Chapter 5: Open Delivery
December 25, 1826
By the time the sleigh crested the aurora veil above Dondavar, Santa could feel it—this was going to be the smoothest delivery yet.
Below, the icy plains shimmered under starlight. Ahead, the winds bent gently to make room for the sleigh’s enchanted passage. The reindeer glowed faintly with the red and yellow shimmer of fairy dust, sleek and well-conditioned from a season of training.
Santa adjusted his fur-trimmed collar and glanced to his left.
Tilla Snowberry, his helper elf for the year, was already ticking off the first entries on her clipboard. Meticulous, unflappable, and just a touch sarcastic when the moment called for it, Tilla had been awarded the co-pilot position after flawlessly organizing the Autumn Sleigh Packing Drill.
“Northwest passes ready. Portal sacks primed. Snacks in the side compartment,” she said. “Try not to get stuck in anything this year.”
“I make no promises,” Santa chuckled. “Especially not with this dust in play.”
He tapped the small tin of Green Fairy Dust secured in a bandolier pouch—alongside the usual Red, Yellow, and the time-warping Blue. This was only the second year of full-time use of Blue Dust during Christmas Eve. For the elves back home, only 24 hours would pass. But for Santa—and for Tilla—it would stretch to a full 60 days of delivery time, compressed into one enchanted night.
They had food, maps, supplies, and a slate of rest stops carefully built in.
It was time.
Santa lifted the reins, the reindeer stamped once in rhythm, and the sleigh vanished into the clouds.
Tight Spaces in Tallinn
The first problem came on Day 2 of their journey, in snowbound Estonia. Santa hovered above a narrow rooftop chimney and frowned.
“Didn't this one used to be wider?”
“Nope,” Tilla said. “Last year it was decorative. This year it’s mostly theoretical.”
A snowdrift gusted over the sleigh. Santa drew a pinch of Green Dust, sprinkled it over himself, and with a mutter of focus, slipped feet-first into the flue pipe. It was barely wider than his boots.
Tilla watched through the snow as her boss—still a full-sized man—transformed into a bendable ribbon of green shimmer and vanished down the chimney.
Moments later, her ear-link chimed.
“All clear. Delivered the toy boat and marble pouch. Back out in a breath.”
She turned to the portal sack and summoned the next load. “One down. Four million to go.”
Message in Amsterdam
In Amsterdam, a familiar face awaited them: Bromley Longbranch, the field elf stationed there since 1821. He stood on a narrow canal bridge, blinking up at the sleigh through a steady snowfall.
Santa landed lightly behind him.
“No chimney anymore?” he asked.
“Gone,” Bromley said. “And the front entry’s been fitted with something called a spring lock. I don’t trust it.”
Santa unclipped his magic key and passed it through the lock—click. The door eased open without a sound.
Inside, a child slept beside a glowing hearth. Santa placed a hand-carved sleigh and a painted puzzle ball into the stocking. Tilla stepped just inside to re-check the address scroll.
Bromley raised an eyebrow. “You brought her? This is your excellence elf?”
“Promoted this year,” Santa said. “Keeps me on time and on task.”
“She’s got that look,” Bromley nodded.
The Stovepipe Spiral
On Day 12, in Stockholm, they encountered a house with no doors open and a chimney pipe the size of a flute.
“Too small,” Tilla warned. “We skip it, log the attempt, come back later?”
Santa just smiled. “Let’s see what the green stuff can do.”
He doused himself generously and dropped into the pipe like a trail of thick smoke. Tilla waited. A minute passed. Then her ear-link buzzed.
“Inside. The firebox was cold, thankfully. Stockings found, toys placed. I’ll exit through the back stovepipe.”
When he reemerged, smudged with ash and trailing glittering dust, Tilla had cocoa waiting in a copper mug.
“Nothing singed?” she asked.
“Only my pride.”
A Rest Stop in Iceland
By Day 20, they took a break at an elven refuge carved into a hillside near Akureyri. Snow whipped across the rocks, but the hut was warm and quiet inside. Tilla unrolled her maps; Santa dozed for two hours near the hearth.
It was here they reviewed the Upcoming Entrances List and debated chimney accessibility codes.
“Next year,” Tilla muttered, “I’m pushing for an international stocking registry.”
Santa smiled. “You just want the data.”
“I want sanity.”
Kyoto Caution
In Kyoto, observer elf Ayame Windthistle met them behind a temple courtyard. She bowed politely and pointed to a rice-paper panel.
“No chimney,” she said, “but this entry has a proper keyhole.”
Santa touched his magic key to the panel’s edge and whispered, “Christmas opens all.”
The door slid open in silence. Inside, the child’s stocking was pinned to a bamboo screen.
As Santa set down a delicate origami set and a glass fox charm, Ayame whispered to Tilla, “Your first run?”
Tilla nodded.
“Sixty days, one breath,” Ayame said. “It’s a long way to sunrise.”
The Hummingbird Pipe in Prague
By Day 35, they reached Prague—and the narrowest challenge of the year.
“This isn’t even a pipe,” Tilla said. “It’s a brass straw.”
“I see the stocking on the file,” Santa said. “We’ve got to try.”
Tilla pulled up a profile. “Clockmaker’s son. Tools, trains, and tickers.”
Santa coated himself in a whisper-thin layer of Green Dust, focused, and began the descent. He vanished like a trailing wisp, slipping into the brass tube.
Inside the house, observer elf Mirek Sharpnose had been standing watch. The kettle on the stove shook slightly.
Moments later, its lid flipped off and Santa emerged from inside it.
Mirek blinked. “Did you just... enter through a kettle?”
“Let’s not speak of this,” Santa muttered. “It’s been a long month.”
The Puppet House in Lisbon
In Lisbon, on Day 44, Santa and Tilla found two children sleeping in the parlor, one clutching a ribbon-wrapped bell.
The hearth was sealed. No flue. No window gap.
But a small wood bin on the side wall had a curious latch.
“Looks like a door,” Tilla said.
Santa drew the magic key, touched it to the brass bolt, and whispered the phrase.
The wall creaked open—just enough for a shimmered, Green-Dusted Santa to slip through. Inside, he left a puppet stage with tiny costumes, and a note: "Bravo to the bell-holders. Slept right through it."
New York Brownstone
On Day 53, they arrived at a newly modernized brownstone in New York.
“No keyhole, no vent, no open cracks,” Tilla said. “This is just rude.”
Santa pointed to the stovepipe.
“I’ve seen worse,” he said.
The reindeer huffed steam as Santa shimmered downward. Tilla watched the sleigh and scanned the sky—no trouble.
Inside, Santa placed a model ship labeled Intrepid into a waiting stocking.
Before departing, he left a small note by the breadbox: “Window? Please? Yours, Santa.”
Back at the Village
When the sleigh finally touched down at the Sleigh Docks, the sun was just rising behind the hills. In Santa’s Village, only 24 hours had passed. To Santa and Tilla, it felt like two months of constant motion, tinkering, eating from supply packs, and catching 20-minute naps.
Rudy Winters guided the reindeer away. Trever Fleetfoot ran up to help unload the empty sacks. Bernard stood nearby with a mug of cider and a raised eyebrow.
“Well?” he said.
Tilla stepped off first, brushing snow from her shoulders.
“Seventy-six Green Dust entries. Fourteen key uses. Three reindeer naps mid-air. One kettle incident.”
Bernard looked at Santa.
“Kettle?” he asked.
“No comment,” Santa muttered.
Tilla handed over her clipboard. “Next year, we might want a lighter version of the Green Dust. The stickiness can be... awkward.”
Bernard laughed. “We'll see what the alchemists can whip up.”
Santa raised his mug. “To open doors. And the elves who find them.”