VELVETEEN PRESENTS JACQUELINE CLAUS vs. The Lost and the Found
Jacqueline Claus, adopted daughter of Santa Claus, one day to inherit his place as toymaker and guardian of the dreams of children—no pressure—started her day the way she started every day: by opening her eyes on a ceiling spangled with crystal snowflakes, each one perfect, each one unique.
She remembered receiving them, one by one, tucked into Christmas stockings and birthday presents.
She remembered Papa laughing as she exclaimed in joy at their fractal delicacy, the mysteries of their shifting shapes.
She remembered Mama smiling, warm and welcoming and happy to see her daughter so delighted.
She remembered that none of this was true.
That she was a punishment for another version of herself, a selfish, blue-skinned girl named Jackie Frost who had slept in a bed of her own, in a room of her own, in a different house.
Jackie had collected crystal snowflakes too, but Jackie had made them for herself, rather than waiting for someone else to make them for her.
Jackie had made a lot of things for herself, including, in the end, a mess that she couldn’t clean up on her own.
Now Jacqueline was here, and no one seemed to understand that she wasn’t supposed to be.
That she was supposed to be someone else, someone colder and crueler and better suited for the acts of heroism that seemed to happen around her on a daily basis.
Jacqueline rolled out of bed and shivered in the early morning chill.
It never got truly cold at the North Pole.
In the rest of Winter, yes, but not here; Santa wanted any children who came to visit to be as comfortable as possible.
Her robe was draped over the foot of the bed, snowflakes and smiling polar bears on a blue fleece background. She shrugged it on, still yawning.
“Dear, are you up?”
“Yes, Mama.” She turned expectantly toward the door.
It swung open, revealing Mrs. Claus. She was still wearing her dressing gown, a cap covering her hair. Jacqueline smiled. She liked Mama best in the mornings, when she wasn’t being Santa’s wife yet, but was just being herself, open and warm and caring.
Jack’s smile died. She still didn’t know whether Mama and Papa knew that she wasn’t supposed to be here.
She hadn’t been able to come up with a way to ask that wouldn’t make them think that there was something wrong with her, or worse, that there was something wrong with them.
There was nothing wrong with any of them, except in that she shouldn’t exist.
The Snow Queen knew. She knew that much for sure, because the Snow Queen wouldn’t even look at her unless she didn’t have a choice. The Snow Queen remembered the daughter she’d lost, and she would never forgive Jack for being someone other than her.
To be honest, it made Jack’s head spin. She hoped Velveteen would finish her passage through Autumn soon. Once Vel was back, they would all go to the Hall of Mirrors, and Velveteen would choose a season, and maybe Jackie would be forgiven. Maybe Aurora would set things right.
It was a little weird, hoping that she’d be written out of reality before things got even more confusing, but she had long since come to terms with the idea.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” said Mrs. Claus, with her usual broad smile. Jack felt a pang of guilt. Whether Mrs. Claus knew that she wasn’t supposed to have a daughter or not, there was no denying that she enjoyed being a mother. It wasn’t fair that Jack was going to be taken away from her.
Maybe she was an overlay for Jackie after all, and once she went back to being who she was supposed to be, she would remember being Jacqueline, and she could make sure to be kind to Mrs. Claus. Maybe.
But probably not.
“Good morning, Mama,” she said. “How did you sleep?”
“Snug in my bed,” said Mrs. Claus. Her eyes twinkled with delight at her own small joke.
“I’m sorry to burst in on you like this, dear, but you have a call on the mirror.
You should pick up, if you feel up to it.
It’s one of your little friends from the Calendar Country, and she seems to be quite worked up. ”
Excitement welled up in Jack’s chest, hot as cocoa and twice as sweet. “Which one?”
“The Princess,” said Mrs. Claus. “Just let me know if you can’t stay for breakfast.” She backed out of the room, closing the door behind herself.
Jack waited for a count of five before lunging for her desk and the hand mirror that waited there. The frame glittered with traceries of bright, gleaming frost: the North Pole equivalent of call waiting.
“Hello?” she said.
The glass fogged over, clearing to reveal the face of the Princess.
Her normally perfect curls were in disarray, and her lip gloss was a shade paler than her norm, conveying her dismay.
“Bless, Jack, I was starting to think you’d gone into hibernation,” she said.
“I need you to get your pretty polar behind down here, pronto.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
The Princess smiled grimly. “It’s Velveteen. She’s back. And honey, she does not look good.”
* * *
Superhumans with powers and skills related to healing have been rumored since the dawn of human history. Most cannot be verified, but in recent years, several dozen documented heroes, villains, and private citizens with health-based powers have made their presence known.
Candystriper, whose empathic powers work best on those who are sick or injured, allowing her to brighten their spirits and speed the healing process.
Even some cases believed to be terminal have turned around after a few hours in her presence.
Sadly, her lack of any actual combat abilities has led to her becoming a target for desperate people looking for a magic bullet, and she has not been seen in public since the Jimmy Michaels incident of 2013.
The Surgeon, whose hands can suture any wound or perform any operation, leaving behind seamless incisions which heal cleanly and without risk of infection.
The demand for his services is too great; for the last several years, he has appeared only at children’s hospitals and when offered amounts in the high seven figures.
Most believe that he has no need for money, but chooses to operate in this fashion to prevent being overwhelmed.
Apothecary, who can diagnose anything, and whose remedies make no medical sense, but which always work. Leeches are frequently involved.
The Night Shift: a trained RN with a duplication power, she has been known to serve as the entire staff for a hospital, appearing during times of crisis and vanishing again when the crisis has passed.
Without her, several city trauma wards would report much higher fatality rates.
Unlike the Surgeon, she does not accept payment, and does not have a public contact number.
Many theorize that the two are a team, traveling together, with him underwriting her work.
Regardless, no one can deny the amount of good she has done.
The list goes on, and raises the question of whether the superhuman community’s best service of the human race might be in ceasing their seemingly endless battles and allowing these many healers to devote themselves and their powers to service to the world.
After all, if heroes and villains were not constantly in need of repair, who’s to say what could be accomplished by the people who spend so much of their time in putting them back together?
* * *
Travel between the North Pole and the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle was easy to the point of being trivial.
Sometimes Jack used the Castle as a stepping-stone to the rest of the Calendar Country rather than trying to ride a mirror straight into the “real” world.
Why do that, when a split journey was so much easier on her nerves?
She emerged from a full-length mirror in the Princess’s receiving hall, dressed in a red and green ball gown that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the ski pants and sweater she had donned before leaving her room.
The Princess’s transit system was good that way.
If she didn’t have time to brush her hair or put on a socially acceptable amount of lip gloss, the mirrors would do it for her, dumping her in the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle as pretty as a photo op.
(It would have bothered her, if not for the fact that most of the people who supplied the Princess’s power were between the ages of four and eight, and still considered magically appearing eye shadow to be the absolute height of sophistication.
Really, she was just glad that all her clothes were mirror-made, and not sewn by the army of woodland creatures that supplied the Princess with her wardrobe.)
A scarlet macaw in a waistcoat flew over to land on her shoulder. “You’re wanted in the recovery room, ma’am, ma’am, ma’am,” it said, before emitting an ungodly screech. Part of a fairy story or not, birds would be birds.
“Thank you,” she said, because manners were especially important in a fairy tale, and between figures of mythic import.
If the Princess was every storybook princess in the world, Jacqueline Claus was the spirit of goodness and generosity, and it wouldn’t do for her to forget her manners. “Can you take me there?”
The macaw screeched acquiescence and launched itself into the air, gliding away down the hall.
Jack hiked her ball gown up enough to let her move and ran after it, trying not to focus on the way the hall around her kept getting decked for a winter holiday celebration that was never going to come.
Papa was somewhat secular, having been divorced from the religious aspects of his holiday by decades of advertising and comfortable folklore.
Jack was completely secular, with the entire palette of winter colors and decorations available to her.
Tinsel and wreaths and silver snowflakes dripped from the walls both ahead of and behind her, shimmering into existence in answer to her presence.