What I’m Writing: The Christmas Window 🎄 I’ve been spending my writing time in Bigfork, Montana, where Molly Talbot has returned to help her aunt Rita through the Christmas rush at The Gingerbread Lodge. Molly has a successful career designing … Continue reading →
The Christmas Haus sat mid-block, windows crowded with glass ornaments and carved angels, a nutcracker the size of a child standing guard by the door. Next door, past a narrow lane, a bakery breathed warm yeast into the cold. Warm light spilled onto the sidewalk. Nell pushed open the door beneath the little OPEN sign, grateful to escape the snow for a few minutes.
A bell chimed. Heat rolled over her. The shop smelled of cedar, beeswax, and cinnamon, so strong it almost had a texture. Shelves climbed the walls, packed with color. A small train circled a village on a table near the register.
The man behind the counter was enormous.
That was the first fact her brain supplied, unhelpful and exact. Then he looked up, and Nell forgot, for one stupid second, why she had come in.
Continue reading →The first man entered the courtyard through the ruined outer archway without attempting to conceal himself, while a second appeared near the northern wall and three more emerged from different directions until five figures had spread themselves across the open ground between the chapel, the well, and the surrounding adobe buildings.
Clara had expected monsters after everything she had witnessed during the previous nights, yet the five figures spreading through the courtyard looked disturbingly human, which somehow made the knowledge of what they actually were considerably worse than if they had arrived with monstrous faces that announced the danger before they ever reached the walls.
Had she encountered any one of them beside a road during daylight, she might have offered water before wondering whether she should be afraid.
Continue reading →Elena’s mouth was still open. She was pretty sure she’d been in the middle of a sentence. She couldn’t remember what it was.
Satin?
Nothing.
The silence hit her like a second collision. Satin was never quiet. Not during embarrassing moments, not during class, not during sleep. Satin had opinions about everything, commentary for every occasion. Right now, standing in front of the most striking man Elena had ever seen with coffee dripping down his shirt and her own hand burning from the spill, Satin should have been having a field day.
But there was nothing. Just empty space where the voice should be, hollow and strange, like a room with all the furniture removed.
Continue reading →“Agent Serrano,” he said. “I hope you have been treated well.”
“My wrists are tied behind a chair, and you kidnapped an eleven-year-old boy, so our understanding of good treatment may differ.”
His smile remained undisturbed. “You were given food and water.”
“Then I apologize for overlooking your hospitality.”
The guard brought in a second chair and placed it several feet in front of Julia before the scarred man sat. He remained beside the door with one hand close to his weapon, and Julia noticed a dark stain along the cuff of his trousers and fresh scratches across the back of his right hand. He had either been working outside among the shrubs bordering the house or helping restrain someone who resisted.
Kelly Hunter came to Silver Creek to film a ghost story. The abandoned station had been quiet for decades, and the train rumored to appear there every ten years seemed like a legend her viewers loved. Then the whistle sounded. A black and gold train rolled out of the darkness, carrying people who had been missing for generations and secrets Kelly could never have imagined. Among them was Leon Sinclair, a man with seven centuries behind him and no way home. Once Kelly steps aboard, the question is no longer whether the train is real. It is whether she can leave.
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