Unholy Nights: A Twisted Christmas Anthology (29 page)

“At least I have you,” I murmur to her as she rubs against my leg. She answers with a half-purr half-meow that rumbles through her body.

I reach over and turn the doorknob with my uninjured hand. After opening the front door just enough for Pixie to squeeze through, I watch enviously as she scrambles down the stairs and hops over a snowdrift to freedom in the shadows. I close the door behind her, lock it three times, and go in search of a bandage.

Alone, I pass into the living room but steal a quick glance at the stairs that lead to inky darkness. There are plenty of bandages upstairs. There are memories, too.

I shudder at the unpleasant thought of pilfering through bedrooms at night. I’m pretty sure Mercy shoved bandages into the downstairs medicine cabinet the last time we went grocery shopping.

Seriously. Who moves at
night
?

A quick glance inside the bathroom medicine cabinet proves the bandages aren’t there. I search under the sink with no luck.

Damn it. My stupid thumb is dripping blood on the floor. I grab some toilet paper and wrap my finger. Second-guessing myself, I search the medicine cabinet one last time.

Not there. Pissed, I slam shut the door. Above, the light bulb explodes.

The sudden flash leaves me blind. Instinctively I duck as glass falls around me like ice shards tapping on my head and shoulders and tinkling to the floor. I press my hands to my chest, stopping my heart from jumping past my ribcage.

In the pitch black, the bathroom window rattles. A gust of wind whines between the weatherboard and frame. The exposed skin on my arms shrinks. The air’s temperature has lowered, noticeably.

Blood pounds hot in my temples. My breath grows shallow as my lungs squeeze closed. Panic is my unwelcome friend that always finds me at my most vulnerable moments. The last place I want to have a panic attack is here, in the dark. Lately this room creeps me out—especially at night.

I take a step toward the roller shade that now glows like a Chinese lantern. Fragile glass crunches under my slipper. Thankful I’m wearing my slippers, but not wishing to test their worth, I’m pretty sure if I just reach a little farther, I might be able to lift the shade without crushing more glass. My fingers flex to their maximum length, my muscles straining as my fingertips inch near the shade’s yellowed cloth.

A powerful gust hits the window and the silhouette of gnarled crooked fingers reaches out, nearly touching mine, before slamming into the window with a loud crack. This time I scream but manage to pull the shade down. It rolls up with a bang against the top of the window frame and flaps several times as the streetlamp’s light fills the bathroom, illuminating the white shower curtain. A tree branch’s shadow sways against the white.

Stupid. Inwardly I berate myself, spooked by a harmless tree branch. I’ve got to get my head on straight now that Mercy’s not coming back to help me.

But I am panting, the air from my lungs coming out as streams of white smoke. Sweat upon my brow chills deep into my skull. With shaky fingers, I wipe the wetness from my forehead. Deciding to change the light bulb in the morning, I flee the bathroom. But my obsessive worries bully me into grabbing the dustpan and hand broom from the pantry. I ignore the pantry’s bare shelves. There’s absolutely nothing I can do about food in the middle of the night—not in the tiny town of Humble Grove. I take the flashlight from the pantry with me, too, just to be safe.

It’s back to the creepy bathroom for me... Yippie.

While emptying a dustpan full of glass shards into the kitchen garbage, I hear the van’s engine roar to life. Immediately I think of Pixie...

“Don’t hit my cat!”

I dash to the window. By the time I get there, the van has maneuvered around our small cul-de-sac and flies past in a blur of white and blue paint. In front of Mercy’s house, a man and three women stand in the steep snow. They make a circle with their hands clasped.

Well. That’s odd, even for my street.

In the center of their circle, a candle flickers in a tall glass votive, safe from the harsh wind. I watch the four, note their bent heads. Two women wear earmuffs, the third a hat, but the man’s head is bare. A stupid choice on a cold winter night. But pneumonia is his problem, not mine.

It’s been months since I really looked at anyone. Even the deposit of my outgoing mail I strategically plan in order to avoid the chatty mailwoman. Voices outside keep me from the windows during daylight. But tonight, I hunger to see another human being, and here were four.

I sneak closer to the door’s window and check the new neighbors out. The candlelight splits like a prism, casting moist, wavering rainbows to the edges of my eyes. Moisture clouds my vision, but I blink back the first hint of tears.

What’s done is done. Mercy’s obviously gone.

My new neighbors are openly praying with mouths silently moving. I’d give almost anything to know what prayers odd, pious neighbors recite while knee-deep in a snow drift—
and
in the middle of the night, of all things.

Powdery curls of snow blossom up from the white drifts edging the blacktopped street. Beyond the swirls of white, the man and women’s bodies seem to shift. Though they remain in place, their torsos elongate and their arms grow longer. My vision loses focus. When it clears four candles stand where there had been one. The orange light within each candle feeds on snowflakes and increases size, coiling, turning serpentine. Like snakes, the four flames writhe upward, seek each other, caress with ravenous stroking and finally intertwine. They meld together, becoming one thick pillar of fire. The snow within the circle melts down to the frozen grass.

The women have discarded their hats, earmuffs and coats for dresses of white and laurels of holly. Their long hair floats around their features in the hazy amber light which radiates from the candles below. Hair of blonde, black and auburn shimmer like gold, silver and copper cords. The women reach for the man and grasp his black leather jacket, pulling it from his shoulders and down his arms. Like a black cape, it falls to the snow. Underneath is his shimmering skin. His bare back is turned toward me.

I hold my breath, transfixed. Even in the dim blue light, his lean muscles leave no doubt to his fine physique. I drink in the shimmer of sweat upon his skin. The flames within the candles widen into thick ropes of fire, outlining his body in yellow and orange while the women tug his jeans down to his ankles. He stands naked and delicious.

My cynical mind chimes in: Yup. Pneumonia, for sure.

I blink. What am I seeing? What tricks of my lonely mind? I squeeze my eyes shut, but when I open them reality hasn’t regained its foothold. Instead, feminine fingers stroke his muscled calves, his bulging thighs, and cup his taut buttocks. The blonde goddess kisses her Adonis’s shoulder as the other two lift his arms from his sides.

My heart races, thumping in my chest as heat rolls from my stomach to between my thighs. I shouldn’t watch, I reason, but I’m paralyzed by shock...and curiosity. I barely consider the impropriety of it.

The blonde’s fingers slide downward, over the contours of his ribs and finally wrap around the man’s hips possessively. I know what she’s doing. I can almost imagine what he’s like—feel his shape. Savor his taste. I devour the scene before me, the strange hot ritual being performed before my eyes. My body ripples with tingling pleasure while his groans surface like growls from deep within him.

The pulsing ache between my legs intensifies. My panting breath fogs the glass and I hastily rub it clean. My face flushes, burning with a longing—a thirst unquenched in nearly two years.

The blonde woman’s hands move faster and the muscles of the man’s legs stiffen. The other women lift their candles and the fires cower before the masculine power of the man, retreating to the size of single flames. The women tilt the candles over their bronze god. Streams of wax fall like molten icicles upon his flesh.

I gasp, a strange sensation blossoming from deep within me. Not an orgasm but something indescribable as if the wax has touched my core. I shudder with pleasure and a moan slips past my lips.

Briskly, a thick swirl of snow weaves over the scene, and pulls away like a theater stage curtain. Without further warning the vision dissolves. The four still hold hands, the two women still wear earmuffs, and the third yet wears her hat. The man is still hatless, and now disappointingly clothed. One lone candle flickers between them.

Reality washes over me, ice cold. I shake my head to clear it. But now, two of the women look directly into my window, must surely see where I stand gawking. Broad, seemingly knowing smiles split their faces.

With a gasp I snap the blind shut and jump backward. I turn away from the door, uncomfortable in my own body once more. I wash my face with my hands and sigh miserably, ashamed as my sense of propriety suddenly returns to me.

Well. Mercy would have gotten a good laugh out of that, superstitious people living in her home. Does she know? Probably. Why would it bother her? She’s gone.

I try not to think of what I imagined. The emptiness, the absence of lurid thoughts and pulsating sensations left behind, force me to remember my throbbing thumb. Determined to find something to wrap it in, I march back to the bathroom. First the frigid air hits me. I nearly lose my breath from its cold grip.

A thin shadow passes over the room so quickly I might have dismissed it. It wavers in front of the medicine cabinet for a split second before it disperses. I stand paralyzed, staring at the medicine cabinet’s mirror. A thick crack has branched into three veins that reach to the very top of the mirror. With care, I touch the trail. Had I really slammed the cabinet’s door that hard? As I withdraw my fingers, I look to the sink. A square box of bandages sits to the left of the faucet.

Idiot.

Angrily accepting my mistake, I snatch the box and close the bathroom door, shutting out the cold, moaning air and my thoughts that forever whisper and worry: I cannot live like this, alone, and keep what’s left of my sanity.

*

T
he sounds of weeping wakes me. Somewhere in my father’s house, muffled sniffs dissolve into soft sobs and tremulous laughter. Echoing remnants of my dreams, I reason for the hundredth time. Every morning it seems to take longer for my subconscious to acquiesce to my waking mind.

Keeping my eyes closed, I snuggle deeper under the blanket, my cheek brushing against soft velour. I count to ten, willing my body to become alert, starting with my toes. When I think I’m fully awake, the footsteps start. Heavy boots mount the stairs. The fourth step from the top squeaks.

I turn my head into the couch cushions. I wait for the dragging feet to fade beyond my father’s bedroom door.

“Wake up,” I whisper. I open my eyes. It’s daylight.

I bolt into a sitting position and look at my watch. Half-past eight. I’ve overslept.

Pixie isn’t home.

Had I missed her scratches on the door? The TV mumbles, the volume turned low just as I always have it, so that I can hear her meow, but block out other night sounds.

Maybe I hadn’t heard weeping. Maybe it was her yowl, distorted by my dreams. Fear yanks me off the couch. What if the van had hit her? And I didn’t even realize, too engrossed in my fantasy...!

I rush to the door and swing it open, bracing myself against the wintry chill.

“Pixie?” I call softly, then with more force, “Pixie!” From the doorway I crane my head as far as I dare and call again, but there’s no sign of her.

I alternate between pacing the length of the dining room and searching the street from the room’s bay window. Busying myself, I sweep the living room’s distressed wood boards. I walk briskly to the antique dining armoire, open the doors and go over the bottoms of the wine glasses with a feather duster, making sure all the bulbs are upside down so no dust can collect in them. I space them precisely before shutting the doors.

Dusting always dries out my throat. After filling a glass with tap water from the kitchen, I drink half of it and empty what remains into the evergreen bonsai tree Mercy gave me before she left.

“As long as it thrives, our friendship will survive,” she joked before hugging me and saying goodbye.

Unfortunately, I’m not a green thumb like Mercy is, always tending her rosebushes, bridal wreaths and petunias. I let the stunted evergreen grow, not knowing the first thing on how to prune a bonsai. Now the tree reaches almost to my hip. The large pottery bowl that contains it adds to its height. Maybe I should decorate it with Christmas ornaments, but I dismiss the idea immediately. For one, the festive notion is ridiculous, and for another, all the boxed Christmas decorations are stacked in a storage closet upstairs.

I change the light bulb in the bathroom and mop the kitchen floor. Lastly, I dust the various deer antlers my father collected throughout his years of hunting.

With a heavy sigh, I scan the living room for something else to clean, but the downstairs is spotless. I take in the weather distressed floorboards, the oversized leather couch and matching chairs, the bulbous oak stair posts, handrails, and banisters. The hearth is oversized as well, covered with thick odd-shaped stones and dark mortar that supports leaf-engraved corbel pieces and an overly large oak mantle. Above the mantle hangs an antique oil painting of a dove that my father had bought at an estate sale. He brought it home the same day my mother left with my brother. My father lost half his perfect idea of family and found religion that day.

Without a word, he took down the portrait of our family that wasn’t a family—not really—and replaced it. I cried that day. Eight years old, with my young eyes seeking out the window or straying back to the foot of the stairs where two small wicker suitcases had stood hours ago. I cried because my mother who wasn’t really a mother had left me behind, choosing my brother who wasn’t really a brother instead of me. I cried because I thought I could be as easily replaced as that portrait.

I was borrowed, carefully picked from a booklet of adoption photos and files, as was my brother—a boy I had no affection for because we were so very different. He was older by four years and smarter by twenty IQ points. It’s hard to nurture any hope of love in a house of stiff, tight-lipped adults. “I did not give you life, but you are the child that I chose,” were never words I heard from either of my parents.