Page 35 of Run, Run Rudolph
The non-magical human world would surely notice, and that was a major breach of our inter-worlds contract.
We had to keep Mrs. C. in the dark, and happy. Very, very happy.
The problem was, she was already in a foul mood, fighting her black magic nature and a strong force that could easily take over if given a bit of darkness to grab onto.
Tamara’s phone chirped from deep inside her coat. She sighed, bit the end of one of her thick, insulated mittens to hold it between her teeth, then withdrew her hand from within its confines.
“My mom,” she grumbled around the mitt. “I forgot to text her that I got home okay after supper.”
A blast of snowy air hit her full-force like a punishment and she shivered, tapping on her phone’s screen.
“Got home okay,” she muttered as she tapped on the screen’s keyboard. “Right. I’m alive, so that counts. Not a total lie.” A whooshing sound filled the air. “I’m definitely not telling her I went back out into the storm.”
“Tamara…”
Her phone chirped as soon as she repocketed it, her hand already burrowing back into the warmth of the fluffy mitt. She groaned. “Wanna help me?”
“Yes!”
“Tell my mom to chill,” she snapped.
Now we were talking. Any wish to get the ball rolling was a win. “Simply close your eyes and make a?—”
“Estelle. I’m not making a wish.”
“You don’t understand what you’re unravelling here tonight,” I stated, trying to walk that fine line between not wanting Tamara to panic, yet somehow make her understand how dire this was. She needed to do something! “You’re meddling with magic during one of our most important holidays. Beings from my world might assume you have malicious intent and are a threat. Do you know what they do to threats?”
“No,” Tamara said weakly. Under the rosiness from the cold, her skin paled.
“You shouldn’t even be able to see the herd.”
“I still believe.”
“Believing isn’t enough to see through the magical shroud at this time of year.”
“I think they chose to let me see them. That’s what Hugo said.”
I turned to the reindeer. They all looked away.
But like Gram-Gram had said, something was still not adding up. Seeing the herd was one thing, severely injuring Rudolph was another. There had to be something wrong with the shroud.
“Rudolph is inside?” I asked.
She nodded.
“With the human? Who can see him?”
“He’s a vet. He’s helping.” Tamara hunched deeper into her mountain of winter layers. Being human looked miserable.
“You look cold,” I said kindly, hoping she’d let a wish slip out. We could start small and work our way up to saving her and Christmas, and most of all, avoiding the Magical Court of Rules and its punishments. “Would you like to be warm?”
“I am not making any wishes, Estelle. Why do I have to go into fairy godmother debt to clear a problem that has more to do with misbehaving, drunken reindeer than anything of my own doing?”
My mind cleared. “They were drunk when you first saw them?”
“Yes! And Blitzen is even more drunk now. He got into my alcoholic punch.”
“You gave him…” I felt woozy. My office flickered in my mind’s eye, over the vision of the alley. My splitting spell wavered in my panicked distraction.
