Nikki, good
as her word, showed up at my place Christmas morning. She didn’t look her usual
stunning self. She looked tired and run-down, and lacked the usual sparkle in
her eyes. Given all that, though, she had attempted to be in the spirit of the
day, dressing in a red and white dress straight out of White Christmas, the part at the end. The dress flattered and
hugged her without revealing. As usual, she was elegant.
I took
Nikki by the hand and brought her inside, as direct an invitation as was
possible to give.
“An
interesting sweater,” she commented.
I wore my
jeans, but also had an overly-large Christmas sweater. Instead of the usual
Santa or reindeer, Ebenezer Scrooge proclaimed “Humbug. Bring me more humbugs!”
“Cassie’s
present. When she learned what humbugs were, she insisted.”
Nikki
smiled as I showed her to the couch.
“Well,
Matthew, it has been some time since I have been anywhere for the yule holiday.
I’m unsure of the etiquette, now.”
“Not like I
have a huge family and routine, here. Jen and I usually do something. Jessie’s
family always invites me over, but they’re going upstate to see some other
relatives. I’ll call Cassie and my parents sometime, but other than that, I
usually just watch some movies and enjoy the day. Sometimes my neighbors will
invite me over or send their kids over with a present.”
“No other
strange goings on?”
I shrugged.
“I have a different barometer for strange than most people.”
“I sensed
you were hesitant to speak about some things in front of Jessie. Is there more
to the story?”
“No,” I
said quickly.
“Matthew,
in case you haven’t noticed, I am tired. I’m sure you can play games and manage
to obfuscate the truth in my current condition, but is that in the spirit of
the day?”
“That is a
low-down dirty trick.”
She smiled.
“Okay,
there’s nothing more to that story, but there are other . . . stories is the
wrong word.”
“Episodes?”
“No, that’s
not it, either.”
“Instances?”
“Good a
word as any.”
She sighed,
heavily. “Please tell me that you will not be as long in the telling of these
incidents as the last.”
I shook my
head. “I don’t remember all of them, to be honest. And they’re just tiny little
things. That was the first of them, but they kicked into high gear after I
found Jessie one Christmas. After that, for a few days leading up to Christmas,
and usually a day or so after I will do something, and then see this kid.”
“Like what?”
“Just small
things. Participating in a Secret Santa, stopping a thief from making off with
one of the buckets of a bell-ringer, singing carols to some of the elderly from
church. Even telling some kids that Santa’s real and they should write letters.
Sometimes I see the kid out of the corner of my eye. I’m not always sure he’s
there or I’m seeing things.”
“Who is
this child?”
“I don’t
know,” I shrugged.
“Matthew,
you went out of your way to keep me from touching him, and he also dodged
around me. You must know something.”
“I suspect,
but I don’t know anything. I think that’s kind of the point. I know more about
Nick than the kid.”
“It is a
strange thing to know a man who actually knows St. Nicholas.”
“Well, when
I say know, I mean he has at least communicated with me.”
“You have
seen him in-person?”
“Seen, yes.
Talked to, no. He was at the department store a couple of years ago. You
remember? the one with the Russian dad?”
I had never
seen Nikki caught entirely by surprise. Her eyes goggled, and her mouth hung
open in disbelief. “He was there? I stood not fifty feet from him and did not
know it?”
I shrugged.
“It’s not like there’s a radar for supernatural-types.”
“You
misunderstand, Matthew. Around certain churches or even people I will become weak.
I can use that as, as you say, a radar. I should have noticed such as he was
that close by the belief energy surrounding him.”
“Guess you
know what it’s like to be me, now.”
“That’s a
discomfiting feeling.”