Day 9 of the 12 Tales of the Holiday Season...Jen Frankel returns!

...and she's bringing her character Snata with her! Check out Jen's latest holiday tale, There Goes Snata Claws...

There Goes Snata Claws
by Jen Frankel

There was no way Sonata could have known exactly who was at the door when she heard the deep bong of the bell, but she knew enough to be stunningly less than excited. She was tucked up in her bed with the green and crimson covers drawn up to her chin, the velvet tickling her nose in a way that was both comforting and a little annoying, although in the most comforting of ways. It was cold in the room, as usual, and the hot chocolate her mother had brought up earlier was losing its halo of steam despite the magic infused to keep it warm.

The rumbly bass of the North Polar Bear followed the bell. “We have visitors!” he called, in his rumbly NP bear dialect. Sonata was fluent in seven bear languages thanks to him, but sometimes his accent made it hard to understand exactly what he was saying. He’d once claimed that she just needed to grow more fur in order to understand him properly, something that she found a little insulting since she’d been thirteen at the time and desperate to start shaving her legs despite her mother’s insistence she wait.

“Once you start shaving, it just comes back bristly like your father’s beard in springtime. We don’t need any more ouchy bears in the house!”

Visitors was exactly why Sonata wanted to start shaving her legs, and armpits, and the weird white hairs that grew around her earlobes. It didn’t help that her mother liked to twist them into curlicues that stood out in stark contrast to her otherwise reddish hair. It didn’t even matter that no one but the elves, her father, and the reindeer were around to see for most of the year, and none of them would dream of commenting on her appearance. Being the boss’s daughter was occasionally harmless but mostly irritating, especially since it meant that no one really wanted to interact with her except in the most superficial way.

But during the early summer Shortening Nights holiday, it really hurt. Santa liked to bring lower latitude children up to the workshop when things were at their quietest, show them around, and soak in the adoration. The kids loved it, of course, especially since they were hand-picked from the upcoming year’s “Nice” list. Sonata suspected it was a ploy to inspire them to maintain their goody-goody status until Christmas Eve. There was nothing that got Santa more upset than a nice kid who slipped off the list.

In the early days, she mused, when the idea of Santa was still new, kids around the world must have been as shocked as delighted by the toys Santa brought them on Christmas Eve. That must have been insane – some random box with a ribbon around it showing up and no one could tell you where it came from except with some fantabulous story about a jolly fat man sneaking in in the middle of the night. It was different if you ate dinner with the guy every night of your life, and most of your breakfasts as well if he wasn’t too busy with production.

Stupid warm-weather kids, with their electronics and their t-shirts. She bet all the girls had their own personal favourite shops online or even at a mall. There was no such thing as a mall at the Pole. She might live at the epicentre of Christmas toy production, but did she have any opportunity to express her own taste? Yeah, her dad encouraged her to write a letter to him every November asking for what she wanted to find under the thirty-foot tree in the Great Room, but it wasn’t much of a thrill when you knew perfectly well Santa was real.

Online shopping was entirely out of the question. Mail service to the North Pole was strictly reserved for Santa letters. She’d dreamed of having a pen pal when she was younger, but the various postal services around the world never brought anything but the mountains of mail from eager kids (and a surprising number of grown-ups). It was too bad – she even knew how she’d sign her name: Snata Claws, dropping the “o” in her first name and going full-on Bearish badass for the second. That would have been so cool, but of course it never happened. An hour or two a year was the most she got to encounter the outside world, and in the most artificial, awkward, and filled with total strangers way possible.

Sonata sighed and tried to pull the covers further over her head while still staying within hot chocolate-grabbing distance. Sixteen now, she’d already been through fifteen too many of these command performances: putting on her best dress, letting Helga Elfwand do her hair up in braids with holly woven through them, and standing like a good little dolly beside her mother on the long, sweeping staircase in the Great Hall. There was no way she was going through it again, this pointless show of unseasonal cheer. She felt anything but cheerful. If you could put a colour on her mood, it would be as dark as midnight at midwinter, which was about the blackest thing she could imagine.

She’d even sent Helga away when the elf arrived an hour before with the brush and the holly sprigs. “I’ll do it myself,” she snapped, ashamed of her tone even as the words came out. Helga took it in stride though, with only a brief sideways glance at the bed where Sonata had laid out her own outfit for once. 

In the distance down the hall, Sonata could hear the bellow that served the North Polar Bear for a laugh, every bit as terrifying as it was jovial. She was certain that at least one of their guests would have burst into tears by now, offering a chance for the elves to swoop in with candy canes to the oohs and aahhs of gathered youth. She sometimes thought he did it every year on purpose, but that would be assigning him far more deviousness than was in his big, sweet heart. She could almost be jealous of how much the children would love him by the time they left to return to their more temperate homes, which was ridiculous of course. She had him all year. They only had him for a brief, special, wonderful moment. Which she couldn’t – wouldn’t – dare spoil. Would she?

With one last unhappy look at her cooling cocoa, Sonata bit back the insecurity threatening her fragile self-esteem, bowed to the inevitable, and went to meet their guests.

Really, it made no sense to feel so inadequate. The question she should be asking herself was, “Does it matter?” These kids were total strangers. Not only that, but they’d wake up in the morning under the comforting illusion that the night before had all been a dream.

She turned the corner and emerged onto the landing above the Great Hall. Her mother was waiting, huge grin suddenly freezing on her face, the hand she’d stretched out toward Sonata drooping like all the meat had gone out of her sleeve.
From below, a gasp from the collective throats of the visiting children.

Then, from Santa himself as he twigged to the fact that all was not unfolded as his carefully rehearsed pageant was supposed to, a bellow.

“What in the blisteringly frozen North are you WEARING?”

Sonata looked down as if she had forgotten herself what she’d put on. Doc Marten-style boots that she’d begged Elfman Third Class Redicchio to craft her earlier in the year, with their red-and-green leather buffed over with black polish, the candy-striped tights that looked positively punkish under her black leather almost-miniskirt, and of course, her Misfits t-shirt, which she’d torn in several artful places.

Santa’s forehead had turned as red as his cheeks. His fat, friendly white eyebrows snuggled themselves far closer together than she’d ever seen them before, making the twinkle in his eyes more of a sinister glint.

Mrs. Claus was making a jerky transition from stunned to horrified, each element of her face twitching before changing, the expression defying all description until it finally settled. She hadn’t said a thing, but her hand finally picked itself back up to grasp her own throat, as if she couldn’t understand why she’d abruptly become mute.

There were a dozen kids circled around Santa below, still bundled up in their winter coats and scarves. As Sonata scanned their faces, she noted as many different reactions as there were children, but all of them seemed to live in the neighbourhood around “confused.”

“Hey,” she said, giving an inadequate little wave.

Santa breathed in, swelling his round chest enough to threaten a couple of the coal black buttons. “Hey? Is that honest to Christmas all you’re going to say?”

Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

Back in her room, instinct told her to prop a chair under the door handle. It was a candy-caneback one with a bright, crocheted seat. She waited for the inevitable – either the thump-thump-thump of her father’s big fist, or the softer but just as firm rap of her mother’s knuckles.

Instead, there was silence, or at least silence in the hallway outside her door. She could hear carolling from below, some round of “Up On The Rooftop,” she thought. Her hot chocolate was still a teeny bit warm, and she plunked down on the edge of the rug beside her bed to drink it.

Finally, when she had almost convinced herself that she’d been blessedly forgotten, the door bumped inwards, dislodging the chair as if she hadn’t even tried to block everyone out. The yellow point of the North Polar Bear’s head with its black shiny nose in the middle poked in. “Sonata, Big Guy wants to see you.”

Of course he did. The Bear wouldn’t meet her eyes. He knew she was in for it. Usually, it was something he’d done that required Santa’s discipline, so he knew the drill all too well. Sonata believed in her heart she wasn’t a bad kid; she didn’t set fire to the Christmas tree even though the real candles made it a real temptation when she was in her worst moods. She didn’t scream “Boring!” when the time came to hear her mother read “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” for the millionth time. She didn’t steal the boot black from the elves and try to use it to dye her hair. Not after the first time anyhow.

But then, the North Polar Bear wasn’t a bad bear either. Well, he was probably a bit bad for a bear, because he liked to live indoors at the North Pole in the stable with the reindeer, and drink hot cocoa, and never tried to eat any of the elves even though they were the same size (and some of them the same shape) as the seals he preferred in his diet. But he was good for a Bear who lived with people (and elves, and reindeer). The trouble he got into was usually accidental, and he was very accident-prone, in part because his friendly nature convinced him he could attempt tasks that, for example, would have been much better for someone with thumbs.

Sonata wasn’t sure what a child at the North Pole was supposed to be, exactly, because in all the centuries Santa and Mrs. Claus had lived here together, she was the first one. There wasn’t exactly an instruction manual. Even if there was, Sonata didn’t see herself following it, because it would necessarily have been written by someone who wasn’t her, who didn’t know what went on inside her head or her heart, and who obviously wouldn’t suggest that punk rock or heavy metal were worth listening to, or that asymmetrical haircuts including at least a little shaved scalp should be chosen over neat bangs and a centre part.

No one was going to write that manual, and because of that, she was going to continue to get into trouble, she supposed. But tonight felt different. Tonight, her parents had let the North Polar Bear come to get her instead of coming to her room themselves to talk over what she’d done. She finished off the cocoa, and followed the Bear out to discover just how naughty she’d been.

Santa’s office was in the heart of the big house, just off the huge kitchen for easy access to cookies and milk. It had its own wide hearth beyond which burned a cheerful fire. Sonata shuffled her feet, far too conscious of the black boots covering them. She imagined herself answering him, “But you have black boots! Why do mine have to be all green and red?” She was so sick of green and red.

Santa himself was fluffy sideburns-deep in a large leather-bound ledger, the North Pole guest book that every child signed when they arrived on their special once-in-a-lifetime journey here. Every now and then, there’d be a squeal from one of them as they saw the name of a parent or other loved one on a preceding page – Santa encouraged them to look through the book for just this reason. Once a kid, eyes wide, had whispered to Sonata that seeing her mom’s name in there was “like magic.” Or a PR stunt? Sonata had almost replied, but bit her tongue instead. So what if the Big Guy liked to manufacture a little extra sizzle for his young guests? Everything at the North Pole was manufactured one way or another, including her if you thought about it.

The heat in the room was almost too much as Sonata waited. She wished she could magically transport herself to the stable where the thin, uninsulated walls would allow the harsh wind to cool her down. She could bury her face in Donner’s velvety neck, inhaling the musky scent of the doe’s fur. Donner was probably the least talkative of the reindeer in the team, and Sonata loved her for that as well as for the animal’s love of Sonata’s cello-playing. The other deer could take it or leave it, but Donner was happy to sit for hours while Sonata practised, her legs folded neatly under her, liquid eyes half shut.

It was always a bit of an ordeal to find a temperature that was comfortable for both of them, not too hot for the snow-loving reindeer but warm enough for Sonata to play without her fingers freezing up. That had been solved in part by a Christmas present from the elves last year, a specially custom made cello bow that imbued its user with an aura of warmth in the cold. It was so sweet of them, understanding even if her parents didn’t how much it meant to her to share her music with Donner.

In fact, it had been Donner’s suggestion that Sonata look for a way to pursue her music, even if it took her beyond her home and into the world below the Arctic Circle. If she was not mistaken, Sonata could even now see the envelope she’d been desperately waiting for sticking out of the pile of letters on Santa’s desk, the distinctive Juilliard logo on the corner. A chill went through her, then a flush that made the room spin a little. Not today, of all days! Not when she was already in so much trouble.

Not that it even would be good news. After all, she had sent in her audition knowing that the distance and the cost of the prestigious music school were both prohibitive if not an actual barrier to her attending. It wasn’t the first time she’d applied either, just the first time to Juilliard, as if aiming for the sky would make it less painful when she inevitably crashed to earth.

Some errant, and definitely naughty, gust of air from the roaring fire caught hold of the letters on the corner of Santa’s desk, the stack containing the one with the prominent Julliard crest.

Sonata actually said, “Whoops!” as if she was a cartoon instead of a desperate daughter-of-a-Claus (as she’d heard her mother call Santa when she was really, really mad at him). She made a grab for the letter, hoping past hope that she’d be able to snag it mid-air and stash it before Santa saw, but instead, she knocked over the whole pile. She tripped backwards over the edge of Santa’s cheery deep-shag green rug, and landed with a snowfall of envelopes drifting down onto her supine form.

Santa reached out with one of the big fingerless mitts he wore even inside, and caught the nearest letter. It was the exact one she had hoped to hide.

“Sonata!” Claus rumbled with concern. “Are you all right?”

Sonata scrambled to her knees. It was all she could do not to scarper forward and snatch the dangerous missive out of her father’s fist. Instead, she made a quick inventory of all her parts and found that they were in order and mostly unharmed.

“I bumped my bum a little,” she said ruefully.

“Come here,” said the jolly man, the serious mood he’d seemed to be stewing in when she entered apparently evaporated by the fear she’d injured herself. Sonata ran to his arms and was enfolded in the familiar softness and warmth of his embrace.

She found herself tearing up in relief and, when he realized she was crying, he said, “Oh sweet Sonata, my heart’s music. Run off and get some cocoa. We can talk about earlier later.”

She did, almost tripping over her own boots in her haste to depart. She said nothing about having barely finished her last hot chocolate, and ran as fast as she could not to the kitchen but through it and out to the stable.

She couldn’t let him find her again, not until she’d hidden the letter she’d managed to swipe out of his hand during the hug. Not until she knew what it said, and maybe not even then. Maybe she’d just keep going until she hit Nunavut, and hop a bus to parts unknown, and warm. If he saw the letter, it was going to get even colder at home.

Donner was tucked into the corner of her stall on one of the straw-patterned blankets Mrs. Claus had made for each the deer, her legs tucked under one side.

“What’s wrong, Sonata?” she said immediately, before the girl could even crawl into the pile of soft fabric and nestle her face against the reindeer’s flank.

In response, Sonata raised a fist. In it was clenched the letter from Julliard.

Donner, whose ability to read was limited to bear scratches and deer sign, blinked her long-lashed eyes.

“I really did it this time,” Sonata said. “I got in.”

What the holly Christmas was she going to do now?

It was never really night here, not in these months at least. The extraordinarily long growing season was what made it possible for the candy canes to grow properly into their traditional shape, and for the bonbons to develop their brightest colours. Below the Arctic Circle, no one had ever even tried to grow tinsel, as far as Sonata knew at least. And gingerbread houses had to be constructed, not matured from tiny gingerbread cottage seeds.

Dawn lasted for hours in spring, and it was Sonata’s favourite time of the day. It wasn’t quite as warm as it got at noon, a balmy zero degrees, but it was warm enough to evaporate a little of the night-rime. Silence and fog surrounded the field that spread out before her, the gentle slope downwards revealing its rows of chocolate foil bells. Their wrappings were still dull and barely ripe enough to tell what colour they’d be eventually when harvested just before Christmas, when they would be not just vividly hued but have a bright shiny metallic glint.

Sonata started down one row between the plants, running her fingers along the twisted paper vines. When she accidentally dislodged an immature bell, she bent to pick it up and popped it into her mouth, enjoying the slightly sour metallic wrapping and the dark, bitter chocolate. Too many would give her a stomach ache, she heard her mother’s voice warn inside her head, but there would always be a twinkle in her eye when she said such things to her only child. If Santa strove always to be good, his wife, her mother, seemed to know exactly how to insinuate that being naughty might just be more fun.

She hiked her red and green striped backpack higher onto her shoulder, the cello bow protruding beyond its silver zipper. The walk to Elf Centre she had so confidently set out on an hour before as a first step to somehow – somehow – escaping the North Pole suddenly morphed from a good idea to impossibly long. She’d never done it on foot, didn’t actually know anyone who had. There were always sleds going back and forth, but if she tried to catch one, her father would know immediately what she was up to and defeat her very purpose for setting out.

A voice abruptly broke into her solitude. “Hey! You’re that elf girl from the Big House!”

Elf girl? Sonata fumed, not because she hadn’t fantasized many times about how much better life would be if she was an elf and not the daughter of the boss, but because the boy who’d horned in on her peaceful possible flight from her home could tell on her. Not just that, but he was obviously too dense to keep a secret, since he’d just as obviously missed Santa introducing her as his daughter.

Or had he? Had the Big Guy even gotten that far in the usual spiel before her wardrobe choice interrupted the proceedings? And if it had, had Santa never actually returned to the introduction of his only child, or at least an explanation of who she’d been as she came and then went just as quickly?

The boy was about her age with dark hair and a round, happy face. She hated him instantly. The fact he’d clearly wandered off from the tour and missed the sled home should have made her consider him a potential “naughty” convert, but his interruption of her badly conceived attempt at running away was just making a bad thing worse for her.
“Yeah,” she said, voice dripping with a sarcasm she could already see he would have no ability to appreciate, “I’m that elf.”
“I’m from New York,” he said, as if by way of introduction. “We don’t got candy cane fields down there, let me tell you.”
It struck Sonata that maybe he hadn’t missed the sleigh, and that there was a glimmer of hope for her. “When do you go back?”

“Hey, rude!” he said, and yes, she realized, it had sounded like that and worse. But he seemed barely offended. “Sled leaves in ten. I just wanted to see a little more of the place before we went.”

A weird impulse struck Sonata. “Take me!” she cried out impulsively, actually grabbing onto the sleeve of his parka. “You can hide me until take off, and then I promise I won’t tell anyone you helped me. Please!”

His look of horror made her recoil. He shook off her hand and backed away. “What the heck is wrong with you?” His voice shook. “You wanna leave here? The North Pole?”

There was too much to say suddenly, and no breath in her to say it. “Please, just help me get onto the sleigh without anyone noticing. I promise I won’t tell anyone you did!”

He put another few feet of distance between himself and her, starting up the path back to the stable and the departure pad. “You want me to do something naughty? In Santa’s actual literal backyard?”

He ran. Sonata screamed after him, her voice charging the air with brittle shards of sound. “Don’t leave me here!”

But he was gone, into a distant frisson of jingling sleigh bells as the elf crew readied the big sled for departure.

A snort sounded behind her, and Sonata whirled. On the rise by the gingerbread cookie nursery stood Donner. Sonata, who thought she couldn’t have felt colder a moment before, now felt her blood turn to ice. “Please,” she whispered, “Don’t tell him. Don’t tell on me. I’ll go back.”

Instead, Donner lowered her long lashes. She wouldn’t meet Sonata’s gaze. “Jump up,” she said. “I’ll take you.”

Sonata threw a stripey stockinged leg over Donner’s broad, sleek back and tucked her Doc Martens in along the reindeer’s flank.

“Do us proud,” Donner said, and they rose into the air.

The End

I am the host of the weekly literary open mic Write On! Write Now in Toronto and other writerly events, and the publisher of fine books at XenoProductions including the upcoming Elemental Poetry series and #Sexy Loving Drivel: A eugenestyles1 Production. I am the editor of the anthology Trump: Utopia or Dystopia and Marleen S. Barr's feminist sci fi collection This Former President: Science Fiction as Retrospective Retrorocket Jettisons Trumpism, and the author of the Blood & Magic series, Feral Tales, Leia of Earth, another poetry collection Moving and the zombie rom-com (zom-rom-com) Undead Redhead, some of whose characters also appear in The Kensington Howler.

This year, I'm promoting my appearance in the July/Aug edition of Analog (a story called Nebulous Negotiations with James Dick) and my new poetry anthology, Mayhaps: poems of longing, loss, and love.