by Matt Haig
omething was wrong.
Father Christmas could sense that, even before he saw the bed.
Then he did see the bed.
And he gasped.
Amelia had grown.
Father Christmas knew that she was ten years old and he knew that there was a big difference between eight years old and ten but she was now the size of the entire bed. And she had a belly as large as Father Christmas’s. And she was snoring like a pig with a cold.
He looked around.
The place looked the same as it had two years ago.
There were bare damp walls with paint peeling off them. There was water dripping in from the ceiling, because of the leaky roof. And where was the cat? There was no sign or trace or smell of the black cat that had been sleeping on her bed the last time he’d been here.
And there was a bottle by Amelia’s bed.
A whisky bottle.
Did ten year old girls drink whisky these days?
Then he saw something out of the window. A small shadow falling fast – in real time – and reaching the ground with a smash!
Father Christmas saw, from the glow of the moon, the remnants of the smashed roof tile on the ground. The couple he had seen earlier were nowhere to be seen. Snow was falling.
A floorboard creaked.
Then Amelia sat up in bed and she had a beard as bushy as Father Christmas’s and as big, bristly and black as Father Vodol’s. She looked about forty-nine.
‘You’re not Amelia.’
‘What are you doing in my room?!’ roared the man, who had a rough voice and looked (and smelled) like a pirate. The man picked up the empty whisky bottle and threw it at Father Christmas’s head. Father Christmas ducked and the bottle smashed against the wall.
‘Oh dear,’ said Father Christmas. And then he reached in his sack for something the man might like. He pulled out an eye patch. ‘You might like this,’ Father Christmas told him. ‘As it makes you look even more like a pirate.’
The man did not like this. ‘I don’t look anything like a pirate. But you do. You look like a big red pirate.’
So Father Christmas found a batch of chocolate money in his sack.
‘I’m Father Christmas. I’m not a thief or anything. Please take these.’
‘Coins?’ said the man.
‘Made out of chocolate,’ said Father Christmas. ‘The very best elf-made chocolate.’
‘Made out of chocolate? What a good idea!’ said the man. He bit into one.
‘You have to unwrap them,’ Father Christmas explained.
‘Oh yes. I see that.’
‘I’m sorry I gave you a shock. Listen, are you Amelia’s father?’
‘Who’s Amelia?’
‘She lives here. I thought she lived here.’
The man had a think.
‘Well, I’ve been here a year now. But the neighbours say the lady who was here before died . . . She had a girl, but I never knew what happened to her.’
Father Christmas gasped. He had a sinking feeling as he remembered Amelia’s letter. The one she had sent before the Christmas that never happened.
‘Right,’ said Father Christmas. ‘I see. Well. Thank you. And now I’ll be on my way.’
And the man was surprised to see that, instead of heading out the door, Father Christmas headed towards the fireplace.
‘How are you going to fit in there?’
‘Magic,’ said Father Christmas. ‘Merry Christmas.’
And Father Christmas disappeared up the chimney that was clearly too small for a grown man to fit inside.
But then, near the top of the chimney, Father Christmas did get a bit stuck. His head was peeping out of the top. He felt like he was trapped tight in a giant’s fist.
‘Well, this is a bit embarrassing,’ he said, as all the reindeer on the roof stared at him. Comet was laughing, fast little air clouds coming out of his nostrils.
‘Comet, this really isn’t funny.’
Blitzen carefully bowed his head for Father Christmas to grab hold of his antlers. He held tight as Blitzen walked slowly backwards.
Pop!
Father Christmas flew out of the chimney like a cork from a bottle. Luckily though, his grip on the antlers was so tight that he didn’t fly too far. In fact, he just did one big somersault and landed on the reindeer’s back.
‘Thank you, Blitzen,’ he said, giving Comet a bit of a glare. ‘A good friend as always.’
Then he slid off Blitzen’s back and walked delicately along the roof to the sleigh.
Father Christmas Makes a Decision
ow.
It was quite complicated.
The way the magic worked.
The Northern Lights, stopping time, flying through the air and everything.
It was dependent on many, many things. Maybe even many, many, many things.
To explain it in all its detail would take a lot of books. It would take seven thousand, four hundred and sixty-two books. And I would love to write them all but my fingers would drop off and I would get too hungry.
And anyway if you explain magic in too much detail it flies away. You know, like when you see a pretty butterfly and you want to get a better look so you go over to the butterfly and then the butterfly flies off and you can’t see it at all.
(And if you didn’t think that last sentence made sense, I should tell you that it absolutely did and you should read it again.)
But there are some things I can tell you. For one thing: Father Christmas was confused.
He knew there was something going on in Elfhelm. Something Father Topo wasn’t telling him.
What he did know was that Amelia Wishart was missing. And Amelia Wishart was important. She was the first child. She was the one who had hoped the most that first ever Christmas. Hope was important. Hope was the main ingredient, as we have mentioned. But hope itself is another kind of complicated magic. Amelia was the one who had put enough magic in the air simply by believing in it. And this was before any child in the world had known about Father Christmas. She had believed. Not in him. But in possibility. In the kind of possibility that could mean something like delivering toys to every child on earth could actually happen.
‘Right,’ Father Christmas explained to the reindeer, on that roof. ‘Look, I think we can save Christmas. But we need to find this girl. She will be somewhere in London. So . . . I am going to find her.’
Walking Among Humans
ather Christmas knew that reindeer on a roof could look a bit suspicious, especially with time moving at normal speed, so he took them on a very wonky flight to some snow-covered strawberry fields in a village called Hackney on the outskirts of town.
‘Now, you deers, keep out of mischief! I won’t be long. I can’t be.’
So, Father Christmas walked into London. It was a rather strange experience. For one thing, it was so dull and dark.
Also nobody else was wearing a bright red suit, complete with bright red hat. The only hats around were black, except for some of the white bonnets worn by women coming out of carol services. Everyone dressed very drably. He took the bright red hat off and put it in his pocket.
There were no reindeer or sleighs either. And nothing smelled of gingerbread. Just smoke and dirt and horse poo.
‘A world without magic,’ he said to himself, ‘can be a sad place.’
The other strange thing was that time kept on stopping and starting again. It was like the world was one big breaking machine that kept juddering off and on. Obviously, he wanted the world to stay still and out of time because then it would give him more chance to find Amelia and be able to deliver all the toys. He passed a church clock near Haberdashery Road which said it was now half past midnight. That was the hour of Very Very Late in elf time.
There weren’t that many people about now. There was an old woman sitting on a bench. She had no teeth and milky eyes and was wearing a shawl. She was in the middle of feeding some pigeons. The pigeons stopped moving in mid-air. The
n started. Then stopped.
Father Christmas went and sat down next to her while she was frozen in time, and when she came back to life she leant in with her onion breath and said, ‘’Ello, ’andsome!’
And he said hello and asked her about Amelia, but she had never heard of her and when she asked the pigeons they hadn’t either.
It was a dark night and there was a thick London fog too. So even when time was moving, things sort of appeared and disappeared. Men wobbling their way home from the pub singing Christmas songs. A rat catcher with his pockets full of rats. As Father Christmas walked on he saw a Christmas market. All the wheeled stalls were empty, except one. A chestnut seller. Father Christmas went over to her.
‘Chestnuts?’ the chestnut seller asked. She had a narrow face and a colourful knitted shawl. She scratched the shawl that covered her head. ‘As much as you want for three farthings?’
Father Christmas gave her three chocolate coins. She stared at the coins.
‘Chocolate,’ he explained.
She opened it. And ate the chocolate. She closed her eyes and didn’t speak for a little while because she was enjoying the chocolate so much.
‘Oh, that is very nice chocolate.’
‘I know. And it is also money.’
She laughed suspiciously. ‘Where?’
‘In the north.’
She thought. ‘Manchester?’
‘No. Further . . . Never mind. Listen, I don’t mind about the chestnuts. I’m looking for a girl. Her name is Amelia Wishart. She’s a . . . er . . . family friend and she’s gone missing. She has a black cat.’
‘Well, she could be on the streets. If she’s lucky.’
‘Lucky? To live on the streets?’
Father Christmas remembered the three months when his Aunt Carlotta had made him sleep outside as a boy. And then how he had struggled to keep warm and fall asleep on his quest to the Far North. Those nights outside still gave him nightmares to this day.
‘Or she might be dead of course? ’Ow old is she?’
‘Ten.’
‘Well, ten is a good age. Quite old round ’ere. She might have died of natural causes.’
‘At ten?!’
‘Dead’s not the worst thing that can ’appen to a child round ’ere.’
Father Christmas really was confused now. And more than a little worried. ‘Really? What’s worse than death?’
Her face went paler than it already was (it was already pretty pale). Her nose twitched as if waiting for a sneeze that was never going to happen. And then her eyes became wide and full of horror.
‘The workhouse,’ she said.
Father Christmas frowned. ‘What’s a workhouse?’
‘A terrible place. Terrible. Terrible.’ She kept on saying ‘terrible’ for a while. ‘They take the poor. I used to be there. They pretend they are doing you good. But they aren’t. They aren’t. They aren’t . . . Managed to earn my way out. Took me years. Some aren’t so lucky.’
‘Which workhouse would she be in?’
‘There’s lots. Old Kent Road Workhouse. Gracechurch. Bread Street. Smith’s Workhouse. Creeper’s Workhouse. Allhallows Workhouse. Dowgate. Saint Mary-le-Bow. Jones’s Workhouse . . .’ She gave a list of so many names Father Christmas didn’t know where to start. ‘But just hope she’s in none of ’em.’
‘All right,’ said Father Christmas. ‘I’ll hope.’
Then a memory passed across the woman’s face, like sun across a street.
‘You say she had a black cat, Mister?’
‘Yes. With a white tip at the end of its tail.’
The chestnut seller clapped her hands together. ‘Wait a minute. Yes. There was a girl with a cat, now you come to mention it. A year to the day! She wanted to stay at my house. I felt so guilty saying no. But you see I ’ave a problem with cats and my house . . . well, you couldn’t fit anything in there. Even a pixie would struggle.’
‘I doubt that,’ said Father Christmas. ‘But do you know where she went?’
‘She was worried about being sent to a workhouse.’
‘Oh no.’
‘So I sent ’er off to find Saint Paul’s cathedral. To ’ead to old Mrs Broadheart. Used to know ’er meself when I was in trouble as a young ’un. My name’s Betty by the way. Betty Smith.’
She seemed to be waiting for Father Christmas to say his name but he didn’t. ‘And remind me. My magic isn’t . . . I mean, my memory isn’t what it was . . . Which way to Saint Paul’s?’
And at that point she froze.
As still as anything. Just like the smoke from the cooking chestnuts. ‘Thank you,’ Father Christmas said, knowing she couldn’t hear him, but he headed quickly off in the direction of her unmoving pointed finger, trying to get there before time started again.
The Cat
utside the cathedral, he looked around for a sign of old Mrs Broadheart. There were quite a few old ladies now time had started moving again. In fact, they were the only people around. Apart from pigeons.
There was an old hunchbacked lady sitting on a bench.
‘Are you Mrs Broadheart?’
She looked at Father Christmas with big, confused eyes. ‘No. I’m a pigeon.’
‘I’m pretty sure you’re a human.’
And then the woman laughed so hard she fell off the bench and a pigeon flew down and landed on her face.
Then another old woman came over. Her face was wrinkled as a walnut. ‘Ignore Janey. She’s been drinking sherry. Well, it is Christmas.’
‘Are you Mrs Broadheart?’
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Mrs Broadheart’s in prison. Her and her gang of girl thieves got caught stealing Christmas puddings.’
Father Christmas nodded. A small worry entered his brain. But then he hurried it away. Amelia was no thief. ‘I’m looking for a girl called Amelia. Amelia Wishart.’
‘Doesn’t ring a bell.’
And just as she said ‘bell’ the church bells began ringing and the old woman on the ground started laughing as the pigeon flew off her face.
Father Christmas went and sat down on another wooden bench, closer to the river. The river was now, and the ripples, outside of time, were waiting for hovering snowflakes to land and disappear.
The girl went missing over a year ago so she really could be anywhere. A year ago! Maybe that was how hope was lost! Maybe that was how the troll attack was able to happen! And why the Northern Lights hadn’t shone . . .
He closed his eyes and tried to think. His senses weren’t working. He opened his eyes and thought how beautiful the river looked.
He remembered something Father Topo had once told him.
Magic can be found everywhere, if you know how to look for it.
‘Magic is here,’ Father Christmas told himself.
And where there was magic, there was hope. He stared at the ripples in the river, moving again, like wrinkles on old skin, and he made a wish that someone would guide him to Amelia and then, right at that moment, above the wind, there was a sound.
The sound was: miaow.
A cat! Right beside him on the bench. A black cat. The very blackest cat he had ever seen. A cat that seemed to have been made from the night itself.
Except for a tiny bit of white fur on the end of its tail.
‘Wait a minute,’ Father Christmas said. He had seen him two Christmases ago, when he had been delivering presents. ‘I know you.’
But time was moving and so was the cat.
Captain Soot was off, tail to the sky, trotting away from the river, and away from Saint Paul’s.
Father Christmas followed.
48 Doughty Street
he black cat eventually stopped outside a rather smart door of a rather smart house on a rather grand street. The street was quiet except for a man and a woman. The man was wearing a top hat and had a twirly snow-specked moustache and the woman wore a long, shiny dress that almost touched the ground and was designed to look like her bottom stuck out a mile behind her.
Or maybe her bottom did stick out a mile behind her. This was a very different part of London to Haberdashery Road. Everything looked expensive and calm, as if calm was something you needed money to pay for. The houses were tall and wide, and were set back a little bit away from the street, with doors that had to be reached by steps as if the house had fallen out with the pavement and had asked to have nothing more to do with it. The couple giggled at what Father Christmas was wearing. They had clearly drunk too much sherry at whichever Christmas party they had been to.
‘He looks like that jolly red man who gave all those presents two years ago,’ the woman said. ‘Lionel, what was his name? Lord Christmas? Mr Pudding? Uncle Chimney? Father Jellybelly?’
The man guffawed. A guffaw was a special kind of laugh that was very popular among very posh people in Victorian London. It sounded a little bit like an ordinary human laugh had been mixed up with a horse’s neigh. ‘Oh, Petronella, you are such a wheeze.’
Father Christmas liked to see people laughing. Even if they were laughing at him. ‘Merry Christmas,’ he said. And the couple both laughed a ‘Merry Christmas’ back, but time was slowing again so it was really more of a ‘Me-r-r-y-C-h-r–i–s–t—m—a—s’.
Meanwhile, the cat was on the step doing a very, very slow miaow, asking to be let in. The cat stared up at the smart black door and its Christmas wreath as Father Christmas took note of the address. 48 Doughty Street. He saw the house had three floors, and through the large window on the middle floor there was a man up late writing at a desk. The man noticed Father Christmas and the cat and then very, very slowly he disappeared from his desk. Father Christmas noticed the snow quicken up to normal speed and, sure enough, a moment later the man opened the door.
‘Come in, Captain Soot,’ he said to the cat and opened the door wide. The cat disappeared inside.
The man was quite short, for a human, but still at least double the size of an elf. He had a very small black beard on his chin and was dressed in a purple waistcoat and striped trousers. He was holding a pen. In a dark and gloomy city he was quite colourful. Like flower blossom in a puddle. He stared at Father Christmas with sharp eyes as Captain Soot rubbed his head against his leg.