The Christmas Chronicles (13 page)

At that, Ranulf had been so pleased that he leapt thirty
feet into the air and flew three times around Castle Noël, barrel-rolling and doing backflips all along the way. “Thank yoooouuuu!” he called out.

Klaus gazed up in astonishment. “I hope he doesn’t do that when he’s hitched to the sleigh,” he said.

And Anna had replied, “I like him. He’s my favorite color!”

Everyone had warmed to Ranulf’s high spirits. It was almost as if he had come to help them through their grief at losing Dasher, and to cope with their dread of the demon who had struck him down. He exulted in fun and had immediately introduced new winter sports to the True North. Klaus had gasped when he first saw Ranulf skid gracefully across the frozen lake by Castle Noël. “It’s called hoof skating!” he had called out. “Why not try it?” Soon all the reindeer were racing each other across the ice and dividing into teams to play ice hockey.

In the end, Klaus had had to be a bit stern: “We all have work to do if we’re to make this year’s deliveries! And besides, I don’t want anyone breaking a leg! Ranulf, no more of these reindeer games until after Christmas!”

“Right, boss!” Ranulf had said cheerfully and led the way off the ice.

Now it was Christmas Eve and all were ready to depart.
Klaus stood up in the sleigh. It was time to find out if the red acrobat could lead the team. “On, Ranulf!” he cried. “And no barrel-rolling, please!”

The sleigh bowled down the thoroughfare of ice away from Castle Noël, silhouetted against the purple and gold of a True North sunset. Ranulf took two strides for every one of Dancer’s, but he never tired. And the team followed well. They entered the Straight Road, which opened up suddenly before them as usual, and sped through the clouds down its length. Klaus had no idea where it would touch the earth, only that it would be where the love of Christmas burned brightest.

“Time Stop!” commanded Klaus halfway down the Straight Road.
And may Chronolepsy stop the demon, too,
Klaus fervently hoped.

And at first it looked as though it had. The Road shot to the ground. The two silver pots with their variegated holly bushes appeared like sentinels and anchored its entrance into the world. Klaus peered around, scanning the horizon on all sides for any sign of grayness. But there was nothing to see but the sunset winking through some snow-clad trees. Klaus allowed himself to relax a little. Chronolepsy had worked. He pulled out some maps and a compass to orient himself and began to think of his lists and deliveries.

But a sudden feeling of dread made him look up sharply. The demon was there. It had rushed to them with silent, deadly speed from wherever in the world it had been lurking. Klaus’s heart sank. Chronolepsy had not even slowed it down. There it crouched, just beyond the foot of the Road, a ghastly, writhing menace. “Hold!” he called to his team, and they trotted to a halt. All was still for a moment. No one moved a muscle.

Then the demon let out a terrible moan. It was low at first, almost a whimper. But it soon grew to a mighty, agonizing din—like all the despairing souls of the world crying together. The reindeer fell to their knees and hung their antlered heads. This was simply too much for them. Their sight and hearing fled, and paralyzing horror crept into their hearts. With a malicious gurgle—almost a spiteful laugh—the cloud leapt onto the Road and began to melt it away like acid. Klaus jumped from his sleigh in a panic. If he did not act fast, all his reindeer would fall into the same black despair that had taken Dasher. And he would lose his tie to the earth. Forever.

He was about to make a desperate charge at the cloud when he heard a voice say, “Loose me.” It was said with such calm command that at first Klaus was confused.
Surely that is Dasher’s voice,
he thought. Then he saw that one
reindeer had not fallen to its knees, nor hung its head. Little Ranulf stood upright and resolute, neither deaf nor blind. He glowered at the cloud, his green eyes blazing. “This Christmas Eve fog is for me. Loose me.” Without a word, Klaus unhitched the reindeer. “Thanks, boss!” Ranulf piped in his normal, carefree voice and bugled his shrill little bugle. It rang out clear as a bell and cut off the demon’s moan.

Then, still bugling, he stampeded into the grayness.

For a moment the little reindeer was completely hidden inside the awful, dreary mass, and Klaus could see nothing of the titanic struggle going on inside. Then the cloud shuddered and boiled with rage, and he caught a glimpse of Ranulf tossing his head again and again.
Why, he’s pronging it with his antlers,
Klaus thought.
Sensible plan!

But suddenly the cloud grew dark as night. Lightning flickered around its edges and stabbed into its interior.
Oh no
, thought Klaus,
he’ll be killed!
He ran toward the fight, but then he heard Ranulf’s sharp bugle again. A moment later the demon howled in pain and rage, lost its nerve, and fled into the sky. “Well done, Ranulf!” Klaus cried.

“Not done yet, boss!” Ranulf called. “Back in a minute!” And he rocketed into the air after the demon.

There followed one of the most epic aerial battles in all
of history—and none to see it except Klaus and the other seven Flyers, who began to revive as soon as the cloud was driven from the Road. Ranulf caught up with the fog in a scarlet flash. He bugled and pronged it again. The demon shrieked and streaked away at blinding speed, trying to get away from the searing pain of that agonizing sound and those sharp little antlers. But it could not. Wherever it zigged, Ranulf zigged. Wherever it zagged, Ranulf zagged and pronged again.

All of the other reindeer laughed and called his name: “Ranulf! Ranulf!” In response, Ranulf did a cartwheel in the sky. “It’s called sky hoofing!” he called out. “Try it sometime!”

“Look out!” Klaus yelled in alarm. For the demon was now on the attack. It concentrated all the hatred and envy and desolation it could muster and charged the little reindeer from behind. If it had not put all its malevolence into that final, ultimate strike, it might have saved itself. But Ranulf turned in a flash and lowered his head and took the full force of the demon’s charge. His antlers bit deep into the very heart of the cloud. A scream such as no one there had ever heard before, even in their nightmares, rent the air, and the cloud looked for a moment as if it would come apart in tatters. But then it pulled itself together and
disappeared in an instant over the distant horizon. A moment later a flash of sheet lightning and a low rumble of thunder came from where it had fled.

Ranulf landed lightly beside Klaus. “You … see,” he panted, “all those … reindeer games … paid off!”

From that day, the demon that had been Rolf Eckhof hated and feared Ranulf above all persons, and where the little reindeer is, he will not come. That is why, at the conclusion of each Christmas Eve, Ranulf stands guard at the bottom of the Straight Road until all of the other reindeer and Klaus have traveled safely up its length. He protects the precious link to the True North right up to the moment it is drawn safely up out of the world. And later Anna stitched a great work of art called
The Battle of Ranulf and the Demon
, which hangs in the Reception Hall of Castle Noël to this day.

Incidentally, the demon now loathes two colors, especially when they appear together: red—for Ranulf’s remarkable coat—and green—for his piercing emerald eyes. And the sound of Ranulf’s high-pitched bugle it cannot abide. So I advise you: Should you happen upon an evil cloud-demon, show it Christmas colors and bugle like a small scarlet reindeer, and you should be proof against it.

• • •

A
nd now I have come almost to the end of my brief biography. All during that long Christmas Eve, Klaus flew over the continents of the earth and worked his age-old Magic, delivering toys to children in many lands, spreading happiness and hope with each gift—as he had always done. And many times in that enchanted night, Klaus laughed out loud, thinking of Ranulf’s great victory over the demon—and for the sheer joy of making Christmas. “Ho, ho, ho!” he laughed. “Ho, ho, ho!” And each peal of laughter floated down from the sky onto the sleeping houses below like a benediction.

But, Esteemed Reader, will it always be so? Will Klaus always come into the world at Christmas?

Alas! Too few are now the places where the Straight Road may find purchase on the earth. For, as Saint Nicholas predicted, the demon has struck at Christmas, and struck hard. Unable to come at Klaus himself, it has assaulted humanity. Hundreds of years of simple gifts freely given out of the fondness and mirth in Klaus’s soul, gradually at first, and then more rapidly, have turned into a frenzy of commerce and competition, until many in the world grow heartsick as Christmas approaches. And that is the demon’s work.
Love for Klaus begins to wane. So, too, does understanding of what he really means: hearts knit together, belief in happiness just for itself and in the joy of causing it without judgment or profit, and, above all, hope: hope that in a cold time life will come again. And as the love of Christmas diminishes, the demon that was Rolf Eckhof grows steadily more potent as he haunts the world. He spreads his gloom wherever he can. His grayness enters hearts and they falter and lose their way.

And now we come to the heart of the matter and to the reason for
The Green Book
. Do not imagine this copy arrived in your hands by chance. It was made for you.

If you would fight the demon, tell people this true account of Klaus, of his youth as a wood carver and of his goodness to the people of his village. Spread the word about Anna and greathearted Dasher and the Green Council, about the splendors of the True North and what is done there. Drink a mug of peppermint hot chocolate with a friend and explain Chronolepsy and the Maya Principle and the Great Pact. Tell your family of the merry antics of Ranulf the Red Reindeer.

Like Klaus himself, you, Reader, can kindle Belief again. The original
Green Book
resides in the Father Goswin Library, an annex of Castle Noël. It is gone from the world
and cannot be shown there again. And that is a good thing. The cynical world does not need more pale and weary proofs! It needs vibrant and vivid Belief in things it cannot see. Only that will keep the tie with the Straight Road strong so that Klaus may do his work.

And what is his work? Only healing the world of its hopelessness. Only curing it of its grayness. Only year by year helping the world remember that it has a heart.

And so, Dear Reader, I bid you, this year, and every year, the very merriest of Merry Christmases. And I entreat you: Spread the word!

Dunstan Wyatt

A
nd so I finished Professor Wyatt’s biography of Klaus. Before I fell asleep that December night, I looked again through the rest of the book. It all made sense now: the beautiful engravings, the flight charts and maps, the production figures and graphs, the Great Pact with its red wax seal. I thought about how Professor Wyatt and Ranulf must have meant for the book to fall from the sleigh as it sped up the Straight Road. And the Road must have touched the earth where it did because … well, because of me. Because
I believe in Christmas. Yes. I do. And now I knew why that was so important. And now, so do you. We all have to decide: Are we with Rolf Eckhof, or are we with Klaus?

When I woke up the next morning, stiff from sleeping all night in a desk chair, I was glad it was a Saturday. That meant nobody had to rush off to do anything in particular. I checked to see that everyone was still in the house. They were. My wife was already at her desk, paying bills. One boy was making French toast in the kitchen; the other was still snoring lightly in his bed. I woke that boy, gathered the wife into the kitchen, and asked the other boy to make enough French toast for everyone. I told them I had something to say, and that it might take a while.

“And, son,” I said, “record me, will you? Because what I’m about to tell you is Important.”

My wife sighed. “I can hear the capital ‘I’ in that last word. I’ll make coffee.”

“Right,” said the boy and got the equipment he used with his band.

When everyone had settled, I looked at them one by one around the kitchen table. I took a deep breath.

And then I told them everything. Everything that had happened to me the day before. Every word of Klaus’s biography, which, as Professor Wyatt had promised, I remembered with ease. When I got to the part about Klaus
meeting Kelzang on his first Chronoleptic Christmas Eve flight, one boy mused, “They must have been at Potala Palace in Lhasa.”

“Where is that?” I said.

“Tibet. Kelzang Gyatso was the Seventh Dalai Lama.”

“From 1708 to 1757,” the other boy volunteered. “Everyone knows that. Keep going. This is pretty interesting.”

And I did. I kept going until I had recited the entire book, finishing sometime in the afternoon. “ ‘Spread the word,’ ” I concluded. “That’s what Professor Wyatt said we have to do.”

There was silence for a moment around the sofas in the family room to which we had drifted sometime during my recitation. Then:

“Wow,” one boy said.

The other boy said, “Let me support that comment: wow.”

Another moment of silence.

“It really is the best story you’ve ever told us,” my wife said.

“Thank you,” I said, gratified. Then, “Wait, no. This isn’t a story. Haven’t you been listening? This really happened. This is all true.” No one said anything. “You believe me, don’t you?” I asked. My wife got that patient look on
her face. The boys exchanged glances. “Wait,” I said. I ran down to the study and came back with a piece of paper and gave it to my wife. “There. That’s the note Professor Wyatt left when he took
The Green Book.
See?”

She studied it, passed it wordlessly to one boy. He looked it over and said, “It’s in your handwriting, Dad.”

I snatched it back. “No, it isn’t,” I said, though, upon examination, it did look a lot like my handwriting—an uncanny parallel I hadn’t noticed before. I could see how they might make a mistake. “Well then, what about my being able to recite from
The Green Book
without correcting myself—or even pausing?” I asked.