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Somewhere Else

ou might think you know about Father Christmas. And I’m sure you do know some things. You probably know about the Toy Workshop and the reindeer. You know what happens every Christmas Eve. Of course you do.

But the thing you probably don’t know about is me.

I will start by telling you the things that are easy to believe.

My name is Amelia Wishart and I have a black cat called Captain Soot. I was born in London, and I lived there until I was eleven years old. And then I lived somewhere else.

It is the somewhere else that you might find a bit unlikely.

I suppose I could tell you that I moved to Finland, and you would have no problem believing that, because Finland is on a map. And it is, technically, true. I did move to Finland, in the far far far North, beyond the bit of Finland known as Lapland. The somewhere else I lived was simply called the Far North and the town was Elfhelm. Now, Elfhelm isn’t on any maps. Not human ones, anyway. And the reason for this is that most people can’t see it. It’s invisible to them. You see, Elfhelm is a magical place, and to see magical places you have to believe in magic. And the type of humans who draw all the maps are the people least likely to believe in magic.

But Elfhelm is an ordinary town in lots of ways. A small town. An oversized village, really. And there are normal things there, like shops and houses and a town hall. There are streets and trees and even a bank.

But the people who live there are very different to me. And very different to you too.

They aren’t even people. Not human people anyway.

They are special. They are magic.

They are, well . . .

They are elves. But the thing is, if you are surrounded by elves, it isn’t the elves that are the weird, unusual creatures.

No.

It’s you.