About 5400 words, Parental Guidance Suggested
Jimmy kicked aimlessly at a snow drift and looked with a smug grin at Emma, who sat with her face in her hands and her young tush on the cold concrete of the stoop. Her shoulders quivered with each sob.
“You’re not a baby anymore,” Jimmy said, wiping his nose on his coat sleeve. “It’s time you learned there is no such thing as Santa Claus. He’s just somebody grownups say is real to make their kids behave. It’s all pretend. You have to grow up some time. Stop crying or you’ll wake up Grandma.”
“I hope she does wake up!” Emma sprang to her feet and rushed down the porch steps, steam rushing from her expanded nostrils. Standing a head taller than Jimmy’s waistline, she reached to poke his stomach. “I’m going to tell her what you said, and she’ll have a thing to tell you, Jimmy. She told me Santa Claus is real, and I better be good if I want any gifts this year. You aren’t being good, and you aren’t getting any gifts.”
“I don’t want any gifts,” said Jimmy. “All I ever get are stupid clothes and video games.”
“You like video games.”
“Not the ones my mom and dad buy me.” He rolled his eyes at Emma’s scowl. “But even one of those would be better than the nothing we have here. I can’t believe Grandma doesn’t have a computer or TV. My parents wouldn’t let me bring my iPad. My being here is all your fault, ’cause you’re a little baby.”
“I’m not!”
“Uh huh.”
The front door swung open with a creak, followed by the extended whine of the screen door opening. Grandma stood rigid in the doorway, one arm extended to hold open the screen door. “Can’t an old woman catch a nap without someone crying?”
“I’m sorry, Grandma,” said Emma. “Jimmy made me cry.” Grandma wasn’t as tall as Jimmy, but Emma still felt small compared to her.
“What did you do, Jimmy?” Grandma stepped past the screen door and its whine filled the winter air as it swung closed.
“I didn’t do nothing,” said Jimmy, kicking another snowdrift.
Emma briskly climbed the steps and planted herself in front of Grandma. “He said Santa Claus isn’t real.”
“Did you say that, Jimmy?” Grandma glared at him, and Emma turned to follow suit.
“I say lots of things.” He bent down to grab some snow in his bare hands. As he straightened, he packed the snow, making a snowball. “I might’ve said that. She doesn’t listen to me half the time anyway, so what does it matter?”
“Back in the old country, it mattered,” said Grandma. “You wouldn’t dare be a bad boy back in the old country.”
Grandma had told Emma many stories about the old country, but none of them explained her last remark. Grandma was born in Austria, and left the country after she met and fell in love with Grandpa, an American pilot. The two had traveled the world, but eventually tired of the lifestyle and settled on this isolated dairy farm in Wisconsin to raise cattle and a family, a long way from Austria. That had been over thirty years ago, and their two children—Emma’s dad and Jimmy’s dad—were grown and had gone their own ways to raise their own families.
Sadly, Grandpa had passed away a month ago, and since then Grandma had sold all the livestock. Soon she would sell the farm and come to live with Emma’s family, but until then, Emma was staying with her, and had flown out as soon as winter break started. Grandma didn’t drive, and the airline wouldn’t allow Emma to fly by herself without someone to meet her at the destination airport, so Emma’s sixteen-year-old cousin Jimmy had been designated as her chaperone on the flight and the taxi ride from the airport to the farm. Jimmy was not happy about the situation, and since they arrived at Grandma’s, he had gone out of his way to make Emma miserable.
The rest of their families were due to arrive on Christmas day, bringing a small rental truck to haul away Grandma’s bed and what other possessions the elderly woman wanted to keep.
“You’re just a crazy old bag,” Jimmy replied to Grandma, and threw the snowball at Emma, striking her on the forehead. The girl yelped and would have run down the steps to return harm for harm, but Grandma caught her by the shoulder.
“Apologize to your cousin, Jimmy Porter.”
“No,” he said. “She shouldn’t have tattled on me.” He trudged around the side of the house, pausing occasionally to kick at the snow.
“Dirtbag,” muttered Emma as he walked out of sight.
“If you want Santa to bring you any gifts this year,” said Grandma, “you will watch your mouth, young lady.”
“Sorry, Grandma.”
#
The next day, Grandma awoke to find Emma standing beside her bed, watching her intently. “What is wrong, Emma?” Grandma sat up and pulled Emma onto the bed beside her. “Tell me.”
“Is tattling wrong, Grandma?”
“Sometimes,” Grandma said. “But this time you can tell me.”
“Jimmy took my Hermione poster and hung it in his room. He won’t give it back. He says he needs it more than I do.”
“You wait right here, Emma. I’ll get your poster.”
Some minutes later, Grandma returned, her hands empty and one cheek discolored. “You go along and play now, Emma,” said Grandma.
Emma didn’t ask about her poster. She was too shocked by the dark blue spot on Grandma’s face to say anything. She went to her room and tried not to think about what her cousin had just done to Grandma. This was all Emma’s fault. If she hadn’t tattled on Jimmy, Grandma wouldn’t have gone to his room, and Jimmy wouldn’t have hit her. Emma tried not to cry, but hot tears welled in her eyes and moistened her chilly cheeks. Wrapping a blanket around her shoulders for warmth, she stared out the window at the short, snow-covered hills, and recalled something Grandma had said about the old country.
Grandma had grown up on a farm similar to this one. The biggest difference, Grandma said, were the high mountains near her childhood farm. The tallest peaks in Wisconsin were but ant hills compared to the Alps.
#
The next day, Emma watched Grandma sorting through her things, trying to decide what she would take with her and what she would sell or donate. “I don’t want any of this,” Grandma said.
“You have to have clothes, Grandma,” Emma said with a frown. “Don’t you like your clothes?”
“Now that your Grandpa has passed,” Grandma replied, “I find that I don’t care for any of my things. I would like to go back to live in the old country, in Austria. I still have a sister there who I haven’t seen in nearly forty years. She said I could come live with her, but I don’t know. I’ve not been a sister to her for forty years, I wouldn’t want to be a burden to her now.”
“I wish I had a sister,” Emma said. “Or even a brother, one that was nice to me. Not like Jimmy.”
Grandma fell silent, turning her attention back to sorting her things into boxes of keep and don’t-keep, and Emma was sorry she had mentioned her cousin.
#
On Christmas Eve, the well house caught fire. Grandma hurried into the small square building, but the fire had grown too large by the time she arrived with a pail of water. Emma wanted to help, but Grandma wouldn’t allow her to come near. Jimmy refused to help. He and Emma stood a safe distance away and watched. The fire was still confined to the interior, so all the two of them could see was the dingy smoke wafting up into the cloudy winter sky.
“I was bored,” Jimmy slurred. He pulled a small rectangular pack from an inside pocket, slid out a cigarette, and put it between his lips. “Damn,” he said, tossing the empty pack on the ground. He pulled a lighter out of his pants pocket and lit the cigarette.
“You started that fire, Jimmy!” Emma pushed him with both hands. He laughed in response and pushed her onto her tush in the snow.
He laughed again as flames licked through the well house roof. Grandma stumbled out the door and backed away from the burning structure, dragging the long metal well bucket and the rope used to lower and raise the bucket in the well. She had salvaged what she could.
“Someone has to explain this to our parents when they get here,” Emma said as she stood, brushing the snow off her pants. “They are going to know it was you.”
“My dad won’t do anything to me,” he said, “and your dad is a wuss.”
Having deposited her burden next to one corner of the house, Grandma walked past Jimmy without a look at him. She took Emma by the arm. “Come inside, Emma. I don’t want you catching fire. We’ll just have to let it burn itself out. It’s far enough away from the house.” She trudged through the ankle-deep snow towards the porch, Emma in tow.
“Aren’t you going to punish him?” Emma asked, struggling to make Grandma stop and turn around to face Jimmy and deliver justice. Grandma stopped long enough to face Emma with sad brown eyes, and Emma paled at the sight of Grandma’s blue cheek.
“It won’t be me punishing that boy,” said Grandma. “Back in the old country, it wouldn’t be your uncle or father doing the punishing either.”
#
Emma watched from her window as the sun set over the distant hills, barely discernable through the dark blanket of clouds from which a light snow fell. The cold of night seeped through the old wood walls and Emma pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders. Grandma had let the fire in the fireplace downstairs die out, so as not to burn Santa, she said.
The faded window curtains to which Emma had pinned a few red, green, and gold bows stretched from the ceiling to the floor. Closing the curtains, Emma crawled onto her bed and pulled two more blankets over her up to her neck. At home, Emma usually went to bed an hour later, but Grandma had already retired, and Emma didn’t care to sit in the dark with Jimmy. So she had gone to her room too. She wished she could read one of her books, but there were no electric lights in the house. Grandma had hidden the lanterns, without saying why, but Emma thought it was to remove any temptation for Jimmy to play with them.
Anxiety about the events of the past few days kept Emma awake. She wanted to sleep; Grandma had told her that Santa wouldn’t deliver any gifts for her if she was awake when he arrived. But time dragged by and all she could do was think about Grandma’s bruised cheek and the old country. She wondered what punishment Jimmy would have received in the old country. The way Grandma talked, Emma doubted it would be time out or a spanking. Maybe they would have hit him on the cheek. Or maybe worse. One of the girls at school broke her leg and said it hurt a lot; maybe in the old country they broke people’s legs for punishment. Emma didn’t wish that on Jimmy. Or maybe she did. It would serve him right. Was it wrong of her to think that? If Jimmy broke his leg tonight, would it be because she thought it? Why couldn’t she just go to sleep and not think these terrible things? Tomorrow was Christmas, and she needed to go to sleep so Santa would bring her gifts.
All was quiet; the wind didn’t even rattle the eaves. Emma lay on her back, wrapped snugly in her blankets, and stared up into the darkness, crying.
#
Her socked feet felt like ice on the cold wood floor. Holding her blanket tightly about her, Emma stood at the window with the curtains open, looking out into the cloudy night, still unable to sleep. Santa would be coming in his sleigh soon, but he would pass over Grandma’s house tonight, because Emma could not sleep, and Jimmy had been too bad to deserve any gifts. The clouds blocked the moon and the stars, making it difficult to see anything but the vague outline of the horizon. Nevertheless, she hoped she might see even the shadows of Santa and his sleigh as they passed by.
A sound at the door startled her. She drew back into the corner of the room as the doorknob squeaked and the door swung inward, revealing a flickering light from beyond. Emma held her breath, afraid because she knew who it must be, but could not guess his intentions. He held his lighter up as he quietly entered her room, and Emma could see enough of his face to confirm he was Jimmy.
The teenage boy slowly closed the door and moved silently to the side of Emma’s bed. “Merry Christmas, cousin,” he whispered as he held the lighter over the bed, moving his hand from side to side, searching for where Emma lay. “I have a present for you.” He waved his lighter around and, failing to spot her, crawled onto the bed to extend his reach. “Where the hell are you, you little bitch?”
Emma bit the edge of her blanket to keep from crying out, and slid down in the corner until she was squatting. Jimmy had entered her room on the other side of the bed from her, and if he came all the way across the bed with his lighter, he would certainly see her if she remained standing. He still might see her down here, but she didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t want to wake up Grandma by making any noise, because she was afraid Jimmy would hurt Grandma again if the elderly woman became involved.
“I know you’re in here,” Jimmy said. “It’s almost midnight, you know. It’s almost Christmas day. I have a Christmas present for you, and I wanted you to see that Santa isn’t coming. He’s not real, and you’re stupid if you think he is.” He crawled closer to the edge of the bed nearest her. She covered her nose and mouth with her blanket, so he couldn’t hear her ragged breathing.
He reached the edge of the bed and leaped off. His light barely shone bright enough for him to see the floor where he stood. He stepped next to the window and fingered the open curtains.
She thought about trying to dart past him, but she was wrapped too tightly in the blanket to get a running start, and she knew he would grab her before she could untangle herself. All she could do was stay as still as possible and hope.
Jimmy looked out the window as he spoke. “I think I see Santa. Yeah, that must be him. I was wrong after all. He’s real. You ought to see.”
Her heart ached so that she thought her chest would explode. She wanted to see Santa, but she didn’t trust Jimmy. Maybe he was only saying it so she would reveal herself by coming to the window. Her instincts told her that revealing herself now would only be trouble.
“Don’t you believe in Santa?” said Jimmy. “Don’t you want to look?” He turned around, swinging the lighter in an arc about him. He looked down, and her heart sank. “Who do we have here?” He stepped towards her.
She struggled with the blanket, tripping in its folds as she tried to scramble away. He tsked and grabbed her arm. Lifting her from the floor with one hand, he closed the lighter with the other. Engulfed in sudden darkness, she blindly hit and scratched at him, but he caught her free arm and pushed her onto the bed, flinging himself on top of her so she could not move.
“That poster just didn’t do it for me,” he said, his hushed voice loud in her ear. “Not enough skin showing. There’s no computer or cable TV here; I can’t watch any porn. I know you’re little, but you’re only six years younger than me, and that’s old enough for me. It’s time you quit being a baby and became a woman. That’s my Christmas gift to you, and it’s your gift to me too. Don’t fight, and don’t make any noise, because if you wake up Grandma, I’ll kill her and I’ll burn this whole fucking house down. You know I will.”
She didn’t want to believe him, but part of her did, and that part of her kept her from crying out.
Jimmy pulled at her pajama top, causing two buttons to come undone.
“Please stop, Jimmy,” she whispered hoarsely.
He said nothing, but kissed her roughly on the neck. His body weighed heavy on her.
“You’re hurting me, Jimmy. Please get off.”
He shifted his weight. She pushed at him, but to no avail; he trapped her legs between his and clamped them tightly together. He grabbed the waistline of her pajama pants and tugged down. She slapped him as hard as she could. Though she could not see, her hand made solid contact with his cheek.
“Don’t make me knock you out,” he said, slamming his fist into the mattress beside her head.
“I wish we were back in the old country,” she said without flinching. She imagined a group of old-country elders taking Jimmy away, breaking both his legs, and locking him in a room without any food or water or windows or furniture.
“Yeah, well we’re not,” he said, grabbing her hair and yanking her head back hard. She clenched her teeth so as not to scream and wake up Grandma. He sloppily licked her throat.
Her eyes teared. “Please, Santa,” she begged, her eyes rolling back in their sockets, “if you are real, make Jimmy stop.”
“I’m your Santa tonight,” Jimmy said, “and I’m not about to stop.”
A thud sounded from above and the ceiling shook. Light poured through the window.
“It’s just the wind,” Jimmy said as though trying to convince himself, but as he looked towards the window Emma could see he struggled with some unvoiced fear. Emma jerked one leg free. Jimmy grabbed her shoulders and pulled himself on top of her again.
“It’s not the wind, Jimmy,” Emma said. “It’s Santa. Get off me!”
A thud came from beyond the bedroom door, followed by the sound of rattling chains.
“What the hell?” Jimmy said, scrambling off Emma and landing on the floor. He lit his lighter and stepped next to the door.
“I told you he’s real,” Emma said softly, raising her head and fighting back the tears.
“Since when does Santa drag chains into a house?” Jimmy whispered with wavering voice.
The rattling drew nearer. Jimmy reached for the doorknob, but hesitated, unsure whether it was wise to open the door. The rattling grew louder and louder. Jimmy’s hand closed on the doorknob and gripped it tight.
The rattling stopped. Emma held her breath.
The doorknob turned despite Jimmy’s attempts to prevent it.
“Holy shit,” Jimmy said, not so quietly. “If that’s you, Grandma, I am going to whip you with those chains you’re dragging.” He should have known it was not Grandma on the other side of the door. He could have held the doorknob if it were Grandma. He pulled the door open, holding his lighter up at face level.
Emma screamed.
The monster at the door stood a head taller than Jimmy. If not for the thick blue-green fur covering its otherwise naked body and the segmented horns protruding from either side of a broad forehead and nearly filling the whole width of the doorway, the creature might have passed for a large human in the dim light. Its face bore a huge toothy grin that conveyed malice rather than mirth. One end of a heavy chain hung draped over one of its shoulders, with the remainder of the chain stretched out on the floor behind it.
Jimmy slammed the door in its face. He ran to the window and fumbled with the latch to open it, as though he intended to escape through the window. Then he froze, his face drained of color in the bright moonglow. “Mother—”
The door swung open and the monster entered the room, the chains rattling loud on the wood floor. Emma sat up and pushed herself hard against the headboard. “Jimmy!”
Her cousin turned to face the creature, which had taken three steady steps to round the corner of the bed and approach him. Jimmy gurgled something unintelligible but made no attempt to move.
“Jimmy?” Emma felt faint. Was it her fault this monster was here? Had Santa sent this monster to fulfill Emma’s wish to make Jimmy stop? Emma hated how Jimmy had made her feel, but she had just wanted him to stop.
The creature paused at arm’s length from Jimmy and hauled on the taut chain behind it, letting the gathered chain fall in coils at its feet.
“I’m sorry, Jimmy,” Emma whispered.
Jimmy stood transfixed, gibbering. The hand holding the lighter gradually dropped lower and lower, as though the strength was draining from his body.
The other end of the chain came through the doorway. Attached to the end was a large cloth bag as wide as the creature was tall. Something alive struggled inside. The creature pulled on the chain to right the bag.
Jimmy laughed a strange laugh and his hand fell to his side. He dropped the lighter on the floor. With a whoosh, the low-hanging curtains caught fire and the flames leaped brightly up their length.
Emma wanted to shout for Grandma, but the sound she made was hoarse and didn’t sound like anyone’s name. She wanted to scramble off the bed and race out of the room, but her flailing arms and legs would not cooperate with each other.
The creature loosened the chain and let the bag gape open. Several youthful hands groped out, and Emma heard muffled pleas echoing from within.
The creature stared into Jimmy’s eyes as the flames played behind the boy, who could do nothing now but stare back, his lower lip trembling. The creature grunted as it held the bag open with one hand and grabbed Jimmy by the throat with the other. Lifting the boy off his feet, the creature raised him so that his head scraped the ceiling as the creature manuevered him over the bag and dropped him in feet first on top of the other youngsters already inside.
Emma screamed again.
The creature turned its gaze on her, and she shivered from a chill worse than the dark winter night. She wanted to look away, but she could not. The creature judged her, weighing her goodness against her badness, and she would suffer Jimmy’s same fate if the bad outweighed the good.
The creature grunted, then reached down for the chain, wrapping one end around the top of the bag to secure it. The creature took up the loose end of the chain, draped it over one shoulder, and headed out of the room, leaving the bag sitting beside Emma’s bed. With a horrendous rattling, the chain snaked out of the room, and soon it would pull the bag out of the room.
What Jimmy had done to her was wrong, but she could not bear to be the one who had brought this horrible fate upon him. How could she live knowing her wish had summoned the monster that had taken her cousin? She took a deep breath to calm herself and forced her legs off the side of the bed. Moving quickly and with determination, she grabbed the chain hanging down from the top of the bag and used it to clamber up the side, stepping on what underneath the cloth was surely the heads and bodies of other children. Had they all been judged as bad children? It didn’t matter. She had to rescue Jimmy, and if some truly bad children escaped too, maybe they would decide to be good after this.
She strained until her arms ached but could not untangle the knot in the chain. She pulled on the bag to free it from the chain loops, but it was no use.
She coughed on thick smoke. Not only was she responsible for Jimmy being kidnapped by a monster, but it would also be her fault if Grandma’s house burned down. If anyone was a bad person, it was Emma Porter. She wondered why the monster hadn’t taken her.
The chain tightened, and the bag tumbled onto its side. Emma grabbed a fold of cloth and rode the bag across the floor. It rolled beneath her as it passed through the door, so that she struck the door frame and lost her grip on the bag. She fell to the floor just inside her room while the bag thumped along over the floor of the hallway outside.
“Jimmy!” Emma coughed and jumped to her feet. She had to save her cousin. “Grandma!” The old woman needed to be awake so she could either deal with the fire in Emma’s bedroom or get out of the house alive. Emma couldn’t see down the hallway because it had no windows, so all she could do was follow the sound of the rattling chain. She hurried as fast as she dared, and soon found the top of the stairs. Using the railing to guide her, she quickly descended, but the sound of the chain faded even more rapidly into the distance. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she could no longer hear the rattling. She had failed Jimmy.
She needed to hurry, or she would fail Grandma as well. She couldn’t keep from crying as she fumbled her way back up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, she coughed as the smoke now seeped out of her room into the hallway. Her room was to the left and Grandma’s was to the right. She groped for the wall on the right, and followed it to the end of the hallway, where she quickly found the doorknob to Grandma’s room. Before she could turn the knob, the door swung open, and Grandma peered out, a lit candle in hand. “Young lady,” Grandma said sternly, “you are supposed to be in bed. Santa won’t stop here with you out of bed.”
Emma tugged on Grandma’s nightrobe. “Grandma! The house is on fire and a monster took Jimmy.”
“Krampus,” said Grandma wistfully, as though speaking the name of a childhood pet. She grabbed a blanket from her bed and wrapped it around Emma’s shoulders. “You’re gonna catch your death of cold outside,” she said sternly. Grandma grabbed another blanket for herself and ushered Emma towards the stairs. “Keep your head down and go on outside.”
As she passed her bedroom, Emma peeked out from under the blanket to look. Thick smoke blocked her view, but she could see rolling red flames covering the far wall. With a cough she pulled the blanket again over her head and hurried down the stairs with Grandma right behind her.
Grandma went to the kitchen, but told Emma to go outside. It was no time to argue, so Emma obeyed, pulling the blanket as tight around her as she could.
The dark clouds had dispersed, leaving a gray haze refracting the moon’s light and washing out the stars. No snow fell, but the girl struggled to move away from the house through waist-deep drifts of white. Her unshod feet ached in the damp cold.
Something about the distant horizon looked strange.
When she had put a safe distance between her and the house, she turned around to look back, and gasped. A gigantic snow-covered mountain peak loomed over the house.
Emma stifled a scream. Against the snowy backdrop, bathed in bright moonglow, a hairy blue-green figure trudged under a heavy load. Its chain rattled. The creature dragged its bag across the roof towards a long, hulking sled with a ship’s bow at one end and large curved brass pipes at the other. At the front of the sled sat a white-bearded man in red, wearing goggles and puffing on a lit cigar.
The blue-green monster that Grandma had referred to as Krampus swung his bag onto the sled and jumped on behind it.
“Ho ho ho!” shouted the white-bearded man, gripping two wooden uprights on either side of a steering device. Emma knew the man was Santa. He pulled back on the steering device, and smoke belched from the brass pipes at the back of the sled. After shuddering four times in rapid succession, the sled lifted into the sky. “Merry Christmas to all!” Santa shouted. On the left side of the house, fire erupted from Emma’s bedroom window.
The sled rose high into the night sky, higher than the mountain peak and even the moon itself. Emma watched with mixed emotions, turning in place to keep her gaze on the sled as it cut a circular pattern in the sky above her. Santa winked at her as he tilted the sled at a sharp angle. The bag that held the bad children tipped to the side and fell open, no longer bound closed by the chain. Emma thought Jimmy and the other children would fall out. Krampus grabbed the bag and pulled it upright, but not before something fell out.
As the toys plummeted towards her, Santa quickly descended in his sled and Krampus grabbed the falling toys to stuff them back in the bag. He missed but one toy, which disappeared into the snow in front of Emma.
“And to all a good night!” Santa bellowed, and the sled shot away into the haze of the night.
#
Grandma tried to save the house, but again the pail of water she carted from the kitchen to the fire did not suffice. The house was doomed to burn to the ground.
A blond woman about the same age as Emma’s dad drove up in a large pickup with chains on the tires. She spoke in a strange language that Emma did not understand, but Grandma knew it and responded with ease. The woman let Grandma and Emma sit in her cab, with the heater running. “Emma,” Grandma said, “this is Franziska. She is my niece.”
Somehow, magically, Grandma’s house had transported them to her sister’s farm in Austria.
#
It didn’t matter to Grandma that her house burned, her former possessions with it. She never went back to America, but spent the rest of her days with her sister and her family, who were thrilled to have her. Emma and Grandma spent Christmas in the old country, and though there was no gifts for either of them under the tree, Grandma was happy with the gift of being with her sister’s family, and Emma had the toy that had dropped from the bag on the sled.
After much time and paperwork and arguing with officials, Emma’s parents managed to convince the governments of both countries that Emma belonged to them. They had to come to Austria to fetch her, but they enjoyed meeting Grandma’s sister and the rest of her family. Jimmy’s family did not come, and when Emma returned to America, she didn’t try to explain to them. Instead, she handed them the toy that fell from Santa’s sled, and they understood.
What had fallen from the sled was not actually a toy, but a beautiful leather bound book. On the cover was an illustration of the sled flying over the moon, Santa and Krampus seated with the bag between them, toys falling from the bag, and smoke pouring out of brass pipes in the back.
Between the book covers, the story you have just read adorned the pages. On the last page it stated, in italicized letters:
It was not your fault, Emma.
Merry Christmas, and Merry Krampus!
Artwork by Steven Austin: http://www.stevenaustinart.com/
The above artwork is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.