CHAPTER ONE

      OH, WHAT FRESH hell was this?

      A pair of ten-foot nutcrackers smiled down at him with giant white grins that looked capable of snapping an entire chestnut tree in half—let alone a single nut. Welcome to Fryberg’s Trains and Toys read the red-and-gold banner clutched in their wooden hands. Where It’s Christmas All Year Round.

      James Hammond shuddered at the thought.

      He was the only one though, as scores of children dragged their parents by the hand past the nutcracker guards and toward the Bavarian castle ahead, their shouts of delight echoing in the crisp Michigan air. One little girl, winter coat flapping in the wind, narrowly missed running into him, so distracted was she by the sight ahead of her.

      “I see Santa’s Castle,” he heard her squeal.

      Only if Santa lived in northern Germany and liked bratwurst. The towering stucco building, with its holly-draped ramparts and snow-covered turrets looked like something out of a Grimm’s fairy tale. No one would ever accuse Ned Fryberg of pedaling a false reality, that’s for sure. It was obvious that his fantasy was completely unattainable in real life. Unlike the nostalgic, homespun malarkey Hammond’s Toys sold to the public.

      The popularity of both went to show that people loved their Christmas fantasies, and they were willing to shovel boatloads of money in order to keep them alive.

      James didn’t understand it, but he was more than glad to help them part with their cash. He was good at it too. Some men gardened and grew vegetables. James grew his family’s net worth. And Fryberg’s Toys, and its awful Christmas village—a town so named for the Fryberg family—was going to help him grow it even larger.

      “Excuse me, sir, but the line for Santa’s trolley starts back there.” A man wearing a red toy soldier’s jacket and black busby pointed behind James’s shoulder. In an attempt to control traffic flow, the store provided transportation around the grounds via a garishly colored “toy” train. “Trains leave every five minutes. You won’t have too long a wait.

      “Or y-you could w-w-walk,” he added.

      People always tended to stammer whenever James looked them in the eye. Didn’t matter if he was trying to be intimidating or not. They simply did. Maybe because, as his mother