O Night Divine A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,201

still-warm chestnuts to chew on. Sadly, the excitement was short-lived, and the familiar twinge in his right leg returned as soon as he put his weight on it to walk.

He thought of himself at that age. He might easily have run with the gangs had he not been pressed into signing on as a cabin boy. What was not so easy to imagine was seeing himself raised in a home with a loving family.

The closest thing to family he had experienced before he met Sophia were his friends and crewmates of the Calliope – Elias the Preacher, and Jonathan, explorer son of an Ethiopian duke. He had adopted an unusual family, to be sure.

As he walked back to the market, Kit had to own to a little envy of his friends before he left Sicily. They now had children of their own, and were completely enamored by the life they helped create. He and Sophia had not yet been blessed, but he could readily see himself as a doting father.

He knew without a doubt that he would love any child Sophia gave him. What man wouldn’t love a child conceived in love?

His own father, apparently.

Something cold cut through him which had nothing to do with the evening chill. It was a perverse nostalgia, a homesickness for what he never had. If Kit was honest with himself – and with the ones he was closest to – he would admit he desperately wanted to know about his parents. For good or for ill, at least he would know why they had abandoned him.

And, if one day he and Sophia were to have children of their own, he could remember his own parents and have a name for them.

Chapter Three

Kit’s aimless wandering had taken him into the center of the markets where some of the shops remained open to capture the passing trade.

Huddled around a brazier were men with brass musical instruments, their noise supplanting that of the hurdy-gurdy. Kit recognized the tune and, unbidden, the lyrics came to him.

God rest you merry, gentlemen,

Let nothing you dismay.

Remember Christ our Savior

Was born on Christmas-day

To save poor souls from Satan’s power,

Which long time had gone astray.

O tidings of comfort and joy!

He paused to watch as, all around, families and couples laughed and bickered, blind to his inner musings. None of them had seen what he had seen in his lifetime. His world was alien to them. He was alien to their world.

Kit remained lost in in own thoughts until he was jostled by a passing couple. The man aided his wife past before glancing back at him with a faint look of disgust.

He moved away, right leg stiffened in the cold, his limp now pronounced. Kit was back to where he was before.

Aimless, restless, frustrated.

The fog thickened, changing the sound about him, muting the music. It also altered the quality of the light. It was softer; other worldly. Ethereal laughter drew him forward, answering something deep within him – an expression of innocence and joy of childhood that he longed for, but which fate had been so cruel as to deny him.

He headed toward a light and its sound. As he got closer, the children’s voices became more distinct. A touch of Heaven brought to Earth?

He saw a beckoning hand of a child. No. Smaller than that. A Putti? Like the divine cherubs he saw in architecture and frescos all over Sicily? He took a few steps closer and the figure resolved itself. It was an automaton in a novelty shop window.

Before him, two little girls, dressed exactly alike in blue velvet dresses and matching ribbons clapped in wonder of another animated doll. This one was an elegantly dressed lady, sitting at a writing desk, her head rocking from side to side in time to music he could not hear. Delicate lace at her sleeve fluttered as the pen in her porcelain hand moved across the paper with clockwork precision.

Perhaps he had come to the gates of Heaven, at least it would seem so to a child. Indeed, a large number of children pressed close to the window, staring covetously at the bounty within until they were pulled away one-by-one by parents or older siblings.

In the large window space, there was a dappled gray rocking horse with scarlet bridle and reins. In the center of the display was a large doll’s house, three stories tall, its façade removed to show the grandeur within. Lining up in front of that was a regiment of toy