Weihnachten 5.2: Lanabelle
Lanabelle stood out her window in the main room, frost dappled the edges of the windows while she watched heavy wet snowflakes fall. Already collecting in large mounds, she studied them a moment before casting her eyes up to the sky stars lights choked out by the storm clouds. After a long moment finally blinking she noticed her fingers tapping on the book she was holding of old Weihnachten stories. Not the fun stories, like the one about a fuzzy blue man learning the true meaning of Weihnachten, or the one where some poor sap becomes the jolly gnome Kras Krunkle. Or the inexplicably popular story of a lone man stopping a heist in a massive wizard tower. Some even argue it's not a real Weihnachten story. Not even the story of the wizard apprentice who set up traps in his master's tower to stop a duo of water elemental thieves. No these were tales of “Der Entführer” the evil spirit that manifests from lack of cheer, the greed of man, and hate for all things whimsical. A somewhat morbid fascination left over from Lanabelle’s childhood, a part of her deeply wanted to see if the portraits and drawings of Der Entführer were accurate but the rational part of her knew that seeing such a sight meant most assuredly she wouldn’t see the next morning.
Slipping the book back on the shelf. Lanabelle went to the shelf next to the hearth taking down a plate and sat it down on the table, slowly rotating it left then right until she lined the pattern up with some spot only she saw in her mind, nodding at it and then returning to the shelf taking down a large clay jar. Once the jar was sat down and the lid taken off she slowly pulled out five malformed ginger bread cookies, each only having phantom suggestions of limps and a head, and misaligned features of buttons and eyes, along with crooked smiles. She’d never been the best at baking. Or at least making the baking look pretty. They tasted fine, better than fine if Dornar was to be believed and he wasn’t much of a liar. Lanabelle stacked cookies, what she saw as perfectly onto the plate, adjusting the pattern to align with some arbitrary space in her mind.
After making sure the fire in her fireplace would last the night, Lannabelle put out all the candles but the one placed at her bedside. Laying in half covered she settled in for one last story for the night, the story of the year Der Entführer won his fight with Kras and spring never came that year. Or so they say. Hard to believe the world would keep on going if spring never happened. Crops, animals, and of course people would die, they’d run out of supplies. It of course like all tales such as this was embellished, and purely coincidental. A slightly longer Winter and a spike in temperature when Spring finally arrived gave people the illusion of no Spring.
Lanabelle yawned and looked at the candle seeing how low it had become she sat at the book side and rubbed her eyes. Blowing out the candle she drifted off to sleep, dreams were not far behind. Or rather nightmares.
Lanabelle found herself standing in a field. Wheat blown sideways by blustering wind frozen in place within a perfect shell of ice. Making the plants look as though they were captured perfectly in glass. The air is like soft music between the whistle of the biting wind, and the tinkling of the glass like ice. The sharp crack of the stems as she moved through adding notes of disjointed calamity, like a singular untuned string on a lute.
Cresting a hill she saw the truly awful sight, men and women all in fieldhand clothes. The woman in dresses that stopped just at the ankle, men in overalls. The ice on the poor unfortunate people was less perfect than that grass and the wheat, besides the shell of ice, windblown globules of icicles that look more like limestone formations than ice, had it not been transparent.
Thunderous steps in the distance made the frozen wheat sing like a million windchimes. Thinking quickly Lanabelle hid behind a larger woman’s dress and out of sight. The sounds of the footsteps never seemed to get closer or farther away. Risking a peek she saw the towering form of Der Entführer. Standing well over two men tall, moving in hitching and jerky motions. The monster’s head twitched cocking from side to side then almost fully around like an owl before settling on one of the ‘ice sculptures’. Even though it couldn’t smile, not in a real way, Lanabelle could feel it gathering a sick kind of glee as it slammed down on one of the poor trapped souls. The ground shook under her feet with the impact.
Back in her bed her eyes shot open as the ground rumbled again. She looked around the room as a small shaft of light barely cleared the door frame from the hallway where the low burning fire provided just enough light to not be in pure darkness but deep pockets of shadow still hung in the corners and the spaces beyond larger furniture. Lanabelle took up a candle and made her way slowly towards the main room, not lifting her feet to keep from making noise, she didn’t know why but something in the back of her mind told her she very well should be more silent than a mouse. Maybe she was afraid of disturbing Kras Krunkle and his delivery of gifts, another part of her was afraid something more sinister had awoken her away from sleep.
Checking the table in the main room, the cookies and milk remained untouched. Frowning slightly she looked at the glass, the liquid suddenly rippling.
She ran to the window, seeing a shape running across the field just behind her home, that led to the woods. It looked like a man running for his life, confusion became fear when a towering spindly form busted from the trees behind him. “Der Entführer” Lanabelle mouthed, knowing that man was likely doomed, but she couldn’t pull herself away from watching. Giving chase was a much shorter form with a tall pointy hat and a glowing red staff. Kras Krunkle and Der Entführer eternal battle and she was about to see it. But a fourth shape sprang from the woods, a shape of something tall with large ears. “Hase des Wandels?” Lanabelle pressed her head closer to the window confused, as the new shape launched past Kras and landed a kick to Der Entführe skull hard enough to make it tumble, the monster landing causing the man running to stumble and fall. She had no way to help besides hope in Kras winning.