Old Habits Die Hard

Chapter 3
Do You Hear What I Hear?

"This is all well and good," Justine managed to work up the resolve to say, finally. "I mean, this is nice, what you’re doing. But I need to be getting home. I’m supposed to be watching my baby sister, and she’s not feeling well. Besides, my parents will be getting back soon, I’m sure, and if they see my car there, but no me, well, they’re going to freak out. So can you just take a detour back through my neighborhood and drop me off?"

Ded Moroz shook his head. "Still, you do not remember? This troubles me. You should know we still have much work to do. There is no time for going back home."

Justine sighed. "You had time to take me all the way to... wherever the hell we are now. How can you not be able to just whisk me back? I’m sure it’ll only take a second. You’ll have plenty of time to finish this up. It’s only..." She reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out her cell phone, but no button she pressed could seem to wake it up. "I thought I just charged that last night," she mumbled to herself, shaking the phone, as if that would bring its battery back to life. "It’s not all that dark out." Where they were walking, it wasn’t, of course, thanks to the street lights, though outside of those, the sky had lost most of its light. Still, it didn’t seem like all that long ago that it had happened.

He didn’t seem to have an answer for that, instead reaching out to grab a sleeve of her robe. After all the children she’d seen him make so happy that evening, it was hard to think of him as too threatening, but at the same time, he was a stranger, and the sudden action made her jump a little. "I do wish you had taken better care of your robe," he told her sadly.

"I... Huh?" It was one of the last things she had expected to hear from him, or, really, anyone. "I’ve had this for ages. They don’t last forever, you know."

"They can," he said. He squinted at her, and while she detected no salaciousness in his gaze, she still pulled the robe tighter around her body, not liking being inspected. "I do not think it looked like that before. You have altered it?"

"No, this is how it came..." What did he mean by before, she wondered. It certainly hadn’t changed any in the time she’d been with him, and she hadn’t worn it for months and months before then - how would he have known what it looked like then? She was pretty sure she’d never seen him before, even if there was something about him that had made him seem slightly familiar from the start. Perhaps she was wrong, and he was a friend of the family, someone from way back, who hadn’t been around for a long time...

Her sudden uncertainty made her a little uncomfortable, but not as much as his continued examination of her, as if he were searching for something there, something wrong. Justine had been confused and disoriented all night, but this was the first time she began to wonder if this man had been looking for someone else, and what would happen when he discovered his mistake. She turned her face to the floor nervously - she’d tried to tell him that when he’d first showed up, but he wouldn’t listen. Should she try again now? That might get him to take her back home more quickly than going along with this... But, at the same time, if he really was in a hurry, it could also lead to him going off without her, leaving her here, on her own, with no idea where she was, in a bathrobe, which was hardly ideal.

Before she could decide what to do, they were interrupted by a "Ded Moroz!" She jumped a little, turning around. Now that she thought about it, it was the first time anyone had said anything to them while they were between houses like this. In fact, now that she thought about it, it was the first person they had even seen outside of the houses they visited.

The man who approached from out of the night looked a lot like her companion in a way. He was tall, though not as tall as Ded Moroz, and he had a walking stick, too, but a simpler one. He was wearing a long coat as well, a black one, which was the same color as his hat, the hair beneath that, and his beard. That bit of color alone made him look younger than Ded Moroz, although it was clear that he was still quite old. He carried a bag slung over one shoulder, which she saw as he turned to embrace Ded Moroz, like an old friend.

"A glorious night, is it not?" Ded Moroz smiled. "It has been far too long."

"Indeed," the new man replied, turning his eyes to Justine. She shrank back slightly, feeling afraid of him in a way she’d never felt with Ded Moroz. There was a malice there, a sense that, like Ded Moroz had just been doing, he was searching her for faults, but she was much more scared of what would happen if he found one. Worryingly, after a moment, he smiled, and in a way that made her feel that it was not at her. "Things have been going well?" he asked. "As we planned?" Justine had taken French back in high school, and while she barely remembered any of it, she could recall her teacher’s accent well enough to know that it was the same as this man’s.

"Oh, yes, very well," Ded Moroz nodded.

"Have you gotten many presents?"

Ded Moroz paused for a moment before answering. "It is... The children we have visited, they have been very good."

The dark man raised an eyebrow. "All of them?"

"Well, perhaps not them all. But it is early still for me. The less good, they still have another week to change their ways, and I believe they will do it."

The other man sighed. "If they are good only when preparing for you, then they are not so good, no?" He shook his head. "I suppose you have no names for me, then?"

Going on the defensive, Ded Moroz replied with, "Have you some for me? Surely not all of the children you visited were naughty. Besides, it is not the time for the meeting yet."

"You’ve been gone a long time, Ded Moroz. Children these days... Well, there are very few who are truly good." He looked over at Justine again, her skin crawling at his expression. "You found at least one on your route, though. Is she so bad her parents did not want to buy her back right away?"

"What?" Ded Moroz sounded truly surprised for the first time since Justine had met him. He glanced around for a few moments before realizing who the man was talking about. "Do not be silly, friend! And vnushka, do not be rude! Say hello to Pere Fouettard! You do not recognize him, either, I think, though he should recognize you."

"Umm... Hi..." Justine waved, unable to keep her eyebrows from furrowing. Even with her limited memory for French, she recognized pere as meaning father, and the other word sounded familiar as well, although, try as she might, she couldn’t quite recall its meaning. Was it just a name, after all?

"Oh, of course," Fouettard gave her that smile again. "She looks so different after all this time. And after being away from you so long... So naughty. If you can’t see that on her, maybe you’ve forgotten how. Or have you just gone soft?"

"You know that is not true! Would I have done all this if it were? I just..." He looked back at Justine, and then nodded, as if a piece of a puzzle had just fallen into place. "Yes, perhaps that is it."

"Are we in agreement, then?" It took a moment, but Ded Moroz eventually nodded. "A little help, then?" Ded Moroz lifted his walking stick, and a column of ice rose from the sidewalk beside Pere Fouettard, to about the level of a park bench.

"I am sorry, vnushka," Ded Moroz said, patting Justine on the shoulder. "Perhaps this will be what helps you to remember."

"Wait," Justine raised her hands, backing away. "What is going on here?"

Fouettard set his bag down beside the ice with a strange clattering sound, laying his walking stick beside it. "Come," he told her sternly, his voice sounding like her father and every teacher who had ever scolded her all at once. "You must be taught a lesson, so that maybe you will be a good girl next year."

"Listen, I don’t know what’s happening here, but I..." Justine started, only to feel a hand tighten around her forearm as she realized he was beside her already. She tried to pull away, but he was strong, and apparently quite determined to get her to the ice. "Let me go!" she demanded.

"You only make it worse," Ded Moroz warned her. "It will be all right, I promise."

Justine was much less sure of that, especially as events continued to unfold. Pere Fouettard sat down on the ice and, with a practiced hand, pulled her downwards and then over his lap. "Stop it!" she yelled frantically, her head now in the perfect position to see into his bag as he reached inside and pulled out one of his many, many switches. Her heart began to beat faster as she squirmed and fought to break free, yet even with only one hand to hold her in place with, he was much stronger than she was.

"This isn’t funny!" she told him, then turned to Ded Moroz. "You can’t let him do this!" But the old man just stood there solemnly, not making any move to help her, making her wonder if he was really as nice as he seemed to be. From the corner of her eye, she could see Fouettard lifting the switch behind her. "You can’t do this!"

But she was very wrong about that. After what felt like an eternity of her spread out across his legs helplessly, the stick raised high, ready to strike, finally, it came down. It was like nothing she had ever felt before, intense and burning, and, worst of all, humiliating. Over and over again, it came, lashing out across her bottom, and across her legs, leaving stripes of pain across her body. For the first few, she managed to continue to scream and demand that he stop, trying to wriggle her way to freedom, but soon, she could only lay limp, sobbing like a child.

At last, Ded Moroz came forward. "That is enough, my friend."

Justine could feel Pere Fouettard tense, could practically sense that he wasn’t satisfied, that, if he could, he would keep going until she was more welt than skin. She let out another pitiful cry, terrified that he would ignore the other man, but to her relief, she felt his arm lift from her back. She rolled off his lap onto the snow, scrambling to her feet.

"Very well," Pere Fouettard said. "We both still have work to do. Now that you remember what the naughty children look like, maybe you’ll have a list for me at the meeting." He grabbed up his stick and bag and stalked away into the night, leaving Ded Moroz to comfort Justine.

Justine did not particularly want to let him do so, since he had let that man do that to her, obviously knowing full well what was coming, but except for him, she was all alone. She felt like her bottom was on fire, and, for once, she was very glad that it was winter, since she knew she wouldn’t be able to wear any short skirts or dresses for quite a while without showing off the marks of what had just happened.

"Drink this, vnushka," Ded Moroz told her quietly, handing her his canteen. "You will feel better."

Justine grabbed for the water and drank it greedily between her sobs, remembering how it had numbed her from feeling cold, hoping it would do the same here. By the time Ded Moroz took the canteen back, she could feel it working, taking away the worst of the sting, although she was still quite sore. With any luck, that would go away soon, too. "How could you?" she demanded, glaring up at him. "Why did you let him do that?!"

"I made a deal," he explain. "One I have not been living up to as well as I should. I am sorry you are the one who took the punishment for that, but he was right. My judgment with you is sometimes clouded, so I did not see that you were not as good as you should be. But do not worry... Everyone is naughty sometimes. Now, perhaps, you will not be."

"But.. I..." Justine sputtered. "He can’t treat me that way! I am an adult!" It would have felt more satisfying to say that to Pere Fouettard himself, of course, but she hadn’t been able to form the words then, and, she was sure that if she saw him again, she’d be far too timid to say it.

"You have lived a long time," Ded Moroz agreed, "but an adult you will never be, my dear."

"All right, this is ridiculous! You don’t even know me! I am too an adult, and I should have stopped you a long time ago, but now... This..." She let out an exasperated groan and stomped away from him, tired of him and his refusal to explain anything, still mad at him for letting her get switched. She could feel the force that had seemed to bind the two of them together trying to tug her back, but she fought against it, ignoring his voice behind her.

The world around her seemed to stretch, everything growing longer and distorting, until, finally, it popped, like a soap bubble. Sound came flooding back in around her, and people, making their way down the sidewalk, cuddling together against the cold. She gasped, having hardly realized how strange everything had been wherever she was until she was back in the normal world. "What the hell?" she breathed.

Standing there was clearly getting her no answers, and she could feel people staring at her strangely - which made sense, she supposed, as she wasn’t exactly dressed to be out in the cold - so she picked a direction and started to walk, praying that, somehow, she’d find something familiar, some way home, if she just kept going. She made it all of one step before she stepped on the hem of her robe as it dragged along the ground, falling face first into the snow.