We met when you were just a child, but you’re a man now and need my protection.
With Christmas Eve approaching, I’ll watch over you.
Whether you know it or not.
Because no one is allowed to hurt you.
No one but me.
At 20K words, He Sees You When You’re Sleeping is a twisted take on Santa, featuring M/M romance, horror, and the holiday season.
HOLY HANNAH BATMAN!!! How did I miss this last year? This is my first read from Sara Dobie Bauer but it won't be my last!
I won't say too much about He Sees You When You're Sleeping so not to spoil this short novella. I will say that I don't think I've ever read or seen such a unique and intriguing take on Santa Claus before which probably made me love it even more. He Sees You may not be the family oriented, animated classic, Hallmark brand of the man in the red suit that has dominated our Christmas memories but Sara Dobie Bauer's Kris will forever live on in my future holidays.
Despite the darker take on a holiday staple, you can't help but cheer for Kris and Jack, wanting them to have that Hallmark HEA but whether they do is something you will have to read for yourself. Trust me if you enjoy a little dark mixed with holiday light than He Sees You When You're Sleeping is definitely up your Christmas chimney.
RATING:
He went by Kris, although little children knew him by another name. When December 24 arrived, so did the woman in black, her face always hidden by a hood. Together, they would spend a night of toil that felt much longer than only one night. They had spent Christmas Eve together for decades, maybe more. Kris wasn’t clear on time. The only thing clear was his annual duty: walk the world every Christmas Eve, protect children, and leave gifts for the ones who believed.
There weren’t as many believers anymore; several houses didn’t glow as Kris walked a poor street on the outskirts of New York City. Sadly, most of the small houses were dark, which meant the children who lived there no longer awaited the entity known as “Father Christmas.” That meant Kris could pass by those homes. He and the woman in black had no time for unbelievers.
They stopped in front of one house, though, and Kris tilted his head to the side, curious. The house was ramshackle, probably built in the 1970s or early 80s. Bright white snow sat heavily on the roof—at least six inches—and Kris wouldn’t have been surprised if the roof caved in. He was impressed the house still stood at all with its decrepit, cracked siding; one broken window, covered in thick paper and tape; and not a single Christmas light.
Yet, the house …
It didn’t glow, per se. It flickered. Kris couldn’t remember seeing anything like it, and although his ageless memory was vast, he knew it couldn’t be trusted. There was a big, empty space in his life before he became “Kris.” He remembered nothing before that one Christmas Eve when he woke up and started walking with the woman in black, visiting all the houses that glowed—so many back then. So few now.
Why did this house flicker, like an aged light bulb about to go out?
He didn’t bother asking his companion for answers. In all their time together, the woman in black never spoke. When Kris approached the front door, made of scraped and weatherworn wood, she followed. Kris took them to The Other Place where they couldn’t be seen. Then, they walked through the front door.
As soon as they entered the cramped foyer, Kris smelled cigarettes and heard shouting. A child cried, “Run! Go!” followed by the sound of furniture being knocked over.
An adult voice joined the hubbub: “You little shit.”
Kris actually startled at the vicious smack of flesh hitting flesh. Then, the echo of a body hitting the floor. The misleading quiet swish of bodies in an altercation. The child cried out again just as Kris turned a corner, and the woman in black lingered behind, as usual.
Kris entered a living room with a threadbare couch, cheap TV, and dark fireplace. An overflowing ashtray was knocked over, spilled beside a three-legged coffee table held up by a stack of phone books.
Invisible to all present, Kris ground his teeth at the scene as a father knelt above his son, who couldn’t have been older than ten, and smacked him repeatedly, while the child flailed his skinny arms to no avail.
The father kept cussing, mumbling to himself, and Kris smelled alcohol from where he stood. A soft whimper caught his attention. In the back corner, beneath a kitchen table, two children—smaller than the one being attacked—stared in horror but remained hiding. Apparently, this was a usual occurrence, their bigger brother defending them by accepting the brunt of their father’s ire.
Kris’s heart ached.
After one more solid whack, the drunken dad pointed in the boy’s face.
The boy bled from his mouth but didn’t shed a tear.
“That’s what you get for asking for a goddamn fire because it’s Christmas.” The word came as a taunt. “Christmas ain’t even real, you fucking halfwit. It’s just another useless day.” Then, the father pushed to his feet and wove across the room unsteadily before disappearing down a dark hall.
It took a moment for the child on the floor to sit up, but he did eventually, dark hair a mess. He wiped his bleeding face on the sleeve of an oversized flannel shirt with a hole in the elbow. Kris recognized the boy, although on previous Christmas Eves, he had never looked so malnourished, so sick.
After a silent moment, the two other children exited their hiding spot and joined their brother in the center of the room.
The little girl, hair in a messy ponytail, said, “Told you,” and poked her brother in the knee.
He didn’t acknowledge her, just stared into the empty fireplace.
“Yeah,” the other child said. Although probably no older than six or seven, he had a rough appearance as though he’d spent several years living on the street.
The smaller children recovered fast and left, probably off to their bedrooms to play. Kris hated how fast they recovered, because it meant this third child—the elder child who had protected them—received beatings often. And no one cared.
Kris observed as the bleeding boy continued staring into the fire with his arms wrapped around his bent knees. That was when he noticed.
It was this boy who flickered. This boy had called Kris into the house.
With a snap, Kris produced a fire in the fireplace, and the child skidded backwards across the warped wooden floor. Then, Kris wrapped the boy safely in The Other Place and sat at his side. Kris might have expected some kind of reaction—a scream, perhaps, which was why he’d wrapped them in the place where no one could see or hear them until Kris allowed.
But the child didn’t scream. He looked at Kris, at the fire, and glanced over his shoulder down the hall.
“No one will bother us,” Kris said quietly.
The kid wrinkled his nose. “Shit, he must have hit me really hard this time.” The profanity sounded extra ugly coming from the mouth of someone so young.
“Does your father hit you a lot?” Kris asked. He felt huge next to someone so small and frail. He wondered when the child had last eaten.
The boy winced. “That’s not my father.” He shrugged. “I don’t know my father. Frank is just my foster asshole.” He wiped a drop of blood from the side of his mouth with his thumb. “Who are you anyway?” Reflected flames danced in his wide eyes, green as a freshly cut pine tree.
“Father Christmas.”
The child’s head whipped toward him. “What? Like, Santa?”
“Yes.” Kris nodded. “And you believe in me.”
Sara Dobie Bauer is a bestselling author, model, and mental health / LGBTQ advocate with a creative writing degree from Ohio University. She lives with her hottie husband and two precious pups in Northeast Ohio, although she’d really like to live in a Tim Burton film.
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