The Christmas Chronicles by Tim Slover

through. It was not ice at all. It was a piece of the Aurora Borealis, flown down from the north and dancing in the air in front of them. First Dasher and Dancer and then all the reindeer and last of all Klaus in thesleigh passed into the Northern Lights and out the other side. They all felt a shimmer of warmth, as though they had gone through a band of summer, and caught the scent of peppermint that let them know they were in the presence of Christmas Magic.
    Dasher led the sleigh down from the clouds onto the ground and slid to a stop. They all needed to catch their breaths and let their hearts slow down. Each made a check of his or her body parts. Yes, thank goodness, all still knit together in one piece.
    Then suddenly Klaus groaned. He had just remembered the village and the toys. “Now we are even later!” he said, only he said it in the new language, which the reindeer now understood perfectly. “We will never get the toys to the last village before—” He looked back over his shoulder to the dawn that must surely be growing in the east. And then the words simply died on his lips. The dawn was not growing. The sky was not one scintilla lighter or pinker than it had been before they had passed through the Aurora. The sun was stuck. Time had stopped.
    Klaus and the Eight Flyers looked out at the world in amazement. Nothing moved. Not the clouds partially obscuring the winter stars, not a single blade of the gray grasspoking through the crust of snow at their feet. A fox on the hunt a little distance away looked as though he were pasted to the ground, with one paw up. The world was motionless and silent. Finally, after no one said anything for a rather long time, Klaus ventured in a voice hushed with wonder, “We shall have to be careful about birds when we’re flying.”
    And so, just as Saint Nicholas had said he would, Klaus had discovered still another important piece of his life’s work: the art and science of Chronolepsy. Or, as the Elvish slang has it, Time Stop. On Christmas Eve—and only on Christmas Eve—Klaus may call on Time to Tarry as he Tarries. A flame of the Aurora Borealis rushes to him wherever he is and bathes him, his sleigh, and the Eight Flyers in its dancing light, and then they may take as long as they wish with their deliveries. They may fly for days or months while Time takes a holiday.
    To those in the world, of course, Time does not stop, and so to them it appears that Klaus’s work takes no time at all. Toys are simply there, under the tree or in stockings on Christmas morning. Only a very special person, one who is almost an Elevated Spirit already, may see Klaus or his reindeer on Christmas Eve—and then only as the barestflicker that teases their imaginings. Charles Dickens was such a person, as were Clement Moore and Mr. May—but once again I’m getting ahead of this chronicle.
    On this memorable Christmas Eve the Eight flew to the last village and, for the first time in his life, Klaus delivered his toys without the least worry about how long it was taking. But he also found some houses that had no chimneys or smoke holes at all, just small pipes in their roofs. And so he was forced to put his toys by the sides of doors, as he had done of old—which had led, he remembered uncomfortably, to Rolf Eckhof’s thefts.
    When all the deliveries had been made, a novel and enticing idea came into Klaus’s head. “It’s been a long night, I know,” he said to Dasher and the others. “Still, I wonder if anyone might care to, well, to see something of the world. Time must be stopped at Castle Noël, too, so there’s no need to hurry back.” And then all his eagerness came tumbling out. “I’ve heard there’s an ocean and I want to see if it’s true! And are there really places where there’s always snow—and places where there’s never?”
    Well, you know how it is with Klaus’s enthusiasms. It’s best not to stand too close when they occur, because they’re as