Chapter 11. Chaotic CreativityAfter puzzling over the remaining initials, the 667ers concluded that GL was baudelaiire or ‘Grinchelaiire’ and BR was Bee or ‘Brr.’ They had trouble understanding how LC or WW related to Marlowe, until Anka reminded them he was dressed like a lump of coal.
“So that leaves WW,” roxy222 concluded. Everyone looked at Willis. “Who’s up for a walk in a Willis Wonderland?” he grinned.
The 667ers agreed that if Willis was next to be kidnapped, they could follow him to find out where Tragedy was hiding the others. Dante showed them a passageway in the library that took an indirect route to Tragedy’s main office; some of them would take that path while others would trail Willis on the direct route to the main door. Then, when Tragedy revealed the hiding location, Antenora would ambush him with her antlers and the 667ers would free ewok40, baudelaiire, Bee, and Marlowe. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it would have to work on short notice.
***
There was a knock on Tragedy’s door. “This better be it for real,” he muttered under his breath.
Willis stood at the door.
“What the potato are you wearing?”
“It was a gift,” Willis explained.
“All right, come in,” Tragedy opened the door. Willis entered, and they stood, looking at each other expectantly.
“Aren’t you going to kidnap me?” Willis finally asked.
“Kidnap you? Oh, right. Yes. Go stand over there.” Tragedy pointed to the corner near the door in his office.
Willis moved dutifully to the corner. Tragedy unlocked the backroom behind his desk, where ewok40, baudelaiire, Bee, and Marlowe sat in a circle, wrapping gifts with electrodes haphazardly attached to their bodies.
“Oh, thank God, someone found us!” Marlowe exclaimed, relieved.
“Shut up,” Tragedy directed. “He’s not here to rescue you. He’s your fellow prisoner. Now, get in, Willis.” The four kidnapped 667ers groaned. It was already crowded in the backroom between them, Marlowe’s lump of coal costume, and all the medical equipment.
“He may not be here to rescue you … but we are.” Zortegus entered through the double doors to the study, followed by gothicarchiesfan, Terry Craig, and Antenora. “Release the prisoners,” Zortegus demanded, “or face the consequences.” To make the point, Antenora stroked each antler against the other. They scraped like knives.
Tragedy began a slow clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.
“Congratulations, Zortegus. You discovered me. Shall we have your friends join us?” Tragedy kicked the bookshelf behind his desk and it creaked open to reveal the remaining 667ers crammed together at the entrance.
“Hi,” MisterM said.
“It’s so much more convenient to have people come to you, rather than having to pluck them out one by one. They should all be here now, Jean Lucio.” Jean Lucio stood up from behind Tragedy’s desk.
“Jean Lucio!” the 667ers cried.
“Dante isn’t the only one who can disappear into the shadows,” Jean Lucio said, and ducked under the desk again. Dante rolled his eyes. Jean Lucio stood back up.
“You were working with Tragedy this whole time?” roxy222 asked. “Why?”
“Tragedy asked me to,” Jean Lucio answered. “I can’t say no. He owns the building, after all. Wait - can I say no?” Jean Lucio looked at Tragedy.
“Lock us down, Jean.” Tragedy commanded. Jean Lucio pressed a button under Tragedy’s desk. The bookshelf behind Tragedy’s desk slammed shut and clicked, leaving a few books spilled on the floor. The double doors from the main entrance also slammed and locked.
“Now, to reveal my master plan at last,” Tragedy said evilly. “Year after year, I’ve sat in this office as Christmas parties raged on below. I’ve always believed Christmas was for chumps. Losers. Nobodies. But one year I noticed something. Despite how idiotic Christmas made you all, it also seemed to make you … happy. Something I’ve never been. I thought, I’m terribly intelligent. I have an IQ of 132. If I had Christmas spirit without having to undergo those idiotic rituals, I could be the most intelligent and the happiest man in the world. Or woman,” he thoughtfully added. “And I also realized, I am a scientist. I have two degrees in science from prestigious universities. The world of the material is my domain. So one by one, I plucked off the most Christmassy among you to concentrate their Christmas spirit into an essence I can consume.” He lifted a small glass vial with a shimmering golden substance from his desk.
“But what about the other Christmassy 667ers, like Santenora and Merry Ann?” roxy222 asked. “Why didn’t you kidnap them?”
“Because I’m inconsistent,” Tragedy remarked. “It’s one of my most fascinating attributes." The 667ers looked unsatisfied.
"Fine. Antenora was armed and knew about most of the passageways, and I gave Merry Ann too much power as administrator. They would have been able to escape, and possibly taken my other subjects with them.” Antenora twirled her sharpened reindeer antlers. Sherry Ann brandished one of her administrative keys.
Tragedy continued. “After I shut off the building lights, Jean Lucio captured ewok40 and snuck him through the secret passageway from the coat closet to the lounge to the library to here. Then, he waited for some of you to seek him out in the art studio. We knew Grinchelaiire would be there, because she’s an art critic.”
“You lied to us,” Willis accused Jean Lucio.
“I didn’t lie,” Jean Lucio defended himself. “You asked me if I had seen ewok40. I hadn’t, because when I took him it was dark. And the tunnels leading to the back of Tragedy’s closet were dark.” Jean Lucio pointed to the back of Tragedy’s closet, where sure enough there was the faint outline of a door etched in the wood, just like the one they had seen in the art studio.
“When I heard Zortegus’s voice saying ‘You’re crazy,’ I quickly painted a red X on the wall opposite the passageway to distract him. I knew anything out of place would distract Zortegus. Unfortunately, it led you to a clue … but luckily you didn’t draw the right conclusions. When you all were distracted, I opened the passageway and lured baudelaiire inside, using all of your chatter to disguise the noise.” Jean Lucio revealed.
“That’s why your hands were purple,” Zortegus realized, “I knew there was something wrong about that. There were no traces of red in ‘Willis Wonderland.’ The blue from the painting mixed with the red of the X.”
Tragedy continued, “Once Grinchelaiire was in, no one could hear her calls for help since the tunnels are soundproof, and my accomplice was there to guide her the rest of the way.” Grinchelaiire glared at Tragedy through her stupor. Then she slurred at Jean Lucio, “You’re a terrible French Impressionist.”
“But Jean Lucio stayed with us in the studio,” Willis said, confused, “He couldn’t have guided her.”
Tragedy grinned. “I had a second accomplice. In fact, my second accomplice is standing among you now. But we’ll come back to that.” The 667ers looked at each other nervously. “Bee was easy. We just opened a passageway in the theater, using the intercom to disguise the noise of the opening door, and she wandered in herself. Curious girl. But stupid. And so my accomplice guided her as well ... That just left me to turn off the fire from the fireplace in the lobby, and Jean Lucio to wait for Marlowe in the coatroom. I needed the final clue to be obvious and surefire, so Jean Lucio suggested I give him the painting I was working on to present to you in the studio, which handily doubled as his alibi. You’re right, Grinchelaiire; Jean Lucio never could have painted such a masterpiece himself. We decided to call it ‘Willis Wonderland,’ hoping the image would stick in your imagination.”
“Grinchelaiire said ‘Willis Wonderland’ was painted in the impasto style,” roxy222 realized. “Those types of paintings stay wet for hours, even days, because of the oils … that’s how it looked like Jean Lucio had just been working on it when we arrived, even though he’d been busy kidnapping ewok40. Oh, Grinchelaiire, if only we’d listened to you better,” Grinchelaiire smiled weakly at roxy222.
“What about the sweater?” Willis asked.
“That was ... not part of the plan.” Tragedy said, looking at the sweater with distaste.
“That was my idea,” Jean Lucio chipped in. “I thought it would make it more realistic that I was the artist of the painting if I made something of my own to complement it.”
“Oh, Jean,” Tragedy sighed.
“What about the rest of us, then? Why did you bring us here? Why not just trap us all to begin with?” Terry Craig demanded. “You could have had us in the lobby.” Jean Lucio squinted at him. “Handler,” he accused under his breath.
“The rest of you needed to be Christmassed-up, so to speak, before you were ready to have your Christmas spirits harvested. These trials were designed to increase said Christmas spirit,” Tragedy revealed. “I wrote the code initials to plant Christmas-themed words in your brains, which elevates levels of what I call the ‘Santa Neuron.’ It’s a technical term. You can read my dissertation about it. The neuron is best elevated when your brain produces the words itself, but I suppose my accomplice had to feed you the answers in the end.”
The 667ers gasped. Dante moved to join Dr. Dr. Tragedy behind his desk.
“Haven’t any of you read
Be Sure to Lock Your Homes?” Dante shook his head. “Don’t you know what happens in the end?”
“The villain subverts the bait,” Hermes clenched his fists. “That’s the part I forgot.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Hermes,” Tragedy consoled him. “I knew that after Dante you would be the team’s most valuable asset … and I couldn’t let you lead them to me too quickly. I had Dante slip a memory inhibitor into your drink when you were in the lobby. A normal person on the drug would become quite forgetful indeed … but given your above-average memory, you simply became normal levels of forgetful.” Hermes clenched his fists tighter. “Anyway, the major way I worked to increase your Christmas spirit was to incentivize you to search and worry for each other. The community you created along the way, the care you showed for each other, the sense of trust you built - it’s all now mine for the harvesting.”
“You’re not a scientist at all,” Terry Craig marveled. “You’re a social scientist!”
“I’m a little bit of both,” Tragedy said proudly. “Now, if you would all please step into my closet …”
“Not. So. Fast,” a voice emerged from the back of the closet - the one entrance to Tragedy’s office that the button under his desk did not lock.
“You!” Tragedy spoke, astonished.
“Who is that?” roxy222 asked.
“You can think of me as a ghost of Christmas past,” the figure replied, “though I’m very much here in the present.”
“Get out,” Tragedy commanded. “I don’t need you. I have everything I need right here,” he said, holding up the vial.
“Tragedy, you can’t bottle the Christmas spirit,” the figure spoke. “If you drink what’s in that vial, all you’ll do is drain these people to give yourself a small jolt of merriment. But merriment is only half of what makes a Merry Christmas. It’s not all you’re looking for. Love. Hope. Peace. Joy. That doesn’t come from curating chemicals.”
“But it has to,” Tragedy said desperately. “It has to.”
“No. It doesn’t. Here,” the figure handed Tragedy a small box, wrapped in red and green paper with gingerbread repeated all around, and topped with a shimmering golden bow. Tragedy undid the ribbon and carefully put the paper aside. Inside was a framed photograph from 2002. Tragedy stood in the center, surrounded by Misery, Woe, and his other close friends from the Christmas after he purchased 667 Dark Avenue. They stood outside the building, which was lined with multicolored lights and shimmering stars, laughing and smiling at the camera.
A tear came to Tragedy’s eye. “Maybe … maybe you’re right. I never wanted to look at this before, because it reminds me of what I've lost. But receiving it from you, as a gift, I ... maybe the Christmas spirit can’t be harvested,” he told the figure, without lifting his eyes from the photo. “Maybe it’s about something else. Love. Hope. Peace. Joy. I don’t know where you got this, but you’ve reminded me what it was like … what it was like to be happy. Thank you, Sixteen.”
He looked up, but Sixteen was gone - and for the first time in a long time, Tragedy felt what it was like to have someone he cared about suddenly disappear.
