Beauty In Her Madness (Winterland Tale #3) - Stacey Marie Brown Page 0,21

a trophy?”

“Shall we see, friends? She’s already dressed up as a tart. Prop her up in the corner as decoration?” Noble’s branches wrapped around my ankle, an evil grin cracking over the trunk. “Then chop her into bits and burn her later?”

“Yes!” Douglas cheered. “It’s only fair!”

“Oh Christmas tart, oh Christmas tart,” Balsam started to sing, swaying to his melody. “You stand in splendid beauty.”

“Oh, that’s a perfect one, friend,” Noble replied before all three started to sing.

“Your branches pink in summer’s glow.” Limbs plucked my arms and legs painfully.

“Stop it!”

“And ever white in winter snow.”

“I. Said. Stop!” I shoved and snapped at the branches, their voices rising, limbs tugging and yanking on me from everywhere, cutting into my flesh and tearing out my hair. “Owww! Stop it! Let me go!”

I twisted with all my might, and the loud snap of branches breaking nearly drowned out their yowls as I tore from their hold and scurried away.

“Come back, Christmas tart!” The trees’ crackled yells faded as I sprinted away. I didn’t even care where the path led, needing to get away from there.

When I could no longer hear them, my feet slowed to a stop on a seemingly never-ending path lined with holly bushes on both sides. Air wheezed in and out of my lungs, and I bent over trying to get my breath, my hands on my legs. I stared at my green elf shoes, my feet covered in snow, though no wetness or cold seeped through the velvet fabric. Reaching down, I scooped up the white flakes, the texture exactly what snow should be, but again, I didn’t feel cold, though my mind kept telling me I should.

Peculiar. The weather actually felt temperate.

“Jangle!” A voice yelled out, my head bolting up. “Wait up, bro.”

The chubbier of the boys trotted down a path ahead of me. What the tinsel? The path was completely different than it was just a moment ago. Before, it went straight. Now a tree stood in the middle, the path dividing, a sign posted on the tree.

Forgetting the oddity for a moment, I tore after the boy, my feet slowing when I got closer to the sign. Squiggly arrows pointed in every direction next to “This way to Tulgey Woods,” “That way to Beach.”

“That makes no sense,” I growled under my breath. I hated when things weren’t rational. I wanted logic. Facts. Order.

Moving past the sign, I chose the lane the boy went down. It twisted and turned in circles, everything changing and shifting every time I looked.

“Dammit!” I yelled, scrubbing my hands over my face and eyes in frustration. “This place is not rational.” All I wanted was to go home and crawl into bed with Scott, thankful for my boring, predictable life.

The sounds of waves crashing, birds chirping, and jolly music tore my hands from my face, my lids blinking.

What the figgy pudding?

I turned the corner. The snowy winter was no longer in front of me, but instead, a tropical paradise. Glistening blue ocean waves rolled onto a golden, sandy beach, the bright blue sky sprinkled with puffy white clouds, a light salty breeze blowing through my hair. Figures were out in the water on green and red surfboards, paddleboards, or canoes.

The boys I followed here were running to the waves with surfboards, their tiny hands in “hang loose” signs as they dove into the water.

Beach huts, bars, lounge chairs, red umbrellas, and green palm trees decorated in Christmas lights dotted the busy beach. Three-tiered sandmen with Santa hats and green sunglasses moved around with trays filled with bright red and green cocktails, while the song “Mele Kalikimaka” floated in the air.

I gaped, stepping farther onto the beach, noticing all the different shapes and sizes of people. Some were human-looking and some were small with pointed ears, but the other figures dropped my stomach in alarm.

Women and men appeared to be half deer, penguins, white rabbits, and polar bears, but they looked more like computer-generated characters than real animals. All moving, talking, eating, drinking, and playing on the beach like humans.

I knew my mind was not this creative, but there was no other explanation than I had eaten something for dinner that made me hallucinate.

“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato,” I muttered under my breath. Alice and I would challenge each other with Christmas movie quotes until one of us bowed to the other. Both of us could