The instant camera she held had been in her stocking three years ago. She suspected he was taunting her.
A sudden clatter up on the roof brought a pleased smile—earlier in the day, she’d cleared away the snow that might muffle the first sounds of her quarry’s arrival.
A bit of soot fell from the chimney onto the hearth.
Show time.
Then something slammed against her shields and exploded into a rainbow of metaphysical light.
Blinded by the brilliant yellows and reds and greens, Diana stood, tipped a lamp over with her shoulder, caught it before it hit the floor, and stumbled out from behind the love seat. She could hear nothing over the thrumming of frustrated possibilities but when one hand brushed for an instant against fur trim, she took three quick pictures with the other.
Then the moment passed, and she could both see and hear.
The milk glass was empty, the cookies were gone. The stockings bulged.
Austin was lying on the hearth, a brand new calico square stuffed with catnip under one front paw. “Aren’t you getting a little old for this?” he sniffed.
“Isn’t he?” Blinking away the last of the afterimages, Diana dropped onto the sofa with a frustrated groan. “He’s never done that before.” Bending forward, she scooped the developing evidence up off the rug. “At least I…”
A familiar black-and-white face stared up at her from all three photographs.
Leaping up beside her, Austin nodded toward the middle picture. “Could I get a copy of this? You’ve caught my best side.”
It was the self-satisfied “Ho Ho Ho” drifting down the chimney that really hurt.
Head pillowed on Dean’s chest, Claire half woke to a sudden metaphysical prod. Still wrapped in a warm cocoon of exhaustion and fulfillment, slightly smug from having lived up to the expectations of all parties involved, she shunted it off into the barricade she’d set up years before when Diana had decided privacy was a relative term and then went back to sleep.
Every year, at the moment Christmas Eve became Christmas Day, a miracle was said to occur—animals were given a chance to speak.
In a cream-colored bungalow just outside Sandusky, Ohio, a small gray tabby with a white tip on her tail woke, stretched, and walked up the length of the body under the covers until she could poke a paw into a half-opened mouth.
Midnight. And the miracle.
“Hey. Wake up and feed me.”
Father Nicholas Harris stood in the open doorway of St. Patrick’s, shaking hands and wishing his parishioners would just go home. He loved celebrating the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve—it was one of the few masses in the year where the verb celebrate actually seemed to apply—but he’d been up early after a late night, and he was so tired he actually thought he’d seen the silhouettes of flying reindeer and a heavily laden sleigh cross the high arc of the window over the door during the second soloist’s somewhat shrill but enthusiastic rendition of “The Holly and the Ivy.”
“Father Nick, I’d like you to meet my sister Doris and her family.…”
He smiled, shook hands with a dozen strangers, declined his fourth invitation to Christmas dinner, and tried not to think of what the open door and the December night were doing to his heating bill. Finally, the end was in sight, only two more hands to shake.
“Father…”
One of Frank Giorno’s hands enclosed his in an unbreakable grip while the other grabbed a bit of jacket and dragged a young man forward.
“…this punk who showed up naked in my daughter’s bedroom believes he’s an angel, so I brought him to you.”
He didn’t know why he was in a small book-lined room, but since no one was yelling at him, or shaking him, or hitting him, things were looking up. Adjusting bits he wasn’t used to having pressure on, he studied the man behind the desk, recognized him as another servant of the light, and hoped that Lena’s father had been right during all the shouting and that this was where he was supposed to be.
Trying not to fidget under the searchlight intensity of his unwanted guest’s gaze, Father Harris shuffled a few irrelevant papers around and wondered irritably why Frank Giorno hadn’t just called the police. He had to be in denial about finding the young man in his daughter’s room. Granted the boy deserved points for originality in a bad situation, but what angel ever had bleached blond tips on short dark brown hair? Or managed to slouch in such a convincingly adolescent way? Or looked quite so confused? The boy’s eyes were…
…were…
Gold flecks in velvet brown brightened, merged, and became a window into…
…into…
Father Harris rubbed at his own eyes. He was far too tired to do any kind of counseling when he was not only seeing things but smelling grilled cheese sandwiches—his favorite food. Far, far too tired to wait for a stubborn teenager to speak first. “What’s your name, son?”
Name? Did he have a name? Everything had been named in the beginning so it was entirely possible. He started from the top, hoping something would sound familiar. There were only 301,655,722 angels after all, he’d have to reach it eventually.
“Son, your name?”
Startled, he grabbed one at random. “Samuel?”
“Are you asking?”
“No.” It had become his name. Whether it had been his name before was immaterial—he hoped.
“Samuel what?”
Was there more? He didn’t think so. “Just Samuel.”
Father Nicholas sighed. At this rate they’d still be sitting in his office on New Year’s. “What are you on, Samuel?”
That was easier. He glanced down. “Laminate.” When the priest made an unhappy face, he took a closer look. “Laminate flooring, in medium oak, three ninety-nine a square foot, twenty-year warranty.”
“No…”
“No?”
Something in the young man’s expression insisted that the question be answered, as asked. “Well, yes.
