Claus: The Trilogy

by Tony Bertauski

Oliver inserts the wooden orb.

  Turn. Click.

  Hands on his knees, he squints to see Grandfather inside the dome. The smile behind the beard returns, crinkling the corners of his eyes. The old man lifts his hands, tips his head, and begins to laugh. His joy echoes down the long tunnel.

  “It’s been a long time,” he whispers. “A very long time.”

  He paces around the bucket now full of water. A droplet falls from the ceiling and plunks inside. Water streams over the sides.

  The old man slides his boots over the floor. By the time he reaches the other side, the shuffles fade and each step echoes with a careful heel-to-toe clap.

  He stands straighter, exhaling.

  If we stay long enough, will his steps turn silent?

  “What’s its name?” Oliver steps inside and points at the super sphere humming at the end of the lance.

  “No name, my boy. This one didn’t come from the North Pole.”

  “You invented it?”

  “I built all of them.”

  He gestures to the oddball orbs on display but gazes lovingly at his greatest achievement levitating in the center of the room, created in the likeness of Flury. All of those plans in the garage, the countless drawings of spheres and domes and circuits, they all had to do with the super sphere.

  The snowthings were just practice.

  “The magic bag.”

  “Hmmphff, the magic bag, yes. But even the imagination has limits, my boy. I created this”—he points at the super sphere—“for Flury, an upgrade of sorts. When he didn’t cooperate, I locked it up.”

  “And then he locked you out.”

  “He did.”

  “So what is it now?”

  “An empty vessel.” For the first time, the old man looks away from the super sphere. His eyes fall on Oliver. “What it needs is a soul.”

  “A soul?”

  “Yes, a soul. Memories, if you will. Structure, personality, a framework of thought and judgment. The elven did it to all their abominables, as they called them. It gave their snowmen stability and intelligence. Without a soul, it’s just a power source. But with one, it becomes more than you can imagine.”

  “How’re you going to give it a soul?”

  Grandfather doesn’t answer. He paces a few steps, eyes back on the super sphere. Already his steps fall quieter.

  “Flury knew what I wanted to do with the super sphere. You see, abominables like him see reality more clearly than mere mortals; they see through the human distraction of thoughts and delusion. Our imagination makes us a great species, innovative and powerful, but it’s also our Achilles’ heel, the source of our self-centered delusion. I am no exception, my boy, and when he saw what I’d become, he locked the dome and left me out in the cold to age.”

  “I thought Grandmother did that.”

  “They both saw through me.” He stretched out his arms like a man about to lift tremendous weight. “I have suffered on this property a long time, my boy.”

  It’s hard to imagine the super sphere levitating over that sharp point is empty and mindless because the sadness is still in the room, radiating from its shiny, etched surface, filling Oliver’s chest. Had Oliver not been in there once before, he would’ve thought it was Grandfather’s misery. The suffering the old man spoke of hung like a scent, a vapor, a tainted haunt of despair sitting forever in the gut.

  Nothing good has happened since he returned.

  “Don’t judge me, boy. You know the story, what I did to survive. There’s no dishonor in my escape. I only wanted to be home, I deserved that much. I never intended for it to become this.”

  “You wanted to see Grandmother…your love.”

  “Mmm.” He grunts, digging through his beard to find his chin. The light leaves his eyes. “If they had let me go, none of this ever would’ve happened. The elven are at fault.”

  His gaze turns faraway, as if the past plays out on the surface of the glittering super sphere spinning above the rod’s tip. Grandfather appears distraught. When trapped in the North Pole, his love for Grandmother was his only reason for living. Did that dream die when he returned? Was the dream better than reality?

  My love.

  “How’d you do it?” Oliver says. “How’d you get home?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The journals were for you to know why I did it. History is distorted too often, intended or not. I wanted someone to know the truth.”

  He stands upright.

  The hunch between the old man’s shoulders has vanished. The popping of his vertebrae resounds. Just being in the presence of the super sphere has straightened his back. Oliver can feel it, too. He feels stronger.

  “Your grandmother hid the journals from you. She didn’t want you to know what I was, only what I have become. I was not always this, my boy. There is a reason for who I am today.”

  “Is there a another one?”

  “You know enough.”

  “Why didn’t you give me the last journal?”

  “I’m not evil, Oliver. I just want to live.”

  “You’re already living.”

  “I died long ago, my boy.”

  The old man exhales.

  The joy has receded beneath an onslaught of bitter memories. He didn’t die, but something happened when he returned. He thought happiness was waiting for him.

  What happened?

  A drop of water lands in the bucket.

  Another drip hangs from a bundle of conduit snaking into a hole. Somewhere above them, the river is leaking.

  Something shimmers around the super sphere.

  Tiny droplets are orbiting like electrons in slow motion. Grandfather didn’t seem to notice. He was looking right at it, the luminescence reflecting in his eyes that don’t seem as deep set as they once were, but not seeing what’s in front of him.

  He’s been living in his thoughts far too long.

  Our imagination makes us a great species, but it’s also our Achilles’ heel.

  “Your grandmother has a good heart, my boy.” He digs deep into his beard. Digs deeper into the memories. “Better than mine, I suppose. But, in the end, we’re both flawed.”

  Ker-plunk.

  Another drop.

  The mist shimmers around the super sphere; a faint rainbow appears like a solar belt. The miniscule droplets orbit around it as if the super sphere is a planet, which in a way, it is. Those miniature spheres Grandfather dropped on the floor used wrapping paper and tissues, the snowthings attract slush, sticks and debris. Flury’s sphere pulls snow around it to form a body.

  An abominable attracts snow to make a body.

  What about water?

  Oliver steps toward the bucket. “What are you going to do with the super sphere?”

  He nods. The hidden smile returns. “Start by feeding it memories.”

  “What memories?”

  “Mine, of course.”

  “How?”

  He grunts and stretches. Tendons flex along his neck. If Grandfather is going to put his memories into it…

  “You want to become an abominable.”

  Grandfather is mesmerized again. It’s three times the size of Flury’s sphere. Imagine what it could do.

  That’s why Flury refused.

  That’s why he locked Grandfather out.

  Too much power.

  Oliver flexes his gloved hand. He can feel the subtle tug of the wooden orb wanting to come back to him, to feed him strength. To call for Flury. Oliver catches the next drop in his bare hand. It makes hardly a sound. Grandfather looks at the ceiling, unsurprised by the leak.

  As if he’s known all along.

  “Those aren’t sinkholes in the forest,” Oliver says. “You’ve been trying to break inside, using the snowthings to tunnel to the dome.”

  “You can leave now, Oliver.”

  “But Flury stopped you, didn’t he? That’s what the battle in the trees is every night. Your snowthings are trying to crack through the ceiling, to let you
in, but Flury stops them.”

  “I mean you no harm, my boy. You are still my grandson, but you must return to the house. Tell the family they must leave and not return. Your grandmother will have to stay, naturally. But she’ll expect that.”

  “Are you going to make the elven pay for saving your life?”

  “It’s complicated, my boy. When you’ve lived as long as I have, you learn that nothing is ever straightforward.”

  “You should’ve died long ago. You’re human. You’re not supposed to live this long.”

  “Enough, Oliver.” His hand clenches around the orb. Oliver feels the small hairs on his arms rise. “Return before I change my mind.”

  “Are you going to hurt the elven?”

  “No more than they hurt me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course not.”

  “They saved you.”

  He nods absently. His hand relaxes, and the electrified air vanishes. He stares at the super sphere. The rainbow is vivid.

  The wrinkles have vanished from the old man’s eyes.

  “I don’t understand why you want to hurt them. You returned home to your love, you made grandmother live long like you; what else do you want? If you use the super sphere for revenge, you’re going to prove the elven right, that humans don’t deserve this much power. We don’t deserve peace.”

  “Flury gave you the key to the dome”—Grandfather holds up the wooden orb—“in hopes that you’d change my mind, I know this. He knew that one day I would find a way back here. He knew I couldn’t be stopped. I’m afraid, Oliver, that I’ve made up my mind. I did so a hundred years ago.”

  As the old man becomes younger, the sadness in the room becomes more potent. It feels heavier, more constricting. Grandfather thought Flury chose Oliver to convince him to do the right thing, but he was beyond changing. But maybe Flury chose him for another reason.

  To feel the despair haunting his grandfather.

  To experience the sadness of the empty super sphere.

  Not to change his mind…but to stop him.

  “I can’t let you hurt anyone, Grandfather.”

  “My boy,” he says, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  The old man focuses on Oliver, notices the heel of the young man’s boot on the lip of the bucket, water sloshing over the edge.

  He looks back at the rainbow-wrapped super sphere that’s begun to rotate within the coalescing bands of water droplets. He understands what’s about to happen and squeezes the wooden orb.

  The atmosphere bristles, the air tightens around Oliver’s forehead. The light dims in his periphery.

  He kicks out.

  Falls back.

  Water splashes up his pant leg. The plastic bucket clonks on the concrete. Water spreads across the floor.

  Then comes together.

  A funnel rises, spinning toward the glowing super sphere.

  The rainbow fractures.

  Bands of light disperse off the walls as the water spout enters the gravitational pull of the super sphere.

  Faster, it spins.

  Grandfather is shouting.

  Oliver’s foot slips in the water. He rolls onto his side to crawl away, but something tugs his leg. He begins to slide toward the center.

  “No! No! No!” Grandfather runs around the center post, unaffected by the force dragging Oliver across the wet concrete. The closer he gets to the center, the faster he’s pulled. The super sphere wobbles on the rod’s tip, a watery veil undulating over its surface. The floor quickly dries as every last drop is drawn into its gravitational field.

  Oliver claws at the floor, peeling his fingernails back.

  The smaller orbs pop from the wall pockets like artillery.

  Grandfather’s fingers brush against Oliver’s outstretched hand as he’s slurped into an electric white light.

  And touches the super sphere.

  Then perfect silence.

  F L U R Y

  thirty-one

  His body goes limp.

  The boundaries that define Oliver—his flesh, his bones—flow like sand. Forms blur in unpredictable directions. Sounds are warped, unintelligible, punctuated by the watery impact of hardened cannonballs firing through him.

  Colors smear across curved walls.

  Round and round, round and round.

  Hornets chase his watery tail.

  I’m flying.

  Time and space slow. Oliver begins to make sense of the hazy landscape with three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vision, seeing in all directions simultaneously. The hornets are not insects but a mass of orbs giving chase—the oddball spheres that were displayed in the wall pockets—nipping at Oliver’s watery body. His grandfather is below, hands raised. A garbled sound roars from his open mouth.

  There’s an empty bucket on the floor and a body.

  My body.

  He’s inside the sphere. He touched it. Humans are never supposed to touch a sphere…

  It just needs a soul.

  A wave of panic ripples through him. The watery mass quivers, and the orbs gain on him. It doesn’t seem possible. His fleshly body has become a foreign object, a crumpled container, a discarded vehicle. He’s inside the super sphere, a passenger flying through space.

  How is this possible?

  Grandfather, clenching the wood orb in his metal glove, aims his predatory spheres at Oliver. Each time one plunges into him, it takes a bite of water.

  And Oliver slows down, becomes less.

  They’ll take me apart like parasites.

  Each pass around the dome brings him closer to the old man’s outstretched arm, closer to his grasp. More water. He needs more water.

  The ceiling is still dripping.

  With a thought, Oliver turns toward the leak. He focuses his attention, concentrates on the weakest point in the ceiling, and drives all his mass forward.

  Crack!

  He doesn’t feel the impact. The super sphere rebounds.

  Oliver’s panaramic vision is jilted. A steady stream leaks from the conduit, splattering the floor. The parasitic spheres swarm him before he can circle the room, nipping away the watery body swirling around the super sphere. With each bite they take more water from him.

  They feed on him, a frenzy in the air, sipping away the water that gave the super sphere a body, that allowed it to absorb Oliver. The room begins to dim. He’s becoming less and less, going to sleep, going away.

  Until he’s barely floating above the floor.

  I’ll never see Molly again. Never feel her hand in mine.

  The room’s sadness floods inside him. The pain of loss, the fear of death. The orbs feast on the watery remains. The super sphere clinks on the concrete.

  Begins to roll.

  “You don’t belong in there, my boy.” The super sphere wedges against a boot. “Get back to your body.”

  Grandfather’s callused palms grasp the super sphere. Oliver feels them against the etched surface, feels the weight of the old man’s thoughts begin to pour inside.

  His eyes pale.

  He’s coming inside.

  Oliver feels the dense form of his own flesh against the floor, the steady thump of his heart pulses. His elbows burn where the skin is scuffed away.

  He’s coming to give the super sphere a soul.

  Grandfather had planned, all along, to feed his memories into the super sphere. He wants to be inside it. He wants to become an abominable. He pushes Oliver out, throws him back into his limp body, where his chest rises and falls.

  I can’t let him.

  The old man’s grizzled body is on the floor.

  The super sphere quivers beneath his old boot. The swarm of oddball orbs fall on the super sphere, throwing the water they stole from it back into the larger sphere’s orbit, returning life to it now that their master is in control.

  Oliver throws his hand out.

  His fingernails scratch the concrete, crawl to the old man’s pant leg, creep over his boot un
til he lays his palm on the super sphere’s shimmering surface. Once again, the charge rips through him.

  This time his memories—his awareness, his identity—remains in his body.

  Oliver holds on, but his grasp is slipping. He can’t get back inside. The etched lines slide under his fingertips. Grandfather is trying to keep him out. Oliver’s hand goes numb. Then his arm. He closes his eyes and lets the super sphere absorb him once again.

  Into the darkness he goes.

  Into a bodiless space inside the super sphere that seems endless and welcome.

  This time, he’s not alone.

  Grandfather struggles to push him back out, to put him in his body. You don’t belong here! the old man shouts.

  Oliver clings to the inner space, holding it with his thoughts, grasping with his presence. But Grandfather is too strong, too big. He feels the cold edge of the super sphere, the etched lines pressing into his awareness, the warmth of his hand lying limp on the metallic surface.

  He begins to leak back into his skin—

  The door is blown off its hinges.

  It spins through the room, whooshes over Oliver’s fleshly body, and snaps the levitating spire in half. A snowstorm fills the room. Oliver, clinging to the inner space of the super sphere, watches his fleshly body lift in the updraft and safety of powerful arms.

  Flury!

  The snowman pulls Oliver’s fleshly body to his chest and crashes into the leaking ceiling like a wrecking ball. Water erodes the ceiling as the river above them finds a way inside. The swarm of orbs fall on Flury, nipping away his snowy body like flying piranha. They dart around the lab, the orbs gnawing at his arms and legs. Flury bounces off the floor, the ceiling and a workbench, soaring toward the exit.

  The snowthings arrive.

  Their slushy bodies ooze through the broken doorway.

  They don’t resume their grotesque forms that stood next to the windmill. They remain a neverending stream of gray slush that fills the room, surrounding Flury and plugging the leaking ceiling.

  The slush streams toward the super sphere and enters the gravitational field.

  Oliver grows.

  But he’s no longer just Oliver. His thoughts mingle with Grandfather’s memories. Their minds, still separate, merge at the edges. They’re becoming one.