Chapter 1 · Wreaths and Warnings
Snow was not supposed to sound like that. It should have had the soft hiss of theater curtains, the steady hush that swallowed footsteps and gave a man privacy. Out on Candle Street it came in crossways gusts that rattled the hedges and made the icicles on the mansard roof clack together like teeth. Evan Hale stood on the top rung of his step ladder and set the wreath into the brass hook over the front door, pressing the wired boughs until they sat flush against oak. The thing breathed against his knuckles. Not air, exactly. A pulse that went with the wind and the draft and the unfixed seam in his weatherstripping, a tiny inhale each time the gusts paused.
He told himself it was a fine wreath. Honest pine, no plastic. He told himself it would make people feel welcome when they came up the stone steps, that it softened the edges of the house, that it proved he understood community. The words were practiced. He had said them to donors and to bankers and to that reporter from the county weekly who wanted to photograph the grand staircase.
The bulbs set inside the wreath were warm white. He had chosen warm white on purpose. When he said, softly and only to himself, I help people, three of the bulbs bloomed red for a heartbeat and then slid back to white.
Evan blinked. The ladder creaked. He reached in and pinched the nearest LED, his fingertips coming away sticky with sap. The wind pressed a cold hand to the back of his neck. He said it again, a whisper swallowed by the snow, like a password he had to keep memorized or else a door would lock behind him.
I help people.
The same three bulbs, tucked deep near the wreath’s inner ring, blushed to a bruised red and cooled.
End of excerpt · © Brandon Haskin
