I'm just going to stop giving myself deadlines, okay?


Chapter 1: Visions Softly Creeping

To say that Bernard was distracted would be an understatement of extraordinary proportions. The whirring of power tools, the hammering of nails, the chattering of elves, and the rest of the collective din of the workshop washed over him as his mind drifted elsewhere. Ordinarily he was no daydreamer, but he had woken that morning with a dull pain behind his eyes and no recollection of the dreams that had kept him tossing and turning all night.

His mind continued to wander about as he trudged through the gilded halls of the North Pole. He was due in a matter of minutes at their Quarterly Meeting to discuss the elves' progress, new output from Research and Development, and any other important goings on at the Pole, but his body fervently wished it was back in his bed, and his mind was anywhere but where it belonged. So firmly trapped in Dreamland was he, that he barely registered the pattering of feet as someone approached him.

"Bernard!"

He focused back on the present as Audrey, a little elf girl in the List Department, skipped up to him. She wore a cream-colored knitted dress splotched at the wrist with ink stains and an anxious expression on her heart-shaped face.

"Bernard! Wait up a minute. I need to talk to you."

"Later, Audrey," he droned.

"But it's really important!"

"Not now!"

The area around them went quiet as the cruel tone of his words hung in their air. Bernard stopped in his tracks and turned around. Audrey looked as though he had slapped her.

"I'm sorry. What is it?"

Relief and uncertainty mingled on her face as she began to explain.

Bernard barely heard a word.

Her words hung around him but never registered, like the hum of a vacuum cleaner. He tried to listen, to understand who was so important to her, but her speech faded away into the busy cacophony of the factory floor. Across the factory, outside in the village, alone under a pine stood a figure cloaked in the bloodest of reds. A hood lined in dark fur completely obscured the figure's face. It appeared to be looking around, unmoving, not interacting, just surveying the landscape with ambivalent curiosity.

"-and I can't find any explanation for it."

Bernard looked back at Audrey.

"I know, this isn't our jurisdiction, but if we don't look into it, who will?"

Bernard found himself at a loss. The figure in red had so completely captured his attention that he hadn't the slightest idea what she was talking about. He looked outside once more. The figure was gone.

"Well?" asked Audrey, rocking on her heels. "What do you think?"

He stared at her expectant face and watched it fall as she realized he hadn't been listening.

"I'm sorry, Audrey. What were you-?"

A great chime echoed through the factory and rattled his already aching head.

"Any chance that clock is fast?"

"I don't think so," said Audrey, pushing her glasses back onto her nose.

"Dangit. I'm late. Go find Curtis and ask him. If we need to look into it, he'll tell me."

He tried very hard to ignore the stricken and disappointed look on Audrey's face as he sprinted away and put thoughts of the mysterious cloaked figure out of his mind.

Minutes later, he sat in the ornate office and tried to follow the meeting's agenda. Bernard once again allowed his attention to wander and his boss's voice to fade into an auditory blur as he looked out the window. He saw the ordinary hustle and bustle of life at the Pole. The Polar Bear Orson directed traffic at the corner, his father Sigmund having finally retired. A group of young reindeer trainees practiced flight maneuvers, a group of elves on a break engaged in an epic snow battle, and so forth. Bernard's attention was drawn a few dozen feet away from the snowfight.

Alone by the reindeer paddock, hidden from the view of the people below, stood the figure in the red cloak, the fur-lined hood once again drawn over its eyes and obscuring its face. It appeared to be watching the progressing snowfight. Bernard stared at the figure for several seconds and tried to work out who it might be. He thought wildly for a moment that the figure appeared to be getting closer and closer to the factory every time he saw it. Yet no one outside paid it any attention, nor did they seem to sense its presence at all.

A sharp bang brought Bernard back into the room. Santa had clapped his hands loudly in front of Bernard's face in a desperate bid to regain his attention.

"What's going on out there?" he asked, looking out the window in an attempt to discover what was so interesting that it had pulled his Head Elf's focus away from an important meeting.

It occurred to Bernard to say something, to tell his boss about the mysterious figure in red. He looked back out on the grounds of the Pole. By then the snowball fight had a clear victor, the reindeer were munching hay from their troughs, and the figure in red was gone. Perhaps it had never been there.

"Nothing, sir," he said and forced a smile. "Nothing at all."

Bernard forced himself to focus through the rest of the meeting. Then they dismissed for lunch. Bernard found he couldn't stomach any food and instead spent the entire time wishing he was back in his rooms sleeping a dreamless sleep and not wondering about strange hooded figures lurking about his workplace.

Later that day, he accompanied Santa and his wife Carol on a walk over the grounds, whereupon they examined the trainee reindeer's formation progress and socialized with the elves hovering about the grounds. A young elf named Leroy was attempting to tempt Santa with a game of tinsel football when Bernard scanned the grounds again. The grounds themselves appeared fine and busy as ever with activity. Then he looked up toward the buildings, and that's where he saw it. Standing alone on the bridge was the figure in the red cloak. This time, despite the hood still drawn over its face, the figure appeared to be staring at him. Bernard started walking toward it. Logically he knew he would never catch the person, that he would flee before Bernard could ever hope to reach him, but he was struck by a sudden instinctive need to capture this mysterious figure before it could vanish once again. He didn't get very far when he was once again drawn back to the present, this time by the sharp but gentle voice of Santa's wife.

"Bernard, what is it? What's wrong?"

Bernard stopped and turned around. Leroy was staring at him as though he might at any moment catch fire. Bernard stared back, suddenly self-conscious and certainly unwilling to come clean about what he'd seen with the younger elf standing there.

"Leroy," began Santa, sensing Bernard's misgivings. "Why don't you run along. We can talk defensive strategies later."

Once Leroy had run off looking confused, Santa swooped in toward Bernard, suddenly realizing something was indeed amiss with his Head Elf.

"Bernard, what's going on? You've been acting weird all day."

"Nothing's wrong, Sir. I just-"

Bernard trailed off as his boss and his boss's former-school principal wife both gave him hard, stern stares that told him quite clearly he wasn't getting off the hook that easily. He sighed.

"I didn't sleep well last night. And now I think I might be seeing things."

"What kinds of things?" asked Carol.

"I keep seeing a figure in red hanging around the Pole."

Carol and Scott exchanged confused glances.

"Uh, Bernard, do you think it could maybe, possibly be me you're seeing?" said Santa, gesturing widely at his bright red coat. Bernard felt very silly for a moment but shook his head.

"No, he was wearing more like a cloak and a darker red, with brown fur on the hood, not white. And you've been standing right next to me twice that I've seen it. I think it's following me. The last time I saw it, I'm-I'm pretty sure it was staring at me."

Santa looked wildly around in search of the mysterious figure. Mrs. Claus stepped forward and placed her hands on either side of Bernard's face. Sensing his immediate discomfort at being touched in such a motherly fashion, she slid her hands down to his shoulders and looked into his eyes.

"Bernard, are you feeling all right?"

"I feel fine," he said, knowing it was a lie. The pain was still behind his eyes, and he felt exhausted. Worse still, as the lie escaped his lips, Carol frowned at him, and he could see in the back of his mind another disapproving face that had once belonged to someone who could catch his dishonesty and force the truth out of him with a word and a look. Bernard closed his eyes and tried to shake the face from his memory. It had been a long time, but not long enough, since those memories had resurfaced.

Santa, having satisfied himself that the mysterious cloaked figure wasn't going to leap out of the shadows and devour their souls, turned back toward them.

"Are you sure? Because if I didn't know you better, I'd say you look hungover."

Bernard tried to glare at his boss but only succeeded in looking tired and frustrated.

"Maybe you should take the rest of the day off."

Bernard's eyes widened in horror. "No, sir, really I'm fine. There's no need for me to-"

"Bernard, I'm not asking you to walk off a cliff onto sharp rocks. C'mon, when's the last time you took a day off, much less half of one?"

"141 years, eight months, and 10 days," was what Bernard wanted to say, but instead he settled on a look that was somewhere between a plea for mercy and a sulk.

"He's right. You've been overworked for too long, and you look exhausted. Things are quiet here, and the workshop will keep a while without you. Go up and rest a bit."

Carol's earnest expression was difficult to deny, but Bernard shook his head.

"There's so much to do, and it's really not necessary," he insisted. Then he saw their faces once again adopt that stern expression of two people who had teamed up against him and would no longer take no for an answer.

As he trudged up the golden staircase toward his bedroom, his limbs seemed to grow heavy, and the climb seemed longer than it had since he was small, so very long ago. Not once did he dare move his eyes from directly in front of him for fear he would see that apparition again. He knew they were right to insist he have a rest, but at the same time, he felt hesitant to return to his room. The clamor of the workshop, no matter how loud it remained nor how steadily it washed over him, was a comfort, reminding him of his job, his purpose, and that he was never truly alone as long as he continued to toil at his work. Yet in the silence of his room he had privacy and, under ordinary circumstances, peaceful solitude.

Eager all of a sudden to be away from the noise and inane chatter, he leaped the last few steps and strode toward his bedroom. He opened the door and walked in, and his heart leaped into his throat. Beside the window, looking out onto the grounds, stood the figure cloak in red. Its hood, all scarlet wool and lined with brown fox fur, was still drawn up and obscured the intruder's face.

"Who are you?" Bernard heard himself ask.

The intruder turned his head slightly, indicating that he had heard the question, but did not immediately respond. If Bernard didn't know any better, he might have said the cloaked figure seemed uncertain.

"Who are you?" demanded Bernard. "What are you doing here?"

At last, the figure reached up and lowered its hood, revealing a sheet of fair brown hair. The figure turned, and Bernard gasped.

"Hello, Bernard."

The voice shook like leaves trembling in the wind. As the hybrid of European timbre echoed in his ears and in his mind, the pounding in his heart turned to thunder.

"You haven't aged a day."

Lydia Hightower took a step toward Bernard. He saw her reach a hand out toward him, but the image began to blur. His vision went black, and he knew nothing else.


A/N: I feel compelled to give my usual "Please review" speech, but please, please, please don't kill me.

Chapter Title: "Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel.