Season's Greetings: A Carol Christmas

by Tigger
© 2000, all rights reserved

 

Christmas Past:

Reading the letters had only become more difficult for Jane's junior student. *I wouldn't put it past that Thompson woman to have forged the lot of them from a sample of my mother's handwriting,* Carl thought as he reached for the last letter in the pile. * but somehow, I think these letters are the real McCoy.*

Already in bed, he opened the simple white envelope, extracted the single page and began to read.

December 24, 1986 Dear Me, Well, he found and destroyed the presents I bought for Carl, just like he promised he'd do. Except this time, I have evidence of his cruel little games. Hopefully, my brother will be able to use his new influence as staffer to that congressman to help us escape. I'm going to drive to Washington tonight and give John the pictures I took of him destroying Carl's presents. Surely some honest judge would consider that an act of abuse. Maybe my boy and I can be free before Christmas is over. God, I wish I dared bring Carl with me, but the bastard would be suspicious and might stop me from leaving, or get his good buddies in the local police department to have me stopped and arrested. Detained, he'd call it. I have to do something, though. Every day, I see my happy, outgoing little boy becoming more unhappy, more guarded. I just hope John has the power he says he does. Maybe, just maybe, my son and I will sing holiday carols yet this year. Dorothea Madden.

Tears burned at the back of Carl's eyelids. That letter had been written the day his Mother died. Suddenly, the dam broke and the tears came became a deluge as harsh, wracking sobs overwhelmed him. He hadn't cried since his mother's funeral - not since his father had promised him something to cry for unless he stopped - and now he couldn't stop.

And he didn't stop until exhausted, he fell into a troubled slumber.

~-~

Carl woke up from his nap and slipped out of bed. He tiptoed down the hall and found, much to his surprise, his Mother seated in her old rocking chair, smiling at him.

"Hello, sweetie. Don't you look pretty in that dress."

Carl looked down and was surprised to find himself in a dress - in Ms. Thompson's little girl, Raggedy Anne punishment dress. "Why am I dressed like a girl?" he asked himself.

"Because you are," the image of his Mother said in complete seriousness as she reached down to stroke a blonde curl back into place. "Maybe because here in this special place of dreams, on this most magical night of the year, you need to be a girl more than you need to be a boy. I must say, though, that you do look nice as a blonde, and the pigtails are very cute, too," A sad yet sweet smile warmed the almost forgotten face of Dorathea Madden. "You know? I used to wish you'd been born a girl because then your father wouldn't have taken any interest in your upbringing."

"But I was... am a boy," Carl countered.

"So you were... are," his Mother agreed. "But since you're dressed as a girl right now, you'll have to sing soprano when we do our carols tonight."

Still confused, Carl was further surprised when his Mother stood up, and literally towered over him. Smiling, she reached down to take his child-sized, white-gloved hand in her adult-sized one. "Come along, dear. Your father will be home soon and you know we have to be finished with our secret church service before he arrives."

"I must be dreaming," Carl murmured to himself.

"Maybe, dear, and maybe you're remembering things you haven't let yourself remember since the night I... had to leave you."

"Since the night you DIED!" the very little-girlish boy accused. "Why couldn't you take me with you? It's been hell here with him."

"You have a great deal to do in the world that is good, my love," his Mother assured him as she led him down into the basement of their old house to a door Carl suddenly recognized. "Things that will, in part, make up for the bad things your father did in the world."

"Me?" he demanded, his voice breaking as it had not done in over four years.

"You. If you get your act together and listen to Ms. Thompson, that is." A single, unshielded incandescent light flared in the hidden little room, revealing a small Christmas tree and a little china Nativity scene on a low table. Carl examined the little scene and rubbed his eyes vigorously. *Why does Mary look like she's wearing surgical greens, and why is the Child wearing bandages instead of swaddling clothes?*

Carl turned to ask his Mother only to see her putting an old fashioned LP record on a cheap little stereo turntable. Immediately, a familiar holiday carol began to sound through the attached speakers. His Mother began to sing along, and from some deeply buried, long-forgotten memory, the words came to Carol, and she too began to sing.

 

Said the night wind to the little lamb,

"Do you see what I see?

Way up in the sky, little lamb,

Do you see what I see?

A star, a star, dancing in the night

With a tail as big as a kite,

With a tail as big as a kite."

 

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,

"Do you hear what I hear?

Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy,

Do you hear what I hear?

A song, a song high above the trees

With a voice as big as the sea,

With a voice as big as the sea."

 

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king,

"Do you know what I know?

In your palace warm, mighty king,

Do you know what I know?

A Child, a Child shivers in the cold--

Let us bring him silver and gold,

Let us bring him silver and gold."

 

Said the king to the people everywhere,

"Listen to what I say!

Pray for peace, people, everywhere,

Listen to what I say!

The Child, the Child sleeping in the night

He will bring us goodness and light,

He will bring us goodness and light."

 

Carl found himself eagerly waiting for the next song when a huge shadow fell across the two carolers. "I told you what would happen if you disobeyed me again on this, Dorothea," his father's voice boomed. "I don't want the boy being fed this "Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men" drivel. He needs to learn how to be tough, hard and ruthless, and you need to learn to stop defying me," Both mother and child watched as the dark shadow unbuckled his belt and slid it from his torso with an evil hiss. "He's going to be like me if I have to beat the steel into his weakling spine."

The belt licked out and his Mother screamed in pain. Raw fury boiled up inside Carl and he seemed to grow instantly back to his normal height. With surprising ease, he caught his father's arm in one hand while his other took his throat. For just a moment, his hand flexed about the throat it held. It would be so easy, he mused, so easy, but then his Mother's words came back to him, and the words of the carol they had just sung together. "...make up for the evil your father did..." and the promise of "goodness and light."

"I am NOT going to be you, old man, or even anything LIKE you!" he hissed into the dark, still-featureless face, his grip still firm on the throat. "I REFUSE to be you! Everything you were, I will be the opposite; everything you did, I will undo and by far most importantly, everything you destroyed, I will recreate."

~-~

"... I will recreate...recreate... recreate... WHAT?!?!"

Carl came awake with a jerk, his eyes wide and the muscles of his hands rigidly gripping... nothing. Breath came in deep, heaving gasps as his head swiveled about, taking in the now familiar features of his room... or rather of Carol's room at Seasons House. A quick glance at the bedside clock told him it was a little after three A.M.

Shivering from more than the room's nighttime chill, Carl made his way to the private bath off the main bedroom. Two glasses of water later, the shaking at last began to subside. "Lord, what a dream, and yet, it was so bloody real."

Quickly, he padded back to the bed and slipped beneath the heavy comforter. *I don't believe in messages from beyond,* he told himself. *Things like that don't happen to real people. Only in movies or novels. But, darnit, I remember that room beneath the house and although our Mary didn't really look like Jane Thompson, I remember that Nativity Scene, too.*

"Oh god, this is really, really crazy. I have to think this all through, but I think I just promised... well, certainly myself that I'd... that I'd... oh man, *I* am going crazy."

Sleep eluded the beautifully gowned young man for the remainder of the long, lonely night.

 

 

 

*********************************************
© 2000 by Tigger. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.