Page 20 of The Nightmare Before Kissmas
A presence looms behind us, and what happiness we’d managed to conjure evaporates. The joy we feel still goes towards Christmas’s magic like the joy from normal people, but it’s never felt particularly magical or lasting or like it has any realpurposeat all.
My dad surveys the part of the tree that Iris has decorated. “Lovely, dear.”
She smiles at him, amiable as ever, but I haven’t forgiven him for dumping the grad school thing on me in the past five minutes, so I go stiff.
“Nicholas, Iris, if you would join us by the Merry Measure,” he says and starts to steer me around.
I eye her. She’s just as confused. We haven’t finished trimming the tree yet, and that’s the whole point of this evening, isn’t it?
Kris gets left behind, his brow bending as he watches the three of us gather with Iris’s dad.
The music stops, which draws a hush over the crowd, and everyone twists to us.
Iris pushes next to me. “What’s this about?”
“No clue. Probably another photo op to—”
My words fall off as the chatter of voices crashes into the room, and staff lead in a whole gaggle of reporters, way more than are usually present—and we typically have alotof reporters present. These are from outlets beyond just our internal Christmas ones:Holiday Herald, Joy Gazette, 24-Hour Fête, Tradition Times;there’s a few specific to Easter too. They slip inside, skirting the edges to gather as close to us as possible, until we’re front and center at an impromptu press conference.
I frown at the side of my dad’s head.
Whatever he’s announcing, he wants all the other Holidays to know about it.
Staff position us quickly. Iris in front of her father. Me next to her by my dad.
Those itchy feelings of something beingoffcoalesce.
The room silences, cameras rolling, recorders outstretched, our court whispering softly to one another, and I hate that the reporters know more about what’s happening than I do. They were summoned here for the promise ofsomething,whereas Iris and I are being blindsided.
“The Claus family is thrilled to have the Lentora family with us as we participate in the usual festive calendar of activities that highlights the best of Christmas, culminating in our annual Christmas Eve Ball,” Dad starts, one hand on my shoulder. It’s weighing me down, making it so I can’t move. “In the spirit of unity, we have come together not only in celebration, but to make an announcement.”
Iris looks at me questioningly. I can only frown.
“Easter has begun the search for a marriage partner for Princess Iris,” my father says so easily that his tone numbs his meaning until I see horror on Iris’s face, and before I can form a reaction, Dad presses on: “I am happy to announce that Prince Nicholas has begun courting Princess Iris, and we expect an engagement by the end of the season.”
Chapter Three
My dad’s words send me buckling back a step like he hit me.
I’m stopped from moving at all by his hand, and I reel more, because he’s gripping down, hard enough his knuckles grind against my bones. Again,he knows how messed up this is,but he’s not doing a single thing tonotdo it, and so I stand there, stricken, as journalists call out questions and cameras flash and our court gasps and murmurs and thenapplauds,and I can feel every ounce of blood in my body drain away.
Iris is just as horrified, eyes wide and lips in a thin line, and her dad has a hand on her back, holding her up the same way.
“The union between Christmas and Easter will strengthen what has long been at the crux of both our enterprises: joy,” my father says to the reporters. “Christmas in particular will continue our goals of not only bringing toys to the world’s children”—he pauses with a glint of a smile as the crowd expectedly coos and awws—“but ensuring that the cheer we spread is capable of reaching every corner of the world. Our outreach will only grow, thanks to the magic and resources that Easter will now contribute. This union is a long time coming, and will be a boon to both our peoples, and to the world.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Iris start to shake. She clasps her arms around herself; her dad whispers to her, and she straightens, dragging on her perfect façade, but it’s tissue thin.
I’ve known her all my life. But I didn’treallyknow her until her mom’s funeral when I was eleven and she was ten, when Kris, Dad, and I went to honor the passing of the Easter Queen. She hadn’t been the official queen, because Iris’s mom hadn’t been from any royal family, not a Holidayer at all—she’d been from France, and Iris’s dad had met her during his treks there during the Easter season. It’d been quite the scandal when they’d gotten together,enough that Dad had told us about it years after the fact, only to warn Kris and I offever trying to bring a normal person home like that.I’d made a point to try to date as manynormal peopleas possible afterwards. None stuck like Iris’s parents did, nothing like what made him, an Easter King, bring someone from the real world into our hidden universe.
Her funeral was horrific. Neo had sat next to her casket, stone-faced and bloodshot eyes and a slumped, grieving posture like he’d been crying but wasn’t done yet and was holding it all in becausecrowdandcamerasandduty.I remembered thinking how it’d been three years since my own mom had left—not died, justleft,willingly—and I knew what that restraint felt like, the not falling apart; but that was a lie, the falling apart happened internally, wreaking havoc on organs and muscles and sinew because it was more proper to choke down the nuke of grief than to hurt anyone else with your pain.
Then Iris had come up to her father. He’d taken her hand, taken Lily’s, and they’d walked to the casket.
Iris had peered in at her mom and screamed.
A member of their staff swooped in and ushered her away. Her dad didn’t stop it, just took Lily and sat down like he wasn’t aware Iris was gone or that she wasfeelinganything at all. The service continued, but I could hear Iris’s muffled sobbing from the hallway of the massive cathedral we were in, noise ricocheting off the soulless stone.
Then she went silent.
