I can’t escape it.
He’s wrapped himself around me within just a few short days. This stranger, in an unknown town. This man whose handsI have no business putting myself or my daughters' safety in, but I’ve never felt more secure in my entire life.
“Mom!” Jovie’s excited voice breaks through my thoughts. I leap out of bed and rush into the lounge to see her standing at the window, her nose pressed to the glass. “There’s people down there! Kids! And they’re going into the bar.”
With a frown, I hurry over, scanning the street below.
She’s right. Outside the frosted window, cars are parked along the street, and families are piling out. They’re wearing Christmas sweaters and clutching small bags, laughing as they disappear into the bar below us.
I blink, rubbing sleep from my eyes. “What on earth…”
Jovie may be obsessed with Grizz and his grumpy demeanour, but I know for sure these children are not giggling and laughing excitedly to spend the day with his frowny face.
“Let’s go see!” Jovie says excitedly, bouncing toward the door with the kind of energy I won’t have until I've had my third cup of coffee for the day.
“Freeze, squirt!” I call after her, and she jerks to a hard stop, glancing back at me over her shoulder. “I’m going to demand you put pants on before you leave this apartment.”
My dramatic child throws her hands in the air and looks down at the nightgown she’s wearing. “I think this is fine.”
“It’s not, go get dressed,” I tell her, folding my arms across my chest and hitting her with my best motherly glare. “I’ll meet you at the door in five, and we’ll go see what’s happening.”
Jovie huffs but scampers back toward the bedroom, muttering under her breath about pants being overrated. I fight a smile and shake my head as I make quick work of pulling on a pair of jeans and one of the seven Gallows shirts Grizz insisted I have.
The man is a little excessive, but I’m starting to realise that maybe excessive is the way he shows he cares.
He didn’t give us a place to stay, he gave us a full apartment.
He didn’t drop off just a few supplies. It was everything we could possibly need.
He doesn’t do things halfway.
It’s all or nothing.
But am I ready for it to be all, when I’ve had nothing for so long?
“Ready!” Jovie sings, and I walk out to find her already standing beside the door, bouncing on her toes as she fights with the buttons on the front of her jacket. “Do you think they’re making Christmas presents? Or doing crafts? I saw glitter!”
I can’t help but chuckle at the excited sparkle in her eyes, sure, I’m about to watch Christmas lights or candy canes shoot out her ears. “Okay, okay,” I laugh, grabbing my hoodie from the back of the sofa before the two of us squeeze out the door and rush downstairs.
The bar looks almost unrecognizable.
Fairy lights are strung up and wrapped around the exposed beams, with handfuls of tinsel and paper snowflakes fluffed up in the corners. All the bar tables are pushed to the sides of the room and stacked out of the way, while long folding tables fill the space instead, each with colored paper, pens, jars, and an obnoxious amount of glitter—just like Jovie said.
“Brynn! Jovie!” Sarah calls with a wave, ducking out from behind one of the long tables and dodging several small children as she hurries over with a worried frown. “I’m so sorry if we disturbed you. We tried to keep quiet while we were setting up, but?—”
I wave my hand, cutting her off. “Oh no! You’re totally fine! We just came down to see what was going on.”
Her face lights up, and she claps her hands.
“Well! Every Christmas festival we do some fun stuff for the kids, and one of them is making Christmas Wish Jars,” sheexplains, grabbing one of the old mason jars from the centre of a table. “It’s a Hallowed Springs tradition.”
Jovie takes the jar, twisting it in her hands. “Are they wishes for Santa?”
“Not exactly,” Sarah says, her voice softening as she crouches down to Jovie’s level. “It started over a hundred years ago when Hallowed Springs was no more than a few streets and a church. Winters were rough, money was tight, and the pastor's wife came up with the idea to have everyone in town write down one thing they wished for, for the year ahead.”
I’m not usually one to fall for these old tales about miracles—the cynic in me having been created by a lifetime of disappointments and bad luck, but even I have to admit to being drawn in by Sarah’s gentle voice and the way she speaks as if what she’s saying isn’t town legend, but town lore.
“The catch was that these wishes and hopes for the future weren’t allowed to be physical things,” Sarah continues, strumming her nails on the empty jar Jovie is clutching tightly. “So the townspeople wished for things like forgiveness for mistakes they’d made, they wished for good health, and some even wished to find love.”
