Page 103 of The Nightmare Before Kissmas
“I think they’re well aware of how much joy they send to Christmas.”
“True. I don’t know. I… I don’t know.” I drop my feet and the chair stops, but my mind keeps spinning, and I bounce one knee. “It doesn’t feel like they’ll take anything we say seriously. Does it? They’ll see any letter from me and toss it.”
“You don’t know that.” Kris sits up from where he’d been strewn across my bed. He closes his notebook with a snap. “Plus, I’ll be the one writing these letters. Don’t doubt my skill.”
I should smile. I can’t. My stomach is a knot of strain and I can’t believe I’m going to do this, to try to usurp my father’s hold on these Holidays and ask them to join a collective. What we’re sending them is a totally innocent request: we’re inviting them to the Christmas Eve Ball. With vague mentions of a new arrangement that is more beneficial for all parties.
Nothing in the letters is incriminating, but this whole situation feelsreal.Because it is.
When they get here, we’ll discuss the collective, and talk about however my dad has been coercing them, and figure out how to undo it. Iris and her dad will still be here too, obviously, and maybe Neo can be convinced that a collective is better for Easter, even if it means pissing off my dad.
So much could blow up. Fuck.
“I want this to work,” I say.
Kris clicks his pen absently. “I know. I do too. And it will. Or it will as long as we can get the contact info for these other leaders. You said you had something for that?”
“Yeah.” Two birds, one stone this idea—a whole section of Christmas oversees the routes Dad’s magic takes him. Which means the location of every single person on earth is under our roof. I can grab the locations for all these Holiday people by accessing the route lists, while also start ingratiating myself with the head of Route Planning, maybe get some training going.
Much like I did when I set up the gift transfers in New Koah a couple years ago.
The comparison has been circling my thoughts like a beady-eyed vulture and the only reason it isn’t feasting unrepentantly on the last dying heaps of my composure is thanks to my willful, vicious compartmentalization.
I’m not sending anyone gifts or willy-nilly fulfilling wishes.
It’ll be fine. It isn’t the same.
Nothing bad will happen.
“Okay.” I scrub my face and stand. “I’ll get those addresses. Meet back here in an hour?”
“You think I can handwrite all of these letters in an hour?”
“You don’t have to handwrite them.”
“These are our first official correspondences! I havestandards,Coal.”
“Well, I haveanxiety,Kris, and we need to get these letters out ASAP. Type them. Print them. Done and done.”
Kris shoves out of bed. “Fucking Neanderthal. Once you’re Santa and we’re doing this for real, there’s going to be some changes around here.”
I stop him halfway to the door. “I respect the hell out of your skill, I really do. And you’re right, calligraphy would sell it a lot better. But we already only have a week and a half until Christmas Eve.”
Holy shit. I hadn’t thought of it like that. Only a week and a half leftuntil either Kris and I pull this off, or I end up married to Iris. Which was an unbearable thing already, but now with Hex, just… absolutely not. I’m not content with whatever secret relationships Iris hinted at us having outside of this arrangement. We both deserve more than that.
Kris punches my shoulder. “I know, I know. Fine. Typed,soullessletters, coming up.”
He swings the door open and we part ways, him heading to his suite, me cutting out towards the bulk of the palace.
I get halfway to where they oversee the routes when I pass an outdoor courtyard drenched in snow, frozen bushes and gray statues of reindeer making the whole area somber and icy. In it are Iris and Hex and a half dozen of our court and, of course, those damn reporters, taking a walk under a few space heaters—ah, yeah, Kris and I had been invited to that, but after yesterday’s concert, where I spent the whole time two rows back from Hexseethingover the fact that my father chose to sit right next to him, I heard Dad opted out of this event and I chose to duck out too.
Iris and Hex are making a lap of the courtyard. He’s bundled up in his black peacoat but his cheeks are red with cold, most others around him in bright scarlet, gold, and green. Iris is smiling and I know she’s trying to make it easy on him but my gut yanks me to a stop at the window.
I twist the skull ring on my thumb.
That should be me. Not just there, in Iris’s place, butthereat all. Hex knows I skipped this event to plan with Kris, but it’s no excuse.
Would he want me out there, in Iris’s place, if I could be? If the autumn collective would flip shit over the mention of afailednegotiation between Christmas and Halloween, what would they think about us? If there is anus.
