Page 39 of Scary & Bright
“Oh!” Mister yelped, pulling the memory from the depths of his brain. “I put it in your trunk with some other old trinkets you’d hidden away. I thought it might be best to keep everything together, should you ever want to use them again.”
“Mister, you brilliant little bear.” I smiled as I marched to the cedar chest that sat against a wall between two bookshelves.
He padded after me as quickly as his legs could carry him.
“What do you intend to do with it?” he asked, his chest huffing and puffing with exhaustion as he did his best to keep up. “Truthfully, I’m not even particularly aware of what it does. It’s… a touch of Santa’s magic, yes?”
“It is,” I admitted as I kicked the chest open and knelt beside it to dig through inside. “In the first few years after we were assigned these positions, we did our best to remain brotherly. He used to bring me gifts every year for Christmas, just like he did everyone else.”
As I picked through the contents, I realized that there were more odds and ends in the chest than I knew what to do with, and all at once, I became aware of how much stuff Mister had hidden away for my own emotional health. Seeing all Nik’s gifts in one place along with some relics from my previous life, such as my own childhood toys, letters from my father, and a ribbon that my first love wore in her hair, was causing me to have flashbacks. Some pleasant. Some painful. It was a time capsule of everything I had once been and everything I failed to be.
“Ah, here it is,” I said with a near shriek of joy.
It didn’t look like much on the outside, just a deep blue velvet bag with gold twine cinching it closed, like a miniature version of Santa’s toy sack. But on the inside…
“Oh, good! I’m glad you found it,” Mister said with an exhale of relief. “Now, what exactly do you need it for? What does it do?” He almost seemed as excited as I was to see what my intentions were.
“Well, now it’s a parlor trick more than anything.” I shrugged. “But back when I was just learning how to use the Poles’ magic, it was a life saver.” I untied the gold cinch and pulled the bag open. “Try it, Mister. Name something you’d like. Anything at all.”
“Oh, goodness me, let me think,” the bear mused, placing a plush hand over his mouth in thought. “You know what? How about a second marble? To replace my other eye?”
I smirked and reached my hand into the bag and immediately located a black marble at the bottom, round on one side, flat on the other. It matched his one eye perfectly. I rolled it in my hand for a split second before passing it to the bear, who was already vibrating with happiness.
“Wow! Imagine that!” He chuckled, fumbling with the marble in his hands before carefully tucking it under a tear in his seam for safekeeping. “I’ll have one of the Barbies sew it on for me later, but gosh, Krampus, what a treat.”
“For the record, Mister, I could have done that at any time.” I patted his head affectionately. “You’re allowed to want things—you’ve just got to ask. Otherwise, how am I to know?”
I watched Mister’s shoulders raise up to his face sheepishly. He was far from the type to ask for things or make his own wants and needs apparent, so I felt he needed to be reminded. Especially considering how excited this simple gesture had made him.
“That’s very kind of you, Krampus,” Mister muttered, appearing as if he might be experiencing a twinge of embarrassment at the concept of asking for something for himself. “But if you could have done this the entire time, what makes the bag special?”
“I’ve never really been able to figure that out, although I think it has something to do with all of you toys showing up here,” I started as I rose to my feet with the bag clutched in my hand. “I’ve never been able to manifest toys. Seems like that’s something that is exclusively saved for Nik and the North Pole.”
I began to fumble my way around the Great Tree poking through the center of my study, trying to locate an ornament with a view on Holly while Mister kept close beside me, studying my every move with curiosity.
“And I want to do something nice,” I continued, my eyes glued to the tree. “For Holly, I mean. And I want it to be special, not just the humdrum of normal flowers and chocolates like you read about. And that, my friend, is why I needed the bag.”
My gaze finally settled on a little red orb with a vision of Holly in the center. She was in the library talking to Starlight. looking pretty as ever with her blond hair held up with what she called a “claw clip.” I could look at her for ages, but that was not what I needed the ornament for. I plucked it off the tree like a plump, ripe apple before moving to the nearest chair—the one on wheels just behind my desk—and dropping my weight into it. The chair spun with the momentum of my weight and action as I carefully held both treasures in my hand.
Mister waddled around the desk and climbed up, using the drawer pulls as steps, until he was situated comfortably on top.
“I would ask for a play-by-play of what you’re doing, but I can tell you’re kind of in the zone.” Mister smiled. “So, I’m happy to watch, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all,” I assured him. Mister really had taken his time in getting to know the ins and outs of my behavior. I didn’t even need to let him know that I wanted to do this next part in peace—he could just tell.
I rested the velvet bag in my lap and held the ornament in both hands. With a delicate swipe of my thumb across the front of it, I was able to see Holly’s life before she was here. It had been a difficult task to not help myself to her past, but I didn’t want to cross any boundaries. However, I hoped that the gift I had planned would be enough to compensate for my being nosey. In an instant, the picture of Holly in the library changed to Holly crying alone in a room surrounded by cardboard boxes. I swiped again with my thumb, feeling this scene was too personal even with my good intentions.
The image changed again, and there was Holly as a teenager with big headphones over her ears, a green backpack bouncing on her back as she walked down the sidewalk to school. I swiped again, still searching for that sweet spot, that moment I knew existed, because it existed for every person on the planet.
Now Holly was in a booster seat in the backseat of a car, with two adults sitting up front. While the image was muted, the unified movements of their mouths and the smiles on their faces told me they were singing. Everyone looked so happy. And there in the backseat with Holly was what I hoped could be my target.
A raggedy dalmatian plush, the white of its fur turned gray with love and wear, was clutched in Holly’s tiny arms. I swiped one last time, with one final goal in mind.
And there it was—Christmas morning. I didn’t know when. Holly was smaller than she’d been in the booster seat, and the two people around the tree with her were unmistakably the two who were in the front seat of the car. Her parents? They had to be. I watched the image carefully, feeling the happiness radiating from it, even if it was just a memory. I watched as Holly’s mom handed her a knit stocking, and the first thing she pulled out of it? The dalmatian.
My heart swelled when I realized I had found exactly what I was looking for.
“Perfect.” I smiled to myself, noticing the smallest evidence of tears forming in the corners of my eyes.