The North Pole Letters

Book summary

When sisters Naomi and Jude discover a mysterious letter from an elf named Rylkin, they are whisked into a magical adventure at the North Pole. Along the way, they encounter enchanting characters and uncover the secrets of this festive realm. Filled with holiday spirit, this tale celebrates the magic and wonder of Christmas.

Excerpt from The North Pole Letters

1: The Letters Begin

The Great North Pole Christmas Tree

Late, very late one night the week before Christmas, sometime after Great-Grandfather’s clock had bonged 12 times, my sister Jude slid open the door to my bedroom and tiptoed in.

“Naomi!” Jude whispered. “Naomi, wake up!”

We lived in a grand Victorian house at the top of a hill that my parents purchased from my great-grandmother. It stood proud and tall—like a snow leopard surveying its mountain home from above on a craggy cliff of an Asian range. At least it felt like that when Jude and I were growing up. We lived on a street where each house had an individual style, built over a hundred years ago, before there were automobiles. At the bottom of the hill was a park.

Jude was six. I was two years older.

I was not awake. I was not asleep either. I was wrapped up in the crazy patchwork quilt that kept me warm all through the winter. I slept in an iron bed that Papa had slept in as a boy. It was painted yellow and peach. I felt toasty and did not want to move. I was reveling in thoughts of days to come—days when Mama, Papa, Jude, and I would be celebrating Christmas Day and the days that follow.

“Naomi!” Jude insisted. She crawled onto the bed, on top of me, on top of the quilt. She shook me.

“Let me in, Nomie! Wrap me up in your quilt.”

Already, on Saint Nicholas Day morning, we had found candy in the shoes we had placed in the hallway outside our doors. In the afternoon, we wrote letters listing our requests to Father Christmas. I asked how Father Christmas and the elves were doing and told them that Jude and I were doing fine, despite the fact that we had given each other colds and were still sniffling. After dinner, Papa lit a fire in the front room fireplace. Jude and I reviewed our letters to make sure they were complete. Then Papa pushed each letter into the fire. We watched as the letters burned and sparks flew up the flue. Papa said that when he was a boy, he’d learned that this was the most direct way to reach the elves. Mama had said that she had used the U. S. Postal System. Both ways seemed to work but placing the letters into the fire seemed more magical to me. Besides, Mama served a special dessert after the letter burning ceremony.

“You are such a bother,” I said and pulled the quilt tighter around me.

“I’m cold!”

“Then go back to your bed,” I moaned.

“Nomie! Nomie! Nomie!”

Jude was strong and she was persistent. She pulled and tugged and rolled me back and forth until I could feel cold air go down my neck and her cold feet on mine.

“Quiet!” I whispered, “You’ll wake Mama and Papa!”

“Mama and Papa are sound asleep. I could hear Papa snoring all the way down the hall as I pushed open the pocket door and came into your room.”

“Did you close the door behind you?”

“Of course, Nomie. Something woke me up.”

“Something like what?” I asked.

“Something like … I don’t know. We need to go see.”

Jude pushed against me with her hands and feet to get me to roll out of bed. I pushed back against her, and we rolled back and forth until both of us, and all of my bed clothes, fell to the floor.

“Now you’ve done it.” I said, pushing myself out from under my sheets, blanket and quilt.

“We need to go see. We need to go see.” Jude kept her voice low.

“To see what? Something you’ve made up?”

I pulled the quilt around me and glared at Jude, who was still lying on the floor.

“Something like a whisper. I know I heard it. And what sounded like tiny feet running down the hall to the back staircase.”

Jude pushed herself up off the floor and pulled a blanket around herself.

“You heard that over Papa’s snoring?” I asked.

“Yes. Yes, I did. Between the snores.”

Papa’s snoring was as loud as the roaring call of a bull elephant.

“Maybe it was the wind. You know how we sometimes hear the wind,” I said.

She ignored me. “And what was so strange was that as I heard it, I got this feeling inside me,” she continued.

“What kind of feeling?” I asked.

“A warm feeling, Nomie, kinda deep down inside. The kind of feeling I get on Christmas Eve when I can hardly wait for morning to come.”

“That’s a wonderful feeling,” I said.

“Yes, it is. Come with me.” Jude moved forward so, of course, I did as well.

“Okay, okay,” I said.

I was intrigued. We wrapped the bedclothes tighter around ourselves and held them up so we would not trip. Quietly, I opened the other door to my room that entered the main hallway that led down to Mama and Papa’s bedroom. Papa’s snores were rhythmical and loud. I guessed if Mama could sleep through Papa’s snores, she wouldn’t hear us creep down the back steps.

We moved deftly past their room. At the end of the hallway, the last door on the right opened to a flight of narrow stairs which descended into the kitchen. As we crept down the back stairs, we could feel the house grow warmer.

At the bottom of the stairs, I tugged on Jude’s arm to stop.

“What?” she said.

“What if what you heard was someone we don’t know—maybe even a burglar?” I asked

“The sound I heard was more like a cat,” said Jude.

“A cat!” I whispered.

“Very soft and gentle. But I could hear its feet move rapidly.”

“Like the mouse we saw last summer?” I asked.

“No, and Mama and Papa got rid of the mice in the kitchen. What I heard wasn’t a cat or a mouse. I think it was something else. I want to see,” Jude said.

The whole kitchen was filled with the smells of Christmas baking. But no one had been baking in the kitchen so late at night.

“That’s so weird. It smells like Mama’s been baking all night, but we know she and Papa went to bed early,” I said.

We moved across the kitchen and into the hallway.

“I think it’s something magic,” Jude whispered.

“Magic? Christmas can be magical. But I always thought that meant our home is cozier, everyone is nicer, and it’s just a warm wonderful time.”

“Noooooooooooooooooooo! Nomie. Father Christmas is magical! The elves are magical. Don’t you believe in Father Christmas?” she asked.

I did.

“And don’t you remember Mama saying that the weeks before Christmas you never know what magical things might happen?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I think it’s elves,” stated Jude.

“Elves!”

“Mama says when she was a girl, she saw a little man run across the living room floor and jump down a register!”

“That’s right! I remember.”

Jude led us down the hall. We crept along and into the entryway where the Christmas tree stood magnificent at the bottom of the formal staircase, waiting to be lighted and decorated. As we approached the closed doors to the living room, we could hear rustling and muffled voices. Light came from beneath the doors. We lay on the floor so we could see. We saw tiny feet move quickly across the floor.

“I know it is elves.” Jude said.

Jude and I stood, and each taking one of the double doors, we pushed them open. As soon as the doors moved, the room fell dark. We heard a “whoooooosh”—like a gush of rushing wind going straight up the fireplace that stood directly across from us—and we heard a voice shout out, “Waaaaaahooooooooooyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhh!”

We ran to the hearth and looked up the chimney to see if we could see anything. The chimney was dark and silent.

“Elves!” we both said at the same time.

Jude kept looking up the chimney. I stood and turned on a lamp standing next to a reading chair. Jude pushed on her hands and stood up.

“Look, Jude! Look down!”

At Jude’s feet lay some sort of parchment envelope. Jude reached down and picked it up. She also picked up a sprig of holly that was lying nearby.

“Bring it here!” I whispered.

Jude brought the letter so we could look at it under the light. The large parchment envelope was written in a hand that appeared ancient. The letters had many flourishes. It was addressed to Naomi and Jude and the street address where we lived. There was no stamp, but there was a drawing on the envelope next to our names that pictured a large house like a mansion and behind it lights of many colors streaming into the night sky. The back of the envelope was decorated with Christmas tree ornaments, candies, and snow falling down the page. Along the edges, were strange letters that were made from a language I did not know.

“Let’s open it!” said Jude.

“Be careful!” I replied. “Don’t tear it.”

We took the letter to Papa’s large chair where he read most evenings and turned on the floor lamp that stood next to it. Jude pulled out the letter. The edges were decorated with strange symbols and letters like the ones on the envelope. Across the top of the letter were pictures of elfin figures dancing in front of fires. There were odd black sinister creatures at the bottom.