“What?”
“Like you are cake.” Pen giggled, pogoing on the floor with excitement. “The spongiest, most swirliest, chocolatiest, nuttiest Yule log ever.”
“Nuttiest seems about right,” I muttered to myself, pushing back up to my feet with a groan.
“Oh, maybe Hare will make us one. His are the best.”
“So I’ve heard.” Repeatedly from Pen.
“Hare! Hare!” Pen flayed his fins, toddling for the door.
“Pen, we’ve eaten dinner… and dessert.”
“So?” He swung the door open, blinking at me with confusion.
Having no energy to fight him, I let him run down the hall screaming for Hare.
If this was what it was like to be a parent, I could understand why so many drank. I really wished Hare had the ingredients for the mead. Countless times I had wished for the Christmas fairies to hear me and deliver mistletoe in a vial to us. But apparently that wasn’t life or death. Which I begged to differ.
It wasn’t only mistletoe we didn’t have, and nothing grew this far up the mountain, which made me worry about supplies and how we’d get more. There wasn’t a shop around the corner.
“Pen… fuck off!” Hare grumbled as I walked down the hall into the living room. Like an overworked father, he slumped in a chair, his legs up on the table, drinking cocoa and probably wishing whiskey was in it. “I’m not making a Yule log, Yule muffin, or a Yule cookie.”
“Oh! How about a Yule scone?”
Hare breathed in, his whiskers twitching, losing his patience. Trapped in this house for days was sinking us deeper into madness. Or was it sanity if all of us were fairly mad anyway?
“Pen, go play with Dum.” I veered him to the coffee table where Nick and Dum were in a high-stakes game of Go Fish. As much as Nick was bitching and throwing a fit, it was clear Dum was kicking his ass.
None of us had spoken of the night before. When I tried to bring it up, Nick chucked everything off the table, flipping chairs before stomping outside. He disappeared for hours and finally came in demanding dinner. I hadn’t said a word to him since.
I fell into a chair across from Hare, his exhausted gaze meeting mine. He slid his cocoa to me without a word and I took a slip. It was delicious, but I craved salt. Something savory. All the sweet dishes were making my stomach gag and my teeth itch.
“Can you wish one of those vials?” Hare folded his arms over his apron, plucking at the ruffles.
“I’ve tried.” Seemed Hare and I were on the same wavelength. “Doesn’t seem to work that way.” I set the cup down, sinking deeper into the chair. “Only appears when my life is on the line.”
“No problem, I’ll just stab you. Leave you for dead.”
“Nice.”
“What? It will cure you, and we’ll get what we want.”
“With my luck, it will only be a gingerbread cookie, and then I really will ask you to kill me.”
“One more night here and I’ll be begging you.” He tipped his head back in the chair.
We were quiet for a moment, listening to the three playing cards behind us.
“It’s been four days.” I stared down at the table, the ring of liquid circling the mug on the table.
“I know.” Hare exhaled.
“What did he mean when he said max four days? What happens in four days?”
Hare stirred in his seat.
“Tell me.” I sat up, my hands rolling into balls. I had tried several times to talk to Hare about the last conversation with Scrooge, but he kept weaseling out of it. “Tell me now, Hare.”
“He made me promise.”
“Please, your word is no better than his. Survivalists aren’t honest. There’s no room for morals when you are trying to stay alive.”
Hare’s mouth twitched with mischievousness. “You have learned a lot here.”
“So tell me.”
Hare drew his legs off the table, sitting up straight. “Four days means he failed.”
“What?” Ice lobbed in my throat, freezing everything as it slipped down to my stomach.
“You can’t be there any longer without it completely taking you.” Hare’s shoulders lowered; his paws folded on the table. “Most can’t even handle stepping in there without losing themselves. Three days would break the strongest person. Four… five… there’d be nothing left.”
“Hare…” I gulped, fighting back the dread springing up like weeds, coiling around my ribs, strangling my lungs. “Please tell me you are lying.”
“Why lie when the truth is far crueler?”
I bolted up from the chair, knocking it back on the floor.
“No.” Hare leaped up on the table. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Too late,” I snipped, my body and mind whirling in a circle, not sure what to do first. All I knew was I had to get to him.
“You can’t go after him. He made me promise to keep you safe.”
“I don’t care what you promised him,” I yelled. “He needs us. I will not let him die there.”
“He’s not dead.”
“What?” I stopped, locking on Hare. “What do you mean? He’s okay?”
“No. He’s far from okay. Being there is worse than death. Death is at least kind.” Hare hopped closer to me on the table, his eyeline even with mine. “His form will still be there, but the man will not be. The place doesn’t kill your body but breaks your mind. Your soul. Your spirit. There will be nothing left of the Scrooge that you or I know.”
“Then we get his soul, his spirit back. Like he was going to for Nick.”
“Maybe, but...”
“I don’t understand. We get him back. He was going to retrieve Santa’s and return, right?”
“That was wishful thinking.”
“There’s still a chance, right?”
“Besides, no one here is able to go after him.” He motioned to the group around the coffee table and himself. “That place doesn’t give up something without getting something in return.”
I stepped back from Hare, trying to compute what he was telling me.
“A toy for a toy. A gift for a gift.”
“A soul for a soul,” I whispered in understanding.
Hare bobbed his head.
“The place feeds on broken things. He was already destroyed and in pieces. There is little chance his soul is strong enough to fight.”
“How could you let him go?” I bellowed, my arms waving around, agony beating my heart. “If you knew he had no chance, how could you let him do this?”
“I don’t let him do anything,” Hare yelled back. “If you noticed, he has a mind of his own. Pigheaded! You think I wanted him to go? Lose my best friend this way? I keep staring at the door with every noise, every wisp of the wind.” He tapped his chest as if it ached inside.
“You could have stopped him.”
“Don’t you think I hate myself for not standing stronger against him? But I know how he is when he makes up his mind. Nothing could have stopped him,” Hare exclaimed. “And he knew… he knew he was our only chance.”
“Why? Why was he the only chance? Why not someone else?”
“Because!”
“Because why?”
“Only those not from this world can step in there.”
Oxygen sucked out of my lungs, and I drew back with bewilderment. “What?”
“Fuck.” Hare lowered his head, rubbing his forehead.
“What do you mean by that? How can Scrooge go in?”
Hare lifted his head, his jaw locking.
“Hare?” I warned.
“Mr. Scrooge is not originally from this world.” Penguin spoke instead. I jerked my head to him by the coffee table. “He’s from yours.”
“From-From my world?” I sputtered, snapping back to Hare.
“Pen…” Hare’s head fell back, peering at the ceiling, his head shaking.
“He’s from Earth?” My mouth still stuck on the floor.
“Once upon
a time.” Hare tipped his head down, looking at me. “A long, long time ago he came here. But that’s all I will say on it. His story is not for me to tell.” Hare looked over my shoulder. “And not yours either, Pen. Zip it!”
Pen plopped on the floor with a pout, humming under his breath.
It was hard for me to let it go and not drill them for more information, but I knew they wouldn’t tell me more.
Tick. Tick. The pendulum slipped time through my fingers.
“What you’re saying is I can go in there.” I poked my chest.
“Yes, but no.” Hare wagged his head. “There’s no way I’m letting you go. He’d kill me!”
“Well, he’s not here, is he? And he may never come back.” I grabbed Hare’s paws. “Wouldn’t you give anything for him to be here and be able to kill you?”
Hare snorted, but his throat bobbed with the grief he held back, his eyes shimmering with emotion.
“I can get him. I know it. Help me, Hare. Help me get Scrooge back to us. How do I get there?”
His mouth opened to answer me.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The door shuttered like it was being hit with rocks, injecting fear into my veins. Then exhilarated hope.
“Scrooge?” I took a step toward the entrance.
“It’s not him.” Hare grabbed my arm, pulling me back. His ears and whiskers wiggling as he listened and sniffed for a scent. “I don’t smell anything. I know his smell.”
I gulped, staring back at the thin barricade keeping the intruder back.
“Where’s my gun?” Nick stood up.
I saw it first, still in the corner by the door, where Scrooge had left it for us. Grabbing it, I clicked off the safety.
“Hey! That’s my rifle. What the hell? What part of mine don’t you guys seem to understand?”
“Not the time, Nick,” I muttered, inching toward the door, raising the gun.
The door rattled again, an eerie whistle slipping through the cracks that was not the wind.
“Pen. Dum.” I motioned for them to get behind me. I knew they weren’t children and could fight, but we had no weapons besides the single rifle and a few kitchen knives. Without more weapons—snowballs or candy canes—they really were vulnerable targets.
The whistle grew louder, creepy in the casualness of it as if someone was politely waiting to kill us.
“Oh no. Oh no,” Pen squeaked, backing up behind me. Dum grabbed a pillow off the sofa, holding it like he would pummel someone with it. Hare swiped a frying pan, holding it in one hand and his butcher knife in the other.
Hare gave me a nod, and I took a step toward the door.
“Such boorish behavior in not receiving a guest in a timely manner, my friends,” a voice sang out, running chills down the back of my neck. An alarm ticked in my brain. The voice was familiar.
“Trying to find sense in a house of insanity will only drive you insanely sane,” he spoke again.
“Turtle dove!” I hissed like a swear word, grabbing the door and yanking it open, knowing who was on the other side.
“Turtle dove? I am certainly not that, my dear. You have lost all your marbles.”
“Frosty,” I snarled, keeping the barrel pointed at him. It was probably useless against a snow cone.
The coal smile curved across his face, the snowman hovering at the base of the steps. The snowballs he used as door knockers lay on the welcome mat. He lifted his hat, tipping it to me in greeting, his button eyes never leaving me. “It’s good to see you again, Ms. Alice.”
“Can’t say the same.”
“I understand. You must think me dreadful.”
“I don’t think. You are.” Anger burst out of me, warming my skin.
“What you think. And what is true. Which one is real? Only in the eyes of the beholder is it fact.”
“Shut. Up.” I gripped the gun in my hand, my gaze scouring the land behind him, waiting for the troop of soldiers to reach the ridge. “Where are the minions? I didn’t think you went anywhere without them.”
“Nothing appears like what it seems… it seems.” His smile expanded.
“Stop your riddles!” I yelled. “Why are you here?”
“To help, of course.”
“We don’t need your kind of help.”
“But you do.” His branched arms wiggled at the weapon in my hand. “You might as well drop that. It will do nothing to me.”
Dammit. What I figured.
“You know what will?” All my fears and frustrations over the week congealed into one mold, shaping my next actions. Whirling around, I shoved the gun at Nick and grabbed a broom propped against the wall and shoved the bristles into the fireplace.
Whoosh. The flames hungrily clung to the dry kindling, bursting with joy at their meal. No one spoke as I stomped out the door and down the stairs, heading for the snowman.
“Whoa!” Frosty slid back, his stick arms coming up as if they could protect him, which made me snort with derision. They would be another snack for my fiery friend.
“Melt him like a marshmallow,” Hare cheered behind me as I lurched for the giant snowball.
“Ms. Alice, you don’t want to do this.” Frosty skated away from me.
“Oh. Yes. I. do.” Every fiber of my being was locked on its mission: to melt him into a puddle, dumping his remains down the toilet.
To kill Frosty the Snowman.
“Alice!” My name was hollered behind me, but I ignored it, my mind set in motion. I knew the voice wasn’t Hare’s or even Nick’s, but I brushed it away. Mission locked.
“After I melt your jolly happy soul, I’m going to boil that corncob pipe for dinner, sew your nose on my shirt. It’s missing a button.” I winked, holding up the flaming broom, ready to shove it in his gut. “And use your coal eyes to burn down the Queen’s palace.”
“Alice!” The voice jabbed into my skin, halting me. “Stop!”
My head snapped around to the owner.
Rudolph stood on the porch, dressed in baggy green pants, his shoulders hunched with pain. He held his stomach like he tore a wound open, but his brown eyes burned into mine, full of spirit. “Don’t hurt him.” He took a step down into the snow, moving to me as if I were the wild animal.
“Why?” I pleaded, needing revenge, my fury quaking my body. “He was the reason I almost died. The reason Scrooge and I were caught by the Queen. He works for her. He probably already has troops heading here. He would gladly kill us in our sleep.”
“No.” Rudy grabbed my wrist, moving the fiery broom away from Frosty. “He works with me.”
“Excuse me? What are you talking about?”
“Blitzen would have killed me.” Rudy inched closer to me. “Frosty saved my life. And he saved yours.”
Chapter 29
Sparks of light danced in the dark brown of Rudy’s eyes. A backdrop displayed his sincerity to save a life and my ruthlessness to take one.
“What?” I searched his expression, longing to find a lie in his proclamation. A hallucination in his fevered brain. “What do you mean he saved my life? You did. You got me to ask for help. I only escaped the guillotine because of you. He was the one who led us there.”
“A performance must be genuine for the audience to accept the reality of the absurd.” Frosty’s arms wiggled like he revealed a magic trick.
“Right.” I scoffed. “You were playing against the Queen this whole time? Sure. That’s why my neck was stretched across the block?”
“I supplied the very person to assist in your escape. Once you were up there, my dear, it was out of my hands. I trusted Rudy to deliver on his end. If any blame should be had, it should be yours. You put yourself there.”
“What is he talking about?” I faced Rudy, the burning broom crackling and snapping in my hand.
“When you first saw me?” Rudy waited for me to nod, recalling it. “That’s where I was headed… to the palace.” His voice was always steady and matter of fact, but his grip on my arm held hi
s emotion. Gentle but firm, his thumb rubbed my wrist like he was the link keeping me to this realm. “The story was being written, neither of us knowing then it was your life I would be saving.” He stepped closer to me. “But I’m glad it was.”
“Well. Well.” Frosty’s coal smile stretched up his face, resembling a dot-to-dot game. “Interesting. You, my dear, have more muchness than I first thought. Suitors coming out like a fairy tale.”
Rolling my eyes, I ignored his insinuation while my head tried to make sense of everything.
“But… How can that be?” My brow crumpled. “I hadn’t even met Scrooge or any of them yet.” I motioned back to Hare and Dum on the deck. “You were heading to the event before I even got here. How is it possible?”
“You’ll go mad trying to twist sensibleness into something that makes sense only because it doesn’t.”
A nerve pinched my temple at Frosty’s ludicrous logic, because a lot of me understood what he meant.
Christmas wrappings.
I didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing I grasped this crazy place.
“I was able to save you and Scrooge only because of his plan. I was able to get Hare, Dee, and Dum in on it.” Plucking the broom from my hand, he tossed it in the snow. The bristles hissed and sputtered, the flames screaming out in death as the ice ripped life from them.
“It’s true.” Hare hopped down a step, bobbing on his good leg. “I didn’t know about Frosty. But it was Rudy who got me out of the cage. All of us. Set up the explosion. The reason we were able to escape.”
My head shaking, I backed away, Rudy’s fingers skidding off my skin. I didn’t want to accept Frosty was a good guy. It didn’t make sense in my head. I had painted the picture of him already, who he was, and it was difficult for me to see him in another way. I also felt this strange obligation to Scrooge, to protect him, and he hated Frosty. Didn’t trust him.
Could I?
The vague memory of seeing Frosty at the forest edge when we ran from the palace scraped at the back on my brain like an ice pick, spearing at my conviction and carving doubt.
“Alice.” Rudy recaptured the distance between us, his antlers looming over me. “He saved my life. Blitzen would have beheaded me, took it back to the palace, and had me mounted next to Dancer and Prancer.” A lick of emotion caught in his throat at the mention of his friends. His head turned, forcing me to dance back from getting hit by his horns. “He distracted Blitzen before he could kill me. Frosty allowed me to escape. I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t for him.” He swung back, taking my hands in his. His body bowed more with every breath. Pain and fatigue pushed down on him like gravity. “If you don’t trust him, then trust me. I will never let anything happen to you.”
DESCENDING INTO MADNESS Page 23
