Mother Christmas Returns
photography by Bo Willse
Chapter 1: MISSING
What’s more, she forgot her brooch, the one with a picture of her mother’s mother, whose name she never learned. Her mother had died early, but she knew the picture was her grandmother and that’s all that mattered. She came from somewhere, too.
It was with that realization that she landed her sleigh at the Pole with a thud, knocking into its heavy metallic core. And the thud may as well have been her heart, because that’s how it felt after leaving him, Nicholas. The sleigh stopped and she looked down at her gloves. He knew exactly how to hold her hand. She remembered how the last time he held it was as they sat by the fireplace their last night together. She could have sat there forever next to him, staring into the bright coals. But her sleigh had been fixed. She had to go.
That memory had barely settled in, and her feet had barely planted on the snowy ground, when at once the voices and questions came pouring in. Elves from all corners, frantic and frazzled with Christmas so close. “Ms. Claus!” they cried. “Ms Claus!” Within minutes her sleigh was surrounded by her helpers, asking, pleading, trying to hug her, failing to give her space. It was a lot. The scale of it all. And her crash in Monkton, Maryland that waylaid her for weeks, special as they were, left her in the fits of a backlog on all fronts. As she watched their eager eyes filled with mission and purpose, she felt an immense guilt that all she wanted to do was hop on the sleigh and go back to Manor Mill. In moments, her head was full of nothing but the present, and the memory of the Miller, of Nicolas, faded just as fast.
It seemed improbable to Mother Christmas that she had unexpectedly onto the Miller’s House just a year ago.
Christmas came and went. And as expected, because Ms. Claus was a relentlessly hard worker, as was everyone around her, that particular Christmas went flawlessly, like all before. But no one slept and the elves struggled more than ever, and, worse, a weighty sense of incompetence filled her like smoke up a chimney. There were plenty of hands, but not enough of the right hands at the right time. The muscle was there, but not the bones. They were exhausted by it all, and she could feel the joy slipping. Stacks of files and boxes and parts and what was once a “happy mess” the day after Christmas – the kind of mess that reminds you of the wonderful work that had just happened and the satisfaction of it all — lay untouched for days, heaps and piles and narrow paths between supplies and materials and half-made toys for unfulfilled dreams and lists that got skipped inadvertently. It was hardly a happy mess, and that, too, weighed on her heavily.
In the end, it was the magical “Traveler” that helped get the sleigh to fly again.
Meanwhile, the Miller, in Monkton, MD, was grumpy as could be. And Manor Mill, the building, felt just as grumpy, as if its three stories of brick and stone were a cold wall around his broken heart, and, perhaps, vice versa. He stared forlornly at the wheelwright’s “traveler”, a magical instrument that ultimately fixed the sleigh that sent Mother Christmas away, that opened up the sky to her, that saved Christmas. He remembered the glow, how her whole face lit up with relief as the sleigh nudged its way off the ground slightly, as if an invisible wire between her and the sleigh and her destination had all been connected and was coursing with energy suddenly, an electric fuse that emanated with a buzz. Even he could feel the pulsing in the air. He had not experienced magic before. And her smile illuminated everything around her, and illuminated him, and it was all a delight. But when he replays that very moment, which he now has turned over many, many times, he imagines, and wants to believe, that he saw just a twinkle of dismay as she realized that the very solution they had both been working so very hard for was now set to divide them. He, of course, felt the loss immediately.
The neighbors could tell he was out of sorts, with no apparent explanation, though naturally the younger children understood what happened right away.
“He loved her!” said a small girl, holding her mother’s hand on their way to pick up a bag of grain.
“Loved who?” The mother replied, smiling.
Nicolas read the letter from Mother Christmas often.
“The beautiful woman who was in the house!” she said, pointing to the Miller’s House, which had not a single candle burning and looked nearly abandoned. There were footprints in the snow and nothing had been shoveled away from the walk.
This was not the first time the mother had heard talk of a “woman.” This mysterious person had come up enough times that there was chatter now amongst the local social group who met for tea in the parlor of The Monkton Hotel.
“You keep going on about a woman!” the mother pressed, dusting off the dry flakes of snow on her daughter’s cap. “Yet, I’ve not once seen her! Tell me more.”
Slightly exasperated, the daughter shrugged. “She wasn’t here long. She wore lovely clothing. And she was even on the roof!” The daughter realized for herself how this sounded, but continued. “I never talked to her. She seemed to be like a ghost. A bright glow around her. Like she was lit up!”
It was all too fantastical for the mother, but this storyline had been corroborated by the other mothers who were listening more closely to their children who had started to sneak over to Manor Mill to catch glimpses. None of the adults had seen anything other than the Miller walking back and forth and many visited Manor Mill multiple times to see if it was simply a matter of timing.
“And so what happened to her then?”
The daughter stopped and held her mother back, turned to the house, looked up to the sky and said quietly. “Well. She left.”
They stood there in silence, the mother canvassing the sky trying to see something, though she had no sense of what she was looking for. She caught herself moments later, shaking herself out of it. “I see. Well, if you’re worried about her, or I suppose if you want her to come back, write her a letter, why don’t you? I’d like to meet her.”
The Miller appeared out of the front door. “I’m closing up now.” He said gruffly, clearly unhappy to see them. “We close at half six,” he added, as if he needed to be even clearer.
Mother Christmas was wiping down the rails on her sleigh, still out of sorts, lit by the enormous moon above, night shadows everywhere.
“She’s still punchy,” said one elf, looking through the window at her from inside.
“I tell you. Everything changed when her sleigh broke down,” interrupted Mirth, hopping from the sofa. “That’s what my cousin Merry says, at least.”
“We can’t have another year like last one,” said Star authoritatively, though realizing he had little to offer.
“Look. Another letter.” Star pointed at it as it came out of thin air. He held it in his hand as he walked to the big pile of letters that had been forming all year. “These all seem to depress her these days,” she sighed. “And this one’s from some place called Monkton. Why do I recognize that name?”
“Monkton?” said Mirth. She raced over to Star and grabbed it out of his hand. She turned it over, but her excitement dimmed quickly. She had hoped to see the handwriting of a man, of the Miller, but it was just a child’s. “Huh,” she uttered. She carried it over to the enormous pile of letters that was now overflowing off the desk and watched it slip to the bottom, like an errant wisp tumbling down a mountain.
Mirth flopped back on the couch. It was November now and they had barely gotten started.
Outside, Mother Christmas just stared blankly at her sleigh, lost in thought. She had to go back to see him. For months she had also been reaching for a brooch that wasn’t there. One of her reindeer stomped a hoof, gathering purchase, as if it understood. She stared deeply up at the sky, the stars infinite and bright against a perfect midnight blue sky, the moon as bright as it could be. She asked, as if she were speaking about someone else: can Mother Christmas live this alone? Can she bear it?
Chapter 2: Return
By now, few were coming to visit the Miller, and if they did, it was purely transactional. A pound of rye. A bucket of horseshoes. A new runner. Some timber. He took the money and nodded a thank you, but largely had stopped talking, too. The days had once again grown shorter, but they seemed as long as ever to him and the cold felt oppressive. It had been nearly a year since the visit and the few slivers of evidence that she had even been there were nearly gone – the small pile of parts he repaired on the sleigh in a container up in the attic; the logs and ashes swept up from their time by the fire; the Christmas tree and ornaments mulched. If it hadn’t been for the single letter he received from her, it would never have happened at all. He looked at her letter every day and worried it too would one day disappear.
He walked over to the pit to the tailrace where he helped pull the sleigh out and tried to imagine the scene again, her walking over to him in a state of despair, even panic, at which point he had little sense of why, or how, or even when she was. She just appeared.
He looked down into the pit, and there he saw a glimmer, reflecting off an enormous moon (“The biggest of the year!” a farmer pointed out that morning), something metallic. His heart skipped as he walked around the pit trying to get a better handle on what he saw. There it was! He quickly hoisted himself over the pile-ons and climbed into the pit. At his foot was a piece of jewelry, a brooch, with a thin golden chain. He put it in his pocket, quickly climbed back up and nearly ran to the Miller’s House to see it in better light.
It was not much to look at – plain and gold, slightly bigger than a coin. He carefully lifted the lid open to find a faint picture of a woman who, by all measures, was not Mother Christmas, but was clearly the same person. He felt a chill run down him. She saw her in there, and his heart lit up.
She could have sworn she saw the sleigh lift at that moment, which was odd as she and only she knew how to control it. From time to time it might move on its own – when she laughed out loud or felt a burst of pride from her team. The sleigh was intimately connected to her psyche. But in this case, neither had happened. She was as glum as ever, dismissing her half-baked plan to visit Monkton and retrieve her brooch, and to see the Miller.
And then it moved again, and when she touched the side – worn paint on a flat black wood – she could have sworn it felt warm. She stared at the sleigh, wondering.
——————————
Of all the emotions that Mother Christmas knew well, one that was not familiar was nervousness. But that’s how she felt, landing her sleigh on the flat snowy area behind Manor Mill and the Miller’s House. She arrived late in the day, but the darkness of the evening seemed to be coming fast, the overcast sky hanging heavy and thick. She felt like she was intruding, an uninvited guest, also something that did not feel familiar. As her sleigh came to a stop, she regretted coming at all. She glanced around looking at the mill and the water wheel which seemed stuck in place, as if it hadn’t turned for a full year. If it weren’t for the muddy tracks in the parking lot, she’d have thought the mill had been abandoned. “This is stupid,” she thought.
She walked past the house, wondering how out of place she must look with her bright red dress and furry white shawl. It wasn’t close enough to Christmas; there was still a month to go. She walked slowly past the house, which was dark and unkempt. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to be noticed. Leaves were still piled around the basement entrance, blown in from months of fall breezes that ushered in the wintery air.
Recommitting to her mission to retrieve her brooch, which had been as close to her as anything she ever owned, she took more deliberate steps down the short hill between the Mill and the house. Finding her brooch gave her reason enough to make the journey, she decided, and as she thought where it might be, she wondered if the Miller had ever found it or seen it, or ever noticed it. Her thoughts drifted back to the Miller as she tried to imagine the sleigh, the crash landing, her embarrassment.
The Miller saw her before she saw him, and it took him some time to process the image as he watched from the darkness of the house – this woman dressed in a magnificent red, a snow white shawl, walking along a muddy lot. He watched her peer into the pit of the tailrace where her sleigh had gotten stuck, and his stomach tightened as his breathing quickened slightly. He did not realize he was holding the brooch in his hand, and he had no sense that that was the ostensible purpose of her visit.
She checked the barn, peaking in the window. Tools and equipment were strewn about, a thin layer of dust on most everything – nothing had been touched for some time. She saw pieces of a few sleighs, boards piled up, and then she noticed the traveler, hung up away from it all, and, unless her eyes were deceiving her, without dust at all, as if it had been the one thing that had been cleaned up. She rapped on the window, already certain no one would answer. It was at this point she wondered what exactly she should do next.
Reluctantly, she walked to the house. She knew, or she worried that she knew, that the Miller was lonely and sad, that perhaps she was his answer to his loneliness, and she knew that was impossible. She could never take someone with no magic to the North Pole. She was not here to mislead him, but she also wanted to see him and deep within her she felt she needed him, too. She stood still for a moment, torn. She walked past the house, still dark, unaware that upstairs the Miller was watching her, who was equally uncertain as to what he should say. That he missed her terribly? That he’d been out of sorts since she left? Was that okay?
She knocked on the basement door, expecting silence. Instead, after a few moments, the door opened and she faced the Miller. He smiled at her, and she returned the smile. They hugged, and he invited her in.
Chapter 3: Homeward
Meanwhile, Merry the elf continued to mope, unaware of what was happening right outside of the wood’s edge. Ever since Mother Christmas left last year, Merry knew something was wrong.
“Well,” said Tinsel, who lived next to Merry in the woods of Monkton. “We know she’ll be back next year! And we’re about to head up to the North Pole so we’ll see her then, too”
Merry, uncertain what to do with Christmas at stake.
“I know,” replied Tinsel. “But something just doesn’t feel right. I haven’t seen Mother Christmas this out of sorts in years and years.”
“True.”
They sat beside each other, the barn in the distance dark against the sky, barely used since Mother Christmas flew off last year in a whizz of light. The water of Charles Run babbled quietly and the smell of saturated earth permeated.
“Christmas is going to be a disaster this year. I’m surprised we even pulled it off last year.” Merry slumped further.
“I know. But we all just have to step up, like we always do!”
He fetched her some tea and before they said much of anything, he handed her the brooch. “This is yours.” She nodded gratefully, and as he handed it to her, he immediately felt something leave him as well, some kind of spiritual energy, best as he could describe it.
“Yes,” she said. “I came back. I can’t make my Christmas journey without it.”
“I know.”
She looked at him quizzically. She had forgotten the connection he had made with her.
The Miller felt embarrassed that he had so little to report. Nearly a year had come and gone and he could summarize it all in just a minute or two. He grew anxious at the prospect of not having much to talk about, so he asked her if she’d like to go see the river – he had planted a few things that he hoped would come up and he had spent a lot of time in the Faerie Trail behind the barn, expecting at any point to see Merry and Tinsel. “I don’t know why I think they live there,” he said to her.
Merry and Tinsel have lived in Monkton and have been moping ever since Mother Christmas left.
She didn’t respond. In fact, Merry and Tinsel did live in the Faerie Trail and always had. Most of the elves spent their lives all over the world bearing bits of magic and antics wherever.
They walked toward the river and sat next to each other on a bench, staring at the leafless trees and listening to the river. The silence between them was comfortable as the river’s continuous sound filled the void. The Miller, for his part, felt like he had just woken up from a long slumber.
He turned to her, “So you’re okay then? Everything is okay? The sleigh?”
“Yes,” she said. “I think so.” But she knew that was a lie. She wanted to tell him more, about how she couldn’t keep up anymore, how the world had gotten too big and too demanding, and how the elves could work and work and work but they too were falling behind. She had no sense for what she meant when she said, “I need a better system.” She almost said that to herself, but he heard her and just nodded.
After a few minutes, he stood up and took her around the barn to the trail. They walked slowly. “Sorry,” he said, stepping over a fallen branch. “Just haven’t had time to do much more than plant a few things.” This was also a lie. The Miller acknowledged to himself that he had had plenty of time this year as he turned down one social event after another. The Monkton community, especially St. James Church, had always supported and included him and there were always happenings at the Monkton Hotel. Mother Christmas knew this, too.
And then! Tinsel and Merry saw them, disbelief turning into wild excitement as they burst out of the woods and over to Mother Christmas and the Miller. “You’re here! Mother Christmas! You’re here!” They glanced back and forth at their surprised looks. And while neither Tinsel nor Merry knew exactly why it was so important that Mother Christmas and the Miller were together and reunited, they all could feel a heavy weight had just been lifted. “And you have your brooch! We were all wondering how you’d make Christmas happen again without it.”
“Yes,” she said. “The Miller found it and held onto it for me, thankfully.” She turned toward him and smiled. “But I must be going now, and I’ll see you back at the North Pole.”
“Yes!” exclaimed Merry and Tinsel in unison. This thirty seconds of joy may as well have been weeks in their eyes.
They walked together out of the woods, past the barn and up behind the house where the sleigh was. It shifted a bit on its own, as if eager to get on its way.
The Miller could sense Mother Christmas was deep in thought as she stared at the ground while they walked, so he left her to her thoughts and enjoyed the crisp winter air and Tinsel and Merry bounced around them.
Mother Christmas was, in fact, deep in thought. There was something so different about the Miller, like he possessed some kind of magic, too, that he could fix the sleigh; that he understood The Traveler; that he watched her fly off without a second thought; that he could consider elves with hardly batting an eye. She and he were connected somehow, and she wondered why it had taken her so long to realize.
She looked down at the brooch and back at him and stepped into the sleigh.
“Do you need my help?” The Miller asked calmly.
She had not planned on asking, but she found the question easy to answer. “Yes,” she replied gratefully. “To the North Pole. I need your help. Can you come?”
The Miller stopped and looked at her. He too had no trouble answering.
“Yes,” he said. “Of course I will.”