Chapter Thirty-Six
And he wasn't...Santa Claus. He was something far beyond a
children's fairy tale.
Jimbo sat at a nicely handmade table, hewn from the trees
about them, and shaped into something resembling a mushroom, but with six seats
about it. He sat next to Mrs. Santa Claus and Samuel and Nanny next to Mister
Santa Claus.
Mrs. Santa Claus had that same ageless beauty that suffused
Santa Claus, but with a more down home feeling to it. Her whole presence was
tidy, warm and friendly, like a favorite dog or cat, or couch. Something you
just knew you'd never feel bad on or around.
The small child they had seen earlier was squeezed between Jimbo and Santa, as everyone was
beginning to think of them, because they had no other way to describe them that
didn't include they know what you are thinking. He had all white hair as well
and eyes that seemed to be on fire all the time with an enthusiasm that was
remarkable for one his age. His fingers were deft and quick, his mind even
quicker. He had a tendency to knit his eyebrows together when he concentrated
and his lips would pout.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Jimmy." Mrs. Santa Claus said to
him, jumping up to go through the rounded doorway into her tiny kitchen and
come back quickly with a salt shaker. "Your salt."
"But I didn't ask..." He let it go. This had
happened continuously for about an hour now. He'd think something..."
"And I know." Mrs. Santa Claus told him with a
wink and a twinkle in her eye.
"Okay." Jimbo finally asked out of exasperation.
The idea of someone diving into his mind uninvited was beginning to worry him,
if not irritate him.
"You want to know how I do it. Right?" She asked.
Santa smiled at her and she smiled back. "A little
birdie told me."
Samuel suddenly realized what the tiny black thing was that
was nestled in her snow white hair. He had thought it was some kind of
ornament, but when it unruffled its feathers, and cocked a black eye on him, he
almost choked on the slice of bread he had been eating.
Nanny pounded his back and he stopped coughing, but instead
began laughing over and over.
Jimbo glared at him. "Uh, this isn't funny."
Samuel wiped at the tears in his eyes. "He's telling
the truth, Jimbo. She does have a little bird talking to her. It's right in
front of your eyes."
Jimbo looked over at her, but saw nothing. "Oh.
Invisible friend, right?"
Samuel stopped laughing. "Sorry, Jimbo, I thought
everyone could see it."
Nanny glared at him too. "I can't either, and I usually
do."
Mrs. Santa patted her arm. "Deary, you're still a young
soul, you can't be expected to see everything...yet."
That got Nanny even more mad. "I resent being talked
down to!"
She started to get up.
Both Samuel and Jimbo held her down.
"Okay. I'll stay, but all this spiritual mumbo jumbo is
starting to get to me..." She froze at her words. She swiveled her eyes to look at Jimbo. "I'm
starting to be you!"
Jimbo laughed. "Happens to the best of us."
Santa and Mrs. Santa laughed.
The child, a young boy of about the age of ten, set a piece
of cloth he had been shaping in his lap next to Nanny. "Like it?"
Nanny forgot her anger when she saw the tiny Christmas tree.
"It's beautiful! How'd you do that?"
"With love." The boy answered with a straight
face. "Mommy shows me how to do it every day. I've been getting better. Do
you like it?"
Nanny looked at him more closely. "You've asked me that
two times. Why?"
"Denny is special." Santa told her, his eyes solemn. "He knows how to shape
the future."
"Don't we all?" Nanny laughed, thinking he was
being companionable, not serious.
Samuel looked at the tree more closely and he could see Nanny,
Jimbo and himself climbing inside of it, following a trail of cavernous
tunnels, pursued by something indefinable. He gave Denny a startled look. Denny
looked him in the eyes. "You like it?"
"I'm not sure." Samuel answered. "It doesn't
look like a future I want to experience."
Mrs. Santa put a hand on his. "Honey, it's not the
future that is, but the future that could be."
Santa nodded. "Denny's gift is more of a warning of
what the future will become if we misstep or take the wrong direction."
Jimbo set his napkin down. A handmade cotton like material
that never lost its crispness, no matter how much he folded it. "Don't you
think it's time you told us who you people really are?"
Santa smiled. "Friends."
Mrs. Santa nodded. "Oh so true."
Denny smiled at them and grinned like the little child he
appeared to be. "Friends we
cherish."
One moment the happy family was seated there with them,
smiling, then they were gone. The home around them vanished. The furniture was
all that was left. It sat beneath a towering tree and a soft mist of rain was
drizzling between the leaves and beginning to wet them.
They got up from the mushroom table and it too vanished.
"Well, at least they didn't just dump us on the
ground." Jimbo admitted reluctantly.
Nanny shivered.
Next to the huge tree trunk, their back packs lay neatly
stacked. A basket of bread and fruit sat next to them, with a note on top.
Nanny ran over and read the note. "We hope you'll enjoy
this little gift from us. And remember choices are never final, there's always
another door that can be opened, and we love you from the bottom of our
hearts."
She looked up at them. "Signed Mister and Missus
Claus."
Jimbo shook his head. "No, I refuse to believe it. Just
a legend. A myth."
Samuel looked to his right were Al and Marilyn were dancing
a slow waltz. Al looked over and shook his head. "Al doesn't think
so."
He looked back at Jimbo. "Neither do I."
Nanny came back. "What now?"
"We rebuild our tent and wait for the morning."
So they pulled out the tent from Jimbo's backpack and slung
it together. They were so tired and worn out by the time they finished, they
could barely crawl into their sleeping bags.
As they lay there Jimbo said. "Notice the temperature
here remains perfect, no matter what the time of day or night? Like it's
controlled somehow."
"Noticed." Samuel answered with a yawn. "Did
you also notice that the trees talk?"
Jimbo laughed. "Sammie, please no more stupid
jokes!"
"I'll second that." Nanny said with a whimper of a
yawn. "I just don't understand why I'm so tired all the time down here. I
never feel entirely rested, and yet I feel more clear than I've ever
been."
"It's the vibration of the place." Samuel
explained. "It's very high."
"If it's so absurdly high." Jimbo demanded.
"Then why did that ship blow up?
Sounds like some contrast is going on."
"I believe so too, Jimbo, and I think that's what the
warning was about. That everything is not what it appears to be."
"Then what is it?" Nanny asked, stiflying another
yawn.
"Some kind of test maybe." Samuel commented.
He propped himself up on an elbow and looked at his friends.
"I remember Al telling me once that the people who live down here are of
such a high vibration that anything negative around them turns on itself and
destroys itself."
"Like that ship?" Nanny asked.
"Yeah. Like that. But then that beggars the question of
how the ship could even exist here at all, as they were obviously accustomed to
having control of this territory."
Jimbo yawned loudly, then sat up, awake again. "That
would mean this so-called hollow earth is more than it seems. Maybe divided
up."
"Or shared." Nanny added, getting excited herself.
Samuel nodded. "But the question in my mind is why the
more advanced civilization would allow the negative one to exist in its own
space."
Samuel was about to say more, when he noticed Al squatted
near the door, shaking his head. "It's not about one or the other, Sam,
it's about learning."
"Yeah. But what?"
"Who you talking to?" Nanny asked, confused by
Samuel's sudden turn in conversation.
"His invisible friend. " Jimbo explained.
"Who else?"
Nanny threw herself back down into her sleeping bag and shut
her eyes. "You two just blow my mind. I can't keep my head straight around
you. Good-night."
Jimbo lay back down too, but he wasn't sleepy anymore, not
any more than Samuel, who had stopped talking and lay down as well.
"Sammie."
"Yeah."
"Do you think that ship was Nazi?"
"Yeah. I do."
"Then that would mean that they built an empire down
here."
"Sad, but true."
"That would also mean that one day they might emerge
again."
"True enough."
"I don't think we can fight something like that."
"Won't have to."
"How you figure that?"
"When have we ever been in any fight where the odds
were in our favor?"
Nanny stirred. "Will you two spiritual war heroes shut
up, a girl needs her beauty sleep."
Samuel and Jimbo shut their eyes, but neither one of them
slept very well that night. Especially after they heard a sound similar to the
one made by the earlier flying ship and a great shadow passed by and a spot light
speared the ground not even ten yards away.
