Grace laughed—an ugly, stuttering thing, but it was something. “My track record in bathrooms is actually pretty strong.”
“Better than Tessa Monroe’s,” Caroline said. “She once got a perm caught in the hand dryer at this place and had to call the fire department.”
That got a snort out of Anna, and even Olivia smiled, the tension easing just a little.
Caroline refilled her own glass and lifted it in a toast. “To surviving the holidays,” she said.
Grace raised hers, water sloshing over the rim. “To not dying horribly on a stage tomorrow night.”
Anna clinked her glass to theirs. “To not letting visions ruin a perfectly good dessert.”
Olivia’s toast was softer, almost private. “To friends who actually listen.”
They drank, and the clatter and laughter and warmth of the Lakeside Café wrapped around them like an electric blanket, fending off the chill of what was coming. It wasn’t magic, at least not the kind Grace could sense with her psychic barometer, but it felt like the next best thing. She watched her friends and let herself hope, just for a second, that maybe this time they’d get ahead of the darkness.
The four of them sat together, heads bent close, plotting their own tiny revolution against fate. Tomorrow’s disaster loomed, but for tonight, they were safe, and that would have to be enough.
4
Grace zipped up her coat higher as the four of them marched through the brittle air of late December. Caroline was in front, boots clocking the cobblestones. Anna trailed with her hands deep in her coat pockets, pale eyes darting, always watching. Olivia walked in measured, gliding steps, as if every sidewalk in Holiday Hollow were a Parisian runway.
Grace felt like the tag-along kid sister, except tonight, she was the one with the visions, the one whose stomach had been in a slow churn since sunrise.
They arrived at the town square nearly an hour before the lighting ceremony. The tree stood center-stage, a goliath of blue spruce, decked with so many lights the branches drooped under the weight. The platform at its base was dressed in fresh pine boughs, the steps swept clean of snow, but icy patches sparkled where the shadows hung on. Rows of folding chairs, still empty, made the square look like a set waiting for its actors.
Caroline surveyed the scene in front of her. “Right. Anna, you’re on the north side. Look for anything weird by the vendor tents. Olivia, you and I will circle the back. Grace?—”
Grace was already veering toward the stage, drawn by the memory of her vision: water, current, death. “I’ll check the electrical,” she called, and felt only slightly ridiculous saying it.
Caroline tossed her a thumbs up, already grabbing Olivia by the wrist and muttering in low, conspiratorial tones. Anna gave Grace a lopsided smile as she peeled off, boots crunching a lonely path to the perimeter.
Grace slowed at the edge of the stage. It looked harmless in the late afternoon light, all tinsel and plywood. The snow here had melted into slush, probably from the cluster of floodlights aimed upward at the tree’s topmost star. Her shoes left crescents in the packed ice as she circled around, eyes sweeping for hoses, buckets, anything that might leak. The extension cords looked new, orange and still unscuffed, taped at the joints. She followed them to the nearest junction box. It was latched shut, but when she ran her glove along the seam, she felt a pulse behind her ribs, a brief flicker of static.
“Find anything?” a voice said behind her.
She jumped and whirled. Bryant stood with his hands tucked behind his duty belt, radio clipped to his shoulder, gaze even as ever. In uniform, he looked both larger and more tightly wound, as if the badge forced all his uncertainty behind Kevlar and starch.
Grace shook her head. “It looks fine. But it’s too clean, you know? Like someone made it look perfect.”
Bryant squinted at the cord, then at her. “Maintenance did a full check before noon. Nothing out of the ordinary. They even swapped in new power strips.”
She scanned his face for doubt, for the edge of skepticism she’d sometimes caught when she talked about her visions. There was none now. Just a measured worry, maybe more personal than professional.
Bryant’s radio chirped. He squeezed the button. “Paulsen here.” The dispatcher’s voice spilled out, brisk and unremarkable—another round of volunteers arriving, the mayor’s wife asking about parking. Bryant acknowledged each and unclipped the radio, turning it down.
“I get why you’re spooked,” he said, voice lower now. “But I promise, we’re watching every angle. I’ve got officers on every corner.”
She heard thebutin his tone before he said it.
“I don’t know,” she said, hands in her own pockets, wishing for a distraction. “I just feel like something’s waiting for us to relax.”
Bryant took a slow breath, and for a second his jaw worked like he wanted to say more. Instead, he turned back to the cord, bent down, and tugged gently at the connection. When nothing sparked, he made a show of sniffing the outlet.
“No ozone,” he said. “I’d rather look paranoid than risk people getting hurt.” His voice had a gravity that made her look up. His eyes, the color of new pine needles in snowmelt, found hers.
Grace let herself believe him for a moment.
He straightened and stepped subtly to her side. Not in front of her, not overtly shielding, but enough that if something happened, she’d be behind his line of defense.
