The Legend of Holly Claus

by Brittney Ryan

  “Yes. I have been thinking about that very thing, my dear. We need to make a few improvements in Holly’s nursery.”

  Holly’s room was soon transformed from a typical, if lavish, nursery to a frozen wonderland. The floor was laid out in large tiles of mother-of-pearl, a soft rainbow glowing in each square of milky white. The tapestries that lined the walls were removed and replaced with rows of delicate shells. Holly’s cradle, too, was fashioned from a giant shell and draped with a canopy of the thinnest gossamer silk. The rose petal quilt that Gaia had given Holly was all the cover she needed now, and on the coldest winter nights she slept under the flowers, breathing their soft, eternal scent.

  When the thick velvet curtains had been removed from the high windows that stretched across one side of the room, Viviana had a sudden inspiration. She called in the Valkonyd gnomes, famous for their silence and their superb metalwork, and asked them to make the princess a grove of silver trees. “A grove of trees,” she repeated. “In silver. Don’t you think that would be nice?” she babbled, sounding ridiculous even to herself.

  “Yes,” said Samander, the leader of the Valkonyds.

  “Can you make such a thing?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. At that, the entire group bowed quickly and took their leave.

  A few days later, they returned, nearly a hundred of them, carrying the trees. They were exquisite. Tall silver birches, oaks, and maples climbed from the floor and branched out over Holly’s ceiling, their limbs tapering to delicate sprays of leaves, each paper thin and veined in a flawless replica of nature’s own miracle. In Holly’s room a forest grew, a crystal forest that offered cool shade for the summer months and a glittering lace of branches in the winter. The gnomes had used their magic well, and the silver trees followed the seasons like all others.

  “It’s—it’s magnificent!” Viviana had said, staring in amazement at what they had wrought.

  “You have made a marvel,” agreed Nicholas, looking gratefully at Samander.

  The Valkonyds bowed. There was a silence. A few gnomes nudged Samander with their elbows. Sighing, he took off his hat and stepped forward. “Hmm,” he said.

  “Yes?” said Viviana. “Ask for anything, Samander.”

  “Hmm,” he began again. Then, clearing his throat loudly, he said, “Can we see her?”

  “Holly?” asked Viviana.

  The gnomes nodded.

  “Certainly, of course. I didn’t know you hadn’t, at the christening …” stammered Viviana.

  “Too short.”

  So Viviana brought Holly from the next room. The gnomes crowded around, gravely observing the baby’s sleep-flushed cheeks and drowsy eyes. Finally Samander put out a stubby brown hand to touch the little reddish gold curl that had recently sprouted atop her head. “Good,” he said, with finality. Bowing quickly, the Valkonyds turned and left.

  Exactly one year and one day after Herrikhan’s assault on the Land of the Immortals, Tundra returned. On a crisp fall afternoon Nicholas was deeply immersed in a particularly murky human dispute, his spectacles resting atop his head, his desk covered with testimonies and counter-testimonies, when the door of his study opened quietly, and Tundra limped in.

  The two friends stared at each other in silence. The wolf looked thin and worn, his fur ragged and his eyes tired. Nicholas saw that he had a long, raised scar on his right forepaw, but he knew that Tundra would not willingly tell him how he had acquired it, nor anything else of the long year he had spent on the edges of the country as a solitary animal. “Welcome home, friend,” Nicholas greeted him quietly. “I have missed you more than I can say.”

  “Thank you, sire. I am glad to be home.” Tundra limped toward the rug that lay in front of the crackling fire. He turned once, preparing to lay himself down, but stopped suddenly and leaned his head forward to smell the rug. He stiffened, and then walked on his tired legs to another part of the room, beside Nicholas’s desk, where he lay down without a word. In less than a minute, he was asleep. Nicholas stared down at the familiar face and waited. Five minutes, ten minutes. When he was finally certain that Tundra would not wake, he pushed back his chair and tiptoed out to tell Viviana the news. And to find a soft rug to lay next to his desk.

  Tundra slept for three days, waking only to consume enormous quantities of meat and drink copious draughts of water. On the fourth day, Nicholas was again at his desk, still hard at work when Holly toppled in the door. “Bump,” she said.

  Holly had been a determined but not very dignified walker for the last three weeks. Each day she tried to escape from the nursery suite, causing her mother and the nursery goblins no end of alarm, for the crackling fires and stoves that heated the rest of the palace posed a risk to Holly’s snow heart. Ignorant of the danger, Holly scooted out the nursery door at every opportunity, eager to explore the fascinating territory beyond her rooms. She never cried when she was picked up and removed to where she was supposed to be; she just hummed and tried to wrap the goblins’ hair around their noses. Twice she had succeeded in escaping. The first time she had been found in the attic room where old magic wands were kept. This garret was quite cold, but “Who knows what kind of a wish a one-year-old baby might make?” Viviana had moaned. The second time Holly had made her way to Nicholas’s study, a place she immediately concluded was paradise, for it contained not only her daddy, but also a variety of interesting objects like globes and books and ink and a letter opener that were all too dangerous to be within her reach. Forgetting her fugitive status, in his delight Nicholas had tossed her in the air, showed her interesting pictures in Animals of the Planet Earth, and held her up to the open window to see the trees tossing in the wind. By the time a wild-eyed goblin burst into the room in a desperate search for the baby, Holly and Nicholas had become allies for all time.

  Now she had once again escaped and headed straight for Nicholas’s study. She picked herself up and chortled at her father. He chortled back. Her eyes scanned the room in search of the nice, dangerous letter opener and she caught sight of Tundra, sleeping on his side. When she encountered anything truly compelling, Holly abandoned walking in favor of the speedier crawl. In an instant she was breathing heavily in Tundra’s face, her nose pressed up against his. She inspected him closely. “Dog,” she said.

  Tundra didn’t even open his eyes. “I am not a dog,” he said.

  “Dog,” she repeated, reaching for an ear.

  Tundra lifted his head and looked at Nicholas. “There’s a small person in your study, sire,” he said.

  “I know it, Tundra. That’s Holly,” said Nicholas distractedly, waving one hand to put out the fire and the other to open the windows.

  “Ah. Holly.” Tundra squinted as she pulled more firmly on his ear. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Your Highness.”

  “Dog.”

  “I am not a dog.”

  “Woof.”

  “Exactly,” said Tundra, and there was something in his voice that made Nicholas turn. Holly was patting the wolf’s soft neck gently, and Tundra was smiling.

  The next morning Nicholas observed, peeking over his spectacles, that the wolf raised his head expectantly each time footsteps passed in the hallway outside the door. He said nothing, and Nicholas, too, kept a discreet silence. But after lunch Nicholas returned to his desk to find Tundra’s rug empty. The afternoon ticked quietly away—one hour, two hours, and still he did not return. At four o’clock, consumed by curiosity, Nicholas slammed his books shut and walked, ever so casually, toward the nursery.

  He heard them before he saw them. Holly was shrieking, “Go, go, go!” between gales of laughter, and Alexia, sounding determined, was calling, “Hold still! Hold still!”

  Nicholas opened the door. Holly, dressed in a blue nightgown which revealed that she was supposed to be napping, sat astride Tundra’s back, her hands clasped around his neck. The little fox, who couldn’t bear to miss out on any fun, was trying to take her seat behind Holly. This she hoped to accomplish by leapin
g wildly in the air at Tundra, who stepped neatly aside each time. Alexia couldn’t understand why she was having no success, and Holly thought it was the funniest thing she had ever seen. But they did not astonish Nicholas; Tundra did. Here was Tundra the majestic, the calm, the solemn, Tundra whom Nicholas had always declared should have been king in his stead, dancing across the floor with a baby on his back and a silly fox under his feet. To Nicholas’s profound relief, he looked vastly amused.

  From that day on, Tundra divided his time between his old duties and his new. He was Nicholas’s most trusted advisor, a conscientious voice of reason, and an astute and ready guardian. But he was Holly’s companion, protector, and confidant, who watched over her with pride and tenderness. Sometimes Nicholas would come upon the two of them fast asleep, Holly’s arm curled around her faithful friend, worn out from their day’s play, and he would say to himself that it made perfect sense. Holly was the one person who could never remind the wolf of his lost Terra. Nicholas was grateful that his daughter had the loyalty and love of the being he most admired.

  Chapter Eight

  BUT WHY?” HOLLY SAID, glancing worriedly from her mother to her father. For the sixteenth day in a row, as the Land of the Immortals sweltered under the summer sun, a blizzard fell from the silver branches of the trees in her room. The mother-of-pearl floor was frigid under her bare feet, and Viviana shivered within the velvet coat she kept in Holly’s rooms to wear during her hours there. “Why do I have to be cold?”

  “Because your heart has to be cold to do its job,” Nicholas said.

  Holly thought, her four-year-old imagination struggling to picture her heart’s job. “You said other boys and girls,” she said after a moment. “You said other boys and girls had illness just like me. Can they come to play?”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” said Nicholas, gathering her up in his arms. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. In the mortal world, there are other girls and boys, but there are no other children in the Land of the Immortals. You are very special here.”

  Holly’s troubled green eyes rested on his. “All right,” she said finally, and slipped out of his lap. Her feet padded lightly across the floor to her hideaway. This was a little nook that Samander’s gnomes had carved into the largest silver tree. Holly had covered the opening with a scarf embroidered with green leaves. When she wanted to think, work out a problem, or be alone, Holly would crawl into her cavern and close the curtain. Now she waved to her parents and disappeared behind the scarf. Nicholas and Viviana heard her rustling about, making herself comfortable. There was a long silence. Then, very softly, Holly began to whisper. “Yes,” she was saying, “here. And you can have this one too. Would you like my dolly? Her name is Kasana. She has two dresses. Kasana has illness too. Do you want a cream bun? Mmm. Yes. Do you want another? You can have them all …”

  Though Holly was permitted to wander freely through the palace on very cold days, she spent much of her time in her suite of rooms. The silver trees now arched over a glass bed with a canopy of lace instead of the shell cradle, and in Holly’s playroom the baby’s rattles and rockers had been replaced with dolls and books and puzzles. Tiny glass and wood animals paraded through a miniature town at one end of the room, and at the other stood Holly’s easel and paints. Music boxes from the workshops of Forever lined one of the long, low shelves that ran under the windows, and in the dusk Holly often stood watching the sunset as their tunes spun daintily along. A cushioned window seat in one corner faced a plush sofa and a small armchair grouped around a tea table. She dined with her mother and father in the palace dining room, wearing a gown spun of snow, the work of Mr. Guillée, whose creations twinkled like diamonds in the candlelight. On particularly warm nights, Nicholas assisted her snow gowns by calling up a small flurry of the enchanted snow, which kept her heart the proper temperature without inconveniently melting into the soup.

  Outdoors was a more complex matter. True, on a crisp winter day the gardens were even colder than the palace and therefore more suitable for Holly. But the problem was variability; who could predict when the sun would grow strong and heat the chill air to a dangerous degree? And what, exactly, was that degree? Not even the immortal Dr. Gaston Lavalier of the St. Amboise Institute could answer that question with any certainty. There had been several frightening incidents since the fateful night of Herrikhan’s visit, but nothing approached that first experience. And, in her toddler days, Holly had managed to place herself in several warm rooms without ill effects. But, as Viviana insisted, perhaps she had been rescued in the nick of time. It was a mystery, a puzzle, and to Holly, a baffling punishment that she was just beginning to wonder what she had done to deserve.

  Late that night, long after her bedtime, Holly crept out of her glistening bed and stole across her room to look out the window. She climbed upon the cushioned seat beneath the glass and pressed her face against the pane. The sky was still pink in the west, and far beyond the palace gardens she could make out a few of the colored lanterns strung along the village streets. Shadows passed back and forth across the distant lights; maybe someone was dancing; maybe there was a party. Holly pushed her ear to the glass, straining to hear a few fleeting notes of music. Nothing. Only the soft whisper of snow brushing against the floor. Cautiously Holly put both of her hands to the sash and pushed. A shrill creak broke the silence of the room. Holly froze, expecting a harried goblin face to peek round the door. Nothing. She pushed again, lifting the window above her head. A wave of soft, warm air greeted her. The night was sweet scented and rich with sounds. Little rustles and chirps emerged from the dark branches below her, and the swelling anthem of cicadas rose from the lawn beyond. From far away snatches of laughter and stray notes of music danced through the air. Holly leaned forward, drinking in the languid, summery air like a potion. She tilted her chin up and scanned the stars, the moon, the enchanted dust of the nighttime sky. She dreamed.

  “Holly.” She jumped guiltily. It was Tundra, his white fur shimmering in the dark room. “You know that window should be closed. It’s too warm outside for you to have your window open.”

  Holly was too little to argue, too little to explain that she wanted to be part of the party, that she wanted to see the creatures who laughed together in the warm night, that she was tired of the shushing snow and silvery breezes. All she could do was cry. She put her head down on the window seat and sobbed. Tundra watched her for a while without interrupting, but then he rested his head near hers on the cushion and gently licked her ear. His sandpapery tongue tickled, and Holly stopped crying and gave a little hiccup.

  “Your ear is filled with tears,” Tundra observed.

  “My nose is filled with tears too.”

  “Are you too hot?”

  “No,” Holly said listlessly. “I’m fine. I was watching the shadows. They’re having a party down in the village.”

  “Would you like that? A party?” asked Tundra hopefully.

  Holly glanced up, her face bright with hope. “What do you mean? A real party? With children?”

  “No—no,” Tundra stammered, regretting his words. “No—you know that there are no other children here. With grown-ups. In the ballroom.”

  Holly drooped again. “No. No, thank you.”

  The wolf watched her, aching with sympathy, and then said, “I’m sorry. That’s not what you want at all, is it?”

  Holly seemed to have grown older as she looked at her friend. She said, “It’s all right; you wanted to make me happy, because you love me.” She wrapped her arms around Tundra s neck and buried her face in his fur.

  “Time for bed,” he said.

  “Time for bed,” she repeated obediently, dropping off the window seat onto his back without warning. Tundra was used to this maneuver and patiently carried her to her bed, where he dumped her unceremoniously onto her soft mattress. Silently they touched noses, and Holly rolled into a little ball and fell asleep.

  Time went on, and Holly made some discoveries that changed her life. The
first of these came on a gloomy, bitterly cold evening in February. Always enlivened by brisk, frosty weather, Holly was trotting around her room busily, creating a circus with her dolls. Holly’s circuses were exciting events that featured death-defying feats of courage, such as jumping over sleeping wolves. At the moment one of her dolls was preparing to stick her head into the mouth of a lion. Holly was looking around for a lion. Then, she remembered that she had one, a toy lion, on wheels, too, which would be ideal.

  But where was it? She looked around thoughtfully. She had made a zoo recently. In the closet. She pattered off to the closet, looking like a busy angel in her snowflake nightgown. It was nearly a room unto itself, and it held no clothes—those were kept in an icy cold wardrobe—but only old toys, odds and ends and bits of things that nobody could bear to throw out. Holly peered into its shadowy depths. The lion was there, lying on his side, but her attention was caught by a strange object. A long cylinder, covered in smooth black leather, was balanced atop a stand. Holly stared. What was it? She had never seen it before. She pulled the stand out into the light, observing the brass fittings around the cylinders case and the thick glass at one end. The other end sported a small peephole. Inspired by a vague idea, or perhaps a recollection, Holly pushed the stand to a window.

  Some minutes later, when Nicholas and Viviana came in to read Holly her good-night story, they found their daughter perched on a precarious stack of books, gazing raptly through a telescope that neither of them could remember seeing before. Holly turned to her parents, her cheeks flushed with excitement. “What is it?” she asked her father breathlessly.

  Nicholas leaned down to the glass, fully expecting to see the lights of the village brought a bit closer by the telescope. Instead a living vision of a tropical island greeted him. Brilliant red and blue macaws clung to swaying palm trees, greedily snatching palm fruits from one another. Beyond the thick foliage, clear blue water glinted under a balmy sun. Nicholas gazed at this picture of warmth for a moment, but Holly’s insistent tug on his robe returned him to her questioning face. “It’s an island, sweetheart,” he said.