Page 109 of The Nightmare Before Kissmas
We reach the globe, twice my height and covered in blinking lights, and Lucas starts talking about how they track the distribution of joy across the continents as Dad—and hundreds of staff—makes deliveries. The Route Planners ensure all the people visited get a fair amount of gifts or cheer, no one gets skipped, and so on.
Iris gives me a look like she knows I’m here for a different reason. She starts talking to Lucas about this globe being similar to one in Easter, and Hex uses the distraction to twist closer to me.
“It isn’t nothing,” he whispers.
I sway towards him, breathing in, citrus and spice. People are watching us over their desks, so even bending into him is too much and I draw back, stomach winding.
“I don’t know what they think of us. Of what we’re doing and how we do it,” I say.
Hex’s brow bends. “Your people?”
I nod.
“They seem to love you,” Hex murmurs. “I’ve seen the way you interact with them. You genuinely care about them, and they pick up on that.”
“The staff in the palace basically have to like us. Or at least pretend to better than anyone, being directly around us all the time. I mean I don’t know whatour peoplethink, the extended families of everyone who works for us, the community that’s built up in North Pole City over the centuries of Christmas, the people Dad is always so set on manipulating. I stopped reading the tabloids a while ago, and I don’t know what the general attitude is towards us.”
Hex’s head tips, considerate. “Your direct staff are also privy to that image and would react quite differently if opinion of you was negative. But when was the last time you spoke to someone? Outside of the palace, I mean.”
I give a quick shake of my head. Never, that I remember. We used to go out into North Pole City more often when Mom was here, buteven that was as a family group, for photos with people, not totalkto anyone.
“I need to talk to them,” I say. “Reallytalk to them. Hear what they think. Preferably without drawing the focus of press or my father.”
As if I have time to add more stuff to my ever-growing to-do list. But this is as necessary as inviting the winter Holidays to our ball and undoing blackmail and learning how Christmas operates—it’s all interconnected, and I can’t pull one thread without pulling them all. More threads keep slithering up into the bundle until I’ll have a whole-ass rope of responsibility.
Hex grins. “I can help with that.”
I cock my head.
Lucas is moving to another area. Iris follows, giving us a backwards glance to keep up, but I hesitate, and Hex’s grin widens.
“You need to get out of the palace? Down into the city, without being seen?” He shrugs. “What, precisely, am I the prince of?”
Oh, how very dare he use that teasing tone with me, right now of all times.
“Halloween?” I guess, cheeky.
“Also known as Mischief Night.” His smile is deliciously wild. “I am, when the situation calls for it, incredibly skilled at causing only the good kind of trouble.”
Chapter Fifteen
I get the addresses while Iris and Hex keep Lucas distracted, and the rest of the time spent learning about Route Planning is a balanced mix of educational and alarming.
I should have been down here years ago. And not because it’s my duty—I actually like this. Learning about our Holiday. Seeing the extent these people go to in order to bring joy across the world to kids who believe in Santa and parents who are struggling to make ends meet and anyone who needs a small miracle, a silly toy, a smile. I remember what Hex said, about how we give people the tools to endure whatever shit occurs in their lives, and I start tofeelthat, seeing how everyone who works here lights up when they start explaining anything to me. They’re happy. Happy to be doing these jobs. Happy to be a part of this.
It’s a night and day difference from when I did that staged training. Then, everyone had been tense and clinical. This isreal.
The version of Dad I built up in my head may not be who he is, but it wasn’twrong.
It’s our job to make the world happy.
By the time Iris, Hex, and I leave, I’m downright bouncing.
This—that,those people, what they do, whatwedo—is enough. Or it can be, if we stopped focusing on monopolizing and scale back to provide stuff of quality and prioritize exactly what light shines in all those people’s eyes.
I’m so consumed in my own churning thoughts that I don’t notice both Iris and Hex have followed me back to my suite. Kris is already inside, and I come to with no memory of having walked here.
I hold my hands out. “My head hasn’t hurt this bad since I took Ethics in American Politics.” Then I drop onto my bed and screw the heels of my palms into my eyes.
