Page 5 of The Nightmare Before Kissmas
Dad ignores me, barreling right on with his ranting, and I only let myself get pissed for half a beat. I have no leg to stand on right now, not a single one.
“Maybe you have not paid attention to our reality,” Dad says, “and the fact that our Holiday is positioned to become more renowned worldwide than ever before in history. Spreading our reach will require things like magic andreputation.”
“Is that really what’s important right—”
“Christmas dominates the stories spun within Holiday presses. It is a responsibility and agiftyou have for too long scorned. Do you see the way other Holidays are talked about? Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, even Easter to some extent—they are barely taken seriously.Weare the epitome of wholesomeness and joy—”
“Dad—”
“—and that means wedo notinitiate the economic collapse of a small Pacific Islands nation!”
“STOP!”
I don’t mean to shout. Only I do mean it, a little, and Kris frowns at me, all understanding, and fuck if I deserve that from him. The people nearest me look over too and I curve down, pulling the phone to my chest to grimace before raising it back up to my other ear.
I slam my eyes shut. “I’ll come home. I swear. Just… let me sober up.”
“You’redrunk?” Dad shrieks in my ear. “You left this disaster you created to getdrunk?”
“I’m here.” Kris leans over and speaks into my shoulder. “I won’t let Coal do—”
“Nicholas,” Dad counters, and Kris flinches back.
Kris chose irreverent Christmas clothing and a myriad of tattoos he keeps hidden under said clothing as his hipster-like acts of rebellion; I chose, among other things, that nickname. It’d been too perfect to resist, right there in the name I inherited from dad.Nick-coal-us.My father has never appreciated the delicious irony.
Seems like a pretty fucking tame thing to do now, doesn’t it.
Dad’s silence is pointed. So pointed I can imagine exactly how he’d be glaring at me if he were here, eyes dark, using some kind of magic as an intimidation tactic—dimming the lights, plummeting the temperature. Kris and I may be able to tap into Christmas’s magic in small ways, parlor tricks, but Dad’s connection to it is a thing beyond.
“The things you do matter, Nicholas,” Dad says. “The image you present to our people and other Holidaysmatters.Everyone involved in bringing Christmas to the normal world looks to our family. That’sthousandsof people, you realize, in North Pole City. What if they stopped taking their duties seriously because of the example you set? In the past few decades alone, Christmas has extended to countries we once could never have reached. Every Holiday looks tous.”
“Looks to us forwhat?” My insides have been battered up and down this evening, and what is usually a background pain rages front and center where I’d naively woken it up by thinking I could effect any real change. “We plaster on a picture-perfect image for the Holiday press, the Claus name is blemish-free, we keep raking in joy for one single fucking day that’s forgotten as soon as it happens, andwhat? That’s really it?”
“Is that all you truly think we do?”
Yes. No. Fuck, I shouldn’t have answered his call in this state.
Another well-earned sigh vibrates in my ear. “You see firsthand now why we do not use our magic more extensively. We do spread joy. Even if all we do is as frivolous as you make it seem, what more do you want? Isn’t that enough?”
I’m so drunk. I’m so fucking drunk. And that’s why my response is, “It wasn’t enough to keep Mom from leaving.”
All my muscles seize.
The line goes so quiet I think he hung up.
When he starts again, his tone is wholly emotionless. “This is the final warning I will give you. No more disasters, no more embarrassments. You will be the embodiment of the heir of Christmas.Luckily, I will be able to fix your mess this time.Come home.This is not only your future at stake, Nicholas. This is Christmas’s future. Your brother’s future, even. It is high time you started thinking of more than yourself.”
There’s a click, and the call goes dead.
I gasp in the vacuum of silence.
Stiff, I lower my phone and swing back around the barstool, fighting for an expression that plays it all off. It’s what I do. This was all another funny shenanigan from Coal, haha, more memories in the long line of my usual careless chicanery.
Kris is—blushing? So I know Iris is here, and the tunnel vision of vodka has my reaction processing beat by beat that that’s her standing behind him.
I should warn him off Lentora women. Don’t get involved, man, they’ll—do what?Ifucked up my relationship with Lily. She should be warning Iris off Claus men.
Iris has her arms folded, looking like she wants to be pissed but is waffling now with pity.
