The other bags were his tool kits—highly organized hard cases that contained highly technical, highly expensive things that Kandi had no idea what they did. When it came to packing, he was a magician. He could put twenty clowns in a car without a trapdoor.
Kandi examined the ornate telescope. It was poised between the beds on three golden legs that curled like the knuckles of a lion. The eyepiece was a normal-sized extension that fit snugly against her nose. The other end was the size of a yule log.
It swung silently from side to side. At first, all she saw was blue sky and water. With some tinkering, she found the horizon.
There was nothing out there.
Her dad went to the bathroom. The shower sounded like a rain forest. He rarely went a day without a shower, and he hadn’t had time that morning. His shirt had already been dark with perspiration. He might take two a day.
Even with the door closed, the room sounded like a waterfall. Kandi fell on her bed. Her suitcase, still zipped tightly, bounced next to her. With all the distractions, she hadn’t even noticed the vaulted ceiling.
It was domed and dark. Stars appeared to sparkle in its depth, occasionally one shooting from wall to wall with a hearty “Ho-ho-ho.” It wasn’t a star but nine tiny reindeer pulling a red sleigh, their little legs pumping the air. The stars appeared to sprinkle down like fairy dust. She’d been asleep for nearly half a day already, yet she was beginning to fill with sand again.
With the shower pouring down and the weight of travel lying heavy in her head, she closed her eyes. There was no snow outside and no cold in her bones, but the distant ringing of sleigh bells and the jolly laughter sang in her sleep.
The song that had greeted them was still playing when she fell asleep. It was a different version, but she recognized the tune just before dreaming.
“Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”
KANDI
4
The sky was dark.
An orangey light, warm and clean, was imbibed with a golden hue. If she could somehow capture it and squeeze it down, she could drink sunshine. It warmed her bones and lifted her spirits from the damp sand of sleep.
But it wasn’t the sky she was looking at.
There were no stars in the ceiling, no sleigh slashing a red glow from wall to wall. Her head was damp and hot. The pillowcase stuck to her cheek, her hair matted across her forehead.
She sat up in bed.
The telescope’s shadow stretched to the piano. Behind her, the sun was a fiery disk hovering just above the horizon. The space between it and the ocean was warped and wavy.
The room was silent.
“Dad?”
She slid off the bed. The long dining table had two settings. Each had a mug and a bowl. She hovered over the mug, letting the steam collect on her cheeks. Little white balls floated on the foamy surface. It was hot chocolate.
Very hot.
The bathroom door was closed. Kandi leaned near it and listened. There was no rustle of a towel or tink of a razor against the sink. There were no clocks in the room, but the sun was setting.
“Dad?”
When he didn’t answer, she opened the door. The bathroom wasn’t as big as the master suite, but it was still ridiculous. A snowplow could be parked in the shower with room to wash and wax. There was no showerhead, but the ceiling was perforated. The glass walls were still foggy with streaks of condensation having already raced to the bottom.
The mirror was clear.
Her complexion was pale, slightly jaundiced. And dark circles were beneath her eyes. Heether was right, a little sun would do her right. She was lacking vitamin D. She wasn’t as dark as her dad. His grandparents were born in India. Kandi’s mother’s side was Irish.
None of them had ever been to Alaska.
There was only one knob in the sink. She ran the water and splashed her face, rinsing the salty brine off her lips. It was a bit more than lukewarm. It was better than nothing, but she would consider fighting the school bully for an ice cube.
Despite her earlier promise to her dad, she turned on her phone. This wasn’t like him. He left messages on the kitchen table when he went into the backyard. He would text her if he took out the trash and talked to a neighbor.
Her phone didn’t have reception. No Wi-Fi, no bars.
Her dad had a satellite laptop that could access the internet on the North Pole. It could do it here. His tool kits were on the bed. She pried one of them open. The laptop was tucked into its slot, everything in its rightful place.
In the hall, the waterball fight still raged in the distance. The slushy air obscured anything past it. The illusion of fat little elves raced back and forth. One of them was unusually taller than the others, and skinnier. His hair was wild.
“Hello!” A dirty snowman jumped in front of her. “Would you like a ride?”
He was a traditional snowman projecting from the wall—three balls, one stacked on top of the other—but the eyes looked more like sand dollars and the nose was a hermit crab shell. His voice was a gritty whisper, kind of old Western, but he wasn’t a snowman.
He was sand.
“Would you like a ride? Over the seven seas and mountaintops, to the lava bottoms of the volcano slop, I’ll show you things you’ve never seen. It’ll be quite a sight when we light the chimney at midnight. It’s Christmas magic, if you believe.”
She didn’t know whether to be enchanted or frightened. He was trying to woo her on some magic carpet ride, but it sounded more like a stranger telling her to get off his lawn.
“Have you seen my dad?”
The sand dollars sank into the head. “Was he about six foot tall, black hair, thick eyebrows, and dark skin? And he was in the room you just came out of?”
“Yes.”
“Haven’t seen him.”
“You just described him.”
“Would you like a ride? Over the seven seas and mountaintops...”
The door on the right was slightly ajar. The sandman went from a three-dimensional character to a two-dimensional object on the wall that followed her down the hall, repeating his offer to visit the volcano slop. Kandi knocked.
The door swung open.
It was nothing like the master suite. Two sets of bunk beds, each with three beds and three shelves at each end. There were no sheets on the mattresses and no dust on the shelves. Nothing stirred.
Not even a mouse.
A wide window provided a generous view. The island was bigger than she imagined. It was narrow and long and mostly filled with palms. The tops of buildings were nestled within the tropical foliage.
One building was taller than the rest.
It was circular with mirrored windows and dark bands. The architecture was modern and minimalist, clashing with the untamed ground around it. A wide swath had been cleared leading up to it.
Someone was on it.
She cupped her hands on the window. The waterball fight shook the walls like it was right outside the door.
“Quiet, please!” Kandi shouted.
To her surprise, everything fell silent. She stepped out. There was a puddle farther down the hallway and two reindeer that appeared to be munching on puffs of lichen. They lifted their heads, their antlers spanning halfway to the walls. Their jaws moved side to side.
“Sounds like the Grinch,” one of them said.
“Yeah, the Grinch.”
“They’re right,” the sandman said. “You sound like the Grinch.”
Kandi marched into the master suite and looked around. She returned to the hallway to find one of the gliders. She shoved it into the suite like a skateboard. A few turns and it fit between the beds. The telescope was heavy.
And expensive.
What do you expect when you leave a fifteen-year-old girl all by herself without a note and all this stuff? You should expect this.
Kandi wedged her shoulder beneath the expensive and heavy thing and tipped it back slowly, sliding the glider under one of the legs. The tele
scope remained precariously tipped at an angle. This was a bad idea. A terrible, horrible idea. The telescope teetered on her shoulder.
If Dad walks in...
A shadow filled the doorway and her heart did a belly flop into her stomach. Her legs began to surrender when the round, tan head of the sandman peeked inside. His sand-dollar eyes grew wide, the indention beneath his crab shell nose turning round and deep.
“I’m telling.”
“No, wait. Can you help?”
His laughter sounded like rocks on a millstone. “You’re funny.”
“No, I almost have it. I just need a little—”
“What do you think I am?”
“You’re standing there, aren’t you?”
“What you see isn’t always real, kid.”
“Just help me get this up. Please.”
“The magic word has been invoked.”
He slid into the doorway and straightened a necklace of candy canes and cinnamon sticks around his neck. Flexing tree branch arms, he glided across the room with a gritty sound that sent chills down her neck. The sand dollars buried beneath furrowed brows, his mouth a downturned frown of determination. He smelled like cinnamon powder and marshmallows.
“You got that side?” he asked.
“Just go easy.”
“Like Sunday morning.”
“What’s that mean? Forget it. On three. Ready? One, two...”
The sandman shrank in height and expanded like a giant hand was squishing him. The sand dollars disappeared into squinty slits and the sandy texture blushed.
“Three!”
He grunted like a Russian power lifter. Kandi pulled on her side with the expectation he would equal her effort. He did not. In fact, he did nothing.
His branching arms went right through the telescope.
Kandi quickly threw her arms around the pedestal and eased her weight back. The telescope teetered on one leg as it reached a point of equilibrium. Then the momentum came toward her. The second leg hammered the floor and tipped against her shoulder. Two times this happened.
And then it settled.
“What was that?”
“What was what?”
“You almost tipped it over.”
“No, you almost tipped it over. I’m an illusion, I already told you. I thought we were clear on that.”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“What you see isn’t always real, kid. Remember that?”
“That doesn’t mean you’re an illusion.”
“That’s exactly what it means. Then you said—”
Kandi slid to the floor with her legs wrapped around the base of the telescope and cooled her forehead against the gold post. It was the only thing reasonably chill in the room. She hadn’t been there half a day and almost broke the most expensive-looking thing in the room.
She was also talking to a three-dimensional sandman like he was standing next to her. Earlier that day, she had been amazed by a hovering glider. Now she expected a fat-bellied ghost to help her lift an invaluable telescope.
“How am I going to get this off?” she said.
“I thought you wanted it on the glider.”
“I want it on, but that’s not going to happen with your invisible arms.”
“They’re not invisible.” He waved them like a magician. “Plain to see, kid. Now you want it on or off?”
“I want it on.”
“You want what?” He put his stick fingers to the side of his head.
“I want—” she huffed “—the telescope on the glider!”
The glider suddenly tipped toward the telescope. The surface began to move like a treadmill. Kandi leaped up to brace it from falling, her hands slick with perspiration. The two legs that were previously on the floor climbed effortlessly onto the glider and stopped without a quiver.
“Why didn’t it do that before?”
“Did you ask?”
He was like arguing with a teacher. “Do you have a name?”
“Yes.”
She waited. He started humming. “What is it, like Sandy or something?”
“Gabby.”
“Your name is Gabby?”
“What’s wrong with Gabby?”
“That’s a girl’s name.”
“What makes you think I’m a boy?” He gestured to his lack of anatomical features.
“You sound like Clint Eastwood.”
“You’re judgy, you know that?
“All right, fine. Gabby.”
“I’m joking, it’s Sandy.” He held up a branched arm and spread out twiggy fingers. “High five.”
Kandi gently pushed the glider through him, guided it around the piano and down the hall. The sandman followed like fingernails scratching a chalkboard. The sound pulled at the small hairs on her neck.
She eased the telescope next to the window. Just to be safe, she asked the glider to steady itself. It lowered to the floor. When she stepped on, it was as solid as winter ice. As before, the telescope swung easily on the hinge. The person she had seen on the path was almost to the three-story circular building. It took a minute for her to sight and focus.
“What are you looking at?” Sandy sang.
“Nothing.”
“You’re real interested in nothing.”
“Shhh.”
She waved him off. She couldn’t concentrate with fifty questions. Sweat stung her eyes. She wiped her face with the bottom of her shirt and tried again. The aim had shifted into the trees. Something was in the thick forest. Something big. The branches buckled like a bulldozer was squeezing between tree trunks.
Or a bull.
“Are you still looking at nothing?” Sandy whispered.
He was right next to her, one sand dollar closed. She sighed and said, “I’m looking for my dad.”
“Is he about six foot tall, black hair, thick eyebrows, and dark skin?”
“You never saw him, I know.”
“Is he the biophysicist? The one who developed so-called indestructible skin grafts with synthetic stem cell tissue? The one who advanced the field of biotechnology with interwebbed cellular communication? The one who was barred from practicing science when he suggested complete body transplant—”
“How do you know all that?”
“It’s sort of what I do. I’m a computer. And there’s this thing called the internet. I don’t know if you—”
“You have service?”
“I am the service.”
“What’s the password?” She thumbed her phone.
“What’s a password?”
Kandi frowned. “You said if I asked for something, I’ll get it. Ask and receive, remember that?”
“Well, yeah. Unless she doesn’t let you.”
“Who?”
Sandy whispered, “The miser.”
“The—”
“Shhhh—look, the person is almost gone!”
He pointed out the window. The person was almost to the building. Kandi dialed the focus and found her in the telescope.
She wore a thick gray cloak, the kind a monk would wear. The hood was deep and narrow. Two animals scurried out of the surrounding trees, but they weren’t the bull she imagined charging through the jungle. These were two little rat terriers with giant bows on their collars.
One blue, the other pink.
The woman scooped them into her arms. She wore gloves. Kandi had sweat through her shirt and the woman was wearing winter gear. It didn’t make sense. The sleeve, however, had drawn up her arm when she swept up the dogs. Her arm was partially exposed.
She was extremely sunburned.
Kandi had been to the beach once in her life. When her mom asked if she had put on sunscreen, Kandi lied. She didn’t like the slimy feel. Besides, she wanted more color. She was tired of looking jaundiced. That night, she was redder than a lobster.
It wasn’t even close to what she just saw.
The woman’s arm was candy apple red with the glow of metal just b
efore it melts. It had to be Heether. No wonder she didn’t want them to see her. Kandi remembered how much a sunburn like that hurt.
She must be in awful pain.
“What are you doing?”
This wasn’t Sandy’s gritty vocals but the deep resonance of a curious and slightly annoyed grown man. Kandi looked up to see her dad.
Sandy was gone.
“Looking for you,” Kandi said. “Where were you?”
“I didn’t want to wake you. I left a note.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“What are you doing in here? With that.” He pointed at the telescope.”
“I’m sorry, I panicked. I woke up alone and couldn’t find you and then this room was open. Where did you go?”
“I was troubleshooting. It’s why she brought us out here.”
“You didn’t take your tools.”
He helped her off the glider. Together they pushed it out of the room. Sandy was a static image on the wall, a poster with a grim smile. After her dad passed, he whispered, “Is that him?”
“And I left you a note,” her dad said.
When they moved inside the master suite, he appeared puzzled. He looked under the bed and slid his hand beneath the pillow. Hands on his hips, he looked around.
“I left it right next to you.”
“It’s all right.”
He draped his arm over her shoulders. Despite the shower, he was already damp and smelled like work. “You hungry?”
“Not for chili and hot chocolate.”
“We’ll find something else. You can come with me; I need to get started. You want to see this place, Kan. This room is just the tip of the iceberg.”
“You mean tip of the volcano.”
“From the icebox to the oven, right?”
That morning they had been in Alaska, one of the coldest places in the United States. Now they were twenty miles from the sun. It hadn’t been twenty-four hours and she was wishing for a snowflake. Just one snowflake on my tongue.
“Take a shower first,” he said.
“Will it help?”
“A little.”
Kandi went to the bathroom while he opened his tool kits. The sat laptop was exactly where she left it. There was one knob in the shower and one temperature, but she was surprised how good hot water felt. When she was done, there were two bottles of lukewarm water on the table.
Rise of the Miser: Claus, #5 Page 3