NO!
Peter rocketed back toward his mother's brain.
Leona's eyes widened. Her arms left her chest and dropped stiffly to her sides. Her entire body began to tremble.
She climbed up onto the railing.
Let go of me, Peter demanded.
"No," Leona said aloud. "Never."
A hand closed around her ankle. Leona glanced down and saw a heavy-set man in a gray suit, his free hand reaching for her arm.
"Never," she said again.
And pitched forward over the edge. She did a flapping half-gainer before landing on her back on the candelabrum, where earlier some three hundred worshipers, herself included, had lit a candle and knelt to murmur in prayer. The slim iron crucifix on the lower left comer poked through the meat of her thigh. The one on the right punctured her heart. Life's blood boiled out even as the years-old lace dress she was wearing caught fire. There was a faint pop of flame, then a sudden, all-consuming roar. Her hair, always unruly, came alight like a forkful of hay.
In the instant the cold iron pierced her heart, her hold on her son was relinquished. As he left her body, Leona suffered an agony far more intense than the impaling that would in the next few seconds end her life. She looked up and saw a shimmering blue shape, transparent, phosphorescent, vaguely man-shaped. It hovered above her a moment, its pulsing head inclined toward her as if in pity. Then it was gone.
An instant later, Peter awoke in his bed in a cold bath of sweat. He had felt the crucifix burst his mother's heart.
Pungent black smoke roiled up from the charred fabric of Leona's dress, becoming sweet as the flames found her flesh. Her eyes were still open, gazing heavenward with the frenzied blankness of sacrifice. They swelled, then exploded. Like reluctant Inquisitors the congregation looked on, many of them turning away to empty their stomachs of the festive dinners they had barely begun to digest. Several had seen that eerie blue shape, but few would remember it in the horror of the following minutes. Those who did were busy denying it to themselves.
Already charred, Leona's skin began to crack open, craters in a primordial crust, releasing black smoke and an awful, greasy stench. An altar boy appeared with a small red fire extinguisher. Ten feet from the pyre, he collapsed to his knees and sicked up his supper. A grim-faced woman of about forty retrieved the extinguisher and doused Leona's charring corpse with foam.
It was an hour before her blackened remains had cooled enough that the coroner and his assistant could bag them.
Mass ended early that night.
The pain in his chest subsided only slowly. An hour later he could still feel the path the cold iron had taken through his mother's heart.
But even worse than this lingering bayonet of pain was the persistent sensation of her diseased flesh around him. Being inside her like that, being held by her, sweaty mental hands groping him in forbidden places—that had almost finished him.
He lay in the deep night darkness of his hospital room and felt the walls creep in on him claustrophobically. There seemed to be no air to breathe, and his heart felt on the verge of bursting.
You killed her, his mind indicted him. Oh, sweet Jesus, you killed her.
His thoughts ran rampant. The same stubborn corner of his mind that had so resolutely denied his quadriplegia sought now to denounce the reality of the events in the church, to ascribe them instead to some hateful night sweat. He had dreamed his mother's death, something which, in his torment, he had for so long believed she deserved. None of it had actually happened. He'd slipped not into a trance after his brother's gift-bearing visit, but into a deep and nightmarish slumber. His mother was at home right now, in her seedy little apartment, sprawled drunk and mumbling on the couch. It had all been a dream, from the very outset. He'd left his body only in the yearning rhapsodies of his sleep.
But a greater part of his mind recognized this line of thought for the thin evasion that it was.
It had happened. All of it.
His mother was dead, and he had killed her.
Guilt reared its ugly head then, and for a few fretful minutes Peter cowered before its unwavering gaze. Long-buried memories shone through like coins in muddy water, and he saw her again as she had been, through a child's unblaming eyes, remembered how his world had once revolved around her. How could he have harmed this blessed, gentle woman?
Ah, but then he remembered the wreath, its piney weight and her insane refusal to hear him, to see him, and his confused regret shriveled in a fierce sunburst of satiated loathing and fury. She had gotten her due. It was perhaps no coincidence that she'd met her end in the house of God. After all, wasn't his new power nothing if not godlike?
There was no reason for guilt. He had done a higher bidding.
Peter raised his head off the pillow and gazed out the window at the night. High winds had whisked away the cloud cover, and now the night sky was black, star-specked, and boundless. Beneath its ancient canopy, Peter felt filled with wonder.
Excitement.
And an intoxicating sense of power.
He closed his eyes and slept, soundly and without dreams.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Kelly sat curled in the easy chair by the picture window, her long hair in a braid, a wineglass leaning empty against the curve of her hip. In the lamplight, her eyes were lost in the hollows of their sockets. The corner of her mouth had taken up an annoying tic, and now she pressed a finger against it, trying to still it. On the stereo, Elvis rocked his way through a medley of Christmas favorites. The lake, barely visible past the boughs of the big blue spruce she and Marti had spent the evening rigging up, was a moonlit purple plain, flat and unblemished. The ice was still too thin for the inevitable snowmobiles. Humming along with the King, Marti slung the last of the tinsel onto the tree. The flashing lights played prettily on the plain white cotton of her jumpsuit.
In spite of Marti's thoughtful presence—it was Christmas Eve, almost Christmas morning, and Marti had a sweetheart waiting for her at home—Kelly felt thoroughly, dismally alone. She had always loved the Yuletide season. It was a time of magic, a time of love, hope, and renewal. The half dozen Christmases following the accident had been bad, but this one promised to be the worst of them. She had expected to spend it with Will.
Fondly, she tried to imagine what he was doing. Had he found another girl? Or was he as lonesome and miserable as she? It seemed that her entire mental repertoire these days consisted of making up her mind to phone him and then deciding against it. . . and of course dwelling obsessively on Peter. Peter filled her thoughts the way a tumor fills a body space, growing by insidious degrees until there is nothing left but a husk.
On the stereo Elvis cruised from "Here Comes Santa Claus" into "Blue Christmas," Attracted by the glitter of the tree, Fang pounced out from under the couch and attacked a low-hanging bauble.
"Shoo!" Marti cried, poking the cat with her toe. Fang bounded away, tail bristling. . . and Marti glanced down at Kelly.
She was crying.
Marti laid down hey skein of tinsel and sat on the arm of the chair. "Aw, babe," she said, patting Kelly's shoulder. "Tell me. Tell me what's eating you."
"I. . . c-can't get him out of m-my head!" Kelly sobbed, her words filled with frustration and despair. "I c-can't!"
Marti felt something wither inside her, a bright balloon of contentment with a tiny but unstoppable leak. She felt torn on this festive eve, torn between Kelly and her troubles and the compelling draw of her own blossoming life. Steve was at her place this very minute, waiting with a bottle of bubbly for her return, and she just knew that tonight he was going to pop the question—if she didn't blow it by showing up after he'd wined and pouted himself to sleep. It had taken all of her charm (and a couple of downright unseemly promises) to get away at all this evening, and when she'd called him a half hour ago to tell him she'd be along soon, he'd seemed a tad miffed, to say the least. . . but last night had been the Sudbury Board's Christmas party at Sorrento's, and Marti had be
en there. And she'd heard some things—overheard them, really—in the can that serviced the reception hall.
"Nickie Cole thinks she's on drugs," Marti heard a catty voice hiss, and in the gloom of her stall she cocked an ear. Nickie Cole was the principal at the school where Kelly taught. "Apparently they narrowly escaped a lawsuit—and it would've been a whopper, I can assure you—over that gymnast who broke her arm. Word is she just stood there gawking into space while the kid went flopping to the mats. Now if that isn't cocaine, you tell me what is. And apparently it's starting to show on her. She fell asleep in assembly the other day, and a janitor had to waken her. A janitor. And she stumbles around in a stupor half the time."
There was a muffled snicker, then another voice said, "What's Nickie going to do?"
"I think she should blackball the quiff"—and Marti knew then who the owner of that catty voice was; it was that bitch Irma Finney, she of the Gorbachev birthmark and the lazy left eye, teacher of political science and gossip-monger extraordinaire—"bust her to hell. There's plenty of responsible teachers just waiting for a job like hers."
Infuriated, Marti had come close to doing some busting of her own. . . but over the course of the evening, she'd discovered that the rumors were true. Kelly had fallen under the eyepiece of the probationary microscope, and unless she shaped up, come next September she might find herself with nothing to show for her efforts but three weeks' severance pay and a form-written farewell. Marti had come over today to warn her. . . but they'd gotten into trimming the tree, and, Jesus, the girl looked dragged out enough without all of this. Marti was afraid that one more piece of bad news might finish her.
"Do you mean Will?" Marti said now, deliberately skirting the truth.
"No," Kelly wept. "Peter, dammit. Peter." She sniffed. "And Will. Will, too. . . but it's different."
"What's different?" Marti said, noticing that Kelly had shrunk back a little, like a child who is fearful of a smack.
"Well, I think about Will. Miss him. Wonder what he's up to and whether he's missing me. . . but Peter. . .”
"What, babe? Tell me."
"It's like he's here," Kelly said, looking at her friend with frightened eyes. "In this house. Everywhere. Lately I dream about him all the time. Vivid, oh, such vivid dreams. . .” She trailed off, editing the rest from her words. "But when I'm awake, alone, it's like he's here, behind me, around every corner. Watching me. I can. . . feel him." Inside me. But she didn't say that either. Not yet. Not to Marti.
The balloon of contentment in Marti's chest lost the balance of its air in a single defeated whoosh. As Kelly's best friend, she had tried over the years to help Kelly get her life back on the rails. And until tonight, she had thought Will Chatam would provide that final curative nudge.
But to Marti's rising horror, it appeared as if Kelly had slipped to the very brink. She looked like hell, had given up the only guy since Peter she'd truly cared about, her job was on the line, and now she was talking like one of those weepy little crazies who can't let go of the past, but rather brood over it until finally it swallows them whole. She'd gotten through all of that a few years ago, scarred but wiser. . . but now she'd fallen back.
Kelly dug a wad of Kleenex out of her jeans pocket and blew her nose. "Oh, Christ," she said, suddenly falsely bright, her puffy eyes widening as she glanced at her watch. "Look at the time!" She stood. "You'd better clear out of here, girl, if you want that hunk of ice on your finger." She began tugging at Marti's sleeve, leading her toward the hallway and the exit beyond. "I bet Steve's pulling his boots on right now, getting ready to go downtown and look for an open pawnshop."
"Hold it," Marti said. "Just hold it." She put an arm around Kelly's shoulders, ignoring her resistance, and hugged her. "The ring can wait."
The pain came then, gushing out of Kelly Wheeler like water from a ruptured dam. It came in crashing, thundering waves that rolled over Marti with a force that staggered her. . . and frightened her. It frightened her badly.
"There," she soothed, stroking Kelly's hair. "There. Let it come. Let it all come."
And for a while she did.
As her sobs tapered off, the mantel clock chimed out the midnight hour.
"Merry Christmas," Kelly said, and laughed through her tears.
"Same to you," Marti said, releasing her. "Feel better?"
Kelly nodded. And it was true. She did feel better. "I'm gonna go powder my nose."
Marti smiled. "Better powder your whole damn face, babe. You look like whale shit."
"Thanks for noticing," Kelly said, and padded into the stairwell. She was partway up when the doorbell rang. "Nuts," she said, crouching, looking wanly at Marti through the railing. "Who could that be?"
Marti shrugged. "Carolers maybe? A student lynch mob?"
"Would you mind getting it for me? And sending whoever it is away?"
"Consider it done," Marti said, and hurried out to the door.
Marti peeked through the sidelight and grinned. Standing on the stoop, stamping his feet in the gentle snowfall, stood jolly ole Saint Nick, resplendent in his poppy-red suit and curly white beard. He had a burlap sack slung over one shoulder, looking sorrowfully empty, and a tiny foil-wrapped package in his mittened hand. Marti couldn't see his face—he was looking back at the dog, who stood with its forepaws on the bottom step regarding him quizzically—and she didn't have a clue who it was.
Then it dawned.
Steve! she thought in a rush of excitement. And I just wonder what he's got in that package.
She tried to see past him as she reached for the doorknob, but whatever he'd driven up in was hidden by a mounded snowdrift.
She swung the door open and smiled. "Ste—"
Santa turned to face her.
"Hi, Marti. It's me. Is Kelly here?"
"Will?"
"The same," Will said bashfully. He tried on a smile, but it came off looking like a twitch. Not only did he feel like an idiot, he was terrified, too. This was a harebrained idea, the zaniest he'd ever come up with, and if Marti had been ten seconds slower in getting to the door, he'd've been long gone. Or so he told himself.
He stood on the stoop in the porch light, waiting.
Marti shot a glance behind her, then waved him in. Nudging him out of the way, she grabbed her coat off the rack and pulled it on.
"Now, you listen to me, Will Chatam. Whatever you've got planned—and I think I know what it is—do it! Understand? I can see in your eyes that you're losing your nerve, but think about this: she needs you, Will. She needs you, and I think in her own mixed up way she loves you. So whatever scheme you've got going, go through with it." She grabbed his hand. "Help her, Will. She's hurting."
Nonplussed, Will could only nod. He'd been skulking about at the top of the hill for the past two hours, starting down and then turning away, itchy in this ratty old suit, waiting for Kelly's company to leave. When he'd first seen the car parked next to Kelly's Subaru, he'd come close to throwing in the sponge right then. What was he trying to pull, anyway? Dressed up like Santa and lurking in the trees. If she wanted him she'd have said so by now. It had been weeks and he hadn't heard a word from her.
But the plain truth was that he had to confront her. Today, next week, it didn't really matter. When he'd first thought of it, the Santa getup had seemed. . . well, like a cute idea. He'd thought she might respond to it and at least let him have his say. And what a say it was going to be! When Will Chatam went for humiliation and rejection, he went all the way.
He glanced at the package in his hand, then back at Marti, who was walking into her boots.
"Do it," she said again. Then she kissed him on the cheek, whispered "Merry Christmas" in his ear, and stole out the door like a thief.
"Marti?" he heard Kelly call from upstairs. "Marti, who was it?"
Catching his breath, Will tiptoed into the living room and waited by the fireplace doors.
"Marti? Who—"
Kelly stopped dead in her tracks, her br
eath darting back into her like a small, startled animal. She'd changed into a nightie and a quilted robe, a ratty old thing her mother had given her ten years ago, and now she belted it around her.
Santa Claus was standing by the fireplace. He had Will's face, and a gift in his mittened hand.
"Merry Christmas," Will said, and shrugged. "Marti took off in a hurry—"
"Will?"
"No less." His body was filmed with sweat. "Hope you don't mind."
The tears started up again, and Kelly ran to him. "Oh, Will," she sobbed, hugging his padded suit. "I'm so glad to see you."
A knot broke in Will Chatam's chest with an almost audible twang. They stood that way awhile, Will stroking Kelly's hair as Marti had done only minutes before. Then Kelly stood back from him.
"For me?" she said, tapping the glittery package with a fingernail.
"Uh-huh," Will said. He handed her the package. His face was grimly set, the face of a man was has staked his life's savings on a single spin of the wheel.
"I didn't get anything for you," Kelly said.
"The hug was enough."
Kelly smiled. "Should I open it?"
Will nodded.
"You want to get out of that outfit first?"
"I'll wait." In case you throw me out once you see what's inside.
Still smiling, Kelly unwrapped the package.
There was a tiny ivory-inlaid jewelry box inside. When she opened it, it played a wistful little classical piece that Kelly didn't recognize, but thought might have been composed by Vivaldi. Inside, snugged in blue velvet, sat a single delicate diamond.
Kelly's eyes filled with tears again. She kissed Will tenderly on the mouth. "It's beautiful, Will, and I want to put it on. But can we call it a friendship ring for now? Until I'm sure?"
Will plucked the fur-rimmed cap off his head. His face was alive with a mighty smile. "More than anything, Kelly, that's what I want to be. Your friend."
Kelly slipped the shiny gold hoop onto the ring finger of her right hand. It was a perfect fit.
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