“Guess we need to be getting outta here, huh?”
“Yep.”
They turned in tandem and approached the portal. Bill calmly stepped through and disappeared.
Mike pointed a sharp finger at Jenny. “Don’t you be foolish,” he said curtly, and followed Bill.
“Mother,” said Tom.
Jenny still had an arm around Daniel.
“It’s all right, Tom.”
“I feel good,” said Daniel, pleading. “I feel real good.”
The cave continued to grow darker, less enchanting.
“You can’t stay here, son,” said Tom. He gave his mother a severe look. “You can’t stay here.”
The earth rumbled. The deep grumbling grew louder. The shaking grew increasingly intense.
§
The cave tunnels looked dark and confining after the openness of the Christmas Cave. They were short and narrow and the only light came from a single flashlight Jack was holding, and from the portal, a faint cloud of flickering color.
The earthquake continued to grow increasingly violent here on this side as well, making the tunnel all the more claustrophobic.
Everyone was looking to the portal, waiting anxiously for Tom, Jenny and Daniel.
Olivia whispered under her breath. “Come on, come on, come on.”
Daniel appeared. There was an audible sigh of relief from everyone in the tunnel.
He stepped forward, was followed a few moments later by Jenny. She turned and took a step back.
The cloud of color continued to fade. The ground continued to shake and there was the constant low rumbling noise.
Tom stepped through. Olivia rushed up to him and hugged him.
Behind him, the portal closed.
The earthquake stopped suddenly, decisively, at that exact moment; at the very second the portal closed.
A heavy silence hung in the air.
“Well,” Jenny said at last, breaking the silence. “That was rather sudden.”
There were a few nervous chuckles.
“Is that possible?” asked Amanda. “The earthquake is there, but not here?”
“Amanda,” Jack groaned. “We just passed through a portal that leads to some place called the Christmas Cave, and you wonder what’s possible?”
“Right,” said Amanda. “Good point.”
Tom picked up the lantern that Jenny had left in the tunnel and Mike helped him get it lit. The other flashlights were turned on and the group made ready to get the heck out of there. The earthquake may have stopped, but the caves were still very unstable.
Mike led the way, confident of the path to the surface. Jack and Amanda brought up the rear.
“Do you think Mom was serious?” Jack asked his sister.
“What? Oh, yeah. We’re grounded, all right.”
“For six months? I mean… hey, we found Bill.”
“Mike found Bill. We just happened to be with him at the time.”
“S’pose you could look at it that way,” said Jack, frowning. He suddenly grinned. “But the Christmas Cave. We found the Christmas Cave.”
“Sure did.”
“So cool… and you wanted to turn back.”
“Sure did,” she said again. “And I’m still grounded. Thanks for that.”
As she finished those last words, they heard a low rumbling noise coming from the tunnel behind them.
“What is that?” she asked. “Another quake?”
“No. Not a quake. Oh, geez.” Jack called out then to the rest of the group ahead of them. “Cave in! Cave in!”
The tunnel ceiling was beginning to collapse behind them. Dirt and dust billowed toward them. They ran. They all ran as fast as they could, but it didn’t seem that it would be fast enough.
Leading the way, Mike saw thin streams of light far up ahead. He rushed toward it, everyone right behind him. The cloud of dirt and dust engulfed Jack and Amanda, still trailing the others.
§
The sun, enveloped in a glow of dark orange and red, was just coming up above the horizon. Golden rays streaked across the treetops and filled the clearing with the morning light.
A loud rolling rumble accompanied a great cloud of dirt and dust that swelled out of the cave entrance. Mike was little more than a silhouette in the cloud as he stumbled out. Jenny staggered out after him. Mike held out a supportive hand as she stepped past him. She dropped down to one knee, then both knees, leaned forward and began coughing.
Others came staggering out, dark shadows in the expanding cloud of billowing dirt. Last out were Jack and Amanda, hacking and choking. Olivia stumbled over to them, held them in her arms.
Tom placed a hand on Daniel, absently wrapped an arm around him.
The dust settled and the air slowly cleared. Jack turned and looked back toward the hillside. The cave entrance was gone.
“That’s that,” he said softly.
The world grew quiet. Bill took several steps toward the edge of the clearing. He looked outward, up at the sky… out toward the horizon.
Mike stepped up beside him. Jenny joined him.
The sun rose fully up from the horizon. Bright orange light splashed across the landscape.
“Welcome home, Bill,” said Mike.
Chapter Ten
Jenny sat at one end of her dining room table, Christmas dinner spread out before her. Good company, good food, wonderful aromas. Olivia, Jack and Amanda sat to either side of her, Tom at the far end of the table. Two dirty plates sat in front of two now-empty chairs.
Tom leaned back in his chair, gave his belly a tender pat.
“Oh, Mother, Mother, Mother. I am absolutely stuffed.”
“No room for cobbler, then?” she asked, teasingly.
“Oh boy,” he grumbled, thumped his belly. “Five minutes. That’ll give time for dinner to settle.”
“Dad! That’s disgusting,” said Amanda.
Tom grabbed at his belly with both hands and gave it a good shake. “There we go. Fill in those empty spaces. Still plenty of room in there.”
“Ah, geez,” Amanda groaned.
“Tom!” cried Olivia.
Jack laughed cheerily with his dad.
Tom belched. “Oh! Excuse me!”
Jack laughed again.
The front door opened and Mike and Bill came back into the house.
“You’ve done a wonder with the place, Jen,” said Bill.
“Get back over here and sit down, you two,” said Jenny. “Time for dessert.”
“Cobbler!” Tom cried out over his shoulder. “Finest in the western hemisphere.”
“Never one to pass on cobbler,” said Mike, and the two of them settled into the empty chairs.
“This has gotta be just about the best Christmas ever,” said Bill.
Jenny leaned back to better take in the scene of her family around the dining table.
“It most certainly is.”
§
A nice evening out; dusk, not yet dark. Tom and Olivia came out onto the porch, stood at the top step. They were dressed warm.
Laughter spilled out from inside the house. Jenny, Mike and Bill could be seen through the window, seated around the dining table.
“I don’t imagine they’ll be getting much sleep tonight,” said Tom. “Me, I am dog tired.”
“They have a lot of years to catch up on,” said Olivia.
“A lifetime.”
There was another round of laughter from inside. Despite that, a hint of sadness shadowed Olivia’s face.
“Alone… all those years,” she said quietly.
“Yeah. Once the Old Man passed on.”
“And a way out, if he’d only known it was there.”
A Christmas present, thought Tom. Every year, just waiting to be unwrapped.
It began to snow. It fell lightly at first, then the flakes grew larger, more numerous. The string of Christmas lights running along the rain gutter turned on, sending red and green and blue light out across the yard.
“A white Christmas after all,” said Tom. He lifted an arm and Olivia slipped under it. They snuggled up close and watched the snowfall. The Christmas card setting was interrupted finally by the sound of an approaching vehicle. The Madsen vehicle came up into the yard and pulled up in front of the house.
Daniel and his parents climbed out of the car.
“Daniel, my boy,” said Tom.
“Hey, Mr. Harper.”
“Merry Christmas,” said Olivia.
“Merry Christmas, you two,” said Emma.
Tom took the steps down to the yard. “And a fine one it is, Emma, Carl.”
Olivia followed him down from the porch and they all hugged and exchanged greetings all over again. Daniel’s parents were happy and cheery. All the past worries and concerns had clearly washed away.
Tom started back up the steps, motioned the others to follow.
“Glad you could join us, Carl,” he said. “Say… do you like cobbler? Of course you do. Silly question.”
§
Jack came into Amanda’s room, hopped onto her bed and slid back against the headboard. Amanda was sitting at her desk, the curtains of the window pulled aside. Outside, snow was falling.
Jack frowned at his smart phone, tossed it on the bed beside him.
Amanda glanced in his direction, smirked. “Why do you keep bothering with that?”
“No reason. It’s just my only connection to the real world, is all.”
“Real world?”
“Yeah. Real world.”
“How can the real world possibly compete with what we’ve been through?”
“Can’t,” he said matter-of-factly. “Doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Doesn’t mean we don’t have to go back to it. It’s where we live.”
“Well, that’s depressing.”
Daniel came in through the open door. “Not necessarily,” he said. He sat on the edge of the bed.
“Hey, dude,” said Jack.
“Waddya mean, not necessarily?” asked Amanda.
“Yeah,” said Jack. “I gotta agree with Amanda on this one. Gonna be tough competing with the Christmas Cave.”
“I’ve been doing a little research.” There was the hint of conspiracy in Daniel’s voice. He pointed to Jack’s phone. “Now me, I have a PC with a wired Internet connection.”
“Ah… the web,” Jack sighed. “Nice place, I hear.”
Amanda pointedly ignored her brother. “Research?” she prompted.
“The Old Man. Bill’s Old Man.”
“How?” asked Jack.
“I looked up some of the words that Bill said the Old Man used. He was Norwegian.”
“Yeah?”
“What does that give us?” asked Amanda.
“So then I looked up earthquakes in Norway over the last few weeks.” He grinned then. “I think I found it. A few miles east of a town called Hamar.”
“Okay, Daniel.” Amanda was just a little bit impressed. “I’ll bite. What are we going to do with that?”
“I’m going to go there.”
“You’re going to go there…”
Jack slid forward, gave a slow, knowing nod. “You’re going to look for the portal the Old Man went through to reach the cave. You’re going back.”
“Our tunnels are done for,” said Daniel. “There’s no way we’ll ever reach our own portal again. But the other, the Norwegian portal, might still be accessible. Each year at Christmas. ”
“For nine days.”
“How do you know it still exists?” asked Amanda. “We didn’t see it in the cave.”
“We never looked for it. We know it existed once. The Old Man is proof of that.”
“And the earthquakes in Norway,” Jack said, nodding.
“I think it was open. This week.”
“You’re going back in,” said Jack. “That’s cool.”
“Yeah.”
“And just how do you plan on getting to Norway to search for the way back in?” asked Amanda.
“Obviously I’m not going now,” said Daniel. “I am twelve, after all. I doubt I’d make it home before dark. But I can plan for it now. And in six years, I’m taking a trip for Christmas.”
“To Norway…”
“They got reindeer there, ya’ know,” Daniel grinned.
“I like it,” said Jack. “Yes, I do. Very much. You mind a little company?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Daniel and Jack both turned expectantly to Amanda.
Amanda frowned, sighed. “Reindeer, huh?” She hesitated, then grumbled through a soft smile. “I’m glad you’re better.”
And Daniel was feeling better. Off his meds, and so far, so good. Everyone was hopeful; for Daniel and for Jenny.
Olivia called out from the living room. “Jack! Amanda! Come on out here!”
Out in the living room, the Christmas tree was glowing bright with lights, everyone was gathered ‘round it. Amanda went over to her mom, who reached out and pulled her in close.
Jack watched from the hall as they all started to sing Silent Night. His grandma Jenny pulled Bill near her on one side, and Mike in close on the other.
Daniel went to his parents and Emma wrapped an arm around him. Carl rested a hand on his shoulder.
Daniel turned and looked back at Jack. They smiled at one another.
They had plans for the future.
Norway.
And reindeer.
End
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