Maybe Sebastian doesn’t actuallygrant wishes. He’s not a genie, so my emotional word dump probably just flew right over his head.
Or maybe it only counts when you knowthat you’re making actual wishes. The wholenothing is what it seemstruly applies to Enchanted Hollow. I know I’ve still got a lot to learn about how this place—and my heart—work.
Luke never loved magic, and I can see why. It’s tricky and confusing.
Where’s the line between playful and overstepping? Is there one?
I kind of wish that I’d had that conversation with just about anyone else except Sebastian.
Holden joined us for part of the Gingerbread Trail, and it only tangled up my feelings more. He joked and laughed with Lucy all the way through, his laugh carrying across the Christmas music like memory itself. I’ve never really seen him through anyone else’s eyes before—certainly not achild’s—and now that I have, it’s impossible to un-see. He looks like “home” pretending to be ordinary.
The sound of his laugh carries over the Christmas music piped through the farm.
We tag-teamed a few times to give Luke and Ella tiny pockets of private moments, and it was easy to forget for a heartbeat that we aren’tus. That I don’t actually know what we are. My phone is full of photos from today that likely won’t ever go anywhere except into a shared album between my sister and me—minus the photo I made Holden take on the Peppermint Path. He humored me, and again, it felt likebefore.
I’m trying to ground myself before he gets back from Once Upon a Brew with yet another warm beverage. My emotions are getting tugged right back down the rabbit hole of ‘what if’. I practically voiced those thoughts out loud to Sebastian, and now I’m wondering if I should be wary of all food and drink from here on out.
Not that I expect to mysteriously change in size.
“Is she layered enough?” Ella’s gaze goes between Luke and her soon-to-be stepdaughter before she crouches to tug Lucy’s beanie further down over her ears.
“She’s fine.” He chuckles.
Lucy reminds me a little of a cherub, with baby fat still clinging to her rosy cheeks. With her cup of hot cocoa and her puffy marshmallow winter coat, she looks perfectly jolly to me.
“Her little nose looks like Rudolph! I don’t want her to be sick for our wedding.”
“It’s just a little cold air, Ella. It’ll be fine.” Luke tugs Ella to his chest, and the tension practically melts from her body.Her laughter fogs the space between them before it disappears into his coat.
“It seems a bit uncharacteristically cold,” I admit. “Holden made it sound like the winter weather sort of—stuck?”
His blue eyes meet mine, and I can’t miss the worry there—the kind that has nothing to do with temperature.
“It’s been a bit more unpredictable since the incident,” he says. “Not sure what put Madame Mayor in such a mood, but I wish she’d defrost a little and let us thaw out.”
“But then you’d miss out on a white Christmas,” I insist. “That has a magic of its own.”
He practically growls at the mention of magic, and yanks Lucy a little closer to him as well.
Maybe magic is an easy enough thing to overlook when you’re not used to it. When I was here in October, it was a gentle hum that grew a little stronger as Ella and Luke let down their walls.
Now, the air crackles with it.
I’d love to know why, but maybe it’s as simple as the season—the time when belief feels closer to the surface. I have to stifle a laugh picturing Santa swapping snowdrifts for a starlit lake and barbecue.
A story forms—Santa in disguise, hiding good deeds in plain sight.
Henry would say I’m rewriting the myth again—finding new meaning in the old breadcrumbs.
What a wild twist that would be—Santa swapping snowdrifts for a starlit lake and barbecue.
I’ve done well for myself, but it came at a price. People see curated rectangles and videos, not the person behindthem. Deep down, I’ve always wanted to do more than sell things—I wanted totellabout them.
Stories, not hauls. Truth, not filters.
Holden saw that in me before I did, and that seed never really stopped growing.
Now I keep circling the samewhat-if.What if I’d leaned into storytelling sooner? Would I still feel this restless?
