prompt: trail, title: maybe he's a mage in misc. flash fiction

Sure, Paul claimed they were simply having a wonderful Christmastime, but the facts just did not add up. I didn’t care he was a Beatle, that he was Sir Paul McCartney, that the man claiming this was practically a billionaire. Many people would probably just shut up and get an autograph or a selfie with The Cute One but I am not so easily snowed by fortune or fame. Something was up and whatever it was, it wasn’t folks simply having a wonderful Christmastime. It was something more sinister, it had to be. One does not simply have a wonderful Christmastime, not like that, the trail of clues they left could not lead to such a pleasant conclusion.

Did he say “the moon is right” or did I mishear? What could he possibly mean by that? A phase of the moon? The position in the skies? And why are we supposed to not look down? What could be down there at our feet? A pentagram cast in salt? A blood sacrifice? Paul kept on saying they were simply having a wonderful Christmastime over and again, you do not keep repeating a phrase like that if you’re not protesting too much. Must’ve said it twenty goddamn times.

Which spirit is “up”, Mister McCartney, if that is indeed your real name? The devil? Krampus? The dread Cthulhu of his deathless sleep in the lifeless depths? Being here tonight is not enough of an explanation of whatever’s going on at his country mansion. That kind of excuse might get him out of marijuana possession charges in Japan but it doesn’t put me off the scent, no way, no sirree. That’s far from enough. You’re not simply having a wonderful Christmastime. Confess.

He gave the game away by talking about the children who sang their song that they practiced all year long, of course. It’s his metaphor, practice, ritual practice, a summoning? A summoning via child sacrifice? Is it just a kind of communal chanting circle? “We’re here tonight,” McCartney said nervously, “and that’s enough.” He’s a vegan, after all, you figure blood rites not his thing.

It occurs to me, this may be how he managed to come back from the dead, after his car wreck in the Sixties. Perhaps the pact must be renewed every winter solstice to maintain the foul eldritch mimicry of life holding together his skin and his bones. He said it himself, there at the door as I tried to get him to stop lying “The feeling’s here that only comes just once a year.” He feels his stolen life slipping back away from him so he commits whatever horrors he needs to, so as to survive to next Christmastime. And the next whatever the hell he was doing, once again.

Maybe I’m crazy, maybe he’s just having a holiday party but I have to doubt it. The dude lies through his teeth. We still don’t even know if he was The Walrus or not, for Christ’s sakes.