Sphenisciphobia
Despite there still being three days until the first of December, the Christmas spirit was already running rampant in the small New England village of Puritan Falls. It was the Sunday following Thanksgiving, for many people, the final day of a long four-day, weekend. For Dr. Sarah Ryerson, who worked in the hospital emergency room, it was no different than any other day of the week. Having worked the overnight shift, she drove home early in the morning to the house she shared with her fiancé, Dr. Lionel Penn. The psychiatrist was in the kitchen making French toast when she walked in the front door.
"You're up early," she said with surprise after receiving a welcome-home kiss.
"I thought it would be nice for us to have breakfast together," he replied, putting two cups of freshly brewed coffee on the table. "How was your shift?"
"It was peaceful. Just the occasional cuts and sprains. Not anything like last year!"
The two doctors, like everyone else in Puritan Falls, wanted to put the previous Christmas behind them. For the most part, the villagers preferred not to dwell on the hard times—like the COVID restrictions that closed schools and many businesses and kept people inside their homes for several months. Now that nearly everyone was fully vaccinated and the schools and businesses had reopened, the villagers were eager to come together as a community.
"What do you plan on doing all day while I get some sleep?" Sarah asked, watching Lionel put the coffee cups and breakfast plates into the dishwasher.
"I think I'll start learning my lines for the play."
The psychiatrist had agreed to take on the role of the Ghost of Christmas Present in the town's upcoming production of A Christmas Carol. Puritan Falls' annual harvest fair had been so successful in October (after having been canceled the previous year due to the pandemic) that the "town team" opted to hold a two-day Dickens Festival starting on Saturday, the eighteenth. On Sunday evening, immediately after the festival concluded, there was to be a live performance of Dickens's popular Christmas ghost story in the high school auditorium.
"Maybe I'll go over to Shawn's house and practice my lines with him and Penny."
"Since when does the Ghost of Christmas Present have a conversation with the Cratchits? Shouldn't you be rehearsing with Josiah?"
Josiah Barnard, the proprietor of the Sons of Liberty Tavern, had the lead role of Ebenezer Scrooge and was the only character in the play that Lionel was to speak with directly.
"He and Eliza went away for the weekend."
"Well, give my regards to Shawn and Penny," the exhausted doctor called, heading toward the bedroom. "I'm going to get some sleep."
With the possibility of snow in the forecast, Lionel left his MG in the garage and took Sarah's Subaru. When he arrived at Shawn's house, he noticed there were other cars parked in the driveway and on the street.
"What's this, a party?" he asked when Penny McMurtry answered the door.
"It seems other members of the cast want to put the day to good use, too. So, we've decided to read through the play from beginning to end."
"Here's a copy of the script for you, Dr. Penn," the McMurtrys' teenage daughter announced, handing him a computer printout with his name written on top of the first page. "Your lines are those in red ink."
"Thanks, Brittany. It saves me the trouble of having to highlight them with a marker."
"Looks like we're all here," Shawn announced, handing latecomer Lionel a cup of eggnog. "Why don't we begin? Since Josiah couldn't make it, Dylan has offered to read Scrooge's lines."
"It's the least I can do since my character doesn't have any lines of his own."
The computer games developer was to play the Ghost of Christ Yet to Come, a silent figure, draped in black, who would show Ebenezer Scrooge the terrible end that awaits him in the future.
Liam Devlin, cast as the narrator, Charles Dickens, cleared his throat and began, "Old Marley was as dead as a doornail."
Lionel, who would not need to read until after Martha Prescott finished reading the lines of the Ghost of Christmas Past, helped himself to one of the pastries Rebecca Coffin brought from her bookshop's coffee bar. Abigail Cantwell, the owner of the Bell, Book and Candle, who volunteered to direct the play, listened to the initial run-through and offered helpful suggestions to improve the actors' performances.
When the psychiatrist came to the last of his lines, she interrupted him.
"Why don't you try raising your voice each time you ask those questions?"
"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" he read.
Then he repeated the query, raising the volume of his voice. By the fourth and final time he asked, he was nearly shouting.
"That's good! Then the houselights will go out, and once you're off the stage, we'll change the backdrop from a London street scene to a cemetery. Then Dylan will appear as the last ghost."
The final act took place on Christmas morning, with a repentant Ebenezer Scrooge having seen the error of his ways. Liam, again assuming the role of narrator, read the last lines of the play, taken straight from Dickens's book, ending with "... it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, every one!"
"You did wonderful, all of you!" Abigail exclaimed, clapping her hands.
"Reading from the script is easy. I hope I don't forget my lines during the performance," Lionel laughed.
"Don't worry. We'll have someone in the wings ready to help if you do."
Once the reading was over, Penny passed out coffee, and the last of Rebecca's pastries were consumed. Liam Devlin was the first to leave.
"I've got to get back to the Green Man," he announced. "I don't want to leave Shannon behind the bar too long. She's got enough to do running the kitchen."
"I've got to get going, too," Ezra Graves said. "Monday is always a busy day at the Gazette, so I need to get up early. Are you ready, Abigail?"
As people put on their coats and headed toward the door, Patience Scudder, the current chairman of the "town team," reminded them all that there was a committee meeting the following night.
"Wednesday is the first day of December, and we have to finalize our arrangements for the Dickens Festival."
* * *
There was a lot to be said for working the night shift. Although Sarah Ryerson preferred working days, which allowed her to spend her evenings with Lionel, the occasional overnights were much more peaceful. Often, only a handful of patients came into the emergency room. For the majority of her shift, she curled up on her office couch with a good book. The early morning hours of the fourth of December were just such a time.
For the past two hours, all was peaceful in the hospital. One of the nurses was doing a sudoku puzzle. Another was knitting a small wool cap for the babies in the nursery. Two others were putting up a small Christmas tree near the nurses' station. Meanwhile, Sarah was lost in a Gillian Flynn novel and sipping a cup of coffee to keep her awake.
Suddenly, three people burst through the outer door. At first glance, no one looked as though they needed immediate medical attention. The nurse who was knitting knew one of them.
"Can I help you, Professor Hodgman?" she asked, recognizing the woman as one of the faculty of the university in Essex Green.
"It's this gentleman here," the professor replied, indicating the middle-aged man at her side. "His name is Jean-Pierre Bonfils. He's a colleague of mine, visiting from Paris."
"And what seems to be the problem?"
"He's not talking," the professor replied, at a loss for words to adequately describe the man's condition. "He was fine one minute and then .... It was as though he just shut down."
"Let me get the doctor. You can explain it to her."
Sarah was quick to respond. She listened patiently to the professor's description of the evening's events as she checked the patient's vital signs.
"Mr. Bonfils was at my house for dinner, along with about a dozen other people. He seemed to be enjoying himself, talking to all the other guests, laughing and telling jokes. Then, all of a sudden, he became like this. He doesn't speak and doesn't show any sign that he hears people when they talk to him."
"What did he have to eat or drink during this party?"
"Just the usual: steak, baked potato, tossed salad. He had a glass of cabernet sauvignon with dinner, but no hard alcohol."
"I have to ask this. Were there any recreational drugs at this party? Marijuana? Cocaine?"
"No. Nothing like that at all."
"From a cursory examination, he seems to be in excellent health. I'll run all the usual tests, but there's the possibility that his problem might be psychological rather than physiological."
"I was afraid of that," the professor's husband said.
"Don't worry. I know a good psychiatrist. If I can't find anything medically wrong with Mr. Bonfils, I'll consult with Dr. Penn."
"Oh, thank you, Dr. Ryerson," the professor said, relieved that Jean-Pierre was no longer her responsibility.
Once the Hodgmans left the hospital, the nurses prepared the patient for his stay, and Sarah ordered several tests including bloodwork and an EEG.
* * *
Victoria Broadbent put the finishing touches on a croquembouche, an elaborate pyramid of cream puffs held together with caramel sauce. It was a time-consuming task for a dessert that would not be served to her customers. Instead, it was destined to be one of the many holiday confections in her display window.
As she covered the structure with a web of spun sugar, two people entered the tea shop. When she looked up, she was surprised to see Josiah Barnard and his wife, Eliza.
"It's not like you to come in on a Sunday," she said. "Are things slow at the Sons of Liberty?"
"No," the proprietor of the historic tavern replied. "But I took the day off anyway so that I could take my lovely wife out for tea."
"What's the occasion? Is it her birthday, your anniversary or maybe an early Christmas treat?"
"None of the above. I just thought it would be nice for us to spend the day together for a change."
Victoria immediately sensed a profound sadness beneath the smiles the Barnards wore.
"Have a seat," she said, putting the croquembouche next to the Buche de Noel. "I'll go get your tea while you look at the menu."
She returned with a steaming pot and two matching porcelain cups decorated with holly.
"Is that Earl Grey?" Eliza asked.
"No. It's a special blend of my own. Try it and see how you like it."
The unique combination of herbal tea and spices warmed the Barnards' palates and loosened their tongues, as Victoria had intended.
"How have things been with the two of you?" she asked as she refilled their cups.
Despite his intentions not to reveal his secret to anyone in Puritan Falls, Josiah found himself confiding the truth to the white-haired Englishwoman. Three cups of tea and a plate of scones later, his confession came to an end.
"So, I've decided to sell the Sons of Liberty so we can spend what time we have left traveling."
"I wouldn't do anything just yet, if I were you," Victoria advised. "At least wait until after the holidays."
"Of course," Eliza insisted. "Josiah's agreed to play Scrooge in the town's performance of A Christmas Carol, and I won't let him back out now."
"I don't want to do it."
"Don't be silly! Learning all those lines will keep your mind off things."
"What's to learn? I've seen the movie version so often that I know the dialogue by heart."
"Have some more tea," Victoria suggested, refilling their cups again.
"I wouldn't mind another scone to go with it," Josiah said.
"Coming right up," the shopkeeper replied, her cornflower blue eyes twinkling merrily as she disappeared into the kitchen.
* * *
"I've run several tests on Mr. Bonfils and can't find a thing wrong with him," Sarah told Lionel when he asked about her day at work. "He's been in the hospital four days already. I'm going to have to discharge him soon, but what will happen to him if I do?"
"He's still not responding then?" the psychiatrist inquired.
"No. It's as though the lights are on, but nobody's home."
"I've run into similar cases in the past. Would you like me to have a look at him?"
"Would you?"
Sarah pretended to be surprised by the offer, but she had secretly hoped Lionel would volunteer to examine Jean-Pierre and give an opinion on the man's mental state. The following afternoon, Dr. Penn showed up at the hospital after seeing his last patient of the day. He read the patient's chart, pulled up a chair next to the bed and began asking questions. Not surprisingly, he received no response.
"Can you try hypnotizing him?" Sarah asked.
"If he can't hear me, I don't think it will do any good."
Hoping the man might respond to his native tongue, Lionel addressed him in French.
"Monsieur Bonfils. Comment vas-tu?"
The patient's eyes flickered, focusing briefly on the psychiatrist's face before resuming a vacant stare.
"Did you see that?" Sarah asked excitedly. "You got a response. What did you say to him?"
"I simply asked him how he was."
"I think he understood. Keep on talking."
"I can't. That's pretty much all the French I know."
"Monsieur Bonfils. Comment vas-tu?" Sarah said, repeating Lionel's question.
Her attempt to get through to the patient resulted in a one-word response: maintenant.
Jean-Pierre then closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
"Did he say maintenance?" the medical doctor asked.
"That's what it sounded like," Lionel answered. "But he might not have been speaking English. You know, maybe we're talking to the wrong person here."
"I don't follow you."
"You told me he was at a dinner party, that he was all right one moment and then suddenly he wasn't."
"That's what Professor Hodgman told me. She's the woman who brought him to the emergency room."
"I'd be willing to bet that something happened or something was said at that party that triggered this emotional response in the patient."
"You call this an emotional response?"
"The worst possible kind. Sometimes people become so traumatized they literally shut down."
"I suppose I can contact the professor and ask her to see you."
"Why don't you give me her number instead?" Lionel suggested. "I'd like to see if I can speak to everyone who came into contact with Mr. Bonfils at that party."
* * *
Patience Scudder, the librarian and unofficial town historian, arrived at the high school auditorium with shopping bags full of costumes, all in various stages of completion. Abigail Cantwell, the director, was intently watching a scene being acted out by Ezra Graves and Josiah Barnard.
Ezra, as the ghost of Jacob Marley, cried, "I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will, I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you? Or would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have labored on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"
Abigail waited for Josiah, who was playing Scrooge, to respond, but he didn't.
"Josiah," she prompted, "have you forgotten your next line?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. My mind was wandering. Where are we?" he asked, looking helplessly at his script.
"Right here," Ezra answered, pointing to the appropriate place on the page.
"What's wrong with Josiah?" Patience whispered to Sarah as the two women handed out costumes to the other actors. "He seems distracted."
"I don't know," the doctor replied. "But I'm beginning to worry. He hasn't seemed himself since before Thanksgiving."
Sarah then walked over to her fiancé with the fur-trimmed green robe of the Ghost of Christmas present.
"Take your shirt off, so I can try this on you," she instructed.
"When I agreed to do this role, no one ever told me I had to appear on stage half naked!" he teased. "For all you know, I might suffer from gymnophobia."
"Do I even want to know what that is?"
"It's the fear of nudity."
Lionel removed his shirt and donned the robe.
"With a long wig topped with a holly wreath, you'll look as though you stepped out of Dickens's book!" Sarah declared.
"I suppose it could be worse. You could have given me a hospital gown, and then I'd have my ass hanging out in front of all of Puritan Falls."
"As much as we'd all like to discuss your backside, Dr. Penn, we're trying to rehearse here," the director laughed.
"My apologies, Abigail."
Of all the people gathered in the school auditorium, only one person did not laugh at this playful exchange: Josiah Barnard. His face retained its somber appearance as though he were miserly Ebenezer Scrooge in fact, not just in fiction.
* * *
Judy Stanfield, Dr. Penn's administrative assistant, informed him that the two women he was expecting to meet with had arrived.
"Send them right in, will you?" the psychiatrist said.
"Dr. Penn, I'm Professor Claudia Hodgman," the older of the two women announced, extending her arm for a handshake. "This is my friend, Beryl Mullaly. She was the person speaking with Jean-Pierre when he had his episode."
"Won't you sit down?" the psychiatrist asked, as Judy entered the room with a fresh pot of coffee.
"Can you recall exactly what the two of you said that night, Miss Mullaly?" Lionel asked.
"Sister," the younger woman replied.
"Were you talking about his sister or yours?"
"No. I'm the sister. Sister Beryl Mullaly. I'm a nun. I had just told Mr. Bonfils that before he stopped talking."
"Would you tell me everything you can remember about your conversation?"
"After we were introduced, I asked him how he liked America. He told me that before coming to Massachusetts, he went to New York. He then proceeded to tell me about all the places he visited while he was there. After describing his experience at the September 11 Memorial, he stopped talking about himself and asked if I was a professor like Claudia. That's when I told him I was a nun."
"Can you describe his reaction in more detail?"
"His face lost color, and his eyes widened. It was like that old cliché: he looked like he saw a ghost."
"And that's all you said to him? You didn't tell him anything else?"
"No. Why is our conversation so important?" Sister Mullaly asked.
"Because I think something you said may have triggered this episode."
"But other than asking him how he liked New York, I only said three words to him, 'I'm a nun.' I don't see how that could trigger such a response."
"Has his condition improved at all?" Claudia asked.
"When I spoke to him in my limited French, he did say one word: maintenance, or something to that effect."
"Maintenance is English. The French word is entretien."
"Well, that's what it sounded like, but I only know a few words of the language."
"I speak fluent French. Given the conversation which took place at the party, I would imagine the word he said was maintenant, which means 'nun.'"
"Nun," Lionel repeated. "It could be Mr. Bonfils suffers from sphenisciphobia, which is an irrational fear of nuns."
"I've never heard of such a thing!" Sister Mullaly exclaimed.
"You said Jean-Pierre responded when you spoke to him in French. What if I were to talk to him in his native language?" the professor offered.
"Would you?"
"I'm willing to do anything to help. I feel responsible for him. After all, he was at my party when this happened."
The two women accompanied him to Puritan Falls Hospital where Dr. Ryerson escorted them to the patient's room.
"Maybe it would be best if you waited out here in the hall, Sister," Lionel told Beryl. "If the patient does suffer from sphenisciphobia, I don't know how he'll react to seeing you again."
Professor Hodgman entered the room, sat in the bedside chair and spoke to Jean-Pierre in French. After several questions, his eyes turned to her and fixed upon her face. As though he had been placed under a magic spell that her words had broken, he began to speak. For more than an hour, the two academics talked as Sarah and Lionel stood by, unable to comprehend what was being said. Eventually, however, the effort seemed to tire the patient. His eyes fluttered and then closed in sleep.
"Well?" Lionel asked. "What did he say?"
"The poor man is delusional," Claudia replied. "He doesn't even know who he is. He thinks he's a Catholic priest named Urbain Grandier and that there's some sort of a conspiracy against him."
"Did you ask him about his conversation with Sister Mullaly?"
"Yes. He's convinced that she's one of a group of nuns that's out to take him down."
"What else did he say?"
"Not much. I spent most of the time trying to tell him who he really was, reminding him of his position at the Sorbonne and the reason for his trip to America. He refused to believe me, though. He kept insisting he's a priest."
"Maybe you can try talking to him again tomorrow," Dr. Ryerson said optimistically as Dr. Penn looked down at the patient with a penetrating stare as though trying to read the sleeping man's mind.
* * *
Sarah came home from Christmas shopping to find Lionel, decked out in his fur-trimmed green robe, wig and holly wreath, standing in front of the bedroom mirror.
"This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both ...," he cried and then realized he was not alone.
Embarrassed, the psychiatrist became silent and turned away from the mirror.
"Oh, don't stop," Sarah urged. "You were quite commanding as the Ghost of Christmas Present."
"I'd love to entertain you, but I'm starving. Let me get out of this costume, and you and I can go to the Green Man for a bite to eat."
"Can't we stay in and order a pizza? All that shopping wore me out! Next Christmas I'm going to buy my gifts online."
"All right, but get me an order of garlic knots to go with the pizza."
After exchanging the green robe for jeans and a sweatshirt, Lionel went down to his home office to check his email before the pizza deliveryman brought the food.
Nothing but junk, he thought, deleting nearly all of the emails.
Amidst the spam, however, he found a message from Claudia Hodgman.
"Urbain Grandier was a real person," she reported. "Aldous Huxley wrote about him in his book The Devils of Loudun. Perhaps Jean-Pierre recently read it. That may explain his delusion."
It was a logical assumption, but Lionel knew logic rarely had any bearing on a patient's phobia. Still, knowing Grandier actually existed might help him better understand Jean-Pierre's fear. Eager to learn more about his patient's delusion, the psychiatrist searched Bing for URBAIN GRANDIER and got more than eleven thousand results. He clicked on the link for Wikipedia and began to read.
No sooner did he come to the end of the article than Sarah called, "The pizza's here."
He entered the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of wine.
"Wine with pizza?" his fiancée laughed. "My! Aren't we fancy!"
"I'm drinking wine because we don't have anything stronger."
"Uh-oh! What's wrong?"
"I just read something disturbing on the Internet," he replied, taking a slice of pepperoni pizza out of the box. "Remember Professor Hodgman told us that Mr. Bonfils thinks he's a priest named Urbain Grandier?"
"Yes."
"There was an Urbain Grandier who lived in France during the seventeenth century. It seems this priest would have a good reason to fear nuns. In 1634, a group of sisters from an Ursuline convent accused him of forcing them to commit sinful acts. According to the writer Aldous Huxley, Grandier was offered the position of spiritual director at the convent, but he declined. Huxley suggests a woman by the name of Jeanne des Anges, the Mother Superior, was smitten with the handsome priest and enraged by what she took as a personal rejection. She brought the first accusation against him."
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," Sarah said, quoting the line attributed to the seventeenth-century English poet William Congreve.
"This scorned woman was worse than most. She took her fury to the Archbishop of Bordeaux, claiming Grandier conjured up demons and used black magic to seduce her. Soon, the other nuns made similar allegations. After being questioned, these women were subjected to exorcisms to cure them of their alleged demonic possession. Grandier himself was mercilessly tortured and, supposedly, signed a confession that he had made a pact with the devil. Whether he signed it under duress or his signature was forged, the priest was found guilty of witchcraft and sentenced to death."
"It sounds like poor Reverend George Burroughs from Salem. Being a man of God didn't save him from being declared a witch."
Lionel finished his first slice of pizza and then reached for a garlic knot before starting a second.
"Do you plan on using this information to treat Mr. Bonfils?" Sarah asked.
"I don't know yet."
A memory of a previous patient struggled to break through the mental barrier that kept his more bizarre cases hidden beneath reason and modern science.
"Jack Templeton," he muttered to himself, connecting a name to the emerging recollection.
"Who's that?" Sarah asked.
"He was an architect who worked for Hugh Payne, a friend of mine who used to live in Copperwell."
"And what made you think of him now?"
More and more details of the former patient's case broke through the barrier between the psychiatrist's conscious and subconscious minds.
"He suffered from triskaidekaphobia, the fear of the number thirteen. When I hypnotized him, he spoke only French, a language he swore he didn't know. He'd never been to France, had no French family members and didn't study the language in school."
"Were you able to help him?"
"Yes. Luckily, Hugh spoke French. He was able to act as translator when I hypnotized Jack."
What Lionel did not tell Sarah was that under hypnosis, it was revealed that Jack Templeton had been Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, in a past life, and that he had been burned at the stake in 1314. It was also revealed at the time that Hugh was the reincarnation of Hugues de Payens, who co-founded the order in 1118 and was its first Grand Master.
Could Jean-Pierre Bonfils be a reincarnation of Urbain Grandier? he wondered, being careful not to put this thought into words in front of Sarah.
With assistance from Professor Hodgman and Sister Mullaly, he hoped to find out.
* * *
"Here's a script of what I want both of you to say," Lionel announced, handing computer printouts to Claudia and Beryl.
"What's this all about?" the professor asked after scanning the text.
"If Mr. Bonfils is under the delusion that he's Urbain Grandier, we might be able to get through to him by pretending to believe his claims," the psychiatrist answered, not even hinting that this might be a case of reincarnation.
"That sounds plausible," the nun opined. "But will he understand me if I speak English?"
"I want the professor to translate what we say into French. Is that okay with you, Claudia?"
"Of course."
What transpired next was a play, but rather than the Ghost of Christmas Present, Lionel took on the role of a judge at Urbain Grandier's trial. In addition to serving as translator, the professor assumed the part of the Archbishop of Bordeaux while Sister Mullaly pretended to be Mother Superior Jeanne des Anges. Although there was no audience present—not even Dr. Ryerson who was kept busy in the emergency room—the performances were convincing. After an abbreviated mock trial, Lionel concluded the proceedings.
"Since Mother Superior has recanted her testimony," the psychiatrist said in English and Claudia repeated in French, "we find there is insufficient evidence to support the charge of witchcraft. You are thus absolved of all guilt in the so-called possession of the sisters in the convent."
There was a brief pause in which all three actors waited to learn the effect their skit had on the patient. After several minutes, the blank expression on Jean-Pierre's face vanished. He turned his head and, noticing his surroundings, seemed genuinely perplexed.
"Where am I?" he inquired in English with a slight French accent.
"You're at Puritan Falls Hospital," the psychiatrist replied.
"Why? What happened to me? Was it something I ate at your party?" he asked Claudia.
Lionel described, as best he could, the diagnosis of sphenisciphobia and the patient's mention of Urbain Grandier.
"I never heard of the man," Jean-Pierre insisted. "And I've never had a fear of nuns. I'm not even Catholic; I'm an atheist."
"At some point in your life, you must have heard Grandier's story," the psychiatrist said, reluctant to mention his theory about a past life. "It was buried deep in your subconscious mind and, for some unknown reason, it surfaced when you met Sister Mullaly."
"Whatever you say, Doctor. I seem to be perfectly fine now, though. Can I leave the hospital?" the Frenchman asked, having little faith in the American medical profession, which he believed was dominated by a greedy health insurance industry and Big Pharma.
"I'll speak with Dr. Ryerson and see if she will discharge you."
* * *
After weeks of preparations, the Dickens Festival kicked off Saturday morning with a Christmas parade. The participants and spectators alike were dressed in Victorian-era attire: long coats and elaborate bonnets for women; three-piece suits, top coats and tall hats for men. The high school band alternately played "Jingle Bells" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" as they marched down Essex Street, followed by three floats of carolers who sang traditional holiday songs.
When Josiah heard one of the groups sing "Silent Night," he raised his hand to his face and brushed a tear from his cheek.
"Why don't we go get some hot cocoa?" his wife suggested.
"I'd prefer a cup of coffee. I don't suppose Rebecca opened The Quill and Dagger today."
"Most of the businesses in town are closed because of the festival, but there will be all sorts of refreshment stands on the Common," Eliza said, taking her husband's arm.
To avoid the crowds watching the parade, the couple took a roundabout route to the Common and entered the park near Stephen Prescott's statue. Josiah did not bother looking up at the sculpted face of his distant ancestor. His eyes remained focused on the ground.
"Merry Christmas!" a voice called to the Barnards as they walked in the direction of a booth manned by Liam Devlin.
They turned and saw Santa Claus sitting on a red and gold throne.
"Merry Christmas," Eliza echoed, not recognizing the person behind the fake wig and beard.
"Why don't the two of you come over here and tell me what you want for Christmas?"
"I think we're a little too old to believe in Santa," Josiah declared.
"No one is ever too old to believe in me."
"Come on, Josiah," Eliza urged. "Let's go talk to Santa."
"This is ridiculous. I ...."
"Do it for me."
His mood softened, and he acquiesced to his wife's request.
"Hop up on my lap," the faux Santa told Eliza. "And tell me what you want for Christmas."
"Don't you even want to know if I've been a good girl?"
"I'm sure you have. Now, what can I bring you?"
"I'd like it to snow. We haven't had a white Christmas since ... I can't remember the last one we had."
"I can't make any promises, but I'll talk to Mother Nature and see what she can do. Now you, young man."
"Young?" Josiah echoed. "Santa, you need to have those spectacles of yours checked."
"Hop on up and tell me what you want."
"I want a Red Ryder rifle," he replied facetiously.
"You're not Ralphie, and this isn't A Christmas Story. Now, tell me what you really want."
Under an inexplicable compulsion, he replied, "I want my wife to be well again."
"I may not be able to make it snow, but this is one wish I can grant. When is Eliza going back to the doctor?" Santa asked.
"Later this morning. He wants to go over her bloodwork."
"I'm sure he's going to have good news for you."
Normally, Josiah would have been furious at such a suggestion. How could anyone be so cruel as to try to give false hope to a man whose wife had three months to live? But there was something in the Santa's eyes that touched him, something comforting and vaguely familiar.
"You two go now and enjoy the festival and stop worrying."
The bearded man then reached into his bag and handed each of the Barnards a gingerbread man wrapped in cellophane, adorned with a red bow. Josiah opened his and took a bite.
"Mmmm. I don't normally like gingerbread, but this is delicious."
"It's a special recipe of mine," Santa said, his cornflower blue eyes twinkling as he smiled.
The couple walked only a short distance before, remembering his manners, Josiah turned to thank Jolly Old Saint Nick for the cookie. But to his astonishment, both Santa and his throne had vanished.
* * *
Sunday was the last day of the Dickens Festival, and since Sarah had the day off, she and Lionel walked into town so that they could enjoy the festivities together. Late in the afternoon, after sampling all the traditional holiday culinary treats offered by the street vendors, including roasted chestnuts, mincemeat tarts and plum pudding, the couple stopped to inspect a selection of handcrafted wooden ornaments in Puritan Falls' version of a christkindlmarkt.
"Isn't that Professor Hodgman?" Sarah asked, spotting the woman in the crowd.
"I can't thank you two enough for helping Jean-Pierre," Claudia said.
"How's he doing?" Lionel asked.
"He claims he's perfectly fine, especially since he had taken the precaution of getting travelers insurance before coming to America. I drove him to Logan Airport yesterday so that he could catch a flight to Paris, and he seems to have completely recovered. I just hope he doesn't sit next to a nun on the plane," the professor laughed.
"Lion, we've got to get going," Dr. Ryerson announced and then apologized to Claudia. "Lionel's playing the Ghost of Christmas Present in A Christmas Carol tonight."
After an exchange of holiday wishes, the couple got into Sarah's Subaru and drove to the high school. An hour later, everyone except Scrooge was in costume, and Jacqueline Astor, the town's realtor, was applying final touches to the actors' makeup.
"Has anyone seen Josiah?" Abigail Cantwell asked. "The curtain is supposed to go up in ten minutes, and we seem to be missing our leading man."
"What if he doesn't show?" Shawn McMurtry asked.
"Then we go to Plan B," the director replied. "Dylan knows Scrooge's lines, so he'll step into the role, and Ezra will play the third ghost. Since he doesn't speak, and his face is covered by a black shroud, the audience will never know it's the same actor that played Jacob Marley."
"I was afraid something like this would happen," Sarah whispered to Lionel. "I probably shouldn't say anything, but I learned that Eliza was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Doctors give her only three months."
Just moments later, Ezra Graves was spared having to take on a second role when Josiah Barnard arrived, in costume and ready to go on. Jacqueline immediately ran up to him and powdered his face.
"Where's Eliza?" the real estate agent asked.
"She's in the audience, front row center. She's been waiting for weeks to see my acting debut."
Noticing the look of pity on Sarah's and Lionel's faces, he realized the two doctors had learned about his wife's illness.
"I took her to see the oncologist yesterday," he told them. "And you'll never guess what he said."
"What?" Sarah asked.
"Eliza isn't going to die after all—at least not anytime soon. When the doctor saw her bloodwork, he ran another battery of tests and learned that the tumor is gone. He can't explain it, but it completely vanished!"
"That's amazing!" Sarah exclaimed.
"It's a Christmas miracle!" Lionel added.
Five minutes later, the houselights in the auditorium dimmed, and the curtain went up.
Liam Devlin, dressed as the bearded Charles Dickens, walked on stage and declared, "Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate."
The play was a resounding success. No one missed a cue or forgot a single line. Finally, after Dickens's beloved miser repents and promises Bob Cratchit a raise in salary, the spotlight again shone down on Liam in anticipation of the play's ending.
"Scrooge was better than his word," the Green Man Pub's bartender recited. "He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed ...."
It was Josiah Barnard, stepping into the light from the shadows of the stage and taking the director and his fellow cast members by surprise, who delivered the final line. He looked with loving eyes at Eliza sitting in the audience and said, "God bless us, every one!"
From her seat in the last row of the theater, Victoria Broadbent applauded and rose to her feet in a standing ovation. Then she buttoned up her coat, put on her pink wool hat and gloves and stepped outside into the wintry night.
Eliza will get more than a clean bill of health for Christmas, she thought, her cornflower blue eyes twinkling with delight. She'll get her white Christmas, too.
The story of Urbain Grandier is true. He was a Catholic priest who was burned at the stake in 1634 after being convicted of witchcraft following the events of the so-called "Loudun Possessions."
Define naughty? What more can I say? Just look at those devilish green eyes.
