by Tanya Huff
The temperature dropped as she moved down the stairs, and she shivered as she crossed the second step; until this moment, the furthest she'd descended. At the bottom of the stairs, she could see the cistern, the furnace, wheezing away in its corner, and the rusted bulk of the oil tank. An icy breeze against her right cheek pulled her around.
Probably just some animal trying to get in out of the cold, she repeated, taking one step, two, three. A lot it knows... By the fourth step she'd drawn even with the window and was squinting in the glare of morning sun on snow. Oh, my God. The glass had been forced out, not in, and the tracks leading away were three-pronged and deep. She whirled around, caught sight of a flash of colour, and froze.
The feather was about six inches long and brilliantly banded with red and gold. She bent to pick it up and caught sight of another, a little smaller and a little mashed. The second feather lay half in shadow at the base of the rough stone wall. The third, fourth and fifth feathers were caught on the stone at the edge of a triangular hole the size of Elaine's head.
Something had forced its way out of that hole and then out of the cellar.
Barely breathing, Elaine backed up a step, the feather falling from suddenly nerveless fingers.
"Mommy?"
She didn't remember getting to the top of the cellar stairs. "Get dressed, Katie." With an effort, she kept her voice steady. "We're going in to get Sid." And we're going to keep driving. And we're not going to stop until Easter.
* * * *
"...I don't expect anyone to have that kind of cash right at Christmas." Dr. Levin smiled down at Katie, who had her face pressed up against the bars of the cat carrier. "I'll send you a bill in the new year and we can work out a payment schedule."
"You're sure?" Elaine asked incredulously.
"I'm very sure."
The vet in Toronto had accepted credit cards, but certainly not credit. Under the circumstances, it seemed ungracious to suggest that they might not be around in the new year. Elaine swallowed once and squared her shoulders. "Dr. Levin, did you know my aunt?"
"Not well, but I knew her."
"Did she ever mention anything strange going on in that house?"
Ebony eyebrows rose. "What do you mean, strange?"
Elaine waved her hands helplessly, searching for the words. "You know, strange."
The vet laughed. "Well, as I said, we weren't close. The only thing I can remember her saying about the house is that she could never live anywhere else. Why? Have strange things been happening?"
"You might say that..."
"Give it a little while," Dr. Levin advised sympathetically. "You're not used to country life."
"True..." Elaine admitted slowly. Was that it?
"If it helps, I know your aunt was happy out there. She always smiled like she had a wonderful secret. I often envied her that smile."
Elaine, scrabbling in the bottom of her purse for a pencil, barely heard her. Maybe she just wasn't used to living in the country. Maybe that was all it was. "One more thing, if you don't mind, Doctor." She turned over the cheque she hadn't needed to fill out and quickly sketched the pattern of tracks that had lead away from the basement window. "Can you tell me what kind of an animal would make these?"
Dr. Levin pursed her lips and studied the slightly wobbly lines. "It's a type of bird, that's for certain. Although I wouldn't like to commit myself one hundred percent, I'd say it's a chicken."
Elaine blinked. "A chicken?"
"That's right." She laughed. "Don't tell me you've got a feral chicken out there as well as a feral cat?"
Elaine managed a shaky laugh in return. "Seems like."
"Well, keep Sid inside, make sure you give him the antibiotics, call me if he shows any sign of pain, and..." She reached into the pocket of her lab coat and pulled out a pair of candy canes. "...have a merry Christmas."
* * * *
"Mommy?" Katie poked one finger into her mother's side. "Sid-cat doesn't like the car. Let's go home."
Elaine bit her lip. Home. Well, they couldn't sit in the parking lot forever. Dr. Levin had said it was a chicken. Who could be afraid of a chicken? It had probably been living down in the basement for some time. It had finally run out of food, so it had left. There was probably nothing behind that hole in the wall but a bit of loose earth.
Her aunt had never said there was anything strange about the house and she'd lived there all her adult life. Had been happy there.
Where else did they have to go?
* * * *
The fire in the woodstove was still burning when they got home. Elaine stared down at it in weary astonishment and hastily shoved another piece of wood in before it should change its mind and go out. The kitchen was almost warm.
Very carefully, she pulled Sid-cat out of the carrier and settled him in a shallow box lined with one of Katie's outgrown sweaters. He stared up at her with his one good eye, blinked, yawned, gave just enough of a purr so as not to seem ungracious, and went back to sleep.
Katie looked from the cat to her half-eaten candy cane to her mother. "Tomorrow is Christmas," she said solemnly. "It doesn't feel like Christmas."
"Oh, Katie..."
Leaving her daughter squatting by the box, "standing guard in case that federal cat comes back", Elaine went into the living room and stared at the Christmas tree. If only the angel hadn't broken. She thought she could cope with everything else, could pull a sort of Christmas out of the ruins, if only the angel still looked down from the top of the tree.
Maybe she could glue it back together.
The ruins lay on the dining room table, covered with an ancient linen napkin. A tiny corpse in a country morgue...
That's certainly the Christmas spirit, Elaine... She bit her lip and flicked the napkin back. One bright green glass eye stared up at her from its nest of shattered porcelain. Oh God...
"MOMMY!"
She was moving before the command had time to get from brain to feet.
"MOM-MEEEE!"
Katie was backed into a corner of the kitchen, one arm up over her face, the other waving around trying to drive off a flock of...
Of pixies?
They were humanoid, sexless, about eight inches tall with a double pair of gossamer wings, and they glowed in all the colours of the rainbow. Long hair, the same iridescent shade as their skin, streamed around them, moving with an almost independent life of its own. Even from a distance they were beautiful, but as Elaine crossed the kitchen, she saw that her daughter's arms were bleeding from a number of nasty-looking scratches and a half a dozen of them had a hold of Katie's curls.
"Get away from her!" Elaine charged past the kitchen table, grabbed a magazine, rolled it on the run, and began flailing at the tiny bodies. She pulled a pink pixie off Katie's head and threw it across the kitchen. "Go back where you came from you, you overgrown bug!" It hit the wall beside the fridge, shook itself, buzzed angrily, and sped back to Katie.
"Mom-meee!"
"Keep your eyes covered, honey!" They swarmed so thick around the little girl that every swing knocked a couple out of the air. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to discourage them, although they did, finally, acknowledge the threat.
"Be careful, Mommy!" Katie wailed as the entire flock turned. "They bite!"
Their teeth weren't very big, but they were sharp.
The battle raged around the kitchen. Elaine soon bled from a number of small wounds. The pixies appeared to be no worse off than when they'd started even though they'd each been hit at least once.
A gold pixie perched for a moment on the table and hissed up at her, gnashing blood-stained teeth. Without thinking, Elaine slammed her aunt's old aluminium colander over it.
It shrank back from the sides and began hissing in earnest.
One down... The kitchen counter hit her in the small of the back. Elaine smashed her wrist against the cupboard, dislodging a purple pixie that had been attempting to chew her hand off, and groped around for a weapon. Dish rack, spatu
la, dish soap, spray can of snow...
Katie had wanted to write Merry Christmas on the kitchen window. They hadn't quite gotten around to it.
Elaine's fingers closed around the can. Knocking the lid off against the side of the sink, she nailed a lavender pixie at point-blank range.
The goopy white spray coated its wings, and it plummeted to the floor, hissing with rage.
"HA! I've got you now, you little... Take that! And that!"
The kitchen filled with the drifting clouds of a chemical blizzard.
"Mommy! They're leaving!"
Although a number of them were running rather than flying, the entire swarm appeared to be racing for the cellar door. With adrenaline sizzling along every nerve, Elaine followed. They weren't getting away from her that easily. She reached the bottom of the stairs in time to see the first of the pixies dive through the hole. Running full out, she managed to get in another shot at the half-dozen on foot before they disappeared and then, dropping to her knees, emptied the can after them.
"And may all your Christmases be white!" she screamed, sat back on her heels, and panted, feeling strong and triumphant and, for the first time in a long time, capable. She grinned down at the picture of Santa on the can. "I guess we showed them, didn't we?" Patting him on the cheek, she set the empty container down, noted it was a good thing she'd gotten the large, economy size, and turned her attention to the hole. The rock that had fallen out – or been pushed out – wasn't that large and could easily be manoeuvred back into place. She'd come down later with a can of mortar. Bucket of mortar? Someone at the hardware store would know.
Now that she really took the time to look at it, the hole actually occupied the lower corner of a larger patch in the wall. None of the stones were very big and although they'd been set carefully, they were obviously not part of the original construction. Squinting in the uncertain light, Elaine leaned forward and peered at a bit of red smeared across roughly the centre stone.
Was it blood?
It was Coral Dawn. She had a lipstick nearly the same shade in her purse. And the shape of the smear certainly suggested...
"Sealed with a kiss?"
Frowning, she poked at it with a fingertip.
The music crescendoed, and feelings not her own rode with it. Memories of... She felt herself flush. Sorrow at parting. Loneliness. Welcome. Annoyance that other, smaller creatures broke the rules and forced the passage.
Come and play! Come and...
A little stunned, Elaine lifted her finger. The music continued, but the feelings stopped. She swallowed and adjusted her jeans.
"I think she had other ways of keeping warm. Walkin' a bit funny too."
"She always smiled like she had a wonderful secret."
"A wonderful secret. Good lord." It was suddenly very warm in the cellar. If her aunt, her old, fragile aunt, who had obviously been a lot more flexible than she'd appeared, had accepted the music's invitation...
The scream of a furious cat jerked her head around and banished contemplation.
"Now what?" she demanded, scrambling to her feet and racing for the stairs. "Katie, did you let Sid-cat outside?"
"No." Katie met her at the cellar door, eyes wide. "It's two other cats. And a chicken."
Elaine gave her daughter a quick hug. "You stay here and guard Sid-cat. Mommy'll take care of it."
The pixie trapped under the colander hissed inarticulate threats.
"Shut up," she snapped without breaking stride. To her surprise, it obeyed. Grabbing her jacket, she headed out through the woodshed, snatching up the axe as she went. She didn't have a clue what she was going to do with it, but the weight felt good in her hand.
The cats were an identical muddy calico, thin with narrow heads, tattered ears, and vicious expressions. Bellies to the snow and ragged tails lashing from side to side, they were flanking the biggest chicken Elaine had ever seen. As she watched, one of the cats darted forward and the chicken lashed out with its tail.
Up until this moment, Elaine had never seen a chicken that hadn't been wrapped in cellophane, but even she knew that chickens did not have long, scaled, and, apparently, prehensile tails.
The first cat dodged the blow, while the second narrowly missed being eviscerated by a sideswipe from one of the bird's taloned feet. Elaine wasn't sure she should get involved, mostly because she wasn't sure whose side she should be on. Although the chicken had come from her cellar.
Growling low in its throat, the first cat attacked again, slid under a red and gold wing, and found itself face to face with its intended prey. To Elaine's surprise, the bird made no attempt to use its beak. It merely stared, unblinking, into the slitted yellow eyes of the cat.
The cat suddenly grew very still, its growl cut off in mid note, its tail frozen in mid lash.
All at once, choosing sides became very easy.
Still buzzing from her battle with the pixies, Elaine charged forward. The not-quite-a-chicken turned. Eyes squeezed shut, knuckles white around the haft, she swung the axe in a wild arc. Then again. And again.
The blade bit hard into something that resisted only briefly. Over the pounding of the blood in her ears, Elaine heard the sound of feathers beating against air and something stumbling in the snow. Something slammed against her shins. Opening her eyes a crack, she risked a look.
The headless body of the bird lay, not entirely still, at her feet. She leapt back as the tail twitched and nearly fell over the stone statue of the cat. Its companion glared at her, slunk in, grabbed the severed head, and, trailing blood from its prize, raced under a tangle of snow-laden bushes.
"I am not going to be sick," Elaine told herself sternly, leaning on the axe. Actually, the instruction appeared unnecessary. Although she was a little out of breath, she felt exalted rather than nauseous. She poked at the corpse with her foot. Whatever remaining life force had animated it after its head had been chopped off appeared to have ebbed. "And it's really most sincerely dead," she muttered. "Now what?"
Then the crunch of small bones from the bushes gave her an idea, and she smiled.
* * * *
Elaine watched Katie instructing Sid-cat in the use of her new paint box and decided that this could be one of the best Christmases she'd had in years. The woodstove seemed to be behaving, throwing out enough heat to keep the kitchen and the living room warm and cosy. She'd found a bag of frozen cranberries jammed under one of Porky's generous shoulders, and a pot of cranberry sauce now bubbled and steamed on top of the stove. Thanks to the instructions in her aunt's old cookbooks, the smell of roasting... well, the smell of roasting filled the house.
Her gaze drifted up to the top of the tree. Although the old angel had been an important part of her old life and she'd always feel its loss, the new angel was an equally important symbol of her fight to make a new life, and find a new home for herself and her daughter. Tethered with a bit of ribbon, its wings snow-covered in honour of the season, the pixie tossed glowing golden hair back off its face and gnawed on a bit of raw pork.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, Katie."
"Didn't Santa bring you any presents?"
"Mommy got her present early this morning. While you were still asleep."
"Did you like it?"
"Very, very much."
On the stereo, a Welsh choir sang Hosannas. Rising up from the cellar, wrapping around a choirboy's clear soprano, a set of pipes trilled out smug hosannas of their own.
A long, long time ago, I was a Brownie. In fact, I was a Brownie for two extra years. I started early because a new Brownie troop had just been formed and they needed girls, so my best friend and I were allowed in even though we were underage. I stayed late because the local Guide troop had no room, so the six of us ready to fly up were made junior leaders and allowed to pretty much run things for a year. Not surprisingly, after we finally did fly up and were suddenly low girl in the pecking order again, we all quit.
These days, the only interaction I have with G
uiding is the same interaction everyone else in town has. During cookie season, a swarm of Sparks – very small girls in pink sweatshirts – surrounds anyone who gets out of a car in the grocery store parking lot. They sell a lot of cookies.
TUESDAY EVENINGS, SIX THIRTY TO SEVEN
She sat in the church hall basement on the old wooden chair like she'd sat for a thousand Septembers; where a thousand equalled thirty-seven, but seemed like so many more.
In the old days, she'd sat with other women – Tawny Owls, Grey Owls, Brown Owls – chatting and laughing and joyfully waiting for the new girls. Some girls raced down the stairs, leaving mothers or older sisters behind, thrilled to finally be old enough. Some descended slowly, deliberately, holding onto an adult hand, shy and unsure.
For the last eight years, she'd waited alone, but the girls still came. Less of them, sure, but she didn't need many – three or four eight-year-olds to join her nine-year-olds to replace those girls who had flown up. But both of last year's eight-year-olds had moved away, so this year, there were no nine-year-olds.
She watched the clock, watched eight o'clock come and go, and she stayed just a little longer. Sometimes parents got off work late. Or the girls might have school functions they needed to attend.
Eight thirty came and went.
She knew. She could feel the certainty catch at the back of her throat every time she swallowed. No one was going to come. What few girls the right age there were among the greying population of this small town had too many other enticements. Five hundred channels. A hundred gigabytes. Baseball. Ballet. Soccer. Music lessons.
They'd wanted her to fold the troop last year.
Maybe they'd been right.
She reached out a hand to scoop up the paperwork and brochures spread out on the scarred desk in front of her.
"Oi, Missus! Is this where we sign up?"
Decades of dealing with little girls had given her nerves of steel. Although she'd thought herself alone in the basement and could, in fact, see no evidence to the contrary, she neither started nor shrieked, merely leaned forward and peered over the edge of the desk.
