William leaned into the wind. He saw the clone’s legs tense and the stomach bloat. He had heard him after all, anticipating William’s need to escape. He was ready to climb onto his back and warm up inside the electromagnetic field.
But then it launched.
William was still on the ice. The Arctic air crystalized in his lungs as he fell on his knees and searched the dark sky for the clone’s return. A dim figure receded into the background of green and red ribbons. He was going to leave him. His reindeer clone was heading home without him.
When William looked up again, there was a faint glimmer of hope. There was something else up there. The reindeer clone was following a long train of reindeer pedaling the air.
Is that...
“Hello.”
William turned stiffly. He wiped his eyes and shielded his vision.
Long coats whipped around oversized feet. Ruddy faces thick and placid. Watching him as he tried to stand. He fell on his face, inhaling a mouthful of snow and coughing coldly. A pair of hands lifted him up. Sullen expressions looked down.
“You’ve been looking for us,” the elven to his left said.
“Congratulations,” the bearded elven said gruffly. “You’re only the fourth human to enter the colony in two hundred years.”
William climbed to his feet and stumbled. They kept him from falling again. He tried to speak, but his tongue was swollen and his lips numb. The female elven patted his hand.
“One step at a time, William.”
They guided him toward nothing. The Arctic ice went all the way to the horizon. Where are the rest of them? Twice he nearly gave up. His legs were wooden pegs.
“Just a few more,” she said.
And then the wind stopped like a switch had been pulled. One second, it scoured his face. The next it was gone. His inner ears ached in the silence. And the world was no longer a barren sheet. There were hundreds of them.
Maybe thousands.
They were awkwardly staring along with giant snowmen. And one very big reindeer. An angry growl splintered the silence. Ronin stood up and lowered his head. Elven crowded around him, but they weren’t protecting him from William. Ronin lifted his head and howled like he’d done on the mountain.
“We usually celebrate now,” the female elven said. “The sleigh is off and the children are safe.”
“We’re a little disappointed this year,” the bearded elven said.
“Not because you’re here.”
The elven parted like a snowplow forced them aside. Sensation began returning to William’s face and legs. His thoughts were little cubes of ice tinkling inside his head. He went coolly numb again when he realized what she meant.
His life’s work spread out before him. He knew everything about the elven and the truth about Santa Claus. He knew their technology and their secrets. All he ever worked for had been proved right. And no one would ever know it.
Because I’m staying.
25
They watched the sky.
A knot doubled up Billy’s stomach. Gallivanter twined his fingers over his stomach, a smile resting on his face. Billy couldn’t decide if the smile was satisfied or cynical. Some moments the elven seemed to barely have the energy to stand.
He always had enough to smile.
The elven hadn’t said much for most of the day. They had been very busy getting things back in order, making rights out of wrongs. There would be no more nicies, no more naughties. No more Big Game.
Just us, Gallivanter had said.
It was past midnight when they stepped into the horseshoe and began watching the sky. Gallivanter didn’t say what they were doing, but Billy knew. It wasn’t long before the silence was splintered like a cement block dropped on a frozen pond. It echoed in the distance and cascaded down the mountainside.
Gallivanter’s smile grew.
An outline appeared over the mountain. Billy hadn’t expected such a grand entrance. Stealth was what he expected, but there it was in the open for anyone to see, a team of reindeer circling around and drifting into the horseshoe with a jingle of bells and clopping of hooves. The rails of a large sleigh slushed to a stop.
Gallivanter began walking.
The reindeer turned their heads. Billy wondered if they were glaring at him or watching the elven pick up his waddling pace as he neared.
Do they know what I did?
Gallivanter nearly vanished in the dark, but the ripple of bells meant he had reached the reindeer, hugging each one of them as they dipped their heads, snorting and sniffing. Gallivanter’s greetings were emotional and heartfelt.
Unmistakable laughter bellowed from the sleigh.
It made Billy dizzy. William had pursued the Christmas legend for so long. That obsession was over, William was gone, and the fat man was only a couple of hundred feet away from him. He nearly melted into a puddle of awe.
He’s real.
William had left on the cloned reindeer and never returned. Gallivanter didn’t seem concerned. It was as if he expected him to chase after Ronin.
He will not return, the elven had told him.
Despite the evidence—the elven, the flying reindeer, and the sleigh that flew over the mountain—he still reserved his doubts for the sake of sanity. It was better to believe this was all a hallucination, that he was not a product of a synthetic cloning machine. But the evidence was, once again, irrefutable. He didn’t have a choice.
He believed.
He was distracted by his thoughts, struggling with recurring doubts, when two figures climbed out of the sleigh. The reindeer were still out there with the fat man’s baritone voice joyfully greeting Gallivanter.
The two figures slowed.
Billy sensed their disbelief, imagined their confusion, could feel their swelling anger. Ryder looked back at the sleigh. He wasn’t expecting to find Billy waiting for them. They looked back again, reconsidering their return to Kringletown. They’d been lied to enough. Was the fat man bringing them back to the same life?
“I’m sorry.” Billy raised a hand before they turned around. “For everything, I... I can’t express...”
The ache in his chest broke off the rest of what he was going to say. Whenever he stared directly at what he’d done, it hurt too much. He was shaking. How was he going to rebuild their lives?
I can’t do it alone.
The standoff was broken by a jingling of bells and a trail of laughter then a crackling of time and space. The reindeer and sleigh had vanished. A waddling figure approached them. Billy’s chin quivered. He had assumed the elven would return to the Pole. After all, he was finally free to do so.
Gallivanter the Wanderer.
“Oh, it’s good, catching up with an old friend.” Gallivanter looked up at Ryder and Cherry. “It’s been a very long trip, I know. One doesn’t simply brush an experience like this under the ice. We have work.”
Corded braids swung from his chin. All those years in cold storage and he’d seemed to recover not in months or years. It was less than a day. It would take most people a lifetime to overcome the mess William had made.
But Gallivanter was not human.
He tugged on a beard braid. “It’s time to wake them.”
“Why?” Ryder stared through Billy. “You know what he did to us, to you. You know what’s on the other side of the mountain, don’t you? Why would you wake him?”
The truth was going to be easier for some to digest than others. After all, Ryder was different. He was special, and not because there was a reindeer protecting him.
He’s naughty and nice.
He was the clone who grew up in the world, untainted by William’s inner voice, allowed to suffer and believe he was unimportant, that he didn’t matter.
More human than the rest of us.
“Put him in the cabin,” Ryder said. “I don’t want him anywhere near the others when they wake up. He did this, Gallivanter. This is all because of him.”
Gallivanter stroked his braids and turned though
tfully. His tireless exuberance dissolved into one of calm understanding. Perhaps he’d underestimated Ryder’s reaction.
“Could you excuse us for a moment, Billy?” Gallivanter said.
Billy swallowed. “No.”
They were surprised by that. Even Gallivanter turned toward him.
“Ryder’s right. This is my fault,” Billy continued. “I-I mean, it was William’s doing, but it-it-it was my hand. I don’t deserve their trust or to be forgiven. Not now or maybe ever. Please don’t lock me away.”
“Like you did us?” Ryder said. “You put us in the cold for how long, Billy? Months? Years? You put them to sleep because they weren’t good enough. Good boys and girls do what you tell them, right? You deserve to be in one of those drawers.”
Billy drew a long shaky breath. “You’re right.”
A grim line set Ryder’s lips as he looked down. A conflict of thoughts wrestled in his head. Cherry was expressionless. Hardened by shock or unresolved anger, his words went through her like a summer breeze through a screen window.
Gallivanter waddled behind them. With a few muttered words, he guided the kids inside. Billy remained in the cold. Whatever they decided, he would accept. He was free to suffer.
Without William’s voice.
The door opened and the elven gestured. They went to the elevator and waited. It was after midnight. The nicies were already asleep in their beds.
Not the naughties.
When the elevator arrived, a breath of synthetic odor wafted out. He hadn’t been down there yet. Hesitantly, he followed the elven inside, stress involuntarily pulling the corner of his mouth. Each step felt like walking toward a cliff, the world rushing past and a dark unknown waiting to swallow him.
“I woke you for a reason.”
Gallivanter took his hand. Billy grabbed at the wall as the elevator descended. His throat swelled. Gallivanter’s smile did not waver. His eyes were gentle and forgiving, as if nothing needed to be forgiven. All was exactly the way it was supposed to be.
When the doors opened, the lab buried him beneath an avalanche of sounds and smells. He struggled for his next breath, clenching the back wall of the elevator as his memories breached the fences and rushed into awareness. Everything he’d done, he had to face it. All of it.
All of them.
Gallivanter stayed with him, watching him, holding his hand. Perhaps it would be better if they did put him in a drawer. It might be easier that way. And he deserved it. But then a sound reached him, one reaching back through all the years to when this started. There was the sound of cold storage doors decompressing and drawers sliding out. More voices joined the others, sleepy and confused.
Billy slid to the floor and buried his face.
He heard a voice unlike any of the others. Once he heard it, the tears came.
“We need you.” Gallivanter put his hand on his shoulder. “For the healing to begin.”
It was the cry of an infant.
26
Madeline watched from the back of the train.
There were no seat belts in this car, just row after row of children fighting over the windows. The chaperones tried to get control, but it was hopeless.
Madeline was not part of it.
These were children from foster homes. It was the first time any of them had flown on a plane or boarded a train. The first time they had seen reindeer.
Steel wheels walloped metal rails. They were heading for the mountain. They didn’t really know where they were going. This was a secret trip that very few lucky winners experienced.
“Tickets!” The conductor appeared.
Madeline slunk in the corner. Despite her anxiety, a smile pounced across her lips. She had doubted this trip and had nearly turned around when she arrived at the boarding station, where a fountain made of antlers used to be. Ghosts of her past had followed her onto the train.
But the sight of the conductor put her at ease.
The children faced the front as he closed the door behind him. His suit was royal blue with gold buttons and his hat formal and stiff. His beard was thick and dark and nicely trimmed over his cheeks.
“Tickets, please! I need to see your tickets.”
The children waved golden tickets. Each one had their name embossed in black letters on shiny paper. They had arrived by mail with a return address that said Santa’s Village. They were cordially invited and advised not to lose them.
“One at a time, please.”
The conductor examined each ticket through spectacles balanced on the end of his nose then stamped it with a nifty tool. The children showed each other what it looked like before pressing their face on the cold windows.
“What do we have here?”
He took a knee next to a girl quietly weeping. Her hair was tied in two pigtails, one with a green ribbon and the other one red. She muttered through hiccups.
“Wait.” The conductor patted his coat and front pockets then lifted his conductor’s hat and searched the lining. “Is your name... Gabrielle?”
She nodded.
“All tickets accounted for!” He marched to the front of the car. “All passengers booked for a trip to... to, uh...”
“Santa’s Village!”
A smile grew somewhere under that black beard and high-beamed behind his spectacles. With a jabbing finger and a stomping foot, he let loose a laugh that stampeded through the car.
Madeline covered her mouth when it reached her.
“Who would like to see it snow?”
The children raised their hands and shrilly agreed. The conductor brandished a handkerchief and began cleaning his spectacles like he forgot he’d asked a question. He held them up and cleaned them again then promptly balanced them on his nose.
“Then let it snow.”
The children looked out the window. There was snow already on the ground, but it wasn’t falling. The conductor couldn’t control the weather, but a snowflake did fall. It landed on Madeline’s shoulder.
Snow drifted down from the ceiling.
The children cheered. They scraped it off the floor and stuck out their tongues, snowflakes fat and thick. Madeline could barely see the front of the car. The train entered the trees and the rails were sloping upward, tilting their weight slightly back in the seats.
When the fun had reached critical mass—children climbing over seats and adults joining in—the conductor called out and the children, miraculously, sat down. The snow stopped and the relative quiet was broken only by the imperfections of the rails.
“Who would like to hear about the boy kissed by a reindeer?”
The boys and girls raised their hands. Once again, the conductor cleaned his glasses. When they were back on his nose, the cabin lights went up and the trees disappeared. Some of the children and one adult shouted in surprise. The train had entered a tunnel.
They were inside the mountain.
“There once was a boy much like all of you.” His voice resonated over the echo of the steel wheels and the engine’s whistle. “On Christmas he sat at his window and waited for Santa. And each Christmas, he fell asleep. But one very special Christmas, he’d become lost and wandered about searching for his way back home. That was the year he was found by one very big, one very special reindeer.”
“Ronin,” Madeline muttered.
“This very brave reindeer hoisted the boy upon his back and flew him to the top of the world, where a very fat man and his family of elven welcomed him.”
The darkness of the tunnel was replaced by an icy sheet that appeared to expand the horizon. The children’s attention was drawn out of the windows and words of awe were pulled from their mouths. Madeline was unsure if the image of the North Pole was projected on the tunnel wall or in the train’s windows. It didn’t matter.
She shuddered.
“The elven prepare for one special day of the year,” the conductor said. “That’s when the reindeer gather and the sleigh is loaded. That’s when the snowmen help and th
e reindeer fly. And everyone works together to make it the greatest day of the year.”
Reindeer appeared to fall from the sky. Elven gave them feed of a special blend to help fill their helium bladders. A sack was in the back of a sleigh, and a very fat man in a red suit sat in the front seat. Snowmen loomed over the herd, helping pass along presents.
Madeline silently mouthed their names.
“And when it was time to leave, the very special reindeer flew the boy back. The boy rubbed his nose and said thank you. The reindeer’s nose was so hot that when he pressed it to the boy’s cheek, it left a mark he would never forget.”
The train continued chugging. The children pressed their faces to the glass. They pointed and shouted, staring in wonderment.
“Why didn’t the boy stay up there?”
Lisping wonder escaped through a gap in a little girl’s front teeth. The conductor leaned over and touched her cheek. “Because this is his home.”
“Well-well, why do elfs stay there?”
The conductor began to clean his glasses. All at once, the tunnel went black. The North Pole vanished and his voice rose out of the dark.
“Who said they did?”
Daylight knifed through the cabin. The children leaned back, their eyes growing wider. The train shot out of the other side of the mountain and into a bowl, as if a giant had scooped out the middle of the mountain and built houses out of gingerbread and twirling sticks of red and white candy canes. The roofs were pointed and steeply slanted, the doors short and wide, steps shallow and curving.
The streets were paved with brightly colored gumdrops. Elven waved as they passed, crowding the candy-paved streets with fat bellies and hairy feet. Some had braided hair, beards that tickled their toes or pulled over their shoulders. They wore long coats and short ones, shirts that didn’t quite cover their bellies or reached the ground. The children waved back, not realizing that if they looked very closely at the elven’s eyes and the shapes of their noses, all of them looked exactly the same.
As if they were all twins.
The train whistled and began to slow. The station was up ahead. The children bounced in their seats as the engine sighed with the final turn of steel wheels. The road was wide and welcoming, filled with excited elven around an enormous reindeer, who reared back.
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