The Best of Gene Wolfe

“You are learning now what I learned as a parish priest,” Saint Nicholas told him.

Sherby braced his feet and tugged again; this time the little horse seemed ready to bolt. “You said I could lead him!”

“I did, my son. And I do. You can lead him wherever you wish him to go. But you cannot pull him anywhere. He is eager to follow you, but he is a great deal stronger than you are.”

“I want him to go in House!”

Saint Nicholas nodded patiently. “Yet you yourself were not going into House. You were faced away from him, matching your strength against his. Now you are facing in the correct direction. Hold your rope in one hand, as though you expected him to follow you. Walk toward me, and if he does not follow at once, jerk the rope, not too hard. Say erchou!”

Sherby tried it, making the word almost as guttural and rasping as Saint Nicholas had, and the little horse followed him readily, almost trotting.

When all three were in the vestibule and House had shut the big front door behind them, Sherby looked up at the tall, grave saint with new respect. “You know a lot about ponies.”

“My charioteer knew much more,” the saint told him, “but I know something about leading.”

“Do you know if there are any other kids like me at the party?”

The saint, who had been solemn the whole time, smiled. His smile made Sherby like him very much. “There is one, at least, my son. He was speaking with Father Eddi when last I saw him. Perhaps Father Eddi can help you.”

Sherby, still leading Smoky, had entered the family room before it occurred to him—much too late—that he ought to have asked Saint Nicholas what Father Eddi looked like. There were a great many people there, both men and ladies, and it seemed to Sherby that the men were all plenty old enough to be fathers, for many were older than his own father. He caught at the wide sleeve of a tall figure in black, but his fingers grasped nothing, and when the tall figure looked down at him it had the face of a skull and curling horns. Hastily Sherby turned away.

A small blond lady in a green dress that seemed (apart from its flaring collar of white petals) made of dark leaves appeared safer. “Please,” Sherby said, recalling his manners after the scare he had gotten. “Do you know Father Eddi?”

The blond lady nodded and smiled, offering her hand. “I’m Christmas Rose. And you are . . . ?”

“Sherby.”

She smiled again; she was lovely when she smiled, and hardly taller than he. “Yes, I know Father Eddi, Sherby. He is Saint Wilfred’s chaplain, and he’d like this little horse of yours very much. Did my friend Knecht Rupprecht startle you?”

“Is he your friend?” Sherby considered. “I’d like him better if he wasn’t so big.”

“But he wouldn’t frighten demons and bad children half so much if he were no bigger than I, Sherby. He must run through the streets, you see, on Advent Thursday, so that the demons will think that a demon worse than themselves holds the town. For a few coins he will dance in your fields, and frighten the demons from them too.”

Quite suddenly, Knecht Rupprecht was bending over Sherby, the skeletal bone of his jaw swinging and snapping. “Und den vor Christmas, vith Weihnachtsmann I come. You see here dese svitches?” He held a bundle of apple and cherry twigs under Sherby’s nose. “You petter pe gud, Sherpy.”

Surprising himself by his own boldness, Sherby passed his free hand through the bundle. “You’re all just holos. House makes you.”

He was sorry as soon as he did it, because Christmas Rose was so clearly disappointed in him. “It’s true that what you see now are holograms, Sherby. But we are real, nonetheless. I am a real flower, and Knecht Rupprecht a real custom. You will learn more, believe me, if you treat us as real. And since Carker’s Army is coming, you may not have much time in which to learn. Kite says they’re at the McKays’ already, and Mouse is going to see whether they left anyone alive.”

“Will they come here?” Sherby asked.

“We have no way of knowing that, Sherby. Let’s hope not.”

Knecht Rupprecht said, “If dey do, I vill schare dem avay, Sherpy. I dry, und dot’s a promise.”

“I didn’t like you at first,” Sherby told him. “But really I like you better than anybody. You and Christmas Rose.”

She made him a formal curtsy.

“Only I don’t understand how you can scare them away if they’re bad when you look like you’re bad, too.”

“Der same vay I schare der demons, Sherpy, und der pad Kinder. Gut ist nod schared of vot’s gut, put pad’s schared py vorse. See dese?”

He held out his switches again, and Sherby nodded.

“I tell you now a secret, put you must nod tell der pad Kinder. Vunce I gome vith dese to make der fruits grow. Id ist der dead manns, der dead animals vot does dat, zo I gome vor dem. Schtill I do, but der Volk, dey don’ know.”

Christmas Rose said, “We are comrades, Knecht Rupprecht and I, because of my other name. The botanists call me Black Hellebore. Not very pretty, is it?”

Sherby shook his head sympathetically.

“It’s because my roots are black. See?” She lifted her skirt to show black snakeskin shoes and black panty hose. “Of course, I am poisonous, but I can’t help it. I’m very pretty, I bloom in winter, and if you don’t eat me, I’ll never harm you.”

“Did my mom and dad eat you?” Sherby asked.