Razzmatazz

Every light in the house was on. I had insisted. My sister, oddly a perfectionist on this point only, complained it was too hard to hang ornaments on an unlit Christmas tree. 

“How will you know the light is bouncing off the bulb just right?” she asked when she was old enough to care. I thought the whole point of the ceremony was the lighting of the tree, and so our mother had struck a compromise: We turned every light on at the start, slowly turning everything off again as we went along.

She placed one of the golden orbs with care near the tip of a branch. Her eyes studied the sacred geometry that only she knew, adjusting here and there to achieve the perfect glow. No amount of nimbleness could stop a few of the delicate needles falling to the floor. Their burnt color, and a trail of their fallen brothers and sisters, a good indication that no amount of tenderness would stop the rate of shedding. Despite the mess, this was one element of the ritual on which we could both agree: The tree had to be real. 

There were many things my sister and I disagreed on—but never this. Even walking the woods of our family property, catching up or reminiscing, we’d see the same tree, look to each other, and know, just know, it was the one. Without fail.

It had been no different this year.

In fact, the only difference this year was our mother. She’d died in November. My sister and I had decided not long after to continue the tradition—to see if we could, to see if we wanted to.

Martha looked down at the small dusting of needles piling up. “You didn’t oil the saw, did you?” It was an accusation with a sigh, not one said in anger. I guess that was another difference. I certainly wouldn’t remember the more esoteric pieces of our holiday exercise. And neither would my sister, though she would try.

“You know that oil doesn’t actually keep the needles on the tree, right?”

“That’s not the point, and you know it.”

I hated oiling the saw. Hated it so much that I hadn’t actually forgotten about it—I ignored it. I’m surprised my sister didn’t notice at the time even though the task itself was mine. The oil was hard to miss, its consistency not like oil at all but slightly sticky and of a deep crimson hue. One couldn’t help but make the obvious connection.

“And what, dear, is the point?” I always called her dear when I wanted her to remember who was older, wiser.

She just rolled her eyes and resumed hanging ornaments in her meticulous style. Under her breath she said, “It’s just warmed-up honey,” which it most certainly was not, but my curiosity got the better of me.

“What did you say?”

She hesitated a bit, thinking. Finally she stopped fidgeting with the branch she was on and said, “Do you think if we’d known that last Christmas would be the last Christmas with Mom, we’d have done anything different?”

I looked out the window, hoping to find the answer; instead I only noticed the massive birch tree.

“Is it just me, or does our birch seem to have moved closer to the house?”

“Don’t be stupid, Jacob,” she said, though she did peek. “And don’t change the subject.”

I had to look away. I couldn’t shake the feeling. Perhaps with the leaves gone and the forced perspective, Mother Nature was having her way with me. I turned my back on the window—and the woods. “There certainly would have been more uncomfortable silences, and we’re already practiced at those,” I said, answering her original question. “That among many reasons is likely why we don’t know such things.”

“But we could have made sure we’re good stewards to the past. Sword.”

I laughed, but she remained unfazed. The tree would be trimmed as near the desired hour as possible. “What does that even mean?”

“You know,” she said, still refusing to be pulled away from her task. “We could have made sure to learn how to make that bread she always baked, or the story of that one uncle—what was his name?—the one who ran off with his sister and was a twin so his brother always got dirty looks until he’d finally had enough and ran away too.”

“Or killed himself,” I said, interrupting her.

“Don’t be stupid,” she said for the second time in ten minutes. She sighed, whether from my stupidity or her inability to decide what bauble went on the tree next was anyone’s guess. She opted for a crystal teardrop and said, “Ocean,” while looking for a place to put it. I motioned her toward the back of the tree. She may have been a perfectionist, but left to her own devices, she had a tendency to favor the front. “Or Mom could have shown you how to make the oil from the honey. Can’t you see the floor’s a mess?”

“Or you could have written down all those ridiculous words she had us say,” I fired back. “I know you’ve missed a few.”

“I have not!” she nearly screamed, scandalized and flinging herself around toward me in mock horror. She giggled. “Go on. Tell me, then.”

“I only remember the last one for sure.” I gave it some thought. “Hammer?”

“Ah! Anvil,” she said, spinning back around and placing the crystal in its new home. 

“Whatever you say, dear. I need a cigarette.” I excused myself from the festivities and went out onto the back porch. For December, the weather had not yet turned bitter; the air instead was clammy, wet, a little cold, while the earth still had some of her warmth. The world itself felt feverish. As I wondered what ailed her, I noticed the birch tree again. I noticed it because it was certainly closer to the house. With an unobstructed view of the trunk, I could see that it had made its way to the edge of the wood. Inside, I may not have been able to confidently say anything different about the massive white tree’s position, but of one thing I was sure—it lived in the forest, not on its edge.

I took a drag on my cigarette and stared, fascinated. 

Then a new thought: Was that the only one?

All the other trees looked the same, leafless poles towering up and down the hillside. Imposing, sure, but until now not threatening. Now, though, every branch became an arm reaching out to draw me in. Even looking directly above unnerved me. The network of those lifeless branches spiderwebbing over my head filled me with a type of dread more associated with Halloween than Christmas.

And didn’t our house used to be farther out of the woods? Don’t be stupid, Jacob, I thought to myself, invoking my sister.

“What’s taking you so long?” the conjured Martha asked from behind, causing me to jump slightly. “Oh, I wasn’t trying to scare—” She cut herself off. “I see what you mean,” she said. I turned to see what she was looking at, though I could have guessed. I followed her gaze to the birch. “That was Mom’s favorite, did you know that?”

Somewhere in the back of my memories, tucked away, I found a tire swing and realized that’s how I knew something was wrong. “We used to swing in the meadow,” I said.

“What’s going on, Jacob?”

“I’m not sure, but how many words do you have left?”

“I don’t understand,” she said as a hefty branch fell at our feet. Both of us gasped and then giggled at the absurdity of our fear, but the laughter only brought down more branches.

I looked to my sister and said as seriously as I could given the circumstances, “How long until the tree is done, dear?”

“Five minutes,” she said but sounded unsure.

“Let’s make it two then. I’ll help.” She wanted to protest as I ushered her back inside the house, but a guttural howl of wind barreled down our valley toward us. We got inside as a hailstorm of sticks and dead leaves threw themselves at the house like artillery shells. The lights flickered as we made our way back to the living room. I grabbed a few ornaments and began to place them helter-skelter on the tree. “Submarine,” I said.

“That’s not even one of the words,” she said, taking a few more ornaments. “River.” She hung them carefully still but moved faster. I started in on the tinsel as nails scratched at the window. The sun had finally set, and though they still flickered, all the lights made it impossible to see outside. 

“Time to be good stewards to the past,” I said in a mad rush around the tree. “Kaleidoscope.”

“I really just wanted to watch true crime and drink wine with you,” she said. “Worm.”

“Next year, dear, next year.” The whole house rattled now, but we were close. “Focus. It sounds like they’re breaking into the attic.” We threw the decorations on the tree in a hurricane of festivity while yelling nonsense with the seriousness of two priests at an exorcism.

“Fire!”

“Strawberry!”

“Bark!”

“Lovely!”

The flickering lights became nearly unbearable, and the wind made its way inside.

“Doleful!”

“Paper!”

Something tugged at my foot. A vine. Where it could have come from I could only guess. I kicked it away. We only had the angel left for the top of the tree. I removed it from the box and asked my sister, “You ready?” over the din of the chaos. She nodded, took it from my hand, and reached up on tiptoe. She always got to put her on top. 

“One, two, three . . .” she counted for the both of us, timing the final word, which we both knew. The one certainty.

“Razzmatazz!” we yelled as one, the power going out immediately.

“Hotel?” my sister said in the dark. A new word. A welcome word.

“Anywhere with cable,” I said, lighting a cigarette, smoke no one could see rising toward the popcorn ceiling of our mother’s house.

©2024 David Saltos Lee

David Saltos Lee is just a small-town, Midwestern guy who writes little stories for fun and runs a nonprofit for serious. Check out his other works @dmdunnwriter on X/Twitter, or just drop by to say hi.