Velveteen vs. The Seasons
“Yes dear,” he said, and kissed her cheek, and disappeared, taking Velveteen—and the floor—with him.
*
The door that opened in the fabric of reality had no foundation, no wall to hold it in place or justify its existence: it simply was, a twisted thing of knotted paper roses that dripped with black type and red ink. It didn’t fit in with the rest of the gardens at the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle at all.
The body of a woman, bone-thin, was shoved through the doorway and collapsed in the dewy grass, unconscious, barely seeming to breathe.
Once again, Velma “Velveteen” Martinez had come home.
Jacqueline Claus, adopted daughter of Santa Claus, one day to inherit his place as toymaker and guardian of the dreams of children—no pressure—started her day the way she started every day: by opening her eyes on a ceiling spangled with crystal snowflakes, each one perfect, each one unique. She remembered receiving them, one by one, tucked into Christmas stockings and birthday presents. She remembered Papa laughing as she exclaimed in joy at their fractal delicacy, the mysteries of their shifting shapes. She remembered Mama smiling, warm and welcoming and happy to see her daughter so delighted.
She remembered that none of this was true. That she was a punishment for another version of herself, a selfish, blue-skinned girl named Jackie Frost who had slept in a bed of her own, in a room of her own, in a different house. Jackie had collected crystal snowflakes too, but Jackie had made them for herself, rather than waiting for someone else to make them for her. Jackie had made a lot of things for herself, including, in the end, a mess that she couldn’t clean up on her own. Now Jacqueline was here, and no one seemed to understand that she wasn’t supposed to be. That she was supposed to be someone else, someone colder and crueler and better suited for the acts of heroism that seemed to happen around her on a daily basis.
Jacqueline rolled out of bed and shivered in the early morning chill. It never got truly cold at the North Pole. In the rest of Winter, yes, but not here; Santa wanted any children who came to visit to be as comfortable as possible. Her robe was draped over the foot of the bed, snowflakes and smiling polar bears on a blue fleece background. She shrugged it on, still yawning.
“Dear, are you up?”
“Yes, Mama.” She turned expectantly toward the door.
It swung open, revealing Mrs. Claus. She was still wearing her dressing gown, a cap covering her hair. Jacqueline smiled. She liked Mama best in the mornings, when she wasn’t being Santa’s wife yet, but was just being herself, open and warm and caring.
Jack’s smile died. She still didn’t know whether Mama and Papa knew that she wasn’t supposed to be here. She hadn’t been able to come up with a way to ask that wouldn’t make them think that there was something wrong with her, or worse, that there was something wrong with them. There was nothing wrong with any of them, except in that she shouldn’t exist.
The Snow Queen knew. She knew that much for sure, because the Snow Queen wouldn’t even look at her unless she didn’t have a choice. The Snow Queen remembered the daughter she’d lost, and she would never forgive Jack for being someone other than her.
To be honest, it made Jack’s head spin. She hoped Velveteen would finish her passage through Autumn soon. Once Vel was back, they would all go to the Hall of Mirrors, and Velveteen would choose a season, and maybe Jackie would be forgiven. Maybe Aurora would set things right.
It was a little weird, hoping that she’d be written out of reality before things got even more confusing, but she had long since come to terms with the idea.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” said Mrs. Claus, with her usual broad smile. Jack felt a pang of guilt. Whether Mrs. Claus knew that she wasn’t supposed to have a daughter or not, there was no denying that she enjoyed being a mother. It wasn’t fair that Jack was going to be taken away from her.
Maybe she was an overlay for Jackie after all, and once she went back to being who she was supposed to be, she would remember being Jacqueline, and she could make sure to be kind to Mrs. Claus. Maybe.
But probably not.
“Good morning, Mama,” she said. “How did you sleep?”
“Snug in my bed,” said Mrs. Claus. Her eyes twinkled with delight at her own small joke. “I’m sorry to burst in on you like this, dear, but you have a call on the mirror. You should pick up, if you feel up to it. It’s one of your little friends from the Calendar Country, and she seems to be quite worked up.”
Excitement welled up in Jack’s chest, hot as cocoa and twice as sweet. “Which one?”
“The Princess,” said Mrs. Claus. “Just let me know if you can’t stay for breakfast.” She backed out of the room, closing the door behind herself.
Jack waited for a count of five before lunging for her desk and the hand mirror that waited there. The frame glittered with traceries of bright, gleaming frost: the North Pole equivalent of call waiting.
“Hello?” she said.
The glass fogged over, clearing to reveal the face of the Princess. Her normally perfect curls were in disarray, and her lip gloss was a shade paler than her norm, conveying her dismay. “Bless, Jack, I was starting to think you’d gone into hibernation,” she said. “I need you to get your pretty polar behind down here, pronto.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
The Princess smiled grimly. “It’s Velveteen. She’s back. And honey, she does not look good.”
*
Superhumans with powers and skills related to healing have been rumored since the dawn of human history. Most cannot be verified, but in recent years, several dozen documented heroes, villains, and private citizens with health-based powers have made their presence known.
Candystriper, whose empathic powers work best on those who are sick or injured, allowing her to brighten their spirits and speed the healing process. Even some cases believed to be terminal have turned around after a few hours in her presence. Sadly, her lack of any actual combat abilities has led to her becoming a target for desperate people looking for a magic bullet, and she has not been seen in public since the Jimmy Michaels incident of 2013.
The Surgeon, whose hands can suture any wound or perform any operation, leaving behind seamless incisions which heal cleanly and without risk of infection. The demand for his services is too great; for the last several years, he has appeared only at children’s hospitals and when offered amounts in the high seven figures. Most believe that he has no need for money, but chooses to operate in this fashion to prevent being overwhelmed.
Apothecary, who can diagnose anything, and whose remedies make no medical sense, but which always work. Leeches are frequently involved.
The Night Shift: a trained RN with a duplication power, she has been known to serve as the entire staff for a hospital, appearing during times of crisis and vanishing again when the crisis has passed. Without her, several city trauma wards would report much higher fatality rates. Unlike the Surgeon, she does not accept payment, and does not have a public contact number. Many theorize that the two are a team, traveling together, with him underwriting her work. Regardless, no one can deny the amount of good she has done.
The list goes on, and raises the question of whether the superhuman community’s best service of the human race might be in ceasing their seemingly endless battles and allowing these many healers to devote themselves and their powers to service to the world. After all, if heroes and villains were not constantly in need of repair, who’s to say what could be accomplished by the people who spend so much of their time in putting them back together?
*
Travel between the North Pole and the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle was easy to the point of being trivial. Sometimes Jack used the Castle as a stepping-stone to the rest of the Calendar Country rather than trying to ride a mirror straight into the “real” world. Why do that, when a split journey was so much easier on her nerves?
She emerged from a full-length mirror in the Princess’s receiving hall, dressed in a
red and green ball gown that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the ski pants and sweater she had donned before leaving her room. The Princess’s transit system was good that way. If she didn’t have time to brush her hair or put on a socially acceptable amount of lip gloss, the mirrors would do it for her, dumping her in the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle as pretty as a photo op.
(It would have bothered her, if not for the fact that most of the people who supplied the Princess’s power were between the ages of four and eight, and still considered magically appearing eye shadow to be the absolute height of sophistication. Really, she was just glad that all her clothes were mirror-made, and not sewn by the army of woodland creatures that supplied the Princess with her wardrobe.)
A scarlet macaw in a waistcoat flew over to land on her shoulder. “You’re wanted in the recovery room, ma’am, ma’am, ma’am,” it said, before emitting an ungodly screech. Part of a fairy story or not, birds would be birds.
“Thank you,” she said, because manners were especially important in a fairy tale, and between figures of mythic import. If the Princess was every storybook princess in the world, Jacqueline Claus was the spirit of goodness and generosity, and it wouldn’t do for her to forget her manners. “Can you take me there?”
The macaw screeched acquiescence and launched itself into the air, gliding away down the hall. Jack hiked her ball gown up enough to let her move and ran after it, trying not to focus on the way the hall around her kept getting decked for a winter holiday celebration that was never going to come. Papa was somewhat secular, having been divorced from the religious aspects of his holiday by decades of advertising and comfortable folklore. Jack was completely secular, with the entire palette of winter colors and decorations available to her. Tinsel and wreaths and silver snowflakes dripped from the walls both ahead of and behind her, shimmering into existence in answer to her presence.
They wouldn’t last long. The normal aesthetics of the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle would reassert themselves in no time, and the unseasonable holiday decorations would melt back into the walls, vanishing until the next time Jack walked by. Sometimes she wondered what the place looked like when she wasn’t around. She wasn’t sure she’d ever have the opportunity to find out.
The macaw led her to a tall door in a gilt frame. It flapped over to perch on the top of a tapestry, watching to see what she would do next.
She opened the door and let herself inside, of course. There wasn’t really anything else to do.
The recovery room was huge and airy, with walls made entirely of colored glass panels. It was like walking into a rainbow. “Polychrome would love it here,” she blurted, unthinking.
“We should call her.” The Princess looked away from the…pumpkin? Maybe. Some sort of gourd, anyway. It was huge and orange and sitting atop a mattress, attached to the bedframe by a green stalk. The Princess was standing next to it, and it was sort of sad that this was still not the strangest thing Jack had seen all day. “I was hoping to wait until the Night Shift got back to me, but I don’t think Yelena will be all that happy if she finds out we’ve got Vel and we haven’t been pickin’ up the phone.”
Jack opened her mouth. Then she stopped herself, understanding sweeping across her face, and said, “She’s in the pumpkin, isn’t she? You put her inside the pumpkin.”
“Pumpkins have a lot of strength in fairy tales. They can put broken things back together, if you know how to use them right.”
“You’re not worried about giving Halloween more of a claim over her?”
The Princess looked at her levelly. “Sweetie, am I worried about that, or are you worried about that? Think carefully on your answer now. I asked you here because I was hoping you could help, but I won’t hesitate to send you back to the North Pole if you’re here on holiday business, instead of as a friend.”
“I’m Vel’s friend before I’m anything else,” said Jack firmly, and the words were true and false at the same time. If she’d been the honest spirit of Winter, instead of the selfless one, she would have shunted herself out of existence in that moment, joining Jackie in whatever waited for Spirits of the Season who could no longer do their jobs. “I’m here for her. And I know that she doesn’t want to go to Halloween. Or she didn’t, before she did her term of service with them.”
“About that,” said the Princess. “I thought she was going to be gone for a year.”
“So did I,” said Jack. “I guess the people in charge had other ideas.”
The Princess looked at her thoughtfully, and Jack met her eyes without looking away. It was funny. People knew that her father was scrupulously honest—that he had to be, in order for the Nice List to mean anything—and so they assumed that the same was true of her. They didn’t understand that sometimes selflessness was more dishonest than selfishness. That she had to be prepared to hide hunger and thirst and desire under a veil of giving back to the world. Jackie Frost had been a natural disaster, but she’d been an honest one. Jacqueline Claus was a sweet smile and a warm hand, and she could lie through her teeth without ever letting her smile slip.
“You ever going to tell me what happened to her while she was in the Seasonal Lands, Jack?” the Princess asked, and her voice was soft, but it wasn’t gentle.
Jack shook her head. “It’s not my place,” she said. “Papa gave me my orders. I’m allowed to say that she came to Winter. That she stayed for a year. That she moved on to Spring. That’s it. Anything that she did or didn’t do while she was outside the normal flow of time is nobody’s business but hers and the Seasons that she served.”
“I don’t see how she could have served a year when she’s only been gone from here for a week. Not even a week, in fact. Six days. How does six days equal a year with you and however much time she spent with the other Seasons?”
“Time doesn’t work the same when you’re outside the calendar. I guess Papa just wanted to be sure she could come back home before people got too used to her not being there.” That felt right. It felt wrong at the same time. The Seasons wanted Velveteen to choose one of them. Why would they go out of their way to make her comfortable in the world they were trying to get her to leave behind?
Jack felt like she was missing something, and she didn’t like the feeling one little bit.
“If you say so.” The Princess touched the tough orange skin of the pumpkin with one hand. “I already called Torrey and left a message for when she gets back. She’ll pass it on to Lena, I’m sure. I couldn’t think of who else to tell. Our girl has allies, but she’s never been much of one for makin’ friends.”
“Are any of us?” Jack buried her hands in the skirt of her ball gown to keep herself from fidgeting. The fabric was soothingly slick. She twisted it between her thumb and forefinger, bending it into rosettes. “I have you, and Vel, and the penguins.” Jackie had had more. Jackie had had Tag, and everyone she’d met through ice skating and the X-Games and how had Vel even met Tag, in this world without a Jackie? Jack didn’t know. She knew so much about this life she’d been dropped into, but there were still pieces missing, and she had no idea how to patch them.
“Aw, sugar, it’s all right. You know I love you, even if you don’t have much of a social life. I just worry about our girl. She was supposed to get a break. She was supposed to go off and serve the Seasons and have some time to think about what just happened. She wasn’t supposed to get dropped right back where she started, beat all to hell and with no room for recovery. You know the wolves are gonna be at the door as soon as the news gets out.”
“Wolves?” asked Jack blankly.
“Honey, I know you’ve been off at the North Pole bein’ above all the bull we have to deal with down here on the ground, but I’ve done six interviews in the last six days. Would’ve been more if I didn’t have the company filtering the press inquiries for me. They’re fielding the subpoenas, too. There’s a lot of folks who want to know more about what happened at The Super Patriots, Inc., and Vel’s more than j
ust a person of interest in this whole affair. Once they know she’s here, they’re going to get a lot more aggressive.”
“So we don’t tell anyone,” said Jack. “We give her time.”
A ringing like crystal chimes spread through the castle. The Princess sighed.
“I don’t think that’s our call,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go see our guests.”
*
Getting to the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle was supposedly difficult for people who didn’t have access to magic mirrors or other forms of fairy tale travel. Sadly, the nature of the Princess’s contract with the corporation which funded her and kept her free of The Super Patriots, Inc. meant that she had to have at least one doorway connected to at least one of their properties at all times. She moved those doorways regularly, trying to preserve her privacy, but people always found them.
Sometimes the doors were found by children clutching plastic wands and wearing puffy, costume-grade ball gowns over their jeans and character shirts. They wandered into her really for real fairy tale castle with wide eyes, and could be bribed into leaving with hugs and autographs and silver apples from the bowl she kept in the foyer. Sometimes the doors were found by teens with scars on their wrists and shadows in their eyes, looking for magic in all the wrong places. Those, she walked with in the garden, and talked, and listened, until they were ready to leave her for the real world. Sometimes the doors were found by adults who needed, truly needed proof that magic was real, that their lives hadn’t been wasted on wishing. They were her petitioners, and she welcomed them all.
Mostly, though, the doors were found by assholes. Like this one. The Princess crossed her arms and frowned disapprovingly at the man who stood in front of her, shifting his weight from foot to foot, trying to look like he wasn’t uncomfortable. The Night Shift waited behind him, currently split into four identical bodies, each one holding a bag of medical supplies.
“What’n the name of the seventy-three known variations of ‘The Princess and the Pea’ are you doin’ here?” the Princess asked. “And don’t say you just dropped by to talk to me. I know that ain’t true. Wasting my time isn’t going to make me like you any more than I already don’t.”