Christmas Kiss is on Her List

by Conner, Jennifer

  “More literal,” Rose growled at me. Joulupukki literally translates to ‘yule goat.’

  “She means nuuttipukki,” Kaija said, “or something like nuuttipukki.”

  “It was one of the winter wild men,” Steven said quietly. Steve had never been a quiet guy, he was one of the more outgoing guys on the team. His voice, so quiet and subdued, focused me.

  “Tell me,” I said to him.

  “You know the stories,” he whined.

  Murphy looked from Steve to me and then to Nimah. “The stories often lie, Steve. Tell Arttu what he needs to know.”

  Steve sighed and looked as though he wanted to say no, but shook his head and said, “The wild men come between Yule and 12th night. They take the bad children and beat them, or eat them or drag them to Hell.”

  “Branna isn’t bad and she isn’t a child,” I told them. Everyone just looked at me for a few heartbeats. I looked back at them, hoping that someone would reveal this as a cruel trick.

  “What about using magic on people without consent?” Murphy finally said.

  “To make them happy!” I rounded on Murphy.

  “Without their consent,” Murphy said firmly.

  I got right up into his face and asked, “Were you happier before or after Mass today?”

  “After,” he replied, “but that is not the point.”

  “How is it different from your prayers?” I hissed, “I don’t share your beliefs and I don’t want you praying for me!”

  Murphy reared back as if I d hit him. For a moment, he tensed and his hands balled into fists. I just knew I had gone too far and that we would end up fighting when I should be looking for Branna.

  Then Vále whined and got between us. He licked my hand and then licked Murphy’s. He looked back and forth between us and then ran over to the door and jumped at it, hitting the door with a solid thud.

  “What does he want?” I asked Kaija.

  “If I had to guess, he wants to go out that door,” she said in a deadpan voice. “When I am human I speak human. And Vále isn’t Lassie.”

  I went to the door and let Vále out of the room. He moved back and forth with quick sharp movements, casting for a scent. I wanted to ask Kaija if she could tell if Vále had a scent but I stopped myself and turned to my friend in his furry form. I dropped to my knees in front of him and said.

  “Find her for me please.”

  Vále rested his head on my shoulder and then licked my ear. I started to cry, I couldn’t help it. He licked my face like a puppy welcoming its master home. Then he spun around me and pushed me shoulder to shoulder. Then he sat in front of me and licked my nose. If we hadn’t have been drunk, I doubt we would have expressed so much emotion to each other.

  “Thanks,” I sobbed.

  Kaija stood over me holding her purse. “I’m going to change. My purse fits around my neck. We will call you when we find something. Go back to your house and try to relax. We’ll find her and we’ll call.”

  She hugged me and went back to the bathroom. She came bounding out as a thin blond wolf, her eyes a bright blue. She could probably pass as a blonde Husky, but I didn’t think she would have to. Vále was a huge glowering animal and I doubted he would allow anyone close enough to Kaija for her to have to pass as anything. I slipped her purse over her head and smiled at the effect— something like a St. Bernard off to rescue my girl. Vále rested his head over Kaija’s shoulder and then ran his chin up her neck, making all of her hair stand up. She shot him a sour look and then moved. Vále butted my forehead with his and then grunted at Kaija. The two wolves wheeled and took off.

  I hoped there weren’t any doors between them and Branna.

  When the two wolves were gone, I collapsed, head in hands, crying. I couldn’t stop the tears and sobs shook my whole body. Rose and Nimah knelt on either side of me. Nimah wrapped an arm around me and when I tried to pull away from her, I ended up in Rose’s arms.

  “Please?” I asked through my tears trying to duck away from the women.

  “Back off, ladies,” Murphy said moving in front of me. “Give him space to breathe.”

  “He needs support,” Rose said.

  “No, he needs to be left alone and he needs to be taken home.”

  Rose huffed and both girls got to their feet and stepped away from me. Murphy took a knee in front of me. He put a hand on my shoulder and after a few moments I got control of myself. When the tears stopped, I still had trouble breathing. I knew it was from the crying and the worry about Branna, but I fumbled in my pocket for the inhaler anyway. The short routine of using the thing brought me back to myself.

  “Better?” Murphy asked me.

  “Yeah, I need a ride home. I’m drunk,” I said.

  “I’ll drive you home,” Billy said. “I’m the automatic designated driver.”

  Murphy helped me to my feet. “You go with Billy and the rest of us will follow you. We will meet you at your place.”

  “Come on Finn,” Gabby said and then she led us out of the room. Once we were out of the room and the other woman couldn’t see us, Gabby asked, “Do you need a hug from a friend?”

  “No,” I said. “Thank you, though.”

  “We will only hold off so long,” she told me and kissed my cheek.

  Billy drove an old station wagon and when he unlocked the door I climbed into the back seat and curled up on it for the short drive to my home. When they pulled up my driveway I didn’t want to get up and lay still for few moments until Billy asked, “Do you want to go into the apartment or the boat house?”

  The town of Nahant is a peninsula sticking out into the Massachusetts Bay. It is connected to the mainland and the town of Lynne by a causeway. Branna and I owned a three-story house, made up of three apartments. We had a beautiful view of the city of Boston and we were right on the south-facing beach. The boathouse had a workout center, a lounge and a long set of stairs to a dock. We had a sailboat and two ocean kayaks—not that they were in the water at mid-winter. It was the perfect house for a couple who loved the water like Branna and I do.

  “If the others are coming, we should probably go to the boathouse,” I told them. The boathouse had more space. And I was drunk. I didn’t want other people in my house. I can be a bit of a hermit and I didn’t want anyone invading the space I shared with Branna. At that moment, anything she had touched felt sacred and I didn’t want my teammates defiling it.

  The three of us walked to the boathouse and I found the door unlocked. When I walked in I found John, one of the upstairs tenants, riding a stationary bike. Everyone who lives in my building has access to the boathouse, but they all know that if I show up with the team in tow, they have to vacate the building. I’m sure it sucks for them. In a few months John would be competing in his first triathlon and we often worked out together. John smiled and started to leave; I reached out and caught his arm. John supervised a construction crew for a high-end construction and management company. His boss, Dan Ellis, never hurt for anything, if the papers were to be believed. I had heard some gossip that Mr. Ellis would be part of a group planning to buy the team. I tried not to worry about who would buy us. Even with everything going on, I thought it safest to be nice to John.

  “We can go running tomorrow if you want.”

  “I’ll call you in the morning,” John replied before slipping out the door. I didn’t know if I would be up to running in the morning, but actually saying it to someone would make it real, and I wasn’t ready to write Monday off yet.

  I walked straight through the gym area and through a door, into a lounge area. It had a big screen television, couches, some comfortable chairs and a wall that was one huge window. It looked out over the water, back toward the city of Boston. I went to the window and looked out at the night skyline and leaned my head against the window. The glass was cooling my face. Billy stepped up beside me
and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. We still had space between us, but I knew I could lean against him if I needed to.

  “Come on back to the couch,” Billy said, pulling me gently. “We can put on a movie and wait for the others.”

  “Yeah,” I said, letting him draw me back to the couch. When I sat down, a few short sharp coughs escaped from me. I rubbed my face and said, “I feel like crap.”

  “Well how are you supposed to feel?” Billy asked. “If it was Gabby that got taken I would be beside myself.”

  “I am. I think I am. I’m still drunk. When I sober up—”

  “He will have a panic attack.” Steve said interrupting me as the other two couples walked in. It was true, I probably would and all the men knew it. They had seen me lose my mind on enough airplanes. Steve was the only one mouthy enough to say it.

  Then my phone rang. We all looked at it before I keyed it on to answer and said, “Yes?”

  “We’ve found her,” Kaija said, her voice gravelly from the change, “but there is a problem.”

  The problem was nuuttipukki didn’t just have Branna, he had another prisoner and the three were surrounded by some sort of magical force field. When we got to Salem, Vále was still in the form of the big brown wolf and Kaija sat next to him, stroking his fur. Vále rocked side to side, to upset to hold stil.

  “She’s being beaten,” Kaija said. “We’ve been trying to get in, but we can’t and he’s not stopping.” She burrowed her head into Vále’s fur.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “In the graveyard, but you can’t get in either,” she said, not lifting her head.

  “I don’t give a shit,” I said. I sprinted from where we parked in the direction of the Old Burying Point, or as close to sprinting as I could handle with all the medication and drink, and my body having decided to be asthmatic for the day.

  When I got to the graveyard, I didn’t have time for the history of the oldest graveyard in Salem. I ran until I smacked into a barrier that I couldn’t see. I knocked myself to the ground. Even with the panic I felt, I laughed stupidly, picking myself up off the ground. I looked around and saw the nuuttipukki.

  Even in the dark of night, I could see him. He was brown, naked, hairy and he had the legs and short horns of a goat. He turned and smiled at me. He had a flat, round face, wild yellow eyes and the sharp teeth of a mink. I shrank back from the invisible wall.

  Branna was on the ground. The nuuttipukki held her down with one of his hoofs. He was holding a man in one hand and it looked like I had interrupted him as he lifted the man up to bite him.

  I hoped he hadn’t bitten my darling.

  I smacked my hands against the wall of air. “Let them go!”

  “Does this one belong to you?” the Wildman asked shaking the man I had never seen before. He spoke in my mother tongue. I shook my head. Nuuttipukki tossed the poor man away. I heard a sickening crunch when he hit the force field on the other side. I think every hockey player has heard the sound of a player crashing into the glass, causing an injury.

  I flinched from the sound.

  He lifted Branna. Without meaning to I begged, “Don’t hurt her, please.”

  “She’s mine,” nuuttipukki said. “She has forced people to her will using magic.”

  He took a deep sniffing breath. “You were her teacher, but you don’t smell like a wicked child.”

  “She isn’t wicked, she just doesn’t understand. She thinks she is helping.”

  “That is not an excuse. You know it isn’t.” The nuuttipukki turned from me. He held my love like a broken toy.

  “Nuuttipukki, please give her back,” I begged the supernatural creature.

  “No child,” he said to me. “Say goodbye to her. I will take her to Hell with me.”

  I started to turn and saw Nimah at my shoulder.

  “Arttu,” she said, “do you know how to banish evil magic?”

  “No,” I admitted miserably.

  “Holy water,” she said lifting her hands. Wind blew and the circle protecting the nuuttipukki started to fill up with water.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I am a daughter of the sea. The sea comes when I ask. Now start to pray, boy.” Nimah’s voice so full of power I shrank away from her.

  “I can’t make holy water,” I said.

  “Oh please, you think you have to be Catholic to make it. I know that you are a follower of the old gods. Pray, consecrate the water and save your girlfriend.”

  So I prayed. I prayed to every god I had ever prayed to. My prayers were addressed with all of my concentration; I figured the gods would hear me yelling for them. As I prayed, the water kept filling the circle of the nuuttipukki. I could hear it cursing and growling as I prayed.

  Then with a hiss, a splash and a pop, the force holding us from Branna, the other man and the nuuttipukki, dissipated. The water flowed out and over my feet.

  “If they stay wicked, I will have them in the end,” the nuuttipukki said and then disappeared.

  I ran to Branna’s side and fell to my knees, taking her in my arms and pulling her onto my lap. She wasn’t breathing. I grabbed her face and my pinkies felt her pulse flutter under them. “She’s not breathing! Help her!”

  I didn’t know who I demanded that of, but surely someone with us could help her. Our group was chock-full of magic, now that they had all come to the burying ground.

  “We can help,” Steve said.

  “Your breath for her breath,” Rose said.

  “Anything, anything,” I begged. Rose knelt across from me next to Branna’s head. Steve sat behind me.

  “Are you positive?” Rose asked.

  “Yes,” I answered. I wanted them to get on with it. I could feel her life slipping away under my hand.

  “I won’t let her kill you,” Steve whispered in my ear.

  “If it brings Branna back, I don’t give a shit,” I growled.

  “Put your hand here,” Rose said putting my hand on Branna’s chest over her left lung. She kept one hand flat over mine and Steve reached around me and placed one hand over Rose’s and his other hand rested on Branna’s chest over her right lung.

  The smell of Christmas trees surrounded me and I gagged on the smell that I had associated with misery for years. Before my nose completely clogged I smelled the strong scent of roses. Then Rose lifted her hand, pollen dripped off of it in a thick yellow paste. She lifted her hand and covered my nose and mouth. I tried to pull back but Steve blocked my retreat.

  “Breathe me in, Arttu,” Rose crooned, “You have to give up your breath to start hers.”

  “You will be fine,” Steve whispered again, “but you have to do what Rose asks. She is spring and she can save Anna.”

  I took a deep breath and then coughed. I struggled to pull my head back but Steve held me still. He said, “More.”

  I wanted to say no, but Branna’s heart was so weak under my hand. I took three deep breaths before I could feel the attack closing off my airways. Rose dropped her hand, but I could still feel the pollen all over my face. Every halting breath brought more of it into my lungs. I felt as though I was breathing through a straw half-filled with liquid and getting more and more full. I started to pull back again to reach up and clear my face, but Rose held my hands down.

  “Finn?” Murphy asked in a worried voice.

  I managed to get out, “Can’t…breathe.”

  “You’re killing him!” Vále shouted and lunged for us but Kaija and Billy stopped him.

  “You have to let them do what they are doing,” Gabby said.

  Then my lungs started stuttering. There’s no way to describe it other than that. I couldn’t breathe and my body panicked. There were purple dots spinning in front of my eyes and then I hunched over, struggling.

  I was drowning in an ocean of air.
/>   Rose pulled away from me and I toppled over Branna. Before the darkness could claim me, I heard two things:

  I heard Branna gasp.

  “Bless you, child. Breathe free,” Rose said as she and Steve touched my face. Then I gasped. I gasped and air came into my lungs. There was no wheezing, no tightness. I pulled as much air as I could into my lungs and watched the spots slowly resolve.

  “Come on, hon,” Branna crooned at me, “We need to get you home.”

  I turned to look at Branna. “You’re not dead.”

  “You aren’t either. But you are just covered in pollen and you need to get washed up before you have some sort of an attack,” she said with a bright smile. I hugged her tight and sobbed into her hair. She started to sing quietly into my ear, “Gaudete, gaudete!”

  “Don’t!” I said pulling back and covering her mouth with my hand. “That is why you were here. That’s why he took you and almost killed you. And you don’t need to make me rejoice.”

  “You fainted,” Rose said from where she and Steve were doing something with a man lying on the floor, “it’s normal. Branna needed all of your breath for a minute or so. How do you feel now?”

  “Better than I have for weeks.”

  “You should,” she said with a smile, “but you should rest tonight, your body has been through so much tonight.”

  “I’ll take you two home,” Murphy said.

  “No,” I said, getting up and then pulling Branna up behind me, “we go together—all of us.”

  “I’m the captain,” he said.

  “I’m the one whose girlfriend got stolen and then had an asthma attack. I think I get to pick when we go.”

  “We go now,” Branna said to me. I turned to her. I wanted to argue with her but she touched my face, wiping away the pollen from my eyes, “You are going to be sick as a dog tomorrow.”

  “I feel fine,” I told her.

  “You sound stuffy for someone who feels fine,” she told me sharply.

  She was right, my sinuses were full and my head ached. The pain could have been from oxygen deprivation, or even the start of a hangover. And Branna had almost died. We should be at home.