Claus: The Trilogy

by Tony Bertauski

  Dead.

  She wants to look away, slide the lid back in place without looking, without seeing what’s displayed beneath the metal dome, cold tendrils of steam sliding out like dry ice.

  But she looks. Just like May told her not to.

  Eyes look back.

  A row of gelatinous eyeballs—milky and bulging, like the eyes of dead fish—stare out, their optic nerves like slimy noodles. A row of dead herring is next to them.

  A knot swells in her throat and she swallows it back, but the odor is inside her sinuses, tugging at the sandwich in her stomach. She closes her eyes and puts the lid back in place, wishing it didn’t smell so dead.

  “Remain still.” A voice comes out of the dark.

  Sura looks around. Something scurries behind her, deep in the dark. She spins around, careful not to disturb the platter. Bells jingle.

  The floor hums.

  Something is rising a few feet away from the circle of light. It appears to be a solid cylinder pushing out of the floor.

  “Put it there.”

  This time she locates the voice. It’s coming from the desk next to the fish tank. What she thought was a statue scratches its bushy beard. Sura almost drops the platter.

  “Please,” he says. “It’s safe.”

  The cylinder casts bluish light into the dark. The fish hangs lazily in the tank. The statue is as round as it is tall. The head appears to be a massive bush. Two orbs twinkle somewhere inside it, reflecting the blue light. A white, furry animal sits next to him. A dog, maybe.

  Sura slides it across the top of the cylinder. The cylinder goes dark, and once again, she’s trapped inside the circle of light. She rubs her hands together.

  Mr. Frost glides away from the desk as if he’s sliding across the floor. It’s very slow and easy, almost as if he’s wearing ice skates. But then he jets toward her, whipping around the cylinder. Sura doesn’t have time to step back before he’s back at the desk.

  The platter is gone.

  “Is that all?” she asks.

  “Mmm.”

  She’s not sure if that’s for her or he’s looking beneath the dome. She doesn’t want to see those disgusting eyeballs plop into the water for the fish to eat. She’d rather forget she ever saw them. Or smelled them.

  “I’m very sorry,” he says. “About your mother.”

  “Thank you. She enjoyed working here.”

  That was an odd reply, but she didn’t know what else to say. Even though she’s snug beneath a heavy coat, the spotlight makes her feel self-conscious while he’s out there in the dark.

  Something moves behind her again.

  Sura taps her foot like the elevator needs reminding to come for her. The platter slides across the desk, followed by a deep inhalation and a satisfying grunt. Sura’s about to barf up lunch.

  The metal lid falls back into place.

  Mr. Frost slides closer to her but remains in the dark, only the bushy outline of his head and fat belly are clear. He can’t be more than three feet tall.

  “You’re a beautiful young lady,” he says. “Like your mother.”

  The words were creepy, but not the way he said them. They were genuine, not lusty, so she answers, “I’ve been told.”

  “Have you enjoyed your first day?”

  “Yes. Thank you for the job. I can use the money now that Mom…”

  “Mmm.”

  Mr. Frost glides back, almost as if he’s standing on a hovering disk. With all the gadgets in the room, maybe that’s exactly what it is. There’s rumors that he’s from the future, that he can invent anything. Why not a hovering disk?

  “Much to learn.” His voice trails off at the end, making it difficult to understand the end of everything he says. “Much to explore, to discover. And the honor is mine.”

  He’s back at the desk. The fish tank illuminates his face—the plump and ruddy features set in the untamed shag around his head.

  The elevator rod slides out of the floor, assuming its delicate balance once again. The wall extends from it like a metal sheet, curving around her. Just before the elevator wall traces the circle of light and encloses her inside, she hears slurping.

  And another grunt, this one deep and satisfied.

  -------------------------

  Mr. Frost slides across the icy floor. The miniature scales on his soles point toward his heels, allowing him to grab the slick surface and glide forward. He slides like all elven do when they’re in a contemplative mood: his hands laced over his belly. The Arctic fox watches the fat, little man with the head like a tumbleweed glide merrily around the room.

  Stars twinkle on the ceiling.

  If Max could talk, he’d probably say that Mr. Frost looks different than usual. He might even say there was a glow about him.

  That he looks happy.

  And happiness is an emotion quite foreign to the round man. He doesn’t remember the last time he felt a swirl in his belly like this. And Mr. Frost has quite the memory. He can recall the daily low temperatures for the past five hundred years.

  Maybe longer.

  It’s not humanly possible. Then again, he’s elven.

  A human might look at what Mr. Frost has—and he has everything a man or woman could possibly want—and not understand his melancholy. In fact, Mr. Frost possesses inventions the world has yet to see, things too dangerous, too mind-blowing. There’s not a taste, not a sight, not a sensation he does without.

  And, yet, he still can’t remember being happy.

  The frigid breeze flutters in his whiskers, bites the tip of his cherub nose.

  Freeda, the temperature, please, he thinks.

  The room is minus twenty-five degrees Celsius, sir, the gentle female replies inside his head.

  Take it down to minus fifty.

  I can do that, sir. Give me a few minutes.

  An icy draft wafts out of the vents hidden in the astral ceiling. Somewhere beneath the shag of Mr. Frost’s white whiskers, a smile grows.

  He imagines a white blanket stretching across a flat horizon where stars flicker in the green and red bands of the Northern Lights. When he takes the temperatures down that far, he can’t help but daydream. He allows himself to indulge in that fantasy. Every once in a while he likes to pretend he was never forced to leave home. He likes to pretend all the elven in the world don’t hate him.

  It’s nice to feel like he has a family again.

  Would you like me to illuminate a model, sir?

  Mr. Frost makes one more lap around the circular tower, contemplating just how far to indulge the daydream. There is so much to do. Where would he be if he sat around thinking all day?

  Maybe he would remember happiness more often if he did, but Mr. Frost does not want to be a blissful idiot. Happiness, he believes, is not the point of life.

  It’s a side effect.

  Maybe this one time, he thinks.

  A soft glow begins in the center of the room and rolls out like liquid fog until a blanket of snow covers the floor. His feet are buried in the white illusion but don’t disturb it as he slides through it.

  Would you like a live satellite feed, sir? Or perhaps a past event?

  Freeda knows him too well. Sometimes he likes to watch something recorded on the North Pole with his secret satellites. When the elven thought no one was watching, they’d slip out of the ice for snowball fights and stargazing.

  Live feed, please. He may be indulging, but he’d rather not glue himself to the past. Not today.

  The resolution turns fuzzy. The ice floes adjust; ice ridges emerge in different lines. The illusion refocuses with realistic precision. Mr. Frost appears to be floating high above the North Pole.

  Human warmbloods appear like sugar ants drudging through the fluff. Five of them. Another troupe to the top of the world and why? Because it’s there.

  If they survive—and they probably will—a helicopter will fly them back home, where they can blog about their adventure. They can brag that they made the
trek to the North Pole just like Frederick Cook. Although some will argue it was Robert Peary who made it there first.

  They’re both wrong.

  Mr. Frost knows who the first warmblood is that reached the North Pole and it’s neither Cook nor Peary. Nicholas and Jessica Santa made the trip long ago with their son, Jon, in the early 1800s and never left. It was their arrival that changed everything in the elven world. After the Santas arrived, Jack died and Pawn fled.

  But Pawn doesn’t like the name “Pawn” for a lot of reasons.

  He’s Mr. Frost now.

  The warmblood history books have it all wrong. Truth can be that way.

  Truth is not determined by what we believe.

  Thermal scan complete, sir. There’s activity inside an ice floe in sector 27D. Would you like me to take you down?

  Mr. Frost drums his fingers over his belly. Yes.

  The illusion of the North Pole turns to fuzzy fog and rearranges, solidifying in a thick layer of snow up to his waist. Mr. Frost is standing on the illusion of ice. If only he could find a hole and climb inside to join his people.

  We’re not people. We’re elven.

  He has to remind himself from time to time. It’s easy to forget when you’ve lived with warmbloods for almost two hundred years. That’s not much time to an elven, not when life expectancy is several thousand years. But time goes slow when you’re all alone.

  Even for an elven.

  He plows through the snow, hoping to uncover an exit hole. Hoping some fat, little elven will poke his head out; a youngster might run outside on a dare to leap into the icy water, naked.

  Polar bearing. Mr. Frost smiles beneath the whiskers. Do they still call it that?

  He scoops up a handful of snow and crafts a perfectly round ball. He tosses it gently up and down, testing the weight. He was an expert snowballer. He doubts he’s lost his edge, but there’s no snow in South Carolina to prove it. The elven will never know what kind of snowballer he still is because they’ll never find him.

  Elven don’t live long in heat unless you have a supercooled tower.

  Sir, May would like to know if there’s anything else you need before she retires for the day? What shall I tell her?

  He lets the snowball roll off his fingertips, lets it thunk into the snow. No point in making snowballs when it’s an illusion.

  No, Freeda. That’ll be all. Thank you.

  Mr. Frost slides to the edge of the room and peers through the dark glass. The road leading away from the house disappears into the grove of magnolias all wrapped in white Christmas lights. A small car cruises into their glowing branches.

  The good feelings return. Sura is back.

  Why are you happy, sir?

  I’m sorry? After two hundred years, he still sometimes forgets Freeda is inside his head.

  You do not typically act this way when Sura returns, sir. Why is that?

  Mr. Frost grumbles while clearing his head, letting thoughts fall away, replacing them with foggy confusion, random images, and puzzled thoughts.

  I don’t know, he finally answers.

  Freeda doesn’t answer. She’ll pry some more, look through his chaotic smokescreen, but she won’t find anything.

  But he does know. After all these years, he knows why happiness is bubbling up now. Sura is back. That’s reason for cheer, but not this much. It’s more than that. Mr. Frost is happy because the end is near.

  And this will all be over.

  I’ll be going to the lab now, Freeda, he quickly thinks, covering that last thought.

  Very well.

  The snow evaporates.

  The floor glows eerie blue. Sections begin unfolding like trapdoors, furniture growing out of the floor, monitors lighting up and data flowing like it was when Sura delivered lunch.

  Sura. She calls herself Sura now. Kids these days.

  Mr. Frost navigates around the clutter to the main desk. Max sits calmly on top. Mr. Frost reaches into his pocket and tosses a small snack in the air. Max snaps it up before it lands.

  The cylindrical elevator waits for Mr. Frost. He slides inside, pushing the bottom button that’s just about waist level. The door closes and the elevator sinks down to the cavern below the house. He keeps his mind on Sura returning the next day for work, when she’ll meet Joe. That will be a very good reason for happiness.

  When the door slides open, he’s blasted with a wave of humid heat. Something’s wrong.

  The laboratory anteroom is circular, but, unlike the tower room, it is completely free of clutter. The icy floor shines like glass. There is a door on the wall facing Mr. Frost. It exits to the back of the house and is wide open.

  Mr. Frost looks to his right, where the incubation lab is open, too. He races over and looks inside. Debris is strewn across the floor, glass beakers shattered, and papers scattered. Worst of all, the silver table is empty, straps dangling from the edges.

  “Freeda!” he exclaims. “Where is Jack?”

  She doesn’t have an answer.

  J A C K

  November 30

  Sunday

  Jack knows he’s dreaming.

  He’s butt naked in the snow and doesn’t care. He’s not all that comfortable running around without his clothes in front of others and, right now, he couldn’t care less. That’s how he knows he’s dreaming.

  The snow is deep enough to hide his enormous blue feet. Jack likes that. He likes that his feet are hidden. No one knows why his feet turned blue—blue as ripe blueberries, blue as the deepest part of the ocean—but everyone forgets things they don’t see.

  In some part of Jack’s dream, he seems to remember that everything eventually turns blue. His hands, his legs… his bald head.

  Everything.

  It’s not right, not normal. But why spoil the fun? Right now it’s just his feet that are blue, and they’re lost in the white fluff. And he’s butt naked like all the other elven.

  Their round bellies and curvy buttocks are pale in the moonlight. When the moon is full, it’s time for teenage polar bearing. The adults stay beneath the ice because they had their time jumping through a hole in the ice when they were young, but that was thousands of years ago.

  Teenage elven would rather not see the elders’ wrinkly parts.

  Jack is in line. He’s behind Breezy. It’s minus sixty degrees. Even for an elven that’s a bit nippy, especially when you’re naked. Jack, though, feels good. He likes to get his clothes off, feel winter’s breath on his skin. He’s never won a contest—not a spelling bee or snowball fight—but he’d bet he could handle more cold than any elven. Again, lost somewhere in the dream, he seems to remember cold is his specialty.

  Breezy is up.

  Someone laughs and shouts at Breezy to stop covering his junk and get wet. He slides over the ice—a path carved through the snow after dozens of trips—and hits the snow ramp with his arms out. He soars up, hovering above the ice before plunging into the ice hole.

  KA-THUMP!

  Cheers.

  A minute later, Breezy pops out of a second ice hole twenty feet away. He’s tackled by his buddies and they roll through the snow, naked as snowshoe hares.

  Jack’s turn.

  He shoves ahead, the scales on his soles gripping the ice, propelling him forward—

  WHAP.

  “Not so fast, blueberry,” someone says, shoving him off balance.

  Jack—round as any healthy elven—rolls until momentum slows him down. Jack lifts his head. The elven are laughing at him. Even the girls. Even his brother, Claus. Even Claus is laughing.

  Darlah Iceridge isn’t.

  They had cut in front of Jack once already, made him start over, and now they knocked him down. They don’t want him, that’s what it is. They don’t want him to play in any of the elven games.

  Jack waddles far away from the naked, teenage bunch. Their laughter carries over the ice. Their butts are still pale. It’s better this way. Better to polar bear on his own.

&nb
sp; Jack finds an old hole nearby. He kicks it with his heel until his foot sinks in the icy water. He just wants to jump in, cool off. It might be minus sixty degrees, but he’s about to break a sweat.

  They’ve already forgotten about him. They’re back to jumping off the ramp, doing backflips this time. Jack steps into the old ice hole, pretending Darlah is watching him. He likes to think that maybe she’ll come over and talk to him. He doesn’t want to seem needy, but it’d be cool if she wanted to talk.

  That’s all.

  He pinches his nose and sinks below the ice. The water is dark and cold, even for Jack. The frigid Arctic temperatures penetrate his layers of blubber. He paddles against the current. It’s getting cold now, for real.

  The dream is starting to suck.

  Jack can feel it. He’s starting to shiver and he’s always the last one to shiver. He has to get out. He kicks his enormous feet, shooting toward the opening—

  GUNK.

  The ice hole has frozen over.

  Jack punches at it, but the ice is too thick and he’s running out of air. He hits it again and again. Maybe that’s not the hole. Maybe he’s drifted in the current. Quickly, he swims beneath the ice, searching for a way out, but his body isn’t streamlined. The round body of an elven is made for rolling, not swimming. It takes too long to get there, his chest on fire, his skin puckered and clammy, daggers of ice punching through his skin, deep into his heart—

  “Uuuuuuuuuuhhh!” Jack opens his mouth, inhaling deeply. He expects to swallow a gallon of seawater, but it is air.

  Sweet, sweet air.

  A pair of dirty fingers are clamped over Jack’s nostrils. “Told you he wouldn’t die,” says the one holding them shut.

  He lets go of Jack. It doesn’t smell like the Arctic, clean and wet, because he’s awake. This is real and it smells… sweaty.

  Two haggard faces hover over him. One dark-skinned, the other one is fair. Both are equally unshaven and dirty. Their hair matted. Teeth, filmy.

  Jack shakes his head. He’s in a cushioned bed with sheets and pillows, not trapped beneath ice. Definitely not in the Arctic. The two men stand up. Jack scurries against the wall, pulling the sheet up to his chin. He may not be swimming in frigid water, but he’s still freezing. The icy chill is inside his bones and the blanket isn’t helping.