Christmas Carol & the Shimmering Elf Read online

  “We go back and fix it!” I said, filled with rage. I used to feel sorry for my uncle; he always seemed lonely and sad. But no more! He was an awful man who had escaped my grasp once. I would not let that happen again. “How do we travel back?”

  The Ancient One pondered this, and I thought I might explode with impatience. I had to act! We were wasting time. But I breathed deeply. I needed to let Grandmother think. She was the wisest being I knew, and I trusted her with my life. After all, she had just saved it. “Your uncle couldn’t have managed this alone. I know of only one elf who has mastered time travel.”

  “Who? Where is he?”

  “He was kicked out of the kingdom because he became obsessed with time, with going back to the moment something terrible happened in his life.”

  “He tried to change it?” I could sympathize with that. My own mother died when I was six. What I wouldn’t give to go back and hug her one last time, or to try and save her.

  “Yes. But I don’t have time to tell you that story now. We must find him.” Finally, I thought, we were taking action. “Let me concentrate,” she said, and she put her hand to her head and closed her eyes, searching for the long-lost elf. Less than a minute later, her eyes popped open. “Let’s go.”

  “You found him already?”

  “It wasn’t hard. I traced the source of the time disturbance. If it’s his doing, that’s where we’ll find him.” She made a circle with her hands, creating a portal.

  “What about Santa?” I asked, looking back at the light flickering in the window.

  “That’s not Santa,” Grandmother responded, shaking her head. “Not the Santa we know.” I took her outstretched hand. I closed my eyes. Together we dove through the portal, off to rewrite history.

  CHAPTER 2

  Back to New York

  The Ancient One and I emerged into the darkness of Central Park, the most secluded place we could think of in which to make a portal and not be seen. Grandmother said New York was the site of the time disturbance, and she was certain that’s where we would find the guilty elf.

  I was back in Manhattan! The place I’d met Santa, where I had agreed to become a Defender and my life changed forever. Only this time everything was all wrong. And it might never get fixed. Was I really the only Defender left?

  Grandmother and I fell into a snowdrift in the park. The cold and ice doesn’t bother me much since, as a Defender, I was built for the cold and even feed off it. But I still don’t like getting my clothes all wet. Grandmother landed upside down, her tiny feet sticking out of the snowbank, her cries for help muffled as I pulled her out. “I’m too old for this nonsense,” she said, brushing herself off. She was quite the sight, with her long silver hair and a blue robe that made her look like a fashionable monk. I wondered how we’d get around the city without drawing attention to ourselves.

  “Where do we go now?” I asked, shaking snow from my hair.

  “Downtown,” she said.

  “How do we get there?”

  “The subway of course.”

  “But I don’t have any money.”

  “Carol, dear, sometimes I wonder if the battle with your uncle knocked a few screws loose. Just follow me.”

  We wandered through Central Park, keeping to the shadows. The park was surprisingly empty, aside from a late-night jogger, a patrolling officer, and a scruffy-looking fellow who I guessed was homeless. I felt sorry for him and wished I actually did have money to give him. I checked my watch (Santa-themed, naturally), which Dad had given to me the previous Christmas. 9 p.m. Thinking of my father, I tried not to cry. Did he exist in this world or had my uncle snuffed out his own brother? I shuddered at the thought.

  I first noticed the stares in the subway station. At Grandmother, yes. But mostly at me! I assumed it had to do with the white stripe in my red hair, the mark that indicated I possessed Defender powers. But most of the world doesn’t know what that means, so maybe the people staring just thought the stripe was odd. Was I really that strange, especially in New York City, where you could see all kinds of bizarre-looking people? Passersby would glance at Grandmother, then look at me with wide eyes, hurrying away as if I were a rabid dog.

  What’s going on? I said telepathically. Grandmother had pulled her hood over her silver hair. We approached the turnstile for the Downtown train.

  I don’t know, she answered. Something’s definitely off.

  I know I’m weird-looking but come on, I said, smiling. But Grandmother just glanced worriedly at the panicky people.

  Freeze time, the elf commanded. A subway officer inside a glass booth watched us.

  Why?

  Grandmother sighed. Just do as I ask, please. I might be a powerful Defender who had saved Santa Claus, but Grandmother possessed her own special power: the ability to make me feel like a dope with a single sigh. I waved my hand through the air to manipulate the strands of time we Defenders can control. I’d gotten good at it, particularly with the help of my cane, which focused my powers. Everyone in the station froze. The subway officer stared, unmoving. A train pulling out of the station stopped. Exiting passengers were locked in mid-stride. That’s when I noticed something strange about them. They all wore the exact same clothes, a plain gray full-body jumpsuit, like a factory worker might wear. Women, men, children, it didn’t matter. They all had on the same bland, ugly uniform.

  Grandmother climbed over the turnstile and I steadied her as she landed stiffly on the other side.

  “Look how everyone’s dressed,” I said as I hopped over. The ordinary sameness of everyone gave me goose bumps. Not the good kind.

  “Very strange indeed,” Grandmother said.

  As we approached the open train door, I caught a glimpse of something at the end of the platform. “What is it, dear?” Grandmother asked.

  “Someone moved.”

  She looked alarmed and hurried onto the train. “Start time!”

  I moved my hand. The world sprang to life. The subway doors closed and the train pulled out of the station. At the end of the platform where I’d seen the movement stood a young boy, maybe a year or two older than me, wearing the same gray uniform as everyone else. He stared into the train. Our eyes locked. He took off his winter cap and I gasped. The boy had blazing red hair and running down the middle was a long stripe of white. The train plunged into the darkness of the tunnel and the boy was gone.

  On the train, more stares—at my hair, at my cane, at our clothes, at the ancient lady no one could possibly know was an elf. I avoided eye contact with everyone, but a nervous-looking man dialed a cell phone, glancing repeatedly at us and whispering into the phone.

  We need to get off this train, I said.

  Grandmother stood and we waited at the door, holding on to the pole as the train bumped into the station. When the door opened, the man rose to follow. I stopped. He hesitated, and now I knew for sure he was following us. I listened for the ding indicating the door was about to close. I waved my hand near my waist, making a small circle, gathering up the strings of time and space. When the bell dinged, I stepped onto the platform. The man followed. I aimed a North Pulse at his chest. It was a little one but enough to knock him backward. The door closed, the train took off, and I hurried after Grandmother up the stairs and onto the streets of Manhattan.

  I immediately realized where we were: 49th Street! As we hurried through the crowd in Times Square—even tourists wore the same dull uniforms!—Grandmother produced a winter cap. “Hide that hair.”

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Never mind that.”

  I put on the cap and stuffed my long hair underneath, wondering if Grandmother had just shoplifted a hat. We waded through the teeming crowd, many of them gawking up at the Times Square lights. At least that hadn’t changed. The tourists made me think of New York’s biggest attraction during the holidays. “I want to see the tree.”

  Grandmother sighed again. “You really do have a screw loose, dear. We don’t have time.”


  “Please. I need to see it. I need to make sure that hasn’t changed.”

  The Ancient One started to argue, but she saw the look in my eyes. Her shoulders slumped. “Lead the way.”

  We pushed through Times Square, but as we neared Radio City Music Hall, things changed. There should have been a mass of humanity heading toward the tree and the skaters and all the Christmas decorations. But the crowd had thinned to just us and a few others. And I gasped when I saw Radio City. The building was dark. In fact, it looked abandoned, and the marquee read: “Closed until further notice.” No Radio City Holiday Spectacular, no Rockettes, nothing.

  I stopped a passerby. “What happened to the Christmas show?”

  The man stared at me blankly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said and hurried away.

  “We have to get to the tree.” My best friend Amelia and I had walked these streets a year ago, exhilarated by the prospect of seeing that beautiful tree. Now I took the same steps filled with dread. The streets were nearly deserted as we approached the square that held the tree and the skating rink. When we rounded the corner, I thought I might be sick. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes welled with tears.

  “Where is it?” I asked. Before us was emptiness, a giant gray slab of concrete with a couple of benches and a lamppost in the middle. No towering spruce twinkling with lights, no ice-skating rink, no happy tourists oohing and ahhing at the winter wonderland.

  “You know what happened, dear,” Grandmother said softly. “He changed it.”

  “But how? How can everything be so different?”

  “That’s what we need to find out. Come, we must go.”

  We retreated into the shadows, the streetlights dull and murky away from the Times Square bustle. I heard the scrape of feet and froze. Shadows darted this way and that. The strangest feeling came over me. I tried to turn to the danger that was closing in. But I couldn’t move. I saw them coming, two scraggly boys, aiming something at me. Grandmother said in my mind, I’ll come for you, dear. She slipped into the shadows, made a portal, and vanished. After that, I saw no more.

  When I awoke, I thought for sure I was in a cave. In New York City? But then I saw the platform, the graffiti, the tracks, and realized I was in a sort of manmade cave, a subway station, long abandoned by the looks of it. Candles burned everywhere, shabby furniture was strewn around the platform, and a lone lamp with a bare, burning bulb cast huge shadows. I was handcuffed by my left wrist to an old turnstile, my cane was gone, and I still didn’t feel quite right. I tried waving my right hand to make a North Pulse, but I felt nothing.

  “That won’t be working,” came a voice from behind me. I turned to see a boy with brown hair that had been dyed poorly, traces of red showing through, and I wondered if he possessed the power. He had dark eyes and dressed like the rest of the people in this world. But his uniform was dirty and ragged. He was tiny, probably a foot shorter than I was, and so skinny I imagined he might disappear if he turned sideways. His accent was thick, not Spanish like Amelia’s. Maybe something European or Russian.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  He leaned over me. “Your worst night dream,” he growled. I didn’t mean to, but I laughed. The boy looked shocked, then annoyed. “What is your problem?”

  “I think you mean worst nightmare.”

  “This is what I stated.”

  I laughed again. “OK.”

  He flinched as if I’d insulted him. “I’m on charge now. Remember that.”

  “What?”

  The boy muttered to himself in a language I didn’t recognize. “I’m on charge!” he yelled.

  “Oh, you mean in charge.”

  “Yes, in charge.”

  “Of me?”

  “Yes, of you.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “We will not bring you harm.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “He will explain.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Never mind that.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “America, of course,” the boy said, crossing his arms on his chest.

  “Um, OK.” I didn’t really care. I just wanted to know who he was, who he worked for, and why I suddenly couldn’t use my Defender powers. “What is this place?”

  A soft voice came from the shadows. “Home. Who are you?”

  I tried to find the source of the voice, but the subway station was too dark. “I should ask you that question,” I responded, trying to sound tough.

  “I don’t think you’re in a position to be asking questions.” He waited for a response, and when I hesitated, he said, “We don’t want to hurt you.”

  “But you’ve done something to me. I don’t feel right.”

  “So it’s true. You didn’t dye your hair that way and dress funny just to get attention.” At last the voice emerged from the shadows. The boy with the white stripe in his hair! He’d been on the platform when we pulled out of the station. “You have the power, right?” he asked. His red hair was trimmed tight against his scalp, and he reminded me a bit of Amelia, his skin the same beautiful brown. He was handsome, even in plain gray. I felt myself blush and hoped the murkiness of the station hid my glowing cheeks. I nodded. If he was going to hurt me or turn me in to my uncle, he already would have.

  “All with power have been found by them,” the other boy said.

  The boy with the white stripe sighed. “Let me do the talking, Ivan.”

  “Do not reveal names!” he hissed. He turned to me. “Ivan I am not.”

  “It’ll be fine,” the other boy said. “My name’s Ray. You’re not going to tell anyone about us, right?” He looked at me with the slightest of smiles. I had no idea what his intentions were, but I liked him. I couldn’t help it. I even liked Ivan-I-Am-Not, goofy as he might be.

  “I don’t even know who I’d tell. I’m not from here.”

  “From the United States?”

  “It’s hard to explain.” That’s when I noticed, in the far corner, a drawing on the wall. A man with a white beard and an odd red hat. Underneath, on a small stack of crates, was a crude doll that looked a lot like the drawing. Next to that stood a drooping tree, covered with makeshift ornaments made from scraps of metal, shards of colored broken glass, and other pieces of garbage you’d pick up off the street. Surrounding the display were flickering candles, along with flowers left in front like offerings at a shrine. My heart swelled. There was no mistaking who that was supposed to be. “Santa,” I said, a tear darting down my cheek.

  Ray stepped forward excitedly. “You know who that is?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Santa Claus.”

  Both boys gasped. “How do you know that name?” Ray asked.

  “I’ll tell you if you let me go and tell me who you are.”

  The boys huddled together, whispering feverishly, until at last Ray turned to me and nodded. He pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the cuffs. He pointed to a weird-looking contraption behind me that resembled a laser gun from a cheesy old sci-fi movie, only bigger, and with a boxy metal base. “I’m leaving that on.”

  “What is it?”

  “It messes with our power. It’s how he stops the ones who don’t join him.”

  “Who?”

  “What do you mean who? Do you live in a cave or something?”

  I laughed, looking around at the gloomy station. “Actually, I think you do.”

  Ivan-I-Am-Not laughed, too, until Ray shot him a dirty look. “Tell me how you know about Santa,” Ray said.

  I hesitated. Could I really trust these boys? They had, after all, just tracked me down with some kind of Defender-nullifying machine and kidnapped me right off the street. And if I told them what had happened to me and how history itself had been altered, would they even believe me? I looked into their dirty, skinny faces, and you know what I saw? In the world where Santa was no longer Santa, where Christmas wasn’t Christmas and everything I knew had changed
, I saw belief. I saw hope. I took a deep breath and told them my story.

  When I finished, the two boys stared at me for the longest time, saying nothing. Then they laughed, wild crazy laughter, the kind that makes your sides hurt. My cheeks burned and I imagined they were as red as the stripes in my missing cane. “What’s so funny?!”

  Ray wiped his eyes. “Elves? Defenders? Presents from Santa every Christmas? Hahahaha!”

  “I’m telling the truth!”

  “Right,” Ray said and got up as if to leave. “I have things to do.”

  “I can prove it.”

  “Mm-hmm.” He kept walking.

  I concentrated on making a portal, hoping that the contraption blocking my Defender powers would have no effect on my elf abilities. I thought of Grandmother, directing my powers at her, and she appeared. I knew, of course, that only I could see the portal. I waved to Grandmother, and the two boys stared at where the portal was. They glanced at each other and rolled their eyes. I picked up an empty plastic cup and asked, “Are you watching?”

  “Yes, Miss Defender,” Ray said sarcastically.

  Are you OK? Grandmother asked.

  Yes, I think these boys will help but they don’t believe me. Will you catch this and throw it back?

  Yes, dear.

  I made sure the boys were watching and tossed the cup through. There was a slight delay, then it appeared on Grandmother’s side and she caught it. But to the boys, the cup simply vanished.

  Ray ran to where the cup disappeared, looking every which way. “What kind of trick is this?”

  “No trick. My grandmother’s staring back at you.” She waved, though I’m not sure why since he couldn’t see her. I let my portal vanish. She made a new one, since portals are one-way, and appeared holding the cup.

  Tell him to get ready, she said.

  Oh, I will, I said, smiling. Watch out, Ray, I said in my head, hoping it wouldn’t register with Grandmother that I was speaking telepathically and not out loud to him. She tossed the cup. Ray didn’t move. And it bopped him right on the nose. “Ow!”