The Christmas Chronicles by Tim Slover

woman had said. “We hope you like your country as much as we have enjoyed making it.”
    “We like it very much,” Klaus had replied. He bowed. “Thank you—all of you—for your labors.” The multitude seemed to expect something more from him, but he was unsure what to say next.
    Anna noticed the slight glow coming from the throng. “Are you Saints, like Nicholas and the others?” she asked, and added a little hesitantly, “And, well, like us, I suppose.”
    A murmur of appreciation swept through the crowd in the courtyard. “It’s very good of you to say so,” the young woman answered with a smile. “Someday, perhaps.”
    “Then may we know who you are?” Anna asked.
    “We’re Elevated Spirits, of course!” a man called out.
    “You don’t
seem
like spirits,” Klaus said. “You’re all very solid.”
    “So are all Spirits who have Elevated,” another explained.
    “Oh, just call us Elves!” someone else said. “That’s what we call ourselves!”
    “Ah,” said Klaus. “Elves. Good.” Another expectant pause.
They seem to want something from us,
Klaus thought.
But what?
    Seeing his bewilderment, the young woman spoke low in his ear. “What we all wish to know is, may we stay and help?”
    Now Klaus understood! A smile wreathed his face, and he stepped forward and spread his arms wide. “O excellent Elves,” he called out in his largest voice, “will you please stay here with us and help Anna and me in our labors?”
    At this a great cheer went up from the crowd, and those who had caps threw them in the air. “Three cheers for Saint Klaus and Saint Anna!” they all cried. “And three more for the Eight Flyers who brought them Home!”
    All of the Elevated Spirits chose to stay in the new country they had made, and many more who had the desireto make toys came afterwards. “And what if some of the Elves are all thumbs?” Klaus remarked to Anna later. “They can’t hurt themselves, being Elevated, and I like teaching them. Besides, we’re going to need the help. I have a feeling our deliveries are going to expand.”
    And expand they had. Each Christmas Eve, Klaus had driven down the Straight Road with more and bigger sacks of toys. And always, no matter how far afield Klaus had flown, his fame had flown faster, and more and more children had waited in eager expectation for his visits.
    On their very first Christmas Eve in the True North, Klaus and Anna had stood, as they usually did, beside their big sleigh, loaded and ready to depart. Only now the sleigh was not beside their snug cottage, but in the courtyard of Castle Noël. Dasher and his siblings stood in their traces, patiently waiting, one or another of them quietly shifting a hoof now and then. Only someone who knew them well would have noticed the barely perceptible electric shiver all along their splendid silver coats, the hallmark of their eagerness to be off and away. Elves thronged the courtyard or were up in the balconies of the castle, ready to cheer when the sleigh shot away down the Road.
    Klaus turned to Anna. “Well, my dear,” he said andheld out a mittened hand. “Shall I help you—” He was about to say, “into the sleigh,” but he caught the expression on her face and said instead, in some alarm, “Anna! Whatever is wrong?”
    “Not a thing,” Anna replied as quickly as she could.
    But it was too late. Perhaps because Klaus was now a Saint and that made him more perceptive, he saw what for thirty-one Christmas Eves he had failed to see: a slight frown passing fleetingly across his wife’s face. “Now, Anna,” Klaus said, taking her hands, “I have seen your face merry, fierce, sad, and very, very occasionally, in repose. But I have never seen
that
expression on it before. It seems to say—it seems to signify—Anna, are you
irritated
with me?”
    “Of course not! Oh, Klaus, dear, dear Klaus, I never meant for you to see! I never meant for you to know.” Anna was on the very brink of tears.
And