Page 10 of Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions

Velveteen stopped outside the Workshop and waited. Waiting came easy to her now, even though it never had before; she rather thought that she could patrol forever in her current state, sitting on rooftops for hours or even days as she waited for a crime to be committed, without ever getting restless or bored. Of course, that was never going to happen, since Santa was never going to let her leave the Winter: she was going to be captive to the cold until her term of service was up. The small part of her that was still warm enough to worry wondered whether she would be given back her flesh and blood when her service ended, or whether he would send her to the Spring still frozen through.

When she had agreed to serve the seasons, she had promised to give each of them a fair chance at winning her over. She was starting to realize that they had never promised the same to each other. If Winter wanted to make her constitutionally incapable of giving her allegiance to someone else, she couldn’t stop it. She wouldn’t know where to begin.

She had expected this to be easier. She had expected it to be brutally hard, but she had still expected it to be easier. She had expected to be among friends, in a body that had a heartbeat, not frozen through and alone.

The Workshop door creaked open, and an elf appeared. He had the pointed green hat of a senior plaything engineer, and the anxious expression of a man who had drawn the short straw and was now being forced to walk straight into a lion’s den.

“Good afternoon, Miss Velveteen,” he said, eyeing first the woman and then the logs. “You got the wood we needed? That was very kind of you.”

“True Christmas pine, harvested from the forest of the dire wolves,” said Velveteen. “They didn’t like me being there. I don’t think they appreciate having their trees taken.”

“No, they never have,” said the elf. He searched her face for signs of amusement, or at least interest, before he added, “There are parts of Winter that can’t be tamed. It’s counter to the idea of the season. It can’t all be toys and hot cocoa and skating with your friends, now can it?”

“I suppose not,” said Velveteen, who was none of those things. “Why do we need to take their trees, though? Why can’t we just leave them in peace? There’s plenty of pine near here, without wolves protecting it.”

“True enough, true enough, but it’s not the real pine if you don’t at least risk bleeding for it. We’ll use this to make things that need spirit, to go to the places where they’ll do the most good. Getting these trees was an act of heroism, even if it wasn’t heroic as you might understand the word.”

Velveteen turned to look at the trees, trying to imagine them becoming building blocks and rocking horses and given to children like she’d been, before her powers manifested and got her “rescued” by The Super Patriots, Inc. There had always been anonymous gifts through church groups and kindly strangers. Maybe some of them had been stranger than she could have dreamt at the time. She wanted to be happy to be helping those children. She wanted to be delighted to have made their lives a little brighter.

All she felt was cold.

“Do you need me to help you get the logs inside?” she asked. The elf shook his head, expression losing the slow ease that it had been acquiring. He was remembering what she was. He was remembering that here, in Winter, she was more weather than woman. “Good,” she said, and snapped her fingers.

The snow reindeer dissolved where they stood, creating shallow snowbanks that would soon blow away. The logs and the sled remained.

“Thank you again,” said the elf.

“I do what Santa commands,” said Velveteen, and turned to walk away. Her feet left no dents in the fresh-fallen snow. She might as well never have walked there at all.

Behind the elf, the door opened again, and another elf stuck her head outside. She had a red hat, and bells on her braids. “Is she gone?”

“She’s gone,” confirmed the first elf, turning to face his colleague. “I know we’re not supposed to think ill of Santa’s choices, but I hope she doesn’t stay. She’s too cold for this Winter.”

The second elf, who had been there longer, and had lived through more Spirits of the Season than she cared to think, nodded. “She belongs to an earlier time. Now come on. Let’s get these logs inside.”

There was always work to be done, in Winter. It helped to prevent dwelling on things that weren’t as pleasant as the process of building toys.

* * *

Velveteen had no other chores to do: no trees to fell or snow monsters to fight. She made her way back to her little house on the outskirts of the Village, which would never feel like home, but at least felt like a place where she wouldn’t have to endure the stares of the elves or the cold regard of the Snow Queen, whose mild dislike of the animus seemed to have blossomed into full-blown hatred somewhere between Velveteen’s arrival in Winter and her attempts to serve the season properly. It would have been easier to endure if Jackie had been around, but Vel’s so-called friend was still absent, and her parents wouldn’t talk about her.

At least she still slept. She might not have a heart, and she might not be alive in the classical sense, but she still got tired, and she was still capable of sleeping. If she hadn’t been capable of sleeping, she wasn’t sure she would still have been sane. Not that she was entirely sure about it anyway. She was a woman made of snow, living in a world that bowed and danced at her command. If that wasn’t the definition of some sort of breakdown, she wasn’t sure what was.

She waved her hand over the cutting board on her table. Carrots and parsnips and turnips appeared, all of them made out of snow. She sighed as she picked up the ice-bladed vegetable knife that rested next to the board. She hated root vegetable night. The snow roots would taste the way she thought they should, but they would still be nothing more than frozen water, melting on her tongue. She missed chewing. Out of all the things she’d ever expected to miss in her life, she had never thought she would have to miss chewing.

She was dicing the snow carrots when a voice at her elbow said, “You should really cut away from yourself. Cutting toward yourself makes it more likely that you’re going to get hurt.”

Velveteen yelped, dropping the knife, and whirled to see a pale, dark-haired girl in a white dress standing behind her. The girl was wearing a wreath of candles around the top of her head, and their warm, golden light filled the room with dancing shadows. She was lovely, in a fragile, porcelain angel sort of way.

Velveteen scowled at her.

“Lucy,” she said, trying to pack as much irritation and disdain as possible into that single syllable. Years of practice had made her an excellent packer. “What are you doing here? I got Santa his Christmas pine, just like he asked, and I told Mrs. Claus I wouldn’t show up for another community skating night. Once was enough.” Snubbing she could have handled. The running and screaming had been a bit much.

“Oh, no, it’s not about the trees, you did a great job with the trees,” protested Lucy. “It’s not about the skating, either, even if I do think you should give them another chance. They just didn’t expect the big snow grizzly bear, that’s all.”

“It’s not my fault that they’re short-sighted.” Velveteen knew, distantly, that she should have felt bad about frightening the elves. But regret and shame both lived in the heart, and she didn’t have one of those anymore. If Winter didn’t want her terrifying its permanent residents, then Winter shouldn’t—in its manifestation as Aurora—have taken her heart away.

“I guess,” said Lucy. Then she sobered, looking at Velveteen with eyes that were older than the face around them, and asked, “Vel, do you know what time it is?”