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From off in the dark under the trees came a crazed, hysterical, singing voice:

In Christmasland we’ll build a Snowgirl!

And make believe that she’s a silly clown!

We’ll have lots of fun with Missus Snowgirl

Until the other kiddies cut her down!

The little boy tittered.

The other children were silent. Vic had never heard a more terrible silence.

Manx put his pinkie to his lips: a fey gesture of consideration. Then he lowered his hand.

“Don’t you think,” he said, “we should ask Wayne what he wants?” He bent and whispered to the taller of his two girls.

The girl in the Nutcracker uniform—Millie, Vic thought—walked barefoot to the rear of the Wraith.

Vic heard scuffling to her left, snapped her head around, and saw a child, not two yards away. It was a plump little girl in a matted white fur coat, open to show she wore nothing beneath except a filthy pair of Wonder Woman panties. When Vic looked at her, she went perfectly still, as if they were playing some demented game of Red Light, Green Light. She clutched a hatchet. Through her open mouth, Vic saw a socket filled with teeth. Vic believed she could discern three distinct rows of them, going back down her throat.

Vic looked back at the car, as Millie reached for the door and opened it.

For a moment nothing happened. The open door yawned with luxuriant darkness.

She saw Wayne grip the edge of the door with one bare hand, saw him put his feet out. Then he slid down from the seat and out onto the cobblestones.

He was gape-mouthed with wonder, looking up at the lights, at the night. He was clean and beautiful, his dark hair swept back from his terribly white brow and his red mouth opened in an amazed grin—

And she saw his teeth, blades of bone in sharp, delicate rows. Just like all the others.

“Wayne,” she said. Her voice was a strangled sob.

He turned his head and looked at her with pleasure and amazement.

“Mom!” he said. “Hey! Hey, Mom, isn’t it incredible? It’s real! It’s really real!”

He looked over the stone wall, into the sky, at the great low moon with its sleeping silver face. He saw the moon and laughed. Vic could not remember the last time he had laughed so freely, so easily.

“Mom! The moon has a face!”

“Come here, Wayne. Right now. Come to me. We have to go.”

He looked at her, a dimple of confusion appearing between his dark eyebrows.

“Why?” he said. “We just got here.”

From behind him Millie put an arm around Wayne’s waist, spooning against his back like a lover. He twitched, looking around in surprise, but then went still as Millie whispered in his ear. She was terribly beautiful, with her high cheekbones and full lips and sunken temples. He listened intently, eyes wide—then his mouth widened to show even more of his bristling teeth.

“Oh! Oh, you’re kidding!” He looked at Vic in astonishment. “She says we can’t go! We can’t go anywhere because I have to unwrap my Christmas present!”

The girl leaned in and began to whisper fervently into Wayne’s ear.

“Get away from her, Wayne,” Vic said.

The fat girl in the fur coat shuffled a few steps closer, was almost close enough to plunge the hatchet into Vic’s leg. Vic heard other steps behind her, the kids moving in.

Wayne gave the girl a puzzled, sidelong look and frowned to himself, then said, “Sure you can help unwrap my present! Everyone can help! Where is it? Let’s go get it, and you can tear into it right now!”

The girl drew her knife and pointed it at Vic.





Beneath the Great Tree


WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY, VICTORIA?” MANX ASKED. “LAST CHANCE? I think this is your last chance. I would turn that bike around while you still can.”

“Wayne,” she called, ignoring Manx and meeting her son’s gaze directly. “Hey, are you still thinking in reverse like your grammy told you? Tell me you’re still thinking in reverse.”

He stared at her, blankly, as if she had asked him a question in a foreign language. His mouth hung partly open. Then, slowly, he said, “.Mom ,hard it’s but ,trying I’m”

Manx was smiling, but his upper lip drew back to show those crooked teeth of his, and Vic thought she saw the flicker of something like irritation pass across his gaunt features. “What is this tomfoolery? Are you playing games, Wayne? Because I am all for games—just so long as I am not left out. What was that you just said?”

“Nothing!” Wayne said—in a tone of voice that suggested he genuinely meant it, was as confused as Manx. “Why? What did it sound like I said?”

“He said he’s mine, Manx,” Vic said. “He said you can’t have him.”

“But I already have him, Victoria,” Manx said. “I have him, and I am not letting him go.”

Vic slipped the backpack off her shoulder and into her lap. She unzipped the bag, plunged a hand in, and lifted out one of the tight plastic sacks of ANFO.

“So help me if you do not let him go, then Christmas is over for every f*cking one of you. I’ll blow this whole place right off this ledge.”

Manx thumbed the fedora back on his head. “My, how you cuss! I have never been able to get used to such language out of young women. I have always thought it makes a girl sound like the lowest sort of trash!”