Tis The Season for Secrets (Village of Yule #2)

22. Juliet

A fter breakfast, Mason informed them that they were to meet in the town square at two, which gave Will and Juliet some time to explore the village. Will bundled Juliet up in a thick winter coat, scarf, and mittens, and refused to let go of her hand as they walked through the streets of Yule. She took in the sights and smells of the home she could’ve had. She wasn’t sure how long it would take for her to get used to it always being so dark. Still, with darkness came the beauty of all the twinkling lights.

“What’s that?” she asked, looking at a particularly imposing building.

“The town hall,” Will told her. “They’re currently decorating it for the end of year ball.”

“I think I’ve had enough of those for a year,” Juliet mumbled, thinking of how the last formal event they’d been to had ended. “And that?” She tilted her head, studying the circular building across from the square.

“That would be one of the oldest buildings in Yule– the Hall of Guardians, where I trained and boarded for most of my teens.” She noticed how proudly he admired the building.

“You lived there? It looks… intimidating,” she commented, looking at the church-like place with a tall spire and star on top.

“Eloise helped me get into the boarding programme when my parents kicked me out. Boarding also helped keep me out of any mischief.”

“You still haven’t told me what exactly landed you in the guardian programme. Something about sleigh racing?”

Will sighed. “My sister was apprenticing in sleigh engineering with Mason’s sister, Lou. They’ve been best friends for years. Lou was the one getting married in the photo you saw before– she married my cousin, so we’re practically family. Anyway, part of their apprenticeship included designing and building a sleigh of their own. A few of us took them for a test drive…” He trailed off.

Juliet stopped walking, tugging him back. “Please tell me no one was hurt?” she gasped.

“No, no! Everyone was fine. My sister’s sleigh, not so much. I wasn’t aware my sister was working on developing a special engine – faster, quieter– to help take the pressure off the reindeer on the Klaus sleigh. When I hit the accelerator, I went straight into a tree. Thankfully I jumped out before the impact, but I destroyed a few too many gold coins’ worth of equipment, and my sister nearly lost her apprenticeship.”

Juliet was horrified. “You could’ve died!”

Will looked as if even he couldn’t quite believe how reckless he’d been. “Since I destroyed something precious to Yule, what better way to make amends than to spend my life protecting it? I’ve got to admit, there might have been one or two other incidents… including freezing the school’s pool with liquid nitrogen, and removing all the ornaments from the grand tree before Christmas Day.” He squeezed her hand, a little shamefaced.

“I shouldn’t have been surprised you broke the rules to help me. Sounds like you’re quite the rebel!” Juliet nudged him playfully, before giving him a serious look. “That’s the most you’ve told me about your family. Thank you for letting me in.”

He shrugged. “I’ve got too comfortable keeping secrets.” She wanted to know more, but his eyes lingered on the tall building. “Want to see more?” His smile told her he was up to no good. “I’m feeling rebellious.”

“Are you insane? We can’t go in there!” Juliet hissed as Will hurried them up the stone steps to the outer gates to the Hall of Guardians.

“Kevin told me you were looking for information on people banished from Yule. I can show you. I’ve got access, and at noon most of the guardians are out on duty. Trainees will already be out helping plough the snow for their physical training. We should only have to worry about Phyllis.” He winked and lightly touched the metal gate.

“How did you do that?” she asked, watching the door open as though it knew who Will was and had granted him permission to enter.

“It’s—”

She held her hand up, silencing him. “If you say magic—”

“I was going to say enchanted.” She glared at him, and he grinned. “Stay behind me, and when I give you the signal, head down the corridor on the left until you reach a gold door.”

“A gold door? Sounds completely normal,” Juliet said, keeping close to his back.

Inside, the place smelt like cinnamon, and multiple corridors led from the circular room. She nearly bumped into Will, too busy staring at the tall white pillars that held up the domed ceiling. The painting on it was a map of a much smaller Yule. Judging from the cracks in the plaster and paint, it had been done more than a few centuries ago.

“Phyllis! How is the most important woman in my life?” Will called, his arms wide open. Juliet frowned at his words until she saw the grey-haired woman at a tall desk who didn’t even bother looking up from her newspaper at them. Her deep wrinkles and tired eyes indicated that Phyllis was old enough to be long retired.

Juliet matched Will’s steps, afraid she’d make enough noise to alert the elderly woman to the fact that he wasn’t alone. She wondered if she was supposed to stay close to him because Phyllis’s eyesight wasn’t the best, and felt bad at the idea.

“Will, what’s caused you to darken my door so late in the season? You haven’t been assigned any charges recently, so either you want someone, or you’ve done something.” Phyllis peered over her semi-circle wire spectacles, seeming to miss Juliet, who was mostly concealed beneath the wooden raised reception desk. Juliet could just about see her at this angle.

“I’ve missed you too!” Will said, and Juliet resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I need the key to the banishment archives on the second floor. Doing some research on a legacy, and I figured I might as well get it done before the season really gets crazy.”

“I’ve received no formal request,” she informed him, clearly used to his charm.

“Have a heart, Phyllis! It’s almost Christmas. It’s for a legacy who’s worried that a family member might have been banished because they weren’t in Yule when they returned.”

Juliet wondered if he was talking about a real case. It was one hell of a good lie to think up on the spot.

“You know the rules, Mr Duncan. File a formal report to the head guardian, and then Ms Heart has to deny or grant your request before I can give you the key.”

Juliet’s heart skipped a beat as she realised they were talking about her mom.

“Ah, is Eloise in? I’ll head to her office right now,” Will said. Juliet stared up at him, but he acted as though she wasn’t there. Was he going to bring her to her mom? Was it a who, not a what, that he wanted to show her?

“Ms Heart has gone out to train with the boarders, as you’ll already be aware,” Phyllis said, reading Will like a book.

“And you know that this late in the year, she won’t give me the key before the season is over. I promise I’ll be in and out.”

There was a moment’s hesitation.

“I’ll be sure to return the favour,” Will pressed. “Don’t you have a daughter on the Outside? I can make sure she’s looked after in a manner befitting your service to Yule?” Apparently his manipulation knew no end.

Phyllis looked thoughtful. “She has been trying to get my granddaughter into a good school in England, which is proving difficult, considering her primary education has been in Yule. She has the grades, and I’m only asking for a fair application—”

“Consider it done.”

There was another moment of silence, but then Juliet heard the clink of a key.

“You’re a gem,” Will said. “And, might I add, look far too young to have a grandchild.”

“Be gone before I change my mind,” Phyllis grumbled, but Juliet heard the smile in her words. She’d put up a good fight, but it seemed that despite Yule’s magical and wondrous nature, its citizens were still susceptible to bribes.

The golden lantern on the walls highlighted the gold flecks in the white marble, making the ceiling look like it was twinkling. Breathtaking. She’d have settled for just seeing this. Then she saw Will waving a hand behind his back.

Juliet made a run for the corridor, careful to keep low. She barely made it around the corner when she bumped into someone.

“I’m so sorry!” Juliet exclaimed, but the woman, whose dark hair was streaked with grey, just stared at her blankly. “Are you alright? I didn’t mean to startle you; I was in a hurry.” Juliet fidgeted with the ends of her scarf.

“There’s no running in the corridors, and visiting hours are restricted for family members. If you wish to see a boarder, then you must wait until 7pm.” The dark-haired middle-aged woman looked down at the file in her hands, continuing with what she was reading while scolding her.

“Right. I must have got the times mixed up.” Juliet started to back away the way she’d came.

The woman closed the file and held it behind her back. “You’re here now, and since we’re so close to the holidays, you can go ahead and wait quietly. The students out training will be back in thirty minutes.” In spite of her warning, there was a kindness in her eyes.

“Understood.” Juliet nodded.

“Don’t stay too long – I don’t want the students to be put out by one getting special treatment,” the woman reiterated, opening her file once again and heading down the corridor past her.

Shivering at the close call, Juliet hurried on to find the gold door. She only had to wait a few anxious moments before Will appeared.

“I think we should get out of here. I ran into a woman, and she said the students out training will be back soon. She only let me through because she thought I was visiting someone,” she fretted.

Will frowned, looking back down the corridor. She wondered if he’d seen the same woman. “Don’t worry,” he promised, “once we get inside, you won’t have to worry about being discovered.” Using the gold key he’d obtained from Phyllis, he unlocked the door. Juliet stared into the room, dumbfounded.

Chests. Dozens and dozens of chests lined the walls.

“All of these families were banished?” She swallowed, thinking she’d underestimated just how strict Yule was about rules.

The chests, identical to the one she’d been sent, each had their own section built into the high walls. To get a closer look, she moved around the small individual desks with study lamps that she suspected were for visitors to inspect the contents of the chests.

“No, every family in Yule has an ancestral chest. Only those with the key for their family chest can get in here, and my sister has ours. I can also request any documents the council has on the Frost banishment. I removed most of what was contained in the Frost chest so you only had access to what you needed to see. You didn’t need generations of birth certificates and wedding licenses. I’ll return them when you’re done with it.”

Will walked over to the wall, where Juliet saw a metal pneumatic tube. He pulled out a scroll from his pocket, apparently having come prepared; before she could ask what was written on it, the scroll was sucked up the pipe. Next, he turned a brass dial on the wall. One row of chests was pulled back and another was pulled forward until Juliet saw a row with names beginning with F. The Frost name was labelled in gold on an empty wooden shelf.

“These chests are so old that only legacies really come to visit them, which is how we got yours out. No one would know yours was missing unless they went looking for it,” Will said.

Juliet placed her hand on the empty shelf to make sure she wasn’t dreaming, and a thin layer of freshly settled dust coated her fingertips. “You risked bringing me here to show me an empty shelf?”

Her question was answered when a small dumbwaiter positioned in the middle of the wall binged and flashed green, opening to reveal an object.

“A book?” she asked, looking at the brown leather volume. She was afraid to touch it.

“It’s yours.”

The Frost signal embossed in the cover told her as much. Juliet picked it up, surprised by how heavy and thick it was. Its uneven pages tried to escape the binding.

“Why wasn’t this in the chest?”

“It’s an important Yule text, so the council prefers to keep it locked up,” Will said. “It’s the history of Frosts in Yule, in your family’s own words. No one knows who truly founded Yule– whether it was the Klaus family or the Frost family – but the Frosts were always the protectors of dust, responsible for its mining, while the Klaus family oversaw distributing it. They worked together,” Will explained, as she walked over to one of the tables and flicked on the study lamp.

She flipped through the pages until Will stopped her on a page of illustrations: miners working, gold dust flowing through their fingers. Their clothes reminded her of the ones from her grandfather’s era.

“How could anyone have found this place if it’s protected by the mountains?” she wondered aloud. Had it been explorers who’d stumbled across it one day? Kevin had mentioned Yule had been founded in 270AD.

“Your ancestors had an answer for that,” he said, pointing to one of the lines of handwritten text.

“The magic seeps out of the mountain rock when it’s being mined, generating a type of forcefield.” She let the explanation sink in. “So… if they stopped mining dust, then the protections would fail?”

“The Frosts believed so, and your great-grandfather – after generations of peace – planned to test it. If they’d succeeded, they’d have exposed Yule.”

Juliet turned to a page illustrated with fighting miners, pickaxes raised high. She guessed those were the only weapons they’d had to use. She couldn’t believe her family had committed such violence against their own. “But why would they want to run that risk?”

“Because when your great-grandfather led the Frost family, he believed that if they had the power to expose Yule, no one would be able to stand against them. They could get away with anything, just by threatening to stop mining. But then the desire for power grew, and Yule wasn’t enough for them. They wanted the world to know the power they held, and wanted to expose Yule and its magic. Then again, no one can really agree on what your family truly desired, since legend and truth have muddled the history. Some people argue it was a misguided attempt to bring Yule’s magic and warmth to the whole world. Others say it was just a grab for power.”

“But the Klauses stopped them?”

“Yes, the Klauses and other families gathered to retake the mine when their plans were discovered.”

Juliet closed the book on the bloody scene. “Were people killed?”

“No, but many were injured. Our medicine is rather advanced, another secret we protect – all those hurt were able to recover.”

“So that’s why you couldn’t tell me how the protections work? Because no one has actually tested the theory?”

Will nodded.

“The workers in the mine… they wanted to test the theory as well?” Juliet asked, wondering if there was anyone still in Yule who supported her family. She couldn’t even imagine what would happen to this place if her dad had such power.

“Yes, a few families were punished for their involvement. However, leniency was shown, as many were just following orders. The threat of banishment was enough to make them see the error of their ways.”

“And the banishment of the Frost family made it clear they would make good on that threat.” The words escaped her in a breath. Part of her wasn’t surprised by her family’s hunger for power; she was ashamed to say that not much had changed over the years.

Will nodded again. “Up until the 1800s, Yule was governed by all the founding families. However, after everything happened with the Frosts, the Klauses were put in charge of the council. Our delivery technology wasn’t always as advanced as it is now. Sleighs being pulled by reindeer were spotted repeatedly over the years; Outsiders came up with their own myths. The idea of Yule, or Santa Claus living at the North Pole – we think that with the coming and going of those from Yule to and from the Outside, whispers were warped and expanded upon over the years.”

Juliet’s head started to swim. “Does everyone in Yule know about this?”

He shook his head. “No. Many know that the Frost family tried to expose Yule to make a grab for power, but not how.”

“Shouldn’t people know the truth? Is that why the council don’t want me coming back, so I won’t expose the truth of what happened?”

Will shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they fear the Frost family returning; since Yule’s population has expanded greatly over the past generations, they could gain a lot more followers now. Maybe if they tried again, they might not be stopped.”

“Shouldn’t that be left to the people of Yule to decide?” Juliet couldn’t help but think that if the majority wanted the world to know about Yule, maybe they should have a say.

“It’s up to the council and Klaus to decide, but I understand what you’re saying. One of the reasons I helped you come back here was to show that the past is not to be feared. If everyone in Yule wanted the world to know we exist, I think the council would accept it, but it shouldn’t be forced on them either because one family wants power.”

Juliet could understand the desire to test the theory about the dust and mining, which also explained why her own family had been in the industrial industry for generations– they had merely changed location. She wondered if the Frosts had ever tried searching for more rock like what was found in Yule. She remembered her grandfather talking of how the company had almost been bankrupted a few times because of his father’s explorative mining schemes. Juliet had assumed he was a gold or diamond hunter. Maybe he was just trying to find his way home.

“Can we get out of here? I think I’ve had enough.” She shut the book. Now that she had the full story, she didn’t know who the victim or the villain was. Her ancestors were wrong for threatening to expose Yule, but she wondered if the crime had truly warranted this generational punishment.

“It’s coming up to two anyway. I know this is a lot to digest, but I wanted you to know everything. You don’t deserve to be blindsided again like you were this morning,” Will said, putting the book back in the dumbwaiter.

The wooden doors shut, and the small lightbulb turned red. When the doors opened again, it was gone as though it had never existed, but Juliet couldn’t stop thinking about the illustration of those fighting hand to hand, pickaxe to pickaxe. She didn’t condone violence, but she didn’t like that the council and the Klaus family had kept the truth buried and turned the story of her family’s hunt for the truth about the protections into a tale of warning against those who favoured facts over faith. What if the Frost family had only wanted to test the theory? What if they hadn’t been trying to make a claim for power?

There was no way to know, but she needed time to think. She only been in Yule for a matter of days; she couldn’t make any snap judgements about a place or people she barely understood. Hell, it wasn’t like the outside world was a beacon of honesty and virtue.

She nodded at Will. “Let’s go.”