#book 2 is like OH existential despair OH they would BOTH burn down the world for each other

[relto]

you know when you finish reading something. and then start the next book. and it just seems bland in comparison.

[apparitionism]

Hark 3

The new year has hit me pretty hard, work-wise, so I apologize to @kla1991​ and everyone else (including @bering-and-wells-exchange​ ) for my lack of timely continuation. This is the third part of my attempt at a holiday story, which began its cacophony in part 1 and continued, similarly unharmoniously, in part 2. There’ll be a fourth-part denouement, delayed mostly because it concludes in a conversation that I want to make sing in a way that it’s not quite doing yet. Patience may or may not actually be a virtue, but it’s much appreciated all the same.

Hark 3

Myka took a similarly dark view of Pete’s next idea: “If mistletoe’s a no-go,” he said, “on account of this being one of these, how about we chuck an artifact that makes them sing? I’ll aim for Myka’s head, then Steve can rebound and hit H.G. Gotta be some karaoke something-or-other that’d do that, right?”

“That wouldn’t fix anything,” Leena said, like she knew it for a fact. Myka wanted to ask her not “what else do you know,” but rather “do you know everything,” the answer to which was probably “yes, if you mean everything that’s relevant to this excruciating exercise.” Comforting, in its way. Also inconvenient, because it implied that part of the “everything” she knew was that Myka and Helena would have to sing. Of their own volition.

Claudia said, “Even though I didn’t know there was a these—proving that nobody tells me anything, and I promise someday that’s coming back to bite all of you—and even though Pete doesn’t want me on his artifact-ball team—”

“Steve’s taller,” Pete said.

“And that’s coming back to bite you too. Someday. But for now, I’m gonna be the magical elf who fixes it. H.G., what’s the lesson of A Charlie Brown Christmas?”

“Children are not immune from existential despair,” Helena said immediately.

Myka resented how endearing she found that.

Claudia sighed and said, “Why are you always right, but not like I want you to be?” Myka resented how true she found that. Claudia went on, “Okay, smarty, what’s another lesson?”

“One’s so-called friends are likely to scorn one’s attempts to celebrate the season.”

Not quite as endearing. Still right.

“But eventually they come around,” Claudia pronounced. “C’mon, H.G. Be the Linus you wish to see in the world. Or I guess you should be the Linus everybody other than you, or you and Myka, wish to see? Anyway, my point is, what’s the true meaning of Christmas?”

Helena’s hands rose to her temples again as she said, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.”

Myka said, “I’m pretty sure it starts ‘And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field.’” She tried to mitigate her knee-jerk know-it-all-ness by offering, weakly, “I mean, if you’re really being the Linus.”

“I think H.G.’s flaunting again,” said Steve.

“I am repurposing,” Helena said. “A verse from the Epistle of James, as a Christmas thing. Being the sole Victorian representative, I claim the privilege.”

“Also you’re a pretty committed flaunter,” Myka said, because it was the case—and that too was knee-jerk, for she did not bear in mind, for the split second she said it, the full situation they were in. She’d said it as a tease, and they were nowhere near safe teasing ground.

But Helena’s mood had shifted—possibly because of Charlie Brown reasons, which possibly meant that Claudia really was a magical elf—for she said, “True. And truce? For the length of a verse: together as doers of the word, and not hearers only.”

“Fine,” Myka grudged. “But only so Claudia quits looking at us like we stole Christmas. And I pity the hearers.”

“As do I,” Helena said, solemn.

Claudia passed her phone to Helena. Myka leaned to read with her the words of the next verse. They both inhaled, looked at each other, and said “you start” at the same time. After a chorus of “geez,” “come on,” and similar from the annoying people who could actually sing (and who thus weren’t about to make fools of themselves), they gave up and got on with it.

And so they together submitted, in Wenceslasment:

“O dilecta domina, cur sic alienaris? An nescis, o carissima, quod sic adamaris? Si tu esses Helena, vellem esse Paris! Tamen potest fieri noster amor talis.”

The ensuing silence was eloquent enough, but Pete put it into words: “That’s a wow from me. I had no idea anything could sound that bad. Start to finish, next-level awful.”

“Thanks,” Myka said.

“You’re welcome. Seriously, if that was ‘Good King Wenceslas,’ then I’m good King Wenceslas.”

“And yet I feel like that did it? Made it happy?” Steve said, and Leena agreed with him.

Claudia said, “So I guess we’re calling Pete ‘good King Dub’ from now on.”

“I’m into it,” Pete said, “and my first royal decree is, I want to know what they just made it happy singing—or I guess I mean ‘singing’—about. Somewhere in the scary noises I heard ‘Helena,’ so something’s up.”

Helena said, “I have Latin, and I would rather not say.”

“So do I,” Myka said. “And ditto.”

“But for the rest of the class.” Claudia grabbed her phone back. “Okay, here’s what some guy Symonds said it meant, way back in, wait for it, ye olde Victorian times.”

Helena startled: a tiny upturn of chin. “John Symonds?”

“Yeah. Know him?”

“Not well. Mutual friends... he was an advocate of so-called ‘Greek love.’”

Pete’s eyebrows rose. “Going to Greece to get all hey-hey? Like a vacation?”

“Not... precisely that. Although not not that, I imagine.”

Steve chortled. Then he schooled his expression and said, “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for understanding such euphemisms. This sole representative appreciates it.”

Claudia, not to be deterred, said, “Oh, like he’s the only one who got it. But speaking of getting it, because whoever was singing about the time of flowers clearly wanted to.” She then intoned, “O my chosen one, why dost thou shun me? Dost thou not know, dearest, how much thou art loved? If thou wert Helen, I would be Paris. So great is our love that it can be so.” Hearing that diction in Claudia’s voice was strange... but she reverted to normal with, “That’s some business. You certainly do get around, H.G.”

“I am not Helen of Troy, thank you.”

“You sure?” Pete said. “I heard she was hot, just like you.” He bumped Helena in the shoulder.

“Hey!” Myka objected—about the shoulder-bump as well as the “hot.” But more the “hot.”

“She is though! And I thought so first.”

“You did not,” Myka said.

Helena said, “That sounds like a veiled offense.”

“I saw you before he did,” Myka told her. “And anyone who sees you...” She would have gone on, but her ears had begun to burn, a sure sign she was about to head into the “saying too much out loud” zone.

Helena blinked herself to understanding, and Myka was gratified that she seemed a little flustered too as she said, “Oh. Well. That is... complimentary.”

*

That first sight... Myka had not felt anything recognizable as love at that sight; rather, she’d felt a sense, something that she now considered a flutter from the future. Their first interaction, in its entirety, had made no sense at all, primarily on the obvious “H.G. Wells?!?” level, but also in its subterranean murmur, which Myka could not parse, could not even fathom, not until years later when she understood what her body had been trying to tell her. What it had decided it wanted.

Because she could not help herself, she had recently asked Helena a version of “What did you know and when did you know it?” Because the Helena of that earliest part remained an opacity, one about whom Myka was endlessly curious, and asking obliquely about desire rather than baldly about deception seemed a safer way in.

Helena gave the question some thought, making Myka glad she had asked, for being able to prompt Helena to real thought was a prize. “Something sparked for me when you said, ‘H.G. Wells is a woman. I’m going to have to process this.' Because of course I was myself working to ‘process’ that H.G. Wells was not a woman, if you can see at all what I mean.”

“Not quite,” Myka admitted.

“At that point I hadn’t entirely absorbed the history, the idea that Charles had so fully become... him. Me? That time had rendered any distance between Charles and... what I mean is, I had not ‘processed’ that I myself, as myself, would be so utterly forgotten.” She paused. “And then that you would... ‘process.’ That word, used as a verb of cogitation, seemed so deliberate, so new, so singular, as if you’d invented such usage solely as a response to me.”

Helena lied with great facility; Myka did know that about her approach to deception. This sort of hesitant, cautious talk usually connoted truth—here, a truth flattering to Myka. “I wish I had invented it,” she said. New usages, new words, an entirely new language; she should have realized that all of these would come to seem necessary. “And I’m sorry if this shouldn’t be true, but I’m perversely glad to have this secret knowledge. About you. As yourself.” That was a prize too—the luxurious exclusivity of her knowledge, her behind-the-velvet-rope version of H.G. Wells.

“That you are one of the few who do have it is so pleasing to me that I would write a novel about it.”

“I thought you supplied the research,” Myka said, trying to distract herself from the suddenly all-consuming idea that H.G. Wells, in whatever incarnation, had just mentioned writing a novel about something even vaguely related to Myka Bering.

“As if I couldn’t have written those books? I simply didn’t have the time, and Charles did. But I have already compiled extensive research regarding yourself—and your ability to process.”

Myka’s own clearest spark-point had occurred when Helena had looked her up and down—so very thoroughly up and down that Myka had felt that look as a full scan of her very self, a magnetic, resonant measure-taking. Helena hadn’t looked at Pete like that. Myka had clung to that look, had continued to cling to it, more tightly than she probably should have, when she was wishing inchoately but bodily for things she couldn’t let herself know she had decided she wanted.

So Myka said, in the interest of truth-telling, “That you checked me out was pretty pleasing too.”

Yet another prize: a playful “Is that what I did?”

“More thoroughly than anybody ever has.”

“Then it seems I have some secret knowledge of my own.”

“You do,” Myka said, and: “I’m glad it’s you.” Myka wanted no one else to know any of it. Her own velvet rope, behind which no one else.

*

“When does this end, exactly?” Pete asked. “Not that it isn’t fun.”

“When we’ve done enough,” Leena said.

“And when’s that?” Myka asked in turn. “Because it isn’t fun.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s when Claudia feels that we have.”

Claudia groaned out, “Did Mrs. Frederic have to do this kind of thing?”

Leena said, “I wouldn’t know. Now, are we finished yet?”

“Something about infotech,” Claudia muttered. She started walking.

“Narrows it down,” Steve said, and he followed her, disciple-like.

As did they all. They walked and walked.

“Really old infotech,” Claudia said, so they kept walking.

They passed early computers, including the wall-sized Harvard Mark I; telephones and the switchboards that linked them; calculators, slide rules, Napier’s bones; Babbage’s Difference Engine and Leibniz’s Machine. Claudia dismissed it all: “No, no, no,” she chanted. “None of this. Where are you, pesky upset tech?”

At last she halted. “Okay. You?” And in response to some response, she nodded. “This is it. “

It was a structure that looked like a modernist desk crossed with a medieval torture device. “Gutenberg’s printing press,” Myka breathed, in reverence—not that she needed to say it out loud. Well, maybe for Pete.

“Really?” he said, proving her point. “Pretty much the O.G. of infotech then.”

“Actually we passed a bunch of abaci,” she noted, “which are a lot older than—”

“Ix-nay,” Pete said. “This big fella clearly needs a little jog to the self-esteem. What’s its Christmas deal, though?”

Claudia said, “And so the overburdened Caretaker-in-training got her Wikipedia on one more time.”

“No need,” Helena told her. “This one, I know.”

“You’re certainly a more reliable source,” Myka said.

“It worked, professor,” Claudia said. “What’s the Yuletide word, other professor?”

“There is a cantata commemorating Gutenberg’s invention. Written by Mendelssohn, sometime midcentury? Mid my century, that is... the ‘Festgesang.’ Also known as the Gutenberg Cantata.”

Claudia said, “I think I know how this song goes, and by now everybody can sing it with me: the Victorians stole it for Christmas. Right?”

“Part of the melody, yes. To accompany a Christmas hymn known as ‘Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.’ Do you—no. I was about to ask if you know it, but again we return to A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

“Everybody knows it,” Pete said.

“H.G., are you sure all of this song-stealing wasn’t you and your Warehouse 12 buddies?” Claudia asked. “Some super-secret Christmas-invention mission?”

Helena made a face. “Would I be surprised to learn that I had been manipulated into helping such a thing coalesce? Of course not. The Warehouse does enjoy the power generated by a holiday.”

Leena nodded. “Lots of belief. Collectively.”

I am so tired of belief, Myka thought.

“I hope we don’t have to sing whatever the German words are,” Steve said. “I took German in high school and nearly flunked out.”

“Learning lots of new things about you today, BFF,” Claudia commented. “Maybe this isn’t Caretaker practice at all; maybe it’s about us needing to get to know your whole big complicated sax-playing, Wenceslas-hating, German-flunking self. And since when are you a flunker?”

“Something about the word order made me nervous. Like I was always having to untangle what was true. My fault, obviously, not German’s, but I’ve got bad associations, so maybe we could just go with the carol?” He tried, in melodious English, “Hark, the herald angels sing,” then paused, waited. “It doesn’t seem to mind that too much. It isn’t placated yet, though.”

Leena said, “Maybe it doesn’t matter which words we sing.” She tried the next measure as a series of la-las, then stopped and considered. “That wasn’t bad either. I’m guessing it considers the melody Mendelssohn’s real tribute.”

“That’s funny,” said Pete. To multiples of “why,” he answered, “That a printing press doesn’t care about words.”

Helena laughed. “You make an excellent point,” she said. Then, to Myka, “Doesn’t he?”

“He... does,” Myka had to concede.

And in agreeing that Pete made an excellent point, they were, however improbably, pulled extremely close to accord. Myka was barely able to refrain from grasping Helena’s hand again, this time to deal with the depth of her relief that they had... “reconciled” was the word that came to mind, though that probably had more to do with the carol they either were or weren’t about to sing the English words of.

Then again, what was wrong with reconciling, as a word, or as a concept? And so she asked herself why she was refraining. No good answer occurred to her, so she did in fact firmly take Helena’s hand.

Helena didn’t smirk, didn’t eyebrow, didn’t even look at Myka. But she did grip back. Then she went on, with a newly rich note in her voice, “I do think I understand: the press wants it known that the melody was intended to bring glory to it, not to this set of words or that one. And certainly the conceptual majesty of the printed word outglories any newborn baby in a manger, regardless of that infant’s kingship.”

“You’re definitely not being religious now,” Steve said.

“The press brought the Bible to the people, so it has a case for primacy on that score as well.”

“But that baby in the manger saved humankind,” he protested.

Claudia snickered. “I like how nobody’s being religious. Supposedly.”

“We are discussing religion,” Helena starched out. “A different philosophical undertaking entirely.”

“Instead let’s discuss what to sing,” Leena said, “because we’ll be singing together this time. Should it be about the newborn king?”

Helena said, “Not to upset my discursive partner, but the original German is about Gutenberg himself as a sort of savior. His glorious bringing of light into the darkness via the press.”

“If we have to,” Steve said.

“Although,” Helena mused, “I suppose that to sing about Gutenberg’s actions would be to glorify him, rather than the press as such. Perhaps that’s why it doesn’t care about words.”

“How about we split the difference?” Myka offered.

“What’s the difference between an English carol and a German cantata?” Steve asked. “Sounds like a really esoteric riddle.”

Myka said, “Let’s sing the alphabet.” The resulting confused expressions indicated that her very-clear-to-her idea wasn’t quite the beacon of obviousness she’d thought. “Connects all the dots, don’t you figure? Because what’s movable type?”

Helena looked at her like she, Myka, was the one who’d brought light into the darkness. She raised Myka’s hand, which she still held, to her mouth and kissed it. “Lovely,” she said, and although Myka still didn’t exactly feel like singing, she did find herself in a much greater mood to make a joyful noise.

Once the singing—or “singing”—began, they all had different ideas about syllabication, none of which entirely joined into a full cantata-appropriate chorus, but they did end up on “X-Y-Z!” for “re-con-ciled” on their first march through the alphabet, then moved on to the “Joy-ful all ye na-tions ri-ise” part with a rousing “Ay-bee cee dee eee-eff gee-ee!” Everyone was laughing by the time they finished, and Leena said, “Unless I’m misinterpreting, the press is as delighted as we are.” Even Myka, untuneful as she knew she’d been, couldn’t stop grinning... and, as she regarded a similarly smiling Helena, she wanted to be pelted with mistletoe for the right reasons.

Claudia looked up and around, as if snow had begun to fall. She said, “And I think we’re done. Unless anybody’s still unthrilled?” She asked the question of the Warehouse in general, the air around them.

The air held motionless.

Myka said, “I’m still unthrilled that we had to do this at all. I don’t know how Santa feels about anything, but Pete’s on my naughty list.”

“Aren’t you, however?” Helena asked. “Thrilled, in some small part?” To be back in accord, the sparkle in her eyes said.

Well, all right, she was. “You’re taking advantage of how this feels like a holiday now.”

“In Pete’s defense, and my apologies for uttering that phrase, as well as the one that now follows: his intentions were good.”

“There is a road to a place,” Myka said, “and that road is paved. I won’t name the place, but I think you and I and people who had to listen to us sing were recently in its vicinity.”

“Myka. You just now said it feels like a holiday. And it is also now certain that we will never forget this, our first Christmas together.”

“I like how everyone always forgets that I will never forget anything,” Myka complained.

“But sometimes you don’t keep things top of mind,” Steve said, with his particular delicacy.

“You didn’t forget that?”

“I’m not you, but I was paying attention.”

Myka said, “I appreciate it,” and, noting an inquiring eyebrow from Helena, told her, “I’ll explain later.”

Helena nodded and dropped the eyebrow. She said, “So perhaps a more meaningful statement is that I will never forget this, our first Christmas together. And I am being religious, though only slightly, when I say that it all—having such a Christmas, having this somewhat ear-splitting memory—is a blessing.”

“I knew you’d be all sentimental about Christmas, H.G.!” Pete crowed. “I knew it! Which is I bet why the Messiah figured I’d be all into saving Christmas. And which, FYI, I’m still pretty sure I did, Mrs. and Mrs. Bickerson.”

“Please,” Leena said, “not the M-word.”

“Mrs.?” Pete asked, in obvious confusion. “Should it be ‘Ms. and Ms.’ instead? I don’t know how to be sensitive.”

“That’s the truest thing you’ve ever said,” Myka told him. “Pay attention! You’re the one who just made noise about what tapped you for doing this supposed saving.”

“Messiah!” he shouted, like she’d acted it out in charades.

“Well, that’s re-agitated the press a bit,” Helena said, and to the mechanism, she spoke a single word: “Hark.” That word, said by that voice, was at the same time arresting and soothing. Something to heed. “Or, if you prefer, ‘A’,” Helena offered. Also something to heed. Myka’s ears informed her, by way of further burning, that they would in fact listen avidly to Helena reciting the alphabet. That they would find her doing so to be both arresting and soothing and arousing as well. Not surprising, ears, she told them.

“Speaking of sensitive,” Leena said, “the press is.”

“Aren’t we all,” Claudia affirmed.

“It has more right,” Helena said. “No holiday stole Mendelssohn’s music about any of us.”

“He did score a Midsummer,” Myka said. It was one of the few Mendelssohn facts she knew. “So technically about a Helena.”

That made Leena laugh. “We’ll see what happens if anyone ever puts Christmas lyrics to it.”

Myka said, “I really don’t think she needs a lot of help getting agitated,” and Pete put on an expression of concern. “No, Pete, that’s not what I mean.” Then he grinned. “And that’s not either.”

“What we should encourage Pete to do next year, however, is complete his inventory in a timely fashion,” Helena said, and to Claudia, “A timely supervised fashion, hm?”

“Sorry,” Claudia said, seemingly sincerely. Then she perked up. “But we’ve got happy artifacts and that’s still next in the stack, so let’s go home and play!”

Back at the B&B, just before the playing of Sorry commenced, Myka whispered that word to Helena, with whom she was to play, as that team Claudia had proposed—seemingly forever, but really only hours, before. That word, “Sorry,” followed by “I really am.” Helena didn’t whisper it back, but she did murmur, “Don’t be.”

TBC