Claus Trilogy (Boxed Set)

by Tony Bertauski

  A giant blotted out the stars.

  GRANDMOTHER

  Every once in a while, Santa skips a house.

  F L U R Y

  one

  Oliver feels weird.

  He drops his iPad. He’d been reading a zombie apocalypse where the guy lets his infected wife bite him so she’s not alone. He got to the part where someone sees two zombies holding hands when his blood sugar crashed. He should test his blood. Instead, he sucks on a glucose tablet while leaning his forehead on the passenger window.

  The curvy roads aren’t helping. The hills and trees, endless.

  Mom is strangling the steering wheel while grinding her teeth. A partially plowed road would turn most drivers’ knuckles white, but that’s not it. When they left Austin, it was sunny and warm, but that wasn’t it, either.

  Colorado is home.

  Home doesn’t welcome everyone.

  She puts on the right-turn blinker and begins to slow.

  The snow has been cleared from a nondescript opening in the trees. Mom pulls beneath the weeping branches. The wrought-iron gate is already open. She stops the car, lips silently moving, a private pep talk.

  The black road beyond is plowed better than the main road, with swirling sweeper patterns on the asphalt. Mom eases down the private drive, the sunlight blotted out by overgrown trees. Oliver looks over the luggage in the backseat to watch the gates close behind them. The last time he was here he was five years old.

  That was ten years ago.

  His blood sugar is coming up, but the weird feeling remains as Mom steers down the curving road, her lips still moving. Her knuckles still white. The three-story house appears around the last turn. Several trees reach out like Nature is coming for the house.

  Like zombies.

  Mom stops in the patch of sunlight just short of the circle driveway. The steering wheel squeaks in her sweaty palms. She adjusts the wide headband that holds her thick hair off her face and takes in the three-story monstrosity. A round window looks down from the attic, snow frosting the lower half.

  No sign of Christmas anywhere.

  “This is just temporary,” Mom says. “Okay?”

  Oliver nods, but the last time she said that, the cable never came back on. Maybe this time she was telling herself this was temporary.

  He takes her hands off the steering wheel before she tears it out of the dashboard. Her slender fingers squeeze his hand like a bear trap. She nods, compulsively, before letting her foot off the brake. The house’s shadow falls over them. Mom adjusts the wide, paisley headband again and rubs her face before opening the door.

  Oliver rubs his bristly short crop of brown hair. He can feel the heat leaking from his scalp. Snow-capped mountains rise above the trees. If they’re going to live here, he’ll have to grow some hair.

  Even if it’s temporary.

  The weird thing about the property, as Mom calls it, isn’t the gut-punching cold—it’s the silence. Colorado is a mountain man’s paradise, a place to hike and fish and sleep under the stars—commune with nature, that sort of thing. Not here.

  Here, it’s dead silent.

  The attic window watches them approach. The entry walk has been brushed with a coarse broom. Mom stops on the top step, playing with one of the many hoop earrings piercing her cartilage. A small sign is embedded just above the doorbell.

  Toye Residence.

  She pushes the button.

  A faint melody of bells echoes inside the house. Oliver can see distorted patterns of light and dark through a panel of ornamental glass set alongside the door. Long after the bells have gone quiet, a dark figure moves.

  “Take off your shoes,” Mom whispers.

  She already has her shoes in one hand.

  Oliver slides his shoes off. His toes are as stiff as the wooden porch. He’s imagining the hot sands of South Padre Island when an eye—green with blue around the perimeter of the iris—appears in a diamond-cut section of the window.

  The doorknob begins to turn.

  The seal around the doorway breaks open to reveal an old woman plucked straight from the crypt of an ancient library. Her kinky gray hair is pulled back in a tight bun. Her posture, perfect. Vertical grooves dig around her joyless mouth.

  “Debra,” she says.

  “Mother.”

  Oliver’s mom steps over the threshold and hugs his grandmother. The old woman pats her on the shoulder and lets Debra hug her.

  “Quickly now.” Grandmother waves Oliver inside.

  The foyer is expansive.

  Sounds echo off the high ceiling. An immense stairwell is to the left of a dark hallway that leads deeper into the house. Photos of stodgy old men are hung in ornate frames. It doesn’t feel cold inside—he can’t see his breath, after all—but somehow it’s no warmer. No sign of a Christmas tree, stocking or greeting card.

  It’s as if Christmas died at the wrought-iron gate.

  “Oliver.” Only she says Olivah.

  “Grandmother.”

  He takes half a step toward her when she sticks out her hand. The knuckles are knobby, and the fingers slightly curled. He shakes it, careful not to crush it. It feels like paper, smells like medicine.

  “You have grown.”

  She doesn’t let go while looking him over: his hair, the stray whiskers on his chin, the insufficient winter clothing. She stares at the floor. His socks are loose at the ends of his frozen toes, specks of snow clinging to the fabric. Small puddles begin to bead on the polished floor.

  “And how old are you?”

  “Fifteen.”

  She purses her lips like he just lied. “And your health?”

  “Good.” That time he did. His blood sugar still isn’t right. “I’ll get the luggage.”

  “Nonsense. It’s not going anywhere. You will come in and eat. Diabetics need a balanced meal.”

  If his memory is correct, she’s called him “diabetic” more than she’s called him “grandson.”

  She holds her hand out. Mom offers her elbow, and Grandmother takes it. They walk down the dim hallway. She’s wearing big, puffy boots but doesn’t slide them over the floor. Instead, her steps are carefully measured and silent. Dead silent.

  Like outside.

  Oliver quickly knocks the snow crystals off his feet and mops the water with his socks before following. The dim hallway feels like the house is swallowing him. Just past the stairway on the left is a doorway leading to the family room. A large picture window offers a panoramic view of the property. On the right side of the hallway, there’s a long table with three table settings, including a teapot.

  Grandmother opens a drawer in a small table against the wall and takes out a towel. “You may join us once your mess is cleaned up, Olivah.”

  His mom makes a silent apology as she guides Grandmother toward the dining table. He takes the towel to the front door and wipes up the little streaks of water. A gust of wind pushes against the door. A draft sneaks through the bottom. Oliver looks through the decorative pane of glass and sees the last wisps of snow swirling on the sidewalk.

  A mess of twigs are scattered over the pavement.

  He opens the door. The trees are still, and the silence is perfect. Not even the icicles hanging from the gutters are dripping.

  “Close the door, Olivah. Come along.”

  With damp towel in hand, he returns to the dining room for bitter tea and dry muffins in the place he’ll call home.

  Temporary home.

  F L U R Y

  two

  Oliver hauls the last bit of luggage up the stairs.

  The worn steps are slick beneath his socks. They’re shallow for easy climbing. He holds the railing to keep from tumbling down three stories’ worth.

  The photos watch him trudge up the flights. Not photos, paintings—the kind you’d find in the back of a resale shop. It’s mostly grizzled old men with sharp eyes and mirthless mouths. There are a few women in the mix, just as joyless. The last painting, just before
the third floor, is of a ship. A small crowd of people are gathered at a ramp. With its bare rigging and leaning bow, it’s as haunted as the old men.

  All the doors are closed on the third floor, except the one to the far left. The floor creaks along the way. His breath puffs out in thin clouds, quickly dissipating. His room is in the front-left section of the house with windows looking east and south. There’s a dresser and a nightstand with a lamp, along with a waist-high bed covered with a thick, white comforter.

  Everything is dusted and wrinkle-free.

  He drops the luggage and finds his kit. Rubbing his fingers together, he does a quick blood test to measure his blood sugar. It’s too high. He should’ve done the test before tea. He quickly measures a dose of insulin and, pinching a fold of skin over his stomach, injects himself.

  He checks his phone. No bars, no wifi.

  All of his books are in cloud storage. It’s doubtful Grandmother has Internet. Doubtful she’s ever seen a computer.

  Oliver drops his bag below the frosted window offering the same view as the picture window in the family room. There’s a break in the forest and a view of the mountains. The sun has fallen behind the peaks, and the waning daylight casts a long shadow from a rustic windmill. The blades turn even though it seems calm. When a gust of wind hits it, the windwheel turns faster.

  Lets loose an earsplitting squeal.

  Something has crossed the clearing. The tracks are too far away to distinguish what kind of footsteps. He looks for binoculars—his dad used to sit around with binoculars when he lived on the beach—but the dresser drawers are empty and clean. But there’s something in the bottom drawer of the nightstand.

  A journal.

  The cover is hardback, faded and worn at the corners. The yellowish pages, however, are blank. The binding cracks as he turns the stiff pages, finding not a spot of ink. He runs his fingers over the smooth cover, imagining a quill and a pot of ink that might’ve been used to record thoughts in something this old.

  “Hey, kiddo.”

  “Ho!” The journal flips out of his grip, smacks the wall, and bounces on the floor.

  Oliver’s heart hammers his chest.

  His mom is in the doorway with a black hoodie pulled over her head. She apologizes for scaring him.

  “What’d you got there?” she asks.

  Oliver retrieves the journal and assesses the damage to the corner, hoping Grandmother doesn’t see it. He might have to hide it. His mom flips through the pages, but her mind is somewhere else.

  “Sorry about freezing up on you when we got here,” she says, twisting one of her earrings. “I thought I was ready for this. I didn’t expect to…change.”

  She hasn’t said much since they arrived. They ate a bland lunch mostly in silence. Grandmother cut her tuna salad sandwich with a knife and ate it with a fork.

  “I felt like a kid when I walked through the doorway. I could feel my insides, like, churning and morphing back into a little girl…I’m sorry, you don’t need to hear this.”

  “It’s all right, I get it. You can’t go home, right?”

  He read that somewhere.

  You can’t go home because expectations get in the way. But his mom was sent to boarding school when she was ten. Strange she feels like this is home. Oliver would never have that problem. He’s lived too many places. There’ll never come a time he steps over a threshold and breathes the familiar essence of childhood.

  “You test your sugar?”

  He nods. She knows when he’s being a bad diabetic.

  “You get all your stuff?”

  “Yeah.” He kicks the duffel bag.

  “You’ve got the third floor all to yourself. It’s an old house your great-grandfather built. It’s going to sound a little haunted. I’ll be in the room below you, so if you need anything, you know where to find me. We’ll make the best of it.”

  She pulls her headband around her neck and scratches her scalp. She notices him watching her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “I don’t like seeing you this way.”

  “Change is hard.” She sits on the bed and puts her hand on his. “We just need to be thankful we have a place to stay.” She looks around the sterile room, then whispers, “Even if this is where Christmas came to die.”

  They lean into each other and laugh. His mom wipes tears from her eyes.

  “I don’t think Santa can find this place,” he says.

  “Trust me, he’ll find it.”

  She scrubs his bristly hair, then pulls a stocking cap from the pouch on her hoodie. It’s a North Face cap. She pulls it over his head and kisses his forehead.

  “An early present,” she says. Even her lips are cold.

  He thanks her. “You think tomorrow we could go somewhere with service?” He holds up his phone. “I need to download books.”

  “There’s a library in town. Maybe we can pick up a few Christmas ornaments and smuggle them into the house. I still have a few presents to get.”

  “Look, Mom, you don’t need to buy me anything. I mean, this is plenty.”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  She kisses his forehead again and leaves. Her footsteps slide over the creaking floor like a kid with footy pajamas. The stairs groan with each descending thump.

  Oliver plugs his ears with headphones and unpacks. He thumbs through the journal again. When he looks out the window, a full moon casts a glow over the property. Oliver cups his hands on the window and holds his breath to keep from fogging it.

  There are more tracks.

  F L U R Y

  three

  “Good morning, Olivah,” Grandmother announces.

  Oliver is startled.

  He knew someone was awake, he could smell coffee, but didn’t expect his grandmother to be standing in the kitchen waiting for him.

  The floors broadcast every movement through the house—except for his stealthy grandmother with the padded Ugg boots. Her hair is tightly pulled back, as if attempting to stretch the wrinkles from her cheeks. Mom sits at the breakfast table, hovering over a steaming mug.

  “You will find breakfast on the stove,” Grandmother says. “Help yourself.”

  His hunger drags him around the island bar beneath a dangling rack of pots. A wisp of steam escapes a white teapot on the back burner. On the front, a cast-iron pan still sizzles with eggs and bacon. He can feel his grandmother’s blue-green eyes on him like department store security as he fills a plate with bacon, eggs and a warm slice of toast.

  When he turns around, she’s gone.

  He sits down to check his blood sugar. The plastic snap of the needle draws a tiny bead from his pinky. His mom watches him eat while sipping her coffee and smiling. A brown headband holds her hair back this morning. She doesn’t look so frail. Maybe she just needed a good night’s sleep. It had been months since she had one.

  Oliver mentally calculates the carbs sitting on his plate and injects a dosage of insulin, this time in his leg. He thumbs through his phone while eating. The battery is almost drained.

  “Did you hear the rumbling last night?”

  Mom shakes her head. “I told you the house makes noise.”

  “This was out in the woods.” He woke up to use the bathroom. It sounded like trees were falling in the distance, but when he looked out, nothing had fallen. The tracks were gone, even though it hadn’t snowed.

  “You slept well?” Grandmother asks.

  The half-eaten toast leaves Oliver’s hand and hits the floor. She looks down. Oliver finds a paper towel to wipe up the mess.

  Grandmother doesn’t move.

  “I’m sorry.” He looks for the trash.

  “Pantry,” Mom says.

  He finds the pantry door opposite the oven. The trash can is beneath a shelf of canned goods. A small chalkboard is attached to the inside of the door, the green surface clean. The vertical wrinkles deepen around Grandmother’s mouth. Oliver sits back down, and his mom winks, patting hi
s hand, whispering, “It’s all right.”

  “So, I trust you slept well?” Grandmother fills a teacup from the kettle.

  “Yes.”

  “And you found the breakfast suitable?”

  “Yes.”

  She brings her tea and saucer to the table and places a napkin next to Oliver’s plate. Methodically, she spreads another napkin across her own lap and pauses. When he does the same, she resumes. Her posture is rigid as she stirs cream into the tea, as if she hasn’t slouched since the day she was born.

  Oliver takes small bites, but mostly pushes his food around.

  “We’re going into town, Mother. I was thinking of bringing back a Christmas tree.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Come now. This house could use some spirit.”

  “First thing’s first.”

  She reaches into the sleeve of her white sweater and retrieves a crisply folded sheet of paper. Smoothing it open on the table, she slides it toward Oliver. The script is delicately handwritten.

  “There are a few rules,” Grandmother begins. “While at my house, you will tidy up after yourself. Whenever you leave a room, you will leave no trace that you were ever there.”

  He left clothes strewn on the bedroom floor and the bed unmade.

  “Do you agree?” she asks. “Good. Next, a list will be posted inside the pantry door each morning. You are expected to complete your chores at the start of the day. When school begins, you will need to complete them before leaving in the morning. These chores will include repairs, cleaning, kitchen duty, etc.”

  “Mother, we’ll be homeschooling while we’re here. It’s just easier. And Oliver is already a good student.”

  Grandmother’s lips pinch together. Mom sips her coffee, waiting for the storm brewing on Grandmother’s tongue.

  Grandmother clears her throat, instead.

  “Do you agree? Good. Given your condition, you will also be required to exercise outside for two hours every day.”