A Dark Root Christmas_Merry's Gift Read online

  The girls bundled themselves tightly as they tromped through the dusting of snow that covered the road, kicking up and blurring their field of vision. When they reached Sister House with their chattering teeth and numb hands, Merry immediately placed Starlight in a corner basket, then went about making hot chocolate as Maggie flipped on the TV and Ruth Anne fired up the old furnace.

  “Where’s Mom?” Eve asked, lifting the pile of blankets on the couch where Miss Sasha had been that morning. “Mom!” she called, bounding up the staircase. Their mother’s door opened and the girls heard Eve sternly scolded and told to leave.

  “She needs a little more rest,” Eve said almost apologetically when she returned.

  “At least she moved,” Maggie said, kicking the blankets from the sofa onto the ground.

  “In this house, we call that progress,” Ruth Anne said.

  “Be nice, Ruth Anne,” Merry chided, folding up the blankets and placing them on one of the lumpy recliners near the bookcase.

  She handed the hot chocolate over, complete with marshmallows and candy canes, and joined the others on the sofa to watch a holiday movie. Outside, the wind picked up, howling like groans from a restless spirit. Flurries of snow swept past the windows, obscuring their view of the woods. Merry’s moan joined the winds as she realized that, except for the hot chocolate and the TV show, there was no evidence of all of Christmas in Sister House.

  “Girls…” she began tentatively.

  “Yeah?” Maggie asked, not taking her eyes from the TV as a barrage of holiday toys paraded across the screen.

  “Want to cheer Mama up?”

  “Not particularly,” Ruth Anne said, cracking her knuckles before opening a National Geographic from a magazine bin at the edge of the sofa.

  “Please.”

  It was the please that got them. Merry didn’t ask for things often, especially accompanied by the “P” word.

  “How?” Maggie said. “Nothing can cheer her up. She’s been like this for weeks.”

  “Months,” Ruth Anne corrected.

  “Well…” Merry closed her eyes, trying to articulate her thoughts. “What if we decorate the house? I can make paper chains and Maggie can cut snowflakes. Ruth Anne, you can find some holiday music…”

  “What about me?” Eve interrupted.

  Merry kissed her on the cheek and smiled. “You can decorate cookies. And when we’re done we’ll wake Mama and have a surprise party!”

  There was an abrupt silence in the room and all eyes turned to Maggie. Though Ruth Anne usually draped everything in sarcasm, it was Maggie who was the tough sell.

  “What do you think, Mags?” Merry asked sweetly.

  “I dunno. Mother said she doesn’t like Christmas anymore. It remind her of things.”

  “Mama says a lot of things,” Merry gently reminded her. “And only about half of them stick.”

  Maggie shrugged. “If you say so.”

  “Then you’re in?”

  “If you think it will help. But only for you.”

  Merry ruffed Maggie’s already unruly hair and assigned tasks.

  The sisters went about their plan, with Maggie grumbling in between cutting snowflakes while Ruth Anne sorted through dozens of their mother’s records. “Perry Como? The Bee Gees? Casey and the Sunshine Band? Wow. All these geezers made Christmas records. I bet we’re the only house to have them.”

  “Maybe they’ll be worth something,” Merry said as she pulled a strip of red construction paper through a green paper loop and secured it with homemade paste. She then laid out her chain across the floor. It was nearly the length of the living room.

  “Only if there are more Miss Sashas roaming around,” Ruth Anne said, finally settling on Stevie Wonder.

  Merry laughed easily, feeling the warmth of the furnace and the company of her sisters as she placed delicate sprigs of holly over every door and upon every windowsill, to welcome in good spirits and to keep out the imps who roamed the restless winter nights.

  When their jobs were nearly complete, Merry ran upstairs with socked feet and tiptoed to the sewing room. She went inside and locked the door quietly behind her. Her tree stood in the center of a fractured moonbeam, nearly as tall as she was. She pressed a cheek into the palm of her hand, thinking very deliberately about whether or not it was ready.

  “Soon,” she whispered, before kissing one of its limbs and reciting these words:

  Tree grow taller every day

  Until you reach the height

  That the star that crowns your head

  Is formed out of the night.

  She wiggled the fingers of both hands and cast them out in a wide half-circle. With a resolute shrug she left the room, closing the door behind her.

  “I’ll be back,” she promised the tree from behind the closed door, knowing magick worked best when left to its own.

  A small white form near her feet startled her. “Starlight!” She lifted the bird in her hands. Looking up and down the hallway, she whispered, “You shouldn’t be up here. We’ll have to hide you again before Mama wakes up.”

  Merry climbed up into the attic bedroom and pulled back the blankets on her bed. “Now stay put,” she ordered, nesting him inside the covers and hurrying off join the others.

  Downstairs, she was surprised to see Maggie and Ruth Anne working to affix strands of paper snowflakes attached to silver wires to the ceiling above. They crisscrossed them from one wall to the other.

  “I feel like I’m going to prom,” Ruth Anne said, hopping down from her chair and scratching her head. “And I swore I’d never go to prom.”

  “Stop teasing, Ruth Anne. They’re beautiful!” Merry reached up to touch a snowflake dangling just above her head. Glitter fell from the cutout as her fingers made contact, sprinkling her face. “And Maggie, you did a great job on these.”

  “Humph,” said Maggie, as she put the scissors away.

  “Look, Merry!” Eve said, carrying a tray of cookies decorated in red frosting and left-over Halloween sprinkles.

  “They’re beautiful, too.”

  Eve leaned in closer. “I used magick to get the sprinkles to spread out evenly.”

  “I see,” Merry nodded as she inspected the cookies. “Well, they are very evenly spaced. Well done, Eve.”

  Eve tossed back her hair, as if she needed no confirmation that anything she applied herself to was less than perfect.

  “Just one more touch,” Merry added, lighting several candles around the room and dimming the overhead lights. Between the paper chains, snowflakes and cookies, the room felt cozy and festive. If this didn’t pull their mother out of her funk, nothing would.

  “Now, time to get Mama. Everyone be happy, please. Or at least pretend.”

  Ruth Ann raised an eyebrow. “I only do ironical. If you want genuine happy, you’re going to have to carry us.”

  Maggie elbowed Ruth Anne in the ribs and the two chuckled. Merry waited them out. She knew engaging them would only prolong their clowning. Finally, they all sat quietly and Merry hurried back upstairs.

  Standing outside her mother’s door, she held her breath, listening, hoping that her plan would work. No one knew why Miss Sasha had become so sad, so utterly disengaged from life. At first, the girls thought it was because of them, and they each dealt with it in their own way: Maggie and Ruth Anne became argumentative and, when they found that didn’t work, apathetic. Eve went about trying to make everything better, prettier, and softer. And Merry worked hard on keeping order and tradition.

  But nothing seemed to jounce their mother out of her depression.

  Aunt Dora, feeling bad for the girls, had told them there was nothing they could do. She said Miss Sasha’s malaise was more far-reaching and deeper than anything they were old enough to understand. She also said it would pass…eventually.

  And so the sisters formed their own colony within the house, the four of them living a separate life from their mother. Sometimes the two sets overlapped but most
ly they kept to themselves.

  But not today. Merry was determined.

  It was Christmas and she made a wish on a real wishing star, and she would bring her family together no matter what.

  This party was the beginning.

  Merry knocked quietly, looking around after each tap of her knuckles. The hall seemed particularly dark and gloomy, with only one sputtering bulb to light its entire length. She waited a moment and knocked again.

  Finally, she turned the knob and went inside. She was greeted by the heavy scents of musk, lavender and patchouli, all competing for dominance in a strange, entangled battle. The patchouli was currently winning.

  Merry hadn’t been in her mother’s room for a long while and noticed the rosebud wallpaper peeling near the ceiling, as if it wanted nothing more than to escape the oppressive atmosphere of the room.

  “Mama, get up,” Merry said, approaching her mother’s canopied bed and tapping on her fleshy shoulders. “Mama. I want to show you something.”

  Miss Sasha stretched her eyebrows high before opening her eyes, and then blinked against the dim light coming in through the open door. Upon seeing Merry, she raised herself to her elbows, wiping her mouth with the palm of her right hand.

  “Mama’s sleeping, darling,” she said with a flick of the wrist. “Go play with your sisters.”

  Merry sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her mother’s long, graying hair. Her hair had been beautiful once. Softer. Shinier. Now it was like bramble weed.

  “But Mama, we’ve got a surprise for you.”

  Her mother pointed to a robe sitting on a dresser and Merry retrieved it.

  Miss Sasha slipped on the garment and checked her reflection in the vanity mirror. She grimaced at the expression staring back, as if she had expected another. Still, she smiled when her eyes returned to Merry and the two made their way downstairs.

  Bing Crosby was crooning “White Christmas” throughout the house. The dining table had been set with tapered candles and Eve’s cookies. Small lamps were placed strategically throughout the room, so that the glitter on Maggie’s drifting snowflakes reflected light in all directions. The red and green chains had been softly draped above windows and doorways, ending their journey just above the arch that framed the kitchen door.

  Merry gasped, then smiled completely.

  “What is all this?” Miss Sasha asked, cocking her head to the side, as if detecting a trap.

  “It’s Christmas, Mama. We brought it here just for you.”

  Miss Sasha released Merry’s arm and tightened her robe strap as she inspected the living room. She made the journey slowly, pausing to touch a paper chain link or to taste the frosting on one of the cookies. Passing the mirror over the kitchen table, she stopped a moment, first to see the snowflakes glistening in the glass, then to recheck her own appearance––a stark contrast of grayness and doubt against the cheerful room behind her.

  Miss Sasha’s eyes widened then drooped, the bags beneath them so deep and heavy they were like weights, pulling them further down.

  Without warning, their mother’s eyes flashed to anger, and she spun in their direction.

  “I never told you I wanted Christmas in this house! Who said we were doing Christmas this year?”

  “Mama, Christmas is important,” Merry said softly.

  “Not to me.”

  Eve’s lips quivered and Maggie’s face lost all trace of emotion.

  “Hey, I tried to stop them,” Ruth Anne said, lifting her hands from her perch on the armrest of the sofa, her knees drawn into her chest, teetering as if she could fall in either direction. “I told them this wasn’t your thing.”

  Miss Sasha looked from one daughter to the next, her neck slightly jutting forward as if to discern who was at fault.

  “It was me, Mama,” Merry said, approaching her mother and pulling out a chair for her. “I thought it would be nice.”

  “Nice? For who?” Her mother took the chair, looked around once more, and pressed her face into her hands. “I can’t do this. Not this year. There are other holidays.” She looked up, a sliver of light returning to her eyes. “We’ll celebrate them. But not Christmas, not this year. Now I’m going back to bed. Please… behave yourselves.”

  With that, their mother ascended the staircase, hunched over in a manner Merry had never seen before, like she had aged two decades in the span of an evening.

  SIX

  THERE WERE SOME days that even Merry didn’t want to leave her bed. As much as she tried to remain happy and cheerful for her sisters, she wasn’t always capable of doing it for herself.

  This was one such morning.

  She stayed in her bed in the attic, feeling miserable and reveling in the darkness of the room. The dark was sympathetic. The dark understood. Her mother had figured that out a long time ago. Now, it was Merry’s turn.

  She was glad, at least, that her sisters didn’t take their mother’s reaction as hard as she had. They were more resilient, she supposed. They had woken early and went about their day, most likely eating cereal and watching TV. There would be no tears, no righteous indignation or even outright anger. Instead, they accepted their circumstance with little more than a shrug, hardly noticing the snowflakes or the paper chains still dangling above their heads.

  These were relics Merry would clean up later in the day, if she ever found the momentum to leave the room.

  Merry dragged her fingers along the floorboards, splintering her thumb several times in the process, but not bothering to stop. She heard a soft scuttling noise near the bedroom door, which was opening, slowly. A small silhouette emerged, outlined in the pale white light emanating from the hallway.

  “Silly owl,” Merry said, tossing off her covers and sitting upright.

  She smiled as Starlight waddled his way over to her, penguin style. When he reached her, she took him in her hands, placing him on her pillow. He looked around the room and, seemingly satisfied, closed his eyes and nested his face inside his wings, cooing.

  The grayness of his aura had deepened, until it was a dark cloud of fog. Merry furrowed her brow and gently caressed his feathers. As her fingers touched the area near the tip of his right wing, his aura darkened nearly to black. She had seen that color before on animals in the woods. Starlight was sick. And the sickness was spreading, seeping across him. She could feel it even more than she could see it.

  “Poor little thing.” She pulled her hand away, feeling an ache in her chest, knowing his time was limited.

  “Starlight,” she whispered again, as if his name could save him from his fate.

  She could heal him. A little. She had that gift.

  But she was still in training, and knew that what little she could give wouldn’t stave off whatever affliction he suffered. Pulling the blanket in around him, she thought of others who might be able to help. Uncle Joe? He was her magick teacher, but when it came to the healing arts, he was more theory than hands on. Her mother? Yes, Miss Sasha could probably do something, but Merry knew that healing was a delicate process, and in the wrong state of mind you could actually do more harm than good. Aunt Dora? That was a real possibility. She was a strong witch of sane mind, and had a tea for every ailment.

  “Hang on,” Merry said. “We’ll fix this.”

  BUNDLED UP IN scarves and thrift-store coats, the girls walked through a sprinkling of snow towards Harvest Home, the Victorian style bed-and-breakfast where Aunt Dora lived with old Miss Rosa. It wasn’t quite suppertime but the sun had already begun its descent, hardly visible on the pine-prickled horizon. The bleak arc of orange and yellow above the tree line hastened them onward.

  Merry trailed behind her sisters, walking slowly so as not to jolt Starlight, who was tucked into the nook beneath her arm. She felt him quiver under her coat, now and then jerking uneasily before falling back into his somber contentment.

  In the foreground, mighty oak trees mocked them, their long bare branches hooked like arthritic fingers. But Merry didn’
t fear the trees, or even the deeper woods beyond. She was at home in the woods. In harmony, in fact. As the other girls ducked branches and skirted boughs, Merry reached to stroke them. The branches seemed to reach back, quivering, clambering for her magick touch.

  She had a private spot in the woods ahead, a place where she went to do her homework, work on her herbalism skills, and talk to the forest animals. The animals didn’t speak back, of course, not in the way that people did. But she knew their every trouble, their every intent. She was as tuned to the energies of the forest as a bird is to the seasons.

  As she neared the small dirt path that led to her hideaway, Merry was startled to see wafts of smoke rising up from the woods––thin white wisps that curled upwards in frivolous loop-de-loops. She scrunched her eyes and sniffed the air, peering deeper along the tree-guarded path. Smells of roses and chocolate drifted out. Also ginger, not unlike the smell that came from the concoction she made in her mother’s store. It was strange to detect those fragrances here, dominating the natural scents of pine and wet earth and leaves. She sniffed again, just to be certain. It was not a trick. The aromas were real.

  There was also a muted yellow light emanating from within a thick clump of trees.

  She took one step from the road, towards the smoke and light, but was hooked through the arm by Maggie.

  “No hiding out in your spot now,” Maggie said, pulling her onward. “If we have to spend the evening listening to Aunt Dora complain about Mother, so do you.”

  Merry cast one final glance down the path before rounding the bend.

  THE KITCHEN WAS warm at least, even though the atmosphere was chilly, fueled by Aunt Dora’s endless grumblings about Miss Sasha and her foolish ways. Merry was the only one of the sisters still in the kitchen, as the other girls had long since retreated to the living room. She patiently listened as Aunt Dora baked and complained, repeating the process over several hours.

  “Stubborn ol’ woman!” Aunt Dora exclaimed, slamming her rolling pin into a pile of flour spread out over an old cotton pillowcase. A plume of white powder puffed up, and Aunt Dora expertly turned her face to avoid getting coated. “Can’t accept things. Actin’ like a spoiled child!”