Chapter 1
THE FIRST YEAR
She has never understood why, ofallthe ways to enter a house surreptitiously in the dead of night, her family opted for the chimney.
Thechimney.
Most houses don't evenhavea chimney.
It's not that she's particularly...large, or evenslightlylarge, but it's not exactly a pleasant way to spend one's Christmas Eve, shuffling through people's chimneys like a goddamn caterpillar.
Or something.
"Shit," she hisses when a thread of the old sack gripped in her right hand gets caught on a brick.
She tugs at it, but to no avail.
"Oh, for God's sake," she growls, pulling a little harder.
"I hate everything," she mumbles when it doesn't budge.
Ivy dislikes being stuck three-quarters of the way down a chimney.
She really does.
Not to mention, she's still going round North Rustavia, and there's, like, three continents still to get through in about as many hours.
Summoning up all the strength she has left, she gives the bag a final heave, and almost sighs in relief when it comes free – only to let out a screech when she realises – a little late – that it will come crashing down on her.
It does.
Both her and the bag end up in the fireplace.
Again.
"You'd think this would get a little easier after forty-one millionth time," she moans in despair, standing up and rubbing her backside with a wince.
"Hello?"
"Oh, damn," Ivy whispers, then clamps a hand over her own mouth when she realises that speaking isn't going to help her chances of getting out of this unscathed and unnoticed.
"Is anyone there?" The voice belongs, presumably, to a male (or a female with very strangely developed vocal chords), and Ivy can catch the slightest quiver in it.
She backs away from the source of it instinctively, only to end up walking straight into a cabinet with a lot of knobs thatreallyaren't helping with the sore state of her butt.
"Ow," she squeaks.
"I mean – oh shit, ohshit– " Several things start clanging to the ground around her, and she remembers that she has a sack slung over her shoulder.
Ivy settles for squeezing her eyes shut and staying very still until the noise recedes.
When she opens them, a tall, broad-shouldered blonde towers over her, armed with what looks like a baseball bat gripped in both hands.
Ivy tries to make out his features in the soft darkness, but to no avail.
Instead, she manages to choke out a feeble:
"Please don't knock me out."
The boy studies her for a few moments more, still poised to strike, before hesitantly lowering the bat.
She can just catch sight of his eyes, narrowed and dark with caution.
"You have one minute before I call the police," he announces, baseball bat still by his side and very much in the picture.
"Uh, I'm not breaking into your house!
Or anything!
I swear!" she blurts out.
"Well, I kind of am – but not for anything bad!
Like, I'm not stealing anything or – "
"Oh, yeah?" he raises an eyebrow, and nods towards the rather large and admittedly suspicious looking bag slung over her shoulder.
"What's that, then?"
There is a long, drawn out silence, as Ivy struggles inwardly.But human, she thinks.But baseball bat, she retorts.But blowing entire centuries-old cover for our whole family!
she tells herself furiously.But baseball bat.
"They're presents," she sighs.
Ivy watches the boy's eyebrows crease in confusion.
"Presents?"
"Haven't you ever heard of Santa Claus?" she asks, and if there's alittlebit of dryness in her tone, it is sototallynot her fault.
"Okay, firstly, I'm pretty sure we all stopped believing in Santa Claus at the age of around ten," the boy says in an unamused tone of voice.
"And if hedidexist, there is a general consensus that he is of the male gender.
Which you aren't.
Unless this poor lighting is more deceiving than I previously thought..."
"Hey!" Ivy can't help the injury that slips into her voice.
Okay, so her boobs aren't exactlyhuge...
"My point still stands," he continues, oblivious to her breast-related inner monologue.
"Santa Claus doesn't actually exist."
"Oh?" Ivy moves a little bit away from the cabinet she crashed into previously.
"Who leaves the presents under your tree every year, then?"
"Uh, my parents?" the boy almost scoffs, cocking an eyebrow.
"Where are they, then?"
"It's only two in the morning.
They'll get up in a few hours.
I know they do it," his tone has become a little harder now, more defensive.
"I've heard them get up before."
Classic case of little boy's dreams being torn apart by careless parents, Ivy muses.
She shakes her head.
"No, you haven't.
You've heard dear old Saint Hector stuff his ass down your chimney, and make enough noise for you to think that it's your parents." Ivy purses her lips, thinking of Hector.
"Sometimes he throws in imitations of them to convince you even more.
He's pretty good at that."
"So you're not him!" the boy says, and Ivy thinks it would be funny how triumphant he is if she wasn't suddenly face to face with the baseball bat.
Again.Wow, did I miss you, she thinks to herself.
"No," she says slowly, backtracking into the cabinet once more in an attempt to widen the distance between her and the bat.
"He's my brother."
"Yourbrother?"
"Sadly," she sniffs.
"Geez, how much of an age differenceisthere between you two?"
Ivy snorts.
"Oh, don't worry, Hector isn't your jolly old big fat man in a red suit with a white beard so long it trails on the floor.
That was my grandfather."
"Grandfather?"
"Uh huh," Ivy nods.
"Hector is my twin brother.
And he likes to think he's God's gift to mankind.
Like most human teenage boys, to be honest."
"You're not human?"
"We might as well be humans.
We look like them,actlike them, pee like them..." she trails off thoughtfully.
"This is crazy," the boy shakes his head.
"Why am I even listening to this?"
"I don't know," Ivy tells him seriously.
"But thank you for doing so.
You would notbelievehow long it's been since I've had a conversation with someone of at least average intelligence."
"More like someone who puts up with your crazy," the boy mutters.
"Where did you run away from, the lunatic asylum?"
"That's rude," she says, before remembering the baseball bat.
"That is – I'm not crazy!
I'll prove it to you."
He sighs.
"Go on, then."
"What did you ask for for Christmas this year?"
"Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously!
What did you ask for?"
The boy studies her for a long moment with incredulity painted across his face, before letting out another sigh.
"A new car," he says eventually.
"Okay," Ivy swings the bag from off her shoulder (she was beginning to feel a little too much like a lumberjack, anyway), and dips her hand inside.
After a few minutes, she still hasn't found what she was looking for, and she can feel the judgement rolling off the boy opposite her in waves.
"It's dark!" she says defensively.
"Give me a second."
He leans back and crosses his arms, a clearfine, you can have another second, but you're still going to have a little trouble trying to find something that isn't there.
More minutes pass, and she's beginning to think maybe her plan was a little flawed when her finger brush against a small package shaped very much like a car key.
"Aha!" she cries triumphantly, fishing it out of the bag and waving it in his face.
"What do you say tothat, non-believer?"
"I..." The boy looks very much like he might topple over and faint.
"No way," he shakes his head.
"Santa isnotreal."
"The sled's on your roof, if you want to see that too," she grins, part of her a little too happy at having the upper hand for the first time in their conversation.
His eyes widen.
"This is crazy," he whispers.
"Properly, full out,totally..."
His statement is cut off by the neighing noise from above them.
Ivy only rolls her eyes.
"That'll be Rush.
Better get going before he gets grumpy and starts kicking the roof tiles off.
Because he did that last time and I just really hope that family has insurance.
But I left them some money just in case they didn't.
Rustavia's the country that pays with dollars, right?
Because I thought that it was, but the last time I've ever been here is when Hector dragged me, and that was, like, sixty years ago, I think...what?"