It wasn’t anything they said to each other, it was more like a quarrel that had been dropped at the gate and would be resumed on the doorstep . . . or was it only that? Wasn’t there a new sharpness in Lucy, a triumphant interchange of glances as though a point were being settled?
It was, thought Elizabeth, tired and faintly angry, the worst possible thing that could happen to a party—and it was also very odd between Lucy and Steven. Out of habit she sought Oliver’s eye and caught a quick, accomplished grimace. Even then, nothing happened until nearly seven-thirty, when the Seavers had left, and then it was like a spark introduced into a gas-filled room.
Upstairs, a door opened. Elizabeth started uneasily to feet, listening to the soft little sounds of pajamaed feet, and Oliver said from the couch, “It’s Christmas Eve, we’ll be getting this all night.” She sank back again uncertainly, because from her chair she could see the stairs.
It was Maire who rounded the turn of the hall so cautiously, Maire in her pink pajamas, her pale-gold head tousled and her eyes huge. She was so intent on her own tiptoeing progress that she didn’t seem to notice Elizabeth’s silent, instinctive rise. She reached the foot of the stairs and peered into the living-room, and she let out a wail of pure terror.
It wasn’t the inarticulate howl of babyhood, it had a sound, a baying and stricken sound that was like the very definition of danger. “Oun . . . Oun . . .”
Elizabeth ran to her and caught the small trembling body close. She didn’t know whether the panic had communicated itself or whether her own dreadful shaking had leaped to meet the cry that went plunging and echoing through her, like a stranger identifying himself at last.
Ten
Oun.
It was evil, unearthly, seeming to contain its own frightened echo. To Elizabeth it was peculiarly terrifying, as though Maire, with the simplicity of childhood, had managed to put a name to the lurking visitant in the house.
She found, when she came downstairs again, that the living-room was still charged with it. Lucy said curiously, “Does she do that often?” and Oliver: “All quiet?” Constance murmured mildly about the effect of Santa Claus on infant minds. Steven Brent looked up from an intent study of his shoe-tops and said, “The odd and unflattering part of it is that it seemed to be something she saw down here.”
Elizabeth, still shaken, was startled at that—she had thought no one but herself had noticed Maire’s swift wide stare down the room before she began to scream. Was it here, then, here in the room with her, hiding and triumphant . . . ? This was ghastly.
“Clown,” Constance was saying thoughtfully, as though Steven hadn’t spoken. “Some confusion, perhaps, with the stereotyped Santa Claus face?”
“Owl,” Lucy offered hopefully. “You know, night creatures . . .” Night creatures. Fumbling at the door in darkness, waking a child to terror, working tirelessly toward the tumbling-down of her own existence . . . Elizabeth had begun to tremble again. She crossed to the fire and picked up the tongs and made an effort at casualness, saying over her shoulder, “It’s so hard to tell when they’re Maire’s age. . . .”
It seemed a lifetime, although it was only another drink, before the Brents left and an exchange of Merry Christmases hung on the damp icy air. After dinner Constance retired to make mince pies by her mother’s unparalleled recipe, and Elizabeth and Oliver began to trim the tree. Oliver had apparently been waiting for seclusion; he said, dumping ropes of tinsel unceremoniously out of a box, “That was a hell of a thing, wasn’t it, Maire’s bursting out like that? Bad dream, I suppose, or getting all wound up over tomorrow.”
He made it a statement, but he was watching her. Elizabeth hung a red bulb with care. “I don’t know. But it’s what she said before.”
“When?”
“The other night, when she woke up crying. I thought then that it was just the beginning or the end of something she’d been dreaming about. But,” said Elizabeth, scrupulously matter-of-fact, “she wasn’t dreaming tonight.”
Oliver’s hands stopped briefly among the glistening ropes of tinsel. “You mean you think she’s afraid of something—definite?”
Definite. What would a child of three and a half consider definite, and why was she herself so sure that Maire had seen something badly, frighteningly wrong? Because she was; so sure that when she thought about it like this, the little cluster of silver and sea-green bulbs she was holding wasn’t safe in her fingers. She put it down and looked at Oliver. She said, “Yes, in her own mind.”
It wasn’t quite honest, but being honest with Oliver lately had only increased the distance between them. Oliver looked relieved. “It’ll probably turn out to be something in one of her books.”
And maybe it would; maybe the wariness, the feeling of dread weren’t justified at all this time. Elizabeth began to concentrate on her side of the tree, and stepped back at last to look at it. For an instant, with night at the windows and all the lights on, it was really Christmas Eve. The tree stood dripping and flashing in the corner, its bulbs glimmering through a mesh of silver. Even with the discarded boxes and cartons piled on the rug, it had a magical look, as though it actually had been dressed by a midnight visitor.
“Not bad,” said Oliver. “In fact, one of our better trees. I’d better see if the lights work.”
They did. Elizabeth gazed at the shining fragrant tree and thought of Maire and Jeep sleeping soundly upstairs and felt her heart tighten. She said, “I’ll do the stockings if you’ll put the presents out,” and turned away.
Constance made coffee and admired the tree and insisted on using
