Chapter 15
Grace was just on the edge of a caramel-apple coma and a perfectly good buzz when the universe decided to kick her in the shins.
The crowd had thinned in the last hour. The children were gone, carted home by tired parents with hot cocoa mustaches and glittery mittens, leaving only the die-hard townsfolk and a few groups of tourists who were determined to get their money’s worth out of a Christmas Eve in Holiday Hollow.
Most of them had transitioned to the “rowdy adult” phase, parading around the square with spiked eggnog and candy-cane vodka, singing along to the ancient outdoor speakers that now alternated between holiday classics and vaguely raunchy remixes.
Grace stood with Bryant near the dying embers of a fire pit, two empty paper cups at their feet, and watched a gaggle of grown men in Santa hats try, and fail, to limbo under a string of lights. It should have been funny, but she found herself watching the crowd with a mounting, sourceless dread.
Bryant’s arm was around her waist, his touch light but present, and she leaned into it, soaking up the moment.
In the glow of the string lights, he looked younger and less haunted—just a man in love with a town, a holiday, and, maybe, a psychic who could barely keep her scarf untangled.
She wanted to hold onto that for a little longer.
“So,” Bryant said, “what’s the plan for midnight? You gonna turn into a pumpkin, or—?”
The punchline was interrupted by a uniformed cop barreling across the square, nearly upending the tray of a churro vendor in his urgency. He made a beeline for Bryant, face red, breath fogging in the air.
“Deputy!” the officer huffed. “It’s Tessa. I lost her.”
Bryant straightened, every hint of warmth gone. “What do you mean, you lost her?”
The cop, young, hair cropped so short he looked unfinished, shifted from foot to foot. “She was at the last vendor stall, interviewing folks about the light thief, and then she just—” He made a vague, helpless gesture. “Disappeared. I circled the square twice. She’s not here.”
Bryant swore under his breath, then glanced at Grace, who was already pulling on her gloves. “Which way did she go?”
The cop shook his head. “No idea. I asked around, but she’s fast.”
Grace felt it like a gut punch. She hadn’t had a new vision, but she could remember the one with the snow and the blood splattering.
And she could feel the tension in the air, the same thick, predatory pressure she remembered from the staircase at the Winter Ball, and the night of the tree-lighting.
It was here again, coiling tighter, a snake under the snow.
Bryant looked at her, eyes asking the question he couldn’t say aloud: Do you feel it?
She nodded, once. “We need to find her. Now.”
The cop’s radio crackled, but there was nothing but background static and the distant crosstalk of carolers getting belligerent on peppermint schnapps. Bryant sent him to sweep the vendor stalls again, then turned to Grace, jaw set.
“Any idea where she’d go?” he asked.
“If she’s chasing a story, she’ll want to go somewhere the Christmas light thief might strike. Or maybe…” She trailed off, uncertain.
Bryant didn’t hesitate. “Let’s just start moving and see what our gut says.”
They started for the far side of the square, cutting between the vendor huts, but before they’d gotten ten feet, Caroline emerged from a crowd of tipsy PTA moms, clutching a giant inflatable snowman.
“Where are you two sneaking off to?” she said, blue eyes bright and slightly glazed.
Grace summarized in one sentence: “Tessa’s missing. Might be in danger.”
Caroline’s face reset in an instant, sobriety overtaking everything else. “Say no more.” She tossed the snowman to a passing child and called for Olivia, who appeared almost instantly, and Anna, who materialized from the shadows like she’d been listening the whole time.
Within seconds, the four of them had formed a flying wedge behind Bryant, moving with the shared determination of women who’d spent most of their adult lives organizing events, herding children, or otherwise running entire communities with nothing but coffee and threat of public embarrassment.
As they moved out of the main square, the noise faded. Here, the lights were softer, the snow unbroken except for their own footprints. Grace felt the old nerves creeping in, but she refused to let them win.
Bryant took the lead, flashlight out, sweeping it over alleyways and between the shuttered windows of closed shops. The cold was sharper here, the wind less forgiving. The women followed in a tight cluster, eyes alert.
It was Olivia who noticed the first sign. “There,” she whispered, pointing to a set of fresh footprints leading toward a narrow alley behind the hardware store.
They hurried down the alley, the world closing in with every step. The prints wove between garbage bins and broken pallets, leading into a dark corridor that let out onto a smaller street, one Grace didn’t recognize.
A low sound broke the quiet: the caw of a raven, so sudden and close it stopped everyone in their tracks.
Grace’s heart hit her ribs. She remembered the vision, the voice. Some people deserve to die.
She looked up, and there it was: the raven, perched on a streetlight, watching them with its single, soulless eye. The animal didn’t move, didn’t speak, but Grace could feel its message radiating outward, pressing on her from the inside.
“Move,” she said, voice raw. “Go!”
They ran, following the footprints, Bryant a step ahead, the women fanned out behind. Then, the footsteps disappeared before their eyes like someone had waved a magic eraser.
“Damn it,” Bryant muttered, then looked back at Grace. “Which way?”
Grace felt the world tilt, time thinning and stretching, the street narrowing to a tunnel of possibility.
Her instincts screamed for her to obey, and she took the lead.
There were no more footprints. Just fragments of a vision that pulled her along further and further until they entered a neighborhood of silent streets.
Every hair on Grace’s body stood on end, and she knew… she knew they were close.
They turned off the road and into a yard—a silent patch of snow, untouched by even the wind. At the center, sprawled across the ground, was a body.
Tessa Monroe.
She wasn’t dead. Not yet. But her hands were clawing at her neck, eyes wide and rolling.
The necklace, the iridescent teardrop, had cinched tight around her throat, cutting deep into the skin, the metal gleaming wet and red.
Blood splattered the snow in a wild, artless arc.
Tessa’s face was purple, mouth working for air that wouldn’t come.
Grace dove for her, hands going straight to the necklace. The metal was hot, too hot, and seemed to writhe under her touch. She tried to pull it off, but it bit into her palms, drawing blood. Tessa’s lips moved, a desperate “please,” but the chain only pulled tighter.
Bryant dropped to his knees, reached for his utility knife. “Hold her still,” he barked, and Grace braced Tessa’s shoulders, feeling the convulsions rack her body.
With a single, brutal motion, Bryant slipped the blade under the chain and sawed.
The metal sparked, screamed, then snapped.
The necklace broke, taking a chunk of Tessa’s skin with it, but suddenly she could breathe again.
She coughed, the sound wet and ugly, then sucked in air with animal desperation.
Grace cradled her, pressing a scarf to the wound, hands shaking.
The others circled around. Anna dialed 911 with professional calm. Olivia ripped off her coat and wrapped it around Tessa’s shoulders, while Caroline hovered close, scanning the shadows for any hint of the attacker.
Bryant tossed the broken necklace into the snow, where it steamed and hissed like a dropped coal. He looked at Grace, his face a map of anger and relief.
Tessa’s eyes focused on Grace. She tried to speak, coughed again, then managed, “I heard a voice from far away. It said, ‘some people deserve to die’.”
Grace nodded, squeezing her hand. “You’re safe now. It’s over.”
But even as she said it, the raven cawed, this time with a sickening, human glee.
Caroline saw it too. “What is that thing?” she whispered.
The bird cocked its head, then, with a voice that sounded almost like laughter, said, “We’ll try again on Valentine’s Day. But who will die this time?”
The words hung in the air, a curse and a promise.
Then the bird was gone, wings slicing through the night.
They waited with Tessa until the ambulance arrived. The paramedics worked in silent, efficient tandem, bandaging her throat and loading her into the back of the rig. Tessa clung to Grace’s hand until the last possible second.
When the doors shut, the group stood in the yard, not speaking, the only sound the distant, receding wail of the siren.
Grace looked down at her hands, at the blood and the hairline cuts from the necklace, at the line of crimson staining the snow. She had saved Tessa. She had changed the story.
But the game wasn’t over. Not even close.
Bryant stepped to her side, pulling her into a fierce, wordless hug. She buried her face in his coat, letting the warmth of him override the chill that threatened to take root in her bones.
Anna and Olivia stood on either side, arms linked, Caroline in front, eyes fixed on the spot where the raven had vanished.
Grace thought of the necklace, of the voice, of the promise of more to come.
She shivered, but not from the cold.
This was her town, her friends, her story now.
And she was ready to fight.
The four women and Bryant walked back to the square in silence, the snow crunching underfoot, the air clean and hard. The holiday lights still burned, oblivious to the blood and the fear and the little patch of darkness that had settled, once again, in the heart of Holiday Hollow.
Some people deserve to die, the raven had said.
Grace wasn’t sure about that. But she was damn sure that, if she had anything to do with it, nobody else would die on her watch.
Not on Christmas.
Not ever.