[Abraham] lifted up his eyes and looked,

and behold, three men stood in front of him.

-GENESIS 18.2

One moment the boy, Dayton Wayne, was staring at the Santa's Workshop display in Armstrong's corner window. Smiling. Even laughing.

The next moment it seemed like a gust of wind blew some snowflakes from a flurry around Dayton, he froze, then collapsed.

A Samaritan carried the boy into Armstrong's department store and shouted, "Someone call a doctor!"

Armstrong's was chock-a-block with late-night Christmas shoppers. Two were doctors who came to the boy's aid; two more, a woman and her son, were Dayton's mother and middle brother.

"He seems to have just fainted," the first doctor diagnosed, but the other said, "Except he has a fever." One hundred and three. The other doctor asked the mother if the boy had recently been sick. "Flu? Mumps? Anything?"

"No. Dayton gets a lot of colds, but hardly any flu bugs. He did have pneumonia twice seven years ago, when he was two."

Dayton stirred a bit. He didn't wake up, but it was an encouraging enough sign that the first doctor offered to accompany the boy's family home. "I don't think a trip to the emergency room is warranted."

The year was 1965, a time when doctors didn't get excited about fainting children unless there was good reason.

* * *

Dayton's mom covered her son in blankets and then placed and replaced a cool washcloth on his head every 15 minutes.

"My guess is he'll recover after the fever breaks," the doctor had told her. "If it doesn't break by morning, or if he hasn't woken up, call your pediatrician. Good night."

The middle brother, Nelson, asked his mother if Dayton was going to be all right.

"The doctor says so. Was Dayton sick at all in school today?" Dayton was a fourth grader at Hayes Elementary, where Nelson was a fifth grader. The oldest brother, Leroy, was a junior in high school.

"Naw. He was excited. All he wanted to do was watch that new Charlie Brown cartoon tonight then go downtown shopping."

"Yes, that's Dayton. Maybe he pretended to feel well so we wouldn't stay home." Still, the mother wondered, wouldn't she have noticed if her youngest had a fever of 103º?

Nelson was sent to bed at ten. Leroy came home around 10:30 and asked what was going on. Around midnight Dayton's fever decreased a degree, and their mother, confident her youngest was starting to improve, presumed it was safe to go to bed.

On her way out of Dayton's bedroom, she stopped by his desk. A package had come for Dayton from England that day, a small antique silver tamarisk Christmas ornament inside. Dayton's Uncle Domer, a professor at Moreh University in Norwich, had found it somewhere and sent it, knowing his nephew was the kind of kid who plugged in the Christmas tree every day, watched all the holiday TV specials, wore out the console stereo listening to Firestone's annual Christmas albums, and believed everything about Christmas.

The mother picked the tamarisk up and sighed. Her brother-in-law must have died very soon after mailing the package to Dayton. Her husband was over in Norwich now for the funeral, and she missed him.

She laid the tamarisk on Dayton's desk and turned off the light. "Good night, pumpkin."

* * *

Dayton's fever broke at three that morning and he woke up. But, right before that, he had dreams.

Snowflakes were dancing around him in front of Armstrong's corner window. Then the flakes froze in midair, looking something like the Invisible Man caught out in the snow. This snow man put one hand on Dayton's shoulder and said, "He shall rest." The snow man's hand was so strong, the voice so potent, that Dayton dreamt he fainted from fear and fell into a deep sleep.

Another dream followed. The boy was standing on his school's playground, looking about a half mile to the west up at Oak Hill Cemetery, one of his favorite spots to play after dark. A gibbous moon was shining in a cloudless sky, so Dayton should have been able to see Oak Hill's crypts, gravestones, and conifers. But all he could see was snow. White covered everything. Dayton couldn't understand it, nor why he felt drawn to the cemetery...but he was. Dayton couldn't stop himself from going there-no, wouldn't let himself stop-even when he heard a voice like a whirlwind say, "He shall rest."

That's when Dayton woke up, his bed sheets soaked from sweat.

"Mom?"

No answer. He called again, this time for his brothers, and still no answer. Dayton went to investigate and found his family all sound asleep. He was alone.

Dayton returned to his bedroom. In the moonlight he saw Uncle Domer's ornament shining and felt the tugging sensation from his dream. And, like in his dream, he didn't want to resist.

Getting dressed, Dayton grabbed the tamarisk.

* * *

Dayton walked to Hayes' playground and onto the snowy field surrounding it. The boy could see Oak Hill to the west. He could also hear voices. All around him. Like whispers, or echoes, or something from a dark empty room.

Dayton stopped. Looked around. And gasped when he spotted a tall, thin old man standing forty feet away. The man seemed dark with ice and looked like a shadowy hole inside a moonbeam.

"You rose early, Dayton."

Though warned about strangers, Dayton couldn't help asking, "You know me?"

"I know all men. All whoever were and, like you, will be." The dark man stepped towards Dayton, swiftly closing the ground between them. "Know who I am?"

Dayton wasn't sure, but did know enough to pull the tamarisk out of his coat pocket. Its silver gleamed, thanks to the moon.

The dark man held his hands up and stepped back, as if threatened with a sword. "If you knew what you have there, Dayton, you'd pass away with fear. Give it to me!"

Dayton shook his head.

"Isn't your father coming home today, Dayton? Wouldn't it be awful if his plane crashed and he died? Like Uncle Domer? Now give it to me!"

Dayton shook his head again.

"Don't test me. I said give it to me!"

Dayton wanted to run away, but stayed and said, "No."

Suddenly something sounding like a great horn shook the world, and the whirlwind voice returned: "He shall rest."

As Dayton cringed snow, wind, and moonlight spun and swirled around the dark man. They ripped the dark man into a million shards and scattered the pieces throughout the night.

The furious snow and wind followed Dayton as he started west again. He entered Oak Hill and walked until his instincts led him into a clearing inside a copse of terebinth the boy couldn't remember ever seeing in the cemetery. The elements quieted and the night became still, leaving behind another snow man in the clearing's heart. This new stranger held out a frosty right hand. "May I return that?"

The boy shivered, but stepped forward and gave the tamarisk to the man.

"Thank you. Do you have any questions, Dayton?"

"Yes, sir. Is my daddy okay?"

"He is and shall be safe. Another question?"

Yes. "That isn't a Christmas ornament, is it?"

"Don't say that. Uncle Domer thought so."

"Yeah, but what is it really?"

The man considered the gleaming tamarisk as if he were more than a little afraid of it. "The seventh day."

Dayton shook his head, this time because he didn't understand.

"It is the Word. In six days heaven and earth were created, and on the seventh day..."

Dayton looked at the gleaming tamarisk with new eyes. "Is that what that is?" He turned to the man. "Who are you, sir?"

The snow man smiled as he turned his face from Dayton and walked away. For a moment the world went black, as if a hand had been placed over Dayton's eyes. Then it was pulled away and Dayton saw the backside of a radiant white giant.

Then Dayton found himself standing at Hayes' playground again. The young man looked around. He felt odd, as if he didn't belong here. Facing west, he looked up at Oak Hill and, just as in his dream, the cemetery was completely covered with snow.

"Are you gone?" Dayton asked, thinking about the two snow men and the giant.

As if in answer, the snow hiding Oak Hill floated into the air, rolled over, and vanished like a puff of breath on a mirror.

Dayton stared at Oak Hill's crypts, gravestones, and conifers. "I wonder where the snow hides itself?" he wondered. He stood there several minutes, shivering in a night that suddenly felt cold, before returning home.