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EMILY

Saturday, December 12th

It felt like a totally normal December night in Maple Falls.

But the weatherman, it turned out, had been extremely wrong.

Emily Whitaker had checked the forecast that morning. Four to six inches, he’d said. Manageable.

Her 4x4 could handle four to six inches. She’d handled worse before. In the meantime, she had a gingerbread house to finish, cookies to bake for the City Rescue Mission, and more cupcakes to frost than was remotely reasonable for one baker.

None of it was negotiable.

Nana had volunteered at the City Rescue Mission for thirty years, providing the shelter on Birch Road pies and cookies for the holiday season. Emily was proud to keep that tradition alive.

And she didn’t mind, truly. Her bakery’s kitchen smelled like cinnamon, orange zest, and ginger. Christmas music played; the copper pots glowed in the warm light. Nutmeg, her brown tabby, was sleeping out front on his favorite window seat, and her nana’s framed photograph watched over everything.

Her phone buzzed across the counter.

Once. Then twice.

By the time she wiped the flour from her hands and picked it up, there were eleven messages from the group chat, a string of blizzard warnings from the National Weather Service, and what appeared to be collective panic from everyone she knew.

Zoe: Guys, the roads are really bad. Drive safe!

Kit: Staying with Aunt Norma tonight. Someone’s gotta keep her from going out and shoveling this snow in her slippers.

Emily smiled. Norma Steigler absolutely would go out in a blizzard in her slippers.

Madison: Emily, tell me you’re home…

Emily frowned and typed back:

Ummm. Still at the bakery. How bad is it?

Madison: WHAT.

Pretty bad, then.

She left the kitchen, crossed the bakery to the front window and went up on her tiptoes to peer outside.

White. Nothing but white.

Snow spun through the darkness in thick, furious sheets, swallowing the Christmas lights strung along Oak Way. The streetlamps had become little more than blurred orange smudges behind the storm.

Quickly, she went to the door and leaned against it.

It didn’t budge.

Tomorrow’s display case was already stocked with sugar cookies shaped like snowflakes and reindeer, cranberry-orange scones, pecan pies, gingerbread, danishes, and enough cake to feed half of Maple Falls.

At least starvation wasn’t an immediate concern.

Emily stress-ate the head off a gingerbread cookie, wandered back into her kitchen, and half-heartedly tried the back door there. It didn’t budge either, of course. She considered her options.

If she could somehow get outside, she and Nutmeg only had to cross the street. Her mom’s café sat directly opposite, with Anita’s apartment upstairs.