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They watched the sky.
A knot doubled up Billy’s stomach. Gallivanter twined his fingers over his stomach, a smile resting on his face. Billy couldn’t decide if the smile was satisfied or cynical. Some moments the elven seemed to barely have the energy to stand.
He always had enough to smile.
The elven hadn’t said much for most of the day. They had been very busy getting things back in order, making rights out of wrongs. There would be no more nicies, no more naughties. No more Big Game.
Just us, Gallivanter had said.
It was past midnight when they stepped into the horseshoe and began watching the sky. Gallivanter didn’t say what they were doing, but Billy knew. It wasn’t long before the silence was splintered like a cement block dropped on a frozen pond. It echoed in the distance and cascaded down the mountainside.
Gallivanter’s smile grew.
An outline appeared over the mountain. Billy hadn’t expected such a grand entrance. Stealth was what he expected, but there it was in the open for anyone to see, a team of reindeer circling around and drifting into the horseshoe with a jingle of bells and clopping of hooves. The rails of a large sleigh slushed to a stop.
Gallivanter began walking.
The reindeer turned their heads. Billy wondered if they were glaring at him or watching the elven pick up his waddling pace as he neared.
Do they know what I did?
Gallivanter nearly vanished in the dark, but the ripple of bells meant he had reached the reindeer, hugging each one of them as they dipped their heads, snorting and sniffing. Gallivanter’s greetings were emotional and heartfelt.
Unmistakable laughter bellowed from the sleigh.
It made Billy dizzy. William had pursued the Christmas legend for so long. That obsession was over, William was gone, and the fat man was only a couple of hundred feet away from him. He nearly melted into a puddle of awe.
He’s real.
William had left on the cloned reindeer and never returned. Gallivanter didn’t seem concerned. It was as if he expected him to chase after Ronin.
He will not return, the elven had told him.
Despite the evidence—the elven, the flying reindeer, and the sleigh that flew over the mountain—he still reserved his doubts for the sake of sanity. It was better to believe this was all a hallucination, that he was not a product of a synthetic cloning machine. But the evidence was, once again, irrefutable. He didn’t have a choice.
He believed.
He was distracted by his thoughts, struggling with recurring doubts, when two figures climbed out of the sleigh. The reindeer were still out there with the fat man’s baritone voice joyfully greeting Gallivanter.
The two figures slowed.
Billy sensed their disbelief, imagined their confusion, could feel their swelling anger. Ryder looked back at the sleigh. He wasn’t expecting to find Billy waiting for them. They looked back again, reconsidering their return to Kringletown. They’d been lied to enough. Was the fat man bringing them back to the same life?
“I’m sorry.” Billy raised a hand before they turned around. “For everything, I... I can’t express...”
The ache in his chest broke off the rest of what he was going to say. Whenever he stared directly at what he’d done, it hurt too much. He was shaking. How was he going to rebuild their lives?
I can’t do it alone.
The standoff was broken by a jingling of bells and a trail of laughter then a crackling of time and space. The reindeer and sleigh had vanished. A waddling figure approached them. Billy’s chin quivered. He had assumed the elven would return to the Pole. After all, he was finally free to do so.
Gallivanter the Wanderer.
“Oh, it’s good, catching up with an old friend.” Gallivanter looked up at Ryder and Cherry. “It’s been a very long trip, I know. One doesn’t simply brush an experience like this under the ice. We have work.”
Corded braids swung from his chin. All those years in cold storage and he’d seemed to recover not in months or years. It was less than a day. It would take most people a lifetime to overcome the mess William had made.
But Gallivanter was not human.
He tugged on a beard braid. “It’s time to wake them.”
“Why?” Ryder stared through Billy. “You know what he did to us, to you. You know what’s on the other side of the mountain, don’t you? Why would you wake him?”
The truth was going to be easier for some to digest than others. After all, Ryder was different. He was special, and not because there was a reindeer protecting him.
He’s naughty and nice.
He was the clone who grew up in the world, untainted by William’s inner voice, allowed to suffer and believe he was unimportant, that he didn’t matter.
More human than the rest of us.
“Put him in the cabin,” Ryder said. “I don’t want him anywhere near the others when they wake up. He did this, Gallivanter. This is all because of him.”
Gallivanter stroked his braids and turned thoughtfully. His tireless exuberance dissolved into one of calm understanding. Perhaps he’d underestimated Ryder’s reaction.
“Could you excuse us for a moment, Billy?” Gallivanter said.
Billy swallowed. “No.”
They were surprised by that. Even Gallivanter turned toward him.
“Ryder’s right. This is my fault,” Billy continued. “I-I mean, it was William’s doing, but it-it-it was my hand. I don’t deserve their trust or to be forgiven. Not now or maybe ever. Please don’t lock me away.”
“Like you did us?” Ryder said. “You put us in the cold for how long, Billy? Months? Years? You put them to sleep because they weren’t good enough. Good boys and girls do what you tell them, right? You deserve to be in one of those drawers.”
Billy drew a long shaky breath. “You’re right.”
A grim line set Ryder’s lips as he looked down. A conflict of thoughts wrestled in his head. Cherry was expressionless. Hardened by shock or unresolved anger, his words went through her like a summer breeze through a screen window.
Gallivanter waddled behind them. With a few muttered words, he guided the kids inside. Billy remained in the cold. Whatever they decided, he would accept. He was free to suffer.
Without William’s voice.
The door opened and the elven gestured. They went to the elevator and waited. It was after midnight. The nicies were already asleep in their beds.
Not the naughties.
When the elevator arrived, a breath of synthetic odor wafted out. He hadn’t been down there yet. Hesitantly, he followed the elven inside, stress involuntarily pulling the corner of his mouth. Each step felt like walking toward a cliff, the world rushing past and a dark unknown waiting to swallow him.
“I woke you for a reason.”
Gallivanter took his hand. Billy grabbed at the wall as the elevator descended. His throat swelled. Gallivanter’s smile did not waver. His eyes were gentle and forgiving, as if nothing needed to be forgiven. All was exactly the way it was supposed to be.
When the doors opened, the lab buried him beneath an avalanche of sounds and smells. He struggled for his next breath, clenching the back wall of the elevator as his memories breached the fences and rushed into awareness. Everything he’d done, he had to face it. All of it.
All of them.
Gallivanter stayed with him, watching him, holding his hand. Perhaps it would be better if they did put him in a drawer. It might be easier that way. And he deserved it. But then a sound reached him, one reaching back through all the years to when this started. There was the sound of cold storage doors decompressing and drawers sliding out. More voices joined the others, sleepy and confused.
Billy slid to the floor and buried his face.
He heard a voice unlike any of the others. Once he heard it, the tears came.
“We need you.” Gallivanter put his hand on his shoulder. “For the healing to begin.”
It was the cry of an infant.