Krampus: The Three Sisters (The Krampus Chronicles Book 1) (4 page)

Bright paper crowns adorned the heads around the dining room as tiny trinkets were whistled and twirled. Even Grandfather Clement at the head of the table sat rosy-cheeked in a green crown. Maggie could have sworn she caught the ends of his mouth twitching into a smile.

But it was merely for a moment.

The merriment continued as the family gathered in the Great Room of Chelsea Manor. Maggie took a seat near the Christmas tree while presents were passed out. Soon piles of wrapping paper were scattered around the sparkling evergreen. But Maggie quickly became distracted from the happenings of the room.

Henry.

Maggie thought she saw the face of the Poughkeepsie man peering through the window near the fireplace. But when she looked again, nothing but a few feathery snowflakes floated in the night.

Maggie shook her head. It wasn’t the first time that had happened. While attending Christmas service earlier that evening just down the road at Saint Peter’s Church, Maggie swore she had spotted Henry.

During the final stanza of
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
, Aunt Maria had been belting to the heavens. Louis–Aunt Maria’s own son–once compared his mother’s voice to a dying crow with a cold. And if Catharine or Clemmie weren’t nearby to deliver elbow jabs to Maggie’s ribcage, she would be sent into a fit of giggles.

Trying especially hard to hide her laughter on Christmas Eve, Maggie spun around in the pew, and that’s when she saw the familiar bronze-haired man standing in the mezzanine, looking down at her with his bright blue eyes. Her knees had nearly buckled at the sight. But then the mezzanine crowd shifted and Maggie lost him.

Before Maggie could continue to ponder these visions of Henry, something unexpected pushed her thoughts away.

“Dear family,” Grandfather Clement declared, standing next to the fireplace with one hand gripping the mantel and the other holding a small book. “If you would be such a willing audience, I would like to share with you a Christmas poem.”

The entire Moore family looked at Grandfather Clement with surprise. They could not believe that after all these years Grandfather Clement would finally read his most beloved poem.

“
Old Santeclaus
,” Grandfather Clement announced.

Maggie sensed the disappointment sweep across the room. The poem
Old Santeclaus
was written years before ‘
Twas the Night Before Christmas
, but came nowhere close to the latter’s popularity―and for good reason.

Although the poem started on a light-hearted note…

Old Santeclaus with much delight

His reindeer drives this frosty night,

O’er chimney-tops, and tracks of snow,

To bring his yearly gifts to you.

It eventually took a grim turn.

But where I found the children naughty,

In manners rude, in temper haughty,

Thankless to parents, liars, swearers,

Boxers, or cheats, or base tale-bearers,

I left a long, black, birchen rod,

Such as the dread command of God

Directs a Parent’s hand to use

When virtue’s path his sons refuse.

The Great Room was silent as Grandfather Clement came to the end of the poem. But after a few long seconds ticked by, Aunt Emily finally spoke, “Oh, Father, that was lovely!” She clapped her hands together with feigned enthusiasm. “How I do enjoy that poem. Perhaps you could continue the reading by giving us a bit of
‘Twas the Night Before Christmas
.”

The request was made by varying family members every Christmas Eve. And each year, Grandfather Clement gave the same pithy response.

The poem was a trifle.

That’s what Grandfather Clement would say. “No, it’s nothing but a trifle.”

“Then why did you write it?” Francis’ deep voice grumbled.

Francis was sitting in front of the Christmas tree, one knee perched up for his chin to rest on while his middle finger and thumb flicked a round, red ornament hanging on a low bough. His white sleeves were rolled up to the elbows as his shiny vest stood unbuttoned. A general look of boredom washed over his face and he let out a wobbly yawn.

Francis was sixteen―just two years older than Maggie. But she liked him the least of all the cousins. And Maggie had quite a few―Louis, Francis, and the twins, Gardiner and Gertrude. Catharine and Clemmie were also not to be forgotten, since in addition to being her siblings, they were Maggie’s cousins as well.

But that was a different matter.

Maggie did not care for Francis. He always walked around with his chest puffed out, resembling an angry rooster. Even his wavy auburn hair sat upon his head like a bird’s comb. And when smiling, his thin-lipped mouth drew pointy like a beak. Maggie was just waiting for the day Francis would start sprouting feathers.

But, nevertheless, Maggie had found his question to Grandfather Clement quite bold. The seven grandchildren did not usually speak to Clement Clarke Moore. So Maggie was glad Francis had said something about the poem. She had also wanted to know why Grandfather Clement would write a trifle.

And more importantly, Maggie wanted to know what exactly was a trifle. It sounded like a mushroom. But Maggie could not fathom why Grandfather Clement would call his poem a mushroom. Mushrooms were ugly and tasted grimy. Not to mention, some were said to be poisonous.

So perhaps, Maggie thought, Grandfather Clement hated his poem as much as she hated mushrooms.

“Never you mind,” responded Grandfather Clement before whipping off his paper crown and tossing it to the floor.

The Christmas tradition of asking Grandfather Clement to read his most famous poem had once again ended, and with the same unhappy results as the prior years.

Clemmie and Louis returned to their chess game being played in front of the fire while Gardiner and Gertrude unsuccessfully spun new tops on the rug in the middle of the room. Catharine eventually took the twins over to a corner where they could attempt the toys on the hardwood.

Being the eldest grandchild, Catharine was the best with the younger ones. She was also the prettiest, having long brown hair that always glistened like a burnished banister. Her plump lips would expand into a wide yet knowing smile. And her deep green eyes were shinier than the holiday garland draped over the fireplace mantel.

Maggie had similarly dark hair, but with a thinner mouth, longer limbs and dirt brown eyes. And even though Catharine was eighteen, Maggie still found it unfair that her sister was already so much smarter, kinder, and more endearing in every way. It seemed impossible to catch up. And as Maggie stared across the room at Catharine, she became convinced that Henry would have fallen in love with her older sister if given the opportunity.

Christmas Eve dinner had long ago been eaten, but the lingering smells of turkey, roasted vegetables, and plum pudding occasionally wafted through the cracks of the doors as the fire noisily danced in the fireplace on the south end of the room. Although Chelsea Manor stood alone on the hill, a few scattered lights from the General Theological Seminary across the road dotted the darkness.

“Father, could you please read ‘
Twas the Night Before Christmas
this once?” Aunt Emily asked from where she sat in a chair behind Francis. Her voice was cheery, but Maggie noted how tensely her aunt stirred her tea. “It would be such a wonderful treat.”

Grandfather Clement and Grandmother Catharine had brought into the world six glorious children: Margaret, Benjamin, Mary, Clement Francis, William, and Emily.

Margaret and Clement Francis had been the most physically blessed of the Moore children, while Benjamin and Maggie’s mother, Mary, were the cleverest. William, on the other hand, got the short end of the stick with everything from looks to intellect.

But Emily was the most unfortunate of them all. For she was right in the middle, not too attractive but not too ugly to pity, not too smart but bright enough to realize she wasn’t particularly clever. She fell terribly halfway in every category. It also didn’t help that Emily was unmarried and childless. And therefore, in the eyes of her father, she served no real purpose.

Furthermore, Grandfather Clement only ever cared for three women: his mother, his wife, and his eldest daughter, Margaret. And all three were now dead.

“It is beneath my dignity to regale you all with such a silly little bit of writing.”

Grandfather Clement’s pale, bony hands were folded over his chest as he leaned back in the armchair next to the fireplace. The professor often looked like he was posing to have a portrait painted―unexpressive with a smidge of stodginess. Even in his younger days he had appeared somber with eyes always a tad beadier and a mouth bent a bit more downward than those around him. Against the hopes of everyone else, Grandfather Clement had refused to soften with age, and now at seventy-five years old, he was as hard as ever.

Uncle Clement Francis, or Uncle CF as he was commonly called, disrupted the silence with a tap from his brass-handled cane. “But Father, it’s Christmas Eve. What better time to read
‘Twas the Night Before Christmas
!”

Like Aunt Emily, Uncle CF was unmarried. But this was not met with the same kind of disapproval. Uncle CF was the most handsome of the Moore sons―smooth skin, high and defined cheekbones covered in long sideburns that matched his wavy golden hair tinted with red hues. It was said that Uncle CF was biding his time and savoring life before marriage. But Maggie believed her rather self-involved uncle just didn’t want to get rid of any cherished belongings to make room in his cramped home for a family.

“What do you say?” Uncle CF asked, tapping his cane once more out of habit. “Would you give us a reading, Father?”

The eyes in the room returned to Grandfather Clement. His hands had moved to the armrests and were now gripping them tightly, causing the knuckles to grow whiter and whiter. The orange light from the fire reflected off his square forehead, and as Maggie watched transfixed, her grandfather’s ghostly strands of hair appeared to be drowning in a sea of flames.

Grandfather Clement’s brooding was not unusual. Maggie could never actually recall seeing her grandfather fully smile. His wrinkled mouth probably couldn’t hold such an expression anymore. And as Maggie stared at Grandfather Clement from across the room, the ornate patterns in the rosewood of the armchair seemed less rigid than the scholar’s face.

The family anxiously awaited Grandfather Clement’s response, but before the request could be repeated, he finally stood up. His legs shook unsteadily at first, but after regaining his footing, he stated strongly, “So now, my good family, I have been long awake.”

Grandfather Clement hobbled over to the far end of the room. Without another word uttered, he exited through the gentlemen’s parlor door.

Now this caused quite a stir within the Great Room. Not only had Grandfather Clement suddenly left the company of his beloved family, but on Christmas Eve of all nights. A cadence of murmurs trickled through the room, and after the initial shock settled down, the family instantly turned on each other.

Someone had to be blamed for chasing away Grandfather Clement.

“You just couldn’t leave him alone, Emily,” snapped Uncle William, pointing a finger at his younger sister and then shakily reciting, “Let the woman learn silence… no suffering nor usurping man… but to be silent in transgression.”

Maggie caught Louis’ eye as they both sucked in their lips to conceal their smirks.

Uncle William was a squat man with a small mouth and twitchy nose as well as other mousy features. Tawny hair curled around his ears while his face was patterned in pockmarks. Uncle William had a tendency to use extravagant hand gestures in order to make his short stature appear a bit larger.

“Why did you have to continually pester him about that―that
poem
?” Uncle William continued, extending his arm toward the parlor door while the other reached up to the ceiling, as though beckoning to the heavens for answers.

Aunt Emily may have been the youngest and plainest of Grandfather Clement’s children, but she certainly wasn’t the weakling. Stiffening her back, she pursed her lips together until they nearly disappeared into her mouth. Her gray eyes narrowed on her older brother.

“My dear, William, you must not speak to me that way,” Aunt Emily replied in an overly sweet tone. “It was sadly CF who had angered him.”

Now it was Uncle CF’s turn to get huffy. He straightened up from where he had been leaning against the wall.

“How was I to know it would upset him? It’s just a poem.” He tapped his cane on the floor and gripped the collar of his polished red jacket in a dignified manner.

“A poem he hates,” pointed out Aunt Lucretia.

Uncle William’s wife was a short, pudgy woman with ears that stuck out. These ears were passed down to the twins who had also received their father’s mousiness. The odd combination on a pair of children was actually quite adorable, but Maggie wondered how peculiar Gardiner and Gertrude might look when older.

“Someone should go to him,” Maggie’s mother said. She looked over to her husband who was standing behind the sofa a few feet away, deliberately avoiding the conversation. “John, could you go check on Father?”

Dr. John Ogden appeared uneasy at his wife’s request. His fair skin flushed while his eyes darted back and forth. The doctor’s black hair was streaked in gray, making him the most dashing man in the room if he didn’t look so uncomfortable being there.

Maggie’s father was a strange case within the Moore household, since he had twice married into the family. His first wife was Margaret, the eldest and favorite child of Grandfather Clement. Dr. Ogden and Margaret had had Catharine and Clemmie. But tragically, Margaret died shortly after Clemmie’s birth some seventeen years ago.

Dr. Ogden waited a year before getting married to Margaret’s sister, Mary, and eventually having their daughter, Margaret Van Cortland Ogden.

Or known as Maggie.

So that was why Catharine and Clemmie were in fact Maggie’s cousins as well as her siblings. But even though Dr. Ogden had twice married into the Moore family and gave Grandfather Clement three lovely grandchildren, the good doctor always seemed to feel that his situation made him more of an outsider than a true family member.