Sherby shouted, “You can make them go away! Make them all go away!” but the fat butler had already disappeared into the crowd.
As Sherby spoke, there was a stir on the other side of the big room. Knecht Rupprecht, who was tall enough to see over the heads of most of those present, announced, “Id ist der mama und der poppa, Sherpy. So priddy she ist lookin’!” He began to applaud, and everyone present except Sherby and Smoky joined in. Under the storm of sound, Sherby heard the snick, snick, snick of a hundred bolts shot home. A moment later the moonlit valley of the Whitewater slowly disappeared, blotted out by the descent of the picture window’s security shutter.
A thin and reedy voice at his ear said, “A very merry Christmas to you, my son! You wished to speak with me?”
Sherby turned; it was the little man in sandals.
“I’m Father Eddi, my son. Are you Master Sherbourne? That big fellow in the striped waistcoat said you wished to speak with me, and I’ll be glad to help if I can.” When he saw Sherby’s expression, Father Eddi’s own face grew troubled. “You certainly look unhappy enough.”
Sherby gulped, knowing that his mother and father, dead, were talking and laughing with their guests. “I—I sort of hoped some other kids would come.”
“Some have,” Father Eddi assured him. “Tiny Tim’s over there with Mr. and Mrs. Cratchit, and Greg—the doctor’s son, you know, who helped to make the pasteboard star—is about somewhere, and Louisa, the girl who felt sorry for the Little Guest.” Father Eddi paused expectantly; when Sherby said nothing, he added, “I can introduce you to them, if you like.”
“A man . . .” Sherby had forgotten the tall saint’s name already. “A man said you were talking to some other kid. I thought that if I could find you, I could find him.”
“So you can!” Father Eddi’s smile was radiant. “Follow me. He’s behind the tree at this very moment, I believe.” He started away, then stopped so abruptly that Sherby and Smoky ran into him, burying their faces in his insubstantial, brown-clad back. “He’s behind the tree, just as I told you. Every Christmas, he’s behind the tree. Before it too, of course.”
Christmas Rose called, “Good-bye, Sherby! Good luck!”
It was a most magnificent tree, as yellow and shiny as real gold, alive with lights and hung with ornaments that were like little toys, although Sherby was forbidden to play with them. Santa Clauses rode sleighs and airplanes and even spaceships, stepped into redbrick chimneys, swung gaily from the clappers of bells, and carried tiny trees of their own, mostly green. There were jumping jacks and jack-in-the-boxes, rag dolls and snowmen and tiny boys with drums, and lovely silver deer that might have been of almost any kind except reindeer. It smelled marvelous too; Sherby inhaled deeply.
A dark-eyed, rather swarthy boy with curling black hair stepped out from behind the tree. “Hello, Sherby,” he said. “Were you looking for me?”
Sherby nodded. “You know my name.”
“I was at your christening.” The swarthy boy held out his hand. “I’m Yeshua bar-Yoseph. Welcome to my birthday party.”
“This is my House.” Sherby wiped his nose on his sleeve.
“I know,” Yeshua said. “Thanks for letting us celebrate it here, Sherby.”
Behind him, his mother exclaimed, “Oh, you’ve found the Baby Jesus!” She knelt next to Sherby, lifting the skirt of her beautiful gown so as not to kneel on it, and reached for the little blond ceramic doll in the miniature manger under the tree. Sherby knew she wanted to pick it up but couldn’t because she was a holo and it was real.
“Never mind her,” he told Yeshua.
“Oh, it’s all right.” Yeshua grinned, his teeth flashing in his dark face.
“Did you get real nice presents?” Sherby wanted to ask a favor, but he felt that it might be a good idea to talk a little more first and make friends.
“Lots. I haven’t opened all of them yet.”
Sherby nodded; he knew how that was. “What did you like the best?”
“My favorite present?”
Sherby nodded again.
“I’ll tell you what mine was if you’ll promise to tell me what yours was, after.”
“Okay,” Sherby said.
“Mine was what I said—you and your mother and father giving me this party,” Yeshua told him. “It’s really great, something I’ll never forget. Now what was yours?”
Sherby patted the little horse’s nose. “He is. I call him Smoky. I got a Distracto, and a copter that really flies and you can steer around, and a bunch of other stuff. But I like Smoky the best.” He took a deep breath. “Will you do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“I want to go downstairs and open the big locker and . . . and—”
“Just look at them for a while,” Yeshua supplemented.
“Uh-huh. An’ I want you to come. I know you can’t help work the door or anything, but I’d like you to come anyway. Okay?”
From no place and everyplace, all over the room, House said, “This is most unwise, Sherby.”
Sherby ignored him. “Will you?”
Yeshua nodded, and Father Eddi said, “I’ll go with you too, Sherby, if you don’t mind.”
Remembering the tall man with the tall hat, Sherby said, “That’s good. Come on,” and turned and hurried away, walking right through several people who failed to notice him and get out of his way, the little horse trotting after him, his hoofs loud upon the carpeted floor.
A wide door in the kitchen opened upon a flight of wooden steps. It was hard to persuade Smoky to go down them, but Sherby led to the best of his ability, saying, “Erchou!” half a dozen times, and praising Smoky each time he put a hoof onto a lower step. “Where’s Yeshua?” he asked Father Eddi.
“Here with us.” Father Eddi had been walking up and down the steps energetically to show Smoky how easily it could be done, and was rather out of breath.
“I don’t see him.”
“What you saw—the hologram—isn’t here,” Father Eddi explained.
“I’d like to see him.”
“You don’t think much of them.” Father Eddi sat down on a step to wipe his forehead with the ragged hem of his brown habit. “So House did away with it. He’s here just the same.”
“Well, I’d like to see.”
“Then you shouldn’t have walked through the holograms upstairs, and should’ve wished your mother Merry Christmas.”
“Are you a Christmas person? Like Knecht Rupprecht and Christmas Rose?” Sherby turned around to look back at Father Eddi, which surprised Smoky so much that he went down another step without urging.
“I certainly am.”
“What makes you one?”
“One Christmas, I said a mass nobody came to except a donkey and an ox.”
“Is that all?”
“I’m afraid it is.” Father Eddi looked crestfallen. “I didn’t put myself forward to House as a Christmas person, you understand, my son. But donkeys have been my friends ever since that night, so when you said that Ali Baba could bring in Kawi I came too, remembering my midnight service for the Saxons and hoping that I might be of some use here.
“No doubt he forgot me and my service long ago, but I haven’t forgotten him, my son—no more than you’ve forgotten your father and mother in the frozen-food locker down here. How did you get their bodies down these steps, anyway? You can’t have carried them yourself.”
“Mariah and Jeremy were here then. House had them do it. Erchou!” This last was for Smoky, who (gaining confidence as he neared the cellar floor) actually went down four more steps without further urging before he halted again.