Santa Claws

by Gabriela Harding

  “But it’s probably…” Teddy made a gagging sound and spat a mouthful of chewed up food, while Fridrik busied himself at the stove.

  “Reindeer?” his sister grinned. “Cute little Bambi?”

  “Shut up!”

  When the cups of steaming tea were before them, Fridrik took out a folded piece of paper from his pocket. Slowly, carefully, he drew a perfect circle, then held out the paper in the pale glow of the light bulb.

  Honey swallowed. She’d tried drawing a perfect circle so many times. Mum tried to teach her. She could draw perfect circles, too. “Mum can do that,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”

  “She’s very clever,” beamed Teddy.

  “My friend,” the shadow of a smile flickered on Fridrik’s lips, as he folded the piece of paper into a plane, “adults sometimes go through serious difficulties. Sometimes it may seem like a good idea to have a child, especially when you fall in love. But, more and more people live to see their children jobless and hungry, or they simply find that it was a bad choice to have them in the first place. Children cost, and parents find it hard to support them. Which is why they sell them to us.” He gave a small, meaningful cough. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. You will be much happier here than in rain-soaked London. The back of beyond, if you ask me. A terrible place to grow up in, but you can’t change that now. You can’t change your past, but we’ll help you change your future.”

  “I’m not happy!” Tears welled up in Teddy’s eyes. “You make me work, I don’t have my toys and…and London is not the back of beyond. If you’re tired of London, then you’re tired of life,” he cited one of Dad’s favourite quotes.

  Fridrik’s laugh exploded in the room like thunder. The piece of paper was now a boat on the table between them. He brushed a strand of hair aside. His stubble was the colour of gold. “If you say so.”

  “Where are you from, anyway?” asked Honey.

  “I’m an Eskimo.”

  “You don’t look like one.”

  “You look normal,” Teddy said earnestly.

  “Careful, my friend. Normal is relative. Is it normal to wake up and have pancakes for breakfast? No, it is not. It’s a luxury. A luxury you no longer have.”

  “We get that,” Honey mumbled.

  “I’m an Eskimo at heart. I’ve lived everywhere in the world. I always come back here. This land is under a spell, as they say. If it’s your birth place, you are bound to return. If your roots are here, you will be drawn to it like a puppet on a string. But if you’re here on an expedition, the only way you can leave is dead.”

  “What is this place?”

  “Ellesmere Island. Not the only colony. There are camps on Svalbard and Faroe Islands, too.”

  “What? Children live there, too?”

  “Since Axius Claus came to power, schools are being opened everywhere in and around Greenland. He wants to build an empire. A place where Christmas has a different…flavour. He won’t stop until the popularity of his brother is destroyed. He calls himself Claws to distinguish from Claus. A single letter only, but a letter that makes all the difference, just like those few seconds between him and his brother at birth changed his destiny.”

  “Few seconds? What do you mean?” Teddy asked.

  “The real Santa Claus died three hundred years ago. His successors, those who inherited the family business, have always been the first male born. But in the case of the last Claus brothers, it was difficult, because they were twins. Identical twins. Oskar Claus is just seconds older than Axe.”

  The photographs where the two brothers fought each other with spears. The meeting room. Honey nodded in sudden understanding.

  “Axe?”

  “Short for Axius. That’s how Oskar inherited the right of the first born.”

  “So there is a sleigh? And…and reindeers?”

  “I’m afraid not. The sleigh and reindeers are never used. They’re kept only for photo shoots. A sledge is always set alight at the Reindeer Barbecue New Year Party. At midnight. Reindeers are roasted whole in the flames.”

  “So how does Santa deliver presents?”

  “The presents are all ordered online, and sent via a very modern delivery system using invisible drones. Funds? Publicity and copyright money, obviously. Every time a tiny picture of a red-clad old man atop a sledge appears in a book, a percent goes to the Claus family.”

  “Amazing.” Everything made sense. Dad leaving them home alone, so they could be kidnapped; Grandma, who never heard a thing – although she might have been in a brandy-induced coma – the intruder who took them away; and now, the fact that the two Santas were the great-great-great-great-great descendants of the real Santa Claus made it all sound plausible. There was only one question.

  “Where is Santa now?” Cold fear dropped to the pit of her stomach as she thought of the meeting Teddy told her about – the meeting that would decide the execution method.

  Would Santa – Oskar – be boiled alive in a barrel?

  Would he be ripped in four by the reindeers?

  Would a burning tyre be put around his neck?

  “Don’t even ask. He’s in such an unpleasant place that I couldn’t possibly describe it. Now, let’s get you back to work. Those toys don’t make themselves.”

  The two siblings looked at each other. Close to her skin, Honey held the stripy notebook that contained Mum’s unpublished manuscript. The answer to all their questions was held between those dog-eared, stripy covers.

  She just knew it.

  27. Mousetrap

  The sky was a violent mauve, like a magician’s cloak. The magician had made the sun disappear, and now only the faintest glow flickered on the horizon. Everywhere you looked the snow was gleaming in deep shades of blue, turquoise and aquamarine. The guards flanked the row of children. They seemed to have lost some of their zest, and their ‘Watsinaks’ didn’t sound convincing anymore.

  “I can’t believe he didn’t kill us,” said Teddy, struggling to keep up the pace. He paused to catch his breath.

  “Me, neither,” admitted Honey. “We have Fridrik to thank.”

  “I am aching all over,” Teddy complained. “I don’t like that boring machine.”

  “Neither do I,” said Honey. “I wonder what machine we’ll be working on tomorrow.”

  “I hope it’s not the pressure one,” whispered Teddy. “Nico’s hand is in the plastic. That’s why she was thrown to the sharks. They’re making doll hands with real hands!”

  “What we saw in the aquarium was her other arm,” said Honey, shivering. “What was left of her, I mean.”

  “Honey, what do you think happens when you die?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing happens. You just…die.”

  “How about your soul?”

  “Your soul dies, too.”

  She sighed. Dying would be the end of all suffering, but it would be the end of the good things, too: Chess Cottage, family dinners, picnics under the maple tree in the park, a good book, fresh sheets, these were things she missed. She had never given them a thought, until now. Why were memories more charming than real things? Even Mum’s face appeared more and more perfect each time in her dreams, with all the fine wrinkles and tiny scars smoothed out. It was faded and see-through, like a dissipating cloud, worn out from the many times Honey had thought of it.

  Suddenly Honey remembered a proverb. “Memory is the only power man has over death. I’ve read this in a book.”

  “When you die, you turn into a fairy,” declared Clementine, just as they were entering their cold dormitory. “You grow wings and stuff.”

  “That’s not true.” Fern huffed, climbing skilfully up the rope. “What nonsense. When you die you turn into worms. Fat, juicy worms!”

  “Not here, you don’t. It’s too cold,” said Erasmu
s, taking off his boots.

  “Hey, don’t stink up the place!” Rong pinched her nose. “It reeks in here as it is.”

  “Shut up, Frankenstein.”

  “Who do you think you are, Inuit?”

  “You turn into Jesus,” Jerry explained. “Everyone turns into Jesus when they die.”

  “My granddad didn’t turn into anything. He just died, and Mum put him in a bowl on the mantelpiece and one day it smashed. Granddad scattered all over the living room, and Dad swept him up,” said Zachary.

  The children sniggered. They were making each other as comfortable as they could in their beds, curling for warmth on the bare wooden boards.

  Just as they were drifting off to sleep, a rude, loud curse made Honey blush to the whites of her eyes.

  “What the…”

  The curse repeated itself, again and again, like a broken disk.

  “The swearing doll. Who the hell has it?” came Johann’s voice.

  “Who would want to sleep with a swearing doll?” Rong said.

  “I just wanted some company. And she’s beautiful.”

  Erasmus peeked into Clementine’s bunk bed, which was just next to his. The doll was a grotesque sight. Part of her scalp was missing, and the mechanism inside her head gleamed in the semidarkness. “Right. Apart from having razors for teeth and smashed up skulls, they are gorgeous.”

  Honey had an idea. “Clem, give me the doll. I’ve just thought of a genius mousetrap.” Down below, mice scurried everywhere like a spilled jar of marbles.

  When Clementine threw the doll at Honey, she checked the batteries were in place. “Teddy, do you still have the walrus scratching?”

  Teddy dipped in his pocket and removed a dusty bag. “Don’t use them all,” he said cautiously.

  “I just need one.”

  Honey touched the bit of dried fat to the doll’s lips, and the mouth opened just enough to close over the food. Using a pencil, Honey pushed the walrus scratching further into the doll’s mouth, behind the rows of sharp teeth. A crackling sound came from deep inside the doll.

  “All done.” Honey made a noose from the rope and tied it around the doll’s head. She lowered the doll to the ground.

  “Great idea, but how is that going to keep the mice away from us?”

  Honey grinned. “It’s called group mentality. Once one of them sees what happens to their mate, they’ll back up. It’s enough for one to…”

  Just before she said the word ‘die’, Honey stopped. When did she become so ruthless? She seemed a world away from the girl who gagged at the sight of raw chicken, the girl who stopped to remove innocent snails from the path of cars.

  Honey felt a frisson of fear when she realised she was turning into the exact thing the owner of Ellesmere Island predicted.

  Into the exact thing he was.

  A ruthless killer.

  28. Nearly Hanged

  “Teddy,” Honey whispered. The bunk was not big enough for two but at least they would keep warm. “I think I know what’s going on. I found Mum’s book down there.”

  “What book?”

  “The book she was writing. Someone stole it. It was in the bedroom.” She pulled out the notebook. “Everything – all this – is what she wrote.”

  Honey gave him a meaningful look. Teddy stared in disbelief. “Don’t you remember? The Academy of Fake Eskimos? That’s what Claws said when he caught us. Also, Mum was researching medieval instruments of torture for her book.”

  Teddy’s mouth flew open. “Now I remember.”

  “And then, the drawings of the garotte vil, the burning tyre, the Ling Chi…those were pictures in Mum’s Medieval Torture Encyclopaedia. And the brothers – she asked us how about if Santa Claus had an evil twin, who gives kids horrible toys and barbecues children and reindeers.”

  “We said it would be exciting.”

  “A story can be exciting, but this isn’t a story. This is our life. Someone’s playing with our minds.”

  “Hang on a minute. If that’s true, then we can find out what happens next.”

  “Bingo.” Smiling nervously, Honey opened the book.

  “What’s all that noise?” Fern cried. “I’m trying to sleep! I had a full day’s work in the factory, not like others who were sticking their noses where they shouldn’t!”

  “At least some of us are trying to find a way out of here!” Honey shot back. The knife in her hand was so sharp it pricked her fingers. Suddenly her blood ran cold as she realised the meaning of her words.

  “She has a knife,” said Teddy, “but she’s not going to use it. It’s for self-protection.”

  Fern retreated into the shadows of her bed.

  Honey smoothed out the ink-covered pages. “There must be some way we can stop Santa’s execution – I mean, Santa Claus’. I mean Oskar.”

  “What are you two whispering about?” barked Clementine, but the children ignored her.

  Holding the book to the weak strip of light, Teddy read: The ceilings were large, dusty planks of wood. The hatches hung down in perfect circles.

  Honey looked at the ceiling, where the iron rings and the contours of the trapdoors were just visible in the gloom.

  Trapdoors.

  Only one was the real trapdoor, a passage to where Santa Claus had been kept prisoner for three hundred and eighty five days.

  “One of the doors opens”, Honey said. “Which one is it? What does it say?”

  Teddy turned a page. “Nothing. That’s it.”

  Honey flipped the pages feverishly. They were full of circles of all sizes, looking like speech bubbles for invisible characters.

  “Mum never got to finish it.”

  “If we could get up there…”

  “We are closer to the ceiling than we would be if we slept in normal beds,” Honey pointed out. “I could probably grab one of those rings easily.”

  “We could move around on the hatches, trying them. If there’s a loose one, it will give way.”

  “You’re nuts,” Fern said. “I’m going to sleep.”

  “I’m in.” Johann flexed his muscles. “It’ll keep me warm. And I’ll grow muscles.”

  Honey looked down at the floor, ignoring the wave of nausea that brought the contents of her stomach to her throat. How high was her bed? Six feet? Seven?

  “This would be more like an acrobatic exercise.” She took a deep breath, thinking of the golden swing at the Circus of Ice, and the girl who performed on it, so high up she was just a glint of sequins on the dark conical ceiling. “We don’t have a choice. The execution is tomorrow.”

  “We can tie the ropes around our waists,” Teddy suggested, “so we can be a little bit safe.”

  Honey smiled. ‘A little bit safe’ were just the right words to describe the lack of safety the ropes would ensure, even if tied around their bodies. If they were to fall from such an extraordinary height, the children would probably break every bone in their bodies.

  “I wish Sir was here,” said Johann. “He would know what to do. I haven’t seen him in the factory all day, either.”

  “Maybe he was garrotted.” Teddy winked at his sister.

  Honey winked back. And then she sighed.

  If it wasn’t so tragic, she would laugh out loud at the irony of it all. For as long as she could remember, she’d always complained life was boring. She’d wanted adventure and adrenaline. And now that adrenaline coursed through her body 24/7, the only thing she wished for was to eat Dad’s fishcakes and play a game of chess. She even missed the smell of Dad’s pickles. It wouldn’t make her feel faint now – it would make her happy.

  Had he really sold them? Santa Claws had mentioned ‘all the cash’. How much were they worth? She had no idea that children could be sold on the black market
, not in a country like England, anyway.

  Honey gave a loud, fake cough. “Attention, everyone!” The beds creaked in response. “It’s a little hard to explain how we know this, but a man is trapped inside this room right now. He will be executed tomorrow, on the garotte vil. We must save him. His name is Oskar Claus, and he is…well, Santa.”

  “There is no Santa,” said Fern with a yawn.

  “Not the original one, but a relative of his, anyway. You see, it all started last year, when our mother…”

  Telling her companions their sad story was like lifting a weight off her chest, and by the time she had shared all the information that had been simmering inside of her for so long, not only were the children’s eyes no longer clouded by sleep, but any sign of tiredness had disappeared from their bodies.

  “That’s what happened to me, too,” admitted Rong, tapping a fingernail nervously. “I went to bed one night and then…and then I was here.”

  “Me too. So we were all kidnapped by the bad Santa, but there is a real one? A good one? Not a wizard? A…a man?” Jerry said hopefully.

  “He will be hanged,” Teddy answered. Silence fell over the shadowy room as the children digested this news.

  “He’s been imprisoned in the loft of our dormitory,” Honey explained, “probably gagged so he can’t shout out for help. We need to get up there and loosen the trapdoors in the ceiling.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Erasmus narrowed his eyes at them. “We have to be up in three hours to cook for the Reindeer Barbecue. What are you trying to do, get us all garrotted?”

  Honey flinched. It was the first time Erasmus had turned on her. Had she gone too far? “Think about it. We can’t spend all our lives in this place.”

  “I can think for myself. I don’t need you telling me what do. I’m almost a man.”

  Rong frowned. “She’s got a point, you know. You can’t just sell children; it’s a crime. We should at least try to get out of here. Or would you rather wait to be executed like a stupid lamb?”

  “In the Middle Ages, everyone watched executions,” said Jerry. “Even children. People were killed in public squares. They played football with their severed heads.”