Holly Jolly

🌲 two

chapter two

     The Frost family had owned land up at the Pole as long as the Klauses had—give or take. (The centuries old feud had come to a head on Christmas Eve in 1978, and well, I was just glad I hadn't been alive to see it.)

     The thick, evergreen forest that began at the edge of Douglas Farms was Frost property. You could tell. It was more bitter there, colder. It was the kind of snow that made you want to stay inside and bake Christmas cookies, not venture out into semi-darkness.

Nick and I trudged along, our boots barely making a sound in the frost-bitten dirt. There were no birds, no deer, nothing scurrying by. If it weren't for the trees, you'd think the whole place was dead. Maybe that was the point.

I used a gloved finger to expand the map on my phone, the two glowing dots half a mile east. "I still don't know how Tinsel got out. Those leads are thick and waxed. His teeth aren't sharp enough yet."

Nick was usually quiet, hugging his arms to his chest. "This place gives me the creeps. Dad would actually kill me if he knew I was here. That 'sees you when you're sleeping, knows when you're awake' thing was just to scare me and Chris as kids...I hope." I stop short at that, and Nick pulls my arm down to get a look at my phone. "What? They moved again?"

"No, you...mentioned Chris," I stammered.

Chris Klaus was Nick's older brother. He was my age, and, well, it'd been a while since I'd heard anyone from Nick's family talk about him. Everyone pretended he never existed, even in the Village.

"Yeah. I mean, I can say his name, Holl." Nick kicked at a fallen branch in passing, sending it onto a nearby snowdrift. His eyes were vacant, like his thoughts were far away—years away, back to when the three of us used to buy peppermint hot chocolates in the Village, Chris and I sharing a sled and leaving Nick in the dust. "He's not like, dead or anything."

It'd was coming up on three years since Chris had left. Maybe it was the perpetual lack of sunny days, but time at the Pole was measured in Christmases. In snowstorms, in flurries, not minutes or hours. Still, it didn't feel that long at all.

I was used to the seasons, the knowledge that there would always be a next year and new, but familiar beginnings to look forward to. Chris had gone so suddenly, without warning. He hadn't said goodbye.

And he never came back.

"You think he's okay?" I ask, since it seemed safe to continue.

Nick looked like he wanted to tell me something, lips parting when my phone let out a loud bell chime. We were on top of the two red dots.

"You see them?" I craned my neck. The snow was really starting to come down now, blanketing the still woods, ankle deep as we checked around.

"Holly!" Nick called, and despite it all, chuckling in a very Klaus-esque way. He was more like his dad than he'd care to admit. "Look."

There was a break in the treeline, opening up to a clearing. Comet was circling around the base of a huge, ancient pine, bleating excessively. His throat sounded strained—he must've been crying out for an hour.

"Comet!" I trudged towards him, ripping off my glove so I could use my fingers to whistle. The reindeer's ears prickled up, and he turned and planted all four legs at once. He did a few happy stomps.