Claus: The Trilogy

by Tony Bertauski

  ***

  It’s almost midnight.

  Oliver can’t sleep. He’s imagining a two-bedroom apartment. He could put posters on the wall, not make his bed in the morning or do chores. Excitement trembles inside him like a surge of caffeine.

  The silhouette of the windmill is dim in the open field. There’s no snow to contrast against, not even patches in the shadows. Winter is officially over. The river must be swollen. Maybe it’s even reached the bridge.

  Oliver looks at the dresser, the outline barely visible in the dark room. There’s still a journal in the attic. He hadn’t thought about it since Grandmother snatched his book bag, afraid she’d see the thoughts in his eyes. What must be in them that made her panic? Maybe she doesn’t want us to know mental illness runs in the family. The world knows without those journals, trust me.

  And where’s the seventh one?

  Maybe now would be the time to go to the attic. He checks the time, thinking he could get down the hall and back within minutes—

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Oliver fumbles the phone. His teeth lock together, clamped by the raw grip of fear. Someone knocked on the door, but not with a knuckle. More like a fingernail, each rap separated by a long second. The last one sent gooseflesh across his shoulders as the nail dragged across the painted surface.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  …scratch.

  The previous gooseflesh transforms into full-body shrink-wrap. Eyes wide, he stops breathing.

  “Ollie.”

  Henry didn’t so much as say his name as he breathed it. And not through the heavy door, but under it.

  “Open the door, Ollie. I know you’re in there. I know you’re awake.”

  Oliver presses his hands over his ears. He could sit there all night. Henry couldn’t get into the room unless he had a key. Which he probably does because it’s just an old-fashioned lock.

  “Ollllllie.”

  If he’s got a metal glove, he’s got one of those keys.

  “Open the doooooor.”

  Scratch.

  With jerky movements, he slides across the room. The knob turns against the lock. Oliver gulps for air, drawing deep, smooth breaths, feeling his pulse flutter in his neck. He slides his feet—his dead cold feet—and holds the doorknob.

  “Open,” Henry says, “the door.”

  Oliver turns the oval end of the key. The latch tumbles in the assembly. He pulls it open. Henry stands upright in the doorway. Oliver can see the perfect posture of Grandmother possessing his body. The dim light from the bedroom window reveals a spreading grin.

  “What do you want?” The words lack the quiver in Oliver’s belly.

  Henry, wearing a white robe with wide collars and soft-soled slippers, walks forward. Oliver steps aside. In the dark, he paces around the bed, hands in the square pockets of his robe. He looks around the room, tilting his head toward the dresser, the nightstand and bed, as if he might see something in the dark. Maybe he smells the binoculars still hidden under the bed.

  “What do you know?” Henry flips the pillow and rubs his hand over the sheet beneath it.

  “What?”

  “What do you know, Ollie? What have you seen?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Henry sighs. With his back to the window, he’s a silhouette. “I know you and your girlfriend have been out to the room, the one in the hill. When I specifically told you not to, you went out there, didn’t you?”

  Oliver hopes Henry can’t see his chin quiver.

  “You went into the garage. You read the journals. You snooped around.”

  Oliver shakes his head. Henry lets the seconds pile up. His breath leaks through his nostrils like steam.

  “You don’t know anything, Ollie. You know nothing about this family, about the property or Grandmother. You and your gypsy mother wander in here like homeless tramps and think, because we share DNA, you’ll fit right in, but you’re wrong. Tell me what you’ve seen.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Henry moves a step closer, his features still hidden in the shadows.

  “Was it magical? When you saw him, did it blow your mind? Did you think he’d have a corncob pipe and a carrot for a nose? He led you into that garage, took you right to the journals, didn’t he? He put them right in your lap so that you’d know the story, and you ate it up. If you think he cares about you, you’re wrong. He doesn’t care about anyone.”

  “How do you know it’s a he?”

  “Kiss the journals goodbye. The snow is gone; he won’t be back. It’s just you, now. No more friends to protect you. No mystery snowballs flying out of the woods, no free rides to the open field. You’re alone, Ollie.”

  “Why do you have a metal glove?” The cold quiver that usually buckles his knees is still there, but now there’s an undercurrent of steel in his bones. His feet remain planted on the floor. He can feel the lines burning his palm as if he’s squeezing the orb.

  “It’s not a he,” Henry says. “Get it right; it’s an it. And it doesn’t like you.”

  “What’s the metal glove for? Do you control them with it? I know Grandmother has one; I’ve seen her with it. Why does she have it? Why is the windmill charged and the forest shift and the garage locked? Why is all this a secret?”

  The walls crackle. The momentum of courage pushes the questions out. He can’t stop.

  “What’s the glove do?”

  “You need to stop asking questions.” Henry steps closer. Oliver can smell his mouthwash. “Nobody is ready for the answers, Ollie. Not you, not this town. Not the world. It’s best if you and your mother be on your way. Before you get hurt, Ollie. It’s not safe.”

  The menace dropped from the last line. There was no threat, like he actually meant it, he actually cared. Just for a moment. But the menace comes back in the very next breath.

  “I know this is all wonderful and exciting. Everything is new and fun. There’s so much mystery on the property, I get that. But it’s not for you or your mother. You’ve got to go; it’s for your own good. People disappear out here, and no one cares. You know that.”

  “I’m not scared of you.”

  “It’s not me you should be scared of.”

  “We have a right to be here.”

  “I’m trying to help. Why can’t you see that?”

  “I don’t think you are. The snowman doesn’t, either. That’s why he pulverized you with the snowball.”

  Henry hesitates. He doesn’t move. And in that long moment, Oliver senses doubt covering something up.

  “You’re scared of him,” Oliver says. “That’s why you want us to leave.”

  “You have no idea what there is to fear.”

  “You’re lying. He doesn’t hate me, he hates you. And that scares the crap out of you.”

  It makes sense now. The snowman showed Oliver the journals. He kept Henry from taking his stocking cap and protected him from the things in the woods. Henry’s not trying to protect Oliver; he’s trying to save himself. Grandmother, too.

  “You’re forgetting something.” Henry takes another step, and Oliver backs into the wall. His mouthwash smells like medicine. “Without snow, there is no snowman.”

  Oliver’s hand is balled into a fist, aching to feel the grooves in his palm. He relaxes his hand, but reflexively squeezes. If he concentrates, he can feel the rough surface, sense the confidence surge through his arm. Cradle his chest.

  Henry steps back and looks down.

  Oliver doesn’t realize he’s staring at his clenching fist. Oliver finds himself cornered between the bed and window. He raises two fists and squares up.

  He’s never been in a fight, never thrown a punch. His dad taught him how to stand, how to hold his hands, but that was it. He smacked Oliver in the head, called him names, and laughed in his face. His dad bragged that Oliver couldn’t even make him spill his drink.

  Truth was, Henry was going to pound him, right there
in the bedroom. Oliver could cry for help; his mom would come. She pulled him out of school and called the parents of a bully that took Oliver’s lunch; she cussed out his dad when he came home with bruises on his arm. But for the first time, Oliver didn’t want her to save him.

  He was making a stand.

  Henry catches Oliver’s arm and, in one swift motion, twists it behind his back. Pressing his thumb into Oliver’s wrist, he pries open his fingers to find an empty palm.

  He shoves Oliver in the corner.

  Oliver’s huffing, fists in front again. He’s bobbing on the balls of his feet. Next time Henry reaches, he’ll crack the top of his head.

  “Where is it?” Henry says.

  “What?”

  “You know. Hand it over.”

  “I don’t have anything.”

  “Where’d it go?”

  He shrugs. “Depends on what you want.”

  “Don’t play, Ollie. You shouldn’t have it.”

  “Have what?”

  “The wood ball.” Henry looks back at the door. “You don’t know what you’re doing, Ollie. You don’t know anything. Now where is it?”

  The truth would make this easy. It would be safe. Oliver shifts his feet, bends at the knees, and tightens his fists. He wishes he had the orb, wishes he had something to protect, a reason to tense for a battle. If he did have the orb, he’d like to see Henry try to take it from him.

  Henry makes a move, but it’s a feint to flush Oliver out of the corner. Oliver doesn’t buy it; instead, he lunges. Henry’s caught off guard but quickly regains his balance, avoiding Oliver’s swing, shoving his face into the down comforter. With Henry’s knee in his back and a mouthful of fabric, Oliver panics to breathe. He wasn’t ready to hold his breath, and his chest is already on fire.

  “You think you’re special?” Henry says in his ear. “I’ve been out here since I was born. I’ve been waiting for that snowflake to give me the orb, and you come out here with your dirtbag mother two months and I get a snowball in the face…”

  Oliver flails, but Henry holds him down. It’s almost too easy.

  “It’s not going to work that way, Ollie. We’ll decide where the magic happens.”

  His words are hot on Oliver’s ear, but the air sizzles in his head as he tries to breathe. Henry twists Oliver’s arm, and, automatically, his fist opens.

  “Where is it?” Henry’s knee thuds in Oliver’s back. “Where is it!”

  “Enough,” someone says, drily.

  Henry leaps off.

  Oliver rolls onto his back, sucking air while tears stream over his cheeks. Grateful it’s dark, that maybe they can’t see him cry, he wipes his face.

  Grandmother stands in the doorway; Henry’s next to her. His hair isn’t even messed up. He bends slightly. Grandmother whispers in his ear. Without a glance back, he swiftly leaves. Oliver, still laboring to breathe, listens to him descend the stairwell to the second floor.

  Grandmother closes the door.

  Calmly, she crosses the room to stand at the window. Her steps, silent as always, are shorter and slower—an old woman rather than a taskmaster faces the view of the open field. The moonlight highlights her stoic features. Tonight, however, her cheeks are burdened with emotional weight. Her eyes catch the bluish light.

  “Does your mother know?” she says just above a whisper.

  “About what?”

  She turns at the shoulders, her neck stiff. It’s clear what she means. The snowman. Oliver shakes his head.

  “I need to know the truth, Olivah. Does she know?”

  “No.”

  “Then you will do me a favor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Keep it that way.”

  She contemplates the view with her hands balled in the pockets of her sweater. Henry came for the wooden orb. She was waiting for it.

  “I know the stories,” Oliver says. His voice is shaky. “I read about the elven and Santa in the North Pole. The snowman, too. Is it all true?”

  “Do you have the orb?”

  He pauses. “I had it. But it’s gone now.”

  She doesn’t bother asking where the orb is. She knows.

  She knows what he’s seen. When she found the journals, she thought, perhaps, he was just prying where he shouldn’t be. She was angry at the betrayal, but something else, too. It wasn’t just reading the journals, it was that he found them. And maybe what else he might’ve found, such as the orb.

  Is she scared? For me or herself?

  “I saw the glove,” Oliver says. “I’ve seen you wear it when you’re outside, when you go to the garage. I’ve seen you with it late at night, out by the driveway. I know something haunts the property, that the woods shift and animals don’t live here. The old windmill is powered by something I can’t explain, and the house doesn’t get electricity from the city. None of this makes sense any more than the…what I’ve seen out there.”

  Snowman, he thinks. But he can’t say it.

  “It’s best you don’t know what happens out here. Trust me, Olivah. Your mother, too.” And then she whispers, her lips barely moving, “He should not have come to you.”

  “Who?”

  Her eyes darken. Lips purse.

  “He saved my life.” Oliver’s breathing is normal, but his heart still racing. “That night I was out past dark, I found the little room in the hill, the one Henry and Helen go to. There were things that came to life, that chased me. The snowman saved me, I think. I don’t know what they were, but they were going to hurt me. Is that what you mean? Is that what you’re protecting us from?”

  Her eyelids fall for a long moment. She shakes her head.

  “He saved me. He picked me up and carried me to the field right before you found me.” Oliver steps closer but resists the urge to reach out. “What is he?”

  “There are things in this world better left alone. But once discovered, there is no going back.” She turns to him, struggling to hold that perfect posture. Moonlight glistens in her eyes. “We can only limit the harm.”

  She crosses the room. With her hand on the doorway, she says without looking back, “You’ll move out, Olivah. I’d prefer it that way.”

  Silently, she disappears into the dark hallway. Even the stairwell doesn’t betray her descent.

  Oliver remains at the side of his bed. There are lines pressed into his palm as if he had been squeezing the orb. He should not have come for you.

  It doesn’t feel like a bad thing. The snowman is anything but that. But Grandmother seemed so concerned, so worried for him.

  And his mom.

  Oliver never thought he’d feel this way. Staring out the window, he can’t help feel the weight of sadness Grandmother left behind.

  I’m not the only one that wants to leave.

  GRANDFATHER

  Not all grandfathers are great.

  F L U R Y

  nineteen

  A little bell rings.

  Oliver ties a bandana over his head. It keeps his hair—bleached by the summer sun—out of his eyes when he leans over the sink and the sweat from running down his cheeks. For a while, he tied it back in a small ponytail, but once, in the middle of July’s heat wave, when temperatures reached one hundred degrees three days straight, he had to dump a cappuccino when sweat dripped in the foam.

  “A large latte with soy.” Cath slaps the order on the counter. “The double cap ready?”

  “Almost,” Oliver says.

  “We’re backing up, O.”

  He doesn’t tell her the frother is partially clogged because she didn’t clean it when she closed up the night before. Instead, he pours the espresso in a circle—his signature—in the white foam. Cath pops her gum, her gothic eyeliner giving her black eyes.

  The line at the counter is five deep. Oliver grabs the next ticket in line.

  “Need some help?” Ms. Megan, a short woman with bobbed black hair that has the texture of straw, is pulling on a second sweater. It’s September—two-sweat
er weather.

  Oliver slides over two tickets. He always feels funny passing work off to the owner of the Smile Café, but she once said she didn’t open the place to stand around. Not many bosses work harder than their employees.

  “Can you close tonight?” Ms. Megan asks. “I forgot about my daughter’s recital. I’ll make it up to you.”

  “Yes.”

  “You sure?”

  “No problem, Ms. Megan.” He and Molly were going to the movies, but they could do that tomorrow.

  “You’re a lifesaver, O. What would I do without you?”

  Ms. Megan locks her elbow around his neck and pulls him down to plant one on his temple. She didn’t kiss Cath like that. Maybe that’s why the eyeliner queen always looked like she was sucking a lemonhead.

  Not many bosses had an employee like Oliver.

  Homeschooling let him work whenever he wanted. And living in the apartment above the café didn’t hurt. They had lived there all summer and hadn’t missed rent yet. Ten months without being late was the best they’d ever done. Now that he was working, too, they would shatter that record.

  He texts Molly about the change of plans. She texts back a sad face. “Stop by,” he texts.

  A happy face comes back.

  It takes half an hour to catch up with the morning rush. Once the tickets are cleared, Ms. Megan sneaks back into the office to catch up on paperwork. Cath files her black nails. Oliver cleans out the frother in time for the next wave of commuters.

  At times, he misses the property. Even Grandmother.

  When he was sweating in the July heat, he imagined hiking through the cool shade and the spring-fed waters of the stream. He had only been out there once since moving out last May. The open field was a wildflower wonderland. He didn’t explore it. He had tea with Grandmother, instead.

  She looked tired.

  Her cheeks were rosy where she’d applied makeup, but ashen beneath. She made very little eye contact. When tea was finished, she escorted them to the door, said she was tired. Oliver watched the windmill churn its slow grind in the sideview mirror.

  “Non-fat, no foam, chai tea latte. Make it hot,” Cath says.