Ameh found NT while looking about for bad magic and hexed items. She sent her home, but asked her to come back as soon as she had assured Indy's safety.
Iris and Bethan joined Ameh in the search for bad magic and other hidden menaces on Santa's property.
Pippi and Gretel couldn't do much other than discuss and offer support, and offer to do any job around Santa's that needed to be done.
Elsa joined them.
"Elsa," said Pippi, "Do you remember anything Miranda might've said or done that seemed not quite right during the time she hung around your community?"
"Come to think about it, yes. Miranda - or now we all think it must've been her," Elsa said, "hung around our workshops a lot. She must've been doing that since at least the beginning of last summer. She called herself Samantha, then. She wanted to try her hand at fixing or making toys. I remember she was there one night Santa came to check on how things were going. He shocked us all by not giving her the usual friendly welcome he gave other visitors. When she left, he told us she was definitely not on the nice list. We didn't know why, and we didn't ask. But she seemed so lonely and, well, sorry for herself that we couldn't just turn her away without feeling like we belonged on the naughty list ourselves, so, we just let her in when she came around. At least it was one way to keep her out of trouble - or so we thought."
"That's Miranda for you, manipulative as a sick kid hoax." said Pippi.
Elsa sent a blast message to the elf workshop network, informing them that it was still unsafe to go out, even during the day.
the elves held a conference, discussing what had happened to Elsa and Cosima, and that Frosty's hat had been hexed. Some were genuinely shocked that "Samantha" the lonely girl was to blame, and not what she had lead them to believe.
Ameh set about doing two things at once, roaming about Santa's, looking for bad spells and hexes to undo, and pouring over Miranda's letters, looking for hints about any possible plans. But it was slow going because of Miranda's terrible spelling and typing.
NT set about her own mission in the meantime. When she had arrived home, she called Rebekah Harlan, who was Miranda's biological mother, who had known and been deeply disappointed in Miranda but still didn't know the extent of evil the girl was capable of. NT said nothing about this to her, but warned her that there was a threat and it was best to get away and avoid it.
Rebekah knew and trusted NT, who had always been so kind toward her during their few meetings in the past.
NT took her to the Wood Between The Worlds, a place where some scenes had occurred in some of the Narnia stories.
Then she returned to Rebekah's now empty home and looked for any signs of bad magic, hoping to find none.
to her sickening shock, several things around the home were hexed. Furthermore, they were timed hexes, set to go off on Miranda's birth date. They weren't just instant-kill hexes either, but set to deliver a significant amount of torture and emotional abuse before the grisly death.
an appalled utterance escaped her upon discovering these. But she had to concentrate hard on what had to be done, but vowed she would let Miranda have it with both barrels later.
NT dismantled and nixed all of these hexes and took the objects back home with her. Then, she found some things from her own collection of ornaments, sad as it would be to give even one of these up, she turned as many as needed into copies of the objects she had taken from Rebekah's.
Then, she replaced the once hexed objects with the new ones. The hexed ones were melted away into nothing. It might've been a bit excessive, getting rid of the objects themselves, even when the hexes had been removed, but it was better to be too careful than not careful enough.
NT repeated the procedure at her own home before picking up Indy from work.
Indy was astonished when only Nt showed up to pick her up at work.
The same thing was explained, and when Indy and NT were out of anyone's sight, NT took her to join Rebekah in the Wood Between The Worlds. That done, she returned to the North Pole.
It was nearly dark out.
Somewhere outside, a couple of men lurked.
"If we're going to do it, we better do it now." said one.
"Hang on, do you want to be seen? Anyone could look out of those windows at any moment and try to catch us." the other whispered back.
"Would you rather risk that or become breakfast for that ravenous brat tyrant?" You saw what happened to Aieken before it got light out this morning, and then Jackman would've gotten fanged too if he hadn't high-tailed it out of here."
"Shhh! Duck, someone's coming!"
A tall blonde figure came into view. The two men quickly scrambled into some cover and watched.
The lone figure walked unsteadily along until she staggered and fell. She didn't get up.
"That's one of theirs!" one of the men whispered to his companion, and pointed to Santa's house.
"What happened to her?"
"I dunno. Now do you wanna break for it or not?
The other one nodded, and made their escape, leaving the fallen figure in the snow drift.
Santa and the elf foreman had installed surveillance equipment that could capture footage outside, from inside.
During the installation of the surveillance, Santa came to a window which showed him a sickening sight.
A body lay sprawled out in a snow drift. Some large icicles hung just above it, and one had fallen down beside the form.
Santa looked more carefully, and gasped.
"What is it?" the foreman asked.
I'm not positive, but it looks like one of our guests. I only hope we haven't discovered her too late!" Santa bolted from the room.
the foreman took a moment to look through the newly set up spy camera. "Oh, no." he said to himself. "She was just in my workshop last night."
Outside, things were starting to happen.
"Come back here, you traitor!" A harsh, breathy female voice bellowed, and heavy footsteps disturbed the silence. It was Miranda. She had spotted one of the men running away, and she gave chase.
In sheer desperation, he pointed back over his shoulder. "Easy fresh blood over there!"
"Hah! Likely!" But Miranda turned a moment and saw the still figure lying in the snow.
She turned and ran back, hoping to sink her fangs into this person before it was recede.
Miranda slowed, panting not out of exhaustion, but from greed and eagerness to gorge herself.
Fortunately, the man was able to make his escape.
Miranda glowered, stomped her foot and shrieked in anger. "It's dead, you stupid underling!" Not that the man was in ear shot any longer. Even if he had been, it wasn't as if Miranda's screaming insults would act like some irresistible charm to call him back to be killed.
Miranda heaved a very huffy sigh, the way only an obnoxious spoiled brat can, and knelt down to examine the figure more closely.
The tallness, the beautiful long blonde hair, and when Miranda looked into the face, there was no doubt about it.
"Cosima Brett?" she whispered, giving the head a shake, and feeling the face. She even listened for a heartbeat, checked for signs of breathing, and got no response.
"Brett finally bit the dust!" An evil, smug grin spread over Miranda's face, her eyes were alight with a lurid triumph. "You're dead, and I did it! I got the best of you, Brett!" Miranda crowed.
She stood up, forgetting about her hunger for a moment, cackling like the wicked brat she was. She danced, whirled, jumped back and forth over the body, circling around it, chanting, squealing and laughing "Brett bit the dust! Brett bit the dust!" over and over.
Santa stormed out of the house without any regard for his own safety, to confront Miranda.
"Ho ho ho!" Miranda sneered. "If it isn't the big fat blimp himself! So you got a dead body in your yard, what'ya gonna do about it, Thunder Thighs?"
"Get away from her." Santa glared at Miranda as he picked up Cosima and carried her protectively away, back into another section of the complex which served as a morgue for so many elves before.
Miranda was still jumping and spinning around like a deranged top when Santa came back that way, returning to the main living quarters.
"You're next for banning me off the Nice List!" Miranda called back, threateningly.
Santa's only response was to scowl at her from the doorway, and slam the door, locking it on the way in.
It was then that he happened to see a note taped to the inside of the door.
It read:
--
Dear Santa and all,
I'm so deeply sorry it has all come down to this. Sorry for letting you down. Sorry about the cruelty you're enduring. Sorry I can't stop it and am only contributing to it. Please forgive me.
Yours sincerely,
Cosima Brett
--
"You did what you could, no one can expect more than that." Santa breathed, his voice shaking.
He took the note down and walked in to the kitchen, where Jessica, Gretel, Pippi and Elsa were making dinner preparations.
"I have some terrible news."
"What?" asked Jessica.
"I just found Cosima, collapsed, outside. She must've checked herself out of the hospital and planned to surprise us by coming back on her own." Such an incautious thing to do."
"Oh, dear, is she going to be - " Jessica stopped when she saw Santa's expression turn even grimmer.
He shook his head. "She - didn't make it."
Jessica gasped.
The news was a dreadful shock to everyone, and then Santa read the note aloud.
He concluded with, "It looks like Cosima's handwriting, the spelling is fine, so I'm pretty sure this is not a sick Miranda trick."
When the initial reactions died away, most everyone filed back into the front room or to their bedrooms.
Jessica and Elsa sat on the couch, trying to comfort each other. .
Gretel paced numbly up and down hallways, and wandered in and out of various rooms.
Ameh shed tears while cussing out Miranda and writing out the things she wanted to do to her.
Pippi, unable to express the feelings that overwhelmed her, sat silently, staring coldly off into space.
Miranda had seen Santa carry Cosima off to the morgue, she watched him go back into his house. Then, she peered discreetly in through many windows, trying to spy on what went on inside. She even put her ear to any cracks she possibly could, and by all this, she managed to observe reactions to some degree.
She grinned malevolently as it all went on.
"So, it really is true! With that dumb little elf, that ugly dude, and Old Bat Brett all deader than dog-do, that'll help me a lot! Santa, I OWN you!"
--