nothing but violence all around her. Her ribs fractured. The pain medication now a memory. Christopher’s mother looked at the clock on the dash.
Ten minutes to midnight.
She turned off Route 19 and slowed to a crawl. She expected to see her neighborhood filled with Christmas decorations and lights and families enjoying a final drink on Christmas Eve. Children needing to be corralled back to bed with warnings that Santa might pass by their house if they didn’t go to sleep.
But that’s not what she saw.
The place was eerily silent. All of the streetlights turned off. She looked on either side of the road. Deer stood like telephone poles. Their black eyes gleaming in the moonlight. Watching her. Waiting.
She turned onto Hays Road.
She looked inside all of the houses. The lights twinkled on the Christmas trees, making the ornaments glow. But there were no people in the living rooms. No people watching the televisions playing Christmas specials. No people anywhere.
Just the deer.
She turned onto her block. Christopher’s mother passed the old Olson house on the corner. There was no sign of Jill and Clark. She drove by the Hertzog house. She did not see Jenny Hertzog or her stepbrother. There were no cars in the driveways. She looked down the street at the Mission Street Woods, and she saw nothing.
But she felt it.
On the hairs of her neck. Impossible to ignore. There was something horrible in those woods. Something spreading. Something running.
She moved down the street.
Toward her driveway.
Just then, the old woman who lived across the street ran out of the log cabin. She wore a white nightgown. Cotton and lace. She had no shoes. She darted in front of the car, the headlights catching her face. Her eyes and mouth were stitched together with black yarn. Christopher’s mother screamed and slammed on the brakes. The old woman moaned through the stitches…
“Eeee waaas uch a eautiful oy!”
…and bolted into the Mission Street Woods like a deer on its hind legs. Christopher’s mother looked into the woods to see if anything else was coming. But there was nothing. Just that feeling. Death is coming. Death is here. We’ll die on Christmas Day. Christopher’s mother looked at the clock.
It was six minutes to midnight.
Six minutes to Christmas.
Chapter 98
Mrs. Henderson stitched as fast as her fingers could fly. She looked at the long line of mailbox people waiting patiently for her to finish. She looked up at the night sky through the tree branches. The branches sagged from the weight of all the lucky ornaments. They kicked their legs and twisted their necks, leaving rope burns. But no one died. No one would ever die again.
“Next,” Mrs. Henderson said.
It was six minutes to midnight, and there were only a few souls left. They were going to make it. They were going to be ready in time! Mrs. Henderson looked over at Ms. Lasko. The young teacher stitched the eyes of Jill and Clark, a lovely young couple who wanted to fill the tree house with children like a womb. They were going to have what they wanted tonight. Everyone was going to have what they wanted tonight.
11:54
Ms. Lasko could taste it. Every time she licked her lips, it only got stronger. The taste was alcohol. But it wasn’t just any alcohol. It was the whiskey her mother put on a metal spoon when Ms. Lasko was a little baby, teething. The whiskey made her gums stop hurting. Ms. Lasko ran her tongue over her lips. The whiskey turned into the most delicious wine when her mother took her to Communion. Ms. Lasko took the sip of the red wine, but by the time she swallowed, it had turned into champagne. Her mother toasted her on her graduation. “You’re the first to go to college, honey,” she said. Her mother was in the tree house waiting for her. There was a big party happening inside the tree house to celebrate her. She would get to feel drunk again. She would get to feel hopelessly numb and happy.
“Next,” Ms. Lasko said, finishing the last stitch on Jill’s eyes.
11:55
Jenny Hertzog led Jill and Clark to the end of the long line of people waiting at the bottom of the ladder for Mrs. Henderson to finish. Jenny looked up at her stepbrother Scott, his legs twitching on the bottom branch. Jenny looked up at the beautiful tree house above him. She took a deep breath through her nose, but it didn’t smell like the woods anymore. It smelled