Aunt Santa

Chapter 12

Snow had started to fall while the children slept. Sara glimpsed it through the front doors of the hotel, falling steadily against the dark sky and she worried about it. But when Jakob appeared at their door, he seemed unbothered about the inches that had already piled up on the road.

"It snows in winter." He said it solemnly, the words devoid of the sarcasm she'd come to expect from her nephew.

"Will we have to caravan?"

"No. We are not going to drive."

BB and Sam had been eating their lunch on the bed, both still groggy from sleep. "We're not walking," Sam said slowly, in between bites of cold toast. "Right?" Sara tried to imagine the four of them trudging through the snow over forbidding terrain.

"No, no. We'll take snowmobiles." The suggestion of walking had made Jakob smile. Sam's cheeks flushed red and he turned back to his lunch. "Dress in layers, as warm as you can. I'll meet you downstairs in thirty minutes."

"Thank you, Jakob." She closed the door behind him and looked at BB. "How do you feel about trying to use the bathroom before we leave?"

BB's shoulders slumped and she'd opened her eyes to utter her usual protest when Sara said, "Wait!" She grabbed the red hat and put it on her niece's head. "Please, can you try to use the bathroom?"

She watched BB's eyes roll up to the hat on her head and she let out an epic sigh as she slunk to the bathroom. Sara shook her head. "Amazing."

She turned to clean the crumbs off the bed. "Jakob's a real gem," she mused, avoiding Sam's eyes.

"Yeah. I guess. But kind of weird too, right?" Sam replied quickly. "To be doing this for us. Like he doesn't have anything better to do?"

"Maybe he likes us." When he snorted under his breath, Sara sat down on the bed opposite him. "I talked to your mom. She says hi. Glad we made the trip okay."

The mention of his mother sent his eyes drifting back to his phone next to his leg. It was like a reflex, Sara thought. "She had a good idea about the hat, about what to do if we don't find anything." She told him what Mo had suggested about leaving the hat for someone else to find.

"We're not going to find anything out there," he said firmly. But he kept his voice low, his eyes shooting over to the bathroom door. "It's a bunch of numbers stitched into a hat. That's all."

"A mysterious, kind of magical hat," she reminded him. "You heard those bells."

"Just because you said you heard them. Power of suggestion."

"The snow globe," Sara shot back. "The reindeer. And how it feels warm to the touch?"

"It feels like a hat to me, remember?" He gave his aunt a look. "Coincidences. Make believe. You don't have to keep it up when it's just you and me, you know. I'm not a little kid anymore."

"I'm not saying all of this to try to make you believe anything, Sam. But you can at least admit that it's been a little strange."

"Oh, it is definitely strange." He gestured around the spare hotel room. "We're in Norway for practically no reason. We've moved beyond strange here."

She stood up and dug out her warmest clothes as BB bounded out of the bathroom and declared herself ready for the next part of their adventure.

They met in the lobby where Jakob studied their attire for the cold. "This will not be warm enough," he said to Sam, touching the sleeve of his coat. Sam's face flushed red again.