Prologue
The day after Christmas—Last Year
Billy Edge
Eight-year-old Billy Edge trudged home from the sledding hill with his head hung low and his spirits even lower. He’d hoped the new sleigh he’d found under the tree Christmas morning would help the other kids see that he was just like them. It was made of hard plastic with handles on the edges and enough room for two to zoom down the hill together. Unlike his old sled, with a picture of a superhero on it, this one was solid gray—the color of a motorcycle or a fighter jet.
Third grade was hard enough without moving to a new school. He kicked a clump of snow and watched it blow up.
No one had to laugh at him. But they did. They laughed, and then they ignored him.
He hated it here.
At his old school, he had lots of friends. He wouldn’t be alone the day after Christmas; he’d be at Jeff’s house, building whatever giant Lego set Santa brought. Or he’d be in Cade’s garage, fiddling with the scooter they were building. According to the YouTube videos, they only needed one more part.
He hated his dad. If he hadn’t run away from home …
Sniffing loudly, Billy swiped at his face. He hated crying. He hated feeling like he was out of control and that no one cared. Mom did, but she was stressed all the time and not the same as she’d been before Dad left. Neither of them were.
A whimper reached his ears, pulling Billy up short. The sled bounced off the back of his heels and stopped. He glanced behind him, expecting to see Jordan, the biggest bully in class, mocking him for crying. But Jordan wasn’t there, and his were the only footprints in the snow.
He must have misheard. He started walking, and the sound came again. This time he thought it came from the right. Leaving his sled, he stepped off the path and into the brush. There might be a rabbit caught in a trap, or a wolf.
He stopped and pulled his arms up to his chest. Wolves were dangerous enough when they were healthy, but a wounded one would bite him for sure.
The sound came again, desperate and afraid. His little boy heart couldn’t take it anymore, and he sprang into action, pushing branches aside. He stumbled into a clearing and froze at the sight of a reindeer tangled up in a harness attached to a sleigh. A real, honest-to-goodness Santa sleigh.
She panted. Her chest heaved up and down as if she’d been fighting for hours to be free. Their eyes met. For Billy, it seemed as if the world stopped at the same time a door inside of his heart opened up.Help me!she seemed to plead with him. Or maybe she’d actually spoken. He wasn’t sure. He just knew that she was asking for his help, begging for kindness from a stranger she would otherwise shy away from.
He held up his gloved hands. “I’ll get you out.”
She held still as he approached, tracking his movements. Her muscles were tight and hard, as if she was waiting to burst out of here.
“Don’t run over me, okay?” He continued to inch closer, aware of poky ends on her antlers. His eyes dropped to the twisted harness, and he caught sight of an ugly piece of red skin. “Oh man.” The leather strap was wrapped around her leg. It was swollen and purple and looked like it’d burst open when the leather rubbed it the wrong way. He fell to his knees and started pulling on the strap, desperate for a way to loosen it. His eyes landed on a buckle, and he undid it.
The sudden freedom caused the reindeer to lurch forward. She cried out again.
“Sorry!” Billy yelped.
She laid her head down on the snow and closed her eyes. His mom did that when she was trying to calm down and not cry.
“Sorry,” he apologized again. She was still trapped by several more leather straps. He worked with more thoughtfulness and less fear. When he’d taken off everything but the harness around her face, he stepped back. “Okay, can you get up?”
She drew in a breath and struggled to stand on shaking front legs. After a painful attempt to put weight on her back foot, she fell over again.
Billy went to her head and knelt down. He ached for her. An animal with a broken leg wouldn’t survive. “Please don’t leave me.” His tears fell on her cheek, and she turned to watch him. “I don’t want you to die. Please get better.” It seemed all his heartbreak over the last six months knotted in his throat, and he knew—he just knew!—that if this reindeer didn’t survive, a part of him wouldn’t either.
The reindeer sniffed his knee and then laid her heavy chin on his lap and huffed out.
He had to save her! “We have a barn. No one uses it but me.” He wiped his cheeks. “If we can get you there, I know you’ll be safe.” As if accenting his words, a wolf howled in the distance.
She lifted her head, her brow wrinkling as she considered the forest around her.
“I can’t leave you here. Please, you have to walk.”
With a worried glance over the ridge where the wolf howled, the reindeer began to move.
Billy scrambled to his feet. “You can do it. It’s not far. I promise. Come on.”
