And now Santa was hungry for more, a new batch to restock his freezer that was as big as the whole North Pole.
Santa would take a crinkled piece of paper out of his pocket to look at it, and yes there under the ‘Naughty’ column would be the names of Jeff and Stevie in all capital letters. He’d wipe the list on his blood-red coat.
His black belt was shiny and wicked looking, with the silver buckle and its pointed corners razor sharp to slash the throats of children. And over his shoulder hung a brown burlap sack stained with rusty splotches.
Then Santa would go to their bedroom. Jeff and Stevie could struggle against him, they could throw their blankets on him, hit him with their pillows and their toys—but Santa Claus was stronger than that. He would reach up first to snatch Stevie from the top bunk and stuff him in the sack.
And then Santa would lunge forward with fingers grayish blue from frostbite. He’d wrap his hand around Jeff’s throat and draw him toward the sack. . . .
Then Santa would haul them up through the chimney to the roof. Maybe he would toss one of them toward the waiting reindeer who snorted and stomped their hooves on the ice-covered shingles. And the reindeer, playing all their reindeer games, would toss the boy from sharp antler to sharp antler.
All the while, Santa stood leaning back, glaring and belching forth his maniacal “Ho! Ho! Ho!”
* * *
Jeff didn’t know when his terror dissolved into fitful nightmares, but he found himself awake and alive the next morning.
“Stevie!” he whispered. He was afraid to look in the pale light of dawn, half expecting to find blood running down the wall from the upper bunk. “Stevie, wake up!”
Jeff heard a sharp indrawn breath. “Jeff! Santa didn’t get us.”
They both started laughing. “Come on, let’s go see.”
They tumbled out of bed, then spent ten minutes dismantling the barricade of toys and small furniture they had placed in front of the door. The house remained still and quiet around them. Nothing was stirring, not even a mouse.
Jeff glanced at the dining room table as they crept into the living room. The cookies were gone. The milk glass had been drained dry.
Jeff looked for a contorted red-suited form lying in the corner—but he saw nothing. The Christmas tree lights blinked on and off; Mom and Dad had left them on all night.
Stevie crept to the Christmas tree and looked. His face turned white as he pulled out several new gift-wrapped boxes. All marked “FROM SANTA.”
“Oh, Jeff! Oh, Jeff—you were wrong! What if we killed Santa!”
They both gawked at the presents.
“Jeff, Santa took the poison!”
Jeff swallowed and stood up. Tears filled his eyes. “We have to be brave, Stevie.” He nodded. “We better go tell Mom and Dad.” He shuddered, then screwed up his courage.
“Let’s go wake them up.”
The End
Splinter
Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta
Author’s Note:
Ever since we started dating, Rebecca and I have gone to Renaissance Faires. We enjoy the ambience, the shows, the costumes (and the food). We have known dedicated Faire people who live on site for weeks at a time, costumers and performers who take their details and time periods seriously. When we were invited to contribute a story to anthology all about Renaissance Faires, we knew we had to do it. I have always been fascinated by the medieval legends of splinters of the True Cross, artifacts with miraculous properties. In the surreal world of a Ren Faire, with so many merchant stalls and exotic trinkets, we wondered what might happen if somebody might be selling a few splinters. . . .
* * *
Something about the Renaissance Faire beckoned to him like the sound of a hundred sirens luring a lonely sailor from the sea. In spite of the nearly hundred-degree heat of a California summer, he never tired of the beauty of it all—the jostling crowds in brightly colored clothing, the noisy parades of “royalty” and minstrels, the jugglers, the candlemakers, the serenity of a young mother with ample breasts exposed suckling a newborn child as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He loved the spectacle of a hundred different kinds of entertainers and artisans and food vendors, all putting on Elizabethan micro-performances minute by minute, doing their utmost to lure money from the cash-fat pockets of the faire-goers.
And it was those cash-fat pockets that brought Wil to these open-air festivals year after year. He never tired of the magic of thousands of bodies jostling together, muttering loudly, kicking up dust . . . never noticing the slender young man with the wispy beard and peasant clothing who expertly and discreetly relieved them of their excess valuables. Pickpocket, thief, rogue, highwayman—after all, that was a legitimate part of the time period, too. Certainly more authentic than either the churro or cappuccino seller.
It wasn’t long before the first opportunity presented itself. Wil had learned to recognize those opportunities while he was still in high school, furtively watching for an unguarded purse or backpack; by now his instincts were so well tuned he hardly had to think about it. He had just passed the booth from which he’d shoplifted his own costume two years earlier, when he came upon a couple in casually elegant street clothes. They were having a heated discussion just outside a palm reader’s tent.
“Why not?” the young woman said. “Are you afraid she’ll tell us we should get married, after all?”
The young man scoffed. “Come on, they only say what they think you want to hear, anyway.”
Quickly assessing the situation—it was important to be a good judge of character—Wil deduced from shoes, hair, makeup, and demeanor that the young woman would be carrying the money. I’m even doing them a favor, Wil thought. A few arguments about money will give them a more accurate sense of their marriage compatibility than any palm reader could.
He conveniently joined a cluster of people passing by, allowing himself to be crowded into the arguing couple. It took only one brief bump and a mumbled “Excuse me” to liberate an expensive Tumi wallet from the young woman’s equally expensive Dooney & Bourke leather purse.
A little farther on, Wil ducked between two booths to determine the value of his acquisition. He was immediately impressed with himself: $281 in cash, and the wallet itself would fetch a good price at the local flea market. Wil tucked his prize into an interior pocket of his billowy brown knee breeches and moved on with a spring in his step. He would dispose of the credit cards, of course. Too easy to get caught using stolen cards.
And he didn’t plan to get caught. Ever.
The next two hours proved considerably less satisfying. Discouraged, Wil bought a roasted turkey leg, then removed the pewter tankard he wore at his belt and had it filled with chilled ale. He sat down to eat on a bench in a small amphitheater where two jugglers were throwing knives at each other while making witty banter.
After polishing off his lunch, Wil tossed the turkey leg bone to the ground, not even bothering to look for a trash can. If someone scolded him about it, he could argue that his gesture was certainly truer to the Renaissance spirit than using a trash can was. If it really bothered some do-gooder, let him dispose of it. Wil had never believed in much except himself . . . and he’d gotten over himself long ago.
Wil headed up a rocky, hay-strewn path, his eyes beginning their automatic sweep. His vigilance was quickly rewarded when he spied a middle-aged man with a chest-length salt-and-pepper beard counting out bills from a leather pouch at his waist. One of the bills fell to the ground and was caught by a hot breeze and blown a few feet behind him onto the path. Noting that the foot traffic was light and no one else was watching, Wil bent smoothly for the merest second, plucked the bill from the ground and continued up the path before the bearded man even had a chance to turn and look for the fallen money.
Wil passed a tarot card reader and a cluster of college students singing madrigals beside a fake wishing well. At the glass blower’s tent, he spotted a man in his mid-thirties
making a purchase. He wore safari shorts, a golf shirt, designer sunglasses, and sockless leather loafers. A grade-school-aged boy and girl pranced impatiently beside him. A quick glimpse told the pickpocket that the man’s wallet contained enough cash to pay Wil’s expenses for weeks.
“Come on, Dad! You promised we could see the storyteller.”
“And that’s just what we’re going to do.” The man slid his wallet into the front pocket of his shorts and accepted a wrapped package from the glass blower. Wil hung back and decided this man might be worth following.
The man began herding his children up the path. “Why’d we have to buy Mom another glass unicorn?” the boy said.
“We get her one every year, Evan, whether she can come or not. It’s not her fault Grandma broke her hip,” the girl answered. “What a stupid question.”
“Now, Orli, don’t call your brother stupid.”
Wil gritted his teeth as he watched Perfect Family Guy, more determined than ever to interject a little bit of gritty reality into the pampered PFG’s perfect life. Wil was an old hand at rationalizing to himself. He had been making up excuses and explanations for so long that he had almost come to believe them. Almost.
They came to a small pavilion, where half the floor was littered with hassocks and colorful overstuffed cushions on which children sat or reclined. A man with a leathery face and white shoulder-length hair walked among them, telling stories. Wooden tables running along one side of the breezy tent held books bound in hand-tooled leather. The sign over the pavilion said, “Tales of Glorye.”
Wil watched as Orli, Evan, and Perfect Family Guy seated themselves on cushions. Pretending a casual interest, Wil entered the pavilion and began browsing the books. The storyteller spoke in a rich, expressive voice. Wil let the words wash over him, but his concentration was focused on PFG.
When the tale ended about ten minutes later, many of the listeners came up to drop money into a hat beside the old storyteller. Most of the audience left, but Wil’s three marks lingered to ask questions. He suppressed an impatient sigh, picked up another leather-bound book and leafed through it, pretending to admire the meticulous hand lettering.
The storyteller plopped the hat full of money onto a table not far from Wil.
“So what happened next?” Orli asked the old man. “I mean, after the knight went back and told the King.”
“Ah, now that’s a much longer story.”
“Do you have a book that has the story in it?” PFG asked.
“Over here on the table.” The storyteller moved closer to Wil and selected a thick tome with a burgundy leather binding.
Perfect Family Guy showed it to his daughter. “Say, aren’t you worried about leaving all that money just lying on the table?”
Finding the comment particularly ironic, Wil glanced over to see the old man smile. “I find that when you take care of the really valuable things, everything else takes care of itself. That’s why I keep everything that’s truly valuable to me right here in this pocket,” he said, patting the left side of his leather breeches.
“I can admire that philosophy,” PFG said.
“Look,” Evan said, pointing at the pages of the book. “There’s the story he told today.”
“And two stories that come before, and three that come after it,” Orli said. “Daddy, can we get this?”
PFG stroked his daughter’s hair. “It would be the perfect souvenir.”
Wil gritted his teeth again. Perfect. The very perfection of this family was driving him insane.
“Let me wrap that for you.” The storyteller moved to Wil’s right, reached under the table, and came up with two sheets of heavy paper that looked handmade.
The children began looking at the books on another table. PFG got out his wallet and began counting out the money. When the storyteller laid the sheets of paper on the table and began wrapping the book, Wil saw his chance. The pocket that held the old man’s “true valuables” was within a foot of Wil’s hand, so he clumsily dropped the book he had been looking at. Pretending to reach for it, Wil awkwardly bumped the old man with his hip, at the same time slipping his right hand into the pocket and apologetically steadying the storyteller with his left hand.
The whole maneuver took less than a second. Wil felt an uneven lump in the pocket, something strange—but just as his hand closed around it, a searing pain shot up his arm. It was like nothing he had felt since the age of ten when he’d lost control of his bicycle going down the driveway, veered into the neighbor’s yard, fallen, and ripped his leg open on a sprinkler head.
With another jostle, Wil snatched his hand back and bent to retrieve the fallen book. He fumbled around, momentarily blinded by the pain and sucked in a sharp breath.
The old man put a hand on his back. “You all right, lad?”
For a panicked second, Wil wondered if the old man knew he’d been pickpocketed, but when his eyes focused on the kindly face, he saw no suspicion. “No, I, uh . . . sudden migraine.” He put a hand to his head. “Probably the heat.”
He handed the book back to the storyteller. As quickly as it had come, the scorching pain subsided, but Wil’s hand still throbbed as if he had slammed it in a door.
Perfect Family Guy was beside him. “My wife gets migraines. They can get pretty nasty. Maybe you should lie down somewhere in the shade.”
“There’s plenty of room on the cushions,” the old man offered.
“No,” Wil said a little too quickly. “Thank you. I, uh, probably should take some medication for this. It’s out in my car.” Damn. Now that both men were so solicitous of him, Wil stood little chance of slipping in under their radar.
The storyteller regarded him with solemn eyes. “I hope you feel better really soon. Sometimes there’s a trick to it.”
“Do you need help out to your car?” PFG asked.
“Thanks. I’ll manage.” He left the pavilion, cursing himself for attracting so much attention from two potential marks. Surely he could have toughed out just a little bit of pain when he stood to profit so much. Already the searing stab had receded to a mere pinprick in his mind. It had been foolish weakness, but he would not call attention to himself again.
Once he was out of sight of the pavilion, Wil hurried to put as much distance between him and the two annoyingly helpful men as possible. Safely on the other side of the faire, he scanned the crowds once more for opportunities. This is easy. He struggled to focus. You’re a natural. But nothing felt natural right now.
He was filled with a sensation that was simultaneously pleasant and unpleasant, a fizzy alertness of the mind not unlike the way he felt when, after an all-nighter, his body replaced sleep with pure adrenaline. Wil forced himself to move into the flow of shoppers and sightseers.
There. Wil saw his opportunity. A young woman with hot pink polish on the nails of her manicured fingers and pedicured toes was pushing a baby carriage. The mother stopped and bent to comfort the child as it continued to wail. Her attention was fully focused on the brat and not on the purse dangling from the stroller’s handle.
He moved in. This was almost too easy. A simple swoop would do it.
His hand dipped into her purse, but the moment he touched the wallet, a lightning bolt struck the index finger of his right hand, shot through his wrist, traveled up his arm, and spiked into his brain. He simultaneously jerked his hand away and fell to his knees. The young mother looked up in alarm, her concentration startled away from her child who, also startled, stopped crying for a moment.
“Sorry,” Wil gasped. “I tripped.”
“You okay?” She moved around to the back of the stroller, darting a cautious glance down at her purse.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Wil forced himself back to his feet and dusted off his breeches. “Good as new.”
He backed away and lost himself in the crowd. That had been close. Damndest thing about his hand, too. In a patch of bright sunlight he examined his finger. It still stung, as if something small and s
harp was embedded in it, but he could see no burn or blister, no cut, no sliver, nothing. Yet the pain—the pain in his hand, his arm, his head—had been real. He frowned. Maybe it was pinched nerve, or maybe he really was having a migraine.
Wil always kept a bottle of ibuprofen stashed in his glove compartment, so he headed out the front entrance, remembering to get his hand stamped for re-entry. The parking lot offered no shade at all, and Wil considered waiting for the “shuttle,” a wide, canvas-covered horse-drawn wagon that ferried attendees to and from their cars for tips. But the wagon was at the far end of the lot, and Wil didn’t want to wait.
By the time he got to his battered ‘83 Dodge, he had worked up a substantial sweat. He got the bottle of extra strength pain reliever, took twice the suggested number, and washed them down with a grimace and a swallow of the flat, and by now hot, soda he’d left open in his car.
He rolled down the windows and took a short nap in the front seat to give the analgesic time to work. By the time he woke up it was late afternoon. The faire would be closing in a couple of hours, and parts of the parking lot had already begun to empty out. Wil felt greatly refreshed, in spite of the heat, and decided to get back to work.
He got out of his car and strode through the lot in the general direction of the entrance. As he walked, he glanced through car windows, looking for wallets, merchandise, purses left behind by faire-goers in the “safety” of their locked cars. For the most part, he ignored the older cars, like his, which usually weren’t worth the trouble. He also avoided anything too new and too likely to have an alarm. Within ten minutes he had found one with a purse on the floor of the passenger side, “hidden” underneath the morning paper.
He grinned. “Haven’t lost your touch, Wil.”
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