Page 1 of Scary & Bright

PROLOGUE

A plump man with a thick white beard crossed off another day on the calendar hanging on the wall, which connected the kitchen to the dining room. The jolly-looking fellow was wearing a white undershirt and slouchy red corduroy pants, which were held up by thick black suspenders.

“December fifth, already!” he said with a heavy sigh, his voice ripe with worry. “I swear, Carol, every year it sneaks up on me.”

“Which it really shouldn’t at this point, dear,” a woman with curly white hair, a red housedress, and a starched white apron responded, an obvious scoff in her voice. She used her shoulder to push her thin wire glasses up the bridge of her nose, avoiding touching anything with her flour-covered hands. “Honestly, you’ve been at this for how long? Your entire life revolves around this one month out of the year, and still, it sneaks up on you. I truly do not understand how that can be.”

The man yanked a chair out from under the dining table—a great oak statement piece carved down the legs with snowflake patterns—and carefully sat down, careful of his weight.

“I guess it doesn’t sneak up on me…” he corrected himself, taking a loud sip from his coffee mug. “I just hate having to think about it. Doesn’t feel very good or very jolly.”

Hearing her husband’s voice drop, Carol rinsed off her dusty hands, dried them quickly on the front of her apron, waltzed over to where he sat at the table, and hugged him from behind.

“I don’t blame you one bit for not looking forward to this part,” she said apologetically, planting a red-lipsticked kiss on her husband’s temple. “Santa Claus is supposed to symbolize all things good, joyous, and warm. The business you have to oversee at the South Pole is quite the opposite, Nikolaus.” She licked her thumb and tried to rub off the red residue on her husband’s head, but it was only partially willing to be removed at best. She stood back up and gave his shoulders a loving squeeze before returning to her project in the kitchen.

“Don’t I know it. I know you know it, too, using my real name and all.” Santa chuckled, his mood immediately lifted the moment his wife touched him. Though they had been married much longer than most couples even get the good fortune of being alive, not a day had gone by when they didn’t reassure one another that their love was still burning bright, even in the dim sunlight of the North Pole. “But Santa’s magic relies on Nikolaus overseeing the South Pole, so I’ll continue to do it, even if it pains me.”

“You’re a good man, Santa.” Carol smiled over her shoulder. She moved on from dusting her counter with flour and kneading her dough to rolling it out in a thin sheet. “The best, actually, if I have anything to say about it.”

Santa finished the last of his mug with a slurp and wiped his fluffy mustache on a napkin. Dutifully, he brought his dishes to the kitchen sink beside his wife’s workspace.

“If I’ve got the time,” Santa started, gesturing to her dough on the counter, “I’d like to head out to the workshop and get a head start on things.”

“You’ve got time.” Carol nodded. “Actually! Aw, nutcrackers!” She wiped her hands on her apron, dashed to the oven, and turned a knob on the back. “I’ve forgotten to preheat the oven, so you’ve definitely got time.”

Santa laughed, his belly jiggling with happiness. Even when she was angry, he still thought his wife to be the cutest person on the planet.

“What’s for dinner?” Santa asked as he plucked his winter coat off the hook by the back door and threw it over himself.

“Well, with any luck, we’ll be having a rabbit, mushroom, and parsnip pot pie, but don’t get your hopes up.” Carol wandered over to her husband and puckered her lips, asking for a kiss, which he happily obliged. “There’s still plenty of time for me to ruin the meal.”

“Everything you’ve ever made has been absolutely gourmet,” Santa assured her, rubbing his ample belly over his winter coat before pulling open the creaky back door of their cozy log cabin. “I’ll be back soon, dear. Love you.”

“Stay warm! Love you, too!” she called to him just as he pulled the door shut behind him.

After a short, dark, and cold trudge through the snow, Santa arrived at the Workshop and found it busy, as always. He hung his coat on the communal rack by the door and swapped out his wet boots for a pair of house shoes he kept for Workshop use only, offering a smile and a wave to any elf who tossed him a friendly greeting. As tempting as it was to stay and visit, he truly did want to get the South Pole situation taken care of. It was like ripping off a Band-Aid. The sooner he got it done, the sooner he’d be able to stop thinking about it.

So, with reluctant single-minded urgency, he made his way to the most exciting part of the Workshop. The top floor. Centered on the rear wall of the Workshop was a glass elevator to take folks up to what was playfully referred to as “the Penthouse.” Despite the multi-layered moniker, it was truly where the magic happened and where Santa was headed on that particular fifth of December.

He pressed the circular button painted in the style of a peppermint to call the elevator to the first floor and whistled absently as he waited, rocking back and forth on his heels. Within a few moments, the glass doors slid open, and Santa Claus was on his way up.

The doors opened with a melodic ding, and Santa stepped out of the transparent elevator into possibly the one place every child on planet Earth wished they could see just once in their lifetime—the place where Santa and his elves built, acquired, tested, maintained, and researched what had been their expertise since the first time Nikolaus had donned the red suit and become Santa Claus.

Toy-making.

The top floor was, entirely unsurprisingly, bustling. There were elves with clipboards, elves carrying lumber across the loft, and elves sitting and assembling electronics with quick, deft hands. Santa’s presence was largely ignored, as everyone was more dedicated to their work than their boss’s comings and goings, but he returned a few smiles and waves. Massive windows with stained glass borders of mistletoe and beribboned bells brought washes of beautiful sunlight into the Penthouse during the daylight months, but in the dark months, the window merely opened out into a pure blackness that was impossible to penetrate. To compensate for the darkness, chandeliers had been hung overhead, igniting the floor with a comfortable amber glow.

Santa plodded across the hardwood floor as the smell of soldering irons and sawdust filled his nose. The Penthouse smelled like work, but it wasn’t work that brought him to this place so close to dinner.

In the front of the Penthouse, on the wall opposite the elevator, was Santa’s desk—the closest thing to an office he had in the entirety of the Workshop compound. The man liked to keep an open-door policy and had ended up making his workspace entirely too literal of the sentiment. His desk sat against the artfully windowed wall, looking out into the Penthouse, without a single proper wall surrounding it. It sat on a modest platform, only two steps off the floor, and made a perfect L-shape. On one length of the desk was his mess of pens and letters to Santa he hadn’t quite read yet. His inbox was constantly overflowing, and the man did his best to keep up, but it was truly a never-ending task. On the other length of this desk sat several decorative knick-knacks: snow globes from all the places he and the Mrs. had traveled for their annual post-Christmas vacations, little trinkets younger elves had made him through the years, and a golden bell on a wooden handle used for calling attention to himself. Right in the center of all his memorabilia was a glass case locked with a tiny silver padlock, holding the crown jewel of all the work he had put in over the hundreds of years he had been in his position—the List.

Santa’s List, the one holding all the names of all Christmas-celebrating individuals across the globe, was written in a thick leather-bound book with gold leaf along the edges of the pages. Names were listed alphabetically, with the Nice names in the front half of the tome and the Naughty names in the back. This was his prize for the evening, and he fished out a tiny silver key from his keyring before slumping heavily down in his armchair behind the desk.

“Spirit?” he asked as he hoisted the heavy book from its sacred position and dropped it in his lap, but not a soul heard or responded to the man in red as he licked the ball of his thumb and began to flip through the pages.

“Spirit!” Santa’s voice grew to an irritated holler as he raised his voice.

After a few moments, as if it were blown out from a magician’s hat, a shimmer of blue and silver glitter spun into the air from out of nowhere. Santa cleared his throat in the direction of the commotion, and in an instant, the glitter manifested itself into the shape of a person. The ghostly image of a gaunt man appeared. He was the blue of a sky on a summer afternoon or the crystal aqua of the most luxurious, remote beaches and dressed in an old-fashioned nightgown with some odd accessories. His look was topped off with a snow hat that ended in a long point, which draped down his back, snow boots, and fluffy knitted mittens. The apparition floated weightlessly in front of Santa’s desk, looking both annoyed and expectant.

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