Page 4 of Run, Run Rudolph
She swore under her breath. “It’s almost Christmas, Tam-Tam.”
Her accusatory tone magnified my guilt. “I know.”
“What was he doing on the road? It’s too early to be out! Christmas Eve isn’t until tomorrow. Are you sure it’s him?”
“What other reindeer has a blinking red nose? And I know it’s almost Christmas. He should be…I don’t know. At the North Pole!” Not on the road. Not injured. “I didn’t make a wish! Why is the magical world revealing itself to me? Why—why—was he on the road? I hurt him!”
I rubbed my forehead, trying to pull myself together. Boys and girls around the world were going to be devastated if Santa didn’t come tomorrow night. Christmas was a magical time, and I loved the spirit of the holiday. But that didn’t mean I wanted a one-on-one with it.
“Tell me everything,” Char said calmly. “From the beginning.”
“Fairy godmothers are real. So Rudolph has to be real, too, right?” I was blubbering now, talking fast, probably not making much sense, my car still angled across the road. “Except that it’s the night before Christmas Eve, and I just hit Rudolph, and he’s lying there with his nose blinking, and I don’t know what to do.”
“You hit Rudolph with your car,” Char repeated back slowly. There was a gravity in her voice, and I had a feeling she’d been smacked by the cold, hard hand of sobriety. “Is he still alive?”
“He was breathing and his nose was glowing.” My voice sounded small. I was not the independent, strong, capable, take-charge-of-anything-and-come-out-on-top woman I’d sometimes thought I was since moving home again. I’d had a good run of faking it with renting a farm, and taking care of my elderly landlord’s horse for him. But now that reality was hitting the fan—or my bumper—it turned out I wasn’t so bravely handling my life after all.
“Is Santa there?” Char asked.
The question was so ludicrous, I would’ve laughed twenty minutes ago, but now I found myself hopefully craning my neck, looking behind my car.
Santa! Of course. He must be around. Right?
Right?
But he wouldn’t be doing his Christmas Eve deliveries for another full day, so why would he be here? Then again, why would Rudolph? And where had the rest of the reindeer gone? There’d been at least half a dozen of them, maybe more.
I scanned the dark road, illuminated intermittently by my car’s flashers. The snow had let up a tiny bit, but the visibility was still crap.
“I don’t see him,” I said. “I saw all of his reindeer, and now I don’t see any of them. Except Rudolph.”
“Is there a sleigh?”
“No, they were all on the loose.” The image of them bouncing around me like a dropped bag of marbles had my voice shaking again.
There was a long silence. “Let me get in touch with someone,” Char said finally.
“Not the funny farm!” I blurted out before remembering who I was dealing with. She was the one person I knew in this universe—other than our friend, Josie, who was a walking contradiction with her logic-loving mind and her passion for all things romantasy related—who would believe just how real this was.
“Hey,” Char said gently, “you didn’t call them on me when I told you about Estelle. I’m not calling them on you.”
Satisfied, I hung up the phone before realizing I didn’t actually have a solution and didn’t know who she was calling. It wasn’t like she had Santa’s phone number.
Probably.
Something—or someone—knocked on my window and I jumped, squealing, tossing my phone in the air. It clattered somewhere behind me as it fell.
The person at the window was short, their rapping knuckles only reaching part way up the door. Was there a child outside? In this weather? What new madness was this? I quickly opened my door, careful not to whack them with it.
The person stepped around the edge of my door and I squeaked, shoving myself against the console between my seat and the passenger side. I wanted to reach for the door and shut it, but the snarly-looking elf was now between the handle and my seat, a stubby finger pointed accusingly at me.
“Who are you?” He had a gruff, masculine voice that didn’t fit his tininess.
“Nnnhn. Nhn.” I was nearly hyperventilating. Elves were supposed to be cheery. Adorable, cute, and cuddly. This guy was none of the above.
I mean, I was pretty sure he was an elf. He had the ears for it, and was wearing a green-and-red striped pointy hat, a green button-up shirt with a red vest that was embroidered with fat, white snowflakes, and the most unstylish squarish green pants shoved into fuzzy brown boots.
I’d met some scary creatures last summer when Char had gone through the thing with Estelle, and I’d learned enough about the magical world to be terrified of all that I didn’t know. And you could fill a library or two with that.
