Seven and a half minutes into his drive to work was the best part of Rog Bennet’s day. Rog commuted every morning to his job at a hospital in New Orleans. He wasn’t a doctor or a nurse or anything important like that – he was just a data processor that drove an hour in from his home in Timberton Parish every morning and an hour back every night. He had thought about trying to find a place to live closer to the hospital from time to time. After all, he had no family, no close friends… nothing that really kept him in Timberton. But then, he had nothing to really come home to, either, no reason to make the effort to be there more, nothing to justify the hassle of the move. At least when he was on the road, he wasn’t at home. By himself.

He left every morning at 7 o’clock. He reached a red light about seven minutes later. Thirty seconds after that the light changed, the columns of vehicles on either side of the intersection began to roll east or west. Rog was in the eastbound lane. In the westbound lane, almost every morning, he saw the bright spot of his day roll past him.

He didn’t know her name, had never spoken to her, but even his brief glimpse of her got him charged the way coffee did other people. She was beautiful, with blonde hair down to her shoulders and eyes that appeared to be the most brilliant blue on those days when the sun hid behind the clouds, eliminating her need for sunglasses. She always dressed nicely, in sharp business coats or, on warm days, a tasteful blouse that flowed down into the door of the silver Acura she drove. He watched her every morning that their paths crossed, from the moment he saw the airbrushed plate on the front of her car – a purple field with the names “Jamie, Linda & Benny” painted inside a pink heart – until she drove out of his sight, leaving him with a final glimpse of her license plate in his rear-view mirror: JLZX622. He didn’t imagine he could ever forget that plate.

As this was one of the first things that happened to him each day, Rog had to cling to that memory as long as he could. He remembered her face, her posture, how the sun filtered through her golden hair. He thought of the names on her plate and wondered who they were… Jamie? Linda? Could one of those be her own name? He doubted it somehow. She didn’t seem the sort of woman who would vainly place her name on display. The names of her children, perhaps? More likely. He wondered how old her children were. She appeared to be close to his own 37 years of age – possibly a few years older. Her children could be anywhere from infancy to high school age, or maybe even college (of course her children were going to college) depending on how young she was when she got married.

She was married, he was certain of that. He had watched her too closely for too long not to have seen the gold band and diamond ring on her left hand. That was all right, though. His fascination with her was not really romantic in nature, although he supposed he did love her, in a sense. More than that, thought, it gave him a feeling of contentment, of completeness, just to know he lived in a world where such a creature as that could still exist. He felt like that every day that he saw her, which was at least three or four times a week, until the week before Christmas in Rog Bennet’s 37th year.

* * *

Rog woke up at 5:30 like he did every day he had to go to work. He took a shower, shaved, had a breakfast of Frosted Flakes and bananas. It was in his car, as he backed out of his driveway, that he realized his shower didn’t take. When he woke up, every morning he felt sweaty, his nose was crusty, his lips chapped. Usually, once he was dry from his shower, he felt better, but sometimes even hours later he would still feel sweaty and stuffy and chapped. He didn’t know why it happened, but it usually put him in a dour mood for the rest of the day.

One thing would brighten him up, though, one thing always did. He coaxed his car down the street, seven minutes worth of pavement, until he came to the traffic light that annoyed so many but was a harbinger of good to Rog. The light changed and, as the cars rolled, he looked for her.

But she wasn’t there.

No silver car, no golden hair, no crystal-blue eyes. Nothing to make him smile.

He sighed. It was a disappointment, to be certain, but it was nothing to worry about. It happened sometimes. Maybe she was running late. Maybe he was running early (far less likely). Maybe she was home sick (although he certainly hoped not), or maybe one of her children was sick and she had to take, say, little Jamie to the doctor. Her absence could have been explained by any of a hundred safe, insignificant reasons. It didn’t feel like that, though. It didn’t feel like that to Rog Bennet, and instead of his morning smile, it was that thought that stayed with him on his way to work.

* * *

That stale, disconnected feeling stayed with him all day. His computer was processing sluggishly, his sandwich at lunch didn’t have the same zip he usually got with the brown mustard. He made the long drive home, the sun already creeping down under the horizon when he left, and arrived to an empty mailbox, not even a bill to tell him anyone really remembered he was there. He stepped into the small house he rented, turned on the light in a still living room. There was some sign of life there, a dim red flash from his answering machine. Rog was momentarily startled. The machine was called to take messages so infrequently he was sometimes tempted to call his own empty house from work just to make sure it was still operating properly.

“Rog, it’s Billy,” said the phone-filtered, tinny voice that came when he pushed the playback button. That made sense. Billy Paulson was the closest thing to a friend Rog had, although they had grown steadily apart in the years since Bill met Tara and got married. It wasn’t that Tara and Rog didn’t like each other, it was that she didn’t really ever have a chance to get to know him. Tara was not unique in that regard. “How about those Saints, huh Rog? They may actually go somewhere this year if they can pull out this last game! Look, we’re having a party to watch the game Sunday, we’d love it if you came by, man. Kickoff is at three – bring some chips or something. Later!”

The machine buzzed into silence – Billy had left the only message. Rog wasn’t surprised. He would probably call Billy back later in the week and politely turn him down. Football wasn’t his game to begin with, and he wouldn’t know anybody else at the party. Why bother? He tossed his coat down on the couch. The room was conspicuous in its absence of tree or decorations, even though it was already December 21. Decorations were only good if you had other people there to look at them. Rog had a dinner of a green salad and a grilled chicken breast. He watched a few sitcoms on TV, turned off the set before the news could depress him, and went to bed.

He still felt sweaty.

* * *

He showered a little longer than usual the next morning, hoping to avoid a repeat of the previous day’s dank, muddied sensation. He stepped out of the stream and began dabbing his face with a towel, and he knew it didn’t work. His lips were still raw, the back of his neck still felt like it was coated with a thin film of slime. It was worse this time, too, because now it felt like a two-day accumulation of filth. He mopped himself off, though, reluctant to waste even another minute because he was already running late. He hated the thought of missing her two days in a row. If he felt this lousy after just one day, two would be unthinkable.

But she wasn’t there again.

He raced through the rest of his routine, even left his bowl of cereal half-eaten on the counter, and he was certain he left at almost exactly the same time he always did. When he got to the red light, though, there was no silver car there. There was no one facing him in the other lane at all on that cold Tuesday morning. The light changed and he kept his eyes rooted on the empty lane of traffic until a bleat from the Explorer behind him served as a reminder that, even with his apparition missing, traffic still had to move.

He was a zombie on the way to work. He rode past Christmas decorations and tree lots without blinking an eye. As isolated as he was, he always noticed the signs of the season around him, a comforting reminder that elsewhere, other people were surrounded by warmth at this time of year. It gave him at least a grain of hope for himself. He went right through to lunch when his supervisor, Nick, reminded him that the office Christmas party was that afternoon. He had volunteered to bring cookies – it was easy enough to purchase the ready-made dough, scoop it out and slide it into the oven – but he had completely forgotten about it. He still felt bogged down with gunk and perspiration, and the party was the last thing he wanted, but he couldn’t think of any way to get out of it.

A quick escape from the office to a nearby convenience store brought him to the party with a package of Chips Ahoy – not exactly home-baked, but cookies at least. As his co-workers milled about and discussed how they would spend the upcoming holiday, what gifts they had bought, how much shopping they still had to do, how wonderful it would be to see the grandkids this year, Rog hid in a corner of the office with a cup of punch for most of the evening. He drank slowly, nursed it, and paid little attention. In fact, he was just staring into his cup when someone tried talking to him.

“Roger?”

He looked up from his punch to see Susan Fries, one of the women in his data processing department. She had been at the office for about eight months, still brief enough a time to attempt non-work related chatter with him. The others had mostly given up. She was still wondering why he was always polite, but basically unresponsive. The others just lived with it. Her head was tilted slightly to the left, her brow raised in a posture of mild concern that Rog was quite familiar with.

“Yes, Susan?”

“Are you okay? You don’t seem to be enjoying the party very much.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “I just have quite a bit on my mind.”

“Are you sure? I could--”

“I’m fine,” he repeated, still politely, but more firmly than before.

“Okay, Rog. I’ll talk to you later, then.”

“Okay, Susan. Thank you.”

She backed off, leaving Rog alone. She kept watching him as she left. He didn’t stay at the party very long after that.

* * *

Rog got up a half-hour early the next morning to take an extra-long shower. He’d taken one before he went to bed, but it didn’t take any more than his last two morning showers had, and this one was no better. When he got out his lips were dryer than ever, and felt like they were beginning to crack. The funk he felt on his neck and shoulders had begun to crawl down his back like moss growing on a tree trunk. He had a scrubbing brush that he didn’t actually use that often, but this morning he rubbed his back raw trying to rid himself of the sensation that a moist, heavy lichen was taking over his body. Now his back felt sweaty and it hurt.

For the third day in a row he climbed into his car, praying that he would see her. As he coasted to the stop light his heart jumped – she was there! He could see the silver bumper peeking out from behind a furniture truck His knuckles turned white from gripping the wheel and the sweat, which he’d worked so hard to dispel earlier, began to trickle down from his brow. The light changed, the truck rolled.

His heart fell.

It wasn’t her, he knew that the moment the truck began to move, but he could not allow himself to believe it until the bulky vehicle cleared his vision entirely. The car was filthy, to begin with, she never allowed her car to look so unkempt. The right headlight was smashed-in, useless, and there was no plate on the front bearing the names of three assumed (but beloved) children. She was not behind the wheel. In her place was a young man, perhaps a teenager, with a grimy Astros cap pulled down low over his eyes. The car glided past him, rolling with a disturbing popping sound from the engine, and although he knew it would not be there, he couldn’t help but look for that blessed license plate, JLZX622.

That wasn’t there either.

Rog tried to drive, but he didn’t make it very far before sobs exploded from his throat and he felt the hot rush of tears flow down his cheeks. He made it about another quarter-mile before he pulled into the small parking lot next to a large playground, threw his car into “park,” put his head down on the steering wheel, and wept. Three days. She had been gone three days. Even the two days over the weekend had become agony for him since he became accustomed to her, the pain mitigated only by the thought that she would be waiting there on Monday.

When he had cried himself out, and in the process ensured that he would be intolerably late for work, he got it in himself to look up at the park. At this hour of the morning, he had expected to be alone, but instead he found he had an audience. A little girl, maybe ten years old, was sitting on the swing set by herself. She was not swinging, she was just sort of sitting there, and from her orientation it seemed as though she had been staring off at the thick forest that bordered the park on one side, separated by a drainage canal – not enormous, but too wide to jump and too deep to wade. There was a single foot bridge that spanned the canal at the other end of the park.

The girl’s head was turning now, her yellow hair pulled back into a ponytail that poked from the back of her baseball cap, and she was looking in his direction. She was too far away for him to make out the color of her eyes, too far away to be certain of anything except that there appeared to be only the traditional pair, but as she looked in his direction Rog Bennet started to get the incredibly uncomfortable sensation that this little girl was staring straight through him.

Although there was nothing malevolent in the child’s glare, Rog felt a chill regardless – he felt suddenly naked, exposed, like the girl was reading him somehow. Then she blinked at him, a blink that somehow suggested the flip of a hand as you dog-eared the page of a book. With Rog sufficiently “marked,” the girl turned her attention back to the forest. Rog shivered a bit, then let his hand drift down to the gear shift by his hip. He threw the car into reverse and coasted back and out of the parking lot.

He was late for work, he had been right about that. And he was useless for the rest of the day, unable to concentrate on his job, unable to think past anything but the glare of that little girl as her eyes bore into him. No one tried to talk to him at all that day. He was grateful for that much.

* * *

On Thursday, Christmas Eve, Rog did not see much point in getting out of bed. The stale funk that coated his skin was sinking deeper into his body. His limbs creaked now. His shoulders and elbows cramped when he tried to move them and his head was pounding. When you woke up with a headache, in his experience, it was never a portent of a good day to come.

Showering that day was nothing more than a perfunctory exercise. He did it to maintain the routine, not out of any expectation of feeling clean as a result. He was right. He stood under the scalding flow for as long as he could stand it, scrubbing a new bar of soap almost down to a sliver, then rubbing his body with a rough, terrycloth towel. Finally, he was dry.

But he still wasn’t clean.

It was Christmas Eve, but he was working anyway. He never complained about being scheduled for holidays. Why would he? He spared a glance at the other row of cars when he stopped at the traffic light, but he didn’t see her. He didn’t think he would. The hole in his gut got bigger each day, like demons were nibbling at the edges of it, slowly nudging it outwards. Later, he would attempt to remember if he had ever seen her on Christmas Eve. Most people tried not to work on that day, he vaguely recalled.

As he rolled past the park where the girl had stared at him the day before, he saw a large group of men swarming around the swing set. Several of them, he noticed, were police officers. Another man, with dusty brown hair, seemed to be shouting at the others quite a bit, and a younger man who resembled him enough to be his brother was trying to calm him down.

So Rog would be late two days in a row. It’s not like anyone would notice anyway.

He got out of his car and stepped up to a cop on the periphery of the mob. Rog timidly asked him what was going on.

“Geez, buddy, ain’t you read a newspaper all week?”

“I’ve been busy,” Rog said.

The policeman pointed at the upset man. “That’s Jack Watson over there. His wife, Denise, has been missin’ since Monday. She left for work that mornin’ and no one’s seen her since.”

Rog’s forehead got hot, flaring for a moment. “Is he a suspect?”

The policeman chuckled. “Well, you always look at the spouse first, don’t you pal? But nah, he brought their kids to school that mornin’, then stayed behind to help with a Christmas party. He was still there when her boss started callin’ around lookin’ for her. Ol’ Jack has three dozen iron-clad witnesses.” He raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t be tellin’ you this if it hadn’t already been in them newspapers you ain’t had time to read, you understand.”

“I understand. So… why are you here?” Rog shuffled his feet, trying to move a little. The funk all over his skin was beginning to itch.

“We’re here because for three days nobody could find hide nor hair of the woman, then yesterday her little girl came out here to the park and found somethin’ at the edge of the woods. We’re sendin’ a search party in, as many people as we can get together.”

“Poor kids,” Rog said. He shivered. The cop was looking at him with a suspicious eye.

“Look, buddy, we’ve got a lot to do, so if you ain’t here to help--”

“No, no! I want to volunteer.”

“What’s your name?”

“Rog Bennet.”

“Okay, Rog. Go talk to that nice lookin’ lady with the clipboard and tell her you’re here to join the search party.”

“Okay.” Rog was about to walk off, but he realized there was one more question he had to ask. “The little girl… what did she find?”

“A plate. She found her mama’s license plate, all banged up and dented. We could barely make out the number.”

“JLZX622,” Rog whispered.

“Yeah – how the hell did you know that?”

“I… I heard someone say it,” Rog answered.

* * *

The way the search party worked was simple. The gathered volunteers – there were 15 in all – would line up several paces apart and step into the woods. They were to stay close together, certainly in sight of the people on either side of them, and march into the woods like a line of soldiers looking for traces of Denise Watson. Clothing, shoes, perhaps more pieces of her presumably-battered automobile. There was another, for more obvious sign to look for, of course, but none of the would-be rescuers could bring themselves to give voice to it.

Besides, she wasn’t dead. Rog knew this somehow. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. She was in trouble. Something bad had happened, something ol’ JLZX622 had been inadequate to guard against, but it had not killed her. Rog would have known if it had.

The police provided each of the rescuers with a flashlight and a pair of rubber gloves, for although the rescuers were instructed to call out when they found anything, not to touch it, the police knew that some people would be unable to resist, and they wanted to minimize contamination of any evidence they may find. They had also passed around a photograph of Denise Watson that erased any lingering doubts Rog may have had. It was her all right, his traffic light angel, bright as the cherub on top of a Christmas Tree. Her children should have been at home, waiting, dreaming about the treasures Santa Claus would leave under the tree that evening, not waiting at their uncle’s house for word of whether or not their mother still lived.

Rog did his best to arrange things so he would be at the far end of the search party, but one of the police still managed to flank him on his right side, the farthest end. Rog wasn’t stupid – he knew he’d said too many of the wrong things, asked too many of the wrong questions… and particularly, had known too much about little things like a license plate number. He had thrown suspicion on himself, and every authoritative eye was going to be focused right on him in case he said or did something to compound his blunder. If he did happen to find anything, it would only confirm the suspicions of those around him. He didn’t know if they had mentioned him to Jack Watson. He rather hoped they hadn’t.

But he had to search. Something was telling him that if he didn’t find Denise Watson, nobody would.

As they stepped into the woods, eyes peeled, hands flexing inside gloves, Rog was one of the last ones to actually make that forward motion. The shadow of the trees passed over him, and the itching sensation he’d felt since his shower got worse. It was like the back of his neck had broken out in an insatiable rash. Without even thinking about it, his hand went to his shoulders and he began scratching his way up, dipping beneath the fabric of his winter coat, only partially needed on this mild Louisiana Christmas Eve. As he searched, he scratched, scratch-scratch, scratch-scratch, completely oblivious to what he was doing.

“You okay, buddy?” called the searcher to his left, who happened to be Denise’s brother-in-law, Marty.

“Is there any poison ivy in these woods?” Rog asked.

“Probably,” Marty said. “Geez, I hate this place.”

Rog nodded. The woods, at the moment, were very low on his list of favorite places as well.

They searched for about four hours, then broke for lunch without finding anything that could have pointed to Denise Watson. At one point a searcher three spots down from Marty caused a commotion when he found what looked like broken plastic shards from a car’s taillight, but there was so much junk dumped in these woods that there was no way to say for certain if it came from her car. It looked like it had been there far longer than four days, at any rate.

Rog himself found nothing remarkable – a pencil, a tin can, a faded purple hairband, all junk. The search was made even more difficult by the fact that the trees themselves formed a very dense blanket of foliage over their heads. It was very dark in there, even with their flashlights cutting through the gloom. It was not, however, so dark that they would miss a pale, bloodless face in the underbrush should one of their lights happen to fall across it. Any time a flashlight beam lit upon something that particular wan shade of gray or blue, Rog’s heart stopped for a moment until he realized it was a dead tree stump or discarded grocery bag.

As they ate lunch – ham sandwiches provided by Denise and Jack’s oldest daughter, Jamie – some of the rescuers talked about their chances of turning up a sign of the woman. More than one of them, although never in earshot of Jack or Marty, felt quite certain that the cause was hopeless. At least one woman made no secret of the fact that she still believed, with all conviction, that the distraught husband was culpable in this horrid turn of events.

The eyes of the police, however, remained squarely on Rog.

After lunch it was back into the woods. They had marked off the area they’d already covered, so the track of searchers inched as far as they’d gotten in their slow, meticulous search, and began again.

Rog was dragging on purpose, allowing the line to go ahead of him, looking for an opening to sneak away. The cop to his right, however, was glaring him down like he would break off and make a run for it at any moment. Rog was getting both frustrated and anxious at the same time, and was about ready to simply bolt.

Then he saw the light.

Quite literally, he saw a streak of light blast at him from the right, burning a trail across his eyes on its path. He looked over at the cop, waiting to see how he would react, but he was wandering and searching as usual, flashlight cutting through the underbrush like he hadn’t noticed anything at all.

“Hey!” Marty called out from the left, from the direction the light had fled in. “Hey! I think I’ve found something!”

No he didn’t, said a voice in Rog’s head, his own voice he came to understand. The cop looked over at Marty, then at Rog.

“Don’t move!” he barked, then turning his attention to everyone, added, “Nobody move!”

“Don’t worry,” Rog said.

The cop ran past him to where Marty was looking. He bent over, tugging on his rubber gloves, and began to study whatever the brother-in-law found.

Marty hadn’t found anything, though, Rog was sure of it. The police would look and hunt, but the findings would turn out to be an ancient piece of metal or a discarded steering wheel far too old to have come from Denise’s car. Rog watched as they hunted, but watched the police officers. He watched until he was certain they were not looking.

Then he fell back and wandered away.

* * *

Rog struck out in a direction parallel to the canal that bordered the woods, moving slowly at first so as not to attract attention, then faster to put some distance between himself and the other searchers. At one point he just got careless and began to run. He ran maybe 25 yards through the underbrush before tripping over his own feet and crashing into a mound of dead leaves.

He brushed himself off, his breath streaming out ahead of him in a white vapor. Was it getting colder? On his back, the itching was worse than ever, and he was certain if he pulled off his shirt and coat he would find his skin covered in speckled red hives. It was agony. He couldn’t scratch through the heavy fabric, he couldn’t walk without his own feet tripping him, he couldn’t find this poor woman he’d been watching for such a long time.

He was useless.

“You should get up,” someone said to him.

Rog looked up. The only other people who should have been in those dark woods were the other searchers, and since his disappearance had most likely branded him the prime suspect in the case, he doubted any of them would approach him with that much concern in their voice. He tilted his head to see the little girl who had glared at him in the parking lot yesterday. She was bundled in a heavy winter coat and pants, and she had a pair of earmuffs clamped on her head on top of a faded red baseball cap, her ponytail still protruding from the back. For a second, when he looked up at her, he saw a smattering of light, three pinpricks in a triangle – one point over each of her eyes and the third on her forehead. Then she blinked and the light was gone.

“You’re her,” Rod said. “You’re that girl that was in the parking lot yesterday. You’re… your name is Linda, isn’t it?”

The girl, Linda, Denise and Jack’s middle child, nodded at him. “Who are you?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Figure it out,” she said. “I think you’re supposed to save her.”

“What?”

“You’re brighter. Brighter than yesterday. Well… everyone is brighter than usual today, I’m not sure why. But you especially. You’re really bright.”

“What are you doing out here by yourself?”

“I’m looking for my mother.”

“They’re going to be looking for you.”

“They’re going to be looking for you, too. Let’s avoid them and look for Mom together.”

“You don’t know anything about me, Linda.”

“I know more than you think. Get up. Let’s go.”

* * *

Rog pulled himself to his feet and began stumbling behind Linda on her surefooted trek through the woods. It was very dark in there, with only a rare shaft of sunlight piercing through to the ground. Rog got turned around somehow, and soon lost any sense of direction. There was no way to gauge perspective from the sky, but the girl marched through with total confidence, as though she were born here. At times Rog had to follow the sound of her footsteps, or moved when he caught a glimpse of a wisp of white vapor that rose from her mouth, burning somehow with a light iridescence. He reached once for his flashlight, realized he had lost it when he fell down, and decided he didn’t need it.

“We’re almost there, aren’t we?” he asked.

“Yes. How did you tell?”

“How did you?”

“Fair enough,” she said. In fact, the reason he knew was because the itching sensation consuming his back had become so burning, so all-consuming, he would go mad if he did not find some way to assuage it. If he could find a pool of calamine lotion, even in this frigid air, he would strip naked and dive in.

“Do you see it yet?” Linda asked.

“See what?”

“Then you don’t. Keep walking.”

And he did. And a few moments later, he did see. A speckle of light – not sunlight, but a pure white light – cut through the pitch black of the woods, striking him in the eyes as though whatever was generating it was actually aiming for him. He staggered from the glare and stepped back, slightly afraid to continue, so Linda took his hand and began to lead him forward.

“What is that?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But my mom is in there.”

“You’re nuts, Linda.”

“Well… somebody has to be. Wouldn’t you say?” Rog had no idea how to argue with that. He stepped forward towards the light.

The beam that was tracing across his eyes, as it turned out, was only one of many shafts of light coming from a copse of some bush that looked very out of place in the forest. As they crept further still, he realized the leaves and little red berries resembled sprigs of mistletoe.

“Of course,” he said. “So what do we do now?”

“You’ve got to look in there.”

“Me?”

“I got us here, didn’t I?” she said.

Rog reached out and touched the mistletoe, and a streak of burning, itching power bolted through his arm.

“Linda--”

“Please, Roger,” she said, her voice trembling, her eyes flickering.

He bit down and stuck his right hand into the copse. It itched and raged, but he forced himself to grab the leaves and rip away a chunk of them. The light blazed out into his eyes. His vision smoldered for a moment, but then it was like the light burned itself away from his eyes, and he could suddenly see a small chamber constructed from the leaves.

Denise Watson was there, still beautiful, still framed by corn-gold hair, but her eyes were closed, the crystal blue shielded by flaps of skin. She was asleep, he could see that, and thin and dirty. She looked as though she had been lying there for a very long time.

“Linda?” Rog whispered, but when he tried to look back out of the copse he was greeted by the same magnificent light he first saw peering in. He felt himself being drawn forward into the mistletoe, pulled in to where Denise lay, quiet. Still.

“Denise,” he said to her, “can you hear me? No… I suppose you can’t. My name is Rog, Rog Bennet. You don’t know me.” He swallowed. “I know you.”

“Who are you?” hissed a voice. Rog glanced around, but saw no one but the sleeping woman before him.

“I’m Rog--”

“Who are you?” the voice repeated, then before he could answer, added, “Go! Leave us!”

“Are you keeping this woman here?” Rog asked.

“I protect her!”

“Protect her? From what?”

“See her every day in your world, does I! See her among you people! See you hurt and lie! See you not care!”

“What are you talking about?” Rog asked. “Not care? I don’t understand!”

“See your world, does I! Watch her, watch her does I!”

“You… you watch her?”

“Watch her! Too good, too kind for your world, she is, says I!”

Rog trembled. The hissing voice was beginning to reverberate in his ears… they were starting to hurt. “What are you doing to her? She wouldn’t want to be here! She’d want to be with her family!”

“Family? Bah! Not worthy, not care! She gone four days now, no one comes for her!”

“We couldn’t find her until now!” Rog shouted. “Her daughter is right outside!”

“Daughter?” The voice quieted, and for a moment the light in the chamber dimmed. Then it rose again and the hissing returned. “One person! One person for her! No different! Not enough!”

“What about her husband? Or her brother-in-law? Or all the people walking around the woods right now trying to find her? Are you telling me they don’t care?”

The lights fell again, for longer this time. When they came back, the voice sounded suddenly confused. “More… no! No sense, this makes! I trying to save her!”

“From what?”

“Your world!”

“She doesn’t need to be saved!”

“She not realize! She not know!”

“You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved,” Rog said, the words spilling like acid from his mouth.

“World not good enough for her.”

Rog’s back was itching so badly now he could barely think, barely concentrate on the garbled tongue of whatever creature was holding Denise. Everything that had happened that day was running together in his mind, and he heard Linda’s voice, whispering what she had said to him when she first met him in the woods.

Everyone is brighter today, she had said.

Christmas Eve.

“Look further,” Rog said. “Look further, please. Look all over the world.”

“No!”

“Look! Look, dammit! You think you’re saving her? Take a look out there and see what you’re saving her from!”

The lights fell again, to black this time. Rog couldn’t see anything, not even Denise’s calm face. His skin burned. If he were to craft his own imagining of what hell would be like, this would have been it.

“No,” the voice said. The lights began to rise again, slower this time. “They did not care before… did not think… did not feel…”

“It’s a special day,” Rog said.

“You… why come after her? Why, you?”

“You can’t tell?”

The lights flashed this time, didn’t fade, but drifted through Rog’s body. “Care about her too, you do? Not care about much, no… but care about her.”

“Not care about much,” Rog agreed, “but care about her.”

There was a long silence.

“Go. Leave. Leave me be.”

The walls of mistletoe cracked around Rog and the light inside streamed out, so wonderfully, so brilliantly, that he could not see.

* * *

He woke to find a hand on his shoulder. It was a police officer, one of the ones that had been staring at Rog like he was a killer in hiding. He looked rather contrite now.

“Bennet? Are you okay?”

“What happened?” he moaned.

“That’s what we want to know.” Rog sat up, rubbed his eyes. There was a sound of someone sobbing, and he saw Jack Watson cradling his wife. He felt a chill for a moment, until he realized she was embracing him as well. She was fine. She was back where we belonged.

“We saw a flash of light and we ran over here and found you two all tangled up in these bushes. What happened? Why did you leave us?”

“I don’t know,” Rog whispered. “Where’s the girl? Where’s Linda?”

“Linda?” Jack Watson looked at Rog for the first time upon hearing his daughter’s name. “I left the kids at Marty’s house. He’s on his way to get them and bring them here.”

“No, that’s not right,” Rog muttered.

“Wait…”

It was a quiet, lilting voice. A voice that seemed older than it should have, somehow, like it had been through more than it deserved in its life. It was the voice of Denise Watson, and although he had been watching her for so long, he realized that he was hearing her now, for the very first time.

“Wait,” she said, looking at him with puzzlement.

“Don’t I know you?”

“No,” Rog said. “No, I’m just a volunteer.” He smiled. He felt warm, but no longer felt a burning. The itching was gone. He felt clean again.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Mrs. Watson.”

“You found me?”

“I guess.” He smiled.

* * *

It took Rog a very long time to answer the police’s questions. Denise, as it turned out, had no memory of what happened to her. The last thing she knew, it had been Monday morning and she was driving past the park on her way to work. Then there was a flash of light… and nothing, not even dreams, until she awoke in the twisted branches. Upon closer inspection, Rog realized that they didn’t really look like mistletoe at all, but rather like simple forest shrubs.

But they had been mistletoe. He was sure of it.

He saw the children briefly when they came to their mother – little Benny, college-aged Jamie. Linda stayed back. She did not try to speak to him, but for a moment she smiled and tipped her faded red baseball cap. He smiled back.

He answered the police as best he could, and later found himself repeating his answers to the local newspaper the Timberton Charger. In both cases, he gave the same story – he thought he saw something in the woods and left the search party to follow it, yes he knew it was a stupid thing to do. He came upon a tangled web of bushes, and then he saw a flash. He didn’t wake up until he saw the police. He didn’t think telling the truth would do him any good, and at least with the flash of light his story paralleled Denise’s somewhat.

Jack Watson thanked him a thousand times for finding his wife. Benny and Jamie thanked him for finding their mother. Linda, again, smiled and said nothing. Eventually, they went home to clean their mother up and begin what no one doubted would be the most joyful Christmas celebration of their lives.

The police continued to comb the woods looking for something to tell them what had really happened, but Rog knew they wouldn’t find anything. Eventually, as dusk was coming upon them, he was sent home. He returned to his small house and showered, then looked around, for the first time really feeling bereft of Christmas decorations. No… it wasn’t the decorations themselves he wanted. After all, decorations were no good without someone to show them to.

He picked up the phone.

“Billy? It’s Rog. Yeah, good to hear from you too. Listen, if the invitation’s still open, I’d like to come by for the game Sunday. Really? Great. I’ll be there at 2:30 – I’ll help you set things up.”

He smiled, listening to his friend’s voice. He remembered smiling now. He liked it. On Monday morning, once the Christmas presents were all unwrapped and the reindeer at rest for another year, he would leave for work again. At 6:55. Why stick to the routine? One way or another, JLZX622 was gone for good.

“Their chances?” Rog asked, realizing his friend was asking him about football. He thought for a moment. “Hey, who knows? Anything is possible.”