Free Krampusnacht: Twelve Nights of Krampus by Mark Mills, Kate Wolford, Guy Burtenshaw, Jill Corddry, Elise Forier Edie, Patrick Evans, Scott Farrell, Caren Gussoff, Lissa Sloan, Elizabeth Twist Page A

Euell prepared for the actual holiday with purpose and determination—hanging lights and wreaths, bells and tinsel, mistletoe and pierced luminarias. I never found the source of the aroma of cinnamon and cloves, but it was suddenly there, luscious and unceasing.
    At the hanging of the angel atop the town tree, I stood gripped with joy, though Reiner had to answer a call at the park. The carolers wore mufflers trimmed in ermine. Their songs were interrupted by enthusiastic wassailing, calling for toasts, and everyone would hold aloft their cup of cider or eggnog or cocoa.
    The librarian tugged gently on my sleeve. I hadn’t even seen her next to me, caught up in the spectacle. She looked around, and whispered something. I had to move close to her to hear.
    “What are you doing here?” she asked, words clipped and harsh.
    I was dumbfounded, then hurt. “It’s Christmas Eve,” I answered.
    “No, I mean, here.” She looked around. “We thought you’d be gone by Christmas.”
    “My project isn’t complete,” I said. I’d become unwelcome.
    “You should get out of here.” The librarian was a small woman, and she gripped my wrist then, between my glove and sleeve. Her fingers were strong as they dug in. “You need to go. Now.” Then she looked worried. Even seeing only what I wanted, it was unmistakable.
    Before I could ask her why, I shivered. Then, I felt another hand on my other shoulder, long enough to stretch from scapula to collar bone. Reiner kissed the back-top of my head. “Hello, Lucinda,” he said to the librarian.
    She smiled, tightly, rehearsed. “Reiner. Happy to see you. Merry Christmas!” she said, and offered him a cheek to kiss. Afterward, she nodded at both of us, then slipped back into the party, a mosaic of red and green, gold and silver and white, singing in harmony, syncopated movement.
    A wassail for a toast. Reiner called out, “Here, here!” Then he turned to me. He slipped off my glove and took my hand in his, then turned to look at the town and the tree. While I hadn’t been able to hear the librarian without coming close, Reiner’s voice was clear and loud.
    “You want truly to be with me?” he asked me.
    “Yes,” I answered, without hesitation.
    He squeezed my hand. “I have a gift for you,” he said.
    “What is it?” I asked. Delighted, like a child.
    As soon as he smiled, snowflakes started to fall. “It’s a secret,” he said. And the carolers began a new song. Reiner squeezed my hand again. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “This is one of my favorites. Do you know it?”
    He didn’t see me shake my head because he was already singing along in that surprisingly beautiful tenor. “Ring, little bell, ring!”
    * * *
    The man I love fills the pantry doorway with his terrible new silhouette. It’s not just because he is terrifying that I can hardly look at him; I am shallow and want to see the face and body I came to know, the face and body that belong to that voice, instead of the hooked horns and the goat ears, the red eyes and bulging tongue. He shifts position, hoofs clacking on the linoleum as he waits for my eyes to adjust, then to take him in.
    With his claw, he plucks me up and out from behind the pantry shelf, sets me onto the kitchen island.
    “I found you,” he roars. When he laughs, he raises his head, and his horns scrape plaster from the ceiling. Then, he crouches, sober again, to my eye level. “Why did you hide from me?”
    I can’t answer him.
    “Come sit with me,” he says. He picks me up, again, with his claw, but gently. He carries me to the living room, deposits me in a chair.
    In the middle of the room, a sack jumps and kicks, rattling the rusted chain that binds it closed.
    “What’s in there?” I ask, though I’m sure I know.
    “It’s the wicked,” Reiner answers. He sits his great black and red body down onto the sack like a stool.
    I hear some screams, some cries. “What do you do with them?”
    “I throw them into the