Christmas Carol

by Speer, Flora

  “She is not a witch,” Carol murmured into the strong column of his throat. “She’s a ghost.”

  “Do not tell me any more,” he responded. “I do not want an explanation of how she brought you here. It is enough for me that the dream of my youth has come true.”

  “If you have lived before, then perhaps some buried part of your subconscious mind was remembering me and causing your dreams,” Carol suggested.

  “Hush. I said I do not want an explanation. Reason and common sense have nothing to do with this.”

  She wished she could obey him, but she could not stop thinking about where she was and what had happened. Nor could she stop wondering what it was that Lady Augusta expected of her in this time.

  “Nik.” She lifted her head from his shoulder to look directly at him. “What is the danger I sense in this place? Why is everything so grim and gray and bleak?”

  “How much did Aug tell you? No, do not misunderstand me,” he went on quickly. “I see the change in your expression. This is not evasion on my part. It will be simpler to describe my activities to you if I know what Aug has said.”

  “She talked about the Great Leaders who apparently restored peace after a violent time. She also mentioned a change in the calendar. According to Aug, most people have cheerfully accepted the wishes of these Great Leaders, whoever they are.”

  “Wishes?” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “When the Great Leaders speak, it is always laws and demands, and this present Government has been in command for so long that most people do not know what it is to be free.”

  “Aug did mention that not everyone went along with the Government. Nik, who are the Great Leaders?”

  “They are the council of three men who head the Worldwide Government,” he said. “When one of them grows old and dies, or is killed by the treachery of the other two, which has happened several times in the last few decades, then a new Leader is appointed by the Government from among their own members. The people have nothing to say in the matter. I, along with some other people, think this system is wrong.”

  “It’s a dictatorship, then,” Carol said. “Or more accurately, a junta.”

  “Children are taught only carefully selected portions of history,” Nik revealed, “so they grow up not knowing what the world was like before this Government came to power. All but an aged handful of those who can personally recall the earlier time are dead now.”

  “Aug spoke about violence and wars.”

  “The last one hundred years before the Leaders took over were a terrible time,” Nik acknowledged. “There are some records still in existence, for those who know where to look for them. I have found and read a few of those old accounts. The first group of Leaders did impose peace, that’s true, and there were few unwise enough to oppose them because the world was weary of constant bloodshed. We have lived in peace for seventy years, but we paid too great a price for it. There is no freedom now. The Government tells us where we will live and what work we will do, even what clothing we will wear.”

  Carol spoke up. “There are no more old-fashioned holidays, either, according to Aug. Not since the New Calendar went into effect.” She shook her head. “I never thought I would say this, but after watching the disinterested way in which those men in the square outside were raising that ugly metal World Tree, I yearn to see the little real tree that used to be there. I miss the Christmas hubbub, and the cheerful spirit that goes with it. So what if the merchants and the media commercialize the holiday? The true spirit of Christmas can’t be bought, and anyone with two functioning brain cells knows as much. All the commercial nonsense is just icing on a rich and very solid cake of ancient tradition. A real Christmas involves caring about other people.” She fell silent because Nik was watching her with glowing eyes.

  “You are just what we need,” he said. “What I need.”

  “We,” Carol repeated. “You have mentioned friends. Do they feel as you do about the Government?”

  “We are determined to change the way the world is ruled,” Nik told her. “We want ordinary people to have something to say about what the laws are and what the punishment for breaking a law should be.”

  “No one who holds power ever gives up that power voluntarily,” Carol warned him. “If you want real change and not just a cosmetic revamping for appearances’ sake, then you will have to fight. And you will have to convince more people to join you. This will be too big a job for a small guerrilla group to accomplish.”

  “We all know it. We are willing to risk our lives in such a cause. Will you join us?”

  “I think I already have. But Nik,” she cautioned, seeing his expression of joy at her response, “it’s only fair to tell you that I don’t know how long Lady Augusta will let me remain in this time. She has her own agenda and she doesn’t listen to me.”

  “Lady Augusta?” he murmured. “Is that Aug’s real name? I have read about noble titles. There are none in this time. All titles and family names were abolished when the Great Leaders took control of the world.”

  “When I knew you before,” she told him, “you were a noble, too. I think you still are.”

  “You are making a hasty judgment,” he said, teasing in a manner that was dear and familiar to her. “You do not know me well yet. I may be a different man now.”

  “If you were, I wouldn’t feel this way about you.”

  “What way?” His hands were at her waist, pulling her closer to him where he still balanced against the edge of the desk. “Tell me how you feel about me, Car.”

  “The point is,” she said, trying to resist the strong emotional pull he exerted over her, “Lady Augusta—Aug—may suddenly decide that I have learned whatever lesson she wanted me to understand from my stay with you. If I should disappear without saying good-bye, don’t think it was because I wanted to leave you. I may not have anything to say about my departure.”

  “Perhaps you will not have to go at all.”

  “Don’t fool yourself. I won’t be here for very long.” It was unbelievably hard to look into his green eyes and say those words without breaking into tears. The knowledge that she would surely lose him a second time was tearing her apart inside.

  “In that case, I will see to it that we do not waste a moment.” His hands slid downward from her waist along her spine. Cupping her hips, he urged her closer still, until she was positioned between his thighs. Carol put her hands on his shoulders and then around his neck. “Shall I kiss you, Car?”

  “I wish you would.” She saw his lips curve into an enticing smile. She offered her mouth to him, and he took it, gently at first, tasting her lips as if he was not quite certain he wanted what she could give him.

  She understood his lack of sureness. She felt something similar herself. While Nik had dreamed of her, and no doubt wondered if reality could match a matchless fantasy, Carol had actual memories to overcome. She was not foolish enough to think that this was the same physical manifestation of the Nicholas who had once made love to her. She did believe that the soul, or the spirit, of the Nicholas she still loved lived again in the man who was presently holding her. While this belief made no logical sense, she knew it was accurate because she did not feel the least twinge of guilt over her rising desire for Nik. If he were not some new materialization of the Nicholas she loved, she would not—could not possibly—want him to make love to her.

  He drew back a little, so he could see her better.

  “Yes, you are the one,” he whispered. “I am certain of it now. I know the sensation of your lips against mine, and I remember the taste of you as if I have actually held you in my arms before today. But you speak the truth when you say you will be taken from me. In every dream I have ever had of you, I have lost you at the end, and I wake up weeping.” He let her go. Pushing away from the desk, he walked to the opposite side of the room to stand near the bookshelves with his back to her.

  “Tears are not considered a manly thing. However, for this time in which I live, I a
m not the usual man.” He made a gesture toward the few books lined up on the old library shelves. “I read too much and, influenced by what I read, I think dangerous thoughts. I try to calm my impatient heart by listening to antique music. I dream dreams that cannot possibly come true. Yet, one of those dreams is here with me today. If one dream can come true, why not others? “Your presence gives me new courage, Car.”

  He turned back to her, his face alight. “If you are here, and we remember what we are meant to be to each other, then perhaps my friends and I can prevail against the tyranny of the Great Leaders and the World Government. Seeing you, I am filled with hope.” He broke off, his whole body going tense at the sound of a footstep in the hall.

  “It’s only us, Nik,” a man’s voice called out, and Nik relaxed.

  “My God, what a way to live,” Carol said. “Do you assume every step you hear is that of someone bent on attacking you?”

  “Only by exerting great caution have I have survived this long,” Nick replied. Raising his voice, he said, “I am here. Come in, Al.”

  A man bundled in the usual dark and worn garments appeared, followed by a second person. Both were of medium height, and were so well disguised under layers of clothing that at first Carol did not see that this second figure was a woman. Not until she spoke was her gender revealed.

  “I told you we would come back safely.” The woman swept off a too-large knitted hat to expose tightly braided blond hair. Her blue eyes danced with laughter as she stepped into Nik’s arms. “And you were worried.”

  “I always worry about you.” Nik held her so the candlelight fell on her face.

  “There is not a scratch on me, or on Al, either.” She caught sight of Carol. “Who is this? I have not seen her in Lond before.”

  “Car is a new recruit. Aug brought her to me this afternoon. Car,” Nik said, “this is my older sister, Pen. And her lover, Al.”

  “Pen?” Carol could tell by the look in Nik’s eyes that he had noted her reaction and knew she recognized these people, too. Doubtless, he would ask her about it later. For the moment, he had other concerns.

  “Were you seen?” Nik asked Al.

  “No. We were careful. However, it might be well for us to show ourselves in public before the sun sets. That way, we won’t have to answer questions on our whereabouts yesterday and today. It will be assumed that the ice and rain kept us indoors along with most other people. The weather is clearing now, and the workers have finished with the World Tree, so it will seem natural if we step outside to look at it.”

  “I’ll go with you. You come, too, Car.” Nik took her hand. “If we are not seen out of doors with some frequency, the Government imagines we are up to no good and certain unpleasant agents are sent to investigate.”

  “Are you saying there are Government spies who are continually checking up on you?” Carol asked, horrified by this idea.

  “Most of the time, they are scarcely noticeable,” Pen told her.

  “What a world you have here. It sounds like the old Soviet Union.”

  “From my reading, I think it is worse,” Nik said. “Pen, Al, make your report now, quickly, before we leave the house.”

  “We met with four other groups,” Pen said. “All agreed with your plan. We begin action on the second day after the Winter Solstice celebration.”

  “I,” Al declared, “do not think we ought to depend upon Ben’s group. There are no women in it, and the men are little more than thugs. They may prove to be more trouble than help to us.”

  “We don’t have much choice, not while our numbers are so small. We have to make use of everyone who is willing to work with us.” Nik waited until his sister and Al stepped outside the library before speaking again to Carol. “Later, you and I will finish what we have begun here. I do promise you, Car, there will be a later for us.”

  “Will you tell me then what you and your friends are planning?” she asked. “It sounds to me as if you are organizing some kind of strike against the Government.”

  “If we are, will you join with us? Aug did say you were sent to help.”

  “Actually, I was sent to learn, though what the lesson is, I haven’t a clue. Yes, Nik.” She looked deep into his green eyes, seeing there a warmth to equal the heat racing through her own veins. She thought by his smile that he appreciated the double meaning of her next words. “I will join with you gladly.”

  Chapter 11

  The four of them climbed over the rubble surrounding Marlowe House and then walked into the square. The workmen had gone, taking their aged machine with them, but there were a few people standing around looking at the World Tree.

  “Does something fit into those fingers?” Carol asked, gazing at the tortured metal branches.

  “The Orb.” It was Pen who answered her. “At dawn on Winter’s First Day, the Orb comes to rest in the branches of the World Tree. It remains there until the Solstice celebrations are over, to let us know a warmer time will return.”

  “Do not ask more here,” Nik cautioned, leaning down to whisper to Carol. “Those hearing you will know you do not belong in Lond.”

  “Oh, yes, the spies,” she whispered back, smiling at him as if they were exchanging romantic words. “I will be careful.”

  As Al had noted, the weather was in the process of clearing, but the air was rapidly growing colder. A sudden breeze blew a heavy snow squall out of the lingering clouds, dusting the square and World Tree and people with white. Nik looked upward, laughing into the blowing flakes.

  “I love the snow,” he said to Carol. “For an hour or two it makes everything in this sad world clean and softens the hard edges and the ugliness. When it snows, I could almost believe the world can be made fresh and new again.”

  “Even that monstrosity in the middle of the square might be a real tree in the dead of winter,” Carol agreed, sparing a less hostile glance for the World Tree, where the metal branches bore a thin coating of white on their upper surfaces. “Look, the sun is shining through the snow.”

  The air was still full of snowflakes, but the clouds, having dumped most of their burden of moisture, were now too thin to block out the sun. A hazy, diffused yellow glow slowly spread across the sky, while the sun could be seen as if it shone behind a sheer veil. A last burst of snow flurried downward, the flakes glittering in the dim sunlight like particles of solid gold.

  “How beautiful,” Carol murmured, seeing Nik standing with his face turned up to the shower of snow and the golden light. Snowflakes lay thick upon his black hair. More flakes dusted his forehead and cheeks with bits of gold that melted instantaneously on contact with his body’s warmth. She thought she would always remember him like that, standing straight and tall, laughing into the snow, with shimmering drops of golden moisture on his face, his whole form illuminated by haze and sunlight.

  His manly strength and beauty, and the love she felt for him, tugged at her heart. She was fully aware that the joy she knew in this precious moment could not last. Soon, inevitably, time and Lady Augusta would separate them. But meanwhile … just for now…

  He looked into her eyes. His smile turned gentle then, and in the green depths of his gaze, for just a moment, she saw Eternity.

  “Tell me how the square and the houses appeared in your time,” Nik asked later that evening.

  The snow showers had stopped with the setting sun, but as the sky cleared the cold arrived in earnest, sending their little group shivering out of the square and into the inadequate warmth of the house. They gathered in the old servants’ kitchen, Nik and Carol sitting together on a wooden bench at one end of the room, slightly apart from their companions, where they could speak in relative privacy.

  Bas, who seemed to be the twenty-second-century equivalent of butler, cook, and general aide to Nik, was heating up a large pot of stew over an open fire laid where the stove used to be, so the smoke could go up the old chimney. Pen, having refused Carol’s offer of help with the remark that it was her turn for kitchen d
uty, moved from cupboard to table laying out at least a dozen places with cracked dishes and mismatched cutlery, while Al opened a dusty bottle of wine that Bas had just retrieved from the sub-basement. They were talking among themselves, none of them paying any attention to what Nik and Carol were saying to each other.

  Quickly, keeping an eye on their companions so she could break off her descriptions of the earlier time if anyone came close enough to hear, Carol described the area around Marlowe House as she knew it.

  “Flowers and grass in the summertime.” Nik spoke in a pensive voice.

  “And colored lights on the tree in the middle of the square at Christmas.” Carol went on to describe the decorations and the festive air in London during the holiday season.

  “I have never seen a Christmas tree,” Nik said.

  “If you had asked me a few days ago, I would have told you that I have seen altogether too many of them,” Carol responded. “Now, I don’t think there can ever be too many Christmas trees. Nik, what would happen if you tried to find and decorate one?”

  “No one would know what it was,” he said, shaking his head at the idea. “Furthermore, there are no trees in Lond anymore, nor for miles on all sides of the city. Nor, if I could find one, would I be permitted to bring it here. I shall have to be content to see the marvel of a Christmas tree through your eyes, in the same way in which I see the rest of your vanished world.”

  They could not talk any longer, for more people were arriving. Each newcomer was allowed past the wooden barrier at the entrance only after Bas determined that this was indeed a member of Nik’s company. The last to appear was Lady Augusta, who was still wearing her tattered robes, which Carol now understood were chosen to make her blend in with everyone else. However, dreary clothing could not disguise the woman’s innate dignity, nor her commanding character. “Aug” was an important part of Nik’s little group of rebels.

  “She’s our resident witch,” Pen whispered to Carol. “She comes and goes as she pleases, and no one knows where she is when she is not at Lond. I think she knows a way to make herself invisible. Nik says such spells are impossible. I am not so sure.”