Sara sat on an ice flow in the middle of nowhere and felt the tears freeze on her face. No she couldn't cry - what good would that do. She was a kitchen elf for heaven's sake; she should be in her nice warm corner of Mrs. Clause's kitchen finishing up the gingerbread for Christmas. It was Christmas Eve and the gingerbread wasn't finished, but here she sat feeling sorry for herself with no one to rescue her, and no one to blame but herself.
She pulled a piece of gingerbread from her apron pocket and the rich small transported her back to this morning. She had just pulled a pan of warm fragrant gingerbread out of the oven when Jared, the stable elf, came rushing in.
"Sara, Sara, I need your help."
He sounded so worried and so upset that she had immediately dropped everything to go help him. Never thinking to ask what he needed help with, especially when there were dozens of stable elves to help in the stables. Why would he need to come drag a kitchen elf out on Christmas Eve morning? But she hadn't asked - more fool her. Maybe she had missed something - maybe if she went over the events of the day she could figure it out. Maybe…..
The sky was a dimly lit glow when Sara awoke that Christmas Eve morning. Upon opening her eyes she gazed at the fading blanket of stars with a smile and spoke the magic words she did every morning during the holiday season.
"Wish I may
wish I might
For Peace on Earth
this Christmas time!"
Then she scooped up a handful of magic dust that lay on her dresser and scattered it through her open window, before retreating downstairs to begin the day in Mrs Clause's kitchen. Today they would be baking the gingerbread while Santa's little elves worked tirelessly in the workshop and stables in preparation for this evening's annual journey.
Mrs Clause was humming cheerfully when she entered the kitchen and Sara happily went to work by her side, mixing and rolling dough, cutting cookies, not to mention sampling the goodies. A cook’s prerogative, Mrs Clause always said with a smile.
“We’ve but a busy day ahead of us this day, little Sara,” Mrs Clause was saying. “Christmas is such a wonderful time, but it’s now it is always so busy! Even here in our little village it has become such a tiresome time of year. Santa does love to bring cheer to all the boys and girls each year but,” she paused as her face grew sad, “it seems they have lost the art of appreciation and value of gifts and giving. It saddens me that Santa and the elves go to all that work when everyone has so little gratitude these days.”
Sara was sliding the trays of gingerbread into the oven, taking in the spicy fragrance and nodding in agreement when she had heard Jared’s voice calling frantically from outside. Knowing she didn’t have time for this today, she flung open the door impatiently, but stopped in her tracks when she saw Jared.
Jared had a very worried look on his face. When Sara questioned him about what was wrong, he would only grab her hand and tugged her to the main stables, where several elves were making ready for the big night. The giant sled was waiting just outside the other main door, clean and shining for the great journey; and those reindeer selected to pull it were being given extra portions of special vitamins and supplements with their regular morning meal. All except one were eating heartily and with vigor, knowing that they were going to need the extra strength and vitality. The one deer that refused to eat anything was Prancer, who was very empathic and could feel the strong negative vibrations emmanating from the southern regions. This affected him so much that he couldn't eat, he couldn't drink and refused to exercise.
"Maybe you can come up with something from the kitchen to give Prancer so that he will eat. He is one of the head reindeer and the only one of two who knows by heart the entire route we are to follow tonight. As we need two head reindeer, we don't have enough time to train another to replace Prancer. It's important that things go according to plans tonight because there is a general negative change on the Earth and Santa, as chief representive of love, giving and sharing, needs to be very present in all those places where this negativity is omnipresent."
Sara thought for a moment, and remembering her little wish that morning, said, "The one real thing that could change things on Earth is Peace. This reminds me of a beautiful dove I once befriended. I named him Peace, but he flew away with his beloved and I never saw him again. If only he would come back with his fellow doves; he could join the sled team on its rounds around the globe."
As if in answer to her plea, a great fluttering of wings was heard in the distance.
All the elves stopped what they were doing and moved toward the stable doors to investigate. Sara stayed near Prancer because she felt that’s where she was needed. The fluttering of wings faded away and a single dove flew into the stable toward her. Sara’s heart gave a hurried prayer of thanks as she held out her arm for Peace to land there.
Instead of landing on her arm, Peace flew towards her head and started pulling at her hair with his feet. He wanted Sara to follow him, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Gladly, Sara followed her feathered friend outside to see thousands of doves. They literally covered the trees. Her heart knew everything would be perfect now.
She didn’t see the rock, or the person who threw it, but she saw a single dove fall from the cedar tree to her right. She took a few steps toward it, but didn’t need to get to close to see the poor thing was dead. Sara didn’t know what to do, but in the background she heard mutterings. Peace landed on her shoulder as she heard the talking behind her grow louder. She wasn’t paying attention to what the elves were saying.
She felt something hard hit the back of her head and whipped around. All the elves had rocks and stones in their hands and had evil looks upon their faces. Sara didn’t know what to do.
Sara stood there, with her mouth agape and a look of bewilderment on her face. She had never before seen an elf misbehave in such a manner, especially so close to Christmas morning. What could she do? What was going on? She stood there for what seemed forever, trying to make sense of the events taking place in front of her. Nothing came to mind, except…maybe….
Maybe Santa has an answer! Sara looked around for Jared and when she spotted him across the snowy hill, she was thrown deeper into disbelief. What in the world was he doing joining in on these nasty games? She had wanted him to go with her on her quest for Santa. After all, she knew Santa would never believe what she herself was having a hard time believing, even though she was watching it with her own two eyes. Surely Jared knew how important today was; what in the world is he thinking? Not wanting to waste anymore time, Sara turned and ran, hoping to find Santa near by.
She called out, "Santa, Santa?" yet there was no reply. She covered every inch of the property, going in and out of all Santa's Workshops. Within each building was complete silence; there was not one good elf to be found anywhere, much less Sir Clause himself.
Not knowing where else to go, Sara hurried on back to the kitchen. Ms. Clause would know what to do and, Sara knew she still had ginger cookies to bake. Bursting through the kitchen door, Sara exclaimed, "Ms. Clause, hurry come look! You won't believe what is going on and I can't find Santa anywhere."
Ms. Clause smiled brightly at Sara, "What has you in such a frenzy Dear Child?"
"Please, Mrs. Clause everything is going is wrong!"
"What do you mean? I don't understand?" she says and as she turns around Sara can see that Mrs. Clause is making mutated gingerbread men.
This must be a mistake she thinks, but Mrs. Clause has a knife in her hands and is now hacking them up and there is an evil glint in her eyes.
"No, not you Mrs. Clause, not you!"
"Please," she screams, " someone help me, get me out of this madness, out of this dream."
Sara ran, and ran fast using her elfin speed to escape Mrs. Clause who was now chasing her, knife held upright with evil laughter curling from her lips. Sara ran in fear of hurting Mrs. Clause for she truly knew this would pass and that Mrs. Clause would perhaps find herself in a perilous situation if she continued chasing her.
That’s when it happened, when Sara took that leap from the ledge, knowing Mrs. Clause would in no way attempt to follow. She did it to protect her, to keep her from following her, hoping she would turn back to the kitchen and focus on tormenting more gingerbread men until this evil spell, whatever is was, somehow lifted from this precious village.
But the icecap she landed on broke off and fell 100 feet down, isolating her in a chasm where no one can hear her and where no one ever ventures to possibly find her. The tears began streaming again when she remembered.
Earlier that week she had gone down the Main Hill to gather some nuts and berries to make her secret concoction, when she had a most peculiar experience. An oddly shaped tree, covered in snow, kept moving against the wind, not with it, and seemed to watch her every move.
Her senses were off that day and she couldn't tune into it either, and that set her in fear too, she remembered. She even fancied the thought that it might have been Jack Frost disguised as the tree, but she laughed it off because Sir Santa always said Jack Frost was a myth, but perhaps he said that to keep his elves out of fear.
If so, maybe Jack switched the magic dust in her satchel...
As Sara felt more and more that there was no hope left, not for her, nor for the Earth, she heard a whooshing sound from right over the opening of the chasm. Something white squeezed itself inside and made a beeline for her. At first she thought she was having fever dreams, but as she felt the white land on her shoulder, she was sure what it was.
"Peace! You survived!"
The dove nodded.
"How did you find me?"
Peace said something in the only language he knew, but Sara had no problem understanding him. He said, "Peace can find you anywhere, if you're open to receive him".
"Peace, you can't stay here. You'll die if you do, just as sure as I will because I can't get out. And you're needed out there, you've seen yourself what's become of the Earth. Could you do me a favour? Could you find an elf who's still good and let him know to find those of Mrs. Clauses cookies that I put a special spell on before everything happened, and give them to Prancer the lead reindeer, and also tell this elf where I am? Please?"
It wasn't until then she saw that Peace had something with him. He had held it in his beak, and put it down in order to speak. Now he opened her satchel and added something to it.
"What are you doing??"
Again, Peace put down what he had brought with him, and in his language said something that Sara interpreted as, "Someone whispered to me that Jack indeed switched the magic dust in your satchel, unbeknownst to you. I'm now adding a kind of dust to it, that will not only undo the bad effects of Jack's dust, but give it the same good effects as your ordinary dust has."
"Peace, in my satchel it won't do any good right now. What you need to do is take some of it with you and spread it over the world. Please, do it for me, will you?"
"I'll take a little with me, yes, but not much, because you'll soon be able to spread it yourself", came the reply.
"H....h.... how?"
But before she knew it, Peace squeezed himself out of the chasm and disappeared. Sara felt that also her hope was fading away again.
Suddenly Sara heard voices from outside the chasm. Elf voices! Could it be? Then she heard the sound of tools working their way to open the chasm, and more and more light shining in. Finally Peace appeared and with a magic swish of his wings made her so small, that she could sit on his back. Then he flew her out of the chasm, gently put her down and brought her back to her ordinary size. And there stood all the elves, smiling as gently as before.
"You did it! Thank you Peace!"
As soon as she could, Sara ran off to the stable. There was Prancer, along with the other reindeer, back to his normal self. Then she felt Peace land on her shoulder and pinch her gently in her ear. As she looked his way, she saw that the doves that had survived were circling around them and the reindeer, as the elves made them ready for the big ride.
"I thought they had all died, except you?" Sara asked.
"Peace and his friends can never die", Peace answered. Then Sara noticed three birds that had more shiny feathers than the others.
"May I introduce Faith, Hope, and Love. They are my closest family. Along with me, they will especially guide Prancer tonight. The others will be there too, but we will take special care of Prancer and help him spread our gifts over the world."
And instantly the birds each took their place in a formation around the reindeer, and on the sign from Jared, they took off. Sara remained still for a long while after they left, until she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Mrs. Clause, who also was back to her normal self.
"Sara, thank you so much for bringing everything to order here again. If you hadn't sent Peace, I think I would have gone totally insane."
"Don't thank me. Peace did more than I expected. He saw what was needed. Peace can find you anywhere, if you're open to receive him."