"Slow down, young man." The familiar cool tone his father used to address him was a welcome sound and he turned to face him. He had nothing near a smile on his face, and for once, Hanni was supremely grateful.
"Father," he panted, and hoped his father would attribute his breathless state to physical exertion.
"It's impolite to run indoors, even when there's no one around. Where were you off to in such a hurry?"
"Mother said to get some things for the snowman's face."
Hannibal noticed traces of fear in the boy's eyes, and his own recent experience had brought thoughts of Mischa to the fore, making him more sympathetic than he usually allowed himself to be. He made an attempt to comfort his son with a pat on the shoulder. At the awkwardness of his gesture, he sighed and made another attempt by offering to help him collect the necessary accoutrements for his project.
Hanni looked suspiciously at his father, but gladly accepted his help for he did not wish to have to tell his mother that he was too afraid to go to the kitchen.
"Are you certain using perishables is a good idea?" Hannibal asked as he handed him a crooked carrot.
"What else should we use? We might find stones for the eyes, but I'd like some olives, just in case."
"Well, I suppose they'll keep in the cold." He opened a bottle of pimento stuffed olives, handing him a few. "They're green, but they have pupils." His son didn't laugh, and he felt a vague sense of failure as Hanni simply thanked him and left the kitchen.
Alone, he chewed on an olive as he replaced the lid and took it to the walk-in refrigerator. As he leaned across a few boxes to put it on a shelf, the door behind him slammed shut, the sound of the pin lock sliding closed causing him to call out a warning to open the door immediately. All he heard was muffled laughter and footsteps retreating.
Hanni walked out the front door and immediately sighted his mother bending a tall shoot that had grown out of the back of the lion he'd tangled with upon their arrival. For just a moment he'd thought the enraged lion had swiped a gargantuan paw at his mother, but then saw that she was only snagged by another errant branch. He could only watch in horror as she finally snapped the twig, the words from the beast replaying in his mind:
"Who'll tell me my secret,
The ages have kept?--
I awaited the seer,
While they slumbered and slept;--
"The fate of the man-child;
The meaning of man;
Known fruit of the unknown;
Daedalian plan
Clarice bent down to unsnag her sweater from the branch and noticed something protruding from the snow. She grabbed it and pulled and realized it was a scarf, but it was wrapped around the base of the huge topiary and one of the branches seemed to have grown right through it. She struggled to unravel it and proudly carried it back to the snowman, her cuttings in tow.
"Look what I found! It's perfect," she told Hanni, as she wrapped it around the snowman's neck. He handed her the carrot and olives and she planted them in the face. Next she stuck one branch on each side of the center sphere for arms. Taking some brick colored gravel she'd found in the maze, she created a big smiling mouth and stepped back to admire their work.
"So, Doc, I guess you get to name him," she said, smiling.
Hanni became very still as a voice rang in his ears, his sixth finger twitching. Clarice recognized the look that often preceded one of his odd fits. Every now and then, he would slip into a state of near comatose, and she rushed over to him now.
"Hanni! Honey, I'm right here. I'm right here." She rocked him gently, preparing to carry him to his father when he suddenly seemed to shake loose of some invisible hold, and said:
"Jack. His name is Jack."