by Matt Haig
‘They’d kill us!’ said Anders with confidence. Anders had his bow and grey-feathered arrows slung on his back. ‘Listen, boy, why don’t you come with us? It could be an adventure. You’ll get to meet the king.’
‘No way, he’ll ruin everything,’ said the gruff-voiced man with the reindeer coat.
‘Silence, Tomas,’ said Anders. ‘This is Joel’s son . . . Come on, boy, what do you say?’
For a brief moment Nikolas thought how it would be to go to the royal palace and meet King Frederick. He pictured his face from the back of a coin, and the cuddly toy he had always seen in the toyshop window. With his large nose and big chin and splendid crown and clothes. Everything would be made of gold. Maybe his whole palace was made of gold. It would have been wonderful to go there. But nothing was as wonderful as doing the right thing.
‘Come with us, son,’ said Joel softly now. ‘Don’t be silly. Anders is right. It will be an adventure. A Christmas adventure. Anders could teach you how to shoot a bow and arrow – wouldn’t that be fun?’
‘Yes,’ said Anders. ‘You could help me shoot a deer. And then you could cook it on a fire. We’ve been eating fresh meat every night. You look as though you could do with a good meal, and there’s no better meal than one you shoot yourself. One day, I even shot a reindeer, but it got away before I had time to kill it. Disappeared into the woods.’
Nikolas thought of the grey-feathered arrow sticking out of Blitzen’s leg. He knew that, before long, Blitzen would be coming to look for him. And then these big, tall men would probably try and kill him again, and turn him into a reindeer stew. He looked into Little Kip’s large strange eyes which were filled with fear. Little Kip still hadn’t said a word, and in that moment, for the first time in his life, Nikolas hated his father.
He turned to all the other men, standing there in the frosty forest, solid shadows in the blue-black of the night. Kidnappers. Reindeer killers. He was scared but he was also determined.
‘It’s all right, Little Kip, I’m going to get you out of here and take you home.’
Blitzen’s Revenge
Control your boy!’ one of the men shouted. Nikolas ignored him. He was concentrating hard on the metal chains that kept Little Kip shackled to the cage on the sleigh.
He felt his father’s hand grab his arm and try to pull him away. ‘Come on, Nikolas, you’re embarrassing us both now.’
‘Put him in the cage too!’ suggested Toivo.
‘We can’t put a boy in a cage,’ said Anders.
‘You already have,’ said Nikolas. ‘Or don’t elves count?’
‘No, son,’ said Joel. ‘Of course they don’t count. They’re elves! The elves were quite happy to put you in prison. Remember?’
Nikolas thought about Father Vodol, remembered the fury in his voice and how frightened he had felt.
‘Yes, but . . .’ But what? For a moment, Nikolas wondered what he was doing. Why did he care? Then he looked inside the cage.
Little Kip was fretting, his face twitching all over.
‘You’re an elf!’ whispered Nikolas, urgently. ‘You’ve got magic in you! Use your powers.’
Little Kip began to cry again. ‘I can’t! It’s impossible!’
‘You can’t say that word! You’re too young to swear!’
Little Kip looked at him, tilting his head to one side.
Nikolas knew that he was asking a lot of a young elf. Little Kip was, well, little. It was hard to work out elf ages but he couldn’t have been much more than five years old. Maybe his magic hadn’t developed yet. And even if it had, then Nikolas knew it wasn’t that easy without the confidence of a single, clear wish. Magic was useless by itself. Making impossibilities possibilities was harder than it looked.
The elf closed his eyes, straining. The men started to jeer.
‘It’s Christmas Eve,’ urged Nikolas. ‘Can you feel it? There’s magic in the air. Come on, Little Kip. Use your drimwick powers. You can do it.’
‘No,’ came a tiny voice. ‘I can’t.’
‘You can. I know you can. You’re an elf. You can do it.’
Little Kip frowned hard.
‘Come away, Nikolas. I mean it,’ said Joel, grabbing Nikolas’s hand.
There was a strange tinkling sound. The little elf was changing colour with the effort, his face becoming as purple as a plum. Then: clank.
Nikolas saw one of the iron chains between the elf’s handcuffs snap like toffee.
Then another.
And another.
There was only one more.
‘That’s it, Little Kip. You’re doing it.’
‘Look, he’s escaping!’
‘Stop your sorcery, you pointy-eared little freak!’ Toivo spat at the elf. ‘Or I’ll shoot you dead.’ Toivo raised his crossbow and pointed it at Little Kip.
‘I will not,’ said the elf. Which to the men, sounded like ‘Kalabash animbo.’
‘And stop your gobbledegook,’ added Toivo.
Somewhere above, a bird flapped away from a tree.
‘A dead elf’s no good to us,’ said Joel.
‘A dead elf is better than an escaped elf.’ Toivo spat again. ‘If it makes another move, I’ll shoot it.’
Nikolas pulled his hand away, fast, from his father’s grip. He had never felt less like his father’s son. He darted to the front of the cage. He could hardly control his breathing. The fear was intense. He looked up at Toivo and his dark desperate eyes, which seemed to contain the night. ‘Well, I’m not going to let you.’
‘Don’t tempt me, little boy. I could kill you too.’ His voice didn’t falter.
Tomas gasped. ‘Look!’
Nikolas turned and saw a whirl of snow and hooves and hot breath. The forest was rumbling as though filled with thunder. It was a huge reindeer, pounding towards them.
‘Blitzen!’ called Nikolas, fearing for the creature’s life.
‘Leave him to me!’ shouted Anders.
He fired an arrow, and it whistled through the air, fast and straight. Blitzen kept galloping, even faster, seemingly towards the arrow, but at the last minute he lifted his head up and his whole body with it, and left the ground at a steep angle. Climbing through the air as if on an invisible hill, brushing past snow-covered pine branches as he rose.
Nikolas watched Anders’s bow and arrow aim higher as the reindeer pawed the sky, antlers silhouetted against the moon.
‘Don’t shoot him! Please! He’s my only friend!’ pleaded Nikolas.
Joel looked at his son’s white, thin face. Then he looked at his own left hand. At his half-finger. ‘Life is pain,’ he said, sadly.
‘But it’s also magic, Papa.’
Joel ignored him. ‘You need to calm him down, Nikolas. He’ll be safer if you call him back down, where we can see him. We won’t shoot him, will we, men? We’ll capture him and take him to the king. Sure he’d like to see a flying reindeer.’
Anders lowered his arrow. ‘Yes. Call him down.’
‘Blitzen!’ called Nikolas, wondering if any of them could truly be trusted. ‘Come down from the sky! It’s safer.’
And the reindeer seemed to understand because a minute later he had landed in the little clearing, chest heaving and eyes shining with exertion.
‘This is Blitzen. Please don’t hurt him,’ said Nikolas. The reindeer nuzzled his neck.
‘Lake Blitzen,’ said Tomas, smoothing down his reindeer-skin coat.
Nikolas stroked the creature’s neck, and Blitzen stared at Anders, making a noise between a grunt and a growl.
‘It’s all right, Blitzen. He’s not going to hurt you again,’ said Nikolas, wishing he could truly believe what he was saying.
But even as he was saying it, Toivo was raising his crossbow.
‘No, Toivo!’ cried Joel. Nikolas tried to think, looking around him, as if the answer could be found somewhere in the scary darkness of the forest.
There was only one thing to do. ‘Okay. We’ll come with you on the advent
ure. I would love to meet the king.’
‘He’s lying,’ said Toivo.
Joel looked into his son’s eyes, and in that instant Nikolas knew that he understood, as perhaps only a father can. ‘No. He’s not. You aren’t, are you, Nikolas? Because if you are lying you will be killed and there will be nothing I can do about it.’
‘No, Papa.’ Nikolas took a deep breath. ‘I’m not lying. I’ve changed my mind. I was being stupid. The elves locked me in prison with a murderous troll. I don’t owe them anything.’
There were a few moments when no one spoke. The only sound was the cold wind whispering through the trees.
Then Anders thumped Nikolas on the shoulder. ‘Good boy. You’ve done the right thing. Hasn’t he, Joel?’
‘Yes,’ said Joel. ‘He always does.’
‘Well, good. That’s settled. We better get some rest now,’ said Anders. ‘Big day tomorrow.’ He put his arms around Tomas and Toivo.
‘The boy and the reindeer must sleep away from the elf creature. Just to be safe,’ said Tomas.
‘I’m fine with that,’ said Nikolas.
Joel wasn’t entirely happy. ‘But wait, what about the elf? What if he uses his magic? One of us needs to stay on guard, to make sure he doesn’t escape.’
‘Good point,’ said Toivo, rubbing his eyes. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘Toivo, you’re too tired,’ said Anders. ‘You’ve drunk too much cloudberry wine as always. We need someone else.’
‘I feel wide awake,’ said Joel. ‘I’ll do it. It’s my son who’s been causing trouble. I feel I’m to blame.’
‘All right, then. That makes sense. Wake me at first light and I’ll take over.’
Anders pointed to the pines on the other side of the campfire, beyond the clearing, towards the ravine. ‘You can sleep over there.’ He patted Blitzen on the back, smoothed his snow-damp fur.
‘Sorry, old buddy. No hard feelings about the arrow, eh?’
Blitzen thought about this and, as he did so took a wee on Anders’s long johns.
‘Hey!’ cried Anders, and Tomas burst into laughter. Anders couldn’t help laughing too, which caused the other men to join in.
And so it was that the men all went back to sleep by the still-glowing campfire, and Nikolas and Blitzen lay down amid the trees beyond them, and Joel stayed sitting in front of the cage containing Little Kip. Whether Little Kip had given up on his chances of escape it was hard to tell, but Nikolas certainly hadn’t stopped dreaming of helping him. He lay snuggled into Blitzen, their bodies warming each other as the voices of the men became silent.
‘Happy Christmas, Blitzen,’ he said, glumly, but the reindeer was already asleep.
Something Good
Nikolas lay awake, staring up at the full moon for a long time. As he was drifting off to sleep he heard a noise. No more than a whisper, lost in the wind. He looked up, and saw his father, slowly pushing the sleigh towards him and away from the camp. The elf couldn’t have been very heavy because the sleigh was moving easily. Little Kip was inside the cage, silent and wide-eyed, holding onto the bars.
‘What are you doing?’ whispered Nikolas.
Joel put a finger to his lips, then took the rope harness he’d been using to pull the sleigh off his shoulders and went over to Blitzen to put it over his head.
Nikolas couldn’t believe it.
‘I knew you were going to try and free the elf,’ said Joel. ‘Which is really a terrible idea, by the way. Really, really terrible. But it is Christmas. And your birthday. And you’re still my son. And I want you to stay alive. So help me.’
Nikolas leant in towards Blitzen. ‘Stay calm,’ he said, in a voice so quiet the reindeer might not even have heard him. Blitzen slowly got up and stood stock still as they put the harness over him. The fire had died now and the men were still sleeping their drunken sleep. Nikolas felt nervous, but also strangely happy and relieved. His father still had goodness in him after all.
One of the men – maybe Toivo, though it was too dark and distant to tell – rolled over and grumbled a little. Nikolas and Joel held their breath and waited for him to settle.
The harness was on.
‘Okay, we’re ready,’ whispered Joel, as the wind dropped. It was as if the forest was straining to listen to their plans. ‘Now get on your reindeer and fly away.’
‘Papa, please come with us.’
‘No. I’ll slow you down.’
‘Blitzen’s strong. And fast. You could be on the sleigh, making sure that Little Kip is okay. You can’t stay here. They’ll kill you.’
Toivo – yes, it was definitely Toivo – his long skinny frame moving as he lay in the dark, was clearly visible now.
Nikolas had never seen his father this frightened before. Even when faced with the bear. And the fear he saw in his father’s face quickened Nikolas’s heart.
‘All right,’ said Joel. ‘I’ll get on the sleigh. We’ve got to go. Quick.’
Nikolas climbed on Blitzen’s back. Then he leant forward to whisper in the reindeer’s ear. ‘Come on, boy, as fast as you can. Let’s get out of here.’
Now Toivo was properly awake. He was kicking at the boots of the other men and urging them to wake up.
‘They’re escaping!’
Blitzen heaved towards a clear line between the trees, struggling as he switched from walk to trot.
‘Come on, Blitzen. You can do it, boy. Come on! It’s Christmas Day! Use your magic!’
Nikolas heard a strange hushed whistle. To his horror he saw an arrow speeding through the air. He ducked, saving his head by a fraction. Blitzen was having difficulty breaking into a gallop – with the weight of the sleigh and the cage and Little Kip and Joel and Nikolas. A second arrow whooshed by.
Blitzen gained speed, but not enough. The trees were too close together. He weaved dangerously through them. Nikolas, holding on for dear life, turned to see the sledge tilt to the left, nearly tipping Joel off.
Nikolas could hardly think, his brain a chaos of trees and speed and fear.
Arrows and stones were now flying though the air.
And then, the very worst thing of all happened.
Nikolas heard a scream behind him – an agonised howl which tore through the night. He turned to see his father, who was standing at the very edge of the sleigh, with a piece of thin, feathered wood jutting out from his shoulder. Blood was already leaking out onto his patchwork shirt.
‘Papa!’ Nikolas cried as another arrow whistled by his ear.
Then Nikolas felt Blitzen’s weight, pressing upwards. It was happening.
But as they started to leave the ground, a rock from the catapult hit Blitzen’s chest. Perhaps it was the shock or the pain but he weakened momentarily. He tried to tilt back and lift higher as they went over the men’s heads. But Nikolas could see they were in trouble, they were going into the trees and not over them. His face was whipped by the snowy branches, and he choked on pine needles, as arrows continued to fly by, streaking black lines in the dark.
‘Come on, Blitzen!’ cried Nikolas, urging the reindeer on to defy gravity. But poor Blitzen was struggling. He crashed back to earth but kept galloping, trying to lift off again.
‘It’s too . . . heavy,’ moaned Joel, in agony as his hand clutched his shoulder.
Nikolas knew his father was right but he noticed that the trees up ahead were thinning.
‘It’ll be all right!’ shouted Nikolas. ‘Come on, Blitzen!’
Nikolas felt Blitzen’s feet tread on nothing but air, a soft floating upward, but still it was no good. His whole body was tight with effort and the sleigh was dragging them back down. Nikolas tried to use his own magic. Fear had turned his mind into a cyclone of thoughts, so he couldn’t hold a wish for long before it flew away like paper in the wind.
‘You don’t understand!’ shouted Joel. ‘The ravine! The river!’
And then Nikolas understood. It wasn’t just the trees that stopped ahead of them. It was the land too. It disa
ppeared into nothing, like a horizon that was too close, too low. They were only metres away from a deep, deep dark drop towards the river.
‘You won’t be able to cross! The only way is to fly!’ shouted Joel. ‘It’s too heavy.’
But Nikolas wasn’t giving in. With every nerve in his body, with every molecule inside him, he hoped and prayed and urged the magic – his own and Blitzen’s – to work. ‘Come on, Blitzen! Come on, boy, you can do it! Fly!’
The reindeer rose again into the air, but only slightly. They crashed into more branches. Joel was holding tightly onto the cage now. Nikolas heard Little Kip whimper in fear.
‘Oh no!’ said the elf. ‘Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no!’
‘I’m weighing you down!’ said Joel. ‘I’m going to jump.’
The words ripped at Nikolas like teeth.
‘No, no, Papa! Don’t!’
He turned around. Joel’s face was full of another kind of pain now. The pain of farewell.
‘No!’
‘I love you, Nikolas!’ he yelled. ‘I want you to remember me for something good.’
‘No, Papa! It will be . . .’
They were right at the edge now. Nikolas felt it, before he saw it. The sudden lightening, the quickening of Blitzen’s pace as Joel let go of the cage and fell to the ground below. Nikolas – tears bursting from his eyes – saw his father curled up in the snow, getting smaller and smaller and finally disappearing in the darkness. Just as his mother had disappeared into the darkness of the well. Nikolas felt terrified as it dawned on him. He was all alone in the world now.
Blitzen, with a lighter load, and determined to take his cargo to safety, soared high above the ravine, fast and strong, away, into the sky.
Riding Through the Air
The sadness Nikolas felt then was incredible. To lose someone you love is the very worst thing in the world. It creates an invisible hole that you feel you are falling down and will never end. People you love make the world real and solid and when they suddenly go away forever, nothing feels solid any more. He would never hear his father’s voice again. Never hold his strong hands. Never see him wear his red hat.