Диана Дуэйн - How Lovely Are Thy Branches

“Santa Claus,” Tom said to Carl with great seriousness, “is one of the Powers that Be.”

Carl looked at him thoughtfully. “Did you get the bottom of the eggnog?”

Tom looked askance at him, and then started laughing again. Most of the people in the room looked confused. And Carl sat on the arm of the sofa and told the story of how once upon a time Tom’s father got The Bottom of the Eggnog—where all the nutmeg winds up if you forget to shake the jug—and then (due to nutmeg’s psychoactive qualities) had to go to the ER due to what Tom described as Accidentally Seeing God. Shortly half the room was helpless with laughter. Tom, meanwhile, seeing that Marina had indeed just brought out the first of the eggnog jugs, got up and went over to it and shook it in the most ostentatious way possible before pouring Carl a glass.

Filif was watching and listening to all this in fascination. Nita leaned over to him. “I think this is some of what Christmas is about,” she said. “Tradition. The stories that come out this time of year.”

“Old interactions,” Filif said, “that can be depended on. Reinforcements of the cyclical nature of, well, Nature. Tales and reminiscences and old jokes…”

“There’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories / of Christmases long long ago…” Ronan sang.

“We need him tomorrow night,” said Kit’s mama through the passthrough. “He sings on key, and he plainly has something better than a bucket to carry a tune in. Whoever’s bucket it is. You are not going anywhere tomorrow, you hear me?”

Ronan just grinned.

“Look,” Dairine said, “let’s go downstairs and leave the oldsters to their own devices—”

“Do I detect the sleepover beginning?” Kit’s pop said.

Carmela rose up in great dignity and grabbed Filif by one frond. “Might as well,” she said. “We’ll leave you to talk grownup talk… we know you’ve been dying to get us out of here.”

There was less disagreement with this than Nita would have expected, and more good-natured laughter. “Anything you people want to take downstairs with you?“

“Make another pot of the hot chocolate?”

“Way ahead of you, Leprechaun. It’s right there on the stove staring at you.”

The younger participants mouthed Leprechaun?! at one another.

“And there’s some ice cream, too. That double chocolate Kit likes. Nita, maybe you want to grab that, and the bowls and spoons…” Kit’s mama glanced at her watch. “No point in telling you to get some sleep sometime tonight because we know you won’t,” Kit’s mama said. “And for once I don’t care. If things get noisy, just do whatever you have to to keep it under control, all right?”

There was a general chorus of “Okay” and “G’night” and “Thanks, Mrs. Rodriguez” as the group making for the puptents headed down the stairs. But as she followed Dairine and Carmela and Ronan and Filif and Matt and Marcus and Sker’ret toward the stairs, Nita looked over her shoulder and saw Kit’s mama stop him as he picked up the pot of cocoa.

“Sweetie, I keep meaning to ask you…”

“What, Mama?”

“All this stuff Legs has brought us is really lovely…”

“Yeah, it is!”

“And you should thank him again. But one question.”

“Yeah?”

She lowered her voice. “I was kind of nervous. I didn’t know if it was a religious thing…”

“What?”

“Why is so much of this food blue?”

***

Nita hung back a little to help Kit with the cocoa if he needed it. “Is she okay?” she said. “They don’t think we’re ditching them?”

“They’re fine,” Kit said. “They look about ready to start Adult Talk. Best time for us to get out, yeah?”

Nita nodded as they got to the bottom of the stairs. Kit’s basement looked much like hers, except tidier: it wasn’t the catch-all area that her family’s basement had turned into over time. Over against the back wall were several wide vertical dark patches that marked inactive portals, but one, the central one, glowed golden with activity and light from its far side. They stepped through.

Nita looked around and breathed out, nodding. Dairine’s description of Roshaun’s puptent space from his previous visit as “overdone” was at best an inadequate summation of a tall bright space full of gilding, of rich carpets and hangings and ornately carven furniture. Instead of the usual bright light pouring in from the hot bright sun of Wellakh, though, the windows were dark, and lamps standing on tall pedestals around the edges of the room were lit, casting a subdued light over everything, catching the glint of a gem here, the sheen of a carving there. And in the middle of it all, in front of a trio of big sofas arranged in a U-shape, and heaps of big pillows and cushions, was a twin of the entertainment center upstairs.

Kit paused and stared. “Uh… Dair, I think they might complain about us just moving this down here…”

Dairine was already flopped down among the pillows. “Kit,” she said, scornful but only gently so. “The very first thing I did when I got to be a wizard was duplicate a computer. You think cloning the entertainment system is a problem? Especially with hardware support.” She stroked Spot’s case: he arched his “back” against the gesture. “All I had to do was make sure the remotes have different ID chips in them so they won’t wind up countermanding each other.”

“In other words,” Carmela said, “now we can have… a movie marathon!!”

This suggestion was met with general agreement, as the possibility had first started being mentioned about the same time the invitations went out. “After all that food,” Kit said, “I wouldn’t mind stretching out for a while…”

“And after all that excitement,” Filif said, from where he’d settled behind the centermost sofa, “a little relaxation will be welcome.”

“Anybody wants to change into night stuff,” Dairine said, “there are changing rooms through that arch there…”

“And then Ice cream!” Carmela said, while Dairine grabbed the remote and brought up the same TV guide they’d been looking at earlier. Ten minutes or so went by while everybody changed into sweats or pajamas or other comfortable latenight wear, though Marcus elected to stay in his fatigues.

Filif had been reading the onscreen TV guide while the others had been putting themselves together “’A Christmas Carol,’” Filif said when everybody had made themselves comfortable. “Kit, your mama said that there would be caroling tomorrow… is this something to do with that?”

Kit shook his head. “Not really. Or not directly. It’s about a guy who loses the meaning of Christmas…”

“Fil should see that!” Nita said.

“Yeah, but which one?”

Filif rustled in surprise. “There’s more than one version of this story?”

“It’s like the bigger Christmas story that way,” Ronan said. “A lot of variation, a lot of different ways to look at it…”

Nita looked over at Dairine. “Line a few of them up?”

She picked up the remote. “Sure. But I want popcorn!”

“I’ll get that,” Nita said, knowing where Kit kept the stuff that he microwaved. But she’d barely stood up when she was distracted by some one appearing out of nowhere…in a red “tuxedo” pajama top and green pants.

“Darryl!” Nita and Kit said in unison, as the new arrival plunged around the room hugging everyone in sight, and briefly nearly losing himself in Filif’s lower branches.

“My God,” Ronan said. “How’ve your folks let you out this late?”

Darryl shrugged. “They think I’m home in bed.” He smiled. “I am home in bed.”

“Not dressed like that, I hope!”