Chapter 7
Mrs. Carmichael had barely left when the next customer arrived. Mr. Bumble pushed through the door, bells jingling cheerfully, already talking about needing ribbon for his daughter’s gift. He made it exactly three steps before freezing mid-sentence.
“Is that—” He blinked. Adjusted his glasses. Blinked again. “Are those real horns?”
“Prosthetics,” I said quickly, moving to intercept him before he could flee. “Bastian is helping me with a holiday marketing campaign. You know, bring in some authentic European Christmas traditions.”
“European.” Mr. Bumble’s gaze traveled over Bastian’s considerable form—the horns, the fur, the tail that was currently coiled behind him like a sleeping serpent. “That’s… that’s one way to put it.”
“The Alpine regions have rich folklore,” Bastian said calmly. “Krampus, Perchten, Frau Holle. The old gods of winter were not always kind.”
“Right.” Mr. Bumble swallowed. “Well. That’s… educational. Do you have any red velvet ribbon? Three yards should do it.”
I grabbed the ribbon, relieved that he hadn’t run screaming. As I measured and cut, Mr. Bumble kept stealing glances at Bastian, who had positioned himself near the window display and appeared to be cataloging every dust mote in the shop.
“Is he going to be here all day?” Mr. Bumble whispered as I rang him up.
“Probably.”
“Might want to warn people. My heart can’t take many more surprises.” But he was smiling as he said it, and when he left, he actually waved at Bastian.
Bastian inclined his head in response.
“Well,” I said into the silence that followed. “That could have gone worse.”
“He was frightened.”
“A little. But he stayed. He bought something. That’s more than I expected.”
“You expected him to flee.” It wasn’t a question. “You thought my presence would drive away your customers.”
I had thought exactly that. Still did, honestly. But before I could respond, the door opened again.
This time it was the Kowalski twins, eight-year-old tornadoes of energy who visited the shop every Saturday with their mother. They burst through the door arguing about Pokémon cards and stopped so abruptly they nearly collided with each other.
“Whoa,” breathed Mason, the older twin by three minutes.
“That is the coolest cosplay I have ever seen,” Madison said, eyes huge.
Their mother, Sarah, appeared behind them, already apologizing. “Sorry, they’ve been wound up all morning—” She spotted Bastian. “Oh. Oh my.”
“It’s okay,” I said quickly. “He’s part of my new marketing campaign. Very authentic. Very… European.”
“Mom, can we take a picture?” Mason was already pulling out his phone. “Please? The guys at school are never going to believe this.”
Sarah looked at me, uncertain. I looked at Bastian, who had turned his burning gaze on the children. For a horrible moment, I thought he might refuse, might say something about judgment and consequences and the naughty list.
Instead, he lowered himself onto one knee, bringing his face closer to their level.
“You may,” he said. “But first, tell me: have you been good this year?”
The twins exchanged glances.
“Mostly,” Mason said.
“Define good,” added Madison.
Bastian’s mouth twitched. It might have been the beginning of a smile. “Honesty. That is a start. Very well. Your picture.”
The twins crowded around him, grinning like they’d won the lottery. Sarah took approximately thirty photos while I stood behind the counter, completely baffled by this turn of events. The ancient Krampus was posing for selfies with elementary school children.
This is my life now, I thought. This is actually happening.
“You’re a genius,” Sarah whispered as the boys finally rushed off to choose an ornament each. “A new marketing campaign is just what this town needs. I heard Grinchly’s been oiling his way around Tom’s store.”
Tom ran the florist shop at the end of the block, a charming little place that prided itself on its seasonal displays, and he’d been struggling even more than I had.
“I hope he’s not thinking of selling,” I said, my good mood deflating slightly. “I’m determined to hold out.”
“If anyone can turn things around, you can, dear. And your… consultant… is definitely turning heads.”
She paid for the kids’ ornaments, herding them out the door with promises of hot chocolate. The shop fell quiet again.
“They were not afraid,” Bastian observed, back in his spot by the window.
“No,” I agreed. “They thought you were awesome.”
“They believe me to be fiction. A costume. They do not see the truth.”
“They see what they want to see,” I said. “Sometimes that’s the same thing.”
“Is it?” He turned those burning eyes on me. “And what do you see, Noelle Green? When you look at me, what do you truly see?”
I saw power and danger and ancient magic.
I saw the embodiment of everything I’d been raised to fear about the dark, wild places of the world.
But I also saw something else. I saw a being who had made me coffee and who had patiently posed for photographs with two over-excited children.
I saw something complicated and lonely and, impossibly, maybe even a little bit kind.
“I see you,” I said, which was both an evasion and the most honest answer I could give.
The bells jingled again, and this time, it was Tom, the florist. His face was pale, the smile he tried to summon weak and watery. He clutched a bouquet of holly, its red berries a splash of defiant color against his muted coat.
“Noelle,” he said, and he sounded so tired it made my own bones ache. “Lucy asked me to bring this by.”
“Tom. What’s wrong?” I rushed around the counter, my own worries forgotten in the face of his obvious distress.
“It’s…” He looked around the shop, and his eyes landed on Bastian. He blinked, a flicker of the same stunned disbelief I’d seen on everyone else, but he was too preoccupied to dwell on it. “He’s been at it again. Grinchly.”
I closed my eyes. “What did he do?”
“Slid a letter under my door last night. An offer—a very low offer. Said he’s buying the whole block, and my shop is in the way.” He set the holly on my counter. “I can’t… Noelle, I can’t lose my shop. It’s all Lucy and I have.”
Lucy was his wife. She’d been sick for years, a slow, quiet decline that had drained their savings but never their spirits. The shop was their life’s work, a little sanctuary of beauty they’d built together.
“I’m so sorry, Tom.” I reached out and squeezed his arm. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what there is to do.” He finally let himself really look at Bastian, who was watching our exchange with an unnerving stillness. “Who’s…?”
“My consultant,” I said automatically. “From out of town. Helping me with a new… strategy.”
“A strategy,” Tom repeated, and then he laughed, a short, bitter sound. “I could use one of those. I tried everything. Discounts. Sales. A ‘bring a friend, get a discount’ promotion that brought exactly zero friends. Nothing works.”
My throat tightened with a familiar panic. “I know.”
“It’s like the whole town has lost its spark,” Tom said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Everyone’s scared. Everyone’s just trying to hang on until January, and hoping there’s something left to hang on to.”
He left a few minutes later, taking one of my handmade ornaments for Lucy. “On the house,” I’d insisted, when he’d pulled out his wallet. “It’ll bring you luck.”
“I’ll take all the luck I can get,” he’d said, his smile not quite reaching his eyes.
“This Grinchly,” Bastian said thoughtfully. “He is your antagonist.”
“He’s everyone’s antagonist,” I corrected, moving listlessly to straighten a display of gift tags that didn’t need straightening.
“He’s a developer. He buys up historic properties in towns that are struggling, and then either tears them down for some soulless condo complex or lets them rot until he can get them for pennies on the dollar. ”
“He seeks to profit from despair.”
“Exactly. And he’s very, very good at it.”
“Then he is already on my list,” Bastian said, and there was a finality in his tone that sent a shiver down my spine, despite the warm sweater and the steamy coffee mug.
“Your list? The naughty list?”
“I keep many lists, little human. All of them are concerned with balance.” He moved to stand by the window again, looking out at Main Street. “This street is suffering. The life is being squeezed out of it, shop by shop. The spirit is dwindling.”
“It’s the economy,” I said, hating how defensive I sounded. “People don’t have disposable income for Christmas ornaments.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps there is something else at work here.”
“Something like what?”
Before he could answer, another customer entered, and then another. By ten o’clock, I’d had more customers than I’d seen all week. Some came for the usual holiday shopping. Others came specifically to see the “incredible costume” that everyone was talking about on the local Facebook group.
A group of teenagers arrived around eleven, phones already out, asking if they could do a TikTok in the shop. They positioned themselves around Bastian, who stood silent and imposing while they filmed themselves pretending to be scared and then breaking into laughter.
“This is gold,” one of them said. “Where did you get the costume? It looks so real.”
“Family heirloom,” he said, his face perfectly serious.
They loved that.
Throughout it all, he observed. Every time I looked up that burning amber gaze was fastened on me and every time my stomach would do a little flip-flop of what was definitely not terror.
I found myself straightening displays I’d already straightened, re-arranging ornaments that were already arranged, all under the weight of that steady, unnerving stare.
He didn’t speak much. He didn’t need to.
The soft jingle of his chains followed him like a constant, ominous footnote to every interaction, a reminder of the truth behind the facade.
He watched me help a frazzled father find the perfect gift for his difficult-to-shop-for wife.
He watched me patiently answer a tourist’s questions about local history.
He watched me wrap a fragile glass ornament in enough tissue paper to cushion a small meteor.
Around noon, Mrs. Haversham returned, this time with a small group of her retired friends.
They descended on the shop like a flock of elegantly dressed birds, their jewelry sparkling in the afternoon light.
They all wanted to examine Mrs. Haversham’s ornaments, which I’d carefully arranged on a small table with a sign that read “Vintage Treasures—Mrs. Haversham’s Collection. ”
“This one,” Mrs. Haversham told them, pointing to a delicate glass bell with a painted winter scene. “My mother used to ring this on Christmas morning to wake us up. She said the sound carried magic from the night before.”
“My mother had one similar,” another woman said. “Mine got broken years ago. I’ve never seen another one.”
They bought six ornaments between them, paying full price without a moment’s hesitation.
Mrs. Taylor came in to drop off more nutcrackers, saw Bastian, and immediately declared him “perfect inspiration for next year’s collection.” She spent twenty minutes sketching him from different angles while he stood motionless as a statue.
“The horns are the tricky bit,” she muttered, eraser shavings covering her notepad. “But if I can capture the curve… yes, that might work.”
“You are an artist,” he observed.
“I’m a retiree with too much time and a garage full of wood.” But she was smiling. “Though I appreciate the compliment. You’ve got good bone structure for carving. Very dramatic.”
When she left, Bastian turned to me. “She creates beauty from flawed materials.”
“That’s one way to describe her work.”
“It is the only way. Perfection is cold. Sterile. Life exists in the flaws.” He picked up one of her nutcrackers again—a different one this time, with a chip in its paint and eyes that didn’t quite line up. “This has character.”
“My grandmother used to say the same thing.”
“Your grandmother was wise.”
The compliment caught me off guard. I’d been bracing for criticism all morning, waiting for him to start cataloging my failures. Instead, he was praising my supplier’s flawed nutcrackers and posing for teenager TikToks.
The afternoon passed in a blur of wrapping paper and ribbon and cheerful conversations.
Every customer who entered stopped at the sight of Bastian, but none of them fled.
Some were curious, some amused, some genuinely impressed by what they assumed was an elaborate costume.
A few asked where they could get one like it.
“Unavailable,” he told them. “This is one of a kind.”
By the time six o’clock rolled around and I flipped the sign to “Closed,” I was exhausted but oddly exhilarated. The register had more money than I’d seen in months. The shop had been full of laughter and conversation. For one day, Noelle’s Nook had felt like it used to—alive, vibrant, necessary.
I locked the door and sagged against it, letting out a long breath.
“That was incredible,” I said. “Did you see how many people came in? The sales alone—”
“Sit,” he interrupted.
I blinked. “What?”
“Sit. It is time to discuss your transgressions.”