Rise of the Miser: Claus, #5

by Tony Bertauski

  He rapped on the pilot’s door. There was no knob. It was a black panel.

  “Stay here.”

  He walked to the rear of the plane and peeked into a back room. Despite the warmth, Kandi wrapped the scarf around her face. When he came back out, his pace was hurried.

  “What is it?” Kandi said.

  “Nothing to worry about.”

  He rubbed his temple with two fingers. There was plenty of worry in his voice and the way he knocked on the pilot’s door. It wasn’t a polite rap this time.

  “Hellooo,” a supersweet voice sang.

  The walls began to shimmer. The black surface appeared to undulate. Kandi’s stomach dropped. The illusion warped her sense of presence. Space seemed to expand, like the walls were liquidy. It didn’t feel like they were standing inside an airplane but an endless field cloaked in night.

  “Please, have a seat, make yourself comfortable and make sure you buckle your seatbelts. I want you to be safe and happy during your flight, but you know how weather can be.”

  The interior walls continued to swirl, forming iridescent clouds of green, blue and orange, like they were flying through a dream.

  “Heather?” Her dad looked up. “Is that you?”

  Only he didn’t pronounce the name like it was spelled. Heather rhymed with feather. He said Heether like it rhymed with seether.

  Kandi had seen notes on his desk when she was packing. She was snooping. He hadn’t said much about where they were going or why, only that she wasn’t staying home alone and this would be like a vacation.

  “Of course it’s me, silly.” Her laughter crackled like embers. “Please, sit down and buckle up. We’ll be taking off shortly. There’s food and drinks, but in the meantime you need to be safe.”

  “Can I talk to the pilot?”

  “Enough with the chitchat. We have a long flight ahead of us and I’m sure you’re eager to get there.” Laughter flickered on the walls. “Take a seat. Choppity-chop.”

  A current of dark purple streamed overhead. Kandi shivered. Storm clouds were not what she wanted to see. Her dad was still searching for the voice. His hands were on his hips and a steel edge was around his eyes. She knew that look. This was all moving a little fast and strange.

  More than a little, really.

  The distant hail of winter buffeted the plane. Silence had returned and Kandi began to doubt she ever heard a voice or saw colors. The walls shimmered again, this time giving rise to shapes instead of amorphous streams of color. The floor transformed into sand. A cloudless blue sky was above. Water extended out to flat horizons.

  “We’re waiting,” the voice said sweetly.

  There were a lot of reasons he’d moved them to Alaska. She never protested, never questioned why he did it.

  She trusted him.

  “Take that one.” He pointed at a seat.

  Kandi didn’t unbutton her coat. She wouldn’t unwrap the scarf, either. Her dad sat next to her. He was nodding with a rigid jawline.

  “Could you... turn that off?” He waved at the walls. “Just make it black.”

  The walls responded and the plane was just a plane instead of a tropical paradise. Flying was stressful enough without being reminded water would soon be all around. Although it might be nice to forget they were in a plane.

  The illusion had been a good one.

  “We look forward to your arrival,” the voice said. “Buckle up, honey.”

  The engines whined and the plane jolted forward. Her dad nodded with a grim smile.

  Just like a roller coaster.

  The plane lurched forward and the nose tipped up. They leaned back and her stomach dropped. Cold still rattled in her bones, but she wished there were windows. It would be nice to see the snow.

  It was the holiday season, after all.

  KANDI

  3

  Kandi was gently nudged awake.

  Sleep had buried her beneath a truckload of sand. It was heavy and damp. Occasionally, she would drift near the surface to feel the plane rocking before sinking back to the bottom, but this time the turbulence was different.

  “Wake up.”

  Her eyelashes broke a crusty seal. She blinked her dad into focus. Her mouth was thick and gummy.

  The plane was quiet.

  “Are we there?”

  He handed her a bottle. She stood too quickly, top-heavy with the dregs of sleep. He held her steady and opened the water. The pilot’s cabin was still closed. Their luggage was waiting for the door to open.

  “How long was I asleep?”

  “We just landed.”

  Lights illuminated the black walls. It still felt like night. When the seal broke around the door, sunshine knifed into the cabin. Kandi covered her eyes. A warm and salty breeze chased out the stale air. A blue and cloudless sky appeared.

  They were parked at the end of a runway. The spit of land was long and narrow. A few bent palm trees grew where white sand met the ocean. A small building with dark windows reflected their climb out of the plane. A yacht rocked against a covered dock.

  “This is it?” she said.

  “Almost.”

  A smile touched his expression. Something had set him at ease. Maybe he’d had a conversation with Heether while she’d slept. He nodded behind her. Another island disrupted the sharp horizon. A tropical paradise had been dropped into the middle of the ocean.

  The sun was already biting her shoulders.

  She’d never been on a boat. She once went to the town of Unalaska with her dad. The only things grayer than the skies were the hulls of battered ships. Foamy waves exploded against them in a spray of watery fireworks. Merchant marines were hidden beneath slick rain gear as they secured gear on the deck. There was nothing fun about it.

  But this was a yacht.

  It was long and sleek. The edge of the hull was designed to slice through water. Unlike the plane, her dad climbed aboard without hesitation. The cabin windows were black and the door was locked. Kandi stood at the bow, her fingers tightly wrapped around the handle of her suitcase.

  Her dad untied them from the dock.

  She had become motion sick in the plane. Her dad had given her Dramamine to calm the nausea. Not long after that, the sandman buried her. There were snippets of dialog in her sleep, but she wasn’t sure if they were part of a dream or her dad talking to the plane. He seemed to know what he was doing.

  Or maybe the sun revived him.

  There wasn’t much sunshine in Fairbanks this time of year. Certainly no sand. Kandi remained at the tip of the bow, one hand on the rail and the other on her suitcase. The hull slashed through the blue waves. The rusty details of cliffs came into view, and clusters of palms leaned over pristine beaches. The sun was directly overhead, the heat magnified on her arms.

  The island was glittering.

  A shallow alcove led to a stretch of white sand and a sporadic planting of palm trees. Trunks appeared to be on fire. They were bright red and flashing. Orbs hung from the canopies and caught the flashing sunlight.

  Beyond was a resort.

  It was only a few stories tall, but it expanded into the trees. The walls were off-white and tinted with splashes of algae. Broad windows were evenly laid in two rows. Below each window, a cluster of lights hung.

  Christmas Island.

  The wheels of their luggage rapped along the dock. A golf cart was waiting for them. A cloud of gnats hovered above the roof. They danced like miniature starlings, swirling in dark bands that would suddenly disperse. Welcome to the tropics.

  Alaska had sparrow-sized mosquitos in the summer that could draw blood out by the pint. Here on the beach, there would be hordes of things that bit and scratched and stung. They strapped their bags on the back of the cart without the bugs dive-bombing them. Her dad sat behind the steering wheel.

  His posture was slightly deflated.

  He refused to look at her, staring straight ahead at the monstrous resort. This was going to be a work vacation, bu
t the uncertainty was back. Maybe he’d thought there would be more people around.

  “This is a vacation, just like you said.” She grabbed his shoulder. It was already warm. “Sunshine and sand and palm trees. What else are we going to do?”

  His brow furrowed. She always wondered if that was guilt she sensed, guilt for moving them to Fairbanks just below the surface. Kandi reached in her pocket for her phone. The Apple logo appeared.

  The screen went blank.

  “Look, no phone. I promise.”

  The tension didn’t release from his forehead, but the smile grew an increment. It wasn’t much, not anything someone would notice.

  The path wound through a grassy courtyard. It was not a direct route to the wide steps leading up to a veranda. It took them past curvy swimming pools and a volleyball court. Loungers were positioned beneath umbrellas. Everything was tidy and set for a horde of tourists who never came.

  The gnats followed them.

  Several golf carts were near the steps. They were miniature versions of the cart they were driving. Like vehicles for children. But there were no toys on the grounds. Other than the volleyball net, everything looked more like a retirement spa, a place to sit back with a cold drink and count the waves.

  Her dad parked next to the little carts. Hand hooked over the steering wheel, he stared ahead. Kandi unstrapped the bags and wheeled them to the stairs.

  Carrots were scattered on the bottom step.

  That was her favorite thing to do on Christmas Eve. She would cut them into disks and throw them in the yard for the reindeer. In the morning, they were all gone. Seemed a little early to be putting out carrots. Christmas was still three weeks away.

  Maybe they weren’t for Santa’s reindeer.

  “Yoo-hoo! Up here!”

  Heether called from somewhere on the veranda. Kandi imagined her waving as she sang out, but her voice was still disembodied like it had been on the plane.

  “Bring your bags, come along. You’re a strong girl with a big strong dad. Come along, choppity-chop.”

  Her dad led the way. She thumped her suitcase up the first ten steps.

  “Hon?” the voice said. “You might break something.”

  Kandi hauled her suitcase silently up the next twenty steps.

  Her black hair stuck to her cheeks. Her shirt was damp with perspiration. The ocean breeze was stiffer on the veranda. Toward the back, deep in the shadows, a television panel was mounted on the wall. Her suitcase bounced along the cobblestones. The shade didn’t seem to offer respite from the heat. Sweat tracked down their faces.

  The cobblestones felt like hot coals.

  Several glass doors were folded open. Inside the resort, a silhouette stood beneath a grand chandelier. Heether was slender and curvy in a summer dress. A wide-brimmed hat sloped over her face and shaded her shoulders. Multicolored light reflected off the chandelier and speckled the buffed floor around her.

  Yet she remained a silhouette.

  “Merry, merry.” Two dark objects squirmed in her arms. “It’s sooo nice to meet you, hon. It means so much to your father that you’re here, I’m positively positive. I mean, how can you not just love it here? Just look at the view.”

  Her dad looked around the veranda, but not at the view. He sensed it, too. Heether’s voice didn’t seem to be coming from the silhouetted figure.

  It was all around.

  “Look, please,” she said. “Turn around and look at the view.”

  Kandi and her dad exchanged glances before turning around. The view was ripped right from the centerfold of a vacation brochure. It was the little things that kept it slightly surreal. The strange play of light inside the house, the warm balcony beneath their feet.

  The expectant courtyard.

  “Heether,” her dad started, “I think we should—”

  “I know you have a load of questions, but we don’t want to dally. There’s so much to see and do, and I’m sure you’re tired and anxious and smelly, so I’d like to show you to your room. You could use a shower, Naren. I know how you are.”

  The small objects in her arms yipped. Her arms were shadows, the brightness turned so low that the details were nonexistent.

  “Shhh, Momma’s talking.”

  They stepped just inside the folded doors. Christmas ornaments appeared to hover in a domed ceiling that was mostly occupied by the massive chandelier. They floated like apples in a bucket of water. Brown straws twirled like batons.

  Cinnamon sticks.

  The ocean breeze fluttered long, heavy drapery at the far end of the foyer. Heether’s floppy hat was undisturbed. Once again, she chastised the growling little things. Kandi guessed they were dogs.

  “Your room is that way.”

  Kandi walked around the silhouette like an art critic. Heether turned with her but didn’t leave the polished circle. Her feet remained anchored. Kandi peered beneath the wide-brimmed hat and saw even more of the dim silhouette. She reached out to touch her. This time the dogs barked.

  Kandi’s hand passed through her.

  “No, no,” Heether whispered. “Your room is that way. Choppity-chop.”

  She was a projection. How she was doing it, Kandi couldn’t begin to guess. It was certainly the coolest thing she’d ever seen.

  Until she looked down the hall.

  When Kandi had seen the resort from the boat, she assumed it ended just inside the trees. But unless this was another illusion, the building went all the way to the end of the island. A fully loaded semitruck could drive down the middle of the hallway with enough room for a compact car to pass on either side. It was so long that the end was obscured by a white haze—like dense air undulating above summer asphalt.

  And there were decorations.

  The ornaments and cinnamon sticks floating around the chandelier were merely eye candy. Snow seemed to perpetually fall in the hallway. Snowballs were flying and snowmen were sliding and reindeer were jumping from one side to the other and not from the doors, which were closed, but straight from one solid wall to the other. Occasionally, an elf popped out of the floor and looked around.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Heether sang. “It’s more room than I need. But I’m still young.”

  Her laughter carried down the hall. All at once, it was joined by a forest of laughing animals.

  “Heether, I really think we should—”

  “Now, now, Naren. You’re my guest. The master suite is at the end. There are a lot of rooms, I know, but that’s the best of them all. You’ll be staying together. If you’re anything like me, you keep your children safe and close.”

  A platform glided between them. It looked like a treadmill with handlebars, but the belt wasn’t turning. It floated a few inches off the floor.

  “Oh, wow.” Kandi looked under it. It was hovering, for real. No wheels, no tracks. Real-life levitating.

  “It’s a long walk, so you might want to hop on.” When they hesitated, the song dropped from her voice. “A very long walk.”

  Kandi and her father dropped their bags on the back of the platform and stepped onto the front. It vibrated through her feet. She felt it in her knees. It teetered slightly, then began to glide.

  “Hold on, please. No one is allowed to fall off.”

  Within seconds, they were humming down the hall. Her dad held onto her despite her firm grip on the handlebars. Doors whiffed by like streetlights on an interstate. Snowmen and elves and bunny rabbits were glued to the walls like cutout posters that would lean out and wave or chuckle.

  Ahead, there was a roiling clutter.

  It looked like the teeth of an abominable snowman. The platform was going too fast to jump off. Kandi looked at her dad, his hair matted to his clammy forehead, eyes forged ahead. She held on as they neared and realized quite suddenly the hallway was not about to eat them.

  It was snowballs.

  The illusion of elves bombed each other from each wall. They were wearing shorts and T-shirts. Their fat bell
ies bounced from beneath their shirts and their enormous feet clapped in flip-flops.

  The scene unfolded with elves running on beaches and scooping water from the ocean. The ceiling was a bright yellow sun far too close to Earth. Instead of snowballs, they heaved oversized waterballs at each other that splashed on the other side of the hall. Kandi could feel the spray.

  Heether’s laughter was all around.

  When the glider slowed, the waterball fight vanished and the walls and doors returned. The collar of her dad’s shirt was dark. Perspiration streaked his cheeks.

  The hallway ended at two large doors. The glider eased to a standstill. The air seemed cooler now that the ride had ended. The doors opened as they stepped off. An upbeat Christmas song played out.

  Her dad wiped his face. She wasn’t certain if he knew this was going to be a tropical amusement park or if he was discovering it with her.

  “Better than a roller coaster,” she said.

  THEIR ENTIRE HOUSE in Fairbanks could fit inside the master suite.

  There were grand pianos and billiards tables and hot tubs and a golden telescope mounted near the window. She counted six fireplaces that, strangely enough, roared with freshly stacked logs. In the middle, with plenty of room to spare, was a fully decorated Christmas tree that touched the two-story ceiling.

  Heavy drapery parted as they entered. The entire wall was a window that exposed a seamless view to an unending stretch of water, as if they were floating above the ocean.

  “I can’t believe this,” Kandi muttered.

  The beds were large enough for an entire kindergarten class. There were two of them. He searched the fireplace for an off switch, but those were real logs on real fire. Her bones had gone from cold and brittle to hot and steamy.

  “Would it be rude to ask for air-conditioning?”

  Her dad paced with his hands on his hips. There was a basket on a long dining table. Instead of apples and oranges, it appeared to be filled with red peppers.

  “Are those jalapenos?” Kandi asked.

  He threw his bags on one of the beds. One of them contained clothes. At the rate he was sweating, they might last till the end of the day.