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"Everything you’ve been told about me is wrong," god continues.

"I couldn’t agree more."

"You want to die here, Violet?"

"No."

"You’d like to see your husband again? Max?"

She lets that name and what it could do to her bounce off her like a rubber ball.

"Of course I would."

"Then I need you to eat, Violet. Can you do that for me?"

"Why?"

"We have things to talk about, and you’ll be dead soon at the rate you’re going."

"Why can’t you just save me?"

"I’m doing exactly that, Violet. Only the things I’m saving you from, you may not want saving from."

"Like what?"

"Values. Comfortable illusions. Lies you’ve been told all your life by cowards."

"I don’t un—"

"You will understand. If you trust me. Do you trust me?"

"No."

"Then you’ll die here alone."

"Okay, I’ll try."

And she means it, and so begins the process of lying to herself. God has come to her. He’s come to save her. It’s so much easier to believe than the truth—whatever that may be.

# # #

And the captives sleep—two in darkness, dreaming of god, half-mad with sensory deprivation, one in bed, out of his mind on painkillers. They are being mindfucked each day. Whether the things god tells them will stick remains to be seen. Suggestion is powerful coupled with narcotics and exhaustion and isolation. But it can’t loose what isn’t there. god is looking for his diamond core. Where it is, he will nurture. Where it isn’t, or rather, where it can’t bear itself, he will make a brutal end.

But now god is sitting on a couch with his wife, a fire blazing in the hearth, Bing Crosby filling the musty corridors of his great stone house.

As he watches his son decorate the Christmas tree, his old wife rises to replenish her hot chocolate.

Would Rufus care for some more? He certainly would.

Luther hangs the final ornament, a wooden airplane he’s had since childhood, then comes and sits beside his father.

It’s a raw December evening beyond those drafty windows, and the cold fog spilling in from the sound has begun to enwrap the two live oaks in the front yard.

But they are warm, the logs hissing, popping, just the boys now. Rufus puts his arm around Luther, thinking of Christmas, fast approaching, his boy being home, the three souls now under his care, and the miserable little wretch named Horace, writing for his life upstairs.

You would think such a man did not know happiness, that his life of darkness would make him a creature of anger and melancholy and fear.

"Merry Christmas, son. Came together beautifully, didn’t it?"

And they sit watching the fire together, Rufus reflecting on the days to come. He’s quite joyful for someone whose passions direct them to go spelunking in the shunned caves of human psyche. It would be comforting to say that Rufus did not know happiness, that he was swallowed up in misery and self-hate.

But it would be a lie.

# # #

Next comes Christmas Eve. Maxine Kite carries the last casserole dish of candied yams up the staircase to the third floor cupola of the ancient house. Her guests have been dressed and seated. The long table is candlelit, moonlit. Through the west wall of windows, a thin moon lacquers the sound into glossy black. Through the east wall of windows, the Atlantic gleams beyond the tangle of live oaks and yaupon. The tourists gone, the island silently twinkling, the evening is cold and glorious and more star-ridden than any night in the last three years.

Breathless, Maxine sets the yams on the tablecloth beside a platter of steaming crab cakes. Then she takes a seat at the end of the table, opposite her husband, and releases a contended sigh. "Mrs. Claus" is spelled out in rhinestones across the front of her bright red sweater.

Dressed up as Santa Claus, Rufus occupies the head of the table. To his left sit the spasmodic Andrew Thomas, Elizabeth Lancing, and Violet King, their faces twitching involuntarily. At Rufus’s right sit Luther and Horace Boone. Luther also wears a Santa hat but does not look happy about it. Horace holds a leather-bound journal in his lap. His legs and torso have been