Kris (10 page)

Gerda pulled me earnestly over the winding trails as my thoughts carried me back to other times and other places. I lost myself in those bygone days among the smiles and memories of my family's faces.

All the world was quiet and serene as we reached the country inn. I crept up to that familiar window's snowcapped sill to steal a gaze within, in hopes of finding how my sweet, red-headed Jess had been.

She sat teetering if not tottering on the bar crying and holding out her little arms. “Momma,” Jess cried, even though there was no one else in sight.

But like the others, I could soon see she was safe and loved, as the bar matron quickly approached, lifted her up, and headed for the stairs at the back of the tavern, as I imagined, to tuck her into bed before the ribald holiday crowd arrived for the night's festivities.

“You little scoundrel,” my sister's adopted mother teased her as they walked up the stairs. “I don't know how you get up there, but if I ever catch you climbing I will redden your bottom. Hear?”

“Yes, mama,” my darling sister replied and then shrieked as her new mother commenced a series of belly blows that sent her wriggling and squirming for freedom.

“Mama, mama,' she begged between gasps and giggles, “I wanna stay up. Please, Mama, pleeeaassee!”

“Not tonight, love. Tomorrow is the Christmas feast, and you will want your rest or you'll get grumpy. Sleep tonight, love; the sooner you sleep, the sooner you wake up.”

And my sister looked like she was on her way, head lolling and bobbing as she fought the losing battle.

I snuck inside and smelled the rich, yeasty sawdust spread across the tavern floor, which mixed with fragrant smoke from the fading flames in
the hearth. I placed the wooden duck on the bar where Jess had sat and drifted once more through the door and out of sight.

We arrived sooner than I expected at the churchyard and its adjoining cemetery. The church still beckoned like a private beacon as I urged Gerda to shelter in a safe spot just beside the sanctuary.

In the distance, I could see candles lit and placed near the small gravestone of a child. As I approached and watched them flicker and glow in the deepening twilight, I felt some tragedy had surely befallen my dearest gentle sister Kendra. Grief and distress pierced my heart, and my breath came in gasps as I struggled to swallow the lump rising in my throat.

The gravestone had no inscription I could read, as its edges were worn and shadowed in the quickly vanishing light. I lost myself in the desperate contemplation of how foolish I had been to leave her here unattended on such a cold, cold winter night.

Whispered voices taunted me, first from one direction and then the other. My sanity seemed lost as I heard Kendra's loud breathy whisper brush past me from the trees. “Here. Come here. I am over here.”

“Where are you?” came the whispered reply from the other direction. But this time I was sure it was another girl.

Just then a white rabbit bolted from the underbrush, followed by the snapping of branches and twigs and the tromping and crunching of clumsy feet.

I hid behind another gravestone and waited there to see what was to come, less fearful of an apparition than moments before. From beyond the distant monuments, a young girl emerged, followed shortly by my
freckled sister Kendra. Her long auburn hair flowed freely from beneath her woolen hat and caught glints of moonlight as she danced and chased the rabbit and her friend into the churchyard.

Kendra stopped suddenly, twirled, and fell to the snowy earth. She moved her arms and legs in a gentle wave as she carved an angel in the finely powdered snow. The rabbit stopped for one moment as if confused, then thought better of it and leapt for the trees. Kendra's blonde companion laughed and plopped herself down beside my sister and joined her in the fun.

The church groundskeeper shouted out to them from his modest stone cottage nearby, “Come inside girls. Mama says your supper is hot!”

As the girls quickly hurried into the cottage, I ran back to the sleigh and to my nearly empty satchel of wooden toys.

Inside the church vestibule, I found the table where one year before I had left Kendra sleeping and the mat I had placed her upon. The old stone nativity scene had been set upon it, just off to one side. The figurines had nicks and scratches born from the momentary anger of my last visit. One of the gift givers had a chipped piece missing from its shoulder. I felt terrible, knowing now the work, love, and craftsmanship that had gone into that creation. And in one selfish outburst I had tainted their beauty forever. Nearby, a small woven offering basket stood waiting for church donations. I placed the carved toy wooden duck inside the basket as my simple gift to Kendra.

A firm hand took hold of my shoulder, startling me. But another strong, weathered hand clasped my elbow and held me for a moment.
Then, strangely, the hand walked one finger at a time down my arm to the hand and the table and the basket to discover the wooden toy.

“Interesting,” the holy man said.

I jerked to free myself from his hands.

“Please,” the tall, white-haired man said to me, still holding me gently if firmly. Then he reached up to explore the contours of my face. “Let's see who I have come to visit.”

“You are blind,” I blurted out. His eyes were solid white from cataracts, worse than any of the elders I remember from my village mountain home.

“For men at first had eyes, but could not see,” the holy man said simply. “You are cold.” Then he patted me on the cheek.

I stepped back and released the breath I had been holding.

“Come. What would ease your travels?” the holy man asked.

“A miracle,” I said to him.

The old man turned and walked to a large fireplace glowing on the far wall of the stone church within. “What makes you think a miracle is not happening right now?”

“There are no miracles.”

“Ah, no miracles! I see,” said the holy man. His fingers stumbled across the mantle above the hearth to find a porcelain mug left resting there. “It has been hard for you.”

“How would you know?”

The holy man smiled softly, ignoring my insolent tone, and reached over and found a wooden ladle hanging by a leather lanyard beside the hearth and dipped it into a kettle of steaming liquid suspended from an iron hook above the flames.

Again I asked, yearning for something hopeful, “How would I know if a miracle was happening?”

“Hmm, that is difficult,” he said. “Miracles are revealed one secret at a time.”

A mocking grunt escaped my lips in response to what I felt was a useless comment, but he was not finished.

“When you cry through the night and wake up with the dawn asking God for comfort.”

I watched him in silent wonder as he reached his unprotected hand into the hearth of the fireplace.

“When you give away all that you are,” he continued.

Deftly he lifted the ladle that sat inside the boiling cauldron.

“When you sacrifice your belongings, your sleep, your health.”

Slowly he poured the steaming hot liquid from the ladle into the mug.

“When out of helplessness, you choose to act.”

His hands went on another cautious march to find a small jar and remove its lid.

“And when those acts of helplessness become habitual.”

I watched him place two teaspoons of sugar into the cup and then hesitate before deciding to add a heaping third.

“Those acts are the signs of a miracle.”

He stirred the liquid and then set down his spoon on the mantle.

“Do you think He was ever lonely?” I asked, looking at the small stone manger with the infant inside.

He lifted his head and looked directly at me. If I didn't know differently, I would have thought he was staring into the depth of my eyes, looking for something. Still, those eyes held me.

“Of course,” he said plainly. “Loneliness is a part of suffering, which is simply part of the human experience. But He had faith.”

I looked up at the little wooden cross hung above the table in the vestibule.

“If He had a choice, why go through it all?”

His short answer sent me into a torrent of guilt and action. “So that no child is forgotten.”

“Nikko. I almost forgot Nikko.”

He reached over to pinch the edges of a small plate containing shortbread, which rested on a large flat stone near the hearth.

But I had no time. Again, I had almost forgotten my infant brother. “I am so sorry. I can't stay. I have to go.”

I stuttered as I looked around to gain my bearing and moved toward the door.

The holy man walked to the table then stood there holding the plate of shortbread and the mug of warm liquid.

“May you find your miracles,” he called after me as I ran through the door.

As I vaulted down the steps of the church and leapt into my sleigh, I imagined him sipping the tea casually as if he had knowingly made it for himself.

He was a mystery to me then and is to this day, but at that moment I was too occupied to give him further thought. Unknowingly I was to begin my greatest act of helplessness, spawned by my search for the one who had most needed me in his innocence, whom I had left with some nameless old couple one cold Christmas morning.

There was no road to the old cottage. No easy access. I found the place where I had laid my mother to rest. She was gone, of course. It was haunting yet comforting to stand where I had left her. I held Nikko's rattle with its clinking snowflakes.

“I almost forgot him, Mama. But I didn't. I am going to leave him this gift. It is a rattle to entertain him. I made it myself. Look how I made each little snowflake like the one that hung around your neck. I was going to use this to prove my relation. But I have come to find each of your children has found a new family, and I expect no different with him. I miss you and Papa. I don't suppose the others will remember much of our lives together, maybe Garin and Kendra. But I don't wish that on them. I hope they can release their past so that they may embrace their new future. From what I saw today, it looks to me they have already begun to do so. As for me, I am lost. I will leave this rattle on Nikko's door and leave to some unknown future. They are safe. You were right, they do not need me. I would only have been a burden. But what about me? I needed them, and you took them away from me. How could you put me through this? How could you let God put me through this? I hate you! I hate you, Mama! I hate you!”

I had fallen to my knees, punishing the snow-packed earth with the butts of my fists. And I placed my forehead to the earth, ready to cry, but the tears would not come.