Free The Christmas Chronicles by Tim Slover Page A

to all of you, Tarry. And Klaus and Anna, you are now Saints. Saint Anna and Saint Klaus.”
    A ripple of influence went out from Nicholas and the other Saints, and with it the delicious scent of peppermint, which by now you must know is the odor of Christmas Magic. The ripple passed into those in the center of the circle like an effervescence that stirred their blood and made them feel so awake that they wondered if they had spent their former lives half asleep. Anna and Klaus sprang to their feet.
    And then the ripple rebounded back from them, past the Saints, out of the house, and into the village. All the men in the retirement house next door sniffed that peppermint scent and abruptly felt like getting out their tools and starting a project. Farmers suddenly found they could hardly wait to start their spring planting, and mothers took needle and thread and contemplated darning a hundred pairs of socks. Even a fussy baby in the house farthest away in the village stopped crying and said its first words: “Santa Klaus.”
    But the ripple, so energizing to most, had a far different effect on one man. Rolf Eckhof, who had fled after giving Anna poisoned herbs, could not stay away for long. Somemen must see the effect of their evil deed to be satisfied, and Rolf Eckhof was of this sort. So he had crept back to the house and loitered in the shadows to see if his revenge against Klaus, so long planned, had taken effect. Was the woman dead or not? It was the only Christmas gift he wanted, and he was sick with the desire of it. He had to know.
    Rolf Eckhof was in the very act of climbing stealthily in through the bedroom window when the ripple struck him. And because he was so ravaged by malice and deceit—and now murder—it destroyed his body entirely. Not a particle of it was ever found. And it flung his poor, shredded immortal soul to the four winds.
    It was long, long years before he was able to reassemble that dark spirit and make more trouble for Klaus. But of course he did. And the trouble he caused was so demonic—for that is what he was now, a demon—that it may yet engulf us all.
    But knowing nothing of any of this, Anna and Klaus looked at each other and saw that they were changed. Their hair—and Klaus’s beard—were now pure snow white. Yet looking into Anna’s eyes, Klaus could see that down in her soul she was young and wild as springtime—andsomehow deeply and more truly Anna than ever before in her life.
    Anna meanwhile took one look at the reindeer and knew exactly what was about to happen. “Cover your ears!” she shouted. And they all did, just in time. Because Dasher and his brothers and sister lifted up their heads and opened their mouths and bugled so loud that the rafters actually shook. Anna suddenly wondered why she had not gone racing with Dasher for so many years, and Klaus bet any man or beast in the room that he could run to the top of Mount Feldberg without stopping. Nobody took his bet.
    Then Klaus gathered his woodworking tools and his crimson coat and breeches, and Anna her fabrics and sewing things, and together they loaded them all into the sleigh. These were the only things they wanted to take with them from their old life.
    “Take your cookstove, Anna!” Saint Nicholas advised. “Of all your fine cookery, my dear, which dish is your favorite?”
    “My maple sugar cookies,” she said automatically. “Naturally.”
    “Hear, hear!” agreed Klaus.
    “Very well then,” said Nicholas. “From this day forward,Klaus, all cookies will do you good, but specially Anna’s maple sugar cookies. They will renew you, body and spirit. Please eat a lot of them. If you do, you will find yourself growing ever stronger as the years roll by.” And so they loaded the cookstove onto the sleigh with the other things.
    Klaus wrote a brief letter to the retired Guild members next door, bequeathing to them his and Anna’s house. Before he sealed it, he included in the letter the key to the house