Such thoughts trickle through my mind as I rush forward on my tip toes down the hall, clutching the phone in my fist. Who do I call? The police? Reason? They can’t get here fast enough. Klaus is my hope. He’s already here, and I have to trust him. He growls again, a deep rumble of warning just as I reach the end of the hall. His dark outline stands at the front door. He pushes his nose down into the bottom of the threshold, sniffing the air beneath it.
Adrenaline pumps through my blood. I rack my brain for Reason’s commands. I can't remember any of them. I don’t even know what I should tell him to do. I need a plan. If he starts barking, I’ll definitely dial 911. And I’ll get a butcher knife from the kitchen. Klaus stands like a statue looking at the bottom of the door. He lifts his head toward the handle and back down to the floor. He whimpers once and then turns away, moving past me through the living room, toward the back wall. It dawns on me where he’s going: the dog door.
I turn. He noses the flap for a moment before he shoves his head through. When he lifts his paw to take a step, I wonder if I’m dreaming, if I’ve never gotten out of bed at all. I’m still in there, tucked under my covers, where I only dream I stand here watching Klaus-the-house shove himself through a dog door only one third his actual size.
At first, I can’t understand what I’m seeing or if I’m even seeing it at all. Right before my eyes, the outer rim of the door and surrounding wall turns fluid, rippling like water around him. His belly glides through effortlessly, then his back legs. Soon his tail disappears and the flap drops back in place with a soft clack. I stare after him.
Did he just shape-shift? No, it’s impossible. I can’t believe I’m giving any credence to such folklore. But then again, if there really is a tiger in the Wildlands and a real life Santa Claus, then why not shape-shifting dogs?
A noise from the porch snatches me back to the moment. I go to the front window and peak out, just in time to see Klaus’ back end disappear down the porch stairs. A few seconds later, I hear him slide back through the door and trot over to where I stand by the window.
I don’t turn around. “All clear?” My voice sounds rattled and I’m half wondering if he’ll say “yes.”
He doesn’t. He just nudges my hip and lets my hand slide over his jowls. My fingers graze across something stiff protruding from the side of his mouth. It crackles like paper when I touch it.
I drop to my knees. He releases it from his teeth, letting it fall into my palm. In the silvery glow of streetlights through the window, I see a rolled up paper dampened by dog slobber and sealed with a glob of wax. I lift it up to the light. The wax has a stamped insignia depressed into the center: SS.
A chill passes over me as I open the seal, prying one side of it away from the paper with my thumbnail. Immediately, the scroll loosens. As soon as I unroll it, I see the letterhead at the top: Santa Society.
Erin Sinclair
1918 Garland St.
Christmasville, ID 77911
Dear Ms. Sinclair,
Please accept my apology for the delay in processing your membership evaluation. The Council has found you eligible for membership by right of ancestry. I must also inform you that your current membership status proposes certain issues in the recent Motion to Invoke Amendment 16 against Defendant, Father Reason MacCloud. The Council upholds that the commencement of a romantic relationship with Father MacCloud preceded the date of change in your membership status. Since membership is not retro-active, Amendment 16 is still relevant to this case. However, the Council moves to dismiss this finding if the following conditions are met prior to the Eve of Christmas.
1. A period of no contact will commence immediately concluding not one minute before 10:00 a.m. tomorrow.
1. The parties must, of their own volition and without duress, submit themselves at the appointed time to the bonds of Matrimony.
2. The wedding must occur publicly in Town Square, beneath the clock in the City Center of Christmasville.
3. Both parties shall arrive separately and without any prior third party communication.
4. A covenant will be made, immediately following the wedding ceremony, guaranteeing the preservation of the Santa Society. The Covenant will serve as an alliance between the carrier of the Gift and the Society to ensure a continued relationship between the two.
Father MacCloud has received a copy of this notice. It is my hope that these terms will meet with your approval. The Society recognizes that the Gift does not submit itself to the laws of men. As an organization, we must change to reflect truth when truth stands in opposition to our goals, otherwise we risk passing away into the pages of history. The time has come to honor the Gift as belonging only to itself. Please indulge our desire to follow current Society Law in handling this matter, until such laws can be reviewed and revised in the upcoming New Year.
Sincerely,
Brother Thomas Cassius
I’m still holding the phone in my other hand. No contact. I lay it on the table beside the lamp. On second thought, I grab it and carry it to the china hutch. Standing on the tips of my toes, I place it on top, just over the rim of the decorative molding. When I turn around, I notice Klaus watching me.
“What?” I shrug, and walk past him into the kitchen.
He follows behind. I turn on the light and get the coffee maker started. My hands shake as I separate a single coffee filter from the stack and place it in the tray. The trembling worsens when I start shoveling in the grounds. I bump the scooper against the side of the fill tank, spilling a quarter cup of coffee. Dark brown specks cover the cream colored countertop.
I glance over my shoulder. Klaus sits in the corner of the cabinets, with his head tilted to the side…still looking at me.
“I’m just...a little nervous at the moment,” I explain. I’m beginning to wonder if Klaus reads vibrations too.
He makes a small whimpering sound.
I fill the pot and pour in the water, but I pour too fast and it runs down the side, dribbling onto the counter where it mixes with coffee grounds to form a nasty black paste.
I press “brew” and turn back to Klaus.
He wears an alert expression, looking down at my feet then sharply up to my face again. It’s a defined sort of thing, like he’s trying to figure out something.
I blink at him. And slowly my brain begins to fire normally, my thoughts rolling through items in Cassius’ bizarre letter.
What I have so far boils down to this: I can’t contact Reason if I wish to marry him tomorrow morning. I mean, this seems a little rushed here—ludicrous even. Marriage is a big deal. It doesn’t seem like something we should do just to keep in the good graces of the Society—the one he believes isn’t necessary for him to deliver on the Eve, anyway.
On the Eve. I’m even thinking like them now.
Did I want to be a member? Is any of this necessary? Does it matter? My thoughts fold in on themselves. It’s a large knotted ball of yarn I can’t mentally untangle. I can’t even decide on the question I’m trying to answer.
Wait, yes I can. The question is this: Do I want to marry Reason tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. at Town Square? My stomach tingles. That’s the question. But why would Cassius challenge us to get married? One minute he doesn’t want me anywhere near the Society, the next he offers us a shotgun wedding. A shotgun wedding. Talk about overkill. Obviously, he’s too proud to admit being wrong. And he doesn’t want the Society to fall apart without Reason. I get that, but he doesn’t have to get crazy on us like this.
Besides, if Reason refuses to marry me and then later delivers the Gift on Christmas Eve, the Society still loses. I must be missing something here, because the way I see it they aren’t in any position to boss us around. And the letter proves they’re scared of losing the Gift now that they know it doesn't belong to them.
Maybe it’s some kind of test. Right: a test. But if Reason has enough faith to carry out Christmas on his own, why would anyone need to test him? It doesn’t make any sense.
He stamps his paw.
“I mean, why would we get married tomorrow? We hardly know each other.”
He tilts his head as though the question both interests and surprises him.
“Exactly.” I grab a cup and pour some coffee. “I mean, Reason probably knows what to do.”
Klaus whimpers.
“And if I hear from him—if he contacts me to tell me what we should do—it means he doesn’t want to, you know, marry me.” I swallow a big gulp. “And if I call him, then it means I don’t want to.”
Klaus stretches all his legs out on the floor in frog position.
“This is a total mess.”
Or is it? Maybe Cassius is a pretty smart guy, because whatever the motivation here, he’s turned my next twenty four hours upside down. Maybe it really is a test. Are we worthy?
“That’s it.” I announce to Klaus. “Cassius wants to see if we’re worthy of each other, how much does it mean to us…or something like that. If it’s not real, then it falls apart now. And if it is real, we’ll both be there tomorrow.”
But as I turn this over in my mind, it begins to blur again. I take another big gulp, even though my tongue still burns from the first one.
I mean, we could show up, get married, and not be a bulletproof match. Right? It doesn’t really prove anything. I could still leave Reason, just like what happened to Cassius. Reason could also leave me. Suddenly I wonder what, if anything, Cassius means to protect.
“My brain hurts.” I let out a deep breath. I’ve got to clear my head.
I lower myself to the kitchen floor and sit crisscross beside Klaus, stroking his fur. No matter how much I think these questions matter, something pretty simple gets lost in them. I’m to decide in a little over twenty four hours if I want to spend the rest of my life with Reason. Could this wonderful relationship survive if either of us blows this off? Because that would...sort of cool things between us, wouldn’t it? How could it not?
Okay, I don’t have to do anything right now. I’ll wait. I won’t call. If I don’t hear from him by lunchtime, it may mean he plans to take this seriously. Then, I’ll try to wade my way through all this again. Surely, on a normal day, I’d hear from him by noon.
Chapter 31
NOON: I HAVEN’T HEARD anything from Reason. Earlier, I thought this would tell me a lot more than it has. In the end, it didn’t tell me anything at all. I mean, it’s only lunchtime. Big deal. Maybe he’s been busy with the deer, or Alice, or Christmas preparations. He’s probably eating lunch at the Sloon right now with the men.
Do I want to marry Reason? I look at the ring on my finger. I haven’t really allowed myself to think about my answer. I’m not sure I want to know either. Not until I get some idea of whether he wants to marry me. Then, I’ll give it serious thought.
As the minutes pass, my stomach jitters more and more.
I’m just Erin who met the real Santa and thinks he’s gorgeously delicious. I’m not really a woman who might get married tomorrow...am I? I stand up and head to the phone. Maybe I accidently turned the ringer off. I grab it carefully. After all, I wouldn’t want to accidentally dial his number.
But I fumble just as I lift it over the top edge of the hutch, knocking it against the wood. I shriek as it slips from my fingers and free falls. Instinctively, my knee shoots up to catch it, but I miss and it lands on top of my raised foot. It teeters there, only one slight shift away from hitting the floor—where it could accidentally call the last number dialed: Reason. I lift my big toe to give it some stability as I stand with my foot in the air. Holding my breath, I raise it slowly and carefully pluck it from my foot.
I hold it between two fingers, like a surgeon or a bomb detonator. Steady now. I press the button to check my missed calls. The last call came in yesterday. I let out my breath,
This time, I put it inside the china hutch. It might be safer there.
I glance at the clock. It’s two. I twist my hair into another matted twirl. Still no word from Reason. We’ve passed out of the window of he-might-be-busy, haven’t we? But still, he really could be busy. I can’t quite eliminate that possibility yet. Because I can’t bear to sit here thinking about marrying Reason tomorrow, only to have him call to discuss how we shouldn't lower ourselves to placating the Society.
Something flutters in the pit of my empty stomach, like butterflies.
“I’m not excited. There’s no reason to be excited.” I announce to Klaus, even though I know he’s asleep on the sofa. A loud snore erupts from his mouth.
That’s it. Three o’clock. I’ve got to talk to somebody. But I have only one friend, so my options are limited. Callie. She’s smart and intuitive, right? I’ll invite her over for...cookies. I have cookies, I hope.
I run to the kitchen and scour the cupboard. I have only two chocolate chip cookies left. My eye scans the rows of food packaging, most of it purchased by my mother. I don't think Callie would be interested in soup, pasta salad, or canned vegetables.
The Christmas room. I do have a box of Christmas dolls I planned to give her. I hate to think of myself luring a young child with gifts to help me decide if I should get married, but I’m desperate.
As I grab my shoes and coat, I wonder if Reason feels as freaked out right now as I do. After all, he hasn’t heard from me either. This thought almost makes me laugh.
I scurry out of the house, using the hole in the bitter cherries to get to Callie’s. I haven’t planned out what to say. Can Callie come over? Somehow it seems kind of silly, given the age difference here.
I bound up the steps and knock twice. A few seconds later, her mother answers the door. “Yes?”
“Hi, is it okay if Callie comes over for a few minutes? I had some things I thought she might be interested in…” I clear my throat “…some dolls.”
Her eyes brighten. “Sure, I bet she’d love that.” She turns her head and calls to Callie.
I can’t shake the feeling I’m reliving my childhood, where my only friend just so happens to be six.
Callie appears beside her mother. When she sees me, she smiles a gummy smile. “Hi, Erin. Did you come to play?”
My cheeks redden. How does she do it?
Her mother answers for me. “Erin has some things to show you. Be back in an hour, okay?”
Callie grabs her coat from a peg beside the door. “Okay.”
She sits in the living room floor going through the box of Christmas dolls. She wants all but the creepy one with the drowsy eye.
I’ve begun to question the ethics of my intentions here. It doesn’t matter if she has a knack for seeing to the heart of things. I’m treating her like an oracle. I suddenly feel ashamed for even thinking of having her help me figure out my life. I should’ve asked her mother for advice if I needed it this bad.
“I don’t think you’re okay, Erin.” She smoothes out the dress on the small angel.
“Why would you say that?” I fake.
“You’re biting your lip, and when I bite my lip it’s cause I’m scared I’m in trouble.”
“Oh. I’m not in trouble. Promise.”
She glances up at me as she places the angel back inside the box. She grabs the elf and makes him walk across her leg. “Are you going to marry Santa Claus?”
That’s my Callie. “I don’t know. I might.”
“I don't ever want to get married.”
“You don’t?” I lean forward.
“Nope. I want to be a princess instead.”
“Oh, don’t princesses have princes?”
“Sometimes, but you don’t have to.” She puts the elf in the box and picks up Mrs. Claus.
I try to smile. “Well, I guess that’s true. You don’t have to.”
“The only way I’d get a prince is if he knows how to save the kid dome.”
I think it over for a second. “The kingdom?”
“Yep.” She looks thoughtful as she holds up Mrs. Claus. “The
only other thing I would be is Mrs. Claus.”
“Oh yeah, why is that?” I watch her turn the doll.
“Cause he’s really nice. And he helps people, like he helped me and my daddy.”
“Well, that’s a pretty good reason.”
Callie sighs. “But, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Cause he’s too old for me.”
“Yes, that's true.” I watch her lay Mrs. Claus in the box. She slides the creepy doll further away, and picks up another angel.
She looks under its dress. “Are angels boys or are they girls?”
“I think there are boy and girl angels.”
“Do they marry each other?”
“I don't know. I don’t think so.” I’ve actually never thought about it. “Why?”
“Cause God makes things in sets.”
I nod, seeing what she means.
“If angels can’t get married, its good Santa can. You look like a set...and I like him.”
I lean back in my chair. I’m not sure if Callie’s insights have helped me, but spending time with her feels as refreshing as a clean, innocent rain.
I passed the last hour in the company of cuteness. Now it’s four o’clock and Callie’s gone home, and Klaus has relocated his nap to the floor in front of the Christmas tree.
I begin to realize I really am a woman with a decision. As crazy as it seems, I must decide if I’m going to marry Reason MacCloud tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. For some reason, this doesn't seem nearly as scary as the mental image of me standing at the altar alone.
I grab the letter from the lamp table and reread it. I still can’t understand why Cassius would do this. It seems crazy. If I could talk about this with Reason, together we could figure it all out. I hate that talking to him cancels the offer altogether. In fact, the more I think about this technicality, the more I think Cassius sucks.
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