CHRISTMAS DAY

What came in the night did not leave when the day arrived.

---

Cal woke more alert than he should have. His heart raced, and he glanced around, half-expecting something to move. The house felt as if it had already been awake, waiting for him.

He lay still, listening. Outside, the wind had died. The walls held their breath. Only snow ticking on metal—and beneath that, a faint hum. Warmth moving under the cold, thin as a secret.

It was the furnace.

The power was on.

He sat up slowly. The room was cold, not biting—just patient, waiting for the covers to be gone. He swung his legs off the bed and stood, listening for the house to settle.

It didn’t.

Light seeped into the hallway.

Not dawn gray. Not the pale wash of overcast. This light was warm. Gentle. Wrong.

A Christmas tree stood in the living room.

Lit. Decorated. Ornaments catching the light in a room that should have been empty.

Cal stopped at the end of the hall, one hand braced against the wall. The sight of it landed all at once, heavy and undeniable.

There were no other lights on.

He stepped forward. Then again.

At first, he thought the sound was in his head—the mind filling silence with something it wanted. Then it steadied. Low. Real.

A woman was singing a Christmas carol. Soft, like she was singing to a child.

It came upon a midnight clear…

He knew the voice before he knew the words.

The singing stopped.

She sat cross-legged before the tree—but wrong. One knee too high, the other twisted, hips pulled forward. Like she almost remembered how to sit that way, but couldn’t quite make it work.

She turned her head toward him.

Her shoulders stayed still. Only her head moved—slow and smooth, farther than a neck should allow. Her jaw kept going past what it should have. She looked at him.

“Morning,” she said—her voice catching on the word before smoothing out, as if she were testing it.

Cal’s mind locked. His body reacted first—a sharp, involuntary step backward, shoulder scraping the wall before he meant to move. He stared, unable to assemble what he was seeing into anything that fit.

“No,” he said. The word came out rough. “No. You’re—”

He stopped. The rest caught in his throat.

“You’re not—”

The Ruth-thing turned the rest of itself to face him. It didn’t interrupt. Didn’t stand. Didn’t reach for him.

“That’s all right,” it said softly. “You’re still waking up.”

It was Ruth’s voice. Calm. Familiar. The tone she used when he came out of bad dreams, back when sleep came easy.

He hated how much it helped.

Part of him knew this wasn’t his wife.

The rest didn’t care.

He drew a breath. Then another. The room stayed where it was.

“You’re dead,” he said, louder this time, the words coming sharp and brittle. Anger followed close behind—not at her, but at the wrongness of her standing there, wearing his wife’s face. “I buried you.”

“I know,” the Ruth-thing said. “That was hard on you.”

It was like hearing his wife call from another room she no longer lived in—every inflection precise, every pause familiar, and knowing it was only an echo. Something tightened in his chest.

She looked wrong in ways he couldn’t describe. Too much color in her face. Too smooth.

She looked as she had before sickness hollowed her, before winter wore her down.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

“I didn’t come to upset you,” it said, frowning, the expression arriving a moment late. “You’ve been lonely. So I came home.”

That didn’t sit right.

Dread took hold in his chest. He pushed off the wall, stepping back toward the kitchen, eyes fixed on her, pulse thudding unsteadily.

The barn came back to him—midnight, the animals speaking, Millie, and Ruth’s voice where it didn’t belong.

“I’m going to check the barn,” he said.

The Ruth-thing’s gaze flicked toward the back door. Just once.

“All right,” it said. “I’ll be here.”

Outside, the cold struck briskly. Snow had begun at dawn, soft and steady, burying whatever the night had left behind. The barn stood at the field’s edge, unchanged.

Inside, the animals shifted restlessly.

“Millie?” Cal called.

No answer.

He moved down the aisle, lantern low. The horse stamped. The pig snorted. One goat lifted its head.

Millie’s stall was empty.

The latch hung open.

Inside lay the goat’s skin—collapsed like a coat shrugged off and left behind. Whole. Dry. No blood. No bones. No struggle.

Just gone.

Cal bent forward, hands braced on his knees, bile burning the back of his throat.

Behind him, the barn door creaked.

Ruth stood there, framed by falling snow. She smiled.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked.

Cal straightened slowly.

“No,” he said.

She stepped aside to let him pass.

“It’s all right,” she said. “You don’t need to tend to her anymore. She’s gone home.”

Cal went inside. His knuckles went white on the doorknob. Warmth pressed close, veiling the emptiness creeping in behind him. The tree flickered, colors washing the walls.

The house felt occupied and vacant at once. Like it had been waiting.

He shut the door. Slumped against it.

And wondered, briefly and without panic, if he was the only living thing left.

---

CHRISTMAS EVE — ONE YEAR LATER

By the next Christmas, there was less of Cal Turner left to notice the passing days.

He still woke early. Still walked the fence line when the weather turned, though he no longer carried twine. He fixed what he could and ignored the rest. Sagging wires didn’t matter anymore.

Ruth was always there.

Not watching him. Not hovering. Just present. She spoke if spoken to. She cooked when there was food. She slept when the house went dark.

At first, he kept track of things—meals, time, date. That lasted until it didn’t. He forgot to eat more often than not. When he did, it was whatever was closest. Cold toast. Soup he didn’t remember heating.

Ruth never reminded him.

That felt worse.

Sometimes he caught himself watching her too closely. The way she stood too still. The way her smile lingered a fraction longer than it should. In those moments, the thought surfaced.

Not Ruth. Not really.

Then it slipped away before he could hold it. Remembering took too much out of him.

The animals went next. Not all at once. One at a time. Sold. Given away. Or simply gone when he checked on them. The horse first. Then the pig. The goats dwindled until only two remained—skittish, wide-eyed, keeping their distance.

They didn’t speak.

They didn’t have to.

He stopped shaving. His clothes grew loose, then looser. He wore the same jacket no matter the weather. Some mornings he stood in the kitchen, unsure why he was there. Other days, he barely left the bed.

At night, he slept lightly. Woke for reasons he couldn’t name. Sometimes he found Ruth standing in the doorway, head tilted, watching the rise and fall of his chest like she was counting something.

She looked better by then. Her movements smoothed out. Her head no longer turned too far. Her smile was almost right.

If there were mistakes, they were small.

Cal stopped correcting them.

Correction took effort.

He stopped leaving the property. Something followed him now, and the road led to places where people asked questions.

The woods stood at the edge of the land, dark and patient. He stood on the porch for long stretches, staring at the tree line without seeing.

He woke earlier each day, his body pulling him from sleep before there was anything to wake for. He sat on the edge of the bed, listening to the house settle around him, letting the sounds pass without sorting them.

Some mornings he found himself standing at the back door, not remembering how he got there. His coat already in his hands. His boots where his feet expected them to be.

He stood like that for a while.

Then turned away—as if something had interrupted him, though he couldn’t have said what.

Christmas morning came again.

Cal opened his eyes in the dark, unsure if he was awake or still tangled in a thinning dream—the hour before dawn, when the world wavers.

The house held its warmth tight. The furnace muttered below the floorboards, a low animal sound. The lights burned on, steady and unblinking.

Nothing out of place.

If you didn’t look too close.

He sat on the bed, hands slack, eyes empty. Dried saliva clung to his mouth. He stood, shoulders hunched, a shiver passing through him.

His movements were slow and deliberate, as if following instructions written in a language he almost remembered. Each motion felt forced.

He dressed.

The shirt hung off him, sleeves swallowing his wrists. Fabric bunched at the elbows.

He didn’t notice.

Ruth stood at the counter, hands folded, waiting for a signal that never came. She didn’t turn when he moved behind her. The kettle sat cold on the stove.

Cal put on his coat.

He opened the back door and stepped outside.

Snow blanketed the yard, untouched. No tracks. Only white.

He crossed the fence without opening the gate. His boots found the ground beyond it and kept going.

The woods waited.

Branches tangled overhead, knitting the sky shut. The light thinned. Turned gray. Then grayer.

His breath came shallow. Uneven.

He walked on.

Didn’t hurry.

Didn’t look back.

Behind him, something moved.

A woman’s shape—just at the edge of sight—kept her distance the way wild things do when they know prey won’t run. Careful. Patient. As if time meant nothing to her.

She tested each step. Learned the ground as she went. Kept pace with him easily, like she’d walked this path many times before.

Cal walked until the trees pressed close, trunks crowding in, the ground sloping away beneath his feet.

When his legs gave out, he stood anyway. Held on a moment longer than he needed to.

Then he went still.

The cold settled into the hollows of his body. He barely noticed. There was no fight left—only the hush of falling snow, the ache in his bones, and the strange calm of letting go.

His breath slowed.

Then faded.

In the last moment, he thought he felt a hand—gentle and familiar—rest on his shoulder.

Snow drifted down through tangled branches, soft and relentless, covering the path behind him.

Erasing the place where two sets of tracks had marked the world. As if only one of them had ever belonged there.

T.C. 12.25.25