2. December 23
CHAPTER 2
DECEMBER 23
T he adrenaline coursing through me keeps me warm enough for the first few hours. That, plus the way the closely-grown trees do their best to block out the worst of the chilly wind. It’s dark in here, though. The ground beneath me is hard and frozen, with a crust of icy snow nearly everywhere I go. Whenever a stray beam of sunlight peeks through, I notice parts of it are trampled.
My heart drops whenever I see paw prints, either from super big dogs or maybe even wolves. It jolts when the prints don’t look human or animal, but some unholy mix of the two.
Is it any surprise that I stop looking down, instead focusing on where the hell I’m going?
I have a plan. It seemed like a good one when I first was told I’d been picked to enter the dark forest, and even if I don’t have my thermal clothes, my coat, or my pack full of necessities, it’s the only plan I have so I stick to it.
I need shelter. The clauses in the contract said that I couldn’t plop down just inside of the first and wait, but if I can find somewhere else to shield me so that I can stay warm, stay safe, and avoid any monsters? Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
Now, do I expect to be like Goldilocks and find a cozy little cabin where I can squat for three days? Of course not. But a cave would be nice, or a lean-to that will keep me out of the elements in case I’m looking at a white Christmas.
Can you imagine? I’ve spent the last five Christmases at work because I was no contact with my dad’s new family and spending the holidays with my bitter, betrayed mom was rough. This is the first time I’m doing something for me this time of year in longer than I can remember, and even if it’s spent in a mythical forest while I drag this heavy dress everywhere I go, the kid in me loves the idea of seeing snow on Christmas Day.
Let’s just hope I don’t have to deal with it for the twenty-third or Christmas Eve first…
So far, so good. The weather seems milder than I expected, and I take that as a sign the woods are welcoming me. I haven’t run across any monsters, either, and though I’m noticing that the stray sunbeams are becoming less and less frequent as the day passes, there aren’t any conveniently placed landmarks that I could use as a makeshift shelter.
I’ll find one. My gut is sure I will, and if there’s anyone in this world I trust, it’s me.
It’s just… it’s taking longer than I’d like.
Frustration seeps in as the wind picks up. Goosebumps erupt along my skin. My teeth chatter so hard, I nearly clip the side of my tongue, but I duck my chin to my chest, ignoring the way my loose hair is getting in my face.
And that’s when the wind whistles past me, carrying a sound with it.
All along, old snow crunches under my foot, snagging the heel of my shoe; I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve had to yank one out of a particularly thick patch, nearly sleeping when I pulled too hard. The second I catch the faint, tinkling sound, I dig my heels into the ground, whipping my head around in search of it.
My heart’s suddenly pounding so loudly in my chest, it drowns it out. And then?—
Jingle bells,
Jingle bells,
Jingle all the way…
It’s “Jingle Bells”. Someone is playing “Jingle Bells” with, well, actual bells .
I might have arrived in Blackmoor two weeks ago, but Christmas starts the day after Thanksgiving in my family. Even if we’re mostly estranged now, old traditions die hard, and the old radio in my beater of a car has been turned to the holiday station since the end of November.
I know “Jingle Bells”. And, yeah, it’s almost Christmas… but after hours where the slight whistle of the wind and my own muttered curses were all I could make out in the eerily quiet forest, why the hell do I hear “Jingle Bells”?
I’m not sure, but I can’t imagine a monster playing the old-timey Christmas song. Is there another human in here? One of the council members walking around the forest, entertaining themselves with the music?
I don’t know, and I’m not about to find out.
Sorry. I’m not going to be that naive idiot who’s like, ‘what’s that noise?’, follows it, and gets killed for it. Nope. Not me. I hear the creepy—because it’s totally creepy—Christmas music on the breeze and decide it’s a much smarter idea to head in the opposite direction.
I usually know exactly where I’m going. Even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t take much to find the tracks the points of my annoying heels left and follow them back. I’m lucky enough that my hip’s holding out and the growing breeze isn’t making my normal level of pain any worse, but right now? I put a little extra oomph into my fast-paced walk away from the music.
Maybe I didn’t walk all that fast. Maybe—after hours of traipsing through the woods in thirty-degree weather—my body was given out a bit.
Or maybe the monsters in the woods found a way to surround me before I even knew they were there… because, holy shit, more than a few somethings are currently blocking my path forward.
I swallow roughly, ready to rub my eyes. I mean, I have to be seeing things. It’s dark, gloomy, and though I’ve gotten used to it, my eyes must be playing tricks on me because why am I suddenly staring down a crew of lawn gnomes?
That’s what they look like. They would barely come up to my knee if they were standing in front of me, and each one has a blood-red pointed cap covering their heads. Large, pointed ears peek out over the sides of the caps, and when one points at me with an unusually long and slender finger, the tinkle of Christmas bells follow his gesture.
These little men look like freaking gnomes—and they’re alive .
Staring at them instead of clutching my hip in one hand, the heft of my skirt in the other, and high-tailing it in a new direction is my biggest mistake. Because those little gnome things ? They’re fucking fast. I heard one utter a single word reverentially—“ Toymaker”— before they’re pouncing right at me.
“What the fuck?” One has my left hand. Another lands on my bare shoulder with his curly-toes shoes, grabbing a fistful of hair. Two fight over my skirt, while another ducks under it, trying to buckle my knees. I kick out, but miss as I shriek, “Let go of me!”
“Toymaker!”
“Bring her to the Toymaker!”
“The master needs a bride!”
What ?
After Colin dumped me, a broken-hearted Josie decided marriage was off the table for a long, long time. Maybe when I was thirty-five, my hip was miraculously better, and I’d got my shit together, I might entertain the idea. Until then, I had a couple of flings, one or two long-term boyfriends that I dumped before it got that serious, and more than a few one-night-stands.
But ‘bride’? What the fuck is going on here? I just needed to survive three days… nowhere did I sign up to be any monster’s bride?
I fling my arm, sending one of those gnome things flying. A well-timed kick has the one under my skirt going down, and I only hope that he’s not getting up again anytime soon. Grabbing the one whose clutching my hair is a little more tricky since he pulls every time I do, but I’m not being taking out by… by…
Fucking elves!
“Get. Off.”
“ Toymaker—”
Fuck this Toymaker. “I said, get off!”
They don’t listen to me. I’m starting to lean, these little assholes trying to knock me off my feet, but no matter how I yell, they ignore me.
But when a throaty roar erupts through the shadows, they don’t ignore that .
“Him,” yips one of the elves.
“Him,” echoes another.
“Master,” cries a third, and just when I think that this might be the Toymaker they mentioned, they all scamper down the length of my body, backing up behind me as if I’ll protect them from the source of the roar.
Or, I think, as a large, black silhouette appears in the not-too-far distance, they’ll sacrifice me to the beast so they can escape.
Because that? That’s totally a beast—and when it… he … steps out from the shadows and into my sight, my knees quiver and quake.
He’s huge. I’m a respectable 5’8”, on the taller side for a woman even when I’m stooped because my hip is giving me trouble, but this… whatever… he dwarfs me. A good six-and-a-half, maybe even seven feet tall, though the fact that he has honest-to-God horns is probably throwing me off.
And then there are his eyes. Blazing in fury, their bright red color glimmers and gleams through the shadows that surround us.
They flash angrily.
“What are you doing in my corner of the forest?” he demands
He has an accent. German, maybe, or Austrian. I get hits of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his tone, though maybe it’s his broad chest and sculpted muscles that make me think of the old action movie star from my mother’s time.
My mouth goes dry. I swallow, and when I finally find my voice, it’s more shrill than usual as I say, “Me?”
“No. His elves.”
I knew!
Wait—
His elves… so I’m guessing this guy isn’t the Toymaker?
“Causing mischief. Misbehaving… and with Christmas so near?” He stamps a foot—holy shit, is that a hoof —against the ground with enough force that it shakes even where I am. Something long, skinny, and black is in his hand. He slams that to the ground, too, and the elves must be shaking in their silly shoes because a cacophony of bells ring out behind me.
“Be gone or…” His eyes light up so brightly, I can make out his features. Apart from the pointed ears-similar to the elves— and the horns, he has a pretty human-ish appearance. I mean, red eyes, too, but his nose is strong and slopes, his jaw chiseled, and his lush lips purse for a moment before he rattles something off in a harsh language that I have no hope of understanding.
I don’t.
The elves do.
With another yip, a few yelps, and some dangerous mutterings, they scamper off, the echoes of the tinkling bells the only clue they were hear.
Well, that, plus the way my head aches from the hair-pulling, my knees stings from being targeted, and my hip… that always hurts, but it’s especially stiff right now.
Or maybe that’s the way my body goes ramrod straight, suddenly paralyzed as the giant turns his attention on me solely.
“I—” Do I thank him? Do I acknowledge that those elves were attacking me before he arrived, or do I just hope that he slinks into the shadows as quickly as he appeared out of them?
I never get the chance to do any of that because, after taking a few purposely steps closer to me—and, yup, beneath his dark brown linen pants, those definitely are cloven hooves instead of feet—he points at my middle with a claw.
“What do you have there?”
What do I have?—
The orange. He’s pointing at the orange .
His red eyes gleam as he stares at the piece of fruit I’m still holding onto tightly. Even as the violent little fuckers were tugging on my dress, yanking on my hair, trying to knock me on the ground… I didn’t drop the damn thing at all.
And now the horned guy seems entranced by it.
I look at the orange in my palm.
When the woman responsible for leading me out of the hostel and toward the edge of the dark woods gave me the single piece of fruit, I thought it was in case I got hungry. She assured me that most berries I found growing through the snow would be safe to eat—and my own skills meant I should know which—and while it wouldn’t be pleasant to go without food for three days, it’s more than possible.
Just in case, I held onto the orange all day so far. Nerves mingled with a sense of adventure—plus the adrenaline—kept me from feeling hunger. I ate a big breakfast before I was stuffed into the Christmas gown, and I figured I’d wait until my energy started to flag and I needed a sugar hit before I peeled the orange.
Now I’m glad I didn’t. As though it suddenly makes sense, a part of me knows instinctively that I’m supposed to give it to this horned monster.
Demon.
Krampus.
The name pops into my head and, like with the orange, I just know it’s right . I’ve done my research. I spent years trying to contact the shadowy council that protects Blackmoor’s secrets, and when I got a single letter in the mail with an invitation to join them for Christmas specifically, I used my phone to look up all sorts of Christmas myths and legends, just in case one had something to do with another.
And one that struck a chord with me?
Was Krampus. The Christmas demon who punishes children who misbehave instead of rewarding them with gifts like good ol’ Saint Nick does.
Toymaker.
Elves.
Krampus…
Looks like I was right, after all. Christmas does have something to do with it—and so does this orange.
I shrug. Hey. Whoever he is, he saved me from those jerky elves’ attack. The least I can do is repay him the only way I can. “An orange. Here. If you’re hungry, take it.”
“Would it be mine?” he asks, and I can’t tell if he’s suspicious—or hopeful. “For me alone?”
Weird, but okay. “Sure.”
In answer, he crouches down to the snow, dropping the oversized stick on the dirt before extending one long arm. His thick, black claws click together as thought to catch my attention before he opens his palm expectantly.
Taking a deep breath, hoping I’m not making a big mistake, I drop the orange into his waiting hand.
And, without even realizing it at that moment, my life changes forever.