All Chapters of Christmas in ashes : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The lights flicker again, and I swear the shadows in Aunt Ruby’s living room lean toward me. The storm outside howls like its throat is full of my name, and Noelle watches me like she’s waiting for me to bloom into something awful.I take one shaky step back.Aunt Ruby takes two steps forward, wielding a cracked salt jar like she’s about to perform a chaotic exorcism.“Noelle Arden,” she says, pointing the jar. “You get out of my house before I smack the unholy straight out of you.”Noelle sighs. “Ruby, don’t be dramatic.”“Dramatic? I was born dramatic,” Ruby snaps. “I’ll die dramatic. Now get!”Noelle’s expression twitches — amused at first, then suddenly cold. “He said you’d try to interfere.”Aunt Ruby freezes. “He tells you too much.”Noelle shrugs like she’s discussing the weather. “He tells me enough.”My skin crawls. “Why is he even talking to you? Why you?”Noelle tilts her head, smile returning in a way that makes something sour open in my stomach. “Because I was always clos

I don’t realize I’m shaking until Noelle grips my arms and whispers, “Elora, breathe. Please breathe.”The pastor is still outside. Still staring at my window. Still… wrong.My breath comes out uneven. “Why is he like this during the day?”Noelle opens her mouth, but Milo steps forward before she can speak. He places one small hand on the wall facing the backyard—directly opposite where the pastor stands.His fingers tremble.Then he taps.Once. Twice.I understand instantly.He’s mimicking Gideon’s knocking.A warning. “He’s calling,” Milo whispers.I freeze.It’s the first time I’ve heard him speak more than a single word. His voice is quiet—soft and broken, like it got lost somewhere and only just found its way back.“Milo,” I say slowly, “who is he calling?”He points at me.Noelle claps a hand over her mouth. “No. Nope. Absolutely not. He does not get to call my best friend like she’s a pizza order.”My stomach twists painfully. “Why me? What does he want?”Milo shakes his head and

Pastor Gideon’s eyes glow like dying lanterns in the doorway...hollow, blue, inhuman.The same eerie hue burning in the monster tearing at Lucien in the snow.My mind refuses to understand.“Pastor…?” My voice cracks. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”He smiles.It is not a good smile.Not a pastor's smile.It stretches too wide, too sharp, too hungry.“My child,” he whispers, “you weren’t supposed to see me like this yet.”Elias jerks me behind him so fast I almost fall. “Don’t go near him.”Gideon tilts his head, fascinated. “Ah. Elias Thorn. Meddling again?”Elias stiffens. “She’s under my protection.” “And that,” Gideon says calmly, “is precisely the problem.”He steps forward.Not walking.Gliding.His feet don’t touch the ground.Elias backs us away, but Gideon moves faster—his fingers brushing the chapel door frame like he’s savoring it.“Elora,” he murmurs, “come. I’ll keep you safe.”Safe.SAFE!!?Lucien is being mauled by an unholy frost-creature ten feet away and the pastor is promi

The darkness in Aunt Ruby’s house didn’t feel like normal darkness.Normal darkness is empty.This one… watched.I stood frozen, my heartbeat beating so loudly it felt like it had hijacked my ears. The only light came from the small emergency bulb flickering in the hallway above us, painting everything in a sickly, jaundiced glow. Lucien was beside me, tense, a shadow-mirror of electricity under his skin. Milo stood behind him, small fingers clutching Lucien’s coat like it was the last safe thing on earth. And Noelle...perfect, cheerful Noelle...lingered just out of reach, smiling with teeth too white and pupils far too still.“Welcome to the real story,” she had just whispered and then the night breathed.I don’t mean that metaphorically.The walls expanded...in, then out...as though the entire house exhaled.Milo whimpered.I grabbed Lucien’s coat sleeve. “You feel that, right?”Lucien nodded, but his eyes were fixed on Noelle. “She knows more than she’s showing.”Noelle tilted her he

Something yanked my ankle so hard my teeth clacked together.I hit the floor, my fingernails scraping uselessly against the wooden boards as whatever-it-was pulled me toward the basement. The darkness swallowed my vision, thick and suffocating, like the air itself wanted me gone.“Elora!” Lucien’s voice exploded behind me.Milo screamed.Noelle laughed,actually laughed,like she was watching a comedy skit.But none of them could reach me.The hand around my ankle was ice-cold and impossibly strong. It dragged me down the first step, then the second, splinters tearing into my palms as I clawed at the stairs.“LET HER GO!” Lucien’s voice thundered, and then I heard something—something like crackling magic or metal scraping stone.But the darkness around me pulsed.And the hand tightened.“Elora,” a voice whispered from below, perfectly calm. “Stop fighting. You were never meant to climb upward.”“I’m not going with you!” I screamed, kicking wildly.A low chuckle.“You already are.”I felt