an alien, Santa is an alien too, which he isn’t.”
With the smug condescension of a nine-year-old who had long ago
discovered Santa Claus wasn’t real, Charlotte said, “Em, you have a lot
to learn. Daddy, what’s the raygun do? Turn you to mush?”
“To stone,” Emily said. She withdrew one hand from under the covers and
revealed the polished stone on which she had painted a pair of eyes.
“That’s what happened to Peepers.”
“They land on the roof, quiet and sneaky.
Oh, but this Santa is fearfully freaky.
He whispers a warning to each reindeer, leaning close to make sure they
hear, You have relatives back at the Pole-antlered, gentle, quite
innocent souls.
So if you fly away while I’m inside, back to the Pole on a plane I will
ride.
I’ll have a picnic in the midnight sun, reindeer pie, pate, reindeer in
a bun, reindeer salad and hot reindeer soup, oh, all sorts of tasty
reindeer goop.”
“I hate this guy,” Charlotte announced emphatically. She pulled her
covers up to her nose as she had done the previous evening, but she
wasn’t genuinely frightened, just having a good time pretending to be
spooked.
“This guy, he was just born bad,” Emily decided. “For sure, he couldn’t
be this way just ’cause his mommy and daddy weren’t as nice to him as
they should’ve been.”
Paige marveled at Marty’s ability to strike the perfect note to elicit
the kids’ total involvement. If he’d given her the poem to review
before he’d started reading it, Paige would have advised that it was a
little too strong and dark to appeal to young girls.
So much for the question of which was superior–the insights of the
psychologist or the instinct of the storyteller.
“At the chimney, he looks down the bricks, but that entrance is strictly
for hicks.
With all his tools, a way in can be found for a fat bearded burglar out
on the town.
From roof to yard to the kitchen door, he chuckles about what he has in
store for the lovely family sleeping within.
He grins one of his most nasty grins.
oh, what a creeh a scum, and a louse.
He’s breaking into the Stillwater house.”
“Our place!” Charlotte squealed.
“I knew!” Emily said.
Charlotte said, “You did not.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did not.”
“Did too. That’s why I’m sleeping with Peepers, so he can protect me
until after Christmas.”
They insisted that their father read the whole thing from the beginning,
all verses from both nights. As Marty began to oblige, Paige faded out
of the doorway and went downstairs to put away the leftover popcorn and
straighten up the kitchen.
The day had been perfect as far as the kids were concerned, and it had
been good for her as well. Marty had not suffered another episode,
which allowed her to convince herself that the fugue had been a
singularity–frightening, inexplicable, but not an indication of a
serious degenerative condition or disease.
Surely no man could keep pace with two such energetic children,
entertain them, and prevent them from getting cranky for an entire busy
day unless he was in extraordinarily good health. Speaking as the other
half of the Fabulous Stillwater Parenting Machine, Paige was exhausted.
Curiously, after putting away the popcorn, she found herself checking
window and door locks.
Last night Marty had been unable to explain his own heightened sense of
a need for security. His trouble, after all, was internal.
Paige figured it had been simple psychological transference. He had
been reluctant to dwell on the possibility of brain tumors and cerebral
hemorrhages because those things were utterly beyond his control, so he
had turned outward to seek enemies against which he might be able to
take concrete action.
On the other hand, perhaps he had been reacting on instinct to a real
threat beyond conscious perception. As one who incorporated some
Jungian theory into her personal and professional worldview, Paige had
room for such concepts as the collective unconscious, synchronicity, and
intuition.
Standing at the French doors in the family room, staring across the
patio to the dark yard, she wondered what threat Marty might have sensed