Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I (26 page)

I tumbled onto something soft and white. A green-and-white object
tumbled over with me. Rapidly, I threw my arm up before my face, waiting for the attack.

None came.

Slowly, I sat up, clutching my flute. I was sitting just beneath a large Douglas fir, among the soft cotton snow of the central Christmas display. A jolly stuffed elf lay toppled beside me. Just beyond the tilted picket fence stood the barghest. Its red eyes glowed hot with anger. It growled and snapped, showing teeth as white as bone. So substantial had it become from drinking blood that the shoppers stopped and pointed at the angry dog. However, it did not cross the tiny picket fence.

I lay cushioned by cotton, gazing up at fake pine needles. Before me, the shadow dog leapt and slobbered, but each time he approached the fence, he cringed, drawing back. I was aware of him, and yet it was as if we were worlds away from each other. The fear I had felt when the dogs were chasing me fell away, and now I felt enveloped in an aura of safety and cheer, as if nestled against my Lady.

Mab and Mephisto had run toward me when I fell. The barghests assailed them. Mab, blood-streaked and gasping, backed toward me, warding off the dogs as best he could with his lead pipe. Mephisto had collapsed to a crouch. Cowering, his hands before his face, he shouted for the barghests to leave him alone. Leaping to my feet, I called to them.

“Mab! Mephisto! Over here!”

A large hand came down my shoulder, bringing with it a sense of peace. Behind me, a deep voice spoke.

“Madam, are you harmed?”

I turned and gazed up into a familiar face that was wise with age. The man who regarded me had bushy white eyebrows, keen blue eyes, a proud and kingly nose, and a long bushy beard. His red velvet hat and robes were trimmed with white fur and clasped about his middle by a shiny black belt. In one hand, he held a tall staff of yew wood hung with bells that rang softly. He smelled of peppermint.

“Father Christmas!” I breathed in amazement. As Mab and Mephisto came vaulting over the picket fence, I glanced toward the empty chair where the mall Santa had sat. “Is it really you?”

“Indeed, Miranda,” he spoke in his deep booming voice. “Many years have passed since last we met, have they not? But you must excuse me.”

Father Christmas strode past me. Just inside the picket fence, he stopped and raised his left forearm, laying his staff perpendicularly atop it, forming
a horizontal cross between arm and staff. Throughout the mall, the barghests froze. They looked up from their victims and turned their blood-red eyes toward Father Christmas. The majority of them began to back up slowly, their heads lowered, their tails between their legs. A few braver hounds growled and began to creep forward, hackles raised.

Father Christmas pointed the iron tip of his belled staff straight between the eyes of the largest beast. In a tremendous booming voice, he said. “Begone! I revoke your invitation.”

The entire pack of barghests howled. Turning, they fled. Some ran down the corridors toward the doors and the night beyond. Others vanished into the shadows, under staircases or behind store displays. In a blink of an eye, not a single barghest was left.

About the upper and lower levels, the crowds of shoppers, startled by the loud noise, turned weary faces toward Father Christmas. Among them were the barghests’ victims, still bleeding from yet unnoticed wounds. The hostile gaze of the crowd took in Father Christmas and the three of us who stood beside him. Mephisto slowly backed away and hid behind a pine tree. Mab’s hand reached into his pocket and closed about his trusty lead pipe.

Father Christmas raised his staff and shook it. The bells about the top jingled and rang.

“Merry Christmas,” he boomed, “Merry Christmas!”

The shoppers straightened. Fear and tension drained from their faces. The plaintive cries of children changed to laughter and shouts of joy.

I watched my hands and ankle heal until nothing was left of the bloody bites and scratches but tiny, almost imperceptible scars. A sense of awe filled me. The barghests were spiritual creatures. The wounds they made must have been spiritual, too. When our fear changed to joy, they were undone. Elsewhere, the wounds of those who had been injured in the crowds also healed, though where the more substantial shadow hounds had damaged clothing, the rents remained. Apparently, the cloth was not affected by Father Christmas’s holiday cheer.

Father Christmas strode around to the other three sides of his small enclosure, shaking the bells on his staff and spreading holiday cheer. On both the upper and lower levels, the shoppers smiled. Children hopped up and down, waving. Many pulled at their parents’ coats and pointed. Even at a distance, I could make out that their happy mouths were forming the word “Santa!”

Mab took off his battered hat and stared after the dignified figure in
scarlet and white who stood waving to the children crowded around the railing of the upper level, an expression of awe on his craggy blood-caked features.

He turned to me and said, in a subdued voice, “I beg your pardon, Miss Miranda. I guess that Lady of yours really knows her stuff.”

“She does indeed!” I laughed.

“What are the chances that Santa would be right around the corner?” Mab marveled. “Seems almost eerie.”

“Had we asked Her to lead us to Father Christmas and he turned out to be right around the corner, that would have been eerie. We just asked for a safe place, and this happened to be the closest one,” I replied. When Mab continued to look dubious, I added, “Surely, you know there are supernatural beings scattered throughout our world. My Lady led us to the nearest friendly one.”

“That’s right!” Mephisto stuck his arm around my shoulders. “That’s what having a Handmaiden for a sister is like! Everything goes better when she’s around! Kind of like Coke.”

“Ya know,” Mab scratched his stubble, “Come to think of it, magic does attract magic. There may be a reason why the real Father Christmas showed up near where the demons have a warehouse. Their presence may have made it so that it was okay for him to come here in whatever cosmic Big Book of Score the Powers of Good use to decide these things.” He made a note in his notebook. Then, his eyes drifted back toward Father Christmas. I touched his shoulder lightly. He started and blinked. “Huh?”

“Come on,” I said, smiling. “Help me lift this elf.”

We righted the jolly elf, removing some of the white cotton snow from its sharp pointed chin. Mab bent and peered into the figure’s narrow impish face. “What did you say this was supposed to be?”

“An elf.”

“Humph!” As he put his hat back on, he added under his breath, “Just goes to show how little humans know.”

FATHER
Christmas finished his rounds and shut the gate leading to the enclosure, stopping to speak a brief quiet word to a little boy and girl who stood by the entrance. The boy laughed and the little girl stared up at him with adoring eyes. He handed them each a red-and-green peppermint stick, then returned. Taking his place in the throne-like chair set upon a dais amidst reindeer and three-foot-tall candy canes, he beckoned for us to join him.

We approached Santa’s Chair. A semicircle of Douglas firs surrounded
the dais, forming a partial screen. In this small oasis of seclusion, away from the bustle of the mall, Father Christmas sat surveying the Christmas display, with its jolly elves’ workshop and its moving toy train, as a kindly father might survey his children’s playroom. His large hands, unadorned except for a single gold wedding band, rested regally on the arms of his chair. His eyes crinkled kindly as we approached.

Mab and I sat on the steps of the dais, basking in the sense of warmth and security this place radiated. Mephisto, however, rushed forward and plopped himself down at Father Christmas’s feet, singing as he did so, “ ‘He knows when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.’ What about me? Have I been good?” he asked.

Father Christmas stroked his long white beard and nodded his head slowly. There was a sadness in his keen blue eyes. “Yes, Mephistopheles. You have been good.”

“Goody, I hate that icky coal stuff!” Mephisto started to rise. I feared he would attempt to sit in Father Christmas’s lap. He asked, “Can I tell you what I want?”

“I know what you want, Mephistopheles,” Father Christmas replied solemnly.

“You do?” Mephisto sat back down. “Oh.” Then, perking up, he asked, “When do I get it?”

“When all my presents are delivered, child,” Father Christmas laughed. “On Christmas, of course!”

I smiled indulgently, pleased to see the kindness with which Father Christmas treated my daffy brother. And yet, hearing his calm promise, I could not help but feel a lingering sense of envious regret. When I first met Father Christmas, so long ago, I asked him for the one gift I most desired: the
Book of the Sibyl
. Written by Deiphobe, the Sibyl of Rome, it purportedly explained the secrets of the Sibylline Order. Shaking his head sadly, Father Christmas had told me that was beyond even his ability to give.

“What of my people?” Mab cocked his head. His tone was challenging “Do you give my people gifts?”

Father Christmas met Mab’s gaze squarely. “Do they give each other gifts?” Mab frowned, thinking. Father Christmas turned his keen and penetrating gaze toward me.

“Let us speak of things immediate. I have driven off the demons who pursued you. However, those beggarly dogs may not yet have lost your scent. You are safe within the circle of my hospitality. This place is as a
temple bedecked in my honor. My power is strong here.” He gestured toward the red and green banners hanging from the rafters and the Yuletide displays decorating the window of every store.

“Then we can stay here a while?” I asked.

Father Christmas smiled down at me kindly. “Of course! All who serve the Light are welcome.”

I smiled and, reaching out, squeezed his hand in thanks.

“It has been a long time, Miranda,” Father Christmas declared. “When was it we met last?”

“On the streets of London, near Mayfair, during the reign of Victoria,” I recalled. “You wore robes of dark green, and two shaggy ponies festooned with bells pulled your sleigh. If I recall, there were burning candles in the holly wreath about your head.”

I remembered the encounter clearly. It was just after vespers, and the evening bells were ringing. The air smelled of pies and spices, for the muffin man had just pushed by with his cart. Carolers were singing at the park, and snow was falling. I had met him once before, too, long ago, in Italy, though back then he wore yet another guise.

Father Christmas’s keen blue eyes twinkled. “The mall security will not let me have lighted candles.”

“Imagine, meeting the real Father Christmas at a shopping mall, and after a wait of well over hundred years!” I laughed in wonder.

It was unbelievable. Yet, nothing was impossible when divine guidance was involved. To think I had nearly doubted Her. Silently, I begged my Lady’s pardon.

Father Christmas nodded solemnly. He frowned ever so slightly and stroked his long white beard.

“Hey, aren’t you called St. Nicholas in Russia?” Mab asked.

“I am.”

“Is it true what the legends say? That you’re God’s apprentice, preparing to take His place when He dies?” Mab asked.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” Father Christmas’s laugh was a deep and jovial sound. “How could anyone replace the Infinite?”

“Hmm, you have a point. . . . Sir, why don’t my people give each other gifts?” Mab asked.

“Gift giving requires a free will. Mankind did not always give gifts. Do you know the tale of how they came to have the freedom to do so? Perhaps with its telling, we can while away the time you must remain here for my
blessing to protect you. I know Miranda is familiar with this story, but perhaps she will not mind hearing it told yet again,” said Father Christmas.

I knew the story quite well. The servants of Eurynome passed it down from generation to generation. It was an analogy only, not necessarily more or less true than other accounts, though it resembled rather closely the version told by the early Christian Gnostics, before the Church hunted them into extinction. We kept it alive because it glorified our Lady and served as a reminder of the infamy of Her great enemy, Lilith.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I could hear that tale told over a thousand times, and it would not be too often for me.”

“Then listen, my children, and I shall tell you the tale of how mankind came to be free.” Father Christmas leaned forward and began. “Once upon a time, the fallen angels who dwell in the darkness were bitterly envious of the bright things they had left behind. Filled with overweening pride and wishing to prove their superiority to the Infinite, they fashioned a world out of the stuff of darkness and set in it a garden, which they filled with all manner of pretty things: flowers, fruit trees, animals, birds, and fish. In the midst of this garden, they created creatures formed in their own images.”

“He means people,” Mephisto looked back and forth from Mab to me. “Doesn’t he mean people?”

I reached over and touched Mephisto’s shoulder lightly, putting my finger to my lips. Mephisto covered his mouth with his hand and sat quietly, gazing eagerly up at Father Christmas, awaiting the tale.

“Their new creatures were homunculi, containing no spirit.” Father Christmas’s voice was deep and restful. “When the fallen ones exerted their will upon them, their hideous homunculi would stand and shamble about the garden, dancing and cavorting much like a marionette beneath the puppeteer’s strings. When the fallen angels turned their will to other matters, their charges collapsed and lay inanimate upon the grass.