CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
December dragged on and dragged Ana with it. She couldn't remember the last time she'd gone so long without a job and didn't know what to do with herself without one. She spent days at the house, gouging out the decay and filling in the holes with sweat, lovelessly restoring room after broken room with no sense of accomplishment or even improvement. She thought it would be easier to deal with the wing she couldn't remember, and she was sort of right. At least she could usually work there without constantly confronting the ghosts of the children she and David used to be, but when the work was done, what did she have but one more empty room she didn't know what to do with? So she'd close the door and walk away, uneasily aware that she had no plan to ever open that door again. She was not fixing her house after all; she was building a stranger's house inside her own, and every day, she felt more and more unwelcome.
On the weekends, she went to Freddy's, escaping from the house she used to escape to, her relief at getting away always shadowed by the knowledge that she'd have to come back, which only made her feel more guilty—at not being able to just enjoy her time away, at going away at all instead of doing the work she knew had to be done, at doing work instead of confronting her feelings, and most of all at taking all this shit with her back with her to the pizzeria. She was determined not to dump her bad mood on her friends, so when they asked how she was doing, she said she was fine. She shrugged away questions and passed off the overwhelming grief and misery as insomnia and changed the subject. If pressed (and each time she saw them, it seemed like they pressed a little more), she told funny renovation stories to cover up the things she didn't want to say. She had a broken sink, a broken window, a broken sander, but Ana herself was always just fine.
And they were her friends, so they didn't call her out even if they had misgivings. They just cornered her when they could be alone to ask the real questions, and where Ana had the advantage of deflecting them one-on-one. Chica could be persuaded that Ana was merely frustrated with all the little things stacking up at the house, that she could do the work but was tired of making all the decisions. Let Chica pick out paint or light fixtures on the tablet for an hour, then decorate the show stage with her and maybe play some skee-ball, and she was golden. Freddy was not as easily distracted once his attention was caught, but fortunately he was usually only in the same room with her long enough to walk through it, so as long as Ana didn't do anything that set his Freddy-senses tingling, she was all right. And on the rare occasion that he did go all grizzly on her, he could usually be set back to teddy if Ana did some light-hearted bitching while prepping the next five days' worth of parsley and quinoa salad so he'd know she was eating right at home. Bonnie was trouble, because he knew her so damn well that lies just didn't work. Whenever they were alone together, whether watching a movie, playing a game, or hot-gluing hooks to old doubloons for the tree, she could feel his eyes on her, peering beneath the fake smiles. She couldn't hide the hurts, all she could do was ask him not to ask, and so far, he'd respected that, but the pause before his nod was getting longer and longer every time she did it.
And then there was Foxy who was at once the easiest and hardest to deal with. He stayed in the Cove most of the time, which made it easy to avoid him, but also made it glaringly apparent that she was avoiding him. And for no good reason, because he hadn't given her an ultimatum and as grateful as she was for that, in the worst, loneliest, sleepless hours, she found herself bitterly wishing he had. Then it would be easy to break it off, to go back to living her own life, maybe clear herself out of the Party Room just to show him she didn't need to be there at all, that she was her own person and he didn't get a vote on where she slept or with who.
But he didn't do that, any of it. He let her pretend nothing had happened and nothing had changed. He didn't say anything, not even when she came creeping into his cabin in the small hours of the night, not before he took her into his arms and not after, when she went back to her own room and slept there, alone except for Babycakes, who watched over her with his unblinking plastic eyes. And that was how the weekend passed, and then she went home for another endless slog patching up the hell she called her house, until the next weekend, when she could do it again.
And of course, there was no real reason she had to go home at all, no reason she couldn't stay a little longer in the pretend-home of the pizzeria with her friends if she needed them, and so of course she couldn't, because needing them was worse than anything waiting for her up on Coldslip. She wasn't supposed to need anyone. It was the one good thing left in her, the one true thing that made up for all the lies she had to tell to pass as 'normal' in the outside world: Ana Stark could take care of herself. If that wasn't true anymore, if that wasn't real, then nothing was. It wasn't stupidity and stubbornness, or at least, it wasn't only that. It was a reaffirmation of who she was, who she needed to be: the Ana Stark that didn't flinch, who could walk into that rotting cage her aunt had left her and tear it down from the inside so she could build back something beautiful and strong and own it. So every Monday, Ana swallowed her depression, pulled on her Big Girl boots and left the home she wanted for the house she hated.
But when the 23rd rolled around, her determination to stick to this strict schedule wavered. Maybe it started weakening even before that, without her noticing. She woke early, even for her, with the slow achy feeling that suggested she'd only been dozing most of the night anyway, but too restless to just roll over and try to sleep again. Tonight was Movie Night with Mr. Faust. Or was it Movie Afternoon? They'd never actually set a time to meet up. It wasn't even five yet, way too early to call or even text if he, like most people, charged the phone next to his bed and had forgotten to mute notifications.
There was plenty to do around here while she waited, but she couldn't seem to get her head together this morning, not even after a shower and three cups of coffee. Was it really worth it to start working if she was just going to stop again in a few hours? Which was horseshit and she knew it. It wasn't 'a few hours' unless she was planning to invade the man before noon. It was more like six hours at the earliest and eight was a lot more reasonable. She had her pick of projects that could be completely checked off in that small time, and hell, her pick of overwhelming rooms that could be whittled into something manageable if she did six hours of messy scut work first.
Or five hours. Got to leave time to get cleaned up after the scut, but an hour was more than enough time for that these days. It had been long enough that only the worst bruises still showed and they were smudgy and yellowed, hard to see unless you already knew they were there. The last of the stitches had dissolved (apart from a few stubborn strands that she'd had to sneakily clip and then tell Freddy they'd dissolved) and the scarring was, as promised, minimal. Her hair was already long enough to itch at the notch in her left ear, the only significant source of pain, one that really only came out when she forgot how tender it was and thoughtlessly scratched at that itch. Mr. Faust would see all these things whether she tried to hide them or not, and she didn't even care if he saw them. So why bother at all? Today was not about proving a point, she was just hanging out with a friend.
In fact, the more she thought about it, the less she felt like doing anything today. If she did great work and used her time wisely, she'd end up exhausted. If she only let herself do prep-work, she'd spend the rest of the night mentally moving through the next step of the job, and the one after that, and the one after that. And that was assuming she didn't forget about the old man altogether. Although Ana was not always willing to call it a flaw, she was aware that once she fell into her work, it took a lot to pull her out.
So, okay, she owed it to the guy to be more than just physically present. But what was she supposed to do with herself from now until then?
Fuck it, she'd wasted a couple hours pretending she had to be talked into it. The sun was up now. Surely he was, too.
She fired off a quick text—LMK when U want me—wincing as she imagined his phone lighting up in a dark bedroom, stuttering around on the tabletop and blaring sirens, but of course, it was seen as soon as sent, and the reply bounced back immediately: Whenever convenient to your other plans.
Cleared my calendar 4 U anytime works 4me
This time, a familiar sort of pause. She could see him typing, hesitating, typing, hesitating, exactly the way Freddy did, usually before one of his one word or mute emoji answers. And sure enough, after several minutes and a lot of ellipses: Would you like to meet now? We could breakfast together. Here or at some public venue, if preferred.
Luv2 but better make it UR place 2 days b4 xmas = crazy busy Gallifreys
A point well-made. Shall I expect you soon?
Yup OMW typed Ana, but opened a new chat window instead of heading for the door. U there Big Bear?
Ellipses, ellipses, ellipses and finally, Yes.
Without thinking too hard about why she was asking, she typed, Cn I come over l8r 2nte?
In English, please.
Ana rolled her eyes and slowly pecked out, Can I come over later tonight? FFS
Our door is always open to you, Ana, he replied and almost at once, another bubble blooped up to say, Which is to say, our doors are always locked, but you have a set of keys and are always welcome, no matter the reason. Ellipses, ellipses, ellipses. Is there a reason?
Ana glanced around her dark, silent, haunted house and wrote, Xmas starts on Xmas Eve. I kinda want to be there for the whole thing ABT2 head out Stuff 2do in town Nnot sure how L8 I'll B but I'll txt to let U know incomming U mind?
Not at all. I look forward to spending the night diagramming sentences with you. A pause, then, Bonnie says hi.
Hi Bonnie she typed back dutifully. Hi Chica & Foxy too. Gtg, cyl
Try again.
Ana groaned theatrically in an empty house and typed, I need to go now. I'll see you later.
I knew you could do it. Drive safely.
Now she was on her way, and after grabbing Faust's present and her daypack, she slammed out the door and into her truck.
With no one to maintain the roads, it took a little longer to come down off Coldslip than it usually did, and she knew it would get a lot worse before it got better. Late December wasn't even the halfway point of Mammon's winter. So far, the weather had been remarkably mild, melting off the snow between flurries so it didn't pile up deeper than her truck could manage, but she couldn't count on that to last. That was just a fact of life in this stupid town; one day, the snow was up to your boots and the next day, it had buried your car. And then it rained and froze, so you had to break through two inches of ice before you could even shovel it out. And what would she do then, snowed in at her own house with nothing to do but play on her phone and nothing to eat but a couple Monsters, a tub of coffee and some ketchup?
She had to start keeping more food at the house. She had to buy some damn furniture and get a TV. She had to…
She had to start living there. Or leave.
She glanced out the window at Freddy's, dark and seemingly abandoned atop the bluff at the Edge of Nowhere, then put her eyes back on the white expanse of nothing where the road ought to be and kept driving.
As the foothills fell behind her, the desert opened up and now she could see a few signs of town life. A few reflective posts popped up, slanting out of the snow to show her where the road was buried. Then a speed sign, peppered with old bullets and stained by paintballs. Then the first tire tracks, driving out onto Cawthon until whoever it was decided their car wasn't a snowplow and turned around. A few miles more and she saw a line of pickups sitting empty in the middle of the road; when she looked for them, she could see sunlight glinting on the ATVs racing each other out in the desert. Enough kids were coming out here often enough that their tires had carved ruts all the way down to the asphalt, which took a lot of the guesswork out of driving. By the time she reached the first buildings, the road was mostly clear, although the sidewalk was buried in dirty snow. So someone had a plow going, it just wasn't going all the way up Coldslip, which considering the town's budget crisis, was only to be expected.
There was a surprising amount of traffic, especially for a town where she could sometimes drive around all day and see maybe a dozen moving vehicles and a handful of pedestrians. All the shops were open early and there were already people bustling in and out, getting those last-minute stocking stuffers, but never so busy that they couldn't stop in the middle of the damn street to chat. After the third or fourth time she had to hit her brakes because some jackhat stepped directly in front of her to hug someone else, she pulled the truck around and escaped through the nearest alley, zig-zagging her way through Mammon's bustling downtown district, then the sprightly commercial area, then the listless industrial row and finally popping out on Old Canyon Road, circling around the very edge of town toward the unnamed lane that would take her to Faust's house.
She hadn't come this way since before her trip to Yoshi's, and things looked different. No, not just different, but wrong, and yet, at a casual glance, everything seemed peaceful. All the windows were dark and at first, she thought that might be it, because it was late enough in the day that no one should still be asleep. And because she was looking at the windows now, she noticed they all appeared to be covered with blinds. No curtains, just blinds…the same color and style…in every single window of every house.
Once she saw that, she saw all of it. There were no cars in any of the driveways and no tracks to suggest there had every been one. The lawns and walkways were covered in untouched snow. No smoke rose from the chimneys or steam from the vents. There were no wreaths on the doors, no lights dangling from the eaves, no Christmas tree glowing behind the blinds that covered the windows.
No one lived here. This entire street was nothing but an old background for a cancelled show, just a row of props waiting to be knocked down and swept away. It was almost a relief to turn off onto the canyon road, which had no shops and no houses and pretended to be nothing but what it was, the outer edge of a derelict town.
She drove through a couple winding miles of nothing, took the non-descript side-road that disguised the beginning of Faust's long driveway (she would have known where to turn even if she'd never been to the house before; although he lived as far from town as she did, if not further, and there were no street-signs, his driveway was plowed). The gate was closed when she reached it and the guardhouse was empty, so she pulled up to the comm and pressed the button.
The speaker crackled and Faust's voice came through. "Yes?"
"It's me," she said.
"Have you forgotten the password?"
"How could I?" It was her birthday, sort of. "I didn't think it was right to just let myself in."
"At any hour, Miss Stark, day or night. My door is always open to you."
It wasn't much of a coincidence, given how well-known that particular phrase that was, but hearing it again so soon brought a laugh out of her.
"Which is to say, your doors are always locked," she joked, "but I know the passcode."
"Just so. Well then?"
She put the code in. The gate buzzed and opened.
She drove up and up and up the winding road that led nowhere but to Stately Faust Mansion. The only car in the turnout was the black Jaguar that was his customary ride whenever he went to town, which hopefully meant they were alone, although anything at all might be parked in the garage. She braced herself for the possibility of Chad's company, grabbed the gift box, and crunched over Faust's top-tier gravel to the front door.
It opened before she reached it and there stood Faust, in what was for him casual day dress, which was to say, his usual Victorian mortician's cosplay, only without the overcoat and top hat. He nodded a stiff greeting as he fidgeted with the head of his cane, and invited her inside with a wave of one arm. "It is very good to see you, Ana. Thank you for coming."
"Thank you for having me," she replied and handed him the box. "Merry Christmas and all that jazz."
"Ah," he said, holding it between the very tips of his fingers, as if it were burning hot. "I wasn't sure if we were sufficiently advanced in our relationship to be exchanging gifts."
"I cleaned up a crime scene for you," she reminded him. "We're as close as it gets. But you don't have to get me anything."
"Oh, I did," he said with a frown. "I merely wasn't sure if it would be appropriate to give it to you. You've displayed a certain reticence in the past for accepting gifts from me. Which is understandable, given the circumstances, but I hope you would know by now that I would never use my means against you."
"I know," she said, smiling.
"Good. Then you would be willing to accept a small token of the season?"
"Sure."
"Very good." He placed his gift on a nearby writing desk, opened a drawer and produced a small box from among the stationary and stamps. It was longish and narrow, not deep, about the size of an old-school cigarette case. Or a jewelry box, thought Ana, but kept her sigh on the inside where it couldn't show.
"I suppose the done thing would be to wait until the appointed day," Faust said, running his thin fingers over the top of his gift. "But I've never been one to stand on ceremony. Shall we open them now?"
"Absolutely," said Ana. "I'm an instant gratification kind of gal."
But she didn't open hers yet, instead watching him peel up tabs of tape and meticulously fold back paper to expose the wooden case within.
"I confess I'm intrigued," he remarked as he studied the engraved knotwork decorating the lid. "By the weight, I deduced some kind of tool, but this would be curious packaging for a power drill."
"Not to mention you've already got every kind of tool on the market."
"And then some," he agreed and opened it. His head tipped. A very small smile began to tickle at one corner of his mouth as he regarded the contents—a set of three identical hatchets, their blades etched with more knotwork, hafts wrapped in leather and secured with rune-engraved pommels.
"So I said to myself," said Ana, "what do you get the guy who has everything? And seeing as I happen to know your doctor is encouraging you to develop a routine of light exercise as part of your recovery program, I came up with the obvious idea: hand-forged Viking throwing axes. You don't already have some, do you?"
"I do not," he said gravely, picking one out and running his thumb carefully along the edge.
"I got me a set too, since I'm also in the market for a light exercise regimen. I may have a slight advantage because I used to do this a lot with a friend of mine in California, but it's my left shoulder that needs the physical therapy—"
"And you're right-handed."
"Righter than I am left. I don't know if there's a word for semi-ambidextrous, but I guess that's what I am. I figured we could set up some targets outside somewhere and, you know, throw the odd axe around whenever I come over."
"Outside? And leave our fun to the fickle weather? Oh no, I have rooms enough."
"For an indoor axe-throwing range? You really think that's a wise idea?"
"I'm rich, dear child, I don't need to be wise." He replaced the axe in its case and closed the lid, now broadly smiling with both sides of his mouth. "It's delightful. I shall be the terror of the retirement home to which my grandson consigns me once he discovers I'm flinging bladed weapons around the house. Thank you. And now?"
Right. Now it was her turn and she was going to have to fool this incredibly perceptive man into thinking she loved whatever useless, sparkly—
It was indeed a jewelry box, and once upon a time, it had apparently contained a man's wristwatch, but that wasn't what was in it now. At first glance, it appeared to be a pen. Then she thought it was the same odd device as the one she'd found in David's room, mixed in with his markers. It was the same metal, had the same luster and weight, but when she picked it up, she found it also had a narrow glass window running along its full length, with an air bubble floating inside.
"From an old builder to a young one," said Mr. Faust. "It has a level, as you see, and a retractable ribbon marked with both standard and metric measurements. It also contains a light, a screwdriver—with magnetized Phillips and flat tips—a pick, fine-line pincers, a cutting edge and there used to be a nib here for a fountain pen." He uncapped one end to reveal a very different but perfectly ordinary tip. "I changed it so it takes .5 lead, which is much more practical. And the light is LED now, far brighter and less delicate. I hope you find some use for it, although no doubt you have a multi-tool at home."
"I have a few," she agreed, testing the light and clicking through the tips. "But not like this. You made it, didn't you?"
"A long time ago. In my military days," he added, watching her play with it. "Like my Scoop, I suppose it was a crime to keep it, but unlike the Scoop, I don't think they would come for it, even if they knew I had it. You can find a similar, or indeed, a superior product in any hardware store these days."
"I love it," said Ana and slid it at once into the top of her boot. "Thanks."
He lifted a hand, hesitated, then stepped back and aimed it instead at the house behind him. "I have coffee ready and Cook has prepared refreshments, but it's a dismal day and I should like to offer a hot breakfast, provided your expectations aren't high. I usually content myself with a toasted English muffin, but I could manage eggs or hot cereal, if you'd like."
"Eggs and toast works for me," she said lightly, following him through the house. "Not too much butter on the toast, though. I'm driving later."
"Alas, Cook discovered your generous gift of exotic butters whilst she was cleaning the kitchen in anticipation of my release from Tranquility's confinement, and since it had, in her words, gone green—"
"She threw it out," Ana concluded and shook her head with a not-entirely exaggerated grimace of disgust. "What a waste of good weed."
"To be fair, if she'd mistaken it for ordinary herbed butter, she almost certainly would have used the stuff when my wife and her family descended upon the house that evening, tired and hungry. I felt the loss keenly, of course. I also felt enormously relieved at not having to explain to my dear wife why her grandchildren were tripping balls on Cook's creamy potatoes au gratin."
They'd come to the back of the house now, to that huge empty space with the long hallway that led to Faust's office, and the glass door that opened onto the back patio. Faust continued on to the kitchen and Ana knew she should follow, but her feet carried her to the back door. With every step, that memory—not even a memory, but the echo of a dream of a memory—flickered in the back of her mind. There was the pool with its blue cover blanketed in snow that the wind had blown into rippling waves, like a frozen ocean. There was the patio furniture, all the cushions put away for the winter, with icicles sprouting crazily in all directions. And here was the latchplate on the door, now hip-height where once she'd been small enough to breathe on it and see the fog it made.
She turned her head, like the girl she'd been in the dream, and looked down the long, long hall to the door at the very end. Faust's safe was in that room, behind the false wall, and the elevator to his basement workshop, but she didn't think about either of those things now. She thought about his desk and the small glass case he kept on the corner, with a little Freddy Fazbear plushie locked up inside it, holding an old pair of sneakers with rainbow laces.
Ana glanced over at the empty doorway through which Faust had vanished, thinking she could ask him if she'd ever been here as a child, but she knew she never would. For one thing, it was a stupid question and she already knew the answer. Those were her sneakers, her laces. She'd been here. Maybe her dream had changed some of the details, as dreams usually do, but the fact that she'd been here at least long enough to leave those sneakers behind was obvious. It wasn't really the question she wanted to ask anyway. She wasn't sure she even wanted an answer to the real question. Because this wasn't just a house she'd left her sneakers in once; this was the house where she'd been conceived. In fact, this might be the room where the infamous party had taken place.
What had Blue said about it? Not much, not about the room itself, but there were breadcrumbs of information scattered through his story of that night and Ana could follow them if she wanted. He'd said Erik had taken Fredrich upstairs at one point. There were three visible stories to the house, but the bedrooms were on the second floor, which meant the party was downstairs, on this floor. He'd said someone brought Melanie in when she was dancing by herself. In…because she'd been out dancing on the patio? Maybe. Maybe this really was the room.
She backed up, trying to see it through Blue's borrowed eyes, filling its empty space with furniture so the guests would have somewhere to sit while they watched the animatronics run a train on her drugged mother. Right here, maybe. Right where she was standing right now…
There was no sound, but something tickled at the edge of her perception. She looked around for no reason and saw Faust back in the doorway, watching her. Anyone else might have asked if she'd gotten lost to remind her she was a guest here and shouldn't be wandering by herself. Or if they were feeling extra-polite, maybe settled for asking if she needed help finding something. Mr. Faust asked no questions.
Ana opened her mouth and said the first thing that popped into it: "Your house is haunted."
"Yes," he said without surprise.
Ana looked back at the empty spot on the floor where, maybe, Blue once danced with her mother, back when she was Mellie Stark, a pretty teenaged girl in a blue dress with flowers on it, attending her very first grown-up party. "I think I'm one of the ghosts."
"Yes," he said again and still asked no questions.
Which was fair, because…she didn't have any either.
Well, maybe one.
"What are you going to do with this house when you go?" she wondered and looked at him.
He took that in without expression and simply said, "What would you do with it?"
"Burn it."
He considered, then nodded. "You'll have to do something about the access to the basement first. I've emptied it of the more incriminating elements and yet, its mere existence will provoke uncomfortable questions, if it should ever be found. I've left instructions for how I believe it should be managed and the contact information for those I believe are best equipped to manage it." His head tipped, a wrinkle of uncertainty appearing between his brows. "Shall we look at the will together? It really should be done before the day of necessity. I don't like surprises."
"Not today," she said. "It's Christmas. Ish. I just want to enjoy my time with you."
He nodded. "Another time then. Breakfast?"
Like a sweeping fade between two scenes in a movie, they left the other room and the party and the past behind her, and now she was in the kitchen, where none of that mattered, where none of it had even happened. He asked her how she took her eggs, which somehow led to a lengthy discussion on the different ways to eat an egg, which led to Googling more ways, which led magically to the two of them practically destroying that poor kitchen as they worked through a couple of the more interesting ideas they found, and then they were in some other room—a morning room or a tea parlour, the kind of place that exists just to take up space and look pretty—with a dozen eggs laid out in different dishes, sampling them between bites of buttered English muffin and sips of coffee. Then they were in yet another room, with a (rather expensive-looking) spare table upended against the wall, breaking in the throwing axes. And then, after what felt simultaneously like just a few minutes and like hours, they were upstairs on the third floor, in Faust's home theater, which was as big, if not bigger, than some actual theaters she'd been in. The seats were certainly more comfortable, and there had to be fifty of them at least, with her and the old man alone in the middle of them.
"What would you like to see?" he asked as they settled. "I believe I have everything on your list."
"You know we don't have to watch my stuff," she said, playing with the buttons on the inside of her armrest. Foot rest, back rest, heated cushion… "If you want to see something more traditional, we can always do that. I'm happy just hanging with you."
"Thank you for saying so," he said after a moment and then just waited.
"Dealer's choice," she offered. "Did any of them catch your eye?"
"Several, but I think I did manage to secure one you haven't yet seen."
"Unlikely," she said dryly, "but throw it up there."
"Very well. Lights," he said and the overhead lights promptly faded to black, leaving only the dim tracklights along the floor and those only for a few more seconds. "Playlist: Christmas. Item: Krampus."
"How did you manage that?" asked Ana as the screen came on to that special non-color that was still black but somehow illuminated. "That's still in theaters."
"I also acquired The Witch, as that similarly seemed to fit your tastes." He glanced at her. "That will be in theaters next month."
"Too bad you went into the pizza biz. You could have been a bodybuilder with a flex like that."
"Thank you."
The movie began with a glorious, slow-motion montage of holiday chaos and Ana leaned back in her comfy heated seat and relished every second of its stupidity, carnivorous jack-in-the-box, giggling gingerbread men, snow-globe ending and all. She glanced over at Faust a few times during the slower segments, knowing he couldn't possibly be enjoying the horrolarity as much as she was, but it was hard enough to read his features even when she could see them, and in the dark theater, all she could tell was that he wasn't sleeping. She had to give up and just watch the movie, which she did with a big stupid grin on her face and occasionally laughing out loud. The jumpscares were too obvious to get her, but she did reach out to touch his arm once, intending to point out some encroaching evil in the background, only to get reabsorbed into the movie and leave it there until she eventually remembered he didn't like to be touched and took her hand back.
"That was better than it had any right to be," she said when the credits rolled. "Thank you so much. I hope you weren't too bored."
"Not at all. They were very good animatronics." He paused, then added generously, "Considering the source. Shall we have another? Or are you ready to leave? You must tell me when you are. I don't pick up on these things."
"I've got nowhere else to be and I'm having a great time. I'm good for another one. But I want to see one of yours now, not just one you pick for me."
"One of my favorite Christmas films, you mean. But I don't have any. I've seen them, of course. One can hardly escape them at this time of year. But I'm afraid I've no special feeling for any of them." He thought, then amended, "No good feeling. There are several I regard with weary abhorrence."
"Same, but it doesn't have to be a Christmas movie. Any old movie will do."
He regarded her with faint disbelief tinged with fainter disapproval. "I think that rather flies in the face of conventional thought."
"But you don't stand on ceremony," she reminded him. "Besides, isn't the point of all those dumb movies that the true meaning of Christmas is being with your friends and family? Even that one hit that note pretty hard," she added, pointing at the screen where the last of Krampus's credits had just faded out. "Hell, you want to watch Through the Wormhole or Planet Earth or something, I am totally down for it. I just want to share what makes you happy."
He nodded, frowning, and looked at the screen. After several seconds of brooding thought, he said, "I do have one film that is…very special to me. Have you ever seen Metropolis?"
"Uh, it's ringing a bell," she hedged, trying to chase it down. In a moment, she remembered, but it wasn't the memory of a movie, only a poster. A poster framed and hanging on the wall down in the workshop under this house, a workshop she wasn't supposed to have even seen. "No. I've heard of it, obviously, but I've never seen it."
"It's very old. You mayn't like it."
She snorted. "You're old and I like you. Let's do it."
"All right then. Playlist: Freddy. Item…Belay. Do you mind subtitles terribly or would you prefer a dubbed version? It is a silent film, but there are scene cards."
"Whichever you prefer. It's your baby."
"Item: Metropolis, Authentic original cut."
The film began, scratchy black and white casting cards accompanied by full orchestra with a heavy brass section. The names were all in German, as was the next card, which Ana assumed to be more credits until Mr. Faust softly translated, "The mediator between the head and hands must be the heart."
She glanced at him, then back at the screen as the title burst across it, followed by an opening shot resplendent with that oddest combination of aesthetics, retro-futuristic. The stylized whistles blew. Shift change. And as the story began, Ana was dimly surprised by her own unfeigned interest. She wasn't one for old movies, particularly not the artsy-fartsy kind, and it should be easy to laugh at this one with its overly-painted actors chewing up the scenery, but although she was not immune to the absurdity, she wasn't entirely immune to the spectacle either. She had resigned herself to watching it in much the same way she supposed Bonnie must resign himself to the gory flavor of the week from Shudder, enjoying the company far more than the film, and yet she lost herself almost at once. It was beautiful and laughable and ominous and naïve, not by turns, but all together and all at once.
She lost herself in it, scarcely aware of her itching bandages or even of Faust himself, except as another component of the movie, the Narrator who translated the occasional scene cards for her. He was otherwise silent, right through to the very end, and as the screen turned black and the credits came on, he suddenly said, "I was very young when I first saw this film. So young, that my father claimed I could not possibly remember it at all. I did not see it again until I was able to acquire a copy in my late teens, and yet I remembered much of it. This scene where the inventor pulls aside the curtain to reveal the mechanical Hel in particular…haunted me. It was my favorite movie for a very long time, until Blade Runner."
"I can certainly see where it would be the kind of movie that sticks with you."
"Indeed. Lights," he said, and they came on slowly, so as not to blind eyes adjusted to the dark. "I should like to hear your thoughts."
"On the movie?" Ana rolled a shoulder uncomfortably. "It's a little too high-brow for me. I only got the surface stuff. I mean, it's beautiful and powerful and I'm sure it deserves every bit of the praise it gets."
"But?" he prompted, thinly smiling.
Ana struggled with tact and lost. "It's like they wanted to make The Communist Manifesto into a movie, but they thought they couldn't sell it without a love story and a naked robot. And don't get me wrong, it has aged incredibly well, all things considered. I've seen movies today that don't have special effects that good, and whoever was playing Doc Brown nailed it…or maybe it only seems that way because everyone else was hamming it up so hard. But then there were parts…and I know it's a product of its time and all that, but I can't help it. I hate, I fucking hate, that stupid toxic trope where all the so-called good men go bad because a pretty girl shakes her hips, and when the pitchforks come out, it's all, 'Burn the witch!' and never 'Arrest those men.' Fuck that. Fuck it right in the eye socket. I don't care if she's naked on a trampoline squirting Fireball out of both boobs, a woman's body is not responsible for the crimes a man commits to get at it. Fembot did nothing wrong, especially since she was programmed to do it. Plus, who the hell is Moloch? I kept waiting for that to bounce back, but it never did. Am I just supposed to know?"
"A biblical reference. A pagan god, or perhaps merely pagan practices of worship, it is unclear. Since Milton cast him as one of the principle figures of Hell, he has taken on a greater mythological significance. He is the god for whose favor Men slaughter their children. He is indifference in the face of desperation, painful sacrifice that brings no profit. He is the desolate hope."
Ana snorted. "Relatable."
Faust nodded with perfect understanding. "Moloch as a personification of the evil that Men do in the fruitless pursuit of reward is often confused with another entity, the personification of the evil which Men do for the love of money—a subtle, yet significant difference. In the film, that particular evil is called Avarice, who, as you saw, stood at the right hand of Death and was foremost of the figures to carry the false Maria to her victorious height, but he is more commonly known as Mammon."
She looked at him.
He nodded as if she'd spoken, his lined face serene and distracted. "When one looks for a particular symbolism, one tends to find it. Nevertheless, I rather think there's something there."
"Moloch is Mammon," Ana mused.
"Mammon is Mammon," he replied. "I am Moloch."
She frowned, then sat up and twisted into her seat to face him more directly. "You are Fredrich Faust," she said firmly. "And Fredrich Faust is a good man."
A very slight wrinkle appeared between his thin brows. "It's very kind of you to say so, but my dear child, you know I have made monsters."
"You made magic," she corrected, holding his stare without blinking. "Someone else made them monsters, someone who didn't even dare to tell you because he knew no matter how much you loved him, no matter how much he had to lie to make you love him, if you found out, you'd stop him. And you did."
He stared at her, expressionless, then stared at the blank movie screen, then abruptly stood up. Too fast. His hand shook on the head of his cane, but he didn't wait to find his balance. He turned away, lurching toward the aisle on his side of the row of seats. Ana caught his sleeve and he was, of course, too polite to shake her off or strip out of his shirt. He just stood there, twisted as far around as his physical limitations allowed, breathing hoarsely and holding his arm stiffly out in her careful grip.
"You tried," she said, before he could collect his calm, reasoned arguments. "You were the only one in this whole damn town to try. You're still trying. And they'll hate you until the end of your days and blame you without knowing or caring what the true story was, and you…you'll let them and go on doing whatever it takes to save them from the mistake you were manipulated into making, because you're a good man, Fredrich Faust."
He flinched.
"You're brave and strong and smart," she pressed, "and I'm glad I met you. Meeting you made coming back to this shithole worth every other miserable goddamn thing they've done to me."
His shoulders dropped, his neck bent. He fumbled at his vest pocket for the folded handkerchief just peeking out from it, only to drop it. As he bent to retrieve it, he dropped his cane, reached for it, then straightened fast, took two broad steps in no particular direction, then like a dam breaking, stopped where he was and began to weep in great, bawling breaths.
Ana touched his arm, as hard as marble under his sleeve; he staggered out of her reach, his bad leg dragging, and grabbed at the wall. His fingers scratched at the paper, white-knuckled, as if he were digging the stability out of the building to shore himself up. She picked up his cane and handkerchief, holding them silently while he brought himself under control, and at length, he straightened his shoulders and his shirtfront, then turned around.
"I apologize," he said, wiping at his face in short, punishing swipes. "Forgive my manners. I've embarrassed you."
She took the handkerchief out of his hand, folded it over, and began gently to wipe his face. On impulse, she stood on her tiptoes to blow on his tears, just like Aunt Easter used to do for her, and he lost a few more of them in a second, shorter spate of harsh, wracking sobs. "You don't embarrass me," she said, brushing those away, too.
"I do. Of course I do. I have made an exhibition of myself. Emotional outbursts are childish and self-indulgent and unacceptable behavior."
"Your dad tell you that?"
Faust did not answer.
"Same guy that knocked you in the head with a ten-pound wrench for building a better machine than he could? Yeah, fuck that guy. He doesn't get to say Word fucking One about childish, self-indulgent behavior. And I don't get to say anything about not letting a dead parent tell you what to do," she admitted, folding the handkerchief over again and tucking it back into his vest pocket. She watched him avoid direct eye contact for a while, then said, "You want to be alone?"
"You want to leave, I'm sure. I've made everything awkward."
"No, you haven't and no, I don't, but if you'd rather be alone to work through some stuff, that's fine. I can always come back another day."
He glanced at her, rubbing at his arm—not like it hurt, but only touching the same place she'd let her own hand rest for a while. "I would very much like you to stay."
"You want to watch another movie or you want to do something else for a while?"
"I have nothing else to offer you. I haven't entertained since… I no longer entertain." He paused, then hesitantly asked, "What would you suggest?"
"Oh, I don't know. I'm not a party girl. If the weather wasn't so shitty, we could go for a drive. I don't suppose you've got a couple snowmobiles tucked away around here?"
"I'm afraid not," he said, with the words 'Not yet,' hovering in an invisible thought bubble around his head.
"You like board games? Or cards?" Catching a swift, uncertain spark in his eye, she added, "You look like a cribbage guy. I've always wanted to learn how to play that."
"I regret to say I no longer possess a board. I never thought… You see, I never thought I would ever again have someone with whom to play. I rid myself of all those things I thought could only carry unpleasant reminders." He looked at her, brows furrowed. "I never thought I would ever meet you. I never thought…you would want to meet me."
"Just goes to show, you can be the smartest guy in the world, but you can't be right all the time. I'll bring one next time," she promised. "You want to watch another movie?"
"Yes."
She sat down. He sat beside her.
"Lights," she said, and the lights obeyed her. "Playlist: Christmas. Item: Gingerdead Man. And afterwards, if you're still up for it, we can watch Blade Runner," she told him. "I haven't seen that since my teens and I don't think I've ever seen it sober, so it's practically the first time for me. Sound good to you?"
"Yes. Very good."
She put her hand on the armrest, palm up, and turned her attention to the screen.
As the movie began to play, his hand slipped into hers.