A Lot Like Christmas

by Connie Willis

  The Bible dictionary had a set of maps at the back. Early Israelite Settlements in Canaan, The Assyrian Empire, The Wanderings of the Israelites in the Wilderness. She flipped forward. The Journeys of Paul. She turned back a page. Palestine in New Testament Times.

  She found Jerusalem easily, and Bethlehem should be northwest of it. There was Nazareth, where Mary and Joseph had started from, so Bethlehem had to be farther north.

  It wasn’t there. She traced her finger over the towns, reading the tiny print. Cana, Kedesh, Jericho, but no Bethlehem. Which was ridiculous. It had to be there. She started down from the north, marking each of the towns with her finger.

  When she finally found it, it wasn’t at all where it was supposed to be. Like them, she thought. It was south and a little west of Jerusalem, so close it couldn’t be more than a few miles from the city.

  She looked down at the bottom of the page for the map scale, and there was an inset labeled “Mary and Joseph’s Journey to Bethlehem,” with their route marked in broken red.

  Nazareth was almost due north of Bethlehem, but they had gone east to the Jordan River, and then south along its banks. At Jericho they’d turned back west toward Jerusalem through an empty brown space marked Judean Desert.

  She wondered if that was where they had gotten lost, the donkey wandering off to find water and them going after it and losing the path. If it was, then the way back lay southwest, but the church didn’t have any doors that opened in that direction, and even if it did, they would open on a twentieth-century parking lot and snow, not on first-century Palestine.

  How had they gotten here? There was nothing in the map to tell her what might have happened on their journey to cause this.

  She put the dictionary back and pulled out the concordance.

  There was a sound. A key, and somebody opening the door. She slapped the book shut, shoved it back into the bookcase, and went out into the hall. Reverend Farrison was standing at the door, looking scared. “Oh, Mrs. Englert,” she said, putting her hand to her chest. “What are you still doing here? You scared me half to death.”

  That makes two of us, Sharon thought, her heart thumping. “I had to stay and practice,” she said. “I told Rose I’d lock up. What are you doing here?”

  “I got a call from the shelter,” she said, opening the office door. “They got a call from us to pick up a homeless couple, but when they got here there was nobody outside.”

  She went in the office and looked behind the desk, in the corner next to the filing cabinets. “I was worried they got into the church,” she said, coming out. “The last thing we need is someone vandalizing the church two days before Christmas.” She shut the office door behind her. “Did you check all the doors?”

  Yes, she thought, and none of them led anywhere. “Yes,” she said. “They were all locked. And anyway, I would have heard anybody trying to get in. I heard you.”

  Reverend Farrison opened the door to the furnace room. “They could have sneaked in and hidden when everyone was leaving.” She looked in at the stacked folding chairs and then shut the door. She started down the hall toward the stairs.

  “I checked the whole church,” Sharon said, following her.

  She stopped at the stairs, looking speculatively down the steps.

  “I was nervous about being alone,” Sharon said desperately, “so I turned on all the lights and checked all the Sunday school rooms and the choir room and the bathrooms. There isn’t anybody here.”

  She looked up from the stairs and toward the end of the hall. “What about the sanctuary?”

  “The sanctuary?” Sharon said blankly.

  She had already started down the hall toward it, and Sharon followed her, relieved, and then, suddenly, hopeful. Maybe there was a door she’d missed. A sanctuary door that faced southwest. “Is there a door in the sanctuary?”

  Reverend Farrison looked irritated. “If someone went out the east door, they could have gotten in and hidden in the sanctuary. Did you check the pews?” She went into the sanctuary. “We’ve had a lot of trouble lately with homeless people sleeping in the pews. You take that side, and I’ll take this one,” she said, going over to the side aisle. She started along the rows of padded pews, bending down to look under each one. “Our Lady of Sorrows had their Communion silver stolen right off the altar.”

  The Communion silver, Sharon thought, working her way along the rows. She’d forgotten about the chalice.

  Reverend Farrison had reached the front. She opened the flower room door, glanced in, closed it, and went up into the chancel. “Did you check the adult Sunday school room?” she said, bending down to look under the chairs.

  “Nobody could have hidden in there. The junior choir was in there, having refreshments,” Sharon said, and knew it wouldn’t do any good. Reverend Farrison was going to insist on checking it anyway, and once she’d found the display case open, the chalice missing, she would go through all the other rooms, one after the other. Till she came to the nursery.

  “Do you think it’s a good idea us doing this?” Sharon said. “I mean, if there is somebody in the church, they might be dangerous. I think we should wait. I’ll call my husband, and when he gets here, the three of us can check—”

  “I called the police,” Reverend Farrison said, coming down the steps from the chancel and down the center aisle. “They’ll be here any minute.”

  The police. And there they were, hiding in the nursery, a bearded punk and a pregnant teenager, caught red-handed with the Communion silver.

  Reverend Farrison started out into the hall.

  “I didn’t check the Fellowship Hall,” Sharon said rapidly. “I mean, I checked the door, but I didn’t turn on the lights, and with all those presents for the homeless in there…”

  She led Reverend Farrison down the hall, past the stairs. “They could have gotten in the north door during the rehearsal and hidden under one of the tables.”

  Reverend Farrison stopped at the bank of lights and began flicking them. The sanctuary lights went off, and the light over the stairs came on.

  Third from the top, Sharon thought, watching Reverend Farrison hit the switch. Please. Don’t let the adult Sunday school room come on.

  The office lights came on, and the hall light went out. “This church’s top priority after Christmas is labeling these lights,” Reverend Farrison said, and the Fellowship Hall light came on.

  Sharon followed her right to the door and then, as Reverend Farrison went in, Sharon said, “You check in here. I’ll check the adult Sunday school room,” and shut the door on her.

  She went to the adult Sunday school room door, opened it, waited a full minute, and then shut it silently. She crept down the hall to the light bank, switched the stairs light off and shot down the darkened stairs, along the hall, and into the nursery.

  They were already scrambling to their feet. Mary had put her hand on the seat of the rocking chair to pull herself up and had set it rocking, but she didn’t let go of it.

  “Come with me,” Sharon whispered, grabbing up the chalice. It was half full of water, and Sharon looked around hurriedly, and then poured it out on the carpet and tucked it under her arm.

  “Hurry!” Sharon whispered, opening the door, and there was no need to motion them forward, to put her fingers to her lips. They followed her swiftly, silently, down the hall, Mary’s head ducked, and Joseph’s arms held at his sides, ready to come up defensively, ready to protect her.

  Sharon walked to the stairs, dreading the thought of trying to get them up them. She thought for a moment of putting them in the choir room and locking them in. She had the key, and she could tell Reverend Farrison she’d checked it and then locked it to make sure no one got in. But if it didn’t work, they’d be trapped, with no way out. She had to get them upstairs.

  She halted at the foot of the stairs, looking up around the landing and listening. “We have to hurry,” she said, taking hold of the railing to show them how to climb, and started up the
stairs.

  This time they did much better, still putting their hands on the steps in front of them instead of the rail, but climbing up quickly. Three-fourths of the way up, Joseph even took hold of the rail.

  Sharon did better, too, her mind steadily now on how to escape Reverend Farrison, what to say to the police, where to take them.

  Not the furnace room, even though Reverend Farrison had already looked in there. It was too close to the door, and the police would start with the hall. And not the sanctuary. It was too open.

  She stopped just below the top of the stairs, motioning them to keep down, and they instantly pressed themselves back into the shadows. Why was it those signals were universal—danger, silence, run? Because it’s a dangerous world, she thought, then and now, and there’s worse to come. Herod, and the flight into Egypt. And Judas. And the police.

  She crept to the top of the stairs and looked toward the sanctuary and then the door. Reverend Farrison must still be in the Fellowship Hall. She wasn’t in the hall, and if she’d gone in the adult Sunday school room, she’d have seen the chalice was missing and sent up a hue and cry.

  Sharon bit her lip, wondering if there was time to put it back, if she dared leave them here on the stairs while she sneaked in and put it in the display case, but it was too late. The police were here. She could see their red and blue lights flashing purply through the stained-glass door panels. In another minute they’d be at the door, knocking, and Reverend Farrison would come out of the Fellowship Hall, and there’d be no time for anything.

  She’d have to hide them in the sanctuary until Reverend Farrison took the police downstairs, and then move them—where? The furnace room? It was still too close to the door. The Fellowship Hall?

  She waved them upward, like John Wayne in one of his war movies, along the hall and into the sanctuary. Reverend Farrison had turned off the lights, but there was still enough light from the chancel cross to see by. She laid the chalice in the back pew and led them along the back row to the shadowed side aisle, and then pushed them ahead of her to the front, listening intently for the sound of knocking.

  Joseph went ahead with his eyes on the ground, as if he expected more sudden stairs, but Mary had her head up, looking toward the chancel, toward the cross.

  Don’t look at it, Sharon thought. Don’t look at it. She hurried ahead to the flower room.

  There was a muffled sound like thunder, and the bang of a door shutting.

  “In here,” she whispered, and opened the flower room door.

  She’d been on the other side of the sanctuary when Reverend Farrison checked the flower room. Sharon understood now why she had given it only the most cursory of glances. It had been full before. Now it was crammed with the palm trees and the manger. They’d heaped the rest of the props in it—the innkeeper’s lantern and the baby blanket. She pushed the manger back, and one of its crossed legs caught on a music stand and tipped it over. She lunged for it, steadied it, and then stopped, listening.

  Knocking out in the hall. And the sound of a door shutting. Voices. She let go of the music stand and pushed them into the flower room, shoving Mary into the corner against the spray of roses and nearly knocking over another music stand.

  She motioned to Joseph to stand on the other side and flattened herself against a palm tree, shut the door, and realized the moment she did that it was a mistake.

  They couldn’t stand here in the dark like this—the slightest movement by any of them would bring everything clattering down, and Mary couldn’t stay squashed uncomfortably into the corner like that for long.

  She should have left the door slightly open, so there was enough light from the cross to see by, so she could hear where the police were. She couldn’t hear anything with the door shut except the sound of their own light breathing and the clank of the lantern when she tried to shift her weight, and she couldn’t risk opening the door again, not when they might already be in the sanctuary, looking for her. She should have shut Mary and Joseph in here and gone back into the hall to head the police off. Reverend Farrison would be looking for her, and if she didn’t find her, she’d take it as one more proof that there was a dangerous homeless person in the church and insist on the police searching every nook and cranny.

  Maybe she could go out through the choir loft, Sharon thought, if she could move the music stands out of the way, or at least shift things around so they could hide behind them, but she couldn’t do either in the dark.

  She knelt carefully, slowly, keeping her back perfectly straight, and put her hand out behind her, feeling for the top of the manger. She patted spiky straw till she found the baby blanket and pulled it out. They must have put the wise men’s perfume bottles in the manger, too. They clinked wildly as she pulled the blanket out.

  She knelt farther, feeling for the narrow space under the door, and jammed the blanket into it. It didn’t quite reach the whole length of the door, but it was the best she could do. She straightened, still slowly, and patted the wall for the light switch.

  Her hand brushed it. Please, she prayed, don’t let this turn on some other light, and flicked it on.

  Neither of them had moved, not even to shift their hands. Mary, pressed against the roses, took a caught breath, and then released it slowly, as if she had been holding it the whole time.

  They watched Sharon as she knelt again to tuck in a corner of the blanket and then turned slowly around so she was facing into the room. She reached across the manger for one of the music stands and stacked it against the one behind it, working as gingerly, as slowly, as if she were defusing a bomb. She reached across the manger again, lifted one of the music stands, and set it on the straw so she could push the manger back far enough to give her space to move. The stand tipped, and Joseph steadied it.

  Sharon picked up one of the cardboard palm trees. She worked the plywood base free, set it in the manger, and slid the palm tree flat along the wall next to Mary, and then did the other one.

  That gave them some space. There was nothing Sharon could do about the rest of the music stands. Their metal frames were tangled together, and against the outside wall was a tall metal cabinet, with pots of Easter lilies in front of it. She could move the lilies to the top of the cabinet at least.

  She listened carefully with her ear to the door for a minute, and then stepped carefully over the manger between two lilies. She bent and picked up one of them and set it on top of the cabinet and then stopped, frowning at the wall. She bent down again, moving her hand along the floor in a slow semicircle.

  Cold air, and it was coming from behind the cabinet. She stood on tiptoe and looked behind it. “There’s a door,” she whispered. “To the outside.”

  “Sharon!” a muffled voice called from the sanctuary.

  Mary froze, and Joseph moved so he was between her and the door. Sharon put her hand on the light switch and waited, listening.

  “Mrs. Englert?” a man’s voice called. Another one, farther off, “Her car’s still here,” and then Reverend Farrison’s voice again, “Maybe she went downstairs.”

  Silence. Sharon put her ear against the door and listened, and then edged past Joseph to the side of the cabinet and peered behind it. The door opened outward. They wouldn’t have to move the cabinet out very far, just enough for her to squeeze through and open the door, and then there’d be enough space for all of them to get through, even Mary. There were bushes on this side of the church. They could hide underneath them until after the police left.

  She motioned Joseph to help her, and together they pushed the cabinet a few inches out from the wall. It knocked one of the Easter lilies over, and Mary stooped awkwardly and picked it up, cradling it in her arms.

  They pushed again. This time it made a jangling noise, as if there were coat hangers inside, and Sharon thought she heard voices again, but there was no help for it. She squeezed into the narrow space, thinking, What if it’s locked? and opened the door.

  Onto warmth. Onto a clear sky, black
and pebbled with stars.

  “How—” she said stupidly, looking down at the ground in front of the door. It was rocky, with bare dirt in between. There was a faint breeze, and she could smell dust and something sweet. Oranges?

  She turned to say, “I found it. I found the door,” but Joseph was already leading Mary through it, pushing at the cabinet to make the space wider. Mary was still carrying the Easter lily, and Sharon took it from her and set it against the base of the door to prop it open and went out into the darkness.

  The light from the open door lit the ground in front of them and at its edge was a stretch of pale dirt. The path, she thought, but when she got closer, she saw it was the dried bed of a narrow stream. Beyond it the rocky ground rose up steeply. They must be at the bottom of a draw, and she wondered if this was where they had gotten lost.

  “Bott lom?” Joseph said behind her.

  She turned around. “Bott lom?” he said again, gesturing in front and to the sides, the way he’d done in the nursery. Which way?

  She had no idea. The door faced west, and if the direction held true, and if this was the Judean Desert, it should lie to the southwest. “That direction,” she said, and pointed up the steepest part of the slope. “You go that way, I think.”

  They didn’t move. They stood watching her, Joseph standing slightly in front of Mary, waiting for her to lead them.

  “I’m not—” she said, and stopped. Leaving them here was no better than leaving them in the furnace room. Or out in the snow. She looked back at the door, almost wishing for Reverend Farrison and the police, and then set off toward what she hoped was the southwest, clambering awkwardly up the slope, her shoes slipping on the rocks.

  How did they do this, she thought, grabbing at a dry clump of weed for a handhold, even with a donkey? There was no way Mary could make it up this slope. She looked back, worried.

  They were following easily, sturdily, as certain of themselves as she had been on the stairs.

  But what if at the top of this draw there was another one, or a dropoff? And no path. She dug in her toes and scrambled up.