"George Pennifeather is a thrice-damned liar!" Dr. Wilson exclaimed, throwing the latest issue of London's Illustrated Weekly against the wall.

Petty Officer Caine, who sat nearby sewing a button onto a navy dress coat, asked drily, "You won't be autographing Miss Chigwidgeon's copy then, sir?"

"Not likely!" Dr. Wilson snapped. He took a deep breath and continued more calmly, "Well, perhaps. It always seems to mean so much to her. Though she didn't seem as much impressed with that autographed copy of the Northhampton Temperance Gazette."

Caine shrugged. "The young lady seems wholly disinterested in social reform, sir."

Wilson paced, stroking the scraggly blond beard which barely concealed his chin. "But that writer is the only one who has ever written the truth about me!" He paused at the frost-covered window, gazing down at the garden behind Sir Cosmo's house. "They're all in league with the devil, I swear. All those words and flights of fancy boiling around inside their brains… It does something to them."

"An intriguing theory, sir," Caine replied.

Wilson picked up the periodical from where it had landed on the floor. "This Pennifeather fellow never even met me," he growled as he shook the magazine. He frowned. "At least, not that I recall. Yet his name seems familiar…."

Without looking up from his mending, Caine offered, "His name was mentioned in quite unflattering fashion on numerous occasions last summer by the Earl of Greyminster. Perhaps you are recalling one of those occasions."

Dr. Wilson glanced at Caine. "And how did he earn Lord Greyminster's ire?" he asked.

"If memory serves," Caine answered, "Mr. Pennifeather wrote a series of scathing articles expressing the opinion that the so-called baby farms which Lord Greyminster and Lord Shaftsbury were attempting to eliminate did not, in fact exist."

Wilson frowned. "Baby farms? That was that business about those horrible people who took money from unfortunate, unmarried mothers, supposedly to care for their children."

Caine nodded. "When in fact they were starving or murdering those children and pocketing the money, yes."

Wilson shuddered. "Heartless polecats. Should be strung up, the lot of them."

"In several cases the courts have agreed with you, sir," Caine replied.

Wilson nodded. "Good," he said. He folded the magazine and slapped it idly into his open palm. Suddenly he stopped, staring at the back cover of the periodical. "What the devil?" he murmured. He unfolded the magazine, his eyes going wide as he read the back cover. "Intolerable!" he exclaimed.

"Sir?" Caine asked.

Wilson held the magazine out for Caine to see. "Look at this advertisement! ‘Introducing a thrilling new novel,' it says."

Caine leaned forward to better see the offending announcement. "‘Kid Rocket and the Charles Street Contrabandists,'" he read aloud. "‘The veil of mystery can finally be lifted. Learn the true story of the American Outlaw's exciting exploits since arriving in London last year. Thrilling gun fights. Daring chases. Impossible escapes.'" He glanced up to meet the American's gaze. "It does sound rather lurid, sir."

"That's not the half of it," Wilson retorted. He pointed to a the lower right-hand corner of the cover and read, "‘Told in 36 heart-stopping chapters, beginning next month.'"

"Ah," Caine acknowledged.

"Thirty-six chapters!" Wilson spat. "I won't stand for it." He stuffed the magazine in his jacket pocket. "I won't stand for it!" he repeated more emphatically, as he retrieved his coat and hat.

"What do you intend to do, sir?" Caine asked anxiously.

Dr. Wilson didn't even break stride as he answered. "I'm going to find this George Pennifeather and I'm going to put a stop to this once and for all!"

"Are you sure that's wise, sir?"

"I won't get a decent night's sleep, worrying about this nonsense," Wilson answered. He stopped in the hallway to adjust his hat to a fashionable angle. "I may not be back in time for the Christmas dinner. Please give my apologies to Sir Cosmo and Mrs. Cuthbert and the others."

"Very good, sir," Caine answered as Dr. Wilson hurried down the stairs and out of the house.

London was wrapped in cold, bleak, biting weather that Christmas Eve. The wintry breezes could not chill Dr. Wilson, because righteous indignation burned within him. He scarcely acknowledged the "Good days," and "Happy Christmas" greetings called to him by people he passed on his way to Fleet Street and the publishing offices of the London Illustrated Weekly.

Oliver Lomax, the editor of the periodical, seemed less than pleased when Dr. Wilson was ushered into his office. "Ah, the illustrious Kid Rocket!" he observed. "And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"I think you know quite well, sir," Dr. Wilson said stiffly.

Lomax tried to smile innocently. "I scarcely know where to begin guessing," he said.

Dr. Wilson harrumped. "On every occasion I have come to see you, Mr. Lomax, I have complained about the falsehoods that you have published about me. Why would you think that this visit is any different?"

Lomax's smile wilted only slightly. "They say that hope springs eternal, do they not?" He sighed. "Must I explain once more the legal implications of the term ‘artistic license?'"

"Your solicitors explained it quite plainly before," Dr. Wilson replied coldly. "Even so, I come to ask again that you cease from publishing these untruths. I have offered before to assist in writing accurate versions of my experiences."

"In point of fact," Lomax replied, "You demanded the right to approve the stories down to the last jot and tittle. An arrangement to which neither I, nor any experienced writer, would agree."

"Confound it, man," Dr. Wilson exclaimed, "have you no sense of shame? Do you take perverse delight in spreading lies about me?"

Lomax sat back in his chair and rubbed his hands together slowly. "It is ironic you should speak so derisively of the way our writers have embellished your life, Mr. Wilson." His emphasis on the word ‘mister' did not bode well.

"I don't know what you are talking about," Wilson said gruffly.

"Come now, let us speak frankly," Lomax answered, leaning forward and folding his hands together. "What university was it, exactly, that awarded you a doctorate in ‘rocketology,' I believe you call it?"

Wilson blinked in surprised. "I studied in China," he answered. "Rockets were invented in China, you know."

Lomax's smile became very condescending. "Leaving aside the fact that the term ‘doctor' is used in Chinese educational institutions exclusively in connection with medicinal arts, how, precisely, did you earn an advanced degree at any Chinese college when you were only in China for a little over a year and a half?"

Wilson started to stammer an answer.

Lomax interjected, "Two months of which you spent under house arrest pending an investigation of a warehouse explosion."

"I got a lot of studying done during those two months," Wilson muttered.

"I'm sure that you did," Lomax said sardonically. "How old are you?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Wilson asked suspiciously.

"It's not terribly important," Lomax said magnanimously. "A lot of boys lie about their age to get into the army when there's war on. I'm sure you weren't the only such person serving in the Union Army during the recent unpleasantness. Many people would think it merely testament to your patriotism and bravery. If, however, you knowingly lied about your age on legal papers, that fact might be of interest to the judge and jury if your credibility in the witness box was under question."

"Why would my credibility—" Dr. Wilson started to ask. Then, more quietly he finished. "Oh, if I tried to sue you."

Lomax's smile finally seemed genuinely. He practically beamed. "I thought you would understand," he said. "If you insist that we publish the truth about you, Mr. Wilson, then I am prepared to do so. Complete with all the scandalous and embarrassing details of your so-called adventures on the western frontier of America. I don't want to publish a crass and titillating exposé. I would much rather continue to publish the thrilling exploits of the fictional Kid Rocket, whose life and adventures are based only loosely upon yours—or rather the version you have told to certain writers and reporters."

Wilson glared silently at the editor.

Lomax nodded. "I thought as much." He picked up a file on the corner of his desk and opened it. He swivelled his chair so the light from the window fell upon the pages. "I have a great deal of work to do, Dr. Wilson, and have hopes of leaving a bit early so I can be with my family. The blessed night of Christmas is a time for families to be together, I'm sure you agree. Good afternoon."

"This isn't finished," Wilson growled.

"And a happy Christmas to you," Lomax said dismissively. "Good afternoon!"

Wilson stomped out of the office.

It cost him two hours and a handful of shillings in bribes to street urchins, but eventually Dr. Wilson found the lodgings of George Pennifeather in Bishopgate. When the author's landlady indicated she did not know when he would be home, Wilson chose to wait in the parlor, where several of the tenants enjoyed the warmth of Mrs. Kendall's hearth.

During his inquires, Wilson had purchased a copy of the Evening Standard, so he settled in to read the newspaper until Pennifeather arrived.

Wilson had read every article, editorial and advertisement, several of them twice, and had resorted to perusing the classifieds and personals when his quarry finally arrived.

"Mr. Pennifeather!" the voice of Mrs. Kendall sounded impatiently in the hall. "You have a visitor. And he has been waiting all day!"

Dr. Wilson rose to his feet, ready to confront his foe. But the man who stepped fearfully into the parlor scarcely seemed the villain Wilson expected to debate. George Pennifeather looked hunted. From his hollow cheeks, to his sunken eyes, to the bedraggled state of his grizzled hair, he looked like a man who feared for his life, and had been fleeing pursuers for so long, he had forgotten there was any other way to live.

"George Pennifeather?" Dr. Wilson asked.

His hands clasped, claw-like, in front of his chest, the timid man said, "I don't know you. What do you want with me?"

Dr. Wilson frowned. "I'm Jebidiah Wilson," he said. "Dr. Jebidiah Wilson. That you don't know me is evident to anyone who has read the twaddle you have written about me."

Pennifeather frowned. His eyes blinked rapidly, and his nose almost seemed to twitch, reminding Wilson of a frightened rabbit. "Wilson? Wilson?" he repeated. Then his eyes went wide in astonishment. "The American Outlaw!" he gasped. "That's almost worse than a ghost!"

Wilson sighed. "I am not an outlaw," he corrected. A moment later he added, "Well, only in a strictly technical sense in a couple of the territories and one state. But those were all misunderstandings. That is not why I am here." He pulled his now bedraggled copy of the Illustrated Weekly from a pocket and shook under the writer's nose. "Why do you insist on writing these lies about me?"

Pennifeather took two steps backward and stammered something unintelligible.

One of the other tenants had roused himself from his chair and approached until he stood a few paces from both Wilson and Pennifeather. "I say," he said. "George, is there something wrong?"

Without looking at the third man, Pennifeather asked, "I d-d-don't... can you see this man? Is he real?"

Dr. Wilson and the third man glanced at each other in mutual surprise. "Of course I can see him. He's been here all evening, waiting for you to come home."

Pennifeather reached one hand out tentatively, until he just touched the sleeve of Dr. Wilson's jacket. The hand withdrew immediately. "You're not a ghost or demon then?" he asked in a quavering voice.

"What nonsense," the other tenant muttered.

Dr. Wilson, on the other hand, looked around the room quickly. "No," he said. "I'm just a man. Have you been seeing ghosts, Mr. Pennifeather?"

Pennifeather balled both hands into fists and pressed them against his cheeks. "I don't know! They come from nowhere and stare at me with those angry eyes...." He suddenly spun around, as if he had heard someone sneaking up behind him. "They could be anywhere."

The third man drew closer to Wilson and said in a low voice, "He's been acting just a bit strangely lately."

Wilson nodded sagely. "You don't say."

The gentleman dipped his head. "I had thought he was ducking a creditor, or perhaps an angry husband." After a moment he said. "Sorry, we haven't been introduced. Redlaw, William Redlaw."

Wilson glanced at him and offered his right hand. "Dr. Wilson," he said in an equally quiet tone. "Pleased to meet you. How long have you known Mr. Pennifeather?"

"Three years this summer," Redlaw answered. "He already lived here when I moved in."

Meanwhile, Pennifeather had taken several steps into the hall, his head darting this way and that as if looking for something skulking in the shadows. "They've been following me all day. They won't tell me want they want. But I know they mean me harm."

Wilson whispered to Redlaw, "You haven't by chance seen any small monkeys wandering around, have you?"

Redlaw was visibly taken aback. "I beg your pardon?"

"Never mind," Wilson said. "I'm fairly certain we killed the psychic one."

Redlaw looked from Wilson to Pennifeather and back, as if trying to decide which one was behaving least rationally. He said nothing.

Dr. Wilson pushed his spectacles up onto his forehead as he stepped into the hallway, following Pennifeather.

"Did you get a good look at who's been following you?" Wilson asked.

Pennifeather had been muttering to himself. Now he raised his voice and said, "They all look alike, don't they?" Usually running up to you with their grubby hands out. ‘Sweep your path for a penny,' or ‘carry your parcel for tuppence.'"

Wilson frowned. "You're being followed by street children?"

Pennifeather spun around suddenly to stare at him wide-eyed. "Not just ordinary children! Not the usual mudlarks and ragamuffins and sweepers! No. There's something about these three that's different." He leaned closer and said firmly. "Malevolent. Diabolical."

Wilson sniffed delicately. "Have you been drinking, Mr. Pennifeather?"

Pennifeather turned away, still peering into the shadows. "Maybe they aren't here. Maybe they gave up on me. Yes. That's it. I'm nothing to them. Just a coincidence. Yes. Yes. Nothing to do with me at all."

Somewhere upstairs a door slammed. Pennifeather jumped at the sound. When it was followed, a moment later, by the unmistakable pitter patter of a child's running footsteps, Pennifeather jumped behind Dr. Wilson and cowered. "No! They have followed me!"

Wilson glanced at Redlaw, who was still standing in the parlor. "Are there any families living upstairs?"

Redlaw shook his head. "Mrs. Kendall only likes to let out to single people. The youngest person living here is, I think, Mr. Scroggins."

Wilson nodded. He started walking up the stairs.

A high-pitched tittering, as if two or three children were sharing a laugh, wafted down the stairs.

Pennifeather shrieked and ran toward the door.

Dr. Wilson paused on the stairs. "Where are you going?"

Pennifeather had reached the door and was struggling with the latch. "Let me out! Let me out!" he panted. When the door wouldn't open, he began pounding on it, screaming, "Let me out!"

Wilson strode over to the door, grabbing Pennifeather by one shoulder and shaking him. "Get a grip on yourself!"

"We're trapped!" Pennifeather shrieked.

All through the house doors were opening and people were calling. "What's wrong?"

"What's all the shouting about?"

"Can't a body get some sleep?"

"What is all of this then?" The last was delivered in the sternest of matronly tones by Mrs. Kendall as she emerged from the back rooms. "Mr. Pennifeather, I will not stand for such a disturbance."

Pennifeather fell to his knees and covered his head with both hands. "We're doomed!" he wailed.

Mrs. Kendall glared at Dr. Wilson. "What have you done to him?"

Dr. Wilson shook his head. "I haven't been able to begin my conversation with the man. He's been raving like this the whole time."

"He's taken leave of his senses," Redlaw agreed.

"We're trapped! We're trapped!" Pennifeather sobbed.

"What is he babbling on about?" Mrs. Kendall asked, as more of the tenants came down the stairs and out of the back hallway.

"He says someone's been following him," Redlaw explained.

"Someone who means him harm," Wilson added. "And when he heard the children laughing upstairs, he tried to run away."

"What children?" Mrs. Kendall asked. She glared at the other tenants. "Who is keeping children in their room?" she demanded.

All the tenants started shaking their heads and denying any knowledge of any children.

"The door won't open!" Pennifeather screamed, surging to his feet. He pointed at the doorway. "We are, all of his, trapped in here!"

"Don't be ridiculous," Dr. Wilson said. He grabbed the doorhandle. And immediately let go and jumped back. "Ouch! It's as hot as a furnace!"

"What?" several people asked at once.

Wilson peered at his hand. "It's hot," he repeated. He looked up and reached his hand more carefully toward the door, stopped just inches from the wood. "It's burning hot. If I didn't know better, if I couldn't see that it was dark through that window, I'd guess there was an enormous fire on the other side."

Several of the men stepped forward and held out their hands to feel. "Bloody hell," one of them exclaimed.

"It's scorching!" another agreed.

"Fire!" one of the other tenants screamed, and ran toward the back of the house. Several others followed.

"But there can't be a fire," Dr. Wilson was saying.

Smoke started seeping under the door and around the frame.

Dr. Wilson started at the smoke for a moment, then looked back at the small window set in the door. He could not see any flames. He could see nothing through the window at all, in fact. And now it dawned on him that he should have been able to see the light of the nearby street lamp.

The smoke poured in all the faster.

"Is there a back way out of here?" he asked, turning to face the others.

They were all gone.

"Wonderful," he muttered, as he started for the back of the house.

He found most of them huddled in the kitchen, arguing. Smoke was pouring in around the back door, just like at the front. It also seemed to be coming down the stove-pipe with considerable pressure, was it was boiling out of the stove itself, and seeping from several of the seams in the pipe.

"It's like the Great Fire!"

"The whole block must be ablaze!"

"What will we do?"

Dr. Wilson ignored them. He saw several pot holders on the counter. He snatched them up and pushed through the panicked tenants to the door. As he grabbed the door knob, one of the tenants noticed what he was doing.

"No! The flames!"

Dr. Wilson twisted at the door knob with all of his might. Through gritted teeth he said, "We have to get out before the smoke kills us."

His eyes stung and he was beginning to choke.

One of the other tenants ran in form another room. "I tried to smash the windows, and they wouldn't break! The chair broke, that the glass didn't even crack."

"God in heaven have mercy on us!" one of the others wailed.

Dr. Wilson was beginning to cough. The heat coming through the pot holders was almost unbearable. And the door knob wouldn't turn. He let go of the knob, stepped back, and kicked the door. He kicked it so hard, he knocked himself on his backside. When he sat up, there wasn't even a dent in the wood.

"He's right! We've got to get out of here."

"But how?"

"The attic! Maybe we can climb out on the roof, and call for help."

Dr. Wilson climbed to his feet, dusted himself off, and reached for his rocket gun. He stopped in mid-motion. If the rocket couldn't penetrate the door, or whatever force was making it impossible to open, the full blast of the explosion would hit everyone in the room.

The panicked group of tenants was beginning to move toward the hall, still arguing about what to try.

"Go down to the cellar," Dr. Wilson said loudly. When no one reacted, he shouted it. "Don't go upstairs," he explained. "Smoke rises. It'll be harder to breathe up there. Down in the cellar is where the good air will last longest."

"But what if the house collapse?" one of the men asked.

Dr. Wilson shook his head. "If the house collapses, it won't do you any good to be up in the attic, will it? Either you fall to your death or the death falls on you." He coughed. "Get down in the cellar where you can breathe."

"Maybe there's a way out through the cellar!" one of the men suggested.

"A lot of the old cellars connect to each, maybe we can get out that way!" another agreed.

Dr. Wilson was scanning the faces of the tenants. "Where's George Pennifeather?"

Mrs. Kendall said, "I haven't seen him since the smoke started coming through the front door." She looked at her tenants. "The American is right, the cellar is our best chance." She bustled out of the kitchen. Her tenants followed close at her heels.

As they left, Dr. Wilson contemplated his options. He had another coughing fit. He pulled his spare handkerchief from a pocket, soaked it in water from a pitcher on the counter and tied it around his face so it covered his mouth and nose.

For a few moments he seriously considered trying to rig up one of his small rockets so it was pointed at one of the windows, but could be ignited from a distance. He shook his head. Whatever was going on at the boarding house was clearly outside the laws of natural philosophy. But what manner of curse had trapped them all here?

He had to find Pennifeather. Whatever diabolic force had them in their clutches, it had something to do with Pennifeather.

Dr. Wilson went from room, to smoke-filled room, calling Pennifeather's name. The man didn't seem to be on the ground floor. Wilson started up the starts. He thought he heard something up there, voices, perhaps. He moved faster.

The smoke was much more dense up here, just as he feared, but he could hear Pennifeather's voice, pleading with someone. Dr. Wilson moved toward the voice.

He found Pennifeather cowering in a bedroom. "Stay away! Stay away!"

Dr. Wilson grabbed Pennifeather and shook him. "What has been following you all day?"

"Leave me alone! Please leave me alone!"

Dr. Wilson shook him harder. "We're all going to die unless we can beat this thing! You, me, Mrs. Kendall, Mr. Redlaw, and all your neighbors! What has been following you?"

"The children," Pennifeather sobbed. He pointed. "The children!"

Dr. Wilson looked in the direction indicated. He saw some small figures huddled there. He dragged Pennifeather closer, to see what they were.

Three children, two girls and a boy, stood beside a bed, looking up at them with baleful eyes. Their skin was yellow, bodies shrunken with hunger. They wore ragged, meagre clothes. Though they clung to each other in wretched misery, they seemed completely unaffected by the smoke and the heat. As he watched, they seemed to become transparent for a moment, then solid again.

Ghosts, Dr. Wilson thought. Dealing with spirits was Mrs. Cuthbert's area of expertise. Wilson didn't know how to handle them. What would see do, he wondered. "Who are you?" he asked. "What do you want?"

All three children pointed at Pennifeather, who cowered and sobbed behind Dr. Wilson's knees.

"He knows," the boy said.

Wilson pulled Pennifeather halfway to his feet. "Who are these spirits? Why do they haunt you?"

"Nothing to do with me," Pennifeather whimpered. "Nothing to do with me at all!"

"You said they've been following you! When did it start?" Wilson demanded. "What were you doing just before you saw them the first time?"

Pennifeather shook his head. "I don't know," he insisted. "I first saw the boy last summer. I was walking down the Strand and suddenly noticed him, across the way, glaring at me!"

"Last summer?"

Wilson looked at the three children. They stared at Pennifeather, motionless. "What is he to you? Why do you haunt him?"

"He knows," the boy said, in a hissing voice that sent a chill up Wilson's spine.

Wilson growled. "Marvelous. Maybe I should just shoot all four of them!"

"Nothing to do with me!" Pennifeather blubbered. "Can't have anything to do with me. They don't exist, do they?"

"What did you say?" Wilson demanded.

"Nothing to do with me," Pennifeather repeated.

"No! No! After that, you said they don't exist!" Wilson shook his head. "You said that you first saw the boy last summer. Did it happen to be the day one of your editorials was published? The ones about the baby farms? The baby farms you claimed didn't exist?"

Pennifeather was shaking his head and murmuring.

Wilson shook him and shouted the question in his ear.

"It might have been!" Pennifeather wailed in answer.

Wilson looked at the children. The boy gazed back at him with that wolfish glare. Wilson turned twisted Pennifeather's face around so he could look into his eyes. "Hazel green, just like yours," Wilson said. "That boy's your son, isn't he? Your illegitimate son, that you paid someone to take care of!"

Pennifeather was shaking his head even more emphatically. "No! No! Absolutely not."

Wilson glanced at the children. There was the slightest hint of a smile at the corner of the boy's mouth.

"These are your children, aren't they?" Wilson asked. "You paid someone to take them away, so you wouldn't have to marry their mother . Or was it mothers?"

Pennifeather shook his head. "I c-couldn't! There would have been scandal. If I married a common wench I would be laughed out of my club. I would never sell another story again!"

"So you paid to have them taken away, and never thought about them again?" Wilson shook his head in disgust. "How could you? Your own flesh and blood?"

"They were to be taken care of!" Pennifeather protested. "'Prenticed into good trades, that's what she said."

"That's what who said?"

"The old nurse who ran the, the school, she called it."

Wilson looked at the children. His voice was much kinder, almost tender, when he addressed them. "What happened to you?"

All three gazed into his eyes and the boy said, "'Prenticed to a good trade."

"What trade?" Wilson asked.

"Ch-ch-chimney sweep," Pennifeather stammered. "She sold the boy to a chimney sweep when he was four," he explained. "Kept taking the monthly payments from me. Never told me what had happened."

Wilson frowned. "I thought it was illegal for sweeps to apprentice children," he said, recalling something he had read upon the subject. "Because so many got lost or stuck in the chimneys and they..." his voice trailed off as he looked around at the thickening smoke with new comprehension.

"Suffocated," Pennifeather finished. "Or were roasted alive." He began crying again.

Wilson shook is head in frustration. "But if you knew that, why in the devil's name did you write those editorials?"

"I didn't know!" Pennifeather protested. "I didn't know! I didn't believe. Don't you understand? I couldn't believe it. I was so certain it had to be false, because the alternative was too horrible to contemplate."

"Then how did you find out?"

"When she was brought to trial!" Pennifeather said. "The ones she couldn't sell, she mixed iodine in their food. They would get sick and eventually die. She contacted the mothers, told them the child had died, and demanded a final payment for funeral expenses. But she didn't give them proper burials. They found the remains of scores of children, just bones and ashes, in an old furnace in her basement."

Wilson sighed. He turned to the spirits. "I can't blame you for being angry. You have good cause to seek vengeance, but your argument is with him." He pushed Pennifeather toward the children. "There are a lot of innocent people dying in this smoke. Let them go."

Pennifeather shrieked, "Don't leave me here!"

Wilson shook his head. "I think you are definitely outside my jurisdiction." He looked around the room at the smoke, now so thick, he couldn't see any of the walls. He glanced at the three spirits. "Let the innocent people out. Settle this with him. But let them go."

"We don't know the way out," the boy said.

"We're lost," one of the girls added.

"Why won't Mommy come for me?" the third asked.

"Dear lord," Wilson snarled. "Of course, you died lost and confused. Pennifeather! Tell them the way out!"

The author huddled on the floor. "I don't know, don't you understand?"

"Not the way out of the house, you fool," Wilson snarled. "The way out of purgatory. Tell them how to get to heaven."

Pennifeather looked confusion. "Heaven?"

"Yes! Don't you see? They don't know. They know nothing of forgiveness or god or heaven or anything. They only way you're getting out of this alive, George Pennifeather, is if you can teach them how to forgive, forget, and move on to heaven."

"But why me?"

It took every ounce of Dr. Wilson's patience to stop himself from drawing his gun and shooting the craven man on the spot. Not a killing shot, of course. Just a very painful bullet to one knee would have done nicely. "You're the father who abandoned them," he explained through clenched teeth. "It's your responsibility to teach them the way. On this night, of all nights, families are supposed to be together. And parents are supposed to tell their children the story of Christmas!"

"I'm their father," Pennifeather said, as if realizing it for the very first time. "Yes, yes, of course, I'm their father." He turned to the three children, who still glared at him. "Tonight is a very special night, you see. It's Christmas Eve. On this night a long, long time ago, a star led wise men across the wilderness, to witness the birth of the son of God..."

As he spoke the words, Dr. Wilson saw a silvery light appear deep in the smoke. He thought the light was coming from where he remembered the door to the room being.

Coughing, Dr. Wilson stumbled toward the light.

Behind him he could hear Pennifeather still talking to the spirits. "And then angels appeared in the sky," he was saying, "and the glory of god shone around them. The shepherds were frightened, but the angel said, ‘Fear not...'"

Dr. Wilson banged his knee on the bannister post. The grabbed hold of the bannister and made his way down the stairs, following the strange, silvery light. He couldn't understand what Pennifeather was saying, but he could still hear the author's voice talking, even when he reached the ground floor. The light receded through the gloom.

Wilson could hear several people coughing in the direction the light seemed to be leading him. He followed it. He stumbled into the cellar stairs, literally falling halfway down.

He found the other tenants in the cellar, huddled against an ancient pair of oaken doors.

"Where does this door go?" he called out.

A voice that sounded sort of like Mrs. Kendall's answered, "I think it lets into Mr. Tetterby's wine cellar. That's the neighbor on that side."

Dr. Wilson pulled on the door. Unlike the doors upstairs, this one seemed to give, just a little. "All right , everyone move over to the, uh, the right. Against the wall!" he shouted.

He felt around in the pockets of his great coat until he found the scaling kit. He had thought of this invention a few months before, when he and his colleague had gotten into a spot of trouble which required them to climb a cliff quickly.

He paid out most of the long, slender rope onto the floor, leaving just enough to tie the main apparatus to the handle of one of the oak doors. Hoping that everyone had obeyed him, he activated the slow safety fuse, then dove off to the right. After a few seconds, a brilliant green flare shone in the darkness, as the rockets of Wilson's Rocket-assisted Scaling Apparatus (patent pending) fired.

The apparatus hung there in mid-air, the force of the rocket straining against the rope and the door.

The oak door creaked. But nothing moved. For a full two minutes the rocket blasted green fire, then, with a sputter, the flare slowly turned yellow.

Dr. Wilson murmured, "One minute to go."

The rocket pulled at the door. The door creaked and groaned. A loud cracking noise filled Wilson with dread. What if the rocket only succeeded in breaking the handles off the door?

The rocket sputtered again as the flame turned orangish.

"Thirty seconds," Wilson growled through clenched teeth.

With a wrenching creak and a several load pop-popping sounds, the door broke free of its hinges. The rocket dragged the door to the far end of the cellar, where it crashed into the masonry wall.

"It's open!" Dr. Wilson shouted.

They stumbled through the door, and soon met the bewildered inhabitants of the next house, who had been awakened by the sounds of the rocket. As they clambered up the stairs and out into the street, Dr. Wilson heard the chimes of Big Ben. At the end of the twelfth chime, someone said "Happy Christmas."

Mrs. Kendall's house appeared to be on fire. Smoke poured out of the windows and doors, at any rate. The neighborhood was soon roused, and a bucket brigade organized, though in the end, it hardly seemed needed. Despite all the smoke, only one small part of the house seemed to be afire.

George Pennifeather's charred corpse was found on his burned bed in his room. Other than smoke the smoke, nothing outside Pennifeather's room was damaged. The authorities ruled it an unfortunate accident.

Dr. Wilson tried to leave the scene quietly, once the police were satisfied and before the reporters arrived. He didn't want to imagine what the press would make of this event, but he was sure that it would wind up in a Kid Rocket story.

He was trying to take his leave, in the wee hours of Christmas morning, but several of the tenants wanted to thank him again and again. Mr. Redlaw insisted on walking with him to James Street, where he would be able to catch a hansom cab.

As Redlaw shook his hand once more he said, "Terrible shame about Pennifeather."

Dr. Wilson nodded. "Yes, terrible. I was telling someone just yesterday that I think it's something about the act of creating fanciful tales that drives writer's mad."

Redlaw frowned. "I hope you are not serious. And if you are, I hope you are not right!"

Dr. Wilson smiled. "And why do you say that?" he asked.

"I hope you are wrong, sir," Redlaw explained, "because I, too, am a writer. Perhaps you have read my most recent novel, The Gift of the Desert, serialized in Bell's Monthly?"

Dr. Wilson groaned. "I should have known."

"I beg your pardon?"

Slightly louder, Dr. Wilson said, "I didn't know that, sir. I'm not very familiar with that publication. Though a young lady of my acquaintance is probably faithful reader. I suspect I'll become very familiar with it, soon enough."

The End

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"Kid Rocket Saves Christmas" copyright 2002 Gene Breshears. All Rights Reserved. No portion of this story may be reproduced without the express written (and I mean physical ink on physical paper by my own hand) of the author, Mr. Gene Breshears.