“You won’t have to,” House promised. “Only one.”
So Sherby wrote:
He had no sooner laid down the light pen than House’s doorbell rang. Sherby ran to answer it, knowing that House was quite capable of doing it himself—and would too if the visitor were left standing outside for what House (who as a rule did not have a great deal of patience) considered an excessive length of time.
This visitor was not Santa Claus at all, and did not even look as though he might be much fun. He was an old man with granny glasses and wisps of white hair sticking out from under his tall beaver hat. But he wore a green greatcoat and a red cravat, and cried, “Hallo!” so cheerfully, and smiled with so many twinkles that Sherby got out of the way at once, saying, “Would you like to come in?”
“What’s today, my fine fellow?” inquired the old man as he stepped into House, beating the snow from his greatcoat in blizzards. (It melted as it reached the floor, but left no puddles there.)
“Christmas,” Sherby told him.
“Not Christmas Eve!” For a moment, the old man appeared quite frightened.
“No, Christmas Day. The night of it.” House groaned as even the very best houses do on cold nights, and Sherby added tardily, “Sir.”
“Ebenezer,” said the old man, and offered Sherby his hand in the most friendly fashion possible.
“No, sir, my name’s Sherby,” Sherby told him. And was about to shut the door (since he was getting cold and House had not yet done it) when he caught sight of a man in foreign garments, wonderfully real and distinct to look at, with an ax in his belt, leading a little black donkey laden with wood up the moonlit drive.
“It’s Ali Baba,” the old man explained. “Dear old honest Ali Baba! He
He twinkled more than ever when he said this, and Sherby, who liked secrets more than almost anything else, asked, “What is it?”
The old man crouched until their eyes were nearly at a level. “You think that I am House,” the old man whispered. “And so I am.”
“You’re a holo,” Sherby told him.
“Light projected upon air, Sherby?” The old man leaned closer. “Light’s wondrous stuff, but it cannot speak. Or think.”
“That’s House,” Sherby acknowledged.
“And that”—the old man pointed through the doorway and out into the moonlit night—“is Ali Baba. I brought him with me so that you could learn that there is a vagrant magic in Christmas still, after all these years. You have not as long to learn it as I had, perhaps.” He straightened up. “May he bring his donkey in? I know it isn’t regular, but the poor donkey would be uncommonly cold, I’m afraid, standing out all evening in the snow.”
Ali Baba, who was close enough to overhear them by this time, grinned at Sherby in such a way as to guarantee that the donkey was housebroken.
“Okay,” Sherby said, so Ali Baba brought his donkey in with him, and with the donkey, a little bare-headed man in sandals and a brown habit like a lady’s dress, with a rope around his waist.
As they left the vestibule and went down the hall to the family room, Sherby tried to touch the little man’s back, but his hand went right through like he knew it would.
A fat man in livery came in with a tray of drinks that Sherby could not drink, hors d’oeuvres that he could not eat, and a carrot for the donkey. Ali Baba had begun to unload it and build a big fire in the fireplace when the doorbell rang again.
This time it was twelve stout young men with clubs, and a thirteenth who wore a fox skin hanging down his back, with the fox’s face for a cap, so that it looked as though the fox were peering over his head. All thirteen shouted: “Hail, Squire!” to Sherby; then they performed a dance to the rapping of their own clubs, coming together by sixes and striking their clubs together, while the fox (so Sherby thought of him) leaped and whirled among them.
When they were finished, the twelve with clubs ran past Sherby into House, each wishing him a merry Christmas. The fox seemed to have vanished, until Sherby closed the door and discovered that the fox was watching over his shoulder. “A glorious Yuletide to you, Young Squire,” the fox said.
Sherby turned very quickly and backed away from him, and although he knew the fox was fake, the door that stopped him from backing farther was very solid indeed.
“I’m Loki,” the fox told him, “the Norse personification of fire. I seek to steal the sun, and you’ve just seen me driven forth in order that the sun may return. I creep back in, however, as you also see. It’s my nature—I am forever creeping back in. Will you not wish me Good Yule in return?”
“It’s not Yule,” Sherby said. “It’s Christmas.”
“Christmas for some, but Yule for all.
Sherby shook his head.
“We are they,” the fox told him, and as the fox spoke, someone seemed to pound the door so violently that the blows shook House.
Two young men stood on House’s porch, and five more were hauling an enormous stump across the snow. Six young women and three dogs followed them, and a seventh young woman rode the stump sidesaddle, one leg
