Claus: The Trilogy

by Tony Bertauski

  “Pretty far,” he lies. “I don’t think we’ll find him looking for him, I mean. He just showed up.”

  She’s nodding, but looking as far as she can see. Which isn’t far.

  “I want to show you something.”

  Oliver walks just inside the trees. A few minutes pass before he sees the side of the garage. He waits for Molly to catch up, warning her to stay out of sight. The doorknob turns easily, and, as usual, a gust of warm, almost hot air greets them. The car is still spotless. Molly leans over the driver’s door, inhaling the fragrant leather.

  He warns her about the window, that if you stand in the right spot, someone might see her from the house.

  “What will happen if she sees you?”

  “I don’t know.” He knows. They both do.

  Oliver pulls open the filing cabinet, third drawer from the top. It’s packed with folders, the manila tabs bent and worn. They stack a handful on the bench and spread out the contents, Oliver keeping track of the order while Molly unfolds the plans. One of them looks like a space-age laboratory, the dome-shaped kind that could be erected on another planet.

  “You sure he wasn’t an inventor?” she asks. “These are like sophisticated plans.”

  “He was a mechanic.”

  She opens an eight-fold plan, smoothing out the wrinkles. The scale is larger, and the details easy to read. She studies it for several minutes while Oliver keeps the folders in order.

  “Something’s not right.”

  She slides her finger to the top right corner. The signature is dated back to 1920. The worn creases and yellowish color make it believable.

  “He built this house before that,” Oliver says.

  “That’s not it. This looks like plans for cold fusion and plasmic welding.” She looks at the crescent wrenches and ball-peen hammers. “This garage is still in the 1940s. Besides, no one was thinking about cold fusion in the ’20s and plasmic welding, whatever that is.”

  Oliver plunks the wooden orb on the plan. She compares it to the etching details on the paper. Oliver, however, doesn’t tell her how the wooden orb feels when the snowman was near.

  “This is a model.” She rotates the wooden orb between her fingers and thumbs. “What do you think he was trying to invent?”

  He knows what he was trying to invent. He knows what the wooden orb looks like—that drawing, too—but he’s not ready to explain what he’s read in the journal. Did he invent a snowman?

  “No idea.”

  “You ever see anything like this around the house?”

  “No.”

  She tosses it a few times before dropping it in his hand. “You know what I think it is? Some sort of power source. Look at the house. It’s off the grid, remember? No solar panels and that windmill’s not doing crap. Maybe this thing”—she thumps the plan—“is crammed in the basement or something.”

  But there’s no basement door, not one Oliver’s ever seen. And it’s not in the attic.

  “You see any plans for a metal glove?” she asks.

  He hasn’t. But there’s a lot of paper in those drawers. Molly taps her chin, eyeballing the filing cabinet like a treasure chest.

  “You want to read the journals?” he asks.

  “They’re out here?”

  Oliver strips off his backpack and, stealing a glance through the window, digs out a journal from the inside of a PC Gamer magazine. “Come on.”

  She follows him beneath the workbench. Oliver shows her the footlocker, releasing the moldy smell of centuries-old fabric. Molly presses against him, looking over the rim as Oliver digs through the artifacts.

  He hands her the journal.

  She knows all the crazy things out there, but what’s in the journals is the real test. It’s about to get nuts.

  She strokes the old cover. Oliver takes the phone and, while she’s smells the leather, sets the timer.

  “Just in case,” he says.

  The binding cracks like snapping twigs as she pulls the cover open. The pages are bright in the white light.

  “Oh, man.” Molly brushes the first page with her fingertips. “Oh, man.”

  He has the urge to put his arm around her, pull her warm body against his, but he’s afraid. Her weight leans into his shoulder like she answers his thought.

  “Read it.” She puts the book on his lap.

  “What?”

  “I want to hear your voice. It’s your great-grandfather; I want to hear it in your words.”

  Oliver sits up straighter, clearing his throat. Molly nuzzles up to him, tipping her head on his shoulder. An ache already throbs in his tailbone, but he doesn’t move.

  “Here we go.” Oliver scans the page.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I just want to warn you. My great-grandfather was lost after his ship wrecked in the polar ice. He survived and wrote these journals. They’re a little out there.”

  “I’m at the Toye Property. I expect it.”

  “I mean, like, Alice in Wonderland out there.”

  “Good. Stop stalling.”

  He feels her warmth. She leans her head back and closes her eyes. Oliver takes a deep breath.

  And begins.

  March 19, 1882

  I grow weary, my love.

  The elven have been most gracious, indeed. There is never a thing I want they don’t provide—food, clothing, entertainment. Still, I grow weary. They cannot bring you to me.

  There is discussion about me. Nog mentioned, when I asked the other day, they are considering chaperoning me back to civilization. They have been in hiding for 40,000 years. They roamed free during the Ice Age. I don’t know why, all this time, they have chosen to remain separate, isolated in the Arctic Circle, hiding in the ice. Nonetheless, Nog said, they choose to watch the human race rather than join it.

  What bothers me most is the implication of these discussions. I feel as if they are deciding whether I can return or not. I am in full health; there is no reason I should not return home, where I belong. In your arms.

  I will be talking to the fat man very soon. If anyone should understand my plight, it will be him.

  Sketches fill the pages. While still abstract, he’s become quite good at drawing. There’s a haunting tunnel of ice filled with short, round elven and a large, fat man among them with a grizzled beard, his thumbs hooked in his belt.

  “Can you tell me something?” Molly asks. “What are elven?”

  Oliver explains. Molly hums along, eyes still closed. He waits, tensely. When she doesn’t immediately leave, he breathes easier.

  “Then who’s the fat man?” she asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  March 22, 1882

  There was a celebration yesterday.

  It was good timing. I was feeling quite melancholy. There was quite a stir amongst the elven, though. I could feel the excitement building. Nog informed me we would see the rising.

  I climbed onto the ice with only a thin coat. I have grown quite large and find that, with this layer of blubber padding my flesh, I need less clothing to stay warm. If the captain could see me now, standing in the Arctic with one coat, he would perhaps cry.

  Most of the colony was already on top. There are thousands. I don’t think they all live where I am. Some must have migrated from other locations in grand sleighs. The gold rails were curled and the bodies shiny red. I cannot say how they would fabricate such items, but nothing surprises me any longer. While there were reins tethered to the fronts of these grand sleds, there was nothing to pull them.

  I can say, without question, there could not be a jollier lot. Even the fat man was above the ice, towering over the elven, his distinctive laughter carried above the celebration. I have not met with him, but I have been promised our meeting will be soon. I considered confronting him right then, but he is very popular among the elven. They all want his attention, and the atmosphere for serious discussion was naught. After all, he arrived much like I did, only he never left. He made this
his home. But he came with his wife.

  I would do the same.

  A sudden hush fell over them. They faced east. I stood next to Nog, watching the sky lighten until the first sliver of the sun rose above the horizon. It did so to raucous celebration. The elven hugged and kissed, throwing their short arms as far around their tubby bodies as possible. They exchanged gifts and plates of food—cookies being the most popular. Music began to play, and the elven danced and sang. Later, I saw the younger ones remove their clothing to plunge into the icy water, rising up with laughter.

  I, however, did not join, my love. I watched the sun continue its ascent, remembering the time we spent on the wharf that early morning in July, the morning after we wed. How we watched the sun rise. I thought, naively, it would never end. I believed we would be together forever.

  I never should have left.

  The flat line of a horizon bisects the page, a curved hump of the sun peeking above it. The scribbles of celebrating elven, spherical and jolly, arms raised, fill the landscape. Hovering above the sun is a mess of lines that, at first glance, appear to be a spray of clouds. Oliver begins turning the page when he recognizes the eyes, lips and a chin below the tip of a nose.

  “Is there more?” Molly asks.

  April 18, 1882

  The fat man still won’t see me.

  My weariness has turned to worry. There are rumors that the colony is divided about my return. Some, I’ve heard, want me to remain in the Arctic, that life has been good without intervening with the human race. Others feel like now is the time to guide humanity, that our technology has become dangerous and without their wisdom we could cause irreversible damage.

  I don’t care about any of that.

  I only want to see your face.

  The claustrophobia has become unbearable. I can hardly sleep, but despite the fat that insulates me, I cannot remain above the ice indefinitely. I find myself wanting to tear down these icy walls, to be free.

  Perhaps that is why Nog came to me yesterday. I believe he senses my unrest. He assures me, on a daily basis, that a decision about my fate will come soon. And daily, he brings no new news.

  But yesterday, he suggested we do something different.

  We journeyed topside. I thought, perhaps, we would ski the ice. I arrived on top of the ice in shock. I had to blink several times as the chill wind blew, but it did not dispel the mirage.

  There, standing on four legs, was the largest reindeer in the world. Its rack of antlers spread the length of a full-grown horse. It pawed the ice while two elven stroked its front legs, as if they were the keepers.

  “Where did it come from?” I asked.

  The beast snorted, and its nose grew red as a flame, as if I had insulted it. When it shook its head, the antlers fanned the air. One of the attending elven said he lives on the mainland, where he feeds on lichen and such. That sounded impossible. How could a beast of this size reach the mainland? I asked that question, but secretive smiles were all I received in return.

  I was not allowed to pet it. He can be temperamental, they said.

  Nog asked that I step back. He pulled open his coat, revealing the magic bag on his hip. He still refuses to call it a magic bag; that is my name for it. Science, he insists always, is when you understand. Magic is when you don’t.

  But then he did something that explains why all those sleighs were at the equinox celebration. With the metal glove on, he reached—

  “The glove!” Molly smacks Oliver’s arm.

  His heart begins to quiver. It wasn’t just “glove” that was written. Metal glove. The entry sounds like his great-grandfather has already seen it, like he knows what it can do. There must be an explanation in one of the other journals.

  Molly shakes him. “Keep reading.”

  With the metal glove on, he reached into the magic bag. As he’s done before, he pulled something out that defies the laws of physics. This time it was a red sleigh. The golden-railed sled emerged at first like stretchy fabric, but it shook the ice when it landed.

  They fed the reindeer another handful of green cubes. The beast minced the food without taking its wary eyes off me. They guided it to the front of the sled. Nog explained, while they tethered it, that the beast had modified organs, in particular a helium bladder. This had something to do with the webbed hide hanging loosely between its legs.

  I suppose I had some idea of what was about to happen, but, at that moment, I could not think clearly. When Nog patted the seat, I sat without resistance. I still believed this thing would gallop over the ice like a stallion.

  The attending elven stepped back, and a buzzing wave rolled around us, slightly distorting the horizon. “A shield,” Nog said. “To protect us.” Without warning, Nog called to the beast.

  “Onward.”

  My stomach dropped.

  The world blurred into two colors: white below, blue above; the two dissected by a fuzzy line.

  The horizon, my love. I was looking at the horizon from above.

  The reindeer soared in front of us, legs spread, the hide-webbing taut, and its belly swollen. My head spun. I clutched the railing.

  We were flying.

  The alarm goes off.

  There are illustrations of the reindeer, the sleigh and the flight. He closes the journal, and they sit quietly—Molly holding his arm with both hands.

  She’s still here.

  “Did he ever write about eating wild berries,” Molly asks. “In any of the earlier ones?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Elven. Flying reindeer. Maybe these are hallucinations. I’m just saying.”

  Oliver wonders the same thing, and, maybe, he’d believe his great-grandfather had written these in an insane asylum, that maybe his mom made all this up to keep him entertained while they lived here.

  But he saw a snowman.

  And he hadn’t eaten any wild berries that day.

  Before they trek back to the field to return to the house, before they even crawl out from under the bench, Oliver indulges one last nagging feeling. He flips back through the pages and stares at the face in the clouds.

  My love.

  F L U R Y

  fourteen

  Oliver wakes up at midnight.

  It had become a habit, going to sleep at ten o’clock and waking up at midnight. He listens to the distant rumbling of the forest—branches snapping, ground thumping—thinking about Malcolm Toye’s sketches and unrequited love.

  It had been a week since he and Molly had sat under the workbench. She’s coming for tea again. Grandmother even nodded and said, “That would be fine,” when Mom told her. For normal people, that comment should be translated as, “That would be fantastic! I can’t wait to see her!”

  Oliver called her on Grandmother’s landline, with her permission, of course. But without service, he can’t text. He even began sketching her face into wispy clouds. He’d thrown all his attempts away. They were horrible, and he didn’t need his mom seeing them. Grandmother, either.

  What if she recognized it?

  He’s already read two of the three journals he took from the footlocker. The second one is still in the attic. He should’ve grabbed the other three when he was sitting right next to it with Molly, but he had other things on the brain.

  It’s windy everywhere, not just in the trees. The house pops and creaks with each gust. He tosses in bed as violently as the weather. Sleep is too far off, so he crawls out of bed and retrieves the two journals beneath the dresser. He reads them by the light of his cell phone, but he’s been through them a dozen times. Nothing new.

  It occurs to him that now is the perfect time to get the one in the attic. Why didn’t he think of that before? Everyone’s asleep. He’ll get in, get out, and have something new to read.

  He gets to his bedroom door in a few creaky steps and, with hand pressed around the metal doorknob, holds his breath. With an eye to the crack in the doorway, he searches for his grandmother waiting in the moonlight. />
  He walks to the bathroom, listening at the top step. Somewhere on the second floor, his mom softly snores. A gust of wind slams the house. Sleet smatters the roof like a handful of gravel.

  A door slams.

  Muscles coiled, ears tuned to every little tick—Oliver is catatonic. He can’t be sure what he heard. It sounded like a door, but he’s not certain. Maybe he left the snow shovel on the porch, and it fell over. Or an icicle dropped on the steps. He waits at the top step several minutes, counting his breaths. The distant noises seem right on top of the house.

  Usually, he’d crawl right back in bed. But tonight, he refuses to run. It’s just sounds he hears. Just thoughts that frighten. Now is the time to grab that journal.

  He flushes the toilet, just in case, and hurries down the hall. His phone is back in the bedroom, and, without moonlight, the room is dark. He swings his hands like the rope’s a piñata. He smacks the knob tied at the end and waits for it to swing back. When he has two hands on it, he begins to pull—

  There’s a flash outside.

  Oliver jumps against the wall.

  His heart swells with each beat.

  At first, it seemed like lightning. But there’s no thunder, just wind. Eyes wide, ears pricked, he watches the shadows play on the far wall. The light dims but doesn’t go away. He slides toward the window. It’s black outside, the night sky capped with clouds.

  Light beams from the garage window.

  Someone’s in there.

  His brain aches to remember if everything got put away. An errant paperclip could expose him. A cold emotion splashes down his spine.

  The light brightens like a power surge.

  For a moment, the entire backyard is lit up, and then it goes back to normal. Oliver watches until his body aches. Nothing happens. Not a shadow, not a form, not a sound. A thought occurs to him, one that wriggles down to his toes.

  Who’s out there?

  “It’s only your thoughts that have come to get you,” Grandmother had said. And it’s his thoughts that have locked his knees.

  Just thoughts. There are no ghosts on the stairs, no wild things roaming the house. I’m just having thoughts something will happen. Just thoughts.