The Best of Gene Wolfe

by Gene Wolfe

Sherby braced his feet and tugged again; this time the little horse seemed ready to bolt. “You said I could lead him!”

  “I did, my son. And I do. You can lead him wherever you wish him to go. But you cannot pull him anywhere. He is eager to follow you, but he is a great deal stronger than you are.”

  “I want him to go in House!”

  Saint Nicholas nodded patiently. “Yet you yourself were not going into House. You were faced away from him, matching your strength against his. Now you are facing in the correct direction. Hold your rope in one hand, as though you expected him to follow you. Walk toward me, and if he does not follow at once, jerk the rope, not too hard. Say erchou!”

  Sherby tried it, making the word almost as guttural and rasping as Saint Nicholas had, and the little horse followed him readily, almost trotting.

  When all three were in the vestibule and House had shut the big front door behind them, Sherby looked up at the tall, grave saint with new respect. “You know a lot about ponies.”

  “My charioteer knew much more,” the saint told him, “but I know something about leading.”

  “Do you know if there are any other kids like me at the party?”

  The saint, who had been solemn the whole time, smiled. His smile made Sherby like him very much. “There is one, at least, my son. He was speaking with Father Eddi when last I saw him. Perhaps Father Eddi can help you.”

  Sherby, still leading Smoky, had entered the family room before it occurred to him—much too late—that he ought to have asked Saint Nicholas what Father Eddi looked like. There were a great many people there, both men and ladies, and it seemed to Sherby that the men were all plenty old enough to be fathers, for many were older than his own father. He caught at the wide sleeve of a tall figure in black, but his fingers grasped nothing, and when the tall figure looked down at him it had the face of a skull and curling horns. Hastily Sherby turned away.

  A small blond lady in a green dress that seemed (apart from its flaring collar of white petals) made of dark leaves appeared safer. “Please,” Sherby said, recalling his manners after the scare he had gotten. “Do you know Father Eddi?”

  The blond lady nodded and smiled, offering her hand. “I’m Christmas Rose. And you are . . . ?”

  “Sherby.”

  She smiled again; she was lovely when she smiled, and hardly taller than he. “Yes, I know Father Eddi, Sherby. He is Saint Wilfred’s chaplain, and he’d like this little horse of yours very much. Did my friend Knecht Rupprecht startle you?”

  “Is he your friend?” Sherby considered. “I’d like him better if he wasn’t so big.”

  “But he wouldn’t frighten demons and bad children half so much if he were no bigger than I, Sherby. He must run through the streets, you see, on Advent Thursday, so that the demons will think that a demon worse than themselves holds the town. For a few coins he will dance in your fields, and frighten the demons from them too.”

  Quite suddenly, Knecht Rupprecht was bending over Sherby, the skeletal bone of his jaw swinging and snapping. “Und den vor Christmas, vith Weihnachtsmann I come. You see here dese svitches?” He held a bundle of apple and cherry twigs under Sherby’s nose. “You petter pe gud, Sherpy.”

  Surprising himself by his own boldness, Sherby passed his free hand through the bundle. “You’re all just holos. House makes you.”

  He was sorry as soon as he did it, because Christmas Rose was so clearly disappointed in him. “It’s true that what you see now are holograms, Sherby. But we are real, nonetheless. I am a real flower, and Knecht Rupprecht a real custom. You will learn more, believe me, if you treat us as real. And since Carker’s Army is coming, you may not have much time in which to learn. Kite says they’re at the McKays’ already, and Mouse is going to see whether they left anyone alive.”

  “Will they come here?” Sherby asked.

  “We have no way of knowing that, Sherby. Let’s hope not.”

  Knecht Rupprecht said, “If dey do, I vill schare dem avay, Sherpy. I dry, und dot’s a promise.”

  “I didn’t like you at first,” Sherby told him. “But really I like you better than anybody. You and Christmas Rose.”

  She made him a formal curtsy.

  “Only I don’t understand how you can scare them away if they’re bad when you look like you’re bad, too.”

  “Der same vay I schare der demons, Sherpy, und der pad Kinder. Gut ist nod schared of vot’s gut, put pad’s schared py vorse. See dese?”

  He held out his switches again, and Sherby nodded.

  “I tell you now a secret, put you must nod tell der pad Kinder. Vunce I gome vith dese to make der fruits grow. Id ist der dead manns, der dead animals vot does dat, zo I gome vor dem. Schtill I do, but der Volk, dey don’ know.”

  Christmas Rose said, “We are comrades, Knecht Rupprecht and I, because of my other name. The botanists call me Black Hellebore. Not very pretty, is it?”

  Sherby shook his head sympathetically.

  “It’s because my roots are black. See?” She lifted her skirt to show black snakeskin shoes and black panty hose. “Of course, I am poisonous, but I can’t help it. I’m very pretty, I bloom in winter, and if you don’t eat me, I’ll never harm you.”

  “Did my mom and dad eat you?” Sherby asked.

  “No, that was something else.” Christmas Rose moved out of the way of a tall black man with a crown on his turban. “I could tell you its name, but that would convey no meaning to you. It’s an industrial chemical; your father brought it home from one of his factories.”

  “They shouldn’t have eaten any.” A spasm of recollected sorrow crossed Sherby’s face and was gone.

  “Der mama nefer meaned it,” Knecht Rupprecht told him kindly. “Do nod vorget dot, howefer old you lif.”

  “You should have stopped them!”

  Smoky stirred uneasily at the rage behind Sherby’s words.

  “We couldn’t,” Christmas Rose told him; there was a catch in her voice that Sherby was too young yet to recognize. “We were not there, neither Knecht Rupprecht nor I.”

  “You could because you’re House!”

  “Who I say I am, I am.” Red lights glowed in the eye sockets of Knecht Rupprecht’s bleached skull. “Did I say I vas House?”

  The fat man in livery, who had been passing with a tray of empty glasses, halted. “May I be of service, sir? I am House, the butler.”

  Christmas Rose said, “This little boy is looking for Father Eddi, House. If you happen to see him . . . ?”

  “Of course, madame.”

  Sherby tried to grasp the skirt of House’s blue-striped waistcoat, but no resistance met his fingers. “You should’ve stopped them! You know you should!”

  “I could not, Master Sherbourne, as long as your father was alive. And as your mother was, ah”—the butler cleared his throat—“the first to leave us, I was helpless until your father’s, hmm, demise. Had you not dawdled over your dinner, I should have been unable to preserve your life. As I did, Master Sherbourne.” He returned his attention to Christmas Rose. “Father Eddi, madame. I shall endeavor to locate him, madame. There should be no great difficulty.”

  Sherby shouted, “You can make them go away! Make them all go away!” but the fat butler had already disappeared into the crowd.

  As Sherby spoke, there was a stir on the other side of the big room. Knecht Rupprecht, who was tall enough to see over the heads of most of those present, announced, “Id ist der mama und der poppa, Sherpy. So priddy she ist lookin’!” He began to applaud, and everyone present except Sherby and Smoky joined in. Under the storm of sound, Sherby heard the snick, snick, snick of a hundred bolts shot home. A moment later the moonlit valley of the Whitewater slowly disappeared, blotted out by the descent of the picture window’s security shutter.

  A thin and reedy voice at his ear said, “A very merry Christmas to you, my son! You wished to speak with me?”

  Sherby turned; it was the little man in sandals.

  “I’m Father Edd
i, my son. Are you Master Sherbourne? That big fellow in the striped waistcoat said you wished to speak with me, and I’ll be glad to help if I can.” When he saw Sherby’s expression, Father Eddi’s own face grew troubled. “You certainly look unhappy enough.”

  Sherby gulped, knowing that his mother and father, dead, were talking and laughing with their guests. “I—I sort of hoped some other kids would come.”

  “Some have,” Father Eddi assured him. “Tiny Tim’s over there with Mr. and Mrs. Cratchit, and Greg—the doctor’s son, you know, who helped to make the pasteboard star—is about somewhere, and Louisa, the girl who felt sorry for the Little Guest.” Father Eddi paused expectantly; when Sherby said nothing, he added, “I can introduce you to them, if you like.”

  “A man . . .” Sherby had forgotten the tall saint’s name already. “A man said you were talking to some other kid. I thought that if I could find you, I could find him.”

  “So you can!” Father Eddi’s smile was radiant. “Follow me. He’s behind the tree at this very moment, I believe.” He started away, then stopped so abruptly that Sherby and Smoky ran into him, burying their faces in his insubstantial, brown-clad back. “He’s behind the tree, just as I told you. Every Christmas, he’s behind the tree. Before it too, of course.”

  Christmas Rose called, “Good-bye, Sherby! Good luck!”

  It was a most magnificent tree, as yellow and shiny as real gold, alive with lights and hung with ornaments that were like little toys, although Sherby was forbidden to play with them. Santa Clauses rode sleighs and airplanes and even spaceships, stepped into redbrick chimneys, swung gaily from the clappers of bells, and carried tiny trees of their own, mostly green. There were jumping jacks and jack-in-the-boxes, rag dolls and snowmen and tiny boys with drums, and lovely silver deer that might have been of almost any kind except reindeer. It smelled marvelous too; Sherby inhaled deeply.

  A dark-eyed, rather swarthy boy with curling black hair stepped out from behind the tree. “Hello, Sherby,” he said. “Were you looking for me?”

  Sherby nodded. “You know my name.”

  “I was at your christening.” The swarthy boy held out his hand. “I’m Yeshua bar-Yoseph. Welcome to my birthday party.”

  “This is my House.” Sherby wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  “I know,” Yeshua said. “Thanks for letting us celebrate it here, Sherby.”

  Behind him, his mother exclaimed, “Oh, you’ve found the Baby Jesus!” She knelt next to Sherby, lifting the skirt of her beautiful gown so as not to kneel on it, and reached for the little blond ceramic doll in the miniature manger under the tree. Sherby knew she wanted to pick it up but couldn’t because she was a holo and it was real.

  “Never mind her,” he told Yeshua.

  “Oh, it’s all right.” Yeshua grinned, his teeth flashing in his dark face.

  “Did you get real nice presents?” Sherby wanted to ask a favor, but he felt that it might be a good idea to talk a little more first and make friends.

  “Lots. I haven’t opened all of them yet.”

  Sherby nodded; he knew how that was. “What did you like the best?”

  “My favorite present?”

  Sherby nodded again.

  “I’ll tell you what mine was if you’ll promise to tell me what yours was, after.”

  “Okay,” Sherby said.

  “Mine was what I said—you and your mother and father giving me this party,” Yeshua told him. “It’s really great, something I’ll never forget. Now what was yours?”

  Sherby patted the little horse’s nose. “He is. I call him Smoky. I got a Distracto, and a copter that really flies and you can steer around, and a bunch of other stuff. But I like Smoky the best.” He took a deep breath. “Will you do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “I want to go downstairs and open the big locker and . . . and—”

  “Just look at them for a while,” Yeshua supplemented.

  “Uh-huh. An’ I want you to come. I know you can’t help work the door or anything, but I’d like you to come anyway. Okay?”

  From no place and everyplace, all over the room, House said, “This is most unwise, Sherby.”

  Sherby ignored him. “Will you?”

  Yeshua nodded, and Father Eddi said, “I’ll go with you too, Sherby, if you don’t mind.”

  Remembering the tall man with the tall hat, Sherby said, “That’s good. Come on,” and turned and hurried away, walking right through several people who failed to notice him and get out of his way, the little horse trotting after him, his hoofs loud upon the carpeted floor.

  A wide door in the kitchen opened upon a flight of wooden steps. It was hard to persuade Smoky to go down them, but Sherby led to the best of his ability, saying, “Erchou!” half a dozen times, and praising Smoky each time he put a hoof onto a lower step. “Where’s Yeshua?” he asked Father Eddi.

  “Here with us.” Father Eddi had been walking up and down the steps energetically to show Smoky how easily it could be done, and was rather out of breath.

  “I don’t see him.”

  “What you saw—the hologram—isn’t here,” Father Eddi explained.

  “I’d like to see him.”

  “You don’t think much of them.” Father Eddi sat down on a step to wipe his forehead with the ragged hem of his brown habit. “So House did away with it. He’s here just the same.”

  “Well, I’d like to see.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have walked through the holograms upstairs, and should’ve wished your mother Merry Christmas.”

  “Are you a Christmas person? Like Knecht Rupprecht and Christmas Rose?” Sherby turned around to look back at Father Eddi, which surprised Smoky so much that he went down another step without urging.

  “I certainly am.”

  “What makes you one?”

  “One Christmas, I said a mass nobody came to except a donkey and an ox.”

  “Is that all?”

  “I’m afraid it is.” Father Eddi looked crestfallen. “I didn’t put myself forward to House as a Christmas person, you understand, my son. But donkeys have been my friends ever since that night, so when you said that Ali Baba could bring in Kawi I came too, remembering my midnight service for the Saxons and hoping that I might be of some use here.

  The altar-lamps were lighted,—

  An old marsh-donkey came,

  Bold as a guest invited,

  And stared at the guttering flame.

  “No doubt he forgot me and my service long ago, but I haven’t forgotten him, my son—no more than you’ve forgotten your father and mother in the frozen-food locker down here. How did you get their bodies down these steps, anyway? You can’t have carried them yourself.”

  “Mariah and Jeremy were here then. House had them do it. Erchou!” This last was for Smoky, who (gaining confidence as he neared the cellar floor) actually went down four more steps without further urging before he halted again.

  “Then they went away and left you here with House? That wasn’t very wise, I’m afraid.”

  “House made them,” Sherby explained. “He’s supposed to take care of me when there’s nobody else to do it, and Mariah and Jeremy weren’t supposed to take me anywhere unless my mom said it was okay. House wouldn’t let them open the door as long as I was with them. They said they’d send somebody.”

  “Somebody else will get here sooner, I’m afraid,” Father Eddi told him. “I will have some advice for you, if you can get the big stainless door open.”

  “You could ask House to open it for me. He can do that. You could pretend like you’re doing it. You could put your hand on the handle and House would pull it and open the door and you could go inside and tell me to come in.” It was a lot of talking for Sherby, and made him glad that Father Eddi was not much bigger than he was.

  “He won’t do it, my son,” Father Eddi said gently. “He doesn’t think it good for you to come down here and look at them. Neither do I. But if you get the freezer d
oor open, I’ll have some advice to offer, as I told you.”

  “Erchou!” Sherby said, and Smoky clattered down the last two steps to stand beside him. “Watch me.”

  He untied the blue terry-cloth bathrobe belt, then tied its ends together in a new knot, pulling hard to make sure it would hold. That done, he looped it around the handle of the big freezer door, and put the other loop over Smoky’s head. Returning to the foot of the steps, he shouted, “Erchou!”

  Smoky eyed him nervously.

  “I think you’d better go back upstairs, my son,” Father Eddi said.

  “I was looking that time. That’s not the right way to do it.” Sherby started up the steps. “Erchou!”

  Smoky pulled the big handle forward by perhaps half an inch.

  “There’s another carrot up there,” Sherby said. “I know that’ll work, only I want to try something else first. Watch me!”

  He carried Mariah’s empty scrub bucket to Smoky’s side, inverted it, and mounted. “Now come on! Erchou!” Sherby kicked Smoky with his bare heels, and Smoky took a hesitant step or two forward.

  The big stainless-steel door swung open.

  “I’m going in to look at them,” Sherby told Father Eddi. “You don’t have to come in with me.”

  “I wish that I could.”

  Even to stand in front of the door was to enter a second winter, colder even than the snow and the night wind on Lonely Mountain.

  Sherby stepped inside.

  Father Eddi called, “I can’t go any farther with you, my son. There are no hologram projectors in there.”

  “That’s all right,” Sherby told him. Sherby was looking at his mother. There was a fine powdering of ice crystals on her cheek, and one hand was lifted as if she had died gesturing. Telling his father not to eat what she had, Sherby decided. Only his father had meant to, and had done it anyway.

  “It might be a good thing for you to take Smoky in with you and shut the door, my son.”

  Sherby shook his head, shivering. He was still looking at his mother, and absentmindedly stroking Smoky’s nose.

  “You can’t be locked in. There’s a push bar on the inside that makes the door very easy to open.”