A/N: One more chapter after this...and then we move on to The SF Vampire - FiNALLY. Thanks for all the reviews, follows & favorites, folks!

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All Kris wanted to do was sleep.

Mar had lifted the grounding, but Kris didn't go to the Mortons' party. Her chest and side hurt too much, her hands scraped raw from the rusted metal, her arms and shoulders aching. She didn't go back to school, at least; the doctor's orders were clear on that. She didn't want to see anyone, not her big brothers, not Sharon, definitely not any one from school. Now everyone would know. Everyone would know about Papa and what had happened. Kris didn't want to face the looks and snide comments at school. Everything would just get worse, now that everyone knew.

No, best to just stay in her room and let everyone forget she existed.

Most of the week passed, quiet and uneventful. Frank had been by to drop off the bags of candy that the school had given everyone on the last day before Christmas break and all the get-well cards that Miss Callahan had forced everyone to make, but Kris had still stayed in her room. Her big brothers knew about her parents, but it was because of her that they'd gotten in trouble. Because of her, Joe could've been killed, or worse.

No matter what Mar or Mr. Hardy said, Papa still knew where Kris was. He'd never let her go. He'd never leave her alone. He'd never…

"Kris?" Mar's voice floated up the stairs. "Get dressed and come down, please?"

Kris poked her head out from the blankets just enough to look at her alarm clock: noon. She could smell cookies baking. Evidently Mar was going to make her be Christmas-y, just like the teachers at school had. Best get it over with.

But when she clumped into the kitchen, Kris stopped in surprise. Tina was sitting at the table, pushing raisins and M&Ms into the belly-buttons of gingerbread men as Charlie kept trying to sneak M&Ms away from the pile.

"Mrs. Collins had choir practice this afternoon, so I asked if Tina could come over while she was there," Mar said.

"K-k-kris, l-look!" Tina waved an icing-smeared hand towards a chunk of glittering citrine and some small boxes and bulging bags, all sitting out of the way on the breadbox. "M-my S-s-santa c-came t-to sc-school and-and it w-wasn't y-y-you, s-s-silly!"

Mar had probably given the citrine to Frank for Tina on Kris's behalf — not to mention whoever else the brothers got involved — but Kris kept that to herself. No sense spoiling Tina's fun. Kris sat down at the table and pulled over one of the cookie sheets and half of Charlie's M&M pile.

"Fr-frank s-said y-you and-and h-him and s-silly J-joe are d-d-d-detectives n-n-now. He s-said you c-c-caught a b-bad m-man at th-the b-bookst-store!" Tina looked worried. "It-it w-wasn't th-the b-brown m-man?"

"No, it wasn't," Kris said. "I saw the brown man, Tina. He wasn't the bad man at all."

At that, Charlie looked up; Mar turned around.

"Y-y-you d-did?" Tina said, eyes wide. "Y-y-you r-really, really d-did?"

"Really, really," Kris said. She might as well try to solve a bit of that mystery, anyway. "Charlie…um…do you have any of your fatigues with you? Could you bring them down here? Please?"

Charlie gave her an odd look, but went upstairs and came back down carrying a pair of pants: green-and-brown camouflage. It wasn't what the ghost had been wearing at all.

"Th-that's not wh-what h-h-he w-wears," Tina said. "S-s-silly Ch-charlie!"

"Mr. Bell?" Mar said softly.

Kris shook her head. "I saw him, Shimá. He didn't look anything like the picture. He was really young and he was in uniform, but it didn't look like that stuff." Kris looked down at the gingerbread man in front of her. "I think he was trying to warn me."

"I wonder…" Charlie said, laying his fatigues over the back of his chair. "Didn't you say Mrs. Bell bought the house from someone else?"

"That was before we moved here," Mar said.

"That's what Frank says," Kris said. "Um…someone called Gardner, I think."

"I'd be curious if they had anyone who died in a war," Charlie said. "A lot of kids lied about their age to enlist in World War II, for example. But I distinctly remember Tina saying he wasn't big like me."

"S-s-silly Ch-charlie," Tina giggled. "B-big s-s-silly!"

Kris stood up. "Tina…um…is the brown man big like me?"

Tina nodded, still giggling. "B-b-bigger th-than y-y-you, sm-sm-smaller th-than Ch-charlie," she sing-songed. "S-s-silly, s-silly Ch-charlie!"

"There's your problem," Mar said to Charlie. "You didn't keep in mind who you were talking to."

"What we've got here is failure to communicate," Charlie muttered, then sighed. "Military literary precision. You'd think I'd know better."

From there, the chatter turned everyday: cookie-decorating, stealing M&Ms back from Charlie. It helped, some. Tina didn't care about stuff like Papa. To her, everyone was good, everything was fun, Santa was real, and she could see Rudolph's glowing nose in the sky every night (probably the radio tower on the town outskirts, but Kris kept quiet). When the doorbell rang and Mrs. Collins came back to the kitchen to collect her daughter, Mar gave her half of the gingerbread cookies, "since Tina was such a good helper."

Mrs. Collins helped her daughter with her coat. "Tina, did you remember to give Kris her gift?"

"Oh! S-s-sorry, K-k-kris." Tina searched her coat pocket, pulled out a small package wrapped in bright red with so much tape that it looked like a crystal, and handed it to Kris. "M-m-merry Ch-christmas. K-k-kris-m-mas!"

Kris stood there. She hadn't expected that. "Um…you'll have to wait for yours. I mean, it's in Arizona, and we're visiting Shi cheii and Shimá sání — um, Grandpa and Grandma, I mean. I'll bring it to you when we get back."

Tina smiled her lopsided Pillsbury Doughboy smile and flung her arms around Kris in a sudden hug.

"They still live on the reservation," Charlie explained to Mrs. Collins. "The family raises sheep and alpacas out there. Mama's the family rebel."

"You should open that while Tina's here," Mar said, nudging Kris. "So she can see you like it and you can thank her."

It felt weird, opening a gift when she hadn't given one back to Tina yet…well, not a non-Secret-Santa gift, anyway. But Kris carefully undid the tape and the paper, and something shiny slid out. She caught it before it hit the floor, and it dangled from her hand, a bright, shiny bit of sunlight strung on a leather cord: a quartz point wrapped in fine copper wire.

"I m-made it," Tina said proudly. "M-mommy h-helped m-me w-w-with th-the w-w-wire. I m-m-made th-them f-for Sh-sharon and s-s-silly J-j-joe and-and Fr-frank, t-too."

"It's beautiful." Kris strung it around her neck; the quartz rested right over her heart, a spot of warmth and light….then she hugged Tina back. "Thank you. Um…Merry Christmas."

"K-k-kris-m-mas!" Tina giggled.

"Hopefully we'll see you at the midnight service tomorrow," Mrs. Collins said, smiling. "I know you're Catholic, Mar, but it's a non-denominational thing for the choir performance."

Bayport being a small town, there weren't enough volunteers to make individual choirs for each of the three churches, but that problem had been solved with typical New England practicality. The choir combined everyone and rotated services every couple weeks. The Methodist church was the largest building of the four, so it invariably hosted the Christmas Eve performance so everyone could fit.

"Father James told us," Mar said, smiling back. "Of course we'll be there."

Unsure how to react, Kris looked at Mar. We?

"I was surprised when Joe showed up — he's all black and blue, but he got through O Holy Night just fine. But everyone'll think we beat our choir boys to get 'em to sing!" Chattering all the way, Mrs. Collins steered Tina to the door, leaving with cheery waves and "Merry Christmas!"

"Joe sings in choir?" Charlie said. "He doesn't act the type."

"Thank God," Mar said. "I shudder to think what chaos would be unleashed if Joe tried to be a stereotypical choir boy. But he's got a good voice for his age." She grinned impishly at Kris. "We'll go early so you and Frank can get front row and make faces at him all through his solo."

Kris still stood there, unmoving.

"Squirrel?"

"No," Kris said. "No."

"You'd really like it, squirrel," Mar said gently. "The choir will sing a lot of carols, and they'll do a candle-light service and read the Nativity stories from the gospels. You don't want to hear your big brother sing?"

Kris looked away. That had nothing to do with it. It hadn't mattered to Mar last year — granted, there'd been a lot more important things to worry about — and Mar never pushed any kind of church before. Why now?

"Kris?"

"No!" Suddenly it all boiled up, the confusion, fear, and anger of the past couple weeks. "It's a fake. It's nothing but a big fake. Christmas doesn't matter to anyone. Angie ruined it for Tina just to be mean, Iola just wanted to get Joe to be her boyfriend, and everyone at school traded names to get the popular kids and didn't care about anyone else. Even Joe did that! And I see the news — everyone hates everyone because they're different, and Charlie bombs kids, and you say it's all about peace and love and it's not, it's not!"

Silence. Charlie looked stricken.

"No one believes it," Kris said, miserable, looking at her feet and scuffing at the carpet. "It's a…a…an excuse. It makes people feel like they're good and holy, when all they are is…is…hypocrites."

"What a world," Charlie breathed, looking away. "Even at eleven, they're cynics now."

"They've always been cynics," Mar murmured. "We forget what childhood's really like."

Kris raised her head, stared Mar in the face. "So you're gonna tell me I'm wrong, I'll bet."

Mar sighed. "No, you're not wrong, squirrel. But you're not right, either."

Scowling, Kris said nothing.

"Didn't I hear you having fun with Tina and promising to bring her back a special gift?" Mar sat down on the stairs, her usual calm patience. "And I seem to remember everyone else having fun with her, too, even though she's different. Are you saying that you didn't mean any of that? That you and Sharon and Frank and Joe are all hypocrites?"

"That's different," Kris said, her face hot.

"It's exactly the same," Mar said gently. "The world isn't perfect. We stumble, we fall, and we get up and try again. There'll always be people who hate and fear. It's when we lose compassion and let fear and hate take over, that's when evil wins."

"That's not about church! That's got nothing to do with trees or Santa or any of it!"

Mar shook her head, but Kris didn't want to hear it. She stormed back upstairs, slamming her bedroom door behind her. For good measure, Kris shoved her desk chair up under the door knob so they couldn't come in, then burrowed into the mound of pillows and beanbags in her closet.

She wasn't going to go to church. Not now, not ever! She'd gotten plenty of religion from the Joneses, and look what Papa did. Just because they added a baby, pretty singing, and gift-giving didn't make it better. It made it all worse, like trying to polish a cow flop. Bad enough what everyone did on their own, but they tried to ruin it for everyone else, too — Angie had been in the bookstore to ruin Kris's gift to Frank and Joe, Kris was sure of it. And Papa…

If Papa had somehow made bail…if the police believed his sob story…if he somehow got out…

Someone tapped on her door. "Kris?"

Sharon? Kris clambered out of the pillows, pulled the chair away from the door and opened it a crack.

"Can I come in?" Sharon shifted from foot to foot. "The final Santa thing was today, and I wanted to make sure you got your gift."

Oh. Kris had forgotten about that. She glanced guiltily over to her dresser where her Santa gift to Sharon still sat, then opened the door. "Um…yeah."

"We had choir practice right after school." Sharon sat down on the bed. "You should've seen it — Iola was there and she told Joe she was his Santa, since he wasn't at school, and she knew he was hers. Miss Callahan had to put them on separate sides of the choir."

That made no sense — Joe had traded names to get Iola in the first place. But Kris shrugged, got the present off her dresser and handed it to Sharon. "Here. I'm your Santa."

Sharon smiled. "I know. I'm yours, too." She held out a long, thin box wrapped in blue, the same blue that all the other good gifts had been.

Kris didn't take it. "But Iola said Joe traded with you to get her. So he had my name, and he traded it." She'd been right.

Sharon shook her head. "Joe didn't know who I had. He didn't care." Then Sharon giggled. "Not until he saw who it was, I mean."

So Joe had just wanted to get rid of her. Even he hadn't wanted anything to do with Kris for the Santa thing. Kris stared at the Official Brother-Sister Certificate hanging on the wall. It'd turned into another hypocrisy, just like her parents, just like Christmas, just like church, just like everyone…

"What's wrong?" Sharon said. "I mean, I couldn't give Joe his own name, and I knew Iola wanted it, and she had the whole idea to double-trade so he'd end up with her, too."

"Nothing," Kris muttered, but then more words boiled out again, hot, angry, betrayed. "What I was telling Shimá. About Christmas, that it's all a fake and no one really cares and you just proved it."

Sharon stared. "Um…I did?"

"Joe had me and he just wanted to get rid of me, too." Kris turned away, wiping at her face. "It's all nothing but a lie. Angie and Papa and Joe and everyone, they're all the same."

"Um…" Sharon said. "That's not it. About Joe, I mean."

"You just said…"

"He was doing what Miss Hawkins said," Sharon said. "About being nice to other people. Joe's already nice to you."

Kris didn't turn around. It didn't change anything. Joe had still…

Sharon picked at the bedspread, not looking at Kris. "He helped me out with it. What to get you, I mean. So he was still your Secret Santa, kind of. But this one's all me — go on, open it." Sharon pushed her gift into Kris's hands. "It's just part of it, but the rest won't make sense until you do."

Joe, still her Santa? That made no sense. He'd given her name away. But Kris undid the paper, opened the box. A knife carved of clear crystal, the hilt wrapped in blue and silver cording with a glittering green jewel for the pommel and gold-leaf ivy etched down the blade.

"I snuck it past Mom and Dad," Sharon said. "An athame. So we can be witches together."

Kris blinked. "Um…what? You mean all that getting naked and stuff?"

Sharon snorted. "I bet the author just put that in to sell books. It's really cold in England. No one in their right mind would go outside like that." She went back to toying with the bedspread. "Mrs. Bell…um…she says she's a witch. She told me. She says it's nothing like that book." Sharon thumped her chest. "It's what's here that matters."

Kris just stared. Granted, she wanted nothing to do with churches or anything like that, not after Papa had…had…but this? "But all that stuff…"

"They made it up. That's what everyone else did. I mean, Jesus didn't do anything they do in church, so that means someone else made it all up. So we can make it all up, too, and it'll be ours, just yours and mine, and we can do all the magic and see fairies and talk to ghosts and all that." Sharon paused, then quiet, wistful, "I mean…well…um…Mrs. Bell says all witches are sisters, and I'd like to have a sister."

Both Mama and Papa had a lot to say about witches and pagans and heathens and all that…and…well…they'd said a lot. But look what Papa had done to her, to Joe, to everyone. Still, something seemed off. "Um…but witches don't celebrate Christmas."

"Sure they do," Sharon said. "Winter Solstice. Mrs. Bell says that's why Christmas is in winter, because everyone was already celebrating the return of the sun and Rome just took it over." Sharon looked up. "That's what it's really about, y'know. The return of the light. Showing that you're going to survive, no matter what."

Still wiping at her face, Kris couldn't take her gaze off the crystal knife. It all sounded too good to be true.

Too much to think about right now. "Um…you haven't opened mine."

Sharon just looked at her, then opened the package. Another blown-glass fairy, this one larger and more delicate and playing a harp, wings glittering with all the colors of the rainbow and the hair gold-leafed and shining. "Wow," Sharon breathed.

"You can tell your mom it's an angel," Kris said. "That's why the harp. But it's really a fairy."

"Just like witches," Sharon said.

"Huh?" Back to this again?

"That's what they did. They had to hide, too, so they made all their stuff look like Christian stuff so they could survive." Sharon looked up, smiling again. "See? You're a witch at heart, just like me."

Thump!

Both Kris and Sharon jumped, then Kris went over to the snow-splattered window. Another snowball hit the window dead-center just as she looked out, and behind her, Sharon started giggling.

Kris cracked the window open, just enough to yell through, but not enough for Frank and Joe to splatter snow everywhere. "What?"

"Get down here, Tag," Joe called, from the yard below. Another snowball thumped, barely missing the window. "Come on!"

"You're supposed to be resting!" Kris ducked before yet another snowball scored the window again, then peeked back over the sill.

Arms crossed, Joe looked up at her, stop-being-such-a-girl all over his face.

"I'm watching him," Frank called up, snowball in hand…and Kris saw Tina behind him, giggling and tossing snowballs at Joe's back. Mrs. Collins was standing on the Hardys' sidewalk, chatting with their aunt.

A snowball splattered over the back of Joe's head; Joe yelped. "Tina! I'm trying to talk to Kris!"

"S-silly s-s-silly J-joe!"

"We'd better go save him," Sharon said to Kris.

"I say we help Tina," Kris said, pulling her coat out of the closet. "Joe's got Frank, and Frank pitches in Little League." Then, shyly, "Um…us witches have to stick together, after all."

Sharon's answering smile was the best gift of all.