"Jesus CHRIST! That bastard almost hit me! "

Katherine Williams rolled down the window of her beat-up VW Golf and yelled, "Just where the HELL did you learn to drive, jerk?!" before talking into her cell phone again.

"Sorry, Ma. Honestly, New York drivers. Huh? Umm… I'm about ten, fifteen miles out now… but you know what traffic on the L.I.E. is at this time of day. Yeah… yeah… no. No. Ma, I'll be there in plenty of time. I'll BE there. Mother! I've driven a thousand miles …straight through…in the last eighteen hours. I am doing this as a FAVOR to you. So will you lay off for five minutes?"

Kathy rolled her eyes and listened in silence for a few moments. When she spoke again, she sounded chastened, "Yes… yeah, I know. I know. I'm sorry I snapped. All right. I love you too. I'll be there soon."

Snapping the phone shut, she tossed it onto the passenger seat with the rest of the junk accumulated in a week's worth of travel. Heaving an exaggerated sigh, she rummaged around for her lip gloss. Mother was obviously in a mood, and it would be a bad idea to show up poorly groomed. That was one of Sarah Williams' little quirks; A woman should dress well, have tidy hair, and be well made up at all times. Everything else would take care of itself.

When Katherine was in one of her own moods (and she definitely had them), she was convinced that her mother's fixation on appearance was just another part of her being a control freak. When she was feeling more positive, she thought it was a way of showing love. It was as good a way as any… Sarah tried to be affectionate to her daughter, but it always was in a way she'd learned from one of her many therapists.

"Ah-HAH!" With a triumphant flourish, Kathy recovered the lipgloss from under a pile of spilled sunflower seeds. She flicked down the driver's side mirror and started painting. In the process, she almost missed her exit, swerved across two lanes of traffic and causing to a passing Nebraskan to mutter "Damn New York drivers".

Home was in a tiny settlement on Long Island. It wasn't as trendy as the Hamptons, but it was definitely rich. It hadn't always been that way. When Sarah had bought the house during her divorce, there had been no one for miles around. Ten years later, McMansions had sprung up everywhere.

"A Porsche in every garage and a veloute of cherry tomatoes coulis in every pot… yep… we are now entering the yuppie zone." Kathy laughed at her own joke (she was that sort of person) and drove on.

It was necessary to navigate a labyrinth of twisting country roads to get to the house. Carefully placed sound baffles blocked off the noise from the nearby highway. The neighborhood was a little slice of country an hour away from the largest city in the US, available to anyone who had eight million dollars to drop on a house. The woods were silent at this time of day, as the sun set and tinted the clouded sky ochre. A faint dusting of snow covered the unpaved road, and Kathy slowed down. A strange thought slipped into her head,

"Now where have I seen a sky like that before?"

"Maybe in one of the thousands of sunsets you've seen before?" replied the sensible part of her.

"No… someplace… strange. When I was little."

"Riiight."

"Or maybe a dream?"

"Excuse me, but is this relevant?"

"I think it's important. "

"Well, you really should be concentrating on the… JESUS! Brakes brakes brakes!"

She slammed on the brakes as something skittered across the road in front of her. The wheels locked and she fishtailed for a moment before the car skidded to a stop.

"Just what was that?"

"A deer."

"Bull. Deer do not look like that."

"You were obviously nervous and not seeing clearly. Now why don't we not think about it anymore for a while?"

If she'd been younger, Katherine wouldn't have listened to the practical sensible part of herself, and believed in what she'd actually seen. She was twenty-two, however, and knew better than to go down that road. Believing in things that clearly couldn't exist was dangerous and stupid. Do that, and next thing you'd think that the planet Venus was a UFO and marsh gases were ghosts. So she caught her breath, put the incident out of her mind, and resumed her drive.

~*~

In a small copse out of sight of the road, a junior goblin named Gutbucket was brushing dirt off his clothes. It was a mostly futile attempt: he had owned these clothes for nearly two years now, and they were more dirt than cloth.

"Bleeding dollymop almost hit me."

"Serves you right." The goblin who replied to his grousing was more senior, and considered to be quite intelligent as goblins go (he fell somewhere between a housecat and an interior decorator). His name was Screwtape. "You know not to let yourself be seen."

"Why's that?"

"Cos we're supposed to be hidden, arse monkey."

"Oh. Right."

Screwtape could see the understanding cover Gutbucket's face and sink without a trace into the black pit that was a typical goblin mind.

"So what're we doing here, boss?"

"Dunno. We just get the summons when someone's gonna make the wish. Dunno why, or who does it, or how they know in advance. We've gotta keep an eye out for 'is majesty and go fetch him when it's time for 'im to put in an appearance. That girl din't 'alf look familiar, din't she?"

"I dunno. Two eyes, nose, 'air, mouth… usual selection of bits."

"Well, I'm a bit of a connesewer of humans, you see. You, bein' a rank novice, would not know such mystick things… they all look alike at first, but a fella with cunnin' eyes like me can see subtle differences."

"Well, 'er mum is the lady Sarah from the story. Izzat it, then?"

"Wot?"

"Sez 'ere right on the orders. Do you think 'er mum is gonna wish 'er away?"

"Nah. You only get one wish. That's the rules, that is. So she's Lady Sarah's sprog, eh? Wot's 'is majesty gonna say about that?"

"What's the matter, boss?"

"Gutbucket, my boy, as Azog, greatest of the goblins said… This one's gonna be a bugger."

~*~

Katherine pulled up in front of her mother's great stone house as the last shred of the sun vanished over the horizon. In the east, a star could be seen through a break in the clouds. A limousine was parked in the circular driveway, with its driver sitting on the hood smoking a cigarette. Kathy parked, grabbed a duffel bag from the backseat, and climbed out of the car.

"Evening, Antonio."

"Bueno noche, Miss Katie. Can I help you with your bags?"

"Nah. I'll take care of them tomorrow."

"Miss Williams is waiting for you."

As he spoke, the front door swung open, spilling warm golden light into the twilit driveway. Sarah Williams stood in the door.

"Kathy! I'm so glad to see you!"

"Hi, Mom," replied Katherine, slightly nonplussed by the unusually warm greeting.

"If you hadn't gotten here, I might have had to miss the flight! They bumped it up! Can you imagine?

When have you ever been on a flight that they made leave earlier?"

That explained the warmth, anyway. "Never, ma. So where's Eric?"

"In his room. Now. There's some cash on the counter if you need anything, of course you can use my credit card for emergencies, and I just had Consuela fill the fridge. I've given the staff two weeks off, so you'll be by yourselves. Is that all you need? I really should be going."

"Um. Yeah, I guess."

"Wonderful! Your brother and I will be back late on Christmas Eve. Call me if you have any problems."

Sarah picked up her Chanel handbag from the end table, shrugged into a black wool coat, and gave her perfect makeup one more glance in the hall mirror. She took a few steps towards the door, paused with an expression of confusion on her face, then darted back and gave her daughter a quick, firm hug.

"Thank you for looking after your brother, dear. You look lovely today. I just wish you'd get your pretty hair out of your face and stop wearing such drab, slouchy clothes. No one looks pretty in a flannel."

"All right, mom. I'll talk to you soon. Have fun."

"Kiss kiss."

The two women kissed the air near one another's faces so as not to smudge Sarah's foundation or lipstick. And then she was gone. Kathy leaned on the wall and looked out the window as the limousine switched on its lights and pulled out. There was a smile on her face. It was weird, repressed, and only expressed in terms of compliments and criticisms of her looks, but it was love, and it was there.

She turned around, and replaced the soft smile with a forbidding glare. Kicking off her shoes, she stalked down the hall to the foot of the stairs, and shouted, "Eric! Get down here AT ONCE, you disgusting little brat!"

~*~

There was quite a contingent of goblins around the house now. Screwtape and Gutbucket had been there first, and were taking full advantage of their brief seniority. They were the only ones allowed to look in the window.

"Cor, boss. Maybe she's gonna wish 'im away. Wouldn't that be bleedin' funny? Takin' after 'er mum and all."

"Could be, my lad. Could well be."

There was a thunder of footsteps on the stairs as Eric descended. Kathy stood, glaring, and waited for him. He stopped on the third step, and there was a tense moment of silence.

"Bear hug!" they yelled in unison. And making unconvincing growling noises, they squeezed each other as hard as they could. The two of them didn't, in the normal course of things, look much alike. Kathy had fair skin and blue eyes, Eric had freckles and brown eyes. But the grins on their faces would have let anyone know they were siblings.

"Dude, you're getting too big for that. I swear I could feel my ribs crack."

"That's cause you're a girl. Boys are stronger. What did you bring me?"

"Sexist and greedy. What a charmer you are. And what did you do to your hair? Mom's got all this money and you get a bowl cut?"

"All the boys at school do it."

"And I suppose that also explains the cargo pants and the shirt with the picture of the Pikachu."

"These are cool!"

"Uh huh. Well, anyway, I didn't bring you anything. I talked to Mom and she said you were a very bad and loathsome boy this year, and so I didn't get you anything for Christmas. Maybe I'll pick you up some coal?"

"Aw, Kathy…" he pouted exaggeratedly and ground a foot into the floor.

"Who do you think you're fooling?"

"You."

Kathy sighed. "All right. Tell me you missed me."

"I missed you."

"And another hug."

He hugged her.

"That was a pretty chintzy hug, boyo. But I suppose it'll have to do. Come on into the hall."

Eric stampeded into the hall, and started rummaging through the duffel bag.

"Are all these for me?"

"No. They are also for Mom and Jared. You may open one, and only one tonight… the rest need to wait for Christmas."

As Eric considered his options, shaking each package with intense thought and a profound expression, the goblins turned away from the window.

"Huh," muttered Screwtape.

"Yeah. Huh," replied Gutbucket, trying to seem clever.

"Don't seem like the typical sort for this thing. And the boy's a bit old."

"That's what I thought."

"Maybe it'll be accidental. Oi! You lot! Go through the car. See if she's got any books."

This took a while, as the goblins had to jimmy open the car without touching any of the steel fittings. But eventually they managed, and produced a good-sized pile of books. Screwtape could actually read, and examined the books, although just from looking at them he had little hope.

"'Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society'… ''Principles of Radio Telescopes'… 'Materials Selection in Aerospace Design'… 'Fundamentals of Physics'… wot's all this rubbish? Not a bleeding fairytale in the lot. Def'nitely not a copy of the book."

"The book, boss?"

"The book," replied Screwtape, with the same reverent tone that some Christians use when discussing the Bible. "It tells the 'ole story of us, even says how to call us. Sometimes some daft girl'll read it and say the words, not meanin' em or nothing. And then 'is nibs comes out, throws a scare in 'em, and lets 'em off. It keeps 'im busy."

"Oh. Well, if she don't got the book, and she don't really want the kid gone, 'ow's she gonna wish 'im away?"

"Buggered if I know."

~*~

"What's this?"

"You can't read?"

"Well, duh, I can read. What's it about?"

"It's a movie from when I was a kid. I thought that since you like Harry Potter and all that you might get a kick out of it. Plus it was only ten bucks at Target. And it's moderately less stupid than Pokemon."

"Who's the guy in the fright wig?"

"David Bowie. He's a famous musician. I got to meet him when they were making the movie."

"Why?"

"Well, this was before you were born. Mom was thinking about moving behind the camera. She did some design work, plus an uncredited script rewrite and I think some story stuff. I was on vacation, so I got to hang out on set."

"Cool. Can we watch it now?"

"Why not? I'll make some popcorn."

"Are you gonna put that stinky cheese on it?"

"Yes. And it's called Parmesan, you vulgar lout."

~*~

As Kathy and Eric walked out of the room, bickering in the thoughtless way that siblings have, Screwtape's face, peering in at the window, grew a grin that stretched all the way to his pointed ears.

"That'll do," he said.