by Foley, E. G.
Watching her, Jake mused that Santa’s granddaughter must have somehow concluded that other people were merely toys, too, and only existed to amuse her.
After ice chess, she taught Dani some fancy ice-skating moves. This seemed to thaw the Maiden a bit; the carrot-head had that effect on people, in Jake’s experience.
But when Dani asked her what it was like to go out delivering toys with Santa Claus, the chill returned to the Snow Maiden’s pretty face. “I don’t see why everybody thinks he’s so great. He’s pretty stupid, if you ask me.”
They were scandalized by such words.
“Santa? Stupid?” Dani said.
Archie’s jaw dropped with indignation.
Even Jake was startled by this claim.
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
She huffed. “Half the world doesn’t even believe he exists, and he refuses to prove it to them,” she said, then she braced her fists on her waist and imitated her jolly, fat grandsire: “‘If they don’t want to believe in me, they don’t have to, dear. It’s their choice. I’m hardly going to force them.’”
She dropped the act with a cold scoff. “He’s such a fool. People don’t deserve all his gifts, yet he goes on, year after year, wasting all his time on them. Do you know he spends 365 days a year thinking of good things that he can give to all those useless people out there, and hardly anybody even says thank you?”
She shook her head and looked away. “They’re not worth it. But when I tried to tell him so—for his own good!—he shouted so loud at me, it cracked the ice for half a mile.”
“It did?” Dani breathed.
She nodded. “He told me that if that’s the way I feel about humanity, then I’m no grandchild of his, and I could go live with the Blue Hag.”
“Who’s that?” Jake asked.
“My old aunt, the Winter Witch.” Snow Maiden pointed to the portrait of the hideous old woman above the fireplace. “I swear, she’s the only person in the world who really understands me. Jack says I take after her. He doesn’t mean it as a compliment, but that’s the way I take it. She’s very powerful and everyone’s afraid of her.”
“So, why didn’t you go and live with her if you’re so close? Why come here instead?” Jake asked.
She shrugged and twirled away, spinning briefly on her skates. “Oh, I don’t know.”
“Sure, you do,” he persisted.
“Well, you know…there’s a dark side of winter. Not Christmastime, that’s all bright and jolly and annoying, but past then. When it’s gray and dark and endless and it drags on month after month, and you feel like you haven’t seen the sun in an age. The bleakness makes you heavy and haggard and brings on a peculiar despair. That’s the part of winter that belongs to the Blue Hag. My brother Jack may be a reckless dunce, but at least he’s fun. That’s why I came here.” She turned away and lowered her head with a moody look, as though feeling awkward after her very personal admissions. “Excuse me, I have to go send out the invitations for my party.”
“Do you want any help?” Isabelle asked in a sympathetic tone.
“No. Believe me,” she muttered with a cold look, “I’m used to doing everything alone.” With that, the Snow Maiden zoomed away with a swirl of snow and ice chips flying up from the blades of her skates.
When she had gone, they exchanged dubious looks.
But Jake waved them over and they gathered in a huddle on one end of the room.
Archie sighed and shook his head. “We’re never getting out of here, are we?”
“Yes, we are,” Jake clipped out, keeping his voice low.
“I’m so tired.” Dani yawned again, her green eyes watering. “We should probably rest up before the ball.”
“Good idea. We need to save our strength for our escape,” he agreed.
“You have a plan?” she asked in surprise.
“Sort of. Snow Maiden said she’s sending out invitations to the party. That means other guests will be arriving.”
“Who’s she going to invite around here? Yetis?” Archie asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jake whispered impatiently. “The point is, a moment’s bound to come when she’s got to pay attention to her other guests. That’ll be our chance to sneak away.”
“Right in the middle of the party?” Dani asked.
He nodded. “The other guests will distract her.”
“But then what?” Archie countered. “We’re not going to get very far without a guide. We don’t know where we’re going.”
“You’re right.” Jake gave a grim nod. “We need to get the elf in on our plan.”
“Are you nickey in the head?” Dani whispered. “We can’t trust him! What if he tricks us again? He called those yetis and nearly got us killed. He’ll tell Snow Maiden our plan.”
“What choice do we have?” Jake whispered. “We can’t just break out of here and go wandering aimlessly across the Arctic, hoping to run into Santa before we freeze to death.”
“But if you tell him we mean to escape, he could betray us—again!” Dani said. “Don’t forget, he already tried to convince Snow Maiden we were spies, so she would get rid of us for him.”
“Well, I think he may be reconsidering his choice of allies. It’s obvious he’s hating life here. Look at him.” Jake nodded toward the fireplace, and the others turned to see.
Across the room, Humbug was lying on the mantel, twiddling his thumbs.
Isabelle stared at the elf, reading him as best she could. “Actually, you may be right.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “I think he’s starting to see he had it pretty good before he left the North Pole.”
“I’ll bet,” Archie said.
“Come on, let’s go talk to him,” Jake said. “Red?”
“Caw,” the sharp-dressed Gryphon answered with a nod, confirming his readiness, should it come to another chase of the lightning-fast elf.
“Just be careful not to say too much about our plan until you make sure we can trust him,” Dani murmured as they moved in a tight-knit group toward the fireplace.
“Oh, I have no intention of trusting him, believe me,” Jake said. “But the fact is, we’ve got no chance without him. Come on.”
Humbug glanced over warily at them as they approached. “What do you lot want?”
“To make a deal with you,” Jake replied.
At once, Humbug sat up and swung his feet over the ledge of the mantel, leaning closer with a wary but curious stare. “What sort of deal?”
“We mean to escape. You tell on us, and I’ll let my Gryphon have at you!” Jake warned him.
Red growled meaningfully at the elf, the feathers on the back of his neck bristling.
Humbug blanched. “There’s no need for ugly threats, you carol-singing torturers.” He eyed them warily. “What did you have in mind?”
“We’re getting out of here, and we’re willing to let you come with us—under certain conditions. You do seem like you’ve had enough of your new mistress.”
“Oh, whatever gave you that idea?” he retorted, then imitated Snow Maiden in a high-pitched voice: “‘Tell me a joke, Humbug! Oh, tell me another one! That’s not very funny, Humbug.’” He harrumphed. “I wasn’t made for telling jokes! This was not what I had in mind when I left Santa’s. She’s dreadful! Little brat.”
“Well, you’ve only got yourself to blame,” Jake chided. “We could have been at the North Pole by now, having a nice, hot cup of cocoa, but you had to go and betray us. Maybe now you’ll sing a different tune?”
“No singing, please.” Then he admitted: “I want out of here as much as you do. I’ve even found a door that her wooden-headed soldiers usually leave unguarded. Only I’m too small to open it by myself. Otherwise, I’d have already left.”
“Good, then, we’ll work together—if you promise to cooperate,” Jake said. “You must admit that with all her wolves, soldiers, and bears, we stand the best chance of getting out of here alive if we work together.”
“Simple. We’ll get the door open, but once we’re free, you need to show us the way to Santa’s compound. You don’t have to go there with us!” Jake said before Humbug could protest. “Just don’t leave us to freeze to death out there. Get us close enough to the entrance of Santa’s compound so we can go the rest of the way ourselves before you head off to Halloween Town.”
Humbug narrowed his eyes as he considered the proposal. “Sounds fair. But how do you intend to get us out of here without her noticing?”
“At the party tonight, we’ll slip away one by one while she’s distracted with her other guests. Once we’re free, we’ll steal one of the guest’s carriages—”
“Sleighs,” Dani corrected.
“Or dog sleds,” Archie chimed in.
“Whatever! The point is, the minute we’re out the door, we make a run for it. So, are you in or not, Humbug?”
“Dashed right I’m in.” The bells on his ridiculous jester hat jingled as he jumped to his feet atop the mantel.
“You’d better not try to deceive us. My cousin here is an empath. If you try to lie to us, she’ll know—and then you’re Gryphon food.”
“Caw,” Red said with a menacing stare, while Isabelle scrutinized the elf for signs of deception.
“No tricks,” Humbug muttered. “Frankly, I’ve had my share of tomfoolery for now.”
“Aw, does that mean you don’t want to work in Halloween Town anymore?” Dani taunted.
Humbug furrowed his brow and looked away without an answer, but Jake didn’t care either way what the elf wanted to do.
All that mattered was escape.
“Keep your eyes open at the party tonight, all of you,” he ordered, glancing around at the others. “Watch for my signal. Then you’ll know it’s time.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Go With the Floe
They rested in their rooms again, saving their strength for when the time came to slip away during the party, as planned.
Eventually, the penguins waddled back to fetch them, pecking on each of their doors and squawking an eager summons. The kids opened their chamber doors, spotted each other and Red in the hallway, and then walked together to the top of the castle staircase.
Though they did not breathe a word of their plan with the toy soldiers lurking everywhere, the nods they exchanged confirmed that everyone was ready.
Archie had his tool-bag slung over his shoulder.
The girls were ready to make a run for it, too. They had complained to the Snow Maiden that the ice skates were giving them blisters, so she had magically changed their footwear into big, fluffy boots. This would make it much easier for them to flee when they seized their moment to escape.
Red was much recovered from his earlier ordeal against the yetis. When Jake saw the warlike gleam in his golden eyes, he realized Red was ready for battle again, if it came down to it.
Jake hoped it didn’t, but he gave the Gryphon a pat on his withers while the others started zooming down the ice slide next to the staircase. When everyone arrived at the bottom, the penguins led them toward the great hall, running about in a state of excitement and eagerly flapping their flightless wings.
As they approached, they could already hear the rollicking music of big, loud, frantic waltzes echoing down the hallways.
They glanced at each other in surprise and soon reached the edge of the crowded ballroom, its ice-sculpted chandeliers lit up with countless dazzling lights.
But the biggest shock came when they saw the other “guests.”
It looked like a party inside Noah’s Ark. All the guests were animals, except for a few decidedly creepy snowmen that had somehow come to life.
There were macaroni penguins sporting grand yellow feathers on their heads; seals in their finest spotted coats; furry arctic foxes, pure white; and wolves with big fangs, sporting elegant winter fur of gray and silver.
A few polar bears had lumbered in and were gorging themselves on vast quantities of frozen shrimp. Several festive caribou here and there had decorated their antlers with sprigs of holly for the occasion. They were bobbing their heads in time with the music while some of the other animals danced around.
Jake heard Dani gasp aloud at the sight of a pair of massive brown walruses with mustachioed whiskers and terrifying tusks.
Poor Humbug; some seal with a sense of humor was bouncing the elf on his nose. The wolves howled with laughter at this trick.
Then the Snow Maiden’s chief polar bear caught sight of Jake and the others standing at the edge of the great hall. The giant, vest-wearing bear rose up onto his hind legs and narrowed his bright brown eyes at them in suspicion.
He rumbled an ominous growl, informing Her Highness that they had arrived. She whirled around on her skates, then zoomed over and made a great show of greeting them with the utmost enthusiasm in front of all her guests.
What a phony she was, Jake mused. All signs of her earlier annoyance at them had vanished now that she had an audience.
She introduced them around and chatted them up and gloated at all the attention. Soon, she was loudly recounting to her guests the story of how Jake and his friends had dealt with the yetis.
All she seemed to care about was impressing everyone.
Naturally, Ice-a-belle was doing her best to get along. “It must be frightening for all of you having such dangerous creatures as those yetis nearby.”
“They are certainly unpleasant.” The Snow Maiden let out a sudden gasp of excitement. “Oh! I have an idea of something else we can do tomorrow for fun!”
“What’s that?” Isabelle asked.
“Tomorrow we’ll go yeti hunting!”
Jake stared at her. “You must be joking.”
“Not at all! It sounds exciting. My father always let them be, but you’ve shown they can be beaten. So why should we let such nasty monsters live so close to our castle and our forest? You wolves enjoy a good hunt, don’t you?” she asked her furry guests.
Not even the wolves looked overly excited about hunting abominable snowmen.
“Oh, come, it’ll be excellent sport.”
“What would we hunt them with?” Jake asked.
“Whatever you like. My palace guards have weapons.” She nodded toward the giant toy soldiers posted along the walls.
“Fine,” Jake muttered. He did not intend to be here tomorrow anyway. Still biding his time and watching for the chance to escape, he took a goblet of some fizzy, foamy blue drink off the tray of a passing penguin waiter. He took a sip and frowned with no idea what it was. Banana-flavored root beer?
In any case, when the music changed, the Snow Maiden said it was time to dance, and though Jake tried to make excuses, claiming he needed to finish his beverage, she gave him no choice.
She seized his wrist and pulled him away from the others to waltz with her, just like she had threatened earlier.
Jake cast a desperate glance over his shoulder at his friends as the Snow Maiden dragged him away. This was going to be ugly.
Fighting yetis was one thing, but he did not know how to dance. Humiliation ahead.
Oh, why couldn’t she have picked Archie? he wondered with a silent groan. Learning how to dance was part of every proper young gentleman’s education; and while Jake had been roaming the streets of London like a wild, soot-streaked heathen, Archie’s tutor, Henry, had made sure the boy genius learned his way around a ballroom—at least enough not to make a fool of himself, as Jake was presently doing. Unfortunately for the Snow Maiden, she was a head taller than Archie and refused to dance with him because he would make her look like a giraffe.
Archie, however, was a good height to dance with Dani, and Jake was shocked to see how much fun those two seemed to be having waltzing around while he was in agony.
It only made him fume the more.
As the Snow Maiden threw him around the ice, Jake struggled to keep his balance and glimpsed Isab
elle sitting this one out like a wallflower. One of the creepy snowmen glided over to her and bowed, suavely asking her to dance.
Her answer: she got up and walked away.
Well, Jake couldn’t blame her. Snowmen were not supposed to be alive any more than gingerbread men, he thought, which brought him back to the matter at hand.
Escaping.
If they ever reached Santa’s compound alive, he was going to have a serious word with the old fellow about his granddaughter, among other things.
“You’re not even trying!” the Snow Maiden said in exasperation.
“Yes, I am! I told you I can’t dance!”
“You’re about as graceful as a walrus.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Follow my lead!” she ordered. But just when Jake was wondering how long this torment could last, the castle doors burst open.
Without warning, a gust of sparkling snow blew in, and a blond young man, windblown and rosy-cheeked, with half a dozen gorgeous, scantily clad, angel-winged Valkryies arrayed behind him came striding down the corridor.
The music stopped, the animals gasped aloud, and everyone quit dancing, much to Jake’s relief.
“What is going on here?” the newcomer exclaimed, scanning the ballroom.
Jake knew in an instant that he was the owner of the castle: Jack Frost.
Everyone stared at him, especially Isabelle, for the prince of winter was admittedly good looking (and as fashionably dressed as his sister). He wore a blue velvet jacket and a scarf tossed around his neck just so.
“He’s soooo cool,” a creepy snow-woman sighed nearby.
Jack Frost had an air of roguery about him, however. Perhaps he had inherited his grandfather’s jolly sense of fun, for his blue eyes twinkled like he’d had a little too much eggnog. While the Valkyries posed and pouted behind him, his searching gaze picked his sister out of the crowd. “Well, well, having a party at my house and you didn’t even invite me—” he started, then he stopped himself. “Hold on!”
His stare homed in on Jake with elder-brotherly protectiveness. “Who’s that dancing with my sister?”
Aw, great, Jake thought.
“None of your business!” the Snow Maiden replied, skating in front of him. “What are you doing home, Jack?”