A Touch of Mistletoe (12 page)

It waited for Scott to respond. It sighed when nothing happened. Then it waved its hand yet again as if the movement would inspire Scott's brain to turn.

"You're... are you trying to say..." Scott bit his lip and squinted his eyes. "Are you suggesting that you are...?"

"The hidden form inside the item that you unceremoniously tossed in the trash hours prior?" The creature suggested. "Yes."

"Oh," Scott said simply. His forehead relaxed. He smiled. "Then I
am
dreaming. Hallelujah."

The creature snorted. "Wonderful. You're dreaming. Now dream your hand over here and get me out of this falarking mess."

It seemed easier for Scott to reach for the little guy knowing that it wasn't actually something real. He put out one hand, not quite content to drop the bat just yet, and let it use his finger as leverage to climb out and drop to the floor.

"Okay," it said, brushing off bits and pieces, and reseating clothing. "Let's get this done right, shall we? We don't have all night." It bowed deeply. "I am Drualus, Senior Correspondent for the Collective Assembly of Christmas Fae, and I work with the Night Before Outreach Program. Feel free to call me Dru."

Scott snorted. He head bowed. "And I'm Scott Misener, King of Manhattan."

Dru put a tiny hand on a small hip. "Lies. Your name is Scott Misener, yes. But you are a paralegal, currently employed with Drummond and Hammond Law Offices. You were raised in New Jersey, attended school at—"

"Wait." Scott held up a hand, palm out. "Since we've already established that you're a figment of my imagination, I don't need you to list all the details that I already know."

"Fair enough." Dru shrugged. "So this is how this is going to go, Scott." Dru toddled over to fireplace and hoisted himself up on the brick. He sat with his legs dangling and his feet swinging. "I usually work with three other members of the group. But staff is limited this year. I swear to all that is good that we should just start doing these as group get-togethers, you know? Six or twelve people at a time. Not really sure how'd we work out the visions but I guess if you could round up similar stories or something. Who knows?" Once again Dru's shoulders hitched up to his ears. "But I'm not the boss, you know what I'm saying? I just do what I'm told. A-a-anyway." Dru held up his hand, three fingers in the air. "Like I said, I usually have three people helping out here, Past, Present, and—"

"Let me guess," Scott cut in. "Future?"

"So you've heard of them?"

Scott rolled his eyes. "Who hasn't?" He walked over to the cabinet and slipped a bottle off the top shelf. Scotch would be good. He poured three fingers in a glass and stood with his back against the stove, sipping. A trope... he was dreaming in trope. How fucking cliché and awful was that? He lifted his head and spoke to the ceiling. "Shoot me now."

He pushed away from the stove and walked into the living room, staring through the plate glass windows until Dru's footsteps sounded on the tile, then across the carpeting. Dru stopped and frowned up at him. "If we could forgo the wandering from room to room that would be awesome. I, unlike yourself, do not have monster legs."

"Hm," Scott said into his glass. He took a long draw of the liquid, smacked his lips, and breathed. "This won't take long, right? I'd like to get some sleep."

Dru gave him a coy look. "I thought you said you were dreaming."

"Well, this dream is exhausting me."

"Then stop cutting off my explanation and we can get to it. Besides, it's quite important that we're done by seven a.m. Eastern Standard Time, Human Hours."

Scott peered over his glass and sipped again, but remained quiet.

"Very good." Dru nodded. "So as I was saying, I'll be acting solo tonight. Which should help, actually. Transition periods are such a pain in the wazoo." He looked up, way, way up, and motioned at Scott to bend closer. "So you and I have a date with the past, the present, and the future. And we can start whenever you give the thumbs up. I wholly recommend the relocation of myself to your shoulder, however. I hate shouting and I don't want to end up hoarse for the rest of the holiday."

Scott squinted, shook his head, and drank. "You realize you're nothing more than a plastic recreation of a parasitic, hostile plant, yes?"

Dru eyed him right back. "And you realize that you're just a bitter, aging human with no dreams or hopes left, yes?"

The snort that left Scott's nose was loud enough to have been mistaken for a laugh. "Fair enough." He lowered his palm, waited for Dru to climb on to it, and lifted Dru to his shoulder. "Oh, wise conjuring of my restless mind, please teach me, so that I might see the error of my ways." Scott lifted both hands, and stuck his thumbs skyward.

"Good." Dru patted his shoulder with one hand and grabbed the collar of Scott's shirt with the other. "Hold on."

"Hold on for wh—"

Everything shifted: walls, floor, perspective, and Scott slammed both hands against the doorjamb around him, then lurched his body backwards and away from the set of stairs that had appeared a mere inch in front of them. "What in the ever loving
fuck
?"

Panting, Scott turned his head and scowled at Dru, who merely shrugged and asked, "What?"

"Are you trying to kill me?"

Dru reached out, grabbed a strand of Scott's hair and tugged it. Hard. "You lived in this house for fourteen years. One would think you would know your footing."

"I usually have some kind of forewarning that stairs are approaching!" Scott yanked his head in the opposite direction, leaving Dru staring amusedly at a fistful of hair. "Most people aren't dropped at the top without even a heads up!"

Dru rolled his eyes and pointed at the doorway. "If you're done, can we continue? I believe you know the way."

As if on cue, a young voice—almost familiar, somewhat haunting—interrupted Scott and Dru's conversation: "Going out, Ma!"  Footsteps pounded, and a boy wearing a TMNT T-shirt and baggy jeans appeared in the hallway, swiping at his nose with the back of his hand. Him. It was him. Years ago.

Scott grinned at the smaller, brighter image of himself. It was hard to believe he'd ever been that cute. "Daww, lookit me! I remember that shirt—"

"Don't be long," a voice from the house called back.

It was a voice Scott recognized immediately. Everything in his chest turned warm and soft. "Mom..."

"Your grandparents will be here any minute. You know how they get when you aren't here to greet them."

The boy made an elaborate gesture of flailing, and stopped to shout back, "I'll just be right out front! Riley's gonna meet me and show me what he got."

"Don't you take that knife out of this house," the woman's voice got closer. She stepped into the hallway, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. With a flick, the towel went over her shoulder and she pointed. "Your father will tan your hide. Christmas gift or not, excited or no, that stays in the house until you get your badge."

Scott stepped forward, oblivious to the conversation, and reached out. "Mom..."

Dru patted the side of Scott's neck while Scott's lips continued to form words his tongue couldn't quite spit out. "She can't hear you, Scott. Or see you. I thought you said you know how this works?"

"It's just..." Scott paused and swallowed. "Look at her. She looks so... healthy. I mean... I'd almost forgotten what she looked like when she wasn't sick. Stupid, I know." Scott gave a sharp, harsh laugh. "I know she was well a lot longer than she was sick, but I... I don't see this face when I remember her."

"Sometimes the ugly things stick with us harder than the good," Dru said.

Little Scott groaned as his mother caught both his cheeks between her palms and held him still to place a wet smack of a kiss on his forehead. "Promise?"

"Urgh!" Little Scott pulled back. "I promise! Check my pockets if you want! I just want to see what Riley got for Christmas 'cuz we both got company coming and can't go over. And I'll be right there where you can totally see us." He spun and pushed through the door that led out to the garage. Beyond, sunlight spilled through the open overhead door, and for a minute Scott could smell the exact scent of the area: apples in a barrel, diesel fuel, and wood shavings for the guinea pig cage.

Dru kicked Scott's chest as though nudging a horse into motion. "We should be following you."

Scott didn't realize he had his eyes closed until he had to open them. "Fine. But I don't know why we're here." Scott blinked, suddenly surrounded by sunlight and snow. The distant sounds of kids doing whatever the hell kids did echoed through the neighborhood, and in the backyard Scott's long-departed dog Prince advised king and country with a stream of ARUGH-ARUGH-ARUGH of everything single thing that dared to venture in, or past the yard.

He turned with a smile towards the familiar street and the memories, and watched his own self peer around the end of the hedge that marked the boundary between their property and the next. Waiting for Riley—what a long forgotten concept. "My first crush," Scott whispered.

"I know," Dru whispered back.

"I used to think he was so fucking cool..." Scott's speech trailed off as Riley appeared on the sidewalk, several houses down. He knew it was Riley even though he couldn't see facial features yet: baby blue coat, always undone no matter how cold it was; that strut Riley had learned from his older, high-schooler brother; the bounce, bounce, bounce of blond hair that Scott's mother said was only long because Riley's mother couldn't let go of the 70's. For some reason, watching Riley move still made something in Scott's guts clench up.

Little Scott dug into his coat pocket, reaching as if the coat had swallowed his arm and refused to give it back, grimacing as if it was using teeth at the same time, before pulling his hand back with a triumphant, "Gotcha!"

A knotted leather cord, a wire coat hanger—cut by pilfering his father's wire cutters and then painstakingly twisting and twisting and twisting—and a large nugget of pyrite polished until it shone like the gold it wished it was. Scott had known it wasn't the real thing, but he hadn't cared. It didn't have to look valuable to feel valuable. It didn't have to be anything but pretty.

"I believe the word you're looking for is garish." Dru said in Scott's ear.

In front of them young Scott took to his heels and ran for the advancing Riley. The two boys met with wide smiles and awkward stances. Young Scott handed over his gift and accepted one back—a cross, whittled with a pocket knife similar to the one he'd just been given for Christmas.

Scott smiled at the trinket. He'd carried that cross for years. Somewhere along the way it had disappeared, though Scott wasn't quite sure where. He'd misplaced it. Or tossed it. Or given it away. At some point it had lost its importance. Odd, really, because Scott could remember, as clear as the sky above them, how thrilled he'd been with it when Riley had given it to him. He'd learned every scratch and knick the cross had come with, and could recite the circumstances behind every new one that got added to its surface over time. For years it had been Scott's good luck charm. A stick whittled to white wood, smoothed as best as could be managed by ten-year-old fingers, and shaped into a religious icon that at that point in his life had meant very little to him. Kids could be so damn stupid about things, especially worthless gifts.

"It was never about the gift," Dru said. "It was the thought that inspired it, and the act that created it."

It was college
... Scott closed his eyes and tried to swallow the thought away.
That's when you stopped carrying it.

Because Riley had moved on. There'd been an artist with a Porsche and a come-fuck-me smile. He'd been twenty years Riley's senior and had a taste for fresh blood. They'd met at a gallery where Riley had been entranced by the drama, empowered by the artist's entourage, and encouraged with teases of a lifestyle neither of them had ever dreamed they would know.

Scott hardened his jaw line and opened his eyes. "That's a load of crap, Dru. You go around handing out fool's gold, eventually somebody's going to come along with the real thing. And that's the guy that's going to walk away with the prize."

The street began to waver and the horizon began to darken. Dru once again caught the neckline of Scott's shirt, and shook his head. "No, Scott. He who can be won over by gold in lieu of connection and fellowship is no prize."

Carpet sprouted under Scott's feet and for a minute he thought he was back in his own apartment. He frowned around the space, at Dru, at the space again, and finally said "I definitely don't recall this from anywhere in my past."

"Nope," Dru stood, tiny heels digging into shoulder muscles, causing Scott to growl and swat, and leapt from Scott's shoulder on to an over-stuffed couch. "We can't dwell too long in the past, right? Done is done. Let's see what's going on in life right now." He stood, trying to balance on the soft surface, and flourished with both arms. "Welcome back to the present, Scott."

Another jump and Dru was on the coffee table and dragging a cookie to the edge of the plate on which it rested. He sat down, took a grip of the cookie with both hands, and opened his mouth wide.

"Uh, Dru?" Scott frowned. "We don't actually exist, remember?"

A leafy eyebrow rose on Dru's face. "It's the present. Of course we exist. Where else
would
we exist?" Dru crunched into the cookie and groaned his pleasure.

"So..." Scott's eyes darted around the room. "We can be seen?"

"Umm, no." Dru said, as if it were the most ridiculous concept he'd ever heard, then returned his attention to his munching.

Scott put a hand on his hip and pursed his lips. "So, say someone walks in right this second. They see, what? A hovering cookie slowly disappearing?"

Dru rolled his eyes. "Well, that would just be reckless on my part, now wouldn't it? Of course not."

"So, let me get this straight." Scott crossed his arms. "We exist, but we don't."

"Correct."

"How in the fuck is that even possible?"

Dru looked up and clucked his tongue. "Magic. Do try and keep up with the program, okay? Oh!" Dru's face brightened. "The show's about to start."