The courtroom scene surged toward its conclusion. The judge declared Kris Kringle to be Santa Claus. The cast burst into celebratory choreography that Alex had restaged, giving the ensemble more room to move.
I continued to watch Marcus. After the curtain call, the congratulations, and the inevitable chaos of a successful opening, Alex and I would load our gifts into my truck and drive to a hospital room where a boy was counting on magic being real.
We'd made promises we intended to keep.
The cast assembled for the closing number in stages, drifting into position as the penultimate scene wound down. I watched them gather from my spot in the wings. Jack and Charice now held hands openly. The teenage ensemble clustered together, their earlier nervousness transformed into giddy disbelief atwhat they'd pulled off. Sophie clutched her teddy bear and pressed it against her chest.
At the center was Alex.
He'd removed the wire-rimmed spectacles Kris Kringle wore in the department store scenes, but otherwise he remained entirely Santa—not because of the costume, but because of what lived underneath it. The red velvet and white fur had become irrelevant. He carried the role in his spine now, in the set of his shoulders, and how he moved through the assembled cast like a warm current.
The orchestra began the introduction to "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas." Standard finale fare—a reprise arrangement that let the whole company join in, building toward a sustained final chord meant to leave the audience humming on their way to the parking lot.
What happened instead was something I still can't adequately describe.
The first verse belonged to Alex alone. His voice had grown stronger over the past two weeks—not technically, but in confidence. He sang about Christmas arriving, about decorations and anticipation, and the melody settled over the audience like a quilt drawn up against the December cold.
Then the cast joined him.
Harmonies braided together. The sound swelled and filled the theater's high ceiling, pressing into corners, leaving no space untouched.
That's when I noticed the tree.
We'd installed a massive Christmas spruce center stage three weeks ago and decorated it with hundreds of lights—standard theatrical strings, nothing special, chosen more for durability than beauty. I'd tested them myself before dress rehearsal, replaced two burned-out bulbs, and made sure the connections were solid.
Those lights were doing something impossible now.
The glow started at the base, barely perceptible at first—a warmth that seemed to emanate from the trunk itself rather than the strands wrapped around it. It climbed upward through the branches, intensifying as it rose, until the entire tree pulsed with illumination that no electrical system could produce.
Not harsh. Not blinding. It was a restful radiance.
The cast kept singing. If they noticed the transformation happening behind them, they gave no sign. Perhaps, caught up in the music and the moment and the impossible unity they'd achieved, they accepted it as part of whatever magic had been present all night.
The audience noticed. I watched faces in the front rows tilt upward, expressions shifting from enjoyment to wonder. A child in the fourth row tugged her mother's sleeve and pointed. The mother's mouth opened, closed, and opened again.
Marcus stared at the tree with tears streaming freely down his face. Beside him, Noel froze, his hand pressed flat against his chest.
The final verse arrived. Alex stepped forward, with the cast's voices swelling behind him, and I heard something. It was a sound no one else would recognize, the specific groan of wood under uneven stress.
The rolling platform, the one that pulled left, was shifting. Two ensemble members stood on it, their combined weight finally finding the weakness that worried me. In three seconds, maybe four, the platform would lurch, and someone would stumble.
During the finale. In front of everyone.
I moved without thinking.
The wings dissolved behind me. Suddenly, I was in the light—exposed, visible, crossing upstage toward the platform in my sawdust-flecked flannel while the cast held their tableau and the orchestra sustained the penultimate chord.
Two hundred thirty-seven people watched. I gripped the platform's edge, my boot bracing the wheel that had started to twist, and the wood settled back into stability under my grip.
The entire rescue effort took maybe five seconds. It felt like five years.
I froze there, crouched at the edge of the stage, suddenly aware that I had no way to disappear. The curtains were fifteen feet away. The cast was still singing. And I was kneeling in full view of the entire house, a stagehand who'd broken the fourth wall in the middle of the most magical moment of the night.
A hand landed on my shoulder.
Alex had crossed to me—still in character, still Santa Claus, moving as though he'd choreographed the entire moment from the beginning. He drew me upright, one arm extended, and turned us both to face the audience.
"Even Santa needs help sometimes," he said, his voice warm. "Especially from the people who built the workshop."
