The Legend of Holly Claus

by Brittney Ryan

  “You never knew the incantations,” stated Tundra, trying to contain his anger.

  “You’re right,” wailed Euphemia. “I never knew them! I tried and tried, I studied for days, but I just couldn’t learn them. I failed! I failed the test and now I’ve failed you, too!” she squawked. “Callistus will do a better job than I ever could, anyway.”

  “He won’t come,” Tundra said, shooting a worried glance at Holly. “He’s afraid.”

  “Afraid?” asked Holly. “Of what?”

  “Afraid that his wings will get turned to lead,” mumbled Tundra.

  Just as he had dreaded, Holly’s face crumpled. “Oh,” she said softly. After a moment she turned to Euphemia with a small smile. “You see? You’re braver than Callistus, no matter how much Strigigormese he knows.”

  Euphemia lifted her head a little way out of her chest. “Yes,” she said wonderingly, “I guess I am braver than Callistus.”

  “Callistus the custard heart,” said Tundra to reinforce Euphemia.

  Euphemia shuffled her tail feathers. “I’ll stick by you through thick and thin!” she cried. “That is, if you want me to,” she added shyly.

  “Of course we do, Euphemia,” said Holly. “Stay with us.”

  “This doesn’t solve the nightmare problem, though,” said Tundra. “What are we going to do about that?”

  “You won’t have any nightmares if you never go to sleep,” cried Alexia irritably from her corner. “She doesn’t care—she’s an owl. But I’m a fox, and I need to sleep at night. And so do you, Holly, so stop talking.”

  The next morning Euphemia began her new life at the palace. Soon the sight of Holly walking about with a large snowy owl perched upon her shoulders was a common one, and though Tundra continued his search throughout the kingdom for a cure to Holly’s nightmares, he never regretted his first attempt.

  In Nicholas’s study there was one book that fascinated Holly more than any other. It rested upon an intricately carved wooden pedestal, and one of Holly’s earliest memories was of staring in wonder at its wooden birds and monkeys, which emerged from a forest of curling vines and lush flowers. Her fingers had traced the smooth curves and ridges for hours as she imagined the secret world of the carvings: how the animals would leap off the pedestal in the dark of night and swing themselves about on her father’s bookshelves, skittering and scrambling in the monstrous, oversized world of people.

  As Holly grew, she graduated from staring intently at the pedestal to staring intently at the book itself. It was a curious object, bearing the marks of many centuries of honor. Its covers were metal, a dully glowing ancient metal laid over with jewels. This book had never truly had an owner, but each of its caretakers had shown his or her reverence by adding an ornament to the binding, until the book shimmered with smooth rubies and emeralds, roughly cut sapphires and moonstones, finely faceted diamonds and, in the center of the cover, an enormous black opal. Nicholas, in whose hands the volume had rested for more than a thousand years, had called upon the finest painters of Forever to add a secret to the book. It was a painting on the edges of its pages, only visible when the closed book was tilted slightly into the light. Holly, for many years forbidden to touch the volume, had squinted earnestly at the rims of the pages for months before the picture was revealed by a stray sunbeam. It was a portrait of the Land of the Immortals, circled by jewel-colored glaciers, in the fading light of a winter sunset. In the picture snow was falling, and somehow, each tiny snowflake glimmered as though it had caught the last rosy glow of the day. There, in the center of the landscape, wound the Veridian River, green as a snake, and upon the Great Prospect a ring of magic trees stood, their bare branches climbing to the sky.

  One summer evening when Holly was twelve years old, she came wandering into her father s study, accompanied, as usual, by a flurry of snow. Nicholas, who was reading at his desk, quickly closed the window, shutting out the soft twilight air before his daughter could long for it. Without a word, Holly flung herself down on the green velvet sofa and buried her face in the cushions. Nicholas said nothing, but he observed his daughter s feet kicking aimlessly—bam, bam, bam, against the arm of the sofa—and concluded that she was bored.

  As if in response to his thought, Holly groaned, “I’m booooooored.” She propped her chin against the pillow and sighed. “There’s nothing to do.”

  “There’s plenty to do. You could read. You could work on that doll I saw you making yesterday. You could write a letter to Mother Selting, who hasn’t been feeling entirely well this week. You could study your Latin. You could organize my correspondence. You could practice the song that Miss Malibran gave you last week. Any number of things to do.”

  As an answer, Holly dropped her head off the side of the sofa and looked at her father upside down. “I wonder if the mortal children ever get bored,” she mused. “I bet they don’t.”

  “Of course they do. All children get bored.”

  “They don’t look bored when I see them in my telescope.”

  “Mmm,” said Nicholas, turning back to his book.

  The only sound was the rhythmic pounding of Holly’s feet.

  “Papa?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Can I look at the book?”

  “What? This book? I’m reading it.”

  “Not that one. The one up there.” She pointed with her chin. “The Book of Forever.”

  Nicholas had known that this moment would come. He had been steeling himself for it for years, but even so he could hardly keep from bellowing “NO! No, you may not!” Instead, exerting all his self-control, Nicholas said nothing for a moment, then looked into his daughter’s wide green eyes and said, “Yes, my dear. Yes, you may. I think you will find a cure for boredom in its pages.”

  Feeling suddenly adult and responsible, Holly checked to make sure her hands were clean. Nicholas, watching, smiled indulgently. “Don’t worry. Your hands cannot dirty this book.”

  “Still,” Holly said. But she walked over to the wooden stand. She pulled a nearby stool to her aid, climbed upon it, and, ever so gently, lifted the front cover of the book. “‘The Book of Forever,’” she read, “‘Being the Immortal Deeds of the Inhabitants of Our Land from the Beginning of Time.’” She slowly turned the thick, creamy paper. On the first page a monumental P, entwined in flowers and flames, began the book: Prometheus. Then Deucalion. And there was Gaia, and there, the Muses. Holly began to read, slowly at first, then with growing speed. Each of the immortals of the universe was recorded in its pages, together with the deeds that had endowed him or her with eternal life. Magical creatures and gods, who had been immortal for all time, were included in the catalogue, with an account of their accomplishments and gifts to humankind. Each of the thousands of pages was illuminated with a portrait of the subject, and Holly was astonished when she encountered Thucydides, whom she had once seen drinking mead at a cafe, to realize how lifelike and vigorous the portraits were. “How did they—?” she began, and fell silent, for she had stumbled upon Nicholas’s page. There he was, his kind, powerful eyes and luxuriant brown beard. Her eyes skipped over to his biography, and she learned with growing amazement of his life, centuries before, in the bustling little town of Myra, and of the children he had helped there. A few pages farther on, she found Viviana’s picture, looking as though she was suppressing a laugh, and read of her mother’s work in Cappadocia.

  Selflessness, generosity, kindness in the face of evil, faith, charity, justice, strength, bravery, modesty, serenity, devotion, and, above all, love—Holly read on and on of those who had used these gifts in the service of others, and the stories entered her heart. There was Galen, trying to bring order to the chaos of superstition that was medicine. And here was Merlin, who had done his best for Arthur though he knew full well that it was out of his hands. Erasmus, the great reconciler, rubbed elbows with Erasmus Darwin, who reconciled little. Holly’s eyes rested on Mozart’s tired face, and the exuberant Bachs, all of them. And look, Tint
oretto, wild eyed. Mother Selting and her protégé, Finta, who had saved countless innocents from the inquisitors before dying in prison themselves. Holly giggled to read of Mrs. Nicholls, who always appeared rather dull as she walked meekly through the village, and her mouth dropped open as she learned of the exploits of Miss Malibran, who seemed so strict during music lessons. On and on she read, oblivious to the time, oblivious to her arms and legs shaking with weariness, oblivious to Nicholas’s searching glances in her direction.

  Holly lifted her head, and then turned to face her father. He knew what she was thinking. Bending over the book, she began to turn pages, faster and faster, her long fingers stumbling against the thick paper.

  And there it was. She looked as though she had been painted yesterday; indeed, the dress was the one that she had worn the day before. Holly looked closely at the curling smile and green eyes; she studied her own reddish golden hair as if she had never seen it before. Almost unwillingly, she moved her eyes to the accompanying page. “Holly Claus,” read the elaborate letters at the top. The rest of the page was blank.

  Chapter Twelve

  LISTEN—THE BIRDS ARE beginning. And the sky is turning pink, see? Holly, darling, you simply must get some sleep.” Viviana stroked her daughter’s forehead.

  Holly leaned her head against her mother’s shoulder but did not answer. Dark blue shadows encircled her eyes, and she stared blindly at the intricate pattern of the carpet. “I don’t belong here,” she said again.

  Nicholas, who had been explaining for hours, replied patiently. “Of course you do. You are our child. You belong with us.”

  “But I’ve done nothing—nothing except bring a curse to the Land of the Immortals. No wonder they’re frightened of me.”

  Nicholas replied, “You didn’t lay the curse. Herrikhan did. They’re not frightened of you; they’re frightened of him.”

  “I’ve done nothing to help the humans, nothing for the world, nothing!” her hoarse voice continued. “I’m not an immortal—I’m some sort of trick! I’m a freak of nature, or—or—a natural disaster. I’ve done nothing but cause trouble from the moment I was born.”

  “Oh, Holly, that isn’t so. You’ve filled our hearts with more love than we ever believed possible,” Viviana said.

  “There was a boy,” Nicholas began, and Holly recognized the first words of a story she had been hearing all her life. “A boy named Christopher, who lived in the Empire City and sent me a letter. In that letter he asked me a question that I had never been asked before. He asked me if there was anything I wished for, anything I wanted and did not have. And do you remember what happened next, Holly?”

  “Yes, Papa,” said Holly, the darkness in her lifting. “You wished for me.”

  “We knew, as we read his words, that the only thing we wished for was you,” Nicholas continued, watching as the old tale smoothed the lines of worry from his daughter’s face. “It was as though his letter was filled with sunshine and gold. All of a sudden, we knew the dearest wish of our hearts, and we knew that you would come into being. We have felt that joy, Holly, every day of your life.”

  “In spite of the curse? In spite of what I have done?” asked Holly unbelievingly.

  “I do not think I would change anything unless I could know that you would be exactly as you are in this very moment,” Viviana said.

  Holly rested in the circle of her mother’s arms. “Sunshine and gold,” she murmured, her head drooping. There was a long silence, and then Nicholas nodded. She was asleep. Outside, the indeterminate pink of the dawn was crisping into brilliant blue.

  It is odd, Holly thought as she climbed the winding stairs in the fullness of the afternoon, that in a land where most of the population does its best to avoid me, I should be running away to the attic to hide from the few friends I have.

  The attic was not really an attic. It was actually a tiny room at the very pinnacle of the castle’s tallest turret, accessible only by a narrow spiral staircase that made everyone else in the household queasy. Nicholas claimed he was too fat to squeeze himself around the last bend in the stairs, and Tundra announced that it was against wolf nature to be so far away from the ground. Even the housekeeping goblins, normally so diligent, refused to ascend the heights to clean the turret or replace the banner that waved from its steeple. Holly, as the only enthusiastic turret visitor, was therefore responsible for these tasks (Viviana refused to watch when Holly leaned out the slip window to pull the banner in). Today she was escaping, not cleaning.

  She rested on the stone window ledge, her face open to the gentle summer air while her back was cooled by light swirls of snow. The palace sat upon a small hill above the valley of Forever and, from her dizzying perch, Holly could view a great swath of her country laid out like an expanse of fabric. She saw the village, the Veridian River twisting through farms and gardens, and beyond them the vast plain that had no name. Today it pulsed with a purple light, and Holly could just see a scrap of a wizard, his hands on his hips, who was watching the results of his spell with pride. Perhaps, she thought, he is one of the ones who can’t go home. Perhaps he wakes every morning thinking for just a second that he is in his own bed, in the mortal world, and then his eyes open and he knows that he is still a prisoner. Does he think of me? Does he say to himself, If only that baby had never been born, I would be able to live the life I want? And then he must take up his ball and scry his king or whomever he guides, and he probably watches as the king makes the wrong decisions over and over again, and he sits here, helpless to change anything.

  “Ohhh,” groaned Holly, burying her face in her arms. But it was no use, for even in the shield of darkness she could not defeat the pictures that had crowded her mind since the night before: the immortal souls waiting patiently for admittance to Forever, the frozen misery on the faces of the visitors as they learned that they could never return to their homes, the horror that Tundra had endured near the Amaranthine Gates, the plunging drop forward as Zenwyler’s feet turned to lead, and the shrieking panic that followed.

  And there was something else, too. Something that hovered on the edges of earliest time, swaying and shivering in the oldest part of her memory. She was falling down and could not save herself. Below her was nothing, and above her loomed a dark, slick cavern that screamed and screamed and screamed.

  Holly jerked her head up and steadied her hand against the edges of the window. For the first time, the turret seemed precarious. She looked toward the sky, and the blue seemed to shudder slightly. She looked down to see the cheerful landscape below, but her vision was impeded by sharp little explosions, like fireworks, that rained through the air before her eyes. The sky is falling, she thought crazily. Farms, fields, grass, river, plain with no name, name with no plain, millage, village, spillage.

  “No,” she said out loud. “No. I will not be frightened. I will not hide. You. Herrikhan.” She had not said his name before, and it made her feel a bit sick, but she took a deep breath and continued, “Herrikhan, I know what you want. I know what you expect—I don’t know how I know but I do—you think that I’m going to crawl to you and beg you to take my heart and release the others. You think that I’m going to make a bargain—me for them—but I tell you now that you’re wrong. I know what you’ll be if you’re freed, and I won’t help you. I’ll fight you. I’m going to make myself an immortal, a real immortal, somehow, and I’m not going to give in. I’m going to do it by myself. I’m not frightened of you!”

  Without warning, Sofya was at her side. Her cloud-colored robes rustled slightly as she encircled Holly’s tense figure in her arms. “Yes, my love,” she whispered, “that s right. You fight. You have the heart of a lioness.”

  Holly bowed her head gratefully against her godmother’s cool linen shoulder. “Did he hear me?” she asked in a low voice.

  Sofya’s black eyes flicked around the tiny stone room. “He’s not here, I can tell you that. But I expect that he heard you.”

  “Oh, Sofya, what am
I going to do? How am I going to become a real immortal?”

  Sofya held her tighter. “You’re a real immortal, Holly, I promise you.”

  “But the book.”

  “Your story will be written there in the fullness of time.”

  “How?” Holly cried despairingly. “How can I do anything worthy of my birthplace if my birth has turned the Land of the Immortals into a prison that no one may leave? What am I to do?”

  “That,” said Sofya, “would be telling.”

  Holly stared at her. “You know what’s going to happen.”

  Sofya shook her head. “No, I don’t, for which I thank the elders of the universe every day of my life. I can see a number of possible futures, and any one of them could happen. There is not one certain future, that much I know. Each of our lives creates what is to come. The universe is not a clock that has been set to run in one direction. It is a maze, a giant puzzle that changes and grows each time a player takes one path over another. Every time you make a choice, you make the future. I don’t know how your story will end; I have to wait and see like everybody else.” She smiled. “Including Herrikhan.”

  “But you do know what I’m supposed to do next,” insisted Holly.

  “No, really, I don’t. What I meant was this: nobody can tell you what to do. You must decide for yourself because that’s part of your path.”

  “Should I go to the mortal world?”

  Sofya shook her head. “You must follow what you know—I cannot tell you.” She laughed softly. “I do know that your father would throw me out of this ridiculous tower if he found out that I had encouraged you to make such a journey. And, by the way, I do not know a secret means of evading the curse and traveling to the mortal world. If I did, I would have used it myself,” she said.

  “Oh,” said Holly, disappointed.

  Sofya brushed her cheek. “But such a means may very well exist.” Holly looked up, but her godmother was glancing around the tower room with distaste. “Why do you insist on holding your conferences in a pigeon coop, my dear?”