𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕤𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕠𝕟 || 𝘢 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘭𝘺𝘧𝘪𝘤

⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕠𝕟𝕖‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆

Despite its four occupants, the house seemed empty. Agnes Gaines felt a pang in her heart as she took in the absence of her father.

Mom had left the kitchen to take 7-year-old Elizabeth up to bed, leaving Agnes and her older brother Jackson to finish decorating the last couple of sugar cookies. She was decorating a gingerbread girl, covering the cookie's skirt in festive red and green.

"You're going to give Santa diabetes!" Jackson laughed, raising an eyebrow at the amount of icing coating her gingerbread. Jackson was doing a simple green outline of his tree-shaped cookie.

"Santa's magic; he can't get sick," Agnes stated as a matter-of-factly.

Jackson shrugged. "Fair enough."

Silence fell between the siblings for a moment, the only sound being the wind whistling outside as the snowstorm blew in. She added blonde hair to her gingerbread girl with yellow icing and used a bit of white frosting to stick blue sprinkles to make eyes. She named the cookie Carson. She added a smile to Carson with pink frosting to match the cookie's sweater.

The icing tube fell to the table as Agnes turned to her brother. "Hey, Jack?"

"Yeah, Agnes?" He didn't turn his focused gaze away from the snowman cookie he was now trying to give a red and white striped scarf.

"Do you think Dad misses us as much as we miss him?"

Jackson didn't answer right away. He stopped icing his cookie for a second but then finished his scarf before sighing deeply and turning to face Agnes. "I'm sure he does."

"I just wish he was here. Just for Christmas."

Jackson kissed the top of her head before embracing her. "Me too."

Mom returned then, greeting them with a warm smile, and told Agnes that if she finished her cookie quickly, Agnes could get her hair braided before bed. Trying to brush aside the pain of Dad's absence, she rushed through her cookie to be seated on the floor in front of the couch, focusing on her mother's gentle fingers weaving her hair.

.｡❅*⋆⍋*∞*｡*∞*⍋⋆*❅｡.

She wasn't quite sure what time it was when she was woken up, just that it was too early. She also knew that it wasn't Jackson coming to get her to look at what Santa bought; it was the sound of a train. As far as Agnes knew, there weren't any train tracks that close but nevertheless, there were yellow lights bouncing around her wall and a train whistle seemingly beckoning her to come outside.

As she rushed out her bedroom door and down the stairs, she pulled on her red puffy coat and stuffed her feet into her snow boots. She came to a stop on the front porch as the door closed behind her, shocked by the massive train engine right in front of her house where she knew there weren't any train tracks that afternoon. Oatmeal, her white Persian cat, came to rub at her calves and she scooped him up into her arms before approaching the train.

Oatmeal would protect her.

There was a tall man in a train conductor's uniform standing at the entrance to one of the cars.

"Well," he said. "You coming?"

Agnes blinked at him, burying her small bare hands in Oatmeal's thick coat. "Coming where?" Her voice seemed incredibly small.

"To the North Pole of course!" The train conductor exclaimed. He gestured to the words written along the side of the train. "This is The Polar Express!"

"The North Pole?" Agnes grinned. "To see Santa?"

The train conductor didn't quite smile but something in his gaze softened. "Yes, girl."