Unholy Nights: A Twisted Christmas Anthology (14 page)

*

S
he wakes, disoriented. Dreams splash around her, spattering dark stains on her mind and washing over the sides of her skull, losing their shape and leaving behind only impressions: cold, suffocating, salt like tears.

Her revelation echoes in her head.

Nothing in this house is real,
she thinks to herself, over and over. In a hundred years
he
will be dead and she will be gone and the wild will have crept up over the walls and pulled them down to the earth again, reclaiming what was lost. Shadows will live here, and no one will remember what happened to her. No one will remember that he touched her, that he defiled her, that he sinned against her so cruelly.

It is almost a comfort to think that this will happen. It is a cruel question as to why it cannot happen
now.

When she hears his feet on the stairs, she waits for the house to fold in on itself, for the world to come rushing back in and sweep him away. He was supposed to be a protector, a strong and caring teacher who would show her many ways to live.

But he wasn’t. He
isn’t.

You aren’t real,
she thinks as he comes into her room, a dark figure, a shadow cast by some unseen monster. Just a shade. Not real, not real.

Not real at all.

And then he comes into her bed, invades her body, enslaves her head, and then there is pain, and even though she knows it will not last, not
forever,
the line between what is real and what is not blurs once more.

*

T
he woods. The woods are real. Or maybe they aren’t.

Night again in the forest. She can’t remember how she arrived here, but it doesn’t seem to matter. She is sore all over, bruised from a beating she hardly remembers, and between her legs she is chafed and scraped, punished for hiding, for retreating into her room, for refusing to make dinner, for being anything other than a pretty little robotic doll, programmed to do what he wants her to do. The insides of her arms are black and blue.

These things are real, too. Or maybe they aren’t.

The clouds part for the first time in a long, long time, and she looks up to see the silvery face of the moon beaming down at her. Tears well in her eyes and shatter the light into shivering diamonds on her lashes.

“You are here.”

She blinks, rubs her face, and he is there before her. What she thought was the moon was merely the moon’s reflection in one of his wide, luminous eye. The other eye is hidden in shadow tonight, behind a lock of hair.

“I am here,” she confirms.

He watches her, thoughtful, not speaking, and the words inside her rise up and crash against her lips, as though they have been waiting to be said, more than once, many times, since everything began.

But the habit of a lifetime of soundlessness is hard to break, and finally she turns away and squeezes her eyes shut. Pretends she is alone, so the words can come out.

“I can’t go back,” she says at last. “I can’t.”

“Then don’t,” he says.

“But...” Her chest is tight and heavy. “But Julia...”

“She is not without protection,” he says. “Do you not remember that you prayed for her safety?”

She remembers. She knows she prayed for many things, out here in the woods, after he started to touch her. She never thought those prayers would be answered.

“You asked for her to be safe,” he reminds her. “My power is not so paltry that I cannot extend it to her now. The magic of hiding, of concealment...she will be safe until you return. Do not fret.”

She closes her eyes. She wants to believe him. She wants to stay here. She cannot go back. She
cannot.

“Stay with me,” he says. “Come with me in the moonlight.” And then his arms are around her, thick and huge, frightening in their strength. There is danger in falling into the embrace of a strong man, danger of never finding one’s way out, of never learning from him.

She melts into him anyway.

*

I
n the bleak midwinter, she fades into the dark.

*

T
he cold comes in, fiercer than before, and he leads her deeper into the forest. The trees grow larger and larger, and at last they find one as big around as a small tent, and hollow, with a little doorway rent into the wood from some trauma long past.

She climbs inside and closes her eyes for a moment as she sits on the earthen floor, and when she opens them again there is a fire between them and she is warm at last.

For a while, they don’t speak, merely watch each other across the flames, or gaze out the little natural doorway at the world outside. The last of the leaves flutter to the ground. The sun travels across the sky behind the clouds.

Snow begins to fall.

“How long can I stay here?” she asks at last. The fire melts into her skin, chasing away the chill inside her.

He tips his head. He looks so much older in the light of the flames, not
old,
but a man in every sense, no grasping fratboy, no bland white collar desk jockey, no pathetic old businessman who can’t get it up without a pill. His shoulders are so broad, his body so big that it is a wonder he can even fit in here with her, that he doesn’t take up every available nook and cranny. He wears fur tonight.

He seems to be thinking. “There are only a few days left,” he says after a while.

What happens in a few days?
she wants to ask, but she pauses and thinks about it for a moment. Christmas?

She’d believe that. On a holy night, he will disappear. He is no holy thing. No evil thing either, but a wild thing, a magic outside of the world that exists as it does now. She would not be surprised if he could not cross the threshold of a holy day.

She was hoping he would say
forever,
but even that is too much to hope for.

Leaning forward, she peers into the fire and holds her hands to the flames, chasing away the chill.

A few days. She wishes it were more, but a few days...they can be enough.

Anything can be enough, if you make the most of it.

*

T
ime passes. Weirdly, in fits and starts. The snow falls. She sleeps. She wakes.

And always he is there, watching her in the firelight, until at last she wakes up one day—
hour?—minute?—second?—year?—century?—
and the snow has stopped fluttering down from the clouds.

Then he holds his hand out to her. She places her fingers in his, and he pulls her from the tree and into a world made white and new.

*

T
ime passes, in fits and starts, and they wander, speaking little. They come to rest in their tree, and then they depart again, over and over.

“Come with me in the moonlight,” he says, and she does. He takes her to places she never knew existed in these woods, places that she is sure
don’t
exist, except with him.

That should be extraordinary, but it doesn’t seem so.

That first night—
day?—evening?—dawn?—eon?—
he takes her to a rushing stream full of fish, the water too thick and cold and clear to be a real stream, and too swift and warm to exist in a world as snowy as this one.

Standing on the bank, she watches him wade out into the center of it, the water splashing about his knees, and he is wearing thick wool now, a kilt and a tunic maybe, something heavy and warm.

The moon has fallen into the clouds again, but there is still enough light to watch as gently, slowly, he bends to the water and a fish swims into his long-fingered hands. He scoops it up and tosses it upon the shore.

She watches him, wanting to ask him how such a thing can be done, but he knows her questions already, without her having to speak.

He smiles at her, his thick hair falling around his face, around his shoulders like a lion’s mane. “Fish abhor a murderer,” he says, “but love those who have avenged the murdered. They go toward justice like a bird goes toward home across the autumn skies.”

More fish come, until the snow-covered bank is alive with them dancing in their death-throes, and then they take them back to the warmth of their tree.

Together they cook the fish over the fire, and the flesh is sweet.

*

T
ime passes, in fits and starts, until one day it is night.

She catches him watching the moon as it drifts by, barely visible behind the clouds.

“It is almost time,” he says.

Time for me to leave?
she wants to ask, but the answer scares her, so she doesn’t speak and instead watches the moon with him, floating in and out of sleep, and her dreams are full of teeth.

*

T
ime passes, in fits and starts, until one day the world is enveloped in a thick fog and the wolves start to howl.

“I didn’t know there were wolves here,” she says as the sound slides up and down her spine, drawing out primordial memories.

“They wait for the hunt,” he replies.

“What hunt?” she asks.

But he shakes his head and turns his gaze inward, and eventually she forgets the words they said to each other. Words seem to be growing unimportant.

*

T
ime passes, in fits and starts, and he is touching her more and more. They are innocent touches, but promise much. Much more than love, or sex, or death. Something she cannot name.

“Come with me in the moonlight,” he says to her, and she does.

He holds her hand as he leads her through a maze of thickets, across rivers, up mountains, down into dells still green and grassy. She thinks to go there, to see if there are flowers to be picked in those strange places, something beautiful to weave into his hair, but he stops her without even tightening his hand on hers, and then she wonders if he stopped her at all.

“Do you not wonder,” he says suddenly, shattering their silence, “why the grass there is so green, while all around is dead?”

“Of course I do,” she says. Her voice is dusty with disuse, and the lie feels awkward on her tongue.

He smiles, because he knows it is a lie. He knows everything about her, and it is freeing.

“Our good neighbors,” he says. “They are very jealous of their favorite places. They keep them green with their care. It would be very rude to take from them without asking first.”

“Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry, neighbors.”

He puts a hand on her mouth. “Don’t speak to them,” he says. “It is dangerous. When you see a patch of green, or a tree growing all alone, or a hill in the middle of nowhere, pass them by.”

His fingertips are rough on her lips, and she is full of heat at the caress. Dumbly she nods and his skin catches hers, until, with a boldness she thought long lost, she parts her lips and catches a finger in her mouth, swirls her tongue around it, tastes it.

The flavor hits her like rum, and his sudden growl and groan is so sharp and deep that she knows she has crossed a line but she cannot care. The world tips and tumbles, and then they are in the dead grass, in the snow, his body heavy on top of hers, his hips nestled between her thighs. An echo of her nightmare memories.

But nightmares aren’t real, and memories maybe even less so.

His kisses burn like sunfire.

*

T
ime passes, in fits and starts.

After a while, snow starts to fall again, and words begin to fade altogether.

*

T
ime passes, in fits and starts, and more and more he seduces her, holds her in the cradle of his body, his hands roaming her skin, turning her insides into molten glass. She wakes up beneath his fingers, becomes someone new.

In their little tree they no longer need the fire—or rather, she no longer requires it, for she suspects he never needed it in the first place.

No matter. The heat they generate between them fills their little hiding place, and she revels in it, in this queer new country unfolding before her.

They are silent now. Only the sound of their breathing and the falling snow invade their tree. She dozes, in and out, and listens to his heart thunder in his chest.

*

T
ime passes, in fits and starts, and then one day, while she sits in his lap, her back to his chest, his hands on her breasts, idle and urgent, he speaks.

“The time of the hunt is coming,” he says.

That’s right. He talked of a hunt. “What hunt?” she asks. Her voice is throaty with desire.

For a moment she thinks he will not answer. Then she feels the rumble of his voice in her chest.

“There is a hunt,” he says at last, “on the night when the darkness is longest. It rides across the sky and hunts its prey down without mercy.”

She blinks, sleepily, stupidly. Struggles to summon her voice, finds it. “Prey,” she whispers. She knows what it is to be prey. “Who do they hunt?”

His hands leave her breasts, sweep to her shoulders, stroke up her throat, over her jaw, and she is rippling with fire beneath them. “The wicked,” he says, his voice dreamy. “The cruel. The tormentors of small things. The destroyers of women. The hunters of children.”

Her breath catches, and his fingers are on her cheeks. His hands are so hot, so hot, she is going to melt beneath them.

“And what happens when they are caught?” she asks him.

“Why, they are killed, of course,” he says. “But it is hard, very hard to catch them when they stay shuttered away on the darkest of nights.” He sighs, and it sounds sad.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

She feels him shake his head. “On that night I, too, will have to run.”

She frowns. “What do you mean?”

Then his hands are on her lips, his fingers slipping into her mouth. “Shh,” he says softly. “This is a mystery.”

She is quiet, very quiet. She knows how to be quiet.

She has
learned.

“Beneath the light of the moon,” he says, his nails clipping over her teeth, “I will run. But I know me, and so I will know how to hunt myself, and when I am caught, down I will go into the land of the dead.”

You are going to die?
She doesn’t understand, but that much, she thinks, seems to be clear.