Chapter 2 — The Wizard in Red
The barn smelled of old hay and memory. Shadows clung to the rafters where pigeons used to gossip, and the cold had settled in like rent was paid. Moonlight slipped through the cracks and turned the dust into tiny constellations.
Under a sagging canvas waited a shape that felt like a dare.
Chuck yanked the cover free. The sleigh caught the moonlight and threw it back. Curves of lacquered wood gleamed against iron runners etched in ancient rune-work. Leather belts hung like patient tongues, waiting for someone foolish enough to fasten them. Across the dash, a warning carved by a man who never listened to warnings read:
DON’T TOUCH UNLESS YOU MEAN IT.
Dax paced a slow circle, hands clasped behind his back. “It supposed to look smug?”
“It’s supposed to outlive bad ideas,” Chuck said. He brushed the rail. The wood warmed under his touch, then cooled, uncertain whether to forgive him. “It remembers.”
I arrived last, ledger held above my head to shield against the snow still falling through the holes in the roof. “This is either a felony or a field trip,” I said, climbing over a hay drift. I bent close to the runner, my eye implant adjusting focus until the world turned to red light and secrets. “That’s clever. The glyphs are braided with a belief lattice.”
Dax frowned. “A what?”
“No hard fuel,” I said, tapping the metal. “It runs on conviction. And guilt. Mostly guilt.” I looked up at the old wizard. “Don’t touch anything.”
“Noted,” Chuck said, already ignoring me.
Dax pointed at the red coat hanging from a peg. “You wearing the real thing this time?”
Chuck shrugged out of the imitation hanging off his shoulders and let it drop to the floor. He approached the true coat like a priest approaching a confession booth. The lining shimmered, catching light even where there wasn’t any.
He slid one arm in.
The coat hissed.
Not loud—more a warning kettle before the boil.
Chuck swore and jerked his hand free. A red welt rose on his palm.
I scribbled. “Observation: garment rejects previous owner.”
“It’s festive,” he said through clenched teeth. “Festively unstable.”
Dax took the cuff between two fingers. The coat stayed calm. “Seems it likes me.”
Chuck shoved him aside and forced his arm back in. The hiss rose, then softened, a beast deciding to tolerate the handler. He managed the other sleeve and stood still while the weight settled across his shoulders. The barn seemed to lean closer, listening.
I tightened my scarf. “Should I expect an explosion? Just want to time my crouch.”
Chuck ignored me and climbed into the sleigh. The bench groaned under him, half joy, half insult. He reached under the dash and found a compartment by feel. What came out looked like a ring of small metal plates, each etched with a different kind of mistake.
He pressed the first into place.
The sleigh sighed.
“Is it supposed to do that?” Dax asked.
“It’s remembering the last time I asked for something impossible,” Chuck said. He inserted the second plate.
Light stirred along the runners—belief caught and trained to behave.
The third plate resisted. The coat flared hot against his back. Chuck gritted his teeth and shoved until it locked.
The sleigh shuddered.
I grabbed the rail. “Explosion imminent?”
“Nothing’s exploding,” Chuck barked.
I nodded. “Good.”
He paused. “Yet.”
I nodded faster. “Less good.”
“Straps,” Chuck ordered.
Dax moved immediately, fastening harnesses to things that weren’t visible but refused to be ignored. The air tugged back when he cinched the last buckle.
“Anything missing?” Dax asked.
“Doors,” Chuck said. “We can’t go through walls.”
Dax crossed the barn, slid the bolt, and hauled the doors open. The night stood waiting, sharp and glittering. Stars looked down with the pity they reserve for those about to prove them right.
“Final checks,” I said, voice a little higher than intended. “One: none of us are sober enough to understand this is foolish. Two: no guarantee we’ll return. Three: my life insurance has been unpaid for seven months.”
“Four,” Dax added. “We do this together or not at all.”
Chuck didn’t meet our eyes. “It only flies if someone believes.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Anyone,” he said quietly. “But it helps if it’s me.”
Dax and I exchanged a shrug that said everything and nothing.
Chuck placed both hands on the dash and closed his eyes. The barn fell silent except for the rhythm of his breathing. The smell of hay and cold metal thickened around us.
He thought of something—someone—I could see it in the set of his jaw. Regret has a shape, and it was sitting beside him in that coat.
“I believe,” he said.
The sleigh woke.
Light spread along the runners, gold deepening into honey, humming low enough to rattle my ribs. Symbols braided together until they became a map to somewhere that only wanted people who wanted it back.
The red coat burned through his robes at the shoulders, smoke curling where cloth surrendered to memory. He didn’t flinch.
“Portal?” Dax asked, steadying himself.
Chuck lifted the smallest plate on the ring. It was worn smooth from years of worry. He fit it into place and turned it.
The air ahead of us softened. Snow drifted forward, slowed, and began to orbit an invisible center. Flakes circled until the center brightened, deepened, and became a doorway that did not belong to this world.
My quill slipped from my hand and vanished into the straw. “Oh,” I whispered. “Oh, that’s… impossible.”
“Dax,” Chuck said.
The elf planted himself at Chuck’s right, one hand gripping the bench, the other braced on the rail.
The sleigh slid forward.
The threshold met us head-on. Snow exploded away from the runners in white banners. The barn vanished behind us, then the fields, then the world.
The coat burned, then cooled. Chuck exhaled like a man finally remembering how.
Behind us, the portal sealed itself with a green seam of light.
Ahead, the sky opened like a blank page. The first line of a new story traced itself in frost.
“Festively unstable,” Dax muttered over the wind.
“Still festive,” Chuck replied.
Something deep inside the sleigh laughed once, old and kind. It approved of the lie, if not the logic.
We climbed through the cold between stars, chasing a truth older than belief. And for the first time in a very long while, the world below felt small.
I got chills when Chuck said “I believe.” 🫢😃