A/N: I feel as though, when my life began, somebody decided to put my life on the Hard Mode setting. I would like to find that person and sock them in the face.
I know you guys are probably sick of hearing my sob stories, but shortly after my last chapter posted, I lost both my job and my apartment. So landing on my feet has consumed most of my time recently. The one silver lining as far as you guys are concerned is that while I was throwing all my stuff into boxes, the only way I could de-stress was to take many, many steaming hot bubble baths. And while I was soaking, I was writing. So, who knows? That might have resulted in this chapter getting out faster. Or slower. Any way, I've got a new job, and hopefully I will have a new apartment soon.
I would very much like to have the next chapter out by Christmas. I'll be in the process of moving my stuff out of storage and into a new place, but my Christmas shopping is done, so I'm hoping I can get it done. If you guys want to see it happen, feel free to bug me and make sure I'm staying on track. In any case, please enjoy the new chapter.
Chapter 4: What a Tale My Thoughts Could Tell
Lydia finished her tale then lapsed into placid silence. Quinton seemed simultaneously intrigued at her story and satisfied by her explanation as to how she had gone from her deathbed to standing before them. They both looked to Bernard for any reaction but found his face bore no expression in the slightest. After a solid minute of stubborn silence, he pinched the bridge of his nose.
"So you're an elf now?"
"Yes," said Lydia as she brushed a strand of hair behind her pointed ears. "Yes, I am."
Bernard's wry smile did not reach his eyes.
"Excuse me."
Bernard calmly traipsed over to his closet, opened the door, walked inside, and shut the door behind him. A cacophony of muffled yelling and clothing and hangers rustling violently erupted from within the closet. Quinton and Lydia could only look at each other in horror and alarm.
"Oh dear," said Lydia over the din. "He's not taking this very well, is he?"
"I'm sure he'll relax as he gets used to the idea."
A minute passed before the commotion subsided, and Bernard emerged from the closet, looking somewhat disheveled but otherwise calm.
"Thank you," he said, adjusting his beret so it sat less crookedly on his head. "Now what?"
"I must speak with your master."
"Our master? You mean Santa?"
"I want to explain to him properly what's going on before my companions arrive."
A wide grin spread across Quinton's face.
"Wood elves! We're going to meet wood elves, Bernard."
"Wonderful. Alright, come on then."
Bernard led them out of his room and into the hall adjacent to the factory floor. Quinton suggested using the tunnels to avoid attention, but Bernard scowled at his closet door as though it had insulted him then stomped out the bedroom door.
Halfway through their journey, Quinton stop short then muttered,
"Just a moment." Then he dashed off down a hallway. He came running back a few minutes later with a bundle of papers wrapped in twine. He stuffed the bundle into the satchel that hang ubiquitously from Bernard's shoulder.
"What are you doing?" protested Bernard.
"I have to put them somewhere, and I didn't get a bag."
Bernard rolled his eyes and shuffled his companions along with an annoyed growl.
"Other elves, Bernard," said Quinton, practically bouncing beside him. "There are other types of elves, and they're here and they want to meet us. Think of what we could learn from them about magic, about them, about ourselves. You heard Lydia. There were more of us at one time. This might be the most exciting thing that has ever happened here. Why aren't you more thrilled?"
Bernard turned and stared at him stone-faced, not losing a step in his quick stride.
"I'm keeping my excitement on the inside. "
They walked abreast through the vast halls of the factory. Bernard's eyes stayed locked determinedly ahead of him. Lydia, on the other hand, craned her head this way and that and absorbed every minute detail she could with as much marvel and wonder as though she had never set foot there before. And she hadn't, had she? The Pole of her youth was a dark and twisted shadow of the magical wonderland it ought to have been. Now the place was awash with light and alive with movement and happy chatter. All around her little elves looked up from their work to gaze upon her and hid their whispers behind their hands.
"I don't suppose my return would stay quiet for long," she half-heartedly lamented. A tiny girl elf skipped up to her and handed her a lovely red poinsettia and curtseyed. Lydia smiled at her as she skipped away. Bernard glowered.
"Come on," he said and pushed through the growing crowd. They soon came to their destination. Bernard bounded up a short staircase and stood before an elaborate set of stained glass doors framed in gold. He raised his hand to knock when he realized Lydia was still standing at the base of the stairs, a look of uncertainty etched across her face.
"Well? Are we going in or not?"
"Yes, of course."
Bernard banged on the door.
"Come in!"
Bernard pushed the door in by its handle and ushered his companions into the room.
The office had changed considerably since Lydia had last seen it. The furniture had been polished and cleaned regularly, and light from the wide window gleamed off it in dazzling gold. An ornate desk sat across from the door. A woman in a burgundy stood behind it, leaning over the chair. Lydia did not recognize her. Sitting in the chair poring over several sheets of paper was a white-bearded man, clothed in red and white. Lydia felt her heart begin to pound inside her chest. The man looked up from his paperwork as they entered the room.
"Hey, Quinton, how's it going?" he began amiably, but when he laid eyes on Bernard, he threw his pen down on the desk. "Bernard when I told you to get some rest, I kind of meant more than fifteen seconds. Now am I going to have to tie you down, and-who's this?"
"Santa, this is Lydia," said Quinton.
"Lydia?" Santa lowered his voice and utterly failed to conceal his bewilderment. "Do we have a Lydia?"
It was then that Quinton realized that Lydia had not come toward the desk and was still standing only a few feet away from the door. She stared wide-eyed at the desk and the bearded man sitting at it. She had gone very pale and was stock still where she stood. Quinton put a hand on her elbow and gently pulled her forward.
"Since she arrived this morning."
The man at the desk frowned at her, taking in the sight of her, and eyeing the scarlet cloak draped across her shoulder. A look of dawning recognition spread across his face.
"The creeper in the red cloak. She exists."
"And she is a she," added the woman next to him.
Lydia blinked as though woken from a trance. She turned to Bernard and Quinton.
"Creeper?"
"You were kind of stalking me," said Bernard.
"I was trying to be discreet."
"You're right, making me think I was losing my mind is so much better."
"I said I was sorry."
"Anyway," interjected the man at the desk.
"Sorry," muttered Bernard.
"My apologies," said Lydia. "I am here on a very important errand, and it is imperative that I speak with you immediately."
That was as far as Lydia got before the door opened.
"Santa, I have those results you wanted," Curtis began as he walked into the room. He looked up from his notes and saw the other occupants of the room. "Oh hi, Quinton. Bernard. I heard you were..."
He trailed off as he finally laid eyes on Lydia. Recognition fell upon both of them at the same time. Curtis's eyes went wide, and Lydia's brow furrowed as the memories of her few interactions with Curtis came flooding back to her.
"You!" she exclaimed.
All the color drained from Curtis's face. His mouth gaped open, and at first he tried and failed to take in the slightest gulp of air. Then -
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Lydia, Bernard, and Quinton all started back at Curtis's scream as Curtis himself dove behind Santa's chair. Lydia looked quizzically at Quinton.
"I seem to be having that effect quite a bit lately."
Curtis's head popped up from behind Santa's desk. His face was still a shade of ash, but high circles of pink had developed in his plump cheeks. He pointed straight at Lydia.
"She's a zombie!"
"She is not a zombie," said Quinton. "Nor is she a ghost, nor is she going to devour your soul. Though she may slap you one again if you keep screaming in her face."
"To be fair, I thought she was a ghost," said Bernard.
"Well now that we've all established what she's not, why don't we try establishing who she is?" said the woman behind the desk.
"Thank you, Madam," said Lydia. "Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?"
"You mean you don't recognize me?" asked Mrs. Claus confused. She gestured toward her husband. "Do you recognize him?"
"Yes," said Lydia, careful to keep her voice level. "I know who he is. But I do not know you."
"I'm Mrs. Claus. You can call me Carol if you like."
"I'm sorry," interjected the man behind the desk. "What is going on? Who is she and how did she get here?"
"Sir, my name is Lydia Hightower, and I have come to you from the forests of Elbereth on an errand of great importance.
"She's an elf, sir," said Quinton. "A wood elf. Well, she is now. She didn't use to be. She was human. But then she died, and it's a long story really."
"A wood elf? What's a wood elf?"
"I would think an elf that lies in the woods," said Carol.
"I gathered that," said her husband indignantly. "I meant, since when are there other elves than the ones we have here?"
"According to Lydia, they've always been around in another world besides this one."
Santa blinked at him.
"Is this some kind of joke?"
"She's not an elf!" said Curtis. "She's a human, and the last time she was here, she caused a bunch of trouble."
"Trouble?" said Lydia.
"And I suppose humans have started having 150 year lifespans, have they?" snapped Quinton at Curtis. Having suitably chastised the younger elf, he addressed his boss.
"Sir, we can explain. You see, it all started approximately one hundred and fifty years ago, when Lydia found herself here by accident, as it were."
He looked to Lydia, hoping she would pick up the story from there, perhaps explain her own version of the events leading up to her unexpected arrival, but she did not look at him, nor did she speak at all. She was staring wide-eyed once again at the man at the desk, her grey eyes like steel. She looked like a deer staring at a wolf, waiting for the precise moment her instincts told her to spring into movement. Or perhaps, Quinton thought, the reverse, the man as the prey and her as the predator. Either way, Quinton knew he would have to fill in the gaps himself.
"She...er...hid in the sleigh – she had her reasons – one Christmas Eve night – obviously – and she was injured and unwell so we let her stay here for awhile, while she recovered. But we had to hide her, because if Santa – rather your predecessor, Sir – knew she was there, he would have been very angry. She and Bernard became good friends, and well..."
Once again, Quinton looked away, now to Bernard, hoping he would pick up the story threads, but the Head Elf had his arms crossed and stared stubbornly at the floor. Quinton found himself struggling with a desire to whack his supposed best friend upside the head for leaving him high and dry. Lydia was one thing. Clearly her return had affected her in a deep psychological way, the details of which he would attempt to glean later, but Bernard was simply being ridiculous. The long-suffering scientist took a breath and tried again.
"After she went home, they stayed in touch, and we needed some help ridding ourselves of..."
Calling the man Santa had put a bad taste in his mouth that he was reluctant to experience again, and he hadn't so much as thought of the man's given name in well over a century.
"...your rather awful predecessor, because, well, it's a long story really, but one thing led to another, and the whole nasty business came to a head on Christmas Eve. Lydia was, er, well, she died, and that awful man was disposed of, and I suppose that's when the wood elves came to fetch her and take her home with them, and Lydia's uncle took over her, and a century and a half later, here we are."
Not half bad a job, Quinton thought, considering his so-called friends left him to tell the entire story on his own. A little abridged, perhaps, but serviceable.
Santa and Mrs. Claus merely stared at him, slightly wide-eyed. Out of the corner of his eye, Quinton saw Bernard bury his face in his hand.
"I'm sorry," said Carol after a long stretch of silence. "Did you say, 'disposed of?'"
"Yes, ma'am."
"You mean killed?" asked Santa.
"Well, I...er...I suppose so, sir."
"This girl shows up and a year later, Santa's dead?"
"It wasn't like that, sir. I – I can explain - "
"She snuck in, sir!"
"She did no such thing," insisted Quinton. "Will one of you say something, for goodness sake!"
Bernard continued his attempt to turn staring at the floor into an Olympic event. Lydia opened her mouth as though to speak, but no words came out.
"Everything was fine until she showed up," insisted Curtis.
"Fine?!" said Quinton, his voice rising in both pitch and volume. "You call what that terrible man was doing fine?"
"Quinton, what are you talking about?" asked their boss.
"He was awful, sir. We had to be rid of him."
"By killing him?!"
"We didn't – I mean that wasn't our intent. We meant only to force him out."
"So you staged a coup?" asked Carol.
"She started it!" said Curtis.
"It's not as though I was some sort of agitator," said Lydia at last. "We had good cause."
"To kill Santa?"
"You murdered him," gasped Curtis. "You two always refused to tell me what happened that night, but I never imagined - "
"We did not murder him! Honestly Curtis, you cannot possibly believe that we - "
"He murdered me."
A hush fell across the room. Nearly every eye was on her. Lydia's heart started to knock against her sternum again.
"I don't know what happened after that," she said quietly.
Now Lydia looked to Bernard for answers, but still he remained stubbornly silent.
"Your uncle shot him," Quinton supplied to her quietly. "I seem to be making rather a hash of this story. Perhaps I have made a very Watsonian error of telling a story the wrong way round."
"Who?" asked Lydia.
Quinton realized suddenly that his boss wasn't the only one who would need to be brought up to date on certain historical events. One crisis at a time, he thought.
"Sir, allow me start over. To begin with, one of your predecessors was a very evil man. He was horrible and cruel, and his was filled with avarice and hate."
Curtis scoffed again.
"He was not that bad."
Lydia leveled her eyes at Curtis. Her normally soft-grey stare had turned to steel. Curtis took a step back.
"'Not that bad?' How could you not see? How could you not see what he was doing to him? You think he deserved it? Any of it?"
Lydia breathed hard in her fury. A sharp pain shot through her temple, and she clutched her head. She looked up as the pain subsided into a dull throb and found every eye in the room on her.
"I – I am - excuse me," she muttered. She stumbled toward the door, groped for the handle and disappeared. Bernard watched her go, his brow furrowed, but made no move to follow her.
"See?" said Curtis, after releasing the breath he had been holding. "Clearly something's wrong with her."
He put his index finger beside his head and twirled it about to say "She's crazy." Quinton's glared at him and ground his teeth.
"I can prove it, sir."
Quinton reached toward Bernard's chair and, ignoring the annoyed look the Head Elf shot him, began to rifle through the messenger bag slung over the back. He produced the bundle of papers he had previously retrieved from his lab.
"These should explain the gravity of the circumstances we faced, sir."
"Whoa this guy had terrible handwriting. Here, you were a high school principal. You should be able to decipher these."
"Wow. And they say penmanship is dying now."
Nevertheless, she squinted at the page and gave the first letter a scan.
"Who's Simon Carruthers?"
"The man in question, Madam."
"Curtis has a point, Quinton. I have a hard time believing that Santa could be evil."
"Think about how you got the job, sir."
"The last Santa fell off my roof."
"Yes, and what if he had fallen off the roof of a truly terrible person? A man with love for nothing other than his own gain and enjoyed causing others pain?"
"Oh please! Okay, maybe he wasn't the nicest Santa we ever had, but they were breaking rules constantly. Bernard kept sneaking off to hang out with his girlfriend when he was supposed to be working. One time, he disappeared for a whole month, and me and the rest of us had to pick up the slack."
"They were in hiding, you idiot!"
Curtis scoffed. "'Hiding.' They wouldn't need to be hiding if-"
"He wasn't going to ground them, Curtis! He wanted to kill them."
"Oh please."
"You can't really be this naïve. I begged you, begged you, not to taker her away from me. We were both screaming at you to help us. I could forgive Theodore, because he was terrified, but you, you just don't get it. Do you know what he was going to do to her? He tried to force himself on her. In a "grown up" way. Then he murdered her. By hurling her off her own roof."
"Well that explains the 'Nam flashback," said Santa. "Did you see her face when she saw me? It's like she thought I was going to eat her."
"Oh my goodness," gasped Carol. "Quinton, is this what I think it is?"
"I'm afraid so."
"What?" asked Santa. "What's in there?"
"He writes about them like they're cattle."
She handed the stack of papers to her husband. He squinted at the page, muttering the words under his breath. Half a paragraph into the first sheet, he grew silent.
"Oh my god," he whispered. He tore his eyes away from the yellowed paper and fixed his eyes on Curtis.
"You should read these."
Curtis took the letter from him. He read to the bottom of the first page, and his face suddenly grew whiter than the paper between his fingers.
"I'll go and fetch her, shall I? And another thing, just so it's been said, if I had my way, that girl would have welcomed back like a hero."
The last he directed at Bernard, who continued to avoid his gaze as though the act of looking anyone in the eye would turn him to stone. As soon as the door was shut behind Quinton, heavy silence fell upon the room.
"That's not all," said Bernard quietly.
"There's more?"
He nodded but did not elaborate.
"Bernard, what is it?" urged Carol. "What did he do?"
"It's not – compared to that it's no big deal but - "
"Go on."
"He would drink, and he would get angry, and then he would..."
Bernard took several shaking breaths. Carol came around his chair and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Was he violent?
"Couple times a month, once a week. Sometimes more. Less after those started."
"I never noticed," said Curtis quietly.
"That was the idea."
"His or yours?" asked Santa.
Bernard shrugged. "Both. I thought if I let him do whatever he wanted to me, he'd leave the others alone. Quinton figured it out. Lydia picked up on it almost immediately. They both notice everything."
"Bernard, how did this happen?"
"Let me just put it this way. I don't think Lydia was the first person he ever killed."
"No."
"When he came to the Pole that first night, he was drunk, and there was blood on his jacket. I never found out what happened, but I always suspected."
"And he was just allowed to be Santa after that?"
"What were we supposed to do?"
"Couldn't you have found someone else?"
"Who? And where? That's why we were so lucky Lydia stumbled across the Pole. We were going to put her uncle in charge and force him to step down. We never meant for him to die. Lydia insisted on that. 'I won't have an elf do murder.' Those were her exact words. But everything went so wrong," Bernard sighed. "For so long, I thought it was okay, because it was just me. Then she came, and she and Quinton made me realize how wrong I was. She shouldn't have died."
"But she didn't, Bernard," said Carol.
"And unless you hurled her off that roof yourself, I don't think you're responsible," added his boss.
The exhaustion came on suddenly, and Bernard slumped in his chair. Carol walked around the desk and put her arms around him. It felt similar to when Lydia embraced him, as though he could pour his pain into her, but it was still different somehow. Carol didn't hug him quite like Lydia, like a loving friend. There was something maternal in her embrace, a motherly affection that felt both strange and familiar and made him slightly uncomfortable.
"You have nothing to be ashamed of," she said as she released him.
"Yeah well, it's like they said. We waited up for him. Quinton did the bulk of the work, getting everyone together. Lydia and I were in hiding. But he showed up at her house and ambushed us, I guess. He made us go to the roof with him. He had a gun. A real one. We go up there, and..."
His voice shook as he forced himself to continue. Each breath felt painful.
"He threw her off the roof. He didn't even think about it. Just picked her up and tossed her. He would have killed me, shot me, if not for Lydia's uncle. He saved my life."
Bernard went silent as he sank into memory.
"Bernard, why didn't you tell me any of this?" asked Santa.
His Head Elf looked up and gave a near-hysterical laugh.
"Now there's a festive conversation! Welcome to the North Pole, Home of the Unexpectedly High Body Count!"
"Were any of the elves killed," asked Carol, her face suddenly pale.
"No! No. Largely thanks to Quinton. I was pretty useless during the whole thing. It's not something I enjoy reliving. I'm not enjoying it much now honestly."
"I'm sure you did all you could."
Bernard scoffed darkly and turned his dark eyes to the floor. He wished very badly he could dematerialize and reappear in his bedroom so he could go back to bed like he had planned. The others would coax nothing more out of him. Mrs. Claus stacked the papers neatly on the desk. Santa shoved the entire pile toward a far corner then wiped his hands on his trousers as though they were dirty. They avoided looking at him, but occasionally he caught them watching him. His boss looked at him as though he were seeing him for the first time. Mrs. Claus looked like she was torn between putting her arms around him again and never letting him go and picking up every pencil in the cup on the desk and snapping them one by one. Curtis would not look at him at all. It did not matter. Quinton would return soon and a few apologies were in order. Until then, Bernard shoved himself as deep into his chair as he could in a vain effort to disappear, and waited.
A/N: True Story: A long, long time ago, back when I was writing In the Silence, I got an anonymous review from someone who somehow predicted this entire arc thus far (ie: William becoming Santa and Lydia becoming an elf.) To that person, if you are still reading this, ARE YOU A WIZARD? When I read that review, I literally turned and looked around me just to be sure I wasn't being watched.
I know this chapter is largely a rehash of the first story. But I felt like this was a conversation that needed to happen, and I promise the plot will begin to move forward next chapter. Since I felt this needed to take place, I tried to use the conversation to inform some of the character's emotions. I have to say that this is one of the hardest scenes I've ever written. Writing a scene where six people are talking was more challenging than I was expecting. Also I felt like Carol, having been a high school principal, would have had a conversation similar to this one before, regarding what happened to Bernard last time. So that was in my mind while I was writing this.
Title comes from "If You Could Read My Mind" by Gordon Lightfoot (though I was listening to the cover by Johnny Cash on his album American V: A Hundred Highways.)
