Joyous Noel, part 3

The last part, I think.

Mine, via Nightcafe. I’m still a thug, rather than an artist.

The first two stories I did about the Välkkykettu flew out of my fingers, as I tried to keep up with the images darting through my mind, not knowing where the stories were going — only that I needed to get them on the screen before they went away.

This one — this one I sat down and deliberately plotted. I had an idea of what I wanted to say, and what I needed to write about to say it … but I’m not as happy with this one. It doesn’t have as much of the Old World, Northern European Fairy Tales feel as the first two.

Ah well. I suspect that my brain-squirrels have ADHD’d, and I’m about to get intensely focused on something entirely different.

I am mildly astonished that the Välkkykettu have taken off like they have — “Neo-folklore” is untapped territory for me — but I’m grateful none the less.

I’d like to point out that Sam Robb came up with the Välkkykettu, but they so very well illustrated a point I have been making for years — the point that childhood has become too safe, too nerfed — so I grabbed the Flickerfoxes and ran with them.

And you have read the results on these pages. Part 1 is here; and Part 2 is here, if this is your first time reading about the Välkkykettu.

Raconteur Press will publish a children’s book about the Flickerfoxes for Christmas 2026 — in the meantime if you enjoy these little scribbles, feel free to share them.

When you do, please remember to attribute them to me, of your kindness.

The snow had stopped an hour before dawn, the way it sometimes does when the night has said all it needs to say. It lay clean and unbroken across the yard, a held breath of white, waiting to see who would be first to disturb it.

Inside the house, the heat ticked and sighed. The last of the holiday lights glowed softly, reflected in a window where the dark still pressed close. A mother sat at the kitchen table with a chipped mug warming her palms, listening to the layered quiet: the house settling, the dog dreaming on the rug, the slow, dependable rhythm of children asleep down the hall.

She had done everything right this year. That was the troubling part.

Lunches packed with careful balance. Permission slips signed early. Helmets buckled. Doors locked. Calendars color-coded. She had smoothed the world as best she could, sanding sharp corners down to something safe and manageable. And yet, sitting there in the blue hour before morning, she felt the faint ache of something untested, like a muscle never quite used.

Outside, the northern sky stirred. Pale greens, soft blues, and rich violets unfurled above the trees, slow and deliberate, as if someone were drawing breath and exhaling color.

Fox-fire, her uncle had called it. Not magic exactly, more like motion remembered.

The aurora brightened, and with it came a sense — not of being watched, but of being noticed.

The dog’s ears twitched. The lights over the sink flickered once.

From the shadow near the back door stepped the Välkkykettu.

He did not crash into the room or announce himself. He simply arrived, fur shimmering between ember and frost, as though the air had briefly decided to become clever. His boots touched the tile without sound. His smile suggested he had already found three ways to get into trouble and was deciding which would be the most fun.

A second presence followed, warm as lamplight. Mrs. Välkkykettu emerged beside him, her eyes steady, her expression fond and knowing. Where her husband flared like a struck match, she glowed like coals in a hearth.

The mother stood, heart pounding, one hand already reaching for the hallway without quite knowing why.

“They’re sleeping,” said the Flickervixen gently, reading the movement as easily as breath. “Dreaming of things they have not yet dared.”

“And of things they have,” added the Flickerfox cheerfully. “You’d be surprised.”

“I must be tired,” the mother said, because that was the safest explanation. “I haven’t slept properly in weeks.”

“Oh, we know,” said the Välkkykettu. “You’re very good at holding the world together. It’s why we came.”

She crossed her arms, more to anchor herself than to defend. “If you’re here to tell me I’m doing something wrong ...”

“Not wrong,” corrected Mrs. Välkkykettu. “Complete. Yet … incomplete.”

Her gaze drifted to the counter where a row of identical water bottles stood, labeled neatly with names. To the shelf where projects were stacked in matching bins. To the door where coats hung in size order.

“So careful,” the Flickervixen murmured. “So clean. You’ve made a harbor.”

“A harbor keeps ships safe,” the mother said.

“Yes,” replied the Flickerfox. “But that’s not what ships — or children — are made for.”

The aurora flared brighter, its light slipping through the window and striping the floor. The Flickerfox padded closer, grinning at a pair of muddy boots tucked almost out of sight.

“You remember,” he said lightly. “The day you climbed the quarry fence. The way your hands shook — not with fear, but with wanting.”

She did remember. The scrape of stone against skin. The shout from below. The way the world had widened at the top.

“That was different,” she said. “I didn’t know better.”

Mrs. Välkkykettu smiled. “You knew enough.”

Silence settled, thick but not heavy. The foxes waited, patient in the same way that mountains and forests are patient.

“What do you want?” the mother asked at last.

“To leave a question,” said the Flickerfox.

“To loosen a knot,” said his wife.

“And maybe make a mess?” she guessed, weary and wary.

They laughed: soft, pleased laughter, like snow gently sliding from a branch.

“Only the useful kind,” said Mrs. Välkkykettu.

The Flickerfox flicked an ear toward the back door. The latch rattled once, then stilled. On the mat below it lay a smear of soot and, pressed into it, the clear shape of a paw. Beside that mark rested a small object wrapped in brown paper and twine.

The mother knelt, fingers trembling as she picked it up. Inside was nothing remarkable at all: chalk, a stub of candle, a length of red string.

“What is this supposed to be?” she asked.

The Flickerfoxes smiled, silent and entirely unashamed.

Up the hallway, a floorboard creaked. One child turned in sleep, murmuring something about snow. The mother felt the familiar urge to gather everything close, to seal the house against whatever prowled at the edges of the world — even kindly things.

“What if they fall?” she whispered. “What if they fail? What if I can’t fix it?”

Mrs. Välkkykettu stepped nearer, and the kitchen seemed warmer for it. “You will fix what must be fixed,” she said. “And you will let the rest teach them.”

The Välkkykettu’s eyes shone. “Wonder needs room. Courage needs practice. Neither grows amongst perfect order.”

The aurora began to fade, the sky’s breath slowing. The foxes’ forms shimmered, thinning like smoke in cold air.

“Wait,” the mother said. “Why us?”

A wide, Cheshire Cat grin: “Because you know the difference between a bruise and a breaking.”

“And because,” added the sweeter voice, “You still remember how to climb.”

They were gone then. The kitchen returned to its ordinary light. The dog sighed and rolled over. The house resumed its patient hum.

Only the pawprint remained. And the twine. And the chalk, faintly warm.

At sunrise, the children would wake to a yard untouched but for a single line drawn across the snow, leading nowhere obvious at all. They would argue about what it meant. They would pull on boots and coats and call for their mother, eyes bright with the dangerous, wonderful question of why.

And she — standing in the doorway with the cold on her cheeks — would hesitate only a moment before stepping out with them, knowing that safety was a gift she could give, but becoming was something they would have to earn.

Far away, in a forest older than fear, two russet shapes would dance in joy and exultation.

They are not gentle, nor safe those clever, chaotic fox spirits.

But they are necessary.

Because childhood is not meant to be preserved, like a scene in a snow-globe. It is meant to be lit, tested, and allowed — must be allowed — to move, to learn, and to burn.

~ Ian Mc Murtrie

And now — on to other projects!

Merry Christmas, Gentle Readers!

Ian