The Winter Riddle Page 7

  She heard two faint thumps, like a pair of boots coming to rest. Her hackles raised, and her hackles were never wrong. Santa was standing behind her, in the other doorway that led into the room.

  She suppressed a grin. If he weren’t nervous, he’d have strode into the room without hesitation. That’s what her father did when he wanted to put people on edge. Time to take the upper hand, while he was still summoning his courage.

  “Come in,” she said without turning around. It was her room now, and he was her guest. She’d not be plied with creature comforts. It was time for him to answer to the witch he’d vexed.

  She remained seated when he came stiffly into her view, smiled, and extended a hand. She returned neither gesture, but merely stared at him coolly.

  He was bigger than she’d expected. Tall, yes, but not excessively. He was trim and broad-shouldered, not young but certainly not old enough for his hair and beard to have gone completely white, not that it stopped them.

  “I am Volgha,” she said, “the Winter Witch.”

  “Santa,” he replied, letting his hand drop to his side. “Santa Klaus.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m usually able to ignore that, yet here we are.”

  Santa sat in an armchair identical to hers, facing her. He seemed genuinely uncomfortable in the overstuffed abomination. This was going well.

  “Here we are,” he repeated. “The elves have told me that the wolves came with you, and they brought the wing.”

  “That’s right,” said Volgha. She hadn’t thought about it, but now that he said so, it rather did resemble a wing. One that had been severely damaged in a long fall, but a wing nonetheless.

  “I’d like to thank you for returning it to me. I’d thought it lost and was just about to make another. Even in its current state, repairing it will be easier than replacing it.”

  “That’s fantastic,” said Volgha, indulging in a bout of sarcasm that she typically reserved for her sister.

  “Uh, yes,” said Santa. “Like I said, very nice of you to return it to me. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.”

  “Oh, no,” said Volgha, her eyes wide and her head lolling about as she spread the sarcasm about even thicker. “No trouble at all! In fact, I should thank you for carelessly letting you garbage tumble down into my grove!”

  Sighing, Santa fidgeted with the long braids in his beard. “I’ve inconvenienced you. I’m very sorry about that, it was not my intention. May I ask—”

  “Not your intention?” Frigid sarcasm yielded the stage to open hostility. “What was your intention, exactly, in flinging your debris about my forest?”

  “It was an accident, I assure you. I had no intention—”

  “I’m not interested in your intentions. I’m interested in your actions. I’m interested in why that monstrosity befouled my garden, why I was made to deal with it, and what you have to say for yourself!”

  “I’m sorry,” said Santa.

  “What was that?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I had no idea that I’d so carelessly intruded upon you like this, and I offer you a full and unreserved apology.”

  She hadn’t expected that. An apology, yes, but it entirely lacked panic. People who’d vexed her generally blubbered and tried to explain how she’d gotten it all wrong, and it was really kind of funny if you really thought about it. Oh, the laughs they’d share about it later!

  But not this time. Not Santa. He wasn’t begging or blubbering. He wasn’t even trying to talk his way out of it, or blame it on one of his elves. He was taking it on the chin, and simply, sincerely, apologizing.

  What was his game? Telling her what she wanted to hear, so he could placate her and earn forgiveness the easy way? He’d obviously never vexed a witch before.

  “Keep your apology,” she spat. “We have no friendship to mend. You owe me much more than a few kind words, Klaus.”

  “Of course,” said Santa.

  Finally a little urgency! A trembling chicken, come to roost in a coop of fear!

  “How can I make it up to you?”

  “I haven’t made up my mind.” All part of the dance. She’d intimidated people over this sort of thing before, and she was good at it. This was proper witchery in action.

  “Take your time,” said Santa. “Can I offer you some supper, some more wine?”

  “Oh, that’s rich. No such offer from you in all the years we’ve been neighbors, but now—since you find yourself under the scrutiny of an angry witch—now you decide to play the generous host?”

  “You have me at an advantage. I didn’t know that I had any neighbors.”

  “That’s because I’m an exceedingly good neighbor. The kind from whom you’ve never heard a peep.”

  Santa nodded. “A better neighbor than I am, to be sure.”

  “Is that supposed to make me think better of you? A little grovel to undo an insult, is that what passes for deference with you?”

  “I only meant that—”

  “I’ll not tell you again that I’m not interested in your intentions!”

  Volgha was standing. She didn’t remember rising from the chair, but she found herself looming over Santa in a very witchy pose, which most people found intimidating. Santa, it seemed, could not be counted among most people in this regard.

  There was no urgency on his face, no fear. He gazed up at her with unnerving patience, like a wolf who’d stuffed himself on pilfered sheep, trying to decide if it was going to eat the tiny bunny who had just traipsed into his yawning maw. She’d sought his fear and found his teeth by mistake.

  Intimidation is a battle of wills, so she couldn’t back down. She stood there looming over him, willing him to blink. He didn’t. She eventually managed to sit back down in her lavish monstrosity of a chair and lock eyes with him in silence.

  The fire crackled in the hearth, the only movement in the room for several minutes. Santa looked away first, turning his eyes to the fire. She had the upper hand again, but only because he gave it to her. The nerve! As though she weren’t capable of taking it back by force! This was going on her list of grievances.

  Doing business like this was intolerable. She should have been back on her broom by now. Having reached a stalemate, there was nothing to do but blurt, “A favor.”

  “A favor?”

  “Yes,” replied Volgha. “I trade in favors, and now you owe me one. A big one. You wrecked my garden, and yet I returned your property to you with not so much as a minor hex on it.”

  Santa stared at the fire for a moment. He grimaced and sighed. Then he nodded.

  “Very well,” he said in a satisfying you-drive-a-hard-bargain sort of way. “On two conditions.”

  The fool was trying to negotiate! That counted as a vex in and of itself! She was strongly considering going right past favors and getting on with the hexes, but that was not the Witching Way. Witches don’t walk away from favors, especially not from capable persons of means.

  “You’re on thin ice,” she warned him. “Tell me your conditions, and I’ll decide what arrangements can be made.”

  “I won’t kill anyone. I’m firm on that, no more killing for me.”

  “No more?”

  Santa’s jaw flexed. It was apparent he hadn’t meant to give that away. His expression became a warning, a beast bristling in its cage, daring her to come closer and trust the bars that held him.

  “Fine,” said Volgha, “no killing. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of murder-free uses for you.”

  “And your second condition?”

  “As long as I hold up my end of the bargain, no hexes or magic that harms me or anyone under my protection.”

  There it was! That was proper fear! Volgha didn’t bother suppressing a grin at that one.

  “Do you think me vengeful?”

  “Frankly, yes,” he said. “You have every right to be angry with me, and this is just the sort of situation in which vengeance tends to arise. The only thing about you that I can trust is that
you’re angry, and until that changes, I need your word.”

  Shrewd, wasn’t he? Nice to hold sway over such a capable operator. This favor was costly, but turning out to be well worth it.

  “Very well Mister Klaus,” she said. “No obligations to murder anyone, and your village needn’t worry about my vengeance.”

  “And I will fulfill whatever favor you ask as quickly and thoroughly as possible.”

  “We’ll see if you’re as good as your word.”

  “Yes,” said Santa, “you shall. I don’t suppose you’re ready to claim it now, are you?”

  “No,” said Volgha. “When I am, I will find you.”

  “I look forward to setting things right. Just one more thing, if you’ll humor me.”

  Volgha was near the end of her patience. “Yes?”

  “There’s a boar roasting in my kitchen …” Santa smiled. “Won’t you stay for dinner?”

  The boar was delicious. Now that the whole favor business was settled, Volgha tried to relax a bit. It wasn’t the sort of thing she usually went in for, but Santa was an amiable sort of fellow, or was at least sufficiently worried that she’d use witchery against him that he kept on his best behavior.

  True, she’d promised not to place any hexes on him, but there was no real trust between them. That was normal for witches, of course, but why shouldn’t he trust her? After all, the fire hex that she was keeping on the tip of her tongue was just a standard precaution. The fact that she’d standardized that on the way over shouldn’t be read into too deeply.

  No matter. She’d soon be on her way back to her cottage to enjoy what little measure of peace and quiet would be afforded her, until Alexia called her back for Loki’s third sip. Of course, if that took too long, some other distraction would dangle in front of her like a sparkly bauble that simply screamed “don’t forget about Volgha! She needs a good annoying, and it’s not like anyone else will rise to the occasion!”

  They ate in silence. Volgha thought that it was a perfectly lovely silence, which was a shame. Perfectly lovely silences never last, so the best option available to her was to break it on her own terms.

  “Tell me about the lamps,” she said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The lamps all around the village,” she repeated. “What are the little winged lights?”

  “Oh,” said Santa, “those are faerie shadows.”

  Volgha’s ears perked up. The Grimoire was infuriatingly silent on the subject of faeries, and she was keen to pick up whatever tidbits she could.

  “They don’t look like any shadows I’ve ever seen,” remarked Volgha, as casually as possible. “Where are the faeries?”

  “Probably asleep in the crooks of some great pine trees.”

  “Without their shadows?”

  “Without those shadows. They have two apiece,” explained Santa. “One for when the sun is up, and another for when it’s set.”

  “And they let you use them when they don’t need them?”

  “Sort of. I’m keeping them safe until they need them again. I tried keeping them in a box, but they didn’t like it.”

  “Why would the faeries care what you do with their shadows? They’re not using them.”

  “No, the shadows didn’t like it. They prefer to have a view. The faeries didn’t seem to have an opinion one way or the other.”

  “I suppose you hold the dark shadows for them the other half of the year?”

  Santa nodded. “The dark ones prefer the box. I think they sleep the whole time.”

  “Awfully nice of you to facilitate all of that.”

  “Nicer of them, really,” he said. “They could just go hang them behind the moon like they used to do. The elves had to negotiate with them for a long time to seal the deal.”

  Volgha nodded. They finished eating through another lovely silence. As an elf was clearing the dishes, the house shuddered briefly, as though it had been rocked by a very efficient earthquake. No one reacted.

  “What was that?” Volgha exclaimed.

  “What was what?” asked Santa.

  “I don’t know, that’s why I asked. Was it an earthquake or something?”

  “Ah,” said Santa with a grin, “that would be the jumping holly!”

  “Jumping holly?”

  “Really clever botany, if I do say so myself. And a bit of magic, but what isn’t these days?”

  “The house sort of lurched,” said Volgha, “just as I arrived. All of the snow flew off it.”

  “That would be the holly,” Santa replied. “It insulates the house from the outside. More importantly, it keeps the snow from sticking. Permafrosted walls always make a house colder.”

  “Very inventive,” Volgha conceded, but not in an excited way. If she got too chummy too soon, she couldn’t count on his trepidation.

  “It’s evening by our reckoning,” he said to Volgha. “Would you like to take a rest before you head back?”

  It was then that Volgha realized how tired she was. A big meal and a neighborly chastisement could really take it out of you.

  “That would be nice,” she said. “But don’t think that counts as your favor.”

  “Of course,” said Santa. “Consider it a further apology. I really am sorry, you know.”

  “So it would appear,” she said. He seemed sincere, but he could still be up to something.

  “Sergio will show you to a room,” said Santa. “Feel free to stay as long as you’d like.”

  7

  Santa’s evening lined up fairly closely with Volgha’s own. Like southerners, the folk who lived at the North Pole get tired about every sixteen hours, and need about eight hours’ sleep to “even” things out—hence the term evening.

  They don’t all do it at the same time, however. That would require the sort of large-scale coordination that meant governing bodies and multilateral agreements, and those meant asking people to pay taxes, which was a subject best avoided. “Poking the sleeping bear” would be both an apt metaphor and, taken literally, a better idea.

  Volgha was pleasantly surprised by the little room to which Sergio had led her. She’d originally thought Santa’s house to be needlessly extravagant, but that extravagance turned out to be high-quality practicality. Witches appreciate practicality.

  Her little room was far less lavish than the ones in Castle Borealis—not that she minded that in the slightest—but in the few minutes it took for her to drift off to sleep, she noticed that every feature of the room appeared to have been very intentionally crafted, down to the smallest detail.

  She investigated it further when she woke. The mattress seemed to be filled with a mixture of straw and wool, woven in a pattern that offered a dense yet soft cushion. It stayed warm where she lay on it, and though there was only one blanket, it was more than enough to keep her toasty through her slumber. A fine woolen weave. Almost worth calling in her favor for one.

  Almost.

  It didn’t end there. The carved wooden bed frame fit the mattress perfectly, and seemed to be joined entirely by clever cuts in the ends of the boards. She couldn’t find a single nail. The floorboards were as smooth as glass, no risk of splinters there. There were pegs for her clothes, shelves for her things (had she brought any), and even a water basin that could summon water by simply twisting a pair of knobs. She could even adjust the temperature. Hot water! Without hearth or kettle!

  She was sure that there was some sort of trick. There must have been an elf sitting silently above her in the ceiling, pouring water from a kettle when he saw that the knob had been twisted; still, it was fine treatment, and she appreciated the ruse. She decided to stay for a few more evenings, to learn a bit more about her neighbor.

  The one thing about the room that made her a bit uncomfortable was the round thing on the wall. It was a polished wooden disc with a needle on it. One end of the needle was attached to the center of the wooden circle, with the other end moving around its edge very slowly, on a course that led it in a
lap around the circle.

  Sergio explained that they had discs just like it all over the village. It helped them to know where the village’s evening officially began and ended. It kept them all operating on the same “skedgille,” as he’d called it. She’d found the concept worrisome. Why was it that they needed to all be working at the same time? She’d hate it if she had to wait for all of the other witches to be around for her to do rituals and hexes and such. People should sleep when they were ready to sleep, that’s how she saw it.

  The concept did come in handy, as it meant she got to wander around the village when no one else was around. Sure, she’d been told that she was welcome to poke around anywhere she liked, but people tended to be on their best behavior when they knew there was a witch watching. Unseen, she could catch them acting naturally.

  Santa was hiding something. It’s a well-known fact that everyone is hiding something. To find out what, people needed catching unawares. Even if it was something completely uninteresting to her, finding out what it was would tell Volgha more about him than the combined weight of all the words that would ever stumble from his gob.

  Most of the buildings in the village were dedicated to Santa’s work. Some of his experiments were very large, so there were large barns that served to house them. She still hadn’t managed to find the pub, but there was a long house where all of the elves seemed to live. Perhaps they did their drinking there, so their spouses wouldn’t have far to drag them. That was considerate, but didn’t irate spouses prefer to berate while walking through the streets? They did in Innisdown, anyway.

  The most peculiar building was at the end of a cobbled street and across a steel-and-wood bridge over a large gully full of rocks. She thought it peculiar that only burly-looking elves ever seemed to go to it.

  About half of the elves in the village appeared to be stockier than the other half, and while they were just as polite, they seemed a bit more … intense. They were more watchful, more intently focused on whatever was in front of them at any given moment.