Chapter 6: Birthday Party of the King
An instant after Rachel assured Nate there was a Santa Claus, Erik and Kurt were flying above London again, courtesy of Charles.
"Haven't you shown me enough already?" Charles asked more out of the guilt over what Ruthie would think of her big brother if she were alive today rather than the frustration he had shown to those children carolers the day before last.
"There is another place to visit." Charles explained. "Even though you refused the offer yesterday."
"Oh no!" Erik said as that guilt swelled even more. "Not my nephew David's dinner party!"
But it was too late. The quartet was right in the middle of a modest but well-kept home. David was there with his wife, a woman similar to Ruthie but with green hair and blue eyes.
"Too Uncle Erik!" David called out just as Scott had done at his own home to the same lukewarm reception.
"That stingy man who shuns you every time you see him?" Lorna asked.
"Have pity on him, Lorna." David asked.
"Pity?" Lorna asked. "For a man so rich? His entire business is solely to be making a profit."
"Profit, yes." David said. "But how do the profits profit him? He takes it into his head to dislike us and be gloomy in Warren's old place. I plan on giving him the same invitation I give him every year until he finally accepts for I pity him."
"How can you have so much patience, David?" Lorna asked, obviously ashamed of herself.
"Because my mother always spoke highly of him and no one my mother loved so much can be all bad." David said simply as everyone went back to the party, somehow even merrier than before.
Erik however, was weeping silently, especially as his sister's favorite song was playing in the background.
"Why this remorse?" Charles asked.
"Every year he gives me a gift." Erik said with a heavy sigh and a trembling voice. "And I toss it away. I never understood such things."
"But gifts have been a part of Christmas from the very beginning." Charles pointed out. "See that tiny stable under the tree? Perhaps your young companion can tell you."
Kurt, more out of instinct than anything else, began singing a song his mother had taught him as Erik looked at an ornament depicting the nativity.
Christmas Trees are brightly lighted.
Through the world the church bells ring.
Great and small are all invited
To the birthday party of the King.
Mighty prince and humble peasant.
Each will choose a gift to bring.
Do you have a birthday present
For the birthday party of the King?
Once wise men came in his honor
Bringing incense, myrrh, and gold.
But what is gold to a ruler
Who has all the stars to hold?!
Do you know what gift will please him?
Please him more than anything?!
Bring a heart that really loves him
To the birthday party… Of the King . . .!
Erik smiled at the song as he felt his heart swell up at the familiar, but somehow new, story, but then his smile fell as he thought of the Summers house.
"But what about that other child?" Erik asked Charles. "So tiny he seems little more than a baby himself. What of Little Nate?"
"I see a vacant seat in the chimney corner." Charles said solemnly. "And a little clutch without an owner carefully preserved."
As Charles said this, Erik found himself in the Summers house to find the scene Charles described and a family in mourning as they left for the cemetery.
"Oh dear god, let it not be." Erik gasped as he collapses down at the crutch and wept for the boy his callousness would kill.
Next chapter, my favorite song in the whole film.