By Maia Rebekah
Last cookie of the night—store-bought, but still tasty. Washed it down with a sip of milk. After so many stops, one cookie was really all I could bear to eat without it all coming back up. But the night was over. Wearily, I climbed back into the sleigh and didn’t even need to urge the reindeer on. They were ready to call it a night, too.
In the open sky, just as we were about to slip out of the time stream, I heard it.
Please.
“Whoa, boys.” Reluctantly, the team halted. The bells stopped jingling as we hung, motionless, in mid-air. I listened. And it came again: a wish more desperate than I’d heard in centuries, sour, the last strand of hope falling from lips so tired of asking. Please.
Leaving the sleigh on the roof of a lavish modern mansion, I materialized in the living room, if one could call it that. Apart from the crackling fire pit, Christmas tree, and uncomfortable-looking ergonomic sofa, the room’s furnishings—various sculptures and expensive paintings—made it seem more like an art museum. Gold coated nearly everything. The ornaments, the painting stands, the wet bar. Even the floor was one solid, shining slab.
I crept away from the fire, stepping around a strikingly lifelike golden statue of a weeping young woman. The things people call art these days.
“Santa?” A small head peeked from behind the figure’s skirts. Seeming satisfied with his guess, the boy stepped into the firelight.
“Yes, it’s me. Merry Christmas,” I whispered, trying not to sound fatigued. “Johnny, right? And you’re, uh, five years old now?” And on the naughty list. I wonder why?
He frowned. “Five and a half.”
“Oh, right. Sorr—”
“Are you bringing her back?”
It was my turn to frown. Not only because of his question, but because there was also something strangely familiar about this little face. “Pardon?”
“My mommy. At the mall you said you’d try.”
Blasted mall Santas. Never fail to make my job harder.
I scratched my neck. “Is it just you and Daddy here, then?”
“No. I don’t have a daddy.” Tears welled in his eyes. “And now Mommy’s gone, too!”
“Hey, now.” I knelt down and grasped his shoulders. “I’m sure she hasn’t gone far. I can look—”
“No!” Johnny’s face crumpled, and he sobbed, “She didn’t run away! Grandpa killed her!”
“What?”
“They don’t believe me, but I saw it! He killed her! I hate him!”
“Johnny, I can’t bring people back from the dead. I’m sorry.”
“But you have to!”
“What’s the second thing on your Christmas list?” The kid was naughty, but he was clearly hurting. I really don’t make exceptions, but maybe there was something I could do.
Crestfallen, he backed away and sat on the couch. Staring into the fire, he said, “That wasn’t the first thing on my list.”
Soon, I had him enchanted and asleep on the sofa. I pulled the book from my pocket and flipped to his name.
“Johnny Midas wants his grandfather to die.”
I snapped the book shut. Time to leave and wash my hands of it all. Shameful, all that time wasted on such a wicked child. I prepared to whisk away to the roof, but it came again.
Please.
So, it hadn’t been the boy. The wish was somewhere deeper in the house. I should have left, but I traveled through the fireplaces instead and appeared in an office.
A man sat at the desk, clutching a picture frame. His eyes were red-rimmed and lined with wrinkles. He was clearly surprised to see me but still sounded bored as he asked, “How did you get past security?”
I gestured to the fireplace.
“Doesn’t really matter, I guess.” He set the picture aside and pulled off one of his golden gloves. His hand seemed to glow in the light of his desk lamp. He stared at it. “Steal whatever you like. I’ll just buy another one.”
That seemed about right. I remembered him, forty-some years younger. Richard Midas had always sent me the longest Christmas list—an entire toy store’s worth of wishes. He’d eventually made the naughty list for his overwhelming greed and narcissism.
“Is that your daughter?” The framed photo lay flat on his desk: Richard, a bit younger, with his arm around a smiling teenaged girl.
He grabbed the frame again—with his bare hand—and immediately dropped it, crying out. As it clattered on the desk, it turned to solid gold. The picture was gone.
He moaned, picked up the frame, and hurled it into the fireplace. Then he slumped on the desk with his arms about his head. His body shook with sobs.
Understanding dawned. I stepped closer. “Richard, what have you done?”
“I just want her back. I sold everything, gave away all the money like she always asked me to. Thought the curse might break. The gold—” His voice creaked. “Please, bring her back.”
Shaking my head, I left the office and mounted my sleigh once more. I opened my book again, this time turning to Richard Midas. Where there had always been at least a hundred list items, there was only one. He hadn’t lied.
Neither of the boys below deserved any sort of gift. Each a festering pit of hatred, greed, and self-pity. Yes, Richard was obviously remorseful, but who could say he wouldn’t revert to his wicked ways if he had his daughter back? I’d seen the disgusted way he’d looked at his gold, though, how flippantly he regarded the wealth he’d given away.
Had I been doing this for too long? Had my ideas of “naughty” and “nice” overshadowed the truth of morality? True, I couldn’t see Midas’s heart, but if he wanted—needed—a second chance, the opportunity to turn around, who was I to withhold it?
Leaving my restless reindeer again, I slipped back inside, grasped the weeping, enchanted statue’s hand, and whispered, “Time to wake up.”
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