Sprig and the Northbound Breeze

On Christmas Eve, after the goodbye letter had been written and propped against the fruit bowl, Sprig the Field Elf put on his travelling scarf. He had lived with Leo’s family for twenty-four days. Now it was time to fly home to the North Pole, and he was taking the best things with him.

Elves do not pack socks for the trip home. They pack memories. Sprig had a satchel for them, made of soft grey felt, with a brass clasp shaped like an acorn. He went round the quiet house and gathered the memories one at a time, the way you pick up shells on a beach.

There was the blanket fort from the second Saturday, which had fallen down twice and been built again, better. There was the morning Leo found him in the fridge, wearing a lettuce leaf as a cape, and laughed so much he had to sit on the floor. There was the pancake that was meant to be a star and came out shaped like a boot. Each memory, when Sprig picked it up, was the size of a marble. It was warm to hold, and it glowed softly, like a torch under a duvet.

At ten past midnight, Sprig stood on the windowsill and waited for the Northbound Breeze. It is the only wind in the world that runs on a timetable. It came round the corner of the house exactly on time, smelling of pine needles and peppermint, with a snowy owl in a conductor’s cap riding at the front.

“Tickets,” said the owl. Her name was Conductor Plume, and she said every word as if it were the most important word there was. “Tickets. Satchels. Scarves.”

Sprig held up his ticket, and Conductor Plume punched a neat hole in it with her beak. Then Sprig climbed aboard. Riding the Northbound Breeze feels like sitting on a warm bath towel that is moving very fast. The house got smaller and smaller below him, until it was just one lit window among the rooftops.

They flew over rooftops, and over a frozen pond where the moon lay flat like a coin. They flew over a forest so quiet that Sprig could hear the snow settling on the branches. Then, halfway there, the breeze gave a small wobble. The acorn clasp went click, the satchel opened a crack, and one memory floated out.

It was the lettuce cape. It drifted upwards, glowing green, turning slowly in the dark.

Sprig did not panic. Field Elves are trained for this. He leaned out very carefully and held up his hat like a butterfly net, and the memory floated straight into it, as if it had wanted to be caught all along. He tucked it back in the satchel, closed the clasp, and held the satchel on his lap for the rest of the way, just to be sure.

At the North Pole, the breeze set them down outside the Memory Archive. It is a long, low building with a green door and thousands of tiny drawers, one for every family a Field Elf has ever stayed with. An old elf called Nettle, the Archivist, was waiting with a lamp. She found the right drawer, wrote Leo’s family on the label in her careful hand, and Sprig laid the memories inside, one by one, so they would keep until next year.

“That’s a full drawer,” said Nettle, peering in. “A very good year.” She slid it shut, softly, and the light of the memories glowed through the gaps around its edges, like a nightlight left on in the hall.

Sprig climbed the stairs to his bunk at the Annex and hung his travelling scarf on its hook. Far away, a boy called Leo was asleep under his own blanket. And just down the corridor, in a small drawer, the blanket fort and the lettuce cape and the boot-shaped pancake glowed quietly in the dark, while Sprig pulled the covers up to his chin and slept until the snow outside turned blue with morning.