Sitting at Mathilda’s kitchen table, chewing her food, Lacey could feel the silence of the house around her stretching into an endless void. She forced herself to keep chewing mechanically, the normally rich food suddenly bland. She wished there was someone she could talk to. It didn’t even have to be particularly meaningful. She’d be fine with some average small talk, just to break the silence hushing in her ears.

  Outside, patchy sheets of clouds were stretching across the sky, and the ivy leaves outside the kitchen window stirred in a soft, uncertain breeze. Now and then the sun dimmed, as a cloud drifted over it, then brightened again as it moved on.

  The sunshine felt as fragile as her mood. The image of Peter’s face the instant he spotted her and Cynthie coming towards him yesterday returned unbidden. At the time she’d wanted to giggle at the look on his face as two love-interests converged on him. Now, she was starting to wonder.

  Everything had seemed fine right up until that moment. The other day in the snowdrop glade he’d said that he didn’t like Cynthie that way. Had that changed after their evening in front of the fire, when Lacey had allowed him to see a bit of her past? Maybe he’d been hoping to speak to Cynthie alone, but then Lacey had been there right by her side.

  Restless, she picked the notebook up again, it falling open to the page where Albyrne’s four-leaf clover lay. She took a deep breath, studying the clover. Some luck wouldn’t be amiss today. Gently, she lifted the delicate leaves by its stem, revealing the circled words underneath. Abominable snowman.

  And again it came down to that. Was the leaf trying to tell her something? She laid it down underneath those words, rolling them around in her mind and hoping it would shake something loose.

  In the distance she heard the Polar Express’s whistle sounding. Bethy did say it would stop every day at the village now in this last week before Christmas. It was also Bethy who had said that Jinxy was curious about it, and sympathetic. No-one else believed Jinxy would’ve gone anywhere near the snowman. Lacey’s own experience of the ground shaking under its giant tread confirmed the truth of that. But, what if you were a curious and fanciful elf?

  And then something did click, Bethy’s words of the previous night ringing out in her mind. Jinxy would rather see the abominable snowman than get on a train, she said. Although, she and Peter had checked the beginnings of the Wasteland. But, that wasn’t the only way to reach it.

  The spot where they’d found the fragment of Jinxy’s coat was not only near the start of the Wasteland, it was pretty close to the beginning of the Forest March trail too. From what Lacey understood, it ran pretty close to the Wasteland at its onset, which was also where it ended if you walked the full gamut. On one side, it skirted by the Wasteland as it headed off and away over the snow-enchantment fields. On the other, it ran in-between the forest and Wasteland as it headed back into the village.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Jinxy could conceivably have been walking the trail, heard or seen something intriguing and then left it to enter the Wasteland from one of the side angles. Although she and Peter had checked a good portion of the beginning stretches, they had by no means reached far enough to eliminate all of the side angles too.

  Her breath caught and she sat back, the full meaning of her realisation blooming in her chest. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. That was classic Sherlock Holmes. Jinxy was in the Wasteland.

  Instinctively she wanted to get up and run to tell Peter. But, she stopped herself. He was busy with important work. If they didn’t fix the toy-parts storage, it could imperil the Earth-children’s Christmas. Besides, she wasn’t sure how he currently felt about her.

  She fidgeted with her pen, drawing a leafy doodle around the words ‘abominable snowman’, fighting the rush inside her yelling that she had to get out there right now. She had to handle this logically. It didn’t help if she rushed out there and then got into trouble herself. Then the village would have two missing elves instead of just one.

  Supplies. She needed supplies. Flipping to a clean page, she began writing a list of items that could take her through a few hours in the Wasteland. Food, water, warm clothes, an extra blanket for Jinxy if she needed it.

  Since Peter was too busy to help her with the investigation, she’d take care it. He wasn’t needed.

  ??

  Lacey stepped out of the house, wriggling a bit to adjust the backpack over her shoulders. It hung heavy on her, but it was nothing she couldn’t bear for a few hours. She’d decided that she’d enter the Wasteland from the Forest March trail herself. Only, she wouldn’t leave from the snow-harvesting section, which was the closest to Mathilda’s cottage; but rather from the forest side, which was closer to Jinxy’s cottage and also to where they found the scrap of Jinxy’s coat.

  She began walking, pulling the thick, winter hat she’d picked up from Mathilda’s coat closet by the front door, down and tighter around her ears. The sky was still gradually changing, the clouds drawing thicker and beginning to turn grey. That was okay. She didn’t plan to be out for more than a couple of hours. She’d be back before the snow began falling, hopefully with Jinxy by her side. The air, which was still slightly warmer, didn’t feel very menacing either. She’d be okay.

  Passing by Jinxy’s place, she could see a section of the toy-parts warehouse further into the village. It had some oddly festive-looking striped safety tape wrapped around its perimeter. Elf figures were moving around it, carrying buckets, pushing large nailed up boxes on rollers, and climbing up and down ladders. Her heart gave a little tug and she watched for a moment, hoping for a glimpse of Peter. He didn’t show. Probably inside, she guessed.

  A rush of applause drew her attention. Nine ladies in red, green, and gold were finishing off a can-can on the stage Icy and his mates had constructed in the village square. They must’ve rolled in earlier on the Polar Express. A crowd of elves thronged around it, rapturously watching. She had a feeling that the can-can wasn’t strictly suitable for Christmas, but the elves were having fun, so what did it matter.

  She smiled and began heading out to the Forest March trail, past the bushes where they’d found the scrap of Jinxy’s coat. Hopefully she’d have some good news by the evening.

  ??????