“If we pull this off, we’ll be rich!” said Roderick the Ruthless.

“Well, upper middle-class at best,” said Twigly.

The two pirates peered through their spyglasses, staking out what would soon be the site of the greatest heist in the history of aerial buccaneering: snatching a sleighful of gifts out from under the nose of the Spirit of Yuletide herself!

Like most pirates you have encountered (though I hope you have encountered very few), Twigly, Roderick, and the rest of Roderick’s crew were a hapless, ramshackle lot, sailing the world in search of riches to pillage and plunder. But unlike most pirates, this particular crew sailed not on the seas, but in the skies, in a flying dirigible called a cloud frigate.

(What is a cloud frigate, you ask? Picture a Goodyear blimp. Now picture its balloon made from animal leather and its gondola replaced with a Viking longship. Now add wooden propellers to the stern and a ballista to the prow, and that’s a cloud frigate. So, really, not like a Goodyear blimp at all.)

The pirate ship hung low in the frosty winter sky, suspended over a snowy landscape blanketed with leafless trees. Several miles away, a quaint hamlet sat nestled in the hills, smoke rising from its handful of chimneys.

“Ensign Twigly,” said Captain Roderick (the Ruthless). “Tell the crew about the Yuletide legend.”

Twigly, a feisty snippen who toted a garish vest cluttered with knives, shook her tail. (What is a snippen, you ask? Picture a cat. Now give it the fluffy tail of a squirrel. Now replace the body with that of a meerkat and the ears with those of a mouse, and that’s a snippen. So, really, not like a cat at all.)

“Tomorrow is the feast of Yuletide,” said Twigly. “It is celebrated throughout all the vast lands of Lurria, including in my home city. When the winter grows its coldest and the nights grow their longest, Yuletide is a festival of light and warmth—a time to celebrate the goodness and joy bestowed by the Sky Father. I have many fond memories of Yuletide feasts from my youth.”

“Yuletide,” scoffed Roderick (the Ruthless), “is a time to profit from the naivety of others.” Like most of the crew, with the exception of Twigly, Roderick was from a people called the Hakiru. A sturdy race from the far north, the Hakiru did not believe in Yuletide, nor in the Sky Father. (Nor in taking baths.) “Tell them about the Spirit of Yuletide.”

“I grew up hearing a legend,” said Twigly, “that in yonder village, and that village alone, a miracle occurs each Yuletide eve. Under cover of darkness, an angel, known as the Spirit of Yuletide, descends upon the hamlet in a blanket of mist. The villagers wake up on Yuletide morning to find their shoes filled with coins and candy, and their hearth filled with produce and freshly baked bread. The Spirit of Yuletide is said to fly on a sleigh pulled by magical reindeer. She comes every year, though no one ever sees her or hears her magical song.”

“Wait a minute,” said a pirate named Bwuifolf as he sharpened his scimitar. “How does this angel of Yuletude get inside people’s houses?”

“Some say she comes through the chimney,” said Twigly.

Bwuifolf scoffed. “What a bunch of asparagus.”

“I happen to like asparagus,” sniffed Twigly.

“I know.”

“Rediculous or not,” said Roderick, banging his axe on the deck, “The Spirit of Yuletide crosses paths with us tonight.”

“Are you sure this is wise?” said Twigly. “To antagonize an angel?”

“I’ve antagonized bears, trolls, dragons, and mothers-in-law,” said Roderick (the Ruthless), “and none of them ever gave me the smallest bit of trouble. Except for the mother-in-law.”

(Roderick towered six foot seven inches, with an axe twice as long as Twigly was tall. He was called “the Ruthless,” however, not because he was ruthless, but because his old navigator, Ruth, had jumped ship six months before, and Roderick preferred “the Ruthless” over “Roderick the Hopelessly Lost.”)

“Okay, here’s the plan,” said Roderick. He looked through his spyglass at the approaching hamlet. “We’ll be over the village in fifteen minutes.”

“Thirty,” said Twigly.

Roderick ignored her. “We’ll rappel down to the town square and take up positions out of sight. Boger, Gammerstein, you’ll stay with the ship. Once we’ve disembarked, ascend to two hundred yards. We can’t risk the Spirit of Yuletide spotting us.” He looked at the others. “The rest of us will lie low. As soon as the Spirit of Yuletide shows her face, we jump her, tie her up, and abscond with her sleigh of loot. Any objections?”

Twigly raised her paw. “I have about twenty-seven and a half.”

“Anyone besides Twigly?” Roderick asked. He had hired Twigly as his new navigator (to replace Ruth) several months before and was still deciding whether he regretted it or not.

No one else spoke up, so Roderick hefted his axe. “Right. Let’s do this. For treasure! For loot! For riches!”

The rest of the crew raised their cutlasses high, echoing the age-old pirate battle cry. “For treasure! For loot! For riches!”

* * * * *

It took exactly twenty-seven and a half minutes for them to reach the village (a fact that Twigly made very clear to the captain). By the time they arrived, the sun had sunk out of sight and the village was completely still. No one stirred in the darkening streets, and the freshly falling snow was unmarred by footprints.

Twigly slid down a rope to the roof of a cottage, where she took up a position on a window ledge overlooking the town square. She watched as the rest of the crew bumbled to find hiding spots. These were bandits and raiders, not sneak thieves. If they weren’t careful, they’d rouse the whole town.

A sound at her back made Twigly jump. “Hey! Sis, look at this!”

Twigly whirled to see two little faces peering at her through the window. They looked to be an 8-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl. Just her luck.

“Shhh!” Twigly hissed, putting a finger to her mouth.

“She talks!” the girl yelped.

“Of course I talk,” Twigly whispered, leaning close to the window so her voice wouldn’t carry. “But you are not supposed to talk right now!”

“Are you one of the Lady of Yuletide’s helpers?” the little boy asked. “You look like one of her helpers.”

“What?” said Twigly.

“It’s the vest,” said the girl, nodding sagely. “Only a Yuletide Fairy wears a vest like that.”

“I’m not—” Twigly paused. “Fine. I am one of her fairies. And you know why I’m here?” She drew her rapier and jabbed it menacingly. “To catch any little girls and boys who are out of bed!”

The kids stared at her, blinking.

“No,” said the boy finally, “I don’t think that’s why you’re here. I think you’re here to measure chimneys.”

“Ours is nine inches across,” said the girl. “I measured it. Twice. Is that big enough?”

“I don’t care about your chimney!” Twigly hissed. “You’re supposed to be asleep!”

The girl yawned. “I . . . am feeling tired.”

The boy sunk down on the windowsill, burying his head in his arms. “But you agreed . . . we would stay . . . awaaake . . . .”

The two children slumped over, fast asleep.

“Well, that was surprisingly easy,” Twigly muttered.

The hair on the back of her neck tingled. Twigly turned and surveyed the village square. One of the pirates, Bwuifolf, lay sprawled in plain sight on the snow-covered cobblestones.

“Of all the carnations of rhododendrons,” Twigly said, hopping off the windowsill and scurrying down to investigate. Bwuifolf appeared to be unconscious, breathing heavily. Twigly shook his shoulder. “Wake up! Wake up, you bag of bran muffins!”

The pirate blearily opened his eyes. “Seven more minutes,” he said in a tired voice.

“You’re out in the open!” said Twigly. “A sitting goose!”

“Thanks for the tip,” said Bwuifolf, rolling over. “Wake me when the Spirit of Yuletide gets here.”

Twigly stood and glanced around. She spotted another pirate slumped against the wall of a house, his cutlass slipping from his limp hand.

“Blistering butternut squash,” said Twigly. The Angel of Yuletide must cast a spell on the village before her arrival, lulling every inhabitant to sleep. Twigly felt her arms and legs growing weak. It had been such a long day. When had she last slept? She really needed some rest to think straight. Twigly stretched, then curled up at the base of a tree.

No! She leapt upright. She would not give in! This was a trap!

Twigly fished in her vest pockets for flint, steel, and a piece of rope. As she tied one end of the rope around her tail, she let out a huge yawn. No! Not yet!

As her eyes began to droop, Twigly struck flint and steel to the far end of the rope. Sparks leapt and died, leapt and died.

The echo of a song floated through the night: a women’s voice, singing a soothing lullaby. Twigly’s limbs grew heavier with each phrase.

Finally, the end of the rope began to glow and smoke. The flint and steel dropped from Twigly’s paws, and she collapsed to the snow. The last thing she registered, before surrendering to overwhelming slumber, was the ringing of sleigh bells.

* * * * *

Twigly woke to the pain of burning tail hair.

“Blustering baskets of blueberries!” she screamed, leaping upright and dousing her tail in a snow drift. Discarding the smoldering remnants of the rope, she stuffed the tip of her tail in her mouth, shouting, “Ow, ow, ow, o—”

She froze as she came nose to nose with a reindeer.

(Not literally. It wasn’t that cold.)

Behind the reindeer was another reindeer. Behind that, an intricate sleigh, glistening red. And stepping out of the sleigh, a sack over her shoulder, staring at Twigly in shock, was the Angel of Yuletide.

Seven and a half seconds of awkward silence followed.

The angel wore an elegant silver dress, cascading down her tall figure and trailing behind her, topped with a shawl of finest silk. A hundred jewels glittered on her outfit, from the hem of her dress to the tip of her tiara, scattering moonlight across the town square. She was pristine, an image straight out of Twigly’s childhood dreams. Still, something seemed off . . .

“You look a liddle more like a human dan an angel,” Twigly mumbled past her mouthful of tail.

The angel cocked her head, then looked down at herself, as if noticing that fact for the first time. “Why would you ever think that?”

“Well, you don’t have wings.”

The angel glanced over her shoulder, then shrugged. “I don’t need wings. My sleigh flies for me.”

“You aren’t glowing.”

“It’s not a requirement that angels glow.”

“And you travel at night, when angels travel only during the day.”

“Well, I—”

Twigly drew her rapier. “I don’t think you’re an angel at all! You’re a fraud! A phony! A counterfeit!”

“Shhh! Sshhh!!” The angel put a finger to her lips, looking around the square. A few foxtails away, Bwuifolf stirred and snorted. The angel wet her lips and sang a hauntingly beautiful melody, the same lullaby that had lulled Twigly to sleep. The pirate snorted again, then curled into a ball and fell still.

Twigly could feel the tendrils of drowsiness curling around her own mind. She poked herself with her rapier to stay awake. “You don’t use angelic powers to enchant the town,” she said. “You just use magic! You’re a simple vivamancer!” Twigly pointed at the reindeer. “And I bet you use verbomancy to solidify the air under your sleigh, making it look like your reindeer can fly!” (Vivamancy and verbgomancy are two branches of magic on Twigly’s world. For brevity’s sake, I’ll spare you the details.)

“Well, these are caribou, for starters,” said the angel.

“Caribou, calibou. You’re still a humbug!”

“Okay, okay,” said the Angel of Yuletide, dropping her sack and raising her hands. “I’m not really an angel. Happy now?”

“No!” Twigly said. She plopped down in the snow, feeling a sudden urge to cry. “I—I always thought you were real. I believed in you. I even left my shoes out on Yuletide Eve, hoping you would come in the night and fill them with coins.”

“Wait, what?” said the angel, confused. “Snippens don’t wear shoes. And you didn’t even grow up in this village.”

“I believed anyway!” said Twigly, her eyes finally unleashing a deluge of tears. “And now, what have my childhood dreams turned out to be? Just some rich do-gooder with a diamond-studded dress and the absurdly rare ability to cast highly complex spells in two branches of magic simultaneously.”

“I mean, if you think about it—”

“MY WHOLE LIFE IS A LIE!”

Twigly broke down, dropping her rapier in the snow and cradling her head in her paws, her whole body shaking with convulsive sobs.

After a minute, a warm shawl wrapped around Twigly’s shoulders. The snippen looked up to see the Angel of Yuletide kneeling beside her.

“Twigly, Twigly,” the angel soothed, stroking the fur between her long ears. “It’s all right.”

The snippen sniffed. “How—how did you know my name?”

“You have it engraved on the sword you threatened me with a minute ago.”

“Oh.”

“Twigly,” repeated the angel. “I know how it feels to lose something you once believed in. Life can make so much sense when we’re young: it’s like a garden, where every flower has a purpose. And then one day—we wake up. And we realize the world is a lot bigger and thornier than the garden of our youth.

“But never stop believing, Twigly,” the angel continued. “Never stop believing in something. Because one day, you will wake up again, and realize that the flowers from your youth are hidden among those thorns. And they are more beautiful than ever.”

The Angel of Yuletide stood and picked up her sack. “Follow me.”

Twigly wiped her eyes and followed the angel to the door of the closest house. The angel learned down and whispered into the lock until it clicked.

“So you don’t use the chimney,” Twigly muttered.

The home inside was modest—a single table, three rough-hewn chairs, a fireplace (with a chimney nine inches wide), and a few clay pots for cooking, with the walls lined with barrels of food. A ladder led upstairs to where the family slept.

The Angel of Yuletide reached into her sack and pulled out a series of gifts: a bag of oranges. A sack of nuts. A small jar of spice. These she placed by the hearth. Then she knelt by a row of shoes by the door: a single large pair of boots, and two smaller pairs of sandels, likely belonging to the boy and girl who had encountered Twigly earlier that night.

Reaching into a pocket of her dress, the Angel of Yuletide pulled out two shining gold coins, dropping them into each boot. Then in the sandals she placed an intricately carved whistle and a shining bronze knife.

“Coins for the father, to help him at market day,” the angel said. “A whistle for the boy, to help him call his flocks when they have wandered. A pairing knife for the girl, to replace the sharpened stone she has used all year to cut their vegetables. It isn’t much. But it is what we can do.”

“Who are you?” Twigly said, still standing reverently at the entrance.

“I live in an abbey not too many leagues from here. While we grow most of our own food, we rely on this village for the occasional supplies and for contact with the outside world. Throughout the year, the sisters in our order make gifts as a thank-you, and we gather the surplus of our fields and orchards. Then each Yuletide I deliver them.”

The angel shouldered her sack. “For seventeen years I’ve been the Angel of Yuletide. Before me, there was another, and another before her. When I grow old, I pray the Sky Father will send someone with enough talent in magic to take my place. I believe that He will.”

She opened the door and stepped back out into the snow, singing another line of her wordless lullaby.

Twigly followed, shutting the door behind her. “Why?” she said. “Why do you do this? These people have not asked for your help. You have no obligation to them. Yet you labor all year long, sacrificing your hard-earned food. Why?”

The angel stood still for a long time. Then she turned, kneeling to meet Twigly at eye level, and pointed at the door they had just left. “Do you see that wreath of laurel leaves?”

“Yes,” said Twigly.

“Do you know what it represents?”

“The laurel is a symbol of victory,” said Twigly.

“That is right,” said the angel. “Yuletide is a celebration of victory—not a victory in the past, but a victory yet to be won.

“We live in a world at war. Darkness struggles against light. Death seeks to overtake life. The Tyrant King and his demons wage ceaseless war against the angels of the Sky Father. And sometimes, we wake up and see only signs that the Void is winning.

“But there is a prophecy, kept on ancient scrolls,” the angel continued. “It talks of One who will come: The Lord of the Sun. The King of Light. The Eldest. He will conquer death. He will vanquish darkness. And he will banish the Tyrant King forever. The laurel wreath symbolizes that victory. Is this prophecy new to you?”

Twigly nodded.

“Yuletide, when founded millennia ago, was a celebration of the Eldest’s future coming,” said the angel. “In the ages since, some have remembered its original purpose. Many have not.”

The angel shouldered her bag. “That is why I and my sisters do what we do. We give, because we believe in what the Sky Father has promised to give us.”

The angel tapped Twigly’s chest. “Believe, Twigly. Believe in that promise. And no matter how many other childhood beliefs let you down—including your belief in me—never stop believing in Him. Because one day, you will wake up and realize that your belief has turned the thorniest parts of your life into the most beautiful of flowers.”

Then the angel resumed her magic song, leaving Twigly to ponder her words until the little pirate slipped into a deep sleep.

* * * * *

“Twigly. Ensign Twigly. Ensign, wake up this instant or you’re scrubbing the plank!”

Twigly blearily opened her eyes to see Captain Roderick (the Ruthless) shaking her like a tree in a tempest.

“Your footprints are all over the square, and your rapier is out of its sheath. What happened? What did you see? Did you catch the Spirit of Yuletide?”

Twigly stumbled to her feet. The village square was empty, save for the tracks of caribou feet and sleigh runners. At the edge of the square, the rest of the crew was scrambling up ladders to the cloud frigate hovering overhead. Twigly felt around her shoulders. The silk shawl was gone, but in its place was a bright red scarf, embroidered with laurel leaves.

She searched the frosty, early-morning sky, listening for the echo of a wordless song.

“Well?” the captain repeated. “Did you catch the Spirit of Yuletide?”

“Yes,” Twigly whispered, tracing the pattern on her scarf. “Yes. I believe I did.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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