by Matt Haig
Father Topo, still struggling in the air, gasped, ‘In fairness, Father Vodol, it did help that you owned the Daily Snow, and had the newspaper to support your election.’
‘Get out!’ said Father Vodol.
As though by force of will Father Vodol threw poor old Father Topo right out of the window. Nikolas heard a splash and ran to see the elf had landed in the lake outside the building. He tried to shout to see if his new friend was okay but his mouth was still firmly locked.
‘Now, human, tell me why you came here,’ said Father Vodol.
Nikolas turned back towards the furious black-bearded elf. He felt his jaw warm and soften and unlock. His tongue came to life again. ‘I wanted to go to the Far North. I wanted to find . . .’
‘What?’ Father Vodol put a hand in his pocket and pulled out a mouse. ‘This mouse?’
Miika looked at Nikolas, terrified.
‘Miika, are you okay?’
‘Don’t worry, mice are welcome here. Mice have never done us any harm . . .’
Father Vodol gave a small squeal of pain. Miika had bit him.
Then he jumped out of Father Vodol’s hand and scurried over to Nikolas. Nikolas picked Miika up and put him safely in his pocket.
‘So, you have what you came for. Now go. Get out of my sight.’
‘No. Not totally. I set out to find my father,’ Nikolas said.
The elf’s eyes widened. ‘So why did you think he was here?’ he asked darkly.
‘Because he was going to the Far North. He always told me you were real. Elves, I mean. And he believed in you. And I tried to believe in you too. Anyway, he was heading here, with some others, to find proof that you exist . . .’ Nikolas heard his own voice crack. He could crumble, just like gingerbread. ‘But I don’t know if he ever made it here.’
The elf stroked his beard. ‘Hmmm. Interesting.’ His voice was softer now. He broke off a corner of the roof on a gingerbread house that was in the middle of the table and ate a bit of it. He came closer. He even gave a curious smile. ‘Describe your father. What did he look like?’
‘He is tall. Nearly twice as tall as me. And he is strong, because he is a woodcutter. And he has colourful clothes that are a bit tatty, and a sleigh and an axe and . . . ’
Father Vodol’s eyes widened. ‘Tell me, out of curiosity, how many fingers does your father have?’
‘Nine and a half,’ answered Nikolas.
Father Vodol smiled.
‘Have you seen him? Is he still alive?’ asked Nikolas, desperately.
Father Vodol raised the hand holding the staff. Nikolas saw the table rise off the ground, along with the chairs, only to slam down and break through the floor, falling into the dining hall below, where the elves were still eating their Christmas feast. The table and chair narrowly missed hitting anyone and smashed onto the floor below.
The elves all gasped and could see Nikolas and Father Vodol – who was now raising his voice for all to hear – still standing in the Council Room.
‘So let me get this right. YOUR FATHER IS JOEL THE WOODCUTTER?’
Nikolas had nothing but the truth. ‘Yes.’ The elves downstairs gasped again, only louder, and all started talking.
‘His father is Joel the Woodcutter!’
‘His father is Joel the Woodcutter!’
‘His father is Joel the Woodcutter!’
For a moment, Nikolas forgot whatever trouble he might be in. ‘My father made it here? He actually made it to the Far North? To Elfhelm? Did you meet him? Is he . . . is he still here?’
Father Vodol walked around the hole he had made in the floor and came close enough for Nikolas to smell the liquorice on his breath and to see a long thin scar beneath his beard. ‘Oh, he came here all right. He was one of them.’
‘What do you mean, one of them? What did you do to him?’
Father Vodol inhaled deeply. He closed his eyes. His forehead bubbled and rippled like water in the wind. And then he did one of his favourite things. He did a Big Speech. And this is how it went:
‘Oh, I did something,’ he said. ‘I trusted him. That was my greatest mistake as leader of the Elf Council. I listened to the goodwill of the elves who live here. But I kind of knew all along that goodwill is just another name for weakness. And goodwill comes from happiness, so I have tried very hard these last few weeks to increase unhappiness. Unhappiness is severely underrated, especially with elves. For one thousand years, elves had been happy and joyful. They made gifts for visitors who never came here. They even built a Welcome Tower. What fools we’ve been! And every Tuesday, whoever was leader of the Council would sit down and talk about Welcoming Strategies. THERE WAS NO ONE TO WELCOME!’
He paused for a moment. Pointed to one of several elf portraits on the wall. A painting of an elf with a large golden bun of hair on top of her head, and a very large and kind smile.
‘Mother Ivy,’ he said. ‘She was the leader of the Elf Council before me. She’d been leader for one hundred and seven years. Her slogan was “Joy and Goodwill for All”! It disgusted me. And not just me . . . Increasingly, over the years, elves began to realise it was wrong to live for other people. So, I put myself forward for election. “Elves for Elves”. That was my motto. And I got in. Easy peasy. Mother Ivy wished me well, of course, and gave me a fruitcake and made me some fleece stockings. I gave her a role as Forest Troll Peace Envoy and she was eaten within a week. They ate all of her except her left foot, because of some pretty bad bunions. With hindsight, I think she was probably the wrong person for the job. Bit too friendly.’
He sighed a long sigh, as he gazed up at the portrait.
‘Poor Mother Ivy. But the trouble is, she didn’t understand that other creatures are not like us. You see, in their heart elves know that they are the best of all species. They just needed someone to stand up and tell them.
‘But I couldn’t go the whole hog. Not until Little Kip was kidnapped. After that, I changed things, and changed them quickly. I instantly tried to make elves more miserable, for their own good. I made them wear different-coloured tunics, and sit at separate tables. I banned spickle dancing, lowered the minimum wage to three chocolate coins a week, and stopped the unsupervised use of spinning tops. I spent every day trying to find the scariest headlines for my newspaper, the Daily Snow. I even changed Mother Ivy’s slogan to “Tough on Goodwill, Tough on the Causes of Goodwill”. I was proud of that.’ He glared at Nikolas as his smile curled like a cat’s tail. ‘And the very first thing I did was to ban outsiders and to change the Welcome Tower into a prison . . . Guards!’ he shouted. ‘Take the human to the tower!’
The Troll and the Truth Pixie
Nikolas had seen the tower. It was the tall thin round building to the west of the village. It seemed to get taller as the guards pushed him closer, along the path through the snow. He could feel Miika, trembling against his chest. ‘This is all my fault,’ whispered Nikolas. ‘You must escape. Look. There. Those hills over there with the trees, behind the tower. Run to them. Hide. You’ll be safe there.’
And Miika looked and smelt the air and he noticed that the air from that direction smelt faintly delicious – faintly cheese-like.
The elf guard who was nearest to them pointed his little axe up towards the boy. ‘Stop talking!’
As the two guards looked away Nikolas took Miika out of his pocket and placed him on the ground. ‘Go, Miika. Now!’ The little creature sprinted away towards the Wooded Hills and the pretty little yellow cheese-scented cottages.
‘Hey,’ said a guard, beginning to chase after the rodent.
‘Leave it!’ ordered Father Vodol. ‘We can lose a mouse, but not a human.’
‘Goodbye, my friend.’
‘Silence!’ barked Father Vodol. And this time it was fear rather than magic that caused Nikolas to keep his mouth shut. Nikolas had never felt so alone.
The tower – the prison – was a scary place. Yet, although it was horrid, it also had very nice comforting things written on t
he stone walls of the staircase, from its time as the Welcome Tower. Things like ‘Welcome’ and ‘Strangers are just friends with weird faces’ and ‘Hug a human’.
One of the blue tunic-wearing elf guards saw Nikolas reading these signs.
‘Back in Mother Ivy’s time I would have been obliged to cook you gingerbread and show you my spickle dancing, and yet now I have permission to chop you up into little pieces. I cry myself to sleep every night, and feel dead inside, but society is definitely improving.’
‘I quite like the sound of your old society.’
‘It was a mistake. It was full of friendliness and happiness and dancing. Not important things like fear and disliking outsiders. Father Vodol has made us see the error of our ways.’
After a long climb up a winding dark staircase Nikolas was thrown into the cell right at the top. Unfortunately, the tower was made of stone, not wood. It had no windows and its walls were streaked charcoal-black. The tiny glow from a flaming torch on the wall helped Nikolas’s eyes adjust to the light. Someone ginormous was snoring under a blanket on a tiny bed, and out of the corner of his eye Nikolas could see a small black hole in the centre of the ceiling. The guards slammed the door closed and the loud reverberating echo trembled through Nikolas like dread.
‘Hey! Let me out! I’ve done nothing wrong!’ Nikolas shouted.
‘Sssh!’ came a voice, causing Nikolas to jump. He turned, and there, veiled in flickering shadow, was a sprightly-looking creature wearing yellow clothes and an innocent smile. This creature was no more than a metre tall, she had pointed ears and long hair and an angelic little face that looked as pure and delicate as a snowflake, though her cheeks were a bit grubby.
‘Are you an elf?’ he whispered, but already doubting the idea.
‘No. I’m a pixie. A Truth Pixie.’
‘A Truth Pixie? What’s one of them?’
‘One of them is me. But be quiet or you’ll wake Sebastian.’
‘Who’s Sebastian?’
‘The troll,’ she said, pointing her pale pixie finger towards the large misshapen creature that was currently scratching his backside as he dozed on the tiny bed.
Sebastian seemed a peculiar name for a troll, but Nikolas didn’t comment. He was too worried that he would never be able to escape this damp cold mouldy room.
‘When do they let us out of here?’ Nikolas asked the pixie.
‘Never,’ said the Truth Pixie.
‘You’re lying!’
‘I can’t lie. I’m a Truth Pixie. I have to tell the truth. That’s what gets me into trouble. Well, that and making people’s heads explode.’
She quickly covered her mouth with her hand, ashamed of the words she had just blurted out.
Nikolas looked at her. He couldn’t imagine anyone who looked less likely to hurt anyone.
‘What do you mean, explode their heads?’
She tried to stop herself but couldn’t help pulling a small golden leaf from her pocket. ‘Hewlip.’
‘Hewlip?’
‘Yes. I gave an elf some hewlip soup and their head exploded. It was so much fun it was almost worth life imprisonment. I am saving my last leaf for someone special. I love seeing heads explode. I can’t help it!’
Nikolas felt fear prickle his skin. If even the sweetest-looking pixie could turn out to be a murderer, there really was no hope.
‘Would you like to see my head explode?’ Nikolas asked, although he was petrified of the answer.
The Truth Pixie desperately tried to lie. ‘Nnnnnnnnnnn . . . yes! I would like that so much!’ Then she looked guilty. ‘Sorry,’ she added, softly.
Worried that the Truth Pixie might try to put hewlip in his mouth as he slept Nikolas vowed to himself that he would do everything in his power to stay awake for as long as possible, indeed for ever if need be.
The troll rolled over in bed and opened his eyes.
‘What be you?’ asked the troll, and though he was big, he wasn’t slow, and a moment later Nikolas was struggling for breath as a rough-textured warty hand grabbed him by the throat and squeezed hard.
‘I be . . . I . . . I am Nikolas. A boy. A human.’
‘A hu-man? What be a hu-man?’
Nikolas tried to explain but he couldn’t breathe and all that came out was a strangulated gurgle.
‘Humans live beyond the mountain,’ explained the Truth Pixie. ‘They come from the south. They are very dangerous. Squeeze his neck until his head falls off.’
Nikolas looked at the Truth Pixie, who smiled sweetly.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I just can’t help it.’
The troll thought about killing Nikolas but decided against it. ‘It be Christmas Day,’ he said to himself. ‘Bad luck to kill on Christmas Day.’
‘It’s the twenty-third of December,’ said the Truth Pixie, helpfully. ‘If you want to kill him, I suggest you go ahead.’
‘That be Troll Christmas Day. Troll Christmas come early. Can’t kill on Christmas Day . . .’
He let go of Nikolas’s neck.
‘That’s ridiculous,’ sighed the Truth Pixie. ‘Christmas Day is the twenty-fifth of December.’
Sebastian stared down at Nikolas. ‘I be kill you tomorrow.’
‘Right,’ said Nikolas, rubbing his neck. ‘Something to look forward to.’
Sebastian laughed. ‘Hu-man funny! Hu-man funny! Like Tomtegubb!’
‘Tomte . . . what?’ said Nikolas.
‘Tomtegubbs are very amusing,’ confirmed the Truth Pixie.’ And wonderful musicians. Terrible cooks, though.’
Clearly Sebastian had decided to be friendly. It was Christmas after all. ‘I be Sebastian. A troll. Be pleased to meet you, hu-man!’
Nikolas smiled and looked at his face, which was trickier than it sounds. Sebastian was ugly. He had only one (yellow) tooth and grey-green skin and a smelly ragged outfit made of goatskin. And he was very, very big. His breath stank of rotten cabbage.
‘Why are you in here?’ asked Nikolas, his voice trembling with fear.
‘I be try to steal reindeer. But they be reindeer what fly like bird. And they be flying in sky.’
‘Reindeer don’t fly,’ said Nikolas but even as he said it he remembered Donner trotting off the ground and detaching from her shadow in the Reindeer Field.
‘Of course elves’ reindeer can fly,’ pointed out the Truth Pixie. ‘They’ve been drimwicked.’
‘Drimwicked?’ Nikolas remembered. Drimwick. That was the word that Father Topo and Little Noosh had used to bring him and Blitzen back to life. It was a magical word. Just to say it out loud was to feel a little warmer, as if your brain was coated in sun-warmed honey.
‘A drimwick is a hope spell. If you have been drimwicked it gives you powers, even if you are only a reindeer,’ said the Truth Pixie.
‘What kind of powers?’
‘It takes all that is good in you, and makes it stronger. It makes it magical. If you wish for something good, the magic will help. It is a very boring kind of magic. Because being good is very boring.’
Nikolas thought about Aunt Carlotta throwing Miika out of the door. ‘No,’ he told the grubby-faced pixie. ‘You’re wrong. The whole world – or the world I come from, the world of the humans, is full of bad things. There’s misery and greed and sadness and hunger and unkindness all over the place. There are many, many children who never get any presents, and who are lucky to get anything more than just a few spoonfuls of mushroom soup for dinner. They have no toys to play with and they will go to bed hungry. Children who don’t have parents. Children who have to live with horrible people like my Aunt Carlotta. In a world like that it’s very easy to be bad. So when someone is good, or kind, it’s a magic in itself. It gives people hope. And hope is the most wonderful thing there is.’
Sebastian and the Truth Pixie listened to this in silence. The troll even shed a tear, a tear that rolled down his crumpled grey face and fell on the dusty stone floor and turned into a little pebble.
‘I wish I
was good,’ said the Truth Pixie, looking down sadly at her hewlip leaf. ‘If I was good I could be at home right now, eating cinnamon cake.’
‘I glad I be troll and not hu-man,’ said Sebastian, shaking his head and sighing. ‘’Specially you. ’Cause you be dead tomorrow.’
The Scariest Thought
Nikolas tried to ignore the threat of death, and the troll’s giant grey, warty neck-strangling hands, and turned again to the Truth Pixie. He was still a bit frightened of her, but knew that being frightened wasn’t a very useful thing to feel. He also knew that if he wanted answers there had to be no better place than this particular prison cell. ‘If I ask you questions do you have to tell me the truth?’
She nodded emphatically. ‘Yes, I’m a Truth Pixie.’
‘Of course. Good. Right. Okay. So, let me think . . . Do you know if my father’s alive? He’s a human – obviously – and he’s called Joel.’
‘Joel who?’
‘Joel the Woodcutter.’
‘Hmmm. Joel the Woodcutter. It doesn’t ring any bells,’ said the Truth Pixie.
‘What about Little Kip?’
‘Little Kip! Yes. The little elf boy. I’ve heard of him. He was on the front page of the Daily Snow. It’s an elf newspaper, but some of us pixies over in the Wooded Hills like to read it, just in case we read about any elves that have eaten hewlip and exploded. Oh, and for the recipes. And the gossip.’
‘Did Little Kip’s head explode?’ Nikolas asked.
‘Oh no. He was kidnapped.’
‘Kidnapped?’
‘And not by pixies or trolls either. I don’t think it would have been such a big deal if it had been pixies or trolls or even a Tomtegubb. But no. He was kidnapped by humans.’
Nikolas felt a sudden chill. ‘Which humans?’
‘I don’t know. A group of men. Forty-one moons ago. They came here and everyone eagerly welcomed them. Vodol ordered a special feast in the village hall in their honour and they were invited to stay for as long as they wanted, but in the middle of the night they kidnapped an elf child, and they led it away on a sleigh and escaped before the sun rose.’