*This is part two of my “25 classy Christmas tales”. It’s under my folder titled “25 Christmas tales”. Gacha Club character designs are under my forum titled “My character designs<33”. Enjoy!*
Tale Seven-A simple smile
It was December 24th, 2024. Dionne was walking around town, searching for something to get for himself. He didn’t really get himself any Christmas presents ever since he became old enough to be considered an adult, for the fun of getting presents simply just…faded out. It didn’t feel magical anymore.
All around him, the town was decorated for Christmas. Black lampposts had evergreen wreaths that had satin red bows, storefront windows glowed softly with the collection of many gifts waiting to be bought. The snow that had caked up throughout town and next to the doors had helped create a perfect picturesque scene and yet, Dionne still didn’t feel the firework-burst excitement that came with Christmas when he was little.
The only reason that he was in town was because a thought had occurred to him early in the morning that he could try to make Christmas like how it used to be. Thinking about it revived the days of childhood where the world seemed much brighter and more benevolent, when the days were much longer, much-more loving, than the apathetic world adults were morose about all the time.
The joy Dionne had felt in the early morning didn’t last throughout the day and was almost nonexistent in the night. He tried opening the store doors, but found that they were all closed. Why the stores bothered to be lit when they were closed remained a mystery to Dionne. Maybe they just wanted to be lit for show, he didn’t exactly know.
Dionne still walked on, even though most of him wanted to turn back and retreat into his home, to hide away from the world and be with his collection of cigarette boxes and trains he kept from childhood, be surrounded with all the things that made him feel as though nothing had ever changed.
Dionne stopped.
Next to one of the lampposts was a mirror, except it was shaped like a box. Dionne walked up to the mirror-box, curious as to what it looked like close-up, for he had never seen a box-shaped mirror before.
When Dionne picked it up, he found that it was framed with white wood that curved like swirling snow, that there was frost on it from snowflakes and reflecting right back at Dionne’s gaunt face was a pierrot clown doll, as though it were trapped within the box itself.
Dionne took the box with him, not wanting to leave such a peculiar item all alone. He didn’t know how it was made or how it worked, but he would figure it out.
He walked on back home.
……………………………………………………………….
THUMP THUMP THUMP
Dionne couldn’t sleep well, the branches were banging against the window too hard. Maybe the snow was just swirling really fast outside and he just needed to pull the blanket over his eyes and ignore it. It would be nice to sleep after a while.
THUMP THUMP THUMP
The noise went on, the trees on the window kept banging…but wasn’t it a calm night? Why would the trees bang against the window?
Dionne got up and pulled apart the white lace curtains with sickly white hands, the lace curtains he made from his mother’s wedding dress when she wanted to send it off to an antique shop.
There was an entire landscape of snow outside, stretching for miles and miles and miles…but the trees were still. It really was a calm night, he knew that.
So why did he think that it wasn’t for a second? Was he trying to bring logic to his mind? Was-
THUMP THUMP THUMP
The noise persisted, except it sounded much closer than it did before, like it was right in the room with him.
Right in the room…
Dionne turned around. The odd mirror box he found outside was shaking as though there was something trapped in it. He left the window and crawled on his bed, his heart racing as he approached the moving box that reflected the moonlight towards him, showing his sunken-in eyes ringed by bruise-colored eyebags, the eyes that held fright mixed in with a corpse-quality tiredness, a tiredness he never wanted to face in the bathroom mirror.
Once he got to the box, he found that the box was shaking in his hands, but also, the clown doll inside of it wasn’t a clown doll…no, it was a young man around Dionne’s age in clown attire, pounding on the box, his brown eyes wide and fearful, a vague cry of “Help!”, escaping his severely cracked lips. Whenever the clown kept pounding on the box’s surface, fog etched with snow would appear, as though it were a frosted window and not a mirror box.
A man?! Screaming for help?! Inside of a box?! Is this a dream?! Am I dreaming?! Have I drifted far off from the world?! This must be a dream, what else can it be?
Dionne dropped the box, his thoughts screeching at him so loudly that he couldn’t hold it for long. He watched as it shattered into pieces on the hardwood floor, as poinsettia flowers scattered on the ground, as a young man dressed as a pierrot clown looked around the room with wary eyes, his hands planted firmly on the floor as though he were afraid to let go, his knees rooted to the Earth as though he didn’t want to get up.
Wait, what? What’s going on?
The clown man suddenly whipped his head towards Dionne like a wound-up doll and stared at him with his wide brown eyes. His wide brown eyes that didn’t blink, that had iris lines snaking up, down, and all around the pupils like veins that gave lasting life like the flowers in his mother’s garden, or like the cracked lines of his father’s cigarette boxes, or like the lines on the paint in his house, or…
A bizarre feeling of contended warmth flowed inside of Dionne. He had never been looked at so intensely before and in that moment, there was a sense of fascination and slight anxiety over what the clown man would do next.
The clown man got a frown upon his obscenely, insanely white face and asked:
“My god, have I been sent to a morgue?”
Dionne bristled at the comment, an itchy sense of being offended blasting inside him. He knew that he looked ghastly, but he didn’t want to be reminded of it. It wasn’t anybody’s business!
But the poor man didn’t seem malicious with his comment, only genuinely terrified and unsure of his surroundings, so perhaps he just needed to be calmed and reassured.
“No, this is my house. I’m…I’m Dionne. What’s your name? What are you?” Dionne asked, his rational thoughts of how absurd the whole situation was assaulting his attempts to be serene and placid for his guest.
The clown man gasped and put a hand to his mouth in astonishment. Dionne couldn’t help but notice that his long fingers had mud caked under them, as though he hadn’t washed them in many, many years.
Goodness, what’s happened to him?
“I’m so sorry!”, the clown exclaimed. “I thought that you were a corpse! Please forgive me! I’m Fiore. I’m a human, like you. At least, I was. I’m not sure what I am now. All I can remember is that I was taking my daughter to see the local poinsettia garden on Christmas Eve. She likes poinsettias, you see. Always have, always will.”
He paused as though he were taking a moment to think of her, his black lips pursed in an O shape. The more time Dionne spent looking at him, the more he would confuse himself with whether or not the clown was a living, breathing creature.
Fiore had such a striking visage about him that Dionne couldn’t believe that he was real.
“I was taking her to see the poinsettias, but then, she let go of my hand and took off running! Said she wanted to see “The angel” up close. I didn’t see anything in the garden but poinsettias and the occasional garden statue, so I followed her and called out to her, trying to get her to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen. She kept on running and running…”
Fiore took a deep, wavering breath and continued:
“Before long, I knew that I had lost her. I knew it, but I didn’t want to give up. I didn’t want to leave her all alone in such a vast place, so I searched every nook and cranny. Nobody else was in the poinsettia garden but the two of us, yet somehow, I felt somebody drag me away with such sharp nails. I couldn’t turn around to see who it was, I couldn’t break free. By then, my mind was trying so badly to find a reason for what was happening, but nothing came up. Next thing I know, I’m in a mirror box and turned into a clown doll! Nowhere near my daughter, nowhere near home. It’s been like that for some time, but you helped me! You got me out!” Fiore beamed.
His smile showed teeth that were just as dirty and pointed as his nails, yet his Holly berry-red gums lined his teeth in such a way that made his smile look as dainty and surreal as a doll’s.
Dionne had never seen a smile such as his before.
“I’m awfully sorry if this sounds like it doesn’t make any sense to you, but you have to believe me! It’s true. I miss my daughter oh so much and it would be nice to have someone help me find her. I don’t know how long I’ve been trapped in that odd box, but I would like to figure things out and fix everything. The one time I tried to find her alone, it got me into this funny situation!” Fiore said with a dry laugh.
“So, will you be a kind stranger and help me find my daughter? If that’s asking too much of you, then I’ll leave. But I’d really appreciate it if you would agree.” Fiore said in a serious tone that had hints of a plea etched within.
Dionne had only just found Fiore. He had no idea where to look or how to find his daughter, but a few minutes ago, he didn’t know that a clown would pop out of a mirror box.
Christmas was a wondrous, mysterious time. Nobody knew what to expect or what would turn up around the corner. Anything and everything became possible during that time of year, it was as though all shackles of life were thrown out the window.
It would be wicked of Dionne to deny Fiore help in finding his daughter. The man had been cursed by a possible evil creature, maybe a demon and if that was the case, he would need all the help he could get. It wasn’t like Dionne had much going on in his life or anybody left calling for him in the first place anyway.
If he died trying to help Fiore, then so be it. He never had any children himself, but he knew that if parents loved their children deeply, then they deserved to be with them.
“I’ll help you find your little girl.” Dionne promised.
Fiore grinned even wider, his black lipstick bringing out his eyes more and got up on legs that wobbled as though they would break in any second. He then staggered towards Dionne like a zombie, as though he were trying not to fall and at the very last second, he slipped and fell into Dionne’s chest.
“Thank you.” Fiore breathed, his voice shivering as though he may break into tears at any moment.
Fiore didn’t let go, but Dionne didn’t mind. He probably hadn’t hugged anyone in a long while, he was simply overjoyed that someone would help him find his daughter, that he wasn’t going to be completely alone.
That Christmas Eve, Dionne felt his heart glimmer with peace, a certain kind of peace that he only felt as a child, when nothing much mattered but the fact that he was simply existing.
Perhaps things wouldn’t be so lonely and gray after all.
Tale Eight-Pretty Present
Saoirse curled up on the couch and typed away a story on her phone, ignoring the buzz and chatter of the rest of her family.
It was December 25th, 2024. Like every year, Saoirse was spending Christmas Day at her Grandparents’ house with her Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and cousins. It was supposed to be a fun time where she and her family would be more connected with one another.
When she was little, it was just that. Her excitement over the abundance of presents glittered in her heart and soul, for it showed that her family cared. The way she saw it, the many presents were a reminder that it was a big party with a lot of people, that she was interconnected with everyone else. Not only that, but she also got to eat fantastically good food and catch up on things with her cousins. Christmas was exactly as it should have been: A sparkling good time that she never wanted to end.
But as she got older and more younger cousins came along, it seemed as though people cared less for her. The presents she got for Christmas were fewer and lackluster, consisting of clothes she didn’t like and money that she’d spend on her birthday. The money was nice, but she didn’t want to just get money as the only gift from her family. The green slips of paper didn’t feel lifelike, they didn’t bring any festivity as the gifts she got when she was younger.
Saoirse would try to talk to her cousins, but the ones closer to her age would be either on their phones or talking to one another about something Saoirse didn’t understand. She could go talk to the adults, but in their conversations, she felt the unpleasant itch inside of her that told her she wasn’t really an adult in their eyes, that she didn’t gain their complete, full respect.
The food was good as always, but that was the one thing that didn’t change about Christmas. Saoirse didn’t complain out loud, but she felt that deep down, Christmas stopped being inviting for her. It became more of a movie that she watched from the coldness of her loneliness, a movie that showed all of the idealistic, starstruck Christmas Days of her childhood and said: You’ll never find a happiness like that again.
She never wanted it to be that way. She never wanted to be glum on the holidays. When she was little, Christmas was everything to her. It was her favorite time of year, something she anticipated. She never wanted to be like the sour-faced adults in the Christmas movies that failed to see the luminescent meaning that was right before their eyes, but…
But as she sat on the couch in her tight red dress and scratchy black tights, typing away a story on her phone as though her creativity would erase her woes away, she could feel the undeniable, gnawing sensation that she was no longer apart of the fairytale, that she had grown too old to feel real gaiety.
Christmas had become a distant dream.
………………………………………………………………….
“Present time!” Grandma’s voice called out.
Saoirse exited out of her notes app and jumped up from the couch, jolted right back into reality. When she typed on her phone, she often forgot about the world around her and was immersed deep into her own world, her own made-up fantasy world where everything was exactly as it should be and people got what they deserved.
She walked up the carpeted stairs, to where the presents were waiting on the second floor, to where her family would join her. She tried to summon up a sense of wonder that she had felt many, many years ago, that used to come naturally to her, but it had only sputtered in her veins in a feeble flicker before dying out completely.
It was no use. Christmas wasn’t the same anymore. Saoirse might as well pretend to be having a good time, just like she always did.
After a while, she reached the top step and walked down the hall, searching for the room that had all of the presents, the room where she would wait for her family members to come.
On the hallway walls were shelves lined with photos of the family members over the ages, all with different desires, different values, different fears. Crinkly black-and-white photos of ancestors, hazy-quality photos of her mother and siblings when they were little, nostalgic, warm photos of Saoirse and her cousins when they were young.
Saoirse couldn’t help but wonder what everyone in the photos was thinking and feeling when their pictures were being taken. Did they wish to do something else? Were they planning to go somewhere thrilling? Were they just relaxing for the day? Was there something bothering them at the edge of their thoughts? Did anything matter to them at the moment?
She couldn’t remember much about how she herself thought as a little kid, only that she smiled more authentically and that everything was fascinating to her. It seemed like the older she got, the more disconnected she became from her former optimistic spirit and-
Saoirse stopped in her tracks.
Sitting on one of the shelves was Grandma’s marionette ballerina doll, Paola. The marionette’s paint was chipping away and the white tutu had dirty brown spots, but still, Saoirse felt her heart melt with fondness for it.
Back when she was little, she used to play with Paola all the time. Her parents always worried that she would break it one day, but Saoirse was very careful not to. Paola was like her best friend, her close confidant. There was something in Paola’s painted blue eyes that made Saoirse trust her completely.
But then her cousins got old enough to think and would moan and groan about how “creepy and disgusting” Paola looked, so that Grandma snatched Paola from Saoirse one day and tucked the marionette away in the house, saying that it was “best not to scare the others”.
Saoirse had been searching everywhere for Paola and gave up one day when she couldn’t find her, then forgot all about her.
But right in front of her was Paola, looking as though she had seen better days, but nonetheless, still her.
Saoirse walked up to the marionette and held Paola in her arms, the rush of merriment she felt when she first found Paola washing over her. Everything had changed, but Paola didn’t. Not that much, at least. She was still the same doll that she was before, the same doll that brought comfort and ease to Saoirse’s heart when she used to think that monsters were real, that demons were out to get her, that there were sharp-toothed maniacs in dark corners.
As Saoirse held Paola, the world around her seemed to go fuzzy, to fade away, and then…
She wasn’t upstairs anymore. She wasn’t even in her Grandparents’ house anymore.
Instead, she was in an Edwardian living room decorated for Christmas, a bushy evergreen tree decorated with sparkling baubles and glittering lights, a glowing star perched at the top.
Saoirse surveyed her surroundings in awe, hardly believing her eyes. Was she really there? Was she dreaming? How could it be possible?
“I missed you so much, Saoirse. Now that you’ve found me, I want to give you a Christmas that I had when I was alive. I want to give you a Christmas that you deserved.” A polite-sounding young girl said.
But there wasn’t anybody else in the room but Saoirse and Paola…wait.
What if Paola was the one talking? If she was, then how was she alive? Did she used to be human? Was she cursed to be a marionette? Did that mean that ghosts were real? That Saoirse was in another dimension? Would Saoirse be able to come back home? Would-
Saoirse shook off the troublesome thoughts just like she did with any other thought she didn’t like. She was experiencing something extraordinary, something that she had only thought possible in stories a few minutes ago, and all she could think about were the possible bad things?
What if it turned out to be the most lovely time of her life? What if it turned out to be an exciting day that she would not forget? What if she ended up enjoying Christmas again? It would certainly be nice to enjoy Christmas like she used to.
Paola seemed to smile a little more, the smile making her big blue eyes seem wider than before. Saoirse kissed the top of her head, a kind gesture she did to the doll as a child, and asked:
“How shall I start my Christmas Day?”
Tale Nine-Will there be snow?
Lark sat at the corner of his bed, tearing apart the tissues and throwing them out on the floor, watching the white, fluffy paper float gently to the ground.
When he was little, a winter tradition he used to do was tear apart tissues and throw them around his room, pretending that it was snow. It snowed a lot when he was much younger, Lark just wanted to add in extra snow, snow that didn’t require bulky winter gear in order to play in the snow.
But as time went on, Lark noticed that it started to snow less and less during the winter. In fact, the “snowy Christmas” ideology had become just that: An ideology. No longer did it snow during Christmas, no longer did Lark need to wear heavy winter clothes. He dressed in his fall attire and walked amongst dry leaves.
So, Lark was up at night during December 24th, tearing up tissues in his room to make snow, for although he disliked immensely the hulking snow clothes that he was required to wear, it felt even more obscene to walk through sparse green-beige grass during the winter.
He tore up the last of the tissue and crawled into bed, a small part of him clinging onto the hope that it would snow on Christmas Day. He highly doubted it, but he still hoped.
Either way, Lark had created a snowy Christmas for himself. Hopefully, he’d receive a pleasant surprise by morning.
It was getting harder to be optimistic, though.
………………………………………………………………..
Lark was standing in the backyard of a big house. It was one of the big houses in the neighborhood that got decorated from the roof to the floor in Christmas decorations and invited people to come visit them and take photos of the decorations. He and his parents used to do it all the time when he was little before it became too much for his parents to do.
Except, none of the lights were on. The music wasn’t on. He only saw silhouettes of the decorations, like gaunt shadows in the dark, waiting to snatch him up. He was the only person there.
Lark never thought that one of his favorite houses to visit during Christmas could be…eerie.
“It feels so cold now, doesn’t it? The Christmas season. So harsh and distant, so unlike the fantastical dreams of childhood. You miss it, don’t you?” A man’s whispy, rasping voice said from behind him.
Lark turned around.
Standing behind him was a man who wore a long green and black flannel trench coat and a raggedy black beanie hat. His face had a rough stubble that had frozen ice crystals in them, his eyes were completely white with no pupils. Looking down at his hands, Lark saw that his fingers were thin and the nails were sharpened, like the gnarly branches of trees in the winter.
Like claws.
“Who are you?” Lark asked, uncertain as to what the man wanted, what the man was going to do next. He didn’t even know if asking for his name was as appropriate as asking what he was.
“Rhodes is my name, but don’t concern yourself too much on what I am. I’m just going to bring back the light you always wanted to your Christmas.” The man-Rhodes-said with a soft smile. His teeth looked like they could break anything, his stubble looked like 3D scars and yet…his smile was soft. Sweet. Comforting.
From out of his pocket, Rhodes took out a tissue. He broke it up into small pieces and threw it on the ground, except the tissues bled out into the ground and spread out like real snow, covering any surface that it could.
Rhodes kept breaking up tissues and throwing them on the ground, the level of snow and Lark’s amazement increasing.
How could he do such things? What was he? Why did the snow keep on coming and coming and-
Lark woke up with a jolt. He had such the strangest dream…
Huh? Why was he lying in the backyard of the big decorated house? Why was it snowing? Most of all, why wasn’t he freezing?
Lark looked up at the roof of the house, in the middle at the exterior walls of the house, and finally, down at his body.
His heart damn near stopped in his chest. He was wearing a green and black flannel trench coat over his pajamas and next to his legs was a black beanie.
His head was getting to be slightly cold, so he put the beanie on, not risking the chance of catching a cold.
It appeared that what happened to Lark wasn’t actually a dream. Many questions circled in his head over how what happened to him was possible, but even in the flurry of his confusion and slight panic, an undeniable sense of joy creeped upon him, the kind of ecstasy he felt as a little kid, when everything was full of delight in every corner, when it was easier to turn a sour face into a smiling one.
Lark walked through the snow, glad that it finally, finally snowed on Christmas, just like in the movies.
Tale Ten-Start of the snowflake sprite
Like any other December
A snowflake stumbles to the ground
Yet one snowflake built up on another
And many snowflakes connected to each other
Thin glowing lines course through the collected snowflakes
There’s a magic in the air that no can see
The snowflake lump lands next to a bare black tree
The bundle of snowflakes grow
They contort into a figure birthed from the snow
A lady with skin of ice and a heart that’s light
The sweet thing is called Flykra, the snowflake sprite
Tale Eleven-Loud lights
Every Christmas, they did it. The neighbors participated in the Christmas lights competition every year, going brighter and louder, seeming not to care for anyone else around them, as though they were drowning in their own holiday pride.
It annoyed Aviva to her core, but then again, everything annoyed Aviva. The kids on their bikes who laughed at her, the teenagers who thought that she was crazy, the adults that wanted her to “smile more”. Aviva was the “mean old witch” with “too many dolls”, of course people would say that everything annoyed her.
Most of the time, Aviva put up with the lights. She may have yelled at the kids, shook her fists at the teens and gave dirty looks to the adults, but she didn’t do anything about the lights next door. It was Christmas time and she wanted to rest, she wanted to have some time to herself, away from the hubbub of people. Of course, that was impossible to do so, given how the obscenely garish modern Christmas music blasted on loudspeakers, the music devoid of any sentimentality and making it such a trial for Aviva to fall asleep.
Aviva didn’t like having an unpleasant nature about her. She didn’t like being grouchy so often. Oh, how she longed to smile and feel as light as she did when she was a little girl, when the world seemed more promising, more nurturing.
But lately it felt like everything and everyone wanted to shut her out, like the world was shrieking, desperately clawing at their way to appear “fresh and new”, to snuff out anything that didn’t fit their vision. The people in Aviva’s neighborhood didn’t see a person, but a crinkled, crumpled-up skeleton who took up too much space. They never took the time to really get to know her, they just made their judgements.
Sometimes it hurt. Most of the time Aviva went on with her life as best as she could with all of the madness that was happening in the world. She didn’t like putting up a fight during Christmas, she didn’t find it worthy, so she stayed inside, in her house of dolls.
But one Christmas would change that.
………………………………………………………………….
Aviva smoothed down the curls on her doll’s hair, careful not to wake Eydie up. Eydie was her seven year old granddaughter who was sent to stay with her for Christmas Eve. Aviva originally planned for Eydie to sleep in the spare room, where there weren’t any dolls, out of fear that Eydie would destroy the dolls into oblivion the way most children did, but surprisingly, Aviva found Eydie holding one of her dolls so tenderly and kindly, the way Aviva did for her whole life.
Eydie had begged to sleep in a room with the dolls, she said that she wanted to be “as close to them as possible”, so Aviva relented and let Eydie sleep in a doll room, her heart warmed over the fact that her granddaughter had enough compassion in her heart to not mutilate the doll like most unruly, nasty children did.
Outside, Aviva could hear Christmas music blasting on loudspeakers from her neighbor’s house. They kept their lights and music on all night, as though they wanted the entire universe to notice them. Aviva hoped that the music wouldn’t wake Eydie up, that the child would fall asleep faster than she did. Eydie was much younger than her, so maybe it was easier for her to go to sleep.
Aviva placed the doll back on the shelf and was about to walk away-
“I can’t sleep. The music is so loud.” A small voice said in an overwhelmed tone.
Aviva turned around. Standing right behind her was Eydie, her eyes ringed with deep, dark purple circles, her brown hand gripping a doll so close to her as though it were the last thing she could trust.
In her pink PJ shirt and pants set with purple stars and blue slippers, with her heavy circle-ringed eyes, Eydie looked so frail, so weak, that Aviva wished she just wrap her around her arms and magically make her pain go away.
But that wouldn’t make Eydie go to sleep. No, what needed to be done was a good talking-to with the neighbors, really hammer down into them that their silly light competitions didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, especially when people needed to sleep.
“Go upstairs. I’ll make the music turn off.” Aviva said with a smile, the sides of her mouth lifting up in a way that it hadn’t done in many, many years.
Eydie turned around and ran back upstairs, Aviva walked towards the front door.
The Christmas lights show would end for good.
………………………………………………………………….
“Turn those bloody lights off now! Don’t you care about your neighbors?! Don’t you want all of us to have a good time?! We’re trying to sleep here!” Aviva yelled angrily, storming towards the front entrance of the brazenly lit house, hoping that her voice would reach the ears of her neighbors.
But who was she against the glaringly bright lights and the grating Christmas music? Nobody else was outside, so it seemed that the decorations were laughing at her futile attempts to have the lights turn off. She was a hunched over old lady in a Christmas metropolis, what could she be able to do?
Regardless, Aviva trudged on, continuing to scream at them as loud as she could, for she couldn’t just give up and have Eydie sleep horribly. Eydie was a respectful little angel who didn’t break any of her things, who had wide, innocent eyes, who was interested in hearing her talk, who didn’t call her crazy for her collection, who-
Aviva tripped over a string of lights, wincing as her feeble, bone-stretched skin felt the brunt of a bruise forming. She was about to get up, her finger brushed against one of the lights…
Goodness golly, there was a glittery red and green liquid spilling out of her fingertips and onto the lights! But how? Was she dreaming? Did she finally die? Oh, what a shame if she died in a commercialized Christmas lawn!
Aviva watched in stunned silence as the glittery red and green liquid spread all around the lights, turning each and every one of them off, until they had snaked their way over to the loudspeakers mounted high on the house’s walls, shutting the music down into nothingness.
Just like that, Aviva had turned it all off. The house’s lights were gone, the music was gone. There was nothing but a house and towering shadows of Christmas structures. Complete peacefulness, just like the Christmases she remembered.
Aviva rubbed her eyes, her heart racing in her as though it were like the neighborhood kids who ran from her. Was it all a dream? How could it be real? How was it possible?
No, everything had stayed exactly the same. All was off, the house was off.
Aviva felt a smile crawl up her worn-out face. She had to leave before the neighbors got outside and found out that their precious display had died out, but she let herself have one moment of victory, a most splendid thought having exploded in her mind like the fireworks she used to see on Christmas Eve when she was young, the kind she never would have imagined would come to her mind at her old, frizzled age:
Was magic real after all?
Tale Twelve-Blessed angel
Christmas comes in winter iridescence
The stretch of snow seeps with misery
For not all smile during this season
Some are all alone
Some have nowhere to call home
In the seasonal sadness comes also an otherworldly madness
There’s another world in between our own and the world of the dead, an angelic world
Sometimes humans get lost in it
Oh, the dread
But blessed angels rise from feelings of love
The kind of love that stems from the glory of Christmas
They guide those that are lost
And take them back to the light
For they only have good intentions in mind
Those sweet, kind-hearted angels
They have the true compassion of Christmas sewn within them
Tale Thirteen-Scary’s Creepmas
Scary sighed as she glumly watched the humans revel in the winter snow, their eyes alight with joy as all of their cares had washed away. Only two months ago, they wanted to partake in mischief and mayhem. Only two months ago, they were frightful freaks just like her.
Two months ago had been her festive time of year. She had worked at the town’s haunted house and jumped out at unsuspecting humans, barring her bloody teeth at them and cackling shrilly as she watched them run for their lives. Nobody suspected her to be a real clown monster, but they were scared silly all the same, they would run as far as their legs would take them. No, Scary never wanted to physically harm someone, she just wanted to scar them for life for the sake of good Halloween memories! It was all worth it in the end, because Hallows’ Eve memories that were induced with fear often became fond ones.
Halloween was always fine and good, but that one Halloween of 2024…goodness, what she’d do to go back to that month!
In Halloween of 2024, an orange-and-black wearing clown woman had found her way into the haunted house. She was Spooky, the marvelous clown that Scary’s brother, Pierce, had told her all about. Spooky was everything that Scary was and was not. How was that so? Well, Spooky shared Scary’s love for Halloween, except instead of terrorizing humans with her clown nature, she brought joy to them by making pumpkin cookies and painting faces. From what Pierce would tell Scary, she loved seeing others smile and looking at the brighter side of things.
He had also said something that Scary didn’t quite believe before she met Spooky. He had said that…that Spooky loved her. He said that Spooky would get a longing, starry look in her eyes whenever she saw Scary cartwheel all the way to the haunted house, that she saw magic in Scary’s blank white eyes, that she saw beauty in the blood on her teeth. Spooky was head-over-heels for her and Scary did not believe it until she had met Spooky.
When Scary had that first date with Spooky, putting on a grandiose show of confidence, Spooky had been fascinated and drawn to Spooky’s nature. She had expressed her genuine care for Scary so much that Scary had let down her guard and told Spooky all of her woes. Even then, Spooky still really loved her and wanted her, even though Scary was a maggoty monster!
Even so, Scary was slightly surprised that Spooky wasn’t as cheerful for Christmas as Scary thought she would be, considering how Spooky always tried to seem happy.
Outside, Spooky was struggling to put up the Halloween animatronics. Next to her boots was a box of Santa hats that she was planning to put on the animatronics’ heads to make them look “Christmasey” and to save their “money” from “Yucky Christmas decorations”.
They didn’t even have any real money! All of the “actors” in the local haunted house either worked there voluntarily or were trapped there and forced to perform. They didn’t need to be paid because it wasn’t an actual operation but a home that was controlled by a crooked faerie, but Scary didn’t really concern herself with that.
Spooky just didn’t want to associate herself with Christmas, just like Scary. She wanted to appear like she was trying from how she very desperately tried making the Halloween decorations more suitable for the holidays, but Scary could hear her cursing and see her shake her head.
Scary had offered to help earlier, but Spooky dismissed her, claiming that she “didn’t need to worry” and that Spooky could handle it all by herself.
So, Scary sat on the window seat of the third floor, watching the humans down the street and Spooky struggle pitifully with the decorations, stewing in her own morose feelings and maggots that crawled all around her skin, feeling as raggedy as she looked…
Spooky threw a Santa hat angrily on the ground, an action completely out of character for her, and stormed towards the abandoned mansion they both shared, leaving behind a wake of clawed animatronics with violent eyes.
Goodness, what was up with her?
…………………………………………………………………
“Want to go outside and just walk in the snow? It could be nice with just the two of us. It could be…romantic.” Spooky said with a small smile, her eyes ringed with wrinkles of frustration from the prolonged time of being outside, of trying to make Christmas as mystical as Halloween was.
The door had left scratches on the wall from being slammed open so hard, making intricate twists and curves along with the other scratches on the decaying home. Spooky herself had hints of joy in her eyes, the kind that showed she was trying her very best to be happy, to see things in a dazzling light.
Just like their house, Spooky may not have been particularly perfect in the eyes of most, but she still stood tall, she still had her own whimsy that made her absolutely endearing to be around.
How could Scary say no to that smiling face?
“Alright. I guess a little stroll wouldn’t hurt.” Scary grinned, jumping up from the window seat and joining Spooky at the door.
Scary still wasn’t excited about Christmas, but perhaps it would be better with Spooky around.
Maybe there was still a chance for fun to be had!
…………………………………………………………………
Hours had passed since Spooky had made the suggestion of taking a walk together. The daylight had melted down into night. Scary had her arm wrapped around Spooky’s waist, the two of them were walking together in the snow. Scary listened to Spooky as she rambled on about anything she could think of, her voice lulling Scary into sentimentalities that made her feel all soft and sweet, like the lovely pastries that Spooky sometimes made, that sometimes had fluffy white cream in them, like how Scary imagined snow to be if it was edible…
“How do you do it? How do you stay happy? It’s remarkable, really.” Scary said, the thought of Spooky’s prevalent buoyancy sparking in Scary’s mind. It was something to be admired, certainly, but just how did Spooky do it? Did she ever have spiraling, saddening thoughts? Was she ever in a foul mood?
Did she like being bright oftentimes?
Spooky sighed, seeming to consider her answer, then said:
“Sometimes I feel bad but I try my best to remember all of the good things in life. Obviously it doesn’t take away from all of the bad feelings, but it helps tremendously.”
Think of good things? Scary did try her hardest to think of good things whenever any negative thoughts had crossed her mind, but her loneliness would creep up again and snuff out any pleasant feelings that she had. When it wasn’t Halloween, she was seen as a “freak”, as a “demon” and people were scared of her in a way that was unloving, that was jagged like a knife. It waswhen they were scared of her in a way that brought good humor to all hearts, good humor in the spirit of cheeky, creepy Halloween.
Amidst all of the mulling about how Halloween and Christmas treated Scary differently, she noticed that Spooky had suddenly gotten a vibrant twinkle of merriment in her eyes and opened her black lipsticked mouth:
“Hmm…things that make me feel good: Cookies, paint, rag dolls, witch hats, movies…and you.”
Spooky had said that last part looking directly into Scary’s eyes with her own big, surreal orange ones with spiral pupils, so unlike Scary’s own harsh white ones, so iridescent with how they glimmered, so toylike with the black, lacy lashes…so…so…
Scary felt her whole face blush, her heart felt like it would darn near jump out of her chest!
Spooky’s eyes traveled from Scary all the way to the snow and ice dusted trees, the ring of trees that surrounded their forsaken mansion with peeling paint, their mansion on a hill that gave a good view of the humans down below, despite the towering trees and sloping hill, their mansion that was tucked away in a place where they could just be without the scrutiny of humans.
Finally, Spooky’s eyes settled upon something in a tree and she gushed in a voice that moved with the sing-song quality of the calliope:
“Look, Scary! Look at what’s blooming on the tree’s branches, isn’t it just darling?”
Spooky stopped walking, the both of them were underneath a bone-thin tree with snaking branches, except when Scary really looked at the tree, she saw that there was a small, faerie-like green plant growing on a branch, a plant that had full, white berries along its leaves.
“It’s a mighty fine thing, but mistletoes are parasites. They suck the life out of the trees they use as hosts. Do you really want to kiss under a parasitic plant?” Scary asked.
She wanted to like the mistletoe, she really did, but she just couldn’t ignore the glaring facts of it!
Spooky glanced up at the mistletoe and giggled a bit, then said:
“I know it’s a parasite, but can we pretend it’s not? There’s something stunning in everything, even in what is dangerous.”
Spooky had finished that last part with a knowing grin and again, Scary couldn’t turn her down!
But before Scary could be the one to make the first move, Spooky had placed her pumpkin-flavored lips upon Scary’s own cracked, maggot-infested ones, whereas such a feeling of ridiculous, frivolous and yet welcome contentment washed over Scary, all to the point where she felt like she was going to fly right off the ground and all the way into the wide, many-spotted moon!
Christmas was a season where people were supposed to express their love for one another, but Halloween could mean many things. It could mean death, it could mean mischief, it could mean parties, it could mean amusement. It could mean lots of things, but the main thing about Halloween was that it was darkness braved through with one another.
Scary would make every day like Halloween for them both.
In that moment, they drew away from the kiss as butterfly angels would fly from Heaven to bless Earth, latching onto each other’s hands, lingering in one another other’s eyes for just a little bit longer, as they could both merge themselves as one by prolonging their time under the tree, then, they both decided to let go of one another and-
Scary felt something nudge against her left ankle.
Scary turned around and found that right to her ankle was an unusually shaped white lumps, so unevenly made that Scary was certain something was buried under there.
“Wait here, Spooky. I think there’s something rather intriguing under the snow.” Scary said, gesturing for Spooky to stay where she was while Scary investigated whatever was under the snow.
“Perhaps it’s a spare part from the decorations!” Spooky offered, but somehow, that didn’t fit right in Scary’s heart.
Scary crouched down and clawed at the snow viciously, heart racing as she dug further and further, as she sensed Spooky watching her, as…
She pulled out a wee little porcelain clown doll with red and white swirly skin, hair, eyes and dress. In fact, the clown doll resembled candy canes or peppermint candies!
The clown doll suddenly darted its eyes towards Spooky, then back at Scary. Its red lips turned up in an innocent beam and it said in a childlike, slightly quivering voice:
“I’m Fannie, what are your names? I was supposed to be with this boy but he was scared of me, he said I looked scary. But you two don’t think I’m scary, do you? You’re not going to leave me out in the cold, right? Oh please, I don’t want to be left out in this awful weather again, it’s so cold and-“
“We’re not going to leave you. Have you seen our getups? We’re just silly clowns, kid. I’m Scary and this over here is my girlfriend, Spooky.” Scary said, nodding her head towards Spooky, who waved amicably towards Fannie.
Fannie turned her eyes towards Scary, then Spooky, then back again, as though she were trying to make a decision, then asked in a quiet voice:
“You’re really not going to leave me?”
Scary liked to scare people from time to time, but that was only when everyone was having fun, when she knew that after she had terrified them greatly, they would come back home to their loved ones, safe and sound.
She and Spooky had saved that poor little boy from being possessed by a demon that one Halloween and brought him back to his parents. She could only imagine how the horror of a demon controlling him must have choked at him on the inside, suffocated him all out, brought about unforgiving dread…
Nobody deserved to feel that way. Especially young children, even if they weren’t human.
“Of course we won’t leave you! You’ll fit in just fine.” Scary said, wrapping Fannie up an embrace.
Fannie hugged Scary back with her tiny porcelain arms, Scary felt Spooky join in on the hug. The both of them were pouring their affection in the form of an embrace, in the picturesque landscape of the snow….
From their hugs in the quiet of home, Scary grinned real wide, for on that night, she had felt the true, authentic soul of Christmas!
She still loved Halloween more, but Christmas didn’t seem so bad anymore.
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