Chapter 3
Three
One Year ago
Hadley
The terrible thing about living at the edge of Mistletoe Pines is that when the town runs out, everything stops.
There isn’t any measured tapering of properties.
No equal measure from civility to the wild.
One second you are staring at scattered walkways and porch lights and the next, you’re absorbed by the shadows of the forest.
And tonight, my footsteps are the only thing louder than my thoughts.
The moon hides behind thick clouds. There isn’t a star in sight as I dump some dry cat food on the back porch for my Meemaw’s critters. She feeds them all. Stray cats, raccoons, birds, and squirrels.
Tonight, they don’t stir at all. Not even for a free meal.
It’s too cold for the living outside.
I wrap my flannel robe tighter around me as I go back inside.
The house is quiet.
Too quiet.
Normally, the hum of my Meemaw’s TV would fill the silence, but she’s off on a vacation with her boyfriend, leaving me home and alone for the holiday.
My skin prickles in awareness as the sound of my steps follows me up the stairs.
Sometimes I could swear there’s a ghost haunting me. A phantom that crawls into bed with me, but whenever I wake up, there’s no one there, but I can still smell and feel them on my skin.
This ghost or dream smells of pine and smoke. Woodsy. Manly.
Like he was made just for me.
Some nights, I imagine him out in the woods watching me. I take my time undressing, wondering if he likes what he sees.
Other nights I think I’m losing my mind and that I read too many books.
That I allow my mind to create things that aren’t there because I crave the shadows. The dark things that would make others question their morals.
I go to my room and look out my window. Only a masochist would be out there on this cold, snowy night.
My back bedroom window faces the woods behind me. Most nights, the only thing that stares back at me is my reflection. In the summertime, the forest is filled with the sounds of insects and frogs. In the winter though everything is dead save an occasional barn owl.
I crawl into bed, but whenever I close my eyes, there’s a new sound. A new creak that I don’t recognize.
I lie here staring at the ceiling, willing my mind to count sheep, but they don’t come.
Instead, I’m plagued by thoughts of heavy boots on the stairs. A gloved hand twisting my doorknob. A masked intruder ready to attack at any moment.
These thoughts should terrify me, but they have the opposite effect. They give me a thrill.
I lay here tossing and turning for far too long, wishing for a dream man. For one of my favorite characters to come to life and seduce me.
Eventually, I give up and go back down to the kitchen to take melatonin. I grab my bottle out of the cabinet and dump two gummies onto my palm. I chew them up, but they get hung in the back of my dry throat. I pad across the room to the sink to get a glass of water.
The clock on the stove reads three am. The witching hour.
From the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of something or someone in the window other than my reflection.
My heart leaps to my throat. I tell myself it’s just the wind, or my mind playing tricks on me.
I watch and I wait with my heart pounding, waiting for it to happen again. Wanting it to happen again.
For a second, I’m sure I see something. Not a face, not exactly, but the outline of a head and shoulders, broad and unmoving, right behind the glass. A dark figure watching me.
Pressing my forehead to the cold pane of glass, I squint, staring out into the dark night. There’s nothing or no one there. The woods beyond the edge of the backyard are a smear of black dusted in silver, branches clattering in the wind as more snow blows in.
“You’re imagining things,” I speak aloud to myself. I shake my head and turn to go back to bed when I hear it. A dull thump of something hitting the back door. My pulse jumps with excitement.
Slowly, I pad to the door, drawing back the curtain that covers the glass.
There’s no one there.
A smarter girl would call someone, but I’ve always been drawn to the dark.
To spooky things that go bump in the night.
I crack the door open, and a package falls into the doorway.
It’s small and rectangular. Covered in brown paper secured with black electrical tape.
I pick it up and shut the door in a hurry.
The gift — at least I’m assuming that’s what this is — is heavier than expected and smells of pine and cigarette smoke. Like my phantom. My ghost.
I place it on the kitchen table gently as though it’s a bomb that will detonate if my movements are too rough, too sudden.
Flicking on the light over under the hood of the stove, I stare at the brown paper, seeing smudges of something sticky, like honey or tree sap.
I grab a dull butter knife from the drawer and cut the paper down one side and smile at what is revealed.
A book with gorgeous painted edges that remind me of the forest behind my house.
A shiver courses down my spine as I remove it from the paper.
It’s a dark romance.
One I’ve never heard of before. It’s a Christmas-themed book. A murderous one with a bloody axe on the cover. I hug it to my chest, inhaling the scent of pine and smoke, wondering who it is from.
My cell vibrates from upstairs, the faint sound humming as it carries down the stairs.
There’s one message.
Unknown: Merry Christmas, Hadley. Saw this, and I thought of you and all the things I want to do to you.
Heat warms my cheeks. I flip through the pages, skimming and wondering exactly which scene they mean.