Epilogue: To Friendship and New Family!

The domain established by the round queen crumbled down all around me-A violent transition from a dream back to reality. The many hundreds of gifts that once formed this castle, stolen from the minds of children, slowly dissolved into twinkling dust, which fluttered around like a magical blizzard.

A slide was in one of the adjacent rooms, which was immediately swarmed by the two guards at the gate, carrying out their former queen.

“We gotta get out of here!” the mouse guy said.

“Don’t forget her!” The turtle guy reminded, tugging the sad looking woman along. “She still has to pay us!”

“Yeah, sure…” the former round queen replied in a pathetic tone. “Take all my money, why don’t you? Wouldn’t be the first time…”

“Is that an offer?” the mouse guy’s eyes lit up with dollar signs.

I could tell she was feeling deep regret after being exorcized of her demon, so on the other side we’d have to give her a little pep talk, and maybe some spiritual therapy. That wasn’t important right then, because the domain was rapidly shrinking to accommodate the actual size of the snowglobe it had been created in.

We all took the slide down just in time, which was a far less aggressive ordeal than the last one they forced me into.

At the end of the slide tunnel we all landed right in the middle of that plush snowball pit. Several children were throwing fake snowballs at us as we made our entrance.

“That’s the evil queen lady and the girl who cut in line!” a boy announced. “Get ‘em!”

Their fake snowballs continued to pelt us until I managed to explain the situation, which further defused the conflict.

“Yalda, there you are!” Yamin ran up to me from the exit of the ginger bread house. Alice was by her side, looking a lot cleaner in a brand new winter coat and clothing. “What happened in there? Alice told me you were going in to deal with some mean elves kicking kids out.”

“It’s a long story.” I gestured to the former round queen, who herself now looked like a tattered mess of old leather and dirty clothes. “She made a domain inside there and was stealing all the children's wishes.”

“It’s true!” shouted the boy who had been leading the snow ball pelting punishment. “That lady told us we couldn’t say anything either or she’d ruin Christmas for everyone!”

“Since we have her captured now…” I turned to face the lady. “Can we get an explanation here?”

“Fine…” she huffed, her body hunched over in a manic slouch. “I grew up rich, okay? I had everything I ever wanted because my father was a great business man. But that all fell apart when he let it go to his head and lost everything in a gamble…”

-ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴏғ ᴍᴏɴᴇʏ ɪs ᴀ ʀᴏᴏᴛ ᴏғ ᴀʟʟ ᴋɪɴᴅs ᴏғ ᴇᴠɪʟs.-

“We got thrown out on the street. This city wasn’t all that great when I was a girl. All I wanted since then was a Christmas as special as the ones my father used to give us, and I guess I got pretty greedy somewhere down the line and wanted the whole holiday all for me.”

Those sorts of desires always attracted demons. People would get jealous of others enjoying the splenders of modern civilization they couldn’t have, and that would be enough to seed a bit of darkness into their souls. After that it was just a downhill slope.

Unfortunately a very common circumstance, but nothing impossible to fix with some TLC from above.

“I’m sorry I caused all these kids pain,” her head fell further downward. “You can take me to jail now.”

“You can’t be arrested for being possessed,” Yamin clarified. “You ‘will’ have to stay at the church for a while, and probably go to therapy too.”

From there, we’d watch her progress closely and make sure she wouldn’t have any lasting effects from her demon influencer. With a clean bill of mental health, she’d then be let out to rejoin society.

“Fine…” she submitted again. “But, I feel like I personally should make it up to these kids somehow.”

Yamin was poking her chin, looking back and forth between Alice and the former round queen.

“Ma’am, may I ask what your name is?” Yamin spoke up.

“Alice Heart,” the former round queen replied.

Suddenly the other Alice present lit up with surprise delight.

“My name is Alice too!” she pointed to herself.

“Well, aren’t you just a cute one?” Miss. Heart kneeled down and took up Alice’s hand. “I didn’t see you in the snowglobe. Did those elves not let you inside?”

“They said that Santa didn’t want a dirty hobo sitting on his lap.”

Yikes… Everyone kinda felt uncomfortable after hearing that. Even the two demi-human guards back in the snowglobe were untightening their collars in unease.

“I’m so sorry they did that,” Miss. Heart said. “I’m sorry to all the children here I wronged. Blame me completely, because I hired them to do this.”

I was kinda’ worried that they managed to infiltrate this event at all, but that was a concern for after this got sorted.

“Miss. Heart,” Yamin started. “This may be strange to request of you, but would you consider adopting Alice?”

“What?!” she uttered softly, tilting her head in confusion.

“She doesn’t have a family out here, and I suppose you don’t either,” Yamin said. “It would be nice for the two of you to have people to spend Christmas with. Plus it might motivate you to work hard for someone else.”

They both were going to be living at the church for a bit, so it wasn’t impossible for them to bond over their circumstances. I didn’t hate the idea.

“Would you forgive me, Alice?” Miss. Heart requested, genuine remorse in her eyes. “I never meant to hurt anyone, but I will do everything to make things right.”

“I forgive you,” Alice said. All the other children were nodding along with her. “If you want to be my new mom, I’d be willing to give it a try. You seem like a nice lady on the inside.”

They both were hopeful this arrangement could work. I could sense neither had a hint of malice or deceit in their hearts, so I was hopeful too.

❄️❄️❄️

Some people from the church showed up not long after the incident and escorted Miss. Heart to get checked up on. She was in good hands, but they had to shut down the department store Santa attraction for now until they could find the real Santa.

Guess I won’t be meeting him just yet…

So, I figured the rest of this night was going to be for taking it easy.

Alice could have gone with them too, but really wanted to stay and enjoy the mall just for a little while longer.

So, Yamin, Alice and I all decided to take a trip to the food court for drinks and snacks to wrap things up. We sat around a big table and enjoyed what was left of the night together.

“Opa!” We all cheered as we tapped our drinks together.

“Alice looks really nice now,” I said, following my statement up with a big sip of orange flavored boba tea. The others followed suit. “You really pampered her up, didn’t you?”

“Oh yeah!” Yamin put down her peach boba and took up Alice's hand and showed off her Christmas themed nails. “I got this girl a manicure, a pedicure, a facial, a haircut… Oh! And we also got spa baths and massages. To top it all off, I took this pretty angel shopping for some nice new clothes and perfume.”

I almost choked on tapioca after she said that. “Holy cow…” That whole time I was going ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah… Wait… huh…?’ “How long was I gone for that you guys did all that?!”

“A while.” Yamin shrugged, probably not paying much attention to time herself.

That was a lot of stuff they checked off regardless-A lot of stuff I would have liked to have been doing too along with them.

“Well…” I puffed up my cheeks and pouted. “Glad you two had so much fun without me.”

“You’re not jealous, are you?” Yamin asked, a little sad at the realization. “We can do it again, you know? I'd be totally down for it!”

“Yeah!” Alice cheered. “I wanna go to the spa again!”

A spa bath sounded great, but paled in comparison to the real promised land not far from the food court, which was visiting the so-called Gamer X Paradise. I couldn't wait to-

“Attention all shoppers! The mall will be closing in ten minutes! Please wrap up any last minute purchases and have a good night!”

“Dang it…” I sank in my seat. “They say crime doesn't pay, but heroes can get a short stick too.”

“Hey, at least there’s always a tomorrow when you save the world.” Yamin gave a silly shrug. “Guess we’ll just have to come back then. Are you two good with that?”

“Yeah!” Alice shouted, shaking her strawberry boba drink.

“Sounds good to me too.” I smiled, happy that we did something good by so many folks.