Krampus: The Three Sisters (The Krampus Chronicles Book 1)

by Halbach, Sonia

  A horse carrying McNutt appeared in the distance, charging down the orchard. The Garrison was no longer dressed in his black garments, and a square spade was raised in his hand, ready to swipe. The creature ducked away from the impending rider while Catharine and Henry dashed to the side. McNutt made an attempt at the creature’s head, but just narrowly missed. He quickly halted the horse and steered it around for a second try.

  Henry then remembered the Sister Wheel still lying on the snow. He knew with McNutt distracting the creature, it was the best chance to get the wheel back without the creature seeing. Henry dived toward the Sister Wheel. He snatched it up and dropped it into his pocket. Stumbling back to Catharine, he grabbed her hand and tugged her away from the fighting.

  McNutt returned to the creature and tried again to strike it with the spade. But the creature seized the handle of the spade in midair, pulling McNutt off the horse and tossing him onto the cold ground.

  The horse continued galloping toward Catharine and Henry. After grabbing the reins and pulling herself up on its back, Catharine reached down for Henry’s less battered arm and helped him hop on. With much struggle, Henry was finally situated on the horse behind Catharine.

  “Go quickly,” Henry’s voice shivered into Catharine’s ear.

  Every movement of the horse caused Henry to wince in pain.

  “We have to go back to the Manor,” Catharine said. “Your injuries must be attended to as quickly as possible.”

  “No, Catharine,” Henry snapped. “We can’t risk going back. We have the wheel. Let’s just go.”

  But before they could flee the orchard, painful cries sounded from nearby. McNutt was cornered against a tree trying to fight the creature back with the spade. But the creature was relentless.

  “We must go,” Henry said, sensing Catharine’s hesitation.

  “We can’t just leave him,” Catharine said. “He came to our aid.”

  “He’s a Garrison,” Henry harshly replied. “He’s after the Sister Wheel.”

  An idea struck Catharine. “Give me the Sister Wheel.”

  “What?” Henry stammered.

  “Now!”

  Henry fumbled in his jacket, and then placed it in Catharine’s hand. She aimed the horse at the creature and, with her arm extended, she charged. If the Sister Wheel was sought so desperately, she believed it must also be a rather powerful object.

  Catharine’s theory proved to be correct, for as they drew nearer, the creature lunged away when spotting the Sister Wheel in her hand. Not satisfied with its small retreat, Catharine jumped from the horse and chased after the creature, feeling propelled by whatever strange powers the Sister Wheel contained.

  The creature let out a final growl before disappearing between the trees and into complete darkness.

  “Bels! Bels!”

  The children’s voices returned to the orchard.

  Catharine couldn’t see Romeyn, James or Theodoric, but she certainly didn’t want to stay and witness them summoning the frightening creature back. Catharine looked over at McNutt leaning against a tree, trying to catch his breath. Catharine then turned to Henry still slumped on the horse.

  “We need to dress your injuries,” she said to Henry who was coddling his right arm.

  “There’s a ferry house next to the river,” McNutt spoke for the first time; a slight accent slipped through his words.

  Henry stared at McNutt. The sight of the Garrison seemed to cause the bruise on his chin to sting stronger than all the fresh wounds scattered over his body.

  “How can we trust you?” Henry spat.

  “Castriot wants the Van Cortlandt descendants captured alive and returned to Poppel with the Sister Wheel. And I will see to it that you two are brought back safely.” McNutt frowned. “At the very least, I owe you that.”

  Catharine reached up and rubbed Henry’s knee. He shivered in response.

  “What do you think we should do?” she asked softly.

  Henry’s eyes reluctantly looked up from where her hand touched his leg.

  With a sigh, he whispered, “We do still have to retrieve Maggie. And I don’t think she’ll be too pleased if we’re late.”

  horse-drawn carriage flew down the darkened streets of New York carrying a rather jovial Sir Pringle and an anxious Maggie who was gripping the rattling carriage door with all her strength.

  Clemmie, Louis, and Ward had said their goodbyes back at Sylvan Terrace before slipping down the ash pit.

  “By the time you find the key at Chelsea Manor, it won’t be safe for you to travel by way of the sleigh tunnel,” Ward advised Maggie. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sugarplum. “Use this to contact Catharine and Henry. It will find them. And then they can find you.”

  Maggie kept a hand on her pocket that held the sugarplum, guarding it from the turbulence of the bouncy carriage. But she worried that if the sugarplum wasn’t sent soon, the steamboat wouldn’t stop near Chelsea Manor. And then Maggie would have no way of returning to Poppel.

  Before the pointed rooftops of Sylvan Terrace were even in the distance, Maggie brought the sugarplum to her face and thought deeply about how she wanted Catharine to retrieve her at the river pier near Chelsea Manor. Then the sugarplum shot out her hand and into the night, searching for its recipient.

  As they arrived at the Chelsea estate, Sir Pringle stopped the carriage in front of the Manor. Maggie looked up at the mansion looming above the area, a huge shadow sitting upon a pearly white hill. It dawned on her for the first time that all of Chelsea Manor was locked for the night. There was no way of getting inside without waking the family.

  “Well,” Sir Pringle said, leaning back in his seat and sliding a pipe between his lips. He lit the bowl with a match and then quickly flapped his massive hand, putting the tiny flame out. “You better be on your way.”

  “I can’t get inside,” Maggie mumbled, feeling rather foolish. “The doors are locked for the night.”

  “What?” A cloud of smoke puffed out of Sir Pringle’s mouth as he twisted his thick neck in the young girl’s direction. “We came all this way and you’re telling me this now?”

  Maggie nodded sheepishly. She wanted to disappear in the heavy fur coat Sir Pringle had given her to wear.

  Sir Pringle looked over at Chelsea Manor and gestured at it with his pipe. “Surely you will be let inside if you ring the doorbell.”

  Maggie shook her head. “That will wake the entire house. And there’s no time to explain to everyone what has happened.”

  “Well, you better think of something,” Sir Pringle huffed. “I didn’t come all this way to sit in this carriage, smoking my pipe.”

  Maggie studied Chelsea Manor, her eyes drifting from the bottom front steps to the top of the roof. An idea suddenly struck her, and at the same time, frightened her to the core.

  “Do you―do you have rope?” Maggie stammered.

  Before leaving Sylvan Terrace, Sir Pringle had scrambled around, pulling tools off shelves and shoving them into a box that was placed in the back of the carriage. Although Maggie wasn’t certain, she thought he had grabbed a coil of rope hanging from a rafter in the cellar.

  Sir Pringle’s face lit up. “Why, yes, I do.”

  Maggie examined the west porch and its neighboring sycamore tree before settling upon the Manor’s chimney. It didn’t take long for Sir Pringle to guess her plan. And a minute later, he was demonstrating to Maggie proper rope techniques.

  “So this is the knot to make if you don’t want to die,” Sir Pringle instructed bluntly.

  Maggie watched nervously. With the task of climbing a tree ahead of her, she thought a knot would be the least of her worries.

  Maggie shook the dense coat off her body before wrapping the bulky rope around her arm. The weight of the rope threw off her balance and she worried about climbing with the additional barrier. But with a supportive shove from Sir Pringle, Maggie scampered across the road.

  After walking up the snowy hill, Ma
ggie climbed the railing of the Manor’s west porch, and tossed the rope onto its rooftop. Stretching her arms as high as possible, Maggie grabbed the rooftop’s edge and pulled herself up. Situating the rope back upon her shoulder, Maggie slowly stepped toward the lowest branch hanging over the corner of the porch. She carefully threw her legs around the branch, and after feeling confident enough to stand, she reached toward a higher branch.

  Using this method of pulling, straddling, and standing, Maggie made it halfway up the tree with relative ease. But then Maggie mistakenly looked down for the first time. Seeing the ground far below, her breath halted in her throat.

  Maggie glanced at the third floor windows still needing to be passed before reaching the rooftop. The nearest branch was some distance away, and she would have to fully jump off her branch to grab hold. Even in the cold of winter, Maggie’s feet began to sweat, pleading to remain firmly planted. But she had to make the leap. It’d now be just as difficult to go back down the tree, as it would be to continue upward.

  With her legs shaking, Maggie leapt into the air. But she slipped and fell just short of the above branch. With the tips of her fingers, she grabbed hold of a branch a few feet below, preventing her body from falling all the way to the ground. Using her strained muscles, she pulled her body up and slid onto her stomach. The fall had returned her fear of heights with an even stronger pulse. And she hugged the branch with her remaining strength.

  “Get up, Maggie,” Sir Pringle’s voice hissed from below. “You can make it.”

  Sir Pringle stood at the base of the sycamore. His waist appeared thicker than the width of the tree trunk.

  “I’ll catch you if you slip,” Sir Pringle reassured. “You’re not dying on my watch.”

  Somehow the sight of portly Great Uncle Pringle restored some of Maggie’s energy. She didn’t doubt that Sir Pringle’s massive body would save her if she were to fall again. Also, Maggie had grown so tired of being in the tree that she would rather die trying to get to the rooftop than stay lying on a branch for another minute.

  Maggie readjusted the rope still wrapped around her shoulder and stood up, using the tree trunk to brace her body. She followed the same path as before, but this time she successfully reached the previously missed branch. And from there she pushed her way to a top branch that connected to the rooftop. Sliding along on her stomach, she finally made it onto Chelsea Manor.

  After getting her footing on the uneven shingles, Maggie tied the rope around a branch just like Sir Pringle showed her. And then she took the rope’s other end and tossed it down one of the rooftop’s chimneys.

  Now came the part Maggie was dreading the most. As terrifying as the climb up the tree had been, it seemed like a pleasant memory compared with the prospect of plunging down the Manor’s chimney by rope. And as Maggie reflected on the events of this fateful night and contemplated the task she was about to undertake, an explosion of red, green, and gold tinsel appeared in her mind.

  The dream.

  Realizing that her annual Christmas dream was a harbinger for her current predicament, Maggie lunged at the chimney, gripping its top tightly. And as she looked out into the wintry night, the air became cloudy, as though an old man was smoking a pipe nearby. But through the haze, she saw an illusion of New York with lofty towers and brilliant lights. It was not a city she knew, but rather a place that would one day come to be.

  The cold and heights were starting to affect her mind, Maggie realized. And she shook her head, forcing the hallucination away.

  Maggie refused to recreate her dream.

  She refused to fall like St. Nicholas.

  Maggie crawled up the brick chimney and swung one leg into its dark opening. Not feeling any smoke or heat, Maggie took a deep breath and began scaling the chimney. In the dark, her feet searched for oddly shaped bricks and gaps in the mortar. Step by step, Maggie carefully made her way down, all the while getting covered in a layer of soot.

  The rope roughly rubbed her palms, chafing the skin. But Maggie pressed onward―or rather downward. After a few minutes of steady climbing, a dim light shone beneath her feet. She was almost to the hearth.

  Unfortunately, the rope didn’t reach all the way to the bottom, and Maggie was left dangling a few feet over the charred logs. With hesitation, her raw hands released their grip on the coarse rope and Maggie tumbled down. Landing on top of the logs with a thump, she managed to fall in between the andirons.

  Maggie crawled out of the hearth and into the empty bedroom she shared with Gertrude. The portrait of late Aunt Margaret seemed to stare at Maggie with concern, as if aware of the burden her niece carried that night. But having little time to waste, Maggie hurried out of the room and down the shadowy stairs until she reached the circular hall where the grandfather clock struck five o’clock in the morning.

  Maggie went to the front door and pulled it open. Sir Pringle swept inside the doorway, as though emerging from the night like an apparition.

  “Well done,” Sir Pringle whispered, stepping into the foyer and tucking his right hand into his brown and black plaid jacket. “Now where is Moore?”

  Maggie pointed up the stairs. The pair then quietly snuck up to the second floor and slipped into Grandfather Clement’s master bedroom. A four-poster bed sat on the far end of the room. Its curtains were drawn, separating them from the sleeping old man. But they still could make out Grandfather Clement’s gruff snores.

  Sir Pringle wasted no time. He stomped over to the bed and threw open the curtains. Maggie worried his abrasiveness would harm Grandfather Clement’s old heart and she quickly leapt to Sir Pringle’s side only to see her grandfather was still soundly asleep.

  “Moore,” Sir Pringle bellowed. “Clement! Wake up, you.”

  Sir Pringle prodded Grandfather Clement’s stomach with his thick thumb.

  Grandfather Clement finally opened his eyes to see his granddaughter and a massive man peering over the bed. Startled, Grandfather Clement gripped the duvet to his chin.

  “What is all of this?” Grandfather Clement tried to shout, but his voice had been weakened by slumber.

  “Grandfather…” Maggie started, but Sir Pringle cut her off.

  “We’ve never met, Moore, but I am Pringle Taylor.”

  Grandfather Clement was silent.

  “Catharine’s brother,” Sir Pringle continued.

  “I know who you are,” Grandfather Clement muttered harshly. “What are you doing at Chelsea Manor? And in my bedroom? I will have you kicked out at once.”

  “No, Grandfather,” Maggie interrupted. “Listen, please. Something has happened. Something terrible.”

  Grandfather Clement’s stony eyes turned to Maggie.

  “I discovered Poppel. Accidentally,” Maggie quickly explained. “But now the Garrisons are after all of us―Catharine, Clemmie, Francis, Louis, and the twins. They know we have the Sister Wheels. But we can’t bring them together in Nikolaos of Myra’s horologe without Grandmother Catharine’s key.”

  Maggie expected Grandfather Clement to have at least some reaction to what she was saying. But if he knew what she was talking about, he didn’t show it.

  “You knew about Grandmother Catharine visiting Poppel, didn’t you?”

  Grandfather Clement shook his head slowly. “I haven’t slightest idea what you are rambling on about.”

  Something about his tone, however, suggested the opposite. And Sir Pringle found Grandfather Clement’s response particularly unsettling.

  “You don’t, huh?” Sir Pringle pulled his hand from his jacket, brandishing a shiny bowie knife.

  “Sir Pringle, please,” Maggie gasped. “Don’t threaten my grandfather.”

  But Sir Pringle ignored the girl.

  “We may have never met before. But I don’t like you, Moore. Catharine was one of the brightest, liveliest people I knew. And her marriage to you killed all of that. She became nothing more than your housewife, wasting her brilliant mind and soul. No wonder she died so young. No
doubt being married to you aged her heart considerably.”

  Maggie had never cared a great deal for Grandfather Clement, and the recent revelations of the night surrounding the Livingstons and the Christmas poem didn’t help the matter. But her back stiffened at Sir Pringle’s harsh words.

  “Stop it,” Maggie snapped. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Sir Pringle.”

  But the damage had been done. Grandfather Clement’s face was now a mix of rage and brokenness―an expression Maggie had never witnessed on any person, and especially not her grandfather.

  Indifferent to Sir Pringle’s knife, Grandfather Clement thrashed out of bed. Able to move only as fast as his body could allow, the old man plodded across the room and out the door, leaving Maggie and Sir Pringle frozen in surprise.

  Initially, Maggie feared Grandfather Clement was going to wake up the sleeping family members, which would only complicate matters. But instead the old scholar could be heard creaking down the east stairway. And Maggie and Sir Pringle quickly followed.

  “Grandfather,” Maggie said as they came upon the hall on the main floor.

  Grandfather Clement’s posture became rigid at the sound of his granddaughter’s voice, but he continued toward the Great Room. It was dark except for the moonlight shining through the tall windows.

  “Grandfather, I know about Sidney Livingston and the Christmas poem. I know that is why Henry came here tonight.”

  Grandfather Clement still didn’t respond as he entered the Great Room and collapsed into his armchair, eyes fixated on the fireplace. The opening to the ash pit was closed once again.

  Maggie hesitantly approached him.

  “I don’t blame you for taking credit for the poem,” Maggie said, trying to be diplomatic. “It was to save the family from speculation and scandal. And I don’t believe what Sir Pringle said was true.”

  Sir Pringle’s heavy feet shifted in the Great Room doorway.

  “You loved Grandmother Catharine,” Maggie continued. “And she deeply loved you. I never will believe differently. But I also will not believe that you didn’t know about Poppel. She trusted you too much to keep that from you.”