Page 68 of Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions

“Good morning, Mama,” she said. “How did you sleep?”

“Snug in my bed,” said Mrs. Claus. Her eyes twinkled with delight at her own small joke. “I’m sorry to burst in on you like this, dear, but you have a call on the mirror. You should pick up, if you feel up to it. It’s one of your little friends from the Calendar Country, and she seems to be quite worked up.”

Excitement welled up in Jack’s chest, hot as cocoa and twice as sweet. “Which one?”

“The Princess,” said Mrs. Claus. “Just let me know if you can’t stay for breakfast.” She backed out of the room, closing the door behind herself.

Jack waited for a count of five before lunging for her desk and the hand mirror that waited there. The frame glittered with traceries of bright, gleaming frost: the North Pole equivalent of call waiting.

“Hello?” she said.

The glass fogged over, clearing to reveal the face of the Princess. Her normally perfect curls were in disarray, and her lip gloss was a shade paler than her norm, conveying her dismay. “Bless, Jack, I was starting to think you’d gone into hibernation,” she said. “I need you to get your pretty polar behind down here, pronto.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

The Princess smiled grimly. “It’s Velveteen. She’s back. And honey, she does not look good.”

* * *

Superhumans with powers and skills related to healing have been rumored since the dawn of human history. Most cannot be verified, but in recent years, several dozen documented heroes, villains, and private citizens with health-based powers have made their presence known.

Candystriper, whose empathic powers work best on those who are sick or injured, allowing her to brighten their spirits and speed the healing process. Even some cases believed to be terminal have turned around after a few hours in her presence. Sadly, her lack of any actual combat abilities has led to her becoming a target for desperate people looking for a magic bullet, and she has not been seen in public since the Jimmy Michaels incident of 2013.

The Surgeon, whose hands can suture any wound or perform any operation, leaving behind seamless incisions which heal cleanly and without risk of infection. The demand for his services is too great; for the last several years, he has appeared only at children’s hospitals and when offered amounts in the high seven figures. Most believe that he has no need for money, but chooses to operate in this fashion to prevent being overwhelmed.

Apothecary, who can diagnose anything, and whose remedies make no medical sense, but which always work. Leeches are frequently involved.

The Night Shift: a trained RN with a duplication power, she has been known to serve as the entire staff for a hospital, appearing during times of crisis and vanishing again when the crisis has passed. Without her, several city trauma wards would report much higher fatality rates. Unlike the Surgeon, she does not accept payment, and does not have a public contact number. Many theorize that the two are a team, traveling together, with him underwriting her work. Regardless, no one can deny the amount of good she has done.

The list goes on, and raises the question of whether the superhuman community’s best service of the human race might be in ceasing their seemingly endless battles and allowing these many healers to devote themselves and their powers to service to the world. After all, if heroes and villains were not constantly in need of repair, who’s to say what could be accomplished by the people who spend so much of their time in putting them back together?

* * *

Travel between the North Pole and the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle was easy to the point of being trivial. Sometimes Jack used the Castle as a stepping-stone to the rest of the Calendar Country rather than trying to ride a mirror straight into the “real” world. Why do that, when a split journey was so much easier on her nerves?

She emerged from a full-length mirror in the Princess’s receiving hall, dressed in a red and green ball gown that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the ski pants and sweater she had donned before leaving her room. The Princess’s transit system was good that way. If she didn’t have time to brush her hair or put on a socially acceptable amount of lip gloss, the mirrors would do it for her, dumping her in the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle as pretty as a photo op.

(It would have bothered her, if not for the fact that most of the people who supplied the Princess’s power were between the ages of four and eight, and still considered magically appearing eye shadow to be the absolute height of sophistication. Really, she was just glad that all her clothes were mirror-made, and not sewn by the army of woodland creatures that supplied the Princess with her wardrobe.)

A scarlet macaw in a waistcoat flew over to land on her shoulder. “You’re wanted in the recovery room, ma’am, ma’am, ma’am,” it said, before emitting an ungodly screech. Part of a fairy story or not, birds would be birds.

“Thank you,” she said, because manners were especially important in a fairy tale, and between figures of mythic import. If the Princess was every storybook princess in the world, Jacqueline Claus was the spirit of goodness and generosity, and it wouldn’t do for her to forget her manners. “Can you take me there?”

The macaw screeched acquiescence and launched itself into the air, gliding away down the hall. Jack hiked her ball gown up enough to let her move and ran after it, trying not to focus on the way the hall around her kept getting decked for a winter holiday celebration that was never going to come. Papa was somewhat secular, having been divorced from the religious aspects of his holiday by decades of advertising and comfortable folklore. Jack was completely secular, with the entire palette of winter colors and decorations available to her. Tinsel and wreaths and silver snowflakes dripped from the walls both ahead of and behind her, shimmering into existence in answer to her presence.

They wouldn’t last long. The normal aesthetics of the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle would reassert themselves in no time, and the unseasonable holiday decorations would melt back into the walls, vanishing until the next time Jack walked by. Sometimes she wondered what the place looked like when she wasn’t around. She wasn’t sure she’d ever have the opportunity to find out.

The macaw led her to a tall door in a gilt frame. It flapped over to perch on the top of a tapestry, watching to see what she would do next.

She opened the door and let herself inside, of course. There wasn’t really anything else to do.

The recovery room was huge and airy, with walls made entirely of colored glass panels. It was like walking into a rainbow. “Polychrome would love it here,” she blurted, unthinking.

“We should call her.” The Princess looked away from the…pumpkin? Maybe. Some sort of gourd, anyway. It was huge and orange and sitting atop a mattress, attached to the bedframe by a green stalk. The Princess was standing next to it, and it was sort of sad that this was still not the strangest thing Jack had seen all day. “I was hoping to wait until the Night Shift got back to me, but I don’t think Yelena will be all that happy if she finds out we’ve got Vel and we haven’t been pickin’ up the phone.”

Jack opened her mouth. Then she stopped herself, understanding sweeping across her face, and said, “She’s in the pumpkin, isn’t she? You put her inside the pumpkin.”

“Pumpkins have a lot of strength in fairy tales. They can put broken things back together, if you know how to use them right.”