone hear you say so,” Lady Augusta advised.
“Is this the World Tree you mentioned?” When Lady Augusta nodded, Carol asked, “What is it for?”
“You will need a bit of information if you are not to make dangerous mistakes,” Lady Augusta told her. “Here, Christmas is no longer celebrated. A century after your own time it was abandoned, along with all other holidays kept by any faith. The Great Leaders of the People claimed that such celebrations had become too materialistic and commercial, and thus had lost their true meaning. There were also too many holidays, almost two hundred of them in each year. The constant celebrations were cutting into productivity.
“Therefore, when the New Calendar was instituted, all of the old holidays were eliminated in the interest of economic revitalization after a terrible, twenty-year-long depression that brought the world to the brink of chaos.”
“What, no Valentine’s Day or Halloween to spend money on, either?” Carol’s tone was flippant, but after a moment of more serious thought, she added, “I should think abolishing holidays would hinder economic recovery. Eliminating Christmas alone ought to cause a minor recession.”
“On the contrary. With no days off and no distractions during the preparations for each holiday, workers have fulfilled the hopes of the Great Leaders by increasing their productivity. The changes have proven to be quite successful.”
“But if the workers have no time off at all, that doesn’t seem fair,” Carol said. “This can’t be a very nice world for the ordinary person.”
“I am pleased to hear you sounding concerned for ordinary folk. There was a time when you would not have cared. When, in fact, you would have cheered the absence of any holiday, and of Christmas in particular.
“The Great Leaders were not without understanding of the primitive needs of the workers,” Lady Augusta continued. “Thus, they designated four major holidays, one at the astronomical beginning of each season of the year. The summer and winter solstices are celebrated, and the spring and autumn equinoxes. Each of these events involves a three-day celebration.”
“A long weekend,” Carol broke in.
“Precisely, though in the New Calendar there are no weekends. There is simply one day of rest after each ten-day work period, and an extra free day on the first of each new year.” Lady Augusta paused to give Carol a chance to absorb all of this information.
“This sounds like a remarkably dreary time,” Carol said.
“It may lack charm, but it is a peaceful age,” Lady Augusta responded. “After decades of ethnic and religious wars, and of terrorism and economic upheaval, most folk are grateful to be spared further violence, and do not quarrel about repressive laws.
“Most folk,” she said again, speaking with a peculiar emphasis. “Not all.”
“The economic recovery you mentioned apparently hasn’t reached this part of town.” Carol glanced from the dilapidated buildings to the rusty machine now pushed to one side, and then on to the ugly sculpture sitting on a low cement base in the exact center of the square. “It’s pretty obvious that the Government hasn’t cleaned up yet after the last war, or spent money on new machinery, and those workmen certainly don’t look prosperous.”
“Actually, they are among the more fortunate,” said Lady Augusta. When one of the workmen noticed the two women and said something to his fellows, who all stopped talking among themselves to look in their direction, Lady Augusta added, “It would be best if we went indoors at once.”
She led Carol through a pile of rubble to the side of Marlowe House, and thence down what remained of the stairs to the recessed area and the servants’ entrance. Once there had been a vestibule and a door with four large glass panes set into its upper half. Now the charm of this low entrance was gone. The door had been replaced by a solid wood barricade which blocked the entry to the lower floors of the house. Lady Augusta knocked on the wood. Receiving no response, she banged again, harder this time, and using the same series of knocks.
“Is that a code?” Carol asked.
“It is always best to know who is coming. Where is that man? We could be arrested before he lets us in.”
Carol was about to ask why they should be arrested for doing nothing wrong, when the wooden barricade was pushed aside and a middle-aged man with lank, dirty hair peered out at her.
“Let us in, Bas,” Lady Augusta commanded. “I have brought a guest to see your master.”
“I call no one my master. I am a free man.” But Bas m
oved the barricade a little more, allowing enough room for Lady Augusta and Carol to enter. In the dark and cluttered room Carol recognized the outlines of the old servants’ kitchen. She could see a bed and a chest of drawers in the room beyond, which had once been the servants’ dining room and was apparently now Bas’s quarters. Bas himself was clothed in layers of dark-colored, worn garments.
“He’s in the book room,” said Bas, jerking a thumb toward the servants’ stairs that led to the upper floor of the house. Without another word he began to pull the wood back across the entrance, blocking it again.
“This way.” Lady Augusta started up the steps. Carol followed her.
The one remaining upper floor of the house was reasonably clean, but in need of major repairs. The fine walnut paneling in the hall was badly damaged and the marble floor was cracked in many places. Some of the black and white squares were missing altogether. It seemed there was no electricity, for there were candles or oil lamps set on tables or benches along the hall. The artificial light was necessary because all of the windows were covered with several layers of rough boards, which allowed no daylight to enter.
When she came to the library, Lady Augusta did not pause to knock. With a motion of her hand to indicate that Carol should accompany her, Lady Augusta pushed the door open and went into the room.
Heavy brown curtains pulled across the windows disguised the fact that, like all the other windows and all but one door, these openings to the outside world were covered with boards. Most of the bookshelves were empty. On the desk two candles burned in a chipped pottery holder. The floor was bare of rugs. In spite of the sad changes to its appearance, the room was oddly similar to the library Carol remembered from her years of working at Marlowe House, and from her journey into the distant past. This was the room in which the Earl of Montfort had first kissed her on the night of their betrothal ball.
An unmistakably masculine figure sat at the desk, half turned away from the doorway and with an olive green blanket wrapped around its shoulders against the cold. The man was writing something, but Carol saw his hand go still and his shoulders stiffen as they came into the room.
“Is that you, Aug?” The voice brought Carol to a complete halt.
“It is.” Lady Augusta moved forward. “I have brought a friend with me.”
“Your friends are welcome here.” The man rose, shrugging off the blanket. He turned, so Carol could see his face and confirm with her eyes what her ears had already told her.
“Nicholas!” she gasped.
“Not quite,” the man said. “I am Nik.”
“This is the woman I spoke to you about the last time I was here,” Lady Augusta said to the man who called himself Nik. “She can be of help to you.”
“I will not ask if I can depend on her honesty,” Nik responded. “You would not have recruited her if she were untrustworthy.”
He put out his right hand and a mesmerized Carol put her own into it, feeling the firm clasp of his long, callused fingers.
“What is your name?” His voice was the same as she remembered, deep and faintly amused. He possessed such masculine power that, between his voice and the touch of his hand, Carol could barely think, and for those first heart-wrenching moments she could not speak one word. Nik put his own interpretation on her hesitancy.
“While you are here, you may use a name other than your own if you wish, but I insist upon knowing how you were originally called,” Nik persisted, his fingers tightening around Carol’s. “Among my friends, the revelation of a true name is a sign of trust and fellowship.”
“I am Carol Simmons.” Call me your love. Tell me you recognize me.
“You will be Car.” He released her hand and Carol felt bereft, lonely, cast adrift in an unfamiliar world. He was her Nicholas, and yet he was not. While her heart told her this was the man she loved, she knew in her mind that he was not, could not be, the same person.
Carol took the opportunity to study him as he spoke to Lady Augusta. She could see now the differences between Nicholas, the Earl of Montfort, and Nik, the man of the future. Nik’s hair was the same glossy black, but straight instead of curly, and it was fastened into a queue with a cord tied at the nape of his neck. His clothes were worn, dark garments similar to those she had noted on Bas and on the workmen in the square—a heavy black shirt open at the neck, dark gray trousers, a loose gray jacket. There were patches at the elbows and knees, but she could tell the garments were clean.
Nik was taller, leaner, and somehow harder than the man she had loved in the nineteenth century. His cheekbones stood out more boldly. But his wide, curving mouth was the same as she remembered, and his eyes were as sharp and probing as ever, though she missed the sparkle of ready laughter that she was used to seeing. She could understand its absence, though. She did not think there could be much to laugh about in this time and place.
“You will return later for the meeting, then?” Nik said to Lady Augusta. “Take care, Aug. There have been two more arrests since yesterday.”
“I will be safe, never fear.”
“Are you leaving me?” Carol cried, wondering how she could manage in such a strange place without Lady Augusta to guide her.
“I leave you,” said Lady Augusta, “exactly where you ought to be.”
“I will see to your safety,” Nik told Carol, touching her hand lightly with his fingers. Carol lost herself in his gaze, and when she was able to tear her eyes from his to look around, Lady Augusta was no longer there.
“We should get to work at once,” Nik said. “Begin by telling me what your skills are.”
“I don’t think I have any that would be of use to you. I’m not sure why Lady—why Aug brought me here. What did she say about me?” Carol tried to concentrate. She was sure there was something Lady Augusta intended her to learn here in this future time, and she had to discover what it was.
Unfortunately for Lady Augusta’s plans for her, this unexpected meeting with a man so similar to the love she thought was lost to her forever was confusing her. She wanted to fall into Nik’s arms, but she knew he would think she was crazy if she did. She kept telling herself that this was not Nicholas, this was a different man, but she could not convince herself. Her every instinct screamed her recognition of him. With Lady Augusta gone, Carol could not ask for confirmation of what she felt. She was on her own in a world which, from what she had seen of it so far, she believed was dangerous.
“Aug told me that you are a remarkable and resourceful woman who would be of great help to me,” Nik said. “From her recommendation, I assumed you possessed some specific skill.”
“What kind of skill would that be?” She hoped he would give her some information as to what they were supposed to be doing. What she got was a speculative look that was so familiar it nearly stopped her heart.
“Surely Aug promised you that you could trust me,” he said.
“I need to know more,” she hedged.
“So do I.” Folding his arms across his chest, he leaned back against the desk. It was all Carol could do to keep from going to him and putting her arms around his neck and kissing him. The need to feel his arms around her was almost overpowering.
“Perhaps you ought to fill me in a bit more thoroughly on just why Aug brought you to me,” he said.
“I honestly don’t know what Aug’s reasons are, or what she thought I could do for you.” In the last few seconds Carol had become so certain of her feelings that she said exactly what her heart told her to say. “What I do know is that you and I have met before, in another time and place. I am amazed to discover you here.”
He unfolded his arms to grip the edge of the desk in both hands as if he feared he would fall to the floor without its support. Or perhaps he feared he would fall through the centuries. He looked at her as if he was recording every bone and blood vessel and nerve of her body, every cell and curving eyelash and strand of light brown hair. For a time he gazed at her lips before he met her eyes and spoke again
. Carol had the impression that during those silent moments he had made a long, astonishing journey, and had reached the ending he sought.
“You are from the past,” he said, as calmly and quietly as if he had been speaking of the weather.
“Didn’t Aug warn you?” Still his eyes held hers, and it was hard for her to speak sensibly. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything.” But she knew what she had done was right.
“Aug told me only that I would recognize you.”
“Do you?” She awaited his answer, certain in her heart of what it should be, yet scarcely daring to breathe in case she was wrong.
“Oh, yes.” His voice was just above a whisper. “I know you well. I have dreamed of you on countless nights. When you came into this room it seemed to me as if you knew me, too.”
“I did. Right away. There are a few minor differences, but you are the same man. I’m sure of it now.”
“Were we lovers?”
“Only briefly.” Carol was surprised to feel herself blushing. “Too briefly.”
“Ah.” He smiled at her. It was like the sun bursting forth from behind a cloud to put an end to cold and darkness.
“Car,” he said, and the short, hard syllable was a warm caress on her ears.
“Hello, Nik.” She moved forward until she stood close enough to touch him.
He did not rise from his leaning posture against the desk to embrace her as she expected him to do. He simply lifted one hand and wove it through her hair and pulled her head down to his shoulder. She also raised a hand, to lay it on his chest so she could feel the beating of his heart and know that this was, in truth, her love. They were content to rest so for a long time, until Nik spoke, still without moving.
“Since this is Aug’s doing, I will not question your presence any further.” His breath was warm on her skin, and she felt the faint scratchiness of his cheek against her forehead. “Aug is a notable witch.”
