by Tegan Maher
The space was large, but divided up by brick columns and low archways that made me feel slightly claustrophobic—like we were inside some catacombs. I hugged my arms around myself due to the creep factor. It had nothing to do with feeling cold—in fact, the place was sweltering.
Iggy curled his lip and shrank back in his lantern. “It’s like if hell had a kitchen.”
I nodded, and the three of us moved forward toward a worktable in the center of the space. Chains dripped from the ceiling above it, dangling cast iron pots and pans from sharp looking hooks. Small, arched woodburning ovens lined the bottom of the worktable close to the floor—a few were lit and cast an eerie orange glow from below.
Clanks and clinks came from the far wall. As we moved closer, the cook, Duscha, came into view. Her hips swayed as she scrubbed at the dirty dishes that magically flew into the sink from the hovering stack beside her, then rinsed themselves after she’d lathered them up. Several enchanted towels waited to her right, drying dishes as they came down the line.
Hank cleared his throat, and the woman startled, then spun to face us, her eyes wide. She pressed a hand to her ample bosom, and her cheeks flushed pink when she recognized us.
“Scared me.” Her chest heaved.
I winced and gave a little wave. “Sorry. Bogdana said it’d be alright if we came in.”
Duscha narrowed her blue eyes and tucked a strand of gray hair back into the kerchief she wore over her head. “Vhy’s zhat?”
Hank stepped forward. “We’re actually going to borrow the kitchen for the night, if that’s alright? We’re making cookies to leave out for Santa.” He shot the older woman a good-natured grin, but she paled.
“No.” She shook her head. “Vhat—vhy?”
Hank and I exchanged worried looks. I gulped. “Uh… just a human tradition thing.” I held up my palm. “But don’t worry—we’ll clean up after ourselves.”
“In fact.” Hank shrugged. “Why don’t you let us finish up the dinner dishes for you, too? Take the rest of the night off.”
Duscha clutched the dinner plate she held to her chest and backed up. “Night off? No—I couldn’t. Eet’s my job!”
A hacking cough startled me, and I looked over my shoulder. A tall, thin man with scraggly white hair and dirty clothes loped into the room, a scowl on his lined face.
“This just keeps getting better,” Iggy muttered.
I flashed my eyes at him.
The thin man shot each of us a glare before jerking his chin at Duscha by way of greeting, then plucked a half-eaten roll off one of the plates hovering in the dirty stack. He held out his hand, and a dish of butter magically flew into it. He dunked the roll in, scraped out a hunk of butter, then roughly ripped a piece off and chewed it with his mouth open.
Duscha rubbed her hands on her stained apron and flashed her eyes at him, then tilted her head towards us. “Boris—vee haf guests.” She forced a smile at us. “Dees ees Boris, da gardener.”
Guess that explained all the dirt on his clothes. I curled my lip. And under his fingernails.
Boris narrowed his dark eyes at us. “Who are dees lot, then?” He coughed again, raspy and loud.
“Royal guests of da master and meestress.” Duscha’s tone was laced with tension.
Boris snorted and ripped off another huge chunk of roll with his crooked teeth. “Pleased ta meet ya.” He dipped into a mocking curtsy, then loped off again.
“Wait!” Duscha looked from Boris to us, her brow furrowed. She bounced on her heels, apparently unsure if she should stay or go. She huffed, looked back at the sink and bit her lip, then gave herself a little shake. “Fine. Da keetchen ees yours.”
She hiked up her long skirt and chased after Boris. We watched them go until they’d disappeared through the swinging door to the rest of the house.
I blew out a breath. “That was… weird.”
“Understatement.” Iggy huffed.
I bit my lip. There had clearly been tension between Duscha and Boris. “Think they’re like… together?”
Iggy shuddered. “Don’t wanna think about it.”
Hank cleared his throat. “Honestly, me neither.”
I grinned. “So… cookie time then?”
We spun to face the worktable that looked more suited for a torture chamber with all the hooks and chains and fire.
“Well, I know I’m certainly in the holiday spirit.” Iggy rolled his eyes.
“Oh, come on.”
We spent the next hour mixing up flour, eggs, sugar, and butter. I missed my fellow baker friends—especially Maple. I imagined the kind of cheery little song she’d be singing to cast her spells and set the rolling pins to work. Christmas—or Bruma—just wasn’t the same without her and my other friends.
But I still enjoyed my time with Hank and Iggy and felt more like myself than I had in the last couple days at Hennigar Castle. We used knives to cut out the shapes of snowflakes, stockings, wreaths, and trees, and I even persuaded Iggy to crawl into one of the ovens on the floor and bake them.
It was near midnight by the time we finished icing each one and decorating them with sugared fruit and candied rosemary. Hank searched the cupboards and found a red ceramic platter that we piled high with cookies.
The house was dark and quiet when we carried the tray into the library, only the embers still glowing in the massive fireplace. Hank pulled a side table near the hearth, and we left the cookies and a glass of milk on it for Santa (or apparently Vlad, who’d be playing the part for the kids).
Then, hand in hand, Hank and I climbed the sweeping staircase up to our room, Iggy already snoozing in his lantern.
The Honorable Santa Claus
The Honorable Santa Claus
I shuffled across the cavernous entryway in my robe and slippers (the toes of which were topped with stuffed cupcakes—an early Bruma gift from my friend Rhonda). I roughly rubbed my eyes, then ruffled my bangs and gave a few nods good morning to my brothers- and sisters-in-law, who’d corralled their excited children together at the base of the stairs.
Seeing them standing there in their pajamas, eyes alight at the prospect of presents and Santa, I could almost forget all the shrieking, punching, and biting I’d witnessed from them the last few days. I gulped. Which was why I’d hurried downstairs.
“You’re sure Santa can’t judge them just a little?” Iggy peeked up at me from his lantern.
I grinned, tempted, but shook my head.
Little monsters though they might be, they didn’t deserve the treatment I’d just learned they were in store for.
Bogdana and Herbert had rapped at the door to Hank’s and my room just minutes ago and announced, cheerily, that it was Christmas morning and we should hurry downstairs in time for Santa’s tribunal.
Still half asleep, with my hair everywhere, I’d blinked at her in confusion until she explained that Santa (played by her brother Vlad) would preside over the children, listing out their various transgressions and good deeds, and judging them naughty or not. When I told her that wasn’t really how it went down in human lands, she’d shrugged and told me I’d better tell Vlad how it really went.
Iggy swung from the lantern in my hand as I hurried through the library, past the enormous tree decorated in magically burning candles and surrounded by a mountain of red and green wrapped presents, to the fireplace. Hank had sent me on ahead as he struggled to wake up (too much eggnog while we’d been baking last night).
I stopped at the mouth to the walk-in fireplace and glanced over my shoulder. The giggles and laughter of the children floated in from the lobby. I doubted their parents could keep them away much longer.
Beside me, several of the cookies had been bitten into, and half the milk was gone. Guess Vlad couldn’t help himself—then again, they were set out for Santa, and he was playing Santa, so… fair enough.
I licked my lips and ducked my head into the space. I blinked up at the black chimney above, not able to see much of anything. A trickle of so
ot sifted down beside me and I side stepped to avoid it.
“Um, Vlad? It’s me—Imogen. Uh—thing is, in human lands, Santa just kinda has a naughty and nice list, but really, all the kids get presents.”
I listened for an answer but heard only a scuffle, followed by a throaty cough.
Iggy made a face. “How’s he up there, anyway?”
I shrugged. “Magic?” I peered back up the chimney. Or maybe Vlad was an expert rock climber?
“So um, yeah, the kids are gonna come in here any minute, and I think it’d just be better and more, you know, authentic, if you just told them all they’d been very good this year and handed out presents.” I gulped. “Oh!” I held up a finger. “And Santa says, ‘Ho ho ho!’ a lot.”
Still, no answer came, except a choking cough. Maybe climbing up chimneys wasn’t a great idea for your lungs, magic or not. Another trickle of soot poured down, followed by another, and another.
“Uh… Imogen?” I glanced down at my little flame, whose eyes grew wide and round. “Move!”
I looked up in time to see something big tumbling down the chimney toward me and jumped back out of the fireplace barely in time to avoid being hit. A cloud of ash and soot rose up, and I coughed into the crook of my arm.
Bogdana, Herbert, and Hank rushed up behind me. I gratefully took Hank’s hand, my heart thundering. That’d been close. Bogdana waved her hand in front of her face, coughing, trying to clear the air.
“But vhat has happened?”
As the dust cleared, a body came into view, dressed in the red-and-white suit of Santa. I shrank against Hank’s side.
Bogdana shrieked and rushed forward. “Vlad! Vlad?” She crouched beside the body and Herbert helped her roll Santa onto his back. Soot covered his white beard, and white foam poured from his mouth. She spun to face me. “Vhat’s wrong vith heem?!”
I shook my head, not sure what to say.
Iggy made a face. “Besides being dead?”
Hank put a finger under my chin and tipped my face up to meet his. “Are you okay?” His dark hair was still tousled from sleep, and pillow lines creased his face.
I gave a shaky nod, a lump in my throat. As okay as I could be after having nearly been crushed to death by Santa.
Bogdana shook the body, and the head lolled to the side, eyes unseeing. She pulled the beard down, sobbing. “Oh, Vlad, no!” She stopped, abruptly silent, and looked up at us. “Dees eesn’t Vlad.”
She spun around, her brow furrowed in confusion. Herbert, beside her, huffed. “Why, it’s old Boris. What’s the gardener doing dead in the fireplace—playing Santa of all things?”
“Happy Christmas!”
The sounds of tiny footsteps thundered toward us over the stone and rugs of the library. I glanced to my left to find the nearly two dozen nieces and nephews stampeding our way. Oh no.
“Merry Christmas,” Iggy deadpanned. “Your gift this year, children, is lifelong trauma.”
Hank and I rushed forward to meet the kids, arms outstretched like barricades.
“You can’t come over here.” Hank’s voice was deep and authoritative. They of course paid him no attention and feinted left, then right, trying to get around him.
I tried another tactic. “Santa’s, uh—not quite ready yet! You wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”
Iggy started cackling in his lantern. “That’s one way to put it.”
I cast about the room in desperation as my sleep deprived brothers- and sisters-in-law staggered in behind the kids. My eyes landed on the side table piled high with the cookies we’d made last night. Maybe I could distract the kids long enough to get the other adults on board with the need to get them out of there.
I pointed. “Look, kids—cookies!”
A little girl in braids (I thought this was little Casey? Or was it Macy? I was a terrible aunt) rushed forward and grabbed one, followed by her cousins and siblings.
My stomach froze. Against the floorboard, at the base of the table, a mouse lay dead on its side… surrounded by cookie crumbs. I glanced over my shoulder toward the fireplace and the foam around Boris’s mouth. The cookies—they were—
“Poison!” Duscha, the cook, lunged forward and slapped the cookie out of Casey/Macy’s hand. The little girl’s face crumpled, and she threw her head back, crying.
Panting, I glanced up at Duscha and gave her a grateful nod. I hadn’t noticed her come in, but she’d put the mouse and the cookies and the foam together a moment before I had—and had likely saved a little girl’s life.
The older woman replaced the cookie on the pile and dusted her hands off on her apron, leaving behind green stains from the frosting, the hem of her dress soaked. She turned her pale, drawn face toward the fireplace, and her shoulders sagged.
“Oh, Boris,” she groaned before rushing to the man’s side and collapsing beside him.
Hank and I pried cookies out of the other children’s hands, and once he filled in a few of his siblings about the situation in the fireplace, the other adults took over escorting the disgruntled kids out of the library.
Hank’s throat bobbed as he stood beside the tray of cookies we’d made. “I’ll have to test these for poison.” He held his hands over the festive cookies and closed his eyes. His palms began to glow with magic. Tiny green flakes floated off the cookies up into the air and reformed into a dozen thin, long green leaves.
I frowned. “Pine needles?”
Hank opened his eyes and shook his head. “Close. But I believe that is English Yew.”
I lifted a brow, and he grew grim.
“Also known as the tree of death.”
I gulped. Someone had indeed poisoned the cookies.
Herbert moved over to stand beside us, his eyes on Duscha, who sobbed over Boris’s body. He lowered his voice. “They were kind of an on-again, off-again sort of item.”
I frowned. “Were they on or off most recently?”
Herbert shrugged. “Who can keep track?”
Hank and I exchanged looks. If Boris had been poisoned, using our Christmas cookies no less, that made Duscha a suspect.
Bogdana marched toward us, her cheeks flushed and chest heaving. “Vee must find my brozer!”
Vlad
Vlad
Iggy’s lantern in hand, I jogged up the sweeping main staircase behind Hank and Herbert.
“Vlad!” Bogdana led the way, her voice echoing through the main entryway and her black robe billowing behind her.
I reached the landing, where a window with a pointed arch looked out onto the grounds. A thick blanket of snow covered the ground and the branches of the bare trees. I was about to move on but paused and edged closer.
Down in the snow, footprints led out to the glass greenhouse, then back again. I frowned. Had Boris already been out and back so early on Christmas morning? And what could have been so pressing as to go out in the freezing cold for?
“Vlad!”
Bogdana’s shriek startled me out of my musings, and I jogged up the stairs to catch up. We passed through several dark, winding hallways, then stopped in front of a heavy, carved door. She pounded against it.
“Vlad! Open up dees eenstant!”
No reply came.
She pounded again. “Are you alive een der?” She turned her ear to the door and raised her brows, listening. “Okay den, vee are coming een!”
She pulled her wand from her robe pocket, pointed it at the door, and blasted it open.
Iggy scrunched up his little flame face. “I’m not sure I want to know what we’re going to find in there.”
I seconded that thought, but took Hank’s hand and followed Herbert and Bogdana inside. The room was dark and reeked of stale alcohol and BO.
“Ow!” I rubbed my shin after bumping into a trunk, and Hank paused beside me.
“You okay?”
“Ah!” I squeezed my eyes shut as light suddenly flooded the room. I peeled one lid open to find Bogdana holding her wand up like an orchestra conductor,
the curtains over the windows open and swinging. The heavy velvet curtains around the four-poster bed flew open as well.
“Arg!” Vlad’s voice came out strangled. “By the black sands! Hurggh!”
I winced, still trying to get my eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness as he turned his head and retched into a silver ice bucket. My stomached clenched. Yuck.
“Oh, darling brozer!” Bogdana rushed to his side and clutched his wrist. “Are you ill? Haf you eaten of the poisoned cookies?”
We edged closer to the bed, behind Herbert. Vlad, sweaty and slightly gray, frowned up at his sister. “Poisoned cookies?” He scoffed. “No.” His expression soured, and he turned and hurled into the bucket again.
“Oh, thank the snow!” Bogdana wrapped her arms around her brother, whose eyelids fluttered. She peppered his head with kisses. “I thought you vere dead!”
Vlad leaned back and shot his sister a puzzled look, then gawked at the rest of us. “Dead? No. I’m just hungover, for pine’s sake. Why would you think I was dead?”
Herbert folded his arms and huffed. “Because you should have been.”
“Pardon?” Vlad, still looking peaky, arched a brow.
Herbert threw an arm toward the door. “That was supposed to be you in the Santa suit. Scared your sister half to death.” He shook his head. “Now we have to find a new gardener.”
Vlad’s bloodshot eyes widened. “Hold up, now. You mean to tell me old Boris is dead?”
Bogdana, arms still around his neck, nodded. “Jes! Eet vas awful! I thought eet vas you dead een da Santa suit.”
Vlad frowned. “I wasn’t feeling well, so I called old Boris up here and paid him to take my place.”
“With our money,” Herbert grumbled as he pushed his glasses up his nose.
Hank and I exchanged looks. Hank stepped forward. “Did anyone else know you’d switched places?”
“No. I doubt it.” Vlad shrugged, his lids half closed. “Like I said, I called him up here and gave him the suit and some gold and he said he’d go climb up the chimney.” He frowned. “Did he have a heart attack or something?”