Claus Trilogy (Boxed Set)

by Tony Bertauski

  There’s no way she could survive the impact of that final blow. Grandfather’s fists fell like military tanks.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “It was time for my body to rest. But you saved me.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Your grandfather doubted his actions at the last moment, and that’s what allowed the super sphere to absorb my awareness before my body passed. Elven never really die, you know that. We simply pass into the abominables when our bodies expire. We live in the inner world of our snowmen. As you can see, there’s very little difference inside here.”

  Oliver wouldn’t have known this was a dream. Maybe the dream is outside the super sphere.

  “You, on the other hand,” she says, “shouldn’t be here.”

  “Too late for that.” Panic clenches his heart and tears blur his vision. His body is in a deep grave.

  “Your grandfather thought it was too late for him. His intentions, though, were misguided. I thought I could help him, save him from his thoughts and beliefs, but we can’t live in the present when we’re stuck in the past. And you can’t help someone from themselves, no matter how much you love them.

  “Your grandfather figured out a great many things, inventions that I thought would contribute to humanity. But when he created the super sphere”—she waves her arms—“I realized he was stuck on revenge. We were trapped on the property. The windmill, I’m sure you’ve noticed, always turns. As long as it does, none of us could leave. Not even Flury. Our lives had become stagnant. Your grandfather became angrier. Until you arrived.

  “It took a beginner’s mind, our grandson, to see with new eyes to resolve our beliefs. You freed us.”

  Grandmother slides forward and takes his hand.

  “You did this. You saved us.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You taught an old lady how to live and an old man how to love. You did everything.”

  Oliver grasps his grandmother’s small hands. A smile broadens her cherub cheeks. Her grip is firm and warm. She doesn’t say it, but he feels it.

  Thank you.

  Thunder pounds the heavens. This time the world quakes, the snow shudders.

  “Ah,” Grandmother says. “It looks like Flury has found us.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “The super sphere was buried in a mountain of snow when your grandfather collapsed. Flury has been searching for it. I believe he’s close. He’ll take you back.”

  “Back? Back where?”

  “To your body, of course. You don’t belong here.”

  “I don’t have one. I’m…” He can’t say it out loud. The word chokes him. Dead.

  “Nonsense. Flury wouldn’t let you die. Too many love you.”

  “I…I don’t understand.”

  Wind comes out of nowhere.

  The ground tips.

  Oliver loses his balance. The snowflakes shriek past his ears, stinging his cheeks. He shields his eyes. Nausea curdles his stomach, and he begins to shiver. Electric shocks tremble beneath his skin.

  His body feels like the jaws of a steel trap.

  The storm swirls around him. The snow obscures her fading form. She’s blurry.

  Pain lances his sides.

  Voices warble around him, some panicked and loud, others soothing. One voice is clear. It comes from the form fading in the sweeping snow.

  Grandmother releases his hand. “Goodbye, Olivah.”

  He doubles over, falls backwards. The snow is hard like a wood floor. The weird feeling is back. It fills him, weighs him down, makes the world fuzzy and blurry and swirly.

  His blood sugar is low.

  F L U R Y

  thirty-four

  “Where’s his kit?” That’s Mom’s voice. She’d seen diabetic shock and knows what to do. She always remained calm, tested his blood, brought his sugar back up. She knows what to do.

  Why isn’t she doing it?

  “He’s dying!” That’s Aunt Rhonnie.

  “Look in his bedroom, Molly,” Mom says.

  “Are you joking?” Aunt Rhonnie shouts. “He’s unconscious; he’s barely breathing! He doesn’t need an orange slice, for crying out loud. Give him one of those shots!”

  “Stop it! Just stop it! Panic isn’t helping. Just calm down.” Mom repeats her request to Molly, but now her voice shakes. “We have to find out if his blood sugar is high or low. Do the wrong thing and we kill him.”

  “He’s dying, sister.”

  “Rhonnie! Just shut it!”

  Panic is in order. Oliver can barely feel his body. It’s like he’s received a transfusion of maple syrup. He can’t move, not even his eyelids. So heavy, so tired. The wood floor is on his back, but the room is freezing.

  Molly comes back. “I…I can’t find it.”

  “Did you look in his book bag?”

  There’s an argument. Mom demands everyone start looking for it.

  The bathroom. The diabetic kit bag is in the bathroom, on the floor.

  The front door slams. “It’s no good,” Henry says, out of breath. “Trees are all over the entry road. There’s no way we’re getting out. We’re trapped.”

  Aunt Rhonnie shrieks. “We’re all going to die!”

  “Did you get to the main road?” Mom asks.

  “No,” Henry says.

  “I told you to get out there and see if you get a phone signal!”

  “It doesn’t matter. An ambulance can’t make it to the house.”

  “We can carry him out,” Mom says. “Or a helicopter can fly in. Go back out there and call 911, damn it!”

  “Pour orange juice in his mouth.”

  “Rhonnie, shut up! He’s unconscious; we need help now!”

  Henry doesn’t go. He didn’t even try the first time because it’s still dark and the forest is making strange sounds. And they just saw a snow titan crush their grandmother. No way in hell he’s climbing over trees in the dark.

  “Pick him up,” Mom says. “Let’s pick him up. We can’t waste time; we’ll call 911 when we get to the road. Come on, let’s go.”

  Oliver focuses all his strength on his eyelids. They flutter open.

  “Oh, my God, my God. He’s awake,” Aunt Rhonnie says. “Get the orange juice.”

  “Oliver? Honey?” Mom’s hand is hot on his forehead. “Can you hear me?”

  He moans.

  “Sweetie, we’re all here. Your blood sugar is off, all right? We’re going to get you to a hospital, so just relax. Do you know where your kit is?”

  Bathroom. He concentrates on the word. It sits on his tongue and moves to his lips. Mom lowers her ear—

  Fffzzzzzzzzzzt.

  His body stiffens. The seizure is mild but lasts almost a minute.

  Molly is squeezing his hand when he returns. “It’s all right,” she’s whispering. “It’ll be all right.”

  She sounds brave, but her voice is cracking.

  “Get over here, everyone! Pick him up!”

  “It won’t do any good,” Henry says. “Trees are everywhere. I couldn’t climb through them, let alone carry him. It’s just…impossible.”

  “We’re carrying him out now, so get over here!” Mom throws Oliver’s arm over her shoulder. “Now let’s go. Helen, open the doors and keep looking for his kit. It’s a little black bag with a zipper. Go back to his bedroom, then the bathroom. Now!”

  Seizure number two makes number one look like a shiver.

  Oliver had grabbed electrical lines on a dare in chemistry lab once. This was like that, only the electricity started in his brain.

  About 10,000 volts worth.

  He planks, shaking like a bell struck with a hammer. He floats somewhere near the ceiling. His body is bouncing on the floor.

  The drab wallpaper flickers.

  A fuzzy halo surrounds their heads.

  Then he’s back in his body, his eyes dry and burning. The voices around him slowly come up to speed.

  Something i
s snapping.

  The curtains around the picture window flap in the sudden wind. Jagged edges of glass are stuck in the pane like broken teeth.

  A dark form fills the open window.

  “Oliver?” Mom says. “Oliver? Listen to me, honey. We’re going to give you some juice. Do you know where your kit is? Honey, please?”

  Her hand is on his forehead.

  Molly strokes his arm, holds his hand.

  “Is it upstairs?” she asks. “Nod if you think it’s—”

  Aunt Rhonnie screams. There are words in it, but they’re primitive. Helen returns and shrieks. Both back away from the window.

  “It’s back!” Helen manages to say. “It’s back, it’s back, it’s back!”

  They scuttle to the back of the dark room. Henry, too. A shadow grows in the open window. A large gray hand grabs the pane.

  Flury barely fits through the opening.

  “No! No, no, no! Get away!” Mom jumps up. “Get back out there! You can’t have him. Get away!”

  The snowman is too large to stand inside the room. Instead, he crawls toward Oliver. His eyes are darker in the dim room. Mom kicks his arm, punches his head. Molly stands over Oliver and chops at his arm. Snow sprays.

  Flury ignores them.

  Gently, he parts them with both arms. His frozen hands are cold but soft, sliding under Oliver. Like before, he holds Oliver to his chest like a child. Mom’s grief is filled with rage as she chips away at his snow-molded forearms.

  Molly hits him with a chair.

  Snow spatters.

  “Please,” Mom begs. “Please don’t take him.”

  Flury lifts him out of the house.

  The wind howls around his hulking body, but Oliver’s protected in his arms. Mom is at the window. Molly is climbing out to give chase. Oliver tries to lift his hand, to put his finger to his lips and tell them it will be all right. He knows where Flury is taking him. They can’t get him to the hospital. The roads are blocked; the weather is bad.

  But then the windmill squeals.

  Trees lay all around it, but the windmill is still upright.

  It’s still churning.

  Still working.

  “No.” His voice scratches his throat. “You can’t…you can’t…”

  Oliver attempts to squirm from Flury’s embrace. He’s too weak, the snowman too strong. Oliver can’t get the words out.

  You can’t leave the property!

  The world is smudged with Flury’s speed.

  Oliver’s eyes fill with tears. The frozen air steals his breath. He hunkers in the snowman’s grip as the world speeds by. When the tears clear, Oliver can see pinpoints of light from distant towns. Treetops streak below.

  Flying.

  We’re flying over the property.

  The unbreathable wind is vicious, scouring his cheeks, numbing his face. Flury covers Oliver’s head to protect him. In that pocket between his arms and chest, Oliver breathes easier.

  They soar in perfect silence.

  And peace fills him.

  No. He knows the snowman can hear his thoughts. I can’t let you.

  The top of Oliver’s head is numb. The arms aren’t covering it anymore, not like they were minutes before. He holds his breath and turns his head. Through the streaming tears, the tiny lights are bigger. They’re gaining on them. They must be off the property by now.

  Oliver’s stomach drops as they fall from the sky.

  He clutches at the snowy arms. They’re smaller and softer. Wetter.

  Flury’s footsteps thud on the ground.

  Oliver breathes into his shoulder to keep the icy air from choking him. But it’s not the wind that’s grown more violent. He’s more exposed because Flury’s arms are thinner.

  He’s shrinking.

  The highway is dark. The headlights distant.

  Flury’s footsteps grow heavy.

  The wind begins to die. Lights no longer streak past them. Oliver scratches at the snowman’s chest. The icy snow flutters away and doesn’t return. A bright light burns inside his chest. Oliver can now see the orb pulsing, fighting the windmill’s deteriorating effect.

  With each step, it burns dimmer.

  Pulses fainter.

  When they reach the road outside the hospital, Flury is the size of an ordinary man. Oliver’s legs dangle at his side. Like he’d done over a hundred years ago with his grandfather, Flury holds Oliver like a child.

  It’s no longer the wind filling Oliver’s eyes with tears.

  The snowman trots into the bright lights. By the time he reaches the emergency room entrance, he appears like a snow-crusted child carrying a teenage boy.

  The doors slide open.

  Oliver’s weight heaves forward. He falls gently to the polished floor and slides across a pile of melted snow. He stops at the foot of an empty desk.

  Nurses rush out.

  “No, no, no,” he mutters.

  Several people hover. A woman gives urgent commands. “Who brought him in here?” she shouts.

  Just before they lift him, Oliver opens his eyes. The ceiling lights are bright. He turns his head just as they begin wheeling him away.

  He sees the weighted orb in a pile of slush.

  The ornate etchings of Flury’s heart glisten beneath the fluorescent lighting.

  The metal surface is dull.

  F L U R Y

  thirty-five

  The delicate patterns of frost stretch over the window, their crystalline structures intersecting. Intertwining. Outside, the Christmas lights glow around the hospital courtyard, lending green and red halos to the frosty pane.

  Oliver leans off the bed.

  The floor is hard and cold on his feet. A draft sweeps into the back of the loosely tied gown as he brushes his fingers across the window. It’s smooth and frigid, but his hand is warm.

  He stares into his palm.

  There are no lines besides the naturally occurring wrinkles. No tingling up his arm. He’s warm because he’s been in bed for days, not because the wooden orb is calling. That’s somewhere on the property, buried beneath the river.

  A lump rises in his throat.

  Diabetic shock is a serious condition, but when he arrived at the hospital they diagnosed him with more than that: hypothermia, nutrient imbalance, exhaustion…all the signs of a drowning victim.

  Each day he awoke in the hospital, a lump would rise from his stomach and rest in his throat. Oliver would lie in bed, staring at the ceiling tiles, trying to make it go away, trying to forget how he got here. But each day, he felt heavier. His stomach was filled with a weight about the size of the metal orb that’s resting on the nightstand.

  Flury.

  Oliver picks it up with both hands. It’s the size of a softball with the weight of a bowling ball. The nurse said he brought it with him. They thought it was a Christmas ornament.

  He couldn’t explain how he got there. When his mom and Molly arrived an hour later, having climbed out to the road and called for help, they couldn’t explain it, either. Oliver woke the next morning with the metal orb at his side.

  The sharp lines, once brilliant with light, are dark and recessed. The metal surface is foggy. If he could open the hospital window, he’d toss it in the snow and wait for his hero to pull the snow off the ground and stand in the courtyard. But the window won’t open.

  And his hero is gone.

  The door opens. “I see your underwear,” Molly says.

  Oliver doesn’t bother closing the back of his gown. He clutches the orb on his lap. Molly sits next to him, her weight sinking into the bed. Her hair hangs past her shoulders. No ponytails today. No makeup or jewelry.

  “Where’s Mom?” he asks.

  “At the funeral parlor. Visitation is tomorrow. You wouldn’t believe the response from all the charities your grandmother supported. For a recluse, she’s real popular.”

  “No one knows what happened to her?”

  “Coroner says she had a heart attack.”
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  Grandmother’s body was found in the backyard. After Flury took Oliver away, they found her in the backyard, hands folded over her stomach. Her complexion was pallid, eyes closed. It was as if she were sleeping between the house and garage.

  Peace at last.

  Flury had retrieved her after he returned Oliver to his body while Mom was desperately searching for the diabetic kit. Her body was unharmed by Grandfather’s devastating blow. Maybe he didn’t crush her after all, just invited her into the super sphere.

  The lump rises into Oliver’s throat, and, once again, he tries to swallow it down.

  Molly goes to the helium balloons tied to a vase of flowers. Cards are propped on a table. “Ms. Megan wanted to come see you, but we told her you were getting out tomorrow.”

  She reads the cards, then tells him about Aunt Rhonnie asking about the will. Henry and Helen have told people what really happened, but no one believes them.

  Because it’s crazy.

  Oliver traces the lines on the orb. The edges are crisp.

  Molly puts the cards back and sits with him. They stare through the frosted glass. Somewhere out there, Christmas carols are sung.

  He feels so heavy.

  Nearly dying takes a lot out of you. It could also be the medication or the exhaustion, but he’s slept for days, and his blood sugar is back to normal. And he’s not tired. It’s a heaviness that penetrates his gut, hovers in his throat. Every time he looks at the orb, it adds another pinch of sand to the weight.

  Molly takes his hand. He cradles the orb with his other hand.

  The lump won’t swallow back this time.

  And the frosty etchings on the window get blurry.

  “It’s not your fault,” she says.

  “Yes, it is.” The words shake at the edges.

  Oliver looks away so she doesn’t see his lower lip quiver. She squeezes his hand. He hangs on like she’s the ledge of sanity. But his fingers are slipping as he sniffles.

  “I told him not to do it.” His voice is blurry. “He shouldn’t have. He didn’t deserve this, not after everything he did. He’s not just this.”

  He squeezes the metal orb.

  “He was someone. He was better than me.”

  He tries to wipe the tears, but more come. The lump in his throat opens, and his chest begins to quake. It’s no use swallowing. The sobs start as hiccups. He holds his breath and squeezes his eyes shut, but a river is flowing.