Joe and his grandfather stood next to the sleigh while Levi David and Wyatt James made some adjustments to things.

“Where are we going?” Joe asked.

“Well, I was hoping you had an idea on that subject,” his grandfather said.

“Me? How would I know…wait maybe I do.” Joe climbed onboard the sleigh and spoke to Levi David.

“You sure?” Levi David asked.

Joe nodded. “Almost certain.”

“Almost?” Levi David said,

Joe shrugged, then climbed back down to talk to his grandfather.

“What was that all about?”

“I told him where we needed to go first,” Joe said.

“And that is?” his grandfather asked.

“Nowhere,” Joe answered, a bit of a smirk on his face.

“Nowhere?” his grandfather said. “And where might that be?”

“Think about it. Where is the only place in the world where possibilities don’t exist?”

“I would say nowhere,” his grandfather said. “Possibilities are everywhere. But nowhere is not a real place.”

“Ah, but consider this, remember when we read the Sherlock Holmes books? What did Sherlock say about the improbable?”

His grandfather smiled. “Once you have eliminated the impossible, what remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

“And what do we have? Someone took Santa’s ability to give the gift of possibilities. Possibilities exist everywhere. Yet Santa’s power to give the gift of possibilities is still missing. Therefore, there must be a place called Nowhere and that is where we will find whoever did this.”

His grandfather thought for a moment. “Here, let me have your cell phone.”

Joe handed it to him. “When you gonna break down and get your own phone?”

“I’m breaking down more each day. Why would I need to get one when I can just use everybody else’s?”

“What if I want to call you?” Joe asked.

“Nobody calls anymore. All they do is text and snipcheat.”

“Snapchat,” Joe corrected.

“Whatever, here,” he said, handing the phone back, “read this.”

“What is it?”

“Well, in keeping with the Sherlock Holmes theme, it may be a clue.”

Joe looked at the phone, scrolling through the webpage.

He’s a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

He’s as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see
Nowhere man, can you see me at all?

“What’s this?”

“A song by the Beatles,” his grandfather said. “I always knew they were inspired by some deep magic but never suspected just how powerful. They wrote this decades ago, must have seen the future.”

“What does it mean?” Joe asked.

“It means, my boy, you are right. There is a nowhere land.”

“Ready,” Levi David said.

“You know how to get to nowhere?” Joe asked.

Wyatt James chuckled. “Nowhere is a piece of cake compared to some of the places we have to fly to deliver presents.”

Joe and his grandfather climbed aboard.

“So how do you fly there?” Joe asked.

“We don’t,” Levi said. “Did you ever just go for a walk and just let your feet take your wherever they wanted to go?”

“Sure,” Joe said. “Sometimes you just want to be alone for a bit.”

“Well, that’s what we’re going to do,” Levi David said. “Reindeer love to wander. Given the choice, they’d wander their whole life. We,” and he waited for Wyatt to drop the reins,” are just gonna let them wander to, wait for it, nowhere. Hit it, girls.”

And as the sound of Levi’s voice faded, the reindeer took off.

Joe leaned over to his grandfather. “Did he just say girls?”

“Joe” his grandfather nodded. “They are all girls.”

“But I thought…”

“Yup, you and most of the world have been misinformed. All reindeer have antlers, the boys lose their antlers in the fall, the girls do not. Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen. And, of course, Rudolph.

“I know, Rudolph sounds like a boy’s name. But what’s in a name?”

“I never knew,” Joe said.

“Here’s a good trivia tidbit. Donner was originally Donder, got a bit mis-translated.”

“You are just full of this stuff, aren’t you?” Joe said.

“Oh,” Levi David interrupted, “he’s full of it alright. We’ve known that for years.”

“Me too,” Joe said, laughing.

“Hey, I’m very sensitive you know,” his grandfather said.

“Yeah, sensitive. That’s exactly what I think whenever I think of you,” Joe chuckled, then settled in to watch the stars overhead.

Tomorrow: The Nowhere Man