Page 1 of Miss Humbug
Prologue
Ethan
Old habits never died. I rounded the familiar street corner and slowed my truck on instinct.
Ahead on the right, the house stood as it always had. Grand, old, proud. A Victorian with all the gables and turrets and ornate woodwork standing guard over the surrounding gentle hills and farmland. Behind the heavy double front doors, the home held secrets and mystery to most in town. But not to me.
Except one mystery. If she would ever come back. Really come back, for more than a day or two.
As I idled past, a little girl appeared in the long, curved driveway leading to the house. She spun in a circle, her pink coat like a swirl of cotton candy. Dark hair, wild and messy. Face pointed at the gray November sky.
I blinked. She was gone.
Only a memory, like everything else between us.
Chapter 1
Marlowe
I never wanted so badly to leave a place I’d just come back to.
After my flight to Chicago was canceled due to impending doom in the form of freezing rain and icy conditions, then snagging a flight from San Jose to Des Moines and managing to find the last rental car available—a giant SUV that chugged gas like a college bro drinking beer on his twenty-first birthday—I rumbled into my hometown on fumes fueled by anxiety. This was my own family and I was a nervous wreck about coming home.
Despite such a travel fiasco, nary a single snowflake covered the ground. No slick ice either. Regardless of all the brouhaha at the airport about canceled flights, the nasty weather hit north of us.
The sign for Crystal Cove came into view, a town deposited in an overlooked corner of northwestern Illinois near the Wisconsin border. A town known only to those who read travel sites for gems likeThe second most popular Christmas destination in the state!
And people believed it, the suckers.
They traveled in from places like Milwaukee and Madison and Minooka. All over they spread, clogging up the roads, leisurely strolling through downtown wearing big dopey grins, forever searching for scraps of holiday magic to absorb into their mundane lives.
Holiday magic.The very thought of magic born from holidays made me want to set something on fire.
Okay, dramatic. Get over yourself.
But for a gal who despised holidays—in particular the Christmas holidays—living in a town defined by celebrating them was a recipe that wouldn’t make it into the town fundraising cookbook.
No real surprise that lack of admiration for holiday magic drove this gal away the second she was old enough to leave.
I slowed before the lowered speed limit sign came into view. Sure enough, a cop scouting for speeders lurked in the drive of the old Texaco. Rookie. The better spot was by Nash’s General, a mom-and-pop convenience store whose turn-in was obscured by a bend in the road and a crop of overgrown pines.
“Nice try, Speed Trap,” I muttered as the gargantuan SUV slid past at a gentle thirty-four mph.
Another mile later and I turned at the familiar road: Hollybrooke Lane. Set on a hill overlooking an honest-to-goodness valley of undeveloped land, a stately Victorian dared anyone to question its extravagance. After all these years, my breath was stolen. I loved that freaking house. As much as I’d wanted to get away from small town life, the house always brought me back.
Okay, and my family.
Us Hollys always referred to the house by the street name itself, as if we had ownership of it. Technically, the house was built by our ancestor Clifford Holly back in eighteen-something-or-rather. Only a few other houses dotted the short road, and as far as the Holly family considered, all others were an afterthought.
Cars filled the driveway in front of the over-sized detached garage. A minivan, an aging sports car, a sporty hatchback, and a sedan. And now Godzilla’s Mama, the monster SUV. My family would judge me for it, calling me a West Coast Elite or Miss Marlowe Fancypants or worse. Probably worse.
I was the last one here. But I was here.
Thrusting open the car door, I slid out until my heels hit home soil.
Well, I hadn’t spontaneously lit on fire, so that was promising.
“Is that little Mar-Mar?” a voice called out.
