Chapter One
Delaney
TheChristmaslightswerewinning.
Delaney clung to the ice-slick shingles, boots braced on the top rung of a ladder that wouldn’t stop wobbling. Her numb fingers wrestled the last tangle of bulbs, each one snapping back as if it had a personal vendetta against her.
Grandpa would have had them strung up weeks ago.
She clipped the last strand to the gutter with a victorious click and gingerly descended. Her legs shook more from adrenaline than cold as she stepped back to admire the now blurring colors. It must be the sting of the cold air, she told herself. Not tears.
Her grandpa used to say Christmas lights kept the winter darkness at bay. He’d been wrong. The darkness had won three months ago when his heart gave out mid-sentence over coffee, and it had been eating her alive ever since.
Delaney swiped at her face and stomped toward the house, boots crunching through yesterday’s snow. Inside, she peeled off layers that reeked of pine sap and sweat. Dizziness hit, and she steadied herself against the wall. The anxiety was back. That low hum in her bones, sharpening. Her constant companion these days.
She straightened her spine.Fine.She wasfine.She just needed something warm.
In the kitchen, she filled the kettle and flicked it on. Instant cocoa tonight. She was too worn out for the real thing, so she made the sad, powdery kind. Grandpa’s version called for melted chocolate and cinnamon.
Her phone shrieked from the counter. Her stomach twisted. She didn’t look. It wasn’t necessary.
Debt collectors. It wasalwaysdebt collectors.
When Grandpa died, she’d inherited everything. That included the tree farm but also the credit cards in her name—ones she’d set up for farm use years ago, back when she still believed this place could turn around. Not to mention the property taxes she had zero prayer of covering.
She’d burned her acceptance letter to college at eighteen. Her dream fed to the woodstove because the farm needed her more. It had been a simple choice then... But now she was losing both.
Delaney turned off her phone and poured boiling water into the misshapen mug she’d made with Grandma when she was eight. Even with the cracked glaze, the mug still held. Unlike everything else.
She wandered into the living room and sank into Grandpa’s armchair. The old suede sighed beneath her, releasing the ghost of pipe tobacco from its seams. She wrapped both hands around the mug, letting heat seep into her chilled palms. Outside, the farm lay silent and stunted. The rows of firs were patchy, years away from being ready for anyone’s living room. There was nothing out there she could actually sell—no inventory, no income—and Christmas was days away.
Selling the land would be worse than drowning in debt. Somehow.
Del, you are going down with this ship.She knew it.
She rolled her neck, fighting the tightness, and reached for the remote. Her eyes caught on the expensive cream envelope beside it, the one from Winter Pines that had been so kindly taped to her door. A wildfire had taken forty percent of their developed trees a few summers back. Ever since, the ski lodge had been circling. Pressuring Grandpa to sell. Now pressuring her.
She gritted her teeth, grabbed the remote, and flicked on the old TV.
“—huge pressure drop in the region. Expect overnight wind chills to reach—”
A sound split the air, a low, hollow boom that vibrated up from the floorboards, like the mountain had coughed. The windows shuddered in their frames, cocoa sloshing onto her sweatpants and the chair.
“Shit!”
She lurched up, reaching for her phone on instinct. Empty pocket. Right. Kitchen. Heart hammering, she rushed outside in house slippers like an idiot and scanned the yard from the porch.
Nothing. The ancient tree baler sat unmoved. The rusted truck hunched in its usual spot next to her snowed-in car. Everything was business as usual.
You’re losing it. Finally booking that one-way ticket to the psych ward, Del.
Maybe she was. She’d been alone out here for weeks. That did things to a person. She shook her head and went back inside. The cocoa stain on Grandpa’s chair mocked her. Perfect. Another thing ruined in her life. She clenched her teeth and moved to the kitchen to wet a cloth, then back to the living room to blot uselessly at the fabric.
Something hit the roof. A dull, heavy sound, like boots on shingles. Every hair on her body stood up. Either Santa Claus had come early, or her night was about to get worse.
Footsteps crossed overhead. Slow. Measured. Like whatever was up there knew exactly where it was going.
The sound stopped.
