A War of Gifts: An Ender Story

above them. He was staring into heaven, demanding that all those hurrying angels get out of his way so his gaze could penetrate all the way to God and demand his attention, because it was his right. Ask and it shall be given, God had promised. Knock and it shall be opened! Well, Habit Morgan was knocking and asking, and it was time for God to open and give. God could not break his word-at least not when Habit Morgan was holding him to it.
    But God took his own sweet time. Which was why Zeck was sitting there on the front row, with Mother and his three younger siblings beside him, all perched on chairs so wobbly they showed the slightest trace of movement. The other children were young, and their fidgets were forgiven. Zeck was determined to be pure, and his wobbly chair might have been made of stone for all the movement it made.
    When Father stared into heaven this long it was a test. Maybe it was a test given by God, or maybe Father had already received his answer-received it perhaps the night before when he was writing this sermon-and so the test was from him. Either way, Zeck would pass this test as he passed all the tests laid before him.
    The long minutes dragged. One itch would fade, only to be replaced by another. Father still stared into heaven. Zeck ignored the sweat trickling down his neck.
    And behind him, somewhere among the seventy-three members of the congregation who had come today (Zeck hadn’t counted them, he had only glanced, but as usual he immediately knew how many there were), someone shifted in his seat. Someone coughed. It was the moment Father-or God-had been waiting for.
    Father’s voice was only a whisper, but it carried through the room. “How can I hear the voice of the Holy Spirit when I am surrounded by impurity?”
    Zeck thought of quoting back to him his own sermon, given two years ago, when Zeck was only just barely four. “Do you think that God cannot make his voice heard no matter what other noise is going on around you? If you are pure, then all the tumult of the world is silence compared to the voice of God.”
    But Zeck knew that to quote this now would bring down the rod of chastisement. Father was not really asking a question. He was pointing out what everyone knew: that in all this congregation, only Habit Morgan was really, truly pure. That’s why God’s answers came to him, and only to him.
    “Saint Nick is a mask!” roared Father. “Saint Nick is the false beard and the false laugh worn by the drunken servants of the God of frivolity. Dionysus is his name! Bacchus! Revelry and debauchery! Greed and covetousness are the gifts he instills in the hearts of our children! O God, save us from the Satan of Santa! Keep our children’s eyes averted from his malicious, predatory gaze! Do not seat our children upon his lap to whisper their coveting into his stony ear! He is an idol of idolatry! God knows what spirit animates these idols and makes them laugh their ho, ho, whoredoms and abominations and braying jackassery!”
    Father was in fine form. And now that he was bellowing the words of God, striding back and forth across the front of the sanctuary, Zeck could scratch the occasional itch, as long as he kept his gaze locked on Father’s face.
    For an hour Father went on, telling stories of children who put their faith in Santa Claus, and parents who lied to their children about Saint Nick and taught their children that all the stories of Christmas were myths-including the story of the Christ child. Telling stories of children who became atheists when Santa did not bring them the gifts they coveted most.
    “Satan is a liar every time! When Santa puts a lie on the lips of parents, the seed of that lie is planted in the hearts of their children and when that seed comes to flower and bears fruit, the fruit of that lie is faithlessness. You do not deserve the trust of your children when you lie for Satan!”
    Then his voice fell to a whisper. “Jolly old Saint Nicholas,” he hissed. “Lean your ear this way. Don’t you tell a single soul what I’m going to say.” Then his voice roared out again. “Yes, your children whisper their secret desires to Satan and he will answer their prayers, not with the presents they seek, and certainly not with the presence of God Immanuel! No, he will answer their prayers with the ashes of sin in their mouths, with the poison of atheism and unbelief in the plasma of their blood. He will drive out the hemoglobin and replace it with