Chapter 1

With two days until Christmas, my five-year-old sister, Sophie, ran up to me, all excited.

"I saw Santa Claus last night!"

I couldn't help but smile. "Oh yeah? Did he bring you a present?"

"No." Sophie shook her head, her expression a little confused. "He was weird."

Mom walked out of the kitchen, holding a mug of coffee. "Sophie's been going on about this all morning." She winked at me. "Such a vivid imagination."

But Sophie wasn’t smiling. She clutched her unicorn doll tighter and whispered, "He had four legs."

I froze.

Four legs? Who has four legs?

I sat down next to her. "Are you sure it was Santa Claus?"

"Yes! He came down the chimney!" Sophie nodded hard. "But his fingers were too long, like a spider's. And they had too many joints."

Mom took a sip of her coffee. "Sophie, sweetie, you must have had a nightmare. Santa isn't like that."

"It wasn't a nightmare!" Sophie jumped to her feet and started to act it out. "He was just standing there!" she said, pointing to the corner by the fireplace. "He stood like this."

She tilted her head at a sickening angle, then splayed her legs wide and pressed her hands flat on the floor.

A chill crawled up my spine watching her strange pose.

"How long did he stand there?" I asked.

"A long, long time. Maybe an hour." Sophie held the bizarre pose. "He just stared at my room like that."

"Sophie, stop it," Mom said with a frown. "You're scaring your sister."

But I was already scared.

Sophie's imitation was too real. The still, silent horror of it was terrifying.

"Then what happened?" I whispered.

"Then he crawled back up." Sophie straightened up. "Like a bug, on all fours. Making a click-clack sound."

Mom sighed. "She watched Monsters, Inc. yesterday. It probably gave her ideas."

I nodded, but I couldn't shake the uneasy feeling.

Sophie never made up stories this detailed.

And the things she described—the spider-like fingers, the extra joints, the creepy stillness—that wasn't from any Disney movie.

"Sophie, are you sure he came from the chimney?" I asked again.

"I'm sure! I heard rocks fall, and then he put his hand out and grabbed the edge of the fireplace."

I looked over at the fireplace.

Our chimney was small. Not nearly big enough for a grown man to climb through.

"Alright, that's enough of that," Mom said, patting Sophie’s head. "Santa comes on Christmas Eve, not now. And he's nice, he doesn't scare little kids."

Sophie pouted. "But I really saw him."

For the rest of the day, I couldn't get rid of that strange feeling.

Every time I walked past the fireplace, I found myself staring into the darkness of the chimney. Sophie's description played over and over in my head.

That night, we all sat in the living room watching a classic Christmas movie.

Onscreen, in The Polar Express, Santa slid down a chimney with his giant sack of gifts, smiling at the children.

I watched the screen, but all I could picture was the twisted figure Sophie described. Spider fingers, too many joints, a tilted head, standing perfectly still.

Suddenly, it hit me. A gaping hole in Sophie's story.