Beauty In Her Madness (Winterland Tale #3) - Stacey Marie Brown Page 0,20

traveling toward the voice. Out of the side of my eye, I saw a little body dart in front of me.

“Wait. I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help.”

A high-pitched giggle came from another direction changed my course.

“Boys, where are your parents?”

Cackled laughs spun me around again, their voices jumping too quickly in opposite locations to be humanly possible. Were there more than two out here? Some bizarre Lord of the Flies situation?

My heart thumped from exertion, but fear climbed up the back of my legs, knowing something was off. Way off.

Two giggling figures darted through the trees, and I took off after them. Their bodies again slammed into each other as they leaped over a fallen tree, dropping to the ground on the other side. Like a vacuum, their laughs cut off, everything going uncannily silent.

I jumped onto the log, peering down, ready to see the boys lying there.

Empty. No sign of the boys. Chills burst over my arms. It was impossible.

“What is going on?” I whimpered, my hand running through my hair.

Dinah, you are going crazy. There was no other explanation. I remembered Alice telling me her hallucinations were as real as I was. At the time, I couldn’t understand it—now I could.

Panic spun me, my feet turning to get off the log. Slipping, my body fell back. A squeak gurgled up my throat, my arms flapping as gravity yanked me backward.

Preparing for my ass to hit the rocky ground, I squeezed my lids shut. But it never came.

I continued to fall.

My eyes and mouth burst open as darkness enveloped me.

Descending down.

Flipping and tumbling, I spotted a dim light, unveiling the bottom, my body speeding toward it like it was a bullseye. Screaming, I scrambled for anything to stop me as it did before. Wind gushed upward, ballooning my elf skirt out like an umbrella, jerking me back up before gently lowering me to the ground.

My feet touched earth, and I bent over, feeling as if I wanted to puke. Taking in several deep breaths, acknowledging I was okay, my gaze started to wander.

What the hell? My brows crunched down as I peered around. I stood on the foundation of a house, but no walls or roof were left. They were crumbled as though a tornado had ripped apart the home. A single table stood whole in the middle, the lone survivor of whatever force had come through here.

My feet moved, chunks of what was left of the walls crumbling under me like dry cookies, wafting the smell of ginger into my nose.

“Holy tinsel.” Man, I was sounding more and more similar to my sister. My mouth gaped, and I picked up a portion, holding it up to my nose. “It’s gingerbread.”

What looked like dried foam stuck to some of the pieces.

Frosting?

This was insane. I was standing in the middle of what used to be a huge gingerbread house before it had been demolished.

Distant giggles jerked up my head, and I raced down the house path, jogging past gigantic gumdrops, to the edge of a forest. I stopped, trying to listen for them.

“Oh no, the tart is back,” a raspy voice boomed from above me. My head followed the trunk of a huge Douglas fir. Sap-colored eyes glared down at me, and a knot in the tree opened. “Because Christmas has returned to Winterland, it’s okay to chop us down, use our carcasses as decorations again?”

I stumbled back, a noise rising up my throat. Trees were talking to me again. I had to be dreaming. Fallen asleep at Santa’s Workshop. Trees did not talk.

Cracks of branches snapping echoed in the air and a balsam fir bent over, its limbs tugging at my skirt. “It’s dressed the same. Looks the same, but you aren’t the same, are you?”

“Another one?” A noble fir behind the Douglas huffed, folding its limbs, his yellow eyes rolling up. “How can you tell? They all look alike to me.”

Wake up, Dinah! Wake up!

“Whooo arrrree yooou?” The balsam tugged harder at my costume.

“Stop it.” I shoved at the branches yanking on me.

“You sure it’s not the same? Sounds identical to the other. Whiny and demanding. As if she owns the land.” Branches snatched at my hair like it was inspecting me.

“Does it matter?” The noble grumbled. “They’re all out to murder us in some way. How would you like it if we chopped you down to keep warm? Used your guts as building material? Dressed you up and exhibited your dead body like