Andy grinned as she approached him. “What,” he asked, only half-kidding, “do I get a kiss too?”
“Of course, silly boy,” she said. “They are for all my charges tonight. When the North Wind blows, he blows for all, not only for the privileged.” She leaned in and kissed his forehead.
Her lips were cold.
“Come now,” she said, dropping back to the flats of her feet. “Your sisters are waiting.”
Andy, who hadn’t noticed when she took Diane from her high chair—which was alarming; he usually kept track of Diane no matter what, even when he was at school and she was in daycare, or with her nanny—blinked.
“Yeah,” he said, and got up and followed her.
Chloe was already in the living room, perching on the absolute edge of a couch cushion with an awkward look on her face, like she was waiting to be thrown out. Andy smiled at her. She smiled unsteadily back, relaxing only when he came and sat beside her, flopping all the way into the corner. Chloe wrinkled her nose at him.
“We’re not supposed to wrinkle the upholstery,” she said.
“I’ll clean it up before Mom gets home.”
“Yes.”
They both turned to stare at Raisa, Chloe guilty and Andy wary, twisting his body so as to shield his sister as much as possible. Their sitter looked sad, and oddly disappointed, like she had expected better of the world.
“This,” she said, using a wave of her free hand to encompass the living room. It had been decorated for Christmas on the first of December, when a huge production had been made of the delivery of the tree. Everything was perfect, and why wouldn’t it be? None of them had been using it since the holiday season had begun. Their parents and their rules had seen to that. Still, Raisa looked confused and kept frowning sadly even as Diane began chewing on a hank of her silvery hair. “This is not for you? This is not for the warmth and coming-together of the season?”
“We’re not supposed to be in here without an adult,” said Chloe uncomfortably. “We break things.”
“Do you, now? I doubt that very much. You are both old enough to know better, and this one,” Raisa gave Diane a bounce, “is too small to make it in here unescorted. Unless you are in the habit of winding her up and letting her dance among the ornaments, I feel you have given me an excuse.”
“Our father paid a lot of money for these decorations, and we have to keep them nice for company,” said Andy.
“Ah. Company. Yes, I suppose company is important, when one has so few friends.” Raisa continued bouncing the baby as if she hadn’t just said something unbelievable, while Andy and Chloe stared. After a moment, she appeared to notice them and asked, with faint concern, “What is it now?”
“Do you know our parents?” asked Chloe.
“Oh, I do,” said Raisa. “I know everyone. But I promised you a story, didn’t I? Yes, a story, and you are all my responsibility, have all accepted food from my hands and kindness from my lips: you should all have the chance to hear it before our time together ends.”
She sat cross-legged in the middle of the living room floor, the baby in her lap, Diane still chewing on the sitter’s flaxen hair. Andy suppressed a shiver. It felt like the heat had been turned down. He wanted to check it—Dad would throw a fit if he came home to a cold house—but he didn’t want to move. Something about their babysitter, the way she sat, the way she held herself…he didn’t want to leave until he’d heard the things she had to say.
“You know of Santa Claus, yes?” she asked, and then she grinned, sudden and bright and beautiful. “Of course you do. All good children of the world know Santa Claus. But did you know that he is not the only open hand of Winter? The world knew, you see, that humans would be small, fragile things compared to the sturdiness of a bear or the wildness of a wolf, and so when it came time to decide who would watch over them, the world set so many guardian spirits to their care that it became necessary to divide things among them. Winter watches, and Winter rewards not only through Santa Claus, but through a hundred of his cousins, a thousand of their families.”
“Is Winter a person?” asked Chloe shyly. She was still young enough to be enthralled by a story, no matter how cold the room was—although maybe Andy had been wrong about the heat. It was starting to feel quite comfortable now.
“Winter is an idea, and an idea shared by everyone in the world becomes alive, in its own way,” said Raisa. “Bears and wolves thought of Winter. Trees and flowers thought of Winter. And now, humans think of Winter, and the Winter continues, and flourishes, and changes to be what they believe.”
“Winter is a season,” said Andy. “It’s not a person. It would exist whether anyone thought about it or not.”
“But the planet had to think of Winter before we could have it; do not look upon your grandmother’s children and claim that just because you’ve never met them for yourself, their gifts are any less good.” Raisa’s tone was mild, but the warning it contained was unmistakable. “Shall I continue?”
“Please,” said Chloe.
Andy said nothing.
Raisa smiled. “Very good,” she said. “So you know of Santa Claus, and you know that Winter has many hands, many faces. Now, allow me to tell you of Snegurochka—the Snow Maiden. Her grandfather is a man called Ded Moroz who walks through Russia when the wind howls and the snow comes down. He is like your Santa Claus. He gives good gifts, and Snegurochka follows behind him, peeping in windows and seeing what is done with his generosity.”
“That’s a little creepy,” said Andy.
“Perhaps,” said Raisa. “But if your little sister gave her favorite doll to a child who asked for it, wouldn’t you want to be sure that child was not going to scribble on it with crayons or cut off all its hair? Wouldn’t you want to know it was loved?”
Andy said nothing.
“Snegurochka loves all the little children, even as her grandfather does. She has no parents of her own. Ded Moroz made her from the enchanted snow that fell in his garden, and what saddens her most of all is parents who do not care for the things they have. She does not look for letters written to ask for toys or trinkets. She does not look for letters at all. She looks for…other things.”
“Like naughty kids?” asked Andy sarcastically. He should have known that a first-time babysitter in a home this impeccably maintained, with employers who paid as well as his parents did, wouldn’t be looking to tell them a nice little bedtime story. It was going to be another morality play about how kids who didn’t listen would be punished.
He had only known Raisa for a few hours, but he still felt disappointed and oddly betrayed. He had already been thinking better of her than that.
“No,” she said, with a crisp fierceness that made him sit up a little straighter in his seat. “Children are…There are bad children. I won’t lie and claim to you that such things do not exist; you would laugh at me. But children are like snow, fresh and new-fallen, waiting to be sculpted by their parents. Molded into some shape that will see through the winter. Snegurochka does not look for letters or for naughty children in need of punishment. She looks for tracks in the snow. Snowmen sculpted without kindness, without care for their form. She looks for children who are suffering, for parents who do not understand that they have been given a great and precious gift. She looks for children who could be great, if only the snow that made them were melted down and given to someone else for safekeeping.”
Chloe inched a little closer to Andy on the couch and said nothing.
Bouncing Diane to keep her quiet, Raisa leaned forward and asked, in a conspiratorial tone, “Would you like to hear the story now?”
“Yes,” whispered Andy.
“Once upon a time,” she said, “there was a family that lived in a beautiful city, very far from the winter woods. They had everything they could possibly want, but they were not happy. They could have been
, if they had been willing to see how good their lives were. They had a house with a strong roof and thick walls. They had food to fill their bellies, and warmth to fill their nights. They had each other, and while that was not the greatest gift of all—do not ask a starving child to choose between company and a crust of bread, unless you are willing to accept whichever he should choose—it could have been enough to soften the sting of living in a cold world. It could have been enough.”
Raisa looked at each of them in turn, even Diane, who had quieted and was staring at the babysitter with wide, rapt eyes.
“The children were good, because they were still children; they had not yet had enough time to be spoilt. Fresh as the new-fallen snow they were, and held fast to each other, because they had nothing else to hold to. But the parents…ah.” Raisa made a clicking sound deep in the back of her throat. “There is a special place in hell for people who bring children into this world solely for the sake of seeming better than they are. These parents were not cruel in a way that any outside the house could see. They did not strike with hands or withhold food. The roof was strong for parent and child alike.”
“So how were they bad?” asked Chloe, in a meek voice.
“They withheld love,” said Raisa simply. “They refused to treasure what had been given to them. Maybe it was not their fault: maybe no one had treasured them. Maybe the Snow Maiden, so busy, trusting in people to tell her when she was needed, should have come a generation, two generations, three generations before. Maybe if she had come when they were being sculpted, she could have melted them down and reshaped them into people who would be better for their children. But she did not. She was far away, doing other things, and they had been allowed to grow to adulthood, to become frozen in the forms they knew. This is the secret, children: all things are limited, even impossible things like Ded Moroz or Snegurochka. Because she did not stop their parents from freezing, these children, these precious, precious children, were left to grow in a house that was warm, and clean, and beautiful, and knew nothing of love.”
Andy said nothing.
“But she is always listening, Snegurochka, the Snow Maiden, she is always looking for the good, unfrozen snow. The snow that can still be melted cleanly down and reshaped into something else.” Raisa smiled down at Diane. There was ice in her eyes. “This family, it had been as it was for many years. Long enough for the children to have had teachers who noticed ‘they are so sad.’ Long enough for the parents to have spoken a little too freely in the company of others, after they had been drinking too deep of their sweet mulled wine. They thought they were clever, hiding their children away behind walls of manners and appearances. They did not count on hiring a babysitter who remembered Snegurochka.”
“You?” asked Chloe, eyes wide.
Raisa shook her head. “No, sweet girl. Not I. Another, whose grandmother had been born far away from here, who had seen a family visited by the Snow Maiden when they failed to live up to the standards of the Winter. She looked on these children, and her heart broke like a mirror. She stayed with them as long as she could, and when her services were no longer needed over some minor infraction—”
“Tasha ate an apple from Mom’s table arrangement,” whispered Andy.
“—she went home, and she wrote a letter to Ded Moroz. She asked him to send his granddaughter, to let Snegurochka judge for herself what was to be done. The Snow Maiden does not look for letters, you see, but she listens when her grandfather speaks. She always listens. So she came to see if there were children who needed to be released. To be melted back down to clean, clear water, and allowed to fall a second time, in a second home, as fresh as the new-fallen snow.”
A key turned in the front door. Raisa turned her face toward the sound, already rising, holding Diane out to Andy. He took her as he stood, Chloe hurrying to smooth out the wrinkles in the couch upholstery.
“Remember,” said Raisa softly. “You said that you were my responsibility.”
The door began to open. Andy glanced at the clock and blanched. It was after eleven. How had so much time gone by? He couldn’t remember wasting that much of the evening. He couldn’t—
“Did the damn heater break? Why is it so cold in here?”
“Where the hell’s the babysitter?”
Andy turned. His parents were in the living room doorway, both frowning, looking none the calmer for their night out.
“Well?” demanded his father. “Where is she?”
Diane screwed up her face and began to whimper. Andy bounced her in his arms, automatically trying to soothe her.
It was the wrong move. “Oh, God,” said his mother, stepping forward to sweep the baby into her own arms. “You threw her out, didn’t you? Nothing is ever good enough for you, I swear.”
Diane, who had already started to learn that upsetting their mother was not a good idea, quieted, although her whimpers continued.
“Yes,” said Andy, through the fog of slow horror that was beginning to cloud his mind. He felt Chloe move closer to him, hiding herself from their parents’ wrath. “I’m sorry.”
“Antonia.” John touched his wife’s arm. “At least we didn’t have to pay her.”
Antonia shot a look of pure fury at him before snapping, “Apparently your son didn’t think it was important for the baby to have her bath before he threw the sitter out. I’ll be in the bathroom.” She turned on her heel and stalked away, carrying Diane with her.
John remained in the doorway for a few beats more, looking at Andy and Chloe. Then he turned and walked away. The heater came on a few seconds later.
Andy felt Chloe’s cold arms lock around his waist, felt the wetness seeping from her cheek and through his clothing. He raised his hand, looking at it dispassionately. It looked the same as it ever had, save for the faintly translucent tips of his fingers. They were beginning to drip on the carpet, fat, painless droplets, like tears. It didn’t hurt. The Snow Maiden was kind, after all.
From the bathroom—from the direction of the tub filled with hot, soapy, unforgiving water—he heard his mother start to scream.
Andy closed his eyes and waited for the thaw.
LOVE ME
THOMAS E. SNIEGOSKI
Although it’s been said, many times, many ways…
Flynn Townsend heard the holiday song drifting through the Target parking lot and fought the reflex to finish the lyrics.
He didn’t care much for Christmas songs; didn’t think too kindly of their season either—just another way of separating people from money they didn’t have. A big rip-off.
“How long you been out?” Cindy asked before taking a long drag from her cigarette, her dark, stringy hair whipping around her face in the cold wind.
“Week,” Flynn replied, noticing the gray now streaking his ex’s hair. He took a pull on his own smoke.
“What do you want?” Cindy asked, an edge of impatience to her voice.
“How is she?”
“Good, has a cold, but otherwise she’s fine.” The woman pulled some strands of hair away from where they had stuck to her thin, angry lips.
“It’s school,” Flynn said. “Bein’ around all those other kids, she’s pickin’ up all kinds of—”
“What do you want, Flynn?” Cindy demanded again before he could finish his sentence. “You said this would be quick.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. He avoided her eyes, poking at the filth-encrusted snow with the toe of his sneaker as he began, “I was thinking—”
“No,” Cindy firmly interrupted.
This time he looked at her. “No?”
“Whatever it is, no,” she said with finality. “I’m done…we’re done with you and your shit.”
“That’s a little harsh.” He finished the last of his cigarette and flicked the filter into a nearby snowbank. “I was only hoping that with Christmas and
all…”
“Excuse me?” she said, dropping the remains of her butt to the slushy ground and stomping on it with her boot-covered foot. “You think that just because it’s Christmas you can come waltzing back into our lives—our daughter’s life—and fuck it up some more?”
“Hey, it’s different this time. I’m lookin’ into some stuff, hopin’ that—”
“You’re always hoping, Flynn,” she interrupted again. “Hoping that the next time you fuck up you won’t get caught is more like it.”
“When did you become such a nasty bitch?” he asked with a scowl, feeling his anger surge like scalding vomit in his throat.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe when my husband and the father of our child got himself arrested for breaking and entering again and sent upstate for two more years.” She paused for a moment, as if thinking, then nodded. “Yeah, I’d say it was right around then.
“I’m done.” She turned toward the store’s entrance. “Don’t fucking call anymore.”
“Wait.” Flynn reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her back.
She looked at him sharply and, sensing the potential for greater trouble, he released his hold, throwing up his hands in surrender. “I just want to make it up to you and Meg,” he said quickly. “Please.”
“Make it up?” she repeated incredulously. “Are you fucking kidding?”
“I’ll get a job by Christmas Eve,” Flynn said. “I can prove that I mean what I say, that I’m gonna clean up my act for you and Meg. Just give me this one last chance to be the man you used to think I was,” he said.
She stared at him fiercely. “I’m fucking freezing.”
“Please,” he begged again.
Hark! the Herald Angels Scream Page 5