29. Father Christmas （Give Us Some Magic）
Father Christmas (Give Us Some Magic)
Delilah stood at the bottom of the attic stairs, clenching the parchment and staring up into the dark attic.
The stairwell felt impossibly narrow and somehow like it was getting narrower still, like a nightmare where the walls kept closing in.
Or that garbage compactor scene in Star Wars .
That’s about right, she thought. The garbage monster is coming for us all.
Behind her, Scarlett was doing her patented stress-pacing: three steps left, pivot, three steps right. She’d worn through the carpet in her bedroom doing that all through high school. Annoyed the hell out of Mama.
Ugh. Del instantly wished she hadn’t thought about her mother. Would this absurd plan even work? Was Mama okay? Was she hurt? Would they ever see her again?
This was a spectacularly bad line of inquiry.
At the back of their little witch delegation, Luna and Jerusha huddled together whispering ideas back and forth. Beside them, Aphra leaned against the wall, methodically cracking her knuckles, an anxiety tell Delilah hadn’t seen since childhood.
The stress is getting to us. We’re all devolving.
“We need to get our story straight before we go up there,” Delilah told them. “And quietly. The last thing we need is Eps overhearing us debate his sacrifice like we’re discussing a dim sum order.”
“Wait.” Aphra gazed at Delilah, utter bafflement written all over her. “Who is Eps? I don’t know anyone named Eps.”
Luna leaned over and whispered in Aphra’s ear. “Eps is the clone we’re hoping to use as a source of magic.”
“Oh right. Sorry, I... I don’t know why I just forgot that. How could I have forgotten that?”
Luna gave Aphra’s shoulder a friendly squeeze. “Don’t feel bad. It’s happening to everyone.”
“Anyway, as I was saying...” Delilah was desperate to keep the conversation on track. Who knows how long they had before the forgetting had washed them all away. “We can’t just waltz in and tell him we need to use him as a magical battery and, oh by the way, erase his entire existence.”
“He has no ‘existence,’” Scarlett replied sharply. “He’s not a person. He’s magic that’s been put into a particular shape, that’s all. And hey, I’m glad my magic enjoyed playing human for a while. But sorry, fun’s over.”
“We need to decide on the best approach,” Luna interjected. “Do we use Eps to attack the wards around the grove or do we cut to the chase and use him to power the portal spell and move the casino?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Scarlett threw up her hands. “We go after the casino. Once the magicians are gone, their wards aren’t an issue.”
“Now hang on.” Delilah was already envisioning all the ways this could go catastrophically wrong.
Scarlett’s plans had a tendency to be as solid as a chocolate teapot.
“All we have to go on is the promise of a three-hundred-plus-year-old spell. What if it doesn’t work?
We’ll have wasted Eps and have nothing to show for it. ”
“It will work,” Jerusha cut in. Her arthritic fingers traced the symbols on the parchment with a reverence that bordered on creepy. “The spell requires tremendous power, but between Luna’s magic and what’s contained in the clone, we probably have enough to move the entire structure.”
“See?” Scarlett’s smug expression made Delilah’s palm itch with the phantom sensation of a slap spell she couldn’t currently cast. “Go big or go home—that’s what they say.”
Delilah pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling the beginnings of a tension headache. “She said probably , Scar. We could expend all that magic and still fail.”
Which would leave them where, exactly? Eps gone, no backup plan, Mama still trapped in dimensional limbo, and Delilah haunted by the memory of Jasper looking at her like she was a complete stranger. The thought of him created a queasy sensation in her chest.
“Respectfully, Jerusha,” Aphra offered carefully, “it’s not only a question of power. Eps has to participate willingly, or the magic might not work at all.”
“ Willingly ?!” Scarlett’s voice ricocheted off the walls. “Eps has no will. My gods, how many times do I have to explain it? He’s a magical construct in the shape of Zahir.”
Delilah rolled her eyes. “He had enough will to get himself up to the attic.”
“He’s a battery with feet,” Scarlett insisted.
“He’s been hiding up here for months and you had no idea. So maybe Eps is nothing but a battery. He still outsmarted the hell out of you .”
Luna stepped between them, hands raised like she was directing traffic. “This isn’t helping. We need to?—”
The attic door swung open.
They all froze like teenagers caught sneaking cigarettes behind the gym.
Eps stood in the doorway, arms crossed, wearing an expression that hovered somewhere between annoyance and resignation.
Behind him, a fuzzy parliament of cats peered down at them with identical judgment in their mismatched eyes.
“I’ll do it,” he said flatly. “If for no other reason than to shut you people up.”
Jasper Hopkins had spent a lot of Christmas Eves alone in his office.
His parents traditionally took off for a Caribbean cruise—their annual escape from both familial obligations and the New England winter.
He had no siblings nearby, no significant other, and a remarkably small circle of friends, most of whom were spending the holiday with their own families.
His grandmother, the only person who’d ever made Christmas feel special, had been gone for decades.
Still, he generally found the experience of working on holidays to be not only satisfactory, but actually desirable.
The building took on a peaceful quality when it was empty.
No phones ringing, no doors slamming..
. The companiable silence usually allowed him to sink into the meditative rhythm of proper archival work.
Tonight was different.
He sat there at his desk, surrounded by a week’s worth of paperwork: tax rolls, business licenses, birth certificates, and deed transfers, all demanding his immediate attention.
But he found himself unable to focus on any of it.
His eyes kept drifting to Agnes Bartlett’s portrait, searching for.
.. what, exactly? Some clue to explain his missing time?
A hint about that strange woman who’d appeared and disappeared?
“This is ridiculous.” He turned away from Agnes’s intense stare and clicked on the small radio tucked on his bookshelf.
A Christmas carol spilled out: Bing Crosby’s velvet voice crooning about the sort of weather he most desired for the holiday.
Jasper waited for his usual reflexive annoyance at holiday music to kick in, but instead found himself humming along.
What in the actual hell?
“I’m losing it,” he said aloud, the words echoing in the empty basement. “Completely losing it.”
The radio DJ announced the next song, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” as recorded by the Carpenters.
Jasper felt an unexpected lump form in his throat.
The melody washed over him, achingly familiar, and for a moment he could have sworn he heard another voice, not Karen Carpenter, but someone else.
Someone far less polished but just as earnest. ..
He switched the radio off, blinking away the ridiculous moisture that had gathered in his eyes.
“Get a grip, Hopkins. It’s a stupid song.”
But it wasn’t really the song. It was everything. The missing time, the strange woman, the way his colleagues looked at him with that mixture of pity and suspicion.
His eyes landed on the liquor license that had started this whole mess. J&J, Incorporated, 278 West 113th Street. As far as Jasper knew, there was no such address in the county.
Before he could talk himself out of it, Jasper grabbed his coat and keys. The paperwork could wait. What he wanted was answers.
The massive casino loomed against the darkening winter sky, its garish neon lights cutting through the twilight.
Delilah stood with her sisters, and Jerusha, Aphra, and Eps at the edge of the parking lot, far enough from the entrance to avoid drawing attention but close enough to see the steady stream of tourists and gamblers making their way in and out of the revolving doors.
Eps looked more solid than he had in the attic, perhaps due to being outdoors or perhaps due to Luna’s magical assistance.
But he retained that unsettling translucence that marked him as not quite real.
A small tabby cat curled around his ankles, one of several feline creations that had insisted on following him out of the attic.
Jerusha had spread the parchment across the hood of Nate’s truck, tracing the symbols as she muttered translations under her breath. The others huddled around to hear whatever wisdom the aged witch might offer.
“This incantation is complex,” Jerusha said, “but manageable. Agnes Bartlett was a meticulous record-keeper. Every step is clearly outlined.”
“But can we do it?” Luna asked, eyes scanning the unfamiliar script. “This spell moved a barn, which is cool, but we’re trying to move an entire high-rise.”
“Actually, size isn’t our primary challenge,” Jerusha replied. “It’s the people. Moving living beings requires significantly more power and precision than inanimate objects.”
Scarlett frowned. “There must be hundreds of people in there.”
“At least,” Jerusha confirmed grimly.
“So where are we sending them?” Aphra asked, voicing the question they’d all been avoiding. “We need a destination.”
Yet another argument broke out, with suggestions ranging from “the bottom of the ocean” (Scarlett) to “the Kalahari Desert” (Luna) to “Macao, because who’ll notice” (Aphra).
Delilah was still wrestling with the ethics of what they were about to do. She pulled Eps aside. “You don’t have to do this, you know. We can find another way.”