Chapter 24 #2
While Santa wrestles with the full emotional burden of Crinkshaw, Willow Creek closes ranks around him.
Ronan digs in and sweeps a cluster of elves aside like he’s clearing snow off a stubborn driveway.
The teenagers loose a marshmallow volley.
Mr. Patel nudges the gritter enough to blunt a slicing gust. Mrs. Lee sends a plume of peppermint steam straight into the chaos.
For a handful of seconds, the town holds.
That’s all we get.
I move.
Without hesitation or flourish—just forward. Throwing fists, shoulders, whatever lands with everything I have. Every strike is driven by the increasingly personal desire to end this ridiculous wind sprite and his festive-themed holiday tantrum.
Holly is right beside me, wielding her snow shovel like a seasoned warrior with a legendary blade. She swings it like she’s been waiting her entire life for this exact moment.
Santa buckles.
The manic energy drains out him, replaced by something smaller. More frantic. He tries to rally, to gather himself, but Crinkshaw’s influence clings like damp wool.
“Wait,” he grunts, holding up a hand. “Wait—”
“You’re finished,” Holly snaps, stepping in before he can find a second wind. She plants her shovel like a line in the snow. “Your elves are done. The town’s back. The tree’s ours. Whatever this is—it’s over. Leave Willow Creek and don’t come back.”
“EVER!” Mrs. Christie yells from somewhere behind us.
Santa scrubs at his eyes with a shaking hand, then looks up, his face twisting into a snarl of pure hate.
“This isn’t over.” He spits. “I won’t forget this, Frost. When I come back, your little town—your precious tree, everything you’ve built here—I’ll grind it down to slush.”
“Get out of here, Santa,” Marcy shouts, appearing at Ronan’s side before she launches miniature mince pies with a surprisingly accurate aim. “Hit the road, you hoary old sprite.”
“Away, vile demon of questionable origin,” Ronan adds, hurling an ornament that cracks squarely against Santa’s forehead.
That seems to open the floodgates.
The entire town joins in—snowballs, candy canes, ornaments, and one deeply suspicious fruitcake all arc through the air like festive missiles. Laughter and shouting collide with half-sung carols as the square descends into coordinated nonsense.
The bakers escalate to flour bombs, which burst in soft white clouds and turn Santa’s beard into a damp, collapsing meringue.
Meribel rings a handbell in time while the choir leans into a refrain that makes his magic wobble like a loose bauble.
Mrs. Dapplewhite, guardian of the town archives, produces a roll of red ticket tape and efficiently trusses two elves, reciting infractions as she works: disorderly jingling, unlicensed wreathing, glitter spill, late fees already accruing.
The last of Santa’s storm gutters and fails, magic flickering out in uneven bursts like a dying string of bargain-bin lights: one bulb pops, then another, then the whole strand goes out.
He staggers, hat slipping, bravado leaking out of him like air from a punctured balloon, while Willow Creek closes in and keeps him there.
“We can make a deal, Draven,” he snarls.
I let one eyebrow arch.
The barrage falters, if only out of curiosity.
“You may have knocked me down,” he says, voice tight, “but I still hold Christmas. The spirit, the current, the whole infernal system. And I will keep it from your kind—unless you hand over the tree.”
A murmur runs through the crowd—uncertain at first, then hardening from uncertainty to resolve.
I hesitate.
The coven has been shut out of Christmas for so long. Longer than most of them can even remember properly. I see it in Ronan’s face, in Wes, in Ranu—the brief flicker of want they’d never admit to out loud.
And I nearly—
“No deal, Santa.”
Mr. Patel steps forward, jaw set like he’s about to argue over parking permits and win.
Mrs. Lee joins him without hesitation. “These are our vampires.”
Marcy elbows her way to the front. “Leave, and take your Crapmas with you.”
A hand lands on my shoulder.
Mrs. Christie.
Her rolling pin trembles—not with fear, but with the kind of fury usually reserved for overworked dough and underbaked opinions.
“You’ve got it wrong,” she tells Santa. “They’re already part of this town. We don’t need your permission, and we certainly don’t need your magic.” She glances up at me, and the look she gives is warm, certain, entirely unshakeable. “They’ve got us.”
We came to Willow Creek after I’d run out of better ideas. Another town, another stretch of time to fill—something to keep the coven from turning in on itself.
It was never meant to be permanent.
Not the eternal kind of permanent.
Now, people are standing between us and the thing coming for us. Not because they owe us something. Not because we asked. Just because we’re theirs now—and they’ve decided that means something.
I don’t know what to do with that.
I don’t think I’ve ever had to.
“Keep your Christmas, Santa,” I say lightly, flicking a glance at Holly before looking back at Santa. “It sounds absolutely exhausting.”
Holly threads her fingers through mine.
“We’ve got something better,” she says. “People who show up. People who stay. People who bring spare mittens, and too many cookies, and refuse to leave when things get strange.” She glances at the crowd, then back at Santa. “You can’t bottle that. And you don’t get to take it.”
Santa’s expression curdles, the air around him cools as what little magic he has left twitches in response.
“You haven’t seen the last of me,” he snarls. “I’ll ruin it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But I will.”
“Not here,” I say.
“NOT IN WILLOW CREEK!” the town roars—bells ringing, cocoa sloshing, and snowballs cocked back with deeply personal intent.
With a sharp, sucking gasp, Santa folds inward like a blizzard pulled down a drain.
The air ripples, shimmering as he shrinks into a tight whirl of red and green.
One last pulse snaps—glitter and soot skitter across the square—and he’s gone.
What lingers is a single, off-key jingle, a bell note that wobbles, fades, and leaves a hush like fresh-fallen snow.
The square holds still for a beat, as if expecting him to snap back into existence out of sheer spite.
He doesn’t.
The cheer hits all at once—loud, messy, immediate.
People laugh, grab each other, talk over one another as if the volume will convince the night to stay won.
Someone starts singing half a carol and forgets the words halfway through.
It doesn’t seem to matter. Somewhere in the square, a kettle clicks to warm, and for the first time all night, the lights blink in time.
I glance at Holly.
Her grin is as bright as the tree lights we’ve fought so hard to save, and something settles in my chest.
I could have taken the deal.
I didn’t.
The coven is still behind me. The town is still standing. No one’s been traded away for a cleaner ending—and that is the right kind of win. The kind you plan for, fight for, and refuse to let anyone take from you.