The Legend of Holly Claus

  “Perhaps I’m a sculptor,” she said to herself late one afternoon, admiring a clay replica of Makena she had just completed. She could hear the fairies’ thin screams somewhere in the palace. It sounded as though they had broken into Viviana’s sitting room again.

  “Everyall,” said a soft voice in her hair. Involuntarily Holly reached for her curls and felt the delicate brush of wings against her fingers. Little feet, no heavier than the lightest touch of a falling leaf, pattered along her hand. Holly tried to breathe softly; she had never been so close to a fairy “Cloud not,” the little fairy said. “Worn wire of me.” She glanced in the direction of the shrill shrieks.

  “But you’re one of them,” rejoined Holly, taking a guess as to the fairy’s meaning. She remembered what Nicholas had once told her about fairy talk—it was not exactly another language, he had said, but a way of talking in pictures. Holly smiled at the tiny, scowling face. It was Emmalylis, the youngest and tiniest Boucane. She perched upon Holly’s wrist, her sea-green wings wrapped tightly around her as if to protect her from the noise.

  “Don’t you like hide-and-seek?” asked Holly.

  “Lost and sought overmuch to a stream,” said Emmalylis crossly. “Sharp-edge, honed knife tongues, too.” She pulled on her green hair and looked approvingly around the room. “Pale world, empty bucket.”

  “Yes,” Holly agreed. “I came here to get away from the fairies, but before I knew it, I had made this. See, it’s Makena.”

  “A long way to look down,” Emmalylis observed.

  Holly stared at the little figure. Emmalylis was right; Makena’s face was proud. “Yes, I suppose so. But she is a grand fairy. I keep trying to make dolls. You know, pretty dolls for the little girls in the mortal world, but I can’t seem to do it. Every time the face turns into someone I know. It shows too much, too. I don’t think Makena would like this face, do you?”

  “She looks in the mirror and her blood sings love.”

  Holly had to think about that one for a moment. “You mean she would just see this and love herself?”

  “A golden balance.”

  “You mean yes?”

  Emmalylis nodded. “Your father all clasped in warmth? Bags sag with petticoats stiff, heads, and lace, too. Under your hand?”

  Holly could feel her brain twisting and straining to transform this idea into words. “Oh! Yes! Dolls for my father to deliver on Christmas. Dolls for the children—in lace, like you said.”

  Emmalylis peered into her face and asked lucidly, “Why?”

  Holly’s shoulders drooped. “Because I have to do something,” she said quietly. “Because you and all your cousins are trapped in the Land of the Immortals, and it’s all my fault. Because I don’t deserve to be an immortal. I’ve never done anything important for the people in the mortal world.”

  “Under your hand swirling like paper on their towers, then hard to your shoes.”

  “But I can’t!” Holly burst out. “I can’t get there! Remember? My father’s the only one who can leave. The rest of us just stay here, locked in, until … until”—she couldn’t bring herself to say his name—“he comes to get me.”

  Emmalylis regarded Holly with bright, searching eyes. “Half round in a long night,” she said finally, seeming to select her words carefully, “dazzled with whiteness up, your heart goes.”

  “How does it go?” asked Holly intently.

  “Sign in a long night,” said Emmalylis, clearly exhausted by the effort to make Holly understand. “From snow to snow.” Then she shook her head. She could speak no more.

  Holly pulled her soft handkerchief from her pocket and made a little bed for Emmalylis. The fairy crawled toward it, rolled the fabric over her head like a tent, and fell asleep instantly. Holly watched over her until the room grew dark.

  Holly settled herself more deeply into the nest of cushions she had arranged in her sitting room. “Half round,” she muttered. She had been wracking her brain for hours to find a meaning for the fairy’s words.

  “Say the whole thing again,” demanded Alexia for the twentieth time.

  “She said ‘Half round in a long night, dazzled with whiteness up, your heart goes,’ ” recited Holly

  “That makes no sense at all,” sniffed the fox.

  “I think it does,” Holly said earnestly. “That part about my heart—I think she was trying to tell me that there’s a way for me to go to the mortal world and do something important there. I really think that’s what she was trying to say.”

  “Then she’s wrong.” Alexia scowled. “What about the curse?”

  Tundra looked at Holly sympathetically. “Maybe she was making it up. Fairies are terrible liars, you know.”

  “She wasn’t making it up. She was trying to help me.”

  “I don’t know why you don’t just ask your father,” said Alexia.

  “I told you,” said Holly patiently. “If I tell him, he’ll try to stop me. He doesn’t want me to go to the mortal world.”

  “I don’t want you to either,” said Tundra.

  Holly rubbed between his ears. “Hush.” She threw back her head and stared at the branches above her head. “ ‘Half round.’ That’s the best clue. What’s half round?”

  There was a long silence.

  “All right, what about ‘dazzled with whiteness up’?” she said. “What could that be?”

  “Maybe there’s half a hole in the bottom of one of the glaciers and if you fall into it, you’ll end up in the mortal world,” suggested Empy.

  Holly hid a grin that would have hurt his feelings. “Maybe you’re right.”

  Alexia was not so tactful. “The glaciers aren’t white, silly. They’re colored.”

  Empy stared at the floor.

  “Now Lexy, don’t be such a crab,” said Holly peaceably.

  “Why can’t you find Emmalylis and ask her to explain?” suggested Euphemia.

  “Fairies can’t explain,” replied Tundra. “She already did her best.”

  “Besides,” said Holly, “it would take me months to find her again.”

  “What about Sofya?” whispered Empy. “Won’t she help you?”

  Holly sat up straight. “Sofya! Of course! She knows everything!”

  “Good thinking,” said Tundra. “For a penguin,” said Alexia.

  Though Holly knew that Sofya lived in the castle and where her apartments lay in the old wing under Uther’s Tower, she had never visited her godmother’s rooms before. As she stood the next morning before the carved wooden doors with their brass fittings, she hesitated at the prospect of entering these private chambers. Not that she would be unwelcome; she just wasn’t quite sure what she would see.

  Holly raised her hand to knock, but the wood itself seemed to melt away, and she found herself inside a large, shadowy room, hung with rich tapestries and lit only with flickering candles in brass lamps. On the walls, pictures of princesses, firebirds, and golden horses had been painted in enamel, and from behind a lacy screen a thick curl of steam spread the scent of tea through the cavernous space.

  “Come in, goddaughter,” said Sofya, emerging from behind the screen with her usual serene expression. “Would you care for some tea?”

  “Um. No, thank you,” said Holly, unable to take her eyes from the jewel-bright paintings.

  There was a silence.

  “Are you paying a social call, Holly?” asked Sofya finally. “Isn’t it rather late in the evening? Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

  Holly smiled. “It’s morning, Sofya!”

  “Really,” Sofya said, unperturbed.

  “Really. You would be able to tell if you opened the curtains.”

  Sofya looked at the velvet hangings over the windows. “I prefer to make my own time, dear. Now do tell me what I can do for you.” She sipped her tea.

  Holly explained the events of the previous day. When she repeated Emmalylis’s words, Sofya shook her head disapprovingly and exclaimed, “Fairies! Such a naughty lot. I shall have
to speak to Makena.”

  “No, don’t do that,” pleaded Holly. “Emmalylis was trying to help me.”

  “But Holly she has not helped you in the least!” cried Sofya. “She has only made you want something you cannot yet have. Emmalylis has given you a riddle that you are not ready to solve.”

  Holly was near tears. “Sofya, you know that the only thing I want is a chance to deserve the immortality I was born with. Please, Sofya! I’m an outsider here, and I can never be anything else until I journey to the mortal world and make my way. Help me!” She knelt beside her godmother’s sofa.

  At the sight of Holly’s misery, Sofya’s face softened. “Oh, my dear. Let us try again. What you are truly asking me to do is grant your wish, are you not?”

  “Yes,” said Holly, looking up, hope flashing across her face. “Send me to the mortal world,” she begged.

  Sofya sighed. “And what will you do when you get there?”

  “I don’t know,” Holly confessed. “All I know is that something is drawing me to the Empire City. I know my destiny lies there. I know I will find my heart’s work there.”

  “That is the truth,” Sofya said simply.

  “Then send me! You have magic. You can grant wishes.”

  “No. Holly, it is the law of the universe. I cannot grant you a wish that is within your own power to attain.”

  Holly stared at her godmother. “My own power?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know this?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Oh, child, soon! You can find the way, and you must seek it patiently. It will happen soon enough.” Sofya stood up abruptly and paced toward one of the covered windows.

  Holly sat in silence, and then lifted her head. “I’ll be patient. But tell me one more thing. Please.”

  Her godmother smiled. “What is it?”

  “Will I die there?”

  The cloud-colored robes came to an abrupt halt, and Sofya stood as though frozen for a long minute. Then, to Holly’s astonishment, her godmother’s form was surrounded by a nimbus of electric blue, like that of a flame. Slowly the robes grew transparent, and Sofya disappeared before Holly’s eyes.

  Chapter Fourteen

  SHE SAID SOON. SHE said it twice,” Holly insisted.

  “She’s an immortal,” said Alexia gloomily. “Who knows what soon means to someone who’s lived five thousand years.”

  Empy snuggled against Holly’s knees, and she stroked his head.

  “Do you want to play the Empire City game?” Tundra asked.

  Holly nodded listlessly. “All right. You ask.”

  Tundra sat up. “Who’s the mayor of the Empire City?” he asked.

  “Easy. Mr. William Strong.”

  “Easy, was it?” said Tundra, ruffled. “How about this? Who rules the department of street cleaning? You’ll never get that one.”

  Holly stuck out her tongue at him. “Colonel George Edwin Waring.”

  “Junior.”

  Holly laughed. “Colonel George Edwin Waring, Junior, whatever that means.”

  “I’ll give you the point anyway,” said Tundra generously “But here’s a good one. You’re at the corner of Tenth Street and Fifth Avenue. How many blocks must you walk to reach Washington Square?”

  Holly closed her eyes and counted. “Four—no, five, if you count the alley.”

  “What’s a block?” asked Empy

  “Mortals arrange their cities in squares, each divided by a street. They call each square a block,” explained Holly.

  Alexia regarded Holly with awe. “How do you know all this?”

  “Tundra and I decided that I should get ready for my journey by finding out everything I could about the Empire City. I’ve been reading some of Papa’s books.”

  “And she made a map of the city, using the telescope,” said Tundra.

  “Research,” said Euphemia approvingly. “Very owlish.”

  “Just try it,” urged Alexia.

  Holly looked at the gigantic Amaranthine Gates. The golden posts had long since been restored, and there was no sign of the havoc that had once been wreaked upon them. The gems that lined the golden bars glittered in the afternoon sun. Holly’s heart began to thump. What if the curse had just sort of faded, and nobody knew it? What if she walked right up to the gates and pulled them open? What if that was all it took to be free?

  “You won’t know until you try,” said Alexia.

  Holly glanced back at Vobis, calmly waiting in the snow. The horse offered no opinion.

  “All right, Lexy,” Holly said. What if? She took an unsteady breath and approached the shining metal. Maybe? She stared up toward the heavens and could barely see the tops of the gates. With a shaking hand, she reached for the loop that held the latch—and stopped. She could not lift the metal circle; it was immobile. Tentatively she shook one golden bar and then pushed with all her might. The enormous gate did not even register a shiver.

  Then something caught her eye. On the other side, in the mortal realm, the snow was lined with shadows. Yet there was nothing that would cast a shadow. But the shadows existed, thin and patient, waiting. Her throat tightened, and she understood. These were the immortal souls, exiled from their destiny by the curse she had brought. Her eyes stung with tears.

  “Maybe I could dig under it,” Lexy was saying. She strolled toward the gate and began to paw at the snow near the post.

  “No, Lexy, don’t,” Holly said urgently. “We shouldn’t be here.” But the fox had already stopped.

  “It’s as though there’s a wall inside the ground,” she said, looking at her paws. “I’m breaking my claws on it, even though I can’t see it.” She looked back at Holly. “We must go.”

  “Yes,” said Holly with relief. “This is a sad place.”

  Time enfolded the five friends in its patient arms. Holly turned seventeen, and the expected journey still did not occur. She did her lessons and spent long hours molding her clay figures; she enjoyed her friends and loved her parents, but always and under each moment, she waited. There was something quiet and watchful in her face, a shadow of suspense on all her doings. Though Nicholas and Viviana did not know of Holly’s unshakable belief that her destiny lay in the mortal world, they knew that their daughter was no longer content with childish things. They saw her gazing absently from the windows into the sea of trees below, and they recognized the longing in her eyes.

  One bright October morning, as Holly and Viviana sat together in Holly’s snow-charmed sitting room, they heard heavy footsteps thumping down the hall. Nicholas entered, looking exasperated, and threw himself into a chair. It shuddered under the impact.

  “Goodness, Nicholas, be careful,” Viviana said, eyeing the chair.

  Nicholas sat in preoccupied silence. Finally he burst out, “There’s nothing I can do about it! My hands are tied.”

  “Your hands are tied about what?” asked Viviana.

  “The fairies,” he said grimly. “I’m going to have to enchant them. They’re completely out of hand.”

  “Enchant them? What do you mean?” cried Holly.

  “Cast a spell. Maybe not on all of them, but on most. It’s the only way to control them. Oh, not forever,” he said, catching sight of Holly’s stricken face, “but for a few months. They’re absolutely mad. Do you know what they did last night?”

  “Oh dear,” said Viviana apprehensively.

  “They broke into the doll shop and had a revel! And do you know what they did at that revel?”

  Holly shook her head, wincing in advance.

  “They ripped the head and limbs off every last doll in the shop and made a bonfire out by the lake! Didn’t see anything wrong with it! ‘We wanted to go skating by firelight,’ Nemekele tells me! Our entire stock of Christmas dolls! Hundreds of dolls! Christmas is only two months away! Didn’t see anything wrong with it!” Nicholas ranted.

  “They probably didn’t, love,” said Viviana.

  “I
know! I’m sure they didn’t, but that’s just the problem. They’ve got absolutely no sense of responsibility. They’ve got no sense of proportion. They’re complete savages!”

  “Oh, Papa, they’re not!” said Holly. “They’re wonderful! Of course, they’re careless and wild, but that’s because they live by their own lights. You know that they don’t understand the human world. It’s not their fault—it’s just the way they are.”

  “But what am I to do about the dolls?” demanded Nicholas. “They’re destroyed.”

  “Why don’t you use your magic to make new dolls instead of locking up the fairies?” Holly replied.

  Nicholas shook his head. “It’s not as easy as that. You see, even if I use magic, I have to envision the face of each doll first, and right now I need hundreds and hundreds of dolls. That’s not something I can do in a few weeks. But I suppose,” he said unwillingly, “I suppose that there’s no help for it now. The dolls will have to look alike. Maybe, if the goblins agree to take over the train shop, I can come up with three or four different dolls, but that’s the extent of it. They’ll be no better than the dolls in mortal shops and the trains will be dull, but what else can I do?”

  “Let me help!” said Holly.

  Nicholas turned doubtful eyes to her. “Have you ever made a doll?”

  “Yes. Yes, I have. I’ll show you.” And Holly jumped up, scattering papers as she ran to her workroom to retrieve her little clay models.

  She returned with her skirt held out before her, forming a basket for her work. “Look!” she said, dropping down before her father. He peered into the heap of figures and faces. He picked up a replica of Viviana, and one of Sofya, and studied them wonderingly.

  “You made these?” he asked, astonished. “They’re remarkable!”

  Viviana regarded her clay portrait. Brushing the face with her hand, she murmured softly, “You’ve made me so lovely, Holly.”

  Nicholas smiled. “It’s a perfect likeness, my dear.”