by John Crowley
Down in the study they had gathered with eggnog and their letters. Doc had his folded like true correspondence, its backside pimpled with hard-struck punctuation; Mother’s was torn from a brown bag, like a shopping list. The fire took them all, though—rejecting only Lily’s at first, who tried with a shriek to throw it in the fire’s mouth, you can’t really throw a piece of paper, she’d learn that as she grew in grace and wisdom—and Tacey insisted they go out to see. Smoky took her by the hand, and lifted Lily onto his shoulders, and they went out into the snowfall made spectral by the house’s lights to watch the smoke go away, melting the falling snowflakes as it rose.
When he received these communications, Santa drew the claws of his spectacles from behind his ears and pressed the sore place on the bridge of his nose with thumb and finger. What was it they expected him to do with these? A shotgun, a bear, snowshoes, some pretty things and some useful: well, all right. But for the rest of it … He just didn’t know what people were thinking anymore. But it was growing late; if they, or anyone else, were disappointed in him tomorrow, it wouldn’t be the first time. He took his furred hat from its peg and drew on his gloves. He went out, already unaccountably weary though the journey had not even begun, into the multicolored arctic waste beneath a decillion stars, whose near brilliance seemed to chime, even as the harness of his reindeer chimed when they raised their shaggy heads at his approach, and as the eternal snow chimed too when he trod it with his booted feet.
Room for One More
Soon after that Christmas, Sophie began to feel as though her body were being unwrapped and repacked in a completely different way, a set of sensations that was vertiginous at first when she didn’t suspect its cause, and then interesting, awesome even, when she did, and at last (later on, when the process was completed and the new tenant fully installed and making itself at home) comfortable: deeply so at times, like a new kind of sweet sleep; yet expectant too. Expectant! The right word.
There wasn’t much her father could say when eventually Sophie’s condition was admitted to him, he being just such a one as she carried himself. Being a father, he had to go through motions of solemnity that never quite amounted to censure, and there was never any question of What was to be Done with It—he shuddered to think what would have happened if anyone had thought that kind of thought when he was growing inside Amy Meadows.
“Well, my God, there’s room for one more,” Mother said, drying a tear. “It’s not like it was the first time it ever happened in the world.” Like the rest of them, she wondered who the father was, but Sophie wasn’t saying, or rather in her smallest voice and with eyes downcast, was saying she wouldn’t say. And so the matter had eventually to be dropped.
Though of course Daily Alice had to be told.
It was to Daily Alice that she took her news first, or next to first; her news, and her secret.
“Smoky,” she said.
“Oh, Sophie,” Alice said. “No.”
“Yes,” she said, defiant by the door of Alice’s room, unwilling to enter further in.
“I can’t believe it, that he would.”
“Well, you better,” Sophie said. “You’d better get used to it, because it’s not going away.”
Something in Sophie’s face—or maybe only the horrid impossibility of what she said—made Alice wonder. “Sophie,” she said softly after they had regarded each other in silence for a time, “are you asleep?”
“No.” Indignant. But it was early morning; Sophie was in her nightgown; Smoky had only an hour ago stepped down from the tall bed, scratching his head, to go off to school. Sophie had waked Alice: that was so unusual, so reverse of the usual, that for a moment Alice had hoped … She lay back against the pillow, and closed her eyes; but she wasn’t asleep either.
“Didn’t you ever suspect?” Sophie asked. “Didn’t you ever think?”
“Oh, I guess I did.” She covered her eyes with her hand. “Of course I did.” The way Sophie said it made it seem she would be disappointed if Alice hadn’t known. She sat up, suddenly angry. “But this! I mean the two of you! How could you be so silly?”
“I guess we just got carried away,” Sophie said levelly. “You know.” But then she lost her brave look before Alice’s, and dropped her eyes.
Alice pushed herself up in the bed and sat against the headboard. “Do you have to stand over there?” she said. “I’m not going to hit you or anything.” Sophie still stood, a little unsure, a little truculent, looking just like Lily did when she’d spilled something all over her and was afraid she was being summoned for something worse than having it wiped off. Alice waved her over impatiently.
Sophie’s bare feet made small sounds on the floor, and when she climbed up on the bed, a strange shy smile on her face, Alice sensed her nakedness under the flannel nightie. It all made her think of years ago, of old intimacies. So few of us, she thought, so much love and so few to spend it on, no wonder we get tangled up. “Does Smoky know?” she asked coolly.
“Yes,” Sophie said. “I told him first.”
That hurt, that Smoky hadn’t told her: the first sensation that could be called pain since Sophie had entered. She thought of him, burdened with that knowledge, and she innocent of it; the thoughts stabbed her. “And what does he intend to do?” she asked next, as in a catechism.
“He wasn’t … He didn’t …”
“Well, you’d better decide, hadn’t you? The two of you.”
Sophie’s lip trembled. The store of bravery she had started out with was running out. “Oh, Alice, don’t be this way,” she pleaded. “I didn’t think you’d be this way.” She took Alice’s hand, but Alice looked away, the knuckles of her other hand pressing her lips. “I mean, I know it was hateful of us,” she said, watching Alice’s face, trying to gauge it. “Hateful. But, Alice …”
“Oh, I don’t hate you, Soph.” As though not wishing to, but unable not to, Alice’s fingers curled themselves closely among Sophie’s, though still she looked away. “It’s just, well.” Sophie watched a struggle taking place within Alice; she didn’t dare speak, only held her hand tighter, waiting to see what issue it would have. “See, I thought …” She fell silent again, and cleared her throat of an obstruction that had just arisen there. “Well, you know,” she said. “You remember: Smoky was chosen for me, that’s what I used to think; I used to think that’s what our story was.”
“Yes,” Sophie said, lowering her eyes.
“Only lately, I can’t seem to remember that very well. I can’t remember them. How it used to be. I can remember, but not … the feeling, do you know what I mean? How it used to be, with Auberon; those times.”
“Oh, Alice,” Sophie said. “How could you forget?”
“Cloud said: when you grow up, you trade what you had as a child for what you have as a grown-up. Or if you don’t, you lose it anyway, and get nothing in return.” Her eyes had grown tears, though her voice was steady; the tears seemed less part of her than part of the story she told. “And I thought: then I traded them for Smoky. And they arranged that trade. And that was okay. Because even though I couldn’t remember them any more, I had Smoky.” Now her voice wavered. “I guess I was wrong.”
“No!” Sophie said, shocked as if by a blasphemy.
“I guess it’s just—ordinary,” Alice said, and sighed a tremulous sigh. “I guess you were right, when we were married, that we wouldn’t ever have what you and I had once; wait and see, you said….”
“No, Alice, no!” Sophie gripped her sister’s arm, as if to hold her back from going further. “That story was true, it was true, I always knew it. Don’t, don’t ever say it wasn’t. It was the most beautiful story I ever heard, and it all came true, just as they said it would. Oh, I was so jealous, Alice, it was wonderful for you and I was so jealous….”
Alice turned to face her. Sophie was shocked by her face: not sad, though tears stood in her eyes; not angry; not anything. “Well,” Alice said, “I guess you don’t have to be jealous a
ny more, anyway.” She pulled Sophie’s nightgown up over the ball of her shoulder from which it had slipped. “Now. We have to think what to do….”
“It’s a lie,” Sophie said.
“What?” Alice looked at her, puzzled. “What’s a lie, Soph?”
“It’s a lie, it’s a lie!” Sophie almost shouted, tearing it out from within her. “It isn’t Smoky’s at all! I lied to you!” Unable any longer to bear her sister’s foreign face, Sophie buried her head in Alice’s lap, sobbing. “I’m so sorry…. I was so jealous, I wanted to be part of your story, that’s all; oh, don’t you see he never would, he couldn’t, he loves you so much; and I wouldn’t have, but I—I missed you. I missed you. I wanted to have a story too, I wanted … Oh, Alice.”
Alice, taken by surprise, only stroked her sister’s head, automatically comforting her. Then: “Wait a minute, Sophie. Sophie, listen.” With both her hands she raised Sophie’s face from her lap. “Do you mean you never …”
Sophie blushed; even through her tears that could be seen. “Well, we did. Once or twice.” She held up a forestalling palm. “But it was all my fault, always. He felt so bad.” She brushed back, with a furious gesture, her hair, glued to her face with tears. “He always felt so bad.”
“Once or twice?”
“Well, three times.”
“You mean you …”
“Three—and a half.” She almost giggled, wiping her face on the sheet. She sniffed. “It took him forever to get around to it, and then he always got so tied in knots it almost wasn’t any fun.”
Alice laughed, amazed, couldn’t help it. Sophie seeing her, laughed too, a laugh like a sob, through her sniffing. “Well,” she said, throwing up her hands and letting them fall in her lap; “well.”
“But wait a minute,” Alice said. “If it wasn’t Smoky, who was it?
“Sophie?”
Sophie told her.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Of all people. But—how can you be sure? I mean …”
Sophie told her, counting off the reasons on her fingers, why she was sure.
“George Mouse,” Alice said. “Of all people. Sophie, that’s practically incest.”
“Oh, come on,” Sophie said dismissively. “It was only one time.”
“Well, then he …”
“No!” Sophie said, and put her hands on Alice’s shoulders. “No. He’s not to know. Never. Alice, promise. Cross your heart. Don’t ever tell, ever. I’d be so embarrassed.”
“Oh, Sophie!” What an amazing person, she thought, what a strange person. And realized, with a rush of feeling, that she had for a long time missed Sophie, too; had forgotten what she was like, even; had even forgotten she missed her. “Well what do we tell Smoky then? That would mean he …”
“Yes.” Sophie was shivering. Tremors ran around her ribcage. Alice moved aside, and Sophie pulled down the bedclothes and scrambled in, her nightgown riding up, into the pocket of warmth Alice had made. Her feet against Alice’s legs were icy, and she wiggled her toes against Alice to warm them.
“It’s not true, but it wouldn’t be so terrible, would it, to let him think so? I mean it’s got to have a father Somehow,” Sophie said. “And not George, for heaven’s sake.” She buried her face against Alice’s breasts, and said, after a time, in a tiny voice, “I wish it was Smoky’s.” And after another time: “It ought to be.” And after a longer time still: “Just think. A baby.”
It seemed to Alice that she could feel Sophie smile. Was that possible, to feel a smile when someone’s face was pressed against you? “Well, I guess, maybe so,” she said, and drew Sophie close. “I can’t think what else.” What a strange way to live, she thought, the way they lived; if she grew to be a hundred she’d never understand it. She smiled herself, bewildered, and shook her head in surrender. What a conclusion! But it had been so long since she had seen Sophie happy—if this was happiness she felt, and damn if it didn’t seem to be—she could only be happy with her. Night-blooming Sophie had flowered in the day.
“He does love you,” Sophie’s muffled voice said. “He’ll love you for ever.” She yawned hugely, shuddering. “It was all true. It was all true.”
Maybe it was. A kind of perception was stealing over her, entwining itself in her as Sophie’s long, familiar legs were twining in hers: perhaps she had been wrong, about the trade; perhaps they had stopped teasing her to follow them only because she had long since arrived wherever it was they had been teasing her to come. She hadn’t lost them, and yet needn’t follow any more because here she was.
She squeezed Sophie suddenly, and said “Ah!”
But if she was here, where was she? And where was Smoky?
A Gift They Had to Give
When it was Smoky’s turn, Alice sat on the bed to receive him, as she had Sophie, but propped up on pillows like an Oriental queen, and smoking a brown cigarette of Cloud’s as she now and then did when feeling grand. “Well,” she said, grandly. “Some fix.”
Strangled with embarrassment (and deeply confused, he had thought he had been so careful, they say it’s always possible, but how?) Smoky walked around the room picking up small objects and studying them, and putting them down again. “I never expected this,” he said.
“No. Well, I guess it’s always unexpected.” She watched Smoky go back and forth to the window to peep through the curtains at the moon on the snow, as though he were a renegade looking out of his hideout. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
He turned from the window, his shoulders bent with the weight of it. For so long he had dreaded this exposure, the crowd of ill-dressed characters he had been impersonating caught out, made to stand forth in all their inadequacy. “It was all my fault, first of all,” he said. “You shouldn’t hate Sophie.”
“Oh?”
“I … I forced myself on her, really. I mean I plotted it, I … like a, like a, well.”
“Mmm.”
All right, ragamuffins, show yourselves, Smoky thought; it’s all up with you. With me. He cleared his throat; he plucked his beard; he told all, or nearly all.
Alice listened, fooling with her cigarette. She tried to blow out with the smoke the lump of sweet generosity she tasted in her throat. She knew she mustn’t smile while Smoky told his story, but she felt so kindly toward him, wanted so much to take him in her arms and kiss the soul she saw clearly rising to his lips and eyes, so brave and honest he was being, that at last she said, “You don’t have to keep stalking around like that. Come sit down.”
He sat, using as little of the bed he had betrayed as he could. “It was only once or twice, in the end,” he said. “I don’t mean
“Three times,” she said. “And a half.” He blushed fiercely. She hoped that soon he would be able to look at her, and see that she would smile for him. “Well, you know, it’s probably not the first time it ever happened in the world,” she said. He still looked down. He thought it probably was. The shameful self sat on his knees like a ventriloquist’s dummy. He had it say:
“I promised I’d take care of it, and all. And be responsible.
I had to.”
“Of course. That’s only right.”
“And it’s over now. I swear it, Alice, it is.”
“Don’t say that,” she said. “You never know.”
“No!”
“Well,” she said, “there’s always room for one more.”
“Oh don’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I deserve it.”
Shyly, not wanting to intrude on his guilt and repentance, she slipped an arm through his and interlaced her fingers with his. After a tormented pause, he did turn to look at her. She smiled. “Dummy,” she said. In her eyes brown as bottle-glass he could see himself reflected. One self. What was happening? Under her gaze something wholly unexpected was taking place: a fusing, a knitting-together of parts that had never been able to stand alone but which all together made up him. “You dummy,” she said
, and another foetal and incompetent self retreated back within him.
“Alice, listen,” he said, and she raised a hand to cover his mouth, almost as if to prevent the escape of what she had put back. “No more,” she said. It was astonishing. Once again she had done it to him: as she had first in George Mouse’s library so long ago, she had invented him: only this time not out of nothing, as then, but out of falsehoods and figments. He felt a cold flash of horror: what if, in his foolishness, he had gone so far as to lose her? What if he had? What on earth would he have done then? In a rush, before her no-shaking head could stop him, he offered her the rod of correction, offered it without reservation; but she had only asked him for it so that she could, as she then did, give it back to him unused with all her heart.
“Smoky,” she said. “Smoky, don’t. Listen. About this kid.”
“Yes.”
“Do you hope it’s a boy or a girl?”
“Alice …!”
She had always hoped, and almost always believed, that there was a gift they had to give, and that in time—their own time—they would give it. She had even thought that when at last it came, she would recognize it: and she had.
Old World Bird
Like a centrifuge, with infinite slowness accelerating, spring flung them all outward in advancing circles as it advanced, seeming (though how it was possible they couldn’t tell) to untangle the tangled skein of them and lay their lives out properly around Edgewood like the coils of a golden necklace: more golden as it grew warmer. Doc, after a long walk one thawing day, described how he had seen the beavers break out of their winter home, two, four, six of them, who had spent months trapped beneath the ice in a room hardly larger than themselves, imagine; and Mother and the rest nodded and groaned as though they knew the feeling well.
