Polterheist: An Esther Diamond Novel Read Free

what do we do about all these people?”
    “No, our pressing concern is,” Miles said crisply, “where is Santa? I will go find out. You will keep these people entertained.”
    “What?”
bleated my companion. “No! We’ve got to—”
    “That’s an order, Twinkle,” Miles said coldly. “Play something. And
you
 . . .” He looked at me. “Sing and dance. Be merry. Or we’ll have to rethink whether you’re really elf material, young woman.”
    “Now that was just
unkind
,” I said as he walked away.
    “What do we do now?” Twinkle asked with panic in his voice.
    “Steady on, Twinkle. This the moment that every elf is destined to face.” I clapped him on the back. “Today is the day you find out whether you’re really made of sugarplums.”
    “What?”
    “Let’s do another song.”
    He sighed in resignation. “Which one?”
    “‘Twelve Days of Christmas,’” I said decisively.
    The song was interminable, so I figured Miles would have enough time to go out and kidnap a Santa from some
other
store before we finished performing it.
    I started singing the first verse, trying to get the children to join in—and ignoring the groans, boos, and tears that greeted my efforts. Beside me, Twinkle trembled a little, which made him miss some notes.
    The more experienced elves at Fenster’s had warned me
never
to let the line for Santa’s throne get too slow. And now it had been at a complete standstill for a half hour. We were dicing with death.
    “Life is cheap in the throne room,” battle-hardened Santa’s helpers had advised me. “When the first kid breaks formation and rushes for that chair, you’ve had it. Just run for your life—and don’t go back for stragglers. Once a six-year-old with blood in his eye leads the charge, it’s every elf for himself.”
    While singing about turtledoves, golden rings, and swans a-swimming, my wary gaze roamed the crowd, trying to spot the loose cannon, the inevitable ring leader, the child whose patience would snap and lead to a stampede.
    And then it happened.
    The rumble of rebellion started at the very far end of the Christmas queue, among people who were so far from the throne that they were out of my sight line. But I could
hear
them. Oh, yes, I could hear . . . and I felt paralyzed with fear.
    Rudolfo, who was still farther away from us than safety or sense dictated, heard it, too. He stopped his merry little dance and stood straight and stiff, gazing in the direction of the ominous shrieking and shouting.
    Twinkle’s hands froze on the accordion and the instrument went silent. “This is it,” he croaked out. “Here they come.”
    “Rudolfo!” I cried. “Fall back!
Retreat!”
    We heard a long, piercing, horrified scream somewhere at the back of the seemingly endless line of visitors. It was picked up and passed along by others. Within moments, most of the crowd was screaming hysterically.
    “You break right, I’ll break left,” shouted Twinkle, abandoning his accordion lest it slow him down. “Good luck!”
    “Wait a minute,” I shouted back, even as Rudolfo fled the scene. “Listen to that.”
    “Go!” Twinkle gave me a shove.
    The crowd broke at all once, everyone running in different directions, people screaming and shouting.
    Little Jonathan ran straight past me, his face white with fear now. His startled mother lost sight of him, looking around in panic as she shouted, “Jonathan? Jonathan!”
    “They’re not attacking,” I shouted in confusion, clinging to Twinkle’s arm as he tried to escape. “They’re
scared
—or startled.”
    “Who
cares?
Let go!”
    Twinkle threw his whole body weight into trying to break my hold on his arm. I released him, and he flew straight backwards and then hit the floor in an ungainly sprawl. I winced as shrieking children trampled him without hesitation or mercy.
    I leaped out of the path of the stampeding crowd and climbed onto Santa’s throne for safety—which was when I realized that