Free Plundered Christmas by Susan Lyttek

managed to staunch the bleeding, but you keep that up and it will start all over again.”
    “But…” Margo tried.
    “But nothing,” Dad said.
    “Someone pushed me into the water. Hard. Then, I heard another splash near my head and saw a chunk of meat floating past me.”
    I could see what she was getting at. She wanted us to know that she was in danger—we were in danger.
    She looked around the room from her trapped position on the couch. “Someone tried to kill me,” she whimpered. Instead of looking haughty, wealthy, or powerful, those images she worked to convey fled in light of her current situation. She appeared fragile and suddenly much older.
    As best as he could, Dad comforted her after that. He patted the hand not connected to the injured shoulder, told her how beautiful she was, and sent a lot of pretty phrases into her ears. It helped. She calmed down.
    “Papa,” Josie asked. “Do you think Miss Margo would mind the rest of our Christmas Eve tradition?”
    “And what would that be?” Margo asked, her voice barely audible.
    “We were in the process of reading the gospel of Luke,” Dad said. “The Christmas story. We had just started when Charlie told us that you were wounded and needed our help. He cares for you a lot, Margo. Worries about you.”
    “I know.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “I would love to hear the Bible. It would remind me of when I was little…” She coughed again. Then she gave a little scream of anguish.
    I couldn’t imagine how much it hurt.
    She bit her lip to stop herself and then tried to smile up at my father. It looked as if she had a lemon rind between her teeth, but we could tell she wanted to beam up at him.
    Dad took it in the spirit it was intended. He pulled his Bible from the couch where it had dropped and opened to the account.
    Frank, Aimee, and the kids all came in closer at the sound of my dad’s sonorous voice. “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census…”
     
    ****
     
    When James and Charlie returned, they quietly joined us as Dad had nearly finished.
    Margo had closed her eyes while “her dear Robert” read from the Scriptures, and they didn’t know she was conscious.
    As Dad finished, James said, “We can’t find William anywhere. We have checked every room in the house. He’s nowhere to be found.”
    Margo’s eyes snapped open. “He probably ran after he pushed me. Did you see that miserable yellow boat of his anywhere?”
    Charlie looked like he would faint. “Miss Margo! You’re OK!”
    “No, Charles, I am most definitely not OK. I am, however, still firmly in the land of the living despite my nephew’s intentions.”
    I could tell her words did not sit well with Charlie. “Master William? I can’t believe he would do such a thing to you, ma’am. He’s a good boy deep down.”
    I could tell she wanted to sit up, even stand and give her commanding presence a real work out as she told her servant a thing or two.
    But my father kept patting her hand and whispering, “Easy. Easy, Margo.”
    “The yellow craft was still tethered when we rescued you,” James said. “So if William left the island, he didn't do it that way. But personally, I can’t believe anyone could have left the island recently. Maybe this morning when we were getting the tree or earlier this afternoon while the weather was still pleasant, but in the last four hours? Absolutely not. The winds are much too high.”
    “See,” Charlie insisted. “I told you he was a good boy.”
    “But,” James reminded him. “The fact is that we can’t find him anywhere in the house or in the immediate grounds.”
    Jelly chose that moment to bark. The bark . Those in the know all turned apprehensively to find out what the pooch wanted to warn us against.
    We couldn’t see anything or anyone outside the window he faced. But seconds later, we realized it couldn’t be an intruder.
    Rather, Mary and Anne were coming back downstairs.
    “I got a hold of