Page 128 of Run, Run Rudolph
The reindeers’ eyes all turned to him.
“I remember most of it now,” he said, rubbing his forehead while tightening an arm around my waist. “Although it feels a bit dreamlike.”
“We don’t have much time,” Rudolph said. “But we wanted to say thank you for your help last night. Both of you.”
“You’re welcome. And I’m sorry about hitting you with the car.”
“It never happened.”
“Oh, right.” I rubbed my forehead, trying to wrap my head around what had truly happened versus what was simply a memory. “But you remember last night?”
“We all do. Mrs. Claus let us retain our memories, even though Estelle backtracked time for you.”
“Really? Why did she do that?”
“She wanted us to remember our lesson about sneaking out,” Prancer said.
“It wasn’t sneaking out!” Blitzen complained. “There’s no rule!”
“And for us to remember that she saved us all,” Prancer said primly.
“She does a lot for you and the holiday, you know,” I said. “You should try thanking her sometimes.” The poor woman was surrounding by a sea of testosterone up at the North Pole. No wonder she’d been tempted by her dark side.
“She forgave Santa,” Vixen said in her sweet voice. “I don’t know what you did, but she’s like her old self again. And they’re both very happy. They solved all of the Christmas problems together, and plan to take a small trip to the black magic world next spring.”
“I’m glad they seem to be doing okay again.”
Beside me, Haden gave me an affectionate squeeze.
“So Christmas is truly all right?” Haden confirmed.
“It is.”
“Mrs. Claus was angry that you wished yourself away before receiving judgement,” Vixen said.
“She would have incinerated me!”
“Maybe, but once she calmed down, she set to work on fixing Christmas.”
“Is she still feuding with Estelle?”
“I don’t think they’ll ever be friends.”
“Fair enough. I’m glad everyone’s okay, and that you stopped to say hi. I hope you won’t get in trouble for this—because of my banishment.”
“Mrs. Claus opened a small portal for us,” Rudolph said.
“She did?”
“She says thanks.”
“Thanks?” That was an ending to our little dispute that I hadn’t predicted.
“And she said to stay out of our world because you’re still banished,” Prancer added. “You forgot to tell her that bit.”
“Whatever,” Rudolph muttered.
Santa let out a ho, ho, ho! Then he called out the reindeers’ names as well as a command. Their image began to shimmer and shake.
