Tracy
Tracy and Jared jumped out of the sleigh, Tracy with her pouch and Jared with the Ziploc bag so the magic was as far away from the plastic as possible. There was no way she would risk an explosion before they were ready.
The wall was even scarier in person. It stretched up as far as she could see, and it hummed, like there was an electrical current flowing through it. Jared reached out to touch it. Tracy grabbed his arm.
“You might not want to do that.”
Why not?” he asked.
“Just a feeling. Here,” she held out her neck pouch, “open your bag.”
He held the gallon bag while Tracy poured the yellow magic into it. The first sparks zoomed around the bottom of the bag, like they were inside a washing machine. They were pretty angry about where they were being placed. Tracy quickly dumped the rest in, not caring that a couple of specs dropped to the ground. She had a feeling this wouldn't take long.
“Now, zip it up.”
His fingers fumbled, and he nearly dropped the bag. “Ow! This stuff is getting hot.”
“Oh, give it to me.” Tracy zipped it up, even though the heat scorched her fingertips. Then, she threw it, hard and fast at the time wall.
The plastic bag stuck to the wall, sparking and hissing like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Streaks of lightning scattered along the wall's surface away from the bag. That was why she didn't want Jared touching it. If it sizzled a plastic bag, she didn't want to see what it did to a boy.
The bag pulsed as the magic inside it heated up and expanded. The seams of the bag grew tight. The contents inside turned red with fury.
Tracy shouted, “Run!”
Tracy, Jared, and Chris dove for cover behind the sleigh. For extra protection, Chris wiggled his fingers and put up his own wall of magic on the other side of the sleigh, shielding them and the reindeer.
And then the magic exploded.
Jared plugged his ears and closed his eyes, Chris rested on the ground with his back against the sleigh, but Tracy crouched behind the sleigh and watched it all.
Balls of fire rocketed from the bag and punched through the time wall, shattering it into a billion pieces. On the other side, time seemed frozen, but then it popped into fast forward. The fireballs rushed through the forest, ripping it to shreds. Baseball sized rocks hammered their shield. Branches and dry leaves blasted against it. For several long minutes, the shield quivered, but it held.
When it was finally over, Tracy stood up and gasped. The wall was definitely gone, but so was at least three acres of forest. In its place, sat a black, smoking pit.
Jared stood beside her and let out a low whistle.
“Um, maybe I used a little too much magic,” Tracy said.
“You think?”
Chris stood up too, wobbling as he did so.
“Are you okay?” Tracy tucked her hand under his elbow and helped him right himself.
“Thank you, my dear.” Chris removed a white handkerchief from his coat pocket and dabbed his forehead. “That was quite exciting, wasn't it?”
“Sorry,” she said while she made a mental note to write down the amount of magic she had used and the results. Good scientists always kept records. “Hey, did you ever think that maybe magic is just an undiscovered element? I bet they'd even let you name it. You could call it Santanium.”
Chris let out a belly laugh. “I wouldn't classify it as undiscovered. Those who believe have always known about it.”
“I guess,” she said, but she tucked the idea into the back of her mind for future hypotheses. “So, what now?”
Chris climbed into the sleigh and punched the red button on the dashboard. Phil's face appeared on the screen this time.
“Are we back?” Phil asked.
“It seems like it,” Chris said. “Now, I believe Mary asked you for a list.”
Phil smiled with relief. “147 houses. I'm uploading the coordinates to your sleigh now.”
Chris clapped his hands together and called down to Tracy and Jared. “Come on you two. It's not every Christmas I come out of retirement. Aren't you going to join me?”
Tracy was ready to go. There was still lots to do and very little time left in the night.
The two kids scrambled into the sleigh. After Chris wiggled his fingers, they were all sitting in a swamp with Spanish moss hanging from the trees. And it was hot.
The Cyprus Grove looked familiar to Tracy, like somewhere she'd once visited on a school field trip. “Are we…?”
“Precisely,” Chris answered. “The Green Swamp. Fifteen miles from your neighborhood.”
She scanned the area and found what she was looking for—a boardwalk winding through the trees and over a section of the swamp. She had been there on a field trip. Her teacher had led them across the boardwalk, searching for signs of wildlife. All they found were spider webs and bird poop. She felt like the whole trip had been a waste of time, much like this second visit to the swamp. They had 147 houses to take care of. “The sun's gonna be up soon. If you can pop from place to place, why didn't you just take us to the first house?”
“Because we needed to prepare first.”
“Prepare?”
“I can't deliver presents without my assistants, can I?” Chris rubbed his hands together, then placed one on each of her shoulders. A river of yellow air flowed from his hands and down her coat. Her shoulders tingled a little, but other than that, she felt nothing as the oversized Santa coat shrunk into a red and white fitted jacket that Tracy could have worn to a fancy party. It wasn't too hot anymore, and Tracy looked like she fit in perfectly with the theming of Chris' ancient sleigh.
Jared sat wide-eyed on the other side of Chris. “Are you gonna do that,” he gulped, “to me?” After everything he'd just seen, he was still struggling with his belief in magic.
Tracy held out her arm.
“It's real,” she said. “All of this is.”
Jared rubbed her white fur cuff between his fingers. He pinched his eyes shut and said to Chris, “Go ahead.”
Chris once again rubbed his hands together, then placed them on Jared's shoulders. That same yellow river of magic flowed across Jared's chest. One corner of his mouth tilted up in a smile as he saw his new outfit. He'd gone from a kid in a brown striped sweater to a kid in a red striped sweater. It was enough to make him look like he belonged with Santa, but not enough to make him stand out in a crowd of other eleven year olds.
“Thanks,” Jared said. “Again.”
“Anytime,” Chris said with a wink. “Now, as Tracy said, the sun is almost up. We have a job to do.”
“Are we going to pop over to the houses now?” Tracy asked. She hadn't admitted it to anyone, but traveling by magic was starting to thrill her. It was like having her very own Star Trek transporter.
“My dear girl, haven't you ever heard of making an entrance?” Chris snapped the reins, and the reindeer leaped into the sky.