Like he harbored some terror that something, somewhere, would be after her year after year come Christmas. And Greg had found it damn hard not to let that fear bleed into his own mind despite Taylor’s assertions that he was only taking precautions, only assuaging a worry that would end up baseless.
“How was grandma’s house?” Greg asked Mandy in a lull.
Mandy spun around, sneakers lighting up, sparkling on the glitter and jewels dotting her jeans. “Awe-some! Grandma has this little snow town, with little people and little dogs and there’s a cat with baby cats and she let me play with it!”
“Were there elves?” asked Taylor.
Mandy wrinkled her nose. “No, no, no. I told her to hide the elves. I don’t like elves.”
“You and me both, Mands.”
Greg ducked under a wind chime—one of Mandy’s projects from this year’s art specials—as they reached the porch. “Mandy, go ahead and get your room set up before you start playing.”
She squeezed into the space under Taylor’s arm as he opened the door, then ran off with her book bag, carrying it awkwardly so that she lumbered-ran sideways down the hall. A blast of chilly air—more autumn-pumpkin flavored than wintery—followed them inside, swirling the pile of opened mail and shivering the pictures Mandy had taped along the arched doorway into the kitchen. Taylor turned, the lines on his face suddenly haggard and drawn, years weighing him down that the holidays compounded.
“Taylor, I—”
“Mind if I use your laptop? Want to get a look, see if any missing kids have been reported.” He wouldn’t quite meet Greg’s eyes, gaze dancing across the entryway, then darting to the shelving that bordered the living room. Plucked up the set of blue-light glasses they shared, his fingering of them seeming more an excuse to have something other than Greg to focus on, something else to give his abject attention.
“Sure,” agreed Greg quietly. “Sure.”
They moved around one another, Taylor shrugging off his leather jacket and plucking the laptop off the shelf one-handedly. The motions were familiar, routine. Taylor took up a spot at the end of the kitchen table, face going tight in concentration as he typed with both index fingers, the computer screen reflecting off the glasses in little squares that only served to block Greg off further.
Greg absently set about making coffee, not even realizing he was doing it until he placed the mechanic’s mug—Keep Calm and Add Lube—in front of Taylor, who thanked him with a sudden, bright smile that came and went so fast it felt perfunctory rather than appreciative.
He took a breath. “Taylor, about today—”
A clatter in the hall.
“Daddy!” Mandy came rushing into the room like a whirlwind, her pigtails tumbling out already despite Katie having pulled them tighter, her eyes wide with worry. She grabbed him, tugging him toward the doorway and down to her level. Her lips pressed close to his ear and she spoke in a loud whisper. “I forgot to get Taylor a present. I forgot. I need to make him something.”
He winked at her. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t go into your room.”
She nodded seriously and ran off, back down the hall, screaming as she went, “You’re not allowed in my room, Taylor! You’re not allowed! Stay out!”
From behind Greg came a “Your room smells like unicorn farts anyway!”
“It does not!” She shouted more, what seemed like dire threats, but they came muffled behind the slamming of her door.
“I don’t think you should go to the tree lighting.” Taylor didn’t even look up from his two-fingered typing, his movements strangely jerky when Greg knew him to be fluid and graceful under far more dire—or sensual—circumstances.
Greg straightened. “I promised Mandy already that we were going.”
“Tell her elves will be there. She’ll not want to go.”
“Will they be?”
A pause. “Maybe.”
“You’ve said the same thing about every place we’ve checked out this year.”
“There’s a thirteen-year old girl who’s disappeared. They’re saying runaway.”
“Hopefully she’ll turn up. What makes you think elves will be at the lighting?”
“Because they haven’t been anywhere else.”
“Because they might not be in the county at all.”
Taylor flinched, but it was, again, a quick thing, here and gone, like all his expressions lately. Like he was scared to feel anything for too long. As if he fought a growing emotion, gaining in strength the further he pushed it away. Greg crossed his arms, then purposely uncrossed them to grip the edges of the counter he leaned on, trying not to seem too confrontational, too aggressive.
“Are you leaving after Christmas?” The words came out quiet, yet firm, rehearsed all morning to the walls of an empty house.
Taylor breathed in slowly. Held it. Didn’t respond.
“You know I don’t want you to.”
Taylor closed the laptop, slid off the glasses, and stood in a single movement. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” And then made as if to leave.
“Don’t you think it’s something we should talk about?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been in one of these things before.”
“Do you not like being in one of these things?” And Greg had a hell of a time keeping his tone from turning mocking as he used Taylor’s definition of their relationship.
Taylor shrugged and glowered into his coffee.
“I’m not going to keep convincing you to stay.”
Greg turned to look at the drawing Mandy had done of Taylor shooting a figure in a green hat and over-exaggerated pointy ears. It’d been a habit of hers last winter, drawing, painting, writing about Taylor shooting gingerbread men and sharp-toothed elves.
If Mandy drew Greg, it was with her in his arms or standing in front of her. But Taylor…he was the one she drew with the gun, dead elves with Xs for eyes and comic-like blood spurts riddling the ground around him.
“But you know we both want you to,” he finished softly.
Taylor remained silent for another moment, contemplating his coffee. Then rolled his head sideways toward Greg. “If I leave and they come for Mandy or you, I’d never forgive myself. But if I stay…” Taylor looked up then, “and they come because of me, I’ll never forgive myself for that either. If other kids are being taken and I don’t do something about it, I… I don’t know what to do. If you’ve got a good answer to any of that, I’m for it, but it’s not as if I can stop Christmas from coming every year and this same question popping up.”
“Until Mandy’s too old for them.”
Taylor hesitated. “Yeah,” he breathed, but with no conviction behind the word.
“What? What is it?”
“Elves are creatures of habit, but that doesn’t mean they won’t change things up. Look at them this year. Haven’t been at any of their old haunts, haven’t been to see Brockstin, haven’t left a single sugary bit of evidence of them existing, let alone hunting. What if they break the mold further and decide to hurt you or Mandy a few years from now if I’m still with you? What if they still plan to do that this year? I keep thinking—” He shook his head. “I keep seeing—”
“Seeing what?”
“Nothing. Seeing nothing! Nothing real at any rate. I’m seeing them in everything. You’ve got a neighbor with a snowman made of white rocks sitting in their garden, and I swear it—It’s stupid, but I keep having to look twice at everything, like the whole world is sending signals, but then they’re not.”
“Paranoia?”
Taylor laughed. “Paranoia didn’t see that your daughter wasn’t your daughter last year. I look at these things and I swear it’s them. But then I look again, and...it’s not. I feel like they’re here. Feel it, the same way I’ve felt every year. And every year I’ve been right. I just can’t find them.”
Sounded like paranoia, but Greg kept that to himself this time and nodded along. “And if you could find them, would t
hat assuage your worries? Make things all right?”
In answer, Taylor swallowed a mouthful of coffee and then muttered, “Nothing will be all right. Ever. I should never have stayed.”
“But you wanted to.”
Taylor gave no indication he’d even heard Greg’s soft response, which, Greg supposed, was indication enough, same as the quick hang-up on the phone that had come when Greg had dared mention their anniversary.
The world outside had been rolling between breezy, icy days and quiet, steady sun cutting through the chill all month, as if the very earth admitted Christmas might not be quite the same this year. Taylor had mimicked the weather, cold as ice one day, then warm and sweet the next, his mouth hot and his breathing heavy. The want encased him, enveloped them both, but it’d never been a question of want. Desire couldn’t assuage anxieties, no matter how badly Greg wished it might.
“They haven’t shown their faces at all this year. If they’re going to be anywhere, it’ll be at the lighting tonight. It’ll be dark, crowded, cold. Forecast is thirty-something percent chance of snow. It’d be reckless to go.” And Taylor threw his words out like an accusation.
“There’s a potential for danger, yeah.”
“Great. So we’re staying home tonight?”
Greg crossed his arms and left them crossed this time. “No. We’re going to the tree lighting.”
Taylor pursed his lips, then sighed and wandered away with a clear delineation that the conversation was over, at least on his side.
He lingered by the large window in the living room all afternoon, staring at nothing, glaring as the first snowflakes descended and couldn’t even be brought out of his paranoia-inspired depression by Mandy’s squealing excitement over getting to have a snowball fight the next day. He walked the perimeter of Greg’s house and property—and that was exactly what Taylor called it, walking the perimeter, as if the house had become a war-zoned staging ground. He picked at the tacos Greg made for dinner, and was only marginally helpful in helping to cook the sausage for the next day’s breakfast casserole. He was a shadow in the house, coasting through the rooms, standing stoically at attention as he watched the yard for elvish sparkle.
He was absent despite being present. Greg began to think perhaps it would have been better had he just driven back to his apartment as he’d normally do when his mind latched onto the flight response at the mention of the long-term viability of their relationship.
“Is Taylor looking for the reindeer?”
Greg sighed and handed Mandy another piece of tape for the present she’d colored for Taylor. “I don’t know what he’s looking for anymore.”
Mandy gave him a questioning glance at his morose tone, then became distracted with folding the red wrapping paper over her project.
Later, she said, as if the conversation hadn’t been interrupted, “I’m glad he’s looking. I hope he kills them. But not the reindeer. They’re soft and I like them.”
They drove into town early and yet still had to park down the hill from the first set of shops, forcing them uphill on the walk toward the cordoned-off area. Mandy wore gloves with cat whiskers that stroked Greg as she pretended her hands were licking his cheeks (“Meooow. Meow.”) and a bright green hat with monster eyes that would make her visible no matter where she ran. She leaned to either side, shifting on his shoulders painfully at times when her weight pressed against his neck at an odd angle.
“Mandy, straighten up.”
“But the kitties are licking you!”
Greg paused, looking back to see Taylor frozen in place, staring at a cozy house sitting canted on the hill. The owners had placed a miniature sleigh outside, filled with plastic presents that glowed softly in the dusk light. On the porch a wooden sign reading PEACE leaned against the siding and a snowman hung from a hook on the door. Yet he saw nothing that would explain away the sudden focus or the narrowed, suspicious gaze Taylor wore.
“Taylor?”
Greg looked again, to be sure, pulling Mandy’s hands off his face and holding them tightly as he searched for the sparkle of elvish magic within the bushes and fence posts.
Then Taylor let out a breath and pasted on a false smile. “Nothing. Sorry. Let’s go.” But he kept looking back over his shoulder, and his hand slipped beneath his jacket more than once toward his gun.
Chapter Five
The air smelled of peppermint, like the whole town had bathed in it and then poured it into the gutters to freeze. The fir tree stood ramrod straight, towering over the crowd like some dictator waiting for its glorious crown, the unlit lights strung about its fat middle already glinting, reflecting the lampposts. And the people—cradling hot cocoas and singing along with the Christmas carols blasting out of the boom box behind the platform—they acted as if the world hit a climax on December twenty-fifth of every year.
Greg set Mandy down and bought her a giant striped peppermint stick that quickly turned her gloves into a sticky mess and tinted her lips the color of blood. Then he disappeared, saying something about being right back, so Taylor curled two fingers into tips of Mandy’s hair as a safety assurance and scanned the crowd. He paid close attention to the children weaving through playing tag, their darting bodies coat-hidden and hard to pin down.
When Greg returned bearing two paper cups, Taylor stiffened at the sight of the black snowman stamp on the sleeve, then cursed himself internally at being so damn jumpy. Just like back at that house, with its ridiculous glowing presents that sparkled like whips and its painted wooden snowman that seemed to be turning its head when it tapped in the breeze, the nail holding it too thick to allow the décor to lay flat.
“Bought you a coffee. But if you don’t want it…”
Taylor took the drink and placed his thumb over the stamped snowman. He left his fingertips twined in Mandy’s hair as they meandered through the event and only half-listened to her and Greg chatter. The tree had a girth, after all, could easily be hiding small creatures, the glint of icy mirrors blending in with the Christmas lights. That school—Halstown Elementary—was only a few blocks away with its Third Grade Botanical Garden standing empty enough that reindeer could be milling there right now, unseen in the darkness beyond the chain-link fence. The high-pitched tingling of the music hiding the tinging of bells, the sizzle of whips.
And this on-and-off snowfall, sweet nothings kissing hair but doing little else against the warmed streets and ticking engines, could be just enough to blur the flash of magic.
“Mom bought a white tree?” asked Greg.
“It’s white with red spots, like, bows, but not bows.”
“Ribbons? Tinsel?”
“Yes! That!”
“Which one? Ribbons?”
“Sure. We hung up my rings too. But…Dad, I don’t have one for your tree. Can we buy paper to make rings for your tree too?”
There was another snowman, a fluffy one near man-height, with a plain white apron on and a crab-cage dangling from its left hand. Its black eyes did not seem to see the two fake crabs clinging to the metal bars though.
“Not tonight.”
“But it’s Christmas tomorrow!”
“Exactly. I’m not driving out to get construction paper after we leave here. We’ll have to do it another time.”
The snowman’s gaze seemed fixed on some point to Taylor’s left. He followed it instinctively, skipping over tan coats, beanies, and breaths of hot air dispersing into the chill. A sign, big and bold and ugly, had been propped up by some well-meaning soul outside the deli. HO! HO! HO! The paint had dripped. Bright red, leaking down the board like some late Halloween decoration repurposed.
“Taylor! Can you go get some paper?”
Her hair slipped free from his fingertips as she spun around, nearly smacking him with an undressed peppermint stick that had been sharpened to a deadly point by her tongue. Taylor gasped and closed his fingers into a fist to avoid the instinctual grab for her hair.
“You want me to do what?”
“Oh. Well…you could make a black and orange one and save it for Halloween.” He lifted his gaze as he spoke and the crowd parsed down, splitting just enough for him to see the bottom half of the HO! HO! HO! sign. Hoagies. HO! HO! HO! HOAGIES!
“Or a pink and white one for Valentine’s,” offered Greg.
“Could we hang it on the, on the…”
But they never found out where Mandy wanted to hang the theorized craft because she was begging Greg to hold her (sort of disgusting) peppermint stick so she could play a game one of the local shop owners had set up outside her store. Greg triple-handed coffee, candy and his phone, snapping pictures of Mandy rolling a large snowball toward fake bowling pins painted to look like elves.
“I killed them!” she crowed. “I murdered the elves!”
Greg laughed self-consciously and down-played his agreement, in that way parents did when they knew something the bystanders didn’t. Taylor gave Mandy a thumbs up, but low-down where only she could see, unable to help the sense of pride he felt at her, not just remembering, but exhibiting a sense of power over her fears.
Further on they found a picture opt screen, the background snowy with reindeer pawing the ground, complete with jars of hats and glasses and pointy ears and scarves and coal-dotted faces all glued to popsicle sticks that bore remnants of fibers from gloved hands. Taylor found himself being pressured into being an elf so Mandy could pretend to stab him in the heart with a carrot nose. Then he was manning Greg’s phone, snapping pictures of dad and daughter as they modeled top hats and pretended to mark up Santa’s list.
Yet in the background whenever the phone went dark, Taylor could see the giant tree reflected, the boughs closer, reaching, some of the branches gnarled and devoid of life, hidden back here where the platform blocked part of it. His attention split between the tree and picture-taking. A snapped photo, then another good look at the empty space where the green didn’t drape, the shadows accentuating small shapes that held Taylor’s focus as he waited for any indication of movement. Any change, no matter how small.
Rise of the Snowmen Page 4