Welcome back everyone, and welcome to the sequel of In the Silence of the Night, which I strongly recommend you read before reading this, or else you're probably going to be rather confused. Enjoy.
Prologue: Threats, Fear, and Wasted Years
The clock sounded eight o'clock on Christmas Eve night, and Bernard sat at his desk doing something he had not done in many a year. A hammer, a wrench, several screwdrivers and an odd assortment of bolts, washers, screws, and scraps of metal lay scattered across his desk as he tinkered. He had little else to do, and his mind was in a race against panic and frustration as he waited out his house arrest.
The screwdriver twisted in his fingers. Latches clicked, screws turned, and his mind ran in circles. He had no project in mind, no end to his means but to give his nervous hands something to do. He knew at the start that leaving a sentient rubber Santa in charge while the real one went away was a terrible idea, but the day anyone started listening to him was the day he would look to the sky for the flying pigs and other signs of the End of Days. In any case, the factory had fallen to the army of toy soldiers, and here he was, stuck in his room under house arrest, without a clue what to do about. So he continued to think and to tinker.
A sharp rapping sounded on his narrow window.
"Curtis!"
His second in command hovered in front of the window, an E.L.F.S. hoverpack strapped to his back. Bernard opened the window, but it was far too narrow to permit him to enter, or Bernard to exit for that matter.
"Why don't you just zap your way out of there?"
"If the Toy Santa comes up here and finds me gone, he might do something terrible to the elves. You go. I'll stay and protect them as much as I can."
"What are you gonna do if he does?"
"I'll think of something. Now go."
As Curtis buzzed away on the hoverpack, Bernard closed the window and picked up his tools again. Truthfully, he had no idea what he would do if the toy soldiers attacked the elves. He hoped, if the situation arose, something would come to him. As his fingers continued to twist screws and flip switched, his mind strayed far away into another time. The Pole was in danger then too, and just as now, he could do very little to prevent catastrophe, beyond sit back and let others solve his problems for him.
He threw his tools back onto his desk. As the screwdriver rolled amongst the washers and bolts and other mechanical debris, he wondered if he could just take apart the toy soldiers by hand. He growled at his own foolishness, knowing full well that the toy soldiers now numbered in at least the dozens, and his door was locked.
He sighed. Nuts, bolts, screws, and screwdrivers littered his desk. Sitting in one corner, isolated from the mess, was a snow globe. He had given one quite similar to it to Charlie Calvin, the son of their current Santa, whose shenanigans had contributed to the situation in which the elves were currently embroiled. This one had an ornate silver base, the bottom of which was inlaid with purple and scarlet gems. He had long ago given this one to someone else, someone he had not seen in over a century but had thought about still more often than he would care to admit.
He picked up the snow globe and turned it over. Watching the flakes swirl in the water, he willed her face to appear. Doubtless she would know what to do about the Toy Santa and his army of toy soldiers. She would have shouted them into submission or joined up with Quinton and skulked through secret corridors on some crazy scheme while simultaneously fixing everything with Charlie and finding the perfect woman to become Mrs. Claus and saving Christmas in the the nick of time.
But she was gone.
The glittering flakes swirled in the watery interior of the globe. If Bernard closed his eyes and thought hard, he could still see her face inside his mind. Another time, a mere shake of this globe would have brought him to her, but no more. He stared deeper still into the shimmering vortex. In the low light, the specks of snow blurred. He imagined he could see silver leaves fluttering in a breeze he could not feel or stars twinkling in a far away sky.
He sighed and returned the globe to its home in the corner of his desk, knowing that, for now, his place was here and that once again, the rescue of the Pole would fall to others more capable of the task than himself. He picked up his tools again.
A few hundred miles away, a small town lay still under a blanket of snow. Cloud cover blocked the light from the stars and hung heavy with more snow. The street lights had gone out, and all but a few determined night owls had gone to bed. Silence crept through the village like fog.
A shape unfurled in the night, unseen against the snow, unheard by the villagers in their slumber. It slunk from house to house, bypassing fences and mailboxes until it came to a cul-de-sac where one house stood isolated from the others.
Bricks and mortar meant nothing. It was in the house. It ignored the unlit Christmas tree. It ignored the furniture, the food, the valuables, the parents dozing in the large bedroom at the back of the house. It found the nursery. It smiled.
In the morning, the parents awoke to find their child cold and unmoving, his breath stolen while he slept. The villagers gossiped their sympathies at the sudden death, a terrible tragedy on its own, but on Christmas Eve of all nights.
The poor child must have died in his sleep, they whispered.
They were wrong.
A/N: Well, I'm back. My break lasted longer than I originally planned, but I'm back, and the entire story is outlined and ready to be written. I even know how it's going to end this time, unlike the last one, which I was still planning at the absolute last moment.
Story Title: "No Light, No Light" - Florence and the Machine
Chapter Title: "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are" - Meatloaf
I'll try to post Chapter One tomorrow if I'm not totally swamped with cooking.
Have a good holiday everyone, and Merry Christmas!