by Tanya Huff
"No." Elaine put Katie down and brushed wet hair back off her face. "Only for the last hundred kilometres or so."
"I'll let him out, Mommy." Small fingers struggled with the latch for a second, then a grey and white blur leapt from the table and disappeared under the tattered lounge by the window.
"Leave him be, Katie." A quick grab kept her daughter from burrowing beneath the furniture with the cat. "He needs to be alone for a while."
"Okay." Katie turned, looked speculatively up at the lawyer and announced, "I puked all over the car."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Catherine took the pronouncement in stride. "If you're feeling sick again," she crossed the kitchen and opened one of four identical doors, "the bathroom is through here." Reaching for the next door over, she continued. "This is the bedroom your aunt used – I suggest you use it as well as it's the only room in the house that's insulated. This is the hall, leading to the front door and the stairs – another four bedrooms up there, but as I said, uninsulated. And this is the cellar."
Elaine took an almost involuntary step forward. "What was that?"
"What was what?" the other woman asked carefully, closing the cellar door.
"The music. I heard music... just for a second. It sounded like, like..." Obviously, the lawyer hadn't heard it, so Elaine let the explanation trail off.
"Yes, well, these old houses make a lot of strange noises. There's an oil furnace down there, but it must be close to thirty-five years old, so I wouldn't count on it too much. I think your aunt depended on the woodstove. You do know how to use a woodstove, don't you?"
"I think I can figure it out." The question had hovered just on the edge of patronizing, and Elaine decided not to admit her total lack of experience. You burn wood; how hard could it be? Whole forests burn down on their own every year.
"Good. I've left a casserole and a litre of milk in the fridge. I don't imagine you'll want to cook after that long drive. You've got my number; if you need anything, don't hesitate to call."
"Thank you." As Catherine retrieved her umbrella, Elaine held open the porch door and wrinkled her nose. "Um, I was wondering, what happened to the pigs when my aunt died?"
"Worried about wild boars tearing up the property? You needn't; the pigs shuffled off this mortal coil months before your aunt did. There might still be packages marked Porky or Petunia in the freezer out in the woodshed."
Elaine closed the door on Catherine's laugh and leaned for a moment against the peeling paint. Porky and Petunia. Right. It had been a very long day. She started as skinny arms wrapped around her leg.
"Mommy? I'm hungry."
"I'm not surprised." She took a deep breath, turned, and scooped her daughter up onto her hip. "But first we're both putting on some dry clothes. How does that sound?"
Katie shrugged. "Sounds okay."
On the way to the bedroom, Elaine dropped the overnight case and pulled the cellar door open a crack, just to check. There was a faint, liquid trill of sound, and then the only thing she could hear was water running into the cistern.
"Mommy?"
"Did you hear the music, Katie?"
Katie listened with all the intensity only a small child could muster. "No," she said at last. "No music. What did it sound like?"
"Nothing honey. Mommy must have been imagining it." It had sounded like an invitation, but not the kind that could be discussed with a four-year-old. It probably should have been frightening, but it wasn't. Each note had sent shivers of anticipation dancing over her skin. Elaine was willing to bet the farm – well, maybe not that, as this rundown old place was the only refuge they had – that she hadn't been imagining anything.
* * * *
The forest was the most alive place she'd ever been; lush and tangled, with bushes reaching up, and trees reaching down, and wild flowers and ferns tucked in every possible nook and cranny. She danced through it to the wild call of the music and when she realized she was naked, it didn't seem to matter. Nothing scratched, nothing prickled, and the ground under her bare feet had the resilience of a good foam mattress.
Oh, yes! the music agreed.
The path the music lead her down had been danced on before. Her steps followed the imprint of a pair of cloven hooves.
She could see a clearing up ahead, a figure outlined in the brilliant sunlight, pan pipes raised to lips, an unmistakable silhouette, intentions obvious. She felt her cheeks grow hot.
What am I thinking of? Her feet lost a step in the dance. I'm responsible for a four- year-old child. I can't just go running off to... to... well, I can't just go running off.
Why not? the music asked indignantly.
"Because I can't! Yi!" She teetered, nearly fell, and made a sudden grab for the door frame. The cellar stairs fell away, dark and steep, and from somewhere down below the music made one final plea. It wailed its disappointment as she slammed the cellar door closed.
A little dreaming, a little sleepwalking, a little... Well, never mind. Elaine shoved a chair up under the doorknob and tried not to run back to the bedroom she was sharing with Katie. I'm just reacting to the first night in a new house. Nothing strange about that... And old furnaces make a lot of... noises.
Of course, she had to admit as she scrambled under the covers and snuggled up against the warmth of her sleeping daughter, old furnaces didn't usually make lecherous suggestions.
* * * *
"How much!?"
The oil man wiped his hands on a none-too-clean rag. "You got a 200 gallon tank there, Ms. Montgomery. Oil's thirty-six point two cents a litre, there's a about four and a half litres a gallon, that's, uh..." His brow furrowed as he worked out the math. "Three hundred and twenty-five dollars and eighty cents, plus G.S.T."
Elaine set the grubby piece of paper down on the kitchen table and murmured, "Just like it says on the bill."
He beamed. "That's right."
She had just over five hundred dollars in the account she'd transferred to the local bank. Enough, she'd thought, given that they no longer needed to pay rent, to give her and Katie a couple of months to get settled before she had to find work. Apparently, she'd thought wrong. "I'll get my cheque book." If her aunt kept the house warm with the woodstove, she must've been re-lighting the fire every half an hour. Which was about as long as Elaine had been able to get it to burn.
The oil man watched as she wrote out his cheque, then scrawled paid in full across the bill and handed it to her with a flourish. "Don't you worry," he said as she winced. "Your late aunt managed to get by spendin' only twelve hundred dollars for heatin' last winter."
"Only twelve hundred dollars," Elaine repeated weakly.
"That's right." He paused in the door and grinned back at her. "'Course, not to speak ill of the dead, but I think she had other ways of keepin' warm."
"What do you mean?" At this point any other way sounded better than twelve hundred dollars.
"Well, one time, about, oh, four, five years ago now, I showed up a little earlier than I'd said, and I saw her comin' up out of the basement with the strangest sort of expression on her face. Walkin' a bit funny too. I think," he leaned forward and nodded sagely, "I think she was down there having a bit of a nip."
Elaine blinked. "But she never drank."
The oil man tapped his nose. "That's what they say. Anyway, Merry Christmas, Ms. Montgomery. I'll see you in the new year."
"Yes, Merry Christmas." She watched the huge truck roar away. "Three hundred and twenty-five dollars and eighty cents plus G.S.T. merrier for you anyway..."
"Mommy!"
The wail of a four-year-old in distress lifted every hair on her head and had her moving before her conscious mind even registered the direction of the cry. She charged out the back door without bothering to put on a coat, raced around the corner of the building, and almost tripped over the kneeling figure of her daughter.
"What is it, Katie? Are you hurt?"
Katie lifted a tear-streaked face, and Elaine got a glimpse of the blo
ody bundle in her lap. "Sid-cat's been killeded!"
* * * *
"Ms. Montgomery?"
Elaine moved Katie's head off her lap and stood to face the vet, leaving the sleeping child sprawled across three of the waiting-room chairs. There'd been a lot of blood staining the white expanse of his ruff, but Sid-cat had not actually been dead – although his life had been in danger a number of times during the wild drive in to the vet's. There are some things Fords are not meant to do on icy, back-country roads.
Dr. Levin brushed a strand of long, dark hair back off her face and smiled reassuringly. "He's going to be all right. I think we've even managed to save the eye."
"Thank God." She hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath until she let it out. "Do you know what attacked him?"
The vet nodded. "Another cat."
"Are you sure?"
"No doubt about it. He did a little damage himself, and the fur caught in his claws was definitely cat. You've moved into your aunt's old place, haven't you?"
"Yes..."
"Well, I wouldn't doubt there's a couple of feral cats living in what's left of that old barn of hers. You're isolated enough out there that they've probably interbred into vicious, brainless animals." She frowned. "Now, I don't hold with this as a rule, but housecats like Sid don't stand a chance against feral cats, and you've got a child to think of. You should consider hiring someone to clear them out."
"I'll think about it."
"Good." Dr. Levin smiled again. "Sid'll have to stay here for a few days, of course. Let's see, it's December 20th today, call me on the 24th. I think we can have him home for Christmas."
* * * *
When they got back to the farmhouse, a line of paw prints marked the fresh snow up to the porch door and away. In spite of the bitter cold, they could smell the reason for the visit as soon as they reached the steps.
"Boy pee!" Katie pronounced disdainfully, rubbing a mittened hand over her nose.
Every entrance to the house had been similarly marked.
The house itself was freezing. The woodstove had gone out. The furnace appeared to be having no effect.
Elaine looked down at her shivering daughter and seriously considered shoving her back into the car, cramming everything she could into the trunk, and heading back to the city. At least in the city, I know what's going on. She sagged against the cellar door and rubbed her hand across her eyes as a hopeful series of notes rose up from below. At least in the city, I wasn't hearing things. But they didn't have a life in the city anymore.
Come and play, said the music. Come and...
I can't! she told it silently. Shut up!
"Mommy? Are you okay?"
With an effort, she shook herself free. "I'm fine Katie. Mommy's just worried about Sid-cat."
Katie nodded solemnly. "Me too."
"I know what we should do, baby. Let's put up the Christmas tree." Elaine forced a smile and hoped it didn't look as false as it felt. "Here it is December 20th and we haven't even started getting ready for Christmas."
"We go to the woods and chop it down?" Katie grabbed at her mother's hand. "There's an axe in the shed."
"No, sweetheart. Mommy isn't much good with an axe." Chopping wood for the stove had been a nightmare. "We'll use the old tree this year."
"Okay." The artificial tree and the box marked decorations had been left by the dining room table. Katie raced towards them, stopped, and looked back at her mother, her face squeezed into a worried frown. "Will Santa be able to find me way out here? Does he know where we went?"
Elaine reached down and laid a hand lightly on Katie's curls. "Santa can find you anywhere," she promised. Katie's presents had been bought with the last of her severance pay, the day she got the call that her aunt had left her the family farm. No matter what, Katie was getting a Christmas.
The six-foot, fake spruce seemed dwarfed by the fifteen-foot ceilings in the living room and even the decorations didn't do much to liven it up, although Katie very carefully hung two boxes of tinsel over the lower four feet.
"It needs the angel," she said, stepping back and critically surveying her handiwork. "Put the angel on now, Mommy."
"Well, it certainly needs something," Elaine agreed, mirroring her daughter's expression. Together, very solemnly, they lifted the angel's case out of the bottom of the box.
Carefully, Elaine undid the string that held the lid secure.
"Tell me the angel story again, Mommy."
"The angel was a present," Elaine began, shifting so that Katie's warm weight slid under her arm and up against her heart, "from my father to my mother on the day I was born."
"So she's really old."
"Not so very old!" The protest brought a storm of giggles. "He told my mother that, as she'd given him an angel..."
"That was you."
"...that he'd give her one. And every Christmas he'd sit the angel on the very top of the Christmas tree, and she'd glow." When Elaine had been small, she'd thought the angel glowed on her own and had been more than a little disappointed to discover the tiny light tucked back in-between her wings. "When you were born, my parents..."
"Grandma and Grandpa."
"That's right, Grandma and Grandpa..." Who had known their granddaughter for only a year before the car crash. "...gave the angel to me because I'd given them another angel."
"Me," Katie finished triumphantly.
"You," Elaine agreed, kissed the top of Katie's head and folded back the tissue paper. She blew on her fingers to warm them then slid her hand very gently under the porcelain body and lifted the angel out of the box. The head wobbled once, then fell to the floor and shattered into a hundred pieces.
Elaine looked down at the shards of porcelain, at the tangled ruin of golden-white hair lying in their midst, and burst into tears.
* * * *
Come and play! called the music. Be happy! Come and...
"No!"
"No what, Mommy?"
"Never mind, pet. Go back to sleep."
"Did you have a bad dream?"
"Yes." Except it had been a very good dream.
"Don't worry, Mommy. Santa will bring another angel. I asked him to."
Elaine gently touched Katie's cheek then swiped at her own. Isn't it enough we're stuck in this freezing cold house – only the bedroom was tolerable – in the middle of nowhere with no money? I thought we could make this a home. I thought I could give her a Christmas at least...
But when the angel had shattered, Christmas had shattered with it.
* * * *
"I'm tired of eating pigs."
"I know, baby, so am I." Porky and Petunia had become the main course of almost every meal they'd eaten since they arrived. Elaine had thought, had hoped they could have a turkey for Christmas, but with the size of the oil bill – not to mention oil bills yet to come – added to the cost of keeping the cat at the vet for four days, it looked like a turkey was out of the question.
"I don't want pigs anymore!"
"There isn't anything else."
Katie pushed out her lower lip and pushed the pieces of chop around on her plate.
Elaine sighed. There were only so many ways to prepare... pigs, and she had run out of new ideas. Her aunt's old cookbooks had been less than no help. They were so old that recipes called for a penny-weight of raisins and began the instructions for roasting a chicken with a nauseatingly detailed lesson on how to pluck and gut it.
* * * *
"Mommy. Mommy, wake up!"
"What is it, Katie?"
"Mommy, tomorrow is Christmas!"
Elaine just barely stopped herself from saying, So what?
"And today we bring Sid-cat home!"
And today we pay Sid-cat's vet bill. She didn't know what she was looking forward to less, a cold Christmas spent with Porky and Petunia or the emptying out of her chequing account.
Bundling a heavy wool sweater on over her pyjamas, she went out to see if the fire in the woodstove ha
d survived the night and if maybe a cup of coffee would be possible before noon.
Not, she thought as a draft of cold air swirled around her legs through the open bedroom door, that I have very high hopes.
"Katie!" A layer of ash laid a grey patina over everything within a three foot radius of the stove. "Did you do this?"
A small body pushed between her and the counter. "You said, stay away from the stove." Katie swung her teddy bear by one leg, the arc of its head drawing a thick, fuzzy line through the ash on the floor. "So, I stayed away. Honest truly."
"Then how...?"
Teddy drew another arc. "The wind came down the chimney whoosh?"
"Maybe. Maybe it was the wind." But Elaine didn't really believe that. Just like she didn't really believe she saw a tiny, slippered footprint right at the point where a tiny person would have to brace their weight to empty the ash pan. Heart in her throat, she stepped forward, squatted, and swiped at the print with the edge of her sweater. She didn't believe in it. It didn't exist.
The sudden crash of breaking glass, however, couldn't be ignored.
Slowly, she turned and faced the cellar door.
"That came from downstairs," Katie said helpfully, brushing ash off her teddy bear's head onto her pyjamas.
"I know that, Katie. Mommy has ears. Go sit in the chair by the window." She looked down at her daughter's trembling lip and added a terse, "Please."
Dragging her feet, Katie went to the chair.
"Now stay there. Mommy's going down to the cellar to see what broke the window." Mommy's out of her mind...
"I want to go too!"
"Stay there! Please. It's probably just some animal trying to get in out of the cold." The cellar door opened without the expected ominous creak, and, although Elaine would have bet money against it, a flick of the switch flooded as much of the cellar as she could see with light. Of course, there's always the part I can't see.
