1
FALLON
“Fallon, break’s over. We need you in the doll room.”
I looked up from my laptop, eyes blurred from my concentrated focus. “Already?”
“It’s been over half an hour.”
Mom was strict about work. We had deadlines. Things always got chaotic and rushed in the fall. Christmas was on its way. Toys needed to be finished, inventoried and packed. Santa often dropped by for unscheduled inspections. Everyone was on edge.
Elves thrived on the work. The pay was high. Elven culture was built on the great Santa Claus’s massive yearly toy order. No one knew how he paid for it all, but he gave away the toys for free. Every year he ordered more and more toys from the workshop, and every year he paid all the workers’ salaries on time along with end of the year bonuses.
Mom was the boss at home and at work. For me, it could be overwhelming at a job I didn’t love.
First of all, I wasn’t an elf. I was an adopted reindeer shifter. As an infant, I was found abandoned in a snowdrift and rescued by Mom. She loved to tell the story of how I almost froze todeath until she picked me up and took me home to join my elven brothers and sisters by their warm fire. I’d cried a lot at first, she said, but soon settled in. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t an elf. I was a living being who needed love and care. Mom often made sure to remind me I was loved as much as any of her other children. Still, I always felt different, apart from the crowd.
Second, I had an aptitude for math and physics, not toymaking, and that was the path I hoped to follow.
Even though making toys wasn’t the career I wanted, I loved Mom and wanted to make her happy. But going into the family business was not the future I saw for myself.
I studied every spare chance I got. Mom knew I took online classes. She noticed everything. She would always say, “You’re my smart one, aren’t you?” But she would never discuss with me where it might lead. It was expected that I would stay at the workshop like most good elves. And as for my shifter needs? I was expected to take care of that stuff on my own, including the embarrassing fact that I couldn’t fly.
During my break today, it seemed as if no time had passed since I sat down to study yet another text on quantum theory. I glanced around the break room, reorienting myself while Mom waited on me. A fire burned in a huge hearth. I sat on an old soft couch, pillows at my back, my computer glowing. I still had half my snack left, a sugary donut covered in pink icing.
I looked up at her eager face.
“I need five more minutes.”
“We’re backed up on construction over there and it’s October. Not a lot of time left if we’re going to meet our deadlines.”
I was in the middle of scanning an amazing equation I wanted to better understand. My mind felt on the verge of something wonderful. Physics always made me feel that way. Dollmaking did not.
“Please?”
“Son, we need you. Santa needs you.”
Everything we did was for Santa. I loved that part of it. The Village was beautiful, the glacial views breathtaking. I loved living here. I loved being a part of the whole Santa-magic process. But I wanted to be more on the reindeer side of the corporation. It was a longing I couldn’t control.
I didn’t outright state it to my family because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings, but what I really wanted, as a non-flyer, was to work within the navigation department called Santa’s Sleigh.
I already had an interview set up with the head of Santa’s Sleigh, Keir. I’d never actually met him, but I’d heard he was a no-nonsense team leader who expected perfection from his flight team and ground control.
No one knew about this interview, and somehow I was going to have to make up an excuse to take time off on Friday to go. In order to land this one-on-one meeting with Keir, I’d already taken pre-tests online. I must’ve done well, because I had heard it was difficult to get an in-person interview with any upper echelon of Santa’s flight team.
Mom stood before me, hands on her hips. Her hair was pulled back revealing gracefully pointed ears. When I was little, I’d always hated my round ears, which weren’t pointed like everyone else’s. My parents told me it didn’t matter. I was one of the family.
Which was why this was so hard for me. I didn’t want to break away from the ones who’d raised and loved me. I didn’t want them to be disappointed, or to think I wasn’t grateful.
I closed my laptop, setting it aside. “Okay, Mom. I’ll be right there. You can count on me.”
As I got up to go back to work, my mind churned, trying to figure out how I would get to Friday’s interview without breaking my family’s hearts.
2
KEIR
“These test scores are remarkable,” I said, looking up from my desk at my assistant, Lance.
