Joyous Noel, Part 2

This Flickerfox thing won't let go.

My generation, via Nightcafe. Beware of Flickerfoxes bearing gifts.

My brain squirrels have decided that they like the Flickerfox thing we’ve been doing, so here’s another Christmas story for y’all.

Enjoy!

The tree lights in the living room burned LED cool and patient, blinking languidly like sleepy stars over a battlefield of wrapping paper and ribbons. Everyone else was asleep upstairs: his wife, his son with his new console still plugged in, his daughter curled around the kitten that had tumbled out from beneath the tree as if it had always belonged to her.

He sat alone on the sofa, one last mug of hot chocolate cooling in his hands, wondering — as parents always do in such moments — whether his children were happy, and whether “happy” was enough.

The clock on the mantel ticked toward midnight, and somewhere far above the roof the sky began to shift, the auroras woke, their green fire stretching and yawning across the heavens like great, lazy brushstrokes of light.

Old stories, half-remembered from tales he had heard as a boy, stirred in him … fox-fire, his grandfather had called it, the northern sky set alight by a fox racing across the snow, sparks flying from its tail. The thought made him smile, but it was a tired smile. His life now was lists and logistics — measuring batteries before Christmas, hiding receipts, making sure there were no sharp edges on anything that might hurt small hands.

The house hummed quietly with the usual noises, appliances and machines — but under that the purr of distant dreaming. The father sighed, gently, then stretched, too creaky, too soon.

Mid-stretch, the tree lights flickered once, then the cool modern light went to richer colors of golds, greens, and reds. The father blinked and glanced toward the outlet, wondering if the string had finally given out, when a new light moved at the edge of his vision — neither the soft glow of bulbs nor the clean, cold glare of a phone screen, but something wavering and warm.

A fox, in green and gold finery, stepped out from between the branches of the Christmas tree as if the needles were curtains in a forest and the living room were only a small clearing in a much larger wood. His fur shimmered like a candle flame seen from the corner of the eye, never the same color twice: russet to ember-red, ember-red to gold, gold to a strange, sharp white that tasted of snow and stars. His boots moved across the hardwood floor without a sound, and though the father glanced quickly toward the fireplace and the rug, there were no tracks, no scattered pine needles disturbed. Only the impression that something wild had entered the room and politely wiped the snow from its shoes.

The father froze — his first, automatic thought was of the children upstairs: were the doors closed, were they safe? His second thought, quieter and ashamed, was that he had perhaps finally fallen asleep sitting up and was now dreaming. The fox saw both thoughts flicker across the man’s face and smiled, a sharp, amused smile that showed too many clever teeth. It was not a cruel smile, but it was not safe either.

“Don’t worry,” said the Välkkykettu, his voice low and warm as a log falling into place in a fire. “They’re asleep, and he’s already been here.”

Before the father could ask who “he” was, a second presence brushed the air behind the first. Mrs. Välkkykettu, warm in green velvet and gold silk, stepped lightly from the tree’s shadow, her eyes glowed amber, soft and steady, and where her husband crackled like kindling catching flame, she seemed to shimmer like coals under ash, quietly waiting. She slipped her arm through the Välkkykettu’s as naturally as if the living room were their own and inclined her head in greeting to the bewildered man.

“You’re very tidy,” she observed, glancing around at the piles of sorted wrapping paper, the carefully stacked boxes destined for recycling, the toys arranged just so. “And very careful.”

The father swallowed. “I have children,” he said, as if that explained everything. Perhaps it did.

“Children,” repeated the Flickerfox thoughtfully, tasting the word like a spice. “Yes. Two of them. One with a new machine that will show him worlds without ever risking a scraped knee; and one with a kitten and a list of rules about where paws may, and may not, go.”

The father bristled a little, the way people do when a stranger speaks too accurately. “They’re good kids,” he said. “They follow the rules. They’re safe.” He heard the defensive note in his own voice and cursed it, but he loved those children down to the worn places on his palms from assembling their toys. He would build fortress walls of stone and concrete around them that reached the sky, if he could.

Mrs. Välkkykettu’s eyes softened. “Safe is not a bad word,” she said. “But it is not the only word, nor even the most important one.”

Her husband stepped closer to the tree, tipping his head to study the ornaments. One paw lifted, claws sheathed, and he tapped the side of a glass bauble that held a tiny rocket inside, its paint chipped from years of being unpacked and repacked. The ornament swung, casting small comets of reflected light across the ceiling.

“You wanted to build these once,” the Flickerfox said conversationally, not looking at the man. “Real ones. Not just a model on a string.”

The father flushed. There had been a day, long years past, when he had nearly set the back-yard fence on fire with a homemade rocket cobbled together from pipe and stubbornness. The memory came back with the sharp scent of burnt grass and his father’s shout. He had laughed through the smoke back then, already planning the next launch. Now he flinched from the idea of his own son doing the same thing.

“That was before,” the man said. “Before I knew how many things can go wrong.”

“Ah,” hummed the Välkkykettu, and deep green sparks flickered through his fur before settling again. “And now that you know so much about what can go wrong … you’ve forgotten what can go right.”

The Flickervixen walked over to the sofa and, with the regal dignity of a queen, sat gracefully beside the father. He could feel her presence, a warmth that smelled faintly of sandalwood, hearth-smoke, and something like glitter — if glitter had a scent — while she regarded him with that particular patience only mothers and old foxes possess.

“You meant to help her with the rocket,” she said softly. “The little one. The kit who put the box on the kitchen table and looked at you as if you were the keeper of all fire.”

The father’s chest tightened. The toy rocket set still sat unopened in the hall closet, tucked there with good intentions and postponed promises. Between work emails and laundry and “Maybe tomorrow, punkin” … the days had slipped.

His daughter had stopped asking. Lately she had been content to scroll through videos of other people’s experiments, far away and safely on a screen.

“I was tired,” he said. “I’m always tired.”

“We know,” said the Flickerfox gently from beside the tree. “He’s tired, too.” He nodded toward the roof, where somewhere far away a sleigh might be cutting through fox-fire skies. “The world is heavy. Someone piled too much on your back and forgot that you were once a child standing at the edge of something frightening and wonderful.”

Mrs. Välkkykettu’s whiskers twitched with a small, sympathetic smile. “You are not being scolded,” she added. “We don’t scold for wanting safety. We simply … remind.”

“Remind me of what?” the father asked, though he thought he already knew.

The Välkkykettu’s eyes glittered merrily. “That fire is not only something that burns you if you’re careless,” he said. “It is also something you learn to carry.”

The father looked toward the hallway, where the shadows pooled like deep water. “You’re going to leave them something,” he said slowly, half to himself. “Like in the stories. A map written in charcoal. A tin full of broken things. A test.”

The foxes glanced at one another, and their shared chuckle rippled through the air, soft and expectant.

“We already have,” Mrs. Välkkykettu said. She flicked an ear toward the tree skirt. “Look.”

The father set his mug down, hands suddenly unsteady, and knelt by the tree. The pine needles brushed against his sleeves, and the scent of resin rose, sharp and old. Beneath the lower branches, where he could have sworn there had been only the children’s gifts and a few stray ribbons, lay a small patch of soot. In the center of it, clear as a fingerprint on frosted glass, was the faint outline of a paw.

Beside it, folded into a tiny square, was a scrap of paper. He unfolded it with careful fingers. The paper crackled like something that had traveled a long distance for a long time, and on it, drawn in firm, cheerful strokes was a map. There were no labels, only a handful of familiar shapes: the outline of their yard, the suggestion of a fence, and beyond that a crooked line of trees. A single crooked X marked a spot somewhere just past the fence, the ink blotted as if the cartographer had been laughing.

“What is it?” the father asked.

“A question,” said the Flickerfox.

“A promise,” said the Flickervixen.

“A risk,” retorted the father, sharply.

At that, the Flickerfoxes smiled, gentle and wild.

He looked back at them, his heart racing in a way it had not since he was a child about to do something deliciously inadvisable. “You expect them to go out there alone?” he demanded. “In the cold? In the dark?”

Mrs. Välkkykettu tilted her head. “We expect them to wonder,” she said. “To ask. To negotiate. Perhaps to drag you out of bed at a ridiculous hour and insist that you fetch a flashlight and a coat. We expect them to learn that darkness is not a wall, but a room.”

The father opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again. He saw his son, thumb flying over buttons, eyes glazed with the pale light of a screen. He saw his daughter, shoulders hunched, watching other people launch rockets and rescue kittens; her own rockets grounded for lack of time and courage. He saw himself, holding both of them back with hands that meant only to shield, not realizing they had also been blocking the door.

“What if they get hurt?” he whispered.

The Välkkykettu’s eyes softened. “They will,” he said. “Eventually. Everyone does. A scraped knee. A burned finger. A heart that breaks when a rocket fails or a friend leaves. That is the mark of living, not of failing.”

“And you will be there,” added Mrs. Välkkykettu, “To give them a horizon. To show them that needs, like flames, must be tended to burn bright.”

Silence settled again, but it was a different kind of silence now — one that buzzed with possibility. The father sat back on his heels, the map resting in his hand like something fragile and blazing.

“Why me?” he asked suddenly. “Why this house? There are so many children.”

The Flickerfox’s grin turned positively wicked. “You built your first rocket from scraps,” he said. “You nearly set the fence on fire. You once dismantled a radio to find out where the voices lived, remember?”

The memory startled a laugh out of the man, surprised and raw. “I got in trouble for that,” he admitted.

“Oh yes,” the Flickervixen purred. “And yet here you are, a father who builds and fixes and hides magic under the tree. You understand both danger and wonder. You are exactly the sort of grown-up who needs reminding that you are still allowed to run with the fox-fire now and then.”

A soft sound came from upstairs — a child turning over in sleep, or perhaps the kitten adjusting its tiny kingdom on a pillow. The father felt the weight of his fatigue, but under it, something lighter stirred. The thought of standing in the cold backyard with his children, breath fogging in front of them while they followed a ridiculous little map to nowhere in particular, did not feel like another task. It felt like a door he had forgotten was there.

He looked up to thank the foxes, but the room had changed again. The tree lights had resumed their gentle cool blinking, ordinary and harmless. The air smelled only of pine, hot chocolate, and the faint, familiar dust of a lived-in house. The sofa beside him was empty. For a moment he wondered if his mind had simply run away with the stories he used to like, trying to save him from the heaviness of adult midnight.

Then he noticed the glitter on the carpet.

It was not the usual aftermath of school crafts and holiday cards. This glitter trailed in a neat line from the tree to the hallway, as if a tail had swished along, marking a path. Near the coffee table, a single russet hair gleamed — too coarse for the kitten, much too long, and when he touched it, a violet spark crackled free to drift gently through the air before fading.

On the mantel, propped against a framed school picture, lay the toy rocket kit he had forgotten in the closet. It was not wrapped, it was simply there, box slightly askew, as if someone had dragged it out with casual impatience and set it where it could not be ignored.

A note rested on top of it, written in a looping, unfamiliar hand on a card that smelled faintly of sandalwood and spices: YOU PROMISED.

He swallowed hard, feeling heat behind his eyes. “I did,” he whispered to the empty room.

The clock chimed midnight. Somewhere far away, bells began to ring and reindeer pulled sleigh-runners across quiet roofs. In the deep forests of the world, bottle-brush tails thumped against frozen earth in time with the heartbeat of children who would wake to find not only the gifts they had wanted, but the questions they had needed.

In this house, on this night, a father stood in his living room and made a small, dangerous decision.

He took the rocket kit in one hand and the crooked little map in the other and carried them upstairs. He paused at his son’s door, listening to his soft breathing, then opened it very carefully, slipped inside, and propped the map beside the game console.

At his daughter’s room, the kitten stirred at the foot of the bed and blinked up at him, its eyes catching the hallway light with an odd, deep gold for just an instant, as if someone else were looking out through them and approving.

He set the rocket box on her dresser, then he stood there for a long moment, watching her sleep, realizing that letting her burn a little brighter would mean accepting that sometimes she might get singed — or that she might singe the edges of the world.

“You don’t have to be safe all the time,” he whispered, more to himself than to her, “Just be brave enough to learn.”

Downstairs, unseen, something laughed softly, like frost tinkling along a windowpane. Far above the roof, the aurora’s green fire twisted, a fox-tail painting the sky. In the ancient forests at the edge of the world, the Flickerfox and the Flickervixen danced, not safe at all, but so very needed.

And in one small house, on one quiet Christmas night, someone who had once been a boy with a dangerous rocket and a head full of stars remembered what it felt like to move, to wonder, to listen when the fox-fire called.

~Ian Mc Murtrie

If you enjoy these little scribblings, share freely; but please don’t steal them. I wrote them, so please make proper attribution.

Merry Christmas, gentle readers!

Ian

EDIT: Read the first part, here.

Ian