Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to any of the New World Zorro material, nor am I profiting by writing this story. Stave, by the way, is a musical term for a set of verses or a stanza. Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in five staves. Feliz Navidad!

Stave Two: A Mysterious Visitor

It was mid-day on Christmas Eve. The tavern was busy for the noon meal. This would be the last meal served before closing time. Victoria had planned to accept an invitation to the de la Vega Christmas gathering, but now she felt that she could not do so. She nursed her anger and refused to look at her actions as her self-righteous wrath increased. She hated him, she told herself. He had deceived her and made her wait for years just to find out he was only Diego.

"Only Diego?" a voice whispered in her mind. Diego hardly seemed the man to inspire anyone's ire. Maybe she had been unfair, but she pushed her conscience fiercely down and resolutely stoked the flames of her anger.

When Diego and Alejandro entered, her eyes nearly cast sparks. Diego looked at her curiously, and she knew he had come to town just to see if she were ready to talk. That he would assume she would forgive him made her all the angrier. She stalked past him rudely and would not look in his direction. She sent someone else to take their order and determinedly avoided their table. When Diego excused himself from the table and followed her into the kitchen, she whirled on him like a tigress. "I thought I made myself clear, Diego de la Vega. Get out! You are not welcome in my tavern now or ever again! Get out!"

"Victoria," he pleaded." He held out a letter to her. "Please just read this," he whispered. She could see that he had spent a sleepless night and had probably even cried, but she told herself she didn't care. In fact, she could almost take a perverse delight in causing him pain because he had hurt her. She snatched the letter from his hands, deliberately ripped it into pieces, and threw them into the kitchen fireplace. He backed up as though she had slapped him again.

"If that is what you want... But know this: this is not what I want. I love you, Victoria, and I still want to marry you. But I won't come where I'm not wanted. I can only hope that when you calm down, you will see reason and listen to me."

"Never!" she hissed. She picked up the nearest pitcher of water and threw the whole thing, pitcher and all at Diego. With the speed and dexterity characteristic of Zorro, he caught the pitcher as it sloshed water all over his caballero suit and set it carefully down on the counter. "Get out!" she repeated firmly.

Diego ground his teeth together to prevent an angry retort, spun on his heel, and left the kitchen hurriedly. He marched right past Don Alejandro and out of the tavern to where Esperanza waited for him. He kicked her sides harder than usual and thundered out of the pueblo at a gallop, leaving his father gaping behind him in astonishment.

Victoria suddenly felt limp and drained. The fire in her brain threatened to consume her, and she felt even more ashamed of her lack of control than she had last night. Should she go after him? But if she did, what would she say? She told herself that she had been right to be angry, that she would allow him to feel the full force of her wrath for a while to give herself time to think and consider.

Feeling ill at ease and knowing that her face was flaming red, she found her assistant, Pilar, and made arrangements for Pilar to close the tavern in an hour. Then she excused herself and went up to her room. Lifting her hands to splash water up around her fevered temples, she plunged her face into a basin of cold water which stood on the small table in her room. Even that was not enough to still the fevered beating of her heart. Every beat dinned in her ears and made her feel faint.

As she dried her face, her eyes lighted on the small needlework sampler that adorned the wall just above her wash basin. It had been worked by her grandmother years ago. The words were in an elegant Spanish script, and the border was surrounded by pink, white, and red roses connected by fancy swirls and scrolls. The background had become antiqued and ivoried with age. Although imperfect in execution in places because it had been the work of her grandmother's girlhood, it was, nonetheless, beautiful. But it was the text that convicted Victoria at this moment. The largest word at the top, La Caridad (Love) was beautifully worked in ornate stitches. The text her grandmother had chosen came from the Bible, from the first letter of Saint Paul to the church at Corinth: "Todo lo sufre, todo lo cree, todo lo espera, todo lo soporta. La caridad nunca deja de ser" ("Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.") Victoria shuddered miserably as she contemplated what those words meant for her relationship with Don Diego. At last, she lay down on her bed. She was still trembling in anger and emotional distress.

It was some time later when Victoria sat up in bed. She looked around her and saw that the fire was burning low. It cast flickering shadows around her room and left the corners in gloom. She was startled to see a woman sitting in the darkness beside the window. The woman's profile was turned toward her, but even so, Victoria could see her shining silver hair and had a fleeting impression of a look of unutterable weariness and sadness upon the woman's face. The woman held a crushed rose cradled in her hands; the rose Zorro had dropped as he left earlier that evening. Victoria didn't even remember what had happened to it after Diego had gone.

"Who? Who are you?" whispered Victoria through lips thick with sleep, tears, and confusion.

The woman did not turn toward her but replied in a low voice, "Ask me not who I am but who I was in life. But even this, I am not permitted to tell you yet." Then her tone became much sharper as she exclaimed, "Victoria Escalante, what I am to do with you? You are too rash and hot-tempered for your own good. Do you realize, you foolish girl, that you have thrown away your only chance for happiness today!? Do you understand that you have crushed the heart of one of the most loyal, brave, and romantic men who ever lived? Do you never think about the consequences of your actions?"

A protest in her own self-defense rose rapidly to Victoria's mind, "But he..." she began, yet the words died on her lips.

"You are right to fall silent. A good and noble man has offered you his hand and his heart. He may be an ideal and a legend, but I assure you that he has a heart which may be all too easily broken by you." The woman scolded Victoria as if she were a foolish child, yet compassion was not lacking in the undertone beneath her words.

Victoria hung her head and did not know what to say.

"Still," said the woman, "it is Christmas and a time for miracles. I have been sent to tell you that you will be visited by three spirits. It is a chance which I have long pleaded for and have at last been granted. Do not squander your opportunities, Victoria. You must learn to think and reflect before you act. Learn to rule that passionate heart with an equally wise head, just as Diego does."

"Diego?" whispered Victoria through trembling lips.

"If you do not, you will end up like me, an old, bitter woman, alone and friendless in the world. And Zorro. . . Diego will face an untimely end. Expect the first visitor when the bell tolls one o'clock. Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third, upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate."

"But..." Victoria began to protest as the fireplace crackled and spluttered, drowning out her words. She looked desperately toward the rocking chair where the woman had been, but the mysterious visitor was already gone. A few rose petals remained on the seat where she had been but a moment before.

Victoria felt alone and hollow. Her heart beat in her throat so loudly that she thought it would choke her, yet through the silence in the room, she could hear the ticking of a clock. It sounded artificially loud and filled her with terror. "Humbug!" she said to herself. "I will not believe it." She rolled over in bed and pulled the covers firmly over her head.