Claus: The Trilogy Read online

  Claus, Jack and Flury

  The Boxed Set

  by

  Tony Bertauski

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  CLAUS

  Legend of the Fat Man

  THE COLD ONE

  I

  In 1818, William Parry commanded a ship, Alexander, into the Arctic region. Upon returning to England, it was reported that three of his crew members had gone missing during a stop in Baffin Bay.

  While the missing crew members appeared to be acquaintances, there were rumors they were actually related. One deckhand claimed to know where they had gone.

  The North Pole

  C L A U S

  1.

  Shards of glass.

  The Arctic air stung like shards of glass.

  Nicholas heard voices. He insisted that’s what it was. His wife didn’t hear anything. She said it was the ice cracking. But Nicholas heard it. He heard the voices; they were looking for them. He was sure of it. The snow had already drifted over the tent – they might not see them.

  Nicholas opened the flap and punched through the snow wall. It was clear outside, an Arctic blue sky over a desert of snow. The subzero wind stabbed his face and choked him with icy air.

  Out of nowhere, the storm hit.

  A full-on blizzard dropped on them like a tornado.

  Nicholas ducked back inside. It didn’t make sense. Weather didn’t act like that, not in the Arctic. But then no one had ever been this close to the North Pole. Maybe it did.

  He heard the voices cut through the wind. He dug into the bottom of his backpack and fished out a rope.

  “What’s going on, Nicholas?”

  Jessica was next to Jon at the back of the tent, a cloth draped over his eyes.

  “Stay here, Jessica. I’m going to look.”

  “No. No, you won’t. You will not go out in that… we’ll never find you…”

  “I have to, Jessica. I have to find them. They might have the dogs, the sleds.” He cinched the rope around his waist. “It’s our only hope.”

  “Wait until the storm passes.”

  “No time for that.” He put the coiled rope in her hands. “I will not journey far, love. Only as far as this.” He snapped the rope between his hands. “And I will be back.”

  Jessica started to reach for him, but when he threw open the tent, she latched onto the rope with both hands. She would not let go. She would never let go.

  Nicholas wandered only steps away before he could not see the tent. The icy snow pelted the exposed skin around his eyes like shrapnel. He hunkered over and gripped the rope, bulling his way into the storm and the wind pulling at his coat.

  He heard it again, the distinct sound of voices out there in the white.

  “Aglakti!” he called. “Umiak!”

  There were more, but the names were shredded as soon as they left his mouth. He crouched down, huddled near the ice. It was impossible. He could barely see the end of his arm. He would start back in a moment. Just a few more steps. If he found the Inuits and the dogs, they might survive. Without them…

  Just a few more steps and then he would follow the rope back to the tent. He made sure it was still around his waist. The knot was frozen and crusty. He took several steps, hunched down and called the names. He got all of them out, all five of the Inuits that led them toward the North Pole. The same Inuits that disappeared days ago with all the dogs and the gear. And the food.

  It had to be an accident. They wouldn’t abandon them. That would be a death sentence. They just wouldn’t do that.

  “Tupit!” Nicholas screamed.

  The wind answered with a swirling gust that snuck through the tiniest crease around his neck, piercing with a jab. He put his hands up to call again but fell.

  Something tripped him.

  Something had wrapped around his legs. He rolled in the snow, worked his way onto his back and reached for his boots. Tears streamed from his eyes. He could barely see the snow-crusted thing that tangled him up. He pulled it off and felt it jerk around his waist.

  The rope.

  The storm had lassoed him with his own lifeline. It whipped wildly in his hands. One direction, then another. The storm was coming from all over. Nicholas jerked the rope; he reeled it in – hand over hand – waiting for the tension to show him the way back.

  The end of the rope appeared.

  A sharp, clean end.

  He held it inches from his teary eyes, inspecting the clean-cut end. It wasn’t the frayed end he’d given Jessica. Somehow, out there, the rope had been cut.

  And now he was in the middle of a white, raging storm.

  The tent might only be twenty feet away.

  It may as well have been twenty miles.

  He had to find his way back. He wouldn’t find the Inuit. He wouldn’t make his way out of the Arctic. But he didn’t want to die without his wife and son. It couldn’t end like that. It wouldn’t.

  He closed his eyes and looked inside for some indication, some sign of where he should go. He felt he had come straight out of the tent and hadn’t turned, hadn’t veered at all, every step rigid and straight. But he’d fallen and rolled. He couldn’t be sure.

  His heart pointed the way. His heart wanted to see Jessica one more time. Let her rusty hair fall across his face. Let his cheek warm her hand. Let their lips touch. His second step was stronger than the first. He saw a dark lump ahead of him, low to the ground. It was the tent, nearly buried in quickly drifting snow.

  There was a lump next to it.

  Two. Three, maybe. He wasn’t sure, but they looked to be short people standing there, waiting and watching him.

  “Umiak?” Nicholas uttered.

  His next step crunched through the snow, through the thin ice below.

  His weight crashed through the fragile bridge that covered the water below, the rivers that flowed between the ice floes.

  He expected to feel the icy plunge into the Arctic Ocean. He would quickly go numb. Quickly go under. And die alone.

  Instead, he fell into a long dark tunnel. There was no water. No death.

  He feared he would never warm his wife’s hand again.

  C L A U S

  2.

  The tent bowed under the weight of the snow.

  Jessica hovered over Jon and pushed against the wall. They would have to get out soon or they’d be buried. Jon was still in his teens; he wasn’t going to last long outside. But the tent was about to collapse.

  Where did this come from?

  The closer they got to the North Pole, the stranger the world became. They had seen creatures that looked like polar bears but seemed a bit… off. Even the Inuit were spooked. Nicholas insisted something had happened to their guides, but Jessica knew what happened. They turned tail and went home. She couldn’t blame them. They had no real investment in the Santa dream that she and Nicholas and Jon were chasing. The Inuit had family back on the mainland. They’d left the Santa family with their dream and nothing to eat.

  They’d
left the Santa family to die.

  Jon moaned.

  Jessica kept one hand on the rope and, with the other, adjusted the wolf skin over his face. His retinas were sunburned from the bright days and the snow’s reflection. He was snow-blind. He’d refused to wear the elk antler protection and that’s what he got.

  The line tugged in Jessica’s hand like she’d snagged something. Nothing could be out there in that storm. Nicholas shouldn’t be, voices or not. She started to reel him back so they could be together. She would need him to carry Jon.

  The line went taut.

  She tugged it and it resisted. She pulled with both hands and it went slack.

  Panic turned her stomach to ice.

  She crawled to the tent flaps, hand over hand, pulling and winding. The rope snaked through the wall of snow, falling in a loose pile. Until she reached the end.

  The end of the rope.

  The end without Nicholas.

  She didn’t look back at Jon. She shoved her hand through the wall of snow. She pushed her head into the skin-shearing storm, scrubbing the feeling from her cheeks. Her eyes were blinded with tears.

  She heard something. Right then, she heard what Nicholas heard.

  Voices.

  She heard clashing.

  The cry of a terrible animal.

  And then the wind grew stronger. She was snatched from the tent, tossed into the air, head over knees. She tumbled into the sky, into dark confusion. Numb.

  Alone.

  Alone with one last thought.

  How did we get here?

  Nicholas and Jessica Santa boarded the Alexander with their son in 1818. No one would’ve recognized her. Her hair – dark red and typically flowing over her shoulders – was cut above the ears. A heavyset woman, her skin was too soft to pass for a man’s, so they smudged it with soot and pulled a cap low on her forehead. Jessica didn’t board William Edward Parry’s ship as a woman named Jessica. Instead, she transformed into a quiet deckhand named Myron that carried “his” weight like anyone else.

  The Santas behaved unlike a family, rarely interacting when the sun was up. Jon spent more time climbing the jibs while Jessica was in the bowels of the ship, lugging food to the cook’s station and sometimes chipping in to feed the crew. Nicholas could sometimes be found with a sextant in hand, looking for the North Star.

  At night, when snoring shook the ship’s timbers, Nicholas would find his wife and (when no one was looking) whisper tenderly in her ear. And when all were soundly asleep, he would kiss her gently on the cheek.

  In that way, the Santas on board the Alexander followed Captain John Ross’s ship, Isabella, north into Baffin Bay in search of a passageway around North America.

  No one knew what they had in mind.

  The ships had reached the northern end of Baffin Bay when Jon began to show signs of scurvy. Diarrhea had afflicted the deckhands – mostly the young ones that thought they were indestructible – because they weren’t consuming enough lime juice. Jessica went to the galley to check on him. She struggled to keep from pushing the hair off his forehead and pressing her lips to it because the others were around. Instead, she forced him to suck on a lemon.

  He was looking better. He would be up in the crow’s nest by morning.

  But then Nicholas delivered the news. “We’re heading back.”

  “Why?” Jessica whispered.

  “Captain Ross insists that passageway is impassable.” Nicholas looked around and leaned in. “We’ll be heading ashore one last time before following Captain Ross back home.”

  Jessica didn’t answer her husband.

  She knew him well enough to see his thoughts in his eyes.

  He quickly went topside. Later that day, Jessica and Jon met him to disembark on a short journey onto Greenland’s shore. They carried everything they owned with them.

  The Santa family slipped away from the exploratory party.

  They were not missed when the ship departed. Together, the three set off to find the natives. They had enough food to last a week. Nicholas had a rifle to hunt caribou, too. They weren’t sure what their destination was. It was exciting and new. And that’s what the Santa family pursued.

  It wasn’t a week before they were discovered by the Inuit. They sensed them watching. Soon, they made contact. Communication was difficult. It included a lot of hand gestures. Nicholas had an uncanny ability to be liked by every person he met. It was the way he laughed, the way his cherub cheeks became rosy when he guffawed from deep in his belly, and the bright twinkle in his eyes.

  It was August of 1818. The Santa family would spend the next couple of years learning to become Inuit.

  They were taught the ways of the people, how to hunt, how to survive. They learned to love the cold as if ice ran through their veins instead of warm blood. Jessica, most of all, loved their new life. It was as far away from her past as it could be. Nicholas had promised her that when they married. And he delivered.

  But even their new life was not enough. Adventure still called. The greatest adventure of all beckoned. A place where no human had ventured.

  The North Pole.

  As far as anyone knew, no one had ever reached the top of the world. Even the Inuit stayed inland, where they could hunt caribou and Arctic fox; where they could fish off the coast and feed their families. The North Pole is not a place, the natives said. It is not land.

  It is ice.

  The North Pole was a floating wonderland of ice floes. It was dangerous, too. If someone did not fall into an icy lead – the openings between moving patches of ice – they would surely be run down by patrolling polar bears.

  But none of that dissuaded the Santas.

  It propelled them forward.

  And in March of 1820, just as the sun had begun to rise from its long winter disappearance, they set out to do what no human – Inuit or otherwise – had done before.

  They would touch the North Pole.

  The Arctic was stunning.

  The sky was clear blue and at night it was lit up with strange red and green and blue lights. The snow shimmered like sheets of diamond dust. There were only the sounds of cracking ice. The dog sleds carried enough supplies to make the trip. Halfway, they stashed a cache of food to gather on the trip back.

  It was challenging. And difficult. It was everything they hoped it would be.

  But then it got strange.

  Occasionally, they would see polar bears in the distance that seemed to be watching them. But these bears would stand on their back legs and appear to have a total of six limbs (not four) before diving into the snow like a prairie dog jumping into its den. There were sounds, too. Moans.

  One of the Inuit claimed to have seen something flying. Not flying, but leaping hundreds of feet from one ice ridge to another, like some Arctic mountain goat.

  Goats did not live in the Arctic.

  They had pitched tents to gather a few hours of sleep. They couldn’t stay long because the ice floes slowly drifted away from the North Pole. They needed to be efficient with their time. Food was their clock.

  But when the Santas exited the tent, the Inuit were gone. Completely. Like they’d never existed. The dogs, the sleds, the tents were gone. Not a trace. No tracks or evidence left behind.

  And the food, gone.

  The Santas were left with a few days of food in their packs.

  “We can’t…” Nicholas started. He didn’t finish.

  Jessica knew.

  Nicholas calculated their position. He thought they had reached latitude 85˚N. The North Pole was at 90˚.

  “We can reach it,” he said. “We can reach it.”

  Jessica nodded.

  Jon looked back. He knew there was no other answer. As he had always done, he accepted what was in front of him. When his parents gave him the choice to stay in London, he chose to come with them. When they gave him the choice to return on the Alexander, he chose to come with them.

  “No one will know we reached it,�
�� Jon said.

  “That’s not why we came,” Nicholas said.

  We follow truth, his father always told him. My heart sings for adventure, not for others to approve.

  Jon gathered his pack.

  The Santas began the final leg of their journey.

  They would end it together. They could think of no better way.

  C L A U S

  3.

  Jessica was falling.

  She saw the ship, the Alexander, like she was a spirit floating in the clouds. It cruised below her, through the cold, blue water, sails billowed out like huge snapping sheets. She saw Greenland.

  The Inuit.

  The inside of a collapsing tent.

  She remembered the scouring storm–

  Jessica bolted upright.

  A ROOM.

  She sat still. Didn’t dare move.

  She’d had dreams like that, waking in a strange place, only to wake up later to discover what seemed normal at the time was quite strange, indeed. But she didn’t want to wake up, not yet.

  The room was warm.

  The first time she’d felt warmth this deep in quite some time. Warmth that was in her bones, in her joints. All the way through her.

  She was in a bed that was attached to a wall. The blanket was thick and wooly, soft like skin. She rubbed it between her finger and thumb. Strange as it was, it was no dream. She couldn’t explain anything else, just that this was no dream. She was there, in her flesh. In her real waking life.

  And warm.

  The wall glistened like crystal. She touched it, expecting it to be cold, but the surface was slick and warm, like a sealant over a wall of ice that insulated the cold on the other side. On the far side was a desk. Next to that was a pile of gear that was neatly folded and stacked. The sole light source was sitting on the desk, its glow soft and faint.