Page 4 of Grinchland
She was starting to spiral, so once the movers had passed, I grabbed her hand and led her to the house.
“Come with me, I have some last-minute things to pack up.”
After my car, the back of the moving truck, and the front of the moving truck were packed to the brim, I hugged Abbie, told her I would call her as soon as I got to the rental, and then climbed into my car, right next to Rudolf wearing sunglasses. The two-hour drive to Grinchland was peaceful. I was able to blare the Christmas music station as loud as I wanted without someone complaining.
Every town I passed through was fully decorated with lights down main street and the quintessential outdoor Christmas tree in the middle of town square. Which was expected. After all, this was Maine. Our state tree is an evergreen, and our state bird should be Santa.
When I saw the sign that said Grinchland 10 miles, I cheered.
I couldn’t wait to see what they did for decorations and traditions. I secretly hoped their mayor would be open to some suggestions, ’cause I had a lot.
But as the mile markers began to count down, I frowned. Every house I passed was only lit up with plain outdoor lighting. No multicolored Christmas lights wrapped trees or roofs. There were no blowup figures. And not a single house had a decorated Christmas tree in the front window.
As the houses grew closer together, so did my confusion.
Nothing. There was literally nothing. Not a scrap of Christmas anywhere. If it weren’t for the snow on the ground, I would have thought it was just another night. It was as if this town didn’t know that it was Christmastime. Did they know it was Christmas?
Surely they did.
My phone’s map app had me drive through Grinchland town square, where the people looked normal but the buildings did not. No lights. No decorations. No tree?
How could their town square not have a tree?
I blinked a few times and shook my head. Maybe they were just delayed. Maybe the town decorator was sick and hadn’t been able to get started this year. It was a good thing I was here. Outside of work, I had all the time in the world. I’d spend my nights getting this town put together and shipshape.
But a sick town decorator didn’t explain why no one was dressed in anything resembling a Christmas sweater or a Christmas scarf. It was just brown or black jackets and monotone accessories. The houses. The people. The atmosphere. It was like these people…didn’t celebrate Christmas.
I shook my head in an effort to dispel that thought. There was no way, in the twenty-first century, this town didn’t celebrate Christmas. There had to be an explanation for this. There just had to be.
Three minutes past town square was my rental. It was a cute house that sat back from the road. There wasn’t a ton of yard space, but I’d make do with what I had. I pulled into the driveway and up to the small detached garage. There was a modest porch that wrapped all the way around the house. Even just looking at it, my mind was swirling with thoughts of how I was going to decorate it.
Maybe this town needed a little reminder of what this time of year was all about. I only wished Abbie were here—she’d be eating her words. If I hadn’t brought half my decorations with me, I’d be stuck living in this lifeless city during the most magical time of the year.
I pulled open the driver’s door and climbed out, the cool evening air whipping me in the face and causing me to inhale from the change in pressure. Once I was acclimated, I hurried around my car just as the movers backed into my driveway.
I stayed out of the way until they came to a stop, then I hurried across the driveway so I could locate the key—Linda said I’d find it hidden under the mat—and pushed open the door.
My lips pinched together as I glanced around. Modest wasn’t the right word for this. Zero. Nada. Those were the right words to describe what I was seeing. Not a speck of Christmas anywhere. It was like the Grinch had sped up his timeline and stolen the heart of Christmas from this town.
I turned around and stared out at the houses that lined the street. I glanced over to my neighbor. The giant mansion sat in the middle of the property with an iron fence wrapping around the backyard.
Right now it looked ominous and overbearing, but give me a roll of Christmas lights and an inflatable penguin with a stocking hat and a giant candy cane, and this house would go from depressing to delightful.
In fact, this entire town needed a holiday facelift, and I was the exact person for the job.
THREE
SILAS
“…and I said if I had the power, Sheila, then I would. The mayor doesn’t have the ability, so what makes you think that I do?”
Todd was still talking, but I wasn’t paying attention anymore. First, Todd had this way of droning on and on about things I really didn’t care about. Just because I was mayor didn’t mean I needed to know every little detail about every little complaint that came in from the citizens of Grinchland.
The second reason my focus had shifted away from Todd was the sudden commotion going on outside of my home office window. A woman had pulled up to Linda Nexworthy’s rental and was climbing out of her car. She looked younger than me, mid-twenties. Her long blonde hair had been picked up by the wind and was dancing around her head.
Sure, she was pretty, but that wasn’t what had distracted me. It was the brightly colored red jacket she was wearing with a red, green, and yellow plaid Christmas scarf she had tied around her neck. Her gloves were the same pattern.
People didn’t wear Christmas colors in Grinchland. Not since it was officially banned three years ago. To this town, December was just another month. Cold, dark, and depressing. The sudden appearance of this woman had me sitting up a little straighter as a sense of dread filled my chest.
