Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes (42 page)

Near the cedar she squatted, gazing toward Pan’s northern abode and lifting her palms to the gray-clouded heavens. Though slaps of rain battered her face, not once did she blink against the pelting, but brooded deeply on revenge.

* * *

The Easter Bunny had watched with quiet satisfaction the waking of select mortals on Easter morning, how they had eaten the divine egg and been transformed. He had also thrown his gaze northward to witness Santa Claus’s resurrection and Chuff’s acceptance into the community of elves. Ah well, he thought, that’s nice for the ugly little fellow. It can’t be helped, my being banished from the North Pole. I did some pretty terrible things, some horrendously horrible unforgivable things, though I can’t for the life of me recall what they were. Whatever the regrettable deeds, I shall not soon stop browbeating myself for them.

Imagine, then, his surprise when Santa’s lead reindeer, antlers aglow, made a graceful swoop-down, landing right in front of him in the clearing before his burrow. He wore a saddle, and tucked securely into the right saddlebag, one corner peeking out, was a large green envelope. Inside the envelope the Easter Bunny found a simple card, serenity pictured upon it, a snow scene, a hut with candles in the windows, white wisps of smoke lazily skirling up from its chimney top. Inside, in a graceful looping hand, it said: “I would like to see you. Lucifer knows the way. The Easter baskets are missed. Rachel.”

The summons threw him into a tizzy. How could he possibly face this woman, sensing the horrendous wrong he had done her? And why ever had she requested a visit from him? Was it out of obligation, for the recent good he had done? He neither wanted nor deserved that. It was in his transformed nature to act thus, to assist Santa with his Easter task, to do his part in saving Jamie Stratton’s life, and to help Wendy and Rachel escape from the Tooth Fairy’s island. Whatever had provoked this invitation, he must go, if only to endure the shame. Snubbing Rachel was unthinkable. She must have thought long and hard before sending this card. He felt obliged, at the very least, to show up, if only to accept and humbly acknowledge whatever shame she might cover him with. If she summoned him a thousand times to berate and humiliate and heap scorn upon him, it would be as a pinch of dirt removed from the Everest of his disgrace.

“All right, Lucifer,” he said with a sigh. “Forgive my weight.” Wriggling a furry foot into one stirrup, he swung onto the reindeer’s back, gripped the saddle horn, and tightened his legs about Lucifer’s flanks. Then up they rose. Despite centuries of flying on his own, the abrupt lift tickled him. It was a different thing entirely, zooming into the sky upon Lucifer’s back, watching the forest collapse into green bristle below, the earth passing beneath them, sea and land and cities and farms and streams as thin as hairline cracks, then the arctic wastes, brilliant and blinding in the sun, and finally the North Pole, temperate inside its bubble though snow sprawled soft and fluffy everywhere he looked.

When they passed over the commons, a few figures looked up and pointed, including Wendy, who broke into a run but was soon left behind by the skating pond. Lucifer knew the way. That’s what Rachel’s card had said. So the Easter Bunny contented himself with skimming along treetops dusted with snow, delighting in the stately march of spruce and pine and fir, and anticipating with dread his impending meeting with Santa’s once-mortal wife.

Straight ahead, a brilliant patch of orange-yellow winked into view, the color of egg yolk before it pales into the over-boiled hue of sulfur. A tent. The sort a pasha might raise to hold court, spacious with pole supports, its taut ropes angled to metal stakes pounded deep into the ground. In front of this tent they landed, Lucifer stamping and snorting as his rider dismounted. At once, he flew off. High up, the treetops stirred into a sigh, then grew still.

The Easter Bunny hopped to the entrance. The tent flaps were held aside by rope and grommet.

“Ah, there you are,” said a voice from within. “Wipe your feet and come inside.”

He gulped and dutifully obeyed. Two sets of snow boots stood at one edge of a throw rug, on which he wiped his feet. Then he ventured into the tent proper, moving in small tentative hops across an Oriental rug that felt as if it had been spread over plastic sheeting to keep it free of moisture. Rachel McGinnis sat in a plush armchair, cherrywood at the arm ends and down below. Off to the left, knitting, sat Santa’s first wife, doing what she could to keep her glower from being too obvious. A bodyguard, he thought. To be expected.

He stopped a respectful distance from Rachel.

“First,” she said, “thank you for coming. This isn’t easy for me, and it can’t be easy for you.”

“No, ma’am.”

“You have demonstrated, in rather dramatic ways, how very much changed and chastened you are. I need not enumerate them. What most impresses me is that the Divine Mother chose you as her emissary, when she could just as easily have entrusted her miraculous pouch to Wendy or Santa. And then you were chosen once more by heavenly forces to rescue me and my daughter from the Tooth Fairy’s island, for which I thank you with all my heart. So...”

She paused. He saw her blink away tears. But he felt paralyzed to do or say anything. She wasn’t in physical distress. Anya shifted in her chair as if to speak. But Rachel waved away her help, smiled, stopped smiling, and went on: “So if you wish, you may once more leave Easter baskets here every spring on your long night’s journey.”

He kept his eyes averted. “That would be an honor.”

“Come and go, as you did before the bad times. Leave them beside our beds if you think it best. I cannot quite offer my forgiveness—”

“Nor do I expect it.”

“The scar will always be there. But I will no longer allow our past to dampen the joys of Easter for this community of worthy souls. And I want to state, right here and now, that I
do
forgive you, even as I cannot
ever
forgive you—I know that makes no sense at all, and yet it does—”

“Perfect sense.”

“Yes. And now you may go.”

Her words abruptly broke off, as though a rope had paid out and slipped from her grasp. He longed to see the expression on her face. But he simply nodded, said, “As you wish. Thank you,” and hopped back through the makeshift vestibule into the snowy patch in front of the tent. Colors seemed sharper now, scents more redolent, textures as vivid as if his paws were touching them.

No Lucifer.

His own steam, then.

As he was about to lift off and head home, flashes of hollyberry red shone through the trees in a rustle and burst of exuberance. “It’s you!” exclaimed Wendy, kicking up snow as she came on. “I thought so. I followed Mommy’s and Anya’s boot prints.”

“Yes, I—”

She rushed into an enthusiastic hug, which he awkwardly returned. Then she stepped back. “I just had to tell you. I peeked in on Jamie Stratton and his family, just to see how they were doing? Well, they’re fine. They’re astounded at how the world has changed, as well they might be. But what I wanted to say was that Jamie told them he wanted a little sister and they said they would see what they could do about that but not to get his hopes up because getting pregnant wasn’t always easy.”

“Unless a certain—”

“Exactly! I knew about your magic nose thing, and I was hoping that maybe you could, you know....”

“Well I don’t see why I couldn't.” His spirits brightened considerably. “I’ll drop in on them as soon as all the stars, urges, and hormones are properly aligned. No more than two or three months, at the outside.”

“Great! So what’s this tent all about, and stuff?”

“Oh well, your mother wanted to thank me for...well I’ll let her tell you herself. But the upshot is that I’ll be leaving Easter baskets at the North Pole again.”

“That’s super!”

“Dear me, I’ve got to be off. You take care now, sweet pea.”

“You too. And don’t forget the Strattons.”

“I won’t.” He gratefully accepted her parting hug, then waved a paw, flew up, and shot away southward, much relieved his visit hadn’t been as dreadful as he had feared.

Easter baskets? Next year, Wendy and the others would receive the finest ones he, his hens, and his machines were able to produce!

* * *

Rachel heard Wendy’s voice piping animatedly outside. Then into the tent she burst, kicked off her shiny red boots, and ran across the carpet onto Rachel’s lap.

“Well, aren’t you the enthusiastic one?”

“I sure am. Hi, Anya. So what’s with the Easter Bunny’s visit? And this tent? Neat! Oh, Mom, I told him about Jamie Stratton, just like I wanted to. And he said he would
do
it. He’s going to make his nose twitch at just the right moment to bless Jamie’s mom and dad with a little girl.”

Rachel loved her childish enthusiasm. “Well, dear, he did so many good deeds for us and Santa, I thought I’d thank him in a special way. He appreciated it, I think.”

“Yeah, but why not in the commons in front of everybody? Give him a medal and a kiss, or something?”

“Um,” said Rachel. “Oh, he’s the modest sort. Shy and self-effacing to a fault. I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. Public adulation sometimes does that, even to the worthiest soul.”

Wendy said, “Great,” and told her how much she had missed having candy at Easter, even though the day meant so much more than that, in terms of Christ and salvation and stuff. But Rachel only half heard her, her mind teemed with such conflicting emotions. She felt as if she had been caught in a secret, which indeed she had, telling white lies—something she hated doing—and that any moment now, her daughter was going to turn all solemn and say, “Mom, level with me,” and the whole sorry rape would come out, right there in the soft sad orange glow of the tent; and Wendy, in that knowledge, would be unalterably changed. Nevermore would girlish glee irrepressibly erupt from her, as now it did.

But Wendy never went there.

Instead she looked about and laughed and said, “We really have it great, Mom, don’t we?”

Rachel, relieved, smiled. “Yes, we do.”

“It’s super, being immortal. And I don’t care—though of course I regret it, heavens, who wouldn’t?—that I’ll never have a grown-up body nor any kids of my own. But what I do have are perfect health, the companionship of elves in abundance, the wonder of the workshop, and Santa reading me bedtime stories. He’s the greatest reader. I can see and hear all the characters as if they were standing right in front of me. And now, Santa and I get to change some mortals’ lives, or do our best anyway. That’s so amazingly cool!”

Rachel agreed that it was, thinking about the withering violence inflicted on them by the Tooth Fairy and her imps, but she wasn’t about to bring that up. “We are indeed blessed,” she said. “Never aging, never dying, never getting sick—there’s much to be said for immortality. I’d say you can’t get much closer to heaven on earth.”

“Yep, and I’ll tell you something else. If that terrible fairy tries anything again, I know now I can fight her right back. Not that I like fighting. I don’t. But I’ll protect myself and my loved ones, you can count on it.”

“I doubt she’ll bother us again.”

“Why is she so mean, Mommy?”

Rachel demurred. “That’s a long story, sweetie. Another time, perhaps.”

“Okay.” Wendy was so fired up with happiness, she hugged and kissed Rachel, then raced over to Anya and leaped into her lap, causing her to drop a stitch. But Anya just tilted her head back and laughed in that old-lady way she had, hugged her stepdaughter in return, and said, “You dear sweet girl.”

Then Rachel announced it was time they headed home, so the elves could strike the tent and life resume its normal routine.

And so they did.

Chapter 44. Santa Among the Elves

SINCE HIS RESURRECTION, Santa had been learning to embrace himself in all his contradictory dimensions. He felt relief that Wendy had accepted his confession with such good grace. His fear of her rejection had proven groundless. All he needed was to be open, moment by moment, trusting in her nonjudgmental response.

No longer did he avoid observing grown-up mortals. As always, he kept lists of naughty and nice children. But now he began a few new ones—considered compilations of naughty and nice adults, primarily to help Wendy decide which households to visit on Thanksgiving Eve.

Some grown-ups were very nice indeed, a seasoning and maturation of the good children they had been. Others hadn’t been so nice as kids, but had reformed by some means or other and struggled daily to embrace virtue. But many of them were very naughty indeed (he was forced to invent sublists for nasty, psychopathic, and beyond the pale), a far larger group and one that made Santa Claus very unhappy indeed. So much potential for goodness wasted; so many lives frittered away; so much love never expressed, indeed never felt, for the fear or low self-esteem that concealed it.

Santa sighed. He and Wendy had much work to do. And with only three households to visit each year, they would have to choose wisely for maximum impact on the human race. Michael hadn’t said it would be easy. But Santa relished the challenge. He would be sure to adjust Wendy’s expectations before they began. Then they would barrel in, full force, spiritual guns blazing.

A week after Easter, Santa called the elves into his office one by one. Wrapping their conversation in magic time, he told them he had changed and felt the need to reacquaint himself with his helpers. He also wanted to assess the community’s health after the recent brouhaha over Gregor’s misguided condemnation of nosepicking.

Chuff he summoned early in the game, so as to assure the imp that he was a highly prized addition to the community. Because he excelled at heavy lifting, Chuff had become a free-roving assistant to any elves who dealt with outsized, bulky, or otherwise heavy and unwieldy toys: ping-pong tables, swing sets, tree houses, and the like. Santa had heard many of his helpers remark how cheery and helpful the imp was, and how undyingly grateful to have escaped his torment on the Tooth Fairy’s island. Indeed it was all Santa could do, when came Chuff’s turn, to keep him from kissing his boots.