The Christmas Chronicles (9 page)

A long time that country had been preparing for them, and now it was finished. Merry were its flowery meadows in
the budding springtime, cool and bracing its waterfall and lake in high summer, and majestic its dark and spicy pine forests in deep winter. But most beautiful at all times of year was Castle Noël with its magnificent towers and spacious halls of green and silver and pearl. When Klaus first saw it, he knew it was his dream come to real life.

And when he and Anna drove at last through the great crystal gates into the courtyard of that castle and came to a stop, they made their second discovery. A throng of people, hundreds of them, were silently waiting for them there. Anna, a little breathless from the rush of their journey, leaned over to Klaus and whispered in his ear, “Who are they all?”

Then one of the people stepped forward to speak.

S
aint Klaus sat in his sleigh on Christmas Eve and worried. The Eight Flyers stood in their traces. They were puzzled, eager to be in the air again, but they waited patiently. The dawn was coming. Man and beast could feel it—the chill wind blowing up, the dark beginning to thin into gray just at the horizon’s edge. Only Dasher had an idea what Klaus was feeling, because his bond with him was so strong and deep. He craned his head around from the front of the line, wanting to say something encouraging, but, seeing
Klaus’s expression, could find no suitable words.
Poor man,
he thought.
Whatever will he do now that he realizes?

I
t had all gone so well at first. Klaus thought back to his very first day at Castle Noël, when Anna had whispered her question into his ear about the crowd of people in the courtyard: “Who are they all?”

A young woman had stepped forward. Or was she young? Klaus had wondered. She had the freshness of youth but also the completeness of maturity. She may even have been old once, but not now. “Welcome,” the young woman had said. “We hope you like your country as much as we have enjoyed making it.”

“We like it very much,” Klaus had replied. He bowed. “Thank you—all of you—for your labors.” The multitude seemed to expect something more from him, but he was unsure what to say next.

Anna noticed the slight glow coming from the throng. “Are you Saints, like Nicholas and the others?” she asked, and added a little hesitantly, “And, well, like us, I suppose.”

A murmur of appreciation swept through the crowd in the courtyard. “It’s very good of you to say so,” the young woman answered with a smile. “Someday, perhaps.”

“Then may we know who you are?” Anna asked.

“We’re Elevated Spirits, of course!” a man called out.

“You don’t
seem
like spirits,” Klaus said. “You’re all very solid.”

“So are all Spirits who have Elevated,” another explained.

“Oh, just call us Elves!” someone else said. “That’s what we call ourselves!”

“Ah,” said Klaus. “Elves. Good.” Another expectant pause.
They seem to want something from us,
Klaus thought.
But what?

Seeing his bewilderment, the young woman spoke low in his ear. “What we all wish to know is, may we stay and help?”

Now Klaus understood! A smile wreathed his face, and he stepped forward and spread his arms wide. “O excellent Elves,” he called out in his largest voice, “will you please stay here with us and help Anna and me in our labors?”

At this a great cheer went up from the crowd, and those who had caps threw them in the air. “Three cheers for Saint Klaus and Saint Anna!” they all cried. “And three more for the Eight Flyers who brought them Home!”

All of the Elevated Spirits chose to stay in the new country they had made, and many more who had the desire
to make toys came afterwards. “And what if some of the Elves are all thumbs?” Klaus remarked to Anna later. “They can’t hurt themselves, being Elevated, and I like teaching them. Besides, we’re going to need the help. I have a feeling our deliveries are going to expand.”

And expand they had. Each Christmas Eve, Klaus had driven down the Straight Road with more and bigger sacks of toys. And always, no matter how far afield Klaus had flown, his fame had flown faster, and more and more children had waited in eager expectation for his visits.

On their very first Christmas Eve in the True North, Klaus and Anna had stood, as they usually did, beside their big sleigh, loaded and ready to depart. Only now the sleigh was not beside their snug cottage, but in the courtyard of Castle Noël. Dasher and his siblings stood in their traces, patiently waiting, one or another of them quietly shifting a hoof now and then. Only someone who knew them well would have noticed the barely perceptible electric shiver all along their splendid silver coats, the hallmark of their eagerness to be off and away. Elves thronged the courtyard or were up in the balconies of the castle, ready to cheer when the sleigh shot away down the Road.

Klaus turned to Anna. “Well, my dear,” he said and
held out a mittened hand. “Shall I help you—” He was about to say, “into the sleigh,” but he caught the expression on her face and said instead, in some alarm, “Anna! Whatever is wrong?”

“Not a thing,” Anna replied as quickly as she could.

But it was too late. Perhaps because Klaus was now a Saint and that made him more perceptive, he saw what for thirty-one Christmas Eves he had failed to see: a slight frown passing fleetingly across his wife’s face. “Now, Anna,” Klaus said, taking her hands, “I have seen your face merry, fierce, sad, and very, very occasionally, in repose. But I have never seen
that
expression on it before. It seems to say—it seems to signify—Anna, are you
irritated
with me?”

“Of course not! Oh, Klaus, dear, dear Klaus, I never meant for you to see! I never meant for you to know.” Anna was on the very brink of tears.
And that is something new, too,
Klaus thought, marveling.

“Know what?” he asked. Anna glanced at the Elves looking curiously at them and wondering what was transpiring. Klaus followed her gaze. “Good Elevated Spirits,” Klaus called out, “will you be so kind as to give my wife and me a moment?” The Elves made polite noises and backed a
respectful distance away. “Now then, Anna, won’t you please,
please
tell me what is troubling you? What was I never meant to know?”

Well, Anna could see that there was nothing for it now but to confess. And so she did. And it would, according to her later report, be untrue to say that her voice did not catch once or twice as she poured out her heart to her husband. Halfway through she heard Klaus murmur to himself, “All those years! How could I not have seen it?” And she saw the complete astonishment on his face when, after she was entirely finished, he turned to her and said, “But still, Anna, it’s really very hard to believe. You say you find delivering Christmas presents
boring
?”

Anna nodded through her tears. “Tedious beyond belief,” she sobbed. How good it felt finally to say it! “I’ve tried to like it for your sake, but—all those houses, more each year! And me waiting while you check off each toy on all your bits of paper, and then waiting some more while you let them down the chimney. I hate waiting! I hate doing the same thing again and again! I know you like my company—and I treasure yours, too, Klaus, on all other occasions—and I never wanted to hurt your feelings, but the truth is—I don’t like going out with you on Christmas Eve.” It was the most terrible thing Anna had ever said to
anyone, and she had just said it to the person she cared most about in all the world. What, she wondered desperately, would come of it?

Klaus was stunned. He wondered how he could have been so blind to his wife’s feelings for so long. And he was worried:
How will it be not to have her beside me on the most important night of the year?
He could not speak for several moments while Anna stood by in agony. And then, unexpectedly, a new understanding came to him like a dove settling on his heart. “It is another discovery,” he said at last.

“What is?” Anna asked.

“Why, that happiness is the result when the truth is spoken in love. Anna, you have given me a great gift this Christmas Eve. I thank you.” And he actually bowed to her.

“Don’t make me cry again,” Anna said gruffly. “I already feel like such a
girl
! Especially in front of the reindeer.”

“Ho, ho, ho! Then laugh with me, instead!” said Klaus. And she did, because who can resist that laugh? “Now I will give
you
a gift. You will never,
ever
have to come with me again on Christmas Eve!”

Anna clapped her hands with glee. “Really? Oh, Klaus, it’s the best present you ever gave me!”

And so it was that thereafter Klaus made his Christmas
Eve flights without Anna. And while it was true that they grew lonely and missed each other when they were apart, it was also true that they came to know the deep pleasure of returning to each other and eagerly sharing all their doings when they came back together. For them, as they have often said, it is the very best way to live. And Anna, as will be seen, was seldom idle while her husband was away.

On that first Christmas Eve in the True North, Klaus gave his wife a lingering hug, jumped into his sleigh, and held on while his reindeer (
Finally!
they thought) thundered out of the courtyard, down the Straight Road, and off to make their deliveries. Anna joined the Elves in cheering and waving as they shot through the castle gates.

And then the glad years had taken wing, one after the other, and flown away. How many years? It was hard to count them in the True North. You will get an idea of life there if you think of being on holiday. When you are on holiday, you fill each precious day with just what you like to do and with just whom you want to do it, and you love each day just for itself. You don’t really care if it’s Tuesday or Friday, and you are freed from the noise and bother of the world so long as your holiday lasts. Well, in the True North, the holiday always lasts.

And so while Klaus noticed that the chimneys he let
toys down were beginning to be made of brick and this made his job longer and trickier, and while Anna noted that her batches of maple sugar cookies, enjoyed by one and all at Castle Noël, were growing ever larger, and while Dasher made meticulous mental notes of all the new places they were visiting and, with the help of cartographer Elves, converted his observations into more and more maps and flight charts, none of them could tell you exactly how many years had passed since the founding of the True North, nor could any tell you exactly what year it was as reckoned by earthly calendars. They were, you see, all on holiday.

B
ut now, brooding in his sleigh on this particular Christmas Eve some years later, Klaus felt that all his happiness had evaporated. The dawn was coming. Man and beast could feel it—the chill wind blowing up, the dark beginning to thin into gray just at the horizon’s edge. And though he was too far away to hear it, he knew the matins bell would soon be ringing out in his little former village, signaling the end of Christmas Eve—and the end of the blessing Father Goswin had invoked all those years ago on toys delivered on this special night. He looked behind him
in the sleigh and saw amid all the empty sacks the one still half-filled with toys for what was intended to be the last village of the night—and the first where the children spoke an entirely different language. Now those children would be disappointed. He had stretched his route too far. It was now impossible, even for a flying Saint, to make all his deliveries on Christmas Eve. He had failed.

Klaus sighed. He reached for the reins to turn the team back toward the Straight Road when from the front of the line he heard a word.

“Try” was the word. Klaus looked up from his brooding. Dasher was looking hard at him. “Try,” the reindeer said again. “It is not yet dawn, Klaus. Remember what Saint Nicholas said. There may still be more for us to discover. Try.”

Well. There was never harm in trying. In fact, come to think of it, Klaus thought, trying was itself a kind of Magic. All right. He would try, despite the gray turning into rose just at the eastern horizon’s edge behind him. “Very well!” he shouted. “On, Dasher! On, Dancer! And, oh, on, everyone!” The Eight Flyers sprang up, filling the air with the silver jingle of their harness bells as they flew away.

Maybe,
hoped Klaus as the wind whistled through his beard,
if I don’t look behind me, I can pretend the sun isn’t
rising. If I just keep going, perhaps I can—somehow—get to that foreign village before it’s too late.
He shut his eyes tight against the morning light he feared was coming. (Luckily, Dasher was carrying a good map of Europe in his head, so Klaus didn’t need to steer.)
If only the dawn wouldn’t come!
Klaus wished. And then he said aloud with all his heart, “If only Time would stop!”

Except that he didn’t say that, at all. The sleigh was just at that moment shooting over the border into the new country and so what Klaus actually said was,
“Si seulement le Temps s’arrêterait!”
It so astonished him to find himself speaking another language that he opened his eyes.