In the bleak midwinter
( A Special Agent Constance Mandalay - 1 )
M. R. Sellars
M. R. Sellars
In the bleak midwinter
“You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us. Is that so, Spirit?”
- Ebenezer Scrooge
CHAPTER 1
3:26 PM – December 22, 1975
US Highway 136
Midway between Mais and Hulis Townships
Northern Missouri
Merrie Frances Callahan’s ten-year-old brain felt like it was going to explode at any moment. She knew it couldn’t really, but it still felt like it. But even if it could, she imagined the blow-up probably wouldn’t happen until sometime after she threw up. Of course, the way she felt right now, that might well be coming soon enough.
Her stomach was aching, as if something was trapped inside her and trying to claw its way out. Her head pounded, and her mouth tasted like sour milk, just as it had for most of the afternoon. It hadn’t helped either that Sister Regina had made her eat lunch, whether she had the appetite for it or not. But that was Sister Regina for you. She wouldn’t believe you were sick unless you threw up right in front of her, and sometimes not even then.
“Do as you’re told and keep your mouth shut, or else,” was what she would always say.
The or else part was never pleasant where any of the nuns at Immaculate Conception were concerned, but when Sister Regina said it, you definitely listened. Sister Conran was even worse than her, but not by much.
Knowing this, Merrie only dared to object once, which as it turned out was one time too many given Sister Regina’s reaction. After that, she did exactly as she was told, without complaint, even though every bite of her lunch had made her want to puke.
“It would be your fault…”
The painful words continued tumbling around inside her head, stopping mid somersault to jeer at her whenever she so much as blinked. For that very reason she tried not to. She simply stared straight ahead, watching quietly through the windshield of the car, until finally and without fail, the dry air would force her eyelids to flutter, no matter how hard she tried to stop them.
“It would be your fault…”
Normally she loved words. Reading was her best and favorite subject. In fact, she had even won the fifth grade spelling bee last month, beating out that stuck-up Johnny Seitz on the word COMMEMORATE; and it was one from the eighth grade vocabulary list.
But these words were different. These words she hated. She hated them very much, as well as the words that came along with them. She hated those even more. But just as she couldn’t stop herself from blinking, no matter how hard she tried to forget the painful words, they just wouldn’t go away.
Merrie listened to the hum of the tires against the pavement as it blended with the low whoosh of the air from the heater vents in front of her. She concentrated on the drone, allowing it to pour into her ears in hopes that it would fill her head and force the hurtful words out.
Much to her disappointment, it didn’t, but before long its soothing lull caused her to give in to the dry air. She closed her eyes, then breathed deep while trying to think of something happy. For most anyone else, that would be easy. After all, it would be Christmas in just a couple of days. However, that didn’t cheer her up at all. In fact, it just made the bad feelings worse and the pain in the pit of her stomach even more terrible.
Behind her, strapped into the back seat, Merrie’s younger sister Becca began singing Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. Well, she was really only singing part of it. Her version was just repeating one or two lines of the chorus and then throwing in extra words whenever she felt like it. However, since she was barely five, she was doing okay and she was even almost staying on key. Unfortunately, the cheerful noise wasn’t helping Merrie’s mood any more than her own constant thoughts of the coming holiday.
She heard her name and then felt a light brush against her arm. The unexpected sensation was like an electric shock and it made her jump. In that brief moment of fear, she shrank away from the touch, pressing herself into the cold, vinyl upholstery of the inner car door.
“I’m sorry, honey.” Her mother’s concerned voice drifted into her ears. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“That’s okay,” Merrie replied.
“Why so jumpy?”
Merrie shrugged inside her coat. “I dunno.”
“You’ve been awfully quiet since we left the school. Are you feeling all right?”
Merrie allowed herself to slump back down into the seat as she mumbled, “I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“I just kinda have a headache. That’s all.”
Elizabeth Callahan picked her glove from her fingers with her teeth, while leaving the other hand on the steering wheel in order to keep the vehicle aimed along the two-lane stretch of blacktop.
Spitting the glove onto the bench seat between them she said, “Lean over this way for a second.”
Once Merrie complied, she reached over and pressed the back of her bared hand against her daughter’s forehead.
“Are you feeling sick, sweetheart?”
“Maybe a little,” Merrie replied. “I just… I just have a headache.”
“Well… You don’t feel like you have a fever,” her mother announced. “But you do look a little flushed. Is it just a headache? There’s a flu going around.”
“My stomach doesn’t feel very good either.”
“I sure hope you aren’t coming down with something,” Elizabeth said while she carefully manipulated the glove back onto her hand. Eventually she offered, “Do you think maybe it was just too much excitement at your class party today?”
“Maybe,” Merrie replied, agreeing easily. “That’s when I started getting the headache. There really was a lot going on.”
It seemed like as good an excuse as any, and if her Mom came up with it, even better. She’d be more likely to believe it that way, and maybe she would stop asking questions if Merrie just played along.
“I bet you ate a lot of candy too.”
“Yeah.” Merrie lied. She didn’t want to, but her mother was still prying and it was just easier this way.
What she really needed was for her to stop digging because if she didn’t, then she might accidentally tell her what happened; and if she did, then… Well… Merrie didn’t even want to think about it, but she just couldn’t make herself think about anything else.
“Did you at least have fun?” Elizabeth prodded.
“Sure.”
“Oh, I meant to ask earlier… Did you get to help with the younger kids and S-A-N-T-A like you wanted?”
Merrie felt her stomach twist into a hard knot. This was exactly the kind of thing she had been afraid her mother would ask. Fortunately, her sister gave her an unexpected reprieve.
“SANTA! SANTA!” Becca chirped from the back seat, abandoning the never-ending song in favor of her mother’s mention of the Jolly Man himself. “Santa Claus!”
Obviously the spelling trick was no longer a viable option.
Elizabeth said something to her youngest daughter, but Merrie didn’t catch it, other than to know words were being spoken. The man in the red suit was filling her thoughts as well, but in a much different way than he was for Becca.
And, those painful words were bouncing around inside her skull once again.
“It would be your fault…”
Even as the phrase echoed silently through her head, she could feel him. His hand slipping beneath the pleated skirt of her school uniform as he groped her in places he shouldn’t touch. The bare light bulb inside the
janitor’s closet cast a dim glow from above, and as he held her down he appeared as little more than a hulking silhouette in muddy tones of red and white. He stank with a weird “grandma’s house” smell of cigarettes, mothballs, and peppermint candies. It filled her nose, tingling and taking her breath away as he held his other hand pressed tightly over her mouth. Even now, she could feel the hot tears that had burned her eyes as he pushed his fingers into the waistband of her underwear and pulled them down around her knees.
“Remember, this is a secret…” he whispered, his cigarette stinking breath was wet on her cheek, and the fake beard felt scratchy against her skin. “If you tell anyone, I’ll have to come to your house and hurt your parents. Maybe even kill them. It would be your fault that I would have to kill them. You don’t want that to happen, do you? You don’t want to make me kill your parents, right? Promise you won’t tell…”
She had tried to promise, but her mouth was still covered and all that came out was a whine from her nose. Of course, it didn’t matter, because he wasn’t listening to her anyway. He was already doing things he shouldn’t do.
Things that hurt…
Things that made her cry…
“We’ll see, Becca… We’ll see…” Elizabeth’s exasperated voice snapped Merrie back into the here and now, but the memories remained, fresh and painful as ever.
She shrunk herself as small as she could inside her down-filled coat, balling her small hands into tight fists and pulling them up into the puffy sleeves. She pushed her chin against her chest and her dark hair flopped forward to cover her face. The air from the heater vent in the floorboard was hot against her legs, and it reminded her of his rough, probing hands against her skin. She shuddered, and then lifted her chin and turned her head to look out the side window. In an absent motion she reached up and brushed the hair from her eyes with the back of her sleeve.
Merrie stared through the smudged pane of glass as the landscape rushed by. The sun was already resting low on the horizon behind them, so the snow covered fields on either side of the highway were already filling with scary, blue-black shadows. But home wasn’t all that far away. They would be there soon and then maybe she would finally feel safe.
Home had to be safe. It just had to be. Surely he couldn’t find them there. Ater all, he wasn’t really Santa Claus. Santa wasn’t even real. So he didn’t have a magic list.
But maybe he didn’t need one. He knew her name…
“Ho, Ho, Ho!” he bellowed, putting on a show for Sister Conran. “Why yes, Sister. Yes, Merrie was very helpful today. Thank you so much for letting her assist me. I wouldn’t have been prepared to visit with the younger children without her. She’s Santa’s special little helper. Aren’t you, Merrie?”
She wanted to cringe when he reached over and rubbed his hand against her back in a way that just didn’t feel right. She thought about telling the nun what had really happened, but she knew Sister Conran would probably think she was lying.
“What do you say, Merrie Frances?” Sister Conran demanded, her voice sharp and mean like always.
“Yes, sir… Thank you for letting me help.” Merrie managed to choke out the words, but she kept her eyes aimed at the floor as she spoke. She simply couldn’t bear to look at him.
“Yes,” he continued with his praise and unwelcome touching. “Merrie is Santa’s very special little helper, she is… VERY special…”
Merrie’s stomach continued to churn as a new wave of fear settled over her. He knew her name.
But… it’s just my name, she thought. And I live in Hulis, not Mais. That’s a whole town away. He can’t really know where I live. Unless he is following us…
Hollowness filled Merrie’s chest at the thought, and she wasn’t sure she could breathe anymore. She closed her eyes and tried to wish as hard as she could that she was really just asleep. That this was all just a terrible nightmare, and that when she opened her eyes she would be waking up in her bed. And that instead of mothballs and cigarettes, she would smell the fresh cut evergreen Christmas tree in the living room… And wood burning in the fireplace… And hot oatmeal with lots of butter, and cinnamon, and brown sugar, just the way she liked it…
But when she finally did open her eyes, the snowy fields were still flashing by the window behind a gray-white fog on the inside of the glass. And though he wasn’t here, his nasty smell lingered in her nose, even if it was just a bad memory.
And, she was still afraid.
Merrie loosened her safety belt then slowly twisted in the seat, lifting herself up just enough to see over its back. Fear or not, she had to know if he was following them. Peeking carefully through the rear window she saw no cars, just the empty, dark asphalt of the highway funneling toward a shrinking point in the distance.
At least now maybe she could breathe.
“Santa Claus is coming to town!” Becca crooned, grinning at her older sister and waving her hands as she yelped out the song. “Watch out! He’s gonna find out you’re naughty and nice! Santa Claus…”
Merrie managed a weak smile at her sibling before turning around and settling back into her seat and rearranging her safety belt. Becca didn’t understand. She still believed in reindeer. And magic. And happiness. And Santa. She didn’t know who he really was. She didn’t know what the man in the red suit would do to her. That thought frightened Merrie most of all.
“Is something wrong?” Elizabeth asked, glancing into the rear view mirror, then over at her daughter.
“No.”
“You’re not acting like yourself, honey.”
“I’m okay. Just tired from the party. Like you said.”
“Okay…” Elizabeth sighed, then added, “I really hope you aren’t coming down with that flu. Especially this close to Christmas.”
“Mom?” Merrie asked after a short pause.
“Yes?”
“Does God really hate you if you have bad thoughts about someone?”
Elizabeth glanced at her daughter thoughtfully and then centered her eyes back on the road. “Is that what the nuns at school tell you?”
“They say you’ll go to hell.”
Her mother sighed. “Are you having bad thoughts about someone?”
Merrie mumbled, “Yes.”
“Who?”
“Just…someone.”
“You don’t want to tell me?”
Inside her head, the bad words bullied Merrie once again.
“Remember. This is a secret… If you tell anyone, I’ll have to come to your house and hurt your parents. Maybe even kill them. It would be your fault that I would have to kill them. You don’t want that to happen, do you? You don’t want to make me kill your parents, right? Promise you won’t tell…”
“I can’t…” she replied.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t… I… I sort of made a promise.”
Elizabeth glanced at her daughter again. “So is that what’s really bothering you, honey? These bad thoughts… Is that maybe why you’re feeling sick?”
Merrie gave her a shallow nod. “Sort of… I guess.”
Her mother sighed. “You’re only ten-years-old, sweetheart. I’m sure God will forgive you.”
“Are you really sure?”
“Yes, honey. I’m really sure.” Elizabeth waited for a moment before adding, “If you don’t feel like you can tell me about it right now, and it’s still bothering you later, maybe your father and I can talk with you this evening. But only if you want.”
“But… Wouldn’t God hate me if I broke a promise?”
“I don’t believe God hates anyone, sweetheart, and you shouldn’t either.”
Elizabeth made a mental note to discuss this with her husband and schedule a conference with Sister Conran. Soon. This wasn’t the first time Merrie had expressed a fear of Hell, but it was definitely the first time it seemed to affect her so adversely. They were paying the tuition and making these twice-daily road trips so that they could send their daughter to Im
maculate Conception for a good education, not so she could be brainwashed and intimidated. They’d known the staff at IC wasn’t as progressive regarding religion as they would have liked, but it was the only Catholic school within a reasonable distance, and moving simply wasn’t an option. However, if this was the sort of thing Merrie had to endure, she would probably be better off going to the public school in Hulis; not to mention it would save both money and time.
After a pause, Elizabeth said, “You know, Merrie, sometimes it helps me feel better if I talk about what’s bothering me.”
“Even if you made a promise not to?” Merrie asked.
“Sometimes,” she replied with a nod. “It sort of depends on the promise…” Elizabeth paused for a long moment then clucked her tongue and said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll stop pestering you about it. You just give it some thought, and if you feel like talking later we can. I’d just hate it if you were feeling bad over the holidays. So would your father. Especially if it’s something we can help you sort through.”
“Okay,” Merrie replied. “I’ll think about it.”
The truth is, she didn’t want to think about it at all. She wanted nothing more than to make it go away. She wanted to just pretend it never happened. But she had a terrible kind of weird feeling inside. It was a kind of feeling that told her she couldn’t ever make this go away.
Ever.
Still, her mother’s words gave her some small bit of comfort. In a way, they had switched on a dim light in the terrible darkness that had been wrapped around her all afternoon. Once they were at home, maybe they really would be safe. And, if she could tell Daddy what had happened, he could protect Mom and Becca from the man in the red suit. Daddy would know just what to do and then everything would be okay. He would make it all right.
They continued along the highway in silence, but Merrie’s mood wasn’t quite as dark as before. The inner glow was becoming brighter as they closed the distance between themselves and home. For the first time since late this morning, she was feeling that it was possible everything could be okay. They just had to get home before that could happen.
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