“On Christmas Day?”
“You are stripped of all subsequent duties and appearances. You get out there,marry that Easter Princess,and then you aredone,do you hear me? There is nothing left for you—”
“I’m not marrying Iris. I’m not playing this game. And, while we’re at it, I’m not going to grad school. It doesn’t have to be likethis! Lying and fighting and manipulation. We don’t have to live this way. It isn’t a mark of failure to support other people, and it isn’t a mark of success to stand alone.”
He’s pacing, pacing.
And then he stops.
Hands behind his back, facing the fire, where a steady flame crackles on sweet-smelling logs.
“You forced me to this, Nicholas,” he says. “You truly are willing to risk the fallout that this would bring? I thought you cared for that Halloween Prince.”
“I do care. Go ahead.”
He whips a look at me. “What?”
“Go ahead. Pin all this on Halloween.” My voice is level and I’ve never felt this swell of certainty before, no tremors, nofear.“See how you keep the love of your people when you start letting it slip that you’ve been holding all sorts of shady-ass mistakes over other Holidays. How long will you be able to keep it under wraps that you’re the source of whatever information you dole out?”
His mouth drops open.
I lurch forward a step, surety soft and calm. “I am done letting you corrupt Christmas the way you have been. I am done standing idly by and letting you control every element of our lives like any amount of perfection will bring Mom back.”
He full-on flinches at that. A slate-wiping shake.
“I am your son,” I take another step, “and I am the heir of Christmas, and I will stand here, between you and Christmas, between you and whoever else you set yourself up against. So go ahead,” I dare him. “How badly do you want this? Because I know how badly I want this. I know how far I’ll go now.”
Dad is half-cocked back from me, brows furrowed, face an unreadable mask of disorienting shock—he didn’t expect me to stand up to him. He doesn’t know what to do now.
The door opens. Kris doesn’t give Dad a chance to say anything—he holds it wide.
And in come all the winter Holiday representatives.
I turn to them and spread my arms. They can likely see how my hands are shaking in the excess of emotion, and I fight to level my breathing, but it’s all welling up on me.
“Welcome to Christmas,” I start. “I—”
Shit, Kris had written something for me to say, and my adrenaline-soaked mind scrambles back for what I remember of it—all those pieces I’d told him about, the truths and carved bits of my soul.
A deep breath in, and I talk.
“Together, your Holidays provide Christmas with more than half of our claimed joy through the tithes my father has demanded from you. That ends now, and nothing will come from whatever threats have been made on Christmas’s behalf in the past.”
The group of about a dozen people gape at me for maybe half a second.
Then one man steps forward, smoothing the edges of his sharp black suit. “What has spurred this change?”
I glance at Dad. Just once.
He’s staring at the fire, jaw slack.
“What’s changed,” I say, “is that there is a path forward forallof us where we instead pool resources so we can use the individual reaches of our Holidays to help each other grow. It is but one small way in which Christmas can begin making up to you for what we have done. If you will remain here for a few days, we will discuss preparations for a collective.”
Hopeful, if not confused, smiles grow when my father stays silent. When he stands there, not interjecting, not countering anything I’ve said.
I twist so I can speak to him and the representatives, but mostly to him. To me too.
“Christmas’s true origins have always been about light during winter; joy during hardship. And now, we will compensate for what has become all too lacking because of our own actions: equality. We are not a Holiday of material goods and staged charity and forced cheer. We are Christmas, and we are joy in the darkness, and we willremember that from this day forward.” I keep my eyes on my dad’s profile. “I swear it.”
