the acting Santa and head of the Claus family, was the judge. Giblet Hollyberry’s sculpture, The North Pole’s King, a larger-than-life rendering of Nick’s late older brother, Chris, the former Santa, had come in second. The elf, to put it mildly, had not taken defeat in stride.
The tension in the room made it clear that everyone was thinking of Giblet’s curse that had echoed through Christmastown yesterday: You’re an abomination, Nick Claus—a man with no right to wear the robes of Santa, and a shame to your house. The day will come soon when Santaland will know you’re also a murderer!
With those words, Giblet had tossed his second-place ice trophy in the snow at Nick’s boots and stomped down the hill toward the Christmas tree forest. Murmurs had broken out among the crowd. I’d stood stunned. Nick, a murderer? Had someone spiked the nog at the festival with crazy juice? Nick agonized over hurting anyone. He’d probably lost sleep over disappointing Giblet. He certainly hadn’t been in bed most of the night.
And now Giblet was dead.
Despite my suffocatingly warm robe, a cold foreboding snaked through me.
“Giblet probably died in a fit of rage,” Jingles piped up now, breaking the silence. “I’ve never seen a grown elf throw such a tantrum. Disgraceful!” He put his hands on his hips. “In olden days, an elf who spoke that way to Santa would have been exiled to the Farthest Frozen Reaches. And good riddance!”
Nick shook his head. “He was disappointed.”
“Pardon me, Santa, but Giblet Hollyberry was a hotheaded nincompoop. He couldn’t even live peacefully among his own people in Tinkertown.”
Nick turned back to Blitzen. “How did poor Giblet die?”
“At the moment, there is only speculation, and wild talk of something in a stocking. Constable Crinkles has been alerted and is on his way to Giblet’s cottage.”
“I’ll go there, too.”
“I’ll take you, sir,” Blitzen said, again slightly bowing her heavily antlered head.
I moved forward, but Nick motioned for me to stop. “No need for you to go, April. I have to hurry, and you’ll need to lead the castle’s condolence calls to the Hollyberrys this morning. Along with Mother, of course.”
That was me dismissed. Heat climbed into my cheeks, though I tried to appear calm on the outside. “Did Giblet have a wife or children?” I asked.
“No, but the Hollyberry clan is large, and tight-knit.”
Jingles crossed his arms. “Not so tight that any of them wanted to live near Giblet. Who can blame them? He—”
“We won’t speak ill of the dead,” Nick said, cutting him off. “I need to go.”
Jingles, remembering himself, scrambled to reach the door first and hold it open. “I’ll prepare a lantern for your journey.” He flicked a disapproving glance over my husband’s figure, which, by Christmastown standards, lacked poundage. “And a snack.”
Nick turned back to me with an awkward glance and a brief, apologetic smile that went a little way to soothing my irritation over being left behind. “I’ll be back soon, I hope.”
After they were all gone, I moved closer to the fire and let the warmth from the hearth penetrate my layers of flannel and wool. I’d never heard of Giblet Hollyberry till yesterday, yet his death disturbed me. Nick had been in an odd mood since the ice sculpture competition. I hadn’t seen him brood so much since we’d first met. And when I’d woken up in the night, he hadn’t been in bed. I’d gotten up and padded around the castle in search of him and had even thrown on his coat and braved the blistering cold outside to see if he was pacing around the grounds. But I never found him until I returned to bed—and there he’d been, sleeping. Or pretending to.
Now this had happened, and my husband of three months seemed to want to get away from me. Almost as if he didn’t want me asking too many questions.
A few minutes later, Jingles returned, and I snapped to attention, ashamed to be caught wool-gathering when there were probably things to do. Precisely what, I wasn’t sure. Castle Kringle protocol was still new to me. “I’m sorry, I’ve been lost in thought. Let me know how I can be of use.”
“I have a castle full of elves to do my bidding.”
Jingles didn’t seem to know what to make of me. He wasn’t used to Clauses offering to help him, and I wasn’t used to being waited on. Quite the opposite.
“You might want to make your way to the morning room,” he suggested. “There’s a fire lit, and Mrs. Claus—excuse me, the dowager Mrs. Claus—is there, as is Christopher. More of the family will probably be congregating as the news spreads.”
“Is it so odd for an elf to die?” I asked.
“To die at a ripe old age, no. To die suspiciously in the prime of life . . . ?” He let the question dangle.
I started toward the door. Jingles cleared his throat.
When I turned back, he said, “Mrs. Claus—the dowager Mrs. Claus—has already dressed and ordered breakfast.”
Of course she had. Nick’s mother, Pamela, still ran the castle. After my marriage, when I’d suggested I should help lighten some of her responsibilities, she’d pointed out to me that since she knew how to do everything, it made more sense for her to keep charge of the household. Though she didn’t say so in so many words, I’d caught a few looks that conveyed her belief that I wasn’t really up to managing a castle and its staff. In fact, she’d seemed astonished when I told her that I owned a successful inn on the Oregon coast, and positively flabbergasted when Nick and I announced our intention to open the inn during the lucrative tourist season from May through September.
“But Nick can’t leave Santaland,” she protested. “He’s Santa.”
Nick had helped me out. “Is there anything more useless than a Santa in summertime?”
Poor Pamela. I thought she’d faint at the heresy of hinting that a Santa could ever be useless. She didn’t understand the economics of innkeeping, though. I could just afford to keep up the taxes and pay for an off-season caretaker. But without opening up the Coast Inn during the late spring and summer, I’d be forced to sell. And I wasn’t quite prepared to give up my old life entirely.
I retreated to my dressing room and picked out a dress in a crimson so deep it was almost black, hoping it would be appropriate for the mourning calls. Then I took care getting my hair to look tidy, which wasn’t easy. My reddish-blond hair had a Jan Brady tendency to be neither flat nor curly. I pulled it back and stabbed a comb with a sprig of holly into the loose bun.
As I checked my appearance in the mirror, I suddenly remembered how quickly Nick had dressed himself. Almost as if he’d never really undressed because he’d stayed out so late . . .
I tried to un-remember it.
In the spacious east-facing drawing room, a fire roared, blazing out a welcoming warmth. Facing east did the morning room little good this time of year, since the sun wouldn’t show itself for hours yet. My mother-in-law, a round, petite woman with appropriately rosy cheeks, sat on the couch, knitting at her usual breakneck pace. Her hands were never idle, especially as Christmas approached. Pamela was famous for two things. First, her holiday croquembouches, amazing towers of cream puffs covered in a shell of spun sugar that by all accounts were as incredible to look at as they were to eat. This year she was insisting that I would be her helper—co-architect, she called it—in constructing her annual edible masterpiece.
The second thing she was famous for was the matching holiday sweaters she made for the family. This year she was working some bell theme into her pattern; I could hear tinkling and jingling along with the clicking of her needles. Great, we’re all going to sound like reindeer in harness. Also, she seemed to be favoring a metallic gray yarn that, with my pale, freckly skin, was going to make me look like a shiny holiday specter.