Mistletoe, Mayhem & Mr. Grump

Chapter 1

Wren

The stack of overdue notices on my counter has achieved sentience and is currently judging my life choices.

At least that's what it feels like as the pile somehow manages to look disapproving while completely blocking my grandmother’s favorite music box—the antique carousel with hand-painted horses that dance to 'The Christmas Waltz. '

The universe, apparently, majored in ironic symbolism with a minor in kicking people when they're down.

"Miss Holloway?" The voice cuts through my financial spiral like a hot knife through my already melted dreams.

Miranda Fletcher stands in my doorway looking like she stepped out of a "Success for Bankers" catalog—navy suit pressed within an inch of its life, hair that defies both gravity and the December slush, and a folder under her arm that might as well have a skull and crossbones on it.

"Miranda!" My fake smile could power a small city—or at least convince someone I'm not internally screaming.

"What perfect timing! I just got in the most amazing collection of vintage ornaments from the Brennan estate.

There's this Victorian angel that would look absolutely stunning on your tree.

You know, the tree in your house where you live, far away from here. "

"Wren." Her tone could stop a charging reindeer mid-prance. "This isn't a social call."

The cheerful bells above my door jingle as she closes it, and I swear they sound sarcastic. Even my door hardware has turned against me.

She surveys my shop with the clinical detachment of someone mentally calculating liquidation values, and I can practically see the dollar signs reflected in her eyes.

Prime real estate: check. Vintage fixtures that hipsters would kill for: check.

Inventory that could fetch decent prices if you market it as ‘artisanal nostalgia’: check and mate.

"I've tried to give you time," Miranda continues, pulling out The Folder of Doom with efficiency that probably gets her Employee of the Month every month.

"But three months behind on payments? The loan committee is asking questions I can't answer anymore.

Well, I could answer them, but 'She has a really sweet personality, and her grandmother was lovely' apparently isn't considered valid collateral. "

Three months. The words echo in my head like a bad remix of my worst nightmare.

Three months since my last decent sale, unless you count Mrs. Henderson's pity purchase of a wooden yo-yo she claimed was for her nephew.

Mrs. Henderson doesn't have a nephew. We both knew it.

We maintained eye contact while she lied.

It was a beautiful moment of human compassion.

"January is just around the corner," I try, straightening a display of hand-carved nutcrackers that are already straighter than my sexuality was before Tom Hiddleston existed. "Holiday sales will pick up. They always do. Remember two years ago? I made enough in December to cover three months of—"

"That was before started offering same-day delivery on vintage-style toys made in factories that can produce your entire inventory in twelve minutes."

"But mine are actually vintage—"

"The bank can't run on authenticity, Wren."

I want to argue that authenticity should be currency, that memories should have monetary value, that the look on a child's face when they wind up a music box for the first time should be legal tender. But I also want to not be homeless, so I keep quiet.

"How long?" My voice comes out smaller than the miniature tea set in aisle three.

"Three weeks. December 23rd. If you can't bring the account current by then..." She doesn't finish, but her expression says it all.

December 23rd. Two days before Christmas. Because the universe subscribes to the Grinch school of timing. Merry Christmas, Wren! Here's homelessness wrapped in a foreclosure bow!

The bell chimes again, saving us from more awkward financial reality, and Delia Ashworth glides in like she's auditioning for ‘Elegant Seniors of Vermont Weekly.’

"Miranda. Wren." She manages to make our names sound like she's identifying suspects in a lineup. Her gaze takes in Miranda's power suit, my stress posture, and what I'm pretty sure is a new stress pimple forming on my chin in real-time.

"Business meeting?" she asks, though we all know she already knows. Delia probably knew about my financial troubles before I did. She has a sixth sense for gossip and a seventh sense for other people's misfortune.

"Just finishing up." Miranda gathers her torture implements—I mean, documents—with practiced efficiency. "Think about what I said, Wren. Three weeks."

She evacuates as if she's afraid poverty is contagious, leaving me alone with Delia, who approaches my counter with the measured pace of a predator who knows the prey is cornered.

"Difficult conversation?" She runs one perfectly manicured finger along the edge of the carousel music box, and her expression shifts to something almost human.

"Your grandmother let me wind this once," she whispers. "Such a lovely melody. Of course, that was back when the shop was thriving. When it had... proper management."

"I'm managing properly," I defend, though we both know I'm managing about as well as the Titanic managed that whole iceberg situation.

"Managing, perhaps. But not thriving. A young woman, alone, trying to maintain a traditional business in changing times... it concerns people."

"My personal relationship status has nothing to do with my ability to run a business."

"Doesn't it?" She adjusts her designer gloves with surgical precision. "The Bailey girl was in similar circumstances with her bakery last year. Then she married that contractor from Millbrook, and suddenly the bank found her loan terms much more favorable."

"Maybe the contractor co-signed—"

"The Hendersons' hardware store was failing until their son came back from college with his fiancée. Now they're thriving."

"Correlation isn't—"

"In small towns, my dear, correlation is close enough to causation for committee work.

" She smiles, and somewhere a small animal probably freezes in terror.

"The Christmas gala is in three weeks. Everyone who matters will be there.

Including the loan committee members who golf with their traditional values every Sunday. "

"I'll be there. I'm always there. I haven't missed one since I was eight and threw up on Santa's shoes."

"Alone." The word hangs between us like a particularly judgmental icicle. "While every other business owner attends with their spouse or significant other, showing stability, permanence, commitment to building a future in Snowfall Creek."

"So, I should do what? Grab some random guy off the street and present him like a show pony?"

"I'm suggesting," Delia says with that maddening calm that comes from never having to check price tags, "that you think strategically. Your grandmother knew that sometimes unconventional solutions are the most effective."

"My grandmother also thought the neighbor's cat was psychic."

"Mr. Whiskers correctly predicted three snowstorms."

"Mr. Whiskers slept under a barometric pressure gauge!"

"Results are results, dear." She heads for the door, then pauses for maximum dramatic effect—she probably practices these exits in her mirror. "The shop meant everything to Helena. I'd hate to see it lost because of... pride."

She leaves, and I slump against the counter like a marionette whose strings just got cut. The carousel music box sits there, silent and judgmental, its painted horses frozen mid-gallop like they're waiting for someone to wind the key and make them dance.

But winding keys doesn't pay bills, and dancing horses don't impress loan committees.

I pick up the music box anyway, finding the key on the bottom and giving it three careful turns. The melody starts—'The Christmas Waltz'—tinny and sweet and absolutely nothing like my current disaster of a life.

When life gets hard, sweet girl, I can almost hear my grandmother saying, You wind the music and remember—beauty persists. Even in the darkest winter, even when everything seems lost, beauty finds a way to persist. Also, always keep bail money hidden in the flour jar, but that's unrelated advice.

Okay, she didn't say that last part, but she should have.

The shop feels too quiet now, even with the melody playing.

Through the frost-etched windows, I watch the rest of Snowfall Creek bustling with holiday preparation like they don't have a care in the world.

Garlands drape between lampposts like green smiles mocking my pain.

The town Christmas tree stands tall and proud, probably also judging me.

By 3:45, I've accomplished exactly nothing except rearranging the same shelf four times and composing mental resignation letters to capitalism.

Dear Capitalism,

It's not me; it's you.

Actually, it's definitely you.

Hate and resentment,

Wren

The Daily Grind is already packed when I arrive for the mandatory Christmas Committee meeting—or as I like to call it, ‘Two Hours of My Life I'll Never Get Back: The Holiday Edition.’

"Wren, darling, there you are!" Delia waves me over with the authority of someone who's never been told no in her life. She's positioned at the corner table like a general surveying her troops, armed with color-coded notebooks that probably have spreadsheets of their own.

I squeeze into the last empty chair between Teddy Wickham—whose magnificent Santa beard is achieving sentience—and June Hartwell from the Gazette, who's scribbling notes like committee meetings are breaking news.

Which, in Snowfall Creek, they basically are.

Tomorrow's headline: 'Local Woman Fails to Bring Adequate Christmas Cheer, Town Mourns. '

"Now then," Delia adjusts her readers with the precision of someone defusing a bomb, "we need to address the elephant in the room."