There was a sensation of swift motion as the morgue walls vanished like shadows. Virginia glimpsed houses and streets, bright with colored lights, empty of men and filled with snow, fly past her eyes with the speed of the wind. Her own little two-story house in the suburbs, her ordinary, un-magical, and non-fantastic home, whose mortgage they could not really afford on her husband's meager pay, the scene of so many terrible days of illness, despair, and lingering pain, now rose up in her view like some impossible dream hooded in white and edged in icicles. They did not go down the chimney, as she half-expected.
Instead, when she opened her eyes, she was standing on the floor of Ginny’s bedroom. The little girl was lying in the same posture as a moment ago, but, with the brightly colored bedsheet beneath her rather than a slab, she looked more like a child slumbering than dead. The tall saint was still bent over her.
Virginia had not put up any decorations that year, and her house had no colored lights on, but when Nicholas straightened up, raised his hand and spoke a word, there was a young pine tree in the room that had not been there before, and on its highest bough stood a silver candle that burned and from which the wax did not drip. And there were dozens of candles on every surface, on the dresser and on the window sill.
Candles, she found herself recalling, were the prayers of the saints. She remembered lighting a candle with Frank on their wedding day.
Nicholas smiled, winked at her, and said, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night.”
And then, he was gone.
Ginny opened her eyes. “Mom? I walked on a bridge all made of light and I held the baby Jesus! And I think I dreamed I saw Santa too!”
“You did, baby. Oh, you did! And I saw him too!”
Then it was all tears and joy and laughter.
THE END
Books by John C. Wright
CASTALIA HOUSE
Awake in the Night Land
City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis
One Bright Star to Guide Them
The Book of Feasts & Seasons
Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth
THE GOLDEN AGE
The Golden Age
The Phoenix Exultant
The Golden Transcendence
WAR OF THE DREAMING
Last Guardian of Everness
Mists of Everness
CHRONICLES OF CHAOS
Orphans of Chaos
Fugitives of Chaos
Titans of Chaos
COUNT TO THE ESCHATON
Count to a Trillion
The Hermetic Millennia
Judge of Ages
OTHER NOVELS
Null-A Continuum
FANTASY
Awake in the Night by John C. Wright
Awake in the Night Land by John C. Wright
One Bright Star to Guide Them by John C. Wright
The Book of Feasts & Seasons by John C. Wright
A Magic Broken by Vox Day
A Throne of Bones by Vox Day
The Wardog's Coin by Vox Day
The Last Witchking by Vox Day
Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy by Vox Day
The Altar of Hate by Vox Day
The World in Shadow by Theodore Beale
The Wrath of Angels by Theodore Beale
SCIENCE FICTION
Big Boys Don't Cry by Tom Kratman
The Stars Came Back by Rolf Nelson
City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis by John C. Wright
Hyperspace Demons by Jonathan Moeller
On a Starry Night by Tedd Roberts
QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day
QUANTUM MORTIS Gravity Kills by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day
QUANTUM MORTIS A Mind Programmed by Vox Day
Victoria: A Novel of Fourth Generation War by Thomas Hobbes
NON-FICTION
On War: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009 by William S. Lind
Four Generations of Modern War by William S. Lind
Equality: The Impossible Quest by Martin van Creveld
Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth by John C. Wright
Astronomy and Astrophysics by Dr. Sarah Salviander
CASTALIA CLASSICS
The Programmed Man by Jean and Jeff Sutton
Apollo at Go by Jeff Sutton
First on the Moon by Jeff Sutton
AUDIOBOOKS
A Magic Broken, narrated by Nick Afka Thomas
Four Generations of Modern War, narrated by William S. Lind
TRANSLATIONS
Särjetty taika
QUANTUM MORTIS Un Hombre Disperso
QUANTUM MORTIS Gravedad Mata
Una Estrella Brillante para Guiarlos
QUANTUM MORTIS Um Homem Desintegrado
QUANTUM MORTIS Gravidade Mortal
Uma Magia Perdida
Mantra yang Rusak
La Moneta dal Mercenario
I Ragazzoni non Piangono
QUANTUM MORTIS Тежина Смрти
QUANTUM MORTIS Der programmierte Verstand
Grosse Jungs weinen nicht