“Well, y’know what happened after that.” She shook her head. “Jesse, not a day goes by that I don’t regret leaving my child. Not a day.”
Jesse let out a long, heartfelt sigh. So he wasn’t the only one hurting, no big surprise there. He wished he had something profound and uplifting to say, something to make her feel better, to make himself feel better. But sometimes there seemed to be so much bad in the world it was hard to see much of anything else. He set his hand on her shoulder, squeezed, and that was about the best he could do.
Lacy was now sticking bows all over Freki’s fur. The giant wolf just lay there, looking at them as though pleading for help.
“Maybe Krampus will let us go soon,” Jesse said with little conviction.
“Maybe.” Isabel walked over to Lacy, picked her up, spun her around, and hugged her. Lacy giggled and hugged her back. Isabel beamed.
Jesse thought Isabel would make a wonderful mother, started to say so when he caught movement outside.
Three figures trudged through the light snow, followed by a lumbering wolf. Krampus and the two remaining Shawnee walked with their heads down as though from the weather, but Jesse knew better.
KRAMPUS AND THE Shawnee marched up the steps and into the church, tracking slush and mud across the floor. Krampus made his way to the wood stove and sat down heavily upon a cardboard box. Freki limped over and lay down next to him. Krampus began absently stroking the big wolf’s mane.
Jesse hesitated. Krampus looked weary, beaten down . . . sad. Jesse knew it wasn’t a good time to bring up Dillard. But when was it ever? Maybe he owed Krampus something, and maybe he didn’t; regardless, he still had to find a way to take care of Dillard. And the longer he waited, the greater chance that Dillard might harm Linda or Abigail.
Jesse swallowed, walked over, and took a seat next to the Yule Lord. “I’m sorry about Makwa. Sorry for your loss.”
Krampus didn’t answer, didn’t even look up, just stared at the fire.
Jesse’s mouth felt dry, he wet his lips, cleared his throat. “I need to go and take care of Dillard.”
“I know.”
Jesse waited for more, but Krampus just kept watching the flame.
“I can take care of things on my own, y’know. Just need you to let me go. Won’t interfere with your goings-on at all. I’ll even swear to come back once I’m done.”
Krampus clasped his hands together, let out a long sigh. “What do you believe in, Jesse?”
“Huh?”
Krampus looked at him, peered deep into his eyes. “What do you believe in?”
Jesse shrugged. “I dunno.”
“There’s nothing you believe in?”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“You have to believe in something. Your muse . . . your music perhaps?”
“No,” Jesse said bitterly. “I’ve given up on that.”
“God?”
“God? Well . . . hell, maybe. Sometimes I do, anyway. Y’know, when I’m scared or want something really bad.”
“You are a religious man? A Christian?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. I’m certainly a God-fearing man.”
“There are other things besides gods in which to put one’s faith. Earthly things.”
“I suppose.”
“Do you believe that the shadows are full of dark spirits waiting to prey on the unguarded?”
“What? No.” Jesse laughed, then caught the sullen look on Krampus’s face. “Well, okay . . . sometimes when I’m alone at night I can get pretty creeped out if that’s what you mean.”
Krampus didn’t laugh, or smile; his gaze returned to the flame. “I am fearful most men of this age are like you. They have forgotten what it is to huddle in a hut with the beasts and demons howling outside their door. They no longer have want of a great and terrible spirit to protect them. They have lost their fear of the wild and with it their need to believe. And I cannot blame them, for they now have the power to chase away the shadows with a mere flick of a switch. So I must ask myself, what role can I play in a world where men worship the moving-picture box, where they make and consume potions that eat away their own brains, where they ravage and pillage entire mountains, kill the very earth itself?
“Mankind has lost its connection to the land, to the earth, to the beasts and spirits. They gather their food not from the forest and fields, but from plastic bins and ice boxes. Their lives are no longer tied to the cycles of the seasons and the harvest, no longer do they need the Yule Lord to chase away the winter darkness and usher in the light of spring. Man has only himself to fear now . . . he has become his own worst devil.”
Krampus picked up one of the branches that the Shawnee had gathered, snapped it into manageable lengths, and shoved them into the potbellied stove. “While sitting in that cave, I read the newspapers, read of such changes, but could not grasp their true meaning . . . their true effect. Not until I witnessed it with my own eyes.
“I fear Baldr might have spoken truth; that the world has indeed moved on, that there is no longer a place here for me. I now see how he sank so low. Baldr foresaw all this, tried to warn me. He gave them what they wanted, a pretty lie, and they believed, because a pretty lie is easier to believe than an ugly truth.”
Krampus scratched at his shoulder, digging at the scabbing wounds with his long fingernails. He grimaced, pulled out a piece of buckshot, rolled the bloody pellet between his fingers. “How will I make a people who do not understand the power of belief believe? And without their belief Mother Earth will wither and Yuletide will fade . . . and so, too, will I . . . like all the spirits and gods before me.”
NIGHT FELL UPON the little church, the spreading gloom matching the spirit in the room, and still Krampus sat staring into the flame, a bottle of mead in his hand, the sack at his feet. The Belsnickels kept their distance and even the wolves avoided him.
Jesse sat cross-legged upon the floor in front of a game of Chinese checkers. Lacy had discovered a box of old games and had managed to recruit Jesse and Vernon to play with her and Isabel.
“Go,” Lacy said and prodded Jesse.
“What?”
“It’s your turn . . . still,” Vernon put in. “Perhaps if you kept your mind on the game, we wouldn’t have to keep reminding you.”
“Oh, sorry,” Jesse said absently, and moved the first marble his hand came to.
“Ha!” Isabel said, a triumphant grin spreading across her face as she used Jesse’s move to advance her marble all the way across the board.
“That was brilliant, Jesse,” Vernon said. “I cannot even find the words.”
Jesse nodded, hardly hearing him, maintaining his vigil over the Yule Lord, hoping Krampus would come around so they could finally get the show on the road. But over the last several hours, Krampus hadn’t done much more than mutter to himself. And sitting there like that was certainly not getting Jesse any closer to Abigail. Jesse wanted to go over and shout at the beast, prod him, poke him, do something to get Krampus moving, anything besides sitting on the floor and playing checkers.
“Watched pot won’t boil,” Isabel said.
“This ain’t working for me,” Jesse growled, shaking his head. “Sure as shit it ain’t.”
“Get used to it,” Vernon said. “He’s in one of his black moods. Back in the cave he’d get that way and stay like that for weeks, months sometimes. Just curl up into a ball, not moving, hardly even breathing, as though he were dead. Only we were never so lucky as that.”
“Weeks?”
“Yes, certainly. Or he’d work himself into a foul temper and there’d be no talking to him.”
“Abigail doesn’t have weeks,” Jesse said and started to his feet. Isabel grabbed his shoulder. “Can’t keep pushing him, Jesse. You’re gonna go too far, and more likely than not just gonna make matters worse.” Jesse pulled away, stood. “Worse for who? Not for Abigail?” He marched over to Krampus and stared at the Yule Lord. Krampus did nothing to acknowledge him.