The Christmas Spirit Read Free

who had endured the hardships he must have experienced: hunger and heat, exhaustion and disease, the treachery of sworn friends, the predations of brigands, danger from tyrants who mistrusted any foreigner, and the assault of cruelty upon cruelty on his eyes and his mind.
    Yes, Sir Matthew needed some distraction from the memories she could imagine all too well. Yet, as Trudy watched him leave the room, a vague disquiet came over her, provoked by her brother's uncommon silence.
    "Why--" she said, facing Francis--"why do I detect a hint of scheming? Ye've never wanted me to reveal meself to a man before."
    "But this one's helpless with his fever," Francis explained, grinning. "And besides, Sir Matthew's sworn off women, or so he says, and he don't intend to be pixie-led. Bit of a challenge, wouldn't ye say, to see if he can resist a beauty such as yerself?"
    A moment's pause, and Francis's eyes lit up with mischief. "What say, sister, if I lay ye a bet that ye can't lure him into the mists before Christmas?"
    "Lure him into the mists? In his condition? I thought ye felt sorry for him."
    "And so I do. But ye can't think I'd let me sister near a man like him if he weren't in such sorry straits? I know all humans are fools, but that's not to say ye can fool the lot o' them."
    Trudy rolled her eyes. "And ye think it's yer job to keep me safe? Have I told ye, yer a relic from the Dark Ages, ye are? Do ye have any idea what I've been up to while I was away?"
    "Ye've mentioned a thing or two before." Francis scowled. "But if I've got ye here, doin' yer bit to trick Sir Matthew, then I can keep me eyes on you as well. And if ye do lead him on a pretty chase, wisp that ye are, I'm sure ye wouldn't hurt him any worse than he is already. If I were a human, I'd a lot rather dance me way to elfland than sit by a fire, feeling me bones rot right out of me body."
    "A lot you'd know what humans feel!"
    "Same as yerself! Yer as soulless as me!"
    It was true that she was, and, yet, Trudy resented this particular taunt. Somehow, she was sure she knew more about humans than her brother did. She never had shared the contempt for them her fellow elves held, and sometimes her wanderings had taken her perilously close to their world.
    But she had never come too close. She'd avoided that ultimate encounter with men, with its attendant danger to rob her of all her magic. That had not prevented her, however, from skipping in the air in front of them, just out of reach, to lead men who'd been lost in the desert to water, or from causing a flurry of chaos in a slave caravan in the hope that some of the slaves would escape. And it would not keep her now from doing what she could to help Sir Matthew find a way out of his despair and into the mists.
    Something about his stiff, retreating figure had intrigued her. She couldn't help wondering if an explorer such as he had suffered from the same sort of restlessness she had known, and if he understood what it was. All Trudy knew was that her wanderings rarely brought her any satisfaction, though she was sure that to stay at home doing nothing more than what the other elves did would only be worse.
    "Ye say that Sir Matthew never goes out?" she asked Francis, musing.
    "No that I've ever seen. He just sits in that chair o' his, most of the time, he does, except when he's sleeping."
    Trudy frowned and tapped her chin with one finger. "Then, no wonder his memories trouble him so. He needs something new to take their place."
    "That's the spirit! I knew ye'd jump at a challenge. But, I'm warnin' ye, Trudy, Sir Matthew'll be a hard nut to crack."
    Trudy scoffed. "I'll have him eating out of me hand and in elfland before Christmas, sure enough. Just ye wait and see."
     
    And that was what I did, though I should've noticed right then and there that she had something addlepated in mind. I should've known by the way she stared at Sir Matthew and the light flickered in her eyes. But I didn't, ye see, or I would've stopped