The Last Noel

“Bastards,” Uncle Paddy suddenly hissed, thumping his cane for emphasis.

“Paddy, quit banging your cane and shut up,” her mother snapped. “We’ll have no one dying here tonight. Jamie and Frazier, Scooter can accompany you to the family room. Just grab the bar stools—I’ll be happy to sit on one.”

“Me, too,” Brenda chimed in, the tear tracks drying on her cheeks.

“Quintin, you can join the rest of us in the kitchen.”

Her mother had somehow taken control. Amazing, Kat marveled.

Quintin laughed. “Yes, ma’am. We seem to have ourselves an Irish matriarch here, Scooter. There’s no one fiercer. And she’s a fine cook, we’re told. Good thing, because I’m starving. And freezing.”

“There are sweaters in the hall closet, right over there,” Skyler said, pointing. “Take off your coats. I don’t want you sitting at my table in those filthy coats.”

Mom, be careful! They’ll shoot you for sure, Kat thought, her heart sinking.

But Quintin only laughed again. “All right. You,” he said, indicating Brenda, “get the sweaters, so we can all have dinner.”

He stared at Brenda, who was staring back at him like a doe caught in the headlights of a speeding car.

“Hop to it!” Quintin said, and Brenda did.

“What about Crai—” Scooter began, doffing his coat and accepting one of David’s old sweaters.

“Later,” Quintin said.

“But it’s freezing out,” Scooter said.

“Later, after dinner.”

“But—”

“What happens, happens,” Quintin said.

What the hell are they talking about? Kat wondered. Who or what is “Crai”?

“We’ll put your coats in the mudroom,” Skyler said, and Kat could see that her mother was trembling as she picked up Scooter’s discarded coat and tossed it into the small tiled mudroom off one side of the foyer where they were standing.

“I’ll hang mine, if you don’t mind,” Quintin said, suiting his actions to the words. “Now let’s go. I’m starving.”

He looked up suddenly, and Kat instantly backed even farther into the shadows, her heart thundering. Had he seen her? Apparently not, because he set his hand on Skyler’s shoulder and repeated, “Let’s go.”

“Get your hands off her,” David said.

Quintin seemed surprised, but he only smiled. “Just remember, everyone on good behavior. Everyone. We keep close together, like a good family, and no one gets hurt.”

They left the entry hall and moved into the kitchen, and Kat was left alone with her roiling thoughts.

She felt frozen, paralyzed, but she knew she had to get past that. Her mother had kept them from knowing she was in the house for a reason: so she could save the family.

Or so she could live when the invaders massacred the rest of the family.

No. That wasn’t going to happen. She would find a way to make sure of it.

She prayed silently for strength. What the hell should she do? How was she supposed to get help in the middle of a blizzard?

She couldn’t wait until the weather calmed down, because Quintin and Scooter were waiting for the same thing. Then they would no doubt steal one of the family’s cars and get back on the road.

And before they went on the road…

They would kill her entire family. They hadn’t hidden their faces. They had blithely offered their names. Of course, they might have made up the names they had given, but she didn’t think so. The most likely scenario was that they would have dinner, savor the warmth of the house and then kill her entire family.

She turned and hurried silently down the hall to her room. She tried her cell first, but she wasn’t at all surprised to discover she had no service. She hesitated, then quickly tried the landline. But either the wires were down or their unwelcome visitors had cut the lines.

Think, she commanded herself. There had to be something she could do.

She could run, but where?

Oh God, it was all up to her. And she was in a panic, failing…

She drew a deep breath.

She could not—would not—fail.

She must be in a state of delayed shock, Skyler decided. She should be paralyzed, either entirely mute or screaming, but instead she was talking, moving, almost normally. They all were, thanks to that basic instinct for survival that kicked in no matter how dire the circumstances.

The singer on the CD that had gone on playing in the background moved on to “O Holy Night.” She had wanted peace so badly before but now…

Now she just wanted everyone to live.

“What the hell is that stuff?” Scooter asked, staring at one of the serving dishes.

“Bacon and cabbage, to go with the corned beef,” David said sharply. Bless him, he was actually bristling at the insult to her cooking, despite the circumstances.

“Don’t look like bacon,” Scooter said.

“It’s more like Canadian bacon,” Frazier said. “It’s the Irish tradition to have bacon with the cabbage.”

“Cabbage is worse than bacon,” Scooter said, wrinkling his nose.

“Taste it. All the flavors mix together. It’s good,” Skyler heard herself say as if she were coaxing a five-year-old. “Brenda, would you pass the potatoes, please?”

She could do this. They all could. It was the only way to stay alive. Because if they didn’t stay calm and pull this off…

At least, she prayed, Kat would survive.

As Scooter reluctantly accepted the bowl of cabbage, Skyler dared a glance at David. His jaw was locked, a pulse ticking at his throat. His eyes touched hers, and they were filled with humiliation. He had failed to protect his family. He wanted to do something.

She shook her head. No.