It was past midday when Lacey woke. Little beams of light peeked around the edges the room’s curtains, while the curtains themselves glowed with the cool yellow light of the Northern sun. Even though she had slept for hours, her eyes still felt grainy and tired. But, she could also tell that she wasn’t going to fall back asleep now. For a while she just lay there, mulling over everything that had happened yesterday and the previous night. The strip of Jinxy’s coat by the Wasteland. The Wasteland search that didn’t happen, due to Tinsel and Blinky. The mysterious-midnight meeting between Albyrne and the four elves. And, Bethy’s emotional scene with Melo.

  Lacey folded her hands on top of the striped-candy embroidered cover. Of all the incidents, Bethy’s devastation had hit her the hardest. Her first instinct had been that it was a break-up, but that couldn’t be the case because it seemed pretty settled that Melo and Jinxy were together. But what she’s seen had been so raw, so real. Was it a love triangle? Or something else completely? Regardless, she felt for Bethy.

  Getting up, she pulled open the curtains. Her snowflake candycane still sat on the windowsill in its jar. She knelt down, resting her arms on the ledge, to admire it. The sunlight refracted through it’s crystalline facets, seeming to light up in a rainbow of colours that reflected into the room. Mathilda had said that it might get some magical charge from the Northern lights. She wondered whether that included the Lodestar, and the magical pulse it gave off at midnight.

  She gently stroked the side of the jar. The day was halfway gone already and she had things to do. Time to get moving.

  ??

  She found a note from Mathilda in the kitchen, placed on top of a covered plate. It said:

  Morning Lacey!

  I hope you wake energised and full of Christmas cheer ?

  Peter asks that you meet him at the Reindeer Barn when you’re ready. He wouldn’t tell me where you were last night, but you can fill me in later ;)

  Don’t worry, he also told me about Bethy – I’ll check in on her.

  See you!

  xxx Mathilda

  There were two iced ginger muffins on the plate, as well as a mini-chicken pie, and crackers and cheese. On the side stood a small jar of eggnog.

  Lacey smiled – how kind of Mathilda! She’d really miss her new friend when she got back to earth.

  The Reindeer Barn was easy to find. Slightly past the edge of the village, close to the Reindeer Common Room, in the beginning of the Southern Forest. The barn stood inside a large yard that was surrounded by sturdy log fence. Inside the yard were troughs filled with feed, and buckets with water. Currently the gate was open, allowing the reindeer to freely wander in and out of the enclosure.

  She walked through the yard, carefully watching a muscled buck feeding from one of the troughs. It lifted its head, watching her curiously as it chewed. She backed into the barn, keeping it in sight, bumping up against someone solid and warm.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ she said, hurriedly turning around, only to find herself looking into Peter’s face.

  ‘Afraid of ole Donner?’ he asked lightly.

  ‘I don’t know, is he dangerous?’

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  He smiled. ‘No, none of our reindeer are. You don’t have to worry. Watch out in the wild, though. They can be unpredictable out there – especially the big males during mating season.’

  ‘Good to know,’ Lacey said. Then she tilted her head, looking at the floor. Thick cables, with a red and white candy-cane-striped pattern, ran across the floor and disappeared into a back room. ‘What’s that for?’ she asked, pointing at them.

  ‘That’s the cables we use to charge Santa’s sleigh for Christmas Eve. They run from the snowflake-crystal formations on the roof, to the sleigh itself in that room. Would you like to see it?’

  ‘Are we allowed to?’ she asked.

  He grabbed the sliding door separating the back space from the rest of the barn, pulling it open. ‘Of course we are. We’re all Santa’s Elves, aren’t we?’

  She stepped inside, wonder blooming in her chest, chased by a flutter of trepidation. Despite Peter’s reassurance, she still felt like trespasser. The feeling soon melted away, replaced by awe. The sleigh was massive, shaped from a heavy, dark wood. Just looking at it gave you a feeling of immense weight, sturdiness, durability. Grain lines waved across it surface, flowing into intricate carved patterns that decorated the rims and edges. The steel of its runners gleamed, made of a steel so dark it was almost black, the blades sharpened to a lethal edge. She felt like she could be cut just looking at it.

  She took a step back. ‘That’s his sleigh? It looks like it was made to trample your enemies with.’

  ‘It does, doesn’t it.’

  Peter looked lovingly at it, stepping forward to run his fingers over the dark wood. ‘Enhanced black walnut, gifted and carved by the master crafters of Appalaskia. The runners are forged from adamantium, a gift from King Durin the Great of the dwarves.’

  He glanced back at her. ‘You speak of it as though it were forged in war. You’re not far off. In the ancient times, Santa had to defend his realms from all manner of wild spirits and dark things that roamed the worlds in the depths of winter. That’s where the first earth memories of him racing across the sky come from. In those times, people would leave out hay and snacks for him and his winter steeds in gratitude.

  ‘As the realms began to stabilise, the fighting faded. Eventually children took over the role of the adults, remembering only that it was for someone looking out for them – someone very important. And so he found that people still wished to see him, and over time he transformed it into the Christmas Eve we all know now.’

  ‘Wow, what an amazing story,’ Lacey said. ‘And not just a story too – history.’

  She reverently stared at the sleigh. It was absolutely awe-inspiring. Hesitantly, she stretched out her hand, resting it on the border of woodcarvings that ran around the sleigh cradle. The weight of its history pressed down on her. Looking down, she noticed the candy-cane cables twirling around its adamantium blades.

  ‘And the snowflake-crystal formations? Are they the same as the ones in the candy-cane fields?’

  ‘Almost. But they are grown through their own special process to capture and hold more of the northern charge. This sleigh needs a lot of magic to run. I’ve heard humans use the phrase “gas guzzler”. That’s what this is. But, believe you me, once it gets going there’s not much that can stop it.’

  ‘Oh, I believe you. Wow,’ she repeated.

  He gave its body an affectionate pat. ‘We should get back to our mission, though.’

  Lacey dropped her hand back to her side. ‘Yes. Right now, we have two clues that we need to investigate. Albyrne and the Wasteland.’

  Peter nodded.

  ‘I must confess,’ she continued, ‘I’m not quite sure which one to focus on first. The Wasteland sounds like the most dangerous, but if she’s not there we’ve lost valuable time if there is something going on with Albyrne and Icy’s elves.’

  ‘I’ve also been thinking about it, trying to look at these angles more like an outsider. I hate what I’m about to say, because it sounds so callous, but we need to be practical.

  ‘This is the fifth day she’s been missing. Jinxy spent half her life outdoors, she’s resourceful. If something had happened to her in the Wasteland, she would’ve used every trick she knows to survive. And if she weren’t able to…’ He swallowed. ‘Then we’re already too late. I don’t want that to be true, but it does mean that searching the Wasteland first might not change the outcome. Albyrne, on the other hand… If we can untangle his secret, he might point us straight at her.’

  Lacey took a deep breath. The possibility he brought up, sent shivers down her spine. Yet, she knew he was right. They needed to concentrate on Albyrne. But a part of her still couldn’t accept giving up on the Wasteland completely.

  ‘I agree with you, but could we possibly split the difference? Could you and I continue with Albyrne, while the rest of the search teams that are not involved with him continue with the Wasteland? I mean, like Elf and the others.’

  Peter gave her a strange look. ‘Elf isn’t part of our search teams. He can barely take two steps in the wild without tripping over something. That’s why he’s temporarily helping in the workshop.’

  She frowned. ‘But he wasn’t in the workshop yesterday. I assumed he was helping with the search.’

  They looked at each other.

  ??????

  (A little something like “Cuts through winter storms like butter” or “Powered by pure Northern starlight”?)