Emily Sweets's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Emily stepped into a room filled with wooden tables and unfinished toy parts scattered across every surface. An elf handed her sandpaper and a half-carved train engine. "Smooth the edges," he said. She ran her fingers over the rough wood and felt the splinters catch. She worked the sandpaper back and forth until the surface felt soft. Her hands cramped, but she kept going. When she finished, she held up the engine and smiled at how it gleamed under the workshop lights. Every toy someone would open on Christmas morning started like this, rough and incomplete. Her job was to make sure it ended perfect. She set down the engine and reached for the next piece, ready to help turn simple wood into something that would make a child's face light up. The elf gestured toward the door. "Break time," he said. Emily stepped outside and blinked at the bright white snow. Her eyes caught red berries dotting a green bush nearby. The holly plant stood covered in a thin layer of snow, its berries bright against the white. She laughed at how cheerful it looked. Even plants here seemed designed to make people smile. She walked further and stopped in front of a tall spruce tree. Frost clung to every needle in tiny crystal patterns that sparkled when she moved her head. The tree didn't need decorations. It was already beautiful just standing there. A clock tower rose above the other buildings, its stone walls coated in ice. The brass clock face showed she still had ten minutes before she needed to return to work. Emily stared up at the tower and wondered how many toy makers had checked that same clock over the years. How many had stood right here, wondering if they belonged at the North Pole? The tower had watched countless workers come and go, marking time while toys got built and shipped and opened by happy children. She turned back toward the workshop, her boots leaving fresh tracks in the snow. The holly berries, the frosted tree, the old clock tower—they all reminded her that this place had a history bigger than just her. But she was here now, learning and working and proving herself one toy at a time. Her hands still smelled like wood and her fingers ached from the sandpaper. She grinned. That meant she was doing real work. That meant she was one step closer to earning her place here forever.