Claus: The Trilogy

by Tony Bertauski

This impossible journey.

  I have taken pen to paper, to finish this journal, because it was all that kept me alive in those early days, for when I did so it brought me closer to you. Even now, I can feel you at the end of my journey, a journey not possible if not for the only elven that believed in me.

  Ginny.

  She stands, right now, at the front of the ship. Her unusual size and shape has made her the target of the crew’s ridicule. I am quite a sight, as well, my love. I carry fat like a polar bear and a beard like a beast! But my feet, unlike Ginny’s, are normal. But she seems to care not. Never in her life has she seen so much water uncapped by ice.

  She is my savior. My hope.

  When my pleas fell on the elven’s deaf ears, she listened. Even when Claus, a human among the elven, agreed to keep me an unwilling citizen of the colony—a prisoner!—she listened.

  She’s not like the others.

  When they celebrated, she was morose. When they sang, she was quiet. Untouched by a smile, she worked hard to support the colony, but not because she loved them. It is a very strong sense of duty that drives her.

  And that is what led her to us.

  Little did I know, she had been watching me. She approached me last August. I was on the ice, pushing Flury’s limits as I did every day. It kept my mind occupied with dreams that, one day, he would get past their arbitrary border and fly me home.

  Reality, though, was suffocating that dream.

  It was that day she met me at the extent of Flury’s range. I waited for the stout little elven to approach, wondering if someone had caught on to my intentions. We stared at each other for quite some time.

  “You believe in love,” she said. “I want to believe, too.”

  That was the beginning of our friendship.

  We would meet on the ice at the perimeter of Flury’s range and plan our escape. My desperation was not enough to bring me home. It required her raw determination, her dedication, her sense of duty of what she believed was right and just.

  She learned the shipping routes of humans (elven know everything humans do). She knew when the solar flares would be greatest to interfere with the elven’s ability to track us. On the shortest day of the year, we met on the ice.

  We left on Christmas.

  Flury obliged to take us to his farthest reaches. When he could go no more, Ginny pulled a glove from her pocket. Like a metal ball to a magnet, she extracted the orb from his chest, his body collapsed in a heap of snow.

  I must say, it was quite disconcerting.

  For a time, he seemed to be my only friend. To watch the heart drawn from him like a bullet brought tears to my eyes. He had saved me from death, and now he brings me to you. I cannot thank him enough. She assures me, though, that when we arrive at home, when snow is on the ground, we can bring him back.

  You will love him.

  You will love Ginny and Flury. Together, we’ll become a family. A strange one, to say the least, but one that will remain bonded by eccentricities.

  Time, my love.

  It is all that separates us now.

  For now, I will spend it watching the sun track the sky. I will spend it counting the stars as I draw closer. And when dreams and reality become one, when I stand upon the threshold where I left you before this journey, I will fall into your arms.

  And I will weep.

  Weep, he did.

  The following pages contain sketches of a ship, the ocean and a short, round elven near a thick mast. And countless drawings of a beautiful woman, Gayle Toye. His wife.

  His love.

  There are no more entries. Malcolm Toye had probably arrived home. There would be no reason to write.

  Oliver closes the book.

  Molly covers her mouth. Silently, tears track her cheeks. They remain in the hollow den as the light of the day diminishes, the weight of sadness filling the room. Behind them, trapped inside the super sphere, a man and an elven still exist because of love.

  It’s dark by the time they leave the subtle glow, crawling out of the mud and crossing the water. At the tree where the bracelets will remain forever locked, Oliver takes Molly’s hand.

  “I know what we have to do.”

  20

  YEARS

  LATER

  F L U R Y

  thirty-eight

  Large maps bury the oak desk.

  Notes are scribbled in the margins. Fresh ink—blue, red, and black—track various lines around the world, all leading to the white mass inside the Arctic Circle.

  An X marks the North Pole.

  Oliver pulls a stack of rolled maps off a keyboard, clicking through a website with one hand, a phone pressed against his ear with the other. When he gets an answering machine, the third one in ten minutes, he dials the number on the screen and waits at the window while it rings.

  The second-floor bedroom, the one Mom used to sleep in, had been converted to an office ten years earlier. The frosted window faces the open field where the snow-covered windmill remains standing. The missing blades are the result of a severe thunderstorm. Beyond the wide open field, heavy construction equipment sits at the edge of the trees.

  A wide path leads to the buried hobbit house.

  A herd tramples down the steps, followed by children screaming.

  “Hello?” someone says on the phone.

  “Manuel?” Oliver trots across the room to close the door. “Manuel, it’s Oliver Toye! I’m so sorry to call you on Christmas Day. How…how are you?”

  Pause. “Fine, Mr. Toye. How can I help you?”

  “Yes, I won’t keep you. I’ve been going through the itinerary concerning the helicopter pickup. I’m afraid we’ve run into a bit of a delay on our end.”

  Manuel patiently listens to the explanation. He’s become accustomed to changes in Oliver Toye’s schedule.

  “There’s only so much I can do,” he answers.

  “I’ll pay extra. Money’s not a problem.”

  “Money can only do so much, Mr. Toye.”

  “I understand. I’m only talking two days, Manuel. I can email the change order this afternoon. It’s the last one, I promise.”

  Manuel sighs. He heard that promise last year, and the year before that. And the year before that. Seven years this trip had been in the works. Seven times it had been cancelled. Oliver paid for every failed attempt.

  That’s the only reason Manuel picked up the phone.

  Oliver searches through the papers and finds a set of designs to answer Manuel’s questions. The children’s screams are now outside the house. Five of them between the ages of five and ten are sufficiently bundled for winter, racing past the defunct windmill for the snow-covered field.

  “Yes, yes,” Oliver says. “Everything’s the same; the extraction’s just a little behind, that’s all. No, the design is exactly the same.”

  Molly enters the office, wearing an apron with frilly edges. Smile Café is printed in block letters along with her logo design for the coffee shop when they bought it from Ms. Megan. Her pixie haircut is dyed red and green on the tips. She slides a coffee cup across the plan, lipstick staining the rim.

  He lifts it, mouthing the words, Thank you.

  Stop working, she mouths back.

  He responds with a nod. Molly goes to the door and holds mistletoe over her head.

  “I can send those right now.” Oliver jogs over, kissing her passionately. “No, no, no…”

  Molly giggles with his lower lip between her teeth.

  “I promise, nothing’s changed. It’s the family time capsule. It’s already been approved for transportation. We just had a few last minute delays.”

  Getting to the North Pole these days isn’t difficult. You can ski up there, fly up there, or walk up there and spend as much time doing it as you want. Expedition companies did it all the time.

  Dropping a box off at the North Pole, however, was a different story.

  Flury’s metal orb could fit in a backpack. He could drop that i
n the snow when they reached the top of the world.

  The super sphere was a bit more difficult.

  The transport company wanted to know what was in it. How could he explain what it was, and that no one could touch it? How could he ensure that once it was up there, it wouldn’t present a danger to future adventurers?

  It took seven years to design a box to contain the super sphere with a lock only elven could open. And in the event that elven didn’t really exist, that his grandfather was indeed psychotic—although the evidence suggested otherwise—or the elven didn’t find it, the box would melt its way through the polar ice cap and sink to the bottom of the ocean.

  Oliver and Molly would ski up to the North Pole. A helicopter would carry the box—a time capsule dedicated to the family of Malcolm Toye—and pick up the expedition.

  It was risky.

  But it was the right thing to do. The elven would know what to do with it. And Grandmother deserved to be home.

  Flury, too.

  “Great, great,” Oliver says. “I’ll get that over to you, pronto. Thanks for being so helpful, Manuel. This means so much to us, really. I know…yes, I know you know. Have…yes, have a Merry Christmas, and sorry to call. All right, bye.”

  “Everything good?” Molly asks.

  “Still on for March.”

  She plants another kiss on his lips, wiping the lipstick left behind. They watch the snow start to flutter down from a gray sky. The children squeal with delight somewhere near the trees.

  “Give me a few minutes,” he says. “I’ll be right down.”

  Molly leaves him to finish. When the documentation is finished and sent, he turns the computer off. Someone is crying full steam when he gets to the steps. Madeline took a snowball to the face. By the time Oliver gets to the kitchen, she’s already back outside for more action, coming inside just long enough to tell on Ben.

  Mom is bent over the stove. Her hair, now white, is too short to pull back in a bun. Headbands are no longer necessary. Helen and Molly, both wearing aprons, are at the sink. He gets the update: Aunt Rhonnie is running late for Christmas dinner (they plan for that). Henry won’t make it. They plan for that, too.

  Oliver volunteers to set the table.

  “Can you check the living room, hon?” Molly asks. “I think something broke.”

  “What was it?”

  “Something fell.”

  Their first child was born ten years ago. The last one, five years ago. Oliver had grown accustomed to collateral damage.

  The living room is littered with stacks of opened gifts and errant bits of wrapping paper. The Christmas tree is to the left of the spacious bay window—the one Flury had climbed through to scoop Oliver up twenty years earlier. The snow has become thick. The children are racing toward the house, stumbling around the windmill as they lob snowballs at each other.

  Nothing appears broken.

  Oliver pushes boxes around to make sure a shattered ornament isn’t hiding. He finds a plastic cup on the floor. Then another. When he’s done scrambling through the Christmas carnage, there’s five cups in all.

  They’re all empty.

  Not a drop of juice or soda or flavored water is on the floor. The floor had its fair share of stains. Maybe a Christmas miracle had occurred.

  The back door crashes open.

  Helen and Oliver’s mom stop the herd from pounding through the mudroom before shedding winter gear and stomping off the snow. Their laughter is contagious.

  Oliver starts for the kitchen, but the Christmas tree catches his eye. There’s a bare branch near the top. In most cases, something like that would go unnoticed.

  Not on the Toye tree.

  That branch is a place of honor, a branch inhabited by a special ornament that stays locked in a safe place all other times of the year. It’s displayed for the family to recognize when they tell the story of elven and snowmen.

  A wire hook dangles from it.

  “Mom, Mom, Mom,” Ben rattles. “You should’ve seen it. We were crushing the girls with, like, these big snowballs because, like, Cameron and Nicholas were on the sides and, and, and…”

  Molly ushers Ben back to the mudroom. The kids stomp their boots, laughing and talking over each other.

  “And then the snowball man took their side…”

  Oliver wanders to the doorway. Molly doesn’t hear them; she’s busy keeping the snow out of the kitchen. He listens to the girls explain how the snowball man fought the boys, and then they all jumped on the snowball man’s back.

  “Snowball man?” Molly asks.

  The children storm through the kitchen. Mom is passing out steaming cups of hot chocolate that they take to the dinner table. Oliver holds onto the doorframe. Mistletoe is taped above his head. Molly comes over to collect a kiss, but her gaze shifts over his shoulder.

  Her mouth falls open.

  Oliver turns.

  The branch is still empty. The orb…the metal orb…the special metal orb called Flury…is still missing.

  He goes to the picture window. Molly by his side.

  In the field, far beyond the windmill, a figure emerges from a swirl of snow to stand near the trees. His body is thick and solid. Oliver feels a tingle in his arm, the heat in his palm.

  The warmth in his chest.

  They watch the figure made of snow pause before disappearing into a white cloud, swirling into the trees. The snowflakes settle to the ground like glittering diamonds, the sun catching the gleaming surface of a large metal object.

  “Do you believe?” Oliver whispers.

  Molly answers, “I believe.”

  By purchasing this book, you have donated to the development of mental health since 10% of the profits is annually donated to the WINGS for Kids (4/4 stars by Charity Navigator).

  WINGS for kids (WINGS) is an education program that teaches kids how to behave well, make good decisions and build healthy relationships. We do this by weaving a comprehensive social and emotional learning curriculum into a fresh and fun after school program. Kids get the life lessons they need to succeed and to be happy, and they get a safe place to call home after school.

  Enjoy Claus?

  Please review on Amazon

  By purchasing this book, you have donated to ease the suffering of the homeless since 25% of the profits is annually donated to the Lowcountry Food Bank.

  Thank you.

  Get the

  BERTAUSKI STARTER LIBRARY

  FREE!

  You’ll get 3 full-length novels and 1 novella…for free!

  Just tell me where to send them.

  Send me the free books

  Novels by Tony Bertauski

  CLAUS

  Claus Boxed Set (Save 30%)

  Claus: Legend of the Fat Man

  Jack: The Tale of Frost

  Flury: Journey of a Snowman

  Jolly: Myth of an Elven (Coming!)

  Tyme: The Spirit of Christmas (Coming!)

  Jocah: Mother of Christmas (Coming!)

  FOREVERLAND

  Foreverland Boxed Set (Save 30%)

  The Annihilation of Foreverland

  Foreverland is Dead

  Ashes of Foreverland

  Seeds of Foreverland (Prequel) FREE!

  HALFSKIN

  Halfskin Boxed Set (Save 30%)

  Halfskin

  Clay

  Bricks

  Halfskin (The Vignettes) FREE!

  SOCKET GREENY

  The Socket Greeny Saga (Save 30%)

  The Discovery of Socket Greeny

  The Training of Socket Greeny

  The Legend of Socket Greeny

  The Making of Socket Greeny (Prequel) FREE!

  DRAYTON

  Drayton (The Taker) FREE!

  The Drayton Chronicles (All 5 Drayton novellas)

  Drayton (The Taker)

  Bearing the Cross

  Swift is the Current

  Yellow

  Numbers

  A Taste of Tomorrow
<
br />   11 author boxed set including Tony Bertauski, Hugh Howey, Sean Platt and more!

  A Taste of Tomorrow 2

  9 author boxed set including Tony Bertauski, Saul Tanpepper, Nick Cole and more!

  Read more authors from DeadPixel Publications

  bertauski.com

  Contents

  GRANDMOTHER

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  GRANDFATHER

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty-one

  twenty-two

  twenty-three

  twenty-four

  twenty-five

  twenty-six

  twenty-seven

  twenty-eight

  twenty-nine

  thirty

  thirty-one