Christmas with Nick Klaas

Part 27: Cheers and Jeers

"She's here," Fanny said while standing at the edge of the frozen lake. It was the only area still officially part of Keskitalvi that remained unthawed, which meant two things. First, it was ideal to host a counterspell against the dark magic, and second, it was where the source of Piet's power lay. And because he was using Avery as a conduit, it meant that she was nearby.

Noelle looked across the vast expanse. On one side was the forest, on another the town. In the distance, the mountains. But there was no sign of her friend. "Is she safe?" she asked. Fanny had promised that her upcoming ritual would locate Avery, but there was no discussion about what state she may or not be in.

To her surprise, Fanny bent down and kneeled on the thick ice. Placing her bare hands on the surface, she nodded. "Yes."

Noelle's eyes widened. Surely she was misunderstanding. "She's not . . . Avery isn't under the ice, is she?" Noelle asked tentatively, suppressing all thoughts of anyone trapped underneath the thick sheet.

"Oh, yes," Fanny replied without missing a beat. If it hadn't been for the positive tone in her voice, Noelle would have freaked at the revelation. Instead, she forced herself to trust the woman.

"But . . . but she's still alive." Noelle made sure to phrase it as a statement rather than a question. There was no way she could bear to hear a denial.

"Quite," Fanny said as she stood, figuratively taking a portion of the weight off Noelle's shoulders. After wiping her frosty fingers on her thighs, she took Noelle's hands in hers. "Now listen to me. There is a chance that this won't work. Either we won't be able to break the Black Buck's enchantment or something will go wrong. But I tell you this: if we do nothing, the whole world will be robbed of joy in a matter of days. That can't happen, and there is no alternative. We must try."

Noelle took a deep breath. She was glad that Fanny was holding her hands because otherwise they would have been shaking uncontrollably. Not at the thought of failure, but rather at the reality of not having a choice. The fates had decided. Action led to a chance at winning. Inaction meant that they had already lost.

"Of course," she said with a weak nod. "So how much longer?"

Fanny looked across the ice. About two hundred meters in, Nick had been supervising the construction of a massive wire frame in the shape of a billy goat, which the tonttu were filling with straw. The work was assisted with magic, but even so, it had still taken over an hour to get to the circular horns.

"As soon as they're done and the townspeople arrive, we can begin," Fanny said, patting Noelle's hands with one of hers in a motherly fashion. "We should have just enough time."

Noelle nodded, but a question in a lyrical, foreign language delivered in a deep baritone from waist high interrupted her from continuing the conversation. Looking down, she saw one of the bearded gnomes holding a wooden tray with stout shot glasses filled with translucent, copper-colored liquor.

"What's this? Whiskey?" she asked, eyeing the surprise offerings. The last thing she expected to see lakeside while they scrambled to prepare for the ceremony was a tonttu waiter bringing booze.

The little man—while apparently not versed in English—gasped and began to grumble something unintelligible again, save for the word whiskey. That he seemed to understand. And it did not make him happy.

Noelle grimaced at her fumble (it was a good thing she wasn't a diplomat or she'd cause international uproars daily with such gaffes), but Fanny laughed. "It's a regional specialty made of bramble berries. He'd like for you to try," she said before taking a glass off the tray and downing its contents in one swift gulp. "Yum."