“Maybe.”
He reaches into the back of the vehicle and pulls out a small mistletoe bush. “Don’t go back empty-handed.”
Their fingers brush as they exchange the plant. He holds up his hand. They awkwardly high five. Better than a kiss or a hug because, honestly, if she starts kissing him, she won’t stop.
Sand fleas or not.
“See you tomorrow?” he asks.
She nods, already pretending that the mistletoe is a bouquet. The vehicle revs up, slowly moving away in first gear. Tomorrow is such a long ways away and then she’ll just have to say goodbye again. They’ll high five again and she’ll go home to an empty house.
“Joe!”
He slams the brakes. “Yeah?”
“Will you go to a school dance with me? It’s a small one, a lot of people go out of town, but it’ll be fun. I did the decorations and I’d like for you to see them—”
She puts her hand over her mouth, swears she doesn’t feel nervous, but the words won’t stop because if they do, he might say no, and now that she’s asked, she wishes she hadn’t.
“Love to,” he says.
She did it. She asked him.
And he said yes.
And her heart floats twenty feet off the ground.
The vehicle speeds away, Joe waving. Sura waves back, smelling the mistletoe like it’s roses, which is stupid, but maybe one day it’ll be roses he’s handing her instead of a parasitic plant.
She wanders out from beneath the live oak, stars filling the darkening sky. Her emotions keep her toasty. The house glows with holiday cheer. The worst day of her life happened when her mom died. Was that only a month ago? Maybe that’s why Mr. Frost brought me out here so soon. This feels like home.
A cold breeze is ushered in on the night’s wing and the sand fleas are crawling through her scalp. She wishes she would’ve taken the ride at least halfway. She could’ve gotten off before Jonah saw her and still enjoyed the long walk.
Sura walks to the back door, where she’ll drop off the mistletoe and see if May needs any help. Someone’s out back.
She can’t see who it is, but he’s way too short to be Templeton. He’s even shorter than Mr. Frost, but just as round. It’s hard to tell who it is with the long-tailed coat, wide boots, and tall, yellow hat. Sura hides in the bushes, watching the figure open the basement doors and climb inside. She’s never used that entrance and May’s never mentioned it.
Sura hurries for the house and starts up the steps. The basement door, however, is slightly ajar. A sliver of light flashes inside.
At the very least, I should close the door.
All she had to do was close it and she would’ve gone home to feed the horses and dreamed about marrying Joe one day. But when her fingers wrap around the handle, she has a second thought. She thinks maybe she’ll take a peek.
The hinges creak.
Light seeps out along with a strange warbling sound. The bushes shake.
And that’s the last thing she remembers.
-------------------------
Mr. Frost gently touches the tank’s cold surface, leaning closer. Inside, the eyes are closed and the whiskers are faintly green.
Less facial hair, that’s good. His calculations estimated improved photosynthetic efficiency and, therefore, Jack would need less hair to start life.
Increase red and blue wavelengths, Mr. Frost thinks. Also, boost carbon dioxide. If all goes well, I expect Jack to be ready for initiation within the week.
Freeda agrees.
Mr. Frost slides away from the tank. Project his image from inside the tank, Freeda. I want a better look.
Light flickers on the incubation lab floor. Line by line, an image of Jack’s body, as it is in the tank, forms in front of him. A coat of silky, green fuzz covers most of the body. Only his palms and part of his face are exposed. He’ll lose most of that before he’s even out of the tank. Mr. Frost gives a command and the image lifts its feet to show him the scaly soles.
The root squirms. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.
It looks just like him.
Aside from the hair, it’s him: the fat belly, the protruding chin, and sharp nose. The proportions are correct, built to the specifications that were loaded into the root so many years ago.
Fear twists in Mr. Frost’s stomach, trickling coldly into his legs. And beneath that lies the conflicting warmth of longing and love to see Jack like he was when Mr. Frost knew him.
When he was known as Pawn.
When Jack was blue.
His touch was cold and merciless, but no one saw him like Mr. Frost did. None of the elven on the North Pole saw the real Jack: the elven beneath the cold, blue exterior. Within those frozen eyes was a scared little elven. He was lonely, afraid, and he kept others from seeing that vulnerability by instilling fear in their hearts. He would freeze an elven with his deadly touch if they came close to seeing the real Jack.
“You’re the only one I can trust,” Jack would often tell Mr. Frost. “I need you.”
Jack would sometimes be close to tears when he said that. Those tears froze in the corners of his eyes. The day the tears actually fell like tiny diamonds and bounced between his feet was the day Jack held up what looked like a grain of rice.
The root.
“I need you to hold this,” he said to Mr. Frost. “To keep it safe.”
Mr. Frost didn’t ask what it was or why; he nodded because Jack needed him. Jack circled around him. Mr. Frost felt the cold aura that surrounded Jack at all times, a subzero body temperature that no other elven experienced, a coldness that gave Jack respect. A coldness that helped him cope with loneliness.
Jack reached behind Mr. Frost’s head and numbed his neck. Even when Jack loaded the root into a pointed, silver cylinder, Mr. Frost didn’t flinch. He didn’t question Jack. He let him touch the gun to the cold spot on his neck.
He felt the pressure.
He heard Jack’s tears dance on the floor. “Thank you.”
And Mr. Frost was happy.
He didn’t know what the root was for, just that it was important to Jack, so it was important to him. He never told Mr. Frost what it was for, but from time to time, Jack would visit the elven scientists and return to “update” the root with a small tin of grain. He’d put a few kernels in Mr. Frost’s hand and tell him to eat.
They tasted stale.
Mr. Frost didn’t know what the food was doing or how it was updating. Afterwards, the root would itch and Jack would blow his icy breath on his neck to make it go away.
It was like that for hundreds of years. And for hundreds of years, Mr. Frost happily allowed Jack—his mentor, his friend—to update the root, to soothe it when it squirmed.
But all that changed when Jack fell through the ice, when he sank to the bottom of the ocean with his mother and brother.
When Jack died.
And now there was no one left to soothe the itch.
Love and hate. When he sees Jack, he can’t choose between love and hate, so he embraces them both.
Love and hate.
Sir, an intruder has compromised the lab.
What?
Your little pet followed one of the helpers into the lab.
You’re supposed to monitor and report to me, Freeda. I’m tired of these lapses! Mr. Frost hides his satisfaction. He’s counting on her missing things like that. Where is she now?
The toy factory.
The toy factory? She’s not ready to see the toy factory!
She’s sleeping.
Mr. Frost makes sure the red and blue lights are turned up in Jack’s tank before sliding out of the room. He passes through the main room, around the elevator to the door on the opposite side.
The toy factory.
It always makes his head spin when he enters.
It’s the wide open space. He’s still not accustomed to subterranean rooms this size, a room that goes fifty feet into the earth. A room too wide to see the
other side; a room filled with compartments, scaffolding, and dangling components. A cold room dank with the smell of moist earth and oily machinery.
Today, it’s quiet.
Mr. Frost stops at the top of a steep ramp. At the bottom is a table surrounded by hundreds of tiny elven, with long-tailed coats and colorful hats—the helpers climb over each other for a glimpse of Sura. Their garbled conversation fills the emptiness of the dormant machinery.
Mr. Frost lets gravity pull him down the slick slope. The helpers scatter but only far enough for him to skid to a halt. Ice shavings flutter at his feet.
The helpers never sleep, never slow; they adapt to any temperature, build anything Mr. Frost can imagine, and would best a chameleon at hiding. There’s very little they can’t do and almost nothing they haven’t seen.
But they’ve never had Sura in the toy factory.
One of them, wearing a yellow hat, slides out of the crowd. He stands no taller than Mr. Frost’s knee. His nose is sharp and hooked over his mouth. He points at the table with a pudgy, but nimble, finger and a string of unintelligible sounds stream from his wrinkled lips.
He says they caught her sneaking through the back door, sir, Freeda interprets.
“I don’t want her in here.” Mr. Frost’s voice echoes. The helpers back up. “She’s not ready to see them.”
The yellow-hat comes closer and replies. He says she has not seen them, Freeda says.
“Why is she in here?”
It wasn’t necessary to bring her into the toy factory, but he knows why. Whether they’ll be honest about it or not, he knows the real reason they brought her into the toy factory. It’s the same reason Mr. Frost adores her.
She’s special.
The helpers can’t stop themselves from being around her. It has always been that way. Perhaps they sense the same thing he does, the warm essence of her kindness. The goodness of her emotions.
Mr. Frost moves a strand of hair from her eyes. They just want to see her, that’s all.
All the conveyor belts and boxing machines, the wrappers, stackers, and envelope slappers have stalled. It’s always in full production, 364 days a year, all of it getting ready for one day, sending out wishes and dreams, things that people want and need. Every kid will get something from Mr. Frost, something their parents will buy, their grandparents will purchase, or an aunt or uncle will order. No matter what the gizmo, no matter how long or how short, fat, or slim, he and the helpers have designed some part of it, manufactured a piece of it here in the toy factory.
Even the ideas that humans believe to be their own have, in one way or another, originated from Mr. Frost and the root inside his neck.
He made what Christmas is today.
Mr. Frost takes his hand from Sura’s forehead. “Take her to the incubation lab,” he whispers. “Let’s insert false memories and get her ready to go home.”
No less than twenty helpers—all with different colored hats—lean into the table, the soles of their leathery boots biting into the slick surface as they thrust the table up the ramp.
Mr. Frost looks at the rest of them, too many wrinkled and dour faces to see them all, but all of them disproportionately fitted with long noses and square chins. Their eyes, icy blue.
Jack wanted them that way.
“Christmas is coming!” Mr. Frost lifts his arms to rally their spirits.
“HURRAY!”
Tiny fists pump in the air. They scramble away, soaring up ropes and climbing to their stations to make the next watch, the next doll, the next music player. The phone, the TV, the bicycle repairer.
They make it all. And so much more.
They have a life of servitude that very few humans would tolerate and yet, the helpers live with such joy. Bred to work—labor is in their DNA—perhaps they don’t recognize this place as a prison.
To them, it’s just home.
Mr. Frost pushes his way up the ramp. He looks back as the machines rev up like high-tech lasers, whine with heaters and compressors. A song starts somewhere deep within the recesses of the toy factory and spreads like a flame. All at once, they’re singing.
Mr. Frost leaves the toy factory, realizing there is only one true prisoner on the plantation.
And he yearns to be free.
J A C K
December 14
Sunday
Bernie the cockatoo is talking.
Sura presses a pillow over her ear. She’d yell at him, but he’s just a bird. He doesn’t usually get worked up this early in the morning.
She sits up and rests her elbows on her knees. Her head feels like a fifty-pound bag of seed. The sun isn’t up. She can’t remember going to bed. She remembers walking back with mistletoe. She vaguely remembers driving home and feeding the horses. Or was that the day before?
Crenshaw strolls into the bedroom with his back arched, purring. Bernie’s still pitching a fit. Sura can’t remember feeding them. Her thoughts are like images on a foggy mirror.
She scratches Crenshaw behind the ear. “Did I feed—?”
Something crashes in the kitchen. Sura freezes. Her heart bangs in her throat. She’s wide awake now.
She looks around the room and spies an old curtain rod in the corner. It’s all she’s got. The mess of clothes strewn on the floor dampens her footsteps. She stops at her doorway.
“Who’s there?”
Bernie answers with a bunch of gibberish.
Sura reaches around the wall and turns on the living room light. She waits in her room, eyes wide. Nothing moves but Bernie. Crenshaw eventually slinks across the room. Sura follows the cat to the hallway and turns on another light. By the time she reaches the kitchen, every light in the house is on, including the floodlights in the backyard.
Crenshaw sways into the kitchen, meowing.
Sura’s knuckles ache. She puts the curtain rod on the counter and picks up Crenshaw. The floor, counters, and table are clean. There’s a pot turned over in the sink. She has a vague memory of cleaning the kitchen and washing the dishes. She also remembers Mr. Frost telling her to volunteer with her Helping Hands Horse Troupe after school instead of working.
Or maybe Templeton said something.
Sura carries Crenshaw to the living room. Bernie flaps his wings, stirring up white feathers. His bowl is filled with seeds. She sticks her fingers between the bars and rubs his head.
The horses are standing at the back fence, staring at the house. Or maybe they’re staring at the yellow towel in the backyard. She thinks about picking it up before one of the horses starts chewing on it.
“Gottago,gottago,gottago,” Bernie wails.
He sounds like an overwound toy, the words mashing together. Sura puts Crenshaw down to start working on chores before school.
Later, she realizes that the yellow towel is gone.
-------------------------
Jack’s chilly.
The red coat is heavy and the furry hat floppy. He unbuttons the coat to expose his thinning chest hair.
Jack targets a squishy-looking lady with his big, brass bell. She’s thumb-punching her phone while a butt sizzles between her lips. She doesn’t look up. There’s a kid behind her, snot caked on his upper lip. He snerks back a payload and spits before waving at Santa.
There’s a table on the other side of the Walmart entrance, some teenagers signing people up for something. Everyone that comes out of the store stops at their table to fill out tickets. The girls say thank you and smile each time someone drops one in a fishbowl.
Sometimes the people will look at Jack and sometimes they stare, but they never come over and they never put anything in his bucket. Actually, one guy emptied a pocketful of pennies into it an hour ago, along with lint and a bottle cap.
An old guy comes out of the store with two carts brimming with boxes.
“Excuse me.” Jack swings the bell. “Do you have the time?”
“No.”
“Would you like to make a donation?”
“No.”
“Do you hate children?”
The old man shoves past Jack’s outstretched hand, pushing one cart and pulling the other. Jack thinks about throwing the bell at the old buzzard. He didn’t feel that way in the beginning of his Santa assignment, but hour after hour of rejection is wearing him down.
Claus should give out grades; let us know how we’re doing. Do I have a C or an A+? How many good things do I have left to do, and how many points will I lose if I gong that old man on the back of the head?
If that table was to suddenly collapse and those tickets spontaneously catch on fire, maybe he’d stand a chance at making some real dough. They’re getting all the attention. Jack needs to think this out. How can he make it look like an accident? If no one knows he did it, will Claus know? He would have to act very concerned when it happens, run over to help the poor girls, maybe even shed a couple tears.
Oh, you poor things. I can’t believe someone would do this. Oh, the horror!
“Yeah, that’s good,” he mutters. “The horror.”
“What?” a passing teen says.
“Shut up,” Jack answers.
The teen shoves a gold coin in the slot. “Go buy yourself a new sled.”
“Did you just…” Jack’s arm stiffens.
The kid and his buddy look back with grins.
“Happy Chris… Merry hol…” Jack clears his throat; they’re almost to their car. “Habby Lobiday!”
I’m an idiot… an idiot with a gold coin!
All it took was one good soul to see Jack needed a break and zooooom, he just flew up the good list because gold could buy some poor family a house or it could buy the shelter a year’s worth of food or some poor slob a new coat. He couldn’t be hasty, though. It’s gold. And he’s rich.
A+, baby.
He rings the bell with pleasure, without a care in the world. Nothing can stop him now. The sound of his annoying bell doesn’t even bother him. In fact, if that old man comes back for another cart full of toys, Jack might even hug the old coot. He feels warm and bubbly. Joyous. Yeah, that’s it. Joyous. The spirit of Christmas is in me. The golden spirit of Christmas.
Claus: The Trilogy Page 36
