He scoffed. “Probably always.”
Mary opened her mouth to argue, but Chris put his hand on hers. “My dear, I believe Jared has been going through a tough time. Perhaps we should allow him to speak.”
When he put it that way, she couldn't very well say no. She gave him a curt nod and took a slow breath, because slow breaths always calmed adults down. “Very well, then. Jared, what makes you think I would do anything to hurt you?'
“I didn't say you were trying to hurt me. You're just trying to trick me.”
“Trick you?” Mary asked. “How?”
“I believe I understand,” Chris said. He wiggled his fingers again and shifted into the Santa look he had worn a few moments before. Tracy looked around for cameras or strings. When she didn't see any, she realized she hadn't uncovered a single secret since she stepped through the mirror. Santa Command hadn't been very good at hiding their technology. Why was Chris' house so different?
Mary took one look at Santa Chris, and her face softened instantly. The harsh lines around her mouth were replaced with a glowing smile. Her eyes carried a spark that seemed to leap across the table and land in the corner of Chris' eyes.
Tracy looked at the two of them, and she could see how Mary fit in perfectly with Chris' Santa image. They both had gentle eyes and dimpled smiles.
“It's been a hundred years since I've seen you in that. I didn't think you still…” Mary's thoughts drifted off as she reached a finger up to dab at her eye.
“A hundred years? Come on!” Jared's snotty voice broke through the moment, and they all turned to look at him.
Tracy gave him a nasty look. Even she knew better than to be that rude.
“What?” he said. “Are you going to tell me you believe all of this stuff? They're playing with our minds.”
“I…” Tracy began. “Well, I…”
Chris and Mary watched her as she struggled to find the truth. There was a war happening inside her, between all of the proof she had collected over the course of the night and the gnawing feeling in her gut that had begun sometime in Chris' presence. She spoke timidly as she pulled at the cuffs of her coat. “Well, there is that dust that makes people see things.”
“Right,” Jared said smugly. “And the zombie Santas, and that ride he has in the barn.”
Chris gave a weary sigh. His Santa image slipped off of him, but he didn't quite return to his normal self. His skin turned pasty and paper thin as if his previous appearance had been a costume as much as the Santa outfit was. Even his clothes seemed looser on him. The whole effect made him seem much, much older. “Well, I can't argue with the first two. Unfortunately, the world has changed over the centuries, and many things have become a necessity. I can assure you, however, that the sleigh ride I took you on, was one hundred percent genuine.”
Jared leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “Yeah, whatever.”
“What about jets?” Tracy suggested. “There could have been jets on the sleigh. That would have made the ride real.”
“Did you forget that we just popped back into the barn? How do you explain that, Miss I Wanna Be A Scientist?”
Tracy had no explanation. She'd forgotten about that part.
Chris saved her from having to answer. “Well, I suppose I could have a theme park ride in my barn. Or I could have dusted you like the Inklings do. I could have done any number of things to trick you.” He paused long enough to make his next his next words seem very important. “But I haven't.”
“I don't believe you,” Jared said flatly.
Chris folded his hands on the table in front of him. He thumbs circled around each other as if he were weaving together his answer. Once again, Tracy felt like something important was about to be said. “Let me ask you both something. What makes you so sure there isn't magic in this world?”
Tracy answered first. “Everything has a scientific explanation.” It was what she had believed her entire life, and every moment she'd spent in school had confirmed that. Sure, she'd seen magicians at parties, but she'd also seen books in the public library that showed just how they did all of those tricks. Fairies didn't exist, unicorns weren't hiding somewhere deep in the forest, and even Santa himself, was a corporation with a bunch of gadgets that made people think Santa was magical.
“I see. And do you have an explanation for everything you've seen tonight?”
Tracy squirmed a little in her seat. “Sort of.”
“Sort of?” Chris asked.
“Well, not all of it. That was my plan, to figure out how everything worked. I had a hypothesis.” And when your hypothesis is proven incorrect, you need to modify it. Beth had said that earlier. Tracy had proven her hypothesis in so many ways by finding the loading zone and spotting the jets on the sleigh and seeing the computer files. But there were other things she wasn't sure she could explain—her cast, the portal, the ride on Chris' sleigh. Even though she could create an explanation, they had all felt different, like they couldn't be real, but they were. Those things all suggested magic. Could her hypothesis be wrong? She shook her head. Her beliefs were cemented firmly into her brain. “There's no way one person could visit all of those houses in one night. Not even you.”
“He did once.” Mary's voice was so soft and wistful that both Jared and Tracy looked at her. “When the world was young, and there weren't so many people.”
Jared shook his head and muttered something under his breath.
“What was that?” Chris asked. “My hearing isn't as good as it once was.” Although Tracy got the feeling he had heard perfectly.
Jared pushed himself to his feet. His fingers splayed across the kitchen table as he leaned on it. His face turned very red. “I said that if Santa and all of this magic were real, then I never would have lost my parents!” He kicked the chair behind him into the wall and stormed toward the door. Before he left, he looked at them one last time. He pointed his finger at each of them as if they were the ones responsible for his parents. “I'm going home, and if any of you try to stop me, I'm calling the police.”
The second the door slammed shut, Chris stood up. As he did so, the fragile elderly man from moments before shifted into the Chris that Tracy had first met. He tugged on the hem of his vest and squared his shoulders. “Are you ready?”
“What are we gonna do?” Tracy asked him.
“We're going to see some magic.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Jared
Jared stormed out of the kitchen door and straight into the middle of a forest. The snow was deeper there, wrapping around his feet and snaking up his ankles. He tried not to mind it, but his socks were getting wet. He thought for a second about going back, but there were crazy people in the kitchen. At least with the snow, he knew exactly what to expect. He didn't know where he was going, and he certainly didn't know how to get there, but his feet were moving, and for now, that was enough.
After a few minutes, he found a small river. It was frozen over. He didn't stop to think that he hadn't seen any frozen creeks yet in Alabama this year, although he was certain he was still in his home state. Even if he had thought about the creeks, he would have rationalized it by saying the hot chocolate was still showing him things that weren't really there. He'd also been given hot chocolate the night of his worst nightmare ever. They'd forced the images into him, and the words from the dream still echoed in his head in the inky black of the night.
The workers at Santa Command had been very good at playing with his mind. When he first came to live with Beth, she brought him there, hoping that the “magic” would convince him that things were going to be okay. They showed him flying reindeer, the Inklings (deformed squirrels in his opinion), and Santas traveling up and down chimneys in a puff of smoke. They'd even sent him to Chris' house and insisted he'd been to the North Pole.
As a child, yes, he would have called it magic. As an eleven-year-old, an age he liked to think of as young adu
lt, he knew that all of those things were tricks designed to keep the public in the dark. There was no magic. Santa existed, but only as a club of old men playing dress up.
Chris may have been retired, but he was still one of them. He was still part of the joke that had been played on the world for centuries. Jared didn't wish to be any part of that joke. Any time Beth talked about work, Jared would mutter something about homework, retreat to his room, and lay on his bed with his iPod blasting into his ears. The sound took him into his head where he could leave the world behind him. Chris spoke about magic, but the only real magic Jared could imagine was the kind that would make him forget. For him, music was magic.
As Jared followed the river, he shuffled through his mental playlist until he came up with something angry, something Beth would forbid him to listen to because of the four-letter words in the lyrics. He found the perfect song and screamed it at the top of his lungs.
He stomped through the snow for a long time, bringing each foot up and pounding it back to the ground. It made him feel better, like he was accomplishing something. Or maybe it just made him feel not so lost. Because that was how he'd felt for one year and forty-five days. No. It was past midnight. Forty-six days.
He stomped and screamed. The ground quivered beneath him. He smiled.
Stomp. Scream. Stomp. Scream. Stomp.
Crack!
Without realizing it, he'd stomped onto the ice. It was a very thin patch of ice, with very cold water running beneath it. And as he plunged into the water, he forgot to scream.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Tracy
Chris whispered some instructions to his wife, then said, “Follow me,” to Tracy. He led her into a hallway where he poked around in a closet. Well, closet wasn't the right word. It was more like “Place where he stored every object ever created.”
The sight of Chris rummaging around in that closet with his rear end sticking out of the mess was enough to make Tracy laugh.
Chris tossed his belongings into the hallway as he searched. There were coats, of course, and a vacuum cleaner, some boxes of Kleenex, a few board games, a Jello mold, a hamster cage, a painting of a seal on the beach, a ball of string, a vase, a kite. The list went on and on. Tracy even thought she saw a dog peek out of there at one point.
Finally, Chris emerged with a small canvas bag held high in the air. He handed it to Tracy. When she opened it, she found a pair of socks covered in red and green reindeer and a pair of fur lined boots. They were just Tracy's size. But even crazier, the socks looked just like a pair both she and Pim had gotten for Christmas one year. From Santa. Her chest tightened as she traced the outline of a reindeer with her finger. Her eyes blurred over.
“You'll want to change out of those wet sneakers,” he said.
“Oh, right.” She snapped out of her daze and squished her toes up inside her shoes. She hadn't realized until then that her toes felt numb. Her own shoes and socks were still soaked from walking through the snow.
“Thank you,” she said, although what she really wanted to ask was, “How did you know?”
Once she had changed, and they were on their way back to the barn, Chris said to her, “You still have questions.”
Tracy shrugged, a gesture that made her feel very small inside that big coat. Chris knew so much. She could chalk it up to the hot chocolate like Jared had, but she didn't want to. She had sneaked out on Christmas Eve to find the truth. What if the truth really couldn't be explained with a science project? She stuffed her hands in her pockets, because she couldn't find the right thing to say. Too much was whirling about in her mind.
“Okay,” Chris said softly, “how about we start with this? You didn't leave with Jared.”
“No.” Tracy had seen no sense in that. All he was doing was throwing a hissy fit. It must have been terrible to lose his parents, but running away wasn’t going to fix anything. “But that doesn't mean I don't agree with some of the things he said.”
“Such as?”
She took a deep breath. The cold air filled her lungs and gave her courage. Although, she wasn't sure why she needed the courage to speak her beliefs. Maybe it was because her beliefs didn't seem that solid anymore. “Magic can't be real.”
“And why not?”
She looked up at him thoughtfully. Their gazes locked as the two of them trudged along in the snow. The moonlight reflected in his eyes, and for a moment, he seemed not quite human. People were hard edges and solid facts. He was more like a teddy bear come to life. She wanted to believe him. No, that wasn't exactly right. She wanted to believe in him. “Earlier tonight, you said you were Santa.”
“I did.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
Chris took in a long, slow breath, then blew it out. His breath turned into little snowflakes dancing inside a cloud, then fell softly onto his belly and melted. “How about I tell you a story?”
“I think that will be okay.” All stories had some truth in them, and sometimes they were easier to tell than the facts.
“Once upon a time, a man and his wife lived in a very small, very poor village, far across the ocean. They had no children, but that was okay, because their village was full of children who spent their days laughing and playing in the streets. The couple enjoyed the sound of laughter so much, that whenever a child was in need, they did what they could to help. Sometimes, it was milk for a crying baby. Sometimes, it was new clothing for a child who only had tattered rags.”
“That was nice of them,” Tracy said.
“They did what they could, and because the children were happy, they were happy. Soon, the couple became known throughout the village, but the villagers were often too embarrassed to ask for help. The old man and his wife were smart, though.” Chris tapped his finger to his temple. “They got word out to the children and told them to slide a letter under the couple's front door if they needed anything. If the children left their shoes outside their house at night, the old man would sneak little gifts or coins into them. Does that remind you of anything?”
Tracy knew where this was going. “Is that where Santa Command got the idea for everything? Children's letters and stockings by the fireplace.”
He touched his finger to her nose. “You're very smart, but I'm sure you also know many things changed over the years.”
“Like adding the reindeer and only giving gifts on Christmas?”
“And the red suit.” He tugged at the collar of her coat, and she giggled. At the sound of her laughter, his smile spread wide across his face. “So anyway, these traditions continued for decades, until the man and the woman were very old. They were so old in fact, that the man could no longer leave his bed, not even to stand by the street and listen to the children's laughter. This made him very sad.”
“Did he die?” Tracy asked, even though she was afraid of the answer. She didn't want the old man to have died alone in his bed.
They reached the barn doors, and Chris turned to her. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes as if he were studying her. “This is the part where the story becomes fantastical. And I must ask that you believe every word.”
Tracy eyed him carefully, ready to say that she couldn't promise anything. As her mouth formed the answer, his body seemed to fuzz around the edges, and for a split second, she saw him as a younger man. He wore a cloak that looked like it came from a picture in her history book. Then, he turned back into Chris, the guy who looked like a well-dressed grandfather. She could have chalked it up to the late hour and the fact that she was so tired, but she didn't. “What is it?” she asked in a whisper.
He held up a finger, telling her to wait just a moment as he opened the barn doors and led her to a dark corner near the front. There, he knelt beside a small wooden chest and placed his hand on top, as if he wasn't ready to open it just yet.
Tracy sat down beside him. He hadn't said a word since entering the barn, and so she hadn't either. Her heart fluttered, and
she was surprised at how much she needed to hear his story. She stared at him, wide-eyed.
Chris continued. “One night, just as the old man thought he would draw his last breath, a creature appeared before him. Some might call her an angel. Some would say fairy. All he knew was that she was about to change his life.” He paused, drawing out the moment until Tracy sucked in her breath. “She granted his desire to do good in the world, by granting him two gifts—magic and immortality.”
Tracy sat up straight. No one was immortal. It wasn't possible.
Chris must have noticed the doubt in her eyes, because he said, “Please, wait until you've heard and seen everything.” And with that, he opened the box.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Tracy
A brilliant, golden light filled the barn, blinding Tracy for a moment until she blinked a few times and got used to it. It came from the box. If Tracy had been asked to draw the light, she would have drawn a sunshine with glittering rays shooting out of it in every direction.
“Whoa!” She scooted backward, afraid all of that light would burn her, even though it didn't feel hot, just tingly.
“This is the source of my magic,” Chris said, but he said it slowly, like he was testing the impact of each word on her. “I've carried it through the centuries and across the ocean. As long as I have this, the world has a Santa Claus.”
“But how…” Tracy couldn't finish. She knew it couldn't be real, but it was. It was the color of her cast, the color of the portal, the color of every magical thing she had seen that night. Her skin prickled with the same tingles she had felt time and again whenever she encountered something magical.
Excitement threatened to burst from her veins as her new hypothesis formed.
Magic. Was. Real.
And she was looking right at it.
“How does it work?” she asked.
Tracy Tam: Santa Command Page 9
