Vigilantes of Love (18 page)

At last he found the end of the strand and dragged it to the tree. Stretching on his toes, he tossed it up over the highest branch of the Christmas tree. A needle poked him in the eye. He jerked back, and dropped the lights which fell into a tangle on the ground.

“Damnit!” he snapped aloud.

“It’s Christmas, boy, don’t swear.”

Will turned toward the hallway to see a tiny ghost of a woman, all pale and white-haired. Her glasses perched high on a squat knob of a nose, and hands the color of French vanilla ice cream clung to her barreled hips.

Will bit his tongue and dutifully held his arms out for a chilly hug. He was careful not to clap his arms right through her; she got irritated when he did that.

“Hi Aunt Ertie, when did you get here?”

“When did you start swearing at Christmas?”

“Just now.”

“Just so.”

He laughed and she flitted away from the perfunctory embrace.

“What are you standing around for? Shouldn’t those lights be on the tree instead of the floor? Why aren’t the candles lit? You kids today. Lazy and slow.”

She winked at him and swooshed back down the hall. Sighing heavily, he turned and started putting up the Christmas decorations… for the third time.

He’d lit the candles – only burning his thumb once – and nearly finished the tree when Janice poked her head into the room.

“Still at it, poky? I finished the dining room half an hour ago!”

Without thinking, Will flicked his hand and across the room an ornament leapt from the decoration box to strike the wall near his younger sister’s head.

She laughed and shook her head at the challenge.

“Uh uh. It’s Christmas. And I’m telling Dad you used your power.”

“Damnit!” he yelled after her. “Who cares?”

Will bent over and plugged the last strand in, then flicked the wall switch to turn the tree on. Hundreds of colored lights blinked on. They shone red and blue and green and gold against the rich hue of the tree. But the subdued beauty of their twinkling was lost on Will.

“Could be brighter,” he grumbled.

And grinned. “Sure,” he murmured. “Could be brighter!”

He pulled the plug from the wall and touched two fingers to the copper prongs. “Light,” he said, and instead got noise.

Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop
.

The first strand of Christmas lights exploded from the excessive rush of power he’d unleashed in the wire, showering Will and the room in a mist of colored glass. He felt the bite of tiny barbs on his face and realized his error just as a yell swooped into the room.

“Wiiiilllllll!?”

“Damnit!”

Will slumped on the couch and stared at the squalling infant on his lap. He imagined a honey-coated pacifier and absently popped it into the child’s mouth when it appeared. “Why me?” he asked for the hundredth time today. He hated Christmas.

Every year it was the same thing. The family sat down to dinner on the 19th of December and after dessert, his mother would place both palms on the table and say, “It’s time. Call your last wishes and then put away your powers. It’s Christmas week.”

“Couldn’t we wait until after the dishes are done?” he’d asked this year, and got a warning swat on the shoulder from Dad.

“That would be missing the point!” his mother replied.

“Well, what is the point?” he’d responded, face twisted in a petulant sneer. “Christmas is a good time for everyone else, but we have to be miserable? Christmas weak – with an A?”

Dad opened his mouth to speak and then, looking much like a gasping goldfish, closed it again.

Mom looked serious. “You think about the point, Will. You think about it while you’re doing the dishes. By hand.”

The nipple popped out of his baby brother’s mouth and Chris began to cry.

“Damnit!” Will snorted. He stood, rocking Chris in his arms. As much as he wished for the kid to shut up, there was no safe way to magic a baby into easing up on the volume. You had to stand up and walk and sing and rock. What a royal pain, he thought, and looked down at the drool-covered chin of his brother. The pink lips bubbled and then opened to let out a piercing cry.

“What do you want?” Will begged. “I can’t understand blubbering. Why can’t you just tell me? Why do you gotta cry all the time?”

He was still pacing the room with the fidgety baby when his family returned from their shopping foray into town.

“Gotcha some eggnog,” Janice chirped, dashing through the room and into the kitchen. Chris began to wail louder.

“You’ve got to learn to be gentler with him if you want him to settle,” Mom said, dropping a brown bag to the floor and taking the baby from his stiff arms. “You rock him slower, like this.”

Will saw how the child folded easily into her arms, how her body swayed softly, so different from his bouncing, impatient movement. Why couldn’t he do that?

“And it’s no wonder he’s crying, Will. He’s wet!”

Mom went to change Chris, and Will dropped defeatedly to the couch.

Snow was swirling past the living room window, a shadowy rain in the grey winter evening.
Great
, he thought dismally.
I’ll spend Christmas morning shoveling the driveway.
Why couldn’t it wait until after Christmas when he could clear the drive with a wish and a wink?

“Wouldn’t be right,” rasped a wheezy voice from the couch right beside him. Ertie had the annoying habit of simply being there at all the wrong moments. Will guessed she’d been quite the busybody in life.

“Huh?” he asked, turning to find the piercing gaze of his ghostly aunt upon him.

“Wouldn’t be Christmas if you didn’t give up somethin’,” she said. “You think Christ wanted to leave heaven? You think anybody wants to make a sacrifice? I tell you, when I was a girl, my sister Glennie was always puffing and strutting and getting all the boys. But do you think she got them on her own? Oh no. She tweaked herself with magic. Made ‘em think they were licking a gorgeous girl’s ear. Meanwhile, I couldn’t get a guy for nothing. But did I fake it? Well, once or twice maybe…”

She winked at him, her crow’s feet a tide of ripples. “But I knew then what I’m telling you now. Wouldn’t be right to get what I wanted that way. Had to sacrifice and get my man on my own call. Because eventually, the glamour won’t hide who you are. The magic isn’t enough, is what I’m telling you, Will. Ask your aunt Glennie. Ask her why she was never married.”

The tiny woman eased herself upright. “I married twice, you know. Twice,” she said again, as she faded from the room.

The church was nearly full when they walked into the vestibule at 11:30. Midnight Mass was another Christmas family tradition which Will had grown to hate. The main floor was abuzz with greetings and conversation. A half dozen Christmas trees were scattered about the altar, interspersed with the green and red blossoms of poinsettias in gold-foiled pots.

Pale blue lights wove a fairy dance amid pine boughs on the granite columns lining the main aisle. The muted strains of “Joy To The World” drifted from the organ to add to the chaotic hum.

A balding usher in a lime suit and red Santa tie guided them to the balcony. “Main floor’s already packed, folks,” he apologized. Will was considering making the garish tie constrict of its own accord when he was swept away by the mob heading upstairs.

The family filed into a pew near the edge of the balcony, first Mom and Chris, then Janice, Ertie, Dad and finally, Will. What a stupid waste of time, he thought, tapping his foot against the kneeler impatiently. As the priest began the mass, Will stared at the lights wound throughout the trees and columns down near the altar. After awhile, he began to reach out with his power to the lights, stopping the current here and there, putting out whole strands and then letting them blink back on. He glanced sideways to see if anyone was watching.

No. Good.

He picked out a handful of lights above the altar and began a wave. He’d shut off one light for a second, then let it back on while knocking out the following color in the strand, and then move on to the next. Anyone watching would see a moving wave of color in the midst of a series of unblinking strands. A miracle, he smiled. He was a miracle worker!

Will was thoroughly enjoying his cleverness when a hand gripped the back of his neck. His dad’s voice growled in his ear. “Keep it up, and you won’t live to see Christmas,” he warned.

Will settled back for the homily.

“What’s gotten into you, Will?” Dad asked on the ride home. “Why do you insist on using your power at Christmastime?”

“I just don’t see the point,” he answered. “Why is Christmas any different than any other time?”

Mom broke in. “It’s a symbol, Will. God could have just said ‘hey, you’re all saved’ – but instead, he brought salvation the hard way and became man.”

“So how do we know he was God?” Will countered. “Just cuz he could turn water into wine – hell, I can do that!”

The car became deathly silent, and Will realized he’d gone too far. Janice’s eyes grew wide as moons from the other side of the backseat. Ertie gazed up at him as if in shock, and then stared into her lap. She looked ashamed of him.

As if he cared what a prune-faced old ghost thought of him.

But if he didn’t, why did the look on her face make his chest hurt?

Damnit!

“Merry Christmas,” Dad said, raising a glass of eggnog high in the air. “Merry Christmas!” replied Mom, and Janice, raising their glasses in answer. Will raised his and mouthed the words as well, but they didn’t echo warm in his heart as they always had in the past.

Nothing felt right this year. It all seemed a sham. He exaggerated a yawn (which wasn’t too hard since it was long after one in the morning) and excused himself for bed. He could feel the eyes of his family following him as he left the kitchen. He knew what they were thinking.
“What’s his problem? Why is he trying to ruin Christmas for everyone?”

“I’m not,” he answered the imagined voices. “I’m just trying to find it for myself.”

He had just pulled the cool blankets up over his chest when the frizzy white hair of Aunt Ertie materialized next to his bed.

“Can I talk to ya, Will?”

He grunted assent.

Her hair glowed as she moved through the dark room, dipping as she eased herself down on the edge of the bed. He saw the faint shine of her eyes staring down at him and his toes curled. Why couldn’t she mind her own business?

“Because I worry about you, that’s why!” she answered.

“Stop doing that!” he warned. “I thought the whole point of this Christmas stuff is that we’re not supposed to use our powers.”

“Hard not to hear you when you’re broadcasting gloom and gripe at top volume, boy. Now tell me what it’s about. Or snap out of it. You decide. Because I ain’t leaving until this is settled. I’m not having you wake up in a black cloud on Christmas morning.”

Buzz off you old bag,
he thought, before he could stop himself.

“I might remind you that I will use my power again after Christmas is over,” she whispered. “Would you like to know what an old bag’s powers can do to an insolent, weak, mortal boy?”

Her teeth gleamed as she grinned at the thought.

“No,” he said sullenly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just can’t get into Christmas this year. It all just seems so stupid. I mean, why should I do everything the hard way right at the time when there’s so many things to do? Why shouldn’t I magic everyone their presents – I could get them stuff they’d want, then. And… I don’t know, I just wonder if all this is over some guy who was just like us. Not God at all. Just someone with a little power.”

Ertie stroked his cheek with a cool hand. “I’ll let you in on a secret, boy. Nobody knows the answer to that last question. But you know what?” She leaned closer. “It doesn’t matter.”

She grinned again. “Nope, not a bit. Because the magic of Christmas is hidden in your first two questions. And I’ll ask you this: what’s the point of spell-ing a present for someone who could magic up the same thing without you? There’s a reason your mom and dad make you put away your power at Christmas. If it doesn’t come from you the hard way, you won’t feel nothing at all.”

“Well, I got everyone really nice things this year and I bought them myself, I didn’t magic them. So why don’t I feel good about it?”

“I think you know the answer, boy. Where did the money come from to buy the presents? Did you go to work and sweat for it?”

He didn’t answer.

“Will, you make something for your family with your own two hands – you give something of yourself – and you’ll have that Christmas feeling you’re missing.”

“I can’t make anything.”

“Quit arguing and bellyaching. I’m telling you what you need to do. Either work for it or forget about it. You work for it and I might forget about the ‘old bag’ crack. Might. Just remember, Will – there’s no easy way out at Christmastime.”

She started to fade.

“There’s never enough sleep either.”

Will lay in bed for a long time after Ertie left the room. Maybe the old apparition had a point. Maybe he had been too lazy this year. But what could he give anybody now? It was too late to build or paint anything – which was how he usually made his holiday offerings. Of course, he did have a new set of pencils he’d been wanting to sketch with. But it was the middle of the night! There were only hours left before they opened presents. What could he draw that he could give to the whole family – because he sure couldn’t draw everybody individual things. What did everybody like?