The Christmas Chronicles (8 page)

“And we others,” said Abigail, “were drawn into the Council because of our devotion to the Child whose winter feast you honor with your toy deliveries.”

“You know about those?” Klaus asked in some surprise.

“All Heaven knows of them,” said Abigail.

“That is why we are here,” Nicholas said. “You see, last night you unleashed the Magic of Christmas.”

“I didn’t mean to!” Klaus said hastily. “It was an accident!”

“No, no, Klaus, you did well,” Nicholas said with a reassuring chuckle.

“I watch the sky always,” said Babukar excitedly. “And I can tell you that the stars were aligned perfectly for the event! Did you not see them, Klaus? Especially your birth star of Jupiter!”

“Dasher had waited so long for you to speak to him!” said Farouk. “Animals always know far more than we think. When you spoke to Dasher and he replied, we could no longer be kept away.”

“And that proved well for your wife,” concluded Nicholas.

Klaus reached over and squeezed Anna’s hand. “I thank you a thousand times,” he said, “for bringing her back to me.”

“This Eckhof is the son of a desert hyena!” Babukar banged the table with his fist.

“Why must you always insult the Animal Creation?” asked Farouk indignantly.

Babukar rose and bowed again. “I meant no offense.”

Nicholas turned to Klaus. “It is your work that we have come about,” he said. “We are here to help you. That is,” and he and the other three Saints around the table turned intently toward Klaus, “if you choose to continue it.”

“What do you mean?” asked Klaus, a little uneasy at having four Saints scrutinize him.

“Well, you have a choice, of course,” Nicholas said. “If you did not, what you do would have no value.”

“Oh,” said Klaus.
“I see.” He reflected for a moment or two. Silence reigned at the table.

“Klaus?” Saint Nicholas asked gently. “Do you choose to continue making your Christmas Eve deliveries?”

Well. Klaus thought of how weary he had been last night, how old and spent, before the Eight Flyers had come. He felt it all again now—only more so in the presence of these vibrant, shining people. A great longing suddenly grew up in him to rest, to sell his tools and move with Anna into the retirement house next door and spend his days holding her hand in the sun. He had done enough, hadn’t he? What child in the Black Forest had cause to complain of his service?

No one tried to rush Klaus in his decision. No one tried to convince him one way or the other. But the whole room seemed to hold its breath.

“I’m tired,” Klaus said at last.

Even though they were Saints, the others at the table couldn’t quite disguise their disappointment. “Ah,” said Saint Nicholas.

“I see,” said Saint Farouk.

“Well, it’s understandable,” said Saint Babukar.

Saint Abigail just waited, smiling a small, knowing smile.

“So I’m going to sleep for a week before I start making next year’s toys,” Klaus said. He looked at the relieved faces all around the table. “You didn’t really think I would quit, did you?”

The room breathed again. “Klaus will continue his work,” Nicholas intoned solemnly, just as though he was proclaiming Klaus’s decision for some official record.

Babukar slapped Klaus heartily on the back. “I knew you would make the right choice!” he said.

“All Animal Creation rejoices!” Farouk said happily. “The eagle on his crag and leviathan in the deep. The leopard as he paces the forest and the camel as he—”

“Camels never rejoice,” interrupted Babukar. “This I know from my own experience.”

“Perhaps you were not good to your camels, you and the other kings!” Farouk replied tartly. “Perhaps you were not so wise when it came to care of humps and feet!”

Babukar was about to retort, but Klaus intervened hastily. “If the Green Council is really serious about helping,” he said, “more villages are added to my list each year.
Even with flying reindeer it’s a large job. I could use some assistance with my deliveries.”

Saint Farouk looked pale. “I am uncomfortable with heights,” he announced.

“My back is not what it was,” Babukar noted.

“We have other help to give, Klaus,” said Saint Nicholas. “We come with certain gifts. And because you have chosen to continue your work, we may now bestow them. And the first gift is, both you and Anna are to Tarry.”

“As are the reindeer!” said Farouk excitedly. “As representatives of the Animal Creation!”

“None of you is to grow an hour older, and death will never take you so long as your task lasts,” said Nicholas. “It’s a great honor, Tarrying. But you will not do it here. Your work will continue elsewhere.”

“And then, of course, you’re both to be made Saints,” said Babukar. “Like us.”

“And the reindeer!” said Farouk enthusiastically.

Nicholas gave Farouk a hard look. “No, not the reindeer. Animals, no matter how admirable, cannot be made Saints.”

“What about the Lamb of God?” replied Farouk.

“It’s a metaphor!” Babukar said. “Everyone knows that!”

“I’m not so sure,” Farouk said. “Speaking as a shepherd, I can definitely say that sheep rank at the very pinnacle of Creation.”

“Sheep?” Babukar protested. “They are dumber than camels!”

“But,” asked Anna in some discomfort, “don’t people pray to Saints? I don’t think I’d like that.”

“Oh, that’s nothing to worry about,” Nicholas said. “All prayers really go to God. You won’t even hear them.”

“Klaus will.” They all turned to see Abigail standing with shining eyes that seemed to see beyond the walls of the big room within the small room. “One day, from all over the world, will come to Klaus the petitions of children.” Then she turned and looked at Anna. “You have longed for children, dear heart.” Anna gasped. How did she know? “So,” Abigail continued, “all the children in the world everywhere and forever now belong to you and Klaus. You are Mother and Father Christmas.” And Anna’s secret sorrow rose up and turned into joy and filled her soul. Neither she nor Klaus comprehended the size of the world nor the number of children in it, but from that hour Anna’s thoughts and feelings were ever turned toward them.

Saint Nicholas produced a large, very thick roll of
papers and thumped it onto the table. “Now,” he said, “we have many plans to deliberate before we bestow our gifts.”

Babukar yawned extravagantly. “Enough!” he said. “The stars come out soon. I must watch them.”

“Always you think of your stars!” Farouk grumbled. “Why do you not regard Creation here on earth? You take sheep, for instance—”

“I will not take sheep!” roared Babukar. “Keep your sheep to yourself! I want nothing to do with them!”

“Gentlemen,” said Nicholas, “we have important matters to discuss.” He started to unroll his papers. “Klaus, Anna—”

Abigail put a hand on Nicholas’s arm. “Do you not think their hearts will tell them all they really need to know?”

“Ah!” Babukar said, again holding up one of his ebony fingers. “That will make their lives interesting instead of boring.”

Nicholas thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I see that you are right.” Then he used his intoning voice again. “Klaus and Anna will not be told. They will discover their new lives moment by moment.” He stood up from the table. “Will someone fetch the reindeer, please?” he asked.

Anna went outside and whistled for Dasher, and he came trotting up with his brothers and sister. When the reindeer entered the room it expanded even more to accommodate the bigger crowd. The reindeer showed not the least glimmer of surprise at this; nor at being in the presence of Saints; nor, when it was explained to them, what was about to happen. “This is what we were born for,” Dasher said simply.

“You see!” said Saint Farouk. “Animals always know. And remember, reindeer are closely related to sheep! Very closely! Are you certain, Nicholas, that we cannot make them Saints, as well?”

Nicholas assured Farouk that Tarrying would be honor enough, and Babukar questioned the consanguinity of sheep to reindeer, and Farouk launched into a learned discourse on Animal Creation, its Orders and Families. But eventually the table and all but two of the thrones were moved aside. Anna and Klaus sat on the remaining thrones side by side, holding hands, in the middle of the room. The reindeer stood close all around them.

Then Nicholas cleared his throat and announced, “Because Klaus has chosen freely to continue his work, it is given to us to bestow on you all the gift of Tarrying. And so
I say to all of you, Tarry. And Klaus and Anna, you are now Saints. Saint Anna and Saint Klaus.”

A ripple of influence went out from Nicholas and the other Saints, and with it the delicious scent of peppermint, which by now you must know is the odor of Christmas Magic. The ripple passed into those in the center of the circle like an effervescence that stirred their blood and made them feel so awake that they wondered if they had spent their former lives half asleep. Anna and Klaus sprang to their feet.

And then the ripple rebounded back from them, past the Saints, out of the house, and into the village. All the men in the retirement house next door sniffed that peppermint scent and abruptly felt like getting out their tools and starting a project. Farmers suddenly found they could hardly wait to start their spring planting, and mothers took needle and thread and contemplated darning a hundred pairs of socks. Even a fussy baby in the house farthest away in the village stopped crying and said its first words: “Santa Klaus.”

But the ripple, so energizing to most, had a far different effect on one man. Rolf Eckhof, who had fled after giving Anna poisoned herbs, could not stay away for long. Some
men must see the effect of their evil deed to be satisfied, and Rolf Eckhof was of this sort. So he had crept back to the house and loitered in the shadows to see if his revenge against Klaus, so long planned, had taken effect. Was the woman dead or not? It was the only Christmas gift he wanted, and he was sick with the desire of it. He had to know.

Rolf Eckhof was in the very act of climbing stealthily in through the bedroom window when the ripple struck him. And because he was so ravaged by malice and deceit—and now murder—it destroyed his body entirely. Not a particle of it was ever found. And it flung his poor, shredded immortal soul to the four winds.

It was long, long years before he was able to reassemble that dark spirit and make more trouble for Klaus. But of course he did. And the trouble he caused was so demonic—for that is what he was now, a demon—that it may yet engulf us all.

But knowing nothing of any of this, Anna and Klaus looked at each other and saw that they were changed. Their hair—and Klaus’s beard—were now pure snow white. Yet looking into Anna’s eyes, Klaus could see that down in her soul she was young and wild as springtime—and
somehow deeply and more truly Anna than ever before in her life.

Anna meanwhile took one look at the reindeer and knew exactly what was about to happen. “Cover your ears!” she shouted. And they all did, just in time. Because Dasher and his brothers and sister lifted up their heads and opened their mouths and bugled so loud that the rafters actually shook. Anna suddenly wondered why she had not gone racing with Dasher for so many years, and Klaus bet any man or beast in the room that he could run to the top of Mount Feldberg without stopping. Nobody took his bet.

Then Klaus gathered his woodworking tools and his crimson coat and breeches, and Anna her fabrics and sewing things, and together they loaded them all into the sleigh. These were the only things they wanted to take with them from their old life.

“Take your cookstove, Anna!” Saint Nicholas advised. “Of all your fine cookery, my dear, which dish is your favorite?”

“My maple sugar cookies,” she said automatically. “Naturally.”

“Hear, hear!” agreed Klaus.

“Very well then,” said Nicholas. “From this day forward,
Klaus, all cookies will do you good, but specially Anna’s maple sugar cookies. They will renew you, body and spirit. Please eat a lot of them. If you do, you will find yourself growing ever stronger as the years roll by.” And so they loaded the cookstove onto the sleigh with the other things.

Klaus wrote a brief letter to the retired Guild members next door, bequeathing to them his and Anna’s house. Before he sealed it, he included in the letter the key to the house and some recipes Anna knew they particularly liked. Klaus slipped the letter quietly inside the front door of the retirement home, then stood arm in arm with Anna gazing at their own cottage. “We have been happy here for thirty-one years,” Anna said to Klaus. They both cried a little to honor their house, and then they left.

Led by Nicholas, the Eight Flyers pulled their sleigh deep into the loneliest part of the Black Forest. There waiting for them was a broad shining ice Road, its entrance marked on either side by two variegated holly bushes in silver pots, each engraved with a star and a reindeer rampant. It ran steeply up until it disappeared into the clouds. The Magic scent of peppermint filled the air.

“Here is your first discovery, Klaus,” Nicholas told him. “This is the Straight Road.”

“This world and all its roads are curved,” Farouk explained. “Only this Road is straight and can lead you to your new home.” And so it was. In that far-off year of Klaus’s transformation and for many years thereafter, the Straight Road was fixed permanently to the earth in that remote region of the Black Forest. Alas for our days when it can no longer be so!

The Green Council bid Klaus and the others farewell. “We will come if you need us,” Abigail said.

“But don’t call frivolously!” Babukar said. “I will be very busy watching the stars!”

Farewells were said, and then the Eight Flyers bounded up the precipitous expanse of the Straight Road. Anna stood up on the bench of the sleigh and stretched her arms wide, exulting in the frigid wind on her face. She hadn’t had so much fun since she was a girl. “Faster, Dasher, faster!” she called out, just as she had of old. And Dasher complied, redoubling the speed of his team. Anna briefly lost her balance, regained it, and whooped for joy. Klaus grinned at her delight. On the reindeer ran, up through the clouds and then still farther, until the circles of this world dropped away and they came at last to the True North.