Nativity

by Obscure Bird

Young Erik's first Christmas as the assistant of a Gypsy magician is touched by tragedy. This story also suggests how he might have gotten his name by accident. Leroux-based, and somewhat morbid.

Nativity

Disclaimer: The Phantom of the Opera belongs to Gaston Leroux, who is not me. I do, however, own Jerome and his son.

Disclaimer 2: I wouldn't claim to entirely own myself, at the moment, since I am so behind by now on Kidney Pie that the folks reading that story probably have a price on my head or something. But I haven't abandoned it. I swear. I just wanted to post this for Christmas.

Note: This is Leroux-based, but, oddly enough, is probably more compatible with Webber's story about the Devil's Child than Kay's Phantom, as Javert is not at all here. Just thought I might mention that, since it sometimes seems that Kay!Erik and Leroux!Erik would be sort of interchangeable. Not here. So… yeah.

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Jerome performed his magic on a platform that folded down from the side of his wagon. The cart was one of his own design. It was his home as well as his stage, but it was as dark and forbidding as its master, who never abandoned the air of power and malice he wore before his audiences. It kept the other gypsies away. The only company the sorcerer cared for was that of his son, who he could never intimidate, and his assistant, who could never leave him.

Both were with him, too, when the gypsies stopped just before Christmas, in a snowy hollow outside a small German town and his remarkable, somber wagon let down its narrow stage, and they were with him when he performed beneath the heavy black awning that unrolled from the roof, among the heavy shadows lit only by tall, crimson candles, beneath the sign that read: "JEROME: MASTER OF THE MAGIC OF HELL."

The gypsy lived up to this title well. Not only was he adept at all his conjuring tricks and sleights of hand, but he knew how to let his hard, gleaming eyes burn into the crowd from behind hanging, disheveled locks, let his black cloak hang from his raised arms, chant and gesture, so that those who saw him swore they watched a devil. It was easy for him. He only had to look over the faces in the crowd, and he hated them.

He hated all the women, who were still alive and were not his wife, who was not. He hated all the awed children, who were not his own little son. He hated the men who had brought them to him to be entertained, when his own wife and his own son were…

But his son was there with him, right on the stage. Something between a grimace and a grin passed over his yellowed face as he fingered the cloth of a rough burlap sack that had been hidden behind the table that stood at the center of the stage, covered with a heavy black cloth.

With a laugh that sounded like a sob, he lifted the sack that held his son, his free hand tearing the cover off of the table, which was, in fact, a small coffin set on sawhorses.

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It was cold inside the little black box. Jerome's assistant was fairly sure it was quite cold outside as well. It had been before the performance, before he was hidden in the coffin, and before then he was allowed to cover as much of his pitiful skin as possible. On stage, he was allowed only short breeches of burlap sacking, tied around his waist with a length of stolen rope, and a hood of the same sackcloth. That was part of the trick.

He listened intently to the performance taking place around him, and heard the choking half-sob that his master always gave when it was time to bring out the other boy. "The rest of my magic -- " Jerome paused, and his helper was sure he could hear the faint rattle from the sack. "I cannot perform alone." There was another pause, and the boy knew Jerome was enjoying holding his audience in awe and suspense. "That is why I have been given, by the same devil that taught these tricks to me, a helper to perform the rest." Now he heard the crowd begin to shuffle nervously, the feet crushing the snow. "I have him here!" Jerome let the sack tilt in his hand, and, with a chorus of thumps and taps, the bones of the boy named Erik spilled across the coffin's lid.

The assistant smiled mildly into the darkness above him. He was very fond of the other boy. They had so much in common. And Erik's name was the first he had ever been called by, on the night, almost a year ago, when Jerome had found him lying trembling, half-frozen in the deep snow outside Rouen. The sorcerer's eyes had been gleaming with what he now recognized as the effect of wine and grief, and he looked at the shaking monster with something like surprise and almost – he still thought he had seen it then, although he had to admit he had never seen it before – something almost like love. And the man had asked softly, "Erik?"

The name had come so softly, so naturally, and the man had looked at his wretched face so easily, that for a moment the little boy had thought this stranger somehow knew the name he never knew himself. Even now, when he knew that Jerome's mistake was understandable, since Erik had by that time come to resemble the deformed little waif in the snow, the boy saw no reason that he shouldn't be called Erik, too. They were nearly the same person, after all. That was part of the trick.

"My servant, he is too lively, you see. He makes mischief. So I keep him in my sack, just like this." Bone and wood clicked softly as Jerome raised one of his son's disjointed arms to demonstrate the boy's incapacitated state. "But you see, when I need him, I can make him merry and as active as a little child. Watch!"

Around the stage, the crowd began to murmur, so that the boy in the coffin could scarcely hear the rustling of long dried tissue as Jerome began to tie the skeletal limbs to the mummified frame with red-dyed twine. Identical bits of cord were tied around the assistant's own bony arms. He shook himself in the coffin's confines, trying to throw off the cold and prepare himself. Above him, he heard a loud rip as Jerome tore the sack in two. The top part, with the drawstring, the magician knotted modestly around the flesh that clung to his son's hips. The top half he settled carefully over the skull, secured with another red rope passed through the collarbones. "You see now?" Jerome asked the audience. "Just reborn for you, a good little newborn boy on Christmas Eve!" Jerome laughed, and the sound of those anxious, shuffling feet seemed to draw back from the edge of the stage. "But, of course, a good boy must be baptized! The bones creaked and the skeleton's feet thumped against the coffin's lid as Jerome lifted him. "I have the font right here."

The lid was torn away, landing on its edge against the sawhorse, so that its shape told the crowd exactly what the little box was. The boy shifted to one side as Jerome laid his long-dead Erik beside the living boy. Then, raising his open left hand to shoulder high, the master of Hell's magic drew a black-handled knife and carved a deep gash across his palm, letting his own blood fall onto the two hooded bodies beneath his raised arm. His hand still bled as he closed it around the throat that still held a trembling pulse.

His assistant held his body rigid as Jerome lifted him like a corpse from the grave. The whispers swelled around the foot of the stage. He knew that at the moment, he could still pass for any other unhealthy, emaciated child. Then Jerome's hand – his right, as the left still dribbled hot blood down the boy's jutting collarbones and ribs – came to rest on his hooded head. "My servant lives!"

The air hit his face like a mask of ice as the hood was torn away. And the screaming started. Because his face… Oh, his face. But that was why the trick worked.

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It was still chilly inside the cart, but, with the crowds gone, the magician' assistant was allowed to wear the worn out clothes Jerome had found for him. His skin burned pleasantly as it thawed beneath the woolly vest, and he gave a delighted shiver, twisting his fingers into the sleeves of his plain shirt. If he had ever been so warm before the magician found him, he could not remember it. He even had a pair of shoes as a gypsy, even if they were rather big for him. Little boys who live in root cellars did not need shoes, but gypsies did. He smiled beneath the soft cloth of his mask.

Jerome himself had just lit the little metal grill that heated the wagon, and now he knelt beside his little cot, carefully arranging dead Erik's bones. His black cloak had been tossed carelessly across his workbench, but otherwise he remained in costume. He always did, not seeing to his own comfort until he had gently pulled threadbare cotton bedclothes over his son's remains.

Jerome was a good father, the assistant thought. He rarely left the bones in the wagon alone, and he often leaned over them, kissing the skull and the crumbling yellow skin of the hands, and whispered all the things he wanted to teach him, all about magic and illusion, all different languages and customs, and even music. The assistant ached to learn the haunting strains the gypsies played at dances, while Jerome and his two boys listened in the dark wagon.

When the magician finally stood, he crossed wearily to the little chair at the workbench, flinging down the decks of cards, the matches, the scarves and ropes, and the knife from his pockets before he finally sat. His helper watched as the tired man reached for one of the ever-present bottles of wine, took a swig, then tipped some of the alcohol onto a cloth and dabbed at the cut on his palm.

Jerome winced and took another long drink from the bottle. His eyes glistened in the little light from the grate as he started to bandage his hand. He drank again for a long time as he finished, then set the empty bottle carefully on the floor, his eyes on the table in front of him. "We won't have to perform tomorrow." Jerome cinched the strip of dingy cloth tighter around his hand. "They're doing a Christmas pageant, and we tired devils can rest for a day. What do you say, boy?"

The assistant grinned under his mask, which slipped over his eyes as he nodded fiercely. Although he did not think his master saw, he scrambled to his blankets in one corner of the wagon, hoping that if he was quiet and let the magician drink in peace, the promised day of rest might include a chance to learn more of Jerome's tricks. Hoping, he wrapped himself eagerly up and snuggled into the corner, watching earnestly as Jerome uncorked another bottle.

While the wine vanished, the fire in the grill started to soften the night's cold, its flames settling down into the coals and casting only faint, flickering light. He thought, as he often did, that he had never even known comfort until he had joined Jerome. There were no rats here. The man who kicked at him blindly with one arm over his eyes was far away in the little house, with the woman who shrieked when he came near her. Here, the other boy looked like him, and Jerome could look at both of them.

Here was a new thing, too, called Christmas. He had heard the gypsies talking through the cart's walls. They were celebrating because there was a baby born, and the baby was warm and pink and had a nose. And it never cried. He had seen the toy baby for the pageant.

He supposed there was no Christmas at the little house because the only baby born there was ugly and cold and yellow. He didn't think it was a great loss, although he loved to listen to the new songs the gypsies sang about this warm, pink, nice baby.

The boy watched on, listening as Jerome's quiet gulps gave way slowly to whimpers and the gleam in his eyes begin to slide down his sallow cheeks. It couldn't be helped, he supposed. Even Jerome couldn't help but wish for a healthy son. He gave a reproachful glance at Erik, who he thought was asleep, although it was hard to tell, since he never snored and had no eyes to close. There were moments when he wished the boy would do more.

Although, maybe there was nothing he could do. Certainly, there was nothing the assistant could have done at the little house to make the crying woman happy. The memory of her sobs blended with Jerome's as the boy began to nod. Slowly, although he struggled to keep his eyes on his unhappy master, his starving little body sank deeper into the corner as his mind sank into dreams.

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The boy woke from a dream full of wailing, one hand twisting part of his blanket over his mask while the other reached up in useless self-defense , to find that the screams had been real. They were distant, perhaps in another part of the camp, but he could hear them. Jerome must have heard them, too, for he stood suddenly, clinging to the workbench for support, and began pacing unsteadily around the wagon.

His assistant watched, surprised, as the magician began to moan and press his hands over his ears. He seemed only to get worse as the screams became more frequent. They were a woman's, and full of pain as well as the fear he heard so often. But her distress was not half as unsettling as Jerome's. The sorcerer now simply turned drunkenly, moving like a figure of a broken music box, until his wet, despairing eyes landed on his servant.

The boy scrambled to his feet as Jerome lurched forward. The magician tripped as he reached for his narrow shoulders, driving the boy hard into the corner. He gave a wretched sobbing laugh as he helped his assistant up. "They are giving a Christmas pageant for our benefit, you hear it? It is all for Jerome, and his good boys, for them to remember." He grinned, leaning dangerously. "Did I ever show you my Elise?"

His helper shook his head, and Jerome dragged him by the shoulders to the workbench. He didn't dare step back as the magician released him to fumble through the clutter piled there. Bottles of wine rolled heavily to the floor as Jerome searched. A deck of cards was scattered. Finally, from beneath the discarded black cloak, he produced a sketch of a woman, which he showed reverently to the boy. "My Elise," he whispered. His trembling fingers clutched at the framed drawing until the knuckles turned pale. "Isn't she so beautiful?"

The assistant peered at the picture. The colors were obscured by dried, sticky wine collected over many nights, but the woman's silhouette seemed lovely enough. "Yes."

Jerome nodded, falling heavily into his chair. He pressed the frame to a chest. "And she is an angel."

"Yes. Of course."

The magician nodded again. "Does my son not look just like her?" He gestured with the sketch toward the bed, and the assistant looked back at Erik's skull. "Just exactly as beautiful?"

"Exactly like her."

Jerome reached out clumsily to cover the boy's mouth, fumbling at his mask. "Shhh! The boy is sleeping." The magician tugged at the cloth mask and pulled it down, so that it hung uselessly from his assistant's neck, and stared in apparent confusion at the face it had hidden.

Silence seemed to fill up the little wagon. Outside, the screams had stopped, or else the woman had been quieted enough that she could not be heard that their distance. The assistant stood frozen under Jerome's stare, almost afraid to move, in case Jerome should suddenly realize that he would rather have a warm, living boy for his magic show, like the doll from the pageant. Slowly, the magician lifted his bandaged hand, laying his fingertips lightly on his helper's cheek. "… Erik…?"

The boy felt his throat grow strangely tight, as if his dangling mask had been cinched tight around his neck, and Jerome's image started to blur. Someone had dare to touch him, right on his miserable face, and once again called by an actual name.

Outside, another scream rang out, much closer to the solemn black cart. Jerome stood too quickly, toppling the chair, which in turn seemed to snare the magician's legs in its own, so that he fell with an incomprehensible shout. His assistant, too, started at the cry. The stillness that had frozen around the wagon was broken, and the night was suddenly full of the sounds of suffering – groans, sobs, and whimpers that seemed to come nearer and nearer. A woman's voice cried out, "Jerome!"

The master of Hell's magic bellowed as he flailed on the cart's creaking floor. "Go 'way!" His black hair hung wildly around his face and his eyes rolled towards the door as he managed to thrash his way to his feet. He shouted again, with a fury that sounded truly infernal as it echoed through the confines of his wagon. "You stay 'way from me!"

Outside, the woman kept calling him, her voice ringing over new ones, more distant, calling her back. Jerome's assistant shrank back into the shadow of the workbench. It had been nearly a year since he had been found, and in that time no one had ever approached Jerome's wagon, no one had ever screamed or shouted, outside of the magic shows. In the magician's shadow had a home and a haven. But outside, the voices came nearer, the woman sounding as near as the screamers at the foot of the stage, nearer than the crying woman at the little house could ever stand to be.

And still she came closer, until all that was between them was the length of the wagon and its light wooden door. "Jerome! Jerome, please!" The knotted length of rope than ran through a hole in one warped plank to serve as a door handle pulled suddenly tight as it was yanked from the other side, the door slapping its crooked frame. "Help me, please!"

Jerome moved slowly back towards the far side of the cart, his eyes wide and uncomprehending as they stared at the door. Through his own rising fear, the boy wondered how many years it must have been since someone was at his door, even before his little year, to leave Jerome so puzzled. Not even in the root cellar would he have stared that way if the door opened. He would know that it was. It would mean to hide, it would mean that coming down the creaking stairs was--

The pounding at door, the pained screams seemed to leap from, rather than pierce, his thoughts, making his little heart shudder in his chest and a feeling like ice clutch at the already cold flesh of his back. For a moment, he heard only the screaming woman from the little house. She had been so afraid. Yes! Afraid he would come back, and now she came to find him first, and next must come the man, with his heavy, scuffed boots, roaring through the pillow clutched over his face. He flung himself to the floor, clutching at the legs of the table as the door finally swung open with a crash.

It was a woman outside. Peeking from beneath the table, he saw her leaning through the doorway, only half visible, her legs hidden where the floor rode over the wagon's axles. Her whole form trembled with exhaustion, and her eyes shone feverishly bright in a face flushed and streaked with tears. But it was not the same face he remembered.

Her eyes were wide beneath hanging strands of hair. "Please…" Her arms shook under the little weight as she held out what she had been clutching to her breast: a baby girl, limp and blue and silent. The silence was worst of all, as it shook and dangled in her wavering arms.

Jerome pointed a shaking finger at the woman in the door. "Elise… Just the same as… my Elise…"

"Help me…" With one hand, she clawed feebly at the wagon's floor, the other holding out the limp little form to the magician, the obvious weakness in that wavering limb pleading as forcefully as her choking words. "I've seen you… You brought back your own son, you…" With a sob, she tried to haul herself into the cart. "I've seen it… Right on that stage… Please, help me! My baby--!" A keening wail came from her and she seemed to crumble, still half bent around the wagon's floor, clinging to their threshold. "My baby --!"

Jerome's face had the same shock as the folk in his audience, as if she has seen this woman hauled living out of a coffin she had been laid in dead. And, from where the boy still cringed behind the table, he thought he heard that horror and something worse in the broken voice at the door. Jerome must have heard it too. Once again, he staggered back from the door. "No! Go 'way. I can't do nothing!"

"But I saw you-- Please!" Her sweat-soaked breast heaving, the woman finally succeeded in dragging herself inside, child held out, collapsing on floor. "I saw you--" The loose white nightdress, wet and bloody, fell around her like a shroud as she tried to come closer. "I saw you bring your own son up right on that stage--" The hand still clutching the babe sank, exhausted. "You took him out of the sack… You put flesh on his bones…" She sobbed again, dragging the girl like a doll beneath her hand as she crawled blindly towards the magician. "Please…"

Outside, the other voices grew closer. "Marie! I see her tracks!" It was a man calling, and Jerome's assistant cringed, as if it were his own bones and not snow that he heard crunching beneath the approaching boots.

"Hurry, then!" A woman's voice, thin with age, answered the man's. "Honest, monsieur, if I she was in any condition… I wouldn't've taken my eyes off her for an instant!"

"No!" Jerome's voice was the same he used when he performed, deep and loud and threatening, but his limbs seem to freeze on themselves in terror as he shouted like a child. "No, no, no!" His frantic steps brought him back to the chair, which quickly proved just as eager to snatch at the sorcerer's legs. Jerome fell again, one of the chair's legs breaking beneath him with a crack! His helper leapt at the sound and half started out towards his master, his mask forgotten where it hung uselessly under his chin.

It took only the hiss of the woman's indrawn breath to stop him, as quickly as if it had been the hiss of a deadly snake coiled in his path, and he knew she had seen full on what she had only glimpsed when Jerome pulled away the sackcloth hood on stage. Her eyes, red with tears, were fixed right on the wretched little corpse that had appeared from behind the work bench. With a shriek, she tried to scramble back toward the door, her baby sprawled forgotten on the floor.

Jerome kicked furiously, trying to free himself from the wreckage of his ruined chair. "GET HER OUT!"

Outside the voices sounded out closer. "Marie!"

"Oh, God! Monsieur!"

Slowly, the assistant edged toward the door. His ears were full of screams and the sound of the approaching footsteps and his heart pounded as he stepped towards her, his bony hands held out, warding, driving her back. Her terrified cries dissolved into blubbering as she squirmed away. "No… please, help…" With her empty hands still reaching, pleading, the woman reached the end of the wagon's floor, her bare frozen feet sticking out into the cold beyond the open door. Realization crossed her face, and then she fell.

Suddenly, the dark outside was full of shadows as the voices arrived, the figures of the man and woman appearing in the doorway only to stoop out of sight to tend to the woman, who the boy could still hear screaming and thrashing in the snow. From beneath the wagon's floor, the man shouted, "Quick! Help me with her."

Their shuffling began to move away, and the boy relief rush through him. Because he knew about shouting men in boots. It was the first thing he had ever learned. They only kick while their women are afraid. Once the women are calm, little monsters can crawl away. Now, this man and his women would leave them be. The boy could almost have laughed, if he hadn't learned, too, to stay silent. Until the woman shrieked again. "My baby! No!"

Her baby? Almost puzzled, he looked down at the limp blue form at his feet and picked it up. Her skin was cold and her limbs dangled awkwardly in his hands. He glanced back at Jerome, still struggling to stand, and again at the baby. Her baby. With one last look at the back of the cart, the magician's assistant leapt through the open door.

It was only feet to the ground, and he landed easily on his feet in the midst of the little group that huddled outside the wagon. The man had the wiry arms of a juggler, but had managed to drag his wife only a few yards back towards the rest of the camp. The woman he recognized as the gypsies' midwife fell backwards into the snow with a shriek as the little monster suddenly appeared in front of them. Even the man sprang back with a shout, dropping the shrieking mother.

Their silhouettes flicked black over the ground as the little group scuffled around in the fresh layer of snow. It was still falling, screening the figures. The boy drew back, crouching in the shadow of the wagon, the baby still in his arms. The man and the midwife hesitated to either side of the white, sobbing shape of the mother, who had collapsed as they released her, unsure whether to return to her side or to rush to defend her from the Jerome's disfigured little apprentice.

In the cart's open door, the flickering light thrown from the grate was blocked as the magician finally found his feet and staggered to stand in front of the door. "Get her out of here!" He stood roaring inside the cart, commanding, chanting drunkenly, the simple power of his voice making shouts thick with wine and sorrow still sound intimidating, as if he hoped to drive back his fellow gypsies as his magic tricks drove the town folk from the foot of his stage. "She has given birth to death, and death will claim her!"

The man's face showed pure terror of Jerome and the creature he believed to both his son and assistant. "Leave us alone, she's bad enough already!"

Inside the cart, Jerome howled. "She will die! Die, die, die! Take her away!"

"Leave us alone!"

The midwife grabbed the man's arm, helping with her other hand to steady the struggling mother. "If we don't get her in right away, he'll be right! She has a slim chance as it is, now help me!"

The mad hurried to help the midwife restrain the mother, but she struggled against their arms. "My baby!"

Still clutching the baby in one bony hand, the magician's apprentice hastily pulled the mask back over his face, trapping a fold of cloth against his forehead. The holes cut for his eyes were twisted half out of place, and, twisting his head, he could see only snatches of the scene at a time: a waving arm, the frozen ground, the tense face of the midwife, the snow falling in the dark. "Please, madame." He reached out, holding baby out before him as he stumbled forward.

The mother reached, too, but leaned away even as she did so, twisting away from the walking corpse that held the little infant. "My baby… please!" A strange combination of hope and horror shone in her gleaming eyes, as if he could save the child if Jerome would not, as if he were really Erik and it were not all a silly magic trick. And would her child – if he were really Erik – look like this creature, this little monster without any nose and with queer yellow lights half-hidden in sockets meant to hold eyes? And where would they put her, since gypsies have no root cellars, and where would they find a mask pretty enough for a little girl? And who would want to marry a girl with no nose? He stretched his arms farther, trying to keep the limp little body as far away from him as possible, so she could take it from him without needing to come near him. A trick! He wanted to call out. It is a silly trick – a magic trick!

He stumbled on faster toward the woman, trying to keep her grasping hands in sight through his misaligned eyeholes. He heard her started to weep again, and the midwife speaking firmly to sooth her as she forced her gingerly backwards. The assistant heard, as if from a distance, Jerome shouting at them from just inside the wagon's door, and the man screaming back, "Leave us alone!"

The midwife pulled back at the mother's shoulder, but pulled as though the woman was made of glass, and so made little progress. The woman fought for every step, sobbing. The magician's assistant tried to dart behind the man to reach her, his feet slipping in the snow, until he felt a pair of heavy hands ram his side. The baby dropped out of his hands, and his breath vanished as he landed hard on ridges of frozen footprints beneath the snow. "Don't touch her!" The man lunged at him again, and the boy flinched and curled around himself, one skeletal hand stretched out in pleading self-defense, but that boot, that looked as hard and as heavy as the other in the little house, only stomped into snow beside him. "You monster! Don't touch her!" He watched through his mask's twisted eyeholes as the man's fleeing feet hurried back to his wife. He saw the three pairs of feet – the man's, the mother's, and the midwife's – scuffle briefly in the snow, then the man swung her up into his arms and carried her quickly away from the magician's black wagon.

The little assistant rose carefully to his feet and let out a long, shuddering breath. With shaking hands, he straightened his mask, watching his steaming breath swirling up into view from beneath its edge. He felt suddenly grateful for the cloth that absorbed his frightened tears. Slowly, he stooped and picked up the girl from the snow.

Jerome's figure filled the doorway behind him, and the assistant looked up at him. The magician's arms were braced against the top of the rough doorframe, his head hanging wearily as he started at the figures retreating into the dark. Between the man and the midwife, Marie's white-clad form seemed to melt into the trampled snow like a ghost. "Just like her," he whispered. "Just like my Elise." The drifting snowflakes landed and vanished on his black vest as he stood staring. "She is dead now, you see. Very soon…"

Jerome staggered slightly as he drew back into the wagon. Still clutching the still infant, the boy clambered into the wagon after him, watching from the open doorway as the magician stooped beside the overturned chair to pick up the sketch of his late wife and placed it gently on the table. From there, he stumbled toward the bed, dropped to his knees beside it, and pressed his forward to Erik's skull. His assistant could faintly hear his pained whispers as he stayed there, hunched miserably.

Very softly, the living boy shut the door behind him, the baby still held gingerly in the crook of one arm. Her blue-tinged skin was flecked with bits of ice where snowflakes had frozen to it, and her too large head lolled awkwardly. The assistant shifted her carefully so that her cold face rested against his own bony chest.

The baby did have a nose. And, although she was not warm or pink, she was as quiet as the doll for Christmas.

He crossed the wagon silently. Beside the bed, Jerome was slumped over, his breathing much slower and deeper and his cheek pressed against the ridges of his son's ribs. His assistant padded silently to his corner and picked up one of his blankets, returning to drape it over his master's shoulders. Jerome sighed. In the morning, the magician would be stiff and his head would ache. He would not want to teach little boys magic or music or anything else.

As the boy crept back to the corner and his remaining blanket, he looked down in awe at the little form in his arms. The girl was still sticky with blood, and her dark, wispy hair had frozen to her scalp, but he was sure she would be lovely if she were properly cleaned off. He took one corner of his blanket and began to gently scrub at her skin.

She was pretty, and her hair, drying to a light brown, felt so soft as it thawed. He clutched the silent baby as close as he could without hurting her. "If you were just warm, they would have brought you with them." She didn't answer, but he supposed she must still be sad. "They just don't like dead babies. Women don't, most of all. But don't worry." He tilted the little body in his arms so that her closed eyes looked towards the sleeping magician. "Jerome, he loves dead little boys, and he'll love you, too." He began to rock her clumsily. He knew she must still be sad, but she did not cry. She was a good girl, just like the Christmas baby.

She must have been a Christmas baby for dead boys.

He stared at her. "Jerome… He is the greatest magician ever. He is the smartest man in the world, and he teaches me things. I am his assistant." She did not stir. Hesitantly, the boy reached up and carefully pulled off his cloth mask, letting it tumble off his shoulder and to the floor as he wrapping his free arm around her again. "I... The other boy is Erik… And I… I am Erik, too, I think. I…"

He shifted his arms, and her rolling head turned towards his face. With trembling fingers, he teased open her little eyelids. He held his breath, waiting, but she did not scream. He smiled.

The flickering light from the grill danced on the walls to the rhythm of its own cracking coals, and outside the magician's cart, the wind drove the snow on harder. And, huddled in his corner, the magician's assistant rocked the stillborn infant, softly crooning the Christmas carols he heard the gypsies sing.

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Argh. I kind of feel like this makes no sense whatsoever. It just hit that point where I don't know what else to do with it. I would greatly appreciate any reviews, both for that reason and because I may have further plans for Jerome and dead-Erik if you all think the character and idea is worthwhile.

But… Not Right-Away sort of plans, because I need to finish my Sweeney Todd story Kidney Pie, which I left in a horrible cliff-hanger of doom in August. Because I am built up of FAIL from head to foot…

Also, I hope you will permit me to point out that there are lots better reasons to celebrate Jesus' birth than his having a nose, although I'm sure Mary appreciated that. He pulled my sorry bacon out of the fire, and he'll do the same for you if he hasn't yet. And I belatedly wish you all a merry, if slightly morbid, Chrismas.