#Naughty or # Nice (The Holidaze Book 1)

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

It was five days before Christmas when Meri saw her first Christmas miracle. She had spent most of the month telling herself that she wasn't crazy. The day she saw the miracle was the day she started believing again that what she'd experienced had really happened.

Every day as the temperature heated up, and the humidity made everything sticky, Meri told herself that she can't have been in Santa's Village. It had to have been a weird hallucination, or something just as untoward. As much as it hurt her, she had to accept what everyone pointed out to her.

Both her family and Mia kept telling her that she hadn't gone anywhere. It was also obvious when she saw the roster posted at work, which showed her working the days where she had been at Santa's Village.

The difficulty she found was the moment she entered her house and saw her knitted animals all transformed into their secondary shapes. A unicorn, Pegasus and a fairy joined her dragon. There were others, but those were her favourites.

Sander has been the one who showed her how they had changed. Sander was the one who told her that only the nicest children received one.

Stroking the head of the little pink dragon always reminded her of when Sander showed her the tag with his name and his parents name upon it. Whenever she saw that tag she knew that she hadn't imagined all that had happened. She had visited Santa's Village.

On that hot, sticky Friday, five days before Christmas, Meri's faith restored. All it took was the sight of someone she never expected.

"You!" the glacial voice sounded so familiar that Meri stopped in the street.

Meri stared at the bedraggled figure in front of her begging on the street. Her skin no long had its golden glow, instead, dirt had engrained into her pores. The once neat blonde hair sat in uncombed, ratty chunks. It was the blue eyes and their icy glare that Meri recognised straight away.

"Ivy, is that you?" Meri asked as she peered at the grubby person crumpled in a heap against a shop wall.

"This is all your fault!" the woman snapped.

"How is what my fault?"

"Whatever you said to Sander made me into this," she gestured at her down trodden appearance.

"It is you, Ivy," Meri couldn't hide her ecstatic joy.

Ivy remembered Sander, and if she remembered Sander that meant everything Meri experienced really did happen. Santa's Village was as real as Meri was.

"Don't sound pleased to see me when you left me in this state," Ivy snarled.

"It means that all of that happened. I did go to Santa's Village and I did meet Sander."

Meri clutched a hand to her chest and the festive cheer that had avoided her in the last month rejoiced in this new reality. She grinned up at the sky as wonder and joy wrapped around her and buoyed her mood.

"You owe me," Ivy ground out the words.

"I don't owe you anything. You've got exactly what you deserved," Meri replied with a decisive nod.

"You don't get it! I was a somebody and what you did made me into this," Ivy screeched as she dared a glance at her grotty nails.

"You stole from children. Anybody who does that gets exactly what they deserve. These are your just desserts," Meri said in triumph..

"I used to have everything until you took it all away," Ivy wailed.

Meri shook her head and chose that moment to walk away. She had what she needed from the moment. Ecstatic bliss flowed through her because Santa's Village was a real place. It was real! Every moment that Meri had enjoyed was as real as her day of work today.