Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
“Isee you’ve already noticed our most prized family heirloom,” Louis’s father says as he shuts the door behind him. He locks it, too, which sends alarm bells ringing in my head, but nobody else acts like it’s weird. “It’s the centerpiece of tonight’s festivities.”
I take a deep breath and try to stay calm. “Festivities? Oh, like an early Christmas tradition?” I ask, trying to keep the strain out of my voice. Something is strange here; the back of my neck won’t stop prickling.
“Tonight is a more important holiday than Christmas,” Louis’s father says.
I glance at my fiancé, but he’s either enraptured by the book or avoiding my gaze. “Louis didn’t mention we were celebrating anything in particular. Other than our engagement, I mean.”
“It’s a very private night for our family.
We hardly ever invite outsiders to join us,” Louis’s father says, with an approving glance at Louis.
Louis doesn’t hesitate to meet his gaze, expression brightening at his father’s attention.
“It’s an old family tradition. It started back in Germany generations ago, and my grandfather brought it to the new world when he traveled here. It is called Krampusnacht.”
A nervous giggle bubbles out of me. “As in… Krampus? Like Krampus Krampus?”
Louis squeezes my hand. I glance at him, expecting him to be sharing in the joke. But instead his jaw is set in a hard line, and he won’t look at me.
The laughter dies in my throat. I swallow with a dry click.
“Indeed,” Louis’s father continues, undeterred. “And Krampus is nothing to laugh about. The tales have been watered down over generations, but the truth is still in the heart of it. Krampus rewards those he deems worthy, and punishes those who are not.”
Despite the absurdity of all of this, goose bumps ripple across my skin. “Punishes them how?”
Louis’s father displays his too-white teeth, but it’s hard to call the expression a smile.
“That depends. For minor misbehavior, he might whip them with a birch branch. For those who have seriously trespassed…” He pauses, letting a meaningful silence stretch out.
The rest of the family is silent, waiting, and I lean forward slightly in anticipation.
“Some, he drags straight to Hell itself, to torture and devour.”
I shudder, leaning back in my chair again. “I think I prefer the cookies and gifts version of Christmas,” I joke weakly.
Louis’s father regards me coolly. “As I said, it is tradition. And tradition is important to my family, enough so that we brought it across the sea with us. Now that you are to become one of us, we have brought you here to join us in the way the Kohlers have spent Krampusnacht for generations.”
“Oh,” I say. “Well…”
Louis squeezes my hand again in what I now recognize as a warning. I snatch my fingers away. But despite my annoyance that he didn’t warn me about what was happening on this trip, I don’t see any way to back out now. I’m already here.
So I force a smile. “Of course, I would be honored. How are we celebrating?”
His lips twist slightly at the word celebrating, as though I’ve said something foolish, but he gives me a nod of approval. “A game,” he says.
“Oh, good,” I say. “I love games.”
“Competitive, are you?”
“I can be,” I say, glancing at Louis.
Louis looks more relaxed now, and the look he shoots back is almost playful. “She definitely can be.”
“I’m excited to see how you fare, then,” Louis’s father says, crossing the room.
“It’s a competition, then?” I perk up, watching him. “What are we playing?”
Louis’s father reaches his desk. He pulls out an old-fashioned-looking metal key from a chain around his neck, previously hidden under his shirt. Bending down, he uses it to unlock something beneath his desk and pulls out a parcel wrapped in some kind of cloth.
“You can think of it like hide-and-seek,” he says.
He sets the parcel delicately, almost reverently, on his desk, and very carefully unwraps it.
It’s an old-fashioned fountain pen, made of dark wood and shimmering gold.
“We will spend the night hiding from Krampus. Those who successfully evade him will receive a generous gift.”
I shoot Louis a mischievous grin. He studies me in return, surprisingly somber. “And what happens if we’re caught?” I ask, nudging him.
“Krampus will punish you.”
“Not with birch rods, I hope?” I joke, but Louis doesn’t smile.
His father, however, does. “That depends on what Krampus decides you deserve.”
“Hmm,” I say, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. “And who will be playing the role of Krampus? You?”
His grin shifts into something sly. “No. Not me.” He steps back from his desk and claps his hands twice, so loud, it startles me. “It is time to sign our names,” he announces.
The rest of the family all form a line in front of the desk, including Louis. After a moment’s hesitation, I rise to follow, the last in the queue.
I remember seeing those names listed on the pages earlier, but I feign ignorance.
“Sign?” I whisper to Louis, since his father is occupied, leaning down to sign first.
Louis glances over his shoulder at me. “Everyone who’s playing has to write their name in the book.”
“Why?”
He hesitates, and then says, “Tradition.” Then he turns forward in a clear dismissal.
I bite the inside of my cheek. His father finishes signing and moves aside for the family matriarch to move into place.
Next is Adrian, then Anna, then Louis. Finally, I step up to the desk.
The room is painstakingly silent, anticipation thickening the air, so I resist the urge to speak.
Surely they’ll explain more about the rules after this weird signing ritual.
Louis holds out the pen in offering. It’s heavier than I expect, and strangely warm. I’m the last one, so I feel the weight of the entire family’s eyes upon me as I look down at the yellow pages of the open book.
Karl Kohler
Theodora Kohler
Adrian Kohler
Louis Kohler
Anna Kohler
I look down at the pen in my hand and bite my lip. It’s probably silly, but this moment feels important, especially with everyone watching. Mine will be the only name on this page that isn’t a member of the family… yet. If I sign the book next year, I suppose it will be Diana Kohler.
But for now, I take the pen and write:
Diana Wilson
As I finish the swoop of the final letter, something pricks my finger.
I gasp, letting the pen clatter onto the desk, and see that a wicked-looking, sharp protrusion has come out of the side of the writing implement.
I must have activated some hidden mechanism, and it stabbed right into the pad of my pointer finger.
A drop of blood wells up and falls onto the open page, right beside my name.
It soaks into the parchment and disappears. Like the book drank it.
I clutch my stinging finger to my chest and whirl to face the family. “Something just—” I start, stammering.
I’m certain it’s some kind of accident, until I see them all grinning at me. Even Louis is smiling, enjoying a cruel joke that I’ve been left out of. His father reaches over and claps Louis on the shoulder. Louis’s eyes brighten at the gesture of approval.
He’s not even looking at me. I’m standing here bleeding, being laughed at, and he’s more concerned about getting Daddy’s attention.
Heat creeps up the back of my neck and blooms in my face. My breath comes short and fast as anger climbs up in the inside of my throat, clawing for release.
“What the fuck?” I blurt out.
That gets Louis’s attention. He shoots me a look, not of concern, but of disapproval. Disdain. Beside him, his mother’s lips form a firm line of displeasure. Adrian is smirking at me, along with his wife clinging to his arm.
“Is this some kind of prank?” I ask, holding my still-bleeding finger. Goddamn, that hurts. And I’ve bled on my designer dress, which means I can’t return it after this trip like I planned.
“Not at all.” Louis’s father returns his attention to me, his hand slipping off my fiancé’s shoulder. “As I said, it is a game. But I encourage you to take it seriously. In merely”—he steals a glance at the grandfather clock nearby—“a few minutes’ time, this year’s Krampusnacht will begin.”
I look around at the room, at all of their smirking faces. The sound of their laughter still rings in my ears. I bled, and they laughed. Louis won’t meet my eyes. This is getting seriously creepy, and we still haven’t started whatever game this is.
“I’m not so sure I’m in the mood to play anymore,” I say.
“It’s too late to back out now,” Louis’s father says with an unnerving smile. “You’ve already signed the book.”
I glance over my shoulder at the yellowed page, bearing my signature and no sign of the blood that dripped on it. My skin crawls. My gut screams that something is wrong here.
“As the newcomer to the game, you’ll play the first hour outside,” Louis’s father says, and my attention snaps back to him.
I laugh, entirely certain it’s a joke, until I realize no one else is smiling anymore. Instead they gaze at me with something cruel in their eyes. Again I get a glimpse of that strange hunger.
“Outside,” I repeat flatly. “In the snow.”
“Just for one hour,” Louis’s father says. “Then you may join the rest of us in the house to hide until sunrise.”
Even in the warmth of this cabin, my skin prickles at the memory of the biting chill outside. It’s the middle of the night, and it’s the kind of cold that can kill, out there.
Fast on the heels of that thought comes the memory of flipping through the book. All of those crossed-out names before Anna’s appeared. I glance at her; our eyes meet briefly, one of her eyebrows arching, and I recall her warning to run.
I look back at Louis’s father.
“No,” I say. “I’m not going out there.”
Louis’s father raises his eyebrows. “No is not an option.”
I look at Louis, who avoids my gaze, and bark a mirthless laugh. “No to the whole thing,” I say. “I’m done with whatever hazing ritual or prank this is. I want to go home, Louis.”
Louis slowly raises his eyes to mine. “You heard him,” he says. “That’s not an option.”
“Because I signed a stupid book?” I scowl. “No. Come on. I get it, very funny to tease the new girl, ha-ha. But that’s enough.”
Louis turns to look at his father. “Um… what now?”
His father’s brow crinkles in disappointment. “Adrian,” he says.
Louis’s brother is on his feet in an instant, grinning in a vicious way that makes every hair on my body rise in alarm. “Yup.”
“Just give me five minutes to talk to her,” Louis says. But he doesn’t intervene as his father and brother move toward me.
“No time,” his father says. “It’s almost midnight, we need to get her outside.”
I step back, bumping into the desk that holds that awful book. “Louis?”
As Adrian steps closer, I’m struck by an urge to grab the pen; any weapon is better than no weapon at all. But that’d be an insane thing to do. Wouldn’t it? He and his family would never forgive me if I turned violent in their house. It’d be so rude of me. So low-class.
In the moment I hesitate, Adrian grabs me by the arm. I cry out, and Louis’s father grabs the other. I struggle, but I’m helpless against two men so much bigger than me as they haul me out of the room.