Chapter Fifteen: Into the Woods

Sasha's POV

The next few weeks went by in a blur. Between trying to gather clues to pin down the mystery of my family's disappearance and teaching Scott about the history of everything he will encounter in his position, the days passed before I knew it. The only way I could tell time had passed was through my notes. Every time I had gone to see Joy after I visited her with Bernard, I took notes on everything witnessed, which wasn't much more. The council redacted most of the information the History of the Pole contained about my family, including information about me and Allie while we were in the human world, which means I would have to do this the old fashioned way or at least as old fashioned as I could without alerting the Council. And if I have to remain inconspicuous, I have to do this by what I can find here. There have to be other books they haven't touched and grimoires they haven't found.

"Alright, let's go over this again." I said to myself as I flipped through my notes trying to make sense of everything as I transferred them over on to a tape recorder "My father is the grandson of the Boogeyman, who was kept alive to eventually take on the mantle and was sent to the human world to learn about the humans with the thought that he was turned human, but he wasn't. He found out that he was still mythical after he became Santa because his appearance only changed into the mythical being Christmas Eve, the rest of the time he looked his age, whereas human Santas always look like Santa. The mythical being takes over the human completely when they take the mantle. After centuries of being Santa, he disappears at the same time the Boogeyman is banished from the human world and imprisoned underground and is replaced with a human Santa. Coincidence? I think not, but it still does not answer what happened." I switched over to the next section of my notes to my ones on Heidi, "She fell in love with Jack, who was chosen to be a Herald, and then she disappeared. She reappeared recently with the help of Aiden and Isla, neither of which are talking about it other than to say that it somehow involved Krampus, which isn't too hard to figure out. Jack was chosen to be the Winter Herald, but wanted to be human and leave with Heidi. Krampus made Heidi disappear and she was saved by Aiden and Isla. But why would Krampus give a shit? He wouldn't, unless there was something in it for him. So what did he have to gain? Why would the Council want all of this buried? Is it the entire Council?" I turned off the recorder and filed away the tape.

Every answer merely led to more questions.

"Time to find a grimoire." I decided, before heading back to the library.

When I went into the library, I found Scott, "You burning the midnight oil too?" I sat down next to him, and looked at the book he was reading, "Where'd you find that?"

"It was in one of the chests." He replied, "Couldn't sleep, so I looked for a book to read."

"And you chose a spell book?" I asked, nodding to the grimoire.

"There's one child who would benefit more from magic for Christmas than a toy." Scott responded.

"You know, you might be able to grant that wish with a little help." I told him, "We'll started teaching you magic after Christmas. I think as long as Allie can go back to school when break is over, I don't think she'd mind the gift being slightly delayed until January."

"Would anyone we able to do it sooner?"

"I'll have to look into that." I responded, "While I do, why don't you check on Charlie and see what he's up to with Quinton?"

Scott nodded and handed me the grimoire, "Let me know what you can find before Christmas."

"I will."

After he left, I opened the grimoire. With a new deadline in mind, family mysteries would have to wait until another day. I'd start research on it again when everything settled down. This took precedence.

As I flipped through the pages to transformation, something caught my eye, "Okay either we do this or bother Mother Nature." I thought about it for a moment, "Let's do this." The only problem now was how. I didn't have the ability to do this at the moment, but with some practice, I could. Little potion practice and a lot of practice with magic and I'd be ready. With that in mind, I stood with the grimoire in hand and headed out of the library. The plan was to go outside so I could practice and see if I could get at least some semblance of my powers back. Knowing I'd come across less people this time of day, I decided to cut through the stables.

While I was passing through the stables, I heard whimpering coming from one of the extra stalls. I looked over the door of the stall, no one was there.

"That's odd…" I commented. The hay then started to move.

As I started to open the door to the stall, I heard one of the stable elves' say, "I wouldn't do that if I were you. We put that mutt in there for a reason."

Ignoring him, I opened the door and shut it behind me. Knowing it was just a dog, most likely one of the puppies considered for a Christmas, I had no worries about anything happening to me. I knelt down in front of the pile of hay, "Whatcha doin' in there? Trying to dig your way out? You want to come out with me?"

Slowly the puppy started to make its way out of the hay. I held out my hand for the little black husky puppy to sniff.

"I won't hurt you, it's okay." I assured the husky, it then sniffed my fingers and brushed its head against my hand. "Good dog." I scratched its ears, "Let's go outside." I picked the dog and opened the gate.

"He's not supposed to come out of there." The stable elf tried to stop me.

"You know who I am?" I asked him.

"Should I?" He replied snarkily.

I looked him up and down, he was probably about 600 years old. "The next time you see your department head, who I'm guessing had you put this dog in the stable, that Sasha has decided to take him off your hands." I walked outside with the dog.

When we reached the edge of the village limits, I set the pup down and knelt to his level, "If you come with me, you have to stay with me. You can't go ahead of me, can you do that?" I held out my hand, which he set his paw into. "Good, let's go." I stood and we headed towards the woods side by side.