by IGMS
"You just missed them. They were looking for a delivery over by the post office, something Father Christmas had promised them?" It sounded like an accusation.
I rubbed my beard. "I know it, Befana. I am trying to make amends."
"They think they're sneaky, taking the side roads. But they'll leave clear tracks. Try that way." She cocked her head toward a road leading south.
A lead. Relief flooded me. "Thank you, thank you!" I was about to charge off, but she gripped my elbow.
"It's icy out there. Dangerous for old bones." She offered me the broomstick. "Here. It should make a good walking stick."
I tested my weight against it. "I'll take good care of it," I promised.
"It's just a broom," she said. "Buon Natale. Eat your fill of milk and cookies."
"And enjoy your wine."
I never learned what became of my grandmother's meticulous prayer journals, if she found they had any effect at all, but I said a prayer to Nico Primo anyway. It couldn't hurt.
Laced between the tire tracks, I spotted wheelchair prints headed off down the fresh snow over the sidewalk. I thanked Old Nico under my breath, brushed snow off my trousers with the broom, and set off on the trail. My coat was soaked. I flapped it open, trying to dry it.
The cold intensified in the dusk. I'd reached the outskirts. Towns in Veneto linked together with short snips of highway like beads on a rosary. Snow lay atop an ice sheet so thick you had to jab your heel down hard with each step. The wheelchair tracks pressed forward anyway.
Nicola Quattro had hated the cold. In her day, fireplaces heated the hospital. My grandmother, in deference to her patients' safety, forbade fires in the workshop, so she always worked in the chill. During my apprenticeship, steam boilers came into vogue, but Grandmother shivered no matter the warmth. She had taken her old enemy into her heart, and they became one and the same in the end.
Crunch, crunch. My boots stabbed through the ice crust. One shoe flapped open at the sole. I cursed my ridiculous costume and its cheap accessories. If not for my affectation, I might not be sore and cold and exhausted. "I get it," I said aloud. "I am not Father Christmas. I should never have pretended to be."
The boot flap caught on the ice. I windmilled my arms and fell forward, my shins banging the ground, my knees afire. "Oof!" Hot tears crept from my eyes, and I laughed in stolen gasps. I rolled over and lay flat in the snow, watching the stars appear, cold and bright. What sort of fools follow a star? I thought. And what sort of fool follows those fools?
I recalled my grandmother, sharp and clear and distant like a snow globe creche, tut-tutting over my latest failed cog. "A good beginning makes a good ending," she said. "Take your time and do it right at the first, and you won't have to do it again and again."
I forced myself to stand, throwing my weight on the broomstick. My knees shrieked and my shins ached. I swayed on tired feet, but my crutch somehow made it bearable.
I made much better time after that. The broomstick saved me from the black ice which seemed to be everywhere. I slung the wet coat over one shoulder -- less chill without it.
Over the next rise, I found them.
The wheelchair was abandoned in a huge snowdrift at the foot of the hill. From the skid marks, it appeared they had coasted downhill and hit an icy patch at the bottom. That same ice had claimed a mail truck, which had tipped nose-first into the drift. Behind the truck, a man in a black coat heaved against the bumper with both hands. The three children stood beside him, Maria with arms around Lia, and Enzo leaping up and down, the snow nearly reaching his nose.
"Children! Oh, children, I've found you!" I shouted, and I waved my arms and laughed, weeping openly, and running, sliding downhill, brandishing the broomstick like a madman. Snow ran up my shirt and into my mouth, and my shins ached and it felt good, felt alive, and I didn't care anymore because the children were okay. At the base of the hill I sat on my coat and sobbed.
Maria shielded Enzo from me. "Don't go near him! That's the fake Father Christmas. He wants to take us back to the hospital."
"He doesn't look like Father Christmas," said Lia. "He has a broomstick and no coat. And look at his broken shoes!" She covered her mouth and tittered.
I rolled the broom's coarse grain between my fingers. She had a point. I wasn't a wise old saint. I was the kindly fool who chased after wiser heads. "You're right. I'm Befana."
Enzo collapsed into giggles. Maria's mouth opened in surprise.
Lia's eyes lit up. "He is! He's Befana!" She recited,
"La Befana vien di notte
Con le scarpe tutte rotte
Col vestito alla romana
Viva, Viva La Befana!"
"Yes, that's exactly right!" I said. "Broken shoes and Roman clothes, all of it, that's Befana, that's me."
The man in the black coat wiped his hands on his pants and offered me a handshake. "Cesare Palermo. With the Post, and a little late on my delivery today. I take it you're with the hospital?" He was an older fellow, perhaps older than me, with white hair and a gray beard.
"Yes, I'm Nico Cinque."
"And you walked all the way out here? On Christmas Eve?" He sized me up, and then chuckled. "You really are Befana. Here, let's get you warmed up." Cesare offered me his black coat.
"Are you sure?" I asked, hesitant despite the gooseflesh running up my arms.
He beckoned for the soggy red coat draped over my shoulder. "Hand it over. If you're Befana, I'm Father Christmas. He's basically a postman, right?"
The postman's coat radiated residual body heat around my arms. To my consternation, he slipped into the costume coat and buttoned it right up. He made an even better Father Christmas than I did.
I dug my abandoned stocking cap from my pocket. "You'll need this to complete the look. Now I dearly hope you have my package."
"We found it!" said Enzo, swimming through the snowdrift to the truck's nose, where a large brown-wrapped package balanced on the fender. He portered it ant-like back to the group. The package appeared to sail unaided along the snowdrift's surface.
I read the address label: Saskatoon. Saskatchewan. Canada. Working with my pocket knife, I pried open a flap. Shredded paper spilled from the hole. Inside, several bubble-wrapped bundles nested between rainbow candies with English names, which I gave to the delighted children. I cut open a packet and cogs spilled out. "Oh, thank God," I said. "This is it."
Enzo whooped. Lia danced. Maria didn't exactly smile, but she didn't stare daggers either. I decided I'd take it.
"We still have a problem," said Cesare. "The truck. The engine's gone kaput. I don't think anyone's in shape to walk back to the hospital, especially not that one." He indicated Lia with a delicate nod.
I saw his point, but all fear had fled. I held the solution in my hands. What is an engine, if not a machine's heart? "You're in luck, Cesare. I am a Tinker. I fix things."
My grandmother would have hated me for it. It was a flagrant violation of the Tinkers' Code, after all. But I was an old man; what would they do, fire me? Jail me, at my age? I would take that risk. Nicola Sei could run the Workshop in my stead.
It was an easy thing to swap out Enzo's old cogs with the new ones. He sat on the truck's hood, legs kicking, and I unscrewed the panel in his back and made the change. His used cogs weren't in great shape, but they worked well enough to fuse with the engine and jumpstart it to life again.
So it came to pass we rode to the hospital in a truck with a child's heart, wood married to metal by my magic. The security team gaped when we drove up in our enchanted vehicle, the gift-bringers of Christmas: three wise ones, a delivery man, and a kindly fool.
We had much frenzied work to do after that, prepping Enzo and Lia for transfer. The procedure went without a hitch.
It was late, after 10 p.m., by the time Dr. Silva and I punched the call button for the elevator. Vanessa looked tired but pleased with herself. She had a long, narrow package tucked under one arm.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Oh, just my Christmas present to myself, some gluhwein from Germany. I thought it wouldn't arrive on time, but it was on that truck you rescued." She turned it over in her hands, arched an eyebrow. "Okay, don't be so smug. I admit it."
"Admit what?"
Dr. Silva sighed. "Everything worked out all holly-jolly, didn't it? You got your Christmas movie ending."
Every muscle and bone from my toes to neck hurt like the Devil's lawnmower had chewed them up. Even in the hospital, I used the broom as a crutch. I had refused a proper replacement. I thought of my grandmother, how she puttered about with a cane near her life's end, accepting a stick's support while declining a kindly hand or shoulder. I think she wanted to bridge the distance between us, but never knew how. Her harshness was her love. Love is what you do, I guess.
"Dr. Silva -- Vanessa -- that wine would be most welcome at my family's Christmas dinner. If you have no other plans, that is," I said.
Her face's tired lines relaxed into a smile. "I'd like that, Nico."
Yes, wine would be just the thing, I decided. Milk and cookies for Father Christmas, but a nice red wine for Befana.
Eli Whitney and the Cotton Djinn
by Zach Shephard
Artwork by Dean Spencer
* * *
Eli Whitney was not always a great inventor. Even the best of his early ideas failed to generate public interest, because no one needed weaponized cheddar or a sock that covers both feet. He had all the tools he needed to improve the world -- a Yale education, free lodging with a friend and an abundance of physical resources -- but without inspiration, he just couldn't come up with anything good.
Then came the day when he burned the handkerchief, and everything changed.
Eli, brainstorming alone in a shack on Catherine Greene's plantation, had just wasted his last piece of paper designing a harvester that couldn't possibly be efficient because yams aren't twelve feet long. It's for this reason that, when his next idea struck, the only available writing surface was the pair of handkerchiefs in his pocket.
On the square of red cloth Eli recorded his idea for a new type of banjo, which could churn butter more effectively than any banjo before it. He labeled his invention the slapwagon, which would make perfect sense if you could see the illustration.
Grinning at the thrill of discovery, Eli held the drawing out at arm's length. Upon review, he soon realized the slapwagon's fatal flaw: it was stupid.
"Worthless!" he said, and set the handkerchief on fire. He threw it to the dirt floor of the shack, where it promptly exploded.
From the cloth rose a pillar of smokeless fire, which shifted through various bestial shapes before solidifying into the form of a statuesque woman in purple, stomach-baring silks. Her skin was the color of lava, its texture that of rough tablecloth, and her eyes blazed like flame reflected in opal.
"Who dares?" she asked. "Who summons Mari, Lady of Fire, Wielder of the Eternal --"
The water struck her squarely in the face, soaking into the red cloth of her skin. Mari peeled open one eye, then the other, looking something less than jolly as her gaze fixed on Eli, who was still holding the empty bucket.
"Why," she said, "would you ever do that?"
"You said you were on fire."
"Of fire. Of."
"Oh. I'm dreadfully sorry, then. Will you accept my apologies?"
Mari sighed. "Oh, I suppose so," she said, turning to the wall-mirror and finger-combing her long black hair. "After all, I'd hate to get off on the wrong foot. Tell me, darling, what's your name?"
"Eli. Eli Whitney."
"And how did you summon me, Eli Whitney?"
"I burned a handkerchief."
Mari stopped combing her hair. "A handkerchief? Yes . . . that does sound familiar. Do you happen to have another like it?"
Eli held up a black cloth.
"Oh, wonderful! Would you mind burning that one, too?"
Eli, eager to find an explanation for the seven-foot woman who'd materialized out of thin air, lit a match.
"Wait!" Mari said. She took the handkerchief, blew her nose into it and handed it back. "There we are. Carry on."
Eli lit the soiled handkerchief and tossed it to the floor. A familiar explosion followed, and when the flaming pillar stopped its shifting, a bare-chested, heavily muscled man with two small horns on his forehead stood beside Mari.
"Who calls me forth?" he asked. "Who calls upon Zumaj, Lord of the Shadowy Depths, Vanquisher of the Warrior-Kings, Keeper of the why the hell am I covered in snot?"
Zumaj held his arms to the sides, as if too disgusted to let his body touch itself. His skin, textured like Mari's and dark as an endless cave, was soaked.
"Eli, this is Zumaj. Zumaj, Eli."
Eli stepped forward to get a closer look at the pair. "This is remarkable," he said. "What are you?"
"We're djinn, silly."
"Djinn! Like from the Arabian tales! Do you grant wishes?"
"We've been known to dabble in miracle-making, in exchange for certain services. But before we get to any of that, I'd like to know more about those handkerchiefs. Where did you get them?"
"I bought them at the market, just the other day."
"From whom?"
"I don't recall the merchant's name -- I'm new in town, just passing through on my way to a teaching job."
"Hm." Mari tapped her lips. "A teacher. I suppose that's all right."
Eli, not wanting to leave his wish-factories unimpressed, quickly updated his story.
"It's just a temporary position," he said. "What I really want is to be an inventor."
"An inventor!" Mari said. "That's much more interesting. Isn't that lovely, Zumaj?"
The darker djinni leaned away from Eli's curious hand, which was trying to touch one of his horns. "Yes," he said, sounding entirely unamused. "Lovely."
Mari clapped her hands. "It's settled, then! We'll do inventions. But we'll need some help. Eli, would you be interested in earning a few wishes?"
Eli's attention cut over to Mari. "Yes! I'd like that very much."
"Good," she said, draping her long red arm over his shoulders. "Now, let's talk details . . ."
In theory, Eli's rat-trap should have taken three hours to capture every rodent on the east side of the plantation. In practice, it only took forty minutes to kill two cats and incinerate a shed.
Eli splashed one last bucket of water onto the shed's smoldering remains. He sifted through the ashes, but found none of the rat parts Zumaj had tasked him with gathering. Too discouraged to start over right away, he took a break from that project and focused on Mari's needs for a time.
Eli headed into town to gather the materials on the djinni's list. Just before he reached the general store he felt a sudden tug on his jacket, which drew him forcefully into the empty space between buildings.
"I beg your pardon!" Eli said, as he was released with a shove. He turned to get a look at the brute who'd attacked him, only to find a five-foot woman with glittery green eyes and animal-hide clothing.
"I don't have much time, so I'll make this quick. Your name is Eli. You bought two handkerchiefs at the market recently. I need them, and you're going to give them to me."
"I'm sorry," Eli said, straightening his jacket, "but even if I wanted to, I couldn't help you."
The woman leaned in close and sniffed him.
"Oh, hell," she said. "You've already burned them. I can smell Mari's stench all over you."
"You know Mari?"
"Better than I'd care to." The woman rubbed her forehead, muttering under her breath. "Okay. This is going to take longer than I thought. I'm going to have to tell you my name -- promise me you won't panic."
Eli, having never experienced an aversion to obscure names in the past, confidently nodded.
The woman took a deep breath. "My name is Henrietta."
"Henrietta? Why would that --"
There was a sound like too-tight pants tearing over a too-plump rump, and in th
e next instant, Henrietta was a walrus.
Henrietta, with spiraled tusks like unicorn horns and a rainbow mane running down her back, regarded her left flipper.
"Oh, wonderful," she said. "That's just perfect."
Eli, far from panicking, leaned in for a closer look at the creature.
"Remarkable . . ." He moved his hand toward Henrietta's tusk, but she flipper-slapped it away.
"Okay," she said, "I'm sure you want an explanation, so here's the short version: I'm cursed. If I don't tell strangers my name, they forget having ever met me. If I do, I temporarily change shapes."
"This is fascinating! I don't see why you were worried. I'm delighted to meet a . . ." Eli gestured at Henrietta, searching for a word. ". . . Walricorn."
"Yes, well -- we got lucky. This shape looks to be pretty tame. But now that I have your attention, let's talk djinn. I'm sure Mari and Zumaj have set you to a few tasks by now, yes?"
"They have. Though I must confess, I'm still not certain why they need me to gather such items."
"It's because they're planning to kill each other. Probably in a very elaborate fashion."
"Kill each other! But why?"
"Because that's the game they play. They've been playing it for as long as anyone can remember. Mari and Zumaj are immortal -- their bodies may die every now and then, but they always come back. And when they do, they pass the time by finding new ways to end each other. We can't let that happen. There can't be a winner. They both need to die."
"I'm afraid I don't understand."
"The world of magic takes getting used to, I know. But look at me!" Henrietta flailed her flippers and body about, like she had an itch she couldn't reach. "You can't deny what your eyes are seeing."
"No, I don't deny it at all -- I've seen enough magic today to be a believer. The thing I don't understand is why we can't let the djinn continue their game. If they're both consenting and they'll be resurrected anyway, where's the harm?"
"The harm comes from the winner having to wait a few decades for the loser's resurrection. When djinn get bored, they get into mischief."