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The bedroom door down the hall slammed. Now Keith could barely hear Dad’s yelling and Mom’s crying. Dad had drunk lots of the funny-smelling stuff that always made him yell and bang things around, even though it was Christmas Eve and Mom begged him to stop. He even slapped her in the face this time.

Pulling the covers up to his neck, Keith whispered to his brother in the bed on the other side of the room, “Will Santa come if they keep fighting?’

Mike whispered back, “George in my class says there’s no real Santa Claus. He says parents give all the presents.”

Mike knew things because he was in second grade, while Keith was only in kindergarten. But that couldn’t be right. “George is a liar. There is too a Santa.” Keith sat up and listened hard. Now he didn’t hear any noise from Dad and Mom’s room. “I’ll prove it. I’ll go downstairs and wait for him.”

“What if he catches you?”

Keith swallowed his fear at the thought. “So what? Maybe he’ll take me to the North Pole like the boy on the train in that movie.”

“And maybe when you get there, the abominable snow monster will eat you.”

“Will not! Santa wouldn’t let that happen.” Keith slipped out of bed and tiptoed across the room, the floorboards cold on his bare feet. He eased the door open and peeked into the hall. Everything was quiet.

He crept along the hall and down the stairs by the dim, multicolored light from the Christmas tree. In the living room, he squeezed behind the couch, with just enough room for him to hide. After a while, his legs cramped, and his eyelids drooped . . . .

The jingle of bells jolted him awake.

He peeked around the edge of the couch, trying not to show himself any more than he could help.

There was Santa Claus with his red suit and white beard, just like in books and TV shows! He paused in filling the stockings above the electric fireplace and slowly turned around. “Ho, ho, ho! Who’s there?’

Trembling, Keith held his breath.

“I know you’re here. You might as well come out.”

Keith crawled from his hiding place and stood on shaky legs.

“Have you been a good little boy all year?”

Keith nodded. Well, mostly good.

“What are you doing awake? What do you want?”

He remembered all the toys he’d told Mom to write in his letter to Santa. Then he thought about his parents’ fight. “I want to go to the North Pole for Christmas, where there’s no yelling and hitting.”

Santa said with a broad smile, “Do you want to stay there with all the toys and candy and treats you could ever dream of? And visit my workshop and help me make gifts for all the good children?”

Keith nodded again. He’d like to stay in that kind of place for now, anyway.

“Ho, ho, ho, wonderful! Come with me, then.” He held out a gloved hand.

Keith wrapped his arms around himself. “But I don’t have a coat or boots or mittens or anything.”

“I promise you won’t need them. You’ll get just what you want.” Santa grabbed Keith’s hand, and cozy warmth instantly covered him like an invisible blanket. The room turned fuzzy. In a swirl of sparkles, it faded away.

For a minute his head spun with dizziness. The next minute, he found himself in a field of snow with Santa still holding onto him.

A huge gingerbread house decorated with giant candy canes stood before him. The North Pole workshop, exactly the way he’d imagined. The wide doors swung open by themselves. Santa led him into a high-ceilinged room.

Jingle bell music and smells of gingerbread and peppermint filled the air. Colorful lights on trees twice as tall as a man dazzled him. Piles of packages from tiny to gigantic, decorated with shiny paper and bows, lined the walls. Elves in green outfits bustled around, wrapping more presents. Santa didn’t give Keith much time to stare at everything but hurried him through another door.

This room had bare walls, a concrete floor, and white light that burned his eyes. Clattering and clanging of machines hurt his ears. When he turned around, Santa said in a strange, mean voice, “Here’s my workshop.” He slammed the door, shutting Keith inside.

He scanned the room. Elves watched a row of kids hunched over long tables that moved like the checkout counter in a grocery store. Mostly wearing pajamas or nightgowns, the children worked on toys that crawled past them on the moving strip.

An elf who must be the boss waved at Keith. “Hey, you, get over here!” When Keith stumbled closer, the elf shoved him onto a stool next to a blonde girl who looked about the same age as Keith’s brother. Her dingy nightgown was full of holes. “Show the new kid the ropes, and be quick about it.”

Keith glanced from side to side, confused. “What’s going on?”

“What does it look like?” the girl said. “We’re putting toys together. You’ll be fitting the heads on dolls like I do.” Headless, naked dolls streamed by. The girl picked a head out of an overflowing box and screwed it onto a plastic body. “Like that.”

“But what about the treats and toys we’re supposed to get?”

The girl said, “At every break, we have gingerbread, candy canes, and apple cider. Trust me, you’ll get sick of them. And we can play with toys at sleep time, if we’re not too worn out by then.” She handed him a doll and a head. “Start working so we won’t hold up the assembly line. The elves don’t like that.”

“Santa promised nobody would yell or hit here.”

“They won’t. They do worse things.” She shuddered. “You don’t want to know.”

“How long do I have to stay?”

She shrugged. “Maybe forever. I can’t remember exactly how long I’ve been seven years old.”

Tears overflowed his eyes. “But Santa promised.”

“So? Did he promise you would enjoy it?”

-end-

The blare of the alarm slashed through a gray haze. Jan clawed her way up from the shreds of sleep that entangled her and gulped a breath. Heat seared her throat and lungs.

Coughing, she strained her vision and saw only flames obscured by a shroud of smoke.

Were the drapes on fire? The space heater – why hadn’t they remembered to turn it off at bedtime? That far from the window, it shouldn’t get the curtains hot enough to ignite – must have malfunctioned.

She struggled free of the sheet wrapped around her legs, while her eyes stung and her chest heaved. A shadow groped through the haze, and hands gripped her elbows.

“Larry?”

“Come on, get up.” He tugged at her arms to haul her out of bed.

Jan tried to swing her legs onto the floor, but they didn’t work. Blackness engulfed her.

When consciousness returned, she lay on her back staring up at the night sky. Sky? She was on the ground in the front yard, then. Why couldn’t she feel the damp grass under her? At least the burning in her chest had stopped.

Sirens wailed. Larry knelt beside her, silhouetted by the glow from the house. His fingers grazed her cheek, but she couldn’t feel his touch either. Was she paralyzed or what? She forced herself to sit up and reach for him. Her hand sank into his chest with no sensation at all.

Oh, God, no! She choked out, “What’s happening? Are you dead?”

His eyes widened with something between grief and horror. “No. You are.”

-end-