He Said, Sidhe Said

* * * *

"How much!?"

The oil man wiped his hands on a none-too-clean rag. "You got a 200 gallon tank there, Ms. Montgomery. Oil's thirty-six point two cents a litre, there's a about four and a half litres a gallon, that's, uh..." His brow furrowed as he worked out the math. "Three hundred and twenty-five dollars and eighty cents, plus G.S.T."

Elaine set the grubby piece of paper down on the kitchen table and murmured, "Just like it says on the bill."

He beamed. "That's right."

She had just over five hundred dollars in the account she'd transferred to the local bank. Enough, she'd thought, given that they no longer needed to pay rent, to give her and Katie a couple of months to get settled before she had to find work. Apparently, she'd thought wrong. "I'll get my cheque book." If her aunt kept the house warm with the woodstove, she must've been re-lighting the fire every half an hour. Which was about as long as Elaine had been able to get it to burn.

The oil man watched as she wrote out his cheque, then scrawled paid in full across the bill and handed it to her with a flourish. "Don't you worry," he said as she winced. "Your late aunt managed to get by spendin' only twelve hundred dollars for heatin' last winter."

"Only twelve hundred dollars," Elaine repeated weakly.

"That's right." He paused in the door and grinned back at her. "'Course, not to speak ill of the dead, but I think she had other ways of keepin' warm."

"What do you mean?" At this point any other way sounded better than twelve hundred dollars.

"Well, one time, about, oh, four, five years ago now, I showed up a little earlier than I'd said, and I saw her comin' up out of the basement with the strangest sort of expression on her face. Walkin' a bit funny too. I think," he leaned forward and nodded sagely, "I think she was down there having a bit of a nip."

Elaine blinked. "But she never drank."

The oil man tapped his nose. "That's what they say. Anyway, Merry Christmas, Ms. Montgomery. I'll see you in the new year."

"Yes, Merry Christmas." She watched the huge truck roar away. "Three hundred and twenty-five dollars and eighty cents plus G.S.T. merrier for you anyway..."

"Mommy!"

The wail of a four-year-old in distress lifted every hair on her head and had her moving before her conscious mind even registered the direction of the cry. She charged out the back door without bothering to put on a coat, raced around the corner of the building, and almost tripped over the kneeling figure of her daughter.

"What is it, Katie? Are you hurt?"

Katie lifted a tear-streaked face, and Elaine got a glimpse of the bloody bundle in her lap. "Sid-cat's been killeded!"

* * * *

"Ms. Montgomery?"

Elaine moved Katie's head off her lap and stood to face the vet, leaving the sleeping child sprawled across three of the waiting-room chairs. There'd been a lot of blood staining the white expanse of his ruff, but Sid-cat had not actually been dead – although his life had been in danger a number of times during the wild drive in to the vet's. There are some things Fords are not meant to do on icy, back-country roads.

Dr. Levin brushed a strand of long, dark hair back off her face and smiled reassuringly. "He's going to be all right. I think we've even managed to save the eye."

"Thank God." She hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath until she let it out. "Do you know what attacked him?"

The vet nodded. "Another cat."

"Are you sure?"

"No doubt about it. He did a little damage himself, and the fur caught in his claws was definitely cat. You've moved into your aunt's old place, haven't you?"

"Yes..."

"Well, I wouldn't doubt there's a couple of feral cats living in what's left of that old barn of hers. You're isolated enough out there that they've probably interbred into vicious, brainless animals." She frowned. "Now, I don't hold with this as a rule, but housecats like Sid don't stand a chance against feral cats, and you've got a child to think of. You should consider hiring someone to clear them out."

"I'll think about it."

"Good." Dr. Levin smiled again. "Sid'll have to stay here for a few days, of course. Let's see, it's December 20th today, call me on the 24th. I think we can have him home for Christmas."

* * * *

When they got back to the farmhouse, a line of paw prints marked the fresh snow up to the porch door and away. In spite of the bitter cold, they could smell the reason for the visit as soon as they reached the steps.

"Boy pee!" Katie pronounced disdainfully, rubbing a mittened hand over her nose.

Every entrance to the house had been similarly marked.

The house itself was freezing. The woodstove had gone out. The furnace appeared to be having no effect.

Elaine looked down at her shivering daughter and seriously considered shoving her back into the car, cramming everything she could into the trunk, and heading back to the city. At least in the city, I know what's going on. She sagged against the cellar door and rubbed her hand across her eyes as a hopeful series of notes rose up from below. At least in the city, I wasn't hearing things. But they didn't have a life in the city anymore.

Come and play, said the music. Come and...

I can't! she told it silently. Shut up!

"Mommy? Are you okay?"

With an effort, she shook herself free. "I'm fine Katie. Mommy's just worried about Sid-cat."

Katie nodded solemnly. "Me too."

"I know what we should do, baby. Let's put up the Christmas tree." Elaine forced a smile and hoped it didn't look as false as it felt. "Here it is December 20th and we haven't even started getting ready for Christmas."

"We go to the woods and chop it down?" Katie grabbed at her mother's hand. "There's an axe in the shed."

"No, sweetheart. Mommy isn't much good with an axe." Chopping wood for the stove had been a nightmare. "We'll use the old tree this year."

"Okay." The artificial tree and the box marked decorations had been left by the dining room table. Katie raced towards them, stopped, and looked back at her mother, her face squeezed into a worried frown. "Will Santa be able to find me way out here? Does he know where we went?"

Elaine reached down and laid a hand lightly on Katie's curls. "Santa can find you anywhere," she promised. Katie's presents had been bought with the last of her severance pay, the day she got the call that her aunt had left her the family farm. No matter what, Katie was getting a Christmas.

The six-foot, fake spruce seemed dwarfed by the fifteen-foot ceilings in the living room and even the decorations didn't do much to liven it up, although Katie very carefully hung two boxes of tinsel over the lower four feet.

"It needs the angel," she said, stepping back and critically surveying her handiwork. "Put the angel on now, Mommy."

"Well, it certainly needs something," Elaine agreed, mirroring her daughter's expression. Together, very solemnly, they lifted the angel's case out of the bottom of the box.

Carefully, Elaine undid the string that held the lid secure.

"Tell me the angel story again, Mommy."

"The angel was a present," Elaine began, shifting so that Katie's warm weight slid under her arm and up against her heart, "from my father to my mother on the day I was born."

"So she's really old."

"Not so very old!" The protest brought a storm of giggles. "He told my mother that, as she'd given him an angel..."

"That was you."

"...that he'd give her one. And every Christmas he'd sit the angel on the very top of the Christmas tree, and she'd glow." When Elaine had been small, she'd thought the angel glowed on her own and had been more than a little disappointed to discover the tiny light tucked back in-between her wings. "When you were born, my parents..."

"Grandma and Grandpa."

"That's right, Grandma and Grandpa..." Who had known their granddaughter for only a year before the car crash. "...gave the angel to me because I'd given them another angel."

"Me," Katie finished triumphantly.

"You," Elaine agreed, kissed the top of Katie's head and folded back the tissue paper. She blew on her fingers to warm them then slid her hand very gently under the porcelain body and lifted the angel out of the box. The head wobbled once, then fell to the floor and shattered into a hundred pieces.

Elaine looked down at the shards of porcelain, at the tangled ruin of golden-white hair lying in their midst, and burst into tears.

* * * *

Come and play! called the music. Be happy! Come and...

"No!"

"No what, Mommy?"

"Never mind, pet. Go back to sleep."

"Did you have a bad dream?"

"Yes." Except it had been a very good dream.

"Don't worry, Mommy. Santa will bring another angel. I asked him to."

Elaine gently touched Katie's cheek then swiped at her own. Isn't it enough we're stuck in this freezing cold house – only the bedroom was tolerable – in the middle of nowhere with no money? I thought we could make this a home. I thought I could give her a Christmas at least...

But when the angel had shattered, Christmas had shattered with it.

* * * *

"I'm tired of eating pigs."

"I know, baby, so am I." Porky and Petunia had become the main course of almost every meal they'd eaten since they arrived. Elaine had thought, had hoped they could have a turkey for Christmas, but with the size of the oil bill – not to mention oil bills yet to come – added to the cost of keeping the cat at the vet for four days, it looked like a turkey was out of the question.

"I don't want pigs anymore!"

"There isn't anything else."

Katie pushed out her lower lip and pushed the pieces of chop around on her plate.

Elaine sighed. There were only so many ways to prepare... pigs, and she had run out of new ideas. Her aunt's old cookbooks had been less than no help. They were so old that recipes called for a penny-weight of raisins and began the instructions for roasting a chicken with a nauseatingly detailed lesson on how to pluck and gut it.

* * * *

"Mommy. Mommy, wake up!"

"What is it, Katie?"

"Mommy, tomorrow is Christmas!"

Elaine just barely stopped herself from saying, So what?

"And today we bring Sid-cat home!"

And today we pay Sid-cat's vet bill. She didn't know what she was looking forward to less, a cold Christmas spent with Porky and Petunia or the emptying out of her chequing account.

Bundling a heavy wool sweater on over her pyjamas, she went out to see if the fire in the woodstove had survived the night and if maybe a cup of coffee would be possible before noon.

Not, she thought as a draft of cold air swirled around her legs through the open bedroom door, that I have very high hopes.

"Katie!" A layer of ash laid a grey patina over everything within a three foot radius of the stove. "Did you do this?"

A small body pushed between her and the counter. "You said, stay away from the stove." Katie swung her teddy bear by one leg, the arc of its head drawing a thick, fuzzy line through the ash on the floor. "So, I stayed away. Honest truly."

"Then how...?"

Teddy drew another arc. "The wind came down the chimney whoosh?"

"Maybe. Maybe it was the wind." But Elaine didn't really believe that. Just like she didn't really believe she saw a tiny, slippered footprint right at the point where a tiny person would have to brace their weight to empty the ash pan. Heart in her throat, she stepped forward, squatted, and swiped at the print with the edge of her sweater. She didn't believe in it. It didn't exist.

The sudden crash of breaking glass, however, couldn't be ignored.

Slowly, she turned and faced the cellar door.

"That came from downstairs," Katie said helpfully, brushing ash off her teddy bear's head onto her pyjamas.

"I know that, Katie. Mommy has ears. Go sit in the chair by the window." She looked down at her daughter's trembling lip and added a terse, "Please."

Dragging her feet, Katie went to the chair.

"Now stay there. Mommy's going down to the cellar to see what broke the window." Mommy's out of her mind...

"I want to go too!"

"Stay there! Please. It's probably just some animal trying to get in out of the cold." The cellar door opened without the expected ominous creak, and, although Elaine would have bet money against it, a flick of the switch flooded as much of the cellar as she could see with light. Of course, there's always the part I can't see.

The temperature dropped as she moved down the stairs, and she shivered as she crossed the second step; until this moment, the furthest she'd descended. At the bottom of the stairs, she could see the cistern, the furnace, wheezing away in its corner, and the rusted bulk of the oil tank. An icy breeze against her right cheek pulled her around.

Probably just some animal trying to get in out of the cold, she repeated, taking one step, two, three. A lot it knows... By the fourth step she'd drawn even with the window and was squinting in the glare of morning sun on snow. Oh, my God. The glass had been forced out, not in, and the tracks leading away were three-pronged and deep. She whirled around, caught sight of a flash of colour, and froze.

The feather was about six inches long and brilliantly banded with red and gold. She bent to pick it up and caught sight of another, a little smaller and a little mashed. The second feather lay half in shadow at the base of the rough stone wall. The third, fourth and fifth feathers were caught on the stone at the edge of a triangular hole the size of Elaine's head.

Something had forced its way out of that hole and then out of the cellar.

Barely breathing, Elaine backed up a step, the feather falling from suddenly nerveless fingers.

"Mommy?"

She didn't remember getting to the top of the cellar stairs. "Get dressed, Katie." With an effort, she kept her voice steady. "We're going in to get Sid." And we're going to keep driving. And we're not going to stop until Easter.

* * * *

"...I don't expect anyone to have that kind of cash right at Christmas." Dr. Levin smiled down at Katie, who had her face pressed up against the bars of the cat carrier. "I'll send you a bill in the new year and we can work out a payment schedule."

"You're sure?" Elaine asked incredulously.

"I'm very sure."

The vet in Toronto had accepted credit cards, but certainly not credit. Under the circumstances, it seemed ungracious to suggest that they might not be around in the new year. Elaine swallowed once and squared her shoulders. "Dr. Levin, did you know my aunt?"

"Not well, but I knew her."

"Did she ever mention anything strange going on in that house?"

Ebony eyebrows rose. "What do you mean, strange?"

Elaine waved her hands helplessly, searching for the words. "You know, strange."

The vet laughed. "Well, as I said, we weren't close. The only thing I can remember her saying about the house is that she could never live anywhere else. Why? Have strange things been happening?"

"You might say that..."

"Give it a little while," Dr. Levin advised sympathetically. "You're not used to country life."

"True..." Elaine admitted slowly. Was that it?

"If it helps, I know your aunt was happy out there. She always smiled like she had a wonderful secret. I often envied her that smile."

Elaine, scrabbling in the bottom of her purse for a pencil, barely heard her. Maybe she just wasn't used to living in the country. Maybe that was all it was. "One more thing, if you don't mind, Doctor." She turned over the cheque she hadn't needed to fill out and quickly sketched the pattern of tracks that had lead away from the basement window. "Can you tell me what kind of an animal would make these?"

Dr. Levin pursed her lips and studied the slightly wobbly lines. "It's a type of bird, that's for certain. Although I wouldn't like to commit myself one hundred percent, I'd say it's a chicken."

Elaine blinked. "A chicken?"

"That's right." She laughed. "Don't tell me you've got a feral chicken out there as well as a feral cat?"

Elaine managed a shaky laugh in return. "Seems like."

"Well, keep Sid inside, make sure you give him the antibiotics, call me if he shows any sign of pain, and..." She reached into the pocket of her lab coat and pulled out a pair of candy canes. "...have a merry Christmas."

* * * *

"Mommy?" Katie poked one finger into her mother's side. "Sid-cat doesn't like the car. Let's go home."

Elaine bit her lip. Home. Well, they couldn't sit in the parking lot forever. Dr. Levin had said it was a chicken. Who could be afraid of a chicken? It had probably been living down in the basement for some time. It had finally run out of food, so it had left. There was probably nothing behind that hole in the wall but a bit of loose earth.

Her aunt had never said there was anything strange about the house and she'd lived there all her adult life. Had been happy there.

Where else did they have to go?

* * * *

The fire in the woodstove was still burning when they got home. Elaine stared down at it in weary astonishment and hastily shoved another piece of wood in before it should change its mind and go out. The kitchen was almost warm.

Very carefully, she pulled Sid-cat out of the carrier and settled him in a shallow box lined with one of Katie's outgrown sweaters. He stared up at her with his one good eye, blinked, yawned, gave just enough of a purr so as not to seem ungracious, and went back to sleep.

Katie looked from the cat to her half-eaten candy cane to her mother. "Tomorrow is Christmas," she said solemnly. "It doesn't feel like Christmas."

"Oh, Katie..."

Leaving her daughter squatting by the box, "standing guard in case that federal cat comes back", Elaine went into the living room and stared at the Christmas tree. If only the angel hadn't broken. She thought she could cope with everything else, could pull a sort of Christmas out of the ruins, if only the angel still looked down from the top of the tree.

Maybe she could glue it back together.

The ruins lay on the dining room table, covered with an ancient linen napkin. A tiny corpse in a country morgue...

That's certainly the Christmas spirit, Elaine... She bit her lip and flicked the napkin back. One bright green glass eye stared up at her from its nest of shattered porcelain. Oh God...

"MOMMY!"

She was moving before the command had time to get from brain to feet.

"MOM-MEEEE!"

Katie was backed into a corner of the kitchen, one arm up over her face, the other waving around trying to drive off a flock of...

Of pixies?

They were humanoid, sexless, about eight inches tall with a double pair of gossamer wings, and they glowed in all the colours of the rainbow. Long hair, the same iridescent shade as their skin, streamed around them, moving with an almost independent life of its own. Even from a distance they were beautiful, but as Elaine crossed the kitchen, she saw that her daughter's arms were bleeding from a number of nasty-looking scratches and a half a dozen of them had a hold of Katie's curls.