Mab and I sat on the steps of the dais, basking in the sense of warmth and security this place radiated. Mephisto, however, rushed forward and plopped himself down at Father Christmas’s feet, singing as he did so, “ ‘He knows when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.’ What about me? Have I been good?” he asked.
Father Christmas stroked his long white beard and nodded his head slowly. There was a sadness in his keen blue eyes. “Yes, Mephistopheles. You have been good.”
“Goody, I hate that icky coal stuff!” Mephisto started to rise. I feared he would attempt to sit in Father Christmas’s lap. He asked, “Can I tell you what I want?”
“I know what you want, Mephistopheles,” Father Christmas replied solemnly.
“You do?” Mephisto sat back down. “Oh.” Then, perking up, he asked, “When do I get it?”
“When all my presents are delivered, child,” Father Christmas laughed. “On Christmas, of course!”
I smiled indulgently, pleased to see the kindness with which Father Christmas treated my daffy brother. And yet, hearing his calm promise, I could not help but feel a lingering sense of envious regret. When I first met Father Christmas, so long ago, I asked him for the one gift I most desired: the Book of the Sibyl. Written by Deiphobe, the Sibyl of Rome, it purportedly explained the secrets of the Sibylline Order. Shaking his head sadly, Father Christmas had told me that was beyond even his ability to give.
“What of my people?” Mab cocked his head. His tone was challenging “Do you give my people gifts?”
Father Christmas met Mab’s gaze squarely. “Do they give each other gifts?” Mab frowned, thinking. Father Christmas turned his keen and penetrating gaze toward me.
“Let us speak of things immediate. I have driven off the demons who pursued you. However, those beggarly dogs may not yet have lost your scent. You are safe within the circle of my hospitality. This place is as a temple bedecked in my honor. My power is strong here.” He gestured toward the red and green banners hanging from the rafters and the Yuletide displays decorating the window of every store.
“Then we can stay here a while?” I asked.
Father Christmas smiled down at me kindly. “Of course! All who serve the Light are welcome.”
I smiled and, reaching out, squeezed his hand in thanks.
“It has been a long time, Miranda,” Father Christmas declared. “When was it we met last?”
“On the streets of London, near Mayfair, during the reign of Victoria,” I recalled. “You wore robes of dark green, and two shaggy ponies festooned with bells pulled your sleigh. If I recall, there were burning candles in the holly wreath about your head.”
I remembered the encounter clearly. It was just after vespers, and the evening bells were ringing. The air smelled of pies and spices, for the muffin man had just pushed by with his cart. Carolers were singing at the park, and snow was falling. I had met him once before, too, long ago, in Italy, though back then he wore yet another guise.
Father Christmas’s keen blue eyes twinkled. “The mall security will not let me have lighted candles.”
“Imagine, meeting the real Father Christmas at a shopping mall, and after a wait of well over hundred years!” I laughed in wonder.
It was unbelievable. Yet, nothing was impossible when divine guidance was involved. To think I had nearly doubted Her. Silently, I begged my Lady’s pardon.
Father Christmas nodded solemnly. He frowned ever so slightly and stroked his long white beard.
“Hey, aren’t you called St. Nicholas in Russia?” Mab asked.
“I am.”
“Is it true what the legends say? That you’re God’s apprentice, preparing to take His place when He dies?” Mab asked.
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” Father Christmas’s laugh was a deep and jovial sound. “How could anyone replace the Infinite?”
“Hmm, you have a point. . . . Sir, why don’t my people give each other gifts?” Mab asked.
“Gift giving requires a free will. Mankind did not always give gifts. Do you know the tale of how they came to have the freedom to do so? Perhaps with its telling, we can while away the time you must remain here for my blessing to protect you. I know Miranda is familiar with this story, but perhaps she will not mind hearing it told yet again,” said Father Christmas.
I knew the story quite well. The servants of Eurynome passed it down from generation to generation. It was an analogy only, not necessarily more or less true than other accounts, though it resembled rather closely the version told by the early Christian Gnostics, before the Church hunted them into extinction. We kept it alive because it glorified our Lady and served as a reminder of the infamy of Her great enemy, Lilith.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I could hear that tale told over a thousand times, and it would not be too often for me.”
“Then listen, my children, and I shall tell you the tale of how mankind came to be free.” Father Christmas leaned forward and began. “Once upon a time, the fallen angels who dwell in the darkness were bitterly envious of the bright things they had left behind. Filled with overweening pride and wishing to prove their superiority to the Infinite, they fashioned a world out of the stuff of darkness and set in it a garden, which they filled with all manner of pretty things: flowers, fruit trees, animals, birds, and fish. In the midst of this garden, they created creatures formed in their own images.”
“He means people,” Mephisto looked back and forth from Mab to me. “Doesn’t he mean people?”
I reached over and touched Mephisto’s shoulder lightly, putting my finger to my lips. Mephisto covered his mouth with his hand and sat quietly, gazing eagerly up at Father Christmas, awaiting the tale.
“Their new creatures were homunculi, containing no spirit.” Father Christmas’s voice was deep and restful. “When the fallen ones exerted their will upon them, their hideous homunculi would stand and shamble about the garden, dancing and cavorting much like a marionette beneath the puppeteer’s strings. When the fallen angels turned their will to other matters, their charges collapsed and lay inanimate upon the grass.
“Beholding this little pocket of color in the bleakness, the Divine Infinite felt pity for the fallen angels and their dolls. He moved across the face of their garden and breathed the breath of Life into their homunculi. The flopping homunculi stood and thought and named themselves mankind.
“The fallen angels were both horrified and delighted with this new turn of events—horrified because now their charges had the ability to escape them, but delighted because they now had prisoners to torment. Fearing that mankind might escape the garden, they laid great enchantments to blind mankind and bind their will. Thus bound and blinded, mankind could not perceive the nature of their fallen masters, nor could they perceive the walls that enclosed the garden. They lived much as they had before, bound and meek, obeying the fallen ones’ every whim.
“Far above, among the shining spires of High Heaven, a daughter of the Divine Infinite beheld the creatures within the walls of the garden prison. Moved by mankind’s plight, she left the Void, where she had danced, weaving worlds out of chaos, to travel down into the murk and darkness wherein the fallen ones’ world was hid.
“Eurynome came across the oceans of the Void, a bolt of brilliance through the eternal night. The hosts of the fallen streamed forth to bar her way, but none could stand before her brightness. Searing the air as she plummeted, she pierced the wall surrounding the garden. Where she struck the ground, a tree grew.
“The fallen angels took council among themselves. Mankind must be stopped from eating the fruit of this new tree, else the darkness might be lifted from their eyes and the bindings from their will. The fallen ones chose one from among their number, the dark and cunning Lilith, called the Queen of Air and Darkness, to misguide mankind. Lilith crept among them, whispering to them that if they should eat of this tree, they would surely die. Mankind dutifully abstained.”
As Father Christmas wove his tale, his voice gr
ew more powerful and the gleam in his eye more keen, until I was amazed any shopper could mistake him for a costumed mortal. An aura of majesty surrounded him like a cloak, and the lights gleaming off his thistle-white hair shone like a halo. Folklore named him a saint, but I suspected he was something far older and more primordial. After all, saints were human. When Father Christmas spoke about High Heaven, I got the distinct impression he knew of it firsthand. When he spoke of Lilith and the demons, he seemed no more afraid than an adult might be of a child’s nightmare.
“Then, one day,” he continued, “as a woman sat beneath the blessed tree, a fruit fell into her hand, and she bit into it. Some say that it fell by its own volition, but others claim that Ophion, the Serpent of the Wind, Eurynome’s dance partner from the Void, moved through its branches, disturbing them. If so, this might explain why some other versions of this tale recall a snake within the branches.
“As she ate, Eurynome’s virtue went into the woman, and the mist cleared from her eyes. She became aware of her divine nature and beheld the imprisoning walls. Running to her mate, she shared the fruit with him, and he too beheld the truth. Hand in hand, they scaled the walls and escaped from the garden, to make a new life upon the face of the Earth. They were free now to love, to give gifts, and to do all those things, both good and bad, that free will allows.”
While we sat spellbound, listening, the halls of the mall around us had slowly grown quiet and empty. Now a security guard approached, stepping over the low fence as he came toward us.
“I’m sorry folks, but the mall is closed; you’ll have to leave.”
Father Christmas stood, saying, “Come. I will escort you to your vehicle and ensure no dark powers approach you out of the night.”
OUTSIDE, we found our rental car alone in the parking lot, bathed in a pool of garish lamplight. The magic of the story still encompassed us as we walked in silence, Father Christmas striding before us. When we reached our vehicle, Father Christmas raised his staff and uttered his benediction.
“Merry Christmas! And to all, a good night!” he boomed.
“Good night, Santa,” Mephisto said.
“Good evening, Sir,” said Mab.
“Good night, Father Christmas,” I said. “I hope to see you before another hundred and forty years have passed.”
“May your wish be granted!” Father Christmas bowed solemnly and strode off into the darkness.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Of Tall Dark Men
“So, do you think this Ferdinand chap will show?” Mab looked at his watch.
“With any luck, no,” I replied.
We stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, gazing back toward Capitol Hill along the green avenue known as the Mall. The serpentine length of the Vietnam Memorial, the World War II Memorial, the rectangular reflecting pool, the towering white obelisk of the Washington Monument, and the handsome buildings of the Smithsonian museums lay between us and the dome of the Capitol. It was an impressive sight, as grand as the cathedrals of Europe.
The wind was bitingly cold. Few tourists were about. A young couple in matching plum parkas sat within the memorial eating their lunch, and a small tour group of elderly citizens stood together in a tight cluster, reading the inscriptions on the inside walls of the memorial itself. These made up the entirety of those present, except for the three Italian stonemasons who were doing some repair work on the farthest of the enormous columns that lined the front of the monument.
I would have preferred to spend the morning flying down to the Caribbean, but since we could not depart from Washington, D.C., until after our meeting with Ferdinand, we had spent it shopping instead, with periodic interruptions as I fielded calls from Prospero, Inc. It was a novelty to me, who normally divided all my time between Prospero’s Mansion and various branch offices, to spend a day as a tourist, visiting shopping malls and seeing sights. I found it surprisingly pleasant.
All three of us bought new outfits. Instead of my tattered white trench coat, I wore a heavy cape of creamy cashmere lined with scarlet satin, a knitted hat and matching muff trimmed with faux ermine. Mephisto had a new navy parka, black trousers, black boots, and, after some searching, a new lute. The bottom ten inches of his royal blue surcoat stuck out from underneath his new coat.
Mab had at first refused to replace his old gray trench coat, despite the terrible rents it now bore. But when the clerk showed him how the new coat would have twice the pocket room of the old one, Mab was sold. Those new pockets were now bulging with all manner of arcane items: chalk, salt, rosemary, garlic, and dried rose petals, as well as his notebook and a selection of stubby pencils, all blue.
Thus attired, we set out for the Mall to search for the offices of Smithsonian magazine, wishing to inquire about their most recent address for my brother Erasmus, who occasionally wrote articles for them. Upon arriving, we learned that Smithsonian magazine was not published at the museum. Mab made a note of the proper address, and we spent the rest of our time wandering though the museums, gazing at all manner of wonders.
The Air and Space Museum was the most delightful, for everything there was new and amazing to us. The history of man’s desire to fly was laid out in loving detail. Just seeing the kites, balloons, and early planes brought a sense of exhilaration. Walking its halls, I could almost imagine there were other mortals who loved flight as much as I.
Among the photos on display near the Apollo moon-shot equipment, we found a picture of NASA administrative officers that included, toward the back, a man who was the spitting image of my brother Ulysses. The photograph was over twenty-five years old—not much of a trail there.
AS the sun approached its zenith, Mab and I had walked slowly up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It was just before noon, but neither of us felt inclined to hurry. Mephisto had abandoned us to sit on the first tier of the monument’s steps and tune his new lute. As he tuned the instrument, he spoke to it, telling it how, in the past, he had played for Bess of England, for King James I, for Louis XIV, and how once— on an occasion I myself well remembered— for the Queen of Elfland.
Mab halted partway up the steps. “Look, Miss Miranda, there’s something strange going on. I’ve done my share of supernatural investigations, and I can tell you something all the manifestations I have tracked down in the past had in common: They didn’t happen in plain view. And they most certainly did not happen at shopping malls, or in front of gas station attendants, or turn up in hotel lobbies!”
“What are you getting at, Mab?”
“That’s just it, Ma’am, I don’t know. The powers of Hell always prefer subtlety. No sane man makes a pact with the Devil with his eyes open. Demons have to hide their true nature if they wish to woo mankind into their fiery pits. So much overt action on their part is damned peculiar.”
“It’s not so different from past situations. What about the demon manifestations of the seventeenth century, the ones that resulted in so many innocent women being burned as witches? Or the incubi plague in Milan, about the time of Gregor’s and Logistilla’s birth, that Theo put an end to? Remember, no one but us saw the barghests last night. No adults, anyway, though a few customers will remember seeing a big dog. The shapechanger, I grant you, was unusual. But from what Theo says, he sounds like a special case.”
“The point is, Ma’am, you’ve got to be prepared to find this beau of yours caught thick in the middle of this.”
“He’s not my beau,” I objected.
Mab ignored my protestations. “His turning up now after a five-hundred-year absence is mighty peculiar.”
“Which is why I agreed to meet with him,” I agreed.
“Heck, he might even be the cause of our troubles,” said Mab. “How did he get along with Mr. Prospero?”
I thought back through the haze of years, but it was difficult to recall my youth. Or, rather, it was difficult to distinguish between Shakespeare’s version of events and the real events. I could recall the face of the yo
ung boy who played me the first time The Tempest was performed, and that of the buxom redhead who, many years later, had been the first woman to perform the role. I could even recall, in crisp detail, down to the smell of the greasepaint, a performance in Paris where I myself performed the role of Miranda. Not surprisingly, however, my memories of the real events, upon which the play had been based, were sketchy. The real events had happened only once.
Of us, only Cornelius had made a serious study of the Ancient Art of Memory— possibly because if he forgets the location of an object, he barks his shins. Erasmus originally learned this art from Giordano Bruno, back in the late sixteenth century, about the same time Father was winning the good graces of Queen Elizabeth by summoning a tempest to destroy the Spanish Armada. It was not until Cornelius lost his sight, however, that any of us took this art seriously.
Cornelius always believed Mephisto’s madness had its roots in faulty memory. Cornelius theorized Mephisto’s mind had become so overburdened by memories that it affected his sanity— though why this would be true of him and not the rest of us, Cornelius had no idea. At Father’s urging, he spent the better part of the 1740s trying to teach Mephisto the Ancient Art of Memory. At first, Mephisto improved under his tutelage, but as with all attempts to cure Mephisto, the progress proved temporary. Cornelius eventually became irate and refused to waste more time on the project. To this day, he insists that Mephisto deliberately resisted his assistance.
To Mab, I said slowly, “Father was uncharacteristically cruel to Ferdinand when they first met on the island and then later claimed this behavior had been part of his plan.” I frowned and rubbed my temples. “At least, that’s what I think happened. Certainly, that’s the way Shakespeare tells it, and he heard it from Father. Ferdinand might feel he had cause to dislike Father, I suppose. But why now? Unless, he had to wait all this time to catch Father at a moment of weakness.”
Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I Page 19