The Carol of the Snow

Over the river and through the woods . . . .

Susan Stillwhich had her mother's round, fair-skinned face and wide, berry-black eyes that looked out on all the world, recorded what they saw, and then locked those visions away down deep inside, safe and secret. Her hair was black and curly like her mother's and her face, when she smiled, had dimples which made her appear slightly wicked but nice at the same time, like a mischievous Christmas elf.

But the young woman rarely smiled, even when she was a little girl. Susan had been a serious child. She had grown up to be a serious adult and the expressions she permitted others to see these days were professional and pleasant, in keeping with the efficient, effective and modestly successful young business woman she had worked so hard to become. A raised eyebrow might indicate curiosity, a crease between the brows displayed concern or, possibly, disapproval. Susan Stillwhich laughed, but never too loudly or for too long. As for Susan's fair-skinned mother, Bettina Coleman Stillwhich had been in her grave these past five Christmases and she didn't smile much anymore either.

It was difficult not to think of her mother, especially during the holidays, but this year, at this particular moment, Susan found herself distracted. Even as the little commuter plane pitched and rocked in the stormy weather, her attention remained locked on the Sunday magazine supplement grasped in her hand. The Ghosts of Christmas Now blazed back at her from the cover. Large, red letters printed on a black background, soaring rampant over three rows of three -- childrens' photographs. They were a mixed lot of bright-eyed faces, black, white and various shades of brown. The youngest was a solemn infant of 10 months. The oldest bordered only twelve years. Her childish beauty was of the sort guaranteed to break hearts as she matured. Looking at the child's yellow curls, baby-violet eyes and guileless, laugh-with-me grin, Susan Stillwhich felt her heart shuddering even now.

There were more photographs inside the magazine. More children.

Susan read the article once. Then again. It wasn't the standard holiday dissertation. There wasn't a single cookie recipe, no details on how to maintain fresh and festive greenery, no gift suggestions for Aunt Linda and Uncle Lou. These children were beyond wish-lists and candy canes. They hadn't made it to Christmas. Somewhere, somehow throughout the past twelve months, their little lives had come to an abrupt and brutal end. Bound and beaten, starved, abandoned, raped -- these children had spent the whole of their brief existence in fear, desperation and pain. They hadn't perished through the evil of strangers. No. They had endured and, finally, died at the hands of those whom they loved best.

Donna Browne, a little girl of five, was listed as a recent victim. She had died only a few weeks ago at Thanksgiving, smashed repeatedly against a wall when she wouldn't -- or couldn't -- finish her holiday dinner. Afterwards, Donna had been packed up with the rest of the garbage and tossed in a dumpster only a few blocks away from her family home. Her body was discovered by a crew of sanitation engineers.

"We gave the rest of her dinner to the dog, to Spots," Donna's mother explained. "And he was glad to get it, too."

Seeking approval for her kindness to animals, the woman didn't seem quite aware that her daughter was gone.

"He had a smart mouth on him," Leo Flynn reported regarding his ten year old son, Rusty. "I never would've talked back to my dad like that. He would've let me have it good."

Leo let Rusty have it, thirty-seven times with a 16 ounce no-slip-rubber-grip Powermaster hammer. The two had been putting up the outside Christmas decorations together. Susan's dark eyes tracked the story a third time.

"We're going to land -- at last," the stewardess said. "Are you finished with that?"

Susan started and looked up. Mandy-the-stewardess, as she had introduced herself during the obligatory seat belt instruction, was smiling down at her, overcome with cheer.

"Your coffee cup, Miss," Mandy explained. When she saw what Susan was reading, she made a different face. "I read that article this morning. Terrible."

"Yes," Susan agreed. She placed the magazine in the empty seat beside her and took a quick, final sip from her cup. Winced. The liquid was cold and bitter with a melted-plastic aftertaste.

"How could they print something like that at this time of year?" the stewardess continued, offended. "It's too depressing. I don't like to think about it. I mean -- that sort of thing happens and it's awful but it can't be all that common. People aren't really like that."

Susan hesitated, circling the cup with both hands. What she wanted to say was, "You should know. You work with the public, with families every day. You see how parents talk to their children -- 'Keep it up, I'll give you something to cry about. Just wait till we get home.' You've escorted wary, too-silent children as they're shuttled from one parent's home to the other, from hell to grandma's house and back again. You've seen the bruises and the tears. Why are you asking me?"

Instead, Susan Stillwhich mouthed out the politically correct affirmation, "No. People aren't like that."

"Heading home for Christmas, are you?" Mandy was beaming again.

"Not exactly. Home is L.A. now," Susan said. "I'm visiting my great aunt, Nellie Dare. She's asked me down for the holidays so many times, I've finally run out of excuses. When I was a little girl, I used to spend every summer at Aunt Nellie's house down in Dominion and I never wanted to leave. She was my mother's favorite aunt, too. I must have been ten years old before I realized she had any other name except Aunt Nellie. Everybody called her that. They still do, I imagine."

"How nice."

"We spent Christmas there one year." Susan paused at the memory. Then discovered she was still holding onto the cup and mentally thimble-smacked the top of her head. "Sorry," she said, surrendering the plastic. "I'm babbling."

The plane lurched again. Mandy kept her footing but cold caffeine splattered the seats before she was able to drop the cup into the trash bag she carried. "Did I spill any on you?"

"No damage," Susan said.

"It's this lousy weather. And you've had a long day of it starting out in L.A. Don't worry, Miss. We're almost there."

"Yes. Thank you." Susan put a smile on her own face but the stewardess had already moved on down the aisle.

Susan turned away and peered out of the small, oval window. It had been a long and rugged flight traveling from California all the way to Virginia with many a stop and wait in between. The tiny Williamsburg Airport glittered down below as it came into view, a sparkling jewel box of colored lights, as extravagant and full of promise as the season. Matchbox-sized cars trailing streamers of red, yellow and diamond-white grew brighter and larger as the plane began its descent.

Tired of sitting, anxious to be up and moving, Susan stirred restlessly. If days could go by faster through the force of sheer will, everyone would be in February by now. She wasn't sorry to be visiting Dominion. She wasn't unhappy about seeing her aunt again. Christmas just wasn't a good time for her.

But there was no avoiding The Holidays. Christmas was impossible to ignore. A person couldn't even ease into it gradually, not when stores displayed racks of collector ornaments as early as July. Not when one blundered into inescapable store-length, facing-aisles of holly-wreath gift wrap and Santa yard-decorations at the drugstore in August. Direct mail solicitations began their assault by the end of spring, demanding that everybody give-Give-GIVE so no child would be without a gift on Christmas morning, no homeless family would go without a holiday drumstick and no abandoned dog or cat would be without a warm place to stay on that special day. The pace accelerated in October until every day brought a barrage of candy-cane embellished stationery. Unlike Susan's mailbox, it was a chasm that could never be filled. No matter how much she contributed, Susan Stillwhich knew that it would never be enough.

Ever since her mother died, Susan had received a variety of invitations from friends and family, everyone anxious to make sure she had a place to be on Christmas Day. "What are you doing for The Holidays?" they would ask. What they really meant was, "What will we do with Susan for The Holidays?" She could have been a postscript on one of those innumerable entreaties, P.S. Let's be sure Susan Stillwhich has a place to hang her stocking on Christmas Eve! Any takers?

There were plenty -- and now Aunt Nellie had joined the parade. The consideration would have been more appreciated if it were less delusional. As a child, Susan believed what she was told, that Christmas was a time of mercy and kindness. People didn't just talk about doing good things, they went out and did them. Everyone was unselfish, caring and considerate of each other. At Christmas, a special kind of magic moved over the planet. Goodness was acknowledged, celebrated and rewarded.

The concept was admirable but not actually valid.

Susan had crossed the threshold long ago. She was acknowledged -- and was grateful -- to be a grown-up. As an official adult, she came to understand that Christmas was for children, merchants and the occasional sugar plum fairy.

She turned away from the view and retrieved her magazine. Coffee had spattered the cover. The stains looked something like tears and too much like blood. She took a tissue from her purse and blotted the excess away from the little faces. There was nothing unusual about these children, nothing that indicated how they had lived or died. She could have passed them on the street and never noticed anything except the shining eyes -- and the smiles. Some were mischievous and lively, tough little guys and dolls. Some were shy and sweet. A certain somber and dignified reserve was locked onto a few expressions but, as a whole, all of the children appeared to be your basic, happy rug rat. They would have believed all the Christmas stories, too. They would have embraced those fables and held on, lifelines to hope. They would need to believe. They had to. What else was there?

Carefully, Susan folded the magazine in half and buried it inside her purse. She knew so much more now. Wished she didn't. But, unlike Mandy-the-stewardess, Susan couldn't hide behind selective perception. The article only confirmed what she had suspected all along. The Holidays were nothing more than an elaborate sales pitch. Christmas was a time for merchants and there was no such thing as magic.

The plane landed smoothly despite the rough winds, decelerating and gliding to the gate with a minimum of bounce. There wasn't much call for air travel between Norfolk and Williamsburg and, regardless of the seasonal rush, the plane held very few passengers. Still, they all managed to form an immediate, impenetrable crowd, standing and shoving together as one as soon as the plane came to a stop.

Susan Stillwhich was ready. She dragged out her carry-on, struggled into her coat, grabbed up her purse and bolted into the aisle at the first opportunity. She was within a few feet of the exit before she found herself wedged between a heavy-set blond matron juggling a mountain of be-ribboned packages and baskets and a pair of rail-thin teenagers decked out in video-inspired black leather and studs. One youth sported a badly rendered wizard tattooed onto his arm. A recent acquisition, Susan guessed, since the skin was still puffy and red. Victims of Yuletide anticipation, the two grinned far too much to maintain much in the way of the proper sullen rocker attitude.

As they waited for the exit door to open, the floor quaked beneath their feet -- slightly -- as the chocks locked into place. That was enough. Susan stared with acute dismay as the matron's tower of packages began to avalanche towards her.

"Got it!" Master tattoo called out, deftly catching the first two boxes.

"Yo," his buddy said, managing the rest.

The blond woman trundled around, buffeting Susan back against the boys, attempting a clumsy but grateful retrieval. She reminded Susan of one of the more menacing Christmas morning packages, the kind that came with a warning, "Some Assembly Required." Madam matron continued to fall apart all over the aisle, bubbling out a litany of "Oops" and "Careful!" and "Sorry . . . sorry . . . thank you," and, of course, "Merry Christmas."

"Need a hand?" one of the teenagers asked.

"No," the woman dead-panned, defeated. "Nothing less than four or five is going to help."

Susan twisted past her as the two young men began to redistribute the holiday load, still exchanging ear-to-ear grins and greetings of the season while everyone else made room and laughed indulgently. Susan smiled, too. It was the right thing to do.

Just wait until the first disaster, she thought, distancing herself as much as possible from the so-obvious goodwill. There would be a catastrophe, it was the single holiday certainty everyone could rely on. The cat would pull the tree over, a prized punch bowl would be broken, a gift secret would be blurted out, someone wouldn't receive a longed-for present and/or the special gift that had been saved for and secreted for months would prove to be unappreciated, unloved, unwanted, ignored and forsaken. The ensuing anger, frustration and tears would be multiplied in direct, geometric proportion by the extraordinary expectations of the day. Susan Stillwhich sighed. Christmas brought out the beast in people to companion the over-celebrated best, any police officer or newspaper reporter could tell you that. Still, nobody wrote poems about it.

The first, welcome blast of brisk, fresh air ruffled Susan's dark curls as the exit door finally opened. She shuffled along and out with the rest of the tiny herd, ducking past Mandy as the stewardess cheerfully waved passengers out of the plane and past the crew personnel assisting people down the steep, metal stairs to the pavement below. By the time she hit the gate, Susan had left the others far behind. She swung her carry-on up onto her shoulder, dodging the relatives, friends and lovers who rushed forward to greet the in-coming. The terminal was as crowded as she'd suspected it would be, a swarming mob of gleeful chaos. Susan charged into the thick of it, determined. Other than her purse, the carry-on was the only luggage she bothered with. She didn't intend to waste time at the baggage terminal. There was still the rental car to pick up and the long ride from Williamsburg to Dominion. The sooner she was on the road, the better. Susan sailed down the first hallway, deftly maneuvering a course through a tangled family group of eight accompanied by two trailing, stumbling toddlers. She dodged the abrupt collision-impact of a young woman flinging herself into the arms of an awaiting mate garbed in military blue. She jigged around a pleasantly confused elderly gentleman carrying two, gigantic stuffed toys under each arm -- a lavender dragon and a pink snail with a rainbow-colored shell -- without bowling the old man over or breaking stride.

Within forty-five minutes, record time for pick-up and departure at any time of the year, Susan Stillwhich was snugged away within her rental compact and driving down I-64 for Dominion. The silence inside the car was like a little piece of paradise after the confusion, stress and blather of the airport. There wasn't much traffic on the road, an added mercy, and so different from the frantic pace of L.A.

A thick forest of conifers, dogwood, maple and oak lined the highway. A few leaves still clung to the branches although the wind was doing its best to free them. Gazing up where the horizon met the crest of the asphalt, she watched marshmallow-clouds, deep violet on black, tumble each other about against a very nearly full moon. She took a moment to breathe in and enjoy the solitude of her surroundings. Most travelers were already visiting or franticly flinging themselves about the malls searching for that last minute bargain or piece de resistance. She had labored to spare herself that chore. Susan had made her gift selections early and UPSed them ahead weeks ago where they could wait beneath the tree at Aunt Nellie's. She glanced at the map and written directions laid out on the passenger seat. She anticipated no difficulty in finding Nellie Dare's ancient homestead -- as long as she could locate that elusive exit to Dominion. She shook her head. No, there wouldn't be a problem. All in all, she had to admit the trip was progressing well.

It will be good to see Aunt Nellie again, Susan told herself. It's only for three days and, when it's over, I'll go home. Back to my own place, back to my cats and my books.

She thought about her sleek, tiger-striped Houdini (who probably should have been named Romeo) and playful, golden-brown Shanghai Lil with a big twinge of longing followed by a smaller stab of envy. They were at home, looked after by a cat-loving neighbor while Susan made her annual holiday trek. She frowned and gave herself another mental thimble-crack, reproaching. It was only going to be three days and she had better make up her mind to enjoy it. When she returned, her cats would be waiting for her, well fed, content and happy to see her. Her books would still be there, too. And her plants and drawings. Everything would be all right. Once this holiday was past, everything would go back to normal.

Susan punched the button to crack the window. An invigorating blast of winter filled the car and she breathed in deeply, filling her lungs with the cold air, letting it out. Then faltered, suddenly dismayed. A little frown tugged at her lips and brow. There was an unmistakable dampness in the chill.

Damnit.

Just what she needed. A white Christmas.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire . . . .

The house was easy to find just as Susan Stillwhich suspected it would be. It was the most recognizable and unique residence on Dominion Avenue. The old Dare home post-dated the Civil War but not by much. It had started out big for its time and had been built onto over the following decades. At present it stood four stories high including attic and had a labyrinth basement that plummeted halfway to China. No color-coded aluminum siding here. The boards were painted pale gray and the molding trimmed in slate, the roof made up of deep, charcoal-colored shingles. Moonlight was kind to the sagging wood and weather-cracked surfaces. The house rested comfortably on the lawn amidst its nest of ancient oak, ash and dogwood, wild azaleas and domestic camellias. Ivy encircled the foundation giving the illusion that the house simply grew out of the earth. Wisteria merged with the ropey vine, climbing up the porch to the third floor on the western side. The old tool shed, which had once been a stable and become something of a garage back in the 40's, was surrounded by a honeysuckle maze, a little less thick in winter, but still virtually impenetrable. The brush was a haven for cats, birds, snakes and rabbits who, through some miracle of self-imposed truce, never seemed to bother much with each other.

Susan smiled and shivered at the same time. The old pyracantha was still there, too, with its spear-like thorns, scarlet berries and tiny, shiny dried-blood-on-green leaves. She remembered the summer she had run into that monster, playing tag with BillyBob Lattimer and J.G. McClung. They played the game different down in Dominion. Everything was different. J.G. had "tagged" her like a nine year old linebacker and Susan had gone flying into the thorns. The best she could do was throw her arms up over her face, watching the bush come closer and closer -- shielding her eyes at the last minute. BillyBob started yelling for Aunt Nellie just as Susan crashed. Good lord, it was worse disentangling herself after. The thorns slashed her arms and legs to ribbons; it shredded her shorts and top to rags. She had howled like one possessed being led up to the kitchen. Susan sat on the edge of the old chrome-legged, green tile-topped table and gave up to wailing agony, glaring at J.G. McClung the whole time.

"You dumb clod," BillyBob Lattimer had muttered.

Susan howled louder, certain he was talking to her -- positive he was right. It's what everybody else said, everybody back at home. At home, she was clumsy, always "in the way." Now her secret was out. Summer was not off to a good start.

Aunt Nellie never paused, washing out shallow, bloody wounds with cold water and swabbing them after with mercurochrome as red as those vivid berries. "You hush that right now, BillyBob. J.G. didn't mean to hurt Susie," she had said bringing an entirely new and valid interpretation to the comment. "Honey, I know it hurts and it's all right to cry," the old woman had continued, "but you know J.G. didn't mean it. It was an accident."

"I'm sorry you got hurt, Susie," J.G. had said, looking like he was going to bust into tears himself which would have been disastrous what with BillyBob being there and all. BillyBob was almost eleven.

Surprise danced with shock. Young Susie Stillwhich toned down the volume, speculating. She could tell J.G. was genuinely sorry; he felt bad for her. He wasn't apologizing because he was scared he'd be punished or to shut her up. And BillyBob wasn't looking too chipper himself watching Aunt Nellie clean out the long, deep wounds.

"Drink your co-cola, Susie," Aunt Nellie said. "Co-cola" was her aunt's cure-all for everything that could ail a body, from a skinned knee or stomachache to a broken heart. It was a magic, bubbling elixir in a tall, sweaty green-glass bottle fished out from the depths of the refrigerator on hot and humid days. "BillyBob, you get one for you and J.G. Oh my, honey . . . don't you just look a sight?"

Staring at her mercurochrome-splashed arms and legs, Susie felt her lower lip begin trembling anew.

"Looks like chicken pox run amuck," BillyBob had said and bit off a giggle. Later on, BillyBob wouldn't be able to stifle those snickers. Neither would any other child in Dominion.

"We'll fix that," Aunt Nellie had said and did, wielding the little glass wand like a master artist, turning ugly red slashes into crescents, stars and ships wheels while BillyBob and J.G. watched with ever-widening and envious eyes.

"You're a tattooed lady just like at the fair," J.G. said, but not in a mean way.

"She's a painted lady," Aunt Nellie corrected. "Susie's the Lady of Spain."

And then Aunt Nellie had warbled out the silly song in her old, cracked voice. Soon they were all laughing. Susie was blushing, too, competing with the mercurochrome. J.G. chortled co-cola out of his nose and made them laugh all the harder.

"Do me!" J.G. had cried, excited. "I want a picture."

But Aunt Nellie had shook her head. "This is special for Susie," she had said and would not be moved from that position.

The scratches hurt and the mercurochrome burned, but Susie didn't feel so bad anymore. It was good medicine, laughter and co-cola. "Magic medicine," Aunt Nellie had said. "You're going to feel better now."

And Susie Stillwhich did -- all summer long, the best summer she could remember. Throughout those languid, shimmering days, children developed more than the usual profusion of little cuts and scrapes, nearly instigating a run on the local drugstore. She remembered looking around the congregation in the old Baptist church one morning and spying a vermillion tattoo on every child in the building. She had felt a swell of pride and self-satisfaction that had never quite been equalled.

It doesn't take much to make a child happy, the grown-up Susan Stillwhich told herself, dismissing nostalgia. She picked up her purse and carry-on, locked the car and stepped up onto the curb. The wind frisked at her skirt and ankles like an eager puppy, urging her along. Susan followed the sidewalk up to the porch steps. One - Two - Three - Four - Five - Six and crazy Seven. The last step was several inches higher than the rest, compelling one to abruptly bound into or out-of the Dare household unless you knew the trick of it. Aunt Nellie was always saying that she was going to have the steps fixed. Apparently, she never had.

Susan expertly navigated the stairs and stood on the porch. One step for each of her six glorious summers, she mused, and one Christmas. How appropriate. She faced the wreath of fresh evergreen and holly with its brilliant, blood-red bow and knocked on the door.

They must have been waiting for her just inside because the door flew open at Susan's first rap and at least half a dozen people, old and young, came spilling out to haul her in.

"It's cold! Come in, come in!" Ginny Westover, one of many cousins, urged.

"It's going to be a snow year! We're going to have a white Christmas again," Uncle Alvin exclaimed. "Congratulations, honey. You must have brought it with you."

"All the way from California?" Aunt Caroline queried from the hallway arch. "You don't have much snow there, I imagine."

"There's not much snow in L.A," Susan agreed, turning her cheek to her aunt's kiss. She would have stepped back and away but Aunt Caroline continued to press her close, circling Susan within her arms. Frail, thin fingers fluttered briefly against Susan's shoulders.

"Christmas cheer, little Susie. Welcome." Crystal glittered in the old woman's eyes. "Welcome."

"She's not so little any more," Uncle Alvin observed.

"We heard about you," a little girl of nine piped up.

"You're Susie-the-Christmas-Busy-Bee," her brother answered. The relationship was obvious. The two were a matched pair, twins.

"Meet Melissa and Nicholas," another familiar-but-different voice broke in.

"J.G. McClung, it's been a long time," Susan acknowledged, nodding. "These are yours?"

"Guilty -- on both counts," J.G. returned, grinning. "I'm the one that told them all about you. This is the lady that knows the words to all the Christmas carols, all the verses. She could bake cookies as well as Aunt Nellie back when she was only as big as you, Melissa. Of course, we never told her that. She would only ply us with samples until she was sure she'd got them right. BillyBob and I knew a good thing when we saw it."

"Will you take us with you Christmas Eve when you go shopping?" Nicholas asked. "Daddy says you shop till the stores close to make sure you got everything right. I've never seen the stores close."

"Stupid. That's when we have the party." Melissa turned the full force of her nine-year-old scorn on her twin.

"And when Santa comes," J.G. said. "You wouldn't want him to pass you by because you weren't in bed on time."

"Well, you said Susie shopped back then," Melissa accused.

"Susie was different," J.G. advised.

"Susan is different now, too," Susan Stillwhich said and made a laugh. "That's all in the past. I came to my senses years ago. It's really best if you treat Christmas like it's just any other day."

"Why?" Melissa demanded, round-eyed with dismay and confusion.

"So it will be more special. Like a surprise," J.G. said. "You always were the clever one, Susie."

Susan kept smiling and nodding, riding with the flow. Swallowing shocks of her own. California was three full hours behind the east coast. Technically, she should have been flying -- literally -- into the future. Instead, Susan found herself surrounded by persons and things past. More people swarmed towards her from the dinning room and parlor. She recognized most of the faces and forms, altered somewhat by the passage of time yet, still, so much the same as they had been when she rollicked along the streets of Dominion all those years ago. There were so many of them, cousins, aunts, uncles and old friends. Well, Susan told herself, it was to be expected. Aunt Nellie's house had always been a center of activity, a place where all could happily converge on the celebration of the moment. Some gatherings were planned. Others simply happened. She shouldn't believe they were all here just to see her.

This was a planned feast, a traditional banquet that locked in sometime around Halloween and continued, gaining momentum, until it reached New Year's star. Carried along by the aroma of holiday delicacies sifting through the rush of decorative cedar, pine and glowing bayberry candles, Susan Stillwhich allowed herself to be guided through the parlor to the dining room. As they passed from one room to the next, midnight-dark, melt-away fudge and snow-white divinity tempted each passersby. On the dining room table, six kinds of pie were laid out for the guests as well as buttery, black-walnut pound cake and nut-crusted fruit strudels. Fresh baked bread, both fancy and plain, waited beside platters of smoked ham, fresh fruit and open-tins of homemade cookies. Every available horizontal surface was laden with some enticing tidbit begging to be plundered.

Uncle Alvin whipped out a crock of his famous egg nog while Aunt Carolyn commenced her traditional fuss over the quantity of nog. Susan almost laughed. Their parries and barbs held all the familiar appeal of a comic passage from one of her favorite books. Silent and curious, she spied around the room trying to place the scene. Apparently, Dickens had merged with a strain of benign Bacchanalia. A younger lot had tried their hand at spiced wine, buttered rum and hot cider, mad punk-scientists on holiday who were now comparing results. Nicholas and Melissa cantered through, leading a group of other children, their distinctive, treble laughter soaring over the adult chatter. J.G. called at them to "settle down" but no one took him seriously, not even the adults. Susan accepted a cup of egg nog from Uncle Alvin while Aunt Carolyn and Cousin Ginny relieved her of her coat and bag. She sipped cautiously at the creamy liquid, smooth and ripe with brandy and spices, but still much too sweet to savor comfortably.

The scent of fresh coffee brewing in the kitchen beckoned like a siren and Susan followed it, easing out of the parlor and into the hall. She rushed towards the enticing odor leaving the happy confusion behind. The only inhabitants in the twilight hall other than herself were the cats and she was pleased to see them. Susan noted several in bookshelf cubby holes and crannies. They noted her back with a feline air of noblesse oblige as she made her way through their sanctuary. They would remain in the hall until the party died down, then shadow out to reclaim their established territories. Animals, like children, had always recognized their welcome at the old Dare house, massing within and without like little pilgrims stopping at a local Mecca. As she hurried along, she wondered how many cats Aunt Nellie had with her now.

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?

By the time she reached the kitchen, the odor of coffee had her positively drooling. Morning seemed ages away and Susan longed for a cup of decent, palatable caffeine with a splash of real cream -- not chalky whitener -- in a thick, china cup. But Susan rattled to an abrupt halt as soon as she hit the kitchen doorway. Her aunt was alone in the room, standing at the stove, stirring a huge witch's caldron of simmering collards. The old woman peered hard at Susan, her head rising up out of the Dowager's hump on her back, eyes snapping bright and smart. Just and only that.

Nellie Dare didn't seem very surprised or excited to see her great niece come striding into her special domain after so many years, after so many evaded invitations and canceled trips. It might have been high summer and little Susie walking in with a basket of strawberries picked fresh for supper.

"Put them strawberries over by the sink," Susan almost expected her to say. "That's a nice bunch you picked for us, honey. You've done a mighty fine job. We'll wash them up and cap them presently." That word was pronounced "pres-ney" with her Virginia-Carolina border twang.

"I love strawberries," little Susie would have answered. "They're my favorite."

And Aunt Nellie would have told her, "Mine, too."

But it wasn't summer. It was winter and there were no strawberries. Still, Susan could not get over how much the old green and yellow room had remained the same, not when she had changed so much.

Nellie Dare was wearing one of her innumerable ancient house dresses, this one a gray and blue cotton plaid, line-dried and sun-faded to dusky twilight. She would iron the cloth crisp-stiff when she did the washing every week but the material would go kerchief soft as soon as she put it on. She was wearing the apron that went on over the dress every morning and didn't disappear until she prepared for bed at night. Susan couldn't be sure but her shoes looked liked the same pair of run down, Red Cross specials Nellie Dare had worn year 'round. Her hair was still mostly brown but threaded thick with silver-gray, cut short and comfortable. When Nellie Dare turned her head, the ceiling light flickered off her glasses. She had worn them for so long, the nose pieces had made permanent grooves in her skin. They were set back on her face, those glasses, crystal clear and fixed together with gold -- picture frames for her marvelous eyes which were currently sparking steely blue, just the color of sky before the sun comes up in the morning. When Nellie Dare wore brown, they'd go the color of fresh-turned soil. When she wore green, they'd go the bloom of deep summer.

Nellie Dare was very brown for a white woman, the hue she acquired tilling her garden -- fruit and flower, herb and vegetable. The dark never completely left her, only faded or deepened depending on the time of year. Despite her domestic environment, the old woman looked like something sprung out of the wild, from the back woods and thickets surrounding Dominion. Her hands and joints were gnarled and knotted, her skin grooved, burled and scored like the bark of living wood. Standing out in her garden on soft, summer nights, Nellie Dare looked as if someone had stuck a dress and glasses on some small tree and propped a hoe up in one of the branches. The old woman would stand so still, gazing out at the silvery moon that young Susie Stillwhich would find herself caught up in her own child's fantasy. She would all but jump out of her skin when her aunt finally moved. The child would stare, curious and alert, as Nellie Dare made her way to the garage, striding across the rows as if one of the trees had taken a fancy to dress up, get the car and ride into town.

She hasn't changed at all, Susan thought. Not at all.

"Well, I thought that might be you coming in," Nellie Dare said. "But with all the commotion, it's hard to say just what's happening out there. I was going to walk on out and see for myself once I finished with these collards."

"Aunt Nellie, you always know exactly what's going on in your house," Susan said.

The old woman put the lid back on the pot and wiped her hands on her apron. She considered a moment, head listing to one side, nodding.

"Yes," she agreed, wry and canny-bright. "I reckon I do."

"I'm so glad to see you," Susan said. And that was true. She abandoned her eggnog to the kitchen table and hurried across the room.

Aunt Nellie welcomed Susan as always, hugging her close. Hugging her hard enough to crack bones and punch most of the air out of her body. But Susan hesitated, unsure, faced with new and almost frightening difference. She could only remember reaching up to hold Aunt Nellie, not down. The old bones seemed so frail now, the body so small and light. If she stood up straight, Susan was sure she would lift her aunt right off the floor.

"You don't have to be afraid of hugging back, girl," Nellie Dare chided. "The day I can't take a proper squeeze is the day they can toss me out in the boneyard and cover me over with sod."

"That's a long time off," Susan said, stepping away.

"It's a time that comes," Aunt Nellie snapped back, "for one and all, good and bad. Set yourself down, honey. You look mighty peaked. Let me get you a proper meal."

"Oh no -- please don't bother. I already ate on the plane -- or tried to eat. They keep putting stuff in front of you while you sit there. It doesn't taste or look like much of anything but people choke it down all the same. It gives us something to do, I suppose."

Aunt Nellie sniffed, bustling about, placing a plate and utensils on the table. "You ain't telling me anything I don't already know for myself. I took a ride on an airplane once, going down to Florida to visit with your Aunt Ruthie. They was plenty nice to me, I had a good time. But when they served the dinner, all they gave me was a hamburger sandwich. Well, I reckon that's what people like nowadays. But that was just a little dried up brown-looking thing. I've seen healthier looking dog turds."

"Please …" She winced, smiling. "It sounds like you're talking about my lunch."

"They didn't even put it together right," Aunt Nellie continued. "They had the lettuce in one place and the tomato in another -- picked green and froze dry and no more taste than straw. I didn't say anything, didn't want to be impolite. They probably cooked it up in one of those microwavers. It'll come to no good, that kind of eating. No good at all."

"But I see you have a microwave, Aunt Nellie."

"J.G. and Ginny and the children gave that to me Christmas before last. I don't reckon but that I have every kitchen gadget ever made in here."

"And the most 'modern' convenience she'll use is that old toaster oven," J.G. said, leaning in the doorway. "We thought this was were you got to."

"Microwaves are great, Aunt Nellie," Nicholas broke in. "If you put a cricket inside, it'll explode."

"And make bad luck for you, too," Aunt Nellie said. "Busted up that skateboard you was so fond of after, didn't you, little man?"

"Yes mam." Nicholas was suddenly chagrined, remembering.

"It doesn't do to go 'round hurting others just for the fun of it," the old woman warned. "Someone's bound to take exception."

"Who did you have in mind -- the cricket fairy?" J.G. asked.

"Everyone belongs to someone," Aunt Nellie insisted. "When they go to missing, no matter how small, it's noticed. Do you give the piper his due, Nicholas McClung, and be sure he never finds you exploding any of his own."

"It's the big who are supposed to look out for the small," Nicholas said. He had heard this story before and knew the moral.

"That's right, honey. Just remember, as long as you harm no other, you can do as you like." Aunt Nellie opened an ancient tin and took out a gingerbread man.

Nicholas accepted his reward and charged back towards the living room.

"You'll spoil that boy," J.G. said.

"Not any more than he deserves," Aunt Nellie returned. "We're all better off for a little spoiling every now and again, don't you think?"

"What I think is Susan should have let us come down to the airport and pick her up," J.G. said. "That was an awful long ride all by yourself."

"I didn't want to be a bother," Susan said. "Besides, it was nice to have the time alone. It was such a crowd on the plane."

"Bet you were packed in like cattle."

"More like sardines -- but it thinned out later on." Susan poured herself a cup of coffee. "So, you and Cousin Ginny are together now. That's nice."

"Didn't seem to be anything else for me -- except Melissa and Nicholas -- after Rita died," J.G. said. "Now there's Ginny, too. And it all feels right again. Different -- but right. I think it's going to be okay."

"Well, then, I'm happy for you, J.G."

A self-conscious grin flickered across J.G.'s face and, for a moment, he appeared to be nine years old again. Susan noted that he still had freckles, not just a splash across the face but everywhere -- throat, arms, hands. His brown eyes still flashed trouble when he smiled. Summer was in his blood. J.G. would always be the heat-hazed days of dragonflies lingering, suspended in mid-air on rainbow wings. He was the months of humid evenings where bullfrogs and crickets sang, and lightning bugs flickered across the lawn, wandering fae come down to visit earth-bound friends. He was shared secrets and tall-tales, dodge ball, fishing lines and campfires in the night. Back then, he had been a best friend, almost a brother.

"It's nice you could come visit from the big city," J.G. said. "We've missed you down here."

"I missed you, too," Susan said. Once again, it was the right response, the correct thing to say. However, there was a great deal of truth in her words this time. "I've missed all of you," she said, surprised.

"Well ... it's good you're here, good to see you. Christmas cheer to you." Still smiling-shy, J.G. escaped back into the hallway.

Aunt Nellie placed a feast of baked ham, steaming collards, snap beans, yams and corn bread before Susan's plate.

Susan began a protest, "Oh, no. I can't eat all this."

"I swear. That boy's always been just as transparent as glass." The old woman ignored her, highly amused. "Everyone 'round these parts always thought it would be you and J.G. McClung making a family. I know for a fact J.G. surely hoped for it."

"You're not serious." Susan's dark eyes widened.

"'Course not. You've always been the serious one, Susie girl," Aunt Nellie said. "Oh - don't make a face. I know everybody's supposed to call you 'Susan' now and I'm going to do my level best to remember. But you got to forgive an old woman getting caught up in old ways and old times." Nellie Dare poured a cup of coffee for herself and sat down beside her niece. "You were, without a doubt, the most grown up little gal who ever walked into my old house. Always taking care of everyone and everything else first. But some children are like that. Born old. Smart before their time, they never feel quite to home with folks their own age."

"Well, that can't be but so bad," Susan said. "It must give them an edge in taking care of themselves later."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you."

"Well, doesn't it?"

"Every flower and plant is only a little seed before it sprouts up into a bud. They got to grow a little first before they get to be gladiolas and strawberries. Most times, someone's got to be taking care of them, helping them along. Beans and squash and tomatoes pop up easy enough with the right kind of care -- if the season's good. But a strawberry, that takes some years before it comes up nice enough to eat. Nice enough for shortcakes and waffles and preserves and pie. When you treat them right, they just get sweeter and sassier as the years go by. 'Course, like I say, some seasons is better than others."

"Well, you would know," Susan said, confused. "You're the gardener."

"What's the difference between a dandelion sprung up in a pavement crack and the kind that grows out yonder in the field?" Aunt Nellie asked.

"One's tougher. More detached and alone -- there's no field, no dandelion buddies. Not much cross pollination, not much access to natural fertilizer or unpolluted rain. The pavement blossoms look knotted up, stunted, small. There's enough in a field to make dandelion wine if you want. When they go to seed out there, it looks like a snowstorm in summer. But you can still pick a little bouquet of sunshine in the city -- if you find enough of them." She hesitated, thinking. "Both kind go to seed in the end."

"For children to wish on," Aunt Nellie said.

"Come to think of it, I've never seen a sidewalk dandelion go to seed." Susan frowned. "They've either been picked or stomped first."

"But come spring, they're back again. They got to come from some place, Susie girl. They can't just happen, can they?"

"Maybe they're too stubborn to let go. You know how hard it is to get those roots out of the ground once they've set in."

"Too stubborn to change or look for a better spot," Aunt Nellie said. "Like them old children we was talking about. Most of them just keep on getting old, like you'd expect. Presently, they turn into dried up old geezers, all fixed and locked in their ways. Scared of their own shadow, most of them. Scared of other folks, scared to go out of their house."

"They're probably pretty sure they're going to get stomped in this day and age," Susan said.

Aunt Nellie shrugged. "Some folks surely do get stomped, regardless. But some of those children fool you. They start growing young instead of old. The more years on them, the younger they look, the younger they feel."

"How do they do that?"

"They chose to be young," Aunt Nellie said, eyes twinkling. "That's all. They make up their minds to it, to have a good time, to trust people, to live instead of sleep, to laugh instead of cry. They stop being afraid."

"And they live happily ever after in the Old Dominion Loony Bin all dressed up in their hug-me-tight robes." Susan put a layer of ham and a scoop of collards on her plate. "It's no wonder I used to make up stories staying down here with you. Aunt Nellie, you've got the strangest ideas."

"You don't tell stories or make pictures any more, do you?"

"No. I got a job, my own place and my own cats. I take care of myself."

"That's nice."

"Got a promotion last month. And a raise."

"Congratulations. I'm glad to hear you're doing so well."

"Well, I am."

"Los Angeles is a pretty big city. Seen it on the TV. I reckon you got lots of friends there, lots of things to do."

"I stay pretty busy. But I go places. I still enjoy a good book. I've got quite a library now -- although not as big as yours."

"Enjoy yourself while you're here, honey. Read all you want." Aunt Nellie reached across the table and patted Susan's hand. "Eat up."

Oddly enough, Susan found that she was able to do just that. She took an initial nibble for the sake of politeness and soon found herself finishing the little feast, relieving a hunger she had not been aware of. There were only a few scraps left when she pushed herself away from the table.

"Food all right then, was it?" Aunt Nellie asked.

"Wonderful," Susan said. "I'm so full. Nothing's tasted this good in years."

Nellie Dare nodded, expecting no less for her culinary skill. "Best put those scraps out in the pantry for the cats," she said. "No need for them to go to waste."

Susan got to her feet and prepared to do that although moving took genuine effort. She opened the pantry door and walked down the three shallow steps to the narrow, darkened room. Quickly, she located the cats' dishes and performed her little chore. It was cold but she couldn't help pausing to look around. This was a favorite memory, a cherished treasure room of enticing odors and mysterious shapes secured beneath cheesecloth and tin foil. The shelves were stacked high with preserves and home-canned fruits and vegetables. Storage bins of flour and sugar lined one wall. Odds of this and bits of that hung from hooks in the ceiling, hams, sausages, ropes of garlic and dried peppers, various cooking utensils. Susan took it all in, wandering towards the back door. Drawn, she glanced out through the glass into the yard.

It had begun to snow. It had probably had been snowing since she had entered the house. A layer of white powder already crusted the ground, glazed by the moon with a bright, silver sheen. It was the kind of light that reduced shadows to a minimum, bringing the yard into a sharp, contrasted focus of black and glowing white. With all the tall buildings, you couldn't much see the moon in the city -- or the sun -- but you could feel their presence. Here, in Dominion, the elements loomed close enough to touch. She could have reached up into that sky and drawn the moon-ball down, just as she could pluck a child's toy from a midnight-closet shelf. She might cradle the orb between her palms and roll it, laughing, along the frosty ground, leaving a trail of stars behind her as she ran and ran and ran.

Winter wind gusted across the grass and garden, swirling the snow-mist up into the trees, rattling the eaves and shutters. It was so beautiful, so clean. The snow covered all of winter's waste and desolation with an unblemished blanket of peace. It was as if nothing terrible had ever happened in the world, as if nothing terrible could ever happen. Wind whistled through the yard again, a solitary sound but not lonely, not sad. It called. It beckoned. And there was something else beneath the summons -- a clash of chimes? Susan wondered. Listened harder.

Bells ... she heard sleigh bells, faint and far away carried along on the wind's breath. Some neighbor was pushing the season hard. Susan exhaled a little, laughing gasp. Then peered more closely into the night. There was someone standing in the yard beneath the glossy magnolia tree, right beside the wall of rhododendron separating the Dare house from the Westover's. She squinted and stepped closer to the door.

He was a little boy, a child no younger than nine, no older than eleven. The wind ruffled his short, straight hair and waltzed over his clothes -- patched jeans and a faded blue, hooded sweatshirt. His skin was quite pale in the snow-light. Susan frowned. The child wasn't dressed for this kind of weather; he could catch his death out there -- or worse if his parents discovered him straying outside in the middle of the night.

She put her hand upon the doorknob and twisted, wrestling with the ancient mechanism and weather-warped frame. The door was stuck. There was a trick to this -- if she could only remember. Susan glanced up again, face to face with the shiny glass pane. Another face stared back at her, close enough to touch. Vibrant, intense -- ready to burst through the glass and into the room. It was a woman's face, eyes round and black and shadowed deep. Wild, raven curls haloed stark, white skin. Dead skin. The full lips rounded in a "O" of fear -- silent, yet trying to speak, working to make some sound -- beseeching, pleading.

Her mother's face. It was her mother's face!

Susan stumbled back from the door with a cry. She dropped the plate and jumped again at the crash. The pantry door opened, dousing the darkness with brilliant yellow light.

"What is it?" Aunt Nellie called. "Susie, honey -- are you all right?"

Like any person who has suddenly and quickly sucked in a lot of air, Susan Stillwhich found she was having trouble getting it back out again. She folded her arms around herself, she rocked back on her heels, still staring at the door. Aunt Nellie made her way down the stairs.

"You're white as a ghost," the old woman said. "What's the matter?"

"I saw -- a face," Susan began, stammering. "Saw a face in the window. Scared the hell out of me."

"Who was it?"

"Nobody." Laughter began to bubble behind Susan's lips and she worked to control it. "It was me. My face. A reflection."

The two women looked towards the back door with its perfect squares of glossy obsidian soaking in the kitchen's electric light. Faintly, Susan spied her outline standing beside her aunt's.

"What were you looking for out there?" Aunt Nellie asked.

"I saw a little boy. He was standing out in the snow."

Aunt Nellie stepped up to the door and looked out. "I don't see anyone," she said.

"I probably scared him off." Susan took a deep breath. Let it out. "He probably went home."

"Hm .... Well -- look at the snow. I could tell that was coming in. Smelled it in the air this morning soon as I woke up," Aunt Nellie said. She didn't sound happy about it. She didn't sound sad. "We don't get much snow down here in these parts. Too far south. But we always manage to have a spot at Christmas."

"Yes. I know. I remember."

"As I recall, you went outside to look at the snow at night that Christmas you and your mama come to stay with me."

"How could you forget?" Susan asked, dry. "That was quite a scene."

"Your mama sure had a passel of problems." Nellie Dare nodded. "Maybe you and I should talk some about that while you're visiting."

A thousand replies curdled up in the back of Susan's throat like bile. They all translated to, No!

Instead, Susan said, "Not tonight, okay? I'm really tired. It's been a long day. Let me clean up this mess --"

"Don't bother yourself, I'll take care of it, honey. You go on up to your room," Aunt Nellie said. "I know you remember which one it is. You ought to sleep in late tomorrow, catch up on your rest. You look wiped out."

"No -- let me get it. It's my fault!"

"You broke a plate, Susie girl. That's all. Don't work yourself up so." Nellie Dare regarded her niece frankly. "Get on with you. I'll see you in the morning."

Susan forced herself to smile, feeling the heat of guilt, fear and resentment blazing along the back of her neck. The cool, dark mystery of the room was spoiled for her. All she wanted was away. Ashamed, she backed towards the steps.

"I'll be fixing your favorite for breakfast," Aunt Nellie said. "You still like corn fritters, don't you?"

Susan nodded.

"Then you hurry on and get some sleep. It'll be morning before you know it, a brand new day."

Susan Stillwhich hurried, upstairs and away. You're on a roll already, she told herself. You haven't been here five minutes and you're already busting things up. You're so clumsy. You're so stupid! Can't you do anything right?

Susan's thimble-smacker raised a field of bloody knots across the top of her head before she found her room and hit the sheets. But it was a long time before she slept.

* * *

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas --

Mama pulled up in the driveway and parked the car. She climbed out of the vehicle and was making her way, waving, excited, across the lawn before Susie could open her door.

"We're here! We made it!" Mama called. "Merry Christmas, everyone!"

"Christmas cheer," Aunt Nellie called from the front door. J.G., Ginny, Aunt Carolyn and the rest swelled out on the porch around her. "Welcome!"

I've never seen Mama this happy, Susie thought. This is going to be it. This is going to be the year everything goes all right.

The girl paused, looking up at the sky while she pulled baskets of presents out from the back seat. It was still daylight but she couldn't see the sun. The sky was pure white, as white as the air that streamed before her face. Even the grounds and trees looked bleached out, waiting for what was to come. Spider-limbed crepe myrtles lined the street, reaching bare-branch fingers to the sky as if they would pull the snow out of the air. It was to be expected that Dominion would look different in winter. Still, it felt no less alive, no less magical than it had during her summer visits. Susie butted the door closed and started towards the house.

"Hurry up, Susie," Mama called. "You're letting all the cold air in the house."

Susie hurried, anxious to please. She charged across the lawn, balancing and bouncing the carefully wrapped packages as she ran. The grass was stiff and icy and her small boots crunched across the path her mother had made before her. She dashed up the porch steps.

"Be careful!" Mama snapped out. "Watch where you're going."

Startled, Susie stumbled. Her toe didn't quite clear the top step and down she went. It was worse than the pyracantha. The floor boards rushed up at her, slowly but certainly, inescapable. She couldn't even protect her face this time, her hands were clenched into fists around the baskets -- which were not cooperating either. They wouldn't stay upright. They dipped and spilled, scattering gifts all over the porch, all around people's feet. A long, slender box dropped beneath Susie's body. She felt it collapse and smash beneath her as she landed.

Susie cracked her chin on the porch. Hard. The force of it stung the back of her nose and burned the top of her scalp. It chipped a tooth in the back of her mouth. The pain across her kneecap indicated she'd scraped her leg up as well but Susie lay still after she landed, quiet as possible, hoping for the best. The best thing would be if the boards would open up and swallow her whole.

"I told you to be careful." Mama took hold of the girl's arm and pulled her up. "Look at you. You've torn your new jeans."

"I'm sorry," Susie said.

"Now you're going to cry." There was such a look on Mama's face, such contempt in her voice that Susie would have preferred a slap. She would have preferred a kick.

"Are you all right, honey?" Aunt Nellie asked. "That was quite a spill."

"I'm okay." Susie scurried to retrieve packages. There was an awful rattle of glass from the box she'd landed on. Everyone heard it. Susie hesitated, watching her mother.

No. Mama wasn't looking happy anymore, she wasn't even bothering to put on a face. That wasn't good.

Aunt Nellie took the package out of Susie's hands. "Why, is this for me?" she asked. "I wonder what could be in this pretty box?"

"It's broken now," Mama said. "They're probably all broken, all ruined."

"Nonsense," Aunt Nellie said and tucked the box under her arm. "J.G. -- Ginny, help us pick up. And let's get inside where it's warm."

"But just look at this mess." There were tears in Mama's voice.

"It's going to be okay," Susie said, her words more prayer than fact. Still, it was the right thing to say.

"That's right," Aunt Nellie broke in smoothly, herding Mama and Susie towards the door. "You must be tired, driving all this way. Come on in and have a co-cola. Or maybe some hot chocolate? I'll bet you could both use a cup."

Mama allowed herself to be ushered inside. Susie followed behind, her attention riveted on the red and green box under Nellie Dare's arm. It would have to be that one, the special gift.

Later, upstairs in Susie's summer bedroom, she came to understand herself better.

"You only do it for attention," Mama said. "Nobody's that clumsy, Susie. You have to work at it. I hope you're happy now."

"We can go into town," Susie said. "I know all the stores and good places to look. We can find another ladle. It'll be okay."

"Grow up. Where are we going to find another crystal punch ladle? Everything's bought up by now. And where are you going to find the money, miss? How are you planning to pay for it?"

Susie looked to the floor for an answer but the carpet wasn't talking.

"We never should have come here for Christmas," Mama said. "I knew it was a mistake."

"I'm sorry," Susie whispered. "I didn't mean to spoil everything."

"Oh, I know." Mama sighed and reached for her purse. Susie tensed, waiting for the thimble. But, this time, Mama only pulled out a tissue. The tears sparkled, rolling down Mama's face like broken glass. "I know you don't mean to be bad," she said. "I just wish you'd think first before you go charging off head over heels. Why can't you do anything right?"

"I don't know," Susie Stillwhich answered, miserable.

Sitting up in bed in the same room, Susan Stillwhich pondered the same puzzle. The older she got and the more things changed, the more she stayed the same.

She swung her legs over the side of the mattress and let her toes fish blind for her slippers. Her migraine had reduced itself to a dull throb, more like a blunt pickax chipping away at her temples than a rusty jackhammer. Susan wanted a sleep without dreams. Most of the time, she was able to accomplish that. But, as she'd suspected, peaceful sleep was impossible in Dominion. Her night had been riddled with nightmare memories, reel after reel, a marathon of not-so-golden turkeys. Susan scuffed into the bathroom and turned the tap. Waited. It took a while for hot water to make its way up from the boiler to the third floor. She tried not to look in the mirror but the glass was directly in front of her. A shower would have steamed the surface and she wouldn't have to look at all but there wasn't a shower in the third floor bathroom.

Like many people, Susan was not happy with what she saw in the mirror but, for the best part, she had learned to live with it -- her mother's face. More precise than a photograph, Bettina Coleman Stillwhich gazed back at her daughter every time Susan looked into a glass. The resemblance was becoming more pronounced with age.

It wasn't fair. Other children began their days without confronting such a determined reflection of a parent's face. Other children were a blending of both parents' features. They were unique, individual, separate. Susan didn't know her father very well. Her parents had divorced while she was still learning to walk. Daddy traveled; father and daughter were rarely in the same state. Eventually, he'd remarried and begun another family. During the brief visits they spent together, Susan had to wonder if they'd bother to know each other at all if they hadn't shared that fluke of blood.

"You're so much like your mother," Daddy would say, inevitably -- always! A flood of memory would surge around them and the fragile bonds they'd built between them would collapse.

Bettina was always there and, when Susan passed beyond those years her mother had known on earth, she would see Bettina age as she had never aged in life. All the living that Bettina had never known would fall on her daughter. It was not too inconceivable to believe that Susan would look into the mirror one day and only find Bettina, taking back the years she had so deliberately relinquished.

"You didn't have to do it," Susan Stillwhich said, aloud. As always, there was more she would have liked to say -- You didn't have to take those pills. You didn't have to be so scared and sick all the time, you didn't have to be so sad. People loved you. People miss you. But Mama wouldn't hear. Mama slept forever. She had swallowed fists full of sleeping pills, tranquilizers, pain pills -- the bulk of her personal pharmacy -- with her nightcap fifth of vodka five Holidays ago. No prince, handsome or otherwise, could disturb that slumber. No daughter either.

Words reduced themselves to a fury of feeling, too intense for verbal eloquence. It required screaming, it required tears. Susan Stillwhich indulged in neither. She turned off the tap at the sink and walked downstairs to the bathroom on the second floor.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

It was late afternoon before Susan made her way into the parlor. Her appetite was back to its usual, temperamental self so corn fritters were out of the question. Blissfully, the household was too busy preparing for the annual Children's Party to bother much with her. She fielded sympathetic inquiries, "Aunt Nellie said you had a bad night. You feeling better now?" with a polite affirmative -- "Yes, I'm fine. Thank you."

Outside, the snow still fell. Fat, lazy flakes floated to the ground, drifting against the shrubs and curbs. Jack Frost fairies had worked their magic in the night, weaving frosty picture frames around the windows. Susan found coffee to sip, a quiet corner in the front room and settled down to watch the show outside.

J.G. was clearing and salting the walk and driveway. Nicholas and Melissa tumbled about the yard with their friends, lobbing snowballs at each other and making snow angels. They paused in their activities every few seconds to demand J.G.'s attention and critical commentary. Ordinarily, Susan would have been able to hear their voices and the traffic as it made its way, slowly and cautiously, down the street. But the snow shielded everything with its celestial perfection. J.G. finished his job and left the children to their games. He stomped into the house, shaking the snow off his feet on the mat by the door. He spotted Susan and walked towards her.

"You look mighty comfortable sitting over there. Warm, too," J.G. said. His face was flushed red from the cold.

"Have you heard any weather reports?" Susan asked, concerned. "Do you think we'll get snowed in?"

"Not a chance. This happens every year, just like someone put their order in with Santa for Christmas." J.G. stepped close to the fireplace and warmed his hands. "Don't worry. It'll be gone day before New Year's."

"It doesn't look like it's going to stop."

J.G. shrugged. "So what if it doesn't? What if you have to take a later flight -- it wouldn't be that bad, would it?"

"I've got a job. I've got to get back."

"Before the New Year? They're tougher in L.A. than I thought."

It was too difficult to return J.G.'s teasing grin and Susan didn't try. She stroked the cat that slept on her lap.

"Do you know why cats don't celebrate Christmas, birthdays or any other holiday?" J.G. asked, suddenly serious.

"No. Why?"

"They already think they own everything." J.G. mugged and struck a pose. "Gather 'round troops, I've got a million of 'em."

"Yes. I remember."

"Here's a story for you. Stripes the tiger cat finally buys the farm and he's talking to Buddha on the bridge to Nirvana. 'I know I was a bad kitty,' he says. 'I shredded the drapes, I destroyed all the furniture, I barfed furballs in my master's slippers. But please -- you're not going to reincarnate me as a dog, are you?' And Buddha says, 'Not to worry, little master. Cats are the highest form of life there is.'"

A timid smile tugged the corners of Susan's mouth. "I'll have to tell that one to Houdini and Shanghai Lil when I get home," she said.

"Yeah. Most cat lovers like that one."

"What do you tell the dog lovers?"

"'Dogs are the highest form of life, little master.' Arf. Arf." J.G. shrugged again. "It's true what they say, you know. Cat lovers should marry cat lovers and dog lovers should marry dog lovers. But I've always gotten along with all kinds of four-footers."

"You don't believe that people are the highest form of life?" Susan asked.

"People have to work too hard -- at everything. When my reward comes, I want a warm lap to sleep in, three-guaranteed meals a day and someone else to clean up the shit."

Susan laughed, she couldn't stop herself. But the cat had had enough. It stretched up, hopped down and trotted off to quieter corners. "You chased my buddy away," she accused.

"If you want unconditional, uninterrupted affection from a cat, you'll have to go electronic. Get one of those little battery operated jobs they're pushing at WalMart this year." J.G. slipped his hands into his pockets. "It's nice to see you smile. You look like you might be feeling better."

"Thanks. I am."

"This must be a rough time of year for you. We've never really talked about it, you and me, but I'm sorry about your mother."

"There's nothing to talk about," she said, too sharp. "Look -- you don't have to apologize to me. You don't have to be nice."

"Why not?"

"I loathe being someone's idea of a good deed for the holidays. I hate being the perpetual bribe to Santa, the offering to the gift god." Susan stopped, winced, bit her tongue. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

"Yes, you did," J.G. said. "I can see where that might be a problem for you. But I'd have thought Aunt Nellie had surpassed her good-deed quota long ago. You don't think that's the reason she asked you down here, do you?"

"No, I don't. Honestly."

"Good. Then you haven't completely lost touch with reason." J.G.'s good-natured grin twisted into a lopsided smile. "I won't lie to you, Susan. I never liked your mother. I was really worried when you stopped coming down here, like only a kid can worry, you know? I used to plan out these rescue missions where I would go and get you and bring you back to Dominion."

"No -- you're not serious."

"I am. I even talked it over with Aunt Nellie, but she talked me out of it. Gave me the equivalent of 'a woman's got to do what a woman's got to do' or something like that. It made perfect sense the way she put it. But it was the only time I was ever mad at her."

"Things were better at home for a long time after we left here that Christmas," Susan said, softly. "Aunt Nellie talked to Mama. Mama didn't -- hit me again. Not for a long time. And then it was never as bad as before."

"Yeah, but your mama still hit the bottle hard, didn't she? And the pills got worse."

"Yes." Susan paused, then regarded him suspiciously. "How did you know?"

"Rita came from a family a lot like yours," J.G. told her. "Except both her parents were like that. She told me a lot before we were married. She wanted to be sure I understood where she was coming from."

"So you were Rita's prince. You rescued her."

"I'd like to think so. That would be real nice -- but it's not true. Rita rescued herself," J.G. said. "She was the strongest woman I've ever known besides Aunt Nellie. Rita broke away from her family all by herself. She put herself through school, got into therapy -- and out of it again. I still miss her. I think about her all the time. The kids are getting over her death better than I am."

"I heard about the car accident. I heard about what happened." Susan's throat felt very tight. "I wanted to come down but there was an audit at the office and --"

"I got your note. That's okay."

"No, it's not." Susan grimaced. "I just have a problem with family funerals. Worse than Christmas. I chickened out."

"It's okay," J.G. insisted. "I figured it was something like that."

"I wish ... I wish there was a way to bring her back for you. I wish you two could be together again."

"Me, too. But it's impossible and it's not right. You have to let go," J.G. said and sighed. "It's not easy, but it's the only thing you can do."

A high pitched squeal of frustration and alarm penetrated the snow and glass. A malformed snowman collapsed into icy chunks on the lawn.

"Looks like they're having a little construction problem out there," J.G. said. "Maybe we should give them a hand."

"Don't look at me. I've never built a snowman in my life," Susan protested. "I don't know anything about it."

"Then you can't be any worse than them. Get your coat."

"I couldn't."

"Why not? Did your arms and legs suddenly stop functioning? Come on. You can make as big a mess out there as I can."

"Probably bigger," Susan agreed, reluctantly, but she got her coat and followed J.G. outside.

The blast of cold air stung her face and hands as soon as she stepped out of the door. Susan Stillwhich breathed in the winter, so much stronger than it had been the night before. She felt the ice in the air, shivering with delight as it passed through her mouth and nose. It was like being immersed in cold water from the inside out after a long and heavy sleep. J.G. took her hand and pulled her out into the yard.

"See if you can catch them on your tongue," he said.

Susan laughed watching him, looking up, mouth open to receive the falling crystals. "You look like a sheep!" she crowed.

"Try it!"

She tilted her head back, feeling very awkward and self-conscious. But as she stared up into the sky, the snow spiraled out of the air towards her, caressing her face. It clung to her eyelashes and hair and melted on her lips and tongue. The snow tasted surprisingly sweet sliding down her throat.

"My teacher says every snowflake is different," Melissa announced. "Each one is perfect."

"They're beautiful," Nicholas said. He spread his arms, gazing up, and began whirling to the snow's spiral pattern as it hurtled towards him. "I'm a snowflake, too!"

"You're a nut," his twin informed him. Melissa packed a snowball and threw it at Nicholas' back. The boy collapsed on impact, giggling, on the lawn.

"So are you," Susan said, tossing a quickly formed missile of her own.

Melissa gawked down at the streak of white that dusted her jacket. Then reciprocated. Chaos followed for a time. But long before evening's shadows began to creep over the house, a family of snow-creatures covered the front yard. By then, other children had begun to arrive for the Christmas Eve event. A great lot of them were classmates of Nicholas, Melissa and the Westover children. However, almost everyone in the surrounding neighborhood showed up at the door. The Children's Party was an annual event that drew quite a crowd. As Susan watched the guests swarm in, she couldn't help but notice that many of the participants no longer fell under the technical classification of 'child.' Still, no one was turned away. Coats piled up in the guest rooms. Gifts piled up under and around the tree while holiday goodies overflowed, threatening to bow and break the dining room table.

Aunt Nellie greeted every guest who passed through her doorway with a word of cheer and a hug. She seemed more like a busy, woodland gnome dressed in seasonal green, her starched white apron embroidered with garlands of holly and ivy. In the parlor, the tree loomed somehow larger and grander than it had the night before, filling its corner, branches sweeping across the walls. Its clean, forest scent perfumed the air. With the colored lights bursting against the ornaments, old and new, the tree out-glamored every decoration in the house.

"It looks like a lady at a dance," Nicholas said, "all dressed up, balancing on one foot. A ballerina!"

"It looks like a ninja turtle to me," Melissa said. "Big and green with street lights bouncing off his shell."

"It's the best tree Aunt Nellie's ever had," J.G. said. "What do you think, Susan?"

Susan Stillwhich smiled. "It's beautiful," she said. "Like stars have come down to play with the faeries in the woods."

Melissa, Nicholas and their friends regarded her quietly. Susan dropped to one knee and placed her arm around Nicholas' shoulders. "Look up there," she said. "And squint -- just a little. Don't look directly. See what I mean?"

Nicholas nodded, awed. "Yes," he said, softly. "I see them."

"Nicholas has always been able to see the fair folk," Aunt Nellie said, standing behind them. "Just like you, Susie girl."

"Good evening, Mrs. Dare." A newcomer broke into their circle, a well-dressed woman accompanied by her equally well-groomed young son. "We had some prior commitments we couldn't avoid but Dorsey has finally made it. You must be Susan Stillwhich, Mrs. Dare's niece. I'm Harriet Bowman. This is my son, Dorsey."

Susan scrambled up from the floor. She brushed her hands on the seat of her jeans while Harriet Bowman slapped her with a I've heard all about you smile.

Susan nodded and beamed back a mirthless, I'll bet I know who you are, too. Dominion's high priestess of gossip and ill will. Every town had one.

"Good evening," Dorsey said. "Merry Christmas, Mrs. Dare."

The child looked like a miniature adult dressed up in his camel's hair topcoat and spotless cashmere muffler. He presented Nellie Dare with a brightly colored tin, fruitcake-shaped -- large and expensive.

"Thank you, Dorsey," Aunt Nellie said. "Welcome to the house. Nicholas and Melissa will show you where to put your coats."

"I'm sorry but I can't stay," Harriet said. "You understand, it's such a busy time of year and I promised the Fuhrmann's I'd be by for a visit. Seward's running for re-election this year, you know. I'll be back for Dorsey at nine o'clock sharp. You'll be waiting for me, won't you, dear?"

"Yes, Mother," Dorsey said.

"We can't miss the Hallelujah Sing-Along down at Saint Cecelia's," Harriet said. "See you soon, sweetheart. Merry Christmas all!"

"Bah-humbug," J.G. said, waving Harriet out of the room. "She's got name dropping down to an art form hasn't she?"

"Will you shush?" Susan hissed. "Let me help you with your things, Dorsey."

"That's all right, Miss Stillwhich," Dorsey said. "I can take care of myself."

"Well, let me show you where we're stacking the coats," Susan offered. "And then we can get you some food."

"We had dinner with the Jeffersons just before we came here." Dorsey shed his coat and followed Susan. "I try not to overindulge, especially during the season. I'll grant you that the food's fairly tasty but the nutritional level is practically non-existent and the fat level far too high."

"You sound like you might be on a first name basis with the Surgeon General."

"I watch what I eat," Dorsey said.

"You're a stronger man than I am, Gunga Din."

"'A better man,'" Dorsey corrected. "That's the way Kipling wrote it."

"You're right." Susan glanced at him curiously, unsure if she should be impressed or offended. The child was no older than Nicholas and Melissa. If he maintained his world-weary mannerisms with the other children, she could just imagine how well he got along with them.

"Did you ever see the movie, Gunga Din, with Cary Grant and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr?" Susan asked. "It's one of my favorites."

"Directed by George Stevens," Dorsey replied. "Mother and I only watch the classics."

No CNN? Susan wanted to ask -- but she already knew the answer. Dorsey had competitions, not conversations. He fought a constant battle for attention and approval. It was a private war which he continued, unaware, beyond the primary participants. It was all he knew how to do.

They returned to the parlor.

"They took rather a lot of liberties with the poem, don't you think?" Dorsey continued, very serious.

"Well, I think someone had to use a lot of imagination to make it into a feature length movie."

"Yes, but was it what the author intended?"

Susan shrugged, helpless. "I don't know. The only person you could ask about that would be Kipling himself and he's past caring. All I know is, I liked the movie."

She needed to get away from him. She couldn't help but feel sorry for the child but he irritated her all the same.

"Why don't you go play with Melissa and Nicholas?" Susan suggested. "They've got a game going over by the tree. See?"

Dorsey looked at her as if she'd suggested he swallow cockroaches. "I'm too old for those baby games," he said. "Perhaps I'll have a cup of punch while I wait for my mother."

"Help yourself," Susan said. She wouldn't risk further offense by offering assistance.

Aping a maturity beyond his years, Dorsey walked over to the sideboard and secured a cup of punch. No one but Susan seemed to notice him as he strolled about the room. Eventually, the child came to a halt, standing still and silent against the wall. He studied his surroundings with an aloof and superior air, balancing the crystal cup in one hand. Susan could picture him some twenty years or so in the future, leaning against the wall at a traditional Yuletide cocktail party, sipping at the fashionable drink of the year -- a Margarita, a Martini, a Poinsettia Cooler -- with the same casual disdain. Still just as alone, just as separate. Enduring. Watching. And never joining.

Susan looked away. There were enough absorbing activities in the house to capture and hold the most demanding attention. But it was difficult not to see anything other than Dorsey Bowman.

"Land sakes, child, will you find a spot and light?" Aunt Carolyn said. "You have been circling this room like a thing possessed. You make me tired just watching you."

"I'm sorry," Susan said.

"Are you sure you're feeling all right? Do you want to go upstairs and lay down for a while?"

"No, I'm fine," she insisted. "Thank you."

"I hope you're having a good time. This is your first Children's Party, isn't it? I remember how you and J.G. snuck out on us last time you came visiting."

"That's right." Susan forced herself to return her Aunt's merry smile. "Excuse me. I was just going to get a cup of punch."

It was as good an excuse as any. She went to the punchbowl and dipped out a cup of ruby-red liquid for herself, searching for distraction. She couldn't find it in the delicate crystal ladle grasped within her hand. It was the same piece from that terrible, long-ago time. Susan recognized the tiny chip along the rim that had been there when she'd first discovered it at the flea market. The antique pattern had matched Aunt Nellie's ancient set. It was a perfect replacement for the crystal that a frisky kitten had destroyed during a playful "gravity check." Susie had snatched it up with glee. Even Mama had commented on what a find it was, and what a bargain, too.

It should have been a total loss after that fall up the stairs. But when Nellie Dare had unwrapped and opened the crushed and mangled box early Christmas morning, the ladle had been undamaged. To the girl's incredulous relief, the old woman had lifted it from its nest of shredded tissue paper, whole and complete. It was enough to almost make a person believe in magic -- the real, always-hoped-for stuff. Not the kind that came with top hat magicians and circus clowns. This was tooth fairy magic, birthday candle magic, star-wishing magic. The kind that was supposed to work. She had examined the gift again and again, lifting the wand-like crystal up, holding it to the sunlight, looking for -- anything! How had the tissue paper become so ragged while the ladle had remained so miraculously whole? Susie had started up to find Aunt Nellie watching her from the kitchen hallway. There were so many secrets in her aunt's ancient smile, so many mysteries.

You've got to stop thinking about this stuff, Susan told herself. Or you're going to go crazy. This has got to change!

Susan deliberately wandered the house, socializing. Ginny Westover and J.G. were playing carols on the upright in the front room while others sang along. They were a bizarre mix of the exotic and the mundane who would never have fit together at any other time of year -- or at any other place except Nellie Dare's. Some guests had brought their own musical instruments, guitars, low-voiced flutes, a fiddle and even a dulcimer. Greensleeves' haunting melody tracked Susan as she moved from room to room until she found herself in the parlor once again, standing next to Dorsey Flynn. He was as solitary as ever, watching the other children play. Aunt Carolyn was supervising a game that involved teams and stacking papercups but two of the younger children where having a rough time of it. The will was there but the skill exceeded their abilities. Susan winced as their tower toppled for the third time. The two scattered to round up their cups. By the time Aunt Carolyn called "time," they were still collecting.

Dorsey stirred restlessly but not from boredom. He started forward, then dropped back against the wall again and stifled a noise of acute frustration. For Susan, it was a revelation of movement.

She deliberated briefly and then said, "You were right, Dorsey, these are baby games. I wonder who thought them up?"

Dorsey started, finally noticing Susan standing beside him. "I don't know," he stammered.

"Looks like the standard party competitions. You'd think they'd come up with something new. Next thing they'll be running relays, passing oranges under the chin or Life Savers on a toothpick. And it will probably end with somebody smacking a hole in that big pinata over there."

"Yes. Probably."

"Of course, you'll be gone before they get to that. Over to Saint Cecelia's for the sing-along."

"Yes."

"You're a very polite young man," Susan observed. "I guess it would be easy for you to make fun of those other kids. They're so . . . immature."

"It's not right to make fun of people," Dorsey protested. "It hurts."

"Hurts to lose all the time, too," Susan said. "Look at those two. They're never going to make it."

"No, Shawna and Charlie are too little." Dorsey gestured. "They need a wider base, at least a double row, maybe triple. Then they could really pile them up."

"That might work." Susan shook her head. "But they'll never figure it out. I wish I could show them but that wouldn't be right."

"You're a grown up."

"That's true. But actually I was thinking that it's your idea, not mine."

"You think I should help them, don't you?" Dorsey frowned, wary.

"Why should you? I know it's Christmas and it would be a nice thing to do, but why put yourself out? You want to go crawling around on the floor with the rest of those kids?"

Dorsey Bowman hesitated and Susan held her breath, watching him watching the other children -- then peering, almost furtively, back at her. He wanted to play so badly, he wanted to be part of the others. Susan kept her expression carefully neutral. He was suspicious, too. Afraid of being caught in some trick. Then everyone would be laughing at him, making fun of him. Oh yes, Dorsey would know how much teasing could hurt. Little, grown-up children . . . the first thing they lost was their spontaneity; it went hand in hand with trust. But hope took longer to kill, Susan knew that for a fact. She counted on it.

The child sucked in a huge lungful of air and let it out in a long, dramatic sigh worthy of both Grant and Fairbanks. "Well, all right, I guess," he said. "I'll give them a hand. After all, it is Christmas."

Susan gave a little shrug and nod. "Whatever you think's best," she agreed and propelled Dorsey Bowman towards the group on the floor.

You better not pout. Better not cry. Better not shout --

The Dorsey-Shawna-Charlie team did not win the papercup stacking event but they did come in second during one of the relays and Dorsey aced them all at the mini-spelling bee, even Melissa. His face went strawberry-bright when Aunt Carolyn placed a gold-paper crown on his head. Susan spied him touching it cautiously when he thought no one else was looking -- but he didn't remove it. By the time supper rolled around, all of the children wore crowns or carried prizes of some kind. No one went unrewarded. The parlor looked like a room filled with miniature monarchs. There was almost an incident when Melissa, unprovoked, smacked Dorsey across the arm with her cardboard scepter. Alarmed, Susan watched Dorsey begin withdrawing into his adult airs. But Nicholas stepped up to translate.

"Don't pay any attention to her," Nicholas said. "She's just mad 'cause you beat her."

"Am not!" Melissa squawked, indignant.

"Then I guess it must be true love," Nicholas jeered and chanted, "Melissa and Dorsey sitting in a tree --"

His twin clobbered him before he could finish and the two dissolved into their usual frenzy of chase and pound until Aunt Carolyn broke them up. Dorsey observed the action, hovering between confusion, embarrassment and pleasure.

"Time for supper, children," Aunt Nellie called. "Hamburger sandwiches and french fries!" The old woman stood aside as children stampeded down the hallway to the kitchen scattering cats everywhere. Susan stepped up beside Dorsey and launched him along, her hand on his shoulder.

"Aren't you hungry?" she asked. "After all that exercise?"

"Hamburgers." Dorsey grimaced. "Why can't we have the chef's salad with the house dressing?"

"Because we're visiting someone's home and we're all having hamburgers -- with or without fries, as you please. Is it really so bad to eat what everyone else is having?"

Dorsey shook his head. "No. But could I have cheese, please?" he asked.

"I think that could be arranged," she said and saw to it herself, personally.

The children were up to their elbows in ice cream, hot fudge and whipped cream when Harriet Bowman arrived at nine sharp. J.G. escorted her to the kitchen and watched, bemused, while she tried to pick her son out of the pint-sized horde clustered around the table.

Nicholas vigorously chewed a mouthful of ice cream, pretzels, M & M's and cherries into a semi-solid mush. "How's this?" he asked and opened his mouth for inspection.

"Needs more green," Dorsey replied.

Nicholas reached for a bowl of homemade pickles, stuffed them in. He turned to his twin, drooling. "Melissa -- look!"

Melissa made a face. "You gross moron!" she shrieked.

"I agree completely," Dorsey said. He had stuffed maraschino cherries up his nose, the stems protruding in twig-like tusks.

Melissa shrieked again, not so much offended as outdone.

But Harriet Bowman was offended, very much so. "Dorsey!" she gasped.

"Mother!" Dorsey gasped back.

Susan groaned. "Oh no, I meant to watch the clock! I wanted him to be ready by the time she got here."

"Is that Dorsey Bowman?" J.G. asked, puzzled.

"Why didn't you let me know she was here?" Susan demanded.

"I didn't know I was supposed to," J.G. said. He still could not quite believe his eyes. "That is Dorsey Bowman. Where's his tie?"

"Around. Someplace." Susan grabbed a handful of paper towels and dampened them, made her way to the table and shoved them in Dorsey's hand. "Here we go, Gunga Din. Hi, Mrs. Bowman. Did you have a nice time at the Fuhrmann's?"

"Look at you." Harriet Bowman hadn't gotten too far beyond gasping. "Just look at you, young man."

"Looks like he's got a really keen nosebleed," Nicholas said brightly.

Dorsey managed to rid himself of the cherries but the stain remained, circling his nostrils and dribbling down to his upper lip.

"I'm sorry, Mother," Dorsey said, muffled, scrubbing away with the paper towels.

"Don't say another word." Harriet cut him off short. "We'll discuss this when we get home. I trusted you to behave yourself and now look at you. I am so disappointed in you, Dorsey Bowman."

"It'll wash off," Susan offered. "Or fade in a couple of days. I'm sure it's not permanent."

"I'm sure, too," Harriet snapped. "But it won't be gone in time for church tonight."

"This is my fault," Susan began. "We just got carried away. I should have watched the clock and had him ready to go. I'm sorry."

"It was Dorsey's responsibility and he knows it. Get your things, young man. Why don't you see if you can find your tie?"

Pale beneath his maraschino nose, Dorsey slid back from the table and disappeared down the hall. J.G. ushered the other children out of the kitchen.

"Mrs. Bowman, I'm sorry your plans for tonight were spoiled," Susan continued. "But Dorsey was so bored and he wanted to play so badly. It ... it's Christmas. We were all having such a good time. You don't really have to go now, do you? There's the pinata and caroling -- it's not the Hallelujah Chorus, but --"

"You don't understand," Harriet said. "Dorsey is special. He's not like other children. He knows how he's supposed to behave. I have taught him to be a responsible young man."

"I agree. He is responsible and very considerate. Dorsey helped two younger children tonight with the games. He didn't have to but he did. He's smart, too, he won the spelling contest. And when he's not trying to act like some miniature, name-dropping, know-it-all, pain-in-the-ass, he's a lot of fun," Susan blazed. "He's only nine years old, Mrs. Bowman. He's got a nine year old's sense of humor -- when he allows it to come out -- and that means cherries up the nose and ice cubes down your back, rubber snakes and spiders between the sheets. Dorsey is a child. He needs friends that are his friends, not yours. He's not supposed to be your dinner companion or your special confidant, mouthing out opinions on the book of the month and ordering chef's salad because it's the 'correct' thing to do. He's not supposed to be your social advisor, your fashion coordinator or your date. You make him wear outfits and act in a way so he'll never have any friends his own age. Let him be a child. Let him have his childhood. He's supposed to play. He's supposed to get dirty. And when he falls down and bangs his knee, you're supposed to take care of it. That's your job! You're supposed to clean it up, kiss the hurt and make it well. Not scream at him for ripping his jeans. You're supposed to be sorry he's hurt. You're supposed to feel that! And you're supposed to tuck him in bed and kiss him good night ... wish him sweet dreams. You're supposed to be his mother -- not his best friend, certainly not his warden. Children need to learn as they grow, yes, but they need to have fun, too. Living should be something you enjoy -- not a sentence."

"Dorsey doesn't wear jeans," Harriet said, confused.

"Well, a nice pair of blue jeans and some of those fancy sneaker shoes might do him real fine," Nellie Dare broke in. She stood within the kitchen door with Dorsey before her, her hands resting lightly on the boy's shoulders. "Dorsey might like that, wouldn't you?"

"Yes mam," Dorsey said, too surprised to be anything less than honest.

"We'd like to have you and Dorsey stay for the rest of the party if you've a mind to," the old woman continued.

"No." Harriet shook her head, pulling her coat more closely around her. She crossed the kitchen, escaping towards the hall, watching Susan anxiously as if she might detonate again. "Thank you, no. We're sorry for the trouble --"

"Dorsey wasn't any trouble," Nellie Dare said. She peered down at him and her eyes sparked green behind her glasses. "You come on back whenever you've a mind to, little man. You're always welcome here."

"Thank you," Dorsey said, quietly and held out his hand. "Merry Christmas, Mrs. Dare."

"Child, you know everyone around here calls me Aunt Nellie. You don't need to be any different."

Dorsey nodded solemnly. He took a step towards Susan but Harriet caught up his hand and pulled him towards the doorway.

"Come along, Dorsey. It's time to go," Harriet insisted.

But he didn't go. Dorsey planted his heels in the green and yellow linoleum and balked.

"Goodnight, Susan," he called over his shoulder. "I had a wonderful time. Merry Christmas!"

"Did you find your tie?" Susan asked.

"It's in my pocket. See?"

He tugged something up and flashed it at her. Wondering, Susan caught a quick glimpse of gold. Before she could respond, Harriet's fist tightened around her son's fingers and she dragged him away down the hall. Susan couldn't miss the look of pain that streaked across Dorsey's face.

"Looks like you made quite an impression on that little one," Nellie Dare said.

Susan shook her head. "I made another mess," she grieved. "Why didn't I just stop and think first? I didn't want to get him in trouble. What's going to happen to him when he gets home?"

"Do you want to know?"

A sharp answer died in Susan's throat with a single glance into vivid green eyes. The old woman did not appear as though she were about to engage in speculative rhetoric. She really knows, Susan thought. Which posed another question.

Did she want to hear?

Spiderweb silence stretched between them, more potent than a shout.

"It's a scary thing, knowing," Nellie Dare acknowledged. She offered no smiles, no easy-going banter. "But you already understand that, don't you, girl? Every one of Eve's daughters bites into the fruit of knowing from the second they bust into this world. Women are the life givers, the mysteries are bestowed on us before they come to the men folk. Here -- take it! Learn from it! Grow with it! This is your special gift! Most women are content with that, they don't want to know more. Some get scared of what they learn and push their heads down in the dirt. But some is hungry for learning -- they got to know, they need to know more, even when the knowing is full of pain. Even when it hurts them bad."

"Why?"

"How else they going to change things?"

"Change what? You can't change things," Susan snapped.

"They why'd you bother with that boy tonight?"

"I don't know." She shook her head, genuinely bewildered. "I just couldn't leave him like that. He wanted to play and he didn't know how. I saw an out for him, a way to get him in the game and I took it. I never thought about anything as grand as changing his life, never thought what might happen to him after. If I had, I never would have done it. Do you know what's going to happen to him when he gets home tonight? Do you know what she's going to do? What it will be like for him?"

"They're going to fight," Nellie Dare said. "And Harriet Bowman's going to smack her boy hard and tear up that little crown of his. She's going to try and make him feel small and bad and foolish 'cause he didn't act the way she thought he should. And Dorsey's going to be mad and he's going to be hurt. He's going to ask questions and want to know why he was so wrong but she ain't going to have those answers, nothing that makes sense to him. That's because she can't really say what she's thinking, what she's feeling. She can't say that she's scared of being alone, that's no one's ever loved her before and she thinks the only person who loves her now doesn't and is leaving her. Harriet can't see that her boy can have any other friends 'cept her. She'll try to hold on to him hard, hard! And that's when he'll commence to slipping away. He's going to stop believing everything she says as true anymore. Going to start asking questions, that boy. Going to look for answers and truths on his own. Dorsey's going to change out of that grown-up little child you found here tonight. 'Long as he's got someone else he can talk to, someone who'll answer his questions. Tell him true instead of false."

"Well, you do have all the answers, don't you?" Susan scowled. "I used to think so. I used to think I had answers, too, listening to you. Believing you. God, I hate this time of year. Christmas. Nothing good ever comes of it." She leaned into the counter corner, shaking, bracing herself. "Mama used to start talking about Christmas around September every year. 'We're too poor, we can't afford Christmas,' she'd say. 'We're going to have to call all the relatives and tell them not to send any presents this year, not to expect us. We'll have to stay home until it's over.' And she would be crying. We weren't any more poor than anyone else. Mama talked like she felt she didn't deserve Christmas, that she didn't have any right to be happy. But I thought she was wrong. I thought we couldn't afford to miss Christmas. I read all those books, watched the movies and TV specials and I knew -- I knew that all we needed was one perfect Christmas and everything would be all right. And we would be happy -- you know?" Tears gathered in Susan's eyes and slid down her face. "I used to save all my money and hunt through all the shops so I could find -- just the right present, the perfect gifts. And I would take them home to her. I learned all the carols, I sang them all season long -- for good luck, to make the magic work. I learned how to make the cookies and candy and cakes so we wouldn't have to spend any extra money on store bought goods. And every year, Mama would get caught up in it, just like a child herself. She'd start believing, too. But there would always be a disaster, everything would fall apart. My magic wouldn't work and then it would all be worse than before. But I wouldn't stop. I wouldn't let it go. And I killed her."

"Well now, I didn't know that," Nellie Dare said, softly. "How did that happen?"

"I moved out, you know. I just wanted my own place . . . I got a job." Susan was shaking hard. "She used to call me up all the time, at work, at home. Just to talk, she always wanted me to come over. Sometimes she was okay. Sometimes I could tell she'd been drinking. That got worse after I left home, even worse than it was before that Christmas we came down here. It got so I hated going over there. But she would call and call and call! Some people at my office asked me to go to this Christmas party with them. I told her about it. I'd just started that job, I wanted to go -- so bad. I thought this is my chance, maybe I can make some friends. But Mama calls that night and tells me she's spent all day making veal parmesan and bought a chocolate cheesecake and rented 'our' favorite videos and she couldn't wait for me to come over. She pretended like she didn't remember about the party but that wasn't so. I told her the veal would keep, I'd come over tomorrow but she kept saying 'It's Christmas time, you're going to leave me alone at Christmas?' We had a terrible fight. I hung up on her. I went to the party but I didn't have a very good time. Hell, it was awful. The police called the next morning and I found out what happened. Mama was dead. The house was so clean when I went in. She had this little tree set up on top of the TV, the shades were down and the lights were still on. Dinner was all set out on the table -- just waiting. She didn't leave a note for me. She didn't have to."

The tears stopped. Susan leaned back against the counter and wrapped her arms around herself, drifting into silence.

"So you got rid of everything and moved to California, all the way 'cross country," Nellie Dare said, after a time. "But you still couldn't leave your mama behind. You still dragging her along with you. You ain't lost her yet."

"No." Susan's sigh was almost a groan. "She's still here. I can still feel her."

"You have got to let her go," the old woman said. "Your mama's been dead for five years now and you're still taking care of her."

"No one else would!"

"No one else should have had to, least of all her little daughter. Your mama never understood that. Still, she did the best she could. You don't know your grandma very well, my sister Jeanne. You have your mama to thank for that, she did everything she could to keep you away from that woman."

"Grandma Jeanne used to scare me when I was little," Susan said.

Nellie Dare nodded. "That was the right way to be around Jeanne -- cautious. You think I got a whole bunch of answers to things and, I admit, I got plenty. But sometimes it's just a mystery why some folks act the way they do. I never knew why your grandma was so bad-natured. Jeanne could suck the spirit out of a body just by standing next to them. What I do know is, what doesn't blossom never bears fruit. Your mama never had much chance to bloom living with Jeanne. That little girl was always down on herself, as you know. When all you hear about yourself is mean and bad, that's what you see in your own children. You see the good, too, but you don't know how to talk about it, don't know how to coax and nurture it along. Generation after generation, each child becomes more unhappy and self-hating than the last. When they're old enough, they find each other, cleave to each other and breed. When I go into town or out in the country these days, I see so many children with lost, dead eyes. Young, little things who don't know how to do anything except survive -- they're more like animals than of children. The kind that hunt. The kind that prowl the darkside, searching for something smaller, something more helpless. Makes them feel big and strong when they beat down on something small. And every time they do, every time they strike, they're hitting back at the one who hit them first."

Nellie Dare crossed the room. She stopped at the sink and peered out of the window into the snow-bright night. "Every year, it just gets deeper and deeper out there. Every Christmas, the snow gets deeper."

Captured by her aunt's words, Susan was caught short by the abrupt transition to weather report. She's getting so old, Susan thought -- and pondered on that. Nellie Dare had never been anything less than ancient from the first time they'd met. Just how old is she? Susan wondered.

But she said, "So you think we're going to be snowed in?" Susan felt drained. She was tired of talking about old horrors and new, terrible possibilities. It was a future she didn't much want to consider, even though she knew she'd never be able to get it out of her mind.

"Snowed in? Not this Christmas. Not yet," Nellie Dare said.

"Well, at least that's something to be thankful for."

"Yes. Yes!" The old woman faced her niece, gazing up at her with her sharp, bright eyes. Her long, claw-like fingers locked onto Susan's arm. "You were right about the magic at Christmas time. We can't stop hoping. We can't stop caring. We were all children once, we all have that in common. We have a responsibility to believe in Christmas, to carry that hope in our hearts and make every day the best day it can possibly be. We have to make that magic work."

Susan tried to force a smile of compliance but it wouldn't set right on her face. It trembled and collapsed. "I can't," she said. "I want to believe -- more than you could ever know. But I just can't, not any more." She took in a shuddering breath. "Please don't get me wrong, I'm glad you can. You do so much good for people. People love you. I love you -- very much. But this Christmas thing -- it's just too much. Don't ask me."

"Then how do you explain what happened here tonight?"

"What do you mean?" Susan demanded, wary.

"You just gave Christmas to that little boy, you gave the magic to Dorsey Bowman. If you can hand it out like that, girl, you can surely bear it, too."

Susan stepped away, backing towards the hall. "No. No, I can't. It was a mistake. I didn't give Dorsey anything but trouble. Don't you see that? I can't stay here, Aunt Nellie. I'm going to get my car, go to the airport. I'll find a flight heading back to California as soon as I can, but I can't stay here any more."

"Are you sure you have to go?"

"Yes. It was such a mistake to come here. I'm so sorry. I'll call when I get home."

Susan fled down the hall and up to her room. She packed quickly and made her way, quietly and secretly, to the car. Within minutes, she was driving down Dominion Avenue looking for the road that would take her back to the interstate, to the airport and L.A.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day . . . .

Pushed by an insistent wind, the snow fell in sheets across the asphalt, waving like gauze curtains across Susan's field of vision. Illuminated by a full moon, everything looked different, even alien beneath that shroud of glowing white. It was nearly as bright as day outside, although sheathed with a silvery cast instead of gold. It was a little darker driving through the woods. There the moon cast ribbons of deepest shadow across the road. They rippled over the hood and roof of the car as she passed, fingers of midnight stretching out to stay her progress, hold her back.

Susan was lost. All the familiar landmarks had disappeared. Somewhere she had taken the wrong turn and missed the road to the main highway. She had heard that was easy to do in Dominion, the streets twisted and turned back on themselves. The unwary could be lost for hours either in the deep woods or stark, urban pockets of the little town. It didn't encourage much in the way of tourist trade. But then, Dominion wasn't exactly a tourist town.

Susan scanned the area urgently, looking for something recognizable. She was beginning to realize how careless she had been, taking off in the dead of night, running away like a frightened child. She could have followed Dominion Avenue into the heart of downtown, found a hotel and stayed until morning. That would have been the smart thing to do but she seemed to have left her brains behind somewhere between L.A. and Williamsburg.

She reached into her purse and searched for the map. Paper spilled out onto the seat beside her, her notebook, datebook and the magazine she'd taken from the plane. But no map. Susan pulled over onto one of the shallow, scenic-view-picnic outlets, turned around and headed back the way she'd just traveled thinking to return to the last major intersection. Perhaps a different turn . . . if she could only get back to the avenue, she could try again.

Turning around, it took a lot of will power not to stomp on the gas and spin out, Susan was that frustrated. Time had transformed Christmas Eve into Christmas Morning. She tried the radio, hoping to break the eerie, snow-hushed quiet. Immediately, the speaker crooned out, There's no place like home for the holidays. The same song was on the next band, and the next. As unlikely as it seemed, she had managed to get a car with a radio that only received one station. It gave her the creeps. That saccharine voice hit her with the same bite Susan had felt reading the magazine article, The Ghosts of Christmas Now. According to Aunt Nellie, those tormented children weren't all ghosts. They lived in the shadows, all frightened, all desperate -- trapped by the brutalities that had made them. Some would lash out in anger, become predators themselves. Some would merely withdraw, waiting out their years. They would never see a friendly 'hello' in a raised hand, only a potential fist. They would never know the warmth behind a smile, only anticipate cruelties to come -- and feel relief if they did not. What kind of father would Rusty Flynn have made if he had survived? What kind of mother would Donna Browne have been?

And what kind of child would Dorsey Bowman hold in his arms once he became old enough to marry? Susan had to wonder. Mother Harriet would be certain that her son married well. How would Dorsey care for his family, for his children? Would he bring up a bouquet of sunlight or a strain of very intelligent, desensitized, mutant weeds? Susan snapped off the radio. She drove on in silence.

The terrain began to look familiar again. Street signs beckoned with names she could identify. These were places she had explored with J.G., BillyBob and Ginny when she was a child. Actually, she wasn't too far from the old Dare house. It was quite irksome how glad she felt about that.

Susan slowed down to get her bearings and peered about. When she looked back at the road again, she saw a child standing on the ice-slick pavement. It was the same boy she had spotted in Nellie Dare's backyard the night before. Susan recognized the lanky frame and straight hair, the hooded sweatshirt and patched jeans. He stared back at her from the headlights' glare.

Susan twisted the wheel and hit the brakes. The compact slid, gaining momentum as it whipped across the road. She twisted the wheel again, turning into the curve. The car skated about full circle and crashed into the ditch. Her seatbelt kept her from flying through the windshield but her head cracked hard against the glass in the door.

Half conscious, Susan drifted, like the snow, caught between then and now -- remembering.

"We don't have to go to that baby's party, J.G. We can ride our bikes downtown and go shopping on Christmas Eve," Susie said. "We can watch the mannequins come alive once the stores close."

"It's not a baby's party," J.G. protested. "Everybody goes to Aunt Nellie's on Christmas Eve. Besides, it's snowing outside. It's really cold."

"Well, if you're scared, I can ask BillyBob if he wants to go."

"I'm not scared."

"Maybe you could find something special for your mom at the store that no one else knows about," Susie coaxed. "It'll be fun. It would be an adventure."

Susie didn't enjoy manipulating people or lying to her friends, but the need was critical. She had to get downtown, she had to find a replacement for that broken ladle. If she couldn't find a duplicate, maybe there was something else that would work as well. Something that would save the day and make Mama happy again. Susie had saved all her pocket money. She knew which stores to look in but J.G. knew the shortcuts and pathways to get downtown and back again in a hurry.

J.G. considered and Susie tried not to look as if she cared too much -- which was difficult to do since her entire body was singing with need. Eventually, J.G. gave in -- as usual -- and they made their plans.

The trip downtown was cold but fun, an adventure just like Susie had promised it would be. They searched out the stores, the ones that were still open, and watched those few close down one by one as the hours passed. They peeked into vacant windows, still ringed by blinking colored lights. They didn't find any dancing mannequins but weren't too disappointed or surprised about that. They were eleven years old and it was difficult to believe in such things any more. Besides, downtown was too filled with genuine mystery. The empty streets and tall buildings were made clean and magical with its fresh wash of snow, bright lights and decorations. Strolling the avenue, walking alongside their bikes, Susie felt as if they were the only people left in the world. It was so peaceful and beautiful outside, she didn't want to go back. She hadn't found another ladle, crystal or otherwise. She hadn't even found a suitable replacement gift and felt bad about it, scared, too.

"Don't worry," J.G. soothed. By now he knew her secret mission. "Aunt Nellie won't mind. She's glad to see you. Besides, it was an accident. You wouldn't have tripped if your mom hadn't yelled. Boy, she made me jump."

J.G. was trying to make her smile and Susie tried to oblige him. It was so nice to have someone care if she felt good or not, she didn't want to disappoint him. They walked in silence for a long time.

"I wish you didn't have to go home," J.G. said, eventually. "I wish you could stay down here forever."

"Me, too," Susie said. "But my grandma Jeanne doesn't like it when we come here. She wants Mama to stay close to her."

J.G. frowned. He didn't get it and understood, in the way of children, that Susie didn't get it either. Some grown-ups could be really strange, acting like a bunch of spoiled brats one minute and the next like they were Very Big Shots or bullies or something. Do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do was their motto.

The wind had been at their backs during their journey into town. It was more difficult coming back. The children alternatively walked and rode their bikes. Susie tried to pass time by inventing new stories, the further adventures of the Monkey Trainer's Daughter and the Snake Charmer's Son. The two had discovered Kipling's Jungle Books and Kim and Just So Stories that past summer and had spent the rest of their time haunting the library, discovering all they could about India. Back at home, Susie would scribble out her stories and drawings to mail to J.G. who would return them with his own embellishments. That was Susie's link to Dominion throughout the winter, those stories and letters. That evidence of summer sunshine kept the closet land and the thimble hand at bay.

But nothing of summer was waiting for them on the porch back at Nellie Dare's house, only Mama -- and she was mad. Well, that was to be expected and Susie was ready, as ready as she ever was, to "take her medicine." That was the secret phrase they used when she and Mama were visiting, when Susie messed up around strangers, even family strangers. It was her cue to go along quietly while Mama took out the thimble-medicine -- and not to make a sound, not a sound! Susie was good at keeping quiet and was learning not to show what she felt. Still, sometimes, when she couldn't help making a face, someone would comment. Susie had learned to say, like Mama, "The medicine doesn't taste very good."

Susie understood she was in for a very large dose, especially since there was no gift, no offering to keep Mama's mad away. But she didn't expect the fury that charged out at her -- and J.G., too.

The things Mama said and the deeds she accused them of, the words she used. It was awful. Mama had been drinking again, that was obvious. She stumbled and weaved up and down the porch, the old boards clattering beneath her fancy, grown-up shoes. J.G. could only gawk at her. Ordinarily, Susie would have stayed out of reach but she had to stop it, had to get Mama away. People were beginning to stare, looking out from the front windows to see what all the noise was about.

Susie tried to take Mama's hand, warn her, stop her -- but Mama grabbed a fistful of Susie's hair and shook her. Hard. It made glitter-stars spark before Susie's eyes. Mama's other hand began hitting, flailing away at Susie's face and shoulders.

"You bitch," Mama shrilled. "You little slut -- I was worried sick about you! And what are you doing -- running around with boys? Is that what you've been doing down here?"

Mama yelled more stuff, some things that Susie didn't understand and some that she did. But Mama kept hitting, too, and Susie couldn't help crying out.

That's when J.G. executed his famous flying head-to-stomach tackle. It had knocked the stuffings out of that bully, Jimmy Heck, last summer. It knocked the wind out of Mama, too. She let Susie go and kind of . . . folded over slow. Then crashed down on her ass and threw up. The smell was horrible, enough to make a person gag themselves.

Mama began to cry, sitting on the porch boards, party clothes soiled, her shoulders shaking like someone was beating her as she sobbed into her hands. Susie began to cry, too, while people rushed out around them.

"Don't, Mama," Susie said. "I'm sorry ... I'm sorry" and kept repeating that, over and over.

Aunt Nellie brought them all inside and, much later that night, in the black hours before morning, Susie awoke to hear their voices, Nellie Dare and Mama, talking in Mama's room across the hall. She couldn't hear what they said. She had heard screaming -- mad, hurt, scared! That's what had brought her awake. There was more crying, terrible sounds. But then there was Nellie Dare's voice, soothing, comforting, healing. Listening, from the other side of the door, Susie felt comforted herself. She fell asleep listening, tears streaking her own face. But she woke up in bed the next morning.

When Susie went downstairs Christmas Day, she never would have guessed there had been any trouble in the night. It was as perfect a Yuletide morning as anyone could have wished for. For a fleeting moment, Susie thought she might have dreamed it, those sounds, those tears. But that wasn't so. Staring at the mercurochrome that ringed the scratches on Mama's wrists, Susie could not make herself pretend. She could make herself keep quiet but she could not pretend anymore. Even the miracle of restored crystal could not snap Susie out of her prison of guilt and remorse. It was just like Mama said, she couldn't do anything right. No matter how good her intentions, they all went wrong in the end. But why did Mama always have to get hurt?

Probably because Susie was poison, just like Mama said. And clumsy. And stupid. And selfish. She would have to learn to be more careful.

There were no more summer visits to Dominion after that Christmas. No more letters back and forth to J.G. Susie had to take care of Mama, had to keep her happy. Keep her safe.

But Susie could not keep Mama safe, she couldn't make Mama happy. And neither could Susan Stillwhich.

Susan roused herself slowly, deliberately, inside the car. She hung suspended in her seatbelt harness like a broken doll. Her head throbbed, there was blood on her face and coat. Her shoulders shook with sobs and she pounded her fists against the steering wheel and dashboard -- mad, hurt, scared! She hadn't been able to save her mother and now, apparently, she was killing children. Susan released her seatbelt and flopped down across the passenger's seat. The car was on its side in the ditch. But she struggled and kicked her way up, shoved the door open and clambered out. Susan fell out of the car and into the snow, staggering up, wild. Had she hit that boy? Was he hurt?

Get a grip, she told herself. You can't fall apart now! Susan stumbled along the ditch, searching, crying, calling out.

There -- on the snow, she saw two shadows. One tall, a Susan Stillwhich shadow. The other small and slim, a child. She whirled about but only found the streetlight at her back. She turned back to the shadow trail, two heads, two shoulders, a double set of arms and a pair of torsos. Then the bodies merged and became one, trailing down to Susan's feet. She stared, confused at this trick of the lamplight. Then started up again at a noise across the road.

It was just a chunk of snow falling out of a tree. But the boy was there, standing still and quiet beneath those bouncing, waving branches. Watching her.

"Hey!" Susan called. "Are you all right?"

He didn't answer her, only watched from the shadows, his hands jammed tight in his pockets.

He's in shock, Susan told herself. There's something wrong --

She lurched forward, slipped on the road's icy surface, fell. The boy ran away, darting across the tree spotted lawn.

"No! Come back!" Susan yelled and pushed herself up. "Don't run away. I won't hurt you!"

She stopped shouting, saving her breath to scramble after the child who made his way past the alley and into the curve that led back to the woods. Susan was barely able to keep him in sight, charging across the snow-covered dandelion field and up into the thick of the trees. She hadn't run like this in years. Her grown-up body wasn't used to it. She couldn't keep up with him and she lost him amidst the skeleton-branched oak and ash. Susan slowed to a stumbling walk, still trying to hurry but gasping for air now.

"Oh, come on!" Her breath exploded into little clouds bursting from her lips. "Where are you? Give me a break, damnit! I only want to help."

A fresh rush of grief and frustration almost blinded her. Tears scalded her eyes again. She scanned the snow for tracks -- but there was nothing! Susan gazed back at the way she'd come. It looked like a small herd of buffalo had stampeded up the hillside but the riot ended at her feet. Susan shook her head. That just wasn't possible. The boy had to have left some kind of mark somewhere -- unless he had just drifted up into the trees overhead. Half-hopeful, she looked up but, as she expected, there was no one sitting in those way-high branches.

But when she looked back down, Susan found another child standing only a few yards ahead of her. She was just a little girl, possibly three years old, and she wore a pair of pajamas, the kind with the feet in them. The material was a light cotton with a faded daisy pattern worn thin at the knees.

"Honey, what are you doing out here?" Susan gasped. "You must be freezing."

The child held up a bedraggled, fur-covered creature. This is Mr. Kitty. The child's voice floated up at her from the ground and down from the sky. The sound was everywhere and no where, carried on the snow-thick wind. My name is Martie Scott. We were bad. We wouldn't eat our dinner. Now we got to go....

Martie Scott's lips never moved. Susan was sure of that because she was staring at the child very hard. Susan blinked, trying to re-focus, and when she looked again, another child was standing beside Martie.

I'm Diego Esperanza. I dropped the lamp. It busted up -- ka-pow!

The wind caught the end of Susan's coat, a small hand tugging the hem.

...Ashley Hubber ... I broke Mommie's beads ....

The child was still garbed in her dress-up clothes, make-up staining her snow-pale face. Her tiny feet swam in high-heeled shoes she would never grow into.

The boy standing near Ashley wouldn't look at Susan, only at the ground, shame-faced. His words made the smallest ripple of breeze. I'm Sammy ... I wet the bed again.

Slowly, Susan turned and looked about. There were so many of them, the Christmas ghosts. She recognized some of them from the magazine. They all spoke, each in his or her way, reciting their names and their sorry confessions, gently insistent, pressing close around her. Remember me ... this is who I am ... this is why I died.... Susan could not help but listen, amazed. Appalled.

Wind swept through the trees and, once again, Susan Stillwhich was aware of a sound, a mixture of wind and chimes. The children heard it as well and began to follow it. Susan watched them go, too stunned to move herself, frozen into place as if the snow had taken hold of her soul.

Something brushed by her feet, slipping against her ankle as gently as a kitten. She didn't want to look down ... once again, couldn't stop herself.

They were going to call me Chevelle ... But Daddy kicked Mama down the stairs --

It crawled past the tip of her boot to follow the others.

Susan began to walk, too. She knew where they were going. Over the little rise of the hill, she spied the iron gates waiting, where the wind called among the tombstones and spent snow whirling up -- up! -- into the sky. The children spoke to her as she moved among them, each story different yet too much the same. She understood them, connecting in ways that she had never known with anyone else. All through her life, she could never remember not feeling "different" from the people around her. Susan had learned to observe and imitate before she had learned to read or write, aware that other children and their families could sense that she wasn't really one of them. Susan guessed at what normal was supposed to be and faked her way through it. It wasn't a perfect performance, sometimes people saw through her charade. She could tell when that happened, watching confusion flicker over their faces at some miscued remark or expression. That would be her signal to retreat, withdraw. On her own, in solitude, she could rehash the scenario again and again, master a new face, find the correct and acceptable response. Practice till she got it right.

Susan passed beyond the cemetery gates and stopped to look behind her. There were so many of them, brothers and sisters. They had never known how to ask for or receive help; they knew how to keep secrets, how to protect and pretend. Now those secrets blazed from their eyes and echoed in the snow-filled wood. Susan wasn't frightened of them, far from it. She was surprised at how eager she was to listen. Every word confirmed her own presence, destroying the lies, smashing down the walls. She heard herself calling out to them, "It was true, what happened to you. It was real. It was wrong!"

The line went on and on although, still, her's were the only footprints in the snow. An infant struggled hard to reach the gates gliding along her trail.

I'm Buddy ... I'm Buddy! I couldn't stop crying....

An older child broke rank to reach down and scoop him up. Susan's visitor of the blue hood and patched jeans. He cradled the baby against his shoulder, then came to a stop and looked her full in the face.

Rusty Flynn. I wasn't fast enough getting the tools for my dad. I talked back.

"Yes," Susan said. "I know you. I know."

Rusty Flynn gave a quick nod. He moved on to join the others.

Beyond Rusty, in the heart of the tombs, Susan glimpsed what appeared to be a small, brown tree decked out in a green dress, an apron and a long, dark shawl that snapped and furled like a child's party whistle. A host of cats capered and yowled about her feet and among the headstones. Several feelings warred within Susan's mind and heart, but surprise wasn't one of them. It seemed absolutely right that Nellie Dare was there. But the old woman worked a broom in this field, not a hoe. She swept the snow up at her feet, whisking it into a spiraling coil that stretched all the way into the new morning sky, a sparkling beacon of snow and ice. Relieved, scared and curiously thrilled, Susan pushed her way through to her aunt.

The gale howled louder and the children circled closer and closer to the old woman. Nellie Dare's voice carried over the roar. "He comes, he's coming! Look -- look how he comes!"

"What is this?" Susan screamed over the wind. "Who's coming? What's going on?"

Nellie Dare looked up, her face gaunt and hollow, grinning with a kind of madness, but still she churned her ancient broom. "Listen, girl!" she cried. "Hear him now. See him come!"

Susan shook her head. There was only the wind, even the children's voices had gone still. But when she looked out at them, she found them staring up, too, watching -- waiting. Hoping!

At first there was a sound of bells followed by the crash of hooves like thunder, dashing across the sky. The noise grew louder and louder, beating down the wind, until Susan had to put her hands over her ears. Still, she heard them, sleigh bells and the rhythm of proudly racing hooves. She couldn't block it out.

Stepping high against the sky, the reindeer charged, striking sparks against the night as they came. Their white coats were more pure than the snow. They wore red harness trimmed with bells and pulled a great, red and silver sleigh. Something frail and fine and fragile on wings darted ahead of them, heralding their arrival. Inviting, too. The reindeer tossed their magnificent heads and struck the stars with their antlers. A silver whip split the air and more of the winged creatures appeared, hurtling out of the sky, diving down towards them.

Susan flinched and drew back. It seemed as if they would dash themselves against the ground but that didn't happen. When next she looked, she spied one of the creatures soaring back to the sleigh, holding a child within each arm. The children weren't frightened, they were eager, even anxious to glide away with those incredible beings. Susan tried to see them more closely. She knew what they should be but no angel had ever appeared like this rendered by any human hand. They were beautiful, they were proud and strong. They were the best of all things living between heaven and earth -- and more; they were as bad as they needed to be. Wings of film, wings of feathers . . . Susan had seen them before, in the hawk and the dove, in the dragonflies' lair, even among the country fowl. Their eyes were both wise and young. They had dwelled with men and women since the birth of all things living and, yet, they were only at the beginning of their time.

She knew them.

More to the point, they seemed to know her, too.

The reindeer were so huge, it seemed to take forever before the sleigh came into full view -- and the driver. His long white hair and beard flowed over his shoulders. His robes spread around him like scarlet wings. He was a big man, strong and powerful, as timeless as the fae creatures that surrounded him. He carried the illusion of age but his features were still young. This wasn't the traditional fat and jolly elf of the popular fables and songs. This was a warrior king who had battled long and hard against terrible odds. He had witnessed the worst humankind could and would offer each other. He had seen the best, too, and that he would cling to. He would rally that goodness to him, bind it to his need and lead as best he could. The longing for peace and rest was deeply etched within his weary face. But there was no peace for him. No compromise. His hands were large enough to cradle the world and, for one night out of every year, he had the power to do just that.

Even from such a height, Susan Stillwhich could feel his ice-colored eyes staring into her as he passed overhead. It was such a physical sensation, that brief exchange. She didn't want it to end. She raised her arms and stretched, reaching up. The swirling ice struck her hands and face.

Why do I feel so warm? she wondered.

Nellie Dare touched Susan's shoulder. "Be quick now, honey," the old woman said. "It's time to let go."

Susan stared, confused, but Nellie Dare wasn't actually looking at her. She followed her aunt's gaze and discovered a little girl standing before her, a last ghost child. Susan's heart gave a leap. The sun was coming up in the east, the sleigh was disappearing fast.

"You've got to go now," Susan said, distressed, and dropped down to her knees in the snow.

The child offered no explanation, she uttered no name, simply stared at the ground.

Susan hesitated briefly, then reached out and took the pale hands within her own. "You've got to go, sweetheart. Don't let them leave without you."

The little girl slowly raised her head and stared back at Susan from her round, fair-skinned face and wide, ever-so-serious, berry-black eyes.

I was so bad, Bettina Coleman whispered. I was always such a bad girl ... I never meant to hurt you, Susie. I just wanted to be friends....

"Mama --" Susan almost screamed. Fear and awe could have sent her running. Shock kept her rooted in place.

"It's all right, Susie, girl," Nellie Dare soothed. "This is just another little child that needs to go home. Let her go. Tell her it's all right."

"But, what...? I don't understand."

"Their deaths were terrible enough, that alone kept most of them behind. But sometimes the guilt, the love is so great, it traps them. Keeps those children here, trying to right the wrongs that were never theirs to begin with. Your Mama did you some bad wrongs, Susie, and she's sorry for it. But she always loved you, honey, she did the best she could. You can't take care of her anymore and it's wrong to keep trying. Wrong for both of you. Let her go, child. The magic's working tonight."

Susan thought to herself, This is it, I have really lost it now, understanding that she had more than likely gone insane. She knew that, somewhere, she was wandering around in the snow with a concussion, hallucinating big-time. That would explain those ringing bells, now fading with distance. I'll pass out, that'll be the end of it, she thought.

And yet, Susan found no special comfort in that concept of reality. That sanity held no miracles, no promise of peace.

"Is this really happening?" Susan asked.

"If you believe in the magic, it will surely work." The old woman appeared to be looking down on her from a vast height, challenging. "But you must believe, Susie girl. You can't stop hoping. You can't stop caring."

Bettina waited, she made no move to go. Defeat and misery was whipped into every fiber of her being.

She never got any older than this? Susan wondered, despairing. She's nothing more than a little child.

And Susan knew that child's face. It belonged to the person who had sat with her till dawn, watching old movies on television, sharing a box of tissues through the tear-jerkers, scarfing down popcorn and Snow Caps. This was the person who had introduced Susan to a galaxy of books and music, shyly offering her daughter her own avenue of escape and release in between sessions of hell. Bettina had passed the dreams along to war against the nightmares, handing out hope in a hardcover volume and bright illustrations. Susan could remember reading through an old book of poetry, while her mother peered over her shoulder. She had always loved the story poems, the romantic tragedies and haunting, rambling narrations -- The Highwayman, Tom O'Bedlam, The Wife of Usher's Well and more.

"Do you know there's music for that?" Mama had asked. "That's really an old song."

Then Mama had began to sing, in her low, sweet voice:

Twas in the merry month of May,

When green buds they were swellin'

Sweet William on his death bed lay

For love of Barbara Allen.

Was there any better music than her mother's voice? Any gentle touch as welcome or scent as dear? All the memories came rushing back, the good hours, the kindness Susan had forgotten, buried beneath other, more cruel circumstances.

Susan knew this face. It had tearfully bid her goodbye at the beginning of each summer and welcomed her back with smiles and hugs in the fall. Years had cloaked it with age, fear and crushed hope. But it was still her mother's face.

Susan put her arms around the little girl and held her close. She could still be angry, but not at the child. She could still feel hurt, but not at the unhappy little being she rocked against her heart.

"It's okay," Susan whispered. "It's okay to go with the others. You're not a bad girl, honey. No child can be that bad. You go on now. It's all right."

She didn't watch her mother go, the tears got in the way. She looked up and tried to see but the sun was in the sky and blinding. Susan heard a final rush of wings, a whisper of bells. She felt a feather's kiss of movement flutter against her face.

Susan staggered to her feet, running after, reaching up. "I love you, Mama," she called.

That was a right thing, a true thing. They had shared a world of hurt together, a world of harm and ruined dreams. One of them had survived and would live. One had not.

Susan heard a child laughing -- far, far away. She held onto herself, standing in the snow, still sobbing. Still remembering. Those happy memories were so much harder to bear than the bad. Regret was the worst of all hells. All the missed opportunities, the chance for shared joys, gone forever. Anger had been easier to endure. But they were all with Susan now, the good times and the bad. She would not forget again. They didn't balance out, one could not expel the other, they were simply there.

Nellie Dare tightened her shawl around her shoulders against the morning chill. Looked up.

"Your mama loved you, too," the old woman croaked out in her ancient, rasping voice. "As sure as that sun rises over yonder. I can't tell you how to feel about how she died, about all this tonight. But I'd never say you were the one that killed her. You meant the world to her, Susan. Maybe you was the one keeping her here, keeping her from going even earlier than she did. She thought about that often enough. Once, she tried. You know that."

"Yes. That Christmas...."

"She was mighty sorry about what she did. Knew she was wrong. I told her dying wouldn't make it right, far from it. She had to live, try for better."

Silence fell between them again. Susan thought about all the things she wanted to say about that but she couldn't find the words. She didn't feel bad about that; didn't feel good. She did, however, feel.

"Well, what do you know? It's stopped snowing," Nellie Dare said after a time. "The Yuletide's here at last. Christmas cheer to you, Susan."

"Christmas cheer." Susan returned and pressed her hand to her head. "I feel dizzy. I feel so light, like I could float up to the sun."

"That's natural. You just dropped a mighty heavy load, young lady."

"It really happened. Didn't it?"

"Every year."

The morning sun continued to climb over the hill and Susan looked at it, shielding her eyes against the brightness. The yellow light beat down against her gypsy-black curls and full-lipped smile, so like her mother's. But her up-turned nose, sharp cheekbones and easy-to-tan complexion had come from her father. Susan's eyes were wide, long-lashed and bright -- sometimes brown, sometimes steely blue and sometimes forest green, just like her aunt's. Memory remained, sweet and bitter, but the ghost had now departed.

"I still feel -- angry." Susan frowned. "I feel so mad."

"Nothing wrong with being mad. Anger didn't kill those children, ignorance did," Nellie Dare blazed. "If you stub your toe on the step, you don't chop down the whole house. You fix the step or learn to pick your feet up and look where you're going." She fastened onto Susan's arm and shook her. "Don't be afraid to speak up, girl. Get mad about what you seen here tonight, mad enough to do something. Mad enough to change things. Break the cycle."

"How?"

"Step by step. Day by day. You got to chip away at those old set ways and bad schooling or it will surely chip away at you." Nellie Dare took hold of Susan's hand and began to move up the path towards the woods. "Lord, I'm cold. Let's get on home."

"I'm all right now," Susan protested. "You don't have to hold me up anymore."

"Is that right? Well, did you ever think I might need a hand? I could use an arm to lean on, time and again. I ain't exactly getting any younger, you know."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't think."

"Reckon not. Expect you could take care of that now?"

"I reckon," Susan agreed, smiling. "Maybe I could make you those corn fritters for breakfast this morning."

"Maybe you could. It's a start."

"Maybe I could even teach you how to use the microwave."

Nellie Dare scowled and snorted. "I wouldn't get my hopes up high about that if I were you."

"It makes great bacon," Susan coaxed and the old woman made a rude noise, obviously unconvinced.

Susan Stillwhich laughed and staggered, exhausted. It felt so good to laugh freely, even though her's was just a timid noise, a young and unfamiliar sound rolling up out of her throat and across her lips. Still, she could get used to that. Susan slogged along in the snow, step after step, holding her aunt's arm although it was impossible to say who actually supported who. They made quite a parade, leading the pride of Nellie Dare's cats back to the house. She fell into quiet, more weary and thoughtful than controlled. Her fatigue was real, her tears and relief as honest as her laughter.

"There's just one more thing I want to know," Susan said as they neared the house. "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?"

It was a feeble attempt at humor but ancient eyes made blue and green fires, sparking up at her as they hit the steps.

"Now there's a question you should be asking yourself, I'm thinking," Nellie Dare said. "The magic's plenty strong in you, girl. If you believe in that sort of thing."

Susan Stillwhich blinked, surprised.

Well, perhaps she could get used to that, too.

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